Speaker 1: It's ten pm in a nuclear s event deep below
Speaker 1: the Pacific Ocean, and you're listening to Nightcall. Welcome to Nightcall,
Speaker 1: a podcast for your strange days and lonely nights. My
Speaker 1: name is Emily Oshida. I am in New York, and
Speaker 1: with me, as always on the other line, I have
Speaker 1: Molly Lambert and Tess Lynch. Hello. Hello, What's apparently the
Speaker 1: world or civilization is coming to an end by This
Speaker 1: is not on our news, but just now this is
Speaker 1: breaking news, breaking news. Um, the end is in sight.
Speaker 1: Civilization will probably come to an end by toy fifty,
Speaker 1: because like climate change, I plan to also come to
Speaker 1: an end. All good, all good. It doesn't say definitively,
Speaker 1: it says probably. This is kind of a Vice article.
Speaker 1: This is Vice who's giving us this report? I will
Speaker 1: say I also haven't read the article yet. I have
Speaker 1: just seen it tweeted a million times, but I'm speculating
Speaker 1: that it's about climate change, refugees and stuff, and how
Speaker 1: we will have used all the resources of the earth
Speaker 1: at a certain point and then people will turn on
Speaker 1: each other as they have already been doing. Now they
Speaker 1: were kind of starting to get some perspective dates of
Speaker 1: like worst case scenario when everything's gonna go to ship.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of bummed out that I'm going to be
Speaker 1: in my sixties for it. I kind of wish I
Speaker 1: was like a little more, I don't know, you were
Speaker 1: a young person for the apocalypse, just so that I
Speaker 1: could like outrun people and stuff. Verse. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: not my fantasy, not my fantasy at all. Survival and
Speaker 1: fantasies are not my fantasy because I'm like, I would
Speaker 1: go limp and be the first to die. You wouldn't.
Speaker 1: You're very you don't give yourself enough credit. You know
Speaker 1: that is true, And I actually am in dangerous scenarios.
Speaker 1: I always like summon inner pluck. Yeah, stereotyping but also true. Well,
Speaker 1: just to clarify this Vice report Um says, the headline
Speaker 1: is new reports suggests quote high likelihood of human civilization
Speaker 1: coming to an end in twenty and it was written
Speaker 1: by it's yeah, a former fossil fuel executive. And it
Speaker 1: was also backed by the former chief of Australia's military
Speaker 1: m I don't know, I don't know that sounds bad.
Speaker 1: Backed by the Australian military. Maybe they're trying to foment
Speaker 1: fear could be well, because Australians are racist, it's how
Speaker 1: or not to generalize. Some of them aren't. But Australia
Speaker 1: as a country is like America. You know, it turned
Speaker 1: up a notch. Yeah, just like America, America in a
Speaker 1: weird e mirror. You know, it's like the same, but
Speaker 1: with different animals and types of you know, it's like
Speaker 1: America but different animals. That's a really really good way
Speaker 1: to sum up Australia. And also redheads are plucky and
Speaker 1: like we're just we're a totally straightforward science podcast. Now, well,
Speaker 1: speaking of science, I wanted to give some real science
Speaker 1: about why does the Moon keep flashing us? Is a
Speaker 1: gas flashes? There's something flashing us on the Moon and
Speaker 1: we don't know what it is. We have known about
Speaker 1: the mysterious flashes since at least late nineteen sixties. Small
Speaker 1: regions of the lunar Service would suddenly get brighter or
Speaker 1: darker without obvious explanations. The Science into survey of the
Speaker 1: flashes and dimming, which they called lunear transient phenomena uh
Speaker 1: and they have admitted light that is usually described as
Speaker 1: reddish or pinkish, sometimes with a sparkling or flowing appearance.
Speaker 1: The average duration of an event is some twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: but it made suburb well. Apparently there's a new telescope.
Speaker 1: Scientists have been trying to figure out why this happens
Speaker 1: for five decades since they were first discovered in the sixties,
Speaker 1: but they are now known to happen a few times
Speaker 1: a week, and a new team of astronomers has a
Speaker 1: new telescope in Spain, specifically to find out why it
Speaker 1: might be related to the moonquakes that we were talking
Speaker 1: about last week. This is so weird. I was just
Speaker 1: reading about earthquakes because there were some earthquakes in the
Speaker 1: Inland Empire. There were like thirty little earthquakes and and
Speaker 1: I was like, I felt no, I'm just like we're
Speaker 1: overdo obviously. I mean, maybe I'm crazy. I it was
Speaker 1: a apparently they were very small. I shouldn't have been
Speaker 1: able to feel them in Los Angeles but at us,
Speaker 1: but both my husband and I were like, earthquake. And
Speaker 1: then I checked Twitter and I was like, yes, there
Speaker 1: is an earthquake. I was reading about earthquake weather, which
Speaker 1: is like a sort of pseudo scientific phenomenon where people
Speaker 1: predict earthquakes because they're like, oh, the weather is weird,
Speaker 1: there's going to be an earthquake. It's totally not scientific.
Speaker 1: It doesn't it's ever been proven. It doesn't really work.
Speaker 1: There's nothing you can really use to predict an earthquake,
Speaker 1: like far in advance. It's but but not far in
Speaker 1: advance animal behavior, but also animals act weird all the time,
Speaker 1: so it's hard to distinguish. Makes you very paranoid. But
Speaker 1: they sometimes it's like they hide under the bed. That's
Speaker 1: my experiences. It's like they get weird and they start hiding,
Speaker 1: and you're like, where, what's up with the animals? And
Speaker 1: then there's an earthquake and like that's what was up.
Speaker 1: But I was reading about another phenomenon called earthquake light,
Speaker 1: which is real, which has been noticed when there's an earthquake,
Speaker 1: there's like a like a phenomenal light phenomenon that's described
Speaker 1: as being like colored light. It sounds just like this,
Speaker 1: But where can you see it in the sky or
Speaker 1: is it like it's like a aurora a type thing.
