Barnyard Odors

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What do we do we get to begin this or
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what are we doing?
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So I just start?
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Oh yeah, I mean okay, let's turn somehow make words.
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Go now, I mean why are you here? There must
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be a reason for you to be here. Yes, I'm
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here to fight for truth and justice in the American way.
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You're gonna end up fighting every elected official in this country.
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All right, well, here we are. It's August. This law
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culture of John pod Horns in New York. Somewhere in
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the wilds of New Jersey, I believe is rob Long, Jersey.
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As we speak.
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I am here. I am in Princeton, Jersey.
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A Princeton Jersey, a beautiful place, is a problematic institution,
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architecturally significant, and it has a train called the Dinky.
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So these are some of the measure.
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Yes, yeah, I mean architectual significant.
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And and it foisted Woodrow Wilson on our country, so
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it has a lot to answer too.
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True. Yeah, I mean architectually significant.
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Architectually notable for its.
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Beautiful I guess yes. Okay, they all look the same.
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There we go, And of course in Washington in his lair,
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Jonah Goldberg, how's it going.
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It's good?
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How are you I'm good.
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I was just before we got on. I don't know.
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This is probably gonna get me in a lot of trouble.
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You may have maybe you've had this experience, maybe you haven't.
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But like remember, like in high school, dudes used to
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say about girls, oh she's good from far, but far
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from good, Like if you saw him at a distance,
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you thought they were looking when you got close. I
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think we needed a term for that. That for people
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who are really attractive in the little thumbnail avatar for
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their Google profile or their Twitter profile, and then you
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click on it to get a better look at them,
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and you're like, oh, oh no, back back to the
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thumbnail with you.
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Well, I don't know, thumbnails I'm offended. I'm deeply offended
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because obviously you're referring to me, and so I understand
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that I look better very little than I do in full.
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So John, right now, I mean, our listeners can't hear,
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but I can't see, but I can describe that you
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are in what we call soft focus.
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I would say that you are in.
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What some actresses would demand themselves to be filmed in constantly.
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You're right, as I look at our zoom here, I
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have gone into some weird pixelated fourth. It's like the
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Brood from television in nineteen seventy seven.
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Do not adjust focus.
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I didn't adjust focus in the first place.
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I don't touch anything because right now it's worth.
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The internet is working poorly in some facts, which which
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is which is nothing new here on.
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Glock it is.
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I mean, it's any any technical problems.
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It's a Fade don Away kind of situation. You got
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a fade down Away thing going on where she would
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always demand that her shot be a soft focused and
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she would go and check it just to make sure,
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just to make sure that she was in fact in
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soft focus.
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Okay, So here's the interesting thing about Fade down Away.
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It's weird you mentioned fade dun Away because.
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From a millions ago on this podcast, it seems like
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it's perfectly on brand.
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Interestingly relating to the little picture of beauty versus the
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big thing.
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Sure.
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Uh, Chris Starwalt texts me out of nowhere and says,
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what was up with Fade down Away? Did people ever
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think that she was attractive? And I was like, well, yeah,
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she was unbelievably beautiful. I do think that I never
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found her sexy, but she was beautiful. And he was like,
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I don't know, and I said, actually she was a
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really good actress, famously difficult person. And then I think
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I may have told We're now in the glop section
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where I say, I think I may have told this
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story before, but I will now tell the story again.
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Stipulated stipulated, Yes, all stories may have been told before that.
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I had a friend who was a publicist for CBS
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and Fade Down Away did a sitcom on CBS in
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like nineteen ninety.
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Four, something like this is my story, but go ahead.
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No, no, this is my story about my friend whose
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initials were BA, who was a publicist at CBS, who
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took who was taking Fade down Away to the as
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it was called the Critics Press Tour at the Universe.
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This one was at the Universal City Hotel, the Universal
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the show at Universal City, and I was present for
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it and my friend, who I will leave not unnamed
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because it's her story. It's thirty one years later, but
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she doesn't the taurus of having exposed. Faye dun Away said,
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before I do my panel, I have to go to
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the bathroom. Can you show me the bathroom? My friend
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takes her into the bathroom, Faye Dunaway is wearing a
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tube dress, very skinny, you know, and like cleaning dress.
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And she she calls to my friend, she's excuse me.
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My friend is out waiting for her, you know, like
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outside the stall, and she says, I'm having some trouble
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adjusting everything. I need your help. And basically my friend
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had to wipe fade done away and shortly thereafter left
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the profession. Well that works public relations.
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Although to be honest, that was not the least dignified
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thing he did.
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She public relations, she did.
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At least it was a she.
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It was the top twenty humiliating omens, but not not
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number one I did. I already tell you, Mike fate
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Don it's just we're to lose all.
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Of our listeners this early.
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I will tell you that she The show she was in,
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I think it was the CBS was with Bob Urick,
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the actor Robert Urick, and she played his literary agent,
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and he played a famous novelist who had moved to
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I don't know, rural somewhere and she moved with him
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and kind of a green acres thing, and and it
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was a comedy. You have our comedy, which so somebody
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had some kind of weird brain aneurysm in CBS who said,
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I know Fate down Away for this sitcom, So they
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put her in a sitcom. Of course, they test focus
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group everything, and they focused group the first half of
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the season, and the show's not doing very well. Everybody
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loves Urick. Nobody loves her. Everybody hates her. They hate her,
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they hate her. Dials down on Faye down Away, dials down,
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way down. Everything they tried, they couldn't get her dials up.
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And this show knew they needed to do something, because
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you know CBS, especially reallies entirely on audience reads arch
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to make the decision. So they decided to do an
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entire episode that they knew was going to be focus
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grouped in which fate Alick has to take care of
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a box of puppies.
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The theory being that puppy.
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Everyone has puppies, so like she will bask in the
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glow of the dials up warm feeling of a box
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of puppies. And so they took it and they focus
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grouped it, and it turns out that everybody hated the
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puppies too.
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Like she was so toxic.
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She was so toxic that she made puppies unlikable, and
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I think that.
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That's pretty that's uh, you know, that is an accomplishment.
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Put it that way.
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Got to give her, gotta give her credit. I mean,
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the thing about her was that she was willing to
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play difficult, unpleasant and unsympathetic women at a time when
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that was something that a lot of actresses would not do. Right,
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she was Evelent Mulray in Chinatown, famously unpleasant. Of course,
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her oscar was for playing a like a gorgon the
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Network that Diana Christensen in in Network. Uh, and you
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know Bonnie and Bonnie and Clyde, and she that was her.
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And of course then Joan Crawford like she played unsympathetic
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people and uh, and obviously that was typecasting.
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Yeah.
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The first thing about her is she never had to
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ask the director, what's my motivation?
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Anyway, She stayed in character the whole time. In fact,
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she's still I have.
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To say, I'm very puzzled by the fact that Starwalt
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was somehow allergic or unable to appreciate her beauty, because
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she was certainly astonishing.
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Do you think.
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That's a thing though, I mean, I mean, just to
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broaden the conversation to include our listeners to the twenty
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first century.
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Sidney sweety yeah, can we just we can.
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Okay? Can I can I finish? Do we think that.
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Levels of attractiveness or the way we define attractiveness has
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radically shifted in the past twenty thirty years? And I
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think it has in only one sense, in that fitness
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is I mean, everyone is sort of much more fit
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than they ever were. I mean, if you watch old
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movies where Kerry Grant takes off his shirt, you're like, yee, dude,
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lay off the bread.
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Johnny Weismuller did not have a six pack app as
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toz No, No, he looked like a seal. Yeah, I
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mean he had some six packs. But that's the difference.
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Yeah, And so, I mean so I guess that is
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part of the part of what.
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I don't know. Things change, right, I mean they there
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was a thing. Was it Napoleon? I can't forget.
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Maybe it's Louis the sixteenth who was returning home. I
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think it was Napoleon returning home after some war or
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campaign and he wrote to his either.
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Was Josephine or Louis? Was Maria?
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Tent out of something like He's wrote I will be
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home and weeks don't bathe?
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Well, those are those are those are those are changing standards.
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That is that is for that is, that.
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Is for dur bathe.
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So was it just who was Josephine the one who
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had no teeth? And well, Napoleon had a lover for
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whom historians have been trying to figure out in in
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his letters about how much he loved and it was
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like some expression the zigzags or something like that.
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Okay, I got it, I got it up.
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I'm looking in my explain Andrew Roberts's biography. It does
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explain how everything that Andrew has written except that book
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and uh, and how.
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That it does explain how long ago that was that
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a person felt it was necessary to specify to somebody
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in France to not bathe like that's those are eons ago.
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My god, you know the world is tilted on different
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access now.
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It's like someone writing from Newcastle bring cold.
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I mean, I mean, isn't that whatever? Is that what
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everybody says about? How? And I think this is true
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of seventy years ago, let alone one hundred and fifty
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years ago. That you know, if you went in the
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time machine, you went back in time. The thing that
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would get you the worst was the smell that we
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we don't even understand how much cleaner the air is,
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how much how how how much people take care of
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their personal hygiene so that and you know how air
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conditioning and stuff like that has kept people from living
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in a state of complete, particularly in summers, obviously in
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complete like sweat, body odor, dampness, right.
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Though, I mean, I know, but I still feel like
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this is probably the least pleasant conversation ever.
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But it feels like it should we should have.
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Let's get back to washing starlet's assess.
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An odor for a minute, like and I can we
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stop you it?
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No.
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It is also a personal anecdote that there are, of course,
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you know, people who taste wine. There's a wine tasting category.
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You say, when you taste a certain burguend to yourselfing,
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you say, has barnyard odors, And you swirl it and
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you try, and sometimes that's something that you want. Barnyard
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odors means the the manure manure of a of an herbivore, right,
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which is different from the manure of a carnivore. But
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manure and the smell of feces is kind of like
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it's unpleasant, but you know, you know what, I don't know,
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it's like, okay, right, it's okay.
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Sewage.
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You kind of maybe smell it, you know, smell it
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walking down the street in New York City. I was
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gone for about a month from my home and and
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it was in Europe, and during that time I was
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in Africa.
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And then during that time.
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There was some worms here and the power went out
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and then the power, I guess, came back on at
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some point, and the power search was so great that
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it knocked out my internet. But it also for some
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reason fried the refrigerator. So the power came back on,
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the refrigerator did not come back on. So that must
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have happened, you know, several weeks before I arrived home
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at late at night on a late flight to enter
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my home, which smelled like a Charnel house. It smelled
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unbelievably terrible, the worst smell ever worked. I mean, the
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smell of human feces, the smell of animal fece.
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Eh, you know, whatever.
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It's not great, but whatever, but I would have that
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would have been an improvement to the smell of rotting food,
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rotting meat, which permeated the entire house for two weeks,
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and it was so I guess, I guess what I'd
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like to say.
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You do? What did you do? How did you get
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it out of the house?
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I I empty.
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I threw everything out of from the refrigerator right and
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put it in the little back garbage ship. So that
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stuff for five days until they can be collected. Anyway,
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that's not my job. And then I I kind of
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wiped it down with these chloroxy lyesyl bleech wipes and
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put all the trays in the boxes and everything in
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the dishwasher for seventeen times. And then I went and
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bought four cans of coffee and I put it on
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four plates and left the door of the refrigerator open
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and put a fan pointing to the door. And by
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day nine, and I really mean day nine, you couldn't
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really smell it.
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So wow, Because what about the rest of the house.
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Did you like candles? I mean, what did you what did.
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You I like candles of course all the time, as
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you know, well, I know, because you're you're in seminary,
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Yeah exactly.
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Well, the first of all, there's prayer and then there's of.
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Course devotional Yeah, yes.
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So because I don't know when I'll ever have an
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opportunity on this podcast or any other. When you were
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talking about smelling this, it reminded me. I've been reading
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what God hath wrought this book about America from eighteen
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fifteen to eighteen forty two, so to speak, eighteen fifty
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and there's this great passage that really stuck out with me,
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and I opened it up on my kindle. I'll read quickly.
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Life in America in eighteen fifteen was dirty, smelly, laborious,
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and uncomfortable. People spent most of their waking hours working
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with scant opportunity for the development of individual talents and
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interest unrelated to farming. Cobbler made shoes, being expensive and uncomfortable,
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country people of ordinary means went barefoot much of the time.
