The a16z Show - Marc Andreessen: How Movies Explain America

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

In this episode of Monitoring the Situation, Marc Andreessen, Katherine Boyle, and Erik Torenberg dive into the movies that best explain America, from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to Tropic Thunder to Fight Club.They explore how Tarantino’s revisionist masterpiece reimagines 1969 and the end of America’s cultural innocence, why Tropic Thunder was the last truly un-cancellable comedy, and how Fight Club evolved from a left-wing critique of capitalism to a right-wing prophecy about alienation and identity.Along the way, they trace the parallels between the counterculture of the 1960s and the internet culture wars of the 2010s, and debate whether we’re living through another great American cultural reset. Resources:Follow Marc on X: https://x.com/pmarcaFollow Katherine on X: https://x.com/KTmBoyle Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends!Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16zFind a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16zListen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYXListen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenbergPlease note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Stay Updated:Find a16z on YouTube: YouTubeFind a16z on XFind a16z on LinkedInListen to the a16z Show on SpotifyListen to the a16z Show on Apple PodcastsFollow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Ellie in a lot of ways is sort of, you could describe it as like it's the archetypal American city. Here's the largest significance of What's Upon a Time in Hollywood or my view of it, which is it captures a time and place that was absolutely critical to the evolution of modern America. The reaction from the audience is extreme laughter. You are laughing during the most island sequence for 20 minutes. Some movies don't just entertain. They help explain America. On this episode of moderating the situation, Catherine Boyle and I are joined by A16Z general partner Mark and Dries.

to talk about the films that capture the country's turning points, from Hollywood's golden age to the counterculture, from the comedies we could once make to the stories that still define us. We look at how different directors across decades have reflected and sometimes predicted where America was heading and what its art reveals about the culture behind it. Let's get into it. Well, I'm excited to have the Modern Situation crew back for another episode on movies.

Mark, thanks for joining again. Yes, excited. So we wanted to go deeper into some of our favorite movies, Mark, I know from watching movies with you that one of your genres you enjoy is movies about Hollywood. And so we want to start with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Why don't you talk about what's so remarkable about that or why you wanted to talk about it? The reason that movies about Hollywood, I mean, they tend to be very entertaining because, of course, the people who make movies about Hollywood are from Hollywood. They know where all the bodies are buried and they tend to put them all in the movies.

And so they're, you know, a whole run-up spectacular Hollywood movies. So for people who haven't seen, I would recommend Mahalo Drive. It's one of Eric's favorites. And that name is Robert. And then the player, which also is an all-time one. There's a bunch, of course, famous ones like Sunset Boulevard. But, you know, the iconic Hollywood movie, you know, now is once upon a time in Hollywood, you know, like, Quentin Tarantino.

And so the reason I like Hollywood movies is because, you know, there are a handful of cities that have a claim to be like the ultimate American city. And, you know, New York City is one of those, you know, I think, you know, San Francisco in some ways, you know, where we are is. But L.A. and Las Vegas also put them the list. By the way, for Las Vegas, see Bugsie. I'll talk about that another time. But that's the iconic Vegas movie.

But L.A. in a lot of ways, you could describe it as like it's the archetypal American city. Literally, it's a great book we can put in the nose called Thinking Big, where it goes to actually the creation of the city of Los Angeles. And basically, like, Los Angeles, you could argue, is the ultimate American city because it was the ultimate fake it until you make it thing. Like, it was the thoroughness of cities. And very specifically, like, it was desert. Like, there was absolutely nothing in L.A. And then, you know, literally it was like a land development deal by a bunch of wealthy families in late 1800s. And they literally placed newspaper ads in Eastern newspapers. You know, this is before. for photography made it into newspapers. And so, like, you know, when there was like a picture of something, a newspaper would be a drawing. And so they would list land plots for sale of Los Angeles. They would have like line drawings of like, you know, orchards and like, you know, beautiful. Everything's green and poultrys. And then, you know, people would like buy the land, move across country and discover that it was just like blasted out desert. And then, you know, they famously created the

city. They carved it out of the desert. And then, you know, it's a famous saga of how they went to get the water, which turned into another great L.A. movie, Chinatown. And, you know, as you'd expect, you know, Hollywood kind of goes for a certain interpretation of history. And so it, you know, sort of painted in retrospect as like a purely evil activity. But, you know, there's actually like a very kind of straightforward reading, which is like this is what was actually required to create a city. But it wasn't as black and white as sort of the Hollywood history has it. It was a more complex story. But still, you know, very, very interesting, amazing story. And, you know, cities like Los Angeles are created every day. So, you know,

that's a pretty big deal. So anyway, like movies about L.A., I think when they reach the level of capital A art, you know, they become movies about America. And so it's like a great test bed or a great subject, you know, through a great lens through which to look at the history of America. And Once Upon a Time on Hollywood is, I would say, one of the top movies along that theme. Let me start by saying, if anybody watched this hasn't seen Once Upon Hollywood, pause the podcast immediately. Go watch the movie. And then come back because we're going to spoil the shit on it. And it's tremendously fun to watch if you haven't read about it.

By the other way, I'd also say, I'm like, it's a tremendously entertaining movie. Like, it's one of the most entertaining Pop-for-Pond movies. You know, it's like infinitely rewatchable. The cast is ridiculous. Every frame of this thing is amazing. So it's also a very fun movie. So, okay, so here's the largest significance of Once Upon Time in Hollywood, or my view of it, which is it captures a time and place that was absolutely critical to the evolution of modern America.

And I think Catherine, you'll remind me, but I think of the year was it 69? 59, yeah, 69, yeah, 69. And so to put this in context, and the movie, you know, kind of goes through this, but the movie doesn't explain all the cultural backstory. It shows you what happened, but it doesn't explain the backstory. So I'll just go through the backstory. So, you know, basically like what we now consider to be the kind of a cultural revolution in the 1960s, really started, you know, probably in like around 1964 with the Berkeley Free Speech Movement

and then kind of expanded or metastasized to include, you know, the sort of hippie movements and then, you know, the sort of birth of like modern rock and roll and the rise of the counterculture. And, you know, all of a sudden, everybody's, you know, has long hair and they've got beads and they're, you know, they're wearing suede jackets and they're not washing their Levi's. And, you know, sort of the whole counterculture. And so there was this like incredible explosion of, I mean, the movie boomers were, you know, coming of age as basically high school and college kids. this incredible explosion of art, culture, creativity, social innovation,

you know, the birth of the, you know, the communes, you know, the entire hippie movement. And then, of course, this is also when the Vietnam War was wrapping up. And so this was, you know, the wrap up in conscription of people, you know, American kids being sent off to Vietnam, you know, kind of, you know, I'd say non-voluteers. And so, you know, the kind of anti-war movement kicked in. The college protest kicked in. And, like, the entire thing was like, you know,

we kind of remember it as like this, like, incredibly, like, sort of spontaneous and, you know, largely positive. of explosion of kind of, you know, breaking out of the stultified cultural norms of the 1940s, 1950s, you know, the creation of the modern kind of liberated American society. By the way, obviously, also right alongside that, you know, the civil rights movement and the feminism, the gay rights and, you know, kind of the whole explosion of modern morality through that period. And anyway, if you read the histories of the time, basically from 64 to 69, it was just basically

this, like, glorious, wonderful thing with, like, absolutely no downside. Like, you know, these kids that were, like, rioting on their college campuses or protesting at the streets or, like, you know, getting stoned all day or, you know, having their whole hippie thing or moving to communes. Going back to the Earth, like, they had discovered a far superior way to live, right? And they had discovered a far superior way to, like, coexist with nature and to fight against the man and to fight against, you know, evil corporations and, you know, fight for the environment, to fight through the planet, fight for peace and the whole thing.

And so it was this, like, incredible kind of wave of positivity. And, like, you know, the very good argument that there was a lot, too. You know, a lot of people who do believe that. And that it was like a time of great cultural creativity. You know, led to enormous amounts of like amazing art that we still have today. And so that, you know, there's a lot to like about it. And then basically what happened is in 1969, it sort of came, the sort of positivity came to a screeching alt. Yeah.

Sort of the movement, you know, basically like, you know, turned, you know, very much the dark side. You know, that sort of began the long slide into the sort of 1970s. And that slide was basically a slide into, you know, variously, among other things, you know, it was a slide into like drugs, you know, very bad drug overdoses, you know, the shift sort of soft drugs, hard drugs. You know, a lot of people who participated in the sort of cultural movement in 60s ended up like. dying. We'll talk about the death later on because, you know, the movie directly hits that. But, like, there's just an extraordinary amount of death that followed, you know, degradation and that, you know, turned into, you know, the sexual liberation, it turns out has dark sides. You know, maybe it doesn't so great for everybody. And specifically, maybe it doesn't so great for women, at least in some ways.

