What Have You Been Watching?
Two friends living on opposite sides of the country check-in with each other about Film, TV and culture.
What Have You Been Watching?
Eddington
Today, Robin and Charlie discuss Ari Aster's Eddington, the surreal collective experience of Covid lockdown, and the isolation and polarization that resulted.
Well, well, well.
SPEAKER_00:Well, hello, pal. Here we are.
SPEAKER_01:How you doing, bud?
SPEAKER_00:I'm doing good. You know, I'm feeling busy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:This is a what have you been watching? This is a podcast where two pals, me, Charlie, and my buddy Robin on the other side. Uh do a phone call every week or so to talk about what we have been watching. Um. We are on opposite sides of Canada.
SPEAKER_00:Opposite side of Canada. Little Omi over here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, do you remember that screening at Donnie Darko where I was trying to make uh to ask a question? And I got humiliated.
SPEAKER_00:I do remember that screening because it was one of the funniest, it's one of the hardest I think I've laughed after because the QA, the QA host is like pointing at everybody in the audience, and you had your hand up for every single time she went around the room, and it finally looked like it was you, and you were so excited, you just launched into your question, and there was like a kerfuffle, and they're like another person started talking behind you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it wasn't us.
SPEAKER_00:And then and then like and then the host was like uh no, not you, not the person behind there. She hated me.
SPEAKER_01:Oh she hated me. I think she I think she hated me.
SPEAKER_00:I think she, yeah, there was something about you must have been given off a vibe. I don't know what it was, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think so. I think my eagerness it wasn't appealing to her, and it was uh humiliating because when she said this is what happened. When I thought she pointed at me, and it was actually the girl behind me, I said, Oh, thank you. And then I started asking the question. And then after, and then like we like laughed, but we kind of you know try to stay quiet.
SPEAKER_00:But after, my god, I could I could feel because like that's something that would those awkward social moments are something that would definitely happen to me, and it's mortifying as whenever it happens, but it's a good story afterwards. I could I could feel my uh my body like curling into itself and like sinking into my seat. Like you're on your own, pal. You'll get no support from me.
SPEAKER_01:I know you asshole. Well, I was just thinking about that day. Yeah, you we used to live in the same side of Canada, that's right. And then Robin abandoned me.
SPEAKER_00:I had to do it, but we got some good films in. That was an exciting kind of screening. I wish old old Richard Kelly could have answered your your question.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Donny Dark is director of Richard Kelly. Most of the questions, if not all, were dumb, to say the least, were stupid.
SPEAKER_00:I agree.
SPEAKER_01:And that's not just My question was amazing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, your question was gonna be really good. Uh, and it's not bitterness talking either.
SPEAKER_01:No, no, not at all.
SPEAKER_00:We're not bitter. No, we're not bitter and no, we just do you know what?
SPEAKER_01:We just know we're better than the other guys.
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's right. That's right. But Charlie, we got a we got a film to talk about here.
SPEAKER_01:We do, we do. Let's get on with it. And enough small talk.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, let's get on with the let's let's take a trip back to uh that great time of 2020. Everybody's favorite year, I think. What a year.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god. It was so fun.
SPEAKER_00:We watched Arias uh Eddington. Uh, this is has Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, and Emma Stone, and it's a kind of neo-western dark comedy satire about this small town in New Mexico, Eddington, and a call it a showdown or standoff between the Sheriff Joe Cross, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who is in a uh contested mayoral uh race with uh Ted Garcia, played by Pedro Pascal. And essentially, this is deep COVID, and we're watching a town kind of turn into a uh a tinderbox about to go off with uh where things are gonna go COVID-wise and socially.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I think one thing to point out, I think it starts at a standoff between Ted Garcia played by Peter Pascal and Joe Cross played by uh fucking Phoenix. But then I feel like in the second half is a standoff between Joe Cross and the whole city and potentially the whole world. You know, like he's just up against it. I found it very alluring the way that it starts. It starts out with Joe Cross sounding reasonable, you know, about for example someone with asthma not being able to wear a mask, and people are yelling at them, and he's like, no, no, no, come on, let's, you know, he can't wear a mask, we can't be like this, da-da-da. He sounds kind of reasonable at first, yes, and then then we see his madness unleash, I guess.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, as it starts, you you know, you have um empathy, I think, for Joe Cross, and even like some understanding. They even when at the beginning of the movie, and you sit in his car and he's not wearing a mask, then he's approached by uh officers from uh an indigenous pueblo nearby, and they they incur they kind of demand that he puts his mask back on.
