The Auron MacIntyre Show - The Secret to Right-Wing Films ｜ Guest： Last Things ｜ 12⧸12⧸23

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00:00:30.420 Hey everybody, how's it going?

00:00:32.260 Thanks for joining me this afternoon.

00:00:33.700 I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy. 0.97

00:00:38.480 So, movies today, they're garbage. 0.81

00:00:42.320 I think we all kind of know that. 0.98

00:00:43.960 Everything is paused.

00:00:45.140 Everything is wildly left-wing.

00:00:46.900 Everything is incredibly boring and stuffed with the message.

00:00:51.160 And we're all just really tired of it.

00:00:53.460 However, there are gyms that still come out.

00:00:56.520 And of course, there are a lot of films throughout Hollywood history that really speak to kind of the right-wing ethos, the kind of world that many people want to build out of the ashes of kind of the clown world that we have today.

00:01:11.480 And so, I wanted to talk to my buddy, Last Things, because he is running a film festival.

00:01:17.560 He interviewed a whole bunch of people, myself included, about some of their favorite movies or TV shows.

00:01:22.240 And he's gotten a good idea of what it looks like to have a good film culture, to look at what makes a movie right-wing and how we might look at those films going forward.

00:01:32.940 Last thing, thanks for coming on, man.

00:01:34.520 Oren, thank you.

00:01:36.680 It's a pleasure to be on your show once again.

00:01:40.660 And thank you again for participating in the first annual Last Picture Shows Film Festival.

00:01:46.640 Yeah, I've had a lot of fun.

00:01:47.920 And it's been great to listen to some of my favorites.

00:01:50.540 Many people who have been guests on this show come on and talk about some of their films.

00:01:54.720 There's so many reasons that people picked films.

00:01:57.080 And so, it was really fun to kind of dig into why people were addressing the films that they were looking at.

00:02:03.040 Yeah, absolutely.

00:02:04.800 And we had a few people, I think two or three, who did, you included, did elected TV shows as well.

00:02:11.760 You, of course, did Battlestar Galactica, which is a fantastic show.

00:02:17.800 It's one of our better reviews.

00:02:20.980 I'm still very proud of my thumbnail that I made of Admiral Adama with a word balloon saying,

00:02:26.880 don't make me tap the sign.

00:02:28.220 I think that one will, I'll get, I'll make a poster of it and you can hang it up in your studio.

00:02:33.440 Excellent.

00:02:33.920 Yeah, we'll throw it back and, you know, replace one of the albums here.

00:02:37.060 All right, guys.

00:02:37.480 Well, we're going to dive into the film festival.

00:02:39.680 And more importantly, what makes a movie right wing, why right wingers are drawn to certain movies

00:02:45.600 and what we can kind of draw, what conclusions we can draw from those.

00:02:49.640 But before we do, let's hear a little bit from today's sponsor.

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00:04:29.540 All right, so films are obviously a critical part of any kind of cultural movement here

00:04:38.320 since their inception. There are always art forms that are critical to driving culture, but

00:04:44.100 pretty much since the movie has been around, it has been central to any kind of aesthetic

00:04:50.380 movement, any kind of cultural movement that wants to grab the zeitgeist. Now, conservatives

00:04:56.160 have notoriously had a difficult time making good movies, and part of that is, of course,

00:05:02.100 the pool of talent available, willing to work with them. Another part of it is the funding,

00:05:08.100 those kind of things. But also, there might be something to the creative process. We might get

00:05:13.740 into that a little bit as to why that's been so difficult. But I think something just as important

00:05:19.760 to that is developing a culture of being able to analyze and critique films. You were talking to me

00:05:26.500 a little bit before we got on as to kind of the modes of that and the way that people are looking

00:05:31.340 at that. Obviously, you had a film festival interviewing a bunch of right-wing creators,

00:05:36.460 personalities, who are looking at some of their films and addressing that. How should people go about,

00:05:43.060 or what are some of the main modes when it comes to going about criticizing movies and trying to

00:05:48.060 understand what they mean, their strengths and their weaknesses?

00:05:51.660 Absolutely, Oren. Yeah. Yeah. So I basically, I began the film festival by reaching out to,

00:05:59.360 my hope and intention was to have 30 unique guests review 30 films of their choice. I actually wound up

00:06:06.500 with 40, just because some people I invited initially didn't get back to me until 30 days later. So,

00:06:12.360 you know, it got bigger than I anticipated. But my instructions for my guests were really,

00:06:18.380 you know, you didn't have to pick a movie that you felt was right-wing per se. You didn't have to

00:06:24.880 pick a movie, nor did you have to pick a movie that was left-wing and you felt it was subversive

00:06:30.600 so that we could sort of deconstruct the propaganda. My only real requirements were that

00:06:36.080 they felt like you could have an interesting conversation with it for an hour or two.

00:06:42.700 And you felt it was important and significant enough in some way to be analyzed. And people

00:06:50.780 went a lot of different directions. I kind of had a running joke during the, while I was promoting

00:06:57.740 the film festival that, you know, inviting 30 dissidents to do a film festival, everybody's just

00:07:03.140 going to pick Conan the Barbarian. And I did, we did have one guest to do Conan the Barbarian,

00:07:09.760 but it was actually a really large spread of movies. Some, you know, as far back as the,

00:07:18.460 from the 1950s, some very, very contemporary, some children's films, some foreign films, some domestic.

00:07:27.100 So it really did run the gamut in terms of what people wanted to discuss and, and why people wanted

00:07:34.440 to, to discuss films. I think for me, I'm curious to get your, if you would agree or disagree, Oren,

00:07:42.500 I sort of start with two major kind of categories or approaches when, when it comes to film criticism.

00:07:49.300 Um, the first one I could maybe, I could, I can contrast it to kind of Thomas Carlyle,

00:07:56.980 which would just be like the, the great man theory of cinema. This is what gets commonly referred to,

00:08:03.560 um, it as auteur cinema. And I mean, we, we think about tour cinema, you might think of something like,

00:08:10.820 um, like Wes Anderson, something that has a very sort of unique, distinct visual style. That's auteur

00:08:16.920 cinema. There's just a very specific kind of flavor to, to a movie. Um, and that's certainly true,

00:08:23.600 but I think at a, at a deeper level for me, auteur cinema just means a director that has sort of

00:08:31.500 complete control over their, their film in that it is saying what they want it to say. And they are not,

00:08:41.480 uh, they're not beholden to power in any way. This is not a regime film. This is not propaganda that

00:08:48.960 you've been hired to produce. Um, and the, the author is in some ways, a typical auteur director

00:08:57.360 is somebody who's often at odds with power or at odds with the regime and their, their film,

00:09:03.860 which they maintain control over, um, has their voice, their, their, their message, their,

00:09:10.180 their sentiments within it. Um, and then, I mean, you know, this is the kind of films that people

00:09:16.800 call films, right? Although I don't think it has to necessarily be art house to, to, to qualify in

00:09:23.600 this first kind of category where you're just going to talk, if you're going to review a great film,

00:09:28.180 your job is to help people understand why it's great and why the, the director was able to execute

00:09:34.580 on their vision. Right. So that's my, my first kind of bucket. My second bucket is, um, what I've come

00:09:42.240 to refer to as sort of the, the accidental genius to be quite honest. You know, if you're asking the

