Sardonicast - Sardonicast #69: Tenet, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Shortbus

Episode Date: September 21, 2020

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Three, two, one. Nice. 69. Nice. Nice. Nice. Just want to say nice. It's a meme, kind of.

Hi, I'm Adam from your movie sex. You're listening to SardanaCast. It's episode 69. We made it. We can just end right after this one. The final episode. I'm Ralph from you to come to a little word of Blue Maker. And I'm Alex from R. H.E.

And I got to say that it's fitting that it's episode 69, because all the movies we're going to talk about this episode, like fuck my head in some way. Okay. Great. Tenet for obvious reasons. Yeah, we'll get into it. They fucked your head in like an upside down position.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I've heard in time. Yep. It's the head fuck episode. I'm the only one that didn't see Tenet because fuck Christopher Nolan.

He can eat my dick upside down. He's a gigantic piece of shit. He shouldn't be. pushing to release this movie right now. All right. I would see it if it was in a drive-drive-in movie, but there's only three of them in my entire province, and none of them are showing them right now.

Oopsie. Is there IMAX in, like, drive-ins? You can't do that. I mean, I would just see it in a regular drive-in. I'm not going to... I'm sure there is... He's like, he didn't intend it to be seen in a drive-in-prol. Yeah, well, I mean,

a lot of directors intend a lot of things without them even really be. being that necessary. Like Angley. Did you see it at IMAX? I did see it in IMAX. Yes, I did. I did too.

So that's good. I guess we got the ultimate. I had the drive to Connecticut to see it. Oh my God. It was only 30 minutes. Was it worth it? It was. It was very safe.

I wore a mask. You know, the whole time you sit there with a mask. If you have to drink, you could take it off. So. And that was nice. But everyone was very respectful. It was spaced out. And we all enjoyed the movie.

And the movie was awesome. I thought it was awesome as fuck. Yeah. How many people were you're showing? What kind of crowds were coming up? It was 600. It was like an early showing. So, yeah, it was pretty crowded, I think, considering.

Okay. So I have kind of the opposite story. I liked the movie, by the way. I really liked the movie. But the cinema experience was just, I never experienced anything like it. So I parked in the car park. And there must have been like three other cars. And it's like a whole industrial thing.

with loads of different shops. It's not just a cinema, though. So it was already a ghost town. Then I go inside and there's just no one anywhere, really. And then finally get into the cinema and I basically have an IMAX to myself with maybe six to eight people spread across the just hundreds of seats. I couldn't believe it. I felt bad for being there because I knew they were probably hemorrhaging money from

showing it with that few people being there. Just buy more snacks. We got there early, so everyone was waiting in their cars. So there was no one in the theater, like when we got in. It was when we sat down, everyone kind of started to come in. So it was kind of similar to your experience, Alex. Right. Did you find it kind of funny how in IMAX you obviously have to wear the 3D glasses things?

Did you have to wear 3D glasses for this? Wait, do you? For this movie? Wait, does your I didn't even know it was in 3D? No, I didn't know it was in 3D at all. It was 3D? All the IMAX is here. You have to wear like stupid glasses.

You have to wear the glasses. Was it even in 3D now? They didn't shoot it in IMAX. I don't think so. They must have post-convety. inverted it for you. Oh, right, yeah. Maybe, but that's so weird.

I just saw it regular IMAX. Oh. No, no glasses. Maybe they're just trying to fucking upsell. Maybe they're just trying to charge you the extra three bucks for glasses. Well, yeah, no, I was really confused because obviously when you wear a mask, those who wear glasses or wear sunglasses a lot know that when you're wearing a mask, when you breathe, it kind of fogs up your lenses. Yeah. So that's obviously an issue with that kind of thing in 3D movies and everything like that.

that but yeah I still wore a mask maybe the film wasn't in 3D but they were giving you eye protection from COVID yeah well thanks guys um yeah it was an it was an interesting experience I mean it's my preferred experience uh with it being empty but I couldn't help it feel for um you know all the people that have to work there and I don't know it's just such a strange situation and all the the money that's being lost from this because it's what it's been reported that I think the film's like probably making its money back. I saw an IMDB. It's made over 200 mil, which is about the budget.

It's actually doing well worldwide. Yeah, yeah. It's doing enough. Which is good. I wouldn't want the movie to flop. But I don't know. I couldn't help but wonder this would be so much, first of all, safer if I could watch this in my home. And secondly, if I could have subtitles because I couldn't understand half of what was being said in Scott that movie.

Was the mixing terrible? Sound mixing was an issue, I think. I think every Nolan movie since the Dark Night Rises. I think it's the worst example of it, though. I've heard it's the most Nolan movie ever. Like, everything you could possibly point out about one of his films is like exaggerated to hell. That's what I've heard. There are a lot of like reoccurring themes and plot elements in his movies.

There's always like, you know, there's obviously this thing of time. He's always playing with time. Whether there's time travel in the movie or there's like, what is it, Dunkirk is told like out of time like a week and a day or whatever. Clock ticking. It's interesting as a filmmaker. Yeah. Maybe he can rely on these things too much.

There's a certain, I don't want to spoil it. You can put a spoiler warning if you want. I don't give a shit. Spoil the whole movie for me. I don't care. I don't care. I know you don't care, but there's probably a lot of people who want to see it and there's a, you know, that theater situation.

That's why we have time stamps. Okay, we'll talk about spoilers in a little bit. Robert Patton in the movie, Batman? Did you like him? Who has COVID now? I thought it was okay. I just really, Nolan for me,

he's had a similar problem for a while now, I think since Interstellar for me, where his films kind of stopped being about characters and it's just more about concepts and, you know, the spectacle of it. And I think in terms of a Bondy kind of action,

you know, film, it really channels that well and has the Christopher Nolan spin on it. I didn't realize he was going to kind of go for that loose, kind of like a James Bond movie type thing. It's not like ripping it off or anything, but I was reading. And in his style of direction, he usually likes to screen films for his cast so they can kind of understand the tone of what he's what he's going for.

But for this film, he purposefully didn't screen Bond films because he wanted everyone, because everyone has an idea of Bond in their head. And he wanted them to channel that idea more so than, you know, just trying to rip off what we've already seen before. So it does lead to a kind of suave, cool, spy type movie where everything's kind of under. underground and they've got their crazy weapons and everything it's all just very slick and cool the tone feels very different it feels more like an action movie and yeah and yeah that's why i can forgive the kind of weaker characters and dialogue for me because it's all kind of in service of the trippy stuff exactly yeah the concepts because there's there's a lot of exposition of course explaining the the the concepts they're going for with the time travel and everything and that that's always when

i'm i kind of switched off the most there are a lot of scenes where there's two characters kind of frantically walking in a straight line, dumping a bunch of exposition in an exciting way, so you don't have to think about it. And it goes by so quick, it's easy to miss some of it. Exactly, yeah. It goes by very quick, and it moves at such a pace, and it is such kind of high concept, it needs a lot of explaining. But at the same time, the hook of the movie are these huge set pieces all done practically.

And they're very impressive. That stuff's well done. The 747, like the music. It was like really, Han Zimmer wasn't involved this time, but it was, I forgot his name. The guy who did Black Panther, the score for the lag. That's right. And it was like really bassy and like lots of electronic music and really intense. It was really intense.

No, I like the sound of it. I just wish I could have heard a bit more of the subtleties. Yeah. And I wish I could have heard the dialogue over top the music as well. Yeah. Yeah, I think it would have been fixed with subtitles, honestly. Because I'm okay with the sound being intentionally, you know, oppressive. like he likes but yeah it wants it to sound naturalistic but it's just why even write dialogue if

you don't let people understand yeah exactly like why is it there then right if you can yeah i read inception was very easy to understand for me because that whole film was very clean like the dialogue and the exposition yeah i don't remember that being a problem back then it wasn't at all like it was complicated but it wasn't like confusing like this was where i was missing information there's like a whole thing with an inverted bullet how it causes more damage to like a yeah yeah I totally miss that when I watched a movie. I totally miss that line of dialogue. I just, I don't know.

I don't know what happened. It definitely feels like it would be better a second time. I assume we've only seen it the once. Yeah. I want to see it again, obviously, but I'm not going to risk going to theater again to see it. No, no, I wait. It was good enough the first time. Yeah, definitely.

I can have subtitles especially. I like to talk about it more, too. I just wish I had like footage and I could see it again. Yeah, exactly. No, I do think, do you think it was a mistake that they didn't release it digitally because Yeah This is the way Christopher Nola wants to

Show his films But I just think considering the context There's like They should have waited Like whatever that fucking streaming services wants to show you Fucking movies in vertical filming mode on your phone Without you casting it to your TV

That doesn't make it right Either stream it or delay it though is my thing Don't try and force it out Why does he want to be the first? It's part of his brand too This pure cinema Like you go to a theater and you watch it in a theater Why does he want to be the guinea pig?

And it's got, it's dying, you know. But I don't think it's dying. It's just at this point, we need to put this on hold, maybe. This, like, purely it's sad to force it out and then have just droves of empty theaters playing a movie for two people. People have very nice home theater setups and will put the movie nice and loud and they'll hear the dialogue just fine. You can rewind the bits you miss or don't understand. People aren't watching it like on their phones.

Some people will. Get real. There's just a lot going on in this film that I like. There's a lot of characters. There's a lot of interesting science fiction jargon. The action is fun. And you have a hard time keeping up with it. And that's what I like about his movies.

You're not really thinking about the experience or anything. You're just enjoying the film. You're just enjoying the characters and the situation and everything he wrote. It's very original, I think. It doesn't really feel like any other film aside from like some 70 spy movies and like other movies he made. I think it's like really like ambitious for like a $300 million movie. It's just fucking awesome to see something like this. But it's incredible action scenes, which is the whole.

Yeah, I really liked how you didn't really get the full picture until the movie was over. You can try and kind of figure it out, but you're not going to fully understand it until the runtime's over. You can't really play guessing games with it in the same way. it is like really interesting the way the plot like the name kind of wraps around into itself and bad dialogue and stuff aside like a spy film about like this guy is on a mission and you don't really need to understand all the time travel to get like his personal goal like defending this this wife and her kid from like this crazy billionaire they do a good job there's other things going on that are like that keep the movie going aside from time

Yeah. The science fiction stuff. They really quickly establish, he's just called the protagonist, isn't he? Yeah. What he's all about very quickly in that first sequence. Yeah, I really liked him. I thought he carried the movie well. But the heart of the movie more falls into the mother character, Elizabeth DeBiki.

I'd say she's basically the only character who has like a traditional sort of arc, which, you know, I enjoyed. How did you feel about Kenneth Branagh as the... I thought he was a bit distracting just because I guess I know him and like murder on the Orient Express or whatever. But I guess people liked him. Like just from talking to other folks who saw the film, they enjoyed him in it. His Russian accent was fine. Did you mind his motivation?

I won't say because it's spoilers, I guess. A little vague. A little confusing. Yeah. Again, it was very Mission Impossible to me where it's hardly even about like what's just end of the world type stakes. just to keep the action, you know, adventurous and over the top and everything, yeah. Yeah. It's not one of his stronger films, I wouldn't say.

