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The Primetime Movie Review · Boomer Has It!

0:00
SPEAKER_00: I am in Paris, and the sound quality on this uh podcast is not quite up to our usual studio standards.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: So I apologize for that.
0:10
SPEAKER_00: Um, as well as the video on my side freezing for I think almost the entire pod.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: So uh use your imagination of JB being more animated as usual.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: I'm JB Miller in Paris.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Jim Jelamis in Brooklyn.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh this week we're going to do a quick review of the new film Primetime.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Boomer Has It.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: Hi everyone.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: If you're not familiar or have not seen the new film Primetime, it stars Robert Pattinson.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: It's directed by Lance Oppenheim, an interesting director for a number of reasons.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: It's an A24 film, so put on your seat belts.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's inspired by the frantic, chaotic era of a primetime network show called To Catch a Predator.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: Uh Pattinson plays a high-stakes television host who has a crusade against online predators, and it spirals out of control while ratings soar.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: And the lines between public service and media circus completely overlap and shatter.
1:27
SPEAKER_01: It's tense, it's thrilling, and it's a look at what happens when the hunt becomes an addiction.
1:34
SPEAKER_01: What's interesting about this pod is neither of us knows what the other is going to say.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: Let's see if we meet in the middle or if this podcast ends in acrimony.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: JB, why don't you get started, big boy?
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I have lots to say about this film.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: First of all, it's important to make it clear this is uh this is a real story.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: This was a real program.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think it started in 2006.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's 20 years ago, when there was when the we'd explain what the prime time schedule was.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: This is before streaming, the uh cable was going, but but broadcast television was still probably the main way people, the principal way people uh imbibed their television.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, and this show got seven million viewers a week on on ABC.
2:24
SPEAKER_00: Um the film, so it's it's a real story about a real person and and a real show.
2:30
SPEAKER_00: I think the film is an interesting look.
2:32
SPEAKER_00: It's printed on 16 millimeter and then transferred transferred to digital to sort of match the existing tapes of the original show, which were never cleaned up for rebroadcast or for streaming.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: The the show has never been released uh on DVD or VHS.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: The show, so the film is an interesting look and a 4-3 ratio, which matches what the television sets of that era um look like.
2:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, I thought it's very dark, the actual physical look, the technical look of the film.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, both technically and spiritually, it's dark.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: I I found the look interesting and then I grew tired of it pretty quickly.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Um has an interesting cast.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Musician Phoebe Bridgers plays young female decoy who also plays young boys.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: She's very good.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Jeff Zucker weirdly plays himself.
3:24
SPEAKER_00: He was the head of programming.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: Oh, is that who that was?
3:27
SPEAKER_01: That was Jeff Zucker himself.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: Knew that face, I knew that form.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, go ahead.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: And I thought there was a moment you may have noticed, and that is when he is moving the show to primetime, he actually has a board.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: I did notice.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: And do you know what program was that he that the show replaced?
3:46
SPEAKER_01: I well, just for listeners, one of the big dramas, one of the big dramatic moments is that to catch a predator overruns a primetime hit.
3:58
SPEAKER_01: You some of you may remember called Lost, but overlapping that segment was one of my favorite shows, an Aaron Sorkin vehicle called Studio 60.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: Is that what you're alluding to, Mr.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: Miller?
4:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm referring.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: I thought of you immediately because I know you like that show, which was not a hit, only survived one soon.
4:16
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think they made episodes which were never broadcast, which you can see on DVD.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but yes, To Catch a Predator replaced, I think, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, adding insult to injury.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, although it makes this film all the more tragic.
4:33
SPEAKER_01: Continue, please.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: All the more tragic.
4:35
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I I I was very interested in this film and it's a it's a great subject.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's and it's interesting to think that this is a historical.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: I had to remind myself that if someone's 40 years old and watching this film, this this period when this when this show was actually on television was was half their lifetime, it was 20 years ago, and my children weren't even born yet when this show was on.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't seem like a historical period to me or to us as boomers, but it is.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: It's a different, it's a different era in television.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think I I'll see anything Robert Pattinson is in.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: I think he's a riveting performer.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: I think he always chooses interesting, um, interesting vehicles.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: But much as I admire him, I never felt he fully inhabited this character.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: And I think that may have been the fault of the first-time director.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Lance Oppenheim has made documentaries.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: This is his first feature.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: And I think his character seemed amorphous to me.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: I was never quite sure what made him.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: Let's let's um, to use one of your favorite words that has too many syllables, let's contextualize it a bit for the audience.
