September 25, 2025 • 65 mins
333 REALITY BITES!
Netflix has released a set of "rules" for using AI in their productions.
Also discussed: Sketch, Marvel Ultimates, American Psycho 2.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Oh, no more. Oh, dear.
Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break yourconcentration
somewhere between science andsuperstition,
(00:21):
such sights to show you.
Strange eons. Welcome to strangeeons radio that is Eric over
there. Hello. That is Vanessaover there. Hello, and I am
Kelly guys. Last episode, Italked about Netflix's Zodiac.
(00:43):
Oh, yes, not another bit ofNetflix news, they have released
their guidelines for productionparties using AI, production
partners, partners. So they saidparties. Oh, I probably did say
parties.
I was like, wait, what does thatmean? That sounds much better.
(01:05):
Yeah. Would you like to hear thefive core rules? Oh, god yes,
do not copy others. Works so AIoutputs. Can't replicate
copyrighted material. Okay, I'mnot sure how they stopped that
at this point when it's alreadybeen taught on protect Netflix
(01:26):
content. AI tools cannot trainon or store Netflix's production
data. Interesting use securetools, which means sticking to
enterprise approved AI platformswhen possible. It says here when
possible,which is a very vague way to
have a rule,kind of indicates the whole
rule. Yeah,final output needs approval. So
(01:50):
brainstorming with AI is fine,but anything in the Final Cut
requires permission. I don'tknow if that means permission
from Netflixor the filmmakers or AI, if
it's only permission from thefilmmakers, that's like
regulating your own product,right? I think this is fine. We
double checked it and we loveit, A plus plus.
(02:14):
And finally, respect union rulesso they can't use AI to replace
actors or crew without properconsent. Yeah. So I think this
is kind of interesting.
At least there are rules. That'sactually something, I guess a
little bit it says here, let'ssee. For context, Netflix
recently became one of the firstmajor streamers to openly
(02:37):
embrace AI generated footage inthe final production. They used
it in a movie called The eternatOh yeah,
created a building collapsesequence 10 times faster than
traditional effects, and theykept the show within budget, but
they also got flat flak lastyear for using AI generated
(02:59):
photos in what Jennifer did,which was a documentary, and
they showed footage of like, atrain, oh, derailing. But that
that footage was, I did see theclip of that? Yeah. So I'm not
sure how that works when you'redoing a documentary and it takes
AI from the news. I mean, the AIis taught on the news footage,
(03:21):
so I don't know exactly how thatall works. In this article, I
read the bigger picture. It saysthe experimental phase of AI in
production is over and it'sactually being used now. Netflix
is threading the needle betweencost savings and avoiding
disasters, and as one of thefirst to formalize ground rules,
these guidelines could set theprecedent for other studios. I
(03:42):
think it's obviously going toset the precedent for other
studios, and that, whenpossible, part is a bad
precedent.
Yeah, there's a nice littlewiggle room there, because we
all know the people that runbusinesses at the high level are
always thinking of their ownstuff, not looking at other
people and going, well, that's agreat idea.
Just do what they're doing well.
And certainly they are all onthe upfront and not worried
about how much money it's goingto cost, as long as everybody is
(04:05):
following the rules exactly.
Denmark passed an interestinglaw. Do you see about that this
recently, where you own thecopyright of your face. If
somebody publishes a photo ofyou that you don't want up
there, they have to take itdown, or you can sue them,
or for the news, even for thenews,
(04:28):
I'm not sure what that'd be, butI don't think let's say you
committed a crime when they'rereporting on it.
I don't know that's so that's,but that's the same as regular
copyright there, right? Anexception for certain kind of
usage, but, but, you know, like,somebody can't make AI porn of
you, or to post a photo of yousaying, Wow, look at this person
(04:48):
being an asshole, or, Godforbid, being a nice person, and
posting that on, I don'tknow how you prove it, but
that's a cool thing to do,because that cuts down. Well, if
it's your photo and it's postedby somebody. Be this, not you,
yeah, that's yeah. Really watch,almost from the way it sounds,
that's all it takes. Wow. Yougo, nope, I don't like this. I
mean, granted, there's going tobe public figures exceptions,
(05:11):
there's going to be stuff likethat, but if you're private
citizen, yeah, that has noreason for whatever to use your
image.
Yeah, because can you imaginethe next format of bullying in
like,schools, Oh, Jesus, with AI
that you can that's so awful.
It's so awful to think about.
(05:32):
Yeah, this is one of the waysthat, when I was talking to this
guy who was dealing with AI andeverything he his feeling is
that AI will destroy us in oneof two ways, very unlikely that
it will gain sentience anddestroy us, very likely that it
will drive us insane, because wewill no longer know what to
trust. That's what I'm worriedabout. That was
(05:57):
his his prophecy for the humanrace was we are, you know, we're
50 years from just blowingeverything because of AI,
yeah, it's like, how do youtrademark, like, how do you make
something so, you know, it'sreal, yeah, versus not real.
Because right now, nobody knows.
Like, we're at the point nowwhere you you can't tell, yeah,
like, you just, you simplycannot tell. Like, I was trying
(06:17):
to get a haircut recently, and Iwas trying to find photos of the
cut that I was after, and Irealized when I got to the
hairdressers that three of mypictures were AI generated women
with fake, not real hair, and itlooks like real hair. I mean, I
know what fake hair usuallylooks like. And so I told her up
front, look. I know that thisdoesn't even exist, but this is
(06:39):
kind of what I'm after. I waslike, This is what it's called,
and this is what I'm lookingfor. And she was able to work
with that, but I just had thatmoment of like, oh my god, I got
duped. And I look at this crapall the time. I'm like, It's my
job. So yeah, just we'reexisting in a really terrifying
precipice right here. So yeah,nice knowing you guys. But on
(07:02):
the plus side, I bet really bothlow budget, previously low
budget content, like films fromnations that might not have a
larger studio system, are goingto start looking really good.
I can't wait until I don't haveto do this show anymore and we
can just, we've got hundreds ofhours of my voice and face. I
(07:25):
just sit here as a as an AIconstruct, and be just as snarky
and pissy to you guys as I am inreal life.
Ellie's reaction to this movieis, speak for five minutes.
Oh my god. I just want to know.
I just want to know now whatthat would be.
Also make sure it comes in atfour minutes and 59 seconds
(07:46):
every single day,except for once every 10 times,
just to make it feel real,right?
Yeah, I have seen some stuff youguys. I watched a movie called
sketch that just came out. It'savailable on rental, and it is
lovely. It's got Tony Hale asthe widowed father of a couple
of kids, and the young girl isdealing with the mother's
(08:10):
passing by. She's alwayssketched things out, but her
sketches have gotten darker anddarker, and they somehow end up
in this lake that brings thingsto life, the entire sketchbook
ends up there, and all of thesemonsters come out, and they are
all like live action versions ofher 10 year old sketches. And so
(08:34):
they look ridiculous, butthey're very deadly, and it's
very funny and very sweet and alittle sad, but I just thought
it was a really adorable movie.
And the thing that I reallyloved about it is it was written
by now. I've forgotten his name.
I picked up a a workbook forscreenwriters, and he had
(08:57):
designed something called astory clock. Seth Worley, yes,
Seth Morley and I picked this upyears ago, and I just really
liked the way that when youwrite, you know, I used to write
all my timelines or my plotpoints in a straight line, but
when you write it in a clock,and you kind of know where it's
supposed to show up in themovie, you can start mirroring
things and stuff like this. AndI thought, well, this is an
(09:19):
interesting way, it really,really worked for me. And then
when I saw his name pop up onthis I was like, Oh, this guy is
not just a guy who came up witha neat idea. He came up with a
neat idea, then applied it to ascript, and then it turned out
to be fantastic. So it is calledsketch. It is available as a
rental. It's really great. Youknow, I have railed against
(09:41):
parents who want to turn theirkids into horror fans too early.
Obviously, JAWS is my favoritemovie, and I can't go into open
water because I saw it at theage of six. So you might not
understand what you're doing toyour kids when you put this
stuff in front of them. Thismovie is. Really, great
introduction to horror. Really,oh, that's so cool. It's cute
(10:05):
and just scary enough. And thekids are the main people, and
the kids are the brother andsister are adorable. They
actually like each other.
They've got they get stuck withthis shitty girl from school
that they don't like. And youcould, you're just like, God, I
want this girl to get eaten.
And, of course, because it's akids movie, she finally redeems
(10:26):
herself too. Everybody is justreally, really good in it. So
very highly recommendedsketch, a short film in this
year's Seattle Film Festivalthat had a very similar idea. It
was a Spanish short film, andthe lady had this box that was
sealed, and her kid finds it andopens it, and the things from
the box that were drawn by heras a kid start to come to life.
(10:47):
Very different take but that,that sounds like, you know what?
That's horror. I'm gonna add itto my list. Yeah, I don't have
to just watch pressing shit allthe time.
I know, right? Yeah, sometimesyou can watch days feel good
horror, you know? Yeah, that'sawesome. Well, not as cute, but
(11:13):
equally important, I saw the NowYou See Me, and now you see me
too films, because I need toprep myself for now you see me
now. You don't coming inNovember.
Do you really?
I saw that? Well, I'm glad thatthis is called now you see me
(11:34):
now, because I live in a worldwhere the sequel to Now You See
Me is not called now. You don'tI
know, right? It's the stupidestthing I've ever Well, I remember
seeing the first one, but Icouldn't remember anything that
happened in it, so I was like,uh, all right, I'll go ahead and
watch one and two. Cool. Thefirst one very interesting,
(11:57):
because they make JesseEisenberg kind of a sex symbol.
They try to sell him as like, ahot, interesting, young, cool
magician, guy who's like,burning through ladies, but
there's one that might justcapture his heart, and it's very
weird, because it's JesseEisenberg. It's like, no, no,
(12:17):
no, no. They do learn theirlesson for the second one, and
they cut that shit out becauseyou're like, Absolutely, God,
no. It also has Mark Ruffalo,Woody Harrelson, Morgan Freeman,
Dave Franco, Michael Caine and Ileft Fisher in the first one.
It's actually a lot better thanI remembered it. It was pretty
(12:38):
solid, pretty fun, and has areally, really cool ending that
I cannot talk about becauseotherwise there's no reason to
watch the movie. Now You See Metoo.
Less never seen it. It's It'sokay, it's
watchable. It's totally like,it's fun enough. But they
replace, for some reason, IslaFisher has not decided not to be
(13:00):
in it, so it's Lizzie Kaplaninstead. It's a different
character, but they just don'ttalk about Isla Fisher and what
happened. And you're like,and two, they get at least
content set of the number two.
They could have done two. NowYou See Me too. What helped a
little bit with the now youdon't but no, it's just the
number two.
Yeah, it's just the number two.
Nope, nope. It's the stupidesttitle of all time. It kind of
(13:23):
makes no sense. The second one,like, really, when you start to
think about what's happening,it's it falls apart very
quickly. But you do get to watchDaniel Radcliffe one of his
earlier I'm actually a bad guyrole, like a joking, ridiculous
bad guy because he's DanielRadcliffe, but it's still like
a, it's a, it's a fun enoughfilm. So I'm looking forward to
(13:45):
the third one, where Isla Fisherwill return as one of the four
horsemen. There are only four. Idon't know why they couldn't get
one of the four actors back forthe second fucking film, but
whatever. So yes, highlyrecommend. I guess it's I think
they're both, yeah, they're bothon Netflix.
(14:05):
So I remember actually beingvery surprised how much I liked
the first one, yeah, yeah,yeah. I have not seen the
sequel. Oh no. I don't even knowif I realized there was a
sequel. Sort of went okay.
Did you see that ready or not?
Has a sequel, and it is titled,here I come. And thank you. Oh,
maybe I was thinking about thatbecause Elijah Wood is in the
(14:28):
sequel to ready. Yeah, so, andit takes place, I guess. Like,
if you remember that movie endswith her on the steps, starts
with her on the steps. Justtakes place immediately after
the last like, everything aboutthis sounds like what I want to
see reading about that theother day. That one sounds
really fun.
