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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Joe McCormick. This week, Rob and I are out,

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Speaker 1: so we're bringing you an older episode of Weird House

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Speaker 1: Cinema for this Friday. This was the feature that we

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Speaker 1: did on Panos Cosmodos's The Viewing, which was an entry

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Speaker 1: in a short film in Germo del Toro's Cabinet of

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Speaker 1: Curiosities series. This episode originally published on August eleventh, twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty three. Let's get right in there. Welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.

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Speaker 1: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick, and

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Speaker 1: we've got something a little bit different for you today.

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Speaker 1: Today on Weird House Cinema, we're going to be talking

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Speaker 1: about The Viewing, directed by Panos Cosmodos, which is not

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Speaker 1: a feature film, but an anthology episode in the twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty two Netflix series Germo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities. Rob,

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Speaker 1: this was your pick. How did you end up bringing

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Speaker 1: us into this zone?

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, I certainly of modern directors, Panos is

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Speaker 2: one of my favorite weird directors and certainly someone who's

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Speaker 2: always been in the back of my mind with weird

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Speaker 2: house cinema. I think one of the reasons I dig

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Speaker 2: this selection so much, though, is that it kind of

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Speaker 2: fills a vital gap in modern genre cinema. I don't

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Speaker 2: know if this will make sense or if this is

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Speaker 2: just like me thinking too long and hard about it,

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Speaker 2: but I feel like this, this movie of the viewing,

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Speaker 2: is in many ways like a B movie creature feature,

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Speaker 2: only without the B movie budget limitations and with everything,

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Speaker 2: you know, some being somewhat subjected to a kind of

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Speaker 2: like cinematic reduction, you know, and concentration of the flavors.

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Speaker 2: As we've discussed on the show before, B movies of today,

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Speaker 2: at least to me and I think to us to

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Speaker 2: some degree, they lack the luster of those twentieth century

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Speaker 2: B movies. And we've discussed some of the possible reasons why.

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Speaker 2: You know, is it the technical proficiency or lack thereof

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Speaker 2: sometimes in the modern B movies. Is it digital film

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Speaker 2: and digital effects versus practical and film, or do these

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Speaker 2: recent films just feel too contemporary.

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of modern B movies are too

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Speaker 1: self conscious and not distinctive enough they kind of lack

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Speaker 1: some of the character of the B movies of old

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Speaker 1: and have a level of self consciousness that takes some

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Speaker 1: of the fun out. Like I don't know, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I've never gotten deep into the Sharknado series, but is like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know how much of a drive I feel

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Speaker 1: to watch Sharknado five, but I do kind of want

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Speaker 1: to watch Jaws four again.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned fun, and I think that's another key thing,

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Speaker 2: Like a lot of B movies from the past, that

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Speaker 2: they're fun to watch. This selection. The viewing is, at

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Speaker 2: least to my taste, a very fun viewing experience. Every

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Speaker 2: time I watch it, I laugh a little bit, I

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Speaker 2: geek out over some of the visuals and the sounds,

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Speaker 2: and I ponder over some of the strange choices that

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Speaker 2: are made, and I think all of those things kind

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Speaker 2: of match up with the sort of suite of experiences

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Speaker 2: you tend to have with older B movies, though obviously

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Speaker 2: to create this nowadays, you've got to spend a lot

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Speaker 2: more money. You've got to throw in, you know, sort

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Speaker 2: of a mixture of retro esthetics, absurdism. In the case

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Speaker 2: of Panos's film, certainly a heightened commitment to style, and

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Speaker 2: I guess it's understandable when we don't see more films

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Speaker 2: of this nature, because yeah, it's clearly expensive to generate.

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Speaker 2: And I guess at the end of the day, there's

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Speaker 2: kind of like a who is this.

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Speaker 1: For a question? Yeah, I mean, I don't really know.

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Speaker 1: I feel like his most recent feature film, Mandy, was

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Speaker 1: moderately successful, was it not? Or am I wrong?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah? Yeah, Yeah, Mandy was successful at least as

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Speaker 2: far as my understanding of its metrics go. You know,

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Speaker 2: it had several different things that sort of propelled it

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Speaker 2: and got people into theaters or certainly checking it out

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Speaker 2: digitally later, be it you know, the whole you know,

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Speaker 2: cage rage aspect of it. You learned to see this

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Speaker 2: really walked out performance from Nicholas Cage or certainly the

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Speaker 2: face melting visuals and sounds of the of the picture.

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Speaker 2: And also it had a very I guess, dependable subgenre

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Speaker 2: styling to it. It is a revenge film, which is

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Speaker 2: not my favorite genre of film, but it's something that

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Speaker 2: you go into a movie like that you kind of

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Speaker 2: know what sort of ride you're in for, and that

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Speaker 2: helps propel you through it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So maybe the revenge film or other genre trappings

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Speaker 1: might explain part of the success there, but I feel

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Speaker 1: like there is an audience for Panos Cosmodos, oh and

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Speaker 1: for his style driven approach. I mean, so I've seen now,

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Speaker 1: I guess, all of the major film projects of Panos Cosmotos.

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Speaker 1: So he's done two features Beyond the Black Rainbow from

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Speaker 1: twenty ten and Mandy from twenty eighteen, and this Cabinet

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Speaker 1: of Curiosities episode. I've seen all three now, and I

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Speaker 1: don't know of anything else he's really released. One thing

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Speaker 1: I think they all have in common is that they

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Speaker 1: are primarily texture driven rather than narrative driven. So whereas

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Speaker 1: you assume most filmmaking projects start with the story idea,

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Speaker 1: they start with a script or a story concept, and

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Speaker 1: then they come up with the audio visual elements that

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Speaker 1: are necessitated by that. They come up with sets and

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Speaker 1: costumes and lighting schema and music and other visual and

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Speaker 1: auditory motifs to serve and enrich the story. I think Panos,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know about the process if it

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Speaker 1: really works this way, but it feels like Panos's movies

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Speaker 1: start with the texture. They start with maybe a vision

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Speaker 1: of a room with sunken couches in a circle with

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Speaker 1: a strange sort of pipe organ chandelier hanging above them,

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Speaker 1: and a revolving table covered in lines of cocaine, surrounded

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Speaker 1: by like mirrored orange radiance and AK forty seven silhouetted

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Speaker 1: in gold light. And then there's a specific soundtrack to this.

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Speaker 1: You can you know he's hearing it in his head.

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Speaker 1: There's like a chord progression playing in a dark, saturated

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Speaker 1: moge synthesizer tone. Oh. And then you know, for another movie,

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Speaker 1: it's like I'm seeing a biker that's only in shadows,

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Speaker 1: surrounded by pink light, covered head to toe in spikes

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Speaker 1: like a pufferfish, but they're not spikes, they're made of rebar.

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Speaker 2: Oh.

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Speaker 1: And there's like a battle between two men wielding ten

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Speaker 1: foot long chainsaws, and so forth and so forth. And

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Speaker 1: it feels like they start with the images and the

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Speaker 1: color palettes, the lighting, the music and all that, and

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Speaker 1: they just kind of fell in a story or the

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Speaker 1: suggestion of a story to link together all of that texture.

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Speaker 1: I'd say, of the three things, maybe Mandy is the

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Speaker 1: most story driven of his works, followed by this episode

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Speaker 1: somewhere in the middle, and then Beyond the Black Rainbow

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Speaker 1: seems the least story driven in the most kind of

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Speaker 1: texture driven. But in all cases it seems to me

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Speaker 1: like the plot content is secondary to the sites and

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Speaker 1: the sounds. And let me know in a minute if

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Speaker 1: you disagree with that characterization. But I'll say, at least

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Speaker 1: as far as my perception of his style goes, it's

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Speaker 1: interesting to me that this is not the only film

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Speaker 1: we've covered that feels like it operates this way. But

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Speaker 1: in other cases we for one thing, no, it actually

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Speaker 1: did operate that way in terms of how the film

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Speaker 1: was made, and we know why, and it was because

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Speaker 1: of ruthless concerns about budget and efficiency. So maybe Roger

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Speaker 1: Corman says, oh, hot Dog, we got some stock footage

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Speaker 1: and some leftover sets and costumes from another movie. We

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Speaker 1: got them on the cheap. Let's throw together a script

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Speaker 1: that can use this footage of a rocket launching and

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Speaker 1: these sparkly coats and this rented mansion in La and

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Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. Panos's movies do not feel like

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Speaker 1: this at all, to the extent that it is actually

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Speaker 1: guided by an ethic of texture first, or production elements first,

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Speaker 1: rather than story first, it feels like a result of

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Speaker 1: a lavish, indulgent passion for the project, completely opposite from

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Speaker 1: the sort of mercenary or efficiency focused attempt to wring

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Speaker 1: every last drop of value out of your rentals and

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Speaker 1: your commissions.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a real commitment to vision with these pictures,

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Speaker 2: and I love that it has thus far been sustained

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Speaker 2: because when Beyond the Black Rainbow came out, I loved it.

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Speaker 2: It's just a film you can just breathe in. And

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Speaker 2: then came Mandy, and then came this, and like each time,

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Speaker 2: I'm afraid things are going to get less weird, They're

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Speaker 2: gonna maybe become more concerned with these other aspects of

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Speaker 2: cinematic storytelling. But thus far, no, it's been It's been

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Speaker 2: the weirdness, the visuals and you know, the sites and

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Speaker 2: sounds well beyond anything you've tested that come first.

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Speaker 1: And to be clear, I don't know that this is

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Speaker 1: how Panos operates. It's just that's how the product feels

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Speaker 1: in the end. I mean it's it's entirely possible. They

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Speaker 1: do start with the script and then just something about

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Speaker 1: the way, you know, the way he realizes the sights

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Speaker 1: and sounds of that story are so strong they sort

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Speaker 1: of take take the pilot's chair in the actual viewing experience.

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Speaker 1: But then this got me thinking about, well, what are

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Speaker 1: the common themes in the narrative content the stories of

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Speaker 1: panos Cosmodoss movies, And they seem to me to all

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Speaker 1: represent a dual infatuation with, but also deep suspicion of

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Speaker 1: the mini strands of the psychedelic and New Age American

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Speaker 1: counterculture of the sixties and seventies. So you've got murderous

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Speaker 1: cults of Manson type hippies. You've got demonic bikers that

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Speaker 1: deal drugs from hell. You have utopian alternative healing institutions

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Speaker 1: that turn into psychotic prisons, like the premise of Beyond

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Speaker 1: the Black Rainbow is sort of like an Esslin Institute

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Speaker 1: workshop took hostages and turned them into psychic assassins. You've

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Speaker 1: got hallucinogen use that is portrayed with a kind of

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Speaker 1: glamorous horror. It's a double edged sword. It's very alluring,

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Speaker 1: but it also causes people to lose their minds and

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Speaker 1: sometimes their souls. And the viewing in particular has a

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Speaker 1: character who seems to me to be modeled on personalities

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Speaker 1: associated with the Stanford Research Institute, which we've talked about

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Speaker 1: on the show before, but basically, you know, a sort

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Speaker 1: of research program famous for claiming to have found scientific

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Speaker 1: evidence of paranormal powers like telekinesis and remote viewing, sometimes

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Speaker 1: associated with other figures in the broader New Age movement,

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Speaker 1: and this character in the Viewing is explicitly portrayed as

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Speaker 1: a charlatan. And in general, it seems like Panos's vision

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Speaker 1: is one that's like obsessed with these sort of hippie

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Speaker 1: and New Age concepts, but also views mind expansion in

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Speaker 1: all its forms as something that is beautiful and appealing

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Speaker 1: but often is a false promise that leads to suffering

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Speaker 1: and chaos and destruction. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's very fair. I guess some of

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Speaker 2: it is also probably rooted in an exploitation cinema, Like

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Speaker 2: certainly when you think of Beyond the Black Rainbow, instantly

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Speaker 2: reminded of Blue Sunshine, which is very much a you know,

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Speaker 2: post hippies sort of aging out hippies, the exploitation film

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Speaker 2: about Oh, well, you know that that acid you took

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Speaker 2: years ago, Well it turns out it'll make you into

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Speaker 2: a bald psychopath. Now, so watch out and think twice

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Speaker 2: about all the things you did ten or fifteen years ago.

