Speaker 1: It's to forty seven am in the Southern Reach and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Night Cole Hi. I'm Test Lynch in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and with me are Lolly Lambard. And in
Speaker 1: New York, I'm Emily Oshita. Welcome back tonight, Call you guys. Um.
Speaker 1: We have a very exciting podcast for you today. But
Speaker 1: we're going to kick off with the most important topic,
Speaker 1: which is Kim Kardashian Always Otaku Kim Kardashian and Taku
Speaker 1: notice me sent pie. Kim Kardashian has been doing a
Speaker 1: lot of Instagram posting recently since having her baby Chicago,
Speaker 1: and people have been noticing that they're sort of increasingly
Speaker 1: thirst trappy with what she's been doing, where it's just
Speaker 1: like something more crazy each time, or more trying to
Speaker 1: get attention. E people are surmising that she feels insecure
Speaker 1: about Kylie surpassing her. That's the number one Kardassian and
Speaker 1: now also the number one Kardashian mom. So well, actually
Speaker 1: there's only one number one Kardashian mom, and you know
Speaker 1: it's Chris Theo is not a Kardashian. It's true, but
Speaker 1: let's be real. She's the ultimate. She's the Queen. I
Speaker 1: thought you're gonna say Courtney, but I do love Courtney's
Speaker 1: Like Courtney is the only one who seems like maybe
Speaker 1: Chill and mom Secretly Chill. I feel a little disconnected
Speaker 1: from things because I can't understand how anybody, especially somebody
Speaker 1: within her own family, would find Kylie's circumstances and motherhood
Speaker 1: right now to be in any way enviable. But that's
Speaker 1: just me. It's sexy to have a baby when you're
Speaker 1: a billionaire, billionaire babies just to prove you can do
Speaker 1: it exactly. I mean, you know, I'm trying to be
Speaker 1: open minded, but she did put a Snapchat filter on
Speaker 1: the first picture of the baby, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this baby is doomed. Don't you say that about all
Speaker 1: the babies at various points, like didn't we probably say
Speaker 1: that about Kendall and Kylie? And like the first season
Speaker 1: of Me Again, Like now, I'm like, that's so like
Speaker 1: they didn't have a Snapchat filter on their infant photos.
Speaker 1: That really made me go, huh or a new world now.
Speaker 1: I saw a story the other day that was about
Speaker 1: people bringing in Snapchat filter selfies to plastic surgeons. It's
Speaker 1: apparently really common now and they come out with roses
Speaker 1: growing on their forehead. Yes, sparkles and spangles on their
Speaker 1: weird dilated pupils. Yeah. Yeah, they're like, I want to
Speaker 1: look at like, make me look like this, dear filter,
Speaker 1: I want to be a deer. Um. So, Kim Kardashian
Speaker 1: posted on her Instagram she now has pink hair. That's
Speaker 1: her new her new uh Instagram stunt is that she
Speaker 1: got pink hair. And she posted a picture of an
Speaker 1: anime babe with pink hair, and so this was my inspiration. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, Emily, I'll defer to you as the expert
Speaker 1: um anime podcaster. Yeah, what do you think it means?
Speaker 1: What do I think it means? Well, I mean I
Speaker 1: think we discussed this maybe on a group chat that
Speaker 1: obviously well, I mean, I won't rule out the fact
Speaker 1: that that Kim enjoys herself some automy on her own,
Speaker 1: but I feel like, definitely Kanye has made her watch
Speaker 1: a Kira at some point. That has definitely happened at
Speaker 1: some point in their relationship. Um, and where she chose
Speaker 1: to go with her fandom and interest in the medium
Speaker 1: from there is uh, you know, anyone's guests. But I
Speaker 1: do think that right now there is I would be
Speaker 1: more shocked about Kim embracing on me or even taking
Speaker 1: style cues from Automy at any other time, but right
Speaker 1: now I feel like it is. Uh there's a wave
Speaker 1: right now of celebrities coming out of their otaku closets.
Speaker 1: But aren't you glad about it? Because at least it's
Speaker 1: like reclaiming it back from the alt right, who we
Speaker 1: were concerned had sort of taken over anime avatars. Yes,
Speaker 1: they try to take over everything, but they're not taking anime. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean I am I am a d percent for that.
Speaker 1: I'm a hundred percent for Michael B. Jordan's um talking
Speaker 1: about Naruto UM in an interview. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's very it's very endearing. Or are you such a
Speaker 1: snob that you're like it devalues my Naruto fandom now
Speaker 1: that you're going to funk about Naruto like, uh, he
Speaker 1: can have it, But it's it's still very sweet, like
Speaker 1: and I've I like to like just I mean, it
Speaker 1: could be Fraser, you know. I like to imagine beautiful
Speaker 1: celebrities at home watching Netflix, watching you know, Pokemon or
Speaker 1: whatever in their free time. That's very that makes me
Speaker 1: feel like, I, you know, they're one of us. You
Speaker 1: have a generous spirit. Well, I mean I don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard for me to be snobby about on me
Speaker 1: because I'm like, you know, I've I've explained this. I
Speaker 1: used to explain this on the podcast that I used
Speaker 1: to have it. I'm not like a like expert by
Speaker 1: any means. I don't know what that character is that
Speaker 1: Kim posted and I didn't look it up actually in
Speaker 1: time for this podcast, which I probably should have done.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know, it's it's cool, like I I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm not mad at it. Uh, And I
Speaker 1: feel like it's just about growth of the fact that
Speaker 1: all these shows are so much easier to watch now
Speaker 1: than they were like when we were when we were teen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, it's accessible and it just couldn like,
Speaker 1: you know, absorb itself into the culture a little more
Speaker 1: easily than it could have a while ago. It's just
Speaker 1: fright and cool. Like well, last week we talked about
Speaker 1: Phantom Thread, but not in time for the podcast. Molly
Speaker 1: got a text from her friend illuminating a theory that
Speaker 1: we all thought was really interesting. So we wanted to
Speaker 1: just jump back so that we could kind of explore
Speaker 1: this theory. So, uh, Phantom of the Theory time UM.
Speaker 1: Friend of the podcast, Gil Keenan, who is also a
Speaker 1: director from the San Fernando Valley UM, told me that
Speaker 1: he had to fandom throwd theory. He would let me
Speaker 1: in on after I saw the movie. So when I
Speaker 1: asked him what it was, I will read it. He
Speaker 1: texted it to me. He said, oh, just that Alma
Speaker 1: is a camp survivor. Her parents were killed there. She
Speaker 1: made it to England after the war, and the recent
Speaker 1: memory of the loss is what makes her so strangely numb,
Speaker 1: but also equipped to handle Woodcock and whose gestapo sister. Also,
Speaker 1: she becomes weirdly animated by the disrespect that the old
Speaker 1: rich lady shows to the dress. After the press conference
Speaker 1: scene where the fit press asked the fiance about his
Speaker 1: family's involvement in his scandal involving Jewish visas, m and
Speaker 1: I wrote back, Oh, it's the night Porter, which is
Speaker 1: my answer to everything. It was interesting to kind of.
Speaker 1: I think Molly dived deep, as did I into the
Speaker 1: into finding ways to justify this theory. But I'll let
Speaker 1: Molly go first. And Emily, I bet you of your
Speaker 1: own thoughts, but it was it was thought provoking because
Speaker 1: that the Jewish visas thing really stood out in the
Speaker 1: movie as being like very specific information that was kind
Speaker 1: of dropped and then not really revisited. So I think
Speaker 1: it's stuck out to all of us as being kind
Speaker 1: of strange. Yeah. I mean, also if Paul Thomas Anderson
Speaker 1: wants to call us and be like, you know nothing
Speaker 1: of my work, like we just give us anything we
Speaker 1: like to theorize. But you know, I'm also willing to
Speaker 1: accept that this might not be true at all. But um, Emily,
Speaker 1: what did you think? Um? Well, I mean, I I
Speaker 1: really like the theory. I think I think it would
Speaker 1: explain I think I would explain her resistance to Reynolds
Speaker 1: and Cyril if she was forced into the situation, like
Speaker 1: if she was hired as a maid or something like that.
