Latest / The Kulturecast / Bugonia (2025) — "There's Andromedan code all over your Instagram. You're barely even hiding it."

Transcript

Bugonia (2025) — "There's Andromedan code all over your Instagram. You're barely even hiding it." · The Kulturecast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Weary way.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: You are a high ranking of fisherman in the Royal
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Andromedan court. Jesus Christ on October thirty first, The truth
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: we have there days to save planet Earth will shock you.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I know what you are. I know you too.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Well, Loogo on the updated r in Select Leader's October
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: twenty fourth, and if we were October thirty first.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Culture Cast. I am
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Cristasio, and I'm joined once again. I wouldn't
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: say as always, but I am joined once again by
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: my dear friend all the way from West Texas. He
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: teaches over there at Texas Tech. He is the what
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: do you do over there again? Doctor Perlmutter?
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: In light, I'm mos of US Professor of Media and Communication.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: So you would say, broadly, you have nothing to do
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: with aliens? Is that what you're saying? Absolutely not, absolutely, unequivocally,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: not a single damn thing on this episode of the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Culture Cast. If you have clicked on it, then you
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: know what we are talking about. If you have somehow
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: wandered into this corner of the Internet by accident, let
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: me clue you in as to what we're going to
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: be talking about on this episode of the Culture Cast.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: On this episode of the Culture Cast, we'll be talking
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: about the twenty twenty five Oscar Award nominated film. It
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: did not win any Oscars, but it was nominated for four,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: including Best Picture and Best Actress for Emma Stone. She
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: did not win. It did not win, which is a
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: bit of a bummer because we're gonna be talking about
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty Five's begone. So the film is directed by
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: a Yorgos Lanthemos on a screenplay by Will Tracy based
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: on Save the Green Planet by John Jun Juan, which
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: is a Korean language film. The film is produced by
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Yorgos Lanthemos, Emma Stone. Ari Astro is the name that
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: sticks out to me as a fan of ari Astor's work,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: and the film stars Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, Aiden Delvis,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Stavros Halkias, and Alicia Silverstone. Yes, that's about the entire cast,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: because this movie has out five people in it effective
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: and the film is all about Jesse Plemons and Aidan
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Delvis as a conspiracy theorist and his cousin who abduct
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: Emma Stone's character, who is the CEO of a pharmaceutical
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: company read Big Tech woman, I guess is the way
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I would look at it, and they kidnap her because
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: they are they are convinced that she is an alien
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: tasked with destroying humanity. Uh, the film will be spoiled.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: So if you have not seen the film, go ahead
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and want it and circle on back. If you have
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: seen it, stick around though, because I think we're going
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to have an interesting conversation because once again doctor Pearl
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Mutter is asking to talk about this film intentionally. So
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: since you are my guest and you have asked to
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: talk about this movie specifically, Doctor Pearlmutter, I will turn
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the floor over to you. Why Pogonia? Why Begonia and
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: not save the Green Planet? Did you just not want
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: to watch a Korean language film? Is that what it is?
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I was watching a BTS video last night. They've
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: got two billion hits on YouTube, so and I've watched
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: K drama and K historical and K videos all the time.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: So yeah, Flexen is K cred the c and the
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: t T drama Turkish drama. It really is amazing seeing
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: how many international producers have established a form of dominance
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: in the world of media that you probably couldn't imagine
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: that so when I was growing up, you sort of
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: vaguely heard about Bollywood and then there'd be like English
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: actors and a French film would be an art house film.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: But now we do have this international culture, and I
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: think that's the point, is that, yeah, it is an
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: adaptation of a Korean film. I did not see the
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Korean film. In fact, I wanted to wait to maybe
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: at some point do a separate analysis of that, because
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: I've heard a lot of people do comparisons. I wanted
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: to focus on Begonia, and I want to start out
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: by saying that this is a great example that I
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: love to talk about with my students, although I will
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: not assign this movie to my students because I found
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: so many of the situations to be so disturbing. I
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: just wouldn't trust for a general classroom, maybe a very
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: specialized class where people knew, you know, sturbing films of
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: the twenty first century or something. But there was just
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: a lot of stuff here that left me really shocked.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: And I don't shock easily about the treatment of women
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: the violence that's in this movie. So it is a
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: movie that really deserves some trigger warnings. And that's okay
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: because I think we know going into it. I don't
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: think anybody walked into the theater and mixed it up
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: with a new Pixar release or something like that.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: I was going to see Hoppers instead, and I just
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: wandered into Begonia.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you wouldn't want to wander into this movie. This
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: movie technically is magnificent. I'm sort of reminded if anybody's
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: old enough to remember the Jang ye Mo Chinese director.
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: He made these beautiful dramas in like the nineties and
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: the two thousands to Live and Joe dou and I
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: remember Ciscal and that's how old I am. I remember
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Ciskel and Ebert revealing those films and talking about how
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: different they were in color, Like the color was so
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: saturated because one of the last factories to do the
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: old style process of processing film was in China, and
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: you could get those those reds that just blew you
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: off the screen there. And that what really struck me
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: at first is how different in color palette this film
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: is from a lot of what we've seen where it
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: many science fiction movies, many fantasy movies are shades of beige. Right, Yeah,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: they're dusty, and maybe that's intentional. I mean Dune. Dune
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: has color, but like it's a desert planet, so there's
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: there's only so much you can you can do there.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: But definitely here, just in the very beginning, when we
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: see bees, right, and they are you think you're in
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: a David Attenborough nature documentary, right, a day in the
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: life of the bees, because they're just rich and you
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: see them in their detail and you sort of appreciate them,
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: and I think that actually is setting us up for like, Wow,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: how beautiful planet Earth is without us, right, Yeah, I
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: mean I think that's a point that's made repeatedly in
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: the film, and we'll go back to it, but that
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: saturation of the beauty of the planet is like an
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: establishing shot for the plot to come. I also like
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: this film because it's a conspiracy theory movie. Now you
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: could say one of the flaws is that there's no
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: possibility that the conspiracy would not turn out to be true,
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: so you're you're not wondering whether or not she's an
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: alien because there are so many signs in the movie
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: that she's not and things could be interpreted different ways.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: That it's very well done. I mean, it's not like
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: from seeing one oh, yeah, you know, you see her
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: pulling a mask over her reptilian face or something like that.