(14:48):
Okay, so in the 100 Days ofhorror, as you can find on
Facebook, if you like, or aFacebook book page, I'll be
talking about all of these deadof night also. Known as when
Andy came home, I believe, yeah,it's sort of like, imagine the
monkey's paw, but they open thedoor and find while he's still
(15:15):
there. And this is, this ispretty good. This is a really
solid film, dark, uncomfortable.
John Marley as the dad, LynnCarlin as the mom, and my
Richard backrest as the kid, arepretty good performances. She's
a little over the top at times.
(15:39):
The dad's a little over the topat times, and Richard is
incredibly stagnant most of thetime. But that's hard to pull
off. He's exactly yes, so Iwould say now this is a what 70,
mid 70s, with a name you mightrecognize as the director, Bob
(16:00):
Clark, remind me ChristmasStory and Black Christmas. Oh,
okay, so another and it'ssolidly directed, just like most
of the stuff he does. So I wouldsay if you've got because
monkeys paws, one of my favoriteshort story things I read as a
(16:21):
kid to make me love horror.
Yeah, this is a really cool ideaof what could happen if he just
came back.
Yeah, this is parents who get aknock on the door, and it's
soldiers telling them that theirson was killed in Vietnam, and
(16:42):
then he shows up, I think, thenext night, or maybe it's two
nights, or pretty soon, prettyquickly afterwards. I like this
movie quite a bit. Man, this oneis ripe for a remake, yeah?
Because, as I recall, this verylow budget,
probably, yeah, it's, well, Imean, it's low budget for the
time, so it's definitely yeah,but it didn't impair it too
(17:06):
much. But you certainly couldhave done a lot more with the
ending with some morebudget, yeah. And if I remember
that ending is pretty powerful,yeah, yeah. If that is one of
the visuals that I remember fromthis movie in particular. And I
I think the dead of night is acool title, but it's so fucking
generic, right? Yeah, night thatAndy came home is so creepy,
(17:30):
muchbetter. I read about it like
that, and then went to try tofind it, and it's barely listed
that way. I eventually figuredout, oh, it's called this far
more frequently.
So yeah, that is a cool movie.
I'm glad that you watched thatone,
considering there's so much shiton your 100 days list. Sometimes
(17:53):
I'm just like, Jesus Christ. Soam I? What should I talk about,
I'm going to talk about Lucbessons, Dracula, okay? Oh,
brand new, yeah. Oh, God.
(18:13):
Not sure why this needed tohappen so soon after Nosferatu,
and especially since this is, inmany scenes, a direct visual rip
off of Coppola's Dracula.
And choice was that weirdchoice?
(18:34):
Well, I mean, it's probably myfavorite of the Draculas. I
mean, it'sbeautiful, but can you pull that
off? Well, no, yeah, you'd haveto get in the incredible costume
designer.
There's some good costuming, butyou can't get away from the
beautiful stage. Yeah, Coppolawas and beson is doing all of
(18:55):
this, you know, in nature. Sothere's a lot of weirdly lit
scenes that don't quite work.
There is a strange kind of nodto the book and movie perfume,
if you remember that, whereDracula has come up with a
fragrance that makes himirresistible.
(19:20):
Yeah, you know, it hasn't beenused before.
That's just cologne, gentlemen,I'll have you now.
Yeah, it is a it is a strangemovie. Parts of it are really
beautiful. Dracula has a host ofgargoyles that have come to
life, that kind of act asservants. And there is a big
(19:41):
battle at the end, where thevillagers attack the castle, and
they're, they're fightinggargoyles. So it's, you know,
it's not a horrible movie. It isa bit of a head scratcher.
It this, I remember it got introuble too, for like, the
poster looking so much likenosferat. Do for like, last
(20:01):
year, it's not a the Nosferatuone works. They do a few little
tweaks on the psycho, and theymake it look a little cheesy.
Yeah, I, I gotta say, you know,I as much as I liked Nosferatu,
which was not as much as youguys like Nosferatu, my big
complaint was I didn't needanother Dracula, sure, and so to
get one so soon after that, thatis just a rip off of Coppola's
(20:25):
Dracula. Was like, Well, didanybody need this?
I mean, it feels like just afilmmaker who really wanted to
do something and decided to doit.
My other question was, who gavehim money for this right after
Nosferatu,France. Is it like a nationally
produced, definitely, a Frenchfilm. Yeah, it's got to be like
France was like, yeah, here'ssome cash. You do something
(20:47):
cool. They did something cool.
We can do something cool,yeah. I mean, speaking of cool,
though, the stuff coming outabout Frankenstein,
yeah, oh yeah, that looks good.
Review so far, very hopeful.
Have might have to see that onein the theater.
Yeah. Well, I, again, I didn'thave as much time as I would
(21:10):
have liked to see things, mostlybecause I'm addicted to that
stupid video game. However, Iwas able to read, and have been
reading for a while now theUltimates, which is a new
series, new comic series. Marvelthere. There was a previous
ultimate series that came out.
God, I don't know when it cameout. It was at least a decade
(21:30):
ago. Yeah, which is supposed tobe very good. I did not read it,
so I'm kind of trying to pick upon some of the plot pieces from
that. Well, while engaging withthis new
one is this tied in somehow tothat Ultimate Universe, because
that was destroyed, and that'swhy we have Miles Morales in the
same universe as PeterParker, interesting, yeah, no,
it's, I think it's a partialrewrite, but, um, there is some
(21:53):
lore that's important from thatone that to understand what's
happening. In this one, there'ssome of the same setup.
So in the other ultimates, itwas a series of comic books that
all were contained in auniverse, and it was like
ultimate Spider Man. Yes, theUltimates were like The
(22:15):
Avengers, if I remembercorrectly, ultimate X Men. Is
this just called Marvelultimates, or is this a bunch of
comics under an ultimate brand,both? So there's, there's almost
like how Marvel does theAvengers movie. But then has the
individual Spider Man, what it'sit's very similar to that style.
So there is ultimates andultimate two. But then they also
have ultimate Spider Man One andtwo. And I'm talking about
(22:39):
volumes Ultimate Black Pantherand ultimate X Men. I haven't
read Black Panther or Spider Mantwo yet, but I've read the rest.
And the idea, and I don't knowhow similar this is to the
original, is that there wassomething that happened in time
previously, where somebody camethrough and prevented everyone
who was going to become asuperhero, from becoming a
(23:01):
superhero?
Oh, it was, it was Reed Richardsfrom the Ultimate
Universe. That's, that's thepart that I they have not said
forgot to form your answer,because I geek.
But I think it's implied thatyou're supposed to know this
(23:21):
because there is an additionaltwist upon that twist. So I
think it's important that you'resupposed to know that.
I don't know. I did read thecomic where that happened, which
was so he created a universethen with like, no heroes in it,
right? But it's still populatedby all the people who would have
become euros.
So now there is a giant, sort of911, level disaster in New York,
(23:47):
where the section of the city isdisappeared and it is blamed on
Iron Man. Iron Man then goesback through the kind of to this
past time to try and startgiving different people the
powers they would have had, butthey're now much later in life.
So Peter Parker has two kids.
He's married. He has a totallydifferent life than he would
(24:11):
have had otherwise, but now andeach of them have this like orb
with the thing that would havehappened. So his, you know, you
open it, spider bites him. Theother people, you know, their
serums, or whatever it is thatwould have encountered. So they
have the choice totough Spanish family if he opens
that sucker.
(24:32):
I we have, not, sorry, BruceBanner is interesting because
some of them don't, they don'thave the ability like they're
either dead or it's a very bigtwist. So instead of Bruce
Banner, there was some BruceBanner is kind of a bad guy.
He's a science, evil scientistin this version, and they were
doing gamma experiments out inthe Pacific. And so there's an
(24:53):
island, a Hawaiian island, fullof people who are horrifically
disfigured, many of whom Can'tyou. Even function like they're
just and there's one basicallyHulk, but it's not, it's a young
girl who her, she was able toadapt to it because of the way
the gamma hit her. So she'sessentially the new Hulk. But
(25:14):
yeah, it doesn't quite it worksand it doesn't quite work at the
same time, sure. So yeah,they're calling Iron Man,
actually iron lad, but it isTony Stark, but it's a young
Tony Stark. So it's a whole,yeah, there's this whole big
thing. It's a whole big thing,but it's been really fun. I
think it has really goodwriting. It's done by Denise
camp, but each of the spin offs,so Spider Man, Black Panther and
(25:39):
X Men are totally differentauthors. And the X Men, one's
really interesting because theywent with a manga author. So it
has this very like Japanesestyle to it, and it's very
different the way it's written.
Oh yeah, it's almost like asupernatural, almost horror,
quasi horror.
They have that weird manga esqueart.
(26:00):
Yes, hard time with that. It'slike a watercolor. Yeah, it's
more watercolor. It's more like,I want to say, haiku. That's so
racist. It's, it's like writtenand it's made in a way where
it's really heavily dependenton, like, the precision of the
inking. It's not like cartoon.
It's like, it's like, more ofthe art, art style
(26:23):
of Japan. That sounds cool.
Yeah, I'm interested in allthis. I want to read this.
Yeah, I would highly recommendit. It's, yeah, it's been a
really fun read, because I feellike every time I pick up a
Marvel or a DC, I just don'tknow. I just assume it's going
to be bad, until I'm provenotherwise, and sometimes it's
not terrible. And I'm like, Hey,I read that. I'll read another.
(26:46):
Yeah, there's some that.
Anyways. So I'm going to defenda movie that will make a lot of
people think of a saying my wifesays to me sometimes when I'm
falling behind, she's like, youknow, I just got off in Spokane,
you're still boarding the trainin Seattle. So some people are
going to feel that way about mewhen I defend American Psycho
two, all American Girl,wow, I have not seen this.
(27:13):
Knock off those first threewords. Fucking ignore the
stupidity of calling thisAmerican Psycho too. And the one
line that attempts to tie themtogether, where the teacher in
class mentions Bateman. Otherthan that, there is no
connection in any way, shape orform, to American Psycho Wow.
This is a really clever darkcomedy about a fucked up girl
(27:37):
played by Mila Kunis, who istrying to become really smart
and really popular. She's tryingto get this like Job, or kind of
job with a professor who hegives to the smartest person in
his crime class every season, orsomething. So she starts killing
(27:57):
off her competition. Excellent.
William Shatner is in it too,and I can tell you,
fuck off with the AmericanPsycho stuff. This is way better
than the reputation it's gotover the years. Wow. And if you
watch it as a dark comedy, it'spretty good, and she is funny
(28:19):
and weird. Her family's bizarre.
And just, I don't know this wasso different than I anticipated.
And so I would say this might beworth the reviewing. You may not
appreciate it. That's fine, butI thought it was so much better
than the like ratings arc. Mostof the reviews, when you read
(28:44):
about it, are about who's haveto do with murder cycle,
nothing. So move past that, andyou might enjoy the film. But if
you can't move past the fact shenever shows a business card to
another person and they comparehim or some shit, I don't know
that it's really good. Wow.
Do you think that this startedoff? Do you think that this
(29:07):
started off as a differentscript, and somebody said, you
know, hey, I've got the rightsto American Psycho.
Exactly what it was, yeah, isthat the Hellraiser thing where
it's, oh, you've got a script.
Let's just call it a hell raisermovie, and that way we'll give
you the money to make it if youcall this American Psycho too,
we'll give you the America themoney to make it interesting,
which is disappointing, becauseI think this could add a nice
(29:29):
it's not it would not have beena giant hit, but I think it
could add a nice, solid cultfollowing of this is more clever
than I was led to believe.
I wonder what it was originallycalled.
Mila signed on before it wascalled American Psycho too.
American Psycho too just seemslike a a title that would
(29:53):
disappoint everybody. Yeah.
I mean, that sucks, whether youlike or hate the first the
original film. Film. There's alot going on there, and there's
a lot accomplished in it.
Yeah, baggage with that title.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, why wouldn't anyone everwant to watch any form of a
sequel to that film? I mean,it's fine. It's perfect as it
(30:13):
is.