SPEAKER_01:Even though he's alone in his car.
SPEAKER_00:He's in his car, he's outside, and and even one of the officers just doesn't even have his nose covered.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So it's at the kind of big stage where you're like, I can kind of see his point to a degree, and I guess like the whole kind of public shaming part of COVID which I am guilty of.
SPEAKER_01:I did a little bit of that, but that all came out of fear. I thought I was gonna die.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think it's people trying to navigate COVID, but it's kinda it's hard to talk about this and not like include ourselves and like where we were at during COVID. Because it's such a recent time and it was such a honestly like a traumatic, unprecedented time to be in. And we all had our own way of navigating it. And you know, much like the characters, and they're kind of doing it, but through these isolated, I guess, these kind of silos where everybody is at, but like their experience, like the townspeople of Eddington and Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal, their characters, it's all very like curated through the screens. I mean, something that I think is great about this is how much uh screens there are in it, whether somebody's on there recording themselves through their phone, you see reflection in a phone screen, they're yeah, watching things on their phone constantly. There's all of this chatter coming from laptops, phones, and it's all like to give like a peek into Joe Cross's world, the sheriff, you know, you see his screen and it's like hydroxychloroquine, and then some like kind of right-wing media, might be Joe Rogan or something like that, questioning COVID, like this is a conspiracy, they don't believe it. And then you'll know you'll see like a more liberal character's phone, and it's like Black Lives Matter and this other kind of stuff. So like everybody's getting their own experience of what they should be doing, but not really actually communicating with anyone. It's just in a screen, which I thought was a very accurate way of like kind of getting into where people are at mentally.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. It it definitely took me back, and just to rectify, I didn't public shame anybody, actually. I was angry, but I wouldn't like yell at anybody in the street. Yeah, it felt it felt so familiar, even though the setting is different and all that. I think one good element of it too were the conspiracy theories that was mainly covered by Louise Cross, that's played by Emma Stone and her mom. Played by Deidre O'Connell, which and she's great in it. And so he covered all those spaces, and I and I thought, I think it I don't know why exactly, but I it took me a long time to like really get into Westerns, and I wouldn't say that it's my favorite genre because it's not, but it's nice. It felt like uh like a modern, I don't know. It's it at the same time, modern western just be and by modern I just mean it's it's 2025 and it's taking place in 2020, but it's it also has a lot of the classic tropes, you know, of the Western. And it was so nice to see that play out. I think especially how the town dictates his actions, how it affects his actions. To a point that I do feel like it's him against Eddington, not really him against Tagarcia or any one specific person.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I do I do really like the idea that this is, you know, a neo-western, as you say, like a modern western. Yeah. And yeah, it does, it does have those elements in it, but I guess if I were to like look at or think about westerns and maybe some of these stereotypes or cliches of a western, or or uh what usually happens, you know, it is a it's the town, and there's like usually like a lot of interaction with the townspeople. There might even be like a town meeting, or the idea that the town might unite against a common enemy. It might be a gang, a dangerous gang that's approaching the town.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right, right.
SPEAKER_00:But there there is no room for that in this.
SPEAKER_01:It's a very like no, it's COVID, first of all.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, it's it's COVID, and you know, the barren town is also a nice look for a Western, you know. I think even like there's a point where and the idea of like a standoff, like there's when Joe Cross and Ted Garcia meet outside and they walk towards each other and then the street is just empty.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that was awesome.
