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Nightcrawler (2014) · Left of the Projector

0:18
Track 1: Hello, and welcome to Left of the Projector. I'm your host, Bill,
0:21
Track 1: back again with another film discussion from the West. If you'd like to support
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0:40
Track 1: of our weekly episodes that drop every Tuesday. Now, on to the show.
0:44
Track 2: This week on Left of the Projector, we'll be discussing the 2014 film Nightcrawler,
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Track 2: It was directed by Dan Gilroy and stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo,
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Track 2: Riz Ahmed, and the late, great Bill Paxton.
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Track 2: Despite coming out 12 years ago, it honestly could have been released today
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Track 2: with some guys with fancy cameras or just a smartphone.
1:03
Track 2: Tonight, it's just me and Evan. How you doing, Evan?
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Track 2: Doing all right. How are you? I'm doing okay. Did I mispronounce Jake's name?
1:16
Track 2: His last name? i can never remember
1:18
Track 2: which i think it's i think it's it's chilling all it is it's all right,
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Track 2: jake if you want to come on the podcast i will i will personally apologize for
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Track 2: mispronouncing your name on multiple occasions despite having been told otherwise by my wife,
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Track 2: in particular i think this is the third film with jake,
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Track 2: we've done i know we did donnie dropco but i think there's a third one maybe i did a long time ago,
1:47
Track 2: not remembering it but uh you saw this movie for the very first time yes yes i did i'm surprised,
1:55
Track 2: i really enjoyed it uh i thought it was really good uh and jake gyllenhaal is,
2:04
Track 2: an impressive act you know i kept thinking about this i was like this is.
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Track 2: This is like i don't know like another take on like american psycho Like, it...
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Track 2: It reminded me of american psycho so much interesting better i think.
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Track 2: Better see why do you say it's similar to america oh why do you think it's similar to american psycho,
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Track 2: it's the same kind of wrong just following an obvious sociopath,
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Track 2: but whereas american psycho is meant and is is really more satirical this is
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Track 2: more like a straight condemnation there's no satire in this this is just,
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Track 2: this is a hit piece on sociopaths and you know paparazzi which.
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Track 2: I i kind of appreciate the i appreciate the purity of that it's like no this
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Track 2: he's a bad person this is a person,
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Track 2: you should not like him yeah so for people who don't know dan gilroy has a brother
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Track 2: named coney gilroy who happens to do a little known show called andor,
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Track 2: apparently they co-wrote part of the script together which i didn't know until
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Track 2: i was looking into it just briefly he was actually nominated for an oscar for
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Track 2: this for the best original screenplay,
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Track 2: and i think it's a crime that Jake Gyllenhaal didn't get a nomination for Best Actor.
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Track 2: A hundred percent. I really think it's, I don't think he gets enough credit
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Track 2: just in general. This movie was really, really good, and he was impressive in it.
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Track 2: Now, Wikipedia does call it a satire.
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Track 2: I don't think this is tongue-in-cheek enough to be counted as a satire.
3:54
Track 2: This is not subtle enough to be a satire, in my opinion.
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Track 2: I have a very good satire radar, and I wouldn't call this movie...
4:07
Track 2: I don't think it's a satire, but,
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Track 2: all the interviews I read with Gilroy, he did not make it seem like a satire.
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Track 2: He actually calls the role played by Jake Gyllenhaal, Lou, as an antihero.
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Track 2: And he was specifically writing it that way where you don't have a backstory on him.
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Track 2: You don't really root for him, but you do see like this journey where like,
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Track 2: maybe if you like, you're like, you're a real big capitalist fan,
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Track 2: you might like be like, go Lou, take him down or whatever.
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Track 2: But like.
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Track 2: I find that amazing because to me,
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Track 2: he seems so obviously like unlikely to ever, ever achieve that,
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Track 2: that it's more like a hit on the idea of bootstraps.
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Track 2: Like there's like, no, you're not going to do it. It doesn't matter. Like,
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Track 2: you know, like nobody, that's not, it's not a thing, you know,
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Track 2: it seems so obvious to me that he's never actually going to get to that point
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Track 2: of that kind of create like capitalist success.
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Track 2: No no but i mean i guess you could argue you don't really know what he's come
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Track 2: from you know he's likely abused comes from like,
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Track 2: you know probably lived most of his life in who knows what,
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Track 2: but i mean he did go from literally nothing to basically you know buying a computer
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Track 2: researching online all of these like the way he talks and everything about him
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Track 2: which we'll i think talk about is that it's very like robotic and,
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Track 2: sociopathic and all of this but he does make a lot of himself from nothing not
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Track 2: he's not a capitalist of course but,
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Track 2: yeah but it's not like.
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Track 2: Yeah, he did. By stealing, he stole a bunch of stuff first.
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Track 2: He didn't invent a better mousetrap. He stole stuff.
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Track 2: I mean, a capitalist who didn't steal someone's labor. Well,
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Track 2: yeah, for us, we're like, yeah, that makes sense.
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Track 2: But like, anybody who's trying to paint him as like an anti-hero or an example
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Track 2: of that capital, like in like a positive frame, it's like, you're admitting,
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Track 2: you're giving away the game.
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Track 2: Well, I want to read, I know we like, sometimes we don't need to get to this
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Track 2: slowly, but I want to read these two quotes from Gilroy, which I think are bizarre.
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Track 2: And it's another one of those things, just like Richard Kelly,
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Track 2: who directed Donnie Darko, and you should go listen to that episode,
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Track 2: where we posited as a group that if richard kelly the director of van darko
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Track 2: had read theory he would have a much better understanding of the world and probably
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Track 2: be able to make a better movie or at least a more interesting movie,
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Track 2: so this is what he says the idea of the character who has implied back snow
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Track 2: i'm gonna skip that part he says um.
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Track 2: And in his desperate loneliness and probably raging insanity the precepts of
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Track 2: capitalism become a religion to him.
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Track 2: If you only had one direction to climb, which is up, then to have a goal would give sanity.
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Track 2: I imagine he started Sauer, discovered the internet for self-health,
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Track 2: Maxims, blah, blah, blah. And then the second thing is that the movie is about,
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Track 2: quote, the spirit, the perpetual spirit of poverty.
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Track 2: I don't know another system other than capitalism, maybe some mixed socialism thing.
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Track 2: I wouldn't want to hazard what a better system was, but I think we're entering
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Track 2: into this period of hyper-free market capitalism has become very much like the
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Track 2: jungle, in which it's acceptable that the weak perish at the hands of the strong,
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Track 2: and that's what this is supposed to be.
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Track 2: Oh, we're just getting there, huh? We're just getting there.
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Track 2: We just got there in 2014?
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Track 2: Yeah, and the funniest part of
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Track 2: that was I wouldn't want to hazard what a better system was. Yeah, yeah.
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Track 2: I just, I'm not, I'm not going to just like, I'm not going to throw any ideas
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Track 2: out there, you know, but like, I mean, this is what we got right now,
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Track 2: right? And just in 2014, just getting to the part where you're just like,
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Track 2: we're just fucking people over.
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Track 2: It is possible and i i probably think this about his brother too especially
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Track 2: with a lot of the and or stuff is that maybe he holds back a little to what
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Track 2: he maybe really believes,
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Track 2: and it's funny the interview is actually pretty funny because the interviewer
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Track 2: kept asking these kind of questions in really stupid ways and he's like no this
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Track 2: is capitalism like the interviewer just like didn't
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Track 2: didn't they tried to change the narrative of his movie a little bit and he just
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Track 2: was like no shut the fuck up man,
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Track 2: i just think i mean he clearly gets it enough to make a pretty interesting and actually great film,
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Track 2: i mean straight up this is a great film i gave this five stars on letterbox,
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Track 2: i jake jill and all should have at least been nominated for an oscar i i looking at the list
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Track 2: of the leading actor role for that year was eddie redmayne won for the theory
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Track 2: of everything which i actually haven't seen so i can't say that but i think
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Track 2: he deserved it over bradley cooper and American Sniper.
9:13
Track 2: Oh, yeah. Michael Keaton was really good in Birdman. Benedict Cumberbatch was
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Track 2: pretty good in the Imitation Game, even if that movie kind of sucks.
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Track 2: And then you had Steve Carell in Foxcatcher, which I did not see,
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Track 2: so I can't say whether he was good or not.
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Track 2: But I don't know, man. I feel like he dominated this movie. He crushed it. All right.
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Track 2: I do think that he should have at least been nominated.
