Latest / The Kulturecast / Required Viewing 00: Syllabus

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Required Viewing 00: Syllabus · The Kulturecast

0:56
Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to required viewing, a little uh
1:00
Speaker 1: sub podcast within the Culture Cast. I am the host
1:03
Speaker 1: of the Culture Cast, Christashu, and I'm joined by my
1:06
Speaker 1: good friend. He's the co host of this show. He
1:08
Speaker 1: can now put that on his resume along with all
1:11
Speaker 1: the other things like having been on The Daily Show
1:13
Speaker 1: and teaching at Texas Tech. He is the professor of
1:17
Speaker 1: Media and Communications over there. He is a very close
1:19
Speaker 1: friend of mine, and he and I have been podcasting
1:21
Speaker 1: together for god a couple of years now, just several,
1:24
Speaker 1: like four or five, Your friend of mine, doctor David Peerlmutter.
1:27
Speaker 2: Thank you, Chris. I'm very happy to be aboard this
1:30
Speaker 2: exciting new venture.
1:31
Speaker 1: So, if you've clicked on this episode, which is the
1:35
Speaker 1: only way you're hearing this now, you are either wondering
1:37
Speaker 1: or aware as to what this is. So if you're wondering,
1:39
Speaker 1: we'll tell you, and if you're aware, just hang out
1:41
Speaker 1: for a second while we let everybody else know. So
1:43
Speaker 1: what this is is a sub podcast within the Culture Cast.
1:47
Speaker 1: It's easier to do it that way on my end,
1:49
Speaker 1: and it takes advantage of a pre existing podcast feed.
1:52
Speaker 1: Just a little how the sausage is made moment for
1:54
Speaker 1: everyone who just loves to hear podcasting technical talk. And
1:58
Speaker 1: on this show it will be doctor Pearlmutter and I primarily.
2:02
Speaker 1: We will have guests from time to time, sometimes frequently,
2:05
Speaker 1: sometimes infrequently, and we will be posting this show once
2:09
Speaker 1: a week, every Thursday, as opposed to Wednesday, when the
2:12
Speaker 1: Normal Culture Cast comes out. The Normal Culture Cast will
2:14
Speaker 1: still be coming out every Wednesday, but this will be
2:16
Speaker 1: an additional little bonus show. Every week. We'll be talking
2:20
Speaker 1: about the themes of this show a little bit more
2:22
Speaker 1: broadly than just the kind of specific I would say,
2:25
Speaker 1: like housekeeping information. But expect that every episode we'll be
2:29
Speaker 1: talking about a movie, or sometimes we'll be talking about
2:32
Speaker 1: ideas of movies or genres. We haven't kind of decided
2:35
Speaker 1: how narrow we want to be, but we're starting out
2:38
Speaker 1: with is talking about specific movies, but what and why
2:41
Speaker 1: and how is going to be kind of the conversation
2:44
Speaker 1: for today. But in terms of the specifics, this will
2:46
Speaker 1: be a movie podcast where we will be talking about movies,
2:50
Speaker 1: but we will not just be talking about films subjectively.
2:53
Speaker 1: This would be more an objective conversation and that's kind
2:56
Speaker 1: of I think where we have our conversation. Now we
2:59
Speaker 1: want to do kind of an episode zero for our show,
3:03
Speaker 1: because this is a show that does need a little
3:06
Speaker 1: not explanation, but a little clarification. Because doctor Perlmutter with
3:09
Speaker 1: a name like required viewing, one must assume that all
3:12
Speaker 1: these movies need to be watched immediately, and if you
3:14
Speaker 1: don't watch them, you can't have an opinion about film,
3:17
Speaker 1: right right.
3:18
Speaker 2: Well, I guess it is pretty cheeky to use the required,
3:22
Speaker 2: but we do that obviously in classes all the time.
3:25
Speaker 2: We say that they're required readings and optional readings. And
3:30
Speaker 2: typically the case for why something is required is that
3:35
Speaker 2: if you want to have an understanding of whatever the
3:38
Speaker 2: general topic of the class is, and it could be
3:41
Speaker 2: accounting one oh one, or it could be the origins
3:44
Speaker 2: of World War One, or it could be Italian cinema
3:48
Speaker 2: of the nineteen fifties, these are the texts, and they
3:53
Speaker 2: could be books and movies and television shows maybe or
3:58
Speaker 2: video games, digital games that you really should look at.
4:01
Speaker 2: They're sort of pillars or seminal. That's not a statement
4:05
Speaker 2: that they are necessarily the best, but that we can
4:09
Speaker 2: learn a lot from them and that you can take
4:11
Speaker 2: away so that when you're doing on your studies for
4:14
Speaker 2: the class, but hopefully when you are on your own,
4:19
Speaker 2: you've still taken those away with you. And I'm going
4:22
Speaker 2: to refer a couple of times here to sort of
4:24
Speaker 2: my not heroes journey, but my journey to becoming somebody
4:29
Speaker 2: who makes a living understanding media that I grew to
4:35
Speaker 2: appreciate that in my college career, going through my under raedugree,
4:38
Speaker 2: my master's degree, and my PhD. About like how these texts,
4:42
Speaker 2: whether it's any kind that you can approach them with
4:47
Speaker 2: what I like to call sort of professional three sixty
4:50
Speaker 2: A take That is, that is, you can look at
4:52
Speaker 2: them so many different ways and maybe just one viewing
4:56
Speaker 2: or two viewings. These are the kind of movies that
4:59
Speaker 2: probably you could watch more and get more and more
5:04
Speaker 2: from it each time. And a lot of them are
5:07
Speaker 2: ones that I bet you and I probably would agree
5:11
Speaker 2: are quote good, like watchable, very interesting.
5:14
Speaker 1: Movies, subjective good. I think it's subjective good. Yeah, subjective.
5:19
Speaker 2: My first sort of metapoint that I make to my
5:22
Speaker 2: students is that we live in the world of likes, right,
5:26
Speaker 2: and we live in the world where whether somebody likes
5:28
Speaker 2: something or doesn't like it, up votes it or down votes.
5:32
Speaker 2: It seems to be the sort of binary understanding of culture,
5:35
Speaker 2: and I want to get away from that because I
5:37
Speaker 2: don't think it can make your day fun to downvote
5:42
Speaker 2: something or to say I love this and I hate this.
5:45
Speaker 2: But at the end, educationally and in terms of self
5:48
Speaker 2: improvement of making us good astute critics of things, it's
5:53
Speaker 2: it's just one piece of data. So if I go
5:55
Speaker 2: to a movie and I really love the movie, like,
5:58
Speaker 2: I enjoy the movie, and maybe I even figure out,
6:01
Speaker 2: oh gosh, you know, I am the target audience of
6:03
Speaker 2: this movie. Although I'm getting to an age now where
6:05
Speaker 2: I don't think that many movies are saying why we
6:08
Speaker 2: sure hope we get those people to the theater. But like,
6:12
Speaker 2: that's just another piece of data that I enjoyed it,
6:16
Speaker 2: and it shouldn't be the determining factor for me defending
6:20
Speaker 2: or attacking any part of the movie.
6:22
Speaker 1: So as you're going to kind of talk about your
6:25
Speaker 1: journey to this point, I'll parallel with my own journey
6:28
Speaker 1: because I have not spoken about it very often. And
6:30
Speaker 1: what an opportunity like now, especially in this setting, and
6:34
Speaker 1: especially given the people that I know that are going
6:36
Speaker 1: to be hearing this, especially, you know people in your courses,
6:40
Speaker 1: you can come at being a critic or a film critic,
6:45
Speaker 1: or someone who's critical of film or talks about film broadly.
6:48
Speaker 1: And I don't know what I would consider myself because
6:50
Speaker 1: I hate the term critic because that then makes me
6:53
Speaker 1: in the same group of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel,
6:56
Speaker 1: who are people that I think you spoke to just
6:58
Speaker 1: now boiled down movies to thumbs up or thumbs down,
7:02
Speaker 1: And those two words thumbs up or thumbs down were
7:05
Speaker 1: for the long time defining phrases for cinema in terms
7:09
Speaker 1: of how people broadly in the mass world interpreted and
7:14
Speaker 1: received film criticism, which is literally boiling it down to
7:18
Speaker 1: a binary zero or one. And I think that, as
7:22
Speaker 1: you've clearly alluded to, it is very hard in this
7:25
Speaker 1: day and age to boil anything down to zeros and ones.
