Sahara - All Is White And Empty

This week, Will introduces Sam to his favorite movie that has been or ever will be--Sahara, starring Matthew McConaughey as Dirk Pitt, which is a name that sounds like a dude who has been involved in numerous last stands and is linked to at least two different civil wars. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:02

Hello, I'm Liam Neeson. I don't like this software. I prefer a different Discord bot. I'd prefer a different Discord bot. I'm over in several at Discords, actually.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Yeah, actually Liam Neeson is a mod on our our Discord.

SPEAKER_03 0:21

Liam Neeson Discord moderator.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yeah. He's actually like pretty profligate with the bands. If you had to talk to him, it didn't have an impact. He just kept doing it.

SPEAKER_05 0:31

I found your post about Steven Universe to be problematic. What the fuck are you gonna do about it? What are you going to do to correct to do better? Give my daughter back. Give my daughter back.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

The lat the final taken movie is just this horribly tragic of like a deeply confused Liam Neeson wandering around demanding people give his daughter back. Like for the for the first half, it's this gripping action film where it's like, where's his daughter? And then the second half is just this deeply sad, like told from the daughter's perspective. As she watches her great once great father who saved her life, slowly slowly lose his.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Oh my god, I'm sorry. This is yeah, it's like wandering around an Arbeast just fucking judo-chopping people. Like, where's my daughter?

SPEAKER_03 1:27

Alright, all right, all right. Let me let me walk that back because I made myself too sad. Um he just he just stops giving a shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yeah, no, it turns out it's a bruise. He's been drinking a lot.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

It turns out he wasn't he wasn't playing a character. That's literally what he does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:45

He just neck chops people in fucking Arby's.

SPEAKER_05 1:54

I'm a man with a particular set of tastes, and that tastes are for tenies.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Sir, we only basically have roast beef here.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

No, Arby's has tendies now.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

They're they're pretty good. They're pretty good. Yeah, that's crazy that you actually like went in on Arby's. I'm actually it's probably not that bad. I just like haven't.

SPEAKER_03 2:14

Well, I mean, like, my my fucking my fucking favorite fast food restaurant is Wendy's. Like, I have no room to complain about anything.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Wendy's is a class establishment.

SPEAKER_03 2:23

Yeah, well, is it no? They well, I'm just saying, like, they did just uh introduce a new spicy chicken sandwich, and it's pretty fucking good.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Like hell yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

I I have battled many hangovers with a Wendy's spicy chicken, and it's it's never let me down. That said, like you know, like like a man who loves Wendy's criticizing Arby's. That's I mean that's like a new that's that's you know you know that's that's like a salamander calling a newt trash.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Yeah, that's a really like yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

I get that these these highfalutin salamanders, like the social hierarchy of small lizards cast system, kind of.

SPEAKER_01 3:09

It's like a totally arbitrary, like the geckos are on top, they're like the priest class.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

Well, you know, the new newts are amphibians, they're not reptiles, so uh I just got fucking stunted on, dude. Well, you you should know these things. All right. Fuck, let's get into this. What if you won a date with Matthew McConaughey, and during the entire dinner, all he did was tell you how much he liked clams. And if you did like that, how long would it take you to start Slot Culture, and today we're talking about Sahara, starring Matthew McConaughey, uh Steve Zahn, and Penelope Cruz. Yes, welcome to Slop Culture, the happy hour podcast where we strive to see the beauty and stupidity. I am your host, Sam Sykes, and with me, as always, a man who sparked outrage at the meeting of the United Nations with his presentation of a PowerPoint entitled Kosovo Remembering the Good Times. It's Will Palmer, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

And now look, I got a few things to say about the United Nations. One, those guys are a bunch of tools.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

Alright, you're on notice, United Nations.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

I walked in there, I had the whole presentation set up, I had a boom box playing like classic, like Euro uh house piece. And I just uh I rolled in, I killed the lights, I put on this PowerPoint, I did all the animations. You know, there was actually a pretty vibrant club scene in Kosovo. Ignore like the past tense part. That's a bummer, we're not focusing on that. It's not what the PowerPoint's about. But a bunch of people got up in arms and they decided that, you know, we couldn't talk about the club scene. There was something else that happened. Um, and you know, uh that's on them if they want to like kill the vibe like that, you know.

SPEAKER_03 4:56

You know what? Say what say say what you will about the Kosovo war. Will Smith put out some great fucking movies that around that time.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Plus, we got like behind enemy lines. I'm pretty sure that had something to do with Kosovo.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was uh was that Benicio del Toro?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Uh Gene Hackman and uh Owen Wilson.

SPEAKER_03 5:17

Owen Wilson.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Yeah, fucking Owen Wilson has to like, yeah, he has to hide in like a giant pit full of massacred bodies. It's crazy, dude. It's like a really dark movie.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

I I I I do want to watch that. I'm not laughing at the idea of hiding in dead bodies. I am laughing at the idea of my idea of Owen Wilson navigating the coast of World War.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

No, he stabs a guy to death with an emergency flare. That shit is nuts. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 5:45

Oh wow. Wow, hey, why do we all do that?

SPEAKER_01 5:48

Right, and so I was bringing up, you know, Gene Hackman was is in that movie. Yeah. Um, really good cast and everything. By then, pretty much the entire United Nations had walked out. Uh you would be surprised at who stayed. I'm not gonna say, but you would be surprised.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

Okay, just just just just text it to me right now. Oh wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and uh go ahead and check the chat there. I dropped it, I dropped some facts in there. It was just them, too. Just like a little Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it turns out they really like uh behind enemy lines too.

SPEAKER_03 6:23

You know what? Owen Wilson, hell of an actor. Hell of an actor.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

What if there's a sequel, like two behind two enemy lines?

SPEAKER_03 6:32

Two behind two enemy lines. What if what if he and Vince Vaughn to a to a to a reunion where they're both UN agents dropped behind fucking dropped behind fucking Kosovo? Yeah. It's it's a comedy. It's a comedy.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

It's a comedy, okay. That's a that's a tough sell, I think.

SPEAKER_03 6:50

But Owen Wilson, like, they no, you know what? That is I just I talked myself out of it. Like I my my thoughts were moving like one step ahead. Sure. And it was Owen Wilson meets a struggling family, and then I'm like, no, no, no, like I there this isn't gonna go nowhere good. Yeah. You know what though, like I do believe there actually was a Benicio del Toro movie where he No, no, no. Um there was a movie in which Benicio del Toro played like a commando who like got PTSD from Kosovo.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Uh the hunted or it was with uh Tommy Lee Jones, right? We have that knife fight at the waterfall. That shit was.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

Yeah, yeah, the the hunted. The hunted, I think it was. Yeah. Um with with Sir Thomas of Lee. Right. Sir Sir Thomas Lee of Jones.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

Thomas Lee-Jones.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

Sir Thomas. Tommy Lee Jones.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

Commandant Commandant. Sir Thomas Lee.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

I would love to see Tommy Lee Jones like on his deathbed, just start going into like this flawless British accent.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Yeah, he's clutching his like saber, wearing a tricorn.

SPEAKER_03 8:00

Your majesty. With with your with your permission, sir, I ask to be relieved of my duties. Tommy Lee Jones is a fucking immortal who's been around since the the Napoleonic era.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Like he was previously Admiral Nelson, he just came back.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

And if you rearrange the letters in Tommy Lee Jones, you get you get Admiral Nelson.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

It's crazy. Don't try it. Trust us.

SPEAKER_03 8:28

Do you think Tommy Lee Jones? I'm about to Okay.

unknown 8:34

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

I'm thinking about the famous uh pornographical film with Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson, but it's Tommy Lee Jones.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

Well, alright. I was I I want to say I I that last giggle was because I thought you said Pamelae Anderson. I thought that sounded kind of adorable. Um no, my the other thing I was laughing at is do you think Tommy Lee Jones is the starter Pokemon version of Craig T. Nelson? Who's the middle? Oh, um is William H. made No, no, I've I've put myself there. Right. I guess the whole I guess the whole joke was that fucking um Tommy? Tommy?

SPEAKER_01 9:19

He's all crouched over and in a fucking little ball.

SPEAKER_04 9:23

Tommy!

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Tommy has nothing to do.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

All is white and empty.

unknown 9:29

What?

SPEAKER_01 9:30

He's stuck inside a pokeyball. That's it. Like he's just got this empty, like, blank space endlessly. That's hell, dude. We put those Pokemon in hell, and then we make them dogfight. That's the only time they get to come out. That's whack, Japan. Get your shit together.

SPEAKER_04 9:47

I'm starting with Tommy Lee Jones in a Pokemon saying all his white and empty. Yeah. That fucking got me pretty good. He's just like, oh.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

He comes out in the sun, nearly blinds him. And you only brought him out so he can fight like a little dragon thing.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

Dude, Tommy Lee Jones fucking like at the gym or something. He's working out. Now he's he's tired, he can't fight, and suddenly like a Pokemon trainer bursts out of nowhere. Throws a ball at him. He has no fucking, he's never even heard of Pokemon. He's like, ah!

SPEAKER_04 10:32

Yeah, he just gets sucked in.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

How do you use the master ball on Tommy Lee Jones?

SPEAKER_03 10:36

He gets sucked into this white eternity. He's like, ah!

SPEAKER_07 10:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

But is he but he's still Tommy Lee Jones? So he's like, oh, what or is it funnier if he's just like kind of irritated like this this happens to him sometimes? Like, well, damn it.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah, it's like the second or third time it's happened to him. So he's like unnerved, but he's it's he's been here before.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

These goddamn kids and they're pokeballs. Oh, he's coming around my back stair.

