Latest / Left of the Projector / Okja (2017) with Andorks Podcast
Transcript
- 0:00Rusteen: Do you do all the editing, Evan?
- 0:01evan: I do.
- 0:03Rusteen: God bless you.
- 0:04ward: Thank God for Evan.
- 0:08evan: We only do, like we record video, but we don't really post much video or if
- 0:13evan: ever anymore. I mean, maybe at some point in the future we might,
- 0:16evan: but it's easier just to edit audio versus doing the video too. So that's easier.
- 0:22Rusteen: Alex has decided to make it harder for himself by basically making little mini
- 0:26Rusteen: documentaries with each one of our clips.
- 0:30Rusteen: instead of just recording video of us talking.
- 0:33alex: Nobody wants to see our faces.
- 0:35Rusteen: I agree.
- 0:37evan: Yeah, I do. I actually like the idea of having, like, there's that,
- 0:40evan: you know, your voice, you know,
- 0:41evan: the people talking over montage and other things. Those are, I like that.
- 0:45alex: They take a little while sometimes when you want to be a little,
- 0:47alex: when you're playing Michael Moore clips from 2004 RNC, something's gone too far.
- 0:51ward: Which I was doing the other day. So.
- 1:07evan: Hello, and welcome to Left of the Projector. I'm your host, Evan,
- 1:10evan: back again with another film discussion from the left. If you'd like to support
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- 1:27evan: you've got the best taste around.
- 1:28evan: Wherever you're listening, give us a rating and subscribe so you'll be notified
- 1:31evan: of our weekly episodes that drop every Tuesday. And now on to the show.
- 1:36evan: This week on Left of the Projector, we'll be tackling a Bong Joon-ho film,
- 1:39evan: specifically one that embarrassingly none of the hosts on the show saw until now. Wow.
- 1:44evan: So the one in question is Okja, released in 2017.
- 1:49evan: It has a lot of big names in here, including Tilla Swinton, Paul Dano,
- 1:54evan: Bayeon Hee Bong, Lily Collins, Yoon Jin Moon, Danielle Herschel,
- 1:58evan: Giancarlo Esposito, and Jake Gyllenhaal.
- 2:00evan: The film was not a box office success, but that's okay. We're here to discuss it anyway.
- 2:05evan: Our guests this week are the co-hosts of the podcast Andorks,
- 2:08evan: the podcast that breaks down Andor seven minutes at a time, Rustin and Alex.
- 2:13evan: Thank you both for being here today.
- 2:15alex: Thanks for having us.
- 2:16Rusteen: Thanks for having us.
- 2:17evan: Of course. And listeners of our show know that we're big Andor fans.
- 2:21evan: Obviously, you both are Andor fans. Do you want to tell everyone about where
- 2:24evan: they can just get more Andor content? Because we all want that.
- 2:28alex: It's called Wookieepedia.com.
- 2:33alex: Rusty, do you want to go ahead?
- 2:34Rusteen: Yeah. Our show Andorx is all about diving through every single minute of the show Andorx.
- 2:43Rusteen: Because like the way it came out, I feel like we all talked about all of the big moments in the show.
- 2:49Rusteen: You know, your Gorman massacres, your Dr. Gorse.
- 2:54Rusteen: But there's so many smaller moments all throughout the show that really speak
- 2:58Rusteen: to this political moment and what we're going through every single day.
- 3:05Rusteen: And so our show takes every week we talk about seven minutes of the show and or.
- 3:11Rusteen: And you would think that after 50 episodes, we'd be tired of it.
- 3:16Rusteen: And yet we're still finding new things to get to talk about.
- 3:19Rusteen: So if you enjoyed your guys' coverage of Andor, come over to Andor's. The water's fine.
- 3:26evan: That's awesome.
- 3:27alex: Yeah, I mean, to paraphrase Nemec on the show, like there are just things constantly
- 3:31alex: happening in the real news every week, which is just fun to sort of go through
- 3:34alex: what's happening in the news and recontextualize it through what Andor is talking about and how much it
- 3:38alex: matches what's happening in the current day or how much it doesn't match and
- 3:41alex: sort of view that as a lens through what's happening,
- 3:44alex: in the news, which is, you know,
- 3:45alex: it makes it separate it from just, you know, let's talk about the show for an hour and a half.
- 3:49Rusteen: And the way we've like scheduled it out, we're going to have our final coverage
- 3:54Rusteen: of Rogue One drop on inauguration day of 2028.
- 3:59alex: Of Trump's third term.
- 4:00Rusteen: Yes, it'll either be the last day of Trump's second term or the first day of
- 4:04Rusteen: Trump's third term. And so the podcast will hopefully work as a kind of time
- 4:09Rusteen: capsule of this horrible moment in American history.
- 4:13evan: Yes, that is awesome. And so how did you... So we send our guests a list of films of...
- 4:21evan: a wide variety of like genres of movies and you picked a couple,
- 4:25evan: but then we, one of them was Okja.
- 4:27evan: Why did you choose it? Do you have any, you know, is it something you had,
- 4:31evan: you both seen this before? And unlike the three of us, we had never seen it.
- 4:35alex: I had seen it before, but this, this was a Rusty and pick. I think we,
- 4:38alex: we compiled a list and this was the Rusty and pick on the list.
- 4:40Rusteen: Yeah. I am Okja's like number one defender.
- 4:45Rusteen: Uh, I, I love Bong Joon-ho's films and I saw this film when,
- 4:51Rusteen: it first premiered on netflix you know you because you said it wasn't a box
- 4:55Rusteen: office smash but that's because it never got a box office unfortunately yeah.
- 5:00evan: Except for in i guess in south korea it got a little bit.
- 5:03Rusteen: Yeah and so.
- 5:04bill: Yeah like a little bit in south.
- 5:05Rusteen: Korea yeah i i mean my first bong joon ho was the host and so i really loved
- 5:10Rusteen: that film and then i caught snow piercer and dragged all my friends to the theater to go see it and so,
- 5:19Rusteen: as the press for like oakja started rolling up.
- 5:22Rusteen: I was fully on board from day one.
- 5:24Rusteen: And it's a weird movie.
- 5:27Rusteen: It kind of rubs some people the wrong way.
- 5:30Rusteen: I think especially when it first came out, people were a little less familiar
- 5:34Rusteen: with Korean cinema and Bong Joon-ho's juggling of tones. And so they watched
- 5:41Rusteen: this movie where a little girl runs around with her pet pig.
- 5:45Rusteen: And then also Jake Gyllenhaal is there like a sniveling little worm
- 5:49Rusteen: and they couldn't process what was happening and
- 5:52Rusteen: kind of like that simpsons joke of like i bring you love let's break its legs
- 5:57Rusteen: like i feel like some people reacted like that to okja and it just made me love
- 6:01Rusteen: it even more and so i'm so glad to get to you know force the three of you to watch it.
- 6:07alex: Are you talking about the movie disclosure.
- 6:09Rusteen: Yes exactly well.
- 6:11evan: And it's funny because i i don't want to speak for board and bill but i was
- 6:14evan: a big fan i've seen all of the other Bong Joon-ho movies, except I didn't,
- 6:18evan: I just, I want to see his first direct Barking Dogs and everybody,
- 6:22evan: that's now the only one I haven't seen.
- 6:24evan: And I'm always a huge fan. I saw Snowpiercer also. That was my first,
- 6:29evan: you know, and then I feel like people didn't even know about that when it came
- 6:31evan: out. And then Parasite came out, wins the Oscar.
- 6:34evan: All of a sudden, people are like, oh, you know, this guy, this guy can make good films.
- 6:38evan: And yeah, I was pleasantly surprised. And I cried my eyes out when I watched this movie.
- 6:45Rusteen: It's a real tearjerker. I got to go to a screening of it at the Academy Museum here in L.A.
- 6:51Rusteen: with Director Bong there. And just hearing the entire audience breaking out
- 6:57Rusteen: into sobs at the end of the movie made me really sad that this never got a real theatrical release.
- 7:04evan: What did you guys think, Bill Ward, of this for your first, as first viewers of it?
- 7:09ward: So, I mean, like, I never had a reason not to watch it, which is,
- 7:13ward: like, I don't have a valid reason that I never watched it. Like,
- 7:17ward: I'm a big Bong Joon-ho fan, like, seen almost every movie, seen several of them several times each.
- 7:24ward: But yeah, just never watched this, and I loved it. And yeah,
- 7:27ward: no, I didn't expect the pig movie to make me cry.
- 7:32bill: Yeah the same pretty much like the same it's like ward it's like i love baiji
- 7:37bill: and ho films like i seen you know almost all of them and i've seen several of them multiple times,
- 7:42bill: um and i just like never i don't know why i honestly all right honestly i think
- 7:50bill: it's because when it was a netflix release and it's just like it just like shows,
- 7:55bill: this is a this is a conversation to be had about not even from a leftist perspective but about media,
- 8:04bill: um in general and how like and movies and how like when things are released
- 8:11bill: on streaming services as um,
- 8:13bill: movies releases they don't feel the same and it doesn't have the same impact uh,
- 8:21bill: you know listen i don't want to give nicole kidman too much credit for her amc,
- 8:26bill: theater opening bullshit but you know uh,
- 8:29bill: i mean i think she's right to a certain degree or at least whoever wrote that
- 8:32bill: fucking spiel for amc theaters is correct and how dare you it's just kind of like
- 8:38bill: you know it just kind of like showed up on netflix and it's like oh yeah i mean
- 8:41bill: like if this is in the movie like i you know i'm like yeah it's it's it's sponsored
- 8:45bill: oh like oh yeah you know but it's like oh you just kind of put it on netflix
- 8:48bill: okay you know it's just like,
- 8:51bill: um i will admit i did not cry and i'm starting to feel like i might be a monster,
- 8:57bill: i i also did not cry on my rewatch.
- 9:01alex: You're not alone.
- 9:03bill: And i'd cry i cry at movies and like i honestly i think it's because evan evan
- 9:10bill: led me to believe that okay And spoilers, okay, for everyone out there,
- 9:15bill: Evan led me to believe from what he said that Oksha dies.
- 9:19evan: I did not.
- 9:20bill: Yes, you did. You said, this movie destroyed me, okay? I believe that is the phrase you used.
- 9:26alex: I need to be first. The Oksha in real life died.
- 9:31alex: But the story that says based off of it did die in real life.
- 9:35bill: I'm just like, I was expecting Jeff, and it didn't happen. And then,
- 9:38bill: you know, so I didn't cry.
- 9:40evan: It's okay.
- 9:41Rusteen: But, you know, there's ways to make you cry beyond death, right?
- 9:45Rusteen: It's all about Miha and Okja's connection, you know, and the way that the rest
- 9:50Rusteen: of the world doesn't see it. They don't believe in it.
- 9:53bill: To be fair, I did cry after the movie, but it was completely unrelated to the movie.
- 9:59bill: It was personal life things. It just kind of happened.
- 10:03ward: Oh, I thought you'd cry because Paul Dano got out of prison at the end.
- 10:06alex: Look at the real Jerry Adams-ish as he walked out of that prison. Yes.
- 10:12alex: But Paul Dano, famously.
- 10:13bill: According to Quentin Tarantino, a terrible actor.
- 10:17ward: I will say Paul Dano in a spy role, like trying to do spy antics at times is really funny.
- 10:23ward: Like seeing him change like outfits. It's like, dude, you're still Paul Dano.
- 10:28Rusteen: But he also looks like a little soft vegan, you know, like he is cosplaying as a secret agent.
- 10:35bill: What were you going to say? Rusty, what were you going to say?
- 10:38Rusteen: Alex was talking to you.
- 10:39alex: I was to say if I think to your point of this, this being a Netflix movie is
- 10:42alex: I think like 10 years ago, this movie feels already encased in amber politics
- 10:47alex: wise of like, this is a very distinct moment that is not the moment we're in anymore.
