Sociological Themes in Modern Media

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SeeJpMorgan d. com slash payments disclosure Hello everyone and welcome to the film Cast, a podcast about movies I'm David Chen, and men will literally wander around liminal spaces that harbor their deepest darkest feelings Rather than go to therapy Joining me today is DavVinjar Hardwar You think the backrooms are scary Take a look at my front room, filled with toys. As far as the eye can see, forgotten Christmas presents in creepy dolls And Jeff Kanana As someone who was born without a sense of direction, my backrooms could be much simpler and still I'd be completely dumbed. Just a square. J A couple of spaces Who knows how to get out Those are all vague oblique references to the fact that today in the podcast, we're going to be discussing backrooms as our main review. Of course, we got some watching for you as well. shouldhould be a lot of fun Before we get to that guys, we need to talk about What is happening right now at the U. S. box office? Now, Madness. I'm gonna teach children. What's wrong with the children They're someone to this computer instead of running away from it. Wow I'm gonna I have been told by many people u that are smarter than me about like, oh George Lucas' Star Wars it completely transformed the U.S movie industry when Star Wars came up. Jaws, Steven Spelberg's jaws. it changed the idea of what a blockbuster could be And what's left out of those stories is How the olds must have felt at the time? Like when this, you know, twenty I've heard. I've heard this twenty seven year old kid makes a a hit movie about a shark Right That like just destroys the box office Yeah. And people are like people back then must have been like What's up with these kids like Back in my day, it's the Westerns that would make the money, you know, like back in my day, it was your good old fashioned Star Wars IP Yeah. would making successful movies. How dare they Yeah. indndeed. Well, of course, What I'm talking about is the fact that backrooms is completely dominating at the box office right now. It has made As of this recording U aboutb one hundred eighteen million dollars worldwide About eighty two million dollars are so domestic in its opening weekend Backrooms is directed by Kane Parsons, who is eight twenty four's youngest director ever This is, I think The largest opening for an original horror film ever S I guess Yeah, no, I guess you're you're pulling ideas your net. You're pulling It is Yeah. It is pre established IP, but I guess like not based on a not a sequel film let's Not a sequel to a film or like a book or something, but it like a point of v I IP that is in the ether, which is probably a new thing. We need to. We'll talk a little bit more about what that IP was in our main review of of the movie U But the other thing that is also really interesting right now guys is he's still not old enough to drink. That's what's interesting. Yeah turns twenty one in like a couple weeks. It's just wild. This movie that made over eighty million dollars domestic was directed by somebody who is not old enough to drink Obsession. in its third weekend made more money than it made in its second weekend and the second weekend made more money than it made in its first Literally the last time that something comparable has occurred was when ET came out And I know like other movies have made more money in their third week and their second that aren't like between now and ET I think, u those movies, it's like more of a platform release. Like you know, many movies come out in a few hundred theaters and then it's like next week, it's a thousand theaters. And then of course it makes more money. This is a movie that basically has stayed from the second to third week stayed roughly in the same number of theaters. It added like one hundred one hundred and fifty theaters or so and made more money It's third weekend then it's second movie then a second weekend. And not only that But we are witnessing What in my opinion is a almost historic collapse F Star Wars the Mandal Lorning Grogu, which had its a massive seventy percent drop in its second weekend which is the highest any Star Wars film ever in its second weekend. And it already was had the sort of unfortunate distinction of being the lowest opening Star Wars film. U in recent memories since Disney Star Wars were a thing It's possible in fact, that backrooms and obsession may end up making more money then Star Wars the Mandalorian and Grogu and Curry Barker made obsession in a cave withith a box of scraps I mean Kay Parsons rel to be honest. Yeah. The Kay Parsons doing doing backrooms originally. the thing He got pitched to do that feature when he was several it was like twenty twenty two, twenty three. Back rooms the first short came out twenty twenty two, twenty twenty three So if he's still not old en enough to drink now, think about how young he was right man When he was directing you know he did all this with the box the seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. And now these movies are just dominating. and by the way eighty eight percent of people that saw backrooms were between the ages of thirteen and thirty four So ye, this is very much in the Gen Alpha Gen Z younger millennial I sa so that screening filled with teens Yeah So there you go. So a couple of quick reactions. I'd love to hear what you guys think of this, but I'll say number one, U, all the all the fears we had about Gen Z and the younger generation not turning out for movies Complete BS and I'm sorry we wasted your time with all those concerns. The fear some some had because I kept pushing back whenever that topic was b. I was like, I see the kids. I see the stories about the kids and we hear them talking about going to movies. yeah. It's like serving them up IP that we liked when we were kids. Right Isn't what they wanted. That's not what they want So I've talked about this before. I think sometimes audiences can just feel like bllood in the water of desperation And like when Disney is like, o fuck, we need a we need a Star War, John Fvreau, you wrote all the scripts for the Mand Mandolor in season four. Drop that, make a whole new story of these two characters for the movies and do it in like a year. Do it in a very constrained amount of time, like not giving them time to make a story worth the damn. People can tell People can tell when you're pulling it out at your ass. Well, I think along those I wouldn't quite put it that way, but along those lines, I would say that people understood obsession and backrooms as things you have to see now And Mandalorian and Grogu as, hey, you can just wait for that to hit Disney pllus. For whatever set of reasons training point potentially what you said to Vindra, you know, like, whatever set of reasons, there's no urgency to see Mandalorene and Grogu now. Disney also spend hundreds of millions of dollars training you to stay at home for the last since the launch of Disney pllat. It's true. And then they spent what is estimated to, I believe, be about one hundred fifty million dollars. on marketing The Mandalorian and Grogu on top of the one hundred sixty million dollars They spent on producing the actual film So it is astonishing that Mandalorian In Grogu in its second weekend is getting shllacked. by Backrooms, a movie that cost under ten million dollars. An Obsession, a movie that cost under one million dollars good astonishing Nature is healing. Nature is healing. This is what's happening Yeah. I have more thoughts of this, Jeff Kanada. I am curious like what you think of this that the domination of backrooms and obsession at the box of like this is prettyretty much unprecedented times we were living. in like it is virtually unprecedented for a movie to make more money in a third weekend than a second weekend. Virtually unprecedented for a twenty year old to make a movie that makes eighty two, eighty three million dollars in the box office What do you think of what's happening Yeah, um it's u I think hey, it's a cool thing. There's this new generation that was trained on YouTube. Yeah, that is making movies because u The tools were accessible to them, the distribution was accessible to them. And they just started making stuff. W fear passion Yeah with passion. and that's beautiful. I can't I can't help but applaud that because The spirit of Make stuff, train yourself, get out there in the market learn the craft by doing. All of that is something I really respect and admire And the fact that this is a bending all of the, you know All of the assumptions that Hollywood has been making over the last you know, five to ten years is pretty fun. I do think is I mean, obviously, this is The cynical part of me says this is going to the wrongessons are going to be learned and we're going to get flooded with junk that we don't want. Well What we need is an obsession cinematic universe. Right, right, right.ight. That's what the execs are going to be saying. Or they'll just be throwing money at YouTubers in a way that, you know I already have I don't think that's a bad outcome, honestly, if they g young up and coming filmmakers opportunities to make big screen. Yeah. Well, I think that there's something certainly It seems to me that horror as a genre Um is having a moment, A. and B feels like the kind of movie you don't want to sit at home and watch by yourself. Yeah. I think You know, there's this mix of being able to make a horror movie for relatively cheap or very cheap, frankly And still have it performed because, you know you can a great idea can be executed Uh, well and capture that you know unsettling fear and you don't need a lot of money to do it And it still is the kind of thing that I think an entire generation of kids realizes it is more fun to go and sit in a dark in the dark with a lot of other people who are all gripping their their hand their armrests along with you, whereas You know, I had this conversation with my son U literally like two days ago whereere he said, Hey, Dad, is when is that new Star Wars movie? When can we watch it at home? And I was like, well N for a little while. they're trying get people to go to the movies to see it. And he goes,, why do they even do that You know Why can't we just watch it at home?ike you at which point you started screaming in his face because of the Sanctity of the theatrical experience, son. I mean, I trust you joke, but it wasn't a scream, but it was a let me explain to you, Son how things used to be So I don't know, I I think this is kindind of exciting and kind of interesting and something to applaud in that Creativity, ingenuity, passion you know, getting out there and doing it is actually being rewarded and not this sort of Cynical stayed M Let's milk the franchise. let's, you know, don't you you remember the Job of the Hut? Look, there's a whole lookook, look, slug people. Isn't that Job of the Hut What if we gave you three Jobas? Yeah in one movie I mean It is you know, you joked when we when we introduce the story, but it is that spirit of George Lucas and Stownn Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola and that sort of young generation that came in and and kicked out the olds from the cinemas themselves. and so you know These might not be the kinds of movies that I'm thrilled about that I want to see more of, but I can't You know, I can't help but applaud the fact that it seems to be resonating with an entire generation that We want to love going to the movies. And if they love going to the movies Awesome Yeah. I think They have not been served things that they are interested in a lot of the time And when they are, we've seen that they show up in droves like with things like the Minecraft movie and with things like obsession and so on But exactly the same audience, the Minecraft audience and the obsession audience I do think we will look back on this time period as being an inflection point. Like I do think because one movie is like a fluke. Obsession doing really well was like, o, wow, what an amazing movie. that was T movies at the same time is like It's been happening for very long time. I mean, you could argue that our friend Dan Trachtenberg started as an online video guy. You know I started as a as a YouTube, you know, h dididort they learned from you, you know? So Yeahah, I mean, it's been happening. Portal Yeahah, Portal his short that he self funded and made in, you know, passion put, you know took