Sardonicast - Sardonicast #70: Tenet, The Devil All the Time, Stalker

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

Support the Show for $2 a month and receive all future episodes early at https://sardonicast.com and https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast. Buy Sardonicast T-Shirts, and other merchandise at https://teespring.com/stores/sardonicast. Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/sardonicast Website: https://sardonicast.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sardonicast Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/sardonicast Twitter: https://twitter.com/sardonicast Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sardonicast Ralph's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/ralphthemoviemaker Alex's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/IHEOfficial Adam's channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/YourMovieSucksDOTorg Alex's Twitter: https://twitter.com/IHE_OFFICIAL Ralph's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ralphsepe Adam's Twitter: https://twitter.com/2gay2lift Adam's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/YMS Intro music by: https://www.youtube.com/user/anUnkindnessvideo Fanart: https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/comments/g3if4a/decided_to_do_my_first_fan_art/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/comments/ivorz2/some_fanart_i_guess/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Sardonicast/comments/j0uy3e/fanart_from_me/ Timestamps: 0:01 Durr Plant 1:00 TENET 24:59 The Devil All the Time 40:01 Stalker 1:16:57 What are some real world stories you want to see adapted into films? 1:28:15 What character do you relate the most to? 1:30:56 What’s a movie you refuse to watch, no matter how good people tell you it is, simply because you don’t care about it? - reddit user Poo On Face 1:32:15 What do you think of the “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared” series? Are there any other webseries you enjoy? 1:39:19 How much does the context of a film impact your rating? 1:44:49 What do you think about phrases like “insert director name here is the next Kubrick*”? 1:50:02 Alex’s Recommendation (2010: The Year We Made Contact) and Guest Announcement (Cosmonaut Variety Hour)

Three, two, one. Derplant. Hi, everybody. This is Sardana Cass. I'm Adam from your movie sucks. Um, YouTube.com slash Ralph the Movie Maker. And I'm Alex from I.E. And I'm sorry.

Your Der Plunt. It was in my back pocket. I was, right as we were starting to record, I was like, oh, shit. I got to remember to do an intro today, and I looked in Der Plunt. was written there somewhere and you know you could do like the full uh commitment to it like no isn't you do it do plot there we go oh i like your the way you say plant in well it's not the same meme if i say dur plant it's not that's not the meme it's der plant it's not it's not the same i'm not doing it but yeah i like your version i thank you uh so i guess uh last last episode uh

we had a discussion about Tenet, but I hadn't seen it. And then two days after we recorded the previous episode, I refreshed the page for the drive-in theater that, you know, it was a bit of a drive-away, but it was pretty much the only place that would be accessible for me to watch Tenet, and I saw it. It turns out that they were starting to play it sooner than I was kind of expecting. I mean, you know, if it wasn't going to play Opening Weekend, I'm surprised. they got it within like a month. It's only been like a month, right? Yeah, so that's cool.

I have a friend who saw a drive-in. And he thought the experience was fine. Like, he enjoyed it, just fine. I have no complaints about the drive-in. The FM radio audio was actually really clean and, like, crisp. Like, there wasn't, it didn't feel like radio-static-y or anything. It was, like, really, it was, like, good-quality audio. And also, I had my own volume adjustment, you know, brought my own snacks,

even though you're not allowed to, but who's going to really give a shit. Just had a can of Pringles in my cup holder. And, yeah, it didn't have to worry about COVID shit in my own car. It was very nice. That is nice, yeah. Yeah. The movie sucked, though. It wasn't good.

Yeah, you loved it. I mean, okay, so if we're going to talk about, like, I'm just going to give my rating right now. I'm giving it a reluctant five out of ten. As in there's... Reluctant. Yeah. As in I... If we're talking about my experience watching the film and that alone, it would be lower

than a five out of ten. But if I'm trying to give credit to things as in like, okay, fine, sort of, you know, try to be fair. Then I guess it's a five at a ten movie for me. It was a bunch of bullshit. It was, I could not, I could not stand. It's very Christopher Nolan-y. It is.

It seems like beforehand you're like, oh, God, all this Christopher Nolan stuff is... Yeah. And so I remember you, Ralph, saying that part of what you liked about it was that it didn't really focus on a bunch of other bullshit and it was just more action-oriented. Like, they didn't really care as much about it. Or in focus on, like, the heavy-handed emotional parts that Interstellar did. It was just an action film mostly. Okay. Yeah.

And I prefer that. Yeah, yeah. And this film will work some more anyway. Interstellar, it works sometimes, I mean, but that was one of my biggest complaints with that movie, maybe, or criticisms with it. I would say Interstellar handled the emotions worse, but I still would prefer for there to be some sort of emotions in a film. You know? I think that what Christopher Nolan was kind of trying to do here, and... you might disagree with this, I don't know, but I feel like he was kind of trying to

replicate the experience of inception to some degree. Like, you know, we've got this crazy idea for, you know, how time operates in a movie. And we're going to use that base concept in a way to explore different types of action scenes or different types of scenes in general. And I feel like, especially keeping Inception in mind, I feel like, I feel, I feel, I feel, feel like it just really there there are key elements missing in terms of like why inception worked for me and why tenant did not um one of the reasons being that there was some sort of personal investment of the characters towards the goals in the film like their their actual motivations

whereas in this one it's just like the world's going to end i guess we're doing spoiler talk spoilers spoilers everybody for tenant yeah let's just say spoilers spoilers spoilers spoilers so this one it's just like The world's going to end in general. Whereas in Inception, there's a very personal story going on with Leo DiCaprio and, I guess, spoilers for Inception, how he incepts his wife, Marion Cotiar. And, you know, she kills herself and he has regret because of it and he wants to see his kids. Like, it's much more of like a personal investment for the characters in the film. Whereas, like, what's happening in Tenet is just so fucking vague, especially,

considering there's no frame of reference at all for what's going to happen to the world. So basically it's like, okay, so if he kills himself, there's something hooked up to this device that I guess he created. I don't remember exactly how this, the inversion stuff started, but I guess the villain like was a pioneer of this technology. It came, yeah, it came from the future. Yeah. And he found it in like some radioactive rubble, right?

and something like that. And yet he and every other character, every character in the film is confident that that's how it works even though it's never happened before ever, that the entire world would get inverted and everybody would die. And the way they deliver this information is just so fucking cheesy too. With just like, uh, we'll see it's some disaster of epic proportions. Nuclear Holocaust, worse. Just like, so fucking cheese.

Yeah, there's some stuff like that. Yeah. And that's what added to like the action movie tone for me. Oh, yeah. Like, if you're viewing it. The time stuff is really like vague and I feel like all that stuff is just so. Because if the world did end and like the plan worked, right, then the whole movie just wouldn't have even happened.

Yeah, exactly. And they kind of addressed that. So that's like, that's like the point is that it's supposed to be confusing. It's like, what is time even? Because all of this is happening like at once if you see it. Like the beginning, middle and end of the film are happening like at the same time, right? There's something like that where like each event like loops back to the beginning. of the film.

Did you fully understand everything on the first watch? Or do you feel like you picked it all that? There are parts that are confusing as shit, not because they're intricate, but because they don't make any fucking sense. Like, it's not a movie that if you watch more times, it gets better. It makes less and less sense the more you try and understand it. Like, I don't care if you have some sort of way of reversing someone's dialogue for talking, like, the interrogation scene.

Like, conversations don't exactly work in reverse. Like, I get it. It's fulfilling its own loop in a way, which is kind of cool. But then there are other points in the film where it's just like, it's not consistent with itself. So if you look at a scene like the John David Washington, that's his name, right? He's like fighting himself. Yeah. And so the first time we see it in normal time, not inverted, but the other version of himself is inverted.

And the scene ends with the inverted version of himself getting pulled backwards into an explosion. And then from the perspective of same character inverted later, what winds up happening is he gets exploded into the scene at the beginning. The explosion doesn't make any fucking sense, despite it being a very obvious plot device for these things to happen, not only for him to escape or for him to be there in the first place, because the explosion wasn't inverted. The plane was happening. The plane was a normal plane that wasn't inverted. So the explosion would not propel him forward before the explosion started. That doesn't make any fucking sense. That makes zero sense. It's like the more you try.

The plane crashes into the hangar and it looks ridiculously cool. That's what they're saying. And they're playing the boon, I get that. No, I totally get that. That like, it's so confoluted and confusing that it's impossible to try and like, Like, to think about the movie as it's happening, you're not going to be able to keep up. And I think that's kind of the point in a way, because like the more confusing and fast it is, the less that you're able to process anything that's happening.

But then at that point, it's like, why does it even have rules? Why isn't it like a comedy parody? Because this felt like a parody film of a Nolan movie. It really did. But it takes itself a bit too seriously for me to be like, okay, so that's like self-aware sort of thing. It takes itself a little bit too seriously. and although I fully empathize with the whole like oh yeah it these things are incredibly stupid but it's what we're getting out of it is well worth the stupidity I didn't get that much out of it

so like if we're watching really the yeah I didn't I wasn't like invested in any of the fight scenes or anything really so like if we're watching the the scene where he's like fighting himself like the past version of himself like nothing about how it's filmed feels like cool to me. There's no mystery as to how they shot it. Like obviously there's some shots that are reversed and some shots that aren't. It wasn't like super impressive. It's just like, okay, if you storyboard it, it's fine.

There's parts of it that looks so fucking goofy. Yeah, I think the choreography was really good. Oh, man. And the fact that they did have to reverse the footage too, and it's like completely seamless, like which shots are reversed and which aren't. Or at least it was for me while watching the movie. It's all like camera tricks, like really basic stuff. it just looks really cool

like in the context of this story I didn't find it cars crashing in reverse I found much of it to look so fucking goofy like when he's like crawling backwards towards him on his back that one shot just feels so fucking awkward

well this is why I want to see it again because I mean it's been weeks at this point so trying to even remember details like that is difficult yeah well yeah I was under the impression I'd like it more on a rewatch because I'd kind of anticipate

what was coming a bit more that. It's like, I don't know. It's just, it feels so fucking goofy. I can't get behind it. And, you know, I would care more about the fight scenes going on if I was invested in the characters or the stakes of the characters. I think that it's, that's its biggest flaw. And I want to make that clear because every time I talk about, you know, logical inconsistencies in a film, people, there are people that sometimes think that that's the only thing preventing me from enjoying it when that's not the game. It's the fact that there weren't any real stakes because everything has already happened anyway There weren't any real stakes because we don't have any Any point of reference for what would supposedly happen at the end of the movie Like we don't even get a small version of that in inception like you've got versions of what Would potentially happen So like they show you a tiny bit of like oh this bad thing can happen

Even as they're explaining the exposition and inception you're getting like visual accompaniment when he's with Ellen Page and then the buildings start moving or when he's with Ellen Page explaining shit and like, oh, the impossible staircase paradox or whatever or like the people that realize that you're in their dream and they try to fight you or whatever. Like everything had some sort of attachment for the audience for people to be able to be like, oh, so this is what's at stake. This is what can happen. Whereas in Tenant, we didn't get any of that.