5:51
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I I attended with a friend who was a big fan um of To Catch a Predator when it was on prime time.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: And it's um it was controversial, the film, before it got into legal trouble, which is sort of the final climax of the film.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: It for perfecting what was really a form of vigilanteism and entrapment.
6:13
SPEAKER_01: They the producers use subterfuge, they use a decoy um and manipulation to draw actual and potential molesters into situations where Hansen could confront them on camera with evidence of text of their text descriptions of how they wanted to interact with the decoy.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: These are text and make it and make not text messages.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: It might have been text messages or email, it was in text, whatever it was that he could read, and it was to make them squirm on camera.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: And it's you know, that was attractive then, and it's attractive now with this term.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: I've just come to understand that is unfortunately in our society, I call it casual sadism.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: It's where you feel free to make people feel to shame and scold and embarrass people, and yeah, that that's something at heart that I find, you know, it's it's troubling to me.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: And I think the film really makes hay with that.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: And alternatively, I always wonder about you know the legal aspects.
7:16
SPEAKER_01: How can you actually um a police action occurs after each episode?
7:21
SPEAKER_01: This is enough evidence for someone to be arrested.
7:25
SPEAKER_01: Um, but please let's continue with you know your your observation about the Pattinson character because it's an interesting one.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, I mean there are a lot of I there's a wonderful subplot about um there's a um there's a young actor.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Um I love that played by Skylar.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: It's just his real name, Skylar Gozondo, the actor Skylar Gozondo.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: He plays a character called named Dan Plum, which who is a a composite character, but it's he's a young, he's a young actor getting, he thinks he's getting his first break in television.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: And he and he he but he doesn't realize he's been cast as decoy Dan.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: He's in his 20s, but he can kind of pass for a boy in his teen in a teen.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: So he's playing playing a teenage boy who's who's in a house.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: Uh someone else has been responding with these would-be predators uh under his name, under Dan D Dan Plum's name.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: And um and so he goes out on the porch, he has to lure them into the house.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: I think there's some legal, maybe there's some legal definition of what a you know predation is if they enter the house.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: Um his first show is really um just uh unnerving.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: Um this guy that would-be predator, but uh exposes himself.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: And this is his first show, and it's uh it it's it's quite uh it's quite alarming.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: But but I the film did a very odd feat, achieves a very odd feat of acting making potential sexual predators sympathetic.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: Chris Hansen is depicted as a kind of vampire and ends up being the villain, uh and and uh for a you know a late shocking event, which we're not gonna reveal, but is telegraphed pretty early on, I think.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: But didn't you think it really you ended up almost sympathizing with these sexual predators?
9:30
SPEAKER_00: There was a very odd tone to this film.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: I I have to agree, and uh it's funny that you mentioned vampire, and we'll get to this later, but Robert Pattinson's debut after the tragic character of Cedric Diggory and Harry Potter uh was a star of a of a series of feature films called Twilight, where he plays a vampire.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting how his career has evolved, but also retreats to these stone-faced, cold, psychotic, maybe uh characters.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: And I I found him to be I found him to be a little bit one note.
10:10
SPEAKER_01: He he's he's sort of very reactive as a character.
10:14
SPEAKER_01: He we see him do his thing, it's kind of shocking and scary the way he corners people and humiliates them.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: But when he when he and you see his drive and ambition trying to get to prime time, and and also you see a moment, and one of one of the most interesting moments, I think, is when I think was his name, Stone Phillips, who is the Dane, uh, the dateline anchor, who was a a bona fide journalist who had seen combat zones and reported on elections.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's uh he says he makes he makes a condescending comment where he says, Well, you'll you'll be doing your show.
10:53
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the show, says Stone.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I'll be in Afghanistan.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm off to a it would have been it would have been a great I'm a real reporter, not yeah.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's very condescending, very condescending, and I think that would have been a great moment to see a crack in the fissure uh fissure in this stone-faced psychotic.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: And we we don't see any of that.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: It's all it's all a veneer, even when he confronts his wife about their marriage, it's more it's really more confronts his producer, it's it's it's a little bit one note for me, and I needed to see I need one, I needed to see a little more range from Pattinson.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I would, I would honestly, Robert Pattinson is such a great actor, I would tend to maybe fault the director for this because uh Pattinson knows how to uh inhabit the most complicated characters um in his film.