- 10:51alex: And I think like in 2017, Netflix releasing a movie like this was a big deal.
- 10:55alex: As opposed to now, I think I did this even get like the Lemley run, Racine, I doubt it.
- 10:59Rusteen: No.
- 11:00alex: Yeah, like now.
- 11:01Rusteen: It got a new Beverly run where they got like the 35 millimeter print, but that was it.
- 11:06alex: Yeah, and I think now this movie would have gotten a little bit more beef,
- 11:08alex: a little bit more beefier presence, because they would go, okay,
- 11:12alex: we're going to do the little New York, LA two-week run where people can go see
- 11:15alex: the movie and talk about it.
- 11:16bill: Totally.
- 11:18alex: Netflix has evolved since that last decade.
- 11:20evan: Yeah, like with Frankenstein, where they released in a bunch of limited theater
- 11:24evan: run, and then it's giving it press.
- 11:27bill: Absolutely. I think this movie genuinely didn't get the acknowledgement it deserves,
- 11:33bill: like 100%. And it's possible that is somewhat rooted in the fact that it's a
- 11:37bill: South Korean director. It's very possible that race is...
- 11:42bill: A factor in that. Why just, you know, got put on Netflix instead of like getting,
- 11:48bill: like a real run anywhere or even like a like a prestige run.
- 11:51Rusteen: I think it's also a movie that if you don't know how to react to it,
- 11:57Rusteen: it can kind of catch you off guard.
- 11:59Rusteen: Right. Like it starts off and it's very serene.
- 12:03Rusteen: And then you go into Miranda world and everybody becomes cartoon characters.
- 12:10Rusteen: and if you are not prepared for that and you're watching that at home you're
- 12:15Rusteen: just like why does tilda swinton have braces.
- 12:18bill: Why is jake gyllenhaal.
- 12:20Rusteen: Doing all of that and.
- 12:24bill: We are not criticizing the audience at this regarding this though we are criticizing the studio
- 12:30bill: and anybody at netflix that was behind the decision of like this like that's
- 12:34bill: who we're criticizing and if you totally If you put Tilda Swinton in a movie,
- 12:38bill: like, come on, like you, to be honest, I said like three quarters of the way
- 12:42bill: through, I was like, how did they make Tilda Swinton?
- 12:44bill: She looked like, she looked and sounded like Parker Posey to me.
- 12:47bill: I was like, I have the exact same note.
- 12:49bill: Thank you. I'm glad I'm not the only one. Okay.
- 12:51alex: Yes.
- 12:52bill: I'm like, what was the decision to make her Parker Posey?
- 12:56alex: It's the braces scene from Best in Show. That's what she sounds like. Yes.
- 13:02bill: It's wild. And then Jake Gyllenhaal.
- 13:05evan: That is the, yeah.
- 13:05bill: That's it. And his affectation, which is next level wild.
- 13:10alex: I mean, it's wild if you watch any clip of Korean television and you go,
- 13:14alex: oh, this is actually subdued compared to Korean television.
- 13:16Rusteen: Exactly.
- 13:17bill: And there were no strange sound effects. As somebody, my wife and I watch a
- 13:22bill: fair amount of, like, Korean, like, South Korean, like, soaps and stuff like that.
- 13:28bill: And lots of, like, you know, silly sound effects that go along with them for
- 13:31bill: some reason. I'm like, why do you do that?
- 13:34Rusteen: Bong's English films got a bad rap where people would say he doesn't have as
- 13:40Rusteen: firm a hand on his English actors as he does the Korean ones.
- 13:44Rusteen: But when you watch Parasite, that guy in the basement is just as crazy as Jake
- 13:50Rusteen: Gyllenhaal is in this movie.
- 13:52Rusteen: When you finally watch Barking Dogs Never Bite, you'll see that from the beginning,
- 13:57Rusteen: he was having people going Looney Tunes mode.
- 14:00Rusteen: song king ho is drop kicking people throughout memories of murder which is like
- 14:04Rusteen: his most serious movie you know.
- 14:06bill: Like they're.
- 14:07Rusteen: All cartoon characters.
- 14:08bill: But gillenhall like it works though like it works as the kind of like the way
- 14:14bill: these people i mean gillenhall came off as like a,
- 14:18bill: sinister kratz brother like that's how he came off and it's like perfect like
- 14:22bill: that's that's american media like That's not,
- 14:27bill: out of left field for American media at all.
- 14:30evan: Yeah, and maybe just as context for anyone who hasn't seen this movie or has—we
- 14:35evan: already spoiled it, but hasn't seen it in a long time.
- 14:38evan: As we said, so Tillis Wynn plays the CEO or becomes the CEO of the Miranda Corporation,
- 14:44evan: where apparently her twin sister was the previous CEO and their father was this—they,
- 14:50evan: have very terrible things to say about him.
- 14:52evan: and they're breeding a special kind of super pig, but they definitely make it
- 14:56evan: off and their way that they release it to the press is it's very much like this...
- 15:00evan: this special pig that they found, and now they, you know, they bred it,
- 15:04evan: and now they have 26 specimens they're sending around the world.
- 15:07evan: And in 10 years, they'll see which one is the best, the super pig.
- 15:11evan: And that will sort of lead to the, you know, the rest of the movie takes place
- 15:15evan: the 10 years later, where a teenage girl in the South Korean mountains is now
- 15:19evan: basically her best friend is Okja, this giant super pig. And, you know.
- 15:26evan: Their relationship is very lovely, and maybe that part turned people off after
- 15:31evan: the opening scene. I don't know.
- 15:33evan: They just kind of weren't expecting
- 15:34evan: it. They're expecting it to kind of stay in this very weird area.
- 15:38evan: And the real kickoff of this is when Johnny Wilcox, who's played by Jake Gyllenhaal,
- 15:43evan: this crazy doctor, comes and essentially takes Okja away because it's going
- 15:48evan: to now be this announcement and this parade and this whole thing,
- 15:52evan: in new york city and,
- 15:54evan: really everything goes from there and i know the opening scene is pretty wacky
- 16:00evan: and i had some some notes about it and,
- 16:04evan: i don't know what you thought about and we kind of briefly talked about tillis when as the,
- 16:08evan: ceo but just like the way that she presents herself as being an environmentalist
- 16:14evan: and yet she is the ceo of this supposed evil corporation and it's just uh Like
- 16:20evan: you're immediately told,
- 16:23evan: you know, oh, this is like rainbow capitalism.
- 16:25evan: Like this is this company that actually like, you know, does it the good way or something like that.
- 16:29alex: It's a company that is. I want to quote the opening line, which is,
- 16:33alex: we know these walls are stained with the blood of fine working men.
- 16:37alex: But today I reclaim this place to tell you a beautiful story and our new core
- 16:40alex: values. Which I think is.
- 16:43bill: From a company that is definitely not.
- 16:46bill: Definitely not Monsanto at all. This is not Monsanto.
- 16:50alex: She's playing the cartoon version of her character from Michael Clayton.
- 16:53alex: It's the same character.
- 16:54evan: It's just in a different. It honestly is.
- 16:56alex: Yeah.
- 16:57Rusteen: Yeah. Like, it's all about marketing to her.
- 17:00Rusteen: Like, this movie really reminds me of, like, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in
- 17:06Rusteen: the, like, that turned everybody, like, into vegetarians.
- 17:10Rusteen: But it's actually about capitalism. And Okja kind of does the same thing where
- 17:14Rusteen: everyone just sees don't eat meat. And the actual message is these corporations
- 17:19Rusteen: are evil and will put a price on all our heads if we allow them to.
- 17:25bill: And the fact that these corporations, every time these kinds of things come
- 17:30bill: out like the jungle, like,
- 17:33bill: we in like liberal, like democracy and Western society, we release these things much like ALF in this.
- 17:41bill: We, you know, people release these things that have the good intentions and
- 17:44bill: like, this will change stuff. And it's like, all that happens is the corporations
- 17:48bill: take that and go, okay, we have to learn from this. What do we do? Okay. We shift.
- 17:53bill: Now we have to do this marketing better. That's all that happens.
- 17:56bill: If you don't change the system, all that happens is that.
- 17:59alex: Yeah, I was doing some research, and there's a quote that Upton Sinclair wrote
- 18:02alex: after the reception to his book, and it was, quote, I aimed at the public's
- 18:06alex: heart, and by accident, I hit them in the stomach.
- 18:09evan: Well, she also says in her little speech, she talks about how her pitch to the
- 18:14evan: people is, you know, there's 7 billion people, there's 800 million people who
- 18:19evan: don't have, you know, struggled hunger, including 30 million in America.
- 18:22evan: And then she's saying, oh, where the world is running out of food.
- 18:25evan: And what she's not saying is that none of this is actually, I mean,
- 18:28evan: there are this many people that are hungry and they go to bed hungry without,
- 18:32evan: you know, at least one meal per day.
- 18:35evan: But they're not running out of food. It's that corporations like this are commodified
- 18:38evan: into the point where people can't purchase the food. There's plenty of food.
- 18:42evan: There's no this like population myth is such a, you know, CEO marketing nonsense.
- 18:49Rusteen: Yeah. Like Mija lives in the mountains with her grandpa.
- 18:53Rusteen: She's eating fine. Right. Like the food is out there for people.
- 18:58Rusteen: It's just that these corporations have put a high price on anything that's actually healthy for you.
- 19:04Rusteen: And and later in the movie, her her evil sister says, you know,
- 19:10Rusteen: as long as it's cheap, people are going to fucking eat it. Like,
- 19:12Rusteen: that's all that that matters at the end of the day is just the profit.
- 19:18alex: I mean, the movie starts, I think it's very important he does this thematically,
- 19:21alex: is that the movie is not arguing, you know, explicitly for vegetarianism or veganism.
- 19:24alex: The movie starts with her catching fish and having chicken. But it's the point
- 19:28alex: is that they are animals that they raise and she like finds a small fish and
- 19:31alex: throws it back. So the movie is not just saying, you know, eating meat is evil.
- 19:34alex: It's saying, you know, there's ethical ways of doing this. We're just going
- 19:37alex: to show you the unethical way.
- 19:38evan: I saw there were some quotes by the person who helped write the script that
- 19:43evan: they weren't intending it to be this pro-vegetarian kind of film.
- 19:48evan: I think it was at John Ronson.
- 19:52evan: I could easily see people watching this and getting that message,
- 19:55evan: but I think the subtext is exactly what you said, is that there is an ethical
- 20:01evan: way to do these things, but they are choosing violence.
- 20:05alex: I don't know if you guys found the Bong Joon-ho quote about his own experience,
- 20:09alex: but he basically, after the movie, they went to an actual slaughterhouse.
- 20:13alex: And he goes like, after the slaughterhouse, I decided to become a vegan.
- 20:16alex: And then, quote, I flew back to South Korea.
- 20:18alex: And, you know, South Korea is a barbecue paradise.
- 20:20alex: Every street on every corner is burning meat. So I slowly, slowly came back to being a meat eater.
- 20:25alex: But now I'm gradually becoming a pescatarian. That was a, so he's trying.
- 20:29alex: But yeah, even him. I can't take note to Korean barbecue.
- 20:33ward: Yeah, turning vegan here, but then going back to Korea and having to deal with
- 20:36ward: beef bulgogi cooked on the corner, like, good luck.
- 20:40bill: Good luck, yeah.
- 20:42Rusteen: It's like getting exposed to the pure horror of the slaughterhouse just repulses
- 20:50Rusteen: you on like an instinctual level.
- 20:53Rusteen: But the thing about capitalism is that like we all have to participate in it,
- 20:57Rusteen: right? And eventually like we all got to eat and that you're going to smell the bulgogi again.
- 21:02Rusteen: And, and just like Bong's got to make movies, we got to eat.
