5.2 One Battle After Another (2025)

The Revolution may not be televised...but it sure will be podcasted. This week on Speaking Cinema we take a look at Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another. In what might be our most politically charged episode to date, we talk about the dangers of extremist ideology, how activism can drain you emotionally and how to make your pocket of the world a little better. From here on out, it's One Battle After Another. 

And, as a special treat to our listeners, the boys make their predictions for this year's Oscars. Which were recorded early and we're sure will totally hold up and not make us look foolish in the years to come.

Like the episode? Leave us a comment, or send us an email at SpeakingCinemaPodcast@gmail.com and let us know what you would like to see with this new iteration of Speaking Cinema!

Like the episode? Leave us a comment, or send us an email at SpeakingCinemaPodcast@gmail.com and let us know what you would like to see with this new iteration of Speaking Cinema!

Thank you for listening! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:00

When his nemesis resurfaces after 16 years, a paranoid washed-up revolutionary is forced to confront the life he built around his beliefs and the damage those beliefs left behind as he drags former comrades back into a fight that never stopped taking from them. Today, we descend into conviction and consequence, faith and fallout, through Paul Thomas Anderson's 2025 portrait of ideology as inheritance, obsession as identity, and revolution as a lifelong mood. From here on out, it's one battle after another. Audience, we're we're strapping in for the podcast, and what does John do seconds before pop a big spoonful of peanut butter into his mouth?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

It's alright. So this movie's probably only gonna win best picture this year.

SPEAKER_03 0:53

Hey, you want me to have a blood sugar crash right in the middle of this shit? Do you want some whole milk? Yeah, just raw, unpasteurized milk.

SPEAKER_07 1:01

Yeah, get let's get real mucusine. Ooh, uh, all right, let's do it. What's up, everybody, and welcome to the Speaking Cinema podcast, where three friends pick one of their favorite films and try to decipher the deeper meaning behind them. Not just the surface meaning, not just what the filmmakers wanted you to think, but most importantly, what each film means to the three of us. This episode, we're going to cover something that came out recently for a change. One of my favorite films of the year, and definitely one of this year's front runners for Best Picture, Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another. I'm Anthony Zaccone, sitting here, as always, with Adam Sekofico and John Bewley. Boys, how are we?

SPEAKER_01 1:40

I got a peek into my future, it looks like with this film, so thanks for providing that. Because I can see myself becoming Leo. If things progress the way they are, I'm gonna be Leo in fucking like 10 years in this movie. I'm just gonna be on the couch fucking smoking weed watching Bao Valjeers.

SPEAKER_07 1:54

There's a reason that the second that I watched this film, I'm like, oh, we're talking about it. But we'll get into that in a in a second. John, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 2:02

I'm doing great. Yeah, you know, as as Adam said, this film in some ways feels like a bizarre look into both the future and the present at the same exact time. And the older I get, the more I sometimes feel like, yeah, you know, maybe I just want to move to the woods and smoke a lot of weed on the couch away from everybody else. But then I remember I live in New York and I like walking to get my groceries.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Well, you don't you don't want to become a uh drug and alcohol lover? You want to fry your brain with drugs and alcohol?

SPEAKER_03 2:32

If I'm frying my brain, I'm frying my brain with pop culture. Well, we're all there. Do I think we're frying my brain with Korean dramas, which is not even frying my brain because they're Korean dramas are made by the government to keep you docile, cheap. The Korean entertainment industry was legitimately started in part due to having to pay off debts. It's true. Do I think it's all a film career?

SPEAKER_07 2:56

I believe it's like Bruno Mars' Vegas residency. Yeah. I mean, it's just back, he can be free again.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

The industry was like it, they did have an industry before, but when Titanic came out, the government was like, What do you mean a movie can make a billion dollars? Like, you know how many Hyundai's that is? You mean you don't you mean we don't have to have like another car company compete with Hyundai and Kia?

SPEAKER_07 3:20

We can make one movie and fill it with Hyundai's. So whenever we start any episode of this show, whoever picks a film, we like to just get into why we picked this film. Today, of course, it is my selection.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

So Alright, so Anthony, obviously it's your time at the bat, and you picked a film that is most likely going best pictured, boring, well, at this point, major scandal. So, um, of you know, all the films that were nominated for picture this year and all the films that came out in 2025, and of all the films ever made in the history of well, ever, why one bad way after another. Listen, we are not a political podcast.

SPEAKER_07 3:55

But but I feel like we say that every episode.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

We're not a political podcast, but let's now just start. Well, look, all artists political, it's always been, let's be honest.

SPEAKER_07 4:05

So And we we like to harp on media literacy quite a bit around these parts. Like we do it every single episode. And this film, it was a film that made me feel a lot of emotions for a lot of different reasons, and that is why we do this show. The film is engaging and it's funny to watch on its surface. It's just a fast-moving, good time. But the story is layered and it's thought-provoking. It feels timely with certain characters and tropes within the film, rhyming with our own current events and news cycles. Watching this movie, it made me feel simultaneously angry yet hopeful, like exhausted with the way that our world is, but still like unwilling to disengage from it, no matter how tiring it makes you. And showed this human side to like living within an oppressive time of like how people come together and support each other and survive this oppression. And I really want to dig into all of these themes with you, and we're gonna have a real hard time keeping it isolated to the film, I'm sure. But you know what? This is why I like getting on the phone with you guys anyway. Let's talk about a movie and then get angry about the government. So at this point, we like to go around and say, what's the first time you guys have seen this movie? This movie, obviously, it's in the awards cycle right now. At the time that you guys, the listener, are gonna be hearing this episode, we're gonna be about a couple weeks out, maybe a week out from the Oscars. This movie is very current, it's very relevant. What was the first time you watched this movie? And can you just tell me about the experience and your initial thoughts? Let's start with John.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

It first came on my radar as it probably did for most film people or audience goers when I saw a trailer for it. And I remember at first being a little like, I'm not quite sure what to make of this, but that for a long time up until recently was kind of how I felt about a lot of Paul Thomas Anderson's work. There was something about it that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Like, I remember in college, I had the wrong opinion of thinking The Master was a terrible film.

SPEAKER_07 6:08

I still think that's a terrible film.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

I hate that I hate the master.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

I thought be the only one I liked up until this point.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

Yeah. Well, and I and I remember I also, much to the ire of Friend of the Pod and former roommate of mine, Nicholas Stonehouse, I remember thinking There Will Be Blood was also a four-star movie, and I have since revised my opinion, having thought about that a lot. But I remember seeing the trailer and thinking, all right, it's a PTA film, and there's something that's at least intriguing to me about this. And then I started hearing all the buzz and just said, all right, I'm just gonna go see this film. And by the time I decided um to go see it, everything was already coming in that this is like parasite levels good. Like I remember the discourse being very similar to people being like, holy shit, you have to see this movie. And so I saw it in theaters and just being enthralled. Like, we'll probably get into this later, but I remember the thing that got me was it's a damn near three-hour movie, and this thing sprints.

SPEAKER_07 7:06

That is true. Yeah, it's like it does not feel like three hours. Even the second watch for this, as I'm like starting and stopping and taking notes, like it probably took me five hours to watch it, and it did not feel like it.

SPEAKER_03 7:18

Oh, uh yeah, on my rewatch, I had to break it up into two instances because I started watching it really late at night. And I remember having to be like, okay, I gotta, you know, shut this off around 12 30-ish once I'm about 90 minutes in. And I look over after I've started, and it's like I'm already like 45 minutes into the movie, and I'm like, I'm sorry. What do you mean we're 45 minutes in? I blinked and we're 45 minutes into this movie. That's how good this movie is. But yeah, that was my first time seeing it was naturally in theaters like uh most people.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Sure. Adam? I'm trying to remember the first because I saw this twice in theaters and possibly a third time. I'm trying to remember if I saw it at first in my friend Bob Klein, who he and I both had a I'm hesitant to say dislike of PTA movies, but not one of our guys respect him immensely. I will not sit back and pretend otherwise, but like I never got into him like other of my contemporaries did. There was just something that just was never quite like I I made I kind of joked it when Anthony had said that, you know, the m he still hates the master. And I'm like, that might be the one I I like I genuinely enjoyed, mostly because it made me have to not pretend to like the Joker anymore. Because if you watch the master and the joker, you go, wait a minute, that's the same exact Joaquin Phoenix performance. The exact same one. I don't have to pretend anymore. It's great. So the one the time I do remember watching it was um down at Smile Castle Cinemas, located on First Avenue in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. Challenged at Smile Castle as always. Kevin Smith was in town and he had like a little screening of one battle after another after a show he had done. And it was a very small crowd, like maybe 20, 25 people. And gets up, we just discussed it afterwards. And like I said, I was never the biggest PTA guy, just he never quite connected, always respected him, always liked him as an interview. But then in this one, for whatever reason, I just walked away going, for the first time ever, I loved a PTA film. For the first unabashedly loved. And I kind of went back through my role decks going, well, wait a minute, how come why this one and not There Will Be Blood? Which is an objectively great film that I just can never get my head around. Why this one and not Boogie Nights, which is a movie that I do enjoy, but I never loved like a pulp fiction or like a dogma or like another like 90s staple film. Why this one and not The Master, which had a great performance by Joaquin Phoenix and one of my favorite actors all the time, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

SPEAKER_03 9:38

And literally everybody else in the cast.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Exactly. And I think I went back and I realized something. I love PTA when he's playful. When there's a more playful element to the storytelling than there usually is. I love the fact that this movie is essentially the dude origins at points. Where like all the backstory you get from the big Globowski about what the dude did before the events of the big Glowski is kind of what's being described here to a degree. If you think about it. It is really funny because you're right. Where you're with that scene where he's smoking with with Maud after they've they've had sex and he's like, Yeah, it's part of the Seattle 7, and I got into all these things, but yeah, I'm not doing that anymore. And I'm like, wait a minute, that's fucking Leo in one battle. And the rest of the film, to your guys' point, I had John like you had to kind of break up my my viewing this time. I remember getting to the point with the DNA uh test and the film and getting to that point going, Well, the movie's almost over, right? Like, this is the point. Like, I know what's gonna happen now, the you're it's gonna come the chase. I click, there's like an hour and a half left of this movie.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

Yeah, there's still 40, like 40 minutes left of the movie.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

And I'm not sitting there going, like, oh my god, there's nothing like, wait, we're still like the best parts coming up now. Yeah. I'm being like extra excited about that. So yeah, it's I loved it because for the first time ever, like, I got to truly love a great filmmaker's work. So to any Robert Altman fan out there who knows that I dislike Robert Altman movies with a passion, there is still hope yet. I just haven't found the one for me.

SPEAKER_07 11:02

All right, fair assessment. I'm seeing the points where we might have disagreements in this uh in this episode. Um, but yeah, so my first time was a few months ago. Um, it was not long after it hit streaming. I'm living in a very rural place right now. There's not too many um big theaters, and we just, you know, we missed this one in uh in theaters. So when it hit streaming and we knew, you know, about all of the buzz around it, there was a huge social media like um fervor over it and like memes. I think the thing that got me to do it was um this uh Instagram like story or reel or whatever it was that said that Leonardo DiCaprio deserves an Oscar just for his Mexican whistle alone. Like when he whistles at the three Mexican dudes and he uses his tongue to do it. That is not an easy feat. And I saw that video and I'm like, damn, okay. God put some work into the role, apparently. Let's see what this is about. And that that's what got me in. That was the hook. Or like the final, the final hook. Yeah. So I watched it, we sat there, we absolutely adored it. We were so fired up, and I texted you guys within minutes, like I got my first movie of season five. And here we are. And here we are.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

And and it's sad too, because I look, Oscar politics always bummed me out, and it always kind of bums me out that I know about Oscar politics. This should have been the film that Leo won for, and it's like, yeah, but we really want to give one to the shallow make it. It feels like it's that year.

SPEAKER_07 12:36

Uh I I hope they I hope they don't. I want I want him to be the new Leo that he's fighting for it for 25 years, and then he has to cut open a dead horse to do it.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah, that he has to wrestle a bear in order to do it.

SPEAKER_03 12:52

And he wins, he finally wins, and then there's that one asshole on a movie podcast that's just like, I don't know, man. That movie where Matt Damon got stuck in space was a better performance, and Matt Damon should have won for that movie instead.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

Yeah, but I was that one asshole too. Look, people tend to not remember what people win Oscars for. They just know, hey, so-and-so won an Oscar. Some people are looking to in multiples, but usually it's for a movie that you're like, again, Al Pacino, the poster child of that. He's got like five, right? No, he's got one. Yeah, well, The Godfather, right? No. Dogged Afternoon, no. Scarface. They got a Razzing nomination for that. Seriously? Okay, uh what Scent of a Woman. And then you go, huh, okay.

SPEAKER_07 13:34

Do you guys know the story of last year? Ray Fines and Aiden Brody were like a season where every single category had like some sort of scandal about it. And oh yeah. I know where you're going with this. Ray Fines was in that that Pope movie. What was it called? Uh Conclave. Conclave. Conclave, yeah. And Aiden Brody was in the brutalist. And there was like some political talk around it of like, it feels like Ray Fines deserves this Oscar, but we sort of want to give it to someone who doesn't have one yet, and they gave it to Aiden Brody. And the thing is, Ray Fines doesn't have an Oscar. Aiden Brody does. But everyone thinks that Ray Fines won an Oscar for Schindler's list, but he didn't. No, he didn't win anything for it. And so they gave it to Aiden Brody, who then gets up and makes the douchiest speech of Oscar's history.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

You will not play me off. No, guys. You will not play me off. Yeah. Am I still?

SPEAKER_03 14:30

It's also the I think it's the longest Oscar speech in history. Yeah. And I believe the previous record holder was Adrian Brody when he won for the pianist. So I haven't fact-checked that, but that would be really funny if that's the case.

SPEAKER_07 14:45

God help us if Timothy Chalamet wins an Oscar. We're never going to hear the fucking end of it. Like that kid is just, he's too eager to get inside the horse.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yeah. I look, I I enjoy him. Like, even all the celebrity around him hasn't kind of dampered it yet. But I can see myself getting tired of him in like five years.

SPEAKER_03 15:03

I think the thing I find funny about Chalamet, though, is that with all of the celebrities surrounding him, you know, there's people that are mixed on it. It's like, oh, we know too much about him. Or it's like, oh, there's this and that, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's just like, guys, he's literally a movie star. Yeah. We're just so unaccustomed to what a movie star is anymore because we're casting people with Instagram follower counts now instead of like, you know, having well, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 15:28

I mean, the point of that is that, like, you know, you used to not have this much information about movie stars, and now that you have a constant stream of it, you learn that they are people too, and some people are annoying little shits. Um but he's also like what he's in his 20s still, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:44

I'm not crazy and thinking that. Like, I wouldn't want to be famous when I was in my 20s. Like, yeah, no. So I'm fairly certain that, like, I mean, shit, like, look into Leo's fucking like 20s and his early career, and you're like, what what the fuck is wrong with this guy? Like, yeah, we weren't built to have this much information about people. We weren't a lot we weren't supposed to be this exposed to each other, like, and know everybody's deepest, darkest secrets. This is why, you know, because this is a politically motivated film. Now I realize why my dad would complain to my mom on a car ride home after a Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws that he didn't like going, we're that fucking guy. Well, now just every day is Thanksgiving dinner, we gotta live with that fucking guy that my dad's complaining about.