And then, you know, look, you know, in the 70s, it was like, you know, Vietnam was very bad. And then the energy crisis at economic recession, that inflation, you know, just, you know, this very kind of, you know, bitter, divisive, you know, politics. You know, in a lot of ways, you know, sort of the beginning of the political kind of dynamic that we see playing out today. So some of the 70s kind of things weren't really bad. And then, you know, the bookending movie, once upon a time is the movie sort of about that pivot point. I'll talk about that. And then, you know, Boogie Nights is maybe the movie on the other side of that, right?

Which is like once the culture is kind of sliding down a hill into chaos and madness and disease of death, Boogie Nights Keffers out on the other side. But for the purpose of today's discussion, we can focus on 1969. And so if you read the histories of time, basically what happened was, it was the Charles Manson Burters, specifically in Los Angeles. And then that's sort of on behalf of America, it was. the Manson murders that basically were the turning point. The Manson murders are the thing that people point to, and they kind of say, oh, that was the moment

when we all kind of realized, oh, shit, there was a dark side of this whole thing. And, like, oh, my God, here we go. And so, let's talk about that. Let me just close off the Sift Reduct part, though, what's kind of the most amazing thing about the movie that I found, which is, if you know the history of that period, I mean, the Manson murders were super famous at the time. They're still famous in American culture. Kind of everybody knows that there was a guy Charles Mansion that had this death cult.

He was implicate these kids to let go out and kill random people. And, you know, there's still, like, all these, you know, questions, like, how the hell did he do that? Right. And so everybody knows that he was kind of intertwined with Hollywood and intertwined with the movie industry and the music industry. And he was part of that whole thing. And so, you know, everybody kind of knows that. Oh, and then specifically for people who know anything about that, they're sort of famously, the Manson murders are also known as the Sharon Tate because there was this, like, incredibly, you know, vivacious, attractive, bubbly, you know, enthusiastic young, blonde actress named Sharon Tate. who at the time famous,

there was actually married to Roman Polansky, who was, you know, one of the leading, you know, kind of new, you know, Hollywood movie directors at that time when they were this new Hollywood glamour power couple. And then Sharon Tate, among other people, you know, Sharon Tate was one of the people murdered it. So Quentin Tarantino comes out, you know,

when he first announces the movie, he comes out, and he says, you know, Quentin Tarantino is going to make the movie about the Charles Mansa murders. Right. And if you've seen, you know, any other Tarantino movie, like Pulp Fiction, for example, you're just like, oh my God, you know, it's going to be, like, this is going to be horrible. like the mansum murders are bad enough but like you know turning them into like a you know

tarantino style you know mass slaughter violence you know reservoir dogs you know just like blood and guts you know uh exploit you know basically super high of exploitation movie as he'd done in the past it's just like it was a horror show and i was actually i was actually personally worried about it because my wife got all excited to see the movie uh because you know she you know because it's going to start leo de cabrio and breckette and it's going to be about hollywood it's about fashion and you know all this design and all this creativity. And she's like, we got to go see this movie. And I'm like, I'm like, we can't go see the movie because you are going to be so traumatized by what he puts on screen that like, you're never going to want to ever see a movie ever again. And you're going to

hold it against me for the rest of my life. But it didn't prevent you for seeing this movie. Because it's obviously just going to be a complete horror show. Like, it's just a disaster. And actually Sharon Tate's family actually came out and basically said, when this movie is first now, basically said, like, wait a minute, hold on. Like, you know, we don't want the memory of our, you know, of our, you know, of our family member, you know, who, you know, we still love, you know, many decades later, you know, kind of, you know, turned into basically fodder for, you know, basically Hollywood exploitation. And then there was this, like, amazing thing that happened.

And nobody knew anything about the movie, which is, uh, Taratino, at least the way stories recorded, Taratino actually let, I think it was Sharon Tate's, it was either sister, and maybe sister or something like that, read, read the script. And immediately, um, the family did a one day, and they came right out, and they said, we completely approve, or who filled that he's makeup. And I remember at the time reading that, and I was like, what the hell?

Like, how is it they could possibly get that, the Tate family of all people on board with putting this on screen? And of course, you know, that leads to kind of the, you know, the movie sort of turns into a Valentine, a Valentine, Hollywood, and to America, and specifically to Sharon Tate.

You know, it's like, you know, it really, you know, kind of restores her memory in an amazing way. Can I think, yeah, go ahead, please. It's something very smart in the movie for those of us who love Tarantino and follow his work. So I think that was like the common theme was like,

oh, God, this is going to be horrific, right? And especially if you've read about, if you know the Manson murders, if you've read about how gruesome they are. Like, yes, that was sort of the dominant theme. But his, you know, he had, he made a few films between, but like I'd say the last other fantastic Tarantino film

was the revenge fantasy and glorious bastards. Which is, of course, like, you know, again, like could have been, but it is extremely. gruesome, but at the same time, it's a revenge fantasy of what could have happened. What could have happened if someone had killed Hitler? And so in the very beginning of the movie, there's a scene with Leonardo DiCaprio, also at the end, but there's a scene in the very beginning where it shows all of his films, and he has the famous flamethrower from Engrorious Bastards.

And so if you're a Tarantino fan, you're like, wait, wait, wait, which direction are we going in? Are we going in gruesome violence with no purpose? which I would argue Tarantino is always misunderstood in that way. Or are we going in a different direction, a little more fantastical, a little more what could have happened? And so for those of us with like the eagle eye and the theater, I think we kind of knew, you know, especially as you said, like the family said, oh, it's great, it's going to be fine.

We kind of knew, okay, this film is not going to be nearly as bad. And Tarantino is going to take us in a different direction. But he did put that little Easter egg in there for us in like the first 10 minutes of the film. So it's funny to bring that up because I, of course, totally missed that when I was watching the movie. I just thought it was like a re you know, so for people who haven't seen that,

we have Caprio plays a sort of a Steve McQueen-style movie star on the 1960s, Mnay Ricknell. As the movie starts, his kind of career is imploding. He's trying to figure out how to kind of turn things around to stay roll with the times. And it does, it shows these parts from his

prior movies in the universe. But I just figured it was just like a throwaway. Oh, yeah, I see what's the Flan Farrow. That's funny. Ha-ha. Like, it didn't even for a minute occur to me. I mean, you know, it's just, oh, since we're going to spoil, The Flamethrer plays a critical role.

Very critical role. If you ever been happier to see the Flamethrower get taken up than at the end of that movie. But yeah, I mean, I just, I was like literally, I enjoyed the movie so much when I was watching it, but I did not know. I mean, I knew it had to be something amazing that I wasn't expecting in order to get the tape family on board,

but like I still was, I still was like sitting there in a state of dread for the entire movie, you know, still anticipating that he would somehow. Anyway, so just foil the movie, what's fun of time in Hollywood. He basically tells you the story of the Manson cult of Hollywood at that time. That's sort of how that all intertwined. And he takes it all the way up to the night of the murders.

But then he takes a left turn in the history as he does. It's an old friend of history. And so the kid, the Manson cultists who in real life culture, take in the movie, they go in the house next door, which is Leo's house, with Leo's friend, Brad Pitt and Brad Pitt's character. By the way, I don't know. I don't know this, Kevin, I'm curious, the back story and the Brad Pitt character

is, it does quite see this in the movie that explains a lot, which is basically Tarantino's conception of him, and he's basically the most deadly man in the world at that time. So he's like a, you know, he plays not just a war hero, but like a Grie bray, like, you know, super highly decorated, you know, basically super soldier, but he's because he's become a holly most nutman.

And so basically the, you know, the manse killer is basically walking exactly to the wrong house because number one, they're up against this guy who basically like, you know, spent the proceeding, whatever, you know, 20 years, you know, kill a people for America, you know, basically Captain America. And then number two, it turns out Leo still had the flamethrower in his barrage.

Well, there's also, there's also the backstory that you're not totally sure how good Cliff is. Like, there's a whole backstory of did he kill his wife, which is actually in the film and it also in sort of the backstory. But like there, he is, he is, he is, you know, a deadly, as you said, like a very deadly person. But that final scene, um, and, yeah, there's no way you can anticipate. Like even if you knew, okay, maybe it's not going to be as gruesome or there's going to be some sort of like revenge fantasy,

there's no way you can anticipate how genius, like the run-up into it is, and then also the final scene, because there's this whole other thing that happens in the movie where you forget that you're watching a movie about the Mansoms. Like you forget that you're watching this horrific, like what it's supposed to be. And there's a, there's like a 30-minute scene of Rick Dalton, who's the who's sort of this you know aging like he's losing his place in hollywood he he sort of you know is is sort of at a loss for why he's no longer powerful right like and and he has this moment where

he stars in this like kind of cheesy western with this like 11 year old girl and it's like a movie within a movie and it is like probably the best encapsulation of like what happens to actors in hollywood so you kind of lose track of the fact it's like here Sharon tate and she's at the Playboy Mansion, she's dancing, she's this new generation, but here's this old generation of, like, hyper-masculine figures who can't get work. And there's, it's just a genius movie within a movie where the little girl says to him, and it's probably like one of the most memorable lines. She's like, that's the best acting I've ever seen in my whole life. And I mean, it's like, just even if they'd stop the movie there, it would have been just as brilliant, right? But then it goes

on to this other sequence where you're like, oh, yeah, we're watching, we're about to see the most gruesome, you know, possible, like this, I mean, and, you know, I wasn't alive in 1969, but I can imagine it's like if, you know, if Jennifer Lawrence, if it happened to Jennifer Lawrence, if it happened to Marga Roby, who, Robbie, who's actually playing her, right? It would just be this horrific thing. But you kind of forget, because there's all of these just beautiful, hilarious sequences that run up to it. You forget that you're watching a movie that's supposed to end in this horrific violence. And of course, I'll let you continue, Mark, but it doesn't, it ends in a different type of horrific violence. But, but,

not female on female violence that characterized the Manson murders, which I think is another kind of subtext of the film. It's just how gory and violent the actual episode is, but you don't actually see that. So I'll let you continue, but there's a whole other part of the Hollywood story that's really fascinating. Yeah, no, that's exactly right.