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: There you could be guessing until some of the very
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: last scenes. But plot wise, my friend I was watching
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: it with did not.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I asked her up until the final reveal if she
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: thought that I must Stowe was an alien, and her
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: response up into the end of the movie.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: Was no, yes.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: So I think that's the biggest One of the biggest
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: successes of the movie is the fact that it gets
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: away with I think one of the hardest filmic dodges
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: of all, which is convincing you that something is not true,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: but yet it has been true the entire time.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely. I felt that in terms of like relation
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: to the audience, everybody would have been disappointed if it
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: had just been Emma Stone had been a CEO who
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: took a workshop on what to say and do if
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: you're kidnapped to make the kidnappers release you and think
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: that they have a duty to be merciful to you.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: I think if that would be the end, if like
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: she had just taken the guy back and like hit
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: him over the head and she's freed and she's talking
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: on Good Morning America. The next day about how she
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: was so brilliant and manipulating the kidnappers. It would have
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: been one ending. But I just I don't think the
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: audience who went to the film would have been happy
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: with that. Edvie. I felt like they had to go alien.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: It's just a question of how and when.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: And I want to back up by saying I liked
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: so many elements in this film, but I did not
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: like the reveal system, like not only what she said,
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: but how she said it and.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: The sort of details. I felt there was a lot
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: of problems there in terms of plot. And we'll get
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: to it, but let's just say that for me, ninety
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: percent of this film is technically some of the best
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: work I've ever seen. Yeah, I agree with that. If
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: it had won an Oscar, I would have cheered if Certainly,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: Emma Stone has proven that for someone of her generation,
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: she is, if not the leads performer, then one of them. Right.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Just you think about the range of her work.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Right, especially with Yorgos Lanthemos, which I think is the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: interesting part. You know, I wouldn't say I'm the biggest
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: Emma Stone van I will say in terms of the
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: people that she works with and the roles that she's given.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I don't think anyone outside of Yorgo's Lanthemos has really
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: been able to give her the role that she excelled at.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: And I you know, I mean Poor Things obviously is
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: what she ended up winning the Oscar for, which is
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: also a Yorgo's Lanthemos film. So you know, I am
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: inclined to agree with you. I'm actually not that big
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: of a fan of Emma Stone, but when she works
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: with Yorgos Lanthemos, all I can think is, this is
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: in a lot of ways like modern day Scorsese and
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: de Niro in terms of their ability to work well together.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Because The Favorite and Poor Things and Bogonia are all
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: pretty great movies, and obviously, you know, two of those
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: three movies have actresses winning awards for Best Actress, Olivia
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: Coleman for The Favorite and then Emma Stone for Poor Things.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Like you know, that's that's I mean, a pretty good
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: track record working with certain actresses as a director. So
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm more excited to see what they do together
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: than what she does on her own, because for the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: most part, I'm not really an im A Stone fan.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Well, to me, she reminds us of a kind of
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: star that existed during the classical Hollywood system. And we
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: have to remind people, say as early as nineteen tens
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: through say the nineteen fifties, there was a propendicular system
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: where you would be identified like MGM would say, hey,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: this young actress is really good, and they would sign
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: you to a studio contract right where you would only
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: make movies for that studio, or they would lend you
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: out for a fee to another studio. But they wouldn't
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: just you wouldn't just sit at home and wait for
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: your agent to call. They would give you dancing lessons,
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: singing lessons, horse riding lessons, gun shooting lessons. I mean,
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: they would make you available for anything that came along,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: and you didn't have that much of a choice. I mean,
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: if MGM said okay, you're going to be in a
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: wrestling picture and then the submarine picture. I'm sort of
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: referring to Barton think, which was a sort of insight
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: into the system here, But is there going to be
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: in that kind of a picture. Your choice was like Okay,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: I quit the business or yes, sir, mister yeah, and
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: mister Goldwan, I'm definitely gonna do.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: That, and so the actor Sam to his friends, David
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Sam to his friends.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: The actresses and actors that came out of that system
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: were multi talented. I mean they really could jump on
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: a horse, they could dance, they could sing, they could
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: do they could do comedy one month. I mean, the
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: films didn't take as long to shoot as they do now.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: So you might be doing a dancing, singing comedy, and
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: then you might be doing a dark film noir, and
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: then you might be doing a war picture. Right. We
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: all within six months. And whatever you think of that system,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: it had its flaws. It certainly produced people who not
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: only were good actors and actresses, but they were very
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: well rounded. In m Stode, I mean, you have to
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: give it to her. I mean she said La La
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: Land and she's letter A and I'm forgetting the remember
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: the title there that the the and then she's in
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: this right and then, and let's talk about her role here.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: It's an incredibly harrowing, difficult role. I mean I understand
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: that she wasn't actually really obeaten and really electrocuted and
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: really you know, tortured, but like to have to sit
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: there on a set and credibly pretend that you've been
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: through this trauma, and you make a list there of
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: all the physical things and the psychological thing she's gone through.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, we're spoiling things here now, you know, to
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: find the basement full of bodies, right right, just any
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: normal human being. And of course we find out she's
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: not a normal human being would be traumatized all along
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: the way here, and yet she very convinced plays somebody
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: who is incredibly smart and savvy and keeps coming back
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: from torture disaster, you know, beating everything and keeps trying
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: to be victorious in manipulating the people who are doing
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: this to her. So like you're, you're you should, if
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: you're a normal human being, you should feel sorry for
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: this poor woman who's being attacked like this. Then of
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: course there's a backstory that you learn where I mean
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: you were in right away. She's this CEO, very manipulative,
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: not very truthful, not the kind of person in real
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: life that you would necessarily like as a person. But
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: you're balancing all this with like she is. I mean,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: you're balancing this with the idea, yeah, but this is
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: a human being treated so badly. Should should I should
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: I feel sorry for her or not right? Who is
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: she right? Because who still can't guess that? Yeah, and
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: let's talk about conspiracy theory here, because the two characters, right, who's.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Really the one? It's really the one with the And
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I would say it's smart writing to have a the
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: stereotypical kind of easily swayable sidekick or you know, you
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: know also you know, also you know, partner in crime.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I think it was very interesting to lean into the Well,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: there's always the one who seems impressionable that can be
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: taken advantage of. I mean, you see it in the
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: big in the big cases anyways, And I like that
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: they kind of lean into that a little bit.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think again, this is a tribute to an
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: actor who has self identified as somebody with developmental issues
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: and autism and things like that. And I think that
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: it's a great performance. The script role he's given has
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: really a lot of depth and nuance. For example, he's
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: one of the only people who expresses a conscience about
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: what they're doing, by what anybody's doing right, and he
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: asks good questions like like it would have been very
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: easy to make him into the dumb sidekick. Well, sure, Joe,
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: whatever you say, Joe, you know, but even when he's
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: saying I'll go along, and you see that, you get
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: a sense, you know, there wasn't a long prologue of
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: their background, but you get a sense that like they've
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: been together a long time as cousins, they've been through
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: some very tough years, They've looked out for each other.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: He certainly sees the lead conspirator as like one of
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: the only people in his life who cares about him.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: But yeah, he still keeps asking like are we is
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: this right? We hold on?
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: You know, it's.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: To just yeah. I mean, he's asking questions that the
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: skeptic might answer about, like are you sure it's andrama dance?