It was like, oh, don't touch yourself because you'll get disintegrated. We don't see any version of that. Oh, the world's going to get inverted and destroy itself somehow. We don't see any version of that. It's all just like mumbo-jumbo that's being made up and bullshit it as the film goes on. And I just couldn't get into it because there's no sense of stakes. There's no sense of character having any personal investment in anything going on. I'm not invested in the characters.

I'm not invested in anything that's happening. See, I agree with the characters. but for me it's the this very much reminds me of when we talked about Mission Impossible fallouts that was called where for me I'm very forgiving of movies like that

when I just feel like their intent is based all around these set pieces and these ridiculous action sequences that I am more forgiving with the goofiness and silliness that comes with the espionage the world's going to end because a nuke's going to go off or because time's going to invert on itself kind of stakes that's what I felt Tenet was going for more

Inception felt more like a real love passion project thing that he'd been conceptualizing for a long time. This felt more like a love letter to James Bond more than anything and like those kind of films from his childhood. So from that stance, I kind of like it. That's what I said in the last time we talked about. I don't think it's one of his strongest movies, but I think with its intent and the kind of action hook of it, that carries it for me. I enjoy a lot of the technical aspects of it too Yeah that too

Like the cinematography and the music and all that I thought all that was really well done And in Nolan's catalog I think it's one of the best in terms of that stuff How it shot and all that I feel like I could be closer Towards your perspectives on this If a third of the movie

Wasn't like exposition walking and talking With cool music That's a lot of there's like eight Walking and Talking exposition scenes right That's another Nolan is enough That's another Nolan It's also an action movie. He always does.

If the implication is that we're not supposed to be worried about any of the, how the universe works or any of the rules or anything. If that's the implication, the film isn't really doing a great job at communicating that with just how many exposition scenes there are of them just explaining shit that they don't even consistently follow through on, right? And what I really, really want both of you to do next time you watch this is watch those walking and talking scenes and imagine as you're watching them that there wasn't music there it becomes so fucking goofy and stupid just imagine for a second that the music isn't there as like a band-aid

to help it and it gets so fucking dumb this is a thing i noticed all of these nolanisms but i don't know why it doesn't bother me more i genuinely think it is because of the setting and the tone and it's because the experience altogether i think with the music and the i'm the i max and all that like it makes it so much more digestible and you're just so much more into it and his world this like weird world he's constructed in this movie i would like to get into the world but yeah i get your perspective too i mean a lot of people share that they they think that nolanisms are annoying at times i think they're annoying i i i can get more into a world that's consistent with itself, you know?

Like, when it shows him getting to the fight scene of himself the second time, when it shows him getting there, and the reverse, from his perspective reversed, but it's actually in real time because he's inverted, the explosion happens. And in his perspective, after the explosion, there's, like, debris from the explosion flying at him and he gets pushed through the door. So, like, if John David Washington's character was not there at that moment, there would be, debris flying backwards from an explosion

before it happened regardless. This would be some sort of insane statistical anomaly right there regardless of whether or not he would have been there. Like him appearing at that scene

had nothing to do with the plane exerting force before the explosion away from itself. Like it's just and it's a plot device too. It's like it's a part of the movie that's just like oh well this is just so he can escape

or get there. They're, you know, both. And so I just, I wish that it was more consistent with itself. It's just, the more you think about it, it just, it doesn't make any sense. I found the entire experience to be just so goofy, so goofy and silly. And my mouth was open just like in awe just by how ridiculous the whole thing was. It felt like, it felt like if it was a better directed Neil Breen film at, at points for sure. Oh, my God.

Yeah. It was like, just there's so much, there's so much nonsense. There's so much nonsense happening in the movie. Why is goofy and silly inherently bad, though? Does that not fit in with the spy genre kind of tropes? If it's trying to be goofy and silly, yes. And I guess we might have different interpretations on just how self-awareness. I don't think this is trying to be goofy, but just because it's like a more serious kind of tone,

because the world is going to end, the stakes are high. I don't think it's inherently like not trying to be fun, you know? Yeah. I think this is a lot of fun. I think it's trying to be a little over the top. A little campy? A bit. I think it's trying to be cool and suave.

I wish I could get that. I think it's trying to be a blockbuster. I think it's trying to be a summer blockbuster. I wish I could watch it and feel like what I was watching was super cool and not really stupid. I wish I could. Yeah, there's a lot. I think this is the risk-reward thing of the way he designs his movies around the kind of overwhelming nature of them. It's either going to really just click with you on that level or it's going to distract you and just pull you out of the whole project.

and you've seen the split with this movie, like people are kind of torn on it. But yeah, I mean, more to liking it for now. I was still, like, Interstellar had moments that I thought were incredibly stupid that took down the movie's experience as a whole.

But overall, like, I can watch it again. There's a lot of great stuff happening in that movie, not only visually, but like character-wise, you know, without spoiling it. Like, the shit that happens at the end is, like, super emotional. And that's what I really want out of a movie

Is to get some sort of like Experience from the character And share that experience by watching the movie But I didn't get that here And John David Washington, though protagonist You know, doesn't even have a name And I guess like I don't It's so weird

Because that seems like it would just belong In a parody film sort of thing But it's not a parody movie And so it's just like It feels like conflicting about How self-aware it's trying to be at any given point in time. And I, yeah, sorry to say I didn't find his acting to be great either.

He was very robotic. Not like that was entirely his fault. I don't think the script really gave him much to work off of in that sense. Robert Pattinson was charismatic. He had the most character, I guess, but nobody was really properly developed or fleshed out or anything. Like everybody's, everybody's just a placeholder. Everybody's just like a blank slate almost in a sense. Bravo Nolan

Yeah I don't know bro Yeah I don't know I'm gonna have to watch it again Like I've That's what I'm kind of boiling it down to At this rate I can't It's been too long The the whole

Every like reveal of like Oh this was happening before Sort of thing It just feels like It feels like kind of like a cheap sort of like Attempt at being clever You know When that's like every single time

That's just what it is It's just like oh yeah well There were things happening beforehand because people went inverted and, you know, it fulfilled itself as a time loop sort of thing. But it's like, that's not really any kind of like clever revelation. It's just, it's basically just referential. It's just referencing itself in a way. Do you not think it makes the structure of the film a bit more interesting the way it does that?

The way certain aspects don't make sense until later on and it's kind of acts as a payoff in that way. I would love this concept as a different movie. There's a lot about what happens in this movie that works so much better on paper than just what I got out of the movie, like what it wound up being, you know, like the, like the having on on on paper like, okay, he's like fighting himself and one of the other version is going in reverse and he's going in forward, right? That sounds really cool on paper. But I think there should have been a point where Nolan, I don't know, I guess a lot of people enjoyed it, but for my experience, there should have been a point where Nolan was like. Like, okay, this is, this is kind of silly in how it's being presented. Like, the entire fight scene, I wasn't really able to be like, oh, wow, what's going to happen next?

Not only because everything's already happened, but because the entire time the fight scene is taking place, all I'm thinking is just like, wait, who's exerting force on who at this moment? Like, it's so difficult to comprehend just as like a basic set of actions that I'm supposed to be watching, that it takes away from my experience from just being able to watch it, that I can't, that it's like so convoluted of just these, what should be really basic things going on. It's really out there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would have preferred, like, a smaller scale story, probably. Like, this type of concept would work better for, like, an indie movie or for something more character-driven. Like, there's so many things you could do with- primer. It's like a very similar idea.

It's very similar to primer, but different at the same time. They even go in crates and like, you know, they invert technology like primer. And, you know, I think both these films work in their own ways. That's like a very personal character study made for like $7,000 and it works. But no one took his approach with it, which is like a little more crazy. Fucking buildings blowing up in reverse. And then it was awesome. if you see it in a theater or whatever.

Yeah, I think that it's different enough from primer in concept to justify its existence even if it didn't decide to, if let's say it didn't decide to be like this huge, you know, boom, boom, pow explosions movie. All of his movies feel like really original. Like you see where they're inspired by other things, but like Inceptions inspired by like The Matrix or whatever, but they always have like a really original voice, I think.

mostly it takes from his own movies yeah that's when it gets in light it felt like a parody of a Nolan film the entire time yeah I can definitely see that people from the future yeah it's just people from the future

that's the answer and everything I don't know how much more I have to say about it honestly it was just I could yeah all right well I guess that makes that for me sitting inside Silence last episode. Yeah.

We're rambling a bunch here. I think we got it. I'm giving this one a five out of ten. Everybody. And Alex, what did you give it? I think I gave it four stars at five. Cool.

I gave it nine out of ten. Cool. So that's like, cool. Yeah. Don't let me prevent you from watching it. No, no, no.

Tens of people really enjoy it. Wherever you want. I'm a miserable, snarky asshole. Just turn the sound up. Yeah. I saw you had like, the vocal boost on?

I took that picture as kind of a meme. Yeah, yeah. I think it was just a joke. Yeah, I watched it with like normal audio settings. And I actually didn't have any difficulty understanding any of the dialogue, except for one scene where it looked like really clearly intentional like you weren't supposed to be able to. Like it was just like sort of transitionary when they're going into the art gallery installation

security place. Like when they're explaining shit there, I don't think we're supposed to be able to hear it. I think it is supposed to be like super loud music, but everything else I was able to hear normally. And I think that's because I didn't listen to it in like a big, big super huge IMAX sound sort of thing. Yeah.

Which is kind of funny, because that's how he's saying people should watch it. But like that's like worse for the sound because you can't supposedly can't hear what's going on. What's more immersive? You watch this other movie? Yes. like the devil all the time.

Yes. I tried watching like a half hour of it. I didn't really get into it, but you guys could talk about it. I'm interested to hear. All right. It's on Netflix. How'd you feel, Alex?

I really liked it. I've seen people aren't kind of digging it that much, according to its like metascore and all that kind of shit. But I thought it was a really interesting premise explored really well, this premise being what's in the title. of the devil all the time like putting this virtuous character into relentless systems

of never ending evil and hatred be it like religion and other power structures it goes through a huge cast of characters that all have kind of disparate stories that wind up linking it starts very narrow goes out wide towards the middle and goes back down to being narrow at the end

and yeah I really enjoyed the performances the dialogue I thought really good. Yeah, I just, I'm not familiar with the director particularly, but it did make me, it did make me want to check out his other stuff. Okay, great. It has some things here and there that I didn't enjoy, but I'm sure we'll get into that. Yeah, spoiler discussion, everybody.

It's on Netflix. You should watch it. There's nothing stopping you. Spoiler discussion for the devil all the time. I guess, yeah, at the beginning of the film, so Ralph only watched the first half hour. Yeah, what made you stop Ralph? Sorry to interrupt. Yeah, I'm interested.