00:09:49.320 question, you know, how to survive, um, you know, the, the, the current, the current year, um, with the,

00:09:57.440 the dearth of kind of truly original, um, films, you know, one way is to look for the accidentally,

00:10:05.600 uh, right-wing messages. Um, sometimes movies that are, are very obviously and transparently

00:10:13.400 kind of left-wing and are being, being produced and manipulated by, by power, by the sort of framework

00:10:22.440 instantiated by a political regime can accidentally, um, reveal very right-wing messages or, um, or have

00:10:34.800 kind of interesting right-wing themes unbeknownst to themselves. You know, they might have left-wing

00:10:39.780 characters and right-wing characters, and you're supposed to identify with the, the progressives

00:10:45.040 and despise the right-wingers. And then the right-winger actually winds up being the most kind of noble

00:10:50.820 and sympathetic, uh, character on screen. So I think there are genres, but, but those are kind of

00:10:59.360 my two main ways that I, I frame or I approach film criticism. Yeah. I think a lot of people could

00:11:05.520 identify the, the second one pretty often, right? There are these truths that if you're just observing

00:11:11.440 the world and you're putting it on film, you have to be very careful not to communicate certain

00:11:17.500 aspects of reality, because if you do, they might reveal the truth, right? So you're slathering

00:11:22.680 everything in propaganda, but if you go ahead and put certain things on film, uh, that even if you,

00:11:29.020 if you're trying to be subversive, it's something classic, like about this is like starship troopers,

00:11:33.320 which is supposed to be a farce. It's supposed to be a subversion of the Heinle novel. It's supposed

00:11:37.640 to be showing how ugly, you know, or, you know, he, he, the Paul Vanderhoeven thought it was,

00:11:42.840 you know, a fascistic novel. It isn't, but, but either way, you know, he's trying to portray it

00:11:48.140 as something awful. And it turns out if you put a bunch of really good looking people doing heroic

00:11:53.460 things, um, you know, and like banding together to fight for a cause, uh, that actually is just

00:11:58.640 the aspirational desire of every 15 year old boy. And so it actually just becomes, you know,

00:12:04.620 the, the, the secretly based movie. So I think a lot of people can recognize that phenomenon

00:12:09.900 for sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great, that's a, that's a great and a, and a classic example. And

00:12:16.640 lucky for me, the, um, the messaging when I saw starship troopers probably as like a teenager went

00:12:22.440 completely and utterly over my head. Um, it is interesting. And I guess one kind of cohort

00:12:29.160 of films that I noticed, uh, I'd say that the, one of the largest groups of films that were a lot

00:12:35.460 from the nineties. And that, that may just be a result of having invited a lot of millennials to

00:12:41.420 participate in the film festival, but there are a lot of films. You probably have these in your own

00:12:46.700 life or in where, you know, you may have watched them as a younger man or, or growing up and just

00:12:53.240 kind of enjoyed them or took them to be kind of superficial entertainment. But then you, when you

00:12:58.660 return to them, uh, after the veil has been lifted or you've had certain kind of political

00:13:03.760 epiphanies, uh, they, they, they land very differently for you. And there were a number of,

00:13:11.600 of, of films that, um, that have that kind of accidental genius quality. Um, you know, a few that

00:13:18.260 come to mind that people interrogated were, um, Chocolat. That's a movie with Juliette Binoche

00:13:24.020 from the early two thousands. Um, a more, one of the more contemporary films was everything,

00:13:30.160 everywhere, all at once. Um, a lot of accidentally, uh, uh, interesting things were said in that film

00:13:39.420 about kind of multiculturalism despite its, its, its intentions. Um, so I think a lot of people were

00:13:46.280 having that, uh, revisiting films that they even maybe had a certain sentimentality for and nostalgia

00:13:52.480 for, but land very differently. Now, another one, um, uh, Aristophanes, one of my guests, uh, reviewed

00:14:01.280 the postman, uh, which was kind of a classic nineties action movie. Um, which I remember watching

00:14:08.900 as a teenager without, with as little self-reflection as I did Starship Troopers, but, um,

00:14:15.400 returning to it now it is, it is, uh, all I can say is that, you know, Kevin Costner earned that

00:14:23.020 the HickLib meme, um, way before he did Yellowstone. It was all there in the nineties with the postman.

00:14:31.460 So, I mean, he did dances with wolves. So if you can't, if you can't pick it up there,

00:14:35.560 then I don't know what to tell you, but yeah, no, it, it is interesting, you know, because of course,

00:14:40.460 like you said, we look at these films and, and the nineties is an interesting time because

00:14:44.900 obviously we, we like to think, we like to think of all of these films kind of previous

00:14:52.180 to the woke era as more based, right. Or more, you know, more grounded in reality. And of course

00:14:57.700 they were, but they were subversive for their time too. Right. In many ways we're, we're projecting

00:15:03.480 back our, we're thinking, oh, well, my, my version of liberalism from the nineties was fine. You know,

00:15:09.440 this is when things were still, you could still say things or, or, or even, you know, the seventies

00:15:14.640 or something, but those movies were of course subverting orders that existed before them. 0.99

00:15:19.520 So it's kind of this continue, continuous train of like, when you feel like enough truth could

00:15:24.980 have gotten through, but I feel like the nineties, there was a break of course, where I, where

00:15:29.880 I feel like the nineties is the last time where the, there was at least this allusion to neutrality.

00:15:35.320 And so I think you still have a lot of those films, like you said, of course, part of it

00:15:39.700 is the demographic you're inviting to have that discussion. But there's also certainly

00:15:44.220 a shift where it feels like kind of post this era, we, we need to, we need to inject

00:15:49.860 things into all of this. You, you had less opportunity to accidentally, you know, make

00:15:55.420 certain statements, but, but even in those films, it's still a large amount of people trying

00:16:01.800 to force a particular agenda across. It just, it just didn't have to enter into every form

00:16:07.060 of entertainment at every opportunity. Right. Yeah. Right. Well, well, well said,

00:16:11.880 Oren. I certainly did have this. I, it's funny. I, I think I had this, I had more pride in the

00:16:17.840 nineties and nineties cinema before I began the film festival. I was like, you know, back

00:16:21.960 in the nineties, they never did this. I remember my old movies. I'm going to go back and watch

00:16:25.680 them. Oh no. Oh, I didn't remember that. So it did, it did kill some of my darlings to go 0.97

00:16:35.740 back and kind of revisit, revisit a lot of films. But you know, another part of not nineties

00:16:41.480 nostalgia that came up in a lot of the movies was not just the cinema itself, but a lot of

00:16:48.980 films that kind of depicted this just kind of normal middle American suburban middle-class

00:16:58.840 culture. Um, yeah, I, I did, uh, one of our mutual friends that you've had on your channel,

00:17:04.200 zero HP Lovecraft, uh, chose, chose groundhog day. And one of the things that we wound up discussing

00:17:09.920 for a while about that movie was actually just not even the like, you know, weird metaphysics

00:17:14.660 of the film as much as just Puxitani, this tiny sort of Pennsylvania town. Um, it's not something

00:17:22.580 you see in, in movies anymore. And, you know, part of that just might be because these towns

00:17:27.220 themselves are like, you know, dealing with the opioid crisis or, you know, industry has

00:17:33.420 collapsed, but it's just strange to see, to go back and watch some of these films where there seems

00:17:39.700 like this wholesome, uh, local economy and high trust suburban towns. You know, I can't really recall

00:17:52.360 the last time I saw something like that in a contemporary film or if I did, it was like,

00:17:58.640 you know, ironic or something to be deconstructed. Right. Yeah. That's the thing is that nothing will

00:18:04.300 put you off the myth of progress quite so quickly as like moving through different decades of

00:18:09.760 entertainment and recognizing the, the norms that have been completely stripped away. You know,

00:18:14.920 just, just the fact that, yeah, of course you have a nice town with intact families, uh, you know,

00:18:20.720 the, the dad's able to work, the mom's able to stay home. This, this isn't the, the 1950s is still

00:18:25.560 the nineties where there's these options still exist for people. You'd still expect to have to

00:18:31.020 know your neighbors and, and have a functional church and, and those kinds of things that just

00:18:35.940 aren't, aren't going to exist later on in, in your media, unless like you said, they're about to be

00:18:42.280 deconstructed by the people involved. That's actually something I wanted to ask you about too.

