Speaker 1: Fellow conspiracy realist. We are returning to you with a
Speaker 1: fantastic blast from the past. We had our big podcasting brother,
Speaker 1: none other than Charles W. Chuck Bryant, join us back
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen to talk about the wide world of
Speaker 1: conspiracies in Phil.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we touch on everything from Stanley Kubrick and his
Speaker 2: potentially fake moon landing, hidden messages in many of his films,
Speaker 2: The Wizard of Oz, lots of crazy juice about that film,
Speaker 2: things that happened behind the scenes.
Speaker 3: And guys, we have breaking movie news. Conan O'Brien will
Speaker 3: be hosting Oscars again next year.
Speaker 4: Okay, second day, and thank god for that.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 4: He did a fine job.
Speaker 1: Good one. But I like his podcast too. But thanks
Speaker 1: for tuning into ours. Here's the tape.
Speaker 5: From UFOs to Psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 5: riddled with unexplained events. Can turn back now or learn
Speaker 5: this stuff they don't want you to know. A production
Speaker 5: of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3: Hello, Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 3: my name is Noah.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben. We were joined as always with
Speaker 1: our super producer Paul Mission Control Decant. Most importantly, you
Speaker 1: are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want
Speaker 1: you to know. As our fellow longtime listeners know, we're
Speaker 1: all film buffs here and stuff they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know, big fans of cinema in almost any form.
Speaker 1: And today we're diving into the film conspiracies of all types,
Speaker 1: right like we would say, we're film buffs.
Speaker 4: I only like movies.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you are here, you're a movie man.
Speaker 3: Well you know, I officially have a degree in filmmaking,
Speaker 3: although without the actual film.
Speaker 4: You're a professor of cinema.
Speaker 3: No oh, I feel like you're right now, all right, No, no,
Speaker 3: I'm just saying like, I'm all about this kind of
Speaker 3: stuff as we all are, so we have an interest
Speaker 3: in it. But we're not here alone.
Speaker 1: That's true, Matt. Today we are joined with our collective
Speaker 1: pal pioneer of podcasting, a friend of the show, and
Speaker 1: an actual outside of work personal friend of ours, to
Speaker 1: boot Charles W. Chuck Bryant, host of Movie Crush, as
Speaker 1: well as stuff you should know. Thanks for coming on
Speaker 1: the show, Chuck.
Speaker 4: Hey guys, hey man, I've got so many questions already.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Ben, question for you fans of almost all
Speaker 4: kinds of film? What kinds of film are you're not
Speaker 4: a fan of?
Speaker 1: Oh I was. I just wanted to leave people in
Speaker 1: out in case one of the guys is like, you
Speaker 1: know what, screw spaghetti westerns. I hate any omorcone, I
Speaker 1: love any o'morecone. So it would have been driving some
Speaker 1: tension into our relationship. But not all films are for
Speaker 1: all people.
Speaker 4: You're probably not a fan of snuff films for example.
Speaker 1: Yeah, actually, I hope that's not a hot take. I'm
Speaker 1: not you know, there you go call me old fashioned?
Speaker 4: Good answer.
Speaker 1: So for backgrounds, how would you describe Movie Crush the podcast?
Speaker 1: Like how you the germ of the idea, how you
Speaker 1: grew it? What you guys do? And I know Nol's
Speaker 1: on there as well.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 4: Movie Crust started as Hey, let me interview a celebrity
Speaker 4: and release every Friday and they talk about their favorite
Speaker 4: film all time favorite movie is The Conceit and it
Speaker 4: is still that at times, but it is morphed over
Speaker 4: the past two years. Just had the two year anniversary
Speaker 4: and now we do these mini crushes on Monday with
Speaker 4: Nol as co host, where we have a great movie
Speaker 4: going community on Facebook and we post questions and polls
Speaker 4: and through a lot of interactive fan stuff, which is
Speaker 4: a lot of fun, and then Fridays. Now it turns
Speaker 4: out booking celebrities is a hard thing to do what
Speaker 4: and it got kind of sick of it. If they
Speaker 4: come my way, now, great, I'll do that. But I
Speaker 4: have a stay full of friends and family and colleagues
Speaker 4: now that come in and we do film series and
Speaker 4: filmmaker series and just whatever you want to talk about
Speaker 4: about a specific film.
Speaker 2: And just really quickly, just to make sure this is
Speaker 2: crystal clear, this is Chuck reaching out doing this booking solo.
Speaker 2: We don't have like a staff of like booking agents
Speaker 2: that are trying to guests.
Speaker 4: For interviewing celebrities, not my friend's family and colleagues. Now
Speaker 4: it's great, though, These are great conversations no matter who
Speaker 4: it is. And it turns out the listening community was like,
Speaker 4: I don't care if it's a celebrity, these are great conversations, Maddie.
Speaker 4: We're doing I don't even know what to college. Originally
Speaker 4: it was just hit movies. We're just gonna go with
Speaker 4: ninety nine.
Speaker 3: I think, okay, it's nineteen ninety nine in movies yeah, man,
Speaker 3: well is speaking of your colleagues and friends that you interview.
Speaker 3: You have a whole sery. By the way, Paul has
Speaker 3: been on that show.
Speaker 4: Were Saul and I are doing a Sophia couple of series.
Speaker 2: Oh, you just want to hear Paul's voice. He never
Speaker 2: speaks on this here podcast. You can hear him speak
Speaker 2: on Chucks.
Speaker 4: That's right true.
Speaker 3: But another person you interview as a colleague named Casey Pegrim,
Speaker 3: and that is what we really want to get into first.
Speaker 1: Ah, yes, Casey Pegrim aka LaBouche as he's known in France,
Speaker 1: and then a couple of different podcasts. What it's a
Speaker 1: We have this idea that Casey is in addition to
Speaker 1: be a super producer in Atlanta. You know this is
Speaker 1: a true story, you guys, We all know how he
Speaker 1: disappears for like at least three weeks once a year
Speaker 1: to France. Yeah, so we have this vision of him
Speaker 1: leading a completely different double life where he's LaBouche. He
Speaker 1: has like an ear ring and a leather jacket.
Speaker 2: Is he an assassin or is he just he is
Speaker 2: just an international man of mystery. Okay, assassing is probably
Speaker 2: on the table, but if it comes up, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Really thought you were going into the mighty Boush thing there.
Speaker 3: For a second, I thought that's what this means the mouth.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm mistaken. Yeah, he's he's.
Speaker 1: Kind of like a broker of film related crime. We
Speaker 1: haven't really figured it out, but we're pretty sure he
Speaker 1: has maybe two secret families of France that are aware of.
Speaker 4: What you do. Is guys, is one of us before
Speaker 4: next year, say hey, Casey, I saved up some Doman
Speaker 4: and I would love a your guide and can we
Speaker 4: co incide our trips and just see if he's like,
Speaker 4: how weird he gets? It's what I'd like to do
Speaker 4: my own thing, not actually going this year.
Speaker 1: Let's you know what. That sounds like a plan and
Speaker 1: we have enough time to do it right.
Speaker 3: Great, But the series you make with him, yes, is
Speaker 3: focused on a particular filmmaker, at least several. You've made
Speaker 3: several in that vein talking about Stanley Kubrick, which is
Speaker 3: somebody we've spoken about before on this show. We kind
Speaker 3: of want to get your take.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's let's start with this is one of them.
Speaker 1: When we think of conspiracy theory and film, Yeah, one
Speaker 1: of the things that will be most apparent in the
Speaker 1: front of the mind of the mainstream listener, whatever is
Speaker 1: going to be stuff related to Stanley Kubrick, Right, So
Speaker 1: we wanted to get your takes on some of the
Speaker 1: most prevalent conspiracy theories or fringe theories regarding Kubrick and
Speaker 1: his body of work. So you've heard the one about
Speaker 1: Stanley Kubrick faking the moonlanding? Sure, okay, well, let's just
Speaker 1: really fast. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Do you think there's anything to that with the technology
Speaker 3: that was being developed to shoot that film in tandem
Speaker 3: with our efforts to get to the Moon. Do you
Speaker 3: have any feeling that something weird was going on there
Speaker 3: or it's just all I mean, it's just all happened
Speaker 3: to be coinciding.
Speaker 4: I don't think anything was going on there, Okay, I know.
Speaker 4: Part of the credence to this theory is that two
Speaker 4: thousand and one of Space Odyssey looked so realistic and
Speaker 4: who else would you go to? But you know, he
Speaker 4: enlisted real people from NASA, if I'm not mistaken, and
Speaker 4: astronauts and engineers like that's why that movie looks so great.
Speaker 4: Not to say he couldn't have done that to fake
Speaker 4: the moon landing as well.