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Speaker 1: We may have to do Blue Sunshine one day on

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Speaker 1: Weird House. One of my favorite aspects of it is that,

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Speaker 1: if I remember right, doesn't all your hair fall off

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Speaker 1: at once? Yes, it happens in an instant. It's like

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Speaker 1: a wig that comes off. It's not gradual.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. That's an interesting film starring Zalman King.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but I like that once it becomes clear in

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Speaker 1: that movie that it's the acid that's turning people into

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Speaker 1: to like kill zombies, then you're trying to do a

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Speaker 1: kind of detective thing of weight. Can we remember who

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Speaker 1: took the acid at this party like twenty years ago?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The big difference between Blue Sunshine and the works

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Speaker 2: of Panos because Modos, though, I think, is that Blue

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Speaker 2: Sunshine doesn't really, as I recall, doesn't really do much

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Speaker 2: to give you, like even a semi glamorous idea of

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Speaker 2: what the psychedelic experience could be like, like not even

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Speaker 2: like an exaggerated dreamlike cinematic quality to it. Whereas Panos

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Speaker 2: is going to dip into both wells. As you said,

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Speaker 2: you know, there's going to be something alluring and other

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Speaker 2: worldly about it all, but also there's going to be

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Speaker 2: this dark side.

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Speaker 1: Though interestingly, at least to me, while the narrative content

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Speaker 1: has this kind of tight obsession on like sixties and

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Speaker 1: seventies hippie and new age themes, I feel like the

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Speaker 1: texture that he's drawing from is time shifted a little

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Speaker 1: bit later than that, Like there's overlap, but it goes

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Speaker 1: a little bit further into like the eighties. The kind

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Speaker 1: of sights and sounds that he seems to be most

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Speaker 1: sourcing from sort of a late seventies and eighties club

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Speaker 1: lighting and synthesizer bath in a way, kind of a

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Speaker 1: tech noir element.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and you certainly know you're watching a Penisklismatos film,

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Speaker 2: certainly thus far based to a large degree on the

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Speaker 2: colors and the light and this like searing sense of

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Speaker 2: the lights, so like it's like the dead lights, you know,

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Speaker 2: shining out of his pictures at you. I think some

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Speaker 2: of these are called panos flares. I think that's his

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Speaker 2: his I think I picked it up somewhere. That's his

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Speaker 2: name for some of these these flares you see in

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Speaker 2: his films.

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Speaker 1: I don't know specifically what that refers to, but there

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Speaker 1: are very distinctive types of panos shots like he loves

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Speaker 1: a car racing through the dark in the night with

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Speaker 1: the dials illuminated, glowing in the dark, and like synthesizer

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Speaker 1: music playing, or like a character in silhouette just like

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Speaker 1: just absolutely washed and colored light from behind so you

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Speaker 1: can't really see their features, but you just see the

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Speaker 1: outline and behind them. It is like an orange sun

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Speaker 1: or a pink sun.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and another big aspect of is a certainly in

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Speaker 2: play and beyond the black Rainbow, and also in play

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Speaker 2: in this film to a large extent, is a kind

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Speaker 2: of I would say, very like Queludian pacing at times.

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Speaker 2: And I think maybe that can be that can maybe

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Speaker 2: be a barid entry for some viewers who really want

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Speaker 2: something that's gonna really snap and move quickly, like things

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Speaker 2: are not necessarily gonna move quickly in one of these films.

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Speaker 2: It's gonna it's gonna be like a slow burning feeling.

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Speaker 2: There's gonna be maybe some some some time spent like

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Speaker 2: watching a weird character actor like calmly emote for a while,

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Speaker 2: which which I love, but yeah, may not be everyone's

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Speaker 2: cup of tea.

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Speaker 1: Oh, I totally agree. No, that's another distinctive panos thing.

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Speaker 1: His films, I would say, in comprehensively lack momentum, both

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Speaker 1: in terms of the overall plot and in terms of

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Speaker 1: the moment to moment experience of the scenes. Like in

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Speaker 1: the individual scenes. Uh, there's a lot of so like

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Speaker 1: when characters are talking to each other, there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of kind of stopping and starting dialogue. A lot of

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Speaker 1: dialogue scenes do not really kind of like build an

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Speaker 1: intensity and have an exchange of power like you know,

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Speaker 1: your dialogue writing coach would say you're supposed to have,

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Speaker 1: but they work in a totally different way. They're more

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Speaker 1: just kind of painting a weird picture of interactions rather

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Speaker 1: than escalating drama. That's not true of every scene, but

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Speaker 1: that's very often true. And then I would say overall, yeah,

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Speaker 1: there are the movies do build up towards something, but

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Speaker 1: they don't have that kind of relentless, snowballing feeling where

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Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I've got to see what happens in

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Speaker 1: the next scene. You you have to kind of like

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Speaker 1: submit to one of these films and say like I'm

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Speaker 1: just ready for it, and I think it's a very

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Speaker 1: fun and rewarding experience. But it Yeah, they don't pull

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Speaker 1: you with that like Page Turner thriller quality, whatever the

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Speaker 1: movie equivalent of that is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this one, I have to say. When I saw

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Speaker 2: it for the first time, I went in without I think,

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Speaker 2: even having seen a screenshot from it. I just I

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Speaker 2: knew that it was Panosco's mottos and that I was

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Speaker 2: going to be on board for it, but not knowing

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Speaker 2: anything about even what the plot was or what the

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Speaker 2: viewing referred to, it did feel very unsafe, you know,

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Speaker 2: like I just really didn't know what kind of story

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Speaker 2: this was going to be, and it's not entirely clear

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Speaker 2: for a large portion of the runtime what kind of

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Speaker 2: story it's going to ultimately be. It's not really into

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Speaker 2: the last say, twelve minutes of the like just less

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Speaker 2: than an hour runtime, that things really come to a head.

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Speaker 1: I Mean a lot of this thing is just characters

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Speaker 1: doing drugs. Yeah, it's true.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, that kind of brings me to my elevator

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Speaker 2: pitch is that this is essentially House on Haunted Hill,

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Speaker 2: except instead of money and ghosts, it's drugs and face

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Speaker 2: melting encounters.

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Speaker 1: Now, Rob, is this one where you were saying that

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Speaker 1: the trailer spoils the ending.

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Speaker 2: I wouldn't say the trailer spoils anything, per se. I

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Speaker 2: just I kind of wanted for you something akin to

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Speaker 2: my experience with it, where you didn't know exactly what

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Speaker 2: was going to happen.

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Speaker 1: Well, based on your recommendation, I did not watch the trailer.

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Speaker 1: I just went in cold, and I'm glad I did. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I liked not knowing where it was going. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So this is gonna be twenty five seconds of trailer audio,

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Speaker 2: So if you want to skip it, skip ahead about

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Speaker 2: twenty five seconds. Let's have a listen, good evening tonight.

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Speaker 1: I'm going to gift you in eight Transcendence at the

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Speaker 1: greatest expense asmarizing.

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Speaker 2: All right now, if you would like to experience the

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Speaker 2: viewing before we proceed with the discussion here well as

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Speaker 2: of this recording, the only way to experience it is

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Speaker 2: as the seventh episode of Germeal Do Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities,

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Speaker 2: as you mentioned earlier, on the streaming platform Netflix. But

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Speaker 2: I really hope it does get a physical release at

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Speaker 2: some point, either on its own or as part of

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Speaker 2: this series, which, as we were just talking to JJ about,

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Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's it's rather good. It's

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Speaker 2: it's varied, it has some has a couple of other

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Speaker 2: high points as far as my taste go. And also

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Speaker 2: I think there's there's a nice variety. Like some of

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Speaker 2: the the episodes are more thoughtful and character driven. A

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Speaker 2: couple of them are certainly more tales from the crypt

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Speaker 2: ish in their you know, their basic structure. You know,

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Speaker 2: here's a terrible person. He's become involved with some sort

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Speaker 2: of supernatural element and he's going to get his.

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Speaker 1: This is the only episode of this I've actually seen,

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Speaker 1: so if I watch more, I may come back to

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Speaker 1: it in October. Be good seasonal viewing. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if they're going to do another one.

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Speaker 2: I don't know that they've said one way or another.

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Speaker 2: I think Del Toro has said that he's interested in

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Speaker 2: heading it up, but I think I saw a quote

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Speaker 2: where it was like, but if it doesn't happen, I'll

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Speaker 2: also be a little bit relieved because it's a lot

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Speaker 2: of work, So fingers crossed. All right, let's talk about

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Speaker 2: the people involved here. So we'll start at the top

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Speaker 2: here with Panos Cosmotos, the director and one of the

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Speaker 2: writers on this piece. Born nineteen seventy four Italian Canadian

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Speaker 2: film director and screenwriter. He's the son of director George P. Cosmotos,

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Speaker 2: who lived nineteen forty one through two thousand and five,

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Speaker 2: who himself gave us such weird films as nineteen eighty

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Speaker 2: threes of Unknown Origin and nineteen eighty nine's Leviathan.

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Speaker 1: I didn't realize that connection until right before we came

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Speaker 1: into record, but that'll come up again in a minute.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he's also he's also he also brought to brought

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Speaker 2: us some some mainstream action films like Rainbow Rambow rather

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Speaker 2: First Blood Part two. Yeah, Cobra from nineteen eighty six,

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Speaker 2: that's another stallone, and Tombstone from nineteen ninety three, the

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Speaker 2: popular Western Panos, by the way, who would have been

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Speaker 2: I think eighteen at the time, has a credit on

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Speaker 2: that film some sort of like assistant video operator in

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Speaker 2: the second unit. So, as we've been discussing, Panos's own

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Speaker 2: writing and directing debut was twenty ten's Beyond the Black Rainbow,

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Speaker 2: followed by the Nicholas Cage helmed revenge horror movie Mandy,

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Speaker 2: And then comes the Viewing, which I feel takes a

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Speaker 2: slightly more absurdist approach and also dials down like the

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Speaker 2: number of things he's trying to accomplish in the picture

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Speaker 2: while still going just all in and all out on

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Speaker 2: its main set pieces.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say, And this may just be in

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Speaker 1: part due to its shorter run time, but the viewing

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Speaker 1: takes us on fewer wild turns on the journey than

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Speaker 1: his other two movies do, but the turns that are

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Speaker 1: taken are just as wild. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: As for his next film, I believe it is set

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Speaker 2: to be something titled Necrocosm. I don't know that we

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Speaker 2: really know anything about what this is going to consist of,

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Speaker 2: except that it's supposedly going to be more of a

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Speaker 2: sci fi film, So I'm excited to find out what

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Speaker 2: it could possibly be.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: His co writer on this is Aaron stuart On. I'm

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Speaker 2: not sure about the dates for this writer, but he

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Speaker 2: was one of the co writers of Mandy, alongside Panos

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Speaker 2: and one Casper Kelly. He was also a staff writer

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Speaker 2: on the twenty twenty two series The Witcher Blood Origin,

390
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Speaker 2: and as a director, he directed a couple of Decembrist

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Speaker 2: videos as well as a video for Death Cab for Qtie.

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Speaker 2: Now getting into the cast here, Yes, heading this up,

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Speaker 2: playing the character Lionel Lassiter is Peter Weller born nineteen

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Speaker 2: forty seven American actor and director who's acting or goes

395
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Speaker 2: all the way back into the early seventies and he's

396
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Speaker 2: still active today. He started out on Broadway, then did

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Speaker 2: some TV, did a little bit of film, and then

398
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Speaker 2: starred in George P. Cosmatos's nineteen eighty three psychological thriller

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Speaker 2: of Unknown Origin, a movie I have not seen, but

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Speaker 2: I've heard good things about. It's a psychological horror film

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Speaker 2: about a man who becomes aest with killing a rat

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Speaker 2: that's infesting his home.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. That sounds like a premise of like

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Speaker 1: a comedy. You know, this guy's like, oh, this rat's

405
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Speaker 1: driving me crazy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's one of those those plots that

407
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Speaker 2: could go either way, but anyway. So that was eighty

408
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Speaker 2: threes of Unknown Origin. Then in nineteen eighty four he

409
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Speaker 2: played the title role in the Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai

410
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Speaker 2: Across the Eighth Dimension, which of course has a deliriously

411
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Speaker 2: weird cast and is a well known weird cult film.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty seven, he became a RoboCop, a role

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Speaker 2: he would play again in nineteen nineties RoboCop. Two. Other

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Speaker 2: films of note, at least to us, include The Yeah,

415
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Speaker 2: the nineteen eighty nine underwater horror sci fi film Leviathan,

416
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Speaker 2: which was also directed by George Picos, Mottos, Cronenberg's Naked

417
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Speaker 2: Lunch in ninety one, Screamers in ninety five that's based

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Speaker 2: on a Philip K. Dick short story called Second Variety.

