The Ringer-Verse - One Demon Slayer After Another | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

The Midnight Boys are going to hell, finally sharing their reactions to ‘Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle.’ Later, the guys get into ‘One Battle After Another’ and all of the conversation around the Oscar favorite. Finally, the Boys do a quick check-in on ‘Peacemaker.’ Intro (00:00) Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle (6:55) One Battle After Another (1:17:47) Peacemaker S2E6 (2:28:13) Outro (2:36:22) Hosts: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Jomi Adeniran, and Steve AhlmanProducers: Chris Thomas, Jade Whaley, and Jamie YukichAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome into the Ring ofverse. This is, of course, Nexus podcast feed for all things, fans. The Ringers' Nexus podcast feed for all things fandom. We are Steve, the architect, Alaminer, builder, Tinger of Things, Jomi, the explainer, dinner on. You've got questions.

He's got answers. Oman Van, he of the receding, resurgent, hairline, coat, baby Chuck, 24-carried closers. Together, we are known as. I'm a midnight, boys. Awesome socials. It's the Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok, Jemmy. Dude, I mean, we're going crazy right now.

Who's going crazy? We did that little one after another thing. It's popping numbers. And I was going to talk about that, but I think we have to have a serious conversation about commitment. What do you mean? You have a nice little shirt. Demon Slayer.

Steve, that's a Demon Slayer shirt. I've got my Demon Slayer merch on, as you can tell. Charles, where's your Demon Slayer merch? Oh, I got here, Leah. I'm not taking it off my shit, bro. Like, we got to get to the show. Two minutes. Take two minutes to change.

You know I'm not with it. The three of us got our stuff on. Okay. That's your stuff on. You're not a team player. What happened to unity? I'll be honest with you guys. I don't care if you wears a shirt or not.

I'll be real with you. However, I will say this. This podcast represents a significant sacrifice on behalf of one Mr. Van Lathan. Of course it is. I watch Mugan train. I watch demon. Yeah, you waited until the last minute too. I watched.

At the buzzer. At the buzzer. You were in hell, bro. All the Sunday. And I watched the NFL. I watched it. And then I got through all of the stuff. And then I hit you guys and I was like, is this movie on Crunchyroll too?

And I was like, no. And I was like, fuck. And so then I had to get up and go see the movie. We told you for weeks this shit was only in theaters. I didn't know it was only in theaters. I thought that it was in the broken records. The first thing that I looked at was whether or not you can get that bitch illegal streaming something. I mean, you can't get your tourist bag.

I got what to go see you. I'm glad I did. Night anime, man. That bitch is a little crazy on the screen. I'm not going to watch you. That's a good animation. Follow on socials. We already did that.

We're on YouTube. Like, comment, subscribe, share. You can now watch Midnight Boys, a House of Our episode. Every Midnight Boys, a House of Our episode on YouTube. On YouTube.com backslash at Ringiverse. And also on Spotify this week,

the addition gave you their thoughts on Marvel zombies. I saw where you guys tape. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I saw where you guys were taped. Shout out Devin.

I saw you guys. Shout out DC. I saw it. Have you ever been over to Podville before? No. Podville. What's Podville? Podville is a closet in the back of the property.

With a bunch of different cubicles. It's hot in that bitch. And they got little podcast studios in there. You know, they have y'all in the hood. That's why they made Jomi and Steve do them in addition. I'm not bullshit. I'm not bullshit. I didn't know what this.

place existing. How long have y'all been taping in there? Ah, man. Ever since they shut down the little studios over there. Everything, they set down, they shut down Pod City

and they moved y'all to Pawville. Pyeville is crazy. That's crazy. Population, us. It's really just us. Right. Riggumers recommends it's out. Thursday, the House of Rural is continuing their Stranger Things

revisit. I think they're on season three right now. Yes. How many seasons of Stranger Things are there? There's five. Yeah, there's four out. Yeah, I got to start watching this shit. Then when does strategy things come out?

When does it come out? December, yeah. Yeah, but we went over it because they're doing the fucking annoying-ass release schedule where they're releasing like three episodes. But it's not even like in like week to week to week. It's like one week and then New Year's Eve comes. No, they're taking like, we got to look this up. But I'm pretty sure they're doing one episode where it's like three episodes one week

and then two weeks later is three episodes. then like a month later is like the The final one. And that's the end of the show. And each episode's like two and a half hours long at minimum. Fantastic. Today's show is one of the most packed Midnight Boy shows you'll ever see. Oh yeah.

We got Demon Slayer Infinity Castle, one battle after another, and a peacemaker check-in. Yeah. It's very interesting. This is a really good episode of Peacemaker. Yeah. All right. We're doing it all.

We're going for it. This is what you guys asked for. You guys asked for the Midnight Boys. is to step it out and step it up. And that's what we're doing. But we're getting started. It's anime time. Oh, no.

Oh, my God, do I have thoughts? It's anime time. I just want to level, like, guys, you ask for this. You asked for this. This is what you wanted. No bitch. I don't want nobody in the comments like, ah, man, I can't believe it.

We told you what will happen. Lock in. But I will say this, too. It is why I'm proud of the midnight. boys because a lot of, you know, shows on the ringer network, they could do one battle after another. That's easy. Can they do Demon Slayer?

Can they do Peacemaker? Can they really give the people in America what they want? You know what I mean? We're going to find out if we can do. We sure we can. Spoiler warning for Demon Slayer, one battle after another, and peacemaker all in one. Oh. All in what?

It's a big spoiler. I'm sick of the spoiler warning. Same. It's a bit and we love it, but you're here to, we shouldn't have to do it. I mean, technically we don't. On this podcast,

we don't have to do it. We should only have to do the spoiler warning if we're spoiling things that are like not directly connected to the thing that we're talking about. Meaning, if we should say, for the spoiler warning, like if we're doing an

episode of Osoka, we're going to spoil rebels. Yeah, but we're going to spoil that. No, fuck that. There's a war going on outside. We don't need these. Here's the thing. If you're worried about fucking spoilers in 2025, you got your priorities messed up. That's all I'm saying. But we're all going to do it because you guys

are prone to complain. Steve running. We're getting ready to talk about demons. One battle after another. Peacemaker. Listening to a reaction podcast. The spoilers are coming. Okay.

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No, I have it. It's just, I'm here for five hours. I want to, no, fuck no. This is what I was in that bitch like, yo, what the hell? Midnight Manifest for the worldwide sensation. Demon Slayer Infinity Castle. I don't know how do you say the middle stuff. Demon Slayer Infinity Castle.

All right, dude's your midnight manifest for Demon Slayer. Infinity Castle directed by Heros Sotazaki based on the manga written by Koharu Gotaghi. Sorry if I butcher those names. So Demon Slayer follows the story of Tanjiro, a young mountain boy who loses his entire family to a demon attack. After Sister Nesco is turned into a demon, the boy takes up the sword and joins the Demon Slayer core in order to fight the forces of evil while also looking for a cure for a sister. There have been four seasons of Demon Slayer and two official movies. Infinity Castle is the end of the arc of the entire series, where Tanjuro, his first, friends and the Hashira make their final move against the first and most powerful demon

muzon. In this film, we see three key various battles. There's Tanjaro, a protagonist, and his old mentor, Water Hashira, Giyu versus Akazu, upper-rank three demon. There's an insect Hashira, Shinoobu, versus Domu, Doma, the upper-rank two, and Zanitsu versus Kagagu, who is basically a peer, who is also studying the Thunder Breathing technique, who has now become the upper rank six demon. And that is your very short manifest for a very long movie. Hold on for a second. I'm looking at the battles that I like.

The bals that I like were an insect girl that got her ass kicked. Right. Yes. The one where he was battling against his old. Old mentor, yes. He needs to. Yeah. Yeah.

That's the one I like. That's what we can start here. Did you understand what the breathing techniques, what the Hashira was, the demons? Like, when you walked into this movie, how much did you drive? Well, okay. So I watched some of the stuff that was on a country roll. Right. So I understood as much as I possibly could.

Right. Okay. All right. I saw, I remember, you know, I watched the one where homie had the three wives. Oh, yeah. Oh, right. Yeah. I watched that.

The sound of share. Yeah. Some of that stuff. I watched, I saw it like where, okay, his sister. Yes, Nesco. She is a demon. However, she can stand in the sunlight. Yes.

And that's why Michael Jackson is so infatuated way. That's why he, that's why he. The Michael Jackson moves on, care. I like him. So I watched, I had, this is what I had an understanding of in the movie, going into the movie. The show is different in that the villains, who are the demons, are the demons, are very important to the narrative other than just things to kill. The show, from what I watched, specifically wants you to understand. that your heroes could have very easily been demons.

Yeah, right. That it's just, that it's not, your heroes are virtuous, but they're more responding to this great problem than they are inherently good because you've seen so many characters that have been put in bad situations that have made bad choices, which is, or made choices that made them demons,

which is very interesting. They spent a lot of time on the villains to the point to where the villains are more like the Decepticons than they are like villains and other things. You know how we know the Decepticons? Yeah. Not that we rule for the Decepticons, but they have personalities and all that stuff.

And then the one central through line seems to be how far you can push yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Remember when they went to like the little training place and they were training their asses off under the waterfall and lifting shit and doing all kinds of crazy shit? one through line of this to me seems like how much

your protagonist is willing to risk and they are at the end of exhaustion and all it is and they keep having to find the motivation to continually push themselves. Those are the things thematically that I was able to extract from the stuff that I watched prior to Infinity Castle because you guys,

the story is so dense that if you try to be like This happened, this happened, this happened, and now that this has to happen, you'll get confused. I tried to tell you, this is like you watching Infinity War and you being like, how much of the MCU can I basically mainline very, very quickly to understand, like, how all this shit lies? That would be so much easier to understand, Charles. Did you watch it?

Doved or dubbed? I'm sure, assume you watch it. Dubbed. Like, like, it, like, this is Infinity War. This is Infinity War. Bad guy wants to collect six things. To kill half the world. A bunch of heroes try to fight.

They want to stop them. You could go back and look at all of their inner workings and stuff, but that's it. No, because here's the thing, when I try to, when my homies who are not into superhero shit, I show them Infinity War they're like every five, like, what's going on? Who's that? Why they're yelling at that person? And it's just like, to your point, I do think even Infinity Castle, I love, like, Demon Slayer. I've read the manga.

I've watched every single Demon Slayer shit. There was a moment where I'm like, oh, this is not a movie. This is a whole season of TV. to... Yeah, this is... It's eight episodes of TV smushed together into two hours of 35 minutes.

And it looks beautiful. It looks great. But it's so much so that, like, I could actually feel I'm like, this is where I would cut to credits for episode one. This is where I cut to credits for episode two. Like, it really does feel like they just smashed all of that together. And again, I think the... They clearly wanted to make this a gigantic film.

They wanted to make this as big and as expensive and as beautiful as they possibly could. I think that you really like the animation, that's the thing that's kind of like, seem to be your highlight. Honestly, I think the animation of everything that I watched is probably

the thing that I most, that I did not understand about anime or contemporary anime the most. The anime that I was growing up on and seeing was a distinct drawing style, animation style.

This stuff here was cutting edge, technology, saturated, beautiful colors, like just visually breathtaking. Who's the guy on the back of my shirt? What's him again? Who's he? That's Rangoku. Okay. Watching him fight in the other one

where all the colors or like, it's just, it is really, really, really satisfying. As a movie. It does not work as a movie. I'm not so sure that this works as a movie. Right. Wait, wait, wait.

If you just go in there, though, watch, it's like I went to the theater one time to watch Blake Griffin in the slam dunk contest in 2011. Oh, wow. You did? Wait, you did the theater? Yeah. So the, the All-Star game was here. It's in L.A. Yeah.

It was in L.A. And so they had all of this All-Star stuff that was going on. Right. And me and my friends. I don't think that was 2011. What was it? Yeah. Me and my friends and everything, we went to it.

We went to all of the stuff and we were doing all of the all-star stuff. stuff. And then we were downtown and like where they were doing the All-Star stuff and we were passing by the Pacific Theater downtown and they were like, we were walking past and they were like, hey, we're showing the dunk contest in the movie theater.

And we were like, they were like, no, it's free, we're showing it. That's part of the thing. I mean, merch gave you merch, went in there, you watched it, done contests, we were in there, watch it was amazing. That's how I felt watching amazing shit with that there's really not a lot of

narrative there, that's how I felt watching it. It was worth it to watch it in the theater to behold it the amazing things happening on the screen there, but like, you would be in the middle of a fight and then they would take an hour break.

Yo! So, okay. This is never seen, like, they're like, you would be in the middle of a fight. I'm like, oh shit, let's get to it. And then it's like, stop. And then it's like, we go back to a village in Japan. Right. For 40 minutes.

Right. For 40 minutes. It's the dude. It was the red-haired fighting demon. I think Akazu is his name. It was like, they're like, we are going to show you the saddest backstory for an hour. And even as someone who knows the story, I was like, what the fuck is happening? Dealing with his whole bullshit.

But there were people in the theater that were chuckling because they know how it goes. But this is the thing that I really got a sense from watching this movie and diving into the anime. of you. What do you mean? Because the differences in storytelling that exist, I understand some of your criticisms of American storytelling, I think better. Because this stuff, so much is happening,

but the number one driving goal of all the stuff I watch is whether or not you can connect with this character. Yeah. Whether or not you understand what's happening to this character. So much so that, like, a lot of times, there'll be voiceover of the character describing emotionally what they're going through. Yeah.

Like, it was, hey, ah, I have to breathe and concentrate to do this right now, or I'm going to get killed. And I'm like, yo, what? But that works, though. That works because this storytelling assumes that every detail is important. And a lot of the storytelling that we've gotten, I need coffee. A lot of the storytelling that we've gotten in the stuff that we're covering is literally trying to shoehorn details in. Yeah.

And just throw them at you and then hoping that you'll think that other things that they think are important, are important. are important and then they don't hit. Or even more directly to the point, maybe I didn't say that the best way, it doesn't seem like they care about the details at all. They care about things that they're going to throw on the screen to visually

dazzle you or things that they're going to throw on the screen to give you a member berry that then are going to get you past it. What you are describing, we know in the anime world as hype moments and aura. Yes, that's exactly what

you're describing. Just a moment where, like, again, the movie looks incredible. They're doing amazing things with the animation. But they're just like, oh, he did this. Oh, he's going to do this cool thing. Oh, my gosh. So when you leave the deity, like, hey, remember that cool thing? Remember that? I think this movie's kind of to like, on to your bigger point, understanding Charles, I think I understand the anime community, like way more than I ever did before this movie. Because when you watch a show 22 minutes, you know, every week, you like, you kind of get sense. You're like, all right, I see it. I'm serious. Again, I'm not a Shona anime guy, right? I've dabbled in there, but I've not,

I've only watched one season of JJK, you know, attack on Titan nights as far as I've gotten, right? So I'm, again, not big into Shonen. So I'm watching this movie. This is so much different than that, though. Yes. That's what I said. I watched a couple, I watched some episodes of that. This is so much different. Well, I think what we're also describing... I mean to the Kajomi's wisdom, though. I just wanted to say that. Yeah.