11:45
SPEAKER_00: So I think I would kind of lay the blame at at the I don't know for sure, but I I agree with you that um it was a murky, it was a murky character.
11:55
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know what the film was trying to say.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's a great subject, but it ended up, if it ends up saying um uh, you know, that that these that yes, he went too far, and this was a very sort of performative thing, and he he becomes, he's he's a he he's an actor playing an actor in a way, um, you know, Robert Pattinson.
12:17
SPEAKER_00: He he's he's an actor playing uh someone who's performing the part of a kind of investigative journalist who is not an investigative journalist.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: He's just a he's just a kind of host for these uh vampiric gotchas to nail these these would-be you know, sexual predators.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and he's he appears to be on a kind of crusade without much background about the crusade, except that he'd been a reporter in India and and covering a story about lost children, and he seems to have a kind of a psychotic break in India where he sees this otherworldly evil creature.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, but nothing about his childhood.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: I mean, not to get psychoanalytic about it, but it would be what it's not explained.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: We we need a little of that, I think.
13:07
SPEAKER_01: And and you're right, uh Robert Pattinson's done some great stuff, although lately I haven't loved two of his most recent films, uh, the drama.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, and I didn't love his role in the Odyssey.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, it was just sort of more evil and a little bit hysterical.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: A little one, but I've seen him in other things.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, he's what he's a really great, interesting actor who takes interesting roles.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: Uh go on about your well, there is uh there's a documentary about about the uh this show, the to uh to catch a predator.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: And it makes me want to see um the documentary because that maybe that was more more focused.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: This really was murky filmmaking.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: Even the time, the time sequence, sort of the chronology didn't make a lot of sense because uh when you when the when um when the um when Dan Plum, when when Decoy Plant uh Decoy Decoy Dan is recording his first episode, and then you see many other iterations of him welcoming other predators into and then after that you see the broadcast of that first episode.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: I just thought, well, the chronology is kind of confusing here.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many shows recorded after that before they broadcast that that episode.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: Um maybe Lance Oppenheim was inspired by uh you know the late great uh um who who's who's who's the great director who shoots things out of sequence?
14:43
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, my brain.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh the man, the man uh the man who built the Weinstein Empire.
14:51
SPEAKER_00: Quentin Tarantino.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: Yes, thank you.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, sorry, listeners, for that moment of lapsing.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: We are boomers after all.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: Um there is a there's a subplot where he's being uh tracked by a national enquirer journalist who has found that he's uh he's involved in an extramarital affair, which seems very trivial.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: And it it it doesn't make a lot of sense.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: It's it's almost implied that he's being um, you know, he's being uh chased the way he's chasing predators, that he's being, we know, you know, he's being targeted um for a sexual scandal the way he's targeting other other men.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: But that subplot doesn't really go anywhere.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: It's not clear if it interrupts his relationship with his wife, it's not clear where the where the marital affair goes.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of sort of loose ends in this film.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I thought it the script really needed another another draft.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: And going back to Aaron Sorkin, uh, you know, uh the um insult to injury of of To Catch a Predator replacing uh uh Aaron Sorkin's series, Studio 60 in a Sunset Strip.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't help wondering what Aaron Sorkin would have done with you know this material.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: If Sorkin had taken this subject matter and written a script, it would there would have been layers that would have been so interesting to it, I think.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: It would have been I wonder it's that's an interesting point.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: And when when I my reaction, my first reaction when you said that was he would make it a little more lighthearted or optimistic or good natured.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: How do you make it optimistic?
16:33
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's well, that's my whole point is uh I think he would have passed on the project.
16:37
SPEAKER_01: But if he had taken it, I mean there were certain there are many episodes and The West Wing and other and other feature films where he's taken on he's he's produced dark outcomes to the story, but uh I just don't see this.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: There's an interview with him, and he likes optimistic material, he likes positive material, and I, you know, kudos to him for that.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: But don't you think there would be there must have been some way to make this film which um criticized uh sexual predators because they're not good people at the same time as criticizing for the record.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: For the record, uh, you know, it just rather than making a film that just you know villainizes, that's not the word, um villainate.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: What's the uh I like villainate?