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Speaker 2: And he's done more and more TV work in recent decades,

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Speaker 2: including Sons of Anarchy, Star Trek Enterprise, He's done some

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Speaker 2: Batman voiceover work, and as a TV director, he's been

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Speaker 2: rather prolific there as well. Since the mid nineties, I believe,

423
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Speaker 2: directed numerous episodes of such shows as Homicide, Life on

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Speaker 2: the Street, Sons of Anarchy, and more.

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Speaker 1: You know, I first came to love Peter Weller as

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Speaker 1: RoboCop and as Buckery Bonzai, as well as in some

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Speaker 1: relatively I think kind of cold performances in B movies,

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Speaker 1: like you mentioned the eighty nine underwater horror thriller Leviathan,

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Speaker 1: where in that movie, one of the main things I

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Speaker 1: remember is he wears a hat so stiff it should

431
00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:39,919
Speaker 1: have still had the price tag stuck to it. Like

432
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:45,720
Speaker 1: you know, he's playing this like underwater drill rig manager,

433
00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 1: but it's this hat that's like the brim has never

434
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 1: once been gripped by a human hand. But yeah, in

435
00:24:53,200 --> 00:24:56,199
Speaker 1: a lot of these movies I'm familiar with, he's you know,

436
00:24:56,240 --> 00:25:00,480
Speaker 1: playing the handsome cool as a cucumber leading man. But

437
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:04,879
Speaker 1: in his later career, Peter Weller has really aged into

438
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:09,760
Speaker 1: a totally different kind of performer, a sort of reptilian

439
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 1: character actor who if they were remaking the Super Mario

440
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,399
Speaker 1: Brothers movie today in the style of the one with

441
00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:20,480
Speaker 1: Bob Hoskins, I think Peter Weller would be an excellent

442
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:24,919
Speaker 1: choice to play Dennis Hopper's King Koopa. This man, he

443
00:25:25,320 --> 00:25:29,360
Speaker 1: so easily inhabits the role of a character who has

444
00:25:29,520 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: experienced beyond pleasure and pain, beyond good and evil, and

445
00:25:33,880 --> 00:25:37,120
Speaker 1: you could easily make high quality Sawyer family furniture out

446
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:37,440
Speaker 1: of him.

447
00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's really fun in this as an immoral, vampire

448
00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:49,760
Speaker 2: esque rich, beyond conscious reclose. It would be benefactor of

449
00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:53,520
Speaker 2: artists and academics. It seems like a role he really

450
00:25:53,600 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 2: gets to ease into and have a lot of fun with.

451
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:59,520
Speaker 1: He plays a living mummy who encourages you to sin.

452
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:05,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, but very convincing and charismatic. And I think we're

453
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,640
Speaker 2: talking we're talking about this beforehand, like how many actors

454
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:11,760
Speaker 2: today can can use the word daddy O in a

455
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 2: fixture and it's still come off as cool.

456
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 1: And suave, you know, Oh yeah, you yeah.

457
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:19,560
Speaker 2: The comparison to Dennis Hopper, I think is key, Like

458
00:26:19,600 --> 00:26:21,159
Speaker 2: this is a role you could it would have been

459
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,639
Speaker 2: a different Linel Lassiter. It would certainly would have had

460
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:27,320
Speaker 2: a different energy to it. But Dennis Hopper could have

461
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:28,400
Speaker 2: played this role as well.

462
00:26:29,000 --> 00:26:32,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would have been a more high strong line Lassiter,

463
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:36,040
Speaker 1: I think, But yeah, I could see.

464
00:26:35,800 --> 00:26:40,040
Speaker 2: That all right. Lionel Lassiter has an attendant. He has

465
00:26:40,080 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 2: a couple of attendants, but he has a doctor that

466
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:45,639
Speaker 2: attends to him by the name of doctor Zara played

467
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:50,520
Speaker 2: by Sophia Boutella born nineteen eighty two, French Algerian actress,

468
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:53,240
Speaker 2: dancer and model. If you're not sure who I'm talking about,

469
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:56,159
Speaker 2: if if you saw picture of her, you would recognize her.

470
00:26:56,280 --> 00:27:00,400
Speaker 2: She's been in twenty fourteen's Kingsman, The Secret Service, twenty

471
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:02,640
Speaker 2: sixteen Star Trek Beyond. I think she has a lot

472
00:27:02,640 --> 00:27:04,480
Speaker 2: of makeup on in that one. She was in twenty

473
00:27:04,520 --> 00:27:08,159
Speaker 2: seventeen's Atomic Blonde, and she was in twenty seventeens The Mummy,

474
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:12,360
Speaker 2: in which she plays the Mummy battling Tom Cruise. She's

475
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:16,159
Speaker 2: the Mummy in that Mummy movie. All right, yeah, so

476
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:17,320
Speaker 2: she's on posters in all.

477
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:19,840
Speaker 1: Does she defeat Tom Cruise in the end? I hope so?

478
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:22,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I think so. I think she defeats him,

479
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:24,560
Speaker 2: wraps him up, stores him away, and takes over the world.

480
00:27:25,160 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 2: I never saw it, but that's my assumption because they

481
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:29,880
Speaker 2: didn't do anything else with that series, so it must

482
00:27:29,880 --> 00:27:33,119
Speaker 2: have wrapped up. She's also going to the star in

483
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,760
Speaker 2: Zack Snyder's upcoming sci fi film Rebel Moon, and looks

484
00:27:36,760 --> 00:27:40,919
Speaker 2: like she's prominently featured on the posters for that. But

485
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 2: in this she comes off like a like a total vampire,

486
00:27:44,520 --> 00:27:47,359
Speaker 2: a total seductress. In fact, when I first started watching this,

487
00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 2: I just assumed that both Doctor Zara and Line Lassiter

488
00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:54,520
Speaker 2: must be vampires. That must be where this episode is going.

489
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 2: Turns out that's not the case, but there's still a

490
00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 2: vampire quality to these characters. Yeah.

491
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 1: She has a clear fascination with power and evil that

492
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 1: you can sort of almost like feel in her mouth

493
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:09,440
Speaker 1: when she talks about it all right.

494
00:28:09,480 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 2: We also have a character by the name of Randall

495
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 2: Roth played by Eric Andre born nineteen eighty three American comedian, actor,

496
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 2: and musician. Probably best known, I guess, depending on your

497
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:23,040
Speaker 2: age and you know what your interests are, but probably

498
00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:25,679
Speaker 2: best known for Adult Swim's The Eric Andre Show or

499
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 2: his role on the second season of HBO's The Righteous Gemstones.

500
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:31,600
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but he's popped up in a lot of

501
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:33,919
Speaker 2: things over the years, and also, of course he has

502
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:36,359
Speaker 2: a stand up career, he does music. I think that

503
00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 2: I'm probably, like, not generally the target audience for his comedy,

504
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:43,480
Speaker 2: So I wasn't sure going into this film for the

505
00:28:43,520 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 2: first time exactly what sort of performance we'd be in for.

506
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 2: But I ultimately thought he was great in this. He's

507
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 2: able to lean into the more absurd and energetic aspects

508
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 2: of the script, like when this character is like screaming

509
00:28:55,800 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 2: or running, you know, he does a great job with that.

510
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:00,480
Speaker 2: But I also thought brought a lot of believer ability

511
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:02,720
Speaker 2: to the character in the quieter moments.

512
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, maybe I am more the target audience of

513
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 1: his comedy. I don't know. I kept expecting him to

514
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 1: reply to Lionel lassiter, saying, I don't trust like that.

515
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,760
Speaker 1: It is always surprising to me to see Eric Andre

516
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: in roles where he's actually playing a scripted character. I

517
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:24,640
Speaker 1: guess because on the Eric Andre Show, his personality is

518
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: like an extreme weather event. It's just totally uncontrollable and chaotic,

519
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 1: and it seems hard to believe that he could actually

520
00:29:32,720 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 1: just like say his lines and be in character. But

521
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:37,320
Speaker 1: of course he can, and he's quite good at it.

522
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 1: I really really enjoyed him in season two of The

523
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:43,200
Speaker 1: Righteous Gemstones, and I think he's great here too. Yeah.

524
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:46,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, A real treat, all right. The next actor of

525
00:29:46,480 --> 00:29:51,719
Speaker 2: note here playing the character Charlotte G is Charlene Yee

526
00:29:52,280 --> 00:29:56,760
Speaker 2: born nineteen eighty six American actor, comedian, musician, and writer.

527
00:29:57,520 --> 00:30:00,600
Speaker 2: I believe they have improv and musical roots. Their first

528
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:02,960
Speaker 2: film role was two thousand and sevens Knocked Up from

529
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 2: Judd Apatow, and they worked with him on some other

530
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 2: projects as well. Their voice work includes such Cartoon Network

531
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:12,920
Speaker 2: shows as Steven Universe and We Bear Bears.

532
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 1: I think this character is interesting because it is a

533
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:21,360
Speaker 1: very modest and socially awkward scientist character who is surrounded

534
00:30:21,400 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 1: mostly by hedonists and other various siniesthetes.

535
00:30:26,760 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 2: M yep, yeah, yeah, as we'll get to it. There's

536
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 2: a part where everyone gets their favorite drink, and Charlotte's

537
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 2: favorite drink is just a ginger ale. But I assume

538
00:30:36,520 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 2: a really good one, like one of those that comes

539
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:40,720
Speaker 2: in a nice bottle and you know, doesn't have a

540
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 2: lot of like crazy artificial sweeteners in it. We can

541
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:44,520
Speaker 2: really taste the ginger.

542
00:30:44,880 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 1: I too appreciate a high quality ginger ale.

543
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 2: But anyway, this, yeah, this is a fun Performance's adorable, awkward,

544
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:55,880
Speaker 2: believable in many many nice ways, like as we'll get into.

545
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 2: The dialogue in this at times I think has an

546
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:04,040
Speaker 2: intentional clunkiness to it. Yes, and it's interesting to see

547
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 2: which performers are able to breathe more life into those

548
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:10,239
Speaker 2: lines and which and the ones that I'm not going

549
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 2: to say can't but but don't perhaps due to artistic choices.

550
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 2: So I tended to believe Charlotte is a character which

551
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 2: I think pays off in the end.

552
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:22,479
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, all right.

553
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 2: We also have Steve ag playing Guy Landon, who is

554
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 2: kind of a grumpy caricature of a popular novelist I

555
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 2: don't know who in particular. This might be patterned after.

556
00:31:33,520 --> 00:31:35,959
Speaker 2: It's not it's not a Stephen King type character, but

557
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:39,200
Speaker 2: it's it's some sort of popular novelist who maybe is

558
00:31:39,280 --> 00:31:42,760
Speaker 2: not putting out as successful of work as he did

559
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 2: in previous years.

560
00:31:44,520 --> 00:31:48,400
Speaker 1: Well, I'm trying to think what novelists in the seventies

561
00:31:48,440 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: would be showing up on a lot of late night

562
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: talk shows. Is this supposed to be Norman Mahler or something? Maybe? Maybe?

563
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:58,160
Speaker 2: So Now Steve ag is an actor that's going to

564
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 2: going to be familiar to a number of view born

565
00:32:00,600 --> 00:32:04,920
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine, another noted comedic performer, best known to

566
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:07,959
Speaker 2: many for his recent work on some of the James

567
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 2: Gunn DC shows and films. I haven't watched any of those,

568
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:13,000
Speaker 2: but I think he has a recurring character on those.