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White people of both sexes were heavy fabrics, covering their
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bodies even in the human heat of summer, for they
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believe correctly sunshine bad for their skin. People usually owned
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only a few changes of clothes and stank of sweat.
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Only the most fastidious bathed as often as once a week.
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Since water had to be carried from a spring or
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well and heated in a kettle, people gave them spells
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gave themselves sponge bathses using the washed up Some bathed
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once a year in the spring, but as late as
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eighteen thirty two, a New England country doctor complained that
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four out of five of his patients did not bathe
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from one year to the next.
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That's well, there's that story about the cowboys, right, the
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cowboys would come into town for their annual bath. Right
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that you would go into Fort Worth or you know,
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a town in tech after a cattle drive and you
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would have your annual bath, and you would your annual bath.
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So yeah, so that's the thing about this is the
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interesting phenomenon because we don't we don't know how good
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we have it in this respect that we don't have
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to deal with this question.
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Yeah, but if it always smells bad.
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Yeah, then it doesn't smell bad anymore or whatever.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, Like you know, it's like it's like if
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everything is like it's sort of like politics and culture. Right,
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if everything is terrible and weird, you just have to
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have a hard time remembering what's terrible and weird.
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That's it, everybody, Thanks for thanks for listening, Thanks for listening.
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Okay, so we are we are being we have been
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requested by our producer, Scott Emergot to discuss the cancelation
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of of Stephen Colbert. Right, So here's what I have
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to say about that. Yay. I don't really have much
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else to say except yeay. I hate him. I've hated
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him for years. He's not funny. I don't need to
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be preached. You know, if I want to listen to
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a televangelist, I will listen. I don't want to listen
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to any televangelists, but I certainly don't need to listen
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to a liberal televangelist at the eleven.
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Thirty at night.
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And I'm very happy that he had been retired, hasn't
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been retired. He's getting ten months two wind down, so
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muzzle talk to him. It's all I have to say
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is yay. Is there anything else say but yeay?
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I would just say I did.
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The only thing I would want to be persnickety about
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because I had this argument with a good friend of mine,
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is that Stephen Colbert was not fired and he was
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not canceled. His show was canceled. The category was canceled,
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so it doesn't make any money. It was really invented
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out of whole cloth, just to find a place for
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David Letterman. It's a very very very very competitive category
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in which the profit overall profit's gone way down, So
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the pie is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, and there
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are more people slicing it and slicing it. It made
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no financial sense to have that show on.
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It isn't.
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I mean all the people screaming yelling about how oh
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my god, you know, he's been censored because he was
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too liberal anti Trump.
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The show has been canceled.
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If they really wanted to koutout at Trump, they would
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have hired somebody who was a political They didn't they
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because it doesn't make any money, and so it's just
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important for.
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It was losing, losing, And there was a point at
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which Johnny Carson made was it forty percent of the
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annual profit of NBC came.
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Oh yeah, Carson was amazing.
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Nobody means forty percent of the profit of a nationwide network.
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And he got paid a lot of the three and
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he got paid I think the equivalent of two hundred
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million dollars a year or something like that when you
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took in everything cuts. He got of avertisements and he
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worked three days a week and stuff like that like
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he did. And by the way, that's an interesting aspect
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of this which is a little discussed, is these guys
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now I think Jimmy Kimmel and ABC takes the summer off.
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But for years the idea was and Leno I think
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started this when he came on and was like he
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and he and Letterman were locked in more. You know,
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Carson had guest host, Carson took ten weeks off, Carson
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only did three days a week, blah blah blah. And
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as a result of that, he was able to stay
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on the air for thirty five years or something like that.
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And these guys will not get off the stage like
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they want. If they have an hour, they're there for
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an hour. They're there two hundred times a year, an
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hour every night, and it's like, I wonder they seem
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to burn out or not before or get old, or
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it's like all old and nobody wants to watch it,
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like it's too much. It's like having a podcast every day.
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It's just too much, just too much.
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The audience has fatigue.
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The audience has fatigue.
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You end up just sounding like it's a machine.
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You can just those podcasts where people are on every
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single day they just say the same things over and
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over and over and over.
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It's just too much, too much.
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So uh, I'm so many ways I could go with this,
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but keep it, keep it on Colbert for a moment. Yeah.
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I mean, like all the analysis has been said, it
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was a broadcast show in a narrow cast media environment. YadA, YadA, YadA.
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All that stuff is true. He's doing fan service and
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he just had he just had Robert Reisch on his
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show because that's what you know, that's what the young'ins
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really want.
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00:21:00.079 --> 00:21:02.640
Well, he needed someone to pick up that thing that
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00:21:02.720 --> 00:21:06.119
was between the desk and the wall. You know, no
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one else to it.
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But I do think that there's one part of which
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00:21:12.920 --> 00:21:17.079
is probably worth just sort of glancing over here, one
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00:21:17.079 --> 00:21:19.559
part of the conservative criticism that I think is wrong
408
00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:22.799
that got a lot of currency out there. You know,
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00:21:22.839 --> 00:21:26.599
we've talked about a million times that old you know,
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Roger All's genius was to discover this niche half the
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country argument right and the the whole. And there were
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a lot of Conservatis saying doing this whole like Colbert
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was only speaking to his fan base, and that's an
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MSNBC fan base, and he was sharing it with two
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other networks. And I think that's all true. And then
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they would saying, look, look at the ratings that Gutfield gets.
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The shows that like, you don't have to be a
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left winger, YadA YadA dah. Also true. What they kind
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of miss is that Gutfield's ratings, which are good for
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00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:02.599
a which are great for a cable show and better
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than a lot of these broadcast networks, it's still just
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another niche. It is not you know, he's not getting
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Carson numbers or anything like that. And he's just as
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partisan on the right as Colbart is on the left.
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The thing is like his show costs a tenth as much.
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And I do think there are a lot of people
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who elided over this point that that gut Faeld doesn't
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prove you can do mainstream stuff. It proves that you,
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if you get your cost structure right, you can do
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niche stuff successfully.
431
00:22:36.240 --> 00:22:38.119
Well, yeah, I mean I think that's true. I mean
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I don't know whether I you know, I have written
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about this. Once the audience gets split into twelve pieces
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and eleven of them are all one partisan side, then
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the guy who is the only one is going to
436
00:22:51.400 --> 00:22:56.519
clean up. Yeah, but if Leno and or Carson were
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still in a chair, there will be no Greg Guttfeldt.
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I mean we only the conservatives or sort of right
439
00:23:06.720 --> 00:23:12.039
leaning types don't want to be hectored about politics by
440
00:23:12.079 --> 00:23:14.640
the left. They don't mind it from the right, especially
441
00:23:15.039 --> 00:23:16.799
they sort of rabbit. I mean, once you start saying,
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all I want is a million people, but you can
443
00:23:19.480 --> 00:23:24.079
always get a million crazies who or rabid diehards who
444
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will watch you and laugh at every joke you make.
445
00:23:26.759 --> 00:23:29.240
But the other problem with all these shows is that
446
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even a successful TV show, people who say to them,
447
00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:36.599
who say to people, I love Colbert, I love Colbert,
448
00:23:36.759 --> 00:23:39.319
and then you ask them, Okay, how many times a
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00:23:39.359 --> 00:23:40.079
week you watch it?
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Nurse, I love Colbert? How do I work this remote?
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Yeah?
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Right?
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What they What you find is they either don't watch it,
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they watch the clips on TikTok or Instagram, or they
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watch it once a week and now they think they
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watch it every day, but they don't.
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Nobody does.
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So once you start splitting the audience like that, then
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the guy that has the most reliable slice this is
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the guy who does the best.
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00:24:01.519 --> 00:24:04.200
And this is the other part of where the bias
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00:24:04.359 --> 00:24:07.240
argument does work. Because I agree with you that if
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you can dominate a niche, then you are a niche.
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You're niche programming, but can be very successful. But ordinarily
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in a world in which like this podcast, totally like
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this podcast. Ordinarily in a world like that, Guttfeld comes on,
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he sort of figures out how to get two or
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three million people or whatever it is. He gets it,
469
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and then somebody would chase, like somebody would say, Okay,
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he's figured out a formula, let's do a show like his.
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But they don't. You see, they don't the other CNN
472
00:24:42.359 --> 00:24:48.880
and MSNBC don't Chase, and CBSNBC and ANBC don't chase.
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Just like Angels Studios comes out, they make Sound of Freedom.
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Sound of Freedom makes two hundred and fifty million dollars domestic,
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and everybody says, oh, you know, in Hollywood, all they
476
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care about is profit. If you can show that you
477
00:25:02.880 --> 00:25:05.279
can make money, you can make a profit, they'll make
478
00:25:05.440 --> 00:25:09.200
the move. That's they're not idiologically driven. They want money
479
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and that's all they want. And all this, where are
480
00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:14.359
the other Sounds of Freedom? It's been through by the way.
481
00:25:14.400 --> 00:25:18.319
Sound of Freedom was made for Fox five years before
482
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it was released and they put it on a shelf.
483
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So there is that weird aspect of this, which is
484
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that underserved audience that Fox has made billions and billions
485
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of dollars on. It has made billions of billions dollars
486
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on for two decades or twenty five years, because it's
487
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still so toxic to everybody else in the news and
488
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entertainment business to even touch the Fox audience that they
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have been, they have left it unmolested and totally in
490
00:25:50.920 --> 00:25:56.839
the hands of Rupert and Lachlan and whoever else and
491
00:25:56.839 --> 00:25:58.599
whoever it is that they put on the air. And
492
00:25:58.640 --> 00:26:02.319
that's what's interesting as a market as a bizarre market failure.
493
00:26:02.720 --> 00:26:05.200
I have slightly different take on that. So, like part
494
00:26:05.200 --> 00:26:07.319
of our argument when we were launching the Dispatch was
495
00:26:07.359 --> 00:26:10.000
this market gap argument that like, there's this eight hundred
496
00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:12.839
pound gorilla of Fox, and then there's a lot of
497
00:26:12.839 --> 00:26:15.839
the mainstream media and there's this stuff. You know, the
498
00:26:15.880 --> 00:26:17.880
economist is sort of in this space. But there are
499
00:26:17.880 --> 00:26:20.359
not a lot of things in the that white gap
500
00:26:20.480 --> 00:26:24.519
that value reporting that are right of center but aren't
501
00:26:24.559 --> 00:26:29.480
like Foxy. And the funny thing is there are a
502
00:26:29.480 --> 00:26:32.960
bunch of places that have tried it. Oh, an started
503
00:26:33.960 --> 00:26:40.240
trying to make that kind of argument, right, And the
504
00:26:40.319 --> 00:26:43.599
problem is is that the sticky eyeballs for cable news
505
00:26:44.680 --> 00:26:49.839
want want red meat, want the raw stuff. And so
506
00:26:50.720 --> 00:26:53.200
O N decided it was going to go crazier than
507
00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:56.880
Fox as the model. So did Newsmax right, and that
508
00:26:57.079 --> 00:27:00.799
the model became Fox has gone to stream to tell
509
00:27:00.839 --> 00:27:03.200
you that the election really was stolen, at least in
510
00:27:03.240 --> 00:27:06.559
its news reporting, and so they went even nuttier. And
511
00:27:06.559 --> 00:27:09.079
that freaked the crap out of Fox because the one
512
00:27:09.079 --> 00:27:13.319
thing they couldn't their brains couldn't handle was being first
513
00:27:13.319 --> 00:27:15.759
of all, losing in the ratings than any fifteen minute increment.
514
00:27:16.119 --> 00:27:18.559
But secondly, you know, I had to go to school
515
00:27:18.599 --> 00:27:20.440
on this because I got I got subpoena and for
516
00:27:20.480 --> 00:27:24.599
the dominion lawsuit stuff, and they had to go They
517
00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:27.519
couldn't freak. They completely freaked out and change their internal
518
00:27:27.519 --> 00:27:31.400
policies in response to Martha McCallum losing for one hour
519
00:27:32.200 --> 00:27:35.160
during the recount crap not recount, the stolen election stuff,
520
00:27:35.599 --> 00:27:39.400
and all of these plans, the pivot back to the
521
00:27:39.480 --> 00:27:42.799
center and be more serious went out the window because
522
00:27:43.359 --> 00:27:46.720
they can just they know everyone's cutting chords. They know
523
00:27:46.799 --> 00:27:48.720
that their viewers are gonna be the last ones to
524
00:27:48.799 --> 00:27:52.839
cut chords. And it's a giant ATM machine, so you
525
00:27:52.920 --> 00:27:55.119
might as well keep pandering for as long as it's
526
00:27:55.160 --> 00:27:58.880
throwing off cash. And they had to crush Newsmax and
527
00:27:58.920 --> 00:28:02.279
Oan for biting into that business model.