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: And I want to talk about the pronunciation of and
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: rama there. But I just felt that this was so
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: well done that a the co conspirator was not just
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: the slavish acolyte, right, just just taking orders and doing
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: He wasn't in the Nazi sense that just the guy
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: who just follows orders and just does any the henchmen
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: or something, which very important that I think makes it
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: part of the drama there. And of course she Emma Stone,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: who again like your friend, we could just read this
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: and like she is a smart CEO. You know, she's
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: physically trained, She's probably in better shape than both of them,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: and could under normal circumstances take out both of them.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Almost does right in the kidnapping scene, right, she almost
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: wins there there, And certainly she's presented as smarter than
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: both of them, more more manipulative, and so you've got
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: this troika. There are very interesting characters who are not
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: necessarily checking all the boxes of stereotype. Just going back
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: to Jesse's character, I'm fascinated as somebody who studies conspiracy
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: theories that I've talked about, how we're in the era
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: of the low effort conspiracy theory. Right, Like in the past,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: say in the sixties or seventies, if you had a
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: conspiracy theory like John F. Kennedy's assassination was a group
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: project and there was the Cubans and whatever were behind
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: it and so on, you would have to do things
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: like you have to go to a library and find books, right,
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: You would have to get a copy of the War
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: in Commission report, you would have to go interview people.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of effort into producing anything recognizable as
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: a conspiracy theory document. Now we live in an era
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: where honestly, people just post some AI picture on the
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Internet and a million people go, yeah, I knew it
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: was UFOs, I knew it was bigfoot.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: We love refer to that as AI slop.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, And unfortunately a lot of people are agreeing
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: with it or liking it, or I'm taking a hundred
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: percent I would use yeah, yeah. Well, as we've talked
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: about before, the sort of the theory that I present
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: the students is the believing is seen. So if we
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: believe something, then we're more likely to accept visual evidence
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: of it than to be critical and sort of say
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: is this picture really correct? But the point is that
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Jesse is a sort of old fashioned conspiracy theorist, Like
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: he's done this increast I guess for years, maybe part
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: of his whole life. His mother was a conspiracy theorist,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: so like it's been in the family, he inherited it
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: from his right dying mother, so he put all this
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: effort into it, you got. I mean, if he put
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: all that effort into I don't know, starting a business,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: maybe it would have done a little bit better. But
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: you see the parallel between her, who's put all this
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: effort into achieving wealth and power and fame as a CEO,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: and him who's put all this effort into something microscopic
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: that sounds insane. Because that's another great choice here by
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: the filmmakers is that they didn't pick a conspiracy theory,
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: which in any way sounds plausible. Right, They didn't pick
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: an easy one, you know, they didn't say, like, okay,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: I want you to admit that this company you know,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: accidentally poisoned, right, and then it would have been a
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: completely different movie.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Well, a conspira it's not even a conspiracy. That's a
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: fact which is not which is not as fun I
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: think is I mean that obviously becomes in conspiracy theory land,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: that always becomes the thing, like you said that, it's
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: it always seems like for it seemed like for a
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: long time when we talked about conspiracy theories, we didn't
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: have the the the inherent stretching of even base reality
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: beyond its breaking point. But now with conspiracy theories, it
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: seems like the breaking point that the base reality has
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: been taken beyond is as just they just blew past
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: it like flat earth or what this you know, what
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Jesse Plemons believes in this movie. I mean it's no
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: different than flat Earth. Like you are under the impression
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: that this woman is an alien and there is no
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: information that you have. I would say that he has
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: less proof that she's an alien than people with flat earth.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: You know, theories have like a flat earth is inherently incorrect,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: but like this guy has no evidence that she's an alien,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: none tangible.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Right. Of course, in this movie, I'm not sure whether
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: it is saying the Earth is flat because of the ending.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: I mean I think it might be. I don't know
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: that there is a claim there. Yeah, So that's a
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: really key point, is that all of these people are
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: smart in their own way their contributory, Like they have
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: information that's important. And this could have been a play.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's there's no question that they could have
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: just changed some scenes and this could have been an
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: off Broadway drama, right Los Angeles theater drama. It really
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: comes down to these three characters. Everybody else is just
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: and the fourth character who's in introduced and I had
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: some questions there about the police officer. So we're talking
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: about the ninety percent of the film I appreciate, and
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: we'll talk about the ten percent where I was just
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: really frustrated by the decision making. But there's no question
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: that for twenty twenty six, this is a marvelously constructed
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: film that like the dumbness of so much content today
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: where you wonder whether any thinking person was associated with
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: the writing. Yeah, that's not true here. Obviously really smart
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: people put this together, and really star smart people were
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: on the screen working with it.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say Will Tracy, who is
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: the screenwriter on the film, obviously, you know, like we
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: mentioned at the top, he's adapting the Save the Green
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Planet John Juna Huan film. That film has a male
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: character in the Emma Stone roll, which changes I think
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: that changes the optics of it and honestly makes it
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: more interesting because it becomes a woman in Peril movie
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: that is actually is not a woman in peril movie.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: In reality, it just seems like a woman in peril
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: movie on the face of it, at least in what
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Western audiences would perceive as a woman in peril movie.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: But it is actually a men in peril movie. They
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: just don't realize it, which is not something you realize
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: until the second time you watch the movie, because the
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: first time you watch the movie without knowing how it's
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: going to play out. It seems like a woman in
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: peril movie because it's a woman kidnapped by two conspiracy
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: theorists who are bigger than her. I love the juxtaposition
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: of how much bigger than her they are. Almost all
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the time they always look bigger than her. And then
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: you realize, like about halfway through the meal, two thirds
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: the way through the movie, it's the old quote from
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: a Watchman. You know, you're not locked in here with
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: me or not. I'm not locked in here with you, You're
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: locked in here with me. Like That's what they don't
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: realize about two thirds of the way through is that
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: she is in fact an alien and she is going
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: to make sure that neither one of these guys make
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: it I wouldn't say make it out alive, but I mean,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: don't you know, I don't get what's coming to them,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: because they all get what's coming to them, you know.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: And and you know, Aidan Delbis's character is probably the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: only one that you kind of okay, well this is
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the questionable one. But everybody else seems pretty downright awful
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: in this movie. Jesse Plemons, Stavroshelkius, and I mean Alicia
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Silverstone are not good people. I think that's made like
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: abundantly clear. And then with Jesse Plemons, like I think
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: they hammered that point home with having you know her
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: find all these like disembodied heads and disemboweled bodies in
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: his basement, which means he's been doing this and maybe
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: he got lucky this time. I mean, he does say
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: he found two others, but again I don't know if
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: he's worth believing or not. I like the idea of
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: adapting a Korean film and changing the gender and it
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: working on more levels because of that choice you're making
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: than otherwise, because like you said, it seems like a
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: smart decision to make a lot of the decisions that
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: were made in the creation of this movie seem like
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: smart decisions that were made. And you know Will Trace
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: he worked on The Menu, which I don't know if
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: you saw, I think has its moments. He wrote Pogonia,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: and then he was a producer on Eddington, which I'm
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: kind of probably not as I'm not as high on
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: as other ari Astor stuff. But he's the former editor
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: of The Onion and he used to work at Last
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Week Tonight and he worked on Succession as well. So
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: he has a track record, and I think that, to
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: your point, speaks volumes to the adaptation of a Korean
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: script not only feeling like a completely different movie, but
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: also feels like something more in other ways, like it
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: feels like it has maybe more to say than the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: original Korean film.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, and if I were going to show this to
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: a class, which I will not, I would assign as
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: supplementary viewing a couple of films and TV series, including
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: ones that you just mentioned. We live in an era
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: where if you were in Hollywood and you were going
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: to make a film, and you pitched the film and
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: you said, and the hero of the film is the
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: CEO of a chemical company, you would have a lot
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: of people going like, Okay, how are we going to
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: make him sympathetic in any way? Like the audience just
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: walking into the door, right is CEOs have not gotten
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: a lot of great press lately. I found it interesting
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: that's there's a new TV series which I've not seen,
