December 6, 2019 • 66 mins
Did someone really hang themselves on camera in the Wizard of Oz? Did Stanley Kubrick hide a secret message in Eyes Wide Shut? It's no secret that the world of film is fraught with conspiracy -- both on and off the screen. But do any of these strange rumors and urban myths hold any sand? Join the guys with their special guest and long-time friend, Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant, cohost of Stuff You Should Know and creator of the Movie Crush podcast, as they separate fact from fiction in the world of conspiracies and film.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome
(00:25):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is They called me Ben. We are joined as always
with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decond. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. As our fellow
long time listeners know, we're all film buffs here and
stuff they don't want you to know, big fans of
(00:45):
cinema in almost any form, and today we're diving into
film conspiracies of all types. Right, Like we would say
we're film buffs. I only like movies. Oh yeah, you are,
you're a movie man. Well you know, I officially have
a degree in filmmaking, although without the actual film. You're
a professor of cinema. No, alright, no, no, I'm just
(01:10):
saying like I'm I'm all about this kind of stuff
as we all are. Sure we have an interest in it.
But we're not here alone. That's true, Matt. Today we
are joined with our collective pal uh pioneer podcasting, a
friend of the show and an actual outside of work
personal friend of ours to boot Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
host of Movie Crush as well as stuff you should know.
(01:34):
Thanks for coming on the show, Chuck. Hey guys, Hey man,
I've got so many questions already. Yeah, Ben, question for
you fans of almost all kinds of film? What what
kinds of film are you're not a fan of? Oh
I was, I just wanted to leave people in out
in case one of the guys just like, you know what,
screw spaghetti westerns. I hate Ennio Morricone. I love Ennio Morricone,
(01:56):
So it would have been driving some tension into our relationship.
But not all films are for all people. You're probably
not a fan of snuff films for example. Yeah, actually,
I hope that's not a hot take. I'm not you know.
There you go, call me old fashioned answer. So we
um for for backgrounds, how would you describe Movie Crush
(02:17):
the podcast? Like how how you the germ of the idea,
how you grew it? What you guys do? And I
know knowles on there as well. That's right. Well, Movie
Crust started as uh, is hey, let me interview a
celebrity and release every Friday and they talk about their
favorite film all time. Favorite movie is The Conceit and
it is still that at times, but it is morphed
(02:38):
over the past two years. Just had the two year
anniversary and now we do these mini crushes on Monday
with Noel as co host, where we have a great
movie going community on Facebook and we post questions and
polls and do a lot of interactive fans stuff, which
is a lot of fun. And then Friday's. Now, it
turns out booking celebrities is a hard thing to do.
(03:00):
What and I got kind of sick of it. Uh,
if they come my way, now, great, I'll do that.
But I have a stable of friends and family and
colleagues now that come in and we do film series
and filmmaker series and just whatever you want to talk
about about a specific foulm and just really quickly, just
to make sure this is crystal clear, this is Chuck
reaching out doing this booking solo. We don't have like
(03:23):
a staff of like booking agents that are trying to
interviewing celebrities and not my friends, family and colleagues. No,
it's great though, these are great conversations no matter who
it is, And it turns out the listening community was like,
I don't care if it's a celebrity, these are great conversations, Maddie.
We're doing I don't even know what to call it.
(03:44):
Originally was just hit movies. We're just gonna go with
ninety nine. I think, okay movies? Yeah, man, Well is
speaking of your colleagues and friends that you interview, you
have a whole sere By the way, Paul has been
on that show and are doing a Sophia series. He
has want to hear Paul's voice. He never speaks on
this here podcast. You can hear him speak on Chuck's
(04:04):
That's right. But another person you interview as a colleague,
uh named Casey Pegram, And that is what we really
want to get into first. Yes, Casey Pegram a k a.
La Bush as he's known in France and in a
couple of different podcasts. What it's a we have this
idea that Casey is in addition to be a superproducer
(04:26):
in Atlanta. You know this is a true story, you guys,
we all know how he disappears for like at least
three weeks once a year. Yea. So we have this
vision of him leading a completely different double life. Where's
la bouche. He has like an ear ring and a
leather jacket. Is he an assassin or is he just
he is just an international man of mystery. Assassin is
(04:48):
probably on the table, but if it comes up. Yeah,
I really thought you were going into the mighty bush
thing there for a second. I thought that's what this
means the mouth. Yeah, he's kind of a broker of
film related crime. We haven't really figured it out, but
we're pretty sure he has maybe two secret families of
France that are aware what you do is guys is
(05:08):
one of us? Uh? Before next year, say hey, Casey
has saved up some doughman and I would love a
Jorg guide. Uh, and can we co inside our trips
and just see if he's like, how weird? He gets
sort of duck to do my own thing? Not actually
going this year, let's you know it. That sounds like
a plan and we have enough time to do it. Um.
(05:31):
But the series you make with him, yes, is focused
on a particular filmmaker, at least several you've made several
in that veine talking about Stanley Kubrick, which is somebody
we've spoken about before on this show. We kind of
want to get your take. Yeah, yeah, let's let's start
with this is one of the when we think of
conspiracy theory and film, one of the things that will
(05:54):
be most apparent in the front of the mind of
the mainstream listener whatever is going to be stuff related
to Stanley Kubrick, Right, So we wanted to get your
takes on some of the most prevalent conspiracy theories or
fringe theories regarding Kubrick and his body of work. So
(06:16):
you've heard the one about, uh, Stanley Kubrick faking the moonlanding. Okay, uh, well,
let's just really fast. Do you think there's anything to
that with the with the technology that was being developed
to shoot that film in tandem with our efforts to
get to the moon. Do you have any feeling that
something weird was going on there or it's just all
(06:38):
I mean, it's just all happened to be coinciding. I
don't think anything was going on there. Um. I know.
Part of the credence to this theory is that two
thousand one of Space Outosey looked so realistic and who
else would you go to. But you know, he enlisted real,
real people from NASA, if I'm not mistaken, and and
astronauts and engineers, like that's why that movie looks so great.
(07:01):
Not say he couldn't have done that to fake the
moon landing as well. I guess it's just also, as
such an tour who's famous for having so many multiple
takes of things, it seems like he'd be a real
pill to work with faking a moon landing, Like, how
many takes do you have to have of the each step? Okay,
(07:22):
here's here's my my kind of updated take after doing
a little more research on this, and we're it's slightly
tangent here, but it's coming right back and it's related. Okay,
let's stay with me here. Um. When Steven Spielberg made
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, allegedly he received a
lot of criticism from NASA for producing that movie, and
(07:44):
the way the story goes is that they were worried
that audiences would have a similar reaction to the concept
of extraterrestrials visiting as they did to the concept of
giant sharks being in the waters near places where people
just go hang out and swim in the ocean. Um.
But also I've not ever read this letter, this strongly
(08:08):
worded twenty page letter that NASA sent to Spielberg allegedly.
I've never read it, and I've I've not seen anyone
actually right out, you know, points from it. But it's
been alluded to several times over the years. Um. And
it just goes back to that concept of creating a
movie like Space two thousand one of Space Odyssey, like
(08:30):
the concept that it could possibly be dangerous to society
by releasing it because it puts these images into our brains,
these ideas of like with close encounters in an extraterrestrial
force visiting us and what that would mean. Um, are
you saying that, like from a pr standpoint, it was
(08:51):
it would have been a bad move. It's like, we
don't want to cause a panic, public panic. I don't
people worrying about the stuff. Bet are to think of
other things, you know, Like see, I would heard it
was different. I always heard that these films had supposedly
been commissioned by the government to soften us up to
the idea, yes, alien invaders or whatever. So again, like
you're talking about essentially different people's viewpoints in the way
(09:13):
they're thinking about these concepts of conspiracy. I guess either way, well,
it could be right. It softens you up or scares
the heck out of It's interesting because we see if
we look at the trends in sci fi, we see
something happening with AI which was a pretty cool correlation.
Um that that I didn't I didn't discover. But what
(09:37):
one of our friends, uh Dan actually discovered this one.
And uh we see how in times passed right, especially
during nuclear scares or communist scares, technology or androids were
depicted as this other, this dangerous thing. But now increasingly
we've moved from a terminator franchise to a more friendly thing, right,
(09:58):
like more of a Wally world and so um, without
getting too far away from the alien stuff and the
NASA stuff. I did find. I found this quoted in
a couple of places, quotation purporting to be from Steven
Spielberg regarding this NASA letter, and I would like to
read it, just to just to see what our reactions
(10:20):
are to this. I really found my faith when I
heard that the government was opposed to the film Close Encounters.
If NASA took the time to write me a twenty
page letter, then I know there must be something happening.
I had wanted cooperation from them, but when they read
the script, they got very angry and felt that it
was a film that would be dangerous. I felt they
mainly wrote the letter because Jaws convinced so many people
(10:42):
around the world that there were sharks and toilets and bathtubs,
not just in the oceans and rivers. They were afraid
the same kind of epidemic would happen with UFOs. Difference
being sharks are proven to exist. And I mean, now,
I haven't seen close encounters in a long time, possibly
not even all the way through. But are the aliens nice?
Are they not nice? Yeah? I mean the only time
(11:03):
you actually I mean, should we spoil alert this? Yeah,
let's seeing this old old movie in the nineteen seventies. Uh,
the only time you actually see the aliens. The final
third encounter is at the very very end of the film.
And all that happens really is Richard Dreyfuss goes up
the plank and is greeted very warmly. Ben Um, we
(11:27):
don't know what happens after that door shuts, but that's true.
They appear to be very friendly. As that door is shutting,
it's sort of a handholding thing, if I'm not mistaken.
It seems weird, though, with all the stuff that NASA
has on its plate back then and now, it seems
weird that they would take so much time to write
(11:47):
to this guy about a fictional film, and God, how
much they have felt about Independence Day? Am I right?
All right? That's what I'm saying, A pandemonium. They knew
that the extra trest reels that are very much real
my friends that are out there are dangerous, and they
didn't want us to think they were nice and friendly,
and we could talk to them with our keyboards, like
(12:08):
don't go up the gangplank, Richard Treyfus, you fool. They're
gonna put things in your butt. Everybody knows that. I mean,
that's yeah, that's I think that's in the original script
that it was close Encounters of the butt exactly. So
let's take it all the way back, just really fast
as Stanley Kubrick, and then we'll we'll we'll end there
with the moon landing conspiracies in general. If you take
(12:31):
it away from Stanley Kubrick, do you do you have
any doubts that we went to the moon, of course not.
And then the you know the things everyone knows sort
of the why they believe it was faked, with the
flag flying and the shadows not being quite right. Uh
what else is there? Is there a footprint situation that's
(12:52):
an issue? Did I make that up? In there's the
idea that the lunar dust would have moved differently, But
it's also it's a question of the film technology at
the time, and also we had never been to the moon,
so we're not quite sure what stuff looks like when
filmed on a camera. Silly question do we have access to,
like what what did the camera look like they shot
(13:13):
this on? I've never Well that's one of well, actually
that's the still camera. That's one of the theories is
that in the reflection of I think Armstrong's face whatever
you call face plate, you can see the photo being
take a very clear reflection of the astronaut taking the photo.
(13:36):
But like, you can't see a camera, man, there's no camera,
but apparently the camera is embedded. Yeah, it's attached to
the suit. That makes sense. And these hands were sort
of right at chess level. So it all checks. Because
the story is that there. They can barely move their
hands at all, and it camera also this this is
(13:57):
interesting because it ties into, of course, one of Kubrick's
um one of Kubrick's most well known films, the adaptation
of Stephen King's The Shining Right or The Thing, inspired
by the novel, Because there are people who people who
believe that Kubrick was somehow involved in uh faking the
moon landing also believe that he decided the best way
(14:20):
to tell people this was through some sort of Rube
Goldberg esque series of clues hidden in a completely unrelated film.
There's an absolute laundry list of weird hidden stuff in
The Shining, much of it that doesn't refer to that
at all, that refers to like an Indian genocide, Native
American genocide, and the gold Standard exactly yes the film,
(14:42):
Yes for sure. Yeah, So Chuck, I am. I am
not surprised and also immensely reassured that this was not
the moment where we learned that you were convinced that
you were a muner. I like that phrase, do you
guys like muner? I love it. Let's put that on
a T shirt. So in The Shining its supposedly like
(15:02):
Danny Sweater with the rocket as he stands up the
carpet that now iconic pattern is one of the like
the launch pads and what I mean these are all
that's very flimsy stuff to be delivering a message, you know.
And then there was the fake video you know from
it's like four years ago where someone had a video
where Stanley Kubrick came clean about the whole thing. Uh,
(15:25):
and this is like the did you ever see this?
I did, yeah, And it was this long interview where
he copped to the whole thing. It was all very believable,
but it's not Stanley Kubrick. That was the one problem.