I wouldn't put it in the top echelon for me. Mm-hmm. But as far as... You would, really. Really? Yeah. Just from seeing it once, I think he kind of... Well, Interstellar, my biggest issue with that was, like, the dramatic elements

and the kind of fluff, love and half-backin speeches about love. And this is, like, more. more focused on just action. It's just an action thriller movie. And he kind of stripped away all the BS and made something really, like he focused on his strengths almost, kind of like what he did with Dunkirk, where it wasn't about characters. It was about the planes and the machinery and like the chaos of war. Yeah.

Is the, I don't remember being bothered by the dialogue in Dunkirk, whereas this feels like the very Nolany dialogue that we've come to know at this point, you know, whereas I get what people mean where they're describing it as the most no-lany movie and it's like almost a parody of itself in ways but

Right in ways Yeah no This is what I mean Like I do think the majority of the movie works And I think that's a sign Of something fresh and enjoyable When even though there are

The kind of nitpicks you have With the director It's still I just think that his The angle he takes is so fresh And like just The time thing And the way that's explored

Is just is so novel and unique to me. We can get spoilery now and discuss like the Christopher Nolanie. The Christopher Nolan elements. Well like in Interstellar as well there's always this plot element of like people from the future.

People from the future are like influencing something going on now and I don't know. It's like a it feels like I don't know if I want to say it's a cop out. I did feel like really learn more. I did that kind of reveal at the end where it's like Yeah, I was, I guess where I was spoilt. It was like, yeah, it was working for myself the whole time and I've been friends with you, like my whole life, but I don't know it yet type stuff.

The stuff that's really cool conceptually and would need to be kind of broken down and more subtly explored, I think, for it to to hit the way they're going for. Right. It is just so rushed over and you're like, wait, what? I get, okay. And then the film ends. You're like, well, that was a fun ride either way, even with the, like, silly stuff in there. It is just like a James Bond movie in that sense. where you are going to have to switch off for some of the dumb shit in there.

Yeah, you're going to have to switch off for the Christopher Nolan BS. Yeah, and that will be too much for some people. But, I mean, I've had my problems with Nolan, but he's very interesting. I have a lot of respect for his vision and his movies. And this is a good example of it. Always people from the future. Yeah. Apparently, it was like a climate change.

thing where they wanted to stop climate change so they sent the machine back in the past the algorithm oh is that what okay yeah there was like this whole subtext to it what's the villain's name again sorry Kenneth brown is character um his motivation was that he has he has cancer and is going to die so and he has this technology that has the power to end the world so he figures well if no one else can experience this then I'm just going to take it with me yeah he's going to take the world out with him including his son and he's just got like a throwaway line I was like I don't even know why I brought a son into this world when I knew I was going to do this yeah it seems right like yeah right and we need to I like the way they took him out that was very satisfying to me

but Andre it's just it's just a general I don't know the best way to describe it's like there's so much so many scenes and set up and exposition that's required to make this movie work and it's still fairly long it's like two and a half hours long that it is kind of inherently messy yeah it is messy it is messy but it's yeah it is messy and clunky in the way scenes just kind of like start and characters just show up like I was really expecting more of an introduction of Robert Pattinson and some of those other actors that are in there but it was probably intentional to be honest I remember reading something about how all the side characters were intentionally cast as big known actors or something strange like that

well like Aaron Taylor Johnson's in the film as a part of a squad performing a pincer movement in time and he just like shows up like halfway through the film like he was good I guess he was fine I'm gonna need to watch that pincor attack at the end again because I I understood the setup where they're kind of explaining the mission they're about to do but the way it's presented is so is so crazy. It's so bombastic and there's so much going on in that last sequence. I did find myself getting a bit lost in the action

sometimes as visually stunning as it was. So that might be something that is better on a rewatch, but there's a lot that is lost in the confusion of it all. Anything else of note? Yeah, dude, I thought it was awesome.

That's it. I'm glad we got to see it and enjoy it. I hope other people got to see it safely however they want to yeah yeah i can't think of much else for this one again i'm gonna have to see it again because honestly my brain feels like mush after the movies i've been watching i'm excited for adam to get your opinion on it as well yeah yeah yeah it'll happen yeah at some point either either when it's in the drive-in or when it's uh yeah you have to turn the volume up yeah yeah who knows like maybe because if i see it at home like when it gets a

release. Like, if I can watch it with subtitles, then maybe, you know, it'll just be the ideal experience. Maybe my first watch will be better than your first watch. Maybe it'll be And then you can rewind the movie, you can watch it reverse.

What did you give it, Rob? I gave it a 9 out of 10. Yeah, I was torn between a kind of 7 and 8 range, but after thinking about it, I think I'm actually going to settle on an 8 for this. I'll see it again. And... Yeah, I was. I was torn between a kind of 7 and 8.

Yeah, I was torn between a kind of seven and eight range, but after thinking about it. Yeah, I was, I was I'm excited to see it again, which I didn't think was going to happen based on the length and just how I felt about Nolan recently. But he's kind of won me back round on what I like about him, honestly. It might just be going into a theater again, having that theater experience. It was nice, even if it was with the masks and everything. Yeah. They released Inception 10 years later, so you do it with this one.

They did an IMAX inception thing, right? Yeah. I could just do that a year. from now even with Tenet if he was nice, but you never know. Yeah, I do think that is annoying. Well, as unfortunate as it is that you can't easily go back and just watch it again, there's another film that we watched that all of us watched that was very easy to go back and watch again because it's on Netflix.

Very easily accessible. I could pull it up right now. Yeah. I can just fucking scroll through the fucking movie right now. Oh, wait. It's a very different experience, right? Also, this movie, like, what's it called? I'm thinking of ending things.

Right. It's a very personal film. Very good title. Uh-huh. Great title, but it's a very personal film. It's very, like, deep and meditative. It actually fits that kind of environment. Mm-hmm.

Whereas, like, I think Tenet does work better in a theater or, like, somewhere with, like, big. And it's just big. Yeah. Big is the work for it. This is more small scale. which is why he was able to get it funded, which is why he was able to make the movie. That was the whole point of him basically taking a novel

that already existed. When he was asked about why he chose this specific novel, it wasn't just like because he was able to inject a lot of his own philosophical ideas into the film and, you know, Kaufmanisms, you might call them. It's also just because he looked at it and was like, okay, small cast, not very many locations

I can get this fun because nobody's like funding his movies right now which is really sad. Like he's struggling to get projects made which is just the saddest thing in the world because he's so talented. How many times have you seen it Adam? I've seen it three times now. Okay, through.

I mean like I've seen the ending more than three times just the ending alone but the whole film three times. Okay. What'd you think? You know like a lot of his movies It's a nice reminder of the hopelessness and isolation that comes with the human condition. So I enjoyed that part of wanting to commit suicide after watching it. But it also has all the strengths of his other movies.

It's obviously brilliantly written. The performances are very good. But this one, I got to say out of his collection, it's one of the least accessible ones, in my opinion. In terms of it doesn't have the wider emotional appeal. some of the earlier ones that he didn't direct. But that's not to say it's lacking depth. The depth is just found in other areas. There's a lot to think about and a lot to that I honestly don't understand after my first viewing.

And I'm sure you'll help add some context to it. But as far as this kind of psychological thriller kind of angle, I really liked that in terms of his kind of filmography. It was a kind of fresh. Well, it was a more direct horror influence to me than the more heady stuff from his previous movies, which are disturbing on a kind of deep level, but the setups are almost, you know, they're intentionally leading you on to, you know, to build up the tension. So it could all be released in that final sequence, which I won't spoil yet. I don't know if we're talking spoilers.

Yeah, we'll make a warning before we go into spoilers. about you Ralph what are your top level I thought it was awesome yeah I liked it a lot it was good to get like a like I said a quieter experience after tenant we were just like the first 30 minutes of this movie was Jesse Plemons driving a car and just talking about you know random stuff and yeah I thought was it supposed to be a bit of a comedy there are definitely comedic elements in it oh yeah fucking directed by Robert Zemeckas and shit like yeah yeah yeah definitely that stuff um because there's definitely funny parts but mostly like i guess tony collette mostly i thought was a little like over the top a little too much

yeah i was feeling that until i kind of was starting to put together what i think they were trying to do with the story yeah because almost like tenant you don't really understand what's going on until the end and the illuminating last section of the movie which were like either confuse you or kind of, I just, I just watched the last night. So this is like, yeah,

no, I'm the same. I watched it last night. Because honestly, with the name and just the situation, I was putting it off because I, I thought it was going to be about suicide. That's based on the title alone and like,

not watching trailers and stuff because I don't do that anymore. Yeah, that's why I was, that's why I liked the segment at first with the parents. Like, it was like a, I don't know, I thought it was funny.

It reminded me of, of a racerhead when he goes and visits the parents and that. Yes, yes, yes. Um, but then it goes on and it becomes like this whole, it becomes like a whole act of the film of them in the house with the parents and, and, and when it starts getting very, that's what it started getting very weird. Yeah. That's what I started getting very out there. The aging kind of stuff I enjoyed, seemed like familiar with the synectady type, you know, different stages of your life and the aging stuff. And yeah, the father would be young at one point. point and yeah and it was not just like there's loads of details you like in certain shots like

characters seem to change like age and details and stuff like that it the films like intentionally messing with you in ways that I found to be really clever mm-hmm actors would change and yeah yeah and like looking at the photograph would then it like changing the the person in the photograph just weird little things that throw you off make you kind of feel a bit disturbed there are lots of parts in it I like but it's very confusing as a whole. But I do like that it changes and, you know, I did like, I think I like the beginning of the movie the most when it's just the two of them just talking, driving to their parents. But then it becomes a different film almost like when they go in the house and it becomes a different

film again and it keeps going. Yeah? Yeah, I was, I liked the scene with the parents, or the scenes with the parents a lot, mainly because I just, I just have a boner for David Thulis. really like the actor. Yeah, he just find him extremely compelling. He was in Wonder Woman, right? Yeah, but we don't talk about that. We don't talk about that one. He's Ares.

Yeah. Yeah. But no, he was good in that too. Yeah, he was. He was fine. But yeah, I liked the, I did like when it got weird and it was incorporating the bits of animation, the pigs and everything. I liked all that.

Very bizarre. All of that stuff. There's old age makeup, I guess, at the end, which is intentionally supposed to look a little like phony stage makeup right the people in the audience and right

I like this idea of um they have a conversation in the car at one point about how like a media and movies kind of just fill your brain and they become what you're looking

for in life type stuff which comes back towards the end with the with that dance sequence where that I feel like oh yeah sorry no that's fine we didn't really say that much about it, but let's just start spoiler section anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

That was really when the film came together for me was that dance sequence because I wasn't expecting it, but it felt like they were giving you something that it was a bit of a kind of tension release. It was something you would expect at that point in a normal movie. So then when that section ends and it finishes, it kind of added a nice full stop at the end for me. Right. And that was really well done too, like the way it was shot in the choreography. Like as a director, I think he's really He's got a good style Yeah, I had no problems with anything technical really

Yeah, it looked great The stuff for them in the snow driving He made it interesting visually Just the two shots now, yeah The windshield wipers, like the sounds of the windshield Wipers going back and forth The same cinematographer as Eda And the four by three is it? Or is it one by one?

I think they're the same aspect ratio Yeah, whatever it is It's not one by one clearly that's his look he likes he likes that and it works for this movie too i think it works just fine yeah using a small finding creative ways to use a small space i always enjoy when it's done correctly and as you said these cast scenes they must make up about 40 plus minutes of the movie just yeah at least those scenes and i don't know maybe some people disagree but i didn't i didn't find them to drag for me because

I do find that the dialogue and the concepts being thrown out there to keep it mentally stimulating at the very least. I think Mark Commode said it was like an audio book or something in some ways because they've got a bit of a rivalry going on at the moment. Yeah, he's been weird on Twitter.