SPEAKER_00:And you know, even like a like a piece of trash just kind of like or paper just like goes by them like the way a tumblewee would, and they have this confrontation, and it's empty, and it's empty because of COVID, yeah, yeah. COVID and for other reasons too, because people are just perhaps less around and are more in their homes or on social media or something like that. But there is no chance for them to like get a consensus since everybody has to isolate. Can't even have like a town meeting, I guess, if they wanted to. So it seems like this, like that it's already kind of uh doomed in a sense, and like this uh thing that's like feeding them their connection to the world is a lie, it's just this kind of crazy rabbit hole of uh conspiracies. Yeah, I really loved how this um approached conspiracies, which are kind of like folding in everything. You know, uh you were talking about the mother and uh uh Emma Stone's mother in the movie is is so good in this, and really a scarily accurate presentation of Facebook conspiracy brain or something like that, and where she just like goes on and on, and even like the touch of her printing off stuff for them to like look at, which is like the Titanic didn't just sink. There's more to the story than that. Like it's so funny. I love that kind of touch.
SPEAKER_01:Some of those little things, yeah, like the news or the types of uh shows they would watch, it just at a really nice touch.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, really nice touch, and um there's something about conspiracy has always been simmering, I think, you know, in culture and yeah, with people like the idea, you know, you can go back like the JFK conspiracy, but there's like a lot of history with that in the states in particular, and COVID really seemed to like just fracture it and break it wide open into in a way that's never been before. Like it's so easy for any anybody and everybody to post all this uh theories.
SPEAKER_01:But it's not just COVID, right? I think that I think that's a good point because um traditionally on non-western it's kind of very defined from the point of view of the the film itself, you know, the or the director. Which side is right, which side is wrong, which side is the good side, bad side. And it's a kind of a postmodern thing, you know, came with Foucault and other thinkers, and that there are multiple truths in the world, you know, that everything is to be questioned and everything is to be relativized, relative is yeah, but like everything is to be put into a context where there are multiple truths, there's no one side good, one side bad, one side right, one side wrong.
SPEAKER_00:Right, right.
SPEAKER_01:And I think that it's kind of a postmodern thing, but it's also the internet has made that explode. And because now everybody can make a channel and tell their truth, isn't it you know, it's not just the you know, like the conservative channel and the no, it's it's multiple truths. And then yeah, with COVID, I feel like it those channels just got more attention, really. So I think the conspiracy theories also play a part there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, oh for sure.
SPEAKER_01:Where it's not just Joe Cross and Pedro Pascal or Pro-Mask, anti-mask. There's this third element, which is really important to almost as having more empathy for Joe Cross at a in the first moment there, because we have that mind now where, well, let's see his, you know, like not that that that's wrong or anyway, but now there's so much information, so many truths that the conspiracy theories gained a lot of space. And that's where I think that I think if we try to find a moral teaching from this movie, that's a bit of um a lost battle. I do think that Arias sometimes is sneaking in some commentary in terms of like the irony of things, you know, the fact that people are protesting for George Floyd, but they're disgusted by the homeless person asking for help, or they don't give a shit about the homeless person until you know, spoiler, he gets he gets killed. Because when he gets killed, then then it's it's certainly interests for them to take on that narrative. There's opportunism there. So he does point out those ironies, and the times where I picked up on it, I I didn't necessarily like it. Not because I thought it was right or wrong, but I think the movie works best, but it's just kind of like portraying the chaos instead of commenting on it, and I'm not against commenting on on what's going on, but 2020 was just five years ago. It's really hard to really have a clear understanding of the what what really happened when we're so close. And I think for the most part he does accept that chaos and that kind of a lack of understanding. And I think anytime where we try to analyze it deeply, I think we fall short just because it's just not enough time, you know?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I can see that point. I can see that point. I didn't think it was necessarily like too soon for me, or that I don't think it's too soon in terms, sorry to interrupt you.
SPEAKER_01:I don't think it's too soon to make a movie. I think it's too soon to make a movie that tries to make sense of that chaos. I think it's uh alright to make a movie that portrays that chaos, which I think is he successfully did, you know?
