Stay Free - Russel Brand - The Critical Drinker

00:00:00.000 Hello there you Awakening Wonders!

00:00:01.000 Thanks for joining me on Stay Free with Russell Brand.

00:00:04.000 I'm very excited about today's show.

00:00:07.000 For the first 15 minutes I'm going to be on YouTube and that's going to be relevant to you 6.5 million Awakening Wonders over there because you surely love the critical drinker.

00:00:17.000 A man who has analysed and critiqued contemporary cinema with a perspective that you're unlikely to see in the mainstream.

00:00:24.000 I think We are definitely stuck in a rut as a culture when it comes to just relying on the past.

00:00:32.000 As you say, the motivation behind these IPs and these franchise movies is no one's willing to take a risk.

00:00:40.000 What they lack with these modern characters that they try to do is that they're not willing to take that step of have them fail and be vulnerable and have flaws and weaknesses.

00:00:48.000 We're going to talk about Sound of Freedom.

00:00:51.000 Why is this movie causing so much controversy?

00:00:54.000 I'm also going to start referring to the Critical Drinker by his actual human name, and I'm going to ask you to remove them aviators. 0.67

00:01:01.000 Not yet!

00:01:01.000 Not while we're still on YouTube!

00:01:06.000 Stay free with Russell Brand.

00:01:08.000 See it first on Rumble.

00:01:09.000 It is the critical drinker.

00:01:11.000 Welcome to the show.

00:01:12.000 Thanks for joining us.

00:01:13.000 Thanks for having me on, man.

00:01:14.000 I can't believe it.

00:01:15.000 I'm sandwiched right between Tucker Carlson and Ron DeSantis.

00:01:18.000 I've got a lot to live up to on this one.

00:01:21.000 You better come up with some pretty powerful right wing ideology right now.

00:01:26.000 It better be sliding into your reviews somehow, if you can.

00:01:30.000 Otherwise, you simply will not fit in with the roster.

00:01:32.000 Thanks for joining us, mate.

00:01:33.000 No, it's a pleasure to be here.

00:01:34.000 Thanks for having me on, man.

00:01:36.000 One of your most recent videos that I enjoyed watching was your analysis and review of the latest Indiana Jones movie.

00:01:45.000 It seemed you kind of reached a, in a sense, a zenith of your analysis in itself, or what Lynch might call the duck's eye, the point within the point.

00:01:56.000 It seemed to me that what you were saying is that our culture is incapable of coming

00:02:01.000 up with new and novel and innovative content, and it's kind of like a Tomb Raider dragging

00:02:08.000 cadavers from the soil, reanimating them and then not even respecting them.

00:02:13.000 Is that the essence of your perspective on mainstream movie franchises?

00:02:18.000 What do you think that tells us more broadly, if indeed that is your perspective, Drinker?

00:02:22.000 I think that's wildly wrong, because that metaphor you just gave me would have at least

00:02:25.000 been entertaining, unlike this movie.

00:02:28.000 I think we are definitely stuck in a rut as a culture when it comes to just relying on

00:02:36.000 the past and just digging up old ideas, like you say, bringing back old characters, old

00:02:42.000 actors and just...

00:02:44.000 Kind of humiliating them on screen and trying to use them as this weird springboard to launch a new generation of characters, but they're never any good. 1.00

00:02:52.000 They're always unlikable idiots who just bore people to tears. 1.00

00:02:57.000 And that's the fundamental problem. 1.00

00:02:59.000 We've lost the ability to create new, innovative stuff.

00:03:02.000 What we do now is just reiterate the things that have been done before.

00:03:06.000 And you can apply it to movies, TV shows, music, anything!

00:03:12.000 We're just recycling the same things we've done so many times already.

00:03:17.000 It's such a sad thing to look back on.

00:03:20.000 Generations from now, they're going to look back on this time and just think of it as the time when everyone just lost their imagination.

00:03:27.000 They lost their spirit of creativity.

00:03:29.000 That's very interesting that you take it to something as essential as the spirit of creativity itself.

00:03:34.000 I've got young daughters, they're five and six, their favourite band is the Spice Girls.

00:03:40.000 Like we listen to the Spice Girls and then like some other kids were getting dropped off at the school, like similar age, they were listening to the Spice Girls.

00:03:47.000 It doesn't even, even something in the culture which I think at At the time, I would have certainly regarded as a sort of a commodity, even though it had a great deal of spirit, and there's aspects of the Spice Girls that I liked.

00:03:58.000 Details I certainly won't be going into right now.

00:04:02.000 What I'd like to say is that it's odd that even something that's commercial, you know, we're not talking about, like, Joan Jett.

00:04:08.000 We're talking about the Spice Girls.

00:04:09.000 Even, like, those kind of commodities aren't being replaced.

00:04:12.000 And also with, like, Glastonbury, Elton John being the sort of closing act, it makes you wonder, well, where's it going to go?

00:04:18.000 Now, do you think this is because of Economics, do you think it's because of technology?

00:04:22.000 For example, it's been sort of oft-stated that there isn't a new raft of movie stars coming through anymore.

00:04:29.000 Is that because of the culture?

00:04:31.000 Is that because of technology?

00:04:33.000 And of course, I know those two things are inextricably linked, but what do you put it down to?

00:04:38.000 Yeah, I mean, I think the last movie star that we have still active really now that's relevant is Tom Cruise and he's got Mission Impossible coming out soon.

00:04:45.000 That's probably going to do really well this summer.

00:04:47.000 Top Gun Maverick did great last year.

00:04:50.000 But yeah, like, There's a problem now in movies, particularly, where we don't have movie stars anymore.

00:04:59.000 We have characters that people are excited to see.

00:05:03.000 Particularly with comic book movies, with all this superhero stuff, it'll be a case of, hey, we're going to go and see the new Captain America movie.

00:05:09.000 We're going to see the new Thor movie.

00:05:11.000 We don't care about the actor that's playing him, really.