something that probably shouldn't have done, you know, like that's you don't, you don't just take somebody's IP and make your own movie out of it. althoughough that's the AI company and stuff. So you do whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not I'm just saying that, you know, that it did come from passion from like, he, let me let me do this. So you're right. Yeah, I think it has been happening for a while, but I think There is something that is sort of stark and undeniable and perfectly situated about a Star Wars failing at the same in the exact same moment that this is happening. likeike thates there that is any Um irresistible and undeniable juxtaposition. That's right. that Everyone notices, right? Everyone who matters notices that. Y And it's the kind of thing that I think sends executives panicking a little bit. If they this is a as we've all discussed, Star Wars used to be One of the gold IPs, The golden IPs, right? This is like this could do not. It is a money printing machine Right Just put anything Star Wars on it. Doesn't matter how bad it is. It's an event. you're going to show up in the theater for it And over the course of the last ten years, I think that excitement has the mystique Jeff as has've alluded to has dwindled haswindled to the point where now it is one of the less exciting things going on in the theater So yes, if youre I agree the pipeline, the YouTube filmmaker pipeline has been there for quite a while, but I think It's rare to have seen this level of success And again, as Jeff indicated The Mer movie I don't know what a success it was, but that was a self distributed thing Which movie the marker Plyer movie, Iron Lung. Oh yeah put that in theatater to himself, you know tootal theaters weren't touching it The other thing is I saw somebody point out that If you look at the landscape of what's made, it's like stuff for you know, people in their mid to late forties and fifties. Right. Stuff that, you know was was big in the eighties. Right and stuff for ten year olds and younger, you know, like the Minecraft movie, the Super Mario movie, theyre really isn't hasn't been stuff. aimed at that like twenty two year old kid There you just assumed Sorry. It is just assumed that the twenty two year old loves the same thing as the forty four year old Right Yeah, like ye and and I can only imagine the The folks sitting there going Masters of the Universe is coming on next week. The kids loveters of the universe. kids kids love Yeah, kids love hum Man, right? Last time I was in school he was like all the lunchbxes. Let's make a human movie. That's a thing in there. It's like the twenty two year old. I mean, there literally hasn't been a hum man it's the craziest thing. Like we made are we doing? Million dollar hum manan movie And heen was big in nineteen eighty four. you know, it's like It's an insane thing that you have to be fifty years old to be excited about Hean and's just the assumption that, I mean I'm hoping the hean mov was awesome. I'm excited about it. But I imagining like an older parent explaining Hean Who's that skeleton man, Daddy? That's skeletor, son He is you man's greatest enemy Ohs it's like can't Kill explaining sullshit. It's just ridiculous. It's ridiculous. try explaining this stuff to children. Yeah. It's the wildest thing that you spend two hundred million dollars on a thing that Main target demo, traditionally the main target demo, just has no frame of reference for It's like they have to you just assume that they like this because The fifty year olds like it or liked it when they were that age. R? It's a wild thing. And And so here we finally have a pair of movies that are aimed directly at the sensibilities of, you know, a twenty year old kid and made by a twenty year old kid And Lo and behold, the twenty year olds are excited about it and go to the movies and see it. It's's it's not rocket science. Yeah. It's also U a point that in the olden days U young people ran movie studios young people in their thirties yeah Ran movie studios. And now that is no longer the case, right? The people who run movie studios are in their fifties or sixties P who run movie studios don't particularly like movies. Yeah. ye there is that and it's become much more corporatized and financial They like money And it's a, you know, like especially at like paramount say The job is much more about managing IP than it is about telling great stories at the theater. O or using your IP or whatever to sway political opinion too. L there's a lot of shit going on right now That is not making good stuff There's a lot of other priorities right now. Yeah. Davindra any closing thoughts on this topic of the domination of I mean, this is why I was I was never too worried about the kids like giving up in theaters because we kept seeing them coming for certain things. You make a thing that gets the audiences there and they'll they'll respond to it. The thing about older audiences is that not only have we sort of been trained to stay at home and watch stuff at home they have the money to have a decent experience at home, right? Like I just bought a seenty seven inch LGola TV for like fif thousand five hundred dollars. That is a ridiculous amount of money for one of the best screens I've ever had in my life. You know, So if you can do that, Why would you go to the theater and deal with the teens and the mess and the like ten to fifteen dollarars popcorn? It doesn't make sense for older audiences I will say around this specificically thing because I wrote about this in gadget What has happened before will happen again Do the names Syidney Lumette Arthur Penn John Frankenheimer, do they mean anything to you These are all Hollywood directors who got their start directing live TV And at the time They were that didn't get. Lucas and Spielberg kicked out. Yeah. Yeah. And then yeah. And then Lucas and Spielberg, well, I did George Lucas do TV. I forget, but Spielberg certainly did TV. He did duel at twenty four. He did episodes of Columbo and Light Gallery. And then they were like, okay, okay, TV guys, you're in. You're cool. You can make movies. What at these commercial directors, lookook at these music video directors. Look at them producing slop. How dare they try to enter TV and you get Ridly Scott. You get Tony Scott. you get David Fincher This is how it you have to have a pipeline. to make the talent to make the big movie. So It is the internet right now and it is not these are certainly like Um rougher talents because they're out there just doing their own thing. Like commercial directors and music video directors have to work with other people typically. and like make it a group project and that is what a movie is. That is, you know, what a large scale future film is. So learning to work within that system and work with other people and manage other people, that is the whole part of it. but just singular vision and the singular passion of like, I want to make a movie. Yes, the internet is doing that. We shouldn't We shouldn't like think that it's a bad thing. And if we want Hollywood to survive, you need the young people to come in. You need to have a pipeline for younger talent and everything every time I talk to older executives, older producers. I cannot my conversation with Jeffrey Katzenberurg is like, ingrained in my mind of just how out of touch he was, how much money was behind him and I'm talking about Qibi much people were just like o Oh yeah he'seffy Katzberg. He cannot fail. He has raised two billion dollars for this fucking mobile app. Um, ye, it's going to succeed. No, and it was plainly obvious. and I feel like he was surrounded people Kim and Meg Whitman. Um who don't Don't listen to other people like their bubble is your idea, your funding, whatever. somehow this will succeed. And they don't often hear the people telling them no. I feel like that's happening to a lot of production executives now too I am worried that these YouTubers coming in, they're going to find some way to ruin Like that's what Hollywood does, right? Like you're going to make the pipeline. You're going to ruin this somehow And I hope they don't. I like this pure moment we're in right now I just my selfish hope is that this can expand beyond just horror becausecause I think, u The The potential future that I'm worried about is that we just get flooded with, you know, these horr It's horror films and video game adaptation. It's been happy though Cogonada. Kogonata got his start doing video essays on YouTube and he is making moovies for grownups and they're amazing and they're slow paced and they're artful. So Again, let's just We have seen this happen for a long time. I hope we can keep it up Jeff, what other genres we're going to name after that? Well, I mean s it's fun. the horror movies we're getting are fun. They're clever. They' they're they're smart, they're inventive. There's I'm not Uh, you know, I'm just not the hugest fan of horror in general, but I tend to have at least one horror my top ten every year and I, you know, there's a lot of movies that that really do click with me and you know, you can't deny how effective and And smart they are, but I just I worry that the lesson that the powers that be will take from this is like we need more of these, you know Bloomhouse effect. We want we just want this very specific kind of thing instead of recognizing, oh, maybe just sort of listen to creator like What's what's actually happening here is that there is this tiny subset of a genre that allows someomeone with a great idea execute their idea and have it be successful. There is onlyn these kinds of ideas that are being allowed to do that. You can only have the cool inventive idea in this particular subject.. because perfect storm of you know, low budget Low risk, right. You know, people being willing to show up for it That's right. Yeah. And it working Yeah. And I want to permeate into I don't want that to be just pigeonholed and and, you know restricted to this one kind of movie, like let What I hope is that you go, o, maybe if we don't mandate from above what the excited passionate filmmaker gets to make Maybe that's really that the takeaway should be, oh, if If the filmmaker can you know, be the leader of because what's happening is that all these big IP movies You know, and yes, a lot of my favorite things like Marvel did this, a lot of these big things is we're sucking up all the talent and we're when we're pututting them on stuff that is down mandated. That is, hey, we have a stable of IP What are you going to do with it? What are you gonna to make from that instead of What is happening in the horror genre where it's a filmmaker going, Ohh, I've got an n It's bottom up, right? It's Oh, I can make this thing. Well, they shouldt have a lot of franchise direct. We lived through the recent u whichich Mcult scream movie So it's the Hollywood machine can chew anything up, right? But Horror, I think does have the most possibility to Just go with a simple idea and makeoney and make money. I think the most important part of that though is and make money. right? I mean, tons of people You know, thousands of movies are made every year and most of them are will never gain a mass audience But I understand what you're saying, Jeff, which is that hopefully there other genres that have that potential like sci fi or fantasy or what have you Well, I'm just saying that like there used to be a time when You know, Nora Efron would have a cool idea and make them Rom com that was a massive Hit You know, that's just ra That is that does not exist anymore Yeah, Yeah, but for multiple reasons. I mean But there's someing. I think it's mostly about what people will actually show up in the theater and pay for, right? And it's less about if people were showing up in the theater and paying for Nor Efron like movies, I think people would Wh are they being made Yeah, they're going to the internet. They're going or they're going to streaming services, right?ight O or occasionally you get a Devil Warears P product too. Devil Warears product two is one example of It's a rare thing Yeah. It is's rare. Yeahah yeah. I think it's a circular. I think it's bit of an Uurburos, you know, because its it's the sort of mid range budget has been squeezed out You know, these movies exist because, you know, they could be made for a million dollars or ten million dollars And so you don't there's no risk. and because the movies that are released in theaters are