569
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 2: I know him mostly from his role as Steve, one

570
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 2: of the neighbors I believe on the Sarah Silverman program

571
00:32:20,640 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 2: that ran two thousand and seven through twenty ten. He's

572
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:26,280
Speaker 2: also done a lot of voice work as well, because

573
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:29,680
Speaker 2: his very distinctive work, and like I say, is definitely

574
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:32,480
Speaker 2: a great comedic performer and can breathe a lot of

575
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 2: life into a comedic role.

576
00:32:34,800 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 1: He plays a role that conspicuously swears a lot.

577
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:43,239
Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah, swears a lot, And I think ultimately has

578
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 2: kind of like a B cinema feel to it because

579
00:32:46,760 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 2: this is the character, this is the character where the

580
00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 2: clunkier lines of dialogue feel intentionally clunky.

581
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:54,680
Speaker 1: Yes, but in a way that.

582
00:32:54,720 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 2: Kind of works.

583
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:59,080
Speaker 1: He talks kind of like a like he was written

584
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:02,840
Speaker 1: to sound like a detective in a in a hack

585
00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 1: seventies cop movie.

586
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely one of the performances in the film.

587
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 2: Every time I watch it, I kind of like, I

588
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 2: kind of kind of think it over a lot, and

589
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:14,360
Speaker 2: I'm like, what is what is it about this this

590
00:33:14,440 --> 00:33:17,959
Speaker 2: performance that like why does it feel this way? You know?

591
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:20,920
Speaker 2: And and I kind of go back and forth onto

592
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:24,640
Speaker 2: what degree it works, And I think I'm landing currently

593
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 2: in the area that it that it absolutely works, but

594
00:33:27,960 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 2: it is it's supposed to have this kind of B

595
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 2: cinema clunkiness to it.

596
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:32,320
Speaker 1: Now.

597
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:35,680
Speaker 2: We also have a character by the name of tard Reinhard,

598
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 2: played by Michael Fario, Canadian actor with extensive Shakespearean theater credits.

599
00:33:41,280 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 2: His TV credits include Himlock Grove, Rain and Chucky The

600
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:49,520
Speaker 2: Child's Play TV series. He has a recurring role on that. Yeah,

601
00:33:49,640 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 2: in this he's what a fraudulent psychic? Was that what

602
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 2: you would say psychic?

603
00:33:56,600 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: And I think just sort of like a new age

604
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 1: movement gear, it seems. So. The character is named Targ Rindheart,

605
00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 1: and I think this absolutely must be named after Russell Targ,

606
00:34:08,840 --> 00:34:13,319
Speaker 1: the American parapsychologist and physicist who was famous for being

607
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 1: one of the researchers affiliated with the Stanford Research Institute

608
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:20,719
Speaker 1: trying to prove the validity of various paranormal phenomena like

609
00:34:20,800 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 1: remote viewing. And so this character seems to me to

610
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:28,719
Speaker 1: be a caricature of first of all, like a combination

611
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: of paranormal evangelists like Targ and how put off in people,

612
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:37,720
Speaker 1: but also of their most famous subject, Uri Geller.

613
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:41,239
Speaker 2: Okay, absolutely, and I think there is some there's there's

614
00:34:41,320 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 2: mention of bending spoons with with one's mind, yeah in

615
00:34:45,000 --> 00:34:47,920
Speaker 2: this in this film. But yeah, this this is a

616
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:51,800
Speaker 2: very pompous and ridiculous, over the top character that's clearly

617
00:34:51,840 --> 00:34:55,480
Speaker 2: here mostly to just be mocked and for comedic effect,

618
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:58,319
Speaker 2: and is successful in that role.

619
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:02,040
Speaker 1: He multiple times caught talking about that which he knows,

620
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:05,319
Speaker 1: not like he's trying to opine on architecture and then

621
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:07,719
Speaker 1: like he doesn't actually know anything about architecture.

622
00:35:08,239 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of Guy Landon's lines are him just

623
00:35:11,000 --> 00:35:14,399
Speaker 2: you know, poking fun at or calling this character out

624
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:18,040
Speaker 2: on his bs. We also have a character named Hector,

625
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 2: who we ultimately don't know much about. He has this

626
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 2: great moment where it looks like he's going to tell

627
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:25,279
Speaker 2: us his story, but then he gets cut off and

628
00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 2: doesn't get to tell the story. But Hector is played

629
00:35:28,480 --> 00:35:32,959
Speaker 2: by Sad Sadiki, Pakistan born actor with TV and film

630
00:35:32,960 --> 00:35:34,759
Speaker 2: credits going back to around two thousand and seven. He's

631
00:35:34,760 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 2: popped up on such shows as Nikita, Orphan, Black Star, Trek, Discovery,

632
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:41,800
Speaker 2: The Handmaid's Tale, and DC's Legends of Tomorrow.

633
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 1: I like his vibe. I like Hector has a lot

634
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:48,920
Speaker 1: of scenes of just kind of standing there looking at

635
00:35:48,920 --> 00:35:51,799
Speaker 1: the rest of the cast and kind of gently smiling

636
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:54,080
Speaker 1: or nodding. Yeah, it's a good vibe.

637
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:57,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's I think low Ki the best humorous character

638
00:35:57,239 --> 00:36:00,239
Speaker 2: in the film. He's used very well.

639
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 1: Wait does he the one driving the van when he

640
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 1: tells everybody they have to stop talking and listen to

641
00:36:05,400 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 1: the audio program?

642
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I believe he is all right, now, mild spoiler,

643
00:36:11,440 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 2: there will be a creature suit in this film, and

644
00:36:15,320 --> 00:36:19,160
Speaker 2: the actor in that creature suit is Kevin Keppi, a

645
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:22,680
Speaker 2: six ' five character and creature actor whose credits include

646
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:26,280
Speaker 2: another installment of Cabinet of Curiosities and also the twenty

647
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:30,000
Speaker 2: twenty two movie Smile, in which he plays a character

648
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:34,960
Speaker 2: credited as Nightmare Mom. So, like I said, if there's

649
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:37,960
Speaker 2: anybody that is in a creature suit in a picture,

650
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:40,759
Speaker 2: I always want to call him out because I get

651
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:44,320
Speaker 2: the impression. I'm not sure what all went into making

652
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:46,840
Speaker 2: the creature we see later in the film work, but

653
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 2: it looks like there's some good physical performance at the

654
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 2: heart of it.

655
00:36:50,840 --> 00:36:54,000
Speaker 1: Well, you said six five character and creature actor. Did

656
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:57,799
Speaker 1: you mean this actor is six foot five inches or

657
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:00,360
Speaker 1: you are rating this person six out of five?

658
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 2: No, he's six foot five. So he's like, based on

659
00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:05,880
Speaker 2: the images I've seen of him, he's like a tall

660
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:10,680
Speaker 2: slender man, which you know we've as we've seen seems

661
00:37:10,719 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 2: to work well for a lot of modern physical horror characters.

662
00:37:15,840 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 2: Like back in the old day, in the gorilla suit days,

663
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:21,200
Speaker 2: which you really wanted was more of like a short,

664
00:37:21,880 --> 00:37:25,799
Speaker 2: thick individual who could really occupy that gorilla suit, and

665
00:37:25,840 --> 00:37:28,800
Speaker 2: then the gorilla suit still has a place in modern monsters,

666
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:32,160
Speaker 2: I think, but it seems like, you know, past few decades,

667
00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:34,840
Speaker 2: some of the real standouts have been more of the tall,

668
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 2: lanky sort. Finally getting to the music on this one,

669
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 2: which is the music is always an important part of

670
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,640
Speaker 2: Penos Cosmatos film. Beyond the Black Rainbow feature the work

671
00:37:45,800 --> 00:37:49,680
Speaker 2: of Sonoia Caves, the solo project of Black Mountain synth

672
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:53,600
Speaker 2: player Jeremy Schmidt. Mandy featured one of the final scores

673
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 2: of Johann Johansen, and this one is scored by experimental

674
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:04,279
Speaker 2: electronic artist Daniel Lopatin born nineteen eighty two. He also

675
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 2: did the score for twenty nineteen's Uncut Gems, which that's

676
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 2: the Adam Sandler film that I thought was depressing but

677
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:16,200
Speaker 2: quite good and had a great, great score.

678
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 1: It's a downer and it's highly stressful, but it's a

679
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 1: great movie. Yeah.

680
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:24,640
Speaker 2: Absolutely. Le Patten also did twenty seventeen's Good Time, twenty

681
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:28,640
Speaker 2: fifteens Partisan, and twenty thirteen's The Bling Ring. I think

682
00:38:28,640 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 2: that was a Sofia Coppola film, and his main solo

683
00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 2: project is one O Trix point never or OPN. I

684
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:40,120
Speaker 2: believe he's signed a warp. I'm not familiar with his discography,

685
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:44,920
Speaker 2: but JJ is JJ chimed in here and set a

686
00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 2: straight on how to pronounce this one O tricks point never.

687
00:38:48,920 --> 00:38:50,239
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to have to check it out.

688
00:38:50,239 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 1: I haven't.

689
00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 2: I haven't really checked anything out beyond his work for

690
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 2: this particular film, but it's I feel like that the

691
00:38:57,440 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 2: score for The Viewing it has some nice range to it.

692
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 2: At times there's kind of this like an Andy's tape

693
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:07,160
Speaker 2: loop kind of a thing going on, like some some

694
00:39:07,239 --> 00:39:11,680
Speaker 2: looped flutes playing. Other times it's like a driving eighties

695
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:14,960
Speaker 2: pot feel, or other times, of course, it's glittering synths

696
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:16,200
Speaker 2: and much more.

697
00:39:16,719 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: There's also just kind of an eighties bass club loop

698
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:21,719
Speaker 1: that plays a bit while they're they're hanging out on

699
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: the couch.

700
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:26,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and and and it's varied in part because

701
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:31,080
Speaker 2: this music also makes up the custom soundtrack that linel

702
00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 2: Lassiter has commissioned for the for his house, so it's

703
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:39,960
Speaker 2: a lot of fun anyway. You can find a mashup

704
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:42,560
Speaker 2: of all of his music for The Viewing in the

705
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:45,680
Speaker 2: track The Viewing Suite, which was released on the Cabinet

706
00:39:45,960 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 2: of Curiosity soundtrack. You can stream that wherever you get

707
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 2: your music.

708
00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 1: Did you ever get the sense that when Lionel Lassiter

709
00:39:51,840 --> 00:39:55,200
Speaker 1: was bragging about the things he had people make for him,

710
00:39:55,239 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 1: it was kind of like Panos was in the character

711
00:39:58,680 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 1: bragging about the things he had people make for him

712
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:02,960
Speaker 1: for his movie His House.

713
00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:06,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess in a sense you could apply that

714
00:40:06,320 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 2: to Panos, but also Gamal del Toro. You know, Gama

715
00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:12,040
Speaker 2: de Toros, you know, is well known for being sort

716
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 2: of like the maestro at the center of the film,

717
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 2: bringing on a lot of like very talented individuals to

718
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 2: help craft you know, not only the you know, the

719
00:40:21,360 --> 00:40:25,000
Speaker 2: performance of the roles, but certainly like the all the artistry,

720
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:27,560
Speaker 2: bringing in you know, well known illustrators and so forth

721
00:40:27,600 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 2: to help bring something alive visually. So in a way,

722
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 2: Lassiter is kind of like this darker vision of a

723
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:37,560
Speaker 2: Panos or a Guillermo. And in a way though that whereas,

724
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:40,800
Speaker 2: whereas Panos and Gamaldo Toro are both trying to create

725
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 2: something for the world to consume, Lionel Lassiter is creating

726
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:48,839
Speaker 2: something entirely for his own enjoyment at least. I mean,

727
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 2: he also seems to want to, you know, send people

728
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:53,040
Speaker 2: off in the world to do great things, but he

729
00:40:53,120 --> 00:40:55,280
Speaker 2: also wants some things just for himself.

730
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:05,960
Speaker 1: All right, well, I guess this is the part of

731
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 1: the episode where we would normally talk about the plot.

732
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:11,920
Speaker 1: But as we talked about earlier, Number one Panos films

733
00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:16,440
Speaker 1: are not especially plot driven, so I don't think this

734
00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: This doesn't feel like one where it really makes sense

735
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:22,760
Speaker 1: to me to recap the plot in minute detail. Maybe instead,

736
00:41:22,760 --> 00:41:25,200
Speaker 1: I think we should like focus on the series of

737
00:41:25,280 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 1: sets and set pieces that emerge in succession throughout the

738
00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:31,720
Speaker 1: runtime and discuss how they're used.

