TRIGGERnometry - Critical Drinker： The Real Problem with the Odyssey

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00:00:49.300 I still stand by my overall assessment in my video, which is, it's, meh.

00:00:56.780 I've heard some people talk about this as being one of the greatest movies ever made.

00:01:01.220 No.

00:01:01.700 And it's insane. It's like, how many movies have you watched?

00:01:04.720 And I defined The Odyssey as a hero's journey with no hero.

00:01:07.740 Do you think Hollywood might actually be waking up and smelling the proverbial coffee?

00:01:12.780 Yes, they are.

00:01:13.740 They very much pivoted away from all that political identity politics pandering.

00:01:20.200 And it took tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue, probably over a decade, to finally realize it.

00:01:26.360 But they got there in the end.

00:01:27.800 It's just a shame that so many of these pop culture franchises that we grew up with,

00:01:33.900 whether it's Star Trek or Star Wars or Indiana Jones, whatever it might be,

00:01:38.560 they've all been casualties of war in the process.

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00:02:16.920 button, and leaving a comment with your thoughts on this video. Critical Drinker, welcome back to

00:02:21.800 Trigonometry. Pleasure to be here again. It's great to have you, man. You're crushing it.

00:02:26.520 Really enjoying your reviews, and there's a lot to talk about. There is, yes. It's been a busy

00:02:31.540 time in movies, hasn't it? It has been, which is somewhat exciting in many ways, but we'll get into

00:02:36.840 all the different ones. The first thing you said when you sat down here, and I was like, well,

00:02:41.040 I really enjoyed your review of the Odyssey

00:02:43.160 and you were like,

00:02:43.620 I have got so much hate.

00:02:47.220 But I thought you gave a very balanced and fair review,

00:02:50.920 which actually is what generates hate

00:02:52.560 on the internet nowadays.

00:02:53.920 Well, yeah.

00:02:54.520 I mean, I think a lot of people

00:02:55.440 won't even have bothered watching the review.

00:02:57.260 They'll just assume that I hate it.

00:02:59.220 And then, yeah, the reality is,

00:03:01.280 like, I was fairly meh on the movie overall.

00:03:04.060 You know, I praised some technical aspects of it,

00:03:06.400 recognized that Christopher Nolan's

00:03:07.800 a very competent director.

00:03:09.700 And really, yeah, my only real issue was the lack of emotional engagement

00:03:14.280 and how kind of removed and cool and sterile it is.

00:03:18.220 But that's just a hallmark of Christopher Nolan movies at this point.

00:03:21.300 So, yeah, it's become a very contentious film, unfortunately.

00:03:26.260 It's just the way it's gone.

00:03:27.340 Yeah. And why do you think it is so contentious?

00:03:30.600 It's probably because of the race swapping and the casting choices that they've made.

00:03:35.060 Because when it was first announced, everyone was pretty enthusiastic about it.

00:03:38.780 Myself included, you know, it's a Christopher Nolan movie.

00:03:41.500 He did great with Oppenheimer.

00:03:43.480 Now he's going to tackle the Odyssey, like one of the foundational stories of Western civilization.

00:03:48.920 Fantastic. I'm sure he's going to do a great job of it.

00:03:51.820 And then you see the first trailer that came out.

00:03:55.200 You know, you find out that Lupita Nyong'o is going to be playing Helen of Troy.

00:03:59.020 Obviously, that's quite a change from what we know Helen of Troy to be.

00:04:03.120 Elliot Page is going to be in it.

00:04:04.440 The assumption at first was that they were going to be playing Achilles,

00:04:08.140 which would have been really hilarious.

00:04:10.560 But it wasn't that in the end.

00:04:12.640 But still, it just generated this crazy pushback online.

00:04:17.720 I'd never seen anything like it since probably Snow White 1.00

00:04:21.020 with Rachel Zegler and all the stupid things that she was saying. 1.00

00:04:25.300 That same level of vitriol was suddenly leveled at the movie. 0.99

00:04:29.820 And like I say, it's not what I would have expected from a Christopher Nolan film.

00:04:33.000 What was interesting to me is seeing that reaction, which, by the way, look, somewhat understandable given the sort of era of constant, you know, inserting artificially in many cases a sort of artificial diversity into things.

00:04:48.660 But actually, interestingly, watching your review, it was very similar to what I wrote about it, which is, yes, Helen of Troy probably didn't look like Lupita Nyong'o, and Elliot Page, again.

00:05:00.520 But that casting didn't really massively affect your experience of the movie, and mine either.

00:05:08.060 No, I mean, it was one of the first things I wanted to dispel when I did my review.

00:05:13.140 The both of them are in the movie for a grand total of like five minutes.

00:05:17.320 And it is like a Christopher Nolan movie, so it's like seven hours long.

00:05:20.200 Exactly, yeah.

00:05:21.000 And so, you know, the focus is much more on other characters.

00:05:23.720 They're very much just ancillary to the main story.

00:05:26.700 And so it didn't really impact my perception of the film.

00:05:29.540 Like I say, my bigger issue with it was just the lack of emotional engagement with it.

00:05:34.100 Other people certainly have issues with its fidelity to the original text.

00:05:38.280 That's me.

00:05:38.860 Yeah.

00:05:40.080 Obviously, what I've discovered as well is that there's a lot of people

00:05:43.360 who've suddenly decided they're absolute experts on the Odyssey.

00:05:46.380 and that online. So again, that's another fun aspect of this. You don't know how much you

00:05:53.540 really want to believe from people, but yeah, as I understand it, he has taken quite a few

00:05:57.600 liberties, particularly with the characterization of Odysseus, turning him from this brave

00:06:03.180 adventurer with this burning desire to get home to his family into basically a Vietnam vet with

00:06:08.940 PTSD and survivor's guilt. That's a very big change to the meaning of the story. And again,

00:06:15.500 people who are familiar with it took issue with it. But apparently that all just lumps everyone

00:06:20.960 into the same boat of just the casting became the focal point of everything. So if you had

00:06:25.920 any criticism of the movie, it had to be because of that, not anything else. So it's an interesting

00:06:31.780 approach. One of the aspects I thought your review was bang on was when talking about the

00:06:36.880 character of Odysseus, because in the original text, he's actually very smart, very sharp,

00:06:43.420 very bright but also very arrogant which leads to his own doubt not only his own downfall but also

00:06:49.500 the downfall of his men all of whom died but i think what's more important is the way that

00:06:55.000 the industry is looking at it and it looks like it's going to be kind of a shoo-in to do very

00:07:00.980 very well at the oscars yeah and you're thinking to yourself well looking at it you're going

00:07:05.540 it's not that good is it no but i mean how to describe it it's a mil i'd rather watch this a

00:07:14.760 hundred times over than just another piece of superhero slop or or franchise you know some

00:07:20.720 some old franchise like star wars or um jurassic park getting recycled for the the dozens of time

00:07:27.860 you know so it's taken a stab at least something a little more interesting so i guess if i was

00:07:34.100 pushed. Yeah, rather that succeeded than other films of lesser artistic merit. But still, yeah,

00:07:41.220 it's ultimately, I found it to be a bit of a slog. It's very slow paced. It's very lacking in

00:07:49.380 emotional resonance, lacking in urgency, took a lot of liberties with the characters. Yeah,

00:07:55.780 I still stand by my overall assessment in my video, which is it's meh. Didn't hate it. Didn't

00:08:02.500 love it it's just in the middle because i think it speaks more broadly to the conversation about

00:08:08.420 the quality of movie making at the moment that it's been hyped so much whereas let's say i mean

00:08:14.980 we're all of a certain age now certain vintage shall we say if this was i'm just going to pick

00:08:19.760 a movie at random something like 1996 would this even have been talked about as much would it have

00:08:26.100 been hyped as much would everybody be as energized or would it just simply be seen as just

00:08:31.800 another big-budget Hollywood movie, which is all right,

00:08:35.480 but let's be honest, nothing special,

00:08:38.200 Maxim would have given it three out of five stars.