SPEAKER_04 11:05

All right. I don't I don't I don't think we're gonna top all this white and empty. Like it's equally funny imagining a Pokemon saying that.

unknown 11:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Arguably funnier.

unknown 11:27

Like, that's horrifying.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Just white, wide-eyed and just like trembling.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

No fucking idea how much time has passed.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Yeah, a second could be an eternity.

SPEAKER_03 11:39

Like, like, like broke is Pokemon. It's cruel to make Pokemon fight each other. It's just dogfighting. Woke. It's cruel to subject Pokemon to the eternal hell of a nightmarish existence trapped in a white void. Nothing. Alright, I want to say, I'm gonna be the bigger man here.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:03

I don't I think we should move on to something. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna plant this seed and hope someone else waters it.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 12:11

Wokeymon. We don't have time. Sure. We don't we don't have time. But it's out there. It's out there. It's been it's a thought that's been put out into the eye of terror, and someday it will become a a a new a new demon.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Now you had a little bit of banter you wanted to uh engage.

SPEAKER_03 12:33

I did I did, I did. I was actually uh occasionally we drift into I'm sorry, cut that part because I was wiping my eyes because I fucking sure.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Let me tell you about a dream I had real quick before we get into it. Yeah, yeah, please, please do. I woke up at like eight this morning, which is like early for me, especially on a fucking Saturday when we're recording. Um I'd had this like very intense dream where I was like helping Donald Trump put on like a tie pin. Okay. Like I accidentally poked him in the eye. It wasn't like enough to do damage or anything, but and then um he just like looked at me and he just called me a f and then I woke up.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

So you gee, what what do you what do you what do you think it means? Should we get a shaman in here?

SPEAKER_01 13:20

I mean look, I never said my dreams were particularly deep, but should we should we get some Silo Sybin in here?

SPEAKER_03 13:26

Like do a deep dive, get a should we go should we do a little ayahuasca and see see what comes out the deeper meanings behind figure out what you're working through peer behind the veil. I mean I guess what I guess that that literally sounds like what it would look what it would be like to work for Donald Trump. Like it does. So wait, when you say tie pin, you mean like uh one of those little things that goes like a cross at the top of the tie.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

I don't I forget how it got into his eye, but maybe he was like leaning down to check.

SPEAKER_03 14:00

Yeah, like like like I mean, I I don't I don't intend to offend anyone, but I could see it being I could see like presidents uh being a little fussy when someone's trying to dress them, like a little squirmy, like a toddler. And I think if you imagine any president being squirmy while someone's trying to dress him, it's instantly funny. Like, yeah, that's true. Bill Clinton, like, no, I don't want to wear that.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Yeah. He wasn't like enraged at me, but he was clearly like pissed.

SPEAKER_03 14:30

Okay, I mean sounds like you I mean it's on me. I'm sure I'm sure he's called that to people who have done who have done like not quite so much to him. So yeah. I don't know. I if you did that to me, I also feel like I would not have some kind words for you. Like and like being real with myself, like if I got jabbed in the fucking eye, like you know, you you reach when you when you're when you're hurt or something, you reach for like your weapons grade. Sure. Your weapons grade swears, you know, like yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

I feel like you gotta turn two keys before you use it.

SPEAKER_03 15:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, you know, like you know, you've got your you've got your tier one swears where it's just like for shit you use in traffic and stuff. Right. And then you've got like your tier two swears for like when you're really pissed off, like, and then like your tier three swears are like words you'll regret saying, but like you got your omega clearance swears. You've got your omega level, you've got your you've got your dragon threat swears, threat level dragon swears.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Yeah. Yeah, got code crimson, you triple locked swears.

SPEAKER_03 15:41

We have Operation Fenrir swears. Oh my god, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

Codename Leviathan.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Very good. Let this be a lesson to anyone who would try to dress me. I said uh I said I wanted to wear my Donkey Kong shirt. Hillary said it was cool. Hillary said it was cool. She said that Donkey Kong Country 3 wasn't that great, but it was. It was. They had it there. That's why I cheated.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

I'll show her. Shit tasting video games. She probably doesn't even like House of the Dead, too. That's a stone classic right there. That's a stone that's a stone classic.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

I I'm afraid to show her burger time for what fear of what she might say. Really drove a wedge between us. She's not gonna, and if I'm honest, it kind of influenced my foreign policy at the time. That's why that's why we decided to bomb Kosovo. Full circle! Hell yeah. Alright. Thank you for sharing that tree.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Sure. Thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_03 16:52

I'm gonna be giggling about that for a bit, but I actually did want to uh talk about something. I don't want to say talk about something serious because that would lead you to believe that I'm about to say like disclose some medical information. That's not what's happening. But I want to be sincere for a minute and say I am really looking forward to the backrooms movie coming out at the end of the month, and I wanted to see where you stood on that. No, I'm very stoked about it.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Um are you the same sexual fetish for liminal spaces that you do?

SPEAKER_03 17:26

I it could be it could be a sexual fetish. Uh there's something, you know, kinda horny about the concept of infinity.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

So you would do well in a Pokeball, is what I'm hearing.

SPEAKER_04 17:40

I wouldn't I would never come out.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Or like imagine like the Pokeball opens and just like a torrent of cums like washes out of it. Show gets immediately cancelled.

SPEAKER_03 17:51

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Um so like No, I am excited for it, I would say. I mean, I'm gonna watch it. Your excitement is somewhat infectious, I must admit.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

I I well well, so I do, I actually really do like the concept of liminal spaces, uh, because I am gonna disclose something about myself here. I have a recurring dream in which I am somewhere that I have been before in my life. Like uh, and it's very often uh a house that me and my family briefly visited in Flagstaff, Arizona, once. And except in my head, in my dream, it's always like way too big, you know? Like that house had like a a neat little basement, a main floor, and an upper story. But in my dreams, it's always like it's always like rooms upon rooms, and like so the rooms themselves aren't huge, it's just that the dumb world is that.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

Like it's it's it's it's a it's a space that's impossibly bigger on the inside than it is on the outside, which you know, like already a fun little thing to think about.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Is it a comfortable vibe, or do you feel like you're being hunted by like an unknowable creature?

SPEAKER_03 19:02

It it goes different ways, you know. Like sometimes uh it's it's populated and it kind of feels like a village in one little place, and like and I'm there with like people I've met before, and then sometimes I'm lost, like I don't know where I am. And I don't really recall being like terrified in any in any regard. Like whenever I wake up, I just like oh wow, another one of those. And like I couldn't tell you the specifics of a lot of those dreams, but I just always remember that, and you know, that's basically what the backrooms is, it's this concept of an otherworldly space connected to ours somehow, and it could happen to you at any moment, you could fall into the backrooms, and it's just a place that's almost normal, but not quite. And I I you know, I gotta be real, like uncanny horror is my jam. I appreciate uncanny horror. That's why uh you know, like I feel you can track uh a lot of the years by horror trends, you know, like slasher movies are not quite so big now, but they were in the 90s and 80s and 70s. Yeah, yeah. Like like that was what was on people's minds.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

And I think like dystopian horror was like uh Yeah, yeah. And I think it got a little more into yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 20:28

And I think this current era, which has been marked by uh uh AI, like and also by just people by the concept of performativeness, you know, like uh like being constantly not yourself because you don't know who's watching. Yeah, yeah, but also that sort of attempt to be a human, like look as close as you can to being a human, but don't be an actual human. And so like I think that's been a recurrent theme because like uh with the dawn of analog horror, uh you often saw this concept of things that are like pretending to be horror. Analog horror is basically the concept of like horror that takes place through like analog media, like uh like handheld cameras and whatnot. Yeah, yeah, and it's it tends to be marked by a distinct uh 80s, 90s vibe, you know, like with with like the the little crackle before and low and like weird little chimes playing, logo art, you know, like uh like like how uh like just sort of that corporate vibe, uh at least in terms as far as the backrooms go. But uh the other reason I'm interested in seeing the backrooms is because we've kind of seen this horror movie grow up. Um and it's uh it has a similar vibe to Slender Man in that way. And you know, like Slender Man right now, he's kind of a meme, right? Like and I think it is kind of funny how like for a long time. Of the scariest things to nerds was the idea of a relatively fit dude in like nice clothes just like chancing you around. He doesn't even run, right? He doesn't even run, he's just sort of there, and like he's like he's like got a job application. He's got an insurance card form you have to fill out. You're like, oh, oh um but we got to see Slender Man become a meme, you know? Like it started as just a goofy little thing, it became kind of the first creepy pasta, right? Or at least the for the first most well-known creepy pasta. And then eventually it makes kids go crazy and stab each other and becomes a meme. Uh we haven't hit that with backrooms yet.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Like it doesn't make kids go crazy and stab each other.

SPEAKER_03 22:47

I hope I hope nobody goes crazy over the backrooms. Like it's it it looks very cool, but I will be upset if it starts attracting that. But like it's being directed by Kane Parsons, who is the guy that made the first ass name, dude. Isn't it? Isn't it? Uh that's probably why he goes by Kane Pixels as his uh as his like screen name because that's that's a little more wizard, but like Kane is like a K-A-N-E or Biblical.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Which one's worse?

SPEAKER_03 23:16

I'd say biblical is worse because Kane sounds like it's just Kane sounds like you're you're like a fighting game character. Yeah, it yeah, it sounds like you fucking use blades, probably. Yeah, and like you fucking uh you scrape the blades together to create sparks, and the sparks turn into a tiger, and that's your projectile.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

That's kind of sick, dude. I've changed my mind on Kane. You're you're in, you're you're back. I'm in on Kane, you got me. But yeah, though, limital spaces. I'm into it.

