I'm Your Buddy
A film and TV podcast hosted by best friends, Nick and William. Join us weekly as we watch imperfect but excellent works and discuss storytelling, friendship, and, in our current season, the film and tv scripts of Alex Garland!
I'm Your Buddy
Episode 222: This Is Your Power
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This week we are joined by our great friend Antonio Marquez (@cochino_raindog)! We watch Alex Garland's sixth feature film Men (2022) and discuss The Green Man, doppelgängers, and feeling emotionally unsatisfied.
Hello and welcome to season 10 of I'm Your Buddy with Nick and William, a podcast where two best friends are watching and discussing the filmography of writer director Alex Garland. I'm William who loves Alex Garland.
SPEAKER_03And I'm Nick, who also loves Alex Garland. And today we're watching Men from 2022, written and directed by Alex Garland, and we are joined by friend of the podcast, Antonio.
SPEAKER_01How are you, man? I'm I'm here. Long time here.
SPEAKER_02I'm happy. Yeah. Great to I like I said to you guys, after listening so long to your voices, I'm like, man, I just I've been hanging out with these guys, you know, but now I'm actually looking at you and it's so sorry. It feels good and different in a good way. Good. We're cooler. Yeah, yeah. Just like you know, this movie. It's you know coming back to to cinema. I'm glad to be here. I'm excited. To bring it back. Yes, exactly. Which full-blown director mode.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, which, yeah, the last time you were here, we it was the Michael Mann season. Was that the previous season? Was that season nine or season eight? Fucking. Damn, you did the rehearsal. Rehearsal, yeah, exactly. So it but I think it was last year. You came on for Last of the Mohicans. Yes. And back in the woods. I love being in the woods. We're out of nature greenery. Good. We're out of nature. Good call. So first of all, I want to give you the the the kind of the floor because you've been really busy lately, and this past month, I think you've been shooting a short film. So I want to what what tell the people what you've been up to since you were yeah last on the podcast.
SPEAKER_02Um yeah, so happy to be back. It's fucking great. Um, especially I love Alex Garden, just to preface it with that. But yeah, I've I've been super busy. So I could when you were talking about you know launching the your um Redeemer campaign, yeah. All this work, dude. I could empathize so much. I was like, fuck, dude. Thank you, thank God. Just your health declining. Yeah, it's family life probably going to shit. It's horrible.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know, I just sitting on the computer all day.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, I could empathize. I was like, I'm I'm in it with you, brother. I'm in it. Good. Um, but yeah, it was it was a short that I've been working on called Last Ditch. We filmed it. Yeah, principal photography was uh early May. I'd been planning it for almost a year. Sick at this point. Uh yeah, I got us a grant, a site-specific grant through the Santa Fe uh Film Institute and this thing called the Los Luceros Grant. So right, I was so yeah, I was trying to develop this. I think I talked about it a little bit with Mohicans. I think I had just gotten the grant, actually. So I was in early pre-production.
SPEAKER_04Gotcha.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so this is the grant to film at Epstein's Ranch, the sound footage Zora movie. Yeah, yeah, but only only in the bathroom.
SPEAKER_02Um it was very specific.
SPEAKER_03Can strengths make things better, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_02It makes you kind of have to figure it out. It's the indie mentality. Either totally or partially in Epstein. No, okay. Um, no, yeah, it was called uh Los Cuseres is North of Espanola, and I went there and I was like, fuck yeah, I have an idea. Wrote it, and then I've been putting it together, had a fundraiser at this brewery that I work at called Bowen Arrow, which is so it's like I put out an event in the middle of also be pre-production, which was fucking crazy, like with fan and stuff.
SPEAKER_01That's too much.
SPEAKER_02It was exhausting. It was exhausting, but like so worth it. Really fucking amazing actors working with like a high caliber of of crew and cast like it was like maybe like 70% of people that I've worked with before, okay. So I had a good shorthand.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's good.
SPEAKER_02But also, yeah, new people. Yeah, like the you know, my you know, good collaborating friend uh named JPA. He came in from LA. He's like a second unidirector because I was shooting two cameras, which I've never done. So that was a big challenge. How very spy simultaneously? Yeah, simultaneously. I I you know I acted in uh this music video for for my friend, and he shoots two cameras. And I was like, Do you always do this? And he's directed episodes of like Rez Dogs and Big Sky and some shit, yeah, out of range. Yeah, and he's like, Yeah, always. Yeah, I was like, Oh yeah, because you just get in the edit room. Yeah, yeah, he's like, You just kind of cut that shit. So I was like, If I knew this movie was gonna be like reliant on natural light, it kind of had to be done in in uh in order, right? Shooting in order, which and so not out of sequence. Yeah, and I was like, I don't have the time to uh fucking restage and set this and how I was framing things. Yeah, I was like, I think two cameras should do the job. So yeah, it was crazy. We had like a Dolly uh Dolly Crane basically on one on the A camera, and then my buddy JPA, who is he's like second unit director, basically I just signed off on his framing, but he has such a fucking good eye because he's a director himself and a great DP that he would be like, Does this look good? I'm like, Fuck yeah, dude. I think only once I was like, actually let's reframe it a little back. Um I just had so much to cut with. Like we already have a rough cut. Yeah, I'll show you guys a sizzler actually when we're done. Sick. Um I think it's looking pretty cool. Yeah, so we just fucking yeah, we've lost like a little bit of time to and it's a period piece, so it was really it had to be at this site. And yeah, there there was some funny like dealing with the state, I will say. So we got this grant, they're a fucking pain in the ass. I will say this. They fucking need to get their fucking shit together because one guy's in charge of the road, one guy's in charge of the ditch, one guy's in charge of the house, like, and all of them were like passing the buck on who could tell us yes. Anyway, my give you clearance. Yeah, thank god my producer is like so good. They were just was like, let me just fucking handle it, let me call somebody. Anyway, we had a fucking great shoot.
SPEAKER_03How many days of principal photography did you do? Two days two fucking days, and how long's the script? How many pages?
SPEAKER_02Um, it's ten and a half pages. Okay, yeah, so we called five days long, and we were doing long takes, yeah, yeah, right? So simple like single setups. We but you know, I wanted this long take to open it, so we just ran that again and again, which was crazy for me. Thank god my actors were good, but I had like, you know, it's basically this hacienda and a ditch, right? So hacienda in the deep background that's like two stories high, and then a wall, and then a road, and then a line of trees, and then a ditch where our guys are at. So I tried to keep the perspective in the ditch. So I'm having these dudes jumping in the ditch and having a scene, then like I have to cue the dolly craning in, cue the fucking horse. This guy rides up on a horse. It was really fun, like formerly it was really fun for me, like to, but it was fucking crazy. Like, all right, cue the horse, cue the drag, cue the lady on the balcony. It's a lot going on. It was a lot, but luckily, like, yeah, and we just like brought it back, ran it back. So, like, luckily, my actors were so fucking good that they just had it because I would have to like run and give little notes here and there, but really trusted them. We only lost like two hours to lightning the second day, uh which kind of I had to restage the ending, so it kind of fucked that up. Interesting. So I s could I storyboard everything, yeah. Like really go through it and yeah, fucked it up a little bit. So I had to like but it was good, it was one of also the great things about any filmmaking because I like I was had this moment because lightning was going off, and you know, union guys are like, fuck that, we won't you work in this. Yeah, it makes sense. But so I had like this moment, I was like, oh shit, and I had this prosthetic that we applied to one of the actors for the ending, and it was like it took like an hour, it was looking so good, yeah. And I had ordered it from LA from this fucking guy I've worked with before, who's great named Eric Fox, but I had to go in and be like, we gotta lose some beats. Like, we actually like well my first AD was like, you might have like a half an hour window between lightning and between the sun setting. Yeah, and I was like, Oh shit, okay, we have to restage the ending, we gotta lose that whole beat with this wound, we gotta like figure it out. Not gonna have time for the insert and all that. So it was like one of those great, like, all right, what should we beat? And like all of us, like me, first AD, producer, the actors, you know, um, we're all just like round tabling, like, all right, no, no, no, okay, that shouldn't, oh no, no, but but that beat doesn't pay off if this thing doesn't happen. Okay, what's in the version of that? So it was fucking awesome. Like that's everybody was into it, and nobody was like, fuck it, it's a good thing. A rush, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we figured that out. So I have like some pickups and some some uh like effect shots I need to do. It was great, and they you know it was and then that was the only time that like I definitely like had my fucking crazy director mode, right? Moment, right? Where because like we were trying to get through to get to the ending, and there's this part where uh one of the characters gets like a mason jar or like a clay pot, like a water jug broken on their fucking head, yeah, smashed over their head. And I would order these breakaway pots from from California and from LA, you know, called Alonzo's breakaways, like you know, Hollywood show.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's candy glass or sugar glass, whatever. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02But they looked, I mean, but it's not like a pot. But it looked like a pot, like clay, and it felt fucking heavy and knock on you like, and then there was just this fucking like circle of doubt that started happening between the actors, like fucking hit me, and then the other actor's like, I don't know, can I hit him now? How hard should I hit? And then my stunt man had just told me, like, uh, you know, my strength coordinator who wasn't there at the time, but curly had told me he's like, I was like, Do I need like padding? He's like, if you think you need padding, then there shouldn't be fucking this this guy.
SPEAKER_01This guy just came off the set of rust.
SPEAKER_02He's like, You don't need padding. He's like, man, that's been worse. Just go for it, man. You don't even need a real yeah, so he was like, if you fucking need padding, he like mocked me. So I was like, no, no, the guy assured me, right? Yeah, yeah. And like everybody's like, I don't know. Like, I like turned to my first AD and he's like, I don't know, man, I didn't sign off on it. So it was just like this moment, and we were like losing light, and I was like, already fired up. Fucking go. I was like, How many do we have? And they were like, We have three, and I just fucking smashed it over my fucking head. And people like, ah you know, like there were some screams and dead silence because it's loud, it's so fucking loud. But I just like took one step back and then like smashed it over my head, and it does it like a it's like a pop, it doesn't hurt, but it is like a shock. Yeah, the sound. I was like, now we only have two, fucking line up the shot. Like that was my only like that's amazing. Yeah, I felt bad, and I was like, I'm so sorry, guys. Because like my you know, my DP, she was like walking behind me and it exploded, and she was like, Oh my god, like I was carrying the camera. I'm like, Oh yeah, that was yeah, that was pretty unprofessional. Sorry, guys. Yeah, but we apologize. They fucking lined up that guy in the shot and got it in hand. Hell yeah. Um, but it did like lock everybody in, like laser focus. It was it was a lot of fun. It was cool, yeah. It was so fucking intense. It was so intense, yeah, that afterwards, yeah, I was just like, wait, what the fuck? Yeah, it just the come down exactly, yeah, was insane.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that makes total fucking sense because it's so intense, and yeah, uh a film set is a pretty unique place for people who haven't worked on them before. Because yeah, you do this really intense work, especially on indie stuff, where it's only for a handful of fucking days, but it's extremely long hours, and you get really you're with these people the entire fucking 12 hours, whatever the fuck it is, very intensely. There's a lot of pressure because there's money being spent or whatever having been spent, and then you're just done. You're done, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I've shoot outside so much. I think m like 70% of what I shoot is exterior stuff. So, like, we also we were blessed by even though there was lightning, this cloud coverage like made this consistency, especially with the black and white, because yeah, it's in it's in black and white sick. So it made like a consistency that we could start shooting earlier. Like, well, first we were gonna like do rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, all right, shoot, and then like a two-hour window to shoot just because there were so many moving parts and I wanted like these long takes. Um, but this fucking lighting, like it just helped us so much before it got like it was like today, right? Yeah, it was cloudy, it was really nice, it wasn't windy. So we also you kind of also just I almost postponed it and thank god I didn't like because the week later it was like the harshest sun all day, no cloud coverage. Yeah, just like you just kind of like fucking roll the dice on the like we set the date, okay, Cinco de Mayo week, and there were like things where we didn't know if we're gonna have enough money, like we were still raising money right into the last one, still raising money to just because we have like an opening shot and just some other stuff, you know, some post stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, we just like never faltered. No, let's fucking we're gonna shoot, like come hell or high water. Like, that's our shooting dates. Gotta stick with it. Like people are coming from Kansas, yeah. You know, some of my actors might get booked. Like, we gotta shoot it. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, just really intense period. And and really intense. And I hadn't made, I haven't, I mean, I directed a music video two years ago, but yeah, this is like the first one in four four years, four and a half years. God damn, that's so that I that I wrote and directed that I feel is like you know, my project. Yeah, yeah. Um come straight from you, yeah. So it was great, it was really fucking awesome to get back into not because I've been in writer mode for for a long, you know. It was just great to get back into director mode too, actually producing something, working with actors, and people getting a product, an actual finished thing, yeah, getting in a movie map.
SPEAKER_01That's awesome.
SPEAKER_02And the po like we already have like I said, we have a rough cut. Usually it takes us a long time to get into it because it's usually this producer of mine friend. We're oh, I think we're always just fucking tired of each other after such a long like put pre-production and production that we like need space and then we get into the footage. But we randomly met this editor in Chimayo who's like a fucking studio guy. He he his name is Steven Sprung, and he just was like, This is cool. I want I've been wanting to get into you know the local film scene, and just totally clicked, totally got you know the references we're going for, and he just like jumped in. But he yeah, he's edited, he edit the like the first season of Rise of Development, like every episode uh community, a lot of entourage, yeah, a lot of Apple shit and Enourage, he knows Turtle.
SPEAKER_01I think he meant yeah, he mentioned shit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he's done a lot of great stuff. Like, so I know he got the comedy in it, and he also Star Trek Beyond, like he's like a fucking editor, he's a busy boy, yeah. And he just he was just like, I love this project, let's just do it, man.
SPEAKER_01Have you ever uh have you ever heard of Robert Rodrigo? It rings a bell. That dude he wrote a book. I think you'd like it, it's pretty cool. Right, yeah, right. I'll I'll send it to you. I think it was on the nature of beasts, right?
SPEAKER_02Nature of men. Very, very acclaimed series, spy kids. Uh I fucking yeah, I love spy kids. My son is really into spy kids. Oh, really? Oh, nice. So he like get he's like, I like Robert Rodriguez. I was like, just you wait. Yeah, just yeah, yeah, until you see Selma Hayek gyrating with the crazy thing. Awakens something.
SPEAKER_01We shit we shit on uh Mr. Rodriguez all the time, rightfully so. But that is a crazy thing to think about. That like he has a thing where like kids can love him, and then the dad's like, give it time.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no, yeah, we're gonna get to the cool shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_02So you're like, we've got so many more spy kids than I remembered. I was like, what the fuck is this?