SPEAKER_07 16:22

You know? Yeah, true. All right, let's get into the meat of the show here. So, first up, we get the title takes. Title of this film, One Battle After Another. What does that title mean to you guys? What do you what do you pull from it?

SPEAKER_01 16:33

I'll go first. I think one battle after another describes not just in terms of the revolution that these characters, the French 75th and the immigration officers are fighting constantly, but it describes what life is. Life is just a series of one problem that needs fixing, one problem that needs addressing, one battle essentially after another. And eventually those battles tend to pile up and you end up feeling very tired and very just drained constantly. And now I can sit here and say that, you know, my life has its stresses like both of yours do, but relatively speaking, my my battles are smaller than most. You know, I have to realize, like, alright, garbage has to go out, gotta go to groceries, this bill is due on this day. All right, how am I gonna pay this person to help me on the route, you know, this week? Like little battles in the grand scheme of everything. Now, picture these characters are literally fighting a war and their lives revolve around this war. Those decisions are a lot bigger, at least to them they are. We can have that debate later, but for the sake of the argument, imagine your battles feeling like it's life and death constantly all the time, and eventually that wears you out. You know, Leo's been fighting one battle after another the majority of his life, and it he ends up being kind of a stoner burnout. Tiana Taylor's character, Perfidia Beverly Hills, her entire life was literally built around the revolution, and it destroyed her at the end of the day. Lockjaw, Sean Penn, his character was built around, you know, this fight and this revolution, and it perverted him into like this weird kind of character. Because I don't know if you noticed that too. Like, that character does kind of arc to a degree, at least from the beginning of the film to where he ends up at the end. Sure. It's subtle, and we kind of can, you know, mock the guy, but the level of cartoonishness he is by the end of the film is not the character he was at the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

No, he arcs from being an autistic piece of shit to being an autistic piece of shit with a gunshot wound to his face. Who was raped in reverse?

SPEAKER_07 18:20

Sorta. I mean, I see what Adam is uh getting at there. Well, like I had questions about his character as well. Like the resolve of his beliefs. You know, does he actually believe in like his racist cause at the beginning versus towards the end, or is he acting according to what is expected of him by that point? It's hard to tell because of certain ways that he interacts with characters who are played by women of color. Yeah, all right, John. What uh we can get into all of that when we get into the scenic view of everything.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

John, what's your title take? My take on the title is pretty similar to what Adam said. I think it's a pretty straightforward title in terms of what it's referring to, because it it truly is. Like in the scale of life, and when you look at things historically, life truly can feel like it is one battle after another. It's just you're getting through your day, surviving this fight, only to get to the next fight. And I think even on a subtle scale, using a film like The Battle of Algiers as just a one quick kind of moment, that is a film about Algeria fighting a war against French occupation. That happens after World War II. And before that, Algeria was occupied, or they were in some capacity, they were dependent on the Vichy regime of France. And the Vichy regime was a puppet government in France installed by the Nazis. So it is just literally all over the world. Like Algeria was occupied by this one force while the French were being occupied. And then the moment the French stopped being occupied, they went back to being like, all right, well, now we gotta go and occupy our colonies again. And the Algerians are like, the fuck is this? No, the same way Vietnam was also like that. It's like the Vietnamese were occupied by Japan, and then World War II ends, and the French are like, we want our brown people places back. And they're like, how about uh no? And you just realize over the course of life, I mean, that's what life is. Life really can truly, in many ways, feel like one battle after another, regardless of what your scale is. Like Adam said, he's got a pretty good life. I've got a pretty good life. And sometimes it feels like, for me, yeah, my battles are going from bill to bill, paycheck to paycheck, just trying to make it through the day. But for other people, it's much bigger, it's much greater. And in the scope of the narrative of the film, the moment the film starts, it does not stop until we get to the end of the film. And when we get to the end of the film, what happens? A distress call goes out to Oakland, and Willa takes over the mantle and she goes on. So it does not stop. It is literally in Infinity, Chase Infinity, one battle after another.

SPEAKER_07 21:05

You skipped right to the uh the closing image. We'll go over that in more time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think you guys have already pretty much nailed it. Like, I don't I don't know what I could necessarily add. Like, I think that one battle after another, it's it's not about a single conflict or even a single revolution. It's about like the enduring continuum of belief and like resistance. If you are paying attention, resistance is a lifelong commitment. Like you always have to be vigilant. There is always gonna be a new government elected that wants to fuck your life up in some way. There's the everyday thing of like uh one battle after another of like, you know, maybe uh Leo raising kids, you know, like every day is like teaching a kid a new thing, like potty training is one battle. And then teaching kids to read is another battle. Or, like you said, you know, financially, or maybe like a really difficult period at your job, right? Like when I was working um for TV, it's like, all right, we start a project, we go ham into production, it you know, winds down through post-production. And then right as you're like, oh wow, yeah, it's up on YouTube. I can rest for a second. You get an email that's like, hey, you've been assigned your next project.

SPEAKER_05 22:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 22:28

And then, you know, it's just you climb a hill and then you descend a hill, and there's another hill. And that sentence, keep in your mind, we're gonna revisit that later. So let's just get into the next thing. What are our overall takes about this film? What do we think the film overall is trying to tell us?

SPEAKER_01 22:47

So One Battle does something in films that I really, really enjoy, which is they tell this story on seemingly such a massive scale, touch on a lot of different little themes. And Anthony, I think you brought those up very well in in your intro. And I do think that this film is also about the kind of toxicity of having extremist views and what that can do to you as a person. But I think ultimately this film boils back down to nature versus nurture and kind of the love a father has for a daughter specifically. I think that it's told with this excellent tapestry, you know, and again, these rich, wonderful characters, but at the end of the day, it's just about a dad trying to get back to his kid and going through these extreme lengths and kind of becoming in a sort of way the man he was before he was a father in order to kind of get back to his child. So they can kind of get back, and also not just that, but like sharing his ideology with her, kind of passing on the torch to her, you know, at the end of the film. And, you know, yeah, sure, we don't see that opening and how Leo got to where he was, how Bob got to where he was before that. But the fact that it's Willis' choice at the end of the film to become a revolutionary. And sometimes we don't often feel like it is a choice, and not to say that we're revolutionaries, at least not yet. Give it another six to eight months, and who knows? But I digress. The feeling of having to become a revolutionary is not something that is feeling like a choice, but something that's ultimately thrust upon you. We can only live in the times in which we are. Though through Bob's upbringing, Willa is presented that choice. She can become a revolutionary. She can choose just to go back to school with her friends. At the end of the day, though, through this experience, she inherits her parents' mantle by choice in a lot of respect. So I think ultimately the film does boil down to that. It's it boils down to the relationship between a dad and a daughter, about how that dad raised his daughter. Because as we find out throughout the film, that, you know, Bob isn't Willow's actual biological father, but he was the one that stayed and raised her and was her dad at the end of the day. I'm not a stepdad, I'm the dad who stepped up. It it shares a common theme with um Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. And, you know, he might have been your father, but he wasn't your daddy. You know, and the whole like it's about like anybody who can fucking shoot sperm in a cup can be a father, but not everybody can be a dad.

SPEAKER_07 25:02

That's an interesting take. Yeah. I mean, there's like there's so many different angles to focus on this film from. Like, that's an interesting one come for me. It's sort of unexpected for me.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

John, yeah, what do you think? Yeah, so I don't disagree with Adam's takes. I I would say I fall squarely into the camp of a lot of things that he said. But I think the take I haven't heard as much. And maybe I'm just a special little snowflake, just like everybody else, with this take, and I, you know, don't get out of my apartment enough. But for me, I also looked at this not just with what Adam said, but I also looked at it through the lens of it being a satire on both revolutionaries and white supremacists. And some people might look at this take as like a both sidesism, which is inherently dangerous since one side is like, ooh, they're sensitive, and the other side is like, we want to kill people who aren't white. But I I really did feel like it took the piss out of a lot of things that have traditionally driven me absolutely crazy about a lot of leftists and social progressives, while at the same time showing that the white supremacists of this film are also they are completely deranged, dangerous, homicidal people. But when you break down the things that they stand for, you realize just how fucking stupid these people are and how fucking lame they are. But for for me, it's like one of the moments that stands out is when Bob is trying to get the rendezvous point, and you've got this guy being like, What time is it? And he's like, I don't know. I don't remember what time it is. I fried my brain. And then so what do they do? He's like, I'm calling in a in a like a what is it, like a Greyhawk? Greyhawk teen.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

It's like a Greyhawk 10.

SPEAKER_03 26:46

Yeah, I'm calling in a Greyhawk 10. And he's literally just asking for his manager. And it's like, what's the passcode that his manager gives him? It's like, what is my favorite kind of pussy? And it's like, really? That's the supervisor code. The supervisor code is what your friend's favorite kind of pussy is, which is also kind of weird for a leftist person to break that down based on race. But like, I don't but then when they come back.

SPEAKER_07 27:12

I don't know if that's exactly what I don't think that's in the handbook. I think he was asking his old friend like a piece of information that only his friend would know. Yes, but also the fact that it was Holdword in the goes there. Anarchist handbook is Mexican hairless.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

It was that they went that they went there. It wasn't like, what is this one experience you and I had at this one thing we did 20 years ago? It's like, alrighty, this is kind of silly. Also human at the same time. But then when they go back to Comrade Josh and it's just like, hey, so what was the answer? And he's like, and it's basically like some kind of like time hasn't been invented yet, time doesn't matter or something. And you just hear Bob go, oh fuck you.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

You obviously don't have fucking kids.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

You fucking moron.

SPEAKER_03 28:09

Oh my god, I was I was crying. I it's that joke, I was I couldn't breathe. I almost had to walk out of the theater for a second to compose myself during that scene. Because I was crying, and it's even funnier the second time. But it just to me, it showcases just how caught up on some of these things that like leftist groups will get caught up on when you realize like sometimes you get so caught up on the littlest of details that, you know, you lose the plot with the middle person that you need on your side. But then on again, on the flip side, you have a bunch of homicidal maniacs who believe in the purity of the white race, calling themselves the Christmas Adventurers Club. Which, you know, Richard Nixon probably has a pretty applicable quote about that in relation to the Bohemian Grove that I won't repeat on this podcast because of a slur it uses. But that's all I could think of every time I heard them talk about the Christmas Adventurers Club was I'm like, yeah, it sounds this very similar to the way Nixon talks about Bohemian Grove. But also really funny because if you translate the Christmas Adventurers Club into Hungarian, it gives you three Hungarian words that all start with the letter K. And if you break that down, it gives you KKK, which is the funniest way to tell us that this is basically the KKK. Who figured that out? Some guy on YouTube when I was looking for scenes of the podcast or scenes of the film. That is crazy.

SPEAKER_07 29:32

Is anyone involved in the film Hungary? Is Paul Thomas Anderson Hungarian? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

It's the it's the craziest way to Easter what Easter egg your way into saying, yeah, this is basically the KK.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

So that's something that, and I'll say it, like that's something that PTA usually does, like, and it's usually just as a lark, where it's like, Yeah, yeah, like whoever figures this out, like, all right, great, like I won't tell anybody, but it's like the same deal of fan thread where he's co-writing the script with Daniel Day Lewis. Yeah. And it's like, what should this guy's name be? Reynolds Woodcock, and they're just giggling to each other because it's just a stupid name.

SPEAKER_03 30:07

Yeah. But then also, like, to bring it back into the satire too, it's like Colonel Lockjaw is just such a walking satire for like that kind of person. Yeah. Because you like you don't quite know if he is a white supremacist per se. I mean, he clearly believes in a lot of these things or wants to be in like the racist white boy club wearing his his khakis. Yeah, his fucking, you know, immediate identifier that you're a conservative that doesn't know how to dress. Because every single person who's ever parroted their dad's views from a suburban town about not wanting to pay as much in taxes always goes to a school dance wearing tan khakis, a light blue shirt, a red tie with a navy blue stripe, and a navy blazer.

SPEAKER_07 30:50

Yeah, boat shoes and no socks.

SPEAKER_03 30:52

Yeah, boat shoes and no socks because they think that their feet don't stink like their views do. Well, and then also the latent repression of like not being able to admit that you like wearing a tight t-shirt because you like the fit. You immediately have to be like, I'm not a homosexual, if that's what you're implying.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

It's like, dude, you just like you like that it makes you look good. Anyway, I think that this film makes everybody look really goddamn goofy.

SPEAKER_04 31:18

True.

SPEAKER_03 31:19

Because when you break a lot of this shit down, it can be really goddamn goofy. One side just happens to be way more evil than the other.

SPEAKER_07 31:27

Sure. Yeah, I mean, I definitely think it's satire, and I definitely think that the humorous angle of it makes the serious topics a lot more palatable. You know, spoonful of sugar sort of thing, like spoonful of sugar, a few small beers. Yeah. If you were just watching this told fully dramatically, I think, you know, it would be just as good of a movie for different reasons. But, you know, like when I was working for Full Frontal, like we knew as a fact, like people remember the news better if there is a joke attached to it compared to traditional news media versus comedy news, like Jon Stewart at the time, Samantha B. John Oliver, whoever's reading the news in a comedic tone, people are going to retain that information better. And I think that one battle after another just really nailed that with, you know, like covering such a heavy topic in a way that doesn't really drag you into the pits. I think that this movie, aside from all the things that you guys hit upon, like John, you hit upon like the inherent ridiculousness of like the way that true believers can be so delusional and like trapped in their own thought cycles. Adam, like your connectivity between generations and the passing of belief systems. I think also what you said were like the toxicity of extremist beliefs and like the personal toll. You guys are like hitting all of these points that I have seen from you know angles of this movie. I think that we could throw in some angles of like direct action versus indirect action topics that we've talked about before with like V for vendetta, where like avoidance of the mistakes or battles you've fought in your past, like doesn't necessarily make the problem go away. Or sometimes you make a change in the world that might seem for the better. And then a generation from now you learn, you know, that battle is still being fought. You didn't win it in the way that you think you did, or there's a net negative. It's about how generations, like a generation of revolutionaries, are gonna be followed by a generation of uh softer people. But if the battle needs to continue, it's going to be the next generation's decision of whether or not they want to pick up the torch and keep it going.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

It's funny. I recently I've been hit with a lot of um speaking of comedy news, The Daily Show just ran a report with Lewis Black about Gen Z kind of unplugging from the internet in a lot of respects, going back to malls. Mall cultures kind of surged a little bit recently. They're also all smoking because in their mind they're like, why why should I give a fuck? I'm gonna be dead anyway, which is a bit more nihilistic. But the point being is, you know, yeah, you have to choose whether or not you're gonna have to fight that fight. And I think that our generation is gonna be known for being incredibly we we were a bunch of activists, yes, but at the end of the day, it was a battle that I think that we couldn't win. And we're gonna be remembered as a generation that we pushed back as hard as we could, but at the end of the day, we were just overwhelmed.

SPEAKER_03 34:39

It's hard to push back when you're drowning in student loan debt, tumbles out of control at a perpetuating uh predatory rate.

SPEAKER_07 34:46

Yeah. I mean, as millennials, all three of us, like our life has been one battle after another. Like we've been through a lifetime of international war. We've had two different recessions. Like the major one in 2008 was when we were 16, trying to get our first jobs and like get out there in the world. Yeah. You know, the last 10 years of political turmoil in the US, COVID, you know, like we are just like we're hitting every red light on this road that is life. Well, don't forget 9-11 and the recession that happened after that, too. Oh, geez, how could I forget?