739
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:35,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have we don't have, well, I said, we

740
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:38,799
Speaker 2: don't have very many set pieces in this film, but

741
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 2: the ones that we do have are are pretty splendid

742
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:43,839
Speaker 2: and we get to spend a lot of time in them.

743
00:41:44,200 --> 00:41:47,759
Speaker 1: Now, at the beginning, we get the characters before they

744
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:53,920
Speaker 1: go to Lassiter's mansion, gathering in a parking garage, so

745
00:41:53,960 --> 00:41:56,279
Speaker 1: they all the all the main characters, the four main

746
00:41:56,360 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 1: characters have been summoned to Lassiter's house house on Haunted

747
00:42:00,600 --> 00:42:03,839
Speaker 1: Hills style with a formal invitation. They don't know each

748
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 1: other and they don't know him, though it seems they

749
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 1: I think all know about him. He seems to have

750
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 1: a reputation for being rich and powerful, though people don't

751
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:13,719
Speaker 1: know how he made his fortune.

752
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, there seems to be. They describe him as being

753
00:42:17,080 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 2: someone that used to see on TV one assumes all

754
00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:23,799
Speaker 2: the time, and now he's become more reclusive and more mysterious,

755
00:42:23,840 --> 00:42:26,360
Speaker 2: and yeah, suddenly there's an invitation to attend a viewing

756
00:42:26,760 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 2: at his fabulous Sandpiper House, which you get the impression

757
00:42:30,719 --> 00:42:33,160
Speaker 2: is like the house itself is famous because it has

758
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 2: no doubt been designed by some truly gifted architect, and

759
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 2: every aspect of it has been tailored to Linel Lasseter's

760
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 2: a specific taste.

761
00:42:44,440 --> 00:42:46,440
Speaker 1: What do you think about setting the meeting of these

762
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:50,640
Speaker 1: characters in this dark parking garage at night? Something about

763
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:56,760
Speaker 1: that just seems like such a powerful allusion to films

764
00:42:56,800 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 1: of the eighties that seemed to me very obsessed with

765
00:43:00,320 --> 00:43:03,480
Speaker 1: the parking garage as a threatening atmosphere.

766
00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:06,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I guess some of that is

767
00:43:07,200 --> 00:43:12,240
Speaker 2: what post Watergate, right, that parking garages are where you know, shadier,

768
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:15,719
Speaker 2: secretive dealings go on. The parking garage is also the

769
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:20,000
Speaker 2: it's the underworld that we have created to allow our

770
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 2: vehicular obsession to take over everything. And it's interesting, this

771
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:27,520
Speaker 2: is the the main view we get of the outside

772
00:43:27,560 --> 00:43:31,120
Speaker 2: world of this film that we do get a wider

773
00:43:31,239 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 2: view at the end of a city of the city scape,

774
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:37,160
Speaker 2: but the city scape is also going to be very

775
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:42,759
Speaker 2: Parking Deck esque, you know, like sort of just grimy, dismal, concrete,

776
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:44,640
Speaker 2: kind of a world devoid of flavor.

777
00:43:45,640 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we meet the characters. They meet I think

778
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:54,800
Speaker 1: it's when Charlotte the astrophysicist arrives and meets the other characters.

779
00:43:54,800 --> 00:43:57,600
Speaker 1: They sort of introduce each other and they say, what

780
00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 1: do they all have in common? They don't know each other,

781
00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:04,719
Speaker 1: but they say they've all been on late night talk shows,

782
00:44:05,320 --> 00:44:07,480
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh man, this just seems like so

783
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:11,400
Speaker 1: much in the Panos lane. This like seventies New Age lane.

784
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:16,400
Speaker 1: You're imagining people who would show up on a seventies

785
00:44:17,280 --> 00:44:20,880
Speaker 1: late night talk show to talk about how they've you know,

786
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 1: discovered psychic powers are real or something. I'm kind of

787
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: imagining it's the show where they interview the TV set

788
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:31,239
Speaker 1: containing Professor Brian Oblivion and videodrome.

789
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:36,400
Speaker 2: So not even like a second or third guest on

790
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:38,839
Speaker 2: say Late Night with David Letterman back in the day,

791
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:41,840
Speaker 2: but like somebody you would see on some other strange

792
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:46,520
Speaker 2: talk show that is in the even later that comes

793
00:44:46,560 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 2: on after Letterman.

794
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 1: I don't even know if that's a real thing. I

795
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:53,400
Speaker 1: have an impression that it was that there were like weirder,

796
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:56,879
Speaker 1: sort of more off brand talk shows that would have

797
00:44:56,920 --> 00:45:00,359
Speaker 1: the like really zany guests and everything. Back then, you know,

798
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 1: you got your mainstream I don't know, Dick Cavit and stuff,

799
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:06,399
Speaker 1: and then you've got the stuff that comes on late

800
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:08,799
Speaker 1: at night. Is that even real? I don't know, but

801
00:45:09,600 --> 00:45:12,360
Speaker 1: Panos has convinced me that's part of part of history.

802
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:14,360
Speaker 2: I think it may have been the case, especially in

803
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:15,799
Speaker 2: markets like LA and New York.

804
00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:20,200
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Like what is in Ghostbusters too? Peter Vinkman

805
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:23,680
Speaker 1: runs a weird talk show, doesn't they? And I feel

806
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:27,919
Speaker 1: like that must be sort of parodying something that existed. Yeah.

807
00:45:28,040 --> 00:45:30,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd be interested to hear from folks who grew

808
00:45:30,360 --> 00:45:32,560
Speaker 2: up in those media markets that can can speak to that.

809
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 2: So anyway, these are characters who they're used to getting

810
00:45:36,360 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 2: the invitation and accepting apparently without really too much thought

811
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:43,919
Speaker 2: into the matter, and they have accepted. They say, yeah,

812
00:45:43,920 --> 00:45:46,439
Speaker 2: I'll go to the Sam Piper House and neat Line

813
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:49,600
Speaker 2: Molasseter And so the van has come to pick them up.

814
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:52,400
Speaker 1: Now the van is being driven by the character Hector,

815
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: and this is the part where they're initially talking as

816
00:45:55,239 --> 00:45:57,440
Speaker 1: they load into the back of the van and drive along.

817
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:00,240
Speaker 1: But at some point Hector tells them to stop talking

818
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:01,600
Speaker 1: and they have to listen to it. I think he

819
00:46:01,680 --> 00:46:05,719
Speaker 1: calls it the audio program, but it's like the Lasstter

820
00:46:05,760 --> 00:46:09,360
Speaker 1: has some music that they are specifically assigned to listen

821
00:46:09,400 --> 00:46:11,719
Speaker 1: to on the on the right of the house, more

822
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:14,839
Speaker 1: synth music. And I don't know that I like that.

823
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:17,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was kind of wondering if at one point

824
00:46:17,880 --> 00:46:20,920
Speaker 2: it was going they were going to have like some

825
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:23,080
Speaker 2: Peter Weller voice over there and that was gonna be

826
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:25,400
Speaker 2: the audio program. Then they decided that the synth music

827
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:27,839
Speaker 2: work better. But yeah, at any rate, I like it.

828
00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:29,880
Speaker 1: No, this is just that this is the music he

829
00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:32,760
Speaker 1: wants them to listen to. And I think it's somewhere

830
00:46:32,800 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 1: around here that we also first get our glimpse of

831
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:41,680
Speaker 1: Peter Weller's character Lionel Lassiter himself, where we see him

832
00:46:41,719 --> 00:46:45,600
Speaker 1: in an environment just flooded with orange light, with his

833
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:50,880
Speaker 1: head almost looking kind of triangular, surrounded by wispy gray

834
00:46:51,000 --> 00:46:54,360
Speaker 1: or white hair, and he looks like an absolute lizard,

835
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 1: kind of a vampire, kind of a mummy. Or also

836
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:03,040
Speaker 1: I thought of a very cific movie analog, which is

837
00:47:03,200 --> 00:47:07,760
Speaker 1: he looks like the witch in the Stan Winston movie Pumpkinhead.

838
00:47:08,680 --> 00:47:12,040
Speaker 2: Hmmm. I think that's that's a strong possibility, because so,

839
00:47:12,200 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 2: I mean, Panos loves his weird colored lights, but he

840
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:19,120
Speaker 2: also includes many homages to different films, and you know,

841
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:21,279
Speaker 2: this seems kind of like one of those sort of

842
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:24,799
Speaker 2: rub the fur films, certainly from the you know, the

843
00:47:24,880 --> 00:47:26,680
Speaker 2: decades of interest to this filmmaker.

844
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:29,279
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. And I think we've talked about on the

845
00:47:29,320 --> 00:47:33,040
Speaker 1: show before. Pumpkinhead kind of has some shortcomings in terms

846
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:36,440
Speaker 1: of storytelling, but has some great visual flare. There are

847
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:40,600
Speaker 1: a lot of scenes with really excellent horror atmosphere and

848
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:43,560
Speaker 1: lighting and a good, tall, spindly creature that I think

849
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:45,800
Speaker 1: you could compare somewhat to this one later on.

850
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:47,600
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good point. That's a good point.

851
00:47:47,840 --> 00:47:51,160
Speaker 1: But anyway, so they are taken to the mansion, to

852
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:56,240
Speaker 1: the Sandpiper House, and they are summoned to this living

853
00:47:56,320 --> 00:48:01,280
Speaker 1: room with a circle of sunken coaches in the middle

854
00:48:01,360 --> 00:48:06,320
Speaker 1: of the floor. And I think this room, I again

855
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:09,000
Speaker 1: just get the feeling that the vision of this room

856
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:12,239
Speaker 1: was a major reason this episode was made, so I

857
00:48:12,239 --> 00:48:15,479
Speaker 1: think we should describe it in great detail. So it's

858
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:17,799
Speaker 1: like I said, in the middle of the room there

859
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 1: is a table and it is surrounded by sunken couches

860
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:24,960
Speaker 1: with sort of leather what do you call that kind

861
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:28,880
Speaker 1: of stuffed leather backing. And then in the middle of

862
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:31,920
Speaker 1: the room there is a chandelier of sorts that looks

863
00:48:32,040 --> 00:48:36,520
Speaker 1: like an inverted conical mound of organ pipes or maybe

864
00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:40,560
Speaker 1: like a columnar basalt hanging from the ceiling, so the

865
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:43,600
Speaker 1: ceiling slopes inward toward it, and then it forms a

866
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:46,320
Speaker 1: kind of almost like a like a nozzle or a

867
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:49,759
Speaker 1: nipple in the middle of the ceiling of these like

868
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:56,160
Speaker 1: pillars all around. On the floor, there is this decorative

869
00:48:56,200 --> 00:48:59,760
Speaker 1: motif that's like these big U shaped bins like giant

870
00:48:59,760 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 1: horse shoe magnets with long bars coming out. It seems

871
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:07,920
Speaker 1: kind of a maybe kind of an Art Deco suggestive design.

872
00:49:08,719 --> 00:49:13,360
Speaker 1: And then the room is a wash in gold and

873
00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:17,200
Speaker 1: orange light. And then on the walls there are these

874
00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 1: backlit circular panels that have guns mounted in them. So

875
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:24,319
Speaker 1: there's like an AK forty seven that you only see

876
00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:28,520
Speaker 1: in shadow because it's got gold light blasting from behind it.

877
00:49:29,280 --> 00:49:32,080
Speaker 2: Yes, and yet there's a hint of as tech architecture

878
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:33,279
Speaker 2: to the whole thing, isn't there.

879
00:49:33,600 --> 00:49:36,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's what the character targ says. He's like

880
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 1: musing about how it's as tech inspired or something, and

881
00:49:41,560 --> 00:49:45,160
Speaker 1: is repeatedly called out for not knowing what he's talking about.

882
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:49,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, this whole space is just splendid, Like you when

883
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:53,480
Speaker 2: you first roll into it, and as you roll into

884
00:49:53,520 --> 00:49:57,400
Speaker 2: this this kind of point of view shot, it feels

885
00:49:57,480 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 2: like this is a space you're exploring in the film Baraka.

