July 16, 2025 • 57 mins
Kelsi and Trey dive deep into Ari Aster’s bold and chaotic new film Eddington—a post-pandemic western satire that takes aim at America’s digital echo chambers. We break down the film’s story, its genre-blending style, standout performances from Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, and Austin Butler (but an underused Emma Stone), and debate whether Aster’s ambition outweighs the film’s messiness. Go below to sign up for Patreon to hear exclusive episodes for free members!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:14):
Music. Hello, welcome to the extra
credits of Ari Astor's Eddington.
I'm Trey. And I'm Kelsey.
Before we get into this new Astor movie, a quick show
update. We just unlocked an exclusive
deep dive on Ari Astor's first film Hereditary.
An episode where we discuss Astor's career, talk about his
(00:34):
cohort of horror film makers since 20/17/2018, which are
probably Jordan Peele and RobertEggers among some other ones.
And if you go to the descriptionof this episode, you can sign up
as a free member and you'll haveaccess to that conversation on
Hereditary as well as other freeepisodes.
We got a lot on there right now.Ari Astor's Bow is Afraid is up
there 28 Days Later. Civil War, Past Lives, Astrid
(00:55):
City and more. Yeah, well, I didn't realize we
had that that much for the summer, but.
It is a lot so Eddington let's start by backing up a little bit
talking about our relationship to Ari, because I think we're
going to find a lot of new listeners with this episode or
maybe not I don't know is this going to be a popular movie I.
I mean, I definitely think like anyone who knows who Ari Oster
(01:17):
is is going to go out to see it.But just because people love
Hereditary, right? Like a lot of people will say
Hereditary is their favorite horror movie.
They might not even know who AriOster is, like general
audiences. I don't know.
I don't know if they'll go out to see it because I don't know
that it will get a lot of word of mouth of like, you have to go
see this. It's a really long movie.
(01:38):
Not everything works. It's more in the vein of Beau is
Afraid, but not as successful. It's not like the Hereditary
Midsummer of what like general audiences associate Arias are
with, so I don't. And it doesn't, I don't know,
seriously like Garland Civil Wardid with similar, you know,
political conversations, even ifdifferent politics.
Yeah, it's not like a more in the vein of traditional like
(02:01):
action movie or journalist kind of.
Running, it's almost. We're going silly toward the.
Third act, which isn't surprising from Astor, but might
be for people, yeah. Yeah.
So, you know, we've covered thisguy for his whole career and I
think, you know, we, I would saywe even love this director based
on the movies he's put out. We spent a lot of time listening
to him on podcast or different interviews, reading different
(02:22):
interviews. And one thing I really
appreciate him before as an artist is that he is obsessed
with comedically tackling uncomfortable constructs,
religion, unconditional love with the family unit, trauma
that's wrapped up in all of that.
And he does that across multiplegenres.
(02:42):
He tries to kind of dramatize how societal expectations are
pressured on people or get inherited like Hereditary, and
then kind of weaponized in different ways.
He did that in the cult horror genre in Hereditary.
He did that in the twist on thiskind of fable folky fairy tale
(03:03):
of Midsummer. He did that again most recently
with the surreal tragic comedy epic odyssey of Beau Is Afraid.
And yeah, I think we've loved those 3 movies all for different
reasons, but a through line of just being very observational in
the horrors or in the the humor of our day-to-day lives as
people. And Eddington, he stays in that
(03:26):
thematic lane but sort of pivots.
So how are you feeling right nowwith Astor and these kind of
different genres and this through line that he's working
with in his career? Yeah, I mean, I guess it might
actually be helpful. You know, we talked about this
more so on our Hereditary episode, but it might be helpful
to talk about him in the contextof his cohort for a second
because and the themes that he he kind of is diving into in his
(03:50):
projects like you just talked about.
But I feel like, you know, we have Edgars who is really doing
this like gothic horror, but theabsurdity of like, myth, right.
And like the lighthouse or in Northman.
Yeah. Which I don't know if everyone
finds comedy like at the end of the Northman, you know, But I
(04:11):
certainly think Edgars like doesin terms of his sensibilities
with the movies he's making. Two naked Vikings fighting a top
of volcano. So, you know, we we have like
that kind of eerie presence of like history, but it's it's very
mythical then elevated in that way with horror for Eggers.
(04:31):
And then Peele, like who's my favorite of of the three that
we're talking about here. He is able to do something that
is really interesting. You know, Spielberg is a huge
like inspirational figure for him in terms of how and you can
see that in terms of how he likelooks at family and connection
and those things feel really seamless and authentic.
(04:56):
Like in his movies where you feel like people have real
relationships, but there's obviously something that is
terrifying. And we have a more slasher or
thriller successful backdrop that is running throughout
Peel's movies. So he's like a really great
(05:17):
genre bending horror filmmaker who I think like is the most
successful also at introducing an idea, right?
Probably the most layered writer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Best writer, great with horror
iconography. Very John Carpenter inspired.
Yeah. Very impressive.
But I think with Astor, like he's really a fascinating figure
(05:38):
to talk about in this horror cohort because most people, you
know, identify him for Hereditary or Midsummer.
And he's talked about how in in interviews, like people often
associate him or ask him like, are you just obsessed with
cults? Like have you always been
obsessed with cults? And he's talked about how, you
know, those are actually just the first movies that were
greenlit for him and he doesn't consider himself obsessed with
(06:02):
cults at all. But that's just like happened to
be that Hereditary Midsummer were were focused on that,
right. And then he had something like
Bo's afraid cooking for a long time.
He had the editing screenplay and a different vein.
That's that we'll kind of talk about, I guess, also on on paper
for a while. So I, I think it's really
(06:22):
fascinating to see someone go from a kind of an occult
associated very much more so like a, a, a slasher feel like
the the scratch of the violin filmmaker right in hereditary
Midsummer to more of like a Cohen brother, right vibe of
(06:43):
this absurd comedic exploration of similar themes, right, that
you just talked about. Like of if he's not interested
in cults, he is certainly, I think interested in like the
cult of family, right and the the trauma that is often passed
along. And I think in Hereditary right,
he's like doing a interesting contradiction of like, are these
(07:05):
things biologically like passed along or are they like what he
talks about in the dollhouse being a major theme socially?
Like passed along And there's all these pressures to stay
close to people who are also responsible for your trauma and
that there's guilt. And there's like a lot of
different complex feelings that he explores in Bow is Afraid as
(07:25):
well as in Hereditary, just in different ways.
So I am a huge bow is afraid like defender I guess at this
point because you all hated it. Me and you.
I love Bow is afraid. I think it's so successful.
I think it's hilarious. Like I, I just, I I love that
absurd humor. But yeah, it's been fascinating.
(07:46):
I think to to watch him like go even further into that lane with
Eddington. But unfortunately, I think with
this movie, even though the performances were great, it just
didn't hit in the same way in terms of having, I guess, you
know, because it was looking at like different political
contradictions. It wasn't almost like
interesting enough in in that particular lane.
(08:09):
And then the plot itself, because it was kind of bloated.
The pacing felt a little off. So which I know people could say
for Beau's afraid I disagree. I loved it, but I, I felt like,
you know, the the humor then didn't land because it felt like
we were sitting there for so long.
So that I think that's the issuewith Eddington that we will talk
(08:29):
way more about today. But at the I guess I wanted to
to say that because it's interesting that I wonder if
people are like, what is he doing?
Why isn't he doing hereditary inMidsummer?
And I think it's like, you know,he, his goal is to kind of like
have images that he's talked about get under your skin,
(08:50):
right? Like he when he was younger, he
like created a binder of horrific shots, like of movies.
Remember this? Yeah, like a Pokémon binder.
Exactly. And so like, I still think that
in Hereditary, Hereditary Midsummer that you people would
think of a more like traditionalhorror vibes.
And then he's doing the same thing as in Beau's Afraid and
(09:11):
Eddington, but he's just wanted different uncomfortable things
to like live underneath your skin and be a horrific presence.
And I think he does do that in certain ways in Eddington that I
think are successful today. So anyway, long winded way to
say my relationship to Aster is like interesting.
I think he's a really interesting filmmaker.
I think we're seeing this like pivot.
I'm assuming we'll get more of this and less people push him
(09:35):
unfortunately, more into like just Hereditary, like a go back
to what you have done before. Yeah.
So I'll be fascinated to see, but yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I love everything you just said
in terms of like framing it fromthe idea that Ari Astor has so
much capital and this like nichecinephile circle of being the a
(09:57):
24 horror guy that he is now become allergic to that that
very label. And he is in favor of something
that is going to be a little bitmore subversive, but also
accessible and how it's being subversive and culturally
relevant with the now and the contemporary era.
And we have said this so much onthe podcast.
Automatically when a filmmaker takes a shot by making a movie
(10:20):
in the contemporary world, they get bonus points for me.
It could be the worst movie I'veever seen.
It could still be 1/2 star movie.
I still give them credit for trying to do that because it's
so at such a huge challenge, youknow, especially when you're
like kind of seamlessly weaving and historical themes into
contemporary anxieties of a narrative.
(10:40):
Jordan Peele's probably the mostimpressive filmmaker next to
outside the horror genre, like aPaul Thomas Anderson who can do
something like that, which we'regoing to see in one battle after
another in September, which I'm very excited for.
Which interestingly seems to have very similar themes to
Eddington. But yeah, I think what you what
you said about Astor being allergic to being the a 24
(11:00):
horror guy is really interestingbecause he seems like he doesn't
want to be the puzzle box director.
He doesn't want to be the YouTube explained filmmaker.
He doesn't want to be the filmmaker.
Whoever one thinks is pretentious with their
symbolism. He made two of the great like
symbolism heavy movies of the last 10 years.
But with Beau is Afraid, which Iwould also argue is like kind of
lofty in its themes, even if people easily reduced it to like
(11:23):
being a a mommy's boy issue movie in terms of
deconstruction, deconstructions of like masculinity and
Odyssey's and like narrativizingyour own life to make it, you
seem more, I don't know, stable than you actually are.
I thought that was a really impressive psychological pivot
for him. And he seems to just continue
pivoting into the psychological arena where he is entering a
(11:44):
more kind of like keeping like an Albert Brooks sense of humor,
but and like Rob Reiner, like misery toned, but with the Coen
brothers, with like a Spielberg with a Scorsese after hours kind
of vibe that is more surreal, not exactly Lynchian, but maybe
more like the next tier beneath Lynch.
And that's very exciting. With Eddington, it seems like
(12:08):
he's going into a space that is like he wants to also now bring
in like a contrarian crowd. He wants to bring in like a
Tarantino crowd. He wants to bring in an
Aronofsky crowd, which is an interesting move for him in his
career. I'm sure he doesn't think about
his his movies in that kind of like business sense, but to me,
just watching from afar, maybe he's not aware of it, but he
does seem to want to like open up his.
(12:30):
I don't know the demographics tonow this group of people who are
looking for movies that are almost muddled and what their
messaging are purposely. But then that can lead a lot of
people to then looking at Ari Astor is our new contrarian
filmmaker, almost how we talked about with Alex Garland on Civil
War on that big episode, which again, is one of the ones we
have on Patreon right now. My issue with Eddington at the
(12:51):
top here. And I guess we can transition
into the conversation on this new movie.
We just saw it last night. So it's very fresh in our minds.
So so we should say that is thatthis movie is fascinatingly
ambitious, but also, like I said, really muddled.
I think it it weirdly feels weightless for being a movie
that is so political. Does that make sense?
(13:13):
Like it, it feels like when we left the theater, I felt like I
watched something that was insignificant.
But about the most significant things currently culturally in
America, in the United States, which is like really sad to
admit because this is like, again, one of my favorite film
makers in the last 10 years. This is not a bad movie to me,
but not great, but not great andmaybe not good.
And he, you know, he he's pivoting to he's keeping the
(13:38):
same themes, I think that he's been exploring, but he's being
more, I think, direct with them now and he's pivoting to a new
genre. This is kind of a semi
dystopian, which probably isn't the right word, but let's just
say like semi almost collapse ofthe world that's about to
happen. Satirical Western that is also a
satire of current American political echo chambers of the
(14:01):
last five years, but it's filtered through this satire on
westerns with this very recent COVID pandemic era backdrop to
speak to those commentaries. Yeah.