Yeah, I just wasn't really, I wasn't really that invest. in what was going on, but that might have just been me. You know, maybe I'll revisit another time. I understand that because throughout the first, I would say, half of the film, there's a lot going on at once, and it seems like the impression feels like, okay, they're just trying to do too much shit in one movie. But as it gets to the end, things do tie together. It's like, in a satisfying way, it's like, okay, that justifies why we know,

why we were shown so much about this character, that justifies this. So it does get linked by the end in the second half of the film things come together in a way where it's like, okay, I get why you were trying to tell all these different stories. It's because they do interact. It's not just random nonsense going on. Yeah, I enjoyed the performances too. I enjoyed the story, although I could see someone's criticism potentially being like that it's almost it's almost like needlessly bleakly. It's it seems it's like really dark. Yeah, I've seen this criticism And I don't know it's kind of the whole point of the movie if the intent of the movie is to be about exploring the absolute

Darkest parts of humanity and just the worst it can be I don't know what else to expect from that story because that's that's what it is all about Yeah, taking this main character like Tom Holland's character and how he like keeps trying He keeps trying to overcome but he keeps being placed in these situations where the worst has to be forced out of him. I just think that's a fascinating character, especially with the way the bleak way it ends as well. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm also kind of surprised that so many people don't enjoy it because I don't know, like, I'm not in someone else's head, but it's, yeah, it's, like, difficult for me to see what exactly about this film in particular that makes it so that so many, not just even audiences, but, like, critics, too. that are really turned off by this film. It's very strange. I don't know why.

Yeah, it didn't seem. I was expecting something much stranger from this based on the response, but it's, I don't know, it seemed fairly like literary to me, like the structure of it and everything. It didn't do anything too crazy. It was just about dark themes. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and it, you know, it's all tied together of just crazy religious nuts seems to be a big, a big part of it.

And war, of course, has a big throughline through it. It jumps across quite a few years from after World War II all the way up to the 60s, I think. But it goes through all the different wars and conflicts, and they talk about Vietnam and how that's coming on the horizon. And this is kind of ongoing theme of just this hatred and evil and death thanks to war that's just never going to be escaped. and putting Vietnam in the in the future for these characters makes it seem even more bleak because you know what happens in the in the years following yeah i feel like it all i guess until the end maybe it almost feels like as it's presenting itself it almost feels like there's not really a main character in ways because of just how much time is dedicated to characters other than tom holland yeah i i still think he's kind of the main character Oh yeah, by the end of it, it becomes pretty clear.

Yeah, because he is, most of the other characters are evil in some way, and he's one of the few that doesn't have something inherently wrong or evil about him. So I guess that's why I took him more as the main character, because everyone else, there's so much death and violence in the movie, and that was something I liked about it. I thought the violence was really effective whenever it was used. Oh, yeah. I surprised me, or it was very, very powerful in the way they used it.

It starts with a pretty violent scene. There's like one early on, I mean. And, uh, yeah, that was, that keeps the stakes high. You really don't know who's going to make it and who isn't. I really like that aspect. Yeah, that too. You know, there's characters. There's a lot of death from a lot of characters.

Well, there's this great line. Some people were born so they could be buried, which is incredibly morbid, but it's true. It's like a really fucked up observation. Mm-hmm. I guess if we're going to talk about the, uh, technical elements. I thought the music was really great. That's probably one of my favorite parts about the movie is the music.

It was very good. It was really well shot. I thought it had like a really good sense of atmosphere. Oh, I have no idea. It might have been. Which is weird for a Netflix movie like this, I think. Yeah, that's good for them. They should do that more often.

Mm-hmm. Looks good. Yeah, really professionally filmed. Probably the most so out of all of his movies. He seems to be growing as a filmmaker for sure. There's a fairly high profile cast. Oh, yeah. Same no.

Robert Panson, right? Yeah. Yeah. Tom Holland, the It clown. Riley, Keow. I don't know how to pronounce her name, but she's pretty great. I like her a lot.

Keo, maybe. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The one from It Comes at Night and Mad Max and that look. Yeah, and she's in Under the Silver Lake. Yeah, under the Silver Lake. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. it's really well directed and also um child acting nothing wrong with it it was really good the kid was really good i thought that kid was actually very very good in it yeah and i wasn't like i wasn't like

pissed off by his dialogue at any point either which is a rare occurrence there there's actually a line i really i really enjoyed was uh that prayer log don't work too good i thought that was great Yeah, the whole setting was cool. Knockham stiff. Is that the name of the town it's all about? It's a real place apparently. And it's just about the manipulation of all the kind of people of power in the town. You've got the cop character.

You got Robert Pattinson's priest who's like a real nasty one. Yeah, it is about all the evil of the town and how it all just comes to a head. Yeah. I can see why it could. feel convoluted to some people watching it because there is a lot I guess yeah but I felt like especially towards the end it was so justified yeah exactly there are movies where it definitely feels like it's jumping around too much and you can't really keep track of it you might even you might even say it's a movie like that but it does just make sense for the structure of this movie and the intent of it

like I think the intent is quite important when you're talking about movies like you know if it's trying to, if it's going for something like this about as, you know, a single point that gets diverse halfway through and then kind of simplifies back to its original point at the end. Like, I think it's a good structure, if anything. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it had really good sets and costumes. Things felt very authentic. I was never feeling like it didn't really feel like the editing and the pace was good, too.

Yeah, yeah, good editing, good pacing, I feel. Yeah, I didn't really get bored or anything. No, no, I was, I liked the, like, just the twist and turns it took and the gradual reveals of how you start guessing that, okay, how's this going to be relevant later to this part of the story, and then it isn't, and it's never predictable in that way, though, I never thought so, but. Yeah, very bleak, very morbid, kind of depressing movie, but I think it works well. I think it's, and it establishes it quite quickly, too, the kind of oppressive tone at it, but if it, if it, you, it, it's, it's, it's, and it's, it's, it's, it. If it kept, like, pulling the rug from under you and betraying you, then maybe I'd feel different. But I'm okay with movies like this when they, when they'd have a bit of a point. There's a lot of commentary.

It has a lot to say. The acting's really good. Well, do you think of Pattinson's voice, seen a bit of criticism. I heard a lot about his accent, yeah. I, there's things about his performance that I really appreciate. There was, like, maybe one moment where I felt like his accent was a bit inconsistent. But, yeah, I mean, that happens once in the lighthouse, too. doesn't really ruin the movie.

I do like that he not only performed an accent, but he also performed with his voice in a higher register, which kind of like adds to the character being separate from other characters that he's played. You know, he's finding ways to differentiate different roles. He's good at doing that. Yeah. I think he's great.

Even if there was like maybe one moment where I was like, hmm, it sounds a little weird. Yeah, I feel like every time I watch a movie with him, I have to spend the first 10 minutes of scenes with him just getting used to whatever accent he's doing because he does change it so drastically. What didn't you like about it? Yeah, it was just the odd bit with Robert Pattinson. I'm not sure how I feel about the very, very end with the VW and I guess who's supposed to be

Charles Manson or something. Oh. He gets in the car with. I was reading that's supposed to be Charles Manson's like VW. that you gets in at the end as like a final like fuck you type thing oh i didn't even i didn't even catch that that's hilarious yeah so yeah that's not really something i dislike it's just a funny observation i mean yeah really thinking about it i i don't really know what to criticize about the movie because i think it is just achieving what it's going for like fairly well the writing's

good the dialogue's good the acting's good editing's very good it's just a well-made story What did you think about the narration? I was, I thought the film was actually quite, it seemed to be quite inspired by like a Cohen brotheries kind of tone to me. And that narration helped kind of make me think of that. And apparently the narrator is the writer of the novel that it's based on, which is a cool detail, which makes me like it more. And he's never done any narration before. It's the only time he's done it. And it's for his own book.

So I think that adds another layer to it. I really like that, to be honest. Yeah, I didn't mind it. at all. I could see it putting some people off, but I think that what helps justify it is there are moments where we basically hear through the narration of thoughts going on inside characters' minds that we, you know, would be a lot more difficult to communicate without any kind of narration. Not saying it's impossible. Yeah. No, it is, you can tell when narration has kind of been shoved in, you know, when it's like just at the beginning or end of a movie and

it's never even considered in the middle and stuff like that. It can be obvious, but it did suit the story. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, I don't have too much more to say about it. I enjoyed it, and I would like to hear people talk more about what they didn't like about it, because there's a good amount. There's a lot of people that have issues with this movie, and I'm, like, I can understand parts of it from like an experience perspective of just like, okay, yeah, like,

this might be annoying to some people, this might be annoying to some people, but it's weird that it's this movie because I feel like there's a bunch of other movies that I would almost expect that same thing to happen to that it doesn't. Yeah, I'm looking at a couple of the reviews now and most of them seem to be, the complaining ones anyway, seem to be kind of pointing out that it's a bloated mess. Sweaty, somebody described it as. Sweaty. Yeah, quite interesting.

Like that's a criticism. A very critically kind of word to throw out. But sweaty. It seems to be that structure, actually, that seems to bother most people. But that really didn't bother me. Yeah. Because it didn't feel like it bogged the movie down or made it so I couldn't keep track of anything. It was just like getting small snippets of disparate stories that all come together eventually.

Yeah. It's only two hours, 18 minutes. Is that really too long for a film like this? I thought it was like under two hours. I didn't check that in time. Yeah, I did too. I think it was actually, it actually went by really quickly. Yeah, there's a lot going on.

And so, like, I think it's pretty cool just, like, considering it being an adaptation of the book, I've never read the book. But, like, from what I can tell, it seems like they organized the information pretty well. I hope this isn't another case of, like, people who are fans of the actors just seeing it, like, the thumbnail of the poster and expecting, like, a peppy Tom Holland movie. And then they're like, what? This is just making me sad and feel weird. This is not really a Tom Holland movie, if that's a... No, it's not like Spider-Man. It's not really that kind of thing.

Or a Robert Pattinson movie, really. He's like a monster. Well, I'm giving this one a... What did you give it? 7 out of 10. Yeah, I was... I'm about the same, but I'm actually thinking of four stars for this. I don't know.

It just flew by. I really enjoyed it all the way through. I liked the messages. It was communicating. Yeah, I'd like to see it for a short for sure. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to check it out for sure. Sure. Yeah, I'd be curious if you finish it, Ralph, if you feel any different.

Yeah, yeah, I will. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, we can have another catch-up discussion like we just did with Tenet. Exactly. All right. All right, so I guess that's that. We can move on to the film I recommended if you want. Let's do it. You guys watch that. It's called Stalker. It's directed by Andrei Darkovsky. Yes. Nice. Is that good?

That was pretty good. 1979. Andre Tarkovsky. It's a Russian film. It's a very Russian film because it's like, you know, super dry, very long, like, very, like, dark thematically. But I wanted to recommend it because it's like really great, first of all. And it also has a really fucked up backstory. Oh, yeah.

Basically, well, what do you guys know about it? I'll ask you that first. Spoiler to get you. Yeah, spoilers for the film stalker. I was hoping you were going to go into this. Yeah, let's talk about that first. You're asking what we know about the back shirt? Yeah, what do you know?