7:28
Speaker 1: And if you live in a binary world, I kind
7:31
Speaker 1: of feel bad for you, because the world's not binary
7:33
Speaker 1: at all. And I'm not just saying that as someone
7:35
Speaker 1: who's non binary. I'm saying that as someone who understands
7:38
Speaker 1: that the world has a level of gray to it,
7:41
Speaker 1: that is, it's not easy to receive it because it
7:45
Speaker 1: doesn't fit within the narrative of everything that we've been
7:48
Speaker 1: taught and told about. And that's where I think art
7:50
Speaker 1: is so important, because art is that space in between
7:55
Speaker 1: the black and the white where people are allowed to
7:57
Speaker 1: have conversations about things openly and broadly that you wouldn't
8:01
Speaker 1: otherwise than that you can't otherwise. I mean, there are
8:04
Speaker 1: so many films that allow you to have conversations about
8:06
Speaker 1: things that people would have no ability to have a
8:08
Speaker 1: conversation about otherwise. And that's just to talk about the
8:11
Speaker 1: things that the film's talking about, not to talk about
8:14
Speaker 1: the film itself. There are plenty of movie podcasts that
8:17
Speaker 1: don't even talk about the film. They just talk about
8:19
Speaker 1: what the film talks about, which has nothing to do
8:22
Speaker 1: with the subjective feelings on the film. I am with
8:25
Speaker 1: you so so so much that in this day and age,
8:29
Speaker 1: there is a time and place for subjectivity, and I
8:33
Speaker 1: have talked about this with you, where people have opinions
8:36
Speaker 1: about me and my feelings on new movies that seem
8:40
Speaker 1: to be based on the fact that I did not
8:42
Speaker 1: like a new movie. But I mentioned this at the
8:44
Speaker 1: beginning of every episode of a new movie, that there
8:47
Speaker 1: is a transactional nature to going to a theater, and
8:50
Speaker 1: especially in a day and age where everything is so expensive,
8:53
Speaker 1: I don't understand how someone could not look at a
8:55
Speaker 1: thirteen dollars movie ticket, and especially if you have a
8:58
Speaker 1: significant other or a fan, that's a large amount of
9:01
Speaker 1: money to spend, and you should spend the money on
9:04
Speaker 1: a movie that isn't treating the audience like idiots. And
9:08
Speaker 1: there are plenty of movies that are not treating the
9:10
Speaker 1: audience like they are smart, even now in a time
9:13
Speaker 1: and place where we are so connected as we are
9:16
Speaker 1: with the Internet and everything else. So it's very hard
9:19
Speaker 1: for me to only look at films subjectively now because
9:22
Speaker 1: I try to be as objective as possible, because objectivity
9:26
Speaker 1: is very hard in a world of film criticism when
9:29
Speaker 1: subjectivity seems to be the thing that, like you said,
9:32
Speaker 1: most people want. And I have spent a lifetime being
9:35
Speaker 1: called a contrarian, but yet every time I'm called a contrarian,
9:38
Speaker 1: my response is always the same. But yet I can
9:41
Speaker 1: explain to you why I didn't like it, so it's
9:43
Speaker 1: not a contrarian. You just don't like what I have
9:45
Speaker 1: to say, which is fine. I can accept that because
9:48
Speaker 1: if you don't like what I have to say. There's
9:50
Speaker 1: the part of the equation is you don't like what
9:53
Speaker 1: I have to say. It's you that has an issue
9:55
Speaker 1: with what I'm saying, not the world broadly or anything else.
10:00
Speaker 1: And that getting out of one's own way is very
10:02
Speaker 1: hard in this line of work, and there are a
10:06
Speaker 1: lot of podcasts that don't even try to do it,
10:08
Speaker 1: which is fine. There are some podcasts that think that
10:10
Speaker 1: they're doing it and they're not, and then there are
10:12
Speaker 1: plenty of podcasts that try to tread the line in between.
10:16
Speaker 1: Mike White's podcast, The Projection Boost, is the one that
10:18
Speaker 1: I kind of look to as the gold standard for
10:20
Speaker 1: movie podcasts, which features a little bit of both. It's
10:23
Speaker 1: both very objective because it talks to the people that
10:26
Speaker 1: made the film. It goes into the processes which go
10:28
Speaker 1: into the filmmaking and everything else. But then also we
10:32
Speaker 1: talk subjectively on there about how we feel about the film,
10:35
Speaker 1: and that's the subjective issue, and that's a thing that
10:38
Speaker 1: I don't like the film, But I, as a film
10:41
Speaker 1: critic or whatever you want to call me, understand that
10:44
Speaker 1: being able to get out of my own way to
10:47
Speaker 1: suggest a film is probably the most important thing I,
10:50
Speaker 1: as a critic can do, which is not allow who
10:53
Speaker 1: I am to get in the way of someone else's
10:55
Speaker 1: enjoyment of something, because how I appreciate something is not
10:59
Speaker 1: going to effect and should not affect someone else's enjoyment
11:02
Speaker 1: at all.
11:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the other part about it is that I am.
11:07
Speaker 2: I have my own demographics right and including maybe thirty
11:11
Speaker 2: five years of discussing culture. But when I engage students,
11:17
Speaker 2: and of course nowadays we like to say there's no
11:19
Speaker 2: such thing as a typical college student, because I'm very
11:21
Speaker 2: lucky that I might have an eighteen year old as
11:23
Speaker 2: a student. I might also have a sixty two year
11:26
Speaker 2: old who was in the army for twenty five years.
11:29
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of experience sets coming into the classroom.
11:32
Speaker 2: And so that I studied film or read about film,
11:37
Speaker 2: or have written about television shows and digital gaming or
11:40
Speaker 2: things like that, I am coming with a particular point
11:43
Speaker 2: of view, but like I learn a lot with a
11:46
Speaker 2: legitimate engagement where somebody really wants to engage, and they are.
11:51
Speaker 2: They come with their own points of view and have
11:54
Speaker 2: their own develop arguments. And so I'm just making the
11:57
Speaker 2: case to my students, you should learn how to develop
12:00
Speaker 2: your own authentic argument, and it may differ from mine,
12:03
Speaker 2: like we may come to a completely different conclusion. But
12:07
Speaker 2: there is such a thing as having a very good method.
12:11
Speaker 2: And over the years, the scientific method, the journalistic method,
12:15
Speaker 2: the historical method, the police investigation method. That's the ideal
12:21
Speaker 2: method is that you go where the evidence points you to.
12:25
Speaker 2: We would not want scientists who wrote the conclusion sections
12:30
Speaker 2: of their medical studies before they actually went into the
12:33
Speaker 2: lab or with a clinical trial and did the work right. Likewise,
12:38
Speaker 2: we've talked about some lawyers and legal system in the show.
12:42
Speaker 2: Lawyers often start a case and discover something literally, discover
12:47
Speaker 2: something that they didn't know before they started, right. So
12:50
Speaker 2: that is the process here. It's like, I've enjoyed our
12:54
Speaker 2: interaction because like, oh gosh, Chris and Richard had him
12:57
Speaker 2: and Susan Lambert and some of the other people you've
13:00
Speaker 2: had on the show discussing. They're making a point I
13:02
Speaker 2: had never thought of.
13:04
Speaker 1: That's great, and it's based off of all kinds of
13:07
Speaker 1: different things. It's not any one thing. And I think
13:10
Speaker 1: that you put it so aptly, and I think that's
13:12
Speaker 1: why you and I are so I think engaged with
13:16
Speaker 1: one another. In a mental space of kind of criticism
13:20
Speaker 1: and discussion around film is I am just as interested
13:24
Speaker 1: as you are at looking at it from both a
13:27
Speaker 1: micro and macro view, because the microview is just as
13:30
Speaker 1: important as the macroview, and the microview is the film,
13:33
Speaker 1: and the macro view is the world in which the
13:35
Speaker 1: film existed and exists now. And there's so many conversations
13:40
Speaker 1: you can have in so many directions on all of
13:42
Speaker 1: those topics. And oh, by the way, so much of
13:44
Speaker 1: it has nothing to do with whether, Like I've mentioned
13:47
Speaker 1: this to you before in conversation, I've mentioned this to
13:49
Speaker 1: other people, and I don't know if I've ever said
13:51
Speaker 1: it in a podcast. I probably have at some point,
13:53
Speaker 1: But saying I liked the film or I didn't like
13:57
Speaker 1: a film is the equivalent of a conversational cul de sac.
14:01
Speaker 1: Where do you go Now? You got to back your
14:03
Speaker 1: car up or turn around and go the other way
14:05
Speaker 1: and find another road to go down, if and when
14:07
Speaker 1: you choose to do that. Because if you just say
14:09
Speaker 1: I didn't like the movie, and that's it, all right,
14:11
Speaker 1: I mean, like, what do you say to that, there's
14:13
Speaker 1: no engaging conversation. And I think that that kind of
14:16
Speaker 1: applies at a macro level at this point with everything,
14:20
Speaker 1: I think the ability to have a discourse without opinion
14:24
Speaker 1: is hard. And I understand why it's hard, because again
14:28
Speaker 1: we've seen film being used for all kinds of reasons.
14:31
Speaker 1: In film being used in a way that's people doing
14:33
Speaker 1: a certain thing because of a film, or expecting a
14:36
Speaker 1: certain thing because of a film. And film is political statement,
14:39
Speaker 1: film is art, Film can be any number of things.