Well, a lot of the reviewers inhere would, because that's most
Lucy's not like, Yeah, I know.
He figured out there's one linebecause I was watching for it,
because I had already read alittle bit about watch this as a
dark comedy. Do not watch it asa sequel. And I figured out,
like, halfway through themovies, I got the only
(30:34):
connection to the original iswhen he says his name in class
wild.
It's of the universe. It's inthe Bateman universe
over in New York, whereverthey're based. This was going on
the American psychoverseunder that ATM scene.
(30:55):
See, I read the book, there's ascene in the book that always
sticks with me that isn't in themovie and should not have been
in the movie. So that's alwayswhat I think of with American
Psycho. And it's uncomfortableand disturbing as hell.
I have given that movie aboutsix attempts. I do not like it,
and I've never finished it.
(31:16):
It's fine. I mean, I don't know.
I always thought it was just ahyper masculine thing, which
it's the book is written by awoman,
right? No, okay, never mind. Itis. It's man,
yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
It's the move the book. I guessyou could read it satirically,
but the book is fairly it'sreally dark and really weird and
(31:41):
incredibly detailed anddisturbing. And the movie, it's
not quite like the shining, butit almost felt the levels like,
what the fuck am I watching withthis movie? But now I say, Okay,
we she really created adifferent existence for this
character.
So that was a Brett EastonEllis, yeah, did he also do less
(32:03):
than zero? I think I read thisthing, and I was like, God damn
it. Apparently the book LessThan Zero has a vampire subplot
in it.
Whoa. I have not read that thatdidn't make it to the movie. And
I was like, Well, this is howyou would have got me to watch
this fucking movie.
Like I've read American Psychospecifically for the reason that
(32:25):
I guess people freak out becauseit was a huge don't read this
book. This book needs to bebanned, kind of thing when it
came out. Looks like I got toread this. I mean, it's a tough
read, but I mean, not because ofthe content, because of the way
it's written. Yeah, there'slike, he gets up and does his
morning routine in the bathroom.
And it's like a 30 page chapter,oh, describing the Cologne he
(32:46):
uses. And though it's like,oh my god, I used to listen to
his podcast, Brett Brett EastonEllis, and the last several
episodes were him as an audiobook of the new book he was
writing. So he would just readthe chapters and everything. And
I was like, Jesus Christ, thisis so good and interesting. I
(33:08):
mean, I think he's a fascinatingwriter, a very Yeah, complex
human being, yes,yeah. He has some, he has some
interesting issues, yeah.
Uh, okay, how about we take alittle break, and then when we
come back, we are talkingReality Bites.
Yeah, what are you doing?
(33:39):
But how this city future, buthow? Who's Captain power video
tapes, there are three differentskill levels. This one's in
toughest now we can practice anytime with the power jet XP,
satellite score will be hit.
Captain power video tapes, Idon't believe it. Believe it.
Large human, the power of thefuture is in your hands,
(33:59):
batteries notincluded, jets, figures and new
interactive video tapes, eachsold separately from Captain
power and the soldiers of thefuture.
And we are back, Vanessa, thiswas your sub genre topic. You
(34:21):
want to explain what we'redoing.
So what I wanted to talk aboutis alternate reality films where
maybe you think you're in areality, but it's not quite what
it seems, sort of like TrumanShow, something along those
lines. It was all a big excuseto watch my movie, the nine.
(34:43):
So you play a lot of charactersat once. Oh, a couple. Most
people do.
I think my house is haunted.
I just, I feel like there's i.
It, I feel like there someoneelse there.
(35:04):
And then last night, I sawsomething.
I think it wasme, somebody there.
How many times should the numbernine come up?
One time out of 10?
(35:30):
I don't speak that. I know whoyou are.
Know what you are.
I'm not the one deceiving him.
He'll figure it out eventually,and when he does, who do you
think he's gonna blameyou're not who you think you
are.
(35:52):
I can get you out of here. Theyhave all of these characters
inside my head and they want tolive.
Game isn't fun unless thereare rules and you make the
rules, they try to kill me.
He's not coming back. There'ssomething wrong with the world.
You feel like a man.
(36:18):
So what happens if I cross thisline? I
(36:42):
you let me give you five minutesto talk about absolutely
so the nines came out in 2007 Iwas interested in this because I
saw it as a Ryan Reynolds movie.
It was one of our previoustopics. It came up and I was,
oh, the number movie. I waslike, oh, like, that could be an
option. I didn't go with it. SoI was like, this will be the
time. This is written anddirected by John August. You
(37:03):
guys might know him from thepodcast script notes, which he
co hosts with Craig Mason. Hehas 16 writing credit, credits,
including big fish go Frank andweenie Charlie and chocolate
factory, the bad one, CorpseBride and Charlie's Angels. This
is starring Ryan Reynolds, hope,Davis, Melissa McCarthy, Elle
(37:25):
Fanning, Octavia, Spencer, DavidDenman, Ben Falcone, Dalia,
salmon and Jim Rash, wow, yeah,there are a lot of famous people
on this. The story follows Gary,an actor who plays a cop on TV
and experiences a terriblebreakup. He burns all of his
girlfriend's things, andapparently burns down his house
(37:46):
by accident, off screen, slowbudget, then drives drunk, buys
crack, picks up a hooker,Octavia Spencer to show him how
to use crack, sleeps with her,then gets in the car, crashes
and is arrested. He's then givena house arrest under the cheery
but tough as nails eye of apublicist named Margaret, played
(38:06):
by Melissa McCarthy, since heburned his house to the ground,
he's put in a writer's home whois currently out of town filming
in Canada. So meanwhile, hemeets the neighbor, Sarah, who
seems very smitten with him, andoffers to have sex with him, but
then bails because her kid getssick, so she doesn't bother
(38:27):
coming over at the allocatedtime. He then also just spending
a lot of time alone in thishouse. And he starts to hear and
see weird things, and findsmessages about following the
nines. He keeps hearing andseeing the number nines and just
it's weird. He overhears Sarahand Margaret talking about him
and arguing over telling himwhat is going on. He confronts
(38:49):
Margaret, who tells him it's notwhat he thinks. And then Sarah,
who offers him the truth andtells him, if he leaves the
house arrest, he she will showhim more. Margaret begs him not
to, and when he does, cross thespecial line, reality seems to
burn in front of his very eyes,and he enters a new story. We
are now following him as aburgeoning writer about to hit
(39:12):
it big with his pilot show. He'salso being filmed as a sort of
reality TV behind the scenes ofpilot season. Sarah is now a
network representative, andMargaret is now actual Melissa
McCarthy, the actual actor. Inorder to make his pilot work, he
is told he has to fire MelissaMcCarthy, who is his best
(39:32):
friend, and replace her withDahlia Salem. I have no idea who
she is, but people seem to thinkshe's hot shit in this universe.
He agrees, and then the wholething ends up blowing up in his
face. In a flashback, we seeMargaret in a previous life
telling him something along thelines of him being a god and the
nine are like angels, whilehumans are the sevens. Then we
(39:53):
meet Gary as Gabriel, anacclaimed video game designer,
and. His car breaks down in themiddle of nowhere, and he leaves
his wife, Mary, MelissaMcCarthy, and young daughter,
Noelle, to get a phone signal.
He runs into Sierra Sarah, whooffers him a lift, but instead
poisons him with her waterbottle. She tells him this is an
(40:15):
intervention, and the othergods, angels are worried about
him and wants him to leave thisworld, but he's obsessed with
Melissa McCarthy, and he justwon't. So Will he leave this
world, thus destroying it andeveryone there with a fiery
blast? Will we finally see whyhe finds Hope Davis super
irresistible and hot, eventhough she's just a terrible
(40:35):
person in every reality? Or willhe become a CGI diamond and go
into the sky and end up in a cutscene with Melissa McCarthy and
her husband making really badpancakes with Elle Fanning. Hmm,
who's to say? Please don't watchthis film. Oh, this is, I don't
know what the fuck this is. Thisis a low, low, low budget movie.
(40:58):
It is definitely set in thedirector's house. All the
exciting stuff happens offscreen, and we just skip through
time. It is broken into threedifferent segments and film
styles. The second being verymuch basically shot on a DVX
tape and trying to be theoffice. The film feels very
similar, in some ways, toMatthew McConaughey serenity. It
takes about half of the film toget to anything supernatural at
(41:20):
all. So you just see him walkingaround the house looking bored,
shifting to Sarah at one point,talking straight to camera for
no reason. Is weird as hell, andit doesn't work at all because
she's not really the maincharacter, and it seems
basically just to be harping onthe Office for no reason at all.
And you're like, Why does are weseeing this character we've
(41:43):
never met before in a doorknobstore talking to camera? I don't
know. You can see all theseactors have talent. Definitely,
I think, a fun role for them,because they're like, we get to
do something different. But Ican only assume John August has
some career ending dirt on eachand every one of them for them
to have helped him out on thisplease skip this movie, please.
(42:04):
It's a pay for rental on Amazon.
Only a little bit of trivia.
Tagline. You never know whenyour number is up. Replace all
the O's with nines. MelissaMcCarthy's role was written
specifically with her in mind.
The house where Gary stays andGavin lives is John August's
actual house reality TV segment,largely unscripted. Cameraman
asking reality TV questions frombehind the leaves of the
(42:27):
cameraman is voiced by JohnAugust, weird. Much of the
content in the second part thereality TV section is heavily
influenced by John August.
Experience working on a failedTV series, DC and a bunch of
random crap add up to the numbernine throughout the movie,
including dice rolls, micetraps, license plates, bus ads,
(42:48):
etc.
Oh, what. What year was this?
This was 1999 20072007 Yes, 2007 so a lot of these
people had done enough that theywere kind of famous. They even
talked about Melissa McCarthyleaving Gilmore Girls in the
second section to do his pilot,and therefore she left this,
like career hyping thing to bethere. I mean, that didn't
(43:10):
really happen. She that's nothow that happened in real life,
but in the story of real life,that's what so these people have
done a few things. I don't thinkElle Fanning is famous at this
point. Interesting.
I guess I thought, as soon asyou said this and Ryan Reynolds,
I was like, Is this the onewhere he hears the animals
(43:31):
talking to him the voices?
Okay, well, maybe we should havewatched
that one. I probably shouldhave. I probably should have. I
just thought the plot soundedreally interesting. And I'm
really bummed, because havinglistened to a fair number of
script notes back in the day, Ialways thought John August
sounded pretty sensible andinteresting, and now I'm like,
(43:53):
Screw you. Craig Mazin, who isincredibly irritating on his own
podcast, is much more talented.
No one likes to be duped.
I feel really, really like madabout it, but that's okay. It's
fine, just don't watch it. Justdon't watch it unless you want
(44:14):
to see, uh, Ryan Reynolds turninto a CGI diamond. That is jaw
dropping, at least weird. So Idon't want to say that I will be
passing onthis movie. So good. My work
here is done.
Instead, I will be telling youabout Shutter Island. I You. You
(45:20):
You You You You from 2010directed by Martin Scorsese,
(46:50):
who's directed taxi driver,Raging Bull, good fellows,
casinos, gang of New York, thedeparted The Wolf of Wall
Street, and written by Leishakagardis, who wrote the very
cool night watch thatsupernatural Russian film. He
also wrote Pathfinder TerminatorGenesis, and he was the creator
(47:13):
of the altered carbon series andbirds of prey, and is based on
the novel by Dennis Lehane,starring Leonardo DiCaprio,
who's in critters three, thequick and the dead, and 23
episodes of growing pains. MarkRuffalo again, Mirror, mirror
two, Raven dance. Mirror, mirrorthree, the voyeur. And nine
(47:36):
films in the Marvel CinematicUniverse, playing Bruce Banner.