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: called The Studio, and just from the advertising, I think
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: it's an Apple show. They have a guy who takes
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: over as head of a studio and there's a little
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: catch line. I just wanted to make great movies, and
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: now I'm finding I'm part of the problem as head
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: of the studio, so maybe he's going to be a
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: more sympathetic character there. But okay, So Succession an entire brilliant,
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: brilliantly written TV show where except for the non player
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: characters like the ordinary people who are treated literally like bleep,
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: everybody in the show is horrible. These are terrible people
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: fighting over something. And yet you've watched with fascination. It's
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: a very very successful show with the younger people like
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: like my students and sorry, yeah, And I think part
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: of it is, you know, the idea of like what
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: would you do if you were born into a billionaire family,
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: and it's very Shakespeare and Greek tragedy, and that you
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: literally have a roy al family where there's fighting inside
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: for the father's love and to succeed the father and
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: all that stuff. So just there's just a lot of
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: interesting stuff going on there. But the reason I'm mentioning
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: it and then I'm of two quick other readings. One
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: is a Kira curisau is High and Low, which I
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: think was a strong influence. I haven't seen the Korean film,
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: but I have to think it was a strong influence
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: on the Korean film and Bogonia. For those of you
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: who haven't seen it, High and Low, Kira Coversawa had
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: an astonishing range of work. He didn't just do Samurai movies.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: High and Low was an urban noir drama that I'm
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: blanking net Mel Gibson remade into the movie Ransom as
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: I Revolve with a lot of changes. But anyway, in there,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: there's the CEO of a shoe company played by Tashira Mafuni,
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: and there's a kidnapping, but it's was intended to be
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: a kidnapping of his son, but it turns out they
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: kidnapped his chauffeur's son. They're playing together or they just
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: look alike, so the tension is trying to get back
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: his chauffeur's son. And what's interesting that in there is
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: that there is this reference to the police who are
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: doing the investigation. They're not necessarily like, oh, yeah, we
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: love CEOs, we love rich people. But because Tashira Mafuni
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: consistently shows himself to be a good man, who really cares,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: who really wants, who's willing to sacrifice everything, including all
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: of his fortune, to get his chauffeur's son back, you
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: begin to sort of cheer for him as a protagonist. There,
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: So the reason I'm referring to these And then the
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: last one I'll bring up is Rod Serling, Creator is
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: a Twilight Zone wrote an incredible teleplay that was made
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: into a television movie with a terrible title called Patterns,
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: and it was Succession nineteen fifty eight. It was about
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: a power play fight for control of a company in
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: New York. And so you're getting a view in corporate
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: life in the fifties when it was, you know, a
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: CEO was seen more positively than today. But and one
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: character is a sort of good person who's trying to
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: make the system work good. My point for all this
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: tangent is that Amastone does something pretty incredible, which is
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: that she has all the elements of a very nefarious person,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: almost an evil person, right, but again because of what's
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: done to her, But because you think this part of
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: the identification this movie is you think, well, what would
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: do I do in this situation? Right? And she is
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: doing And as you know, Chris, I wrote a book
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: policing the media. I'm not plugging, I'm just saying I
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: wrote a book on Police and the Media, and this
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: is back in the nineties, and one of the piece
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: of advice police have is that when you're in that
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: kind of a situation and you know you're unarmed, and
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: you just pointed it out. While we are specifically shown
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: that she is very physically capable, right, she's taking like
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: taekwondo with a trainer in a particular early scene before
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: she's kidnapped, and and we know just Emma Stone is
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: a fit person. We do know that they are bigger
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: than her and tougher than her. It's just bulk, right.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: We do know that she's tied up right and right,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: she's got all the disadvantages, and so her manipulation, which
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: is normally a negative thing like oh, this corporate ceo
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: is manipulating the public, suddenly becomes a positive and you
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: can sort of sympathize and understand, like, Okay, I understand
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: why she's trying to be manipulative because she's trying to live.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Right well, and that's what allows you to have this
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: kind of level of I would say unease with her
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: character because there's a scene and I'm assuming you know,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: just based on the way you've talked about the film,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: the scene I would say that becomes the what on
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the second watch through is the exposition dump of them,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: which is, how do we have her actually be an alien? Well,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: here's how she's actually an alien, which the first time
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: you watch the movie, it would seem like, well, this
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: just is her making this up on the spot to
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: get out of you know, to essentially like lean into
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: his crazy. However, on the second watch that is so
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: far from what is going on because in the second
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: watch you realize this is more or less the truth.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know how I feel about it because I'm
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: not sure how well executed it is. Is my issue,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: and I'm curious your thoughts because it seems like you
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: have some maybe some issues with it as well. Possible.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, here's where like if I were in the studio team,
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: I would give some notes. Either the characters are lying
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: to us, especially her character is lying to the humans
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: and making just stuff up, as you say, off the
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: top of the top of her head, out of her
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: but or there's something seriously wrong with the plot as
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: we're presented. And let me just give a couple of
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: examples of where I just did not understand the choice
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: and what it was supposed to mean. And maybe I'm
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: dumb and I didn't get it, but I really I
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: have no problem, by the way, telling my students or
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: anybody like I didn't get that. I didn't understand what
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: happened there and why and what it meant and people.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: I've talked to other people about this and they've given
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: me explanations. I still don't get it. So let me
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: just start out with something very simple and small that
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: I guess because I'm a journalism professor, really bothered me.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: There is a point where the Jesse character mispronounces a word.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: He mispronounces a word, and she jumps on that and says, well,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: I guess you know you don't know grammar. Basically, I'm
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: rewriting the work right right, yeah, yeah, And it bothered
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: me because her backstory, now maybe that was supposed to
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: be a she's not human, because her backstory is you
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: don't get to be CEO of a company unless you're
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: grew up and had a very good education, especially in communications,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: right right right, especially in and she is a top
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: notch I mean, you think of all the verbal plays
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: that she makes with her staff about like we want,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: we don't people don't need to stay past five unless
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: you really have to, unless there's a really important project.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: I mean that whole CEO speak corporate speak. In other words,
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: she is good at corporate speak. She would know that
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: mispronunciation is not a grammar error. Now that was a
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: small thing. But again, I you know, you know movies
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: better than I do. But I'm assuming screenplays are read
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: by lots of people. Actors read that, the studio reads them,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: the screen writers read. I mean this screenplay was read
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: hundreds of times before it was shot. This was not
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: like a high school production where they just wrote as
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: they went along. Apparently wheel of Time where they're writing
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: it as they're going along. I mean, a lot of
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: people looked at this before it went the screen. So
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: I thought myself, why did they make that simple mistake?
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: Because is the sometimes you don't know is the character
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: making a mistake and that means something or did the
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: filmmakers make a mistake there? And it's a small thing,
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: but it led to a much larger one. Is that
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: when she starts describing, I mean her big reveal, her
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: plot dump there of the Andromedins and seventy five million
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: years ago and their experiments with humans. It's absurd. It's
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: completely absurd. Like that means every biologist on planet Earth,
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: every piece of fossil evidence, everything we have or science
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: about the history of the Earth is one hundred percent wrong. Right,
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: And again I'm thinking, like, did they just throw that
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: in there and not think about it, or like no
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: one associated with the film had ever taken an evolutionary
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: biology class. It's sort of like the opening of Prometheus
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: where I'm going like, you know, really, you're going to
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: claim that humans were formed by you know, the engineers
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: dumping their genetics into the water. I mean, just just okay,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: if it had been like Prometheus, where they just have
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: something inexplicably dumb and just move on with it. And
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: I didn't necessarily think Prometheus was a terrific film plot wise,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: but here this is like the big moment right right
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: where we're finding out you're right all along, conspiracy theorists,
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: crazy conspiracy theorists, You're right all along. And here's the
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: explanation the seventy five million years ago, like we have
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: we have a long evolutionary record, right, Like we've found bones,
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: so what the andromedains have been planting the evolutionary record
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: of humankind. They've been planting like fake bones. It's just
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: so wrong, and you can go online. I actually haven't looked,
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: but I would have to think if you like brought
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: a biologist onto this show, they would say, yeah, that's
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: not the way evolution works, that's not the way fossil
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: record tells us. So okay, so what are our choices there?