And by the way, the pop quiz, Catherine, the little girl, the little girl actress, who was she in, who was that intended to be in real life? I don't know, actually. Jody Foster. Oh, is that, oh, that's who she's supposed to be. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I don't realize it.

Okay. She's not under that name, but that's basically the character's basically on Jody Foster. That makes a awesome. And so, and it's bringing it up because, like, she's representative of New Hollywood. So, so, so Johnny Foster was in that, in that era was like a rising busy child star. And then she had her breakup role in, I think, in taxi driver, you know, where she's just like, you know, it's like incredibly revelatory, you know, acting performance. So she's sort of representative of the new, of the new, so quote-unquote, New Hollywood, with the much more naturalistic, like the actualistic acting style that took over from the much more stylized style of the 50s and 60s.

And so to bring that up because to your point, part of the story there was Rick Dalton, you know, basically trying to get out of basically making cliched, haughty genre stuff, right, where he just plays the same tough guy over and over again. So the running joke up until that point is that Rick Dalton starts, started out his career as like a tough guy movie star. and then basically over the years like that archetype was kind of fading in 1968 and so he was increasingly being cast as the bad guy and then you know the thing is

the bad guy, you know, gets like punched, is not the guy who punches and not saying people out. He's the guy gets punched and knocked out and he's sort of on this number of slide and he has absolutely no idea how to adapt itself to this new world. In fact, and again, the way the movie the way this intersects with the other part of the movie is,

you know, is literally with Roman Polanski and share a tape who would in next door, you know, to his character. And he literally he's like, oh my God, if I could just figure out a way to get invited over for like a barbecue or something where I could just meet Roman Polanski who's like the, you know, the leading kind of new Hollywood movie director of that time. If I could just get captioned one of his movies, then I could stay relevant, you know, for the next decade. And he just had like absolutely, there was just absolutely no reason for like Roman Flasky or Chera Tate to give, to give this Rick Dalton character, you know, the time of day because he just represented the past, they represent the future.

until, of course, at the very end of the movie, you know, Rick Dalton saves, you know, and that she, you know, that's the significance of him being invited over at the end of the movie is that sort of his entree to do Hollywood, having basically been taught by Jody Foster as an 11-year-old in actually how to act. Basically, it comes together. It's such a genius way. Anyway, yeah, so, so, so basically, like the sort of macro relevance of this, just to kind of restate the thesis is, you know, Like, if the Manson murders were kind of where the cultural revolution in the 1960s went bad, then once upon a time in Hollywood is sort of the fantasy or the love letter to a different

America in which that didn't happen. Right. And basically, things kept going in a much more a positive direction. But by putting on screen the alternate direction, my view is like he really highlights how bad it was that that's not what happened. And so the tragedy of the Manson murders is not just. just the tragedy for the people who were killed and for their families. And, you know, which was a profound tragedy.

But the tragedy was, like, for basically for all of L.A., because, like, L.A., if you talked to people who were around during that period, like, things got dark in L.A., like, very quickly. Like, people were so freaked out by the Manson murders. Like, they didn't know how many other serial killers running around. They didn't know how many other cults there were. They, like, everybody all of a sudden had to, like, locked their doors.

Like, people stopped going out. Like, it became like, and, by the way, this was the beginning of the hey, they had the serial killer, you know, and, you know, like, it was the beginning of this, like, wave of these things where people got like really, really seriously freaked out. And so that was the other. But then just generally in America that, you know, as I said like that was the beginning of the downward slide in the 70s.

And so by making the what if, positive kind of, you know, all counterfactual so clear, to me it sort of highlights and illustrates in maybe the way that nothing else has been able to do, kind of the darkness that actually played out in real life. Totally. Totally. And like I went back and watched the beginning of the sequence

because it's actually a long sequence of, violence. But what I remember so much, I read the reviews before, not knowing, you know, they try to not have spoiler alerts. And critics were very divided. It was like, this is so violent. This is extremely violent. And what's funny about seeing it in the theater, which was, I'm so glad I saw it in the theater, is that the reaction from the audience, and these are, again, it's like, if you've been opening weekend, these are people who, like, really wanted to see this movie or Tarantino fans, is extreme laughter. Yes. As it is, you are laughing. You are laughing during the most island sequence for 20 minutes.

And what's really funny about what's happening on screen, too, is that Cliff, Cliff, who's the stuntman, and again, this is a spoiler. Like, turn this off. I'm going to go into detail. He takes an edible, like, or LSD. I can't remember if it's an edible or. Oh, smokes an LSD cigarette. Yes.

So, so right before. So he is like high as a kite when these guys come in, which is also like a funny part of it. And the other part that you have to, like, Tarantino is so particular about, details. And so the music that is playing when they come in is actually this like psychedelic rock band. And he shows the kind of transition of the 60s through music through the entire thing, which is really important. But that scene, he's listening to the Supremes, set me free. Why don't you, babe? Right. So it's this perfect moment of like, set me free. And these guys come in. He's high. And he's like, is this real? But Cliff, Clif's response is like laughter. He's laughing at these

women, right? And these women, you know, they have their knives, like, they are ready to, to do the deed, you know, and, and, and he's laughing. And I think it's in some ways, it's, you know, Tarantino always has sort of these, like, takes on, like, masculine violence and, you know, can you kind of, can you can, can you can take the power out of whatever situation happened in history by just, like, this extreme violence. And, like, you know it's about to happen, and there's, like, I won't ruin the pit bull part, but, like, there is something where it's Let's ruin it. Let's ruin it. We're ruining. Like, he sixes pit bull on these women, right?

But watching it again, you're like, this is, it's fascinating because if the mansons have been met with laughter, right? Like, instead they were met with, these are the most evil. They're, you know, they're taken by the devil, right? Like, they were met with fear. And to Mark's point, like, that set off serial killers. Like, it gave power to this extraordinary evil for decades. And I think the point of it is, like, what if, the most masculine, deadly man in the room, had just been high and laughed and, like, you know, sick as pit bull

on these women who, you know, are kind of silly and high themselves. And, like, the whole thing had become a comedy, which it turns into, like, 20 minutes of just sheer hilarity. Like, just absolute hilarity, even though it's the most violent thing you've probably seen in the last several years. He, he, the retro character beats a him to death with a telephone. Yeah, it's just the funniest thing.

there's like it's yeah it's like good and and the flame thrower shows up right like I mean it's it is you could not conceive of the type of violence it meets it meets the most horrific violence that we know is coming right and like that's the backstory to this too is like you know what really happened so you have this weird and the response of you know what actually happened and it's so tragic uh that it was women on you know i always think it's interesting that it was like the manson family right they called themselves family it was a perversion of the family it was a perversion of the family and they actually killed a woman who was eight months pregnant, starting a family.

So it's like this horrific, that's a whole other narrative to this. But like the fact that it's met with even more extreme violence, and at the time it was during, you know, it was during Me Too as well. So it was violence against women. But of course, everyone wants that violence to happen because you don't want the alternative to happen. So it's this very strange moviegoing experience that is both delightful, but also like, you know, a lot of mixed emotions that I think, you know, probably that's why I think critics were so divided on it.

I loved it, but that's why I think critics were divided on it. Yeah. And then if you kind of tell us about, you know, one notch, it's, it's, you're, a caffinger point. It's like, it's like, it's like the ultimate square in the form of Rick Dalton is like, you know, still putting brook cream in his hair and trying to be like, you know, James Dean, tough guy, you know, when that's not what the world wants. And then, yeah, and then, you know, basically, like I said, you know, Captain America, like an icon of the American military, you know, at the time. By the way, the time of Vietnam in which, you know, the military was, you know, not, was, you know, it was not viewed at the level of respect that the American culture has right today. You know, the fact that those two, you know, end up basically beating and roasting a bunch of hippies to death

at the height of the counterculture. It's an incredibly crowd-placing movie. And as you said, it kind of happened in sort of, you know, very, very close to Peak woke, kind of during our culture revolution in the last decade. Like, it's, it's, I don't know if it's properly characterized as like a reactionary movie, but it definitely not, it was definitely not the arc, the moral arc of other attempts

at arc during that time period. Totally. Totally. And just even the final scene of, as you said, him getting invited over and her sort of being blissfully unaware of this happens.