Speaker 1: I guess well, just also as such an odd tour
Speaker 1: who's famous for having so many multiple takes of things,
Speaker 1: it seems like he'd be a real pill to work
Speaker 1: with faking a moon landing, Like, how many takes do
Speaker 1: you have to have of the like each step? Right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm okay. Here's my.
Speaker 3: Kind of updated take after doing a little more research
Speaker 3: on this, And it's slightly tangent here, but it's coming
Speaker 3: right back and it's related. Okay, stay with me here.
Speaker 3: When Steven Spielberg made Close Encounters of the Third Kind,
Speaker 3: allegedly he received a lot of criticism from NASA for
Speaker 3: producing that movie. And the way the story goes is
Speaker 3: that they were worried that audiences would have a similar
Speaker 3: reaction to the concept of extraterrestrials visiting as they did
Speaker 3: to the concept of giant sharks being in the waters
Speaker 3: near places where people just go hang out and swim
Speaker 3: in the ocean. But also, I've not ever read this letter,
Speaker 3: this strongly worded twenty page letter that NASA sent to Spielberg,
Speaker 3: twenty pages allegedly, I've never read it, and I've not
Speaker 3: seen anyone actually write out, you know, points from it.
Speaker 3: But It's been alluded to several times over the years,
Speaker 3: and it just goes back to that concept of creating
Speaker 3: a movie like Space two thousand and one, a Space Odyssey,
Speaker 3: like the concept that it could possibly be dangerous to
Speaker 3: society by releasing it because it puts these images into
Speaker 3: our brains, these ideas of like with close encounters, an
Speaker 3: extraterrestrial force visiting us and what that would mean.
Speaker 2: Interesting are you saying that, like from a pr standpoint,
Speaker 2: it would have been a bad move.
Speaker 4: It's like, we don't want to.
Speaker 2: Cause a panic, public panic. I don't get worrying about
Speaker 2: this stuff. Better to think of other things, you know, Like.
Speaker 4: See, I always heard it was different. I always heard
Speaker 4: that these films had supposedly been commissioned by the government
Speaker 4: to soften us up to the idea, yes, alien invaders
Speaker 4: or whatever.
Speaker 3: So again, like you're talking about essentially different people's viewpoints
Speaker 3: and the way they're thinking about these concepts of conspiracy.
Speaker 4: I guess could go either way.
Speaker 3: Well, it could be right.
Speaker 4: It softens you up or scares the heck out on you.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because we see if we look at the
Speaker 1: trends in sci fi, we see something happening with AI,
Speaker 1: which was a pretty cool correlation that I didn't discover,
Speaker 1: but one of our friends, Dan actually discovered this one.
Speaker 1: And we see how in times past, right, especially during
Speaker 1: nuclear scares or communist scares, technology or androids were depicted
Speaker 1: as this other, this dangerous thing. But now increasingly we've
Speaker 1: moved from a terminator franchise to a more friendly thing, right,
Speaker 1: like more of a Wally world. And so without getting
Speaker 1: too far away from the alien stuff and the NASA stuff,
Speaker 1: I did find. I found this quoted in a couple places,
Speaker 1: a quotation purporting to be from Steven Spielberg regarding this
Speaker 1: NASA letter, and I would like to read it, just
Speaker 1: to see what our reactions are to this. I really
Speaker 1: found my faith when I heard that the government was
Speaker 1: opposed to the film Close Encounters. If NASA took the
Speaker 1: time to write me a twenty page letter, then I
Speaker 1: know there must be something happening. I had wanted cooperation
Speaker 1: from them, but when they read the script, they got
Speaker 1: very angry and felt that it was a film that
Speaker 1: would be dangerous. I felt they mainly wrote the letter
Speaker 1: because Jaws convinced so many people around the world that
Speaker 1: there were sharks and toilets and bathtubs, not just in
Speaker 1: the oceans and rivers. They were afraid the same kind
Speaker 1: of epidemic would happen with UFOs. Difference being sharks are
Speaker 1: proven to exist.
Speaker 2: And I mean, now, I haven't seen close encounters in
Speaker 2: a long time, possibly not even all the way through.
Speaker 4: But aren't the Aliens nice? Are they not nice? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I mean the only time you actually, I mean, should
Speaker 4: we spoil alert this? Yeah, let's this old old movie. Yeah,
Speaker 4: in the nineteen seventies. The only time you actually see
Speaker 4: the aliens the final third encounter is at the very
Speaker 4: very end of the film. And all that happens really
Speaker 4: is Richard Dreyfuss goes up the plank and is greeted
Speaker 4: very warmly. Ben. We don't know what happens after that
Speaker 4: door shuts, but that's true. They appear to be very friendly. Yeah,
Speaker 4: as that door is shutting, it's sort of a handholding thing,
Speaker 4: if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1: It seems weird, though, with all the stuff that NASA
Speaker 1: has on its plate back then and now, it seems
Speaker 1: weird that they would take so much time to write
Speaker 1: to this guy about a fictional film.
Speaker 2: And God, how much they have felt about Independence Day,
Speaker 2: am I right?
Speaker 4: Right, That's what I'm saying, man, pandemonium.
Speaker 3: They knew that the extraterrestrials that are very much real
Speaker 3: my friends that are out there are dangerous, and they
Speaker 3: didn't want us to think they were nice and friendly
Speaker 3: and we could talk to them our keyboard.
Speaker 2: Like don't go up the gangplank, Richard Treyfus, you fool,
Speaker 2: They're going to put things in your butt already knows that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's yeah, that's I think that's in the
Speaker 1: original script that was close Encounters of the butt exactly.
Speaker 3: So let's take it all the way back just really fast,
Speaker 3: is Stanley Krubrick, and then we'll we'll end there with
Speaker 3: the moon landing conspiracies in general. If you take it
Speaker 3: away from Stanley Krubrick, do you do you have any
Speaker 3: doubts that we went to the moon?
Speaker 4: Of course not okay? And then the you know the
Speaker 4: things everyone knows sort of the why they believe it
Speaker 4: was faked with the flag flying and the shadows not
Speaker 4: being quite right. What else is there? Is there a
Speaker 4: footprint situation that's an issue? Did I make that up?
Speaker 4: In situation?
Speaker 1: There's the idea that the lunar dust would have moved differently.
Speaker 1: But it's also it's a question of the film technology
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 4: And also we had never been to the moon, so
Speaker 4: we're not quite sure what stuff like when filmed on
Speaker 4: a camera. Stilly question.
Speaker 2: Do we have access to, like what the camera looked
Speaker 2: like they shot this on.
Speaker 4: I've never Well, that's one. Well, actually that's the still camera.
Speaker 4: That's one of the theories is that in the reflection
Speaker 4: of I think Armstrong's face whatever you call it, face plate,
Speaker 4: you can see the photo being take, a very clear
Speaker 4: reflection of the astronaut taking the photo. But like you
Speaker 4: can't see a camera man, there's no camera. But apparently
Speaker 4: the camera is embedded. Yeah, it's attached to the suit.
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
Speaker 4: And his hands were sort of right at chest level,
Speaker 4: so it all checks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the stories that there they could barely move their
Speaker 3: hands at all.
Speaker 4: And it camera.
Speaker 1: Dexterity. Also, this this is interesting because it ties into,
Speaker 1: of course, one of Kubrick's one of Kubrick's most well
Speaker 1: known films, the adaptation of Stephen King's The sh Shining
Speaker 1: Right or The Thing, inspired by the novel. Because there
Speaker 1: are people who people who believe that Kubrick was somehow
Speaker 1: involved in faking the moon landing, also believe that he
Speaker 1: decided the best way to tell people this was through
Speaker 1: some sort of Rube Goldberg esque series of clues hidden
Speaker 1: in a completely unrelated film.
Speaker 2: Oh, there's an absolute laundry list of weird hidden stuff
Speaker 2: in The Shining. Much of it doesn't refer to that
Speaker 2: at all. That refers to like an Indian genocide, Native
Speaker 2: American genocide.
Speaker 1: And the gold standard Room to two thirty.
Speaker 4: Seven exactly, yes the film, Yes for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Chuck, I am I am not surprised and
Speaker 1: also immensely reassured that this was not the moment where
Speaker 1: we learned that you were convinced that you were a mooner.
Speaker 1: I like that phrase. Do you guys like mooner?
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 1: Let's put that on a T shirt.
Speaker 4: So in The Shining, it's supposedly like Danny's sweater with
Speaker 4: the hollow rocket as he stands up the carpet. That
Speaker 4: now iconic pattern is one of the launch like the
Speaker 4: launch pads and what I mean these are all that's
Speaker 4: very flimsy stuff to be delivering a message, you know.
