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Transcript

The Running Man (2025) with Worker's Lit · Left of the Projector

• 0:00
  Evan: Oh, well, it's fine. It's fine. Honestly, it's probably better that way because
• 0:03
  Evan: I think there's more, it kind of doesn't make as much sense to be like,
• 0:07
  Evan: hey, here's this one about the running man.
• 0:10
  Evan: Here's one about another movie as well as this one.
• 0:12
  Jacob: I do think the long, I mean, we didn't get into it. The long walk book is a
• 0:15
  Jacob: decent bit better than the running man book, but I haven't seen the movie.
• 0:18
  Jacob: I didn't get it around to seeing the movie anyway.
• 0:20
  Evan: It's a pretty depressing movie.
• 0:21
  Bill: It's a fucking depressing book. Yeah.
• 0:24
  Evan: Really?
• 0:24
  Bill: For like two seconds, I was like, do you guys want to do that?
• 0:27
  Bill: And then I was like, but then I'd have to read another Stephen King novel.
• 0:30
  Bill: So forget I ever even thought about suggesting that.
• 0:32
  Evan: Well, they already did it.
• 0:33
  Jacob: Oh, we already did it the long way.
• 0:35
  Bill: Oh, okay.
• 0:36
  Jacob: It's a lot better. It's not great, but it's significantly better.
• 0:41
  Bill: Well, good. I'm spared to even say that.
• 0:44
  Aysha: Yeah, walking is a lot. It's a lot easier to write a book about walking than running.
• 0:48
  Jacob: Stephen King is good at writing people in pain, and that is what most of the
• 0:52
  Jacob: book is, and so it is effective.
• 0:53
  Bill: That says something really bad about him, I think.
• 0:56
  Jacob: Oh, it's all he cares about.
• 0:58
  Lenore: It does the whole, like, people who are already on death row rebelling within
• 1:03
  Lenore: acceptable bounds for the audience.
• 1:06
  Bill: Yeah.
• 1:06
  Lenore: And as, like, a pressure release valve, it does that better because it's not,
• 1:10
  Lenore: like, as explicitly racialized and, like, misogynist as Running Man is.
• 1:16
  Jacob: But it's still, you know, just fine. Anyway, sorry, this isn't about the long...
• 1:39
  Evan: Hello, and welcome to Left of the Projector. I'm your host, Evan,
• 1:42
  Evan: back again with another film discussion from the left.
• 1:45
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• 1:48
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• 1:51
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• 1:54
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• 1:58
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• 2:00
  Evan: Wherever you're listening, give us a rating and subscribe so you'll be notified
• 2:03
  Evan: of our weekly episodes that drop every Tuesday. And now on to the show.
• 2:07
  Evan: This week on Left of the Projector, we're going to be discussing a remake and
• 2:11
  Evan: book adaptation of Stephen King or Richard Bachman's book called The Running Man.
• 2:16
  Evan: If you go way back to episode 69 of this show, you can hear a discussion of
• 2:21
  Evan: the Arnold Schwarzenegger version of this film, which I believe this one is
• 2:26
  Evan: much and far superior to that.
• 2:29
  Evan: The most recent adaptation of Running Man stars Glenn Powell, William H.
• 2:32
  Evan: Macy, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Josh Brolin, Colin Domingo, and was directed by Edgar Wright.
• 2:37
  Aysha: A lot of guys I love to see, just gonna say.
• 2:40
  Evan: You may have noticed we just posted on our feed a collaboration post with Workers
• 2:45
  Evan: Lit, where we discussed the book version of this film.
• 2:49
  Evan: And you can go listen to us discuss the book, and then you can come back here
• 2:53
  Evan: and finish listening to us talk about the film. You may remember we had Lenore
• 2:56
  Evan: and Jacob on to discuss Drag Me to Hell, episode 217 for those counting at home.
• 3:01
  Evan: This week, I'm joined by Jacob, Lenore, and Aisha. Welcome back to Left to the Project.
• 3:06
  Bill: Also, I'm here.
• 3:07
  Aysha: Thank you so much for having us.
• 3:09
  Evan: Sorry, Bill.
• 3:09
  Jacob: I forgot you on my podcast, too. I'm so sorry. It's a bad day for Bill. Hi, thank you.
• 3:15
  Aysha: It's a bad night for Bill.
• 3:16
  Jacob: Bad night for Bill, except you've had some good takes about Stephen King tonight,
• 3:19
  Jacob: so it's a good night for Bill in that regard. Hi, I'm Jacob,
• 3:22
  Jacob: and I'm excited to talk about something I liked a lot more than the book version,
• 3:25
  Jacob: which I didn't like very much.
• 3:27
  Evan: And do you want to tell us about Workers Lit? I believe when you were on last
• 3:30
  Evan: time, it was a slightly different iteration of your podcast.
• 3:34
  Evan: So what has changed? What should we know? What should the listeners know?
• 3:38
  Aysha: I'm here now.
• 3:39
  Jacob: Yes, I'm just here now. Yeah, there's more women. We did. I should do or Lenore,
• 3:45
  Jacob: do we want to you want to take it or do you want me to?
• 3:48
  Aysha: We joke about how we're the only majority woman podcast in existence.
• 3:54
  Aysha: But Jacob is pretty good at the pinch. Go ahead, Jacob.
• 3:59
  Jacob: Well uh so in november we switched
• 4:02
  Jacob: from socialist shelf uh to the name workers lit that
• 4:04
  Jacob: is because we wanted to expand what we were talking about uh
• 4:08
  Jacob: our tagline is now workers lit the your favorite podcast
• 4:11
  Jacob: about fighting for the narrative we put out two episodes a week one episode
• 4:15
  Jacob: as me lenore and aisha and we are discussing a piece sorry we are discussing
• 4:19
  Jacob: a piece of literature um talking about its context where it comes out of the
• 4:23
  Jacob: book itself the politics around it and how it contributes overall to the battle for the narrative.
• 4:28
  Jacob: And then we also release an episode of the week about politics and the narrative
• 4:33
  Jacob: battle that's going on around some kind of political issue that's ongoing.
• 4:37
  Jacob: That is me, Lenore, and our other co-host, Jen.
• 4:40
  Jacob: And we have a pretty good time. We sort of have the culture side of the podcast,
• 4:44
  Jacob: the culture and art side, and the ongoing politics side.
• 4:47
  Jacob: But we consider those both to be essential parts of the ongoing battle for the narrative.
• 4:52
  Jacob: And so we are workers lit and uh we are here to talk about running man we're
• 4:57
  Jacob: very excited and very happy to be here.
• 4:59
  Lenore: Yeah, look forward to November when we add a cooking channel to our show.
• 5:02
  Jacob: Yeah, it's going to every year.
• 5:04
  Aysha: A fishing mini game?
• 5:06
  Jacob: Yes. Every year we add a new until we're doing like 30 episodes.
• 5:10
  Jacob: Yeah, in 20 years we will have video games. You know, shocking.
• 5:14
  Aysha: I mean, All My Maidens is kind of our third podcast. I'm going to be real because
• 5:18
  Aysha: you come on it all the time, Jacob.
• 5:22
  Bill: Tabletop role-playing games. Tabletop role-playing games.
• 5:25
  Lenore: Ooh, that's a good one.
• 5:26
  Aysha: I do. So I have thought about doing a show. But the thing is,
• 5:30
  Aysha: I like all my podcasts are like people do things for me and I'll just sit there.
• 5:34
  Aysha: So I have never had a good time playing a tabletop game. I've tried like twice.
• 5:40
  Aysha: And my DM was dog shit both times.
• 5:43
  Aysha: So I'm like, what if what if I made a podcast where the point is to make me enjoy playing D&D?
• 5:50
  Evan: Well, Bill knows things about that.
• 5:53
  Bill: I know quite a bit about that.
• 5:54
  Jacob: D&D.
• 5:54
  Evan: Not the dog shit part. The other part. Sorry.
• 5:57
  Aysha: I had a DM who kept, like, he was mad because he wanted us to fight stuff,
• 6:01
  Aysha: but I kept, like, flirting my way through everything, and he wasn't prepared
• 6:04
  Aysha: for it. And I was like, come on, pussy.
• 6:07
  Bill: He's bad at running a game.
• 6:09
  Aysha: Yeah.
• 6:09
  Bill: I want to note, Evan, I want, like, dollar in my, like, tip jar,
• 6:14
  Bill: my virtual host, co-host tip jar, that I have not derailed with D&D extensively.
• 6:22
  Bill: I'm not the one continuing conversation about D&D right now,
• 6:25
  Bill: okay? I'm not the one subjecting people to listening to things.
• 6:28
  Evan: Usually after the episode's over when we stop recording, you're just having
• 6:32
  Evan: a conversation with our guests for like 20 minutes about Dianne.
• 6:35
  Lenore: Well, I think if they were to do a death game like The Running Man or whatever
• 6:39
  Lenore: else the network has IRL, it would be one of those actual play shows,
• 6:44
  Lenore: except if you roll a natural one, they just drop you into the fucking lava pit
• 6:48
  Lenore: beneath Dr. Evil's meeting table.
• 6:49
  Bill: They do that.
• 6:50
  Jacob: Into the crocodile waters.
• 6:52
  Bill: It's the treadmill. It's the crocodile mode. it's running man and then you know
• 6:56
  Bill: um god what would you call that hey.
• 6:59
  Jacob: This movie is full of what feels like dnd characters glenn powell in this movie
• 7:03
  Jacob: feels like a dnd character michael serra feels like an artificer there's a lot going on michael.
• 7:07
  Aysha: Serra's like house of tricks and traps.
• 7:11
  Bill: Michael serra was i there are points in this movie where like again what you
• 7:19
  Bill: you know you said on the Another episode, Aisha,
• 7:21
  Bill: I believe it was you, Aisha, said that like, you know, someone was like,
• 7:23
  Bill: this movie is nothing like the book. And it's like, did you read the same book as me?
• 7:27
  Bill: Like the book running man feels like the pitch for the movie.
• 7:34
  Aysha: Yeah.
• 7:35
  Bill: Like that's, that's what the book felt like. It's like, Hey,
• 7:37
  Bill: here's a rough draft of an idea that we can make better.
• 7:41
  Bill: And Edgar Wright read that book and was like, oh, I have a brain and brain.
• 7:49
  Bill: some marks of sensibilities and a creative vision and I've created incredible
• 7:55
  Bill: movies, I can take this rough idea for a possible story and turn it in something
• 8:00
  Bill: people would actually fucking want to watch.