Speaker 1: But she's you know, she's drawn to her herself. It's
Speaker 1: not just a resisting of a thing. It's like she's
Speaker 1: actually attracted to there. They're just stop at ways. Well
Speaker 1: to the night Porter comes in. Yeah, well, yeah, so
Speaker 1: I feel like I don't know, I would I would
Speaker 1: need a little more psychological back up there. As far
Speaker 1: as I said she could stand forever. Yeah, because she
Speaker 1: has the resilience. Did as the Robert gray Smith did
Speaker 1: a lot of real research and came back with much
Speaker 1: information that I don't know if it supports the theory,
Speaker 1: but there's there's some interest. I kind of went down
Speaker 1: a rabbit hole and found like some weird some weird threads,
Speaker 1: if you will. So one thing that I found, um
Speaker 1: that was interesting from Nylon. It doesn't address the you know,
Speaker 1: Holocaust in particular, but it is interesting visa VI that scene.
Speaker 1: So it The article says one of Woodcock's most important
Speaker 1: clients is the heiress Barbara Rose. Anderson gives hair is
Speaker 1: only four scenes in the Phantom Thread, and they're not
Speaker 1: long in terms of length, but it seems that Barbara
Speaker 1: Rose is like a message stitched into the fabric of
Speaker 1: the narrative, and her appearance feels crucial to understanding the
Speaker 1: rather obscure meanings of the movie. Oh yes, it does so.
Speaker 1: Basically though her first name is Barbara, you know, it
Speaker 1: didn't occur to me that Harris was playing a role
Speaker 1: based on the Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton until her second scene.
Speaker 1: This is all quoted from Nylon by the way where
Speaker 1: Anderson stages, Barbara Rosa is humiliating press conference announcing her
Speaker 1: marriage to a noted playboy who is clearly meant to
Speaker 1: be the infamous Porferrio ruber Rosa. So then there's a
Speaker 1: Vanity Fair profile and ruber Rosa. It says um that
Speaker 1: he was unable to return to his country because he
Speaker 1: was basically, you know, he would he had been selling
Speaker 1: Dominican visas to Jews wishing to flee Europe and had
Speaker 1: been kind of found out. And Barbara Hutton was the
Speaker 1: poor little rich girl that would you know, for every
Speaker 1: poor little rich girl movie and book has been based
Speaker 1: on Um. So she was kind of like a sad sack.
Speaker 1: She I think she got married six times or something
Speaker 1: and at one point was married to a grant Like
Speaker 1: she was a really kind of bizarre and like sad
Speaker 1: person who squandered her fortune. Yeah, this is the thing
Speaker 1: I was talking about last week, but I couldn't remember
Speaker 1: the names of them. So yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: further reading on Barbara Hutton and Porfirio Um on the
Speaker 1: internet to be found. I think several people. I think
Speaker 1: there's a piece on Vanity Fair about it. As well. Yes,
Speaker 1: that was there was a vanity there's a nylon piece
Speaker 1: in the Vanity Fair piece about Barbara Hutton too. I
Speaker 1: also found some interesting things about people who were sewing
Speaker 1: secret messages into needlework while they were in Nazi camps. Um.
Speaker 1: There was a guy named Alexis Castalli and he was
Speaker 1: he would add secret messages to the stuff that he
Speaker 1: was sewing. Um in morse code around you know, some
Speaker 1: piece of needlework. He wrote, funk Hitler. And then there
Speaker 1: was also um the case there were like all of
Speaker 1: these women who were working under Hedwig Pois, who was
Speaker 1: the wife of a concentration camp commander, and she had
Speaker 1: a dressmaking workshop where they would do hoach culture um
Speaker 1: and kind of like make these gowns for for you know,
Speaker 1: Nazi events. Um. And there was a book about it
Speaker 1: that I guess then was adapted into a young adult
Speaker 1: novel by a woman named Lucy ad Linton. But had
Speaker 1: said that there's a I pulled a quote from an
Speaker 1: article in the Express about this, but it says the
Speaker 1: clients even came to the concentration camp camp workshops for
Speaker 1: fittings and consultations, all part of what ad Linton calls
Speaker 1: the repulsive mock civilization of the Nazi regime. One of
Speaker 1: the Auschwitz seamstresses, a Slovakian dressmaker named Lulu Gruenberg, could
Speaker 1: barely control her resentment at the indifference and arrogance of
Speaker 1: the women for whom she was making clothes to survive. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's just super interesting. I went away down the hole
Speaker 1: on this. That also sounds like like that does sound
Speaker 1: like made for a novel. Also, I believe that there
Speaker 1: is a novel based on that. That's fascinating. Someone like
Speaker 1: make a movie about that. Yeah, I know somewhere in
Speaker 1: the article they said they were sewing for their lives,
Speaker 1: like they were trying to prove their talent and like,
Speaker 1: you know, worth to be kept around, and all the
Speaker 1: Nazi things where they made people like do creative stuff
Speaker 1: to like prove that they should survive, like the musicians.
Speaker 1: You know. It's that's the scariest. It is the scariest thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, I mean, I do know why.
Speaker 1: It's strange that all. I mean, it's it's interesting that
Speaker 1: you can kind of find these weird, you know, articles
Speaker 1: that that seemed to relate to the phantoms I mean
Speaker 1: it's definitely about a certain time, and then you get
Speaker 1: into like the seamstresses and the hidden messages being sewed
Speaker 1: into things. But it's it was interesting the passports or
Speaker 1: the visa line being like this weird clue and you
Speaker 1: think you're going to follow it and find something concrete,
Speaker 1: but you but it is a phantom threat. It's merely
Speaker 1: a phantom thread. So let's take a night call. And
Speaker 1: as always, if you want to leave us a night call,
Speaker 1: you can give us a call at one two four
Speaker 1: oh four six night that's one two four oh four
Speaker 1: six night. Or you can email us at Night Call
Speaker 1: Podcast at gmail dot com. Which other whichever method do
Speaker 1: you prefer, is a okay with us, and just leave
Speaker 1: us your questions, theories, comments, just your thoughts and we
Speaker 1: will will address them on air. So we have a
Speaker 1: call today about a little movie that I think we've
Speaker 1: all seen. Let's see. Hey, this is Charlie in Texas.
Speaker 1: It is twelve oh five am, true night call hours.
Speaker 1: I just got out of the screening of Annihilation, which
Speaker 1: fucking ruled everyone should go see it. Um, But I
Speaker 1: notice this is like the third time in a row
Speaker 1: where I've seen a movie and Jennifer Jason Lee randomly
Speaker 1: popped up and it made the movie a lot better.
Speaker 1: So I was wondering if there's any actors or act
Speaker 1: is that you, guys, you rarely pop up in movies
Speaker 1: that you never will bring a good time? All right, thanks,
Speaker 1: So I really appreciate Charlie's p s a to go
Speaker 1: see Annihilation, a movie that I quite like spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: But um, I fear that it might be a little
Speaker 1: too late for it, seeing as I think it's like
Speaker 1: maybe still in five theaters in the United States by
Speaker 1: the time you're hearing this podcast. Um. But yes, Jennifer
Speaker 1: Jason Lee is in it, and she's very scary and
Speaker 1: weird in it, and uh, I'm I'm a fan of
Speaker 1: Jennifer Jason Lee, and I feel like it isn't I
Speaker 1: feel like she rarely pops up, though I'm usually very
Speaker 1: aware that Jennifer dationally is going to be a movie
Speaker 1: before I see it. I had a spooky experience because
Speaker 1: I had no idea she was in this movie, and
Speaker 1: my mind was wandering and I was for some reason
Speaker 1: thinking about, like, hey, it's so weird that No bom
Speaker 1: Bach was married to Jennifer Jason Lee and it is
Speaker 1: now Date's greta girl right And then like as I
Speaker 1: was thinking it was like, then she appeared on willed
Speaker 1: Her and I like was so weird it out because
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't normally just think about Jennifer
Speaker 1: ducing Lee. But I was also I was so happy
Speaker 1: to see her, um, and she really brought me back
Speaker 1: into the movie. She was fantastic in that. But wait,
Speaker 1: what what actors are you guys always happy to see
Speaker 1: um Luise Gusman. Yeah, that's a great one. Um. I
Speaker 1: kept trying to think of people and I just ended
Speaker 1: up coming back to everybody in the Paddington movies. Jim
Speaker 1: Broadbent is a big one for me. Um. I love
Speaker 1: a Jim Broadbent cameo slash appearance. You know who used
Speaker 1: to be one for me or like, I mean he
Speaker 1: is no longer with us our I p but um,
Speaker 1: when he appears in kind of if I'm watching an
Speaker 1: oldie or some you know, kind of b list thing
Speaker 1: I've never seen before, if Pete postal Weight shows up
Speaker 1: in something, I'm always really into that. Oh yeah, well
Speaker 1: that also leads us into this this Danny Boyle Yes
Speaker 1: conversation tonight can I say mine because I have too, Sorry,
Speaker 1: Danny Boyle, affiliated Yes, mine are Martin Maull because he
Speaker 1: was in an episode of Taxi and he was also
Speaker 1: in an episode of The Golden Girls, and like, I
Speaker 1: remember both of them, and then I was I was looking.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, you know what's his wikipedia And
Speaker 1: it's just like full of those things. And then also
Speaker 1: Richard Maser, we've ever seen Fernwood Tonight. No, that is
Speaker 1: the best show in the world. Uh, and kind of
Speaker 1: what I want night called to be, like what it's
Speaker 1: like a spinoff of Mary Hartman. Mary Hartman. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all I'll say. Fernwood Tonight, That's what I calls
Speaker 1: very Friendwood Tonight inspired. Let's talk Annihilation. Let's talk about Annihilation.
