Oneshot - Civil War (2024)

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[00:01:00] Welcome to the Lohrhound One-Shot Podcast where the Lohrhounds are guides to the end

[00:01:20] of democracy as we know it. I'm David. Here with me today are Anthony and Ron for

[00:01:27] our coverage of the A24 movie Civil War. We're going to start off with a few production

[00:01:32] details and then we'll get into our spoiler-free hot takes. We'll take a short break and then

[00:01:37] after that, we'll get into a more detailed conversation about the plot, the characters,

[00:01:42] the themes that are presented in the movie followed by a little bit of listener feedback.

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[00:02:30] at the end of the podcast. Also, an invitation to join us on our Discord. We've got a pretty

[00:02:35] fun and active community, great moderator team, different channels set up for all

[00:02:40] the different conversations that we've got going on. But I would like to get straight into

[00:02:45] it. First off, Ron, welcome back. Good to see you. You've decided to join. We've

[00:02:51] invited you and you've accepted to join our little club as a co-host in the Lohrhounds

[00:02:57] community. Welcome. Thanks. Welcome to the resistance. That's right. Thank you. Thank

[00:03:02] you for having me. Yeah, thank you very much. Love your perspectives and just so glad that we

[00:03:07] can kick it around together. Yeah, me too. Anthony, welcome back. Always good to see you

[00:03:13] as well. You've been busy? Always good to see you. Yeah, we're in the middle of our

[00:03:17] felonies and fugazies season of Properly Howard. This week, we're putting out Shake Down,

[00:03:25] which is a movie that I have not seen before. It is bonkers. Is it? It is Sam Elliott does his

[00:03:33] best Jackie Chan movie. So it's pretty amazing actually. See Sam Elliott kicking ass with what's

[00:03:41] his name from RoboCop? Peter? Yeah, Peter Weller. That's right. Yeah. All right. For this one shot,

[00:03:48] I have kind of put together a new template and I wanted to try to bring some consistency across

[00:03:54] our movie coverage. Just make it a little bit easier for us to jump in and prepare

[00:03:59] as well as to provide some basic, you know, so listeners can understand how we're going to

[00:04:07] progress and sort of what we're going to talk about. So if you like the new format, let me know,

[00:04:12] drop a note in the Discord or send us an email or something like that. But hopefully that'll

[00:04:16] make it a little bit easier for us to turn and burn on some of these movies and stuff.

[00:04:20] So real quick up top, a little plot synopsis. If you haven't seen the movie Civil War

[00:04:27] already, in a dystopian future America, a team of journalists races against time to reach

[00:04:35] Washington D.C. before rebel factions descend upon the White House. It was written, directed by

[00:04:41] Alex Garland and distributed by A24. It stars Kristen Dunst, Wagner Mora, Kayleigh Spieny,

[00:04:50] I'm not sure how to pronounce her last name, and Stephen McKinley Henderson. We'll talk about

[00:04:53] more of them once we get into the details. Nick Offerman is here for a very short little

[00:04:58] cameo bit. The box office, the budget was about 50 to 60 million and so far at the

[00:05:04] time of the recording it had a 25 million dollar opening weekend and it's hitting 48 million

[00:05:11] worldwide. So it's on track to be a good movie for them. It's gotten some mixed reviews

[00:05:17] in the ratings and review world. On Rotten Tomato, it's holding an 80 to 74 critic over

[00:05:26] user scores and on Metacritic the critics are giving it 75 and a user rating of 6.1.

[00:05:34] So I think a lot of people are enjoying it but then there's a definite group of people who are

[00:05:40] not into the film as much as the others are. So let's kick it off Ron, what did you think of

[00:05:47] this movie in general? Sort of spoiler free, your big hot takes. Yeah, first I just want to

[00:05:56] say in my head cannon, Nick is actually Ron from Parks and Rec and he has

[00:06:03] gone out the political avenue. You scaled up.

[00:06:08] So I'll just throw that out there because I don't know if they actually say the

[00:06:14] president's name in the movie. They do not, they just call him the president so it's

[00:06:17] absolutely Ron Swanson. That's right. President Swanson. There's enough similarity where it

[00:06:23] could be for sure. Hot takes, I remember when I first saw this trailer unlike most people I

[00:06:32] was like oh this movie is made for me. This movie is made for me just because I kind of

[00:06:38] feel like we're heading in that direction in a lot of ways and so I was looking forward to

[00:06:46] seeing it and I'm sure we'll dive more into spoilers about what transpires but in a way I was

[00:06:58] pleasantly surprised in terms of how it transpired the way it did and we talked

[00:07:03] more about that in spoilers. I felt like it was gripping, the acting of course was amazing,

[00:07:13] the Jesse Plemons is just, he, I mean you see him in the trailers so you have an idea of the kind

[00:07:23] of character he is. He, I mean the first time I ever saw him was in Breaking Bad and

[00:07:32] he plays these kind of characters very well I'll just say. Yeah. But then again

[00:07:36] when you think about him in Game Night or even in Fargo, he has a little bit of a disposition so

[00:07:49] he's, I love his range and he did well. Yeah everyone in this was really good so.

[00:07:54] Yeah. If you haven't seen it yet if you get a chance to see it on a screen.

[00:08:01] We'll talk about that in a second. I got a little new section for that.

[00:08:03] Okay yeah so. I see a note in here in the outline that you said about the California Texas.

[00:08:09] Yeah and yeah because everyone's, so everyone is saying and this isn't spoiler so I won't

[00:08:16] break into it but because this is a discussion that people were having from the trailer where

[00:08:20] how did Texas and California because you realize from the trailer that Texas and California

[00:08:26] are the two states that are the Western Alliance. Yeah who are fighting against the US.

[00:08:33] And people are wondering how could these two states, yeah how could these two states.

[00:08:38] Band together. Band together and my thought on that was I felt like that was both a lack

[00:08:46] of imagination among people and a lack of history of knowledge you know as I mentioned

[00:08:52] in the discord when we were talking about this you know at one time the United States

[00:08:56] and Russia were allies and at one time you know Japan and Italy were enemies. I mean

[00:09:06] enemies to us and so when you think about the divide between our country and those countries

[00:09:13] back then the divide between California and Texas now pales in comparison. So you know it

[00:09:21] doesn't take more than generation for things to flip so that's one thing. Also a lot of people

[00:09:29] are moving from California to Texas just because the prices here are crazy. You're in the LA

[00:09:36] area right? I saw some other show or podcast someone in the Midwest they were talking about

[00:09:41] the pricing and they were complaining about like how houses or some house was costing

[00:09:47] three or four hundred thousand dollars and it was like some and they were complaining about how

[00:09:53] expensive it was. Like you can't even I don't think you even get a plot of land for that much

[00:09:58] right so it's just crazy. Now everyone who's moving to California and then moving to Austin

[00:10:03] I think I was just there for South by Southwest a month or so ago and you can see the results

[00:10:08] but I can foresee a future where a lot of Californians have moved to Texas and now

[00:10:17] it's become more purple than red and I mean if you think about it Texas is trending purple

[00:10:26] in the urban areas and California probably has more red state voters than most red states.

[00:10:36] Yeah so I was just gonna say that. It wouldn't take much for those two and of course both of

[00:10:42] those states have been talking about seceding from the union in Texas's history since the

[00:10:52] very beginning right? Great yeah. So I don't know that didn't really it that's a little bit of a

[00:10:59] head scratcher the Texas California alliance but I think it's an intentional one. I think Alex

[00:11:08] Garland is basically saying you know what these two are not that different if you think about

[00:11:13] it and like you said it could just take a couple decades for things to shift.

[00:11:20] I'd also just jump in on the bandwagon here on the Texas California thing which is I think

[00:11:25] it's an interesting Rorschach test and you can really gauge somebody's thoughts about history

[00:11:34] and modern politics based on how they react to this question of California Texas so I think

[00:11:39] that's an interesting point. The other thing I would say is to prosecute a war on this scale

[00:11:44] where you've got fighters and helicopters and men and material, men and material, that's an

[00:11:50] old way of saying it but of you know of soldiers and materials you need. Think of the number of

[00:11:55] rounds of ammunition that were expended during the one battle scene or the two of the big

[00:12:01] battle scenes that we see. You have to have enormous manufacturing capabilities to prosecute

[00:12:06] a war of this scale and this intensity, a hot war at this intensity so both California and

[00:12:12] Texas have huge economies that they could quote unquote nationalize to take towards the war

[00:12:19] effort. So they've got the infrastructure, they've got the materials and things like that so

[00:12:25] but yeah I think it's a really interesting question about whether or not you could see

[00:12:30] that and what that tells me about you if I'm having that conversation with you.

[00:12:34] I think it's an interesting elimination. Anthony hot takes for Civil War, what'd you think?

[00:12:42] I was a little bit anxious about this movie like I thought for a lot of the same reasons

[00:12:48] Rowan said like this movie was like oh I this feels very timely because of the state of our

[00:12:56] political discourse and social discourse and I immediately I thought oh no I don't I don't know

[00:13:03] if I this may be it's too close to home for me but after seeing it I can appreciate that

[00:13:15] the director has a different take on maybe the futility of the discourse.

[00:13:26] I didn't know that he had intended this as an anti-war film going in and I thought it was

[00:13:35] I thought that this movie was intending to problematize the current state of affairs

[00:13:43] rather than just kind of create a dystopia about it and I really enjoyed this movie

[00:13:50] and I didn't think I would so my hot take is I liked it.