I mean, that's all magical of it. Like, she had no idea that someone has this happens. And you see like the camera sort of pan up. And it's like this, like it just genuinely feels like this is, you know, in the same way than Glorious Bastards

was a revenge drama of what could have possibly happened. This is also like the once upon a time in America's story, like what could have happened. And it was a weird movie going experience in 2019 to be surrounded by people who were laughing, who loved it. You know, it kind of went against everything you were reading in the news, which is that like, you know, no one agrees with, with sort of this alternative history. I mean, it was, it's just a brilliant film that, that, yeah, I'm excited. There's a sequel coming, right, Mark? There is a deed, which is going to be, And let me also say, number one, there's a sequel coming, which, you know, it's going to be just incredible, I'm sure.

But also, there was a, there, Tarantino is so funny. So you guys made both for your, gee, and remember this, but back before the internet and even back before, like, DVDs and video rentals, if you, like, if you, like, if you didn't see a movie, it's in the theater, like, you didn't see it. And, like, it might show up on TV, like, two years later, but they would have cut all the good parts out, and they would have, you know, stuck in all the commercials. And so you, like, they say in one shot to see a movie in the theater. And then if you wanted to see it again and it was out of theater, you couldn't. And so there was this genre of paperback novelizations of movies. And so what you would do is you would buy the paperback novelization, and then you could read that as many times as you want.

So, you know, I had a shot all these things that I was a kid, you know, Star Wars and all these things. You know, read them all like 14 times. And so anyway, so Tarantino being, you know, sort of a child of this era, you know, like I am, Tarantino actually wrote a paperback novelization of the movie once upon a time in Hollywood. And he specifically wrote it as a paperback novelization. And so it came out in paperback.

and very much is an homage to this. But of course, being turned, you know, it's actually turns out, of course, it's not just a paper-back novelization. It turns out it's like an entirely new novel. And so, and it's actually funny because it doesn't, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's sat in the same world of the movie and has, and has, and, and, and, and, and, and, it doesn't even get, he doesn't even get, he doesn't care at all about, like, having the plot of the movie actually in the novel. and so he just throws away right up front in the novel. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then Rick Dalton, like, wrote to a bunch of hippies, you know, his clearing pool

that night, right? So, like, it's like the plot's not the point for the novelization. So the novelization, I think, I think it's a very few people have read it, you know, kind of just by, by racial how he came on with that I think, because I think people didn't know what to make of, like, literally a paper-bite novelization of, like, 20-22 or whatever came out. But I think he does a reasonable claim on being a Great America novel. And the reason specifically, I think he good is right a lot because it just,

It goes much deeper into all the themes of the, you know, that we're talking about. And so, like, it goes really deep into the transformation of Hollywood that was happening at that time. You know, it goes really deep into the making, you know, the Western show that happens inside the movie, which is actually a real show called Lancer. It was actually a real show with, with that, you know, with that setup and with those actors. And it goes much deeper into all the characters. It goes deeper into the Manson family. And so it's, yeah, it's really amazing.

And by the way, I should also say, yeah, the movie does have a scene in which it has left end. U.S. is whether or not Cliff Booth killed his wife. By the way, let me just say, the wife played by Rebecca Deahart, who just, like, I think she's in a movie for like 30 seconds, and she almost steals the movie. Like, she's just hysterically funny. And she plays, like, the meanest, like, wife in the world. She's just, like, hectoring and, like, screaming at Bradford. And then literally on a fishy boat, Brad Pitt has a speargun in his lap.

And it's sort of, and in the movie, it's like set up as basically, you know, there was a spear gun accident, you know, following this argument and did Brett did actually. actually deliberately killed his wife or not. And, of course, in the novelization, it makes very fair. Yes, he, in fact, yes, he. I think it's in the novel. I think it's like, yes, Brett Pitt definitely killed his wife and got aware of it. Cliff Booth killed his wife and got away with it.

And then I think that I think he says the novel he says, and that was one of the three times that Cliff Booth committed murder and got away with it. So anyway, anyway, for those of you who have only seen the movie, it turns out the clip booth character actually, yes, as a real dark side. And yes, the hippies pick the rock house, step to stumble into. And so is the, we were talking offline about how it's,

you know, there's some relevance to today. Is the connection that, you know, the 2010s to some people was seen as a sort of glorious march towards, you know, progress. And then,

you know, whether it's the 2020 Floyd riots or more recently, the Luigi, you know, made your own murder or the murder of Charlie Kirk. There's kind of this moment of, oh my God, that this thing has gone.

author. Is that kind of the Yeah. So I would say whichever side of the political and social spectrum you're on, like the world that we lived in today is a much darker version of what everybody thought we were going to be living it. I mean like, so for people who were like 100% on board with like the social so back up a second. There to your point.

So like I think there's a very direct analogy of what's call it, 1964 to 972 or something with the re-election of Richard Nixon. Like that culture revolution that happened during the 60s, kind of the hippie Vietnam kind of revolution. I think what we in America

been through the last decade is sort of another version of that. Like I think we went through our version of that. It started around, I would date it to like 2015, 2014, and then you know, it basically that era sort of ended November, November, November 2024. You know, obviously if you're on the right, you're like, oh my God, thank God that's over. And, you know,

the world can move on. If you're on the left, of course, you're like, oh my God, what just happened? How did, you know, how does the revolution go so bad? That is precisely what happened at the end of the revolution in the 1960s. And specifically, I mentioned 1992, so Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, and it was like a hard-fought race in very dramatic Minnesota, right, but that

he was re-elected in 1972 in a landslide. Like, I usually was together as like a 49 state landslide or some crazy thing. Like, it was just like an overwhelming landslide. So it was like the American people basically rose up and basically said, yeah, no more of this, it's over. And so we, you know, we, I mean,

the echoes are just like profound of how this played out. And they're echoes, right? It's not exactly comparable, you know, in Iraq and Vietnam, you know, play different roles and so forth. And the economy, you know, has developed different ways. And, you know, Trump and Nixon are different people and so forth. But, and the social movements are different, you know, in times of change. But still, like, there was, there was a cultural revolution. It was, you know, either glorious or terrible for some period of time and then get ended, right? It was just like a sequence of

events happened where just like it was over and you're out of the other side and you're in a new world. And, and, and, and, and, and, and I would argue like, that's exactly what, that's exactly the kicked off at 69 of the Madisonburgers and then sort of bookended to the 72 with Nix's re-election and then kind of slide into the 1970s and then I'll go to next nudist, like that I would argue like that that's precisely the same kind of transition that we're going through right now. And I think it's either thrilling and horrifying people in a very similar way that at the end of the 60s, either thrilled or horrified people. Yeah, Catherine, would you agree with that?

I would. I would. And I also, since you mentioned Vietnam, I want to transition to the best Vietnam War film ever made. Okay, this is this, this is, everything we've set up until now is milk toast as compared to the extremely controversial plane the Catholic is about to make. Please, go for it. It is, it is, it is by far the best Vietnam War film ever made. Um, and of course it incorporates every Vietnam war film every, ever made, including deer hunter, full metal jacket, um, you know, once, uh, or, um, born on the 4th of July,

apocalypse now. The best Vietnam war film ever made is Tropic Thunder. But it also happens to be one of the best films about Hollywood. Actually, I would actually say that once upon a time in Hollywood, while it is incredible film, is more about America. But Tropic Thunder is also about America in different ways and reveals a lot about America, but is by far the best Hollywood film ever made. I'll let Mark talk about why that is.

Well, so let's date. It saw his data. Tropic Thunder was what year? It was 2008, which is actually very important, because I think one of the things that people forget, is that 2008 was also the year where we had a POW from the Vietnam War running for office against the first black president in history. And that is in very important context for all of the themes dealt with inside of Tropic Thunder,

which of course is a comedy. It's a satire. But it satirizes everything in the kind of before times 2008. But I think that is a very important subtext to what came out during an election year where those two themes were on display. But I'll let Mark get into the summary, since it's also one of his favorite films. Well, it is, although I'm going to defer, I'm a defer to, so, because I think it's, I think it's a story of a funny, you know, it's maybe the funniest movie, funniest movie the last 25 years

or something like. It's just, it's just like an incredibly entertaining movie. And just for people to just have a sense of, like, how much times have changed, like the most, I mean, there's many amazing things about it, but one of the most amazing things about it is, you know, they go the great actor Robert Donnie Jr. plays the entire movie at Blackface. and not only plays the entire movie of Blackface, like I would say extraordinarily commits for the bit. He's a method actor, played a method actor. Any part of a movie in method,

playing another method actor, you know, playing an actor in a type of blackface. Again, which to your point on, once upon time in Hollywood, when the film was first announced, this was known that Robert Downey Jr. was going to be playing an actor in blackface. And as you can imagine, it was the same thing that happened with Once Upon Time in Hollywood,

where it was like, like, in the same way that the Tate family was terrified of what would happen in the film, there was a whole kind of, you know, terror of what is going to, like, Robert Danny Jr., like he's destroying his career. Like, who does Ben Stiller think he is doing this movie, right? Like, no one actually knew the backstory or how it would be satirizing Hollywood actors who will go through any extreme length to win an Oscar. but when you get into the film, it is handled so beautifully and delicately. And actually, I was reading,

I was reading about sort of how they handled it when they were producing it, which was that they invited, you know, a number of members of the NACP. They invited, you know, a number of different, like very thoughtful critics and said, you have to see this film first and see. And it was, again, the same sort of thing

where it's like everyone saw it first and they said, don't worry. It's perfect, right? It's hilarious. And so I'll let you continue. But, like, they handled it in a way. Wait, wait. did they have to apologize in the 2010s?