SPEAKER_03 23:43

Well, he he made he made his first short film in Blender using Blender software.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_03 23:49

Uh on the backrooms, and it's only like 10 minutes, 10 minutes. Yeah, with the with the creature chasing him. Yeah, yeah. Like, and it's cool. It's just fucking cool. And he made a whole series based off of that, and now he gets to make a feature film, and that's fucking rad. I see. That's fucking rad. Like, and in a weird way, I think that might be like the future of filmmaking. Because, you know, like the entertainment industry is just collapsing right now. Like, we're not gonna be able to afford this standard of movies for you know forever. Yeah. So it's soon gonna be like just the budget, the budgets are gonna get nibbled off of by I think YouTubers, people who anyone who's making something independent right now, I think you need a massive budget to make a good movie, though, you know? Yeah, yeah. Like, like you just have to have a kind of cool idea and a vision, which is what Kane Parsons had. Like the fucking backrooms m uh movies have a very distinct voice. And like they're they can they have a distinct uh vision for their horror, and I fucking love that. So like it feels very good to see him succeed, and I'm very excited for this movie. And yes, it it is it is getting it is an intense fondness. But also, uh, I think uh if you're if if you are like me and an aficionado, I gotta recommend for anyone listening, check out obelisk entertainment on YouTube. Uh or I think it might just be called obelisk, but it's it is some good shit. That sort of nightmare logic where like where like uh houses and physics don't have don't have the right logic, you know, like I love that shit. That to me, because I feel like when people say cosmic horror now, they just think of like Tentacles in the sky. Tentacles that make you crazy, and like there's an eyeball, and then you're like blah! And like maybe you turn into a frog or something. Right. Whereas like to me, to me, cosmic horror is something that's like rearranging reality around you.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

Like it's it's fucking changing the laws of reality in an unknowable fashion.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

It's reshaping how your world works. Like right.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Like now you piss out of your mouth. Now you pee out.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

It'd suck if that's what if that's what like I mean, that's horror, dude.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

That's scary as fuck. Now you'd pee out of your mouth.

SPEAKER_03 26:20

Oh no, well, what else? No, that's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

I still wouldn't want that, dude. Yeah, no, I obviously unpleasant.

SPEAKER_03 26:27

Oh, okay. What do you mean? Okay, like what you you like peeing at no no, I don't like it.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

I was just like I thought it would be worse.

SPEAKER_03 26:34

I thought it'd be worse. Like, I don't know, you know, like I spit sometimes. Is it kind of like that? Well, no, because it's a s it's a it's a a stream now. So basically, you know, like I don't know, like I already like you know, when I when you're outside and you're pissing, you try to piss higher than the last time you pissed. Sounds like it could be fun.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Yeah, you could turn it into like a competition, kind of like cornhole, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 26:55

If humans could pee out their mouths, they would absolutely turn it into a competition. Because like you still gotta talk out of your mouth, so you're not gonna like No, no, you talk out of your asshole. You talk out of your asshole. And so we all get down on all fours and start walking crawling around backwards.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Yeah, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_03 27:13

Maybe maybe we should talk about Sahara.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Yes, we were originally here to talk about the the film Sahara, I believe, 2005, starring Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, and Penelope Cruz.

SPEAKER_03 27:23

And Rain Wilson in his pre-office glory days when he was just a young fighter out there.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

A young stud.

SPEAKER_03 27:32

A young stud out.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Out on them pastures.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

On them pastures, racking up W's, racking up hoes out there, spreading his seed like he just came out the Pokemon. Um and also William H. Macy and a European guy.

SPEAKER_01 27:50

And Delroy Lindo, right?

SPEAKER_03 27:51

And Delroy Lindo. Uh so a pretty good cast. Um this was 2005, around kind of a golden age, or I would say the declining golden age of the mummy era, kind of swashbuckles, the mummy era, yeah. The mummy was kind of a um was kind of a high watermark for that. Uh I think in some ways Sahara was kind of intended to continue there. Because you know, you could say you could argue that we had Indiana Jones, and then we had the mummy.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Then we had Sahara, damn street.

SPEAKER_03 28:25

Then we had Sahara, and I think that's where Legacy of Greatness. That's where the lineage ended. Like nobody could beat Sahara. That's it. That's that's exactly. They agreed to stop making movies after Sahara. They're like, you know what, we're never gonna top this. Everything else has just been an illusion for brought on by a cosmic entity who really loves Sahara. We should tell the audience that uh this is our second go at Sahara. Uh when we started making a podcast, we did some practice episodes that just kind of ended up being us recapping uh the movie, which every there's a lot of people that do that. That's not fun. Talking about all this white and empty.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

See, that's that's fun. That's the special flavor you come to slot culture for.

SPEAKER_04 29:11

Oh god, Pikachu, like drifting. Drifting through a white void, like nothing even to stand on. No, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

Yeah, there's no way to like arrest his momentum, so he's just drifting endlessly.

SPEAKER_04 29:28

He comes at the Pokeball on like his hands and knees, and he's going like, oh put me back in there.

SPEAKER_07 29:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:42

Ash is like, go get him, Pikachu!

SPEAKER_01 29:45

And Pikachu like in the beetle position, pissing himself and shit.

SPEAKER_04 29:49

She just slowly turns to him and whispers, all this white and empty, and then puts a gun in his mouth.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Oh shit! And the screen cuts to black, and there's a gunshot.

SPEAKER_04 30:03

Except Ash only hears it. Pikachu.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Pikachu.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Jesus Christ. Alright, I'm sorry. Um, but yes, we are trying we are doing our second effort at Sahara. I did not like this movie so much uh the first time I saw it. The second time, uh, once we kind of figured out what this podcast was about, i.e. being stupid while we're talking about shit, uh it grew on me more. And I I can kind of see a lot to like about this movie. But I have I have some beefs.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

You do. You still there's some remaining leftover beefs.

SPEAKER_03 30:44

There's some beefs. I I I ate the I ate almost the entire bowl, but there at the bottom are some beefs. There's some crust that you didn't quite like. There's some fond that I just can't scrape off. Gross. Uh uh well, with your permission, since it was this is your favorite movie.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

I wouldn't say it's my favorite.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

It's like you're you said that it was your favorite, and if you had to choose between stopping the Kosovo war and making a sequel, you would make the sequel and hit the red button. Those were your exact words. Allegedly.

unknown 31:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 31:24

Uh so if if if you want to man the timer. Uh just a hell of a picture. I love that bit where Matthew McConaughey turns the plane into a skateboard.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

But yes, uh, you have my permission, sir. Let's begin the two-minute uh drill for this week. Uh the rules, two minutes to uh tell us what happened in the movie starting in five, four, three, two, one.

SPEAKER_03 31:49

During the last days of the Civil War, the Confederates with a boatload of gold get on board an iron side ship and navigate what has to be said is a truly sweet scene of a ton of cannons going off and just blasting the shit out of it, and then it disappears into the fog. And then there's this extended sequence of what looks like a guy's room if someone were trying to like for inform you that a guy was very cool just by his room alone, and it's the introduction of Dirk Pitt, an explorer and navy dude and navy diver who runs with Numa, uh, which is a former Navy veteran ship that ex that salvages undersea treasures. Uh, and then we smash cut to Laos or uh Lagos, sorry, Laos is a different country. Lagos, where Penelope Cruz is a doctor from the World Health Organization, and she discovers a mystery illness in Africa that's poisoning people. And she's like, Who is doing this? And then some tough looking guys come out and say, We're gonna cut you open and take your bag. And she's like, No, someone help me. And Matthew McConaughey is shirtless nearby. He's like, Oh, I'm just gonna shoot him with my little spear gun here. And he does. He shoots the tough guys with his with his spear gun, and they're like, ow! Let's let's let's beat it, fellas. And then he saves Penelope Cruise and he takes her aboard a ship, and she finds out that he's a diver doing all that shit I said, and he's looking for this mysterious ironside ship that disappeared. And there's a solar plant in the middle of the desert that's taking uh that's pumping chemical waste into the groundwater and it's making people sick, and that's the disease. But also, there's an ironside ship nearby, and there's a European guy uh running it, and Steve Zahn is like, we we got we we we we love Alabama, and it's I'm and and uh at the end uh they stop the European guy and they blow up the dam and they save the rebel village because there was also a civil war.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

Well, I'll say this. You did a good job setting up the the backstory. And the let's be honest, the one of our both of our favorite parts, the ironclad.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

It it is a lengthy movie, and it is a more complex movie than you would think, and that's to its credit. That's to its credit. Um yes, the ironside scene is fucking cool. Like a real quick, like the movie opens with an iron side boat escaping uh down a river with like cannons firing on it from both sides from the Union Army and like they're returning fire. It's gotta be said, cannons are fucking cool. They're so cool, dude. They're so fucking cool, dude. Like, as as definitely my easily my top artillery, like even they even outclass the bombard.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

The bombard bombard's hilarious because they just like imagine like a chode mortar.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

Choad mortar sounds like the bottom of the like the next the next Marvel movie.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Choad mortar. What are you doing here, chode mortar? What's your game?

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Yeah, no, bombards are like also a tired artillery piece because they're like they've like a I mean, I'm just ballparking, you're like a five foot long barrel and it's like three feet wide. You just put in these humongous things. Cannons are sicker though, dude. You got they're versatile weapons, you got fucking like chain shot. You could just put in a bunch of forks, you got solid shot, you got grape shot.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

They're visceral, right? Like nobody like you've got like dudes like pushing it for, like, and then like rope. You know, that's what owens about it is like it takes a team of them to fire and like yeah, rolls backwards, crushes some dude's foot, then he dies of infection. He dies of gangrene, but at the moment he's like, No, no, let's keep going.

SPEAKER_01 35:47

It's like let's keep it up, dude. This is badass, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:49

Yeah, yeah. Like fucking Master and Commander, hell of a movie. Might be too good for this podcast, but also it's Russell Crowe, so it might not be so many splinters in that movie.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

That's another thing about cannons. A lot of splinters, a lot of splinters, a lot of which owl, dude. Yeah, and some of them shits are like like two feet long. That's a bad splinter.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

The admiral watches his crew get fucking shredded by a cannonball and like a splinter gets in his thumb, like, oh, oh, oh, it won't come out. Oh, it gets a medal for it. And then he dies of gangrene as well.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Um shout out Neosporin, dude.