00:18:47.240 You mentioned earlier, you know, the kind of, you have your auteur filmmakers, and then you kind

00:18:51.900 of have like your, more of your popcorn movies and the auteur can, can work against the regime

00:18:57.800 because they have the level of control necessary, but the, the film or rather the kind of the popcorn

00:19:03.540 movies, they have to be almost accidentally subversive because they're playing to more of

00:19:08.140 the crowd and they have more of the studio involvement. And so when, when they happen to be

00:19:12.840 based or right-wing, it's a little more of an accidental situation, but I wanted to dive a

00:19:17.100 little bit more into the auteur phenomenon because I think more and more that the, the ability of

00:19:22.140 auteurs to do the very thing you're describing has fallen away. And so, so I wanted to touch on

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00:20:55.500 All right. So, uh, kind of the auteur movies, like you said, they, they have the ability at least at

00:21:03.400 one time to kind of break away from the mainstream. They're getting to say something, craft the message.

00:21:08.600 It's not just there for entertainment though. Obviously that's a critical part of it, but their

00:21:13.260 ability to not have to take notes from the studio, to not be a movie by committee, to not have that

00:21:18.700 massive, Hey, I better get a, you know, $300 million or something at the box office means that they,

00:21:23.880 they kind of get to make a singular vision and carry that through. And that, that gives them a

00:21:28.880 certain degree of separation from the powers that be. Now, obviously back when the powers that be

00:21:34.160 were, you know, probably more, it's still, you know, subversive, but a little more, you know,

00:21:38.940 conservative, at least with what could be allowed by the culture that meant that the auteur filmmaker

00:21:43.740 could, could break the boundaries of, I don't know, Reagan-esque, you know, censorship or,

00:21:48.520 or that kind of thing. That's what they would have thought of as, as kind of being outside of the

00:21:53.320 boundaries. But today it feels like it's increasingly difficult for an auteur filmmaker to even break

00:21:59.820 free of that stuff. They're kind of the, the political correctness even inside those films,

00:22:05.820 because it's so critical to them, even ascending to the point at which they would be allowed to

00:22:11.240 make a movie like that, where they would have that kind of freedom. Can you think of some more

00:22:17.300 recent auteur films that really got to break from kind of the, the, the message and, and do something

00:22:23.580 that may have been a little more right-wing today? Oh boy. Yeah. It's a tough, that's a really tough

00:22:29.400 question, Oren. And I should, I mean, I should mention too, you know, just, just because a, a film

00:22:35.100 really is, is an auteur film. It's, it's no guarantee that, um, that, that they will be right-wing.

00:22:41.640 Although I do, um, we can circle back to this at some point. I do. I'm, I'm, I'm one of these

00:22:46.060 people who is a great skeptic about the idea that, you know, all the great artists are, are left wing

00:22:51.460 and somehow, uh, you know, art or, or movies is, is a deficit of, of, of the right. We can dive into

00:22:58.760 that. I, somebody asked me this question recently, and I, I hate to, um, kind of say it and I hope it

00:23:05.240 doesn't sound like a dodge, but you know, a lot of the different countries, different nations,

00:23:11.820 different areas of the world kind of have their own, their own renaissances or their own periods

00:23:17.200 where certain art forms kind of flourish. Uh, you know, the novel is, is something that kind of

00:23:23.060 traveled from, from France to Russia and kind of traveled across Europe and gave us different

00:23:28.700 periods of, of, of masterpieces. And I will say that I think Korea, Korean cinema right now,

00:23:35.580 Korean cinema, cinema has always been very interesting, but, um, I think that they've been going

00:23:40.180 through a bit of a, um, a kind of golden era, um, with films like, uh, Parasite or it's a bit old at

00:23:49.420 this point, but old boy, that's another film that got, um, discussed, uh, during this festival. So I,

00:23:56.280 I, I have to say, you know, if people go abroad, they might have an easier time trying to find things

00:24:04.520 that have, uh, have greater freedom. I mean, there are real kind of maverick filmmakers like David Lynch

00:24:11.700 who, uh, or, or Terrence Malick, who, uh, neither of whom I would consider to be left-wing by the way,

00:24:18.880 I think they would, they would be, um, an example I would offer as counter examples to, to needing to

00:24:24.900 be left-wing to be an artist, um, who I think get a lot of private funding for their movies. Um, I think

00:24:31.620 they have to struggle to, to, to pull their films off. Um, uh, and it, it takes a very long time for

00:24:37.640 them to kind of gather the, the necessary resources. Um, but I can't say that there's anybody that's

00:24:44.400 just absolutely working outside of the system. That's, that's crushing it. I don't know if you

00:24:51.060 have anybody in mind. Um, no, I w I was just interested to pick your mind on that. Cause I was

00:24:57.180 thinking, so there are two directors that are not outside the system at all because they're making

00:25:02.800 giant blockbusters, but seem to consistently make blockbusters that don't fit into the Hollywood

00:25:09.580 narrative that come to mind. And that would be Christopher Nolan and, uh, and Velen, Velenove. I

00:25:15.120 forget how to say properly, but, but I thought it was interesting that both of the, uh, two of

00:25:21.240 Velenove's, uh, recent, recent movies were reviewed during your film festival. The, the, uh, uh, the,

00:25:29.940 the new Dune movie, of course. And then, um, I'm trying to say cyberpunk, but it's not cyberpunk.