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Oh, no.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

You've you said you would never forget.

SPEAKER_07 35:30

No, truly, with everything else that's happened. Like, you know, my fiance and I, we've been thinking about places to move, and you know, we like we're looking at this state, and then we remembered that Roe v. Wade was overturned in that state, and we're like, well, what about like your healthcare? Like that it would some things wouldn't be available for hundreds of miles, you know, and it stupid me. I just fully fucking forgot that happened.

SPEAKER_05 35:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 35:53

Because I lived in New York, California, where it wasn't relevant, and with everything else that went on, it's like, no, how can you really even keep a list of all the bullshit that we've had to like endure in our relatively short lives up to this point?

SPEAKER_01 36:08

If it feels shade to say, but it's like every time there's a mass shooting that happens up to us like, oh fucking Thursday already. I guess it just feels like it's a constant stream of like what the fuckery that on occasion, like you'll get back up to being angry about. But by and large, my wonderful fiance, uh Tasha, puts it to me this way, because she was very much like she volunteered for Obama back in the day. You know, she still kind of was active in a lot of political movements until eventually one day when she was trying to vote in the 2016 primary, and I hope she doesn't mind my saying this on mic, but they essentially she tried to vote for Bernie and they threw her vote away. And after that, she's like, I'm done with politics. So they basically like try to confuse her with like where the polling places were. And eventually they're just like, Oh, you can just do a right and battle here. And then a month later they're like, Yep, nope, fooled you. Your vote didn't count. And after that, she's like, Yeah, I don't want to deal with it. So what she does now is a bit more communal where I can't control what the world's gonna do, but I can control what I do. Yeah. So she volunteers at an Arboram locally, works with children a lot, every month drives uh grocery disadvantaged homes, basically or homes where they're dealing with some sort of pediatric cancer. And she's like, that's her attitude, where it's like I can't make it better in a sense because the world's just gonna do what it's gonna do, but I can control what I do. And I'm trying to be a little bit more that way nowadays because it literally feels like every day I'm coming home and I'm just yelling about some dumb shit that Trump did that is well out of my control at this point. And I it's that weird, like, Anthony to your point, like we're talking about not wanting to raise kids in this country right now. And why the fuck would we? Sure. Yeah, you know, it's where I think we're at that age now, because I kind of joked at the beginning, like I'm oh, I'm gonna be Leo in like 10 years. Like, I feel like that's already starting to happen. Where again, those little moments in between the film where at some point I'm sure he was just like, I can't fucking keep doing this. I I have a kid. I the kid needs my attention now. You know, and yeah, sure, I'm always gonna be looking over my window because we're technically fugitives and we're running from lockjaw and everything. But at some point in time you get the sense that even he was like, you know what, I still have my ideals, but I can't fucking keep doing this.

SPEAKER_03 38:15

Well, and also at a certain point, like if the battle never comes, you know, you you start to grow complacent. I mean, by the time Lockjaw finally figures out where they are, it's been sixteen years. Like it it you know, it's in a sense you wonder if he started to also feel like it's the day that never comes.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:33

And eventually, after a certain amount of time passes, it's like, oh, maybe we're in the clear here, and I'm not gonna do anything risky to draw attention. However, maybe I can let go and just raise my kid, but then they forgot that, you know.

SPEAKER_01 38:47

I have a question for the panel because I think this this kind of raises what we're talking about. When do you think this movie takes place? Because this movie feels very much like it takes place over the span of 16 years, yes, but there are parts of it that feel like there are still payphones being used at various points, but yet cell phones are still very prevalent. But yet, you know, you look at the make and model some cars, they kind of spread out over various decades. So it feels like this very homogenized time where everything feels super relevant.

SPEAKER_07 39:14

Yeah. I mean, I think I think it takes place now, like it takes place now and then the early 2000s. And I think that there is a reason for that technological discrepancy. Like you you raised the point of the payphone. I don't know where I'd be able to find a payphone, but I'm sure that they gotta be somewhere. But like the the cell phones being, you know, outdated, like that's definitely a piece of um like resistance ideology, yeah. Right? Like using older technology that's untraceable, like you see that in Star Wars. Uh like if I might be talking a lot about Star Wars today because this coincidentally came out the same year as um the second season of Andor, which is one of the finest television pieces of like ground-based resistance to come out in a long time. Like, there's a lot of crossover there. But like one of the things of like when that character is being inducted into the resistance, he was handed like a book with a manifesto and a communicator that is incredibly old technology but untraceable. And he's told, like, when you cannot be tracked, you are truly free. Yeah. And I think this movie does that the same way, and that's why you see so much analog technology. Older cars, you see the older cars always with the resistance people.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 40:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

I kind of diverge a little bit. I think the film takes place in the earlier parts of it, like the beginning. I think that takes place around like 2014-ish, because when they capture perfidia, they're taking selfies with her on their iPhones. So I think putting them around 2014 and then having the rest of the film take place in something a little closer to 2030, like the tech is not that far removed as far as like modern tech and the cars are not that updated. What was 16 years ago? 16 years ago was 2010. When did the iPhone come out? 2007. But selfie culture had not proliferated until about 2014. And I would know this because I had a BlackBerry in 2010.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

I did I had Blackberry too.

SPEAKER_07 41:08

Sure. Yeah, I had a Envy. Um, that like flippy texty phone. Oh, yeah. Until like 2012, because that's when iPhone came to my service. I had Verizon and it was an APT exclusive. But like selfie cameras existed 16 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 41:22

They did, but the attitude of taking a selfie, I don't recall really existing until about the time Instagram started popping up, like Instagram and Snapchat. Anyway. So 2012, 14 years ago. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_07 41:36

Anyway. Any hoozles. All right.

SPEAKER_03 41:38

We got two hours before you gotta hop.

SPEAKER_07 41:39

Yeah. Okay. Let's uh let's go through the opening images. Why don't we? No. The film opens with Perfidia Beverly Hills, played by Tayana Taylor, walking along a highway overpass. In the distance, a building surrounded by chainling fence and barbed wire. A title card reads, Ote Mesa Detentional Facility. Close-ups of the facility show that it is packed with people, all sad, scared, and huddling for warmth and comfort alongside scatterings of Mylar blankets. Fade 2, Bob, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. He jogs towards a station wagon surrounded with people wearing all black and towing a small canvas wagon behind him. Another title card indicates our location, the U.S.-Mexico border. As Bob joins the group, another man gives a briefing on the situation inside the detention center. Bob and Porfidia make eyes at each other from across the group. Porfidia breaks from the group to approach Bob. Porfidia asks him, what you dragging in that wagon? Bob rattles off a few things. Mortars, tear gas, whatever they need. He asks what they want him to do. A diversion, blows something up. Porfidia tells him she wants him to put on a show, an announcement of the motherfucking revolution. Make it good, make it bright, impressor. Cut to later that night, under the cover of darkness, the group approaches the boardwall to take out a gate guard. They storm the detention facility, cutting chains and cornering the security force as they sleep in their bunks. Porfidia breaks off from the group again, seeking out a bigger fish. She locates the quarters of the man in charge, Colonel Stephen J. Lockjaw, played by Sean Penn. As he sleeps, she steals his hat from beside him and puts it on her head. Wake up, soldier boy, she says. Lockjaw opens his eyes to see Porfidia pointing a gun at his face. She delivers the mission statement of her group in an attempt to intimidate him, but Lockjaw seems sorta into it. She tells him to get up. He begins to stand. She clarifies. That's not what she meant by get up. Meanwhile, the rest of the group wakes the prisoners in the detention center and loads them into a truck to escape. Bob washes from a distance. Cut back to Lockjaw and Perfidia. Lockjaw is now halfway to an erection. If you didn't catch on before, that's what Perfidia meant by get it up. She tosses him some zip tie riot cuffs and makes him put them on himself. He tightens with his mouth while giving perfidia sultry puppy dog eyes. Perfidia allows Lockjaw to his feet and marches him out of His quarters, still pitching a tent in his pants. Meanwhile, Bob watches from a distance. Perfidia radios him, letting him know it's time. Snap, crackle, pop, baby. Bob activates a detonator, and streaks of white flame illuminate the sky over the detention center. Bob runs for the getaway vehicles. Perfidia contains Lockjaw inside one of the detention center cages. They take one more look at each other through the chain link fence. Lockjaw says, I'll be seeing you very soon. Not if I see you first, fuckface, perfidia replies. She walks away. As she regroups with Bob, Bob announces to the prisoners who they are and what they stand for. The French 75. Anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, anti-police. They get into the station wagon and speed off into the distance. Inside the car, the French 75 celebrate their victory, and another character, who we will come to find out is named Jungle Pussy, fires an AK-47 out the passenger side window. Bob and Perfidia declare their love for each other and kiss passionately. What do we think, guys? Like, how do you what do you think about this opening? How do you interpret it? What did it remind you of? Just give me all of it.

SPEAKER_03 45:14

You know, I think to an extent, it's a pretty standard opening for a story like this. It sets up your characters, it sets up who they are. But there's I I remember the thing that really stood out for me with this was it was two things. The first thing was the direction is top tier because I'm immediately engaged. But yeah, it's got a really nice set piece to open things up, show us who these people are, what their relationships are, and where it's going to go from here. But the other really interesting thing that I think stands out is the scene where Perfidia holds up lockjaw at gunpoint, full erection and all, because it showcases that he's one bad motherfucker. And even when this guy is being held at gunpoint with handcuffs, this guy is actually in control of the scene because of where it's going to go from there. Like if you're going to imply certain psychological elements and add a level of sexuality into the power dynamics of a scene, like perfidious holding the gun, but Lockjaw's in control. And I think that is really interesting because it sets up how powerful this character is, especially where we see the film take it.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

Correct me if I'm wrong, because I I was trying to think about the entirety of the French 75 and the revolution in general and the other kind of battles, for lack of better term, that are shown throughout the film. Is this the only fight we see them technically win throughout the film?

SPEAKER_07 46:38

Not really. I mean, there's a bunch of montages of them doing other things. This is definitely the biggest scale, but like, you know, a few There's a few minor things that they do. Shots later, like you see Bob and Porfidia blow up a radio tower of some kind.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Yeah, they they they blow up a political office.

SPEAKER_03 46:54

Yeah, they blow up a couple buildings.

SPEAKER_07 46:56

Yeah, a bank or something.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

Because I feel like this entire first section of the film, I guess we'll call it the perfidia section because essentially she's the lead, I feel like, of this first part of the film, at least this first movement up until Willow's born. Or Will was a teenager rather. It feels like this is the good times. You know, this is, you know, the being young, being, you know, standing for something, fighting a good fight, at least in your mind, and they're feeling like I wouldn't say no consequences per se, but the consequences aren't as defined yet.

SPEAKER_05 47:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

You know, and all that starts to change really when Perfea gets pregnant, you know, seemingly by everybody's thought process, Bob Samba, it's really Lockjaw, that things start to kind of turn for the resistance here. So I think that this opening scene is basically them at their height, for lack of a better term, them at their their strongest. And it's not until in a weird way, because we can sit there and we can say that, well, if you think about the scene logically, Porfidia is the one that kind of seduces Lockjaw. But John, kind of going off of your point where it feels like he's controlled the entire time. I think the reverse happens where Lockjaw kind of in this weird way seduces Porfidia. And they start their affair shortly thereafter, which leads to Willow's birth. And again, so kind of going a little bit further on into the into the story, I think Lockjaw and Porfidia's relationship represents their kind of love of the fight itself. Again, the the the warring toxicity of being married to an extreme ideology. I think ultimately Lockjaw and Porfidia's affair highlights the idea of having, you know, being married to an extremely, you know, an extreme political affiliation, but it's also the weird kind of attraction you have for the the other side. Because if you think flash forward to later in the film when Lockjaw has Willa and he's talking about his relationship with Porvidia, he does say, I look, I loved your mother. Your mother was a warrior. And Porvidia's like, Porfidia, Willa's like, no, she was a rat. No, she was a warrior. She believed in these great things. Again, things that Lockjaw inherently disagreed with, but had a respect because she was a warrior on the other side. She was willing to fight for her ideals to the point of extremism, kind of like what Lockjaw does.

SPEAKER_07 49:06

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

So I think though ultimately when you cross those lines and to the point where like you're so deep and so entrenched in this extremism that you don't know where the line is sometimes. That's why you feel like a lot of people jump back and forth with political affiliations, because that line's a lot closer than people think it is, especially if you believe so strongly in it. Yeah. Not saying perfidio jumped the line. She didn't. She really didn't. I mean, she was put in a position where she kind of had she was put in a position where she had to betray her ideology, but I don't think she gave it up.

SPEAKER_07 49:34

She ratted, leading to the deaths of dozens of people. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

And that's but that's also the complication I have with that character specifically, where she was forced to in a way, so I try not to, but at the end of the day, she still did it. You know, even if like gunned to her head, she still was a rat, but it's also like that killed her inside because eventually she had to literally fucking flee. She had to escape it because she couldn't live with herself.

SPEAKER_03 49:56

As a brief interjection on that point, too, I think it's interesting that you call out Perfidia being a rat, but every single character who talks to the cops in this film that has information that could benefit them ends up breaking and talks to the cops. With one exception, and we'll go into that later because I want to talk about him in the scenic view. But yeah, literally everybody in this film, the second they're confronted, they rat. And there's an interesting commentary there on the revolutionary breaking the moment they've got something to lose, which I sometimes feel is I don't want to say it's uniquely American in some way, because we are such a comfort-driven society. But, you know, when you look at like, I don't know, there's a scene that stands out for me in another film called Um Army of Shadows, which is a film about the French resistance. And those guys, when they're fighting the Nazis, they literally kill their allies with like no problem because their allies sold them down the river for like way less. Or they just learned, like, oh, this guy's a rat. All right, he's done. But it's like a blanket on the name. What's the guy's name? The radio guy?

SPEAKER_01 51:01

Uh Billy Goat.

SPEAKER_03 51:02

Yeah. When Billy Goat gets captured, he sticks to his guns. He doesn't cave at all. And then they say, We know where your sister lives. He's immediately like, All right, here's their names, here's where they went.

SPEAKER_01 51:13

Does Regina Hall do that though at the end? Like uh DeAndre. Does she kind of because it feels like she's obviously tormented, she's obviously known that there's no way out, but I feel like we cut away before she starts naming people and whatnot.

SPEAKER_03 51:25

I don't feel like she does. Well, we cut away because she doesn't have anything to give. Right. Like she's the only one who isn't holding any information. So it doesn't matter. Like, we don't need to show her ratting because she has nothing to rat on. She literally is telling the truth.

SPEAKER_07 51:40

Adam, I think like you really nailed that relationship with um perfidia and lockjaw. Like that is sort of representative of the love of the battle itself. Like, you know, when you said that, it made me think of another, you know, common like archetype as the Batman and the Joker. Like to the Joker, it almost feels a lot of the time like he is in love with Batman. Like he loves that they will not kill each other and they're just gonna be in that battle forever and ever and ever. But I think the film does a good job of setting up the, you know, the these three main characters and their belief systems, like Bob being the more has the one that is less uh impulsive, less of a risk taker. Perfidia is like big and bold and brash, and like she's the one who wants to make a statement. But I have the exact opposite opinion of Lockjaw that you took, John, where like you said that you know this sets him up as a badass. I really don't see it that way.