either two hundred million dollars or ten million dollars This is the only opportunity space for a twenty year old to make a movie that can break out. R. And I'm saying what I would like this moment to result in, ideally is we sort of return to this place where, oh, You know, the only reason you're getting a two hundred million dollars Masters of the Universe movie is because the people that have two hundred million dollars need safe bets for their two hundred million dollars. And up to this point, they've thought That was something that we could measure the awareness of You can't measure the awareness of obsession. Didn't have any So Anyway, you guys get what I'm saying and I just yeah yeah I worry that again, as is always the case, the wrong lessons will be learned instead of. Oh, don't worry, Jeff, they will Well because it's Hollywood. so ye Well, undoubtedly, we'll be talking about this topic long into the future, but I do think we are at a very critical inflection point right now. and it's interesting to be living in a time period when you know thingsings are about to change it again Let's take a break for sponsor. We'll be back with more and what we've been watching right after this. This episode of the film cast is brought to you by Better Help For some people, summer is their favorite season. Travel picks up, kids are out of school, and adventure is in focus.o And then there are the rest of us, for whom juggling it all is tough. be overwhelming counting down the minutes until the kids are back in school And many of us worry We're wasting the days of sunshine. I mean, I think about that all the time I'm even more stressed out. I'm supposed to be outside enjoying the beautiful sunshine. and somehow I'm even more stressed More frazzled more at odds with myself Well You need some time for you and therapy can help people better understand their own needs, feel more confident setting boundaries and Even create a version of summer that actually feels good with over thirty thousand therapists Better Help is the world's largest online therapy platform having served over six million people globally And it works With an average rating of four point nine out of five for a live session based on over one point seven million client reviews. Better Halth therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the U. S. You don't have to worry about matching yourself with a therapist. Better helpel does the initial matchmaking work for you So you could focus on your therapy goals. All you do is fill out a short questionnaire that helps identify your needs and preferences and then betteret H helpsps over twelve years of experience in industry leading match fulfillment rate. means they typically get it right the first time If you aren't happy with your match, you can switch to a different therapist at any time from their tailored recommendations You don't have to say yes to everything this summer Find support in therapy Sign up and get ten percent off at betterterhelp dot com slash filmcast. That's betterterh E lp dot com slash FiLM C a ST Well, speaking of stuff that's targeted at forty, fifty and sixty year olds Let's get to what we've been watching this week The Vinger Hardare and I had a chance to watch The buroughs on n. You think this this is targeted at forty year olds? I don't know. Well, yeah ye the people don recogn Amin style feel. This is one of the TV shows that I have watch that most is able to replicate what a John William score sounds like for a TV show. I mean because it's from the Stranger Things guys too. like they are the executive producers of this. It's really by the Dark Crystal Age of Resistance guys. Y who are the show rununners of the buroughs on Netflix But what the show is about is there is a u community for elderly the elderly called the buroughs. It's think about like The villages except in the desert U And Alfred Belina is moving into this community and he's not super happy about it because it was really his wife that wanted it, but she passed away And all of a sudden, before Alfred Molina can leave, spooky things start happening in the community And Alfred Melina wants to solve the mystery of what's going. Oh the Boo Mmhm The Boo rose. That's right. Lost. Yeah. I'll just say right in front. I've seen all eight episodes of the show. And I think it's great. This is a I think it was was it Daniel Feinberg on from Hollyood Reporter. I'm not sure, but like Somebody called it a cross between stranger Th and the man on the or a man on the inside, which is the Ted Danson showh where he tries to solve a mystery in an elderly community And U it that's really ag N is getting the message. We need more elderly content. Well and we need murder the elder Yeah. Yeah, yeah yeah. Yeah But yeah, it's basically Alpha M Lina is trying to solve a mystery inside this community and it also has the feel Of a Stehven Spielberg movie from the eighties and nineties. Sure. bit a cocoon energy in Yeah Ccoon energy. Exactly. I think it's a great time It is U I thought this was going to be a minis series, but the one of the writers on the show has since come out and said that they have a three season plan No But I will say in my opinion, it is a nice self contained story. likeike if they if they never made any more of these That would be fine with me. It's just a nice and that's rare because a lot of these Netflix shows end on a massive cliffhanger and then you never see Part two. I had a great time with the show. The cast is wonderful. They have great chemistry. The mystery is relatively satisfying You get to an answer by the end of the season And just stylistically, a lot of the show looks very good. Diing your hardware. what did you think of Netflix' The Buroughs Yeah, I mean, I really liked it as well. I also just recently reviewed it over at the Extra Hot Gpe podcast. So go check out that episode. We had a fun time doing that You got to talk more about this cast, Dave, because this cast includes Alfred Melina. U Gina Davis Peters from the Wire, Alfred Woodard, like Dennis O'Hare, people I have always enjoyed seeing on TV and I think their chemistry and I think the story about retirement home and the dignity of you know, that older people genuinely deserve Um, that's all really good He is bogged down by the stranger things of it all and CG monsters are not scary We kind of talked about this during Mandalorian Grogu I don't Give me a spooky thing in the dark that the camera can barely see. G giveim me stuff from like obsession and the backrooms where it's like your mind making up creepy things. But if you straight up frrench show me a CG monster devouring people are doing things dont I don't find it scary. That turns into like an adventure story than like a horror story to me. So it very much has that stranger thing side of it. I don't think the horror element to the show at all for me. L I'm just not. clicking because it's CG Monster and I see that. I'm like I'm just kind of bored. But everything else about the show The setting, the characters, the writing, there's some really great moments here where so much of the show is not about the mystery and not about, you know, the Mac Nations just older people trying to live their lives and trying to like make friends of an older age too. Alfred Meline is so good. just I've been rew watchatching Spider Man too like over and over again because my son is in his Spider Man phase. and Dude brings it. Dude always brings it. Now he's a contankerous old man who does not want to be in this retirement home but slowly makes friends. And I found that really, really heartwarming. So yeah, the show it's genuinely great. Jeff, I think you will like it quite a bit too I'm f. One of the other cool things about the show too is Alfred Molina's character is a retired aeronautical engineer. And so it's very much like those I remember growing up watching movies where people like TV shows like McGy, people would solve problems by building things, putting together devices and stuff. and that is a critical part of this show. The burs, big fan, it's on Netflix, something giving your hardardwire and I've been watching this week. ndra. Hit us up on some keyboards Yeah, so I talked about that LGTV. I was like, Hey kids, what do we want to watch? What's our inaugural movie for our new big TV in the family room? It's beautiful, by the way. Like I stepped away is it just so people It's the LGC five last year like mainstream model but the seventy seven inch I was trying to go for the G five for the better anteri refflelectivity, but it wasn't worth the cost. But anyway Oig just hits. Oig just Yes, right, folks. the contrast everything. U But I was like, okay, we're going to watch the Empire Strikes back. We're going to watch something new. likeike what do you kids want to be into And they have right now I've been watching some Wallace and Gromet shorts with them on YouTube. Yay. Right now they're very much in Wallace and Gromet mode. So I was like, okay Curse of the Where Rabbit it is. So we went and watched that and this movie's great. And it doesn't have like it's just like an HD version of the movie. There's no HDR or any like four K version of it still looks good because Oleight inherently looks good. It's really funny. My kids love it. They love the characters, they love the comedy. They love the weird designs of the humans. I've always liked that about Wallace and Gromet, where like an attractive woman can just be like this weird, hideous like shape of clay, but that is beautiful in the eyes of Wallace in this universe Um, it's really funny, it's great. and also like Banger of a Han Zimmerscore like in this movie I've totally forgotten that. So it's a good time. It's still a good big screen experience. and Wallison Grama is still totally like kid friendly. And my daughter was also clocking like, this movie looks a little different. Why does it look different? I was like, well yeah, it's stop motion animation. It takes a long time to make this And these are kids who are seeing a lot of CG stuff, basically cheap CG cartoons, some animated TV's, but like stop motion is not something that we regularly see a lot Maybe a bit from Pingu So it's also really cool just to see a different style of animation It's hit with the kids. If you've got kids, it was worth checking out Walls and Grommit, the Curse of the Were Rbbit, which is I just rented it. It's not streaming anywhere right now You know, a weird thing about me that I'll reveal, I don't know if you guys have stuff like this that's always sort of just living rent free in your brain whenever I, you know, pereriodically this happens to me more than moreore than I'd like to admit U I'll just like if there's an odd odd moment in my life or some weird thing that I will frequently think, you know right now att this very moment There is someone in a room slightly moving a puppet. to take a picture of it. And I'm not going to hear about that project for like four more years And they're going they did it today They did it yesterday. We're going to do it tomorrow And I won't even know that they've been doing it for like four more years. And this is every day they get up They go T a room and they move a puppet a little bit And they take a picture of it And that's their whole life. That's their job every day. And I'm going And I have no idea that they're doing that And then four years later, I'm going to be like, well, that movie's awesome for ninety minutes and then I will move on to the next thing Is is something I always think about. you know, it right now at this very moment, today Somebody's moving a little puppet, like half an inch Wallaceon Grometth, Curseed the War raabbit, something D VVingar Hard has been watching. The rare DeVingar Hardwar rental Typically you just you buy that ch. I typically buy, it's like sixteen dollars and a couple bucks for round. It's like, I don't know if I'll go back to this, so, you know, Some of these prices for these this VOD is like twenty five dollars right I was gonna do if the kids were down for Project Tayle Mary, if my daughter was down, I would have paid the twenty five dollars because that was the only way I could get my whole family because my parents were over to watch Project Tayle Mary. I was going to do it I'd buy that. Yeah But yeah, that price has gone up significantly since u since we started doing this I think for because Hilmary is still in theaters for like newer movies technically typically bought or premium video which