SPEAKER_03Shark Boy and Lava Group. I thought he rebooted it. Didn't he reboot it?
SPEAKER_02Yep, he sure did. My son found it and he's like, check this one out. Yeah, he and has he done sequels of the reboot? I don't think so. Because he did it with Netflix, I think. Uh the reboot. I mean, it wasn't bad. I mean, you know, I didn't, it wasn't bad or whatever. We can meet heroes is another, he just like has a whole fucking industry of children's kids. Damn, he's gonna be able to do that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because he had kids that age and he's like, yeah, fuck it. We'll just make some.
SPEAKER_02Which honestly feels good to for me to be like my son to be like, oh, that kid's name is Martinez, or like Antonio Gray. For sure. Yeah, he he represents Chicanitos, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Down in Texas, absolutely, yeah. I think last time you were on, we brought him Spike Dids too. I'm kind of remembering that. Really? I somehow I think we know.
SPEAKER_01It's just us being racist. I mean, okay, if we're talking in the film world, we're either gonna talk Robert Rodriguez or Edward James Almost. I love fucking Even the two-we get.
SPEAKER_03Don't bring him up, dude. I've been telling you I want to rewatch Battlestar, so don't bring him up. I just it's just gonna make me wonder.
SPEAKER_01It's like I'll go home and get a familiar.
SPEAKER_02That's a good one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, American Me. Yep. No, uh Edward James Almost. He was a fucking Blade Runner, like that's my man. My only references is science fiction. He was quite Selena's dad.
SPEAKER_03Like, oh, did he?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. He's all we got. Yeah, he is one of our one of our guys. He's uh he was also yeah, he he's in this fucking awesome movie called The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez. I've heard it's so good. Yeah, Criterion put it out. It's really good. Um he's fucking awesome in it. He basically carries the movie, but it's like uh I wouldn't call it a Roshoman, but it does like the baton passing exactly thing, yeah. Chicano, this Texas Tia Tehano cowboy who like killed the white dude over like a misunderstanding. So it's cool. Like the whole narrative is about understanding and like right that's cool language and translation, and yeah, yeah, and passing the baton to the different perspective.
SPEAKER_03So that's cool. Yeah, I like that. That's a cool idea. But yeah, that's great, dude. I'm super stoked that you shot. Yeah, I love that. That's so exciting. And yeah, what's what's your post-production road looking like? Obviously, you're doing the edit right now, but what are you gonna in the edit and a lot farther than I thought we would be, yeah, frankly.
SPEAKER_02Um, I'd like, yeah, we're gonna try to do a little festival run. Um, and then I have some other friends who do producing stuff and who are more involved in the well, I guess what we call the post-post world, right? Like, how do you get it out? Oh, yeah. Yeah, the the marketing question. Which I always fucking drop the ball on my phone, like because I like I think again, I think I'm just like so tired. But yeah, marketing, like the right, so maybe it's not just festivals, it might be cut it up in the eight second clips for TikTok.
SPEAKER_01TikTok, yeah.
SPEAKER_02What is it? Like three seconds, first two seconds are the most important. Fucking crazy. Put a guy dance.
SPEAKER_01Like a horrific, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, maybe, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01How many times does it say six seven? I could work it in, maybe just dub. That's all right. Just have somebody in the background just saying six seven.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. But yeah, I mean, that's yeah, that'd be super helpful because all that shit is such a nightmare. It's a nightmare.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So we'll see, you know, yeah. Hopefully by the uh by fall, we'll have a a first festival screening. Hell yeah. I love that. Hell yeah, dude. That's awesome. Big congrats. Thank you. Yeah, we may we might do like uh friends and family thing, so I'll invite you guys and yeah, I would love to. And Nick can invite me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I'll be his plus one. Yeah, I don't give a shit.
SPEAKER_03Sure, why not? Yeah, Kira can watch Leo. It's alright, yeah, it's good.
SPEAKER_01So we gotta ask you, yeah, what's your what's your history with Alex Scarland as what's the first thing you saw at his? And then what's the first thing you saw at his that you saw because it's him? And how do you feel about the guy? You said you love him.
SPEAKER_02I yeah, I really like Alex Garland. I think he I wouldn't say like he's like a guiding light for me, but I will I continually will show up for him, especially because I I think there is like a there's a short list actually when I was going through of like writer directors, and I what I mean by that is they were screenwriters first and then became directors, right? And the list is actually kind of it's like Paul Schrader, Charlie Kaufman, Tarantino actually would would count in there. But there's not a lot, honestly. Yeah, there's these people who are like right out the gate directing their own material, but yeah, you think of like the Art Tours kind of writer directors coming off, yeah. And in fact, I do think you guys made a misstep by not covering the beach because I think that is to for the for the big picture, I think is actually kind of essential.
SPEAKER_03Because it's because he's it's a novel that's adapted.
SPEAKER_02Yes, by Danny Boyle, so brought him in. He was on set, and that's when he was like, Oh, I can do this film shit. Yeah, and that's when he like really got into it. Um maybe we can do a bonus episode at the end of the day. Yeah, I'd be Leo, Leo. Yeah, um why not? Yeah, long time. Yeah, I think I think just to get the especially that'd be interesting because then you get if you guys get to the end and then and then go right back to the very beginning.
SPEAKER_03It'll be interesting. Yeah, it's cute.
SPEAKER_02I'm open to that. Here we are. The first movie would be definitely 28 days later. Yeah. Um saw it probably in high school or junior high. Yeah, it must have been younger than that. I didn't see it in theaters, but I definitely got the DVD, and I was like, This is okay, right, right when the zombie show was going on. Sean of the Dead came out, I think, the same year. And I do have a specific memory of like going to my uncle and being like, which one of these DVDs should I buy? And he's like, Sean of the Dead, you're gonna watch it more, probably your mom will be chiller with that. Yeah, yeah. So I did. I do remember, I was like, all right, and I did watch Sean of the Dead, but now I think I revisit 28 Days way more. Yeah. Um I yeah, I really like it. I like the fucking shitty mini DV, it doesn't bug me at all with the aging of it.
SPEAKER_03I think it works on the context of the movie. Yeah, it doesn't bug me either.
SPEAKER_01No, not at all. Not in that movie, yeah. Yeah, I think it I think it completely works. I think it's really cool.
SPEAKER_03The change the change to 35 millimeter at the end is yeah, I like I like that kind of shit. Yeah, I think Josh was scared. Josh Jenkins didn't like that.
SPEAKER_01When he saw it, he thought this was the death of Phil. Oh that was his switching fully to mini. Because he was that age. Yeah, he was just like, oh no, what's it? Because he's 10 years old. That's it, yeah. That's the fear.
SPEAKER_02And I think you guys touched on too like Michael Mann switching to that too, and that being like, uh oh, what are we doing?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, which yeah, he then he just never used it for interesting narrative purposes, which I got a hand to Boyle. He does if he does the case. Yeah, yeah, it makes boom, here we are. Yeah, it's the form follows function thing. It's it's it's part of the story. It's like someone picked it up after the apocalypse and filmed the fucking movie. Yeah, it's fucking great.
SPEAKER_02Really cool. So that was definitely the first. I don't think I clocked him as a name. Well, okay, then I went, I I did like a trip and with like some other high schoolers, and a girl brought a copy of his novel, uh, The Coma. Oh, which I think at that point, right, on the inlet on the author's sleeve, it's you know, author of or writer of 28 Days. So I was like, oh, what the fuck?
SPEAKER_03It's like the pitch of it, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so I read The Coma, which was a pretty fucking cool book.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_02Again, he's I think one of the best like idea first guys, right? Where you just you hear the loglin, you're like, oh shit, all right, I'm in. He always has an interesting angle. Oh, yeah, so good. And even the coma, it's about a guy who is like has this uncanny experience and realizes he's in a coma. I don't remember where he needs to get to, but he's like, I gotta get to someplace and that'll like wake me up.
SPEAKER_03I hate that idea. That sounds so scary.
SPEAKER_02It's very scary to be consciously awake but in a coma. Yeah, he knew, yeah, he knows he's in a coma. I honestly can't remember how it ends. Yeah, yeah. I just remember the concept. But so I think that was when I was like, this fucking guy, okay, he's into weird shit. And then probably not until I mean I definitely watched Ex Machina, um, and then was just like in. Just remember seeing Annihilation for the first time, being like, This is fucking sick. Uh, this is amazing. Then got to, I don't and I didn't watch Dev, I just watched Devs for the first time. I think I watched the first episode in COVID and was like, oh shit. Yeah. And just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Man, my son was born in 2020, so he's like, that was too much. I was like, I think we're good. Don't have any fucking time for that shit. I had no bandwidth for that. No. Um, but it was amazing to rewatch. Especially leading to this. Oh, yeah. But I was stoked to go see men in theaters, and I remember also being like, what the fuck?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I was an experience I probably won't ever watch that movie again.
SPEAKER_03I am a hundred percent with you. I never thought I would watch this movie again.
SPEAKER_02When you guys are doing the pod, I don't know why, but I was like, I want to get on men because I don't want to get on some men. Yeah. Don't we all remember this?
SPEAKER_01Let's just open with the longest pause for the rest of this episode. Like it's weird. Let it sink in.
SPEAKER_04We know. Yeah. We know what we're doing. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02So it was great. And I think there is something interesting about just that idea too. I th it happened again with um Ariaster. There's with um Did you guys see Bo's Afraid? No. No, not yet. Okay. I want to. Very similar emotional experience for me of being like, this guy's fucking awesome. And I think also weirdly ties, like, because Garland talks about he actually, you know, men was it's a 15-year process from when he started writing it. So he started writing it before devs, before a lot of stuff, and finally got to it. You can tell it's like this thing's just lived in your head, and yeah, we find it, and it's the same with Bo is afraid. It's lived in this fucker's head for so long, and it's just so aggressive with imagery that you won't forget. And I had this similar experience being like, that's the fucking movie. I'm never gonna watch that again, but I'm glad I sat through it. But then thinking about it, right? Like, wow, there's actually some parts that still stick with you that I want to revisit. Yeah, I'm fucking very pleased that I did.
SPEAKER_03Okay, good. Yeah, so you hadn't seen it since theater space. I've not seen it since whatever, 2022, right? Yeah, yeah. Same for me. I had you seen it since then William War. Did you rewatch it when it came out?
SPEAKER_01No. I think about it a lot, but I haven't rewatched it. This was imagery stuck with me. I was like, oh, I remember a lot of it. And that's every time we talk about Alex, it's I'm just like, nah, there's something there. And it's stuck in my head. Before we get into the film, sure, sure. We gotta do a little bit of house cleaning. There's a couple things. And then there's a lead-in. Let's do it. First. Nick, how are you?
SPEAKER_04I'm good.
SPEAKER_01How's your uh how's your days been?
SPEAKER_04Weekend was busy. Busy weekend. Leo turned three. Happy birthday. Big party. Happy birthday for birthday.
SPEAKER_03Big party for the boy. Hell yeah. So that was good. Yeah, he had a great time. And yeah, family was in town, so it's just super slammed running around doing stuff. And yeah, I actually just had a meeting with Mauricio, the artist on Redeemer. And both of us were like not knowing what to do during this time period because he finished a month ago. He finished his Ink. Oh, that congratulates. But that's awesome. And so our colorist who's in art school, he's been knocking out two pages a week, basically. So it's been this slow drip for the past month, and where I'm working on the structure of issue three and the structure of the rest of the series. So I've just been reading a shit ton of comic books, watching some stuff, you know, just getting like structure ideas and and all this thing for the rest of the. Yeah, exactly. It's it's it's it's all that planning to map everything out uh before we get busy with the part two campaign, which is in a couple months. So I just want to front load all that stuff so I can write the script uh for the third issue in the fall uh or in the winter. But it's I was talking to Mauricio and we were both kind of like, yeah, it was nice to have a little bit of a break, but because yeah, we were just so fucking burnt out after the whole campaign and all this stuff. And but now Mauricio's like, I'm I missdrawing the book. Yeah, we gotta get back to it. We're like, Yeah, dude, yeah. You get an empty mode.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you're like, who do I need to text? What's the email? Who I need to check in with about that. Exactly. It's good. Keep it in the pain going.
SPEAKER_03So it's been nice to you know kind of be kind of chill. And I mean, there's gonna be a lot of stuff to do this month. Stuff's definitely ramping back up because May was really kind of the slow month for for me. But uh yeah, it's weird where you you do kind of get addicted to the work a bit, and it is nice to have a break, but then after you work on something for so long and you're not working on anything, then you're like, fuck, you feel like, oh, what should I be doing? What am I you know what I mean? Like what yeah, I I I feel like I'm not doing something that I should be doing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. The rhythm, yeah, you kind of get it, it's kind of nice. It's like a it's like a it's a stress, but it it's like a fueling stress. It gives you it. It feels like a perfect life meaning, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're getting right. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's why we're gonna be able to do it. Oh, it's meaning in life, yeah. Which we both have children.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's the best part of it. Yeah, here's your fucking popsicle. Yeah, he's gotta write. I'm in my head.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Nixon is Spike Jones from Three Kings era. He's just like, I don't know what to do with my life. It's weird, man.
SPEAKER_03It's yeah, so but it yeah, I I'm good. Um busy, busy time, very fucking busy all the time. Um, but yeah, how are you, William? How's it going with you, bud?
SPEAKER_01I'm fine. I have a gripe.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01I love you, and I gotta come at you, and I'm really sorry. The day was on last week, okay? I know. We can't fight in front of Antonio RF. Yeah, I'm not gonna ref, I'm not gonna ref shit out. I'll just let it play out. Yeah, yeah. I'll clear the room. Clear the mics, fight it out, boys. I I bought the mics. We upgraded mics. Okay. These are newer mics, and I bought these. This is this is my money I put into this. I also took over shit on it. I took over paying for the site that hosts the feed. Oh, oh, yes. So that's a monthly feed.
SPEAKER_03Because my debit card expired.
SPEAKER_01So I just I put mine in because I was too lazy to ask Nick what to do, so I just dealt with it. It's a monthly feed. So I'm helping financially as best I can. I don't understand why you're making me drink Pepsi right now. Oh, I see. What is wrong with you that you're on such hard times? You're buying Pepsi instead of coke products. Well, okay. How much more money do I have to give you to get back to the Cokes?