SPEAKER_03 52:40

I see it as setting up sorry, to inner to interject, just to give a little more clarity on my point, because I realized I didn't make this as as clear. He's not a badass. He is a weak man masquerading as a badass, but he has a lot of resources at his possession. He has the resources of the US military backing him.

SPEAKER_05 53:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:00

And they will jump on a crusade.

SPEAKER_07 53:03

Yeah, that was the next thing that I was going to say. Like, he's not a strong person by any means. Like, I don't think he's in control of that situation. Like, once he's in a corner, he is useless. He doesn't have his men, he doesn't have his guns, and he is fully at the mercy of perfidia.

SPEAKER_03 53:21

But then he corners her in the bathroom afterwards. He uses his resources afterwards to stalk her.

SPEAKER_07 53:27

All right, the point I was trying to make is that, like, when it comes to resistance versus oppression, like resistance fighters are strong people with very little resources doing the best they can with fireworks and box trucks and the Toyota Hilux, the official vehicle of resistance movements globally. Um versus people like Lockjaw, who are weak men with strong resolve who just have resources, and there's complete parallels that we can pull from history. The first one for me is Heinrich Himmler. Like a man who is so strong-willed in his belief that Germans or Aryans are this like master race of like superior beings, and he's got this idea of what they should be. And he himself is a weak-jawed, balding, dark-haired, brown-eyed like person who can't do like a single push-up. You know, got like booted out of any physical thing that he ever had to do. He like he fully did not live up to even his own standards. And we could pull people from current American politics who seem uh very similar. Stephen Miller. Henry Kissinger. Sure. Yeah. Um, I'm sure we could pull a lot of people like that. But I think that that's what this scene is doing to set up that sort of dynamic and contrast. So let's get into the scenic view. So at this point, we've been through the opening, we've talked about what we think the film means to us, and now we uh just like to jump around the film, not in any particular order, but pull up some of our favorite scenes, scenes that really stood out to us, or ones that maybe backed up our point as to what we think the movie's about. So, um, what do you think, guys, Adam? You got a scene for us?

SPEAKER_01 55:07

So, kind of going off of to keep us in some sense of sequential order, uh, the first thing I want to talk about is uh Profidia's uh postpartum depression after Willa's born, and how she becomes envious of her daughter. And I've heard this, you know, this was the case a bunch where there's Bob with Willa and, you know, with her constantly, and Porfidia feels like a piece of meat that she's kind of, you know, her man's been taken away by her own child. And in a lot of respects, she feels like all she really has left is the revolution, is the fight, because she feels like she doesn't have her man anymore. Now, granted's because, you know, of their kid, literally, in this case, but it's a scene right before she goes back out for the bank robbery. And I always feel like people that have extreme ideologies will always fall back on the rhetoric. Not necessarily the belief per se, but the rhetoric. So if you think about that sequence where, you know, Bob's literally telling her, like, where are you going? We we have a daughter now, we're a family, like we gotta stop doing this shit for her sake. And she's literally like doing the I reject your cliche, I am not your, you know, your fuck buddy, I'm a this, I live for me. And and he's literally calling her out the entire time because it's not even a belief, it's just rhetoric at this point that he's peeling until eventually just goes, go do the revolution, baby. And that's when, you know, she leaves, the robbery goes wrong, she gets captured by Lockjaw and becomes a rat. Further ruins her child's life and her partner's life. Because now they gotta go on the run because of that. And it's just again, it boils back down to I keep going back to that relationship with Lockjaw and with Porfidia, where eventually, and it feels like in that moment where she's facing a very Porfidia is facing a very real reality of your life is literally just changed. Like I can speak to myself. I've for years I was afraid of being a parent because I knew what that would mean. That would mean sacrifice. That would mean, does my life change completely 180 from what it was? No, it really doesn't if you think about it. But there's now another facet of your life, another force coming into your life that does change the dynamic. Now you maybe have to think, all right, do I want to go out and spend$300 on fucking criterions this month, or do we need diapers? In my opinion, you're a terrible person if you go and you choose the criterions over your children's diapers. You just are. Then why have kids? You know, but that's something that I think that Perfidia is kind of grappling with where it's like, what am I without the revolution? And now this figure force has come into my life who's threatening to take that away from me. I wanted to get your guys' thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_07 57:28

Yeah, I think that is one of the main themes like you were talking about in our overall take, you know, that eventually you have to do life, right? Like you you need you need to make some kind of money to eat. You need to think about how you're gonna grow old, maybe, or you know, kids come into your life and then all of a sudden your perspective changes, you know, and you're less willing to put yourself into risky situations. I think any parent, you know, probably goes through that. Like I know people who like they they liked skiing until they had kids, and then, you know, it's like maybe I shouldn't be careening down a hill where I could injure myself and like that's gonna mess up my life or mess up the kids' life. But yeah, I mean that's that's a natural reality of becoming a parent, is you gotta do revolution only when the kids at school.

SPEAKER_01 58:19

Yeah. But it's it's weird too, because like I'm not saying they could have and they should have, but the revolution changes in that case. Maybe you become more of somebody who fights from within the system. Like, I look, this isn't inherently broken, inherently corrupt, so that could be a fear too, and a genuine one. But there's somebody who's like, all right, well, we now have this life in our lives that we have to take care of. And does that mean you know, again, shifting priorities? And I'm trying to kind of do a shame of consciousness right now, because right now, fuck me, I don't even know what I'm talking about because I've never lived this. I've only speculated. I just got, you know, engaged. I'm getting married, you know, in about 18 months' time. So this stuff's very fresh in my head. But does the revolution change or do you change? Does your priorities change? Can you still be the person you are, even with this new life? Because perfidia's mom has a speech that she gives to Bob or a scene that she has with Bob as Perfidia's pregnant, and she's like, This isn't gonna work, you know. She's a runner and you're a stoned, basically. She's just gonna want to keep going for that fight, but yet you're a rock, you know, you want to kind of plant roots after a while. Like, will you do the revolution for a while? Absolutely. Do you believe in this cause? Absolutely. But when something comes along that feels bigger than you on a personal level, and this goes back to ultimately this film being for all of its themes of politics and all of its nuances, this comes back down to the relationship between a father and a daughter. Because once, you know, Willa enters Bob's life, that's it for him. All he wants is this. All he wants is to be a family now. Where Porfidia, because all she's had her entire life is to fight, now feels a weird kind of at oddsness.

SPEAKER_07 59:56

So I think it supports what you were saying about Tasha's experience politically, like where she voted, her vote didn't count, that sort of burned her, and then she changed her perspective to acting more on a like a local community sort of scale. And I think Bob's shift here is a similar shift of like we can save the world or we can save our world, right? Like our one little pocket of it. And once Willa comes into it, um, I don't think do we have a name for her before the uh Charlene. Sure Charlene. Yeah. Once she's born, like that becomes hyper focused on, you know, protecting her, especially when it's clear that Perfidia doesn't really have that interest. Like she's still fixated on saving the world. But, you know, that doesn't make his battle any less important.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

But yeah, to your point, it's like at some point in time, you know, can you go make Washington a better place? Inherently no, but I can go make my small town a better place.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:57

In in some respects. You know, and I think that that's where but then that that's the weird thing because uh now we can kind of jump around to where Bob is after Perfidia's left. Like in a weird way, he just kind of gave up. Like, I think maybe like his world did become his daughter, but again, what'd he do? He fried it, he joined a band, like a steely Dan cover band, it sounds like drinks constantly. He's fried his brain with drugs and alcohol, where in an odd way the battle just became his daughter. But without a higher calling to a degree, and this is again projecting like crazy here. I guess it's Adam's turn to get have the existential crisis, but it's the can you hold both in your hands? And I think that Bob needed something more to fulfill his life, apart from being a father. You know, maybe he did need some sort of a fight. It didn't have to be this big, you know, revolution, but something else. Because clearly, like he filled a void with, you know, drugs and alcohol, basically. He still had Willa. He still was a seems a pretty good parent in that regard, but without anything else to kind of fight for, he just kind of fell into complacency, you know, whereas perfidy, in a way, turned to only the revolution, but sacrificed that human part of her and ended up kind of betraying everything she stood for and having it destroy her, at least metaphorically. But the point is, like, can you be both? Can you be a parent and a revolutionary? In my case, can I be a husband and father and a filmmaker? And that's something I've been kind of toying with my entire time, where I do think you need a balance ultimately. I do think you need your own things. It can't just be one or the other. And that's the thing. I think ultim maybe it's another thing this movie's ultimately about. It's about finding balance to some degree.

SPEAKER_07 1:02:29

Yeah, finding balance or not being so overwhelmed with just the paranoia of it. You know, it's hard to say because like we don't really see the 16 years in the middle, you know, but like we do get hints from Willa that like Bob has been communicating enough, right? Enough that she has even a made-up sense of who her mom was because he didn't have the heart to say, you know, what she ultimately did. But she's familiar enough with the tracker, what it does in theory, and that it doesn't always work. Um, she knows the codes well enough to recite them from memory. But like you can do all of that education you want. There's still gonna be a whole lot of time that you gotta fill in between where you know you might smoke some some weed.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:17

But it's also weird because I think he did that stuff not out of like wanting to indoctrinate her into revolutionary tactics, but just uh, babe, this is what's gonna keep us alive ultimately, like survival tactics. It's not too dissimilar to all right, honey, I'm going away for the weekend. There's some money up in the cupboard, you know, there's some food in the fridge, um, here's all the emergency contacts you need to reach out to. It's a more extreme version of that, but still a version of that. Because in this case, it's like we're technically fugitives here, so just in case somebody comes to get me, here's our trackers, here's our this, call this number and you know, answer these this line of questioning, basically. But yeah, his little his whole life became parenting.

SPEAKER_07 1:03:56

Yeah, I think you know, when your entire life is a risk, why would you take on more? Like, honestly, it's the joining a a cover band that's the most out of character because you're getting up on stage in front of a group of people. Like this sort of the plot of Barry, right? Like, how does a hitman, someone who needs to be secrecy, who if anyone ever saw their face and recognized him, he'd be in a bad spot. Yeah. Oh, but he wants to become a movie star. You know, like that's maybe not the good follow-up career choice because someone's gonna be like, wait a minute, I know that guy. So, like, if you're a fugitive on the run, yeah, maybe a cover band is actually not the best thing to do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:38

Or maybe wait for the war to be over before you go and do the thing that makes you famous. Like Audrey Hepburn.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:46

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:46

Sure.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:46

Do you have more to go on this scene, or do you want to switch to another scene?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:49

We can switch to another scene.

SPEAKER_07 1:04:50

What about you, John? You got a scene uh you want to dig into?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:54

Yeah, so I I have a character that I want to dig into more than a scene itself, because I think this character kind of I think it in a way backs up a lot of a lot of my take and with how how it kind of satirizes all of these groups. But the one person who is in a way he didn't he didn't feel like a caricature, even though I read somebody's take on Reddit, where they classified him as like the magical Latino, uh, which I'm I'm not a hundred percent sure on that I agree with for a variety of reasons. But, you know, Benizio del Toro's character, the sensei. Sure. He really strikes me as like an old revolutionary type. And he contrasts with all of the French 75 and all of these other people because he's not obsessed with codes. He's not obsessed with these little silly tests that admittedly are important to making sure you're not talking to a mole. But nonetheless, when Bob calls the French 75, they're giving him tests, they're giving him codes that are like 20 years old asking for. But when Bob shows up at Sensei's dojo, what happens? Hey, sure, come in. What do you need? He just helps him, sight unseen. And when you see him in action in his building, what's he doing? He is orderly, he's calm, he's composed, and he's shuttling an entire bunch of people into this essentially underground railroad type situation to get them away from the police.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:28

He is just doing this. He's a man of action. He gives Bob the things that he needs.

SPEAKER_07 1:06:33

What he is is a man of discipline. I mean, like, what is what is a core principle of karate or any martial art? I I don't know specifically what uh martial art he is supposed to be an instructor of, but like from the moment that you meet him, um, you know, he's bowing towards the the mat in his dojo. He, you know, yells at Bob about like wearing his shoes on the mat. He is calm, cool, collected. And as that scene progresses, like you see more and more of his system and how like finely tuned it all is. One of the best shots of the film that's slipped surprisingly on PTA, it's a little bit more Wes Anderson, but it's when uh Del Toro like goes down a little trapdoor and he gives like a fist in the air and he pulls the trapdoor shut and then a carpet just automatically unrolls over it. Dude, that scene is so funny. It felt a little fantastic of Mr. Fox to me, like when you see the wolf in the distance throw its you know fist up. But like you see just how fine-tuned like this is a disciplined man he has prepared for every single possible scenario. And like while Bob, who like by contrast, has been living this completely undisciplined life, he's not staying sharp with the texts, he's not maintaining his escape hatch, it's still like dusty and you know, crazy in there. Like that stark contrast is designed to show how like organization from community leaders and people helping each other out and communicating with each other in order to like execute something bigger, like that is how effective resistance actually happens.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:14

Yeah. And he really, to me, he really does serve as a counter and a foil for a lot of the characters in the French 75 with all of this. Because he he really is the only one that doesn't require a purity test. He knows exactly what he's doing, he knows exactly where it needs to go. And even when Bob gets arrested, he's got a system set up to bust Bob out quickly and efficiently. And what does he also do? He makes sure that Bob always stays calm by having a beer in hand.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:41

Yeah, this was a scene that I wanted to dig into as well. Because, like, first of all, like beyond the character, like aesthetically, this whole sequence is just like almost out of a different movie. Yeah. You know, like I feel like it's a completely different, like, pace shift. It's a different stylistic shift. I think like the running across the rooftop scene, that sequence is like almost supernatural. Oh, yeah. The way that they portray those like skateboarders jumping and flipping um like acrobats, you know, from roof to roof.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:12

Dude, it's like it's it's like a scene out of like a the Ninja Turtles movies.

SPEAKER_07 1:09:16

Oh, yeah. I mean, obviously, this is completely parallel to like current events, this whole sequence. Do you think that I mean, like, you wanted to dig more into the character than the scene? Like, what do you think like Benicio del Toro's sort of role or maybe uh real world mirror might be?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:37

Yeah, I mean, I think the real world mirror of him, as you said, falls in line with things like community organizing. But I think largely he serves as a mirror for the kind of people that he's doing what he's doing, whether you are aware of it or not. He's not flamboyant about his actions, he's not flamboyant about the things that he's doing in the way that the French 75 is. This is a guy who's got a whole underground railroad system. And if he got arrested and found out about that, all the, you know, probably yuppie white people who, you know, are just sending their kids to his karate classes would be like, wait, what do you mean this guy was running a whole underground railroad? You know, and it's it's the idea of you don't have to be a flamboyant, ideologically driven revolutionary in order to do revolutionary things. You can be an everyday ordinary person that somebody would never suspect. And he's probably, in comparison, got the biggest full-scale operation running. Because the French 75 is doing like basically smash and grabs by comparison. This guy's doing bank heists. You know, this this guy's robbing Fort Knox in terms of like scale to the French 75's smash and grabs.

SPEAKER_07 1:10:52

Yeah, I think there's like within the scene itself, a direct contrast of that. Like, there's the public demonstrators throwing Molotov cocktails in the streets.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:00

To interject, I'm really sorry to interject on that. But the Molotov cocktail, that was a false flag. That wasn't a protester.