[00:13:57] I thought it was a really good movie too, I enjoyed it if you separate out the politics

[00:14:02] and you just look at it as a movie as a war movie as a journalism war movie

[00:14:08] I enjoyed the hell out of it. I thought the visual design, the sound design,

[00:14:15] the needle drops all of that worked really well. The characters were interesting and compelling

[00:14:22] the nail biting moments were terrifying at times but the movie never got bogged down in any of

[00:14:30] those situations or scenes. It's a road movie right it's a great American road movie let's

[00:14:35] do Route 66 or whatever. They're on the road they're having these encounters and

[00:14:40] they reach their objective it's a tidy film too what an hour 38 something like that so

[00:14:46] it has a great pace but I never felt I was really transported by it. There's a lot of

[00:14:53] conversation I've seen about like what's the point in this movie what is Alex Garland trying

[00:14:57] to say and I think again just you know it's a war movie right so there's that and as you

[00:15:03] say it's an anti-war movie and I think for me the big takeaway is what's kept us out of that

[00:15:13] morass that a lot of countries around the world have experienced is not that much it's

[00:15:19] pretty thin and of all the kinds of wars that you can have I think civil wars and

[00:15:27] we've had one and we're still dealing with the outcomes of that war you know resolved and

[00:15:33] unresolved that civil wars are the worst kinds of wars because it I think without going into

[00:15:41] that one scene there's the whole question of what kind of American are you that's one of

[00:15:45] the questions that that Alex Garland poses us and I think that's a I think it's timely and

[00:15:53] I'm glad that this movie is not political in the sense of oh well how did they get there they're

[00:15:57] just dealing with the question as is we're dropped in in media res as I guess they say

[00:16:03] right where there's just nothing we're there with them it's going and I really really like

[00:16:08] that I too was worried when the when I first saw the trailers I don't know if either of you

[00:16:14] saw natural born killers yeah when it came out I was actually scared in the theater that

[00:16:21] I was gonna get murdered before the movie was over because of the way that that movie rolls out

[00:16:27] and what it does when I walked out of this movie I was like oh I'm fine like there's no

[00:16:31] I had no anxiety anymore that this was some sort of fuel on the fire of our current

[00:16:37] political situation in our country and in fact I think it does a good service in terms

[00:16:46] of reminding us that for our democracy to be a democracy it we need to work like we as a you

[00:16:56] know you know voting and being educated and all that kind of stuff not getting political

[00:17:00] specifically but the the fact that it could happen here yes it could happen here it would

[00:17:06] take some extraordinary circumstances a third term of a president or something like that

[00:17:11] but it could happen and so I think it's a good good warning and the last thing I was

[00:17:18] wanted to think about I know there's been some conversation about does this accurately depict

[00:17:24] journalism and photojournal journalists in specific and I actually have worked I dabbled

[00:17:31] in photojournalism freelance photojournalism and another incarnation of my life and I've

[00:17:36] covered demonstrations I had a good buddy of mine in Athens get his arm broken by the cops when they

[00:17:42] you know they beat him another good friend of mine got a rock in the side of the face when

[00:17:48] he was in Trahir Square and in Cairo and lost some teeth that same guy got thrown off

[00:17:53] a wall and during January 6th he was covering the the insurrection there and a bunch of

[00:17:59] J-sectors grabbed him and threw him over a wall he's fine so you know the what photojournalists

[00:18:07] and journalists and video written in photojournalists all have to deal with at times is very

[00:18:16] scary but there's also an exhilaration to it and there's an also an adrenaline and so I

[00:18:21] thought that the movie I think there's a question that's been brought up Marilyn brought

[00:18:24] this up in our discord was is this an accurate depiction of journalism and photojournalists and

[00:18:29] I would say it's a stylized accurate portrayal of what people do and what motivates them and

[00:18:37] what they sort of get up to in these types of situations. It didn't ring false for me.

[00:18:45] Okay so it didn't ring false but I'm wondering as someone who has a better insight into that

[00:18:52] world than I do, do you feel like this film gave you a positive portrayal of journalists or

[00:19:05] like in without getting into spoilers maybe we should get into spoilers.

[00:19:11] Very soon here yeah we're almost there. Okay all right. We can talk about our do you feel like

[00:19:15] do you feel like the the protagonists of this film were anti-heroes at their core

[00:19:22] or do you feel like they were heroic at their core? That's a good question I think that it

[00:19:28] it portrayed the real the realism of being a modern day journalist and a conflict journalist

[00:19:34] specifically where okay so when we come back from the break we'll do we got a couple little

[00:19:40] bit more things but we can just pick this theme up right away. Okay. Because we it's hard to talk

[00:19:44] about outside of the context of the individual scenes and again I'll just reiterate that

[00:19:50] it's stylized and it is compressed the portrayals are compressed because we have an

[00:19:57] hour 38 to get to know these people and live with them but that compression and that

[00:20:02] stylization does not give me didn't send me any false representations signals of

[00:20:11] what it is to be a conflict journalist. Interesting. I wanted to follow up on your

[00:20:18] comment about the conversations people are having regarding like what is the movie about? Yeah.

[00:20:26] Something like this line and I think a lot of that comes out of an expectation that people

[00:20:34] have going in and that expectation not necessarily being met because if you go in thinking or

[00:20:41] expecting one thing or looking for one thing it can make it easy for you to miss the thing

[00:20:47] that is actually about because I do think he is saying something and and Garland is good for

[00:20:54] creating movies with endings that leave you having conversations you know I think about the end of

[00:21:01] Ex Machina you know and so this is something that he does and so I don't think that's

[00:21:08] necessarily out of the ordinary for the kind of filmmaker he is but on top of that I do

[00:21:14] think there are some specific things that are being said in here. I mean thinking about

[00:21:17] the decisions that some people make and how they go about doing the things that they do.

[00:21:23] I think about just the Wagner-Morra character. I never know if it's Wagner-Morra or Wagner-Morra.

[00:21:29] I want to say Wagner-Morra. It's more like got a little juice to it. Yeah anyway so when

[00:21:37] I think about those characters I think there are some specific things that Garland does

[00:21:43] whether overtly or covertly he is saying. I didn't come away with the film feeling like oh that

[00:21:52] movie wasn't about anything other than you know war sucks which obviously-

[00:21:57] And civil war sucks even more.

[00:21:59] Civil war sucks even more right. Yeah I think there are definitely some specific themes he's

[00:22:04] saying. He's tackling and right when we dive more into some of the specifics of the movie

[00:22:12] we can talk about what those are. Yeah for sure. Real quick do you guys recommend seeing

[00:22:19] this in a theater or waiting for streaming? If you could see it in a theater I would see

[00:22:26] it. I think the sound design is such that the best sound system you can get with theater

[00:22:36] there's enough on the screen to even warrant a large screen. I didn't see it in IMAX

[00:22:43] but the screen I saw it on was kind of big and I definitely added to it.

[00:22:50] That being said if you get a chance to see it see it. I think the kinds of conversations

[00:22:59] you're going to have around it and the kind of thing you take away from it you can still

[00:23:04] get those things even if you watch it on something smaller but if you have an opportunity

[00:23:11] to see it on the screen I would. You can call it Anthony? Yeah I would recommend seeing it

[00:23:17] on a screen. I would not recommend seeing it with my 16 year old son.

[00:23:23] So yes theater do not see it the way I saw it. There was someone in our row who had

[00:23:30] their kid and their kid could not have been more than six. Oh no. And the trailers for

[00:23:38] this movie I can eat I literally I'm not a horror guy one of the trailers was a horror

[00:23:45] film I had to close my eyes through the trailer for one of the movies. What was the trailer?

[00:23:49] That's actually one of our section trailers of note in terms of our theater experience.

[00:23:53] I don't remember now. Okay I concur that this is a big screen movie with a good sound system

[00:24:02] absolutely if you can. It's amazing the music is amazing the sound design is amazing the

[00:24:08] visuals are really good and I think it works better on a bigger screen.

[00:24:14] I saw it in a late night show the theater was nearly empty it wasn't a great sound system we

[00:24:20] don't have a great high-end sound system screen in our little town. We've got a good

[00:24:25] screen but it's not a great screen. I do have one small rant though and I don't know if

[00:24:30] this is directed at generations younger than me or not but y'all need to stop talking in

[00:24:34] movie theaters because it's really annoying the last three movies I've gone to two of them are

[00:24:39] Dune. People behind me were talking in the movie and I actually moved at one point.

[00:24:44] It depends on the movie I think it depends on the movie like if I was gonna see like

[00:24:49] if I was gonna go to like a like a rocky horror picture show. That's an entirely different yes.

[00:24:55] I would you know I would expect a more sort of interactive experience but

[00:25:02] that's a movie I could see like a movie like this yeah I could see why that how that could be.

[00:25:07] Or Dune one of the times I saw Dune the couple and one of the the couples was I think

[00:25:14] explaining the movie to the other person during and I just I just got up and moved

[00:25:18] far away from them so. So any any trailers of note I saw Bad Boys 2 and I that was

[00:25:26] the only trailer that we had and I am not going to see that movie.

[00:25:31] It seemed like two old guys do that you know it just seemed like a

[00:25:34] cynical cash grab trying to I thought they already had Bad Boys 2.

[00:25:38] Is it it's a whatever the next iteration okay maybe it's Bad Boys 3.

[00:25:42] Yeah right or four I mean does it really matter right.

[00:25:45] Yeah I saw the new trailer for.

[00:25:53] Deadpool Wolverine.

[00:25:55] That's right Deadpool versus Wolverine now that you know I think it has potential.

[00:26:01] I think I'm always I'm always up for a little bit of spicy humor thrown into my MCU.

[00:26:10] So and I did enjoy those other Deadpool movies.

[00:26:16] Yeah definitely worrying otherwise known as the MCU Messiah.

[00:26:22] It's our one big yeah a lot of writing on on MCU this year.

[00:26:26] Yeah all right next section is a just a real quick analytics check in we've got several

[00:26:32] scales and things that we use around the lore hounds we have the pokeyless scale which

[00:26:35] measures relative violence we have the Sanderson sliders which is inspiration versus adaptation

[00:26:42] we have the Lopez test which measures against a known IP does it fit within the IP that it

[00:26:49] you know if it's an adaptation of some kind and then the shippy test which is

[00:26:53] does the medium and the message do they balance the original message of the author

[00:26:57] if it's an adapted work I think the only one that applies right here is the

[00:27:00] hila scale if rings of rings of power is a zero.

[00:27:06] I gave it a plus two on the violence scale I don't know where you guys

[00:27:11] how violent was this relative to your sensibilities?

[00:27:14] I mean it's pretty it's I mean psychological as well as physical.

[00:27:20] Yeah sure is it a scale of like one in 10 type of thing or is it it is a pretty loose scale

[00:27:26] so if you just think of a lot of people are rating are you watching Shogun?

[00:27:30] Yes.

[00:27:31] A lot of people are rating Shogun in the three four five range.

[00:27:35] Interesting yeah.

[00:27:36] Is there other seppuku scenes?

[00:27:38] Yeah and like you know there's some there's some other things.

[00:27:41] Yeah there's some battles.

[00:27:42] Yeah I mean I can see this one maybe being a three okay when I think about it

[00:27:51] it there are a few concentrated or well see if we're talking about psychological see

[00:27:58] there are a few concentrated violent scenes and the violent scenes you see are pretty disturbing

[00:28:06] so you know for that reason you know I could probably give it a four.

[00:28:11] There's like three key scenes where I could think of where it's a little bit disturbing.

[00:28:16] Three sounds good to me I think sometimes the movie is stylized and sometimes it's going for

[00:28:21] like a hyper realism and in the scenes where they're going for the hyper realism

[00:28:28] they do not shy away from you know spurting blood and so and you know it's a war movie.

[00:28:37] Yeah and they depict war.

[00:28:39] And it's trying to show how ugly war can be so of course that's that I mean it has to be

[00:28:48] a part of it. I think that it would be a very odd war movie to not show those kinds of

[00:28:58] glory scenes. So yeah I think three works pretty well.

[00:29:02] Okay cool.

[00:29:03] I would not say as a war movie it's on the same level of violence for instance

[00:29:07] that you would see like in the opening of Saving Private Ryan.

[00:29:12] Right right which is a pretty would be a pretty higher much higher scale and was

[00:29:16] interesting for a World War II movie that's that depicts a lot of intense violence or the

[00:29:22] impact of violence. The impact of being you know shot whereas a lot of I watched a lot of World

[00:29:28] War II movies as a kid Saturday matinee TV stuff and yeah there's it's a lot of it's

[00:29:34] pretty sanitized. I remember seeing Cross of Iron for the first time and being shocked at

[00:29:38] the depiction of violence and how horrible it was as opposed to you know oh we just you

[00:29:43] know open up and we kill a bunch of Nazis and you know they just all kind of crumple to the

[00:29:47] ground as opposed to like.

