Paradigm Shift Episode 2, Hollywood Corruption

In This Episode Jesse & Rob Talk Hollywood Corruption, Racism, Politics & Much more, Don't Miss this interesting Conversation about How The world seems to operate today VS How Things used to be in the 80's & 90's

What have We lost?

What have We gained?

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:01

Alright, we're back, guys. Episode two of the paradigm shift. What's going on? I am Big Rob back with Jesse. How you doing, buddy? Hey, what's happening? Jesse and the host. We're going to talk about uh Hollywood, the corruption, the scandals, uh, and the shilling of political narratives as well, and so much more. Uh, we're gonna dive into it. Now, Jesse, I remember a time uh aging myself back in the uh late 80s, early 90s, uh, you know, sitting in front of the TV as a kid watching uh Sundays, watching Disney Walt Disney presents every Sunday. Remember that? They'd put on a movie, uh, a Walt Disney movie, and it was just good um good old-fashioned family time, right? There was no politics in it. There was no, it was either the Boogeyman or Ghostbuster or whatever it was, right? But it was just a good wholesome family day, Sunday, right? Sit in front of it, watch Disney. What has happened, man? What has happened uh not just to Disney but to Hollywood? I mean, Disney is a large part of the problem, uh, from from what I've seen. But uh, like how did we go from you know good, wholesome movie watching and and just being able to be in you know in the moment in a movie to all of these political agendas and you know subliminal messages in every movie we see? How did we go from there to to where we are now?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Boy, that's a loaded question. How did we get here?

SPEAKER_02 1:47

What what happened? You must tell me the answer.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Me or someone else?

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Well, there was there was I I told you off camera that you know we reviewed uh on our on our spoilers channel, uh, our movie spoilers channel, we reviewed Hoppers, right? And one of the comments that I made was that I liked the movie, that the movie didn't have any political agenda like most of Disney movies these days. There wasn't any uh any of today's issues, well that whether it's uh trans or any other issues that I saw politically, I didn't see any of it, I didn't identify any of it when I was watching the movie, and that was a big thumbs up for me. I was like, you know what, it felt good not to because when that happens, when I'm watching a movie and somewhere in the story, they have to shoot out some sort of uh you know comment or or one-liner that represents a problem in the world today, whether political or or otherwise, um, it pulls me out of the movie. You've now completely pulled me out of your story that you're trying to tell, and now I'm just like, you know what? Like I didn't, I didn't come to the movie to think about the real world. That's like reading a book, and they throw magazine or magazine, they throw uh newspaper articles in the book. You're like, well, I'm not reading this this sci-fi thriller, you know, novel book to read about politics in the newspaper. It just doesn't make any sense, they don't match. I don't go to the movies to to hear about real world problems, and it just I think it's become so oversaturated. And I I said that, and then Rue, who you know is an African-American, right? He says to me, Rob, yes, there was. I said, What are you talking about? There was I didn't see any political, you know, mumbo jumbo in this movie, really. Okay, and he goes, Um, did you not notice that the only two white characters in the movie were the over-the-top villain bad guys who got you know their upcomings? This is coming from an African-American guy. He's like, Did you not notice that the only two white dudes in the movie, the least white people, were the the bad guys who got what was coming to them in the end, right? I was like, I didn't I do now that you pointed it out, but you know, I guess different people notice different things, so I don't know if that was done, you know, politically or on purpose, or if it was just a coincidence. So I chalk it up to a coincidence at the end of the day. I give them benefit of the doubt, but it's just interesting that people can identify these things in these movies now, and like, do they do this on purpose? What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 4:39

Well, maybe there's two things there. Like, I think in one sense, we mimic real life and the things that we create often, right? So there may be some mimicking in that movie that you know Rue picked up on, but you didn't necessarily pick up on it, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:57

No, not that.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

So maybe what I'm saying, I guess, is it may not have been purposeful, but they just sort of did it like a they they interjected stereotypes, right? And I think maybe the other side of the coin, the part that maybe you're hitting on that kind of bugs you is when it is purposeful and when it's clearly interjected, and it it's a it's an interjection that doesn't add to the story, right? Like it's not it's not a part of this thing. It feels like um, you know, I've got a great analogy for this. Um, you know, you you know, I came from the corporate world before. Yeah, and I used to joke that our our team was like a pitcher of lemonade. Like someone's a lemon, somebody's the sugar, you know, somebody's this, somebody's that. And we kind of blend it all together, and that's why what this team is. It's like this really good picture of lemonade. And at the time we were looking at uh there was an opening or something, and we were looking at hiring somebody else, and they're like, Yeah, what do you think of her? And I said, Well, I think she's a tomato. Like, I don't think she would fit in the team, you know? And I I kind of think this is sort of like what you're getting at, right? Like you have this picture of lemonade that you're like cultivating, it's gonna taste great, and then you throw in some really oddball ingredient, and then you're like, wait a minute, what the hell was that? Like, why is that in the lemonade? It doesn't need to be there. Now, on the other hand, if we're making some V8 uh literal tomato juice, then yes, throw the tomato in there, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Absolutely, that makes yeah, absolutely makes perfect sense. Like, and I like I said, I chalk it up to a coincidence because I you know I try to I try to be open-minded and you know, give but but with with everything that's happened in Hollywood, I gotta be honest with you, man. Um let's take Brie Larson as an example, right? Okay, now before Miss Marvel came out, the first Miss Marvel movie, I was so looking forward to the movie, right? Um, I've I've been a huge fan of the Marvel movies uh for as long as they've been around, all the way back to when like Fox was doing them and Sony was doing them and stuff, right? X-Men and but when we really started this whole Disney and Marvel universe thing, it's just mind-blowingly entertaining to me personally. As someone who grew up on comic books and stuff, we didn't have the internet, you know. So uh so I love that stuff, right? Um, and saying that I was looking forward to Miss Marvel coming out, and just before the movie came out, uh, she had gone out and made these political comments about because the movie uh A Wrinkle in Time, right, got bad reviews. I haven't seen a wrinkle in time, okay? Yeah, just because it doesn't sound like a movie I'd be interested in watching, right? Just from the title.

SPEAKER_00 7:59

I don't know what anything that says a wrinkle, you're like, I don't want anything to do with that.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah, no, I'm yeah, I'm not nothing. Um so she came out and she was she made it a racial issue. She said that the movie was criticized by old white men, and uh that's why the movie was made by black people for black people, which is fair. There are a lot of movies that are made by black people for black people, right? Um, and that that's a perfectly normal thing. Barbershop, for example, right? I mean, it's funny for me as a white guy to watch it. I think it's a great movie, uh, like Ice Cube and all that stuff, but it's not really targeted towards yeah, Friday. They're they're not targeted towards me, but they're great movies, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

And I don't have an issue with that. Uh so for her to come out and say that, and then she'd made a couple other comments, just basically very, very anti-white comments, right? And I know that there's you know, it's a supercharged world we live in, and you know, there's people there that think it's impossible to be racist towards white people. And at the end of the day, it's not even called reverse racist, it's just racism, is just racism at the end of the day. If you have an issue with people of another race because of the color of their skin, you're racist. That's just what it is, right? Doesn't matter what color they are. Uh, so she made these racist comments, and ever since then, then the Miss Marvel movie came out. I could not enjoy the movie, right? And the reason the underlying reason behind it is because she made her personal politics the front front and center of who she is, right? And the same thing goes for any actor, whether it's Tom Hanks or like whichever side of the aisle they're on. I don't want to know your politics because once you start to show me your politics and stuff like that, I can't watch your your movies or your shows anymore because that's all I see, right? Especially if you've said something that's racist or whatever the case might be. Now I'm like, you know what? Like, I don't like you as a person, so now I'm trying to watch this, and I just can't. You've ruined this movie for me, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Uh and I think that they're damaging their own careers by doing this kind of thing. Like, no one gives, like, pardon my friend, no one gives a shit about your politics, right? No one fucking cares.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:20