Now, again, I, I think I like this a little bit more than you
because I think so just a littlebit because I think I found it
just maybe I just admire the fact that he's, that he's trying
(14:23):
giving effort because some of our great directors are like
afraid to make movies where likephones exist, you know, and that
makes me sad sometimes. And I'm like, just try like,
don't, it's not like I think anybody's cowardly, but I just
think it makes movies more commercially relevant.
Like audiences will be more willing to go to movies.
So they see themselves on screen.
And a lot of directors don't want the responsibility
(14:44):
politically, socially or emotionally to take that on.
And so he goes for that here. So I appreciate that, but I
think I am with you. And as far as this movie just
feels uneven and like overwrought, like there's too
much shit going on in the movie.But again, we've only had like
1215 hours to think about it. Like, how are you feeling right
now from walking out of the theater just last night?
(15:05):
I mean, I feel like I'm kind of comparing it to Beau's Afraid
because it has a similar wacky quality.
And after Beau's Afraid, like I woke up the next morning, I was
like, I loved that movie. Yeah.
It's so much fun, even if the even if the crowd wasn't there
with me. I they were not.
Really. I was like one of the only
(15:26):
people laughing. Laughing, yeah.
They left the theatre mid movie.And I think that was so
successful because he kind of stuck to one idea.
It was like he he almost made like worst person in the world.
But let's like put Joaquin Phoenix in it and make him like
a man child and really explore this through a a surveillance
lens of your the like you said, the narrative izing of like
(15:49):
yourself that's also passed along to you through your
family. And so I I love that.
And they're completely differentmovies, but I at least wanted
the humor to work for me. And I think that unfortunately,
you know, and we talked about how this his new kind of these
(16:09):
this new kind of wave of movies that he's been making feel Cohen
ask, right. And it felt like, I don't know
if you already said this becausewe kind of talked about it after
we got out of the movie, but it felt like a no country for old
men. But let's make fun of the
Western even more. And then a burn after reading,
except that he was also adding anot sympathy quality to the
(16:33):
characters, but they're a littlebit more realized than the burn
after reading characters where they didn't feel like these kind
of ponds that are story right. So.
That's a good way to frame it because the CIA and or whoever
it is, the government organization, it feels like
you're in their movie, like they're telling a story or
something. And after reading, yeah.
So and everyone's doing a bit there, right.
(16:54):
So like, but here we have like grounded people kind of in a
burn after reading No Country for Old Men world.
And fortunately, because we do have those still the characters
being both grounded but also caricatures in certain senses.
Like it felt it, it just it didn't wasn't fully successful
(17:16):
on like the different kind of angles he was trying to do when
he was trying to like poke fun at a contradiction or kind of
performative politics or what we'll talk about like the real,
like a realized fears of or likeliteralizing kind of bullshit,
like myths that are created in echo chambers.
(17:37):
And like that is funny. But ultimately, because it kept
like kind of switching back and forth, it was kind of whiplashy
in the movie. And then also it was just far
too long. Like there should have been some
stuff that was left on the cutting room floor that wasn't,
and that's ultimately why it didn't feel like a completely
cohesive movie, even though I liked parts of it.
(17:57):
Yeah, he's trying to and we're about to get into spoilers, but
to stay kind of non spoiler territory for a second, he's
trying to satirize an American frontier mythos, right?
He uses New Mexico as the location for Eddington this this
fictional city is going to be. And he uses indigenous lands
right next door as a symbol for our country's stained history,
which also becomes a comedic beat in the movie.
(18:17):
And then the film leans harder into its setting of a endemic
era. Once you kind of establish this
like Neo frontier Western that we're in where there's a lot of
digital paranoia and that digital paranoia becomes more
the theme on the forefront. And then the Western
deconstruction satire is at the backdrop where like when our
(18:38):
lead character, Joe, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is driving
around in his sheriff truck and it feels like a like his horse,
like, or these men, these men are fighting with their big
trucks and big guns. Like that becomes a part of like
the, the, the joke on this, likethese white men cosplaying as
Cowboys. Like that works, but it becomes
more of the backdrop theme because I think there's a, an
(19:01):
imbalance of satires going on that is not really well
calibrated as much as I thought it would be considering it's Ari
and he's such a great rider. And I think the well you noted,
I think the ideological balance between poke fun at online
leftist performativity and virtue signaling within the
right wing cosplay of violent figures or symbols in American
(19:22):
history never quite land somewhere interesting enough or
complex enough to make the moviethat much that fun to experience
or talk about to then to the point where it almost feels like
sad. Like I felt a little sad walking
out, if that makes sense. Not about the state of the world
or anything. Yeah, and not because he, like
said something profound that made me sad about the world,
(19:43):
Right, Like it was, I guess disappointed is more than sad.
Yeah, Yeah. And I don't think, and to to be
clear before we jump into spoilers, I don't think the
movie is problematic or irresponsible necessarily
because there is a commendable attempt to say that extremism of
the left and right in America right now are not equal
extremes. And right wing extremism is
(20:03):
clearly the more dangerous lane to be in in American culture.
But unfortunately, because the film is imbalanced in that
satire, it risks. In many moments, and there's a
we're going to talk about some of them were theater was
laughing at jokes and didn't understand what kind of movie
they were in where the film has these moments of accidentally
(20:24):
validating the very groups it's trying to critique, if that
makes sense. But again, it's not a bad movie.
There's like flashes of greatness that I really enjoyed
in this. I love how the town of Eddington
is just built on like self hate,like cultural resentment, like
the very people who live there are all guilty.
And some of them are recognizingthat in different ways or just
like failing to recognize that they do a good job of like
(20:47):
algorithmic radicalization that's hyper real in our modern
world. And there's just like really
good subversive character writing with our lead character,
Joe, who we're going to have a lot to say about today.
Joe Cross, Joe Cross, our sheriff and mayor, possible
mayor. And then what you said how the
movie leans into kind of like a meta violence with like
mobilized leftists and I don't want to get too.
(21:10):
Yeah, we'll talk about it. Spoiler heavy with that because
we're about to jump in. But yeah, I think disappointed
is the best word because I did feel like I was just watching
avatars of our contemporary world run around Eddington.
And that sounds cool on paper, but it didn't have that same
kind of like feverish, nightmarish dream quality that
his other movies have that make you want to just keep talking
about them so. Definitely.
(21:32):
OK, spoiler warning for Eddington ahead.
Let's jump in. So Eddington, like I said, is
part western, part political satire, part pandemic era movie,
and it's all fragmented together.
The town of Eddington is this kind of neo Western backdrop,
but again, it's like more of this metaphor for an America
(21:53):
that's been cracked in several parts.
Everyone in this town seems to be living in parallel realities
and they're all drawing from different information streams.
And the mother or mother-in-law figure is like looks.
It has like Q Anon conspiracy theories running throughout the
movie, sometimes just talking over people's dialogue, almost
as if she's screaming out scripture, but from like these
(22:14):
right wing groups online. And the movie basically has a
narrative that is quasi Jaws with the mayor, quasi election
from Alexander Payne, quasi likeNo Country for Old Men.
But it's more of like just this visualization of what the
Internet was like from 2020 to 2022.
So it is kind of a time capsule movie and I'm sure it'll be
(22:35):
interesting to rewatch in a decade or so.
And at the center of it, we haveJoe Cross, Joaquin Phoenix.
What do you think about Phoenix in this?
Because he's usually pretty excellent, but he is given a
hard roll to play here as the sympathetic pathetic sheriff
figure then turned really like assassin terrorist on the.
Movie, Yeah. Which is wild.
(22:55):
Yeah, I thought he was great. You know, he he had to do a
really interesting kind of double performance.
Yeah. It's a good way to put it.
Yeah, like he was kind of the mystery of the movie.
We were with him the whole movieand really, I think, you know,
he was the mystery of the movie in terms of we're asking like,
(23:16):
wait, Ari, how do you feel aboutthis?
And it almost like dropped too late.
But that's that's a different conversation.
I think Phoenix was great and what he was asked to do.
He does this really fun, pathetic performance, especially
when he is in his sheriff's car and like jumps out in the middle
(23:39):
of the street at the grocery store in particular.
And we have that kind of like traditional, like Western, like
spur moment, the like the dust ball, like, you know, rolling
across the street, his face off,you know, with a person who
works at the grocery store who is just trying to keep everyone
safe. And like, like you said, this
(24:01):
kind of Western fantasy of this character.
Joe's like I will die on this hill.
What for? Not sure, but I'm going to
control this situation. And the way that he, he kind of
like lets out these breaths of like, come on, man, like let's
all just like care about one, one another.
Let's fix each other's hearts, like what happened to us, You
(24:23):
know, like those kind of momentsthat are expressed through
walking, looking down for a second and letting out a like a
certain type of high pitched to breath is some great work.
And I and I think he he does a great job at even though this is
like elevated character every everyone kind of is.
He does a good job at making us be like making us understand how
(24:48):
absurd this character is. But the reason that the
character is grounded is becausepeople like this exist.
And then he takes it to the nextlevel of materializing the the
kind of like online algorithmic like bullshit that this
character is like thinking about.
And then through like his actions, he he he basically just
(25:10):
like literalizes both this character's like under girding
like hatred that he that he professes he doesn't have.
And then also his anxieties thatare like made-up, right and and
makes his like his self preservation like very clear,
(25:32):
right. So like, I think that arc is
difficult to do in this very hyper specific absurd world.
So I think he does a great job. He's the the most impressive
part of this movie, not just theperformance, but the writing of
Joe and as far as like this fallto a radicalization of becoming
this like domestic terrorist is fascinating because the whole
(25:55):
first half of the movie positions Joe from his POV.
Most of the movie shot from his POV in the first two acts of the
movie, except for like one or two sequences with Pedro
Pascal's character, who we'll get to in a second.
But we see that Joe is this, like I, as you said, pathetic,
but also sometimes even sympathetic, soft spoken anti
mask sheriff who wants to control his life, the narrative
(26:16):
around him, his household, his town.
But again, it's being shot and delivered in a way in the
performance, in a way that you sort of understand where he's
coming from. And then you watch him slowly
lose his mind, not just through his like YouTube tutorials, but
because like by the final act, Joe is running for mayor with a
conspiracy covered truck and a campaign platform built on a.
(26:37):
Truck. Half baked ideas with like Bill
Gates's face plastered on the side of the truck and the.
Word freedom, all these like insane.
Freedoms like without a mask or something like that.
There's like a crazy slogan. I think one of my favorite ones
is like when they're taping likeBitcoin is the future or
(26:59):
something, like on a church. I think like Michael's like
taping on there as everyone's putting up the the signs.
Yeah. And Phoenix is just like he's
very volatile, he's very fragile.
He does a good job of feeling like he's he has horrible IBS.
Like Joaquin Phoenix walks around like he's the worst IBS
you've ever seen. He's like always holding his
stomach. He's always unsettled.
(27:20):
He's always chewing on like a Tums or some kind of sleeping
pill. Like he's just internally it
feels like a Xenomorph is going to pop out of Joaquin Phoenix.
In his best performances from like Gladiator to the Joker to
this movie. He's really good at that.
I don't know what you want to call that.
I think we talked about it as like a David Sims for The
Atlantic. I think talked about it as if as
if he had like a stomach ache. That's sort of what it feels
(27:42):
like. But Joe starts to begin to be
confused in the first act by theextremism of the conservative
people around him, which is the tricky part of the writing that
we're going to jump into. The second act where his wife is
like 1 bad day from joining a cult.
His mother-in-law again, reads like Q Anon, like it's
scripture. And in the first two acts,
(28:03):
masters really trying to get youto the audience in a certain
type of audience to sympathize deeply with this character as
this reluctant antihero cowboy Joe.
And Phoenix plays him as a man teetering just on the edge, like
with this like sense of masculine purpose and wanting to
control people around him. And I think it's really it's
(28:27):
really good political humor. And then that is then mixed in
with this more uncomfortable humor.
