So... Alright - Three A.M. Theatre

Episode Date: November 4, 2025

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So I've been thinking of something for a while now. it's been kind of itching at the back of my brain. But last week, while I was recording this podcast, actually, it came into full focus. And I guess what that is, is an idea that I have that I've had for a long time that just is festering. And it won't go away. And I can't, I can't get it out of my head, especially since it came into focus. And that idea is 3 a.m. theater. I've discussed this with you in previous podcasts, an idea that I had many, many, many years ago, I think before Drunk Amers and Ugly Internet, even when I was just initially starting to have ideas about how to create content online, I was really, really into film.

This was the time in my life when I, you know, this is, to put it in historical perspective, we're talking like 1996 through 2000, probably, somewhere in this area when I had the idea. This is the come-up of Robert Rodriguez and Wes Anderson and Richard Linkletter and Quentin Tarantino, but this, less so him and the other guys, this idea of independent film flourishing and growing and anybody being able to. Kevin Smith, obviously huge inspiration and was a big deal at the time. This idea, this era, when I'm entering into my early 20s, that independent film is a viable outlet. I love film at this point. I love movies. I'm super into trauma. I'm into horror. I'm writing a couple of scripts

with some dudes in New Jersey that never went anywhere, by the way. I'm working for View Askew doing PA work, and then I moved to Austin, which is the home of Link Letter and Rodriguez and where Wes Anderson got his start. And there's this spirit of independent film that's going crazy in Austin, too, at the time.

And I'm on, you know, I'm on the View Askew message board. and the ain't a cool news website, and I'm just, like, it is of a time where every dude who's in his early to mid-20s is obsessed with film and independent film and the idea of working in film, maybe not every dude, but every dude I knew, myself included. And in the process of PAing and working around film a little bit,

I kind of discover that I don't particularly want to make movies. I don't think. I'm one of those people that, like, the more time I spent around, production, the less enamored I became by it, which I think is the opposite of most people. I just, especially after we started rooster teeth and we started creating our own content and I just saw the inefficiencies and how difficult it is and slow the process is and it just wasn't for me, right? But I love film and at this time I'm consuming film left and write. Also, I am realizing that I need a legitimate outlet, a legitimate creative outlet. Since very

early in my life, I've wanted to be a writer. I fell in love with books. I started writing novels when I was like seven. They were atrocious. I continued to write. I had this situation like pretty much every year where like a month into like my English class, we'd get a creative writing assignment. And then the teacher would want to have a talk with me after class. And she'd he'd go, or he'd go, this is really good. You have a real skill here, or you have a talent, and I'd go, thank you. And they go, you should, you know, nurture this. And that never really went anywhere past having that conversation with most English teachers

that I had through middle and high school. And then I joined the Army to be a journalist and to write full-time professionally, right? Which turned out not to be fun. Writing as expository journalism was not for me either, at least not through the military. But I'm at this point in my life from my early to mid-20s and I just am like roiling on the inside just full of energy and a desire to push creativity in some fucking direction. Thank God I met Bernie and Gus and Matt and all those people at some point. And we were able to all pursue our creative drives in support each other in the process of doing it. But in this point where we're doing ugly internet and drunk gamers, and I'm just trying

different ideas left and right, one of the first ideas I'd had was to combine my love of film and writing, and that was through 3 a.m. Critic, which I have renamed to 3am theater. So really quickly, it was just an idea that I was up. I had terrible insomnia from, I don't know, from as long as I can remember until my mid-20s, maybe till like, honestly, probably until it was about 27 or 28. I just had brutal insomnia every night at about 1 o'clock. I'd start to wake up. And then from like one to two or three, I just couldn't go to bed. And so I'd find myself sitting in the living room watching Cinemax or Showtime or HBO and just watching whatever was on. And the movies that aired on those channels, at least at that time, were always