SPEAKER_03And we will. All right. So for those people who don't drink soda like I drink soda, I but I'm gonna try to be relatively healthy, right? But I I love Coke Zero, love Dr. Pepper. Yeah, what is what's the Dr. Pepper? Zero, maybe. Zero sugar, I think. Zero sugar, yes. So cans of Coke are very fucking expensive now. When you go to Smith's, it's $12 for a 12-pack. When we were children, it was a fucking 25 cents per can. Now it's a dollar per can. Okay, right? Okay, so we always have to wait for the sales where you can buy three and then you get three, or buy two, get two. We always look for that. The deal. So that hadn't been going on as Smith's for a little while. Okay, and then when we go to Costco, Pepsi has now gotten on the bandwagon of healthy pro prebiotic sodas. Okay. So, like you think of like poppy or ollipop, those kind of things. Is that a prebiotic? That's a fucking prebiotic Pepsi. Pepsi? Yeah. So it only cut it comes in a this isn't pale, right?
SPEAKER_01Nick just likes it. This isn't in an I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Pepsi's always good on your butt.
SPEAKER_02My grandma fucking got down on that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, Pepsi. I'm not a Pepsi person, but so this this is an 18 pack, and it's been on sale for 10 bucks.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03And it's it's whatever has some fiber in it, and trying to help my fiber intake, you know, I'm trying to be healthier. I'm not a big Pepsi person either. Pepsi Zero Sugar is pretty good. You I mean, you know, I you knew you were gonna get a long answer. Yeah, I asked about soda. I've brought it. But I know, I know. And it's still on sale, so I've had to buy the Pepsi because it's it's the the normal Pepsi isn't as good. Wild cherry Pepsi's good. Wild cherry is clear. Wild cherry Pepsi is better than Coke.
SPEAKER_04Cherry Coke. Yeah, wild cherries over cherry coke.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, cola flavor, yeah. Pepsi's not there. I'm not a big Pepsi person. I I apologize that I don't even have a Dr. Pepper.
SPEAKER_01I want to make sure you were doing alright because I saw this a week ago and I was like That's been that long. I'm worried about my boy. It's been a few weeks. I'm worried about my friend, yeah, and then today I had to get it, and I was just like, I gotta I gotta say something.
SPEAKER_03Well, we bought you know, we bought Leo the fucking play set. Yeah, you gotta prioritize it. It's expensive. I got it.
SPEAKER_01You're gonna make me drink Pepsi. It's fine.
SPEAKER_03You know, as my friend, you also have to make sacrifices with my portfolio.
SPEAKER_01I'm doing the best I can with what I'm being given. Exactly. At least you got the cherry one. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, you know, this is true. And I gave you the grace, I didn't bring this up at the party in front of your family. I didn't embarrass you in front of your father.
SPEAKER_03Hey, can I talk to you for a second? Yeah, exactly. Well, you did embarrass me in front of my father. Well, I had your back.
SPEAKER_01No, I know. I had your back. I defended you with your parents. What happened? No, so yeah, so we're being typical parents, is what happened. Yeah. Yeah. They're not mine, so I was able to kick their shit in a little bit. All right. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03William was sticking up for me. My buddy alone. Yeah, my dad just is like, he's that dad where he gives you a hard time because it he doesn't know how to interact with you any other way. Yeah. Because that's the only kind of emotion that he was able to show. He's softened a thousand percent from when I was a kid, and he is very loving. Uh it's like play fighting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's play fighting, but it's like sometimes they'll slip in something a little real. No, exactly. And he's as as big as we build ourselves up, our parents like one off-handed comic and they'll fucking cut.
SPEAKER_03No, it's not from one because it cuts you back to being a kid where you're just like, motherfucker.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but what adds to that is his dad was doing a little bit of that, and it's also the friend dynamic are there, so he's picking on Nick in front of his friends. But then his alpha. Yeah, then his mom was like, Oh, and then he's not gonna appreciate it when we're gone. And that's what triggered me when my mom and aggressive. And I was even standing near them, and so I called her out. I was like, you do this whole thing about we're supposed to appreciate it, but you're just picking on us to being stressed, you're stressing us out.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, while I'm at the fucking grill doing all this stuff, actively hosting your family.
SPEAKER_00Nick's not gonna appreciate the anxiety we're giving him. I was like, be cool, and we would like it more. Yeah. So what are you doing? No, and that's yeah, and for real.
SPEAKER_03So, and and I had a way a couple of my other friends were there too that hadn't interacted with my parents as much as William has over the years. And yeah, my dad and mom just happened to be standing there, uh, even though their significant others were there. And like, and my friends who haven't interacted with them a lot. I'm like, all right, guys, for all the shit that I am, blame these people. I literally was like, blame these two. Uh-huh this is why. And then whatever they said a couple things. I'm like, I'm like, exactly. Fucking, and then it's kind of good. You actually used it in your favor. No, I used it in my favor, and then the next day. It's your strength. Or no, later, yeah, later that I think was it later that day? Yeah, later that day, uh, we went and got dinner with my dad and my sister, and my sister's like, Oh yeah, mom was offended that you did that. Oh shit, so you must have bottled it in. Yeah, so I'm like told your sister, I'm like, that's the most typical shit that my mom would ever do. It's just like I give her a hard time, and then making her face the responsibility that I am an outcome of her and her ex-husband. She's like, Oh parents don't like that.
SPEAKER_02No, they hate that. They don't like that shit reflected back in here.
SPEAKER_01And I I was I was in that mood of like, nah, you can't do that to Nick in front of everybody out there. Not a barbecue.
SPEAKER_03I appreciate that, yeah.
SPEAKER_02While he's on the fucking grill.
SPEAKER_03I know, dude. I'm like fucking doing smash burgers. I'm doing four fucking burgers at a time and like trying, and my dad's like, oh, and my dad is classic dancers. Like, he he'll complain about shit. He's like, I didn't know you could do this stuff. He'll write the joke, like slightly undermine you, yeah. Yeah, like this being like, Oh, I didn't know you could grill a burger. It's like, yeah, you and I told him, I said, anything that I don't know how to do is because you didn't teach it to me. Fuck yeah, that's a good lie. Exactly. I mean, literally, literally, like, yeah, he was like, Oh, he was making fun of me not knowing about cars or something. It's like, it's because you're impatient and you couldn't teach me anything, you motherfucker. It's literally your fault. Yeah, but and then he's just like, Oh, this laughs at it, but it's like so typical. It's very funny, but whatever. It the party was good, it was great. Burgers were tasty, delicious. Leo was happy with all of his gifts. Good boy. I gotta give props to you, William, or your cat shepherd, uh, who apparently picked out the axolotl stuffed animal that Leo is now obsessed with.
SPEAKER_02So I love I love win of the party uh children's toys.
SPEAKER_01Degrees, they're out there everywhere now. Yeah, they're both. And I got them like a black one, so it's like a weird one. And I was like, Yeah, pink one weird.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's like a charcoal kind of certain things. Yeah, that was that was the the hit of the party, and and William told him that his cat got him. So he says, like, I love the accelerato, or that shepherd got me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, it's my go-to when I get presents. I just say it's from my cat. That's a good, yeah, especially for children. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it acts to their imagination. Yeah, so it's it's good.
SPEAKER_04Cat.
SPEAKER_01Excuse me. We we broke him in first pinata. Yes, what was the shape? What was it? Mario Mario.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yes, and it was one of your favorite characters, beat it to death for a while. And it was his size, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Awesome, tall, yeah, and his severed head is in his room right now. That's why. And like his eyes are like for beaten in, so mounted on the wall. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh let him be known. It was way too strong. Yeah, yeah. It took it. It was a fucking killer.
SPEAKER_01We hit the point where we let Leo pick people in the crowd to give it a shot. Yeah, the adults talk. He's like, come, come, come on, I need some help here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. It was it was fun. Yeah, because he he saw one of his cousins have a pinata a couple years ago. It was a great time. Yeah, so that'll have to be an every year thing, I think.
SPEAKER_02But but yeah, yeah, there's the it's always good when a pinata comes out. Yeah, pinata is.
SPEAKER_03I mean, you get the candy, yeah, the kids.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's great. Yeah, we've got a couple of pinadas for my son. I remember I had a barbecue like as an adult, man. We filled it with like plastic shooters. Ah, and I remember like in my 20s, right? Yeah, I remember like we did it in the front yard and then we were already drinking, so then a bunch of them just got kind of stomped and buried in the room. Yeah, already. So, like, and I used to live downtown, and when I'd just come back from the bars, if I was desperate, I'd be like, let's go stomp like you're done in the front, yeah. Yeah, you're in your tidy whitey's just like, I know there's like you stumble out. Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_03That's amazing.
SPEAKER_02Some rum. Yeah, what are you doing? Yeah, actually.
SPEAKER_03This brings up a good question that I uh should ask you specifically, Antonio. Your son is a couple years older than mine, and so with Leo having just turned three, this is the last birthday where he's not gonna have friends and those friends' parents at our house for the party because he's gonna start, you know, have part-time preschool in the fall, that kind of stuff. So he's gonna be getting into school. Yeah, yeah. So your son is old enough to have friends, I imagine. And I imagine he goes to school. Yep, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02He just he just like graduated, well, promotion ceremony, yeah. Yes, so he's gonna be starting first grade.
SPEAKER_03Congratulations to him. Any advice for some I you I mean, you're like a nice person, you're more social, I think, than I am in terms of your I mean, you work at a fucking bar, right? I mean, you you can't be like a total intro introvert doing that. Yeah, do you have any advice for dealing with children's friends of your child's parents who you are forced into situations to talk about? Yeah, no, no, certainly. I think most of them are just like, eh, we all get us the gig.
SPEAKER_02So any advice. So he's do he's going into daycare now. It's gonna be it's like Monsory preschool. Preschool pre-K, yeah, yeah. Okay, so that was that was a little different because that's nice, because that's still mostly kids doing kids' own, and sometimes maybe you'll go on a field trip or whatever. Yeah. And that's pretty nice because you can just kind of hang back. Um so I don't even remember interacting with no, we went to the zoo one time and I paled up with one dad. Gotcha. You kind of you can kind of feel out like this guy might be is more my vibe. Like now in kindergarten, yeah, it's happening, it happened a lot more this year. And our community's really tiny, like it's in Placita, so then there's like I think there was 12 kids in his class. Gotcha. But the school itself is really small. But yeah, there was like one dad who was like an ex-marine. He's really cool. We ran into him like a few times at the park. Yeah, but it's still a little bit like, oh, what are we gonna talk about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh and like our sons, they don't really they're not really the friends in the class. So you're also like, what about this kid? I like this. His parents seem cooling. My son's like, I don't fuck with that kid. Yeah, you can't do it, exactly. So you're like, damn, okay, we'll see what who's next. Basically, let let the kid lead like who it's gonna be because you can't because I again. Yeah, you can't force him to be able to do it. You should be friends with that guy because his parents seem cool. Yeah, yeah. Like, I could hang out with them. Um, but also it's nice to always have because they are so tiny, you can always like the other parent. What I found is also the other parents feel this way too. So you like look at them, you're like, I think we're all we're done, like talking, and you're like, hey buddy, so like mom is expecting this baby. Everyone gets it. Yeah, yeah. Let's get oh, we really gotta go. Okay, ten more minutes, guy. Well, as soon as you run out of speed, you're like, ah, let's go. I'm an adult, like, I don't have to stay here, we're not at school. Let's get out of here. Yeah, and you always can come up with an adult excuse. Yeah, I want to place it. No, no, no. Mom is we're meeting your mom for dinner, whatever.
SPEAKER_04Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Although I will say also, there's uh we have like a neighbor right down the street, and he had like a big barbecue, and I brought you know a four-pack where I was like, is this weird? Like, I was like, Well, they're Mexican like me. Like, I got did so much booze, dude. All the T YO's are fucking dancing, like, all right, we're good. Yeah, we got each other's number, so we'll be like, all right, we'll we'll hang out for sure throughout the summer, and you know, his kids won't hang out with those parents.
SPEAKER_03Well, no, I mean, I don't know. You know, I we have some neighbors that have kids around Leo's age, you know, that he kind of pals, he doesn't pal around with, but he knows their names and he's always like, Oh, that's their house. And people used to go and talk to him. They haven't done like formal play dates or whatever, you know. So we'll see if that happens, you know, once he's a little bit older, maybe this summer with Kira being off and everything. But yeah, and I've told Kira, I'm just like, mostly I'm just like, I just don't you can interact with people. I just because literally, if I can just sit stand there and just think of shit in my own head and not talk to anybody, I'll just do that. I fucking I think you have to find the balance.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there was another no, I can't.
SPEAKER_03Seriously, I just like sit there like a psycho.
SPEAKER_02He's great at this birthday party. Also, the TOs, like after I like TO'd it up and I was like, Yeah, I think I'm like, I think I'm done. Yeah, but my son is obviously he's been looking forward to this birthday party all week, so I was like, I can't leave. But I saw like this other mom that she was just like sitting on her phone and fuck yeah, and I just like went and sat next to her. We didn't talk, we didn't say anything, we just like sat on our phones together. Yeah, yeah. I was like, cool. The hot dog, and like yeah, and I didn't feel judged, like nobody gave a shit.
SPEAKER_01You know, they were because there's a lot of family of the you know, of the kids whose birthday it was exactly parties are easy parties because there's stuff to do, so you cook, yeah, so there's no interacting. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah, the hangs are the hard one.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, at the park hang when you're like yeah, that's what you're like, do I play with are we playing with thicky? Or if one dad's like trying to play with them, I'm like, I don't I don't feel like playing, and I'm not gonna play with you. Like other dad. Yep. Maybe, maybe we'll get to that point. But yeah, no, I haven't experienced that yet. See, so I'm still getting it, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03No, of course, yeah. I mean, it's uh as the kids get older, you know, the interactions I think increase, especially in that elementary school age. So yeah, I think you're you're just at the beginning of it. Just you know, and with kids coming over and for birthday parties or or whatever, that that really kind of starts more uh uh at your son's age. So but I I appreciate any advice because yeah, I've I I I I do try to fight against it, you know. Because it is usually fine you talk to somebody, but I just despise it so much.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, I was like, I also don't think you have you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_01Like if you were also just like, I'm not gonna talk now, like we're just I was gonna say just fucking stand there and legitimately get comfortable with opening and letting people know of like I'm really quiet, don't take offense. Yeah, no, like you're better off doing that and then also showing, like, oh shit, maybe he likes me a lot because he's actually talking to me because that's you're setting the norm of I'm I'm gonna be quiet.
SPEAKER_03But also, I don't want to do the Tylenol thing of like, hi, I'm not I'm yeah, that yeah. I'm socially awkward. So I'm gonna speak to you for a minute and like off putting it. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Then they're like, what the but then again, I mean it's a big thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, they'll do that thing where they'll stick their kid not play with my son. Yeah, you know, like, oh good, don't talk about it.