00:08:42.140 Yeah.

00:08:42.760 I think the thing that always puts it into perspective for me

00:08:47.060 is I do a weekly live stream,

00:08:49.220 and one of the segments that we've done on that is

00:08:51.380 for each year of cinema,

00:08:54.160 we'll go through some of the top movies of that year,

00:08:57.100 the biggest box office earners,

00:08:58.600 some of the most well-regarded films of that year,

00:09:00.820 and every time we've done it all throughout the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, you're just hit with

00:09:06.460 classic after classic and you think, my God, we were spoiled back then. Absolutely spoiled.

00:09:12.440 And it might be that the era we're living in now, you've essentially got what would have been

00:09:17.560 considered an okay-ish film 10, 15, 20 years ago is now hailed as this all-conquering masterpiece.

00:09:25.260 Like I've heard some people talk about this as being one of the greatest movies ever made.

00:09:29.600 And it's insane.

00:09:31.320 It's like, how many movies have you watched, man?

00:09:34.320 But it seems like we've all kind of got like woke PTSD in a way

00:09:39.420 where we had this narrative shoved down our throat for so long

00:09:43.000 that Top Gun 2 comes along.

00:09:44.980 And let's be honest, I mean, maybe you think differently,

00:09:47.560 but I kind of think it was like a 7 out of 10,

00:09:50.720 solid 3 out of 5, perfectly enjoyable action movie.

00:09:54.780 But people decrying it as this kind of anti-woke masterpiece,

00:10:00.140 this return to form, Hollywood's back, baby.

00:10:03.780 Isn't it amazing?

00:10:05.060 Guns and all the rest of it.

00:10:06.260 And you're like, really?

00:10:07.760 It's literally just a normal 80s or 90s action movie.

00:10:11.560 Perfectly fun, perfectly serviceable.

00:10:13.280 The plot doesn't do anything, particularly revolutionary.

00:10:16.320 It's just a solid movie.

00:10:18.020 And that, because that is so rare nowadays,

00:10:20.540 it does get hailed as this, you know,

00:10:24.620 breakthrough film that like no one saw coming, you know,

00:10:27.800 whereas, like I say, yeah, if it had come out 20 years ago,

00:10:30.340 people would have just said, eh, it's okay, I guess.

00:10:32.780 Perfectly fine.

00:10:33.380 It's interesting that you got a lot of hate

00:10:35.060 for what you said about it being met,

00:10:37.240 because to me, and you see this,

00:10:40.120 like I was looking at the Calciodes before we started.

00:10:42.540 The movie, the Odyssey starts out as being like

00:10:45.580 50% chance of winning Best Picture.

00:10:48.700 after it comes out there's a significant dip actually and you can see that so people are

00:10:54.020 kind of going to it and recognizing it's not as good as it was as it was built but it's interesting

00:10:58.680 you say what francis is saying about you know this great desire for hollywood to be good again 0.87

00:11:03.800 and every time we've had you on we've talked about hollywood becoming a bit shit or potentially even

00:11:08.740 sort of being on the way dying out but there have been several movies and since we last talked to

00:11:13.320 that I thought were really, really high caliber.

00:11:16.180 For me, Nuremberg, for example,

00:11:17.960 I thought that was fantastic.

00:11:19.920 You gave it a meh kind of response as well.

00:11:22.260 You didn't like it?

00:11:23.300 I thought it was fine.

00:11:25.100 I mean, I don't know.

00:11:26.140 He just hates to see the good guys lose.

00:11:30.740 No, I think, you know, performance-wise,

00:11:34.340 like I'm not sure how close Russell Crowe is

00:11:36.440 in terms of Goering.

00:11:37.640 And I think maybe it takes a few historical liberties.

00:11:40.500 I would have rather seen it in a wider context,

00:11:43.140 but yeah it was fine

00:11:44.480 like I watched it on a flight

00:11:46.060 I didn't watch it in the cinema

00:11:47.460 but I was pretty entertained by it

00:11:49.620 you know

00:11:50.520 you kind of know

00:11:51.220 where it's going ultimately

00:11:52.200 but

00:11:52.600 perfectly fine movie I think

00:11:54.460 yeah I thought it was

00:11:55.920 for me personally

00:11:56.860 what I found interesting about it

00:11:58.420 it was

00:11:58.820 something that covered

00:12:00.180 which was obviously a big topic

00:12:01.720 and I thought it did it very well

00:12:03.260 historically

00:12:04.140 look

00:12:04.600 this is the thing

00:12:05.640 we should talk about as well

00:12:06.620 it's like you say

00:12:07.600 it took liberties

00:12:08.340 with the original text

00:12:09.300 of the Odyssey

00:12:09.760 I mean

00:12:10.840 that's what always happens

00:12:12.580 isn't it

00:12:12.980 I mean, Peter Jackson, and look, I hated him for it, to be fair.

00:12:16.140 He completely ruined Faramir in Lord of the Rings,

00:12:18.580 which was, to me, irresponsible.

00:12:21.360 He was horrific, unacceptable.

00:12:24.700 Completely, because he reversed the meaning of the character in that.

00:12:28.340 Yeah, I mean, his part was very much cut down and simplified.

00:12:31.580 They do him a bit more justice in the extended cut,

00:12:33.820 but yeah, I get what you're saying.

00:12:35.380 But what I'm saying is, isn't this kind of what always happens?

00:12:38.040 Like, to make a movie, you have to change the story a little bit?

00:12:40.700 Sure, I can understand cutting down really long segments

00:12:43.800 or trimming down really convoluted stuff

00:12:46.060 to make it more digestible.

00:12:48.720 I think the problems creep in, though,

00:12:50.560 when you change the fundamental meaning of it.

00:12:52.540 I think everyone would concede

00:12:53.820 for whatever liberties Peter Jackson took

00:12:55.860 with Lord of the Rings,

00:12:57.100 he got the essence of the story 100% right.

00:12:59.720 Whereas you could say,

00:13:00.480 well, if you change the very characterization

00:13:02.240 of Odysseus from the Odyssey

00:13:03.840 and his motivation for wanting to get home,

00:13:06.060 you've lost the entire meaning of the story.

00:13:08.260 It becomes something very different now.

00:13:10.080 yeah that's that's a different kettle of fish for me i don't want to be super nerdy but i will be

00:13:14.780 that is exactly what they did to faramir faramir in the books is is sorry is passionate about this

00:13:22.360 character aren't you well it's the entire point of of that segment of of the book because

00:13:28.260 boromir falls for the the temptation of the ring and faramir is his brother who resists the

00:13:35.180 temptation. Whereas in the movie, he doesn't and he fails. Right. So they did completely change

00:13:41.780 the meaning, which is interesting to your point about Odysseus, because one of the things I found

00:13:46.240 very odd, which you really honed in in your review is like Matt Damon's character is so emotionless,

00:13:54.240 which is very weird. Matt Damon as an actor has incredible range, but he sort of plays this like

00:14:00.160 slightly autistic Jason Bourne character for some reason.

00:14:03.480 Do we know why that was done?

00:14:05.800 It's because it's a Christopher Nolan movie.

00:14:08.840 So he doesn't have a reputation necessarily

00:14:12.660 as an actor's director.

00:14:14.820 From what I'm told, he pretty much just says,

00:14:17.100 right, there's the script, figure it out yourself

00:14:18.840 in terms of your performance.