It was like, I was making a movie about Stanley
Kuber Kubrick and this was a guy who played like
old Kubrick. But I watched it today and I looked
at I was like, oh, that's not even him. There
is so many people. There is a tape of Kubrick
(15:47):
that came out not terribly terrio long ago where he
explains the ending of two thousand one of Space Odyssey,
which is interesting just to listen to He kind of
I can't remember exactly what he said, but it's an
honest it's it's it's it's confirmed. It's from a BBC
interview that said that's legit. No idea, there were counterfeit
Kubrick's just running them up. Well, nowadays, with all this
(16:09):
deep fake stuff, we've got to figure out how to really,
you know, confirm the validity of footage true. Nowadays you
can't believe people unless you meet in person. This is
something that's fascinating because it still sticks around in the
cultural zeitgeist even though it's very easily debunked. Right, you
can you first off, moon landing stuff. Last thing you'll
say about it. You don't need a particularly advanced telescope
(16:32):
to look at the moon and see reflections of manmade
things on there or see um, sorry, signs of manmade things. Right,
And you can shoot a laser if you have the
right equipment, and it will reflect back on that laser
reflector that's there. And if you don't have a giant laser.
Let us tell you today's episode is brought to you
(16:52):
by by by to get three free. Uh, it's an
economy of scale. There there is a thing here that happens. Uh.
There is a thing, a thread rather a thematic narrative
thread when we talk about Kubrick. Uh. That goes across
several of his movies, and it's the idea that somehow
(17:14):
this creator is speaking to us the audience through code, right,
and that these films are somehow you know they're there multilayered, right,
but that one of those lower layers is a is
a message of some sort. And this sure, it's it's
prevalent when we hear discussion of the Shining, But then
(17:37):
when we get to his last film, Eyes Wide Shut,
it's like the door is blown off the hinges. Right,
you know, I think we've all heard this, and I
want your opinion. Was Eyes Wide Shut actually coded xpos
a on some elite cabal or some real real cult thing? Uh?
(17:59):
Has everyone looking at me? Well, because Chuck, you don't
you the host of stuff you should know one of
the biggest podcasts out there. You were clearly one of
the elite friends you also host are our film podcast.
There's a lot of cross over here. Uh. No, I
don't know if it was supposed to be um. I
think the the idea is that is a depiction of
(18:23):
an elite group of a secret society, but not necessarily
that it was supposed to be any particular one, right,
or are there concrete theories there are? I mean, kids,
it's supposed to be of course. I mean it's always
the Illuminati, you know what I mean, Like there that
should put that on a T shirt. It's always they're
(18:43):
the freebird of secret societies, you know what I mean.
In the Great Karaoke Conspiracy Conversation, the Yes, So Tom
Cruise plays this guy Dr. Bill Harford and he learns
that is what they're taught. They have a wild night, right,
one of those should be nice parties that gets really weird,
And then he's talking with his wife Alice, and he's
(19:05):
talking about affairs because this older I think Hungarian guy
tries to seduce the wife and then someone's also can
currently trying to seduce him. They make it out and scape.
They go home and he's like, well it was crazy. Uh,
I can't believe that, honey. And then she says some
by the way, thank you, thank you, I learned it
from connall. Uh. And uh, there's there's this moment where
(19:29):
his wife says, actually, I have seriously considered having an affair.
There was this one guy there's one real smoke show.
I you know, I thought about leaving you and the kid,
and this this is sort of the impetus that sets
Tom Cruise's doctor character out into this this world of
(19:49):
murky secrecy. People who believe there's some sort of hidden
message there uh point to what they say are numerous
occult symbols in the film, and the film's head be
on symbols. That's true. You know, it's a lot of
masked uh in delicate interactions, a lot of c g
I sex stuff that they had to like cover things
(20:11):
up to get to make it get an R rating.
I think like during the orgy scene, they actually had
to like insert fake people to cover up some of
the penetrative moments. And I would watch a cut where
they where they did a purposely bad job of that,
you know, with like some guy from Caterine is walking
out video just kind of walk through the mob, and
(20:33):
the mob is of course in rhythm to So. I
just want to inject something here that has to do
with our discussions of these because White is also Yeah,
we covered the Matrix and fight Club so far. Yeah,
one of the major themes in these movies, all three
of these movies from is that there's something very wrong
with society. We either as just a regular human being
(20:57):
existing within it, can't either see it, can't do anything
about it, or we need to change it, or we're
all of a sudden made aware of it. So within
eyes wide shutting the matrix, all of a sudden Tom Cruise.
In this scenario you Ben you talked about, he's just
all of a sudden made aware of this crazy elite
secret society. Neo becomes aware of the matrix. Um, the
(21:19):
narrator and fight club becomes aware of just how society actually,
how banal his life and his existence is, and how
futile the whole thing is. Well, yeah, so it's um,
And it's kind of maybe it's that whole concept of
coming up on the New millennium that perhaps in people's heads. Yeah,
I'd like to know if you think there's anything to that. UM.
(21:41):
With Stanley Kubrick deciding to depict this secret society and
the way he did the people who truly pull the strings,
it's almost um. It's not a comment or a response
to any of that stuff, but maybe it's kind of
showing us here's the real Here are the real people
that pull the strings in our society. They're people who
(22:01):
go to board meetings and have crazy parties because they
just have all the power and money. Yeah. But I
mean if you look at the end of Eyes Wide
Shut though, um spoiler, and you believe that what the
movie has to say, then they are nothing but a
group of um sort of horned up rich people exactly.
(22:23):
And the girl is not dead. She she was, She's
this this, you know. Sydney Polk explains it all at
the end, and it's like, you know, all these crazy
ideas that you've got about what's going on there and
that there's shadowy murders and cover ups it. Basically we're
just like a bunch of Well, it's kind of like
what we talked about with Hodgeman when he was on
Stuff that I want you to know, and he sort
(22:43):
of shed some light into his uh entree into the
book and snake us in Yale when he was his
time at Yale and how at the end of the
day it was just kind of like a swanky party
for people to do some networking. And he's much more
if we're being on it, he's he's much more focused
on his medallion status rather than any sort of secret
(23:05):
collegiate society. Die in status dot B L Y all
capital letters. So it's it's weird because whenever we get
to the point of any theorizing, when we're whenever we
get to the point where we're asking people to interpret
a symbol right, something subjective, we're no longer looking at
(23:27):
something quantitative, like a mathematical equation. We're looking at someone
who's saying, well, I think I think that looks like
a triangle with an eye in it. And I'm I'm
pretty sure. I mean, what's the difference, Like, at what
point are we just reading tea leaves? You know what
I mean? I I see what you're saying there, But
isn't there something? Isn't there an extra onion layer to this?
(23:49):
Didn't correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't Stanley Kubrick die
before this movie was released? Six days after he had
a screening? He died, which is such fertile territory. But
didn't somebody else has to one? And no, that's not true.
I'm thinking of Ai was. But he got in a
fight with the studio about how to cut it, which
I think you alluded to earlier. Nol for eyesweatshut to
(24:12):
get that the I guess it was too too racy
for an R rating, right, But then I guess here's
my question that I don't have an answer to, is like,
in the theory, they were pretty close to releasing this movie,
but somebody, maybe the distributor could go through and make changes.
Whoever owns the rights to it after his passing, like,
(24:35):
could go through and make some sweeping changes to the
story before it comes out in theaters. Maybe that's one
of the reasons that it some of the conspiracy theories
continue to proliferate because something could have happened that we
would never be privy to. That's true. I'm just gonna okay,
I'm just gonna say it. There's just one person's opinion.
I don't think there's much sand too conspirat like as
(24:59):
tempt been and as juicy as it is cognitively to say,
Stanley Kubrick and an immensely talented director went too far
and across the line, and the powers that be were like,
don't tell people about our orgies. Now we're going to
kill you. As as tempting as that is to believe
and as frankly fun as it is to believe, he
(25:20):
was an older man who was not in the best shape.
You know, he had taken very great care of himself.
He believe he was seventy years old. It's not like
he was twenty one years old and found with two
gunshots to the back of his head. Right. But it
does bring out something I think could be could have
much more credibility to it, which is the idea that
(25:44):
a government, or the idea of specifically the US government,
may be able to play a role in determining what
kinds of films get created or what kind of films
get depicted like. It blew my mind when I learned
that this is for are aspiring filmmakers out there. You
can get the US military to do stuff for you
(26:06):
on screen as long as you depict them as heroes, right,
or at least in a way that they agree upon. Yeah,
which I had no idea. Like. I'm not sure how
much say they have and whether or not something gets
made these days, but they can certainly if you're making
a war movie or anything that involves the army, then
(26:26):
they can make it really easy for you, or they
can sit on their hands and make it tougher, but
they'll be like, sure if they like what you're doing.
How many tanks you need? You need some helicopters? Whoa,
we're wasting your time podcasting. Do you know what the
fees are for that? I know? I don't know, man,
we need to find out. What about even on like
a branding level, like if you know, are we allow
(26:50):
our filmmakers allowed to use army, Navy, etcetera? Without permission?
Like you've got to clear everything? Yeah? Um? And I
imagine yeah they would they us for the use and
what are you gonna do with it? And then either
say yes or no? Hey, have you guys seen the
trailer for the new Top Gun movie. Yes, I'm actually
kind of excited. I am too. Okay, I feel obligated
(27:13):
to watch it. You know, I feel like it's inevitable.
It's just a teaser, right, like you don't really see
his face and there's a full trailer. Saw the teaser,
went okay, I gotta I gotta buddy and check it out.
I gotta say, I was not like I saw a
top Gun enough because it was just the zeitgeist. But
I wasn't some big top gun nut. But when I
saw that trailer, I found myself going, why do I
(27:35):
Why am I so in love with the idea of
this movie. I know, well they it's probably pure nostalgia.
It's the way they shoot for me, at least the
way they actually shoot the jets, because it brings out
the kid in me that played with a little toy
F fourteen and I was just like, oh man, this
is so cool. Um we were we hit on something
(27:57):
really important here, been of the con aft to controlling
what can be seen and like government involvement with that,
and I really want to get into that after a
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hundred and we're back. So the question the question at
(30:15):
at the table, We're at the table. Okay, there we go,
Thanks guys. The question that we're looking at currently is, uh,
whether the weather a government specifically the US government, can
influence the kind of films that get made or the
kind of narratives we see. Uh. The answer to that
(30:36):
in days of yore was yes, you know, to to
some degree or another. But the answer now maybe becomes
a little more complicated. Right. We have indeed, there's this
democratization of filmmaking technology, so we have more people who
don't have to be beholden to a studio. But I
don't know, man, I know it's very on brand for
(30:58):
me to be like, see I is dictating mc U
or something like that. I don't think they would bother.
I would say that the control mechanisms, to a large
part are still in place, but it's mostly the distribution arms.
Like you, you could make the coolest indie film ever,
but you may not get anyone to see it, no
(31:19):
matter how trending something becomes, if it's not you know,
fully out there somewhere. Uh. And you've got ads popping
up every somebody's paying for ads, somebody's paying for posters,
somebody's paying for all this stuff. You're not gonna have
the same reach. And maybe that's maybe that's wrong thinking though,
because anything that goes viral online could be potentially seen
(31:42):
by well, that's true. I mean, that's why no one's
cracked the code on how to make things go viral.
P See, this is the This is one of those
things that you and I have different things. What do
you think, Well, think it's all like stage. Well, there's more, sure,
there are more opportunities to spread things, but there are
fewer people holding the faucets of that information. To to
(32:03):
say that Facebook could not artificially make something quote unquote viral,
to say that they don't have that capability is willfully
I'm not saying they don't, norfully wrong. I absolutely think
they do. But I also would like to believe that
things succeed or fail on their own merits, at least
some of the time. I would think. So, yeah, I
(32:25):
don't think. I don't think we're in the grips of
some corporate scythe overlord. I mean, if that cat playing
the piano video didn't succeed, is because of its sheer awesomeness.
And I don't know what I believe in what a
chaotic universe? There's a Oh, this is one example that
I think is very real. Have have you guys film
buffs noticed, uh, the tendon like the growth of the
(32:50):
Chinese mainland film market, right, it's huge. Have you guys
noticed that the tendency for blockbuster films to be cut
have seemed added or deleted for the Chinese market. We've
talked about this, right, Like they don't like ghosts. There's
certain things they don't like they have to take out.
I think ghost is one of them. If I'm not
(33:11):
totally just out on a limb with that one, no
ghosts and Chinese cuts of No, I'm not okay, maybe
that's not that, but there are definitely some cultural things
that like they have to soften and language that they
have to soften. Yeah, yeah, I thought I didn't make
that up. Have you seen examples of this? Well? I mean,
the only thing I can think of is something sort
of obvious like, uh, and not for the Chinese market necessarily,
(33:33):
but didn't they fully recut or not recut but digitize
the enemy for the Red Dawn remake Oh, if I'm
not mistaken, it was originally I'm not sure. I think
it maybe originally was China and they had to go
back and digitally replace the insignias and the flags and
(33:55):
make it another country. If I'm not mistaken, that's interesting,
and I wouldn't doubt that as actually seeing what we're
seeing with China holding so much sway over like American
like like American companies having to censor stuff like the
NBA for example. You know, I wanted to play ball
with with China because they have so much control over
(34:16):
the purse strings. And that's true because a lot of
movies that flop in the States do gangbusters business over
in China Pacific RIM, So you know you don't want to. Yeah,
it's the reason they made the second one entirely because
of what happened in China. And then when they made
the second Pacific RIM, there's this very um there's this
(34:37):
very apparent leaning into this Chinese market. Charlie Day's character
for some reason is is like the white guy who
speaks Mandarin, and then there's also a Chinese general who
I believe gets a lot. He doesn't really get many
lines in the American version it's just that thing where
there's a conversation between like two principal characters and they
(35:00):
camera keeps cutting to this guy just sort of reacting
and he's like oh yeah, oh no, oh yeah, And
so I think he gets actual lines in the Chinese version.