SPEAKER_03 36:30

Shout out Neosporin, yo.

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Yeah. Go back in time with a tub full of that shit. Probably get burned for being a wizard or whatever, but yeah. I mean, it's yeah, it's a great product.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

You know, eventually we figured out how to clean shit with alcohol. That that worked.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

Yeah, I mean, I'm imagine going back to like, you know, the Revolutionary War with like a huge tub of Neosporin. You roll up to Valley Forge, like, yo, we're about to turn this thing around. All right, you'd be a hero.

SPEAKER_04 37:07

It's not the tub of neosporin.

SPEAKER_03 37:11

It's the confidence. It's about saying, yo, we're about to turn this thing around. About a fucking horrifying war. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:20

Or freezing to death by the hundreds.

SPEAKER_03 37:22

Come on, guys. Oh my god. I'm gonna give you real quick my top three artillery.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 37:33

Cannons at the top. Second, trebuchets.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Those are good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:39

Enormous fan of trebuchets. Uh third.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

I still don't get how the physics work on those motherfuckers, but it sure does.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

It's it's fucking it's it's it's just counterweights, man.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Uh that's where you lost me.

SPEAKER_03 37:52

Why not just like a regular Just watch Return of the King again. Yeah, fairly and you and you'll pick it up. You'll pick it up. Uh and then third one is that shit from uh Princess Mononoke, where they're carrying like these enormous blunderbuses and using them like fucking flintlocked bazookas. That whatever that whatever that shit is. If that's real or if that's not, I don't give a shit. That fucking rules, and we should go back to using that.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

We need to start recruiting peasants to just to carry around like 10 foot-long archebuses. To carry around giant archebuses.

SPEAKER_03 38:32

But yeah, that's actually kind of that's the fun part about uh the gunpowder age, right? Is it's like, oh fuck, you don't need samurai at all.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

You can just fucking just a big tube and some explosives, and I don't know. Dude, how about that?

SPEAKER_03 38:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

Um now Sahara, so we don't get oh yeah, I'll I'll hit you with uh with mine just off the top of my head. Cannons, of course. Uh the noble bombard is probably in gonna take third place. Yeah, rep in the bombard.

SPEAKER_03 38:58

Let's turn this thing around.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

Let's turn this thing around, dude.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

We're gonna fucking turn this thing around.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Oh yeah. Um I mean, this is kind of like a very basic choice, but uh I really like railway guns. Completely impractical, but you know, the Swira Gustave, Big Bertha. Yeah, completely impractical. Like just so stupid. Like never should have worked, never were gonna work, but so cool, dude.

SPEAKER_03 39:24

So cool. They are literally like the shonen anime protagonist of guns. It's like they're fucking like rolling up like ah man, ah, and like that.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

I remember they like tried to hit Paris with it and they just missed and missed Paris, like the whole thing. Dang it! That's pretty bad, dude. I'm pretty sure Paris is like a big place.

SPEAKER_04 39:49

It's not known for being small.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

Yeah, I mean, I'm glad they did miss it. Don't get me wrong. Shout out France, but like just objectively speaking, that's unimpressive.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

Dude, but like that that would be such a funny comedy sketch. Like, it's like, all right! How bad's the damage? Oh, we missed.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Uh we made a very big hole in some hedgerows.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

Uh, we took out the hedgerows. Uh I I I think I think we might have taken out the hedge sculptures. How many hedgerows are left?

SPEAKER_01 40:20

Uh, more than you would think.

SPEAKER_03 40:22

More than you would think. You know what? They they really love the hedges.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Alright, fuck. Before we get too overly distracted, we should cover um a little bit of uh Sahara and well, you did almost get to the end there. There was uh I did uh the cross crossover of the uh civil war that's going on, and General Kazim, the villain's General Kazim, who wants to hide the uh poison, and Eve Massard, the evil billionaire who is in charge of the solar poison facility. Um those crossover quite elegantly, I might say, with the Ironclad plot.

SPEAKER_03 40:56

This this movie has some wonderful traits, and like I was I was able to see those traits more clearly this go round. And one of those traits is it's structured very well. Like now that I am less frantic, I can say I like you can draw a straight line between the events, which is great. That's so satisfying. But uh Dirk Pitt and his crew, along with his best friend Al, played by Steve Zahn, they are out to recover this iron side along with all the Confederate gold on it. Uh Penelope Cruz's character is out to find the source of a new disease ravaging Africa. Uh the the source of both their problems is in the middle of a civil war in uh Mali. Uh, and in tracking down their diseases, they find out that a local European businessman is enslaving the local population and using a solar-powered plant to to remove chemical waste, which is poisoning everyone. So that's that's where the disease is coming from. That's a bummer.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

I always said uh poisoning uh the population.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

I always said poisoning a population. That's a that's a bummer. Yeah, but I was forced to do so after Hillary after Hillary ref refused to let me wear my Star Fox shirt. It was the only way. She said that's it's just the same game over and over, but no, there's there's subtleties, there's differences. Remember, remember when he went to the dinosaur world? They had a fox wearing.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

Yeah, that was a formative character for a lot of people. Myself included. Do you remember the fox that had boobs? Yeah, Crystal the Fox. Uh I have a wall scroll of her. It's actually my gift I left for uh for W when I left uh when I left office. I meant to leave it for Al, but uh I left him uh a waifu figurine of our essential one for uh Crystal the Fox.

SPEAKER_03 42:56

That's that's true. That's truly my one regret is that Wall Scroll Wall Scroll was meant for Al. He he truly did love Crystal. They were married on the astral plane.

SPEAKER_05 43:12

He got he got sick of tipper pretty quick when he meant uh when he meant Crystal. I don't want to brag, but I might have had something to do with it to be.

SPEAKER_03 43:22

Uh but when they take down this chemical plant, they discover the iron side boat not nearby uh not far away, and they stop the disease from spreading, and then all the Confederate go gold goes to the poor oppressed villagers, and then Penelope Cruz and Matthew McConaughey hang out uh men McConnell McConnell, like they hang out at Monterey, and she's wearing this dreadful swim cap.

SPEAKER_01 43:53

I thought it was cute. I thought it was cute.

SPEAKER_03 43:58

Well, uh Uh fucking Penelope wears a lot of headwear in this movie, and she looks good in a lot of it. She wears most of it.

SPEAKER_01 44:07

Pretty much everything except the fucking swim cap.

SPEAKER_03 44:10

It's she wears a fedora at one point, and you know, actually it it looks good on her.

SPEAKER_01 44:14

Like it's Penelope Cruz on the atheism subreddit.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

I just I it's just it could have been anyone if you said Jessica Alba on the air.

SPEAKER_01 44:28

That makes sense. But Penelope Cruz.

SPEAKER_04 44:31

Just the idea of any Hollywood actress arguing about atheism. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

I I gotta say, like, I'm very I'm very charmed by the general idea of any glamorous person having like Reddit level of different CD online double life. Um but I was hoping you could tell us a little bit of backstory about this movie. It is based off a novel, which you also really enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Yeah, I I enjoyed the novel. I would say I enjoy the movie more because I don't know. I I love Steve Zahn in this movie. That's the main thing I'll say.

SPEAKER_03 45:13

Steve Zahn is fucking great.

SPEAKER_01 45:14

There are a couple like the book is much grittier and grimmer. We don't need to like get into it, but there is some like very, very dark stuff in the novel. Um, some characters die very differently. Like the bad guy, instead of getting killed in this like crazy wacky chase involving a Confederate ironclad, he just gets machine gunned by Delta Force. Like it's like barely even a problem. Like Delta Force just rolls in and just owns him. Which, like, shout out Delta Force, like that's realistic. But like, I don't know if like it really makes for much tension, you know.

SPEAKER_04 45:42

I just want to shout out Neosporin, shout out Delta Force.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

There's probably a small cross section there.

SPEAKER_03 45:50

So no, no, you've you've you've you've established the so you don't have to do it now, but before the episode is over, you have to shout out one third thing, and then we'll see what the pattern is.

unknown 45:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 46:00

Don't do it now, don't do it now.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

But yeah, go ahead. There is one, I'd say, primary difference uh between the novel and the film. And during his uh recap, Sam was talking about the ironclad and the Confederate gold they're smuggling. And in the novel, there's something besides the Confederate gold, or should I say someone?

SPEAKER_02 46:19

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Yeah. It's Abraham Lincoln.

SPEAKER_04 46:25

Oh, okay. I just that pause went on for a second. And then I say, or should I say someone?

SPEAKER_01 46:32

Oh Abraham Lincoln. It's fucking Abraham Lincoln, like the real Abraham Lincoln.

SPEAKER_03 46:36

There's a novel, Abraham Lincoln has been kidnapped.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Yeah, and then they used a body double at Ford's Theater and had the body double get killed by Jim Woodspeed. Um it's kind of unclear why they kidnapped it, because like the main reason I think was like the Secretary of War wanted him like out of the picture. And it's like, yeah, you could have just let the normal thing happen, right? You didn't need this like wacky fucking rude goldberg ass kidnapping plan. Um but I will say it's like a punchy reveal in the novel, right? Yeah, because they don't tell you it's Abe Lincoln at the beginning, they tell you it's like uh just you know, it's clear that they're transporting somebody on the boat, right? Um, but they don't tell you who it is, and then boom, Abe Lincoln. Surprise Abe Lincoln's skeleton, because obviously he didn't like live the whole time, right? Like he everybody fucking died in the boat, so they find like Abe Lincoln's skeleton. I forget whether he's wearing the fucking top hat or not, but like I mean that's how I would have written it.