Speaker 4: And then there was the fake video, you know, from
Speaker 4: it's like four years ago where someone had a video
Speaker 4: where Stanley Kubrick came clean about the whole thing. And
Speaker 4: this is like the twenty fifteen Did you ever see this?
Speaker 4: I did, Yeah, And it was this long interview where
Speaker 4: he capt to the whole thing. It was all very believable.
Speaker 4: But it's not Stanley Kubrick. Wow. That was the one problem.
Speaker 4: It was a guy who was making a movie about
Speaker 4: Stanley kub Kubrick and this was a guy who played
Speaker 4: like old Kubrick. But I watched it today and I
Speaker 4: looked at it. I was like, well, that's not even him.
Speaker 4: There is a fool so many people.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: There is a tape of Kubrick that came out not
Speaker 2: terribly very long ago where he explains the ending of
Speaker 2: two thousand and one a space Odyssey, which is interesting
Speaker 2: just to listen to. He kind of ex I can't
Speaker 2: remember exactly what he said.
Speaker 3: Hold on, it.
Speaker 4: Gets confirmed. It's from a BBC interview. That's a legit.
Speaker 1: I had source has no idea there were counterfeit Kubrick's
Speaker 1: just running amuck.
Speaker 2: Well, nowadays, with all this deep fake stuff, we got
Speaker 2: to figure out how to really, you know, confirm the
Speaker 2: validity of footage.
Speaker 1: True nowadays, you can't believe people unless you meet in person.
Speaker 1: This is something that's fascinating because it still sticks around
Speaker 1: in the cultural zeitgeist even though it's very easily debunked. Right,
Speaker 1: you can you first off, moonlanding stuff. Last thing I'll
Speaker 1: say about it. You don't need a particularly advanced telescope
Speaker 1: to look at the moon and see reflections of man
Speaker 1: made things on there or see sorry, signs of man
Speaker 1: made things, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you can shoot a laser if you have
Speaker 3: the right equipment, and it will reflect back on that
Speaker 3: laser reflector that's there.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have a giant laser. Let us
Speaker 1: tell you today's episode is brought to you by Gigantic
Speaker 1: by two get three free. It's an economy of scale.
Speaker 1: There is a thing here that happens. There is a thing,
Speaker 1: a thread rather a thematic narrative thread when we talk
Speaker 1: about Kubrick that goes across several of his movies, and
Speaker 1: it's the idea that somehow this creator is speaking to
Speaker 1: us the audience through code, right, and that these films
Speaker 1: are somehow you know they're they're multi layered, right, But
Speaker 1: that one of those lower layers is a is a
Speaker 1: message of some sort and this sure it's it's prevalent
Speaker 1: when we hear discussion of the Shining, But then when
Speaker 1: we get to his last film, Eyes Wide Shut, it's
Speaker 1: like the door is blown off the hinges. Right, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we've all heard this, and I want your opinion.
Speaker 1: Was Eyes Wide Shut actually coded expos on some elite
Speaker 1: cabal or some real real cult thing? Uh?
Speaker 4: Why is everyone looking at me?
Speaker 3: Well, because Schuck, you're host of stuff. You should know
Speaker 3: one of the biggest podcasts out there. You were clearly
Speaker 3: one of the elite.
Speaker 1: My friend, right, you also host our film podcast.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of crossover here. Uh No, I don't
Speaker 4: know if it was supposed to be. I think the
Speaker 4: idea is that it is a depiction of an elite
Speaker 4: group of a secret society, but not necessarily that it
Speaker 4: was supposed to be any particular one, right, or are
Speaker 4: there concrete theories there are? I mean, is it's supposed
Speaker 4: to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, I mean it's always the Illuminati, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like, should.
Speaker 4: Put that on a T shirt.
Speaker 1: It's always they're the free bird of secret societies, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? In the Great Karaoke Conspiracy Conversation
Speaker 1: The Yeah. So Tom Cruise plays this guy, doctor Bill Harford,
Speaker 1: and he learns that his what they're taught. They have
Speaker 1: a wild night, right, one of those should be nice
Speaker 1: parties that gets really weird. And then he's talking with
Speaker 1: his wife, Alice, and he's talking about affairs because this older,
Speaker 1: I think hungarian guy tries to seduce the wife and
Speaker 1: then someone's also concurrently trying to seduce him. They make
Speaker 1: it out and skate. They go home and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: it was crazy. I can't believe that, honey. And then
Speaker 1: she says, good by the way, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: I learned it from Connell and and uh, there's there's
Speaker 1: this moment where his wife says, actually, I have seriously
Speaker 1: considered having an affair. There was this one guy. There's
Speaker 1: one real smoke show. I you know, I thought about
Speaker 1: leaving you and the kid. And this this is sort
Speaker 1: of the impetus that sets Tom Cruise's doctor character out
Speaker 1: into this this world of murky secrecy. People who believe
Speaker 1: there's some sort of hidden message there point to what
Speaker 1: they say are numerous occult symbols in the film and
Speaker 1: the film's heavy on symbols, that's true. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a lot of masked, indelicate interaction.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of CGI sex stuff. They had to
Speaker 2: like cover things up to get to make it get
Speaker 2: an R rating.
Speaker 4: I think like during the orgy scene.
Speaker 2: They actually had to like insert fake people to cover
Speaker 2: up some of the penetrative moments.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would watch it cut where they where they
Speaker 1: did a purposely bad job of that. You know, we're
Speaker 1: like some guy from Cateringe is walking.
Speaker 2: Out from the Nirvana video just kind of walks through
Speaker 2: the frame with his mob.
Speaker 1: And the mob is of course in rhythm to yea God.
Speaker 3: So I just want to inject something here that has
Speaker 3: to do with our discussions of these nineteen ninety nine movies,
Speaker 3: because Eeswad Shoud is also a nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we covered the Matrix and fight Club so far.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of the major themes in these movies, all
Speaker 3: three of these movies from nineteen ninety nine, is that
Speaker 3: there's something very wrong with society. We either as just
Speaker 3: a regular human being existing within it, can't either see it,
Speaker 3: can't do anything about it, or we need to change it,
Speaker 3: or we're all of a sudden made aware of it.
Speaker 3: So within I why I shut in the matrix all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, Tom Cruise in this the scenario you
Speaker 3: been you talked about, He's just all of a sudden
Speaker 3: made aware of this crazy elite secret society. Neo becomes
Speaker 3: aware of the matrix. The narrator in Fight Club becomes
Speaker 3: aware of just how society.
Speaker 2: Actually how banal his life and his existence is, and
Speaker 2: how futile the whole thing is.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, so it's and it's kind of maybe it's
Speaker 3: that whole concept of coming up on the new millennium
Speaker 3: that perhaps in people's heads. Yeah, I'd like to know
Speaker 3: if you think there's anything too that with Stanley Kubrick
Speaker 3: deciding to depict this secret society and the way he
Speaker 3: did the people who truly pull the strings, it's almost
Speaker 3: it's not a comment or a response to any of
Speaker 3: that stuff, but maybe it's kind of showing us here's
Speaker 3: the real Here are the real people that pull the
Speaker 3: strings in our society. They're people who go to board
Speaker 3: meetings and have crazy parties because they just have all
Speaker 3: the power and money.
Speaker 4: Yeah. But I mean, if you look at the end
Speaker 4: of Eyes Wide Shut though, spoiler and you believe what
Speaker 4: the movie has to say, then they are nothing but
Speaker 4: a group of sort of horned up rich people exactly.
Speaker 4: And the girl is not dead, she's this this, you know.
Speaker 4: Sidney Pollack explains it all at the end, and it's like,
Speaker 4: you know, all these crazy ideas that you've got about
Speaker 4: what's going on there, and that there's shadowy murders and
Speaker 4: cover ups it basically we're just like a bunch of perverts.
Speaker 2: Well, it's kind of like we talked about with Hodgman
Speaker 2: when he was on Stuff that I Want you to Know,
Speaker 2: and he sort of shed some light into his entree
Speaker 2: into the book and Snake in Yale when he was
Speaker 2: his time at Yale. And now at the end of
Speaker 2: the day, it was just kind of like a swanky
Speaker 2: party for people to do some networking.
Speaker 1: And he's much more if we're being honest, he's much
Speaker 1: more focused on his medallion status rather than any sort
Speaker 1: of secret collegiate society.
Speaker 2: Medallion status dot bit L Y all capital letters.