But that's that's a clear example that gives truth to
this conspiracy theory. On some level, there are governments are
able to control entertainment media. Yes, absolutely, And just to
(35:22):
confirm it was originally the Red Dawn remake was originally
China Chinese swags and it got changed to North Korean flags,
and it's so they don't miss out because it's a
billion billion human beings there and they had a garbage
movie on their hands, and that American audiences wouldn't go
to see it. Well, have you have, y'all? Just to
(35:43):
bring this back into I guess current pop culture in
the new season of South Park is out and one
of the things they hit early on in the season
is this concept of Disney and films and all these
things changing their scripts specifically so that the film in
its regular it's an original form would just perform and
(36:06):
be able to be released in China as well, like
catering the full thing, not just recutting a version of
it or something. Um, it's just fascinating to me. But
it was all about Disney and all the varying properties
and how they were doing this. So they're just making
Chinese friendly movies. Again, this is South Park commenting on
a situation that it must be true. You gotta remember too,
(36:29):
it's like, it's not like every American movie ends up
in China. They have very tight control over which ones
get in, right, So therefore you want to level the
playing field by like, oh maybe China, Hopefully China will
take our big, giant, expensive movie so that we have
this whole other because Charlie Mandarin, that's right, yea. And
(36:49):
not not only that, I was just looking it up apparently. Um.
In Gravity and the Sandra Bullock movie, Sandra Bullock survives
by hiding in a Chinese space station. Um, the movie,
humanity is saved because the Chinese government builds these life
saving kind of like arc ships or whatever. So there's
(37:09):
you know, there's definitely thought being put into, like how
can we please China so that we can get that
sweet sweet you know Chinese business. Your show is probably
not in China, right, Well, I no, I don't know
if we can get into China. I don't think in China,
there's no way, no, are you guys? Do? I think?
I remember at one point someone said that we were
not available in China for stuff. You should know, guys,
(37:32):
we gotta learn Mandarin or Cantonese. Okay, just we've got
the weekend coming up. Well we'll solve that. Uh. This
so the spoiler alert there there was another historical conspiracy
we wanted to talk about that perhaps is an episode
of its own, the Red Scare and the House on
American Activities Committee, But we want to give that due
(37:53):
diligence and also I think this is something that we're
wondering and um our fellow listeners are dread for you, specifically, Chuck,
what are some of your favorite, like most out there
fan theories about films or franchises, not even like real
quote unquote conspiracy theories, but like the craziest stuff that
(38:15):
fans have come up with. Uh, and also do believe
it or disbelieve it? So are we doing blacklist? Are
we doing fan theories and theories? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, we
could do. We could do. Uh, we do fan theories. Yeah, well,
I'm glad you asked. Ben. There's a few popular ones
available on the internet. I'm not sure if you know this.
(38:37):
It's really pository for stuff like what the heck is
the internet? Uh. There's the Toy Story one which is
pretty good, which is that Andy's mom was the original
owner of Jesse the cal Girl. WHOA Okay, why did
that blow your mind so much? Matt, Well, it just
connecting it up that much because it was such an
(38:57):
important part of this, Yeah, because that would make you know,
Jesse sings the song about Emily, you know that really
said song about her previous owner. That would be Andy's
moms had a toy story too. I think that was
in Toy Story. Yeah, when she loved me? Did she
met well? I mean, I have a four year old man.
We've been watching them before that that one is actually
(39:19):
could be true. And Disney and and Pixar certainly does
a lot of this stuff. I think they recently admitted
that everything is in the same shared universe, right, Like
there's a Frozen theory too about the ship that Elson
on his parents are on, or the same she's the
same ship that they find in the Little Mermaid oh well,
and also that that Tarzan is frozen. I don't know
the ladies and frozen that they are siblings to Tarzan's.
(39:44):
Because of the Elsa and an A parents that were
on this voyage and they had a boy, they had
a boy that round, and the geographically where they would
have been passing through, it might have made sense for
him to, you know, wash up on it. Oh my god,
Ferris Bueler is a creation of Cameron's mind. That's always
That's been an old one. I remember hearing that one
(40:07):
and then it made me go back and rewatch Ferris Bueller,
which I thought was like I thought Day Off was
the coolest film growing up. Yeah, it was very It's
a very safe and ocuous way to fight the power.
What was the tagline for that we heard today? One
man struggled to take it easy Easy. Why do you
think they didn't franchise Ferris Bueller, he has his day off.
(40:29):
Why didn't they do? Like there was going to be
a sequel for the Beach like Ernest and then there
was there was a a very Ferris Bueller esque television
series called Parker Lewis Can't Lose That he was the
Heath kind of looked like Parker Lewis. Oh, thanks, man,
I think he was the He was sort of the
heath Cliff to the Garfield of Ferris Bueller. Yeah, I
(40:50):
actually like that show. Yeah it was cool. Yeah, he's
like cutting a cardboard cut out of himself and half
with the chainsaw. Uh. There, of course is the breaking
bad um meth led to the Walking Dead. Uh, apocolymy apocalypse.
You never heard that one. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff. Um.
Glenn in season one drives that red Dodge Challenger which
(41:13):
looks like Walter's car, and when Walter went to return
that car, the manager of the car dealership's name was Glenn.
Uh darryl Um. It's trying to bring down the fever
of this other guy. At one point, so he pulls
out of sash of drugs and there's clearly like blue meth,
like Walter White's blue meth in the bag. And then
(41:36):
one more merle. You know Michael Rooker's character early on,
he was a former drug dealer, and they described his
on the show, his supplier as a jankie little white
guy who threatened him with a gun and said I'm
gonna kill you. Can I say the word probably can't
a curse on here. I'm gonna kill you whoa so
(41:58):
ja looking white guy? And I what I think is
going on is I think Vince Gilling or The Walking
Dead creators put some like fun little references. Yeah, but
you know they have fun with that kind of thing
filmmakers do, I think, Yeah. People love thee the best ever. Though, Guys,
(42:23):
you know that Tommy west Fall universe theory, right, Tommy
Westfall from Saying Elsewhere? Okay, So Saying Elsewhere was a
UH show in the eighties hospital show and very famous
for the ending final episode, which was UH one of
the doctor's son. His name was Tommy west Fall, doctor
(42:44):
Westfall's kid, and he looks into a snow globe. Well,
first of all, a character that has already died is
is alive in the living room and is a different person.
His dad comes home, the doctor, and he's a construction worker.
And so this is the very very last scene of
this whole long series. And then Tommy looks into his
little snow globe that he's always playing with, and it
(43:06):
is sant Eligia's hospital inside the snow globe. Basically, the
idea is that this whole thing. I think Tommy had
autism and it was all this world that he created.
Oh so that's the beginning, that's the seed. Uh. There
were so many crossovers and uh, guest spots and characters
(43:27):
appearing like, for instance, the two Doctors went to the
Cheers bar one time as those doctors and dit Little cameo.
So there are all these little tendrils to whether they
have now linked four hundred and nineteen TV shows to
saying elsewhere, meaning if that was all in his head,
then all of these shows are in the head of
young Tommy west Fall, including the X Files, all of
(43:50):
Star trek Um and dude. If you looked at the
list you can go to I mean they have full
websites on this, and you look at down the list
of four nineteen shows, you're like, how does Matt have
anything to do with Wait, so there's a there's real connections. Yeah, yeah,
real connections. Some of them are sort of thin, but
some of them aren't, Like you know, Cheers, Pigett, Frasier, Uh,
(44:11):
Frasier had like a guest star that was ended up
on something else and then somehow that connects to like
law and Order and law and Order has tendrils all
throughout because all the different shows and all the guest stars,
and not just like someone guessed it on the show,
but like in character in the fictional worlds like Munch
from Uh he's been in like I think X Files
(44:31):
and a bunch of true crime shows using Law and Order,
so that ties all that stuff together, or like MASH
was something I mentioned. Um one of the doctors on
st Elsewhere went at one point made a little reference
to working with Trapper John. Who is that one of
the doctors in MASH, So like that's how that fits in.
And then MASH reaches another couple of things. Oh my god,
I'm looking at the grid. Uh there is a visual
(44:54):
grid online that you can find. It's uh, this is
at a I'm looking at a leven. Oh wow, it
goes all the way in to Chicago. Pretty funny, like
Arrested Development is on their shows, Alpha is on there,
and they all yeah, I mean they're basically saying like
(45:14):
close to shows they did very much. He's the He's
like the god of the matrix. Basically Tommy West fell Um.
If you guys are familiar with the the PBS Digital
Studios show idea channel, which I don't know if they
produced anymore, but I used to love it. I think
I gotta start watching it again if they do. But
there is a Tommy west Fell unit west Fall excuse me,
(45:35):
universe episode of of that show. Really he goes through
and does it does all of the connections, so we
should credit the original guy too. It's a comic book
and TV writer named Dwayne McDuffie. Uh put this forward
in a two thousand two blog post. It's very two
thousand two bloggy. It is also this theory, guys, do
you I mean, I kind of missed that that idea.
(45:58):
You know, I don't watch television is kind of changing anyway,
but I I don't watch a ton of stuff, but
I would love it if I was watching. I don't
know if Black Mirror had a Stranger Things reference in
there somewhere that that kind of no I'm I'm with you.
And it is a little harder these days because I
(46:19):
think back then with like three networks, Uh, there could
be more crossover, but it's hard to like, you know,
Apple's making TV shows now, are they going to reference
something from like CBS? You know they can reference Everybody
loves Raymond or something right, and there's a lot easier
to cross over in those days. That's true. I do
miss it. Do that they'd be kind of cool. I'm
(46:40):
sure this one continues. And now I'm sure people are
trying to write in Tommy Westfall connections. Oh yeah, yeah,
you know, just like be a part of the whole thing.
I'm obsessed with this. There's even cartoons like Dexter's Laboratories
on here and well then you can click on it
and see what the link is to the Tommy Westfall.
(47:01):
So cool. Yeah, it's pretty neat. I was unaware of this.
You can really spend some time. It is a real
rabbit hole that these kind of rabbit holes are inspiring
to me because they think, like, Okay, this guy was
doing other stuff with his life. He discovered this and
Dwayne McDuffie, Dwayne McDuffie is two thousand two blog posts
and now it's taken on a life of its own,
(47:23):
and like, is he getting paid for this? Did he?
I don't know. It's it feels like a passion project,
feels like a mission. And you know, I fell asleep
trying to put on a pair of pants one time,
So like this guy's really being productive. Yeah, it's sort
of like the Kevin Bacon I think, if I'm not mistaken,
At one point in the mid nineties, when I was
(47:43):
living in New Jersey, I met the guy who created
the Kevin Bacon degrees of Separation. I's gonna call it
a meme, wouldn't it mean? Back then, guys know what
our means are. We would draw pictures in hand them
around it one another. What a distribution model. I don't
know what color it though. But if I'm not mistaken,
(48:04):
and this just popped into my head, I think I
met that guy at a party once. Tommy Westfall, the
guy who created the Kevin Bacon separation thing seven degrees
of Separation? Did he did he introduce himself as that guy? Uh?
He was introduced to me as such. And the reason
I remember because I think he was developing a board
(48:25):
game at the time, and you know, supposedly, I guess
he owned this idea. I don't trademark that. Did you
look it up? Making it the Oracle of Bacon? I would, Now,
I'm hungry. I don't know. I don't remember. I certainly
wouldn't remember who it was. This is just some random, Barny,
this this is strange. Okay, So this, I mean, researching
(48:48):
this interconnected universe is very much. Uh, there goes my
weekend moment. So sorry, Oh no, it's good out there
for a while. It's gonna be worth it. But I
do want to let everybody know we had mentioned briefly. Uh,
House an American Activities Committee, would you be interested in
making a return appearance for us to do an episode
(49:10):
just on that? Okay, because I feel like maybe we
did and this is my bad. We did a bit
of a tease and there's like no cut that. Let's
go to fan theories. But I have no regrets because
I feel like we learned a lot. Absolutely. I mean,
I've certainly got a rabbit hole to play in a
sand sandbox, rabbit box. This is going to be one
(49:31):
of those times, box where you and I hang out
at the local bar reading the same web page and
just not talking to each other. Let's do it. Let's
do it after this, can I that's one last thing
before we do you think we we mentioned and you
just mentioned it again in the House of An American
Activities saying, do you think there could be a time
specifically in the United States of America where something like
(49:53):
that could happen again, like where the government steps up,
you think, So, I think it's happening. I mean, not
necessarily just that, but for sure, yeah, I think. I
think lately we've all seen how out of pain things
can get, just inching towards totalitarianism, you know, I mean
(50:14):
one day at a time, and it's like we always say,
it's like the whole you know, frog in boiling water situation,
where it happens slowly and then before you know it,
you're dead. Well, one thing, since I know it past Halloween,
but it it feels like it's always Halloween in America nowadays. Um,
It's true. One thing that we have that we have
(50:35):
to consider is that the most vulnerable points of any
any nation's life cycle is always going to be the
succession of power the secession of power. And so when
I was studying North Korea years and years back in
a different lifetime, that was the thing that put everybody
on international alert. When one of the kims is gonna say, okay,
(50:59):
my and this chosen can is now going to be
in charge. Hope everyone's cool with that, because there are
a bunch of other people there's all this internal stuff.