Yeah, is that because of Ankind where he's referenced in Yeah, I think he took it too seriously. But I thought in Ant Kind the main character is supposed to be like an asshole Yeah, I mean, the main character also hates Charlie Kaufman. Yeah. But whatever.

Yeah. I forgot what I was saying, though. Yeah. That's pretty funny, though. I want to hear what both of your takeaways are before I completely dissect the film. Yeah. What our biggest takeaways are overall? Yeah.

Like, what do you think's going on or what it's going for or what does it mean? Or, like, what are the thematic ideas that it's going for? and stuff like that. Oh, okay. I figured it was kind of tricking you with the young woman, making you believe that was kind of the protagonist when it actually kind of is revealed

to be Jesse Plemons, who is the old guy, and he's like remembering or reminiscing or something about an old relationship or something like that. And it's like a life that could have been or something along those lines with the general themes

of, you know, that we're always going to be, isolated and alone and retrospective and yeah i don't know yeah something like that i wasn't too sure i i don't want it like what did it mean but there was themes of like isolation and definitely regret like a lost love well these films seem to be about like heartbreak and just the ache of not being able to connect to people yeah so it seemed very much in line with that type of story not being able to be like decisive and just decide where you're going with your life. She has issues like that. I like the way the film her thoughts trail off and the way that's told is very well done,

even though I guess she's not the main character in your interpretation. I thought she was, at least for half of it, she kind of just disappears, right? Yeah. Well, she is the main character, but she's also him because she's an extension of him. She's in his mind, which is why so many of their, you know, like, as we mentioned with the photograph, and it's like, that was me, no, that was me sort of thing. And they kind of blend into each other. There's the shot where she's walking down the stairs a billion times. And one of the lines is like, I feel it's difficult to tell where him and I end sort of thing. And that's just another idea that everything we're seeing aside from the shots of the janitor in the school is just taking place in his. head and that's also why as you mentioned Tony Colette's character is kind of over the top and exaggerated this character has holds a lot of like obvious resentment towards his parents and so when he's in this fantasy where he's thinking like okay if I brought this girl to my parents which is literally

just a fantasy that he's experiencing as he's cleaning the school right so that we see the shots of the janitor at the school cut into especially the first parts of the movie in my interpretation I feel like that's kind of happening in real time. Like he looks up at the school. He's like watching some of the rehearsals for the play. Then he looks down. We're back in the fantasy. Like this is what he's doing.

Not only to pass his past the time, but to keep his mind off of suicide because it is a film about suicide. The title has more than one meaning. It is about, you know, her wanting to end the relationship in his head, but it's also about suicide. And this fantasy is something that he's conjured up to try and like distract him from it or to try and, to try and rationalize and come to terms with like his own life experience at this point. And so you see all of these different characters that are literally just extensions of the main character. I'm sure you noticed in the film like the girl's backstory changed several times.

Like first she was studying like biology and then physics and then she's a film critic and she grew up on a farm and then she was like, oh no, I've never seen. a basement because I'm in an apartment. This is him just going through like in his own head several different hypothetical scenarios of who this person would be if he had found someone. And he's lived this life. He's fat. He's old. He's literally just watching all these kids grow up and achieve things in his own mind. He's trying to imagine this life that could have been. But now he's at the end of it. And he feels as though time is his enemy in this sense. Like he can't really do anything, there is no second chance at this point. And so that's why he's literally this

overwhelming, looming thought of suicide is plaguing him throughout the entire film. Yeah, there's a lot more to it. So is that him ending his life at the end? Uh, yeah, that's my interpretation anyway. So there's, we see the suicide attempt for sure, uh, regardless of whether or not it actually killed him. I believe it did kill him. You know, after the musical number, the fantasy is over. He's done cleaning up the school. It's like super late. He's, he's, He could have either he normally works that late or he intentionally stayed that late because he knew that once he was leaving the building that he would attempt suicide, which is also a possibility. In the scene before she enters the school when Jake leaves and confronts himself basically because, you know, he's, they start kissing in the car and immediately Jake's like, somebody's watching us. He knows that, you know, he's a part of the fantasy.

The fourth wall is kind of being broken. and he's like, he's staring at us. I know that look anywhere. It's a sexual perversion, right? This character is, he hates himself. The janitor character. Like so much self-hatred that even his own version of himself, which is younger in his fantasies, is like, no, this is turning into a sexual fantasy. I can't have that.

So he goes in there, confronts himself about it. She's left in the car. And one of the lines that we hear is her talking about, like, oh, I wonder how long it would take to die of hypothermia. that's not a bad way to go if I have to go. That's the janitor. She is still an extension of the janitor. That's him thinking about suicide in his own head. And same with when we see the lambs at the beginning who are frozen in the snow.

And she's like, well, what's going to happen to them? And Jake's like, well, what's more to happen to them? They're already dead. It'll be fine. They'll probably be burned somewhere, right? And so we can see that this is something that has been literally taking place the entire film in tiny, tiny little ways they're sprinkled as clues. including like you know how the film is edited sorry there's just so much to talk about

how the film is edited it'll it'll seem like they're in the middle of a conversation and then all of a sudden he says ta-da and they're at the next location both of the times that that happens when he like shows up at the farmhouse and when he shows up at the ice cream stop that's directly after essentially a conversation about suicide so she was saying like she made that mimicking noise with her her head exploding and saying like now we're both dead as in like she lives in his own head if she if he kills himself they are both dead because she's a if she's an extension of him and so immediately he's like ta-da like trying to get his mind off of that thing same thing happens when he's going to the ice cream shop anyway so yeah the janitor finishes his fantasy

and finishes up at school goes into the car sets his keys on the seat you know, this thought has just plagued him. It's like he maybe wasn't going to do it and then just takes over essentially. And he freezes to death inside the car. Him undressing is called paradoxical undressing. It's a symptom of hypothermia where people think they're warmer than they are. They get delusional. They get crazy.

Some people even hallucinate, which is what I believe happens from that point on. And so I guess what's left up to interpretation in my mind at this point. is whether or not he actually exited the vehicle and went into the school. And then at that point, did he still die? It's possible that even if he did enter the school, even if that happened, it's possible that he would still die from hypothermia. He might have been too far gone. But part of the reason why I believe he did die is because the dialogue in this ending

musical scene right before he starts singing the song from Oklahoma, it is very telling of like acceptance of death. He is receiving basically like a Nobel Peace Award. He's saying like, I accept it all. Yeah. You are all my reasons. And then we see the, you know, after he performs the musical number, which lyrically is very telling of what's going on in the film as well.

He's literally the lyrics to the song are talking about him basically falling asleep and fantasizing about his life being good. And having a relationship with somebody to call his own or whatever. And then he wakes up. It's all a pack of lies or whatever. Everybody stands up and applies. And then we see that slow fade to blue, which is very reminiscent of like the fade to gray at the end of Synecichy, New York, which is when a character died there as well. And so that partially leads me to believe that his suicide was successful.

At the very least, there was a definite suicide attempt. And then the end credits, the truck is covered. with snow. And there's no real evidence that the car, like Jake's car, had ever been there. Like, that was all just a part of his fantasy, essentially. Very morbid. Oh, it's great. Yeah, that's an interesting. That is great. Yeah. It fits the show perfectly.

Oh, yeah. It's awesome. Even what you were talking about with, like, the, uh, them saying, like, yeah, films infect our brains and replace our original thoughts and things like that, like, that's called back to in the film not only directly, but also thematically, the girl that she kind of transforms into, the actress while they're talking in the car the second time, is the same actress as the woman from the film, the Robert Zemeckis film, that the janitor was watching on his break. And so that is literally an example of the film infiltrating his mind. And then we also have that one moment at the stairs where he's like, oh, yeah, we met in a diner. I asked for the Santa Feberger or whatever.

That's also from the film that he had watched previously in the movie. And then we also have the idea of like the thematic philosophical ideas of perspective. And when the main girl is showing her the paintings on the phone, which we learned later that she didn't actually make, she's talking to his dad about perspective and emotion. And he's like, well, how can I experience that emotion if there's no one in the scene, right? how do I I could look down I could see myself sort of thing it's just a concept that he doesn't get and then

as we're watching the janitor watch the film it sort of like switches perspective so that we are the janitor watching the film like we're in his mind again and that also kind of transitions back into the fantasy which is also still in his mind right it's there's a lot going on

that's when they like show you that like even the things like he's seeing on TV we perceive it as like the movie basically yeah all of the fantasies in this movie, we just perceive it as like a film. Because it's really all stemming from the main character who is really just Charlie Kaufman, who is really feeling these things, or at least contemplating these ideas or thinking about these ideas.

And it's very interesting. I don't think it's like saying to commit suicide or anything negative. No, it's exploring someone with that mindset. Yeah. I mean, it's all from your own interpretation. As the film said, everything is tinged, right? they go talking about how there's no real color in the universe and that it's all just right i think that's that's more the point that's more the point of it is that even with morbidity

like if you're thinking negatively or whatever it's uh it's just that's the way you're you're you're perceiving the world you know uh so he creates like this this fantasy or whatever at the end like with the artificial uh i guess recital where he sings that song and everyone has the the fake looking old age makeup he gives it like a movie kind of ending. Yeah. Yeah. Like an artificial third act,

kind of like adaptation did, like something like that. Yes, yes. It's so intricate and fitting. There's like, there's nothing wasted about this movie. When they're talking about the, how he's familiar

with musicals at the beginning, he's like, yeah, Lion King, Oklahoma, I know that one the best. They perform it every few years for obvious reasons. And then she's like, who performs it? And he just kind of ignores it. Like, he's obviously talking about being janitor at the school and we see those cut-in shots of him cleaning up as they're doing the rehearsals at

the school for that same play, that same musical Oklahoma. And even in that shot, when we see him cleaning up during the rehearsal, the specific song that's being sung is not the one that's being sung at the end. However, the lyrics are also incredibly relevant to what's going on in the film. So she's watching this young girl performing this character and the lyrics are saying, like, Never have I stopped to say where has last July gone, basically saying she doesn't care about the passage of time. It's not on her mind. She's able to live carefree while he isn't. And he's sort of watching that and feeling overwhelming regret and emotion and despair from this.

And then it cuts to another part in the song in that same scene where she's singing about how like she doesn't worry because she knows that true love will find her sort of thing. again another huge issue that the main character is dealing with and because they also say in the film like everything is tinged everything is from your perspective like it's obviously affecting him to such a degree that this is something that's going to stick out in his own mind and it's going to be something that he dwells on and focuses on you know the entire movie is is an example of that what's going on in his head right right it's based on a on a book too there are differences I haven't read the book. Yeah, the ending is like entirely different.