00:05:14.000 It's just the character that we're going to see.

00:05:17.000 Then doesn't translate into a star who can sell movies, who can get people to go to the movie theater and see his latest film.

00:05:25.000 You know, back when probably you and I were kids, the dominant forces at the box office were like, oh, I'm going to go and see the latest Arnold Schwarzenegger movie.

00:05:33.000 I'm going to see the latest Stallone movie, the latest Bruce Willis movie.

00:05:37.000 All people like that.

00:05:38.000 They were stars that could sell films just on their star power.

00:05:42.000 We don't have that anymore.

00:05:44.000 And it's the same problem with You know, with, um...

00:05:49.000 Films in general.

00:05:53.000 We don't want to take the risk now of inventing new things because one, movies are massively expensive and so they don't want to take the risk of investing 200, 300 million dollars on something that's completely unproven.

00:06:06.000 And so all they'll do is say, well, what's a surefire hit?

00:06:08.000 Well, I don't know.

00:06:10.000 Star Wars used to be popular.

00:06:11.000 Let's do that.

00:06:12.000 Indiana Jones was popular.

00:06:13.000 Let's do that.

00:06:15.000 Let's just keep recycling the things that older people remember. 0.91

00:06:19.000 And two, we don't have the talented writers with really interesting life experiences that

00:06:25.000 they can translate into scripts.

00:06:28.000 And so they don't have the ability to create new things that are really interesting and

00:06:31.000 cool.

00:06:32.000 It seems like Mark Hamill has almost been trying to publicly say that he don't like

00:06:38.000 what the franchise has done to the character of Luke Skywalker, that he personally feels

00:06:45.000 offended and affronted by it.

00:06:47.000 Sometimes it seems to me that you're driven by a kind of a love of narrative and story

00:06:52.000 and almost like Joseph Campbell-like ideas of how a hero should function and what a story

00:06:59.000 should do.

00:07:00.000 I've got a few things I want to run by you.

00:07:04.000 I used to think, it's like a little hypothesis of mine, that American movie stars somehow embody how they regard how that nation in particular, and let's face it, it's still the nation that defines our planet, like how it sees itself at a particular time, like when it was Schwarzenegger and Stallone, it was a kind of rebooted 1980s America with heft and, you know, an overt masculinity.

00:07:27.000 Adam Sandler, who I did a movie with actually, and who I think is a really interesting and brilliant performer and comic, and he, like, At a time when we were starting to learn, for example, that there weren't actually weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Adam Sandler had this kind of, oh shucks, I didn't mean it, kind of mentality that aligned neatly with an America that's trying its best and erring sometimes.

00:07:50.000 Now perhaps what we have is an America that doesn't know what it's trying to sell itself anymore.

00:07:57.000 Trying to present a kind of ethical and moral face to the world while clearly being backed by commodity.

00:08:02.000 As you say, the motivation behind these IPs and these franchise movies is no one's willing to take a risk.

00:08:10.000 Matt Damon says that you'd never get a Good Will Hunting type movies no more because no one will back a $30 million movie like that.

00:08:18.000 They need to have IP behind them.

00:08:20.000 But what I want to get into just before, while we're still on YouTube, before we leave YouTube, so do bear that in mind, Drinker, that we're still in a place where censorship is possible, is how do we marry together the idea that you don't want movies all to be big, buff, white movie stars.

00:08:38.000 You want diversity.

00:08:40.000 You want, as a father of daughters, I want What do you think is the concession that should be made to make movies more, for want of a better word, more diverse?

00:08:50.000 I do for my girls. I want them to watch films and not always to be it's just guys and blokes

00:08:55.000 and you know, I want there to be diversity. But how do you marry that? What do you think

00:09:00.000 is the concession that should be made to make movies more for one of a better word, more

00:09:07.000 diverse? Where do you stand on that mate?

00:09:10.000 What is it like? Yeah, interesting points you've made there because it's like when you

00:09:13.000 talk about the stars of their different eras, like the 70s was like De Niro, Al Pacino,

00:09:18.000 Dustin Hoffman, like the interesting character actors, The 80s was the big buff muscle men.

00:09:24.000 It was the time of, like, American confidence. 0.99

00:09:27.000 We're going to kick ass. 0.99

00:09:28.000 We're going to dominate. 0.99

00:09:29.000 We're going to do awesome.

00:09:30.000 The 90s, it moved into like more, you know, ambiguous, like slightly more vulnerable heroes.

00:09:37.000 The 2000s was very much reflective of the war on terror.

00:09:40.000 So there was a lot of, you know, military themed stuff.

00:09:44.000 There was a lot of thrillers.

00:09:45.000 There was a lot of secret agent things going on.

00:09:48.000 And then, yeah, you look at now.

00:09:50.000 There's nothing!

00:09:51.000 We just- I literally just said there ain't no movie stars because, like, the country doesn't even know what it is now.

00:09:57.000 It's in a conflict of identity.

00:10:00.000 So I think I was- yeah, it's a self-evident point of, like, it doesn't even know what it wants to be anymore.

00:10:05.000 So that's kind of really sad to see because we always- you know, as a Brit, I always looked up to America as, like, the model of the world.

00:10:12.000 Like, this is the country that leads us, the free world.

00:10:16.000 But yeah, when it comes to marrying you talked about there, like the, rather than just having

00:10:22.000 straight white guys as like the movie stars, how do we, how do we include people of different genders,

00:10:29.000 ethnicities, all that stuff. I guess what I would say, hey, we did it 20, 30, 40 years ago, we

00:10:36.000 just didn't make such a big deal out of it like we have to do now. And that's the thing that annoys

00:10:41.000 people, that's the thing that turns people off, when you make the identity of the main

00:10:45.000 character, the main actor, the sole focus of everything. People are just like, well, why are you making

00:10:50.000 such big deal of this? Why?

00:10:51.000 Why should I care about this?

00:10:53.000 They used to just do it without having to make a big deal out of it.

