40:00

There's still a chance to make the last

40:02

Airbender 2. I

40:05

think we can do it. Yeah, we

40:07

can go back to that trilogy bone. Oh,

40:10

man. Fire. Oh, boy.

40:13

Water. Air. Ground.

40:18

What would you like to bend if you could choose

40:21

one of those four? Space

40:23

time. Oh,

40:26

okay. Holy.

40:29

Well, the M

40:31

Night Shyamalan directed

40:35

a classic that

40:38

I recommended. And you know what? I'm

40:42

pretty happy about my recommendation, because

40:44

I like this movie. It's funny.

40:48

What? It's a funny

40:50

movie. Why do you like this movie? It's hilarious.

40:52

It's like the perfect. I like how much of

40:54

a disaster it is. It's not

40:57

boring for me. Because it's

40:59

always so silly. It's

41:02

not boring, but I

41:04

and I kind of felt the same way you

41:06

did until I watched the original show. And

41:08

now I have more of like a Lion King

41:11

2019 feeling towards this. But it's like, well,

41:13

it's yeah, because it's like I for the life

41:16

of me cannot figure out what the what the hell was

41:18

going on here. How did this

41:20

happen? How? Because

41:22

like we were just saying about this string of movies,

41:25

right? It's not like it's

41:27

not like this was greenlit and attached. Right after

41:29

the string of six cents unbreakable, maybe after signs

41:31

that was a big hit. Maybe if

41:34

then he was given this movie or

41:36

something and it was like a big passion project with

41:38

like his his kids always talked about and in reference

41:40

to this movie and his daughter's. Oh, he blames them

41:42

for every bad movie. That

41:44

was his excuse. But it's like, what

41:47

the fuck is the impetus of this movie? Because

41:49

he's clearly not interested in adapting it in any.

41:52

There's no passion in this movie. There's the

41:55

amount of money, the investment, the talent, the skill.

41:57

ILM did the effects for this. Like what? Why?

54:00

A lot of them are kind of doing like the Jaden

54:02

Smith eyes. The main character does

54:04

a lot, like the little pouty eyebrows and big,

54:09

uncomfortably close, close

54:11

ups sometimes in ways that it does

54:14

not feel justified in the scene. Fucking,

54:18

what's his name? Soka?

54:23

Which I think somebody- Oh, Soka. Yeah,

54:25

well, they call him Soka. He's a super

54:27

Soka. Can you trust this movie? No,

54:30

this is this movie, okay? This

54:33

is the camera. Yeah, you're right. It's

54:36

the real version. It's Aung and Soka. His

54:39

face throughout the entire movie, he was just like chewing

54:41

up the scenery. Like he was just, he

54:43

was the focus, even if he was in the background

54:46

of a shot, because his face was

54:48

just constantly so

54:50

funny. I wish he was in

54:52

every movie. There's something about his expression. Yeah,

54:56

he's awful. The,

54:59

I don't know what they tried to do with him, because he's

55:02

another kind of fun character in the, in

55:04

the original show. He's more like comic relief, which

55:07

they attempt a couple of times in the movie,

55:10

like early on the, can't

55:12

remember the name of the flying creature or whatever, but

55:14

it like, his tail slaps down and it's supposed to

55:16

be like, oh, some physical comedy, just

55:19

like in the show, remember that? But it's

55:21

like edited to be comedic.

55:24

And it's like, oh, you're clearly editing this to

55:27

have like a space for the audience to laugh, but it's like

55:31

dead silence and so awkward. Oh,

55:34

if it's awkward when he's not

55:36

trying to be comedic or like have a punchline to

55:38

a scene, like when he does it, it's like, it's

55:41

more often confusing than anything at the

55:43

intent that is so bad and

55:45

awkward. You like just don't know what it's even trying

55:47

to do. Yes.

55:53

Or even the line, you

55:56

think my son is the

55:59

one. I

1:02:00

guess as part of why it's lingered in

1:02:02

such a, it's definitely in the conversation

1:02:04

of like worst film of all time. Yes. People

1:02:07

will bring this one up like for sure with

1:02:09

that investment, with the butchering of the source material

1:02:12

with just, yeah, it's uniquely

1:02:14

bad. Even for M. Knight, it's

1:02:16

uniquely bad. I know. It

1:02:18

stands out. It's up there. And that's

1:02:21

crazy. Like how many times could it like, yeah,

1:02:26

I like have my head in my hands like watching this.

1:02:29

Yeah. With like ILM being in there and all

1:02:32

these resources and like hundreds of

1:02:34

people getting together to fulfill this

1:02:36

and they must have known, you

1:02:39

know? The

1:02:41

vibe on set, like the energy must have been

1:02:43

like, they would have known, come on. How

1:02:46

did this happen? Who

1:02:48

let this happen? Because everyone was humiliated

1:02:50

by it. Dev Patel is like

1:02:52

public about it. There are videos of him on

1:02:55

like red carpets like saying like, oh, sorry for this shit

1:02:57

film. He's like signing

1:03:00

the poster and whatnot. Everyone knows.

1:03:02

Yes. It's unanimous. It's

1:03:06

a shared experience. Very

1:03:09

few films can offer an experience

1:03:11

where everybody kind of feels the same

1:03:14

way about it.

1:03:17

Yeah. It's just

1:03:19

like from the very, very, very

1:03:21

base beginning. Who

1:03:23

thought this was a good idea? I know

1:03:25

this is before we had like prestige television and

1:03:27

that was more of like, it wasn't really an

1:03:29

option in 2010 in the same way that it

1:03:32

is now. So, oh, we have a full Netflix

1:03:34

Last Airbender show now that's like millions

1:03:38

of dollars for each episode and it's got CG everywhere

1:03:40

and it's like, it looks better than this film from

1:03:42

2010 type thing. But

1:03:47

what could you possibly achieve? Because the only way

1:03:49

you can make a film is you

1:03:52

have to sacrifice so much from the original thing

1:03:54

that made it good, then it's no longer resembling

1:03:56

the thing. So, it's like, why are you even

1:03:58

doing this? What did you

1:04:00

think you could achieve with this? It's

1:04:03

maddening to even break down.