00:25:35.340 I don't know why I can't. Oh, Blade Runner. Blade Runner. Thank you. 2049. Yeah. The thing that gave

00:25:40.740 birth to cyberpunk, but, but yeah, Blade Runner 2049, both of these movies certainly have left-wing

00:25:47.680 themes, you know, they, they, you could speak about ecology or, uh, you know, different, different,

00:25:53.380 uh, you know, maybe feminist aspects in, in, uh, Blade Runner, but it's very interesting that both

00:25:59.040 of these films, while having massive budgets, you know, being huge blockbusters with huge amount of

00:26:05.480 attention to them don't seem to sit quite right when it comes to the message. You know, they seem to be

00:26:11.020 bringing a different feel. I don't know what his, his personal politics are, but he seems to be

00:26:16.640 choosing stories over and over again that, that brings something that doesn't quite fit into the

00:26:21.260 framework of kind of the left-wing message inside, which should be, you know, basically,

00:26:26.280 you know, popcorn blockbusters. Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's, that's very true. Um, I think that,

00:26:33.060 uh, um, Astral, who's, who's the, the guest that discussed Blade Runner 2049. I think this kind of

00:26:40.720 fits into one of these categories that I call the, the literally me category. A lot of people pick

00:26:45.600 films because they, they thought this really epitomized our, our current cultural moment and,

00:26:51.660 um, Ryan Gosling in that film as this sort of, um, completely and utterly atomized man. Um, and

00:27:00.760 granted he's a, he's a replicant, he's not quite a human, but, um, of course, Ryan Gosling has been

00:27:06.160 memed into probably more than any other human being into, uh, uh, uh, uh, right-wing memes. A lot of those,

00:27:14.400 those stills of, of Gosling are from, uh, Blade Runner 2049. So I think that film does

00:27:22.080 approach that in an interesting way. And it's, I think what might allow it to get away with that

00:27:27.840 is the fact that it is this sequel to an earlier movie. And it's still very much its own, its own

00:27:35.440 film. Although I think a lot of the same kind of tone and imagery, um, can be traced back to,

00:27:41.960 to, to, to Blade Runner, but the fact that it's kind of a get unlimited grocery delivery with PC

00:27:47.980 Express pass meal prep delivered snacks delivered fresh fruit delivered grocery delivery on repeat

00:27:56.500 for just $2 and 50 cents a month. Learn more at PC express.ca. Yeah. A sequel might've opened the

00:28:04.080 door for that a little bit. Um, in terms of Christopher Nolan, I know that this is also,

00:28:09.480 you know, Bane is, I guess, a more passe meme nowadays, but, um, I, I think people talk endlessly

00:28:17.720 about the, the bat, the, the Nolan Batman trilogy, um, which I don't know if you have thoughts or

00:28:25.240 opinions on it. Um, I think I, I heard it described once as, uh, and I think I agree with this as sort of

00:28:32.620 a, a, a neocons, uh, a neocon fantasy in that, um, Batman is sort of this neocon figure where you

00:28:41.840 have these, the three villains like Ra's al Ghul, the Joker and Bane as these much more sort of, um,

00:28:48.160 aristocratic and reactionary characters, um, going up against this, this more kind of, I don't know,

00:28:56.540 classic conservatism in Batman. And it does seem to me that everybody, uh, for all three of those

00:29:04.000 movies, people talk more about the, the villains and kind of find them more, more memorable and

00:29:10.140 compelling. And, you know, that may be the case kind of like in, in paradise lost where like, you

00:29:14.940 know, Lucifer gets the best lines in the poem. But, um, but yeah, I don't know. It's, uh, I think

00:29:21.420 people are more mesmerized by the villains in that trilogy than they are necessarily Batman and

00:29:30.480 often his sort of overcoming of, of both the villains themselves, as well as their, their

00:29:35.500 philosophy or their sort of moral, moral problems that they're putting before Batman as the defender

00:29:42.020 of Gotham. I don't think he necessarily has an answer for them. Right. That's what I was going to say.

00:29:48.800 Yeah. He flies in in the last five minutes and like jump kicks them and they, and, and wins.

00:29:54.640 Yeah. It feels, it's a good point. Cause it feels like in all of those movies, yeah, they are

00:29:59.920 presenting this, uh, this worldview. And it is interesting that all three of those villains in

00:30:06.060 one way or another do have a more reactionary understanding of, of kind of the problems that

00:30:11.840 are facing Gotham and the solutions that should be applied. And he is always just kind of bringing

00:30:16.920 this like good shepherd, like, well, yeah, but I can probably just, you know, I have to do some

00:30:21.760 things that they don't, that they don't like, but otherwise, you know, civilization can more or less

00:30:26.960 kind of putter along the way that it's supposed to. And it's my job to kind of, kind of keep these

00:30:31.100 people afloat. And in every one of those scenarios, even though they're, you know, framing him, you know,

00:30:36.640 these really difficult questions of kind of what civilization should be and, and whether it's worthy of

00:30:42.980 Gotham to continue and those kinds of things, he never answers those questions. Yeah. It's, it's always

00:30:47.080 just very much like, well, yeah, but also like you're wrong. And so, you know, or you have to

00:30:53.240 trust me on this or something. And then, yeah, just some, some bad device solves the problem and we move

00:30:57.420 on. Christopher Nolan is one of those, um, mysteries to me though, because I can never tell how, how

00:31:04.940 self-aware he is. I mean, maybe he's somebody that I kind of have to place in, in a gray zone. I can't

00:31:11.420 say that I think he's, he's necessarily this, um, you know, cunning genius in this, you know,

00:31:19.940 the, the manner in which we're discussing and describing Batman was his, his blueprint all

00:31:25.780 along. Or if these are just things that kind of snuck into the, to the films on their own.

00:31:31.260 Yeah. But I mean, the accidental base thing, right. It has to be, it has to be part of that,

00:31:34.820 no matter what, when you're going to be discussing, cause, cause Nolan due to his kind of auteur

00:31:40.220 background, you know, back when he's making memento and things like that, he's, he can't

00:31:45.660 just go in and, you know, have Batman like break out the bat credit card. Like you're not going to

00:31:50.560 have that, you know, that level of schmaltz. And so like, he's got to try to say something in these

00:31:56.460 movies, but we're like, what does Batman say? You know, and there's really no, I don't think

00:32:01.640 there's a way to, you know, to kind of bring his interaction with those villains in without having

00:32:08.500 to address questions that, that are fundamentally going to bring a certain based worldview, at least

00:32:14.460 on screen, even if that, that worldview gets, you know, defeated by a random explosion and,

00:32:19.380 you know, nothing else, you're going to have to entertain some of those questions. If you want

00:32:24.640 your movie to go beyond like Arnold Schwarzenegger telling everyone chill. And so I think that that's

00:32:30.820 kind of like why that ends up being the case, even if, even if that's not his master plan to

00:32:35.780 communicate some, you know, subversive base message, I just think it's, once again, impossible for

00:32:41.540 certain aspects of reality to break through when you're discussing that character.

00:32:45.660 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But no, you, I mean, I think Villeneuve and Nolan are definitely two of

00:32:53.080 the more interesting directors at work currently. I mean, I think Villeneuve is French Canadian,

00:33:01.460 so I can't say they're domestic directors, but their stuff is worth, worth examining. You know,

00:33:10.180 I think another, a lot of films that are, are actually older still were selected because people

00:33:16.100 felt like they had something to say about our current moment. T.R. Hudson selected The Searchers,

00:33:24.720 which is probably John Ford's classic Western. I would say John Ford exhibit number,

00:33:31.440 number three for, you know, directors do not have to be lefties. He's pretty, and David Lynch

00:33:38.620 actually played him in The Fablemans. He, he, he guest starred as, as John Ford in that recent

00:33:44.980 biopic about Steven Spielberg's childhood. But that, that movie's from the late fifties. It's probably the

00:33:54.320 most famous Western. But I think part of why T.R. Hudson chose it is that he kind of felt like a lot of

00:34:01.420 men with right-leaning sensibilities find themselves in, in a circumstance, very similar to, to Ethan,

00:34:09.100 John Wayne's character in that film, sort of trapped between, in, in this kind of liminal,

00:34:15.320 liminal space between civilizations. You know, he's not quite at home in, within civilization,

00:34:23.440 nor is he necessarily part of the, the wild, um, and, uh, kind of caught between nature and,

00:34:33.120 and culture. And, uh, I think that film, despite being almost, at what, 70 years old, practically,

00:34:41.580 uh, was a very interesting film to, to, to use as kind of a lens to consider kind of current issues.