We we have been very fortunate that we are in
the US. We're not a country like Italy. Italy has
not had a very good run of contiguous governance for
(51:20):
what the past fifty plus years. But here in the US,
we sort of take it for granted that when an
election happens, whether local, regional, or federal, that the person
who wins the person who loses shake hands. We don't
know if that's gonna happen. Now, boy really took this
a depressing note. You know, I think if Donald Trump
(51:42):
loses in the UH, It'll be a really really interesting transition.
I've are. I'm already digging in my backyard to make
a place where my family and I can hide for
several months. Um, hopefully everything goes great and won't need
(52:03):
to use it. I don't think like violence will break
out necessarily, but I'm having a hard time just picturing
him playing nice about it all. Well, that's what we're
talking about too, right, Like where you know, the normal channels,
the normal ways things are done that we've all accepted
are the ways things are done. This has kind of
proven that, like, maybe it's only done this way if
people play nice. I think that's absolutely true. The rule
(52:27):
of laws is a tenuous thing, you know. The example
we always use on this show is, uh, we think
we take the tack of the perspective of future historians
looking back on so many things now that we do,
we're gonna seem ridiculous in like twenty years, forget a hundred.
One of the silliest examples that still holds water is,
(52:50):
of course, driving on the interstate explaining to like one
of your grandkids, well, we used to hop in these
things that would go ninety plus miles an hour, and
how how is it not a mortality? You know? Right,
They're like, well, we have this system of lines that
we painted on the ground, like walls between cars. No,
just paint, just paint, And we all kind of agreed
(53:12):
that we would treat these lines as though they were barriers.
So it was kind of an honor system. We haven't
had a saying stay in your lane from a very
quaint time, don't detect or you'll die. Right, They're like, oh,
so did that work? And the answer would be like,
kind of, I don't know. A ton of people died.
They'll just say, like, you drove your own cars, exactly
(53:32):
with your hand. It reminds me exactly, reminds me of
that scene from Back the Future to where Marty McFly
does is like fancy, you know, gun video game moves
and the little kids, one of which I believe is
young young Elijah. Would you have to use your hands? Idiot?
You know? Boomer? Okay, Boomer, that's a weird. So last
question that we're wrapping, what was in Marcellas Wallace's briefcase. Oh,
(53:57):
it looks like a yellow light bulb department. Wait, do
you have behind the scenes? You got some juice on that?
I got no juice. I never really got into the
pulp fiction theories of the portal and Marcella Swallows's neck
he was the devil or something or being his soul
and the soul is in. I never got into that stuff.
(54:18):
I just always kind of took it at face value.
I always thought it was gold bars. I mean that's
what I thought in the dinner in the California Sun. Yeah,
and just just a hyper stylized Hey, here's something valuable
in here things. That's what I was. So they big
up it a lot harder than if they were just
gold bars. In the movie, they treated like it's sort
of sacred and irreplaceable, unique object. But you know what
(54:40):
else is interesting too. We have to think of Quentin
Tarantino's personality. I've never met the guy. Uh he seems
like he can get you know, carried away, passionate dude.
Uh so, I you know, maybe he has an explanation
to himself or or I want to be like the
party pooper here. Maybe he was just like, okay, just
(55:01):
put it, put a light bulb in it and make
it bright. And someone's like, okay, well what is it.
He's like, no, no, no, just roll one of these
yellow gels on it. Yeah, you're calling you. We're playing
off of his personality and the weird things that end
up on camera for him. Maybe it was a pair
of solid gold stilettos. Yeah, I was gonna say, maybe
(55:21):
it's just like a foot. Maybe it's just yea, he's
yeah speaking of shared universes though he does a pretty
good job of of that and fantastic and it's it's
I think it's right. I can't remember how we where
I was discussing this. It might have been not on
a podcast weird um, but like, yeah, you know, Vincent
Vega is vic Vega from Reservoir Dogs. I think they're yeah, yeah,
(55:46):
there's more cigarette cigarettes, there's more, there's there's more stuff,
including into exactly. I just think that's fun. I like
it same here that it's not over Yeah it's world building,
but it's not over the top. It's not it's not
beating like, there's no there's no exposition about it, which
I think is very strong. You're not required to keep
(56:06):
it in mind, but if you feel like it and
want to dig deep, it's a fun thing to like
pay attention to. Yeah, the TV show Lost made a
whole However, many seasons they counted on fans really overdoing it,
that's true, very little payoff. Were you one of those
guys when it was all dude that was waiting the
fuselage that was the website? I went to the thing.
(56:27):
I was all over it, man. I thought it was
really really cool. On Deep, I was unspoiler forums dot
net talking to Russians about like getting the new not
even the new episode earlier, getting the new teaser. It
waned for me as the show went on, but those
first few seasons I was in deep. Absolutely it got
to the point where you realized there was no way
they were gonna be able to cash this check that
(56:48):
they wrote, like there's just not enough episodes left, you know.
But thinking back, and this is how I feel oftentimes
when shows that I love initially kind of jumped the shark.
I don't know that it affect did my overall. I
still enjoyed my time with the show, which it didn't
make me just like completely thrown under the bus forever.
I don't know. But they did a great job with
(57:10):
shared universe fan theories to even tied into clover Fields tenuously.
Oh yeah, I like that, uh which which was the
one with the the clover Field movie with the Underground Layer.
Oh yeah, it was great, really, that really cool movie.
I thought it was cool. That's John Goodman, right yeah, yeah,
(57:33):
and a real nasty s ob and I was like,
come on, man, you're the guy from Roseanne. Cool. Do
you want to hear my little name droppy lost story? Yes?
So I went to h meet our friend John Hodgman,
who has been on this very show. I went to
meet him for dinner one time in l A at
the Chateau Marmont and the dining room. They're very cool.
(57:54):
The only time I've been there. It is by his invitation,
and uh, I was waiting in the lobby, waiting, waiting, waiting,
and he said, I'm finishing dinner. It was just like
right behind me with a friend, just like, hang out
there for a minute. We'll go get a drink. Also,
when I happened to see John Krasinski and Emily Blunt,
they walked right by me. Caught eyes with Krasinski and
he gave me a very nice acknowledging smile and nod
(58:17):
and I was like, he is a good guy. You
can tell just because he looked at me. He went
just kind of smiled that aside. That's one name drop. Uh.
Hodgeman finally texts me and said, come on over to
the table because we're gonna be a little bit longer.
It's damon uh lindall Off sitting there and I was like,
oh hi. And it was right after Lost and um
(58:40):
I sat down and within like two minutes he went
all right, you gotta be honest and he was like,
I've just met you. I don't know you. John and
I were talking about the end of Loss and he
was like, were you a fan? I was like yeah,
and He's like what did you think about the last episode?
No pressure, no pressure at all. And I was honest
and I went, yeah, like it was all right. I
(59:01):
was like, I gotta say, I said, I love the show.
I said, but I didn't love the ending. And he
was very sweet about it, and he said see because
I guess John was saying like, no, people loved it,
and he took that as ammunition to be like, see there,
this guy's being honest. Like I think he might have thought.
His contention might have been that we dropped the ball
a little bit. But you gotta remember to like that show.
They didn't intend for it to run that long, though
(59:24):
I think they were doing well, and then the studios
are like, keep it going, guys, keep that that juice flowing.
And so then they kind of write themselves into a
corner and like, what are they gonna tell a novella?
You know? And it's almost like the Dark Tower novel series,
you know, it keeps, it keeps going, and at some point, uh,
(59:45):
like there's this beautiful moment when you're writing a story,
you're created world where you're in the middle of it.
Anything's possible, right, and you get towards the end and
you're like, well, Polar Bears. Yeah, what happened to those guys? Right?
I'll never forgive him, Yeah, I'll never forgive him for
the smoke Monster. I thought I wanted that to be
something so much more. Put it in up being again,
can I can't even remember it was the embodiment of
(01:00:09):
the spooky bad guy in black because there were the
two there were the two siblings, right and enable esque Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't even remember any too much, too much lost
lost we have. We have people yelling at their podcast
player of choice right now. David is making Watchmen right
now on HBO, and it looks dope's great. Yeah. I
(01:00:32):
saw the pilot. I liked it. It's it's really well done.
And of course Alum Moore hates it. He is, Uh,
he's already vocal that he hates it everything. That's my point,
though he actually spoken about it, or is it we
just assuming that he he's a great writer who only
writes to support his habit of being a full time
curmudget like that's his first love. I know. He lives
in a very small village, uh, and has lived in
(01:00:54):
the same place, a very small, modest home. He worships
a snake god called glicon Um, and he is very
into you know, witchcraft and Alistair Crowley ask used to
have these amazing YouTube videos about magic where it starts
out with like, Okay, you'll get this because we've all
worked in production. Starts out with like an empty chair,
(01:01:14):
just in an empty room, and then there's a there's
like a hard cut and he's just sitting there and
he's like magic. And Uh. On that note, though, I
think Almore is a fantastic writer genius. Yeah. And so
uh barring a Lost, a Lost reboot, a gritty reboot
of Lost? What if we call that? I don't know, befuddled? Uh? Yes? Found? Yeah? Found?
(01:01:44):
See the movie Crusher symbiosis? Nice? Uh? And where can
people find movie Crush if they want to learn more
about the world of film? Oh, well, you know Ben
and the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever
you find your favorite But guest, that's our official c
A heard that somewhere ringing in my familiar Uh this.
(01:02:07):
Thank you so much for coming on, for having me. Yeah,
it's long overdue. Yeah. I think a year ten or
whatever is a good time to have me on. I
said I would say, if you are if you like
this show and you've maybe joined our Facebook group. Uh,
movie Crush has a Facebook group that has just the
(01:02:27):
most fantastic people on it to discuss things. Movie crushers
Movie Crush are similar to our here's where it gets crazy.
So like, it's just another great place to a group
to join if you are a fan of movie Crush
or if you like the show. Yeah, and if you
like movies, it's just a nice community of people who
aren't jerks to each other and who share ideas about
movies that are very respectful and it's cool and check out.
(01:02:48):
I might be being a dumb dumb and asking this,
but do you post the mini crush questions on the
page or on the actually like on the group or
on the page I posted on the movie Crush facebook
page Facebook page. So if you want to get in
on that, and you want to join the group, which
is its own thing, join the conversation, but joined the
conversation for the show. Chuck literally posts questions the day
(01:03:09):
before we do these many Crush episodes where it's just
he and I kind of having conversation starters that that
folks on the Facebook page submit and to read your name,
read your name. You can become an old pal, a
good friend. Like it's really a whole thing. You've got
some recurring suggestions and people right in the page because
it's a very supportive community. Yeah, that's great, but don't
(01:03:32):
take our word for it, folks, check it out yourself.
That is as as Chuck mentioned, that is all the movie.
Crush is also one of the only places where you
can hear our super producer Paul Michigantrol Decade actually speaking.
That's correct, Okay, I just leaned over to make sure
(01:03:52):
Paul is still cool with us. Uh. Absolute pleasure to
have you out. Of course, if you want to find
out more about stuff they don't want you to know,
film conspiracies, you can check out our Kubrick episode, which
is available on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast
wherever you find your favorite shows. If you say, guys,
I want to talk to you and Chuck, but I
(01:04:13):
hate the social meads we have all folks, get it,
You can contact us directly. We have a phone number. Yeah,
it's one eight three three st d w y t K.
We ritualize. That's sort of an incantation. If you don't
want to do that either you can hit us up
on Instagram and uh, Twitter and all that were either
(01:04:34):
a conspiracy stuff or conspiracy stuff show. On all of
those v some variation there, you can find us individually
as human people, um, disconnected from the show. I am
at how now Noel Brown on Instagram exclusively, you can
find me getting kicked into and out of various communities, regions,
and countries at ben Bowling on Instagram named in a
burst of creativity. You can also find me at Ben
(01:04:57):
Bowling hs W. On Twitter. You can find me at
all the Cluster stuff versus the Nazis. That's just another
David what is his name, David Damon Damon Lindelof. Sorry,
it's another one of issues. Some respects I did. I
never met him at Chateau arm On dig. You can't
(01:05:20):
find me on social media, so come up and shake
my hand. I'm not on Instagram. That's how you know.