[00:29:48] Yeah that was one of my big takeaways from Saving Private Ryan was how violent I never

[00:29:53] thought of World War II funny I just same thing like I remember seeing The Longest Day

[00:29:58] as a kid we watched it in school and I remember seeing after I saw Saving Private

[00:30:04] Ryan wow I didn't know World War II is so violent.

[00:30:06] There you go.

[00:30:10] Which is funny when you think about it but it's you know media has a way of.

[00:30:16] Yeah and I think maybe that's what Garland is trying to do with this movie in some degree

[00:30:20] right and what we've talked about okay cool well let's take a quick break and then when

[00:30:23] we come back we'll start to talk about spoilers we're going to get into themes,

[00:30:29] plot and story, character and we're going to start taking apart in a little bit more

[00:30:36] detailed way so we'll be right back.

[00:30:48] Hey listeners, Aaron here. If you're watching Fallout on Amazon Prime Video then we have

[00:30:53] just the podcast for you. Radioactive Ramblings has joined the Lorehounds Network. We are

[00:30:58] going to be breaking down the show episode by episode making far-fetched theories and dropping

[00:31:03] some tidbits of lore. If you want to hear us ramble tune into Radioactive Ramblings

[00:31:08] linked in the show notes. We hope to have you join us in the wasteland.

[00:31:14] Across California school food professionals are using their skills to develop recipes that

[00:31:18] incorporate fresher ingredients and more scratch cooking. Learn how their cooking

[00:31:22] up change at schoolfoodpros.org. Grant provided by California Community College's Chancellor's Office.

[00:31:34] All right and we are back. So Anthony before the break we started to talk a little bit about one

[00:31:40] of the themes of journalism in this movie. What was your thought? Let's pick it up a

[00:31:44] little bit further. I think that going into the film I thought oh these journalists are just as

[00:31:51] brave as anyone else in this film. I mean you're walking into a battle scene without a gun

[00:31:56] basically. Right. You're doing it for the good of the you know public knowledge you know

[00:32:03] the shared discourse of truth you know and so there's sort of this higher altruism

[00:32:14] part of it and then when I left the film I thought no these these people are thrill-seeking

[00:32:20] assholes. Right. And if you do try to be a human try to act upon like human compassion

[00:32:30] instead of doing your job you're going to get killed. You know we've got two examples in

[00:32:38] the film of a journalist deciding to make a human decision rather than a journalistic decision.

[00:32:44] Both those people get killed. Right. So and I think eventually you find out the

[00:32:52] Wagner Morna character. That's his name. Joel. Joel. Joel's just a horrible person across the

[00:33:00] board. So and you know he's the one that's sort of the most thrill-seeking, the most

[00:33:07] attracted to violence and his own gratification than the others. So I'm conflicted you know.

[00:33:16] I still think that it does portray heroic moments of these journalists. I think at the

[00:33:23] end of the day if I walk away from the film I think I don't think these people are helping

[00:33:27] anything at all and there's a couple scenes that I could point to but before I do I'll

[00:33:33] throw it to you guys. Well I was going to say the Kirsten Dunst character Lee has that moment

[00:33:39] when she's talking to Sammy the McKinley Henderson character where they're watching

[00:33:44] the tracer fire off in the distance when they had their sort of first night in the bush.

[00:33:48] And she says every time I took a picture I thought I was sending home a message

[00:33:52] that this could you know this is a warning message right. Or I think of when Wagner Morna's

[00:33:59] you know running in once they've got the president at gunpoint and he's like wait and you think oh

[00:34:05] is he gonna give some sort of moral speech you can't kill him you have to put him on trial.

[00:34:08] He's like I need a quote right and so yeah he's going for his selfish. Well it's not

[00:34:16] just that to me it's like I need a quote and the quote was don't let them kill me.

[00:34:22] Mm hmm. I mean I feel like as a journalist you got this literally a captive moment.

[00:34:34] You know I would want to know something about the motivation of this grand villain.

[00:34:40] You know why did you do this? What was your motivation? I would want to know something.

[00:34:46] Why did you stay 13? Right at the end of the day it was sort of like

[00:34:50] no we want to portray you as cowardly in the end and you chose to give me a cowardly quote and

[00:35:00] that'll do. So I don't know I mean I felt like there was a few moments and the one that

[00:35:05] really got me was when they would go into that little town where all the citizens are

[00:35:12] pretending like there's no war happening. Right. And the girl behind the counter basically says

[00:35:19] well you know I've been watching the news. Just seems like it'd be a good idea to stay out of it.

[00:35:24] And to me that was the biggest commentary of the entire film because

[00:35:29] here these journalists think that they're doing a service to the nation.

[00:35:34] Oh that's a good point. By recording this. Yeah.

[00:35:37] But in reality you could watch the news and see all those images and decide to just

[00:35:45] you know duck out and you know take a different view on this at the end of the day. So the

[00:35:51] journalists don't what they're doing doesn't matter in the world of the film that girl

[00:35:57] behind the counter shows it what those photojournalists are doing.

[00:36:01] Yeah that's a really good point. Ultimately doesn't really matter.

[00:36:04] Ron thoughts? Yeah I have a couple thoughts.

[00:36:08] I have a couple thoughts. Regarding the way Laguna Mora's character Joel responds to

[00:36:15] having a president right there and being able to interview him or to find out more.

[00:36:22] I get the impression from the movie in the context of the movie that this dude he disbands

[00:36:27] the FBI. He gives himself a third term. He's a wannabe dictator. He's based on the kind

[00:36:35] of things he's saying at the opening of the film. That was a really great opening sequence

[00:36:39] too with yeah just sort of rehearsing his speech right as a way to bring you a good guy a bad

[00:36:45] guy. Yeah it's right and it's obviously speech that's not based on reality so he's someone

[00:36:51] who likes to lie so he's a lying wannabe despot. That's a really good point. A

[00:36:56] lying wannabe despot dictator who has killed US civilians. I think he's the kind of person where

[00:37:06] they already know the answers to those questions. They know the kind of person he is. They know

[00:37:09] why he's doing it. They don't need to have a sit down long conversation with him. I can

[00:37:17] think of some politicians who are kind of like that who people probably wouldn't need

[00:37:23] to interview to find out what they think or what they're like. What got me about Joel's

[00:37:28] character was I'm trying to figure out because when you see his reaction to his two buddies

[00:37:35] being killed. Like that scene where he's screaming and you don't hear it but you can just see it.

[00:37:44] But when Lee gets killed he no reaction and I think it's because he's caught up in the moment

[00:37:54] like we're about to. We got a job to do. Yeah we got a job to do so maybe that's it in

[00:37:59] the moment. He just went into that mode but that contrast between his reaction to seeing

[00:38:07] his buddies killed and I think that speaks to his natures in some aspects. But I could understand why

[00:38:19] he said what he said with regards to because again like what's it going to do?

[00:38:27] We know that the other people we know that he's going to be summarily executed

[00:38:32] and I don't know that they would. I don't know that anything else. I always feel like that quote

[00:38:39] even from a journalistic point of view if he's the kind of person that the movie seems to paint

[00:38:44] that he is then maybe that is a better quote for his legacy. I think that you might have

[00:38:53] turned me around on this. I think at the end of the day if the journalist's job is to

[00:38:59] get to the human and not the facade that was a very human moment. For sure. If the president had

[00:39:10] said something like God bless America or something like that it would be like okay no I just see

[00:39:17] the facade I need to keep asking questions until I get behind this so people can see the human

[00:39:24] behind the facade. But I guess don't let them kill me that is the most visceral human response

[00:39:33] in that moment. So maybe the journalist just didn't have to work that hard because the

[00:39:40] soldiers did all the work for him. I think when you look back at the conversation that they

[00:39:45] had in the hotel after the suicide bombing and then there's another conversation when they're

[00:39:50] in the vehicle in the early stage I can't remember who was before after the car wash.

[00:39:56] They're thinking about the question like what are you going to ask him? What is the story?

[00:40:02] Right yeah. The story isn't the front line there's only one story left and that is

[00:40:07] the guy in the White House. Yeah what are the motivations of the president which by the way

[00:40:12] we should note I think it's an intention that the president is not named right. Yeah agree

[00:40:17] yeah. And I think that when they I think Alex Garland is intentionally setting this up and

[00:40:25] something you said Ron too at the beginning that I know I think both you both you guys watch Fargo

[00:40:31] and I know Ron you enjoyed the last season I'm not sure Anthony you're a Fargo fan aren't

[00:40:35] you? Yeah. The TV show that they always start the show off with a these are events are true

[00:40:41] but the names have been changed to protect the innocent so immediately he's setting you

[00:40:45] up with a lie to put you into a place of reflection about the fiction that the story

[00:40:51] that we're about to do and so the president's speech at the beginning sets up this fiction

[00:40:57] that oh and it's a very modeled speech like we know who we know the kind of politician that

[00:41:04] is being alluded winked at here but it sets us up for this fiction and then when you have

[00:41:11] Wagner Mora saying like there's only one story here and that's the fall of the White House

[00:41:18] that this is this idea that these journalists are trying to get to some kind of truth

[00:41:24] in the moment and they're trying to find something out and that is their job that's

[00:41:29] the job that they see that they have and then reflecting on from my own personal experience

[00:41:36] I did this for a short while I've known a few other like you know real photo journalists

[00:41:42] I mostly hung with the photojournalism crowd because that was my thing and I will say that

[00:41:48] it is Anthony to your earlier question about whether they're the morality of these characters

[00:41:55] it is absolutely a mixed thing I can remember some situations of myself like I was in Athens

[00:42:04] and we were covering a really violent riot over the death of this young boy who had been shot by

[00:42:10] some police and every year on his death they would have big demonstrations in downtown Athens

[00:42:17] and one of the things that they had in Greece at the time was a law protecting

[00:42:22] the campus grounds so protesters could run back onto a campus grounds and the police

[00:42:27] and the military were prohibited from entering those grounds unless they had specific permission

[00:42:32] by specific authorities within the college and it was very protective they've since changed the

[00:42:38] law because it was this thing where people could you know run back in and avoid arrest but I was

[00:42:45] hanging out with the cops and we were outside of this area and they would come out from

[00:42:50] the grounds and then go back in and it was exhilarating as all hell and to be embedded on

[00:42:57] that side of things and you know stones were coming at us there's tear gas the lasers

[00:43:03] and you know I would I was staying with a friend of mine the same friend of mine who got

[00:43:06] his arm broken that on different year because it just went on multiple years around the same

[00:43:10] time you'd come home with the the flash bangs ringing in your ear and your clothes stink of

[00:43:16] tear gas and you've been running on your feet all day and you barely had anything to eat or

[00:43:21] drink and you just never felt more alive you it was just an incredible high and so it takes a

[00:43:27] lot of ego to chase a story like I'm going to photograph the president or I'm going to interview

[00:43:32] the president and so it does take a strength of ego and it takes an ego egoism you know