00:34:51.400 Yeah. It's interesting that, you know, so much of the Western, of course, is that contrast. It's that,

00:34:57.340 uh, you know, a guy who's out on the prairie or, or, you know, somehow, you know, on the trail,

00:35:03.640 cutting, cutting a way of life for himself, uh, you know, that otherwise wouldn't be able

00:35:08.800 to exist inside of civilization and then civilization kind of catching up with him.

00:35:14.280 This is the story of course, of like the man who shot Liberty Valance or, or Deadwood, or, you know,

00:35:19.240 like any, any of these classic Westerns, this is, this is a theme that I think is, is, is pretty

00:35:23.760 baked into the, uh, the genre itself. And it's interesting because you wonder if that genre,

00:35:31.960 you know, I mean, of course they still make Westerns today. Uh, much of the Western just played

00:35:36.520 out due to the, the, you know, the glut of them. It was the comic book movie of the day.

00:35:40.520 Many people have made that, that kind of connection between those, those two genres that there's

00:35:45.220 just so, so much that it burned out. But you also wonder if it's that, you know, you're no

00:35:50.760 longer allowed to let young men kind of see a space in which they, you know, would not enter

00:35:58.160 into kind of the long house, right. Would not enter into the domain of, of civilization where

00:36:03.420 there is an existence and men would find a preferable. Like they could, of course could

00:36:08.080 have stayed, you know, in the East, they could have stayed in large cities. They could have

00:36:12.320 stayed in a domestic life, but they would rather, you know, sleep on a bed roll out somewhere,

00:36:16.600 you know, in, in the West, uh, you know, because that, that was worth the kind of the, uh, their

00:36:23.240 independence and, you know, being able to, to kind of find themselves in that way. Maybe that

00:36:28.620 doesn't, or, you know, maybe people afraid of showing that to young men anymore, or that

00:36:32.720 wouldn't appeal to young men anymore, or that you have to have sort of a strong masculine

00:36:38.600 male protagonist in order to do that. And that's something I, that's something else I, I, a theme

00:36:44.340 that I picked up on a lot of films were kind of lamenting or, you know, commenting on the

00:36:50.920 fact that, you know, when is the last time that you just, you know, there was a, a male

00:36:55.380 character, a male protagonist who was just sort of fundamentally masculine and a female

00:37:01.060 character that is, is fundamentally feminine. You know, one, one film that was discussed

00:37:05.760 was the princess bride as sort of the, the paragon of that, um, that mode where you just

00:37:11.760 have, um, you know, Wesley, whose object is the princess and he's, he's trying to rescue

00:37:18.580 her. And she sort of, um, it affects her environment in ways that are, are quintessentially

00:37:24.360 feminine, but there was this kind of lament for, you know, what you could just, even if

00:37:29.460 it's not a true Western, um, but like a lament for the, the cowboy, which is the kind of the

00:37:36.400 most iconic sort of resourceful, stoic, um, stalwart male hero. Um, it's funny that, I mean,

00:37:46.080 there were a few Westerns, uh, that got selected. I, uh, I've, I designed a few awards that I was

00:37:53.640 describing to you at one point or in, um, which I'm, I'm tentatively calling the froggies.

00:37:58.580 One of the awards is called the doppel filmer award. And the doppel filmer award will be,

00:38:03.980 I have not announced who has won this yet, but I can tell you, this is one of the nominees

00:38:07.180 hands down is basically like somebody who's selected a film, which where the film is essentially

00:38:13.160 their, their spirit animal. Like if everybody, if everybody wrote down on a three by five card,

00:38:18.940 what film is that guy going to pick? And then they'd show it to him and they'd all get it right.

00:38:23.840 Um, and one guy, you, you're probably aware of, of Lafayette Lee, big, uh, big Twitter personality,

00:38:29.940 great guy. And he picked the murder of Jesse James by the coward, Robert Ford. Um, beautiful

00:38:36.140 auteur film, by the way, gorgeous to gorgeous to watch. But of course, I mean, like his name's

00:38:41.060 Lafayette Lee, what movie, what movie was, is the man going to choose if not the murder of Jesse

00:38:47.320 James. Um, yeah, no, it's definitely interesting the way that the, the films or the things that

00:38:52.820 people selected kind of reflect on them, uh, of course, uh, you know, and, and like you said that

00:38:58.500 I've had Lafayette on many times and yeah, it's hard to imagine a film more fitting, uh, for him to

00:39:03.960 select in that one. Yeah. Although to be, I also created an award, which I've, I've, my tentative

00:39:09.820 name for it is, is, is the Janus award because the Janus is two-faced and the Janus award, it goes to

00:39:15.840 somebody who gave me like a complete and total curve ball. So like, for example, zero HP Lovecraft,

00:39:21.640 I assume we were going to be talking about like aliens or, or event horizon or some, um, you know,

00:39:28.100 Italian horror film and he picked groundhog day. So they surprise you. Yeah. I listened to that one 0.98

00:39:36.460 and I liked the way he said that he said, you know, I, I don't, despite, you know, being a fan of horror

00:39:41.680 and writing horror, I don't actually consume a lot of it because it's, you know, it feels like

00:39:47.100 people who, uh, kind of make an intentional horror movie. Uh, they are, they're taking the easy way

00:39:53.380 out. They're just putting it on their nose as where if you make a normal movie, like part of the,

00:39:58.200 the process is revealing the kind of everyday horrors that exist in inside a comedic experience

00:40:05.160 or something like that. And of course, groundhog day is a great example of that because it's,

00:40:08.780 you know, yeah. In one, in one way it's, it's funny and everything. In other way,

00:40:12.780 it's a man reliving like the worst parts, uh, and the most mundane and like devastating parts of life

00:40:18.800 is literally like lives of quiet desperation for eternity, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean,

00:40:26.120 I get it. He did have maybe a grim, a grim, dark take on the movie in, in hindsight. Um, yeah. I mean,

00:40:33.200 uh, zero HP Lovecraft is a very interesting figure too, because he's, he's, he's this contradiction.

00:40:38.400 I used to think that in order to be a good horrorist, you had to be somebody that, that

00:40:42.680 like wanted to kill themselves, but he's actually, you know, quite, um, uh, very much a vitalist

00:40:50.160 and yet writes fantastic horror fiction. Um, do you feel, do you feel like horror does require

00:40:56.680 something because, uh, you know, I'm again, far from the first person to say this, but you

00:41:01.300 know, horror being kind of a innately right-wing genre because it, the dynamics require an us

00:41:07.460 versus them that the, the unknown and the outside is the danger, but also because it constantly

00:41:14.040 puts people in things like physical danger with where they can't have like magical, you

00:41:20.280 know, uh, comic book powers. And so like men have to actually be physically stronger.