SPEAKER_07 1:11:06

Was that one of Lockjaw's people like escalating? That was one of Lockjaw's guys, because he said commence Operation Van Halen. All right, I didn't catch that. But regardless, yeah, you know, there's the public demonstration in the streets. There's um people disrupting. We see that right now with like ice raids in the country. Like people in Minneapolis right now have developed a whistle system. So if you even just see them on the street, you just whistle and people know, all right, maybe I'm gonna take a wide berth around these blocks. Yeah. Right. There's also the people that hang out at the ice raids literally just to get in the way. There's the community organizers, like I wouldn't say Benicio del Toro's character is an ordinary person. Like, that's an extraordinary person, but like he's a clear leader. He's got a system, and he is bringing people into that system. There's a character in that, also, though, that once Bob gets captured, the person checking him into the police station, asking him if he's taken his insulin. Yeah, because she knows he's gonna have to take go to the hospital, that is one of the sensei's people. Like that's one of his people. And technically, she's working for the oppressor. And that's something that in any revolution, in any system that exists, take this listener. You can do a whole lot more damage if you join the opposition in a bureaucratic bullshit job. You can do a whole lot more damage than you can break in glass windows or holding signs in the street or even fighting with a gun. It's called malicious compliance, or um it's far more difficult to cause four million dollars worth of damage to somebody's tangible assets than it is to completely waste four million dollars in budget by misdirecting shipments of the same exact goods.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:00

The thing about uh the sensei, for me at least, it goes back down to serving the community as opposed to serving a wider thing, kind of piggyback off the point. The French 75 felt very disorganized. It felt like an organization that had a lot of good ideals but didn't really have a full system in place or at least not an efficient system set up. Whereas the sensei is like, look, I'm just gonna stick to my own corner, my own small town, and I'm gonna run this operation, but I'm only gonna focus on that, as opposed to like I'm gonna focus on 30,000 different things. And so it's like, no, I have one thing I can take care of, I can control, I can, you know, shepherd, basically. And it feels like as a result, he gets more shit done. And it's really only his undoing is only because like Bob pops a beer in his car. That's it. And then after that, it's like, all right, well, um, you go get your daughter, I'm gonna basically distract the cops while you go and you do that. Which again, a noble thing, a disciplined thing, a thing that, you know, again, he would do because he's a very giving person.

SPEAKER_07 1:13:59

Yeah, and also uh he's got the law on his side. Yeah, you know, where the rest of the people around him, like he knows that whatever happens, like, you know, a drinking and driving charge, you can get past that in the in the grand scheme of time. And like him being a citizen, he's not gonna get deported. You know, he can use the system to help people who would be oppressed by the system.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:19

It's a reasonable enough assumption. Seeing one person already in the police force helping Bob get to the hospital and get out of their clutches, it's reasonable enough to know he's probably got somebody else on the inside that would help him get out of this too.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:32

True. And again, and he'll to Anthony to your point, like he'll be fine ultimately. Bob wouldn't be in that situation.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:39

He's like, all right, yeah, I'll I'll take a slap on the wrist. You know, again, I'm sure my blay alcohol is not gonna be to the point of absurdity. Yeah. Got a few small beers. Exactly. Pay a fine. He in a weird way, and this talks about like, you know, not not to say it's stun casting per se, but again, Benicio del Toro played another kind of guide through another sort of world in another famous movie, Fear and Lothing in Las Vegas. He was literally Dr. Gonzo, you know, kind of pulling Raul Duke through that kind of strange world and in a way, and look, that film was not a big hit when it came out, and it kind of became a kind of a dorm room hit later on, but you kind of can connect the two. Where it's like, this is a good guy who's kind of gonna get you through this kind of wacky thing, and he's got his own thing kind of set up on the side in some respects. So that's why I think Benicio reads more naturally here because we've seen him play his kind of role before.

SPEAKER_07 1:15:26

Could you imagine any other actor playing it? No.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:28

No. I I legitimately cannot.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:30

It's it's uh it's a hand in the glove. Like for me, my pick was Sean Penn for the film because that character is just so deranged.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:38

Well, and especially knowing Sean Penn's politics, too, you know he like he put so much into that character. But yeah, I feel like on a rewatch, I kind of lean towards Del Toro if I was gonna award one of the two for an Oscar. I wouldn't be disappointed if either one won the Oscar. It'll be interesting because if Sean Penn wins an Oscar, he'll be one of only a handful of actors to have won three Oscars for acting, which is crazy that Sean Penn would be one of those people. I mean, he's an amazing actor.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:06

He is. But that's a difference in performance style where I feel like Sean Penn does a great job playing a cartoon character. Whereas Benicio del Toro, it's I won't call it clearly he's being thanked the man's up for an Oscar for crying out loud, but it's the kind of performance that it looks so easy what he's doing. It's it's a great performance, and you can see the performance, but it's not a show.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:26

Yeah, it's the kind of performance that somehow makes a line like a few small beers one of the greatest lines in cinema. Exactly.

SPEAKER_07 1:16:34

Yeah, I mean, he also just has so much more to work with. Like I think what you said, like Sean Penn's character, Lockjaw, is he's much more cartoonish. He doesn't get anywhere near as big of like a set piece as Benicio del Toro got to like move through. Like it starts at point A and then he just stands up, he starts walking, and then it just grinds until he's arrested for drunk driving. But he's just there the whole time, like moving through this space in the movie and carrying this like incredible performance the entire time. And I think, yeah, I think like between the two, there's something to appreciate in an entirely different way. Del Toro is a far more grounded performance with a lot more blocking, and Penn is just 100% character. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:26

I I I literally just thought of something, you know, it this just triggered something because obviously Porfidia is in the first like movement of the film, then she quickly drops off. But Nisio, in a way, too, he's in a movement of the film, then he drops off pretty quickly too. And it made me think about the relationship with these characters that they have with Bob, and they're the ones kind of guiding Bob through life to a degree. You know, perfidia definitely in the first part because she's his romantic partner, and you know, they don't father child together specifically, but they in part have a child together. They're living together with this child for a minute. Then she quickly drops off. Then when Willa's kind of lost and he's trying to get back to Willa, who's guiding him through life again? It's Benicio. But then Benicio kind of drops off till eventually all Bob has left is himself. But by the end of it, to kind of propel us through that last chase scene of the film. And it just makes me again, it's uh the three-actor structure kind of breaking it down and finding ways to kind of teach three-actor structure to somebody to a layman, basically, where yeah, sure, Bob is essentially the lead character, but he's not really a protagonist. He's a guy who kind of gets swept up into things. And he's active. I'm not saying he's not an active character, but he's not, I feel like he's pushing everything forward. He needs help to be pushed, basically. And I feel like it's perfidio for the first act, the second act is Benicio is is a sensei. And then when those forces are gone in his life and all he has left is himself, he's the one that can finally be like, all right, now I can finish the journey and get back to Willa. But then at the end of the film, he hands it back off to Willa, where it's like, listen, we had this ideology, I didn't really tell you everything about your mother. She left you this note, I want to be the kind of cool dad that you can tell anything to, but I can't do that. But I'm now giving you the choice basically to tell your own story. Because the story of the French 95 and this revolution is kind of over, but now it's your turn to start your own thing. But just made me think about like the the rhyming of like again, because Tiana Taylor is not in this film as much as I think, because people complain about Oscar stuff like, oh, how much of the movie she actually in? She's in a lot, and she clearly the character bears a lot of impact over the story, even when she's not there.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:34

I would also argue, too, like Silence of the Lambs. Silence of the Lambs, but even more so.

SPEAKER_07 1:19:39

I mean, Anthony Hopkins, I mean, famously, what, like three minutes of screen time in Silence of the Lambs wins best supporting act.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:45

It was closer to thir thirteen.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:47

It was a lot more, and it's also like the he's like still in the scenes. They're literally, and this is an asshole thing. It's like they're taking a stopwatch to like the shots he's in. It's like, no, they're still he's still in the scene. It's just you're literally clocking the amount of screen time, literally, and that's kind of a decent.

SPEAKER_07 1:20:02

Okay, I mean, sure. Thirteen minutes. Um, I mean, Taylor's in this what, like an hour? No, 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:09

Yeah, she's only in there for 20 minutes. But the all-time record holder is Beatrice Strait in uh Network. She is only in one scene for about five minutes, and she wins Best Supporting Actress. And it was like a unanimous thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:25

And it's funny too, because like she's actually got a scene before that, but it's like literally a wake up, honey, Howard's missing. That's literally her two lines. And then she has this whole like incredible monologue, like halfway through the film.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:36

And it and again, she's literally in the scene for five minutes. And my whole thing is it's like if you can give somebody an Oscar for a five-minute performance that is well deserved, I mean, that performance from Beatrice Strait is like S tier, you know, best of the best Oscar performances.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:52

But to the point though, it's again, Perfidia is only for about 20 minutes. And if you think about too, like Benito's only in the only in the movie for about 20 minutes. Because as we kind of allude to, like, the pacing of this film was so masterful that you lose track of time where you're like, okay, well, the story's winding down. Clearly, you know, Willow's in the car with Lockjaw and the it's gonna be like what, another like 15, 20 minutes?

SPEAKER_04 1:21:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:12

Wait, there's an hour left? What the fuck? But yet you're you're so giddy about it because of just how masterfully paced the film is. But the point being is it's weird how like Porfidia and Sensei kind of they rhyme as characters to a degree. And I just literally had that thought as we're discussing this.

SPEAKER_07 1:21:27

Right. I got another um scene. We, you know, we danced on this a little bit in the um towards the beginning with like what is Lockjaw's arc. So I wanted to talk about the scene where he brings Porfidia flowers. So Porfidia rats out her accomplices, she goes into witness protection, Lockjaw goes to visit her carrying a bouquet of flowers. So, like a little bit earlier than that, it like he offered her amnesty in exchange for the names and locations of all the French 75, and he makes her say that she loves him, she can't live without him. There's the scene where he confronts Bob in the grocery store and says like that unhinged stuff about like black girls, I love them. There's a lot of stuff that really does seem like he is legitimately interested in perfidia. So, you know, like the flowers, the later he says that he legitimately really did love her, and then he goes and brings her these flowers. She's already run off to Mexico. He breaks the door down with a battering ram and finds her note. But then the next time we see Lockjaw, he is, you know, once we flash forward 16 years and he's um joining the Christmas adventurers, he's got his whole operation, like he's gone fully in the opposite direction. Like there it would seem like he's completely hateful, right? Do you think he has a legitimate arc? Do you think that maybe he was legitimate in his feeling for her at the beginning? Do you think he really bought the Kool-Aid on the racism stuff? Or do you think that maybe the experience with perfidia was like what drove him farther in the other direction?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:11

I think it's a little bit of each category. I think that at the beginning of the film, he's clearly somebody who believes heavily in his ideology. He's willing to do whatever he has to do to get ahead. But again, he's still goofy enough where again, it's it's hard to say because like I don't he doesn't seem as malicious as his intent as he becomes later on in the film. But I think by the end of the film, he's clearly given into the doctrine. Because again, I have to remind you too, there's a 16-year time jump. We don't see everything that happened. I can tell you that the guy who fell in love with Porfidia, while still a monster, was not yet that demonstrable in his actions. Where I feel like something broke in him from whether it was Perfidia leaving him to just 16 more years of one battle after another, the same one battle after another that all the other characters go through, that wears him down to eventually all he is is ideology now. There is no person in there, there's just a belief structure, and I have to keep moving forward because it's belief structure. Not too dissimilar to Porfidia. But we see the end of Perfidia's journey there, where by the end all she was was ideology too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:21

Where if you look at Bob and you look at Lockjar at the end, all Bob is in a weird way is his humanity because he kind of gave up his ideology for his daughter.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:31

Where even he kind of can see the again, the stupidity of the resistance from time to time a bit more clearly, even if his brain is fried. Where in a weird way, Lockchar resembles the Terminator by the end of the film. A much goofier, more cartoonish Terminator, but all he is is just locked on to I want to join this club.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:51

Yeah, and somewhat unkillable.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:53

To the point where I'll literally kill my almost unkillable.

SPEAKER_07 1:24:56

Almost.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:56

Yeah. Until he reads a thing of he gets they literally fucking gas him like a bunch of Bond villains at the end of the film.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:03

But I digress.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:05

But to the point where like he's so locked in on this this objective of joining the Christmas Adventurers to the point where he's literally willing to kill his own biological daughter in order to achieve that. But the fact that like the Christmas Adventurers is his highest calling because all of a sudden it's like, hey, you sacrificed enough to our ideology that we're letting you basically into a club that I don't think he would have joined. Because if you think about his rank, it's not like he's a general. It's not like he's like a high ranking, he's a colonel.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:33

The colonel's pretty high up in the military.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:35

It's pretty high up, but it's like it's I I forget like what the highest rank an enlisted man can become. Sergeant. Sergeant. Exactly. Where it feels like in an odd way, at least on a military level, it's the highest he could ever go. Like maybe he's a general after he joins the Christmas Adventures, like they can pull those strings for him. But in a weird way, like his ideology has only carried him this far. And the Christmas Adventures is almost like his way of leveling up to a point where it's like I let my ideology literally carry me this far to the point where I've forsaken love, I've forsaken my humanity, all I have left is my ideology. And this is in his mind his reward for that. And it's joining a club of a bunch of rich assholes who clearly have no imagination and no thought outside of their own sphere.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:22

I'd also argue that these rich assholes also look down on him too.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:26

Yeah, they do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:27

And I think that it's it is set up in a very interesting dynamic just based on the way that they dress and also the way that he's introduced. Like he's showing up wearing his, you know, suburban high school dance tuxedo with the, you know, the tan khakis and the blue shirt. But what's going on when he's first introduced? It's one of the Christmas adventurers' daughters' wedding. And they said, Hey, so sorry, we had to send you through the back, but you know how appearances are.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:54

You know, they didn't want the guy who, you know, has the universal uniform for I barely know how to dress up for a formal event, or like even to think about how to dress up, which is a very judgmental thing for me to say, but like, I have certainly found that is the uniform for I don't know what to wear to a formal event. So they clearly judge him on that alone right there by not letting him walk in through the front door. And then when he's talking about the jet ski, he's, you know, I I forget who what the character's name is, but it's Tony Goldwyn's the actor. His character laughs at him. He's just like, okay, okay. Like, you know, it's like you fucking Boy Scout. Yeah, it's like you actually paid for your jet ski. He's like, it's very clear that this group looks down on him, but he brings just enough to the table from his military background that he's worth considering because somebody else dropped out.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:49

Or somebody else died even though.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:51

Yeah. It's like he's only getting invited to the party because somebody else isn't there anymore.

