Kulture Meltdown: Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die (2025) — "All of this is going to go horribly wrong."

I am from the future. And I'm here to set it right. Look homeless, bro. I'm not homeless. I come from a nightmare apocalypse.

This is the height of fashion. Judgment day. Wait, we're expendable? Yeah. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Culture Meltdown, a crossover show between my show, The Culture Cast, where I'm the host, Chris Dashew, and a crossover with Brian Renfro's show, Movie Meltdown, where he's the host.

I am. I can't argue with that. Yes, you are. Every time I show up, I'm there. That's right.

It's the craziest thing. And on this episode, we're talking about 2025's Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, Gore Verbinski's first film. In nearly a decade, he was put in what we so colloquially refer to as movie jail after he directed a little film that I'm sure we're going to talk about at least a little bit, which is The Lone Ranger from 2013, which, by the way, I'd like to point out in this day and age, grossing $ 260 million on a $ 250 million budget, that's called making money. Um, yeah, it, it shows you even, even in that, what I feel like is a small span of time. What's funny is that's an immense amount of time for a lot of people out there.

So it all is kind of how you gauge the passage of time, I guess. But I think of that as still a recent movie. And in that little amount of time, so much has changed in the industry that like, it's insane. Yeah, no. And, and I, I completely, you know, I completely agree.

The industry is a, um, The industry is definitely a different animal than it was, especially in 2013. But I mean, even like you said, essentially fucking year to year at this point, it's just so different. I know he directed A Cure for Wellness in 2016, but. See, here's the thing. I was looking at the lineup before we started.

I was like, oh, I would just... I remembered the big ones, but I was like, yeah, what else did he... And I remembered that being like it had been like eight years or something even since that movie. And I'm looking at it going, yeah, I remember the title. I don't think I saw...

And I'm starting to see screenshots pop up and I'm like... I think I did watch this. So what does that say about the movie? It's the movie that ended Dane DeHaan's career, more or less. Well, I think he ended his own career.

Well, fair, but at the same time, it was one of those- I don't dislike him, but- No, it's one of those things where it's like, you can't be the starring guy in a film, apparently. He was put in as much movie jail as Gore Verbinski was. They kept trying to give him movies, and it just didn't work over and over again. And this was the last one, and- But yeah, I'm looking at screenshots going, wait, that looks familiar. I think I did see this.

So that kind of encapsulates, you know, probably everyone's take on that movie of like, oh yeah, did I see that movie? So it's obviously not the most memorable film because I couldn't remember that I'd seen it. And I think I had. Well, I was actually, to go and look at Dane DeHaan's filmography, the film that put Dane DeHaan in movie jail is Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets. That's the one I was thinking of because I...

I more than most people kind of enjoy that movie. Yeah. But I still feel like he's the weak link. I'm like, it's sad that between the two of you, like she's carrying this movie for you, buddy. Like Cara Delevingne.

Yeah. That is a, that's a sad, I was just like state of affairs when she's the carrier of the torch. I think she's pretty damn good in that movie. And then I'm looking at like, yeah, you're trying to be cool, but it's just not coming across on the screen. And that's, we can all read it.

Like, we're all like, Ooh, what are you doing, man? Like, Yeah, I don't know. I don't dislike the guy, but he's just had a weird run. Yeah, well, and speaking of weird runs, like I mentioned at the opening here, on this episode of The Culture Meltdown, we're taking a look at Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die. Which is Gore Verbinski's latest film.

So the film is directed by Gore Verbinski on a script by Matthew Robinson. It stars the ever-charming, very charismatic, and in this film, 100% homeless, appearing anyways, Sam Rockwell. as a time traveler who is sent back to the past, to a norms, to try and stop, tell me if you've heard this one before, AI from taking over the world. Uh, Gore Verbinski had his finger on the pulse of the way the world was going him and Matthew Robinson, apparently, because this film came out a year ago before what I would consider to be AI kind of really taking off in a mainstream scary mode. I mean, again, like the moment it's being made available to people in a, I mean, a utilitarian way. I mean, you know, again, it's like, it's like so many things.

I mean, you know, people, people, I think overlook how important having access to a camera phone was. And I think AI in a lot of ways is that kind of technological move forward that is now that it's in the hands of just people, it can go any number of directions and, you know, for good and for bad, obviously. And so this movie, I don't know, it feels very timely. I wonder about the timeliness of it 10 years from now if it'll be just like, oh, that fucking movie was fun. But is it going to seem silly like when we watch Johnny Mnemonic now?