If you're an actor, right, you get paid a ridiculous amount of money for what you do, which whatever, I don't care. So I hate to say shut up and act, but shut up and act, right? Like you you ruin if if I'm a director or a producer of a movie, I don't want my my star of my movie, whether it's the leading man or leading woman, I don't want their politics to overshadow the movie that I'm trying to put out. Right? And I think that that's that's where Hollywood needs to start being more careful about who they're casting.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yeah, it's interesting. You know, I can I can think back to um Tom Cruise with like Scientology, right? Remember when that whole thing came out, and they're like, oh, he's a Scientologist. And you know, like the whole story behind Scientology is very odd and weird, and it's like it, you know, they stuck that on him for a long time, and he was kind of out about it for a while. And I think eventually the the whole thing just sort of died because it was like there was nowhere to go with it, but but none of it was really ever relevant to begin with, right? Like I don't I don't go to see Mission Impossible because of Tom Cruise's Scientology views. I'm going to see the action, right? Yeah. You know, it's it and I think that's kind of like what you're saying there with with Bree Larson is, you know, it's like your your personal stuff is your personal stuff. And and really, you know, maybe what it is, it's you know, like I again, kind of going back to corporate America, how I have seen it for years, is you don't talk about that stuff in the workplace. But in Hollywood, a lot of times they do. They do talk about this this stuff that it's it's the tomato and the lemonade. And why why are you even throwing a tomato and the lemonade to begin? Like it was great lemonade, and then you ruined it when you did this tomato in there, you know.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Um well, and they say that they do it to, you know, because they have a platform and they want to, you know, use it for good or whatever, but that's really a matter of perspective. I mean, you've got you've got actors on both sides of the aisle, celebrities on both sides of the aisle, that both think that what they're saying is good, right? Who's right and who's wrong is really at the end of the day a matter of perspective, right? Your perception is your reality. So you might not like children watching LGBQ stuff. You might like your children watching that stuff, right? Both people think they're right, yeah. You know, like how can you tell either one of them they're wrong? All you can do is conduct yourself on what you believe. It doesn't matter, because at the end of the day, to everybody else, it doesn't fucking matter what you believe, right? Like it really doesn't. The only thing with affects is you and your family and your kids. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yeah, yeah. I think uh you know, Hollywood it, you know, maybe it's cultural though, also, right? I mean, like Hollywood, let's be honest, has always been kind of entitled. I say kind of, probably a lot entitled, right? They're sort of used to being in this popularity contest, you know, with the the paparazzi is constantly snapping photos and making them feel like they're the center of the universe, and maybe they feel more compelled to be outspoken. But I don't even know if that's necessarily true, you know. And I think I think half of them probably would rather not be outspoken. And I know the majority of them hate the paparazzi, but it kind of creates this culture of like, hey, everybody's looking at you, you got something to tell us, you know, and it's like I think it's more honestly at the end of the day, they don't want to get caught picking their nose or something like that, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Like, you want some privacy, man. Can I scratch my arse when I'm you know what I mean? Without someone catching a picture of it. I get that, right? I do get that. Everyone has those little moments, it's like, you know, I'm gonna blow my nose, I'm gonna scratch my arse, you know, I'm gonna pick a booger, whatever the case might be. I'm gonna I'm gonna pick something out of my teeth. Like, do you do you want that on the cover of you know People magazine or whatever the case might be? I probably not. So I I get that frustration. Like, can I get five minutes? You know? Yeah, but like you said though, the level of entitlement though is is just it's off the charts. I mean, who who was the comedian a few years back who who kind of tore into Hollywood at the awards and just basically told them all, like, just come up here, take your award and shut up. Like, none of you have any real concept of of what the like what's the girl who recently came out and said that it's all stolen land. Um that's Billy Eilish. Yeah, she's it's all stolen land. Man, the backlash that she's getting. The the tribe, what's the I can't remember the name of the tribe, but they're asking her to relinquish her land, like her $14 million property now, since she said that it's stolen. Apparently, some lawyer came out and said because she publicly stated that there is legal ground to go after her to take that land. She recognized publicly that her land is stolen land.

unknown 15:52

Right.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Interesting. It's funny how you know, people like that who, you know, I'm living on a 14 million dollar piece of land, and you know, up here I'm I'm rich and famous and all this stuff, and I'm going to wave my finger in the faces of everybody else and say, you know, I know part of a story, and I'm gonna like I'm gonna tell you what I think you should do. Like, you don't know the realities of the day-to-day life of the average person out there at all. You're so disconnected, and you're waving your finger in people's faces. When when did that become the norm?

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Well, I I think with Billie Eilish, what she was trying to say, and again, taking it in context, it was in relation to the all the ice stuff that's been going on in Minneapolis, right? Yeah, and again, like if you're if you're an illegal immigrant and you cross the border illegally, then yes, you should be detained, right? Is kind of I I think the point. But a lot of what was going on, you know, you have two American citizens that were shot, one of them a VA nurse who was a permit-carrying gun owner with a gun on him. And in America, you have the right to bear arms and the right to protest. So he was 100% legal, and they executed him in the middle of the street. Iced what's that? Iced it? Yes. Iced it. So this was Alex Predi, right? The other girl, the other girl was a little bit more of an antagonist, uh, where she was sort of, you know, snickering back to the guy, and then he just straight up shot her. Again, this is murder. Okay, now regardless of of that, going back to Billy Irelish, she was saying, well, everyone's illegal on stolen land, implying that the Native Americans, what did they get when the settlers came over, right? Well, they got by the most part ransacked, taken out, they got pushed to lands. Every time we gave them land, once we realized there was gold on it, we pushed them somewhere else and they got even shittier land. So I see the part about you know, everybody's illegal on stolen land. However, there's the vast majority of Americans did immigrate legally and they came through Ellis Island in New York. And so making that statement today, it's it's polarizing, but it's also kind of not really accurate, also, because the land is here. And you know, like this is another thing too. Like in the in the um American Indian culture, um, they they view land as like earth, right? Like they they don't view it as like you can even own it. Like that's that's just not their worldview. But from from Europe, yes, you could own land, you could own parcels, and when they came here, you know, they sold land and people bought it and and you live on it, right? And she's she's living on land that clearly they bought. You know what I mean? But you know, at the end of the day, it's just kind of like do we really need another political statement? And you know, like I think I don't know if it's the same way in Canada or not, but like in the US, the the really big problem we have here is Fox News. So prior to Fox News, uh there was just news. Like that was it. It was just the news, right? Well, Fox News went hard right. And because of that, it's really split America as a country significantly ever since it's sort of risen, right? And so I think the problem is that they portray all of us as being very, very different from each other. But the reality is, is we we actually aren't. You know, like in everybody's family, you got people on the right, you got people on the left, you got people in the middle, whatever. But they try to sell it like, no, you're you're either hard right or hard left. And it's like, no, you're not. Like one of my buddies, um, he's got a really funny line. I don't know if you've heard this before, but in America, it's that if you go far enough left, you get your guns back. So the fear is always that if you go left, they're gonna try and take away your guns, but you go far enough left and then they're gonna give them right back to you.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Well, in Canada, um, it's funny because I personally don't believe in uh allegiance to a party, and the reason for that is that we've done a complete swap, liberals and conservatives, right? Or Democrats and Republicans, however you want to word it, right? Where liberals actually behave as traditional um conservatives, and vice versa. But they call themselves so but you have people who are essentially just blindly married to a party, yeah. And it's one of the most idiotic things I've ever seen, right? Because this party is not loyal to you. There is let's let's just let's be honest, there is no good party when it comes to politics, there's no right party who has your best interest. Let's just cut through the crap cake here. It's it's all BS and corruption, right? So to be to have that degree of loyalty where you will blindly vote for a party because you always have is complete and utter lunacy to me. Pay attention to what they're saying and what their intentions are and what they're what they've been doing over the last decade as a party and make your informed decision that way, right? But people in Canada don't do that, right? They just they look at liberals and they say, Well, liberals traditionally have always been this way. So my dad voted liberal, so I'm gonna vote liberal, but liberals are more concerned with big business now and giving tax breaks to big corporations and stuff like that, which is a conservative traditionally uh strategy, right? And vice versa. So it's it's all kind of you know, kind of hybrid now, and no one pays attention to it. Yeah, yeah, I just think it's really, really strange. Um, you know, uh maybe people don't have time, maybe they're lazy, I don't know. Whatever the case, you know, a lot of people like to stand on moral high ground and say, Well, I'm just right because I like liberals, and you know, or I like Republicans, and I'm just right because I like them, and I'm not gonna really address anything that they're actually doing, yeah, or pay any attention to it. I'm just right.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Well, I I I think you know what all that kind of comes down to is if you're gonna judge somebody, judge the individual, don't judge a group, right? And and that's kind of the the truth of the matter. Like, you know, here in in the US, I'm I'm an independent, I'm not registered either way, and I voted for both sides, depending on who's who's in the race, you know. Um even even here in Florida, I want to say the last time around, I voted for the libertarian. This is like the crypto type person, you know, and of course they had no shot in hell at ever winning anything, but I was like, whatever, I'm voting for them, you know. And so I mean it it really just kinda kind of depends. And um I think I think the problem, you know, this this is where politics lost me a few years ago. And I noticed this maybe like 20 years ago or so, was that all of the political type channels, it all became opinions, nonstop opinions, you know, and it's like a panel of opinions. And and I listened to that for about like seven minutes, and I'm like, oh my god, fuck this, you know, I just want to like completely check out, you know, just punch me in the face. I'm going outside to I don't know what, I'll be back in an hour, you know. And and and it it just like totally turned me off, like completely. And and I think I think I would like to see if you're gonna have discourse, if you're gonna, you know, put things forward, even if it's Hollywood, put forth empirical evidence, empirical data. I don't want to hear your opinion, you know. We don't do evidence evidence and no, we don't, we don't do any evidence, and that's the problem, you know.