00:14:20.380 That's why so many of the characters in this movie,

00:14:22.460 so many of the actors, should I say,

00:14:23.820 just seem to be on autopilot.

00:14:25.580 John Bernthal as Menelaus,

00:14:27.940 he's just playing John Bernthal.

00:14:29.460 every other tough guy character he's ever played.

00:14:32.360 Tom Holland is just Tom Holland.

00:14:34.520 Like, that's arguably the worst performance

00:14:36.960 I think I've seen of his entire acting career.

00:14:39.120 And again, he's a good actor.

00:14:40.420 But in that movie, he gives absolutely nothing.

00:14:43.720 Because Christopher Nolan doesn't direct people.

00:14:45.960 He directs ideas.

00:14:47.240 Robert Pattinson was brilliant, though.

00:14:48.900 I mean, he gave it his all.

00:14:50.920 Which character did he?

00:14:51.960 So he played the head, the most evil,

00:14:54.440 the head suit, the most evil one.

00:14:56.140 Oh, right. Oh, he was very good.

00:14:57.840 He was the Vietnam draft dodger.

00:14:59.180 yeah yeah he's a he's a experienced actor obviously he understood the assignment in this 0.94

00:15:07.000 case and probably took it upon himself to just be right i'm going to be the biggest prick that i can

00:15:11.880 possibly be in this movie and he did a good job to be fair oh he did a great job but you know

00:15:17.540 it's really interesting when because i've really got back into movies recently and it seems to me

00:15:24.340 like this idea that Hollywood is dead,

00:15:27.260 it's kind of premature

00:15:28.240 because I went to watch Obsession in the cinema.

00:15:31.840 I mean, that's a good movie.

00:15:34.520 That is a great movie.

00:15:37.360 I think, yeah,

00:15:38.500 I don't think anyone would say Hollywood's dead.

00:15:40.860 I think it's been on a decline,

00:15:42.680 certainly in the past decade or so.

00:15:45.460 It's been kept afloat by these big,

00:15:48.160 mega budget superhero movies,

00:15:50.600 things like the MCU and DC and so on.

00:15:53.160 But, you know, when you're pulling in like $2 billion per film, you're keeping the entire industry afloat.

00:16:00.220 Those are tentpole movies.

00:16:01.600 Obviously, that's petered out a little bit in recent years.

00:16:04.260 People are moving beyond superhero movies.

00:16:06.460 But the demand is still there for interest in films.

00:16:09.060 And I think movies like Obsession prove, particularly with horror, all you need is a good idea, a good hook to get people in.

00:16:16.420 You don't need a huge budget.

00:16:17.740 You don't need big special effects.

00:16:19.660 You just need a good hook, a decent script, and some good actors.

00:16:22.680 and away you go.

00:16:23.860 And that movie cost $750,000 to make.

00:16:27.560 It's sitting at like $450 million.

00:16:30.040 It's on track, I think,

00:16:31.100 to be the most profitable film of all time

00:16:33.220 relative to budget.

00:16:35.000 So the appetite is there for interest in movies.

00:16:37.640 Maybe not necessarily on the scale

00:16:39.360 that we've seen them before,

00:16:41.040 but scale down the budgets a little bit

00:16:43.160 and you'll still turn a profit.

00:16:45.120 So it can be done for sure.

00:16:46.840 And you look at like, for instance, a cast.

00:16:48.900 I'm into movies

00:16:51.700 not as much as I was

00:16:52.760 but I follow

00:16:53.820 the directors

00:16:54.840 the actors

00:16:55.440 I didn't recognise

00:16:56.300 any of those actors

00:16:57.320 in Obsession

00:16:58.340 yeah

00:16:58.700 no they were mostly

00:16:59.880 not unknowns

00:17:00.880 but relatively low profile

00:17:02.740 not anymore of course

00:17:04.000 yeah

00:17:04.300 the girl who was in that

00:17:05.700 I mean

00:17:06.060 she deserves all the awards

00:17:07.560 for that performance

00:17:08.700 she absolutely carried that movie 0.51

00:17:10.340 I think Indy Navarette 1.00

00:17:11.740 is her name 1.00

00:17:12.460 but yeah

00:17:14.220 she will now be 0.98

00:17:15.500 she'll be commanding 1.00

00:17:16.440 like 10 million dollars 1.00

00:17:17.480 a movie within a few years

00:17:18.640 easily and what it actually shows is what you're talking about look and this was the thing that i

00:17:24.700 found most egregious about the the woke period it's just all we ever wanted as audience members

00:17:31.340 was to please tell us a story and it doesn't matter what the story is if it's a love story

00:17:37.800 tell us a good love story if it's an action well there's an argument to be made that every story

00:17:41.960 is a love story but if it's an action movie just i we don't want the other stuff just tell the story

00:17:48.420 Absolutely, yeah.

00:17:50.380 And that was always the pushback.

00:17:53.100 It's like, I don't want this movie to espouse my personal politics

00:17:57.460 or reaffirm all my beliefs about the world.

00:17:59.660 It doesn't matter.

00:18:00.320 It's entertainment.

00:18:01.080 I'm there to escape from the mundane realities of day-to-day life.

00:18:05.140 And I'm there to escape from all the politics

00:18:07.700 that comes with every other part of day-to-day life.

00:18:10.040 So that's all it needs to do, is entertain you.

00:18:12.800 It's not that hard, but they made it hard.

00:18:15.220 You say they made it hard.

00:18:16.580 Do you think they've learned their lesson now when we look at, for instance, The Odyssey, which isn't a woke movie, as we've discussed, and we look at obsession and we'll talk about Project Hail Mary as well.

00:18:26.960 Do you think Hollywood might actually be waking up and smelling the proverbial coffee?

00:18:32.680 You can spend three hours in the cinema watching Christopher Nolan's movie adaptation of The Odyssey, or you can spend that same three hours understanding the actual poem for free guided by a Hillsdale College professor.

00:18:44.760 Hillsdale College runs free online courses on the books that shape the Western tradition

00:18:49.320 taught by their own faculty using the same material their students study on campus.

00:18:53.880 The newest course covers Homer's The Odyssey.

00:18:56.320 Professor Benedict Wayland walks through it.

00:18:58.620 Courage, loyalty, leadership, temptation, family, and what it actually means to go home.

00:19:03.160 It has held an audience for close to 3,000 years.

00:19:06.400 That doesn't happen by accident.

00:19:08.000 The scene that changes how you read the whole thing is Calypso offering Odysseus immortality

00:19:13.040 if he stays with her and he turns it down.

00:19:15.620 He picks a mortal life, an aging wife,

00:19:18.040 a home that might not even want him back anymore.

00:19:20.620 That's the entire argument of the book in one scene.

00:19:23.180 There are more than 40 of these courses

00:19:24.800 and I couldn't recommend them more highly.

00:19:26.940 Go to hillsdale.edu slash trigger to enroll.

00:19:29.900 It's totally free.

00:19:30.940 Read the classics, study the West.

00:19:32.920 That's hillsdale.edu slash trigger.

00:19:36.440 Yes, they are.

00:19:38.060 You can see a lot of the pivots starting to happen

00:19:40.380 within the bigger franchises,

00:19:41.920 like Marvel is a good example of that. They very much pivoted away from all that political

00:19:48.360 identity politics pandering. And I think Hollywood has grudgingly learned their lesson. I think

00:19:55.400 maybe they convinced themselves, probably based on things like what they see on the internet,

00:19:59.940 on social media, and so on, that the world was this progressive, hard left utopia, and they

00:20:08.140 needed to match that and it didn't work out and it took tens of billions of dollars in lost revenue

00:20:14.380 probably over over a decade to finally realize it but they got there in the end it's just a shame

00:20:19.640 that you know so many of these pop culture franchises that we grew up with you know whether

00:20:25.100 it's star trek or star wars or indiana jones whatever it might be they've all been casualties

00:20:30.400 of war in the process and they're not really going to come back in the way that they once did

00:20:34.520 Do you think we're going to look back and go, I know you've got your criticisms of Christopher Nolan, as do I.