It's not a deep fa right, that's right? Uh? And hey, Matt,
riddle me this. If someone hates social media, they hate phones,
they hate I don't know, pigeons or whatever, we have
one more way they can contact us. We have a
good old fashioned email. Right, Yes, it is conspiracy at
(01:05:43):
iHeart radio dot com. Yeah Stuff they Don't Want You
(01:06:05):
to Know is a production of i Heeart Radio's How
Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, welcome
(00:25):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is They called me Ben. We are joined as always
with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decond. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. As our fellow
long time listeners know, we're all film buffs here and
stuff they don't want you to know, big fans of
(00:45):
cinema in almost any form, and today we're diving into
film conspiracies of all types. Right, Like we would say
we're film buffs. I only like movies. Oh yeah, you are,
you're a movie man. Well you know, I officially have
a degree in filmmaking, although without the actual film. You're
a professor of cinema. No, alright, no, no, I'm just
(01:10):
saying like I'm I'm all about this kind of stuff
as we all are. Sure we have an interest in it.
But we're not here alone. That's true, Matt. Today we
are joined with our collective pal uh pioneer podcasting, a
friend of the show and an actual outside of work
personal friend of ours to boot Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
host of Movie Crush as well as stuff you should know.
(01:34):
Thanks for coming on the show, Chuck. Hey guys, Hey man,
I've got so many questions already. Yeah, Ben, question for
you fans of almost all kinds of film? What what
kinds of film are you're not a fan of? Oh
I was, I just wanted to leave people in out
in case one of the guys just like, you know what,
screw spaghetti westerns. I hate Ennio Morricone. I love Ennio Morricone,
(01:56):
So it would have been driving some tension into our relationship.
But not all films are for all people. You're probably
not a fan of snuff films for example. Yeah, actually,
I hope that's not a hot take. I'm not you know.
There you go, call me old fashioned answer. So we
um for for backgrounds, how would you describe Movie Crush
(02:17):
the podcast? Like how how you the germ of the idea,
how you grew it? What you guys do? And I
know knowles on there as well. That's right. Well, Movie
Crust started as uh, is hey, let me interview a
celebrity and release every Friday and they talk about their
favorite film all time. Favorite movie is The Conceit and
it is still that at times, but it is morphed
(02:38):
over the past two years. Just had the two year
anniversary and now we do these mini crushes on Monday
with Noel as co host, where we have a great
movie going community on Facebook and we post questions and
polls and do a lot of interactive fans stuff, which
is a lot of fun. And then Friday's. Now, it
turns out booking celebrities is a hard thing to do.
(03:00):
What and I got kind of sick of it. Uh,
if they come my way, now, great, I'll do that.
But I have a stable of friends and family and
colleagues now that come in and we do film series
and filmmaker series and just whatever you want to talk
about about a specific foulm and just really quickly, just
to make sure this is crystal clear, this is Chuck
reaching out doing this booking solo. We don't have like
(03:23):
a staff of like booking agents that are trying to
interviewing celebrities and not my friends, family and colleagues. No,
it's great though, these are great conversations no matter who
it is, And it turns out the listening community was like,
I don't care if it's a celebrity, these are great conversations, Maddie.
We're doing I don't even know what to call it.
(03:44):
Originally was just hit movies. We're just gonna go with
ninety nine. I think, okay movies? Yeah, man, Well is
speaking of your colleagues and friends that you interview, you
have a whole sere By the way, Paul has been
on that show and are doing a Sophia series. He
has want to hear Paul's voice. He never speaks on
this here podcast. You can hear him speak on Chuck's
(04:04):
That's right. But another person you interview as a colleague,
uh named Casey Pegram, And that is what we really
want to get into first. Yes, Casey Pegram a k a.
La Bush as he's known in France and in a
couple of different podcasts. What it's a we have this
idea that Casey is in addition to be a superproducer
(04:26):
in Atlanta. You know this is a true story, you guys,
we all know how he disappears for like at least
three weeks once a year. Yea. So we have this
vision of him leading a completely different double life. Where's
la bouche. He has like an ear ring and a
leather jacket. Is he an assassin or is he just
he is just an international man of mystery. Assassin is
(04:48):
probably on the table, but if it comes up. Yeah,
I really thought you were going into the mighty bush
thing there for a second. I thought that's what this
means the mouth. Yeah, he's kind of a broker of
film related crime. We haven't really figured it out, but
we're pretty sure he has maybe two secret families of
France that are aware what you do is guys is
(05:08):
one of us? Uh? Before next year, say hey, Casey
has saved up some doughman and I would love a
Jorg guide. Uh, and can we co inside our trips
and just see if he's like, how weird? He gets
sort of duck to do my own thing? Not actually
going this year, let's you know it. That sounds like
a plan and we have enough time to do it. Um.
(05:31):
But the series you make with him, yes, is focused
on a particular filmmaker, at least several you've made several
in that veine talking about Stanley Kubrick, which is somebody
we've spoken about before on this show. We kind of
want to get your take. Yeah, yeah, let's let's start
with this is one of the when we think of
conspiracy theory and film, one of the things that will
(05:54):
be most apparent in the front of the mind of
the mainstream listener whatever is going to be stuff related
to Stanley Kubrick, Right, So we wanted to get your
takes on some of the most prevalent conspiracy theories or
fringe theories regarding Kubrick and his body of work. So
(06:16):
you've heard the one about, uh, Stanley Kubrick faking the moonlanding. Okay, uh, well,
let's just really fast. Do you think there's anything to
that with the with the technology that was being developed
to shoot that film in tandem with our efforts to
get to the moon. Do you have any feeling that
something weird was going on there or it's just all
(06:38):
I mean, it's just all happened to be coinciding. I
don't think anything was going on there. Um. I know.
Part of the credence to this theory is that two
thousand one of Space Outosey looked so realistic and who
else would you go to. But you know, he enlisted real,
real people from NASA, if I'm not mistaken, and and
astronauts and engineers, like that's why that movie looks so great.
(07:01):
Not say he couldn't have done that to fake the
moon landing as well. I guess it's just also, as
such an tour who's famous for having so many multiple
takes of things, it seems like he'd be a real
pill to work with faking a moon landing, Like, how
many takes do you have to have of the each step? Okay,
(07:22):
here's here's my my kind of updated take after doing
a little more research on this, and we're it's slightly
tangent here, but it's coming right back and it's related. Okay,
let's stay with me here. Um. When Steven Spielberg made
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, allegedly he received a
lot of criticism from NASA for producing that movie, and
(07:44):
the way the story goes is that they were worried
that audiences would have a similar reaction to the concept
of extraterrestrials visiting as they did to the concept of
giant sharks being in the waters near places where people
just go hang out and swim in the ocean. Um.
But also I've not ever read this letter, this strongly
(08:08):
worded twenty page letter that NASA sent to Spielberg allegedly.
I've never read it, and I've I've not seen anyone
actually right out, you know, points from it. But it's
been alluded to several times over the years. Um. And
it just goes back to that concept of creating a
movie like Space two thousand one of Space Odyssey, like
(08:30):
the concept that it could possibly be dangerous to society
by releasing it because it puts these images into our brains,
these ideas of like with close encounters in an extraterrestrial
force visiting us and what that would mean. Um, are
you saying that, like from a pr standpoint, it was
(08:51):
it would have been a bad move. It's like, we
don't want to cause a panic, public panic. I don't
people worrying about the stuff. Bet are to think of
other things, you know, Like see, I would heard it
was different. I always heard that these films had supposedly
been commissioned by the government to soften us up to
the idea, yes, alien invaders or whatever. So again, like
you're talking about essentially different people's viewpoints in the way
(09:13):
they're thinking about these concepts of conspiracy. I guess either way, well,
it could be right. It softens you up or scares
the heck out of It's interesting because we see if
we look at the trends in sci fi, we see
something happening with AI which was a pretty cool correlation.
Um that that I didn't I didn't discover. But what
(09:37):
one of our friends, uh Dan actually discovered this one.
And uh we see how in times passed right, especially
during nuclear scares or communist scares, technology or androids were
depicted as this other, this dangerous thing. But now increasingly
we've moved from a terminator franchise to a more friendly thing, right,
(09:58):
like more of a Wally world and so um, without
getting too far away from the alien stuff and the
NASA stuff. I did find. I found this quoted in
a couple of places, quotation purporting to be from Steven
Spielberg regarding this NASA letter, and I would like to
read it, just to just to see what our reactions
(10:20):
are to this. I really found my faith when I
heard that the government was opposed to the film Close Encounters.
If NASA took the time to write me a twenty
page letter, then I know there must be something happening.
I had wanted cooperation from them, but when they read
the script, they got very angry and felt that it
was a film that would be dangerous. I felt they
mainly wrote the letter because Jaws convinced so many people
(10:42):
around the world that there were sharks and toilets and bathtubs,
not just in the oceans and rivers. They were afraid
the same kind of epidemic would happen with UFOs. Difference
being sharks are proven to exist. And I mean, now,
I haven't seen close encounters in a long time, possibly
not even all the way through. But are the aliens nice?
Are they not nice? Yeah? I mean the only time
(11:03):
you actually I mean, should we spoil alert this? Yeah,
let's seeing this old old movie in the nineteen seventies. Uh,
the only time you actually see the aliens. The final
third encounter is at the very very end of the film.
And all that happens really is Richard Dreyfuss goes up
the plank and is greeted very warmly. Ben Um, we
(11:27):
don't know what happens after that door shuts, but that's true.
They appear to be very friendly. As that door is shutting,
it's sort of a handholding thing, if I'm not mistaken.
It seems weird, though, with all the stuff that NASA
has on its plate back then and now, it seems
weird that they would take so much time to write
(11:47):
to this guy about a fictional film, and God, how
much they have felt about Independence Day? Am I right?
All right? That's what I'm saying, A pandemonium. They knew
that the extra trest reels that are very much real
my friends that are out there are dangerous, and they
didn't want us to think they were nice and friendly,
and we could talk to them with our keyboards, like
(12:08):
don't go up the gangplank, Richard Treyfus, you fool. They're
gonna put things in your butt. Everybody knows that. I mean,
that's yeah, that's I think that's in the original script
that it was close Encounters of the butt exactly. So
let's take it all the way back, just really fast
as Stanley Kubrick, and then we'll we'll we'll end there
with the moon landing conspiracies in general. If you take
(12:31):
it away from Stanley Kubrick, do you do you have
any doubts that we went to the moon, of course not.
And then the you know the things everyone knows sort
of the why they believe it was faked, with the
flag flying and the shadows not being quite right. Uh
what else is there? Is there a footprint situation that's
(12:52):
an issue? Did I make that up? In there's the
idea that the lunar dust would have moved differently, But
it's also it's a question of the film technology at
the time, and also we had never been to the moon,
so we're not quite sure what stuff looks like when
filmed on a camera. Silly question do we have access to,
like what what did the camera look like they shot
(13:13):
this on? I've never Well that's one of well, actually
that's the still camera. That's one of the theories is
that in the reflection of I think Armstrong's face whatever
you call face plate, you can see the photo being
take a very clear reflection of the astronaut taking the photo.
(13:36):
But like, you can't see a camera, man, there's no camera,
but apparently the camera is embedded. Yeah, it's attached to
the suit. That makes sense. And these hands were sort
of right at chess level. So it all checks. Because
the story is that there. They can barely move their
hands at all, and it camera also this this is
(13:57):
interesting because it ties into, of course, one of Kubrick's
um one of Kubrick's most well known films, the adaptation
of Stephen King's The Shining Right or The Thing, inspired
by the novel, Because there are people who people who
believe that Kubrick was somehow involved in uh faking the
moon landing also believe that he decided the best way
(14:20):
to tell people this was through some sort of Rube
Goldberg esque series of clues hidden in a completely unrelated film.
There's an absolute laundry list of weird hidden stuff in
The Shining, much of it that doesn't refer to that
at all, that refers to like an Indian genocide, Native
American genocide, and the gold Standard exactly yes the film,
(14:42):
Yes for sure. Yeah, So Chuck, I am. I am
not surprised and also immensely reassured that this was not
the moment where we learned that you were convinced that
you were a muner. I like that phrase, do you
guys like muner? I love it. Let's put that on
a T shirt. So in The Shining its supposedly like
(15:02):
Danny Sweater with the rocket as he stands up the
carpet that now iconic pattern is one of the like
the launch pads and what I mean these are all
that's very flimsy stuff to be delivering a message, you know.
And then there was the fake video you know from
it's like four years ago where someone had a video
where Stanley Kubrick came clean about the whole thing. Uh,
(15:25):
and this is like the did you ever see this?
I did, yeah, And it was this long interview where
he copped to the whole thing. It was all very believable,
but it's not Stanley Kubrick. That was the one problem.
It was like, I was making a movie about Stanley
Kuber Kubrick and this was a guy who played like
old Kubrick. But I watched it today and I looked
at I was like, oh, that's not even him. There
is so many people. There is a tape of Kubrick
(15:47):
that came out not terribly terrio long ago where he
explains the ending of two thousand one of Space Odyssey,
which is interesting just to listen to He kind of
I can't remember exactly what he said, but it's an
honest it's it's it's it's confirmed. It's from a BBC
interview that said that's legit. No idea, there were counterfeit
Kubrick's just running them up. Well, nowadays, with all this
(16:09):
deep fake stuff, we've got to figure out how to really,
you know, confirm the validity of footage true. Nowadays you
can't believe people unless you meet in person. This is
something that's fascinating because it still sticks around in the
cultural zeitgeist even though it's very easily debunked. Right, you
can you first off, moon landing stuff. Last thing you'll
say about it. You don't need a particularly advanced telescope
(16:32):
to look at the moon and see reflections of manmade
things on there or see um, sorry, signs of manmade things. Right,
And you can shoot a laser if you have the
right equipment, and it will reflect back on that laser
reflector that's there. And if you don't have a giant laser.