It seems like some people like the ending a bit better. I think that's where like some of the criticism stems that this movie's gone. Yeah, it's basically he pulled the opposite of adaptation where the ending of the book is like more of like a tropey horror thing. Like the guy like stabs himself in the neck with a fucking coat hanger or something and turns into like a slasher horror movie or something. Whereas this just went a completely. different direction and I mean I don't I don't disagree with the direction at all but I like

I like where it went yeah I like that it's it's definitely Charlie Kaufman's movie it's not just an adaptation of yeah a book and he should make it its own thing yeah yeah it does feel personal to him it does feel like a Charlie Kaufman film what was your process Adam of like

you've seen it three times is there a significant kind of light bulb moment when you watch watch it a second time Did it all kind of fall into place? I watched it the first time. I read the synopsis on Wikipedia of the original book and was like, okay, well, so even after the first watch, I kind of, the ideas I was kind of getting at were like, okay,

like, they're clearly going for like these characters are all the same person sort of thing. I didn't really catch on to the, it's happening inside his head sort of thing. And even after reading the synopsis of the book on Wikipedia, it doesn't really, it doesn't really say that either. But watching it several times, you get a lot of visual clues, especially, to what's going on. Like, even at the beginning when the janitor is looking outside the window while she's waiting to be picked up from Jake, it cuts back to the janitor the backside of his head. You can see, you can tell it's very clearly Jesse Plymonds there. They switch actors.

There's like a shot when he adjusts the dial in the radio, Jake in the car. and in that short shot, it's actually the interior of the truck. That's not the interior of the car. It's literally the same shot as earlier from the janitor getting ready and stuff like that. And then there's parts where, you know,

when she's reading the poem and she's saying, you know, this very kind of melancholic, morbid poem about like returning home and regret and living the same day over and over and over again, she stares like directly at the camera and then he's saying like, oh, it's like you wrote this about me. Just like a lot of clues like that

that helped me kind of figure out what it was going for. So by the end of the second watch, I had pretty much everything figured out from like what my current interpretation is except really what was going on in the ending. And then my third watch was just like, probably my best experience watching it

is like having all that information in mind and knowing like, at least from my own interpretation, exactly what it's going for and still picking up new things about it as I'm watching it but yeah it's it's something I've been thinking about even like not watching it I'll like go to bed and then be like oh wait

and like write another note on my phone sort of thing yeah I was noticing how good the kind of set up some payoffs and the scene construction was but you kind of bringing up these scenes I'd forgotten about because there's just so much stuff to remember it happens so quickly it's like oh yeah yeah exactly it all kind of fits into place as you describe it.

Yeah, that is actually really cool. There's a point you see like a beautiful mind, like a movie DVD of it. I think that's the speech he gives it the end. I don't know if I'm wrong. Oh, I don't know. I haven't seen a beautiful mind, but I know that that was intentionally placed there, obviously. Yeah, there are a lot of references to a few film, Oklahoma. I still haven't seen a woman under the influence either, but I'm really interested in it at this point especially.

Yeah, and the Robertsomechus jab or I don't know if they got his permission for that. I mean, no, they did get his permission. He was thanked at the end. That was like, yeah. I like that little fake movie he was watching. That was pretty funny. Yeah, there's so much going on. And like, yeah, even interpretations aside, like the technical elements of this film are just so fantastic.

The music is great and used very appropriately. Like, it could easily, especially when it's going for this kind of like horror unsettling vibe in the first, however, you know, the first half of the movie especially. It could easily turn into something that feels. feels a bit cheap or like jump scary. And it almost kind of gets there, but not quite. And it's like very reserved and how it does it. It's not like overbearing or anything like that. The old age makeup is fantastic.

It's flawless. And not only that, but I think it's very important to remember just how how essential it is to have performances complement that. Because there are so many films where they put somebody in an old age makeup. regardless of how convincing the makeup itself is, but the actors don't really perform it that well. They don't have, like, the posture. They don't change their voice in a convincing way sort of thing.

But Tony Collette and David Thulis, they do it so, so, so well. Like, there's so much subtlety in their performances. They even, like, going back to the makeup, like, you can notice that they changed Tony Collette's teeth. Like, they're stained more yellow when she's old, like the old age that she is for, most of that sequence.

And then you see the part where she's like picking up toys as a young mother where she's reversed in age and her teeth are like pearly white like a lot, you know, there's a very clear difference in her teeth, which is just something that like even even movies that have like fantastic makeup. They don't pay attention to fucking teeth, you know? So there's just so much going on. I love it so much. Yeah.

Nothing feels wasted in this film. Like every moment of it has a purpose. Yeah, it's fantastic. I love it so much. So I'm going to watch it again with that in mind. Yeah. A bit more of that in mind. Maybe it'll make it a bit more sense.

I'll enjoy it a bit more. Yeah, do you blame those who are kind of, you know, going back against it and just like, oh, I don't get this sort of shit? It's on Netflix. You have to expect that. It's like having Jennifer Lauren. Lawrence and that... Oh, yeah, mother.

Yeah, in mother. It's like you have to expect that. Like, people are going to click on it. Jennifer Lawrence is in it and be like, oh, fuck, this is bad sort of thing. It's going to reach a lot of people that aren't necessarily a part of its intended demographic, just by it being on Netflix because, you know, people just click on things going like, oh, this is new. What's out?

What about, like, book fans who aren't happy with his take, his interpretation of that story? Read the book. I mean, like, it doesn't make your own movie, I don't know. Yeah. Adapt it yourself. Yeah, I've never really gotten down with that because don't you want it to be its own thing, as opposed to just an exact recreation of the book or whatever. Yeah, and I mean, like, I probably wouldn't enjoy it as much if it ended the way the book

did based on what I understand about it. What happens in the book? Like, it turns into, like, kind of a horror movie at the end, and he stabs themselves. in the neck with a coat hanger. Whereas this is not just more of like a nice kind of like thinker thing. And also like I'd imagine the book would be so much more obvious just based on that alone about like what it's going for. And I like something that I can watch several times and figure out more about it.

And you know, it's not like completely random. Just like, oh, this looks cool sort of thing. Like everything has a purpose, which I really, really like about it. And I mean, I don't know if the musical Oklahoma was a thing that was in the book at all. But, I mean, with this certainly ending with that musical segment, I've never seen the musical Oklahoma. And I'm kind of glad I didn't because I got to experience that song for the first time watching this film. But I've looked up, like, clips of the Broadway and other actors performing that same song. Jesse Plymouth singing is probably my favorite version and, like, the musical arrangement as well.

It's like, it's so good. It was actually him doing it. Yeah, he's credited as singing. for the song. Because I just assumed they dubbed it because it was quite impressed. He's credited as singing, so. Wow. Yeah.

And there was also, I didn't really look into it too much. There was also a credit I noticed, like, one of the song credits was, like, written by David Thulis or something? I'll have to look that up. I couldn't tell you which, yeah, here it is. Wouldn't it be loverly performed by David Thulis? What? Okay, not written.

So I don't know when that was or what that was. That's really interesting. Yeah. So I, I'm, again, another thing that I might figure out later. Maybe that was like a song on the radio or something. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, I have no idea. But yeah, that was a weird credit.

Yeah, watch, watch it again with all these ideas in mind and like understanding that like it is all just an extension of him. And understand like what is like wants and desires and regrets are because like the like one of the scenes I'm thinking of right now is like, He's, like, feeding his mother and, like, all these different versions of his parents he's already experienced, and he harbors so much, like, disdain and, like, just bad energy when it comes to them. Like, even before he even enters the house, he's like, I'm not ready to go in there yet. That's, like, him and his own mind being, like, I'm not ready to think about this, my parents. And, like, he's waiting for them, like, oh, here they are coming down the stairs, but they're not. And it's just, like, his own apprehension about it that's forcing that. It's like weird for the movie.

It's like, you know, kind of like a being John Malkovich, kind of like comedic, like, okay, that's kind of quirky and weird, but it has like an actual purpose. And so he's like feeding his mother. And like one of the things that she says, the main girl is like, oh, that's so, I'm so, it's great to see that you're such a dedicated and caring son. And like throughout the film, he's talking, the characters are talking about like, oh, people don't respect people that are old age. People kind of just forget about them and stuff like that. That's like not only him thinking about his current situation, but also him wishing that somebody saw what he did, that saw the good things that he did in his life. And so his creation of her as this potential could have, should have, should have, I wish this happened sort of thing, he wishes that someone was there to notice him caring for his mother because he doesn't get any credit for it. Like in reality, he was just alone with her and nobody knows the good things that he did in his life.

And then right after that, when she's walking down the stairs and she's talking about like, oh, I don't know where him and I begin or end, she's also saying things like, oh, so what is my purpose? Like, I'm just supposed to be there and support him. Is that my only purpose in life? That not only is something that he wishes happen, but now as she's doing her own internal dialogue, that's the janitor's internal dialogue, more self-hatred of him literally just beating himself up in his own mind being like, okay, so I just had this fantasy. of this potential girlfriend character that was there and looking out for me and supporting me and seeing all the good things that I did and now he's just turning that back on himself

still in his own mind being like, oh, what? So like, is that the only purpose a woman has sort of thing? And like there are constant references in the film of like him doing that. Whether it's talking about the, what's that song, that old Christmas rape song, Baby It's Cold Outside sort of thing. And like, yeah.

Yeah, there's constant points in the film where it's not the characters criticizing other characters. It's him criticizing himself for his own thoughts and his own desires. And this is just part of like his self-hatred and him fueling this bad energy that leads him to kill himself. Oh yeah, and there's one other thing that I kind of forgot to mention as a part of an interpretation that I think is pretty relevant. It's that when she confronts the janitor in the school, there's a line where she's asking, if he's seen her boyfriend, Jake, and he's like, what does he look like? And she starts on this monologue.

You know, there have been several monologues in the film, so you might not think it's like that important, but it very much is, where she finally says the truth about what happened. She's like, okay, look, she even says the line like, well, here's the truth. And she's saying that they never actually met at this game night. In her perspective, she's saying,

what, there was this creeper just staring at it. me. He was a creeper. I wish my boyfriend was there. The reality is that the janitor never had the courage to even speak up and ask for her number. And even in the scene at the beginning with the, when they're saying this version of the story to the parents, they even say like, oh, he blurted out, can I ask for your number? That's something that he wanted to do, that he wished he could have done, but he didn't. And so now he's created this fantasy scenario where he's coming to terms with reality, but still adding in details where he's literally just beating himself up. So he's saying things like, I wish my boyfriend were here.

He doesn't know that she possibly could have had a boyfriend. And yet, in his own mind, he's creating like the most uncharitable negative possibility of what could have happened. Like, because he is depressed, because everything is tinged through his perspective, this is what he's currently deciding reality is. So. Wow. Bloody hell. it's great I miss so much

it's you have to watch it at least twice if you haven't if you've only seen it once you haven't seen it it's one of those yeah like Neo

you want to get into ratings or do you have well I mean I'll have a I recorded most of this in like a kind of like analysis video that should be out next week anyway so awesome yeah it's not

It's not going to be as, like, thorough as my synecicki thing because I want to fucking get it out, you know, but... Yeah. Five parts. Okay. That's cool. I don't think I liked it as much as you, but I'd give it like a seven out of ten. Yeah, hearing you talk about it makes me, you know, wish I liked it more, too. I like it a bit more than Ralph, though.

I was torn between an eight or a nine for this one. But, yeah, I think I'll settle on a nine, considering just how much is going. on and some might say it's a it's a lot to ask to watch a two and a half hour movie twice but you know it is very unique unique experience and he's a he's a great writer I just think his dialogue and the performances he gets out of actors and the ideas he's throwing around keep you thinking even if like but even with one watch maybe I didn't take everything away from it but I was sure thinking about it I was thinking about all the concepts they were thrown out and it has stuck with me

for that space. So give it a chance. Yeah. It's very haunting. I love movies that I'm thinking about after I watch them and not just completely discarding. I started it at a nine and after my third watch, I bumped it up to a fucking 10, boys. I love it.