Well, that's what, yeah. Wow, he's got four gigs in his head. Good going, man. Yeah, wow. It just seems weird now.

Yeah, it just feels, yeah, it feels like a different time and a different place and technology has come so far so quickly. I mean, even again, to speak to the year ago of it when it came out at Fantastic Fest and then earlier this year when it was on Hulu, like it's... A lot has changed in terms of consumer AI, I think is the best term for it. But it is a film about a man from the future who claims to be from the future who goes to a diner in L.A. and assembles a group of people to help him fight AI. Juno Temple is among those people.

Haley Lou Richardson, Michael Pena, Zazie Beetz. Asim Chowdhury and Tom Taylor as well. Brian, what did you think of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, a film that I almost covered earlier this year, but Dr. Perlmutter and I decided to cover something else. So I thought I was going to watch it earlier this year and then came back to it.

So I'm very curious what led you to want to talk about this? What did you think of the film? Kind of You know, what's the opening thesis here? It's interesting because I just saw it when it first hit. I don't even know if it first hit.

I just saw it on streaming like several months ago and watched it for the first time. Then it was interesting just in that span of time, how different it seemed. Like even just watching it a few months ago versus these last two or three weeks of what they're talking about on the news every day. it really, like, it hits different. Like, it's just like, yeah, this seemed like silly sci-fi probably in 2025, which is not that long ago. But it is kind of odd how of the moment it is right now.

And then, as you said, I do wonder how weird it will be to revisit this in 10 years. But that aside, in the moment is a little unnerving to watch it, truthfully. And my quick wrap up is the same thing I thought the first time I watched it. It's basically just Black Mirror, the movie, except they've actually done those. But if it wasn't already a pre-existing idea, it's like, how can we take weird little, very sci-fi future tech things cram them into a story and then just make it sort of a weird awkward funny story and all of that is going on here it's just sort of encapsulated in one like hour and a half movie not 30 minute intervals so.

Whoa whoa whoa whoa this movie is two hours and 10 minutes all right wait a second now let's let's get something straight this movie is about half an hour too long that's what i was gonna say was i supposed to finish that last 30 minutes no kidding i that so You mentioned the idea of like, well, this even now feels kind of horrifying. I guess my whole thing with AI, and look, I can't see the future any more than anyone else could, because if I could, I'd be a multimillionaire taking advantage of whatever stupid shit people are getting themselves into on TikTok or what have you. So I can only presume to speak to what's going on right now, not what someone 10 years from now is hearing on this show if they listen to it 10 years from now.

A lot of this. Movie feels like doomsaying and overreacting and taking advantage of, I think the public outcry about AI, which I'm not saying, you know, true or false. I mean, again, like I think it's, It's a very nuanced conversation that I've had with multiple people, you and I, including in private and in public about kind of AI and how that affects me and you in terms of the creative field and how it affects people in the non-creative field and intersections among all those things. So it's not surprising that we're getting a movie like this. It's not surprising that there's a movie that's essentially the Terminator.

I mean, it's like AI the Terminator, which sounds reductive. And it is because I think a lot of parts of this movie are reductive. I think a lot of these parts of this movie are just doing something someone else has done, but better. And I mean, they did it better, not here. And I do think that there are parts of this movie that are better versions of things we've seen before.

But this is trafficking. a lot of things we've seen before I mean a lot of stuff to go to the Terminator yeah To. Go to Back to the Future, like you said, Black Mirror. I was going to mention Twilight Zone or Tales from the Crypt. I mean, any of these things. I mean, and again, we will be talking spoilers at some point, but even to go to the ending of the movie leans into that.

Like the way the movie resolves itself has. A very Tales from the Crypt, Twilight Zone, Tales of the Dark Side, like all of those anthology shows. This has one of those kinds of endings. This film does. And I think for me, that speaks to, like you said, what was the intention behind this?

And it's telling a story that has been told before, but it's punching it up to be about AI, more specifically AI, bodiless AI, not Skynet. Which, I mean, again, to be fair, Skynet and Terminator is technically not a bodied AI. It is a amorphous AI. So it's almost like saying, well, it's not like Skynet, but it's just like Skynet. It's like, yeah, okay.