SPEAKER_01Then it's me. We hey hold on. You want to go home or not? I th I forgot what's the mission here? You want to go home or you want this to last longer?
SPEAKER_03Don't you have to go home become threatening towards the other?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Leo's like, I'm not invited anymore. Maybe you should go home.
SPEAKER_03This is our playground. This is my playground. Yeah. Uh but yeah, I appreciate that. I just wanted to throw it out. Uh because yeah, another creative brain person, but again, I think you're very social. Yeah, you you can't not be in work at a bar.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I mean I have to and then but then of course when the shift's over, I'm like, I can't go anywhere.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, well, you because you just use all the energy, yeah. So done.
SPEAKER_02But uh again, it does help. I did I do actually think it helped like specifically with directing because high pressure and like being unflappable, but also and also having a kid and having to answer a thousand questions and not lose your temperature stupid questions that are beneath you.
unknownExactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, what should I miss lunch? Yeah, we're fucking in the middle of a scene.
SPEAKER_01Lunch is my call lunch, call talk to the fucking first AD. That's me on set.
SPEAKER_02Is there more ice?
SPEAKER_00Don't ask me. I uh I heard uh it was crafties at uh did you have budget for crafties?
SPEAKER_03My fucking job is crispies. No, I didn't know.
SPEAKER_02Asking the directors with being like, that's a produ go ask my producer. Or like eventually emails, like people were telling I was like, Oh yeah, just forward this to the producers. Yeah, they'll handle it.
SPEAKER_01That was great. I love that idea of a PA asking a director, where's the snacks? There actually was one PAL.
SPEAKER_02So funny. God bless him, but he was like very much like that. Like, where do I like he was like holding sh like he had a bunch of coffee stuff and just like staring at me, like handed it up like yeah, take it over there? And then just seeing him like kind of wander like a lost deer. Yeah, because we they were from college up there, but I was like, God fucking damn it. But I didn't have time, I was like, somebody go take tell him what to do.
SPEAKER_01So I think one way to start talking about this really weird movie is to quote another movie because I think it it'll make sense with the context of what this movie's discussing. So here I go. Because it's been in my head a lot. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Let's see how it.
SPEAKER_01Men are shit. Okay. Men are shit. Isn't that what they say about us? I think so. Because women can't be bad people. They don't lie. Oh. It's taking a turn. Now we don't hurt people. Now I'm just quoting Frank TJ Mackey from Magnolia. Yeah, yeah. Because the minute I finished this movie, all I thought about is how much those guys hate this movie. Where all anyone has is like, yeah, but what about like this is the like yeah, what about movie for I think a large group of men out there where everything in this movie they're like they're seething. That just part and parcel with what they're partly upset at men. I was just like, yeah. Frank TJ Mackey hates this movie. Oh, of course. Andrew Tate hates this movie.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he probably won't even watch it.
SPEAKER_02He probably did try to watch. He's like, oh sh fuck yeah, man. Like this movie of first four boys about you. Yeah. Like, wow, so one guy plays all the guys. That's sick, man. Let's show let's fire it up.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. And then he saw the vagina at the end. He's like, oh boy, men don't have pussies. Exactly. Yeah. Disgusting. Pussy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Oh fuck.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Oh, so good. The back pussy. That's the one that got me. That was the best. Yeah. The back pussy's the one.
SPEAKER_00And there's just juice that comes. It's so cute.
SPEAKER_02It's so fucking good. Yeah, it's yeah. I again ties to Bo is Afraid, which just to spoil a little bit, there he is. He's a gigantic monstrous cock in that movie. Oh yes, I've heard huge giant. Yeah, so it's like it's like the big mystery that's revealed, and it's just like the movie's a troll, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I can't. I don't know. I can't I can't do it. I can't do it. Ari's not my shit. I can't do Ari.
SPEAKER_02He he doesn't in terms of I did you guys you talked about Eddington. Eddington's fucking good, especially my brain, though.
SPEAKER_01I watched Eddington. Nick didn't watch.
SPEAKER_02I didn't know. I he's he was on top of it about the true evil being data centers moving in to New York, especially into New Mexico. That's that movie. The big evil at the center of it is that.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay, gotcha. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, that's Rex. So, Nick, me and you saw this in theaters.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Together.
SPEAKER_01Amazing. I think so. As men. Yes. Yes. Holding hands. Well. We always sit next to the street. I can't remember. We don't do the stupid. Sharing a cake. A regular coke. Coke. No. We share red vines. I buy red vines. He does give me some out of his red vines. Yeah, we we share treats for sure.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, drinks not usually though. I try not to drink everything. I'm a non-liquid during the movie guy because I really don't want to piss. I have a small bladder.
SPEAKER_01And one of us has herpes and doesn't want to give it to the other one, and we don't know which is. Are you okay?
SPEAKER_04What? Dormant. I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_01No, I don't have herpes. I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_04Sure. I'm fine. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01Hey, technically, chicken pox is herpes. Technically.
SPEAKER_03Is it the same thing?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's a herpes. One of the herpes fires? It's one of them. It's the cousin or the brother from the mother's side. Interesting. This is great. I love it. How do you like men watching it now? And did Kira watch this with the yes, yeah, she did.
SPEAKER_03She hadn't seen it in theaters. And yeah, we watched it over two nights, typical dad style. And um, yeah, I really didn't like this movie when I first saw it. Uh in the theater, I was just like, because I because Alex Garland's my sci-fi guy, right? I go for him for those ideas, and he's moved out of that with Civil War a little bit. Yeah. That's still technically speculative. It is speculative science fiction, and I haven't seen Warfare, which is actually based on a true story, and now he's gonna be going into uh Elden Ring, right, with fantasy. Crazy fantasy, so which is with some scientific men, right? So science shit in it. Watching this now, it's more interesting to me because of the Elden Ring of it all. Where I'm like, okay, he's gonna be kind of getting into this, and then reading a little bit about it, it made me respect it more, uh, or at least empathize with where he's coming, like in terms of the green man and all that kind of shit. I don't know if you guys read any of the trivia.
SPEAKER_01I didn't read about it, and I need you to help me talk about the green man.
SPEAKER_03If you read about it, yeah. So the green man, that's what the creature is, basically. It's this fucking mythological thing in England. It makes me think of like the Green Knight and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_02Kind of tied to the Green Knight. Yeah. There's no overt consensus about what it means, okay. Really, but it's it is a motif that pops up not just in medieval play, like there's a lot of green men in Chicago, like historical buildings in Chicago's, and just like almost like a gargoyle. Okay. People are like, is this a guardian? Is this like left over from paganism? And then the other one was the Sheila in a gig, which is the woman figure spreading the vulva. Like the fertility image. Fertility, and I think the green man all ties into that thing of men wishing they could be like women. Yeah, we could be creators instead of destroyers.
SPEAKER_03And that's the and that's what that pedestal is. It's the green man on one side and then yeah, yeah, and then her on the back. So it's the duality.
SPEAKER_02And and there's a lot of those over that they didn't that the Christians didn't get rid of in like in different places of in Europe where like for some reason they were like, Cool, it might be you know, them as Christians just making it easier to bring in pagans to the to the you're right. Kind of like how they're like colonial bastards, yeah. Just like how they the the Spanish did in Mexico, like incorporating me, colonial bastards. Yeah, just like okay, cool, let's incorporate ideas of their gods and just turn you're right. Hey, Jesus also, you guys like sacrificed this guy. Yeah, got his uh shit beaten in and got hung on a cross. He was the ultimate. He was flavored, yeah. Exactly, yeah. But yeah, green man.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so it it it makes more sense having watching it again and the yeah, the the manosphere part of it. It was like it doesn't overtly I think it criticizes men a little bit a little? No, no, I think in terms of like the stereotypes of like the way that men interact with women, but like really I took it more as all these different men in the movie are representative of stages of grief and different things that she's telling herself about how she feels about her husband's uh death slash possible suicide. That's what it looked like to be. It's like, oh yeah, these are just different interpretations of grief, and like so it felt less anti-tent to me.
SPEAKER_02But I think that's a well, I think that's a good I think it begs the question then are we taking this literally? Because or are we not? Is it just one big metaphor? Or does this exist in a world where this is an entity? So I a godlike entity.
SPEAKER_03I think I think the entity is really interesting. I think the entity taps into what she's going through. I don't know what the entity wants, but I do like the little like after we cut to the title at the end, and we have her friend show up, and it's like, oh yeah, her friend sees that the car crashed. Oh, her friend sees that there's fucking blood slime all over the place, and then she has the leaf, so it's like, oh, these events did happen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and she feels a little more how much of it happened. Well, I know I think the whole thing you think the back pussy happened.
SPEAKER_03I don't know, but it is it's her having some kind of experience. I mean, you have like the her breathing in the fucking dandelion thing, so it's like it could be uh an analog for psychedelics or something like that. But it's like clearly I like that she went to this place to try to deal with her grief, and this place forces her to deal with her grief, even though it's this weird, malevolent force, uh, or seemingly malevolent, and for the green man to end up having the same wounds as her husband, I really like that, right? After falling out, like that's I forgot about that. And then when he when it turns into her husband, and she just joins him on the couch, and she just has this kind of moment of acceptance where she's like, Alright, now we just gotta fucking deal with this. You're not here to kill me, or maybe you were here to kill me, but is that her, you know, uh reflecting how she feels about herself and how she feels guilty in the situation or whatever? Because that's what it seems like with all the the things that the men say to her. To me, it sounds like something her husband could have said to her, or something her, like, you know, that nagging negative force could say to you, where it's just like, and men always go, Oh, you didn't like the kid, oh, you didn't you don't want to fucking play with me, which I'm just like seeing my kid interact with my wife, and it's just like this little boy, just yeah, you know, just demanding everything of her.
SPEAKER_01That's so funny. Uh the comedian Sarah Talamosh's wife uh Joe Liss has a joke about raising a kid is kind of like an abusive husband where she's like trying to cook and like feed him, like, oh here's dinner. I love you, and he just starts pulling her hair and she's like, I'll stop, I'll stop, I'll stop. Like you're apologizing to him. Like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. No, yeah, he's just out of nowhere, his violence.
SPEAKER_05They're monsters, bro.
SPEAKER_02Well, I think, and it is, I thought it was great fucking insight that the the most overtly aggressive of these men is the boy. Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah, he's kind of like a fucking droog, he's just like fucking, yeah, right? And then even when the even the priest And the priest and the but the priest being like, maybe she'll play with you later, instead of being like, no, no, she said no. Now you're trying to like smooth it over, like you will appease this little boy at some point. Exactly. The possibility of appeasing him. Um, but back to your I that's it, I mean I think definitely has to do with grief. For some reason, I read it totally as as as a as a reading of God, of this is like where we are at in religion and how it's like affected modern living, but that this God entity and this whole idea of Adam and Eve and Western religions warping what is natural about a woman's power and having to create these fucking incredibly ridiculous mythos and religions and ceremonies all just to try to steal or to just even fucking try to get a minuscule of the power that women have. Oh, of course. Of course, yeah. Even like the end down to baptism is like such an insulting thing to be like, oh fuck, you came out of a pussy. Got washed out. I can't do that as a man. You are evil, and that was really bad of you. So I have to wash you to make it clear. I will fix it as a man, I will do my own version, we'll dunk you in a tank. Now you're good and you're born again. It's all about trying to steal fucking women's power. Yeah, for sure. I think it's preying on her. I think, yeah, so he kind of has his eight cake and eats it too, I think, because it is like he's really, which is I think what one of the frustrating things about this movie, and why upon first viewing, I was like, that was I'm glad I saw that. Don't think I'll see it. Never watching it again. Because he he doesn't quite settle on what it is, which I think is like also awesome. I I love that for devs, it was so, I guess for lack of a better word, left brand, right? And coming out of it, you know, because he was worked, said he was working on the script for men for so long, right? Yeah, and a lot of that having to do with creation, and then he kind of says in interviews, like, Oh, I like locked into something, figured it out. So I think it was the process of doing devs, and then right thinking some of those thematics, being like, cool, okay, let's get away from like this tech world and go back to this natural world that that we're dealing with and how men have fucking warped that too. Like, where did this tech shit start? It starts like at a very small basis of just being. It's all men's shitty stuff. Trying to be God, yeah, trying to be God, which women have that power.
SPEAKER_03And this is like Yeah, they have the power of creation. Yeah, there's our seed, with our seed, we do contribute something.
SPEAKER_01God damn it.
SPEAKER_04You can't do it without us.
SPEAKER_01You literally can't. I I we're saying it with a tone, but it's all act like don't make me be the guy, but like that is true.
SPEAKER_02They can't no, and I it is half well and there is the religion idea of like the true god is is both, it's androgynous, right? It requires both energies. Yeah, but then we're just like, I want it all, I will take all of the credit, I want it all. I want to set up these fucking ceremonies and these structures and these spaces that give me the fucking power.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, because it's if I can't have it, then or if I can't do it, then I'll just own the means of production. I will tell you, yeah, it's like, well, the women are beneath us, yeah, and we sell them like cattle because I can't do the thing. So then I just own the thing that does the thing. Even the story, right? The good old days story, right?
SPEAKER_02Which type ties to devs, right, with the Apple that we introduced that. But so I read something interesting about somebody about what Joseph Campbell had talked about how he thought that that was evil dead? Yeah, that guy, he was the chainsaw. The boomstick guy? Yeah, so he in between Rev's chainsaw, he fucking put it down as like, yo. So I have things about the story of Eden, but he thinks that that story originally was supposed to be about, and this is like going into Gnosticism. We're just gonna we're gonna let's get into it. Well, if you've been listening, we've been here for a few years ago. So Gnosticism is the idea that yes, there is a God, he's evil, and he's trapping us in creation to as a means to prevent us from being whole, right? Yeah, it's like all the religion, all these stories of the Bible are real, but God is evil. Yeah, yeah. So it's like this idea that the people who wrote the original story, it was actually supposed to be a story about woman as hero fucking taking that shit, like Prometheus, taking that knowledge and freeing mankind.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Getting out of the garden.