17:27
SPEAKER_01: Is that French?
17:29
SPEAKER_00: Makes a villain of of the host of Decatch Predator rather than the predators themselves.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh that seemed uh slightly tone-deaf to me.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: I thought that was interesting, but in the end, you think, well, cool, well, you know, well done.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: You've you've made us sympathetic sexual predators.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: I didn't uh wasn't sure that was that was an easy.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: You know, I I I think I think it you it's interesting that you you point to the director's maybe lack of an experience.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: This is his first uh feature film.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: He's has a record for making documentaries.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: I I I can't because I can't I don't think you can fault the screenwriters.
18:07
SPEAKER_01: Um, there are some really great subplots.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: I I thought the the phone calls from the National Enquirer were really interesting because the voice from the National Enquirer was so menacing and thuggish.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: And I think and and I bought it.
18:23
SPEAKER_01: I bought it.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: I think when when tabloids like that find a you know find a target, they can use them for many things.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: We've heard about this over the years, even through the Trump administration, how how they can use someone's public image to negotiate or to ruin them or to profit from them.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: I think the subplot of uh decoy Dan and his desire to get a SAG after a card was so great.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: And I loved I loved and I loved his producer, who was is working behind the scenes trying to manage this very difficult personality and her own career and satisfy the network at the same time.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: I thought that was terrific.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: I think I think those two subplots worked.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: I didn't think for me, the National Inquir subplot didn't fully work.
19:12
SPEAKER_00: And the and um and the subplot of his relationship with his wife didn't really work, but I I I did like how they kind of showcased the they gave a the because when you first meet the young actor uh who goes on to play Decoy Dan, you don't know who he is or or you know what you see.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: We meet him at an audition and he sings a song from Rent.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's really uh quite touching because it's so um uh almost that that was really beautiful.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: It was sort of cringe, it's a cringe moment, really.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh well well well orchestrated.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: And uh well, and not only that, it fits into the final scene, doesn't it?
19:57
SPEAKER_01: It does.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: We don't know.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: In a way, but without giving thing any away, it's it's a cringe moment that becomes extremely compassionate.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: And that was that was good writing, and that that was that was uh nicely done.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: That was uh a frame using a framing device as a screenplay term, but his subplot was interesting.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad they focused on him because the point was that the the show involved um actors uh in putting them in really difficult, really difficult positions.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, they were not responsible for the content of the show, and we know young actors will do almost anything to get he wants to get his uh his what the after his sack card.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, and he gets you he gets it, but it's it's a tough journey, and I was moved by that.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: I was actually more moved by that subplot than sort of the main plot in a lot of ways, but I thought that was that was well done.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Would you would you recommend what about your friend?
20:58
SPEAKER_00: What did your friend think of it who had actually seen the show 20 years ago?
21:02
SPEAKER_01: Well well, my friend, I'll I'll I'll call him out.
21:05
SPEAKER_01: His name is Santos, he's an old dear friend of ours, and uh he's 27 years old, so he grew up with the show and he was entertained throughout.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh he loved how he he got delight from how Pattinson portrayed uh Chris Hansen as um as someone who was beyond sanity, beyond sane, who had become a fanatic and um almost out of control.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: He he liked it a lot.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: Wait, your friend's 27?
21:36
SPEAKER_00: He would have been seven years old when it started.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Was he watching this when he was like eight or nine?
21:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he must have been watching it at a very young age.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: I I mean, think about it.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I actually that that's one of my complaints is it's it's a bit sorted.
21:51
SPEAKER_01: And some of the text messages that they read verbatim, maybe they're historical.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: Um there's one of what one of one of the Sorted moments is he wakes up his own two young boys to watch an episode.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that?
22:06
SPEAKER_00: They're asleep.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: I do hope he wakes them up.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: His wife kind of calls him on it because she walks in and they're watching, uh watching to catch a predator, which is not appropriate.
22:18
SPEAKER_01: Um not appropriate viewing.
22:20
SPEAKER_01: And just if just to go back to what I was saying, is they they read verbatim some some of the you know the the historical record, what what these predators wanted to do with their targets.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's pretty grown-up material.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: It's a bit much.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: It's a bit much.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: I you know, I'm a little bit squeamish when it comes to that.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: I don't like, you know, I don't like curse words too much, as you know.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: And Jim, if you're gonna make a film about to catch a predator and you you can't be squeamish, I mean that that's the material.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh I I think there's a way, I think there would there's a way to be subtle and to and to make it even more ghastly.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: I mean to I mean someone even just showing up.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: Um but I guess Chris Hansen has to read it.