14:42
Speaker 1: Film contains multitudes, but the thing that film is not
14:46
Speaker 1: is singular in nature, like film is MULTIFA have an.
14:50
Speaker 2: Example of because we've been talking sort of at a
14:52
Speaker 2: broad level, but let me let's give some film examples
14:56
Speaker 2: of what you're saying what I'm saying here. So just
14:59
Speaker 2: a little bit into of my journey, and I've mentioned
15:01
Speaker 2: this before, I'll compact it here. So I'm taking my
15:04
Speaker 2: first film class and it's taught by this amazing professor
15:09
Speaker 2: called Amos Vogel. He has this book that everybody should
15:13
Speaker 2: read that I'll require reading of other people's books, not
15:17
Speaker 2: my own, but this book, Film is a subversive art.
15:20
Speaker 2: Don't leave it within the reach of children. It's about
15:23
Speaker 2: experimental film, film that pushes the boundaries and also international
15:27
Speaker 2: films that at that time in the nineteen eighties weren't
15:31
Speaker 2: as popular as now nowadays. If you said, hey, I'm
15:34
Speaker 2: going to go watch a Korean movie, nobody would blink, right,
15:37
Speaker 2: But at that time it was sort of a big deal.
15:40
Speaker 2: Like we were getting obviously movies from Britain and Japan,
15:44
Speaker 2: but like anything else besides a few countries was odd.
15:47
Speaker 2: And then experimental films like today on YouTube you can
15:50
Speaker 2: watch nine one hundred million short films. But anyway, so
15:54
Speaker 2: I'm watching this and he's throwing some films at me
15:57
Speaker 2: that like whoa, Like I've never seen a film like
16:00
Speaker 2: that before, Like wow, I can't believe you're allowed to
16:02
Speaker 2: do that in a film, And it's shocking me. But
16:07
Speaker 2: it's also aweing me, like because he's making this case.
16:11
Speaker 2: And then he also and here's the example I want
16:14
Speaker 2: to give where he will say, you know, these boundary
16:18
Speaker 2: pushers were pioneers in an empty land where Hollywood and
16:24
Speaker 2: the big movie world, the big video game world, the
16:26
Speaker 2: big world followed. And the example was I watched this
16:31
Speaker 2: French film by Chris Marker called La Jettick, which was
16:36
Speaker 2: this odd, mostly silent, experimental film with mostly subtitles about
16:42
Speaker 2: a post apocalyptic future in Paris where a guy goes
16:46
Speaker 2: back in time to try to prevent the disaster the
16:49
Speaker 2: Flick of the World, and I'm watching this film, going wow,
16:53
Speaker 2: amazing black and white shorts, experimental film. A couple of
16:56
Speaker 2: years later, there's Bruce Willis in The Twelve Monkeys doing this.
17:01
Speaker 2: That's where it came from, right, So it's interesting to
17:05
Speaker 2: talk about different variations on filmmaking that are revolutions and
17:11
Speaker 2: influential and we can identify them, and then we can
17:14
Speaker 2: also talk about like what's very common and how subversion
17:19
Speaker 2: of something can work.
17:21
Speaker 1: I do think it's very funny you mentioned the idea
17:23
Speaker 1: of film as subversive art, and obviously, like you mentioned
17:27
Speaker 1: living in the day and age we live in now,
17:29
Speaker 1: I think anyone, myself included. Obviously, I'm not just like, oh,
17:33
Speaker 1: shaking my cane at the clouds eh old Man yells
17:37
Speaker 1: at cloud I always think of that from The Simpsons
17:39
Speaker 1: with Abe Simpson, just like on the cover of the
17:42
Speaker 1: newspaper from The Simpsons, which dates me immediately. Apparently there
17:45
Speaker 1: are people that are alive now that have not seen
17:48
Speaker 1: a good season at the Simpsons because it's been on
17:50
Speaker 1: for almost forty years as an old man shaking his
17:54
Speaker 1: cane at the cloud. It is really hard to understand
17:58
Speaker 1: the idea that there was not a democratic place to
18:00
Speaker 1: post whatever you wanted in terms of whatever it is
18:03
Speaker 1: that you can create, and then you get that turned
18:06
Speaker 1: into a movie and you become the darling of the
18:08
Speaker 1: industry a Lahkane Parsons and Curry Barker, who are now
18:13
Speaker 1: having brins trucks of money backed up to their houses.
18:15
Speaker 1: Which is the old which is such an old school
18:19
Speaker 1: way of doing things. It using the technology of now,
18:23
Speaker 1: because it's no different than seeing an indie film in
18:26
Speaker 1: the nineties and taking that person and giving them a
18:29
Speaker 1: franchise film. But we live in a time now where
18:33
Speaker 1: YouTube is so democratic, the level of subversion kind of varies,
18:36
Speaker 1: and even YouTube has its own guidelines and restrictions. And
18:40
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how subversive YouTube even is anymore. I mean,
18:43
Speaker 1: there's conversations you can have about what platform does allow
18:47
Speaker 1: for the most subversion as art or even art adjacent.
18:50
Speaker 1: Maybe something like live leak or TikTok even I don't know.
18:54
Speaker 1: YouTube maybe is two pass in terms of even having
18:57
Speaker 1: that subversive art conversation, And I don't know if a
19:00
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can and again, maybe you
19:03
Speaker 1: know a gain interesting direction to go with the conversation.
19:06
Speaker 1: In terms of required viewing, I'm not sure you can
19:08
Speaker 1: even have something be considered subversive art if it's a
19:11
Speaker 1: major motion picture directed by a studio that is spending
19:16
Speaker 1: hundreds of millions of dollars to make it. We talked
19:19
Speaker 1: about that. I forget what movie we were talking where
19:22
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, they're really Oh it's Mickey seventeen. It's
19:25
Speaker 1: like fight the Man, but this is like a three
19:27
Speaker 1: hundred million dollar movie, like get out of here. Come on,
19:30
Speaker 1: It's like fight the man? What you are the man?
19:32
Speaker 1: Like it's it's it's one level of the man fighting
19:35
Speaker 1: another level of the man. But the rest of us
19:37
Speaker 1: are down here and you guys are it's you know,
19:39
Speaker 1: it's it's the it's the royals fighting over the last
19:42
Speaker 1: you know, scrap of cake while the rest of us
19:44
Speaker 1: are eating you know, rice. Like it's like, okay, like
19:46
Speaker 1: what are we supposed to do here? And it's that
19:48
Speaker 1: It's that weird conversation where again, like it's hard to
19:52
Speaker 1: it's hard to look at any of this anymore as
19:54
Speaker 1: subversive it's all. I think the nature of film being
19:57
Speaker 1: subversive in a broadly popular way has kind of come
20:01
Speaker 1: and gone. I think the places to see it are different,
20:05
Speaker 1: which is why the conversations that we are going to
20:07
Speaker 1: have on this podcast may not focus on new films broadly.
20:11
Speaker 1: It may focus on older films, films that came out
20:14
Speaker 1: in the forties, fifties, sixties, seventies. There are time and
20:17
Speaker 1: places to still be subversive. I just think in this
20:20
Speaker 1: day and age it's much harder to be subversive in
20:23
Speaker 1: a genuine capacity. If the budget of the film is
20:26
Speaker 1: five hundred million dollars, I'm not sure how subversive we
20:29
Speaker 1: can really claim to be. Like that's if there was
20:31
Speaker 1: craft service and catering. Are we really subversive? Come on?
20:35
Speaker 2: That is a test. The other aspect of this that
20:38
Speaker 2: I like to talk about is that there are ways
20:42
Speaker 2: of judging a film, and today it's interesting to me
20:46
Speaker 2: how we have criteria for a film being quote unquote
20:51
Speaker 2: successful that we're relevant in when I was growing up
20:56
Speaker 2: and watching movies, and some that don't seem to be
20:59
Speaker 2: relevant anymore.
21:00
Speaker 1: So.
21:00
Speaker 2: For example, yes, when I was growing up, like in
21:04
Speaker 2: something called a newspaper and something called a magazine and
21:07
Speaker 2: a radio television show and a TV show, there might
21:11
Speaker 2: be people mentioning this film Star Wars, Jaws, Raiders the
21:16
Speaker 2: Lost Dark was a big hit, like lots of people
21:20
Speaker 2: are watching it. And I remember you would have these
21:23
Speaker 2: street interviews outside a theater where people are coming out
21:26
Speaker 2: of Raiders of the Lost Dark and they'd be interviewing.
21:29
Speaker 2: They'd be a family, a mom and dad and like
21:32
Speaker 2: two seventeen year old six year old daughters and whatever,
21:35
Speaker 2: and they're saying, oh, yeah, we really love this film.