SPEAKER_03 47:33

Holding up a soul with like a stove I'd have. Oh no, Mr. Abraham Lincoln, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

I mean, I I mean I guess he's tall, right? He's like a big guy, but you could just think that was like a big dude unless he had like the distinguishing hat on.

SPEAKER_03 47:45

The hat's still somehow like perfect condition.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

It's in perfect condition, yeah. Everything else is dust and bones, and you're just oh no, the hat.

SPEAKER_03 47:54

That sounds like a fucking UV pole movie. I was gonna say though, that's hysterical. Like everything you've just said is hysterical, and I wish that had been in the movie.

SPEAKER_01 48:05

Yeah, that it that the Lincoln had actually been in the that it's already so complicated, though. I think the the only reason they didn't have it was it would have been one layer of the plot too many.

SPEAKER_03 48:15

Yeah, it was already a convoluted plot, but also I wanted it to be handled like fucking like like Michael Bay style, where it's like like fucking Abraham Lincoln is played by the rock.

SPEAKER_07 48:30

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:32

And he's just like he's just like he's like chained up and he's shirtless and he's he's but he's still wearing the hat and he's got the beard. Yeah, and like the Confederate general is played by like fucking uh like fucking Ed what's his name? Ed Harris? Ed Harris. Ed Harris is like Mr. President.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

And then uh and when they get to Africa, the rock breaks free and he fist fights everyone. The rock breaks free and he like fucking That's actually the prequel to the Scorpion King. A lot of people don't know that.

SPEAKER_00 49:02

And it's written by The Rock.

SPEAKER_01 49:05

Yeah, The Rock took ayahuasca and wrote about his previous life.

SPEAKER_03 49:10

I I will know shit. I like Mr. The Mr. The Rock. If you're out there, I'm just saying, how about a movie where we explain that you are single-handedly responsible for all of human history? Man, that would be fucking sick, dude. Like he's he's he's like the immortal from Invincible.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

Yeah, he starts out like he's Prometheus and then it just goes on from there. He's Dwight Eisenhower.

SPEAKER_03 49:37

Like uh I do want to mention this. And I don't think this is I don't think this is uh this is necessary to go too deep into, but I am fascinated by Clive because there is a there is a rumor that says men, straight white men specifically, do not read books. And yet Clive Cussler, John Grisham, Tom Clancy, like all like turbo bestsellers, all who like target that that that fucking demographic that does not allegedly does not read. That's just that's fucking fun.

SPEAKER_01 50:15

That's not books either.

SPEAKER_03 50:17

No, no, no. But just I mean, I guess the takeaway there is just you gotta fucking have cannons in a book. Like if if fucking Wuthering Heights had cannons of either sort. Of either sort. You're fucking you're fucking you're fucking mining gold today.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 50:36

Um so this seems like a good time to talk about it. Here's something I really loved about this movie. Okay. Uh that I think really crystallized for me when I was watching this. I said this movie is very uh very structured very well. Like you can draw uh and I feel like that might sound a little flippant. That's a little like telling someone they have a great personality, you know? Uh well what if they actually do, right? But what if they actually do? And like I'm telling you, who else had a great personality?

SPEAKER_01 51:13

Rodney Dangerfield, famously.

SPEAKER_03 51:15

Uh great personality, great personality. I know what you were going to say, so now all I'm doing is thinking about Rodney Dangerfield like at a rally.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

There's big banners behind him with like RGB.

SPEAKER_03 51:29

Germany don't get no respect. No respect. The French say, don't cross the Maginot line. I say, you're crossing my line. Everyone's like, yeah, you tell them. There's inexplicably like a bunch of New York guys in in fucking Munich. He says it like it is. The idea of Rodney Dangerfield as any dictator is almost too far. I but we can't we can't we can't do it. We can't do it. We can't. We've dipped a toe, and that's as far as we can go. Yeah, or take it. If we go any further, we're going to drown. Alright, but um I'm not being facetious when I say that because to me, that's extremely satisfying. Like that's one of the reasons I love Shogun so much.

SPEAKER_01 52:19

The book or the show? I've only seen the show because I'm a little bit I've only read the book.

SPEAKER_03 52:23

Whoa!

SPEAKER_01 52:24

Yeah. Show's great. I've heard great things about the book. It's long as a motherfucker, though.

SPEAKER_03 52:29

It is. Um, but uh when I was fifteen, my family went to Disneyland and we ate a sushi restaurant, and I'd never had sushi before, and my dad ate octopus, and I was I was fifteen, so I'm like, I can do that too. And I ate octopus, yeah, and I got horribly sick. I was up all night puking, and I'm like, well, as long as I'm up, I might as well read Shogun. And I plowed through like most of it in one night.

SPEAKER_01 52:55

It's like a crazy segue from octopus-induced barfing to reading like a massive historical epic. What made you want to read Shogun specifically? Was it because like I respect this culture because it like fucked me up gastrointestinally, or was it like just because the book was there and you wanted to?

SPEAKER_03 53:11

No, my mom my mom had been recommending it to me forever. And I uh, you know, when we went, I took a book, I grabbed a book to read on the road trip because you know it's a six-hour drive to Disneyland. And I just didn't get around to it because I was I was doing something else. Like I think No, Game Boy Advance had not come out then.

SPEAKER_01 53:33

So yeah. Uh but you had the regular Game Boy with the fucking actually Game Boy Advance, I don't think that had a backlight either, did it? That wasn't SP.

SPEAKER_03 53:41

Not until the SD uh until the SP, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:44

And uh Game Boy Advance SP Delta Force They got sore thumbs because they were playing too much Game Boy on the Chopper. That's like in the checkbook doing like Link play on Pokemon Emerald.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

All this white.

SPEAKER_03 54:05

Alright. Um, but I seriously mean it. Like in Shogun, it was very fun to draw like uh you could see all these intricate plans in the uh Japanese political class, you know? And then Blackthorn shows up and fucking ruins it. And now everyone's gotta do more plans, and you got to see how all the plots influenced each other. And that was so satisfying for me, and that's always satisfying no matter where. That's causality in writing.

SPEAKER_01 54:34

Like, you know, that's that's kind of what Game of Thrones is like, is it uh fucking uh that's there is a lot of satisfaction seeing the plans being adjusted, not working out. Like I love when Rob is planning to like assault Moat Kalen with this like badass like plan and like this whole force that they're gonna do this crazy attack on this place that's never been taken, and then I'll just get murdered at a wedding.

SPEAKER_03 54:54

Yeah, and why did they get murdered at a wedding? Because he chose to marry a commoner instead of uh House Frey, who fucking fought and bled for him. Like in in hindsight, yeah, you you might have seen something like this coming. Uh uh, yeah, but like that causality that makes it feel good, that makes it feel earned, you know? Uh and we'll be revisiting this particular phrase, so I'll just tell you now. Um the Pixar storytelling is coincidences that get characters into trouble are great. Coincidences that get out not so much, and there's a little bit of that in in this that I'll touch upon. But the structure is great. It's literally uh this Penelope Cruz is chasing a disease. That disease brings her into contact with the the with Dirk Pitt, this adventurer who, yeah, she does get pitted against the city.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

A lot of people get pitted in the well, you have you seen that classic video where they're interviewing a surfer and he's just yeah, and I went in the fucking I can't remember like in the wave, then I got in the trough, and I got pitted, bro. I got so pitted. That's just look up on YouTube So Pitted. Like I promise it's not anything gross. Just look it up and watch it if you haven't seen it. It's quite funny. Very short video.

SPEAKER_03 56:06

I I will. I I don't remember any surfing. There was a lot of water. There was a lot of diving and a lot of boating.

SPEAKER_01 56:13

Surprising amount for a movie called Sahara.

SPEAKER_03 56:15

Yeah, yeah. A surprising amount of water, but you know, that's the it's it's also about the Navy, so the beauty of Numa, dude, the National Underwater Marine Agency.

SPEAKER_01 56:23

Founded by the Clive Costler in real life. Actual agency founded by Clive Cussler. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 56:29

Well, fun.

SPEAKER_01 56:29

That's like a real thing. Let's see if it still exists. I hope it does.

SPEAKER_03 56:32

I hope so too. We'll join it.

SPEAKER_01 56:34

Well, they still got a fucking website.

SPEAKER_03 56:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:37

Yeah. Numa Expedition. Should we go on a NUMA expedition, bro? Holy shit. I feel like there's probably not that much left to find out there. Bro, this is actually like kind of like a low-key, insane list of like wrecks that they visited. I'm not being sarcastic at all. It's like dozens and dozens of different ships they found.

SPEAKER_03 56:56

Alright, so whoever's listen, whoever's listening, go check out the NUMA website. That's interesting. Like Numa.net, folks.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

It's Numa.net.

SPEAKER_03 57:04

Harry Potter leaves uh leaves a fucking theme park and Clive Custler leaves a fucking shipwreck diving agency.

SPEAKER_01 57:13

Yeah. There are no cash rewards in becoming a footnote in history, but a satisfaction is treasure. Many of us have become richer than we imagined.

SPEAKER_03 57:20

Wow, that's that is actually kind of nice. Kind of sick, dude. That's pretty good. Um but yeah, this this movie had uh had that, you know, it had uh one event leading into another. Very satisfying chain of events.

SPEAKER_01 57:37

I loved that about it. The tied in somehow, the plague slash turns out to be a poison, and the civil war with the villainous general Kazim, who we should touch on later. And the fucking Confederate Ironclad, which is just I mean, that's the uh the kind of coincidence you didn't like, right? Was they found the Confederate Ironclad quite easily, very close to the solar plane.