Speaker 1: So it's it's weird because whenever we get to the
Speaker 1: point of any theorizing, when we're whenever we get to
Speaker 1: the point where we're asking people to interpret a symbol, right,
Speaker 1: something subjective. We're no longer looking at something quantitative, like
Speaker 1: a mathematical equation. We're looking at someone who's saying, well,
Speaker 1: I think I think that looks like a triangle with
Speaker 1: an eye in it. And I'm pretty sure. I mean,
Speaker 1: what's the difference, Like, at what point are we just.
Speaker 4: Reading tea leaves?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: I I see what you're saying there, But isn't there
Speaker 3: some isn't there an extra onion layer to this? Didn't
Speaker 3: correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't Stanley Kubrick die before
Speaker 3: this movie?
Speaker 1: Yes, released six days after he had a screening he died,
Speaker 1: which is such fertile territory.
Speaker 4: But didn't somebody else have to go in? And no,
Speaker 4: that's not true. I'm thinking of Ai. Right.
Speaker 1: He got in a fight with this udo about how
Speaker 1: to cut it, which I think you alluded to earlier
Speaker 1: nol for eyesweight chut mm to get that the I
Speaker 1: guess it was too too racy for an R rating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, But then I guess here's my question that
Speaker 3: I don't have an answer to. Is like, in the theory,
Speaker 3: they were pretty close to releasing this movie, but somebody,
Speaker 3: maybe the distributor could go through and make changes. Whoever
Speaker 3: owns the rights to it after his passing, like could
Speaker 3: go through and make some sweeping changes to the story
Speaker 3: before it comes out in theaters. Maybe that's one of
Speaker 3: the reasons that some of the conspiracy theories continue to proliferate,
Speaker 3: because something could have happened that we would never be
Speaker 3: privy to.
Speaker 4: It's true.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna okay, I'm just gonna say it. This
Speaker 1: is just one person's opinion. I don't think there's much
Speaker 1: sand to conspirat. Like as tempting and as juicy as
Speaker 1: it is cognitively to say Stanley Kubrick, an immensely talented director,
Speaker 1: went too far and crossed the line, and the powers
Speaker 1: that be were like, don't tell people about our orgies.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to kill you. As tempting as that
Speaker 1: is to believe, and as frankly fun as it is
Speaker 1: to believe, he was an older man who was not
Speaker 1: in the best shape, you know, and taken very great
Speaker 1: care of himself. I believe he's seventy years old. It's
Speaker 1: not like he was twenty one years old and found
Speaker 1: with two gunshots to the back of his head, right,
Speaker 1: But it does bring out something I think could be
Speaker 1: it could have much more credibility to it, which is
Speaker 1: the idea that a government, or the idea of specifically
Speaker 1: the US government, may be able to play a role
Speaker 1: in determining what kinds of films get created or what
Speaker 1: kind of films get depicted.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 1: It blew my mind when I learned that this is
Speaker 1: for all our aspiring filmmakers out there. You can get
Speaker 1: the US military to do stuff for you on screen.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, as long as you depict them as heroes, right.
Speaker 4: Or at least in a way that they agree upon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which I had no idea.
Speaker 4: Like, I'm not sure how much say they have and
Speaker 4: whether or not something gets made these days, but they
Speaker 4: can certainly if you're making a war movie or anything
Speaker 4: that involves the army, then they can make it really
Speaker 4: easy for you, or they can sit on their hands
Speaker 4: and make it tougher. But they'll be like, sure if
Speaker 4: they like what you're doing. How many tanks you need?
Speaker 4: You need some helicopters?
Speaker 1: WHOA, we're wasting your time podcasting?
Speaker 4: You know what the fees are for that? I No,
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Oh man, we need to find out what about it?
Speaker 2: Even on like a branding level, like if you know,
Speaker 2: are we allowed of our filmmakers allowed to use Army, Navy, etc.
Speaker 4: Without permission? Like yeah, you've got to clear everything. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 4: And I imagine yeah they would they ask for the
Speaker 4: use and what are you going to do with it
Speaker 4: and then either say yes or no.
Speaker 3: Hey, have you guys seen the trailer for the new
Speaker 3: Top Gun movie. I'm actually kind of excited.
Speaker 4: I am too.
Speaker 1: Okay, I feel obligated to watch it. You know, I
Speaker 1: feel like it's inevitable.
Speaker 2: It's just a teaser, right, Like you don't really see
Speaker 2: his face there.
Speaker 3: No, there's a full trailer.
Speaker 2: I saw the teaser one, Okay, I gotta I got
Speaker 2: a buddy check it out.
Speaker 4: I gotta say I was not like I saw Top
Speaker 4: Gun enough because it was just the zeitgeist. But I
Speaker 4: wasn't some big Top Gun nut. But when I saw
Speaker 4: that trailer, I found myself going, why do I Why
Speaker 4: am I so in love with the idea of this movie?
Speaker 4: I know, well, they it's probably pure nostalgia.
Speaker 3: It's the way they shoot for me, at least the
Speaker 3: way they actually shoot the jets, because it brings out
Speaker 3: the kid in me that played with a little toy
Speaker 3: F fourteen and I was just like, oh man, this
Speaker 3: is so cool. We hit on something really important here,
Speaker 3: ben of the concept of controlling what can be seen
Speaker 3: and like government involvement with that, and I really want
Speaker 3: to get into that after a quick word from our.
Speaker 4: Spall, wo.
Speaker 1: So as you can tell one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: we all are so passionate about film is because we're
Speaker 1: passionate about stories. We're passionate about communicating this way. But
Speaker 1: film isn't the only way to encounter a story. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, one of our other favorite ways
Speaker 1: to participate in a story or listen to a story
Speaker 1: is through an audiobook. And that's why we recommend Audible.
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Speaker 1: Yes, that's correct. One of the books that I've been
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Speaker 1: David Mitchell. You may have heard of the film, check
Speaker 1: out the novel. I gotta say it's astonishing and the
Speaker 1: way it's constructed makes it incredibly immersive to listen to.
Speaker 3: So don't delay. Right now, for a limited time, get
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Speaker 3: is visit audible dot com slash conspiracy or text Conspiracy
Speaker 3: to five hundred dash five hundred.
Speaker 1: That's Audible dot com slash Conspiracy or Text Conspiracy to
Speaker 1: five hundred, five hundred and we're back. So the question
Speaker 1: the question at.
Speaker 4: At the table, Sure we're at a table.
Speaker 1: Okay, there we go, Thanks guys. The question that we're
Speaker 1: looking at currently is whether the weather a government specifically,
Speaker 1: the US government can influence the kind of films that
Speaker 1: get made or the kind of narratives we see. The
Speaker 1: answer to that in days of your was yes, you know,
Speaker 1: to some degree or another. But the answer now maybe
Speaker 1: becomes a little more complicated.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: We have indeed, there's this democratization of filmmaking technology, so
Speaker 1: we have more people who don't have to be beholden
Speaker 1: to a studio. But I don't know, man, I know
Speaker 1: it's very on brand for me to be like the
Speaker 1: CIA is dictating MCU or something like that. I don't
Speaker 1: think they would bother.
Speaker 3: I would say that the control mechanisms, to a large
Speaker 3: part are still in place, but it's mostly the distribution arms.
Speaker 3: Like you, you could make the coolest indie film ever,
Speaker 3: but you may not get anyone to see it, no
Speaker 3: matter how trending something becomes. If it's not you know,
Speaker 3: fully out there somewhere. Uh, and you've got ads popping up. Ever,
Speaker 3: somebody's paying for ads, somebody's paying for posters, somebody's paying
Speaker 3: for all this stuff. You're not gonna have the same reach.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's maybe that's wrong thinking though, because anything that
Speaker 3: goes viral online could be potentially seen by.
Speaker 4: Well, that's true.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's why no one's cracked the code on
Speaker 2: how to make things go viral per se.
Speaker 1: This is the This is one of those things that
Speaker 1: you and I have different your pains.
Speaker 4: Okay, what do you think? Well, I think it's all
Speaker 4: like stage.
Speaker 1: Well, there's more, sure, there are more opportunities to spread things,
Speaker 1: but there are fewer people holding the faucets of that information.
Speaker 1: To say that Facebook could not artificially make something quote
Speaker 1: unquote viral, to say that they don't have that capability is.
Speaker 4: Willfully I'm not saying they don't nofully wrong. I absolutely
Speaker 4: think they do.
Speaker 2: But I also would like to believe that things succeed
Speaker 2: or fail on their own merits, at least some of
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: I would think. So, Yeah, I mean I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't think we're in the grips of some corporate
Speaker 1: sith overlord.
Speaker 2: I mean, if that cat playing the piano video didn't
Speaker 2: succeed just because of its sheer awesomeness, and I don't.
Speaker 4: Know what I believe in?