SPEAKER_07 1:27:55

Yeah. I think um you mentioned his somebody mentioned his rank, like What is he by the end of the film? And you know, I think it's important to consider where he was at the beginning of the film. Like he was not the same colonel, and his role in the world was different. Like he was in tasked with like maintaining and directing this detention facility, which, like, we know people in the military, like we know their opinions of what's going on. Like, it's it's entirely possible for somebody to be like doing something they don't necessarily want to do, but that's what the job is. But he's not anybody of importance. After the, you know, situation with perfidia, like he almost becomes counter-terrorism in his pursuit of the French 75. But then how we see him at the end, he is the instigator of violent deportation practices. Right. So something, either he was always on that path to begin with, or something changed him to make him more aggressive. But we um, you know, we see him have some level of humanity for perfidia, even if he's entirely willing to kill all of her friends. And then, you know, by the end, like him needing to kill Willa is almost him trying to kill his last little bit of humanity so that he can become this thing that he thinks he wants. And once he possibly gets that into a room full of other people who have presumably also killed their humanity, how is he treated, but without humanity? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:30

Actually, I'm I'm trying to look into um, because there's one scene I want to talk about, which is the scene with all the Christmas adventures when they find out about Willa and her connection with Lockjaw. And yeah, that one guy, Tim Smith, who again looks like a preppy terminator. It becomes at the end of the film where he's chasing down Lockjaw.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:48

Oh yeah, that's sociopath.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:50

And just and just see like, oh, he comes in through the front door and it's like, oh, Alice's famous like banana pancakes. I'd love to have some. It was so nice seeing, and then they go down. But I just because I want to highlight just the absurdity that these evil people have. And I I feel like we I talked about this once before on the show, but just the lack of imagination that evil folks have. They're literally the Christmas Adventurers Club. They say Hell Saint Nick. They built their entire stupid club around this ridiculous lore. And even like when they're talking about their you know, their practices where the tracker of Auntie, the Native American, who eventually will let Willow go and allow her to be reunited with Bob, they bring him up. It's like, oh, do you trust this guy? Not really, no. It's like, why is he like not good at his job? No, he's great, he's like the best guy you would have, but he's not white. So why would I trust him?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:43

Like literally this guy who is shown throughout the film because he's the guy who captures Billy Goat, like I said, eventually gets turned over to him. And he has this whole thing about, you know, not wanting to kill kids. Understandably so. Yeah. He's got a line. Yeah, he's got a line. But but the point that they they talk down on this guy who's clearly a guy that they've used or people around him have used, and they're like, Yeah, but he can't be one of us, because like he can't be good at his job. Like, we're good at our jobs, even though, again, they say ridiculous stuff like, you know, Lockjock got his dick dirty and we have to clean it. Clean it so much that we can eat our dinners off of it, basically. Yeah. But and the fact that like these people exist and this is what we think of society where like I was talking about this with John a little bit offline, where the people of industry that came before are all dead. Like the people that kind of built up everything that we have are all gone. The self-made folks. And now it's their kids who are left who are the biggest fucking dolts, but I'm rich, therefore I am smart. How should I run things? Oh, I'll fucking have a basically a club based around fucking the holiday of Christmas where we don't really do much of anything. We just sit around like rooms and fucking you know, fuck with people's lives, yes. But if we bring nothing to the table and other than this, like we just basically show up to our the the companies our fathers built, take our dick out in front of the secretary for fucking 12 hours and go home and just be worthless, essentially. But yet somehow we've duped an entire nation of people into thinking that somehow we're the best we have to do.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:17

Yeah, it's like it's so funny watching these ridiculous losers sit around, you know, speaking in code about how great it is to be white, you know, when these same idiots always fail to remember that white traits are recessive. The second you like enter anything interracial, it's like, what goes first? The white traits, guys. Like, it's like if we're this if we're the superior race, you'd think it'd be the other way around, but it's not because you're all fucking losers and idiots.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:44

Like, let's be honest here, like in terms of like popular culture, it feels like just white folks have just leeched off of everything. If you think about like what's what was the like what classical fucking music? Give me a fucking break.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:54

Yeah, or even like sea shanties. Even as a brief aside on the satire of these groups, the thing I found really interesting too is that capitalist society, even these fucking dipshit white supremacist assholes still have their creature comforts and just a total lack of self-awareness. Like when they're talking about Lockjaw doing the raid on the Dino Nugget factory. And he's like, Oh man, I really like that place. We gotta get that wrapped up and get his wetbacks back to work because I need my nuggets. And it's it's just like my dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:29

It's Stephen when calling Trump, being like, Hey, you took all my workforce. Well, I have to. Not my workforce, though, because my hotels can't run. Yeah. Oh shit. I'm sorry about that, pal.

SPEAKER_07 1:33:40

Yeah, it's the rules for thee and not for me. Like, didn't it come out that Trump himself had like undocumented workers at Mar-a-Lago? It's hard to take you seriously when like you're fully willing to use the system for yourself, but then, you know, try to like oppress anyone else who tries to get the same leg up.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:58

Yeah, or even just like the utter asinine dipshittery that I saw about the Super Bowl, where someone was like, the halftime show is not about Puerto Rican people making pool political statements.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:12

It's a it's about having fun and eating nachos. What what did what did you want to eat? Nachos, where those come from, buddy.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:19

Yeah. Where did nachos come from? Yeah. You you you brother-sister parent having child.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:28

I literally had to explain how capitalism worked to a conservative because of the halftime show. I literally had to say that guy down and go, like, look, they literally made a point of this at the beginning of the game because I I watch football, folks. I'm sorry to admit it. I hate I love the game, I hate the culture and the.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:46

You can enjoy things. It's a free country. You don't have to apologize for liking football. The same way I don't have to apologize for liking Korean dramas.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:54

But so the guy's going off on something, and I sent him down, I said, Hey buddy, remember at the beginning of the the game where they're filming Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL, and they're saying, We had like nine international games played this year. Like literally the beginning of the NFL season, I think, like was in Brazil this year. They're trying to globalize the game. So them having Bad Bunny do the halftime show is less of a political statement in their eyes and more the hey, Spanish-speaking countries, we love you. Bad bunny loves you, Bad Bunny loves us. How would you like to have an NFL game come to your you know home country? We'll come, we'll bring a ton of money there, and it'll generate a lot of money for your area. We make money, you make money. At the end of the day, that's how it exists. And the guy's sitting there looking at me going like, huh? I'm like, yeah, that's because you know the system that you talk about a bunch, capitalism. That's kind of how capitalism works. You go where your money is.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:52

Also, with Bad Bunny as well, the other capitalist side of it is like, who won a Grammy this year? Bad Bunny. Who's won a lot of Grammys over the last like five years? Bad Bunny. The Grammys are one of the few artistry awards that is not based on artistry, it's based on numbers and units. Like there are a number of times where people are like, what do you mean that one? That's not as good of an album. And it's like, because this album sold a bajillion records, and that's the Grammy's numbers. Like, there's no surprises at the Grammys when it comes to who wins because you have the Billboard awards tracking everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:33

But also you take into effect, too, like how downloaded you know, Bad Bunny is on Spotify, how big of an artist that is, and he wants to play your show. No, no, thank you. We need geriatric rock and his fucking band of merry t-shirt salesmen. You know, we need him. Yeah. No, I just want to kiss my fish. Jesus Christ. You know, I literally said this too to a similar person. I said, you guys realize that like you guys wouldn't have pissed on kid rock if he was on fire 10 years ago, right? And they went, what do you mean? And I pulled up an old song of his and he went, That's that guy? Yes. That guy wasn't always the hey, remember Sweet Home, Alabama and Werewolves of London? No, he was this fucking guy first, and he was always this fucking guy. And then that person took a very quiet walk outside, hung his shoulders, and slowly did the incredible whole thing.

unknown 1:37:28

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:29

I don't want to speculate on what he did afterwards, but no, that that, yeah, so that was that was my week. Great halftime show, by the way, folks. Like uh go out of your way to watch if you haven't seen it already.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:39

Yeah. I don't know. All right. Before we move on from that scene, uh the part of the reason I brought it up was because of a real life story or an alleged, alleged real life story that it does make me think of. Which did you ever hear about Steven Miller's college girlfriend? No, but I mean Brida Frankenstein? There's enlighten us. So, all right, so Stephen Miller's own family will tell you that he's like a hateful piece of shit. But there it seems like in college Stephen Miller had a Latina girlfriend.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:12

Of course he did! Of course he did. They all do, they all fucking do.

SPEAKER_07 1:38:17

Ripped his heart in half so bad. No kidding. Yeah, that it seems like maybe, just maybe, his mission became to deport them all as a response to him fumbling a Latina patty so badly in college. Because even his his current wife, Katie Miller, she's white. I think she I think she might be um of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Maybe we could Google that. But like definitely dark hair, fake tan, like sort of makes herself look a little bit more Latina if you look at a picture of her. And uh, I don't know, it like this scene, like in Lockjaws sort of thing, um, sort of reminded me of that. And I just I didn't know if you guys have been aware of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:05

Oh, that that makes so much sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:07

Yeah, she clearly has some non-Western European ancestry. Katie Miller? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:15

And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm fucked.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:20

She says she's Italian, but also, like if you just Google her ancestry, it just says Jewish. What was that?

SPEAKER_03 1:39:29

We don't claim her. No, we don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:30

We do not claim her.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:31

I don't claim anybody unless you pay me enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:33

Luigi Magioni, we claim him. We don't claim.

SPEAKER_07 1:39:36

Well, yeah, I mean that is one thing. Italians have a long, long history of anti-fascist revolution.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:44

Oh yeah. No, Luigi Mangioni, the guy that literally all of us were hanging out with. Yeah. My good boy Luigi. On the day that he's accused of doing something bad happened. No, he wasn't there. He was we were on a boat in California.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:58

No, no, we were we were at the uh AMC Garden State watching whoever was out that weekend.

SPEAKER_07 1:40:04

All right, so I got one more scene before we uh close this thing up, and that's the Rolling Hills scene. So towards the end, Willow once again narrowly escaping death at the hands of one of Lockjaw's many accomplices. She escapes in the bounty hunter of Vanti's car after he sacrifices himself to free her. Tim, an assassin hired by the Christmas adventurers, follows in hot pursuit. Bob follows Tim in turn in slightly less hot pursuit with his shitty ass car that he stole. This sequence is strange, again, compared to the rest of the film. It's one that I think stands out with a lot of people that watched it, because it's very long and drawn out, and it takes place in a long stretch of desert road that seems to be just miles upon miles of these small rolling hills. A few questions. I think we sort of danced on this before, but one thing, just to lead this off, why do you think that Avanti had the change of heart and sacrifices himself to uh to save Willa?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:05

I think it was the code that he had laid out to a lot of charts, like, I don't kill kids, and even if he's like, I'm turning her or over to these rednecks to get killed, it's still basically the same deal. Like, I can't just sit there and idly allow this to happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:20

Yeah. I think it's also like he's doing his job, which is uh being a bounty hunter, and even though he has a code that he doesn't kill kids, he seems to be flexible enough that he'll look the other way if somebody else is gonna do it. But at the same time, you know, this strikes me as a character who's dealt with a lot of this bullshit his entire life, all these underhanded comments, all of these, you know, little racial jabs. And I think he finally snaps because his code is being pushed on top of being jabbed. And I I don't know about you guys, but it's hard for me to not want to take a shotgun to the face of an individual who thinks they're racially superior to me while they have a stupid ass fucking tattoo of the word relentless across their forehead because their hairline is disappearing.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:10

I have to fight that urge every day.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:12

Yeah, like I'm sorry. You're not racially superior to me if you have a stupid ass tattoo like that on your forehead. You're not racially superior to anybody, and you're gonna get shot in the face.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:23

That's how I took it.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:24

Metaphorically.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:25

That's how I took it. Like he's he's got his code, he doesn't kill kids, and it seems like he might betray his own code, but I think that is the realization that he comes to is like, I'd rather die than betray my code for somebody who would very likely do this exact same thing to me. Like, these people don't consider me human. Why should I dehumanize myself for them? Yeah. So what about the long hilly road? You know, like why do you think that this part of the scene is so long and drawn out?

SPEAKER_01 1:42:56

I mean, I'll I'll make a joke right now that if one battle after another does win best picture, it'll be the Academy is me a culpa for not giving me a war to Fury Road when they had the chance.

SPEAKER_07 1:43:07

I could get behind that take. Yeah, that is funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:11

It's it's because it's it really is like the last hour of the film is an extended chase scene, if you think about it. It's broken up into sections, yes, but like it's still and it's weird too, because like for all intents and purposes as a piece of filmmaking, this shouldn't work.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:25

Because it literally this feels like that's why I made the remark the when Lockjaw literally puts Lilla in the car to go take her to see Avanti. That feels like, all right, there's like maybe 20 minutes of the movie left, if that. And it's like, no, there's an hour left. Yeah. How? How is there an hour left? Literally, we're hitting the falling action. Like, this is we're gonna we're landing the plane like in the next 20 minutes, and somehow I would love to know if PTA was thinking about Fury Road when he came up with this sequence, but that's what it feels like. This extended chase sequence where there's action on multiple planes, where it all just kind of coalesces in this just well-made, well-executed, you know, climax. And again, I don't know if you guys did you see anything like deeper on a thematic level with sequence?

SPEAKER_07 1:44:10

I and I think you literally said it in your response and then jumped to actually he was ripping off Fury Road, which was like the whole movie is full of this rising and falling action. Sort of like a long road full of hills. One hill after another. You know, I feel like this is literally a visual representation of the thesis of the film overall. Yeah. Like I I think I even said it earlier, which was like like in life, you think like I just gotta get up and over this hill, and then things are gonna be easier. And then you get over that hill, and wouldn't you know, another hill? Right? Just like the road. So I don't know. I think the highway represents essentially the path in one's life, like the peaks and valleys, one battle, one hill after another. And like the fact that like a lot of this scene we see from Willa's perspective of just like the the rising and falling, you know, in front of her, like part of that is setting up what she is about to do, but also like it's somewhat representative of like the fact that you really can't see into the future. You don't know what life is gonna hold for you, but you can assume that there will be more hard times at some point.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:28

Tim clearly didn't either when when Willet parks her car at a blind spot and he just crashes right into it. Keep him guessing.

SPEAKER_07 1:45:35

I don't know, maybe the element of surprise is you know, is uh something to use to your advantage.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:40

But I mean, point is life, you know, for for someone with that experience, Patagonia Terminator couldn't have predicted that one.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:46

It it's funny because we go to, you know, again, with the the scene being kind of a microcosmo of the film itself and the thesis of it. But there's also at every point, this is the first time I saw the film, I'm going back to that. I did not know how this thing was gonna end. Because this thing could easily have ended tragically as it could have comedically, or even in an uplifting way. I literally, in this whole scene, I'm sitting there for the first time, because there's the film does have a very light touch to it, but this is like, all right, we're hitting the end of the road. Is this gonna be a situation where Willa might accidentally shoot Bob not knowing who he is coming around the corner? You know, is this a situation where Tim kills everybody and like the the rich kind of sweep this whole thing under the rug, and we have a very nihilistic burn after reading sort of ending? So the fact that like the sequence ends with somehow Bob missing the car, because I was also thinking he was gonna do what Tim did and just crash into the other car. Yeah, turn, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:46:46

He's saved by the fact that his car is going slower.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:48

Exactly. He has more reaction time, he can hit the brakes a little bit quicker, and then obviously they do the revolution not to be televised speech back and forth to each other, and Will is literally like, Who are you? Because she just feels like so much of her life has kind of been unraveled in and of itself. So the fact that they have that moment that you know being reunited and just getting back into Bob's shitty car and driving off. Yeah, that was a that was definitely a a release there. Yeah. Because for again, the entire film, I'm like, I know PTA, because I've at least seen the films. This could go 30,000 different ways. Yeah. And I'm and I love these characters enough to be like, please don't do the shitty thing of haha, they're all dead. Yeah. Please don't do that. And they fortunately he didn't in the film I didn't have.