Speaker 1: I wish Martin Maull had been in an He should have.
Speaker 1: Maybe he was maybe he was double Emily. I'm going
Speaker 1: to break your heart right now. Okay, go for it.
Speaker 1: Test and I did not love Annihilation as much as
Speaker 1: you did. I think, well, you test actively disliked it.
Speaker 1: I was more more kind. I think I liked a
Speaker 1: lot of things about it, and I thought about it
Speaker 1: a lot afterwards. Um, we also sell it at eleven
Speaker 1: in the morning. That's the best time to see any movie.
Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of watching movies in the morning.
Speaker 1: Your mind is open, you're not all tired and jaded yet.
Speaker 1: So you know, I feel like this was more of
Speaker 1: a nightcall movie, movie you might want to watch at night.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean, for sure spoiler alert about the
Speaker 1: swirling guts and seen in this movie twenty in the morning.
Speaker 1: But you know, we had meet us appreciate it more.
Speaker 1: I think it's our guts were still swirling with breakfast,
Speaker 1: and then we're like, oh, look at look at that.
Speaker 1: That's when I turned to Tests and I went, I'm
Speaker 1: in yeah. Um. Test is also not swayed by the
Speaker 1: charms of Oscar Isaac like some of us might be. Look,
Speaker 1: I appreciate his acting. It's purely it's a sexual preference,
Speaker 1: like right now, oh my god, I know you're not
Speaker 1: sexually attracted to young al Pacino. He's just not well.
Speaker 1: I didn't say that specifically, there's just something I guess
Speaker 1: because I know everyone else feels that way. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: let them have him. But I appreciate his acting. Although
Speaker 1: he didn't do much in Annihilation, it was which was great.
Speaker 1: It was a female dominated sci fi movie, which is fantastic.
Speaker 1: Everybody was really excited before the movie came out because
Speaker 1: he was only billed as being the husband and I
Speaker 1: am DV and everybody was like, yes, Oscar Isaac is
Speaker 1: the husband. Um, yeah, it was weird how much. I mean,
Speaker 1: first of all, I'm glad test and I both saw
Speaker 1: it because there's no way you could possibly explain this
Speaker 1: movie and the amount of time we have on a
Speaker 1: podcast to each other and also to the audience, So
Speaker 1: we should probably decide how what level of spoiler we
Speaker 1: want to go with it, because I actually, I mean,
Speaker 1: my favorite aspect of it is the end, and that's
Speaker 1: the part that I could talk about the most. Well,
Speaker 1: that's how we'll get there. So Annihilation is a sci
Speaker 1: fi uh movie about a team of scientists going to
Speaker 1: a area you're not supposed to go to, some sort
Speaker 1: of contaminated area, Area X. I feel like the distinction
Speaker 1: is sort of weird in the movie. In the book,
Speaker 1: it's all called Area X. They also call it the
Speaker 1: Shimmer in the movie, but they also refer to Area
Speaker 1: X as like maybe a reason that contains the ship shimmer.
Speaker 1: It's very strange. It's like a weird southern swamp. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's supposed to be in Florida somewhere. It's based
Speaker 1: on a book by Jeff Vandermere. There's three. There's a
Speaker 1: trilogy of books that's based on the first one. But
Speaker 1: it's very much meant to just be a self contained movie.
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah, And it's different. It's very different from
Speaker 1: the book supposably, Um, but there are some things that
Speaker 1: are the same. Test and I both brought notes right,
Speaker 1: can't wait. I it made me want to go home
Speaker 1: and watch Tarkovsky's Stalker, which I did. Oh yeah. And
Speaker 1: then my friend gave me a hard time about watching
Speaker 1: Stalker on a laptop. I was like, but I was
Speaker 1: really close to the screw going on. You have a
Speaker 1: projector at home. Yeah, but I was like, like, I
Speaker 1: was watching it by myself, like you know, I was.
Speaker 1: It was great. It wasn't super enjoyable for me. Um.
Speaker 1: And then I was reading about Soviet sci fi all
Speaker 1: night long? Ye, which is the best. Well. Stalker is
Speaker 1: the only movie that Alex Garland, the director, has owned
Speaker 1: up to being inspired by because he I think like
Speaker 1: I think understandably bristles at like the thing of like,
Speaker 1: what things were you looking for for your movie, because
Speaker 1: I think especially people who are trying to do like
Speaker 1: newish sci fi, you want to feel like you're trying
Speaker 1: to Yeah, it's a it's a tribute slash rip off
Speaker 1: of Stalker. But that's the one thing he was like, Yeah, Tarkovsky, definitely,
Speaker 1: it's a trip off. Um. And yeah, and also Solaris,
Speaker 1: which is the other Tarkovsky movie which I saw recently.
Speaker 1: I saw like a beautiful new Stalker. There's also like
Speaker 1: a new Criterion print of it that's yeah, sucking all
Speaker 1: so um. But Solaris, which is based on a novel
Speaker 1: by the Polish writer Lim Standis law. Uh, it's sort
Speaker 1: of invented the sci fi concept of like the aliens
Speaker 1: being like instead of being little gray men or tall
Speaker 1: grays or little green men, they it's like a planet
Speaker 1: or like a gas. It's like a consciousness. It's like
Speaker 1: a consciousness and you like can't communicate with it at
Speaker 1: all because so for it, Yeah, um, the Solaris is
Speaker 1: a planet that watches you the state of mind. So yeah,
Speaker 1: Test and I both really like a lot of the
Speaker 1: ideas that are in Annihilation. Um. I just felt like
Speaker 1: the characterization and dialogue was like felt really flat. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I definitely think that it was. It's hard
Speaker 1: because you kind of place all your hopes on when
Speaker 1: you see five women who are scientists or I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess one is an e M T. But I
Speaker 1: mean they're there are five strong women who are not
Speaker 1: like being shepherded by a man, or being sent on
Speaker 1: this mission by a man. In fact, like you know,
Speaker 1: venturous dr Ventrous, who's Jennifer Jason Lee. She's kind of
Speaker 1: portrayed like you would. It's a shame that you would
Speaker 1: normally see men playing these roles, but I felt as
Speaker 1: though they could have intellectualized them more. And I was
Speaker 1: telling Molly that it made me really nostalgic for the
Speaker 1: original Jurassic Park and Ian Malcolm because I remember reading
Speaker 1: the book and seeing the movie the explanation of the
Speaker 1: science and his you know, drive to kind of wrap
Speaker 1: his mind around it. Was a lot of screen time
Speaker 1: was devoted to him kind of unpacking it, and I
Speaker 1: felt as though that was something that was kind of
Speaker 1: neglected And I don't know if it is in the
Speaker 1: book as well, but we're just supposed to accept that, Okay,
Speaker 1: So d N A is refracted like through a prism,
Speaker 1: and it's like, but what does that mean? And then
Speaker 1: you see that it can, you know, you can kind
Speaker 1: of transfer your DNA via touch that you become contaminated.
Speaker 1: Your DNA is seeping out all over the place and
Speaker 1: mingling with plants and becoming a fungus. And I thought
Speaker 1: it was interesting, but it seemed like not satisfying to
Speaker 1: not have at least one of these very accomplished scientists
Speaker 1: trying to give a more thorough explanation, Like it felt
Speaker 1: like a blind spot that we were just expected to accept,
Speaker 1: and it bothered me. Well, the only the only one
Speaker 1: of them who is a scientist who would be equipped
Speaker 1: to explain it is Natalie Portman's character is a biologist.