00:10:57.000 When we talk about the great female characters in cinema, we have characters like Ellen Ripley.

00:11:03.000 She was an alien from the 70s! 1.00

00:11:05.000 That's before I was even born!

00:11:08.000 They got this right.

00:11:10.000 You've got Sarah Connor from the 80s.

00:11:12.000 Again, fantastic.

00:11:14.000 Fantastic action hero, fantastic flawed character, really interesting.

00:11:18.000 You had Trinity from the Matrix from the 90s.

00:11:21.000 They got all this stuff right.

00:11:22.000 They just didn't feel the need to make that the sole focus of these characters.

00:11:26.000 They were interesting characters first and foremost.

00:11:29.000 Whether they were female, whether they were women, sorry, whether they were black, white, whatever, it didn't matter. 0.54

00:11:35.000 The main focus was that they were a well-written character.

00:11:40.000 That's what we can't do now.

00:11:40.000 That's the difference.

00:11:42.000 Yeah, it offends you because it's, in a sense, hasn't got any art or care in it.

00:11:49.000 So you're contrasting the character like Ripley from Alien or Sarah Connor from the Terminator movies with, say, an example off the top of my head which I know will go over well on these platforms, Captain Marvel and the way that Captain Marvel was kind of presented as a hero.

00:12:07.000 It offends you, I think, Because I'm, as I've said before, I'm a fan of your content, that you don't get to see a vulnerable character evolve, a vulnerable character learn lessons, a character that is flawed and has to overcome obstacles.

00:12:19.000 In a sense, this is the function of story that precedes the medium of cinema.

00:12:25.000 We need to see that a character in position A at the start of the film is unable to achieve something but by, you know, they go through catharsis, challenges, whatever, and at the other side they're able.

00:12:38.000 And you think that this new ideology that's about presenting figures or characters in a particular way is unable to serve story and the function of story.

00:12:47.000 Is that what you're saying, Drinker?

00:12:49.000 What's the fundamental thing, like you said, that gets you to identify with a character?

00:12:53.000 Is you give a person that's somewhat likable, give them an obstacle to overcome, and have them struggle to do it.

00:12:59.000 Have them lots of things that get in their way, like they fall down, they pick themselves up, they eventually overcome.

00:13:05.000 That is the fundamental essence of what makes you like a character and identify with them.

00:13:10.000 It's so easy, it shouldn't even need to be said.

00:13:14.000 But what they lack with these modern characters that they try to do is that they're not willing

00:13:18.000 to take that step of have them fail and be vulnerable and have flaws and weaknesses.

00:13:23.000 Either because the writers don't know how to do it or because they've got this kind of prickly defensiveness

00:13:29.000 prickly defensiveness when it comes to writing things like female characters,

00:13:30.000 when it comes to writing things like female characters where they don't want them to be perceived as weak. 0.99

00:13:32.000 where they don't want them to be perceived as weak.

00:13:35.000 And so the only alternative they have is, well, they just have to be great at everything.

00:13:41.000 And so they're brilliant at everything right off the bat.

00:13:44.000 They have all the skills they need.

00:13:45.000 They don't need to learn everything.

00:13:47.000 They don't really have personalities because they don't have any flaws or weaknesses.

00:13:51.000 And the arc basically becomes them being amazing and being up here

00:13:56.000 and the rest of the world having to learn to accept how awesome they are

00:14:00.000 and like eventually come up and accept them.

00:14:02.000 There's no character arc there.

00:14:04.000 It's just a straight line.

00:14:06.000 That's that's that.

00:14:07.000 People don't find that satisfying.

00:14:09.000 That's the problem.

00:14:10.000 That's why nobody watches these movies anymore.

00:14:12.000 That's why the box office returns just go down and down.

00:14:16.000 Yeah, because when we meet, let's take the example of Sarah Connor, 0.99

00:14:20.000 we find her as a waitress, drifting through life listlessly.

00:14:25.000 But down the line, we see that this character is going to be a revolutionary figure that's met the challenge of knowing that she's carrying perhaps

00:14:35.000 the most sort of significant thing that a character could carry like the you know the

00:14:38.000 Essence or a symbol for the future. Hey, listen, we're gonna come off of YouTube now

00:14:43.000 And here are the reasons you should join us on rumble. We're gonna talk about sound of freedom

00:14:48.000 Why is this movie causing so much controversy as it appears to be beating Indiana Jones in the box office?

00:14:55.000 What does it tell us about films?

00:14:56.000 What does it tell us about new funding models?

00:14:58.000 What does it tell us about the appetite of us as movie audiences?

00:15:03.000 I'm also going to start referring to the Critical Drinker by his actual human name, and I'm going to ask you to remove them aviators. 0.67

00:15:09.000 Not yet, not while we're still Not while we're still on YouTube.

00:15:13.000 They can't handle them piercing Scottish eyes of a colour that I can't even begin to conject until I've seen them.

00:15:19.000 So if you're watching us on YouTube or anywhere else, click the link in the description.

00:15:23.000 Join us over on Rumble.

00:15:25.000 If you're on Rumble now, press the red button and join us on Locals.

00:15:28.000 You get to see content live when we record it in the event that it's pre-recorded.

00:15:32.000 You get meditations from me.

00:15:34.000 You get to be a member of our community and I would welcome you there.

00:15:38.000 I'd love it.

00:15:38.000 There's loads of great people in there.

00:15:39.000 Look at our Barry John Fox.

00:15:40.000 Woah! 0.99

00:15:40.000 expressing himself with an emoji even as we speak. 0.99

00:15:43.000 Xipher 2000, speaking of our man Will Jordan there, Will, get the fucking sunglasses off mate, and you're 0.98

00:15:50.000 allowed to swear now, significantly, so you can be your true- 0.97

00:15:53.000 WHOA! 0.71

00:15:54.000 I wasn't ready for them brown eyes!

00:15:56.000 You're beautiful, you've seared right into me soul there, for God's sake.