Let us tell you today's episode is brought to you
(16:52):
by by by to get three free. Uh, it's an
economy of scale. There there is a thing here that happens. Uh.
There is a thing, a thread rather a thematic narrative
thread when we talk about Kubrick. Uh. That goes across
several of his movies, and it's the idea that somehow
(17:14):
this creator is speaking to us the audience through code, right,
and that these films are somehow you know they're there multilayered, right,
but that one of those lower layers is a is
a message of some sort. And this sure, it's it's
prevalent when we hear discussion of the Shining, But then
(17:37):
when we get to his last film, Eyes Wide Shut,
it's like the door is blown off the hinges. Right,
you know, I think we've all heard this, and I
want your opinion. Was Eyes Wide Shut actually coded xpos
a on some elite cabal or some real real cult thing? Uh?
(17:59):
Has everyone looking at me? Well, because Chuck, you don't
you the host of stuff you should know one of
the biggest podcasts out there. You were clearly one of
the elite friends you also host are our film podcast.
There's a lot of cross over here. Uh. No, I
don't know if it was supposed to be um. I
think the the idea is that is a depiction of
(18:23):
an elite group of a secret society, but not necessarily
that it was supposed to be any particular one, right,
or are there concrete theories there are? I mean, kids,
it's supposed to be of course. I mean it's always
the Illuminati, you know what I mean, Like there that
should put that on a T shirt. It's always they're
(18:43):
the freebird of secret societies, you know what I mean.
In the Great Karaoke Conspiracy Conversation, the Yes, So Tom
Cruise plays this guy Dr. Bill Harford and he learns
that is what they're taught. They have a wild night, right,
one of those should be nice parties that gets really weird,
And then he's talking with his wife Alice, and he's
(19:05):
talking about affairs because this older I think Hungarian guy
tries to seduce the wife and then someone's also can
currently trying to seduce him. They make it out and scape.
They go home and he's like, well it was crazy. Uh,
I can't believe that, honey. And then she says some
by the way, thank you, thank you, I learned it
from connall. Uh. And uh, there's there's this moment where
(19:29):
his wife says, actually, I have seriously considered having an affair.
There was this one guy there's one real smoke show.
I you know, I thought about leaving you and the kid,
and this this is sort of the impetus that sets
Tom Cruise's doctor character out into this this world of
(19:49):
murky secrecy. People who believe there's some sort of hidden
message there uh point to what they say are numerous
occult symbols in the film, and the film's head be
on symbols. That's true. You know, it's a lot of
masked uh in delicate interactions, a lot of c g
I sex stuff that they had to like cover things
(20:11):
up to get to make it get an R rating.
I think like during the orgy scene, they actually had
to like insert fake people to cover up some of
the penetrative moments. And I would watch a cut where
they where they did a purposely bad job of that,
you know, with like some guy from Caterine is walking
out video just kind of walk through the mob, and
(20:33):
the mob is of course in rhythm to So. I
just want to inject something here that has to do
with our discussions of these because White is also Yeah,
we covered the Matrix and fight Club so far. Yeah,
one of the major themes in these movies, all three
of these movies from is that there's something very wrong
with society. We either as just a regular human being
(20:57):
existing within it, can't either see it, can't do anything
about it, or we need to change it, or we're
all of a sudden made aware of it. So within
eyes wide shutting the matrix, all of a sudden Tom Cruise.
In this scenario you Ben you talked about, he's just
all of a sudden made aware of this crazy elite
secret society. Neo becomes aware of the matrix. Um, the
(21:19):
narrator and fight club becomes aware of just how society actually,
how banal his life and his existence is, and how
futile the whole thing is. Well, yeah, so it's um,
And it's kind of maybe it's that whole concept of
coming up on the New millennium that perhaps in people's heads. Yeah,
I'd like to know if you think there's anything to that. UM.
(21:41):
With Stanley Kubrick deciding to depict this secret society and
the way he did the people who truly pull the strings,
it's almost um. It's not a comment or a response
to any of that stuff, but maybe it's kind of
showing us here's the real Here are the real people
that pull the strings in our society. They're people who
(22:01):
go to board meetings and have crazy parties because they
just have all the power and money. Yeah. But I
mean if you look at the end of Eyes Wide
Shut though, um spoiler, and you believe that what the
movie has to say, then they are nothing but a
group of um sort of horned up rich people exactly.
(22:23):
And the girl is not dead. She she was, She's
this this, you know. Sydney Polk explains it all at
the end, and it's like, you know, all these crazy
ideas that you've got about what's going on there and
that there's shadowy murders and cover ups it. Basically we're
just like a bunch of Well, it's kind of like
what we talked about with Hodgeman when he was on
Stuff that I want you to know, and he sort
(22:43):
of shed some light into his uh entree into the
book and snake us in Yale when he was his
time at Yale and how at the end of the
day it was just kind of like a swanky party
for people to do some networking. And he's much more
if we're being on it, he's he's much more focused
on his medallion status rather than any sort of secret
(23:05):
collegiate society. Die in status dot B L Y all
capital letters. So it's it's weird because whenever we get
to the point of any theorizing, when we're whenever we
get to the point where we're asking people to interpret
a symbol right, something subjective, we're no longer looking at
(23:27):
something quantitative, like a mathematical equation. We're looking at someone
who's saying, well, I think I think that looks like
a triangle with an eye in it. And I'm I'm
pretty sure. I mean, what's the difference, Like, at what
point are we just reading tea leaves? You know what
I mean? I I see what you're saying there, But
isn't there something? Isn't there an extra onion layer to this?
(23:49):
Didn't correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't Stanley Kubrick die
before this movie was released? Six days after he had
a screening? He died, which is such fertile territory. But
didn't somebody else has to one? And no, that's not true.
I'm thinking of Ai was. But he got in a
fight with the studio about how to cut it, which
I think you alluded to earlier. Nol for eyesweatshut to
(24:12):
get that the I guess it was too too racy
for an R rating, right, But then I guess here's
my question that I don't have an answer to, is like,
in the theory, they were pretty close to releasing this movie,
but somebody, maybe the distributor could go through and make changes.
Whoever owns the rights to it after his passing, like,
(24:35):
could go through and make some sweeping changes to the
story before it comes out in theaters. Maybe that's one
of the reasons that it some of the conspiracy theories
continue to proliferate because something could have happened that we
would never be privy to. That's true. I'm just gonna okay,
I'm just gonna say it. There's just one person's opinion.
I don't think there's much sand too conspirat like as
(24:59):
tempt been and as juicy as it is cognitively to say,
Stanley Kubrick and an immensely talented director went too far
and across the line, and the powers that be were like,
don't tell people about our orgies. Now we're going to
kill you. As as tempting as that is to believe
and as frankly fun as it is to believe, he
(25:20):
was an older man who was not in the best shape.
You know, he had taken very great care of himself.
He believe he was seventy years old. It's not like
he was twenty one years old and found with two
gunshots to the back of his head. Right. But it
does bring out something I think could be could have
much more credibility to it, which is the idea that
(25:44):
a government, or the idea of specifically the US government,
may be able to play a role in determining what
kinds of films get created or what kind of films
get depicted like. It blew my mind when I learned
that this is for are aspiring filmmakers out there. You
can get the US military to do stuff for you
(26:06):
on screen as long as you depict them as heroes, right,
or at least in a way that they agree upon. Yeah,
which I had no idea. Like. I'm not sure how
much say they have and whether or not something gets
made these days, but they can certainly if you're making
a war movie or anything that involves the army, then
(26:26):
they can make it really easy for you, or they
can sit on their hands and make it tougher, but
they'll be like, sure if they like what you're doing.
How many tanks you need? You need some helicopters? Whoa,
we're wasting your time podcasting. Do you know what the
fees are for that? I know? I don't know, man,
we need to find out. What about even on like
a branding level, like if you know, are we allow
(26:50):
our filmmakers allowed to use army, Navy, etcetera? Without permission?
Like you've got to clear everything? Yeah? Um? And I
imagine yeah they would they us for the use and
what are you gonna do with it? And then either
say yes or no? Hey, have you guys seen the
trailer for the new Top Gun movie. Yes, I'm actually
kind of excited. I am too. Okay, I feel obligated
(27:13):
to watch it. You know, I feel like it's inevitable.
It's just a teaser, right, like you don't really see
his face and there's a full trailer. Saw the teaser,
went okay, I gotta I gotta buddy and check it out.
I gotta say, I was not like I saw a
top Gun enough because it was just the zeitgeist. But
I wasn't some big top gun nut. But when I
saw that trailer, I found myself going, why do I
(27:35):
Why am I so in love with the idea of
this movie. I know, well they it's probably pure nostalgia.
It's the way they shoot for me, at least the
way they actually shoot the jets, because it brings out
the kid in me that played with a little toy
F fourteen and I was just like, oh man, this
is so cool. Um we were we hit on something
(27:57):
really important here, been of the con aft to controlling
what can be seen and like government involvement with that,
and I really want to get into that after a
quick word from our sponsor, so as you can tell.
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hundred and we're back. So the question the question at
(30:15):
at the table, We're at the table. Okay, there we go,
Thanks guys. The question that we're looking at currently is, uh,
whether the weather a government specifically the US government, can
influence the kind of films that get made or the
kind of narratives we see. Uh. The answer to that
(30:36):
in days of yore was yes, you know, to to
some degree or another. But the answer now maybe becomes
a little more complicated. Right. We have indeed, there's this
democratization of filmmaking technology, so we have more people who
don't have to be beholden to a studio. But I
don't know, man, I know it's very on brand for
(30:58):
me to be like, see I is dictating mc U
or something like that. I don't think they would bother.
I would say that the control mechanisms, to a large
part are still in place, but it's mostly the distribution arms.
Like you, you could make the coolest indie film ever,
but you may not get anyone to see it, no
(31:19):
matter how trending something becomes, if it's not you know,
fully out there somewhere. Uh. And you've got ads popping
up every somebody's paying for ads, somebody's paying for posters,
somebody's paying for all this stuff. You're not gonna have
the same reach. And maybe that's maybe that's wrong thinking though,
because anything that goes viral online could be potentially seen
(31:42):
by well, that's true. I mean, that's why no one's
cracked the code on how to make things go viral.
P See, this is the This is one of those
things that you and I have different things. What do
you think, Well, think it's all like stage. Well, there's more, sure,
there are more opportunities to spread things, but there are
fewer people holding the faucets of that information. To to
(32:03):
say that Facebook could not artificially make something quote unquote viral,
to say that they don't have that capability is willfully
I'm not saying they don't, norfully wrong. I absolutely think
they do. But I also would like to believe that
things succeed or fail on their own merits, at least
some of the time. I would think. So, yeah, I
(32:25):
don't think. I don't think we're in the grips of
some corporate scythe overlord. I mean, if that cat playing
the piano video didn't succeed, is because of its sheer awesomeness.
And I don't know what I believe in what a
chaotic universe? There's a Oh, this is one example that
I think is very real. Have have you guys film
buffs noticed, uh, the tendon like the growth of the
(32:50):
Chinese mainland film market, right, it's huge. Have you guys
noticed that the tendency for blockbuster films to be cut
have seemed added or deleted for the Chinese market. We've
talked about this, right, Like they don't like ghosts. There's
certain things they don't like they have to take out.
I think ghost is one of them. If I'm not
(33:11):
totally just out on a limb with that one, no
ghosts and Chinese cuts of No, I'm not okay, maybe
that's not that, but there are definitely some cultural things
that like they have to soften and language that they
have to soften. Yeah, yeah, I thought I didn't make
that up. Have you seen examples of this? Well? I mean,
the only thing I can think of is something sort
of obvious like, uh, and not for the Chinese market necessarily,
(33:33):
but didn't they fully recut or not recut but digitize
the enemy for the Red Dawn remake Oh, if I'm
not mistaken, it was originally I'm not sure. I think
it maybe originally was China and they had to go
back and digitally replace the insignias and the flags and
(33:55):
make it another country. If I'm not mistaken, that's interesting,
and I wouldn't doubt that as actually seeing what we're
seeing with China holding so much sway over like American
like like American companies having to censor stuff like the
NBA for example. You know, I wanted to play ball
with with China because they have so much control over
(34:16):
the purse strings. And that's true because a lot of
movies that flop in the States do gangbusters business over
in China Pacific RIM, So you know you don't want to. Yeah,
it's the reason they made the second one entirely because
of what happened in China. And then when they made
the second Pacific RIM, there's this very um there's this
(34:37):
very apparent leaning into this Chinese market. Charlie Day's character
for some reason is is like the white guy who
speaks Mandarin, and then there's also a Chinese general who
I believe gets a lot. He doesn't really get many
lines in the American version it's just that thing where
there's a conversation between like two principal characters and they
(35:00):
camera keeps cutting to this guy just sort of reacting
and he's like oh yeah, oh no, oh yeah, And
so I think he gets actual lines in the Chinese version.