- 21:06Rusteen: And we know, we all know that, uh, you know, that, that hot dog is coming from
- 21:11Rusteen: the Okja factory, but we need to eat something.
- 21:15bill: This like, okay. Is anybody here a vegan? I know Warden Evan Hart, but I. No.
- 21:23alex: I thought about it for a week after seeing The Shape Detective. I will explain that.
- 21:28bill: Okay. I am,
- 21:32bill: kind of notorious for my issues with veganism.
- 21:37bill: And this movie really, honestly, like, I know a lot of people would watch this
- 21:42bill: movie like, oh, this is going to challenge Bill's views on veganism.
- 21:46bill: And no, actually this movie reaffirmed everything that I ever thought
- 21:50bill: because, and I, because I don't think this subtext is that subtle because he
- 21:54bill: makes a very explicit point to point out one of the ALF members, uh, silver.
- 22:02Rusteen: Yeah.
- 22:03bill: It's, it's, or blonde. It's silver or black camera.
- 22:06Rusteen: Which it's silver. Yeah.
- 22:07bill: It's silver. Okay. silver who will not even eat vegetables and like is like basically ill,
- 22:14bill: and like it is explicitly pointed out the absurdity of his position and how
- 22:21bill: it is in and of itself and what,
- 22:24bill: i can go at length as to why i think that veganism is a fundamentally flawed
- 22:29bill: ideology based on human centrism and everything beyond that but like,
- 22:36bill: The movie explicitly calls out the foolishness of this kind of like hard line,
- 22:42bill: like separation and how the problem is not what you eat.
- 22:46bill: It is about the system that provides the food, quote unquote,
- 22:50bill: provides the food, but really hoards the food.
- 22:53bill: It is about the system and not what you eat and how you eat is the system that is the problem.
- 23:00alex: It reminded me of the episode The Simpsons where Lisa is dating the environmentalist
- 23:04alex: and he's like, I'm a level five vegan. I don't eat anything that casts a shadow that's what that.
- 23:10bill: I swear to God I'm surrounded by Simpson people.
- 23:14Rusteen: A Simpsons fan speaking a podcast yeah Bill's not a Simpsons.
- 23:18bill: Person but I'm not I'm just I'm lost I don't know what's going on with these
- 23:23bill: quotes about Simpsons and I'm just like.
- 23:26ward: We're having a great time around him yeah please continue Alex don't.
- 23:31bill: Don't stop him on.
- 23:32alex: Bill's it was just that one joke that was it that was all we'll.
- 23:35bill: Keep quoting.
- 23:36Rusteen: Simpsons and not eating cheese just.
- 23:41bill: It's just it's so like i like i really do think i think at one point someone
- 23:46bill: the script you know either bong chun ho this someone was like shit we're we
- 23:50bill: might be promoting veganism too hard i think we need to throw in a segment,
- 23:55bill: a sequence where like we make it a point like oh no no no let's not let's not get twisted on this okay.
- 24:01alex: And i mean i think he literally says uh we make a movement strong.
- 24:05bill: Yeah yeah.
- 24:09Rusteen: Yeah, that's what but that's like the beautiful thing about Bong's films, right?
- 24:14Rusteen: Like everybody in them is is a shade of gray, right?
- 24:19Rusteen: Or they are a buffoon. Like there's very few pure heroes in his filmography.
- 24:26Rusteen: And Miha is probably the closest to that.
- 24:29bill: Yeah, Misha is definitely the closest.
- 24:32Rusteen: But even her, like, you know, she will just literally run head first into a
- 24:37Rusteen: wall to try to save Okja. Like, she's not infallible.
- 24:42evan: I mean, I think, I mean, that's a good point. I think about other films he has.
- 24:46evan: I think of, like, the sort of the protagonist, like, in the host, Gangdu.
- 24:51evan: Like, he's like, you know, maybe I can cut this because it's a spoiler.
- 24:55evan: like he becomes the the hero but at the same time he's like a terrible father
- 25:00evan: who you know is falling asleep and you know not particularly uh,
- 25:05evan: good but he you know the he like he he does a really good job at creating these
- 25:09evan: multi-faceted interesting characters and i don't know but do you think that
- 25:14evan: any other than miha i mean is anyone really,
- 25:17evan: even some of the people in the alf like are they would you consider them to
- 25:20evan: be i hate the word good because that's such a you know a loaded term.
- 25:23ward: The the truck driver,
- 25:26ward: The truck driver's awesome. Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me?
- 25:28bill: The truck driver's great.
- 25:29ward: The truck driver's so great. The truck driver's so great.
- 25:31Rusteen: The truck driver's so great.
- 25:32bill: And he shows up at the end. I was, I loved that. When he showed up at the end,
- 25:35bill: I was like, awesome. I love that guy.
- 25:38Rusteen: And Bong brought him back for Parasite, too. So it's a fun little cameo, yeah.
- 25:43evan: Yeah, that's true. Well, I mean, the, like, the second, I don't call it the
- 25:47evan: second act, but sort of the, once you're introduced to,
- 25:50evan: like, this corporation and they take you to Miha in the mountains,
- 25:54evan: We have, as I mentioned, the bizarre specimen that is Jake Gyllenhaal's character
- 25:59evan: in this, Dr. Johnny Wilcox.
- 26:02evan: I could not stop laughing. And I was trying to think of like,
- 26:05evan: it seemed like he was doing an impression of someone from something,
- 26:09evan: but I couldn't figure out.
- 26:10evan: does anyone like what do you make of uh i mean we learn later he's like genuinely
- 26:15evan: not a good person and i feel like it was probably uh implicit at the beginning
- 26:19evan: but it's very explicit later that he is um terrible very it was kind.
- 26:24Rusteen: Of like uh what if jim carrey played steve irwin.
- 26:28evan: Was kind of.
- 26:29Rusteen: The vibe i got from jake jill and i definitely.
- 26:32evan: Got ace ventura.
- 26:33bill: Vibes yeah i got ace ventura vibes definitely.
- 26:35evan: In but in the second movie though when nature calls yeah he's.
- 26:39ward: Ventura's got bills to pay.
- 26:43Rusteen: I mean, what if Ace Ventura became the star of a Monsanto ad is like absolutely
- 26:49Rusteen: a thing that could happen in real life, you know?
- 26:52Rusteen: So, so Bong is just seeing the future.
- 26:54evan: Yeah, that's true. I find the whole part when they finally reach the top of the mountain where,
- 27:03evan: the grandfather and Miha are just dropping around all the time like they're
- 27:07evan: used to it, but they're these American guy who just can't even climb up the
- 27:11evan: mountain and he's supposed to be this outdoorsy guy. I thought it's a great bit.
- 27:15Rusteen: And along for the ride is like Miranda, her assistant, who is played by Shirley
- 27:23Rusteen: Henderson, a.k.a. Babu Frick.
- 27:24alex: There it is. Babu.
- 27:26Rusteen: Hey, hey.
- 27:26bill: That's who that is.
- 27:28Rusteen: That's Babu Frick, baby.
- 27:30bill: I recognized her. It took me a while, but I was like, not to,
- 27:33bill: I mean, I hate to speak her name, but I was like, oh, that's the one from,
- 27:40bill: I was like, it's the ghost in the bathroom. I'm like, it's the ghost in the bathroom.
- 27:45Rusteen: Well, now you can call her Babu Frick. It's okay.
- 27:49evan: All right. So that's the Star Wars connection.
- 27:52alex: And Giancarlo Stanton. Not Giancarlo Stanton. Fucking Giancarlo Esposito.
- 27:55alex: I have Yankees on the brain. Sorry.
- 27:56bill: Yes.
- 27:59alex: You know, it's also in the Star Wars world.
- 28:02evan: Right, right. Yeah. And the Mandalorian, right? Yes.
- 28:06alex: He's working on his like little subway card to get in every franchise and when
- 28:09alex: he gets to a hundred percent. Yeah.
- 28:12alex: Sigourney just got hers. He's up next. Yeah.
- 28:17evan: Oh, I do like that. I did not realize that that was that was Shirley Henderson.
- 28:23evan: I mean, I looked in the thing and I just like didn't put those.
- 28:25alex: Do we want to talk about them recreating the Bin Laden photo?
- 28:28evan: Oh, yes.
- 28:29alex: Did all of you notice this?
- 28:30ward: No.
- 28:31alex: Oh, when they're watching the footage of what's happening in South Korea,
- 28:34alex: it is a one-for-one recreation of the White House photo of them learning about
- 28:39alex: that they killed Bin Laden. I have it up on my phone.
- 28:42Rusteen: Down to Giancarlo as Obama.
- 28:46alex: Yeah.
- 28:47Rusteen: Tilda Swinton is Hillary Clinton.
- 28:49ward: Oh, jeez.
- 28:50Rusteen: I didn't even catch that at all. The best part of it is Jake Gyllenhaal as Joe Biden.
- 28:56alex: Yeah.
- 28:56Rusteen: I can't even say that.
- 29:00evan: Hilarious that is uh i didn't catch.
- 29:03ward: That at all.
- 29:04bill: No that's amazing.
- 29:06evan: That does seem like something that like bondron would would like pull out to uh oh for.
- 29:12Rusteen: Sure like like drawing the line between the white house and corporate america
- 29:17Rusteen: right like the only difference in that photo is the chairs that they're sitting in
- 29:22Rusteen: like that's the only difference is that they're those shitty like plastic chairs
- 29:27Rusteen: instead of old timey, uh, cushiony ones.
- 29:31evan: That's it yeah the like the entire i mean it's,
- 29:34evan: like the corporate i mean i feel like there's like two sides there's like the
- 29:38evan: whole side of the the corporation the mirando corporation and all the things they're doing
- 29:42evan: but then there's also the you know you have the alf that's sort of fighting
- 29:45evan: against them and trying to take them down and we have like the like one of the
- 29:50evan: funniest scenes i think too is when they're taking ocho away you have the truck driver you mentioned
- 29:54evan: what is the truck driver's name again uh i can't think of what his name was.
- 29:58ward: I don't know that's why i called him the truck driver.
- 30:00evan: Man yeah maybe he does maybe they don't give a name but like they have the the
- 30:03evan: like the chase scene and then the like oak just going through like the underground
- 30:07evan: mall and the the the trains they i guess it's a sub like the train station.
- 30:11Rusteen: Yeah they're down in like the underground malls that are like connected to the subway.
- 30:15evan: Stations before.
- 30:18alex: That we get the the scene where it's like the company representative is driving
- 30:21alex: with the driver and he asked him if he has like a license and he goes i do.
- 30:25evan: Have a license.
- 30:25alex: I don't have workman's comp.
- 30:27evan: And then as the worker runs away.
- 30:29alex: The business guy goes well i want to show you what actual company culture looks
- 30:32alex: like and then gets hit in the head with a door just yeah subtle yeah and pooped on yes.
- 30:38evan: Yeah just rained on poop on like doesn't he then call his wife and ask her like oh do we have the uh.
- 30:44bill: What body lotion do we.
- 30:45evan: Have or what.
- 30:46bill: Body wash do we have.
- 30:47evan: Yeah yeah i mean they like there's such um i mean you wouldn't necessarily at all call this
- 30:53evan: a comedy but in the same way that i think that his most recent film like mickey
- 30:58evan: 17 is a sci-fi film or sort of this
- 31:01evan: i don't wouldn't really call this a sci-fi film i think it's called a sci-fi
- 31:06evan: action film in wikipedia i don't know if i go with that genre i would definitely.
- 31:10alex: Say it's a comedy.
- 31:10evan: Yeah i think that's what i yeah to me it's much more of a comedy than anything
- 31:14evan: and the comedic moments in mickey 17 is i don't think necessarily what people
- 31:19evan: were expecting perhaps and maybe let's it's also not doing is actually that
- 31:24evan: made it to the box office i don't think.