528
00:28:02.400 --> 00:28:04.200
And yeah, I mean the interesting thing about all that
529
00:28:04.319 --> 00:28:07.039
is how much these things develop and how often what
530
00:28:07.160 --> 00:28:11.319
they say they want to do then meets market realities
531
00:28:11.359 --> 00:28:14.599
and they have to change. So I mean, Newsmax went
532
00:28:15.279 --> 00:28:18.920
on TV, became a network, and the business plan of
533
00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:23.680
Newsmax was old people lifestyle stuff. It was not supposed
534
00:28:23.720 --> 00:28:25.440
to be. They didn't want politics. They just want an
535
00:28:25.480 --> 00:28:29.559
old people lifestyle. They wanted vitamins and wellness and culture
536
00:28:29.559 --> 00:28:31.519
of stuff. They wanted all that. And I remember that
537
00:28:31.920 --> 00:28:34.319
because the guy who runs and told me this. And
538
00:28:34.359 --> 00:28:36.480
then you get there and you start, you know, you
539
00:28:36.519 --> 00:28:38.960
start looking and it gets hard and you got to
540
00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:40.880
make the money. And then there's this, you know, there's
541
00:28:40.920 --> 00:28:44.400
this machine where you can make some money and you
542
00:28:44.480 --> 00:28:45.960
and you keep saying to yourself, well, we own you
543
00:28:45.960 --> 00:28:47.200
do this for a little bit, and then we're going
544
00:28:47.240 --> 00:28:49.440
to pivot back to the stuff that isn't toxic and
545
00:28:49.519 --> 00:28:51.559
isn't gonna bring us all down or cost us a
546
00:28:51.559 --> 00:28:56.880
lot of money eventually. That doesn't work, right. I Mean,
547
00:28:57.799 --> 00:29:00.200
the only thing I think you could maybe say as
548
00:29:00.200 --> 00:29:03.759
successful has been the rebranding, which was never done publicly
549
00:29:03.880 --> 00:29:05.920
or never announcement. You could see it on the programming
550
00:29:06.160 --> 00:29:08.160
of Fox Nation, which was supposed to be Fox Nation,
551
00:29:08.200 --> 00:29:10.680
supposed to be the looney bit, right, so everybody who's
552
00:29:10.759 --> 00:29:14.640
too crazy for the for TV, who might get a sued,
553
00:29:14.680 --> 00:29:17.160
We're gonna put on the streaming service and it's gonna
554
00:29:17.160 --> 00:29:17.920
be bananas.
555
00:29:17.920 --> 00:29:20.480
It's going to be diamond and Silk and Dan Bongino
556
00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:21.240
and all sorts of thing.
557
00:29:21.319 --> 00:29:25.720
Deputy sorry, Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino.
558
00:29:27.160 --> 00:29:27.559
Like all that.
559
00:29:28.279 --> 00:29:31.000
And they discovered that that and they were committing directly
560
00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:33.279
with newsbacks, and they decided that was probably not a
561
00:29:33.359 --> 00:29:35.480
valuable thing to do. It was just too stinky to
562
00:29:35.519 --> 00:29:37.440
the brand. So then they pivoted and now they have
563
00:29:37.559 --> 00:29:39.960
like you know, they have fancy program they good program
564
00:29:39.960 --> 00:29:41.680
in Fox Nation. It's really I mean, I've worked for it,
565
00:29:41.680 --> 00:29:43.680
I've done shows for I'm hoping you do another one.
566
00:29:43.920 --> 00:29:46.880
And they're great. I mean, they're it's a really great network.
567
00:29:46.920 --> 00:29:48.119
They have really really good.
568
00:29:48.000 --> 00:29:50.720
Shows, and then Martin Scorsese won and they have you know,
569
00:29:50.759 --> 00:29:51.960
they had the one I did, and they have a
570
00:29:52.000 --> 00:29:56.799
bunch of things, and they are they they understand who
571
00:29:56.839 --> 00:30:02.079
their audience is, but they're not trying to they're not
572
00:30:02.119 --> 00:30:05.119
trying to pander to its politics. Just to as sort
573
00:30:05.119 --> 00:30:08.400
of kind of cultural stance. You really do have to
574
00:30:08.400 --> 00:30:10.559
be able to read the tea leaves to watch Fox Nation, and.
575
00:30:10.519 --> 00:30:14.319
The basic Fox station is basically the twenty four hour
576
00:30:14.440 --> 00:30:18.440
documentary version of a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl
577
00:30:19.079 --> 00:30:22.799
or a Chevrolet commercial during the super Bowl. It's light focus.
578
00:30:23.000 --> 00:30:28.279
America is great, and it's a country of individualists who.
579
00:30:28.440 --> 00:30:33.039
It's nineteen fifties A and E. Nineteen fifty Yeah, on that.
580
00:30:33.039 --> 00:30:36.519
That is a good market position. Again, not only does
581
00:30:36.519 --> 00:30:41.880
it not only is it serving an underserved audience. And
582
00:30:42.079 --> 00:30:46.440
it's a subscription service, so they'll know if it doesn't work,
583
00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:48.839
and they'll just close it down or they'll sell it,
584
00:30:48.960 --> 00:30:53.519
or they'll do something else. But again, you're talking about
585
00:30:53.559 --> 00:30:57.000
a kind of view or vision or projection of the
586
00:30:57.039 --> 00:31:01.480
country that you just don't get elsewhere, and that is
587
00:31:01.640 --> 00:31:09.279
part of how you open a market up. There is
588
00:31:09.319 --> 00:31:13.039
this thing going on, and Jonah, you and I should
589
00:31:13.400 --> 00:31:18.200
you and I should discourse on this Superman movie opened, right,
590
00:31:18.200 --> 00:31:21.559
it's the first Superman movie since Man of.
591
00:31:21.519 --> 00:31:25.119
Steel, since the last one, for sure, No.
592
00:31:25.039 --> 00:31:27.559
But I mean there was one with called Man of Steel.
593
00:31:27.599 --> 00:31:31.000
Then Superman was in various movies with Batman the Justice.
594
00:31:31.119 --> 00:31:32.799
But Man of Steel, which was in two thousand and
595
00:31:32.920 --> 00:31:40.880
nine and was the humorless brooding Superman fighting the other
596
00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:46.759
Kryptonians after you know, came in after a previous one.
597
00:31:46.799 --> 00:31:49.200
And then there was Christopher Reeve. So here we have
598
00:31:49.279 --> 00:31:51.920
this new Superman and it's doing really well at the
599
00:31:52.039 --> 00:31:57.400
domestic box office, and it's apparently not doing particularly well overseas.
600
00:31:57.480 --> 00:32:02.279
The Chinese market is now basic. China's decided it does
601
00:32:02.319 --> 00:32:06.799
not want to open its cinemas to American movies. It
602
00:32:06.839 --> 00:32:08.680
is now making a lot of movies on its own.
603
00:32:08.920 --> 00:32:12.279
The most popular movie of twenty twenty five is a
604
00:32:12.359 --> 00:32:16.039
Chinese animated movie called Neja two, which has made two
605
00:32:16.079 --> 00:32:20.160
point two billion dollars, almost not of it here. I
606
00:32:20.160 --> 00:32:22.680
think it's made eighteen million dollars here, and you know,
607
00:32:22.680 --> 00:32:26.200
two billion dollars in China and then money abroad. So
608
00:32:26.240 --> 00:32:28.880
Superman's made about three hundred and fifty million dollars here.
609
00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:31.400
It's not making money abroad. And there is this line
610
00:32:31.400 --> 00:32:34.440
that is now being peddled that the reason that Superman
611
00:32:34.599 --> 00:32:39.079
is not popular outside the United States is because the
612
00:32:39.160 --> 00:32:44.359
world now hates America because of Donald Trump, and they
613
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:48.920
don't want Superman is an American hero and not a
614
00:32:48.960 --> 00:32:53.000
world hero, and they don't like him, and yeah, bah blah,
615
00:32:53.039 --> 00:32:59.640
bah blah, and the thin I don't maybe it's true.
616
00:33:00.039 --> 00:33:03.839
I don't know. Maybe people don't want to see the
617
00:33:03.839 --> 00:33:08.000
most famous the character that originated comic books and made
618
00:33:08.039 --> 00:33:13.279
comic books popular and is the oldest character in comics
619
00:33:13.279 --> 00:33:16.039
except for Batman. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.
620
00:33:16.400 --> 00:33:19.079
So uh, there's a great irony in this, right, because
621
00:33:20.200 --> 00:33:23.079
I was guilty of it too. Hollywood kept trying to
622
00:33:23.160 --> 00:33:30.559
make Superman a globalist, right, a citizen of the world,
623
00:33:31.279 --> 00:33:36.960
diogenies and tights, right, and and concerned, you know, they
624
00:33:36.960 --> 00:33:39.200
cut out and the American Way from some of them
625
00:33:39.200 --> 00:33:41.480
and all that kind of stuff, and and it was
626
00:33:41.519 --> 00:33:45.920
one of those sort of minor pop culture culture war truveralls.
627
00:33:46.519 --> 00:33:53.480
And so it's kind of funny that now the if
628
00:33:53.480 --> 00:33:55.880
it's true that the headwind for Superman is because he's
629
00:33:55.880 --> 00:34:00.960
an American, that that we're getting that when America during
630
00:34:01.000 --> 00:34:03.720
America first stuff. I look, I don't know, I'm torn.
631
00:34:03.799 --> 00:34:06.799
I suspect that some of it is a superhero fatigue, right,
632
00:34:06.839 --> 00:34:09.000
I mean, we were talking about that twenty minutes ago
633
00:34:09.079 --> 00:34:12.039
before this movie, so obviously that's got to be a thing.
634
00:34:12.039 --> 00:34:17.360
A lot of Marvel movies, you know, petered out because
635
00:34:17.360 --> 00:34:20.840
people were just like enough already. Disney doesn't do as
636
00:34:20.880 --> 00:34:24.039
well as Marvel movies, though, do for good reason, because
637
00:34:24.079 --> 00:34:30.760
it's worth worst content. And so I don't know. I mean,
638
00:34:30.800 --> 00:34:33.760
I think it's entirely possible. I remember one of the
639
00:34:33.800 --> 00:34:35.440
I think the first piece I ever wrote for National
640
00:34:35.480 --> 00:34:39.679
Review was about how the guys who had made Independence
641
00:34:39.760 --> 00:34:43.559
Day their follow on movie was Godzilla, the Matthew Broderick
642
00:34:43.599 --> 00:34:49.239
Godzilla and independancegue I got all this blowback because it
643
00:34:49.280 --> 00:34:52.320
was too American and that America was leading in the
644
00:34:52.360 --> 00:34:54.320
world and all this kind of stuff. And so the
645
00:34:54.320 --> 00:34:59.599
Godzilla movie, the American Army were all hapless losers and
646
00:34:59.679 --> 00:35:05.599
idiot It's the American political leadership was all losers. The
647
00:35:05.599 --> 00:35:07.960
only real badasses who knew what they were doing were
648
00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:14.199
the French, and I think that there's some gaming like that,
649
00:35:14.320 --> 00:35:16.000
you know, for these kinds of things. I just didn't
650
00:35:16.679 --> 00:35:18.039
the only thing I and this is the only thing
651
00:35:18.039 --> 00:35:19.920
where I actually disagree with you, and I'm loath to
652
00:35:20.039 --> 00:35:23.760
bring in Israel. So I was I think it was
653
00:35:23.800 --> 00:35:26.320
more anti Israel than you're you've given it credit for.