direct to DVD, direct to video, made for TV, just super low budget, action or horror or something. and almost every night I would just be sitting in my living room at my first house just watching these films thinking somebody should do something to celebrate these films. These are directors and producers and actors and actresses that I, for the most part, never seen anything else by or in anything else and might never again. And you know that there are a lot of hopes and dreams tied up into these films. And the initial idea was that I'd go and I'd find like the third lead in Ninja 3, the domination, and interview them about it and take it seriously and interview the director

of a director to video film and not treat these films as low-budget schlock, but treat them with reverence and love and respect in a fun way and shine a light on them in a way that doesn't happen for low-budget stuff as much, you know. And that idea just kind of sat with it. me for many, many years. I came close to starting it once or twice, but there was always something that took priority or precedent, whether that be ugly internet or drunk amers or, I don't know, some other project that Gus and I started on and never finished, like, drunk army or Wootwear. There's a million things we did other than Rooster Teeth. Roosterteeth is just the one that

took off that we put all of our energy in when it took off, you know. But that idea is stuck in the back of my head for all of these years, which is why I resurrected it for 3 a.m. theater recently, which I'd been really enjoying until last week recording this very podcast when it struck me two things. One, I'm worried about turning so alright into a movie review podcast. I don't, that's not what the intention of this podcast was. And I think I'd be taking an outlet away from myself by doing that, by giving myself another outlet. For instance, this week I was going to do bingo three ways. I thought I was going to do the game bingo, because my wife was playing bingo last, night, the movie bingo about the dog, and then the song, Bingo, you know, Bingo was his name,

and I probably will still do that, but I just kind of came up with that idea yesterday in the afternoon because my wife was going to play bingo and I didn't particularly want to go play bingo, but then I realized it had anything to do. I thought, well, maybe I'll get ahead and do some so I'll write research, what's something I can throw together. That popped into my head. I almost did it. But then I just didn't want to work on a Sunday, so I went for a drive instead. However, this morning, instead of sitting down and watching that bingo movie and doing all that, I kind of just want to talk, talk about this other idea

because I started watching these movies. I think it was River of Death. Might have been the first one that we did the little review on the 3 a.m. Theater review. And when I presented it to you guys, I said, you know, this will be something that we'll do from time to time, but not very often. And then I almost immediately did out of control

and then enter the ninja. And in that short time, I have watched a bunch more movies, like way more than I can possibly review. But I do want to review and talk about all of them. They've left distinct impressions on me. And I've been taking copious notes. And that's the other side of this. When I was recording so all right last week, I had that first thought. But I also had this other thought, which was I was looking over the notes that I had written for Inner the Ninja.

And I realized I had so much more fun. writing the notes. And I noticed in my file, I started out just writing notes like I usually do, little thoughts like, talk about this, don't forget this, you know, pink car, sword fight, whatever. And then the notes started to get more involved and more in depth. And I realized that at some point, I must be pausing the movie because I'm writing paragraphs, just paragraphs of full-sentenced notes that are kind of dawned on me that I was almost writing an essay. And as I was, as I would then taking these notes and translating them into so all right, this was the biggest light bulb moment for me. I realized I didn't like that. I wasn't having fun. For whatever reason, because

I take notes on everything, it's a big part of my job, I didn't like translating those notes into an audio podcast. I realized that the real fun for me was in the writing, not in the recitation. and what I was writing was a more complete thought and easier to read and understand and better than my trying to regurgitate that in a conversational way on Swall Wright.

So I'm in a situation where I cannot stop watching these movies. I'm spending most of my free time watching these old, you know, schlocky horror or action or whatever kind of movies from the 70s and the 80s. And there's like a limitless supply of them. Every time I finish a movie, the related films, there's like seven movies I've always wanted to see or never heard of or saw, but don't remember.