Great movie. Awesome. Dank. Thank. All right. Thank. Cool. So there was a film recommended.

for episode 69. It's a very nice film called Shortbus. And essentially, spoilers, this is a spoiler discussion. It is kind of like an experimental film that incorporates unsimulated sexual acts between characters and not only makes it relevant to the plot, but kind of, Kind of, you know, as a statement of just being like, yeah, why not? People have sex. You know, it's other movies that are weird by not showing that sort of thing.

They're real performances, real characters. It's not porn acting. It's not, oh, shit, I'm sorry. Sorry for what? Hmm. I guess you've never seen... Okay, maybe you have seen that. It's kind of funny.

Just bad porn acting shit on YouTube. It's not one of those, you know? It's like you get the sexual acts, but it's not... You get a real story. Yeah. You get a real story and real performances and real characters and real struggles. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. What did you guys think? There's like these CG animated shots of the New York City, you know, they go around. It's like, oh, they put thought into this. That wouldn't be in like a porn. Yeah. It's not, it's not the, the money shot is not the focus. It's not like a close up on someone's pussy.

I think it definitely is a focus. No, I think it definitely is the focus of the movie. Oh. I think its intention is to make you very uncomfortable or like at least make you laugh with like the absurd amount of sex and nudity. Because it's not really expected in film in a kind of regular narrative film that most people would see to see this amount of excessive real sex and nudity

and close-ups, close-ups on dicks and gay sex. There wasn't much of a close-up. It wasn't very... It was in frame. I wouldn't call it like... The objective of how they filmed it certainly wasn't to like make you fucking jerk off. No, yeah, as I say, I think,

it was most of the time for me came across as more comedic in tone the way there was like the sexy the three-way scene is like pretty funny there's there's lots of humor to it and it makes the the one kind of more serious intense sex scene have a have a lot more weight um when it comes later in the movie yeah and yeah i i i enjoyed this movie overall but i did have some kind of issues with it it is it's yeah it's certainly unlike anything I've seen before in terms of this just the pure amount of sex that is in it but it does achieve the goal of not just being a porno I never even

I never even crossed my mind that I'm watching a porno like it did with showgirls or something like that I felt like yeah it felt like I kind of had that first and foremost it was a film you know it wasn't about yeah as you say sex is a huge part of humans and humanity and a film kind of throwing it out there like yeah look they're fucking like everyone does in the world, so deal with it type stuff. Yeah.

I don't think the film is like comedically strong enough to stand on its own without the sex. Or dramatically strong in my opinion. Or dramatically strong enough without that stuff. That's what I mean like, I think it is a focus. I think that's the draw of the film

is that it has tons of sex. If it didn't. Through the lens of comedy, though, I think. Through the lens of comedy, right? In a very absurd way. But we're kind of absurdly presented, I guess. I don't know. I think maybe I'm not going to say that like your interpretation is wrong or anything, but I think maybe an aspect that you might be missing from it that I'm definitely getting out of it.

And I'm sure a lot of people with, I guess, atypical sexualities or sexual experiences or, you know, growing up, coming out sort of thing is like this film is not just like, oh yeah, like ha ha funny comedy sex. Like it's a very sexually liberating kind of film, which is a concept that not a lot of people get. It's not something, you know, just saying the word sexually liberating is not something that a lot of people are going to connect with. But it is a thing, right? And it is fresh to have, it's not just fresh. What's the word? It's refreshing. It's refreshing to have something that isn't a fresh.

afraid to show these things. And it's not, you know, it's not the goal of the film to produce a porn. It's not the goal of the film to have people being like, oh, that's hot. I want to jerk off sort of thing. It's, it's a film that's, that's not afraid to show these things. It's a film that is saying like, yeah, we accept you, we don't care sort of thing, which is something that a lot of people, again, people with atypical sexualities are growing up having to, like, come out or, you know, stuff like that, whether it be trans, gay, whatever, a lot of people kind of would need to feel something like that in their lives or appreciate that being said. So in that sense, I think that's something that the film is going for, that it does achieve, that definitely not everybody is going to get from it.

Yeah, it does achieve that. I actually did pick up that level just on the, on the basis of the, the relationships of the characters, I felt like the things they were talking about and the way they were talking about it and the settings they were in were fresh and realistic in that kind of way. But I think what I'm more saying about the sex scenes is that the ones that stand out in my mind are the comedic ones more than anything like where the woman's on the bench in the middle of the night kind of jerking off and it's clearly for like humor and the comes in his own mouth. Yeah. That's the kind of stuff I'm more thinking of. Star-spangled banner. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the silliness of it definitely comes out in in some of the sex scenes,

because I don't really know how else you could really direct it if it's not like an intense emotion associate with the scene, you know? The film has some self-awareness with like how uncomfortable these these kind of subject matters are, especially in like American cinema, like not really, it's not really explored a lot. It's not as big of a deal in Europe. Yeah. Or France or Europe, yeah. It's not a big deal. deal here. So they're exploring it in a way and they definitely want to address the fact that it might be uncomfortable for a general audience by approaching it in a funny way, by showing close-ups on dicks and things that would make most people uncomfortable seeing, which is a fine

comedic approach. I mean, I thought it worked for the movie just fine. I like the look of the movie, very colorful. Like, there's the scene there in like a, it's like a cryo chamber. What is it? Like you cut yourself off the world. Oh, the sensory deprivation. Oh, those. Sensory deprivation chamber. Yeah, that's right. It's like all green.

Like, it has a color palette that's really nice. There's some cool setups and some cool scenes. Yeah. Yeah, it feels a, it has the vibe of like a kind of hipster New York City. Yeah. It works. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I found the heart of the movie to be, um, what's his name?

The character James, Paul Dawson plays him. He's kind of the tragic character. Oh, yeah. The framing of the movie is him. It opens with him by the pool and you don't really know what's going on. And when that's revealed, that's kind of the, that's the emotional kind of heart of the movie to me. The only thing, though, that kind of robs some of the emotion for me personally was the whole kind of stalker dynamic. I wasn't really, I wasn't really, I didn't really understand.

Yeah, like, he's saved by his stalker. When he's, we've said spoilers, haven't we? Yeah. When he has a suicide attempt, and he's saved by a stalker, and then he kind of is, he seems weirdly okay with it and then has sex with him. Yeah. I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to take away from that message. That could have been fleshed out a bit better for sure.

I think that there's ways where you could write it where it would make a bit more sense, where you could say something like, okay, well, he's been afraid to, like, open himself up and make himself feel vulnerable to people throughout his whole life. And that's part of what led him into his depression. And if he finds, you know, now he's with somebody that supposedly knows him inside and out sort of thing just by, I guess, voyeurism. If they could have communicated that a bit better if that's what they were going for, for sure.

Yeah, because I guess when I'm seeing it face value as stalker, the first kind of things that flash into your mind. the imagery associate with stalkers and that kind of thing. Like, if it was a bloke and it was stalking like a woman, it would be kind of a creepy, you know. Yeah. But the only other major thing that bothered me was that kind of bizarre scene that I thought was going to relate to more of the movie.

But early on where the old mayor has a little segment to himself, where he's talking about how when he was mayor he wishes he, he tried his best with the AIDS crisis and stuff like that. I've obviously got no problem with the message. I was just confused as to what that was doing in the movie, really, because it didn't really relate to anything outside of the message. I think that part of like the goals of the film, it is like, you know, kind of like a,

you could call it like a social just to see movie if you want. Part of the goals of the film was like to kind of show different angles. and be inclusive about the different stories and characters that they were approaching. And so I think that that's probably just a byproduct of them being like, okay, what else can we put in here sort of thing? Where it doesn't really attach itself to like the full story as much. Yeah, the guy who owned the short bus or whatever, the guy who actually owned the space on that character,

I felt did that kind of commentary a bit better for me because I thought, he had some of the better kind of comedic lines. Yeah, there's some funny lines. I think the comedy did work well. The menstrual blood lipstick. It's a period piece. That's funny. Yeah.

There's a lot of like slap sticky sexual jokes that were. Yeah, it was all, yeah. It's like a vibrator in her and there's like a remote. And it makes her like punch a guy in that. the face. There's like lots of silly like stuff. Yeah. It's like it's so over the top. That feel like in concept it would belong in like an American Pie movie or something. Uh-huh. Exactly. This has a bit more like parts and depth than character. There's like a whole right. Well like James is making like a, you think he's making a film. But then he like, he tries to kill himself and there's this very serious like part. And in the same movie or like 10 minutes later.

you know, you have a scene of her with an egg of her vagina and they're vibrating and she's punching a guy in the face. Like, it's so all over the place with the tone. The comedy is crucial to the movie. Like, the set up is the, the sex therapist who has never experienced an orgasm. Like that's a funny, you know, setup. Yeah. And the same for, yeah, there's, there's lots of comedy and the Jennifer Aniston character. That's like a whole, like a 40-year-old virgin kind of. Yeah. But it feels like one of those Judd-Opital kind of movies. And then mixed in is all this like these progressive messages and like like all this other like sexuality and it's very it's very interesting but it's a lot to take in and the tone of it is very um all over the place

i think i like it though i guess it depends on your taste what you like yeah it's it was created in kind of like an experimental way not just you know in concept with showing you know sex as part of the film, but also like in how they cast it and how they wrote it. Essentially they got like a bunch of, they had like 500 video submissions, which were submissions not just like acting, but also porn. It's basically what they requested. And they cut it down to 40 and then had all of these 40 people basically in a theater viewing the submissions with like a little questionnaire thing that they filled out privately,

you know, like just on a piece of paper. themselves. And so they figured out like, okay, what are the attraction levels between these people? Would you have sex with this person? Yes or no sort of thing? And then they, from that, they cut it down to like nine people and then constructed the story around like, okay, so these people are comfortable having sex with each other. Let's have them in a scene. Let's have these characters in a relationship sort of thing. And they built not only the story, but also their characters around the actors. They basically did improv workshops with each other and figured out

what their characters and stories would be based on that. And so it's telling a few different stories at once, obviously. But I do like that it's a film where not only are each of these characters pretty well fleshed out and watchable and relatable, but they also have their own struggles. They also have their own goals and their own issues. That's nice to see in a sense.

film. Yeah. It's very ambitious. Right. Like all that behind the movie, I think, is more interesting than actually like the film itself, watching the narrative and the characters themselves. Like, I've seen more interesting kind of characters than this. A drama is, yeah. Drama. I've seen, I mean, well, I'm thinking of anything. This was a bit more interesting in terms of how it's dealt with suicide, I guess. But I've seen other films kind of tackle that better. I don't want to say it's like lifetime movie-ish, like how they show like these very serious things.

But, you know, I want these things to be developed more or like, if you're going to show it in a movie, kind of make it a whole thing. Don't just like have one scene of suicide or one scene with like the mayor. It's like, yeah, AIDS or whatever. Like, there's a lot going on in the movie. I just wish you would focus a bit more of one thing.

Yeah, you could say it's trying to do too much at once. Uh-huh, a bit. It does have a lot of characters. Some of which gets sidelined after a certain point. Yeah, that's true. The husband character doesn't have much depth to him. Yeah, not at all. He kind of needs to be the way he is so the...