1:04:05

It's time for you to stop doing this.

1:04:09

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah,

1:04:11

like all of the story happens off screen

1:04:13

or like that through a random narration, you

1:04:15

know, like Sokko would be like, hey, we

1:04:17

just started a revolution. And so

1:04:20

what through that montage that was like 30 seconds. Oh,

1:04:22

yeah. Is that what that was? There

1:04:26

were several montages where

1:04:28

the implication of how things were

1:04:30

shot and edited and the music

1:04:32

along with it. You

1:04:35

would think that it's an actual montage, but it's just one

1:04:37

shot. And then the montage

1:04:39

is over. It's not a montage if it's

1:04:42

one shot of the several things that are

1:04:44

implied to be happening, but we see one

1:04:46

shot of it. But this happened several

1:04:48

times in the film where it's like we get a one

1:04:50

shot montage, which I think is incredible.

1:04:56

Experimental in a way. Yes. Yes,

1:04:58

this is an experimental

1:05:01

film by an auteur. A

1:05:05

true artist. But

1:05:07

there are still more

1:05:10

examples of like just the baseline, like

1:05:12

writing, just making

1:05:14

no sense with the world they have

1:05:16

established. Like kind of like the prison

1:05:18

sequence where the earthbenders forget that they

1:05:20

can use Earth. Aang does the same

1:05:23

thing with water towards the end, where

1:05:25

like there's a big

1:05:27

kind of helms deep siege sequence

1:05:29

with this ice water castle.

1:05:32

And Aang like wins

1:05:35

the day by a spirit dragon telling

1:05:38

him, oh, use the water of the ocean.

1:05:40

Idiot. He's like, yeah.

1:05:42

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I guess I can

1:05:44

bend water. Why don't I just make a big wall of

1:05:46

water and put out the fire

1:05:48

with it? Like they actually have

1:05:50

an enormous advantage, actually, the

1:05:53

waterbenders and having like the ice fortress

1:05:55

and the fire dudes that can

1:05:57

only use a fire of the

1:05:59

ocean. there's a source nearby. So like, all

1:06:02

the people that can control water telepathically

1:06:05

or whatever, like, what is

1:06:07

the tension there? Yeah, there's not much of a threat.

1:06:09

But then I guess they try to like artificially create

1:06:11

one with when they kill the fish. Yeah,

1:06:15

which is a whole like quite cool setup in

1:06:17

the show where they have this rule where water

1:06:20

bending is enhanced by placement of the moon,

1:06:22

just kind of like the ocean is and

1:06:24

fire bending is affected by like comets and

1:06:26

the sun and stuff like this. And

1:06:29

depending on these natural events, like powers

1:06:32

can balance or be

1:06:34

imbalanced. And in

1:06:36

the show, it feels way more like

1:06:39

a Helm's Deep situation where they're like, way

1:06:41

outmatched, and they've got to use the advantage of

1:06:43

the eclipse to help them

1:06:45

and this kind of stuff. But they just

1:06:47

there's like no interest than even establishing these

1:06:50

things, you know, the whole the fish stuff

1:06:52

and the spirits and all of

1:06:54

that, which is so core to the show. And it's

1:06:56

a huge part of its identity. It's like used for

1:06:59

just like cheap writing tricks. Does

1:07:02

it get resolved in the same way in the

1:07:04

show where this new

1:07:07

character that no one cares about who's

1:07:09

in a relationship with Dev or sorry,

1:07:11

with Sokka? That does happen except it's

1:07:13

fleshed out and it has like a

1:07:15

advances the Sokka character. It's like a

1:07:17

big change for him. It's like a

1:07:20

serious dramatic beat for the characters to go through

1:07:22

when he's been like this comedic kind of goofy

1:07:24

guy for the whole time. And it's yeah, the

1:07:26

characters like learn and change and there's consequence for

1:07:28

what's going on. And the spirit

1:07:30

stuff is like a recurring well-building

1:07:33

thing through the show. And that's how

1:07:35

he he beats them. He uses like

1:07:37

a water spirit to win

1:07:40

over in that sequence instead of just a huge

1:07:42

wave of water because I guess you could just

1:07:44

do that whenever. Yeah, there's loads

1:07:47

of stuff like that. All the complexity, all of the

1:07:49

fun world building, all of the awesome stuff like that

1:07:51

is just totally

1:07:53

kneecapped because that's again, one of

1:07:55

the cooler things about the show is that they establish

1:07:58

these concepts and take them to their logical extremes. like

1:08:01

when they go into like blood bending with the

1:08:03

water people and all the stuff that fire people.

1:08:06

It's like really cool and creative like what they

1:08:08

do with it and all the inspirations like coming

1:08:10

together. It's not the most original thing but it's

1:08:12

a really great like kids

1:08:15

show that opens up to

1:08:17

some pretty complex ideas and these really great

1:08:19

fun characters. Yeah there seem

1:08:21

to be you know

1:08:24

when the little critter

1:08:26

a tiny thing that

1:08:28

like knocks over the stroll scroll like

1:08:31

earlier like monkey little thing. There's

1:08:33

a part where it's like crawling

1:08:40

around on his his arms his shoulders.

1:08:42

He's like doing this reverse

1:08:45

like I'm a waiter at a restaurant holding

1:08:47

up a plate sort of thing. Yeah like

1:08:50

swapping his arms back and forth and you

1:08:52

just look at that shot and it's like

1:08:54

wow there was absolutely no communication between departments

1:08:56

in terms of like yeah

1:08:58

there was was there a visual

1:09:00

effects supervisor on set because it

1:09:02

seemed like no like like

1:09:05

it seemed like M Knight was just like I got this

1:09:08

and and didn't have a proper

1:09:10

comprehension of how the computer animated effects

1:09:12

would be placed into the scene or

1:09:14

like how to give it some actual

1:09:16

convincing weight or how to have the

1:09:19

actors be acting as though there's something

1:09:21

in the scene. It just feels like

1:09:23

everything that's happening in live action feels

1:09:27

separate and incidental to the

1:09:29

computer animated effects that are placed

1:09:31

later and not just the monkey

1:09:33

also like all of the bending

1:09:35

effects it's like all of

1:09:37

the Tai Chi motions that they're doing seem

1:09:40

incidental to the

1:09:42

the bending effects

1:09:45

that are taking place in the universe like

1:09:47

they can feel completely separate which is

1:09:49

a huge problem for this

1:09:51

type of movie. It's a huge

1:09:54

problem. I

1:09:57

read that he's storyboarded this is what I just don't

1:09:59

understand like how We got the winners.