00:16:00.000 So, he's saying, what did he say there, he's gonna get lost in his gaze, and that has happened,

00:16:05.000 that has happened in almost every sense of the word gaze, in every possible spelling of that word.

00:16:10.000 Um, okay.

00:16:11.000 So, hey, Will, what do you think's happening around Sound of Freedom?

00:16:15.000 What do they object to?

00:16:16.000 Because I've heard, oh, what it is, is Sound of Freedom.

00:16:19.000 Because someone told me about it a little while ago.

00:16:21.000 A friend of mine actually said, you've got to see this movie and, you know, asked me if I would...

00:16:26.000 Support it, which I plan to do.

00:16:28.000 But I've subsequently seen people say, oh, it's connected to QAnon, and it's a conspiracy theory movie.

00:16:34.000 But of course, the plot of the movie is about a former Homeland Security agent who's rescuing children from child sex trafficking.

00:16:41.000 What's the issue with that, Will?

00:16:43.000 Why has it caused such controversy?

00:16:45.000 I mean, honestly, you'd think it would be a no-brainer.

00:16:47.000 I think we can all Come to the same conclusion that children being sold into child sex trafficking is a terrible thing and should absolutely be stopped at any cost.

00:16:59.000 And so a movie about trying, you know, a main hero who's trying to prevent that is trying to rescue children from the most horrifying situations imaginable.

00:17:08.000 Wow, that should be the sort of thing that you should really have no qualms about supporting.

00:17:11.000 And the fact that so many people in the mainstream media are against this, Wow, it really makes me question what their values are.

00:17:20.000 I do not understand it at all.

00:17:23.000 Yeah, I don't, because I... Look, we're all familiar now with like the Jeffrey Epstein story, and it does appear that paedophilia is, let's say, more popular than I'd imagined it was as a young man, blessedly.

00:17:37.000 But it's odd that a film like this, where, as far as I can understand it, the only roots for saying that there's a connection to QAnon or conspiracy theories is that once maybe Jim Caviezel, am I saying his name right, the lead actor, Yeah, Caviezel, I think it is.

00:17:53.000 Caviezel.

00:17:54.000 He commented on that slightly wacky wardrobe manufacturing story where they were saying it was a front for paedophilia.

00:18:01.000 He maybe commented on it.

00:18:02.000 Maybe the lead actor commented on it, and I know it's funded by the same people that made The Chosen, and I knew the guy that played Jesus in that.

00:18:10.000 The guy that played Jesus in The Chosen, Will, body doubled for me, I think, in Ballers, an HBO show that I did.

00:18:19.000 Jesus is my body double!

00:18:21.000 That's my new catchphrase, man!

00:18:23.000 I'm taking that down!

00:18:25.000 My stigmata!

00:18:26.000 So, you know, do you think, this is a question I want to put to you as an expert in movies, or at least an authority on movies, do you think that what actually, you know, of course there's the idea that, oh wow, is there actually, is there something to hide around all this paedophile network stuff?

00:18:40.000 Let me know in the comments, guys, I know that's a subject you lot get into.

00:18:43.000 Or is it, or additionally, is it because of, this is a funding model And I distribute not necessarily distribution model, but PR model that's bypassing a lot of the gatekeepers.

00:18:54.000 You know, they're going on podcast that you're promoting it.

00:18:57.000 Tim Pool I've seen talking about it, but you know, it doesn't seem to have to go through that.

00:19:03.000 Green tomato, red tomato, fresh or whatever stuff.

00:19:03.000 I don't know.

00:19:06.000 What do you think about that?

00:19:08.000 I mean, it's twofold, really.

00:19:09.000 First of all, the movie doesn't try to make any connections to some ring that's operating at the top levels of American society or anything like that.

00:19:19.000 It's very much like, this is stuff that's going on in Colombia, Mexico, that sort of thing.

00:19:24.000 It's just a guy trying to rescue kids from a hostile situation.

00:19:28.000 And that's really the limit of it.

00:19:30.000 So it's not trying to make that connection at all, which is so weird that people seem to be getting so defensive about that.

00:19:37.000 And two, it's a cheap movie.

00:19:39.000 It was made for well under $20 million.

00:19:42.000 This isn't like an Indiana Jones job where it's like $300 million plus of God knows how much on marketing and stuff.

00:19:48.000 And so they don't have the budget to do TV commercials and all the fancy advertising that you can ask for.

00:19:55.000 They do this grassroots stuff where they just make themselves available to talk to podcasters and stuff and sell the movie on its own merits.

00:20:06.000 Imagine that.

00:20:07.000 Imagine a movie that's just actually good and people watch it because, hey, it's actually a really rewarding experience and it's tackling an important issue that we should learn more about.

00:20:16.000 Imagine that.

00:20:18.000 It's almost like that's foreign now to us.

00:20:20.000 Yeah, therefore it's an example, isn't it, of it's quite guerrilla and quite radical because it doesn't have to go through the processes that typically a movie would do.

00:20:32.000 The amount, as you've described, that's typically spent on advertising.

00:20:35.000 And, you know, you work in independent media, I work in independent media, and sometimes what I start to feel, and I wonder if you feel the same, is they're attacking the content.

00:20:45.000 They don't agree with my ideology.

00:20:47.000 Actually, I'm starting to think what they don't agree with is us existing at all.

00:20:51.000 There's more like an economic problem.

00:20:53.000 Oh no, this is where people are going to spend advertising. 1.00

00:20:55.000 Shit, we can't keep up with this. 0.99

00:20:57.000 What do you think about that? 0.99

00:20:58.000 Well, I mean, put it this way, like when I work here making my videos that I do, it's me in my office at home.

00:21:04.000 I got 0% overheads.

00:21:07.000 I spend zero dollars on anything, but I get millions of views because people are interested

00:21:12.000 to hear what I've got to say.

00:21:14.000 And that's the thing that they hate, where you've got news networks and you've got studios

00:21:19.000 with dozens if not hundreds of employees, they've got huge expenses that they go to,

00:21:24.000 and they get a fraction of the viewership that people like us get because people just

00:21:29.000 don't care about them anymore, because they know how fake they are.