SPEAKER_07 1:47:32

We saved that for Scorsese movies. Exactly. You do you do get a little bit of both the nihilistic ending and the happy ending. Like you they have this reunion, it doesn't go tragically. But then we'll get into the closing scene, like the more nihilistic part of it, because like the big bads don't really go away in in some way or another. They're left to um to carry on their evil. Yeah. I think that cathartic moment of like the who are you? Um, like right before we started recording, uh, we were talking about what's going on right now, like where we're seeing all this stuff come out from the the Epstein files and like the crazy realization that like your loony cousin who's been saying wild shit at Thanksgiving that he learned on 4chan for two decades was fucking true, right? Like, imagine Willa's perspective where she was living a normal life as a high schooler and she had this crazy paranoid dad who spent his, you know, her whole life telling her these stories, but it wasn't real to her. And now all of a sudden, she sees like, oh god, like that real evil is out there in the world, and she gets swept up into it and has this like you know mental paradigm that just breaks. Um, you want to get into the uh closing sequences then?

SPEAKER_00 1:48:53

Yeah, let's let's pivot.

SPEAKER_07 1:48:55

Yeah. At the end of the hill sequence, Willa kills Tim the assassin and is reunited with Bob. Lockjaw, despite crashing his car moments earlier, is shown to be alive. Fade to a bland boardroom. Two members of the Christmas Adventures Club grill Colonel Lockjaw on his relationship with Perfidia. Lockjaw, now shown to have serious facial disfiguration from the car crash, explains to them that he did in fact sleep with her, but that he was, quote, raped in reverse. Upon further questioning, he seems to have successfully explained away his potentially disqualifying dalliance with perfidia, who they now believe to be, and this is their words, not mine, a semen demon. They congratulate Lockjaw. He is now officially a Christmas adventurer. The top Christmas adventurer, Sandy Irvine, by the way, played by Jim Downey, one of the funniest writers alive. I love that they picked him for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:51

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:52

Um, Sandy Irvine leads Lockjaw to his new office. Lockjaw admires the view. Sandy excuses himself, having Forgotten Lockjaw's keys. He closes a sliding glass door as he leaves, and Lockjaw sits at his new desk. As he kicks his feet up and settles into his new status, a soft hissing begins emanating from an overhead air vent. Lockjaw slowly begins to lose consciousness, and then he stops breathing. Dead. Through the glass, we see two men in full-body hazmat suits approaching the office. Cut to Bob, explaining to Willa that there is something he didn't want her to know before, but thinks that he should share with her now. As he rambles, we cut back to the Christmas adventurer's office. The men in hazmat suits wheel Lockjaw's body down the hall on his rolling desk chair. They open a chute in the wall and drop his body inside. The next shot looks through the small glass window of an incinerator where we see Lockjaw's body sitting in a dead heap. Flames lick the inside of the window as the incinerator kicks on. Cut back to Bob and Willa. Bob has a letter for her from Perfidia. Willa takes the letter into her bedroom to read it in private. We hear the words of the letter in Porfidia's voice. Dear Charlene, hello from the other side of the shadows. I don't mean to shock you, but I've been contemplating writing for a long time. I often wake up and I find it completely crazy how and why I am where I am today and disconnected from my family. I pretended my whole life, pretended to be strong, pretended to be dead. Is it too late for us after all my lies? Are you happy? Do you have love? What will you do when you get older? Will you try to change the world like I did? We failed. Maybe you will not. Maybe you will be the one who puts the world right. I think of you every single day. Every single day. And I wish I had been strong for the both of us. I know someday when it's right and it's safe, you will find me. Please send a kiss to your dad when I get back home. Love your mom, perfidia. The words bring Willa to tears. She returns to the kitchen table and hugs her dad tightly. Cut to sometime later, Bob lays on their couch smoking a joint and playing with his new smartphone. Willa tries to instruct him on how to use it, but clearly all those years off the grid have made Bob technologically inept and he struggles to take a selfie. From somewhere else in the house, we hear radio chatter. QST, QST signal from the whiskey sour in Oakland. MKU raids reported. Willa throws on a raincoat and grabs her go bag. She's answering the call. She's heading to Oakland. Bob asks her some worried questions, but this does not deter Willa. Eventually, the formerly hyper-protective Bob simply tells her, Be careful. Willa replies, I won't. She closes the front door behind her. Bob's eyes linger on the door, but he is not worried. He puffs on his joint and goes back to playing with his phone. Outside, Willa gets in her car off to fight the good fight. As Tom Petty's American Girl plays in the background, we close on the film's ending title card. One battle after another.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:58

What do you think? Incredibly satisfying. Right down to the kneel drop, too, by the way.

SPEAKER_07 1:53:04

Yeah. Yeah, right. Um, so yeah, what I was getting at like a minute ago was, you know, the both the happy ending and the evil keeps going ending. Like we see that the Christmas adventurers, like, even though Lockjaw is ultimately taken down like the larger power structure, still remains to continue running the world, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:25

But the funny thing too is though the nihilistic ending happens to the villain of the piece. It's not like the Christmas adventurers like rear their ugly heads at Bob and Will. It's no, it's the villain pays in the end for lying to this organization, essentially. And then you because you can let me ask you this. Like, obviously, Lockjaw thinks he's getting away with like he thinks, my god, they're eating out of my hands. They clearly believe the story I'm telling. But there's no fucking way that the the two guys, Tony Goldwyn and Robert Downey, or or Jim Downey, Jim Downey, sorry, uh, that they believe anything he's saying. They've already in their mind, like, no, we know you fucked up and you were trying to cover up your fuck up. So we're just gonna have your you know, your little day. And I also I love Penn's performance when Jim Downey comes out and is like, you know, congratulations, you're in. He's like, oh mommy. Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:21

Oh mommy.

SPEAKER_07 1:54:22

Like I mean, this is a different scene, but like even the I like when he is raiding uh the town where uh Del Toro's uh dojo is, like what excuse he uses is like drugs and chicken. Like he just uses the plot of breaking bad as an excuse to go raid all these restaurants and establish a presence in this town for a different operation. Like it's so there's just so uncreative.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:49

It's like it's drugs and chicken. And it's like, well, one of those things is technically illegal, depending on what you're talking about. But chicken?

SPEAKER_07 1:54:55

Well, I mean, they're using the chicken batter to smuggle the drugs. Of course, you've seen breaking batteries.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:01

It's like eats really smuggling chicken.

SPEAKER_07 1:55:02

It's just like it. Look at this documentary. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. They're just like, they're such losers. And I don't know, historically, like the people that feel a need to create entire societies to prove how superior they are, usually they're a bunch of losers who just need a club to do that. Just and it always ends poorly for them.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:24

There are a bunch of losers who, if they just got like consensually laid more, they'd be happier if like if a woman just like actually wanted to touch them.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:33

So to kind of pivot though to the back half of this the sequence, which is Profedia's letter to Willa and her kind of take up the mantle, and this is gonna be a very existential question for the both of you. Cause look, obviously the arc of progress is often very, very, very slow. But do you think that we as a generation like our forefathers before us, do you think we failed to a degree? Or do you think that it's too early to tell whether or not what we did when we were younger has taken room?

SPEAKER_07 1:56:02

Oh, yeah. I mean, like our generation specifically, I don't know. I mean, time will tell to see if like the things well, sure. Yeah. I mean, sure. I've marched in women's marches in multiple cities, right? Roe v. Wade still fell. I'm thinking right now of like the boomer generation, like they were there in the 60s, free love movement, you know, peace and love, all that shit. Like they're the ones that voted the oppressors in now. Yeah. How did that same generation do both things?

SPEAKER_03 1:56:37

Because it's all inherently hedonist and selfish.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:40

Yeah, because a lot, I mean, you look at guys like fucking Mr. Wonderful who were of that generation who ended up becoming Uber capitalists because for a lot of them, the ideology didn't mean anything. It was just get, you know, smoke grass, get laid.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:53

Yeah. Yeah, because that was the time in your life where it's like you can be smoking grass and getting laid. Like that didn't change that much.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:00

No, that part's still very much the same.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:01

Like your 20s for our generation was still a period of like, fuck around, find yourself. But we have more consequences because some people, a lot of people, put their fucking around up on their Facebook. But the other problem is the like the older generations got to fuck around and then vote in the oppressors because it was benefiting them. The thing here with our generation is that we're not benefiting from things like lower taxes. Like, dear listener, I'm just gonna tell you that 2017 tax bill, that shit raised my taxes every year. It was in the it was in the non-fine print. Like my taxes went up, which meant I got less of a refund every year. Yeah. Like this shit didn't benefit any of us. I have friends who were actors who lost the ability to write off things that as an actor, it's considered a business expense. But just because that doesn't fit into your shitty stupid fucking worldview, you know. So yeah, I actually will break, and I I think that the effects of our generation have not yet been seen. And I think it will be another 10 years before we really see, because we're reaching the point where, yeah, we're supposed to be getting more conservative based on the trajectory of what the baby boomers had and older Gen X to some extent. But guess what? We're still struggling paycheck to paycheck. We're still struggling bill to bill, and everything is being commodified and subscriptionified and in shittified. Well, what happens in 10 years' time when none of this is sustainable and we're all broke?

SPEAKER_01 1:58:47

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:47

And I think that's where the actions of our generation are really going to take effect. Because what happens when you have a broke ass population who can't afford any of this shit anymore finally throw their hands up and say, you know what? Enough is enough. And it the thing is that it doesn't even need to be that many people. It takes maybe 3%. If 3% of the country stopped paying their taxes, guess what would happen? Everything would collapse. You don't need every single person. But that's what's going to happen. You're going to have too many people who can't afford anything say, I'm done. I'm out. And it's going to collapse. And they're going to have to change things.

SPEAKER_07 1:59:24

Sure. I mean, there's also like we are young for the most part, like we're in our mid to early 30s. We're going to have more battles to win or lose. And like there's things that even now they're currently happening. Yeah. Right? Like, we don't know how it's going to how it's going to shake out. But there's a song that I really love. It's called Love Iron Song. It's by a artist called Frank Turner. There's a couple lines in it that are um, you know, it was worse when we turned to the kids on the left and got let down again for some poor excuse for protest by idiot fucking hippies in 50 different factions who are trapped inside some kind of 60s battle reenactment. Right? Like that's a line that sticks with me because like I can think of growing up, like meeting people in high school or college who it's like they seem to have adopted the hippie aesthetic and then like found something to be angry about later. Like the protest was secondary to the lifestyle. And I think that that's something that like any generation, they're gonna see that of thinking that the next generation is softer, that they don't have the same resolve. They don't, you know, fight the good fight in the same way or as directly. Uh, I think the movie here like makes a point that the battle evolves over time. The methods that you have to face it are gonna change. The things that you fight for are gonna change. Yeah. You know, but the important thing is maintaining your humanity through it and being ready to adapt and not ever giving it up.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:04

My sentiment is, and this was a fear I had, and the lyrics to that song kind of triggered that to a degree. My fear was always that we were living the aesthetic and not the ideology, just like the hippies did. The hippies were very much all aesthetics, no substance to a degree, because in actuality, and I'm not gonna sit back and pretend like Vietnam wasn't a heinous, terrible war. It absolutely fucking was, and they were absolutely in the right to do so. But then those same people turn around and again voted into despots because they didn't know any better, and because most of them the ideology wasn't even there to begin with. My fear is because again, we're still learning about this, is and I am more optimistic. I'm a lot more optimistic because I feel like we we got something to cry about at the end of the day. You know, we got the actual thing to grasp onto that was real to the point where like I'll get irritated by anybody my age who like looks back on the Bush years with idealized eyes and how good we had it. And I'm like, no, I was there, you were there. I don't care how young we were, we knew it was bullshit. Yeah, but like that was a real president. No the fuck he wasn't. Like I don't care how bad Trump was, but the reason we got Trump is because of fucking Bush. It wasn't just Bush, but like he was a very big reason as to why. But the point being is I'm tired of the bullsidism because of how dangerous that could be. I think that our generation at the very least knows full well that that's a bullshit argument and is at least like, look, we can have contrasting viewpoints. That's fine. But traditional conservatism and the idea of like fucking white supremacy and bigotry, if we're gonna survive as a country, that shit has to fucking go immediately. Because this isn't about size and scale of government or influence, this isn't about how much taxes people fucking pay. This is darker and fucking deeper and something needs to get dug out fucking 150 years ago.

SPEAKER_05 2:02:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:49

And because and I keep going back to this recently, again, just projecting my wife onto you know the podcast for a second, I came to the conclusion that if fucking Abe Lincoln just cut Jefferson Davies' heads head off fucking 150 years ago, maybe we wouldn't be in the position we're fucking in.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:05

If the Confederate generals and the Confederate politicians were enacted with what the appropriate punishment for treason was at that time in history, and I'm pretty sure still is to this day, we wouldn't be in this problem. We were too soft on the Confederates. We were too soft on Andrew Johnson. Every single time something like this has happened, we have been too soft. And it's just a continuing domino. It's one domino after another.

SPEAKER_07 2:03:32

Exactly. Yeah, I mean, uh that's uh I mean, beyond treason, like that's just been one of the things that's been getting me down lately is you know, seeing the people that run the world like and clearly do all of this heinous shit. Yeah. Having no consequences for it. Having the whole system of oppression get behind them. I don't have any thought or point to make about this. I'm doing, you know, we're just let's have a little let's have a little therapy. This is I I do.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:02

I do. I mean, this is why you vote. No matter how hard they're gonna make it and they're gonna absolutely fucking try, this is why you vote and this is why your vote does matter at the end of the day. At the risk of sounding a little bit Pollyannish, but I truly do believe that shit. This is why you go vote.

SPEAKER_07 2:04:18

Yeah, I hope we get to vote again. That would be dope. Yeah, it'd be cool to vote again. Uh Dominic.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:22

I honestly the reason why I'm I'm saying yes is because Americans hate three things. They hate being embarrassed, they hate being inconvenienced, and they hate when their rights are tried on. Because I can guarantee you a lot of these Second Amendment fucks who, you know, were mad that a guy got shot for carrying a gun essentially in Minnesota, you tell them, hey, you don't get to vote, I guarantee you that they're fucking they're stripping the Capitol for different fucking reasons this time.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:47

Yeah, maybe. Well, we'll see if it's because they get to vote if they don't get to vote for the guy who doesn't want them to get to vote or not.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:56

Exactly. Because again, like I'm I follow politics pretty heavily. It's obvious by my talking points. Dude, there's a lot of people in the MAGA base that are like pissed with Trump right now because it's like, wait, what the fuck? Like, no, we didn't like again, they voted for demonstrable things, but it's the old wait a minute here.

SPEAKER_07 2:05:15

Yeah, who who's the who's the most recognizable face from January 6th?

SPEAKER_01 2:05:21

Fucking the QAnon shaman who just turned on Trump.

SPEAKER_07 2:05:24

Yeah, exactly. No way. Consider who a lot how why did Marjorie Taylor Green turn on him? Because he ran on this idea that he would be the one to like drag these rodents into the into the light, right? And then it turns out like he dodges it for a decade, and it turns out that he's in it. Like they have been proven right. And that like that's a substantial amount of his base. Like, one thing that they did right was they rallied a lot of different, like, small groups of people around like, hey, you're you're angry about this, I'm gonna fix that. You're angry about whatever, right? And a lot of them are now finally seeing that he never intended on fixing the thing that they were angry about, and worse, he was actually a joyous participant in it.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:18

Yeah. So let's hop to the legacy before uh you gotta go.