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: I actually wrote them down like a professor. I wrote
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: this down. Okay, So choice number one is that hundreds
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: of people involved in making this film have no scientific
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: acknowledge whatsoever, and no knowledge of like human speech whatsoever.
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: I just can't believe that, right, right, right, So then
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: then I think, okay, so it had to have been
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: a deliberate choice, so it could be it's possible, which
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: you see in science fiction films all the time they
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: just didn't care that somebody sit insert science stuff here
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: and just moved on. But we've just made this case
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: that this is one of the great filmmakers of our
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: time with really thoughtful precision and ideas and writing. Right,
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: this is not this is not a mystery science theater
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: three thousand candidate for you know, Wizards of the Lost
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: Kingdom or something like that. Or the I love Mystery
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Science Theory three thousand. They have some films there where
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: the science really wasn't thought through. So I don't believe
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: that either. I don't believe that they didn't care. So
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: choice three, and there's probably others as well, but choice
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: three is the and Drama Dans. It bothered me that
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: she pronounced it that way. The Andrama Dans are completely
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: wrong about their own history and their own science, about
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: how their relationship to humans. Okay, And I was thinking, okay,
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: if that's true, now again, like we'll just think about it.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about this King Charles the third of England.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: He's King of England, right, he's coming to the United States.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: He is a pretty smart guy, extreme extremely well read.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: You know, he's read Shakespeare and written commentaries on architecture
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: and things like that. He's a very intelligent guy. But
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: if like somebody put him on the spot and had
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: him explain evolutionary theory, maybe he'd gets some things wrong. Right, right, So,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: just because you're the empress of the and Drama Dans,
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: and I have a question about that too, was she
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: the empress or whatever? But anyway doesn't mean that you
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: know science just because you're a member of a species.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: It's not pluribus where you know what every other person
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: in the whole species knows. Right, So I am a
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: scientist in one narrow area of human knowledge. I don't
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: necessarily speak for my friends who are chemists or evolutionary biologists.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: I didn't get that. I didn't get that especially, and again,
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: maybe this is a choice, especially since she's saying one
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: of the reasons that they are thinking about destroying humanity
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: and killing humans, we'll talk about that a little bit
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: in a moment, it's because we're anti science, we're ignoring
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: the science. And then when she talks about science, it's
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: ludicrous science. So I need somebody to explain that choice
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: to be.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I feel like, and this is again my perception
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: of things. Anyways, the reason everything kind of doesn't hang
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: together intentionally is I think, and this is again my takeaway.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: I think it's maybe just to further reinforce that even
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: within these disparate lines of thinking about these bigger events
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: and trying to quantify it in a way that maybe
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: other people don't, i e. A conspiracy theory or something
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: to that effect, even there they have facts that don't
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: line up with one another in those within those groups,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: and you know, like you said, I mean, I perceive
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: that Emma Stone is the emperor, empress, whatever you want
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: to call it, of this civilization, and she theoretically should know.
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: And you know, we're also taking the movie at face
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: value that it is telling the truth in those scenes,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: that you know, what the movie is saying to us
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: in that moment is in fact the way things happen.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: But maybe that's not even the case. Maybe that's you know,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: maybe it's a double dodge and she's actually you know,
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: lying about that too. That could be I mean, you know,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: that could be the other way of interpreting it. Now,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: that would be an even headier direction to go, and
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: I think that that might be. I don't know, I'm
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: not sure they went that far. I will say, in
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: terms of the pace of the movie, the scene where
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden we have her expositioning for five
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: minutes straight, is it kind of grinds the pace of
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: the movie to a bit of a halt from a
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: stylistic position. But in terms of what she is saying
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: content wise, I think it's interesting that there isn't really one.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's not that there's not one direction
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: to go, but when you start adding things together, they
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: do not equal zero.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Well, you're bringing up something really important here, and you're
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: partly answering my question, and I appreciate it because this
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: is why I talk to other people and not just
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: wander around and alone there. Yeah. Yeah, Could it be
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: that she knows what she's spouting about the origins of
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: humans and the science is actually intended like she knows
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: it is just dumb, crazy stuff right, boldly live This
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: is a finest final test of humans, that the humans
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: on the screen fail and the humans in the audience fail,
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: because I tell you what, As you know, there is
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: actual research and that research has guided decisions of studios
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: in the question of why do so many film trailers
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: and teasers give away so much of plots, even in
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: mysteries where where there's reveals, Right, why is that so? Well?
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Because there has been actual research in psychology and my
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: field that audiences a majority of audiences, not all of audiences,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: but they be sixty sixty five percent of audiences, especially
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: for big budget films. Mass films do not like to
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: feel stupid. That's a problem when there's going to be
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: a reveal. That's why they want to make sure that
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: the reveal is in less, less intellectual films, less art
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: house films. They want to make sure that the reveal
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: is telegraphed and then and they will even do it
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: in the teaser. Right. So that's what the research shows,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: and that drives studio decision making. That's why people say, well,
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: how come they reveal the plot? Because they audiences don't
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: want to feel dumb. They don't want to feel like,
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: oh man, I couldn't see that, I couldn't figure out
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: who the murderer was. They want to make sure that
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: the reveal is foreshadowed and it's like a big red flag,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: like you'll pay attention to this here there now. Great
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: reveal films don't do that. Okay, So you've given me
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: a new theory, which is that the Empress of Andromeda
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: is going humans. This is your last chance if you
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: call about my bullshit here, If you say, wait a minute,
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: that's the stupidest story I've ever heard, that makes no
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: sense whatsoever. You kept that can't be true. It's evolutionary biology,
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: and millions a piece of evidence show that you're you're wrong.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: She would have said, oh, okay, all right, humans you passed, Yeah,
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: you passed. And there have been some plots like that.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: It was a great little episode of Babylon five. I'm
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: gonna give away a secret reveal here and Babylon five.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: It didn't have to do with the arc of the
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: entire fantastic main plot, but just this alien probe shows
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: up and starts asking tough questions of the crew of
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: up On five, like math questions and just like like
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: a final exam for a stem Field type questions, right,
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: and the captain, Captain Sheridan, becomes suspicious. Basically the probe
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: I forgot whether It actually says like, if you don't
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: give me the right answers, I'm going to kill all
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: of you, right, sure, And the Captain Sheridan becomes a
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: little suspicious and his crew is all working to find like,
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: you know, what is what you know this incredibly difficult
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: calculus problem and things like that, and finally he decides
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: give them the wrong answer to every question. And it
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: turns out the probe says thank you, goodbye. You know, well,
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: this was a civilization that didn't want any competition, so
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: they set these probes out and if you gave the
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: right answers. That means your advanced scientifically, and we're going
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: to have to kill you so you won't competing with us.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: Well that was pretty clever, right, Okay, I'm sorry if
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: I gave them, if people have watched. But the point
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: is that you have a new theory here, Chris, that
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: you've developed, which I think makes sense because.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: Then we go to the flat earth, the literal flat
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: earth reveal in the movie.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what's christ you've answered, you know, all by questions.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: What is that supposed to be some sort of topographic
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: like a Mercador projection or like is this a reveal
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: that wow, flat Earth was right all along?