1:10:01

How do you even shoot a

1:10:03

shot like that Prison Escape one

1:10:06

and not have meticulously

1:10:08

thought about the it's a visual effect shot.

1:10:10

Like that's what it is. That's the whole

1:10:12

point of it. It's like a big spectacle

1:10:15

like money shot basically. The

1:10:18

answer is ego is confidence. Just

1:10:22

yes men around him. Yeah. Yeah.

1:10:25

It's a overconfidence. Overconfidence.

1:10:28

But why would they give the Golden Goose like

1:10:30

this? Why would they give such

1:10:32

creative control? Because it's

1:10:34

M. Knight. Why are they not more protective?

1:10:38

But that's what I don't understand either because it's not like

1:10:40

M. Knight was at the peak of his career at this

1:10:42

point. Like at no angle you look at this or try

1:10:44

and deconstruct it from does it make sense? None.

1:10:47

He just had one flap. He had one flap before

1:10:49

this movie. Yeah. But

1:10:51

it was the happening. Yeah.

1:10:54

But this is probably already in production by the

1:10:56

time like the happening was in theaters. Maybe

1:10:59

when was that happening? Maybe it

1:11:01

was earlier. Yeah. And

1:11:04

this came out 2010. So

1:11:07

they probably they were probably already had like

1:11:09

the contract signed and everything. Yeah.

1:11:12

It feels like he walked in to something

1:11:14

that really existed and just I

1:11:17

don't know just first take

1:11:19

every every shot feels like a first

1:11:21

take. Every single one like that.

1:11:25

The close up of Aang it's in

1:11:27

the it's like a flashback scene when he

1:11:29

finds out about the what happened to his

1:11:31

monk village. It's like a close up

1:11:34

on his face and he's like kind of dribbling

1:11:36

and he's like the actor moves his lip to

1:11:38

like catch the dribble and stuff and it's like

1:11:41

that's really distracting for the short you don't think you

1:11:43

could have done that again. You know what you don't

1:11:45

have a version of that that doesn't have him doing

1:11:47

that. So

1:11:49

many shots are like that. There was a

1:11:52

sticky quality. It's like so lazy. Crispy

1:11:55

on a quality. Yeah. There's

1:12:00

another line. I mean like every line's good. And

1:12:02

every line delivery is good. Katara,

1:12:09

do not hit that sphere! The word

1:12:11

sphere was ruined for

1:12:14

me for this film. Here's

1:12:16

a fun little fact. So

1:12:18

I've seen this movie many, many times. I was

1:12:21

due for a rewatch, which is why I chose it. And you know,

1:12:23

new M Night movie coming out. I like

1:12:25

to make it a bit of a, you know, like an

1:12:27

event. You know? I

1:12:29

was excited for M Night to get some money

1:12:31

again. That was my excitement for

1:12:33

Trap. But I have the

1:12:35

Blu-ray of The Last Airbender. And

1:12:39

I wound up watching it off stream for

1:12:41

reasons that I'll explain on my stream on another day

1:12:44

and not important. But I noticed

1:12:46

on the Blu-ray, because this is one of those

1:12:48

like big

1:12:50

Blu-rays. They had described

1:12:52

video for the visually impaired. So

1:12:57

since I've seen this movie so many times

1:12:59

already, I was like, okay, we're gonna experience

1:13:01

it anew. And

1:13:03

I watched the film with described

1:13:05

video for the visually

1:13:07

impaired. And it was also very funny. And

1:13:11

the narrator, they got the guy with

1:13:13

like the, one of

1:13:15

the worst voices, where it sounded like, it

1:13:23

was a very British man, but it

1:13:26

wasn't like a nice, like soothing

1:13:28

British. It was like somewhere between,

1:13:32

it was like really nasally and

1:13:35

like not quite David

1:13:37

Firth. It's a Cottney Geezer. Almost,

1:13:39

somewhere between David Firth and

1:13:42

like Steve Coogan doing an impression of

1:13:44

like a BBC reporter talking about like

1:13:46

tennis. You

1:13:49

know? Okay.

1:13:52

Okay. It was just like almost like

1:13:54

a sports cast announcer, but like a really boring one. It

1:13:57

was a really like awful nasally boring voice. See if

1:13:59

it's perfect. Oh, it was great. It was so

1:14:01

good. And what was fascinating about this is

1:14:04

I wrote down two time stamps in the

1:14:07

movie. So obviously in this

1:14:09

M Night film, the character's name is

1:14:12

Ong. And in the

1:14:14

original show, it's Aang. But there

1:14:16

are two moments in the

1:14:18

described video narration where he says Aang.

1:14:22

The rest of the film he says Ong. Oh, interesting. But there

1:14:24

are two moments where you like let it slip. And

1:14:27

so my theory, we're getting another theory

1:14:29

here. My theory is that the person

1:14:31

doing the voiceover is actually Team Aang. Like

1:14:33

he has to have seen the show before

1:14:36

for that to slip because otherwise there would be one way

1:14:38

to pronounce it. So he has to have known about the

1:14:41

original show. And my feeling

1:14:43

is that he's Team Aang. And

1:14:45

at the very end, like it was like

1:14:47

the perfect ending for this movie. I laughed

1:14:49

out loud because the described

1:14:51

video, they also read a lot of the credits.