Speaker 1: What a chaotic universe? Yeah, there's a Oh, this is
Speaker 1: one example that I think is very real. Have have
Speaker 1: you guys' film buffs noticed the tendency like the growth
Speaker 1: of the Chinese mainland film market, right, it's huge. Have
Speaker 1: you guys noticed that the tendency for blockbuster films to
Speaker 1: be recut, have scenes added or deleted for the Chinese market.
Speaker 2: We've talked about this, right, Like they they don't like ghosts.
Speaker 2: There's certain thing they don't like they have to take out.
Speaker 2: I think ghost is one of them. If I'm not
Speaker 2: totally just out on a limb with that one. No
Speaker 2: ghosts and Chinese cut, So now I'm not okay, maybe
Speaker 2: that's not that, but there are definitely some cultural things
Speaker 2: that like they have to soften and language that they
Speaker 2: have to soften.
Speaker 4: Paul said, true ghost Yeah, yeah, I thought I didn't
Speaker 4: make that up.
Speaker 1: Have you seen examples of this?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, the only thing I can think of
Speaker 4: is something sort of obvious like H and not for
Speaker 4: the Chinese market necessarily, But didn't they fully recut or
Speaker 4: not recut, but digitize the enemy for the Red Dawn REMAKEH?
Speaker 4: If I'm not mistaken it was originally I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: I think it may be originally was China and they
Speaker 4: had to go back and digitally replace the insignias and
Speaker 4: the flags and make it another country. If I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 2: That's interesting, and I wouldn't doubt that, especially seeing what
Speaker 2: we're seeing with China holding so much sway over like
Speaker 2: American like like American companies having to censor stuff like
Speaker 2: the NBA for example, you know, like wanting to play
Speaker 2: ball with China because they have so much control over
Speaker 2: the purse strings. And that's true because a lot of
Speaker 2: movies that flop in the States do Gangbusters business over
Speaker 2: in China Pacific Rim, So you know.
Speaker 4: You don't want China.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the reason they made the second one really
Speaker 1: entirely because of what happened in China. And then when
Speaker 1: they made the second Pacific Rim, there's this very there's
Speaker 1: this very apparent leaning into this Chinese market. Charlie Days
Speaker 1: character for some reason, it is like the white guy
Speaker 1: who speaks Mandarin, and then there's also a Chinese general
Speaker 1: who I believe gets a lot. He doesn't really get
Speaker 1: many lines in the American version. It's just that thing
Speaker 1: where there's a conversation between like two principal characters, and
Speaker 1: the camera keeps cutting to this guy just sort of reacting,
Speaker 1: and he's like oh yeah, oh no, oh yeah, And
Speaker 1: so I think it gets actual lines in the Chinese version.
Speaker 1: But that's a clear example that gives truth to this
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory. On some level, there are governments are able
Speaker 1: to control entertainment media.
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, And just to confirm it was originally the
Speaker 3: Red Dawn remake was originally Chinese flags and it got
Speaker 3: changed to North Korean flags. And so they don't miss
Speaker 3: out because it's a billion billion human beings that they.
Speaker 4: Had a garbage movie on their hands, and that American
Speaker 4: audiences wouldn't go see it. Well, have y'all.
Speaker 3: Just to bring this back into I guess current pop culture.
Speaker 3: In twenty nineteen, the new season of South Park is out,
Speaker 3: and one of the things they hit early on in
Speaker 3: the season is this concept of Disney and films and
Speaker 3: all these things changing their scripts specifically so that the
Speaker 3: film in its regular it's an original form would just
Speaker 3: perform and be able to be released in China as well,
Speaker 3: like catering the full thing, not just recutting a version
Speaker 3: of it or something. It's just fascinating to me, But
Speaker 3: it was all about Disney and all the varying properties
Speaker 3: and how they were.
Speaker 4: Doing this so they're just making Chinese friendly movies.
Speaker 3: Yeah, again, this is South Park commenting on a situation.
Speaker 4: Then it must be true.
Speaker 2: You got to remember too, it's like, it's not like
Speaker 2: every American movie ends up in China. They have very
Speaker 2: tight control over which ones get in, right, So therefore
Speaker 2: you want to level the playing field by like, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe China. Hopefully China will take our big, giant, expensive
Speaker 2: movie so that we have this whole other.
Speaker 4: Because Charlie money makes Mandarin's right, right. Yes, not only that,
Speaker 4: I was just looking it up. Apparently in gravity.
Speaker 2: In the Sandra Bullock movie, Sandra Bullock survives by hiding
Speaker 2: in a Chinese space station. The movie twenty twelve, humanity
Speaker 2: is saved because the Chinese government builds these life saving
Speaker 2: kind of like arc.
Speaker 4: Ships or whatever. So there's you know, there's definitely thought.
Speaker 2: Being put into, like how can we please China so
Speaker 2: that we can get that sweet sweet you know Chinese business.
Speaker 4: Your show is probably not in China, right.
Speaker 1: Well, no, I don't know if we can get into China.
Speaker 4: After your show is in China. There's no way, No,
Speaker 4: you guys do I think I remember at one point
Speaker 4: someone said that we were not available in China for
Speaker 4: stuff you should know.
Speaker 1: Huh, guys, we got to learn Mandarin or cantonese. Okay,
Speaker 1: just we've got the weekend coming up. Well we'll solve that, right.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: This so the spoiler alert there, there was another historical
Speaker 1: conspiracy we wanted to talk about that perhaps is an
Speaker 1: episode of its own, the Red Scare and the House
Speaker 1: on American Activities Committee, But we want to give that
Speaker 1: due diligence. And also, I think this is something that
Speaker 1: we're wondering and our fellow listeners are wondering for you, specifically, Chuck,
Speaker 1: what are some of your favorite, like most out there
Speaker 1: fan theories about films or franchises, not even like real
Speaker 1: quote unquote conspiracy theories, but like the craziest stuff that
Speaker 1: fans have come up with. And also do you believe
Speaker 1: it or disbelieve it?
Speaker 4: So are we doing blacklist? Are we doing fan theories theories?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, we could do We could do do
Speaker 1: fan theories. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm glad you asked. Ben. There's a few popular
Speaker 4: ones available on the internet. I'm not sure if you
Speaker 4: know this. It's real pository for stuff like what the
Speaker 4: heck is the internet? There's the Toy Story one which
Speaker 4: is pretty good, which is that Andy's mom was the
Speaker 4: original owner of Jesse the Cowgirl. WHOA Okay, why did
Speaker 4: that blow your mind so much?
Speaker 3: Matt, Well, it just connecting it up that much because
Speaker 3: it was such an important part of this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because that would make you know, Jesse sings the
Speaker 4: song about Emily, you know that really said song about
Speaker 4: her previous owner. That would be Andy's mom toy story too.
Speaker 4: I think that was in Toy Story. Yeah, when she
Speaker 4: loved me that you met.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I have a four year old man.
Speaker 3: We've been watching that movie all the time.
Speaker 4: That one is actually could be true. And Disney and
Speaker 4: and Pixar certainly does a lot of this stuff. I
Speaker 4: think they recently admitted that everything is in the same
Speaker 4: shared universe, right, Yeah, Like there's a Frozen theory too
Speaker 4: about the ship that.
Speaker 2: Els and Ana's parents are on or the same the
Speaker 2: same ship that they find in The Little Mermaid.
Speaker 4: Oh well, and also that that Tarzan is frozen. I
Speaker 4: don't know the ladies and Frozen that they are siblings,
Speaker 4: Yeah to Tarzan's.
Speaker 2: Because of the the Elson an A parents that were
Speaker 2: on this voyage and.
Speaker 4: They had a boy they had a boy that is
Speaker 4: yeund and.
Speaker 2: And geographically where they would have been passing through, it
Speaker 2: might have made sense for him to, you know.
Speaker 4: Wash up on it. Ferris Bueller is a creation of
Speaker 4: Cameron's mind. That's always that's been an old one, but
Speaker 4: a good.
Speaker 1: I remember hearing that when and then it made me
Speaker 1: go back and rewatch Ferris Bueller, which I thought was
Speaker 1: like I thought day Off was the coolest film growing up. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a very very safe and ocuous way to
Speaker 1: fight the power.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what was the tagline for that? We heard today?
Speaker 4: One man struggled to take it?
Speaker 2: Why do you think they didn't franchise Ferris Bueller, He
Speaker 2: has his day off?
Speaker 4: Why didn't they do? Like that was going to be
Speaker 4: a sequel for a while to the Beach like.
Speaker 1: And then there was there was a a very Ferris
Speaker 1: Bueller esque television series called Parker Lewis Can't.
Speaker 4: Lose That He was the Heath kind of looked like
Speaker 4: Parker Lewis.