And this is where halfway through the movie, I turn to you
like, wait, what movie are we inwhere we start getting locked in
Joe's POV? And there's moments of him doing
what you were saying, like in the store pointing out
contradictions with people who have masks that are half on
their face. Or he'll walk into parties where
(28:48):
people are at mask parties, which was a thing like in
2020-2021 where people got together, we're told not to with
masks on, being 6 feet apart. And you walk into one of those
parties and Joe's like, well, even though I don't have a mask
on, you guys are like not 6 feetapart.
Your masks aren't really on yourfaces.
And so he was noting these contradictions.
And this is where I was getting worried as an audience member
being like, where are we going here politically, considering
(29:10):
the the stakes of that moment inour history and still today and
how it affects us culturally. But then we get into, like, more
uncomfortable moments of humor where Joe starts like, using,
like, the Efsler or another character, like a father of one
of the kids uses the Arsler. And this is where the movie
(29:32):
never explicitly declared where it stands politically, and it
doesn't need to. But this is where the audience
members in our movie, in our crowd, started laughing.
Yeah, it like especially when the Efsler drops in that scene,
even though the teenager who's playing the Gen.
Z kid is like, what the fuck is wrong with the sheriff?
And it's funny about what he says.
The way that Joaquin Phoenix drops the Efsler and the way
(29:52):
that our audience reacted where half of us were silent and
uncomfortable and the other halfof the audience laughed like
they were in a 2005 Wedding Crashers movie was fascinating.
And so I I want to ask you, is that intentional from Astor?
Like, is he doing the bow is afraid kind of using the the
screen as a mirror to get the audience to think about who
(30:13):
they're sitting next to? Is there a madness to Addington
to you? Because that's the only reason I
kind of forgave the movie politically and was like, what
am I in right now? Because by the third act, when
they twisted on us and Joe becomes like an assassin, I was
like, oh, OK, So this is like a subversive kind of character
study in a little bit of a subversive twist to get the
audience to then reflect on whatthey might have been laughing
(30:35):
at, if that makes sense. But I.
Don't know if it was successful.Yeah, I don't think it was
successful. I think that was the approach of
like, let me show you these things that like these
characters who are having dinnerwith like these exposed like
wall of guns like are saying. So it's not, you know, I don't
(30:56):
think that I don't think his intention from that context is
to have us like actually think that is funny, right?
But I do think that because he took so long to show us who Joe
Cross was, Yes. And like you said, he's not this
(31:17):
person who is like just a, you know, cares about his like wife
and who is asthmatic. And so like he, he had, he's
saying like he can't breathe in the mask and and there's like
all these kind of half truths. Right that.
He is like identifying. And so like, it takes too long
for that to drop. So by the time we get to those
(31:37):
slurs, we haven't really, like, totally pivoted on his
character. And not that you need characters
to be like, totally morally, youknow, uncomplicated.
But yeah, I would say that it like felt like really messy, but
when the. Assassination happens.
(31:59):
It does feel like a real twist. Like I felt like I.
Felt like that was impressive. Because I I did not think it was
Joe. Plot shifted the movie.
Oh yeah. Yeah, when Pedro Pascal's
character is killed and his son is killed in a really, like,
brutal scene because the movie isn't bloody up until that
point, right? And it shows Joe behind the
bushes, like hundreds of yards away.
(32:19):
I was like, oh, shit. Because then the movie does
force you to reflect on like, you turn next to your neighbor,
the person you were sitting nextto who was laughing at those
moments and like, kind of sidingwith Joe and then them not
realizing that the whole movie is about them.
Do you know what I mean? I guess so, but I think that's
like the issue with the the movie in terms of what you're
talking about at the beginning, like opening the the net almost
(32:40):
like too wide of who you want tolike catch and and then kind of
be like this is you. I I think for like 1 of the the
most successful jokes, we have the the Brian kid at the end,
like having a selfie with Marjorie Taylor Green.
(33:02):
Like that. In the context of that for the
whole movie about being like the, the really big like hitting
humor of like a Brian type character.
I don't think that, you know, Ari Astor is making the Joe
figure or like the dad of Brian,like he's making a joke at their
(33:26):
expense. But again, like I I think
because it took too long to get there, it becomes confusing to
an audience. But then also be also because
he's like even though I'm not sympathizing with the Joe figure
I I'm aware that the movie is portraying him as the most
(33:47):
grounded character ish. Well, he's the one with the most
like screen. Time we're following him yeah so
because of that too, but I thinklike in terms of zooming out
because we have Brian at the endlike because of this
conservative like child podcaster.
Child drifter, Yeah, Which is real.
Like that is a real thing. Like I, you know, I think that
(34:09):
we can understand like Ari's overall goal and just say like
he was not successful in like certain parts of it.
But I think like having those things, if he did them in a
maybe a little bit of a different way, like would be
fine. Like I still thought they were
funny at the expense of the character, like being so
petulant. Yes, yes, yes.
(34:30):
Well, there's two other ways he tries to do it.
One. Because they're both these kind
of like, respected, like male figures of like, a father or a
sheriff in society. So like, yeah.
Well, there's the two ways are the relationship between Ted and
Joe. So like Mayor Ted and Sheriff
Joe, that's Pedro Pascal. Joaquin Phoenix Who?
Pedro was also amazing I would say.
(34:51):
That's my favorite dynamic of the movie.
That's my favorite relationship.Every anytime they're in a scene
talking together, I'm like, oh, this movie's working.
It just didn't happen enough. And I want to know more about
their their story together. And some is suggested, some is
not. The other subplot that's
supposed to help this, this kindof commentary about a rise of
radicalism or extremism in rightwing groups and how that has
(35:12):
like a lot of like cultural stakes that are violent in
America today is through Austin Butler's character Vernon, which
is a subplot that I think is just kind of disastrous.
I don't think it works at all. I think it takes up so much
time. It adds a lot of bloat in the
movie and it makes the pace feelkind of dreadful to sit through.
And I felt that so many moments.Nothing to do with the
(35:32):
performance. I think Austin Butler is giving
actually one of his more interesting performances, even
though he's had like, a very young career, but he's playing
like a TikTok Messiah figure, which I think is really
successful. And it sucks because it's
clearly like a riff on Tom Cruise and Magnolia, like a TJ
Mackey character. And if we only had more of that,
(35:53):
like if we went to one of the meetings with Emma Stone with
her character and learned more about her character, who's also
really underused in this movie. Yeah, it's so wild.
It feels like you could have used like anyone other than Emma
Stone also because she didn't even get to be like or do Emma
Stone thing. She's a generational talent,
like literally one of the great actors in the history of movies
(36:14):
and is like one of the most critically acclaimed actors in
history of movies. And she plays a character who is
basically sedated throughout themovie.
That doesn't mean that it can't be an interesting character, but
there's not enough depth there, even with what we learned about
her tragic back story. Yeah, It feels like her
character is more in service of like the plot and then that kind
of like extra layer of the speech to create tension between
(36:38):
Joaquin's character, Pedro's character less than it is about
like Emma Stone's character. Right.
And so the whole dynamic in thismovie between the trio of
Butler, Stone and Phoenix's characters in terms of like the
different the spectrum of I think radicalization of right
(36:59):
wing groups should have been more interesting.
And that's why I think a lot of the the character study of the
fall of Joe Cross doesn't totally hit.
Now we get more to the pitcher Pascal part of this.
I think that is the element of the movie where the politics of
the movie does kind of move in amore complex and interesting
direction, where Pedro's playingMayor Ted, who, you know, Pascal
(37:22):
is always like really excellent.He's had a really strange but
fun year in movies. He's been going to continue that
in Fantastic Four, and he is a different political archetype.
He's a neoliberal technocrat whowants a data center, kind of
posing sort of as like this grassroots leftist social
(37:44):
advocate activist. But he also just kind of comes
off because we get some moments of his POV, like when he's on
the computer in that meeting, we're talking to his son, where
he kind of comes off as this like, hollow liberal state
politician who doesn't really care about the people and is
maybe working for his own means.And his dynamic it with Joe is
(38:04):
fascinating because they seem like old friends turned rivals.
Or at least that's kind of how. Are they like knew each other in
high school? It's a small town.
Right, yeah. And maybe Ted was the cool kid.
And you know, there's there's a lot suggested and they have a
good bar encounter when they first meet, when he has the mask
on behind the window and the grocery store encounter.
(38:25):
There's a lot of like unspoken resentment between the two.
And Ted begins to repeatedly, And this is Joe's fault, like
effortlessly kind of like humiliate Joe in public to the
point of slapping him in public.But then this is where Astor
subverts expectations of Joe's character when Joe falsely
accuses Ted, who is Pedro Pascal, of being a sexual
(38:46):
predator in the tone of the movie flips with the character
study, if you want to call it that.
And Joe, who is, is this fantasyconservative cowboy anti hero
who the audience, a lot of men in our audience were kind of
aligned with, I would say because of the way he was shot
in the first two acts, becomes adomestic terrorist because he
assassinates Ted and his son in a really like brutal scene that
(39:10):
was kind of jaw-dropping to me. And Astor makes that choice in a
politically interesting way. So he can clearly critique right
wing radicalism and the martyr complex kind of at the heart of
that radicalism and obsession with like violent resolutions.
And Joe's arc goes from self victimizing clout chaser sheriff
(39:31):
who wants to become mayor to then falsely accusing a
progressive Latino man in a position of power.
And when challenged by that man for evidence for Joe's
accusation of what he did to hiswife, Joe doesn't have as
evidence and resorts to murder and reframing Ted.
Is this a criminal? And I thought that was a really
clever tonal shift in the movie because the audience sort of
(39:54):
went silent when that assassination happened.
And there was a kind of a realization of what kind of
movie in satire they were in. And you know it, a part of it
was just it's alarming to see a father and son get like killed
on screen like this, especially because and Ari Astor can have
seen this, but. These echo chambers we're seeing
on screen, this indoctrination we're seeing on screen, the
these kind of like the radicalization of American
(40:17):
people in the pipeline of that that we see every day from
online grievances to like anti immigrant rhetoric to sheriff's
in Florida or other states just recently indirectly but also
sort of directly saying that youcould be killed for protesting.
Right. Yeah.
When, when Phoenix at the the speech at the end is like, I
encourage my residents to own guns.
Yeah. Yeah, we're like recently a
(40:39):
literal congresswoman and her husband and her dog were
assassinated for their progressive politics.
Like these are real life issues that are happening in in moments
of violence in our country that are happening right now.
And this movie was written yearsbefore this moment that we're
living through. And so, you know, we're seeing
real consequences of echo chambers and indoctrination.
(41:00):
And Joe represents that real life fall.
And so that's why I'm kind of ina weird space right now with the
discourse on this movie being like problematic or like
offensive because I'm like, well, I mean, that's a pretty
impressive right, quote UN quote, rise and fall of this
character, Joe, to represent thepolitical tension or country
where your neighbor sitting nextto you in the movie theater may
(41:22):
be related to this character. And then now is then visualize
on screen as like the real threat in our country where you
said on the ride home, like the calls coming from inside the
house for Joe and like, conservatives watching him at
home. And I yeah, I thought that was
really well done. If not, you know, I'll say this.
It was a really well done artistic experiment.
(41:43):
The Joe character in a movie that doesn't totally work.
Yeah, I think, I guess I'll go ahead and just say my extra
credit now like that. I think that is if that's the
theme of the movie or the thesisof the movie, that this Joe
Cross character, right, is looking outward everywhere at
all these things that are attacking like his family.
(42:05):
And why can't we all just fix each other's hearts or quote UN
quote like what we hear of like why can't everyone just listen
to each other? Or what we had a problem with
with like Civil War recently butis also in a lot of like other
movies like both sides quote UN quote are bad.
Tribalism on both sides are. Equally bad.
Yeah. So like in the like, kind of him
(42:26):
speaking into that whole, you know, rhetoric and thematic
bullshit that's in like modern movies.
I think if his, you know, kind of swing at this movie is
looking at a Joe Cross characterand seeing how he is like
(42:47):
pointing fingers at everyone else.
And it really is just like the call is coming from inside the
house. If that's like the thesis of the
movie, that's what deserves extra credit because I do think
that was successful. Like and I think at the end it
was like very funny. That's my extra credit too
though. Yeah, so like literalizing
Antifa on this private jet that comes to kill him.
(43:10):
That's where he was like straight up, like I'm fucking
with right wing people now. Like I'm now I'm going to give
you what you want and it's not going to look pretty.