00:21:32.000 I've heard it said before, it was a very smart man named Robert Meyer Burnett who said, the currency of our current age is authenticity. 0.98

00:21:40.000 And it's so fucking true. People care about presenters, whoever it is, who care about the 0.89

00:21:47.000 subject matter they're talking about, who actually are authentic. They might not be as polished,

00:21:51.000 they might not have the big production values, it doesn't matter. They're talking about things

00:21:55.000 that they care about and that they're invested in. That's what people want, honesty.

00:21:59.000 Yeah, in a sense that's the Joe Rogan superpower isn't it Will?

00:22:03.000 Like whether he's talking about mixed martial arts or whether he's talking about politics or psychedelics or hunting or diet or supplements or whatever you get the impression because it in my opinion it's true that he's saying what he believes and he's saying what he cares about and that seems sufficient to stand up against you know clear attempts to take him out around the Ivermectin horse pace time Which I, again, similarly, like, I reckon as well, there, they just don't want that.

00:22:31.000 You know, Carlin famous, George Carlin says it's like a, you know, you don't need conspiracy where convergent, where interests naturally converge.

00:22:38.000 And the mainstream media don't want powerful, independent voices that are able to just bypass their models.

00:22:44.000 Because like you say, you've got zero overhead, you can operate on your own.

00:22:48.000 And plainly, you're in a position where if you like a movie, you say you do.

00:22:51.000 And if you don't like a movie, you say that even more.

00:22:55.000 Yeah, and nobody pays me to do this as such.

00:22:59.000 I don't have relationships with studios that I can damage by slagging off their movie, and that's the thing.

00:23:04.000 I can just be honest about it.

00:23:05.000 But I always try to be fair.

00:23:07.000 That's what I always want to be.

00:23:08.000 I don't want to just hate on a movie because it's made by a director I don't like.

00:23:11.000 Whatever.

00:23:13.000 Be fair.

00:23:13.000 That's all I expect from what I do.

00:23:16.000 And hopefully people understand that.

00:23:20.000 And that's why they watch my videos, because I'll give you an honest opinion about things.

00:23:23.000 In the Indiana Jones one you listed movies where you sort of where you were wrong you said like I thought Dungeons and Dragons wouldn't be any good and you were wrong about that and I feel like even some of the Disney TV shows you've sort of gone oh actually that's pretty good and you've you know so you've I guess to your point about authenticity being the currency, and in fact this is a broader point we find ourselves continually making on our channels, you need principles.

00:23:46.000 If you have a principle, then sometimes that principle is going to cost you, sometimes it's going to support you, but it remains consistent.

00:23:53.000 When you're just like, oh when I'm talking about this, you know, when cluster bombs, here's an example from the news this week, when cluster bombs are being used by Russia, they're bad.

00:24:01.000 When cluster bombs are being used by America, They're good! 1.00

00:24:04.000 Or Ukraine, sorry, via America.

00:24:06.000 You know, so that means, you know, that is the opposite of what you're discussing in terms of, sort of, veracity and an ability to trust.

00:24:13.000 Yeah, humane cluster bombs, I like that idea. 0.94

00:24:15.000 But, yeah, I mean, it's like, yeah, sometimes I'll watch the trailer for a movie, I'll give my thoughts on it and, like, make some predictions about what the film's going to be like.

00:24:24.000 Sometimes I'm right, or most of the time I am, but sometimes I'm wrong.

00:24:26.000 And, like, I'm happy to admit that.

00:24:28.000 If a movie, I go and watch it and it's better than I expected, I'm a happy man because I got to watch a good movie, so that's okay as far as I'm concerned.

00:24:36.000 So yeah, for me, there's nothing wrong with admitting that occasionally you call it wrong.

00:24:40.000 That's okay, as long as you're honest with people.

00:24:43.000 I think that's all they want.

00:24:44.000 What about, do you sometimes get a bit, let's say, supercharged by the Like, you know, if something isn't, for want of a better term, woke, do you think, oh my god, do you think it almost gets an extra bit of juice because of that?

00:24:57.000 I'm talking about films like maybe, um, you know, Maverick, or even the Mario Brothers movie, just by virtue of the fact that it's not pushing that message.

00:25:07.000 Or do you think that by not having the kind of, the sort of gravitational lag That wokeness can apply because it prevents, to use but one example, a character from having a meaningful arc because they're already presented as perfect on the basis of identity, which shouldn't be what's presented at the centre of a film.

00:25:28.000 And if it's freed of that, it's a little bit better.

00:25:31.000 Or do you think that you're sort of like, oh, thank God, bloody Mario Brothers isn't doing that, and you get a bit excited? 0.93

00:25:36.000 There's the initial emotional reaction of, like, hey, wow, this movie doesn't fucking hate me because I'm, like, a straight white man. 0.80

00:25:41.000 That's nice. 0.92

00:25:42.000 Like, that's a change of pace.

00:25:43.000 But, you know, you try to break the movie down, like, into its component parts and say, well, okay, this one I enjoyed it.

00:25:51.000 Why did I enjoy it?

00:25:52.000 Was the plot good?

00:25:53.000 Were the characters good?

00:25:54.000 Whatever.

00:25:54.000 So you try to be a bit more objective about it.

00:25:57.000 But it's also possible, this is an interesting discussion about, it's possible for something to be woke by the normal standards but also be good if it's well written.

00:26:08.000 The example that I've given before is a TV show called Arcane.

00:26:12.000 Which puts forward a lot of what we would consider to be woke politics, like extremely diverse cast, gay relationships front and center, a class struggle at the heart of the plot that's driving it forward, very strong female characters, all that stuff.

00:26:30.000 Um, that might be considered woke in other movies because it's badly handled, but it's extremely well integrated into a really good story in that TV show.

00:26:38.000 And so I was happy to say, hey, this is an example of, say, progressive politics or progressive ideology done well.