654
00:35:26.400 --> 00:35:29.559
And I want to be really clear, I think that
655
00:35:29.599 --> 00:35:31.920
the one of the few things that all of John's
656
00:35:31.960 --> 00:35:36.639
detractors and his super fans will agree on is that
657
00:35:36.760 --> 00:35:41.599
John has very sensitive antennae for insults to the State
658
00:35:41.639 --> 00:35:44.960
of Israel and the Jews. And so when you told
659
00:35:45.039 --> 00:35:49.199
me that it's all stupid, I was like, well, John
660
00:35:49.199 --> 00:35:50.519
says that it's got to be true. And then I
661
00:35:50.519 --> 00:35:53.199
watched it with my daughter, and my daughter like immediately
662
00:35:53.159 --> 00:35:58.440
that they're talking about Israel and and I kind of
663
00:35:58.440 --> 00:36:00.599
waved her off and said, we'll talk about it afterwards.
664
00:36:00.679 --> 00:36:05.639
And then, you know, I understand why people had that interpretation.
665
00:36:05.800 --> 00:36:07.880
Morea we should explain for people who haven't seen the
666
00:36:07.920 --> 00:36:12.760
movie that Superman involves himself in a cross border war
667
00:36:13.519 --> 00:36:17.719
between a country that is clearly run by a Vladimir
668
00:36:17.719 --> 00:36:24.559
Putin substitute and a defenseless country on his border. Uh,
669
00:36:24.599 --> 00:36:27.599
and everything is being manipulated by Lex Luthor in some
670
00:36:27.679 --> 00:36:31.000
fashion and I can't even remember what, and that the
671
00:36:31.119 --> 00:36:34.840
cross border of the people that he is attacking look
672
00:36:35.039 --> 00:36:40.079
vaguely Middle Eastern and as though they literally just come
673
00:36:40.159 --> 00:36:43.400
out of Lawrence of Arabia or something. They're sort of
674
00:36:43.440 --> 00:36:48.119
like in desert clothing there there. I don't know. They
675
00:36:48.360 --> 00:36:53.400
they have vests, woolen vests, and they have sticks.
676
00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:58.639
And standing around in.
677
00:36:58.679 --> 00:37:03.000
A musical note whenever they appear, and it goes.
678
00:37:03.400 --> 00:37:07.760
No, no, no, it's just that they're staying there facing this.
679
00:37:08.480 --> 00:37:12.000
They're facing this, you know, like first World army, and
680
00:37:12.039 --> 00:37:17.599
then they're a bunch of ragtag rebels. And people have
681
00:37:17.719 --> 00:37:20.960
read this as though this is clearly meant to read
682
00:37:21.119 --> 00:37:27.719
like the Palestinians in Gaza. But I didn't read it
683
00:37:27.760 --> 00:37:31.079
that way for this reason, which is that the antagonist
684
00:37:31.840 --> 00:37:36.320
is Putin and the movie was written and started filming
685
00:37:37.440 --> 00:37:43.400
in twenty twenty three, and remember October seven didn't start
686
00:37:43.440 --> 00:37:49.440
happening until October of twenty twenty three, and so I
687
00:37:49.480 --> 00:37:51.880
thought it was clear that it was supposed to be
688
00:37:51.920 --> 00:37:55.800
some kind of Ukraine thing, except that the Ukrainians look
689
00:37:55.880 --> 00:38:00.599
more like Afghanis than they did like Ukrainians. I don't
690
00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:03.840
dispute that if you watch it in twenty twenty five,
691
00:38:04.039 --> 00:38:07.239
after the last two years, when you look at the
692
00:38:07.519 --> 00:38:10.639
at these people that Superman is trying to protect from
693
00:38:11.119 --> 00:38:16.000
from the evil Putin guy, that that they you, that's
694
00:38:16.039 --> 00:38:18.360
how you would read it. I just don't think that
695
00:38:18.360 --> 00:38:21.440
that was what was intended. But what do I know?
696
00:38:21.679 --> 00:38:26.519
Okay, So two data points three data points. One, we
697
00:38:26.559 --> 00:38:29.960
should stipulate that the movie is pretty stupid. I mean,
698
00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:33.000
it's fun, but we shouldn't take it too seriously. But
699
00:38:33.079 --> 00:38:35.800
this is a serious interpretation that people are having, right.
700
00:38:35.840 --> 00:38:40.480
So second, the I agree that it's supposed to have
701
00:38:40.559 --> 00:38:42.960
some overtones of the Russia thing too. It's like an amalgam,
702
00:38:43.079 --> 00:38:48.760
but the leader of the evil country kind of talks
703
00:38:48.800 --> 00:38:51.440
more like an Ariel Sharon and looks more like in
704
00:38:51.480 --> 00:38:53.679
Israeli with the with the weird Harry doesn't look like
705
00:38:53.760 --> 00:38:57.199
Vladimir Putin. And he gives this little speech at one
706
00:38:57.239 --> 00:39:02.159
point where he says, America and Zavonia, whatever the name
707
00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:05.079
of the country is, we had a rock solid alliance
708
00:39:05.159 --> 00:39:08.880
until Superman got in the way. Going back decades, we've
709
00:39:08.920 --> 00:39:12.440
never had a Rocksoud alliance with Vladimir Putin right, and
710
00:39:12.519 --> 00:39:17.119
so it was. And also just the unbelievably I mean
711
00:39:17.400 --> 00:39:26.480
you called them the innocent victims whatever rebels. I mean,
712
00:39:26.599 --> 00:39:28.960
they were like literally like holding I don't know, mops
713
00:39:28.960 --> 00:39:33.519
and sticks and stuff, and so it just it seemed
714
00:39:33.599 --> 00:39:39.159
like a hamhanded way to it. If it was trying
715
00:39:39.159 --> 00:39:43.159
to play off of Ukraine, it kind of failed miserably,
716
00:39:43.239 --> 00:39:46.960
I thought, and lent aid and comfort to people who
717
00:39:47.039 --> 00:39:49.239
wanted to say it was about Israel.
718
00:39:49.599 --> 00:39:50.000
I agree.
719
00:39:50.480 --> 00:39:55.320
The country the countries in the bad country is called Bravia.
720
00:39:56.480 --> 00:39:58.679
And the country that they invade with the people with
721
00:39:58.760 --> 00:40:03.119
the sticks who were Superman protect who super Instrra, it's
722
00:40:03.199 --> 00:40:09.559
called Jarhanpour. So we're Braven. President's name is a vasil Gurkhos.
723
00:40:10.360 --> 00:40:16.840
So I don't know, Jarhanpour sounds south like it's South Asia. Anyway,
724
00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:21.400
I'm not defending it it is. I enjoyed it. I
725
00:40:21.519 --> 00:40:26.199
enjoyed much of the movie. I wish that it hadn't
726
00:40:26.960 --> 00:40:31.960
gone into this weird place where he's in the anti
727
00:40:32.039 --> 00:40:36.679
matter river that's leading to the black hole and stuff
728
00:40:36.719 --> 00:40:39.639
like that. What was good about it was what is
729
00:40:39.719 --> 00:40:43.039
always good about Superman movies, which is the conflict between
730
00:40:43.800 --> 00:40:47.159
Superman and Lex Luthor, which is always good, and the
731
00:40:47.199 --> 00:40:51.119
relationship between Superman and Lois Lane, which is always good.
732
00:40:51.360 --> 00:40:56.199
And the how he saves people from efforts to trash
733
00:40:56.280 --> 00:41:01.320
them and say he saves them and invent ways and
734
00:41:01.400 --> 00:41:05.400
that's really good. And some of the other superheroes are
735
00:41:05.440 --> 00:41:06.679
funnier than I expected.
736
00:41:06.880 --> 00:41:12.360
Yeah, I otherwise it's I had to have Tevy Troy,
737
00:41:12.360 --> 00:41:15.760
our friend Tevy Troy explained to me why is Green
738
00:41:15.840 --> 00:41:18.960
Lantern such an unbelievable dickhead? And he explained it to me,
739
00:41:19.000 --> 00:41:20.880
it's a new character, blah blah, but it's a thing
740
00:41:20.880 --> 00:41:23.719
in the comics. The one complaint I have, and it's
741
00:41:23.760 --> 00:41:27.800
true of his Suicide Squad movies too, James Gunn Yeah,
742
00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:28.880
the James Gunner director.
743
00:41:28.960 --> 00:41:30.320
Yeah, it's like.
744
00:41:30.800 --> 00:41:34.360
They want these things to be so visually distinct from Marvel.
745
00:41:35.719 --> 00:41:39.719
That but Marvel took all of the good set colors
746
00:41:39.760 --> 00:41:42.800
and paint colors and costume colors, the whole all the
747
00:41:42.840 --> 00:41:46.960
good palette. And so that's a lot of like Japanese
748
00:41:47.039 --> 00:41:53.000
lunchbox pink and weird color profiles that I just I
749
00:41:53.000 --> 00:41:56.000
think there's a reason why Marvel doesn't use those colors
750
00:41:56.000 --> 00:41:57.000
because it's kind of stupid.
751
00:41:57.199 --> 00:41:59.159
So the whole thing kind of look. I got to
752
00:41:59.199 --> 00:42:02.199
move on, and Rob is looking like he wants to.
753
00:42:02.679 --> 00:42:05.639
No. I'm actually sort of interesting because when you mentioned
754
00:42:05.679 --> 00:42:08.239
I mean, this is not minutes ago. But I made
755
00:42:08.239 --> 00:42:11.599
a little note because when you mentioned the antimatter thing
756
00:42:11.760 --> 00:42:14.559
and then the black hole, I thought what was interesting
757
00:42:14.639 --> 00:42:18.440
was their comment that the components of traditional science fiction.
758
00:42:20.440 --> 00:42:23.039
No, but I do have to ask Jonah, because Jonah
759
00:42:23.199 --> 00:42:25.880
is a comic book person and there is this big
760
00:42:25.880 --> 00:42:28.480
comic book movie that came out Fantastic four.
761
00:42:28.519 --> 00:42:31.039
First steps were moving on, but I guess we're not.
762
00:42:31.159 --> 00:42:33.360
No, I just want to do two minutes on this
763
00:42:33.440 --> 00:42:39.119
and then move on. So as I understand it, Fantastic four,
764
00:42:39.159 --> 00:42:41.719
which debut I think at the beginning of the sixties.
765
00:42:43.960 --> 00:42:46.960
This is now like the seventeenth effort to reboot the
766
00:42:47.079 --> 00:42:52.599
Fantastic Four. And it looks really good. And because it
767
00:42:52.639 --> 00:42:56.079
looks like The Incredibles, it's like a live action version.
768
00:42:56.159 --> 00:42:57.800
It's like their way of making them.
769
00:42:58.039 --> 00:43:00.199
A giant first weekend, giant first weekend.
770
00:43:00.320 --> 00:43:02.960
And then and then it collapsed. But it looks like Incredibles,
771
00:43:03.760 --> 00:43:11.920
and I think the Fantastic four is unbelievably stupid as
772
00:43:11.960 --> 00:43:14.760
a I don't understand why. I mean, I didn't read
773
00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:20.119
that's so, there's stretchy arms, there's his Mariland. Now this
774
00:43:20.199 --> 00:43:22.519
is the other thing is his wife looks like supposed
775
00:43:22.559 --> 00:43:26.000
to look like Marilyn Monroe, but can make herself invisible.
776
00:43:26.039 --> 00:43:28.800
Why Marilyn Monroe want to make herself invisible is not clear.
777
00:43:29.760 --> 00:43:32.280
My brother can light himself on fire and fly, and
778
00:43:32.320 --> 00:43:35.079
then this good looking guy ends up looking like a
779
00:43:35.159 --> 00:43:38.440
giant rock monster, and I guess they all have are
780
00:43:38.480 --> 00:43:42.840
tortured by their various powers and abilities, except in this
781
00:43:43.039 --> 00:43:47.440
version of it, the rock monster guy has no problems
782
00:43:47.519 --> 00:43:51.000
being a rock monster. He doesn't think he's ugly, he's
783
00:43:51.039 --> 00:43:54.679
not complaining about being ugly. The one who slights himself
784
00:43:54.719 --> 00:43:57.440
on fire is perfectly happy to light himself on fire.
785
00:43:58.199 --> 00:44:04.079
She's fine, everybody's fine, there's no conflict, and the powers
786
00:44:04.119 --> 00:44:10.719
are dumb. They're just dumb, Like I so am I wrong?
787
00:44:10.960 --> 00:44:13.400
Like this? Was this a great comic book and it
788
00:44:13.559 --> 00:44:17.280
really like crystallized what was great about comics, and the
789
00:44:17.320 --> 00:44:20.559
movies just haven't been able to match the magic of it.