[00:43:38] being egotistical being selfish in a way protecting your story from another journalist

[00:43:42] well the the journalists in this movie when the woman goes ah we're just trying to stay

[00:43:47] out of it right so they're right they're completely like you pointed out earlier

[00:43:51] they're completely are they fulfilling their mission or not anyway yeah I feel like in this

[00:43:56] movie and I don't know if this maps onto your experience or not but in this movie

[00:44:01] it's not just that there's ego I mean there's certainly that but it's a thrill ride

[00:44:08] absolutely it's it's like um absolutely it is there is almost like an addictive quality to it

[00:44:14] there is it's not like it is and so like the

[00:44:21] the Joel character he says there's only one story left it's it's the president's story

[00:44:30] but on their way down to DC he sees the violence in the distance and he's attracted

[00:44:37] like a moth to the flame if if there's only one story left then why why go to yeah why

[00:44:44] do go to that like Fallujah scene uh the only reason to do that is because it's

[00:44:50] there's there's a high he's chasing a high and I think that that's something that he

[00:44:59] I don't know it's something that shows the bankruptcy of his particular character

[00:45:03] I think that the Lee character is a bit more complicated um whether or not she's deluding

[00:45:09] herself or whatever I'm not sure but I do think that she has a little bit more of a altruistic

[00:45:18] moral compass uh but not to say that that I'm sure that there is a high there too so

[00:45:26] and she's haunted by it and and it's affecting her at the end where she's

[00:45:30] at the White House battle right when she's having that conversation with um uh Sammy yeah me

[00:45:40] when she when she's talking with Sammy he's like uh he's lost her faith in journalism

[00:45:46] and that's true by the end of the movie I think that she decides

[00:45:50] I'm basically done I'm gonna just try to be the best mentor I can be to this new journalist

[00:45:57] because I'm burnt out and we have this passing of the old guard to the new guard

[00:46:02] and with a literal death and rebirth in that moment that's right Ron have you got it what

[00:46:08] do you got yeah I was gonna say I felt like I don't want to I don't know if Alex Garland

[00:46:15] intended this but it just the way it was directed I almost feels like Lee sacrificed herself

[00:46:23] to give Jesse that shot that they talked about because I felt like she kind of tackled her out

[00:46:32] of the way right she pushed her out of the way and then like stood up she's smarter than that

[00:46:39] right if you're if if you're thinking about your life and you're trying to save this other life

[00:46:45] like you know you're just you know you're gonna be I don't know anything about football

[00:46:51] I was gonna say wide receiver but I don't think it's the way receiver does it white tackle

[00:46:55] like you're you're you're tackling the person you're not pushing them out of the way and then

[00:46:59] standing up proud almost knowing that you're going to be shot and giving Jesse an opportunity

[00:47:04] to get that shot that they talked about yeah see that's funny I my son laughed at that

[00:47:10] scene anyway my son laughed at that scene where she gets and I'm sitting there like horrified

[00:47:17] right why did he laugh he just thought it was framed really poorly and he thought like why

[00:47:23] you know it's sort of like this is a really cliche moment you know see a heroic person push

[00:47:30] and you know a younger person out of the way and then taking the bullet for them

[00:47:34] uh I was not pleased with him in that moment I I mean I took it differently I thought

[00:47:43] this is all slow motion so she all she has to do is like pause for a second she's clearly

[00:47:50] experiencing PTSD right uh she's not in her right mind um I I just I don't know what I

[00:47:59] don't know what to expect of that person in that moment um it's sort of like when you're

[00:48:06] watching a uh a sporting event in slow motion you're like well it's obvious you should have

[00:48:11] done this and this and this but it's really easy to like uh kind of you know Monday morning

[00:48:19] quarterback when you're not in the heat of the moment you know well I think this too where we

[00:48:25] have to separate the filmmaking from the message a little bit because I definitely think

[00:48:30] this was a set up very early on uh the question Jesse asks Lee is would you photograph

[00:48:39] that moment you know of my death right and she's like what do you think and then but that that was

[00:48:46] a that was Alex Garland telling us exactly how this film was going to end right and so when

[00:48:52] it happens we're kind of ready for it and then we get the transference of the old to the

[00:48:58] new she's she's giving her that that moment of the what was it oh when she's asking her about

[00:49:05] how did you get started and oh you took the the famous uh what was it Antifa massacre

[00:49:13] which is great because we don't know did the Antifa massacres or did they get massacred

[00:49:17] I love how he's always sort of leaving these these vague arities um but now Jesse's got a

[00:49:25] photo that's going to not only you know not only the the photo of the president

[00:49:29] but of uh Lee this great feminist icon of photojournalism in her final moment

[00:49:36] and so she's transferred Lee is transferred so this is clearly a

[00:49:40] construct that Garland has put together for just good yeah the other way to look at that is that

[00:49:46] with photojournalists you you basically they're like light bulbs like as soon as one of them

[00:49:51] burns out you just plug in a new one you do and then and that's that's kind of how you

[00:49:56] how that profession goes and and really the the the artist is expendable at that point right

[00:50:03] the number of new I was one and the number of journalists that I've known who've either

[00:50:09] come through and they're they're thrill seeking and you're having fun because

[00:50:12] you show up at a demonstration with your camera that's how I got started

[00:50:15] to the ones who then uh graduate and actually become actual photojournalists like the buddy

[00:50:20] of mine who got thrown over a wall in in DC he started out as just a guy he he saw me and my buddy

[00:50:28] we started hanging out he was hilarious uh we you know invited him into the heads you know

[00:50:33] with the rest of everybody and then he because that's what he wanted to do and then I've known

[00:50:38] other people who've like oh this was fun for a hot minute and I'm out and that was me um

[00:50:43] and so it very much is this is where I say this is a stylized and compressed version of

[00:50:48] this but it is a version of this this is how so many photojournalists get their start they get an

[00:50:53] itch they get a camera and then they just start showing up and um and you you hope that you

[00:51:00] can ingratiate yourself with the the veterans and then ultimately get picked up uh and you

[00:51:06] take some good photos and your buddy says hey that's a really good photo let me pass it

[00:51:10] on to my editor and the next thing you know you've got a freelance contract in your uh and

[00:51:14] then hopefully someday you get health care because you get hired by a real journalism company

[00:51:18] which doesn't happen anymore because we all know that's going on there did it bother you that

[00:51:24] they were shooting on film so one of the sections we have in our new outline is what

[00:51:30] worked what didn't work uh as a and this is absolutely a didn't work for me the uh yes

[00:51:41] there are there's a there's a resurgence in analog photography uh for sure uh by

[00:51:48] millennials and and z's absolutely and it's great and and even other people i'm part of

[00:51:53] a photographic organization here and where i'm in in vermont two of them in fact and we have

[00:52:00] young and old who are all still doing film-based photography it's great did photojournalists in

[00:52:05] the past do that kind of stuff in the field developing yeah but it was hard and and carrying

[00:52:11] all the chemicals and doing all that kind of stuff so it was a bit of again a stylized

[00:52:17] moment um no nobody no modern photojournalist that i'm familiar with or have seen

[00:52:26] works with film other than for their own personal artistic vanity enjoyment

[00:52:32] all everything that's going out on the wire is digital because you got to upload right away i did

[00:52:35] like so she was using a lee was using a sony a7 which is a good camera and lens so that was all

[00:52:42] proper anyway carry on so i was wondering if this works in world because they there's that

[00:52:48] scene in the hotel where it's just taking forever to upload these digital photos right

[00:52:52] it's a good point yeah and you get the idea because i've heard other people say well why

[00:52:55] aren't they doing video i'm thinking in this new america the infrastructure has collapsed

[00:53:03] and so you can't trust you know that you're going to have that kind of network connection

[00:53:12] that you had in previous decades agreed and so what do you do you go back to the previous

[00:53:20] model where it's not digital and i don't have to worry about my batteries or whatever

[00:53:25] i've got the physical media here in my pocket and and and i have control over that i'm not

[00:53:34] worried about an internet connection to make that happen i don't know that that's how i read

[00:53:39] it anyway no i think that's a good point go ahead ron no i think that's a good point they

[00:53:44] because they definitely talked about the the infrastructure the lack of power

[00:53:50] the long load times and so you know being able to shoot with a camera that doesn't need a

[00:53:55] battery is um and we don't worry about uploading something also that i will the

[00:54:03] jesse character doesn't have a contract yet she's just doing this for her own benefit

[00:54:09] and she does view that the the industry with a bit of romance right so yep and um i will say

[00:54:17] that i think it i think the film versus digital thing works on these multiple levels i think

[00:54:22] there's a great i think you guys both point out the good in world but i think it also

[00:54:25] then goes back to something i mentioned before which is a generational thing that kids these

[00:54:30] days are are getting into and that is a true thing so interesting um let's talk a little bit

[00:54:40] about does this film work as an anti-war film do we think that it uh delivered on that

[00:54:47] message or that theme i'll let someone else talk first on this okay ron um i can i don't know

[00:54:59] that like i don't in the sense that if you want to show how horrible war is yeah in a sense of

[00:55:07] is it really going to convince people that war is terrible like i don't come away feeling like

[00:55:13] oh this is gonna make me want to do anything i can to stop war from happening

[00:55:21] and that's so in that sense i think it's an anti-war film in the sense of he's depicting

[00:55:25] the atrocities of war and how terrible war is and what it does to people um i think if i think

[00:55:34] the stronger themes in the film are more about the kind of choices journalists make um in in

[00:55:41] situations like this because i think that's who we're really focused on right i think the the

[00:55:48] moral i think the moral implications as it relates i think they're almost feel like there

[00:55:54] more moral implications as it relates to the choices the journalists make than they are

[00:56:02] moral implications as it relates to the choices like the soldiers make right because the soldiers

[00:56:07] are just soldiering they're doing what soldiers do with the dude is like yeah there's a guy in

[00:56:11] the hair that's trying to shoot at us and we're trying to kill him we don't know what

[00:56:15] side he's on he's on the side that's trying to kill me that's all i know exactly that's

[00:56:19] a really brilliant moment in that in that dialogue i was like why are we out here doing this

[00:56:23] right um i also thought it was an interesting note the guy doing the shooting

[00:56:30] had painted nails and colored hair only because again it goes against type i believe he was

[00:56:37] maybe an asian uh yeah something like that yeah yeah and so and so i think you go into

[00:56:44] you definitely go into this film we haven't brought this up yet i don't know if we print

[00:56:48] but they don't make it clear which side who's red who's blue nothing that that's not brought up

[00:56:55] that's one of the things i appreciate about it because seeing the trailer you have it you have

[00:57:01] you know exactly what you're thinking is causing the civil war right but at the end of the day

[00:57:08] you really don't know what are the political ideologies of the people who are shooting

[00:57:13] i mean it's clear though that the president is some kind of a fascist right and i think one of

[00:57:19] the things that i've heard that i can agree with that i think alex garland has talked about this

[00:57:24] one of the ways you could see california and texas coming together even if they are still

[00:57:31] on political opposites is that whether you're a conservative or a liberal a democrat or