00:26:46.000 It can be done, but you've just got to write it well.

00:26:48.000 That's what we look for, a good story.

00:26:51.000 Right, don't use it instead of structure.

00:26:53.000 I suppose another film like The Matrix, Matrix is a good example, I'm talking about the first one obviously, of how sort of different ideals and identity transcendent of homogeneity and heterodoxy is presented as aspirational and cool and then the Wachowskis of course, Wachowskis?

00:27:12.000 I can't remember their name no more.

00:27:13.000 Like uh like they had a sort of uh obviously they changed gender during like you know the trajectory of those movies like that maybe that's something for you to touch upon but I also like again with my personal uh position as a father of girls and also as a person that do I do believe there should be stories for everyone there should be stories for everyone but I think I agree with you as a aesthete or as a critical thinker you know to sort of use the phrase from which your name is derived Like, I want things to reward me and to make sense, I suppose.

00:27:48.000 So, um, would you touch on, like, you know, sort of the Matrix and the Wachowskis, if I'm saying the name right, and also what films would I direct my girls to?

00:27:56.000 Because I don't even like it.

00:27:57.000 Sometimes if I watch an old Simpsons and Bart goes, girls are shit, or whatever, I'm like, oh, I don't want my daughters watching that, you know what I mean? 1.00

00:28:03.000 So, sort of touch on that sort of side of it as well, if you could. 0.99

00:28:06.000 Yeah, I mean, in terms of, like, if you're looking for movies with good female role models, like, damn, where do I begin? 0.97

00:28:12.000 Like, you've got the Terminator movies, I suppose, like we mentioned before.

00:28:18.000 You've got Ripley from the first two Aliens films.

00:28:21.000 You've got Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

00:28:25.000 You've got Trinity from The Matrix.

00:28:27.000 You've got Gina Davis from Long Kiss Goodnight. 0.99

00:28:30.000 Like, all of these, these are very interesting characters that kind of You know, they've got flaws, they've got weaknesses, they've got problems along the way, but they overcome those things.

00:28:39.000 So yeah, there's been movies all throughout cinematic history that have given us this stuff.

00:28:47.000 It's just, really, in recent years, in trying to highlight this stuff and in trying to correct a problem that didn't really exist in the first place, they've made it infinitely worse.

00:28:57.000 That's the problem.

00:28:58.000 What about that analytic tool like I only know because I saw it in Rick and Morty where they say like an analysis of a feminist a movie from a feminist perspective is are there two female characters that have names that are talking about something other than a man like and also like There is an imbalance between films that, uh, don't you think?

00:29:20.000 Do you agree?

00:29:21.000 Like, that are sort of built around, like, let's call them, you know, white males or whatever.

00:29:25.000 There is a, do you think there's an imbalance that could be addressed?

00:29:28.000 And what do you think about, like, why is it a critique like that emerged?

00:29:33.000 Like the one that I learned on Rick and Morty that's got a proper name.

00:29:35.000 Someone tell me in the post.

00:29:36.000 It's a proper technique.

00:29:37.000 It's called the something test.

00:29:38.000 Yeah, the Bechdel test.

00:29:40.000 It's funny because the Bechdel test was actually created as a bit of a joke.

00:29:44.000 Is it a 4chan thing or something?

00:29:47.000 No, it was created by a woman, but she just did it as a bit of a laugh and it was meant to poke fun at the feminist critique of movies and stuff. 1.00

00:29:56.000 So it was never meant to be taken seriously, but it's become the benchmark across the industry for how movies are rated.

00:30:05.000 It's a meme that became reality, I suppose.

00:30:08.000 But yeah, in terms of...

00:30:12.000 How do you square that up?

00:30:16.000 I suppose part of the reason is, like, it depends what genre of movie you want to look at, and how mainstream you want to go, because the biggest movies at the box office tend to be action movies, they tend to be superhero movies, all those kind of things, but they're generally very male-oriented movies, and so the natural result is you tend to get a man in the lead, because that's what guys look for.

00:30:39.000 But if you're looking for other stuff, you just have to go into different genres.

00:30:43.000 It could be dramas, it could be romance, it could be historical epics, whatever you want to be.

00:30:48.000 There's plenty of movies with characters like that in it, they're just not the big blockbusters.

00:30:54.000 Get it, hey, I get it.

00:30:55.000 Because what it is, is it's not like, hey, we really love white men.

00:30:59.000 It's economic.

00:31:00.000 It's economic.

00:31:01.000 They just, these movies will sell well.

00:31:03.000 That's all.

00:31:04.000 They don't care.

00:31:05.000 They don't care at all.

00:31:06.000 Like the Bud Light thing.

00:31:07.000 They don't care if you're blue collar. 0.99

00:31:08.000 They don't care if you're trans. 1.00

00:31:10.000 They don't give a shit. 1.00

00:31:11.000 They just want to sell you Bud Light. 0.99

00:31:12.000 So this is the same thing with movies.

00:31:14.000 And so maybe this is what, perhaps, this is a question.

00:31:17.000 Like maybe what offends you is like they still want their cake of Indiana Jones, Luke Skywalker, a powerful IP from the 80s or 90s, but they also want to sort of attack, you shouldn't have these figures as the dominant figures, so they sort of live out their own dilemma almost in the movie of attacking and deconstructing the archetypes that they resent but rely on.

00:31:41.000 Is that a good bit of made-up analysis?

00:31:44.000 Yeah, what they want to do is use them as a springboard to launch their own new characters, but it's like trying to take a character that you've bonded with over a period of years, if not decades, like you grew up with and stuff, like Indiana Jones being a great example, or Luke Skywalker, for example.

00:32:03.000 Characters that you've really come to know and love, and then what they'll do is present them as old men who are Sad and lonely.