I remember Jimmy Kimmel had to apologize for Blackface or one of these people. Did they get away with it? Interesting point. So when it came out, it was so clearly satirizing white actors who were trying to win an Oscar. Right. So it was clearly satirizing everyone. It was not, it was, you know, it was sort of universally beloved, so much so that Robert Downey Jr. was nominated for an Oscar, which is a whole other backstory to how they made that happen

because it was kind of a continuation of the movie that they, as a joke, petitioned the Academy, you know, said, for your consideration, and the Academy actually nominated him for an Oscar for the role. So it was so, it was so beloved, like, what he did and how brilliant the role was that no one cared. But I believe it was, like, 2017 or 2018 when this sort of, like, new crop of young people

came through journalism and said, like, this is horrible. They tried to sort of cancel him. You might know Mark better how he handled it. But, like, it clearly, they did not cancel Robert Downey Jr. For doing a satirization of the role he played. So just to fill this in and then we'll get to that. I'm going to get to the, the Vietnam aspects of this, but Vietnam War Movie aspects to this.

But yeah, so just specifically what happened was, correct me if I have this wrong. Robert Donny Jr., a white American actor, plays a white Australian actor, who is a method actor, who I think was sort of loosely inspired by Daniel Day Lewis. sort of a, you know, sort of that kind of, you know, super elite. You know, there's a couple scenes where you see, where you see, where you see Robert out of

black face, but, but dressed off with as, uh, dressed up as the, as the Australian actor who like has, like, I forget what's like transmucousic green eyes or something. It's this very striking, striking look and like this very plummy Australian accent. And so it's a white American actor in real life playing a white Australian actor, playing a Southern black man in black face. for the entire movie. On top of that, I believe Robert Downey often improvises throughout his movies.

And I think a fair amount of the, I think a fair amount of the portrayal was him on the spur of the moment, which is fairly incredible when you see it because he fully and has the world. And then, of course, he's actually in the movie, he's actually, he's in the movie, inside the movie, he's in a platoon with, of course,

an actual black guy. It was a young black actor whose name I can't recall, but it's just like it's a fresh having this. It was a good, it's a brilliant, like the way they play off each other is brilliant. His name on the film is Al Pacino, but Al Pacino.

Aficino. There's a rapper. It's a rapper who becomes an actor. Yes. And there's a... So, hold, there's a lot of... No, no, no.

I was going to say, there's a whole other through line there of his role because I think one of the things that everyone remembers of the film is they have the fake trailers before the film starts. and he is Al Pacino the rapper and he's telling a drink that he calls booty sweat

and it's so funny about like how brilliant this film is because not only like not only do they satirize Hollywood in the film they were like first Barbenheimer like what they did they're like we're going to market this in so many funny ways they did incredible things

before and after the film but one of the things that they did was they made booty sweat into an actual drink marketed it through the entire Oscar petition like they went so far. I mean, the only film that's done as exceptional as Tropa Thunder was Barbie. But they, they figured out how to turn every aspect of this film into a marketing genius. The other smart thing that they did, by the way, one of the actors that Ben Stiller, Ben Stiller plays this guy

named Tug Speedman, who is based on a dumb Tom Cruise. His name is Tug Speedman, right? Like, where did they get that name? It's Tom Cruise. But they also have Tom Cruise in the movie as the producer who's based on Harvey Weinstein, less, I can't remember, Les Grossman. Les Grossman, yes. And so, but they didn't want anyone to know Tom Cruise was in the film. So they actually sued anyone, any of the paparazzi,

who took pictures of him before, because they wanted people to come to the theater and not know that Tom Cruise was in it. And, of course, he, like, wrote his entire role. Like, he, to your point in improv, like, he improvised that entire role and wrote it. Like, it was kind of hit Tom Cruise's brainchild. I think they originally offered him something else, and he's like, no, no, no, I want to play Harvey Weinstein.

And it is genius, but they did so many things to make sure that the entire sort of cult of the movie outside of the movie was like Hollywood produced. Where you, to Mark's point, you have this, you know, method actor, playing a method actor who is trying to get an Oscar through his method acting, who ultimately ends up getting nominated for the Oscar, losing to Heath Ledger, the year that Ledger died posthumously. when it was awarded to him. But it's like they could not have, it is a 20-year project. That's the very interesting thing about this was like Ben Stiller's been working on this since the 80s.

And it was just that year where they were finally able to get it made. And it is this brilliant commentary on all of Hollywood. And we can get into the Vietnam stuff too because I think it's also a commentary on that. But it's, it is the best Hollywood film ever made even in the fact that they were able

to successfully sway the Oscars. Right. Well, it was also, Catherine your point, it was also the re-side of the Tom Cruise image issues of the time, because this was after the sort of run of controversy around him and Scientology and his personal life and all those things. And there was, so this run of very bad bliss and a lot of people in the industry were worried that he was not going to be a bankable movie star anymore. And I think that this role in this movie was basically his recovery from that, which was pulled off absolutely perfectly. And of course, he then went on to be an even bigger movie started before. Totally. Yeah. So it's a great career resurrection in the middle of this.

Yeah. And then, yeah, just in terms of like how much times have changed or, you know, somebody once said that the past is a, is a foreign planet or another country. Is, yeah, like, you had an American actor being nominated for an Oscar for a character performed a Black Face in 2008. Directed by a Hollywood filmmaker is obviously a genius, but, you know, within 10 years was like, he, you know, Ben Stoley subsequently became one of the wokenthewest Hollywood figures, you know, in the years that follow, like, you know, all through the last. decade, like, Benzschiller has been, like, you know, to the left of Che Guevara on every social and political

issue. And so, you know, I don't know. I've never met him. I've had great admirer on his art. But, like, I wonder how much of his shift to the far left politically and socially was a reaction having made this movie. Well, and the other thing is, I mean, everyone focuses on Robert Downey Jr. But there are like at least four other untouchable things that happen in that film. So the disability advocates, actually when the film came out, the people who were most upset in 2008, were the disability advocates because of the commentary on what's, I believe it's common on what's eating Gilbert grape, right? Never, like, I'll just say.

Well, and Forest, Forest Cup, and Forest Cup, yes, yes. And Raymond, but yeah, um, uh, Simple Jack. Simple Jack, yes. So the, the famous line that is said is, and again, I'm quoting the film, never go full retard, which was okay to say in 2008, except for the disability advocates, who were very upset about it. And of course, like, they were sort of on the fringe in 2008. But that was actually the thing that Ben Stiller had to apologize for

because they didn't test the film on Simplejack, but it was commentary from Robert Downey Jr. in Blackface saying everybody knows and then saying the line, right? Because Tug Speedman doesn't play it as he should. He does the full Leo DiCaprio, what's eating Gilbert Grape, sort of like, you know, full on, right? does be a rainmaker. But there's two other things that happen. So the other thing that I think people didn't realize is that it is so much of a commentary on Vietnam War film, because a lot of

Vietnam War memoirs in later years have been proven to be completely disingenuous, right? So it's like people who said they went to Vietnam, didn't go to Vietnam. And so in the storyline and the film, the guy whose memoir, Tropic Thunder, the movie is actually based on is a member of the Coast Guard who never got sent to Vietnam, who worked for the sanitation department. Right? So that's like a whole theme in the movie. And so there's this like brilliant commentary also on like, you know, veterans issues.

And I think some veterans groups were upset about it. There were also people who were very upset with Tom Cruise's portrayal. And it was, you know, it was before we kind of all knew who he was portraying and everything. But there were people who were very upset that they felt that that was the stereotype. So like pretty much every character, like there was people who were. And again, these were fringes. It wasn't like mass commentary on this. But they're like, they managed.

to insult, like, every protected group in a way that, like, everyone kind of was like, well, yeah, but it's satire, right? So it was a totally different time in America, but it wasn't just, you know, focus on race relations. I mean, it was on, you know, we had a, again, we had a Vietnam POW running for president that year. And basically a mockery, like the greatest mockery of Vietnam film ever made. So in some ways, it's like this film was just, like, so perfectly time for the era we were living in. Well, we still have to this day, let's not name names on a otherwise

a fun podcast. There are a sinning United States politicians in serious offices who like literally faked Vietnam War records. Like that, like that's not over. Like that's actually still the case. And so to your point, like, you know, there were many people obviously could serve very honorable to Vietnam and then there were people

who like made up completely fake stories and wrote them the rest of their career. And like, you know, yeah. So the movie takes like, it's your point. movie, among other things, takes direct aim at that. And I believe the guy wears a hook, the whole film with his hand. I mean, like, this movie is

so brilliant. It's so brilliant. And the levels of commentary just are remarkable to this day. Yes, yes. And so yes, yes, cute, yes. I mean, just like, so, yeah, maybe this is, bookends the previous, previous conversation of just like, yes,

this is clearly made before the culture, before our version of the Cultural Revolution. And so it's like Yeah, it's like an ancient artifact. Like, I was saying only now are we reemerging into a world in which a movie like that could be made. Like for a movie like that for the last probably, what, 13 years or something would have been totally off limits. And we're coming out into a world now where movies like that can get paid again. Yeah.