SPEAKER_02 24:28

Uh well here's the thing when I was growing up, late 90s, even early 2000s, here in Canada, we always had a stereotype about Americans, and it was one of the stereotypes was never talk to an American about their politics, right? And it was just kind of an understanding in Canada, like you guys were always very it's a very personal subject in America, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's I perfectly understand that, right? Canada, we're more willy-nilly with it, right? Who do you vote? Who do you like? Like conservatives, liberals, whatever, okay, right? Uh, I'm I'm always gonna be your friend, even when you're wrong, right? That's how it is, yeah, right. But you know, it was there was always that stereotype about Americans is that don't ask an American about their politics, right? Who they vote for. What happened to that? How did we go from don't talk about it to can't shut up about it?

SPEAKER_00 25:30

Yeah, it it it it became too polarizing. And again, I blame Fox News for that because they're the they're the wedge, right? When they came out, that really wedged everything hard to this direction or that direction. I think before it, you really just sort of had like the evening news, right? And then it was just like, well, whoever's your favorite anchor, you know, it's Peter Jennings, it's Tom Brokaw, it's you know, uh Walter Cronkite, Walter Cronkite, whatever. Yeah, yeah. I mean, really that's kind of how it was beforehand, and now it's not. And you know, like I think of I think about it kind of like this that um I think about like football teams, right? Like uh like an American football team, or let's say a hockey team in Canada, right? Um, you know, I can I can be a fan. Uh I live in Jacksonville, so I can be a fan of the Jaguars here, but I can equally say when one of our players sucks, I can admit that that player just isn't very good, or they're not fitting in, or you know, it's not working out, whatever. It's it's just not the best. But in politics, there's sort of like this blind allegiance that it's like this this candidate is shit. There's nothing of quality here. They're shit, they've always been shit, they're always gonna be shit. There's there's just nothing good here. And they're like, that's my blind support. I did my part. That's what you hear, and you're like, Are you you fucking moron? What do you mean you did your part? Like to what? To fucking, you know, sweep the legs out from the rest of us. I mean, come on now. Like, you can admit if they suck, you know.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

It'll be all right, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yeah, you know, I mean, come on now. You know, like like I was telling you in our in our first episode. Um, I don't like Trump. I also didn't like Biden. I don't like either one of them. I thought they both sucked. I think anybody over 65 shouldn't be in the government. If if you're forced to retire in any other career field, why the hell can you run for president? I mean, come on now. Like, you know, and I think about not to not to be ageist or anything, but you know, I think about my own parents, and my dad's 82, my mom is 75. The thought of electing one of them into government right now, oh you'd have to have lost your mind. You know, like what are you thinking? You know?

SPEAKER_02 28:03

Well, I mean, you and I have followed very closely the crypto, you know, world over the years. And let's say we're just over the last eight years, uh, it's not a sub or even over the last five or six, it's not a surprise that the the people in Congress that support crypto on both sides of the aisle tend to be younger. Like they're younger, and everyone who's against it is older. Yeah, because they don't understand it and they don't want to, yeah, and it's not a surprise. So that that speaks volumes in itself, but uh, I kind of want to take a left turn and steer into the whole Jim Carrey thing.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah, yeah, let's let's go.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Stop with that.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

Here's the thing now, a lot of people are saying, like, relax, he's not a clone, or it's not some someone else, right? He just did some work on his face. Now, I did hear some valid arguments as to why that might not be realistic. One would be um Jim Carrey. I mean, if you've watched any of his interviews or anything that he said over the last decade, right? Um, he's just not really that guy, that superficial guy that cared so much about not looking like he's aging and stuff like that, right? He's never been that that type of personality. And number two, and this is the most valid of arguments when it comes to whether he did some work on his face or not, is why would a man who makes his fortune and still working on his ability to manipulate the his facial expressions get work done to his face that limited his ability to make to manipulate his facial expressions?

SPEAKER_00 30:03

So here's my theory, and this is just me, the psych major, talking. So I remember Jim Carrey from In Living Color, way back when in the 90s, right? When he was Fire Marshal Bill and he was hilarious. Um, lots of skits on there. He was the fun, he was the like the funniest guy on there, probably you know, with the Wayans brothers, but he he was he was uh near the very top. Yeah, he did ace Ventura that was insanely funny. Um, you know, multiple different movies he put out. And I don't know if you remember when he did the biopick on Andy Kaufman. Do you remember this? Man on the Moon? I do, yeah. Yeah. So Andy Kaufman was extremely weird, extremely out there. I'd say the closest thing we have today to Andy Kaufman is like Sasha Baron Cohen with Borat, right? Like where he sort of becomes this oddball character and he never loses character. And and you know, Jim Carrey played Andy Kaufman, and I think it it like tapped into it tapped into a nerve somewhere, and I think I think he like most Hollywood actors, they have like a like a pinnacle, a peak, you know, they hit the top of the mountain, and then what? And I think they get really insecure. And I think if you've kind of followed like Jim Carrey, like like the early days, like you see his interviews and stuff. I mean, he's hilarious. He didn't give a shit about anything, right? But as he's gotten older, I mean, he's like, you know, doing tons of yoga and like going on a retreat for eight months or whatever he's doing, you know. Um, even um uh you know, a hilarious comedian from from your side of the border, uh Mike Myers, same way, right? I mean, Mike Myers has has always been hilariously funny. Every movie he did was great, most of them, maybe not all of them, most of them. Um you know, I remember him reading uh reading about him with uh where he stayed with Shep Gordon. You know who Shep Gordon is?

SPEAKER_01 32:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

So he stayed at Shep's place in Hawaii uh for like months because he was having a nervous breakdown, right? And I I get the impression that Jim Carrey is is in that same boat. Like I think he's probably had a nervous breakdown. He's not relevant anymore. He's a public figure, an entertainer. How do you stay relevant? And I think sometimes people just sort of talk them into hey, maybe you need a little freshening up. You know, like if you look at like uh Renee Zellwigger, oh my god, she completely like ruined her entire look. Like the Renee from Jerry Maguire is not the Renee today, you know? And I feel like Jim Carrey kind of did the same thing. Like, I think I think he just lost his confidence. I think he's getting older, and I think he did something that was a reach and way out of character. And because it's his face, we all noticed it and we're all like, what the hell? Like, that doesn't look like Jim Carrey, you know.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

Well, let's dive into that um nervous breakdown thing a little bit because it's that's something that my wife and I often discuss. Um, you see, I mean, we've all heard the stories about the corruption in Hollywood and you know the powers that be forcing these celebrities into situations so that they have stuff against them, whether it's of a sexual nature or otherwise, right? Um and then there's this there's this trail of celebrities that are on a path to like mega startup, and then they have these moments where they essentially implode their own careers, right? And the theory behind it, it's kind of a conspiracy, which I love. I think we should do a lot of conspiracy theory episodes, but um is that you know they they have a choice uh to go along with what they're being co coerced into or their careers will be destroyed. I mean, there there's a there's a litany of um celebrities that this has happened to over the decades. Martin Lawrence, Britney Spears, to name a couple, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Britney, you can do a whole episode on Britney.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Yeah, I mean look Justin uh or uh Justin Bieber, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Oh god, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

You know, the that that go through these these moments where they just they lose it, and you know, that's part of the theory is that they are the kind that uh that steer away from it and implode their own careers out of fear, but then you have this one anomaly that I wanted to mention. Because how the hell do you do it, bro? Keanu Reeves, what the hell, man? How do you stay out of everything always?