Speaker 1: It's like an aurora you can see over the ye
Speaker 1: in the sky during an earthquake. Supposedly this sounds just
Speaker 1: like that. Maybe this is like a moonquake. That is
Speaker 1: very molly good hypothesis. That's really good because she's actually
Speaker 1: the scientific community. Well, if you actually know any science
Speaker 1: about the moon, more science about we should have uh
Speaker 1: some scientists on this expert. Yeah, a moon ologistian my friend,
Speaker 1: my friend Emma Cunningham explained the northern lights to me. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it like I couldn't understand it at all, but
Speaker 1: I love the northern light. It's so cool, northern lights.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things are It's like, even when
Speaker 1: you haven't explained, it doesn't make it any less cool
Speaker 1: or weird or magical. Yeah. So that at the moon minute, Well,
Speaker 1: just to dip back into the apocalypse real quick, or like,
Speaker 1: I guess maybe both the Moon and Earth are currently
Speaker 1: going through it right now. I'm sorry, I'm a really
Speaker 1: bad joke I have to do right now. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: it's going through MOONA pause. No, yeah, that's why we're
Speaker 1: here today, Okay. Um, I was going down our rabbit
Speaker 1: hole for completely separate but also night called related reasons.
Speaker 1: I now realize and I discovered this is not at
Speaker 1: all news, but I just wanted to share it with everybody. Um.
Speaker 1: I became aware of the Florida Dome Homes. You can
Speaker 1: look them up. They are officially called the Cape Romano
Speaker 1: Dome Homes. They're somewhere off the they're off the coast
Speaker 1: now they are off the coast of Florida. They were
Speaker 1: originally on the beach, but thanks to a couple of
Speaker 1: um hurricanes and some some of that good old glacier
Speaker 1: melt there now in the water. Well wait, technically it's
Speaker 1: one home, but it's six domes that are connected into
Speaker 1: one house. Yes, yeah, it's a dome home. It's a
Speaker 1: dome home singular. But there's many domes I should say
Speaker 1: domes home. Yes, uh, they so. I would highly recommend
Speaker 1: a Google image search of these. They now just like
Speaker 1: look like the sort of rickety about to fall over.
Speaker 1: They kind of look like like that Greek style of
Speaker 1: like Adobe dome. They're really cool on stilts. The guy
Speaker 1: who built them built them to be completely self sufficient,
Speaker 1: so they were like very ahead of their times. This
Speaker 1: is like in the I think in the early eighties,
Speaker 1: maybe he started to build them. Yes, Bob Bob Lee
Speaker 1: is the guy's Bob Lee. Yeah. I don't think these
Speaker 1: are featured. But there's a movie that I really love
Speaker 1: called Home Movie. It's a documentary made by the people
Speaker 1: who made American movie. It like the movie they made
Speaker 1: right afterwards, And it's just going to a bunch of
Speaker 1: people who built weird or unusual homes and interviewing them
Speaker 1: about it, and they're all really cool. And this one
Speaker 1: isn't in it. There's somebody else who has kind of
Speaker 1: like a UFO house that's kind of a similar kind
Speaker 1: of like proto solar panel. Yeah, really cool. There are
Speaker 1: photos in this will link to this um dwell article
Speaker 1: about it that has some photos of the inside of
Speaker 1: the house when it was still functional and when Bob
Speaker 1: Lee's family lived there, and it looks really nice. It
Speaker 1: looks yeah, total nightcall headquarters. Yes, absolutely, like these child
Speaker 1: floors looks very Mediterranean, but like all the rooms around obviously,
Speaker 1: and you've got these like you know, three D and
Speaker 1: sixty degree views of the water and you're in Florida
Speaker 1: and everything kind of looks paisy and pink and it
Speaker 1: looks great. Uh, And now they are kind of these
Speaker 1: abandoned little they look like if jellyfish could have fossils,
Speaker 1: they look like that. Ye, yes, if jelly fish had bones.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, imagine if jellyfish had bones. I don't
Speaker 1: think they'd be jellyfish anymore. Honestly, wish have bones. It's
Speaker 1: over for us, bitches. You know they will be here
Speaker 1: long after because they are the oldest. I know they
Speaker 1: shall be the first and last. I saw a really
Speaker 1: good video recently of a comb jellyfish eating in another
Speaker 1: comb jellyfish, just like bumping up against one and then
Speaker 1: be like, like I encountered something else in my environment,
Speaker 1: I will eat it hit me anyway. I would check
Speaker 1: out the dome. The dome home it is. It is
Speaker 1: super cool. I wish that it was anywhere nearly savageable,
Speaker 1: because I would totally be putting in a bid for
Speaker 1: it to be our night Call headquarters. But I think
Speaker 1: it's just we just have to let it go out
Speaker 1: to see. There was an interesting thing at the end
Speaker 1: about how they tried to raise money to sink it artificial.