So again, it's even. even further already a thing we've seen. So I don't know, like a guy going back in time to try and stop the future from turning out badly. And then he runs into someone who he may or may not be related to. That just smacks of things I've seen before. Not to say I wasn't entertained by this movie, but there are parts of this movie that feel wildly derivative of much better, much more iconic in a lot of way films.

Yeah, I think instead of like the whole setup and the basic premise is very Terminator. But instead of it being like big shiny robots stepping on human skulls future, it then kind of switches and it's more of a WALL-E future of like, look, you brain dead morons are going to let this happen. And then you're just going to be floating in your chairs because you can't move anymore because you're useless. So it's a way more like. I mean, there's a little bit of Ready Player One even in there.

Like it's that, you know, I would rather be in the AI world than I would be in. The real world. And. in this film, you can transition entirely into the AI world. I mean, again, to go to something else, it reminded me of, reminded me of the second season of Westworld where it's like the conversation about, is there, is there an AI thing past this, where the AI can go to, to mingle with real people or real people mingling with AI. And it's like this movie kind of, again, takes that step further to make it a plot point.

Um, a bit of a MacGuffin kind of, I mean, it's again, it's, I'm not going to say it's lazy. It's just it's wearing its influences on its sleeve very obviously, and it's not doing anything to hide. Well, and it's also not just that one story. That's sort of the big wraparound story. It's really kind of like four different stories because each time we cut away to one of these characters and get a little flashback, it almost disappears. delves into a whole other thing like it it's a different subsection of making a snide comment or taking a funny look at this and like it's it's satire for each step along the way but it picks kind of a different subcategory with each flashback story so you've got those three flashback stories mixed in with the whole wraparound to give you kind of four different And each one sort of crosses over into the other, but they all kind of make their own specific point in their sub little movie in between.

So there's a lot of, I think, weird sci-fi type stories to sort of tackle in this that are all wrapped up into this one package. Well and i think you know you you put it pretty aptly it is it is an anthology light film i mean it does have a it does have a through line and i think you know you know we can have this conversation we start getting into spoilers but i could have done without one or the other trying to cram both into the film with this this kind of plot doesn't work super well because the film and the third act. Just drags along i mean drags drags drag it's just too long it's 30 minutes too long 40 minutes too long even it is a half an hour too long because it's just because it had to do all of these setup stories and i mean frankly you know i i think you know let's just i i think we can talk spoilers from here on out but i think would you suggest people check this out on hulu again it's not i still fucking worry if you have hulu so yeah I still like it.

I like pretty much all of the performances. I think it is well directed. It looks good. It has a lot of really interesting ideas in the story. It's just it's far from perfect.

It's definitely got issues just in the way it's attempting to weave them together. Sometimes it doesn't. Mesh quite right. But and then mostly that that end is just it's it becomes what not to jump right to the end, but it becomes what a lot of big budget movies become. And not that this is a huge budget for him.

It's actually kind of minimal. But anything, especially sci fi related, it seems like, OK, now it's the finale and we've got to do a big thing. thing in the sky that we all have to look up at and be like, oh, look at that. Big blue light. Or it's just a bunch of random CG monsters we have to kill or one big CG monster at the end that's the big bad that we have to get past. So it's always... that becomes the finale is like, and here's a whole bunch of bad effects.

Like, and this one's not terrible really effects wise, but the premise is not all that creative. It's just like, yeah, okay. That's, that's a thing you could say is the big finale in this sci-fi movie, I guess. But like, that was the weakest part for me. It was that finale, just the premise of it, the way that it's because you have to visually represent what they've been like alluding to this whole time.

So like they do that and it's just kind of like, well, Yeah, I mean, I guess you have to come up with some way to visually represent this. And this is a version. But it also I feel like just takes so much time in that process. I actually don't mind the setups in the other times. And it does a decent job working in all those plot lines along the way into a coherent story, more or less.

But I don't know, it just it drags that finale scene so long because I don't even mind the end after the finale. Like the little cap there kind of works and I'm okay with most of what's going on there. It's just that like 30 minutes of finale towards the end that just drags everything down. Of the three acts, I think the third act is obviously the weakest for sure. I would say, you know, the setup is so interesting that I don't think I don't think the movie ever really lives up to the first 20 minutes of the movie where we have Sam Rockwell in the diner.