790
00:44:20.800 --> 00:44:23.159
Or yeah, I think that's it. I mean, I honestly do.
791
00:44:23.280 --> 00:44:25.800
I mean like, there were all sorts of comics that
792
00:44:25.960 --> 00:44:28.920
just for years didn't lend themselves to making movies about them,
793
00:44:28.920 --> 00:44:30.760
and then CGI kind of caught up and all that
794
00:44:30.800 --> 00:44:33.880
kind of stuff. And the problem is is that I
795
00:44:33.960 --> 00:44:36.440
just think the Fantastic Four, which was a great comic
796
00:44:36.599 --> 00:44:40.679
in its day, doesn't lend itself to it. So it
797
00:44:40.719 --> 00:44:44.079
was kind of smart for them to do the homage
798
00:44:44.119 --> 00:44:46.400
to the Incredibles, which was an homage to the Fantastic
799
00:44:46.400 --> 00:44:48.400
for in the first place, kind of thing. I haven't
800
00:44:48.400 --> 00:44:51.440
seen it yet, but Cliff Asnes, who's even more are
801
00:44:51.480 --> 00:44:54.440
Friendclys Avenues and the subject of the commentary roast this year,
802
00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:57.599
it was even more of a comic book nerd than
803
00:44:57.639 --> 00:44:59.320
I am, and he really liked it.
804
00:45:00.280 --> 00:45:02.599
Okay, that's all I got for it. It is great
805
00:45:02.599 --> 00:45:05.199
looking great. Now here's something else, a movie that I
806
00:45:05.199 --> 00:45:07.320
think I've seen that you guys probably have not seen,
807
00:45:07.960 --> 00:45:11.159
that I strongly want to urge people to see, though
808
00:45:11.199 --> 00:45:13.840
it'll probably be streaming in about a week because it
809
00:45:13.880 --> 00:45:18.800
really didn't make any money and so the window will close.
810
00:45:18.920 --> 00:45:22.119
But it's this film Eddington, made by the director or
811
00:45:22.320 --> 00:45:23.880
right director Ari Astor.
812
00:45:24.119 --> 00:45:25.719
Which mister Fantastic in it.
813
00:45:25.760 --> 00:45:29.519
With pedropuscal in it right, which is about a town
814
00:45:30.000 --> 00:45:33.039
that goes insane in the early days of COVID in
815
00:45:33.119 --> 00:45:36.960
New Mexico, and it is a movie about America losing
816
00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:42.280
its mind over COVID, and it is brilliant, and it
817
00:45:42.360 --> 00:45:50.280
is brilliant because it accepts it. It provides a framework
818
00:45:50.400 --> 00:45:55.559
in which all arguments about COVID are taken seriously, and
819
00:45:55.639 --> 00:45:59.199
all arguments about what happens in America during COVID from
820
00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:02.320
the left. You need to wear You're gonna make other
821
00:46:02.360 --> 00:46:05.719
people sick. And you can't just walk around doing whatever
822
00:46:05.760 --> 00:46:08.360
you want, because we live in a society in which
823
00:46:08.360 --> 00:46:10.400
we need to be able to think about each other.
824
00:46:11.159 --> 00:46:15.079
Or I have asthma. I can't wear a mask. Leave
825
00:46:15.119 --> 00:46:18.079
me alone. I'm six staying six feet away from you.
826
00:46:18.159 --> 00:46:24.480
Stop yelling at me, Let me be. And the conflicts
827
00:46:24.519 --> 00:46:28.239
that arise that get more and deep and more and
828
00:46:28.280 --> 00:46:33.440
more and more crazy, until in the most amazing twist
829
00:46:33.480 --> 00:46:38.559
of all, Antifa actually shows up. There's a George Wood
830
00:46:38.599 --> 00:46:41.639
protest in this empty little town in New Mexico and
831
00:46:41.719 --> 00:46:45.519
Antifa shows up, and it is a sort of portrait
832
00:46:45.599 --> 00:46:50.519
of America gone insane in twenty twenty, and it is remarkable.
833
00:46:50.639 --> 00:46:52.920
I mean, I wouldn't say that it's the most pleasant.
834
00:46:52.920 --> 00:46:54.119
It's very nerve jangling.
835
00:46:54.400 --> 00:46:55.840
Yeah, that's why I'm reluctant to see.
836
00:46:55.920 --> 00:46:59.960
But it is great, and like, there's so few movies
837
00:47:00.199 --> 00:47:05.000
that are any good anymore, like The Naked Gun. I
838
00:47:05.079 --> 00:47:08.679
went to see the reboot of The Naked Gun. It's
839
00:47:08.760 --> 00:47:11.920
like I laughed seven or eight times, but it's so
840
00:47:12.239 --> 00:47:18.440
wand you know, and it's like you remember how explosively
841
00:47:18.559 --> 00:47:21.000
funny those movies were, and then you make a wan
842
00:47:22.440 --> 00:47:26.599
new version of it, and you know it's got to
843
00:47:26.639 --> 00:47:30.400
be better, not worse, Like it's got to actually improve
844
00:47:30.559 --> 00:47:34.400
on the original, not be a kind of pale reflection.
845
00:47:35.400 --> 00:47:38.039
So I haven't they a wild comedy and then make
846
00:47:38.079 --> 00:47:40.719
a less wild version of a wild comedy and then
847
00:47:40.760 --> 00:47:41.840
think that's supposed to be open.
848
00:47:41.840 --> 00:47:43.239
So I haven't seen it, but I have a theory
849
00:47:43.239 --> 00:47:45.639
about why a lot of those kinds of movies stopped
850
00:47:45.719 --> 00:47:47.719
being made. And be curious what you guys think. So
851
00:47:49.079 --> 00:47:52.800
I thought the Police Squad Show TV show was fantastic.
852
00:47:53.480 --> 00:47:56.440
It only thought lasted like what six six episodes? Six episodes?
853
00:47:56.519 --> 00:47:56.760
Right?
854
00:47:58.639 --> 00:48:03.239
And I think that part of the problem is sort
855
00:48:03.280 --> 00:48:05.960
of like that movie Top Secret, and there's the airplane movies.
856
00:48:06.119 --> 00:48:06.440
Right.
857
00:48:07.639 --> 00:48:12.159
You need a mass audience that has grown up on
858
00:48:12.599 --> 00:48:17.679
certain plot conventions and certain sort of structures that you
859
00:48:17.840 --> 00:48:20.519
feel like, oh, I know what's gonna happen, because this
860
00:48:20.679 --> 00:48:24.239
is the formula for every episode of Dragnet and Streets
861
00:48:24.280 --> 00:48:27.719
of San Francisco and everything blah blah blah, And so
862
00:48:27.760 --> 00:48:30.360
you have it's a double edged sword problem. On the
863
00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:33.880
one hand, the people who do know all of that stuff,
864
00:48:34.960 --> 00:48:37.079
they've heard the joke already, right, so like you can't
865
00:48:37.199 --> 00:48:40.039
keep playing on those things once you've punctured all of them.
866
00:48:40.239 --> 00:48:42.760
And then on the other hand, younger people they don't
867
00:48:42.800 --> 00:48:46.679
know them, right, they haven't seen enough episodes of Banichick
868
00:48:46.760 --> 00:48:48.199
and Matt Bock or whatever.
869
00:48:48.239 --> 00:48:50.599
Sort of soundchick good.
870
00:48:50.880 --> 00:48:55.599
Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that's probably true. I mean,
871
00:48:56.000 --> 00:48:58.760
I guess the Police Squad didn't really work so well
872
00:48:58.800 --> 00:49:01.760
on TV. I think because there was no place for it, right,
873
00:49:01.800 --> 00:49:04.480
I mean, TV, especially then was really about making sure
874
00:49:04.880 --> 00:49:07.800
there's a programming flow, and you know, there was there's
875
00:49:07.840 --> 00:49:10.519
such a tone shift between Naked Gun, which was I mean,
876
00:49:10.559 --> 00:49:15.679
between Police, Police Squad and everything else around it that
877
00:49:15.760 --> 00:49:17.760
I think it was hard for it to have a
878
00:49:17.760 --> 00:49:19.840
home even though it was incredibly funny.
879
00:49:19.920 --> 00:49:21.159
And and interesting.
880
00:49:21.480 --> 00:49:25.079
It lives very very I mean must live prominently on
881
00:49:25.119 --> 00:49:30.199
TikTok because I see clips of it constantly. And then
882
00:49:30.239 --> 00:49:32.159
of course then the Naked Gun movies sort of like
883
00:49:32.239 --> 00:49:34.519
took over that sort of event kind of thing where
884
00:49:34.519 --> 00:49:36.760
you go and you'd sit there and they'd be making
885
00:49:36.840 --> 00:49:38.559
jokes you didn't know you you know, the Queen of
886
00:49:38.599 --> 00:49:41.320
England would be thrown naked into the.
887
00:49:41.280 --> 00:49:43.440
You know, pig trough or something like that.
888
00:49:43.559 --> 00:49:44.320
Yeah, it's great.
889
00:49:45.679 --> 00:49:46.679
So I don't know about this one.
890
00:49:46.719 --> 00:49:49.440
I mean, this one feels to me like what I
891
00:49:49.440 --> 00:49:51.079
don't want to have happened is for it to not
892
00:49:51.159 --> 00:49:53.320
work and then people to say, oh, this stuff doesn't work,
893
00:49:53.840 --> 00:49:57.519
because it does work, because big loud, noisy, you know,
894
00:49:58.960 --> 00:50:00.719
dumb comedies work.
895
00:50:00.800 --> 00:50:02.679
What's wrong with is it's not big loud and noisy.
896
00:50:02.719 --> 00:50:06.400
That's yeah, Actually I just have to get the execution right.
897
00:50:06.440 --> 00:50:09.800
Yeah, but the category, I mean, people in show business
898
00:50:09.840 --> 00:50:13.039
now are just removing things from the categories because they
899
00:50:13.320 --> 00:50:15.480
did a bad version of it and because they are
900
00:50:15.519 --> 00:50:17.519
now risk averse because of all the things have been
901
00:50:17.519 --> 00:50:20.639
going on, and that is gonna you're gonna get it's
902
00:50:20.679 --> 00:50:23.280
gonna get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller, like well, okay,
903
00:50:23.320 --> 00:50:26.599
well pretty soon you're not gonna know. The only way
904
00:50:26.599 --> 00:50:28.960
you're gonna know you can make a movie is if
905
00:50:29.199 --> 00:50:31.280
if you're willing to spend five hundred million dollars on it.
906
00:50:31.559 --> 00:50:35.119
And that is the beauty of the naked gun movies.
907
00:50:35.119 --> 00:50:37.400
The beauty of those kinds of comedies is then you
908
00:50:37.400 --> 00:50:39.159
don't have to spend five hundred million dollars on it,
909
00:50:39.320 --> 00:50:40.679
and you can put it on in the summer when
910
00:50:40.679 --> 00:50:42.159
people kind of want to go to the movie theater
911
00:50:42.239 --> 00:50:45.880
and watch a stupid movie. And I just to me,
912
00:50:45.920 --> 00:50:51.320
it's baffling why that product that product line is is disappearing,
913
00:50:51.440 --> 00:50:53.719
Because if McDonald suddenly said, you know, we're not going
914
00:50:53.760 --> 00:50:55.360
to be so much about the burgers.
915
00:50:55.280 --> 00:50:58.559
Okay, So I uh, two things about that, one of
916
00:50:58.599 --> 00:51:04.320
which is for some reason, COVID killed the comedy twenty
917
00:51:04.360 --> 00:51:09.400
eighteen and twenty nineteen. David Poland, the sort of a
918
00:51:09.519 --> 00:51:13.280
film analyst guy, pointed out that they made there were
919
00:51:13.280 --> 00:51:17.119
twenty five studio comedies in twenty eighteen and twenty seven
920
00:51:17.199 --> 00:51:21.079
studio comedies in twenty nineteen and this year there are three.
921
00:51:21.920 --> 00:51:25.360
And what happened was COVID? How why COVID killed off
922
00:51:25.400 --> 00:51:27.840
the studio. There's all sorts of things, you know, George
923
00:51:27.880 --> 00:51:30.679
Floyd did it? Yea, you know me too did it?