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: And see, that's what I don't know, because you know,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: part of it thinks that it's just you know, the
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: a view of the Earth from a specific point of view.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: But part of me is also like the way that
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: the film positions it, it is just a flat disc
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: the way the way people have talked about with flat earth.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: And so that's I don't.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: It's mocking humans, right, I'm saying you humans are so dumb.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: This is this is what we represent of you because
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: we think you're you're dumb. There's some other pieces of
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: evidence there too, right, because like, for example, she's the empress.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: You know, empresses tend to have like a security detail.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: If the Empress went missing, people would sort of know that.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot of holes, right, Like for example,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: she drives a Mercedes, very very high end Mercedes, and
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: I couldn't believe that they took the Mercedes when they
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: kidnapped her. The FBI would have found followed that they
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: follow cell phones, they follow things the whole. There were
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: a lot of holes in the plot, which now you've
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: suggested to me, it's all mocking the stupidity of humanity.
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: All these holes are not holes, they're just saying, you humans,
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: you're so dumb we can get away with. Although Jesse
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: the character killed a bunch of and drama Edins, which
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: again is to me, is a plot question, Like didn't
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: Emma Stone as empress, notice that some of her people
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: have been missing for months or years?
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: Well, did he actually kill them?
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: How many? What? She asks him? Again?
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she goes how many did you kill? And he
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: goes too.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: Right, now, are we meant to believe that he.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Actually killed Andromedins or is he just saying that believing.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: That he had, he believes that he has. But does
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: she believe this yeh?
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Or does she did he actually kill them? Is the
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: question that's I mean, And that's the thing about the
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: movie that's never determined is how much of what jesse
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Plemons is saying is real, Because we realize by the
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: end of the movie that what Emma Stone has been
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: saying is possibly all true if you take it at
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: face value. But how much of what Jesse Plemmons has
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: said is real as well is the interesting part. To
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: answer your question. On that map where Emma Stone is
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: using a spike to kind of kill humanity, it is
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: ringed by white like a white ice wall, like the
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: flat Earthers believe rings the flat earth. So I don't
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: know it. You know, I wouldn't say it's Kubrickian, but
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: in a certain sense, like kubrick is has been you know,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: it has been laid claim that Kubrick did not do
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: anything unintentional. I do not know how much of that
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: is real. I do not know how much of that
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: is people just wanting to see things where there are
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: not things. But if you go by your Ghostlanthemos is
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: doing everything intentional, then to me it being a circular
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: disc on a table that's supposed to represent our earth.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: It might be flat earth.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. And so we're left with this question about
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: whether the director did something which you are definitely forbidden
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: from doing in Hollywood, and that's mocking the audience, right
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: and questioning the intelligence of the audience, including you and I.
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: And I'm fine with that personally, like like, if somebody
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: can trick me, like whoa, that's great. You know, I
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: appreciate the movie or the television series or the digital
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: game better. And I don't mean trick me as a
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: jump scare of like oh gosh, there's a monster in
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: the closet. But like I thought a plot or some
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: dialogue meant one thing, but now thinking back about it,
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: maybe it meant something else. I don't think we have
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: an answer, and I don't. I hate it when people
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: give an answer expost factor. The answer has to be
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: in the film where it's not so it's meant it's
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: meant to be a question mark. I want the director
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: giving an interview in New Zealand or something saying oh, yeah,
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: I was openly mocking the audience. Anybody who leave that
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: speech of hers as an idiot which I wouldn't suggest
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: advise him to do.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: But well, that's what David Lynch always stopped himself from doing,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: which is why I always respected David Lynch so much,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: which is David Lynch never took it upon himself to
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: answer questions as to the meaning of his movies because
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: the moment and you know, I mean it's Salinger esque, right,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's why Salinger didn't want his book, you know,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: catchering the Rye adapt He didn't catching the Rye adapted,
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: because once the book is adapt it's kind of hard
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: to unsee the actor who has been cast as the
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: main character. It's hard to see them as any other thing.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's hard to see them as the character
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: you've conjured in your mind versus the character that someone
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: else adapted or conjured from that character in their own mind.
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: And that is the thing about I mean, that's the
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: thing about this movie. Like and you know, again, like
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: you said, like with David Lynch and other people like
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: David Lynch make sure that there is room for audience interpretation,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: which is not a guarantee anymore. Audiences in a lot
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: of ways don't even want that the audiences like you said,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: they want to feel smart, and feeling smart sometimes means
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: removing complexity or ambiguity from something entirely, which is a
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: shame in.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: My mind always. Yeah, you brought up Eddington, and I
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: love to see the online discussion about movies, and I
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: find interesting that a lot of what you're saying and
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: we're talking about is missing from the online discussion. But
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: Eddington is a great good example. I saw so many
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: comments of people who were angry at that movie for
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: not taking a clear stand right or what they felt
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: was a clear stand right about about certain political issues
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: and political parties and so on and again. It's everybody
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: has to decide what kind of film appreciator, television consumer
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: they are your social media I mean, I'm not going
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: to say that you saying, Hey, I want to go
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: watch Project Hail Mary, and I want to just have
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: a fun time on a roller coaster to ride with
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: interesting visuals and a great adventure. That is terrific. Good
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: for you. But if somebody wants to make a completely
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: different kind of film, I'm wondering, should you get mad
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: at them for making that different kind of film.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: I don't think so. But I'm also of the mindset
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: that the things that I want to watch are challenging
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: me beyond the reasonable expectation of what challenge most audiences
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: are looking to get out of their film. I think
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: a lot of people are expecting to go into a
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: movie and not have the film challenge them in any
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: substantive way, and I think that's unfortunate. And like you said,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: with the movie trailers being the way that they are,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: I think that's indicative of a society that is not
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: necessarily interested in going along with the director or trusting
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: the director in the ride that they're taking them on.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: They want to know ahead of time, Like you said,
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: they want to be smarter than the filmmaker. And you
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: don't have to be smarter than the filmmaker to enjoy
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: a movie. You can go along the ride with the
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: filmmaker and they can take you through those moments with them,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: as opposed to you having to see it ahead of
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: time and enjoy it, you know, retroactively is what it
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: feels like as opposed to in the moment. I like
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: that there are directors still that work within the medium
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: that actually feel like they're pushing mainstream audiences in a
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: way that when we talk about like Christopher Nolan. Like
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: I always think Christopher Nolan is not as clever as
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: he used to be. I mean, I think Chris Nolan, frankly,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, has just kind of given
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: up the ghost on trying to make interesting movies and
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: he's just making big broad movies with big broad strokes
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: and that's about it, which is fine if that's the
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: kind of movie you want to make, but it's not
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: the kind of movie I resonate with, because as a
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: film watcher, I would like to see a movie that's
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: actually engaged in challenging me as a viewer, and not
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: pretending to challenge me, but doing the barest of bare
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: minimum to get to that point.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, And I think part of the problem is when
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: audiences collide. That is, a film that would have had
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: one kind of audience with one kind of expectation finds
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: itself in front of a different audience. And we've all
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: been there where like You're going, huh, this is a
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: great show, But I'm not the audience for this show, right,
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: And I'm very lucky in my life. I think I've
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: mentioned him before, but I was a student as an
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: undergraduate student, and then I got to be a teaching
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: assistant for the great film scholar Amos Vogel. Very interesting guy.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: He was a refugee from Nazi Austria. He founded Cinema
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: sixteen in New York, and then he became a film
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: professor at University of Pennsylvania. And he wrote a book
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: which I still think is like a must read classic,
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: called film as a Subversive Art, and he wanted to
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: give attention to thousands of small films, experimental films that
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: never with a few exceptions. He talked about Woody Allen,
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: but he talked about people who were breaking rules of
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: cinema or doing things differently, or experimenting. And we watched
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: some of those movies, and I have to say some
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: of those movies were unwatchable in the context of like,
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: here's an experimental film where they tried this, and they
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: spent three hundred dollars, right, and they tried this new
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: technique and I don't think it worked, but I appreciate,
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: like the director and the actors trying this and doing
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: something different and interesting. Right. I would have been angry
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: as I am if they'd spent three hundred million dollars
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: to achieve a complete failure. So that's where I think
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: there's pushback against the megalopoliss and the bride and things
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: like that, where honestly, they should have spent a million
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: dollars to make an experimental, small film an art house audience,
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: but they spent the medical healthcare budget of a small
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: African country on I think, and irresponsible in self indulgent
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: type of film. And that's really that's not the case here.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: We want to say that's not the case here. You
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: will be entertained. I mean, obviously, if you're triggered by
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: certain types of violence and so on, please don't watch
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: this movie. But like, if you're willing to put up
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: with the horror of this movie, it's from the very
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: beginning to the very end, this is an incredibly entertaining
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: movie and successful well.