Speaker 1: The other ones, there's a physicist, the physicist, yeah, Tessa Thompson,
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, And I mean then there's also a psychologist
Speaker 1: who or I don't know if she's a psychologist or psychiatrist,
Speaker 1: but I mean, spoiler alert, it's weird that the physicist
Speaker 1: gets the biology death exactly and Tessa neverre also bothered
Speaker 1: that Tessa Thompson's character who turns into a plant spoiler
Speaker 1: spoiler they don't show you that she turned into a
Speaker 1: kind of off then you never see her again and
Speaker 1: it's very creepy and wickermanny. But you're also just like
Speaker 1: waiting for the shot of money plant and I don't
Speaker 1: show it, and then I don't know, really wanted to
Speaker 1: see it also made me want her to play poison Ivy. Yes,
Speaker 1: well so, so the thing about the book is that
Speaker 1: they actually have more character flashing out in the movie
Speaker 1: than they do in the book. They're pretty much like Cipher's.
Speaker 1: We saw it with a friend who had read the
Speaker 1: book and he was like, they're even more like Ciphers.
Speaker 1: And they don't have names in the book. They're just
Speaker 1: called well the different positions too. They have like the
Speaker 1: surveyor the anthropologists. The linguist is one of them. There's
Speaker 1: no linguist in this one, um, which is because the
Speaker 1: whole thing that the linguist is interested in is not
Speaker 1: in the movie, which is one of one of the
Speaker 1: bigger things that I missed from the movie that's in
Speaker 1: the book. But um, but I I kind of bristle
Speaker 1: against this idea, and this has come up multiple times,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I haven't had like a forum
Speaker 1: to talk about it um or like haven't had the
Speaker 1: time or I don't I don't know, but like I
Speaker 1: kind of bristle against this idea of like this should
Speaker 1: be a movie about strong female scientists. I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's what this movie is about. But it's it's
Speaker 1: fun to watch. It's fun to think about the portrayal
Speaker 1: of five female sciences. It's as so funny. It is
Speaker 1: like when I was watching it, I never thought about
Speaker 1: the fact that they were all women, just like regular people,
Speaker 1: and they're just like, we're going to try something different.
Speaker 1: The last few exhibitions have been men, and we haven't
Speaker 1: done with all women yet, so we're just gonna see
Speaker 1: it goes and it's like cool. Then there was a
Speaker 1: point where they all came out in the suits and
Speaker 1: I was like, oh no, their Ghostbusters. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's not their fault or it's not this movie's fault.
Speaker 1: It just stresses me out because I'm like, if this
Speaker 1: movie fails exactly like A Wrinkle in Time, you know, fails,
Speaker 1: like are we ever going to get any more female
Speaker 1: sci fi ever again? Or people going to be like
Speaker 1: female sci fi doesn't self, let's never sell it. I
Speaker 1: mean like last, you know, like Annihili or Animil Arrival.
Speaker 1: It was my favorite movie of that year. Um that
Speaker 1: was like a very successful movie. I got nominated for
Speaker 1: words and stuff and is very much told. That's like
Speaker 1: a developed I feel like scientist character dealing with something uncanny,
Speaker 1: an alien. If you want something that has like that's
Speaker 1: a little more of a character study as opposed to this,
Speaker 1: which I feel is much more like It's like it
Speaker 1: is like those Tarkovsky movies where you don't I don't
Speaker 1: think you have a gripe about those movies that you
Speaker 1: wish to like the main dude character that you knew
Speaker 1: more about him as like a professional you know more
Speaker 1: about I mean no, but I mean like in the
Speaker 1: mold of a movie like Aliens or Predator, which was
Speaker 1: the things I mainly was thinking about, It's like, how
Speaker 1: much do you need to develop those characters that you
Speaker 1: know we're all going to get killed off? Well, I
Speaker 1: mean I think that I'm guessing Emily that you would
Speaker 1: agree that the Crosby stills and Nash flashbacks too, that
Speaker 1: made Test so much helplessly hoping was really rough. I
Speaker 1: mean that was but you know I was right? No,
Speaker 1: tell me, Oh, come on, therefore people or the other
Speaker 1: two people they are three together, they have it's about
Speaker 1: cell division. Okay, it's great, but I can't watch a
Speaker 1: woman crying on a sofa walk. It's against my religion.
Speaker 1: I won't do it again. I was brought up c
Speaker 1: S and wait, how can I even pronounce this? Like yes?
Speaker 1: And sometimes why yeah? I want to say, you know,
Speaker 1: the best part of this movie reminded me of of
Speaker 1: Angel's Egg a little bit, And sometimes I was like,
Speaker 1: I kind of wish this or just an anime, and
Speaker 1: I wouldn't QUI honestly. I mean, I think some of
Speaker 1: the design of it is cool that I did was cool.
Speaker 1: Doesn't love the aesthetic? No me, I feel the same way.
Speaker 1: And there was a moment where I had like a
Speaker 1: false revelation that turned out to not be true, where
Speaker 1: when they find when you know, the whole end is
Speaker 1: very cool. It turns into like a Jodorowski movie in
Speaker 1: a way that is like made it worth seeing for
Speaker 1: me definitely. Um, And when she's in the like there's
Speaker 1: like the bone fungus we say that where we haven't
Speaker 1: really even that much, but you should probably she goes
Speaker 1: in a hole in a like a lighthouse with bone
Speaker 1: a bone fungus, a skeleton fungus that's growing everywhere. That's
Speaker 1: very scary. And then she gets in there and it's
Speaker 1: like an hr Geiger a drain pipe. And then she
Speaker 1: finds Jennifer Jason Lee or like an alien Jennifer Jason Lee.
Speaker 1: She's like Jennifer Jason Lee is letting the alien presents
Speaker 1: basically take over her body, or like you, Jennifer Jason
Speaker 1: Lee goes, oh, no, Mortal Kombat. I mean, it's sort
Speaker 1: of funny because annihilation is also like a significant word
Speaker 1: uttered by that character in the book. But no, I
Speaker 1: read it makes a lot more sense in the book.
Speaker 1: But it's one of those things like in The Shining
Speaker 1: where it's like a vestige of the book that like
Speaker 1: is creepier because you don't have the context for it,
Speaker 1: like in The Shining with the bear the bear costume
Speaker 1: guy oh, and speaking of bears, that was I think
Speaker 1: the best part of I feel like it's I feel
Speaker 1: like it's a good litmus test, like to know what's
Speaker 1: scarier to you, the the green suit at the end
Speaker 1: or the bear. Because I think that everybody I have
Speaker 1: talked to who's seen this movie, it's one thing or
Speaker 1: the other, like one thing upsets them more. Um. Okay,
Speaker 1: well okay, so so Jennifer days and he goes into
Speaker 1: allusion and then she turns into like prismatic rainbow matter.
Speaker 1: And then what I thought that meant was I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: you become the shimmer like the shimmers people. Um. And
Speaker 1: then it was like, no, it's an alien. Well I mean,
Speaker 1: but I think that's how the alien manifests itself, right,
Speaker 1: I guess. But then it's like and then someone comes
Speaker 1: out in a fetish suit and does like a tangle
Speaker 1: the dance the modern dance. Good, but it was bad,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, that's kind of it was. It
Speaker 1: was good, but it was bad. We watched it with
Speaker 1: our friend Brendan whale and who used to do the
Speaker 1: social media for a fetish were site, and he was like,
Speaker 1: it's just a z any suit. Well, you guys, I'm
Speaker 1: willing to I'm willing to fill in a more and
Speaker 1: more of that scene for you if you're open minded
Speaker 1: about it. Don't I I'm supposed that you've written anything
Speaker 1: that I've written about it on the internet, so I'll
Speaker 1: be happy to repeat myself here. We both of us
Speaker 1: and we both test tests like, this isn't a drug movie.
Speaker 1: I did not think it was a drug Well it
Speaker 1: was eleven twenty in the morning, but you know, I
Speaker 1: went in with an open mind and I still didn't
Speaker 1: feel like it was a drugma, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a drug movie. I'm I'm in a drug movie. Well
Speaker 1: that was in my first piece that I read about it.
Speaker 1: But like, I don't think it's a drug movie in
Speaker 1: that it is about drugs, but I think it's like
Speaker 1: maybe destined to be the kind of thing that you
Speaker 1: show somebody at a dorm room at four in the morning,
Speaker 1: like that kind of movie. Yeah, but you know what,
Speaker 1: Like then I went home and watched Stalkard. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, Stalker is like a more psychedelic movie. Even
Speaker 1: though there is no rainbow fungus in it. It's like
Speaker 1: the it's paste better, it is scarier. Just like this
Speaker 1: was fine, it was okay, but you know when I
Speaker 1: realized it was Alex Garland. I also really liked ex Machina,
Speaker 1: which tests I think to not like again, which is
Speaker 1: the same actor Oscar is like and interpretive dance to
Speaker 1: checks on your list. But you know, I did I
Speaker 1: did really like X Macina. Um. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I was underwhelmed. Maybe because you built it up and
Speaker 1: I thought it was gonna be great. Well, I didn't
Speaker 1: build it up because I would say that I gave.