SPEAKER_02Getting out of the garden and freeing us all. And but now, right, then this it warped it into she's the fucking villain. Yeah, no, no, no, she's the one who freed us, right? She's not the one who fucking, right? This downfall or this fall from grace, right? And then this original, which is that's the original sin, it's bullshit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yeah, and I and uh it's so I starting this season, I had no idea how much he was actually interested in religion, even though I've seen all of his movies, yeah, like not until we started watching them and examining them. It was like maybe only sunshine. Yeah, it was like, yeah, because I think a sunshine is the sun is God, right? Yeah, it's such a cool idea. And actually, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And the stuff he says is very religious-coded.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but I never really, but yeah, this is multiple projects in a row where it literally is coming his perspective on Eve and all this kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, so he's like let's go for it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I have a little bit of a different take, and I think my take's probably the most basic of the takes where it the watching this movie, it does feel like oh not opening, but starting very early with the the the tree, how much the church and the all of that goes is he is uh legitimately just saying, like, in the natural order of things, men are like it's been a forever, and it's through mythology and it's through ancient times to modern times. We are really shitty, like really shitty to women where like the priest is, the cop is, even this guy that's nice, he's also like uncomfortable, and like I think on the surface level, the movie works as a woman horror story of just how much it sucks being a woman in like a dude world, yeah, where it's just like I mean, the windows are exposed, the bathtubs in the middle, like there's so much like vulnerability, and then it's also like this is built into our religion, yeah, and she's trying to mind her own fucking business civilization on it. Yeah, you can't go on a hike, you can't call the cops, you can't go to a bar without seeing a dude's cock standing like you you you just can't. You can't do anything without all of this constantly coming at you. Yeah, you can't walk home at night without going, oh yeah, I forgot. I could die at any second.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like literally nothing goes well for you. Everything is scary. I feel uh all of that falls apart a little bit when we get super surreal and psychedelic. Where then I start going, okay, what are we talking about with the green man? What are we talking about with the because the birth to me is the same kind of uh everyone is uh Rory Kneer, where it's like it's all men, yeah, even the nice ones, even the vicar, even a kid, like you're it's there's levels of aggression it's within different types different types of aggression. So I think that's uh it's also a very Charlie Kaufman thing because he made an Amalisa which uh did a same play on the idea of everyone's the same thing. But like once you start having that plus the psychedelic, then the birth thing, because the birth thing is that it's it no matter what, the s men like the cycle is just the same. I was like, okay, but w what about what about it beyond men suck is where I start getting lost at the end, and then when she sits with him on the couch and she goes, What the fuck do you want? Yeah, and he says, I just want you to love me. Yeah, that hit me really hard. Yeah, that was like um not to exaggerate, that's the Evangelian hospital where I was like, You're not supposed to be that honest. Like, how many times uh I'll say me and not put you guys in if it's uncomfortable, but how many times have you been in like a horrible fight and you do the gaslight and the manipulate and you twist their words and you're so like vindictive just to win a moment of desperation, and then at the end you use love as an attack of like, I just want you to love me. Yes, and it's like what a scumbag thing to do. It's the same of when you're fighting, you go, I'm gonna kill myself, and it's your fault. It's like what a scumbag, emotionally manipulative thing to do. And from his perspective, he might think he's being sincere.
SPEAKER_03Well, and that's why she sighs after that. That's what's out of the way.
SPEAKER_01She's like, there's no getting through to you. Yeah, you believe what you're saying, which is I'm gonna kill you because you don't love me, and that's all I want.
SPEAKER_02Well, it goes back to the blaming. Like you freedom us from the garden. Exactly. I killed myself because of you. No, I fucked up. That's what I mean. No, no, no. Everyone I get to be the oppressor and the victim. It's a positive love to do that. This is put upon her. Yeah. So I think I think that's spot on, and I think, yes, definitely I will, I will own that too. Like, as a man, for sure I've done that in relationships, especially when you're young, you know, you know what, you had just so emotionally charged using every fucking weapon in your arsenal, and then you're just like, wow, I am a piece of shit, right? If you have any self-reflection, but I think it goes back to the the whole mission in general of and it'd be interesting actually, we should maybe look through in general his like where this falls in the larger Alex Garland thing. But I think he does interesting things with this, like with the love. I think he inverts a lot of things about a male-driven narrative, right? Protagonists. She is a passive and reactive protagonist. I think he's like, let's fucking because you know, in screenwriting, the this hammer has to be a proactive protagonist. She is literally only trying to mind her own business and reacting in kind in defense to what's happening to her. He's sp I think he's definitely doing that. Like, what's what's this like these these traits that are, you know, probably unfairly burdened on women, right? It's passive, it's it's it's reactive, but he's also uses, I think, going back to love, so many movies are about like, no, love will save you, love will be, but love as the antagonistic force in this, yeah, he inverts both the protagonist's mission and the antagonist's goal, claiming that it's love, you know, like oh love will sit you free. No, you love is like an actively oppressive force in this.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly. Yeah, men use it as a weapon against women. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I didn't really think about that. And we've we've talked about him having kind of more passive protagonists, but this makes more sense in the context of the themes of this movie. She has a fucking goal. No, exactly.
SPEAKER_02She's just trying to her goal is just to be okay, just mind her own fucking business, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Get out of her own head, get out of the city, and like legitimate. Enjoy the little thing.
SPEAKER_02Uh just literally live. Yeah, like try to find some semblance of peace.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, having you know, the interactions on the walk when she's in the tunnel, you know, and it always turns kind of nefarious, but like even when uh Jeffrey turns on her, you know, right at the end, and she's just looking up at the fucking Milky Way and being like, Man, this is she's she's finding those moments of peace. Right.
SPEAKER_02And it's almost like that what's that's what brings him back, right? He's like, What? No, like I fucking frame is maybe my favorite. Yeah, so who's our favorite man? Just let's just fucking it is Jeffrey. I do, I do like Jeffrey the most. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03He does it's yeah, he's just such a fucking loser.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he's so fucking good. Yeah, and I love Jeffrey fire up the old engines.
SPEAKER_01That was yeah, uh him in the bar with the crossroads.
SPEAKER_03And him talking about his dad fucking telling him that you have all the what yeah, you have all the traits of a failed military. My dad said that when I was seven. He's such a fucking loser.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm just like, oh god. Yeah, hearing Rory Kaneer talk about they're like, Yeah, the crew would teach me different, like when I would come out as the different men, but he's like, when it was Jeffrey, it was party time. Like people were like, hell yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's it's what a fucking what a choice too to have one guy play all the men, right?
SPEAKER_01What do we think of that? So, and this is I don't know if you guys saw it. Charlie Coffin did the movie Anomaly Sunday. Yeah, yeah. Incredible movie. It's based on a medical condition where it's kind of like face-blindness, like it's a real thing where you visually everyone looks like the same person. Okay. The idea of that film, uh unrelated to anything I've ever gone through.
SPEAKER_02Somebody's face blind in arrested development, too, right?
SPEAKER_01Isn't somebody but this guy is depressed in life and everyone's the same person? He goes to this hotel on a work trip and meets the one girl that's not. She has like a face they have sex. And he's like, Yeah, she's got a birthmark, right? Like, you fixed me, everything's better. Um, and then she slowly starts going and she turns into just everybody else. Ah, and he's just like, a person can't pull whatever I'm going through, a stranger's not gonna pull me. I'm this isn't me. That's cool. And it's a beautiful, sad uh Charlie Kaufman movie.
SPEAKER_02It's really good. Also, another one watch for me where I was like, that fucked me up.
SPEAKER_01Exactly, yeah. So like when he was doing that with this, that's it, it was a very similar thing. Is like if you're making everyone the same, I think you're trying to say because they are, they're all the same, and they're all the fucking problem.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, I think also it speaks to a bigger part of it. And I I don't know if you guys have touched on this, but I think it is a chief preoccupation of Garland in the bigger scheme, is the idea of the double, the doppelganger. Ooh, annihilation, um, annihilation, yeah, men, yeah, even devs, right? These different versions, these different different worlds. Yeah. Down to ex machina, right? Is this a person? Is this the the the uncanny, right? He is obsessed with the uncanny, with the doppelganger. Yeah. Even civil war, to step on that a little bit, is about one character basically being replaced by another, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And like the falsity, yeah. I think he The vagary of yeah, what does it mean to be a human?
SPEAKER_02The literal reality of humans and the nature of identity is like really big for him. Absolutely. Hadn't thought about that. That's great. He continually, continually brings it back. Like this is probably the most of like where he's like really literal. Yeah. But it's interesting, this is the one where people don't notice it, right? X ex machina and annihilation, right? To the end. Like, are they really who they are in the end?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that fucking amazing mirroring sequence. But even this, a lot of frames with mirrors with people reacting, and you know, that's not just a cool thing, it also right. What does he what is he speaking to? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, just it even 28 days later, where you're like, that was my dad, it's not quite my dad anymore. It's a fucking guy who wants to kill me.
SPEAKER_01The virus and the alpha in years. Ah, in years. Fuck all the Jimmies. All the Jimmies.
SPEAKER_04Holy shit.
SPEAKER_01There's something here, guys. Wow.
SPEAKER_02He's obsessed with it. Wow, yeah. And I don't know exactly what he might even be a subconscious thing. I've never heard him talk about it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's same. Well, it's like, I mean, because he's saying something about it, even though he may not be conscious about it, right?
SPEAKER_02Even like this this overarching theme you guys have been talking about, which I really do think is awesome, is the is the um protagonist who is uncharismatic. Yeah. Like where like what is he trying to say about like essentially people are the same. Like, I don't know, maybe every journey is literally just about identity. Yeah, everybody's the nature of themselves.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, everybody's the same, humanity is the same.
SPEAKER_01It might also go on the other end because it's a lot of negatives, and it's kind of the antagonist of the stuff is like the Jimmies, and then this, and then the Annihilation Doppelganger is like he might be saying something back to a soul in individuality, and that's the worry, that's the growth. Even clones are never letting me go. Ex-Mog. Like, there's something to the idea of that of being replaced, and that's the fear is the lack of that, like the yeah, the lack of I'm not an individual. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Which comebacks shit out of me and the determinism of it all with that.
SPEAKER_01Who are you, if not your choices and decisions you personally make in a world where a guy said, Well, you actually don't.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. Like, never let me go. I mean, I wonder again, how much of these is he's picking up on even dread to an extent, right? They're wearing these masks that erase the identity, and you're just like, You are the fucking uniform. Yep. Rules is rules, law is law, no nuance. You will donate your organs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's all you're meant for.
SPEAKER_03Whoa, that's fucking great, man.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love that we just came across that right now. I like that. Well, we came up with that. I like that. I mean, I it's in my notes. I was gonna say that afterwards. What does it mean? I don't know. Maybe it wasn't.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we came up with that.
SPEAKER_01Right after I wrote the note, uh Scarland loves acoustic folk. He does he really does he loves Doppelgame conversations.
SPEAKER_02You know, that's also again, just to bring it back to also he's also playing on folk or like this is big folk tradition. It kind of structure the green man and the green man, the wicker man is like he kind of mentions it, but I just watched that for the first time. The original, yeah, where it's like a person comes to a town in the in in a British play in somewhere in Britain, in the Great Britain, uh in the Isle of Britons, and something is up with the town, and they have a pagan ritual, yeah, they're all in on it. So it's kind of does follow that structure for sure, which is pretty interesting. And I do love that he was like, let me just get back to let me just try visuals like with this movie because dev was so it's it had to be so hammered. Yeah, well, and it's so yeah so densely plotted.
SPEAKER_03And Kira kind of mentioned this. She made the joke of like, she's like, Oh, because I told her it's like, okay, there's the green man and there's this and stuff, you know, it's like rural stuff for for England, and it makes sense because he was really in America with devs and all this kind of stuff, really talking about American society, which he will again with Civil War right after this. But yeah, Kira's like, just get back to America. I don't understand all of this.
SPEAKER_02British people are weird. What the fuck is this? Scrumping, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, dude. It's it's a fucking weird one, and it is drawing on that. Also, the shining is huge, right? The hedge maze, the hedge maze, even like Jeffrey fucking touring her the house is exactly what happens when what's his fuck is giving Jack like let's just tour, and it's basically outlining where all these traumatic things are gonna happen. Yes, yes, yes. The butcher knight like all these things, the butcher knife coming back, yeah. Always good. This idea of a maze, right? Yeah, the idea of like trapped in a house. Yes, yeah, exactly. Let me lay out where the bad things are gonna happen, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Which is all that's just good writing. Yeah, it usually you know, and I've just been it's been top of mind because I've been doing all this packing that brain, yeah, packing the brain with all these stories, and mostly like everything, whatever big place you get introduced to in the first act, you're like, oh, that's where the finale happens. And usually when you're a reader, you don't pick up on it, or if you're an audience member, you don't necessarily pick up on it, but a lot of times that happens. Yeah, it's not like some tried and true thing, but it is good, it happens often.
SPEAKER_02For for some reason, like first rewatch it to like for this again. I was like a little bit, I was like, Yeah, maybe you should have opened it up at the end. Maybe we could have used another location, but I was like, actually, no, it kind of does have to be in this in this house, yeah. This domestic say setting, right, where you should feel safe, but you don't. No, it's like every time she journeys out, she keeps on getting forced back into this house, right? Yeah, exactly. So I fucking walk.
SPEAKER_03Which that's a that's a tough, that's a tough thing to do, riding-wise, too. It's like, okay, well, we're getting her out of the house. How we can get her back in the house. Yeah, and I was thinking about the mechanics.
SPEAKER_02That's where I feel like it's a little weak, right? Yeah. Jeffrey kind of chasing her back in the car. Exactly. Because yeah, because if she Yeah, I don't love the car bit. No, I don't I don't either. Because I knew he was like, why wouldn't she leave? Which is always the question of work of haunted house stories. Exactly. Okay, we gotta force her back in.
SPEAKER_03Which and he yeah, Jeffrey at that point, he doesn't have the split hand, does he?
SPEAKER_01He got it when he hits her when she hits him in the car. So when he gets up, he breaks his ankle, and then when he gets up, he has it.
SPEAKER_03Well, what are we getting it's when he has the car crash? Oh no, he already has it then, I think.
SPEAKER_01Oh, does he? Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I can remember.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's when she runs him over in the road, then he has it and then his his hand and the the foot because it's both. Yes, it's the hand and the foot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, okay. I think he has it there.
SPEAKER_02So Jeffrey introduces her to house, just to go through it. Then she's like, all right, she calls her friend, and then she says, Let's go take a walk. Yes and this is when it fucking she calls down the evil, right? Yeah, she's just fucking having a good old time. I love a nature walk, dude. I love I have to take a walk as every day as much as I can.
SPEAKER_01If I can like Oh, must be nice, man. As a man. Yeah, privilege. Wow.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, actually, yeah. I invite them, they never want to come. Even my son is like, I'm good. Yeah, yeah. Watching fucking Poco Yo or some bullshit. Oh yeah. And I'm like, all right, whatever. But she sings, she gets to a tunnel, a very like, I guess a ionic space, you could call it, right? Sure.