But that's that's a clear example that gives truth to
this conspiracy theory. On some level, there are governments are
able to control entertainment media. Yes, absolutely, And just to
(35:22):
confirm it was originally the Red Dawn remake was originally
China Chinese swags and it got changed to North Korean flags,
and it's so they don't miss out because it's a
billion billion human beings there and they had a garbage
movie on their hands, and that American audiences wouldn't go
to see it. Well, have you have, y'all? Just to
(35:43):
bring this back into I guess current pop culture in
the new season of South Park is out and one
of the things they hit early on in the season
is this concept of Disney and films and all these
things changing their scripts specifically so that the film in
its regular it's an original form would just perform and
(36:06):
be able to be released in China as well, like
catering the full thing, not just recutting a version of
it or something. Um, it's just fascinating to me. But
it was all about Disney and all the varying properties
and how they were doing this. So they're just making
Chinese friendly movies. Again, this is South Park commenting on
a situation that it must be true. You gotta remember too,
(36:29):
it's like, it's not like every American movie ends up
in China. They have very tight control over which ones
get in, right, So therefore you want to level the
playing field by like, oh maybe China, Hopefully China will
take our big, giant, expensive movie so that we have
this whole other because Charlie Mandarin, that's right, yea. And
(36:49):
not not only that, I was just looking it up apparently. Um.
In Gravity and the Sandra Bullock movie, Sandra Bullock survives
by hiding in a Chinese space station. Um, the movie,
humanity is saved because the Chinese government builds these life
saving kind of like arc ships or whatever. So there's
(37:09):
you know, there's definitely thought being put into, like how
can we please China so that we can get that
sweet sweet you know Chinese business. Your show is probably
not in China, right, Well, I no, I don't know
if we can get into China. I don't think in China,
there's no way, no, are you guys? Do? I think?
I remember at one point someone said that we were
not available in China for stuff. You should know, guys,
(37:32):
we gotta learn Mandarin or Cantonese. Okay, just we've got
the weekend coming up. Well we'll solve that. Uh. This
so the spoiler alert there there was another historical conspiracy
we wanted to talk about that perhaps is an episode
of its own, the Red Scare and the House on
American Activities Committee, But we want to give that due
(37:53):
diligence and also I think this is something that we're
wondering and um our fellow listeners are dread for you, specifically, Chuck,
what are some of your favorite, like most out there
fan theories about films or franchises, not even like real
quote unquote conspiracy theories, but like the craziest stuff that
(38:15):
fans have come up with. Uh, and also do believe
it or disbelieve it? So are we doing blacklist? Are
we doing fan theories and theories? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, we
could do. We could do. Uh, we do fan theories. Yeah, well,
I'm glad you asked. Ben. There's a few popular ones
available on the internet. I'm not sure if you know this.
(38:37):
It's really pository for stuff like what the heck is
the internet? Uh. There's the Toy Story one which is
pretty good, which is that Andy's mom was the original
owner of Jesse the cal Girl. WHOA Okay, why did
that blow your mind so much? Matt, Well, it just
connecting it up that much because it was such an
(38:57):
important part of this, Yeah, because that would make you know,
Jesse sings the song about Emily, you know that really
said song about her previous owner. That would be Andy's
moms had a toy story too. I think that was
in Toy Story. Yeah, when she loved me? Did she
met well? I mean, I have a four year old man.
We've been watching them before that that one is actually
(39:19):
could be true. And Disney and and Pixar certainly does
a lot of this stuff. I think they recently admitted
that everything is in the same shared universe, right, Like
there's a Frozen theory too about the ship that Elson
on his parents are on, or the same she's the
same ship that they find in the Little Mermaid oh well,
and also that that Tarzan is frozen. I don't know
the ladies and frozen that they are siblings to Tarzan's.
(39:44):
Because of the Elsa and an A parents that were
on this voyage and they had a boy, they had
a boy that round, and the geographically where they would
have been passing through, it might have made sense for
him to, you know, wash up on it. Oh my god,
Ferris Bueler is a creation of Cameron's mind. That's always
That's been an old one. I remember hearing that one
(40:07):
and then it made me go back and rewatch Ferris Bueller,
which I thought was like I thought Day Off was
the coolest film growing up. Yeah, it was very It's
a very safe and ocuous way to fight the power.
What was the tagline for that we heard today? One
man struggled to take it easy Easy. Why do you
think they didn't franchise Ferris Bueller, he has his day off.
(40:29):
Why didn't they do? Like there was going to be
a sequel for the Beach like Ernest and then there
was there was a a very Ferris Bueller esque television
series called Parker Lewis Can't Lose That he was the
Heath kind of looked like Parker Lewis. Oh, thanks, man,
I think he was the He was sort of the
heath Cliff to the Garfield of Ferris Bueller. Yeah, I
(40:50):
actually like that show. Yeah it was cool. Yeah, he's
like cutting a cardboard cut out of himself and half
with the chainsaw. Uh. There, of course is the breaking
bad um meth led to the Walking Dead. Uh, apocolymy apocalypse.
You never heard that one. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff. Um.
Glenn in season one drives that red Dodge Challenger which
(41:13):
looks like Walter's car, and when Walter went to return
that car, the manager of the car dealership's name was Glenn.
Uh darryl Um. It's trying to bring down the fever
of this other guy. At one point, so he pulls
out of sash of drugs and there's clearly like blue meth,
like Walter White's blue meth in the bag. And then
(41:36):
one more merle. You know Michael Rooker's character early on,
he was a former drug dealer, and they described his
on the show, his supplier as a jankie little white
guy who threatened him with a gun and said I'm
gonna kill you. Can I say the word probably can't
a curse on here. I'm gonna kill you whoa so
(41:58):
ja looking white guy? And I what I think is
going on is I think Vince Gilling or The Walking
Dead creators put some like fun little references. Yeah, but
you know they have fun with that kind of thing
filmmakers do, I think, Yeah. People love thee the best ever. Though, Guys,
(42:23):
you know that Tommy west Fall universe theory, right, Tommy
Westfall from Saying Elsewhere? Okay, So Saying Elsewhere was a
UH show in the eighties hospital show and very famous
for the ending final episode, which was UH one of
the doctor's son. His name was Tommy west Fall, doctor
(42:44):
Westfall's kid, and he looks into a snow globe. Well,
first of all, a character that has already died is
is alive in the living room and is a different person.
His dad comes home, the doctor, and he's a construction worker.
And so this is the very very last scene of
this whole long series. And then Tommy looks into his
little snow globe that he's always playing with, and it
(43:06):
is sant Eligia's hospital inside the snow globe. Basically, the
idea is that this whole thing. I think Tommy had
autism and it was all this world that he created.
Oh so that's the beginning, that's the seed. Uh. There
were so many crossovers and uh, guest spots and characters
(43:27):
appearing like, for instance, the two Doctors went to the
Cheers bar one time as those doctors and dit Little cameo.
So there are all these little tendrils to whether they
have now linked four hundred and nineteen TV shows to
saying elsewhere, meaning if that was all in his head,
then all of these shows are in the head of
young Tommy west Fall, including the X Files, all of
(43:50):
Star trek Um and dude. If you looked at the
list you can go to I mean they have full
websites on this, and you look at down the list
of four nineteen shows, you're like, how does Matt have
anything to do with Wait, so there's a there's real connections. Yeah, yeah,
real connections. Some of them are sort of thin, but
some of them aren't, Like you know, Cheers, Pigett, Frasier, Uh,
(44:11):
Frasier had like a guest star that was ended up
on something else and then somehow that connects to like
law and Order and law and Order has tendrils all
throughout because all the different shows and all the guest stars,
and not just like someone guessed it on the show,
but like in character in the fictional worlds like Munch
from Uh he's been in like I think X Files
(44:31):
and a bunch of true crime shows using Law and Order,
so that ties all that stuff together, or like MASH
was something I mentioned. Um one of the doctors on
st Elsewhere went at one point made a little reference
to working with Trapper John. Who is that one of
the doctors in MASH, So like that's how that fits in.
And then MASH reaches another couple of things. Oh my god,
I'm looking at the grid. Uh there is a visual
(44:54):
grid online that you can find. It's uh, this is
at a I'm looking at a leven. Oh wow, it
goes all the way in to Chicago. Pretty funny, like
Arrested Development is on their shows, Alpha is on there,
and they all yeah, I mean they're basically saying like
(45:14):
close to shows they did very much. He's the He's
like the god of the matrix. Basically Tommy West fell Um.
If you guys are familiar with the the PBS Digital
Studios show idea channel, which I don't know if they
produced anymore, but I used to love it. I think
I gotta start watching it again if they do. But
there is a Tommy west Fell unit west Fall excuse me,
(45:35):
universe episode of of that show. Really he goes through
and does it does all of the connections, so we
should credit the original guy too. It's a comic book
and TV writer named Dwayne McDuffie. Uh put this forward
in a two thousand two blog post. It's very two
thousand two bloggy. It is also this theory, guys, do
you I mean, I kind of missed that that idea.
(45:58):
You know, I don't watch television is kind of changing anyway,
but I I don't watch a ton of stuff, but
I would love it if I was watching. I don't
know if Black Mirror had a Stranger Things reference in
there somewhere that that kind of no I'm I'm with you.
And it is a little harder these days because I
(46:19):
think back then with like three networks, Uh, there could
be more crossover, but it's hard to like, you know,
Apple's making TV shows now, are they going to reference
something from like CBS? You know they can reference Everybody
loves Raymond or something right, and there's a lot easier
to cross over in those days. That's true. I do
miss it. Do that they'd be kind of cool. I'm
(46:40):
sure this one continues. And now I'm sure people are
trying to write in Tommy Westfall connections. Oh yeah, yeah,
you know, just like be a part of the whole thing.
I'm obsessed with this. There's even cartoons like Dexter's Laboratories
on here and well then you can click on it
and see what the link is to the Tommy Westfall.
(47:01):
So cool. Yeah, it's pretty neat. I was unaware of this.
You can really spend some time. It is a real
rabbit hole that these kind of rabbit holes are inspiring
to me because they think, like, Okay, this guy was
doing other stuff with his life. He discovered this and
Dwayne McDuffie, Dwayne McDuffie is two thousand two blog posts
and now it's taken on a life of its own,
(47:23):
and like, is he getting paid for this? Did he?
I don't know. It's it feels like a passion project,
feels like a mission. And you know, I fell asleep
trying to put on a pair of pants one time,
So like this guy's really being productive. Yeah, it's sort
of like the Kevin Bacon I think, if I'm not mistaken,
At one point in the mid nineties, when I was
(47:43):
living in New Jersey, I met the guy who created
the Kevin Bacon degrees of Separation. I's gonna call it
a meme, wouldn't it mean? Back then, guys know what
our means are. We would draw pictures in hand them
around it one another. What a distribution model. I don't
know what color it though. But if I'm not mistaken,
(48:04):
and this just popped into my head, I think I
met that guy at a party once. Tommy Westfall, the
guy who created the Kevin Bacon separation thing seven degrees
of Separation? Did he did he introduce himself as that guy? Uh?
He was introduced to me as such. And the reason
I remember because I think he was developing a board
(48:25):
game at the time, and you know, supposedly, I guess
he owned this idea. I don't trademark that. Did you
look it up? Making it the Oracle of Bacon? I would, Now,
I'm hungry. I don't know. I don't remember. I certainly
wouldn't remember who it was. This is just some random, Barny,
this this is strange. Okay, So this, I mean, researching
(48:48):
this interconnected universe is very much. Uh, there goes my
weekend moment. So sorry, Oh no, it's good out there
for a while. It's gonna be worth it. But I
do want to let everybody know we had mentioned briefly. Uh,
House an American Activities Committee, would you be interested in
making a return appearance for us to do an episode
(49:10):
just on that? Okay, because I feel like maybe we
did and this is my bad. We did a bit
of a tease and there's like no cut that. Let's
go to fan theories. But I have no regrets because
I feel like we learned a lot. Absolutely. I mean,
I've certainly got a rabbit hole to play in a
sand sandbox, rabbit box. This is going to be one
(49:31):
of those times, box where you and I hang out
at the local bar reading the same web page and
just not talking to each other. Let's do it. Let's
do it after this, can I that's one last thing
before we do you think we we mentioned and you
just mentioned it again in the House of An American
Activities saying, do you think there could be a time
specifically in the United States of America where something like
(49:53):
that could happen again, like where the government steps up,
you think, So, I think it's happening. I mean, not
necessarily just that, but for sure, yeah, I think. I
think lately we've all seen how out of pain things
can get, just inching towards totalitarianism, you know, I mean
(50:14):
one day at a time, and it's like we always say,
it's like the whole you know, frog in boiling water situation,
where it happens slowly and then before you know it,
you're dead. Well, one thing, since I know it past Halloween,
but it it feels like it's always Halloween in America nowadays. Um,
It's true. One thing that we have that we have
(50:35):
to consider is that the most vulnerable points of any
any nation's life cycle is always going to be the
succession of power the secession of power. And so when
I was studying North Korea years and years back in
a different lifetime, that was the thing that put everybody
on international alert. When one of the kims is gonna say, okay,
(50:59):
my and this chosen can is now going to be
in charge. Hope everyone's cool with that, because there are
a bunch of other people there's all this internal stuff.