1:14:53

And so the big credit right at the end

1:14:55

was like written, directed and produced

1:14:58

by M Night Shyamala. And the way he pronounced it,

1:15:00

it was like, OK, you're intentionally

1:15:02

mispronouncing M Night's name as revenge

1:15:04

for Aang. So

1:15:07

he said written, I can't even

1:15:09

do the accent, written, directed and produced by

1:15:12

M Night Shyamalan.

1:15:16

Shyamalan, he says. And then

1:15:19

like, you know, reads out some more credits.

1:15:21

And then there's a second M Night credit

1:15:23

where he doubles down. And the second time

1:15:25

he says it, like anybody who has this

1:15:27

Blu-ray, please watch this. Like I'm not crazy.

1:15:29

The second time he says it, the way

1:15:31

that he says it sounds so spiteful

1:15:34

and like, yeah, I'm mispronouncing your

1:15:36

name. And M Night Shyamalan

1:15:38

film like he literally says it like

1:15:40

that. It's crazy. Like this dude was

1:15:42

Team Aang and this was his this

1:15:45

was his vengeance. He

1:15:48

got revenge. He's like, how does it feel?

1:15:50

M Night Shyamalan. Because

1:15:54

that's ironically one of the most consistent things about

1:15:56

the movie is that they all they all agreed.

1:15:59

Like let's let's say. the main character's name wrong.

1:16:01

That's the one thing we're going to get right is saying

1:16:03

it wrong. Make him say, uggh.

1:16:06

Unggh. What

1:16:09

the fuck? Yeah. And like, you're

1:16:12

kind of talking about the conspiracy theories with choosing

1:16:14

M. Knight, but do you remember

1:16:16

anything about the controversy about this

1:16:19

film when it came out? Which

1:16:21

controversy? Specifically about the casting over

1:16:23

the Fire Nation. Yeah.

1:16:25

Which seems like a M. Knight

1:16:28

choice where they're mostly played by like

1:16:30

kind of Indian actors, which is a change

1:16:32

from the original, I'd say, where they're

1:16:34

more kind of like Chinese coded, I

1:16:36

would say. Not

1:16:38

the biggest deal, but it's I guess it's

1:16:40

just kind of interesting why do

1:16:44

you do that with the villains? Well, I

1:16:46

mean, I don't know. I just I think that

1:16:48

this decision was probably made by

1:16:50

higher reps before he was even involved to

1:16:52

like get it green lit was like good

1:16:54

characters need to be the lightest skinned and

1:16:57

we can have some representation. But so I guess

1:16:59

we're just leaving that to the the bad characters

1:17:01

can be the darker skinned

1:17:04

characters. I honestly just think that that's

1:17:06

how they were going to make the movie. And then they got

1:17:08

M. Knight to to make it

1:17:10

seem like less of a racist decision. And they're like,

1:17:12

you just say you did the whole thing. I guess.

1:17:14

Yeah. Like, I'm just thinking out like what big

1:17:18

Asian American actors even, you know,

1:17:20

in 2010 in Hollywood. So, yeah. Hmm.

1:17:26

Not like they had name actors selling the movie,

1:17:28

but, you know, I think that that that was

1:17:31

a it.

1:17:33

I think I think it fits within that time

1:17:35

period in terms of like, OK, we're

1:17:37

going to put a lot of money into this. It's an

1:17:39

existing IP. How do we

1:17:41

get the movie made? We can't have the darker

1:17:44

skinned characters be the main cast.

1:17:46

Right. So I think I literally think

1:17:48

that that it just it seems like

1:17:50

it fits in 2010. So, yeah. Whereas

1:17:52

the I did check out the first

1:17:55

episode of the twenty twenty four version

1:17:58

still being adapted to this day. And

1:18:01

yeah, it doesn't have that same problem. They

1:18:03

actually have, you know, Asian actors and it's

1:18:06

just way less distracting as a result. Like

1:18:09

the characters actually resemble who they

1:18:11

are in the show as far

1:18:13

as like, not just like a race thing,

1:18:15

but like the way they're written, you know,

1:18:17

and characterized. They actually, oh, it's a little

1:18:19

bit of that thing that I like. There's

1:18:21

still like a Netflix kind of corporate, a

1:18:24

translation of it that's like, it's

1:18:27

just too much going on. It's too like just

1:18:30

adding detail. I feel like there

1:18:32

was like a brevity to some of this stuff. The

1:18:35

original show has a certain level of

1:18:37

brevity. It's like three seasons. Each season

1:18:39

is just Aang learning one

1:18:41

of the three elements he doesn't know. Then it wraps up

1:18:43

and ends. And it knows

1:18:45

what not to tell you or indulge in.

1:18:49

The Netflix show, it starts with this full

1:18:51

30 minute prequel set up of the monk

1:18:53

falling and it's like this whole siege. And

1:18:55

it's like, that was kind of cooler in my head actually,

1:18:58

the way that went down. Like in the

1:19:00

original show, the way it was revealed through flashbacks and how

1:19:02

it was more from like the main character and

1:19:04

like flushing them out instead of

1:19:07

just this scale. And

1:19:09

like, we need to show how much CG and like

1:19:11

we've got to show off like how big and Hollywood

1:19:13

this is. And so we're kind of missing the forest

1:19:15

here. Like, could we just

1:19:17

focus on like what made this thing good to begin

1:19:19

with? Like really just

1:19:21

getting lost down with this bullshit with this.

1:19:26

You just wanted a sticky movie, sticky

1:19:28

and crispy, like

1:19:30

some Korean fried chicken. I mean, it's

1:19:32

definitely it's definitely sticky. Probably

1:19:35

not in the way he hoped or intended. And to

1:19:38

be like the way he's managed to shed

1:19:40

this and still work, I could keep coming back to

1:19:42

this is like I'm following

1:19:44

this up with after Earth as well. Like three years

1:19:46

later, it's like this. That's how I'm going to undo

1:19:48

this. What a combo. The

1:19:52

one to smack like one, two, three.