- 31:25alex: There's any way you could sell mickey 17 in which it was a box office success
- 31:27alex: i think they did the best they could with uh robert pattinson doing like a steve
- 31:31alex: ushami impression for half the movie.
- 31:35Rusteen: Which is incredible uh yeah the special effects work in both films i think is
- 31:41Rusteen: probably why like okja is getting
- 31:43Rusteen: classified as like science fiction just because of how well realized
- 31:48Rusteen: okja is as this like alternate being.
- 31:50bill: I mean yeah i mean it is fundamentally it has a sign as a.
- 31:55ward: Yeah if it relies on fictional science as part of a part of the plot it's science
- 32:01ward: fiction yeah so this is technically science fiction.
- 32:04Rusteen: It's taking like i wouldn't be.
- 32:06ward: Like explaining it to somebody like oh.
- 32:08Rusteen: Yeah it's a sci-fi film yeah about taking the science of like gmo foods right
- 32:13Rusteen: and just like extrapolating it out of like what if et was a genetically modified
- 32:20Rusteen: pig i think and he was delicious.
- 32:23bill: I i think the i think in terms of like genre i think the fact that matters is that We have been,
- 32:30bill: like, society as a whole, like, you know, has been conditioned to think of sci-fi
- 32:36bill: as something that is overwhelmingly sci-fi and, like, you know,
- 32:44bill: set in space, you know, involving space travel or, like, everything about it
- 32:51bill: is rooted in, you know, like, Blade Runner.
- 32:55bill: Blade Runner is sci-fi despite the fact that Blade Runner takes place in a you
- 32:58bill: know on on earth you know and you don't you know you never meet an alien you don't know that shit,
- 33:04bill: but it is overwhelmingly concerned with and I think the with the the science
- 33:10bill: fiction aspect of like you know the replicants,
- 33:13bill: and I think that this movie doesn't to a lot of people doesn't feel sci-fi but
- 33:19bill: in reality like it is very much sci-fi and has the core,
- 33:24bill: philosophy of sci-fi in which we take science,
- 33:29bill: extrapolate out and then learn something about our present condition by using
- 33:36bill: science and science fiction aspects and like.
- 33:41bill: Fantastical science and speculative science to to reflect on our current conditions
- 33:47bill: this is very much science fiction it's just that we
- 33:51bill: have been led like we have largely been led to it's like it's not sci-fi unless
- 33:55bill: it's a space and yeah it's just not,
- 33:58bill: what science fiction is. That's just not what it is.
- 34:02evan: Yeah, that's a good point.
- 34:06evan: Yeah, the I had a I had like a note that I would mentioned after they.
- 34:12evan: Oh, well, I do love the when they're in like the underground mall and the like
- 34:15evan: the police or the security is shooting like the I guess their darts to put the
- 34:21evan: the pig to sleep or to sleep and they rip out those umbrellas to deflect them. I love that.
- 34:27bill: It was beautiful.
- 34:30Rusteen: Yeah, it's a great scene. It's a great little like fantastical flourish.
- 34:35Rusteen: Like they show up with the umbrellas just in time and they get to be like nonviolent
- 34:40Rusteen: heroes. Right. In that moment.
- 34:42bill: Well, that's the thing that they bring up a lot.
- 34:45evan: I was about to say that it's like, they constantly say that,
- 34:47evan: you know, especially Paul Dano says numerous times, they don't believe in violence.
- 34:51evan: And then when he has to do something that's like mildly violent,
- 34:54evan: he sort of has to not apologize, but then reiterate, like I'm only doing this
- 34:57evan: because it's part of this plan we have. And, you know, that's what we have to do.
- 35:02alex: So in preface episode, I wanted to do, we talked a little bit about veganism
- 35:06alex: but i found a really good article it's called uh,
- 35:10alex: bear with me if there's some people who don't like veganism but it's uh how
- 35:13alex: animals ourselves the socialist feminist case for animal liberation and it's
- 35:16alex: not what you think it is it's actually a really good article uh it's by astra
- 35:19alex: taylor who's a really great writer uh and sonora taylor,
- 35:23alex: um and it sort of it starts with talking about like the perception of create
- 35:27alex: of cringe veganism of how annoying vegans can be and that when you see other
- 35:31alex: vegans being that level of performative of it's sort of like,
- 35:35alex: you get terrified because like oh they're gonna make us look obnoxious we have
- 35:37alex: to be very normal it's very cool you can't be seen as cringe and it sort of
- 35:40alex: it gets into a lot of the themes of the movie of we can't just reduce the fact
- 35:44alex: of animals being this is a this is an issue of i mean the movie makes a very
- 35:48alex: good point of like women's bodies being abused and how,
- 35:50alex: bodies are just turned into capital it's not just about eating people are not
- 35:54alex: eating animals it's about all these things they reduce the capital so i recommend i recommend,
- 35:58alex: anyone listening who wants to go a deep dive on it but yeah it's it's sort of
- 36:02alex: this public perception of veganism is as much as a fight as the the battle itself
- 36:06alex: of if you say the wrong thing suddenly people are just gonna give up on this entire idea and,
- 36:11alex: there's a very like there's a very uh what's the right word but uh everyone's
- 36:13alex: very delicate about their politics in real life and both in the movie.
- 36:16Rusteen: And it's worth saying that the alf is like a real organization although all
- 36:21Rusteen: the characters in here are fictional and i was watching some of like the behind
- 36:25Rusteen: the scenes um doc stuff on the criterion release of the film and,
- 36:31Rusteen: bong talks about how his cousin is an animal rights activist and like took him
- 36:37Rusteen: to dc to go meet with a lot of the people who would not confirm or deny whether
- 36:43Rusteen: whether or not they were actual alf members,
- 36:46Rusteen: so he's like pulling from real experiences with these characters as cartoonish as they might be.
- 36:54evan: And you still get the what's i think probably accurate is you also have the
- 36:58evan: conflict within the members of alf like specifically like the stephen yuen character as k,
- 37:04evan: who they kick out of the group because he,
- 37:09evan: lied to them by translating what mihat said as like oh yeah you can use okja
- 37:13evan: as part of this plan to expose the miranda corporation when she didn't say that at all and it's,
- 37:20evan: You know, it is definitely a betrayal of what, you know, she wanted,
- 37:25evan: but they sort of had this greater plan. And the question is,
- 37:29evan: would Paul Dano have gone ahead with it if she had, if he had said, the girl had said no?
- 37:34alex: I mean, I want to put out that literally the first lines that the,
- 37:38alex: they say when they jump out of the truck in their first scene is the first words
- 37:41alex: they scream is no compromise.
- 37:43alex: Like that's how they start with no compromise. So I think, honestly,
- 37:46alex: I think Paul Dano character would have stopped there. I think he that is his
- 37:49alex: character does not compromise.
- 37:50ward: 100% no he's he's very much a hardliner immediately beats the shit as Stephen Wynn like fucking.
- 37:57alex: You have you have.
- 37:58ward: Betrayed the code doesn't hold doesn't hold back immediately beats the fuck
- 38:01ward: out of him yeah yeah yeah get the fuck out and we're keeping your shit,
- 38:08ward: we're keeping this yeah and the driver just keeps saying it's not.
- 38:12Rusteen: My truck it's the company's truck I don't give a.
- 38:14ward: Fuck yeah exactly.
- 38:17bill: I think I think,
- 38:18bill: I'm sorry. Go on, Rusty.
- 38:20Rusteen: I was just going to say, I love Jay's little trolley problem that he gives to Mija, right?
- 38:26Rusteen: We can either let you go with Okja, or we can use Okja to save all of the super pigs.
- 38:35Rusteen: And Mija doesn't think about it for a second, right? She immediately says that
- 38:40Rusteen: she wants to take Okja back to the mountains.
- 38:44alex: And that's ultimately how the movie ends.
- 38:46bill: Yeah.
- 38:46alex: The rest of the movie didn't matter.
- 38:48bill: They ended.
- 38:48alex: Up in the same place.
- 38:49bill: Plus an extra baby but they saved the extra they saved the baby that's.
- 38:52alex: True that they saved the baby.
- 38:54bill: They did that is actually my so all right i am not a vegan i'm not a vegetarian
- 39:02bill: um but there is like i do fundamentally think that i think that this,
- 39:08bill: the movie constantly draws parallels between oak jaw and the super pigs and
- 39:15bill: human beings specifically like what this movie actually does consistently,
- 39:20bill: especially when they, they,
- 39:23bill: and the end scene is like, so you cut from at one point you cut from a scene of, uh,
- 39:30bill: Oak job being like herded into a vehicle to crowds of human beings being going
- 39:38bill: up and down subway stairs, which look very much like cattle shoots. Um.
- 39:43bill: And later on, you know, we have that whole scene at the slaughterhouse and it's
- 39:49bill: all the fences, the guy, you know, the barbed wire, the fences,
- 39:54bill: the wall, the gates, everything.
- 39:56bill: And then what do we do at the end? We cut to Paul Dano getting out of prison.
- 39:59bill: What is he walking through?
- 40:01bill: High fences, barbed wire, gates, walls, the same thing.
- 40:05bill: And it's like, yes, this definitely does make you think about the idea of like the way we produce food.
- 40:14bill: And I will never argue that factory farming is a good thing.
- 40:20bill: I am 100% against that kind of like.
- 40:24bill: Methodology of food production. But with this movie, more than anything else
- 40:28bill: is that what it actually, to me, what it says loud and clear is that humans
- 40:34bill: are commodified by capitalists.
- 40:37bill: That's what is happening here.
- 40:39bill: Yes. Look at Oakjaw, look at super pigs.
- 40:42bill: And furthermore, the fact of the matter is, is that Oakjaw and the super pigs
- 40:47bill: are clearly shown to be not just intelligent, but sapient beings who care about
- 40:54bill: others and put others before themselves.
- 40:57bill: Right off the bat, Okja sacrifices herself for Mija's safety.
- 41:05bill: Or Okja lives, but when they fall off the mountain and Okja does that,
- 41:10bill: first of all, clocks, makes a plan and then saves Mija's life.
- 41:17bill: And then later on, those two -sweeper pigs deliberately harm themselves to lift
- 41:22bill: the wire and save their baby. Like, they're not dumb animals.
- 41:27alex: They're not, you know. There's also recent evidence that pigs also do that, which is.
- 41:30bill: Absolutely. Yes. Though pigs will also, let's not get it too twisted.
- 41:36bill: Pigs will also eat the tails off of their fellow pigs and will brutalize each other.
- 41:42bill: Pigs are incredibly dangerous, savage animals.
- 41:47alex: Yeah, they're closer to humans.
- 41:49bill: Yeah. They absolutely are. They 100% are.
- 41:54bill: Let's not paint pigs all as Wilbur from Charlotte's Web.
- 41:58alex: No.
- 41:58bill: They are brutal creatures. Go feral within six weeks.
- 42:04alex: What you're saying, it reminds me of the Kurt Vonnegut quote,
- 42:06alex: which is, life is no way to treat an animal.
- 42:09bill: Right.
- 42:09alex: Yes.
- 42:10bill: And like, I... To go back to the veganism, and I'm sorry. I'm going to talk
- 42:15bill: about like... Does anybody...
- 42:18bill: Does anybody have any, any, uh, Evan Ward, do you have, uh, objections to me
- 42:24bill: going about this a little bit?
- 42:25ward: No.
- 42:26bill: Okay.
- 42:26ward: I'm fine with it.
- 42:27bill: Evan? Evan, how?
- 42:29evan: Please, please.
- 42:30bill: Okay. This is my primary issue with veganism.
- 42:35bill: And what I think this movie still does address is that veganism and like,
- 42:41bill: Alex, I understand what you're saying. Like, I think you're right.
- 42:44bill: What you said about the article that you were reading, but you referenced.