21:38
Speaker 2: This was this was fantastic. So there today even today
21:42
Speaker 2: that is, you know, making lots of money, like having
21:45
Speaker 2: a lot of viewers is considered a success. We have
21:48
Speaker 2: also commented on how some things no longer seemed to
21:53
Speaker 2: be in the Hollywood calculation, like, for example, that in
21:56
Speaker 2: my day, a film was supposed to open to a
22:01
Speaker 2: certain amount of success, and then the way it really
22:04
Speaker 2: proved it was successful was that it would keep growing
22:07
Speaker 2: for many, many weeks. And you can go back and
22:09
Speaker 2: look at these famous the films that established the blockbuster
22:14
Speaker 2: as a standard, the Jaws, the Raiders, a Lost Art,
22:17
Speaker 2: the Star Wars, just all the big successful movies that
22:20
Speaker 2: sort of changed Hollywood's ambitions of what a film could do.
22:26
Speaker 2: There they would go up every week because of something
22:29
Speaker 2: which I guess Hollywood doesn't take into account anymore called
22:33
Speaker 2: word of mouth, like people would go watch a movie
22:35
Speaker 2: and then tell ten of their friends, you got to
22:37
Speaker 2: go watch this movie with me. Now, studios seem to
22:42
Speaker 2: be managing the expectations of the downward trend and trying
22:46
Speaker 2: to get the maximum bock office the first weekend, the
22:49
Speaker 2: first forty eight or maybe a longer weekend. So that
22:53
Speaker 2: in itself is interesting about what movie studios for. Maybe
22:58
Speaker 2: it's slightly different for games and for television series where
23:01
Speaker 2: you're you know, you do want people coming back and
23:03
Speaker 2: more people coming. But it comes down to asking even
23:07
Speaker 2: if again, even if you don't quote unquote like a movie,
23:11
Speaker 2: was the movie successful and money is certainly one criterion
23:16
Speaker 2: of success, but also was it successful in what it
23:18
Speaker 2: was setting out to do? Like, for example, if it's
23:21
Speaker 2: if it's in the genre of comedy, okay, was it funny?
23:25
Speaker 1: Right?
23:27
Speaker 2: Did?
23:27
Speaker 1: Did? Did?
23:28
Speaker 2: And now now it might be a comedy aimed at
23:32
Speaker 2: ten year old boys. So like Minecraft, which we will
23:35
Speaker 2: never review in this shot, maybe.
23:39
Speaker 1: I mean I would assume not but you know, maybe
23:44
Speaker 1: maybe if we had literally nothing else to talk about.
23:47
Speaker 2: Minecraft was a work of genius targeted for its target
23:52
Speaker 2: of ten year old boys. It was like a smash
23:55
Speaker 2: hit success and we can't We could watch Minecraft and
23:59
Speaker 2: go like, oh, this is what they did to successfully
24:02
Speaker 2: appeal to its target demographic, and we can appreciate professionally
24:07
Speaker 2: that they pulled that off while agreeing that we probably
24:11
Speaker 2: aren't in the target demographic of being in the theater
24:14
Speaker 2: throwing things at the screen.
24:17
Speaker 1: Right. I forgot about that. Oh wow, the chicken jockey
24:20
Speaker 1: thing right where people are like throwing chicken. Yeah, oh
24:23
Speaker 1: my god. Wow. Well, but here's the thing, and I
24:27
Speaker 1: think for me again, you know, we did to use
24:29
Speaker 1: Minecraft movie as kind of an example, I think, and
24:32
Speaker 1: an interesting example of that. Like you said, I think
24:34
Speaker 1: success is so hard to manage anymore because so many
24:39
Speaker 1: things have such a long lifespan on streaming, and we'll
24:44
Speaker 1: never know the streaming numbers for anything. I think you
24:46
Speaker 1: can the things you can assume with streaming numbers are
24:49
Speaker 1: why did we get more x files? Well, it wasn't
24:51
Speaker 1: because the world asked for more x files. It was
24:53
Speaker 1: because the world was watching the x files on repeat
24:57
Speaker 1: on streaming platforms like Netflix and Who and everything else.
25:00
Speaker 1: And they were like, well, I guess people want more
25:02
Speaker 1: of that, and so they went and ruined it. But
25:05
Speaker 1: that wasn't a bad idea. They saw an opportunity, they
25:08
Speaker 1: saw a want, they saw people watching it all the time.
25:11
Speaker 1: I'm surprised we have not seen a Friend's reboot or
25:14
Speaker 1: remake or an Office reboot or remake in terms of
25:17
Speaker 1: backing up money and brings truck to these actors, because again,
25:21
Speaker 1: those streaming platforms like Peacock are making money hand over
25:25
Speaker 1: fist because people just watch The Office on repeat because
25:29
Speaker 1: it's a culturally significant show to them. And that's not
25:32
Speaker 1: a thing for a lot of over a lot of things.
25:35
Speaker 2: I mean, that's another success right, multi is something multi.
25:39
Speaker 1: Generation right right, which again is hard perception of.
25:42
Speaker 2: The Office is. And this is a show that I
25:45
Speaker 2: watched live, I mean I watched since like when it
25:48
Speaker 2: came out.
25:49
Speaker 1: Like two thousand and six.
25:51
Speaker 2: It's got a huge audience of people under thirty who
25:54
Speaker 2: connect to it and know the characters. This is this
25:58
Speaker 2: there's two things going on there, which again I think
26:00
Speaker 2: is interesting, especially when we talk about older movies that
26:04
Speaker 2: have been repackaged, and we talked about memization where people
26:08
Speaker 2: are sort of familiar with the movie without actually having
26:11
Speaker 2: watched it because there's so many clips. Maybe somebody hasn't
26:14
Speaker 2: watched the entire Office. Now they have the super fan
26:17
Speaker 2: episodes of the Office. Talk about repackaging the same product,
26:21
Speaker 2: but like with new new things, and they're making money
26:24
Speaker 2: off of I know, Hollywood doesn't. It doesn't seem to
26:28
Speaker 2: like to make money off of physical media, but like
26:30
Speaker 2: they are making money off of the Superfan episodes. That
26:34
Speaker 2: are all the deleted scenes in there, right right there,
26:38
Speaker 2: so we can talk. This is another part of required viewing,
26:41
Speaker 2: is that how how is it that certain things seem
26:44
Speaker 2: to have a success only at one place at one
26:47
Speaker 2: time for one audience, and other things seem eternal and
26:52
Speaker 2: TRANSI have a transitional success carried to the next generation.
27:00
Speaker 1: You know, was to go back to something like the Office, don't.
27:03
Speaker 1: I don't know what causes that, because I don't think
27:07
Speaker 1: if I think if there was any one answer, someone
27:09
Speaker 1: would have just exploited that equation over and over again.
27:12
Speaker 1: There have been certain people who have done it. Sort
27:15
Speaker 1: of a Norman Lear type I think comes to mind
27:17
Speaker 1: in terms of like shows that are generationally successful and
27:22
Speaker 1: are transcendent, I think in their pop culture significance. But
27:27
Speaker 1: then there are things that, like you said, are popular
27:30
Speaker 1: for a while and then stop being popular, but they
27:32
Speaker 1: were really popular for a while. And is that unsuccessful
27:35
Speaker 1: to be popular for a while and then never popular again.
27:39
Speaker 1: It's the equivalent of a one hit wonder in music,
27:41
Speaker 1: But I think again it's harder to judge it in
27:44
Speaker 1: film because amuse, a song is like three minutes and
27:48
Speaker 1: a film is never going to be that short. So
27:50
Speaker 1: there's always and a film is so kind of not
27:54
Speaker 1: insular in its creation, but sometimes it's one person, sometimes
27:57
Speaker 1: it's a band, but rarely is it hundreds of people.
27:59
Speaker 1: Are thousands of people like it is on a film?
28:02
Speaker 1: And with film it's just it's really hard to always say, well,
28:06
Speaker 1: it was successful because X, or it wasn't successful because
28:09
Speaker 1: of why, Like there's I think that in terms of
28:12
Speaker 1: success or unsuccess, it's hard to measure it and is
28:16
Speaker 1: something unsuccessful because it wasn't successful long term? I mean,
28:20
Speaker 1: Ryan Murphy's American Horror Story has not been culturally relevant
28:24
Speaker 1: for a decade, but man, it was successful for those
28:27
Speaker 1: first couple of years that it was a show. I mean,
28:29
Speaker 1: it was Gangbusters. They were just like Shonda Rhymes, is,
28:33
Speaker 1: what is anything Shonda Rhyme's working on right now as
28:35
Speaker 1: impactful as Scandal? I'm not really not nearly as impactful
28:40
Speaker 1: as Scandal, or I guess Gray's Anatomy was the other
28:42
Speaker 1: show she did, But Scandal and Gray's Anatomy, Like, there's
28:45
Speaker 1: nothing that's been as long term or impactful as those
28:48
Speaker 1: shows for those creators. But they were immensely successful and
28:52
Speaker 1: they're still utilizing that success now. So success and failure
28:57
Speaker 1: in this industry, like, I don't know if it's failure,
28:59
Speaker 1: Like failure is a hard phrase to you, because if
29:02
Speaker 1: a film gets to come out in a theater, is
29:04
Speaker 1: it really a failure? Like it got further than It's
29:06
Speaker 1: like calling someone who's an athlete in the NFL a failure.