00:20:40.920 It kind of reminds me of the guy you meet down the pub who's smart, but likes to tell you how smart he is.

00:20:46.540 Do you know what I mean?

00:20:47.760 You know, using words like chathonic and, you know, everyday conversation.

00:20:52.520 You go, did you really, did you really need to, Christopher?

00:20:54.980 But are we going to look back at him, particularly with Oppenheimer, and go, like, this is a guy who maybe saved Hollywood?

00:20:59.740 I mean, ultimately, as I said earlier, I would take like 10 Christopher Nolan movies over one 0.92

00:21:05.840 crappy franchise rehash, some dumb popcorn movie. Whatever criticisms I or anyone else 0.93

00:21:14.460 might have of something like The Odyssey, it's still a relatively intelligent movie grappling

00:21:18.980 with some pretty challenging source material. And hey, there's a lot of people now that are

00:21:23.180 probably going to read The Odyssey in its original form because of this movie. It will

00:21:27.220 piqued their interest in classic literature. So, hey, if Hollywood has to go in one direction,

00:21:32.420 I'd rather it was that. Well, yeah, the only thing is, like you said earlier,

00:21:36.480 and I think all of us were discussing this, you kind of put it up there with the ancient

00:21:41.380 World War movies and you go, Gladiator, Troy, you know, you can throw a few others in there,

00:21:47.220 but it's like, it's not even on that level. You know what I mean? And you're talking about one

00:21:51.680 of the greatest directors in Hollywood history, according to some people, and one of the greatest

00:21:56.500 stories in west in the western canon if you like and it's just like seven out of ten at a stretch

00:22:03.480 unlike a gladiator there was you know ten yeah i mean for me the um the bar for this sort of thing

00:22:10.860 is would i want to watch it again right yeah so you could probably say you were flicking through

00:22:15.160 the channels you happen to catch gladiator oh yeah you'd probably say i'll watch this it's pretty

00:22:18.880 good with the odyssey nah i said at the end of my review i'll probably never watch it again and

00:22:24.880 probably not really think about it again.

00:22:27.140 But then you guys are asking me about it 0.99

00:22:28.340 and you're making me think about it, damn it. 0.99

00:22:30.200 Well, you do this for a living, 0.99

00:22:31.960 you know, coming on movies.

00:22:33.260 But we wanted to touch on Project Hail Mary as well.

00:22:37.300 That's another very, very popular and successful movie.

00:22:40.240 Yes, absolutely.

00:22:41.920 Again, when you guys talk about the lack of politics,

00:22:44.420 the lack of pandering in it, great.

00:22:46.620 It's a movie that's just entirely about,

00:22:48.500 you know, adventure, science, friendship,

00:22:51.840 just universal themes that basically anyone could watch.

00:22:55.220 And you don't have to be like some hardcore science fiction nut to appreciate it.

00:22:59.520 You know, it's not pitched at the same level of a Christopher Nolan movie,

00:23:03.300 which is a great compromise.

00:23:06.100 You know, it makes this stuff accessible and it tells just a nice charming story,

00:23:10.700 a relationship between a man and a rock, effectively a rock monster.

00:23:14.720 And yet they make that creature, Rocky, more likable.

00:23:20.160 and they give him more humanity

00:23:21.560 than all these CGI Star Wars characters combined.

00:23:26.240 It's impressive what they did there,

00:23:27.960 but I'm pleased to see things like that successful.

00:23:30.360 And I want to see more movies like that as well.

00:23:32.980 Don't you think when you were watching this,

00:23:34.640 I was watching Ryan Gosling's performance

00:23:36.640 and look, credit where credit is due,

00:23:39.440 the way that he carries that movie, he's likable.

00:23:42.200 Even though he kind of plays this sort of wimpy, nerdy guy

00:23:45.620 and he looks like that,

00:23:47.060 it's stretching the boundaries of credibility,

00:23:49.360 shall we just say but however it shows the power of star quality the fact that he carries that

00:23:56.880 movie opposite a puppy a puppy sorry a puppet well you can see puppyish quality what movies

00:24:02.580 are you watching mate but he has that that that shows the power of star quality i guess is the

00:24:09.100 point i'm making sure and um you know they're in relatively short supply these days like actual

00:24:14.760 movie stars who are box office draws. You know, there's not many of them left. Like he's, he's

00:24:19.740 risen to that sort of level now where it's like, you know, Ryan Gosling movie. Okay. That's,

00:24:24.360 that's interesting. Tom Cruise is obviously one that's a holdover from a previous generation,

00:24:29.400 but he just refuses to age out. So fair enough. Yeah. Um, but there's, there's very few of them

00:24:37.120 nowadays, you know, again, like we're all about the same age. We grew up in like the eighties

00:24:41.580 and 90s you know there was back in the day it'd be like oh there's a new arnold schwarzenegger

00:24:45.740 movie or whatever like that would get people's interest but we don't really live in that world

00:24:49.640 now so when you get guys like that who can carry a movie partly on star power partly on just you

00:24:55.280 know the likability of their character hey again it's it's proof that maybe there's a bit of life

00:25:00.100 left in that that world still and you know what i was watching um the uh arnold schwarzenegger

00:25:07.840 it's not biopic, it was his, no, it's not biopic, but it was his documentaries based on his life.

00:25:13.860 And it was great on Netflix. And they were going through all his movies, not just, you know,

00:25:19.320 the Terminator, which is incredible, or Terminator 2 or Predator, all brilliant movies,

00:25:24.840 but things like Twins. And you just go, oh, movies were fun.

00:25:30.600 Yeah, they were. They were allowed to be fun. And again, like, you know, a lot of these movies

00:25:35.740 wouldn't have made crazy box office revenue

00:25:39.440 like we do nowadays,

00:25:40.720 but they're still memorable.

00:25:42.260 You know, you still remember Twins

00:25:43.400 or you remember Terminator 2 or whatever.

00:25:46.440 Like their box office would be pretty dwarfed by today's,

00:25:49.220 but they had something about them.

00:25:52.540 You know, I've talked before

00:25:54.980 about someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger

00:25:57.580 compared to someone like The Rock,

00:25:59.860 who's the closest we've got

00:26:01.560 to like a modern day equivalent,

00:26:03.260 an action star, big burly guy, you know,

00:26:05.680 and really specializes in these popcorn action flicks.

00:26:10.140 But most people would struggle to remember

00:26:12.280 any movies that he's ever done.

00:26:14.760 Right.

00:26:15.360 Maybe The Fast and the Furious,

00:26:16.900 but that's pretty much it.

00:26:18.020 The amount of money he's made over the years

00:26:19.720 dwarfed what Arnold Schwarzenegger made at his peak.

00:26:22.380 But people remember Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.

00:26:24.880 They don't remember The Rock.

00:26:26.580 Well, Arnold Schwarzenegger movies are better.

00:26:31.040 Objectively.

00:26:31.560 Yeah.

00:26:31.860 A lot better.

00:26:32.960 Yeah.

00:26:33.440 You know?

00:26:34.460 There was more care put into them and probably better writing.

00:26:38.220 And I don't know, maybe they came at the right time when the industry was different.

00:26:42.000 Yeah.