SPEAKER_03 57:56

Yeah, and like to be to be totally fair, it wasn't unearned. They set up that it might be around there. Uh that's fine. It's just at the time they are escaping a helicopter that's chasing them after they blew up the power plant that's poisoning everybody.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

Yeah, the villainous General Kazim is in his chopper and just bop bah and they're driving. I'm not one of his classic cars that they borrowed from some of their Tuareg buddies who themselves borrowed it from General Kazim. Yeah. So driving like a 1920s car through the desert while getting like machine guns shot at them from a helicopter.

SPEAKER_03 58:30

Well, I I actually misspoke. Uh they prevent the plant from blowing up. They actually stop it.

SPEAKER_01 58:35

Um, version of expectation there.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

Yeah, the bad guys tried to blow it up, but uh so to cover their tracks, but they stopped it and that was good.

SPEAKER_01 58:44

Uh but Steve Zahn stopped it. Dirk Pitt just fucking like dropkicked a fucking ninja off of a giant tower. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:52

But in the course of escaping the helicopter, uh they just accidentally uncovered the ironclad, and that did not feel great. Like, that's just like, oh hey, the thing is like remember me?

SPEAKER_01 59:04

Like there were some like nods to it being there earlier, but like the fact that they found it just then at that uh location, that time, is like a little Well, like this won't be the first time I compare this movie to Indiana Jones, but like do you remember the moment in Raiders of the Lost Ark with the staff that reveals Sure, the staff of Ra or what have you that piece and the Nazis are like using it at the wrong height.

SPEAKER_03 59:29

Yeah, yeah, and and yeah, and they're and they he they finally find uh where where the arc is buried. What was so cool about that was fucking uh Indiana Jones like intentionally figuring it out, right? Like he figured it out and the Nazis didn't. He was smart in them and he gets fucked over anyways, and then he gets fucked over. That's a coincidence that got him into trouble. That works, that works great. Uh this coincidence just got them what they wanted. Like, oh okay. Like it didn't, it didn't feel like they really worked it. Like that moment in Indiana Jones felt great because we earned it it felt earned. Uh this one, not so much. Again, like not the worst thing, but uh it's just some of this shit adds up, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

Uh so I don't forget, I did want to touch on General Kazim real quick. Yeah, and his part of the plot, which is basically General Kazim is just like a I wouldn't say a wrecking ball, but anytime there's gotta be some action, General Kazim's got some goons there with some vehicles and machine guns. Yeah, and there's one or two scenes where he rolls in and just chews the scenery about like I I love a good fucking like uh like a villain who has like a particular obsession or uh like a collect something he likes to collect, and General Kazeem likes to collect like classic guns. He's like uh this was uh I can't do I'm not gonna try to do the voice. Um except for when he says this was made by Holland and Holland of London. And like I love how he's like saying that and like describing it's like 38 pounds for a round, and then he dumps three of them into a guide. Like, that's really that was a big gun. You probably you just wasted like eighty dollars. It is like a dictator, so he can kind of afford to do that. But like who's he flexing on anyway? Right? The guy's fucking dead.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:09

Yeah, I mean, like I I I agree with your point though. Like, in action movies, it is awesome when a fucking uh villain has like an eccentricity or a collection or like some life outside of his villainy. Like, yeah, I'm very I'm very happy about that. And Kazim is actually not that bad a villain, he's actually the only bad guy that looks like he's having fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:30

Yeah, he's always got these like, except for at the very end, he's got these like very crisp, like starched white shirts on. Yeah, he always looks very comfortable in these like kind of horrific situations.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:39

He's yeah, he's very much a an elegant put-together guy who is commanding like some very brutal atrocities, and that's kind of a fun counterbalance. Uh the characters in this are all pretty good, to be to be real. Like, um the thing is, and like I'm just I'm gonna get into some of my beefs here. Yeah, let's do it. I feel like we are intended to think that Dirk Pitt is very cool, yeah, and very confident, and very capable, and that's and that Al, Steve's on, uh, is bumbling and awkward and goofy. Yeah. And that is not how it comes across.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:21

Yeah, you had a real interesting take on this movie that I hadn't really considered before.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:25

So throughout this whole movie, like Dirk Pitt is doing action hero shit. Like he there's there's this scene in the middle, there's this scene where they think they've found the iron side, but they don't. Uh, but they didn't find the iron side until Dirk Pitt, while they're eating at a restaurant, has this idea like, wait a minute, I've got an idea. And then he gets up and walks away, and Steve's on is like, oh sure, no, I'll get the check. That's cool. Like, he's like pointing out that He implies that he's done that before, too. Yeah, this is this is a rude thing to have done. You should not do that thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:58

Uh I am gonna do that to you next time we hang out, though.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:01

That will be fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:02

I'll pay you back later, but I'm gonna leave you in the lurch for a few seconds there at least.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:07

And then the the waiter who's waiting all like, Oh, are you guys doing Sahara?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:12

Like, yeah, like can I be him to like uh be the Dirk Pitt though, right? Like he should uh he should ask you first.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:18

And then I'll say, Well, let me tell you my theory. So you've also got this other thing, and these these things connect, I swear. You are clearly meant to think to know, and obviously Penelope Cruz and Matthew McConaughey get together at the end.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:32

And their dreadful swim cab. With their dreadful swim cab.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:40

And but the chemistry between them is non-existent. Like it doesn't work at all. And here's where I came up with this whole thesis. Okay. Dirk Pitt comes off as kind of like a savant, like this guy who is really good at specifically one thing, that is underwater salvage. And and getting to underwater salvage. He's one of these people that like if you asked him to infiltrate uh an enemy nation and assassinate its leader, he couldn't. If you asked him to assassinate an enemy leader so that you could retrieve a map to a sunken treasure that he had, he could. So he comes off as like slightly socially inept and just really fixated on marine salvage. So he comes off like slightly autistic, sure. And Steve Zahn comes off as more like laid back and able to respond to social cues and more like he's more like he's hanging out with uh like he's kind of keeping uh Matthew McConaughey or you know Dirk Pitt in line, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:57

Social guardrails a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:58

And I kind of liked that. I kind of like that dynamic better. Is like is like, oh, Steve Zahn is actually like the foundation of this relationship. He's the strong one, he's the one that's like it had a very Sherlock Holmes and Watson vibe to it. You know, like Holmes is brilliant but insufferable, doesn't know how to talk to people, and you know, Watson is charismatic and socially able and like understands he's got like various like little toys for Sherlock to stim with if he's getting a little antsy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:28

Here have this fidget spinner, and like oh I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:31

I love that. It's like a Watson.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:33

What did you call this? Uh it's a that's a fidget spinner, Holmes. Ingenious.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:37

What do I do?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:38

It's an ingenious. Do I just spin it? You can spin it forwards and backwards, Holmes.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:44

Wonderful. And now, one thing that I did note myself in my notes, and I think this ties into what you were saying, is that a drinking game for this, uh, do a shot every time Dirk says like some variation of how we looking, Al.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:54

How we looking out, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:55

Like Dirk like gets to like you know, smile and like come up with the crazy plans, but Al is actually the Who's executing it and making sure, like, okay, let's make sure we don't die in a horrific crash/slash fireball slash preventable accident, right? And there are, I don't want to say a dozen, but there's a lot of fucking times when Dirk just how we looking, Al, and Al's like turning the Colonel's yacht into an impromptu bomb, and he's like, It's okay.

unknown 1:06:17

It's all right.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:21

They're they work together very well, and like the actors have and that's what's frustrating is uh McConaughey has no fucking chemistry with Penelope Cruise. Like all the chemistry is totally fucking forced. It's and like every time they're together, all that all fucking dirt pit does is talk about fucking diving. Yeah, like like it literally is this hot girl just being like, Is all you talk about diving? He's like, No, sometimes I talk about things that you find while diving.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:52

Hey, you want to see my uh my office? You want to see my office back on the I'm doing that Bill Clinton. Um I got all sorts of nautical treasures. This one is named Kimiko.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:04

Um But yeah, the but I mean that's the thing is like you're clearly intended to think that Dirk Pitt is cool because the opening credits, right after the Confederate scene, does this slow pan around his cabin, and it's like, oh, here's his cigar, and here's his whiskey, and here's his like naval awards or what have you. Here's his medals, here's his here's his military medals, here's his nautical maps, here's his magnifying glass, here's his typewriter.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:31

Like, oh here's a picture of a man's penis going past that.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:34

Yeah, I'm going back. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yep. I said I think it would be because this given what I feel that Dirk Pitt actually feels more like I thought it would have been more funny if like it's just got this cabin that's just covered in like anime wall scrolls and like figurines of Tifa. He's got he's Matthew McConaughey is a Tifa fan. You know what? I just uh I'm sorry, I just don't like Arith. No, I think Matthew McConaughey would prefer Arith.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:12

You think so? Play's so sweet.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:19

I don't I don't know if I can handle Bill Clinton weighing in on Final Fantasy.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:24

You feel I'm just not gonna say anything about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:29

It's uh it's better I remain silent. I'm gonna go ahead and do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:31

It's better I remain silent on this. New Ginkridge is still out there somewhere. But uh I would love, with your permission, to move on to my second beef because I feel like Okay, yeah, serve up the beef, bro.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:45

Um these Arby's you're behind the counter.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:48

I'm serving up beef that's been behind here for eight days.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:52

Yeah, it's got some got some hardness to it.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:54

It's a reverse, it's a reverse ratatouille situation where I'm actually commanding a rat to serve you.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:00

Oh, I mean, honestly, what's like the droppings situation? Is the rat wearing little gloves?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:06

No, they are they're all they are all like capitalist drones now. It's a whole fleet of rats, but they are all like all totally broken in spirit, and like they all go in the toilet and like they Oh no, oh no. Well, if you're being unkind to the rats, no, no, not not not drowning, like they all they all use. Yeah, no, what I'm saying is like the rats like like show up and they clock in and they get paid too little for their work, and they're like, ah shit, I gotta go wash my hands.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:33