23:03
SPEAKER_01: And behind the scenes, we see that he's hired a vendor, a contractor that is a uh it's called perverted justice.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: And it's you know, some creepy people who have this righteous desire to catch predators.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: We have a lot of that in society today.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: You know, the the internet and social media has really opened that up in the manosphere, you know, they're always decrying pedos and being righteous.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's what's happening here.
23:29
SPEAKER_01: This is the beginning of that.
23:30
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and it's actually a wonderful opening.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: The first scene of the film, this isn't giving anything away, it's the very first scene is you hear Robert Pattinson, you see uh the character Hansen, and he's reciting um uh were uh sentences from from one of the online um chats.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: And you don't it's out of context because you don't know who he is, and he's rehearsing, reading these lines back to one of the predators on in a mirror.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: He's in a mirror in a dressing room, and it's a dressing room, and the dressing room isn't very glamorous, is it?
24:07
SPEAKER_01: No, it's a sort of dark, very crummy room.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: It's a very seedy scene, and it and he it is it is a bit vampiric.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: I like how you made that connection to one of his early uh signature roles where he actually played a vampire.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: Um, I wonder if he was if he was channeling any of that in this uh in this performance.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: But it's a wonderful, it is a wonderful opening.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: Were you tired of the look of the film after a while?
24:36
SPEAKER_00: It's so grainy and dark.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: I have a I have a lot to say about the cinematography, I gotta say.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: It's and just for for viewers, it's it was shot in high def, right?
24:47
SPEAKER_01: It was shot in digitally, but it looks like it was shot with broad net broadcast news cameras from that period.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: They they transferred it on a 16 millimeter to to to match that look.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: Well, the colors the colors bleed, it looks like they were heat heat damaged on a VT VHS cassette or something, something that reminds me of the fashion fash wave movement, but that's another story.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: It's and it it sort of gives this idea that maybe the the vehicle that creates broadcast news has been poisoned or rotting or something.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: And but did you like it?
25:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it would do uh because I like here's the thing.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: Here's my problem with it.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: Okay, is it resembles a great film from 2024, really underpraised and unnoticed, that you and I have both seen.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: It's called September 5th, shot in 2024 by a guy named Tim Failbaum, and it's um it's a film about the 1972 Munich Olympic Olympics terrorist attack.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, but so ingenious, and this is a little more like an Aaron Sorgin vehicle.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: It tells the story from the perspective of an ABC sports television crew, which has no experience covering covering uh world events, world events, terrorism and world events, none, yes, none, yes, that's right.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: So they're thrown into this into this atmosphere that they're completely unfamiliar with and complete with with um uh patronizing comments from the experienced journalist, the man who plays Peter Jennings, who's extraordinary.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I've forgotten about that.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: They refer to him as Jennings, Jennings, um Tim Failbaum, he's a Swiss director.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: He has he's made stuff in Switzerland, we have not seen anything from him since, but he he really mastered that.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: And I I it felt so obviously either I'm gonna be polite and say the word inspired by by September 5th, that it it felt I felt I felt a little uncomfortable with it.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: The interesting thing about the director that we should say is that he's a he's a documentary filmmaker, and he recently teamed up with Nathan Fielder in secret, and he made a documentary called You Can See Everything, which follows the disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: He shot the film with Fielder over three years, and but sorry, four years actually, but it leads up to the 34 days before Holmes is report is to report to prison.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm dying to see that film.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Uh The Guardian just gave it five stars.
27:39
SPEAKER_00: Uh that sounds like an interesting uh it's so interesting.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: And if anyone, if anyone doesn't know Theranos, the Theranos founder, um she was um supposedly created this incredibly forward-looking, innovative diagnostic tool that could diagnose your your your entire ecosystem of your body with a drop of blood.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: And was it was found to be fraudulent.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: Uh, she committed investor fraud, she's headed to the big house, and married to a a hotel entrepreneur who's by her side, but his name is Billy Evans.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: They have three children.
28:24
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, the film debuted as a surprise screening at Telluride, the Telluride Film Fest.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, that I like to see, and that that sounds interesting.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: That's more of a recommended maybe than this film, as is September 5th.