Also in this is Ben Kingsleylosing Gandhi Schindler's List
species just recently in thekiller's game, which I think you
both still need to watch. Alsoin this, Michelle Williams, Max
von Sydow, Jackie Earle Haley,Elias Cotes, John Carroll Lynch
(47:57):
and Ted Levine. You know, areyou about a size 14? Have you
guys seen Shutter Island? Yeah,a while ago. I'll just say that
I oppose this sub genre, becausein order to show that reality is
not what it seems, we kind ofhave to spoil
the movie. It's true. That is abummer, and I apologize to our
(48:19):
audience for that. Well, withthat in mind, I chose a movie I
had never seen based on the factthat the trailer pretty much
spoiled the movie when I pointfirst saw it. So we are
introduced to us, marshalsEdward and Chuck, and when they
are called to Shutter Island,they are investigating. So
Shutter Island is a federalmental institute for the
criminally insane, and they areinvestigating a patient named
(48:40):
Rachel who escaped the daybefore. I should say this takes
place in the early 1950s andEdward lost his family in an
apartment fire a few years back,and he is haunted by the memory.
So there they meet Dr Cawley,who explains that Rachel had
killed three of her kids andsimply believed that they
weren't dead. She thought thekids were in the hospital and
(49:01):
all the staff were herneighbors. And in Rachel's room,
they find a note saying the lawof four, who is 67 so the
marshals begin to investigate,but a storm is coming, and they
are stuck on Shutter Island fora couple of days. In this time,
Edward has frequent flashbacksto his time in World War Two as
a soldier, and he is haunted bythe fact that he killed all of
(49:23):
the Nazi guards of the camp inAuschwitz in cold blood. We
actually see these scenes, andthey are very effective. I mean,
this is a very beautiful andhaunting looking film, but as
the investigation goes on,things are definitely not what
they seem on Shutter Island, andEdward is hiding some secrets
himself. He explains to hispartner chuck that he had
(49:45):
ulterior motives to come toShutter Island because the man
who burned his apartment downand killed his family is an
inmate there. As the story goeson, Edward is continually
visited by the ghost of his deadwife, who tells him mysterious
riddles that bring him close.
Officer to the missing Racheland the man who burned down his
apartment, but he also keepsbumping up against the question
of who is patient 67 at onepoint, he finds a woman in a
(50:10):
cave on the island, and sheclaims to be Rachel, and warns
him that the doctors are tryingto have him committed to the
institute because he's askingtoo many questions. At one
point, he can't find Chuck, andDr Colley tells him there was no
Chuck and he arrived on theisland alone. Okay, so this
movie is as dull as a butterknife, but I will say that it
has a lovely third act thathappens when Edward realizes
(50:33):
that he is patient 67 a twistthat was telegraphed in the very
first trailer for this movie, ohno, and that his family wasn't
killed in an apartment fire. Wethen get a flashback of what
really happened. His mentallyunstable wife had caught their
apartment on fire, and he hadmoved them all to a small house
on a lake, hoping it would clearher mind. Instead, he came home
one day to find that his wifehad drowned their three
(50:55):
children, and he ends up killingher in a breakdown of his own.
The entire movie has been anelaborate bit of role playing to
try and bring him back toreality. And you know, it seems
to work. I'm going to give awaythe best part of this film, so
maybe skip ahead if you'reinterested. His doctors,
including the man he thinks isChuck, who is his actual doctor,
(51:15):
have told him that if he can'tsnap back to reality and stay
there, he's facing lobotomy. Andafter this, he does relate to
them what really happened in areally, very well acted scene.
But sometime later, we come backto him on some steps at the
hospital, and his doctor comesto ask him how he's holding up.
And Edward calls him Chuck,signaling that he is slipping
into his fantasy again. But asthe guards are motion to come
(51:41):
pick him up and take him away toget lobotomized, he says to his
doctor, you know, this placemakes me wonder. And Chuck says,
yeah, what's that boss? And hesays, what would be worse to
live as a monster or to die as agood man? And you can see the
doctor realizing, as he's beingtaken off, that he just doesn't
want to live with the truth ofkilling his wife just a little
(52:02):
bit of trivia. The movie isfilled with anagrams for the
characters names and indeed, thetitle Shutter Island is an
anagram of truth and lies andtruth denials. The movies $40.2
million opening weekend take inthe US marked a career best for
Martin Scorsese, and went on togross over $293 million
worldwide, making it the highestgrossing movie of his career,
(52:26):
until the Wolf of Wall Street.
And that final line that Ithought was so good that was not
in the book. So the movie is abore, and especially if you know
that it is all fake. But I willsay that that final scene where
he's talking to the doctors andeverything is being revealed to
them, is is really, reallysolid. I was just like, oh, this
(52:49):
is really good. It's just themovie leading up to it is a
snooze fest.
I remember liking this. And thenI realized everything I remember
that I liked about it is justthat. And segment, I don't
remember much else about thefilm.
Yeah, I remember him walkingaround the hospital a lot, so I
(53:09):
only rememberthe first place. There's all
sorts of things that if you ifyou go in knowing it, it might
be worth watching it again,because you will see, like in
every scene that Edward andLeonardo, that he's in, the
guards are standing right behindhim, and like his partner, who
turns out to be his doctor, theguards are never standing right
(53:31):
behind him. And there's stufflike that that goes on where,
you know, Edward startsinterrogating a guy, and he
grabs him, and you see hispartner kind of do one of these
things, and all of a sudden, thetwo guards come and take him off
of the guy he's beating up andstuff like that. So there's
little snippets and everything.
(53:51):
I really wish that the trailerhadn't kind of given it away,
because can't remember who, whohad seen it and told me it was
awesome. And I said, tell methis is he patient 67 and I'm
like, Whoa. I said they kind ofhint at it in the trailer. Is
that the reveal? Yeah. Like,okay, well, I don't want to
(54:12):
watch this now. Yeah, so theyshould have lied to you.
They should have said, What areyou even talking
about? I mean, she's just crazy.
She's just saying some thatwould be insane. Kelly, that'd
be dumb if they put that in thefirst trailer. That would be
bonkers, absolutely bonkers.
Eric, you want to talk?
Sure? Why not five minutes.
Okay, I'm done. Okay, so I gotthe Sylvian experiments in 2010
(54:58):
should have you. Threats.
She Can youstar kill another time.
(56:00):
You'llbe fascinated to know that the
Rotten Tomatoes score for thiswas nine. This is available on
YouTube, directed by HiroshiTakahashi, who did Tales of
(56:20):
Terror from Tokyo and the houseof the serpent. He's also the
writer, but his writing creditsare a little more prestigious
the ring, the ring two and Juanorigins, and starring Yoko
chosokabi, who is in the ringtoo, grudge two and act baby
(56:43):
male, amazing.
Mina Fuji is in cinema,fighters, the werewolf gang, the
villager side and the werewolfgang. And Momoko Hatano, so the
opening, it starts. The moviestarts with the couple watching
(57:06):
what is 16 millimeter footagefrom an experimental surgery
done quite a quite a while ago.
And the idea is a surgery isdone to release hallucinations,
or are they seeing an alternatereality during the middle of
this, the screen goes completelybright white, and her two
children, they see that her twochildren in the back watch, just
(57:29):
watching what's going on. Andthey look a little not so good
from that,which is weird, because,
anyways, cut to awoman looking around an
apartment, and then wakes up ina hospital looking place. So
it's kind of like she'sdreaming, but then she's in a
(57:49):
hospital, so that seems to bereal. The nurse there says,
everything will be fine. You'vedied, and will be all will be
known soon. So the nurse takesher and shows her laying in a
coffin. So she sees her own bodylaying in a coffin. As this is
going around. You feel is therea very large facility run by the
(58:11):
woman that was the mom watchingthe 16 millimeter trailer. Then
a large group of teens aregetting into a van to go and
kill themselves, one of thembeing one of her daughters, so
But while they're killingthemselves, this other van pulls
up, pulls them all out, and oneof the guys is wearing an oxygen
mask, and they drug the rest ofthe kids. And so she's going to
(58:36):
do the experiment on herdaughter. She splits open her
head, cuts her brain, puts thisweird little thing in it, they
go and so the idea is she'strying to figure out if these
were hallucinations, and whatwas the reality the camera
picked up, which they reallydon't explain that particularly
(58:56):
well, but and the other half ofthe movie is the other sister
trying to figure out what'sgoing on. She's got police
detectives and stuff, andthey're trying to figure out
where her sister is, whathappened to her, and she hadn't
seen her mom in years. But asshe's investigating, she figures
(59:20):
out one of the facilities withher daughter connected to she
goes to where her boyfriendworks and her mom is working
there, but somehow the boyfrienddidn't know that. This is a hard
movie to explain, because it isnot perfectly linear. It jumps
around to different things anddifferent times, and dream world
(59:42):
comes in several times, and youkind of figure out is the sister
dreaming the the other sisterand one of the inmates escape
from the facility at one timethey don't know where they are
when they find her, wow, she's.
Some crazy shits going down.
This is I'm surprised I haven'tseen this shown up in
(01:00:06):
Lovecraftian movies, becauseit's very much reality. Trying
to cut that veil of realitybetween what you see and what
might really be there, andthere's astral projection, or
are you just imagining you'reseeing yourself? There's a lot
(01:00:28):
of that going on in this movie.
I don't know what the fuck gaveit a nine. It's well acted. It's
well shot. Maybe, I don't know.
Maybe, only I didn't look at howmany people had reviewed it,
maybe, like four people reviewedit that just didn't follow the
story, which, okay, I kind ofget that, but, and overall,
(01:00:49):
pretty good. It does have onebig problem in that there are
kind of three endings. Oh, itfeels like you hit an ending and
oh, wow, holy shit. Thensomething else happens, like,
what? And then someone elsecomes here. Well, okay, which
(01:01:11):
one of these three is, andthey're not necessarily agreeing
with each other, so, but thiswas not a lot of trivia on this
film. There's very littlewritten about it. It was an
installment of 6j horror theatermovies that were released in the
in oh four, including infection,preemination, reincarnation,
(01:01:33):
retribution and kyodon, whichseems to be the they tried to
jump onto the J horror thing andmissed it, because I really
don't recognize a lot of thosetitles.
Didn't you say this came out in2017 though? Well, the
2010 was the release, I thinkthe release in the US, but it
(01:01:55):
was 2004 to the theater, theaterrun.
But sounds kind of interesting.
It isthat was pretty good, pretty
decent film overall, well puttogether, well constructed. But
it is, it takes someconfusion to kind of get
through, to kind of see what'sgoing on, which I think is good
(01:02:18):
for these kind of films. Ifyou're watching a movie where
you're supposed to see alternaterealities and you're going, Oh,
okay, I get it right. Seems tobe probably isn't doing what it
should be doing, yeah,what did you watch this on
YouTube?
Oh, that's and I think that'sthe only thing I could find it
availableon, how did, how did this even
(01:02:38):
come on your radar.
I don't remember. I think I waslooking I think I just did
alternate reality things. Andfor some reason, in the 100
days, I have been watching veryfew foreign language films,
which is really unusual. Ithought, well, let's, let's get
one in here.
Excellent. Well, that brings itto my choice for the next sub
(01:03:03):
genre, yeah, and I will fallback on what I do when I can't
think of something really cool,and pick a year. And this time
the year is 1986 we have to havea film from 86 and it cannot be
my favorite film from 86 Trickor treat, or my second favorite
film, The Wraith.
(01:03:23):
Really, these are really gettingthinner and thinner.
We could do 1940s sci fi moviesthis true.
So 1986 is what we'll be talkingabout next week. Okay, next
episode. That brings us to thepoint where we say thanks to
everybody out there who'ssupporting us in some way,
(01:03:46):
whether you're liking sharingposts on the strange eons radio
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(01:04:06):
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(01:04:32):
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And this give some value back.
Okay?
We are looking to we've beenexperiencing, as you know,
(01:04:52):
experimenting, as you know, withlapel mics and experiments have
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Little bit more. So you know, ifyou're feeling generous at some
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(01:05:13):
Okay, so that is it. We will beback in two short weeks. We are
talking about films from 1986See you next time.
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Sit, how do you make somethingso you know it's real. It.
Oh, no more. Oh, dear.
Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break yourconcentration
somewhere between science andsuperstition,
(00:21):
such sights to show you.