I know that they, because of the locations they filmed it in, they like all got cancer and died. Because there was like a chemical factory, like, raining poison on them the entire movie. Yeah, and like the crew were basically like crawling around in mud, like, radioactive mud. And you can like see it in the movie. A lot of people who are close to them, they say like Tarkovsky died because of filming stalker and basically making this movie. And yeah, it's like this eerie backstory that kind of when I'm watching the movie, like I feel like I'm always thinking about it. And it adds like this atmosphere to it that it makes the movie like really memorable. Yeah, it is kind of haunting in a way.

I didn't know that the first time I watched it, but I knew it the second time. And it definitely added a different lens. to the experience. Yeah. Not that you have to make like a movie in a hazardous location to make it better.

But like knowing that and watching it, it's like, yeah, it's very creepy. Very haunting. And what the movie's about to it does add like another layer.

Mm-hmm. Well, this like zone. It's like this alien kind of, it's this alien place where there's no rules really and like it starts raining like for no reason.

Similar setup to annihilation actually. Right. That's what I was thinking of too. very similar to that. So it's a science fiction movie, but it's not really like science fiction-y. And I guess it's like Salaris too in that way, which is like another film he made in the science fiction genre. And it's just about characters and it's very grounded. And it's just a lot of, you know, discussion and personal stuff.

You know, and they're trying to get to the zone, which I guess is like the, how did they describe it in the movie? I think, well, I think they were like in the zone, but they wanted to get to the room in the zone, I think. Yeah, like the very center of it, kind of like an annihilation, like the lighthouse. So like the zone, yeah, journey to the center of the zone is like a character. And the, the stalker is a person that can traverse it because the, what was the guy's name, porcupine or something that taught him? Yeah, it's something like that. So he had a mentor telling him, teaching him how to traverse the zone. And so the main character, the stalker, basically does, like, tour guides, if you want to call him that, where he helps other people get to the zone and traverse it.

And throughout the experience, he says things like, okay, well, you have to, you have to treat the zone with respect. You can't come in here. You can't come into the room bringing a weapon. It'll kill you sort of thing. Like, like the location itself is a character that's alive in the film. It's like a living thing. Yeah. And so, you know, apparently, you cannot leave the same.

same way you showed up. Apparently, it changes every time human beings aren't there. So even if you've gotten to the room, you would have to find a different way there than the previous time you were there. And yeah, a lot of it is just very imaginative. Yeah. And if you get to the center, it'll fulfill your ultimate desire or something to that extent. They say something like that. Oh, yeah. I love the philosophy there too. Yeah. And that's the point of the story. Because you have the stalker and then you have a writer. and a professor, and they each kind of have their own philosophy as to how they should tackle it, right? The stalker is willing to leave his family because he wants, he wants, like, this ultimate desire so bad.

It's like the only satisfaction he gets out of his miserable life, and then the professor wants to destroy it. The stalker, the stalker doesn't want to enter the room because he says it's forbidden, but he wants to keep hope alive for other people that this thing exists so that people don't completely just, lose all hope and reality in the universe to like like the idea of it being there is his own justification and his his own reward in itself that's true yeah i really liked that right and left side brain thing where you have the artist who he's like a self-hating writer who has kind of selfish goals for why he wants to go to this place and the the scientist's whole arc of revealing that he actually kind of wants to destroy it in this virtuous way so dangerous so no one can yeah, because it's too much of a danger.

They perceive it as a danger. And that whole dichotomy is very interesting or the philosophy, as you're saying, Adam, behind the thought process of it. And just the dialogue, I wrote so much of it down because it's so... A film hasn't struck me in this way since I saw The Holy Mountain, where my head's just like spinning and buzzing and I just fell completely head over heels for it. Because we haven't even mentioned the look of the movie. it's actually ridiculous to me.

It's stunning. It only has 142 shots, which is insane on its own. An average film has around 1,250, and action movies have like 3,000. So the fact it only has that few shots is actually huge, because it really makes the film immersive. You really feel like you're there with the characters

and the way the camera will move around and we'll just sit and just let you sink in the atmosphere in the scene. But the way it like adapts within the scene as well and you just don't know where it's going to go within the scene. I just found that really, really like visually stimulating. And the image just had so much depth and there's just so much to ogle at. Yeah. They were really well choreographed too.

And when you hear about the backstory, how much of a nightmare it was, they had to reshoot the film three times. And they had like, there was just so much. There was so many issues. But when you see the film, it's like perfect how it's all executed. And there's these long shots that go on for a really long time. One of my favorite ones is like, I guess the poster of the criterion is like a guy's hand. It's like that or it's like it's kind of panning through a river and you see like all of the

stuff like in the river like a spy glass and it's just, yeah, lots of really stunning visuals that are very memorable. And it adds to the atmosphere, you know, it's not really about like a spy glass and it's just, you a plot or getting there. It's about the journey and just like enjoying the vibe of the film. Like it's very immersive. Yeah, very atmospheric. I love the,

I love the shot where it like pulls back when the scientist is like dismantling the bomb and then it starts like raining for a bit, just like in front of them. Yeah. That was like really cool and really well coordinated. And the way they wait for the water to settle and start throwing pebbles in us. Yeah, I really liked that. There's lots of cool little effects in there. I just like the way they used the sets and the scenes and the backgrounds of it.

There was so much interaction with the environment, like lights going off and flickering and people reacting to things falling behind them. There's so much like depth to just the variety of the images and everything was choreographed so immensely. And the way it comes together is just like, it's ridiculous in front of your eyes. And the movie actually isn't even in color until they get to the zone. Like the first part of it when they're in the city is just kind of sepia tone and all that stuff was pretty great too how they shot it There's like this whole segment they're like driving out of the out of the city It reminded me kind of like a children of men

Yeah set case like it was really exciting like and they're getting chased and like you hear the engine revving Yeah, there's like a part where they're getting shot at like and you see like I guess it was pebbles They just threw into a pond it was supposed to look like machine gun fire That was like a little cheesy but that was it that was like the only thing that took me out of it Yeah, the action in the film, despite still being so patiently shot and executed, it works really well. Like there's a level of tension to it. And it kind of reminded me on this watch. I was thinking of the opening scene in Drive, where it's like a, you know, it's a chase action scene, but it's slow and methodical at the same time.

It's very, very fun and engaging experience with that. And the music's great too. The sound design's all great except for like one moment with the tire screeching that sounded a little fake. But other than that, like the sound design in terms of how it's added into the movie and what purpose it serves, like there's constant ambient noises going on in the film. You know, whether it's like rain or you can kind of like hear birds or something or, you know, like these weird kind of. of synth sounds or something. It just, it added so much to the, to the overall atmosphere and experience of the movie. And especially, you know, if something gets to the point where it's silent and all of a

sudden you can't hear those background noises, it has a very different feel to it emotionally. There's so much about the movie, technically, I thought it was just masterful, yeah. What I really love about Tarkovsky, and I've only ever seen this and Solaris, I'm excited to see more, but from the two that I have seen, I love that. For those two films, he's basically created gigantic ideas that work well for small scale presentation in a sense that it's so well written and executed in a way of like, okay, what are the limitations of film, especially for the budget? And so there's a lot going on where it's in your imagination as the viewer.

Because in essence, I mean, this film, if you really break it down, is just three people larping, just pretending, you know, let's throw in these things like, I can't go this way, I can't go this way, but because of how it's presented, because of the performances,

especially too, you're able to believe that there is some sort of consequence, there is some sort of thing that could potentially happen and it's left so vague, like, oh yeah, if you get a bad feeling,

turn around, but still, because of its presentation, it's like, oh, shit, like you shouldn't go that way. And you start to believe it and play along with it in your own mind. I love how he's able to do that. Yeah, the setup's very simple and the mystery side of it,

but it's the depth that comes out through the characters, that, you know, adds that layer for you to kind of think about. They're each very distinct. There's a line that really jumped out to me from the writer. Because a thing I've seen said about this movie is that it kind of acts as a mirror in ways, because as you said, there isn't like a head. heavy plot or anything like that. There's a lot of kind of philosophical dialogue. So no doubt you'll connect with one of these three characters more than others. But for me, it was that writer

character saying, they've changed me to fit their own image when he's talking about how he's, like, doubting his own work as a writer and how he thinks he's kind of lost his integrity and stuff like that. And I think as, you know, people who make things, it's just an inherently relatable idea. If you're making something for people, how much do you forfeit your own identity in order to kind of win them over. Yeah. There's tons of concepts like that. They just got me thinking about aspects of my own life and greater aspects of, I just thought it represented the kind of misery behind the country and just the history of Russia even. Like, even though it is a science fiction else world story, I think it captured that part of it really well with the things they were

talking about. Yeah, that's why I say it's very Russian. Like the stalker from the stalker himself, I think his goal is like to get to the center, obviously, of the zone. But he really like that ultimate desire idea. He wants to run away from his life to like just fulfill this ultimate desire. And why don't we live in the zone? Yeah, run away from his family and everything that loves him to, you know, do that. And it's very selfish. But it's also a desire that, you know, a lot of people have and it happens to people every day.

It's selfish. This idea of are you sure you really want what you think you want? That was what really got me thinking. Because he's saying about this story of the porcupine and how the brother, he took his brother along and his brother wound up dying because deep down he wanted wealth over his brother. So his brother died and he ended up committing suicide

because he got what he wanted deep down but it was a horrible thing to get in the end. Yeah. So like revealed about his own character parts that he didn't like because the room knows more about the person entering than the person does themselves. And so even if they come to the room with any sort of virtuous idea or philosophy that they want implemented like, yeah, peace on earth, world hunger, blah, blah, blah, the room exposes the

person that enters it basically as just a selfish human being looking at for their own personal interests. So they get what they want, but they also get a dose of hard-hitting truth. that comes along with it. It's almost like a monkey's paw scenario. Yeah, it's very deep. Yeah, the philosophy really helps the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's so ingrained in history and just the thought and attitudes and nihilism and so much like so many ideas from the time, just this idea of human consciousness. And there is so much to think about. Things that you would never even expect at times, they just throw out there. Like one thing I attach myself to, was when I can't remember which characters started talking about it,

but they were talking about how hardness and strength represent death and that softness represents life. I thought that was an interesting observation. And this idea of like how this, this like brutality and war and hatred that everything's been built up to at that point, like it just means nothing. Yeah. And it ties into literally how they're traversing the zone too.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I enjoyed when they were talking about like the philosophy behind music and how, you know, in essence, it doesn't really exist in ways outside of our own interpretation. And just like, okay, well, what about these frequencies and chords produces an emotional response in people? Like, what about them makes that happen sort of thing? You know, there's lots of really interesting bits of philosophical conversation that really helps the movie along for entertainment purposes.