1:19:54

The happening was like the three in

1:19:57

a row. of

1:20:00

some of the best three knockouts, best

1:20:03

comedies that have ever

1:20:05

existed. It is, we've like talked

1:20:07

about like trilogies that

1:20:09

aren't actually trilogies, but like kind of workers,

1:20:12

there's a good one, right? Release that as

1:20:14

a box set. That's a powerful trilogy. 4K.

1:20:17

Yeah, yeah. Happening last Airbender after

1:20:19

Earth, I would go crazy over

1:20:21

that. Like

1:20:24

he's always, he's talked about the stickiness, the

1:20:27

sticky quality, I think he added

1:20:29

an extra letter accidentally, he made his stinky

1:20:31

movie. That was the

1:20:33

problem. Yeah, he's kind of a fascinating guy.

1:20:35

Like you sent me that video of that

1:20:37

weird interview of him talking about Despicable Me.

1:20:40

Oh yeah. And it's just

1:20:43

like drooling over Despicable Me's title. Now

1:20:45

that's a sticky name. Despicable Me,

1:20:47

that's clever right there. I hope I do something

1:20:49

that clever one day. And say what? You

1:20:52

made the sixth sense, you know. The quote was like,

1:20:54

I wish I was that smart. Yeah.

1:20:58

Despicable Me title. Yeah,

1:21:04

he's a character release and I will

1:21:06

be there for his nonsense, but like.

1:21:08

Same forever. I'm not gonna be happy about it.

1:21:12

Yeah. You know, yeah,

1:21:14

despite being upset with

1:21:17

Trap and somehow disappointed,

1:21:20

I still got to watch another

1:21:22

classic M Night. I'm glad we

1:21:25

made this a double feature. Yeah, they go

1:21:27

together well. Because it reminded me about why I

1:21:29

love him so much. Yeah.

1:21:33

No actually, no. I can't agree with that. Well,

1:21:38

I had fun. What

1:21:41

do you say? One out of 10? Yeah,

1:21:44

they're just the lowest of the low. Like I

1:21:46

almost refused to rate it. Like this is one

1:21:48

where like I checked on Letterboxd and whatnot where

1:21:50

all the people I follow, you can see their

1:21:52

ratings. And normally there is some disparity, you know,

1:21:54

some exploration of the scale. But

1:21:57

on this one, it's like almost unanimous. Like

1:21:59

everyone. Just putting it on the lowest of

1:22:01

the low. When I'm right there with

1:22:03

them, like this is a half star one out of 10. It's

1:22:05

like completely inept from every

1:22:07

angle. There's, there's genuinely not one single thing that

1:22:09

does well. Not one. Didn't mention the music. Yeah,

1:22:12

the music's kind of annoying. Loads of great themes.

1:22:15

Yeah, because there's no, how are you supposed to

1:22:17

score like this weird montage movie, how you, there

1:22:19

are no scenes. Yeah. You know, like there are

1:22:21

whole chase sequences that are over before they've even

1:22:23

begun. So it's like, how can you, how can

1:22:25

you score that? How can you like build? It's an

1:22:28

interesting challenge. Yeah. Yeah.

1:22:31

Fuck this one. Love

1:22:34

it. All right. Question time. Man,

1:22:37

let's do a few questions here before we wrap up

1:22:39

the show. Then from the Saldana cast community, head

1:22:42

over to the suggestion thread over on the subreddit. Just

1:22:45

like the backwards man did a

1:22:47

few trips. What

1:22:49

are your thoughts on Joaquin Phoenix dropping out of his

1:22:51

film with Todd Haynes? If you aren't

1:22:54

aware, Phoenix was going to star in a sexually explicit

1:22:56

NC 17 queer film directed by Haynes.

1:22:59

The idea for the film was pitched by Phoenix and

1:23:01

he was involved in writing the screenplay just days before

1:23:03

filming was to start though. He decided to drop out

1:23:05

the film after getting cold feet. Apparently it isn't possible

1:23:07

to recast his role and everyone who's supposed to work

1:23:09

on the film is out of a job. The film

1:23:11

is now expected to lose over seven figures due to

1:23:13

all the money that's already been put into it and

1:23:16

because some people working on the film still need to

1:23:18

be paid. So

1:23:21

it's been a bit of a drama. Well, that sucks.

1:23:23

Whose pocket is that coming out of? Yeah,

1:23:25

studios and producers probably. I

1:23:28

guess. I wonder what

1:23:30

it would be about that that made him drop out because it's

1:23:32

not like it's he's in a

1:23:34

lot of like challenging roles. Yeah.

1:23:37

You know, the term of comfort zone. I

1:23:39

wonder what it was about this project in particular that

1:23:41

gave him the cold feet. Not gay enough. I

1:23:45

don't know. Not gay enough. This

1:23:48

is one of these things where it's like we

1:23:50

don't know anything about like the reasons

1:23:52

why he would have to not do it. And

1:23:55

so it's not I don't know how to

1:23:57

speculate when like the film. Didn't

1:24:00

even get made. So yeah, and

1:24:02

you got no details. It sucks because I love

1:24:04

Todd Haynes and I love Joaquin would

1:24:07

have loved to see them work together do

1:24:09

a gay thing and Sucks

1:24:12

for people that are out of a job and it sucks

1:24:14

that a lot of money was wasted But

1:24:17

I have no idea what happened. So Yeah,

1:24:22

you just need more context to be able to

1:24:24

comment because a lot of people Say

1:24:27

like oh, he's been so selfish about this and

1:24:30

We don't really know like What

1:24:32

actually went down? It's not the first time

1:24:34

I guess a big production has fallen apart

1:24:36

and money's been lost or written off and

1:24:40

It's a risky business. I guess Wouldn't

1:24:42

be the first time someone like this has happened. It's just Consequential

1:24:46

I guess that Phoenix is attached. Yeah,

1:24:48

it seems the whole thing just can't happen

1:24:51

without him after a certain point. So Yeah,

1:24:55

especially if he was you know producing

1:24:57

and writing and such a direct involvement.