Strange eons. Welcome to strangeeons radio that is Eric over
there. Hello. That is Vanessaover there. Hello, and I am
Kelly guys. Last episode, Italked about Netflix's Zodiac.
(00:43):
Oh, yes, not another bit ofNetflix news, they have released
their guidelines for productionparties using AI, production
partners, partners. So they saidparties. Oh, I probably did say
parties.
I was like, wait, what does thatmean? That sounds much better.
(01:05):
Yeah. Would you like to hear thefive core rules? Oh, god yes,
do not copy others. Works so AIoutputs. Can't replicate
copyrighted material. Okay, I'mnot sure how they stopped that
at this point when it's alreadybeen taught on protect Netflix
(01:26):
content. AI tools cannot trainon or store Netflix's production
data. Interesting use securetools, which means sticking to
enterprise approved AI platformswhen possible. It says here when
possible,which is a very vague way to
have a rule,kind of indicates the whole
rule. Yeah,final output needs approval. So
(01:50):
brainstorming with AI is fine,but anything in the Final Cut
requires permission. I don'tknow if that means permission
from Netflixor the filmmakers or AI, if
it's only permission from thefilmmakers, that's like
regulating your own product,right? I think this is fine. We
double checked it and we loveit, A plus plus.
(02:14):
And finally, respect union rulesso they can't use AI to replace
actors or crew without properconsent. Yeah. So I think this
is kind of interesting.
At least there are rules. That'sactually something, I guess a
little bit it says here, let'ssee. For context, Netflix
recently became one of the firstmajor streamers to openly
(02:37):
embrace AI generated footage inthe final production. They used
it in a movie called The eternatOh yeah,
created a building collapsesequence 10 times faster than
traditional effects, and theykept the show within budget, but
they also got flat flak lastyear for using AI generated
(02:59):
photos in what Jennifer did,which was a documentary, and
they showed footage of like, atrain, oh, derailing. But that
that footage was, I did see theclip of that? Yeah. So I'm not
sure how that works when you'redoing a documentary and it takes
AI from the news. I mean, the AIis taught on the news footage,
(03:21):
so I don't know exactly how thatall works. In this article, I
read the bigger picture. It saysthe experimental phase of AI in
production is over and it'sactually being used now. Netflix
is threading the needle betweencost savings and avoiding
disasters, and as one of thefirst to formalize ground rules,
these guidelines could set theprecedent for other studios. I
(03:42):
think it's obviously going toset the precedent for other
studios, and that, whenpossible, part is a bad
precedent.
Yeah, there's a nice littlewiggle room there, because we
all know the people that runbusinesses at the high level are
always thinking of their ownstuff, not looking at other
people and going, well, that's agreat idea.
Just do what they're doing well.
And certainly they are all onthe upfront and not worried
about how much money it's goingto cost, as long as everybody is
(04:05):
following the rules exactly.
Denmark passed an interestinglaw. Do you see about that this
recently, where you own thecopyright of your face. If
somebody publishes a photo ofyou that you don't want up
there, they have to take itdown, or you can sue them,
or for the news, even for thenews,
(04:28):
I'm not sure what that'd be, butI don't think let's say you
committed a crime when they'rereporting on it.
I don't know that's so that's,but that's the same as regular
copyright there, right? Anexception for certain kind of
usage, but, but, you know, like,somebody can't make AI porn of
you, or to post a photo of yousaying, Wow, look at this person
(04:48):
being an asshole, or, Godforbid, being a nice person, and
posting that on, I don'tknow how you prove it, but
that's a cool thing to do,because that cuts down. Well, if
it's your photo and it's postedby somebody. Be this, not you,
yeah, that's yeah. Really watch,almost from the way it sounds,
that's all it takes. Wow. Yougo, nope, I don't like this. I
mean, granted, there's going tobe public figures exceptions,
(05:11):
there's going to be stuff likethat, but if you're private
citizen, yeah, that has noreason for whatever to use your
image.
Yeah, because can you imaginethe next format of bullying in
like,schools, Oh, Jesus, with AI
that you can that's so awful.
It's so awful to think about.
(05:32):
Yeah, this is one of the waysthat, when I was talking to this
guy who was dealing with AI andeverything he his feeling is
that AI will destroy us in oneof two ways, very unlikely that
it will gain sentience anddestroy us, very likely that it
will drive us insane, because wewill no longer know what to
trust. That's what I'm worriedabout. That was
(05:57):
his his prophecy for the humanrace was we are, you know, we're
50 years from just blowingeverything because of AI,
yeah, it's like, how do youtrademark, like, how do you make
something so, you know, it'sreal, yeah, versus not real.
Because right now, nobody knows.
Like, we're at the point nowwhere you you can't tell, yeah,
like, you just, you simplycannot tell. Like, I was trying
(06:17):
to get a haircut recently, and Iwas trying to find photos of the
cut that I was after, and Irealized when I got to the
hairdressers that three of mypictures were AI generated women
with fake, not real hair, and itlooks like real hair. I mean, I
know what fake hair usuallylooks like. And so I told her up
front, look. I know that thisdoesn't even exist, but this is
(06:39):
kind of what I'm after. I waslike, This is what it's called,
and this is what I'm lookingfor. And she was able to work
with that, but I just had thatmoment of like, oh my god, I got
duped. And I look at this crapall the time. I'm like, It's my
job. So yeah, just we'reexisting in a really terrifying
precipice right here. So yeah,nice knowing you guys. But on
(07:02):
the plus side, I bet really bothlow budget, previously low
budget content, like films fromnations that might not have a
larger studio system, are goingto start looking really good.
I can't wait until I don't haveto do this show anymore and we
can just, we've got hundreds ofhours of my voice and face. I
(07:25):
just sit here as a as an AIconstruct, and be just as snarky
and pissy to you guys as I am inreal life.
Ellie's reaction to this movieis, speak for five minutes.
Oh my god. I just want to know.
I just want to know now whatthat would be.
Also make sure it comes in atfour minutes and 59 seconds
(07:46):
every single day,except for once every 10 times,
just to make it feel real,right?
Yeah, I have seen some stuff youguys. I watched a movie called
sketch that just came out. It'savailable on rental, and it is
lovely. It's got Tony Hale asthe widowed father of a couple
of kids, and the young girl isdealing with the mother's
(08:10):
passing by. She's alwayssketched things out, but her
sketches have gotten darker anddarker, and they somehow end up
in this lake that brings thingsto life, the entire sketchbook
ends up there, and all of thesemonsters come out, and they are
all like live action versions ofher 10 year old sketches. And so
(08:34):
they look ridiculous, butthey're very deadly, and it's
very funny and very sweet and alittle sad, but I just thought
it was a really adorable movie.
And the thing that I reallyloved about it is it was written
by now. I've forgotten his name.
I picked up a a workbook forscreenwriters, and he had
(08:57):
designed something called astory clock. Seth Worley, yes,
Seth Morley and I picked this upyears ago, and I just really
liked the way that when youwrite, you know, I used to write
all my timelines or my plotpoints in a straight line, but
when you write it in a clock,and you kind of know where it's
supposed to show up in themovie, you can start mirroring
things and stuff like this. AndI thought, well, this is an
(09:19):
interesting way, it really,really worked for me. And then
when I saw his name pop up onthis I was like, Oh, this guy is
not just a guy who came up witha neat idea. He came up with a
neat idea, then applied it to ascript, and then it turned out
to be fantastic. So it is calledsketch. It is available as a
rental. It's really great. Youknow, I have railed against
(09:41):
parents who want to turn theirkids into horror fans too early.
Obviously, JAWS is my favoritemovie, and I can't go into open
water because I saw it at theage of six. So you might not
understand what you're doing toyour kids when you put this
stuff in front of them. Thismovie is. Really, great
introduction to horror. Really,oh, that's so cool. It's cute
(10:05):
and just scary enough. And thekids are the main people, and
the kids are the brother andsister are adorable. They
actually like each other.
They've got they get stuck withthis shitty girl from school
that they don't like. And youcould, you're just like, God, I
want this girl to get eaten.
And, of course, because it's akids movie, she finally redeems
(10:26):
herself too. Everybody is justreally, really good in it. So
very highly recommendedsketch, a short film in this
year's Seattle Film Festivalthat had a very similar idea. It
was a Spanish short film, andthe lady had this box that was
sealed, and her kid finds it andopens it, and the things from
the box that were drawn by heras a kid start to come to life.
(10:47):
Very different take but that,that sounds like, you know what?
That's horror. I'm gonna add itto my list. Yeah, I don't have
to just watch pressing shit allthe time.
I know, right? Yeah, sometimesyou can watch days feel good
horror, you know? Yeah, that'sawesome. Well, not as cute, but
(11:13):
equally important, I saw the NowYou See Me, and now you see me
too films, because I need toprep myself for now you see me
now. You don't coming inNovember.
Do you really?
I saw that? Well, I'm glad thatthis is called now you see me
(11:34):
now, because I live in a worldwhere the sequel to Now You See
Me is not called now. You don'tI
know, right? It's the stupidestthing I've ever Well, I remember
seeing the first one, but Icouldn't remember anything that
happened in it, so I was like,uh, all right, I'll go ahead and
watch one and two. Cool. Thefirst one very interesting,
(11:57):
because they make JesseEisenberg kind of a sex symbol.
They try to sell him as like, ahot, interesting, young, cool
magician, guy who's like,burning through ladies, but
there's one that might justcapture his heart, and it's very
weird, because it's JesseEisenberg. It's like, no, no,
(12:17):
no, no. They do learn theirlesson for the second one, and
they cut that shit out becauseyou're like, Absolutely, God,
no. It also has Mark Ruffalo,Woody Harrelson, Morgan Freeman,
Dave Franco, Michael Caine and Ileft Fisher in the first one.
It's actually a lot better thanI remembered it. It was pretty
(12:38):
solid, pretty fun, and has areally, really cool ending that
I cannot talk about becauseotherwise there's no reason to
watch the movie. Now You See Metoo.
Less never seen it. It's It'sokay, it's
watchable. It's totally like,it's fun enough. But they
replace, for some reason, IslaFisher has not decided not to be
(13:00):
in it, so it's Lizzie Kaplaninstead. It's a different
character, but they just don'ttalk about Isla Fisher and what
happened. And you're like,and two, they get at least
content set of the number two.
They could have done two. NowYou See Me too. What helped a
little bit with the now youdon't but no, it's just the
number two.
Yeah, it's just the number two.
Nope, nope. It's the stupidesttitle of all time. It kind of
(13:23):
makes no sense. The second one,like, really, when you start to
think about what's happening,it's it falls apart very
quickly. But you do get to watchDaniel Radcliffe one of his
earlier I'm actually a bad guyrole, like a joking, ridiculous
bad guy because he's DanielRadcliffe, but it's still like
a, it's a, it's a fun enoughfilm. So I'm looking forward to
(13:45):
the third one, where Isla Fisherwill return as one of the four
horsemen. There are only four. Idon't know why they couldn't get
one of the four actors back forthe second fucking film, but
whatever. So yes, highlyrecommend. I guess it's I think
they're both, yeah, they're bothon Netflix.
(14:05):
So I remember actually beingvery surprised how much I liked
the first one, yeah, yeah,yeah. I have not seen the
sequel. Oh no. I don't even knowif I realized there was a
sequel. Sort of went okay.
Did you see that ready or not?
Has a sequel, and it is titled,here I come. And thank you. Oh,
maybe I was thinking about thatbecause Elijah Wood is in the
(14:28):
sequel to ready. Yeah, so, andit takes place, I guess. Like,
if you remember that movie endswith her on the steps, starts
with her on the steps. Justtakes place immediately after
the last like, everything aboutthis sounds like what I want to
see reading about that theother day. That one sounds
really fun.
(14:48):
Okay, so in the 100 Days ofhorror, as you can find on
Facebook, if you like, or aFacebook book page, I'll be
talking about all of these deadof night also. Known as when
Andy came home, I believe, yeah,it's sort of like, imagine the
monkey's paw, but they open thedoor and find while he's still
(15:15):
there. And this is, this ispretty good. This is a really
solid film, dark, uncomfortable.