886
00:50:01,000 --> 00:50:06,320
Speaker 2: You know, it feels otherworldly and kind of sacred. It

887
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:10,080
Speaker 2: also feels like maybe it should be on arracas, you

888
00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:13,839
Speaker 2: know it. Oh man, it's just such a strange and

889
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:14,640
Speaker 2: lovely set.

890
00:50:15,000 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 1: Now when they first arrive, I think it's interesting that

891
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:23,799
Speaker 1: Lasseter's people start a succession of treats which are like

892
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:27,000
Speaker 1: it starts with a drink of choice for each person,

893
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:30,640
Speaker 1: but progresses into alcohol and drugs that there. It's like

894
00:50:30,680 --> 00:50:34,520
Speaker 1: a it's almost like a tasting course of different sort

895
00:50:34,560 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 1: of enticements for the mouth, most beverage based and then

896
00:50:38,640 --> 00:50:42,719
Speaker 1: drug based. So the first thing that they see when

897
00:50:42,719 --> 00:50:44,880
Speaker 1: they get there is they're asked to sit next to

898
00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 1: your favorite drink. So for Targ, it is a beer

899
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:50,600
Speaker 1: that he dubs superb, And I was thinking, is beer

900
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:53,719
Speaker 1: really Targ's drink? I don't know. But then the funniest

901
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:57,080
Speaker 1: one for me is Landon sits down. He tastes something,

902
00:50:57,120 --> 00:50:59,840
Speaker 1: He's like, wow, it's the perfect screw driver.

903
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:06,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is so strange because a screwdriver. I mean,

904
00:51:06,239 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 2: if memory serves screwdrivers just vodka and orange juice.

905
00:51:08,880 --> 00:51:10,960
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, that's what it is. That's a I don't

906
00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:12,919
Speaker 1: want to insult. I mean, you know, if people enjoy

907
00:51:12,960 --> 00:51:15,239
Speaker 1: screwdriver or whatever, but I think of it that's a

908
00:51:15,400 --> 00:51:18,719
Speaker 1: utility drink. That's something I think of, like, I don't know,

909
00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:21,960
Speaker 1: college students drinking. It's it's not usually the kind of

910
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:25,799
Speaker 1: thing where people would be like, oh, it's amazing, superb screwdriver.

911
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:28,840
Speaker 2: Yeah it's And I guess that's why it's so funny,

912
00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:31,680
Speaker 2: because yeah, I don't even think the proportions are necessary

913
00:51:31,680 --> 00:51:34,399
Speaker 2: for the screwdriver, like on a lark here, I went

914
00:51:34,440 --> 00:51:36,799
Speaker 2: to Imbibe Magazine's website, and I was like, Okay, I'm

915
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:38,640
Speaker 2: gonna put in screwdriver and see if it comes up,

916
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:41,680
Speaker 2: because sometimes they have They'll still have some very simple

917
00:51:41,719 --> 00:51:45,879
Speaker 2: classic drink cocktail cocktail recipes listed there, but nothing comes

918
00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:48,359
Speaker 2: up for screwdriver. They're just like, get out of here,

919
00:51:48,760 --> 00:51:50,560
Speaker 2: looking for a screwdriver.

920
00:51:50,040 --> 00:51:54,200
Speaker 1: On this website. Yeah, and so there's that. But then

921
00:51:54,280 --> 00:51:58,120
Speaker 1: also what the other characters get as interesting. Charlotte gets

922
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:00,600
Speaker 1: just a ginger ale I think we mentioned that earlier

923
00:52:00,680 --> 00:52:04,480
Speaker 1: that says it's a great changerial. And then Frow, Theeric

924
00:52:04,520 --> 00:52:08,520
Speaker 1: Andre's character, gets some lapsong souchong tea. I don't know

925
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 1: anything about that, But Robbie, do you have an opinion

926
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:13,359
Speaker 1: on what's the perfect lapsung sou chong?

927
00:52:14,080 --> 00:52:16,799
Speaker 2: This is not a tea I have any knowledge off,

928
00:52:16,920 --> 00:52:21,439
Speaker 2: so I can't. I don't know. There are so many

929
00:52:21,480 --> 00:52:25,320
Speaker 2: teas and I am only familiar with the very slim

930
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:29,440
Speaker 2: selection of them. But I do like the detail where

931
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:31,640
Speaker 2: he says it's just the right amount of honey as sweetener.

932
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:36,719
Speaker 2: So their host, Lionel Lassiter here seems to have just

933
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:41,200
Speaker 2: a supernatural knowledge of what their exact desires are.

934
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:44,160
Speaker 1: I just looked it up. It is real. Lapsung sou

935
00:52:44,239 --> 00:52:48,440
Speaker 1: chong is a black tea made with camellia sinense sleeves

936
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:52,320
Speaker 1: that is smoke dried over a pine wood fire, cold smoked.

937
00:52:52,719 --> 00:52:56,120
Speaker 2: M well, that sounds quite good. That yeah. Targ's beer,

938
00:52:56,200 --> 00:52:57,960
Speaker 2: He's like, it's it's a perfect beer.

939
00:52:58,080 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 1: It's so cold. Okay, Well, anyway, but like I said,

940
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:06,480
Speaker 1: there's sort of a series. It's like it's like a

941
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:10,760
Speaker 1: tasting course menu, you know, there is a series of temptations.

942
00:53:10,800 --> 00:53:13,839
Speaker 1: So after this they are treating, a lassitter comes out

943
00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:16,439
Speaker 1: and he tells the story of this amazing whiskey from

944
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:20,399
Speaker 1: Japan that has survived bombings and earthquakes, and then they

945
00:53:20,440 --> 00:53:23,800
Speaker 1: pour it for all of them. And there's a detail

946
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:26,040
Speaker 1: about the table that you can just see as one

947
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 1: of these like textural details that was was imagined early

948
00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:33,000
Speaker 1: on that the outer rim of the table rotates around,

949
00:53:33,160 --> 00:53:36,960
Speaker 1: so like as doctor Zara pours these drinks, they just

950
00:53:37,040 --> 00:53:39,880
Speaker 1: sort of like get rolled around the table to their recipient.

951
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:44,080
Speaker 2: I've also read it the glasses they drink this whiskey

952
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:47,400
Speaker 2: from are supposedly the same glasses that we see in

953
00:53:47,480 --> 00:53:50,960
Speaker 2: Blade Runner. Oh really, oh, supposedly, I have not I

954
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:53,120
Speaker 2: have not fact checked it, but it sounds appropriate. It

955
00:53:53,160 --> 00:53:55,520
Speaker 2: sounds like the sort of detail that would be present

956
00:53:55,560 --> 00:54:04,560
Speaker 2: in this film.

957
00:54:04,640 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 1: Now, as the characters talk in these scenes, I thought

958
00:54:08,160 --> 00:54:11,440
Speaker 1: that there was something different about the viewing compared to

959
00:54:11,840 --> 00:54:14,560
Speaker 1: the two Penes Cosmatos movies I've seen, which is that

960
00:54:14,680 --> 00:54:17,480
Speaker 1: in this one there seem to be a kind of

961
00:54:17,920 --> 00:54:22,000
Speaker 1: conscious attempt at anti realism in some of the acting

962
00:54:22,040 --> 00:54:26,239
Speaker 1: and dialogue and characterization, Like this was not true of

963
00:54:26,239 --> 00:54:29,399
Speaker 1: the two movies, but characters here sometimes speak like they

964
00:54:29,440 --> 00:54:33,399
Speaker 1: are deliberately avoiding verisimilitude, if you know what I mean, Rob,

965
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:36,719
Speaker 1: There's a kind of like I found it enjoyable, but

966
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:40,800
Speaker 1: a kind of awkward, stiltedness and unnatural quality to the

967
00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:44,200
Speaker 1: rhythm of some of the conversations that plays into the comedy.

968
00:54:44,640 --> 00:54:46,680
Speaker 1: And this is not something I would say about either

969
00:54:46,719 --> 00:54:51,240
Speaker 1: of Panos' movies, in which again, in those movies sometimes

970
00:54:51,320 --> 00:54:54,520
Speaker 1: have an unreal quality, but it's more dream like, whereas

971
00:54:54,600 --> 00:54:58,920
Speaker 1: this is more a kind of intentional B movie awkwardness.

972
00:54:59,280 --> 00:55:01,319
Speaker 1: It seems like unique choice here. I don't know what

973
00:55:01,360 --> 00:55:02,040
Speaker 1: you think about that.

974
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:04,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's that seems to be part of

975
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:08,560
Speaker 2: the intention here that yeah, an intentional B movie awkwardness

976
00:55:08,600 --> 00:55:11,960
Speaker 2: to at least some of the performances, and I you know,

977
00:55:12,040 --> 00:55:14,160
Speaker 2: I think it might also you could also look at

978
00:55:14,200 --> 00:55:16,400
Speaker 2: it from another direction too, and look at like, this

979
00:55:16,520 --> 00:55:20,200
Speaker 2: is ultimately a film about like people and their desires

980
00:55:20,560 --> 00:55:23,960
Speaker 2: and the things that they are grasping for, questing after

981
00:55:24,080 --> 00:55:27,520
Speaker 2: in life. And two of the characters, really, the two

982
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:32,279
Speaker 2: that often feel the like the clunkiest, are also the

983
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:36,480
Speaker 2: ones that are the most full of it, Target land

984
00:55:36,520 --> 00:55:39,120
Speaker 2: and you know they're Landon is just there to sort

985
00:55:39,160 --> 00:55:42,560
Speaker 2: of like puff up his chest and take things out

986
00:55:42,600 --> 00:55:47,640
Speaker 2: on Targ. Targ is there to sound brilliant and insightful certainly,

987
00:55:48,040 --> 00:55:50,400
Speaker 2: you know, despite the fact that his whole identity is

988
00:55:50,440 --> 00:55:55,200
Speaker 2: tied up in just a lie and just nonsense. And

989
00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:57,680
Speaker 2: so those are the characters, yeah, that stand out the

990
00:55:57,719 --> 00:56:00,000
Speaker 2: most with this clunky quality.

991
00:56:00,520 --> 00:56:03,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. And it's interesting to see like how

992
00:56:03,080 --> 00:56:06,680
Speaker 1: the characters behave in the scene, like so as they're

993
00:56:06,719 --> 00:56:09,280
Speaker 1: given you know, the drinks and the drugs and stuff.

994
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:14,239
Speaker 1: So it progresses from this onto them smoking things and

995
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:18,400
Speaker 1: snorting things. And guy Landon's just like on board, he

996
00:56:18,520 --> 00:56:22,840
Speaker 1: just wants it all and it's interesting targ sort of

997
00:56:22,880 --> 00:56:27,080
Speaker 1: tries to resist but then gives into it. Charlotte seems

998
00:56:27,120 --> 00:56:31,000
Speaker 1: to not naturally have a very indulgent personality, but is

999
00:56:31,320 --> 00:56:34,920
Speaker 1: also just curious in this situation, whereas Roth is an

1000
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:37,799
Speaker 1: interesting character because this is the Eric Andre character. He

1001
00:56:38,200 --> 00:56:42,360
Speaker 1: is trying to trying to resist the life of like

1002
00:56:42,400 --> 00:56:44,840
Speaker 1: he's trying to quit smoking. He's trying to resist the

1003
00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:48,160
Speaker 1: life of drugs and alcohol and all that that he

1004
00:56:48,239 --> 00:56:49,200
Speaker 1: is so accustomed to.

1005
00:56:49,800 --> 00:56:52,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, he knows that that there's a line, and he

1006
00:56:52,040 --> 00:56:54,360
Speaker 2: crosses that line. He's not going to be able to

1007
00:56:54,400 --> 00:56:57,759
Speaker 2: control his consumption, but he has enough self control to

1008
00:56:57,840 --> 00:57:00,080
Speaker 2: sort of stay away from that line, or try to

1009
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:01,919
Speaker 2: to for most of the runtime here.