So the thing I walk away from A, I understand the power scaling. I get it. That's what y'all. Y'all love doing this shit. Yeah. Because they spend the whole movie going, he's class three. He's so strong. This and this.

Like, when you see it for two hours and 35 minutes, I'm like, that explains so much. That's why you can't argue with these guys about Goku, man. Yeah. Because he's 9,000 plus. He's so strong, all this. And as an anime fan, I got why this movie worked, right? I understand why anime fans would understand. why this movie works because it does all the things that they do in the anime and it again it looks

beautiful and it is just crafted in a way that again as fans who know this genre who know how this the Japanese storytelling works it hits all the marks and it hits it at a high level I can't imagine for the life of me showing this movie to anybody who has no idea what they're going to do in there they don't sit there and the accruzate fight would happen and they would be like hey turn this off. What is that? But let me say this, though. There is a depth of imagination that is astounding.

The concept of the Infinity Castle itself. Oh, dude. It's awesome. It reminds me of when I was 12 or 13, and I would thrust myself into Zelda or into a video game where the possibilities seemed endless to where I am like, Like, you get into a haze of amazement to where you're playing something and you're completely in a world.

And everything else around you that's happening is kind of just funneling you back into this central feeling of you're connected to a piece of lore. So all of that, I totally get it. It just got to a point to where I was sitting at the edge of my seat like, what's the next amazing thing that's going to happen? and the movie for some reason didn't want to give it to you, it had to, like, because even if it would have... Yeah. Okay, so... High moments and all.

So one thing I say, part of this is the way the movie wanted to tell the story, and part of it is just bad storytelling. Sure. Yes. Like, part of it is just bad storytelling. Part of it is you could have told some of these backstories maybe in a different way,

but for some reason, I'm going to ask you guys, why the decision to stop in the middle of the action and then give you a morality play. Why do they do that? This is kind of the thing that when... When animated TV shows are adapted to movies, they kind of can go two ways. They can either go what we just saw,

which is basically cram six episodes back to back and make it very expensive and very good-looking and call that a movie, which I wouldn't exactly call this a movie. I wouldn't make this a structured, like, one, two, three acts like any sort of Western story that we know, but a lot of Japanese animated films are made that way.

If you were to watch a Miyazaki movie, you don't necessarily have those structures. But then again, it's not six episodes of a TV show crammed into one with like weird, odd narrative breaks. I think the problem with this movie is the fact that it's the former rather than the latter. If we got maybe just an hour 45 on,

this is just the Infinity Castle, these are our heroes, they have a problem, they will go to solve it, and we're not going to be worried too much about backstories or things. You'd probably be a lot more lost about where you are, but you'd probably have a bit more of a traditional narrative structure to glom onto. Am I crazy to think that?

What I will say is this is the equivalent of like, do you all remember when they were getting to like the end of the Harry Potter movies where they're like, this is Harry Potter, the Deathly Hallows, Part 1? This is part 2, or the Lord of the Rings, where they would start stretching the narrative. there's about to be two other movies in the, like, in the actual comics, this is a very contained story. This is not three movies worth of story.

This is just like maybe one and a half. And like they didn't go into this much detail in the comics. This is them basically being like, we need this to make, like, we're going to talk about it later. This movie made $600 million globally. They want two more movies to do this. So there wasn't enough story to pad the time. No, 2.30. It was crazy, man.

But going back to your point... Why was it just shorter? Once again, there's a good chance that this is going to make a billion dollars. I think that they're just stretching the material. Like, the back... When I tell you, the backstory you're talking about in the comic books, is like a chapter or to a story. It is like 22 pages of storytelling.

It is not, like, 45 minutes. You thought you got like a books worth, like five books worth in one movie. But going back to your point about what I think Demon Slayer does, well is that to me, I think the things that like comic book story, comic book movie storytelling basically assumes this is like, well, you know how Spider-Man swings. And you know how Spider-Man like uses his strength and didda-da-da. So as you get more live-action Spider-Man movies, they kind of yada, yada, yada, all that stuff.

But when you get something like Spider-Verse, you're like, oh, the joy of watching Spider-Man is him learning about his responsibility, is him like having to like crawl his way to becoming a hero. And that's what a lot of this type of storytelling is. It's like, you're going to see Tanjaro be like a helpless boy in the beginning. And by the end of this, he is going to kill himself to save his, like his sister. And it's one continuous story. Instead of with like Batman, you're just like, oh, well, you already saw his parents die and you know how he throws battle rings. We're never going to explain that. And I think it's just a different, I think it's easier for a child in 2025 to be like, I could start at volume one and end at volume 30 and understand a complete story

versus being like, shit, well, I kind of want to like know how Batman does that, but we don't do, we don't do that type of storytelling in America anymore. Some of that's audience base. Two reasons. One, I think about the X-Men themselves. The reason why the concept of mutants were invented was because Stan got sick of explaining how people got their powers. Yeah.

So he was just like, you 12, your power's just, you're a mutant. Your powers just came. Number two, part of growing up as a comic book fan was the exploration of the powers of people. Like, Nightcrawler is banffing all over. He's teleporting. But what he's actually doing is going to an alternate dimension and then seeing through it and coming out of it, like, why can someone do this? It's because they have a psionic connection to this

and then that can pull. That stuff was greatly explained in the comic books. But in the movies, they never do that. They never do that. And the reason why they don't is because the audience is not there to explore that. The audience is there to have the same good versus evil story that's been recycled over and over and over again told to them. They're there for the broad strokes of how the hero became the hero and the details of the hero's journey.

Here, they do something totally different. The audience seems to be there for every aspect of the hero's life. Yes. Their powers. Why those powers are important to them? Why their powers are important. How they're going to use those powers, the temptation and everything. comes along with all of that.

But then also the same thing with the villain. The exact same thing with the villain. Hey, just let you know, before you get too excited that your hero is winning, this villain is a person. Let me fucking bum you out. He's got to... The terrible fucking origin

of the thing that you are rooting against and then make you go, well, goddamn, nigga. Well, it's not just villains. Every anime, every time there's a flashback, you're like, oh, here we go. It's over. But here, think about, think about Vigita. Think about, like, why Vigita is such a beloved, like, character, not just an anime, like, in the black community. Like, people, because it's just like, oh, you realize, oh, he's not just an asshole.

He has a tragic backstory as well. He's all, like, he. Man, I remember, I remember. Vegeta, my man. That's what Aaron Black came. That's what. That's what. Virginia, my man.

I remember when, you know, when Vigida started loosening up a little bit and, like, he, He loved trunks. Yeah. And he's playing with trunks. And he's like, I'm like, aw, that's how it really is. Goku is such a dummy. He's such a fucking idiot.

I don't understand why Goku's so popping, man. I don't understand why y'all like it. It's only because he's powerful. It's only because he's powerful. Goku sucks, bro. All right, we're not doing that. He's a bad father. Goku does not suck.

He does, man. Goku sucks. Goku is boring. Goku is like, he's, he's just all. All talent, no juice. No, Jeannie Gita got juice. Yeah.

Goku got talent. Wait, so you're taking, you're taking Boma over Chi-Chi? Oh, that's tough. No, that's impossible. What was your favorite fight where you were just like, even not just the movie, you just like going through weird? Just like, all right, I get it. The problem is I can't remember the character's names. But this guy on the back of my shirt.

Oh, the fire dude? Yeah. Okay, so there's one where it's him, but then there's like, I actually posted a screen. shot from it. He's going to get somebody and they have blue powers. You're talking about moving train? Yeah, I'm talking about this before. Okay. Okay, you watch moving train. Yeah. So this

is before. So the kid with the thing on his face. Tadjaro. Tadro. He also has a fantastic fight where he nearly fucking dies. That's like literally all of this. Which one? I was literally, I was literally, bro, my head, I'm like, so which one? Anyway. I really,

like, but there was one, okay, so he's fighting someone and he thinks he's going to have to kill his sister. Oh, yes. Oh. You know what I'm talking about? Yes. He thinks he thinks he's going to have to kill his sister.

Or actually he doesn't think he thought he actually did kill his sister and then it turns out that she lived. Oh, when the son is about to rise and he's like, oh, I'm going to lose my sister because you're like, she's a demon. Because she's a demon. She's going to die. It turns out that she survived. Yes.

That fight and then the other fight where the, um, I think the sister's in that fight. Remember the person that cut her, cut her leg off? Yep. Yes. You guys know what I'm talking about? Yes.

Okay. You're talking about, you're talking about like the entertainment district. Entertainment. When you had to three, that all you want to talk about is the entertainment district. That's my favorite shit. That part was the best part to me.

I love the sound, the sound of Shira, he got three baddies. Like, that's my dream, yo. Like, take me away. Like,

I need my ninja girls to save me. Yeah, but here's something else about that, though. there's talk of hoars and there's talk of hoars yeah there's gasehs they're in the entertainment district like it's the 12th 30s in japan

there's so like there's talk of hoaring there's hoaring yeah that's a crazy part because like the world's most old profession my homies will text me being like can my kids watch Demon Slayer and I'm like kind of not I was like how old those kids once again I thought that this was one of the more

any animas. Not really. Nica, not at all. No. It's not one of the crazy or like... Yeah, no, no, no. It's not that. It's not one of the...

But the fights get gnarly. Like, this, like... It's violent and shit. Teandro began his ass kick. There's one, I think it's in the entertainment district where the dude with the sickle hits his chin. Oh, yeah. And like, it goes through it.

Like, the sickle goes through his chin. I'm like, oh, God. And he just breathes his way out of shit. But in this actual movie, though, I thought, the most compelling backstory and fight was when he was fighting his old mentor. Right. But I can understand that. That was kind of like a

that was almost like a kung fu movie type of archetypes. It's a very big trope of beating your master. Yeah. But this was this was beating your master is a trope. This was different though. It wasn't just

your master. It was someone who had such a misunderstanding about who you are or what you are. Yeah. Like, being your master is one thing, but, like, coming back to heroism after you found yourself

and confronting the measuring stick, who actually is kind of a coward himself, like, that was a very... You're talking about Zanitsu, the electric guy, fighting, because in the movie, there's a demon who used to be like his colleague and used to be the better fighter. and then he turns away,

that's going to be one of the most popular fights. I mean, but also, I want to go back to something else you said, because when we took a little break, I was thinking about it. The thing that I think is hard sometimes for people with anime is like, to me, anime is like comic books are wrestling where it's like if you didn't get into it as a kid, a lot of this shit is going to annoy you.

Like, even as an adult, like, the little boy's fucking screaming all the fucking time, the pluckiness of it all. Like, it is like, the things that almost wash over me when I'm watching like American superhero when I'm like, these have been my heroes since I was fucking five years old. You know what I

mean? I've been in this. For you, where you're a little bit like, damn, I can't get with this. This pluck is just insane. The dude with the, with the boar's head on, he's plucky. In Asuka. Yeah, he's plucky. He's funny. He's fun. I like him. Inoske is plucky. He's plucky to me. He's a little

plucked. That's a tough road for the rest of this anime. I like him. Didn't feel a ton of pluck. Really? Did you see this? Did you see this? Because the dangerous. Yeah.

Because there's a, they're, they're, they're plucky, right? There's a pluck that is inherent with anime. Mm-hmm. Where just the way they, where, just the way they. One more times. How do they, how do they? Like, ma-wah.

Yeah, that's true. This is slightly. That's what they do. It's like, that's what they do. Speaking of that, you want to know what movie I've just watched because for some reason that Khan has this, the Karate Kid movie with Jada Smith has a little bit. Ah, shit.

That's a living anime. Nah, the Chinese kids was beating that little. That first fight is so funny. He got his ass whooped much worse than Daniel B. Crazy. It was like Daniel caught a couple of strays, right? But they was kicking his ass with the advanced shit. They sent him into like a backflip.

Can I be honest though? When I was watching the movie, I was a little bit like, hey, Jamie, you deserve it a little bit. What did he do? He came to their hood, literally walking up to the girl, like, break dancing. He was pretty crazy. Like, no, you're not coming to my hood, fucking MC Hammer and shit. When he was out of plane, he tried to speak Chinese in a guy and it was like, you know, from Detroit. Right.

He was wild. That movie is actually. It's not bad. It's not bad. No, he's not back to Team's here. But no. So. Yeah, they were plucky.

Yes, there was some plucked. But the pluck is always overshadowed by the fact that, man, we are in such trouble. And they also have agency in a way, like they're plucky, but they are in a life or death fight against an evil force and they take it seriously. Like, they make mistakes Yeah But they take it seriously They take scaling up seriously They take

Ridiculous risks They're always Like even in this Like going into the Infinity Castle To get Michael Jackson Dude He looks like Michael Jackson He does look like Michael Jackson

All on the line By the way I love him He to me Of everything And everything that I've watched His character works the best He's one of the best villains. Yeah. He's one of the best

He's scary as shit. He's scary as shit because he looks sort of ordinary and his story of being, anytime somebody is the original thing, that just gives the character so much death. It almost seems like he's better or

away from the central action, which means that when they get to him, it's going to like go fucking crazy. Yeah, man. He's bad. Do you think also what I think people enjoy is like the stakes of this? because Demon Slayer is going to end. It's already ended.

There is a version when you're watching this movie. You're just like, oh, she did. Like, she's not coming back where it's like, when you watch a lot of other action movies, you're just like, they're not killing. Blades never going to die. Yeah, what? The plot armor of certain characters doesn't exactly.

I would say plot armor, though, but the main character is Tonjiro and Nesco and Inoske and Inset Girl die. Insect Girl died. She did, do that. I mean. There's more death to call. Like, here's the thing. By the way,

Inset Girl's death was moving. She was up against somebody she knew she couldn't beat. And she went in there just because sometimes you got to, I can tell you, just because sometimes you got to get busy. And that's just the way that it is. And, like, I understand that he killed her older sister. And you can't let that slide.

But at the same time, you got to know. No, when you're beating. No, stop. You got a million lines. I don't like this. Sometimes you guys go down swinging. No, no, no, no, no. Because it's one thing to be like, all right, I got this force.

I can't beat it, but I got to go all. I got to do my thing. I can understand that. She was getting bished out the whole time. Is that reckless or is that quiet? Domo was talking, talking crazy. All right. It was mad disrespectful.

So that was my second favorite battle. The last battle was actually bad. But that was my second favorite battle just because I like that. It was tough to watch, but at the same time, man, just a G doing G shit going out on her. You got to go fucking fight. They're demon. I'm a demon slayer. I'm not saying she should have ran by the same time you got to understand.

Like, hey, yo, you got to get the homies. I got to jump him. No, she's like, first of all, she's a captain. No one else is around. It's like, hey, you got my sister. it's time. This is what I've been training for. It was depressing. It was sad as a year. It was depressing

just because I thought that somebody was going to come help her or that something would happen. And then I'm like, nah, just like, this is it. Like, this is done. But it gave the movie stakes, though. Yeah. Like, it gave the movie stakes. I'm so surprised.

Like, you are giving like this movie a lot of credit. This is very touching. So look. there's no way you could go see that movie and be like that's not entertaining that's just what for me

people some people might think I have a high bar for entertainment some people might think I have a low bar for entertainment I finished my popcorn

I was in that bitch like in there I finished my popcorn I'm on the screen I did maybe just for people that are gonna go see it that are maybe not into

and like sit in the right spot Like, bro, it's a lot happening on that fucking screen. That's a big-ass screen with colors and all that shit. You see that in IMAX? Huh? You see that in IMAX? I did not get a chance to see that in my max.