• 8:02
  Aysha: Yeah, it was fun. I had a lot of fun watching it.
• 8:05
  Jacob: Don't forget a hot cast because Lenore can tell you that I was fighting for
• 8:08
  Jacob: my life watching Glenn Powell climbing around that hotel room in a bathrobe.
• 8:12
  Jacob: I was like, I was the cartoon dog hitting myself in the mirror.
• 8:16
  Aysha: I was surprised by how female gaze-y it was. Like, it really was like, look at this man.
• 8:23
  Jacob: It was Jacob gaze-y, actually. It was for me.
• 8:25
  Bill: I honestly, I think Glenn Powell called for that. I could see him doing that.
• 8:31
  Bill: I think he's that kind of guy.
• 8:33
  Evan: Let me ask this. Did you all read the book first and then watch the movie?
• 8:37
  Aysha: Yeah.
• 8:37
  Lenore: Yeah.
• 8:38
  Jacob: Yes.
• 8:39
  Bill: Wait. Also his baddie wife. Both of us watched the better thing first and then subjected ourselves.
• 8:46
  Evan: But I had seen the movie, like, when it came out, so it was,
• 8:49
  Evan: that was easier to have happened.
• 8:52
  Bill: I watched this one, then read the book. I started high and went low.
• 8:58
  Jacob: Yeah.
• 8:59
  Aysha: So all the, like, basically everything that bothered me in the book, the movie fixed.
• 9:05
  Bill: Yeah.
• 9:05
  Bill: He's a likable character.
• 9:07
  Aysha: Yeah. You root for him. The first scene is him holding his adorable child and
• 9:13
  Aysha: shaking at her and being like, look, she's sick.
• 9:17
  Aysha: Don't you care about me? And I'm like, yes, your kid is so cute.
• 9:19
  Bill: You have a baddie wife. He didn't shake her because that would be bad. You don't shake bad.
• 9:22
  Aysha: Yeah, I know. He didn't shake her, but metaphorically shook her in the face.
• 9:27
  Aysha: And he's like, look at this child.
• 9:28
  Aysha: How can you say no to this child? And then his shitty boss is like, get out of here.
• 9:31
  Bill: And then you're immediately fed information that the reason he's blacklisted
• 9:37
  Bill: is because he was protecting his fellow worker.
• 9:40
  Aysha: Right. He was forming a union.
• 9:42
  Bill: Multiple times. Talking about union. Also, just put his life on the line to
• 9:47
  Bill: save somebody else's life.
• 9:51
  Bill: And the jobs they show him doing are jobs you could expect someone to be a physically
• 9:57
  Bill: capable being of doing. You know, like high rise, like welding and like all
• 10:02
  Bill: that construction stuff.
• 10:03
  Evan: Yeah. The movie, you don't get any information about what his job sort of history
• 10:08
  Evan: was and why he would have like a physical, you know, the book. Sorry.
• 10:13
  Bill: In the book, the only thing you learn about his possible job is that it involved
• 10:17
  Bill: radiation, which, as we all know, makes you hail and hearty.
• 10:21
  Bill: That's how you do parkour.
• 10:23
  Aysha: Maybe it was like Captain America. It like it made him like swole. Yeah.
• 10:30
  Aysha: Yeah. He's also like his hot wife. Like Jesus Christ.
• 10:33
  Bill: He got bit by an irradiated Glenn Powell.
• 10:36
  Aysha: Yeah. Yeah. Super hot wife who's like a waitress at a club and is like,
• 10:42
  Aysha: I'm going to start stripping.
• 10:43
  Aysha: And then he's like, no, don't do that. I will go kill myself instead.
• 10:47
  Evan: Did they, in the book, something we didn't mention that I think is interesting
• 10:51
  Evan: is they specifically call out that they get married at what, like 16 or something?
• 10:55
  Bill: Very young.
• 10:56
  Evan: Whereas in this, it's just sort of like normal stuff.
• 10:59
  Evan: Kind of, I don't know. Everything that he left out from the book was like,
• 11:05
  Evan: good job. Thank you for leaving that out.
• 11:07
  Aysha: Did we mention that we'd already, like, we did an episode, yeah,
• 11:10
  Aysha: already on the book. So refer to that.
• 11:13
  Aysha: Listen to Worker's Lit. You now have to listen to our, because this is part
• 11:16
  Aysha: two, so you have to listen to our show.
• 11:18
  Bill: Yes, this is a two-part. You mentioned that in the intro.
• 11:21
  Jacob: Yeah, you mentioned it, yeah.
• 11:22
  Evan: I did. I can add that in.
• 11:24
  Aysha: I was probably just not listening. So.
• 11:29
  Aysha: So
• 11:31
  Aysha: cold the the levels of like so
• 11:34
  Aysha: the book feels very dated i said in the other episode i
• 11:38
  Aysha: think well obviously like this movie came out last year so it
• 11:40
  Aysha: doesn't feel dated but i actually like was very
• 11:44
  Aysha: struck by this movie the portrayal of
• 11:47
  Aysha: the dystopia in this movie i actually think
• 11:50
  Aysha: is one of the more likelier ways that
• 11:52
  Aysha: we're heading as a society like i think
• 11:55
  Aysha: the portrayal like this idea that like there's
• 11:58
  Aysha: no jobs and and and because of
• 12:02
  Aysha: ai but like the movie doesn't say that but like in
• 12:05
  Aysha: our world it's like all of the jobs are gone most people
• 12:08
  Aysha: are unemployed so the only jobs left are these like very dangerous industrial
• 12:14
  Aysha: jobs or like pouring yourself out to a tv network to die for money and i really
• 12:21
  Aysha: think that is the future like or pouring yourself out literally literally Like.
• 12:25
  Jacob: In his wife's case, literally having to do sex work.
• 12:28
  Bill: Really specifically, it's a service economy. It's a complete service economy.
• 12:34
  Aysha: Yeah.
• 12:34
  Bill: It's a service economy that's bottomed out. And like that's all there is.
• 12:39
  Evan: It feels like a more, it's almost like a Paul Verhoeven from Total Recall,
• 12:44
  Evan: but like on steroids, modernized, because that's an 80s move or well,
• 12:48
  Evan: maybe 1990, something like that.
• 12:49
  Evan: And this is sort of like the hyper version of hyper capitalist hell where everyone
• 12:54
  Evan: is just watching these terrible TV shows or just churning them out reality television.
• 12:59
  Evan: And it's just it's right.
• 13:01
  Aysha: We see him watching some of them with his daughter.
• 13:04
  Jacob: I'm sorry. I'm going to put my foot down and say that there is nothing that
• 13:07
  Jacob: is depicted on this TV that is bad and dystopian as the masked singer, a real TV show.
• 13:14
  Jacob: I'm telling you, that is the most I'll buy that for a dollar ass thing I've
• 13:18
  Jacob: ever seen in my entire life. Jesus Christ, Mr. Beast.
• 13:22
  Aysha: Or like The Biggest Loser.
• 13:24
  Aysha: Stuff like that. All of the stuff that we have, we have so many evil shows.
• 13:29
  Aysha: I also like the Kardashian ripoff they have. The Americanos. I really like that.
• 13:35
  Jacob: Latina Kardashians is awesome.
• 13:37
  Aysha: The little scene where he's sitting there just muting and unmuting it was really funny.
• 13:41
  Lenore: I have a friend who keeps our group in the loop on what's going on with 90 Day
• 13:48
  Lenore: Fiance and Real Housewives and all that shit. I believe it was on Real Housewives of Atlanta.
• 13:54
  Lenore: Where, like, one of them was, like, dressing down the other.
• 13:58
  Lenore: And I remember, like, one of his favorite things he's ever seen is one woman
• 14:02
  Lenore: saying to the other, your husband only has one Rolex.
• 14:07
  Lenore: This is real.
• 14:08
  Aysha: This is real. So, like, yeah, you see him, like, taking care of his daughter
• 14:12
  Aysha: while his wife is at work.
• 14:13
  Aysha: And you see him, like, loses her favorite sock or something.
• 14:18
  Bill: And he's upset.
• 14:19
  Aysha: Yeah. Also, like, and I think that I wouldn't usually mention this,
• 14:23
  Aysha: but like, I think this is specifically like juxtaposed to Stephen King's racism
• 14:28
  Aysha: is that this his wife is black in this movie.
• 14:32
  Aysha: And his daughter is black in this movie. So, yeah, I'm glad that they're...
• 14:39
  Bill: Also, he never once uses any racial slurs. That's also a big part of it.
• 14:44
  Aysha: Right. And I feel like it's got to be intentional by the director to immediately
• 14:48
  Aysha: be like, listen, it's 2025.
• 14:53
  Jacob: Stephen King was like, I did the not say a racial slur for two hours challenge. He's like sweating.
• 14:59
  Lenore: Yeah.
• 15:02
  Evan: One of the criticism I've actually saw from some people who kind of maybe the
• 15:07
  Evan: same people who thought the book was better kind of group or whatever.
• 15:10
  Evan: I don't know. Is that the, especially the beginning where you're sort of hit
• 15:13
  Evan: over the head with the universe, where there actually is world building that
• 15:17
  Evan: it's like, there was too much somehow. Like this is too much in your face kind
• 15:21
  Evan: of thing. And I just don't understand.
• 15:22
  Aysha: No, that's how movies work. You have, you look at things.
• 15:27
  Bill: No, no, no, no. Nowadays, nowadays we make movies so that people can,
• 15:32
  Bill: watch them while doing while in another room.
• 15:35
  Aysha: Yeah, that's true.
• 15:37
  Lenore: Well, if you played the Fortnite event that explained the plot of a movie.
• 15:40
  Jacob: You'd be on board.
• 15:42
  Bill: This isn't a Marvel movie, Lenore.
• 15:43
  Evan: But that's why I think they like the book more. They don't want world building.
• 15:46
  Evan: They want, I don't know, Stephen King dialogue.
• 15:49
  Bill: I think actually that is a really good point.
• 15:55
  Bill: We're assuming this is coming for somebody who was comparing it to the book.
• 15:58
  Bill: And it's like, the book is that kind of like, you only have to pay half attention
• 16:02
  Bill: to this. You don't really have to.
• 16:04
  Aysha: Engage with it. Yeah, the book felt more like a movie than the movie did, if that makes sense.
• 16:11
  Jacob: It's got its cheesiness to it. It definitely has its, I don't know,
• 16:15
  Jacob: the needle drop when he's walking through the city and he's like, I'm the underdog.