924
00:51:30.760 --> 00:51:32.519
And all that. And they were still making them. They
925
00:51:32.519 --> 00:51:35.400
were still making them and they weren't very good. Was
926
00:51:35.440 --> 00:51:38.599
part of the problem. And then you really, comedy doesn't
927
00:51:39.000 --> 00:51:41.440
the big noisy comedy is something you want to see
928
00:51:41.440 --> 00:51:42.599
in a theater the way you want to see a
929
00:51:42.599 --> 00:51:45.519
horror movie in a theater, because it's a communal experience.
930
00:51:45.559 --> 00:51:47.679
You want to hear other people laughing. That's part of
931
00:51:47.719 --> 00:51:50.519
the pleasure of it. And for some reason it died.
932
00:51:50.559 --> 00:51:53.559
We don't and your our friend Roy Price has many
933
00:51:53.639 --> 00:51:57.119
theories about this, and yes, can this category come back,
934
00:51:57.159 --> 00:52:00.519
It can absolutely come back. This is not one of them,
935
00:52:00.559 --> 00:52:05.719
but I do think that some of it. So there's
936
00:52:05.800 --> 00:52:08.800
the show The Boys, which both Jonah and I really like,
937
00:52:09.599 --> 00:52:14.840
and The Boys is the Naked Gun of the Superhero movie,
938
00:52:14.880 --> 00:52:18.119
by which I mean it is a show and it's
939
00:52:18.159 --> 00:52:22.159
gone four seasons and all that, which is about what
940
00:52:22.440 --> 00:52:29.960
if Marvel, what if you made a satirical version of
941
00:52:30.280 --> 00:52:33.960
a world with Marvel superheroes in it a very dark
942
00:52:34.559 --> 00:52:41.199
but they were all psychopaths and did disgusting things. And
943
00:52:42.480 --> 00:52:46.519
this is where the satire part. It's not family friendly,
944
00:52:47.280 --> 00:52:51.119
but it is totally comic and it is totally satirical,
945
00:52:51.920 --> 00:52:55.960
and it does everything that the that the Zuker Abraham
946
00:52:56.039 --> 00:52:59.679
Zucker guys did with those movies with this one format.
947
00:52:59.679 --> 00:53:02.599
And there's so there were so many Superiero movies over
948
00:53:02.679 --> 00:53:05.159
so long a period of time that you could introduce
949
00:53:05.239 --> 00:53:10.360
all of these related characters that everybody who want as
950
00:53:10.400 --> 00:53:12.920
you would say, as Jonah, you would say, like, this
951
00:53:13.079 --> 00:53:17.480
is the convention and everybody who is alive now knows
952
00:53:17.639 --> 00:53:21.480
which is the conventions of the superheroes, and The Boys
953
00:53:21.840 --> 00:53:26.159
takes it and twists it into these crazy pretzels.
954
00:53:26.599 --> 00:53:28.400
Yes, but I just want to be really clear for
955
00:53:28.519 --> 00:53:29.840
our audience. First of all, I think it's a very
956
00:53:29.840 --> 00:53:33.079
good point. But second when really clear for our audience,
957
00:53:33.159 --> 00:53:36.679
given what we suspect are the demographics of our audience.
958
00:53:38.800 --> 00:53:43.960
If you thought the fade gunaway tushy wiping scene was
959
00:53:44.000 --> 00:53:46.960
offensive at the beginning of this podcast, yeah, do not
960
00:53:47.159 --> 00:53:52.280
watch The Boys. That is Mary Poppins compared to The
961
00:53:52.280 --> 00:53:52.679
Boys or.
962
00:53:52.719 --> 00:53:56.880
That or that show whatever. The gen X Boys spin off.
963
00:53:56.800 --> 00:54:00.280
Is yeah, yeah, just anything Boys related right from the
964
00:54:00.360 --> 00:54:01.199
universe of the Boys.
965
00:54:01.360 --> 00:54:05.320
But it is effectively that it is sort of like,
966
00:54:05.639 --> 00:54:09.599
if Howard Stern, who is now apparently retiring, got his
967
00:54:09.679 --> 00:54:12.880
hands on a TV network and unlimited resources to make
968
00:54:13.159 --> 00:54:18.679
a nehilistic version of a superhero franchise, you would get
969
00:54:18.840 --> 00:54:23.840
you would get The Boys. It's very depressing, by the way,
970
00:54:23.880 --> 00:54:26.880
because there's there are these trailers for movies of the
971
00:54:26.920 --> 00:54:29.119
sort that we're talking about here, or sort of like
972
00:54:29.559 --> 00:54:33.199
eighties type movies that people used to love that came
973
00:54:33.239 --> 00:54:35.119
out in the last couple of weeks, for movies that
974
00:54:35.119 --> 00:54:38.280
are opening later in the year. James L. Brooks has
975
00:54:38.320 --> 00:54:41.960
a movie out about a young a young female politician.
976
00:54:42.559 --> 00:54:45.360
He's not three years old. It has the worst trailer
977
00:54:45.440 --> 00:54:49.480
I've ever called Ellen mackay, I've never seen a worst trailer.
978
00:54:50.480 --> 00:54:53.480
He's obviously being reward. It's like a bonus for him
979
00:54:53.519 --> 00:54:56.079
to get to make this. Fox is making it because
980
00:54:56.599 --> 00:54:59.199
how much money has he made for Fox by having
981
00:54:59.280 --> 00:55:04.119
created the Simps bill and billion dollars I mean.
982
00:55:04.000 --> 00:55:06.480
So yeah, like yeah, I mean who knows.
983
00:55:06.280 --> 00:55:09.119
Who can even calculate.
984
00:55:08.760 --> 00:55:11.159
But also who knows who knows the motivation here?
985
00:55:11.400 --> 00:55:12.639
Yeah, but it's hard.
986
00:55:12.880 --> 00:55:15.079
But there are a bunch of these sorts of like
987
00:55:15.679 --> 00:55:19.840
people are trying to make slice of life dramas of
988
00:55:19.880 --> 00:55:22.519
the sort that dominated the box office in the nineteen eightys,
989
00:55:22.559 --> 00:55:24.639
where movies like that could make two hundred million dollars,
990
00:55:24.679 --> 00:55:27.079
you know, like Out of Africa or ray Man or
991
00:55:28.239 --> 00:55:33.000
you know, Tender Mercies or Kramer Versus Kramer, like things
992
00:55:33.039 --> 00:55:36.440
that you know, you made Kramer Versus Cremer today, which
993
00:55:36.519 --> 00:55:40.039
was The Moat, which was the most successful movie of
994
00:55:40.119 --> 00:55:43.199
nineteen seventy nine, the biggest box office movie in nineteen
995
00:55:43.239 --> 00:55:46.360
seventy nine, and you made it today, you would have
996
00:55:46.440 --> 00:55:48.360
to make it for five million dollars. It would go
997
00:55:48.440 --> 00:55:50.280
to sun Dance and then it would go to Hulu,
998
00:55:50.320 --> 00:55:51.239
and that way it would.
999
00:55:51.079 --> 00:55:51.639
Never get made.
1000
00:55:52.119 --> 00:55:55.199
Because a wonderful moment in Cramer Versus Kramer, which is
1001
00:55:55.280 --> 00:55:58.159
one of my favorite moments, where after dust after Meryl
1002
00:55:58.159 --> 00:56:00.880
Streep leaves Dustin Hoffman in the morning, or you know,
1003
00:56:01.079 --> 00:56:04.880
in the first reel, and he's and he's at his
1004
00:56:05.119 --> 00:56:07.719
job and is obviously he's performing. You know, they're they're
1005
00:56:07.719 --> 00:56:10.280
worried that he's going to get that he's gonna be
1006
00:56:10.320 --> 00:56:12.760
distracted from his job as an advertising executive. And he's
1007
00:56:12.800 --> 00:56:15.320
talking to his boss about what happened and he says this.
1008
00:56:15.400 --> 00:56:17.079
He goes, I don't know what happened. I mean, she's
1009
00:56:17.159 --> 00:56:19.280
a home and there's this we have.
1010
00:56:19.239 --> 00:56:20.159
A neighbor upstairs.
1011
00:56:20.159 --> 00:56:22.239
He's a single goal and you know, they got together
1012
00:56:22.320 --> 00:56:25.840
and it was the Women's Lib d and he makes
1013
00:56:25.880 --> 00:56:29.440
the little you know, talking YadA yada's gesture, the little
1014
00:56:31.400 --> 00:56:33.760
it's so great, and he and his boss are like,
1015
00:56:33.800 --> 00:56:36.559
it's like bad men. They're like, well, he'll be back.
1016
00:56:37.679 --> 00:56:40.559
She just wants some attention. But I just I just
1017
00:56:41.159 --> 00:56:46.800
I can't imagine, man. I can easily imagine that script
1018
00:56:46.800 --> 00:56:49.400
in nineteen going through development in nineteen seventy seven, seventy eight,
1019
00:56:49.400 --> 00:56:54.039
where they are probably zero development women in the movie business,
1020
00:56:54.800 --> 00:56:58.000
but now when they are entirely they're all women.
1021
00:56:58.760 --> 00:57:00.559
There would be like, yeah, you can't and he can't,
1022
00:57:01.400 --> 00:57:06.920
he can't, No, he can't. So the Women's lib And.
1023
00:57:08.960 --> 00:57:10.679
It's been in my head for forty fifty years on
1024
00:57:10.960 --> 00:57:14.719
I just remember that so well, Women's Lib.
1025
00:57:21.079 --> 00:57:25.199
So they made a few years ago marriage story with
1026
00:57:25.280 --> 00:57:30.559
Scarlett Johansson and Am Driver, which I could not get
1027
00:57:30.559 --> 00:57:32.360
through it. I don't want to hear people all it
1028
00:57:32.480 --> 00:57:34.320
is just screaming about how you're like your mother, No,
1029
00:57:34.400 --> 00:57:36.679
you're like your mother, all that kind of stuff. But
1030
00:57:37.800 --> 00:57:41.199
there was I just don't find that relaxing. Like No,
1031
00:57:43.920 --> 00:57:45.840
but there was a story I think it was in
1032
00:57:45.840 --> 00:57:49.599
the Wall Street Journal recently that trust me. The payoff
1033
00:57:49.719 --> 00:57:55.320
is here. In order to keep wolves from going after livestock,
1034
00:57:56.119 --> 00:57:59.800
they have drones following them and they blare loud like
1035
00:58:00.519 --> 00:58:03.159
and human yelling and other noises to scare way the wolves.
1036
00:58:03.639 --> 00:58:08.679
And they've decided to instead use argument scenes from marriage story,
1037
00:58:09.440 --> 00:58:12.480
bluring it out from the throne the wolves.
1038
00:58:12.559 --> 00:58:15.079
Yeah, but that's why it's such a brilliant scene. I'm
1039
00:58:15.079 --> 00:58:17.760
sorry this fight with Adam between Adam Driver and Scarlett
1040
00:58:17.800 --> 00:58:20.960
Johansson in which they basically you know which he says,
1041
00:58:21.000 --> 00:58:23.480
and I can't believe because we have this child. I
1042
00:58:23.519 --> 00:58:25.280
can't believe I have to deal with you for the
1043
00:58:25.320 --> 00:58:28.679
rest of my life. We're getting divorced. I hate you,
1044
00:58:28.960 --> 00:58:30.760
I want you to die, and I'm gonna have to
1045
00:58:30.800 --> 00:58:33.119
deal with you anyway for the rest of my life.
1046
00:58:33.119 --> 00:58:35.079
It is a good way to drive away the wolves.
1047
00:58:35.480 --> 00:58:38.519
I will agree. I do think it's a brilliant movie.
1048
00:58:38.599 --> 00:58:44.760
But but what can I tell you anyway? I really
1049
00:58:44.840 --> 00:58:47.840
so I recommended Eddington. I think people really should see
1050
00:58:47.920 --> 00:58:51.159
Eddington again. Not not a calming if that's what you're
1051
00:58:51.199 --> 00:58:51.639
looking for.
1052
00:58:51.719 --> 00:58:52.000
It's not.
1053
00:58:52.960 --> 00:58:57.239
It's not be calming. But I think Rob just give
1054
00:58:57.320 --> 00:59:00.639
us two minutes to just complain about one thing. Joe
1055
00:59:00.639 --> 00:59:03.599
and I complaining together. A show we were really enjoying,
1056
00:59:05.280 --> 00:59:08.199
which was the latest Star Trek show called Brave New Worlds,
1057
00:59:08.199 --> 00:59:10.519
which is the prequel to the original.