Speaker 1: I would give this if I had to do a
Speaker 1: star rating, which I never do for movies, but like
Speaker 1: it would be like a three and a half out
Speaker 1: of five for me or something. I don't think that
Speaker 1: it's perfect at all. I think most of the body
Speaker 1: of the movie is kind of poorly written. Um, not
Speaker 1: because of character development, but just because it's just sort
Speaker 1: of like laying out all these sort of structure and
Speaker 1: steaks things that feel much more like like skeletal Hollywood
Speaker 1: structure than then the then I think the movie really
Speaker 1: is trying to do and I feel like that kind
Speaker 1: of undersells how kind of cosmic it goes at the end?
Speaker 1: Can I Can I recommend something that I read about
Speaker 1: Annihilation that I thought was a really good take on it. Um.
Speaker 1: It appeared in Collider and it's I'm Matt Goldberg and
Speaker 1: he basically is like, this is a movie about cancer,
Speaker 1: and it obviously cancers a through line, but the way
Speaker 1: that a cancer spreads and changes, and it doesn't have
Speaker 1: like an agenda other than the you know, innate biological
Speaker 1: agenda to self destruct, which is also referenced a lot um.
Speaker 1: But how how it like mutates and changes. And then
Speaker 1: he also kind of went into like, oh, they're all women.
Speaker 1: The most common form of cancer is breast cancer, like
Speaker 1: it was an interesting thought to play with. More it
Speaker 1: starts with them looking at cervical cancer cells at the beginning,
Speaker 1: and like, I think that's very intentional. I mean, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that this movie is also like
Speaker 1: resonating more for people who have like have you know
Speaker 1: that with depression or any other kind of self destructive tendencies,
Speaker 1: because I think that there are people who watch that
Speaker 1: ending scene and are like it's like, yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: out there, it's crazy. And then there are people are like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Like I I mean, I have like
Speaker 1: an extremely emotional reaction to the end. H. I appreciated
Speaker 1: that it was trying something crazy, But I do think
Speaker 1: that Alex Garland has sort of like an endings problem,
Speaker 1: um other than ex Pacino, which I really liked the
Speaker 1: ending of UM, but you know, I remembered he Sunshine also,
Speaker 1: which the movie that I really really liked up until
Speaker 1: a certain point, and I was always like, it's like
Speaker 1: two thousand one, it's like the acid cosmic horror movie,
Speaker 1: and then this is like the ecstasy movie, right. Um.
Speaker 1: In Sunshine also it ends with like and then there's
Speaker 1: a guy, a scary guy. And I think for me,
Speaker 1: just having it be like like a scary like a
Speaker 1: like a boss, you know, a level boss, instead of
Speaker 1: just being sort of like, oh, it's a mind fungus
Speaker 1: and it's not like a human being. The fact that
Speaker 1: it was like if it had been like tests what
Speaker 1: we were saying too, if the body had been made
Speaker 1: of slime, we would have been much more into it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess we thought we were looking for
Speaker 1: slime because maybe Emily is like, maybe it's because just
Speaker 1: like why did Emily want us to see that so badly?
Speaker 1: I don't understand. Um, But yeah, the part we're like
Speaker 1: the guy, the guy the suit thing is kind of
Speaker 1: like grinding on her and trying to become her. Like
Speaker 1: I thought it was gonna be like, oh percent, I
Speaker 1: think I just said, it turns it turns into slime
Speaker 1: and like takes her, you know. But again, maybe that's
Speaker 1: just because I was I was thinking for blob horror,
Speaker 1: see I find it well. I mean, you know you
Speaker 1: you see that part with the like deers who are
Speaker 1: marrying each other. Basically, I think that there's something terribly unsettling,
Speaker 1: much more than a bunch of slime would be about
Speaker 1: these sort of auto pile itsels that are just mimicking
Speaker 1: the body that are you Like, the idea of being
Speaker 1: in something that feels like a fight but is not
Speaker 1: a fight because it's just you is like, I feel
Speaker 1: like a kind of constricting fear around my chest because
Speaker 1: that sounds like a nightmare. Like that sounds horrible. Well,
Speaker 1: I initially when watching and I was like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: about PTSD because they both served in them. You know,
Speaker 1: scary had no face. That was the scariest part that
Speaker 1: very scary images in this movie, including the moving guts.
Speaker 1: There were like a lot of things that really liked
Speaker 1: and I appreciated how ambitious it was. Um, I think
Speaker 1: I also just felt like, oh, I don't want to
Speaker 1: have to put the pressure on this movie of like
Speaker 1: will we ever get another like team of female scientists.
Speaker 1: That's what I meant when I said that it was
Speaker 1: you you want so badly for it to be perfect,
Speaker 1: and I think what you expect from it depends a
Speaker 1: lot on what the changes that you want to see
Speaker 1: in the roles that women get to play. We were
Speaker 1: talking about another movie earlier. I don't want to outtest
Speaker 1: what I'm going to as she said she wasn't a
Speaker 1: fan of Ladybird so much as everyone else was. But
Speaker 1: she said also she was like, but guys get to
Speaker 1: make like narcissistic movies about their lives all the time,
Speaker 1: that like, maybe aren't the greatest movie in the world,
Speaker 1: So like, I don't want to condemn it, because you know,
Speaker 1: I liked Ladybird, but it didn't blow me away as
Speaker 1: much as I wanted it to, and then I had
Speaker 1: to and then you felt guilty for loving it, Like
Speaker 1: I wanted to be like my favorite and I thought
Speaker 1: the performances were incredible and I was happy that it
Speaker 1: was there. But I think maybe it's expectations that that
Speaker 1: I have that are so unreal stick to be met of,
Speaker 1: like I want Lady Bird to be the best, whereas
Speaker 1: we bring nothing to go see Paddington two, and then
Speaker 1: I love Paddington because I have nothing riding on Paddington too.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel like having that attitude, especially about
Speaker 1: anything like created by or featuring women, is like, I
Speaker 1: don't know a recipe for it is self destructive and
Speaker 1: and and it's unfair also like yeah, because exactly you don't.
Speaker 1: You don't come in with that expectation about no, it's
Speaker 1: totally unfair. And I also like, I feel like I
Speaker 1: put this pressure on Natalie Portman all the time too,
Speaker 1: you know where I'm like, Oh, that's where I differ
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I feel like, you know, I guess
Speaker 1: I understand in a cynical way why they wanted Natalie
Speaker 1: Portman to be this character. It's not like she's not
Speaker 1: the character. But I don't think that like trying to
Speaker 1: sell the movie on her name alone is any kind
Speaker 1: of strategy, because I feel like people are much more
Speaker 1: excited right now in general to see Taza Thompson and
Speaker 1: Gina Rodriguez in a movie that too. I mean, they
Speaker 1: were like, you know, I think it's also just because
Speaker 1: she's playing this main character who's a little more of
Speaker 1: a merry Sue and a little more sort of like
Speaker 1: a cipher. And then there was like the part that
Speaker 1: Tests and I both were like this is the best
Speaker 1: part was when Gina Rodriguez this is like, oh we
Speaker 1: got Hella footage, because I was like, she probably i'd
Speaker 1: lived that, because I don't know that Alex Garland has
Speaker 1: ever heard Hella. But it just felt like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, a real person, like a character who
Speaker 1: feels like they have a life that exists before they
Speaker 1: were in this. And I think one of the things
Speaker 1: that I really wanted to was I wanted it to
Speaker 1: be a much stranger movie than I felt like it was.
Speaker 1: I wanted it like I was just thinking when we
Speaker 1: were talking about, you know, these expectations that ending was
Speaker 1: too normal for you. It wasn't that it was it
Speaker 1: was that there was so much formulaic plot in that movie.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I didn't need any of the backstory or
Speaker 1: the setup, like I could have just been they could
Speaker 1: have just started an area X and just and I
Speaker 1: found the I found the characters. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: not just the characters themselves, but how how the like
Speaker 1: exal the like they were cuts. To feel I couldn't
Speaker 1: that stuffer, but to feel that's the thing where I'm like,
Speaker 1: don't don't condescend to self destructive. And I felt That's why.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm like, I don't I would rather do
Speaker 1: away that with that entirely. I would rather have those
Speaker 1: performances from the supporting characters be purely performance and not
Speaker 1: written as like, you know, she does X Y Z
Speaker 1: therefore this, because that feels so on the nose and
Speaker 1: like like so literal in the way that I don't
Speaker 1: think this film is operating in a really literal way.