• 16:19
  Jacob: It's silly, but it's in a way that I can enjoy because I'm here to interface
• 16:23
  Jacob: with a piece of media and have fun with it.
• 16:25
  Jacob: I know this is fiction and it's silly, but
• 16:28
  Jacob: At the same time, like it is doing something. It doesn't have that same instinctual
• 16:32
  Jacob: hatred for the underclass, right? He's walking around the city and yes, people are poor.
• 16:36
  Jacob: Yes, there's crime. Yes, things have been stripped off. But also there's like
• 16:40
  Jacob: street art and there's like people that are talking to each other.
• 16:42
  Jacob: And the real bad shit is coming from the police and from the overclass in this.
• 16:48
  Jacob: When he has the natural impulse, when a guy falls down to help him up and a
• 16:52
  Jacob: police officer yells at him about it.
• 16:54
  Lenore: Yeah.
• 16:54
  Jacob: The bad things are largely coming from the overclass.
• 16:58
  Jacob: And when working class people do shitty things in this movie,
• 17:02
  Jacob: they are pushed into it, whipped into a frenzy by media and by organisms of
• 17:08
  Jacob: the state and corporations that are trying to get them to do so.
• 17:11
  Jacob: It is a much better understanding of how the world works.
• 17:14
  Aysha: I also think that specifically one thing that adds to that feeling,
• 17:19
  Aysha: Jacob, is the other two runners that we get to see a lot.
• 17:24
  Aysha: Because they mention that there's other runners a little bit in the book,
• 17:28
  Aysha: but they actually focus on these two.
• 17:31
  Aysha: Yeah, so there's two other runners. One is this nerd guy who's just like,
• 17:37
  Aysha: hi guys, let's exchange phone numbers or whatever.
• 17:41
  Aysha: And then there's like this like just like crazy lesbian who's just like getting
• 17:48
  Aysha: pussy. That's like all she does.
• 17:50
  Lenore: I would watch an entire series about her.
• 17:53
  Jacob: Yeah, I was going to say that was when Lenore was hitting herself with the hammer.
• 17:58
  Bill: They were used so effectively as
• 18:01
  Bill: mechanisms for understanding the world the world
• 18:04
  Bill: view but also the ideology of the people behind everything but not only that
• 18:10
  Bill: so perfectly utilized to explain the different ways in which people in a system
• 18:17
  Bill: like this react to process and cope with the,
• 18:23
  Bill: alienation inherent to the system you can like these are your these are the
• 18:27
  Bill: you know the three wolves within the alienated person you know it's like do you bradley.
• 18:32
  Aysha: Even breaks that down for us in the movie yes.
• 18:34
  Bill: Yeah yeah yes we have it explained to
• 18:37
  Bill: us and it really you know but like he explains it
• 18:40
  Bill: in terms of the show but like i also think that
• 18:43
  Bill: it is metaphorically very much a way of like
• 18:45
  Bill: it's the three ways or one of the three like prevalent
• 18:48
  Bill: ways in which people react to alienation in
• 18:52
  Bill: that you either just fucking kind of like just ignorance is bliss and like you'll
• 18:58
  Bill: be like the first person you walk up to like um i cannot remember his name and
• 19:03
  Bill: then her you know it's like you make the best that you live you burn out but you live out you know,
• 19:10
  Bill: Or you're Ben Richardson.
• 19:11
  Aysha: And then Richards gets angry.
• 19:12
  Lenore: Yeah. Or you become Jean Valjean.
• 19:14
  Aysha: Yeah.
• 19:14
  Bill: Yeah. I do.
• 19:15
  Aysha: I think it's also very effective that they're like, yes, this guy has a lot
• 19:20
  Aysha: of really deep anger when he like smashes the screen when he's like,
• 19:24
  Aysha: and then they see that and they're like, oh, perfect. We'll put him on the running
• 19:27
  Aysha: man because this guy's got a lot of anger.
• 19:29
  Aysha: I liked that. I thought it was more effective than like the 20 pages of like
• 19:35
  Aysha: boring test taking in the book.
• 19:37
  Aysha: just like them him like him them
• 19:40
  Aysha: seeing him first help a guy up and
• 19:43
  Aysha: then scream and smash uh like it's like okay so this guy he does have morals
• 19:48
  Aysha: but he's very volatile and he could like and he's got some like i don't know
• 19:52
  Aysha: he's got some like bombast to him and that comes through later when he's doing
• 19:56
  Aysha: his like what's up bitches like uh videos and stuff.
• 20:01
  Evan: It's much more interesting in this in the scene where he's negotiating
• 20:04
  Evan: with josh brolin like the head of the studio about sort of getting his
• 20:07
  Evan: getting medicine which they also explicitly say that his daughter
• 20:10
  Evan: has the flu which i think makes it more interesting that
• 20:13
  Evan: in this world people are just dying of the
• 20:16
  Evan: flu yes there's no vaccines presumably or like
• 20:18
  Evan: only the rich people can have them right but their whole negotiation of like
• 20:21
  Evan: i'll give your your family like safe refuge you'll get get you'll get like money
• 20:25
  Evan: up front and all these things like they heavily show you what ben is sort of
• 20:30
  Evan: up against where i don't think they affect effectively do that in the book at
• 20:34
  Evan: all they don't really show you the hierarchy the.
• 20:36
  Jacob: The hype of the show too like the show itself is very effective right there
• 20:41
  Jacob: is a glamour to it you have uh coleman domingo just killing his body.
• 20:45
  Evan: So good yeah yeah just coming.
• 20:47
  Jacob: Out with his you know coming out with a hat and throwing it and really just
• 20:51
  Jacob: chewing up the scenery running around whipping the people into a frenzy and
• 20:54
  Jacob: what you see is the and then the book makes attempts at this but it doesn't
• 20:59
  Jacob: work the same way is it makes the show out of All the people are screaming at
• 21:03
  Jacob: these people who are seen as the criminals, the running men.
• 21:06
  Jacob: running men i mean some of them are women uh are
• 21:10
  Jacob: people that are are despised by society and you're supposed
• 21:12
  Jacob: to be like look these people they want to kill you
• 21:15
  Jacob: they want to literally sneak in your house and stop you we as
• 21:18
  Jacob: a society are coming against them he's yelling look at this
• 21:21
  Jacob: asshole who doesn't want to work all of that like they're
• 21:24
  Jacob: depicting him as this villain in a
• 21:27
  Jacob: way to basically uh to basically whip up working
• 21:30
  Jacob: normal people against their fellow human beings and
• 21:33
  Jacob: then that is the idea of it and then of course his anger at the crowd is then
• 21:38
  Jacob: not just him being like i'm a badass who likes to yell at people he's actually
• 21:42
  Jacob: mad because they're insulting his wife they're insulting him and they're completely
• 21:47
  Jacob: skewing reality and it it fucking works in a way that the book doesn't.
• 21:51
  Aysha: I also think that a very good and specific choice the book make uh the movie
• 21:56
  Aysha: makes that the book doesn't i think is that they specifically say america in the movie.
• 22:01
  Jacob: Yes.
• 22:02
  Aysha: They are like, we're good Americans. We're like, they don't say it.
• 22:06
  Aysha: It's not America in the book. It's like some made up.
• 22:10
  Aysha: dystopian future it's just maine yeah it's yeah maine is just like this um yeah.
• 22:16
  Lenore: It's just maine and the rest of america is the people's republic.
• 22:20
  Aysha: The way that they say like oh us americans believe
• 22:24
  Aysha: in this like us and i thought that was really effective and i
• 22:26
  Aysha: was kind of surprised that they actually say america like
• 22:30
  Aysha: the thing and i've said this before i think on the
• 22:32
  Aysha: on the podcast is that like um like the thing about like this guy doesn't want
• 22:36
  Aysha: to work like americans at least on the like We like to at least say that we
• 22:42
  Aysha: really care about fairness and equality and hard work in this country.
• 22:48
  Aysha: That is something that we really value.
• 22:51
  Aysha: And I really like, I think it feels believable that the crowd could get into hating.
• 22:57
  Aysha: I think it would just take a tiny little bit more bloodthirst than we have already.
• 23:04
  Aysha: I can absolutely see this happening now.
• 23:06
  Bill: The one thing that I, like, I, I agree 100%,
• 23:10
  Bill: but one of the key points that I think must be stated and is made clear both
• 23:17
  Bill: in the book and visually in the movie, that these are not.
• 23:23
  Bill: The people in the audience are not working class people. They are not part of his class.
• 23:30
  Bill: They are explicitly petite bourgeois.
• 23:34
  Bill: They are explicitly petite bourgeois. And that is really the key that the,
• 23:40
  Bill: the, or even like middle class, it's middle class.
• 23:45
  Jacob: They use the term technicos at one point.
• 23:47
  Bill: Technicos, right.
• 23:48
  Aysha: It's the bourgeois.
• 23:48
  Bill: It's the it's the it's not entirely the bourgeois
• 23:52
  Bill: because they are not it's not the capitalist class it's not the bourgeois
• 23:55
  Bill: but it is like just below
• 23:58
  Bill: that or the people who are like they are labor
• 24:02
  Bill: aristocracy that i think it's the idea of you know yeah you turn it is what
• 24:10
  Bill: it's you you enrage white suburban america against anybody that doesn't look
• 24:16
  Bill: like you and you call them lazy, you know,
• 24:20
  Bill: doesn't matter, you know, if they're not a white American in suburbia, they're lazy.
• 24:26
  Bill: You know, all those, you know, black and brown people are fucking lazy.
• 24:28
  Bill: They don't work. They want to get a mooch off the system.
• 24:31
  Bill: And in this, what Edgar Wright is doing is by virtue of like making it very
• 24:36
  Bill: clear, this is a handsome white man, that this is a class thing.
• 24:41
  Bill: It is a hundred percent class.
• 24:42
  Bill: That's what it is. It's a class distinction. And they will turn those,
• 24:45
  Bill: those segments against each other and.
• 24:48
  Aysha: I like his really cute um his cute little mustache disguise where he it's just
• 24:55
  Aysha: kind of like him with his hair brushed differently and like a mustache glued
• 24:59
  Aysha: on he's like they'll never find me.
• 25:00
  Bill: That's how they always make glenn powell there's another movie where glenn powell's
• 25:05
  Bill: supposed to be like oh it's hitman um where glenn powell like is a professor
• 25:08
  Bill: and they're like he's so schlubby and his hair is a little long and he's got a mustache.