9:36
Track 2: And I have never seen the entirety of Foxcatcher, but I have seen like significant
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Track 2: portions of it and you can't, you don't recognize Steve Corral.
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Track 2: He's really good in it. Okay. Yes. Okay. So incredible. I wouldn't say he wasn't. I just don't know.
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Track 2: Oh yeah, I know. I know. I'm just saying like from a physical perspective,
10:03
Track 2: but he has like a huge physical transformation, but also like his portrayal, he's unrecognizable.
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Track 2: It's, it's actually, it's absolutely incredible.
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Track 2: To the point where like, I know it's Steve Carell. And every time I see,
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Track 2: I'm like, I don't believe it. And I have to like, I really question like my reality.
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Track 2: Yeah, and the only Oscar nominee that he has ever received was for,
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Track 2: I know what it is, it's Brokeback Mountain, and he probably should have won that.
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Track 2: Yeah. And looking at his list of movies he's been in, it's just shocking to
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Track 2: me that he hasn't been nominated more than once.
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Track 2: It strikes me as one of those things, I don't remember which actor that we were
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Track 2: talking about another time, that is always really good, but just never gets any.
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Track 2: Yes, yes.
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Track 2: And I think actually Dano, what's his name?
10:53
Track 2: Paul Dano also is another one of those cases where he's always,
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Track 2: he's really good in so many movies and they just, I feel like they just aren't
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Track 2: liked. I don't know what it is.
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Track 2: They gotta be like 50 before they get a chance.
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Track 2: And oddly enough, both of them were in a movie together in Okja.
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Track 2: Anyway. I mean. We've straight off topic. Tarantino does say that Paul Dano
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Track 2: is one of the worst actors he's ever worked with. And that he almost destroyed,
11:28
Track 2: There Will Be Blood. Destroyed it by making it much better.
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Track 2: The only reason he is bad in that movie is if you compare him to Daniel Day-Lewis,
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Track 2: which is like impossible.
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Track 2: It's like it's like having the greatest actor ever with just a great actor and
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Track 2: you're like yeah it sucks and actually what happens is you compare them to daniel's
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Track 2: daily listen you're like holy shit they got both of these guys in one movie holy shit,
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Track 2: yeah that's impressive yeah that's a lot of acting to fit in one movie yeah
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Track 2: and you can go back and listen to episode 214 on there will be blood.
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Track 2: Just to throw that in there. But we should talk about the actual movie,
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Track 2: and I'll give a brief synopsis of it just for anyone who hasn't seen it,
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Track 2: and I would urge anyone to see this movie.
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Track 2: It takes place in Los Angeles at the time, 2014, where this guy Lou,
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Track 2: who is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, is first, he initially is like stealing a
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Track 2: bunch of basically cable and metal to make some money outside.
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Track 2: Copper wire as well. But he still has other things too.
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Track 2: Yeah. He still has a manhole cover. Manhole covers.
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Track 2: And he's doing this you know just to make some money and he's he gives like
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Track 2: a whole this big speech about like wanting to get a job from the foreman and the foreman basically,
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Track 2: you just stole a bunch of shit and are selling it to me and you're asking for
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Track 2: a job he tells him to fuck off and when he's driving home he stops at a car crash where there's,
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Track 2: bill paxton character filming the scene which and they call them stringers basically
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Track 2: people who are freelance videographers of car crashes and crime scenes to the cell to,
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Track 2: news studios so they can use it as footage and of course because of the way
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Track 2: his character is which is,
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Track 2: he sees something and he just wants to be or become that he decides that he's going to,
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Track 2: he steals a bicycle for more money to get a camcorder and basically he's now
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Track 2: decided he is going to be better than bill paxton's character i think his name is joe nothing you know,
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Track 2: and basically the rest of the film is just his transformation,
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Track 2: you watch him just become more insane, more psychotic as he takes this on and...
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Track 2: Now, the one thing also that I do think is relevant, the synopsis of this film
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Track 2: and like the general, like if you look up the description of it,
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Track 2: it always includes the fact that he begins to stage the things that he is shooting.
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Track 2: And while, yes, he does manipulate a couple of the, you know,
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Track 2: like one, maybe two of the crime scenes, it is not.
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Track 2: But I think that the claim that he stages them being so prominent in the description,
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Track 2: the marketing for the film is actually a disservice to the film overall.
14:26
Track 2: The marketing thing they did to try and sell it?
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Track 2: Well, he stages the stuff. I just don't think, I didn't see it as integral to it, really.
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Track 2: Wait, is that in the trailer? Is that what they try and promote it as?
14:44
Track 2: It is if you look up the synopsis for synopsis of nightcrawler it always says you know that he um,
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Track 2: begins to stage you know the he does a couple of times in the film but i don't really feel like that,
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Track 2: if anything in my mind the way he stages it is creating a narrative around it
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Track 2: alongside the media to make the well we,
15:11
Track 2: but i don't think that's a big part of it either i don't like i do also think
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Track 2: that i didn't look at the official you know synopsis but that's kind of bullshit,
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Track 2: i don't i.
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Track 2: I actually, I think that one of the most important elements,
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Track 2: if we're going to like go through this, like if we go through this chronologically,
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Track 2: I think that actually one of the first and most telling points,
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Track 2: of like this movie is actually the way the,
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Track 2: foreman of the construction site or the, uh, the scrapyard,
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Track 2: um, how that guy snubs him in response to his like self health,
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Track 2: self help pitch bullshit.
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Track 2: And his capitalist kind of like lingo.
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Track 2: And I feel like that says a lot because it's like that's a guy that like he does work for a living.
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Track 2: Like this is a guy, he works for a living and he has no time for this like bullshit language.
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Track 2: He's like, no, I have like actual work to do, not, you know,
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Track 2: buying into the bullshit language of the capitalist system.
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Track 2: He's like get the fuck out of here like i have an actual job to do i don't have time for this like.
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Track 2: Nonsense that you know you're trying to push that does work later he doesn't
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Track 2: give the same impassioned speech but that does work on the,
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Track 2: other main character in this film which is played by renee russo who is nina
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Track 2: who works as a producer for what is it channel doesn't make it channel six key double a key wla six
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Track 2: for for like a low and not a low end but like not a top,
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Track 2: news station and like that kind of talk makes her interested because that's
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Track 2: the same way that she thinks in in maybe not the same psychotic terms,
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Track 2: it's not also see how crazy he is in that opening scene.
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Track 2: It's not even that he's not it's not a top station it's also a like a it's a like a bottom time slot.
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Track 2: She's like- Yeah, the late night, maybe early morning at best.
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Track 2: One thing I wrote down in my notes that I, so I'll preface this by saying, I am not autistic.
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Track 2: There are times in the movie where the way he described what he did almost sounded
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Track 2: like someone who was autistic, but might also be a psychopath.
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Track 2: Yeah, I did, I explicitly read it as being like sociopathic, like coded.
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Track 2: Makes more sense. very much and like that ties into the like uh also like,
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Track 2: i there are other very and i am also not autistic but i according to the thing
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Track 2: you know like there's there are.
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Track 2: Key elements that especially in movie language that you would use to you know
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Track 2: and the fact of the matter is is that If we're going to use the common language of film,
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Track 2: the way he behaves is very much more sociopathic and not autistic,
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Track 2: especially in the fact that,
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Track 2: he does not break eye contact.
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Track 2: He maintains eye contact with people who are his prey, essentially.
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Track 2: He is attempting to prey on these people. He locks eyes at them because he knows
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Track 2: that's a way to manipulate people.
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Track 2: He locks eyes with them, maintains eye contact, and then says those things.
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Track 2: And he pushes those very specific you know like buttons it comes off as robotic because.
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Track 2: That's how psychopaths sound. Because he's not feeling the emotion.
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Track 2: He is just going through the motions because he knows that's a way to manipulate
19:01
Track 2: people. That's all it is. Yeah.
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Track 2: Yeah. I mean, the way he reads something online, he researches it, and then basically just,
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Track 2: if everything is like a script, it's like, oh, if I do this,
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Track 2: or if I, you know, especially later when he brings on an intern which i feel so bad for rick man oh man,
19:23
Track 2: he gets just screwed but rick played by uh what's his name um riz Ahmed,
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Track 2: yeah uh riz Ahmed who was great in this movie he is treated the same way you expect like a,
19:38
Track 2: mid-level manager type to treat you know the bottom rung employee in like a
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Track 2: meaningless soulless corporation but he's just a guy trying to make it and he's
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Track 2: still because what he read,
19:54
Track 2: trying to make it he's homeless he's not trying i mean i meant that no no i
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Track 2: meant that um that jake jill and i was trying to make it as a company oh he's
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Track 2: treating this guy like like an absolute pile of trash dude lives in a garage,
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Track 2: He shows up for what he thinks is an interview, and at the end is told,
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Track 2: oh wait, no, this is an unpaid internship.