00:26:42.420 Well, Francis mentioned Netflix.

00:26:43.920 And one of the things I've always wanted to discuss with you is what you think the impact of the streaming services have been.

00:26:49.700 Because there's some amazing stuff.

00:26:51.320 There's some rubbish, obviously, but there's also some amazing stuff on there.

00:26:55.100 You know, I'm really enjoying House of Dragons at the moment.

00:26:59.320 And also, a friend of mine introduced me to Landman.

00:27:02.240 Have you seen that?

00:27:02.840 I have, yes.

00:27:03.440 oh so good isn't it uh that's on paramount plus so yeah i think taylor sheridan created landman

00:27:10.000 and he's got this entire universe of um shows like um oh what's the yellowstone um tulsa king

00:27:18.320 the dutton ranch like and they're all how can i describe it it's basically tv shows for men

00:27:24.400 yeah like because it's all just like manly men like working on oil fields and like having punch

00:27:29.520 shops and stuff but he absolutely understands his audience and he said recently like um he almost

00:27:35.520 does shows like that to piss off the hollywood critics because they know he stands for the

00:27:40.460 opposite of what they stand for um and he'll intentionally just write stuff in there to annoy

00:27:44.920 them because he's successful enough that he can get away with it but again there's a demand then

00:27:49.000 for shows like that and so they work but yeah in terms of the streaming services and what they're

00:27:54.240 going to do to the industry i did go through a phase where i thought they're going to be the the

00:28:00.420 future you know theatrical releases are gradually going to dwindle and it's going to become the

00:28:06.440 equivalent of stage shows nowadays there'll be a poor audience of very committed people who still

00:28:13.980 go and see movies in the cinema but most people will catch it on their streaming service at home

00:28:18.320 or even on their phone or whatever while they're on the move um maybe we're not quite there now

00:28:23.580 Maybe there's a little bit of the streaming bubble bursting, perhaps.

00:28:28.840 We'll see.

00:28:29.500 But there's a lot of...

00:28:30.720 For all the good stuff that you get on these streaming services,

00:28:33.080 I mean, come on, there's a lot of slop.

00:28:34.400 Oh, there is a lot of slop.

00:28:35.740 It blows my mind.

00:28:37.040 Like, sometimes I'll just sit down.

00:28:38.480 I don't know what I'm going to watch that night.

00:28:39.980 I'll bring up Netflix.

00:28:41.280 Let's have a look through.

00:28:42.400 And 20 minutes later, I'll still be scrolling.

00:28:44.340 I haven't found anything that I want to watch.

00:28:45.980 And it's insane.

00:28:46.960 It's too much choice almost.

00:28:48.580 There is.

00:28:49.100 There is a lot of choice.

00:28:50.300 But I think...

00:28:51.320 I don't know.

00:28:51.780 it feels to me like the big screen will always be there because it's such a special experience.

00:28:56.980 And I think partly, even if you could build a cinema in your house, it's still not the same.

00:29:01.120 I think there's something about going outside of your house, going to a place and sitting down

00:29:07.520 in a venue with other people. It may be lots of them, maybe a very few of them, but something

00:29:12.340 about that, that just gives you the opportunity to be with this piece of entertainment, this

00:29:18.780 piece of content, whatever it is, undisturbed, undistracted for two hours other than the twat

00:29:23.480 next to you eating popcorn. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, look, you know, again,

00:29:28.380 when we were talking about the Odyssey, it's, you know, done crazy business in IMAX because

00:29:33.840 people want the spectacle of it. You know, that ginormous screen, the huge sound system,

00:29:39.360 like really maxing out what you can do with cinema technology, giving you the most immersive

00:29:44.000 experience you can and great you know if people are still invested in that then that's good to

00:29:49.680 see because i would rather it be that communal experience and that experience of shutting off

00:29:55.900 everything else because you're never going to get this at home are you like you're always going to

00:29:59.660 have your phone there or whatever and there's always that temptation but uh to switch off the

00:30:04.440 phone to not have any distractions and just focus your attention for two hours on the movie

00:30:08.660 the the problem as you say is just the things that surround it you know you've got to sit 0.99

00:30:13.220 through like 30 minutes of adverts and trailers, you've got to deal with the asshole in front of 0.97

00:30:17.440 you who's like making loads of noise or someone who's talking behind you or whatever. But every 0.99

00:30:24.000 experience is going to have its plusses and negatives, you know. Overall though, yeah, I'd

00:30:28.680 rather see movies in that format if we can. I always, this is a question I'd love to ask you.

00:30:34.420 And again, it's going to show my age a little bit. To me, the apex of cinema in my life was

00:30:41.040 late 90s, early noughties, because what you had were movies that they may not have done well in

00:30:48.140 the cinema, but when they came to DVD, they got that second lease of life. And it seems that you

00:30:55.060 don't really get that anymore. DVD was so important, particularly when you think about

00:31:00.320 movies like, you know, Good Will Hunting. That's how I discovered Good Will Hunting on DVD. So many

00:31:05.880 and also classic movies as well,

00:31:08.040 watching Goodfellas on DVD.

00:31:10.000 Do you think that's really hit the movie industry hard

00:31:12.600 when that technology went away?

00:31:14.320 Definitely, yeah.

00:31:15.080 Because it was factored into their financial model.

00:31:17.860 They would say like,

00:31:18.560 well, there's movies that might not have quite

00:31:21.080 turned a profit at the box office,

00:31:22.820 but we know we're going to make like 50% more

00:31:25.240 in DVD rentals or sales further down the line.

00:31:28.760 And so that movie then becomes profitable.

00:31:31.140 And so when you do that,

00:31:32.440 they are more willing to take chances on

00:31:34.720 slightly unproven concepts or things that might not necessarily work in the cinema,

00:31:41.360 but they'll eventually turn a profit from it. And so you get a better breadth of artistic

00:31:47.180 material out there. There's movies that people are willing to take these chances on.

00:31:54.900 What you got in the post-DVD world, the post-physical media world, is more and more of a

00:32:00.100 reliance on proven IPs, proven properties. That's why you got these endless franchise movies like

00:32:06.220 Jurassic Park 19 or whatever, or like endless Marvel movies. Because once you find that model

00:32:12.180 that works, and once you find a franchise that works, you just keep making more of it. And that's

00:32:17.160 why they kept raiding all these old things like, oh, we're going to do another Indiana Jones movie,

00:32:22.260 you know, like 20 years after the last one when Harrison Ford's on a Zimmer frame.

00:32:26.980 Just anything that's got a built-in audience

00:32:29.280 because we don't have anything else

00:32:31.340 except the theatrical release window.

00:32:33.080 It's got to make its money there.

00:32:34.680 And so it's got to be a safe bet.

00:32:36.440 And that's the problem,

00:32:38.020 is that there really are no safe bets in Hollywood.

00:32:41.480 If you take the classic example of a movie

00:32:43.880 that no one heard of,

00:32:45.600 but did gangbusters,

00:32:47.240 something like Dirty Dancing,

00:32:48.720 who would have predicted that Dirty Dancing,

00:32:51.240 a movie about essentially a holiday romance,

00:32:55.000 would become one of the most iconic movies of an entire decade they somehow capture the the

00:33:01.480 cultural zeitgeist don't they and become part of it and i think what you see now is like we don't

00:33:07.740 have that because there's that loss of the monoculture now they were becoming so fragmented

00:33:12.600 like not just because there's like a million different streaming services you know you've got

00:33:17.480 youtube you've got all the you know online stuff that are competing for people's attention and so

00:33:23.800 So that world of like, oh, my God, I just went and saw this amazing movie at the cinema at the weekend.

00:33:29.960 You should go and see it, too.