- 42:47bill: but fundamentally veganism sets humans apart from animals and by animals i mean
- 42:53bill: like the animals we eat it's it takes humans and says you are not part of the
- 42:58bill: system you are a separate outsider what's that,
- 43:03bill: like i mean like literally like it basically it is a notion that makes that's
- 43:08bill: like humans are somehow superior and separate and isolated from the rest of
- 43:13bill: the natural system didn't.
- 43:14evan: You read animal farm.
- 43:15bill: Don't don't bring up animals i'm.
- 43:17Rusteen: Sorry i'm sorry continue.
- 43:18bill: Whereas like in reality humans are animals we eat animals and we eat plants
- 43:26bill: and like we are part of the system
- 43:28bill: the system we are part of the systemic ecology of the planet the issue is not
- 43:34bill: that you're eating animals it's that you have completely and utterly denied the,
- 43:38bill: And overridden the systemic ecological premise of your participation in the system and hijacked it.
- 43:46bill: And veganism is the same thing.
- 43:49bill: You're still separating yourself from the system and saying, I'm not part of that.
- 43:54bill: I don't participate in that. You do. You have to.
- 43:58bill: So I think not doing so is actually dangerous and bad.
- 44:03alex: I will counter with that. I think I really do recommend reading this article,
- 44:06alex: which is because I also have a similar thoughts of you do of like how much veganism
- 44:10alex: is performative, how much of it is really, you know, engaging with the bigger
- 44:12alex: question. And I think watching this movie, I thought a lot about like the perception
- 44:15alex: of the PETA movement from the 70s to today.
- 44:18alex: And I also thought about some research of like what happened to the Sunrise
- 44:22alex: Movement, of why the Sunrise Movement has sort of petered out.
- 44:25alex: And I think ultimately is that when you focus on these individual issues separate
- 44:29alex: from class, you always hit a wall. And I think- Absolutely.
- 44:32alex: I think vegans would agree with you. It's like, you know what?
- 44:35alex: Your point is fine. Let's get to a place where people can make that choice themselves
- 44:38alex: and they're not bound in a system that forces them into that choice.
- 44:41bill: A hundred percent.
- 44:43alex: That's a logical choice, but ultimately we're all forced into a system where
- 44:46alex: the food that is affordable is the food that is bad for us. The food that is,
- 44:51alex: societally acceptable is the food that's bad for us. If you guys want to eat vegan, eat vegan.
- 44:54alex: That's not stopping anybody. It's the it's viewing the issue of veganism as
- 44:59alex: a leading indicator of what's wrong, as opposed to a symptom of what's wrong.
- 45:04alex: I think that's that's the difference. I think this article, I think,
- 45:07alex: actually argues what you're saying is like by by understanding veganism as a
- 45:10alex: broader class issue, then that allows you to actually really move forward with it.
- 45:15alex: I don't want to talk about this more, but I also want to talk a little bit about
- 45:16alex: like watching this movie and the way it felt 10 years ago was like since this
- 45:21alex: movie came out, like the McPlant came out.
- 45:24alex: The McPlant was highly promoted and then the McPlant was removed due to the lack of interest
- 45:28alex: and just the rise of like impossible meat and then the disappearance of impossible
- 45:33alex: meat and sort of how this movie ties into the idea like, oh,
- 45:35alex: if we just like come up with a cheap alternative to the meat that's there,
- 45:38alex: people will switch to it. And yet they did not.
- 45:40alex: And so I wonder if you guys sort of had any thoughts of that in the lens of this movie.
- 45:44Rusteen: Well, I feel like those examples were not cheaper. Right.
- 45:49Rusteen: my recollection especially about a lot of the fake meats is that they cost as
- 45:52Rusteen: much as real meat if not more you're paying an extra five dollars at the burger
- 45:58Rusteen: shop to get an impossible burger
- 46:00Rusteen: instead of a regular burger and so that's maybe the reason why they failed in
- 46:05Rusteen: becoming a kind of luxury product instead of,
- 46:10Rusteen: a cheaper one.
- 46:11evan: It didn't didn't Burger King if I'm not mistaken have the like an impossible
- 46:16evan: impossible like I don't think the sales of it was good and they got rid of it.
- 46:20evan: I don't know. I don't go to Burger King, but I don't think that it succeeded in any at all.
- 46:25evan: And I think given the given the option, you're at a fast food restaurant.
- 46:29evan: Most people are going there because they want the not even cheap anymore,
- 46:33evan: but the you know, the bad for you hamburger and not because they're going for
- 46:36evan: the healthy alternative impossible burger.
- 46:39evan: And yeah, I it's interesting how the that when did that come out?
- 46:45evan: Was that around the same time as this film like being released that that became like the big.
- 46:49alex: Possible beat was like 2022.
- 46:51bill: Like that was longer ago. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. More recent.
- 46:54bill: But it's also like, but again, like none of those things are also like,
- 46:59bill: that is fundamentally one of the issues is of those things. It's like none of
- 47:03bill: those like impossible meats or anything like that.
- 47:06bill: They're all ecologically as bad or worse than regular meat.
- 47:12bill: Like they, they're not better for the environment. And in many cases,
- 47:16bill: they're as bad, if not worse in the way they're produced.
- 47:18alex: I mean, it's a salvation will not come through capital. I think that's what
- 47:21alex: the movie sort of arguing is that.
- 47:22bill: A hundred percent. Yeah, totally.
- 47:24evan: Yeah.
- 47:25ward: Yeah. That's one of my favorite aspects of the movie is that like they,
- 47:29ward: they, they try to do moral and like ethical appeals.
- 47:33ward: And it's like, they don't give a fuck, dog. They got private security and they're businessmen.
- 47:39ward: They literally said, it's business. They don't give a fuck.
- 47:43ward: Until you made a deal with them, they don't give a fuck. Because guess what?
- 47:46ward: You didn't bring guns to this deal. They did.
- 47:49evan: Yeah, I mean, you learn that the CEO's twin sister is, she talks about how she
- 47:55evan: had run the company before.
- 47:56evan: I mean, she rules the company or would rule the company in just a,
- 48:02evan: we don't give a shit about what anyone thinks we will do these evil things they
- 48:06evan: don't even seem to even care that the
- 48:08evan: video has now been released to this crowd and we release this they i think one
- 48:12evan: of you said before is they'll just if they sell their meat cheap enough people
- 48:15evan: will just buy it because they need food and at the end of the day,
- 48:19evan: the corporation will still you know win yeah the.
- 48:22alex: The deal at the end is she goes i'll i'll give you okja as long as you pay me
- 48:25alex: for it and you can almost see that in her mind like okay let's actually let's
- 48:28alex: start the week of like we can also sell oaches as pets at an absurd price that's
- 48:32alex: fine by us as well like that's.
- 48:34bill: That's a big bet.
- 48:35evan: You'd have to pay with a golden.
- 48:36Rusteen: Pig though that's the only way to buy them it's a bit of a steep price.
- 48:40evan: I think.
- 48:41bill: Ward though touched on something when when ward when you said like how like
- 48:44bill: they're like we have the guns and i i think that like,
- 48:47bill: Bong Joon-ho is like saying something about, you know, it's a very subtle,
- 48:51bill: it's like, it's a subtle on like, you know, shot at like activists and organizers,
- 48:57bill: like largely in the West.
- 48:58bill: It's like, hey, hey, yeah, your non-peaceful protests, they don't do anything. You need to do more.
- 49:04bill: You, they have guns and they're going to use them on you. And if you keep on
- 49:08bill: just being like, no violence, they're just going to shoot.
- 49:11alex: Which is all funny because they know the makeup so far. After Reservoir Dog
- 49:13alex: characters and dress up like Reservoir Dogs.
- 49:16ward: We refuse to do.
- 49:17bill: Violence were you saying work.
- 49:19ward: Yeah no like you're only going to make it so far with non-violence like at the
- 49:23ward: end of the day they have guns and like evan like you're saying like the sister
- 49:27ward: like rules like more ruthlessly and it's like
- 49:30ward: that's not exactly true the other sister just puts on a better face yeah she
- 49:35ward: puts on that like classic 1.0 woke 1.0 face,
- 49:39ward: But like she was still talking about like, oh, we get our private security there
- 49:42ward: and we have our arrangements with NYPD, right?
- 49:46bill: Yeah, that line stuck out big time.
- 49:49evan: Yeah, that's what I said at the beginning. I think it's like her version,
- 49:52evan: the Tilda Swinton version is like the rainbow capitalism. Like,
- 49:55evan: yes, we're evil, but like, you know, it's going to be, you know,
- 49:59evan: we're going to make it sound cushy and nice for the for the viewer.
- 50:03Rusteen: But at the same time, like Mija doesn't save Okja with violence.
- 50:07Rusteen: she saves okja with capitalism she saves okja by making a gun well none.
- 50:14bill: Of them brought guns but that's all she can't.
- 50:17Rusteen: Demand yeah because.
- 50:18bill: The other side has guns just saves okja she does not affect fundamental change to the system.
- 50:24Rusteen: Yeah.
- 50:25bill: Like yeah she saves okja.
- 50:26Rusteen: She does.
- 50:27bill: Nothing else though.
- 50:28Rusteen: That's the the most she's able to do in that moment right like we're all you
- 50:33Rusteen: know yeah rendered helpless uh by the the slaughterhouse.
- 50:38bill: She's a kid i'm not gonna judge her too hard.
- 50:41Rusteen: Yeah we're not pulling out a glock and capping we get the nice cut to her.
- 50:45ward: Like on the farm with oaksha and then like cut to fucking paul dano getting
- 50:49ward: out but like during all that time how many more feedlots have they built of super pigs.
- 50:55Rusteen: I mean the the thing that really stuck out the most to me on this rewatch which
- 51:02Rusteen: is the line where Nancy Miranda says, we can only sell the dead ones.
- 51:07Rusteen: And then later says there it's all edible except the squeal.
- 51:12bill: That's an old farmer saying.
- 51:14Rusteen: Yeah. And like the end of the movie has them saving one of the little pigs and
- 51:22Rusteen: then all of the super pigs in the slaughterhouse start crying out and howling.
- 51:28Rusteen: And like, that's the one thing that is not profitable to the company.
- 51:34Rusteen: But it's also the most pure expression of their humanity, for lack of a better
- 51:40Rusteen: word. Like the thing that's not profitable is the thing that proves they are alive.
- 51:45Rusteen: And I think that is really just the symbol of how capitalism has just put a
- 51:52Rusteen: price on all of the super pigs heads, just like it does on Misia and all of ours.
- 51:58alex: It also made me think of like the weird disease that I think I can only speak of the American mind.
- 52:02alex: I can't speak of like the broader mind of like people in this country truly
- 52:06alex: care about animals more than people at this point.
- 52:08alex: As long as it's a cute dog, they care about that more than people.
- 52:11alex: It's like the John Wick franchise exists because the idea is like killing one
- 52:15alex: dog is worth 2,000 human lives. Like that is that is our...
- 52:19alex: face math of like here in la like they're the some people were like hanging
- 52:23alex: on their apartment celebrating because the nicks won and then the cops showed
- 52:26alex: up and killed the dog because it was wearing a nicks shirt and was like barking
- 52:30alex: and like the mayor came out and made a fucking statement be like well you know
- 52:33alex: we can never let this happen again we're gonna do some like real deep searching
- 52:36alex: why this happened meanwhile random people are getting shot and killed by the lapd every day,
- 52:40alex: but when it's an animal people care more and it's this weird sort of like given
- 52:43alex: pick of like if everyone in the country probably like supported okja but then
- 52:47alex: would not care about anything else besides okja.
- 52:49Rusteen: And we see that come up in the way that um,
- 52:53Rusteen: mija and jay relate to okja where at the end of the movie when okja is kind of out of it and bites her
- 53:01Rusteen: jay runs up and the non-violent activist is prepared to hit okja to save her
- 53:07Rusteen: and mija stops him and instead talks to okja to get her to let her go.