1058
00:59:10.079 --> 00:59:11.679
Star Trek Strange Worlds.
1059
00:59:11.719 --> 00:59:16.719
Strange Worlds, which is the captain of the Enterprise right
1060
00:59:16.760 --> 00:59:22.360
before Kirk, and he appears in the pilot. His name
1061
00:59:22.400 --> 00:59:25.480
is Christopher Pike. He gets What was really interesting about
1062
00:59:25.480 --> 00:59:28.599
this show when they debuted it is that everybody knows
1063
00:59:28.639 --> 00:59:31.159
who watches Star Trek that Christopher Pike ends up in
1064
00:59:31.239 --> 00:59:37.559
this horribly mangled condition, because that's and that rescuing him
1065
00:59:37.679 --> 00:59:40.000
is what they try to do in the pilot from
1066
00:59:40.119 --> 00:59:44.719
his condition, and so you make him the hero of
1067
00:59:44.760 --> 00:59:47.719
the show, and you know he's going to end up
1068
00:59:49.000 --> 00:59:51.519
in this you know, like Darth Vader, almost like it
1069
00:59:52.000 --> 00:59:55.400
with a body that's a wreck and a machine, and
1070
00:59:55.760 --> 00:59:58.119
they set it up, I think, quite brilliantly, which is
1071
00:59:58.159 --> 01:00:01.840
that he ends up going through some temper anomaly where
1072
01:00:02.079 --> 01:00:05.840
he learns of his fate. The show begins with him
1073
01:00:05.960 --> 01:00:09.840
knowing that he has five years to live and then
1074
01:00:10.079 --> 01:00:15.000
he's going to be turned into this His body is
1075
01:00:15.000 --> 01:00:19.760
going to be destroyed, and that's where it starts. And
1076
01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:22.760
he therefore is making all these decisions and choices and
1077
01:00:22.800 --> 01:00:26.400
things with this haunting knowledge in him. And it was
1078
01:00:26.400 --> 01:00:28.599
a really great premise for a show. It was fun,
1079
01:00:28.639 --> 01:00:31.280
it was interesting, they had interesting villains and all of that.
1080
01:00:32.000 --> 01:00:35.480
And then this third season starts and it is a
1081
01:00:35.519 --> 01:00:42.000
catastrophe because it's just become this camp, ridiculous fan service
1082
01:00:42.719 --> 01:00:45.599
and it's cringingly bad. And I've never seen a show
1083
01:00:45.639 --> 01:00:50.280
take a worse turn in sort of like going from
1084
01:00:50.320 --> 01:00:53.920
being respectable and interesting and tough to being a total embarrassment.
1085
01:00:56.519 --> 01:01:01.519
I am Rob is going to hang up his microphone,
1086
01:01:01.599 --> 01:01:04.119
get in a car, drive to DC, and smash my
1087
01:01:04.159 --> 01:01:07.360
guitar against the Delta house wall. But I have to
1088
01:01:07.440 --> 01:01:09.800
point out at this point that the pilot of the
1089
01:01:09.840 --> 01:01:12.480
original Star Trek was not that one.
1090
01:01:12.599 --> 01:01:16.800
I know the pilot was actually Pike the original Star
1091
01:01:16.840 --> 01:01:18.719
Trek used scenes from it.
1092
01:01:19.159 --> 01:01:20.719
Yes, yes, right right yes.
1093
01:01:20.760 --> 01:01:24.199
And also I'll look, you have no idea the people
1094
01:01:24.239 --> 01:01:26.679
I would hear from if I let that, okay, And
1095
01:01:26.679 --> 01:01:27.920
and and Spock was kind.
1096
01:01:27.800 --> 01:01:29.960
Of I knew that too, And I knew that too, Okay,
1097
01:01:30.000 --> 01:01:31.039
but ok other.
1098
01:01:30.880 --> 01:01:34.679
Than that, I grew with pot one hundred percent. It
1099
01:01:34.719 --> 01:01:37.559
is like, it doesn't mean you can't have fun, but
1100
01:01:37.719 --> 01:01:39.599
like and I said this on toy today and people
1101
01:01:39.639 --> 01:01:41.119
were giving me all this hard time, and I stand
1102
01:01:41.119 --> 01:01:47.280
by it one hundred percent. The worst sin, particularly in
1103
01:01:47.360 --> 01:01:53.199
science fiction, that you can commit is not taking yourself seriously.
1104
01:01:53.800 --> 01:01:56.159
Because if you don't take yourself seriously, why in the
1105
01:01:56.199 --> 01:02:00.239
world should the audience. And it is so much of
1106
01:02:00.400 --> 01:02:05.840
can't be winking, nodding, just silliness this time around, and
1107
01:02:07.559 --> 01:02:10.480
it's just dumb. It's just contrary. Like if if you're
1108
01:02:10.519 --> 01:02:12.400
I was the show runner and these are the scripts
1109
01:02:12.400 --> 01:02:14.199
that were coming in, I would have just said, all
1110
01:02:14.239 --> 01:02:16.119
of you get out of here. The reason why our
1111
01:02:16.119 --> 01:02:20.280
audience likes the show is because it's actually going back
1112
01:02:20.320 --> 01:02:23.400
to the original self seriousness of the original Star Trek
1113
01:02:23.519 --> 01:02:29.280
and and then a complete blown opportunity, so maybe it'll
1114
01:02:29.280 --> 01:02:30.280
pick up in the second half.
1115
01:02:30.280 --> 01:02:32.280
But let me ask you a question. Have you did
1116
01:02:32.320 --> 01:02:37.320
you ever work with Carol Kane? She ever appear on
1117
01:02:37.360 --> 01:02:39.000
anything of yours?
1118
01:02:39.039 --> 01:02:45.079
I did not work with her, but I am not directly,
1119
01:02:45.119 --> 01:02:47.719
but I was helped out on something she was in.
1120
01:02:48.119 --> 01:02:52.280
Okay, I'm asking this because Carol Caine is on Brave
1121
01:02:52.280 --> 01:02:56.280
New Worlds. She is the best character in newly introduced
1122
01:02:56.320 --> 01:03:00.679
character on Brave New world She plays a person who
1123
01:03:00.719 --> 01:03:03.360
is from a civilize where they live hundreds and hundreds
1124
01:03:03.360 --> 01:03:04.039
and hundreds of years.
1125
01:03:04.119 --> 01:03:06.440
Too much backstory to explain it all, but yes, but.
1126
01:03:08.079 --> 01:03:14.360
Harold Caine has been in show business for fifty five
1127
01:03:14.519 --> 01:03:21.880
years something like that. She was in five Easy Pieces,
1128
01:03:22.000 --> 01:03:24.679
or she was in some carnal knowledge, like when she
1129
01:03:24.840 --> 01:03:28.880
was eighteen she got nominated for an oscar in a
1130
01:03:29.000 --> 01:03:31.199
movie in which she spoke only in Yiddish when she
1131
01:03:31.360 --> 01:03:34.719
was like twenty two. Here we are in twenty twenty five.
1132
01:03:36.400 --> 01:03:41.800
Fifty years later, she has this role on Star Trek
1133
01:03:42.920 --> 01:03:49.440
a Stranger Worlds, and she is fantastic. And there is
1134
01:03:49.480 --> 01:03:52.480
this wonderful quality to certain things in show business where
1135
01:03:52.920 --> 01:03:56.719
these people if they if they survive and they live long,
1136
01:03:56.800 --> 01:04:00.159
and they keep themselves in good shape, and they don't know,
1137
01:04:00.360 --> 01:04:02.679
like lose their brains to drugs and all of that.
1138
01:04:03.320 --> 01:04:07.039
When they when they emerge in their seventies or however
1139
01:04:07.440 --> 01:04:15.400
seventies eighties, into things they can do just incredible. World Like,
1140
01:04:15.480 --> 01:04:19.760
it's an incredible thing to have half a century of
1141
01:04:19.800 --> 01:04:23.960
experience to draw on, to know exactly how to build
1142
01:04:23.960 --> 01:04:27.480
a character, to make yourself memorable, to read a line,
1143
01:04:27.760 --> 01:04:34.880
to have a presence, isn't that? I mean so that
1144
01:04:35.239 --> 01:04:39.000
I was just struck by that thinking about a career
1145
01:04:39.760 --> 01:04:42.400
like hers, because it's just kind of like just gone
1146
01:04:42.400 --> 01:04:45.639
along every decade. She's on one or two shows, She's
1147
01:04:45.679 --> 01:04:46.760
in one or two movies.
1148
01:04:46.920 --> 01:04:50.079
You know, she was lack of Gravis's wife on taxi.
1149
01:04:50.559 --> 01:04:53.400
Yeah, she's a big Jim Brooks and the Jim Brooks Rep.
1150
01:04:53.519 --> 01:04:55.079
She's always she always shows up.
1151
01:04:55.239 --> 01:05:00.079
Yeah, unusual, just a also like one of these the
1152
01:05:00.119 --> 01:05:06.639
seventies characters who just is an unlikely, unlikely recurring character.
1153
01:05:07.960 --> 01:05:10.400
I've never you know, not not mind.
1154
01:05:10.199 --> 01:05:12.440
She doesn't do it for you, but I mean again,
1155
01:05:12.519 --> 01:05:14.960
in your stupid voice, I don't like Okay, you don't
1156
01:05:15.000 --> 01:05:16.519
like the voice, but she by the way, does really
1157
01:05:16.599 --> 01:05:18.800
funny things with the voice because she has an accent
1158
01:05:18.880 --> 01:05:22.920
in this that she's invented, you know, since obviously she's
1159
01:05:22.920 --> 01:05:25.239
from a planet, so you can speak in whatever accent
1160
01:05:25.280 --> 01:05:29.159
you want to. But I just there are these people
1161
01:05:29.159 --> 01:05:31.960
and they pop Sometimes they pop up literally out of nowhere,
1162
01:05:32.039 --> 01:05:37.320
like this actress June Squibb, who whose most notable credit
1163
01:05:37.400 --> 01:05:41.920
before she appeared out of Nowhere and About Schmidt in
1164
01:05:42.039 --> 01:05:45.320
like you know, twenty years ago, was that she was
1165
01:05:45.360 --> 01:05:48.079
in Broadway on Gypsy as one of the strippers in
1166
01:05:48.119 --> 01:05:51.719
the original production, and then went away for forty years
1167
01:05:51.719 --> 01:05:56.159
and then showed up as an old lady in About Schmidt,
1168
01:05:56.159 --> 01:05:58.480
and then in this movie Nebraska. And she was just
1169
01:05:58.559 --> 01:06:01.679
the star of this movie called Thelma in which she
1170
01:06:01.800 --> 01:06:06.519
played and this hilarious, brilliant movie in which she played
1171
01:06:06.519 --> 01:06:09.440
this ninety year old woman. And now she is starring
1172
01:06:09.519 --> 01:06:13.559
in Scarlet Johanson's directorial debut at the age of ninety six.
1173
01:06:14.559 --> 01:06:15.880
We call that growing into your look.
1174
01:06:18.880 --> 01:06:21.360
Okay, so, Rob, you have been very much. Is there
1175
01:06:21.400 --> 01:06:22.639
anything you want to talk about before?
1176
01:06:22.639 --> 01:06:24.679
You've been a good sport, Rob, I have very good
1177
01:06:24.679 --> 01:06:29.239
sport sport if you if you want to talk about
1178
01:06:29.440 --> 01:06:35.480
you know, uh some odors twelfth century monastery and it's
1179
01:06:36.239 --> 01:06:37.960
you know chance can no, No.
1180
01:06:37.920 --> 01:06:39.840
I mean I I that's what I went and traveled
1181
01:06:39.840 --> 01:06:42.079
and saw a bunch of those. I would like to
1182
01:06:42.119 --> 01:06:45.280
say that I will have watched a TV show that
1183
01:06:45.320 --> 01:06:50.199
I enjoyed. I enjoyed the TV show The Day.
1184
01:06:50.039 --> 01:06:50.639
Of a Jackal.
1185
01:06:51.559 --> 01:06:52.760
It wasn't bad that he redmain.