Speaker 1: Oh, thanks, man, I think he was the he was
Speaker 1: sort of the Heathcliff to the Garfield of Ferris Bueller.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I actually liked that show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was cool. Yeah, he's like cutting a cardboard
Speaker 1: cut out of himself in half with a chainsaw.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: There, of course is the breaking bad meth led to
Speaker 4: the Walking Dead. What apocalypse? You never heard that one
Speaker 4: to me? Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff. Glenn in
Speaker 4: season one drives that red Dodge Challenger which looks like
Speaker 4: Walter's car, and when Walter went to return that car,
Speaker 4: the manager of the car dealership's name was Glenn. Darryl
Speaker 4: is trying to bring down the fever of this other
Speaker 4: guy at one point, so he pulls out of sash
Speaker 4: of drugs and there's clearly like blue myth, like Walter
Speaker 4: White's blue meth in the bag and then one more merle.
Speaker 4: You know Michael Rookers character early on he was a
Speaker 4: former drug dealer, and they described his on the show,
Speaker 4: his supplier as a janky little white guy who threatened
Speaker 4: him with a gun and said, I'm gonna kill you.
Speaker 4: Can I say the word probably can't a curse on here,
Speaker 4: just yeah, I'm gonna kill you.
Speaker 1: WHOA so JANKI looky white guy?
Speaker 4: And I what I think is going on is I
Speaker 4: think Vince killing or the Walking Dead creators put some
Speaker 4: like fun little references totally. Yeah, but you know, they
Speaker 4: have fun with that kind of thing filmmakers do, I think.
Speaker 6: Yeah, people love the ster eggs and yeah, the best
Speaker 6: ever though.
Speaker 4: Guys, you know the Tommy Westfall universe theory, right, Tommy
Speaker 4: Westfall from Saint Elsewhere. Okay, So Saint Elsewhere was a
Speaker 4: show in the eighties hospital show and very famous for
Speaker 4: the ending final episode, which was one of the doctor's son.
Speaker 4: His name was Tommy Westfall, doctor west Fall's kid, and
Speaker 4: he looks into a snow globe. Well, first of all,
Speaker 4: a character that has already died is is is alive
Speaker 4: in the living room and is a different person. His
Speaker 4: dad comes home, the doctor, and he's a construction worker,
Speaker 4: and so this is the very very last scene of
Speaker 4: this whole long series. And then Tommy looks into his
Speaker 4: little snow globe that he's always playing with, and it
Speaker 4: is sant Eligi's hospital inside the snow globe. Basically, the
Speaker 4: idea is that this whole thing think Tommy had autism
Speaker 4: and it was all this world that he created. Oh
Speaker 4: so that's the beginning, that's the seed. There were so
Speaker 4: many crossovers and uh, guest spots and characters appearing, like,
Speaker 4: for instance, the two doctors went to the Cheers bar
Speaker 4: one time as those doctors and Dittle cameo. So there
Speaker 4: are all these little tendrils to where they have now
Speaker 4: linked four hundred and nineteen TV shows to say and elsewhere.
Speaker 4: Meaning if that was all in his head, then all
Speaker 4: of these shows are in the head of young Tommy Westfall,
Speaker 4: whoa concluding the X Files, all of Star Trek and Dude,
Speaker 4: if you looked at the list you can go to
Speaker 4: I mean they have full websites on this, and you
Speaker 4: look at down the list of four hundred nineteen shows,
Speaker 4: you're like, how does mash have anything to.
Speaker 2: Do with Wait?
Speaker 4: Wait, so there's real connections. Yeah, yeah, real connections. Really
Speaker 4: the Marine universe sort of thin, but some of them aren't,
Speaker 4: Like you know, Cheers, Begat Fraser. Fraser had like a
Speaker 4: guest star that was ended up on something else and
Speaker 4: then somehow that connects to like Law and Order, and
Speaker 4: Law and Order has tendrils all throughout because all the
Speaker 4: different shows and all the guest stars and not just
Speaker 4: like someone guested on the show, but like in character
Speaker 4: in the fictional worlds.
Speaker 1: Like Munch from uh He's been in like I think
Speaker 1: X Files and a bunch of true crime shows. He's
Speaker 1: in law and order, so.
Speaker 4: That ties all that stuff together, or like MASH was
Speaker 4: something I mentioned one of the doctors once and elsewhere
Speaker 4: at one point made a little reference to working with
Speaker 4: Trapper John. Who is that one of the doctors in MASH,
Speaker 4: So like that's how that fits in. And then MASH
Speaker 4: reaches another couple of things.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I'm looking at the grid. Uh there
Speaker 3: is a visual grid online that you can find. Oh
Speaker 3: and it's this is at eleven percent. I'm looking at
Speaker 3: eleven Oh wow, it goes all the way in to Chicago.
Speaker 4: Pretty funny to pick it. Fences, like a rested development
Speaker 4: is on there, great shows, Alpha is on there. So
Speaker 4: this spans and they all yeah, I mean they're basically saying,
Speaker 4: like close to four hundred and twenty shows, simulation theory
Speaker 4: very much.
Speaker 6: What this is.
Speaker 2: He's the He's like the god of the matrix, basically
Speaker 2: Tommy Westfel. If you guys are familiar with the PBS
Speaker 2: Digital Studios show Idea channel, which I don't know if
Speaker 2: they produced that anymore, but I used to love it.
Speaker 2: I think I gotta start watching it again if they do.
Speaker 2: But there is a Tommy Westfell west Fall excuse me,
Speaker 2: universe episode of that show.
Speaker 4: Really, he goes through and does it does all of
Speaker 4: the connections, so we should credit the original guy too.
Speaker 4: It's a comic book and TV writer named Dwayne McDuffie
Speaker 4: put this forward in a two thousand and two blog post.
Speaker 4: It's very two thousand and two bloggie.
Speaker 1: It is also about this theory, guys, do you I mean,
Speaker 1: I kind of miss that that idea. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't watch television is kind of changing anyway, but I
Speaker 1: I don't watch a ton of stuff, but I would
Speaker 1: love it if I was watching. I don't know if
Speaker 1: Black Mirror had a Stranger Things reference in there somewhere
Speaker 1: that kind of.
Speaker 4: Now I'm with you, and it is a little harder
Speaker 4: these days because I think back then, with like three networks,
Speaker 4: there could be more crossover, but it's hard to like,
Speaker 4: you know, Apple's making TV shows now, are they going
Speaker 4: to reference something from like CBS? You know, are they
Speaker 4: going to reference Everybody Loves Raymond or something? Right, think
Speaker 4: it's a lot easier to cross over in those days.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 4: I do miss it, do though. They'd be kind of cool.
Speaker 4: I'm sure this one continues, and now I'm sure people
Speaker 4: are trying to write in Tommy Westfall connections. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know, just to be a part of the whole thing.
Speaker 4: I'm obsessed with this. There's even cartoons like Dexter's Laboratories
Speaker 4: on here and well then you can click on it
Speaker 4: and see what the link is to to Tommy Westfall.
Speaker 4: It's so cool. Yeah, it's pretty neat. I was unaware
Speaker 4: of this. We can really spend some time. Is real
Speaker 4: rabbit hole.
Speaker 1: I love that these kind of rabbit holes are inspiring
Speaker 1: to me because they think, like, Okay, this guy was
Speaker 1: doing other stuff with his life. He discovered this, and
Speaker 1: now Dwayne McDuffie, Dwayne McDuffie is two thousand and two
Speaker 1: blog posts and now it's taken on a life of
Speaker 1: its own, and like.
Speaker 4: Getting paid for this did he? I don't know.
Speaker 1: It feels like a passion project. It feels like a mission.
Speaker 1: And you know, I fell asleep trying to put on
Speaker 1: a pair of pants one time, so like, this guy
Speaker 1: is really being productive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's sort of like the Kevin Bacon I think,
Speaker 4: if I'm not mistaken. At one point in the mid
Speaker 4: nineties when I was living in New Jersey. I met
Speaker 4: the guy who created the Kevin Bacon degrees of separation.
Speaker 4: I was gonna call it a meme. Wasn't a meme
Speaker 4: back then, guys, wasn't a rumor. You know what our
Speaker 4: memes are. We would draw pictures and hand them around
Speaker 4: at one another. That's so charming.
Speaker 3: What a distribution lot.
Speaker 4: I don't know what to call it though, But if
Speaker 4: I'm not mistaken, and this just popped into my head,
Speaker 4: I think I met that guy at a party one
Speaker 4: Tommy Westwall No, the guy who created the Kevin Bacon
Speaker 4: separation thing, seven degrees of separation?
Speaker 1: Did he did degrees introduce himself as that guy?