1:24:59

It's Kind of being sold on

1:25:01

him. So very

1:25:03

unfortunate But that's

1:25:05

like the risk of the industry, you know Okay, a

1:25:07

lot of projects ride or die on one

1:25:10

person and if that doesn't

1:25:12

work out then things kind of dead. Yeah Um

1:25:18

Metal gear gas has this to say

1:25:20

did you follow the Olympics at all?

1:25:22

I'd love to hear your reactions to

1:25:24

the breakdancing event that has gone somewhat

1:25:26

viral. Love you, too. Thanks for the

1:25:28

hours of entertainment I didn't

1:25:30

actually see how Canada does in the

1:25:32

Olympics you you guys any good over

1:25:34

there? Apparently Vancouver guy won the breakdancing.

1:25:36

I Was

1:25:39

that who won that yeah because it was

1:25:41

Australia right that was like the embarrassing I

1:25:45

watched those two things and I did not watch

1:25:47

much else of the Olympics. I've seen some

1:25:50

popular photos and moments the

1:25:53

guy retrieving some the cap in the pool the

1:25:57

unsanitary water conditions in Paris

1:26:00

that got a lot of the swimmers sick. Oh, I

1:26:02

didn't know that though cuz there's there's too much poopy

1:26:04

in the water Yeah,

1:26:07

yeah, isn't that crazy You

1:26:11

know what? There always seems to be some sort of like goes

1:26:13

and fuck up where it's like

1:26:15

Oh, they easily could have anticipated

1:26:18

this The

1:26:20

thing that pisses me off the most about this year's

1:26:22

Olympics is that there's this big like

1:26:26

crazy Unhinged

1:26:29

like attack like

1:26:31

every fucking grifter is is

1:26:35

Claiming that an Algerian

1:26:37

boxer is not a

1:26:39

woman. You're right. Yeah, and that she's definitely

1:26:41

a man because of some

1:26:44

Some test that's not even an official

1:26:46

test where we don't even have the

1:26:48

results of that test That

1:26:51

was done for another event that

1:26:53

like it's like a Russian organization that

1:26:55

no one can even like verify but

1:26:59

They were like people are just

1:27:01

insisting Even though we don't even know

1:27:03

the results of this test just that

1:27:05

she failed it people are insisting that means

1:27:08

that Because she had

1:27:10

like she has an extra

1:27:12

chromosome or like a different chromosome or something

1:27:14

Even though she's born a woman that like

1:27:17

they're saying she's a man which seems inconsistent

1:27:19

because all these other same people I thought

1:27:21

were like completely genital essentialists

1:27:23

when it came to What

1:27:26

is a man? What is a woman like what what what you

1:27:29

all changed your mind today? But

1:27:33

yeah, so they're they're Algeria

1:27:35

where it is illegal

1:27:38

to be trans They

1:27:40

think that Algeria sent a

1:27:44

male trans male boxer to

1:27:47

beat up a woman at the Olympics

1:27:50

and that Literally did

1:27:52

not happen and that is somehow

1:27:54

getting more outrage on

1:27:56

social media from the protect the children

1:27:58

crowd then then the

1:28:02

guy who actually like

1:28:06

raped a child, who's at

1:28:08

the Olympics? Oh

1:28:10

my God. Like, and they're not really talking

1:28:12

about that one? It's,

1:28:14

yeah, they just whipped up into a frenzy because

1:28:17

I guess the media told them to. I just,

1:28:19

the culture was, oh my

1:28:21

God, it's an invasion. We're being, oh my God,

1:28:23

like, what was that? It's a

1:28:25

crazy stat of like how many, Americans

1:28:28

were polled of like what percentage of people they think

1:28:30

are trans, like in the country. It's

1:28:32

like 40%, like some of them thought. And

1:28:35

it's like, what do you, what world are

1:28:37

you actually living in? Like, you've been like

1:28:39

whipped up into a frenzy over, it's just

1:28:41

lies and hatred spread online. Well, the less

1:28:44

common a group

1:28:46

is, the more marginalized a group

1:28:49

is, the easier it is to misrepresent

1:28:51

and create caricatures of them, because there's going

1:28:54

to be a lot of people that

1:28:56

are only fed what they've seen on social media.

1:28:59

And their idea of a trans person

1:29:01

is like the person who had

1:29:04

a freak out at GameStop. And

1:29:06

that's what they, like, because they, they've

1:29:08

either never met a trans person, or don't know

1:29:10

that they've met a trans person. Like,

1:29:13

you used to be able to do the exact same thing with

1:29:15

gay people, but now it's

1:29:18

like, okay, everybody kind of at least knows a gay person.

1:29:22

Right? So, for

1:29:26

reason next. Yeah. Next on the chopping

1:29:28

block. It's been, yeah, we're just

1:29:30

the way, something's

1:29:33

like shifting lately with

1:29:35

the way social media is like affecting reality. I

1:29:37

don't know how much you know about like the

1:29:39

riots in the UK and all this shit about

1:29:41

the Olympics. Like people are, they're

1:29:44

doing things based off

1:29:46

this bullshit that's spread

1:29:48

online. These bad faith, moneyed interests,

1:29:50

you know? It's really kind of a scary

1:29:52

situation we're in. I don't really know what

1:29:55

the fucking solution is. Yeah, it's sad. Yeah,

1:29:57

we got here from the Olympics, but... Sad

1:29:59

and concerning just

1:30:02

how easily duped people are

1:30:06

in ways where it's like, okay, wait, like

1:30:09

your perspective is that like you found the

1:30:11

real scoop that they won't tell you. But

1:30:14

if you had that perspective, if you valued having

1:30:16

that, you'd

1:30:19

think that you'd value the truth

1:30:21

more, you'd think that you'd value

1:30:23

accuracy, you'd think that you'd do

1:30:25

like one fucking search and

1:30:28

the wealth of information and it's all at her fucking

1:30:31

fingertips. You'd think that you just do like, a

1:30:34

little bit of like, could I possibly

1:30:36

be wrong about this thing that I read on

1:30:38

Twitter? None of you are doing that. Well,

1:30:40

you can find anything now. Well simultaneously

1:30:43

you can find anything, any evidence for

1:30:45

anything, but also you can not believe

1:30:48

anything. There literally is no evidence for

1:30:50

it. Like it's thoroughly debunked. It's thoroughly

1:30:52

debunked. From the way they

1:30:54

process information, they do though. Evidence to them

1:30:56

is fucking libs of TikTok said it. Exactly,

1:30:59

yeah. They get entire worldviews from disingenuous

1:31:01

headlines or just straight up lies

1:31:03

spread by like, the richest man

1:31:05

in the world who owns eggs.