You know, that's what I was going to say. That's, that's, it's so strong in the opening. It's such a, such a strong opening. It does. It just kind of like, yeah, I'm done.

Like, okay. And, and it's too bad. Yeah. And that's the thing. So let's talk spoilers.

So spoilers from here on out, if you haven't seen the film, I'm going to agree with Brian, check it out. I'm not going to at all say it's perfect. I think it is a, it is a, flawed film in terms of the length. I think it's flawed in terms of the focus. I think the tone is right on.

I think to your point, Brian, the casting is really well done. I haven't been the biggest fan of Juno Temple and stuff. Recently, primarily because she's just beyond obnoxious in Ted Lasso. And that's kind of the only thing that I'm like subjected to her in For the most part? I'm on Fargo, though.

Did you see her in Fargo? I haven't, and I know that she's good in it. She is good, yeah. Her character in Ted Lasso is a very specific kind of character, and I know that that character can seem grating, and she's kind of grating in the show. But I like her as an actress, especially from Killer Joe, which I don't know if you've seen.

Oh, yeah. That was the first thing I ever saw her in. So all of those early. Like smaller films she was in, I thought she was great in, and I hadn't really seen a lot in the middle. And then I saw that season of Fargo.

I was like, Oh no, she's still got it. Like she can still deliver. So yeah, I would say definitely go see her season of Fargo. But I think all the performances are pretty good. I think Sam Rockwell is obviously the standout.

But yeah, I would say you could do worse with two hours of your time. I think my issue is it is a little long and it does drag. And I think you might be checking your phone or checking your watch by the end of the movie going, can we get to the point here? So let's talk spoilers. So Sam Rockwell's character has traveled.

Again, the trailer sells it as he's traveled back in time from a future where AI has kind of taken over and has no guardrails on it. Stop me if you've heard this before. And he is coming back to insert a thumb drive into the AI that is being created to kind of put limiters on it before it can be created. So it'll have limiters on it ahead of creation. And that is ostensibly the way the film is set up.

But it turns out that Sam Rockwell's character is actually in a happy death day to you, Groundhog Day loop . . the setup of the film is so enthralling and interesting that it's like this monologue that Sam Rockwell has. It's like, it's like fucking 10 minutes long. I mean, it's like, it's just, but it's so good. It's so good. And the problem is, you know, similarly, I would say to something that I just watched over the weekend with Digger, like the, the film is all about one performance.

It really is. Like this film is really all about Sam Rockwell. The way Digger is all about Tom Cruise. Like it's all about this one actor doing this one thing, this one very specific thing, the whole film. if you don't like what Sam Rockwell is doing in the first five minutes of the movie, you might as well turn it off. Yeah, you're in trouble.

Yeah, because it's not that it doesn't get any better, but if it's grating to you, it's not going to not get grating because it just, they double and triple and quadruple down on a lot of kind of the tropes and the things that you can expect from this kind of story. The things you might expect. And so the twist, the initial twist of the film is it's not really a time travel it's more of a multiverse movie it's more of an everything everywhere all at once which for me immediately and this this is I think the first this is the first stop on the train here do we really need another fucking multiverse movie right now well I mean just asking for a friend is that it's mostly it's it's not even a normal time loop movie where it's stuck that way and it's out of your hands it's a time loop movie but only because the plan keeps going so badly he has to keep redoing it so like that's an interesting thing because they're never really in charge of that you know in your normal time loop movies so they're always like stuck doing this over and over and completely powerless and half the time don't know why sometimes but i i would say yes and no because in groundhog day he kills himself to end things But he still doesn't know why.

Like he has no power over it other than killing himself. That's true. So he can reset. So like he doesn't understand. I don't know if that makes it any better or worse though because I think this movie kind of, I think this movie shows why that's not necessarily the best conceit to base your entire film's premise around because it just kind of, again, it's like you have to convince me why he's not pressing the button every time something goes wrong.

I mean, I kind of like it because he's, as again, and it's so much in his performance, he's just like nailing everything as it happens. Like, and you see that in every movie where specifically time loop movies, but any time travel movie where somebody is going to call, this is about to happen and that's about to happen. So like, that's not surprising, but the way Sam Rockwell does it and he continues to do it throughout, it's almost like it's not as, as gimmicky as that. It's just references throughout or like, he'll be like there. Why don't we go down here?