00:41:25.220 Women are genuinely in a disadvantage, you know, a killer can get away with, you know, stabbing 1.00

00:41:31.960 a bunch of people simply because it's a man and they're women in, in this, in a scenario, 0.94

00:41:35.860 like just, just, just dynamics that require you to kind of acknowledge truths about biology,

00:41:43.180 truths about good and evil truths about the world that otherwise, you know, you, they're

00:41:47.520 just, the genre is dependent on them in the way that it doesn't exist for other movies.

00:41:52.320 I think that's, I, I, I agree with everything you just said, Oren. And I remember, I remember

00:41:56.900 a tweet that you put out a little while ago where I think you, you mentioned something

00:42:00.880 to the effect of like horror seems like this one, like sort of the last readout when it

00:42:06.100 comes to film genres where it's, it's very hard to corrupt horror. Like how do you make

00:42:12.560 a, like, what, what, what does, what does a woke horror movie look like? Um, I think something,

00:42:18.360 I think there's, it's E. Michael Jones who, who said this, um, in his book, um, nightmares

00:42:23.860 from the id, but, but his, I guess his theory of horror, what he proposes is that horror is

00:42:29.600 always about returning to baseline in that a horror film happens when somebody has committed

00:42:37.680 a taboo, right? Think of, I mean, the classic example here is, you know, all these teenagers

00:42:42.900 become sexually curious and then Freddy Krueger jumps out and, um, uh, scares them back into,

00:42:50.060 into, into, into chastity, but, um, it is some sort of kind of cultural line. Something sacred

00:42:57.280 has been, uh, crossed. Some sort of tradition has been, um, dis disrespected. And this is often kind

00:43:06.020 of the, the catalyst or the primary, um, element of a horror film. And I think it's because progressivism

00:43:15.020 is just kind of in favor of transgression, I think it's very difficult for them to kind of,

00:43:24.620 uh, colonize horror films the way that they may have colonized other kinds of film genres. Um,

00:43:31.580 there, there is just something strangely traditional about, about horror movies. And that may, may sound

00:43:37.220 kind of strange and counterintuitive to people because often horror has like the most grotesque

00:43:42.800 kind of imagery to sort of call it like the most traditional genre maybe seems, uh, seems

00:43:50.040 counterintuitive, but I, I do think there is something, something to that, that it is fundamentally

00:43:54.800 right-wing. I, I, I thought I would get more horror, horror movies. Um, the one real true horror movie

00:44:01.120 I did was with, um, with Tyler Hamilton, he chose Exorcist three, um, which, uh, uh, well, people will

00:44:10.700 have to, to, to, to listen to it, but he's, uh, he's a, um, excellent reviewer of, of, of horror films.

00:44:18.500 Um, but his, yeah. And unfortunately his, his YouTube channel got, um, shut down unexpectedly,

00:44:25.720 but I think, uh, I'm not sure where people can, can find his, his work at the moment.

00:44:31.560 Well, one place is your film festival. So that's the first place they can start.

00:44:37.080 Are there so interesting, you know, interestingly, you kind of mentioned earlier that you aren't

00:44:44.660 really on board with the idea that the left has all of the talent and the, you know, the

00:44:49.620 right just can't make movies. And I wonder if we, if we can expound a little bit on that,

00:44:56.040 I think in some ways might touch on, you know, the, you just mentioned that most people would

00:45:00.660 look at what might be the most conservative genre horror movies, but say, well, this isn't

00:45:05.600 for conservatives though, because, you know, probably can't watch it with your kids. You

00:45:09.640 know, the many aspects of the movie are, are, you know, gross or subversive or in certain

00:45:16.080 ways, you know, the, the content is explicit in certain ways. And so therefore it's not thought

00:45:20.600 of as a conservative genre. Is it, is it the content of possibly more conservative genre that

00:45:26.400 keeps the right out of these areas? What do you, what do you think is, you know, why would

00:45:30.640 you say that the right, you know, isn't at a disadvantage and what do you think it is

00:45:34.120 that's structurally keeping it out if it isn't at a creative disadvantage?

00:45:38.420 Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess, I guess the, the, the, the latter, I mean, I would never deny

00:45:43.300 that it's right now we are, we are more or less, or for all practical purposes and means

00:45:49.060 shut out of filmmaking. Um, and that is because it is a incredibly cost intensive, uh, artistic

00:45:57.600 form, right. We don't really have the backing of elites. Um, and you, even if you can just

00:46:04.240 find a maverick elite, uh, you need somebody that can write pretty substantial checks and,

00:46:09.760 and take a, take a bet on you. Um, and so I, I think it's, it's not for lack of, um, lack

00:46:17.260 of talent. And I will say, I am honestly an optimist about this because eventually one of

00:46:22.800 us is going to make a movie eventually. I'm sure, I'm sure a bunch of us have already written

00:46:26.940 scripts. Um, and those are going to be passed around and sooner or later, it, it doesn't take

00:46:33.280 much. Um, you know, even, uh, I guess it's funny to kind of take inspiration from, from this, but,

00:46:40.180 um, you know, one movie that Bob beef reviewed, uh, easy writer, which, uh, was a movie from 1968,

00:46:47.440 which, which is kind of considered, uh, the film that kind of kicked off the American art house

00:46:53.760 cinema, sort of the, the generation under the influence. Think about like, you know,

00:46:57.800 Sam Peckinpah movies, very early Jack Nicholson films, um, dealing with, uh, you know, uh,

00:47:06.040 the spirit of 68 and things like that. Those films were all funded by, uh, the monkeys,

00:47:11.780 the monkeys, after they kind of got done with their hit TV show, they had a lot of money and they

00:47:17.240 just wound up kind of making a lot of bets on, on Dennis Hopper and, uh, Sam Peckinpah and a lot

00:47:24.040 of these other kind of, um, people that just got out of film school and were, were certainly outside

00:47:29.960 of the mainstream at that point, they were in a very similar position to Hollywood that we are.

00:47:36.140 Um, you know, somebody like, like Edward Hopper giving, being handed a check to, to make a movie

00:47:43.580 that he just kind of, um, um, came up with to celebrate counterculture that kicked off, um,

00:47:51.380 what, what, what became to known as the generation under the influence. And now that's, that's

00:47:56.400 considered this very successful artistic, um, period in American movie making. Um, and that kind

00:48:05.860 of sensibility eventually did kind of infiltrate Hollywood and the mainstream. So there's nothing

00:48:11.340 that you could say about the left in the 1960s when it comes to filmmaking that was different,

00:48:19.940 I think, conditionally than, than the right, except that they eventually sort of found those

00:48:26.880 elites that were willing to place a bet on a, on a, on a director. Um, and that, that shall happen.