With colors and all of that shit happening. Like, back away a bit. I hadn't seen a movie that was doing that much on screen. Like, even, like, Spider-Verse and all of that stuff, it pales in comparison. Really? To me, like, Spider-Verse is, bro, this is, what kind of animation did they use? Like, who's doing the animation? It's a combination of a lot of things.

It's like 2D hand-d drawn animation, CGI, matte paintings, and like a bunch of other, like rotoscoping techniques, all mashed in together, kind of like Spider-Verse, to really make this an amazing collage of different types of visual styles.

I guess that because Spider-Verse is in a comic book style that I'm familiar with, I never lose track of it. There were times in this where I was like, wow, whoa. And when I was watching it on Crunchyroll, it wasn't that same way because it was literally on my computer. Yeah, the other stuff that I was...

It's overwhelming. Like, I was overwhelmed. Zee in the theater is kind of like, it's a lot. I was like, oh, I'm old. I felt old. I was just like, oh, the kid, because here's a thing. The kids watching this shit right now, the stuff they're going to make them. Because it's normal to them.

They've seen all this explosion's color and all these motherfuckers yelling and shit. I was like, this is not how... I used to Piccolo just standing in the sky like this for 20 minutes. Like, yeah, I'll say something else, man. The movies that I, really loved, and particularly growing up, weren't always the greatest critically acclaimed movies ever. I remember there was a movie that came out in the 90s called The English Patient.

And everybody, this was when we were getting into our, we're high-brow cinema people. There's a teacher at McKinley. His name was Mr. Gabbauer. And he would show movies sometimes during lunch period. So we were into the movies, and we're watching everything. that's coming out. We're going to the Seagin Lane Theater

and we're like sitting down and that was the independent movie house in Baton Rouge where you can go see those movies and all that stuff. At least it became that. And, you know, every once in a while, I would go see something, I'd be like,

I don't fucking get it. You know what I'm saying? I go to something and I'll be like, I'm not going to lie, y'all. Eraser is better than that. Like, I don't, y'all see Eraser. They got the big fucking, they shoot, like, I'm not going to

lie. So this not being a perfect film in no way detracting from my enjoyment of it. Yeah, as a movie, sometimes I'm kind of like, what? But at the same time, when we get busy, when I was in that world with those characters, invested, I want them to find Michael Jackson. I want to learn more about, I want to spend more time in the Infinity Castle. I would like a different Infinity Castle spinoff. Just a different adventure in the Infinity Castle? Just like another Demon Slam.

Anybody else that gets caught in there? In the Infinity Castle and maybe has to make friends along the way. Sure. You want to get two more movies. But don't just do something else. Like, I like a cafe in the Infinity Castle. Hey, one piece. Take the One Piece character.

Oh, my God. Hey. And I watched that shit. I was in, I was into this. Anytime it's like, boom, this is my layer. This is where I'm at. Come fucking find me. And also, our demon slayers, they're not the strongest demon slayers.

Nope. I like that type of shit. Yeah. Scrappy. Tendro almost died. Yeah, I like that. I like the fact that there are, what are the ranks of demon slayers again? So it's the Hashirah.

So everybody you're seeing is like, there's the stone Hashirah, the fire shishara, whatever. And then our people, there's like. Like Tarziro, Inesuke is the pighead dude. And then Zanitsu with the electric guy, they're not the top people. They basically like really, really talented rookies who people are like, all right, y'all coming together. We got to fight these demons. Who are on their journey, but they have something special that makes them the people for this particular battle. And I'm into rankings, the rankings.

The rankings of demon. You like the leagues. Yeah, they got the one. They like the six, whatever, it goes up to six, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then after that, you got Michael Jackson. You got Michael Jackson.

The demons are, one other thing I'll say about anime, anime gets evil really right. They get evil good. They get, I'm an asshole for you to come fight. I don't give a fuck about what you're talking about. You're about to die. Yeah. That feeling of, oh, shit, like you're into shit now.

Like, anime gets that right. Yeah. Because you're scared for the character. Like, Captain America always does something that makes you think, oh, he's going to be all right. And, like, I can do this all day. Beat on him all day. Nah, you'd be scared for these little things.

Because, like, this guy looks scary. He's got, he's doing all kinds of crazy shit. I'm looking at this. I'm like, God. But it goes back to your- We're going to be okay? It goes back to your point when, like, they're talking about, like, their moves and stuff. And they'll, like, use a move that you saw earlier that beat the hell out of somebody.

and they'll use it against this guy and don't want to even like, touch me. Yeah, he's like, get that we shit out of here. He's like, oh, no, if that big move didn't work, it's over for the bro. I explained this move for 20 minutes, and if he just sneezes at that, I will also say demon slayer, they'd be fucking them, kids. Oh, dude, smacking them, throwing them around, cutting their shit off, stabbing them with shit.

Yeah, like, it sucks to be a demon slayer. Kicking them off the fucking train on the time. Like, what the fuck, bro? What was Kalika looking at this shit? Like, what the fuck are you doing? Kalika didn't come to see Demaslayer. I think that would have been a break. She was watching.

She did one of those things. You ever been watching something? Because after a while, I was just, it was all like a blur. Sure. So after a while, I'm just looking at it. And she comes over, like, what are you looking at? I'm like, I have to cover this for the thing. This is a demon slayer.

And she's like, what is this? And then, but she sits down. After like 10 minutes, you get a question, you guys, oh, who is she? She's pretty. I like her. She likes the demon girl. What's her name? Nesco.

That is an interesting character. Uh-huh. With a little sister, super, like, super cute, trying not to become a demon. Yeah. Try not to become a demon. Helping out. Help, but helping out. But at the same time, is his motivation in a way, is his reason.

Mm-hmm. For fighting. But, like, a very important character insofar as, as fighting to save, because sometimes she gets involved and fights against the other demons. But then at the same time, there was one fight, I think this is an entertainment district again,

where she's fighting against a demon, and that's making her more of a demon? Yeah. You like that? I like that. Wait, wait, wait, she's a, like a demon player? You love it.

It's a good, it's a good, it's a good story. Like, the stuff that I watched on Crunchyroll was, as a story, was better than the movie. Sure. Once again, I like Demon Slyer. This movie, even for me, was a little bit like, is too much. Like, there's a lot going on.

And here's a thing, though, the reason that it's a movie is because you get the type of animation where, like, they wasn't doing a bunch of their shit on Crunchyroll. You know what I mean? And that's the thing. There's a trade-off.

Like, you know, a lot of times you go see these movies. cartoons have movies and you go see the movie and the movie is not as good as the hours of cartoon that you watch. The Simpsons movies like that. But they dropped in a sequel. But the theater-going experience

here, they were able to scale it. I see why it's so popular. I see why it's making so much money. But I really do. I see why it's making so much money. You're never going to leave that and be like, I don't want to see more or that that was whack. It wasn't whack. It was

I was surprised to hear I was surprised to hear that other people had issues with the story structure because I thought you guys were going to say that's just how anime is I mean in a way it is this is like the worst example of like this should have been a season of TV

and y'all just trying to get yeah y'all just trying to get your money but what I also want to know is they should put the middle fight last by the way yes agreed they should that that middle fight, that should have been the last fight. Before you even get to your thing, why was the last fight in this movie, the last fight?

So, remember, Mugentrain, right? Like, Rangoku was on the train with Tonjiro and his sister, and he got hit, stabbed, or not said, punched in the chest by Aikuzah. And so, they try to get the leg back. And so, like, that's carrying

that momentum forward from that story to this movie. It's a character that we knew was going to come back, and they had to get to deal with because we I figured like all right there's three movies they're not going to fight booze on who would be the big bad oh was a dude who killed the homie for the movie I was expecting to fight him in this I'm not going to like I said there's going to be two other movies after this so like with that knowledge yeah with that knowledge going in yeah so this the big bad of this one was going back to Mugent train like Tondro being like yo my first teacher this person I loved you

killed him I need to become powerful enough to take you down and then then the subsequent films they're going to have to get to Michael Jackson. And remember they blew up Michael Jackson, they blew up Muzon. Yeah. And he's got a... And he's got a... And he's got a... Yeah, that's why he's hiding in the fucking... Evidentia Castle. Exactly. So yeah, we're never going to fight him in this movie.

It was always going to be Tangero getting his lick back for Rangoku's death. What are you going to say, though? So, now that the movie has grossed like $600 million at the global box office, the news that everybody's saying is like, oh, this be Fantastic for, this be

Superman and obviously with K-pop demon hunters being like the fucking most popular movie ever. I want to know, is this just a blip in the radar in terms of like fandom? Or do you think that this is like a crossing of the guard of like, oh, this is what a younger generation is saying that they love? It's not a blip. This, how can I not overreact? This cinematic experience has something that those movies didn't. there's like a there's a

if I'm being seriously honest there's a I'm not saying to me I feel like this movie was better there's a a cynicism about the mainstream superhero movie now and the cynicism is not just

from the audience the cynicism feels like it's from the filmmakers to a degree it's their cynical they're like, these are the characters from your youth. We will polish them and you will love them. And that's it. And you'll find reasons to love them. You'll love them because you've always loved them.

You'll love them because they've been given to you. Like, you love Superman for the same reason that I love LSU or the Saints. Yeah. My daddy gave them to them. Right? So I'm going to get them to my kids and all of that stuff. This is like, this is. it's almost a subversion of that.

I know that there was a cartoon and all of that stuff. This is, hey, we got a story to tell. We're not going to make it easy for you guys in no way, shape, or form. Whatever we're saying, we're saying it because we're actually saying it. And we're going to assault you.

We assume that you can handle a lot. Right. Like, we assume you can handle everything that's going on. We assume you want to get lost. We assume you want to get immersed. We assume that you want more, more, more, more, you want different. That's not cynical.

That's like, that assumes the best about somebody's mind and the audience is mine, which modern superhero movies don't do anymore. They did at first. Yeah. They did at first because they had to. They did at first. They had to assume that you gave a fuck about Iron Man or that they could make you. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And after they really, the really, the thing is they told their story, really. Yeah. The story is over. Yeah. Right. So they told their whole story. And they told it pretty perfectly.

And now they're trying to say, all right, well, cool. Like, we're going to do this with a bunch of the characters. Same thing. You're going to like it because of this. This movie doesn't really assume any of that or any of the stuff that I watched. This seemed like some fucked up people on mushrooms somewhere. It's just like, wouldn't it be cool if we did this? And then everybody goes, yes, that is cool.

I'm not acting like it's reinventing the will, but I see why people are fucking with this because it's inspired. I'm very fascinated at the idea that there's like a, there's a Western, Eastern cultural clash that we're seeing here because the idea that that cynicism hasn't crossed over to something like anime that you're saying because we've been with the MCU for a long time. We've been with the idea of the Western superhero for quite, a long time. Anime has had

just as, if not much longer of a run in the cultural zeitgeist of Eastern audiences and now has just kind of been coming to the states, been drip fed over the 2000s and up to now, but now it's kind of at the height of its popularity and to know that they're

still making movies and content with just as much enthusiasm, money, cultural talent, and technical prowess that seems new and inventive. do you think that that carries over from this moment for years ago? I'll be fair

about something that we're comparing something that's animated to something, to stuff that's live action. And when I look at, because I didn't just watch the the Demon Slayer stuff, I also watched other animated movies that I love. We talked about

the Incredibles 2, and I spun the Incredibles 2. Oh my gosh. And I spun the Incredibles 1. Kai with the worst tag. Kai had the worst time. I sucks. Yo, no, no. Wait, what's Kyle? That's my man.

That's my dad. That's my dog. That's my dog. That's my, no, that's my, eh. It's actually my dog. No, whatever. Don't do that. That's my dog.

That's my dog. Also, before I forget it, once we get to one battle after another, if they had a kid, if Tia. Hold on. If you say that, if you say that, we got to talk about that. But what, but we were in the office talking about like, Incredibles 2 or whatever. Credibles 2 or whatever. And Kai goes, Credibles 2?

Sucks. That movie was whack. No. No. Oh, shit. You can't say that. You can't say that. You can't say that.

It's disrespectful. It's kind of fine. In a world where cars to exist, you can't say. No, Alaska girl, that ass looks amazing. She crazy. That's a new call for. So when you watch those movies, I can think of

half a dozen different animated movies that aren't still afraid to tell new original stories take chances and really get you to glom onto their characters in a very unique way.

So much of the stuff that live action superhero movies have been trying to interrogate so simply and so blindly interrogated in the Incredibles and the Incredibles to. Just like what it means to be a hero. What it means to be overwhelmed.

And it's so simple. And I think that just has a lot to There's a lot of things there, right? That's because, like, we know we're looking at Robert Donnie Jr. Chris Evans or whatever. We know that, like, we have ideas of how Superman should move and fly, but when we see it in actuality, we go, huh. All right? It's almost your, it's, there is a higher bar for something in live action.

Yeah. And we should say that some of the stuff, even anime stuff that's been adapted to live action. Quite bad. It's polarizing for people. Yeah. There's a higher bar. I'm compartmentalizing that. Okay.

I realize that. I'm saying just in terms of, hey, it seems like they mean it. It seems like they mean this demon slay shit. They got fucking 50 million different demon slayers. They got all different types of, they got fucking, the variety of character is insane. Like, once again, I don't want to belabor it, but they assume you're smart. enough to handle this. They don't dumb it down for you. They don't give you

the X-Men theme to make you forget that you just watched a subpart episode of television. They don't do none at all. They just go, hey, we know that you like to hang out. Here, take all of this. And the craftsmanship. Yes.

We know y'all at the volume. And just, can we just get like we know that y'all is not at the volume? Look, I'm not like I'm saying I've been converted or change. I'm saying, I get you. I see it. To your point, what I think is like I've even started to feel it in the superhero landscape is just like

because superheroes for so long were the center of our culture, it is wrapped up in everything. Race and politics and sex where it's just like, we just can't get a Batman movie. Now the Batman movie is about who owns Batman and who does it do a da-da-da-da-da.

Superman is just like Superman just can't be good. Superman is a referendum on this war and this politics and these things and it's like because anime is getting ported over from another country where we're, you don't speak Japanese, like there's just a level of like you're not going to understand a bunch of shit. You almost get to just enjoy the story where you're just like, oh,

they're just going to tell a story and they mean it versus like, damn, I got to go to this MCU movie and after- it's almost like more pure escapism. Yeah, the characters are less fragile because the characters are less fragile. You can beat these kids.

Like, my sister hits me up. I love my sister. She's a brilliant artist. She used to me up, I don't like the Superman and getting his ass kick too much. She said that? Yeah.

You know how many people told me that? Yeah. That is the number one thing I get from people. Like, when they want to talk about Superman, it's like, I don't like it. He's weak. Yeah.