Because it gives you, it's a movie that you have something to chew on throughout the film. And although it is long, and if somebody watching it doesn't connect to A, the philosophy and B, the presentation, then they might, you know, they might be wanting more of a narrative, like, okay, this happens conflict and goal sort of thing to happen throughout the entire movie that's not really what it's about and if you're watching it for you know the visuals the sound design the performances and the philosophy

then you know there's always something to chew on yeah and even those three characters do go through an arc or at least two of them where they decide to actually not go into the room at the end they actually go against and that gives the trip's extra meaning by rejecting the idea of the ideal

yeah It's based on a It's based on a book This thing Which apparently it's very It's like not Not that similar No I was gonna ask

I didn't think it was that similar It's called Roadside Pecknik That's the name of the book Yeah yeah Yeah It's a Russian novel also So I'm guessing a lot of Tarkovsky put a lot of himself

Into this film and his philosophy It feels more personal To be you know Yeah It doesn't feel like I guess there's a moral question of that Because, like, how much do you want to listen to someone's philosophy when they, like, killed their entire film crew, basically? Like, making this film?

Was he aware? He kind of seems, like, arrogant. How... How... Maybe. I mean, he put himself at risk, too. I don't know how aware any of them were that it was, like, stupid and dangerous. Like, who fucking knows, really.

It's just really unfortunate, I guess. Yeah, it is. But still, it didn't seem like a very pleasant shoot. Yeah. Yeah. Thankfully, now we have more standards. Yeah. Yeah.

I love the set design with those like mounds of dust. Like the rock. Oh yeah. That set is so cool. And like the bird got through. And then like the super experimental bit of editing where like the bird came in and it cut. That was like a hard cut.

But it worked for the film. It did really work. It was very like, it only did it once, I think. Yeah. Very eerie. Yeah. It's crazy just how big the ideas are in this. film without really showing that much in a way.

It doesn't... It's really well presented. Yeah. Like, the sets are... It's so confident. I love the tunnel, like, with the water in it when they're running through it. Oh, yeah, and how the camera, like, moves through the, like, drips of water. Yeah, and the sound, too, with the water dripping and their footsteps, yeah.

It embraces, like, the art entirely. All your senses are satisfied. Yeah. This film is a shining example of just... why Tarkovsky is considered to be so great of a legendary filmmaker who remembered throughout history. It's just so meticulous and so purposeful. And yeah, like you said, confident. Like, that's a big part of it.

I like how, like, even before we get to the zone, like, even just right at the beginning of the movie with the yellow color palette, the conversation with him and his wife, like, immediately there's stellar performances. Like, she gives a fucking awesome performance, especially for a character that's not really seen that much in the film. Like, she does a really great job. Like, everybody does a really great job. Mm-hmm. It really helps all the film.

Inoratu, the director of Revenant. He takes a lot of influence from Tarkovsky, I think. And, like, one of the most, like, shining examples is, like, the shot of them in the bed at the beginning, where it's, like, panging over. Like, it shows the wife and then monkey and then him. and there's a similar shot in like the Revenant. But yeah, you see like how we influenced all these filmmakers like Alfonso Caron and Inolatu and like, yeah, it's really, it's really well done. In Yari too.

Inari too, that's how? Okay. In Yari too. I forget which emphasis, which syllable has the emphasis, but it's in Yadiritu. He's got a long name. Oh, yeah, if you want to say the full thing. Aadhavenzales, In Yari, too. There we go.

He knows his stuff, though. if you've seen this. It's not a bad thing to take influence from stalker. I mean, it's pretty great. I was surprised by the emotional response I had from a certain section of the movie, that being when the stalk himself kind of breaks down. He's like just talking about how he wants to destroy your hope, you know, and all this kind of stuff.

I just wasn't expecting that in that moment. I wasn't ready for it and seeing the emotion behind that performance. He was really selling it for me. And it really did add to that, just the thought piece of it all. Mm-hmm. Really sells it. He was great. I mean, all the acting was super good.

Mm-hmm. Even the monkey, whatever. There's a whole bit with her at the end or him. I don't know. Yeah, I think it's a daughter. Yeah. Crippled daughter. She starts levitating like these glasses at the end.

Telekinesis. Yeah, what was that whole bit? Yeah, I was really confused at its place in the movie the first time I watched. it. And the second time watching it, I was keeping that kind of thing in mind. And it's actually really neat just how the ending ties into the beginning in ways, because the first conversation that's there when the stalker is meeting, I forget which one of them, he's there like with his girlfriend or whatever, there's like a car. And then as the stalker is walking up to them, the two are having a conversation and the dialogue, I'm paraphrasing it. But they're essentially

the character is saying, oh, there's no such thing as like ghosts or psychics or listing off all of these like paranormal sort of fantasy things that exist. And he's basically like complaining or lamenting about them not existing in the world. And that kind of ties into the stalkers goals of keeping the zone alive so that people had some sort of hope so that there is a sense of like wonder and mysticism in the world, even if, you know, it's an inherently dangerous place, but there's some sort of hope as in like, oh, if you traverse through this, you get everything you desire sort of thing. And so I think in the end, it's kind of tying into that concept, even though it was, you know, first time you watch it, it almost seems like a throwaway line when they're complaining about supernatural things not existing. I think at the end it's kind of trying to tie into that idea of hope by using these impossible supernatural science fiction sort of ideas as just being like, oh, there is more to the universe. then we see that there is.

And that's just kind of its own way of communicating hope in a way. Also, at the beginning, when the train is going by, the glasses are moving on the table there, too. And so the glasses moving on the table at the beginning, I'm not sure. I'm not confident about whether it's implying that perhaps those were also maybe moved a bit by telekinesis, because I thought it seemed pretty clear that it was the train rumbling the house that was making that happen. but either way, regardless of what it's trying to imply is moving the glasses, that's really cool how it also ties into the end. And then right after monkey does the telekinesis,

then we hear the train rumbling again right before it cuts to the end. Yeah, sure. That sounds, yeah. Did you see the string? Oh, no, I didn't see the string. Oh, man. Yeah, it doesn't take me out of it. It's just funny.

Yeah, I'd like to watch it again and look out for that because I was like, man, how do they do that? Because it zooms out and you can see under the table. I'm like, do they have a stick with the magnets? Yeah, well, the first two were magnets, I believe. The first two. And then the last cup that falls off the table, I think, is a string. That's what it did it.

I probably just missed it. Either way, really cool. Yeah, watched it twice and I didn't catch that. You ruined it. Never watch it again. Yeah, it's like the most amazing effect ever. We watch like Avengers now as like $300 million, like thousands of CGI effects at this point, like a cup falling off a tag.

I mean, even like paranormal activity, you just fucking digitally remove the string. Oh, yeah. At this point, they just digitally remove it. They didn't have that back then. Yeah, so considering that especially, like, that's pretty insane. Yeah. That that was done so well. Most of it's pretty seamless.

Yeah. Love the color. Love the framing, the cinematography, the pacing, the pacing. Everything about it is. Yeah, every choice that's made. It's a very, very beautiful, very patient, but purposeful film. Mm-hmm. It is quite long, which is,

why I understand why, you know, people may not watch it, like, entirely. There are, there are segments that are drawn out, like, when they're on the train to the zone. I liked that a lot now. I could understand. I did, too, but I can understand why someone would, like... The length's never bothered me, and I can be quite critical when it goes over two hours, that's when it's got to be, like, earned for me. But I just think with the, just the way it's structured with those incredibly long shots,

For some reason, that just made the whole thing come together for me. It just shots like a new story in and of itself, like, just contained. And the world was so immersive in the movie. I was so immersed in it. The goals were clear, the things they were talking about were interesting. There's even, like, action, as you said, with that when they were breaking in. Like, that whole first sequence, you said, children of men, it made me think of, like, that video game inside a little bit where you're, like, breaking in a facility and it's all very oppressive.

of it kind of imagery. A lot of, yeah, it's clearly, you know, it has its fame for a reason. Yeah. It's an interesting universe, even if we ignore the, you know, the zone part of it. Like even what they set up at the beginning is really interesting with them just being shot at, just trying to leave the town on the rail cart. Yeah. What's everything happening here?

You see like the nuclear silos in the background from outside the bar to. found that pretty interesting. Like there's a lot going on that it doesn't really fully explain, but you get enough of it that it's like, oh, I have something to think about at this moment. I mean, just Russia's just such an interesting place with such an interesting history.

I was getting a lot out of that on its own, you know, as I really said. But let alone, like, I was getting quite a lot out of the, it seemed to be quite sort of anti-violence, anti-war type stuff in there, subtly with like the imagery of pushing the gun deeper away into the water to get rid of that kind of conflict. Yeah.

There's a shot when the bombs dismantled, they have the fish kind of swimming over what was left of it and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Nature taking it over. There's lots of things like that, and with the bomb being like the same type of bomb as the Nagasaki bomb and stuff like that. It's just lots of little details. Mm-hmm. How much, Ralph, how much do you know about the whole, like, location killing the

director thing. Like, how much did you look at to it? Well, as much as the criteria basically told me. Okay. So you watched like the special features or the... No, I didn't get to watch the special features. I read the pamphlet and I looked into like articles, this stuff. Yeah, I read on the wiki. It was like a chemical plant

or something. Yeah, there was a chemical plant upstream. And you know, all of that crap just went downstream to where they were filming. And they were crawling around in it. What I'm curious about is like just how much of the location were just used opportunistically. Like, did they bring in old tanks to put into the scene?

Like, what, or were those there for some other reason that? Yeah. Like, are they... It was re-shot so many times. I'm not sure which cut. Yeah, I'd like to know, though. Because some of the original footage from the very original cut is in the movie. I think it's toward, they show it toward the end.

It's like the footage toward the end of the film. But then, like, most of the film is like, you know, after the third reshoot. So it must be pretty meticulous at that point. They must have had the locations. I'm not really sure. It's a big mystery. Yeah. Very. The mysteriousness adds to the film, really. Everyone involved said, like, it did some serious damage to his health. Yeah. Those few months, he was working on this. It was only a few months. Yeah. What did you think about the phone? The phone? The phone scene? They get a phone call.

Yeah, I wasn't sure how abstract was supposed to be interpreting it at that point. Yeah, exactly. It's a very bizarre kind of like dream logicy thing to happen at that moment. But it does add to the mysteriousness of what you're watching. Yeah, it's so obscure. Like the goal is so obscure of like what they're actually going to do. There's nothing physical about. how you're supposed to physically

display them going to a room and then receiving the thing they want. It's also kind of hypothetical already that the way they explore it in these abstract ways does make a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah, they shot the film in Estonia. Estonia.

Estonia. Estonia. And then there's a little town called, it's near the city of Isfara, a deserted region of the Soviet Central Asia. Oh, shit. So yeah, it was like a wasteland. Yeah.

Yeah, it reminds me of like Apocalypse Now, like that kind of backstory. Yeah. It was just like a nightmare to film or Fitzcaraldo, Werner Hartsog. Yeah. Where he was like, he had to build a boat and they had to like lug it uphill. Did you see that? No. It's like a documentary.

I've seen the documentary about that. That was like ridiculous. I don't think there's anything quite like that like with stalker. Like I don't think there's that much behind the scene stuff. I hope there is. I mean, I hope I'm wrong. but I don't think there is. It's mainly just, you know, people talking from being on set and like his family,

how it like destroyed his health. That's like what they talk about. How soon after the film did he die? Let's see. It was shot in 1977. Okay. And he died in 86. Oh, wow.