• 25:13
  Aysha: Yeah, it's like the hot girl putting on glasses.
• 25:18
  Bill: Yes. Yes.
• 25:20
  Jacob: I got to say, I love the mustache.
• 25:22
  Aysha: Yeah. And then there's the sort of completely gratuitous escaping from the hotel
• 25:28
  Aysha: butt ass naked, which rocked. And I think they should have done it for longer.
• 25:32
  Jacob: Yes. No, that's crazy that, yeah, I had to really examine that scene several times.
• 25:39
  Jacob: I want to say too he's getting hunted by these hunters that in the book yeah
• 25:43
  Jacob: refers to we got these scary hunters
• 25:45
  Jacob: in the movie it's like the hunters we hype it up we see the guys the.
• 25:49
  Aysha: Hunters are kind of cunty in the movie the hunters.
• 25:53
  Jacob: In the book.
• 25:53
  Bill: You never see as far as we can tell in the book the hunters never get close
• 26:00
  Bill: to him until the airport there's that one hunter I.
• 26:03
  Aysha: Think the one who like Michael Cera stabs the leg he looks like a fucking Targaryen he has like.
• 26:10
  Jacob: Weird like.
• 26:12
  Aysha: White hair and he's like,
• 26:15
  Aysha: cuntily smoking a cigarette. I was like, what is going on with this? This is rules.
• 26:20
  Bill: In the book, the hunters are the most useless people alive.
• 26:26
  Bill: Yeah. They are completely ineffective in the movie.
• 26:30
  Bill: They are like, it's just a team with Jason Stamps. Yeah.
• 26:35
  Jacob: And part of this.
• 26:36
  Lenore: Of course, sorry, go ahead.
• 26:38
  Jacob: And their leader, McCone, we don't see until towards the end of the movie.
• 26:43
  Jacob: It's so badass. We see him physically.
• 26:44
  Jacob: He's got this like, this like fucking ice mask over his face.
• 26:49
  Aysha: And he has like a weird, like he looks like he's got a solid snake outfit on.
• 26:54
  Aysha: He's got like a battle corset.
• 26:55
  Jacob: He's got aura.
• 26:57
  Aysha: Yeah.
• 26:57
  Jacob: And you're like, wow, that guy's cool. I'll bet that's Lee Pace under there.
• 27:02
  Aysha: I literally, I clapped when it was Lee Pace looking like Big Boss. I was so excited.
• 27:09
  Jacob: I was so excited.
• 27:10
  Lenore: There is a subreddit somewhere in the world of this movie, I am sure,
• 27:14
  Lenore: where you have actual tactical gear enthusiasts mercilessly taking apart the
• 27:20
  Lenore: Running Man shit and talking about how impractical it is.
• 27:25
  Lenore: But it's presented a certain way.
• 27:27
  Aysha: And then there's, in the world of the Running Man, there's the AO3...
• 27:31
  Aysha: uh people yeah yeah hunter x runner yeah.
• 27:34
  Evan: Those reddit uh listeners can um can send me an email at left of the ejector
• 27:39
  Evan: at gmail.com and tell me why we're all wrong about.
• 27:42
  Bill: The about.
• 27:43
  Evan: The about the tactical gear you know say one thing about the original running
• 27:48
  Evan: man with Arnold Schwarzenegger they also hype up the the hunt the hunters more
• 27:53
  Evan: like that's interesting like you actually create.
• 27:55
  Bill: I don't.
• 27:57
  Evan: Want to say another class but sort of like he's not quite the elite he's not
• 28:01
  Evan: quite like he's probably came from sort of the middle class but i don't know
• 28:07
  Evan: where where would that guy come.
• 28:09
  Lenore: Well it's the it's the fantasy right of you
• 28:11
  Lenore: know we talk about how um we talk
• 28:14
  Lenore: about how the the world of the film fosters this alienate
• 28:18
  Lenore: this intra-class alienation right and part of the fantasy is okay like if this
• 28:23
  Lenore: dude was breaking all the rules if he was rampaging through society how would
• 28:27
  Lenore: we stop him and like the fantasy is being one of those guys right and indeed
• 28:32
  Lenore: that's the deal that they that that um that comes up toward the end.
• 28:35
  Bill: Right because i made a i made a joke.
• 28:37
  Jacob: While i was re-watching scenes from this movie that i was like here comes the
• 28:41
  Jacob: cossacks like they're rolling up like.
• 28:43
  Bill: Lee pace was a running man so he was working class like he's a cop he's the
• 28:49
  Bill: class that's right there's so many little.
• 28:52
  Aysha: Things in like storytelling things that this movie does that the book doesn't
• 28:57
  Aysha: do like there's little seeds that the movie play okay so.
• 29:00
  Bill: I didn't bring this up.
• 29:01
  Aysha: Yeah yes yes i brought.
• 29:03
  Bill: The fact that he is actually friends with the guy that runs that shop and that
• 29:08
  Bill: guy was gonna give him a job give him the show like a job at a job at the shop
• 29:13
  Bill: or like oh he was gonna make him a partner because again people in their community
• 29:19
  Bill: actually care about each other as opposed to hating everybody.
• 29:23
  Aysha: So I was looking through the negative reviews of this movie,
• 29:26
  Aysha: and a couple of them were like
• 29:28
  Aysha: It was just so convenient how, like, they would mention something and that it
• 29:33
  Aysha: would be useful later. I'm like, do you know how stories work?
• 29:36
  Evan: Guys.
• 29:38
  Aysha: Like, the thing with the doors in the bathroom getting brought up,
• 29:42
  Aysha: like, the bathroom plane thing getting brought up.
• 29:45
  Aysha: And I'm like, guys, do you know how movies work?
• 29:49
  Evan: There's a great tweet that's basically, that's like, in movies,
• 29:52
  Evan: information is unfolded throughout it. That's how it works.
• 29:57
  Bill: But like, also, this is truly pathetic because that's how life works, too.
• 30:03
  Bill: You learn things and then later on, they come up again.
• 30:09
  Jacob: It's so sick that the real world is a Metroidvania.
• 30:13
  Aysha: The writing of the movie is deft enough that, like, for instance,
• 30:19
  Aysha: he is sitting in the very beginning.
• 30:21
  Aysha: he's watching like a game show where one of the questions is like how many bathrooms does a,
• 30:28
  Aysha: luxury jet have and the answer is six
• 30:32
  Aysha: and he's sitting there with his daughter and he's you
• 30:34
  Aysha: know talking to her the way you talk to a baby like oh wow six that's
• 30:37
  Aysha: a lot of bathrooms and stuff like that and then later when
• 30:41
  Aysha: he's in the car with Amelia and he's like trying to think of like his demands
• 30:46
  Aysha: and they had just talked about his daughter so he's like get me a luxury jet
• 30:51
  Aysha: because like he remembers and and and i'm like oh my god it's like somebody
• 30:56
  Aysha: wrote this and then when you have.
• 30:59
  Jacob: A scene then when you have a scene of him going through the jet hunting and
• 31:03
  Jacob: someone that's hiding he goes one two like through the bathrooms and that works
• 31:07
  Jacob: and it makes sense and even before.
• 31:09
  Lenore: That you had the the crew of the plane is fake they're the hunters and so he
• 31:14
  Lenore: and so So he's like, oh, yeah, tell me how many bathrooms are on this jet. And they're like four.
• 31:17
  Lenore: Yeah. And it's like, that's how I know. Yeah.
• 31:20
  Aysha: Which is like, it's like, that's how that's how writing works. So.
• 31:24
  Aysha: Also, what is it? Sorry, I skipped to the end, but the Bradley stuff is really
• 31:29
  Aysha: good. Bradley's public access TV show.
• 31:34
  Evan: But he has to be in Derry, Maine because they had to throw in the Maine thing.
• 31:40
  Lenore: That's what makes me so confident that there's this subreddit dissecting the
• 31:43
  Lenore: running man in the continuity of the film because that's what he does,
• 31:48
  Lenore: right? He's taped the entire thing.
• 31:50
  Lenore: He's gone through it with a fine-toothed microscope, you know?
• 31:52
  Lenore: and so you can point out every inconsistency you can point out all the narrative
• 31:57
  Lenore: flourishes that they do and that's how he blows the lid off this whole thing
• 32:01
  Lenore: it's fascinating it's alternative media I.
• 32:03
  Aysha: Do like the idea of him being like a running man super fan anti like a.
• 32:07
  Lenore: Super anti fan.
• 32:08
  Bill: Yeah that's it's like it's that like yeah he's super
• 32:11
  Bill: fan but at the same time like he's coming at it from a class perspective you
• 32:15
  Bill: know and like because he is explicitly like citing like calling for these things
• 32:19
  Bill: and has contacts with people michael sarah's character who are explicitly at
• 32:24
  Bill: working against the government and whereas in the book you have the you know
• 32:28
  Bill: it's pollution it's so one note and then in this it's like no like this is a
• 32:33
  Bill: referred to as an activist.
• 32:35
  Evan: Like specifically that's kind of what he actually actually is doing good rather
• 32:40
  Evan: than just like oh yeah like we read some books and we heard about pollution yeah i did i.
• 32:44
  Jacob: Wrote down in my notes that i like that uh bradley's resisting the government
• 32:47
  Jacob: by making Going Down with Ella Yerman.
• 32:53
  Jacob: It's sick, though. I love the design.
• 32:55
  Aysha: But I really like the little detail of, like,
• 32:58
  Aysha: um ben is in their house and he's like helping their mom fix the stove i just
• 33:05
  Aysha: like it's another little thing of like yeah people helping each other instead
• 33:09
  Aysha: of him just like sitting there like an asshole while someone cooks for him yeah.
• 33:13
  Jacob: I'm imagining ben in the book he's like this stupid lady doesn't know how to
• 33:17
  Jacob: set a how to set an oven why should i help her the world's never helped me these.
• 33:23
  Evan: Eggs are overcooked fucking bitch.
• 33:25
  Aysha: Yeah exactly.
• 33:27
  Bill: Except they were black so he would definitely use the racial slur yes.
• 33:30
  Aysha: Yeah yeah right okay but i wasn't but but movie but movie um movie richards
• 33:37
  Aysha: is like it's just a normal guy even.
• 33:40
  Bill: If even if you ignore like turn off the marxist brain for like two seconds i'm
• 33:47
  Bill: i know it's i don't like doing it but you turn it off like two seconds if you
• 33:51
  Bill: ignore all other aspects of like what that says about that it just he's just a likable character.
• 33:57
  Aysha: Like they just made.