SPEAKER_01It's my favorite thing in the movie. It's the queen other than the back post.
SPEAKER_02Right is the the the image on the poster. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Tunnels also represent something female.
SPEAKER_02That's the ionicness of it, right? Yeah. She sings and just like she can't even have a her voice, can't even be like, ah, like he just fucking gets on it, man. He's like, let me join the song.
SPEAKER_03He comes and comes out of the fucking ground. That's the creepyest thing.
SPEAKER_02And again, the priest calls it back to you. You sang to me. You called me. Yes. No, singing. No, no, no, you called me. Yeah. And then Alex fucking throwing his mythology bag right here. Everything you do is fucking calling me to the rocks, yeah, luring me in with your beautiful voice. Yeah, you didn't want this. You do it.
SPEAKER_01And it's it's such a it it's the the playfulness and the the sound healing melodic of it. Like it's a beautiful thing for her to to have, and she can't have it. No, yeah. She can't even enjoy it by herself. No. And then it turns into the scariest thing ever. Of like, yeah, I would freak the fuck out if I was that far away from home in the middle of nowhere, and a dude started running at me through a tunnel. That's the scariest thing. It's so fucking scary. I would know. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03And it's the green man, right? It's not, it's the naked green master.
SPEAKER_01No, but the funny thing is, is whoever comes out of the ground, he's in clothes. You can see he has a cocoat. So he gets naked.
SPEAKER_02So he gets naked while running after her. Like it doesn't say, but like, yeah. You don't get clarity on who he is. We have to assume it's like. He has clothes. Yes. We have to assume it's the and this is when it starts playing with like, okay, she gets to another tunnel, or is it like implying like there's this weird mystical she comes back to the same tunnel. Has it been sealed, which is kind of going to haunted logic. It's been sealed forever. Because we cut back to that and her running into its door later on. There's a shot of that. Exactly. And she's like, What the fuck? Yeah, yeah. She that's when she scuttles up the side of the hill. Yeah. Sees him naked in the fucking field. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's crazy.
SPEAKER_04Hanging dong.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, good for him. Uh dude. Just watching her. He's like, well, I was here first. Technically, I was here. I live here. You're in my house, motherfucker. You know my husband be scared because you're in my house. So this is this is my problem is like there's we're right back to friggin' annihilation where there's so many things in this movie. I love I love the outside, we're in nature, a folk horror. I I love a a woman-centric, but kind of playing with the final girl thing. Like, there's so much of that I love. I think it's very creepy, it's very disturbing. I the imagery sticks with me, the music, the sound design, her singing. I don't like I don't know if I love the ending, and I don't like the psychedelic blow the dandelion at her. I don't know what we're saying with that. And that's where at a certain point the film becomes a yeah, but what? Like, what are you saying? Yes, men suck. Yes, this is a patriarchy. All of that is like, okay, you're you're showing me all of this. Is that it? Like, is it literally just on its surface going, This is how it is, and it sucks. Which I think is how most detractors, the the Frank TJ Mackeys of it take it as that is he made a two and a half hour movie to say men are trash.
SPEAKER_03It's only an hour and 40 minutes. I do you're right.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean I do think I think I do think he kind of did that. Yeah. Is it? And I think he did it as like a way to free himself. And then just another interview where he's like, Yeah, he's like, I just wanted to be aggressive. He's like, I don't want to fucking subtext. He's like, I was wanted to here's the fucking image, here it is, here's the fucking song at the beginning, it's on the nose. Yeah. I this is what it is. And that's the point. But I think there's a challenge then to see beyond that or to investigate beyond it, which is what we're doing. So I so I think it is like I also think it was it was something for him to just like shake off the fucking devs of it, and then that's the thing I get into civil war.
SPEAKER_01I kind of love about it too, is his nose it's like a palette cleanser.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's a it's definitely a key, it's a definitely a very important key from that side of his filmography into the post-COVID. It's a gay way, yeah.
SPEAKER_01This is this is um gay way. I'm your buddy bingo. This is Mudvanes dig. Like there is no subtlety. This is a metal song, it's heavy, yeah, like there's no nuance to this. It's just abrasive. But it's just pure abrasive. He's not like, no, and then we're gonna have a malignant. He's like, no, I just want to be aggressively kicking your teeth in with one thing, and uh it's just that. And I kind of like that as a concept, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I think he wanted to just actually just get into straight formalism of being like, all right, let's do some horror shit. What's like a cool way to stage this horror scene? Because and even that, again, I think that's what falls flat for me too. Like just the camera rushing towards the door, you know, like the evil dead.
SPEAKER_01Some of that it doesn't work for it.
SPEAKER_02Cool, yeah, and like the like all of a sudden, oh no, now it's the vicar. Now I think he was just like, I think he just was literally tapping to the subconscious, it's part and parcel, I think, with the projects in general. He's like, What's next? Okay, the Vicker fucking okay, what if Okay Jeffrey comes in and then he gives, you know, so then he was also just playing with, okay, now we're safe, now we're not, right? Why do you I think he was just doing it and not getting it? I feel I've just meaning to see how visually he can't.
SPEAKER_03Like just getting it, yeah, that getting it out of a system in terms of like. He had to come from something that was so meticulously crafted and so meticulously written about a very heady subject, right? In terms of this quantumness and all this kind of shit. And a TV show is a fuck ton of moving cards. So much so for it to write end direct eight hours of nearly eight hours of television to kind of be like, Oh, I found this way into this green man, because that's the idea that he thought was it. He wanted to mess with the green man for 50 years. That's what that's what I think the impetus was that he was kind of cooking and looking for a way in. And he he connected it with this kind of you know comments on misogyny and and and the Eve story, yeah, mythology in general about men and women.
SPEAKER_02I and I also do think, like, just on a practical matter, like it's COVID. He's like, I fucking work with two actors. Yeah, that's the fun part of the countryside. He probably was like, I can get this funded fucking A24 will give me enough money to shoot in England. He probably had a small crew, literally, two, basically, well, basically two actors, right? There's two other women who are individualized. I think the cop scene also doesn't quite add up for me. Like, she's helpful and not, but what's the point? I was like, we gotta bring this copy. Yeah, the cop.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there needs to be something more.
SPEAKER_02Why was she brought back?
SPEAKER_03I just don't because yeah, she needs to she's the only one. Why do you have that scene then? It's to juxtapose of with with the male cop, of like she's actually empathizing with her.
SPEAKER_02She's empathizing, but she's unhelpful. She's so unhelpful. She's like, she's a cop, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I mean that's a commentary there too. But yeah, I agree. I think she needs to either not be there at all because then I think it makes it stronger. It's all due as a cohesive. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01And that's a and it and it you can be you can be saying something about the the the masculine systems of even if a woman was a cop, she's still in the patriarchy, therefore she's unhelpful. Yeah, you'd be playing into that maybe. That's true. Or I could be overlooking it. No, no. I mean uh no, I think he did like write a lot of threads that don't they don't really go.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like why doesn't she notice that they're all the same guy? I think that's also just like him fucking around, too.
SPEAKER_02That's what I was letting go of logic because so many of his movies are pretty much, yeah. Right, even Annihilation, which goes there, they're still like being like, what the fuck is going on? It's it's light refracting. Or is that for us?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_01Like, what's uh because I do question like how much of this is real. Yeah, I I'm in love with the end showing there is the blood, there is a car wreck, because now my brain's like and she can see the dick pick.
SPEAKER_03So that so the tree man is real, yeah. Right, right? The the green man, sorry.
SPEAKER_02I do like her friend can see the woman coming also coming out of the pregnant, also not really commenting on it, just yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02What's she what's this?
SPEAKER_01What do you I feel like I needed her to kill whatever the if it's her ex or whatever the final version is. I think we don't know.
SPEAKER_02I think that goes back to the uh non-proactive protagonist. Because there's just like reacting and just like sitting, it's not a battle in the end. Yeah, you want her to like come up with some shots, try to trap him. Because then it just keeps reacting, stabs him in the hand.
SPEAKER_01If this is about grief and you get all the way back to okay, now I'm sitting with the husband that I may or may not feel guilty, like I I might have killed him, she might feel in her heart, and now you sit with him. Then what? Like, what's the catharsis? Like, what did you do to process the grief? Did you you know what I mean? Like, uh, what do you say now that you put them back on the same couch? Yeah, because he intentionally gets this last word, right? Is she that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, she just sighs and then it cuts to my.
SPEAKER_02She looks okay. Yeah, she sighs and like looks okay. She made it out. But but I don't think this movie's about that. That's why it's also kind of unsatisfied when I left the theater.
SPEAKER_03I was like, okay, I I get I think I get it, but I completely agree with you, but also I think it's kind of brilliant because women have no other option. Yeah, they have to put up with us. And him saying, I just want to love you in the shittiest fucking way. Yeah. And her just taking a beat and then sighing and being like, You're a child, and I can't I can't get out of this.
SPEAKER_02Right, because like if it was a Tarantino or like the Wakowski's or the Russo, but like writing, like, then she beats the fuck out of me. It's like a man. Just kind of a masculine ideal of being like, it ends with me killing you. Yeah, it ends with me like slaying the monster. But she's just kind of accepting it. Like, she like even she just like starts leaving the doors open, right? After the birthing, she's like, Alright, man. Like, she just walks and like calm. She turns his back on it.
SPEAKER_03That's why she doesn't try to. She's like, I can't get away from this thing. So why even fucking try?
SPEAKER_01You know what I mean? It's just gonna birth another. That's the thing. Is it just the the cycle is a forever thing? So I do like the idea. We're talking this out where after she sighs, she literally tells him, like, I'm gonna go sit outside. I need some you you live here now. This is your house. I'm I'm I gotta go sit outside. This was yeah, this is your house anyway.
SPEAKER_03She just stopped talking to him.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and she's like, I haven't gotta go outside.
SPEAKER_02One thing I did also notice about the birth thing, just like about these men giving, is each time it's like a bastardization of birth. Like the first one's green man rights, where the fucking misty ideally would be exactly the next one is like the chest and then the back. Like it's just it keeps on getting a copy of a copy of men trying to like steal the bigger.
SPEAKER_01And it's grotesque killing the other thing, like the back and the mouth, and yeah.
SPEAKER_02Then the last one is like what would be considered like a bad birth is like a breech birth, right? Feet first. Out of the guy's mouth, like that's now nowhere close to where a baby should be emerging from. Like it just like he keeps like this entity gets it wrong. Starts a little right with a nature, like man, right, closest to this old idea of the city.
SPEAKER_01This is this is all very bloodborne coded. I did for anyone that knows what I'm talking about. I just have to say that. All of this is bloodborne-coded. Well, he loves from sauce.
SPEAKER_03He loves from that game. But yeah, and I I love Jeffrey crying too, right before it happens. I love that. Just this little like I love that. Yeah, uh, yeah, I uh I like a lot of the ideas in this, and having discussed this uh as much as we have, like it I respect the hell out of this movie, but and it's cool to have him uh see this the basically the seeds that he's planting for Elden Ring. I think that will which we'll of course do a bonus episode for that when it comes out next year. But like it's cool to see him move into that kind of folklore thing, and I like the reset of like let's get down. Down to just like basic imagery. This is my way of the story.
SPEAKER_02You can feel him strengthening as a director, as a visual storyteller in this. Yeah. Which I think is also part of it. It's almost just like was it again like an exercise for him to be like how much story I can tell with the least amount of dialogue, pure imagery, provocative, very overtly provocative imagery. Yeah. And get into it. I do think like Civil War as a director might be, I think it's his best work.
SPEAKER_03Well, that's what I'm very curious about because we have this extremely solid fucking piece of work being devs. And then you have this like fever dream. It is a messy movie. I think it's a very messy movie. And then it's it's weird because it's messy, but it's also tight.
SPEAKER_02Like that's so weird about it. Yeah, but but it feels so strange. Which is for him like Garland. For him, it feels experimental. Yes.
SPEAKER_03I think that I think absolutely tight civil war, which I'm super curious to read. The script is fucking.
SPEAKER_01It's the other reason why it's the other reason why I made the joke of Frank TJ Mackey is Paul Thomas Anderson made a three-hour, ten minute epic, and he immediately was like, I want two characters, hour and a half. Yeah. Like I'm purposely telling myself I gotta do the smallest movie possible. Yeah, you can't punch and gloves. This feels like eight hours of the headiest crazy determinism. I'm making God think. He goes, Let me get in and I gotta get in and out under two hours, low stakes. But I I do like what don't you like about this movie?
SPEAKER_03No, I just I don't like how it doesn't feel satisfying. Yeah, that's I I come out of this, I respect this movie, and I don't like it really. I'm not I'm not a big fan of it.
SPEAKER_02I like it more now after investigating it. I feel like actually moment to moment, I really like it, like scene by scene or like piece by piece. There's a lot I like in it. But I think as like an overall satisfying cinema experience, it's like again, that was great to see. I fucking if they played it again at the guild or whatever, I probably wouldn't go. Well, maybe now it actually is. Well, yeah, I mean that's the interesting thing about these investigative pieces, right? Where you kind of go back to see what the fuck is that?
SPEAKER_01If you had a friend that's never seen this and they're into horror, you'd be like, you gotta see this. And then this movie.
SPEAKER_02If they're into weird not if they're into that's a funny thing, because we it is a horror movie, and sometimes it doesn't feel it feels like him. Well, all of his movies have horror aspects, which is why I also really fucking love him, but they're not overt. This is like the closest he gets. This is, yeah. Although Annihilation That Bear is probably it's way scarier than anything in this. In the in the top three cinematic monsters of the 21st century. It's like what else is in what else is in the list?
SPEAKER_01I have a I don't have I can't name anything more disturbing than that. There's nothing scarier than that bear. Maybe there is, but I'm not being hyperbolic. I'm saying for me, I literally can't name anything that's ever touched the Uncanny Valley to my brain. It legitimately disturbs.
SPEAKER_02Subway the highs of that movie out with I will like throw that movie on and like check out for some of the boring shit. The highs of it where I'm like, oh fuck. Yeah, there is amazing yeah, that's there's some fucking things in there where you're just like this.
SPEAKER_03That's the that's the difference between annihilation and this is there is some amazing shit in Annihilation. And there's good shit in this. There's good shit. It's not it's not great shit. Yeah, it's fun.
SPEAKER_02Like, there is it also actually it is really funny too. I think there are things so funny. That's what Kira said. She was like, Jeffrey is so funny. Even like the Vicker, like his like one long nail and like his chapstick, the bar. It's pretty funny. All of them, yeah. Looking looking at pretty fucking funny.