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Right, yeah, yeah. Well, but you know, even Keanu, I think it has some similarities, though. I can see some similarities because I don't correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think he's married. Uh I think I think he has a longtime girlfriend. But that that's another thing, is there's no stability in any of the lives of these people, right? It's kind of like their mates are sort of hit or miss, they're never married, or at least long-term married, and it it's like it all just kind of goes to shit at some point because I mean, even with Jim Carrey, I mean, how old is he now? He's got to be in his 60s and 60s, probably, yeah, exactly. So he's kind of past the point of being relevant, he's missed the point of having kids. He's now questioning what was it all for? Is it all just sort of hollow, you know, and and and he's very much removed from Ace Ventura, you know.

SPEAKER_02 36:02

Well, I I had seen that he wanted to do a sequel to the Grinch, and I felt like um, like somebody had asked him in an interview if he could do a sequel to any of his movies, uh, another another sequel. He said the Grinch. He said, I want to do another Grinch movie. And I just I found that interesting that he would choose uh choose that themed movie. He must have had a lot of fun doing it, but um I kind of figured when I heard that that he was at a point in his career where he was like, I can pick and choose whatever I want to do now, and I want to do the Grinch, even though it's probably not gonna be a box office smash or anything like that, right? It's not gonna be some mega movie, but that's what he would choose, which is weird. I mean, there's people who scream for a sequel to Biodome or not Biodome, sorry, that's uh Truman Show. Truman Show, yes, that's what it is. Um, and and and many, many others, right? But he's just like, oh, we'll do the bridge, you know, yeah. But back to I want to kind of go back to Canon Reeves because this guy is the tomato in the lemonade that you're talking about, right? I can't put my finger on it. Like, the guy has never been in a scandal in Hollywood of any kind, right? Like you said, he's not married. I I watched a uh documentary that turned out he apparently gave away or donated most of the money he made from the Matrix trilogy to uh cancer research uh uh field that his sister had passed away from. Wow, right? He gave all that money away. He doesn't drive. You see him in pictures random pictures all the time on the subway and stuff like that, or just sitting on a bench somewhere having a cigarette, people just walking past him like, yeah, you know, he's just he's just a dude.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

You know, yeah, he's just kind of spaced out in there.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Yeah, like I just watched a video the other day on X where this tour bus was this Hollywood tour bus was driving through the you know the houses, like the streets or whatever, and Keanu Reeves is outside with his guard taking his garbage out and picking up the newspaper off the driveway, like Tony Soprano. He's just like, hey, he waves at everybody, and you know, it's like that's John Wick. What's in that newspaper, John? I'm not over that.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

You know what he tell me? Um I don't know if I told you this. So my my son and I, we uh I I drive over to the high school and he drives us us home every day, right? And on part of the way home, there's this parking lot that's on the right side of the road, and there's a truck that is the exact same model of my truck. And we always look at it and I go, Hey, future uses. You know, it's like the line from Bill and Ted where they see themselves from the future, they're like, Hey, you know. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

Yeah, I watched uh I watched a little thing from Sylvester Stallone on X that popped up in my feed as well last night. Apparently, he has completed the writing of a prequel to Rambo. Really? Yeah, and he's the executive producer. So obviously it's gonna be someone else starring in the movie because it's a it's a young Rambo, right? Yeah, a prequel. Um fantastic, fantastic to bring a next generation into these uh these movies, I think.

SPEAKER_00 39:34

You know, kind of going back to the Hollywood and politics, I don't ever recall hearing anything with Stallone. And ironically, in um Tulsa King, his show on Paramount, I don't know if you watched or great show. Great show, yeah, I like it. Um Jelly Roll was on there, right? Like and you know, it really doesn't uh it doesn't go down any of those those random rabbit holes, and he writes all the scripts. Like I I've seen his uh social media where I it was recently within the last couple months ago that he was like, Yeah, I just you know I just finished another season of Tulsa King, and here's the script, like he wrote it by hand.

SPEAKER_02 40:16

Yeah, yeah, still write scripts, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

Yeah, it's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Hard worker for sure. It makes you wonder like, has all of this stuff just always been there in Hollywood, or is this something that's kind of evolved over I don't know, the last two or three decades? Because did or did social media and the internet just kind of bring it to the forefront because it's a lot harder to get away with this kind of stuff in today's age? I mean, I remember a time just as an example, metaphorically, where we used to be able to go outside and play when the sun came up until the sun came down, and nobody cared, no one knew where we were, no one kept track of what we were doing. There was no cell phones back then. It was just the when the street lights came on, you better get your ass home, right? Most most people in our in our age group can relate. Now, your kid can't go two blocks without being worried someone's gonna snatch him up, right? What is is is that a sign of times that have changed, or is that we have more information at our fingertips now, and this has always been an issue?

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Well, you know, I think you bring up a good point in there that I think our generation of parenting is a lot more helicopter-ish, let's say, versus like our parents or even their parents, which were even further removed, right? I mean, like my grandparents, shit, they were probably smoking and drinking their martini and they didn't give a fuck, you know, yeah, whatever, go steal that car, you know. Then they're my dad goes like stealing a car when he's like 11, you know. I mean, like, like that, that was their generation. And likewise, I mean, like you're saying, like with my parents, I mean, they were just kind of like, all right, see you later. And I'd be like, all right, I'll be back, I don't know, four or five hours. Bye-bye. You know, and now I mean, even with my own son, we're like, where are you going? What are you doing? Who you gonna be with? Okay, how long you do you need us to pick you up? Do you need us because we'll we'll go out of our way. Like, I have this conversation all the time with my wife. Of I'm like, you know, I say, you know how many times my parents picked me up from school in my life? Zero bag. Not one time, it was like your ass is on the bus, or you better find a ride with someone else, or you're walking, you know. And it was like I was always like, shit. I'm like, hey, uh, can can I bum a ride in your car with your parents, you know? And then like if I couldn't, it was like, fuck, I gotta get on the bus, you know.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

I used to walk home every day from to school and from school. Uh yeah, there you go. Yeah, nobody's picking me up.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

Yeah. So anyway, so so the point though is maybe we pay more attention also, whereas in the older generations, I mean, they would they didn't, you know, they didn't pay attention to to shit. I don't know, but but I do think there is like a purposeful interjection, and maybe it is the social media, maybe it's to to try to be relevant to or modern to today, or just put some spin on it. But I think I think you know the biggest problem is it's it it's the tomato and the lemonade. If it if it's not adding to the lemonade, then it shouldn't be there, is the point.

SPEAKER_02 43:35

You know, I really do think that social media has ruined so many aspects of our society, but it's so addicting for people at the same time. It's so addicting for people, but it's uh people don't see how much it's ruined uh our societies. I mean, yes, we do have access to more information, but 80% of that information is not real information. It's it's it's people's opinions disguised as facts. We've moved into an age where social media has convinced people that because they feel a certain way about something or they think something is true in their opinions. Yeah, and and that that automatically makes it a fact. Like this is this is a fact now.