Yeah, but I mean, whatever. Yeah. It doesn't bother me too much. Yeah, it's entertaining. The main woman, the sex therapist character, she's actually a... She was a radio host at CBC during the filming of this movie. And CBC found out...

that she would be in the film. It almost cost her her job until basically this campaign where a bunch of famous directors and filmmakers, including David Thuleas, and including, like, Francis Ford Coppola

all wrote, like, public letters of support for it so that she was able to continue starring in the film without it, meaning, costing her job. And so Canada was like, okay. Just let it happen. That would be ridiculous, yeah. Yeah. I really liked all of the music.

there were a lot of songs in the film. Some, just as part of the soundtrack, others taking place in the film's universe. All of it was really well done. And I think that, you know, the mayor of New York scene is really emotionally effective for me, especially because of that music playing at the same time.

I think that the music compliments the scene really well. Also, the dude playing guitar and singing looks like a younger Stanley Kubrick, which is hilarious. I could have thinking that, yeah I thought I was missing something, some detail or Easter egg, I was really confused by that.

The dude who's paying the dominatrix looks like Ego Raptor. Yeah, yeah, no, I see it, I can see. There's like, I hadn't seen this movie for a while. It's always something that I've liked. But yeah, seeing it recently, There's more jokes that I was able to pick up on, you know, the stalker characters in the background of a lot of scenes that I didn't notice him before.

And it was kind of like a Sammy Synecdochee, New York kind of thing going on, which was kind of fun. All right. I like the come shot on the Jackson Pollock painting. That was pretty funny. Yeah, that was funny. Yeah, a lot of 9-11 kind of commentary in there, too. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

9-11 is the only real thing that ever happened to them. That was one of the bits of dark. It's got some cheese in there. It's not like completely... Plenty of cheese. Flawless or anything. There's like a weird part where, you know, he's got like the app and then the mayor of New York's pacemaker gets affected by it or something. It's just like, what?

That was a little weird. But maybe he was faking it. Maybe he just wanted to get some attention from that young boy. I love that the I love that the character's name is Seth with a C Oh, right I don't have much, yeah, I don't have much more to say about it either Because it's just like, yeah, there's a lot of sex

It was kind of funny Yeah, it's fairly simplistic And the drama, it has its moments But I think it overall works better as a comedy Than a straight-up drama And I could get behind the messages of it too It's better to be out there with it and blatant then well like do the right thing it was like that too right yeah it's

like take the message yeah and the the main you know the main woman who's never orgasmed her you know her arc basically of you know embracing her her sexuality and not repressing it for the sake of someone she doesn't even really want to be with deep down that's you know relatable yeah like at it at its heart it's like a sexually liberating movie like that's the main thing that it's going for and I think it I don't know that aspect it does work premiered it can I wonder about that

theater would have been like yeah they're European they've seen it before yeah true I don't care I see it walking at the beach all right yeah I really I really enjoy this film I connect with what it's going for I connect with both the drama and the comedy

and although it's not perfect there are definitely things that could be improved about it um yeah still still love it glad i was able to see it again i'm giving this one uh eight out of ten okay yeah i like yeah uh i enjoyed it it's certainly not something you see every day in a in a film that's for sure and yeah the the the sexual themes are the the core of the movie and they explore it in a good way for me it was just after a certain point i found some of the the jokes to kind of become a bit repetitive for me in the punchlines being fairly similar in the way they're coming across. But yeah, I did enjoy it and I would recommend watching it.

I'd probably give this a seven or so. I'm around where Alex is. I think like six out of ten. It's funny. And yeah, I enjoyed it just fine. Maybe it's also watching a Charlie Kaufman film and a Chris Nolan film and then watching this. Yeah, the mind fucking thing is. Yeah.

Yeah, it's like just two epic filmmakers. then but this is still really it was unique definitely i'll never see another film like it what other films like basically open with a cum shot to the face you know uh gaspar noe's love which was not good you got two right it was a 3d cum shot at the camera that's right yeah that is a lot of sex and then then they did a Q&A after the movie like we had a 3d glasses thing going on the theater was at Tiff I think and then Gaspar Noe and the main actor come at him like oh you just came on my

face oh that's hilarious like oh god that seems like I'm sure all these actors and director did press for the can stuff too like oh you just you just watch me fuck yeah that is kind of come to

and that I'm not quite sure what he was going for yeah in love yeah I guess that's just people have sex But like that's it I guess that's just that's the message of the movie Gaspar no went at the Q&A for that movie Gaspar no a just came out and was like what he said

Yeah we didn't have a script He literally just said that he's like we didn't have a script We just kind of like went around Film people them fucking and decided Figured out what we wanted to be But it's about a relationship I can tell it didn't have a fucking script Jesus It's about love and how

Yeah and then sex has worked in there somehow there was there was like no self-awareness as like this like short bus was funny with it yeah like you know and i appreciate that at least i appreciate that it was trying to say something unlike love yeah all right question time yeah let's do some questions then from the sardonicast community head over to our subreddit where there be a suggestion thread we can ask us whatever you feel Let's start off with this one then from Hmm Bendra the Giant

So Francis Ford Coppola is doing a new cut of Godfather 3 And is supposedly changing the beginning and ending My question is can you think of any movies That you disliked the theatrical cut but went back And watched a director's cut or something And appreciated it more I doubt it'll be this Godfather 3 cut But

For me it's a blade runner final cut The first time I saw the original Blade Runner was the Harrison Ford narration one, which is just, you know, purposefully bad. So when I saw the, it was called the final cut, isn't it? Is that the good one? Yeah. Yeah, the final cut. And then I was like, oh, yeah, this is the movie.

I was kind of hoping for an imagining from this. I like the midsummer one. Oh, I still haven't seen that. Yes. It finally showed out. I saw that this quarantine. I was impressed, yeah. It does add to a fair amount.

the movie. Because I saw that last summer, like, only a few weeks after seeing the original cut, it just came out in theaters. It added a lot more to, like, their relationship, I think. There was a whole sequence there were at night, you know, it was a ritual. You just get more context.

Yeah. Uh-huh. It was cool. Yeah. They had more context for one of the characters like deaths. You actually see the ritual that's done. I think we talked about it before. Yeah, we did. We talked about mid-summer. Yeah. I just haven't seen the director's cut. I just haven't seen the director's cut. We talked about, too. I think I mentioned it on here.

Yeah, but it's great. I think the director's cut is better. If you had a choice, I think you should watch that one. Yeah, I agree. It's much longer, though. Yeah. I don't have any where I feel like super strongly. I'll always watch the director's cut as long as it's like the director's cut,

with some exceptions probably that I'm not thinking of. Like, the act of killing directors cut, same movie a bit longer, but it's just fucking great. So it's like why, I mean, like, I enjoy every minute of it. So I don't care that there's extra 20 minutes because I'm enjoying those extra 20 minutes more. You can still get the same movie out of it essentially by watching the theatrical.

But yeah, I mean, always go for the director's cut. Be careful if something says extended cut rather than director's cut, because sometimes that's just done with extra footage that the director didn't even want in there. So like there's an extended cut of the handmaiden, which just like it's not the same movie. It kind of ruins it.

Things are like told in a different way, not the same emotional impact. But yeah, like Chanwick Park, the cut he made was the theatrical cut, and then they're just like, oh, let's do an extended cut. Okay. Like the studio or whatever decided to do that.

I've only ever seen the director's cut of Brazil, thank God. Yeah. Apparently the theatrical cut or the American one or whichever one. There's like, they give it a happy ending. Where they keep the happy ending of the film. Yeah. Which it's not supposed to be. Yeah.

things I wish there was a director cut for that there aren't. Like the original Don of the Dead ending fucking sucks. And when I hear about what the concept for the original ending was, I'm like, holy shit, I wish that was in the movie. God damn. But they never even filmed it. The studio just was like, nope. See, how I feel about the Snyder cut.

Yeah, I was about to make a Snyder cut. Joke. Yeah, we can revisit that when that comes out, this question. No joke, dude. I'm excited. There's nothing to joke about. I am too, to be honest. I'm with you.

Is the aspect ratio actually different? Or was that just in the trailer? Oh, yeah. The trailer for the Snyder cat? Yeah, it had a different aspect ratio than it was like, not four by three, but it was a little. It was from the DC fandom thing like a week or two ago. Yeah, it might just be because, you know, it was on Twitter. They adjusted it.

Oh, yeah, maybe. So who knows? Maybe. But if it actually is like different aspect ratio, I think that'd be really funny. Black and white. It's black and white. It's like the lighthouse. that'd be so good

it's so ridiculous I had the letter co-ed song hallelujah it was just from watchman there was the same song from watchman in the most over-the-top sex scene it was two panels long in the comic probably

whatever I'm looking forward to that one that'll be the next great director's cut that's why I mention it yeah we're seeing as we are on episode 69 you can imagine what some of the questions are like.

Okay. We've got a good one from Hemroy XII. There's a special question for episode 69. Do you think that a film's capacity to make you horny slash turn you on is worth credit or recognition in a rating or review? Even though this might seem like an easy no, this idea is interesting to me as personal enjoyment seems to be at least a big factor in a lot of people's film opinions

and horniness may be different, but it's still a form of personal enjoyment which is a interesting question which I can't say I haven't put much thought to because I don't have like a list of films on my head that maybe people in the 80s did where it's like the jerk off films and stuff like that well I don't think people just watch films to watch

a scene where people are naked or sex like I think people watch a film for a story which is why it's different from porn so I don't know there's always an element too of they hire attractive of people in movies because you're naturally just drawn to attractive people, right? Your eye is like you can't even help it. Like you watch, you see a pretty person on a poster. You're like, oh, I want to see that movie.

So there's always like an element of sexuality in films to draw you in because that's what people like, just like people like violence, like explosions and, you know, it sells, right. Put it on a cover. As long as you're not overt with it. That's the weird thing. You're allowed to sell things with sex as long as it's not short bus, I guess, then it just gets, like, banned. As long as you're not exploiting people in the film, the actual actors.

Yeah. As far as if it's considered in a rating. Like, could you ever imagine, like, in like a quick year of video being, like, yeah, just so you guys know, this film turned me on quite a lot in this scene. Just what I think of you. Yeah, but you can say that is serious. Well, that's why there has to be like, I think that it's important to also understand, like, the difference between something like a personal enjoyment versus, like, something that you feel is a bit more accessible to other people in a recommendation. So if you're, if you wanted to be rating a porn, you have nothing but how turned on you are to rate the porn. Unless you want to talk about the fucking cinematography and a porno.

Which no one does. Oh my God, the fucking thumbs shot. It was so well lit. The set was really nice. Yeah, it really depends on what you're going for. But there's tons of movies where I, you know, showgirls is an example, but there's tons of other movies where like the plot just essentially stops and it's like, okay, well, what's the point of this? Am I supposed to be turned on right now? Like, what the fuck is the point of this, right?

where like if you don't have that sexuality, if you're not turned on by it, if it isn't your thing, then it does really nothing for you. So it would be weird to kind of have like, like, yeah, I mean like I get the argument. I get what you're saying by, you know, your response to something sexual is a subjective experience and so is your response to something emotional also or comedic, right? But at the same time, it's like, It's a bit more of like a hardwired thing. Like, sure, our emotions are hardwired too, but sexuality is like illogical. You can't justify a fetish or a sexuality. You can't logically work your way up to it. You have to logically explain backwards from it. It's basically starting at, oh, I'm attracted to this, and then you can try and figure out why, in sort of a justification being like,

okay, because this is associated with this and this emotion, blah, blah, blah. But you can't work your way up to this. justifying a sexuality. You have to go backwards. I don't know. I feel like your your sense of humor can develop over time. Like your sense of what you consider to be emotional can develop over time. Like your environment can influence it in ways that it wouldn't really your sexuality, which is just like there forever. There's nothing you can do about it. There's some films that are like their sexuality is the selling point. And I would actually like praise the movie if it was very like, Like the 50 Shades of Grey movies.