is something that really came about. in the COVID era. Um but I'm ready for the COVID era stuff to be over personally Anyway Jeff comean out to hit us some new watches week Well, I'm also on the chop, we talk about things made for fifty year olds or ten year olds. and it's been all ten year olds for me lately. Pool is out. whichich means I don't have control of anything anymore. My life Yeah. We're just barely hanging on. Figuring it out. So my entire What I've been watching this week is kids centric and We also traveled this weekend. We were out of town. And so anyway, so one of the things we watched is a movie that I missed when it was in theaters, but we ended up having a movie day and kids down to them moovie theater and put on the goat which I'll be honest One of those movies that clearly was they came up with the concept in the laziest way possible It is it just it's just I believe it's called just gooat, Je Go. You're right.' Cleaner that way. Not the goat. You're right Gat Still They say the goat constantly in the movie. Anyway I don't I don't like that misalignment between title and what I don't either I don't either. In real life, you say the goat. Yeah. You say the goat. Yeahah. just goat. Obviously, that is an acronym that has come into favor in the last several years, greatest of all time U Here, it's like what if the greatest of all time was an actual goat? Oh Let's. How much money do you need Delightful. You're gonna to be the next Curry Barker you've. I read that this was the original tlele for that movie him Wh's gonna goat right' like sorry. Your movie cannot be called Gat because there is an actual goat movie Yeah about a goat basketball player.'s the great ifs all time. We're not changing the goat one that's actually has a goat in it. Soes. I' say Gat did end up making more of a cultural impact than him But Did it? Maybe Maybe that wouldn't have been the case if were allowed to be called goat. The guy who startared in him I forget his name, but he's in another movie this year that also has him in the title. And buddy, you're getting pgeonholold. What are you doing Anyways, this is a you know, three D animated movie about a goat who wants to play not basketball guys. Why would you think it was basketball Maybe because he's holding a basketball on theool, you're a fool This is obviously Rar The game roar Ah Idiot. I'm slagging on mov. H stuff. I think this movie is fine. What is I think the best part of this movie is the visuals. It is a spectacularly well animated movie. It has a visual style that is Sumptuous, incredible. I mean, the if you've seen any trailers for this or any images from it The Visual style is I think ye over overreaches for what this movie needed to be. Like they went hard when they didn't need to. The rest it's from Sony Pitchers who did Spiderverse. So they're like they're applying that to everything. They are applying that to everything, but I think this even more than Spider Vverse leans into this sort of watercolor Um, stylized. look, I mean, there's there's aspects of Spider Vverse that are that are that, but this, I think even goes harder paint I will use the pun. No. By the way, that pun works in multiple levels if you just think about it. because it looks has this watercolor look to it. Everything is exaggerated. All the action sequences and the action sequences are almost invariably you know sports action are you know, had this this sort of graffiti street culture elongated, you know, the camera will be low angle on like the front of a foot with a tennis shoe on it. and you'll see, you know it's massive in the frame and then this like spindly leg above it and everybody's kind of elongated and weird and oblong And then it, you know, the camera will sweep around and then the hand is huge in the frame and It's got that. NBA street kind of look to it that Really amazing I think the movie looks Just Awesome. Awesome. Everything else about it is, I think pretty phoned in. know it seems to me there's nothing From my perspective, special about the movie from any other angle The visuals go a long way to making it very watchable and fun. I had a decent time. My son who's, you know, gotten really into basketball got the NBA fininals going on right now in the BA playoffs No. We've been, you know, watching basketball, he's been playing basketball outside in our little hoop in the front yard and So, you know, it hit at the right time where my son, you know, they watched it in the big screen and then when we were on vacation, they watched it on their device uh, in the car, you know, they like The goat is hitting hard and it's Steph Curry is a voice in it. We're big Step Curry fans in my house because I'm a Golden State Warriors fan. um, So It does it's fine. I think this, you know, the story is very predictable the you know, it doesn't, it's not I don't think it's, you know, going to be up there on my list of favorite animated movies of all time, but Sports stuff is really well animated It's an exciting visual splendor R It's fine. I can recommend this. I would give it a thumbs up. I just don't think it's u It gets to that next level of wow, what a crazy cool idea. It is exactly what you think. If you think there's a movie about a basketball playing goat whatever you fill in the fill in the movie. fill in the you have it. You got got nail it. That's what it is. That's what it is. All right. because you're going to be shocked to learn that no one thinks a goat can play basketball in. Itsolly so small. Well, first of, thought you say they were playing wr. I thought you said they were playing basketball,eff You're right, they're playing with ball. I youeris. Yeah. but anyw, Jeff, have you and your family seen Puss and boots the last wish yet? Be it's excellent. We love that. Yeah. And it's that animation side. I love that everyone's like having the freedom to different now. Yeah. I would put that movie in the category of the beats of the story are, I think more interesting, the comedy is more interesting. I mean does all that stuff because he just it's the minimum requirement. You know, there's going to be goofy characters, there's going to be slap stick stuff It just none of it hits, I think, for me. in the way that, for example, P Bs puts Pus and Boots does or, you know, hf a dozen, full dozen other kids animated films do Br's fine That is goat. And it is something that Jeff Kanada has been watching this week Let's take a break for sponsor. We'll be back with more what we've been watching right after this. This episode of the film cast is brought to you by hims. Hey, maybe You don't just want to lose weight You want to look better and you want to feel better. That's why lost by hyns now offers access the FDA approved Wiggovi Pill and the FDA approved Wiggovi Pen Wigovi is designed to help you lose weight K keepe it off So you can stay on track with your goals with Wagov at Hymns Lose up to twenty percent or more of your body weight when combined with diet and exercise. 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Wagovi is the registered trademark of Novo Nordisk AS To get started and learn more, including important safety information will go v clinical study information and restrictions, visit himIMS. comot All right guys, I had a chance to catch up on some older movies that I haven't ever watched before And one of the films I watched this year or sorry this week was Martin Score says's nineteen ninety one film Cape Fear Be I wanted to watch this in preparation for the Apple TV series that's about to debut, starring Javiir Bardem And you had no reason to see it because you grew up in the nineties and the Simpsons did it That got all the from the Simpsons. I mean, yes, there was a full blown episode of the Simpsons that is that I did not realize like how heavily it is based on every scener. Yeah. Virtually every scene has some analog to Gpe Far And that was one of the best episodes of the Simpsons ever, you know Abssolutely. The was be Yeah, the bart the Hey I want to see my new treat all? Yeah. hockey mask Yeah U Okaykay, K fear. It's about this guy, Max Katie played by Rob Nuro who gets out of jail and starts haunting the lawyer. and his family who he believed the lawyer helped to put him in jail in the first place Uh, and I thought I would love this movie because it checks so many Dave Chen boxes Normal everyday people being horribly tormented, really upsetting psychotic character, doing a very upsetting. all of half Man. I saw that you did of half manan. You love people being tortured. hundred percent, hundred percent Yeah man, great finale. Great finale But Kpe feer, guys didn't really do it for me. I gotta say, I did not enjoy it. This the first time you've seen it? F first time I've seen the movie. first time I've seen the movie. I have not nor have I seen the original film or read the book on whichach That'space It doesn't help that the Simpsons episode used the Cape Far score well Or something extremely simil to I don't know how use exactly, but it's like very heavily inspired by Um Okay Here are some great things about it I thought that Robert De Niro's accent was very over the top and I think it is notable that he's never really attempted something like that again U pretty much Uh and It's a very unhinged performance, right? Like I think that it's he's really out there and there's some very memorable visuals u some of which have been parodied in the Simpsons, right of like him doing U, what is it? notot pull ups, but the thing where he lifts his whole body, you know? A dips Yeah. R dips, right Yeahah yeah Uh and it's like, wow, that's That's like a visual effect right there. Is him doing that on his own seemingly of his own volition and power U and there are some really cool aspects to the plot like The idea that Robert De Niro's character has read up on the law and is trying to torment these people,, but only doing things that won't break the law Right. And I like that That's certainly how the movie starts. And there's something kind of interesting about Well Um what good is the law if it cannot protect People like Nick Nulty from Max Katie and so on And And also this idea of, hey, this kind of somewhat idyllic lifestyle that feels very safe and protected, suddenly shattered when this force from the past comes into the picture These are all like somewhat interesting things to mention But I will say that I was not a fan of the film because first of all, I think it is very unpleasant to watch There are some really graphic and upsetting sequences Yeah. and not only that but not only that like a man loudly laughing in the movie theater. R. Herrific. amazing. Herrific. the most scary thing you could conceive Um, but My main issue is with the Nick Nolty character and his family. Nick Doltty who playsed Samuel Boden in the movie Uh First of all, makes extremely dumb decisions in my opinion as the movie goes on. like sillier and sillier decisions. Also hisis family does not come across as particularly liable in any way. L I find myself not particularly caring that much as to whether or not they surviveed by the end of the film because I'm just like None of these people seem like particularly good humans, really. just used to assume you cared about the lead characters. R. They didn't have to do the work sometimes, yeah. I think the lead family is very underwritten in my opinion. L someome of these relationships between the characters, yes, you get a sense of Nick Nolty and Jessica Lang's tension in the relationship But yeah, I think really the Le family is just very underwritten. and as a result, the movie suffers But it's very stylish Again, Robert D youo is very unhinged. There's just some really wild stuff that happens particularly the final half hour of the film But yeah, this is probably one of my least favorite Sorsesees guysow Yeah and I love Mar Scorsese'srought my favorite living filmmaker right now. You know? like I think He is taking so many interesting chances with the stuff that he's making. I just love his movie so much. and I thought I would love this one and I just like, this just Did didn't do it for me. I do love that the they're like, okay, we got to remake Kpe Far. Who's the most unhinged actor we can get? Who is Anton Sigger Oh yeah, let's get back there. Yeah Let's get there. Are are excited about that remake now or I guess I'm kind of more excited because I didn't like the movie that much. I'm like mayaybe there's something maybe the show can solve some of