• 33:59
  Bill: An actual human being as opposed to stephen king's parody of a human.
• 34:05
  Aysha: Being and i like unlikable characters like i like protagonists who suck ass
• 34:11
  Aysha: but they have to have something right they have to have something they cannot
• 34:14
  Aysha: be the most boring man alive and.
• 34:18
  Jacob: When and because we know this is the kind of guy that will fix a stove for an
• 34:21
  Jacob: old lady it makes it effective later on when he's winning willing to put the
• 34:25
  Jacob: gun to a head of a random woman because he's desperate yeah that makes that
• 34:29
  Jacob: interesting in a way that a guy who from page one has said i hate everything
• 34:34
  Jacob: who cares what it becomes.
• 34:36
  Evan: Out of character instead of just being like this is just his character it actually yeah.
• 34:40
  Jacob: Yeah shows some kind it becomes like it shows desperation yes.
• 34:44
  Aysha: And then there's yeah then there's michael cera who is another like revolutionary
• 34:47
  Aysha: and he's great he was really fun i think that michael cera just showing up to
• 34:52
  Aysha: do a weird shit for five minutes should be in every movie.
• 34:56
  Jacob: Michael Cera can grow facial hair is what I learned.
• 34:59
  Bill: That's what I learned today. That's giving him a little more credit,
• 35:03
  Bill: I think, than he deserves based on that facial hair.
• 35:08
  Lenore: Yeah, if he shaved his head, he would look like Andrew Tate,
• 35:10
  Lenore: which is deeply unfortunate.
• 35:11
  Jacob: That's not nice.
• 35:12
  Bill: The guy that wrote the screenplay of this also is a co-writer for Scott Pilgrim
• 35:20
  Bill: vs. the World, which was a...
• 35:23
  Bill: uh michael serra uh one of my all-time favorite movies
• 35:25
  Bill: and a michael serra piece um along with
• 35:29
  Bill: 21 jump street and 22 jump street uh so
• 35:32
  Bill: i think he's calling it his friends uh but one of the point i think that it
• 35:37
  Bill: just goes to show like this screenplay was written by somebody because if you
• 35:41
  Bill: watch these other movies he is not averse to making these kinds of like things
• 35:46
  Bill: and then coupled with Edgar Wright who frequently has this,
• 35:51
  Bill: you know, like he has a greater commentary in his movies, even movies that are,
• 35:54
  Bill: you know, not entirely, you know, like,
• 35:57
  Bill: Shaun of the Dead is a, you know, it's a zombie comedy, but like there are points to it.
• 36:02
  Evan: Yeah.
• 36:02
  Jacob: I will say, so this whole section where he meets Michael Cera,
• 36:05
  Jacob: Michael Cera is someone who his whole life, due to resentment around the death
• 36:09
  Jacob: of his father, his father who was like, you know, the one good cop who all the
• 36:13
  Jacob: cops killed because he was too good of a cop.
• 36:16
  Aysha: Which is actually like I mean, I was like, OK, good cop.
• 36:19
  Aysha: But then when he describes it, like the thing that he was describing is why there are no good cops.
• 36:25
  Jacob: Yes. Yes, exactly. There are guys who want to protect people.
• 36:29
  Jacob: It's just that they get driven out.
• 36:30
  Aysha: Right.
• 36:32
  Jacob: And he he has basically been preparing his whole life to build like Rube Goldberg
• 36:37
  Jacob: machines to kill cops with and print zines.
• 36:39
  Lenore: Do you know what was fascinating to me? Like his his whole backstory is literally
• 36:44
  Lenore: the story of Tokyo Gore police. Like, his dad was killed for resisting police
• 36:49
  Lenore: privatization, which is exactly what the story of Tokyo Gore Police is.
• 36:53
  Aysha: Yeah, I like when he gives us a little bit of Michael Cera flavor with,
• 36:58
  Aysha: like, the TV show being like, you can't fight destiny. And he goes,
• 37:02
  Aysha: that's actually not true.
• 37:06
  Jacob: I like the part where he's like, we're going to record. And he goes,
• 37:08
  Jacob: background. He pulls down the shaggle bar and he goes, no.
• 37:10
  Jacob: He pulls down an anarchist thing he had right behind him. He goes,
• 37:12
  Jacob: no. He goes, just the white background. He goes, no.
• 37:15
  Jacob: Oh, hardcore.
• 37:18
  Aysha: I laughed so hard when he pulled down Sheikovara. Like, that was a really good
• 37:24
  Aysha: sight gag. It really got me.
• 37:26
  Lenore: And he's somebody as well who, like, you know, in a perhaps,
• 37:29
  Lenore: you know, crude sight gag kind of way.
• 37:31
  Lenore: But somebody who's used to code switching for certain tendencies and organizing with them, right?
• 37:36
  Aysha: Also, like... Sorry, go ahead.
• 37:37
  Jacob: Well, I was going to say, fun as the scene is, I think if there is a part of
• 37:41
  Jacob: the movie that I'm kind of like, this does, is right after the Michael Cera
• 37:46
  Jacob: stuff, it trying to switch back into the seriousness,
• 37:48
  Jacob: if they're like on the level of film critique, is the part that like, is the weakest for me.
• 37:53
  Aysha: When he kills the Targaryen in the tunnel or whatever.
• 37:55
  Jacob: I think it like, it's just so wacky and so fun.
• 37:59
  Jacob: Don't get me wrong. I really enjoy the Michael Cera stuff. I think when it tries
• 38:02
  Jacob: to go back into Sirius and then it's like him thinking of his wife and all that
• 38:06
  Jacob: part, it takes me a second to get back into the like the feel.
• 38:11
  Jacob: So some of that is not as effective. But, you know, I'm kind of critiquing that
• 38:15
  Jacob: on the level of film here rather on the level of like ideology or story.
• 38:19
  Lenore: And the other thing, like on the subject of like, yeah.
• 38:24
  Lenore: keeping this consistent, right? Not just tonally, but also just exposing us
• 38:28
  Lenore: to, like, the evolution of the attitudes around the show, right?
• 38:32
  Lenore: You see the audience begging for blood early on later in the movie when it looks
• 38:37
  Lenore: like Richards might win, right?
• 38:40
  Lenore: It's completely flipped around, now people are on his side, Richards lives,
• 38:43
  Lenore: is, like, the thing, and I wish we saw more of, I wish we saw more of Michael
• 38:48
  Lenore: Cera's character being integrated into the audience, right?
• 38:50
  Lenore: I wish we saw more of the people like reading these fucking
• 38:53
  Lenore: um um um flyers that he's passing out
• 38:56
  Lenore: yeah the zines yeah yeah i wanted love i want to see that yeah and you know
• 39:01
  Lenore: i want to i want to see him live streaming and just him get shot in the head
• 39:05
  Lenore: like on stream right i think i think that's i think that's um we're missing
• 39:11
  Lenore: a few steps you could have had a.
• 39:14
  Evan: Clip of people watching his like.
• 39:16
  Lenore: His stream like.
• 39:17
  Evan: On their yes like not on the freebie because i assume you can't watch you got.
• 39:20
  Lenore: To watch it.
• 39:20
  Evan: Some other other way underground.
• 39:22
  Lenore: However the.
• 39:24
  Jacob: Other things are being.
• 39:24
  Aysha: Distributed yeah i think it seems like they were trying to go
• 39:27
  Aysha: for like a lo-fi people distribute because like because bradley's like things
• 39:33
  Aysha: were on tape right yeah so it seems like they they were trying to not do that
• 39:39
  Aysha: but then sometimes like because nobody had self like but then people had cell
• 39:42
  Aysha: phones and stuff even though they didn't really have like live stream i don't know it was.
• 39:47
  Lenore: Well I mean.
• 39:48
  Bill: Honestly, you could posit that, like, in this world, you know,
• 39:52
  Bill: for all of its flaws of the Internet, you know, one of the things that it's
• 39:57
  Bill: provided, you know, like, you know, access to information.
• 40:01
  Bill: And you could posit that, like, you know, in this kind of dystopian world,
• 40:05
  Bill: this state at some point.
• 40:06
  Aysha: They don't have an Internet.
• 40:07
  Bill: Early on decided, oh, wait, no, we're not. No, no, no, we're not.
• 40:10
  Aysha: We're not doing the Internet.
• 40:11
  Jacob: Yeah.
• 40:12
  Bill: That ain't fucking happening.
• 40:14
  Aysha: No for affinity. No.
• 40:16
  Lenore: Like, we have. We have. We have. All this technology for the state,
• 40:19
  Lenore: we have very much an analog society for anybody outside of this apparatus.
• 40:24
  Aysha: That's kind of like how the Hunger Games does it.
• 40:26
  Lenore: My favorite background detail, it's the focus of a joke in one scene.
• 40:35
  Lenore: When he's doing the train ticket, when he's getting the train ticket in his
• 40:40
  Lenore: disguise, there's instead of actual people manning the ticket booth, it's three AIs.
• 40:49
  Lenore: According to your taste, you can talk to the blonde, you can talk to the brunette,
• 40:52
  Lenore: you can talk to the redhead. So simultaneously, you've eliminated these jobs,
• 40:56
  Lenore: and also you're catering to this common denominator of just personal tastes and attractiveness.
• 41:04
  Jacob: All three of them are white, though. Kind of interesting.
• 41:06
  Lenore: Aha!
• 41:06
  Aysha: Yeah, interesting. Really makes you think. We live in a society.
• 41:10
  Aysha: Right, so I guess the next thing that happens is the scene with the girl,
• 41:15
  Aysha: the hostage, and it's so much better.
• 41:17
  Aysha: like he like she is an
• 41:21
  Aysha: appealing character even though she screams at him and she's
• 41:24
  Aysha: kind of a bitch because you know a strange man has taken her
• 41:27
  Aysha: uh you know has uh come into her car with a gun and i do like that like she
• 41:35
  Aysha: maybe less realistically but more interestingly for a movie she like gets on
• 41:42
  Aysha: his side fairly quick um they.
• 41:45
  Evan: Show like the she sees the deep like they call them deep.
• 41:47
  Aysha: Fakes in the movie.
• 41:48
  Evan: The deep fakes, yeah. Which also, she realizes that the network isn't kind of on their side, right?
• 41:54
  Aysha: Right.
• 41:55
  Evan: It's probably horror. She kind of flips pretty quickly, but let's say she does.
• 42:00
  Evan: Yeah, I mean, it's a movie. Yeah, yeah.