[00:57:38] republican we could still come together against fascism true fascism and we have before in our

[00:57:45] country's history exactly so if you have a president who is doing all these things

[00:57:51] even that could be the spark that gets people to say okay we need to we need to step up so

[00:58:00] so there's just that so there's that so yeah is it an anti-war movie i don't know what is

[00:58:06] an anti-war movie well i was gonna i was gonna say when when apocalypse now came out on vhs

[00:58:12] and we were in middle school and we watched that which is a horrific movie about war right

[00:58:18] it's a it's a horror movie in a way is the heart of darkness and all's we did was we would

[00:58:24] run around and we would um uh spout off lines from the smell of napalm in the morning scene

[00:58:32] right or in um in uh full metal jackets the the guy in the helicopter who's shooting civilians

[00:58:40] from the helicopter as they're you know going out in that part so i don't believe that there's an

[00:58:47] anti-war movie that has ever been made that is successful in its right intention of being

[00:58:54] anti-war i've watched a lot of war movies it's one of my favorite genres and i don't want to

[00:59:01] go to war certainly not at my age or you know my my current situation but man as a young person

[00:59:07] it was an enthralling idea and no matter a movie you could show me whatever just yeah

[00:59:12] yeah i think that this movie has a lot of analogs with vietnam movies of the late 70s

[00:59:18] and 80s did you get an apocalypse now vibe oh absolutely yeah i felt like this is what

[00:59:24] it's almost exactly what you would expect from a vietnam movie from that era

[00:59:33] but then placed on domestic soil and i mean the journalism part of it was uh unique

[00:59:40] and in it and industry and interesting as well i just feel like you what you are both

[00:59:47] putting your finger on and it's absolutely true that as soon as you bring any kind of stylistic

[00:59:55] element to the silver screen you're glorifying it right absolutely but to me this the way that

[01:00:05] this film does it is significantly different than a film that glorifies violence the one

[01:00:14] the one question that i had was

[01:00:18] i'm not sure what to do with the needle drops

[01:00:22] um you know there's that one scene where they're going through the the building the boogaloo

[01:00:28] boys they gotta go take the the you know take down the the sniper and then they complete

[01:00:35] they do the like a summary execution and then immediately it's just it's all very harrowing

[01:00:43] and then immediately the soul say no go comes on and now i'm thinking like yeah this rocks

[01:00:51] i'm like totally into this and then of course i'm like thinking about myself like why did that

[01:00:58] emotion happen with me it's like there was something about the framing and the action

[01:01:06] and and the music that evoked a certain emotion in me and now i'm kind of questionably

[01:01:15] you know sort of rooting for the violence at that point so and i'm not and i i absolutely

[01:01:22] love myself an anti-war movie so i want to know what you guys think about the the way that the

[01:01:28] needle drops worked in this i want to quickly before ron i want to get your take on that for

[01:01:33] sure but i want to just quickly go to that whole boogaloo boy scene because those guys were

[01:01:37] wearing flowered shirts oh interesting which is what boogaloo boys wear right but then we

[01:01:42] had the sniper scene and the christmas thing and those guys we're not sure who they were

[01:01:47] so i love again he's playing with ambiguity around this but then that scene of them going up to the

[01:01:53] top of the stairs and encountering the loyalist soldier who's up there that's so full metal

[01:02:00] jacket that is a scene where there's a big battle scene and there's a sniper and a bunch

[01:02:06] of people get killed and that kind of stuff so he's really reaching into a deep well of

[01:02:12] prior film war inspirations and comps and i got a list of comps that we can go over a little bit

[01:02:18] later but that was brilliant and that needle drop was absolutely ron are you a dayla soul

[01:02:24] fan at all is that part of your his your musical history yeah yeah no of course let me

[01:02:29] some dayla soul yeah uh it was uh i mean it's kind of jarring in a sense like it

[01:02:34] doesn't feel like the kind of music that you would go with a scene like that but they're

[01:02:38] very intentional in picking it and you know it creates this tension between what they're doing

[01:02:49] and the kind of feeling that that music generally elicits did you find the the whole

[01:02:56] of the sound design for this film to be yeah compelling part of the of the construction

[01:03:02] i did yeah that's why i was saying if you could see it in big t or you definitely should

[01:03:07] i forget which one were wearing the boogaloo boy shirts the the the ones that the journalists

[01:03:12] were with or the ones that they were going out so the as i understand it the camouflage soldiers

[01:03:18] that they were fighting inside of the building were loyalist forces and the boogaloo boys were

[01:03:24] not western alliance they were people who were in opposition to the loyalist president's forces

[01:03:32] got it but they weren't but you got the impression they weren't part of the western forces

[01:03:36] correct they weren't part of the western alliance right okay that were uniformed and and regimented

[01:03:41] i felt that this was more of a group of insurgents you know uh people who were just fighting again

[01:03:49] for what side i don't know they weren't they didn't kill the our journalist uh protagonists

[01:03:55] they let them tag along and document right right they were working with them yeah which

[01:03:59] again so so you have all this subtle coding right where we have these insurgents who are

[01:04:06] wearing boogaloo boy shirts they have these other snipers who are kind of dressed in military

[01:04:13] camouflage like they look at military camouflage and everything but i'm talking about the snipers

[01:04:17] at the christmas town oh the sniper Christmas town yeah who had painted nails and colored hair

[01:04:23] which is they were in suits and the guy that they ran over was uniformed so yeah that is a

[01:04:29] completely ambiguous scene i have no idea in the in the christmas town scene who was who is on

[01:04:33] whose side right i think that's the point of that scene right absolutely right absolutely

[01:04:38] yeah totally but you just have this you just have these subtle coatings that

[01:04:43] you know some of the people who are fighting are coded to be sort of like far right and

[01:04:50] some of the people who are fighting are coded to be more right he he almost seems like chaos

[01:04:59] like i get the impression for him from the and we maybe i know this is a good time talking about

[01:05:03] it i get the impression for him all good he is almost like a chaotic factor in the whole mix

[01:05:12] like he definitely has like i don't think he's for anybody except his demented idea of what it

[01:05:17] means to be american like i could so it's hard to see whether or not he would be for

[01:05:22] the president is doing he just wants to know like he immediately kills those he kills the two

[01:05:28] asian characters when he finds out where they're from and so he has this and he's

[01:05:33] doing these war crimes with these you know civilians that he ostensibly killed

[01:05:42] and it's um i think that go ahead no no i was just gonna say it's

[01:05:48] and talking about this i always have to fight i always have to fight against the the uh i always

[01:05:56] want to say unalive because i do a lot of tiktok videos yeah yeah there's all these code words you

[01:06:01] use yeah because if you use words like kill tiktok it supposedly suppresses your video

[01:06:05] so every time i'm about to say kill my instinct is to say unalive it was like wait

[01:06:11] i guess i can talk normal now yes um but uh yeah so jesse plemmons is this character who i who i kind

[01:06:19] of feel is like he's this is this chaotic force he's in it for himself he's not really

[01:06:25] fighting on any side other than his dimension idea of what true america looks like and this

[01:06:31] where the movie slides into the comparison for me of yugoslavia and where you had a country

[01:06:39] of federated states and then suddenly they broke apart and suddenly those state lines mean

[01:06:44] something and for him what kind of america he accepts wagner morris florida he certainly

[01:06:52] accepts the two white women yeah colorado and missouri right right but he does not

[01:06:58] accept the chinese who he codes as chinese right just on site no more questions right so

[01:07:06] and if you look in the pit i believe there's a lot of non-white faces in that you know of the

[01:07:14] bottom yeah i didn't look that closely but i need to watch it again and see yeah so which

[01:07:20] is a whole other topic i had to kind of slide off the music thing and into the race thing

[01:07:24] because something i did notice was a lot of characters of color died they could the boogaloo

[01:07:30] boy who was who was behind the pillar he died obviously the chinese characters the boo you

[01:07:35] know in the boogaloo boy scene when they're right they're assaulting the building they're trying to

[01:07:39] lay down suppressing fire to get their buddy out who's trapped behind a column right and he's

[01:07:44] a black man and uh when he makes his run for it he gets shot oh right right right and of

[01:07:50] course uh sammy uh is killed and um uh then uh yeah then the two chinese characters yeah

[01:08:00] tony and i don't know the other guys oh hi yeah and tony get killed now i do think but then

[01:08:06] there's a black woman holding the president at gunpoint at the end well i was gonna ask about

[01:08:12] that i was wondering about see i'm a little bit reluctant to to put too much of this on alex

[01:08:20] garland because he's british and i think that this could be as much of a commentary on brexit

[01:08:26] than anything else but i i wondered if he's trying to say something about almost a little

[01:08:37] bit of both sidesism when you had the black soldier on the on the force that's invading the

[01:08:45] white house and then you had the black press secretary who was executed in the press room

[01:08:54] right um and i wonder if there was like some kind of commentary like look these two sides they're

[01:08:59] so they're so similar you almost can't tell one from the other uh i don't know what did

[01:09:06] you think that that was what did what did you think about that in the refugee where

[01:09:10] they overnight with the refugee camp it was a lot of people of color in that scene and

[01:09:14] then one vehicle as they passed the checkpoint it's a black family who's who's leaving as

[01:09:20] they're going in so yeah it's i don't know what to make of of garland's is he is he aware of

[01:09:31] of race coded issues in an american context as i think i mean i really want to hear from ron on

[01:09:40] this but i do think that i'm open to the idea that garland thinks he understands it and

[01:09:46] doesn't quite understand it but anyway i didn't get the it i didn't get the impression but i mean

[01:09:56] we mentioned he pointed all those things out it does come to mind um so i don't i don't know

[01:10:06] that i didn't come away from the movie feeling like race and racial issues is one of the

[01:10:14] things that was being discussed by the movie is that lack do you feel like that's a that's a

[01:10:21] lack in the movie i think you can make an argument that it is considering how much race

[01:10:27] plays in the current political discourse but if in the context of the movie you're fighting

[01:10:34] against someone who i mean obviously the jesse plumb's character is the one place where that

[01:10:39] does happen but that's why i get the feeling like he just seems like his like an island of

[01:10:45] chaos in terms of who he's fighting for i i don't i don't get them i don't get the impression

[01:10:54] from like you mentioned you know david the people who are on the president's side many

[01:10:58] of them were people of color the press secretary right was a black woman um the sergeant in

[01:11:04] the assault in the final assault she's a black woman who's who's in charge of that assault

[01:11:09] literally because the one of the tactical guys okay sergeant we got to move we got to keep going

[01:11:15] she's he's giving he's ceding authority to her he comes up to her on the outside of

[01:11:19] the battle and says what do you you know i've got this team what do you need and she's in

[01:11:24] with the with that group and so i don't wonder that he's i don't think he's playing

[01:11:30] intentionally with race here and i actually kind of find that refreshing

[01:11:37] as well as much as i noticed that characters of color were dying and it's something that i'm

[01:11:42] you know i i try to pay attention to to see what our filmmakers or television makers doing

[01:11:47] i don't i didn't get the sense of this film that that he is intentionally putting any sort