John Marley as the dad, LynnCarlin as the mom, and my
Richard backrest as the kid, arepretty good performances. She's
a little over the top at times.
(15:39):
The dad's a little over the topat times, and Richard is
incredibly stagnant most of thetime. But that's hard to pull
off. He's exactly yes, so Iwould say now this is a what 70,
mid 70s, with a name you mightrecognize as the director, Bob
(16:00):
Clark, remind me ChristmasStory and Black Christmas. Oh,
okay, so another and it'ssolidly directed, just like most
of the stuff he does. So I wouldsay if you've got because
monkeys paws, one of my favoriteshort story things I read as a
(16:21):
kid to make me love horror.
Yeah, this is a really cool ideaof what could happen if he just
came back.
Yeah, this is parents who get aknock on the door, and it's
soldiers telling them that theirson was killed in Vietnam, and
(16:42):
then he shows up, I think, thenext night, or maybe it's two
nights, or pretty soon, prettyquickly afterwards. I like this
movie quite a bit. Man, this oneis ripe for a remake, yeah?
Because, as I recall, this verylow budget,
probably, yeah, it's, well, Imean, it's low budget for the
time, so it's definitely yeah,but it didn't impair it too
(17:06):
much. But you certainly couldhave done a lot more with the
ending with some morebudget, yeah. And if I remember
that ending is pretty powerful,yeah, yeah. If that is one of
the visuals that I remember fromthis movie in particular. And I
I think the dead of night is acool title, but it's so fucking
generic, right? Yeah, night thatAndy came home is so creepy,
(17:30):
muchbetter. I read about it like
that, and then went to try tofind it, and it's barely listed
that way. I eventually figuredout, oh, it's called this far
more frequently.
So yeah, that is a cool movie.
I'm glad that you watched thatone,
considering there's so much shiton your 100 days list. Sometimes
(17:53):
I'm just like, Jesus Christ. Soam I? What should I talk about,
I'm going to talk about Lucbessons, Dracula, okay? Oh,
brand new, yeah. Oh, God.
(18:13):
Not sure why this needed tohappen so soon after Nosferatu,
and especially since this is, inmany scenes, a direct visual rip
off of Coppola's Dracula.
And choice was that weirdchoice?
(18:34):
Well, I mean, it's probably myfavorite of the Draculas. I
mean, it'sbeautiful, but can you pull that
off? Well, no, yeah, you'd haveto get in the incredible costume
designer.
There's some good costuming, butyou can't get away from the
beautiful stage. Yeah, Coppolawas and beson is doing all of
(18:55):
this, you know, in nature. Sothere's a lot of weirdly lit
scenes that don't quite work.
There is a strange kind of nodto the book and movie perfume,
if you remember that, whereDracula has come up with a
fragrance that makes himirresistible.
(19:20):
Yeah, you know, it hasn't beenused before.
That's just cologne, gentlemen,I'll have you now.
Yeah, it is a it is a strangemovie. Parts of it are really
beautiful. Dracula has a host ofgargoyles that have come to
life, that kind of act asservants. And there is a big
(19:41):
battle at the end, where thevillagers attack the castle, and
they're, they're fightinggargoyles. So it's, you know,
it's not a horrible movie. It isa bit of a head scratcher.
It this, I remember it got introuble too, for like, the
poster looking so much likenosferat. Do for like, last
(20:01):
year, it's not a the Nosferatuone works. They do a few little
tweaks on the psycho, and theymake it look a little cheesy.
Yeah, I, I gotta say, you know,I as much as I liked Nosferatu,
which was not as much as youguys like Nosferatu, my big
complaint was I didn't needanother Dracula, sure, and so to
get one so soon after that, thatis just a rip off of Coppola's
(20:25):
Dracula. Was like, Well, didanybody need this?
I mean, it feels like just afilmmaker who really wanted to
do something and decided to doit.
My other question was, who gavehim money for this right after
Nosferatu,France. Is it like a nationally
produced, definitely, a Frenchfilm. Yeah, it's got to be like
France was like, yeah, here'ssome cash. You do something
(20:47):
cool. They did something cool.
We can do something cool,yeah. I mean, speaking of cool,
though, the stuff coming outabout Frankenstein,
yeah, oh yeah, that looks good.
Review so far, very hopeful.
Have might have to see that onein the theater.
Yeah. Well, I, again, I didn'thave as much time as I would
(21:10):
have liked to see things, mostlybecause I'm addicted to that
stupid video game. However, Iwas able to read, and have been
reading for a while now theUltimates, which is a new
series, new comic series. Marvelthere. There was a previous
ultimate series that came out.
God, I don't know when it cameout. It was at least a decade
(21:30):
ago. Yeah, which is supposed tobe very good. I did not read it,
so I'm kind of trying to pick upon some of the plot pieces from
that. Well, while engaging withthis new
one is this tied in somehow tothat Ultimate Universe, because
that was destroyed, and that'swhy we have Miles Morales in the
same universe as PeterParker, interesting, yeah, no,
it's, I think it's a partialrewrite, but, um, there is some
(21:53):
lore that's important from thatone that to understand what's
happening. In this one, there'ssome of the same setup.
So in the other ultimates, itwas a series of comic books that
all were contained in auniverse, and it was like
ultimate Spider Man. Yes, theUltimates were like The
(22:15):
Avengers, if I remembercorrectly, ultimate X Men. Is
this just called Marvelultimates, or is this a bunch of
comics under an ultimate brand,both? So there's, there's almost
like how Marvel does theAvengers movie. But then has the
individual Spider Man, what it'sit's very similar to that style.
So there is ultimates andultimate two. But then they also
have ultimate Spider Man One andtwo. And I'm talking about
(22:39):
volumes Ultimate Black Pantherand ultimate X Men. I haven't
read Black Panther or Spider Mantwo yet, but I've read the rest.
And the idea, and I don't knowhow similar this is to the
original, is that there wassomething that happened in time
previously, where somebody camethrough and prevented everyone
who was going to become asuperhero, from becoming a
(23:01):
superhero?
Oh, it was, it was Reed Richardsfrom the Ultimate
Universe. That's, that's thepart that I they have not said
forgot to form your answer,because I geek.
But I think it's implied thatyou're supposed to know this
(23:21):
because there is an additionaltwist upon that twist. So I
think it's important that you'resupposed to know that.
I don't know. I did read thecomic where that happened, which
was so he created a universethen with like, no heroes in it,
right? But it's still populatedby all the people who would have
become euros.
So now there is a giant, sort of911, level disaster in New York,
(23:47):
where the section of the city isdisappeared and it is blamed on
Iron Man. Iron Man then goesback through the kind of to this
past time to try and startgiving different people the
powers they would have had, butthey're now much later in life.
So Peter Parker has two kids.
He's married. He has a totallydifferent life than he would
(24:11):
have had otherwise, but now andeach of them have this like orb
with the thing that would havehappened. So his, you know, you
open it, spider bites him. Theother people, you know, their
serums, or whatever it is thatwould have encountered. So they
have the choice totough Spanish family if he opens
that sucker.
(24:32):
I we have, not, sorry, BruceBanner is interesting because
some of them don't, they don'thave the ability like they're
either dead or it's a very bigtwist. So instead of Bruce
Banner, there was some BruceBanner is kind of a bad guy.
He's a science, evil scientistin this version, and they were
doing gamma experiments out inthe Pacific. And so there's an
(24:53):
island, a Hawaiian island, fullof people who are horrifically
disfigured, many of whom Can'tyou. Even function like they're
just and there's one basicallyHulk, but it's not, it's a young
girl who her, she was able toadapt to it because of the way
the gamma hit her. So she'sessentially the new Hulk. But
(25:14):
yeah, it doesn't quite it worksand it doesn't quite work at the
same time, sure. So yeah,they're calling Iron Man,
actually iron lad, but it isTony Stark, but it's a young
Tony Stark. So it's a whole,yeah, there's this whole big
thing. It's a whole big thing,but it's been really fun. I
think it has really goodwriting. It's done by Denise
camp, but each of the spin offs,so Spider Man, Black Panther and
(25:39):
X Men are totally differentauthors. And the X Men, one's
really interesting because theywent with a manga author. So it
has this very like Japanesestyle to it, and it's very
different the way it's written.
Oh yeah, it's almost like asupernatural, almost horror,
quasi horror.
They have that weird manga esqueart.
(26:00):
Yes, hard time with that. It'slike a watercolor. Yeah, it's
more watercolor. It's more like,I want to say, haiku. That's so
racist. It's, it's like writtenand it's made in a way where
it's really heavily dependenton, like, the precision of the
inking. It's not like cartoon.
It's like, it's like, more ofthe art, art style
(26:23):
of Japan. That sounds cool.
Yeah, I'm interested in allthis. I want to read this.
Yeah, I would highly recommendit. It's, yeah, it's been a
really fun read, because I feellike every time I pick up a
Marvel or a DC, I just don'tknow. I just assume it's going
to be bad, until I'm provenotherwise, and sometimes it's
not terrible. And I'm like, Hey,I read that. I'll read another.
(26:46):
Yeah, there's some that.
Anyways. So I'm going to defenda movie that will make a lot of
people think of a saying my wifesays to me sometimes when I'm
falling behind, she's like, youknow, I just got off in Spokane,
you're still boarding the trainin Seattle. So some people are
going to feel that way about mewhen I defend American Psycho
two, all American Girl,wow, I have not seen this.
(27:13):
Knock off those first threewords. Fucking ignore the
stupidity of calling thisAmerican Psycho too. And the one
line that attempts to tie themtogether, where the teacher in
class mentions Bateman. Otherthan that, there is no
connection in any way, shape orform, to American Psycho Wow.
This is a really clever darkcomedy about a fucked up girl
(27:37):
played by Mila Kunis, who istrying to become really smart
and really popular. She's tryingto get this like Job, or kind of
job with a professor who hegives to the smartest person in
his crime class every season, orsomething. So she starts killing
(27:57):
off her competition. Excellent.
William Shatner is in it too,and I can tell you,
fuck off with the AmericanPsycho stuff. This is way better
than the reputation it's gotover the years. Wow. And if you
watch it as a dark comedy, it'spretty good, and she is funny
(28:19):
and weird. Her family's bizarre.
And just, I don't know this wasso different than I anticipated.
And so I would say this might beworth the reviewing. You may not
appreciate it. That's fine, butI thought it was so much better
than the like ratings arc. Mostof the reviews, when you read
(28:44):
about it, are about who's haveto do with murder cycle,
nothing. So move past that, andyou might enjoy the film. But if
you can't move past the fact shenever shows a business card to
another person and they comparehim or some shit, I don't know
that it's really good. Wow.
Do you think that this startedoff? Do you think that this
(29:07):
started off as a differentscript, and somebody said, you
know, hey, I've got the rightsto American Psycho.
Exactly what it was, yeah, isthat the Hellraiser thing where
it's, oh, you've got a script.
Let's just call it a hell raisermovie, and that way we'll give
you the money to make it if youcall this American Psycho too,
we'll give you the America themoney to make it interesting,
which is disappointing, becauseI think this could add a nice
(29:29):
it's not it would not have beena giant hit, but I think it
could add a nice, solid cultfollowing of this is more clever
than I was led to believe.
I wonder what it was originallycalled.
Mila signed on before it wascalled American Psycho too.
American Psycho too just seemslike a a title that would
(29:53):
disappoint everybody. Yeah.
I mean, that sucks, whether youlike or hate the first the
original film. Film. There's alot going on there, and there's
a lot accomplished in it.
Yeah, baggage with that title.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, why wouldn't anyone everwant to watch any form of a
sequel to that film? I mean,it's fine. It's perfect as it
(30:13):
is.
Well, a lot of the reviewers inhere would, because that's most
Lucy's not like, Yeah, I know.
He figured out there's one linebecause I was watching for it,
because I had already read alittle bit about watch this as a
dark comedy. Do not watch it asa sequel. And I figured out,
like, halfway through themovies, I got the only
(30:34):
connection to the original iswhen he says his name in class
wild.