• 42:01
  Lenore: Do you know what it is?
• 42:03
  Lenore: It's a matter of convenience for her, right? Because she's trying to evade the
• 42:06
  Lenore: police or the hunters specifically, right?
• 42:09
  Lenore: And what's going on? The car is an electronic vehicle that is programmed to
• 42:14
  Lenore: comply with all law enforcement commands, right?
• 42:18
  Lenore: It overrides the manual control and pulls over because it is told to,
• 42:23
  Lenore: which is something that I can absolutely see happening in a world where,
• 42:27
  Lenore: like, apparently Elon Musk can remotely shut down your car.
• 42:30
  Aysha: Right.
• 42:30
  Jacob: Yeah. Unfortunately, if Elon clicks that, it might blow up, too. So there is that risk.
• 42:35
  Jacob: I think there's an effective scene here, too, which they try to do in the book
• 42:38
  Jacob: that has done better here.
• 42:40
  Jacob: Probably works better here because he's not thinking about sexually assaulting
• 42:43
  Jacob: her in the movie the way that they really lean into in the book.
• 42:48
  Jacob: In the movie, he's like, hey, yeah, oh, you're such a good person, whatever.
• 42:52
  Jacob: You're wearing my child's life around your neck. That scarf is worth enough
• 42:56
  Jacob: that my child dying of the flu, if you sold that thing, we could save.
• 43:01
  Jacob: And it is a type of like, you understand why he's doing it. You understand why he's so desperate.
• 43:05
  Jacob: You understand her position of like, this is not a bad woman in the sense of
• 43:09
  Jacob: she is spending her life doing bad things. She seems to be a fairly decent woman.
• 43:13
  Jacob: At the same time, she is of class position that to this guy,
• 43:18
  Jacob: her very existence is violent. So you see that class antagonism in a way that
• 43:23
  Jacob: it just doesn't quite work in the book.
• 43:25
  Jacob: There is a humanity for her. And there is also an understanding of the darkness
• 43:29
  Jacob: of her class position despite that humanity.
• 43:32
  Bill: Because the book is written, again, from a liberal perspective.
• 43:35
  Bill: And so it is everything is individualized. It is placed upon the individual.
• 43:39
  Bill: And it is blamed upon the individual. And the individual must take credit for it.
• 43:44
  Bill: They must admit they're the bad guy instead of confronting the systems.
• 43:49
  Lenore: May I share a snippet from the book, which is like the only bit where Stephen
• 43:54
  Lenore: King acknowledges like class politics at all other than the Bradley stuff?
• 43:58
  Aysha: Yeah, go for it.
• 44:00
  Lenore: Uh, here on the right, folks, we have the summer people, Richards thought.
• 44:03
  Lenore: Fat and sloppy, but heavy with armor. On the left, weighing in and only 130,
• 44:08
  Lenore: but a scrappy contender with a mean and rolling eyeball, we have the hungry honkies.
• 44:13
  Lenore: Theirs are the politics of starvation. They'd roll Christ himself for a pound of saline.
• 44:18
  Lenore: Polarization comes to West Sticksville. Watch out for these two contenders,
• 44:21
  Lenore: though. They don't stay in the ring. They have a tendency to fight in the $10 seats.
• 44:25
  Lenore: Can we find a goat to hang up for both of them?
• 44:27
  Aysha: God, this guy's so fucking annoying.
• 44:29
  Jacob: Just like everybody sucks.
• 44:32
  Lenore: Boy, wouldn't it be nice if they could get along?
• 44:34
  Aysha: Shut up, Grandpa. Go to bed.
• 44:36
  Evan: The seat of the car actually has a material understanding of where Bachman actually comes from.
• 44:45
  Evan: And they bring it around multiple times.
• 44:47
  Evan: I mean, just because she's watching these shows, she doesn't realize the exploitation
• 44:51
  Evan: that's happening. Even to her, which I think is the biggest thing.
• 44:55
  Aysha: She is also being exploited. People think it's fake. They think it's not.
• 44:59
  Aysha: These people aren't really dying.
• 45:01
  Jacob: And it is to an extent fake because what he realizes in the show is that the
• 45:08
  Jacob: show is allowed to go on the more entertaining he is.
• 45:10
  Aysha: Right.
• 45:11
  Jacob: That they don't let him get stopped by the first people who roll up on him with
• 45:15
  Jacob: guns because they want it to keep going.
• 45:16
  Jacob: So he starts to feed into the spectacle. He starts to understand the rules of
• 45:21
  Jacob: the game. And that is also interesting in a way that we don't have our character.
• 45:26
  Jacob: Yes, he does some pretty interesting operator things that a normal like working
• 45:31
  Jacob: class guy wouldn't be able to do.
• 45:32
  Jacob: That said, he does not get by purely on his skill.
• 45:36
  Jacob: He also gets by on this game needs spectacle. And he understands that and outsmarts
• 45:42
  Jacob: them because he understands their need for spectacle.
• 45:45
  Aysha: Also, he, like, gets a lot of help from other people, which I think is cool.
• 45:50
  Aysha: Like, and I don't know.
• 45:54
  Aysha: Like, it was, it's just, like, a very, I was going to say this earlier,
• 45:59
  Aysha: that, like, Michael Cera is basically a left, like, a joke about,
• 46:04
  Aysha: like, this is a leftist joke.
• 46:06
  Aysha: Like, this is, but it's funny.
• 46:08
  Bill: Like usually jokes about.
• 46:11
  Aysha: Leftists are not funny because like i have i'm on record saying the only thing
• 46:16
  Aysha: that has ever made a funny communist joke is disco elysium because communists
• 46:21
  Aysha: wrote it so that's why it's funny.
• 46:24
  Bill: I think that like the what
• 46:27
  Bill: the reason michael cera stuff works is
• 46:30
  Bill: because yes it is a joke but it is it it
• 46:33
  Bill: is coming it seems as if
• 46:36
  Bill: it is coming from a place of um rueful amusement
• 46:40
  Bill: but like acknowledgement of the
• 46:44
  Bill: validity and the realist the
• 46:47
  Bill: realism of this individual and their their desires and
• 46:50
  Bill: their beliefs like this it is not told disrespectfully if it was told if it
• 46:55
  Bill: was a disrespectful joke then michael cera would have like honestly would have
• 47:00
  Bill: walked out and been killed by the cops immediately that would have been that
• 47:04
  Bill: would have been the joke not just like oh this is a leftist,
• 47:08
  Bill: This is a funny leftist moment, but leftists are a joke.
• 47:13
  Bill: That's what that would have been. But instead, we see a person that has prepared
• 47:16
  Bill: for things and thought about things and does it humorously.
• 47:19
  Jacob: And then he does the plane thing. He does the plane thing. And like he rolls
• 47:24
  Jacob: up and he was like, I've got a bomb and it's bullshit.
• 47:27
  Jacob: But one, the network is like, OK, this is interesting.
• 47:30
  Jacob: And this is where he forces McCone to take off his mask and reveal that he is the beautiful Lee Pace.
• 47:37
  Aysha: Lee Pace. Yeah.
• 47:38
  Bill: Not a pot-bellied dork like in the book.
• 47:42
  Aysha: Yeah. I loved Lee Pace in this role. It was probably like two days of filming.
• 47:48
  Aysha: He just rolled in and out. But he was so great. He looked like Big Boss. It was awesome.
• 47:54
  Bill: I pay no attention to like... I often miss other people in roles in movies.
• 48:01
  Bill: And my wife and I watched this together. And I did not know Lee Pace was in it.
• 48:05
  Bill: I had no idea. so like he takes the mess and was like oh my god it's Luke Pace,
• 48:11
  Bill: like a fucking idiot and my wife's like yeah you didn't know he was in this I'm like.
• 48:14
  Aysha: No I had no idea I didn't.
• 48:17
  Evan: Know he was in it either so.
• 48:18
  Aysha: I'm like it's like it's like that it's that man the elf man I love it it's very funny.
• 48:25
  Lenore: That a guy named Pace is in a film called The Running Man.
• 48:29
  Aysha: I love the fact that he was a former runner who took the deal I think that adds so much to it like.
• 48:37
  Jacob: Because earlier in the movie they were like someone in season one got 29 days
• 48:40
  Jacob: and then he was like you think you're hot shit for making it 22 days try 29 then you're like oh shit.
• 48:47
  Aysha: You know like he's pulling glass out of his eye yeah so hard that shit rocks yes.
• 48:53
  Lenore: Yeah no he he speaks in that i mean there there's there's a there's bits and
• 49:00
  Lenore: pieces where it's very like action movie one-liner like building up to something
• 49:05
  Lenore: like witty or hard. But like the way that Lee Pace,
• 49:08
  Lenore: speaks right his pace you get yeah yes exactly well you you get the sense that
• 49:14
  Lenore: he's developed this cadence this lee cadence for the camera right he's it's
• 49:18
  Lenore: as much a performance as it is a um as it is like athletic like like um you
• 49:23
  Lenore: know paramilitary kind of thing i.
• 49:25
  Evan: Mean that seems to be like what the he might be a hard guy and be like a good shooter and like.
• 49:30
  Lenore: You know be.
• 49:31
  Evan: Able to do military things but most of his power is purely because he is the
• 49:35
  Evan: network backing him to do all these things, right?
• 49:38
  Evan: So if they bring in, you know, Ben to become like the new hunter,
• 49:43
  Evan: he would, like he's smart and clever, but he has the network.
• 49:46
  Evan: I mean, he has to do, Pace has to do exactly what they tell him.
• 49:49
  Evan: Like he is, he cannot go against
• 49:51
  Evan: the network which also and.
• 49:53
  Jacob: We see this right here yeah we see this because killian is immediately like
• 49:57
  Jacob: okay put down your gun actually i'm gonna talk to i'm gonna talk to richards
• 50:00
  Jacob: and then he's like hey richards uh wouldn't it be sick if uh actually you killed
• 50:05
  Jacob: all of these hunters on this plane because.
• 50:07
  Aysha: He's like oh because they killed your family.
• 50:09
  Jacob: And he shows him a video of the hunters killing his
• 50:12
  Jacob: family not some random person killing his family and
• 50:15
  Jacob: then we write it off and never think about it again but a very like
• 50:18
  Jacob: as retaliation for you killing that guy
• 50:21
  Jacob: earlier these people came to your family's yeah
• 50:24
  Jacob: came to your family's uh place where
• 50:27
  Jacob: you they we swore safe passage and
• 50:30
  Jacob: killed them and of course we know they can do deep fakes but
• 50:33
  Jacob: he still is you know outraged and at this point we don't know if this is real
• 50:37
  Jacob: or fake um and his killian the network's whole perspective is we can have this
• 50:43
  Jacob: whole new show ben richards the sixth hunter and it'll be badass and cool and
• 50:47
  Jacob: this will be a great season finale for uh you know a show that we need to get
• 50:52
  Jacob: people more invested in and.