00:48:33.940 It shall happen or in I'm calling it here and now. Well, it's patient. Yeah. I mean, it's also just

00:48:40.280 with the, with, you know, the dearth of interesting material coming out of left, the fact that they're

00:48:44.120 just creatively dead at this point, eventually you just, if you're, if you're looking to, you know,

00:48:48.560 the content mill has to run, eventually you have to start feeding something right wing into it just

00:48:52.780 to, just to put anything of value in there. I also wonder, you know, you, we talked about how

00:48:58.000 different mediums have their time, the novel, you know, kind of waxes and wanes. It moves from, from,

00:49:03.720 from one area to another. And I wonder with, obviously, of course, people will point to video

00:49:08.560 games, but also, you know, short form content, whether we like it or not is coming to dominate

00:49:13.680 the, the, the minds and understandings of young people. Uh, you know, they're, they just rather 1.00

00:49:18.820 watch, you know, a collection of 10 minute videos on YouTube than they want to sit down and watch

00:49:23.360 a two, three hour movie at this point. It feels like they just keep loading them further and

00:49:28.660 further. It's one of my hatred of current movies that feel like almost every current movie could

00:49:33.040 just be better if you cut it by half an hour and they just refuse to do it. Is it, could it be that

00:49:39.520 the movie has just lost its cultural power? I mean, we're always going to have movies in the same way

00:49:45.200 we'll always have novels and things, but, but, but in many ways, a novel needs to needed to become a

00:49:50.680 movie for the last 20 or 30 years to really have an impact. And, and are we at a point where at this,

00:49:56.080 you know, the, the, the genre or the, the medium itself has kind of fallen behind, uh, kind of the

00:50:02.200 march of time and in, while it'll still exist, it's just not going to have the same impact, uh, or

00:50:08.060 creative kind of spark that it had, uh, back when it was the, you know, the dominant form of

00:50:13.980 entertainment. Yeah, no, I mean, I, I definitely, I, I, I absolutely see what, see what you mean.

00:50:22.100 I guess I, I wouldn't feel comfortable kind of declaring the decline of, of movies, you know,

00:50:28.780 broadly like that until I've, until I'm actually have observed a real work of art from a new,

00:50:38.680 a brand new novel medium. And like, there is like, you know, give me, where is the citizen

00:50:44.540 cane of Tik TOK videos? You know, if, I mean, there's certainly, you know, drawing people in,

00:50:51.820 um, they, you know, they, they, it wields plenty of, of power and influence, but, uh, does it wield

00:50:59.220 the, the sublime? Does it have, um, does anybody experience the, the holy moments as, as Dave,

00:51:06.080 the distributist recently put in one of his, his videos on, um, on movies that he released last

00:51:11.900 week? I don't think I've gotten a holy moment necessarily from, um, from, from new media.

00:51:19.480 And I think that's what it's going to have to provide before we can really say that, you know,

00:51:24.500 the time of the movie has, has come and gone. The one exception to that, I actually was saying,

00:51:29.280 like, there are some memes that I would absolutely frame and put in my house. I mean, you, we should,

00:51:34.840 you should have Gio Penichetti on if you're going to talk about that, but I, you know,

00:51:38.000 there are a few, a few memes that I, but even that, even though I, I find some, some memes to

00:51:45.680 just be, you know, fantastic. And I wish somebody would, if somebody hasn't already just create some

00:51:51.680 sort of gallery show and blow up a bunch of memes to the size of like Lichtenstein paintings and,

00:52:00.620 uh, you know, rent out the Metropolitan Museum with them. Um, but, uh, it is, it is sad to think

00:52:07.860 that things have sort of like that revolutionary artistic spirit has like shrunk down to the,

00:52:14.280 to the meme. Like the, I think the only way you get the same kind of, I don't know, like punk ethos

00:52:21.480 that you got from like nineties alternative rock music or like, you know, underground music in,

00:52:27.540 in the nineties, that's really only alive nowadays in, in meme culture. But even, even the best meme

00:52:35.220 on the planet is just this, you know, it's this tiny little chiclet compared to like art forms that

00:52:42.540 are more, you know, the thing that, that none of these are ever going to have over movies. If you're

00:52:48.660 really going to the movies, if you're going into a cinema to watch something is that it is this,

00:52:53.240 it's not just this tiny little video that you play on your phone. It's something that

00:52:57.600 overwhelms you that completely like subsumes your, your sensory experience.

00:53:04.220 But I wonder, so, so, and, and this is just me, you know, prattling on about the client,

00:53:09.260 like an old man on a, on a porch, but, uh, you know, I wonder if that's even an option anymore,

00:53:14.920 right? Because like maybe the movie was a, you know, maybe that cinema experience was itself kind

00:53:22.640 of, um, uh, a moment in time in which like you had a society that was high trust enough to where

00:53:29.780 like people wouldn't be screaming the whole time or, you know, throwing things or talking on their

00:53:35.540 phone or like, you know, goo would be, you know, formed on the, you know, like, yeah. I wonder if you

00:53:41.120 even have like a society that cannot return the shopping cart, cannot enjoy an auteur film. You

00:53:46.700 know what I mean? Like there, there, there, there might be like a limit to like, if society can't

00:53:53.180 hold together, whether you can actually have those moments because, you know, who can even go to a

00:53:58.120 film and make it make through it without someone in the, in the audience of ruining it at this point.

00:54:02.560 Yeah. I mean, I guess I will say, you know, when I think, I think movies and like, even when

00:54:09.080 movies are successful, they are going to speak to more niche audiences. Like I certainly can't

00:54:16.440 remember, like when was the last film that was like, like a star Wars or something like that,

00:54:21.100 where it's just like everybody in America went to see it. Everybody agreed. This was like

00:54:26.260 kind of a significant cultural watershed moment. And I do think that that, um, kind of mass culture-wide

00:54:36.860 national kind of cinema is probably, it's probably over the, the, the things that are going to succeed

00:54:43.620 are going to be demonized by one group and, um, lionized by another. I think that's, that's

00:54:52.260 definitely true. All right. Well, we've got the questions of the people stacking up, so we're

00:54:57.220 going to switch over those, but before we do, can you tell people where to find this fantastic film

00:55:01.360 festival? Yeah. Yeah. So this is available on Gumroad, uh, a mere $10 will get you, um, over 40

00:55:10.700 hours of, uh, live stream. You can do it in audio or video form. Um, you can listen to it all at your

00:55:18.380 leisure. Um, if you go into, if you go, go onto Gumroad and type in last things, you'll, you'll

00:55:23.280 probably find it right away, but it's last things.gumroad.com slash L L slash LPS 23. Um,

00:55:32.120 and yeah, I hope, I hope folks check it out. Um, I tried to price it, uh, as, as, as low as I could

00:55:39.880 and, uh, I hope people enjoy it. And I definitely plan on, on doing it again next year.

00:55:44.500 An incredible value to be sure. I haven't made it through all of them, uh, because there are so many,

00:55:49.360 but I've enjoyed all of the ones I have listened to so far. So guys, make sure that you go ahead

00:55:55.240 and check out the film festival. All right. So let's go over to our questions real quick.

00:56:00.200 We got Cooper weirdo here for $5. Uh, we really need to have a deeper conversation on the secretly

00:56:05.420 based movie. How do we not fall in to cope? I mean, yeah, so there's, there's always, I guess

00:56:12.700 you people, so the thing that always happens and you hear this with like, I don't know, again,

00:56:16.760 starship troopers or Warhammer 40 K or things people are like, well, there was intended to be

00:56:21.340 a joke. It's intended to be, you know, whatever. And you're reading things into the, you're not

00:56:25.400 getting the joke. They're making fun of you. And, uh, you know, I think the, you know, the answer to

00:56:30.100 that is always just the, uh, the giga Chad, you know, smiling. It's like, who cares? Right? Like

00:56:35.940 I don't care what the author meant. I don't care what they were trying to say. If it's cool,

00:56:40.820 if it's based, if it speaks, then it speaks, you know? And so who cares at the end of the day? Uh,

00:56:46.420 I'll vote the death of the author. I don't care. Like this really does not matter. Uh, especially 0.98

00:56:51.940 when you have a culture that is entirely built around the subversion and attack of kind of your

00:56:57.560 identity, like you're just going to have to take your W's where they're going to come. And in many

00:57:02.400 ways, it's interesting to find them growing through the cracks of the concrete than it is to

00:57:07.200 necessarily, you know, uh, find them cultivated somewhere that this just doesn't exist.