And this was his last film. Did he make anything else before he died? Oh, we're 77. Let's see. I think it's... Oh, he has two films after this. The sacrifice was his last one. Oh, okay, never mind, yeah.

I'm kind of amazed at ever got finished, to be honest, hearing about the amount of times they're like to reshoot it and reading about how he just gave up on it. The fact that it came together and how it came together too, how good it actually is. Yeah. It's amazing. Like, they were going to start filming and then there was an earthquake, so they had to delay it. So they actually started filming in, in like the summer, and then they lost all that footage or it wasn't good. So they reshot it in the autumn. Like, it was just a disaster.

Yeah, and then they shot it again the following year Yeah, he's only got seven movies total All they're pretty sure It's another example of one of these movies That wasn't really received that well when it came Yeah, it was mixed It became like a cult film As almost every

Like a film that has stood the test of time, it seems Nobody is quite sure about it When it first comes out Because it's like, oh, this is different This is weird and different. It's aged really well. Oh, of course. It holds up beautifully.

I felt it was quite timeless in that regard. I thought it looked so, so pristine. That's what I mean about the science fiction part of it too? Like, think it's a 60s, 70 sci-fi. It's all goofy fucking robots. Like, so silly. And like, there's nothing in this movie like this. It's very personal.

It's a science fiction movie, but it's very, it's smart. Because it's in your imagination. Yeah. Right. And that's more interesting. It's about the concepts and ideas. Yeah, exploring them in a kind of smart way. That's what makes it timeless.

It's like if you never showed the Babadook, it would be a better movie, right? Yeah. If you just had the storybook at the beginning and didn't show the hipster in a top hat, that's when it starts to get goofy. But if you leave things up to your imagination and, you know, that the whole goal of the film is to be thinking about it, like, that's a part of the experience of the film. I think, you know, it's just that's what I was saying at the beginning.

It's just like it's, he understands the limitations, that he has for filmmaking, and he uses those towards his advantage to tell unique stories and have these things going on in your mind and have you, the viewer, create a better experience out of it

than could possibly be created by it just being shown to you sort of thing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But still the things that are being shown are just so impressive on, like, a technical level, that that also just carries you through.

It's got so much to it. Yeah. And also the world building, too. Yeah. Of it. There's not a lot of films at that time that would develop a world like this that I felt was, you know, very lived in. Also kept vague, like you said. You know, great. Great fucking movie. Yes. It's great. I'm so glad you chose it, because I mean you to watch this for bloody years, but it's just one of those where you see where it when it came out and its length especially.

Was this your first Tarkovsky? Yeah, it was. Yeah. Yeah. At first I didn't like it either. Or I had to get into it, I guess. How many years ago did you first watch it? It took me a lot to get into it. I watched it third year college, like a couple years ago.

I don't know. Yeah, I was like, it was boring. They're just talking. Boring. But then, you know, you get into it. You get into the atmosphere in the world. And it's really, you know, something special. It's very stimulating.

Yeah, definitely being. a mood for it. There's also nothing, like, violent in it, really? Like, it's a good movie to watch with the family, although it's very experimental. Yeah. You could just watch it with anybody. There's nothing that graphic or... There's some gunfire.

Yeah. Yeah, gunned, it's a little scary, I guess, yeah. Some pebbles being thrown in the water. Yeah, that was another thing I appreciate about it. How it achieved that kind of creepy sci-fi tone without having to show stupid aliens and stupid... death scenes and it is all in your head. That's very much how Solaris is, although I prefer this to Salaris. I've only seen Solaris once.

But yeah, same idea of just like creating something so much bigger out of just being careful about how you communicate it, essentially. Yeah. What's considered his strongest, is it stalker? I think people have their own interpretations. I've heard different things. A lot of people consider Andre Rublev to be one of his best. But I don't know.

It seems like all of his films, like, there's enough differences about them that it doesn't seem to be, like, fully decided which one's supposed to be as best between people. Yeah. Yeah. I think people like the science fiction elements of, like, Solaris and Stalker. I think those are the most famous ones. It's like an art house director kind of bringing, like, something more to a genre. Like, that's very interesting. Yeah, exactly.

People like that. Good sci-fi is rare now. still. Yeah. Yeah. Good any genre is rare, in my opinion. Good anything. The character seemed very frail too, like very weak when they were getting pushed and like fall over.

They were always dirty and skinny kind of. The main character had like a, looked like a scar like on his head. He had like different color hair in a patch of his head. He had like a weird splotch on his head. He had like a weird splotch on his eyeball Everybody looks a little beat in with that whole anti-war The anti-violence kind of approach of the movie too They can't really fight each other

They're just they're too weak They're too tired Yeah when they do try When the bomb thing happens they're just like falling over Into each other Right they fall over like immediately Yeah They're like crying like oh

What are you doing? It's so great Yeah that's what I mean they're just so weak and frail Yeah, this is awesome. So what would you guys rate it if you want to get to ratings? Unless you have something else to say. I don't want to cut you off. It's still washing over me, but my initial impression is that it's pretty masterful.

In every way, it's like an easy five-star for me. You know what, I'll go five-star. Yeah. I might as well. I'm about to piss everybody off. I haven't made it as four and a half. There's a nine out of ten. We'll see if it gets to a ten on my third watch.

I let it though. I had a read as a four and a half because of the cup and because of the pebble and the screech sound effect like the tire screech those three things brought it down to a nine but you know if you want to throw that

away okay let's do some questions from the sardine community then if you want to leave your own questions head over to the sardonicast subreddit where there is a suggestion thread you can ask whatever you feel like

M or Mr. BRV1 KBA is going to start us off with what are some real world stories you guys want to see adapted to film? Oh boy, man, there's like this fucking I've, there was one tragedy that just I don't know why, but it like it, it, it fucking destroyed me and I hate thinking about it. I don't know if it would be disrespectful to make this into a film, but I mean, I don't know, if you communicate the right emotions, it could work. It was the South Korean ferry disaster in,

I think, like, 2014 or something. I don't know if either of you are familiar with it, but it was... Yeah, I've not heard of this. Oh, man. Basically,

there was like a ferry, and because of lack of regulation or oversight, basically just like, there was this whole, domino effect of people not doing the proper checks and balances and loading with too much cargo

and that particular boat wasn't supposed to be operational like it was all already supposed to go in for repair or something but the ferry was loaded with basically like an entire school of like junior high students so like 13 year olds or whatever going for like a field trip

somewhere and the ferry started experiencing like it started sinking and it was sinking very slowly and just to add fuel to the fucking fire the captain of the ship disguised himself as like a civilian and like abandoned and then everybody on the intercoms like so like the

people that were still there that were staff were like on the intercom saying like just remain in your rooms everybody had these like little cabins like with like bunk beds or whatever like I don't know how long the ferry trip was maybe like six-hour ferry. I don't know how long it was, but it was a ferry that had like individual rooms that people stayed in. And over the intercom, they were literally just saying, everybody stay where you are and wait until help arrives sort of thing. And so all these like kids were who trusted

the adults in the situation telling them over the intercom, you know, they trusted them to be like, okay, I guess we're just going to stay in here. And then like there's these cell phone videos, these kids like waters coming in through the door and they're, you know, kind of joking. kind of laughing like, oh, this is weird, this is kind of scary. And yeah, fucking so many of them died. Basically, the entire thing capsized. They drowned. They found like scratch marks on the inside of the doors.

And because I guess this other just like random fucking coincidence, there was a huge storm happening at the same time, no boats or divers were able to like get in underneath the ship. It was too dangerous for them to try and rescue anybody. and so it was like three days pass and they all fucking died. And it was just like, holy, yeah. And the principal of the school who organized the field trip hung himself like two days later because he felt like response. It's like this horrible, like I don't like thinking about it at all.

So yeah, if you get somebody like Denisville Nouve to make something respectful about it, then great. Don't get fucking Paul Greengrass to do it. The born guy. Yeah. But yeah, that's exactly what I was thinking about. It's the morality of it because it was Paul Greengrass's movie about that Norway mass shooting. It really got me thinking about this. Oh, really?

Where. I hate it. Yeah, where is the line, where do you draw the line and this kind of stuff, like where it's disrespectful and where it isn't? Yeah. I guess it is just a case-by-case thing because how do you, that event you just described, that horrendous event that happened. in South Korea. It's fucking terrifying. It would be really difficult.

Is it just a time thing? Because that's what part of it is to me. Some people just want time to go by. It's like the very sensitive. The United 93 got some criticism, you know, when it came out because it was about September 11th. I think that film's pretty tasteful though. How it presents that.

Yeah, I don't remember it bothering me in that event anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like there's there's like countless disasters that you could make films out of. Even if you're not specifying exactly what disaster is and you're like inspired by it I guess I don't know if it is really a time thing I think it's just a matter of how respectful it I would say wait a few years either way but um yeah just how

respectfully it's being presented when I watched the um that Paul greengrass uh August whatever it was called July 17th I forget the title yeah I can't remember what's cool that movie was a little offensive to me because of just how cheesy it was and also like the most interesting parts about the whole event were just glossed over. Like to me, when I think about that event as like a news story, I'm not only just thinking of like, oh, yeah, these kids are getting mowed down on an island. They can't escape. I'm thinking about like the moral questions about their prison system and how there is no life sentence in,

it was Norway, right? Yeah. And they were like, there is no death sentence either, basically. And so, like, that whole aspect after the fact is, like, so important to the conversation. And Paul Greengrass just pretended like that wasn't even a thing. The characters were literally like, don't worry, he's going to jail forever now. Like, what? That's not, you left out the most important part of the conversation.

Like, that's why it's like a moral issue. Right. Yeah. Anyway. And I remember there actually being another film that I think was actually made in Norway about the event that I remember someone messaging me. Yeah, I think there was a better version. Yeah, but I haven't seen it. So I can't comment.

Yeah, that's a more recent movie. I haven't seen that one from him. Yeah, there was a Norwegian one made like a year or so before Paul Greengrass's version. Yeah, I have heard it's better. But yeah, I can't comment. Yeah. But as far as real world stories, I want to see adapted. I think it's time for the social network too or part two.

Yeah, all the same cast. There must be enough going on now. And all this stuff with Facebook, like, such a dramatic tale is definitely more to be explored. A lot with all these tech companies and like, what is the story behind Google and Amazon and all this shit? There's got to be something to tell. Yeah.

Then it's just a matter of how do you get all the accurate information and present it in a faithful way. Because even like the social network, as much as I love David Fincher, I mean, it was a little, it was pretty charitable towards Zuckerberg as like a story. It didn't really paint him as a villain, although you could interpret it that way.

It's definitely a movie. It's definitely like a narrative over like a documentary, you know. Right. Well, to keep it light, maybe we could make a disaster artist type movie about like Burtemic. Or any number of bad films that have come up, Neil Brin. Yeah, Love on a Leash or like any one of those things.