Like I'd want to like try it once just for the novelty's sake, but I'd feel like supporting like you know, that's yeah, like these rats had dreams once.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:10

This is my beef.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:15

Something I loved about Indiana Jones and why his action scenes worked really well is because he had kind of that Jackie Chan energy, right? Where he's on the back foot, he's outmatched. Like, he's capable, but he's not invincible. He's not out to any he he can't, like, necessarily take care of anything. Like he gets outclassed multiple times and has to think of something different. Right. In this one, kind of everything Dirk Pitt tries succeeds. Like he knows how to do everything. Uh he might have his plans are. Yeah, he might struggle a little bit. Uh but like most of mostly what he plans to do goes off without a hitch. And like he seems very cool and confident no matter what. Like, you know, it's none of this, like, fucking uh there's none of this uh like Indiana Jones, like, what the fuck I you know, like like Harrison Ford screaming, like, I hate snakes.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:15

Like he pretty much always either has a plan or is just confident that whatever the fuck he's doing is gonna work out.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:20

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:21

He never really backfires except the one time when he's like, Oh, these walls will uh and this iron crawl out a hole, and then the walls get shredded immediately, but yeah, doesn't even have any consequences because nobody gets hit.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:31

Yeah, nobody gets hit anyways. So, um that's I'm gonna boil all this down to one thing I think everybody talks about when they talk about this movie. It's like the iconic scene of this movie is uh Steve Zahn and Matthew McConaughey get captured, and they're about to be driven out into the desert and executed.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:56

I was gonna say it was the boat scene, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:58

Oh no, but uh but uh they they escape, but they're stranded in the middle of the Sahara Desert and they finally find uh a crashed biplane. And they're like, I'll tell you how we're gonna get back to the power plant to save uh Penelope Cruise. They rig it up so that it's kind of on its side. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:24

And the wing up like a sail.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:26

The wing is up like a sail, and they're balancing on one wheel and kind of using it like a windsurfer skateboard, and they're like using ropes to guide it. That's badass. And they're playing that stupid song like you don't know what we can find. Yeah, and they're all going like woo, woo, woo. Like, I mean I mean, wouldn't you be doing that if you were like No, because I'm in the fucking Sahara Desert and I'm dehydrated and my asshole has shriveled up, and someone I like is about to die horribly, and the entire North Atlantic is about to get poisoned. I would treat the situation with the stakes it deserves. Like I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I got a little heated there.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:12

No, no, no, it's just taking things seriously.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:15

I'm just uh just here's the thing, man, is like I said it this way. If they had been like this is never going to work, and if they had rivet and if they had been like this this can't possibly work, I would have been like, yes, I wouldn't have had anything to say. Like, if they if they had been writing it and it was like falling to pieces and like crumbling and like they're barely getting out of it, and if you could have turned that in made that more tense, I would have loved it. I would totally believe it. Any situation that makes it more tense, I will believe, no matter how impractical.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:51

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:51

But the fact is, is it was just like, oh I deflated the tension. Yeah, yeah. Like, like, like, it was just like, oh, we found this, we're saved because this improbable thing, like, and again, the spirit of adventure, bro.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:03

Manifest destiny.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:04

Well, but here's the thing, dude, is the only reason I'm mentioning this is because they're treating it so cavalier. Because like logical long shots are part and parcel to the action movie genre, you know, like you can believe that stupid shit happens, like fucking ramping a car off uh off a ramp and using a crane to scrape a bomb off the underside of a car. Shout out Transporter 2. Yeah. But in that scene in Transporter 2, Jason Statham is playing it deadly fucking serious.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:41

Like he's he's not going, woo, it's not a silly song playing.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:45

Yeah, like and and when they're going, woo, it's like, oh, this is fine. Like, we're just we're killing time until we have to save until we have to narrowly save the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:54

Unnecessarily deflating the tension. Kind of like when they're bantering about like who's gonna stop the bomb that's gonna poison the world.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:01

Yeah, who's gonna stop the bomb and who's gonna save the girl? No tension. And like just all even Indiana Jones had tension, you know. Indiana Jones got fucking outclassed many times.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:13

So you're saying like Rain Wilson should have gotten like headshot at some point.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:24

Just absolutely suddenly, like, with the gunshot still rigging in a traumatized Steve's Hon. Yeah, there's like brains splatter on his face, like and then there's like this extended, extended sequence of Steve's haunted, like just clawing at the ground, going like immediately like, you don't know me.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:50

Dirk's something like, oh, it looks like it's rain and blood.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:53

Looks like it's rain and blood. All right, all right, all right. Steve looks at like, it's not alright, all right, alright.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:03

It's all wrong, all wrong, all wrong.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:05

All wrong, all wrong, all wrong. That would have been great for our last for our bit last episode. Like, someone looks at Matthew, all wrong, all wrong, all wrong. Eldritch McConaughey is all wrong, all wrong, all wrong.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:23

So you thought that it could have used higher stakes, sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:25

So I think like I I and you know, like, I get I get it, I get it. Like Dirk Pitt is a capable dude, but like he's too capable. The stakes aren't there because he's just flawless, you know, like uh and I don't even mean like he's flawless, flawless. I just mean like all his plans seem to go like all his plans basically work out exactly as he planned them. And is like it'd be one thing if he was like actually a planner, but he comes up with these on all the fly. Like he's aware of his main character energy, and that's not so funny. He knows he's got plot armor, he knows he's got plot armor, so it's just like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:04

Uh halfway through the movie, he just gets his legs shot off with an AK.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:09

Well, like I wanna I want to say that the action movies are the action scenes are fucking exquisite.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:15

Like I'm gonna take a piss real quick, but yes, yeah, yeah. Regale the audience with tales of the action scenes.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:20

Alright, uh, like, dude, I gotta be real. There's this great bit in uh when they're driving a boat up the Niger River and they get chased by government forces, and it's like, alright, we're gonna try to play it cool. Oh no, the government is after us, we can't play it cool. Oh no, they're cad they're gaining on us. They bump into him. Uh Dirk Pitt gets launched onto the other boat, and now he has to fight the the enemy on that boat while trying to get back onto his other boat, but oh no, while all this is happening, uh some rebels, some Twareg rebels show up with a mounted machine gun and start unloading on them. Oh my god, the stakes keep escalating. How are they gonna get out of this? They gotta keep trying. Uh and I love that. Like, that's again, that's that structure going into effect there. That that that that wonderful you could trace that trace everything. Like Dirk gets onto the other boat because it knocks into him, he gets off the other boat after he has to fight his way off and think of something new. That's great, and like there's no time to quip, so it's all treated very like you you actually start getting excited at that point because it looks fucking cool, and the stakes are escalating, very well made, and a lot of the action sequences are like that. I just got done describing the boat scene.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:43

Dude, I fucking love the boat scene, the masculine impulse to dive across a boat while it's being like shredded by machine gun fire behind you, like everything's just detonating, the shreds of glass and shit going everywhere, and just going, ah, and just diving through the air. I want to do that at least once in a while.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:58

This this movie had such a plus vehicle action. And vehicle action is one of the most satisfying actions of all time. That's like fucking Jackie Chan like chasing. Fast and the Furious vehicle action.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:15

Uh fun in video games, too. Like I think you mentioned Uncharted earlier.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:18

Like Uncharted loved vehicle action.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:21

Vehicle scenes going behind the fighting the tank or like being on the train, all the train levels are great.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:27

Yeah, Uncharted 2 was fucking wonderful for that.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:30

Um you go.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:34

Uncharted 1 had this wonderful scene that I liked, and it stands out just because I thought it was very sweet, where uh Nate, Nate Drake, Nathan Drake, and uh Elena have to team up, and he's piloting the jet a jet ski while she's shooting a flare gun behind him.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:50

I remember that's like one of the only scenes I remember from that game.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:53

I I think that's one of the my favorite action tropes is capable hero links up with uncapable civilian, and civilian has to has to chip in and quickly learns the ropes. Like, oh, that's that's wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:07

Yeah, they're just they're like a quick study, they're um you know, they're relatively brave. That's always satisfying.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:12

And to be fair, Sahara has that. Like like Penelope Cruz's character is a doctor, but she gets in the fucking thick of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:18

Yeah, he's blowing stuff up, she shoots a guy.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:21

So long as we're talking about masculine fantasies, let's talk about the action girl. Uh it is it is a masculine fantasy a lot that you will have a romantic companion who wants to do cool shit with you and will not ask questions about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:37

Like one of you's driving the other one's in the turret. You can you can swap in the middle if you need to.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that is that it is the dream of many dream of many men to have a relationship kind of like Halo. Yeah, I mean for real though. Where one of you is driving the warthog and one of you is manning the gun. Like first person shoot co-op shooters are the basis of some relationships.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:07

Is Gears of War the most romantic video game discuss? Uh, a little, yeah. Well, I mean, like That shit in the second one was fucking sad as shit when Dom's looking for his uh Yeah, I was I was just thinking that.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:19

Like, I do think actually Gears of War counts as kind of an emotional story because like human suffering is at the s is at the heart of all of it, right? Like it's all about losing people and losing homes and losing and chainsawing people to death and chain while chainsawing people to death. Like I would argue that Gears of War did it pretty fucking well. Like true. I actually liked Gears of War. Oh yeah, I liked it quite a bit. With that with like it was it was the first to introduce horde mode. That was great.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:51

Yeah, holy shit. That's a that's like a foundational multi-factor.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:55

Oh, dude. Like like oh, totally, totally.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:57

Like being with your boys and like last stand, the masculine urge to have a last stand.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:02

The masculine urge to go out with your with your boys and like hopefully meet each other on the other side.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:08

Yeah, see you at the crossroads, brother. See you at the crossing with Dick Cheney. With Dick Cheney.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:13

I'm never gonna not think of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:15

Dick Cheney at the crossroads.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:17

It's Dick Cheney just perpetually in purgatory. Hi.