28:36
SPEAKER_00: That's September 5th is a boomer has it recommend.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the we don't remember the name of the director of that?
28:43
SPEAKER_00: Do you it's September Tim?
28:44
SPEAKER_01: His name is he's I think he is his name is Tim Thielbaum, and he's Swiss.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and I don't think he's made any other US, any other US releases.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: His two European releases are highly regarded.
28:58
SPEAKER_01: They're kind of six science fiction-y um post-cop apocalypse type stories.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh September 5th is really it's a it's it's one of the best things I'd seen in 2024.
29:11
SPEAKER_01: It's it's incredible.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: It's riveting, it's it's riveting even for someone like me who knew the story.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, we knew the ending.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know the ending, it's even it's even better.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: But even if you do know the ending of that story, there's the about the kidnapping of the Israeli um Olympic athletes during the Olympics 1972 in West Germany, of all places.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: So there's all these, it's a very loaded uh moment.
29:38
SPEAKER_01: When we used to call it West Germany, when it was West Germany.
29:42
SPEAKER_01: Children gather around.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: There were two Germanys at one time.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: There were two Germanies.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: Uh that's right.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: West Germany.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: It's like England beat West Germany in the World Cup in 1966.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: They did not beat Germany, they beat West Germany.
29:58
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know if East Germany was in the tournament.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they were.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't afford any players.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: So, uh, how many thumbs up or thumbs down do you give this this film?
30:08
SPEAKER_01: I I you know what I I I have to say, I as I watched it, I was completely entertained.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: I I'm gonna give it four out of five.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
30:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh I think I'd give it three out of five.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: Uh I was very eager to see it, maybe too eager, so I felt a little bit let down by it.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: But um what the sort of so the aggregate is Boomer has it gives it three and a half stars.
30:36
SPEAKER_00: Right.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, we'll have to think of uh the next film we're gonna review, but um, that's Boomer Hazard film reviews.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: So, Jim, do you have a headquake for us?
30:48
SPEAKER_01: I I've scraped one together, and my headquake is um it comes from a widely claimed quote from James Carville.
30:57
SPEAKER_01: He says, I used to think if there was reincarnation, I wanted to come back as the president or the pope or as a 400 baseball hitter, but now I want to come back as the bond market.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: Why?
31:11
SPEAKER_01: Because you can intimidate everybody.
31:14
SPEAKER_01: So I'll make this quick because it's boring, but really important, and it's a thorn in the side of the Trump administration, as it's been a thorn in the side of other presidential administrations.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: But the bond market, which dwarfs the stock market in a in a magnitude of many, is is what determines how we can borrow money.
31:39
SPEAKER_01: Consumers can borrow money like from mortgages or car loans, it squeezes corporate profits.
31:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh, how how any because a bond is a form of debt, and when companies issue bonds, they're borrowing from the general public, and it's very important.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: And when interest rates go up, interest rates go up, it becomes harder and harder to borrow money.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: And when in when when that happens, bondholders get very mad, it's hard to control, it's beyond the scope of presidential powers, it all falls to the Federal Reserve, which is why Trump is mad at the Fed all the time.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: And these these this amorphous group of bond investors are sometimes called bond vigilantes.
32:30
SPEAKER_01: They're very influential, they buy and sell large volumes of government bonds.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: So when the government bond interest rates go up, the government spends more money to borrow.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: It it threatens our standing in the world order, our currency, everything.
32:48
SPEAKER_01: Um, when they drive bond prices down, they force the government borrow it to borrow at dramatically higher rates.
32:55
SPEAKER_01: It's a very important thing.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to know anything more about it.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: Thank me whenever you like.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: Just keep your eye on the bond market and how you can see the Trump administration and Treasury uh Secretary Bessant squirm under the the pressures of this mob of investors.
33:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh, thanks for that, Jim.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand a word of it, but uh it sounded very important.
33:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, the bond market.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, that was such an important headquake.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna challenge that with my own.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: I think we'll buy out on that.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, I want to apologize if the sound quality is uh not so great on this pod that's because I'm in this beautiful room and this uh top floor flat in Paris.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: The sound is a bit um pocky.
33:46
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, I'm JB Mell in Paris, and I'm Jim Jelamas, still in Brooklyn.