It's like, it's constant. There's like, it seems like, it seems like three lifetimes worth of these movies for me to watch. And I actively want to watch all of them, and I don't want to talk about them here. I don't want to turn this into a movie review podcast. Now, you might say to yourself, well, here's an idea. What if you just watched them? and you don't take notes. You just watched them and enjoyed them like you watch a movie

and you don't talk about it with anybody. And I did consider that, but I think most of the enjoyment I get is the writing. Like even as I'm sitting there yesterday, I'm watching Ninja 3 The Domination in my living room. Without even meaning to, I pull up my phone and I pause the movie and I'm just like writing stuff down that I'm thinking of and I'm having so much fun doing it

and I realize I just want to do that, not just want to do that. I don't just want to do that. I also want to do that. I want to see this idea through that I've had that's older than ugly internet in a new way. I don't want to do 3am critic where I'm interviewing directors and actors and actresses and producers and whatnot. I just want to write essays about these fucking awesomely terrible, terribly awesome old films of my childhood or of your childhood that I missed or I never saw or wasn't able to watch because I was a kid, or for whatever reason I never got to,

I want to explore and enjoy and talk about and share those experiences of watching those movies with people. I just don't want to do it here, and I want to write it. Now, I don't know if there is a market for this, and this is why I present this to you today. The idea that is formed in my head is that I could release this on Substack I think makes the most sense

It's where most writers go to have their personal writings published I just don't know if there's a demand for it I have spent 24 years now in entertainment And one of the reasons that I have been able to endure for two and a half decades now, I think is my willingness to let something go when it's clearly not working or it's outlived its usefulness. You may say like, well, yeah, but you guys did 500 episodes of Minecraft or whatever. I didn't. I did about 200. Almost every show I created at my time at rooster teeth or achievement hunter, I ended in some fashion. Go versus

H presents five facts. Like whatever the show was, eventually I let it go when I thought that it had outlived its usefulness and I replaced it with something new. Or did my best to replace it with something new, right? I don't want to make stuff that people don't want to enjoy. I don't think people know me as a writer. People have talked about how they'd like to see me write. I get told people want to see me write a novel or an autobiography a lot. I get those comments a lot. But I don't know if there's a market for me, a person who you mostly have seen as a, I don't know, on-camera entertainer, I don't know if there's a desire from an audience to then go over to another platform, like say substack, to then subscribe, to

read me give you what I think are humorous and insightful or funny long movie essays. I just don't know. Think if you're old enough, think Big Brother. Like think of the articles written in Big Brother where they meander and they are about everything other than the thing that they're about, but they're also about that thing. That's kind of how I envision this going. It's kind of how my writing has already gone with it. And I think it would be really fulfilling to me to do and I think it would be an interesting challenge. What I'm scared about is that it will be a lot of work for little to no reward.

This would be something I would not do for free. I would charge for this on substack, maybe, I don't know, maybe like a dollar an essay or maybe like four bucks a month gets you all the writing or whatever. But to do this, I got to lock in. I got to make this. I've got to find the time in my week. The time exists.

I just have to budget it, and I have to make it a priority. And once I do it, I can't quit it. I can't stop it. I have to commit to it. Which means doing it for at least a year, probably. And that means, you know, potentially doing 52 of these fucking essays or somewhere in the neighborhood of them. That's a long commitment. And I don't want to do it if people don't want to.

read it, and I don't want to do it if people don't want to pay for it. And I don't want to do it if it becomes a burden that's not worth it to me, that I then have to end, sadly. And so starting something like this is really difficult. Is it something that's sustainable and repeatable and if it doesn't go well, how hard is it going to be to quit? How much egg is going to be on my face, if any, if I do end it? What are the expectations? Who do I let down? Am I going to want to do this in three months? Am I going to want to do this in nine months? Is it exciting for the first five or six essays? And then by essay 15, I want to pull my fucking hair out and I can't believe that I agreed to do this. And now I'm kind of stuck in it. And I feel obligated.