SPEAKER_07 1:22:23

Welcome to Quiznos.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:25

Welcome to Quiznos.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:29

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:30

I uh so you did like the the action scenes though. Wouldn't you say you had a favorite of uh the action scenes?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:35

Oh clearly the boat. Clearly the boat. Oh like I the boat scene is too fucking but I I said to you, wouldn't it be because there's a bit where he tries to jump back onto his boat after it's gotten shredded. Yeah. I was just like, wouldn't it be funny if he just leapt over and like completely missed it and like ate shit and bashed his head on the on the thing and just disappears below the water, like oh shovie abruptly ends and changes tone real quick.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:06

I mean, that would add some some gravitas to the stunts, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:10

Yeah, I mean there's the there's your fucking emotional investment. Fucking Steve Zahn just goes like, oh my god!

SPEAKER_01 1:23:21

And then he turns and Rain Wilson just gets shot in the face.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:27

Steve Zahn somehow survives, but his life haunted the rest of the movie is just him like screaming and like being tended to by like by like an African nurse. Like she can't understand him. She's just he's just racing.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:45

She thinks he's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:46

Yeah, but she has to take care of him because you can't turn your back on someone.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:51

Yeah. Oh man. Um would you say there were any other like um I guess I wouldn't say positives, but anything else that you re-evaluated on this watch that you maybe didn't like initially that you came around on or at least didn't hate? I know you still hate the what I need. I know, but you didn't like the I I got I'll I'll just I'll just say it.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:10

I think the fucking music soundtrack for this movie was a mistake. Like I think I think the lack of tension uh was not served by all the fucking like we're having a good time. Like, here's my like sweet home Alabama.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:25

What would you have gone with instead? Like slip knot or like more of an orchestral interpretation?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:30

No, they had a number of uh It's a pretty good instrumental they they had a they had a number of great instrumentals, they had a very cool chorus singing in uh an African language. Yes. I would have loved if they leaned into that more. It's just like kind of a black box. And you know, like I gotta be real, I I'm bringing my own bias to the table also, but it's just to me, playing something like, oh, here we're gonna play sweet home Alabama music as they're going into dangerous enemy territory.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:58

Something about that is very like like I don't I want to say teeny bopper coated.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:03

It's just like it's just like grimace a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:06

Yeah, it's just it's just slightly cringe.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:08

It's just it's slightly else trip on the street. Yeah, yeah, like like it's like ooh, like and it's just it's just not I I think there would have been but again like so like the sele what what's the word like the copyrighted tracks that they were not great, but I said it felt it's I said it felt very car dealer ship and I stand up.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:30

Oh sure, like it's just sure, okay kinda it's not even just that it's not even just the anachronism, it's uh it's the fact that it's very safe music, you know? Like like like you don't know what we can find that's just kind of vaguely upbeat, you know, it's just like blah blah blah. Doesn't really establish a mood, you know?

SPEAKER_06 1:25:52

Okay. Yeah. No, I follow you on that. Here's the here's the nicest thing I can say about this movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:06

Uh oh. And indeed, like, I think this is what I'm gonna close out my thoughts on. On my second watch through, the lack of emotional investment did bother me. Okay. But the only reason the lack of emotional investment bothered me is because I realized I was having emotions that I wanted fulfilled, you know? Like, I looked at this mo I looked at this movie and said, like, I really like you. And this movie said, like, you catch the game last night? Like the moment between us was ruined. Like, I wanted there to be like more scenes of Matthew McConaughey and Penelope Cruz flirting. I wanted them to have like some moments where like I don't know, they're like they're like, you know, like fucking uh uh Dirk Pitt drinks a ton of tequila.

SPEAKER_07 1:26:57

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:58

Fucking uh uh Penelope Cruz plays a character from uh from Mexico, like there's some kind of problematic shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:06

He does a little, yeah. Like it's like a sombrero that he puts on, and she's like, why do you have that? And like it's always fourth oh to cinco in this house, and throws up on himself.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:19

He hasn't touched a drop of alcohol, he just does that. Yeah. Steve, this is what happens when Steve Zon isn't around to keep him cordoned off. Um no, but like I would have loved. I mean, I just love in any action movie where you get like little bits about the characters, you know. Like the same reason you like uh we like it when the villains have something going on. Uh I would have loved just to see Penelope Cruz and Matthew McConaughey be together a little more because fucking he has very good chemistry with Steve Zahn. Like, no one's ever gonna like well, no, some people will absolutely accuse Matthew McConaughey of being a Bad actor, but no, he's I don't. I don't. I think I thought he was great. And like I just wish this movie could have taken the time to let us like it instead of trying so hard to make us like it.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:12

No, I'm just imagining like uh imagine like swapping the Matthew McConaughey characters between uh Sahara and true detective. Eric Pitt is in true detective and Rust Cole is in Sahara.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:26

Finding the corpse tree, like woo!

SPEAKER_01 1:28:30

All right, Marty.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:32

Alright, Marty. I think that's gonna I think that's basically what I really want to say about this movie is it was good enough that I wish there was more that I could have chewed into.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:50

Okay. Um I guess my last uh question for you would be hypothetically, in the alternate timeline that's like an ideal world where this became like a cinematic universe.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:00

Yeah. The DPCU.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:04

Um the CCCU. What would the sequel be? Like, where would it be set?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:19

What kind of uh adventure would they be having in the world? Well, this one was desert.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:29

I feel like it'd be too easy to go to like um Nepal or Tibet. I think it would sh it should be in South America. Like somewhere somewhere in the Amazon, uh a lot the river, like doing a lot of river shit. Like it's cloud, it's fucking jerk pit. There's gotta be fucking water nearby.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:51

Steve Zahn gets parasites.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:53

Steve Zahn gets parasites pukes. Rain Wilson gets executed by a cloud.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:02

Like skin him alive, like display his course.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:06

The video on the internet. Oh my god. Something about actors being traumatized.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:23

I gotta get off this. Well, what what are your closing thoughts? Did I did I is there anything we didn't get to?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:31

Um I don't think so. I mean, I still really like this movie. I think it holds up to repeated viewings. I would like at some point to make you watch this a third time and see if you like it even more. I actually I actually don't hate that idea.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:43

Like, I mean, I did like it better on the second viewing, so maybe I'd like it even more on the third viewing or like you never know, dude. No, I actually would not I would not hate that. And like I like I said, there's a lot to like about this movie. Uh but I mean like and I I'm just gonna put this last bit on the fucking uh on on the lack of sexual stakes in the movie. But like this movie fulfills so many action movie tropes, and I love it. I'm just saying, why can't I have the cheesy romantic trope to go with it, you know? Of like of like getting involved with a girl of action. Like that's I love it. I love it when characters do action stuff together and have relationships.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:28

Like Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:30

I like that. Uh but that is my thoughts on Sahara. For now. And for now. And you know, we might do a special, like r we might have Sahara parties at some point.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:44

If only, man. If we got to dress up for like Halloween and we had to be characters from Sahara, who would we be?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:50

Uh I want to be the William H. Macy character. Oh, the Admiral. Okay. I'll be the Admiral because he smoked a lot of cigars, and I feel like it would not look out of place if I was just doing that with a joint. Nice. I want to be Al. Well, if you're Al, then one of us has to be Matthew McConaughey.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:09

Uh he drowned though, remember? This is the gritty alternate timeline.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:16

It's actually quite peaceful without him.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:19

Way fewer problems.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:20

Everything we do everything very nice this time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:25

All right. Last question: what should we watch next week?

SPEAKER_03 1:32:29

Well, fucking, I'm kind of in the mood for a Statham. Oh. What do you think about uh Statham? What's something he's done that we haven't watched lately? The mechanic?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:40

The mechanic, a working man.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:42

Um a working man is very fucking funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:46

Do we are we like you you watched a working man, and I've watched a working man. I believe so, yes. Um, what else we got? The Beekeeper. Um Beekeeper has a sequel coming out. Yeah. The Meg.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:59

The Meg is a monster movie. Should we? We should The Meg. Let's do the Meg.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:03

You want to do the Meg? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:04

Let's do the Meg. I let I have not a Statham and a Monster movie. We know how he handles fucking various criminal organizations. How does he handle the biggest shark since how does he handle a prehistoric shark underwater movie? And why is he still chasing Statham?

SPEAKER_01 1:33:22

Looks like today we're having fish and chips.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:24

Looks like today I'm I'm the manager of underwater chilies. The only the only chili's that's underwater.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:32

And today the only item on the menus fillet of fish.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:37

And hat margarita Mondays just started. I know that's not clever. I'm just I'm just letting you know it's a very good deal.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:44

Alright, so uh next week will be the Meg.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:47

Yes, would you love would you like to do a little housekeeping? I'm not gonna ask you to love it.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:51

I'm just gonna always. Uh Slop Culture is a podcast hosted by Sam Sykes, that's him, and Will Palmer, that's me. Please give us a five-star review, uh that's out of five, on whichever platform you heard us on. We really, really super appreciate it. Our cover art's by Andrew Sides, and our intro music is by Joe Roy. And if you want to get in touch with the podcast, you can email at slopculturepodcast at gmail.com. You can find me on social media at palmskis or will underscore palmskis pretty much everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:19

And you can find me at Sam Sykeswears pretty much everywhere. And thank you again for listening and for tuning in once more. We always appreciate it, and we hope you enjoy these movies as much as we do. I have been Sam Sykes. This has been Will Palmer. This has been Slop Culture. Please join us for the Meg next week. And until then, stay sloppy.