So like that shit, that was funny, I just think.
Tifa Ninjas on a jet, guys, thatwas insane.
That that was really funny. Yeah, yeah, it was really good.
So like, I think I, I think thatwhole aspect was good.
(43:30):
It's just that it's not that it's not that he like portrayed
the Joe Cross character as too empathetic or whatever.
And I, I just think that we spent too long with him again
until we have that flip because there are a lot of people who
might be like politically apathetic in the audience or
(43:54):
have a more like neoliberal typeof like lens or like you said,
have a, a sympathetic lens of being like, well, I know this
person and ultimately, yes, they're a little crazy, but you
know, they're ultimately they'reharmless, right?
Like they're nice to their neighbors or they're nice to
other white people. Like that is like, so they're
they're that was not addressed quick enough, even though that's
(44:17):
an interesting idea. I think to like look at a Joe
Cross character, like ultimatelyis he aren't harmless and having
him kind of say like one of my favorite lines from his like,
don't make me think about it before you post the video
because like just post it. His deputy, who's what I love,
his name is Guy. Guy.
Guy is like, Are you sure you want to post that?
He's like, don't even make me think about it, you know, like
(44:37):
the idea that he like doesn't even want to think right.
He is so funny. And then also the the idea that
I think like the audience in general is the kind of the story
we're being told is like that Joe Cross is not he, he couldn't
kill someone that kind of right thing or like the ultimately
(44:58):
harmless like rhetoric of someone who is like a right wing
person. I I think that was successful.
Again, the drop was not quick enough.
And I think it can. I think I felt it confusing
people. But he doesn't.
He spent too much time trying toget that audience on his side
because he was like, let me pokefun at Black Lives Matter.
Let me poke fun at protest. Let me.
(45:19):
Yeah, which we also have to talkabout.
Like let's let's explore these things, but also just in a
really petty way to make this audience think that they're in a
movie that they're not. So then when I make when I, you
know, that hat drops and we do shift into this more kind of
like elevated conservative nightmare.
It's going to like really hit and make people feel like what
(45:40):
kind of fucking movie that I just watched.
Except it just you're right. It takes an hour and a half to
get there. It's just too far.
Yeah. And I think also kind of what
you were talking about earlier, even though it ends up, you
know, finishing the movie with this idea of like people having
this rhetoric or responding to the the kind of rhetoric of like
(46:01):
both sides are, there's tribalism on both sides.
Both sides are bad kind of idea.It's responding to that by
saying right wing politics is like the extremism is obviously
far worse. Like it's responding to that at
the end. But but throughout the movie, I
actually don't think it it does that successfully enough where
(46:22):
yes, it's looking at the contradiction of like
performative, like white activism, right?
And that's fine. But to almost like keep it
within the balance or trying to,it feels like he's actually
actively trying to trick his audience to to bring up that
argument within them of like both sides are bad or like this
(46:44):
idea that everyone's absurd, like within these echo chambers.
Yeah. And again, like, I I think, you
know, watching the whole movie, looking at as a whole, he was
responding to that. So he was kind of conjuring it
up. But it was far too long in the
movie where then it actually felt like he was showing us this
(47:05):
idea of like these two things being equal in in their impact.
And so like that was really, I just think unsuccessful.
And he just should have like, I think really reworked this this
movie. It could have been tighter.
It could have been more clear because I think a lot of times
(47:26):
like film Bros and sorry to the Bros, but people in particular
like who are men will be like, well, we don't need to like
spell it out for our audience. You know, we don't we shouldn't
ask for movies that are like spoon feeding us ideas.
And that's not what I'm asking for, right?
Like something can still be looking at the realities of like
contradictions in real life. But there it does matter like
(47:49):
how you craft a story and createa story.
That's what makes something unsuccessful or successful.
And here, like, it's not the ambiguity of like what he's
saying, like that's interesting and actually makes it
uninteresting because it's like you're actually like taking away
from your thesis because you have to kind of read the room
with, with movies like this. Yes I I agree but I do want to
(48:13):
be clear I don't think you're saying this but like the civil
war is a is a great comp to thismovie.
Civil War is a both sides like anti war movie and it really
struggles of being an anti war film because it's so both sides
are bad. It's so like tribalism on both
sides leads to extremism, leads to ideological differences.
And we're actually arguing for the same things.
(48:34):
And we have so many actually similarities in our differences.
And Antifa is just as bad as theJanuary 6th people.
And it's like, OK, Alex Garland,like you're clearly not a film
maker who is who has their finger on the pulse of America
right now. And even though it's, like, one
of my favorite directors of the last 10 years, he's made some
movies that I'm now, like, very sceptical of.
And we haven't talked about warfare on this podcast, but
(48:55):
that movie is in this conversation as well.
Yeah. But I don't think Eddington's in
that space, even though I agree with what you're saying.
It just, I don't think so much. Time in trying to be clever and
it's satire and trying to be clever and it's flip because I
ultimately think it's like targeting right wing extremism
to such a hilarious degree. In the last act, the last 35
minutes of having our sheriff run around with like this
(49:16):
massive machine gun around town trying to kill antifa people and
then to end the movie with this.I don't know what you want to
call them next. Conservative young grifter kid,
like dead eyed white teen in cell type who is just trying to
like date some girl in high school, kills the antifa ninja
(49:39):
and then starts podcasting and snapping photos of like Marjorie
Taylor Green. Like that's, I think that's
successful. He has like an energy drink ad
on his wall. It's wonderful stuff.
Like, I think it's really successful writing to end this
podcast, not a podcast to end this movie.
And I, I still think, you know, unfortunately, there are going
to be contrarian audiences, people in this space, movie
(50:02):
critics even and movie podcasters who are going to be
like, yeah, like both sides are so hypocritical and like,
wokeness is killing America. And and those people, you know,
still tout themselves as being leftist, but say shit like that.
And you're a little bit skeptical of those people and
their intentions. And or I I am very skeptical.
And I think those people will feel seen by this movie,
unfortunately, because it's taking what you said too much
(50:25):
time in that first two acts. But OK, that's why that's, you
know, my extra credits of Addington was very similar to
yours, so I don't really have much to add.
Yeah, I guess the only other things were I I think that the
the movie actually did a good job with how Phoenix like threw
Michael under the bus so quickly.
(50:47):
And I also think that we should acknowledge this kind of like
bow is afraid misery end of the movie that worked in terms of
like the the humor of the motherwho like believes in conspiracy
theories running the government,like on behalf of Joaquin
(51:08):
Phoenix's character. But like in terms of the some of
the actual jokes or the laughs in our our theater, like felt
like so ableist, like gross jokes.
And so like, I think ultimately,like, that wasn't successful and
felt like more something that could have been explored and
like Beau was afraid with the actually interesting lens.
(51:33):
And then also like, I just have to shout out once more the
campaign signs and the truck that he is driving.
I think the truck is also what deserves my extra credit.
Yeah, it is a good, good movie Artifact.
Yeah. I want to shout out Mikel, I
think Ward and Luke Grimes, who play the two deputies in this
movie. They are very good.
(51:54):
They're they're playing 2 completely different characters.
But when Michael does get turnedin by Joe, yeah.
And this reality, again, if you're a conservative audience
member, has been kind of siding with this movie and being like,
oh, it's so smart and it's contrarian politics and showing
the disease of wokeness and the pseudo politics of protest and
the virtue signaling young left,this teenage white girl who
(52:16):
represents that. Sarah.
I think then you're really thrown off when your main
character kills a person of color and then tries to turn
another person of color into jail for a crime that he
committed in both cases. And so, like, that's a really
good twist on paper and it's visualized well on screen.
But again, we keep repeating ourselves but two hours into the
movie. Yeah.
(52:37):
And also, I mean, I think it works in terms of like Ari
Astor, you know, he he's like dropping something and then he
makes Joaquin Phoenix ultimatelyand his like, actions contradict
it, right. Like he's talking about like
they're just like bad apples, but like, I'm not that sheriff,
I'm not that cop. And so there's like that kind of
he he's laying things to to twist it with Joe Cross's
(52:59):
character. But it's like, yeah, it just.
Wasn't effective enough. Yeah, yeah.
Luke Grimes, though, shot him for playing like the dumb
racist, like deputy cop guy. Yeah, Guy.
Thank you. Yeah.
When he explodes, I was like, that's a cool ending to this
character because I hated that guy.
And yeah, extra credit to the Antifa ninja showdown.
And I guess extra credit to the cinematography of this movie,
(53:19):
even though I didn't love the editing.
I think it was poorly paced. And I think a lot of the Austin
Butler Emma Stone subplot was like really forced in there.
Darius Konji, who shot this movie, or Kanji brought a real
textured, like moodiness to thisfilm.
Had some great set pieces. I love the way the cameras
panning with Joe when he's looking all around him waiting
for like his assassin to come athim, only for a guy not even to
(53:41):
come at him with a gun, just with a straight knife to the
brain. That was really well done.
So I I like the cinematography and the, the kind of the wide
deliberate compositions that make you feel like you're
watching a Western, but it's just such a, a play on Westerns.
Yeah, the car, the kind of car chase at the end, felt the way
it was shot to make the cars seem like they're not totally
(54:03):
going fast, but trying to go fast.
Like when Joaquin Phoenix is like trying to track the other
cop who's going to his home to investigate and ask if, like,
Joaquin Phoenix owns a gun. Because he's starting to suspect
that Joe Cross is actually the person at the center of this
and. That's an all time detective, by
the way, the Native American detective.
Yeah, and the the car chase making it seem like so stupid.
(54:25):
Essentially it was like some of Astor's best work just because I
think that whole like, that's a good one.
Making fun of the Western was really funny to me.
Like every all the elements of that.
Looking fun at car chases too. It was like a funny idea.
Like, look at this satire and French Connection.
Like, we have fast. He's chasing him down.
(54:46):
Yeah. He's just good at like, like,
finding the funny bits of masculinity.
Ari Astor has been consistently good at that throughout his
career, even when other film makers in his land, like Robert
Deckers disappointed us a littlebit.
Just right to Astor continues it.
OK, That was the extra credits of Eddington, a movie that, much
(55:06):
like I think Bong Joon Ho's Mickey 17 this year, was a
little bit disappointing. Yeah, that's an interesting
movie to comp. I think we we were looking
forward to those movies so much and I like, I like needed this
movie to be good, especially because maybe 17 I wasn't as
high on even I liked parts of it20.
Years later was a surprise. That was a surprise.
That was a huge surprise for me.I loved that movie.
(55:26):
But also I've been, yeah. I feel like there's been so
many, you know, we just saw likeJurassic Park or World, sorry,
Rebirth. And the only thing holding me
together is that we're going to do Jurassic Park on the Patreon
because I love that movie. But but yeah, like I, I felt
like I needed this and, and we were, we, this is pretty high up
in our movies that we were anticipating for 2025.
(55:49):
Yeah. And so it's such a bummer. 30
most anticipated movies of the year, and I think this was 3.
Yeah, when those fall, I'm so fascinated to see what Astor
comes out with next, though, because I'm still like, you
know, in the theater for him regardless.
But it it is interesting that Hereditary, Midsummer and Beau
was afraid all felt like deeply personal films.
And this was the first one that kind of felt like outside of
(56:11):
that, there were elements, you know, in it that he that he kind
of like pulls from, but it, it felt like outside of that.
So I'm really interested to see where he goes next.
I don't think it'll be like this.
This clearly felt like a lifelong genre deconstruction
project for like a cinephile, like Ari's a nerd.
And I think this movie for him is like, I got to deconstruct
the Western genre where nobody makes westerns anymore because
(56:31):
they don't know how to. And this does feel like one of
the first Western sense No Country for Old Men.
But then he totally falls into taking too long with the
politics of the movie, unfortunately.
OK, we'll be back soon. With what do you think?
Not just Patreon, but main feed.What do we have?
We have a a massive summer blockbuster episode that we're
thinking about thrown together, which that Jurassic World movie
(56:53):
that we just talked shit about, which is truly like one of the
worst movies. I think I've I've ever.
Seen. Yeah, we'll also talk about F1
and Superman. F1 and Superman Fantastic Four.
Yeah. OK.
I think we'll like do those all in one.
Yeah, 1 episode, summer blockbuster episode and maybe.