- 53:13Rusteen: Like, even the activist still sees Okja and all the pigs and all the animals
- 53:19Rusteen: as beasts that are separate from humanity in the way that you were talking about, Bill.
- 53:24Rusteen: But it's only Mija who really sees a connection that we are all the same.
- 53:29evan: Yeah.
- 53:30ward: Now, I kind of appreciated that from Paul Dano's character where it was like, I am for the animals.
- 53:36ward: Oh, wait, shit, that one's killing somebody? Nah.
- 53:40bill: I mean, there is a certain level of, well, I mean, I think that like part of
- 53:45bill: it, because it's never explicitly addressed, it's only subtext is the,
- 53:50bill: you know, like is the humanization of Okja.
- 53:54bill: And the fact of the matter is that this is, or not Okja, but the super pigs
- 53:57bill: in general, and not anthropomorphization.
- 54:01bill: Like this is not anthropomorphization. We are explicitly shown that these are
- 54:06bill: thinking, feeling creatures.
- 54:09bill: In a way that we can understand and recognize the same way that,
- 54:13bill: you know, if you pay attention and, you know, like, and be, I think it's,
- 54:18bill: it's, it stands out because this is a created creature.
- 54:22bill: This isn't something like, if you know, you, if you are aware,
- 54:26bill: if you know, like orcas are sentient, sapient creatures, they have culture,
- 54:29bill: they have language, they have dialects, they have all that shit,
- 54:32bill: you know, elephants, sentient, sapient creatures, you know, like, you know, but,
- 54:37bill: they have existed forever.
- 54:39bill: you know to humans it's like well that's just part of the background you know
- 54:42bill: it's like but this is like a new thing it's like oh and in many ways the super
- 54:45bill: bigs are really meant they serve as an allegory more than anything else but
- 54:50bill: you know it's like i kind of lost track where i was going,
- 54:53bill: well i think i really like them as.
- 54:56ward: I really like them as like an allegory for like nature and innocence and it's like,
- 55:01ward: it really shows like it's the system like capitalism that ruins these things
- 55:07ward: because we had all this time in the beginning with Okja on the farm with humans, no problem.
- 55:13ward: So it's not humans that are the problem. I mean, the movie ends with- It's once
- 55:15ward: they get into the system.
- 55:16alex: With the application that, like, Okja is now talking, if not whispering her ear.
- 55:20bill: Yes!
- 55:21Rusteen: Mm-hmm.
- 55:21ward: Yeah, that's crazy.
- 55:22bill: That was beautiful.
- 55:23ward: That was beautiful.
- 55:24alex: But I mean, I'm a white Jewish guy. I'm not in the place to talk about this.
- 55:27alex: But like, it's only two years ago did South Korea officially come up with a
- 55:33alex: plan of banning dog meat.
- 55:35alex: And it's a very dog looking animal. I think for Bong Joon-ho,
- 55:38alex: there's an extra element of that, which is that he goes to the West and there's
- 55:41alex: these animals that are held up as like the most holy thing for our society.
- 55:44alex: And then back at home, they are food. I think there is some element of that.
- 55:49alex: I can't speak to that with my own background, but there was something about that.
- 55:53bill: Except they are also pets in South Korea. Like, yeah, they're both. It's, you know.
- 55:58ward: Yeah, it's usually a specific breed that's for eating while like all the other breeds are pets.
- 56:04Rusteen: In the docks, he talks about like specifically using dogs and like the dogs
- 56:09Rusteen: of the various people in the production as influences for Okja, especially her eyes,
- 56:15Rusteen: the way as like the vehicle with which we form that kind of connection with them.
- 56:20Rusteen: So, yeah, she's very much like a dog mixed with a pig mixed with a hippo.
- 56:26Rusteen: And you're getting kind of like all the biggest parts of each of those.
- 56:30ward: Yeah, I mean, if you're going to pull from like an animal to try to like anthropomorphize
- 56:35ward: a sci-fi animal for like facial features and like facial expressions, dogs are a good one.
- 56:41ward: Because they've been so domesticated for so long that they like recognize human
- 56:45ward: facial feature of facial expressions and they'll try to mimic them.
- 56:48bill: Dogs trigger oxytocin release in human beings.
- 56:54alex: And we trigger oxytocin in them. It's like a very bad, yeah.
- 56:57ward: It's awesome.
- 56:59bill: Dogs are as much human as humans are dogs to a certain degree.
- 57:05bill: We are intimately, intimately connected as two species are unlike almost any other species.
- 57:12bill: There are very few species that we have a physiological, psychological,
- 57:20bill: and sociological connection to the way we do with dogs.
- 57:23bill: there are very few animals that we have that connection with i think they're
- 57:28bill: the cats cats are kind of like that but it's a whole other ball of you know.
- 57:34evan: Ball of yarn.
- 57:35bill: But yes god damn that you know i didn't want to say that i was like it's too on the nose.
- 57:40evan: You have to.
- 57:41bill: I know um do we get to complain.
- 57:43Rusteen: About cat people now because i'm kind of like bill but.
- 57:46bill: For cat people i'm i'm Totally okay with cats. I have no problem.
- 57:50bill: I literally work. Like I take care of animals as like my living.
- 57:55bill: That's what I do. I take care of like animals. Like I've been in the pet industry
- 57:59bill: for most of my adult life. Um,
- 58:05bill: But like, you know, there are very few animals that we have connections with
- 58:07bill: like that, you know, um, water buffalo in like Southeast Asia have that kind
- 58:13bill: of connection in a lot of ways, which is wild.
- 58:16bill: Um, but you know, it's, it's, there is a reason that dogs are seen that way.
- 58:25evan: Something else I was going to mention. well so this is this is like maybe going back slightly but the,
- 58:32evan: this like goes to like the parade near the end and i was thinking about how
- 58:36evan: you know the they show the video all the people are sort of like horrified by
- 58:40evan: the conditions of the miranda corporation,
- 58:43evan: and yet even in like real life we us and
- 58:48evan: majority of people know how evil so many different companies are obviously there's
- 58:52evan: boycotts of target and different companies we know the terrible things that
- 58:56evan: they're doing where that they do and yet,
- 59:00evan: you know most people will just sort of go about the day and be like well i still
- 59:05evan: need to eat and i don't like blame people for this you know like using amazon
- 59:09evan: because there's no other way to get the thing that they need medication or whatever
- 59:13evan: it is i guess the idea that,
- 59:16evan: That we've all been saying, I think, is that the system of this prevents the
- 59:22evan: ethical consumption of meat or the purchasing of,
- 59:26evan: any variety of goods, because we know these companies are evil,
- 59:30evan: but there's really no alternative in our current system and structure.
- 59:36Rusteen: Yeah, I found an interview with Bong, with Vice at the time the movie came out.
- 59:42Rusteen: And the interviewer asked, do you think we have it in us to moderate our behavior
- 59:47Rusteen: when it comes to capitalism?
- 59:49Rusteen: Can we control ourselves, whether it's through mass production or reliance on technology?
- 59:54Rusteen: And he answered, I don't think it'll be easy. It's always difficult to fight
- 59:59Rusteen: the stream and tide of capitalism, but we can't stay pessimistic forever.
- 1:00:04Rusteen: We always have to fight for change and strive for change and strive to make
- 1:00:08Rusteen: a crack in the wall of capitalism.
- 1:00:11Rusteen: I do believe there is hope.
- 1:00:13Rusteen: And I think that visual of making a crack in the wall,
- 1:00:18Rusteen: is really emblematic of Bong's oeuvre and his voice as,
- 1:00:24Rusteen: a filmmaker the idea that like we're not gonna break the wall down in a day
- 1:00:28Rusteen: but through each of us throwing ourselves at the wall like mija does,
- 1:00:35Rusteen: you know we can make a crack and eventually if we make enough cracks that'll you know change the tide.
- 1:00:42alex: Pete spent the last 40 years trying to shock people out of being out of eating
- 1:00:45alex: animals and if that would have worked that would have worked yeah but.
- 1:00:50bill: It's also, it has become increasingly clear that PETA is literally,
- 1:00:55bill: like, PETA's role in the system is actually to undermine those messages.
- 1:01:02bill: like they are part of the system and PETA notoriously has been implicated and proven to be,
- 1:01:11bill: part of systems of abuse and like death of animals because all of their shit
- 1:01:19bill: ends at that performative because they are actually part of the problem they are funded by you know.
- 1:01:26alex: I went to their website. They have a sign up. It's a join PETA's action team.
- 1:01:29alex: Be the first to know about epic protests. Sign up here.
- 1:01:32bill: Yeah, like they're not.
- 1:01:34evan: Yeah, I mean, like the thing, too, is that Miha only, you know,
- 1:01:37evan: they were saying is that she only is able to save Okja. She gives the she pays
- 1:01:42evan: the CEO for the for the pig. She gets to bring it home.
- 1:01:46evan: The baby also comes along in the same way that she's only able to save one thing.
- 1:01:51evan: I mean, maybe that the ALF is only able to reach 100 people,
- 1:01:56evan: 1,000 people that they see the evil that these corporations are doing.
- 1:02:00evan: I think that's what you're saying is that, yeah, these like little cracks eventually,
- 1:02:04evan: you know, eventually the dam will break.
- 1:02:08Rusteen: And decidedly at the end of the movie, she is still eating her chicken stew,
- 1:02:13Rusteen: right? Like through the course of this, she has not become a different person,
- 1:02:20Rusteen: as far as like, you know, eating meat goes.
- 1:02:22Rusteen: But she has, you know, regained that balance with her environment.
- 1:02:29Rusteen: And so I think that's the message of the movie, right, is that it's OK for us
- 1:02:34Rusteen: to enjoy the foods that we like.
- 1:02:36Rusteen: It's just about living in harmony with the world around us and getting outside
- 1:02:40Rusteen: of the hellish confines of what Wall Street determines we should be eating.
- 1:02:46evan: Yeah.
- 1:02:47bill: I mean, just like from the very beginning, like the very start of the movie,
- 1:02:52bill: when she talks about like the starvation, it's like that in and of itself is
- 1:02:57bill: a false premise because there is enough food.
- 1:03:01bill: It's like, there's enough food. You just hoard it.
- 1:03:07bill: How many millions of pounds of food are thrown away or left to rot on the vine?
- 1:03:13bill: Not even thrown away. It's not even processed. It's literally left,
- 1:03:17bill: it's left to rot on the vine and with armed guards to prevent people from picking it.
- 1:03:22ward: It's like 40 million tons in the US alone that's wasted for food.
- 1:03:27bill: I thought it was 30, but yeah, yeah, that's, yeah.
- 1:03:29bill: I knew it was somewhere in there.
- 1:03:31Rusteen: Not to talk about a different movie, but that's what Snowpiercer's all about, right? Yeah.
- 1:03:35Rusteen: The front of the train has high-grade sushi, and they've got beautiful farms
- 1:03:41Rusteen: filled with organic produce, and the back of the train gets their gelatinous cockroach bars.
- 1:03:47bill: It's almost like Bong Joon-ho has like a, he's got like an ideology of some
- 1:03:50bill: kind, and he's got, it's almost like he's got some kind of like thing going on.
- 1:03:55Rusteen: I mean, he's a real one. I don't know if you guys have talked about any of his
- 1:03:58Rusteen: other movies or anything, but he was throwing Molotov cocktails at the South
- 1:04:03Rusteen: Korean military as a college kid.
- 1:04:05Rusteen: So if anybody believes in the power of righteous violence, I do think it's Director Bong.
- 1:04:12bill: He just, I think.
- 1:04:13Rusteen: Also sees that a lot of the time the person holding the gun is just as likely to get shot.