Speaker 1: Read so when we get our gill transplants and we
Speaker 1: can breathe underwater, I'm wondering if that's not something that
Speaker 1: could be revived successfully. Now. I wonder when that um
Speaker 1: fundraising campaign will transplant. I wonder when, like they proposed
Speaker 1: turning it into an artificial reef, because I feel like
Speaker 1: now people would be very receptive to that, whereas a
Speaker 1: few years ago, when we were so blithe, we were like,
Speaker 1: I would really like some Gil transplants and to just
Speaker 1: live in there. That's my dream. Well, I don't think
Speaker 1: I could live under fatter even with Gil the first
Speaker 1: Little Mermaid, I'd be so know you went in because
Speaker 1: you live underwater, right, and then you would get pruny fingers,
Speaker 1: and you'd have to deal with that feeling of the
Speaker 1: thirsty skin even though it's in. It's just terrible, Like
Speaker 1: maybe you'd put sand on your body, Jills and scales
Speaker 1: to make this work. It's way too much work, guys.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about one more news item before
Speaker 1: we move on, and this was I think this came
Speaker 1: out a week I think I read this on the
Speaker 1: train coming back from Nightcall last week. But there was
Speaker 1: a big article in the New York Times about Peter
Speaker 1: Max the the commercial artist of the sixties and the
Speaker 1: premier commercial artists of the sixties some of these um
Speaker 1: and how he now has dementia and his children have
Speaker 1: basically like completely like they've completely tried to buy off
Speaker 1: his legacy. They are having him sign art that he
Speaker 1: did not make such pulled up. It's his son Adam
Speaker 1: and two business associates are doing that. His daughter Libra
Speaker 1: is like that, she's on his side, like Cosmo, And
Speaker 1: yes it is. It's Keen Lear with with with off
Speaker 1: art or so. First of all, I clicked on this
Speaker 1: because I was so curious because in my neighborhood in Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: there is a silver Jaguar that has a New York
Speaker 1: license plate that's always parked on the street somewhere around
Speaker 1: me that says Peter Max. It's like a lanity plates
Speaker 1: says Peter Max. And I've always been like, does Peter
Speaker 1: Max live in my neighborhood and in Brooklyn? And then
Speaker 1: so I immediately opened up and I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what's going on with Peter Max? What's going on in
Speaker 1: the you know, not at all glamorous corner of Park Slope,
Speaker 1: which I whish I live. But apparently whoever has that
Speaker 1: car has nothing to do with or at least as
Speaker 1: not a associated with his studio, which is all on
Speaker 1: the Upper West Side. Because of course it is um
Speaker 1: uh yeah, it's a it's a it's a wild story.
Speaker 1: It also just like I don't know about how they
Speaker 1: tried to they tried to poison him with brazil NEAs. Okay,
Speaker 1: so wait, guys, I went really deep on this great
Speaker 1: there's so many well, I just I took a lot
Speaker 1: of notes on this story because I was like, there's
Speaker 1: everyone is a villain in this story, and just be
Speaker 1: real right in Peter Max, Well, Peter Max is not
Speaker 1: a villain much. Yeah, well he's a sellout. And then
Speaker 1: he tried he like you know, basically pled guilty to
Speaker 1: tax evasion. And after that, oh, because he was so
Speaker 1: he was an artist who very quickly was you know,
Speaker 1: he was kind of like kind of counterfeits, like he's
Speaker 1: like with Don Draper is dreaming of when he when
Speaker 1: he is meditating. He was like one of the first
Speaker 1: of that wave to just be like I'm gonna team
Speaker 1: up with the CEO of Chrysler, I'm gonna sell I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do like advertisements. That's gonna be my thing. And
Speaker 1: then he became really into spending his money. So when
Speaker 1: he divorced his first wife, he was like, I will
Speaker 1: just build a staircase connecting my apartment and the adjacent
Speaker 1: apartment so we can lead separate lives but co parent
Speaker 1: our children. It's like, it's just like terrible. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: He just became a kind of a rich dick. So
Speaker 1: then he has two children, Adam and Libra. And Libra
Speaker 1: I guess he you know, Peter Max is like an
Speaker 1: animal rights activist and stuff. Libra kind of inherited that,
Speaker 1: moved to l a was doing that, wasn't super involved
Speaker 1: in the business even though she and Adam and Peter
Speaker 1: were all running the company, so Libra didn't really have
Speaker 1: much to do with it. Adam, you know, eventually Peter
Speaker 1: Max Alzheimer's and became unable to really, you know, do
Speaker 1: his art or even kind of function at these events
Speaker 1: that he was going to, most of which were on
Speaker 1: cruise lines where people would get drunk and bid on
Speaker 1: Peter Max paintings. So his son at some point kind
Speaker 1: of basically put the studio on lockdown so nobody could
Speaker 1: see what was going on inside, and then had all
Speaker 1: of these minimum wage workers making like replica Peter Max paintings,
Speaker 1: and then he would have his dad come in and
Speaker 1: sign them. But then, you know, I guess Peter Max
Speaker 1: is I'm not sure if he's still married to her,
Speaker 1: but his second wife, Mary Um started accusing Adam of,
Speaker 1: you know, basically kidnapping Peter Max because they couldn't find him,
Speaker 1: couldn't contact him. And so all of the court records
Speaker 1: are cited in the New York Times investigation and that's
Speaker 1: where the poisoning vibe brazil nut comes in. So Adam
Speaker 1: is like, hey, it's not just me here, who is
Speaker 1: being abusive to my dad? Look at my mom. She
Speaker 1: is making him smoothies where she puts in hold zill
Speaker 1: nuts hoping that he'll choke. Apparently she was recorded talking
Speaker 1: to someone about hiring a guy to like intimidate Peter
Speaker 1: Max and you know, break his hand so he wouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to paint. It is this whole It feels
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of stories like this recently about
Speaker 1: elder abuse with famous famous There's a Stanley one and
Speaker 1: the guy just got convicted. Oh did he? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: was selling that for a while as well. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's some dark stuff, like the idea of
Speaker 1: the Norwegian isn't it like a Norwegian cress line that's
Speaker 1: like a Peter Max theme boat, Like it's it just
Speaker 1: sounds like part of me is like would I want
Speaker 1: to be on that? And then I'm like no, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: And then when just filled with all this like forged
Speaker 1: dart that like some old man with franches forced like
Speaker 1: a gunpoint basically to side, Like, oh god, it's so dark,
Speaker 1: all of it. It's like velvet buzz soft. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I feel like there's so much creepy bullshit in the
Speaker 1: regular art world though, too, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I like every baroque I know, but every big artist
Speaker 1: has like an army of like underpaid, you know, lower
Speaker 1: tier people fabricating all the arts for them, like they
Speaker 1: don't make any of the art they tried to, kind
Speaker 1: of like Damian Herst's like people build build art for
Speaker 1: artists who dictate how to do it. But then this
Speaker 1: is like too many degrees of separation even for that realm.
Speaker 1: If you're not even conscious of making the art, then
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's something else. I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: it's a pretty wild story. The new Katy Perry video
Speaker 1: for Never Really Over is very Peter max ish. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all like kind of looks like a Paisley scarf
Speaker 1: with It's very like the like the coke commercial from
Speaker 1: the Last Madman that you're just talking about. It's very
Speaker 1: like seventy really seventies, late sixties. Also the song is good.