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Track 2: That hasn't changed since 2014. Right. Everything about this,
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Track 2: like, I don't understand.
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Track 2: You have to be, I don't understand how you could say that he is an anti-hero.
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Track 2: Like either, either you agree with the capitalist mindset and like the,
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Track 2: the, the notions and the underlying ideology of the system, then he's not,
20:44
Track 2: he's not an anti-hero. He's a hero.
20:47
Track 2: Or you disagree with it and he's a fucking villain.
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Track 2: I don't really see how you can look at this and not just view him as a villain the whole time.
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Track 2: If you believe in the capitalistic ideology, then yeah, he's a hero.
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Track 2: There are people who, because what keeps coming back to, what kept striking me about this,
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Track 2: there's a lot to talk about from like.
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Track 2: So, like, we both grew up in, like, the 90s, largely.
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Track 2: And what is, like, one thing, 90s and early 2000s, you know,
21:24
Track 2: like, those are, like, our formative years, I'd say, right?
21:27
Track 2: Yeah. And what was, like, one thing that, like, in the 90s became so much more
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Track 2: visible in mainstream U.S. media that was, like, a huge, almost, like, issue?
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Track 2: Paparazzi. Yeah.
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Track 2: And like, that's what this felt like to me that this was very explicitly placed
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Track 2: in LA because, and it's like, it's a comparison.
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Track 2: I can't, I couldn't help but keep drawing comparisons between the way paparazzi
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Track 2: were accurately depicted, especially during the nineties and the early,
22:05
Track 2: early two thousands and the way they victimized and prayed on people and got
22:10
Track 2: in their faces and agitated.
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Track 2: Them so that they could get things and that's all this was and it's like the
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Track 2: only difference is is that this was.
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Track 2: I couldn't help but see those comparisons be like oh no this it also came across
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Track 2: to me like it's a hit on paparazzi it's like
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Track 2: look look the you think it's a good thing what he's doing to these people
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Track 2: like that's what you're doing to those people as well you're invading their
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Track 2: personal lives you're invading their personal space you're marketing everything
22:41
Track 2: about their lives, so you can turn a buck.
22:44
Track 2: You're preying on people and victimizing them and damaging them, so you can turn a buck.
22:51
Track 2: It's like, what's the difference between these two things? What's the difference
22:54
Track 2: between hounding Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan, or until they have a mental breakdown, or...
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Track 2: Getting up in the face of this poor man who was just shot in an attempted carjacking
23:11
Track 2: or this person who just had a car accident.
23:14
Track 2: In the end, we have to recognize that you are both contributing to the denigration
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Track 2: and dehumanization of people for your profit.
23:26
Track 2: Yeah and then meanwhile well the other thing that i was in i thought you might
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Track 2: have said also that was very prevalent,
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Track 2: in the 90s and i feel like late 80s early 90s i know this is 2014 so clearly
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Track 2: i don't i haven't watched a local news channel,
23:42
Track 2: in yeah in in so long so i don't know what it's like anymore i'm sure it's pretty similar,
23:48
Track 2: but i saw something that's i mean i think in the movie they mentioned how many,
23:54
Track 2: i know jake john hall i mentioned in this in at some point when he's talking
23:57
Track 2: to nina like how what percentage of the newscast is devoted to politics local
24:04
Track 2: government actual news and the what percentage is dedicated to,
24:09
Track 2: crime and it's overwhelmingly related to crime by like 90 of it or something
24:15
Track 2: i can need to find the exact um,
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Track 2: the quote from it but i remember very vividly it's on 80 um shit i can't find
24:24
Track 2: it i'll find it at some point i'm pretty sure they mentioned it.
24:28
Track 2: The point is, in the 90s, I just remember true crime and crime statistics and
24:35
Track 2: black-on-black crime, you know, crime creeping into the suburbs,
24:39
Track 2: which is a big thing in this movie,
24:42
Track 2: that Renee Russo talks about, is she wants stories where a black person or a
24:48
Track 2: brown person or some minority commits a crime against a white person in a rich neighborhood.
24:54
Track 2: Because that makes rich people and white people scared and then makes them watch the news.
25:00
Track 2: And that's literally the goal of her channel and why she continues to get by
25:05
Track 2: the videos from Jake Gyllenhaal because he keeps finding and getting really
25:10
Track 2: good footage of these types of crimes.
25:14
Track 2: In the middle of that, he does go inside a house that had been shot up and moves
25:19
Track 2: a picture and gets weird photos. He moves a body.
25:23
Track 2: So he definitely does things that are more unethical than his existing regular job.
25:27
Track 2: But the time that this came out, I'm surprised that it was still a thing.
25:33
Track 2: It almost makes me feel like it's the 90s when you watch it, actually.
25:38
Track 2: It does feel like the 90s. It does feel like the 90s.
25:42
Track 2: But I think part of that has to do with, I mean, this is going to sound kind
25:47
Track 2: of wild, But part of that feels like the fact that like basically economically
25:53
Track 2: depressed locations and economically people,
25:57
Track 2: who live in economically depressed areas off, they are inevitably left behind
26:03
Track 2: by certain things because they cannot afford to participate in them.
26:08
Track 2: His car, his car is fucking from like, well, the car he starts with is like,
26:14
Track 2: fuck, I think it might be an old Pinto. So it's very old.
26:20
Track 2: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I thought I was going to say it's like nothing has really
26:23
Track 2: changed other than the rich people are now richer and the people who are poorer.
26:28
Track 2: I mean, the, the time, I mean, the technology they're using was very much the,
26:34
Track 2: of the time. I mean, the, the cameras that Bill Paxton's group has,
26:38
Track 2: you know, initially are like pretty high tech.
26:41
Track 2: This had been the nineties. I mean, you're talking, I mean, he uses a camera
26:44
Track 2: in the beginning. It's like a camcorder from the nineties.
26:47
Track 2: And he is the low man on the totem pole he is poor in comparison to bill paxton's
26:53
Track 2: character yeah bill paxton,
26:55
Track 2: goes out of his way to make fun of his camera he's like nice camera
26:58
Track 2: yeah well i mean this is the move the film does take place in current like in
27:03
Track 2: 2014 yeah they have smartphones that's what i'm saying like bill paxton has
27:08
Track 2: better cameras because he has economic privilege.
27:12
Track 2: He is not behind the time. He is not existing in a previous economic time period,
27:18
Track 2: because he is forced to be.
27:20
Track 2: The other thing that struck me about this is,
27:24
Track 2: The fact.
27:27
Track 2: That, and I don't know, maybe it was just me, but did it look to you as if,
27:33
Track 2: it was filmed with a very subtle sepia tone filter, very similar to the way,
27:41
Track 2: many American directors will typically film for Latin American countries?
27:47
Track 2: It did look like that. It wasn't as pronounced. And I think because so much
27:51
Track 2: of the movie takes place at night. I mean, how many scenes are there during the day? Only a couple.
27:57
Track 2: Yeah, not a lot. But, you know, when they're inside with lights,
28:00
Track 2: but overall, and it really felt like to me, it's like, look,
28:04
Track 2: you almost, it felt like a commentary on the way that filter is used.
28:10
Track 2: You want to cast these other countries in this light. Well, guess what?
28:14
Track 2: You are, you know, America and its system and the way it treats people is no
28:19
Track 2: better than what you claim these and how you portray these other places,
28:24
Track 2: which are victims of American exceptionalism, imperialism, and all that stuff.
28:29
Track 2: And to cast LA in that light to me was a very interesting and interesting.
28:38
Track 2: It actually makes even more sense. So the film, the cinematographer was Robert
28:43
Track 2: Ellsworth and he did a bunch of the early Paul Thomas Anderson movies,
28:48
Track 2: including I'm pretty sure there will be blood.
28:51
Track 2: So it comes back to that, but I could totally see, cause a lot of those movies
28:56
Track 2: and some of these other ones I see he's done.
28:58
Track 2: He did eight millimeter, which is a really fucked up movie, Jesus Christ.