He's a bitch. Right. And so I'm like, I see it. You have an idea in your head of what Superman is. You're retelling the same story over and over again. These kids, you could say,

Hey, I got stabbed and really it should kill me. Mm-hmm. But I've been breathing in a way to rearrange my organs. So that I dodged the blade. I was so sick. That was crazy. I'm like, I'm like, I've rearranged my organs. So my vital, that's, I can, I'm like, you can learn that from breathing.

I'm like, you know what? Don't do that. You know what? You're saying? I'm like, I'm like, what? Who? What? It was locked in.

When? When or how? I'm like, I was locked in for real. You was locked in? I'm like, I'm like, yes. All right, fuck it. I fuck with it.

What else can you do from breathing? From breathing techniques? What else can you do? Yeah. And so, you know, it takes me on a ride a little bit. But I say all this and then I say, and then they're going to make something. They're going to put somebody on screen. And I'm going to be like, that's not night crawler.

My night crawling for me. 1991. I bought it in Joker's palace. Segan Lane and Bluebunit, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. So there is a liberation that they have that's inherent in the fact

that there's not as much it's for Western audiences. This manga ended in like a while ago, right? Like 2018. What, Demon Slayer? Yeah. Yeah, and that's the thing. To your point where it's like, oh, with Endgame,

they told their story, with Demon Slayer, it's just like, oh, people know this is it. This is the end. So it's like, when people are going to this movie, They're not going to this movie to be like, I want to see a good movie. They're just like, I want to see all the hype shit that I've been reading for years shown to me on the screen. There's less of a, it's not as hard. You know what I'm saying?

And then I don't push the envelope. There's like no envelope. No. Yeah. It's not even like the shit, when I watch this shit, I'm like, am I supposed to feel good or am I just supposed to be living in this world? I think it's just vibes. Yeah, a lot of it's just vibes. It's not because when you go to a Batman movie, there is just like, they're not.

they're never doing a one-to-one Batman story. If they do Court of Ows, it's not going to be a one-to-one thing. So there is a level of, you can be a little bit more disappointing because you're like, damn, they fuck. Like Civil War. We love Civil War, but there are probably people like, that's not real. In the comics, you do that. Well, you get an anime half the time, if it's adapted from a manga, you're like, this shit

basically going to be one-to-one. You know? And because most manga is in black and white, you're like, damn, there's color, there's sound, there's great animation. It's almost hard to be. We didn't even talk about the music. Music was incredible. Oh, music was incredible.

Incredible. This is crazy. My question for, like, the larger anime conversation, what happens after Demon Slayer? Like, what happens after that? Yeah. Oh, we get into, here's the thing. I could list you a bunch of anime that is about to come out. Oh, yeah.

Once Kagabachi is out, these white people go and lose their minds. But it just, it's, we are at a point where I don't actually think, if I was talking about the future of movies, I don't think we're in a, oh, anime is going to replace the American superhero. What I think is actually going to happen is when you divvy up the pie, you're like, oh, instead of American superheroes having like 40% market share, they might have 20, and anime might have 10, and video games might have 15. I think we're getting into a fractured point where it's like, if you love video games, you're going to see video game movies. If you love anime, you see an anime movies. Like, I don't think we're ever going to get again the feeling of like, oh, no,

just American superheroes are ruling the world. Let me tell you what's going to, let me tell you what's about to happen right now. And you guys mark this down. There is an executive somewhere right now. What's our main character with the thing on his face? Tondra. Tantrao. There's an executive somewhere right now saying Timothy Shalameh can play that part.

All right. All right. Now, Timmy Shalb is not Tons. I want you guys to listen to me. Yeah. That is going to be the hump or the thing that, the creators are going to have to resist.

It's going to sell it. I mean, because it's already happening. It's going to sell it on it. That's going to be the thing that they're going to have to exist. This particular type of storytelling and I'm lay to it. This particular,

bro, if Attack on Titan was made into an actual movie, it would be the scariest horror film ever made. It would be scared than hereditary, scary than the fucking nun. It's a fucking terrifying. This is a guy

we walked in there over there in the, thing to get the coffee and there's a guy over there putting up the thing. It's like seven feet fucking tall. It's literally a seven foot tall guy in the coffee area right now. He's over there right now. And because I have anime on the brain, when I saw him, I went, oh, my

God. He's a lot of... You needed to have a... It's a very afraid. He's like, I saw it was like, oh, shit. So the the resistance, everything that you're saying is already happening, honestly. Last time I was in New York, I saw a bunch of people dressed out in costumes

and I was like, what the fuck? I can't can't escape it. The resistance is going to be in not western westernizing this content. I think there's already a Demon Slayer movie live action potentially in the works. Is there? I know that Netflix has a big stake. It's adapting

anime. Can I tell you something? It can't possibly work. It's over. No. It's over. There's no way that it can work. They tried it with ghost in the show. It's like you can't. Oh, God, ghost in the show. That's because of the abomination.

Yeah, it was. But also, there was just a fundamental misunderstanding of like how that was supposed to work. But there's, you can't the way the, again, we talked about earlier, the Japanese storytelling versus Western storytelling. They're going to be like, okay, cool, here's this Japanese story. We get it. Great. Let's take away all the stuff that makes it fun and visually amazing and incredible to see on screen and then streamline the process, right? Which again, you mentioned earlier, might make for.

You could take anybody to understand it, but it takes away the magic, strips away all the things that make it special. But we could also say that, like, if all that is is, is just cracking the barrier to entry of, like, okay, well, if I would have, like, dip into the Netflix One Piece,

if that at all gets me interested in actually watching animated One Piece, I think that's awesome. People seem to enjoy that stuff, though. By the way, not every story is the same. Sure. Like, from what I understand about One Piece, it seems as if that's something that could lend itself to being a useful live action property. But I think here's where I always kind of, because like a bunch of this stuff has already been like that. Like, full metal alchemist.

Like, when we were at your house, like, I think a year ago, we were watching the Rooney Ken shit. Yeah, like that. I loved that first movie. Oh, fuck, that she was awesome. Like, you talking about when the nigga was doing a karate away? Yeah. When he was like running around. That was killing.

Why didn't we... Roney Kitchen. We didn't fucking... Why don't come back over when we look at the shit, bro? There's like five Rony Kitchen moves. No, you know what we do? We have... We don't even have to do it at the crib.

We could rent an Airbnb and have midnight movie nights. Big projector, get everybody together. Shouties, whatever you say. Whatever he says. And we can watch... Shoudies. I forgot about that guy. Yeah.

That shit was great. Yeah, it was awesome. But that was like a Kung Fu. movie though. No, but that's the thing. Some of the manga, like, Raruni Ketchit is about a samurai. It's just like, we've been making samurai movies fucking, like, aren't just, yeah. You know what I'm saying?

Like, but Demon Slayer, even though a samurai, I'm like, there's too many demons, they got the fire and the water coming out of the swords. It's structured kind of like a video game where you got to beat bosses and stuff, like it's a whole... But also, because we do need to get to also one battle after another. Why don't we do the midnight meter real quick for this? We'll take a quick

break, and then we have a lot of thoughts on one battle after another. So then I'm going to with you for people who don't know. Midnight meter, one to 12, one being great. 12 is reserved for absolute game changers. Okay, now look. Now here's the thing. Okay.

It's got it at least being 11. What? Oh, no. You're like, shut up. Absolutely. What? What in the world? An 11?

Yeah. It's got it. It leads me an 11. I'm genuinely speechless. I'm, I'm, I am so, I am touched. You guys, okay. I am surprised.

So let me tell you, let me tell you, let me tell you why I say that. The, the quality of, I swear to God, I'm not dig riding, all right? I'm just being for real. It's got at least being 11. I'll tell you why. The quality of a movie is probably 8.5 to 9.5. It's a separate for me, quality was. Right.

But it's legitimately changing everything. Yes. Yeah. I don't know. The precedent that it sets is legitimately changed. This, like, y'all don't, I made calls on this. Like, I made calls of, like, do you know to people that I know, like, do you know about this movie? And they're like, yes.

Some of the people that I called were super excited. Some of them were scared. Like, you know what I'm saying? And what the precedent of the success of this movie mean? Yeah. Some of them were like, yeah, just let you know. Like, it's interesting that you guys would cover that. Like, some of them were, I mean, it's a Sony thing.

So it's not like the money isn't getting to where the money going to go. But like this is legitimately changing everything. So that's actually incredible because we usually. I can't make it a 12 because the movie's not a like a 12. Right. It's not a 12. But if you're if you're talking about like cultural impact is already here. The cultural impact of it, it's legit changing.

When you like when you talk about the most important movies of this year, not even quality-wise, people going to talk about Minecraft. they're going to talk about demon slayer, they're going to talk about sinners because I do think people are realizing I'm like, oh, okay, like this is what young people are into. We can't get them to anything else besides fucking horror movies,

anime and video games. The money in the town is about to start moving different. Yeah. And weapons too. K-pop, demon hunters, and and this is kind of going to go back

to some conversations we've had recently about the way budgets move and stuff like that. Because of the success and profitability in these movies, you're, now, whether or not it can, whether or not you guys are know better than I do,

whether or not, like, live action movies about some of these other things, whether or not they would work. Yeah. But this is like legitimately, it already basically did. The other one was like, what made like 500, right? Yeah, it was very successful. Yeah.

So, like, but you can't do anything, but to me, but rate this in 11. I can't put it as a 12 because it's not a 12 quality movie, but it's got to be an 11. If impact and all of that stuff is a part of it, for me,

for me, it's got to be an 11. Uh-huh. Besides, do you even, like, regardless of even you remotely enjoy it, which seems like you enjoyed it quite a lot. I loved it. I have fun. Like I told Jomey,

I have fun in the same way that I have fun in that Jurassic Park movie that we watch. Oh, hell yeah, then. Okay. I like that bitch. I'm not going to bullshit. I like it too.

We like that one. I like that movie. I like that movie. I like that movie. I like that. I like that bitch. But I'm not going to have to walk away and be like, oh, that was a perfect film. But it did what it was supposed to do.

And it was ambitious. Whatever. I've already done enough. It was ambitious. It was inspired. It was all of that. It worked. Yeah, it's an eight.

It's an eight. I think, again, the movie was incredible. It made six. A hundred. It could have. made $300 billion. And he didn't it. It didn't even open up in China yet.

Yeah. It's going to make a billion dollars. It's going to be like, it's going to be up there of Minecraft for the biggest move of the year. But it's a date. It was cool. I enjoy what it did. It was, it looked great. I had to fight to stay awake the whole time.

But it was cool. See, okay. I get it. I never thought this. I'm, I never, I never had to. There were times where I was like, The last flashback was talking. It was a lot.

I did check my phone a couple of times during that. Sure. I was like, I want this. Because they did, he did like three times. Like, he understood like, they did it once per a fight. No, no, no. I'm talking about like the finale. The finale.

Like, he meets the girl. He meets the dad. It actually is infuriating how the, yeah. And then they tell the story again. And then they tell it again. Like, we forgot like we weren't sitting here. I was, I've been here for the last two and a half hours. I noticed.

Yeah. That's $8 for me. Yeah. This is a fascinating thing, Van, because the fact that we factor in cultural impact or game-changing stuff into the higher echelons of our rankings, it's almost like, not to say this is bad, I would rank this in eight as well. Like, it's a fun time, a lot of frustrating parts. It's not structured like a movie-movie to me. But like you said, like the actual impact that this movie will have and already does have is literally, unignorable. It's unignorable to the fact that we

covered it on the show to know that this is going to be making an impact on the business of movie making for a little bit now. It's still going to be an eight for me, but it's making me actually rethink the concept of the midnight meter now. So what would you rate Minecraft then?

But see, that's a five. That's different though, because... No, in what way? It's different because that's a formula that Hollywood has been doing for like 20 years and it's a successful. Let's think. Let's think of Demon Slater. It's been popular.

It's not like Demon Slayer popped off. I'll answer the question. If you let me answer the question. Okay. Minecraft is a video game movie made on, from a really popular video game thing that has existed. That they call Lightning and a bottle with. That's true. Minecraft, the town is already in the throes of readjusting itself for the video game movie.

Super Mario Brothers. Yeah. It's like all of that stuff, it's already in the throes of that. Minecraft, which by the way, I didn't even see. Oh, you missed out. Chicken Jackie? I didn't, I didn't even see. Nah, I didn't even see it.

Diamond Arm, full set. But Minecraft is a runaway hit that you can, whatever. This is a film that, to me, people, I'm telling y'all, people are having a fundamental conversation about whether or not this should replace what it is that we're doing. Right. And I think it's because the U.S. in the West, like, don't understand or know this impact. They were not looking at this.

Just to be real with you, because of demon hunters. Like, Jesus, they're, like, the people are like, I don't fucking get it. Like, what the fuck did we miss? Back to back. And also, I think what Demon Slayer, I think was number one at the U.S. box office for, like, three or four weekends. Yeah. It had a long run. Yeah.

That's, like, as a kid, if you would have told me that shit, like, we are, like, one battle after another is about to. to throw it, but for PTA, for PTA and DeCAPrio would have a movie that's going to make less than Demon Slayer significantly. I mean, you fucking kidding?

Yeah. What PTA movies don't make money? I don't know. Yeah, it's easy. This shit got Sean Penn, DeCaprio, all these motherfuckold. Like, it's a new time, baby. I have to give this, I have to, like,

as an anime connoisseur, I think, I think an eight, I can't rate it anything above an eight. Yeah, it's the shit, you know what? God be it for me to be the anime. I'm the newest week. This is the surprise of the year. This is literally touching my heart.

Insane. Look, I'm, I don't feel like we can move on. I don't feel like you guys are being true to the midnight meeting. Why? Why? This is why it's fucking with my head. I'm serious because like it, it.

But it's not just cultural impact. Yeah. It's not. You're overrated. But it's... You're overweeting cultural impact to an extreme level.

No, because no, I'm not. Let me tell you why. Because when we talk about things that have cultural impact, a lot of the times we talk about cultural impact artistically, or we talk about cultural impact

financially, there are rare movies that have both. And there are rare movies that like, oh my God, this is the film of all the other films that have come before it.

This is the film that might usher in and give validity and credence to a new type of storytelling that people aren't consuming on the regular anymore. Right. And, and the shit gonna make a billion dollars. That just does not happen that often.

Not anymore. Like, not anymore. Like RR, R or whatever. Remember a couple years ago? Yeah, but to me, that wasn't an 11 or 12. That wasn't an 11 or 12. I'm saying that that movie didn't even get to this, to the significance of this one.

What was Barbie to you? Well, Barbie is a better movie than this one. Yes. Is it a 12? Probably, yeah. It's no less than an 11 for me. Really? Probably, yeah.

In the operation, seriously. Probably. Probably. Barbie's probably, Barbie's probably a 12. And look, I want to say something about this period. It's like, I want, because we're going to get to one battle after another.

Oh, man. Actually, you know what? Let's save it. Let's save it. Let's, you know what? Let's take a quick break when we get back. We're going to get to one battle after. This episode.

is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those

weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango, Yuzu chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sales sales sales. sign storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. Let's go get some ramen together. That's got to be.

What? Converbal sushi. I'm fucking with y'all. I like the kind. Sometimes they put beef in it. What? Fah. Fah.

Oh, it's Fah. Yeah, that's Vietnamese. That's Vietnamese. It's different. That's not. Racism. That's racism. That's Vietnamese.