Speaker 1: Speaking of pop stars, I flew on a very special
Speaker 1: UFO to England where I saw the new Black Mirror
Speaker 1: episode that nobody has seen yet um and not as
Speaker 1: of this recording, not nobody, but it's now out, which
Speaker 1: means everybody can talk about it. But it means I'm,
Speaker 1: you know, projecting this to you from from before you've
Speaker 1: seen the Black Mirror episode. Is what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: I've seen this Black Mirror episode. It is now out
Speaker 1: on Netflix. Now out on Netflix and you can watch too.
Speaker 1: It is called Rachel Jack and Ashley Too, and it
Speaker 1: stars Miley Cyrus as a pop star named Ashley Oh.
Speaker 1: And this will be another Black Mirror episode that people
Speaker 1: will be like, how did this predict exactly what is
Speaker 1: happening right this moment? Because it does eerily touch on
Speaker 1: some issues of many things we were just talking about
Speaker 1: in terms of like ownership, create of ownership, who profits
Speaker 1: off of an artist, especially one that has a lot
Speaker 1: of people profiting off of them, and a motive in
Speaker 1: continuing making every person continue to work h So Miley
Speaker 1: plays Ashley Oh. And the best thing, one of the
Speaker 1: many good things about this episode, which is very nightcall
Speaker 1: bait e, is that, um, she sings a pop song
Speaker 1: that is had like a Hole by nine inch Nails
Speaker 1: with new lyrics that her Hannah Montana e. Oh. I
Speaker 1: thought she just did a cover of head like a Hole. No,
Speaker 1: it's so much better than that. It's like they show
Speaker 1: her singing the song and I was like, what is
Speaker 1: this song? It's so catchy and also familiar in the trailer,
Speaker 1: right maybe, Um, I've had it and I've had it
Speaker 1: in my head since then and I couldn't share it
Speaker 1: with anybody. But it's like, amah, it's called on a roll.
Speaker 1: I'm on a roll. I'm taking control, doing my best
Speaker 1: achieving muggle. Oh my god. Um And they play in
Speaker 1: a million times in the episode and it's really good. Uh.
Speaker 1: This episode touches on yeah, many things we all talk
Speaker 1: about in terms of wait, so what's the prim like,
Speaker 1: what happened? What happens to her in the story? Too
Speaker 1: much of it, that's spilling too much. It's a dual
Speaker 1: narrative about Ashley Oh and a teenage girl who is
Speaker 1: her fan and so it's mostly from the point of
Speaker 1: view of the girl who's the fan, but it's about
Speaker 1: Ashley is about to turn twenty five, and that is
Speaker 1: when she gains control of her business basically, and she
Speaker 1: has an aunt who has a conservatorship and she, uh,
Speaker 1: the aunt maybe is being manipulative of her to try
Speaker 1: and ensure that the money never stops. It sounds it
Speaker 1: sounds good. I missed Black Mirror. I've been like really
Speaker 1: after band or Snatch. I thought that they were going
Speaker 1: to at least the next three episodes, like right away,
Speaker 1: and I was just kind of tapping my finger. Sounds
Speaker 1: really good, I cried at the end. But it's also
Speaker 1: without spelling too much, it's maybe not as depressing as
Speaker 1: some Black mirrors. If you're a person who doesn't like
Speaker 1: to watch Black Mirror because you find it too depressing,
Speaker 1: it too depressing. Black mirrors are difficult, I think this
Speaker 1: is not that one. Um, it's very good. It it's
Speaker 1: funny also, but it also concerns a robot, a home
Speaker 1: robot called Ashley Too, the titular Ashley Too, and so
Speaker 1: they make an AI of her basically or something like that,
Speaker 1: like to continue to be able to make money off
Speaker 1: of her. Is that the basic premise of it, or
Speaker 1: it's like they make an AI of her. Yes, they
Speaker 1: that's the basic premise. They make an AI of her
Speaker 1: by like scanning her consciousness, putting it in like a
Speaker 1: little Alexa home robot that's in like this little Wally
Speaker 1: that like sits on your desk and it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Hey, talk to me about your feelings?
Speaker 1: Um in Miley's voice, Well, like this is even happening
Speaker 1: now though, like this was happening a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: I feel like, um, I feel like who who gave
Speaker 1: an interview about this after being in a Marvel movie
Speaker 1: where they were like, um oh, I realized that now
Speaker 1: my entire body and likeness has been scanned by Marvel
Speaker 1: and Disney and therefore and it is it belongs to them.
Speaker 1: Like this was a part of the contract because they
Speaker 1: had to, you know, make a digital recreation in your likeness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they own your likeness and then they can essentially make
Speaker 1: anything with that likeness. They can simulate your you know,
Speaker 1: they can do the Princess Leiah thing from from the
Speaker 1: end of Rogue one or whatever they can. They can
Speaker 1: you know, generate a new you. Uh yeah, so that
Speaker 1: that is extremely what this is about. And the fact
Speaker 1: that it stars Miley makes it also kind of like.
Speaker 1: It's very meta but not annoying. It's funny and good
Speaker 1: and I'm excited for everybody else to see it. Um
Speaker 1: seamlessly into our discussion of a movie we all watched
Speaker 1: called Simone. I would say we watched Simone because we
Speaker 1: watched Simone because of this. I did not remember though,
Speaker 1: that while I was looking at the trivia for Simone,
Speaker 1: and one of the things about it was that they
Speaker 1: were planning to market it as that they had generated
Speaker 1: the first AI actress. And then it was right around
Speaker 1: the same time as the Final Fantasy Movie, you know,
Speaker 1: when they were like, We're going to make cg I
Speaker 1: movies with entirely c g I people, and SAG got
Speaker 1: so mad about it. Bless the screen actor. I am
Speaker 1: a member of the great Force that I love. I
Speaker 1: was legit concerned about actors being replaced with c g
Speaker 1: I and so they forced like Simone to say, like, no,
Speaker 1: this is a real actress playing this part, which it
Speaker 1: obviously is, because it's not at all believable c g I. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what do you think of Simone. Oh my god, Well,
Speaker 1: I saw this movie in theaters when it came out.