Movies that Kelsey was forced tosee, yes.
Are you going to see? All the pod from the podcast
(57:15):
point of view, not Trey, Yeah. We'll be back then.
Peace. Bye.
Music. Hello, welcome to the extra
credits of Ari Astor's Eddington.
I'm Trey. And I'm Kelsey.
Before we get into this new Astor movie, a quick show
update. We just unlocked an exclusive
deep dive on Ari Astor's first film Hereditary.
An episode where we discuss Astor's career, talk about his
(00:34):
cohort of horror film makers since 20/17/2018, which are
probably Jordan Peele and RobertEggers among some other ones.
And if you go to the descriptionof this episode, you can sign up
as a free member and you'll haveaccess to that conversation on
Hereditary as well as other freeepisodes.
We got a lot on there right now.Ari Astor's Bow is Afraid is up
there 28 Days Later. Civil War, Past Lives, Astrid
(00:55):
City and more. Yeah, well, I didn't realize we
had that that much for the summer, but.
It is a lot so Eddington let's start by backing up a little bit
talking about our relationship to Ari, because I think we're
going to find a lot of new listeners with this episode or
maybe not I don't know is this going to be a popular movie I.
I mean, I definitely think like anyone who knows who Ari Oster
(01:17):
is is going to go out to see it.But just because people love
Hereditary, right? Like a lot of people will say
Hereditary is their favorite horror movie.
They might not even know who AriOster is, like general
audiences. I don't know.
I don't know if they'll go out to see it because I don't know
that it will get a lot of word of mouth of like, you have to go
see this. It's a really long movie.
(01:38):
Not everything works. It's more in the vein of Beau is
Afraid, but not as successful. It's not like the Hereditary
Midsummer of what like general audiences associate Arias are
with, so I don't. And it doesn't, I don't know,
seriously like Garland Civil Wardid with similar, you know,
political conversations, even ifdifferent politics.
Yeah, it's not like a more in the vein of traditional like
(02:01):
action movie or journalist kind of.
Running, it's almost. We're going silly toward the.
Third act, which isn't surprising from Astor, but might
be for people, yeah. Yeah.
So, you know, we've covered thisguy for his whole career and I
think, you know, we, I would saywe even love this director based
on the movies he's put out. We spent a lot of time listening
to him on podcast or different interviews, reading different
(02:22):
interviews. And one thing I really
appreciate him before as an artist is that he is obsessed
with comedically tackling uncomfortable constructs,
religion, unconditional love with the family unit, trauma
that's wrapped up in all of that.
And he does that across multiplegenres.
(02:42):
He tries to kind of dramatize how societal expectations are
pressured on people or get inherited like Hereditary, and
then kind of weaponized in different ways.
He did that in the cult horror genre in Hereditary.
He did that in the twist on thiskind of fable folky fairy tale
(03:03):
of Midsummer. He did that again most recently
with the surreal tragic comedy epic odyssey of Beau Is Afraid.
And yeah, I think we've loved those 3 movies all for different
reasons, but a through line of just being very observational in
the horrors or in the the humor of our day-to-day lives as
people. And Eddington, he stays in that
(03:26):
thematic lane but sort of pivots.
So how are you feeling right nowwith Astor and these kind of
different genres and this through line that he's working
with in his career? Yeah, I mean, I guess it might
actually be helpful. You know, we talked about this
more so on our Hereditary episode, but it might be helpful
to talk about him in the contextof his cohort for a second
because and the themes that he he kind of is diving into in his
(03:50):
projects like you just talked about.
But I feel like, you know, we have Edgars who is really doing
this like gothic horror, but theabsurdity of like, myth, right.
And like the lighthouse or in Northman.
Yeah. Which I don't know if everyone
finds comedy like at the end of the Northman, you know, But I
(04:11):
certainly think Edgars like doesin terms of his sensibilities
with the movies he's making. Two naked Vikings fighting a top
of volcano. So, you know, we we have like
that kind of eerie presence of like history, but it's it's very
mythical then elevated in that way with horror for Eggers.
(04:31):
And then Peele, like who's my favorite of of the three that
we're talking about here. He is able to do something that
is really interesting. You know, Spielberg is a huge
like inspirational figure for him in terms of how and you can
see that in terms of how he likelooks at family and connection
and those things feel really seamless and authentic.
(04:56):
Like in his movies where you feel like people have real
relationships, but there's obviously something that is
terrifying. And we have a more slasher or
thriller successful backdrop that is running throughout
Peel's movies. So he's like a really great
(05:17):
genre bending horror filmmaker who I think like is the most
successful also at introducing an idea, right?
Probably the most layered writer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Best writer, great with horror
iconography. Very John Carpenter inspired.
Yeah. Very impressive.
But I think with Astor, like he's really a fascinating figure
(05:38):
to talk about in this horror cohort because most people, you
know, identify him for Hereditary or Midsummer.
And he's talked about how in in interviews, like people often
associate him or ask him like, are you just obsessed with
cults? Like have you always been
obsessed with cults? And he's talked about how, you
know, those are actually just the first movies that were
greenlit for him and he doesn't consider himself obsessed with
(06:02):
cults at all. But that's just like happened to
be that Hereditary Midsummer were were focused on that,
right. And then he had something like
Bo's afraid cooking for a long time.
He had the editing screenplay and a different vein.
That's that we'll kind of talk about, I guess, also on on paper
for a while. So I, I think it's really
(06:22):
fascinating to see someone go from a kind of an occult
associated very much more so like a, a, a slasher feel like
the the scratch of the violin filmmaker right in hereditary
Midsummer to more of like a Cohen brother, right vibe of
(06:43):
this absurd comedic exploration of similar themes, right, that
you just talked about. Like of if he's not interested
in cults, he is certainly, I think interested in like the
cult of family, right and the the trauma that is often passed
along. And I think in Hereditary right,
he's like doing a interesting contradiction of like, are these
(07:05):
things biologically like passed along or are they like what he
talks about in the dollhouse being a major theme socially?
Like passed along And there's all these pressures to stay
close to people who are also responsible for your trauma and
that there's guilt. And there's like a lot of
different complex feelings that he explores in Bow is Afraid as
(07:25):
well as in Hereditary, just in different ways.
So I am a huge bow is afraid like defender I guess at this
point because you all hated it. Me and you.
I love Bow is afraid. I think it's so successful.
I think it's hilarious. Like I, I just, I I love that
absurd humor. But yeah, it's been fascinating.
(07:46):
I think to to watch him like go even further into that lane with
Eddington. But unfortunately, I think with
this movie, even though the performances were great, it just
didn't hit in the same way in terms of having, I guess, you
know, because it was looking at like different political
contradictions. It wasn't almost like
interesting enough in in that particular lane.
(08:09):
And then the plot itself, because it was kind of bloated.
The pacing felt a little off. So which I know people could say
for Beau's afraid I disagree. I loved it, but I, I felt like,
you know, the the humor then didn't land because it felt like
we were sitting there for so long.
So that I think that's the issuewith Eddington that we will talk
(08:29):
way more about today. But at the I guess I wanted to
to say that because it's interesting that I wonder if
people are like, what is he doing?
Why isn't he doing hereditary inMidsummer?
And I think it's like, you know,he, his goal is to kind of like
have images that he's talked about get under your skin,
(08:50):
right? Like he when he was younger, he
like created a binder of horrific shots, like of movies.
Remember this? Yeah, like a Pokémon binder.
Exactly. And so like, I still think that
in Hereditary, Hereditary Midsummer that you people would
think of a more like traditionalhorror vibes.
And then he's doing the same thing as in Beau's Afraid and
(09:11):
Eddington, but he's just wanted different uncomfortable things
to like live underneath your skin and be a horrific presence.
And I think he does do that in certain ways in Eddington that I
think are successful today. So anyway, long winded way to
say my relationship to Aster is like interesting.
I think he's a really interesting filmmaker.
I think we're seeing this like pivot.
I'm assuming we'll get more of this and less people push him
(09:35):
unfortunately, more into like just Hereditary, like a go back
to what you have done before. Yeah.
So I'll be fascinated to see, but yeah.
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I love everything you just said
in terms of like framing it fromthe idea that Ari Astor has so
much capital and this like nichecinephile circle of being the a
(09:57):
24 horror guy that he is now become allergic to that that
very label. And he is in favor of something
that is going to be a little bitmore subversive, but also
accessible and how it's being subversive and culturally
relevant with the now and the contemporary era.
And we have said this so much onthe podcast.
Automatically when a filmmaker takes a shot by making a movie
(10:20):
in the contemporary world, they get bonus points for me.
It could be the worst movie I'veever seen.
It could still be 1/2 star movie.
I still give them credit for trying to do that because it's
so at such a huge challenge, youknow, especially when you're
like kind of seamlessly weaving and historical themes into
contemporary anxieties of a narrative.
(10:40):
Jordan Peele's probably the mostimpressive filmmaker next to
outside the horror genre, like aPaul Thomas Anderson who can do
something like that, which we'regoing to see in one battle after
another in September, which I'm very excited for.
Which interestingly seems to have very similar themes to
Eddington. But yeah, I think what you what
you said about Astor being allergic to being the a 24
(11:00):
horror guy is really interestingbecause he seems like he doesn't
want to be the puzzle box director.
He doesn't want to be the YouTube explained filmmaker.
He doesn't want to be the filmmaker.
Whoever one thinks is pretentious with their
symbolism. He made two of the great like
symbolism heavy movies of the last 10 years.
But with Beau is Afraid, which Iwould also argue is like kind of
lofty in its themes, even if people easily reduced it to like
(11:23):
being a a mommy's boy issue movie in terms of
deconstruction, deconstructions of like masculinity and
Odyssey's and like narrativizingyour own life to make it, you
seem more, I don't know, stable than you actually are.
I thought that was a really impressive psychological pivot
for him. And he seems to just continue
pivoting into the psychological arena where he is entering a
(11:44):
more kind of like keeping like an Albert Brooks sense of humor,
but and like Rob Reiner, like misery toned, but with the Coen
brothers, with like a Spielberg with a Scorsese after hours kind
of vibe that is more surreal, not exactly Lynchian, but maybe
more like the next tier beneath Lynch.
And that's very exciting. With Eddington, it seems like
(12:08):
he's going into a space that is like he wants to also now bring
in like a contrarian crowd. He wants to bring in like a
Tarantino crowd. He wants to bring in an
Aronofsky crowd, which is an interesting move for him in his
career. I'm sure he doesn't think about
his his movies in that kind of like business sense, but to me,
just watching from afar, maybe he's not aware of it, but he
does seem to want to like open up his.
(12:30):
I don't know the demographics tonow this group of people who are
looking for movies that are almost muddled and what their
messaging are purposely. But then that can lead a lot of
people to then looking at Ari Astor is our new contrarian
filmmaker, almost how we talked about with Alex Garland on Civil
War on that big episode, which again, is one of the ones we
have on Patreon right now. My issue with Eddington at the
(12:51):
top here. And I guess we can transition
into the conversation on this new movie.
We just saw it last night. So it's very fresh in our minds.
So so we should say that is thatthis movie is fascinatingly
ambitious, but also, like I said, really muddled.
I think it it weirdly feels weightless for being a movie
that is so political. Does that make sense?
(13:13):
Like it, it feels like when we left the theater, I felt like I
watched something that was insignificant.
But about the most significant things currently culturally in
America, in the United States, which is like really sad to
admit because this is like, again, one of my favorite film
makers in the last 10 years. This is not a bad movie to me,
but not great, but not great andmaybe not good.
And he, you know, he he's pivoting to he's keeping the
(13:38):
same themes, I think that he's been exploring, but he's being
more, I think, direct with them now and he's pivoting to a new
genre. This is kind of a semi
dystopian, which probably isn't the right word, but let's just
say like semi almost collapse ofthe world that's about to
happen. Satirical Western that is also a
satire of current American political echo chambers of the
(14:01):
last five years, but it's filtered through this satire on
westerns with this very recent COVID pandemic era backdrop to
speak to those commentaries. Yeah.