Speaker 1: I mean, how are you supposed to really like explain
Speaker 1: the ending and a to B manner. It's just it's
Speaker 1: kind of all at that point, I wish this movie
Speaker 1: had like less dial just spend a lot more like
Speaker 1: plants growing into animals totally coming each other. Because obviously
Speaker 1: I like that. Yeah, that was that was great. I
Speaker 1: don't know why, but tests is looking up welcome to me. No,
Speaker 1: I'm not distracted, and I've no but I it's just
Speaker 1: because when we were talking about the best movie about
Speaker 1: a self destructive woman, yes, And I think it's it's
Speaker 1: interesting because I think every time there's a movie that
Speaker 1: is being framed as being like very strange or kind
Speaker 1: of mind bendy or something, I'm like, well, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I should recommend Welcome to Me, judging it
Speaker 1: against a Welcome to Me. Welcome to Me. It was
Speaker 1: not well received. I mean it was not well received,
Speaker 1: but it was well received by me. But it's like
Speaker 1: from when you talk about like a self destructive person
Speaker 1: or a personality where you have that you know, you
Speaker 1: kind of identify or you see parts of yourself in
Speaker 1: a very extreme characterization of a person, like Welcome to
Speaker 1: Me was. It didn't rely on anything familiar, but it
Speaker 1: painted a very specific and you know, it was a
Speaker 1: very full portrait of a self destructive person. Maybe not
Speaker 1: completely successful, but I mean I wanted something where the
Speaker 1: characters like you, you know, I really have a hard
Speaker 1: I'm with the she wears long sleeves and she cuts
Speaker 1: herself to Felix. I'm like, that's just kind of it is.
Speaker 1: It's condescending, and it's almost like exactly, this has a
Speaker 1: lot of tropes that like she cannot deal with, which
Speaker 1: I respect, and one of them is people using a
Speaker 1: stage brush, like people sweeping. It's sweeping the floor. That
Speaker 1: was my main issue with Horse and Pete, which they
Speaker 1: don't ever really do a lot of on Cheers. Surprisingly
Speaker 1: now they don't know it's wiping the bar. And I
Speaker 1: don't have no problem with wiping the bar. The bar
Speaker 1: go'll be white. But the floors, when when you see
Speaker 1: someone sweeping a floor and you look at the floor
Speaker 1: and you realize that there's nothing there and there's no
Speaker 1: pile and there's nothing to sweep, that's it takes me
Speaker 1: out of it more. But pro cosmic cor yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I I agree that it should have just
Speaker 1: been weirder if that's the main like complaint, because I
Speaker 1: think that, I mean, for the same reason I'm saying
Speaker 1: that I kind of resist this wanting to read it
Speaker 1: as like this victory because it's about five strong women.
Speaker 1: I like, well, women should also have stories about like
Speaker 1: like cosmic dissolution too, because like that that is like
Speaker 1: and usually that is just uh like men get to
Speaker 1: experience that in movies, and I feel like people are
Speaker 1: afraid to put women through that kind of thing fully
Speaker 1: in a movie because it feels like, oh, they're weak,
Speaker 1: and we need to always show strong women, uh in movies.
Speaker 1: And I feel like in something like this, it's so
Speaker 1: much more and I enjoyed it more certainly than I
Speaker 1: enjoyed seeing Jennifer Lawrence get the ship beat out of
Speaker 1: her and mother, Oh my god, Like there there are
Speaker 1: things about that movie that I liked, but I also,
Speaker 1: you know, could have done with more zeny suit dancing.
Speaker 1: Until you see Jennifer Lawrence get the sheet, the ship
Speaker 1: beat off, the sheet, ship beat out of her in
Speaker 1: Red Sparrow. Do you think she has Brendan Fraser? Uh,
Speaker 1: I guess where she wants to get beaten up in
Speaker 1: movies as like a self destructive tendency. It's very possible.
Speaker 1: It's very possible. Well, I mean we all actresses. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're a little bit of athochist, all actors. Let's be honest, guys.
Speaker 1: Let's take another night call. Let's do a night call.
Speaker 1: So we have another night call, night email. I guess
Speaker 1: if you will that also happens to double as a
Speaker 1: Fraser minute tests you want to read it for us? Sure?
Speaker 1: So this comes from Kate and she writes, dear night call,
Speaker 1: I actually already left you two voice messages about two
Speaker 1: different things, but this also just occurred to me. I
Speaker 1: was too embarrassed to call back a third time. I'm
Speaker 1: so grateful that you all provide regular Fraser banter. So
Speaker 1: my question is, have you ever tried to cast the
Speaker 1: role of Maris. The first person that comes to mind
Speaker 1: for me is Parker Posey, But that's never felt quite right.
Speaker 1: Despite the entire point of Maris being that she has
Speaker 1: vividly described but never seen, I can't quite seem to
Speaker 1: picture her. Is it possible? Is it like trying to
Speaker 1: imagine the face of God? Thoughts? Great question? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a good one. That's such a tough question because
Speaker 1: it is like trying to imagine the face of God. Right,
Speaker 1: I almost don't want to. Like I understand why Parker Posey,
Speaker 1: especially because of her in Best in Show. Um, but
Speaker 1: I feel like Marris is almost like transparent, like I
Speaker 1: always imagined her as being like a frail ghost. I
Speaker 1: have maybe an answer. Okay, So, as everyone knows, I've
Speaker 1: been watching all the Cheers in the world, UM, and
Speaker 1: I realized from watching Fraser prequel Cheers that the device,
Speaker 1: the Marrist device of the off screen character is actually
Speaker 1: from Cheers. Um, in reference to Norm's wife. Um, but
Speaker 1: it's talked about a lot UM. I also have realized
Speaker 1: that everything I've ever liked about any sitcom is from Cheers.
Speaker 1: Everything I liked about Friends was actually stolen from Cheers.
Speaker 1: Why did it take you so long to watch Cheers?
Speaker 1: It's so, yeah, I don't can't. I was always like,
Speaker 1: why would I want to? I don't like hanging out
Speaker 1: in bars in real life. Didn't your parents watch Cheers? No?
Speaker 1: I didn't watch sitcoms until the nineties. There's like a
Speaker 1: like a blank period where I didn't know anything about
Speaker 1: culture and the artist. I watched Sesame Street and Red
Speaker 1: Nerd Books, and then I insisted on watching full house.
Speaker 1: Cheers was the first show that I remember watching alongside
Speaker 1: my mom and not understanding, but like laughing along with
Speaker 1: the laugh track to prove that I got it. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't. I didn't remember much about that
Speaker 1: initial viewing, but I remember like all the characters and
Speaker 1: the vibe and everything. Yeah. Yeah, my parents watched Twin Peaks.
Speaker 1: But wait, so who would you cast as marriage? Oh?
Speaker 1: So I was watching Cheers and there's an episode where
Speaker 1: I'm in the Rebecca years now, which are you know,
Speaker 1: it's a different show, but it's fine. Um, Rebecca's sister
Speaker 1: came on and she was played by Marcia Cross. I
Speaker 1: know I remember this, yeah, as her like slotty sister
Speaker 1: who always steals her man um, and Sam tries to
Speaker 1: set them up into you know, he tries to play
Speaker 1: them off each other. Um, And I thought Marcia Cross
Speaker 1: would be a great merest Actually she's got that. She's
Speaker 1: see through. She's very, very skinny and sort of attrician
Speaker 1: looking and scary. But I do also think you can't really.
Speaker 1: I think Maris is the person thing from the end
Speaker 1: of Annihilation because I feel like it would be interesting
Speaker 1: to cast against type. I think for Mariss, I think
Speaker 1: my marists pick. The person who's base usually comes into
Speaker 1: my mind is Jane Adams. Weirdly, that makes sense too,
Speaker 1: because she appears on Fraser later and she's just got
Speaker 1: these big Yeah she is on Fraser. That's right, Um,
Speaker 1: she's am I allowed to say to ethnic she's like
Speaker 1: too She's not like waspy enough is my feeling, because
Speaker 1: I feel like she looks too like um, like a
Speaker 1: real person. Yeah. I mean, I was gonna say Mercedes McCambridge,
Speaker 1: but that's like a big time hop. Who's that Mercedes
Speaker 1: or culture the world's greatest living actress. I'm relying heavily
Speaker 1: on my phone this podcast. But so, she was the
Speaker 1: voice of the demon in The Exorcist. Okay, alright, but
Speaker 1: also also I wasn't she wasn't she Annie Hall's grandmother
Speaker 1: Gray Hawk? And I'm making that up. I'm gonna look.