29:09
Speaker 1: They got further than like ninety nine percent of people did.
29:13
Speaker 1: And if a film comes out in a theater in
29:14
Speaker 1: a wide audience and it bombs, then okay, maybe is
29:18
Speaker 1: it a failure? Not really, because it actually got to
29:20
Speaker 1: come out to a wide audience. So success in failure
29:23
Speaker 1: is not binary of films.
29:26
Speaker 2: And I think John Carpenter's original The Thing is All
29:31
Speaker 2: is always like a prime example of I again, I'm
29:35
Speaker 2: old enough to remember the only time I only used
29:38
Speaker 2: that once per show. I'm old enough to remember. I
29:41
Speaker 2: went to see The Thing in the theater with some
29:44
Speaker 2: friends of mine and we thought, like, oh my god,
29:47
Speaker 2: that's an amazing film. Did you see those effects. I
29:50
Speaker 2: don't think we call them specially, just the effects, you know,
29:53
Speaker 2: they're and like we were, we were scared, we were puzzled,
29:58
Speaker 2: blown away. Think then I would read newspapers reviews, and
30:03
Speaker 2: I saw Cisco and Ebert and they were way thumbs down,
30:07
Speaker 2: Like they thought John Carpenter should be arrested.
30:10
Speaker 1: Not quite that, I mean they said that for Nimer
30:13
Speaker 1: on Elmstreet three, they were like, this film should be
30:15
Speaker 1: NC seventy and the director should be arrested for pornography,
30:18
Speaker 1: and like it was like subversive violence, like really really,
30:22
Speaker 1: and it was.
30:23
Speaker 2: It was almost universally panned, and it turned out that,
30:27
Speaker 2: I mean, it just didn't the fans, I mean, there
30:30
Speaker 2: was no fan base for it. Then over time it's
30:34
Speaker 2: become this transcendent classic over and over again. It benefited
30:38
Speaker 2: from DVDs, it benefited from cable, it benefited from from
30:43
Speaker 2: from from streaming. So that's also interesting in terms of
30:46
Speaker 2: required viewing about looking at films, films that were successful
30:51
Speaker 2: at one time and then maybe they just don't seem
30:53
Speaker 2: to have that cultural resonance past their time. Especially this
30:56
Speaker 2: is fair especially true, and we'll talk about this about
30:58
Speaker 2: something that's so top like I would have trouble. I
31:02
Speaker 2: would show All the President's Men with Robert Redfirst in
31:08
Speaker 2: a specialty film class about like journalism and film, But
31:12
Speaker 2: like man, I would have to do too much work
31:15
Speaker 2: to explain the cultural circumstances political circumstances of that film
31:20
Speaker 2: today to an audience to show it anywhere else. And
31:25
Speaker 2: it really hasn't survived in the culture as something people
31:29
Speaker 2: I never hear it referred to, even by people who
31:32
Speaker 2: are are sort of high brow culture critics or something
31:35
Speaker 2: like that. So a film can just make sense in
31:38
Speaker 2: its time and then essentially be forgotten, and other ones
31:42
Speaker 2: can come out of nowhere universally panned and be remembered.
31:47
Speaker 2: And that's that's something else we should be looking at.
31:49
Speaker 2: And it's very interesting.
31:51
Speaker 1: Well, I was going to say the other example that
31:54
Speaker 1: I think of when I think of the films that
31:56
Speaker 1: are critically panned but then have you know, find life
31:59
Speaker 1: the law longer time goes on. Blade Runner is another example.
32:02
Speaker 1: Blade Runner came out and was just like The Thing,
32:06
Speaker 1: like it found its audience after the fact. It found
32:09
Speaker 1: its audience the longer the film existed out in the
32:12
Speaker 1: public space and it found its audience. It was you know,
32:15
Speaker 1: there was a director's cut and then there was another one,
32:17
Speaker 1: and it's like, okay, now is it a success? Is
32:20
Speaker 1: it a success now that it's had a sequel and
32:22
Speaker 1: a TV show and another sequel possibly, like does that
32:25
Speaker 1: make it a success in everybody's mind? You originally thought
32:27
Speaker 1: that it was you know, sci fi Drek or high
32:29
Speaker 1: brown nonsense, like, is that a success? Now? It's weird
32:32
Speaker 1: because Blade Runner is a I don't know if it's
32:35
Speaker 1: culturally important. I don't know who finds it culturally important
32:38
Speaker 1: in this day and age. But I think what's interesting
32:40
Speaker 1: about something like Blade Runner or The Thing is there
32:43
Speaker 1: have been sequels that have come out in the last
32:45
Speaker 1: twenty years, so it must be culturally significant to some
32:48
Speaker 1: data minor somewhere or someone looking at the numbers going well,
32:52
Speaker 1: we can make money off of this in xyz capacity,
32:55
Speaker 1: and we see financial viability here. Does that make it
32:58
Speaker 1: a success? It's weird because the thing I think the
33:00
Speaker 1: needle we're trying to thread here with required viewing is
33:04
Speaker 1: what does that mean? Well, it means any It could
33:07
Speaker 1: mean a whole host of different things at for any
33:09
Speaker 1: one film. But I think the thing that we want
33:12
Speaker 1: to unpack with this show is can you have a
33:14
Speaker 1: conversation about a film and touch all those bases and
33:19
Speaker 1: have that conversation without letting subjectivity get in the way,
33:23
Speaker 1: which is a hard thing to do as a critic because,
33:25
Speaker 1: like you already talked about with Ciskel and Ebert, they
33:27
Speaker 1: were not immune to it, and they frankly did it
33:30
Speaker 1: all the time, and by the time that the show
33:32
Speaker 1: was as popular as it was, that's what people were wanting.
33:36
Speaker 1: People were there for the banter between the two of
33:38
Speaker 1: them and their own opinions getting in the way of
33:40
Speaker 1: people's ability to just enjoy something to begin with, as
33:44
Speaker 1: opposed to Oh, Ciskel and Ebert said two thumbs up,
33:46
Speaker 1: so I'm not going to go see it, like I
33:48
Speaker 1: get it, But at the same time, like that's to
33:51
Speaker 1: boil down cinema to that up and down binary is
33:54
Speaker 1: just in this day and age it's not a great
33:57
Speaker 1: way to have a conversation because we don't live in
33:59
Speaker 1: a un informed day and age. Maybe when you didn't
34:02
Speaker 1: know the things that happened making the movie, or you
34:05
Speaker 1: couldn't watch things or read things about movies, maybe, but
34:08
Speaker 1: now it's like, I feel like we almost need to
34:11
Speaker 1: do better in terms of our criticism, because making an
34:13
Speaker 1: informed decision should be the most important thing here.
34:16
Speaker 2: And the other part about is that, especially when we're
34:20
Speaker 2: focusing on film Professor Vogel, I remember one of the
34:24
Speaker 2: points that he kept making to us he was not
34:27
Speaker 2: a big believer in the auteur theory. He was not
34:29
Speaker 2: a big proponent that there was an author of a
34:33
Speaker 2: film that especially was a major production. Yeah, you could
34:37
Speaker 2: imagine a student in fact, as a student, I made
34:39
Speaker 2: my little film, and I actually worked with two or
34:42
Speaker 2: three other people, and you know, all of our names
34:44
Speaker 2: were on top there. But generally, for let's just say
34:47
Speaker 2: a Hollywood production film, you see the credits run at
34:50
Speaker 2: the beginning and at the end, and yes, there may
34:53
Speaker 2: be one person and you may not don't even know
34:56
Speaker 2: which person it is. And maybe, I mean there are
34:58
Speaker 2: films there studio cuts, right, like there was one producer
35:02
Speaker 2: at back at Disney who really drove what ended up
35:06
Speaker 2: being the final film. Sometimes it is somebody directed by
35:10
Speaker 2: Denise Villeneuve or Christoph Drunaulan who had the most effect.
35:13
Speaker 2: But then other times you're watching a film and you're going, wow,
35:16
Speaker 2: that performance really made the film. The particular actor's presence
35:21
Speaker 2: did it. And we part of what we're doing here
35:24
Speaker 2: in required viewing is saying, hey, those things don't always
35:28
Speaker 2: have to agree with each other. And I'm just going
35:30
Speaker 2: to give an example that I gave before we started,
35:32
Speaker 2: where I thoroughly enjoyed watching Project Hail Mary. I thought
35:38
Speaker 2: it was a great traditional Hollywood film. You could take
35:42
Speaker 2: the whole family and there'd be something there for the
35:45
Speaker 2: grandparents and something there for five year olds, and something
35:48
Speaker 2: there for mom and dad, and they could enjoy the film.