And he's like, well, cause you die. Like he'll specifically just sort of, And just throw that out there and keep going with his, his crazy conversation. And like, he, he works all of the things in that have happened to him. Like it's a real story. It doesn't seem like it's just a gimmick that as you're writing the screenplay, like it, he sells it so much that it feels like he has been here 117 times and he's been through these things so many times that now he's just sort of rolling with it and like, okay, what can we do now?

So I, I, I feel like that's kind of why it's like, okay, this is different from, That's good. So maybe it seems like it's going wrong for a minute, but if it's not that wrong, maybe this is the key that makes this one work kind of a thing that he just keeps kind of rolling with through most of the movie. And that I at least buy into that because because of his performance, because he sells that he's been through this so many times that he's willing to take a chance if something weird happens along the way. Well, and that's, you know, I agree. But at the same time, I do think that there is a an aspect of the film that I just I have a hard time with, which is time travels hard enough as it is.

And then making it a multiverse thing kind of makes it even more complicated. And I'm not saying they don't do a good job of it here, but the parts that I thought were interesting of what they were doing with it. they abandoned after the first act, where you're talking about like, oh, you know, this happens, and then this happens, and then this, and like, that more or less disappears once they leave the diner. He still references it along the way. But it's not as enthralling and interesting as that initial setup. It's almost like, I wish they could have just stayed in the diner the entire movie.

I know that that's not interesting. But at the same time, just having CGI nonsense thrown at the screen is not great either. I mean, again, for a budget of $ 20 million, which I will say, like, holy shit, how did you make this movie? Yeah, for as good as it looks. How did you make this movie on $ 20 million?

There are some CGI things that just feel like, not that they look bad, it's just they just feel unnecessary. There's definitely, by the end, a lot of unnecessary. Yeah, and it's unfortunate because, again, I would have... wish that that money would have been spent on other things, not just having, you know, CGI kind of bullshit on screen. Cause it's again, like, yeah, it's something I've never seen before, but it is still CGI. Like, you know, I don't know.

CGI was interesting when everything didn't have it and now everything has it. And so it's like, well, I've seen most things now, like not even, I don't know what would be interesting anymore with CGI other than something that is just like undiscernible to me as a human in terms of me being unable to understand what this thing is at like a base level. Like I think of something like annihilation. where there's stuff in that movie where it's like, that's the first time I've ever seen a CGI thing like that. And I can't really figure out, right. I can't figure out what some of these things are because it's like, it's genuinely thoughtful and interesting in its design here.

It's like, yeah, I get that it's a joke, but at the same time, like what? Okay. Like, I don't know. It's, it feels like, it feels like certain things were done in this movie to cover up for a weak script in certain acts. It does have that.

And you mentioned anthologies and, I can remember so many anthology episodes of so many anthology series where it has a really, really strong hook. And then by the end of it, I'm just begging to be put out of my misery. Some of those episodes were 20 minutes long and they felt like three fucking hours. And that's the problem with this movie. This movie is two and a half hours and it feels like three, three and a half.

And it doesn't need to like it. It's not doing anything that hasn't been done before in a, like, I don't know. It's not, that creative a story it's not creative that creative storytelling like it's not challenging me as a viewer really it's just kind of riffing on some notes that i've heard before do you really need two and a half hours to do that. And i think that's the difference is it keeps it keeps going to the other sub stories more or less and those i guess if you're into them it's good and there are aspects of those I think are really impressive and then but that's the thing you you add a lot of time in with each one of those and then you also each one is its own new complicated technical stuff that we're adding in and they do work it into the whole rest of the movie but it's not necessary I can see like if you're trying to cut time out of it in addition to trimming down the end you could also take some of the other aspects that get worked into this bigger sci-fi plot and if you whittle some of that out of there it would at least make it a little more focused along the way so i i agree there's a lot i think that may be the problem they were throwing so much at the wall trying to see what what would stick what would work what we can make a movie out of and they were sort of doing it in the finished product almost it's like instead of trying to figure this out in the screenwriting aspect they were just like let's just make all these things and something's gonna work and like some of it does but Yeah, it is a lot to process in this movie.