00:32:12.000 They've given up on life. 0.91

00:32:13.000 They are broken down and they're kind of pathetic now. 0.99

00:32:16.000 And they use that as an excuse to say, hey, they were never that good in the first place. 0.99

00:32:20.000 And then what they'll do is they'll bring in a new diverse female replacement who is stronger than them. 1.00

00:32:26.000 Smarter than them, more capable than them, doesn't have any of their weaknesses, and it's like they're trying to say, hey, see this guy that you really liked?

00:32:34.000 Well, we've got a new and improved version here, so you have to like them even more now.

00:32:38.000 Of course you do, because that's how human emotions work.

00:32:41.000 No, it's not.

00:32:42.000 People don't think that way.

00:32:44.000 And so, the more you try and slot these, like, fake pod people replacements in to, like, supplement these classic characters that we loved, the more people reject it. 0.97

00:32:56.000 And that's why Indiana Jones is fucking tanking at the box office. 0.79

00:33:00.000 This movie cost $300 million to make. 0.98

00:33:04.000 It needs to make, like, $900 million just to break even.

00:33:06.000 It ain't gonna get to $500 million.

00:33:08.000 No way!

00:33:09.000 There's a really funny line, this line from Seinfeld reminds me of you.

00:33:15.000 There's an episode of Seinfeld where he's dentist converts the Judaism Seinfeld offers so that it affords him to make Jewish jokes. 0.63

00:33:26.000 And Seinfeld's rabbi says to Seinfeld, does this offend you as a Jew?

00:33:31.000 And he says are more real to you Luke Skywalker's more real than like maybe your teacher or people that you know these are people that you know and that you're they've been vessels for your own personal development and your own understanding of your own darkness and your own aspirations and to see those things commodified when perhaps they don't even care about identity issues anyway it's um insulting maybe is that a good way of describing it? 0.98

00:33:57.000 Yes and it's uh I best described it as like a lot of these franchises are are things that have been created by geniuses and inherited by morons and that's the problem because they don't have the this creative skill to be able to make stuff like this by themselves like if you want to you want to make a shit movie with shit characters like oh fine I don't care like you're maybe you're just not very good at this stuff I'm not going to get offended by it though but if you want to cannibalize These existing characters that were made by someone way more intelligent and way more creative than you and humiliate them and try to use them to launch the shit things that you've made, that's when I've got a problem because you are exploiting someone else's work. 0.90

00:34:39.000 You are raping someone else's creativity. 0.96

00:34:43.000 That's what you're doing, but you're not adding anything productive to it.

00:34:46.000 You're creating something worse to try and replace it.

00:34:49.000 That as a writer, as a storyteller, that really offends me because I hate to see other people's work get taken advantage of.

00:34:57.000 Yeah, nice one, mate.

00:34:58.000 We've got some good questions.

00:34:59.000 This is some stuff from our community.

00:35:01.000 Donny Jep, question for the drinker.

00:35:03.000 Do you think there'll be a time in the future when Hollywood is making great movies again?

00:35:06.000 Or do you think that that time has passed and something else like gaming will take its place?

00:35:11.000 I think we're going to see a lot of gaming adaptations.

00:35:14.000 The Last of Us was a real benchmark for that.

00:35:17.000 I think we're going to see a lot more movie or TV show adaptations of video games because it's a massive, massive market.

00:35:24.000 But I think also the time of this mega blockbuster that cost $300 million is coming to an end.

00:35:30.000 And I think we're going to see a lot more smaller things that they take more risks on.

00:35:34.000 And yeah, they're going to have to start making better stuff.

00:35:36.000 Otherwise, they will just go bankrupt.

00:35:38.000 Yeah, that's interesting because that's almost like decentralised, localised movie audiences, the same way that everything is perhaps becoming federalised in that way.

00:35:48.000 This is from Barry John Fox.

00:35:50.000 Alright Critical Drinker, what are your top five films and have you seen all of David Lynch's films?

00:35:56.000 I have not seen all of David Lynch's films, no, but he does some good stuff, but like, yeah, he goes down some disturbing roads with his things.

00:36:03.000 Top five films, it's definitely not going to be done in terms of artistic merit or anything, but probably Terminator 2, Big Trouble in Little China, I think probably The Menu.

00:36:17.000 I really love that.

00:36:21.000 Uh, probably Nightcrawler, and yeah, I'm not sure what my last one would be.

00:36:25.000 I'll come back to that one in a minute.

00:36:27.000 The menu, the recent movie, the menu.

00:36:29.000 Yeah.

00:36:29.000 I ain't seen that.

00:36:31.000 It's really good.

00:36:32.000 Really interesting.

00:36:33.000 It's a very good critique of how we understand art.

00:36:36.000 Are you gonna do a video on My Arthur remake?

00:36:41.000 My Arthur?

00:36:42.000 My Arthur!

00:36:43.000 My Arthur!

00:36:47.000 When I remade the film offer now, maybe not offer what about game today?

00:36:51.000 I want to see a video by you on game to the Greek or Sarah Marshall and the last thing the last thing I want to see is alpha maybe I don't even want to see the my Like, when you were saying that stuff about reboots, I was thinking, oh man.

00:37:06.000 Like, because I love Dudley Moore.

00:37:08.000 I loved ARFA, the original film.

00:37:10.000 And I see, actually, in a way, that I've got an inside scoop on how that stuff happens.

00:37:14.000 Like, you know, I've done a few successful movies in Hollywood.

00:37:17.000 They recognize that there's a window for me, a moment for me.

00:37:21.000 Like, they've got the rights to ARFA.

00:37:23.000 cheap to do it then they say you know what I found out afterwards is that they were going

00:37:28.000 to make before Dudley Moore done ARFA they were going to make it with Belushi with John

00:37:33.000 Belushi like and I thought like after when it was too late when they you know when the

00:37:37.000 damage been done I found I was like oh that's the version of ARFA you want to do is a 18

00:37:42.000 or R registered version.

00:37:44.000 Like that's almost, you can see another take on that, but they, because it's economically motivated, they want it to be PG.