Speaker 1: I like the idea that Niles is that Mary's is
Speaker 1: actually like very old. Well, I'm saying I would time
Speaker 1: hop I don't would believe that that Maris would not
Speaker 1: necessarily be like either because she's like she's like, she's
Speaker 1: like our wool war theorists, like she might not be
Speaker 1: the most eligible, couldn't you see? And Niles is totally
Speaker 1: her her beard that she married, Yes, yeah, but also
Speaker 1: couldn't you see Niles in like a Harold and mod situation? Yes?
Speaker 1: And then it's just like and they're still together. Um, well,
Speaker 1: that was a great question. Um let's take it to
Speaker 1: speaking of self destructive stadistic tortures. UM. I made Tess
Speaker 1: and Emily watch Darren Brown The Push, which is a
Speaker 1: Netflix special from the magician Darren Brown, who is a
Speaker 1: mentalist and uh a famous person in England but not here.
Speaker 1: And I feel like this was his first attempt to
Speaker 1: cross over into America. And what an attempt? Can I
Speaker 1: say that the title Darren Brown The Push sounds like
Speaker 1: a sex toy, I mean, Darren Brown. The Push is
Speaker 1: a reality TV special that is best described as like
Speaker 1: a serious Nathan for You death, where you try to
Speaker 1: socially conditioned someone to agree to push someone off a
Speaker 1: roof at the end of like a long night in
Speaker 1: which you've gotten them to agree to do all these
Speaker 1: different other demeaning things leading up to getting them to
Speaker 1: murder somebody. What do you think? Nobody was actually murdered,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean that it didn't feel like somebody was. Yes,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm so mad at you for making me
Speaker 1: watch I was. I mean, because I'm the Jennifer Jason Lee. Yeah,
Speaker 1: welcome and I um, yeah, I was. I did not
Speaker 1: watch this all the way through. I will admit, first
Speaker 1: of all, I watched a large a lot of it.
Speaker 1: I watched over how they missed the ending. I have
Speaker 1: to cop to the exact names I could not. Did
Speaker 1: you look up to see what happened? Yeah? I looked.
Speaker 1: I looked up to see what happened. And okay, guys,
Speaker 1: he didn't do it. Yeah, he tried to get somebody
Speaker 1: else to do it. No, he just didn't do it.
Speaker 1: He just said, like, no, this is wrong, I won't
Speaker 1: do it, and then they cut to the three other
Speaker 1: people they did it on and they all do it.
Speaker 1: In my head, no, it's amazing. It's like reverse editor
Speaker 1: because you're like, this guy is totally going to do it,
Speaker 1: and they lead all the way up to it, and
Speaker 1: then at the end they're like, you have to do it.
Speaker 1: You have to push him off the roof, and he's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to. This is fucked up. I don't
Speaker 1: believe in, Like, I don't want to do it, I
Speaker 1: don't care. Are like it's not worth it to me.
Speaker 1: I'm leaving, and you're like ah, and then they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: but also, we ran this experiment three other times and
Speaker 1: then they just show you one after the other, the
Speaker 1: people being like oh no, oh god, they just push him,
Speaker 1: they like cover their mouths. So I feel like we
Speaker 1: can get to a deeper car. I want to maybe
Speaker 1: not discuss this right away about the veracity of all
Speaker 1: of this, but I feel like those three other contestants
Speaker 1: could have easily been not real, Like maybe Chris, you know,
Speaker 1: I know That's what I'm saying. Like, I mean, before
Speaker 1: we get into that whole aspect of it about if
Speaker 1: it's it's like the TV show Cheaters. That's right, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly thought experiment and the way it makes you feel,
Speaker 1: like the fact that you guys both reacted like so
Speaker 1: violently it works. We got pushed, you got pushed. I
Speaker 1: found that they do have They have kind of a
Speaker 1: button at the beginning that is a different social It's
Speaker 1: like a microcosm of the whole thing of a man
Speaker 1: receiving a call at a cafe and the man and
Speaker 1: is not an actor, but everyone around him is an actor,
Speaker 1: and um Darren Brown and his friend or coworker, I
Speaker 1: don't think they're friends. Who knows the other guy he's with.
Speaker 1: They call this this person in the cafe, and they
Speaker 1: instruct him to steal a baby carriage because they say,
Speaker 1: you know that baby has been kidnapped and where the
Speaker 1: police you need to get out of bring the baby
Speaker 1: out of the cafe. So the guy does exactly what
Speaker 1: they say, and he brings the stroll or outside the cafe,
Speaker 1: going like this is crazy. I don't feel right about this,
Speaker 1: but he's doing it anyway. And I was so immediately
Speaker 1: disturbed because there's a Truman Show aspect to it of
Speaker 1: you eliminate you know anyone, nobody around this man is
Speaker 1: acting in good faith, and so that that's fascinating. It's
Speaker 1: fascinating because because in the social Okay, So, first of all,
Speaker 1: these are all people who signed up for a reality show,
Speaker 1: went through a barrage of like psychological tests to prove
Speaker 1: they could be on a reality show, and then we're
Speaker 1: told they didn't get the job, and then the reality
Speaker 1: show starts. So it's like David Fincher's a game. It's
Speaker 1: like it's even though they auditioned for a reality show,
Speaker 1: if any of them at any point, and even though
Speaker 1: everyone around them is acting like an actor, like acting
Speaker 1: very actory, which is also hard like impossible to tell
Speaker 1: from British. Yeah, no, I thought everybody was such a
Speaker 1: bad actor. I couldn't believe it. But like if anybody
Speaker 1: were like am I in a reality show? Like is
Speaker 1: this all a setup, like constructed to get me to
Speaker 1: push someone off a route to their death? Like, then
Speaker 1: you'd sound crazy. The kind of the prem recreated corpse
Speaker 1: is the best actor of anybody, and that thing was
Speaker 1: like that name is the biggest achievement of the show,
Speaker 1: is that corpse? Which oh, also Tessa and I saw
Speaker 1: a preview before Annihilation for the Steven Soderberg movie Unsane.
Speaker 1: That is for sure a night call. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: think I'm going to see it in a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: so we should definitely talk about it. So yeah, Darren Brown, Um,
Speaker 1: Darren Brown is like he's a mentalist and all of
Speaker 1: his magic is sort of about social conditioning and linguistic
Speaker 1: programming and how you can convince people to do things
Speaker 1: if you talk to them in a certain way and
Speaker 1: if you like repeat words over and over again. You
Speaker 1: can't see it right now, I'm doing like a big
Speaker 1: jack off motion. I can hear it. He's super famous
Speaker 1: in England and he's also like a genius close up
Speaker 1: magic and like regular magic. Um. But I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: the end of the show is he's like, don't be fascist,
Speaker 1: Like don't do stuff just because people tell you too,
Speaker 1: because like even though you think you're helping, you might
Speaker 1: not be. And like listen to the voice in your
Speaker 1: head of like why you're doing things instead of just
Speaker 1: doing things because you think you should. But he underwent
Speaker 1: I mean he the manipulations and the links that he
Speaker 1: went to. It's hard because if it weren't a reality show,
Speaker 1: and it were an experiment, it would be very very
Speaker 1: difficult what way does like, at what point does this
Speaker 1: diverge from anything that resembles anything a normal humans going
Speaker 1: to go through in life. For one, at this point
Speaker 1: you would know that maybe you were going to get
Speaker 1: like mega prank. I don't think that means a shadow
Speaker 1: LLC or something. No, he well he did one. There's
Speaker 1: one about the apocalypse that's really amazing. Yeah, that sounds good. Um,
Speaker 1: that one's really packed up because it's a kid whose
Speaker 1: family are like he's a lay about and like we're
Speaker 1: all tired of his ship. So they all conspire to
Speaker 1: like help do the con on him, which is the
Speaker 1: scariest thing of all. His married's baby. Everyone you know
Speaker 1: is in on it and they're your family. But they're like,
Speaker 1: he only does is like fucking funk around on his computer.
Speaker 1: So they start it's very black Marry. They start like
Speaker 1: seating his computer with fake news stories, um, and like
Speaker 1: his phone and it's like the computers in their house.