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: And I also think, like you said, it has a
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: couple interesting kind of positions it comes at things from.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: I think the other interesting idea and position it comes
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: at things from is you know, like we've said, there's
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: a reveal at the end of this movie that Emmastone
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: is clearly an alien, and then there's the other reveal
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: that the aliens are actually trying to help humanity and
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: they're doing everything they can, and humanity is just kind
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: of being the way humanity is and refusing to play
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: ball in a substantive way. And I love the reveal
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: at the end of the movie that it would seem
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: that the Earth is better off without us, and that
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: the alien's entire goal by the end of the movie
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: as well, in the original film they destroy Earth. In
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: this remake or readaptation, they just remove humanity, which I
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: find to be such an interesting and important distinction to make,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: because by allowing Earth to exist, this movie is saying, well,
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: Earth in and of itself is saving maybe humanity not
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: so much in the In the original movie, it's you know,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: you know, baby out with the bathwater. And I think
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: it's very interesting because this movie, I think is a
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: tad more hopeful in that way, which is odd because
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: on so many you know, faces of it with this movie,
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: this is not a hopeful movie. This is a very
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: cynical and nihilistic.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, I do overthink everything, and so the Chernobyl ending,
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: where like there's this place where there's no humans but
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: the the wildlife just I mean, there's a final shot
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: there of the bees right right, the bees are okay, back,
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: I have to say, and everybody should probably stop listening
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: to the podcast at this point because I'm going to
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: reveal something which shouldn't be a reveal. But like the
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: problem with all the humans. I mean, I, first of all,
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: maybe you and I agree that it is a problem
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: for all humans to die. I mean, like, we're not
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: that blood thirsty, So it's like that that is a problem.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: Although within the stories, the diegetic, within the story line, okay,
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: you see why they would do that, at least according
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: to their own rationale. But Chris, you and I are
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: animal lover's right, and the problem is that those bees
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: and those cows and those cats and those hamsters, they're
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: sort of dependent on them right now. I mean, I
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: guess it would have been sort of ridiculous where and
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: then the drama dens land and free every hamster and
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: train it to live in the wild, and every cat
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: is taken in by the drama den to be a pet.
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, but I it's a pretty hard I mean, obviously,
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: wiping out all human life is a horrible ending, but
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: like a lot of animals would go too.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Domestic cats that can't leave the unintentional cages
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: that they're locked in aka their homes or apartments or
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: other things play. Yeah, it's it's a weird ending because
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: the ending is supposed to be, like I think, I
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: think my perception of the ending is meant to be
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: somewhat of an uplifting ending. But by every approximation, you know,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: like you said, humanity being wiped off the face of
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: the Earth is pretty stark. The fact that, you know,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: if you actually sit and think about what the ending
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: is proposing for more than five minutes, it doesn't seem
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: as kind of uplifting and maybe hopeful as it seems
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: like it's the Andromedins are not any better than humanity.
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: They just have an easier means with which to make
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: decisions because their technology allows them to do so.
• 57:31
  Speaker 2: I think that's a very incisive way of putting it.
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: In the Day the Earth Stood Still, the alien is
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: definitely portrayed within the movie space as like they're superior
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: to us, right, you know, their morality, no war, no
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: atomic weapons, you know, peace on Earth. They're supposed to
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: be morally and ethically superior to us, and that's why
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: they're threatening us, because like you have to get with
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: the program of evolving your ethics to the point we
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: have right right right now. I mean, maybe somebody could
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: write some other interpretation like, well, they're imposing they're willing
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: us and they're sort of conquering us, but maybe in
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: a more benevolent way, whatever the point being, Yeah, the
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: Andromedins seem to be deeply flawed to the and again,
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: if we go back with the Chris theory, they're also
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: mocking us as they're planning to kill us. Their whole
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: reason for killing us would be wrong if there's one
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: interpretation of the way that they see science, but their interpretation.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: If the interpretation is the other way, which was they're
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: just testing us and we the audience failed to test,
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: then yeah, I guess the Andromedins were right after all.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: Well, and that's I mean, that's the other thing. You know,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: we see Jesse Plemons's character poising his own mother with
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: anti freeze, and that's because Emma Stone, you know, her
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: thinking was, if I tell a crazy man to go
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: to the hospital, someone will see him, someone will stop him.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: Someone will surely stop you from poisoning your mother. And
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: it turns out that no, in fact, Jesse Plemons is
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: able to get all the way there poison her and
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: you know, and then run away, which is only then
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: when they seemingly catch him. And what's what's interesting is,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: you know, Emmastone is complicit in the murder of Jesse
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: Plemons's mother up until that point anyways, because she has
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: created a product that is, you know, that has caused
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: his mother to go comatose. And so what's interesting is
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: Emma Stone is contributing directly to the death of humans
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: long before she destroys humanity, and in trying, in trying
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: to save humanity, she's killing more of us than she's saving. Really,
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, how many people has she really saved in
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: this movie? None, which it seems like their goal, by
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: their own, by their own kind of admittance, their goal
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: is to save humanity, but they realize, like you said,
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: with the day, the earth should still humanity, you know,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: it's the opposite of that, humanity does not get to
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: that point. We're beyond saving.
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, I mean, you could take away from
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: this film the moral of the story kids is humanity
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: is beyond saving. Right, That's certainly one way to view it.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: I did. I guess this is where I know we
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: need to wrap up. But like I did find the
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: other puzzling thing, which you're going to solve for me,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: Master Chris of all knowledge of all film of all
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: time is okay. So there seems to be an issue
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: at the very beginning where you've got this conspiracy theorist
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: and he believes he's found evidence that there's these and
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: Rama Dans and they're manipulating human events and they're secretly
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: controlling the planet, and they're doing all these evil things.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: And yet his demand is I get to go on
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: the ship and meet the emperor of the Andrama Dans
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: and negotiate on behalf of Earth. And I'm thinking, like,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, if the Andramaedaans are evil, what what's
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: your plan for that? Like, how are you planning to
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: what's your bargaining chip? Right?
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Well, and that's right, Like what I don't I don't
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: you know what they say. I think with some conspiracy theorists,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: they don't think that far ahead. They don't think that
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: far ahead as to what would happen, what would it
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: mean if aliens were real? I think some conspiracy theorists
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: only think about how can we expose the lie that
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: aliens have been covered up? But nobody really thinks about
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: what happens when you know? And I guess I guess
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg will answer this question in the upcoming Disclosure
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: Day film, But no one seemingly is interested in asking
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: the question as to what happens when it's revealed that
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: aliens are in fact real? That's much more interesting than
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: what's been the cover up this whole time. I think
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: the ramifications for humanity are much more interesting in terms
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: of what does it mean for aliens to be real?