Far and ramen. They're not to say, Hey, break this out, break this out. And we're going to strike that. That's correct. The hell no. That's absolutely not. I want to say to everybody out there, I was talking about fuck.

And I said ramen, but that wasn't out of this. I don't know. We can go get either. Nah, there's a problem with black people. We say, all Asian shit, this is shit, bro. So they don't put no, they put beef in the- I'm sure. They do put beef in.

Are you talking about the clear fucking... How thin are the noodles? I was talking about ramen the whole time. I'm with y'all. I'm with y'all. I don't know what he was talking about. I'm one of y'all now. Fuck it.

Come to the crib. We can watch Rinchie. What do you call him? Rony Kenshin. Rony Kenshin together. That nigga crazy. Roda Ketchin's awesome. He had a room of the sword.

Yeah, he was running on the flip. Brody Kinchin. Let's do Rony Kinchin. I will. The first one. That first movie? All right. So do we want to do a little midnight manifest for one battle after another?

Yeah, I mean, sure. I mean, yeah. All right, this is your midnight manifest for one battle after another, written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson based on Thomas Pinchin's 1990 novel, Weidland, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Chase Infinity, Tiana Taylor, Regina Hall, Sean Penn, Ben, Ben, Benicio Del Toro. One battle after another follows the love story of Ghetto Pat Calhoun and Perfidia Beverly Hills, two members of the revolutionary group, the Friends of 75.

Their love becomes complicated when Perfifian. Ferefidia meets Stephen Lockjaw, the commanding officer of an immigrant detention center who has a fetish for black women, despite being a raging white nationalist. After a bank robbery gone wrong, perfidia is arrested and given one option to save her and her child's life by Lockjaw. Bafidia goes into the witness protection program after adding out the rest of the front 75. Pat and his child with perfidia, or maybe not, Charlene, go into hiding to avoid capture. 16 years later, Pat and Charlene go by Bob and Willa. Bob is a burnout who's left his revolutionary pass behind, while Willa is struggling under the... the paranoid eye of her father.

When Lockjaw is invited to join a secret cabal of influential white supremacists called the Christmas Adventurers, he realizes that his past sexual relationship with perfidia will haunt him. Lockjaw hunts down Willa, his biological daughter, thrusting Bob into action. Alongside his trusted friend Sensei, Bob travels all over California to save his daughter. And that has been your midnight manifest for one battle after another. We will start with you then. You have been embattled. You and the film bros has been going at it.

You know, a little bit. And we wanted to get your instant reactions to PTA's latest. I would like to say before I start that anything I say about the movie is completely separated from any comments or commentary about the box office of the film. We're just talking about what you felt about the movie. I enjoyed this movie a shit tonne. A lot. It is entertaining. funny,

like super funny and engrossing from start to finish. All this other shit that y'all talking about, I do not get it. Other shit being this is the greatest movie we've ever seen. This is the greatest movie in the last 10 years.

This is great. I don't understand. And I will admit something right here on the ringer airwaves that I'm sure people have suspected. I'm not your go-to critical voice. I have a very specific relationship to certain films and certain movies,

and there are reasons why I attach to these movies and they can't get out of my brain. Of all PTA's movies, I'm not sure how many people would say that the master is his best film. Their master is yours? Yeah. Interesting.

The master hypnotizes me. it's a level of filmmaking that I can't quite understand of why I am so. There's not a black soul in that movie and a lot of his films, to be honest with you. But I can't quite understand why the movie is so meaningful to me, why it speaks to me so much. There's none of that nis. This is a lot of stuff happening and really well made, fantastically acted, all of that, all true, everything. but like I think that perhaps

I was I felt victim to the hype a little bit like I kept waiting for the angels to sing the movie is never even halfway a scintilla whack or poorly made nothing we can get to some of the other criticisms that I have about some of the portrayals in the movie

that I'm sure you guys could guess that I would have later on But a really, really good movie. As far as the other stuff, I am willing to have the conversation. I don't understand. I'm not all the way there. I do think, I mean, everything you said is correct.

I think the thing that gets me how funny the movie was. I didn't expect it to be like I was legitimately like. I forgot how funny PTA movies can be. I was laughing so hard at a lot of the stuff. But, again, not all the way there, but there was some stuff where people have been talking this movie crazy for weeks. Yeah. I get to theater. I'm like, okay, this is probably one of the best movies. I've, definitely the best movie I've seen this year, one of the best movies I've seen in a

minute. Definitely the best movie that you've seen this year? I think so, yeah. Easily. I think so, yeah. I need to reassess everything else this year. I thought about it. I'm like, yeah, this is probably like the best movie from start to finish. I've seen all year. But again, to say that it's one of the best movies of the last 10 years, it's one of the best, like, definitely one of the best movies seen. I'm like, well, if it's the best movie of this year, then it's definitely one of the best movies. movies the last 10 years because it would be... It's one of 10.

I guess you're one of 10. I mean... I will say this as someone who PTA is my favorite director, but I never want to have a conversation with film bros or PTA heads about him because I just think they're annoying. And it's usually the worst type of white guy. What it is. It's not wrong.

But I will say to me, not only did this surpass the hype, I think this is not just the best movie of this. year, I think this is the best movie of the decade. Like, I think that this is like, when we're talking about PTA rankings, this is top three. I think I have some of the same concerns. Top three, what's the top three then? I think this isn't my object. Phantom Threat is my favorite movie of his, but I think you could say this, there is, there will be blood.

Boogie Knights, one battle after another. And you could switch those two, but like, we're just talking about an objective list. I put that. That's right. I think that that's the top three. Even though I think like if you're talking about personal, I think like a lot of people would be like, nah,

the master has to be top three, you know, in your advice. But I think if we're talking about what are the movies that you're like, give this to an alien, understand PTA. I think one battle after another is going to be in there. And I think the reason that I like it so much is I'm like,

PTA is one of the most celebrated directors of this generation and to make a movie this messy. and almost this raw. And as a black person watching this, seeing stuff where I'm just like, oh, this is a white dad with mixed children making this. And it's like these are real emotions and real feelings. And even if I don't agree with a lot of them

or I don't agree with some of the portrayals or whatever, I'm just like, what other director at that level is doing it this way? And that's something that I do. It just artistically, it worked on me. So then your content. actualizing the movie in your critical assessment of it. I think two things are true. I think that this movie can be one of the greatest of the decade,

and then there's also a reason why only a white director at a certain level gets to make this type of movie with these type of stars, with this type of budget. I think two things can be true. Before I respond to that, I want to see. I'm kind of in the middle between you Van and Chuck, where I think it's a sublimely made movie and I think it's probably a culmination of a lot of people's careers.

I wouldn't say this is PTA's best movie. I wouldn't even say it's probably his third best movie. But as far as a director that can operate head and shoulders above 90% of anything that I could ever see, yeah, this is probably something that's incredibly special and is likely and should be celebrated when we see a movie like this come out. I

you've convinced to me a lot when you talked about some of the portrayals that you had problems with that did not come to my mind all that stuff's coming out now right no yeah people are sorry to see the movie

and so all of that stuff that when I left Sunday I was like you guys like there's some mess in here there's gonna be some shit in here that people are uncomfortable with yeah and I thank you for bringing that to like because I genuinely did not think about those things

and I wouldn't say that it's attracted from my enjoyment of the movie. I plan to see it again and still hope to enjoy it still. But I think that like there is a tad bit of overhype here when it comes to the type of movie that this is and the justification of the type of director that gets to make movies like this, the type of the director is like over. This is overhyped. Dog, I'm going to be, I'm going to keep it like a hundred percent with all y'all. I love y'all. Y'all of my boys. I'm going to keep it real. I saw the movie Saturday night from Thursday. before I walked into the theater, all I saw was a screenshot of the road and people going, guys,

this is the greatest scene I've ever seen. The car chase scene. The car chase scene is cinema. Oh my gosh. Whatever it is, I missed it. I was sitting in. I was like, it was good. It was good.

It's incredible. I enjoyed it. I understood it. I put it all together. Like, this is actually like the most fun I've had in a movie theater and I cannot touch that.

By the way, by the way, I can understand that. Because the movie was a lot of fun. Yeah. It was a lot of fun. The car chase scene in the film was, like, original. Yeah, it was amazingly conceived. It works because of the dramatic weight of the car chase scene, right?

Yeah. I've never seen anything like this before in my life type of deal. It's like, I don't know how to, like, wrestle with that. Filmbrose are being phone bros about it. But, again, just to be completely honest, you, I'm seeing that. scene, I'm going, okay, cool, it should. I'm there. I'm locked in, whatever. When, and this may, maybe this is crazy to say, but I was way more locked in at the ending of F1 than I was in this movie. That, like, that scene.

Two different car chases. We have very different things. It's a climax of the movie. If I was going to tell you about car chases that I saw and I was like, how the fuck did they do this, that car chase wouldn't be up there. No. The car chase being that they're going over and it's disorienting and the choice to do that is something I had to. never seen before. That's like Hitchcock. The choice to do that is cool. Just showing the road.

But look, this is what I'll say, it's like, all right, so a couple of things before I get into the criticism of. Before you put on your woke hat on. I just have to. Front of the best. So, nothing in the movie doesn't work. Exactly. Yeah.

It all works. Everything happens. Everything works. But like, as of. as a film when I watch a movie and I'm like paralyzed with like when I saw a parasite I was like shit

what the fuck like what's happening here like how is this storytelling existing like how does this this approach to it like where is this coming from this movie was PTA's take

on a revolutionary farce and it works but I do not understand what makes this the runaway film of this decade I don't get it but I don't get what makes this

such an unbelievable achievement but I don't I can I will say when I because I had the opposite response to it where it was like everything like when he's like, it took me 20 years to make this movie to get my head around it,

there were narrative choices and design choices about this movie where I'm like, oh, no, this is something that takes 20 years because it's like, oh, a lesser director would have made a movie where Leo is by far a greater hero. He's the one who actually saves Willow. He's doing all this fucking action shit. I even think PTA in interviews has been like, there were versions of that movie. I think there are versions of this movie where both the Sean Penn character and Leo are sanded down, where it's like, I think we're going to start talking about kind of like the fetish aspects of this and how, to me, there's two ways I think about it.

This is still the white gaze on a lot of black women in a way that made me uncomfortable. But the smart choice that this movie makes is that it's like it does not posit that Leo or Sean Penn really are effectual. This is a story about how I feel about a lot of the older white people, late 40s, 50s, 60s in my life where I'm just like, at one point, I could see you were a liberal. At one point, I could see that you were fighting for change. And then you got disillusioned, you got lazy, and there's an anger and a resentment.

And I was like, oh, most directors and most writers are not able to capture that in a true way. And when I watch this movie, I'm like, oh, he's putting his finger on something that, like, lesser directors have been trying for years and have not been able to do. Can you see, though, that in some of your praise of the movie, you're talking about PTA and not the film itself?

Yes, I think that I will say, to me, that's why my feelings on this are complicated because it is intertwined. It's almost impossible for me to extract it to, because also what we're talking about is this is the movie that PTA heads have been waiting for years, where it's, like, boogie nights to me is almost like trips people up

because it's so entertaining and it's so visceral and then you get stuff like Magnolia or Inherent Vice or the Master where it's like to sit down with those movies and to let them wash over you you're just like there's something

you're just like I don't get this movie and I think one battle after another similar to there will be blood or Boogie Knights is like no this is supposed to be a crowd pleaser this is something that is a little bit easier to swallow and take down. So let's talk about that.

The Tiaan Taylor is a uniquely gifted performer. Yes. In myriad ways. She has an understanding of how to be relevant and persuasive in any artistic endeavor. Like that's just the way that she moves,

the way she speaks, the way she sings. It is one of the cultural joys of mind to see her finally in moment where everyone sees just what a gift Tiana Taylor is. That character is an abomination. Why? That character, and I said this on Sunday, and people have written it, but that character, particularly after we have lost Asada Shakur, is a white man's porn fantasy of a black woman. And for us to get to this point in this movie that's supposed to be the most important, the best film of the last 10 years,

and to see such a reductive, one note, full of folly portrayal of a character that is supposed to, to be strong is alarming in a way to me. It's like a lot of the black ladies that I've talked to about it, it's actually made them more interested in his life. PTA. And his past portrayals of black people

and black women. Should we just state for the audience? And I know it's dangerous to like map on a director's personal life with their art, but PTA has been married to Maya Rudolph for years. I don't think they're married, but they have kids. Yeah, they've been together for a long time. PTA, for all intensive, for all,

great guy, whatever, like, I'm not even, but. I just want to set that for the odd, of course. What sticks out to you? Like, what moment in the moment in the moment? Oh, Jesus. A couple of things. So you, it, it, it, the idea of power that

perfidy, perfidia Beverly Hills has is to wield her sexual power over people. But she has a politic at the same time, right? She has a politic that seemingly is driving her to take enormous risk. But it's not the politic. It's not the idea. It's not the intellectual purity or righteousness of what she's doing that she wields this power. It's her ass. It's a things that black women it's the Jezebel concept it's not

the fact that she even says to um to Leonardo decaprio's character in the movie to to Bob in the movie she goes you know you're raised she's raising the kids he's

she gives him all this revolutionary stuff of as to why she can't stay there and be a mother which was all garbage by she's giving him all this revolutionary stuff and that revolutionary stuff that she's giving him is in substitution of her being a person.

It's so that she can escape what it is that she's doing. That's profound. And that is a statement in no uncertain terms on the revolutionary mindset. It's a critique of it. Everything that she does is

so that she cannot be doing something else. The bomb is about to go off and she's like, let's fuck while the bomb goes off. The revolution is not what's actually inside of her and pushing her to make her lives better. It gets her horny. It makes her wet. Like, this is what she's,

the reasons why she's doing this are inherently selfish. She is so selfish. She kills an unarmed black man. She racks on the rest of the revolution. That was crazy. She runs and leaves her daughter. That character, for me, is a critique. And when I looked at it, I was like, well, fuck.

She sex as a weapon With the With the Loghaw character Gets pregnant And that is what sets all of this into motion That's what starts our story And I'm like Look

If we're talking about how much Like we love the movie And everything that the movie meant I think what a lot of people are asking What a lot of Black ladies that I've talked to Black women that I've read black women who saw the movie with me, I think what they're asking is for people to have care

when they're depicting black women, for people to think about the historical implications of the portrayal of black women on screen, the contemporary implications of revolutionary action and how people that see the world in a different way, what makes them put it on the line? I think they want people to think about that as more than just

a plot device in your fantasy. So can I ask you this? Because this is how I viewed it, how I viewed the artistic intent versus how I felt. When I saw the movie, there were two parts. It's when we see Bob or Leo kissed Tiana Taylor for the first time.

And he's almost acting like how white homeboys act. Like, oh my God, I'm surrounded by this beautiful girl. And she's like, calm down, calm down. We're seeing for the first time how Leo fetishizes the Tiana. perfidia, the Tiana Taylor character. And then there's the other shot. There was like, ugh, when Sean Penn is looking through the blocker. And he's fetishizing her in that other way.