the issues that the movie had For me, I realize for many people, this movie is a masterpiece and they love it. I mean it was also a cultural touchstone to have the Simpsons remake an entire dedicate an entire episode just to doing a Cape Fear. That's wild. It made one hundred and eighty two million dollars at the box office in nineteen ninety one money whichich is incredible. Jeff Kanada, have you seen K Fer? likeike what was your reaction to it if you I have not. I seen K There. No Yeahah. I amm in the same boat, but I'm really have never had it much draw to it frankly. Yeah, yeah. well, I don't think it's really for you at this point. Yeah. But I was just strangely didn't like it, but I am interested in the TV show which debuts on Apple TV this week. So if you're looking to see An rendition of that story, then you can check it on Apple TV and I'm looking forward to checking that out. But that's K fear, something I've been watching this week Dve into hardw H up some of you b watched this wee Yeah, I spent the last weekend playing zo zo seven first light. The new game from the Hitman stududio, IOI. I don't know Jeff if you' had gotten to play this. So I'm breaking up here. because This is a hell of a movie This game is a hell of a movie. Like this game is I think the best way to reboot James Bond because it's doing the thing where he's coming in young. He's actually young. It's not Casina Rael trying to pretend that mid thirties Daniel Craig is a fresh z or something. likeike he's a young kid jumping in, coming from nowhere, introduced to this world, falls into a major conspiracy Um The game is so good It did start making me think We don't need James Bond movies anymore Good. I think no time to die. put a cap in the character cinematically literally. And it's also like What are you going? what are you going to do You're going you're going to get a younger guy or fighting over which, you know, anonymously faced white guy is going to be James Bond. That battle' happening. Denee Villenuve is going to try to apply his like o his elite visual template to like this thing, but it's going to be the thing. It's going to be James Bond, right? They're not going to really take chances with this thing, especially because it's coming from Amazon Um So I'm like I'm intrigued by whatever Villenuve does with his boond, but also it's like, what can it be? It will always be within the borders of what a movie can be or what a Bond movie can be, what this game is is something more. becausecause Bond has always been, it's wish fulfillment. It's pure wish fulfillment, right? He is He is a comic book character. He's a serial, you know, he's a novel character where you could like envision yourself there with the movies, you kind of had Sohn Connnery, had handsome people like being the avatar of that character, but really You just want to be James Bond. You want to do the thing. And this game lets you do the thing. It does bond well too because there's a lot of focus on stealth on this. It is wonderfully cinematic in ways. I don't think I've ever seen a game do before. in the training sequence. this is like a F minute sequence I don't know if this clocked to you, Jeff does a movie montage. It does jump cuts with a movie montage in the training sequence. I'm like But you're playing, you're playing. You're playing. None second. you're like, okay, you're doing like a martial arts fight. Okay, okay, Jump cut to You got to shoot these things. Jump cut to, you got to parkour through this environment. I'm like, I had to put my controller down and be like, holy shit I don't think I don't think I've ever seen a game do that. I don't think thatin cinematic language. Normally when a game does that, it is like, Okay, put the controller down, sit down. We're going to pretend to be a movie for a couple of minutes We're going to have cutcene. This game does have some cutscenes But like I think Kojima and a lot of the other folks like they took that to me and that is cinema, right? That is bringing cinema to your games by not having you play, not letting you do things. And I think the idea of having you actually in control of this character while the cinematic stuff is happening That's fantastic. It's a great. rewrite of the character, I think, has the set pieces you want, but it's really grounded I just think this game' incredible. Like this delivers everything I would want in a new like James Bond story And I'll be honest, guys, like, yeah, I am not excited for whatever happens with this movie because we have property owned by a literal bond villain at this point. So what's you going to do What is Bond the movie going to be? I'm just not Karen. Go play this game. If you liked Hitman, this game is incredible Yeah, I mean, one of the One of the kind of bummers you could say is that Double of seven first slight the video game. I think has one of the Better Bond stories. Yeah of the last twenty years. Right? I haven't finished yet, but so far, it seems to be very good It's been five years since No timee to die And so I think if you are hungering for A Bond, a great Bond story This is one of the literally one of the only ways you can get it and they do a pretty good job. Jeff Kanot any thoughts No, I agree with everything you say that montage sequence also is the is tutorializing the player. So it's a really, I think a clever and abbreviated way to do that. allough tutorial in the game lasts quite a long time. Yeah. It goes on. Yeah. But yeah, no, I'm very much enjoying it as well. and You know, it I wouldn't go too far in saying this story is my favorite thing. It still has a It is terrifying AI it's going. Yeah little I'm done I'm done with that with my spies. You don't want get it You don't like you didn't like the entity as a villain, Jeff. D. this one The AI is called Thea, which is so close to just being the AI. And juster flip the letters around. The gu' the clos int. I won't prise the plot too much because it's like you get it. You know what the sketchers of a bond. But guys, even a competent boond plot It has been better than several Daniel Craig films, okay I was It's it's the cr of the series, right? the sort of like every other movie gets to be terrible or something. I will say this movie does or this game does things we've never seen before. Bond just like hangs out with friends. He gets a fancy flat in London I'm like, You just get to walk around and see him as a person, see how he interacts with friends. Like it's it's cool. It's so different in the way I don't think the movies will have a chance to be I just want a moratorium on Uh, you know the and international spy organization working against a computer. I don't there's nothing I find that to be the least interesting thing an international spy organization could be working against. It works better here, though, Jeff. because the international spy organization was like, hey, Let's put all our intelligence through the computer, the glory of the computer. Let the computer handle it. and which is what we're doing right now We That is a parallel to what's happening. Yeah. I agree. I want our actual international spy organizations to be working against the computers, but in In you know a thriller, an exciting action story, just I want us to move on let's go back to you know humans fighting humans. That's more This is what's happened right? The Cold War era bomb, was all it was always the Russians. It was always something, right? And that was the plot almost every single time. It always somehow tied back to that. So this is the cultural fear that we're dealing with right now in actually That just makesense I will say one fun detail is the James Bond in this game has a big scar on his face. You can see it in all the imagery in the promotional images and so on. and it heals over time And Yeahah and it gets better over time, But that is a detail that is from Ian Fleming's original novels that was that never made it into the films. and they wanted to Bonde with a facial scar.. They wanted Bond to be prettier for the films, but I just keep that that just shows you the reverence that they have for the source material is that they're willing to put that stuff in there. That is super. I remember the upper over Bonde James Bond over Daniel Craig and those people are still mad. It's hilarious. Dou seven firstlight is available for most major video game platforms right now eff Kanada, bring us home. U Another thing I've been watching with my kids. I don't have to talk about it a lot, but we've moved on from Pineas and Furb because we devoured All of it And boy, I genuinely love Phineas and Ferb. What a great show But we have moved on to the next animated series that my children are into, and that is Big city greens. It is on Disney plus And it it's good. It's basically a redoing of if you're old like me, Beverly Hill Billies, right? The idea here is the country folk have moved to the big city, the green family, the greens have moved to the big city and in this show, the big city is literally called Big City Um And their, you know, their down home country ways don't necessarily jibe with the big cityways you know, not again, not reinventing the wheel, but fun And I think the show is really charming and cute and funny. And if you're looking for something for your kids, I think you could do a lot worse than bigig city greens One of the reasons I bring it up is You know, you mentioned earlier, Dave wanting to be past the COVID era trappings and This show, I think was sort of hitting its stride during COVID. And one of the things that my kids have gotten into is there's a musical album that they put out that I think must have done during COVID, I haven't really looked into it, but all the songs are like a response to COVID and it's the characters in character singing about lockdown. and what they're going to do and how we can get through this. It's like a You know it seems to me that they put this out for all the kids that may have been watching that show at the time. And it's all about, you know,, we'll do it. We'll get through this, you know, we'll do it together. We're going to make it through. It's not always going to be like this And it's wild to me because the song is so catchy Um the title of it right now, but it's the song is is a genuinely good song. and so we're playing it kind of Frequently in my house and in the car and stuff the substance of what the song is about. just doesn't apply anymore. and it's a wild thing that it is kind of this This moment trapped in ammber in this catchy song that u recalls a time not too long ago, but a time that was very different. And so it's a wild thing to be listening to a song about how You know, don't worry the world will will go back to normal someday and we'll be able to go and see each other again It's wild I do just want to clarify, by the way, that I was mostly making a joke about how I don't like how VOD titles cost twenty five dollars now. There's many people out there who still need to stay protected and we PPE and stuff because of their own medical conditions. and obviously having dealt with that personally, I totally respect and understand that. So there were also always twenty five dollars like even before COVID, like they were they were up there No, they twenty twenty That's not that's not true. you just to clarify that' the pre person I'm not saying that were never twenty five dollars, but primarily when they were released, they would be twenty dollars And so and then they would go down to fifteen and then they would go down to ten. Now Project Kill Mary is going to cost twenty five dollars for like a month or two months or whatever. It's really not a big deal. I can afford it. It's's it's money Its more likely. Hey, that's a little that's a little annoying. That's all. You I just wanted to clarify that all of the other aspects of COVID, you're fine with. That's right I glad I'm glad you made that clarification. Nothing else is bad how that all went up. So the song has been stuck at home. and it's from twenty twenty one and it it's there they it's a broken karaoke is what they what they called it, but nice. It's like, yeah, all all the casts, you know, these animated characters have masks on and they're singing about being stuck at home. and it's cute because one of the kids is like, I don't have to wear clothes and they're like, No, you still have to wear clothes. very cute B biging greenss good show. All right, and that's something Jeff Cana has been watching. 