SPEAKER_03Kira was like, this feels like an M. Night Shyamalan movie. And I was like, interesting. It kind of until it gets to the climax and it's actually starting to be. I was gonna say, M.
SPEAKER_01Night Shyamalan does not have the sauce to do that.
SPEAKER_02No, but it's the commitment to be like, let's fucking see for how long is that sequence? It's like two minutes long.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, exactly. 10 to 15 for sure.
SPEAKER_02I love the steam, like how steamy they all are.
SPEAKER_03No, that's what I said. The juice, dude. It's just like there's a like beads of sweat and wet.
SPEAKER_01I've never seen this disgusting stuff.
SPEAKER_03Like I remember that that's what that was the big takeaway when we saw we were like, well, we've never seen something like that before. Never.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've never seen, yeah, exactly. So it's worth it for those moments. I think I think he knew it. I think he was like, I think it's just gonna be worth it just to get that aggressive imagery on screen. Watch like as a director who was fucking lay down some fucking things.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, he wanted to try, he was swinging for something. He was going, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, let me pierce the subconscious, right? Because I think that's the thing. So consciously it's unsatisfying. Yeah, you don't have like a conscious, like because you try to piece it together in a way that makes sense. Like we're talking about is this reality? Is this just a big big metaphor? And he kind of splits the difference, yeah, which is I think what makes it so frustrating.
SPEAKER_01But I think that's also a very cynical take on the world that he justifiably has, and that's what Nick said is like there is no win here. Yeah, there's a lot of things. Yeah, there's nothing you can you kill him and it bursts again. Like uh the cops are the dudes, like even the nice guy is this, so it's like there is no catharsis if you're trying to say a a system is perpetually shit. So I I get that. I I do think I like this movie. Like I can say I like it. Okay, I would watch this again. If someone I like like I'll watch this again.
SPEAKER_03Me too. I like the ideas. I think there's some interesting stuff.
SPEAKER_01There's more I like than dislike. There's a like two things I dislike, just two.
SPEAKER_03I don't know if I dislike a lot of stuff about it, then I think that's the problem. Is a lot of it just is like, oh, I see what he's trying to do. It just doesn't affect me emotionally, which the idea of a man and we're literally talking about literally. Literally, nah, I don't know if I can fucking get down with this. Yeah, it's hilarious. We're we're the irony's not lost on.
SPEAKER_01No, well, it it kinda is to me, because like there's still that like cinema sense brain of like, you're you're not supposed to go walking by yourself, you're not supposed to be outside. What do you fuck you think happens? It's like there is such a and I think it's beautiful that he put it in, is like these are normal things people should be allowed to do. And if you should be, yeah. You should sing wherever the fuck you want, you should be able to have a nice little walk. I don't want to be the guy to do this. I would also be scared there as a guy. I also put my keys in my hand like Wolverine. Oh, sure. Like I also look at my surrounding if I was leaving a pub in the middle of the night, I also would be scared going, uh, is it too demasculating to ask the cop to walk me home? Because I don't want to walk home by myself. I would be scared in that tunnel if that guy ran at me. Oh, yeah. I wouldn't go into a tunnel in the first time. I'd be like, ah, I'm turning around. And that's that's where like I don't want to completely just crumble his entire thesis and movie, but I'm like, that's scary for any person, even a guy. The English countryside. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02They are scary. Have you guys seen Straw Dogs? Yes, Pat Peckenball. Oh, Dustin Hoffman. He's seen the poster. I know the poster.
SPEAKER_01It's a movie about me until it's not.
SPEAKER_02Or you don't know. You don't know. That's the thing about the movie, is we don't have to talk about like, let's push this guy in that situation. But it's English countryside, gotcha professor, super beta, has a smoking hot wife, and everybody, and he's like, just moved back to this fucking tiny, I think, northern England village where his wife is from. And dude, it's just like filled with these fucking blokes. Yeah, yeah. Hard drinking. Like, one of the first things he goes into his pub, and this guy's like, You should hey, you've had enough gym, and he's like, Oh fuck it, say you wouldn't have had knocks the bartender out like animals, and then just fucking pours, goes behind the bar, pours him, and then he's like, and I'm also, by the way, I'm the dad of this fucking clan of fucking you know, five sons who are just as British rednecks, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, literally. Justin Hoffman's like, Oh, alright, well, yeah, I'll buy your rounds, you know. Yeah, this is not gonna go well for those guys. And again, it's uh kind of a folk word, but it says Peckin' pot's like he gets trapped in this house, and all these fucking men in the countryside are trying to kill him and get his wife. Jesus.
SPEAKER_01But what happens to that guy and to the woman what happens to a civilized man when pushed to an animalistic edge, yeah, yeah, and then he snaps and he does what he's gotta do.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. In a bad way to character, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Peggy Paul's a fair old gentleman.
SPEAKER_02It's a one it is really like lives up to the hype of being like this is a fucking rough movie to watch.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah, I've only seen the poster, right? It's it's him with the last.
SPEAKER_01It's a it's a really cool movie. It's really good. They made a sequel that I didn't watch because there's no way that's good. Sequel? A remake, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay. But the original is well worth checking out of like bad things happening in this countryside. No idea what it was about. Yeah, I feel like he's drawing on a lot of these random. I mean, company of wolves, too. Have you seen like I've never even heard of them? It's a it's a British folklore werewolf movie that kind of also doesn't have a logical conclusion. Like it's like a story, like a dream, and then this little girl falls asleep, has a dream about an old lady in like medieval kind of abstract medieval times, and this old lady tells the story, and it's uh what is it? Uh I can't remember the actor's name, but she tells a story, and basically it's a little red riding hood with werewolves, literalizing it, but goes into these themes of like you as a woman shouldn't be out in the woods walking around, but the wolves are like, Well, you came out, you shouldn't be here by yourself. Now I'm gonna follow you home. Yeah, right. And so it does challenge those ideas, but also has just shit that just jumps to scene to scene. You're like, I don't actually know where I am. But like if you look away for a second, you're like, I don't know where I am in this story. Yeah, yeah. It follows this kind of dream logic, but also feels very British, very fairy tale, like this one where it is like it's the fairy tale logic. Even this, like, kind of draw, you know, he he talked about really trying to. I thought it was interesting, like visually, he was like, I we really tried to craft red spaces, yes and green spaces, yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely, loves his green, loves his green, yeah. And there's hints of the blue, there's bits of blue too, which I I was trying to keep track of at the be from the beginning, like the car is blue, there's the blue flowers, and I'm like, I don't know if it's supposed to be a reminder of her husband or something.
SPEAKER_01Oh, interesting. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, uh this was when I was making the trailer for this. This was the movie where I was like, I gotta do less because I was pulling all the in the trailer that I made, I was doing all the green. It's like I could do the whole thing just this. So I just minimize it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, the cinematography, of course, is always great. Rob Hardy, yeah, he's a fucking he's a killer. But yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Uh it's just not my husband, not Roy Kneer. And why is he black? Well, he's black because uh I mean they're hot. Wait, what was your case? Sorry, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. Wait, what? Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question.
SPEAKER_02What is he fucking there's no way he wasn't intentionally?
SPEAKER_01I think it's back to the root, like Nick was saying, we're playing with back to the root.
SPEAKER_03If it's like if we're doing city as opposed to rural or something like that, rural eight packed with white people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. London has a lot of black people, you know what I mean? Just different cultures, yeah, coming from conjuxtapose the rednecks to I wonder if there's a phrase it.
SPEAKER_02John Morgan needs to, we need to he'd probably know for what's a British redneck called. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03He'll know because he's coming on next episode for Civil War, which he hasn't seen. And so yeah, so I'm fucking stoked for that. Yeah, good question. Yeah, he might know. But yeah, I maybe it's the juxtaposition of that, just the two two worlds or something. But yeah, that is a question. Why isn't he?
SPEAKER_02Because yeah, all the all the men are yeah, maybe it there is slightly part of it where it feels like white dude writing white feminism, sure villainizing black guy. Yeah, there's like an uncomfortable quality to that. Yeah, with the stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01Well, I was gonna say no, because what you're speaking to might be more Americanized. They view black people completely different than we do. Yeah, yeah. Because when you talk black, they will immediately go, yeah, what kind? Yeah, but do you think Chimerian and Guyanese are completely different cultures? Do you think he made this movie for an English audience? I think he knows A24. I think he accidentally mixed everything with an English brain. So he definitely cares help us.
SPEAKER_02They were sat on the bench. Yeah, yeah. They were in the queue, and I'm like, shut the fucking shit out of here.
SPEAKER_01I think he can't help but come with his British ass brain to every table he goes to. But I don't think he's saying anything about race. I think this might fall back into Lyndon being Kaylee Spenny, uh-huh. Is like he just found a good actor and he's like, I don't give a shit. I don't play with that race stuff. Like you guys.
SPEAKER_02I think he's a little too heavy for that. I think he didn't. I think he knows what he's doing. Or maybe the guy just auditioned really well. I know even if he did cast him based on acting, there's no way you don't go into it without having that in mind.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, that is curious.
SPEAKER_02And like a fully white movie. Just something to think about.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's true.
SPEAKER_02I'm not sure what he's saying with that.
SPEAKER_01All men are the same. I guess. Maybe that's as simple as it can be. We have to keep this. Yeah, yeah. We have to keep this. This is the biggest maybe example of Dave's thesis of lack of control and fight for control. This whole movie is just her not in control, yeah. Trying to just have a relaxing weekend.
SPEAKER_03Well, because yeah, he loves the yeah, that theme of the every inch of this the struggle, the unending struggle that always fails for humanity trying to have control over their lives. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And understand the nature of reality. Yeah, that's big for him. And humans trying to figure out what the fuck is the nature of reality. And the nature of reality is the patriarchy. Yeah. So it's like him going back to like all these problems, all these technological techs come out of this.
SPEAKER_01The system of masculine patriarchy. Yeah. Which three disgusting is very funny.
SPEAKER_02But this is it goes back to the. We didn't go. I again we didn't go into this without knowing what this is gonna look like.
SPEAKER_01But also, like, I I do want to say, I don't think women watch this movie and go, hell yeah, thank you, Alex Carson. Well, that's dude.
SPEAKER_03I was just thinking about just thinking about Kira watching it, she just had nothing to say.
SPEAKER_02Like, so I asked Jen if she wanted to, she's like, I'm good. Like, I was like, this is what it's basically about.
SPEAKER_03She's like, all right, we have if we were if we were better at this, we would invite like the movie Maven's on to talk about this movie.
SPEAKER_01They've already discussed this movie. They didn't like it. No, of course not.
SPEAKER_02Of course not. I don't think, yeah, I it is I'm not surprised. It is very important.
SPEAKER_01I think it no, fuck that. Fuck that. It's so much better that dudes are talking about.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think it is actually for men to be like, you think about it. He made this. Think about your microaggression.
SPEAKER_01He makes this for me and Josh to watch and to really truly struggle with.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I wonder what Jenkins feel.
SPEAKER_01He didn't make this for anything else. Also, he did make this for like the lib, hide in plain sight guys to be like, you're not a fucking angel either. Like, all you male feminists, you're part you're one of these burst out things. I put the figure, I put the cop. I also put Jeff. Jeffrey's that guy. Jeffrey was not. I don't think any man is off.
SPEAKER_03The beta who thinks he's chivalrous, but it's it's kind of so much.
SPEAKER_01I love that scene.
SPEAKER_02I love that scene where he's like, oh no, I'll help with a suitcase of luggage in the boot, and then he's like struggling with it. He's like passive grass. Like, oh yeah. Uh maybe I should have let you help. Like trying to be like, oh, that actually sucked, and you made me do it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and she yeah, exactly. She's like, I told you I could just fucking do it. Yeah, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_02The idea of lying in this too is really interesting. Like, of right in their first interactions are two lies, right? He's like watching her in the garden, sees her take the apple, and then later he's like, What'd you get the apple? You know, yeah, exactly. She's like, No, the garden. He's like, Oh, you can't do that. And then the piano. Yeah. She's like, I just want to move, let's just move through this interaction. Because you know you don't want to play good play. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Give me a can't have anything for herself.
SPEAKER_03It is a something. And that's a testament to his good writing about how the subtext is so fucking good.
SPEAKER_02Again, that's why this movie's really powerful. Because like even the tiny lines, they're so good.
SPEAKER_01Like, then is it just the ending's not enough?
SPEAKER_03Is that it just doesn't it's not emotion, it's a it's not an emotionally satisfying movie.
SPEAKER_02Or an S thing. It's funny that the ending, I think it is. I think the ending is not enough, but it's crazy that it's not enough, given what it is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_03Is like, what it what would it take for you guys to say you like but also it could be and again, it could be intentional, like with her giving up just being like, fuck, this is the reality. I am trapped in this world. Yeah, it's very nihilistic. So or cynical, it's very cynical. Yeah, cynical, yeah, exactly. So it could be that of just like because cynical in general. I don't think he's ever. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02None of his movies give an uplift.
SPEAKER_01But this is the one where we're naming all the things we like and all the things we've never seen, and uh, we're mostly also going, yeah, but I don't know. Yeah, it's still it's missing something. And I think watching it a second time, I I I don't know if it's missing something. Because my thing is I don't like fine with that.
SPEAKER_02I don't think it's missing anything. I think I mean again, also given if this was like just one random person, a director came out with this, and I was like, What I didn't have a history or relationship to his other filmography, I would even rate it maybe even lower. Really? But because it's part of this vast schema that you can look at. Ooh, for the biggest thing.
SPEAKER_01I'm the exact deficit. This is the the bacon staple on the wall in Gumma. Like whoever's brain thought of the back pussy. I'm like, I need to know everything he does now. See, like I wouldn't do that for me.
SPEAKER_02I would be like, I get it, dude. Whose brain won that simple idea and overdid it and didn't think of anything. Back pussy simple to you.
SPEAKER_01Back pussy's simple to you. We're in the world now where Mr. Antonio comes in and goes, back pussy, I don't know, because it's a great image.
SPEAKER_02It's a great image, but then like what what am I left with?
SPEAKER_01Again, you're left with mouth pussy, but the stomach pussy. I do like the belly button pussy. Yeah, I was like, that's that's what you're left with.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's what you're left with. Yeah. And again, actually, and a director not Alex Garden actually wouldn't get the budget to do this. It'd be like it actually might be better because it might be like grosser and more handmade. You know what I mean? And be like, oh, they went on. Yeah, or something like that. They built that fucking stuff in the woods. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But it's uh my uh my third big gripe I didn't bring up the first birth. No asshole.
SPEAKER_03He didn't have a butthole? He just had one hole. It's a single singular hole.