1010
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:08,239
Speaker 1: But also it's funny throughout this there's this kind of puffery,

1011
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:12,560
Speaker 1: people building themselves up, like Lasseter and Landon and these

1012
00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:15,799
Speaker 1: people trying to impress everyone else. Lastener, at one point

1013
00:57:15,840 --> 00:57:20,320
Speaker 1: he starts quoting proverbs to encourage everybody else to indulge

1014
00:57:20,440 --> 00:57:23,520
Speaker 1: like he He says, every person has two lives, the

1015
00:57:23,560 --> 00:57:26,720
Speaker 1: person they were before and the person they were after

1016
00:57:26,960 --> 00:57:30,640
Speaker 1: they realized they only have one. I don't know if

1017
00:57:30,680 --> 00:57:32,840
Speaker 1: that's a real proverb, but.

1018
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:35,360
Speaker 2: It sounds convincing coming from Lasseter. You're like, yeah, I

1019
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:38,600
Speaker 2: guess I should have space cocaine because of course, the

1020
00:57:38,960 --> 00:57:41,920
Speaker 2: we learned that doctor Zaras like has this, you know this,

1021
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:44,720
Speaker 2: this kind of shady background is involved in essentially like

1022
00:57:45,080 --> 00:57:49,520
Speaker 2: mad blood science, and this this space cocaine that she's

1023
00:57:49,560 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 2: providing everyone with has like some it's like high grade

1024
00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:55,160
Speaker 2: and has some sort of like blue additive to it

1025
00:57:55,200 --> 00:57:58,920
Speaker 2: that is going to make everyone's experience perfect because ultimately,

1026
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:02,880
Speaker 2: as we learn, is here to yes, to pump everybody

1027
00:58:02,920 --> 00:58:07,320
Speaker 2: full of illicit substances, but also to encourage them and

1028
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:10,880
Speaker 2: to get everybody synced up for a singular experience, the

1029
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:14,520
Speaker 2: titular viewing of a particular object.

1030
00:58:15,040 --> 00:58:17,520
Speaker 1: And what is that viewing. Well, he gets them into

1031
00:58:17,520 --> 00:58:21,760
Speaker 1: the chamber to look at the obelisk. Now, I think

1032
00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:24,080
Speaker 1: there are a few rules of the chamber with the.

1033
00:58:24,040 --> 00:58:29,800
Speaker 2: Obelisk, or one rule, and that is there's no smoking

1034
00:58:29,840 --> 00:58:35,080
Speaker 2: in the obelisk chamber. We do learn this the hard way,

1035
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:38,880
Speaker 2: But other than that, I think it's just whatever goes.

1036
00:58:38,960 --> 00:58:41,880
Speaker 2: You're allowed to touch the obelisk apparently, and you're encouraged

1037
00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:46,120
Speaker 2: to look at it and to discuss your ideas concerning

1038
00:58:46,160 --> 00:58:46,840
Speaker 2: what it might be.

1039
00:58:47,600 --> 00:58:51,320
Speaker 1: Well, I like, how did I remember this correctly? That

1040
00:58:51,400 --> 00:58:54,920
Speaker 1: really there is no information on what the obelisk is

1041
00:58:55,000 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 1: or where it comes from. Is that right?

1042
00:58:57,320 --> 00:59:01,240
Speaker 2: Yeah? Lasstor tells us that he obtained it, like at

1043
00:59:01,280 --> 00:59:04,040
Speaker 2: the ultimate cost and at great expense and so forth.

1044
00:59:04,080 --> 00:59:06,680
Speaker 2: That you know, but that's it. And when they ask him,

1045
00:59:06,720 --> 00:59:08,800
Speaker 2: like what is it, He's like, I have no idea.

1046
00:59:09,320 --> 00:59:12,920
Speaker 2: So it's a complete anomaly. There's no if. There's no

1047
00:59:13,080 --> 00:59:15,320
Speaker 2: discussion of oh, well this fell from the sky or

1048
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:17,960
Speaker 2: this was discovered you know, on the bottom of the

1049
00:59:17,960 --> 00:59:20,440
Speaker 2: ocean or in the deepest caverns of the earth. No,

1050
00:59:21,320 --> 00:59:24,400
Speaker 2: here it is. I have obtained it. Take a look

1051
00:59:24,440 --> 00:59:26,560
Speaker 2: at it. You tell me what you think it is.

1052
00:59:27,040 --> 00:59:30,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is zero information about it except here it is.

1053
00:59:30,240 --> 00:59:32,120
Speaker 1: I have it, and now you're looking at it.

1054
00:59:32,840 --> 00:59:37,040
Speaker 2: Tests that they've run have been inconclusive. The X rays

1055
00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:41,120
Speaker 2: tell them nothing. But for some reason they do have

1056
00:59:41,200 --> 00:59:42,920
Speaker 2: this idea that you should not smoke around it.

1057
00:59:43,240 --> 00:59:45,560
Speaker 1: That's just common sense. I mean, So what is it.

1058
00:59:45,560 --> 00:59:51,920
Speaker 1: It's like a large black object with many different surfaces

1059
00:59:51,960 --> 00:59:55,720
Speaker 1: and indentations and projections. In a way, it looks almost

1060
00:59:55,760 --> 00:59:57,480
Speaker 1: like a bit of xenomorph biology.

1061
00:59:58,240 --> 01:00:01,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's kind of a geeger s quality to it.

1062
01:00:01,960 --> 01:00:04,640
Speaker 2: But also it does look like some sort of strange rock.

1063
01:00:04,680 --> 01:00:06,280
Speaker 2: It looks like a space rock, and it's kind of

1064
01:00:06,320 --> 01:00:08,640
Speaker 2: described as such, and I think that's the if you

1065
01:00:08,640 --> 01:00:10,440
Speaker 2: had to guess, you might think, well, this fell from

1066
01:00:10,440 --> 01:00:14,080
Speaker 2: the sky. Clearly, this is some sort of space object.

1067
01:00:14,160 --> 01:00:18,200
Speaker 2: And they start talking about it, and they have everyone's

1068
01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:21,000
Speaker 2: reaction to it is a little different, you know. Guy

1069
01:00:21,080 --> 01:00:22,560
Speaker 2: Linden is like, this is a rock.

1070
01:00:23,040 --> 01:00:23,480
Speaker 1: I'm done.

1071
01:00:23,520 --> 01:00:25,200
Speaker 2: I don't want to look at this thing where And

1072
01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:27,360
Speaker 2: I think most of the other characters, though, I begin

1073
01:00:27,400 --> 01:00:29,360
Speaker 2: to see that there is something special about this. There

1074
01:00:29,440 --> 01:00:33,439
Speaker 2: is something that is that is sort of calling out

1075
01:00:33,480 --> 01:00:34,320
Speaker 2: to them from it.

1076
01:00:35,320 --> 01:00:38,600
Speaker 1: And then well everything goes off the rails when eric

1077
01:00:38,680 --> 01:00:43,000
Speaker 1: Andre blows some cannabis smoke into it.

1078
01:00:43,720 --> 01:00:48,160
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it kind of inhales the smoke, and then yeah,

1079
01:00:48,320 --> 01:00:51,360
Speaker 2: things get really crazy really quickly. This is like the

1080
01:00:51,440 --> 01:00:56,760
Speaker 2: last twelve minutes of the of the picture. Here it

1081
01:00:56,840 --> 01:01:00,800
Speaker 2: starts to clearly there's a psychic effect, and he's like, yeah,

1082
01:01:00,880 --> 01:01:03,960
Speaker 2: eric Andre's character is like, I think I broke your rock, dude,

1083
01:01:04,800 --> 01:01:10,960
Speaker 2: And it starts crumbling, cracking open, and a strange substance

1084
01:01:11,120 --> 01:01:14,439
Speaker 2: is in the middle a creature, a substance, some sort

1085
01:01:14,440 --> 01:01:19,120
Speaker 2: of orange gelatinous form, And at this point it reminds

1086
01:01:19,160 --> 01:01:22,720
Speaker 2: one a lot of the Blob, especially the early scenes

1087
01:01:22,760 --> 01:01:25,360
Speaker 2: in both the original Blob and the remake where this

1088
01:01:25,720 --> 01:01:31,400
Speaker 2: hard rocky substance cracks open and a Blob creature emerges.

1089
01:01:31,760 --> 01:01:34,400
Speaker 2: Only instead of it being kind of like red in color,

1090
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 2: this one is bright orange.

1091
01:01:36,280 --> 01:01:41,880
Speaker 1: It is a giant orange wax clam that then from

1092
01:01:41,920 --> 01:01:45,760
Speaker 1: which project a couple of the main features of it.

1093
01:01:45,840 --> 01:01:49,320
Speaker 1: These things that are like horns but sometimes don't appear

1094
01:01:49,360 --> 01:01:53,880
Speaker 1: to be rigid like. They morph between being flexible arms

1095
01:01:53,920 --> 01:01:57,240
Speaker 1: like the arms of an octopus, and then being like

1096
01:01:57,280 --> 01:01:59,960
Speaker 1: the rigid corkscrew horns of a mountain goat.

1097
01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:04,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the horns of a ram or something. Yeah.

1098
01:02:04,600 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 2: It the monster in its varied forms. It definitely spoke

1099
01:02:08,160 --> 01:02:10,640
Speaker 2: to me in terms of the Blob, the arc of

1100
01:02:10,640 --> 01:02:18,919
Speaker 2: a covenant, the horns of Golgadaroth, tentacles, slug, antenna, and yeah,

1101
01:02:19,040 --> 01:02:21,439
Speaker 2: some other elements as well. And at the whole time

1102
01:02:21,480 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 2: that the whole time though, and a lot of this

1103
01:02:22,840 --> 01:02:25,640
Speaker 2: is also due to, you know, the sound design, the lighting,

1104
01:02:25,720 --> 01:02:30,080
Speaker 2: everything else, but the creature designed too. It feels completely

1105
01:02:30,120 --> 01:02:34,120
Speaker 2: under otherworldly with all without seeming too much like anything

1106
01:02:34,120 --> 01:02:37,720
Speaker 2: else I've seen in other films. As we've discussed before,

1107
01:02:37,880 --> 01:02:40,480
Speaker 2: with modern monster movies, there can be kind of a sameness,

1108
01:02:40,880 --> 01:02:44,640
Speaker 2: kind of a built by committee quality to it, and

1109
01:02:44,920 --> 01:02:49,800
Speaker 2: this creature or whatever it is feels wholly different. And yeah,

1110
01:02:49,840 --> 01:02:54,480
Speaker 2: there's just a strong, like WTF feel for this entire encounter.

1111
01:02:55,160 --> 01:02:57,760
Speaker 1: Oh, but there's also so much melting to happen here.

1112
01:02:57,840 --> 01:02:59,320
Speaker 1: It's a melt to remember.

1113
01:03:00,120 --> 01:03:02,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're scanning. Everybody gets scanned. Everyone in the

1114
01:03:02,960 --> 01:03:07,280
Speaker 2: room is scanned, and then some people start melting. One

1115
01:03:07,320 --> 01:03:12,840
Speaker 2: person's head explodes it and really, ultimately everyone is going

1116
01:03:12,880 --> 01:03:18,200
Speaker 2: to either melt, explode, be absorbed by orange slime, or

1117
01:03:18,440 --> 01:03:19,840
Speaker 2: run screaming for their lives.

1118
01:03:21,080 --> 01:03:24,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, and obviously we're deep into spoiler territory here. But

1119
01:03:24,600 --> 01:03:29,360
Speaker 1: in the end it is Lassiter who is absorbed by

1120
01:03:29,400 --> 01:03:31,600
Speaker 1: the creature. So the creature like sort of slithers, it

1121
01:03:31,760 --> 01:03:34,960
Speaker 1: like wounds him psychically, and he collapses on the floor.

1122
01:03:35,520 --> 01:03:39,080
Speaker 1: And this is after it has melted. Landing and targ

1123
01:03:39,360 --> 01:03:43,760
Speaker 1: and doctor Zar I think and melt. Yeah, did they

1124
01:03:43,800 --> 01:03:47,360
Speaker 1: all get melted? By it or they explode, and then

1125
01:03:47,400 --> 01:03:50,600
Speaker 1: it goes up to Lassiter and it takes him within

1126
01:03:50,800 --> 01:03:54,160
Speaker 1: the mass of the wax and then he sort of

1127
01:03:54,200 --> 01:03:57,200
Speaker 1: I guess, becomes the scaffold or the skeleton for this

1128
01:03:57,280 --> 01:03:59,480
Speaker 1: creature to become vaguely humanoid.