Jimmy Kimmel's not going to bring back The Man Show, her return to his roots. For people who follow, yes, for people who don't get the reference, for anybody who followed the recent Jimmy Kimmel sort of affair and all of the outrage, It is worth going on YouTube and just, yeah, looking at clips from a Jimmy Kimball show 20 years ago, which was literally called The Man Show. And just to get a sense of the long and twisty road that some of our, some of our highest, most famous public figures have followed. And also a tale of a tale of two comedians, right? Because it's him and Adam Carolla, right?

And it's like their careers have detoured dramatically since the show. Yes, that's right. two other films we wanted to discuss were Oppenheimer and Fight Club. So let's start with, let's start with, let's start with Oppenheimer just because it's more, it's more recent.

So I will make the case. So I'm a, I'm an enormous Christopher Nolan fan. I've seen all those movies. I love all those movies. I think they're really tremendous. You know, I think that, you know,

I say this, I think Tenet is one of the best movies ever seen. And like I, I, I sat through Tenet with a giant smile on my face, the entire movie. Like, I just thought that was just like, absolute magic.

I love deception. I love many of his movies. But I think Oppenheimer was like an incredibly well made movie and had, you know, credible performances and was like, you know, put together really well. It was, you know, tremendously interesting to watch. I will argue that it did not reach our level of capital A art. I think it actually quite badly fell short on sort of, I would say, morality and ultimately in importance to our culture. But yeah, yeah, I'm, they happen to give my feel on that. But let me just start by say, Catherine, just out of the gate, would you agree with me on that? Or would you like to, would you like to take the pro side that Oppenheimer was greater? No, I agree with you, but I probably, I probably concur.

Like, I probably have different reasons than you as to why I didn't think it worked. Like, and I should, I should preface it with, like, I, I had hyped this movie so much, where my expectations might have been so ridiculously high that when I finally saw it, I was like, but I do think it's interesting. Robert Downey Jr. was all, he won the Academy Award finally for, Oppenheimer. He deserved it for Tropic Thunder. He was fantastic in the movie, but I will say he deserved it for Tropic Thunder. And if not for Heath Ledger, he would have won it for, and I feel like that would have been really the role he should have won it for, but he was fantastic in Oppenheimer as well.

So to your point, like, there were many good performances. My sort of criticism is probably different than yours, but it probably has a lot more to do with like the actual sort of storytelling and filmmaking than the actual content of the work. Okay, got it. Yeah. So for people who haven't seen it, we're going to spoil it. So Robert, Robert Downing plays a real-life guy named Lewis Strauss, who was a very high-ranking, like, sort of important person of the 1950s, 1960s in the government. And ended up, I forget the exact role, but basically ended up overseeing Oppenheimer having a security clearance stripped and basically being booted out of the military industrial complex after, you know, basically leading the,

creation of the atomic bomb. In the movie, it kind of goes through that whole story. And, you know, it's a fantastic performance. All the, I mean, look, all the performances in the movie were fantastic. Tilly Murphy was just outstanding as Oppenheimer. And then I was it, Ben, I think he's Benny Safty, one of the Saffty brothers, played Edward Teller. And like, almost just stole the movie just with that portrayal.

And again, you know, a real person, the creator, but later the creator of the hydrogen bomb. He's there anyway, so fantastic performance, this fantastic direction. I will argue. My critique of the movie, though, it involves the following claim, which is the Louis Strauss is actually a hero of the movie. Yes, maybe go into that history

so people understand, because that is definitely not the takeaway from the film. Yes, that is not what the film intent. You know, the film intended, I think the film intensity of Catherine had agreed with this. The film intended to contrast, basically, a great man Oppenheimer to basically an aspirate to greatness

who fell badly short in the Louis Strauss character who sort of brought the great man low and in a fundamentally unfair way. And then it sort of, the movie sort of sets up, both Oppenheimer and actually also specifically Albert Einstein as sort of the key moral authorities of the era with respect to use of nuclear weapons. Both claims of which I believe are like deeply incorrect on substance. And this is my critique of the movie is not in its execution or any of the performances.

My critique is the morality of the movie I think is very badly upside down. And it's upside down in the way that kind of flatters our correct politics, but like is very badly upside down in terms of what actually happened at the time. And so the movie basically tells the story, of course, Robert Offenheimer, the sort of person who ran the Manhattan Project created the atomic bomb, which was then, you know, at least a story where he gets credit for, you know, helping to end World War II. You know, when the U.S. drop, drop, you know, the U.S. dropped in the atomic bomb in wartime, you know, to date. And, you know, there's even still to the state debate about this. But, you know, generally excepting industry, I think, is that that, you know, that ended the Pacific Theater. a conflict, you know, sooner than it would have it. It prevented the need for a land invasion of Japan, you know, conceivably, you know, saved like a million lives or something like that. Now, by the way, it was dropping a totto-bama on two civilian cities, right? So again, you know, like the morality of the time was, you know, quite a bit different than, you know, than, that may be ours today. But anyway, so that's kind of history of it. And then, you know,

famously the Manhattan Project was sort of this assembly of sort of the finest minds. In America, many of them, by the way, were, you know, refugee, you know, not often, I'm, Oppenavis, Derek actually, is a, in a movie, in reality, and in the movie is German-Jewish, whose family, you know, who his family had arrived much earlier. And, but then a lot of the other key members of the Manhattan Project, you know, kind of in one of the great twists of irony were, Hungary, Jewish refugees from, you know, from basically of the Nazi kind of rampaged through Europe, you know, who came to the U.S. and basically, you know, helped arm up the U.S. of which Edward Teller was an example of that.

And so, anyway, so the movie tells us, you know, kind of an amazing story of the Manhattan Project, but specifically in the arc of Oppenheimer, I guess I'd say that the conventional, let me back up for a sec. I think the first half of the movie, I think is actually quite historically grounded and I think has, like I, at least, I agree to this interpretation of history.

And so it is the following them. So the first half, and I think the movies may be a little bit schizophrenic and I should give it a little more credit than I was. But like the first half of the movie is actually a, it's one of the only recreations on film of what American elite culture and society and American research establishment

of kind of the leading experts at the time, the nation 20s and 30s like how thoroughly saturated that world was communist. And specifically, it sort of recreates, you know, this sort of the, there's actually a joke in the movie. There's a line in the movie that's sort of one of these jokes that's not really a joke, which is the joke as,

you know, because a lot of the movie takes place is set up as at UC Berkeley. And there's sort of a joke in the movie, which is like, you know, well, you know, you know, it's so and so on the Berkeley faculty, you know, as a communist, somebody else will say, yes, like, half the perfect faculty are communists. Like, everybody knows that. Like, it's just completely taken for granted. And of course, you know, the politics in that aside, the issue becomes, okay, now they're working on a classified

weapons program. You know, the U.S. is, you know, is kind of variously at odds with not just Germany, but also with Soviet Russia. And, you know, there's this very big concern, you know, we're, you know, this effort is inventing this, you know, super weapon. And there was a, you know, very high degree to serve that the secrets of the atomic bomb, we're going to, you know, just walk their way out the door from Los Alamos that were going to end up bad people's hands, you know, and one fear obviously was they ended up in Hitler's hands, but another fear was they would end up Stalin's hands. And by the way, spoiler alert, that's exactly

what happened. So in fact, the nuclear sequence walk right out the door and basically both the concepts of the atomic bomb and that actually the specific wiring instructions for the atomic bomb were actually walking right out the back door of Los Alamos into into the Soviet hands and it stoned out the bomb very quickly after that. And it was directly derived from the work that actually happened on the Manhattan Project. And so it turned out to Manhattan Project, like it really was riddled with time to despise.