29:02
Track 2: But a bunch of these movies though, where there is a very clear tonal element
29:07
Track 2: to them in the cinematography. So I would highly buy the fact that they used it.
29:14
Track 2: And they also use light in such a cool way because at night,
29:18
Track 2: the only real lights you have are from streetlights, cars, you know,
29:23
Track 2: buildings, but everything was lit in a way that like, didn't feel wrong.
29:30
Track 2: No not at all like you you saw only what you kind of wanted to see in the same
29:35
Track 2: way that you only see what the stringer you know bill paxton general is trying
29:41
Track 2: to show you we've talked about the,
29:45
Track 2: inability or poor filming at night in films before and this felt like.
29:50
Track 2: This is this is one of the few movies i can point and be like that feels like
29:54
Track 2: it was actually filmed at night in a city and that's what it looks like,
30:00
Track 2: where it's like all the light was provided by background streetlights or the
30:07
Track 2: lights shining from like open businesses.
30:10
Track 2: And unless they were in those businesses or directly beneath the streetlight,
30:15
Track 2: you were getting the ambient glow of light just enough to see by just like in real life.
30:22
Track 2: It felt very natural.
30:25
Track 2: Says in the in the wikipedia page about the filming is he says,
30:29
Track 2: gyllenhaal well so john hall's animalistic approach to the script influenced
30:33
Track 2: his belief that this idea was almost like a wildlife documentary,
30:38
Track 2: and then he says to achieve this he used a wide angle lens with a depth of field
30:42
Track 2: and avoided like soft spoke it's like a soft focus we bring the landscape so
30:47
Track 2: it makes perfect sense especially with all that darkness i mean,
30:51
Track 2: it does look pretty amazing i I mean, I feel the movie made a lot of money.
30:55
Track 2: It made $50 million, but sometimes I feel like that when I talk to people about
30:58
Track 2: this movie, they're like, oh,
30:59
Track 2: I either haven't heard of it or like they don't know it or I don't know.
31:03
Track 2: This movie deserves more. It definitely does.
31:06
Track 2: The only thing that this movie, my immediate thought was it brought me back
31:12
Track 2: to Monsters and the photojournalist in that and how he talks about it.
31:16
Track 2: He's like, the only way I put food on my table is if I send a picture of a dead kid.
31:21
Track 2: And it's like the difference between the two characters because it's like that
31:27
Track 2: guy you know he still had some like internal moral compass some kind of like standards,
31:35
Track 2: and you could see that at a certain point if that is the demands put on you
31:40
Track 2: by the system you will do whatever is necessary, if that includes,
31:46
Track 2: staging a crime,
31:48
Track 2: staging a scene for a photo, or for a video shot, or, I mean,
31:55
Track 2: essentially setting up a shooting.
31:58
Track 2: I mean, that's what he does with those guys and the cops. He essentially,
32:03
Track 2: he sets up a shooting so he can film it.
32:06
Track 2: That's what happens. Yeah, I mean, all of the...
32:11
Track 2: I mean, he's straight up. He essentially murders Riz Ahmed's character.
32:18
Track 2: I mean, I mean, if you were, if he were to have been caught,
32:22
Track 2: it would have been accessory to murder or maybe not accessory.
32:25
Track 2: I don't know the something. I mean, well, he would have been completely fucking
32:29
Track 2: with holding evidence of the police. I mean, he did a lot of crimes,
32:33
Track 2: a lot of crimes, lots of crimes.
32:36
Track 2: I i think except like the he knew,
32:42
Track 2: he was going to get shot and intended to have him get shot well he knew it too
32:46
Track 2: because he's like you saw that guy there and you didn't say anything and he
32:50
Track 2: intended to have it happen because because,
32:55
Track 2: rick pushed back on him and basically and showed him that he had bargaining power.
33:01
Track 2: And it's like a boss in a union.
33:05
Track 2: Oh, you're going to have bargaining power? Nah, sorry. I'm going to shut the
33:09
Track 2: factory down. You could all go starve to death.
33:12
Track 2: Yeah, I mean, to piece the picture, things escalate throughout the film where
33:18
Track 2: he's finding more and more videos, he's making more money, he becomes more into
33:22
Track 2: Nina, Renee Russo, and- Does he, though?
33:25
Track 2: Or does he realize that she is a pressure point? Is he into her?
33:31
Track 2: I mean... No, no, he's into her. Well, I guess it's more that he's into her
33:34
Track 2: power and the fact that he can use it to his advantage.
33:38
Track 2: And which is also for people who don't know, Rene Russo is married to Dan Gilroy
33:43
Track 2: and he wrote the character for her to be in the movie.
33:46
Track 2: This is like one of the last movies. She hasn't done a whole lot of movies as
33:49
Track 2: of late, which is a shame. I would divorce him after that. That's fucked up.
33:55
Track 2: That's fucked up well I hope he asked first he wrote her a role in which she
34:00
Track 2: is basically blackmailed for sex.
34:07
Track 2: Well, but also you, I mean, also her job before that is also quite unethical.
34:12
Track 2: I mean, let me read this one quote and then I'm going to paint the picture of
34:16
Track 2: like what, like the, the, the first half of the movie or the,
34:20
Track 2: maybe the first two thirds is really him becoming this stringer.
34:26
Track 2: He brings on the his his intern riz ahmed who he's basically,
34:32
Track 2: drives around with and uses him to just give him directions like he has a phone
34:36
Track 2: he knows la he gets him from place to place and yells at him whenever he makes a mistake,
34:41
Track 2: but one of the things that renee russo says early in the movie when she's talking
34:45
Track 2: about one of the films that she videos he brings he says,
34:49
Track 2: tie it in with the carjacking last month in glendale and the other one in van
34:53
Track 2: palms when was that march it's the carjacking crime wave.
34:56
Track 2: That's the banner. And then later she says, we find our viewers are more interested
35:00
Track 2: in urban crime creeping into the suburbs.
35:03
Track 2: What that means is victim or victims, preferably well-off and or white,
35:07
Track 2: injured at the hands of the poor or a minority.
35:10
Track 2: So that is, I mentioned that before, but that's basically.
35:15
Track 2: The mode of operations for the news station is find crime committed by poor
35:22
Track 2: minorities against the unsuspecting rich white people.
35:27
Track 2: And we will put it on TV and create this. And one thing I had a question about
35:32
Track 2: is do you think the cops are,
35:35
Track 2: do anything or say anything or get mad with the fact that they basically are
35:38
Track 2: manufacturing crime waves or is that good for cops that there's lots more crime,
35:42
Track 2: because that means they just have it's definitely good for cops i mean.
35:47
Track 2: They manufacture crime waves so yeah that's true okay so they're one in the
35:51
Track 2: same but basically what ends up happening is that jake jill and hall pretty
35:54
Track 2: much accidentally ends up at a crime scene of a shooting
35:58
Track 2: in a rich neighborhood and they see the people leaving with their guns into an escalade.
36:05
Track 2: He hides in the bushes. He films it. He films the car, the license plate.
36:09
Track 2: And then he goes inside the house and films three people who have been shot,
36:12
Track 2: like a cleaning woman. And then I guess a husband and wife.
36:16
Track 2: There's also the really weird moment where he goes into a child's room with
36:20
Track 2: a crib, but there's no baby inside.
36:22
Track 2: He films the whole thing and goes scene and basically offers it for just what, like 20 grand.
36:27
Track 2: I think he says 50 he gets down to i don't know like 17 000 some insane amount
36:31
Track 2: of money he realizes the power he has and he and this is sort of like what happens
36:37
Track 2: in the last third of the movie is,
36:38
Track 2: he he withholds the evidence of knowing who it is so he can then,
36:44
Track 2: attract or follow that person then send the police after them to create a gunfight
36:51
Track 2: which he could then also film and also sell,
36:56
Track 2: Yeah.
37:00
Track 2: And I can't begin to describe how fucked up it is. This is also. The police are onto him.
37:06
Track 2: This, that is also the scene when he sells this, that is the scene in which
37:11
Track 2: he plays his hand completely.
37:14
Track 2: And if the, and this is the point at which if you think that he is a hero,
37:19
Track 2: if you think that anything he does is like you still,
37:25
Track 2: Again, anti-hero, the word anti-hero has meaning, and he does not qualify to
37:33
Track 2: be the punisher is the classic anti-hero.
37:37
Track 2: And it's not the definition of an anti-hero is a person who does things that are,
37:46
Track 2: subjectively good or, you know, positive for society, but in ways that are bad.