- 1:04:18alex: I mean, him and Park Chan-wook are like the members of like the most leftist
- 1:04:22alex: Korean party, South Korean party there are.
- 1:04:24alex: We won't talk about Park Chan-wook's WGA status, but...
- 1:04:27Rusteen: He was railroaded. that's my theory.
- 1:04:30evan: Yeah I think on this we've done I've done The Host Snowpiercer and Parasite
- 1:04:35evan: the other three I've done I guess like the the big one at some point I'd like
- 1:04:38evan: to do Memories of Murder that movie is such a so good.
- 1:04:41alex: Have you guys done any Park Chan walk?
- 1:04:43bill: Yes we did old boy.
- 1:04:46alex: I would go through, if you're going to do more Bong Joon-ho,
- 1:04:51alex: I would do more Park Chan-wook because it feels like there are two directors
- 1:04:54alex: that are really in conversation with each other. And you'll often see Parasite
- 1:04:57alex: to me is like Bong Joon-ho being like, I'm going to try and do a Park Chan-wook movie.
- 1:05:00evan: Yeah, I love his new one. No other choice was absolutely robbed from getting
- 1:05:06evan: not a single award, even a nomination.
- 1:05:08Rusteen: And if we want to talk about the power of violence, I mean, the other two films
- 1:05:12Rusteen: in the Vengeance trilogy, Sympathy for Mr.
- 1:05:15Rusteen: Vengeance and Lady Vengeance are both very much all about what does it take
- 1:05:21Rusteen: from us to, you know, enact violence on people who deserve it.
- 1:05:26Rusteen: Right. Is that the morally correct thing to do or not?
- 1:05:29alex: I mean, no other choice feels like him trying to do a Bong Joon-ho movie.
- 1:05:32Rusteen: Yeah, absolutely.
- 1:05:33evan: Yeah. I could see that, yeah. I think he produced some of Bong Joon-ho's films too, I think.
- 1:05:38Rusteen: Yeah, Park was one of the first to really blow up on the international stage,
- 1:05:46Rusteen: and he brought Bong up with him.
- 1:05:49evan: Yeah, I just saw he has two new films that have been announced,
- 1:05:52evan: but I don't know. I haven't looked into them deeply, but I know that's a whole
- 1:05:56evan: other thing. But yeah, we should definitely do another.
- 1:06:00evan: I definitely really want to do No Other Choice.
- 1:06:02alex: Also, I mean, it's a TV show, but The Sympathizer is worth hours of analysis.
- 1:06:06alex: It's really good. Where the only white people in it is Robert Downey Jr.
- 1:06:10alex: as different faces of capital. It's very good.
- 1:06:14ward: Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
- 1:06:16evan: Damn, I have not seen that.
- 1:06:18ward: You haven't seen it?
- 1:06:18evan: No. I've heard of it.
- 1:06:21ward: It was like widely under-advocized.
- 1:06:23evan: It was only a couple of years ago.
- 1:06:25Rusteen: Yeah, it just came out like two years ago, I think. It was Downey Jr.'s first
- 1:06:29Rusteen: like post-Oppenheimer project, but there's just so much TV out there, people didn't watch it.
- 1:06:35bill: Yeah, there really is. And it's like so much, and it's hard even,
- 1:06:38bill: like I started watching Widow's Bay because Ward mentioned it.
- 1:06:41bill: I didn't even know that it fucking existed.
- 1:06:42evan: No, I mentioned it.
- 1:06:43bill: Oh yeah, you mentioned it.
- 1:06:46Rusteen: Credit where credit's due.
- 1:06:48evan: It is true.
- 1:06:48bill: But you've watched it on board's server, I believe.
- 1:06:50evan: Yeah, I mean, it's one of those, yeah, it's one of those things.
- 1:06:52evan: There are so many, you know, like, prestige shows that things get lost now.
- 1:06:57bill: And networks, platforms. Not even networks, platforms. Yeah.
- 1:07:03evan: Yeah um but i don't did uh alex or rusty did you have any other notes or things
- 1:07:08evan: we didn't get to on uh that we may have missed or.
- 1:07:12Rusteen: Points um i think the the only other thing.
- 1:07:19Rusteen: To kind of talk about is just like the the fucking sound when they're walking
- 1:07:22Rusteen: out of the slaughterhouse and you just hear,
- 1:07:25Rusteen: the gunshots ringing forever and just knowing that that is happening like she
- 1:07:32Rusteen: will for the rest of her life know that that gun is firing every minute for the rest of her life.
- 1:07:39Rusteen: But I think the thing that Bong is really smart about is that nobody who works
- 1:07:45Rusteen: in the slaughterhouse is those people are all working their jobs.
- 1:07:50Rusteen: It's the only time we hear like we hear like Spanish in the slaughterhouse. Right.
- 1:07:54Rusteen: And when she shows the picture of her with Okja, the guy holding the gun stops.
- 1:08:02Rusteen: Like he recognizes that there's something important between the two of them
- 1:08:06Rusteen: and he has enough humanity to know that like I shouldn't do this.
- 1:08:11Rusteen: But then the boss shows up and orders him to do it. Right.
- 1:08:14Rusteen: And so I think what Bong is showing us is how, you know, we're all just following
- 1:08:20Rusteen: orders under capitalism.
- 1:08:22Rusteen: And it's making us do these inhumane things that we know deep inside of us are wrong.
- 1:08:27Rusteen: And I think a lesser filmmaker would have villainized, turned the people inside
- 1:08:33Rusteen: of the slaughterhouse into monsters in as much the same way as like Nancy is a monster.
- 1:08:39Rusteen: And he decidedly does not do that and allows them to stay human as much as Misha
- 1:08:44Rusteen: is. And that's that's why he's the goat.
- 1:08:47alex: Yeah i guess in the inverse of that the funniest scene to me in the movie is
- 1:08:51alex: when they're doing the uh the presentation
- 1:08:55alex: in new york and at some point there's like a rotating green uh,
- 1:08:59alex: that Jake Gyllenhaal is just sitting on and spinning and it's never really acknowledged.
- 1:09:05alex: As it rises. I did not bring that up on top of it. And just spinning.
- 1:09:08alex: And it's not acknowledged. There's no
- 1:09:10alex: joke. It's just him spinning in the background. It's a really good idea.
- 1:09:13Rusteen: The other thing I noticed for the first time in this is when Lucy is practicing
- 1:09:18Rusteen: her signature, she holds her pencil like a fucking toddler.
- 1:09:22Rusteen: She's just like holding it like a fist and doing the most childish signature
- 1:09:27Rusteen: you've ever seen with like little eyes on the Y.
- 1:09:32Rusteen: And it's like, these are the people in charge of society. They are literal children.
- 1:09:36Rusteen: They have not developed emotionally beyond like 10 years old.
- 1:09:41evan: Everyone's 12.
- 1:09:41ward: I've seen several people that write like that in real life. And it is beyond
- 1:09:46ward: me on like how they got to that point in their writing ability and skills.
- 1:09:51ward: It's like, did you guys not get the little thingy that goes on the pencil that
- 1:09:55ward: like shows you how to properly grip a pencil?
- 1:09:57Rusteen: Well, it's like seeing the Epstein emails from the CEOs that all like have zero
- 1:10:03Rusteen: grammatical syntax and are just riddled with spelling errors like these people
- 1:10:07Rusteen: just do not are not literate.
- 1:10:09Rusteen: Like when you reach that level of privilege, you don't need to learn how to read or write anymore.
- 1:10:13bill: I actually think that. OK, so I'm not going to talk shit about people who can't
- 1:10:19bill: who don't hold their pencils normal.
- 1:10:22bill: I guess that was me talking.
- 1:10:25bill: OK, let me back. but I'm not going to talk pencil people.
- 1:10:30evan: Jeez.
- 1:10:30bill: I will fucking talk shit about veganism all fucking day.
- 1:10:33ward: I'm coming for the pencil holders. All right.
- 1:10:35bill: It makes me angry. Um, it's a class fucking it's a class. It's a class is fucking
- 1:10:42bill: idiot. I fucking hate. Okay.
- 1:10:43bill: Anyway, I'm not going to talk to my people who can't, who don't hold pencils the way I hold pencils.
- 1:10:47bill: Okay. I'm not going to do that. But what I actually think the key to that is
- 1:10:54bill: that I actually think that That was a shot at Donald Trump.
- 1:10:59bill: Because if we fast forward,
- 1:11:05bill: I believe it's after that, when they have the meeting, and Giancarlo Esposito,
- 1:11:11bill: when they basically are all flailing,
- 1:11:14bill: and he walks away to the cappuccino machine, and he starts to make cappuccino, right?
- 1:11:20bill: And then he says to Lucy, he's like, this is what you're going to do,
- 1:11:24bill: right? This is what you thought of, right?
- 1:11:26ward: Such a power move.
- 1:11:28bill: Right. that's the whole thing it's not it is the fact that like i honestly do think that,
- 1:11:35bill: that was a shot at the the mentality like the other day i was on the phone with
- 1:11:39bill: like you know my mother and she's like you know donald trump and i'm like he's
- 1:11:43bill: not different and he's not the real problem,
- 1:11:46bill: it's the system and that's gian carlo esposito is the system and the people behind the scenes
- 1:11:54bill: that are savvy and do know these things and pull the strings and then put people
- 1:12:00bill: like that in power so that you can look at them and go, that person's bad and
- 1:12:04bill: stupid and ha ha, Elon Musk is a dummy,
- 1:12:09bill: Donald Trump is a stupid person.
- 1:12:11bill: While behind the scenes, you have the system doing all of those things.
- 1:12:16bill: And it's like, it's not the idiot practicing their signature.
- 1:12:24bill: That is the problem, you know?
- 1:12:26bill: They want you to think that that's the problem because then people like Giancarlo
- 1:12:30bill: Esposito are in the background. Like, you know, they're the ones profiting from
- 1:12:35bill: pulling the strings, actually keeping it going.
- 1:12:38bill: And you never get eyeballs on them and go, wait a minute, that motherfucker's got to go down.
- 1:12:45evan: Well, they show that scene when Tilda Swinton is giving the speech in the opening.
- 1:12:49evan: They pan to him standing above.
- 1:12:51bill: Yes.
- 1:12:52evan: Voicing the speech as if, you know, he wrote it. he's the one pulling the strings
- 1:12:56evan: above her literally so i mean.
- 1:13:00alex: I i definitely.
- 1:13:00Rusteen: Throughout he's undermining her of like being nancy's mole in all of her meetings
- 1:13:06Rusteen: helping to bring her back into
- 1:13:08Rusteen: the leadership of this company like those people want the evil people in.
- 1:13:13alex: Charge i mean it's always it's like a repudiation of like whatever woke capital
- 1:13:16alex: exists when 2017 came out is now fully dead uh,
- 1:13:19alex: i also while we're talking about the opening scene my other major notice i want
- 1:13:22alex: to talk about is that even though it is the fake origin for okja okja was still,
- 1:13:27alex: found in south america and then brought to arizona like it's it's it is capitalism
- 1:13:32alex: of we're gonna take the stuff from south america and then take it through the
- 1:13:34alex: border and that's how we're gonna make all this money that even though that's
- 1:13:37alex: the fake story that still is a reflection of just how american capitalism works.
- 1:13:42ward: Oh yeah no it's story of colonization tales all the time it has to be.
- 1:13:47alex: Also, what's up with Bong Joon-ho in Twins? I feel like he's like a big thing.
- 1:13:51alex: It's like Twins of just like the actor playing. Yeah.
- 1:13:54Rusteen: One thing he mentioned was like a big part of making this movie was just he
- 1:13:58Rusteen: wanted to work with Tilda Swinton again. And so why not have two of her maybe?
- 1:14:04alex: And so let's have, I want to really work with Robert Pattinson. Let's have 200 of him.
- 1:14:08evan: Yeah.