SPEAKER_00:For sure. I think like I really like how he um makes his comment kind of through an absurdity or a satire of it. And I think that's something that came up with this movie, at least in certain criticisms that I read are like people wondering where Ari Oster is at, because I've heard like conservative people could or mega could like get something out of this movie as well as left or liberal people, because it does show, you know, some mega kind of craziness, and it does show some kind of on the left or like the liberal, I would say just like he's more portraying like the liberalism side of like a hypocrisy or or like I think so too, yeah, or like you know, maybe the young protesters, like the young girl who's a protester, being maybe cringy or outside of her element, I guess, or even like just some of them just being kind of like annoying or maybe don't have all their information correct, and also you know, it ignoring not that that it's wrong to be to try to be a part of the movement without understanding it fully, but I totally I I agree with you a hundred percent that I think it's more about the hypocrisy of the liberals. It um it kind of like it shows like everything is being like satirical, but you know, I think ultimately, you know, the uh unhoused person who's in this movie who opens the movie, he's the first character that you see, and the movie opens with his mumblings, can't really understand what he's saying, and he you know pops up throughout the movie. Uh nobody wants anything to do with him, yeah. Including, you know, your first impression of uh Pedro Pascal's Ted Garcia is like this unhoused person trying to get into his bar, and Pedro Pascal just wants him removed. He's like, he's uh disruptive and should be arrested. I believe that's what he said. Yeah. And then he's ignored by you know everybody, like he's just kind of a nuisance to the uh young BLM protesters. You know, they kind of just want to shoe him away.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Whereas like he, like the unhoused person is treated uh poorly across the board, to being to the point where, and yeah, we are guessing like heading into some spoiler territory, perhaps. Well, definitely, definitely. So, yeah, if you haven't watched the movie yet, watch it and uh rejoin for the conversation. But when Joe Cross is, you know, slapped by Ted Garcia and then kind of makes that decision that I'm going to enact violence, the first thing he does is kill this unhoused person because he knows nobody cares about him, and nobody does in this movie.
SPEAKER_01:Nobody does, and that's the thing. Like, and it's not like it's not as if like it doesn't mean that people shouldn't care about Black Lives Matter, but I think we're so connected and feel like what matters is what how we are perceived, right? And so I need to look good on the internet, and we're not really caring how we look to the people right next to us. I don't know. So I guess he does have some moral teachings there, but I still feel like it's not overtly it doesn't take you away from the madness, like it's it it it it didn't bother me.
SPEAKER_00:No, and I I do think that that Ariaster uh in Bo is Afraid, this previous movie, he really created his own world and universe with kind of its own rules. And he does that in Eddington too. It's a little, I think it's in Eddington, it's a little, you know, it's slower to reveal itself as being an absurd world. It already feels kind of absurd with COVID because I felt like an absurd time, but you'll see hints of it, like little jokes here and there, like you know, there's a brief thing, a joke that I loved in it is the girl doing a TikTok dance to like whenever you just finished reading James Baldwin's Giovanni's room, and she's like doing a TikTok dance. I'm like, Yeah, exactly isn't real. Like that's a spoof. That's like almost like naked guns, sort of a joke. Like it's an absurdity.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And then as the movie goes on, these conspiracies are like that people thought they were, you know, antifa super soldiers funded by a globalist money empire or something like that, were like doing false flags. Like, that's what people you know thought or still think. And in this movie, it makes it a reality. Yeah. I'm like, oh, okay. As I was watching, like, oh, this is like its own world, and it's like examining that part of it of our world by making it a reality and making it crazy, and making it a comedy in a sense. Yeah, of course. No, it's totally because I think that Astor's way of giving his view on it is very like dark comedy, and I think it's a good way of like satirizing it. And whenever like it goes, it shows that airplane and on the airplane is like a an imprint of like a globe and a hand grabbing the globe, like this like power, and you go inside the plane, and it's like these Antifa in like black clothes and like all these leftist billboards, like posters that they have, and like, oh, they're being flown in to take care of the problem in Eddington or something like that, or like do the damage that they've been doing in other parts of America. Like, I thought that was whenever it became like, oh, and it really the last hour of the movie is like crazy. Like it starts, it's like the reality disappears, and you're like, okay, this is it's boys of right now. Yeah, this is spoof land. Yeah, I really enjoyed that it kind of took that turn towards the end once after Joaquin kills Ted Garcia and his son, and everything just starts falling apart for Joe Cross.