That might be interesting because Jennifer 10, you know. Yeah, Love on a leash. Wouldn't have been the same without Ari Shafir, apparently. Yeah. It's funny that he got contacted first. Yeah, to be in it. I'm just imagining Ari Shafir is the dog. I watched a feeling.

good man recently which makes me think if there are any other kind of meme stories that deserve to be told because that really won me over on the whole idea because it memes are they haven't really broken into films in any like way that's you know respectable the emoji movie and so yeah exactly feels good man was like a real like a really interesting story like the actual the whole the dynamics of it the the dramatic nature of it and there's there's tons just tons of stories stories from the internet like that that I'm sure deserve to be told. Yeah, when it comes to that one, I feel like the documentary is already the perfect format for that story to be told. I wouldn't want that to be turned into a narrative.

Oh, no, I don't want that story specifically. I just mean like equivalent type of stories, if there are any. I'm sure there's lots of stories in the world that aren't just terrible tragedies that are in my head. I'm sure there's lots of good material that aren't just fucking horrendously depressing. Those are the ones that stick out in my mind, I guess. The Batta Klan shooting, like a movie out of that. Fuck, everything's just fucking terrifying. Life is scary, man.

Oh, yeah. I feel like they've made so many already, you know? Like, I can't even think. Hollywood usually jumps on tragedies pretty quick. You know, we'll get a COVID movie. Mm-hmm. No, just wait. We're going to get a lot of good documentaries out of it, for sure.

I already saw one that was, like, basically a film crew that was, like, in Wuhan filming like inside the hospitals at the time. I'll just pull it up on my IMDB real quick. Let's see. 76 days. It was the title of the film. I saw that at TIF. It was really good.

Yeah, the only COVID movie I've seen is Corona Zombies. What the fuck? Which was... What is this? Oh my God. It's actually pretty fucked up what they've done. It's like... It's like this...

It's like some old movies. from it looks like from the 70s or 80s but the first like three minutes was shot like in 2020 on like someone's phone or some shit just so they could like print the box up and just put some old zombie movie and just say it's about coronavirus

like a stop footage of like corona stuff yeah pretty distasteful from the director of evil bong yeah yeah it's that kind of tier it's not even BPD it's be 2.5 out of 10 on IMDB.

61 minute runtime, perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you watched that? I didn't watch the whole thing, I kind of tried. He apparently directed Parasite from 1982. Yeah, Parasome. Yeah, evil bong.

That sounds like a fake name. Equal bong sounds good there. I might have to be like into that. Yeah, one has sequels. There's a bunch of sequels. Yeah. Oh, okay It's like if an evil bong

June ho directed parasite Yeah, I guess we answer that question Tragedies and memes Yeah, just misery What about this one then from Pokey Prince 56? Who are the movie characters you will relate the most to? Hmm I'll give this one a little think

Actually, no, got it fucking fucking Caden probably from Synecichy but I mean like that movie is supposed to be me in a sense

if you think about it yeah it's not something I struggle with relating to characters but I guess they mean like on a more accurate level

like what's something that represents you a bit more yeah but I do relate to the dude I'm sorry nice I just really like that philosophy of like in the chaos of the world just like fuck it

show the fuck out what power do you have over it yeah yeah I do like that a lot I usually relate to the protagonist of the movie oh the protagonist like a tenant yeah oh okay cool yeah there's the movie almost famous William Miller I guess he's like just like a good natured kid wants to be with the band see the world or something.

Like, I can get behind that. But that's also like every protagonist. And like, that's like, that's Peter Parker. That's like, yeah, it's like so many. Yeah. That's why I say like most protagonists is like, yeah, you usually relate to the protagonists the most. Yeah.

Yeah. Not always. But it depends on the movie. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Depends on the movie. Fucking Kaufman ones just stick out to me more. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You like the, the new guy and, uh, I'm thinking of ending things. Jesse Plemons?

I just call him Jesse Plemons. What's his name in the movie? His name's Jake. Okay. That's right, yeah. Yeah, I do. I mean, I relate to Caden more, I think. I'm not going to spoil.

All his characters are so, they have like similar things, attributes. Like, I think of, I mean, himself in adaptation, too. Like, I think of Cady and I think of Nicholas Cage and that. They're all very self-critical. Uh-huh, they're all very self-critical. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like older. Even Joel and Eternal Sunshine is doing that same thing.

Struggling with their weight. Internal monologue at the beginning. Talking about how Valentine's Day sucks. Uh-huh. It's just invented by greeting card companies to make us feel like crap. That's me. Yeah, it's like very cynical. I know his character is very cynical.

Is that it? Is that the question? Did we all answer? Yeah, I think so. Pill on Face has one for us otherwise. Who on face? Yeah, pill on face. I actually recognize this person.

I think I've answered questions from before. What's a movie you refuse to watch? No matter how good people tell you it is simply because you don't care about it. I said Toy Story 4 before. I'll say it again. That's a good choice, actually. I don't care. I don't know.

I don't really refuse movies. It's how I find things like Coroner. you know no matter how good people tell you corona zombies is though well that's the thing who's telling me that who's telling me that like you know the films that have avoided

like paranormal activity and shit like that who's telling me like you have to watch the shit no one yeah there's like a chunk of those I guess where it's like either I know what the director like if let's say

I know what the director is I've seen their previous movies everybody's reacting the exact same way to this new one as they did their previous ones and seeing the exact same things and I know I didn't like it the first time and I know it's just going to be the same thing again then you know then I'm like no and maybe I'll check it out at some point but I don't have to see it right away sort of thing yeah usually in that category for me I guess oogie doggie tank has one for us what do you think about the don't hug me I'm scared series are there any other web series you enjoy hmm you guys you guys

have seen those? Yeah, I've seen the first three. I've seen, I think, I love them. I think they're some of the best... I think they're some of the best videos on the internet. I think they're really creative. They clearly put a lot of work into everyone. Yeah, the songs are kind of catchy too.

The second one's probably my favorite one. I think the one about the internet's funny. I think that's the fourth one. Okay. Yeah, and there's also like this very elaborate lore about like, how the yellow guy has like some abusive father. boy, who's like in the background of everybody. It's like very convoluted.

I think it's funny. Like all the stuff. All the little Easter eggs. And yeah, the puppet design is very good. People say about the red puppet or the red guy. Yes. It reminds them of you. Alex.

Alex. Of Alex. Yeah, I've got so many messages over the years about this. I don't really hear it myself. But yeah, apparently I have the same voice. I don't really hear it Well apparently I look like every Tall long-haired white dude

Yeah exactly But he's red Yeah Oh sure Yeah I enjoyed the first Don't hug me I'm scared I could watch it again for sure I've seen it a few times

The ones following The first one I couldn't really get into as much They seemed less Inspired to me And more just like Doing weird stuff to, you know, I guess what Alex was talking about during stalker. It's just like how much of what you make is just now for the audience sort of thing.

It's kind of what they felt like after the first one. I'm just like, we'll deliver on this weird absurdism sort of creepy kind of thing going on, which is fine. I'm just like not as into it. I like the first one a lot. Yeah, but each one has like themes and stuff going on underneath it. Like very morbid too. Like that's the joke of it is that it's presented like Sesame Street,

but they're talking about death and all these things that are really fucked up. Like there's things that I get out of it for sure like when thinking about the first one you know like the what was it like blue is not a creative color or green is not a creative color whichever one they said

and it's just like well okay well if you're trying to mold someone into doing a specific task and saying like no you have to choose this color then it's not really creative in the first place is it and that's like kind of like a commentary on schooling systems in a way. Yeah and also So entertainment television like Sesame Street, how they're teaching kids to be creative and teaching kids to be a certain way.

But it's actually limiting their creativity because they're just being told by puppets on a television show, like how to act. Yeah. You know, it's limiting creativity, right? That's like the message behind it. What about web series? Yeah. Nirvana at the band The Show started out as a web series. Oh, really?

Yeah, it's like a completely separate thing. You can find it. Yeah. Would you count like Amazon shows and Netflix shows? Like does that count as web? No, I think of like Red versus Blue and stuff like that. Like because that was on YouTube Red, right? It's like the Sack count?

Um, I don't. Did anybody watch The Guild? The Guild, no. Oh man. The first two seasons of that were awesome. Went downhill after that point. That's a web series basically every minute or every episode is like a few minutes long. But it's really funny.

It was created by Felicia Day. I don't know if you know who that is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking out of that. I loved the first two seasons of that. And red versus blue will always have a special place in my heart.

I grew up with it. Yeah, same. Yeah. Halo. Halo. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. I was never really that into web series that much because I just, I don't know, with Netflix and Amazon and stuff like that.

I kind of lean more towards that kind of story. Or just like YouTubers. It's like in a weird space between like YouTube-y style content, but also. more effort, a bit more production, but also it's not quite a TV show. There's a web series I really want to check out that I've only heard about it through other people. It's called Sardinacast.

I've heard it's pretty good. Oh, really? Yeah. Would you count that? Is it what did they review, like, different fish or something, different sardine. What you count as a web series, I guess, is very, like, up in the air.

Yeah. I mean, red versus blue. I would say that's my favorite. one of my favorites. Yeah, exactly. That's weird. Because Don't Hug Me, I'm scared, was just a YouTube video and then there were sequels and then it's a web series sort of thing.

Whereas I feel like Red versus Blue and the Guild were like, they were structured in seasons kind of from the get go. Yeah. The advantage of that was that it didn't have a lot of production value really. It was just like a halo footage. It were like animations. And like the puppets. And they like the amount of work it takes to make, don't hug me, I'm scared or something like that.

Or even just to make a web series. It's like very hard for someone on YouTube to do because of that limited budget and limited time. You know, a lot of these series, like you just talked about, those episodes were like 12 minutes, the Felicia Day ones. Yeah. Yeah. So it's difficult. That's why there's not a lot of them, I think. I think series are usually left to like big studios with like budgets.

Yeah. Because it's easier for them, you know, to kind of throw money at multiple seasons. out of show. It's hard for like an independent person. They usually just make films or short films, right? Like, stuff like that. That's usually what I gravitate more toward in like online content.

There's also the added difficulty of it being more of a commitment versus like a short film where it's like okay, you have the short film, you film it, you're done. Whereas like a web series, you're basically being like, okay, we're going to film X amount of episodes

and if it does well enough we'd like to do another season with the exact same characters and actors. And so it's kind of like a way bigger commitment. So you have to make sure that everybody involved is like actually passionate about it and will actually stay on through that maybe through contracts or something. But usually the implication is like, okay, well, if you're making like a web series, then you probably don't have like that high of a of like a budget for it in the first place. Yeah.

Oh, what is it called? Joss Whedon's, Neil Patrick Harris one, what was it called? Dr. Dr. Horrible Singalong Blog. That was a web series. That you can basically watch as a movie. You can buy it on Blu-ray. Felicia Day was in that one too, yeah.