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Because I I don't even know if it's a fact though. I I think it's that the algorithms are built in a way to get you to watch more. So they know when you watch a certain percentage of a certain type of video, right? Like if it's like let's say it's sports, you know, whatever it is. Let's say you're watching hockey videos, and every time a hockey video comes up, you watch on average between, let's say, 78 and 90 percent of it. Well, you know what they're gonna do in that algorithm? They're they're force feeding you hockey videos from then on, or if you're into like hockey fights, you know, you're gonna get all the hockey fights. Like I remember when I was um leaving my corporate job, you know, I was burnt out and pissed off. And, you know, every video I'm watching is like, yeah, fuck this job. And you know, here, you know, it it'd be like some clip from a movie, you know, and it's like, yeah, me leaving my corporate job, you know, fuck them, you know, or whatever. And I would watch it, I'd go, ah, that's funny. And then all of a sudden the next video is another one, you know, and then before you know it, it's it's literally like 45 minutes later, and I've been watching fuck this job videos for 45 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

You know, so I mean I'm still at my job.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

Yeah, so so there's there's a lot of truth though in that in these algorithms, and like you said, I don't even know if it's that they're not facts and you're just watching it as it's factual. I think it's just that it's force feeding you what you want to hear, and it reinforces it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Well, what I was getting at is not so much that um what you're what you're uh absorbing or taking in is not facts. Well, I mean, a lot of it isn't because just there's so much, even like you were to throw back to what you were saying earlier about the news, Fox News, CNN, whatever, it's all opinion-based now, but but dressed up as factual, right? Yes, and but I think that the like the what I'm referring to more is just the average person, whether they're left or right leaning on X or on Facebook or whatever the case might be. And this started with Facebook, let's be honest. And it's that those people are convinced that whatever they scenario they come up with in their head that they think could be true without anything to substantiate it whatsoever, must now be translated into this is a fact, yeah, right, and you have to recognize it because I thought of it, and if you don't acknowledge that what I thought is a fact, then you're wrong and you're uh you're a bigot or you're a racist or you're whatever. You know what, you know what I'm saying? Like, that is how social media, and if you could go back in time and you could talk to yourself from like 1995 and tell yourself that that's how people would receive information and respond to it, you'd be like, there's no way we become that stupid, right? There's no way you would you would be able to convince me back in like 95 that people would be as ignorant and stupid and lazy as they are today when it comes to the information that they take in, they just believe stuff, whatever it is, whomever is saying it to them, like and then it's just it becomes fact in their minds, and I just I'm like, man, like we we have to demand a higher, we have to have the bar higher. Well, intellectually.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

You know what I think changed is that in the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, um the prior to the 24-hour news cycle, every news story had to have multiple sources and they had to be verified. 24-hour news came out and they would run off one, whether it was verified or not. And that's what's just sort of taken off. And I would say I think it's even gone one step further. Um, like a great example of this is X, Twitter, that literally just about every single post, there's some asshole in the comments going, Grok, is this true? Yeah, is this true? And then Grok responds that, oh yes, it's true, or no, it's not. But where is Grok getting Grok's info? From the internet, right? And so the point is, is you know, like I see it all the time on the Iran war stuff. Um, like I saw one um just either this morning or yesterday where uh Al Hamani's son, the new Ayatollah, right? Uh somebody said, like, yeah, he's already been bombed, he's already dead. And they're like, Grok, is this true? And Grok's like, no, it's not true. Grok doesn't know. Are you kidding? Grok doesn't know if he's alive or dead. Grok doesn't know if he's hiding in a mountain somewhere, but they're like, see, grok said he's alive. And it's like, like, okay, I understand you're asking Grok and you're putting a lot of faith in in a in basically a web crawler, you know. So if it's not on the internet, then then you're taking grok's word for it, but that doesn't mean that grok's right.

SPEAKER_02 49:41

Well, isn't isn't that just a prelude to how things are about to get a lot worse? Because, like, as a society, because when you really think about it, that's already rearing its ugly head five years from now. How bad's it gonna be, ten years from now, how bad's it gonna be in terms of people relying on AI for essentially every answer to every question that they have. Uh, they'll just like you said, and essentially, a AI right now, grok or whatever you're using, is just a web crawler, it's just searching for this information across the internet a lot faster than you can. It doesn't know if it's actually real information. I could put out uh, you know, let's say a thousand websites saying that I died, right? But I'm still alive. Yeah, Rock's gonna say Rob died. Rob died, right? Yeah, yeah, a thousand websites here that says he's dead, but I'm sitting right here.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Yeah, that's a great point, right? Like, like, think about this. If think of if you were trying to spin a narrative, all you have to do is is put out some fake stories, and the web crawlers will pick up on it, and people ask it, hey groc, is this true? Yeah, it's true. You know, and it'll come up with whatever bullshit story that you put out on 10 different outlets, and now you control the narrative.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

Yeah, people don't realize that they know it's it's it's all knowing, right? Yeah, Brock knows everything.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

No, it doesn't. It's a web crawler. I mean, you know, we're we're still not at a true, um, I think they refer to it as AGI, artificial general intelligence, right? Now, theoretically, within five to ten years, maybe we will be, right? Because I think it's what is that Occam's razor or whatever that it exponentially increases with time. So theoretically, yes, at some point it should be able to think. But I I don't I'm not convinced that we're there yet, you know.

SPEAKER_02 51:40

No, no, not yet. Uh, same thing with like Elon saying that uh in in what do you say? I think it's in five years or by 2030, uh, there'll be more Tesla robots on the planet than there than there are human beings or something like that, he had said. Clone army, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:57

The Star Wars right there, you know. IROT, yeah, yeah, iRobot.

SPEAKER_02 52:03

But that's that curve, right? That you're talking about says it's none to like you know, and here's the thing: people in certain areas of the world they they don't understand. I mean, if you go, I've you and I have talked about this Waymo, for example. It's just like kind of like a beginning of that, right? Um, if you go to Phoenix, Arizona, for example, you get into a Waymo. If you don't know what a Waymo is, it's a self-driving car, and they are everywhere in Arizona. There's like every block, there's one driving. You get into it, there's no driver. It you you just like Uber, you put it into your app, the car picks you up, drops you off where you want it to go. It's got all these bulky things on it, so it knows all the updated road conditions and everything. Um, which Jasmine's tech would be great for, by the way. But I'm just saying, right? And they're testing in Tokyo now. Um, and you know, these things are gonna be everywhere. I don't know how they'll function in Canada because it's so cold, but I guess we'll find out. Might just be a warmer climate thing. But but they're everywhere in Arizona. Like I spent like a week, uh a week and a half or something like that, like nine days there, about a month and a half ago. And when I first got into one, my friend was like, I'm gonna send you send you home in a Waymo to your back to your hotel. And I'm like, Okay, I got in. I prefer it to an Uber because I don't have a driver who's gonna out of me the whole time talking to me about stuff that I really don't care about, right?

SPEAKER_00 53:24

It's still gonna be weird though, getting in a car with no driver.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

It is there, there is something weird. You got the soft musics playing, and you know, you're just sitting in the backseat. You can change the music if you want, whatever. But point is that um that's robot technology, like you know, you're getting in a self-driving car and it's driving you wherever it is you want to go. You're already that's gonna be normal soon. It's already normal in Arizona. They're testing it in Tokyo and all these other places, it's gonna be everywhere soon. And you know, you've got Elon talking about how every household's gonna have um a Tesla robot by 2030. We're not we're four years away from that, right?

SPEAKER_00 54:04

Yeah, we'll see. We'll see if it comes true. You know, Elon's predictions are notoriously bad. You can go back in time and find all of them where he's like, we're gonna have driverless cars in three years, and that's like eight years ago, and it's like, dude, we still don't have driverless cars. Where are they? You know, and we sort of have them, but not really. And you know, there like there's some of them with Tesla that you know, deaths and shit like that. But yeah, you know what I was thinking of when you were saying that the driverless car reminds me of uh do you remember the movie Total Recall? Yeah, so he gets in, he gets in like the driverless gap and it's like trying to take him somewhere. He's like, No, you know, and like like that ends up blowing up the car or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 54:47

Rips out the fake robot driver.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

Yeah. Speaking of Hollywood corruption, right? That damn driverless car and total recall.