37:56
Track 2: In no way is anything that Gyllenhaal's character does,
38:03
Track 2: good for society or any way moral in no way and this scene when he sells this
38:10
Track 2: is the point which really,
38:13
Track 2: solidifies everything about him which is that,
38:17
Track 2: she is arguing with him for the money because he asked for a lot more than $50,000
38:20
Track 2: originally I believe he asked for almost like $200,000 I think like something
38:25
Track 2: insanely, something, something insanely high.
38:28
Track 2: And she's like, I'm not doing that. And he basically at that point is like, he uses the.
38:35
Track 2: He uses her job and he basically says, he's like, you're going to give me what
38:39
Track 2: I want because I have control of your job.
38:42
Track 2: And one of the things I want is I want to fuck and I want you to do,
38:47
Track 2: because he literally says, he's like, I want you to do what I say,
38:49
Track 2: including in the bedroom or something along those lines.
38:52
Track 2: He is a reprehensible human being
38:55
Track 2: in no way, shape or form. Is he an anti-hero? Nothing he does is good.
39:01
Track 2: And then we, then we go on from there. It's all downhill.
39:05
Track 2: So this is the three supposed factors that make an antihero.
39:11
Track 2: The first is that the antihero is doomed to fail before the adventure begins.
39:16
Track 2: I wouldn't even say that necessarily. No. Number two, the blame of that failure
39:23
Track 2: on everyone but themselves, which really isn't, well, that one a little bit.
39:29
Track 2: He does blame rick for like failures but generally he almost sometimes he several
39:34
Track 2: times i feel like he says he blames himself when he comes to rick and then third
39:38
Track 2: is i think the most important is they offer a critique of social moral and reality,
39:43
Track 2: the only way you could argue that is if this movie was really more of a satire and you're,
39:50
Track 2: sort of you could sort of argue that he's showing the moral failings,
39:57
Track 2: of news media.
40:01
Track 2: And this is a stretch.
40:04
Track 2: It's just not enough of a satire. Starship Troopers, satire.
40:09
Track 2: Nightcrawler, not a satire enough.
40:15
Track 2: So.
40:18
Track 2: So it was 50 grand. He offers 50 grand. I think he ends up getting like 17.5 or something like that.
40:28
Track 2: And he also, and also Nina, Rene Russo's character is constantly arguing with
40:32
Track 2: another guy at the station who actually does seem to have morals,
40:37
Track 2: but is basically talked out of everything because she is his superior and not
40:42
Track 2: to mention the fact that their ratings need to be picked up and she has no choice
40:47
Track 2: but to follow his demands.
40:50
Track 2: And he also threatens to get her fired because, you know, like,
40:54
Track 2: if I don't give you this, I know about rating sweep and all this nonsense.
40:59
Track 2: And so he does research to be able to use it against her. And it's. Oh, yeah.
41:04
Track 2: Yeah. He invites her. He pressures her into a dinner date.
41:09
Track 2: And then at that dinner date starts basically revealing all this personal information
41:13
Track 2: that he has learned about her through research.
41:19
Track 2: I also love i have to say one thing when they go to the mexican restaurant he's
41:23
Track 2: like do you like mexican food and he goes cabanita has been called an authentic taste of mexico city,
41:29
Track 2: most evenings there's live music but on saturdays classic mexican films are
41:33
Track 2: shown do you want to go with me i think it would be fun if we went together
41:36
Track 2: like the way he reads that it's like copy for an ad
41:39
Track 2: it's really funny because he probably he probably did read that He probably
41:43
Track 2: read three-quarters of that from an ad,
41:47
Track 2: or like a review on the local paper.
41:49
Track 2: He went to Yelp and is like finding the review. A hundred percent.
41:56
Track 2: But the other thing also, the way that Nina is treated is honestly,
42:02
Track 2: I was thinking about this, I think my note that I wrote down was that it's almost
42:05
Track 2: like the way that women are treated in Hollywood.
42:10
Track 2: So you could maybe make an argument that the way that she is pushed around and
42:14
Track 2: blackmailed is probably very similar to the way that women in any kind of position of,
42:20
Track 2: moderate power are treated or just like lowest rung people.
42:26
Track 2: Oh, yeah. I mean, he says specifically that there's a timeline to which she leaves jobs.
42:33
Track 2: And I don't think that's a coincidence that she is a woman and she.
42:43
Track 2: Has found it difficult to remain in a male in a jobs in male dominated areas past a certain point.
42:53
Track 2: For whatever reason that may be. I don't find it to be a coincidence.
42:56
Track 2: She's not staying in these places? Oh, not really shocking.
43:02
Track 2: God, nobody knows what she puts up with.
43:05
Track 2: Yeah, oh yeah, I'm sure, like her superiors. I mean, she does seem kind of like
43:09
Track 2: the top dog in it is, you know, the only time she's ever challenged is by her legal team.
43:15
Track 2: She's the top dog and the lowest thing.
43:19
Track 2: She is also the perfect demonstration of the oppressed seek to wear the boot.
43:28
Track 2: And that's something that I keep coming, the notion that people think that morals
43:33
Track 2: are some kind of like universal code.
43:37
Track 2: It's like it's passed down from, it's written to the DNA of the stars.
43:41
Track 2: It's either behave one way or you don't. in many, you know, a lot of these things
43:47
Track 2: can, are dictated by material conditions.
43:51
Track 2: What you will do to survive.
43:56
Track 2: Is flexible, dependent upon your material conditions.
43:59
Track 2: And if you are of a lower and oppressed people, an oppressed class, an oppressed group,
44:07
Track 2: there are going to be things that you may be forced into doing that you would
44:13
Track 2: not have done otherwise.
44:16
Track 2: But because your material conditions have forced certain things upon you,
44:22
Track 2: certain hardships, but you still need to do things like eat and put food on
44:27
Track 2: a roof over your head or medicine.
44:29
Track 2: And she has very different conditions as opposed to the people above her.
44:37
Track 2: And also the man who constantly pushes back on her because it is far less likely
44:42
Track 2: that he is going to get fired than her.
44:46
Track 2: Yeah and what i'm about to say is that riz ahmed enters the chat where he is
44:51
Track 2: literally i mean initially i think she he offers him 50,
44:57
Track 2: dollars per day or maybe less 30 30 and then later he gets up to 50 and then
45:04
Track 2: like he keeps being like oh like when is it going to be my you know performance
45:08
Track 2: review which is so fucking weird to be like you're in a performance review,
45:13
Track 2: from this lunatic you drive around in a car with all night this fucking bat shit crazy person.
45:20
Track 2: And he knows that he's making money because he trades in his really i don't
45:23
Track 2: remember what car he has the beginning but he buys like a dodge charger which
45:27
Track 2: i don't think it's like super expensive but it's clearly a new car i'm sure he like,
45:32
Track 2: i have no idea it's probably i'm gonna guess 32.5,
45:39
Track 2: You're looking it up? What year was that? 2014? Yeah, I'm looking it up.
45:43
Track 2: I wonder how much the Dodge Charger in 2014 cost. I'm going to guess $32,500 is my guess.
45:50
Track 2: Well, if I look up for... It's showing you used ones probably,
45:54
Track 2: right? Yeah, it's showing you used ones.
45:56
Track 2: Well, you know what? A used 2014 Dodge Charger.
46:03
Track 2: Can sell for close to like 18 grand.
46:06
Track 2: Dodge Chargers were a pricey car that came out. Okay.
46:10
Track 2: So whatever it was, he had an, but the point being is that he knows,
46:15
Track 2: Rick knows he's making money and he's getting screwed.
46:18
Track 2: I mean, he, a bunch of times under his breath, it's like, I'm living in a garage,
46:23
Track 2: you know, he's, he's barely making money to eat.
46:26
Track 2: He had to take what, three buses to get to where he, you know,
46:30
Track 2: to get to the quote unquote interview.
46:32
Track 2: You uh and the the things the moral failings that,
46:38
Track 2: jake jill hall says is mostly like the guy isn't confident enough and you know
46:42
Track 2: i think he still would have screwed him over it doesn't really make much difference
46:45
Track 2: what he would have said he's taking advantages of him because he can and that's
46:50
Track 2: what he's read in books that,
46:52
Track 2: the the leader of a company can exploit the labor of those under him and there's
46:57
Track 2: nothing you can do about it and if you want to leave then leave but he knows
47:00
Track 2: this guy's desperate and he'll do it,
47:03
Track 2: and the more and more things get fucked up the more he realizes that it's compromising
47:10
Track 2: his morals and at a point he's tells says he's gonna leave,
47:14
Track 2: unless he gives him part of the money that he's making with this new,
47:20
Track 2: you know this new the filming of this like the reward money he's gonna get which
47:24
Track 2: also i don't really understand how he was gonna get the reward money.