Now, again, I, I think I like this a little bit more than you
because I think so just a littlebit because I think I found it
just maybe I just admire the fact that he's, that he's trying
(14:23):
giving effort because some of our great directors are like
afraid to make movies where likephones exist, you know, and that
makes me sad sometimes. And I'm like, just try like,
don't, it's not like I think anybody's cowardly, but I just
think it makes movies more commercially relevant.
Like audiences will be more willing to go to movies.
So they see themselves on screen.
And a lot of directors don't want the responsibility
(14:44):
politically, socially or emotionally to take that on.
And so he goes for that here. So I appreciate that, but I
think I am with you. And as far as this movie just
feels uneven and like overwrought, like there's too
much shit going on in the movie.But again, we've only had like
1215 hours to think about it. Like, how are you feeling right
now from walking out of the theater just last night?
(15:05):
I mean, I feel like I'm kind of comparing it to Beau's Afraid
because it has a similar wacky quality.
And after Beau's Afraid, like I woke up the next morning, I was
like, I loved that movie. Yeah.
It's so much fun, even if the even if the crowd wasn't there
with me. I they were not.
Really. I was like one of the only
(15:26):
people laughing. Laughing, yeah.
They left the theatre mid movie.And I think that was so
successful because he kind of stuck to one idea.
It was like he he almost made like worst person in the world.
But let's like put Joaquin Phoenix in it and make him like
a man child and really explore this through a a surveillance
lens of your the like you said, the narrative izing of like
(15:49):
yourself that's also passed along to you through your
family. And so I I love that.
And they're completely differentmovies, but I at least wanted
the humor to work for me. And I think that unfortunately,
you know, and we talked about how this his new kind of these
(16:09):
this new kind of wave of movies that he's been making feel Cohen
ask, right. And it felt like, I don't know
if you already said this becausewe kind of talked about it after
we got out of the movie, but it felt like a no country for old
men. But let's make fun of the
Western even more. And then a burn after reading,
except that he was also adding anot sympathy quality to the
(16:33):
characters, but they're a littlebit more realized than the burn
after reading characters where they didn't feel like these kind
of ponds that are story right. So.
That's a good way to frame it because the CIA and or whoever
it is, the government organization, it feels like
you're in their movie, like they're telling a story or
something. And after reading, yeah.
So and everyone's doing a bit there, right.
(16:54):
So like, but here we have like grounded people kind of in a
burn after reading No Country for Old Men world.
And fortunately, because we do have those still the characters
being both grounded but also caricatures in certain senses.
Like it felt it, it just it didn't wasn't fully successful
(17:16):
on like the different kind of angles he was trying to do when
he was trying to like poke fun at a contradiction or kind of
performative politics or what we'll talk about like the real,
like a realized fears of or likeliteralizing kind of bullshit,
like myths that are created in echo chambers.
(17:37):
And like that is funny. But ultimately, because it kept
like kind of switching back and forth, it was kind of whiplashy
in the movie. And then also it was just far
too long. Like there should have been some
stuff that was left on the cutting room floor that wasn't,
and that's ultimately why it didn't feel like a completely
cohesive movie, even though I liked parts of it.
(17:57):
Yeah, he's trying to and we're about to get into spoilers, but
to stay kind of non spoiler territory for a second, he's
trying to satirize an American frontier mythos, right?
He uses New Mexico as the location for Eddington this this
fictional city is going to be. And he uses indigenous lands
right next door as a symbol for our country's stained history,
which also becomes a comedic beat in the movie.
(18:17):
And then the film leans harder into its setting of a endemic
era. Once you kind of establish this
like Neo frontier Western that we're in where there's a lot of
digital paranoia and that digital paranoia becomes more
the theme on the forefront. And then the Western
deconstruction satire is at the backdrop where like when our
(18:38):
lead character, Joe, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is driving
around in his sheriff truck and it feels like a like his horse,
like, or these men, these men are fighting with their big
trucks and big guns. Like that becomes a part of like
the, the, the joke on this, likethese white men cosplaying as
Cowboys. Like that works, but it becomes
more of the backdrop theme because I think there's a, an
(19:01):
imbalance of satires going on that is not really well
calibrated as much as I thought it would be considering it's Ari
and he's such a great rider. And I think the well you noted,
I think the ideological balance between poke fun at online
leftist performativity and virtue signaling within the
right wing cosplay of violent figures or symbols in American
(19:22):
history never quite land somewhere interesting enough or
complex enough to make the moviethat much that fun to experience
or talk about to then to the point where it almost feels like
sad. Like I felt a little sad walking
out, if that makes sense. Not about the state of the world
or anything. Yeah, and not because he, like
said something profound that made me sad about the world,
(19:43):
Right, Like it was, I guess disappointed is more than sad.
Yeah, Yeah. And I don't think, and to to be
clear before we jump into spoilers, I don't think the
movie is problematic or irresponsible necessarily
because there is a commendable attempt to say that extremism of
the left and right in America right now are not equal
extremes. And right wing extremism is
(20:03):
clearly the more dangerous lane to be in in American culture.
But unfortunately, because the film is imbalanced in that
satire, it risks. In many moments, and there's a
we're going to talk about some of them were theater was
laughing at jokes and didn't understand what kind of movie
they were in where the film has these moments of accidentally
(20:24):
validating the very groups it's trying to critique, if that
makes sense. But again, it's not a bad movie.
There's like flashes of greatness that I really enjoyed
in this. I love how the town of Eddington
is just built on like self hate,like cultural resentment, like
the very people who live there are all guilty.
And some of them are recognizingthat in different ways or just
like failing to recognize that they do a good job of like
(20:47):
algorithmic radicalization that's hyper real in our modern
world. And there's just like really
good subversive character writing with our lead character,
Joe, who we're going to have a lot to say about today.
Joe Cross, Joe Cross, our sheriff and mayor, possible
mayor. And then what you said how the
movie leans into kind of like a meta violence with like
mobilized leftists and I don't want to get too.
(21:10):
Yeah, we'll talk about it. Spoiler heavy with that because
we're about to jump in. But yeah, I think disappointed
is the best word because I did feel like I was just watching
avatars of our contemporary world run around Eddington.
And that sounds cool on paper, but it didn't have that same
kind of like feverish, nightmarish dream quality that
his other movies have that make you want to just keep talking
about them so. Definitely.
(21:32):
OK, spoiler warning for Eddington ahead.
Let's jump in. So Eddington, like I said, is
part western, part political satire, part pandemic era movie,
and it's all fragmented together.
The town of Eddington is this kind of neo Western backdrop,
but again, it's like more of this metaphor for an America
(21:53):
that's been cracked in several parts.
Everyone in this town seems to be living in parallel realities
and they're all drawing from different information streams.
And the mother or mother-in-law figure is like looks.
It has like Q Anon conspiracy theories running throughout the
movie, sometimes just talking over people's dialogue, almost
as if she's screaming out scripture, but from like these
(22:14):
right wing groups online. And the movie basically has a
narrative that is quasi Jaws with the mayor, quasi election
from Alexander Payne, quasi likeNo Country for Old Men.
But it's more of like just this visualization of what the
Internet was like from 2020 to 2022.
So it is kind of a time capsule movie and I'm sure it'll be
(22:35):
interesting to rewatch in a decade or so.
And at the center of it, we haveJoe Cross, Joaquin Phoenix.
What do you think about Phoenix in this?
Because he's usually pretty excellent, but he is given a
hard roll to play here as the sympathetic pathetic sheriff
figure then turned really like assassin terrorist on the.
Movie, Yeah. Which is wild.
(22:55):
Yeah, I thought he was great. You know, he he had to do a
really interesting kind of double performance.
Yeah. It's a good way to put it.
Yeah, like he was kind of the mystery of the movie.
We were with him the whole movieand really, I think, you know,
he was the mystery of the movie in terms of we're asking like,
(23:16):
wait, Ari, how do you feel aboutthis?
And it almost like dropped too late.
But that's that's a different conversation.
I think Phoenix was great and what he was asked to do.
He does this really fun, pathetic performance, especially
when he is in his sheriff's car and like jumps out in the middle
(23:39):
of the street at the grocery store in particular.
And we have that kind of like traditional, like Western, like
spur moment, the like the dust ball, like, you know, rolling
across the street, his face off,you know, with a person who
works at the grocery store who is just trying to keep everyone
safe. And like, like you said, this
(24:01):
kind of Western fantasy of this character.
Joe's like I will die on this hill.
What for? Not sure, but I'm going to
control this situation. And the way that he, he kind of
like lets out these breaths of like, come on, man, like let's
all just like care about one, one another.
Let's fix each other's hearts, like what happened to us, You
(24:23):
know, like those kind of momentsthat are expressed through
walking, looking down for a second and letting out a like a
certain type of high pitched to breath is some great work.
And I and I think he he does a great job at even though this is
like elevated character every everyone kind of is.
He does a good job at making us be like making us understand how
(24:48):
absurd this character is. But the reason that the
character is grounded is becausepeople like this exist.
And then he takes it to the nextlevel of materializing the the
kind of like online algorithmic like bullshit that this
character is like thinking about.
And then through like his actions, he he he basically just
(25:10):
like literalizes both this character's like under girding
like hatred that he that he professes he doesn't have.
And then also his anxieties thatare like made-up, right and and
makes his like his self preservation like very clear,
(25:32):
right. So like, I think that arc is
difficult to do in this very hyper specific absurd world.
So I think he does a great job. He's the the most impressive
part of this movie, not just theperformance, but the writing of
Joe and as far as like this fallto a radicalization of becoming
this like domestic terrorist is fascinating because the whole
(25:55):
first half of the movie positions Joe from his POV.
Most of the movie shot from his POV in the first two acts of the
movie, except for like one or two sequences with Pedro
Pascal's character, who we'll get to in a second.
But we see that Joe is this, like I, as you said, pathetic,
but also sometimes even sympathetic, soft spoken anti
mask sheriff who wants to control his life, the narrative
(26:16):
around him, his household, his town.
But again, it's being shot and delivered in a way in the
performance, in a way that you sort of understand where he's
coming from. And then you watch him slowly
lose his mind, not just through his like YouTube tutorials, but
because like by the final act, Joe is running for mayor with a
conspiracy covered truck and a campaign platform built on a.
(26:37):
Truck. Half baked ideas with like Bill
Gates's face plastered on the side of the truck and the.
Word freedom, all these like insane.
Freedoms like without a mask or something like that.
There's like a crazy slogan. I think one of my favorite ones
is like when they're taping likeBitcoin is the future or
(26:59):
something, like on a church. I think like Michael's like
taping on there as everyone's putting up the the signs.
Yeah. And Phoenix is just like he's
very volatile, he's very fragile.
He does a good job of feeling like he's he has horrible IBS.
Like Joaquin Phoenix walks around like he's the worst IBS
you've ever seen. He's like always holding his
stomach. He's always unsettled.
(27:20):
He's always chewing on like a Tums or some kind of sleeping
pill. Like he's just internally it
feels like a Xenomorph is going to pop out of Joaquin Phoenix.
In his best performances from like Gladiator to the Joker to
this movie. He's really good at that.
I don't know what you want to call that.
I think we talked about it as like a David Sims for The
Atlantic. I think talked about it as if as
if he had like a stomach ache. That's sort of what it feels
(27:42):
like. But Joe starts to begin to be
confused in the first act by theextremism of the conservative
people around him, which is the tricky part of the writing that
we're going to jump into. The second act where his wife is
like 1 bad day from joining a cult.
His mother-in-law again, reads like Q Anon, like it's
scripture. And in the first two acts,
(28:03):
masters really trying to get youto the audience in a certain
type of audience to sympathize deeply with this character as
this reluctant antihero cowboy Joe.
And Phoenix plays him as a man teetering just on the edge, like
with this like sense of masculine purpose and wanting to
control people around him. And I think it's really it's
(28:27):
really good political humor. And then that is then mixed in
with this more uncomfortable humor.
And this is where halfway through the movie, I turn to you
like, wait, what movie are we inwhere we start getting locked in
Joe's POV? And there's moments of him doing
what you were saying, like in the store pointing out
contradictions with people who have masks that are half on
their face. Or he'll walk into parties where
(28:48):
people are at mask parties, which was a thing like in
2020-2021 where people got together, we're told not to with
masks on, being 6 feet apart. And you walk into one of those
parties and Joe's like, well, even though I don't have a mask
on, you guys are like not 6 feetapart.