SPEAKER_02 54:57

Yeah, actually, speaking of Hollywood corruption, can we please shut the view down already? The view, god, that's gotta be awesome. Yeah, god that show, man. Like uh, I I saw that they were talking about how Republicans are scared to go on the show and talk to them. Uh, but then I I watched actually this clip of a bunch of Republican, young Republicans who um, you know, whether they're social media Republicans or whatever the case might be, right? Uh like you and I, uh not that we're Republicans, but social media aspect of things, right? Um and they were all they had all gone through the interview process to be on the view, and they were saying that um they get asked all these questions, and what they actually ask on the on the interview process for the view is they they want a a soft Republican to come on, someone who will push a little bit, but not have any real valid arguments against what Whoopi Goldberg has to say, right? No one who can prove intellectually that they don't know what the hell they're talking about on the view that they're lying, right? They want you to push a little, but the they don't really want you to kind of stand out as they want to basically tear you to ribbons, and you know, so they're not actually looking for real intelligent Republicans to be on their show at the end of the day. Um, it's it's all kind of for show, so but that's another show that's a problem, right? The the misinformation here here's the thing: I look at information like this. Um, when you say something, especially on a public platform like uh on national television or uh a platform that big, right? You don't understand that regardless, if you say something you know is not true, it doesn't matter if you recant it later, because you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, right? Most people, the most of the people who hear it never hear about the recant or just disregard it and still assume that it's true. It's kind of like saying that a guy raped you or whatever, right? When you know that he didn't, and then you take it back later and you say, Oh, well, okay, well, he didn't. I apologize. He's still labeled as that now, or he beat you as a woman, right? Uh he hit a woman. Well, guess what? Everyone, regardless of whether it gets recanted and everybody hears that it's it's wasn't real, they still will always view him as a woman beater now, right? It's the same thing with this stuff, right? Politic politics and stuff like that. You say something, and they know that they say something that's not true, that's just over the top, and people believe it, and then they say, Okay, well, maybe I was exaggerating a little bit, you know. Well, but they say more like this, okay. So maybe I was exaggerating a little bit, right? On the side, out of the side of their mouth, but everyone who heard it already heard it, and they don't they don't reset you, you can't reset your mind once you've heard something and and labeled a person a certain way. You then can't change your opinion of them for some reason. You've now burned it into your brain that this person is, and Trump is a perfect example of that. Like, I don't like a lot of stuff that he says, too. I'm I'm with you on that. I think he can be a real asshole, but at the end of the day, they say things, these over-the-top things about him that aren't true, and then they get proven wrong and recanted, but it's still he still wears it.

SPEAKER_00 58:30

Well, what what I don't like about him, he's the tornado of chaos who says, I'm innocent. Bullshit. I'm I'm I'm not a fucking moron. You're not innocent in the slightest of anything. Okay, there's a reason you're a tornado of chaos and everyone around him always gets burned. That's how it goes, you know. But regardless of Trump, I I was thinking of a really good example of uh the what you were saying there with with Hollywood, right? So think of like the Me Too uh movement in Hollywood, right? Like Harvey Weinstein, serial rapist. Um, Kevin Spacey. Kevin Spacey was an excellent actor, you know. But but you know, the funny thing with Hollywood too is you it's like, oh, he was so good in seven as the serial killer. He may just be a serial killer. Like, like he was really good as that super corrupt president that was kind of a serial killer in House of Cards. He may just be a serial killer, right? Like, I don't know if he's always just like playing a role here. I'm just saying. But regardless of that, um, you know, I can think of uh Jared Leto. Okay, so Jared Leto, love him or hate him, he's had a few great movies, a few bombs, right? Like everybody could could you know agree that Fight Club was an amazing movie. As equally, you could agree some of his other movies maybe sucked. He's a great musician, right? Uh frontman of uh I can't think of the band.

SPEAKER_02 59:58

Um Tron 2 wasn't great.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

Yeah, I never said saw that one, the latest one. Um, anyways, regardless of all that, I've I've heard for a while now that he's like this serial philanderer at all, like he's known at all the Hollywood parties, like, oh, you haven't been in Hollywood until Jared Leto's hit on you at one of the gatherings, you know. And it's kind of like it's like, okay, so again, like this is like a dividing line of like, is he a rapist or is he just an asshole? And it kind of sounds like he's just an asshole, and he's at the party, he's got a shit ton of money. He's like, hey, you want to sleep with me? And they're like, ew. And then like, like, there's another one, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:47

Yeah, you know, you can it you're an asshole, but you're you're an innocent asshole.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:54

Yeah, I mean, he I don't I don't know if he broke any laws, or at least no one's come forward yet to say that he broke any laws.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:02

Yeah. Unreal. Yeah. But that's that's the thing. I guess when it when it for me, when it all when we chalk it all up, and I know we've bounced kind of all over the place, and that's what these conversations will do, right? But uh for me celebrities, keep your politics to yourself, right? If you want to continue to be a star, if you want people to if you truly care about people enjoying your craft, right, keep who you are to yourself because you were pretending to be someone else in these movies, but if you make your politics the primary feature of your personality, yeah, that's all I'm gonna see when I see one of your movies, and I don't want that, right? Yeah, yeah, and that will that will make me say flat out, I will not go to a theater to pay to see uh a Brie Larson movie, right? Because I don't respect her as a human being anymore, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

Yeah, she lost you.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:09

Yeah, yeah. I might watch her movies, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:13

Like again, going back to the corporate world, you don't show up to work and go, hey, I'm this party, and if you're that party, we're never talking again. Like you don't talk politics in the office, so why why why does Hollywood feel the need to to talk politics? Right? Polarizing subjects, why?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:33

Well, look at the um look at the ratings for like the Grammys, the Academy Awards. I remember before the internet, that would used to be a big thing, man. Like people would like not go to work to stay up and watch the Academy Awards and stuff like that, and you know who's who's winning, you know, the Grammys is music, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:58

So so the yeah, the the Academy Awards, the Oscars, right? Yeah, the Oscars was huge in the 90s. People would not go to work the next day to stay home and watch the Oscars. Now, no one cares because it's all politicized, right? It's all preordained. Everybody, for the most part, knows, and no one really cares who's gonna win anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:19

You know, I gotta be honest, you know, you know where they lost me is I became an adult and I realized that when I get an award at work, no one gives a fuck. We're not like celebrating it on CBS that I got an award. No one cares. Nobody cares. So, like, why am I like so invested in them getting an award at work? And I thought about that and I was like, why do I care? I'm like, I don't care if you get an award or not. Now, on the flip side of that, I would say that yes, certain things that get a bunch of awards, then yeah, maybe they're worth looking into or a movie or something like that. But likewise, I mean, even at the Oscars, you know, that the movie I told you off camera, Bagonia, that's like just insane. That I again highly recommend it, right? Um, at the Golden Globes, it got snubbed on every single category. It got snubbed. It didn't win anything. And I thought that was that was wrong. I mean, that was like totally wrong. I mean, that this this was a really, really well-written, well-acted, well-shot movie that at the end of it, you're just like, what did I just watch? And and it it it it was quality, I think is the point, right? Uh, but but equally, I mean, it it didn't get anything, no acknowledgement. And so, anyways, going back to that though, you know, I I just kind of look at it differently now, and I I think you know, there's another thing at play too, that today's generation is a generation of convenience. All of their favorite stuff is on whenever you want it. Whereas when we were kids, there wasn't shit on but the Oscars. So you had to watch it, right? And you were like, hey, I get well, I guess the Oscars are on, we're all watching it, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:05

There was unsolved mysteries.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:06

Come on, that's true. I watched a lot of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:12

You know. So it's uh, you know, is Hollywood on its last legs, is the question. With um with platforms like Netflix getting very high profile actors and actresses to star in their movies that just straight up skip theaters and go straight like uh a new movie that just dropped on Netflix, War Machine that I watched with uh oh, what is his name again? What is what is the actor's name? Hang on. Um He was he's in uh Jack uh Reacher, the TV show as well. Uh what is his name? Uh Ellen Richardson.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:01

Um You probably know him if you uh if you saw a picture of him here. I'll I'll put it on screen for a second so you can see. I know that some people are listening and they can't hear, but right tell me you recognize this guy. Um if I can get a steel he's in like everything, Alan Richardson. Yeah. He's in like everything now, right? I think he's gonna be a big star, he's an up-and-coming star. But anyway, the point is the movie, extremely well well done in terms of special effects, storyline, and casting. Big stars in the movie, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:39

So the question is like, is Hollywood in trouble?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