• 50:53
  Lenore: How deftly you can manipulate the the audience sentiment right because again
• 50:57
  Lenore: like recall the hunters are the shit they're built up as like the the the the
• 51:03
  Lenore: greatest super soldiers and then you know you have coleman domingo turning around
• 51:07
  Lenore: and saying oh my god they broke the one rule that you never break as a hunter it's unforgivable.
• 51:12
  Jacob: And they try to co-opt the slogan richards lives
• 51:15
  Jacob: which is a thing people have been saying it's been this like low you know it's
• 51:19
  Jacob: been bubbling up from the ground it's the thing michael sarah's character was
• 51:22
  Jacob: distributing in zines and they try to say oh richards lives fighting against
• 51:26
  Jacob: the hunters don't we love that like they try to take that like you know just
• 51:29
  Jacob: natural outburst of resentment against the system and turn it into something they own.
• 51:35
  Jacob: And Richards refuses that.
• 51:37
  Lenore: Yeah.
• 51:38
  Jacob: Yeah. He refuses that offer.
• 51:39
  Aysha: Yeah. And then revolutionaries.
• 51:41
  Aysha: So I don't know how I feel about like it works in the movie like he doesn't do 9-11 in the movie.
• 51:50
  Aysha: The the network drives the plane into the building themselves or it gets shot down or something.
• 51:58
  Jacob: Yeah, it gets shot down, but they make everyone think he tried to.
• 52:01
  Aysha: So because he's not a nihilist like he is in the book, he doesn't kill himself.
• 52:07
  Aysha: he escapes um the one
• 52:10
  Aysha: thing that i didn't like in the movie is the final line we get from him where
• 52:17
  Aysha: amelia says i'm sorry that they did this to you and he says i did this to myself
• 52:23
  Aysha: yeah and i was like that's weird because he.
• 52:27
  Jacob: Clearly not very much.
• 52:28
  Aysha: Did it where why it.
• 52:31
  Evan: Feels like a network it feels like a studio note they're like you need to just
• 52:34
  Evan: like slide this in there i don't know yeah.
• 52:36
  Aysha: I was like what do you mean.
• 52:37
  Jacob: Like the whole point was that he had no
• 52:40
  Jacob: other option and his child was dying right right like yeah
• 52:43
  Jacob: i think for me it is a
• 52:46
  Jacob: it's a little too cute by half the ending i like where
• 52:49
  Jacob: it shows the explosion and then we cut back to
• 52:52
  Jacob: bradley doing his youtube he's like but did he really die or
• 52:55
  Jacob: can can jet fuel melt steel beams you
• 52:58
  Jacob: know like he's showing that i think it's a lit i
• 53:01
  Jacob: can it's a movie right i think it's a little much that like richards
• 53:05
  Jacob: is both alive and personally executes killian and says that line i think it's
• 53:10
  Jacob: a little i do like the concept that he is the the person who ignites all this
• 53:15
  Jacob: shit that we know the ground is being laid we know there are revolutionaries
• 53:19
  Jacob: doing revolutionary propaganda using this as an ignition switch right he becomes the.
• 53:24
  Aysha: White yeah him becoming like the girl on fire there at the end was a little like okay whatever.
• 53:30
  Jacob: I think a little much but it's it's interesting, though. It's fun.
• 53:34
  Bill: My response to that is, is they were being faithful to the book and having the
• 53:38
  Bill: ending be not that great.
• 53:41
  Aysha: I think it should have ended with bradley's like did he die or didn't he look
• 53:47
  Aysha: at this like i think that would have been cool not showing his family and.
• 53:50
  Evan: Everything like kind of giving you the that was too much.
• 53:52
  Bill: I think this really i mean i agree 100 and i did not like i really did enjoy
• 53:59
  Bill: this movie i 100 i enjoyed this
• 54:02
  Bill: movie a great deal i it was a lot of fun but i did not love the ending,
• 54:09
  Bill: and I lost my train of thought.
• 54:13
  Evan: Well, I think what they could have done, which would have been better,
• 54:16
  Evan: was, like you said, they show Bradley showing his YouTube post or his post.
• 54:20
  Evan: And then the very last scene is like, they have this riot that occurs.
• 54:25
  Evan: Like they could have slowly done sort of like a, not found footage,
• 54:29
  Evan: but sort of like news, the news is now showing this uprising and like seeing
• 54:35
  Evan: little pockets of parts of different cities,
• 54:38
  Evan: starting to, you know, rebel, including people like Amelia.
• 54:43
  Evan: Like, they're also joining it. And then they could have just cut,
• 54:46
  Evan: that could have been the end. They don't need to have him shooting him.
• 54:48
  Evan: They don't need to show the family. That would have just been the better ending for me.
• 54:51
  Jacob: I do like Coleman Domingo walking off the show. That was kind of fun.
• 54:55
  Jacob: Oh, yeah. He's like, fuck this. He's like, I'm fucking, I'm fucking out of here.
• 54:58
  Bill: I remember.
• 54:58
  Lenore: Because, like, if there's one thing that, you know, that class has,
• 55:02
  Lenore: it's opportunists who know which way the wind is blowing.
• 55:04
  Aysha: He's like, I'm going to go kiss Richards on the map.
• 55:06
  Lenore: That's my new.
• 55:07
  Bill: Thing I remember my train of thought um the way that it pivots to Richardson
• 55:12
  Bill: being you know like that and doing the part you know like actually take Killian
• 55:17
  Bill: out and all that you know sea space and everything it's
• 55:19
  Bill: This is very much a, you know, the way in which me like movies, um,
• 55:25
  Bill: and media in general has like gone so far, like now where you cannot make movies with,
• 55:32
  Bill: you know, or you can't make mainstream, like big movies that you expect the
• 55:37
  Bill: audience to really go and turn out for with ambiguous ends.
• 55:42
  Bill: People can't handle ambiguity.
• 55:44
  Bill: Like they just can't handle it. and
• 55:48
  Bill: it's like you i wouldn't imagine them as
• 55:50
  Bill: also and then beyond that if we look at more from the
• 55:53
  Bill: like marxist perspective it's the idea of like you know the western
• 55:56
  Bill: world like great man theory baby like you
• 55:59
  Bill: know it's all great man theory you get no no
• 56:02
  Bill: matter how far you get in a you know like a
• 56:05
  Bill: major production like this in terms of like actual like cogent like thought
• 56:11
  Bill: you know like that would that would reflect in some way marxist like thought
• 56:14
  Bill: or leftist you know thought it's like it's the gravity well of great man theory
• 56:20
  Bill: like they gotta like you know they gotta come back to that.
• 56:23
  Aysha: Also i think that this this is a um a thing that i uh,
• 56:29
  Aysha: criticism that I have of a lot of stories that I think there's a lot of book
• 56:33
  Aysha: series, especially, and I'm thinking of like Ancillary Justice.
• 56:37
  Aysha: I don't know if you've ever read that book, but like stories that are told within a fucked up society.
• 56:46
  Aysha: And then it's like, for some reason, they always feel like they have to solve it.
• 56:51
  Aysha: And I'm like, it's okay to just show somebody struggling
• 56:54
  Aysha: within a framework it doesn't always have
• 56:57
  Aysha: to lead to them burning down
• 57:00
  Aysha: the system and that's kind of what i liked about
• 57:03
  Aysha: the does 9-11 ending in the book i
• 57:07
  Aysha: just like the idea that like sometimes there isn't like one person is not going
• 57:13
  Aysha: to topple the system so he does the only thing that he feasibly can do which
• 57:19
  Aysha: is like take as many with him as he can And it's very nihilist and it's, I think,
• 57:24
  Aysha: an okay ending to not a good book.
• 57:28
  Aysha: But like, yeah, I think there is this weird pressure that like if you introduce
• 57:34
  Aysha: a fucked up society, you have to fix it by the end of your book, which I don't like.
• 57:41
  Aysha: I wish people didn't feel compelled to do that.
• 57:44
  Jacob: Yeah, I think my ideal ending to this movie would be, as I just said,
• 57:47
  Jacob: you have Bradley being like, you could even have, did he live,
• 57:51
  Jacob: like, with his fun thing? And you have riots.
• 57:53
  Jacob: And maybe even you have, like, Coleman Domingo walk.
• 57:56
  Aysha: You could even have Richard standing there, like, in his fucking hoodie,
• 58:01
  Aysha: watching the riot or something.
• 58:02
  Jacob: Yeah, you could have Coleman Domingo walk off the show or whatever,
• 58:07
  Jacob: him not be able to control it.
• 58:08
  Jacob: But, like, yeah, it's just a little too cute by half, and it falls into the great man theory thing.
• 58:13
  Jacob: that said quite a fun movie and it takes
• 58:16
  Jacob: fun movie it takes the takes the book and it fixes the parts that i had serious
• 58:20
  Jacob: troubles with and it takes the things in the book that are genuinely like kind
• 58:24
  Jacob: of interesting and fun in it and it runs with them it runs with them fast and
• 58:27
  Jacob: it runs with them well you know good cast good directions fun needle drops yeah
• 58:33
  Jacob: hot people for sure highly recommend do.
• 58:35
  Evan: You want to know what stephen king thinks of the movie Yes.
• 58:38
  Jacob: What did he say?
• 58:39
  Aysha: Does he hate it?
• 58:40
  Evan: No, he said he liked it and called it a bipartisan thrill ride.
• 58:45
  Jacob: What?
• 58:46
  Lenore: What does that mean?
• 58:47
  Aysha: What?
• 58:48
  Bill: I hate that man so much.
• 58:51
  Aysha: Girl, what do you talk? Grandpa, go to bed. Every time I see him,
• 58:56
  Aysha: I'm like, Grandpa, let's get you to bed.
• 58:58
  Evan: He wrote that in X, by the way. He said, I've seen it. He said it's the diehard of our time.
• 59:04
  Lenore: Yeah, he also wrote an X that the Epstein files were fake.
• 59:06
  Bill: Like, you know, I hate him so much.
• 59:10
  Aysha: If it was the diehard of our time, he would not be wearing any shoes. I call bullshit.