And there's these famous names in history like the Rooseveltburg said David Greenglass that you can go through and read about it if you want. But like the fears of all of the people who are worried about this were actually correct. It is actually what happened. By the way, there's a character in the movie Boris Pash, who is sort of a security officer at the Manhattan Project, if both in real life and in the movie. in the movie he sort of portrayed as this like guy with basically essentially a stick up his butt like this like guy who's like you know like constantly like you know cross-examining and not trusted the scientists and thinks that I'm a higher op andhyber is probably a spy and the whole thing he's kind of portrayed as this like over the top you know kind of thing but like if you if you go if you read his wikipedia entry of like what his wife story had been up until that point he's another one of these guys were just like this incredibly impressive backstory of the country at fight a communist um and then you know and then like you know whether he was right about opunhyber we could talk about about, but, like, he was right that, like, Tbilas, almost with Ronald was kind of despise,

and this is going to lead to catastrophe, you know, with Stalin getting the bomb. And then, you know, the Strauss character was also very worried about that. And again, you know, outside of whether he was right about Oppenheimer, per se, he was, he was right about the, he was right about the broader issue. And so, so, so that is what actually, that, that, that is what actually happened. And so, like, all of the security concerns that are kind of a set up to what, you know, is sort of portrayed as the persecution of Robert Oppenheimer, like, they were all completely legitimate security concerns. And in fact, the worst-case scenario actually did happen, like all the secrets like walk right out the door went straight to Stalin.

The first Soviet, we now know this. The first Soviet atomic bomb was wire for wire compatible with the U.S. Nagasaki bomb. So they got literally the wearing nitrots. And, you know, for people who have read about nuclear weapons, like, it's actually very hard to detonate a nuke and they have to be wired in a very specific white. It's like you can't, they're very difficult to set off. And like the Soviet spies on the Manhattan Project literally like transferred that information

to Russia and nuclear power. And so anyway, like within that, there's this arc of basically Oppenheimer, you know, was he or was he or was he not? And there's one arc actually, which is was he or was he not himself a Soviet asset, which is it's generally viewed historically that he wasn't literally a Soviet asset, although I think there are still questions around that in fairness. And we can talk about that. But then there's just this broader thing, which is even if he wasn't, like was he

trustworthy and could he be relied upon? And then there was a specific thing that actually happened, which the movie presents a version of that I think is not, my understanding history is not correct, but which is Oppenheimer basically worked his butt off to deliver the atomic bomb for the purpose of beating Germany in Japan. But then immediately upon that happening, the U.S. weapons program shifted into making the hydrogen bomb, which was going to be the big one that was going to be used, ultimately, you know, ultimately was going to be used to the Cold War, you know, as it deterrent against the Soviet Union, you know, was an project led by Edward Teller. And the accusation always

was Oppenheimer deliberately slow roll the development of the hydrogen bomb. Like he tried to prevent that from happening. Of course, the, you know, and, you know, Oppenheimer's version of the story is, it's one thing to, like, have a new thing could take out a city to end a war. It's another thing to have a new thing that could take out the planet. You know, and so, like, you know, should we really be doing this?

But there's another version of the story, which is you were completely in favor of beating Germany in Japan. And then, but the minute it came to beating the Soviet Union, you know, you got cold feet, you know, isn't that interesting, right? That that's the thing that you didn't want to have happen. And then there's just the reality that, like, Oppenheimer's background and political activities and, all of the people around him, including his wife and his girlfriend and his brother were actual,

like, I haven't believed this to be the case. I think his wife, his girlfriend, and his brother were all actual communists, like actual capital C, car car car carrie communist. And then Alpenheimer himself was like embroiled to communism and it's sort of communist, you know, sort of adjacent organizations, you know, his entire life. He's not known ever have been a member of the Communist Party. Although again, there's, there's, there's ambiguity there because the Soviets had a practice of having their best placed assets actually never become members of his party, because, of course, they were trying to protect him against exactly the kind of persecution that Oppenheimer got leveled against him.

Anyway, so in the movie, ultimately, his security clearance gets stripped, and he sort of resigns of disgrace. The movie paints this as like a great act of moral heroism on his part, where basically he won a credit for the little bomb, but he didn't want the big bomb to happen and certainly didn't want to have anything to do with it. And look, you know, he's dead. They're all dead. Like, you know, I don't know that we'll ever know, like, what lay in their hearts, but there are very interesting questions around this.

And then there's my most stinging indictment of the movie, which is Einstein was the exact opposite of immoral exemplar. Einstein was Stalinist. Like Einstein was like a full-on, like, Einstein was pro-Stalin. Like, not even just pro-communist, it was actually pro-Stylin. And Einstein thought that like American democracy was like not going to cut it. And like we clearly needed to get to communist dictatorship.

And there's a book that goes through this called When Reason Goes a Holiday that came out a few years ago. It kind of goes through all of Einstein's writings and speeches and kind of re-restear. constructs this history. And so the movie kind of presents Oppenheimer and Einstein is like the adults, especially Einstein is like the moral adults in the room, to a degree that I just think is like basically at this point bizarre. And the reason is bizarre is because, you know, the whole thing is set up of like, oh my God, what if the atomic bomb destroys the world? Oh my God, you know, this whole thing and all politics evolved in that, so the ending and so forth. But like we're sitting here 80 years later. And the thing that we know today, and I don't know that any of us would choose to have had

the events play out this way and maybe the world would be better without the bottom or whatever. But like, well, we know today is World War III didn't happen. And so basically, like, everybody, everybody in sort of the military political establishment in 1945 kind of took it for granted that there was going to be World War III with Soviet Union at some point. And it was going to be a land war in Europe and around the world. And it was going to kill probably, you know, on the order of 200 million people. And it was just going to be absolutely devastating.

And, like, you know, in any other era, like, of sort of geopolitics, like that almost certainly would have happened, given how tens of it got, especially in the 60s and 70s. And like literally didn't happen. Like World War III is the dog that didn't bite. And the reason World War III didn't happen is sort of, I think, fairly obvious, which is mutually assured destruction, right? The fact that both sides had nukes basically meant that neither side to go to war with the other. And that resulted in, you know, it resulted in a cold war, but not a hot war.

So, you know, I think if you kind of stack up Oppenheimer and Teller and these guys, you kind of say, you know, by building bombs that could destroy the world, they prevent it at least one, you know, major world war. You know, by the way, if not many. And by the way, the existence of nukes may prevent another world war for 500 years, right? You know, we don't know yet, but like, you know, that mutually assured destruction is still in effect. They may be, they may be causing us to not have a hot war with China, right? There's the fact that both the U.S. and China had nukes. And so anyway, so, and by the way, that's all debatable and you can argue that, but like, that's the argument. That's the argument that ought to happen, like, especially with what we know today.

And I just thought by Moody, like, I thought the movie just, like, really cheated on the morality of it because it kind of presented this, this guy's this slam done that the nuke was bad and that these people were bad and the old thing was bad and that Einstein was like a word, sorry, that remember of Einstein and Oppenheim were moral heroes in some extent, kind of trying to line up against this. And I just thought that that really cheated the audience. I think, I think you and I are much closer on our critique of it. My, my sense is very similar to yours that it started out very strong, right? Like, the portrayal in Berkeley, like was a very interesting, you know, like you kind of, you saw this complex figure and complex character. And then there's this whole middle section

on the Manhattan Project that kind of culminates in what I would say is like incredible visuals and sound. Like actually like the movie excels in both score and sound. And if you saw it in a theater, you were like the sound editing is like the thing that won the Oscar. I think they won 10 Oscars. I mean, they won everything. But it's like like sound editing and score like just incredible movie making. And then to use your word schizophrenic, like the third part, which is all

about you know, Robert Johnny Junie's Junior's character being like a villain, it sort of ends with this, you know, there's this brilliant scene that I think everyone remembers where they show him giving a speech to all the people at Los Alamos and then they show like him envisioning bodies in, you know, in Hiroshima, right? And you kind of see the juxtaposition. You see him sort of losing his sort of, his sort of, you know, conviction that he did the right thing. And I feel like if they had just stopped the movie there, it would have been the commentary on like, okay, like we don't really understand his legacy, but instead they had to tie it up with, it was almost like if, you know, for writers and artists,

like if you don't know how to end something, you kind of tie things up with neat bows that have nothing to do with the thing that happened before. And it felt like the third section on the security clearance and on him being a hero was almost like the filmmaker's apology. Like, actually, no, no, I'm going to decide, I'm actually going to paint this for everyone inside that he was actually a good man. And there's no sort of moral ambiguity about this figure. like he was actually a good man and actually the real villains are the national security hawks and the people in Washington and the bureaucrats. And like, and then it was just this sort of portrayal of, you know, the evil bureaucracy coming for the beautiful scientists. And,

and it sort of mimicked, I think, also a conversation that was happening in 2023 when it came out, which is all of these great AI scientists basically saying, oh, well, no, AI is actually going to kill us all. And, you know, I know this because I'm an expert. It was like the same sort of thing. And I kind of felt like that was also the sort of language. language of the end of the film is like, no, no, it's normal for people who, who build incredible things to, like, actually regret their innovation. And it just felt like way too buttoned up for a film that has a lot more complexity and that if they had just ended it at hour two, it would have been a masterpiece. Yeah, it's how it could be able to conform with present

immorality. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so that, anyway, so that's my, like, long-exended argument for why Leo Strauss was actually the hero of the movie. But he just he was correct. Oppenheimer could not be trusted. Oppenheimer needed to be your objective for the project. Also, Lewis Strauss has shown the movie as being very jealous of Einstein, but if you squint, you could say he also had Einstein's number. Indian Einstein was not to be trusted,