Your masks aren't really on yourfaces.
And so he was noting these contradictions.
And this is where I was getting worried as an audience member
being like, where are we going here politically, considering
(29:10):
the the stakes of that moment inour history and still today and
how it affects us culturally. But then we get into, like, more
uncomfortable moments of humor where Joe starts like, using,
like, the Efsler or another character, like a father of one
of the kids uses the Arsler. And this is where the movie
(29:32):
never explicitly declared where it stands politically, and it
doesn't need to. But this is where the audience
members in our movie, in our crowd, started laughing.
Yeah, it like especially when the Efsler drops in that scene,
even though the teenager who's playing the Gen.
Z kid is like, what the fuck is wrong with the sheriff?
And it's funny about what he says.
The way that Joaquin Phoenix drops the Efsler and the way
(29:52):
that our audience reacted where half of us were silent and
uncomfortable and the other halfof the audience laughed like
they were in a 2005 Wedding Crashers movie was fascinating.
And so I I want to ask you, is that intentional from Astor?
Like, is he doing the bow is afraid kind of using the the
screen as a mirror to get the audience to think about who
(30:13):
they're sitting next to? Is there a madness to Addington
to you? Because that's the only reason I
kind of forgave the movie politically and was like, what
am I in right now? Because by the third act, when
they twisted on us and Joe becomes like an assassin, I was
like, oh, OK, So this is like a subversive kind of character
study in a little bit of a subversive twist to get the
audience to then reflect on whatthey might have been laughing
(30:35):
at, if that makes sense. But I.
Don't know if it was successful.Yeah, I don't think it was
successful. I think that was the approach of
like, let me show you these things that like these
characters who are having dinnerwith like these exposed like
wall of guns like are saying. So it's not, you know, I don't
(30:56):
think that I don't think his intention from that context is
to have us like actually think that is funny, right?
But I do think that because he took so long to show us who Joe
Cross was, Yes. And like you said, he's not this
(31:17):
person who is like just a, you know, cares about his like wife
and who is asthmatic. And so like he, he had, he's
saying like he can't breathe in the mask and and there's like
all these kind of half truths. Right that.
He is like identifying. And so like, it takes too long
for that to drop. So by the time we get to those
(31:37):
slurs, we haven't really, like, totally pivoted on his
character. And not that you need characters
to be like, totally morally, youknow, uncomplicated.
But yeah, I would say that it like felt like really messy, but
when the. Assassination happens.
(31:59):
It does feel like a real twist. Like I felt like I.
Felt like that was impressive. Because I I did not think it was
Joe. Plot shifted the movie.
Oh yeah. Yeah, when Pedro Pascal's
character is killed and his son is killed in a really, like,
brutal scene because the movie isn't bloody up until that
point, right? And it shows Joe behind the
bushes, like hundreds of yards away.
(32:19):
I was like, oh, shit. Because then the movie does
force you to reflect on like, you turn next to your neighbor,
the person you were sitting nextto who was laughing at those
moments and like, kind of sidingwith Joe and then them not
realizing that the whole movie is about them.
Do you know what I mean? I guess so, but I think that's
like the issue with the the movie in terms of what you're
talking about at the beginning, like opening the the net almost
(32:40):
like too wide of who you want tolike catch and and then kind of
be like this is you. I I think for like 1 of the the
most successful jokes, we have the the Brian kid at the end,
like having a selfie with Marjorie Taylor Green.
(33:02):
Like that. In the context of that for the
whole movie about being like the, the really big like hitting
humor of like a Brian type character.
I don't think that, you know, Ari Astor is making the Joe
figure or like the dad of Brian,like he's making a joke at their
(33:26):
expense. But again, like I I think
because it took too long to get there, it becomes confusing to
an audience. But then also be also because
he's like even though I'm not sympathizing with the Joe figure
I I'm aware that the movie is portraying him as the most
(33:47):
grounded character ish. Well, he's the one with the most
like screen. Time we're following him yeah so
because of that too, but I thinklike in terms of zooming out
because we have Brian at the endlike because of this
conservative like child podcaster.
Child drifter, Yeah, Which is real.
Like that is a real thing. Like I, you know, I think that
(34:09):
we can understand like Ari's overall goal and just say like
he was not successful in like certain parts of it.
But I think like having those things, if he did them in a
maybe a little bit of a different way, like would be
fine. Like I still thought they were
funny at the expense of the character, like being so
petulant. Yes, yes, yes.
(34:30):
Well, there's two other ways he tries to do it.
One. Because they're both these kind
of like, respected, like male figures of like, a father or a
sheriff in society. So like, yeah.
Well, there's the two ways are the relationship between Ted and
Joe. So like Mayor Ted and Sheriff
Joe, that's Pedro Pascal. Joaquin Phoenix Who?
Pedro was also amazing I would say.
(34:51):
That's my favorite dynamic of the movie.
That's my favorite relationship.Every anytime they're in a scene
talking together, I'm like, oh, this movie's working.
It just didn't happen enough. And I want to know more about
their their story together. And some is suggested, some is
not. The other subplot that's
supposed to help this, this kindof commentary about a rise of
radicalism or extremism in rightwing groups and how that has
(35:12):
like a lot of like cultural stakes that are violent in
America today is through Austin Butler's character Vernon, which
is a subplot that I think is just kind of disastrous.
I don't think it works at all. I think it takes up so much
time. It adds a lot of bloat in the
movie and it makes the pace feelkind of dreadful to sit through.
And I felt that so many moments.Nothing to do with the
(35:32):
performance. I think Austin Butler is giving
actually one of his more interesting performances, even
though he's had like, a very young career, but he's playing
like a TikTok Messiah figure, which I think is really
successful. And it sucks because it's
clearly like a riff on Tom Cruise and Magnolia, like a TJ
Mackey character. And if we only had more of that,
(35:53):
like if we went to one of the meetings with Emma Stone with
her character and learned more about her character, who's also
really underused in this movie. Yeah, it's so wild.
It feels like you could have used like anyone other than Emma
Stone also because she didn't even get to be like or do Emma
Stone thing. She's a generational talent,
like literally one of the great actors in the history of movies
(36:14):
and is like one of the most critically acclaimed actors in
history of movies. And she plays a character who is
basically sedated throughout themovie.
That doesn't mean that it can't be an interesting character, but
there's not enough depth there, even with what we learned about
her tragic back story. Yeah, It feels like her
character is more in service of like the plot and then that kind
of like extra layer of the speech to create tension between
(36:38):
Joaquin's character, Pedro's character less than it is about
like Emma Stone's character. Right.
And so the whole dynamic in thismovie between the trio of
Butler, Stone and Phoenix's characters in terms of like the
different the spectrum of I think radicalization of right
(36:59):
wing groups should have been more interesting.
And that's why I think a lot of the the character study of the
fall of Joe Cross doesn't totally hit.
Now we get more to the pitcher Pascal part of this.
I think that is the element of the movie where the politics of
the movie does kind of move in amore complex and interesting
direction, where Pedro's playingMayor Ted, who, you know, Pascal
(37:22):
is always like really excellent.He's had a really strange but
fun year in movies. He's been going to continue that
in Fantastic Four, and he is a different political archetype.
He's a neoliberal technocrat whowants a data center, kind of
posing sort of as like this grassroots leftist social
(37:44):
advocate activist. But he also just kind of comes
off because we get some moments of his POV, like when he's on
the computer in that meeting, we're talking to his son, where
he kind of comes off as this like, hollow liberal state
politician who doesn't really care about the people and is
maybe working for his own means.And his dynamic it with Joe is
(38:04):
fascinating because they seem like old friends turned rivals.
Or at least that's kind of how. Are they like knew each other in
high school? It's a small town.
Right, yeah. And maybe Ted was the cool kid.
And you know, there's there's a lot suggested and they have a
good bar encounter when they first meet, when he has the mask
on behind the window and the grocery store encounter.
(38:25):
There's a lot of like unspoken resentment between the two.
And Ted begins to repeatedly, And this is Joe's fault, like
effortlessly kind of like humiliate Joe in public to the
point of slapping him in public.But then this is where Astor
subverts expectations of Joe's character when Joe falsely
accuses Ted, who is Pedro Pascal, of being a sexual
(38:46):
predator in the tone of the movie flips with the character
study, if you want to call it that.
And Joe, who is, is this fantasyconservative cowboy anti hero
who the audience, a lot of men in our audience were kind of
aligned with, I would say because of the way he was shot
in the first two acts, becomes adomestic terrorist because he
assassinates Ted and his son in a really like brutal scene that
(39:10):
was kind of jaw-dropping to me. And Astor makes that choice in a
politically interesting way. So he can clearly critique right
wing radicalism and the martyr complex kind of at the heart of
that radicalism and obsession with like violent resolutions.
And Joe's arc goes from self victimizing clout chaser sheriff
(39:31):
who wants to become mayor to then falsely accusing a
progressive Latino man in a position of power.
And when challenged by that man for evidence for Joe's
accusation of what he did to hiswife, Joe doesn't have as
evidence and resorts to murder and reframing Ted.
Is this a criminal? And I thought that was a really
clever tonal shift in the movie because the audience sort of
(39:54):
went silent when that assassination happened.
And there was a kind of a realization of what kind of
movie in satire they were in. And you know it, a part of it
was just it's alarming to see a father and son get like killed
on screen like this, especially because and Ari Astor can have
seen this, but. These echo chambers we're seeing
on screen, this indoctrination we're seeing on screen, the
these kind of like the radicalization of American
(40:17):
people in the pipeline of that that we see every day from
online grievances to like anti immigrant rhetoric to sheriff's
in Florida or other states just recently indirectly but also
sort of directly saying that youcould be killed for protesting.
Right. Yeah.
When, when Phoenix at the the speech at the end is like, I
encourage my residents to own guns.
Yeah. Yeah, we're like recently a
(40:39):
literal congresswoman and her husband and her dog were
assassinated for their progressive politics.
Like these are real life issues that are happening in in moments
of violence in our country that are happening right now.
And this movie was written yearsbefore this moment that we're
living through. And so, you know, we're seeing
real consequences of echo chambers and indoctrination.
(41:00):
And Joe represents that real life fall.
And so that's why I'm kind of ina weird space right now with the
discourse on this movie being like problematic or like
offensive because I'm like, well, I mean, that's a pretty
impressive right, quote UN quote, rise and fall of this
character, Joe, to represent thepolitical tension or country
where your neighbor sitting nextto you in the movie theater may
(41:22):
be related to this character. And then now is then visualize
on screen as like the real threat in our country where you
said on the ride home, like the calls coming from inside the
house for Joe and like, conservatives watching him at
home. And I yeah, I thought that was
really well done. If not, you know, I'll say this.
It was a really well done artistic experiment.
(41:43):
The Joe character in a movie that doesn't totally work.
Yeah, I think, I guess I'll go ahead and just say my extra
credit now like that. I think that is if that's the
theme of the movie or the thesisof the movie, that this Joe
Cross character, right, is looking outward everywhere at
all these things that are attacking like his family.
(42:05):
And why can't we all just fix each other's hearts or quote UN
quote like what we hear of like why can't everyone just listen
to each other? Or what we had a problem with
with like Civil War recently butis also in a lot of like other
movies like both sides quote UN quote are bad.
Tribalism on both sides are. Equally bad.
Yeah. So like in the like, kind of him
(42:26):
speaking into that whole, you know, rhetoric and thematic
bullshit that's in like modern movies.
I think if his, you know, kind of swing at this movie is
looking at a Joe Cross characterand seeing how he is like
(42:47):
pointing fingers at everyone else.
And it really is just like the call is coming from inside the
house. If that's like the thesis of the
movie, that's what deserves extra credit because I do think
that was successful. Like and I think at the end it
was like very funny. That's my extra credit too
though. Yeah, so like literalizing
Antifa on this private jet that comes to kill him.
(43:10):
That's where he was like straight up, like I'm fucking
with right wing people now. Like I'm now I'm going to give
you what you want and it's not going to look pretty.
So like that shit, that was funny, I just think.
Tifa Ninjas on a jet, guys, thatwas insane.
That that was really funny. Yeah, yeah, it was really good.
So like, I think I, I think thatwhole aspect was good.