Speaker 1: I think that they were really pushing that. It was like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's the guy who did Gatica, so it's gonna be
Speaker 1: like fun but also like a keen person's sci fi thing.
Speaker 1: And it is very much like a it's totally a
Speaker 1: Black Mirror episode before there was Black Mirror, Like like,
Speaker 1: what it's about is interesting, right, And it's The hilarious
Speaker 1: thing is that it was not well received at the time,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's probably due to the fact
Speaker 1: that it's not a very good movie. But a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of the reviews are just site that
Speaker 1: it's so far fetched or it could never happen and
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah. And that's not the problem
Speaker 1: with the script is really bad. The script is really bad. Uh.
Speaker 1: The tone is super weird, very strange, but not in
Speaker 1: like a fun way. It made me appreciate Under the
Speaker 1: Silver Lake, right, No, there have been a ton of
Speaker 1: movies recently where I've been like Under the Silver Lake. Actually,
Speaker 1: at least it gave me a feeling, right well, it
Speaker 1: tries to dip into satire every now and then and
Speaker 1: just like cannot nail it, like a combination of just
Speaker 1: like I, I don't know, it feels like sometimes out
Speaker 1: but you know, might not be fully present in the role.
Speaker 1: And then but I can't blame Piccino. He was so
Speaker 1: game for this, like he was working with a green
Speaker 1: screen for a lot of it, doing a great job there.
Speaker 1: I feel like everyone who made it thought they were
Speaker 1: making a really important movie. And I was also shocked
Speaker 1: to realize that came out in two thousand two. But
Speaker 1: that explained everything to me because I was like, this
Speaker 1: movie takes place in the future. Yeah, that then like
Speaker 1: wasn't going to happen after in the got those marimbas.
Speaker 1: It's got that kind of pseudo American beauty score, which
Speaker 1: is very totally reminded me of is Paul Simon's The
Speaker 1: Rhythm of the Saints. This like slightly embarrassingly, very embarrassing,
Speaker 1: like white Man on the drums kind of. It was
Speaker 1: just like I will say, let me say it always
Speaker 1: Paul Simon. I can't. It's hard. It's hard, it's so
Speaker 1: emotionally it's bad. I know, we're two out of three
Speaker 1: for Paul assignment. Unfortunately, come on Sorry Loos. I think
Speaker 1: what is really tragic about Simone is that I love
Speaker 1: The Truman Show so much. I think we all like
Speaker 1: The Truman Show. And Andre Nicholl wrote co wrote The
Speaker 1: Truman Show, and that was actually his first movie that
Speaker 1: he wanted to get made, and then they were like,
Speaker 1: we're not going to give you eighty million dollars to
Speaker 1: make your first movie. And it turned out to knocked
Speaker 1: it out of the park. He did good job, he
Speaker 1: did great that that's what's in Peter were so much
Speaker 1: better of a director Simone. It had Peter Weir. I
Speaker 1: think maybe he could have spun gold out of it.
Speaker 1: I think that there's something about the you know, Patino's character,
Speaker 1: what's his name? Victor turand Taransky? They say his name
Speaker 1: so often. How I wiped it Victor Turansky Victor Taransky
Speaker 1: is the most interesting thing about this movie is all
Speaker 1: the weird people in it. Yeah, one place the daughter,
Speaker 1: which means play from the West World universe, which makes
Speaker 1: perfect sense. Sure, Jay Moore is the hotheaded leading man.
Speaker 1: Is such a weird choice in this room. And then
Speaker 1: Winona Writer at the beginning playing the actress, the bitchy
Speaker 1: actress who storms offset creating the need for a cg
Speaker 1: I actress is Nicola Anders and reminder, this movie was
Speaker 1: made by Andrew Nicole. Yeah the crazy things, did you
Speaker 1: guys notice? So so so Nicola Anders. You know, she's
Speaker 1: she's sort of the impetus for this whole thing of
Speaker 1: him being like, what if there was a woman I
Speaker 1: could control from beginning to end of the of the
Speaker 1: promotion and the production and everything. Uh. And then she,
Speaker 1: after kind of realizing that she lost out on this
Speaker 1: major chance to become a star like Simone, Nicola Andrews
Speaker 1: comes back with her tail between her legs, like dressed
Speaker 1: like a serious theater person and like a black turtleneck
Speaker 1: and and and like a Lilith style haircut. Um or
Speaker 1: like up to or whatever. And um uh. She does
Speaker 1: an audition for a scene that I swear to God
Speaker 1: and I will go back and check this. I should
Speaker 1: have done that before this, but I'm pretty sure it's
Speaker 1: almost word for word the audition scene from Mulholland Drive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it also checks out, which is like one year before.
Speaker 1: But it's like it's like, you know, both of them
Speaker 1: end with I wish you were dead, I wish we
Speaker 1: were both dead, and I was like, I know this scene,
Speaker 1: it's that other audition scene from that other movie from
Speaker 1: the same weird era. But I mean there's a lot
Speaker 1: of like Easter eggs and stuff like that in this movie.
Speaker 1: But that did not make me like it. That's normally
Speaker 1: something that can booy me, and also just the funny.
Speaker 1: The only funny parts are Simones movies and their titles,
Speaker 1: including Sunrise, Sunset, Eternity Forever, and my favorite one, her
Speaker 1: art film I Am Pig, which, like, I just want
Speaker 1: to watch I Am Pig. So it's just her eating
Speaker 1: out of a trough with big and that's all. We
Speaker 1: should back up slightly just to like explain what specifically
Speaker 1: this movie is about, which is that this director of
Speaker 1: Victor Taranski want, you know, as we said, like he
Speaker 1: wishes he could have an actress he could truly control.