35:53
Speaker 2: I was irritated that they chose to have a soaring
35:59
Speaker 2: soundtrack while people were speaking softly, and I realized that
36:03
Speaker 2: may have been an artifact of that. I did not
36:07
Speaker 2: watch the film in the theater. I watched it on
36:10
Speaker 2: my screen at home, and maybe in the theater with
36:13
Speaker 2: like ninety six speakers, that wasn't as problematic, but like, yeah,
36:18
Speaker 2: it a great film, but like they could have turned
36:21
Speaker 2: the music down when people were whispering to each other.
36:25
Speaker 2: So does that make me attacking this successful film by
36:30
Speaker 2: every measure? No, I'm just saying we can look at
36:34
Speaker 2: hundreds of different elements in the film and talk about
36:38
Speaker 2: whether one was successful or not. That doesn't take away
36:40
Speaker 2: from the entire assessment of the whole movie.
36:43
Speaker 1: Well, and like you mentioned, with something like Project Hail
36:46
Speaker 1: Mary and the mixing, you and I had talked before
36:49
Speaker 1: we started recording about the Odyssey and the Imax versus
36:52
Speaker 1: non imax in a seventy millimeter, and it's like, well,
36:55
Speaker 1: if you can't afford to spend a lot of money
36:58
Speaker 1: on an IMAX ticket, or there's literally no theater showing
37:01
Speaker 1: it near you, you're missing out and the true experience
37:04
Speaker 1: as seen by the director, which I would consider to
37:06
Speaker 1: be a failure on the director's part for thinking that
37:09
Speaker 1: the only way to view his movie is through one
37:11
Speaker 1: myopic lens of the way I wanted you to see it.
37:14
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, but you cannot expect that that is
37:16
Speaker 1: going to be everybody's viewing experience. And if you expect
37:20
Speaker 1: that in this day and age, I just I don't know.
37:23
Speaker 1: I guess I have, Like we've already alluded to, I
37:25
Speaker 1: have a very different view of what success and failure
37:28
Speaker 1: are because I think a success should be something that,
37:30
Speaker 1: within reason, allows as many people as possible to see it,
37:34
Speaker 1: as opposed to assuming that the only way to see
37:37
Speaker 1: it is the most restrictive way possible. And again, the
37:40
Speaker 1: movie's been immensely successful in every other regard, but I
37:43
Speaker 1: think the biggest failure is something of making it approachable
37:46
Speaker 1: for everyone, which in a micro view that's just a
37:49
Speaker 1: singular film, but in a macro view that's the industry
37:52
Speaker 1: at large. It has normally, for the most part, no
37:55
Speaker 1: issue with making everything available, but then you have the
37:58
Speaker 1: idea that forth as available as they are, somehow that
38:02
Speaker 1: has made the viewing experience lesser by the way and
38:06
Speaker 1: which and spot and how you view it, which should
38:08
Speaker 1: not lessen the impact of the art that you're enjoying.
38:12
Speaker 1: I understand how someone could see that it does, but
38:14
Speaker 1: I don't think that that's a reasonable expectation.
38:18
Speaker 2: Yes, And what I'd add to that is that this
38:22
Speaker 2: goes to this question of like, the film going experience
38:25
Speaker 2: today is so radically different than I experienced in my
38:30
Speaker 2: youth and the probably you've experienced.
38:33
Speaker 1: It's different than it was ten years ago, really.
38:35
Speaker 2: And part of it is you just imagine, when I
38:38
Speaker 2: went to see a movie, I may not have read
38:42
Speaker 2: or heard anything whatsoever about the movie before I saw it.
38:47
Speaker 2: I had it. Doctor Vogel, I always remembered had this comment,
38:52
Speaker 2: and it came from art history analysis about whether somebody
38:56
Speaker 2: had an innocent eye. That is, like you go to
38:59
Speaker 2: a just to say, you visit another country and you
39:03
Speaker 2: go to an art museum and you they have paintings
39:06
Speaker 2: in a particular local folk style that you've never seen before,
39:11
Speaker 2: and like you've seen paintings before, but you've never seen
39:14
Speaker 2: this style of painting before, and you're going and it's
39:17
Speaker 2: so it's a novel experience to you. But today I
39:20
Speaker 2: was just thinking, before The Odyssey came out, before Disclosure
39:24
Speaker 2: Day came out, before it's you've unless you shut yourself down,
39:28
Speaker 2: like turn off the internet, you know, turn off all electronics,
39:32
Speaker 2: don't speak to anybody, don't don't listen to anything. It's
39:35
Speaker 2: impossible to get you have maybe two or three months
39:39
Speaker 2: of chatter, especially big films. And obviously to me, since
39:43
Speaker 2: the studio is going to be spending what the equivalent
39:46
Speaker 2: of the entire budget of the film on marketing the film.
39:49
Speaker 2: Then somebody on what YouTube also has the right to
39:53
Speaker 2: make an early critique based on, say, what the actors
39:56
Speaker 2: or actresses have said or the trailer. So if the
40:00
Speaker 2: DUDO is allowed to have a marketing budget, the ordinary
40:03
Speaker 2: people are allowed to say something. But the point is
40:05
Speaker 2: that by the time we get to the film, it's
40:07
Speaker 2: almost like we've been lobbied, where like politicians coming to vote,
40:10
Speaker 2: and we've had a whole hall full of lobbyists and
40:14
Speaker 2: taking us out to dinner and wooing us and trying
40:17
Speaker 2: to tell us you will have this opinion when you
40:20
Speaker 2: see the movie. And I think part of what we
40:23
Speaker 2: argue here in require viewing is that's natural today. You
40:26
Speaker 2: can't avoid it. But try to what's going back to
40:30
Speaker 2: what I said earlier, try to follow the evidence, try
40:32
Speaker 2: to look at what's actually on the screen, and don't
40:35
Speaker 2: be affected by other people's opinion.
40:37
Speaker 1: Well, and I would even go with my you know,
40:39
Speaker 1: an example of my own kind of changing of opinion
40:43
Speaker 1: on something like drastically. So I when I watched it
40:47
Speaker 1: and there's a culture cast episode many moons ago and
40:50
Speaker 1: several lifetimes ago, pre pandemic, but pre a whole lot
40:54
Speaker 1: of other things in my own personal life. Going sideways,
40:57
Speaker 1: I went and saw at the Alamo Draft House the
41:00
Speaker 1: Luca Guadanino remake that came out. I don't even remember
41:04
Speaker 1: when twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and I could not stand
41:09
Speaker 1: that movie. The first time I watched it, I really
41:13
Speaker 1: disliked it. I didn't get it. I really disliked it.
41:16
Speaker 1: It was not for me, and I on the episode
41:19
Speaker 1: talked about how much I disliked it. In the years subsequent,
41:22
Speaker 1: I have watched it several times, and I have enjoyed
41:26
Speaker 1: it immensely every time I've rewatched it because I went
41:29
Speaker 1: and did the work afterwards, because again it was not
41:32
Speaker 1: a movie that I could have really prepared for because
41:33
Speaker 1: I saw it in theaters. In terms of how I
41:35
Speaker 1: was going to feel about it, I didn't get to
41:36
Speaker 1: see it three times and then form an opinion. That's
41:38
Speaker 1: the problem with movies and theaters for the most part,
41:40
Speaker 1: unless you're getting a hold of them ahead of time
41:43
Speaker 1: through whatever means, you can only see it once and
41:45
Speaker 1: form an opinion on that one viewing, and film benefits
41:49
Speaker 1: from seeing it multiple times at the not at the
41:52
Speaker 1: same time, but in a span of time. But it
41:55
Speaker 1: also benefits from repeated viewings after the fact, especially if
41:59
Speaker 1: it's something that you know. There are some movies that
42:01
Speaker 1: don't really hit at a certain time in life because
42:04
Speaker 1: it's hard to even understand the experiences of the characters
42:07
Speaker 1: in the movie. And so you know, like I said
42:09
Speaker 1: with Suspiria, it's not a movie that I liked the
42:12
Speaker 1: first time I watched it, but I've enjoyed it immensely. Now,
42:14
Speaker 1: another example something that you and I talked about, The Witch.
42:18
Speaker 1: Not a movie I enjoyed the first time I watched it,
42:21
Speaker 1: not a movie I enjoyed the second time I watched it.
42:23
Speaker 1: But as I've watched it more and more with a
42:25
Speaker 1: certain eye and skew and kind of slant and looking
42:28
Speaker 1: at it the way the director intended, I've enjoyed it
42:31
Speaker 1: more and more. But it has taken me also allowing
42:34
Speaker 1: myself a moment to look at something and say, it's
42:36
Speaker 1: not that I was wrong, it's just my taste can change.