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: Then what does it mean that we covered it up?
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: I don't care if it's revealed that aliens are real.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: I don't care that they covered it up. I don't
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: care what reason they had to cover it up, because
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: the fact that aliens are real is such a much
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: more important and I think reality bending situation that it's
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know what Jesse Plemons was attempting to do.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: I don't think he thought that far ahead. I think
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: then that's the point. I mean, again, the short sightedness
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: of humanity, like he just wanted to expose the conspiracy.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: He didn't really think it through as to what would
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: happen if he was on an alien ship, if they
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: would just tear him apart? And you know two to
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: Lou that's.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: It, Professor Chris, you've educated me. I believe everything you're saying.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: And what'd be on the exam? Kid?
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: What do you think? I mean? I don't that's my
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: that's my read. I mean, it's you know, I think
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: it's a comment again on conspiracy theorists and their inability
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: to really understand that if you reveal what you are
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: saying is true to be true, have you thought about
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: what the ramifications of that truly are or are you
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: only concerning yourself with revealing what is what you perceive
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: to be hidden to be true and what does that mean?
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: They don't think about what that actually mean.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: Well, you've just stated very well. Is that My understanding
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: from reading a lot of conspiracy theory and conspiracy theorists
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: is that they believe the reveal is the goal and
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: that they will be the revealer and acknowledged by the
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: rest of humanity as like, yeah, you know, Joe Stephans
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: of Munsey, Indiana was the hero of Planet Earth revealing
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: the alien conspiracy dot dot dot to be filled out later.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: I really, and again it's not like I've read every
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: conspiracy theorist or have the stamina to do so. But
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: like I do think there's a dot dot dot, there's
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: there's an ellipsis of like, okay, you've revealed the conspiracy,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: what's going to happen? But here he goes beyond that
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: and he says he's going to go on the ship
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: and negotiate, So so he actually is doing something somewhat
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: like even more ambitious than the average conspiracy theorist or
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: hopes to.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: And yet in the end he ends of just being
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: a head exploding head flying out of a closet whacking
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: Emma Stone in the forehead.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: Which I think was a terrific physical comedy.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the movie is rather funny. It does have its
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: kind of humorous moments. The moment where his cousin kills himself,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: as kind of horrific as it is, Emma Stones's reaction
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: is is very funny with her kind of just covered,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: you know, face face to face to toe and blood
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: and her just like Jesus Christ, like it's I mean,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: it's it's she is so expressive, her face is so
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: expressive that the movie I think is rather like you said,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: it's rather funny, but I also think it's rather I
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: think it's rather nihilistic, and I think Jorgo's Lanthemos has
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: kind of revealed himself to be maybe a bit of
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: a nihilist with his films, which is okay. I mean,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: I like a point of view. I like a distinct
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: point of view. I like someone who has something to say.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: And often someone who has something to say doesn't necessarily
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: believe in the positive traits of humanity. It's very hard
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: sometimes to see those because there are very few and
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: far between, and so it's not surprising that the end
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: of this movie is well, it turns out the conspiracy
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: theorist were right. However, to what end and at what
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: cost were they right? And the cost that they were
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: right was humanity has now been doomed by their inability
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: to just play ball or like you said, not be stupid.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: So I enjoyed this movie immensely. I had a great
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: time with it. I can understand now and see why
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: the people that I trust, opinion wise, were very high
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: on this movie because it is a dark movie. It
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: is not necessarily the most upbeat positive film I've ever seen.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: But if you're willing to meet the movie where it
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: wants to be met, I think it's a fantastic.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, and let's go back to where we started. I
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: do want to give a real highlight to Emma Stone
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: here because, as you mentioned, I was thinking that in
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: the history of Hollywood, there's not many actors or actresses
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: who are what I like to call full body actors.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of people who can talk well and
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: their facial expressions are very well done, but there's very few.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: And I would put yes Sehorn, who is the star
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 2: of Pluribus and was in Better Call Saul in that
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: categor Gory, Mary Tyler Moore, very very famous people who
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: can move their entire body to support the part. You know.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: You know, if you go to like our Redded Acting
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: or like early acting school, one of the big question
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: what do you do with your hands right right? When
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: you act? Right? They a lot of people when they
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: first start learning acting think acting is just speaking. But
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: we know from the very great stage performers where and
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: of course in the stage. That's one of the reasons
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: that I think Britain produces so many great actors over
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: the centuries is that they have this regional theater tradition.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: Right before you start in a TV show, you may
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: have played a small role in Macbeth for five hundred
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: calls in small theaters around the aisles. Right, so they
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: learn that the audience there's no direction, right, there's no camera.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 2: So like the audience is seeing your feet, they're seeing
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: your hands, so you better be in order to satisfy
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: that audience. You've been able to do something with your hands,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: with your knees, and she the whole film. There are
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: definitely times where there's a close up, but I've noticed
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: there were a lot of full body shots of her
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: where she's reacting or doing something with her whole self.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: And maybe that's metaphorical for like humanity, like the we're
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: being judged as a whole. But I just felt like
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: it was one of the standout performances I've ever seen.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: Well, and you mentioned it. You know that actors, you know, anymore,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: there's not the expectation that you're going to be the
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: the the complete package. You know, that's not you know,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: it used to be the tradition of you are a
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: multi talent, and that is still the case in Indian cinema.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: That still exists in Indian cinema. The expectation of those
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: actors they can sing and dance and be physical and
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: be funny and be sexy and serious, all all in
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: the same breath. And I miss that tradition because it
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: is a shame, like it is a shame to not
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: really have like what one would consider to be a
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: movie star, any like a genuine bona fide start that
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: they don't come around very often. And I think I
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: think Emma Stone is one of those actresses that has
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: one hundred percent like she didn't need to prove it
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: any further. But I'm I am in awe over acting
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: ability because to go from easy A to Pegonia is
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: pretty wild. And you know, I think there are just
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: some directors out there who get the best out of
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: their actors, and I think your ghost Lanthemos gets the
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: best out of Emma Stone that anyone has ever gotten,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: and I'm excited to see how they work together in
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: the future. But this movie, I think has a lot
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: of interesting roads to go down, kind of you know,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: threads to tug at, and I'm I'm really glad that
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: we got an opportunity to talk about it together. So
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: thank you for pitching this one across the plate, as
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: it were. To use a baseball metaphor, because it's Opening Day, everybody.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: If you don't listen to baseball on the radio or
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: watch it on TV, maybe you should because it's as
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: American as poisoning the environment, killing the bees, and having
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: aliens blow up the planet. So as for me, you
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: can find me over at the culture Cast, which is
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: what listening to now, or weirdingwaymedia dot com, where this
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: show and so many other great shows are posted. If
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: you want to kick a couple dollars my way to
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: help fund the cause of creating movie content that doesn't suck,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: head on over to my Patreon patreon dot com slash
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: culture Cast and you can kick a couple dollars my way.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: Five bucks gets you bonus episodes. Ten dollars gets you
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: access to the bonus episodes and the James Bond podcast
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: I do once a month with Mike White and Richard Adam.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: Though to be fair, we're recording the last episode of
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: that show this weekend, so it's coming to a cloe.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: Doctor Pearlmutter, thank you so much for joining me. This
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: was fun. I would not have watched this movie otherwise.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Watch the guys, and.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: As always, we'll catch it on the next episode.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: Books where the books will be