00:33:31.420 That's dwindling now.

00:33:33.320 And so we don't get those shared experiences.

00:33:35.380 And so less and less, these movies are becoming part of the culture and becoming memorable, which is a real shame.

00:33:40.940 That's so true.

00:33:42.100 And I think it's so much driven by technology.

00:33:44.620 I remember as a young boy staying with my grandparents in Ukraine in the village in the summer

00:33:50.520 And walking past the tiny local cinema, it would have been like a 10-seater, 15-seater, 20-seater.

00:33:56.400 And there was a giant post, I didn't speak English at the time, of Arnold Schwarzenegger, one of his movies at the time.

00:34:02.280 It was in the 90s.

00:34:03.860 You just, like, we now live in the era of mass customization, where everything is so tailored to you that you have the exact politics that you want, the exact beverage, the exact food, the exact everything.

00:34:14.920 that it's probably one of the reasons

00:34:17.960 that you will never get actors

00:34:20.160 who are as big as that going forward

00:34:22.580 because just not everyone is going to watch that movie

00:34:25.400 because there's so much other stuff

00:34:26.860 that you could watch

00:34:27.680 that is going to be much more tailored to you specifically.

00:34:30.280 Well, give it a bit more time

00:34:31.180 and you'll be able to tailor movies

00:34:32.400 to your particular tastes.

00:34:33.940 Like AI will be able to rustle it up for you.

00:34:36.460 You know, you can be like,

00:34:37.320 oh, give me Titanic all over again,

00:34:39.140 but with a happier ending.

00:34:40.600 And it'll be able to render it for you.

00:34:42.700 And that's where we might end up,

00:34:44.320 where people get their own customized movie experiences

00:34:46.660 and there literally won't be

00:34:48.280 a shared version of a film anymore.

00:34:51.020 That will be quite cool though

00:34:52.220 because you can watch the same movie many times

00:34:55.380 and see it go in different directions

00:34:56.760 depending on choices you make.

00:34:57.940 That's what video games are like now.

00:34:59.960 It's one of the reasons I enjoy them

00:35:01.640 because you make choices

00:35:03.560 that take the story in a different direction

00:35:05.740 and it gives the thing repeatability and enjoyment.

00:35:09.800 And also the participatory value of that

00:35:12.500 is very engaging.

00:35:13.860 I don't know about that. In my happy ending, Leonardo DiCaprio would always drown.

00:35:20.300 But no, it's interesting you talk about video games there, because like that, as an industry, dwarfs movies.

00:35:26.280 In terms of revenue, it's like 10 times as much on an annual basis, and it's only getting bigger.

00:35:31.840 Yeah.

00:35:32.140 So, I mean, like that could well be the future of entertainment.

00:35:35.180 And well, there's a reciprocal thing with that as well, because now you're seeing more and more adaptations of popular video games in cinema.

00:35:42.780 you know

00:35:43.680 that was always

00:35:44.360 the holy grail for them

00:35:45.420 like back in the 90s

00:35:46.360 they would try

00:35:46.960 they would fail

00:35:47.780 like we've

00:35:48.360 we've all seen

00:35:49.020 like the Mario Brothers movie

00:35:50.260 from

00:35:50.500 but I still haven't

00:35:51.580 therapy for that

00:35:52.400 but they're starting

00:35:54.080 to crack it now

00:35:54.860 and like these are

00:35:55.820 turning out to be

00:35:56.620 very profitable

00:35:57.420 you know like the Mario

00:35:58.600 the new Mario movie

00:35:59.980 or the Sonic movies

00:36:01.000 or whatever

00:36:01.420 the Minecraft movies

00:36:02.720 were huge

00:36:03.100 is there a Fortnite movie

00:36:04.920 I imagine there should be

00:36:05.860 probably yeah

00:36:06.300 probably

00:36:06.640 there's definitely

00:36:07.440 Halo one

00:36:08.220 yes

00:36:08.760 the TV show

00:36:09.880 the TV show

00:36:10.660 I watched a few episodes

00:36:11.920 of that

00:36:12.120 it was decent

00:36:12.500 Speaking of which, there used to be a video game way back when called Dune, which reminds me of the Dune movies.

00:36:19.560 What did you make of those?

00:36:20.580 The Dune movies? Yeah, they were great. I mean, good sci-fi.

00:36:25.020 The second one especially felt like an event movie, like there was something really significant going on there.

00:36:30.420 I think it was a great adaptation of the book.

00:36:33.140 I read the book when I was a teenager, so some of the scenes they nailed pretty well.

00:36:37.760 pretty challenging world to render into movie format obviously lynch tried it back in the 80s

00:36:44.280 and that was uh i'm weirdly ambivalent about the third one though i don't know like i feel like the

00:36:53.560 third one is going to be chani was right about everything and paul needs to get punished for it

00:36:58.980 so we'll see what comes of that but weirdly it's it's another zendaya movie this year yeah we can't

00:37:05.600 Yeah, away from her.

00:37:07.480 Do you know, I'd love to talk about this with you.

00:37:11.620 So I've got a theory as to why Hollywood isn't as good as it used to be.

00:37:16.040 Okay. 0.59

00:37:16.620 It's the death of the shagger.

00:37:20.040 It's, look, and I'll tell you why.

00:37:22.000 Think about the bad boy, the good-looking bad boy, both the actor.

00:37:26.120 Oh, I thought you were going to talk about Javi Weinstein.

00:37:28.040 I was like, I mean, he did make some great movies, but I was just leaning out of shot

00:37:34.160 there going I'm not sure about this so you're on your own you carry on so let's look at Miramax's 0.86

00:37:40.240 canon exactly just in an all-male environment no no but if you look at for instance you kind of

00:37:48.420 look at the Mickey Rourke's at the time you know the the good-looking bad boy who everybody kind

00:37:54.460 of talked about and it would make you know he was problematic in many ways you put a camera on him

00:38:00.700 boom, you got dynamite. And it's also not just off screen, but the characters on screen,

00:38:06.260 like the John McClane's. You knew this guy was trouble. You knew there was darkness there,

00:38:11.360 but also he was magnetic. The Jack Nicholson's, you don't get that anymore, do you?

00:38:17.920 Well, there's a high degree of pussification in Hollywood now. So that's probably the reason for 0.51

00:38:22.940 it. The actors and the characters that they play, they're not allowed to be dangerous like that

00:38:29.940 anymore. Right. So this filters into all aspects of the industry, because if they are dangerous,

00:38:35.860 if they're too domineering or they're too much of a loose cannon, they're seen as problematic.

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00:40:10.220 in the description of this episode it's completely risk-free so check it out today i was talking to a

00:40:17.300 friend of mine who's um a comedian and he's been in hollywood all his life and he's quite well known

00:40:23.260 and he was just he said something to me in a green room in a comedy club and i said to him

00:40:27.140 how's la and he went dude everyone's terrified everyone's terrified and you just go that is

00:40:35.300 obviously awful but how can you make great art if you're terrified because great art is about risk

00:40:40.940 it's about taking that chance yeah it's about going i don't know if this is going to work but

00:40:45.480 let's try anyway well it's also having the ability to tell the truth like because that's what art is

00:40:50.800 really isn't it ultimately it's expressing truth and allowing people to make their judgments on it

00:40:55.860 but if you're not allowed to express whatever truth you have in mind and it's just got to be 0.56

00:41:00.980 the pre-approved version, well, then you're just going to get the same crap over and over again, 0.91

00:41:05.860 the same exact viewpoints, the same exact worldview. And you see it, you see it in Hollywood 0.97

00:41:10.540 movies. Like the only one I think that's different from that is maybe the Taylor Sheridans of the

00:41:16.480 world that we talked about before, where he sort of leans slightly the other way. And he's not

00:41:21.480 afraid to say that now because he's successful enough that he can get away with it. But generally

00:41:26.520 speaking, yeah, I think the climate is one of fear because all it takes is for an actor to

00:41:31.380 say the wrong thing in an interview, to express the wrong opinion about one particular issue,

00:41:36.260 some hot topic. And that could be it. That could be their career down the tubes.