You know, I I think you just tapped on the the big thing here, and I've been thinking this for a while. And it's it's not just Hollywood, it's the music industry also, where you hear people say they don't make good songs anymore, they don't make good music, there's no good bands, they don't make good movies, there's no good movies, there's you know, whatever. Bullshit. There is a ton of really, really good stuff that's new, whether it's movies, TV shows, music, bands, albums, there is tons of good shit. But I think what's different is that the way that we're marketed this stuff today is from an independent marketing versus like a big machine like it would be in the past, you know, like like you don't have radio hits anymore with any longevity whatsoever. I mean, they all just kind of come out and die. But the reality is, is like if you want to find good music, you know, you go on iTunes on Tuesday or whenever the new shit drops. There's always good stuff in there. And even on uh not Amazon, on Instagram, Instagram half the time recommends me bands that I'm like, holy shit, this is pretty good. And I look at it and they got like you know 200 followers. I'm like, hey, I'll listen to this one. Like, this is cool. And you know, I think I think a great example of this, it's it's about quality writing. Okay. So, you know, you brought up the example earlier about Disney, and my son and I were just talking about this the other day that Disney um let's let's say going back before Disney owned Lucas and Star Wars, right? So the first three, the trilogy, that built Star Wars. Well, they then did the next three, which were sort of eh. Then we did the Force Awakens, everybody thought, hey, it's back. And then the the the Jedi, whatever, that one was awful, worst movie ever made. And then the ninth one was sort of like like a six out of ten, maybe, you know, it wasn't great. And so, you know, it's like, well, is Star Wars dead? Is is it just shit? And lo and behold, John Favreau, who's who's an excellent storyteller, you know, he gets involved with the Mandalorian and he kills it. The Mandalorian was an excellent show. He gets involved with Boba Fett, kills it, right? It was excellent. And so some of these were really good. Even the uh, you know, nobody ever thinks of the Hans Solo movie. The Hans Solo movie, I loved it. I thought it was awesome. It was a great side movie, and they never did shit with it. You know, they didn't do anything. Even um Rogue One was an excellent side one, which I don't know if you've seen uh Andor, but Andor is a prequel to Rogue One, and now apparently they're redoing Rogue One so it fits right into the TV show Andor. So if you watch seasons one and two, you can then go straight into Rogue One, where basically they're getting the plans to build the Death Star, right? And so the point in all of that is that there's actually some really, really good writing and some really good stuff. It's just not always where you would think it would. You almost have to go out of your way to look for it. Like there's just no big apparatus that's spoon feeding us the good stuff anymore. And in the meantime, what you know, the big machine of Disney when it comes to Star Wars, they just crank out one shitty trilogy after another. It's like no one wants another shitty trilogy. Like, like there's so many different Star Wars characters, you could make your your own movie off of them, and if you have good writing, people are gonna want to see it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:33

Well, I remember one of the issues. I'm not the biggest Star Wars guy, I've seen most of the movies, but I just I'm one of those people that haven't has not strung the storyline together properly. I'm sure I'll get to it eventually. They're good movies, otherwise, I wouldn't continue watching them. But what I would say is I remember I can't remember which one it was, but you had an African guy as one of the leads, and that was like a topic of conversation around the movie. Like people were, I don't know if they were upset by it or whatever the case might be, but I was just like, I remember hearing about it, and I was like, same thing with like Superman. There was like that uh what's that guy's name? Jordan Jordan something, uh, the guy who played in the the Creed movies, uh the Balboa. Yes, yeah. So about him playing uh being Superman in a movie, be like, Well, but he's but he's black. Who gives a shit? Who gives a shit? Honestly, if it's a good entertaining story with good action, who you know Superman didn't actually exist, right? Like who cares? I mean, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:44

Yeah, that there's there's definitely some stereotypes. Like in the you know what were some of my favorite Marvel shows were the ones that were on Netflix before Disney bought Marvel, like uh like Luke Cage. It was like, yeah, he's like this black dude in the hood, and he's he's like super super strength, and you know, he's uh up against this like really bad drug dealer type guy. That was a great show. Loved it. It was real gritty and dark and awesome, you know. But I could also see where you could be like, well, you know, it's it's you know, portraying this or stereotyping this or that. But I mean, at the end of the day, even like Wu-Tang Clan was in that at in one point in one of the episodes, you know, it was it was great. I loved it. I I thought it was an excellent show.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:32

And so, you know, I mean I I do understand some people that are traditional, you know, comic book fans, and they're like, you know, well, this is the character for that and stuff. And I I get that, but at the end of the day, sometimes you just gotta take a step back and you gotta say, it's just a it's just entertainment, it's just a story, just enjoy it for what it is, right? Like, who cares?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:56

Stop well, well, so my wife and I, we had a conversation the other day about racism, right? And I was saying how I have always my entire life had black friends. Always. I've I've just had friends all over the place, regardless. You can be Hispanic, you can be black, you can be female, male, whatever. I don't give a shit. Like, as long as we can hang out and laugh about some stuff and whatever, it's all good, right? And yeah, you know what was interesting was when I was in high school, so when I was in uh elementary and middle school, my my schools were kind of like in the yuppier, let's say, neighborhood-ish part of town, whatever. High school, my high school was right in the middle of the hood, okay? And so total opposite. And so I went there, and that was the first time in my life where I was um where I saw racism. But it wasn't from me, the white guy to black people, it was from the black people to me. You know, like like they they didn't like me because I was a whites, white-skinned, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, you know, look at this privileg privileged, you know, guy over here, whatever. And and I experienced it. At one point, I um there was an Applebee's. You you remember the restaurant Applebee's? I don't know if you have them in Canada or not. Anyway, so there was an Applebee's down the street, right? And uh I thought, hey, you know, maybe I'll get a job at Applebee's, I'll become a server and you know, I'll make some money or something like this. And so I go there and they tell me they're like, well, you don't have any serving experience, so you got to be a host first and pay your dues or whatever. So I'm a host at Applebee's this is for about a month. And and during that time, um being a host, what you're supposed to do is seat people in the restaurant wherever there's a server that has tables, right? And you basically divide up the restaurant amongst the servers. So if there's like seven servers, then you have seven sections and you try to seat people equally so that nobody is just bombed and they're completely full. And likewise, you don't have somebody who's not doing shit, right? And I remember there was an older black couple that came in and yeah, okay, great. Yeah, you want a booth, okay, great. I'm like, all right, let me uh let me uh get everything together. So I'm I'm walking them back there and I turn around, they're nowhere near me, and they're sitting somewhere else. They're sitting in a completely different section. And I I was like confused, and I was like, oh, I'm like, you know, I was I was gonna seat you over here because you know, we have the server that's available, and they're like, we're not sitting in the back of the bus. I was like, what the fuck? Like the least racist person ever, and you're coming at me with that shit. I mean, like, what? You know, and it and so it was like a weird reversal. And and so I've I was having a conversation with my son recently because his music taste, he listens to he's got real eclectic taste, right? So some of it is like anime-ish, Japanese lounge music weird. Some of it's like crazy hard rock like deaf tones, and then there's a lot of rap. And I was telling him that in rap, I really like rappers that are storytellers, right? And like I remember there was a show on HBO called uh Deaf Poetry Jam that Russell Simmons did. It was awesome, right? Just poets, you know, just spitting lyrics. It was like, shit, this is awesome. They got like beats behind them, you know. And uh, and I was telling him how, you know, like I feel like half of the stuff in his playlist, it's rap, is low-hanging, sloppy fruit. And it's it's like, you know, end this, and that, uh, it's talking about pussy, it's talking about drugs, it's talking about all these things. And it's it's just very low quality. And I think that as a culture, you know, if they didn't keep bringing that stuff up, then it would have died a long time ago. And I I get it, there's a sense of hustle and all that, you know, okay, fine. But but again, like like you're keeping this relevant, just like that couple accused me of being racist when I was just doing my job, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:18

Well, I think when it comes to uh to racism, you know, there's a lot of layers to it, and I think people try to oversimplify it by saying that racism is taught, right? And the implication on that is you know that your parents teach it to to you and you pass it on and stuff. That's the implication, but I think an aspect of uh of racism being taught that is completely and utterly ignored, right, is that regardless of what race you are, if you a lot of times, I would I would argue most times in this day and age, people who have reservation, I'm gonna call it reservations about any other race, right? It's usually based on their life's experience of their engagements with that people of that race, right? That is very largely how your opinions of people are formed. And if you've only like as an African person, if they if they have an issue with white people, a lot of times it's because a lot of their lifetime engagements with white people probably didn't go well for them, right? And left a bad taste in their mouth, right? So that's what kind of taught them to have those reservations. It's the same thing, you know. You can have, you know, like I grew up in a town in uh in Ontario here in Canada, and we have there there was reserves on every side of the city, right? So tons and tons of First Nations people, right? And growing up, all that I ever had was for the most part bad engagements. I would just be walking, I remember just walking down the street with a friend of mine one night, it's like 11 o'clock at night. We're just walking to 7-Eleven, and there's like six Native guys just kicking a limp body in the middle of the street of this unconscious guy, and they're just they're just beating them, right? And that was a normal thing that you saw from them there. So that was my normal engagement with them. So naturally, you're gonna have kind of I'm not saying you hate them, but you do have reservation. You have your your guard kind of goes up a little bit when and it's because of your personal individual interactions with those people throughout your life, with those people from that race, right? It doesn't matter what race it is, right? It's true across the board for black people, white people, Asian people, like across the board, right? Your interactions are what shape your opinions of other races, largely, not always, but largely. And I think that that just gets completely ignored, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:20:05