[01:11:52] of racial spin on the storyline it didn't feel that way to me yeah no i didn't feel that way

[01:12:00] at all right personally um and whether or not that is something you can criticize it for

[01:12:06] yeah you could i wouldn't personally but right i think you can make an argument i think i think

[01:12:13] you know there's so many themes that are being discussed i think the way he's as much as

[01:12:19] possible he's sticking to the ideas of you know journalism right moral integrity uh war

[01:12:27] um race but almost race would almost muddy things along with politics if it if it were

[01:12:34] politic if it were overtly political or overtly racial right like the story like for the same

[01:12:40] reason why i think it was smart not to make it overtly political it was smart not to make

[01:12:44] it overtly uh racial i want to as we're starting to wrap up on time here i wanted to run through

[01:12:51] some of the set pieces or the the main scenes because this is a road movie right so we're

[01:12:55] moving from yeah road scene to road scene so i just kind of wanted to run through the the movie

[01:12:59] and just get some quick reactions and your thoughts because there's a lot of great

[01:13:03] cinematography again needle drops and sound design and i think if we if we sort of

[01:13:08] use that as a skeleton just to call out some of the things that we really enjoyed or

[01:13:12] or didn't work for us if there wasn't um starting off with the suicide bombing and the

[01:13:17] whole beginning of the the film i loved that visual imagery of the woman running in with the

[01:13:23] flag and um uh and having that to sort of start things off i thought it was arresting in a lot

[01:13:30] of ways what do you guys think yeah i know it was uh in a way i kind of almost felt like

[01:13:39] it was almost unrealistic okay i don't in the sense of i don't picture

[01:13:45] it's hard to picture for me it's hard to picture a white woman being a suicide bomber

[01:13:49] right just to be frank radicalized right and so that was something that was so against type was

[01:13:56] kind of hard to me not that it wouldn't happen but it was hard for me to imagine that

[01:14:00] right like i think it would have been easier for me to pick that if he if for that short

[01:14:05] scene it was someone who would be more stereotypically known to do something like

[01:14:11] it was someone who would be more stereotypically known to do something

[01:14:16] right yeah it could it could be that that sort of is kicking off the theme it's like this is an

[01:14:22] america you know and then but this is this is a situation that's going to be a whole different

[01:14:30] can of worms that you're not expecting i did like the idea that um immediately lee

[01:14:36] recognizes that as a suicide she soon as you saw it yeah as soon as you saw it running she knew

[01:14:42] right away what it was and she has a sense it's almost like she has this preternatural sense

[01:14:48] for how a scene of chaos will unfold because then we see that later on at the white house like

[01:14:56] everyone shooting at the limousine and she realizes oh there's no way the president's in

[01:15:00] there we're gonna walk in the front door so i thought the same thing it's like no way the

[01:15:05] president's in that right so you you'd be great right we need to give you a camera send send you

[01:15:12] into some were you guys pretty were you satisfied with kirsten dunce's performance of the lee

[01:15:18] character oh yeah i thought she was really i thought she was really good in terms of

[01:15:24] her face just shows the fatigue she has of doing this kind of thing

[01:15:29] um throughout the whole thing um towards the end her btsd response which to me

[01:15:36] explains why she was willing to give up her life because she's just tired of it all and

[01:15:41] yeah she's done and i think you know maybe after coming from the town you know like you're

[01:15:48] saying anthony where people are seeing the images and is that affecting them that kind of

[01:15:54] sense of futility you must have of i'm risking my life out here to bring these images to you

[01:16:00] and you people are like you don't care you're it's um what's the point of it all

[01:16:07] which she goes back so much she seems so much and she's taking these photos hoping to warn

[01:16:13] our country and now our country is like really it's like the point of her job isn't

[01:16:21] to prevent this from happening is literally just to document it for posterity so people in the

[01:16:26] future you know this is what happened you know i always like to say that line from us like let's

[01:16:31] go all this is happening again oh this is happening before all this would happen again

[01:16:37] and it's true we're gonna repeat you know yeah once we come out of this war

[01:16:42] 100 200 years down the line there'll be somebody else will be fighting each other about

[01:16:46] and in and wagner says at that that point when they're in the charlotte at the base in charlottesville

[01:16:52] but sammy didn't even die for anything good so her mentor her beloved mentor we all knew

[01:16:59] what sammy meant to you you know she's got what has she got left and she sees the future

[01:17:05] generation coming so she could live a broken down they show her ptsd scene early on in

[01:17:10] the hotel room when she's in the bathtub and she's reliving these scenes of this

[01:17:14] horribleness that she's seen and so for her to let go in that moment knowing that

[01:17:22] you know the next generation is there uh yeah that's an interesting

[01:17:28] let's talk about the the car wash scene a little bit uh that was tough disturbing yeah

[01:17:34] yeah uh when the whole time it's tense because you don't know who these dudes are

[01:17:40] um who side they're on what they want to do they have guns um what's to stop them from just

[01:17:47] shooting them and taking their money their canadian money i love the i love the little

[01:17:50] canadian you know that was very interesting when she says you know first he says you know she

[01:17:56] says there's three hundred dollars he goes that won't even get you a sandwich

[01:17:59] that says a lot right there like our economy has fallen to the point where the dollar is

[01:18:06] is probably worth literally pennies um and and then she says canadian and then his

[01:18:13] his eyes perk up yeah um so i thought that was that's good so a lot of information dropped

[01:18:19] there and then yeah just the idea of like we don't know who those guys are that are strung up

[01:18:25] the fact that they're still alive went to high school with that dude

[01:18:29] yeah he says that anthony what did you think about that line yeah what did you think of the

[01:18:34] way that the lee character diffused the tense situation there when they were looking at

[01:18:40] the bodies in the car wash it was pretty harrowing i feel like um that scene did more

[01:18:50] for me to sort of develop almost uh deconstruct the character of jesse you know she's got this

[01:18:58] idea of what it will be like to be a war reporter but she doesn't know don't fucking

[01:19:03] clue how how intimately she's going to be involved i mean there's a sense in which

[01:19:11] those people those guys don't get executed if those photographers don't show up right so here

[01:19:17] you have these objective journalists who they're just there to get gas they're just doing their

[01:19:24] job but because they've arrived at this particular gas station at this particular moment those guys

[01:19:30] in the back are going to die so they're absolutely influencing the lives of the good points

[01:19:37] didn't even think about that because the journalism you know journalists are

[01:19:41] trained to quote unquote be objective right and to not partake there's a famous

[01:19:47] photograph from ethiopia i believe it was where there's a starving child with a vulture

[01:19:54] the background and this is depicted in the movie bang bang club and the photo the photo

[01:20:01] journalist who is from south africa got a lot of grief from around the world for that like

[01:20:07] why didn't you intervene why didn't you do anything he's like he's i did but i took the

[01:20:11] photo first you know so it's this idea of are we objective and and can we be objective and

[01:20:19] can we can we do we participate or not and the guy actually literally says to jesse

[01:20:25] well you flip a coin you know you decide and i loved how lee was understands human nature enough

[01:20:31] to say oh let me take your picture and instantly his ego turns from killing these dudes to oh

[01:20:39] how do you want me to pose like should i write like this should i like this and instantly

[01:20:43] d conflicts the situation it's again showing her ability to understand conflict zones and

[01:20:52] navigate and survive yeah it's interesting the point you made about photojournalists um years

[01:20:58] ago i had a photography podcast where i interviewed someone like the top photographers in the world

[01:21:03] and one of the photographers i interviewed was vincent lafarré and he was this like cannon

[01:21:09] photographer who um kind of made the canon 5d famous for video he made this little video back

[01:21:17] in 2008 he was one of the first person to get a hold of the 5d that can shoot dslr video

[01:21:24] he made this he made his little video called reverie that kind of like blew up and

[01:21:28] really took off the dslr video movement got it i was interviewing him for the podcast and we

[01:21:33] were talking about photographs and this was a few years after katrina and we were talking

[01:21:40] about some of the photos taken during katrina i was asking him

[01:21:46] how was odd that there were a lot of photos where how can you take a photo like you

[01:21:50] can see someone needs help right here and you're taking a photo i remember him talking

[01:21:54] about exactly what you were just saying like it's and jesse kind of mentions this in the

[01:22:00] not jesse lee lee mentions us in the film it's our job to take the photo someone else's job to

[01:22:07] tell the story or something like those lines you make the decision we yeah we give you right

[01:22:12] yeah right right um and the role that is played of um being of documenting that but

[01:22:23] at the same time do you document is it worth like if you know that someone's going to die

[01:22:31] if you don't intervene do you take the photo anyway like if you knew if there was a choice

[01:22:36] between taking a photo and the person like you take the photo the person dies you don't take

[01:22:39] the photo you save the person but then you lose the photo kind of like what happens right

[01:22:45] lee at the end um and that's a question that journalists often ask themselves i've been at

[01:22:51] lots of rallies and demonstrations where there's this phalanx of photographers and

[01:22:57] and a cop steps out or a molotov cocktail is thrown and the photographers swarm on that

[01:23:04] moment of violence because we're all trying to capture that that moment of beauty that

[01:23:08] horrific beauty of you know the the cocktail exploding or the police officer in mid swing

[01:23:16] and so we're attracted to the violence that's the if it leads it bleeds story

[01:23:22] and and would some of this violence occur if photographers weren't there if videographers

[01:23:28] weren't there that's why i think and that's why i think the the movie is more about the moral

[01:23:36] decisions that uh these journalists are making in the middle of all these horrible atrocities

[01:23:44] um and to some extent what is it saying about us as a people who who who want to see that maybe

[01:23:54] yeah like seeing that is more important than actually saving the life of the person

[01:23:59] and is a is any war film an anti-war film could it be ever an anti-war film right right right

[01:24:06] and i like the comparison you made to apocalypse now because i was thinking about it

[01:24:10] um in a lot of ways the president is like colonel kurtz if you think about it

[01:24:15] um and they're going up the river they try to get to him um and like kurt he's kind of like

[01:24:22] sacrificed right at at the end so that is a i think that's just again i don't know if garland

[01:24:30] i was thinking filmmaker of his yeah i don't see a filmmaker of his caliber could not be

[01:24:35] making those connections as he's writing it and shooting it sure you know it's the context

[01:24:40] we're in we're in it just you can't help yeah yeah yeah um we talked a lot about the boogey

[01:24:46] the boogey boy assault already um so anything from the refugee camp in that moment where

[01:24:52] we see a lot of scenes of that was interesting like they're all like having a good grand old

[01:24:56] time it's almost like a party uh like you get the sense there's this levity throughout the

[01:25:02] camp kids playing i don't know if that's a sense of like these are so common like this is just how

[01:25:08] people live now um makes me think of uh images from katrina and new orleans where yeah sort of

[01:25:14] had to oh yeah definitely refugee camp using such using a stadium as yeah as a refugee camp

[01:25:21] and then would you make it the okay i want to keep it going yeah um anthony what did

[01:25:25] you think of the peaceful town so yeah you at all i think that that was uh it's like one of those

[01:25:36] moments where you need to be reminded about what normalcy looks like because once you're in the