00:41:41.840 I was just going to say, I mean, Taylor Sheridan to me is a very interesting example because

00:41:45.140 I do think, you know, we talked about the kind of woke era. I think the woke era also produced

00:41:51.760 this idea that, you know, the way to make a great movie is to be like really, really,

00:41:55.820 really not woke and then it sort of dragged in a lot of people who were who who were leading with

00:42:01.620 that whereas taylor sheridan is clearly very good i mean the uh i did did he also direct 1923

00:42:08.300 and it was 1887 the prequels those just purely from an artistic point of view are incredible

00:42:15.980 it for me way better than yellowstone which i actually wasn't that much of a fan of but those

00:42:20.300 two prequels are really, really high quality. And that's kind of where I always wanted it to go.

00:42:26.600 I didn't want a woke movie because it's annoying. I also didn't want an anti-woke movie or something

00:42:31.560 that's expressly political. Yeah. I see this on my videos occasionally where I might be

00:42:38.360 criticizing some movie, whatever, that's not woke by any normal measure. And so sometimes people

00:42:44.560 will say like, well, it's not woke. I mean, what do you want? And I'm like, well, I want a good

00:42:49.560 movie as well like there's plenty of reasons why a movie can suck right it doesn't have to be just

00:42:55.560 because it like pushes identity politics it could be badly written badly directed whatever it might

00:43:00.740 be and so yeah i think there's we have to be very careful that we don't just um you know lump

00:43:07.520 everything into that one basket like oh well it doesn't push any obvious politics therefore it

00:43:12.260 must be good no we still want to champion good art and that's a whole separate question but as long

00:43:18.700 as I think if we can get back to that era of, you know, assessing films on their own merits,

00:43:24.940 not about the politics that they push, then that's great. I mean, that takes the horrible

00:43:30.000 like culture war stuff out of it. And it allows us to just get back to, you know, being geeky over

00:43:35.880 Star Wars or whatever it might be rather than, you know, oh, your politics disagree with mine. 0.99

00:43:41.200 Guess you're going to have to die then. That's what the level of discourse is like in a lot of

00:43:47.040 cases. Well, right. And look, in sort of defense of the people who feel strongly about the culture,

00:43:52.840 well, I mean, it really does matter because it is, you know, certainly in my conception,

00:43:57.600 an attempt to undermine the very essence of our civilization. And it was important to counter.

00:44:02.960 But I think what has happened is, you know, if you stare long enough into the abyss,

00:44:07.400 the abyss also stares into you. And now people are walking around with this sort of like woke,

00:44:12.380 anti-woke filter in their brains, and they see everything through that.

00:44:15.900 Yes. And you can end up seeing enemies around every corner with this sort of thing. I think

00:44:21.880 the most ludicrous example I ever saw was a remake of a video game. I think it was called 0.79

00:44:26.880 Dead Space, some survival horror game in space. And there's a restroom in it at one point on this

00:44:32.460 space station that's overrun with horrifying monsters, and it's some gender-neutral bathroom.

00:44:37.660 and people lost their minds over that. 0.95

00:44:40.020 This game is woke.

00:44:41.460 And it's like you're stomping like mutated creatures

00:44:44.160 into the ground with your boots 0.82

00:44:45.500 or like chainsawing them in half.

00:44:47.260 How is this?

00:44:48.020 You know, that's where it becomes absurd.

00:44:51.180 You know, and so, yeah,

00:44:52.380 there needs to be that perspective, I think,

00:44:56.720 and just try not to go crazy with it.

00:44:59.320 And I think it's interesting

00:45:01.200 because we're looking at the last of the movie stars

00:45:03.600 with Ryan Gosling.

00:45:04.900 And one of Ryan Gosling's superpowers

00:45:06.720 is his intense likability,

00:45:08.360 is that even though he's this big, handsome guy

00:45:11.480 who could pretty much get any guy he wants,

00:45:13.540 you still really like him.

00:45:15.280 Whereas we compare him with the movie stars of earlier,

00:45:17.740 particularly like the Mickey Rourke's,

00:45:19.560 there was something fundamentally broken about Mickey.

00:45:23.320 And as a result, to my taste,

00:45:26.040 is it made for a more interesting performance on screen.

00:45:30.160 Like, you look at The Wrestler, for instance,

00:45:31.740 the Aronofsky movie.

00:45:33.460 I don't know any particular actor now

00:45:36.140 who would be able to have that type of performance on screen it's the tortured artist effect isn't it

00:45:41.740 yeah and yeah he's a prime example obviously he paid the price for it long term you know if you've

00:45:46.080 seen him recently he's he's not in a good place um but i think generally speaking yeah like you

00:45:53.100 kind of expect a certain intensity from your artists you know over and above like big popcorn

00:45:58.960 movies or whatever but the people who are creating more serious films um they should have that that

00:46:04.840 balance of light and dark in them, whether it's trauma, whether it's inspiration or drive,

00:46:11.000 whatever it might be, it creates a more interesting performer ultimately.

00:46:15.040 And I've heard it described nowadays as like these actors, they seem like they just come

00:46:21.360 across like from an assembly line.

00:46:24.340 You know, they've all had the same experiences.

00:46:26.500 They all had that Southern Californian upbringing, same worldview.

00:46:30.060 They've never really had anything bad happen.

00:46:32.160 And so you don't get the same level of nuance from them.

00:46:38.100 You don't get the same interest.

00:46:39.200 You don't get the same intensity.

00:46:41.580 And maybe it's the same with writers as well in Hollywood.

00:46:44.160 Again, people who are working there now have lived less interesting lives

00:46:49.420 than the hard drinking, hard smoking, hard partying guys of the 50s, the 60s, the 70s.

00:46:55.700 Those people all came from a lot of the time a tough background.

00:46:59.580 They had to claw their way into the industry.

00:47:01.520 They had interesting life experiences

00:47:03.840 that molded them into interesting people.

00:47:05.940 That then came across in their writing.

00:47:08.200 Maybe you don't get quite as much of that now.

00:47:09.780 It's much more controlled, safe, coddled, and boring.

00:47:14.260 Well, you look at, again, just to go back to Ryan Gosling,

00:47:17.420 I think he was in the Mickey Mouse Club, was he?

00:47:20.760 Was that Ryan Reynolds, maybe?

00:47:23.240 He just liked the Ryans.

00:47:24.420 Yeah, just liked the Ryans.

00:47:26.060 Anyone called Ryan.

00:47:27.220 Anyone called Ryan.

00:47:28.400 But if you look at the Steve McQueen's, for instance,

00:47:30.820 And it's like you look at Steve McQueen's journey, how he started out.

00:47:34.060 I mean, he was in, I think he was in a care home for kids.

00:47:38.300 And then when he left and then he did a variety of jobs and slowly made his way.

00:47:42.200 But that bled onto the screen.

00:47:44.160 It gave an authenticity that, for me, nobody is able to match that.

00:47:49.840 No, it's the same with guys like Kirk Douglas or Charles Bronson.

00:47:53.840 Like these guys all came from tough backgrounds

00:47:55.700 and went through all kinds of deprivations in their childhood

00:48:00.120 to eventually claw their way into an industry

00:48:02.880 that wouldn't accept them necessarily, but they forced it to.