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Choose yellow, Choose Pacifico. twenty one plus. disiscover responsibly, Pacifico Clara Beer, imported by Crown Imports Chicago, Illinois Let's get to weekly plugs We're going to do weekly plugs ly Just a weekly one The plus f Fs Fg, F, Fg weekly. Weekly plugs a product show you each week where we plug something else we've been making. I want to throw a shout out to my YouTube channel I recently discovered or rather, I've recently been motivated to posting more videos of my thoughts on pop culture and movies and TV. And one of the places I'm doing that is on my YouTube channel at YouTube. com slash at Dave Chenk' Dave Chen SKY. but also TikTok and Instagram as well. Anyway, I had a recent video where I talk about the box officer backrooms and obsession of mandalorian and Grogu and so on and so forth. But I am trying to post one video a day at least. So if you want to follow me on any of those platforms You'll get my ongoing commentary on what's happening right now in the world of culture Check it out at YouTube dot com slash Dave Chenk, it's Dave Teniskwa of your hard work H up with the weeklyu Yeah check out the Engaga podcast. We just had a great episode about Pope Leo's anti AI encyclical, which was kind of big news last week. And we brought on somebody straight from the Vatican, Padre AK Father Robert Balliser who works there. He's a Jesuit priest who works at the Vatican and gave us the skinny about how they go down there too. So he's a really cool dude. He's on Twit all the time And also like just give us a lot of great context, but that's a great conversation in general. And check it out if you're at all interested because I think it is fascinating that my thoughts align with the pope. That never happens Yeah, Father Robert Ballistter, he's awesome would never think do. I mean, this I would never think maybe my own Cck your biases, Jeff.ck. I would never think that a dude who works at the Vatican be Super into tech, super knowledgeable about tech. but ye, you know, somebody's got to set up the WiFi at the Vatican. That's awesome. R? What are they going to do? not use iPhones? Come on us. It's awesome. Uh, okay I have to say this week's joke is N best one that I have Look I really tried wow. I tried to find one about bar is so low, David. I tried to find one about like buildings and getting lost and stuff. Anyway, so I'm gonna just tell one. I chose a joke that would really only be okay if I'm the one that told it on the podcast. So here's the question. I do want to say that just to last week's joke, I really missed an opportunity just to like force choke Dave not. We just we almost had it. I could have done it. That would have been fun. Why did the man from So I decided to choose a joke that was about like getting lost because that's kind of what backackroom's about Why did the man from China G lost when he came to America That's the question. Why did the man from China? Wow, get lost when he came to America? All right, Jeff Kannada,'re. I don't know. I don't know Dave. I'm not gonna answer that question. It's a trap All right, Jeff Kana, tell me why. Yeah Tell me why I don't know Um I do a video game podcast And this week We had on Zach Barbieri from Pixel Byte and we talked, hey, if you want to hear me talk a lot more about Dou of seven first slight, the game we were just talking about in the last segment. had we were sponsored by Nvidia and we had a whole special segment on that game. got it early Um So that is included in this week's episode. We get delve deeper. What a wild what a wild time for video game. What a wild month. It is the best of times. it is the worst of times we talk about how Steam deeck Steameck Yeah raaised its price forty percent. Bonkers you know, it's many years old this technology not didn't change anything. There's nothing new inside it. It's the same old thing that you could have bought For years now, and I did But now it's forty percent more expensive. Also A It's a wild time because we're literally getting like game of the year candidates coming out every week. Yeah M We talk about Min to the Hollower. Double of seven for slight and some other really excellent games. So check that out. Uh, on, uh But whereerever you get podcasts, you can find DLC. It's kind of hard Maybe to search for that So just go to dlcpod. com. for our whole lives O entire existences The way it worked is A gaming console come out And you it would come out at a certain price and then over time it would get lower in price and then maybe you could buy it later on. All technology was like that. Yeah. And now We are entering a phase where that is not the case anymore. which We had a good thing. I help yourself People people laughed at me. When I bought a PS five pro. that's right. People peopleeople laughed People mock They said wow, Dave, you're dramatically overpaying for that. That product turns out like you're under paying And it turns out that turns out it wasn't a video game purchase guys, it was an investment It was was haveave you ever heard of appreciating assets? Yeah Be that's what that is That's what we call it on DLC vindication for the early adopters. Oh yeah Finally, our town has So beautiful. So take weeks the collapse of society Yes, I mean, there were some downsides. Okaykay? Yeah. Obviously it's terrible for the environment that this is happening and also for the workforce. any downsides, but at least I feel good about leaping at a purchase that I stupidly made right away. At least when I sell my PSI Pro, I can get maybe like fifty extra bucks for it. And so ye all of this was worth it I was covering Nvidia' CEO Compych Skiote last night and he spent like a good chunk of time congratulating all of their customers for launching their data centers with their tips. I'm like, that's where the RAM is. You took all the RM. I'm not gonna to congratulate you for that Budy Patreon. com size film podcasts is where you can get ad free episodes and bonus episodes and early access episodes People got to hear our Mandalorian and Grogu review early Although basased off of what's happened, I think maybe our backrooms review being early might have been the more desired products all the teens who listen to us. So many of our so many of our The summer mooviewager. com players told us guys back room is going to be the. you know what, you know what's astonishing, but we didn't even talk about this at the beginning of the show but we should have, but like, you know what's astonishing too is We literally learned this lesson last year weapons, I believe g in tenth place And we're like, hey, no one put weapons on. nextext year, we have to put on one of these underserved horror films that no one sees coming And you know, some people did put obsession on their dark hor in my Dark horse. Yeah because ye. None of us put backrooms, not one. Not N another one. backrooms anywhere and that I think will turn out to be the only saving grace is that literally none of us put back Then it's like, ye yeah ye, yeah so you're telling me there's a chance I can still win this thing. because if BJ Celangelo dead hit backrooms at number eight. I wouldd be completely screwed But fortunately, that has not happened yet. So anyway Patreon. com is from Pogcasts. add free episodes, early access episodes, and bonus A darks. Of course, we never want anyone to donate. if it in any way causes them financial hardship. You can always support us for free. By leaving a star rating for us or a review wherever you get a podcasts, we really appreciate anyone who is able to do that. It just takes a few seconds. Thank you so much for your support. Time to get to our review something Why did the man from China get lost when he came to America Because he was This oriented Wow. Yep. Yep, there it is. There All right, just say your name and say you app prove that joke, Dave. So just every send your letters to Dave Chen at Davechen. net if you Okay Just so anybody listening is doing like, what are these guys talking about Welcome to the filmcast review of Back Roms. I'm gonna to read the plot summary of this movie from IMDB After a therapist's patient disappears into a dimension beyond reality, she must venture into the unknown to save him and quote Srooms originated on the message board for che I'm reading here from the history of the concept on Wikipedia. Between twenty eleven and twenty eighteen, a photograph of a large carpeted room with fluorescent lights pale yellow dividing walls circulated on various message boards And on May of twenty nineteen, an anonymous user started a thread on slash X F chan's paranormal themed board asking users to post disquieting images that just feel off pping the thread with the photograph Another user replied to this post, giving the image its name and supplying the first ever description of the backrooms. This person wrote, again in may thirteenth, twenty nineteen, youre if you're not careful and you know clip out of reality in the wrong areas You'll end up in the backrooms where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet madness of mono yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hung buuzz approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in. God save you if you hear something wandering around nearby because it sure as hell has hurt you ende Now a young filmmaker by the name of Kane Parsons ussername on YouTube Cane Pixels then took that concept and made a YouTube movie out of it that you can still find online. It went mega viral as of this recording. It has around seventy nine million views. He taught himself Blender as a teenager. Blender and after Eects. He used to create some of these effects and then went on to make an entire web series based off it all of which is very successful. And then of course made it into a film And now we have Backrooms the movie out in theaters right now, massively successful around eighty one, eighty two million dollars opening A twenty four is the greatest opening of all time And that poor original poster got no credit. I mean, can you imagine how piss be if you were that guy Rough but. Like that guy Anonymous user on four ten He's not getting any royalties. He's not getting he's not even getting a frreicaking findinder' fee you know a twenty four deal for him. That's why instead of, you know posting your idea, you mail it to yourself And then you are copyrightedm I'm joking. good one. That' the old you have to be an old to remember that little trick that people used to tell. I think this is a really strong argument for not posting on Fort chan know So there's a lot of reasons not to do that. Yeah. This is the number one reason so you're not cheated out of u out of payment for your original ideas. Anway All that said Backrooms is now out in theaters, as people have a chance to watch it, lots of people are The question for us today here on the film cast is, is the movie any good D Vingor hardware What do you think of backroubbs? Yeah, I think it's a pretty solid horror movie, but it's really the horror side of it that is most successful. I saw that backroom short when Kaine Parsons put it up like I was like twenty twenty two. And you can see like he with all his work since then, he has been honing the idea of tension How to build up a scare, how to keep an audience en Rraptured with like the space and how to can, you know pursue a vibe and things like that. I think the scarier bit of this movie where you're actually in the backrooms exploring things It gets that Like this is a guy who has this talent and he, you know likeike he's just getting better at it. So I think it's a good sign that he is a talented horror film director he'll get better in the future. I've seen. Big budget horror movies with far less skill when it comes to like producing scares and things like this. I'm thinking like the most recent sccreen movie. That being said You don't really care about any of the humans in this movie. Like it is very much It feels like know this is a freshman feature film. He doesn't understand characters fully. I believe they got in a co writer, Wil Sudk to like work on the screenplay with him and he's worked on Homeland and West World and things like that but I don't The characters are just like the worst things you see in horror these days. It's like one guy is just like Very divorced man, very divorced man with trauma And the other his therapist is, you know, a clinical doctor with trauma. It's all it's a very these are