And I think if you are going to take the most generous look at maybe the intent of it, is PTA saying like, no, Leo isn't the hero and the Sean Penn character is not the hero. Both of these fetishizes black, both of these characters fetishizes black women in different ways. And she is trapped within it and trying to run outside of it. Now, how I felt was I was just like, the way you are writing the Tiana Taylor character, this is like, that's a lot of dip on the chip for a white director to be doing. Like, when you talk about care, there were a couple moments where I'm like, I want a fully fleshed out black female revolutionary that gets to feel all of this.

It is a hard pill to swallow when it is coming from a white man. That is like, I will be. So you guys, I'm just getting in the general. Let's hear. You guys didn't enjoy Perfittia Beverly Hills or Jungle Pussy. That didn't.

No, no, no. I enjoyed the character. It was just a little bit like... So look, this is what I say. I actually don't know how much Leo's character fetishized her. He was focused on the shit.

She, in ways, fetishized him. He was trying to teach her how to activate the bomb. She wanted to fuck. He was like, like, he was trying to blow up the bomb for the thing.

She wanted to fuck. So, so when I'm saying about that, he was trying to get her to be a mother. He had backed away from the revolution the moment that he saw his daughter's face. He was trying to get her to be a mother. She went on a lengthy rant about being jealous of her baby. It's like, it's like, you guys, look, look, look, look, look, I'm not saying that some of those feelings, I'm not going to speak for no pregnant ladies. I'm not going to say that some of those feelings aren't like... They don't have it.

I'm not going to say that nobody ever felt that way. But... Profitia Bentley Hills used bullshit in every single aspect to explain why she did something ridiculously selfish. Like, abandon her a child, turn her back on the revolution. And then when she leaves,

she writes on the thing, this pussy don't pop for you. You guys, come on, man. Like, it's, it's like, it's like, it's like, that is, that's Quinn Tarantino, cool white guy lingo. Like, this is how cool black people talk to one another. And we don't have to say that it ruined the movie. But if we are going to talk to Tyler Perry about his portrayal of black people on screen, if we're going to talk to everybody else, then we damn sure going to have the conversation with Paul Thomas Anderson. It's not like it ruins the movie.

That character has a very specific utility in the movie. and her redemption at the end of the movie, her stated redemption, which Bob legitimately gives to the daughter. He legitimately gives the redemption of a black woman to her daughter. He gives it to her. I have this letter. It's from your mom.

He gives it to her. It's not like she decides, hey, I'm going to show up, and no matter what, I'm back in my daughter's life. Like, her agency in the movie just, I don't know how, to explain it other than to say that like

I'm listening to people discussing, I'm listening to people talking is a fantastic character to get people going, but you want more dimensions than that from a strong black female revolutionary. But that is also, I think that makes it a different movie.

Where it's like, I do think that if there is a version of this movie, like Tiana Taylor, and I think this is also an artistic choice, leaves a crater-sized hole in the movie because she so charismatic. And because they have to get through the prologue, there is a moment where I was just like, wait, well, if she's going to rat and she's going to sell out all these people and all of her comrades are going to die and she's going to fuck, she's going to fuck Sean Penn. It is so

abrupt and you're almost for the rest of the entire movie. You're just like, wait, wait, wait, but she seemed like a deeper character. If she's going to make all of these decisions, I want to know where it comes because to your point, she falls in line with a, like, she falls in line with a bunch of stereotypes that are a little bit like, I don't know. This is making me feel very un- Regina Hall's character doesn't

brilliantly play, right? Yeah. Regina Hall's character doesn't. She loses. Another thing about the movie is the way the movie looks at revolutionaries. The way the film...

There's just other things about the film that are very PTAH, the Christmas niggas, that come out of nowhere and serve only one purpose which is to activate lockjaw in a specific way. Like, just the things about the movie itself

rather than a greater societal commentary on the movie. That's why I feel about the immigration subplot movie. It's like, we're living in the world now with ICE. And, I mean, we talked about this like before, but like, it's just there. Like, that plot line is just there. It's in the background. It doesn't say anything.

So everybody's talking about what, think about what the movie is saying about immigration and the persecution of Brown. It doesn't say anything. about it. It is... It's background noise. It's background noise. It's background noise while Leo I don't think that's such an unfair I know. I read it incredibly

differently. I saw it because one of the most profound scenes to me is when Leo is being ushered through that building by Benicio del Toro while he's trying to charge the phone frantically, not paying attention to anything that's going on around him. While Benicio is in Spanish telling every single brown person in that

building where to leave and where to exit because they know that agents are coming to break down this door and round up everybody inside of here. Leo was not paying attention to any of that while being introduced by hand to every single person while ignoring every other person and only caring about that phone. This former revolutionary who at the beginning of this movie liberated a bunch of Mexican and Latino people from a camp is now ignoring every brown person around him. Again, for the sake of his daughter, understandably so, but the message of a seemingly well-intentioned

white man bringing all of his problems to a building full of people that he would have defended years ago and not caring about them while the real hero takes everybody out safely, calmly, and efficiently while still helping him is very profound. I feel like that speaks more to Leo than it does. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. It's not about them, though. Don't tell me that the movie has something to say about those people.

It doesn't. Their background noise for, for, for, I don't think it's background. noise either because I think that why people are falling in love so much with the Benicio Sensei character besides all the humor is like I do think PTA is making a commentary on the changing nature of revolutions and like what happens when you age out of it and whether someone like Leo was in it for the right reasons maybe at one point or like right-ish reasons but I think what the Benicio del Toro character kind of like situates is like oh no no real revolution is still going on. Maybe Bob doesn't understand it, but this is a community that this

sense has built tunnels, skateboarders, everybody from the smallest kid to the oldest person, is locked in this revolution that at this point, Bob is at the periphery of. I do think that like, PTA is saying some very naughty things. Even the whole phone gag of like basically Leo being like, yo, I just lost my daughter. Can you be a human? and like help me and all of these terms to protect people and to make everybody polite

and not be rude like voice triggers and all this stuff human inter like what is at the heart of revolution human emotion and wanting everybody to have like indelible rights

and protect them. Again all that comes back to Leo though again it all comes back to how it like it mirrors Leo. It doesn't have anything to say about like what's happening today right now. But,

but, But even, and what you're saying, two things. One, what you're saying about the phone thing is interesting. Even that was murky for me. Because Leo is having a conversation. There's a value judgment in there. Leo's having a conversation that guys asking Leo to do two things. One, well, one thing and then another thing.

One, he's asking him to remember the code that they have established. Yes. In order to keep each other safe. So that conversation really is about. whether or not it's fair to ask people for safety and words. And at first, it's hinted at. At first, it's hint to that. Hey, you have to remember this.

I don't know who you are. Somebody could be sitting next to you right now with a gun to your hand. Yes. Trying to get this information from you. Or you might not even be you. Yeah. Like, you might not even be you. You might be somebody else who sounds like you.

So we have all of these things, all of these fail safes in place for, us to be able to trust each other. Do you remember the password? And he doesn't. Then he goes on to say the R word and the person goes, hey, I'm triggered. Both of those things to me are criticisms about the revolution

people think they're fighting now. They think they're fighting a revolution on Twitter. They think they're fighting a revolution with their pronouns. They think it's a criticism about that. But I wonder when I watch that,

I'll just be honest with you that feels like some white boy shit but that's why it's interesting to me like I think it's very interesting where this is a movie where I don't actually think PTA is paint PTA almost is painting

and not himself a certain type of white man as a bumbling idiot that does not know better but the problem is is that when you put Leo in that role and you make it in action movie

there's one thing that your script and the politics of your script are saying and then there's the thing we're doing as movie viewers where we're just like, Leo is the hero because fucking Leonardo DiCaprio and the camera is fucking followed. All right. True. You know what I mean? I get that. That's a well-sayed point.

I'll say this. Like, even in that scene and you guys, we're being a degree pedantic here because we're on a podcast. Yeah. No, I love this movie. I loved the movie. I loved the movie. I thought the movie was great. In that scene, what eventually ends up being the password? Time doesn't exist.

No, no, no, no, no. Mexican-Heralists. Mexican-Hareless. That's a quick, that's a QTS. So if all of something that we're talking, Leonardo DiCaprio, when he's talking to the guy on the phone, he's having an intellectual conversation.

When he talks to a person of color, it's about what kind of pussy they like. Not good. It's the version of cool that white boys think that black people are. But here's the thing. It's in the beginning of the movie when they start calling him in ghetto pet

and Leo gets in his fucking just the Bieber shit where it's like, I think PTA knows what he's doing. Like, I think he is creating a character. I'm not saying it's right. And there was points where I like, dog, I was talking to some of my white friends

where I was just like, I had to be like, hey, yeah, yeah, yeah, like, I love PTA, but like, not too much on that. Like, there was some shit. I'll put it to you this way. If I'm going to be like super like, oh, it's coming from a light-skinned man. I was just like, hey, yo,

the American girl needle drop and basically where the movie ends up is I'm just like, you have a light, you have basically three light-skinned black women who are the most, some of the most beautiful women to have ever existed. And there's two things that are happening.

For Tiana Taylor or Regina Hall or Chase Infinity to get this moment where they are going to be competing for Oscars and whatever, it is, it does say something that it took a white director A white director got the chick. Like, a black director, like, we wouldn't be talking about. Well, I also say that in the end,

every single black woman in the movie sacrifices so that Leonardo DiCaprio's character can win. Regina, what happens to Regina Hall? She goes to jail. No, no, that's what I'm saying. That was like, oh, up. She was somewhere chilling, playing games on her phone. Well, she didn't have a phone.

No. She was somewhere chilling. with the nuns? She does what black women in society are expected to do, which is sacrificed themselves for somebody else. She comes out of where she goes. She goes, remember, the revolution is over. Yeah, for that.

Like Leo's character didn't flunk out of the revolution. He had a higher calling. He was noble. He saw his daughter and decided that this is my revolution now. This is my purpose now. Which his woman could not meet him on. Regina Hall's character comes out of nowhere as a hero. As a hero.

And she gets activated. She gives Chase Infinity's character all the game, all the knowledge, takes them to a place where a black nun revolutionary sect exists. All of them women lose. Like, all of them lose. all go to jail, their entire thing gets fucked up for this one guy to have a scene at the

end where he's playing on his iPhone. When I say care taken with black characters, the care that I mean is not to write them as if they're not human or inherently noble at all times. The care means that they get to win too. There is sometimes an a

version to me of making a black lady a hero in a movie. I know that Chase Infinity in this movie it saves herself, which is, which is what I have to note here. But like,

is there an underlying thought? Like an underlying thought, truly by white America that black women are the workhorses of this entire community and society, that they exist in a film to, like even the Sensei character. When you get,

when he's talking to, the cops. He gets a DUI for him. You get the feeling that he's going to be okay. The last thing we see from Regina Hall is tears and we know she won't. Yeah. And I'm like, hi. I'm like, you know what I mean? And I'm not saying that all of this, like, all of this doesn't make, I'm like, oh, whoa, fuck. Damn. Yeah. Is that level of artistic intention visible when you see all of these characters of color just fall like dominoes for the sake of this white character. What you mean? Do you think that that's not an indictment or at least a reflection on what is put out into this world?

I think it's meant to do exactly what we're doing right now, which great art does, which is make us have a conversation about intention and all of that. Do black women or black characters in general in these movies do we get our wish fulfillment moment? Because a lot of this movie is going to be wish fulfillment if you grew up with PTA, if you're a white boy and you've been a burnout and it's like you used to be and you've been smoking weed and burning your brain out and becoming alcohol, whatever.

It's saying that there is hope for you. There was a level when I walked out of this movie where I had the same thought with you. I was like, what happened with Regina Hawke? Her life is over. What happened to the nuns? Their life is, I'm like every black woman. Jungle pussy dead, no more pussy.

Like even that. Deanna Taylor can go back to me. He goes, jungle pussy dead. He goes, no more pussy. These characters kind of get trivialized. It's a fun movie, but I think the level of criticism that's like saying it, it's making some sort of profound statement on black women, some sort of profound statement on revolution,

some sort of profound statement on fetishism is not. They're having fun. I think here's the thing. I don't think this movie is profound. I do think the politics of it are messy. But also, to me, this is the PTA formula. When you watch it. I agree.

Like, it's, it is more charged for us on this podcast because blackness has never been this much at the forefront. Usually it's about when it's phantom thread. It's about like two lovers. You know what I'm saying? When it was licorice pizza, it's too teenage. It's like, it's a different thing. Even when it's boogie nights, it's the point.

industry. When it's about revolution, when it's about black women and the sacrifices that black women make a white audience, I don't think is going to have the same type of empathy that we walked out of the theater being like, oh, so Regina gets fucked, the nuns get fucked, the nuns get fucked, juggle pussy gets fuck,

I was like, we see these movies and we see our people and we go, we want the best for our people. They're like, okay, Leo 1, cool, good for him. They got the movie. And by the way, it's not like even in that we exist in fantasy about like what is really real and how these things really happen. It's just that like a lot of times artistic expression is like,

it's a dissertation in how we're seen. And if, look, and there's a whole bunch of things in the movie that just happened. The guy who was the bounty hunter just gets religion all of a sudden. We got to have a shootout. Like it's the Christmas, hit job guy. We got to, I mean, we got to talk about

Sean Penn. Like, Sean Penn, to me, Sean Penn's character was, in my opinion, the winner of the movie because he was the only person in the movie that had a want. Sean Penn's character had a want. Everybody else in the movie is, like,

reacting to a series of hijinks and situations. Sean Penn's character had a want, and his want oriented the movie. At first, his want, was Profitio Beverly Hills, which gets the movie going, right? His want to hurt because he had them dead to rights, right? But he wanted the black woman so bad

that he actually allowed an act of domestic terrorism to happen, right? That's how much he was a slave master, like, in that situation. Then after that, the movie doesn't actually get started again until his want now is to... Christmas Club. Christmas Club people. So his want orients the movie

and then everything else happens around there which is why his character is the clearest to understand. So I disagree. The thing I loved artistically about this movie from a structural standpoint is like

I think everybody has a very clear want. I think what makes it a little bit murky is it's like the way the movie is divided up. The prologue to me is like Tiana is presented as the hero. And it's like the score and the way it's all set

whether you like how it's done or not you're just like, okay, we're setting up that there is going to be this looming figure throughout this whole movie. The middle part of it is just like, all right, this is Leo's turn.

Leo's want is like, I need to get my daughter. I need to get my daughter. And then by the end of the movie, it becomes Chase's movie, where you're just like, okay, like, how is this young mixed-race child going to take everything that her father instilled in her

about the revolution and save herself? But my point is, those aren't wants. Those are reactions. So, like, what I mean, like, Leo wants his daughter because she's been taken. Yes. What's Chase Infinity's character?

Willa? Willa. Willa for example. Willa wants to survive. She's reacting to the danger, which is, which awesome, which is awesome because I, there are movies and I was on the phone with a friend like, Taken, where the girl just screams the whole time. Yeah, and she can't do anything. And she can't do shit.