1:31:07

That's crazy. It's

1:31:11

actually crazy. So

1:31:14

annoying. Yeah, and then I guess that's the

1:31:16

conversation about the Olympics now. Everyone's

1:31:19

getting like transvestigated. Andrew

1:31:24

Tate's trans. Not yes. Kyle

1:31:28

Rittenhouse is trans. Everyone's

1:31:32

trans. Yeah, I guess

1:31:34

it also seemed like a bigger deal than last

1:31:37

time, because that was like slap bang in COVID.

1:31:39

So I think it was in Japan last time

1:31:41

and there's unfortunate images of like all the empty

1:31:45

colosseums or whatever. So

1:31:48

yeah, it was a bit of a catch up. But

1:31:50

this one seemed like a bigger deal. Clips everywhere,

1:31:52

memes everywhere. That Turkish guy with

1:31:54

the gun, the pole vaulter ruined

1:31:57

it with his dick, smacking the beam.

1:32:00

There's some good clips, there's some

1:32:02

good moments. Yes. I

1:32:04

like it as a concept, it's cool. Maybe

1:32:07

Olympics, the

1:32:09

sportsmanship. Yeah. The

1:32:11

concept's better than the organization. There's a hilarious

1:32:14

stat that came out recently in the UK

1:32:16

that was like one in five

1:32:18

Brits thinks that if

1:32:20

they were given five years, they could compete

1:32:22

in the Olympics. Oh, good.

1:32:25

That's great. 20% of people think

1:32:27

that they're top three in the world. Yeah.

1:32:31

It's like, you basically need to be groomed into the shit

1:32:33

to be like the best in the world. You need to

1:32:36

start when you're like four, if not younger. And

1:32:38

then have enough money to dedicate your life to doing

1:32:40

it even though you're not getting into it. Yeah. That's

1:32:43

what I was thinking about. How do you have

1:32:45

a lifestyle where you can dedicate your

1:32:48

life to some random shooting or something? Yeah.

1:32:51

Generation. Then you look at all the sports that UK

1:32:54

is good at. You look at it like the bougie sports, rowing

1:32:57

and water boat, and

1:33:00

shit like that. Making horses dance. Yeah.

1:33:04

Straight up. Yeah,

1:33:09

it's weird. Is

1:33:11

the Olympics over now? Yeah,

1:33:13

yeah. That's how much I pay attention to it is like

1:33:15

every once in a while I'll see a thing posted on

1:33:18

social media. Yeah, I didn't watch any of

1:33:20

it. I just watched clips. I like looking

1:33:22

at the metal table every couple of days.

1:33:26

Just seeing where everyone came. I have no idea how many

1:33:28

medals went to anyone. That's how much

1:33:30

I care. Yeah.

1:33:34

What's over now? Now, what's

1:33:36

the next thing we can get angry about? Winter

1:33:38

Olympics. Next drama. Winter

1:33:41

Olympics, yeah. Dials

1:33:46

smart, as this is to say. For

1:33:49

both of you, but mainly Adam, we know how

1:33:51

much you rightfully hate John Favreau's Lion King and

1:33:53

probably Jungle Book. But what do you think about

1:33:55

his other films, both as a writer and director,

1:33:57

swingers, maid, elf, zathura,

1:33:59

iron? Man 1 and 2, Chef, Cowboys

1:34:02

and Aliens. We

1:34:05

talked about John Favreau, like, as a director very

1:34:07

much. He's, I remember him coming up in that

1:34:09

kind of director for hire. Exactly. It was a

1:34:11

term for it. He doesn't have much of a

1:34:13

style. He's just like bland. He's very bland. No,

1:34:16

he kind of pioneered that Disney style

1:34:19

almost. You know?

1:34:21

Kind of, yeah. Like

1:34:23

the kind of synthetic, like, it's not like the Tim Burton,

1:34:25

Alice in Wonderland look. It's something else.

1:34:28

It's almost like more corporate. The

1:34:31

look of all these movies, you know, Am I 1 and

1:34:33

2, Cowboys and Aliens, Zathura, they

1:34:35

all have that certain kind of

1:34:38

sheen to them, you know? Stickyness.

1:34:42

A different kind of stickiness perhaps. Yeah,

1:34:44

he's not a very interesting filmmaker to

1:34:47

me. No, not at all. Being

1:34:49

a director is good. Chef was fine. Yeah, it was

1:34:51

okay. I didn't see Maid or,

1:34:53

where was the other one? Swingers.

1:34:56

Swingers. I feel

1:34:59

compelled to. I don't like

1:35:01

Elf. Yeah, I've never really

1:35:03

cared about Elf. Everyone loves Elf, but yeah,

1:35:06

I've never been a Will Ferrell guy myself.

1:35:08

Same. Yeah. It's

1:35:11

just not for me. I remember Zathura

1:35:13

being weird. John is

1:35:15

kind of a boring

1:35:17

director and

1:35:20

there's no reason to see a movie just because his name

1:35:22

is on it. Yeah,

1:35:25

for sure. Should we do one more here?

1:35:27

Yes. Kind of a funny one

1:35:29

we can end on here. From BilboScott8,

1:35:32

what are your thoughts on

1:35:34

James Cameron's usage of AI to remove film grain

1:35:36

from his recent 4K discs as well as his

1:35:38

response? Basically, he said, people who care about it

1:35:40

should touch grass, lol. Yes. So,

1:35:44

yeah, Zathura's going around. Yeah,

1:35:47

it's weird because he's like defending the decision but

1:35:49

then he's like, puts his hands up. Now,

1:35:52

you're a dumb nerd if you even care about

1:35:54

this. Go touch grass. What?