00:37:52.000 It gets softened to the point where you can't even show him drink driving, you know, like how can you, you know, and at the time I'm thinking this ain't gonna work.

00:37:58.000 And also, someone should have told me, don't do that voice.

00:38:02.000 Those two things could have saved us all a lot of time and trouble.

00:38:06.000 I'm not going to push you to make videos on films that I've done.

00:38:10.000 That's mental.

00:38:10.000 I can't even believe I brought it up.

00:38:11.000 I'm crazy.

00:38:12.000 Vulcan Liv says, Critical Drinker, I'm more excited about this than Dorsey, Tucker, or RFK.

00:38:17.000 And then TNBaseGirl says, his eyes look blue to me, but Russell said brown.

00:38:21.000 Oh, maybe they are blue.

00:38:23.000 Yeah.

00:38:23.000 Yeah, they are.

00:38:23.000 Hold on.

00:38:24.000 Oh, you've got the eyes of a husky. 0.99

00:38:28.000 Pure killer! 0.95

00:38:31.000 Oh, but this from Thomas Beard.

00:38:32.000 Getting to the Greek is like fine wine.

00:38:34.000 It gets better with age.

00:38:35.000 What film that I've been in or done are you willing to be nice about?

00:38:40.000 It might be Getting to the Greek, actually.

00:38:42.000 It got a chocolate out of me back in the day.

00:38:44.000 So, yeah, it's been a good long time since I've seen it, but I do remember quite enjoying it.

00:38:49.000 Well, you better watch it again.

00:38:50.000 Come on, mate.

00:38:50.000 Let's try and build a relationship here.

00:38:52.000 Instant Drinker recommends!

00:38:55.000 Um, okay, so what do you think about stuff like, um, the re-editing of the Roald Dahl books and the sort of conversation around, like, life of Brian and change and stuff like that?

00:39:06.000 Where do you stand on that, mate? 0.98

00:39:07.000 It makes me fucking sick. 0.92

00:39:09.000 I hate this idea of, uh, we need to, like, soften and we need to start altering these movies from the past without the permission of the people who made them, uh, just to make them more palatable to modern audiences, because God forbid someone might get offended by them somewhere. 0.99

00:39:21.000 Uh, no, leave them the fuck alone. 1.00

00:39:24.000 As far as I'm concerned, yeah, these are works of art. 0.99

00:39:27.000 They should be left alone as they were intended to be shown.

00:39:30.000 Yeah both with like in the case of Roald Dahl and in the case like because I know that people well Roald Dahl has in interviews outside of his fiction said some like overtly anti-semitic stuff like he's said some mad shit but like I mean but like within the work he doesn't say that in like Matilda or like Charlie in the Chocolate Factory like that like and again it's what people like Do you know why that happened?

00:39:58.000 I think Netflix did a deal and bought the Roald Dahl estate.

00:40:01.000 Netflix was like, oh shit, we live in this sort of territory where those things are monetized and mobilized, i.e. 0.96

00:40:09.000 issues around identity. 0.95

00:40:10.000 Let's push for the Roald Dahl estate to reissue those books with edits and stuff and I feel like I even like you know when I'm

00:40:19.000 I would never use the n-word I would never make a racist joke I like I'm against racism I'm

00:40:24.000 against hatred uh but like I feel like you know like Enid Blighton books and in a sense these are

00:40:30.000 artifacts of their time it's interesting because this cannibalism we talked about earlier like that

00:40:37.000 they have to use IP in order to keep their economic models going is in a sense what the culture

00:40:42.000 is doing anyway.

00:40:43.000 It's what the whole culture is pulling itself apart.

00:40:46.000 It's pulling itself apart without recognizing actually what you're gonna have to do if you continue down this line is you're gonna have to have a Totally different set of principles almost around everything.

00:40:56.000 You can't, you know, like the royal family, our whole class structure, everything is predicated on colonialism, imperialism.

00:41:02.000 You'd like, in a sense, you, as Kehinde Andrews, who's a sort of a professor of black studies that I've spoken to, is that once you start this conversation, you cannot have Great Britain.

00:41:11.000 Like, it's gone.

00:41:13.000 So it's like, you've got to work out where this, you know, what the deal is, you know?

00:41:18.000 I mean, I'm not a big fan of trying to erase history or trying to alter it to make it more palatable to people.

00:41:24.000 'Cause it's like you're trying to pretend that things, like mistakes that were made in the past

00:41:29.000 didn't actually exist.

00:41:30.000 And so it's like, you can't, there's like the good and the bad that comes with it.

00:41:35.000 And I think you should just be honest about this stuff.

00:41:37.000 And it filters through to movies and things like that.

00:41:40.000 Like you can look at movies that were made like "Gone with the Wind" or whatever

00:41:44.000 back in the 30s and 40s.

00:41:46.000 Yeah, they don't align with our current standards or our current like cultural zeitgeist,

00:41:53.000 but they're not meant to because they were made in a very different time,

00:41:55.000 but we respect the time in which they were made.

00:41:57.000 And we can look back on them now and say, well, yeah, okay, that's changed since then,

00:42:02.000 but it deserves to be shown because it's an artifact from when it was made.

00:42:06.000 Mate, thank you so much.

00:42:07.000 You're quite right.

00:42:08.000 It's pretty plain that all of your work comes from a place of genuine love of cinema and storytelling and, as you say, the currency of authenticity.

00:42:16.000 Thanks so much, Will, for joining us on the show.

00:42:19.000 I really hope we get to do some more stuff.

00:42:20.000 I'd love to come on your show if you'll have me.

00:42:22.000 Thank you so much for making time for us.

00:42:24.000 Absolutely.

00:42:25.000 Thank you, man.

00:42:25.000 It's been a pleasure.

00:42:26.000 Stay free with Russell Brand.

00:42:27.000 See you first on Rumble.

00:42:29.000 We can't make our wonderful content or put on events like Community without our wonderful sponsors.

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Stay Free - Russel Brand - July 14, 2023

The Critical Drinker

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