Willa handle business. Willa handle business. All of that stuff. So that's kind of like almost splitting hairs for a reason. What you're saying is basically true. but the reason why it's important for me is because things in a movie have to continuously happen for those characters to continue their kinetic energy to the end of the film and that is completely dictated by Sean Penn's character completely dictated by Sean Penn's character completely

if you if you look at Star Wars the rebels have a want right the rebels have a want the rebels have a want the want something. And the Empire is reacting to the rebels, which makes the rebels full characters and the Empire really cool characters that we, like, it makes the rebels full characters that makes the Empire really cool characters that we only have to see a little bit. It's funny you bring up Star Wars, because I was thinking about this, and I've inclined to agree with you that Sean Penn's characters probably, like, drives a movie. Like, I think of all the, like, if anybody's going to, like, win a best actor or something, it's going to be him. right, for his portrayal.

It reminded me a Cyril from Andor in the sense of, you watch this guy, this, like, sad human being, who's just, like, legitimately, like, sad to look at. Like, when he's in the elevator, he's combing his hair. That's shitty hair. He's doing his doofy walk. The suit doesn't fit. He's got, like, what, a black jacket, a blue shirt, and khaki pants.

Like, none of that works. And he wants so much to join this group of the Christmas Adventures Club. They could have just called him KKK, by the way. We live in 2025. It's okay. Like that's his whole thing. And you're just like, bro,

I, like, again, there's a tragedy behind him in some way. There's a tragedy in the sense of, you could, you want acceptance so bad. You want to belong to something so bad. That you're,

that you're not, like, you're not even thinking about like what it means to be human, what it means to look, to have empathy, what it means to, to be a human. You're just like,

I want to be part of this club. I want to achieve this. It doesn't matter what the end goal is. That's very directly commentary or criticism of the trajectory of a white man seeking power being stepping over the bodies of black people,

of revolutionaries, of people like that. That's very directly, that's obviously some sort of secret society that has its hands in all different types. Yeah, there's politics. There's, there's,

politics and all of that. And he's done enough in his life to be considered for that. But the purity of a white man being litigated by who he doesn't

caucus with is an interesting thing. Like, you've done enough dirt. You've captured enough brown people. You've killed enough people. You've done enough rest of peace,

Alana Ham. They just dotted her. Oh, man. Dought. If they got the front entrance covered, then they got the back covered.

Yeah. Come on. Who's my man who, fuck, I'm forgetting his name. Wood Harris? How? I want to see what Harris

in a lot of high. I'm a little. No, no, we got to talk about it. We got to talk about it. Because this is before the credits, like the, or the title card.

For the title card. Just pop. No, no. That's when she's walking into, or that's, walking out of the store. We get two mixed race couples.

The first 15 minutes of the movie. Oh, right. Yes. It's the year of swirl, man. Dr. Umar's review. You can talk you get down.

The movie is too much buddy hot day. According to this movie, two black people never saw each other. That's true. I was watching it with the Fred, and as soon as the hamster went over to kiss with hairs, we started dying. But you are, I do think, though,

I think that part of that is done to make sure that it's hammered home that the French 75 is truly a multicultural, sure. A multicultural revolutionary operation. And the reason why I say that because this movie is different if the French 75 is looked at as the Cimini's Liberation Army or the Black Panthers or something like that. The movie has a different thrust.

Right. If they are just that. If they are just so what they, the easiest way to subtract blackness from somebody is, you guys, don't get mad. I'm not saying this is true. I'm just saying for America at large. is to have them like fuck a white person. It's to put them in a relationship with somebody white. This is not true.

That's not true. All right. Quincy Jones and Harry Belafonte never saw a white woman. They didn't want to fuck. They were black as shit. Wow. Wow. What a poll there.

Wow. You're not wrong. I wasn't expecting. No love for Jamie Fox. No, you're right. You're absolutely right. I was not expecting to hear. Look, look.

Jamie Fox isn't getting a little. All I'm saying is, Zoe Craven. I'm saying is when you're seeing it. When you're seeing it, they go, oh, this is a multicultural, multiracial, a revolutionary group. And as such, they also have a little white girls. Exclusively. This is, this is my, might be because, like, my brain.

So it's, like, the funniest thing about the movie to me is the fact that it's like the movie stars. Everybody's like, damn, ooh, I get to have a black white. This is going to be amazing. This is great. 60 years later, you know, it was just like, my black daughter's ruining my life she says I'm an idiot I am a fucking idiot

she kicking my ass she's just like Dad you can't drink and drive Dad is they they they it's not that simple I was like yeah this PTA with his black daughters being like booking night sucks fuck you I was just like your daughter's kicked your ass and you know what's funny

about that scene once again like that scene they do like that same scene in Lioness where a father is trying to have a conversation about trans identity with the daughter. And the father's is basically saying what Taylor Sheridan wants to say to the whole world,

which is if we can't talk about this, then they're essentially lording over us. As she looks at Leo, once again, they're having a conversation about trans identity, and Leo seems like the person that is relatable in the scene. He's like, oh, he's got makeup on. He's like, they him. It's, it's a critique. Yeah. Because who hasn't had a, who hasn't heard a conversation like that?

And, by way, no problem with it. Right. No problem with it. Also probably done to show how far removed from the revolution that Leo actually is. Yeah, he's not a different revolution. But it's, it's a critique. And when I, when I saw the movie, The movie is, to me, a... Not a weird, but a peculiar endorsement of the regular white guy. Yeah.

Like, just like, just the, the regular white guy. This is why I do this fucking podcast. Let's fucking go. It's a pretty clear endorsement of the regular, of the regular white dudes. Two, pretty regular white dudes get to sleep with in this movie

the most desirable thing on the planet which is perfidia Beverly Hills for different reasons one because one lowered something over her and the other one

because she just can't keep her hands off him right this is not Leonardo DiCaprio from Titanic this is not the real that this is a guy a guy

the loser stuff like who is and as much as we see him bumble around and fumble around and all of that stuff, there's a magnetism about the character that

just makes everything work out for him. There's a certain thing about him. He's always a step slow. He's always late. And it always works out. And it always works. They laid a dollar short. Everybody else fucked over. And I think that's why that scene

with Benisa Dutoro, it's again, it's not speaking to immigration. But it's speaking to him. But it's speaking to him where it's like, his whole world is crumbling and Sense he's dealing with something. He's just dealing everything. And he's just like, is my family. Yep, you guys got to go.

They're not. Like, and then gets him out of the hospital jail, whatever. Like, it's all easy. It's all easy and simple for him. But again, like, for, for, it works out for Leo, despite the fact he's a day late,

a dollar short at all times. Yeah. But this is, I think that once again, two things can be true. I think that this is PTA's version. of an indictment of a certain type of white guy, like the dude from the big Lebowski, the 90s, like, I love pot, I love drinking,

I love black women, I just, I'm around, I'm a cool guy, and you see that in the movie, and then I think the other, the indictment of it is just like, oh, what happens when actually your revolutionary politics were not that solid? Like when push came to shove, you actually did give up. And I think the movie tries to have its cake and eat it too, where it's like, I'm not saying

this is the better version of the movie, but there is a version of this movie where Tiana gets the same type of care that Leo does. She gets the same type of depth where it's like even if she falls out of love with the revolution, we get to spend two hours and 50 minutes with her. And instead,

no, Leo is always going to be the hero in this. So even as it's trying to be like, what's the role of the like bumbling white dad, like maybe he's not the hero that we thought he was. Maybe Chase Infinity. at this mixed race child who is now leading the revolution. Maybe that's the hero. And I'm like, yeah, but it's still a little tricky when Tiana disappears.

Like, it just... Yeah. Okay, who is the most beloved artistic director that has, to you guys, once you think about it, the trickiest relationship with race because of the language in his movies? Tarantino. Tarantino comes to mind very quickly. It is Tarantino.

Yeah. I'm assuming you guys have all seen Jackie Brown. Yes. Yes. He takes care of Jackie Brown. He takes care of Jackie Brown, man. Now, Carrie Washington's character in Django, not exactly. Don't do nothing.

But of Jackie Brown, he treats her with care. And maybe that's because of his reverence for Pam Greer. No, absolutely. I think it is his reference for Pam, that type of black quotation. Like that type of. He's like, you were my hero when I was kidding. So I'm going to give you. Because he don't do that with Bruce Lee, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, he doesn't do that. Bruce Lee, come on, man. Come on, come on. Yeah. So, but what I'm, I'm using that specific example, not in any way to minimize any of the appropriate criticisms of Quinn Tarantino in the language in this movie. So I'm not doing that at all. I'm saying that, and this is the last thing that I say, the thing that I say, the thing that is sometimes hard to convince. Mainstream white America of, for me, is intention.

The condition of black people, particularly black women in America, we're talking about black women, so we're going to stay on them, is the result of intention. It's not an accident. So it's intentional black maternal mortality. It's intentional the 300,000 black women that have left the workforce since or I've been fired out of the workforce and been forced to leave since Donald Trump has taken over.

The pulling apart of our mothers and our sisters, it's intentional. It's a part of a strategy to make sure our community is never concrete. And, you know, I'm not going to get into a bunch of pandering, but a way to

destroy our version of our self is to pervert our concept of beauty, which is take that out of our women and put it somewhere else. Our concept of life giving, of nurturing, of strength,

of glue, of all of these things, some of these things that black women shouldn't have been forced to be, a way to pull apart the community is to minimize and lessen those women because then two things happen. Number one, we don't have what we need from them. And number two, as black men rise up the ranks of being successful, they don't want them anymore

because they've been minimized by mainstream white culture to a degree that they're no longer desirable not even desirable. They're no longer, what am I, what word am I searching for? They're aspirational. Like, is it your aspiration

to find and empower, not just for your sexual gratification, to be in community with a beautiful, strong black woman? Is that something that you want? That's something that you have to do. do you want to share ideas? Do you want to share power?

Do you want to share all of that stuff with black women, right? So all of that stuff, the subversion of that is intentional. The hardest thing to convince people of is that the remedy to that is intentional too. It's taking intentional care of black women. Not always.

I'm not saying the niggas never going to cheat on their girls. I'm not saying that you're never going to use the wrong word. I'm not saying that you're never going to be in a situation where your maleness, your hymnus, your trauma is not going to negatively affect the women that you share community with. I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is, are we intentionally looking out for the way black women are portrayed, the way they're empowered, and the way they are conceived, the way their beauty is promoted? Are we intentional about undoing the intentional damage that has been done? So a lot of this stuff isn't even the fault of one specific movie or it doesn't have to do with one person's inter-failing.

I'm not saying that it's something that is corrupt inside of a director or anything like that. Very simply I'm saying, we intentionally want stereotypes and versions of black women in films not to exist anymore. We want it to be done on purpose We want somebody to be sitting down Writing a black female character and go That's been done We don't want to do it anymore And it doesn't matter

It doesn't mean that you always have to do that Because we don't always do that Right? It doesn't be honest with you We could go Everybody listening to me They go, man Let's go through your fucking title

And how many songs in there got Bitches ain't shit on there You know what I'm saying? But what I'm saying is when people are... Why do you use a title? You work at Spotify. I know, it's whatever. Like when people get mad about this

is because they want a different portrayal of black women on screen and they want that to be on purpose in consideration of everything else and how harmful and all of that stuff. And maybe that's not Paul Thomas Anderson's... I can't imagine. Yeah, maybe that's not his responsibility.

But it's our responsibility to discuss it. What I will say is I'm like... And hold people accountable. Yeah. To me, one battle after another is a movie that's about Revolution Revolutionary acts,

but it's not a revolutionary movie. And one battle after another is a movie that has a lot of black people in it, but it's not a black movie. And I think sometimes where I get frustrated is like, yo, I do it too. Like this is my favorite director. Like, yeah, we can be like,

oh my God, I can't believe he pulled it off. But to your point, there does have to be room where I'm like, yo, as a black person, I had issues with this. Like, this could be one of my favorite directors and I could still be like, hey, yo, that was a little wet. And I'm just like, talk about it. And I do think that we've gotten to a point, especially with film culture, where it's like,

yo, how, who are you to say, didn't, I'm just like, hey, yo, PTA is going to make a movie with a bunch of black women in this. Like, I wasn't a Tiana Taylor fan a year ago, two years ago. I followed Tiana Taylor her entire career, Regina. Like, these are people, I'm like, who have been in my ecosystem. That, like, as black people, we do. And I think it's not a secret that it's like, how. How many black critics at big institutions got to review this movie?

How many black people, like, was this movie pitched to black people in a certain way? Like, we do have a responsibility to be like, yo, let's keep it real. So when we get to the midnight meter, I will give it a midnight meter that reflects my love as a filmgoer. But yeah, nothing you said today, it's all shit I was thinking. I was also, yeah, yeah, we, you know, it's, well said, I don't have anything else that. First of all, you got to respect Regina Hall. Brenda, dog, from Scary Movie. You wasn't locked in on Scary Movie.

The best man? Best man, oh, yeah. I love Regina Hall. You said he was like you were in a fan. Watchman. You stuck to quit. Nope, that's Regina King. Gina King.

Oh, right. Steve! Steve! Staying. I got that so wrong. I got that so wrong. It was in the podcast. You were right, dude.

It was the nine-year line. Oh, you were right. Oh, man. Jesus. Steve. Dude, you didn't. He would give the thing. I got it. I got to shoot Steve's a bell.

He's not the first white person who did this. Of course. Not the first person at all, but Regina King and Regina Hall. We've done such a great job. I need you to pull up a photo of both of them and see if you can talk. No. He absolutely can't tell the difference. He probably doesn't think that they look alike.

I don't think they look alike. He just fucked up as Regina's. No. Okay. I got her. I got her. He's mixed up. Yeah, Regina Hall, Virginia King.

It's tough. It's a bearish moment. But to say to say the wrong, to say the wrong show stuff. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing. Regina Hall could have killed Watchman too, though. She would have killed it since the night. I did.

I mean, again, like, we talked about, like, all the stuff that the movie probably got wrong about how to write black women. But I think the performances, all incredible. Phenomenal. All incredible. Right. From all of them. Chase, Regina, Tiana, just phenomenal. It's Paul Thomas Anderson.

Yeah. It's, you know, it's Paul Thomas Anderson. But I'm urging people right now. just let black women have their say. And I can't speak for them. I can only speak with them. Just let them have their say. There's Brooke Obie,

who I think is underutilized critical voice and creative voice in this town, is one of the people that, like, if I got $150 million right now, that would make sure got a chance to tell her stories.

I think she's fantastic. She wrote something on her substack. go read it. There was something in The Guardian. I'm not saying that all sisters are going to feel the same way about the movie. They're not. But before you guys,

I'm asking for covering and protection for black ladies that are going to have their say about one battle after another and have problems with it. And if I see any of the film bros, anyone going too far, too much on the sisters

that are writing and talking about the way they feel, I'm gonna get your motherfucking ass. that's it. We can have it out. Y'all have to agree. You don't have to agree, but they saw themselves on screen. And some of them, not all of them, because I've read some other stuff. Yeah.

Like some of them, not all of them don't like it. Give them they fucking say, let them talk. That's it. Ain't nobody saying this is your guy. This is my guy. This is fucking the guy from there will be blood. Like, we fuck with it. Midnight meter.

Midnight meter. You guys already know what it is. One to 12, one being the worst, 12 being a game changer. So you see you, you, you panel. You, you, you see. All right. So actually, if we, because this is going to go back to the demon slayer conversation. Right, okay.