- 1:14:09bill: Yeah. Honestly, I don't really see an issue here. And we'll make one of the
- 1:14:13bill: Tilda Swintons Parker Posey.
- 1:14:17bill: I never had a chance to work with Parker Posey, so I'll make Tilda Swinton Parker Posey.
- 1:14:23evan: Exactly he does have like a lot of repeat people in a lot of his movies especially
- 1:14:26evan: the first few with uh like memories of murder i think the host is all and parasite 2 even,
- 1:14:34evan: like uh what is it song kang ho he's in like four or five of his films i like
- 1:14:39evan: that i always like that when directors have their like group of people they like to work with.
- 1:14:43Rusteen: I mean it helps when one of them is like the greatest actor of his entire country
- 1:14:47Rusteen: yeah exactly i was about to say one of the best actors of all time he's not.
- 1:14:52ward: In just a lot of these films he's in a lot of films a period because he's fucking great yes yes uh.
- 1:14:59Rusteen: The only other note that we didn't really touch on was just kind of like the cinematography uh,
- 1:15:04Rusteen: i think that they do this really amazing thing of like the film being like so
- 1:15:08Rusteen: colorful but then when they go into the slaughterhouse like those fluorescent lights just drain
- 1:15:15Rusteen: all of the life out from all the characters and it's just this like sickly blue
- 1:15:20Rusteen: and um this was shot by darius konji who's like a famous like iranian french
- 1:15:25Rusteen: cinematographer he shot in,
- 1:15:28Rusteen: just last year alone he shot mickey 17 eddington and marty supreme which is
- 1:15:34Rusteen: just like such a fucking triple threat of films to shoot uh,
- 1:15:40Rusteen: and and he does really great work here's getting to shoot basically like a action
- 1:15:45Rusteen: movie which he never really gets to do didn't.
- 1:15:47evan: He do uncut gems too.
- 1:15:49Rusteen: He did uncut gems too as well yeah josh safty kept him in the divorce.
- 1:15:53evan: Like and i almost i always it's funny you mentioned well yeah like that's like
- 1:15:57evan: the frenetic pace of those different marty supreme uncut gems yeah that's.
- 1:16:02Rusteen: Yeah that whole chase sequence feels like a warm-up to a lot of the chase sequences
- 1:16:07Rusteen: in marty supreme as she's like running through the streets and down into the the underground mall,
- 1:16:16Rusteen: really reminded me of Marty running through the streets of New York in that film.
- 1:16:19alex: Rustin, you don't want to talk about Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of
- 1:16:21alex: Truths, his other movie of the last two years?
- 1:16:24Rusteen: You know, I haven't seen it, so I'm not going to.
- 1:16:27alex: I'm happy not. Speaking of Netflix movies that don't exist.
- 1:16:35evan: I don't think I've ever seen that. Actually, I don't even know if I've ever heard of it.
- 1:16:38alex: It's the latest In a Ritu movie, and I will say I'm not a fan of In a Ritu,
- 1:16:42alex: and we'll leave it there.
- 1:16:44Rusteen: I'm quite curious to see Digger. That's all I'll say. I'm very curious to see that one.
- 1:16:50evan: I think I saw Babel and just gave up from there.
- 1:16:52Rusteen: I liked Birdman, but I'm afraid to go back and watch it.
- 1:16:56bill: I liked Birdman. My wife hated it.
- 1:16:59ward: Yeah, I like Birdman. I'm also afraid to go back and watch it.
- 1:17:03evan: Actually, The Revenant was actually pretty.
- 1:17:06bill: I love The Revenant.
- 1:17:09ward: I wasn't too big a fan of three hours of heavy mouth breathing. I wasn't into that.
- 1:17:16alex: I didn't even talk about the Pandora's box on this one.
- 1:17:18Rusteen: I'm sorry. If you want to hear our thoughts about In Yuritu,
- 1:17:22Rusteen: you can listen to our podcast, In Yuritu, in which we talk about all of Alexander
- 1:17:28Rusteen: In Yuritu's films, two minutes at a time.
- 1:17:31evan: What's funny is that all of the ones we just mentioned were divisive between
- 1:17:36evan: the five of us. I hate it. I loved it. So that just seems to be the...
- 1:17:42evan: The vibe he gives off with his films. But for the Andorx, did you have any,
- 1:17:47evan: I think you mentioned at the beginning, but do you want to remind anyone of
- 1:17:50evan: what, what episode are you on right now, approximately in the Andorx series?
- 1:17:56Rusteen: So if this episode's coming out around 4th of July weekend, it's actually a
- 1:18:01Rusteen: very special episode because it is the debut of everyone's favorite anarchist
- 1:18:07Rusteen: revolutionary Saw Gerrera on Andorx.
- 1:18:12Rusteen: we're going to be covering.
- 1:18:13alex: And two tubes.
- 1:18:15Rusteen: Everybody's yes his right hand man,
- 1:18:21Rusteen: it's the very end of the first episode of the Narkina arc,
- 1:18:26Rusteen: and so we are now deep into Kino Loy season and
- 1:18:31Rusteen: so we're going to talk a lot of Andy Serkis and so you can check that out at
- 1:18:35Rusteen: andorkspod.com we also have a Patreon where we're covering detours of stuff related to and or.
- 1:18:43alex: Yes we just went deep on uh the star wars uh saw guerrera throughout the star
- 1:18:49alex: wars properties and how he evolved as a character and how he's how how he presents
- 1:18:53alex: differently depending on the age range of the product but.
- 1:18:56Rusteen: Yeah and and we'll soon be talking about uh andy circus's uh,
- 1:19:03Rusteen: directed Animal Farm movie as well. So just to get a real range of the kinds
- 1:19:08Rusteen: of stuff we're getting to talk about in our detours.
- 1:19:12alex: About Trotsky's Andy Serkis.
- 1:19:15bill: Would you like to have Evan on for that special Patreon episode?
- 1:19:18Rusteen: I watched that movie.
- 1:19:18bill: He's the only one that tortured himself by watching that movie.
- 1:19:22evan: My God. We were doing like a special episode and we were talking about it.
- 1:19:27evan: I was talking about it and just...
- 1:19:28evan: I told him I don't think I could actually watch it again to talk about it in
- 1:19:32evan: detail because it was it was it was rough.
- 1:19:35bill: I maintain that it is our duty to do so and we're also refuse to do it.
- 1:19:41ward: It's like our whole thing we're like no.
- 1:19:44evan: I have the.
- 1:19:45Rusteen: Reason to have a podcast is just to make people watch stuff that you want to make them watch right so.
- 1:19:51evan: What's more.
- 1:19:51alex: Cursed andy circus wanting people left this project and he had forced into angel
- 1:19:56alex: studios or literally the 1950s version which was produced by the cia which is
- 1:20:01alex: the which which way modern man which is worse.
- 1:20:03evan: Yeah yeah six one way half a dozen yeah exactly exactly no it's it's like famously
- 1:20:11evan: i watch will be like this movie looks terrible who would watch that and then i'll watch it,
- 1:20:16evan: you know i'll just fuck you know yeah we did not watch we did do an episode
- 1:20:21evan: on melania but we didn't actually watch melania it was more of an april fool's
- 1:20:25evan: joke because we couldn't even bring ourselves yeah we just.
- 1:20:29ward: Talked about state flags instead that's great.
- 1:20:32evan: Yeah because i don't even think i could torture myself with that.
- 1:20:34ward: What state won hey apparently there's a new.
- 1:20:37evan: Worst movie we didn't really pick wasn't i what wow did we have a winner what
- 1:20:41evan: we thought was the best state do Do you remember?
- 1:20:43bill: Yeah, there were definitely, you know, ones that we liked.
- 1:20:46ward: And there were standouts. I don't know if we played.
- 1:20:47evan: California was definitely up near the top of, like, states.
- 1:20:49bill: California was up in the top. Well, we all did really like Arizona. I do remember that.
- 1:20:56evan: We did not like Maryland, which is my home state.
- 1:20:58bill: We also really liked Ohio because it's not a rectangle.
- 1:21:01ward: We liked Oregon because it was the only double-sided one, right?
- 1:21:05bill: Yes.
- 1:21:06ward: Yeah.
- 1:21:07bill: It got props for that. It is kind of ugly, but it got props for that.
- 1:21:10ward: But it's got a beaver on the back.
- 1:21:11bill: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
- 1:21:12ward: And it's the only one that has a back.
- 1:21:14alex: The new Minnesota flag kind of whips. I really like it.
- 1:21:16evan: Oh. Did we talk about that? We must have.
- 1:21:19bill: Oh, yes.
- 1:21:20alex: It's like shaped like Minnesota on the left, but there's a star on it.
- 1:21:22bill: Yeah. That one is also... We actually... I think... I don't...
- 1:21:26bill: We skipped that one. But it is one of the nicer ones. It's a clean look.
- 1:21:31Rusteen: I don't know. It's giving Aldi to me.
- 1:21:34alex: Well, don't forget that Aldi on the left is the shape of Minnesota. That's why it's cool.
- 1:21:38ward: That's true.
- 1:21:39alex: It's such a little broken shape.
- 1:21:41bill: The important thing is that we just thoroughly trashed Washington's flag for one.
- 1:21:47evan: Yeah. There is definitely.
- 1:21:49alex: Are there flags in Star Wars? Like, is there a flag of a planet?
- 1:21:53bill: That's a great question.
- 1:21:54Rusteen: Yeah, the Gorman have a flag at the very least. So I have to imagine the other planets have flags.
- 1:22:00Rusteen: Let's look up. Are we going to look up flags on Wikipedia now?
- 1:22:04alex: We'll save that for our.
- 1:22:04evan: I'm already there. I'm already there.
- 1:22:06ward: What's the Tusken Raiders flag?
- 1:22:09bill: They don't have a flag.
- 1:22:10evan: So it does look like certain places. They move from Oakland.
- 1:22:14alex: They moved to Oak and they played the same flag.
- 1:22:16bill: Jesus Christ. That is, even I got that joke and I hate sports.
- 1:22:22evan: Alderaan had a flag, it looks like. A few of them did.
- 1:22:26Rusteen: If you want deep dives into Wookiepedias, come join us on AndorksPod.
- 1:22:30Rusteen: You can find us on social media at AndorksPod.
- 1:22:33alex: And as someone who hosts a Star Wars podcast, getting basic information about
- 1:22:37alex: Star Wars wrong, you'll really enjoy it and can just yell at me remotely.
- 1:22:44evan: The one fan base that you will definitely anger or anger somebody i suppose.
- 1:22:48Rusteen: We've got leftists and star wars fans so it's a real cat and dog fight.
- 1:22:54evan: Going on in our who's more annoying yeah yeah,
- 1:22:59evan: awesome well uh alex and ristine thank you for uh coming on to uh talk about
- 1:23:04evan: okja and everyone should go check out your podcast where you all the podcast
- 1:23:08evan: places as well as Left of the Jector.
- 1:23:11evan: And thanks again for coming on.
- 1:23:13Rusteen: Thanks for having us.
- 1:23:15evan: Of course. And we will, for myself, Evan, Bill Ward, we will catch you next time.
- 1:23:20alex: We're not putting on all of our balaclavas like the post-credits scene.
- 1:23:25ward: I like that they brought an extra one.
- 1:23:27alex: Just in case a comrade.
- 1:23:29ward: Yeah. I don't know if they did, but like, you know, a comrade might forget or
- 1:23:35ward: you might make a new comrade along the way.
- 1:23:37bill: Yeah.
- 1:23:37ward: So, like, I like that they had the extra.
- 1:23:39Rusteen: That solidarity.
- 1:23:41bill: I think they all had an extra one on them just in case.
- 1:23:44ward: Yeah, I feel, you know what I mean? Just in case somebody forgot. Or you make a friend.
- 1:23:50bill: Yeah.