It's of the universe. It's inthe Bateman universe
over in New York, whereverthey're based. This was going on
the American psychoverseunder that ATM scene.
(30:55):
See, I read the book, there's ascene in the book that always
sticks with me that isn't in themovie and should not have been
in the movie. So that's alwayswhat I think of with American
Psycho. And it's uncomfortableand disturbing as hell.
I have given that movie aboutsix attempts. I do not like it,
and I've never finished it.
(31:16):
It's fine. I mean, I don't know.
I always thought it was just ahyper masculine thing, which
it's the book is written by awoman,
right? No, okay, never mind. Itis. It's man,
yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
It's the move the book. I guessyou could read it satirically,
but the book is fairly it'sreally dark and really weird and
(31:41):
incredibly detailed anddisturbing. And the movie, it's
not quite like the shining, butit almost felt the levels like,
what the fuck am I watching withthis movie? But now I say, Okay,
we she really created adifferent existence for this
character.
So that was a Brett EastonEllis, yeah, did he also do less
(32:03):
than zero? I think I read thisthing, and I was like, God damn
it. Apparently the book LessThan Zero has a vampire subplot
in it.
Whoa. I have not read that thatdidn't make it to the movie. And
I was like, Well, this is howyou would have got me to watch
this fucking movie.
Like I've read American Psychospecifically for the reason that
(32:25):
I guess people freak out becauseit was a huge don't read this
book. This book needs to bebanned, kind of thing when it
came out. Looks like I got toread this. I mean, it's a tough
read, but I mean, not because ofthe content, because of the way
it's written. Yeah, there'slike, he gets up and does his
morning routine in the bathroom.
And it's like a 30 page chapter,oh, describing the Cologne he
(32:46):
uses. And though it's like,oh my god, I used to listen to
his podcast, Brett Brett EastonEllis, and the last several
episodes were him as an audiobook of the new book he was
writing. So he would just readthe chapters and everything. And
I was like, Jesus Christ, thisis so good and interesting. I
(33:08):
mean, I think he's a fascinatingwriter, a very Yeah, complex
human being, yes,yeah. He has some, he has some
interesting issues, yeah.
Uh, okay, how about we take alittle break, and then when we
come back, we are talkingReality Bites.
Yeah, what are you doing?
(33:39):
But how this city future, buthow? Who's Captain power video
tapes, there are three differentskill levels. This one's in
toughest now we can practice anytime with the power jet XP,
satellite score will be hit.
Captain power video tapes, Idon't believe it. Believe it.
Large human, the power of thefuture is in your hands,
(33:59):
batteries notincluded, jets, figures and new
interactive video tapes, eachsold separately from Captain
power and the soldiers of thefuture.
And we are back, Vanessa, thiswas your sub genre topic. You
(34:21):
want to explain what we'redoing.
So what I wanted to talk aboutis alternate reality films where
maybe you think you're in areality, but it's not quite what
it seems, sort of like TrumanShow, something along those
lines. It was all a big excuseto watch my movie, the nine.
(34:43):
So you play a lot of charactersat once. Oh, a couple. Most
people do.
I think my house is haunted.
I just, I feel like there's i.
It, I feel like there someoneelse there.
(35:04):
And then last night, I sawsomething.
I think it wasme, somebody there.
How many times should the numbernine come up?
One time out of 10?
(35:30):
I don't speak that. I know whoyou are.
Know what you are.
I'm not the one deceiving him.
He'll figure it out eventually,and when he does, who do you
think he's gonna blameyou're not who you think you
are.
(35:52):
I can get you out of here. Theyhave all of these characters
inside my head and they want tolive.
Game isn't fun unless thereare rules and you make the
rules, they try to kill me.
He's not coming back. There'ssomething wrong with the world.
You feel like a man.
(36:18):
So what happens if I cross thisline? I
(36:42):
you let me give you five minutesto talk about absolutely
so the nines came out in 2007 Iwas interested in this because I
saw it as a Ryan Reynolds movie.
It was one of our previoustopics. It came up and I was,
oh, the number movie. I waslike, oh, like, that could be an
option. I didn't go with it. SoI was like, this will be the
time. This is written anddirected by John August. You
(37:03):
guys might know him from thepodcast script notes, which he
co hosts with Craig Mason. Hehas 16 writing credit, credits,
including big fish go Frank andweenie Charlie and chocolate
factory, the bad one, CorpseBride and Charlie's Angels. This
is starring Ryan Reynolds, hope,Davis, Melissa McCarthy, Elle
(37:25):
Fanning, Octavia, Spencer, DavidDenman, Ben Falcone, Dalia,
salmon and Jim Rash, wow, yeah,there are a lot of famous people
on this. The story follows Gary,an actor who plays a cop on TV
and experiences a terriblebreakup. He burns all of his
girlfriend's things, andapparently burns down his house
(37:46):
by accident, off screen, slowbudget, then drives drunk, buys
crack, picks up a hooker,Octavia Spencer to show him how
to use crack, sleeps with her,then gets in the car, crashes
and is arrested. He's then givena house arrest under the cheery
but tough as nails eye of apublicist named Margaret, played
(38:06):
by Melissa McCarthy, since heburned his house to the ground,
he's put in a writer's home whois currently out of town filming
in Canada. So meanwhile, hemeets the neighbor, Sarah, who
seems very smitten with him, andoffers to have sex with him, but
then bails because her kid getssick, so she doesn't bother
(38:27):
coming over at the allocatedtime. He then also just spending
a lot of time alone in thishouse. And he starts to hear and
see weird things, and findsmessages about following the
nines. He keeps hearing andseeing the number nines and just
it's weird. He overhears Sarahand Margaret talking about him
and arguing over telling himwhat is going on. He confronts
(38:49):
Margaret, who tells him it's notwhat he thinks. And then Sarah,
who offers him the truth andtells him, if he leaves the
house arrest, he she will showhim more. Margaret begs him not
to, and when he does, cross thespecial line, reality seems to
burn in front of his very eyes,and he enters a new story. We
are now following him as aburgeoning writer about to hit
(39:12):
it big with his pilot show. He'salso being filmed as a sort of
reality TV behind the scenes ofpilot season. Sarah is now a
network representative, andMargaret is now actual Melissa
McCarthy, the actual actor. Inorder to make his pilot work, he
is told he has to fire MelissaMcCarthy, who is his best
(39:32):
friend, and replace her withDahlia Salem. I have no idea who
she is, but people seem to thinkshe's hot shit in this universe.
He agrees, and then the wholething ends up blowing up in his
face. In a flashback, we seeMargaret in a previous life
telling him something along thelines of him being a god and the
nine are like angels, whilehumans are the sevens. Then we
(39:53):
meet Gary as Gabriel, anacclaimed video game designer,
and. His car breaks down in themiddle of nowhere, and he leaves
his wife, Mary, MelissaMcCarthy, and young daughter,
Noelle, to get a phone signal.
He runs into Sierra Sarah, whooffers him a lift, but instead
poisons him with her waterbottle. She tells him this is an
(40:15):
intervention, and the othergods, angels are worried about
him and wants him to leave thisworld, but he's obsessed with
Melissa McCarthy, and he justwon't. So Will he leave this
world, thus destroying it andeveryone there with a fiery
blast? Will we finally see whyhe finds Hope Davis super
irresistible and hot, eventhough she's just a terrible
(40:35):
person in every reality? Or willhe become a CGI diamond and go
into the sky and end up in a cutscene with Melissa McCarthy and
her husband making really badpancakes with Elle Fanning. Hmm,
who's to say? Please don't watchthis film. Oh, this is, I don't
know what the fuck this is. Thisis a low, low, low budget movie.
(40:58):
It is definitely set in thedirector's house. All the
exciting stuff happens offscreen, and we just skip through
time. It is broken into threedifferent segments and film
styles. The second being verymuch basically shot on a DVX
tape and trying to be theoffice. The film feels very
similar, in some ways, toMatthew McConaughey serenity. It
takes about half of the film toget to anything supernatural at
(41:20):
all. So you just see him walkingaround the house looking bored,
shifting to Sarah at one point,talking straight to camera for
no reason. Is weird as hell, andit doesn't work at all because
she's not really the maincharacter, and it seems
basically just to be harping onthe Office for no reason at all.
And you're like, Why does are weseeing this character we've
(41:43):
never met before in a doorknobstore talking to camera? I don't
know. You can see all theseactors have talent. Definitely,
I think, a fun role for them,because they're like, we get to
do something different. But Ican only assume John August has
some career ending dirt on eachand every one of them for them
to have helped him out on thisplease skip this movie, please.
(42:04):
It's a pay for rental on Amazon.
Only a little bit of trivia.
Tagline. You never know whenyour number is up. Replace all
the O's with nines. MelissaMcCarthy's role was written
specifically with her in mind.
The house where Gary stays andGavin lives is John August's
actual house reality TV segment,largely unscripted. Cameraman
asking reality TV questions frombehind the leaves of the
(42:27):
cameraman is voiced by JohnAugust, weird. Much of the
content in the second part thereality TV section is heavily
influenced by John August.
Experience working on a failedTV series, DC and a bunch of
random crap add up to the numbernine throughout the movie,
including dice rolls, micetraps, license plates, bus ads,
(42:48):
etc.
Oh, what. What year was this?
This was 1999 20072007 Yes, 2007 so a lot of these
people had done enough that theywere kind of famous. They even
talked about Melissa McCarthyleaving Gilmore Girls in the
second section to do his pilot,and therefore she left this,
like career hyping thing to bethere. I mean, that didn't
(43:10):
really happen. She that's nothow that happened in real life,
but in the story of real life,that's what so these people have
done a few things. I don't thinkElle Fanning is famous at this
point. Interesting.
I guess I thought, as soon asyou said this and Ryan Reynolds,
I was like, Is this the onewhere he hears the animals
(43:31):
talking to him the voices?
Okay, well, maybe we should havewatched
that one. I probably shouldhave. I probably should have. I
just thought the plot soundedreally interesting. And I'm
really bummed, because havinglistened to a fair number of
script notes back in the day, Ialways thought John August
sounded pretty sensible andinteresting, and now I'm like,
(43:53):
Screw you. Craig Mazin, who isincredibly irritating on his own
podcast, is much more talented.
No one likes to be duped.
I feel really, really like madabout it, but that's okay. It's
fine, just don't watch it. Justdon't watch it unless you want
(44:14):
to see, uh, Ryan Reynolds turninto a CGI diamond. That is jaw
dropping, at least weird. So Idon't want to say that I will be
passing onthis movie. So good. My work
here is done.
Instead, I will be telling youabout Shutter Island. I You. You
(45:20):
You You You You from 2010directed by Martin Scorsese,
(46:50):
who's directed taxi driver,Raging Bull, good fellows,
casinos, gang of New York, thedeparted The Wolf of Wall
Street, and written by Leishakagardis, who wrote the very
cool night watch thatsupernatural Russian film. He
also wrote Pathfinder TerminatorGenesis, and he was the creator
(47:13):
of the altered carbon series andbirds of prey, and is based on
the novel by Dennis Lehane,starring Leonardo DiCaprio,
who's in critters three, thequick and the dead, and 23
episodes of growing pains. MarkRuffalo again, Mirror, mirror
two, Raven dance. Mirror, mirrorthree, the voyeur. And nine
(47:36):
films in the Marvel CinematicUniverse, playing Bruce Banner.
Also in this is Ben Kingsleylosing Gandhi Schindler's List
species just recently in thekiller's game, which I think you
both still need to watch. Alsoin this, Michelle Williams, Max
von Sydow, Jackie Earle Haley,Elias Cotes, John Carroll Lynch
(47:57):
and Ted Levine. You know, areyou about a size 14? Have you
guys seen Shutter Island? Yeah,a while ago. I'll just say that
I oppose this sub genre, becausein order to show that reality is
not what it seems, we kind ofhave to spoil
the movie. It's true. That is abummer, and I apologize to our
(48:19):
audience for that. Well, withthat in mind, I chose a movie I
had never seen based on the factthat the trailer pretty much
spoiled the movie when I pointfirst saw it. So we are
introduced to us, marshalsEdward and Chuck, and when they
are called to Shutter Island,they are investigating. So
Shutter Island is a federalmental institute for the
criminally insane, and they areinvestigating a patient named
(48:40):
Rachel who escaped the daybefore. I should say this takes
place in the early 1950s andEdward lost his family in an
apartment fire a few years back,and he is haunted by the memory.
