Digger

Digger is far and away the most thought provoking movie of the year. Ignore the critics and the box office, find the biggest screen you can, and make up your own mind. In this episode, we're focusing in on the film's incredibly complex and compelling navigation of satire — which has at least five distinct angles. We examine the film's central 'misdirection monologue' to disentangle these critiques, before working through our own interpretations of the moment. Then we engage with some of the (misguided) reaction to the film, including the absurd idea that this movie is just "satire about satire". Cam spirals through half a dozen works of satire that this film seems to be in open conversation with, and then we ask some essential / unanswerable questions: What is the point of satire? What makes a work of satire a 'success'? And what might that ending mean? There is so much to talk about with this one, so grab a shovel and dig in!

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00:00 Introduction 02:23 Five Layers of Satire 05:23 The Misdirection Monologue 16:04 Our Interpretations 22:46 "Satire About Satire" 24:47 What is the Point? 28:56 Wag the Dog 31:03 Eddington 32:13 The Death of Stalin 33:11 I Love Boosters 34:03 Vice 35:14 Bugonia 35:46 Debating the Ending 38:00 Metrics of Success 43:47 The Danger of Parody 45:12 Cast & Crew 48:40 Top Gun 49:50 Birdman 50:57 Anna Karenina 52:37 Oppenheimer / The Odyssey 53:24 Megalopolis 54:02 Closing Thoughts