(43:30):
It's just that it's not that it's not that he like portrayed
the Joe Cross character as too empathetic or whatever.
And I, I just think that we spent too long with him again
until we have that flip because there are a lot of people who
might be like politically apathetic in the audience or
(43:54):
have a more like neoliberal typeof like lens or like you said,
have a, a sympathetic lens of being like, well, I know this
person and ultimately, yes, they're a little crazy, but you
know, they're ultimately they'reharmless, right?
Like they're nice to their neighbors or they're nice to
other white people. Like that is like, so they're
they're that was not addressed quick enough, even though that's
(44:17):
an interesting idea. I think to like look at a Joe
Cross character, like ultimatelyis he aren't harmless and having
him kind of say like one of my favorite lines from his like,
don't make me think about it before you post the video
because like just post it. His deputy, who's what I love,
his name is Guy. Guy.
Guy is like, Are you sure you want to post that?
He's like, don't even make me think about it, you know, like
(44:37):
the idea that he like doesn't even want to think right.
He is so funny. And then also the the idea that
I think like the audience in general is the kind of the story
we're being told is like that Joe Cross is not he, he couldn't
kill someone that kind of right thing or like the ultimately
(44:58):
harmless like rhetoric of someone who is like a right wing
person. I I think that was successful.
Again, the drop was not quick enough.
And I think it can. I think I felt it confusing
people. But he doesn't.
He spent too much time trying toget that audience on his side
because he was like, let me pokefun at Black Lives Matter.
Let me poke fun at protest. Let me.
(45:19):
Yeah, which we also have to talkabout.
Like let's let's explore these things, but also just in a
really petty way to make this audience think that they're in a
movie that they're not. So then when I make when I, you
know, that hat drops and we do shift into this more kind of
like elevated conservative nightmare.
It's going to like really hit and make people feel like what
(45:40):
kind of fucking movie that I just watched.
Except it just you're right. It takes an hour and a half to
get there. It's just too far.
Yeah. And I think also kind of what
you were talking about earlier, even though it ends up, you
know, finishing the movie with this idea of like people having
this rhetoric or responding to the the kind of rhetoric of like
(46:01):
both sides are, there's tribalism on both sides.
Both sides are bad kind of idea.It's responding to that by
saying right wing politics is like the extremism is obviously
far worse. Like it's responding to that at
the end. But but throughout the movie, I
actually don't think it it does that successfully enough where
(46:22):
yes, it's looking at the contradiction of like
performative, like white activism, right?
And that's fine. But to almost like keep it
within the balance or trying to,it feels like he's actually
actively trying to trick his audience to to bring up that
argument within them of like both sides are bad or like this
(46:44):
idea that everyone's absurd, like within these echo chambers.
Yeah. And again, like, I I think, you
know, watching the whole movie, looking at as a whole, he was
responding to that. So he was kind of conjuring it
up. But it was far too long in the
movie where then it actually felt like he was showing us this
(47:05):
idea of like these two things being equal in in their impact.
And so like that was really, I just think unsuccessful.
And he just should have like, I think really reworked this this
movie. It could have been tighter.
It could have been more clear because I think a lot of times
(47:26):
like film Bros and sorry to the Bros, but people in particular
like who are men will be like, well, we don't need to like
spell it out for our audience. You know, we don't we shouldn't
ask for movies that are like spoon feeding us ideas.
And that's not what I'm asking for, right?
Like something can still be looking at the realities of like
contradictions in real life. But there it does matter like
(47:49):
how you craft a story and createa story.
That's what makes something unsuccessful or successful.
And here, like, it's not the ambiguity of like what he's
saying, like that's interesting and actually makes it
uninteresting because it's like you're actually like taking away
from your thesis because you have to kind of read the room
with, with movies like this. Yes I I agree but I do want to
(48:13):
be clear I don't think you're saying this but like the civil
war is a is a great comp to thismovie.
Civil War is a both sides like anti war movie and it really
struggles of being an anti war film because it's so both sides
are bad. It's so like tribalism on both
sides leads to extremism, leads to ideological differences.
And we're actually arguing for the same things.
(48:34):
And we have so many actually similarities in our differences.
And Antifa is just as bad as theJanuary 6th people.
And it's like, OK, Alex Garland,like you're clearly not a film
maker who is who has their finger on the pulse of America
right now. And even though it's, like, one
of my favorite directors of the last 10 years, he's made some
movies that I'm now, like, very sceptical of.
And we haven't talked about warfare on this podcast, but
(48:55):
that movie is in this conversation as well.
Yeah. But I don't think Eddington's in
that space, even though I agree with what you're saying.
It just, I don't think so much. Time in trying to be clever and
it's satire and trying to be clever and it's flip because I
ultimately think it's like targeting right wing extremism
to such a hilarious degree. In the last act, the last 35
minutes of having our sheriff run around with like this
(49:16):
massive machine gun around town trying to kill antifa people and
then to end the movie with this.I don't know what you want to
call them next. Conservative young grifter kid,
like dead eyed white teen in cell type who is just trying to
like date some girl in high school, kills the antifa ninja
(49:39):
and then starts podcasting and snapping photos of like Marjorie
Taylor Green. Like that's, I think that's
successful. He has like an energy drink ad
on his wall. It's wonderful stuff.
Like, I think it's really successful writing to end this
podcast, not a podcast to end this movie.
And I, I still think, you know, unfortunately, there are going
to be contrarian audiences, people in this space, movie
(50:02):
critics even and movie podcasters who are going to be
like, yeah, like both sides are so hypocritical and like,
wokeness is killing America. And and those people, you know,
still tout themselves as being leftist, but say shit like that.
And you're a little bit skeptical of those people and
their intentions. And or I I am very skeptical.
And I think those people will feel seen by this movie,
unfortunately, because it's taking what you said too much
(50:25):
time in that first two acts. But OK, that's why that's, you
know, my extra credits of Addington was very similar to
yours, so I don't really have much to add.
Yeah, I guess the only other things were I I think that the
the movie actually did a good job with how Phoenix like threw
Michael under the bus so quickly.
(50:47):
And I also think that we should acknowledge this kind of like
bow is afraid misery end of the movie that worked in terms of
like the the humor of the motherwho like believes in conspiracy
theories running the government,like on behalf of Joaquin
(51:08):
Phoenix's character. But like in terms of the some of
the actual jokes or the laughs in our our theater, like felt
like so ableist, like gross jokes.
And so like, I think ultimately,like, that wasn't successful and
felt like more something that could have been explored and
like Beau was afraid with the actually interesting lens.
(51:33):
And then also like, I just have to shout out once more the
campaign signs and the truck that he is driving.
I think the truck is also what deserves my extra credit.
Yeah, it is a good, good movie Artifact.
Yeah. I want to shout out Mikel, I
think Ward and Luke Grimes, who play the two deputies in this
movie. They are very good.
(51:54):
They're they're playing 2 completely different characters.
But when Michael does get turnedin by Joe, yeah.
And this reality, again, if you're a conservative audience
member, has been kind of siding with this movie and being like,
oh, it's so smart and it's contrarian politics and showing
the disease of wokeness and the pseudo politics of protest and
the virtue signaling young left,this teenage white girl who
(52:16):
represents that. Sarah.
I think then you're really thrown off when your main
character kills a person of color and then tries to turn
another person of color into jail for a crime that he
committed in both cases. And so, like, that's a really
good twist on paper and it's visualized well on screen.
But again, we keep repeating ourselves but two hours into the
movie. Yeah.
(52:37):
And also, I mean, I think it works in terms of like Ari
Astor, you know, he he's like dropping something and then he
makes Joaquin Phoenix ultimatelyand his like, actions contradict
it, right. Like he's talking about like
they're just like bad apples, but like, I'm not that sheriff,
I'm not that cop. And so there's like that kind of
he he's laying things to to twist it with Joe Cross's
(52:59):
character. But it's like, yeah, it just.
Wasn't effective enough. Yeah, yeah.
Luke Grimes, though, shot him for playing like the dumb
racist, like deputy cop guy. Yeah, Guy.
Thank you. Yeah.
When he explodes, I was like, that's a cool ending to this
character because I hated that guy.
And yeah, extra credit to the Antifa ninja showdown.
And I guess extra credit to the cinematography of this movie,
(53:19):
even though I didn't love the editing.
I think it was poorly paced. And I think a lot of the Austin
Butler Emma Stone subplot was like really forced in there.
Darius Konji, who shot this movie, or Kanji brought a real
textured, like moodiness to thisfilm.
Had some great set pieces. I love the way the cameras
panning with Joe when he's looking all around him waiting
for like his assassin to come athim, only for a guy not even to
(53:41):
come at him with a gun, just with a straight knife to the
brain. That was really well done.
So I I like the cinematography and the, the kind of the wide
deliberate compositions that make you feel like you're
watching a Western, but it's just such a, a play on Westerns.
Yeah, the car, the kind of car chase at the end, felt the way
it was shot to make the cars seem like they're not totally
(54:03):
going fast, but trying to go fast.
Like when Joaquin Phoenix is like trying to track the other
cop who's going to his home to investigate and ask if, like,
Joaquin Phoenix owns a gun. Because he's starting to suspect
that Joe Cross is actually the person at the center of this
and. That's an all time detective, by
the way, the Native American detective.
Yeah, and the the car chase making it seem like so stupid.
(54:25):
Essentially it was like some of Astor's best work just because I
think that whole like, that's a good one.
Making fun of the Western was really funny to me.
Like every all the elements of that.
Looking fun at car chases too. It was like a funny idea.
Like, look at this satire and French Connection.
Like, we have fast. He's chasing him down.
(54:46):
Yeah. He's just good at like, like,
finding the funny bits of masculinity.
Ari Astor has been consistently good at that throughout his
career, even when other film makers in his land, like Robert
Deckers disappointed us a littlebit.
Just right to Astor continues it.
OK, That was the extra credits of Eddington, a movie that, much
(55:06):
like I think Bong Joon Ho's Mickey 17 this year, was a
little bit disappointing. Yeah, that's an interesting
movie to comp. I think we we were looking
forward to those movies so much and I like, I like needed this
movie to be good, especially because maybe 17 I wasn't as
high on even I liked parts of it20.
Years later was a surprise. That was a surprise.
That was a huge surprise for me.I loved that movie.
(55:26):
But also I've been, yeah. I feel like there's been so
many, you know, we just saw likeJurassic Park or World, sorry,
Rebirth. And the only thing holding me
together is that we're going to do Jurassic Park on the Patreon
because I love that movie. But but yeah, like I, I felt
like I needed this and, and we were, we, this is pretty high up
in our movies that we were anticipating for 2025.
(55:49):
Yeah. And so it's such a bummer. 30
most anticipated movies of the year, and I think this was 3.
Yeah, when those fall, I'm so fascinated to see what Astor
comes out with next, though, because I'm still like, you
know, in the theater for him regardless.
But it it is interesting that Hereditary, Midsummer and Beau
was afraid all felt like deeply personal films.
And this was the first one that kind of felt like outside of
(56:11):
that, there were elements, you know, in it that he that he kind
of like pulls from, but it, it felt like outside of that.
So I'm really interested to see where he goes next.
I don't think it'll be like this.
This clearly felt like a lifelong genre deconstruction
project for like a cinephile, like Ari's a nerd.
And I think this movie for him is like, I got to deconstruct
the Western genre where nobody makes westerns anymore because
(56:31):
they don't know how to. And this does feel like one of
the first Western sense No Country for Old Men.
But then he totally falls into taking too long with the
politics of the movie, unfortunately.
OK, we'll be back soon. With what do you think?
Not just Patreon, but main feed.What do we have?
We have a a massive summer blockbuster episode that we're
thinking about thrown together, which that Jurassic World movie
(56:53):
that we just talked shit about, which is truly like one of the
worst movies. I think I've I've ever.
Seen. Yeah, we'll also talk about F1
and Superman. F1 and Superman Fantastic Four.
Yeah. OK.
I think we'll like do those all in one.
Yeah, 1 episode, summer blockbuster episode and maybe.
Movies that Kelsey was forced tosee, yes.
Are you going to see? All the pod from the podcast
(57:15):
point of view, not Trey, Yeah. We'll be back then.
Peace. Bye.
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