[01:25:43] movie it's just one violent scene after the next one bit of chaos after the next and then

[01:25:50] you have that bit of respite it's like a just a tiny bit of like drop a cold water in the desert

[01:25:56] yeah to remind you like this is what we lost and so there's it works

[01:26:05] as a storytelling technique to have that little moment of like let's just shop for a dress

[01:26:12] and pretend like we're you know living in the america we used to know and of course cool hat

[01:26:18] and we have a little levy there like are you gonna take my picture and she's like no right and

[01:26:22] also that it was a really crucial moment because um for uh lee's character

[01:26:33] not only is she realizing that her old profession her old old profession is uh is falling

[01:26:43] falling out off of her identity she's now glim glomming onto a new identity she's like i see

[01:26:49] this i'm having a connection with this daughter-ish figure right right and so now i could never

[01:26:57] choose because i was so my professional ego is sort of dying and this this other kind of more

[01:27:03] human connection is is rising and so you can kind of immediately you're like well this person

[01:27:10] is probably not gonna exactly that's a big signal you're gonna die probably probably not

[01:27:15] gonna make it to the end of the movie if i think about it a little bit more the one

[01:27:19] place where i did see some overt uh consideration of race besides the jesse

[01:27:24] plemmen scene is with the men standing up on the roof there which i almost missed

[01:27:30] but that did with a um with the sammy character outside it almost gave me that

[01:27:35] sense of in the south where the the firemen and the postal carrier and everybody in town was

[01:27:40] kind of keeping if a black family showed up we're watching you there's a sun downtown these

[01:27:46] kinds of things it gave me that ominous sense of this is an old a little bit of

[01:27:50] an old thing that we've done before yeah right lee says i almost you know this reminds me of

[01:27:55] everything i forgot and then sammy says uh this is what i remember yes exactly look up you

[01:28:00] know there's the two white guys up there with guns that's exactly what i remember

[01:28:04] watching so you're it's subtle you know it's it's so subtle you could miss it right yeah

[01:28:11] let's bounce quickly charlottesville and then to the white house battle uh the charlottesville

[01:28:17] stuff was amazing it was amazing to see a well-organized force after all this

[01:28:20] malicious stuff but i just thought the whole thing of seeing the embedded journalist

[01:28:25] was a great again it's a really well constructed story he's dropping in all the mechanics

[01:28:32] the gears and the twists where we need them to be but then when wagner morris screaming at

[01:28:38] the loss of of both bohai and tony and of sammy but it's silence with the the music the

[01:28:44] the sound effects in the background that was just a really powerful scene for me

[01:28:48] no i agree yeah no that was and uh it was where it was only for me that was the first time i got

[01:28:56] a sense that the government i guess i'm trying to remember if i if i got a sense that the

[01:29:07] government was the quote unquote bad guy at that point because you go into the movie not

[01:29:13] knowing like technically who like it's a civil war but is this like the original civil war

[01:29:20] where the government and we can have a debate whether or not the government

[01:29:29] for all intents and purposes the the north were the good guys and south of the bad guys

[01:29:35] but the in this one we don't know if the quote unquote government the u.s government

[01:29:43] are the good guys and the thick it seems like you know in the original civil war the states

[01:29:51] seceded because they wanted to keep people who look like me enslaved in this civil war we don't

[01:29:58] know why they seceded but you get the context that they succeeded because a fascist president

[01:30:04] took over and is doing all these horrible things and so it seems like you know the u.s government

[01:30:12] are the ones that we would be rooting against not that the people who are who are succeeded

[01:30:16] or are angels by any stretch of the imagination but in terms of who you want to see come out

[01:30:22] on top and so when we get to charlotte's field that's the first impression i got

[01:30:26] also because as morally complicated as like joel and maybe even lee all these journalists

[01:30:33] are we do get the sense that they are fighting for something good in a sense of making the world

[01:30:41] better right so the fact that they are comfortable in this group and that they are interacting

[01:30:46] you get the sense of this that the western forces didn't kill them on site and they they

[01:30:52] actually were trying to you know if if sammy had been able to be saved we saw medics there

[01:30:57] and like they were attending to him exactly right and you're told earlier that they killed

[01:31:02] journalists on site and you see again suggesting what's happened the people in dc they don't want

[01:31:08] this getting out you know it's like you know they like a fascist government they want to

[01:31:13] control the narrative and um and we see later in the white house battle the the wall that's

[01:31:20] been constructed around the old executive office building in the white house and all of that so

[01:31:24] exactly so you get a sense like okay the western forces are trying to return the nation

[01:31:31] back to some semblance of decency right right so i feel like just real quick i feel like oh

[01:31:39] please it's not for me it wasn't coded nearly as well if they did want to

[01:31:51] sort of balance the sides like i like ron swanson's character

[01:31:55] ron swanson president nick nick nick offerman's character does at least three trumpisms as the

[01:32:04] movie begins totally right oh yeah some people are saying you know this is the greatest

[01:32:11] right and then of course it's totally he's totally a trump figure uh i you know

[01:32:18] you know washington dc is uh an enemy of the press right the press is the enemy so for me

[01:32:25] it's pretty clear yes third yeah someone who actually tried to stay in office right

[01:32:31] you know did you start with the fbi right exactly all of that tells me that alice garden

[01:32:40] was thinking about creating a trump type who he does not name and he puts it puts that person

[01:32:48] in the white house and so i am thinking uh that the loyalists are sort of code onto the maga

[01:32:58] of current political climate right yeah so but by the end of the movie i'm thinking well he's

[01:33:04] done a really great job of showing me that war creates villains out of everybody yes so at the

[01:33:11] beginning of the movie i'm thinking i know who the good guys and bad guys are by the end of the

[01:33:15] movie i'm thinking i don't know that these are all people who are involved in a war and war is

[01:33:20] evil so that they're all tainted now because of this yeah that's right yeah for sure i would

[01:33:27] say that but at the end of the day i still want to fascist the shoot the nazis but but

[01:33:33] do we lose our humanity in doing that i mean i think that's one thing that sounds like

[01:33:38] you have to watch people die and you have to um and our our memories faces that are dark

[01:33:46] that you wouldn't probably otherwise go so and our our memories are are short as a species

[01:33:51] and so from one gen we're you know i think most of our world war two generation is

[01:33:56] is almost all that that that group is all but passed on and so right um in vietnam you know

[01:34:05] that's complicated because of uh the way that anyway let's not go down that road let's talk

[01:34:11] about the exhilarating white house battle i think from a just a movie standpoint and

[01:34:18] i'm just taking off my anti-war hat this was a great fight scene uh and it was a great way

[01:34:26] it was i was entertained by it and i thought the exterior battle moving into the interior

[01:34:33] i love this kind of action and storytelling and i just thought it was expertly done and

[01:34:40] i never got lost in the in the battle who's where i understood the stakes and what was

[01:34:45] going on i loved the depiction of like say with jesse when they were in the boogaloo boys battle

[01:34:51] he was holding um oh that i can't get that image out of my head he's like four he like holding

[01:34:56] the back of her shirt that's right and like moving her out like she's a chess piece yeah

[01:35:03] into the danger and then out of the danger into the danger and out of the danger um so yeah but

[01:35:09] i can't get that image out of my head he's he's actually hauling lee around right yes he's actually

[01:35:15] picking her up and dragging her until they get into the white house and then she's sort of

[01:35:19] more on her own yeah you know but yeah it was an exhilarating fight scene i thought and it

[01:35:25] worked really well on the big screen and just the loudness of what an interior gun battle

[01:35:30] would sound like uh yeah so the objective of that battle is clear they're going to

[01:35:37] execute the president there's no they've decided ahead of time they're not going to take him as

[01:35:43] prisoner or let him go into exile right which were reformed by the other journalist right

[01:35:49] they really need a journalist to show that he's been killed otherwise he kind of becomes this

[01:35:58] cult figure you know it's like he's no he's still alive he's gonna come back and and

[01:36:03] you know this is out there hanging out that's right yeah yeah so they that's right so they

[01:36:10] really need a journalist there because it's a political end it's not just this is not

[01:36:16] just a battle they're trying to win they're trying to effectively end the other sides

[01:36:23] you know they're taking the king basically but in order to take the king you need

[01:36:28] proof that you've done it yeah because you did not win unless there's proof that you took the

[01:36:33] king so in that way the and the journalists are integral to the storytelling and i thought that

[01:36:40] that was a really effective way to bring them into the story and we talked about the the quote

[01:36:46] earlier but the fact that he's um he's begging for his life yeah adds to what you're saying

[01:36:54] there they're not only did they take the king but they deflated him so that he's just a guy

[01:37:00] his mythology is deflated because what was he doing i did it for the country i did it for

[01:37:05] you know the the people who follow me i did it for you he's like don't kill me which is

[01:37:11] selfish and and and right and small he's got no latin phrase that he he shouts out before

[01:37:18] he jumps onto the stage or something he's just a weak and miserable you know want to be

[01:37:26] dictator at that point any so yeah yeah i was gonna say basically what you're telling me is

[01:37:32] um people like you are the reason why there's war because you enjoy it you enjoy it we

[01:37:38] know what kind of person you you go to that sleepy town and and david's in the back room

[01:37:45] with popcorn watching all the news reels this is so great you've outed me i'm just joking i know i

[01:37:51] know no no it was it was it was exhilarating it was um intense right it was because you didn't

[01:37:59] know what was gonna happen but we didn't you know and i was i was actually confused when lee

[01:38:05] got shot i was like is she dead because because they were wearing kevlar right like yeah and her

[01:38:11] head wasn't exploded so she didn't take a head shot but that lower part of her weight her you

[01:38:17] know sort of low back to upper waist is not covered and you know down through i think she

[01:38:21] died of a broken heart right i do want to say i was wondering and was like they didn't kill

[01:38:29] her did she like is she dead so it took me to end the movie realize okay i think she is

[01:38:35] yeah for reals let's i do want to point out one last thing i think that for americans it's hard

[01:38:42] to get our head around how big of a move brexit was and i think that for alex garland

[01:38:48] he lived through that as as a brit and he's also observing the the discourse in our country

[01:38:56] right it's it's brexit was every bit as uh every bit as consequential as if like a state like

[01:39:06] california or a state like texas seceded from the union and um so i think he is he is

[01:39:15] speaking to us as someone who has participated in the discourse of america but who is also

[01:39:22] seen what can happen to an old established country like england right that's a good point

[01:39:30] if if you know depending on where that goes and of course uh i would guess that america would be

[01:39:38] far more likely to descend into violence than a place like england yeah that's just

[01:39:45] that's just my it's someone who's lived in both countries i feel like that is my sense

[01:39:51] yeah let's say i remember traveling i was traveling through sorry really quick let's just use this

[01:39:55] moment as our our sort of final wrap-up thoughts so yeah no that's good yeah no i remember traveling

[01:40:00] through i was gonna say traveling through uk in the middle of brexit and talking to people and

[01:40:06] every morning the house of commons and the house of lords were like

[01:40:09] in the hotels we were staying at you just saw them yelling every morning at the time i