SPEAKER_01:Fully everybody, yeah, and I I think the fact that it's also Disney World adds to my opinion that I am not against taking a side. Like I I'm very much on the left, not even liberal, much to the left, and uh, I'm not against that. But when people demand that from Mary Astor, because I know that there are a lot of the criticisms like he didn't pick a side, it's kind of ironic because first of all, there is that element of he he created his own world, his world is a side. But um the other thing is that it's ironic because if there is a criticism on this movie, is that we were a little too quick to judge that moment, right? Like uh in terms of what should be done, what shouldn't be done. We were a little too even like trying to judge the moment is actually just a natural response. So yeah, I you know I believe people should have worn masks and safe distance and whatnot. But in terms of how we judged other people, treated other people, we were a little too quick there. And then people are asking Ariester to do that very thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And and I don't think that his goal with this movie, honestly, was to tell us what was wrong and was right. I believe if we asked Ariaster in 2020, I think that he would have said, no, we should wear a mask, we should save distance. We I I believe that he would agree with that. But I don't think that's what he's trying to do with this movie. I feel like that discussion is almost it is pointless and fruitless. It's about just looking, recreating the feel of that time. And that I think, even though it was his own worlds, that especially at the end, it felt like that. It felt chaotic. You know, so I think he was successful like in doing that. And I think to me, that's what he was trying to do. I find it kind of like uh kind of shaking my head a little bit at the thought that people want him to pick aside or to take a stance. I think he was just observing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, I think that's I think that's right. And in terms of picking a side, I mean there's something I I don't I guess we haven't mentioned this yet, but there is um a big part of this movie is that there is a data center that is going to be built very near uh Eddington. Yeah, and that is being encouraged to come in, I believe, by Ted Garcia, who has staff and like a liaison with the name of the company is it's a data center called Solid Gold Magic Carp. Yeah, I like that name. And I believe I think Joe Carrass is even against it coming in because this data center, you know, it's the the data is what is kind of responsible for corrupting and like kind of contaminating everybody's minds and solidarity. But I mean that is ultimately like the bad thing that is coming into the town. And if Ariaster has a stance, it's that like this data center is in a sense of like even in Western, like the bad gang coming to town is the this data center, is the evil, yeah. And it comes in and it's a bad thing. So if he has anything, it's that these people in Eddington, whether you're right or your left, you don't have much power. You only have like as much power as like that's you know uh in your immediate surroundings. What can you affect immediately? And whether that is through like droning a protest or like countering a protest or you know, yelling at somebody, getting an argument or making an enemy out of somebody, like that's kind of your power, but they don't have as much power as like the rich, the rich, rich people that are bringing this data center in. And if you know it's taking a stand is it is against that kind of corporate power coming in and sucking the life out of a out of a town for its own gain, and not for anybody else's gain, but you know, that the gain is going to be private, it's not gonna be public to the people.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and you know, I think he manages to also he's telling the story from Joe Cross's point of view, and yet it doesn't feel like he's taking Joe Cross's side. And it's also another hint at that, uh to corroborate what you said is that again with the opportunism and like you know how the kid is in the middle of the shooting and he's quote unquote saves Joe Cross and then he becomes an influencer, he makes a lot of money, or the TikTok dance with the James Malden book, or you know, at the very end, Joe Cross is used also by his mother-in-law to make money in conjunction with this company that Joe Cross was like was totally opposed to, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, he's uh by the end of the movie, he's uh paralyzed, like a devastating injury to the head, like stabbed in the head by an Antifa super soldier or whatever. Um, and so he has no will of his own anymore. He can't do anything other than just be a prop. Yeah, a passive thing that allows for this data center to come in, for the data center to to buy off whoever it needs to in order to kind of like ingratiate itself into the locals. I would definitely recommend checking out Eddington. I get that it's uh pretty divisive. Some people like really hate it, but I really think there's uh lot in there that's worth thinking about and yeah, you know, free your hearts. Free your hearts, you know, if you want to go to the uh yeah, free your hearts towards Eddington, please. I think it really deserves it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Alright.
SPEAKER_00:Well, all right, pal.
SPEAKER_01:Pal, I guess I'll uh talk to you next week.
SPEAKER_00:That's right. I'll see you there. I'll see you at the movies. Well, not really.
SPEAKER_01:Till next time, baby.