I think I I think you know it's like it it's not a tomato and the lemonade unless you make it a tomato and the lemonade. And I can remember when my son was little, and you know, we'd have like a birthday party, right? And he invites his friends over. It was like all different races, complete mixed bag. Like nobody's nobody's ever said one racist thing or taught racism or anything like that. And so, you know, like going back to the Hollywood it the Hollywood corruption and messaging, right? Like, do they need to push this stuff at you, or can you just let a kid be a kid and have friends who whoever they may be, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:46

Yeah, exactly. That's exactly it. Yeah, like my son doesn't notice that he's playing with you know a Middle Eastern kid or uh, you know, an African or a white kid, he doesn't notice. He's he's turning six, he doesn't notice, and I'm I'm happy about that, right? Never once has he ever asked a question about it or anything because kids shouldn't notice, it's just another kid, right? And that's that's the way it should be. But uh, I do think that these things are kind of uh oversimplified, and uh you know, for me, if I come across someone of another race, let's let's say Asian, and they they've never had any positive engaged day, they have an issue with white people because I'm white, I'm Scottish, I'm like 90% Celtic, right? My my response is, you know, the way I think, and I know everyone can't think this way, but the one my my thought process is like, man, you know, I'm not apologizing to the person, but in my mind, I'm thinking, like, it sucks that the only engagements in your life you've had with people of my race clearly have been negative, right? So maybe I'm gonna try to make it a positive kind of impeachment, right? To give you a little bit of a sign, hey, you know what? There's there's good and bad in everybody, and in every you know, every type of person. So and it's hard, I know it's hard to think that it's easy to say it when you're not in a heated situation, but you know, I think if we all just did that, um, you know, and like you said, let go of stereotypes and let go of let go of things that happened when none of us on the planet today were alive.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:22

Um exactly. Yeah, we we we talked about that the other night too. And you know, I I was talking about things, you know, like like the whole like reparation discussion and whatnot, where it's like, you know, I I get it that I'm white, but my relatives came through Ellis Island around 1900. They weren't even here for the civil uh civil war, you know, like like you know, so you having a problem with me is very misguided, you know. You're you're just you again throwing down a label. And you know, I I think I think when it comes to Hollywood and entertainers, you know, it's it's like don't imprint your views on on others, you know. If you want to be an entertainer, then be an entertainer, you know. Like a great example of this was uh the Hulkster, Hulk Hogan, right? Excellent entertainer, right? I mean, loved him. I mean, he he became that character. He's Hulk Hogan, he was loved, you know, then he was NWO, then he was hated, you know, and then he was kind of back again, whatever. And then, you know, they had him on video at some point, you know, with his like racist rant. And then, you know, they have the video of him having sex with his buddy's wife, you know, and it's like, god damn, like, come on now, like like you're really for me. Like, I I want to think back to the guy in the 80s, like that's that's what I remember. I don't want to, I don't want to know all this stuff. And I get it that people are complicated, but don't don't imprint your views on me. Even, you know, um, like you brought up the view earlier, there was a clip of uh Whoopi Goldberg, and she's talking shit about the current generation about how yeah, they just don't work hard enough. And my generation, you know, we worked and we got our house or whatever. And it's like, okay, time out, bitch. Like, first of all, the house that you got is like fucking seven times the cost for this generation at a third of the wages. So shove that right up your ass and let's go to the next topic, and you start stop uh imprinting your views on how we're not working hard enough while you're sitting on a fucking TV show, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:40

Cost of living's gone up, got you know, stayed where it is, and the price isn't gone off astral. Yeah, there's a little prelude going back to Hogan, too. I we we do have uh a pro wrestling episode coming up with a special guest.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:53

I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:55

Yeah, a little prelude to that is that I remember the last time Hogan came out, and it was at a wrestling pay-per-view, I think it was last year, even might have been last year or the end of 2024, not long ago, before he passed away, right? He passed away like six weeks or eight weeks later, or something like that. Yeah, but he came out, his music hit, you know, when it comes crashing down and hurts inside, you know, the whole 80s. And he's just there to promote. Um, I don't even remember what it was, but they were promoting something, right? He didn't even go up to the ring, he just came out to the entrance, he was talking, and the crowd booed him out of the building, yeah. Like unbelievably, to the point where he kind of lost his monologue, like he was kind of and I remember watching it, and I was just sitting there shaking my head, you know, and I'm thinking to myself, like, how can you, as a wrestling fan, come to an event that you love you would not have this opportunity to come here and enjoy the entertainers of today in the industry if it wasn't for this man. This one man was the was arguably the single most important figure in the entire professional professional wrestling industry, right? You don't have to like him, but you can show him enough respect to not boo him when he comes out, given all that you get to enjoy and appreciate because of his hard work over the decades, right? Yeah and it showed me like this generation is is you know it was absolutely sickening to see that as his last time ever coming out uh in front of a wrestling crowd, and that's how they treated him, given everything that he gave to that industry. It wouldn't be that industry wouldn't exist if it wasn't for that man. I'm not justifying anything he did in his personal life, everybody's got skeletons in their closet, right? The same people booing him are probably done equal or or worse shit that that he's done, right? But you're there treating them that way, right? There's no fucking innocent people in this world. That's why I hate when you know people get on these high horses and they're like, Oh, can't believe what that guy did. Yeah, what the fuck did you do in your life, bud? I bet you there's some skeletons in your closet too, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:27:20

Yeah, yeah, very true. You know, I remember the just reading some of the comments when he died, and I I thought the same thing. I was like disgusted by some of them. I was like, I I just can't even look at this. Yeah, and yeah, it's social media, right? I mean, that's part of that.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:37

Yeah, it's people making you know, making uneducated comments about stuff that they've heard half a story about, and and throwing out these derogatory, you know, and it was just yeah. And like I would, you know, again, I didn't like everything I that that I heard about him as a as a person and stuff like that. I I mean I've heard all kinds of stories. You know me, I used to be a professional wrestler, I know plenty of people. Had plenty of I've heard plenty of stories about him and how he conducts himself backstage and stuff like that, all the politicking and stuff. Heard all that stuff. But the end, I would not have been able to enjoy the career that I had in professional wrestling if that man didn't do everything that he did. Right. So I don't have to like him, but I will respect him.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:23

Yeah. I I I think you know, ultimately, maybe maybe what this whole episode is about is kind of like what's inappropriate versus appropriate, and how do we how do we live with a little more humility, right? Is it's kind of what it is. I think that's maybe what we've sort of like lost. And again, going back to the just what's what's appropriate and what's not appropriate. And and I think that's really what a lot of this is, is a lot of it's just not it's not appropriate. You know, it's it's just it's it's the tomato and the lemonade. I mean, I keep coming back to that, but that's what it is. It's like you're throwing a tomato in the fucking lemonade, just leave it alone and it would be good, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:07

Yeah, maybe I'll rename the episode the the tomato in the lemonade.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:11

You might you might want to rename it. Yeah, I mean that's kind of a resounding theme here, the tomato and the lemonade.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:18

Speaking of which, that uh I think we're just about out of time. Um, so we will be back with two more episodes next week. Um, and yeah, I'm looking forward to that pro wrestling episode that we're gonna do. Special guests. We are looking at having a lot more special guests uh on the show uh as a as a regular thing. So, guys, uh wherever you are watching or listening to our podcast, make sure you give us a five-star review. Hit the like, hit the subscribe, follow us, uh, leave us your comments so we know what you're thinking. And um, yeah, thank you so much for the support. Any last words, guess?

SPEAKER_00 1:29:57

Yep. That's all I got. Till next time. I'll be ready for the next one. You know me, I'm uh I'm always coming uh guns loaded.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:06

Sounds good, brother. Take care.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:08

All right, see ya.