SPEAKER_02I think it should have been his dick. I think it actually should have been a dick. I think it should have split a sp a dick like opening. Fucking Python's mouth.
SPEAKER_01So all the men in the audience would be like, oh, greatest movie of all time if it had one birth scene out of a dickhole.
SPEAKER_02The first one. It should have that like like you see the body in the balls. Like, is that a per and then like the balls start shrinking as the dick starts spinning?
SPEAKER_01And then the next one has the fake fajrity. And then it should split. There you go.
SPEAKER_03It should split into a yeah, yeah, yeah. See, this is because that would make men uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_01It'd be more it'd be more effective.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you'd be like, oh fuck. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Because Nick's not uncomfortable with the man with a busy. No, I don't know. She's fine with that. No, of course.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Yeah, you're like, oh, I've seen that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I've seen a head come out of a we've seen bussies.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_04Who hasn't?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Exactly. Uh, any random stuff that we didn't touch on, guys. I think I had one that I really wanted to talk about. Oh, yeah. I wanted to mention when she goes to the bar after telling off the vicar, and Jeffrey's like, oh, I saw you at the church uh earlier. Yeah. Which we didn't see Jeffrey see her at the church. No. But it implies that they're all the they're all the green man. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Right. So it's like he's literally Jeffrey's.
SPEAKER_02I was also gonna say it could be where he's a green.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I have a I have a few uh RAM things again. Just fire off that, like I really loved. One is the event horizon like static on the phone. Oh, yeah, but it's like a dude screaming. Yeah, when she's playing piano, the one shot of the ripples in the water.
SPEAKER_03Where it's upside down, it's the tunnel or whatever.
SPEAKER_01That was beautiful. I'm in love with that.
SPEAKER_02Anytime there's a music, music cue in this is a uh pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_01When she screams in the church and she's hitting the same as the actual music, I was just like, yeah, man, I'm here for that. And that's the siren the siren song, so to speak. How he plays with uh sound and music and all of this. Um I love it so much. Same. I'm ex machina on this dude, he's the man.
SPEAKER_02Really good pairing, just her taking the walk in the woods, and you do like feel tranquil with that music, with that choral, which is just the I've looked up with the lyrics. It's basically just like God is great, God is good, Lord have mercy on us. The son of the highest. Yeah, that's good.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's great.
SPEAKER_02And the Milky Way. The Milky Way is fucking cool, yeah. So I thought it Jeffrey, this was just funny, interesting to me. Jeffrey, again, I fucking Jeffrey, but mentioning that, like, ah sure, it's uh 500 years, Shakespeare, or pre, right? And then her name being Mrs. Marlowe, right? Yes. I don't know what if it's a throwaway thing, but this idea of authorship of Shakespeare maybe being Kit Marlowe, right? Exactly. It's funny that she played the muse of Shakespeare recently and we asked her for it. It's like Daniel Day Lewis playing Lincoln and throwing a knife into Lincoln. Like I love when shit like planned out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But in general, just to touch on Buckley, I think and fucking uh what's his name? Who did uh I think I'm thinking of ending things.
SPEAKER_01Charlie Mother.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so Charlie Kaufman. Right, that's the first time I remember seeing her. But that's also about a male fantasy projecting her. Right, we have that, then again going to office trip, he's in Fargo.
SPEAKER_01Hold on, let me be honest. I think that's What it's about. Yeah, right, yeah, right. That's my best assumption of what that movie was about is yes. And he said exactly what that was.
SPEAKER_02And also recently being in The Bride, which was not very successful to me, but did some raise some ideas about authorship of being like Frankenstein, the what was the bride created for? What's her name in this movie? Why is she just created for this dead man?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But so she her career, like interestingly, fought has played with this a lot. A lot in these lines. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, and right down to Hamnet, right? Where she's like this muse and secret emotional charging force of Shakespeare's writings, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, she's something that's gravitates to those rules, uh, to those roles a lot.
SPEAKER_03Him fucking telling her not to flush tampons. Yeah, it's just like passing. Don't want to have to say it, but I do. Yeah. But I do. Yeah, apologies to the ladies. It's just like, dude, yeah, the septic system can't take it.
SPEAKER_01You're too dumb to know how pipes work. Yeah, for fucks. And again, am I the asshole that like he's only saying it because experience he's had to get his septic tank pumped because someone flushed some shit down that they shouldn't have. Oh, god damn it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah. Yeah, probably. Uh I know, yeah. Thinking practically, yeah. You gotta say it. I know, I get it. I mean, he's taking it's a 400-year own place, you know. Yeah, 500. 500, 600. But uh yeah. I'm not not a big fan, not a big fan.
SPEAKER_02But oh, you know, I had a I love when they asked when um what kind of car she has, and it was just a f Ford Fiesta, which is I just love like Mexican colonization. You know, that wasn't from the Spanish, like that was like they've named the Fort Fiesta after Mexicans, you know, like it's a good dance party. Hearing that come out of a British woman's mouth in the English country is insane. Uh that's a vengeance made sweet for me. I wish they should put some money in the bank for me.
SPEAKER_01People of the sun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Uh there's a Fort Fiesta outside.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's so good.
SPEAKER_02I love that. Did we talk about the Sheila Nag enough?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, maybe we did. It's just stretching it open. It's fucking intense.
SPEAKER_02The bird mask, too, the dead bird. That was interesting. Obviously, the I think that's with her name Harper, right? The Harpy who has the which is a guy. Ah, yeah, with the woman's head.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's like a Marilyn Monroe mask or something. Yeah. And there's no other women in the village besides the female cop, which again that feels like a loose strand, I guess.
SPEAKER_02But and again, like even her getting attacked. Well, then no, the priest does try to rape her, but the green man, like, when he reaches his hand through, it's like quite attacked because he turns it over, palm up, so he's like, give me, like, he's again, like, yeah, man, being like, give me something.
SPEAKER_03Yes, my stuff. Yeah, it's what does he want? Dude, give me something. It yeah, it didn't kind of tap into it's weird, and I don't know if it's this is I mean, maybe this is my own shit. I imagine it is my own shit, but being the father of a son, and he's your only child, correct? Right? You only have your one kid, right? So every once in a while, I feel like I can't ask my wife for anything because she already has a little me fucking constantly hanging on her at all fucking times, and so like I don't want to express any kind of like desire of something from her because I'm like, there is already a tiny psychotic literally, right? So yeah, I don't know if you feel that way, but every once in a while I will. I'll try not to get in my head about it, and I try not to let it affect things, but every once in a while I'm just like, I'm not gonna bugger with that kind of shit because little terror me has already been fucking sucking the life out of it. Literally clinging onto her, yeah, asking for shit, and saying no, being mean and all this shit.
SPEAKER_02The best thing you could do is be like, let me take that little me, take him outside, like get exactly this giving. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03So, like, as a dude, I feel like I don't want you, you know. I don't know how she sees me. It's like I'm just such a grown-up version of him now. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's trapped, it's weird. She's she's it's the sigh at the end. Yeah, literally. I want you to love me. Fuck. Exactly, dude. You asked me.
SPEAKER_01On top of after everything you put me through, I also have to love you.
SPEAKER_03Exactly.
SPEAKER_02You can just see I can see it on my girlfriend's video. It's been like a long day, you know. If I'm you know, and I come back as like, hey, that's a guy, you know, come in really strong, but dogs are also there, like get all like hyper, you know. No, it's even worse. And she just is like, she's like, God, think of it. No, it's oh yeah, this is the other end of it.
SPEAKER_01Think of her having a full day, everything, and then you come home in a bad mood going, well, can you help me feel better? Yeah, right. That's what it is. Is she's like, Are you fucking kidding me? I'm literally the one keeping, I know where the kids' social security card is, I know the school information. And then quite literally, I know the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00I'm keeping everything afloat. You feel someone was tugging to me too much. Yeah, I need attention from you.
SPEAKER_01I'm never done.
SPEAKER_02That's what it is. I'm never done. Yeah. Now my mom told her that too. She was like, We're having a grandma, oh yeah, you'll never sleep again. Like, yeah, this is it, like for a while. And I was like, oh shit. I've like kind of walked in on it and I was like, oh shit, alright. Yeah, I could definitely feel that. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just like, literally, sometimes I do think I'm just there for vibes.
SPEAKER_00I'm like, you want to fucking fucking wrestle, let's go throw rocks on the hill, you know. It's the least.
SPEAKER_02Like I can provide the stupidest shit that like lights up his brain in a different way. But it's like literally stuff like that. He's like, let's go like find sticks that look like Star Destroyers from Star Wars. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Like, if he you know what I mean, and like Yeah, that's all it takes. I'll do that, I'll let's fucking go.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, fuck. It's so interesting. Cause I I'm the it's the boy playing play with play a game with me. Well, and that's he's like, I'm good. Well, and that's how it is with my son, and my wife's the fun parent. I'm not. It's the opposite. I'm not the fun one. Oh fuck. Like he likes playing with her, he doesn't like playing with me. Because I'm too like, I'm just like, I'm this I'm the steady guy. Yeah, you know what I mean? It's very weird, it's very odd. Because yeah, you usually with boys or even with most kids, like the dad is like, oh, the silly one. And now she's the one who's totally like he loves play and pretend with her and stuff. He still does with me. I was gonna say, and that's but I'm not the fun one.
SPEAKER_02That's how did he build shit with you? Have you started that yet?
SPEAKER_03He's still a little tiny, yeah. Exactly. He's not big enough yet.
SPEAKER_01But it's also I bet that'll be yeah, I bet that'll be. But it's also who you married. You married a very creative. Yeah, she's very fun. Yeah, there's there is that dynamic where I'm just not a fun person. A lot of people wouldn't stand the chance of.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's like you're like, son, let's go. I'll set up a mic for you.
SPEAKER_01Let's fucking or or I'm I'm just envisioning Nick teaching uh, like, hey, let me teach you how to go be stoic outside and just you zone out while I I push you on the swing. And then just two Bennett boys just zone into the void.
SPEAKER_03Dude, he's he does that. He's good at that. He's good at being quiet around me. That's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01That's that's that's the Bennett in him.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you guys have to work out a system where like if an another dad and kid that you don't want to hang out with, like you have like a perfectly timed like look, yeah, just do both dead eye, no smile, nothing, yeah, and then turn back, stare straight ahead. Exactly. Like, um, you know what? Actually, your mom just that would be amazing, actually.
SPEAKER_03Fuck with people. That's that's funny. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, it's if that's your strength to lean in. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. What why not play towards it? Yeah, and if he can do it, he's very good at the the code switching, as they say, between the parents for sure. Uh that means he's smart, yeah. Yeah, he's yeah, he's pretty good at it. He can he can match our vibes pretty well. But yeah, women, they're fucked. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, we've ruined the fucking world. We have. We just want to be able to create shit, but all we can do is destroy. It's just kind of how it goes. Well, yeah, it really is. And we did create everything.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like even there's that line about uh referencing Troy, right? You who are you? You're the fucking the voice that called me that burnt the city down and killed Agma Helen of Troy, right? Yeah, again, being like, no, I she's like she didn't ask for this war, she didn't ask for this the trophy war.
SPEAKER_00No, no, they like it.
SPEAKER_03Like, let's fucking burn the whole thing. Yeah, women don't like war, women don't like shows of strength. Yeah, they don't like any of the shit that we tell ourselves. Not the women you hang out with. No, but not me.
SPEAKER_01Latinas love it. Oh, well, I don't know. Yeah, but sometimes they're ride or die for a fight.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Uh yeah, I know. I there you go, for sure.
SPEAKER_01There have been times when I've been like, I acted like a maniac, and then I you look back and you see the eyes of the amount of conversations I've in my life been like, you can't say that because I'm the one that has to deal with the person you're saying it to. So please roll your window up and stop flipping people off there going the wrong direction. Yeah, you're gonna get parking into a fight. Yeah, it's like, please don't do that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's not good. It's not we've we've it's amazing the world's gotten this far.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03We had a decent room. Uh us at the helm, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Speaking of how far the world's gone and it burning all the shit. I am really, really excited for next week.
SPEAKER_03Me too. Civil War, John Morgan who avoided it, uh, just like Dave Jordan. Maybe this will get the watch. It's so good. It's fucking great. I'm super, I've only seen it the once in theaters. I saw it twice in theaters. Yeah, same.
SPEAKER_02It's good. The script is fucking probably I think writing, writer to direct. I think, well, ex Machina might be like his tightest one, but I think this is like the best story. I think it's the best match of his writing capabilities with his direction.
SPEAKER_03See, and I I can't wait to to think about the writing because watching it, it just felt like such an experience because he's never done like a war movie before, you know. So like I'm super excited to actually like break it down and see what John thinks since he's never seen it before. Yeah, I'm super stoked to hear what he has to say and re-watch it because yeah, it's yeah, the progression makes so much fucking sense. That's why I love watching it.
SPEAKER_02Let's open it up, let's do a road movie, let's get their action and set up payoff. Yeah, fuck yeah.
SPEAKER_01So have Kaylee Spenny look incredible in those jeans. I also love Wagner Moore in that.
SPEAKER_02Kayleigh Spenny's so good in that. Yeah, yeah. There, I mean, everyone kills it. Oh, Jesse Plyman's fucking hot. Yeah, Jesse man, it's so good. I love Wagner Moore on that. He's so funny. Yeah, he does a really good bag.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely relatable. Yeah, I'm excited. It's gonna be fun in the most depressing way possible. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, thank you for letting me cook on this one, dude.
SPEAKER_03Of course. Yeah, I did notice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, any time. Fuck I'm blinking. I've but I've been loving the returning guests too. Josh and Dave. Josh and Dave back and forth. It's great. And Dave being like trying to get on men. But you know what I mean? Like, you know, the white boys have been cooking enough. Yep. Let a fucking Chicano into the kitchen. You guys please let me throw some spices. Yes. You guys have had your turn a few times. Let me get in there. Yeah. Too much East Coast energy. Yeah, from the East Coast. Some spices. That's right. About what I know best as a Chicano man is British women in the countryside. You know, exactly. I can add to the equation.
SPEAKER_03We just need that perspective, you know what I mean? It's a much needed thing. But yeah, you're always welcome. Always uh great to see you, and thank you for coming.
SPEAKER_02Great to see you guys after hearing your voices for so long. Yeah, man.
SPEAKER_03It was great seeing you. Sincerely, we're sorry.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. We're okay.
SPEAKER_02Let's end the men. Men apologizing. I think we should make note of that.
SPEAKER_01Now that you're in the room credit business, we do want credit. We are okay. Yeah. We're gonna be alright. Exactly. I love you guys. Love you too.