which was 100% true. And then, yeah, Catherine, to your point, like, again, I guess exactly right, what you just said up, the comparison of AI, like, if you read the history of those people at that time, specifically people like Oppenheimer, you realize, yeah, the people who invent the technology have no special moral claim. They had no special predicted power

for the consequences of the technology and they have no basis for a superior moral claim on the implications of the technology. And I will say this, the movie, you know, the movie being made by geniuses. Like there was a scene in the movie that actually did kind of hit that, which was which was based in a real life thing that happened,

which was Oppenheimer after the war, visited Harry Truman in the White House. And basically, and this is sort of in the histories, in the real world histories, Oppenheimer basically went to Truman, essentially basically confessed enormous guilt for having built atomic bomb and for having, you know, for the U.S. having dropped it on, on Japan. And, and actually in real

life, Truman is, I forget the exact quote, but it's in the Truman biographies. You know, Truman basically said, it basically, you know, basically got him out of his office as fast as possible. It told us chief of staff, like, I think the exact line was never let that weepy son of a bitching here again. And then I think the line of the movie is based on something Truman apparently actually said, which was, you know, Robert, you didn't make the decision to drop the bomb. It's not on you. I made the decision. Right. Which, right. Which. which is like an incredibly powerful thing, which is the duly elected commander-in-chief of the country

made that decision as he should have, the scientist does not have the moral authority inside how the technology is used. It's our, you know, in our system of government, that the commander-in-chief has that authority, you know, in our elected representatives. And so, like, to the movie's enormous credit, it did include that. It did show that.

And again, like, in my fantasy cut of the movie, that's the end of the movie. so they kind of of nodded that but like I said Ben Ben they let him off the hook at the end Shall we close with

Fight Club? Fight Club, well we could spend an entire we could spend hours on just Fight Club and we probably should at some point I would just say about Fight Club Fight Club's into me

I think it's like I think it's 100% true art with capital A I think it's amazing I think it's definitely gonna stand a test of time already is and it's one of those movies and it's one of those movies that has that characteristic

we talked about last time where like if you watched it the week it came out versus a year later versus five years later versus 10 years later versus 10 years later versus 20 years versus 30 years later like it has new meanings as as as our society evolves and it's got and you can kind of you can at any at any kind of point in time you can kind of use it as a prism on our society um it's it's it's it's amazing in retrospect i guess my my sort of social political kind of kind of analysis of it would be like it was clearly intended as a lifting movie of at the time because it was sort of it was sort of And the novel that, you know, the famous novel that it's based on, you know, and it's sort of this, you know, almost like, what was it? Remember the original, like, it was the sort of left-wing anti-capitalism of that era, like left-wing anarchism, you know, a little bit like that, you know, the 90s version of like Luigi leftism or something where it's like, you know, capitalism is this, you know, basically this horrible right-wing machine that's like crushing everybody's spirits. And of course, in the movie, Eddart in place, you know, it's sort of an office drone who just like effacitates his life and, you know, has no future in my case himself and, you know, ends up doing all the things that, you know, kind of play out in the movie, which, you know, and then, by the way, the movie culminates

in basically the destruction of capitalism, you know, basically, what does it, he, they, he, he takes down the buildings containing. I think it's like all the, what is it, all the bank records or credit card records to kind of, you know, wipe the slate clean and start, start, start, the economy and society over again. So at the time, it's just like, wow, that's like a really left-wing message. And, of course, it's, you know, it's like, it's, you know, David Fincher and it's Edna or Brad Pitt. It's like one of the best, most entertaining, you know, most captivating movies ever made. It's just phenomenal, but like, it's fundamentally a left-week movie. You watch it today and you're just like, wow, it's like ultra, ultra right wing.

Like, it's like ultra, ultra, ultra right way. Because to start with, it's a white guy. Right. Right. And so they're like, it's literally you view it today and you're like, wow, it's, you know, it's, you know, the stereotype would be it's a right. You know, it's a, it's a white, you know, it's a privileged white male in cell, you know, basically, right? You know, with like every advantage of the world who said to, you know, who nevertheless has built up this persecution complex. Right.

And you just so, for today's lines, you're just like, wow, that's like an ultra right wing movie. And then by the way, the. the sort of argument the movie makes about like capitalism is like the great, you know, atomization of society and like nobody has any type anything and people are just like interchangeable clogs in the great, you know, kind of, you know, in the great kind of machine of modernity, you know, they kind of put on this assembly line through complete meaningless until they die and like all concept of like family, community is like completely ruptured and like capitalism is like, you know, basically the machine that does that, you know, neoliberal

capitalism is the machine that does that. Like sitting here today, that's a rightman critique. and so and so I probably should name names but I did talk to somebody who was involved in the making of the movie I said I don't want to represent his his views what I specifically my name but I talked to somebody who made the movie and I laid up my theory that it was a left movie at the time and that's a right main movie and this this person basically said oh no he's like it's very clear in the movie that at the end you know that he greatly regrets what he's doing like you know he's filled of regret like it's a very you know kind of sad tragic ending and and I was like oh well then if you just like that used AI to just go in there and tweak the final scene of the Ed Norton character standing, you know, watching the building down. And if you just tweak the final scene to where he would have like a slight little smile on his face, like all of a sudden, like the entire movie becomes like this, you know, basically ultra right wing can start to finish.

Anyway, I'll pause there. I just go to say, whichever way you interpret it, like I think that movie definitely is definitely art, I think it's amazing. I think it'll, I think people will be watching it and discussing it, you know, 100 years from now. Yeah. To bring it back to the original thesis of this podcast monitoring the same. situation that's going on on the internet. What went viral this week related to Fight Club was the PSAs that Brad Pitt and Edward Norton put out before the movie came out in theaters. And if you

I won't, this is one thing I won't spoil, but it was going viral. Like, why don't we make PSAs about like staying silent in the theater like this anymore? You have to watch it. It's like 90 seconds. And it just confirms that Brad Pitt is the goat. He is hilarious. And that he puts serious thought into everything he does, including the Please Stay Quiet in the theater, PSAs that went out before the movie came out in theaters 25 years ago. So watch it. I'm glad it's going viral again, and we should definitely make actors do those PSAs for theaters. So, Catherine, that movie came out in 1999, yeah, 1999, which is kind of universally, I remember just like a year of like absolutely amazing movies. Yes. Maybe that, maybe the best single year for movies in the last like 40 years,

or longer. So question. Could that movie, so number one is that movie was, at least according to the accounts that I've read, that movie was very difficult to make. And then once they had in the can, like, people, the original people who saw it, like, were, you know, it's just like, a lot of people just, like, didn't know what to make of it. You know, because it is very simplistic reading of it, right, which is just like total nihilism and, like, just destruction and, you know, sex of violence, you know, to no purpose. It's one of those movies where, like, you have to have a lens on the movie. You have to have an idea of the movie or the movie has to get its idea across to you and you have to, you have to catch the idea before you can actually watch it properly. because if you just watch it otherwise, it just seems like it's just like tremendously nihilistic,

which I, you know, very much, I very much don't believe that it is. But, you know, I think it was very controversial at the time. It was very hard to get made. You know, it was misinterpreted by many people over the years. And by the way, the people who made it, he is misinterpreting it. And so that movie could get made during that era.

Could that movie have gotten made after the 90s? I feel like it's the like the consummate 90s film, right? Like just the, as you said, like the critique on consumerism, like the sort of early critique on, you know, kind of the consumerism affecting masculine, like traits, right? Like, like the whole reaction of, you know, we're going to have a fight club to kind of reclaim our mass validity and sort of our life and our, you know, that felt like was actually, I mean,

it's interesting because it's the same critique, it's the same conversation that's happening right now. But it really was also a 90s conversation to sort of, you know, And that's the same thing as, I believe, 1999 was also American Beauty. And that's a similar sort of, like, all of these movies had the same sort of, to your point, nihilism, but sort of this David Foster Wallace-esque sort of consumerism is destroying us. We're moving to the suburbs and we have to reclaim in some way. And like the sort of, I don't, like, the portrayal of any man feeling like constrained in their,

it was always sort of like the consumerism and the suburbanization of America is destroying sort of like, masculine freedom, right? So there were like, oh, that was like a very 90s or coded end of the 90s film era. Like I don't, so part of me is like, I don't, it could probably be made, but it would probably be made with totally different ethos and maybe a totally different take on that thesis now. Like the thesis is slightly different than what it was in the 90s, which is that like, you know, like Walmart is destroying you, right? Like, it's a very different. Now it's like tech is destroyed you, but at the time it was Walmart and capitalism or destroying you. Mark, Catherine, thanks so much for coming on and talk about movies again.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening to this episode of the A16Z podcast. If you like this episode, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, leave us a rating or review, and share it with your friends and family. For more episodes, go to YouTube, Apple Podcast, and Spotify. Follow us on X at A16Z and subscribe to our substack at A16Z.com. Thanks again for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode.

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