We we have been very fortunate that we are in
the US. We're not a country like Italy. Italy has
not had a very good run of contiguous governance for
(51:20):
what the past fifty plus years. But here in the US,
we sort of take it for granted that when an
election happens, whether local, regional, or federal, that the person
who wins the person who loses shake hands. We don't
know if that's gonna happen. Now, boy really took this
a depressing note. You know, I think if Donald Trump
(51:42):
loses in the UH, It'll be a really really interesting transition.
I've are. I'm already digging in my backyard to make
a place where my family and I can hide for
several months. Um, hopefully everything goes great and won't need
(52:03):
to use it. I don't think like violence will break
out necessarily, but I'm having a hard time just picturing
him playing nice about it all. Well, that's what we're
talking about too, right, Like where you know, the normal channels,
the normal ways things are done that we've all accepted
are the ways things are done. This has kind of
proven that, like, maybe it's only done this way if
people play nice. I think that's absolutely true. The rule
(52:27):
of laws is a tenuous thing, you know. The example
we always use on this show is, uh, we think
we take the tack of the perspective of future historians
looking back on so many things now that we do,
we're gonna seem ridiculous in like twenty years, forget a hundred.
One of the silliest examples that still holds water is,
(52:50):
of course, driving on the interstate explaining to like one
of your grandkids, well, we used to hop in these
things that would go ninety plus miles an hour, and
how how is it not a mortality? You know? Right,
They're like, well, we have this system of lines that
we painted on the ground, like walls between cars. No,
just paint, just paint, And we all kind of agreed
(53:12):
that we would treat these lines as though they were barriers.
So it was kind of an honor system. We haven't
had a saying stay in your lane from a very
quaint time, don't detect or you'll die. Right, They're like, oh,
so did that work? And the answer would be like,
kind of, I don't know. A ton of people died.
They'll just say, like, you drove your own cars, exactly
(53:32):
with your hand. It reminds me exactly, reminds me of
that scene from Back the Future to where Marty McFly
does is like fancy, you know, gun video game moves
and the little kids, one of which I believe is
young young Elijah. Would you have to use your hands? Idiot?
You know? Boomer? Okay, Boomer, that's a weird. So last
question that we're wrapping, what was in Marcellas Wallace's briefcase. Oh,
(53:57):
it looks like a yellow light bulb department. Wait, do
you have behind the scenes? You got some juice on that?
I got no juice. I never really got into the
pulp fiction theories of the portal and Marcella Swallows's neck
he was the devil or something or being his soul
and the soul is in. I never got into that stuff.
(54:18):
I just always kind of took it at face value.
I always thought it was gold bars. I mean that's
what I thought in the dinner in the California Sun. Yeah,
and just just a hyper stylized Hey, here's something valuable
in here things. That's what I was. So they big
up it a lot harder than if they were just
gold bars. In the movie, they treated like it's sort
of sacred and irreplaceable, unique object. But you know what
(54:40):
else is interesting too. We have to think of Quentin
Tarantino's personality. I've never met the guy. Uh he seems
like he can get you know, carried away, passionate dude.
Uh so, I you know, maybe he has an explanation
to himself or or I want to be like the
party pooper here. Maybe he was just like, okay, just
(55:01):
put it, put a light bulb in it and make
it bright. And someone's like, okay, well what is it.
He's like, no, no, no, just roll one of these
yellow gels on it. Yeah, you're calling you. We're playing
off of his personality and the weird things that end
up on camera for him. Maybe it was a pair
of solid gold stilettos. Yeah, I was gonna say, maybe
(55:21):
it's just like a foot. Maybe it's just yea, he's
yeah speaking of shared universes though he does a pretty
good job of of that and fantastic and it's it's
I think it's right. I can't remember how we where
I was discussing this. It might have been not on
a podcast weird um, but like, yeah, you know, Vincent
Vega is vic Vega from Reservoir Dogs. I think they're yeah, yeah,
(55:46):
there's more cigarette cigarettes, there's more, there's there's more stuff,
including into exactly. I just think that's fun. I like
it same here that it's not over Yeah it's world building,
but it's not over the top. It's not it's not
beating like, there's no there's no exposition about it, which
I think is very strong. You're not required to keep
(56:06):
it in mind, but if you feel like it and
want to dig deep, it's a fun thing to like
pay attention to. Yeah, the TV show Lost made a
whole However, many seasons they counted on fans really overdoing it,
that's true, very little payoff. Were you one of those
guys when it was all dude that was waiting the
fuselage that was the website? I went to the thing.
(56:27):
I was all over it, man. I thought it was
really really cool. On Deep, I was unspoiler forums dot
net talking to Russians about like getting the new not
even the new episode earlier, getting the new teaser. It
waned for me as the show went on, but those
first few seasons I was in deep. Absolutely it got
to the point where you realized there was no way
they were gonna be able to cash this check that
(56:48):
they wrote, like there's just not enough episodes left, you know.
But thinking back, and this is how I feel oftentimes
when shows that I love initially kind of jumped the shark.
I don't know that it affect did my overall. I
still enjoyed my time with the show, which it didn't
make me just like completely thrown under the bus forever.
I don't know. But they did a great job with
(57:10):
shared universe fan theories to even tied into clover Fields tenuously.
Oh yeah, I like that, uh which which was the
one with the the clover Field movie with the Underground Layer.
Oh yeah, it was great, really, that really cool movie.
I thought it was cool. That's John Goodman, right yeah, yeah,
(57:33):
and a real nasty s ob and I was like,
come on, man, you're the guy from Roseanne. Cool. Do
you want to hear my little name droppy lost story? Yes?
So I went to h meet our friend John Hodgman,
who has been on this very show. I went to
meet him for dinner one time in l A at
the Chateau Marmont and the dining room. They're very cool.
(57:54):
The only time I've been there. It is by his invitation,
and uh, I was waiting in the lobby, waiting, waiting, waiting,
and he said, I'm finishing dinner. It was just like
right behind me with a friend, just like, hang out
there for a minute. We'll go get a drink. Also,
when I happened to see John Krasinski and Emily Blunt,
they walked right by me. Caught eyes with Krasinski and
he gave me a very nice acknowledging smile and nod
(58:17):
and I was like, he is a good guy. You
can tell just because he looked at me. He went
just kind of smiled that aside. That's one name drop. Uh.
Hodgeman finally texts me and said, come on over to
the table because we're gonna be a little bit longer.
It's damon uh lindall Off sitting there and I was like,
oh hi. And it was right after Lost and um
(58:40):
I sat down and within like two minutes he went
all right, you gotta be honest and he was like,
I've just met you. I don't know you. John and
I were talking about the end of Loss and he
was like, were you a fan? I was like yeah,
and He's like what did you think about the last episode?
No pressure, no pressure at all. And I was honest
and I went, yeah, like it was all right. I
(59:01):
was like, I gotta say, I said, I love the show.
I said, but I didn't love the ending. And he
was very sweet about it, and he said see because
I guess John was saying like, no, people loved it,
and he took that as ammunition to be like, see there,
this guy's being honest. Like I think he might have thought.
His contention might have been that we dropped the ball
a little bit. But you gotta remember to like that show.
They didn't intend for it to run that long, though
(59:24):
I think they were doing well, and then the studios
are like, keep it going, guys, keep that that juice flowing.
And so then they kind of write themselves into a
corner and like, what are they gonna tell a novella?
You know? And it's almost like the Dark Tower novel series,
you know, it keeps, it keeps going, and at some point, uh,
(59:45):
like there's this beautiful moment when you're writing a story,
you're created world where you're in the middle of it.
Anything's possible, right, and you get towards the end and
you're like, well, Polar Bears. Yeah, what happened to those guys? Right?
I'll never forgive him, Yeah, I'll never forgive him for
the smoke Monster. I thought I wanted that to be
something so much more. Put it in up being again,
can I can't even remember it was the embodiment of
(01:00:09):
the spooky bad guy in black because there were the
two there were the two siblings, right and enable esque Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I don't even remember any too much, too much lost
lost we have. We have people yelling at their podcast
player of choice right now. David is making Watchmen right
now on HBO, and it looks dope's great. Yeah. I
(01:00:32):
saw the pilot. I liked it. It's it's really well done.
And of course Alum Moore hates it. He is, Uh,
he's already vocal that he hates it everything. That's my point,
though he actually spoken about it, or is it we
just assuming that he he's a great writer who only
writes to support his habit of being a full time
curmudget like that's his first love. I know. He lives
in a very small village, uh, and has lived in
(01:00:54):
the same place, a very small, modest home. He worships
a snake god called glicon Um, and he is very
into you know, witchcraft and Alistair Crowley ask used to
have these amazing YouTube videos about magic where it starts
out with like, Okay, you'll get this because we've all
worked in production. Starts out with like an empty chair,
(01:01:14):
just in an empty room, and then there's a there's
like a hard cut and he's just sitting there and
he's like magic. And Uh. On that note, though, I
think Almore is a fantastic writer genius. Yeah. And so
uh barring a Lost, a Lost reboot, a gritty reboot
of Lost? What if we call that? I don't know, befuddled? Uh? Yes? Found? Yeah? Found?
(01:01:44):
See the movie Crusher symbiosis? Nice? Uh? And where can
people find movie Crush if they want to learn more
about the world of film? Oh, well, you know Ben
and the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever
you find your favorite But guest, that's our official c
A heard that somewhere ringing in my familiar Uh this.
(01:02:07):
Thank you so much for coming on, for having me. Yeah,
it's long overdue. Yeah. I think a year ten or
whatever is a good time to have me on. I
said I would say, if you are if you like
this show and you've maybe joined our Facebook group. Uh,
movie Crush has a Facebook group that has just the
(01:02:27):
most fantastic people on it to discuss things. Movie crushers
Movie Crush are similar to our here's where it gets crazy.
So like, it's just another great place to a group
to join if you are a fan of movie Crush
or if you like the show. Yeah, and if you
like movies, it's just a nice community of people who
aren't jerks to each other and who share ideas about
movies that are very respectful and it's cool and check out.
(01:02:48):
I might be being a dumb dumb and asking this,
but do you post the mini crush questions on the
page or on the actually like on the group or
on the page I posted on the movie Crush facebook
page Facebook page. So if you want to get in
on that, and you want to join the group, which
is its own thing, join the conversation, but joined the
conversation for the show. Chuck literally posts questions the day
(01:03:09):
before we do these many Crush episodes where it's just
he and I kind of having conversation starters that that
folks on the Facebook page submit and to read your name,
read your name. You can become an old pal, a
good friend. Like it's really a whole thing. You've got
some recurring suggestions and people right in the page because
it's a very supportive community. Yeah, that's great, but don't
(01:03:32):
take our word for it, folks, check it out yourself.
That is as as Chuck mentioned, that is all the movie.
Crush is also one of the only places where you
can hear our super producer Paul Michigantrol Decade actually speaking.
That's correct, Okay, I just leaned over to make sure
(01:03:52):
Paul is still cool with us. Uh. Absolute pleasure to
have you out. Of course, if you want to find
out more about stuff they don't want you to know,
film conspiracies, you can check out our Kubrick episode, which
is available on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast
wherever you find your favorite shows. If you say, guys,
I want to talk to you and Chuck, but I
(01:04:13):
hate the social meads we have all folks, get it,
You can contact us directly. We have a phone number. Yeah,
it's one eight three three st d w y t K.
We ritualize. That's sort of an incantation. If you don't
want to do that either you can hit us up
on Instagram and uh, Twitter and all that were either
(01:04:34):
a conspiracy stuff or conspiracy stuff show. On all of
those v some variation there, you can find us individually
as human people, um, disconnected from the show. I am
at how now Noel Brown on Instagram exclusively, you can
find me getting kicked into and out of various communities, regions,
and countries at ben Bowling on Instagram named in a
burst of creativity. You can also find me at Ben
(01:04:57):
Bowling hs W. On Twitter. You can find me at
all the Cluster stuff versus the Nazis. That's just another
David what is his name, David Damon Damon Lindelof. Sorry,
it's another one of issues. Some respects I did. I
never met him at Chateau arm On dig. You can't
(01:05:20):
find me on social media, so come up and shake
my hand. I'm not on Instagram. That's how you know.
It's not a deep fa right, that's right? Uh? And hey, Matt,
riddle me this. If someone hates social media, they hate phones,
they hate I don't know, pigeons or whatever, we have
one more way they can contact us. We have a
good old fashioned email. Right, Yes, it is conspiracy at
(01:05:43):
iHeart radio dot com. Yeah Stuff they Don't Want You
(01:06:05):
to Know is a production of i Heeart Radio's How
Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit
the i heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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