So here we go. In my heart, I want to give it a 12. In my heart, this is, I think on letterbox, I gave it a 4.5 out of five. But I think the reason I have to stick out of 11 is like, box offices can't be a game changing, bro. Like, unless, like, right now, maybe Mulligans, maybe throughout the Oscar race, this like, but right now, I don't think it could be a game changer, so I'm going to go 11, and I will say this, I tend to like a messy movie. I like people showing me who they are. I actually don't need PTA to be perfect. He is a white father of black children. He is, I think

there is a lot of him in this, not all. And I would rather see a director. I would rather see one battle after another over a green book. You know what I'm saying? I would rather the mess version of this movie versus the just like actually race is super easy to fucking salt. You know, so I'm going to give it a little level. I respect that opinion. I'm going nine.

I'm going nine purely off the filmmaking. I want to say something about the midnight meter two. A lot of times people go well, man, how could you give this a nine and then give some other whatever movie a nine? You don't compare steak to butter cake.

you don't compare your main course to your dessert. You're judging them against other things, right? So sometimes a movie is a nine, but it's a nine dessert movie. Sometimes a movie is a nine, but it's a nine wine. And then you have nine beers, right? That's small beer. Just as small beers. That's small beer.

Uh, small beer. Small beer. Small beer. Yeah. Sometimes you have different, uh, how do you have a, how do you have a, how do you to you. I had a few small beers. Every single time he handed Leo Medello. It was, yeah, it was a full-stop medella.

And so the nine here isn't the same nine that we made, I might have given some other movie that I'm judging by a different criteria. So, you know, anyway, so a nine. Jami? It's a 10. It's a 10 for me. I think that the movie, again, I mean, not even forget the box office, it's a PTA movie. It's going to make $8 at the box office. But I enjoyed everything about it.

It's made perfectly. I mean, we talked about the action, the writer, the writing, and the performances, the score, just all in all incredible. It's three hours, but it doesn't feel like three hours. Not at all. You're locked in the whole way. Yeah. Yeah. It's just incredible filmmaking.

So it's got to be a 10. It would be a 10 for me as well. I don't think this changes much of the game. I appreciate the perspective here, truly, because it actually, like, opened my eyes to, like, literally seeing the movie again in a completely different way. And the discussion of intention and artistic, like nuance with how things can be portrayed while still having the better of intentions

can still make a good movie. And I look forward to seeing it again. I look forward to seeing it with the insight that I got here. But it's still messy. It's still amazing. It's still thrilling. I still didn't think that three hours could go that fast. and it's wonderful.

Really, really quick, though. So this isn't your best movie of the year. What's your best movie of the year if it's not one battle after another? You know, I've been thinking a lot about this. My knee jerk was that one battle after another was better than sinners. I don't think it is.

All right. Okay. No, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, let's, let's, let's, let's think about it for a second. Because I see the vision. right? Because immediately after I'm like, this movie is the best movie at year. And while I still do think that,

I don't think it's heading shoulders above the rest. I think there can be a conversation. But I do think what this movie does, like, not at every level, but just there is, there's like, we're judging at the margins at this point. And I feel like there's just a little slippage in sinners. Just like, excuse me, it's a little like, ah, that I don't feel.

find in one battle for another. But I'll say this about that as Jomey hacks his life away. I'm gonna die. There is. That could be right. I think, though, that Paul Thomas Anderson is such a gifted filmmaker that his sins are more easily

forgiven than other ones are. Things that just happen in this movie that, like, characters that exist as almost human mcuffins, things that just go on, just go all against the PTA movie. Doesn't have to, like, make a whole ton of sense

or anything like that. Like something just, it's PTA. It's part of the mad cap crazy world that he creates when he's doing this type of filmmaking. It's probably not fair. Like, when I thought about,

I left, I was like, you know what? It's actually Kai. When I left, I was like, you know what? Yeah, of course it's the best movie of the year. But you know what? I just don't feel that way. I like sinners slightly better. Here's the thing.

As someone who loves sinners, I will say this. I think I like Ryan Cool. Like, I love Ryan Cooler's movies more because I think he just has a sense for emotion and, like, getting to the core of just, like, just he can empathize with his characters. And I think he does an amazing job of making his movies make sense. To your point, I think we give PTA a lot of, like, well, he's, he's one of the best directors of his generation. It doesn't matter if you can understand it.

You just have to do, da, da, da, da. Cooler, I don't think, really gets that. pass. I don't think most black directors get that pass at this level. It's like, this shit better make sense, and I better feel it. I just think one battle after another is an achievement. For everything I've said, I was just like, in the movie, I was just like, oh, okay, this is

one of the best films I've seen just ever. So then who who gets best director? I think it has to be pizza. Oh, this movie will win everything. I mean, you guys, it's like great black art is a struggle. Great white art

is a coronation. The way that it goes. Great black art is kicking down doors and telling people why the movie is important and calling upon. Great white stuff is, it comes out right away. It's the best

thing we ever saw. And then over the next couple of weeks, maybe we can have some real conversation about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, over the thing. And so And so it's already written. It's over.

One battle after another. Best movie a decade. Best, it's done. Best picture. Best actor. Sean Penn is done. It's over.

It's over. Yeah. He gets best supporting. He won. It's a lock. He won. So if you, if you were trying to win,

don't put your movie out. I think this can win best director, best supporting. Best Adapted Screenplay. Best Adapted Screenplay. best adaptist. I think it will actually. I just hope that though, I think the real thing is this. And I want to see if the Academy

has the nuts. If the Academy has the nuts to not reward any of the black ladies in this movie. Ooh. Boy. Not just the Academy, but the awards each other out. They could. Like the gloves, all that. Not just like.

No, because there's, they're all going to be in supporting, best supporting actress. Yeah, they could. They could. I mean, you could I wouldn't put Chase Infinity, though, and best actress. That's tough. She could go on best actress. She could go there.

She's basically the co-lead of this film. Right. But don't, I would not be surprised there is a world where PTA walks away with song, Champagne walks away, maybe Leo. And then, Tiana. That's going to be. You know what's funny? Last thing I'll say.

And the movie will become manifest. You know, it's funny. The last thing I was like, this is about to be so stupid. This is how, I'm telling people, don't listen to my takes. Don't listen to them. I'm just talking. I'm just speaking from the whole. I think the place beyond the pines is better than this.

All right, man. Whoa. A piecemaker, we're on a pieceback. We're not being serious. I swear to God. We're not being serious right now. You're just trying to get your takes off. I swear.

Come on. Let's be free. Oh, no. I just remember that one. No. Ryan Gosson. I think, I swear, bro. I think the place beyond the pines is.

I thought you meant only God forgives and I'm like you're insane. I swear. You're not locked in. Yeah, you're not locked in. Come on. You not be serious, bro. I promise you. Ryan Gosling really is your best white man.

I think the place beyond the pines is better. Because I think when I think about movies like this, the one that I compared it directly, most directly to, was the place beyond the ponds. I think the place beyond the ponds is department. I don't think we have a lot of time for peacemaker. We definitely have it.

We do. We got 10 minutes for peacemaker. Okay, 10 minutes for piece maker. Real quick. How are we not doing a manifest, nothing? The big news that everybody wants us to talk about is Lex Luthor showed up. How did the Lex Luthor, the KM. You guys, real quick.

this is one of the best episodes of peace marriage they've ever made. Y'all Wilde. It was a really good episode. It's a great one. I think I'm going to point to three things real quick because we don't have a lot of time. The Lexington Reveal was great

and it worked in universe really well. So it wasn't just shoehorned in. It worked in universe. Obviously, prop clipping, clip farming, whatever. Two, the reveal that we all knew was coming. about Earth X. Earth X, the Nazi Earth, yeah.

It still worked. Yep. It was terrifying, right? And then three, the vigilante stuff. Oh, my. Oh, my God. So, so great. I've been waiting for this dude, Popple.

Like, was the vigilante stuff and this was really good. Even just going, like, episode opens at his house and they have the bit where he's like, he told his mom that Harker would just go there. Yeah, yeah. That's a great. That's good James Gunn.

It lasts a tad too long. But like that's good James Gunn. That's actually funny. Spider-Rame, man. And then to go to the little basement thing, like, he's got billions of dollars worth of money and contraband at his crib. Again, he's still listed with his mom, by the way.

And he's got all that money and all those drugs. Like, you could, like, at least use the money. If you're not selling the drugs, it's like, but why would I do that? That's using blood money. I can't. I shouldn't. I can't.

Oh my gosh. And it's just like, this guy is the dumbest. Like, I can't get past. Like, I can get past the, uh, who wants to hear some mantifax? Yeah. He wants to hear squirrel facts. That's like annoying. But when he gets to like, be like absurd in a real way that like makes sense.

I love it. And also the great like tongue and cheek aspect of the idea that he's just the same in every universe. That's, that's kind of great. There's a. great, like, little emotional purity to that character that I genuinely love. The same keys, the whole thing. Going through the house? That's not a, just not a drag.

But it's a thing. But it doesn't feel a little, like, long in the tooth now that we're this many episodes in, and now we're actually starting to really cook here. Because we've had complaints about the show being dragged out a bit. Now that we're clearly getting to the point where James Gunn really wanted to do the thing that he wanted to do. Answer. Yes.

Yes. We're happy about that. Yeah, that's fine. We've had conversations about these shows backloading their seasons. Answer, yes. I think I'm out and it's like it's not come. I think I'm just out of the show. You didn't like the reveal

the flag with the Nazi symbol? It was all just kind of just like, okay, I get it. Like I get the season. I get what James Gunn is going for. The Eagle Hunter shit, the fucking alternate universe, all the dance, the dance number, none of it worked. Like, it's just like, I'm just, I'm like,

I'll tell you what the song is going on me. The dance number has it. Fox Jesus is good. The song has. I haven't watched it in forever. I watch it You skipped it? Oh, wow. I'll watch it. No. See, you know, that's in a indictment on the season as a whole. You never skip the first season openings.

I like the Lexington reveal. I do, like, and this is the problem. This is why I think these superhero TV shows don't work for me. I'm like, okay, the most interesting part of this is a cameo from a character that's from a movie that is teasing some shit that I actually want to say. But see, that's not the most interesting part to me. It's an interesting part. But the most interesting part of it by far was the hardcore stuff. Like, there was some.

I do have questions. I do wonder, like, what did Economos think was going to happen? Did he just think that... Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are things that are just happening, like, you... When Harcourt decides to go to Argus, is she not expecting the other Harcourt to ever show up? I think she's expecting to get in and out of there before the other Harcourt shows up, but... She got detained because of Adrian's Coke.

They're acting like they're just not doppelgangers in another world. Like, the first thing that you would do if you were Economos would be that you... You would clean up, whatever you had to clean up, and then you would get the fuck out of there. Yeah. Like, I saw a tweet because this is, man, I love the internet. Keith sees Adabaya walking, and he goes, one got out, a black. Yeah. Which is crazy on its own.

And someone that was like, essentially they would say black, I feel like they would say the N-word. Let me tell you something right now. If I ever watch a James Gun property. Oh, no. And I see somebody say that. word. It's all sight. That's just not going. Yeah, it's tough. That's just not going. I mean, they just got to go over.

I agree, but my last question for y'all is like James Gunn, I think it was in an interview with Deadline, was essentially like they were asking about authority, and he basically said something to the effect of like the smaller characters in the DCU might not be getting movies or he might be a little more reticent.

I'm really glad you said this. You say that with Clayface all the way. Do you think they are getting nervous a little bit with everything we've been talking about Demon Slayer, K-pop, came about Demon Hunters, globally superheroes are not doing that well, and then maybe Peacemaker Season 2 not

being a runaway hit. I'm not saying it's not a hate, I don't know, but it seems like it's a show that some people who are in this are watching. Do you think James Gunn is like, oh, we got to give them the bigger, the bigger fish? That's exactly it.

That's exactly it. You look at the world with Superman is getting outgrows by Demon Slayer, right? You can't go back and be like, cool. If that's what we're going to do, let's get Clayface. Get ready for Swamp thing. Yeah, like, that's just not, if that's the kind of where we're living now,

you got to get to the stuff, you got to get to it. Not, again, not super fast, but you can't be out here playing around. Like, there's no more. But his original plan was we getting Amanda Waller, the creature commanders, and getting this and that. And now I'm like, because it was sweet. It was back then. It was the

Wild Wild West, man. This point, you can do whatever you want. You got carte blanche. Now you start, the numbers start coming back. It's like, We got to tighten this up. It's not really the world we thought it was. It's not really sweet out here. We got to start being smart with our stuff. Not that they weren't before, but like it's one thing to be like super creative.

Yeah, we got to make money. You're not going to make money doing the authority. You're not going to make the money doing a Swamp thing. You're not going to make money doing a booster gold. Like, it's just not what it is. Superman, Batman, Woodman, just like get to the stuff that people are going to sit down and pay to see. You have to. And the more successful that stuff is, the more...

likely they are to watch some of this other stuff. It wasn't a good idea for the beginning. No, it wasn't. But good on them for course correcting. There we go. I mean, I think maybe they thought that people were a little bit overly invested into James Gunn's cookie style, and they would want to see his take on booster goal or some of these other things. But the reality is things are so quickly, like all this stuff we're hearing about Doomsday.

Jesus Christ, Doom's Day is going to melt your heart and your insides, you're going to pop when you see what we've done. It's probably not. No. We're probably, like, it's, it's, we're excited about it. Obviously. But it's probably, Jesus Christ, you've never seen anything like this. We've seen it. We've seen it.

I hope to see it again. And we're hoping that it's good enough to justify us sitting again. Yeah. But we've seen it. Like, you know, we've checked it out. But again, it was always ridiculous if we were like, no, man, it's cool. We're going to watch the authority. Yeah, we're going to want to see the authority.

I mean, again, I'm not uninterested, but like the same time, brother, we got, like, There are more important Christopher. We were never getting no Amanda Waller fucking Booster Gold-ass shit. Maybe he's been for real. And I saw that

that same quote that he said and I was like really happy. I was like James you're finally seeing the light. You're getting that business acumen that we've been talking about that you need.

And then he was in another quote, excuse me. In another quote in another interview, it was like, yeah man, we're going like, what's wrong with two bad men

at the same time? Yeah, he's not serious. All right. You guys, there's a lot of podcasts for y'all. I hope you guys are appreciate us.

That's a wrap. Almost three hours. This week, Min Edition gave you their thoughts on Marvel Zombies. Ringiverse recommends is out. Thursday the House of R is continuing their

Stranger Things revisit. I producer Chris Thomas, Jamie Yukic, Jade Whaley, join me a dinner on on socials. Hashtaghtag 28 Pink Eyes Later. We had that from last week. That's fine.

I didn't have time to. Come on. We did a lot of potty. I didn't have time to do. Additional production from Arjuna Rangup. pal, Chuck, take us out. Jomey Beverly Hills,

profite of Jomey Hills. You call me racist as hell if I did that. Definitely, 100%. Jomey Hall. Anime rules of the world. The Midnight Boys are Brothers. Shout out to all my

Black queens. And it's just one demon slayer. After another. What's the difference between butter and butter made from real California dairy? It's the real California farm families behind.

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