47:28
Track 2: Once they realized i think he was lying well of course of course but i mean
47:34
Track 2: he might have gotten 30 grand for the video okay i found it yeah the the car
47:39
Track 2: was 28,735 on the base model,
47:43
Track 2: okay i actually like to you i do i do have commentary on the car but i want
47:48
Track 2: to talk about rick for one second please i think you have it's such a great
47:53
Track 2: point that you make that he,
47:56
Track 2: starts to push back and realizes it's crossing lines because while yes,
48:00
Track 2: it is true that your material conditions can dictate certain things or not dictate,
48:05
Track 2: but put pressure upon certain things,
48:08
Track 2: there is still, you still,
48:11
Track 2: I think that Rick is also an excellent example of a character who,
48:17
Track 2: that acknowledges that reality while also saying, you still have personal choice.
48:22
Track 2: You still have personal power. You still have the ability to refuse certain
48:27
Track 2: things that will cross moral lines.
48:30
Track 2: That you can make that choice even if it harms you materially.
48:35
Track 2: Rick's character is truly like, he is...
48:41
Track 2: The representation of a victim of the capitalist system and somebody who.
48:49
Track 2: Maintains their, even as they are constantly buffeted by that system and put
48:55
Track 2: into positions that are dangerous, harmful, but also morally,
49:02
Track 2: not even great, morally bad, still be able to maintain personal integrity.
49:09
Track 2: And you could see within him, he's saying, I don't want to be part of this.
49:15
Track 2: And it is easy to assume it is, it is to think once he has the chance,
49:20
Track 2: he's going to leave this for something that is better and that he doesn't feel
49:26
Track 2: like a shitty person for doing.
49:29
Track 2: Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. I mean, like I was saying, it's like, you feel so bad for
49:35
Track 2: him because he's doing this because he really can't get any other job.
49:40
Track 2: I mean, we don't know what other jobs he's tried to get, but presumably he left
49:44
Track 2: things out. Maybe he's been in prison. We don't know.
49:48
Track 2: He hasn't worked a job over the table, so he can't go somewhere and,
49:51
Track 2: you know, actually have an interview.
49:54
Track 2: But he's doing this. I don't know how long he's doing this. It's not clear.
49:59
Track 2: Like, beginning of the movie to when Rick starts to when, you know,
50:02
Track 2: the end of the movie, but presumably several months at least. Could be longer.
50:07
Track 2: I mean he's making nothing nothing yeah.
50:11
Track 2: Yeah and in the end when in when they film the two of them so the like the culmination
50:17
Track 2: of this as you mentioned before is so they
50:19
Track 2: he now figures out the license plate or where the person lives who committed
50:25
Track 2: that triple murder because he had the license by the whole time
50:28
Track 2: which he lied to the cops about he then follows them to a diner or some restaurant,
50:34
Track 2: he sees one of them actually does have a gun,
50:37
Track 2: they they want to film it so he forces rick to film it from different angles
50:41
Track 2: and then he calls the police to say he found them he also gives his real name
50:46
Track 2: which i thought was pretty fucking stupid and his explanation later is nonsensical,
50:51
Track 2: like oh i happened to see this guy outside my window and then i followed him
50:54
Track 2: all day it's like sure you did buddy that in in la you saw the same guy twice and.
51:00
Track 2: And they're filming it, and of course, the police escalate the situation,
51:03
Track 2: and there's a huge shootout, a bunch of people die.
51:06
Track 2: They follow them through the streets, and like, probably the coolest scene in
51:09
Track 2: the whole movie. That car chase scene is fucking awesome.
51:12
Track 2: And it ends up being like an accident they get out of the car to try and follow
51:17
Track 2: them and then rick gets shot by the guy one of the original murderers because,
51:23
Track 2: jake general hall lies to him to say like come over and shoot it from over here
51:26
Track 2: and he's actually just in the car just injured but not dead and then he shoots
51:31
Track 2: him point blank then he fucking films him dying which is,
51:36
Track 2: also i feel like feel like in his mind he's a capitalist even if he isn't one
51:41
Track 2: because he's like fully transformed into like not just enjoying the suffering
51:47
Track 2: of others but enjoying the suffering of like someone he might have,
51:51
Track 2: potentially considered a quote-unquote friend or an employee lets them die and
51:58
Track 2: then of course he sells the footage back to nina and now he's like more of a
52:02
Track 2: big wig at the company the very last scene is
52:05
Track 2: him having two other vans and like three other employees and he's like uh giving
52:10
Track 2: them the you know the big speech to be part of his corporation or you know company,
52:16
Track 2: which has the dumbest fucking name by the way.
52:19
Track 2: It does it's a terrible name oh man what was it called um fuck news media group
52:29
Track 2: or something like that it's even worse than that.
52:35
Track 2: It was really funny really bad in the script it actually has like a logo of it no um fuck,
52:47
Track 2: we're going to edit this and I'm going to put it in where I knew it immediately,
52:54
Track 2: wasn't it called like.
53:04
Track 2: Do one of the funniest things too is when they,
53:08
Track 2: as i'm trying to remember what it's called as they're um showing the triple
53:12
Track 2: murder on the television like live,
53:15
Track 2: they're coaching the news anchors through it and they have to several times
53:19
Track 2: part of this his demands is that they need like they several times name his company through it,
53:29
Track 2: you know which we have forgot,
53:32
Track 2: which we have forgot And, but also more importantly, like,
53:37
Track 2: the relevance of that, like, I feel like is so important because it's like the
53:42
Track 2: idea, it's like the, the news, like they are manufacturing things.
53:48
Track 2: They are actively coaching these people to make it, to sensationalize it,
53:54
Track 2: to make it feel, to make it different and to fit their narrative,
54:00
Track 2: which we find out is blatantly not true because the narrative that they have gone with is that.
54:12
Track 2: It's like you said, it's, it's, um, crime moving into richer areas.
54:18
Track 2: But we find out that this was, they had, the people in that house had drugs
54:24
Track 2: and the people that robbed them were drug dealers.
54:29
Track 2: So it was really more of a drug deal gone wrong. It wasn't like,
54:35
Track 2: this was not an outside push.
54:38
Track 2: This was them inviting criminal elements into their lives for their own edification.
54:46
Track 2: Yeah yeah like they're when she's when when the anchors are doing the story
54:49
Track 2: she's saying in their ears like keep repeating that it's graphic hit it again
54:54
Track 2: and then they like go through it again and says you know that make sure you
54:57
Track 2: say that they're on the loose they're escaped
54:59
Track 2: and of course the news anchors like do it in a much more eloquent way and they
55:03
Track 2: repeat it and then they tell you where it's from,
55:06
Track 2: and then they're showing you you know the vicious attack vicious you know um,
55:11
Track 2: innocent And they just keep building the tension of this.
55:14
Track 2: And then it becomes a story on every news channel.
55:17
Track 2: And of course, I mean, this is the way that they, this is exactly what they
55:22
Track 2: would do in real life, you know, and then at that time, and probably today,
55:26
Track 2: the way that they talk about crime.
55:28
Track 2: And yeah, it's the whole entire thing wasn't at all what they thought it was.
55:32
Track 2: No one was, I mean, yes, these people, the housekeeper was an innocent person,
55:36
Track 2: but the two people in the house were, you know, dealing pounds of drugs and
55:40
Track 2: it went bad and they get fucking shot.
55:42
Track 2: I mean, you shouldn't have done that.
55:49
Track 2: Video okay i got it well i was wrong it was he asked for a hundred grand to start,
55:55
Track 2: okay it is then she goes 75 then she counters with 5 000 the name of his company
56:04
Track 2: is uh video production news.