1129
01:04:00,240 --> 01:04:02,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, becomes this And this is where we get the

1130
01:04:02,120 --> 01:04:06,480
Speaker 2: creature suit, because we have a tall bipedal creature with

1131
01:04:06,560 --> 01:04:09,800
Speaker 2: kind of a zombifide face, and the two tentacles remain

1132
01:04:09,880 --> 01:04:13,080
Speaker 2: but on the shoulders, continuing to quest around as if

1133
01:04:13,120 --> 01:04:15,000
Speaker 2: continuing to sense and take in data.

1134
01:04:15,800 --> 01:04:20,360
Speaker 1: Then Charlotte and Roth they both escape. They make it out,

1135
01:04:20,760 --> 01:04:23,080
Speaker 1: though Roth stops to try to do more drugs on

1136
01:04:23,120 --> 01:04:27,480
Speaker 1: the way out, but they make it out. Oh, Hector

1137
01:04:27,560 --> 01:04:30,400
Speaker 1: comes in. He gets the gold Ak forty seven and

1138
01:04:30,520 --> 01:04:34,400
Speaker 1: tries to shoot the monster, but he is like zapped

1139
01:04:34,440 --> 01:04:37,760
Speaker 1: electrically and explodes. Yep yeap.

1140
01:04:37,840 --> 01:04:40,720
Speaker 2: The creature clearly has just vast reservoirs of power.

1141
01:04:41,160 --> 01:04:44,720
Speaker 1: So we see our two survivors like get into an

1142
01:04:44,800 --> 01:04:48,280
Speaker 1: eighties or seventies sports car and then drive away and

1143
01:04:48,960 --> 01:04:51,959
Speaker 1: drive away with such acceleration that eric Andre's like face

1144
01:04:52,080 --> 01:04:56,040
Speaker 1: is rippling like in a wind tunnel. And then they

1145
01:04:56,920 --> 01:04:59,080
Speaker 1: make it out, But then we see the creature with

1146
01:04:59,600 --> 01:05:02,960
Speaker 1: I guess Lassiter inside it. I don't know if Lassiter

1147
01:05:03,080 --> 01:05:05,080
Speaker 1: is thought to in some way still be alive and

1148
01:05:05,120 --> 01:05:07,240
Speaker 1: a part of this creature, or if it's just sort

1149
01:05:07,240 --> 01:05:10,880
Speaker 1: of like used him, like the thing does maybe as

1150
01:05:11,080 --> 01:05:15,640
Speaker 1: a as a format, as like a template. But now

1151
01:05:15,760 --> 01:05:18,280
Speaker 1: it walks out of the mansion and then we see

1152
01:05:18,320 --> 01:05:21,160
Speaker 1: it like walk into a sewer and then emerge out

1153
01:05:21,160 --> 01:05:23,800
Speaker 1: the other end of the sewer line walking into a

1154
01:05:23,880 --> 01:05:27,200
Speaker 1: big a big like aqueduct, a big what do you

1155
01:05:27,240 --> 01:05:30,000
Speaker 1: call it, like the canals in l A big concrete canal,

1156
01:05:30,200 --> 01:05:32,760
Speaker 1: drainage canal, and it just walks out into there and

1157
01:05:32,920 --> 01:05:34,520
Speaker 1: is now among the people.

1158
01:05:35,280 --> 01:05:37,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, this kind of again, this kind of like concrete

1159
01:05:38,400 --> 01:05:43,560
Speaker 2: dismal version of LA. And immediately we begin to see

1160
01:05:43,640 --> 01:05:46,200
Speaker 2: lights start to go out in the city as if

1161
01:05:46,240 --> 01:05:49,280
Speaker 2: like it's immense energy and it's a like electrical disturbance

1162
01:05:49,360 --> 01:05:53,480
Speaker 2: is already knocking out power like just by like it

1163
01:05:53,720 --> 01:05:57,160
Speaker 2: doesn't it's hard to figure out what the creature thinks

1164
01:05:57,320 --> 01:05:59,680
Speaker 2: or or wants to get out of this, like like

1165
01:05:59,720 --> 01:06:01,880
Speaker 2: clear it's going to destroy the world, there's no question

1166
01:06:01,960 --> 01:06:04,600
Speaker 2: about that. The question is does it want to destroy

1167
01:06:04,640 --> 01:06:07,760
Speaker 2: the world or is it just there to record the world,

1168
01:06:07,880 --> 01:06:10,960
Speaker 2: to sense the world, and in doing so will inevitably

1169
01:06:11,000 --> 01:06:11,880
Speaker 2: destroy everything.

1170
01:06:13,520 --> 01:06:16,560
Speaker 1: Is there a reason for the differential fates of the characters,

1171
01:06:16,760 --> 01:06:20,600
Speaker 1: like why do Landon, Zara, Lassiter, and Rhinehart melt or

1172
01:06:20,600 --> 01:06:25,000
Speaker 1: get absorbed or whatever? And why do Roth and z escape?

1173
01:06:25,440 --> 01:06:29,960
Speaker 1: Is it based on something about them individually? Does it

1174
01:06:30,040 --> 01:06:33,800
Speaker 1: mean something? Do those two in a sense refuse to

1175
01:06:33,880 --> 01:06:37,600
Speaker 1: look at the arc like Indian Marion. I couldn't really

1176
01:06:38,200 --> 01:06:40,280
Speaker 1: tell if there was anything like that, but I wonder

1177
01:06:40,280 --> 01:06:43,120
Speaker 1: if somebody out there has an interpretation of that sort.

1178
01:06:43,680 --> 01:06:46,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd love to hear what folks think about this

1179
01:06:46,640 --> 01:06:48,280
Speaker 2: the best I could come up with. And I also

1180
01:06:48,280 --> 01:06:50,520
Speaker 2: have to realize that there may be no reason to it.

1181
01:06:50,520 --> 01:06:52,960
Speaker 2: It may just have to do with likability of characters

1182
01:06:53,280 --> 01:06:56,560
Speaker 2: and or coolness of characters, like obviously Laster has to

1183
01:06:56,560 --> 01:06:58,800
Speaker 2: become the monster that sort of thing. But I was

1184
01:06:58,840 --> 01:07:00,840
Speaker 2: also thinking it might ultimate only have to come down

1185
01:07:00,880 --> 01:07:04,080
Speaker 2: to desire and grasping. So the creature is an explorer,

1186
01:07:04,080 --> 01:07:07,400
Speaker 2: it's questing with its feelers. And so my read is

1187
01:07:07,440 --> 01:07:10,760
Speaker 2: that land and Reinhart and Zara they're found wanting there's

1188
01:07:10,800 --> 01:07:14,040
Speaker 2: something inauthentic about their relationship with the world and their

1189
01:07:14,040 --> 01:07:18,480
Speaker 2: desires in the world. Roth and Charlotte they desire too much,

1190
01:07:18,560 --> 01:07:21,800
Speaker 2: or perhaps their desires are very specific and therefore they're

1191
01:07:21,840 --> 01:07:25,080
Speaker 2: able to get away. But Lassiter, he's in the Goldilocks

1192
01:07:25,160 --> 01:07:28,280
Speaker 2: zone for some reason, perhaps because he has just overarching

1193
01:07:28,360 --> 01:07:31,960
Speaker 2: general interest in everything. So he's the perfect fit for

1194
01:07:32,040 --> 01:07:36,160
Speaker 2: something that has come to like experience slash record slash

1195
01:07:36,240 --> 01:07:38,040
Speaker 2: destroy the entire.

1196
01:07:37,800 --> 01:07:40,800
Speaker 1: World perfect it is canon now.

1197
01:07:42,880 --> 01:07:45,120
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's the viewing, and the lovely thing about

1198
01:07:45,120 --> 01:07:48,040
Speaker 2: the viewing, it's the whole picture. Is like going into

1199
01:07:48,080 --> 01:07:53,240
Speaker 2: the the the Obelisk chamber. There's no smoking, and it's

1200
01:07:53,280 --> 01:07:55,400
Speaker 2: about like, what do you take out of it? What's

1201
01:07:55,440 --> 01:08:01,480
Speaker 2: your interpretation of what transpires? An interpretation is not entirely necessary,

1202
01:08:01,520 --> 01:08:04,720
Speaker 2: but you know, because it's ultimately a wild, weird ride

1203
01:08:05,440 --> 01:08:08,240
Speaker 2: that I enjoyed quite a bit. But but yeah, it

1204
01:08:08,280 --> 01:08:12,480
Speaker 2: also raises questions and you might well wonder what comes next,

1205
01:08:13,080 --> 01:08:17,000
Speaker 2: And I like a nice open ended, strange like weird

1206
01:08:17,120 --> 01:08:21,599
Speaker 2: ending like this where yeah, our main likable characters have escaped,

1207
01:08:22,320 --> 01:08:25,479
Speaker 2: but it doesn't seem like escape is in store for

1208
01:08:25,520 --> 01:08:26,439
Speaker 2: the world itself.

1209
01:08:26,920 --> 01:08:29,400
Speaker 1: Right, there's no smoking in the Obelisk Chamber, which is

1210
01:08:29,439 --> 01:08:30,719
Speaker 1: now the entire universe.

1211
01:08:32,560 --> 01:08:35,120
Speaker 2: Maybe in the sequel, he's just that the creature's going

1212
01:08:35,160 --> 01:08:36,439
Speaker 2: out to find more dope smoke.

1213
01:08:36,520 --> 01:08:39,519
Speaker 1: That's that's the whole plot. I'd be down for that, right,

1214
01:08:40,160 --> 01:08:41,920
Speaker 1: all right, that's all I got on the viewing.

1215
01:08:42,520 --> 01:08:44,640
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and close it

1216
01:08:44,640 --> 01:08:48,120
Speaker 2: out here, but we'll remind you that Weird House Cinema

1217
01:08:48,200 --> 01:08:50,920
Speaker 2: occurs every Friday in the Stuff to Blow your Mind

1218
01:08:50,960 --> 01:08:53,880
Speaker 2: podcast feed, and you were you were invited to join

1219
01:08:54,000 --> 01:08:57,200
Speaker 2: us each each week for that. We're primarily a science

1220
01:08:57,240 --> 01:09:01,479
Speaker 2: podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursday, a short

1221
01:09:01,520 --> 01:09:04,880
Speaker 2: form artifact or monster fact on Wednesdays, and on Mondays

1222
01:09:04,880 --> 01:09:08,760
Speaker 2: we do a listener mail episode, So writ in, wellst

1223
01:09:08,880 --> 01:09:11,040
Speaker 2: We'll read your listener mail and we may read them

1224
01:09:11,080 --> 01:09:13,840
Speaker 2: on the program. If you want to check out all

1225
01:09:13,840 --> 01:09:16,400
Speaker 2: the movies we've covered on Weird House Cinema in the past, well,

1226
01:09:16,400 --> 01:09:18,080
Speaker 2: you can go to letterbox dot com. That's L E

1227
01:09:18,160 --> 01:09:20,080
Speaker 2: T T E R B O x D dot com.

1228
01:09:20,320 --> 01:09:22,840
Speaker 2: We have a profile there weird House and you'll find

1229
01:09:22,920 --> 01:09:24,840
Speaker 2: a list of all the films we've covered, and you

1230
01:09:24,880 --> 01:09:27,800
Speaker 2: can do like neat things there like divide them up

1231
01:09:27,800 --> 01:09:31,000
Speaker 2: by decade, divide them up by genre, and so forth.

1232
01:09:31,040 --> 01:09:33,519
Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun, huge thanks to our excellent

1233
01:09:33,560 --> 01:09:36,559
Speaker 1: audio producer, Jjposway. If you would like to get in

1234
01:09:36,600 --> 01:09:38,960
Speaker 1: touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

1235
01:09:39,040 --> 01:09:41,559
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

1236
01:09:41,600 --> 01:09:44,559
Speaker 1: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff

1237
01:09:44,560 --> 01:09:53,800
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your

1238
01:09:53,800 --> 01:09:56,880
Speaker 1: Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from my

1239
01:09:56,920 --> 01:10:00,479
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts wherever you

1240
01:10:00,520 --> 01:10:01,759
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.