So there they meet Dr Cawley,who explains that Rachel had
killed three of her kids andsimply believed that they
weren't dead. She thought thekids were in the hospital and
(49:01):
all the staff were herneighbors. And in Rachel's room,
they find a note saying the lawof four, who is 67 so the
marshals begin to investigate,but a storm is coming, and they
are stuck on Shutter Island fora couple of days. In this time,
Edward has frequent flashbacksto his time in World War Two as
a soldier, and he is haunted bythe fact that he killed all of
(49:23):
the Nazi guards of the camp inAuschwitz in cold blood. We
actually see these scenes, andthey are very effective. I mean,
this is a very beautiful andhaunting looking film, but as
the investigation goes on,things are definitely not what
they seem on Shutter Island, andEdward is hiding some secrets
himself. He explains to hispartner chuck that he had
(49:45):
ulterior motives to come toShutter Island because the man
who burned his apartment downand killed his family is an
inmate there. As the story goeson, Edward is continually
visited by the ghost of his deadwife, who tells him mysterious
riddles that bring him close.
Officer to the missing Racheland the man who burned down his
apartment, but he also keepsbumping up against the question
of who is patient 67 at onepoint, he finds a woman in a
(50:10):
cave on the island, and sheclaims to be Rachel, and warns
him that the doctors are tryingto have him committed to the
institute because he's askingtoo many questions. At one
point, he can't find Chuck, andDr Colley tells him there was no
Chuck and he arrived on theisland alone. Okay, so this
movie is as dull as a butterknife, but I will say that it
has a lovely third act thathappens when Edward realizes
(50:33):
that he is patient 67 a twistthat was telegraphed in the very
first trailer for this movie, ohno, and that his family wasn't
killed in an apartment fire. Wethen get a flashback of what
really happened. His mentallyunstable wife had caught their
apartment on fire, and he hadmoved them all to a small house
on a lake, hoping it would clearher mind. Instead, he came home
one day to find that his wifehad drowned their three
(50:55):
children, and he ends up killingher in a breakdown of his own.
The entire movie has been anelaborate bit of role playing to
try and bring him back toreality. And you know, it seems
to work. I'm going to give awaythe best part of this film, so
maybe skip ahead if you'reinterested. His doctors,
including the man he thinks isChuck, who is his actual doctor,
(51:15):
have told him that if he can'tsnap back to reality and stay
there, he's facing lobotomy. Andafter this, he does relate to
them what really happened in areally, very well acted scene.
But sometime later, we come backto him on some steps at the
hospital, and his doctor comesto ask him how he's holding up.
And Edward calls him Chuck,signaling that he is slipping
into his fantasy again. But asthe guards are motion to come
(51:41):
pick him up and take him away toget lobotomized, he says to his
doctor, you know, this placemakes me wonder. And Chuck says,
yeah, what's that boss? And hesays, what would be worse to
live as a monster or to die as agood man? And you can see the
doctor realizing, as he's beingtaken off, that he just doesn't
want to live with the truth ofkilling his wife just a little
(52:02):
bit of trivia. The movie isfilled with anagrams for the
characters names and indeed, thetitle Shutter Island is an
anagram of truth and lies andtruth denials. The movies $40.2
million opening weekend take inthe US marked a career best for
Martin Scorsese, and went on togross over $293 million
worldwide, making it the highestgrossing movie of his career,
(52:26):
until the Wolf of Wall Street.
And that final line that Ithought was so good that was not
in the book. So the movie is abore, and especially if you know
that it is all fake. But I willsay that that final scene where
he's talking to the doctors andeverything is being revealed to
them, is is really, reallysolid. I was just like, oh, this
(52:49):
is really good. It's just themovie leading up to it is a
snooze fest.
I remember liking this. And thenI realized everything I remember
that I liked about it is justthat. And segment, I don't
remember much else about thefilm.
Yeah, I remember him walkingaround the hospital a lot, so I
(53:09):
only rememberthe first place. There's all
sorts of things that if you ifyou go in knowing it, it might
be worth watching it again,because you will see, like in
every scene that Edward andLeonardo, that he's in, the
guards are standing right behindhim, and like his partner, who
turns out to be his doctor, theguards are never standing right
(53:31):
behind him. And there's stufflike that that goes on where,
you know, Edward startsinterrogating a guy, and he
grabs him, and you see hispartner kind of do one of these
things, and all of a sudden, thetwo guards come and take him off
of the guy he's beating up andstuff like that. So there's
little snippets and everything.
(53:51):
I really wish that the trailerhadn't kind of given it away,
because can't remember who, whohad seen it and told me it was
awesome. And I said, tell methis is he patient 67 and I'm
like, Whoa. I said they kind ofhint at it in the trailer. Is
that the reveal? Yeah. Like,okay, well, I don't want to
(54:12):
watch this now. Yeah, so theyshould have lied to you.
They should have said, What areyou even talking
about? I mean, she's just crazy.
She's just saying some thatwould be insane. Kelly, that'd
be dumb if they put that in thefirst trailer. That would be
bonkers, absolutely bonkers.
Eric, you want to talk?
Sure? Why not five minutes.
Okay, I'm done. Okay, so I gotthe Sylvian experiments in 2010
(54:58):
should have you. Threats.
She Can youstar kill another time.
(56:00):
You'llbe fascinated to know that the
Rotten Tomatoes score for thiswas nine. This is available on
YouTube, directed by HiroshiTakahashi, who did Tales of
(56:20):
Terror from Tokyo and the houseof the serpent. He's also the
writer, but his writing creditsare a little more prestigious
the ring, the ring two and Juanorigins, and starring Yoko
chosokabi, who is in the ringtoo, grudge two and act baby
(56:43):
male, amazing.
Mina Fuji is in cinema,fighters, the werewolf gang, the
villager side and the werewolfgang. And Momoko Hatano, so the
opening, it starts. The moviestarts with the couple watching
(57:06):
what is 16 millimeter footagefrom an experimental surgery
done quite a quite a while ago.
And the idea is a surgery isdone to release hallucinations,
or are they seeing an alternatereality during the middle of
this, the screen goes completelybright white, and her two
children, they see that her twochildren in the back watch, just
(57:29):
watching what's going on. Andthey look a little not so good
from that,which is weird, because,
anyways, cut to awoman looking around an
apartment, and then wakes up ina hospital looking place. So
it's kind of like she'sdreaming, but then she's in a
(57:49):
hospital, so that seems to bereal. The nurse there says,
everything will be fine. You'vedied, and will be all will be
known soon. So the nurse takesher and shows her laying in a
coffin. So she sees her own bodylaying in a coffin. As this is
going around. You feel is therea very large facility run by the
(58:11):
woman that was the mom watchingthe 16 millimeter trailer. Then
a large group of teens aregetting into a van to go and
kill themselves, one of thembeing one of her daughters, so
But while they're killingthemselves, this other van pulls
up, pulls them all out, and oneof the guys is wearing an oxygen
mask, and they drug the rest ofthe kids. And so she's going to
(58:36):
do the experiment on herdaughter. She splits open her
head, cuts her brain, puts thisweird little thing in it, they
go and so the idea is she'strying to figure out if these
were hallucinations, and whatwas the reality the camera
picked up, which they reallydon't explain that particularly
(58:56):
well, but and the other half ofthe movie is the other sister
trying to figure out what'sgoing on. She's got police
detectives and stuff, andthey're trying to figure out
where her sister is, whathappened to her, and she hadn't
seen her mom in years. But asshe's investigating, she figures
(59:20):
out one of the facilities withher daughter connected to she
goes to where her boyfriendworks and her mom is working
there, but somehow the boyfrienddidn't know that. This is a hard
movie to explain, because it isnot perfectly linear. It jumps
around to different things anddifferent times, and dream world
(59:42):
comes in several times, and youkind of figure out is the sister
dreaming the the other sisterand one of the inmates escape
from the facility at one timethey don't know where they are
when they find her, wow, she's.
Some crazy shits going down.
This is I'm surprised I haven'tseen this shown up in
(01:00:06):
Lovecraftian movies, becauseit's very much reality. Trying
to cut that veil of realitybetween what you see and what
might really be there, andthere's astral projection, or
are you just imagining you'reseeing yourself? There's a lot
(01:00:28):
of that going on in this movie.
I don't know what the fuck gaveit a nine. It's well acted. It's
well shot. Maybe, I don't know.
Maybe, only I didn't look at howmany people had reviewed it,
maybe, like four people reviewedit that just didn't follow the
story, which, okay, I kind ofget that, but, and overall,
(01:00:49):
pretty good. It does have onebig problem in that there are
kind of three endings. Oh, itfeels like you hit an ending and
oh, wow, holy shit. Thensomething else happens, like,
what? And then someone elsecomes here. Well, okay, which
(01:01:11):
one of these three is, andthey're not necessarily agreeing
with each other, so, but thiswas not a lot of trivia on this
film. There's very littlewritten about it. It was an
installment of 6j horror theatermovies that were released in the
in oh four, including infection,preemination, reincarnation,
(01:01:33):
retribution and kyodon, whichseems to be the they tried to
jump onto the J horror thing andmissed it, because I really
don't recognize a lot of thosetitles.
Didn't you say this came out in2017 though? Well, the
2010 was the release, I thinkthe release in the US, but it
(01:01:55):
was 2004 to the theater, theaterrun.
But sounds kind of interesting.
It isthat was pretty good, pretty
decent film overall, well puttogether, well constructed. But
it is, it takes someconfusion to kind of get
through, to kind of see what'sgoing on, which I think is good
(01:02:18):
for these kind of films. Ifyou're watching a movie where
you're supposed to see alternaterealities and you're going, Oh,
okay, I get it right. Seems tobe probably isn't doing what it
should be doing, yeah,what did you watch this on
YouTube?
Oh, that's and I think that'sthe only thing I could find it
availableon, how did, how did this even
(01:02:38):
come on your radar.
I don't remember. I think I waslooking I think I just did
alternate reality things. Andfor some reason, in the 100
days, I have been watching veryfew foreign language films,
which is really unusual. Ithought, well, let's, let's get
one in here.
Excellent. Well, that brings itto my choice for the next sub
(01:03:03):
genre, yeah, and I will fallback on what I do when I can't
think of something really cool,and pick a year. And this time
the year is 1986 we have to havea film from 86 and it cannot be
my favorite film from 86 Trickor treat, or my second favorite
film, The Wraith.
(01:03:23):
Really, these are really gettingthinner and thinner.
We could do 1940s sci fi moviesthis true.
So 1986 is what we'll be talkingabout next week. Okay, next
episode. That brings us to thepoint where we say thanks to
everybody out there who'ssupporting us in some way,
(01:03:46):
whether you're liking sharingposts on the strange eons radio
talk page, whether you call uson the strange eons radio
hotline,yes, which you can reach us on,
253-237-4266,you can also text that number.
You can call. You can leave us amessage. We would love to hear
from youquestions at strange eons,
(01:04:06):
radio.comsend that on, send them
on. Okay, cool. And also, if youfeel like you need to support us
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(01:04:32):
if you want to just drop us acouple of bucks a month and
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And we value you, right?
And this give some value back.
Okay?
We are looking to we've beenexperiencing, as you know,
(01:04:52):
experimenting, as you know, withlapel mics and experiments have
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Little bit more. So you know, ifyou're feeling generous at some
point, great. Would not hurt ourfeelings at all if you decided
to throw a check in the mail,yeah, however you want to do it.
(01:05:13):
Okay, so that is it. We will beback in two short weeks. We are
talking about films from 1986See you next time.
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