to keep doing it because you guys are now paying for it and are, you know, there's an expectation for it. You know what I mean? Like, I just got to think through and make sure that the idea is good enough to sustain through all these potential outcomes or that the desire to do it is strong enough to weather all the ups and downs that are going to go through the first year of a production like this, especially something that's different. It's on a different platform. I'll be honest with you. If I put it up and I'm getting paid like 60 bucks a month to do it. I'm not going to keep doing it. It's not going to be worth my time or effort. Not to sound rude, but I'm 50 and I have a much less energy than I used to, and I want to put it in the directions that make the most sense. That's all. I want to

fulfill myself creatively, but I also want to entertain the most people that I can and also, you know, do it in a way that allows me to keep the lights on and to pay the bills. So I have to find that balance, you know? And so I'm wrestling with this in my head and trying to decide, is this the time to do it? Is this the idea? Am I ready for that amount of writing? And if all those things are true, is there an audience for it? Do people care enough? Is that what people want from me? Would it be smarter just to do another video game series with Gavin or something? You know, probably. But so I guess what I'm saying is let me know. My email address is Eric at jeffsboss.com.

I would like your honest feedback. Is there a market for it? Are you a market for it? Do you want this for me? Or do you... I'm very... You're not going to hurt my feelings. If you email me and say,

listen, I probably wouldn't follow you down that road. I don't find the movie reviews to be interesting in the first place. And so reading them sounds even less interesting to me than hearing you talk about it and so all right. Or, yeah, I agree. I don't want so all right to turn into a movie review podcast. I like it when you do it occasionally. Maybe that's enough. Or, you know, I think it's a great idea. And, you know, where do I sign up? Wherever you are on the spectrum, I would love for you to weigh in because, I don't know. Maybe this is a dumb idea. Although I can't help but think. And I think that everybody as they get older thinks this. I just want to preserve some of these things in some way that, So they don't disappear.

Like, I was probably the only person on the planet Earth who watched Ninja 3 The Domination yesterday. And if in five or 10 or 20 years, Ninja 3, the domination falls off of Amazon and is no longer available for streaming anywhere, did it really exist? Will it just be forgotten forever? Now, me writing a movie review isn't going to preserve it, but it is going to hopefully shed some light and some eyeballs on it. I see this in Austin all the time as I'm driving around. I've been here for 31 years, and you'll see a condo tower that just got built or like a new

five-story building, a bank or whatever, and it's brand new. Like, it might not even be open yet. And I sit there and I think, like, that was a different building last year. What was in that spot? was it a parking lot? Was it a hotel? Was it run down? Was it a bail bondsman? And you can't remember. It's like it never existed. A building that had been there for probably 30 or 40 or 50 or 80 years that got bulldozed to build a bigger building. And it's like it's wiped off the face of the earth. Literally. I know that you can go down to the Texas Historical Society and, you know, they'll have maps and stuff and it exists there. But I kind of am afraid of the things that I loved or the things that I haven't discovered yet that I want to discover and love. I'm afraid that they're going to go away. before I have the opportunity to, or I'm afraid that they're going to, they're going to go away someday because no one remembers them because nobody talks about them anymore. Now, I know, I am on TikTok. I know that there are a million people that do movie reviews in 60 seconds of stuff

kind of like this. This is different. It's either a good idea or it's a bad idea. Now I'm in the middle of it so I can't tell. Sometimes you know, I don't know. But I would like to know. Today's song of the episode is going to be, this is an homage to my father-in-law Dwight who turned me on to this. This is from Tom Russell's Hot Walker album. There's a song called Pilgrim Land,

and it is a really beautiful little kind of instrumental, but then it turns into an old religious hymn that is, I don't know, very oh brother, were art thouish, very sweet and old and charming, and sounds a lot like stuff that my grandma would listen. to when I was growing up around the house. And it's a little different vibe for today. So hopefully enjoy it. Tom Russell, Pilgrim Land off the Hot Walker album. Check it out. I hope you'll like it.

It's not a punk song for once. So it's got that going for it. Also, man, I hope you guys have a great week. I really do. I hope everybody has a happy and safe holiday. And do not forget to listen to the Regulation podcast if you get a chance as well as the Clutch My Pearls podcast, my wife's podcast. Thank you very much. I love you all. talk to you next week. All right. This is the end of the show.