56:10
Track 2: I'm so cheesy i believe it a news media corporation i believe in news media
56:16
Track 2: no no no no i know it's a news gathering yes i'm sorry it's a news gathering
56:20
Track 2: organization okay also it's,
56:22
Track 2: not it's not a charger it's a dutch challenger um and it is relevant 2014,
56:28
Track 2: is actually relevant because dutch challenger in 2014,
56:32
Track 2: a new performance package was released called the super sport group and they
56:37
Track 2: the whole thing was like they basically the challenger in 2014 was a time in which they really
56:45
Track 2: pushed this idea that like the challenger is a,
56:49
Track 2: like it's a muscle like it is a muscle car they were like revamping that and
56:52
Track 2: it became one of those vehicles that like among certain people it's like a challenger
56:57
Track 2: was their attempt it was like the attempt to make the challenger on par with like the mustang gt,
57:03
Track 2: and like that midlife crisis car.
57:05
Track 2: No offense to my father, who has driven... MSRP 30,000 495. That was pretty close.
57:11
Track 2: Even though I was thinking of the wrong car. The Challenger is actually,
57:15
Track 2: and I believe if I remember correctly, the Challenger is one of the cars that,
57:20
Track 2: alongside the Charger, many...
57:24
Track 2: Police precincts modified into stinger cars or not stinger cars um,
57:31
Track 2: undercover fucking traffic car i'm not a big car guy but i have to say it's
57:36
Track 2: a pretty sweet looking car it's it's a very classic muscle car look i'm not
57:40
Track 2: a big car guy but i grew up with my father you're obvious my my father is a huge car guy,
57:46
Track 2: so i grew up around all this and it is a very classic muscle car um.
57:51
Track 2: And he you know there's many scenes in this that really cater to,
57:56
Track 2: that kind of like mentality and that kind of like egotistic and that ego driven
58:02
Track 2: need to have the big muscle car,
58:05
Track 2: early on early on very early in the film you will see after he robs after he
58:11
Track 2: steals the stuff and then sells it and steals the watch from the security guard who he beats up.
58:17
Track 2: They actually, they point out like that. These are like, it's all aspirational,
58:22
Track 2: because he drives by a car lot and a car showroom. And right there on the car
58:28
Track 2: showroom is multiple muscle cars, including a Dodge Challenger.
58:33
Track 2: Yeah. I mean, this is one of the things too, where he probably,
58:35
Track 2: you know, read what car, you know, everything he says, he like,
58:40
Track 2: he's like going to the computer a lot and read a lot.
58:42
Track 2: And yeah, I mean, looking at the Wikipedia for the Dodge Challenger,
58:47
Track 2: it was most popular from 69 to 74. That was like the peak of it.
58:51
Track 2: And then it was gone until the 70s and then gone again.
58:54
Track 2: And they brought it back in 2008. But it does seem like the mid 2012 to 14 was
58:59
Track 2: like the peak of the newer version of that.
59:03
Track 2: I'm sure someone listening that loves cars is going to be like,
59:05
Track 2: actually, it was in 2012.
59:08
Track 2: I'm sorry, car people. I don't know, Jack. It's close enough.
59:12
Track 2: The 100th anniversary edition came out in 2014.
59:15
Track 2: Okay, well then there you go. That was like a huge thing. It's a huge thing.
59:19
Track 2: And that is when they introduced the Hemi engine into it. And it was a huge
59:23
Track 2: marketing push because they put a Hemi into it. And that's a super powerful engine.
59:29
Track 2: Ward could probably speak to this better, but I remember the marketing for the
59:34
Track 2: 100th anniversary Dodge Challenger with a Hemi.
59:38
Track 2: This was peak machismo, buy a car bullshit.
59:44
Track 2: And his character perfectly embodies that kind of like.
59:51
Track 2: Keeping up with the Joneses, present this facade, this exterior,
59:55
Track 2: rich, successful, I'm a man, I get the woman I want, blah, blah,
1:00:00
Track 2: blah, blah, blah, all that bullshit.
1:00:01
Track 2: Don't forget, he had this plant they would often water, so he does care about
1:00:05
Track 2: people. Yes, yes. He cares about that plant more than he cares about his employee. Yes.
1:00:11
Track 2: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, some of this, there's lots of scenes too,
1:00:16
Track 2: and the thing we also want to add too is that.
1:00:21
Track 2: His competition, Bell Paxton's character, has a more successful,
1:00:26
Track 2: they have multiple vans.
1:00:27
Track 2: He actually asks Jake Gyllenhaal to join him to run one of the vans.
1:00:32
Track 2: And he's so insulted by this. What does he do?
1:00:35
Track 2: He cuts his brakes, presumably, in his van that leads him to have a crash and die.
1:00:41
Track 2: Well, we don't see him die. We don't know he dies. But he's really fucked up.
1:00:46
Track 2: Yeah. He's very, very gravely injured. They take him out. He is bloodied and...
1:00:54
Track 2: He looks over at Jake Gyllenhaal. I get the sense that he knew. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
1:00:59
Track 2: It's very well to... It also felt like Jake Gyllenhaal was because they're at
1:01:05
Track 2: the scene, and he makes it a point to get as close as possible and film him
1:01:10
Track 2: as he's going into the ambulance,
1:01:12
Track 2: which to me read very much like a threat it's like an acknowledgement on gyllenhaal's
1:01:17
Track 2: part like yeah i did this to you and i'll i'll take it to the next level if you keep yeah,
1:01:25
Track 2: i mean one of the things you said you said in the beginning is that this movie could come out,
1:01:30
Track 2: today and i was trying to think part of my thought about that is i mean now,
1:01:35
Track 2: the difference is i mean maybe i want to amending that because now the average
1:01:41
Track 2: person does not watch these news channels, especially anyone under the age of
1:01:46
Track 2: probably 50, unless you're forced to.
1:01:49
Track 2: Maybe I'm wrong, but people in their 20s and 30s are not watching local news.
1:01:54
Track 2: You're right, but they don't have to to make this be now because this is not
1:01:59
Track 2: a question of whether this is a question of people doing things to go viral,
1:02:05
Track 2: staging things and doing things because we know for a fact that they do do that,
1:02:10
Track 2: i guess also these new stations do have tiktok channels where they probably post the shit too,
1:02:16
Track 2: Yeah, yeah, viral, but going viral, making up fake things.
1:02:20
Track 2: Yeah, more of the point, like, it's actually exacerbated, because now we have
1:02:26
Track 2: farmed out everything is.
1:02:30
Track 2: It used to be the only people who had the notion of, if it bleeds,
1:02:35
Track 2: it leads, was the newspaper.
1:02:37
Track 2: Because they're the only people that had the means to produce something and
1:02:44
Track 2: distribute it that would have meaning.
1:02:48
Track 2: Now I got this phone in my pocket that I can film anything I want whenever I want.
1:02:53
Track 2: And if I film something good enough.
1:02:57
Track 2: I can get, I can make it. Yeah. The difference, I mean, the same as this is,
1:03:02
Track 2: the difference is the amount of people who go viral and are like these social
1:03:06
Track 2: media people that actually can make a living is like minuscule.
1:03:12
Track 2: Right. But it's more to the point, but at the same time, the true power of that
1:03:18
Track 2: in this system is not that there are people that can make money off of it.
1:03:22
Track 2: The true power of that is that there used to be a fraction of a fraction of
1:03:28
Track 2: a fraction of the percent of the population that had the means, motive, and desire to do,
1:03:36
Track 2: what Gyllenhaal or Joe or Rick or the newscasters do, which is sell parts of
1:03:45
Track 2: their very soul and their humanity.
1:03:50
Track 2: Give it away burn it up by denying the humanity of victims of crimes purely
1:03:59
Track 2: so that they can make a buck and now,
1:04:03
Track 2: through a system of having of social media and the constant influx of that We
1:04:10
Track 2: have now, our society has created an entire portions of generations,
1:04:18
Track 2: that have made that bargain with themselves.
1:04:20
Track 2: I will film strangers in public.
1:04:24
Track 2: Mock them and shame them because it might it might make it might get viral and
1:04:30
Track 2: then maybe i can i can get something out of that i mean isn't that how,
1:04:35
Track 2: isn't i mean i don't know i don't follow mr beast before he was a million multi-millionaire
1:04:40
Track 2: no idea what mr beast did i mean he was the youtuber from the beginning i mean,
1:04:47
Track 2: the youtube channels like his that can become that big partly is luck but also
1:04:53
Track 2: partly is they have the willingness to do to debase themselves,
1:04:58
Track 2: and same way that dick gyllenhaal does i mean maybe not doing the same thing,
1:05:03
Track 2: but they're doing something that's fucked up that they know right,
1:05:08
Track 2: we come to the same question of what is violence.