42:39
Speaker 1: And I'm allowed that even as someone who has watched
42:43
Speaker 1: a movie and talked about it publicly in a podcast,
42:46
Speaker 1: I'm allowed to change my opinion? What is this? Like
42:49
Speaker 1: the Spanish inquisition, We're not allowed to change our opinion
42:52
Speaker 1: on things. We're not like what is like? What is?
42:54
Speaker 1: What is that sentiment? On top of everything else, because again,
42:56
Speaker 1: in a world where subjectivity and objectivity have had the
43:00
Speaker 1: line blurred between them, now in a post objectivity world,
43:03
Speaker 1: it feels like the line has been blurred so much.
43:07
Speaker 1: I don't know why we wouldn't be allowed to change
43:10
Speaker 1: our opinion, because I think in a world where you're
43:12
Speaker 1: allowed to change your opinion and actually say, oh, I've
43:15
Speaker 1: watched something and I feel differently about it now than
43:17
Speaker 1: I did five years ago, that shows growth if you
43:21
Speaker 1: just watch it from the same viewpoint. I'm not sure
43:23
Speaker 1: that it shows any growth or learning or anything in
43:26
Speaker 1: terms of you as the viewer. And like so many
43:29
Speaker 1: other things, a film does not stand alone. It is
43:32
Speaker 1: synthesized through the viewer, and then the viewer's output comes
43:36
Speaker 1: from a whole host of things that are not easily identifiable,
43:40
Speaker 1: either by the person externally or sometimes even the person themselves.
43:44
Speaker 1: Some of us don't know why we like certain things.
43:47
Speaker 1: Not everybody asks why about themselves, and that's not a
43:50
Speaker 1: failing of anybody. Else. Some people just don't have the
43:53
Speaker 1: capacity needing or wanting or care, and I get it,
43:56
Speaker 1: but that should not discount the rest of us, or
43:59
Speaker 1: those of us who want to do that is my point.
44:02
Speaker 2: And that really gets to the sort of self improvement.
44:06
Speaker 2: I think it's good for your career, it's good for
44:08
Speaker 2: your personal life. It's good for your being a citizen
44:11
Speaker 2: of the republic to have the critical capacity to look
44:17
Speaker 2: past propaganda, look past disinformation, misinformation, look past even the
44:24
Speaker 2: opinion of people around you, and make your own decision
44:27
Speaker 2: based upon facts or what you and then actually do
44:31
Speaker 2: a deep dive into like what are facts? Of course,
44:33
Speaker 2: and in a movie, it could be this acceptance that, yeah,
44:39
Speaker 2: the movie, that I'm not the eighteen year old who
44:42
Speaker 2: saw this movie, right, I'm a new person and I
44:45
Speaker 2: retain some of what I was eighteen, but like, I'm
44:48
Speaker 2: coming at it from a new direction, and that evolution
44:52
Speaker 2: is perfectly reasonable. This goes back to I guess something
44:56
Speaker 2: else that I try to make a case to my
44:58
Speaker 2: students is that it's okay to enjoy and learn from
45:04
Speaker 2: something a movie that you might find reprehensible or that
45:09
Speaker 2: you might disagree with, which might be half of all
45:12
Speaker 2: movies out there. I mean, everybody's walking into a movie
45:15
Speaker 2: with different perceptions. And the example I'll wrap up on
45:20
Speaker 2: for my filmgoing Journey was that fast forward a number
45:24
Speaker 2: of years, I go back to the same program to
45:28
Speaker 2: get my master's degree, and I end up being a
45:30
Speaker 2: teaching assistant. I'd become a teaching associate, like the lead
45:34
Speaker 2: teaching assistant for this Amos Vogel in his film class.
45:38
Speaker 2: So it was like it was like such a dream
45:40
Speaker 2: come true for me to sit at the hand the
45:43
Speaker 2: feet of the great band. And of course, you know,
45:45
Speaker 2: I was doing grading and like checking students in to
45:48
Speaker 2: make sure, so I was doing a live bureaucracy. But
45:50
Speaker 2: then one day he tells me it in a month,
45:54
Speaker 2: I'm going out of town for a conference. I don't
45:56
Speaker 2: want to cancel the class. I'd like you to teach
45:59
Speaker 2: the class. What you mean, like me, get in front
46:02
Speaker 2: of four hundred undergraduate students and teach the class. The
46:05
Speaker 2: film was Lenny Reefinstall's Triumph of the Will. So I'm
46:09
Speaker 2: going to be the first experience film. This is subversive art.
46:13
Speaker 2: It isn't all goods. You approved subversion, right, I today
46:18
Speaker 2: consider and I don't mind saying it, although if anybody's
46:21
Speaker 2: going to be angry about it, please write to me. First.
46:23
Speaker 2: I consider Lenny Reefinstall's Triumph of the Will to be
46:27
Speaker 2: one of the most brilliant works of propaganda movie making
46:31
Speaker 2: in the history of the world. And brilliant they've done
46:34
Speaker 2: just many different levels. It was done in service of evil.
46:38
Speaker 2: Those two things don't cancel each other out. Techniques that
46:42
Speaker 2: Lenny Reefinstall did not necessarily always invent, but pioneered in
46:45
Speaker 2: that film. You can see in a hundred Hollywood movie
46:48
Speaker 2: when Indiana Jones goes to a Nazi rally, it is
46:53
Speaker 2: right out of Triumph of the Will and Steven Spielberg,
46:56
Speaker 2: I don't know whether he'd used the word homage too felt,
47:00
Speaker 2: but like he's taking his view of what a Nazi
47:04
Speaker 2: giganto rally with Hitler looked like from Lenny reefinstyle. So
47:08
Speaker 2: it's still influential in many ways. So I that was
47:12
Speaker 2: but it forced me because I had a very stressful
47:15
Speaker 2: one month preparing for this. I've never prepared for anything
47:18
Speaker 2: more in my entire life. Maybe fatherhood I've read more
47:22
Speaker 2: about to prepare, But but I I made a case
47:25
Speaker 2: to the students, what you're about to watch is the
47:29
Speaker 2: darkest evil imaginable. You will learn a lot from it,
47:33
Speaker 2: and it's okay to actually enjoy it in the sense
47:36
Speaker 2: of like, wow, that was so powerful it moved me.
47:41
Speaker 2: How can I learn about myself that I found this
47:44
Speaker 2: sequence of Hitler moving right right, and and so that's
47:49
Speaker 2: that's also what we're trying to say here is the
47:51
Speaker 2: power of movie. We love movies. We love the power
47:54
Speaker 2: of movies, of great movies to convince us of things,
47:58
Speaker 2: to give us feelings and ideas in sympathies like at
48:01
Speaker 2: the end of I mean, it sounds like a huge switch.
48:05
Speaker 2: But just my last point on this is going back
48:08
Speaker 2: to Project Hail Mary.
48:09
Speaker 1: Oh.
48:09
Speaker 2: By the end of that film, Oh my gosh, I
48:12
Speaker 2: wanted that little Rocky alien to live, Please please Rocky live.
48:17
Speaker 2: You know, I was so caught up in the fate
48:23
Speaker 2: of that little Rocky creature, which you know, I'm sure
48:26
Speaker 2: is making a trillion dollars in toys there. How did
48:30
Speaker 2: that happen? Right? It isn't because I'm dumb or gullible.
48:33
Speaker 2: It's because the film did a really good job of
48:35
Speaker 2: building that up.
48:36
Speaker 1: The example that I would go to is grogu or
48:40
Speaker 1: Minions or I guess Grogu and Minions are probably like
48:44
Speaker 1: the two most recency bias examples that I can go to.
48:47
Speaker 1: And again it's the you mentioned it. It's the memification
48:50
Speaker 1: of things. I mean, there's you know, there was a
48:53
Speaker 1: time and place on Facebook where you couldn't go two
48:55
Speaker 1: seconds without seeing a Grogu meme or a Minions meme.
48:59
Speaker 1: We are thankfully long past that time, but Grogu and
49:03
Speaker 1: Minions were a meme for a very long time, and
49:07
Speaker 1: that is because of the cultural significance and cultural proliferation
49:11
Speaker 1: of those two like iconographic things. And you know, I
49:15
Speaker 1: think there was I think it was a supersize me
49:18
Speaker 1: that super talk about again in it not in bad taste,
49:22
Speaker 1: but definitely subversive, non honest documentary with a one hundred
49:27
Speaker 1: percent bias and agenda. As we found out in the
49:30
Speaker 1: years subsequent to the film coming out that at the
49:32
Speaker 1: beginning of the film, they show a group of children
49:35
Speaker 1: a picture of Jesus and Ronald McDonald and people don't
49:38
Speaker 1: know who Jesus is, but they could tell you Ronald
49:40
Speaker 1: McDonald is. It's that the level of proliferation with cinema
49:44
Speaker 1: can go beyond normal things, and it's because of the
49:47
Speaker 1: visual element of cinema. And again that's why I always
49:51
Speaker 1: refer to something like Star Wars or Star Trek as
49:54
Speaker 1: modern day mythology. I mean it's for some people it's
49:57
Speaker 1: close to, if not religion. I mean you have people
50:00
Speaker 1: that are essentially now like Star Wars scholars. Dave Filoni,
50:05
Speaker 1: I think, is probably the person I would look to
50:06
Speaker 1: as like, maybe not like a christ like figure in
50:10
Speaker 1: terms of Star Wars, but in terms of like he
50:12
Speaker 1: has a knowledge of all of the heretical texts of
50:15
Speaker 1: Star Wars, which I don't know what you would call
50:17
Speaker 1: that in a non religious capacity, but in a religious capacity.