[01:40:15] was like the red room in the green room keep fighting all the time i went with your fighting

[01:40:19] it was right in the middle of brexit so uh yeah wrapping it up i um i think it was

[01:40:26] i think it was very good uh i want to see it again um i be curious to see i think

[01:40:36] the performances are worthy the the storytelling is really good the kind of conversations

[01:40:43] it drums up or is it like what great movie making and filmmaking is about so

[01:40:49] i think it was a good achievement so i watched rewatch x-mock and a lot last night for like the

[01:40:55] seventh time i've never seen it oh my gosh all right i have to go see you now yeah well now

[01:41:02] now you're you got a little treat for you all right so i thought that is a movie that did

[01:41:07] not i won't spoil anything okay um that is a movie that did not do as well in the theater

[01:41:15] right right but is one of these rewatchable movies where you get more and more and more out

[01:41:22] every single time you watch it um and i feel like civil war will be again one of those

[01:41:29] movies where it's like sometimes it'll take two or three watches before you like oh now i get

[01:41:35] the conversation that he wants us to have right nice uh my two thoughts i love this film i really

[01:41:45] one of the things that really worked for me in this film was the the movie camera going from

[01:41:50] from the cinematography to the still frame so to get us behind the camera i thought that

[01:41:56] was a really excellent device but one of the things i think for me this a scene that

[01:42:02] encapsulates this movie for me is when they're taking a picture of the crashed helicopter in

[01:42:06] front of the jc or was it the sears or jc pennies i think it was jc pennies jesse penny yeah i swear

[01:42:11] i've been to that mall because i saw that archway in the back i'm like i've seen that

[01:42:15] somewhere before i thought the same thing i was like have i been there exactly right it's a i'm

[01:42:19] sure it's in atlanta everything is shot in atlanta right well there's something up in the

[01:42:23] north i used to live in i wonder if i used to live in atlanta and it reminded me of the

[01:42:27] jc penny at the mall at the mall of georgia but the this image of this helicopter which is an

[01:42:33] exquisite machine it is a balance of of nature of forces of nature and harnessed by a machine

[01:42:41] that is dangerous but beautiful and utilitarian but here it is it's all wrapped up in these

[01:42:47] power lines and it's burned out and crashed and that was a metaphor for america for me

[01:42:53] that if we're not careful that's that was the warning scene out of that yeah that that we

[01:42:59] could get tangled up in this stuff and we can absolutely crash and burn if we're if we're not

[01:43:04] careful so um some quick comparisons to other movies uh full metal jacket 1987 uh the year of

[01:43:13] living dangerously uh mel gibson 1982 good movie about war journalism in indonesia under fire

[01:43:20] with nick nolte in 1983 the killing fields obviously in 1984 which is about cambodia and

[01:43:27] again journalists salvador uh salvador yes in 1986 the bang bang club in 2010 there's a great

[01:43:35] documentary called war photographer a bit about james natch way i can never pronounce his last

[01:43:40] name right from 2001 and then we have a very recent example at 20 days in maria pole in 2023

[01:43:46] which was up for um an oscar so all of those movies are strong war journalism movies if you

[01:43:54] want to compare uh it to other things we've got a couple of pieces of feedback so i'm going

[01:43:59] to play a quick voicemail from red zippy who's one of our lore hound supporters

[01:44:04] so here's her voicemail hello this is red zippy uh just got act from seeing civil war

[01:44:11] and i thought it was terrific it definitely helped to understand before seeing the movie

[01:44:18] that this is not a political film you're not going to get explanations both sides any of that

[01:44:27] essentially it is a movie about war photographers and being on their trip from one place to

[01:44:36] another and what happens to them in between and that set me up perfectly i think to really

[01:44:42] enjoy the movie and not get hung up on anything else i also took great care to almost like act

[01:44:50] like a war photographer in the sense that i just observed everything you know whatever uh

[01:44:58] garland wrote or shot uh you know those kind of scenes where did the camera linger

[01:45:06] you know it was just really it was really fascinating to see his version of what this

[01:45:12] country would look like in certain spaces so that was a really really terrific um yeah no i

[01:45:19] i really really enjoyed it uh that's really all i have to say right now so again if you go

[01:45:25] in knowing that you know this isn't isn't a political movie really uh i think you'll do even

[01:45:31] better and i definitely was one of those that wondered why texas and california were on one side

[01:45:39] and i love what i read in the discord that he was deliberate about it what could have happened

[01:45:45] that would have conjoined california and texas against the rest of america anyway so wonderful

[01:45:52] film uh two thumbs up i highly recommend awesome thanks rinzipi i think it's pretty

[01:45:58] much on track with what we were discussing we've got one email from john aka via ma a good friend

[01:46:04] of the pod and also a lore hound supporter i thought civil war was a really good movie and

[01:46:09] probably not the one i was expecting i believe john's also in the uk so there might be an

[01:46:13] interesting crossover here i've seen the trailer and i was expecting a lot more of red versus

[01:46:17] blue situation what we got was an anti-war movie showing the horrors involved through the literal

[01:46:22] lens of photojournalists the political message is that could even happen in the usa and to be

[01:46:26] careful for what you wish for which is an interesting point there's a lot of people who

[01:46:29] do have fever dreams of a civil war in our country right now yeah i felt superbly manipulated

[01:46:35] by the day last soul needle drop tapping my toes and celebrating the win for the gunfight

[01:46:40] until the execution scene rapidly put paid to that wagner more is rapidly becoming one of

[01:46:46] my favorite actors he was great in narcos but seeing him in more recent roles and

[01:46:51] mr and mrs smith and now this really showcases his charm and swagger he'll be into bigger things

[01:46:57] no doubt a punch to the guts but one that i was glad to see on the big screen john aka vialma

[01:47:04] thanks john thanks for writing in so again yeah still tracking i think wagner more as uh his

[01:47:08] character was great too he was the charmer he could just kind of talk to anybody yeah oh he's

[01:47:12] just got such charisma which you know a villain or anti-hero with charisma is always

[01:47:20] it's always a good enjoyable to watch right and i like how john mentions here superbly manipulated

[01:47:26] by the day last soul needle drop which was what you were uh what was happening absolutely

[01:47:31] absolutely awesome all right well i think we're we're done for there gentlemen thank you so

[01:47:36] much i'll do the outro if you guys want to bounce i'll wrap it up but uh anthony what have

[01:47:41] you got on deck you've got some big things with uh game of thrones coming up or house of

[01:47:46] the dragon so yeah we're going to be re-releasing our double dragon feed uh for in preparation for

[01:47:56] house of the dragon and then steve and i will do a rewatch once the season is complete

[01:48:02] nice cool ron we don't have anything specific on deck i know you wanted to do some three

[01:48:07] body problem uh we've just got to get around to scheduling that anthony you looked up when i

[01:48:11] said three body problem just now are you interested or or is that too much no

[01:48:19] i don't i don't get well i don't get the fascination i did not i did not buy into

[01:48:23] the three body problem no i was not a huge fan of it at the end that's okay right i have some

[01:48:30] issues with it ron what else are you up to find you on tiktok these days and other social

[01:48:36] i'm on all the places at blur durani b l e r d r o n n e r and uh yeah look forward to our

[01:48:44] future conversations i appreciate the invites of course you're part of the club now so you know

[01:48:49] yeah we'll be we'll be talking again great gentleman thanks so very much and uh i'll

[01:48:54] talk a little bit about uh the subscriber benefits and other scheduling stuff on my own

[01:49:01] but if you guys want to bounce uh you can do it so well that was a really great conversation

[01:49:06] and as a podcaster that's the kind of stuff i live for so hope you enjoyed that i'm just

[01:49:11] here really quick wanted to give a couple of notes about our uh subscription offerings

[01:49:18] as well as some upcoming schedule notes and a shout out to our top tier subscribers if you

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[01:51:25] like that quick notes about our upcoming schedule and some of our affiliate podcasts

[01:51:29] if you watched fallout then definitely check out radioactive ramblings that is erin and chase

[01:51:34] erin is one of our discord moderators and he was he's very passionate about the fallout

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[01:52:10] been a listener for a while you know maryland r paquila and she's our resident tokens scholar

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[01:52:22] her and dr sarah brown from signum university are analyzing the season one of rings of power

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[01:52:33] or sorry uh rings of power or watched it recently to listen to this podcast it's a really

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[01:53:03] i believe up to episode three is out as we are alicia over at woolshif dust is covering beacon

[01:53:10] 23 season two she's doing a lot of work with us as well on on shogun and some other things

[01:53:15] she has a star wars timeline podcast that's coming up where she's going to be looking at

[01:53:20] star wars all of star wars from across using the timeline as a way to examine the entirety of

[01:53:28] the star wars property and i believe she's got some dune still stuff still in the pipeline so

[01:53:37] check her out on the wool shift dust feed and again we have properly howard movie review

[01:53:43] that's anthony who you just heard and his i believe best friend steve who is a stand-up

[01:53:49] comic they review old movies and always with a tongue in tongue and cheek sort of attitude

[01:53:56] and they rate the films based on how better or worse it was from a ron howard movie this

[01:54:03] season they've just launched their new season felonies and fugazis and they've got a list of

[01:54:08] 10 really wild crime related movies they just had point break they're going to do shakedown

[01:54:17] tango and cash pulp fiction gross point blank and a number of other movies check them out on the

[01:54:23] properly howard movie review feed we've got a channel set up in the discord we've also got a

[01:54:28] whole notion movie tracker for them so you can see what the movies are read the log lines watch

[01:54:34] the trailers if you're if there's one that you want to watch and uh definitely it's a lot of

[01:54:39] fun it's just good you don't even have to have seen the movies to enjoy the podcast they

[01:54:43] have a lot of fun talking about it in terms of the lore hounds we're wrapping up with shogun

[01:54:48] where uh this is the week we're recording this just before episode the final episode of shogun

[01:54:54] episode 10 so we'll have coverage of that and then we're going to do a wrap-up season

[01:54:59] wrap-up podcast and we're going to bring in nate leadbetter who's a phd candidate and a

[01:55:03] member of the east asian studies at princeton the east asian studies department at princeton

[01:55:08] he's been dropping lore and knowledge bombs all over the discord we're going to have him

[01:55:13] on because he's just a great person to get a perspective on on what this season

[01:55:18] was like overall especially the historicity of it alicia and i just released a one-shot movie

[01:55:25] review of monkey man alicia alicia really loved that movie and so we had a great

[01:55:29] time talking about that we've got our ongoing stuff star wars film festival silmarillion

[01:55:36] stories john and maryland just recorded a pod for that we've got an earth sea coming out

[01:55:42] uh we've got a dick turpin one shot coming as well as a um i think we're going to do

[01:55:50] a three body problem but i'm not sure no promises there and uh let's see coming up

[01:55:56] in future we have some doctor who coverage john and alicia are going to cover that

[01:56:00] definitely going to do the acolyte which will start june 5th house of the dragon june 13th

[01:56:06] the bear which will be late june that'll be a binge drop so a lot of good stuff coming up

[01:56:12] real soon uh so we're bracing ourselves that's going to be a busy summer quick shout out to our

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