Speaker 1: So he gets this drive from this crazy scientist who
Speaker 1: conveniently is dying like the next Christopher Maloney. Right, No,
Speaker 1: Calias Kate, cut it, Oh, Ellive Qatar is very similar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't cut it. It's part of the My husband was like,
Speaker 1: it was like how many and what you went on
Speaker 1: this whole tangent, But he was like, how many rules
Speaker 1: do you think that both he and Chris Maloney were
Speaker 1: up for? And it like was this big? Did they
Speaker 1: hate each other? We were talking about that. We were like,
Speaker 1: oh no, we have to go back to watching Simone
Speaker 1: to stop talking about this. I watched. I watched Simone
Speaker 1: in three sittings. I usually try to just like cruise
Speaker 1: three things, and I couldn't. I took a nap in
Speaker 1: the middle of it. Um but put you to sleep.
Speaker 1: It does. It's really the middle really lacks. But he
Speaker 1: gets this technology simulation one renamed Simone uh and uh,
Speaker 1: and then we kind of YadA yata through how he
Speaker 1: actually gets her to be in his movie. I will
Speaker 1: say that his movies that he makes are very funny
Speaker 1: in a kind of late nineties way, like the way
Speaker 1: that they like parody what the movie thinks is like
Speaker 1: an art film, Like it's pretty funny. Like there's so
Speaker 1: there's one that's called Sunrise Sunset and it feels like
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's supposed to take place in
Speaker 1: like seventeenth century Portugal or something like that. All of
Speaker 1: it has like like Gregorian chant music, star More and
Speaker 1: this woman that Andrew Nicole end up ended up marrying apparently. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is the craziest part of Simone is finding out
Speaker 1: that he married the actress who plays Simone. Rachel Roberts
Speaker 1: did was a biotherm model. She was on mad Men
Speaker 1: and I think c s I. She's been She's been
Speaker 1: in a lot of stuff. And then she was also
Speaker 1: in the music video for Bitch Better Have My Money.
Speaker 1: She's the wife. Yeah, Med's Med's his wife. Yeah. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he basically has to keep up this ruse because he
Speaker 1: couldn't just like tell his his producer slash ex wife
Speaker 1: is played by Katherine Keener. We all love Katherine Keener,
Speaker 1: a wonderful presence to have even a movie like this,
Speaker 1: but she, for some reason, because it's a movie, he
Speaker 1: has to keep this from her. And he's Simone. Well,
Speaker 1: his plays he Simone, and he uses he has a
Speaker 1: special Simone. Let's let's clarify. Simone is not sentient. Yes, no,
Speaker 1: she's not a holl No, she's not a how it's Kranski.
Speaker 1: She's a lot a weird sitting in front of a
Speaker 1: screen with her c g I face and she repeats
Speaker 1: using the voices canned voices of actresses of the Golden
Speaker 1: Age of cinema or whatever, and to mimic what he
Speaker 1: has a mimic button. He has a special keyboard. I
Speaker 1: also was like, I just want to know about this keyboard.
Speaker 1: There's like a mimic button, like an a loop button.
Speaker 1: So it's like eventually just by video editing button, but
Speaker 1: just by using his magical keyboard. He he, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody's responding to Simone, even though Transky's movies are really
Speaker 1: bad and they're just like it doesn't matter put her
Speaker 1: in anything. So then he like has her ascend as
Speaker 1: a pop star and she's given concerts as a hologram
Speaker 1: and everyone's like weeping because it's so beautiful. But then
Speaker 1: he becomes like afraid of her success and kind of
Speaker 1: tries to like destroy her career by having her do
Speaker 1: I Am Pig and like smoking and drinking wine in
Speaker 1: like you know, streamed interviews, and everyone's just like, look
Speaker 1: at Simone, She's so three real and she kind of
Speaker 1: he has her kind of imply that she's like dating
Speaker 1: to Ransky to make Catherine Keener jealous. The one thing
Speaker 1: that I think maybe ages the Lee stwell in this movie.
Speaker 1: And you could take your pick of a lot of things,
Speaker 1: But I do think that the thing that I feel like,
Speaker 1: if this is a black mirror and if this was made,
Speaker 1: if this premise was done now, the trajectory of her
Speaker 1: public approval would be so much different. It's a very
Speaker 1: nineties thing, and it's a very mono culture thing to
Speaker 1: have this star, this like fictional star that everybody has
Speaker 1: the exact same opinion about everybody, from the producer who's
Speaker 1: producing the movie that she's in, to like these you
Speaker 1: know sleazy guys who were one of them, who's Jasian swordsman,
Speaker 1: who's like trying to get the inside scoop on whose
Speaker 1: simone is. They all are just like universally adoring of her.
Speaker 1: And that's that was very pre internet. That feels very
Speaker 1: and but even like I think even though pre Internet
Speaker 1: you would have you would have a backlash at some
Speaker 1: point over somebody like that, it also wasn't pre Internet.
Speaker 1: Also because Evan rachel Wood's character is like constantly being
Speaker 1: shatter aim or whatever she loves computers is reading about Pygmalion,
Speaker 1: of course, I mean it's like it's so and it's
Speaker 1: and it really doesn't have like almost any humor because
Speaker 1: he's like fundamentally unsympathetic. I think it's the problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like he's horrible, but it's like under the Silver
Speaker 1: like it's like women are objects. What if you could
Speaker 1: just make an object and tell it whatever to do
Speaker 1: whatever you want. Oh, you're still unsatisfied. Like that could
Speaker 1: be a really interesting arc. But the way they do
Speaker 1: it as like, I don't know, it's like Pacino can't
Speaker 1: save it because it's like it's like Studio sixty on
Speaker 1: the Sunset Strip. You're like, I fundamentally can't care about
Speaker 1: like a rich asshole unless there's some sort of like
Speaker 1: humbling well also there unless it gets like Scrooge. You
Speaker 1: know early on that there's really no possibility that Simone
Speaker 1: will attain the ability to kind of differentiate, like she's
Speaker 1: never gonna go rogue, as like a row bought might
Speaker 1: in a more interesting movie. That's why The Black Mirror
Speaker 1: is good because all of these things, uh and more.