50:21
Speaker 1: There are names for that kind of person, and there
50:23
Speaker 1: are people that feel that strongly about things now and
50:27
Speaker 1: when culture has gotten to that point with people where
50:30
Speaker 1: it affects everything that you do. Like, I think it's
50:33
Speaker 1: important to have a conversation about the entire holistic nature
50:37
Speaker 1: of things, because, as you've already talked about, I did
50:41
Speaker 1: not go to school to be a film critic. I
50:43
Speaker 1: did not go to school for film appreciation. I went
50:46
Speaker 1: to school for journalism and then finished my degree path
50:49
Speaker 1: with a master's in business. So I don't have the
50:53
Speaker 1: technical art background on paper, I just like you mentioned him,
50:57
Speaker 1: someone who has watched films my entire life and thought
51:01
Speaker 1: about films my entire life. Because having conversations about film,
51:04
Speaker 1: like you've already alluded to, I had them by myself.
51:07
Speaker 1: I didn't have them with other people other than my
51:10
Speaker 1: closest of close friends would talk about movies, but not
51:13
Speaker 1: a lot of my friends and family would sit and
51:15
Speaker 1: talk about movies. It was a specific group of people,
51:17
Speaker 1: and that's still the case now. The people I want
51:19
Speaker 1: to have the genuine film conversations with is not everybody,
51:22
Speaker 1: because not everybody can have those conversations, because not everybody
51:25
Speaker 1: has the capacity or interest to have those conversations. Because
51:29
Speaker 1: sometimes it is just Okay, I didn't like the movie,
51:33
Speaker 1: moving on, and there is nowhere to go with that,
51:36
Speaker 1: Which is why this show will not be that as
51:39
Speaker 1: much as we can make it that. But our subjective
51:42
Speaker 1: feelings will come into play from time to time. It's
51:44
Speaker 1: hard to expect that they won't. But at the same time,
51:47
Speaker 1: as I sit here as someone who preaches the kind
51:49
Speaker 1: of gospel of cinema as it were, in terms of
51:52
Speaker 1: like I think cinema is a really important like the
51:55
Speaker 1: filmic language is really important too, like you said, be
51:59
Speaker 1: in some way cases manipulative intentionally. Like if a film
52:02
Speaker 1: is manipulative intentionally, you give it a pass because it works.
52:06
Speaker 1: If a film manipulates you and it's not successful, then
52:09
Speaker 1: you feel like it was a cheat or a dodge.
52:12
Speaker 1: But if it's successful, nobody complains. I mean, I think
52:14
Speaker 1: about so many Ron Howard films. They're intentionally manipulative emotionally,
52:18
Speaker 1: but yet they're immensely successful. Because that's the expectation with
52:22
Speaker 1: a Ron Howard movie is it's going to be an
52:23
Speaker 1: uplifting story. But uplifting stories or tend to be emotionally
52:27
Speaker 1: manipulative intentionally, but we look at it as a positive
52:31
Speaker 1: and a successful thing. But like you said, with something
52:33
Speaker 1: like Triumph of the Will, like it's a negative but
52:36
Speaker 1: it was successful. And so it's in this day and
52:39
Speaker 1: age we have to have those conversations in a way
52:42
Speaker 1: that are here and there and bridging the gap between
52:46
Speaker 1: the two because so many people have never even been
52:48
Speaker 1: allowed to have the conversation. On the other hand, it's
52:51
Speaker 1: always been did you like the movie? Yes or no? Okay,
52:54
Speaker 1: if you didn't like it, I don't want to talk
52:55
Speaker 1: anymore with you about it because I liked it. It's like,
52:57
Speaker 1: wait a second, Like why is at the end of
52:59
Speaker 1: the conversation, like that I can talk about why I
53:02
Speaker 1: didn't like it, or what about the film elicited, what reaction.
53:04
Speaker 1: It's like if you're if you're only wanting to hear
53:06
Speaker 1: if I liked something or not, and you don't care why,
53:10
Speaker 1: this show is not for you. But if you want
53:12
Speaker 1: to hear why and how and the ins and outs
53:15
Speaker 1: of things in terms of a more holistic approach to
53:18
Speaker 1: film discussion, you are in the right place and have
53:22
Speaker 1: come to the right place.
53:23
Speaker 2: We agree. The only time we agree though, right right.
53:26
Speaker 1: The only time in the run of this show that
53:29
Speaker 1: you and I will be agreeing is right now on
53:31
Speaker 1: episode zero, and that's it. So, speaking of being in
53:34
Speaker 1: agreement with one another, I think in terms of the
53:38
Speaker 1: first film that we're doing, I think we're in agreement
53:40
Speaker 1: that it's the first film that we're doing. I make
53:42
Speaker 1: a joke because we agreed ahead of time. That's how
53:44
Speaker 1: this works. On the next and technical first episode of
53:47
Speaker 1: Required Viewing, Doctor Pearl Mutter and I will be talking
53:51
Speaker 1: about a film with two guys who go to drink
53:53
Speaker 1: wine together. A Napa Valley. We're gonna be talking about Sideways,
53:57
Speaker 1: which the conversation we have will be much more than
54:00
Speaker 1: the joky nonsense I just Radio Morning zooed for everybody.
54:04
Speaker 1: But on the surface, it's a film about two men
54:07
Speaker 1: who go and drink wine in Napa Valley, and there's
54:10
Speaker 1: a lot more going on. If you've never seen it,
54:12
Speaker 1: you should definitely watch it ahead of time. Maybe some
54:14
Speaker 1: other Alexander Payne films. I don't know, maybe maybe not.
54:18
Speaker 1: I have not discussed his films on podcasts before, so
54:21
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to it. But I'm always looking forward
54:23
Speaker 1: to a conversation that I get to have with you,
54:25
Speaker 1: doctor Pearl Mutter, especially one about a film that's a
54:27
Speaker 1: little bit more fun than the movies we normally talk about.
54:30
Speaker 1: Normally we're talking about a very serious thing. This it's serious,
54:34
Speaker 1: put serious in a different way. So until then, you
54:37
Speaker 1: can find me over at the Culture Cast, which is
54:40
Speaker 1: on weirding Way Media, where this show and all the
54:42
Speaker 1: other shows I work on can be found. Doctor Pearl
54:44
Speaker 1: Mutter joins me there on the Culture Cast, and obviously
54:47
Speaker 1: for this show once a week, if not sometimes twice
54:50
Speaker 1: a week, depending on what Culture Cast episode it is,
54:52
Speaker 1: so yeah, that's where you can find myself and Doctor
54:55
Speaker 1: Pearl Mutter. If you want to find other shows like
54:57
Speaker 1: Mike White's The Projection Booth, Or's Susan Lambert Adams eight
55:00
Speaker 1: tv Ladies, weirding Way Media is also where you can go,
55:03
Speaker 1: so head on over there, like rate and review this
55:05
Speaker 1: show on iTunes or Spotify in that order. Please it
55:08
Speaker 1: helps in that order more than it does anything else.
55:10
Speaker 1: And if you're interested in contributing financially, patreon dot com
55:13
Speaker 1: slash culture cast is where you can do that. You
55:16
Speaker 1: support this show and that show and all the shows
55:18
Speaker 1: financially by doing so. If you want to hear never
55:23
Speaker 1: tell Me the odds the upcoming Harrison Ford podcast a
55:26
Speaker 1: month early without ads, that's where you would go as
55:28
Speaker 1: well the Patreon. So Doctor Pearl Mutter, thank you for
55:31
Speaker 1: agreeing to do this. I know that this has been
55:33
Speaker 1: a long time coming, and now you get to put
55:34
Speaker 1: podcast host on your CV, which I know it will
55:38
Speaker 1: be before everything else now intentionally, not because it's the
55:41
Speaker 1: most recent thing, but it's the thing you're most proud of.
55:43
Speaker 1: So I kid, but I know that we're both very
55:46
Speaker 1: excited to kind of create something here that has a
55:49
Speaker 1: lasting legacy for film discussion, I think in a positive context.
55:54
Speaker 2: So thank you. I'm looking forward to every moment
55:57
Speaker 1: And as always, we'll catch you on the next episod seven.