If those movies were actually like hot or presented that culture in any way that was like interesting, then like I would be like, okay, I could get behind it. But the movies are like fucking tame, boring shit and the acting sucks and there's like nothing to it. It doesn't do what it's set out to do. And I think that's what the audience seeing those movies would want. But it's very tame because it's a rated R big budget film when it should be some like short bus. Even with that, there's elements to sexuality that you can. put in a review if you wanted to you could say like oh this is like tantalizing

like it could be like a character's relationship if there's like a dominant submissive sort of aspect to that but I think that what the question is getting at is just straight up like oh the tits are fat or whatever like you know that's something that's not really like a part of the artistic craft

that's literally just something that exists regardless like I don't know like if somebody has like an inflation fetish or something and they watch like a movie about balloons like 10 out of 10 like I don't know like yeah yeah you can't recommend a film based on things you find hot yeah it makes no sense unless you're just recommending it like on a fetish website if you're like if you're like a scat fetishist and you're like fucking human centipede like

a fucking sallow here's some good ones boys but i mean at that point it's no different than than a website like uh i don't know does the dog die dot com if you You're just pointing out like one element and that's make or break if you want to watch the movie or not. And nothing else matters about like the artistic or creative craft of something. Then sure. But I don't think that that should be necessarily relevant in talking about a film. If you're reviewing it and talking about the artistic choices or the technical elements, right? That's kind of irrelevant to the conversation.

Because you might as well just be saying like, oh, Scarlett Johansson's in it. She's hot. 10 out of 10. That's it. Yeah. it's just not a very reasonable metric to measure anything on that relates to more than one person. Yeah. We have this one from Boyoy, yo, yoy, yoy, yoy, who says, for Adam, as a gay man,

what are the most egregious and offensive things a film can do when it portrays your sexuality on screen? Well, you know, there's some people have said things like there's gay characters for gay people, and there's gay characters for straight people sort of thing. And that's true in ways, not to be, like, divisive or anything. But there's points where it definitely gives off the impression where it's like, okay, this is for a little fucking woke point here. Like, Disney and their, like, one line that they can remove for Russia and China. And then there's also, like, there's so many films and TV shows where the character is gay,

and that's all there is to their character and that's what it is and like it's just it's kind of just obnoxious and annoying or when it's just like too much of like a stereotype sort of thing like you never I mean not never but it's very rare

that you see a gay character where it's just like oh they happen to be gay and they have their own like goals and character outside of that sort of thing or one where you know it's not like super obvious Lispy sort of thing.

Yeah. So it depends on the movie. It depends, you know, you can have straight people playing gay characters. You can have straight people writing gay characters. And, you know, it can work out fine. There just has to be thought put into it. Yeah. I mean, just treat them like any other character, really, instead of like this

parading around sort of thing that happens every so often. Can you think of any examples that kind of pop into your head when I ask the question? Of like egregious examples of gay characters? Yeah, ones that pissed you off personally. I'm trying to think of a good example here. They're usually not like, I usually retain memories of like great movies and what I would be talking about usually not in great movies. I don't know, you go further back in time decade by decade and you'd see

like gay characters being represented in less flattering ways the further back you go at time often made as like villains which I found to be amusing in the same way that you'd have propaganda about like okay every every villain would have like a Russian accent sort of thing it's just this like sort of instilling like this is the enemy America sort of thing going on which I found to be like kind of amusing what was it was it like Mad Max 2 where all the where the villains were gay um Yeah, I think so. The world war.

Yeah. But it depends on where it's coming from, I guess. But it's not to say you can't have a villain that's gay. But in certain contexts, it almost seems like that's supposed to add to them being a villain in of itself. Also, the gay characters in Ben and Arthur. Those are very memorable. Oh, fuck. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Ben and Arthur, 10 out of 10. Great movie. Yeah, it's, I don't know. There's movies that do it well. Call Me By Your Name is a great movie. It's like it's about their relationship.

And at the same time, like, you have to understand that there's certain cliches that go in with writing gay characters that the film was better for not really including as much of like, you know, if you're going to tell a gay romance story. 99% of them are going to be also about like, okay, like, this person's struggling to come out, they're faced with oppression sort of thing. Whereas, call me by your name, didn't really do that. It was just a movie where you were able to follow their relationship. Their relationship was pretty accepted. The way that, like, a straight romance movie would. It's like, oh, that's nice.

It doesn't have to be about this other sort of thing, which is, you know, just more variety is better, I would say. Right. Different stories being told that don't necessarily follow. these like writing checklists of tropes and cliches and character attributes that are just like so repetitive yeah 13 reasons why every character was gay and that so yeah i was gonna ask you about that how did you feel about that that it was just really funny like i didn't take any of it seriously it's just like you're gay alex i never could have known you were like i'm totally straight guys i had sex with the woman once. That was the most unconvincing sex scene ever when he fucked that chick. That was so bad. I was like, I don't believe you for one fucking second.

Yeah, I remember in a previous season he like fucks a hooker or something. Yeah, yeah. Least convincing performance. Yeah. Come on, dude. We all know. Senecki 239 has one for us. How can you tell if an indie or art house movie is bad? Where do you draw the line between at least its unique?

the director probably intended for it to be that way and now that was bad and how can you tell when a director's overall artistic voice is not worthwhile despite seeming unique i think a lot of it comes down to intent obviously and so if a film is going to be insistent upon itself and beg an interpretation or beg analysis it should have something to back it up if you're going to go through it and analyze and interpret um so charlie kottman films, a lot of people might hate them because they also beg interpretation and analysis, but there's something there to back it up. So, like, if you see somebody who says they're smart, if they're actually smart, there's nothing wrong with that. People should be able to be honest about themselves or have an opinion about themselves if they think they're intelligent and they actually are. That's fine. But people get annoyed when somebody says, like, oh, yeah, like, my IQ's so high and they're just a dumbass and like they make a spelling error while they're saying it sort of thing. It's just like, okay.

So in that same way, you know, you can look at films in that way as well. There's a lot of films that sort of insist that they're intelligent when they really don't have that much to offer. And, you know, not every art house film has to have some sort of puzzle to solve. That's not like a prerequisite for it being. well made. There are other aspects of the film that can come into play. And with, you know, something like a David Lynch movie where I don't feel like everything that's showing up in the film is going to give me the same level of satisfaction as a Charlie Kaufman movie. What he does well is like tone, right? He does he does the tone and the feel of the movie really well. And if that's

what you're looking for and you really love that the tone of his films and the feeling and the sound design and the visual elements, then that could be a perfect movie for somebody, right? So, really depends. Yeah. Well, a movie can be unique and bad still. You can find a movie bad and still acknowledge it to be unique.

Those are my favorite bad movies. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I didn't think it would take any experience, you know? I don't even look at a movie like an art house, Indy. I just watch it. Like, has its own experience. Is it totally interesting ways? Is the story

good or the character's good? is the visuals interesting? Is it showing me something new? You know, there's a lot of things to measure it. Most films are just very average, so. If there's something that stands out, yeah, if it is unique, then it is notable in some way inherently. Exactly.

So that does put it above certain things. I would argue most films are bad, but most films that we could see in a theater are probably closer to average than bad. Okay. There's a lot of films that don't even get that far. Yeah, most films that are generally, accessible. Like if you turn on Amazon Prime or Netflix and you scroll through, probably most of

those movies are watchable. Although on Netflix, I'm not too sure anymore. Oh, really? I would say, I would say Amazon Prime has a lot of, I've created a list of things. I mean like the front page of Amazon Prime, like the very front page. Don't go search it through. But they're like looking for new content whereas Netflix has like a shit ton of content. Not to say that everything on Netflix is like great or anything. Netflix is. There's a lot of crap also, but... Yeah, Venom's on there now. Venom.

Hulu is a bunch of crap. Chaka, Chaka 26, says, If you were alive, do you think Stanley Kubrick would be cancelled due to hashtag me too? If he made Lolita today, maybe. Yeah. Or the Shining. People were mad at Quentin Tarantino for the whole,

like, how he treated Uma Thurman and kill Bill. that's right the whole car thing he gets lots of criticism yeah he could be he very well could be yeah I'm sure like everyone from the 60s could probably be cancelled for something yeah Andrew Oll has one all of you are rather infrequent posters what kind of pressure does that add to your uploads

I disagree I upload videos every single fucking day across all my channels you upload probably a bit more frequently than Ralph and I. I upload frequently, but you know, I take breaks. Yeah. I think he I guess he means more your kind of big YMS reviews.

Yeah, the big projects that take more than a day to make so I can't post them every day. Yeah. Yeah, it puts pressure on me because a lot of people just don't even fucking understand the effort that goes into it. But I think

that the people that are a part of my fan base, like on my subreddit mostly, the people donating to my Patreon obviously see the work that goes into it you know you look at all the fucking shit I did with the Kimba review you can I live streamed all of that like you can literally see the work that goes into it like even

even like right now people are like oh you gotta post the Lion King review it's been forever but it's like if you look at the perspective of just like the total amount of minutes that I've released of full YMS content this year has already surpassed the previous like four years. Like it's more than I've released last year and the year before and the year before. And I'm about to fucking double it. But there's always going to be people no matter what I fucking do that are going to just be like, oh, you're not really working. Why are you playing video game on your day off? Like fucking. So yeah, there's like nothing you can do about it. There's always going to be idiots. It literally doesn't even matter like what your content output is. And there's also people that literally just like they see certain channels posting every single day and they don't understand. They don't. They don't.

understand the difference between like the videos the quality the effort the research the editing that goes into a video like that versus a video that takes longer to make and they think like well how come how come they're posting every single fucking day and you're not it's like well uh if you can't tell the difference between these two things then i can understand why you believe that and there's this fearmongering among certain types of youtubeers too where they believe if they don't upload for one or two days then their channel will just be over And, you know, if that were the case, then I mean, you probably don't even want the audience that you have, you know? Yeah, and I think they're just going to jump ship if you don't upload for a couple days.

From what I've noticed, like, the algorithm is pretty forgiving for channels that don't post as frequently. Like, if there's a channel that, that, like, you've watched a lot of videos from and they don't upload for, like, three months, and then they do, like, it's more than likely it'll show up in your subbox or front page or whatever. In my case, anyway. And always, you can just turn on notifications if you really love a channel that much anyway. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'll upload more frequently starting soon. You'll all see.

But yeah, I haven't. I haven't uploaded anything. You get what you deserve. You get what you fucking deserve. How about this one then from Rocket Salesman? This is a question for all three of you. The Academy Awards just announced that starting in 2024, best picture nominees will have to meet two out of four diversification categories to be considered.