Speaker 1: I'll have these fake news stories that like lead up
Speaker 1: to a sort of twenty eight days later situation. But
Speaker 1: like nobody you know, I hate everyone, and hey, I
Speaker 1: mean you know question is what does this do to
Speaker 1: the person the subject of this show. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you if you actually had to put yourself through you know,
Speaker 1: me to a place where you thought you were pushing
Speaker 1: a human off a building. I mean, look, they all volunteered,
Speaker 1: and they're all and then Darren Brown comes out at
Speaker 1: the Brown comes out at the end, and they're all
Speaker 1: like so happy to see him, and they're just like,
Speaker 1: I love you. That's a social experiment that you're the
Speaker 1: person who is, you know, pretending that you're illuminating these
Speaker 1: truths about humanity, but maybe you're just kind of stoking
Speaker 1: your own ego. Well, he's like a weird con man
Speaker 1: in you know. I mean, I I don't know if
Speaker 1: he's a genius in like the Ricky j way. You know,
Speaker 1: he's definitely like a manipulator. I think the thing that
Speaker 1: I um that I find to be the most disingenuous
Speaker 1: about it is this like kind of underlining message that
Speaker 1: he's saying that that is going on about, like don't
Speaker 1: be a conformist, Like don't let yourself get wrapped up
Speaker 1: in in a fascist just don't get in it. Don't
Speaker 1: get in a crazy Truman show or anyone but it's
Speaker 1: it's I feel like there are so many of these
Speaker 1: like dog whistles in it are actually way more appealing
Speaker 1: to like men's rights activists and stuff, because it's all
Speaker 1: about here's a compliance mode. It all feels very pick
Speaker 1: up artist e and like I totally how to manipulate
Speaker 1: people to like get maybe the alpha and ship, and
Speaker 1: I like, I find sure a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of that Frank T. J. Mackie stuff, the real Frank T. J.
Speaker 1: Mackie whose name I forget, but who once got mad
Speaker 1: at me for doing a blog post about how this
Speaker 1: thing is literally to be like linguistic program people by
Speaker 1: getting them like you just say like blow me. You
Speaker 1: say like could you reach that that soda below me?
Speaker 1: And you just say like over and over again. It's
Speaker 1: like your programming them want to blow you reach soda
Speaker 1: below me? It's a dog like Okay, this is a
Speaker 1: women's rights activist poems w R all the way up.
Speaker 1: I have to say, like it was a different time,
Speaker 1: but I used to watch pickup Artist thought it was
Speaker 1: an interesting experiment. Just I mean, it was obviously horrible, horrible,
Speaker 1: and it made me feel rotten inside. But I was
Speaker 1: like didn't you like mind Hunter? Yeah, I've been liking mine. Huft. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you like thinking about like the rotten parts of
Speaker 1: the human brain. That thing's just if it's real or fictional.
Speaker 1: And this is the thing, is it felt you know
Speaker 1: my mixed feelings about The Bachelor for instance, of how
Speaker 1: you kind of, you know, take these people, you put
Speaker 1: them on a show. You you create very strange circumstances
Speaker 1: that they are forced to adapt to. They have real
Speaker 1: emotional responses to things that are constructed. There's like an
Speaker 1: ambivalence there. But then when you take someone, it's essentially
Speaker 1: emotional torture to prove a point. And I don't think
Speaker 1: that the point was necessarily proven. And I also think that,
Speaker 1: you know, it made me very nostalgic for I shouldn't
Speaker 1: be nostalgia for it because it's ongoing. But Nathan, for you,
Speaker 1: where I would expect to feel that same kind of like, oh,
Speaker 1: I feel morally uncomfortable with but I don't because the
Speaker 1: motive is not to exploit or somewhere or embarrass somebody.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people who can't deal with
Speaker 1: that kind of comedy in general because they're like too
Speaker 1: afraid they'd be the mark, you know. But it's not
Speaker 1: only that. It's so it's so hard to watch someone
Speaker 1: who is trying to do the right thing, but the
Speaker 1: whole frame is that it will be the wrong. The
Speaker 1: point is that it's hard to do the right thing
Speaker 1: and people don't care if you do. So, like in
Speaker 1: that situation, it's like everyone's telling you to push someone
Speaker 1: off a roof. Do you not do it? Because you're like, no,
Speaker 1: I still know that's wrong. I guess I just can't
Speaker 1: get past the actual stress of that he's going through.
Speaker 1: Like I just I think that that's a traumatic experience
Speaker 1: that they put him through. I don't feel like it's
Speaker 1: for any like particular particularly enlightening outcome, because I think
Speaker 1: it's applicable to groups. It's just about group psychology and
Speaker 1: and but I think it's like nothing. I feel like
Speaker 1: that hasn't been like it. It's like a big Milgram
Speaker 1: experiment basically, it is exactly what's interesting about I'm like,
Speaker 1: you can do a millgroom experiment on British television. I mean,
Speaker 1: I like, only on British television. Don't you do anything
Speaker 1: on British television. I thought that one thing that was
Speaker 1: very thought provoking, and you know occurs like pretty early
Speaker 1: in the push if you have any interest in seeing
Speaker 1: it but are ready to duck out. Is when they're
Speaker 1: doing the auditions. I guess that everyone will be told
Speaker 1: they fail, but they didn't. They have a bunch of
Speaker 1: actors and then they invite in some actual, just real
Speaker 1: people who don't know what's going on, and they ring
Speaker 1: a bell. Had every time the bell rings. Oh well,
Speaker 1: I was like, this is interesting. Every time the bell rings,
Speaker 1: the actors stand and the people who don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on. It takes them a while, but eventually they
Speaker 1: just start mimicking the behaviors of the act right. Wasn't
Speaker 1: that like annihilation too? It's just like human beings are
Speaker 1: just animals, man, just adapt dogs man. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that there are more interesting things that could have
Speaker 1: been done with this idea than punishing someone this as
Speaker 1: much as they did. I mean, it's it really, I
Speaker 1: think you have to be at such a distance from
Speaker 1: someone else's humanity to think that it's worth that cost
Speaker 1: to make the point. Yeah, I I don't think it's
Speaker 1: a victim less show. I guess that's how I feel.
Speaker 1: In the end. I feel like those people could be
Speaker 1: like especially the ones. If if those people did indeed
Speaker 1: go through this entire thing and then opt to kill
Speaker 1: the guy at the end and then learn that about themselves,
Speaker 1: I feel like that is that could really fuck somebody
Speaker 1: up for their entire life and for sure send them
Speaker 1: down a really bad reality. Um uh, you guys, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make you guys watch Haunted, the Haunted House documentary.
Speaker 1: So I started it and I was really liking it.
Speaker 1: I'll make you watch that for next week because what
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, it's also can you repeat the name?
Speaker 1: So it's called haunted. I think it's called haunters. It's
Speaker 1: called haunters. I keep calling it the wrong name. It's
Speaker 1: called haunters. It's about people, people who are really into
Speaker 1: Haunted House stuff and who professionally work as haunters in haunts.
Speaker 1: But again it's also you have to hip. But it
Speaker 1: also you're also going to be mad at me. It's
Speaker 1: be great because I mean that I watched that right
Speaker 1: after I just started it, right after the push, and
Speaker 1: I was like, see, these people want to be some
Speaker 1: I'm saying, those people want to be scared. People who
Speaker 1: signed up for a Darren Brown Show. At this point,
Speaker 1: they know what they might be in for, because it's
Speaker 1: like the fifth one of these, and the last one
Speaker 1: was like the Apocalypse, and the one before that was
Speaker 1: like getting people to rob a bank, So like it escalates.
Speaker 1: I wonder what the next next one will be. I
Speaker 1: honestly want to see one where it's just like, will
Speaker 1: this person eat three cream pies fifty Yorkshire puddings? Do
Speaker 1: we dare? Do you dare? Want something so twisty because
Speaker 1: fifty Yorkshire puddings would also be tortured so much food,
Speaker 1: that's so much butter. It ties back to Phantom Thread
Speaker 1: and here we are all about the hungry boys. Yeah,
Speaker 1: full British practice. So I guess you guys don't think
Speaker 1: Darren Brown's going to cross over into America. It's what
Speaker 1: you're saying. Well, he pronounced taste. He overpronounces his name
Speaker 1: so hard that I feel like he's really trying to
Speaker 1: get his name into our minds. So maybe he won
Speaker 1: the number one magician from the Magic Castle like two
Speaker 1: years running to see a mockumentary with someone else playing
Speaker 1: dar and Brown with a linguistic programmer. So he's just
Speaker 1: saying his name over and over again. Wow whatever it
Speaker 1: takes that part where they keep saying whatever whatever, good Well, Um,
Speaker 1: this this is a lovely night Call. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: wonderful night. Thank you everybody for listening. And hey, if
Speaker 1: you like Night Call for a few episodes in now,
Speaker 1: I think you know who you're in for. Why not
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Speaker 1: spread the words. So yeah and um and and as always,
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Speaker 1: Have a good night.