00:48:07.000 You don't get so much of that nowadays.

00:48:08.820 They're manufactured now.

00:48:11.840 And I guess, to me, that's a real problem

00:48:15.640 because ultimately, and again, you could argue this is a taste thing,

00:48:19.340 it creates a less interesting and compelling story

00:48:22.460 because I like nice people.

00:48:25.480 I like nice people.

00:48:27.340 Nice people are nice to work with

00:48:28.800 and nice to hang around with and whatever else.

00:48:31.160 Do I want to see a nice person on screen?

00:48:33.460 Do I want to listen to a nice person's album?

00:48:36.480 Not particularly.

00:48:38.540 Yeah.

00:48:39.680 It's the same with, what would I compare it to?

00:48:43.560 So, you know that new TV show

00:48:45.420 that's been out for a few years now,

00:48:46.840 The Rings of Power on Amazon, right?

00:48:48.860 That's their adaptation of The Lord of the Rings,

00:48:51.640 all that Tolkien lore and so on.

00:48:53.480 you compare the actors that you see on that they're all very like soft very amiable like they

00:48:59.880 look like they just want to wear a nice cozy jumper you know and have a cup of cocoa compare

00:49:04.340 that with like the lord of the rings from 25 years ago you had guys like vigo mortensen sean being

00:49:09.980 like those guys look like you could just dump them in the wilderness and they would survive no

00:49:14.080 problem you know it's a different they had a different upbringing different experiences but

00:49:18.840 it molded into much more interest in people not just in their performances but how they look

00:49:23.340 how they carry themselves the confidence they have and uh we're just kind of losing that i think now

00:49:29.400 in cinema and that's to me the real problem because again but i just don't think nice people

00:49:38.340 create great art if i'm being honest you look at you know people go for instance picasso and they'll

00:49:44.380 go oh picasso was like this and he was problematic or any other type of artist and i just go yes

00:49:52.540 But what did they create?

00:49:54.400 What would you rather go to?

00:49:56.120 A nice person who creates art that's, eh.

00:49:59.420 Or would you rather go and see a great artist who, let's be fair, 0.99

00:50:03.000 may be a bit of a cunt? 1.00

00:50:04.300 Yeah. 0.99

00:50:04.840 So basically what you're saying is you want to see actors suffer more.

00:50:07.940 But, you know, you read about the Kubricks of this world.

00:50:12.140 I don't think being an actor on a Kubrick set was particularly enjoyable or fun.

00:50:17.860 Yeah.

00:50:18.580 Having said that, being evil doesn't make you a great artist. 1.00

00:50:21.900 Hitler would be a good example of that. 1.00

00:50:23.760 Yeah. 0.98

00:50:25.120 And, you know, I've done many videos about, like,

00:50:27.720 movies that have had difficult productions,

00:50:30.420 whether, you know, it was actors, directors,

00:50:33.120 clashing with each other or whatever it might be.

00:50:35.660 And sometimes it results in great art or great movies.

00:50:39.680 Like, you know, James Cameron is a notoriously hard-driving director,

00:50:43.060 Stanley Kubrick, obviously. 0.83

00:50:44.820 Other times you end up with complete garbage at the end of it,

00:50:47.620 like The Island of Dr. Moreau.

00:50:49.120 So, obviously, there needs to be talent behind it all.

00:50:53.280 But, yeah, as you say, a bit of friction is necessary, I think,

00:50:56.120 to create something really good and memorable.

00:50:57.980 Speaking of challenging production, you reminded me,

00:51:00.260 we went to the premiere of The Rise of Merlin.

00:51:03.700 Have you seen that?

00:51:05.640 Is that the TV show?

00:51:06.840 It's The Daily Wire made, Jeremy Boring made.

00:51:09.940 Yes.

00:51:10.420 Have you seen that one?

00:51:11.560 I've seen, like, the first episode of it.

00:51:13.220 What do you think?

00:51:14.060 It was interesting.

00:51:15.100 They were trying to cram a lot into it.

00:51:17.000 There's a lot of lore.

00:51:18.100 There's a lot of characters.

00:51:19.120 There's time jumps and stuff.

00:51:20.720 And I feel like they were trying to do a lot of heavy lifting very quickly.

00:51:24.920 Yeah, I'd agree with that, definitely.

00:51:26.580 But what I found was, it was interesting, rather,

00:51:29.880 that I think they didn't have a massive initial release in the US,

00:51:34.280 but it's now on the stream.

00:51:35.860 I think it's on Amazon now.

00:51:37.280 And it's become very popular.

00:51:38.900 Yeah.

00:51:39.100 Very, very popular.

00:51:40.080 So good on them for doing that.

00:51:42.400 Critical Drinker, great to have you back.

00:51:44.640 We're going to ask you some questions from our supporters in a second.

00:51:47.140 But as you know, final question, always the same.

00:51:49.880 What's the one thing we're not talking about that we shouldn't be?

00:51:53.040 Oh, man.

00:51:54.000 I had a good answer for this last time, and now I'm not sure,

00:51:57.160 because we've talked about so much in this.

00:51:59.960 Why is Zendaya in everything all of a sudden?

00:52:02.600 She was so horribly miscast as Athena.

00:52:05.420 She frowns a lot.

00:52:06.900 That was her role.

00:52:08.880 I don't understand.

00:52:10.840 Athena is meant to be this majestic, imposing figure

00:52:15.000 who's a mixture of the warrior and the intellectual.

00:52:19.420 We didn't get that really from the Odyssey, did we?

00:52:21.460 She was kind of, she sort of came across

00:52:23.520 as more like his conscience than a goddess.

00:52:26.320 Yeah.

00:52:26.620 Which is, this is the bit where actually I'd agree with Francis

00:52:29.420 where it was so inauthentic to the ancient Greeks

00:52:31.540 because to them, gods and goddesses were,

00:52:35.340 they had agency.

00:52:36.440 They were living beings who had their own agendas,

00:52:39.320 their own flaws, their own faults.

00:52:41.020 and to sort of have a goddess be this sort of almost like a spiritual thing

00:52:47.420 that just is there to reflect you back to you in some way

00:52:50.940 and guide you along the path.

00:52:52.500 That's not the way the Greeks thought about gods and goddesses at all.

00:52:55.320 No, and I think it's what happens when you get a man of science

00:52:57.820 who fundamentally doesn't hold with religion or with mysticism or spirituality

00:53:03.360 and then ask him to weave a story in a world that's saturated with that

00:53:07.820 and demands that stuff.

00:53:09.560 you get this weird attempt to rationalize the gods as,

00:53:13.280 well, they're just, Poseidon is now a storm on the ocean

00:53:15.840 and Zeus is like thunder in the sky or whatever.

00:53:19.440 And it doesn't fundamentally work with a story like that.

00:53:24.020 They should be an active part of the story, the narrative.

00:53:27.480 All right. Great to have you on.

00:53:29.800 Thank you.

00:53:30.260 Head on over to triggerpod.co.uk

00:53:32.820 where we're going to ask the critical drinker your questions.

00:53:36.400 Don't forget to click the link in the description of this episode

00:53:39.680 to grab the special CyberGhost VPN discount.

00:53:43.620 It's completely risk-free, so check it out today.

00:53:48.360 Besides the recent success of The Odyssey,

00:53:50.580 it appears that the Hollywood model for producing movies,

00:53:53.100 i.e. creative casting, shoehorning ideology into storylines, is failing.

00:53:57.800 Why hasn't the ship course corrected yet?

00:54:05.440 We'll be right back.

TRIGGERnometry - August 01, 2026

Critical Drinker： The Real Problem with the Odyssey

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