Speaker 1: I think it's an interesting artifact that at least shows
Speaker 1: that we were thinking about these things before they came
Speaker 1: to pass, and also that like apparently people deemed them
Speaker 1: to be completely unbelievable at the time. But like the
Speaker 1: mimic thing I mean, YadA YadA is all the tech
Speaker 1: because it doesn't you know, obviously nobody knew who that
Speaker 1: was going to work. But like all that stuff is
Speaker 1: very very plausible. Now you could we have like we
Speaker 1: have hologram pop stars. Yeah, yeah, we have um, we
Speaker 1: have hatsun a miku. We have like people go paying
Speaker 1: money to go see a hologram perform Oh. Actually the
Speaker 1: Hologram Theater on close um kind of the creepiest things ever.
Speaker 1: Emily was going to just I went there. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: heard about this on who Weekly. Shout out to who Weekly.
Speaker 1: Al Ki David Um got bust for trying to transport
Speaker 1: all these marijuana plants, like some something like several million
Speaker 1: dollars worth of marijuana plans to um the Bahamas or
Speaker 1: like Turks and caicos or something I can't remember. This
Speaker 1: is the person who runs This is the person who
Speaker 1: ran the Hologram theater, owned the company that had did
Speaker 1: like the Michael Jackson hologram and everything check out maniac
Speaker 1: a total maniac. Hologram theater always seems so fucked up
Speaker 1: to me because it only had three performers. Like I
Speaker 1: would go by and like see it all the time.
Speaker 1: And I talk to people who worked there once because
Speaker 1: I could sense it wasn't long for this world, and
Speaker 1: they were like, nobody comes, uh, but sometimes kids come
Speaker 1: to see the Tupac show. But it only had three performers,
Speaker 1: and it was Tupac, Billie Holiday, and Jackie Wilson, who
Speaker 1: are all like black performers who died in tragic ways,
Speaker 1: which like seemed incredibly just sucked up. You're profiting off
Speaker 1: a hologram of like this person. Also, the Billy Holiday
Speaker 1: thing is so bizarre. I don't out like like evolved,
Speaker 1: because those are the people they could get the rights to. Nobody.
Speaker 1: They couldn't get the one they wanted them any one
Speaker 1: so bad. That was so sad about it was people
Speaker 1: who like maybe did need the money, like someone from
Speaker 1: like Billy Holidays a state or whatever. But it's still
Speaker 1: like it's so funked up, like forced to perform for eternity,
Speaker 1: such a black mirror thing. So it's also interesting that
Speaker 1: it failed. Maybe he just because he went bankrupt, but
Speaker 1: maybe just didn't seem like anyone ever went there. I
Speaker 1: think there just wasn't as much of a market for
Speaker 1: it as people thought. Well, people are interested in people
Speaker 1: are interested in a hologram right now popping up as
Speaker 1: like a novelty in the middle of an award show
Speaker 1: or Coachella or something. But I don't even think now
Speaker 1: if you did that anybody would care. But at the
Speaker 1: time it was like nobody knew that we could do
Speaker 1: a hologram tupaca. When that happened at Coachella, everybody was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is amazing. This is so uncanny.
Speaker 1: But like, if if it's the main event, if it's
Speaker 1: something that you're going and expecting and you expect a
Speaker 1: certain level of performance us like heavy scare quotes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's uncanny if it's some who's a
Speaker 1: real person and who's dead, you know, But that's somebody
Speaker 1: who's like an alive person and they want to perform
Speaker 1: with a hologram of themselves or whatever, setting down a
Speaker 1: hologram to perform in places simultaneously, which is one of
Speaker 1: the things on the Black Mirror they talk about like
Speaker 1: that in a certain way, as long as the person
Speaker 1: is consenting to do that. But that's what you're saying
Speaker 1: about saying off your likeness, it's super weird. Like I
Speaker 1: think that's some there's something somewhat reassuring, even though like
Speaker 1: it would be fully predictable, but if everybody had truly
Speaker 1: gone wild for a hologram fever, I would be kind
Speaker 1: of like, what what are we do? You know, It's
Speaker 1: like it's like the Swan, It's like we pulled back
Speaker 1: from the precipice, like full evil. We're like, just because
Speaker 1: we can do something awful doesn't mean we have to.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of why Simone sucked so bad, because
Speaker 1: there's no there's no bad consequence for hologram or an
Speaker 1: AI robot. Like Simone's image wasn't lifted from anyone else.
Speaker 1: It was just fabricante because she is totally fictional. But
Speaker 1: again that brings you into weird issues of I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like slightly unsettling. But with Truman Show, what was
Speaker 1: really interesting about Truman Show was that it had like
Speaker 1: a heart and it had someone who was like victimized
Speaker 1: by this culture. And with Sman, the steaks were so low.
Speaker 1: I mean, the worst that could happen is a bad
Speaker 1: director who was who didn't have talent, who didn't have
Speaker 1: much of like a sympathetic streak to him, but also
Speaker 1: just he would just lose his contract or something, they
Speaker 1: pay the sad strings and he's like, well, this is it.
Speaker 1: This is the end of my career. It's like good,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like good. And that's why it's strange,
Speaker 1: as you would think that for especially for a comedy.