Speaker 4: He was introduced to me as such. And the reason
Speaker 4: I remember because I think he was developing a board
Speaker 4: game at the time, and you know, supposedly, I guess
Speaker 4: he owned this idea. I don't know Reynolds trademark that
Speaker 4: did you look it up? I'm making it the Oracle
Speaker 4: of Bacon, I would, now I'm hungry. I don't know,
Speaker 4: I don't remember. I certainly wouldn't remember who it was.
Speaker 4: This is just some random Barney.
Speaker 1: This this is strange, Okay, So this I mean researching
Speaker 1: this interconnected universe is very much there goes my weekend moment.
Speaker 4: So sorry, Oh no, it's good for a while, It's
Speaker 4: gonna be worth it.
Speaker 1: But I do want to let everybody know we had
Speaker 1: mentioned briefly. House on American Activities Committee, would you be
Speaker 1: interested in making a return appearance for us to do
Speaker 1: an episode just on that. Sure, okay, because I feel
Speaker 1: like maybe we did and this is my bad. We
Speaker 1: did a bit of a tease. There's like no cut that,
Speaker 1: let's go to fan theories. But I have no regrets
Speaker 1: because I feel like we learned a lot.
Speaker 2: Absolutely. I mean, I've certainly got a rabbit hole to
Speaker 2: play in a sandbox. Rabbit box.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be one of those times in the
Speaker 1: box where you and I hang out at the local bar,
Speaker 1: reading the same web page and just not talking to
Speaker 1: each other.
Speaker 4: Let's do it. Let's do it after this.
Speaker 3: Can I ask one last thing before we please? Do
Speaker 3: you think we mentioned and you just mentioned it again
Speaker 3: in the House of an American Activities saying, do you
Speaker 3: think there could be a time, specifically in the United
Speaker 3: States of America where something like that could happen again?
Speaker 3: Like where yes, the government steps up, you think, so.
Speaker 4: I think it's happening. I mean, not necessarily just that,
Speaker 4: but for sure, yeah, I think. I think lately we've
Speaker 4: all seen out of pain. Things can get.
Speaker 2: Just inching towards totalitarianism, you know, I mean one day
Speaker 2: at a time, and it's like we always say, it's
Speaker 2: like the whole you know, frog in boiling water situation,
Speaker 2: where it happens slowly and then before you know it,
Speaker 2: you're dead.
Speaker 1: Well, one thing, since I know we're past Halloween, but
Speaker 1: it feels like it's always Halloween in America nowadays. It's true.
Speaker 1: One thing that we have that we have to consider
Speaker 1: is that the most vulnerable point of any nation's life
Speaker 1: cycle is always going to be the succession of power,
Speaker 1: the secession of power. And so when I was studying
Speaker 1: North Korea years and years back in a different lifetime,
Speaker 1: that was the thing that put everybody on international alert.
Speaker 1: When one of the Kims is going to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: my son, this chosen Kim is now going to be
Speaker 1: in charge. Hope everyone's cool with that, because there are
Speaker 1: a bunch of other there's all this internal stuff. We
Speaker 1: have been very fortunate that we are in the US.
Speaker 1: We're not a country like Italy. Italy has not had
Speaker 1: a very good run of contiguous governance for what the
Speaker 1: past fifty plus years, But here in the US, we
Speaker 1: sort of take it for granted that when an election happens,
Speaker 1: whether local, regional, or federal, the person who wins the
Speaker 1: person who loses shake hands. We don't know if that's
Speaker 1: gonna happen. Now, boy really took this in a depressing note.
Speaker 4: You know, I think if Donald Trump loses in the
Speaker 4: twenty twenty eighth, then it'll be a really, really interesting transition.
Speaker 3: I'm already digging in my backyard to make a place
Speaker 3: where my family and I can hide for several months.
Speaker 3: Hopefully everything goes great and won't need to use it.
Speaker 4: I don't think like violence will break out necessarily, but
Speaker 4: I'm having a hard time just picturing him playing nice
Speaker 4: about it all.
Speaker 2: Well, that's what we're talking about too, right, Like where
Speaker 2: you know, the normal channels, the normal ways things are
Speaker 2: done that we've all accepted are the ways things are done.
Speaker 4: This is kind of proven that, like, maybe it's only
Speaker 4: done this way if people play nice. That's right. I
Speaker 4: think that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the rule of law is a tenuous thing.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: The example we always use on this show is we
Speaker 1: think we take the tack of or the perspective of
Speaker 1: future historians looking back on twenty nineteen. So many things
Speaker 1: now that we do we're going to seem ridiculous in
Speaker 1: like twenty years, forget one hundred. One of the silliest
Speaker 1: examples that still holds water is, of course, driving on
Speaker 1: the interstate, explaining to like one of your grandkids, well,
Speaker 1: we used to hop in these things that would go
Speaker 1: ninety plus miles an hour, and.
Speaker 4: How is it not one hundred percent mortality?
Speaker 1: You know, right? And like, well, we have this system
Speaker 1: of lines that we painted on the ground walls between
Speaker 1: the cars. No, just paint, just paint, And we all
Speaker 1: kind of agreed that we would treat these lines as
Speaker 1: though they were barriers. So it was kind of an
Speaker 1: honor system.
Speaker 4: We have even had a saying stay in your lane, yeah,
Speaker 4: very quaint time.
Speaker 3: Don't text or you'll die.
Speaker 1: Right, They're like, oh, so did that work? And the
Speaker 1: answer would be like, kind of, I don't know. A
Speaker 1: ton of people died.
Speaker 4: They'll just say, like, you drove your own cars exactly
Speaker 4: with your hand.
Speaker 2: It reminds me exactly reminds me of that scene from
Speaker 2: Back in the Future too, where Martin mcfid does his
Speaker 2: like fancy you know gun video game moves and the
Speaker 2: little kids, one of which I believe is young young
Speaker 2: Elijah Wood says, you have to use your hands, idiot,
Speaker 2: you know Boomer?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, Boomer, I love Boomer. That's a weird one.
Speaker 3: So last question that we're wrapping, what was in Marcello's
Speaker 3: Wallace's briefcase.
Speaker 4: Oh, look like a yellow light bulb are apartment.
Speaker 1: Wait, do you have behind the scenes? You get some
Speaker 1: juice on that? Oh? I got no juice.
Speaker 4: I really got into the pulp fiction theories of the
Speaker 4: portal in Marcella Swallows's neck. He was the devil or something,
Speaker 4: or it being his soul and the soul is in that.
Speaker 4: I never got into that stuff. I just always kind
Speaker 4: of took it at face value.
Speaker 2: I always thought it was gold bars. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: that's what I thought in Dinner in the California Sun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and just just a hyper stylized hey, here's something
Speaker 4: valuable in here. Thing. Mm That's what it was, though they.
Speaker 2: Big up it a lot harder than if it were
Speaker 2: just gold bars. In the movie they treated it like
Speaker 2: it's sort of sacred.
Speaker 1: And irreplaceable, unique object. But you know what else is
Speaker 1: interesting too. We have to think of Quentin Tarantino's personality.
Speaker 1: I've never met the guy. Yeah, he seems like he
Speaker 1: can get you know, carried away, passionate dude. Sure, so,
Speaker 1: I you know, maybe he has an explanation to himself
Speaker 1: or or I want to be like the party pooper here.
Speaker 1: Maybe he was just like, okay, just put it, put
Speaker 1: a light bulb in it and make it bright. And
Speaker 1: someone's like, okay, well what is it. He's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: just roll one of the yellow gels on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're playing off of his personality and the weird
Speaker 3: things that end up on camera for him. Maybe it
Speaker 3: was a pair of solid gold stilettos.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, maybe it's just like a
Speaker 1: foot maybe Yeah.
Speaker 2: He's yeah, speaking of shared universes though he does a
Speaker 2: pretty good job of of that.
Speaker 4: And it's it's I think it's right. I can't remember
Speaker 4: how we where I was discussing this.
Speaker 2: It might have been not on a podcast weird, but like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, Vincent Vega is vic Vega from Reservoir Dogs.
Speaker 4: I think their Yeah, yeah, there's more.
Speaker 2: Cigarettes, there's more there's there's more stuff and moving into exactly.
Speaker 4: I just think that's fun. I like it. Yeah, same here.
Speaker 1: I like that it's not over Yeah, it's world building,
Speaker 1: but it's not over the top. It's not it's not
Speaker 1: beating like there's not there's no exposition about it, which
Speaker 1: I think is very strong.
Speaker 2: You're not required to keep it in mind, but if
Speaker 2: you feel like it and want to dig deep, it's
Speaker 2: a fun thing to like pay attention to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the TV show lost Mede a whole However, many
Speaker 4: seasons they counted on fans really overdoing it.