not fully fleshed out people. They're not real human beings The mood this movie creates, the kind of images it evokes, like there's some really skillful stuff here I love the fact that they were actually able to make the backrooms because I believe for the older stuff, like it was just the blender renders and then he's had some like live action footage around it. So It was, you could kind of tell like just a three D space before, but now seeing having the money to make some of those spaces and having a human actor trying to like I don't know work through those environments to tell Ed you for. Do doesn't this movie doesn't give you much to work with, but also It's still too intelligive for. He can still like sell a really bad and thin script And Rinata Rzva is great as well. So I wish there was more for the humans to do I like these actors. It is wild like who they were able to get in this movie. M classes in this movie, like it's There's a lot of things going on here, but the script doesn't really live up to like the potential of this idea. It's still a good time though. I saw in this old out screening with teens and they were E every flinch of the camera, every like time they were like looking atiently waiting for something to move in a corner somewhere. they were freaking out. it was great. And that reminds me of like the simple things that work in horror, the simple things, not a CG monster like in the Buru. So yeah, I think Overall, this is a solid hor movie just could be better, and Kane Parsons has a bright future ahead of him Jeff Kan are your thoughts on backrooms Well, Dave, I guess you could say my thoughts on backrooms are best summed up in the form of a limerick Lirough I won't say that young folks are crazy But if you want to get lost in some mzy supernatural shit, for me, this ain't it Read Susanna Clark's Pyureneesee. Oh Nice Nice, Ciff. I like that. I could not help but think of that phenomenal novel, Pereneese. If you have not read it It is incredible. It does everything this movie does way better. And Perhaps part of the reason that I could not get it out of my head watching this is that I listen to the audiob book, which is narrated My she would tell Eduore. space It's one of the best audio narrations I have ever heard in my life. It is, even if you've already read it as a, you know, as a book I would recommend listening to the audio narration because it's incredible. Anyway H highighly recommend Pereonneese. It does everything this movie does better in my opinion. I agree with DavVinjra that The vibes this movie makes are The visual of the no clip world where, you know, a chair is stuck in the ground because it clipped through the geometry. this, you know, I always love when A horror movie takes something that is not inherently scary like a brightly lit room Like, you know, Horror thrives in the dark, right Let's make something brightly lit scary. That's funny. I loved when the ring made a horse scary. It's like Horses are beautiful, maestic, lovely anim. Horses are scary. Horses are scary. Sary. I always like it whening you're out. They you. You spook a horse, you can ot walk anymore I actually agree with Sindra that I'm not I'm scared. They're huge Yes, Jeffly. Your point sts. Your point stand. Your point standance. I have no idea. I was hitting a nerve with the worst fear De Vinger and I are big you're a tall man Mbe you feel less threatened by being near a horse, but as somebody under six feet. That's a large animal. All right, hurt you easily. I apologize. The point I trying to make is I like the movie. this movie takes You know, a brightly lit space and makes it creepy makes it spooky I think that's cool. I think the way the movie A binds found footage with not found foot, you know, with traditional, you know, third person narrative filmmaking is clever and works well Um There's a lot of really interesting visual styling here performances are good But I also agree, I think this movie is not very good. and other than those, you know Just the vibes. L it has interesting vibes, but as a film, It is, I think Bad I don't think this movie has a second act It has a first act and a third act But there's no second act Yada, yada yada' the second act which is wild to me, like the most interesting stuff and we can get to it in spoilers. I can be more specific, but The most interesting stuff is completely skipped over and we are just left to assume what may have happened in the second act And The end is a complete disaster for me. I think it is it just goes off the rails and it doesn't know what it's trying to say, it doesn't I don't think it has a point of view. It is muddled and weird and I think intentionally weird, but It's trying to be profound in a way that it can't quite achieve. Yeah. We all live in loops Loops That's my idea. It's a it's Pat. It's I think it is, you know, I don't wish to be unfair or condescending But it does feel rather immature h and it comes from a filmmaker that is not particularly mature so I don't mean to be flip or unfair in any way, but To me, like the movie is Ver shallow And Again, that does not to say that there isn't some fun to be had with it. I think There are these really cool moments, these cool visuals, this aesthetic that works. likeike the idea like we all have been in that weird part of the JC Pennys that you know, you're not supposed to be in or like you're waiting for somebody and it's empty and you're like, this is the strip mall that there's a place that got closed down and like all these things are very touchstones of the you know, sort of post modern u late stage capitalistic life that we've all lived It is part of our DNA is it is under our skin and it works. like making that exaggerating the creepiness of those spaces I don't think this as a film works at all And it's a shame because the talent involved is great. I love U Rene u How do you pronounce her last name? Renada Rinzva I think? Renada, excuse me, Renona Rinsv. She is awesome. I love you know, I fell in love with her with, you know, the worst worst person in the world. Yeah. suchuch a great movie. I know I didn't care for sentimental value, but I still loved her in it. and I think she's awesome and at you would tell Ed youphs, you know, One of my favorite actors he's fantastic. But again, There are these U that is I've seen before of the The liminal space that is expansive that you can get lost in, that someone exploring it And there are Other things that do it much, much better. Again, Pureneesi would be my pick. if you're looking for something like that, it is excellent. Like one of the best books I've ever read. House of Leaves is very similar to. House of Leaves, exactly. Y. I gott to say We're old guys because I think I agree with both of you pretty much exactly. So's old. you know what makes a good movie too You're not a teenager, Which is what the old people thought that they always knew when. The new U and comomers came up with their stuff I mean, look, let's start with some of the positive things. I think that the stuff that takes place in the backrooms is sufficiently creepy and The found footage, I think is excellent. I love found footage movies. And I love Whenever I'm watching Found footage, there's a couple of components of Found footage that I really appreciate. Number one U There's always this meta component of found footage. How are you as the viewer watching this footage? Like how did the footage get to you? right? Like It was found somewhere by who? When was that? like in what condition and so forth. And so the viewer is always like interpolating their version of events onto the fun footage in many movies. And that's something that I really appreciate. And that's something you kind of get with this as well The other thing is that the foundound footage often plays with the roughness of the fidelity of the medium Uh the fact that it's a physical camera. Typically when you're watching a movie There is no concept that there's a physical object where the view the camera is, right? You are just kind of this like omniscient on the present creature that's watching the movie Whereas with found footage, it's a physical camera, like that's acknowledged And and the way that they play with that, I think is really great. Like at at some points The person like puts down the camera, who's holding it and then like intervenes in like events on screen that it would make sense for them to do. Re Blair Witch moments there. Gave me those vibes again. Yeah. But yeah, Blair witch stuff. So I thought the found footage stuff was great. Of course it's only like you know, fifteen minutes of the movie. like it's not like a huge part of the movie But I'm glad of that too, because the movie starts with foundound footage. Yes. And I was having no idea what the movie really was going to be, as I want to do. I was worried that we were going to be in this the whole time And I was very glad that we weren't. I thought, you know, the movie worked ping ponging between those two styles. Areed agreed. U So look, I'm going to give a massive ass caveat slash preamble here and say number one, if you li the movie and got a lot out of it That's awesome And also say that U, in my opinion You know, for a movie to be great It should be able to function on its own It should be you shouldn't need to have read all the lore and seeing all the videos of the backrooms and the whole series and understand like I really need to for well, you know, I have gotten comments already on my, you know on posts I've made about like, well, the reason you don't like it is because you haven't seen All the backrooms It's same same argument as anything, right? You haven't read all the comics. You haven'tad all the bookes, whatever. In my opinion I think the movie should be able to stand on its own And in my opinion, this movie doesn't fully stand on its own because I think U the characters are underwritten. I don't know about if it's missing act two, but it's definitely missing an act, Jeff I saying that.issing in motivations in our lives. Yeah, you know, missing in Act two or three and I think that U The movie, I'll just say this, I'm going to be very vague and then we can get more into this in spoilers It tries to Explain a little bit. What's going on with the backrooms? And I will just say in my opinion, that explanation is woefully inadequate. Like I got to that part of the movie I'm like I'm gl it stp. I'm like we'll talk about that. That's it. Yeah. That that was the because you in my opinion Yeah. what they use to explain it and then comparing it with what came before, it doesn't make any sense like it that does not equal that in my opin. L that doesn't make any sense to. Well, we'll talk about thatiler. Yeah.'s it's a total mess. Yeahah. And so I think it' just like It doesn't work on a fundamental. You need to The ideal thing, right when you're watching movie like this is you get to the point where they're kind of tried to like clarify what's happening and then you're like, o, like that's That's what that was Oh yeah because that successfully has happened in most movies, right? That's how we felt about the village. That's how we felt about so many. I being sarcastic I can't. I'm being sarcastic. because most movies fail at this. most movies fail at this. The whole point of the backrooms is that it is your mind. It is what you don't see. It's your own feeling about it that's kind of building it. So We'll talk about this in spoilers. likeike I am. let's get the spoilers. but suffice to say I thought that despite having some what I can from what I can tell, extremely realistic therapy sequences. yeah that the way that the relationship between the characters plays out in my opinion, is pretty unsatisfying And and I found like the explanation for the back rooms to be They' not convincing for what was shown to us prior to this point. And so I found it to be overall a not great experience. Having sett all that agreed with you. I land in the same place as youu Dindra where I thinkane Parsons is ly extremely talented And the biggest issues I have with this film are on a script level. They're not with the direction or the filmmaking, it's on the script level Even the direction of the actors, I think is great. Like I think they're both do a wonderful job. And so so I think really it's the script that has let this movie down. And as a result, I was not a big fan of this film All that said, let's get the spoilers for B backroom starting now. I thought I' an ending for my book. It makes no damn sense. Compeles me though. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first. That way in case I die before I finish, I know how would end. You can't handle the truth I came here to tell you how it's going to begin All right So let's talk about spoilers, right? So DavVingro, why don't you why don't you explain what your understanding was of what going on in the backrooms? You cannot explain this. The minute you attempt to explain unreality You fail So I kind of like that at the end, all we get is just like Mark de Blasing We were an MRI company Now we're not And now we're just like doing this thing. It leaves room. for you to fill in the blanks and let you try to like make the leaps about what could be happening. we don't know what's happening there. We still don't know, but there is a company that is aware that this is happening. I think my favorite thing about this movie is it gets the The idea of people conffronting unreality everythingvery I've known about physics about the world or whatever breaking apart in front of me. and That is kind of interesting. So Chat tell is four did that really, really well. I love him when he goes a little stir crazy. And Mark Dulace is just like, okay, yeah, this is what we do. We're a company that explores this thing. So it was enough for me. if they had gone an inch further and started being like yes, we ran these experiments and ripped a hole in the spaceetime continuum or something Kills the magic. sorry No, that's not what I was looking for at all. Yeah. Yeah. I wasn't looking for u you know, the Yeah, the scientific explanation. I was could argue the scientific explanation went way too far in it's in the thing like it is completely implausible to me that that the explanation that they give for what we actuallylsible. It's just nonsense in my opin. It's like, oh, it's this is all nonsense. We're going around like rooms that don't make sense and they have memories of reality and It's all nonsense. Why So why try to give it a scientific explanation? Like's that's my issue. is we were an MRI company Now we're not. Yeah, that's pretty much all. That's fair That's fair enough. but they also try to explain like what it is you see manifested in the rooms and so on. the memories of real The memories and your, you know, thes of yourself that you don't talk about at parties and stuff. And I just think that What do they give us in the film does not rise to the level that makes sense in my opinion. It I don't see I don't hear that explanation and then see what we saw in the film and then be like, oh yeah, that that all adds up to me. That all likes thing was the other thing Renada in Sha tells Mind Like does he No it is physical man to make this backroom. But then it is then you see her like monster version at the end as well. And so it's like she it's her backrooms is in there too. And so U where I said the second act is missing, it feels like we are And it's wild to me that on IMDB, it says, after a therapist patient disappears, like it's not the movie is not told from the therapist point of view. Not at all The movie is told from She would tell Edgiophore's point of view att a certain point We just skip over his turn Like the second act moment where he turns from relatable every man. who is countered something Supernatural to Now he's the architect of his own Madness We just we just it's just not in the movie. We literally go from I'm exploring to incredible sequence where he brings his two assistants in and they're trying to figure it out. That was awesome. incredible. Great great seence. So amazing. Great. Immediately after that We have just lost a huge chunk of time. That is, I think the most interesting stuff of the story Like, I want to know how She would tell Edy four goes from The guy that we've been hanging out with The monster that is now sort of kind of in control and comfortable there and You know, like knows everything, like Thats that's the interesting bit. We've lost. We don't see it. And I think back a little there too, because it's like, I think that is an interesting twist. to set up the character like this and to turn him into at the end, right But if the movie had done a better job of setting it up of making him feel more like a lived character rather than very divorced guy and making his therapist feel like She had childhood trauma because her mom was kind of a shut in too. and like she's that has affected her somehow. Those are broad sketches of characters Um, I do kind of like if those were written better, the idea of him we lose him, didid he die? whatever? No he's back in the third act and he's mad He's just completely drunk the koolate of like whatever is going on here. It could work, but I agree with you, Jeff. somethingomet else. They needed something for it to really work like this. I agree it could have worked. It didn't work for me. D didn't Yeah. ye. I feel that. I do want to say before we runan out of time, like it is interesting. you could write like a whole sociological paper or thesis about like what did it why do the youngs find this particular thing? So interesting too, like this is also the generation that has made the office like their comfort viewing It's like a yearning for a world. like it was our world. It's like the thing we grew up with, like you would have an office job. You grew up to be like Billberirt or something By the time these kids are growing up, like those jobs are kind of disappearing, the economy is kind of falling apart. L the sort of like reality that we had built for ourselves in the eighties and nineties is essentially falling apart. So it's fascinating to me seeing these like Brooms are essentially old decreit office buildings, sometimes malls. you see a lot of photos of malls as liminal spaces. and honestly right now, if you go to a mall, go to your local mall can feel like the backrooms because ninety percent of the stores are gone If it's still open, it's probably a dead mall. and there is something about the collapse of our society too that is kind of like frightening Just fascinating. It's fascinating to me to see what the kids are really into now. Yeah, I mean I'll just say to be fair, I think DeVinger is right that a lot of malls have gone out of business and that has been very sad. There are still a bunch of malls in America that are thriving, but we lost we have lost a ton of malls. and that is no doubt about that Yeah But I agree with you, D Vint that there is something like if we really try to read into this, right? If we really try to read into this There is perhaps like Not even a longing necessarily, but certainly like a fascination with ye, this concept offices and malls as like this third space that is largely going away and vanishing and like the echoes of a of a life that Gen Z and Jen Alpha will probably never experience or will hear their talk about it They'll see it in movies, but they will never have that It's right It's a safe predictable thing that was always Like you said, promised to them that is now just doesn't make any sense anymore. Right is breaking. And I think that is that is the the metaphor made real, right in this movie is literally the thing that's supposed to be the simplest thing, that' supposed to make the most sense All of a sudden does not you know, the the chair is breaks through the floor. the room is shaped weirdly. All the stuff that's supposed to be simimple is now mind boggling and weird. And I think that that is not hard metaphor to parse, right? it's I think it's very You know, you're supposed to do better than your parents. You're supposed to You're supposed to get that that job, that safe place. you're supposed to go to the nine to five and just all of that has broken down in modern times. And alsoso it's a fascinating that they're the ones going back to theaters too because that is like the one remnant, kind of the one remnant that we have of that before a time. We still have theaters. We still have multiplexes. A lot of them are shutting down. They're not doing very well, but It is like that one space you can still go to and hang out with your friends on a Friday night or something But that's what why I wish this movie better job of having some substance to be like if it if it really dug into that, and like you said, Davinro, these these are, you know, sort of stock characters that are just plugged into this really interesting space, But if the characters themselves had more meat on the bone and there had been some attempt to dig into that idea or any idea, frankly, I think the movie could have really been special I think you're supposed to have this big, you know, Chatel G Force character' big moment comes at the end when he talks to his pirate version of himself and says, it's okay. we don't have to change, you know, like And I think That's supposed to be this bigv revutatory moment. It's not suppos to be a victorious moment by any means, right? But it's supposed be kind of like his character's big moment. And I don't think the movie did a good job of building up to that moment. You know, like I don't think that when that moment comes, that you feel any kind of emotional catharysis at all about what that character is going through. And I think, again, it's largely a result of the writing, not not the acting, which I think you know, as we've discussed, he does as good of a job as he humanly can with this material, but the material is just too thin in my opinion I love Sotel Edgeuor so much. Like the man Oscar winner, but he can play a space ninja Yeah on the firefly movie. He can do this. he can do anything. He can do anything. He's so good. Yeah. I also wonder if there's anything to be made about the fact that in obsession and also this one, like the the primary Meeting place for the characters is in a retail likeike kind of a rundown recurs Maybe just because it's cinematic and relatively easy to get and that's why they did it that way. But like basically like these people aren't knowledge workers. You know, and I'm curious like Uh It probably wouldn't have been too difficult to make them that, you know, like they're they're not like going into an office with like desks and computers and stuff It's about that idea. It's about not not being the knowledge worker, right? It's about like being in a place where maybe you don't want to be. He doesn't want to tr tellri for his character not want to be here.. I don't I don't understand the line between I want to be an architect and now I' the owner of a shitty discount furniture store. I don't understand how that happened Yeah pleast tellll me? It doesn't make much sense. You could be an add driver when you don't have to own it. I I'm an architect. I just dress up like a pirate and own this small business. Yeah. ye. There's a lot of Yeah, yeah, there's there's a lot of strange ideas in these movies like that that a small music shop could employ four young individuals at once like they're getting the same shitude, you know, They're getting shit, So whatever. They're all making six dollars an hour. Yeah. But I guess that place must be hopping Anyway. So I do think its it's worth noting kind of These movies are vision of the American economy these movies might have because I think some part of it is, you know, the vision that these These young people who are directing these movies have of the American economy. I mean, it'sough. I don't know if you guys like Jeff, I know you've had retail jobs, Dave, I don't know if you have. Absolutely My parents used to own a Chinese restaurant. and you used to run the cashier the cashier. You ran the cashier. so it's like things more young where you on Yeah Yeah. Yeah. like that's the thing That's the most un realistic is because like my dad would just leave me in charge alone, you know, to run this institution. And so anyway U I just wish the movie was better. I just wish it was better. Iorts are great likeike go go watch some of the shorts. This dude did a he made like an attack on Titan U history, like a series of shorts about the history of the world of Atack on Titan which is kind of cool too. Like there's cool stuff up there. go watch his YouTube channel Now. I know it's annoying to everybody, but I'm going say one more time, Read Pirneese because it has everything that it is it is a person in a in a weird, unmappable place trying to figure it out. And it actually adds up to something, and it adds up to something, I think really powerful. and that's