SPEAKER_07 2:06:21

So the legacy of this film, like it it's only been out for a little while now, but it is just storming the award season right now. Nominated for 13 Oscars, so far it has had 231 wins and 480 nominations total at god knows how many festivals. But here's a fun little game. This is gonna be, instead of talking about legacy the way that we think or the way that we normally do, why don't we run through these 13 nominations and just rattle off like which ones we think they are going to win? Do a little Oscar prediction because we are not we don't have like an Oscar prediction episode coming out. This is the last episode before the Oscars. You want to just run through these, this handful of mounds? Let's do it. Go, yeah. For this film, the nominee is Cassandra Kulukundis. I'm I'm probably butchering that. Other nominees, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, the Secret Agent, Sinners. You think uh One Battle's got it? I I think so.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:27

I'm gonna break and I'm gonna say Sinners.

SPEAKER_07 2:07:29

You're gonna say Sinners? Alright. Yeah, I I would be between those two. I like this to me this year, it's Sinners and One Battle. Like, those are the two to win it or lose it. And either way, I'm gonna be happy. I'm not invested in any one film. Yeah, same. Absolutely. Um all right. How about best achievement in cinematography? The nominee is Michael Baumann. The other nominees are Frankenstein, Marty Supreme, Sinners, and Train Dreams. This one I gotta go with Sinners.

SPEAKER_03 2:08:01

Yeah, I'm going with Sinners.

SPEAKER_07 2:08:03

I'm going with Sinners. I mean, like they've released in how many different fucking formats and like sold out theaters in every single one of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:08:11

One battle did as well, but I really do think that Sinners is a a much more visually interesting film. One battle is fantastic, but it definitely leans more on an old school filmmaking technique with like hard lighting.

SPEAKER_07 2:08:26

Um the cinematography award. I like I'm I think we're all in the same camp. Sinners, it's gonna be the technical achievement in that wins it for Sinners this time. Yeah. Sorry, Mr. Bauman. All right, best achievement in music written for most motion pictures. So that's the original score. We got Johnny Greenwood for this movie. We also have in the same category Begonia, Frankenstein, Hamnet, and Sinners.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:53

Centers. I got because music does tie very closely with centers as a film. So I have to go centers for for here as well.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:01

Yeah, the one battle after another score is really effective. I really like the score for this, but I do have to go without him. I think that the score for Sinners tied into the film more.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:14

Yeah, I would go Sinners.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:15

And music plays a part in the film.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:17

I would go Sinners for the thematic, but I, you know, wildcard, begonia.

SPEAKER_01 2:09:22

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:23

Oh, I still need to see that.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:25

I'm surprised you haven't seen that yet. Just watched it a couple days ago. Highly recommend.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:29

You should watch uh the original version as well, which is uh a film called Save the Green Planet from uh God's favorite film country, South Korea.

SPEAKER_07 2:09:37

You've been trying to sell me on that movie for a while now. I will get to it. I can sell you on that too, which is phenomenal. Um yeah, no, begonia begonia was another top of my list for the year. I I liked it a lot, and I'm happy because I loved poor things. I hated kinds of kindness. Begonia. I'm like, all right, Yorgos. Let's see what you got next. I love it. Because he's gonna have another movie in like four months, right? Like, it seems like a movie. Well, you say slowing down, actually. Yeah, I mean, this was like what a three years for that guy. Yeah. All right, best sound. So we got uh Jose Antonio Garcia, Christopher Scarabozio, and Tony Villaflor nominated, and we also got F1, Frankenstein, Sinners, and Surratt. I'm gonna say F1.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:19

Yeah, I'm going with F1.

SPEAKER_07 2:10:21

I yeah, I'm gonna I haven't even seen F1, but I feel like just Dude, F1 rules.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:27

I loved F1.

SPEAKER_07 2:10:28

Yeah, like that that one was F1 not in cinematography? I think F1 only got like two nominations and one was for picture. I'm actually sort of shocked that F1 isn't nominated for cinematography, but I bet it's gonna, I bet it's gonna pull sound. All right, um, so Best Picture is the next in my list, which is coming from IMDB. This is not going in order for the the Oscars, but all right. Best picture. Of course, listed on the um producers Adam Somner, Sarah Murphy, and the distinguished Paul Thomas Anderson. So what do we think? Let's see, what do we got? We got begonia, F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, one battle, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sinners, and Train Dreams. It's one battle.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:17

I have to say it's one battle. Sinners can be a spoiler, but it's gonna be one battle. Because my only thing is that they split picture and director. That's the only thing I'm thinking about. Yeah. And they've been whoring to give PTA an Oscar for years now.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:31

Yeah, well, because PTA's also had the curse when it comes to Oscars of like every year he makes amazing films, but much like his lead in this film, almost every year he got nominated, there was another performance that overshadowed him. And with PTA, it's I feel like it was kind of the same thing. Like any other year he would have swept for There Will Be Blood. But that just had to be the same year as No Country for Old Men.

SPEAKER_07 2:11:57

Yeah, I think the um the wildcard. Might be Hamnet, which I haven't seen. I also don't have you guys seen Hamnet? Because I don't know anyone who has.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:06

I haven't, but that's Chloe Zhao, and she is absolutely an Oscar favorite. Sure.

SPEAKER_07 2:12:11

Yeah. I I just think, you know, that might be the one that, like, you know, we always have these conversations of like, do the Oscars really represent like the average movie viewer in any way? And Hamnet would be like the scholar's choice, but I think Sinners is the people's choice. Yeah. But I think it's gonna go to one battle. Yeah. I would love if Sinners won.

SPEAKER_06 2:12:33

Um, you know, vampire picking best picture, then you know, dope. That'd be cool.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:38

The beautiful thing about what the academy is happening right now, I feel like there's been a shift lately where the old guard's getting phased out, which is why I use everything everywhere as an example. If this was 10 years ago, that movie would have gotten a screenplay nomination and people would have been happy. Yeah. And that thing fucking swept the Oscars.

SPEAKER_07 2:12:54

Up next, we got directing, obviously, Paul Thomas Anderson for this film. We also got Hamnet, Marty Supreme, Sentimental Value, and Sinners. It's PTAs to lose. It's PTA. Yeah, I think so too.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:07

Yeah, especially after after I think the Wendy DJ uh clenched us.

SPEAKER_07 2:13:11

All right. Best lead actor, we have Leo, Leonardo DiCaprio. Uh, we also got Mr. Timothy Shalitz for Marty Supreme, Ethan Hawk for Blue Moon, Michael B. Jordan for Sinners, and Wagner Mora for the Secret Agent. Who do we got?

SPEAKER_03 2:13:28

You know, I'm gonna be honest with you guys. Like, I need to see Blue Moon because a lot of people are talking about Ethan Hawk. I think it could be DiCaprio. I re I really do. Like, uh, this could just be me glazing, but like this is probably my favorite DiCaprio performance.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:47

Same. Fair and just world would be, but that's also the thing, too. It would be Michael B. Jordan, unfortunately, for literally playing the set of twins. Yeah. For playing two roles. He had twice as much movie as everyone else. So he's unfortunately kind of gotten, you know, ignored a little bit more than he should have because it's kind of become Chalamet and Leo.

SPEAKER_06 2:14:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:08

It should be Leo. It should be my it should be Michael B. Jordan, but it should be Leo. But it's in reality, it's gonna be Chalamet. Yeah, so I think that that's gonna be a big even though the SAG hasn't been as predictable as it once was. That used to be like if you won SAG, you won the acting awards, but that's kind of it's been a little bit more spotty over the past couple years, I feel like.

SPEAKER_03 2:14:26

Yeah, this is true, because Chalamet he did win for the SAG Award last year.

SPEAKER_07 2:14:32

Yeah, I I don't want it to be him. I hear he's incredible in Marty Supreme. Like, there's nothing that makes me want to watch that movie. Um, so I I haven't caught it yet. But I don't know, he could win. I like I think Michael B. Jordan and Leonardo DiCaprio could go either way. I think DiCaprio's probably gonna get it, but all right. Um, what about actor in a supporting role? Where of course we've got Benicio Del Toro and Sean Penn from One Battle. We also got Jacob Alori for Frankenstein, Delroy Lindo for Sinners, and Stellan Skarsgard for Sentimental Value.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:04

That's a great fucking five.

SPEAKER_03 2:15:05

Yeah, it's it's a total toss-up. I'd be okay with any. Uh, the only one I haven't seen is sentimental value. But like, we've both gushed about Del Toro and Penn. Delroy Lindo is fantastic in Sinners. Jacob Alardi fucking killed was honestly about the only thing I liked about Frankenstein.

SPEAKER_07 2:15:25

I'm surprised with how well Frankenstein is doing at the Oscars, for what it's worth. Like, all in all, like, does that one seem out of place here? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:33

I mean I look, I'm such a horror for that story. I'll be the first to admit that is like I'm any version of Frankenstein I'm in on, no matter what. Like, I I defend the Brana version for crying out loud. Yeah. Like, I'll but like I liked it.

SPEAKER_07 2:15:47

I enjoyed it a lot. I liked the movie, but it didn't like blow my mind in a way that I'm like, I'm surprised. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm sorta just surprised to see it up there, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:56

It was a great retelling of a classic tale. I I didn't expect it to get nominated. I thought I was gonna get three nominations with the Lord E because that performance is undeniable. I really enjoyed it as creature. Yeah. Really enjoyed his creature. But my choice, even though I know I'm wrong, I gotta go with Delroy Lindo. Uh, just because I really want him to win.

SPEAKER_07 2:16:14

Yeah, yeah, I I want it for Delroy too. But this is that is definitely a category that I am not emotionally invested in any one of them. Like I haven't seen uh sentimental value, but even Stellin Skarsgard, just like, hey, I like that guy. Skarsgard, though.

SPEAKER_03 2:16:29

Yeah, but Stellan Skarsgard is part of a class of actors who could like film themselves just pooping into a bag and it would be compelling.

SPEAKER_07 2:16:36

Yeah, the Skarsgard claims. Um, actress in a supporting role, we got Tiana Taylor for this one. We got Winmi Musaku for sinners, Amy Madigan for weapons, Inga Ib's daughter Lilius for sentimental value, and Elle Fanning also sentimental value.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:56

Again, should be sinners, but I gotta go one battle and Tiana Taylor here.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:01

You know, I would my choice would be Tiana Taylor. I think we could see a real wild card here. We could see a vote split between Winmi Masaku and Tiana Taylor and watch Amy Madigan end up winning.

SPEAKER_07 2:17:16

I I I actually do think that that is what's gonna happen. Yeah. Partly for the politics of the Oscars, where like I know one upset was that Demi Moore didn't win for the substance. I think Amy Madigan could be like uh, let's do it for her. Yeah. You know, like what we should have done for Demi Moore, we'll do it for Amy Madigan. So that's my pick. I I mean, I think that I I think that um when Mimo Saku and Tiana Taylor, like, oh my god, like both of those performances incredible. But I yeah, I'm gonna put my chips down for Madigan.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:53

Yeah. It is funny too with the whole Demi Moore thing, because what's really unfortunate is that I while I would have loved to have seen Demi Moore win, and Demi Moore losing the Oscar to Mikey Madison for Enora is literally like the point of reality playing out the plot of the substance. Yeah. But like at the same time, if there's any performance she was gonna lose to, like Mikey Madison in Enora is like one of the best lead actress performances I have seen in the last like 10 years.

SPEAKER_07 2:18:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:18:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:18:25

All right. Adapted screenplay. We got one battle written by Paul Thomas Anderson. We got begonia, Frankenstein, Hamnet, and Train Dreams. I feel like Frankenstein, we just gotta knock off the list.

SPEAKER_01 2:18:36

I mean that Yeah, I'll I'll say that much. Though it was a true adaptation because there was a lot of stuff that Del Toro put into it, but it's not gonna be screenplay. Um I gotta do one battle. I think it's gonna they're basically gonna be like, hey PTA, sorry for giving you like 14 nominations and no wins. Here, just have all of them in one night.

SPEAKER_03 2:18:57

Let me double check before I um eat my shoes. Because I feel like he has won an Oscar.

SPEAKER_01 2:19:03

He has not. I just watched a whole video about how he's never won an Oscar.

SPEAKER_03 2:19:06

Wow, he's never won even for screenplay. That's crazy. I could have sworn he won for screenplay for Magnolia.

SPEAKER_07 2:19:13

No.

SPEAKER_03 2:19:13

That's crazy. Anyway.

SPEAKER_07 2:19:17

Alright. We got next best production design. Um, so one battle after another. Also in this category, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, Sinners, and Frankenstein.

SPEAKER_03 2:19:28

Uh it's probably Hamnet because they love awarding that to uh it period pieces.

SPEAKER_01 2:19:34

I'm gonna say because it's it's won a couple of the precursors in our direction. Also, I'm gonna say Frankenstein.

SPEAKER_07 2:19:39

Yeah, Frankenstein's another one. Yeah, I mean remember that there are three period, no, four period pieces in this list. Sinners, Supreme, Hamnet, and Frankenstein are all period pieces. I think it's gonna go to Frankenstein because you got you got that Guillermo del Toro on it.

SPEAKER_03 2:19:55

Yeah. There is a little bit of zhuzh with the production design to it. Uh this is more in the costuming more than anything, but like Del Toro was having his costume designers draw on like 70s rock stars.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 2:20:08

Right. So we all think in that one it's going to Frankenstein? Probably.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:12

Because great. Now now I'm literally seeing Oscar Isaac as Lindsay Buckingham in that movie.

SPEAKER_07 2:20:17

I mean, you're not wrong. All right. I got one more, and that is film editing. We have one battle after another, Andy Jergensen. Also in the category. F1, Marty Supreme, Sentimental Value, and Sinners. It's one battle.

SPEAKER_03 2:20:35

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:36

The pacing is too unreal. It's too unreal. I can see F1 taking it.

SPEAKER_03 2:20:40

I could see F1. F1 is so well edited.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:44

Yeah, I'm sure I'm sure it is. Um, we do not have a Bohemian Rhapsody situation here, you know. But like I look, I know how the adding where they submit like a scene, basically, but how can you not like literally the entire last hour of this film just be like, here is the one scene, technically, and tell me that this isn't just immaculately done. Again, it's if this w movie wins a ton of awards, it's gonna be, hey, George Miller, we're very sorry for not giving you an Oscar fucking when we should have. So we're gonna give this movie that like basically the last third of the film is essentially Fury Road. Yeah. And I say that with all the love and affection in my heart, but like, yeah, that's why I think editing is gonna go to one battle.

SPEAKER_07 2:21:23

Yeah, well, we will see. And um, I hope you guys watch along and make your own predictions. Uh, leave us a comment if you think that any of our predictions are right or wrong. And as always, thank you guys for watching or not watching yet. They don't watch this. You guys don't watch this. Do you want to watch it? Leave a comment. Maybe we can make that happen. But um, nevertheless, thank you guys for listening. That about wraps up our show. I hope you guys watch this movie. I hope you really think about it and watch along with the Oscars to um see if our predictions came true. If you guys have any predictions yourselves, leave us a comment if uh you think that ours are correct, or you know, if maybe we have something egregiously incorrect, we want to know that too. Thank you, uh, John and Adam, for being here as always. Thank you to Andrew Schwartz, the godfather of the show, and for the use of our intro music. And we will see you guys next time. In the meantime, watch something interesting.