Speaker 1: I think that there should be these gigantic steaks where
Speaker 1: you're just like, wow, how ridiculous, Like it could all
Speaker 1: go wrong, it could be so terrible, but the worst
Speaker 1: thing that could happen isn't bad at all. Well, it's
Speaker 1: categorized as a sadire, and I just don't think it's
Speaker 1: sharp enough as a satire, Like I think because you
Speaker 1: can have an unlikable protagonist like him that we legitimately
Speaker 1: don't care about and we want to see the worst
Speaker 1: happen to him with the light in his misfortune, but
Speaker 1: like it doesn't ever really lean hard enough into that,
Speaker 1: and there's nobody else like to kind of counteract his
Speaker 1: like kind of boring sleaziness. There's nothing else going on
Speaker 1: other than that. So we would like his daughter to
Speaker 1: direct a movie here, Oh man, it should be about
Speaker 1: like a really unattractive woman who makes a c g
Speaker 1: I avatar ye and tricks everybody like the best actress
Speaker 1: exact simone. That's a very good idea. Um well, um,
Speaker 1: before we go, I want to talk very briefly about
Speaker 1: Giant Monsters because the Godzilla King and the Monsters just
Speaker 1: came out. I haven't seen it yet. I want to
Speaker 1: see it. I actually liked the last American Godzilla movie
Speaker 1: pretty well, which I guess is a controversial opinion to
Speaker 1: have because Godzilla doesn't show up in it for so long.
Speaker 1: So some people got mad because no sea Monster, want
Speaker 1: to see big Monster go boom. I guess like faster
Speaker 1: in the movie. But I think it's pretty good. Uh,
Speaker 1: And so I was eager to see how this one trying.
Speaker 1: I found footage one. No, no, it's a fukushimo one.
Speaker 1: It's like it's got but it's like an English It's
Speaker 1: like a mostly English speaking cast. Um Our Boy can
Speaker 1: Wannabe is in it. Brian Cranston's in it. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: like they're like basically Godzilla comes back, but he comes
Speaker 1: out of the nuclear fallout of the Big power plant
Speaker 1: or the nuclear plant explosion in Japan. From eleven you
Speaker 1: Godzilla went to number one. Well good, well, it's well,
Speaker 1: it's got all the monsters in it. It's got it's
Speaker 1: got Mathra, It's got key Guidera and it um. I
Speaker 1: just think all of these musters are so adorable, So
Speaker 1: I'm always like, kind of so adorable. They're like a
Speaker 1: cootie Rogues gallery. Yeah. Um, yeah, we were kind of
Speaker 1: having a mini debate over big monsters, I guess and
Speaker 1: and and and how interesting they are because I think
Speaker 1: Molly you brought it up that Kaiju, like the Godzilla
Speaker 1: monsters are all kind of just like big Pokemon, which
Speaker 1: is it's like all the Pokemon are like little Godzilla. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe you know, um, but I don't know. I feel
Speaker 1: like I saw somebody I can't remember who. I've been
Speaker 1: staying away from reviews because I just want to see
Speaker 1: the movie. But I saw somebody refer to Godzilla movies
Speaker 1: as religious films, and I was like, yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: like they are. It is about a divine punishment, Like
Speaker 1: that's that's why what these movies what we deserve. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's always why. It's what she deserves, she being, she
Speaker 1: being the people of Earth, and yeah, she's Earth's she.
Speaker 1: Godzilla is a woman. And somebody on Twitter was like, well,
Speaker 1: it's not Godzilla. How we know, um, Godzilla. Yeah, Godzilla
Speaker 1: is like the punishment for for fucking with science. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'MI like, who's your favorite of the Godzilla roos gallery? Um?
Speaker 1: I like King geta a lot. I just I don't
Speaker 1: know it's okay, but I love Godzilla. I just love
Speaker 1: playing on Godzilla. I love Godzilla is kind of thick.
Speaker 1: I love when Godzilla. I love the atomic breath. I
Speaker 1: was saying to tests because I was like, you gotta
Speaker 1: try Godzilla film and the last one of the last
Speaker 1: Japanese Godzilla films. I think there was another one since then,
Speaker 1: but it came out in twenty six sean Godzilla. I
Speaker 1: think it's called Godzilla Resurgence or something. But it's directed
Speaker 1: by Hideaki Ano who did Neon Genesis Evan Gelian. So
Speaker 1: it's like great, it's hilarious first of all. Um, and
Speaker 1: it's just like about infrastructure. It's just about like government bodies,
Speaker 1: like malfunctioning while trying. It's like I V P had
Speaker 1: Godzilla basically. Um, and it's also got like it's got
Speaker 1: some really amazing um what do they call them? Evolutions
Speaker 1: of Godzilla in it? Godzilla looks pretty normal at parts
Speaker 1: in parts of the movie. Uh, I've started to rewatch
Speaker 1: um neon Geness is even Galian, just because it's coming
Speaker 1: out soon on Netflix, and I think that that is
Speaker 1: one of the best big monster uh galleries. I guess, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: nuclear big monsters are coming back. Yeah, there's something very
Speaker 1: powerful about them. My favorite is Mathra. Yeah's grandmom's name
Speaker 1: is Martha, and so I think my dad nicknamed her
Speaker 1: Mathra was certain points solid reasoning a poster um And yeah,
Speaker 1: I love Mathra. I just also because, um, she's like
Speaker 1: a moth queen and she has those cool dependants who
Speaker 1: work for her. Yeah, sing the song about her. I
Speaker 1: love the song. Oh my god. Yeah, the Mathra song
Speaker 1: is so good. I'll put it on a mix. Speaking
Speaker 1: of which, please subscribe to our Patreon uh patreon dot
Speaker 1: com forward slash Nightcall at the three dollar level if
Speaker 1: you would like to join and get access to our
Speaker 1: newsletters and mixes, which we will be just they're so good.
Speaker 1: First one out, it's so great. Uh, you definitely don't
Speaker 1: want to miss out on this, and it will come
Speaker 1: to you once a month with our newsletter. But also
Speaker 1: give us a night call. Give us a night call
Speaker 1: about kaiju or big monsters, or about dome homes, or
Speaker 1: about Peter Max or whatever. Or the moon. Yeah, or
Speaker 1: the moon. We're always taking moon content at one two
Speaker 1: four o four six night. You can leave us a
Speaker 1: message there. You can give us an email at Nightcall
Speaker 1: Podcast at gmail dot com, and you can also fass
Speaker 1: on social media at Twitter at Nightcall Pod, Facebook at
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Speaker 1: guys next week. Bye, see you on the moon. I
Speaker 1: thought that the other was d Call