• 59:15
  Jacob: I don't even have a response.
• 59:16
  Aysha: I guess he isn't wearing- And it'll be a Christmas movie. Yeah.
• 59:18
  Jacob: A bipartisan film.
• 59:20
  Bill: My God, he's so dumb.
• 59:24
  Aysha: I think, like, is he literally saying to, like, all of the chuds who love him,
• 59:28
  Aysha: you can like this movie, too, even if it's about-
• 59:33
  Aysha: defeating the fascist American government, which we know you love.
• 59:37
  Jacob: And they'll just say, oh, that's communism. That's what they'll do.
• 59:39
  Jacob: That's the thing, is a right-winger will watch this movie.
• 59:41
  Lenore: Well, there is, it's funny, like, sorry, go ahead.
• 59:44
  Evan: No, you go.
• 59:45
  Lenore: Well, it's interesting, right? Because, like, you can, I think the dystopia
• 59:49
  Lenore: of the book is more that way, right?
• 59:52
  Lenore: Like, it's very much like a North America, like, you know,
• 59:56
  Lenore: I don't know if it's post-America or whatnot, but, like, it's set in, like,
• 59:59
  Lenore: North America dystopia, but like it's dystopia i
• 1:00:02
  Lenore: would argue is very like like anti-communist tropes
• 1:00:05
  Lenore: coded right well they call it co-op city something co-op
• 1:00:08
  Lenore: city yeah there's stuff about like oh the block midwife right
• 1:00:11
  Lenore: who's shitty like there's this reference uh blink
• 1:00:15
  Lenore: me'll miss it to like this shitty underfunded like state health care system
• 1:00:19
  Lenore: uh for which there is a thriving black market that people can go around it and
• 1:00:24
  Lenore: it's interesting to me that like the movie the movie very much doubles down
• 1:00:28
  Lenore: on the capitalist dystopia of it, right?
• 1:00:32
  Lenore: Which I feel like is more of a symptom of the book being written at a time when
• 1:00:38
  Lenore: America was already gearing up for his victory lap in the Cold War.
• 1:00:42
  Aysha: The movie...
• 1:00:44
  Aysha: Like, actually, there was, like, some of the, like, pageantry and,
• 1:00:50
  Aysha: like, bread and circuses of the movie really made me think of,
• 1:00:55
  Aysha: like, the Turning Point USA fireworks and, like,
• 1:00:59
  Aysha: it just, like, really made me think of that.
• 1:01:02
  Lenore: We are Ben Richards!
• 1:01:07
  Evan: I think the way that Stephen King views the world is the way that so many liberals
• 1:01:11
  Evan: do, where it's just simply the binary of like Team Blue, Team Red.
• 1:01:15
  Evan: So he watches anything, any media, even one that's based on his own writing,
• 1:01:19
  Evan: which is he probably perceives it in that same way.
• 1:01:22
  Evan: And so bipartisan thrill riots like, oh, yeah, it's like the blue MAGA,
• 1:01:26
  Evan: you know, network versus like, you know, I guess, whatever. It doesn't matter. The same team.
• 1:01:33
  Aysha: Is wait is steven king a liberal yes.
• 1:01:35
  Evan: Oh yeah yeah shit lib yeah.
• 1:01:37
  Aysha: Big time oh holy shit i i i for sure thought he was a right because they're.
• 1:01:43
  Jacob: The same thing he's a.
• 1:01:43
  Lenore: He's.
• 1:01:45
  Jacob: A liberal yeah well really not not like a yeah he's a un unwell i would have i would have.
• 1:01:51
  Aysha: Pegged him as a donald.
• 1:01:52
  Jacob: Trump he doesn't like trump he says yeah he's very he's very much mark hamill
• 1:01:56
  Jacob: mark hamill's a little nicer than him but yeah mark hamill at least doesn't.
• 1:02:00
  Bill: I find the fact that mark hamill plays that role in the long walk like so fitting
• 1:02:05
  Bill: because i'm like that's it's just steven.
• 1:02:07
  Jacob: It's it's.
• 1:02:08
  Lenore: Steven king.
• 1:02:09
  Bill: The politics he's fallen into yeah yeah i'm like it's.
• 1:02:12
  Lenore: Well it's it.
• 1:02:13
  Aysha: Mark hamill's a zioness.
• 1:02:14
  Lenore: Yeah there's also but yeah no that that is mr is such a it is such a it is such
• 1:02:22
  Lenore: a fascinating piece of casting you're absolutely right to have somebody who
• 1:02:25
  Lenore: is like this wide-eyed twink in star wars it became like an icon now he's don't.
• 1:02:31
  Aysha: Worry mr skywalker i saw.
• 1:02:32
  Lenore: You and now he's this like this like schlubby asshole who's totally been who's
• 1:02:37
  Lenore: totally a creature of of whatever is running america in the long walk right
• 1:02:42
  Lenore: it's just the total decline of everything that people used to think was cool
• 1:02:47
  Lenore: about this country right.
• 1:02:49
  Jacob: Thing that is cool was this movie. I think it's pretty good.
• 1:02:52
  Jacob: And I think it's pretty solid.
• 1:02:54
  Jacob: And I appreciate getting the chance to talk about it. And I probably wouldn't
• 1:02:57
  Jacob: have ended up watching this film adaptation at all. I just assumed it was bad.
• 1:03:01
  Jacob: And so I appreciate y'all giving the ask on that.
• 1:03:04
  Lenore: Yeah. Very, very pleasantly surprised.
• 1:03:06
  Evan: Yeah. Do you want to remind everyone? I know you talked a little bit about your
• 1:03:09
  Evan: podcast, but maybe things you have upcoming that you might want to share that's... Or...
• 1:03:15
  Evan: Maybe you want to keep it spoiler free.
• 1:03:18
  Jacob: No, Hunger Games is actually coming up, interestingly enough.
• 1:03:21
  Aysha: Yeah, we're doing the Hunger Games next week.
• 1:03:22
  Jacob: The Hunger Games is coming up. So that's going to be kind of a thing that rhymes
• 1:03:27
  Jacob: with this nicely. If you like dystopia, we've covered several of them.
• 1:03:30
  Jacob: We've talked about Battle Royale.
• 1:03:32
  Jacob: We've talked about Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents.
• 1:03:35
  Jacob: We talk about a lot of shit that we hate, too. We talk about a lot of shit that we like.
• 1:03:40
  Jacob: We've done the whole range of things. Honestly, if there's a type of book you
• 1:03:43
  Jacob: like or a type of book you hate, just go back into our back catalog you're gonna
• 1:03:46
  Jacob: find you're gonna find something.
• 1:03:48
  Aysha: We recently did the first gay gothic romance novel from the 80s which i suffered through.
• 1:03:54
  Evan: The the uh the kamala harris book episode i found that fascinating because i was never gonna read it.
• 1:04:00
  Aysha: That was right that was right before i came on the.
• 1:04:03
  Bill: Show this is why this is why at one point this is why i will not do book stuff
• 1:04:09
  Bill: like that i will sit through it i will sit through a two-hour movie that i fucking
• 1:04:13
  Bill: hate, I'm not reading the book for multiple days that I hate. That ain't happening.
• 1:04:18
  Jacob: You say that and yet the proof there is a contrary proof to that.
• 1:04:23
  Aysha: There is a whole other episode of this.
• 1:04:26
  Bill: I legit regretted it. I was like, fuck, I asked for this to happen.
• 1:04:33
  Bill: I'm the one that said to Evan, Evan, you should do this.
• 1:04:36
  Aysha: The maddest we ever have gotten, the maddest we've ever gotten was when somebody
• 1:04:41
  Aysha: He asked us to read LA Confidential.
• 1:04:42
  Aysha: And when he got on, we were like, we're going to kick your ass.
• 1:04:46
  Aysha: That shit is like 600 nations.
• 1:04:47
  Bill: That's like when we just went on, the first question we had was,
• 1:04:50
  Bill: why did you make us watch this? Why?
• 1:04:52
  Jacob: Why?
• 1:04:53
  Aysha: Yeah.
• 1:04:53
  Jacob: Well, Lenore and I have been on twice, and we've enjoyed both movies that we've
• 1:04:57
  Jacob: come on for. So, you know.
• 1:04:59
  Evan: We'll pick a bad movie. You have to want to.
• 1:05:02
  Lenore: No, no. For real. For real. I do love venting about bad shit.
• 1:05:05
  Lenore: I mean, we just did it over on the other podcast.
• 1:05:08
  Evan: Since you did do that. Oh, sorry. Since you did the Sam Raimi one.
• 1:05:11
  Evan: And have you either of you seen or have you seen the new his new movie Send Help?
• 1:05:14
  Jacob: No, I haven't.
• 1:05:15
  Evan: It's very good.
• 1:05:17
  Jacob: Is it okay?
• 1:05:18
  Aysha: Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard it's good. I was going to say I also have
• 1:05:21
  Aysha: another podcast called All My Maidens, which is an Elden Ring lore podcast where
• 1:05:25
  Aysha: people come on and explain Elden Ring to me.
• 1:05:28
  Bill: Wait, you don't know the lore?
• 1:05:29
  Aysha: So the premise is I played 200 hours of Elden Ring and I had no idea what it was about.
• 1:05:36
  Bill: That's funny.
• 1:05:36
  Aysha: After 200 hours. So people come on and explain to me what Elden Ring is about.
• 1:05:41
  Jacob: It's a lot of fun.
• 1:05:42
  Bill: One of our previous guests, my good close friend, Aaron, is a huge fan of that
• 1:05:48
  Bill: and tries to tell me about the board. I'm like, I don't play video games,
• 1:05:52
  Bill: really. I don't know what you're talking about.
• 1:05:53
  Aysha: The answer, apparently, as I have discovered, is it's mostly a game about gay drama.
• 1:05:59
  Jacob: Gay ancestral drama.
• 1:06:01
  Bill: Okay.
• 1:06:02
  Aysha: And yeah, marrying your brother. That's what that game is about. Anyway, on that note.
• 1:06:09
  Evan: Awesome. Well, Jacob, Lenore, Aisha, thank you all for coming on.
• 1:06:12
  Evan: And you can find your podcast wherever fine podcasts are sold, I presume.
• 1:06:17
  Evan: And check those out.
• 1:06:19
  Evan: Check out Left of the Projector. And we'll catch you all next time.
• 1:06:22
  Bill: Have a good night, everybody.
• 1:06:23
  Lenore: Thank you for having us.
• 1:06:23
  Jacob: Peace, y'all.