00:57:12.100 Yeah. I, I don't, I don't think I have anything to add to that, to that, Oren. That's, that's all

00:57:16.560 great. And I agree. Like, you know, until we can make our own movies, we got to find, uh, the base

00:57:21.740 where we can, we can find it. I think there's different degrees of it too. Like, you know,

00:57:25.560 it's one thing to maybe just, you know, Oh, that it was actually like a kind of cool, very manly,

00:57:31.640 masculine character that I thought was, was interesting. And I know I was supposed to despise them,

00:57:38.120 but then there are also just, I think maybe even a deeper observation is, is when like a film

00:57:44.100 almost, uh, a film logically could have progressed toward a more based ending and just swerves,

00:57:52.100 you know, like the, the Batman coming with the Batarang and just, you know, knocking, bang,

00:57:57.420 bang out with it in the last five minutes. And it's clear that, you know, the, the more authentically

00:58:04.960 earned ending could have written itself. You know, that to me has more resonance than just,

00:58:09.600 you know, accidentally based characters. Very true. All right. Uh, bird hole, the dirt

00:58:16.780 knoll for a $2 beaver gang represents. See, I, I bring Jay burden on the show one time and his

00:58:23.540 audience invades. And now we're going to have to deal with the beaver gang from here on out,

00:58:27.200 but thank you very much, man. Appreciate it. I had no idea that Jay burden has his own gang.

00:58:31.100 Yes. Yes. Yeah. They, they roam from stream to stream, uh, you know, and so you, you've got to

00:58:38.040 really watch out. Um, all right. Uh, creeper weirdo here again, uh, how the crunch stole Christmas

00:58:45.320 is about an atheist Jew finding Jesus. Look at, uh, look at it and think about it. You know, 0.91

00:58:50.860 it's true. Uh, of course the Grinch is a classic. Thank you for that. Well, creeper weirdo, we can,

00:58:56.860 we'll have you on the next film vest. Yes. He can, he can give you those insights into the festival. 0.70

00:59:02.040 Uh, and again, creeper weirdo here. Blade runner is superior to 2049 overrated. Sorry. So I'm,

00:59:09.000 so obviously I think the original blood runner is a classic and that kind of puts it, I don't know if

00:59:14.620 superior is the right word, but it is certainly has a place of primacy for me. I enjoy that movie a lot.

00:59:20.920 Uh, but I think I, the thing for 2049 is really that movie should have been a disaster. Like when

00:59:27.580 someone said, I make, there's a blade runner sequel coming out. I was like, Oh, why please,

00:59:32.100 please God. No, like, please don't do this. Like, have we not has enough not been defiled? Have we not

00:59:37.820 seen into the, into the depths of despair enough? And then you get a movie like 2049 and is it perfect?

00:59:44.480 No. Is it, is it better than the original? I don't, I don't think so, but it is really good. And it's,

00:59:50.060 it's, it's one of the best movies I think to have been made in a long time. And it, you know,

00:59:55.940 just visually, uh, you know, the, the, the directing everything, the acting is amazing,

01:00:00.600 but also the fact that it was able to communicate things that you otherwise, like I said, probably

01:00:05.760 wouldn't have gotten through in other movies. I think it's really great. I don't think it's

01:00:09.360 overrated at all. Sorry. Yeah, no, I, I, um, I love both movies. I think they're both trying to do

01:00:15.820 and say pretty different things despite their kinship. Um, I would just say, listen to Astral's

01:00:22.460 review of it. You might, it might bring you around. Yeah. That's the other thing about it is

01:00:27.380 I liked that while they share universe and obviously they share like a kind of a visual language and

01:00:32.820 things, it is a sequel to be sure. Um, they, they are about very different things. It didn't just try to

01:00:38.780 rehash, uh, you know, the themes of Blade Runner went a very different direction, a lot of the ways.

01:00:43.960 And that's, that's what I think made it interesting. It didn't totally just the fact

01:00:47.860 that, uh, that a kind of a quote unquote reboot of an old film didn't make the main character a woman 0.92

01:00:53.760 and kind of like centered masculine issues in the, in the character of Ryan Gosling is kind of

01:01:01.380 unprecedented. And we managed to not get a star Wars or an Indiana Jones. Yeah. It should have been

01:01:08.340 like Ryan Gosling's character should have been played by Scarlett Johansson and it just be like,

01:01:12.940 you know, drop kicking people for two hours or something. Yeah. It is amazing that all of those

01:01:17.820 involve Harrison Ford, by the way. Uh, so yeah, it's the one Harrison Ford reboot that didn't

01:01:23.860 completely turn Harrison Ford into a whining mewling, uh, you know, uh, well I'll, I'll watch my language, 0.95

01:01:29.580 but, uh, uh, Dylan, Dylan 98 here thoughts on Michael Mann's heat and collateral. Uh, I love heat.

01:01:37.500 It's a great movie. Very, you know, very tight action movie. Um, really well done. Uh, I'm trying

01:01:44.640 to remember collateral with that was the Tom Cruise movie. I can, yeah, I actually even, I, I, I like

01:01:50.280 both of those movies, but I actually think I prefer collateral. I love, I love really. Um, I mean,

01:01:55.580 Michael Mann, we should have mentioned we're talking about masculinity and the masculine film,

01:02:00.340 but, um, yeah, that's sort of a hit him and Jamie Foxx. Jamie Foxx plays the cab driver. Um, that role

01:02:06.820 was originally going to be played by Adam Sandler, by the way, which would have been interesting. Um,

01:02:12.180 but, uh, I think that's a fantastic movie. Um, definitely about a, I mean, kind of weirdly,

01:02:17.960 like a coming of age story in some ways, even though Jamie Foxx is probably in his like forties when

01:02:23.780 he made, um, beautifully shot too. Um, I, I, I love the film. I remember seeing it in theaters

01:02:33.360 when it came out and enjoying it, but I I've never revisited it. So I just don't have enough

01:02:38.160 recalled. I've seen heat several times, but lateral. All right, guys, well, we're going to go

01:02:45.400 ahead and wrap this up, but once again, make sure to check out last things film festival. It's really

01:02:50.980 good. And he has, uh, you know, yours truly on there going on about Battlestar Galactica. So

01:02:57.040 that's entertaining if nothing else, if it's your first time coming on the channel, of course,

01:03:01.760 please make sure that you go ahead and subscribe. And if you'd like to get these broadcasts as

01:03:06.000 podcasts, make sure that you go ahead and, uh, follow the Oren McIntyre show on your favorite

01:03:10.700 podcast platform. When you do a rating or review is very much appreciated. Thanks for coming by guys.

01:03:16.480 And as always, I'll talk to you next time.

01:03:20.980 Bye.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - December 12, 2023

The Secret to Right-Wing Films ｜ Guest： Last Things ｜ 12⧸12⧸23

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