1186
01:06:53.480 --> 01:06:56.920
Yes, I enjoyed that. I enjoyed the the the adventure.
1187
01:06:57.199 --> 01:07:01.679
I enjoyed the thrilling episodes. I enjoyed the hang hanging episodes.
1188
01:07:01.719 --> 01:07:02.639
I enjoyed the.
1189
01:07:04.760 --> 01:07:08.840
I enjoyed the way that they they echoed and rhymed
1190
01:07:08.880 --> 01:07:10.639
a little bit with the original movie.
1191
01:07:10.719 --> 01:07:11.320
I am.
1192
01:07:12.920 --> 01:07:18.400
I enjoyed the project, and yet I am not. The
1193
01:07:18.639 --> 01:07:20.840
problem is that this is something that I enjoyed, and
1194
01:07:20.880 --> 01:07:22.559
at no point am I thinking to myself, I can't
1195
01:07:22.559 --> 01:07:24.320
wait till the next next one, if they're even going
1196
01:07:24.400 --> 01:07:26.880
to do a next one comes out, I just don't care.
1197
01:07:27.079 --> 01:07:29.320
And I think I in that respect, I am like
1198
01:07:30.039 --> 01:07:31.920
I am the canary in the coal mine, which is
1199
01:07:32.000 --> 01:07:35.599
I mean not even at this point advanced bad news,
1200
01:07:35.639 --> 01:07:36.280
but I think it is.
1201
01:07:36.360 --> 01:07:38.320
I am a classic.
1202
01:07:39.760 --> 01:07:44.039
Consumer now weirdly of show business product which is that
1203
01:07:44.119 --> 01:07:46.480
I just if it's good, if.
1204
01:07:46.360 --> 01:07:47.480
It's in front of me, I'll watch it.
1205
01:07:47.559 --> 01:07:50.000
If I'm jet lagged and I need to like do something,
1206
01:07:50.000 --> 01:07:51.719
and I'll remember I wanted to watch this one. I'll
1207
01:07:51.880 --> 01:07:53.320
get hooked on it and watch it, and I just
1208
01:07:53.360 --> 01:07:54.920
have absolutely zero loyalty to it.
1209
01:07:55.920 --> 01:07:56.480
And that is.
1210
01:07:58.800 --> 01:08:01.320
That's why I show business isn't such big, big, big,
1211
01:08:01.360 --> 01:08:02.280
big big trouble.
1212
01:08:03.159 --> 01:08:03.440
All right.
1213
01:08:03.480 --> 01:08:07.960
So I have a show recommendation. Good uh, My wife
1214
01:08:08.000 --> 01:08:14.320
and I we like British crime stuff, and someone recommended
1215
01:08:15.960 --> 01:08:20.159
Line of Duty. And one of the things that has
1216
01:08:20.199 --> 01:08:22.359
going for it is there are many episodes, so you
1217
01:08:22.399 --> 01:08:26.800
can like if you like it. There's some runway, and
1218
01:08:26.840 --> 01:08:30.439
earlier were talking about like defying conventions. This is one
1219
01:08:30.479 --> 01:08:34.079
of these shows where like I'm often stunned or at
1220
01:08:34.159 --> 01:08:37.479
least surprised by the twists and turns, not all of
1221
01:08:37.520 --> 01:08:42.199
them entirely plausible. But it's a show about an anti
1222
01:08:42.239 --> 01:08:45.000
corruption unit basically the I D you know what is it?
1223
01:08:45.039 --> 01:08:50.319
Internal Affairs of England, and it's it's sort of you know,
1224
01:08:50.319 --> 01:08:52.239
I was gonna say about The Jackal One of the
1225
01:08:52.279 --> 01:08:55.159
things I like that show too, and I like that genre.
1226
01:08:55.960 --> 01:09:00.880
But the way they sort of take fast and loose
1227
01:09:00.960 --> 01:09:06.760
with just like Europe being a place where police from
1228
01:09:06.800 --> 01:09:10.439
one country do stuff in another country. You know, like
1229
01:09:10.479 --> 01:09:13.880
there's a lot of like jurisdictional stuff they just sort
1230
01:09:13.880 --> 01:09:16.319
of gloss over. There's some of that in this is
1231
01:09:16.359 --> 01:09:19.199
like they don't quite tell ever say it's in London,
1232
01:09:19.239 --> 01:09:23.640
but it's obviously in London. But anyway, it's a good show,
1233
01:09:24.279 --> 01:09:30.359
holds your interest and takes in some surprizing places and
1234
01:09:30.359 --> 01:09:33.319
it's like six seasons. You have to be able to
1235
01:09:34.199 --> 01:09:38.680
answer three questions from a sphinx, pluck a pebble from
1236
01:09:38.680 --> 01:09:41.600
a shaman's palm, and several other things to figure out
1237
01:09:41.600 --> 01:09:44.560
how to watch it on streaming platforms because it's scattered
1238
01:09:44.600 --> 01:09:47.840
across like seven different platforms. But it's good.
1239
01:09:49.399 --> 01:09:53.680
You can sometimes tell the story of the shows like this,
1240
01:09:54.520 --> 01:09:57.399
usually when they're international productions like Jackler. A lot of
1241
01:09:57.439 --> 01:10:04.319
these where crucial story sequences take place in countries that
1242
01:10:04.920 --> 01:10:10.000
coincidentally have really really good tax rebate deals for studios.
1243
01:10:10.039 --> 01:10:12.399
So in Jackal, so much of it takes place in
1244
01:10:12.479 --> 01:10:15.399
Hungary for zero reason. So much of it takes place
1245
01:10:15.399 --> 01:10:18.000
in Budapest for no Some of the stuff that's supposed
1246
01:10:18.039 --> 01:10:20.439
to take place in Spain, clearly took place in Budapest
1247
01:10:20.760 --> 01:10:25.600
because Hungary's got these great deals. You know, that's just
1248
01:10:25.640 --> 01:10:28.079
my own like I enjoy I enjoy looking at that.
1249
01:10:28.279 --> 01:10:29.039
I enjoy seeing that.
1250
01:10:29.119 --> 01:10:32.520
That's why how in countless movies, Washington, DC looks remarkably
1251
01:10:32.560 --> 01:10:33.159
like Toronto.
1252
01:10:33.640 --> 01:10:37.279
Yeah, yeah, exactly. I will make one recommendation. Then we
1253
01:10:37.359 --> 01:10:40.760
got to go. And it's odd because it's a show
1254
01:10:40.880 --> 01:10:43.399
I watched the first two seasons of it and didn't like,
1255
01:10:43.439 --> 01:10:46.119
but I watched it because it was like wallpaper and
1256
01:10:46.159 --> 01:10:51.000
that's the Gilded Age on HBO. And here's why I'm
1257
01:10:51.000 --> 01:10:54.720
recommending so the third season out of nowhere. It's like
1258
01:10:55.319 --> 01:10:58.159
Julian Fellows who created it and wrote it, like took
1259
01:10:58.159 --> 01:11:01.720
his weedies and like the eights and weedies or had
1260
01:11:02.039 --> 01:11:04.800
had had had inspiration that he didn't have in the
1261
01:11:04.840 --> 01:11:06.399
creation of it and the running of it in the
1262
01:11:06.399 --> 01:11:09.960
first two seasons. Because it is really good now and
1263
01:11:10.119 --> 01:11:13.479
I don't quite know whether you could if you could
1264
01:11:13.560 --> 01:11:16.359
just go to Wikipedia and read the plot summary of
1265
01:11:16.399 --> 01:11:19.000
the first two seasons and then just start.
1266
01:11:19.600 --> 01:11:21.319
With the stuff happens right in it.
1267
01:11:21.399 --> 01:11:24.680
Now, things happen there because I saw a.
1268
01:11:24.720 --> 01:11:27.720
Clip I saw a clip of it on TikTok years ago,
1269
01:11:27.800 --> 01:11:30.800
I mean last year, at some point in the past
1270
01:11:30.880 --> 01:11:34.840
few months, where all the people are begging what's his
1271
01:11:34.920 --> 01:11:38.560
name to not destroy them, and one actually gets down
1272
01:11:38.560 --> 01:11:39.840
on his knees and says, I'm begging you.
1273
01:11:39.880 --> 01:11:42.239
I'm begging you. And I thought, oh, that's interesting.
1274
01:11:42.239 --> 01:11:44.079
I want to see that, and then trying to find
1275
01:11:44.079 --> 01:11:45.920
that episode and then try to buy that episode so
1276
01:11:45.960 --> 01:11:48.279
I could watch that episode, and then buying the wrong
1277
01:11:48.319 --> 01:11:50.279
one and watching that one, and then realizing it's the
1278
01:11:50.319 --> 01:11:53.840
next episode and watching that one. Nothing happens in these episodes.
1279
01:11:54.960 --> 01:11:59.159
Nothing is so insanely boring. It was insanely like very
1280
01:11:59.239 --> 01:12:01.800
much like doubt nab that either. Things like the stakes
1281
01:12:01.800 --> 01:12:04.199
are so bizarre. It's like, oh my god, you use
1282
01:12:04.279 --> 01:12:05.319
the run stable spoon.
1283
01:12:05.520 --> 01:12:11.920
Yes, oh my god. This season is about the Gilded Age.
1284
01:12:12.279 --> 01:12:17.800
It's about a an investment gone wrong, a railroad problem
1285
01:12:18.000 --> 01:12:23.359
and the invention of a new device, a family in crisis,
1286
01:12:23.960 --> 01:12:30.439
divorces causing scandals, a book a real book Ward McAllister's
1287
01:12:30.720 --> 01:12:35.920
books side creating a huge scandal, and so things really happen.
1288
01:12:36.279 --> 01:12:40.119
The acting is sensationally good. The set, the set and
1289
01:12:40.159 --> 01:12:41.880
it got good, and that's all I'm saying.
1290
01:12:42.039 --> 01:12:44.000
But isn't there like I mean, I'm sure it's good, right,
1291
01:12:44.439 --> 01:12:46.960
I'm gonna I'm planning to watch it actually, but isn't
1292
01:12:46.960 --> 01:12:47.239
there like.
1293
01:12:47.279 --> 01:12:48.359
A little too much of this?
1294
01:12:49.720 --> 01:12:49.880
Oh?
1295
01:12:49.960 --> 01:12:55.600
The suffrage movement is very important, and it's more are
1296
01:12:55.640 --> 01:12:57.960
in America or fraud?
1297
01:12:58.079 --> 01:13:01.800
It is? It is more. It is more interesting than
1298
01:13:01.840 --> 01:13:06.000
you expect in almost every respect on those matters.
1299
01:13:06.560 --> 01:13:08.520
Okay, that's what that's.
1300
01:13:08.319 --> 01:13:11.079
What's so surprising about this third season. That's all I'm
1301
01:13:11.079 --> 01:13:16.199
going to say. Hey, we got through a show. Rob
1302
01:13:17.039 --> 01:13:19.319
did not yell at us for talking about too much
1303
01:13:19.359 --> 01:13:19.920
science fiction.
1304
01:13:20.119 --> 01:13:22.600
Thank you Rob for the button really helps.
1305
01:13:22.800 --> 01:13:25.720
Okay, that's good. And uh and and also you you know,
1306
01:13:25.800 --> 01:13:27.479
playing Candy Crush and.
1307
01:13:27.479 --> 01:13:28.680
Stuff like that.
1308
01:13:29.399 --> 01:13:33.720
Does anyone still play Candy Crush? I don't even know someone. Okay,
1309
01:13:34.600 --> 01:13:36.800
So we'll we'll, we'll, we'll do another one of these
1310
01:13:36.800 --> 01:13:38.880
because you people seem to like it. I don't know why.
1311
01:13:38.920 --> 01:13:41.479
But you know, as I say, it's not like I
1312
01:13:41.680 --> 01:13:45.239
I I don't podcast enough. So that's my problem. So
1313
01:13:45.439 --> 01:13:48.239
you know, I need I need an extra you know,
1314
01:13:48.399 --> 01:13:50.880
at least an extra hour a month to because no
1315
01:13:50.920 --> 01:13:54.680
one's listening to me, that's for sure. All these people
1316
01:13:54.720 --> 01:13:57.359
podcasting every day, it's crazy.
1317
01:13:58.279 --> 01:14:00.720
What was that was that it No one's taking the bait.
1318
01:14:00.840 --> 01:14:04.560
John sa