The categories are on-screen among the crew at the studio and training slash advancement opportunities for underrepresented groups. For example, to meet the on-screen representation standard, a film must either have at least one lead character or a significant supporting character be from an under-representation racial or ethnic group. At least 30% of secondary roles must be from two under-representation. I'm saying underrepresented so many times groups or the main storyline themes or narrative must be focused on said group. How do you think this would change or affect both representation in the industry and the quality of film?

So I actually looked at the specifics for what those requirements are and like on surface level it's like kind of you know you know people are obviously going to be like oh Oscar's going woke I mean they've been going woke for fucking forever with really doing it. That's their brand. Green book. Yay. So, I don't know. What it appears to be is really requirements that like every single movie is already meeting anyway,

where it's just like, oh, you have to have like, like one stage hand from an underrepresented group or something, like somebody on the crew, basically. The requirements are not really that high. What I wish would have happened, though, with them, you know, releasing this is for them to be a bit more specific. So if I'm thinking things like, okay, the lighthouse, very small cast, I don't know how big their crew was. They've probably, you know, they've probably got some underrepresented minorities in the crew. And, you know, it's possible that they would just be fine with that alone.

but then it's like what if what if you're making an experimental movie where it's just like created by one person that did literally everything it's just some white guy and it's like okay it's literally not possible to get best picture i guess uh which obviously an extreme example but i wish they would be more specific with what they mean by underrepresented ethnic groups so if like if you had a movie made in like poland or something does that not count because they're all white like if everybody that was filming the movie that was filming the movie they were all Polish people or like A Wachlewood movie? Does that mean who killed Captain Harts couldn't win? Oh they could They're all underrepresented I mean I'm assuming what they mean is like You know like if you got if if if your movie has all black people in it I'm sure Like it would it would be acceptable for best picture

I'm not even sure they're gonna go through with a fine tooth comb like are they going to literally Just find out the race of every single person that worked on the movie? Are they going to do? do that for Best Picture nominations? Like, I don't think so. I think this is all just platitudes. I think it's all just a bunch of say without really doing anything. Surely once a production gets above a certain size,

just the statistical likelihood of having a range would be increased. Yeah. Like Adam said, most studio productions already have a diverse cast. Yeah, I don't think it changes much. And this is just kind of like an extra, it's kind of just like a gatekeeping like thing. Like, I don't get really the point of it, but I guess it's fine. I think they're pretending to be progressive without.

really doing anything is what's happening, which is what the Oscars loves to do. Most studio films already go by the Oscars for the first time in a while. Yeah. Right. Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Green Book. We solved racism with Green Book.

Please. All right. One more question. Let's end on this one then from Vince is depressed. What effects do you think recent events, the pandemic and Black Lives Matter? will have on the film industry, for example. I can see more of an attempt to include black filmmakers, as we just kind of said.

And for the pandemic, I can see the trope in horror movies of characters being really dumb in easy situations being ruined. Anti-mask people ruin that trope. I thought that was a funny observation about the horror movies. Because I wasn't really thinking about that. Yeah. Turns out people are that dumb.

Yeah. So how this will affect Hollywood? Yeah, we're going to get a bunch of pandemic. movies. We kind of already are starting to. That fucking movie called host. It was basically unfriended on Zoom. That was set during the pandemic. Filmed and edited during lockdown sort of thing. Had a big plot point or plot element of masks or they had to wear masks to be. Yeah, which is funny. That was like me before. I just kept thinking about masks. Yeah. So John David Washington had a mask on going around. I'm like, oh yeah. It feels like this movie was ahead of its time. It's awesome.

he knew it was a plan demic Nolan's in on it it's like how Kubrick was in on the moon landing or whatever yeah like Warner Brothers just has some tie in with the CIA they get their directors to do he tried to warn us Chris Nolan's gonna like direct some some Mars landing or something

he could totally do that yeah I don't know I mean like obvious like this is this is true for any sort of like greater social advancements or social ideas that have happened throughout history, right? So you might not see it all at once, but, you know, like there's obviously a lot more representation in films than there was 50 years ago. And that's a byproduct of, you know, real life social issues that have existed. So it would be weird to say, that anything happening today wouldn't affect the film industry. Like, art imitates life and life imitates art. Right.

Yeah. Pandemic, specifically, what I'm expecting is there's going to be a lot of fucking bullshit movies that try to capture the whole pandemic thing. Like, there's people in Hollywood right now like thinking, how can we capitalize off of this? Contagent two. The whole 2012 thing.

No, no. That whole thing, you know, the... Fuck that. Yeah. Oh, it's going to be awesome. So many bad. Roland Emmerich will come back. Oh, God.

Yeah. Probably, is he the most successful gay director? Probably is, yeah. Like net worth, maybe? I don't know. But surely one of the biggest effects on the industry, being COVID and just the income that is being lost, I feel like that's going to,

something has to result from that, because what people are saying, or still got another year or so of, you know, at the minimum of worrying about this kind of stuff. So how can it go that long with this theater kind of design, which is completely designed around sardining a bunch of people in a room? Yeah. You know, it just doesn't make sense for our current climate.

Government is really fucking up in every imaginable way. Government's all across the world, especially in the U.S. Sorry, Ralph. But, like, for you to bail. out gigantic corporations for like no reason before citizens even get any kind of help. That was literally the first

thing that happened was just like, okay, we're going to bail out all these billionaire corporations. It's like, bail out the movie industry, right? Bail out the industries that are actually affected by this, right? I wouldn't be opposed to that. So that like by the end of this whole thing, like we still have

the same services in society that we did beforehand. Movie industry and like restaurants and shit. Like they actually need some sort of safety struggling. Yeah. Right? Like these big studios have they have a lot of money. I think they can afford to not release a movie for a year.

But yeah, restaurants really suffer from that. Like they need to have people come in. I was more talking about like theater industry than movie industry for bailouts. Yeah, yeah. I mean even the theater industry like all the food and concessions, that's how the theaters make money and people aren't going to get as much food

or eat in the theater because they have to wear masks. Well, yeah, it's hilarious things. That's how they make their money. But also, you know, you can eat shit. Just take it off. Okay. It doesn't make any sense when you put any logic to it. The movie was so good.

I was just focused on that. I didn't need food. I don't know. It's just a dated idea in this climate. And I hope it changes. I hope, you know, five years from now, theater experience is normal. We'll see.

Yeah, I hope so, Matt. I just don't even know. even want to think about the future. I just want to let it, just want to wash over me. Let it wash over you. Yep. Yeah.

I'm excited to see where things go. Give it until 2022. We might, you know, it's not going to be completely back to normal, but we might be able to go to a theater, like normally. Yeah.

Yeah. God. You want you to one more question? I'm in the mood for this is one more. Okay. Okay. We could do this one from Funky 35791 Who says has there ever been a guest you really wanted

But couldn't get on the cast? I've had one I've emailed Uvee Ball Bowles people Oh cool I emailed them ages ago there and they never got back And I know they're active on it Because they emailed me first

About some video I did about Uvee Ball So I know they're active on it They're using it so they must have ignored the proposal. Come on, Ovei. Should send him an email to his restaurant. I've emailed Yorraine a few times. A few times.

He hasn't got back. He's probably busy, though. It's okay. Probably doesn't know if he's Discord. Yeah, that's another factor is like people on the subreddit are saying, like, you should get Charlie Kaufman on the podcast. I'm like, this is a bit of a commitment. It's like over an hour.

You got to, like, teach someone how to use Discord. It's like, you got to be something like that. Yeah. Not everybody can do the podcast. Yeah, some people just don't want to do it. Yeah. Then I would tell you, like, just fuck off. Any guests?

Fuck you, I ate your show. I never got any of that from people. I usually just get, you know, ignored responses. Someone that I wish could be on the podcast that I couldn't get. No. Like, I don't consider, like, the podcast is fun. I don't, like, if I really respect and admire someone, you know, it's not like, oh, yeah, I would want them on the podcast, but I might want to have a conversation with them. I might want to say hi and interact with them and, you know, share an experience in some way. But the podcast isn't, like, the top priority in terms of, like, connecting with people that I admire, really. Like, it's a nice thing. it's a nice thing that could happen for some people. But yeah. Yeah,

it's a bit of spiced every now and again, yeah. Yeah. Joe Biden. Oh, yeah, I'll email the Joe Biden. What movie would you recommend for Joe Biden? Ooh. Oh. Oh.

Hmm. Oh, God. Not something that requires a lot of memory. Yeah. What would I recommend? What would I recommend to Joe Biden? I'd probably I'd probably

like find one of those like Oh yeah Shortbus That would be an interesting That would be an interesting choice I'd find like One of those like anti-corporate documentaries

Just like the corporation or something And be like yeah What do you have to say about this? You fucking asshole Yeah Yeah Yeah All right

Short bus Done Short bus is good a funny one of Sean. Can you imagine fucking Joe Biden watching his short bus? Brilliant, a bit of imagery.

He would just be confused the entire time. Yeah, yeah, he had a no clue. Turn it off. I doubt, I doubt he would sit through that one.

Yeah, I'd make him watch that, or shame. Like, something like that. Shame. Shame. Antichrist.

Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, something like that. I'd make him sit through that. What, have you emailed him yet, Ralph? I'm going to email him after the show. Awesome. Hey, Joe, want to watch Salo?

Yeah, that's a good pick, too. Yeah, there's endless picks. Yeah, endless picks. All right, I guess that about does it? It's a lot of fun. Thank you. Cool. We've got a recommendation from our boy Ralph.

It's my turn? Okay. I was laughing at a poster last week. I'm not going to recommend that movie. Oh. I'll recommend that another time. Okay, okay. So I'll recommend this movie called Stalker.

Awesome. From Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979. Yeah, so we'll enjoy that. And who's seen it? go through the spiel. I've seen it. Yeah, this has just been a watch list one for me. Okay. It's just never got around to, yeah. I've been, I've been eager to see it for a second time. Yeah. The first time I saw, I didn't really like it. I think I posted about it on Saranacast,

like on the subreddit or something. Oh, have you seen it since your first watch? Yeah, I have grown to like it a little bit more, and I'm going to watch it again now. Like, I really appreciate, like, the technical part of it, which you'll see. Yeah. But yeah, I posted it. Like, it was boring. Which it is. It is kind of boring, but... Oh, I don't.

I mean, it's... I mean... You'll enjoy it. Yeah, we'll talk about it. Okay. Perfect. So if you haven't seen Andre Tarkovsky's stalker...

Yeah, you got three hours to kill. Yeah. Check it out before the next episode. These episodes come out every two weeks. You can listen to them early by going to Sardonicast.com, signing up for premium $2 a month. You get these episodes as they're edited.

also Patreon.com slash Sardonicast. Also, we got merch links in the description. Awesome. Thank you for listening. I hope this has been a... Nice. Yeah. Get those sweatshirts.

It's going to get cold. Depending on where you live. If you're in Australia, it's going to get hot. Oh, yeah? Yeah, true. It's back. It's true. It's backwards like a 69.

It's upside down. Like Australia is 60. Inverted time. Yeah, yeah. we made it we made it boys yeah cool and on to episode 70

yeah I guess 420 is like a cool episode that's the next one I'm looking forward to okay we should get to that episode 420 we'll make it we'll get there

we'll be like 50 years old yeah yeah someone should calculate like how far because you know if it's every two weeks and we just keep doing it then we'll know

you know when episode 420 will be um Then someone can do like an age filter on us. Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye-bye. Thanks. Thanks, everyone.

Bye. Bye. Take care.