1:35:57

Yeah. I saw people even

1:35:59

respond. responding to that, like obviously I'm

1:36:01

on the fucking 4K Blu-ray subreddit. You

1:36:04

know, there's people responding like, okay, look, my

1:36:07

girlfriend who doesn't even know

1:36:09

what a UHD is, watched

1:36:12

this with me and said like, why

1:36:15

do their faces look so weird? Why is it? Right?

1:36:18

Yeah. Terminator 2 is infamous,

1:36:20

like one of the worst 4K

1:36:23

transfers ever. Yeah, yeah, it's been there for

1:36:25

a while. And so like consistently with all

1:36:27

of James Cameron's like older films, it seems

1:36:29

like if there's a 4K release of

1:36:31

his films, you should probably avoid it. Like

1:36:35

that's the general impression. The fact that he was

1:36:37

even asked about it in an interview means that

1:36:39

there's a fucking problem, right? How

1:36:42

crazy is that though? When his

1:36:44

whole like brand is the like

1:36:46

visual fidelity, like pushing that stuff.

1:36:48

Yeah. It's very weird. Yeah.

1:36:52

He's like pioneered these like

1:36:54

huge budget special effects movies.

1:36:58

He's all about like Avatar, you know, like they're

1:37:00

spending billions of dollars and they have to like

1:37:02

be the literally the biggest movie of the year

1:37:04

to like make a profit. Just

1:37:07

I don't know. I

1:37:12

don't know enough about the process

1:37:15

of restoring like

1:37:17

a 4K as in like going

1:37:19

to the original film or

1:37:21

negative and transferring that to like

1:37:23

a UHD with like

1:37:26

HDR or whatever you want to

1:37:29

put on it. I

1:37:32

would just argue like if

1:37:34

you can get it to look like the

1:37:37

original film print, that

1:37:40

would be the goal for me. That's

1:37:42

the idea. So like. That's what you

1:37:44

want. As soon as you have

1:37:47

this weird automated process, whether it's AI

1:37:49

or something else. If

1:37:51

you're if you're if you're making people

1:37:53

look like plastic when they shouldn't.

1:37:57

That's a problem, James, and

1:37:59

it's not about. people touching grass, it

1:38:02

seems like something you should probably care the

1:38:04

most about instead of getting weird and defensive

1:38:06

about. It's very weird to be dismissive like

1:38:09

that. It seems like something you should care

1:38:11

about. Has

1:38:13

he watched any of the 4K? Yeah,

1:38:15

have you seen them? It's so,

1:38:17

yeah, you've like dedicated your life to

1:38:20

this, like, why are you hand

1:38:22

waving that? It's so weird.

1:38:24

What? It's very weird, but I did

1:38:26

see they dropped the seed bearer title

1:38:29

from the new avatar, so that's massively

1:38:31

disappointing. It was going to be called the seed

1:38:34

bearer? It

1:38:37

used to be like referred to as like,

1:38:39

yep, the next one's going to be like

1:38:41

the seed bearer, also Avatar 3, the seed

1:38:43

bearer, something like that. So

1:38:46

that's very disappointing that that's gone because that's hilarious. I

1:38:48

thought it was going to be called Avatar 3, this

1:38:50

time there's fire in it. What's

1:38:53

that as well? That's the subtitle. Okay.

1:38:59

All right, thanks for questions. Yeah,

1:39:02

yeah, it's fine. You

1:39:05

got a wreck? Oh

1:39:07

yeah, it is my wreck. I do have a wreck. Someone

1:39:10

I've wanted to revisit for a while

1:39:12

because I think the conversation could be

1:39:14

interesting. I feel like I've been forced

1:39:16

with some of these recent, I

1:39:19

guess, appearances on interviews

1:39:22

online and one of those got me thinking about this

1:39:24

movie again, that being American Beauty,

1:39:27

Kevin Spacey. Sure, okay. Yeah, it's

1:39:29

been a long time for me.

1:39:31

I feel like that could be,

1:39:34

it's time. Yeah, I used to really love that movie back

1:39:37

in the early 2000s. It's been a long time.

1:39:41

All the stuff with Kevin Spacey's happened since. He's

1:39:43

on all these weird interviews going around. It's like

1:39:46

a, I don't know, an

1:39:48

interesting film to revisit, I feel like. Very

1:39:51

excited. Thank you. If

1:39:54

you would like to watch

1:39:56

American Beauty and not

1:39:58

get spoiled for it. directed

1:40:01

by Sam Mendes written by Ellen Ball starring

1:40:04

Kevin Spacey It's in

1:40:07

the IMDb top 250 at number 77 77

1:40:10

okay, yeah watch it before the next episode comes out

1:40:13

these episodes come out every two weeks You

1:40:15

can listen to them early Go

1:40:18

into sardonicast.com sign up for premium. It's

1:40:20

only $2 a month also patreon.com Slash

1:40:22

sardonicast same thing or go to

1:40:25

the YouTube members thing and you

1:40:27

just click join And

1:40:29

you can get them early support the show and We

1:40:34

still got to figure out our merch thing Oops

1:40:37

been busy. We got

1:40:39

a sardonicast highlights channel Subscribe

1:40:42

to that hit the bell hit the bell in the

1:40:44

regular channel, okay, and You

1:40:49

got your tickets for Romulus

1:40:54

I do nice. I'm ready all right. I'll buy

1:40:56

mine. I'm feeling I'm actually being good about it's

1:40:58

talking shit a few episodes ago I'm feeling

1:41:00

a bit better more curious, okay well

1:41:05

Maybe you're setting yourself up for disappointment True

1:41:08

we'll find out All

1:41:11

right, thanks for listening everybody. Thanks everyone.

1:41:13

Have a happy Shrek

1:41:15

5 or crispy. Oh

1:41:17

god stop it I Can't

1:41:21

I can't do it Stay

1:41:23

crispy over there shit all right.

1:41:26

Bye everybody