1:05:13
Track 2: Right what is violence is violence purely the act of shooting someone or is
1:05:19
Track 2: violence The participation in,
1:05:23
Track 2: you know, is starving someone or is violence the act of, you know,
1:05:32
Track 2: actively encouraging and contributing to the dehumanization of another person for your profit?
1:05:38
Track 2: What is violence? All of these things are violent.
1:05:42
Track 2: Yeah. Violence exists because of the system that perpetuates it. Yeah.
1:05:51
Track 2: And we have a system now, but more to the point, we have a media apparatus that
1:05:56
Track 2: is so freeform and so accessible by anybody, though most of those people are
1:06:02
Track 2: not actually profiting from it, and you aren't still the product, as we all know.
1:06:06
Track 2: But it leads people to commit violence against themselves and debase themselves
1:06:10
Track 2: and alienate create alienation within themselves purely for the purpose of taking
1:06:16
Track 2: advantage of other people at their most vulnerable so that they can film it and put it online.
1:06:22
Track 2: Yeah and it's funny like in this in this the,
1:06:27
Track 2: acab includes a police officer in this however it would have been nice if they
1:06:32
Track 2: were able to nab him for actually withholding evidence because she knew exactly
1:06:36
Track 2: what he did oh yeah but there was no way they could prove it,
1:06:41
Track 2: and so they couldn't plus he's also white so he's honestly that's like also part of it like he's not,
1:06:50
Track 2: as smart as he thinks he is no his his his his cover story was completely nonsense,
1:06:57
Track 2: makes no sense he saw the car outside his window because he thought they were
1:07:01
Track 2: following him and then later he sees the same car and follows it.
1:07:05
Track 2: Okay. Yeah. But like even a cop could put two to do together and be like,
1:07:12
Track 2: oh yeah, obviously he has more information. It doesn't take a genius to figure out.
1:07:18
Track 2: He's not. He is not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.
1:07:21
Track 2: The only reason he is not caught is because they are basically tied.
1:07:25
Track 2: It's bureaucratic hand tied. That's all it is.
1:07:29
Track 2: It's because they have no actual.
1:07:33
Track 2: There's no way to actually get anything, and it's all on, like,
1:07:36
Track 2: you know, drives, unless they can, like, really come up with some excuse to,
1:07:41
Track 2: like, get into his hard drives.
1:07:43
Track 2: They, you know, they can't just look through his, they can't look through his
1:07:46
Track 2: door and be like, we think we see a gun. Presumably, he would have been smart
1:07:50
Track 2: enough to delete the footage where he filmed the license plate.
1:07:55
Track 2: But again, he's not as, you know, he thinks he's so smart that that's usually
1:07:59
Track 2: when you get, you do dumb shit.
1:08:03
Track 2: I mean maybe this is a sequel one day where he's on trial what's that maybe
1:08:09
Track 2: this is a sequel one day and he's on trial the fall of Lewis Bloom,
1:08:14
Track 2: yeah he becomes the thing it's so funny though when he he like becomes he's
1:08:21
Track 2: walking around the news studio he knows you know the film,
1:08:24
Track 2: the newscaster is by voice really more than anything more than even money he seems to just want,
1:08:31
Track 2: recognition and to be looked at i mean we didn't say this before but he's also an incel,
1:08:38
Track 2: yeah yeah with the way he treats the way he treats nina definitely the the expectation
1:08:45
Track 2: of of everything i mean yeah i don't know man this movie is this movie is is
1:08:49
Track 2: so good incredibly layered,
1:08:54
Track 2: i give it as i said i gave it five out of five stars deserved you know so I
1:09:01
Track 2: didn't realize this he was nominated Gyllenhaal for a BAFTA award and Golden Globe but he did not win.
1:09:13
Track 2: And it does say that people considered him not getting the Oscar nomination.
1:09:17
Track 2: Yeah, major snub. He was considered a snub. Yeah.
1:09:20
Track 2: Which it was. I mean, I don't...
1:09:25
Track 2: There are some movies of his I need to see because pretty much every time I
1:09:29
Track 2: see him in a movie, I'm like, damn, dude.
1:09:34
Track 2: You are a good actor.
1:09:38
Track 2: Although i don't know that i'm going to watch the movies that were made by i
1:09:43
Track 2: think if we talked about this i really want to watch enemy but i really hate
1:09:48
Track 2: dennis villanova and so i just don't think i can watch it,
1:09:53
Track 2: i think he plays two characters i think he might play like twin brothers.
1:10:00
Track 2: That's supposed to be good i think you're just gonna have to get over your hatred,
1:10:05
Track 2: I will not do that but I might still watch I watch movies from directors I don't like all the time I know,
1:10:11
Track 2: so I mean anytime anytime you watch a Quentin Tarantino movie you're like fuck
1:10:16
Track 2: man I gotta watch this yeah I hate that I like some of his movies,
1:10:22
Track 2: yeah I mean and honestly it shocks me that he made Jackie Brown despite being like,
1:10:28
Track 2: such a person who wants to use racist terms so badly and like wishes he was black and.
1:10:37
Track 2: But Jackie Brown, Dan. Gyllenhaal lost out against the same person in the BAFTA.
1:10:43
Track 2: He lost. Oh, really? Who was it? Eddie Redmayne won for Theory of M.I.
1:10:48
Track 2: I mean, yeah. I mean, consensus was that that was a really good movie.
1:10:54
Track 2: I'm looking at some of the recent movies he's been in. He was in the remake
1:10:57
Track 2: of Roadhouse, which doesn't look as good, but he's in a lot of good stuff.
1:11:03
Track 2: But yeah, Renee Russo only, I think she did I think five more movies after this,
1:11:11
Track 2: last movie she was in was 2019 I wouldn't call her retired though I would call
1:11:16
Track 2: it they don't want to be have someone who's 70 years old be in their movie,
1:11:21
Track 2: yeah probably was her last movie Endgame yes it was,
1:11:26
Track 2: what a low point to end on that is such a shame she's been in such some she
1:11:31
Track 2: didn't to me she's been in less movies than I thought she's been in, honestly.
1:11:40
Track 2: You should watch Tin Cup. We'd have this discussion. I'm not going to watch
1:11:43
Track 2: that movie. I'm not going to watch that movie.
1:11:46
Track 2: It's not going to happen. You won't watch it again because you won't.
1:11:49
Track 2: Yeah. I also love the movie Get Shorty, which I actually just watched a couple
1:11:52
Track 2: of days ago again for the third time in a while.
1:11:55
Track 2: I'd feel it all the time. Yeah, she was in Frankenstein D, the intern,
1:12:00
Track 2: just getting started, Velvet Buzzsaw, which was also the same cinematographer
1:12:06
Track 2: as Nightcrawler and Avengers Endgame.
1:12:08
Track 2: And that was the last thing she was in.
1:12:12
Track 2: I mean, I could be wrong. Maybe I haven't read any interviews.
1:12:14
Track 2: Maybe she just didn't do a bunch of movies at that point. She just wasn't.
1:12:19
Track 2: Oh, and Philip Buzza also was Gilroy and Jolene Hall. I forgot Jolene Hall was in there too.
1:12:29
Track 2: Oh, interesting. And Toni Collette. I wonder if that movie's any good.
1:12:34
Track 2: It's supposed to be very good. Sure.
1:12:38
Track 2: Interesting. I don't even know what it's about.
1:12:42
Track 2: This is not relevant to you. We're really fucking off the rails here.
1:12:51
Track 2: We just want to, I mean, this is always what happens at the end.
1:12:53
Track 2: It's like talking about movies and the actor or actress who's in presumably one of them. But,
1:13:01
Track 2: we can take a Rene Russo movies offline. I mean, I think my favorite movie that
1:13:05
Track 2: she, not necessarily her performance, but I love both Tin Cup and Get Shorty.
1:13:12
Track 2: I'm sorry. I just. I like Get Shorty.
1:13:15
Track 2: Get Shorty is such a peak 90s and also Outbreak, which isn't by all means a
1:13:20
Track 2: great movie, but also it's like a fun 90s. Yeah.
1:13:27
Track 2: I was going to say actually Outbreak, I think. For me, Outbreak is like her, like one of her best.
1:13:31
Track 2: Outbreak is good. I mean then she's in all the lethal weapon sequels or whatever
1:13:36
Track 2: but yes she is um I got nothing to last clearly because we're here just talking about actors Rene Russo,
1:13:46
Track 2: alright everybody we will smell you later I'm still not saying that,
1:13:56
Track 2: have a good one.