Speaker 1: That's true payoff. Yeah, were you one of those guys
Speaker 1: when it was.
Speaker 4: All oh dude, I was waiting the fuselage that was
Speaker 4: the website. I went to that thing. I was all
Speaker 4: over it, man, I thought it was really really cool.
Speaker 1: I was on spoilerforums dot net. Yeah, talking to Russians
Speaker 1: about like getting the new not even the new episode early,
Speaker 1: getting the new teaser.
Speaker 4: It waned for me as the show went on, but
Speaker 4: those first few seasons I was in deep. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: It got to the point where you realized there was
Speaker 2: no way they were going to be able to cash
Speaker 2: this check that they wrote, like there's just not enough
Speaker 2: episodes left, you know. Yeah, But thinking back, and this
Speaker 2: is how I feel oftentimes when shows that I love
Speaker 2: initially kind of jumped the shark. I don't know that
Speaker 2: it affected my overall. I still enjoyed my time with
Speaker 2: the show. It didn't make me just like completely thrown
Speaker 2: into the bus forever.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: But they did a great job. Was shared universe fan
Speaker 1: theories too. Even tied into clover Fields a bit tenuously.
Speaker 4: Oh sure, yeah, I like that, which was the one
Speaker 4: with the the Cloverfield movie with an underground layer.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was great. Really, I thought it was cool.
Speaker 1: That's John Goodman, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, in a real nasty s o B.
Speaker 1: And I was like, come on, man, you're the guy
Speaker 1: from Roseanne. Be cool.
Speaker 4: Do you want to hear my little name dropy loss story.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 4: So I went to meet our friend John Hodgman, he's
Speaker 4: been on this very show. I went to meet him
Speaker 4: for dinner one time in la at the Chateau Marmont,
Speaker 4: and the dining room there very cool. The only time
Speaker 4: I've been there is by his invitation. And I was
Speaker 4: waiting in the lobby, waiting, waiting, waiting, and he said,
Speaker 4: I'm finishing dinner. It was just like right behind me
Speaker 4: with a friend, just like, hang out there for a minute.
Speaker 4: We'll go get it drink. Also, when I happened to
Speaker 4: see John Krasinsky and Emlee Blunt, they walked right by me.
Speaker 4: Caught eyes with Krazinski and he gave me a very
Speaker 4: nice acknowledging smile and nod and I was like, he
Speaker 4: is a good guy. You can tell just because he
Speaker 4: looked at me. He went just kind of smiled that aside.
Speaker 4: That's one name drop. Hodgman finally texted me and said,
Speaker 4: come on over to the table because we're going to
Speaker 4: be a little bit longer. It's Damon Linda Lindelof sitting
Speaker 4: there and I was like, oh hi, And it was
Speaker 4: right after Lost.
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
Speaker 4: And I sat down and within like two minutes he
Speaker 4: went all right, you got to be honest and he
Speaker 4: was like, I've just met you. I don't know you.
Speaker 4: John and I were talking about the end of Loss
Speaker 4: and he was like, were you a fan? I was
Speaker 4: like yeah, And he's like, what did you think about
Speaker 4: the last episode? No? No pressure, no pressure at all.
Speaker 4: And I was honest and I went, yeah, I was like,
Speaker 4: it was all right. I was like, I gotta say,
Speaker 4: I said, I love the show. I said, but I
Speaker 4: didn't love the ending. And he was very sweet about it,
Speaker 4: and he said see because I guess John was saying like, no,
Speaker 4: people loved it, and he took that as ammunition to
Speaker 4: be like, see there, this guy's being honest. Like I
Speaker 4: think he might have thought. His contention might have been
Speaker 4: that we dropped the ball a little bit. But you
Speaker 4: gotta remember too, like that show, they didn't intend for
Speaker 4: it to run that long.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 2: I think they were like doing well, and then the
Speaker 2: studios are like, keep it going, guys, keep that juice flowing.
Speaker 4: And so then they kind of write themselves into a
Speaker 4: corner and like what are.
Speaker 1: They gonna do? I bet you Tella novella, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like the Dark Tower novel series. You know,
Speaker 1: it keeps, it keeps going, and at some point, like
Speaker 1: there's this beautiful moment when you're writing a story in
Speaker 1: your created world where you're in the middle of it,
Speaker 1: anything's possible, right, and you get toward the end you're like, well,
Speaker 1: Polar Bears, Yeah, what happened to those guys, right.
Speaker 4: I'll never forgive a monster.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll never forgive them for the smoke monster. I
Speaker 3: thought I wanted that to be something so much more.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what it ended up being? Again, can I.
Speaker 3: Can't even remember?
Speaker 2: It was the embodiment of the spooky bad guy in
Speaker 2: black because there were the two there were the two siblings,
Speaker 2: right and ask Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't even remember.
Speaker 3: Any too much, guys, this too much lost, too much lost.
Speaker 1: We have we have people yelling at their podcast player
Speaker 1: of choice right now.
Speaker 3: David is making Watchmen right now on HBO.
Speaker 4: And it looks dope.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I saw the pilot. I liked it.
Speaker 1: It's it's really well done. And of course Alan Moore
Speaker 1: hates it.
Speaker 4: He is uh means he's already vocal that he hates it. Well,
Speaker 4: that's my point though. Is he actually spoken about it
Speaker 4: or is there we just assuming.
Speaker 1: That he has. He's a great writer who only writes
Speaker 1: to support his habit of being a full time curmudget
Speaker 1: like that's his first love.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: He lives in a very small village, uh and has
Speaker 2: lived in the same place, a very small, modest home.
Speaker 2: He worships a snake god called glican and he is
Speaker 2: very into you know, witchcraft and Alistair Crowley asked.
Speaker 1: You to have these amazing YouTube video. It was about
Speaker 1: magic where it starts out with like, Okay, we'll get
Speaker 1: this because we've all worked in production. Starts out with
Speaker 1: like an empty chair, just in an empty room, and
Speaker 1: then there's a there's like a hard cut and he's
Speaker 1: just sitting there and he's like, oh magic. On that note, though,
Speaker 1: I think Almore is a fantastic writer, genius.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so barring a Lost, a Lost reboot, a gritty
Speaker 1: reboot of Lost, what if we call that? I don't know, befuddled?
Speaker 4: Yes, found found see that movie crusher symbiosis.
Speaker 1: Nice and where can people find movie Crush if they
Speaker 1: want to learn more about the world of film.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, Ben and the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts
Speaker 4: or wherever you find your favorite podcast. That's our official cca.
Speaker 3: I heard that somewhere.
Speaker 1: Sounds familiar. This is thank you so much for coming
Speaker 1: on having me. Yeah, it's long overdue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think year ten or whatever is a good
Speaker 4: time to have me on.
Speaker 3: What I said, I would say, if you are, if
Speaker 3: you like this show and you've maybe joined our Facebook group.
Speaker 3: Movie Crush has a Facebook group that has just the
Speaker 3: most fantastic people on it.
Speaker 1: To discuss things movie Crushers.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Movie Crush is similar to our hears where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3: So it's just another great place to a group to
Speaker 3: join if you are a fan of movie Crush or.
Speaker 1: If you like the show.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and if you like movies. It's just a nice
Speaker 4: community of people who aren't jerks to each other and
Speaker 4: who share ideas about movies that are very respectful and
Speaker 4: it's cool and check.
Speaker 2: I might be being a dumb dumb and asking this,
Speaker 2: but do you post the many Crush questions on the
Speaker 2: page or on the actual like on the group or
Speaker 2: on the page I posted on the Movie Crush facebook
Speaker 2: page facebook page, So if you want to get in
Speaker 2: on that, and you want to join the group, which
Speaker 2: is its own thing, and join the conversations, but join
Speaker 2: the conversation for the show. Chuck literally posts questions the
Speaker 2: day before we do these many Crush episodes where it's
Speaker 2: just he and I kind of having conversation starters that
Speaker 2: folks on the Facebook page submit, Yeah, and I read
Speaker 2: your name, you.
Speaker 4: Read your name.
Speaker 2: You can become an old pal stet a good friend,
Speaker 2: like it's really a whole thingy.
Speaker 1: You've got some recurring suggestions and people right in the
Speaker 1: page because it a very supportive community.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's great, and.
Speaker 1: That's our classic episode for this evening. We can't wait
Speaker 1: to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 4: It's right. Let us know what you think. You can reach.
Speaker 2: You to the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist on
Speaker 2: Facebook x and YouTube on Instagram and TikTok work Conspiracy
Speaker 2: Stuff Show.
Speaker 3: If you want to call us dial one eight three
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Speaker 3: Stuff they Don't Want you to Know is a production
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