It's great. It's awesome. Really catchy music. Nathan Filion's in it. It's really funny. Definitely watch that. Yeah, maybe I've seen some of that, actually. Yeah.

It's like under an hour, everything added together. I think it was like three episodes that were like 15, 20 minutes long. But I think that was created, like during the writer's strike or something it was like in 2008 there was something going on the writer's strike the toothpaste eater asks

how does the context of a film affect your rating such as what year the film was or for example if you found out Charlie Kaufman wrote Transformers 2 would you consider a satire of American culture that's an interesting question at the end there

I think is for me like if Charlie Kaufman's creative vision was at all associated with Transformers 2 it would just be a different movie like it just wouldn't be the same if you told me that Harmony Corrine wrote and directed Transformers 2

then I'd be like yeah it's a satire that would be the person where I'd be like okay it's almost an unintentional satire when it's directed by Michael Bay yeah exactly exactly uh Transformers 2 is so funny

it's so terrible my god fucking awful they didn't even have a script they made it up as they went along Gaspar no his love yeah except way more elaborate yeah I mean the older

a film is you have to understand the limitations at the time so especially you know talking about something like Tarkovsky's stalker even if there are some moments where it's like okay that's kind of a bad sound effect or like Ralph said you could see the string on the glass or something

like that. I would say I'm like pretty forgiving the further back in time you go. But you also have to, I guess, consider just how much of a focus these things are and how much someone would be aware of at the time what these technical limitations are. Because Tarkovsky's stalker was created in a way where, you know, he probably was very aware that if you had like a bunch of nonsense spectacle and a bunch of special effects that it probably was. wouldn't age well. That's not to say that he would have made the film that way if he could, but you know, you look at films like from the 2000s that are just so CG heavy or even today where you know it's not going to age well and, you know, from the 2000s, it's already evidence that it

didn't. I think you need to have some sort of restraint and level of control as a director to be able to understand like, okay, even if this is acceptable for right now, like acceptable, maybe, you know, think about how much of the focus of the film those things should be, I guess. Yeah. I think, like, very smart directors think that way. They think about how their films are going to last and, like, if this effect is going to hold up or not. Yeah. Yeah, to me, the context is 50% of the equation. I tend to assess things based on the context and intent more than anything what I perceive the intent to be from the information available. But the context, as you say is huge. Of course you're going to treat a film from the 50s different to one made today.

You know, like we've, how many times have we on this very show gone back to these older movies and attributed them for creating these trends and inspiring so many different filmmakers and it might not connect in the same way now, which is important to know, but you have to, you have to take it into account the circumstances in which it was made, you know, in the time. frame it was like yeah it was made years ago at this point escape from tomorrow is so much more interesting of a movie because it was filmed a guerrilla style in Disneyland without their permission right so yeah like it's not the same movie without the context of the movie really exactly like if it was a big studio thing where they got permission and it turned out to be the same

it wouldn't i mean i wouldn't like it as much it's it's kind of the story about the film in a way But I think that's kind of what films are in a sense. They tell the story about the filmmakers if it's a good personal film. Yeah, and that's exactly why the context of these like Disney live action remakes bothers me to my core because it isn't displaying any kind of voice or anything like that. Or the context is just we're remaking your nostalgia. Just plug in the nostalgia algorithm. Woo! Yeah.

No personality. Yeah. Yep. Well, the context is, yeah, the bottom line. We need to chase numbers higher. Yeah. Did you watch Mulan or no? I did.

I did, actually. Over the course of three days, it took me. It's a two-hour movie. It's a really, three days. I watched one hour. Then I had to take a break, watched half an hour. And the day after that, I watched the last half an hour. Why are they always longer now, too?

Why are they, like, these movies are originally like an hour and a half? They all do the exact same thing. They all add about 30 minutes. for no reason. The same type of content. It's just pointless exposition, and they, like, they think they're being really clever by going to the original and being like, oh, what's like something we missed out explaining for five minutes?

Wink, wink, wink, not. Just like, in the most, like, obnoxious, least stylistic or creative way, or it's just like two people stood on a green screen, like, remember that time? Well, it's usually that we're not so different, you and I, are we? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great.

No, thanks. All right. Want to do one more? Let's end on this one from Angus O3-14. People always toss around phrases like, insert director name here, is the next Stanley Kubrick. Do you think there are any directors working today who would actually be considered the second coming of someone like Kubrick or Spielberg, etc? Or do you think it's a stupid statement slash comparison that's brought up way too often? Yeah, it's stupid.

Yeah, I fall into the latter. Kubrick is of his time. There's no Kubrick because, like, a director coming up, being a photographer like that. And then in the 70s, making all these genre films in 80s that, like, he added that, like, more art director kind of approach to genre movies. And, like, I don't know if that's going to happen again anytime soon. You could say Christopher Nolan is like that. Like, the way he, he, like, you know, takes these genre films and reinvents them and adds a lot of personality to them. I always feel like I'm watching something very original.

But, like, Christopher Nolan is just his own guy. Yeah. You know, I think it's more just like a marketing. thing they could say to put in the trailer. Yeah. Because it sounds good. Yeah, but it's definitely a compliment. Like, I'd say like Kubrick is or Nolan is Kubrick-esque, something like that.

It just like, what are the chances of, I mean, the chances are just ridiculously high of a filmmaker being inspired by Hitchcock, Kubrick, and Spielberg. Yeah, exactly. Which like, everyone's going to hit to anyway. Everyone was saying M. Knight's the new Spielberg. It's like, what do you mean? I was going to say that Christopher Nolan Phil's. very Kubrick inspired.

Not necessarily an overall, like, tone of his films, but, like, a lot of the practical stuff going on, you know, like... Yeah. The pure cinema approach. It's approach to make sense. I would say Yorgo's Lantemos is very Kubrickian also. Yeah. His previous two films are getting...

Oh, the favorites like Barry Linden. And really getting there in tone for sure. And also in, like, cinematography, like in the killing of a sacred deer. There were a lot of shots in that movie where I was like... This feels like, this reminds me of some shots in Kubrick movies. Like nothing like incredibly complex, but just like the way that things are like framed above characters' heads at points and like the long hallway kind of shot. Yeah, there's, I love Yorgos Lanthimos a lot. So if anybody, out of all the directors today that I would say are the most Kubrickian, I would say him.

But that's really just like in terms of what the films look and feel like at this point, but not. given their, you know, he's not going to have the same cultural impact. He's not going to, he's not like inventing things as he's going along, which is important for Kubrick because he's in that time period. You can't just shift it to today and have the same thing. Yeah. Jonathan Glazer took inspiration too for like under the skin. People were saying that was very Kubrick inspired also. I remember that and that's, yeah. Like you said, Kubrick's impact on cinema, that's hard to replicate and that's hard for anyone to predict when you just see like one film from a director. But is there anyone who like, that's their main goal, they go into filmmaking to be the next

Kubrick? Is it not, do you're not going to filmmaking to tell your own stories and use the influence of the storytellers you've always loved to help tell your own? They want to be as great as Kubrick maybe. Yeah, like respected maybe on the same level. Yeah, respect. Can't be it. Yeah, that's a high bar to set.

Any of these guys, Tarkovsky. Yeah. I wonder if Nolan. of himself in that way. I wonder if that's like in his goals. Also, these guys were kind of jerks. Like Tarkovsky was, you know, what he did was not right to his crew. Kubrick was a jerk to Shelley Duvall.

These guys, you know, you're inspired by their work, maybe. I don't want to be the next Kubrick in that way. And the next big jerk in cinema. Can you be quiet, Shelley? Like, I would never. Who's going to be the next M night? That's my question. Oh, my God.

there's a lot of like mini versions of M-night but none have none have been the the entire picture you know he's too unique his next movie is going to deal with time travel apparently of some kind of time I don't know much about it at all

now it's like it's starting to bother me all the time travel stuff I forgive no one again because he's always done time shit it's always ever done but now it's getting a little absurd it's called

old. The poster says, A new trip from writer-director M. Knight-Shamalan. It's only a matter of time. July 20-21 apparently. Has he described

his movies as a trip before? I don't know. I don't know. They've said that's really weird on the poster. Are his movies trippy? A new trip. Yeah, we'll see on that one.

But M-night seems like a nice guy. Oh, yeah. I'm sure he's a lovely guy. So I want to be M-night in that way. Yeah. Be a nice person. All right. Ralph wants to be the next M. Night Shyamalan.

You heard it here. Let's just hope he's a nice person. You never know. Yeah, you really do never know. I mean, let's just hope. Yeah. All right. I think that about does it.

We'll... Yeah, that's the end of our show. Perfect. Alex, you have a film to recommend to us, and I'm excited to hear. So should I reveal the guest first or a movie first? Oh, is there a guest? Doesn't matter, yeah.

We're doing a guest. There is a guest, right? I'm not just, I didn't just made that up. But yeah, so next episode, we're going to be joined by very special guests, that being Cosmonaut Variety Hour. And this film has nothing like to do with him specifically or anything like that. But I've chosen the 1984 film directed by Peter Heim's called 2010. the year we made contact

Oh my God sequel to 2001 Wow I've never seen that Me neither I've always seen that poster and been like What the fuck is this film

How do you make a sequel to 2001 First of all Oh this should be I think like It's a significant production I think From how it looks So I'm fascinated to see

What it's gonna shape up as And I'll use this as a chance To rewatch 2001 as well probably It's cool Talk about Cooper. Cool. It's nominated for five Oscars. Yeah.

Oh, wait. Is it supposed to be like really good or something? Oh, I don't know. It doesn't have a great. I have no idea. I have no idea what the read is on the movie. I don't think I've ever heard anyone talk about it. I would never argue that being nominated for five Oscars means a movie is supposed to be good.

I would never argue that. Yeah. Yeah, true. They all seem to be the technical ones too. Mm-hmm. So maybe it'll be technically very well done. I just hope it's not like really, really boring. It's a sequel to 2001, so it's got a hard act to follow.

Yeah, true. Yeah. Just a strange thing that exists that just haven't heard anyone really talk about. Yeah. I will definitely want. I don't know if I ever would have watched this without you. Thank you, Alex. I've always wanted to.

I just keep forgetting about it because, you know, one really talks about it. You just forget it exists. Yeah, nobody talks about it. it. It certainly exists. All right. So if you don't want to be spoiled for 2010, the year we make contact, check it out before the next episode.

These episodes come out every two weeks. You can listen to them early. If you go to sardonicast.com, sign up for premium. $2 a month. You'll get these as they're edited. Also, patreon.com slash sardonicast. Also, we got merch links in the descriptions. Thank you so much.

that was a good good discussion thank you for listening dur plunt how was that oh my god you sounded like you were 90 years old yeah I like that

that's my that's my you said it like you're trying to to hunt in a Christmas carol you're like one of the ghosts of Christmas past we are close to Halloween guys oh I guess so Dup

I had it I had it The beginning To plot There we go I'm got it back Get your Sardonic has merch We're it on Halloween

Take care Bye everybody Thanks for listening Bye bye bye Bye everyone