Well, let's... I want to talk about. Some of the things that I think are, you know, again, stopping points on this conversation. So let's talk about the. Once we have the characters introduced, and so, like we've mentioned, it's Juno Temple, Zazie Beetz, Michael Pena, Azim Chowdhury, and Tom Taylor... and Hayley Lou Richardson are the main people from the diner.

And I like how in that opening scene, it's like, you know, we're very intentionally not seeing Michael Pena and Zazie Beetz. Like, who are all these people with their head down, looking off to the side, trying to not be recognizable? Because two-thirds of the guys. I guess, fucking not two-thirds, most of the people in this movie have been in a Marvel movie at some point in the last five years. Juno Temple, Michael Pena, and Zazie Beetz.

So. It's like, you know, how I found that funny where it's like, who's that person in the corner with their head tilted down? That's probably Juno Temple just, you know, waiting to say something. But I do want to talk about, you know, after we transition out of the diner, we get these kind of like you mentioned, cutaways to other stories. And so we have a Zazie Beetz story.

And then we have a story with Juno Temple. And then we have a Hayley Lou Richardson story as well. And I wanted your thoughts on doing that to begin with. And then let's talk, you know, whichever one you want to talk about first, specifically, let's just kind of go into that. But what did you think about this kind of story within a story thing?

Because I was not expecting that at all. I definitely wasn't expecting it. And I think, like I said, I think that I think there are great things in each. That's kind of why I threw out the Black Mirror. I was like, each of those is almost like its own Black Mirror episode because it picks a different aspect of like a weird technical thing or future society or both.

And like it could have been its own separate little 28 minute thing and wrapped up and been taken care of in that. Or we can try to cram them all in this one big thing. And it's like it. They can work and there are good aspects to each one of these stories, but it may just be too much. Like it ends up maybe dragging down the whole of this because there's so much.

As much as I like what's in the first two, I feel like you could almost pull both of those side extra things out. The only one we really need by the end is the Hayley Richards. And I will first, I want to pause and say, I don't think there's any movie that's That's not better by adding Haley Richardson to it. Like she is always impressive. Like I like her here, but I think it's just her presence in a movie.

I think it's always a plus as far as I'm concerned. So I think that also helps with that's the one that we need, but also just character wise, that's the one that we need by the time we get to the wrap up of this. I think the other aspects are interesting and give us really cool little perspectives and very specific things. comments along the way on the other two, but you could have kind of pulled those threads out and the whole story would still work as much as it's going to work anyway with the time travel of it all. Well, and that's, I think that's my issue with some of those stories is they ultimately feel completely extraneous and they don't serve any narrative. Like the Michael pina and zazie beats story like that is completely undated like completely undated like i i understand why we have it in there so that we can have that moment of payoff later in the movie but that entire story takes far too long to get to that point just to have it be like a kind of MacGuffin within a MacGuffin in the movie.

Well, and we've already established like the opening shots of people in the diner, everybody's on their phone. So like we're already making, we're already hammering the people are addicted to their phones point from the beginning. So it's not like, oh, but we need that in there. We're already every step of the way. They've already got that worked in there.

So yes, they make it like full on zombie kids by the time we get to their story. But I think even if you took that out, you could still do the, continue through the rest of the movie with people addicted to their phones as part of the problem and it would work without the crazy zombie kids sub story and. That i think for me is the other thing about the I guess zombie kids on their phones. Not the most original thing. Not the most original thing at all.

I mean, again, it feels in a lot of ways, it feels like old man shakes cane at cloud. That's the one I thought with that one. Like when they kept making that, like hammering that, you know, you brainwash kids are just staring at your phones all day. That definitely felt like it. I feel like the next sub movie is kind of an interesting and original take on sci-fi properties that don't feel quite as... angry old man but it's still like that one's a little more satire and a little more of this is gonna piss people off like this one is the one that's like edgy because it's gonna rub a lot of people the wrong way but i'm like i'm okay with that because i think it does have something to say and that's it's very silly by the way that it does it sometimes but i think it is making a point and it has a real sci-fi take to what it's doing that is, yeah, a little more developed than in the first one, which is just kids are on their phones all day.

Well, and for me, I think that's, Not to sound dismissive, but yeah, it's like, you know, you introduce an idea that sideloads into the other idea that the idea that sideloads into the next idea is not as interesting as the idea it's going into. So you could have cut that story out completely and just addressed it within that story because they address it within that story anyways. We're being drip fed this information like, oh, all these teachers are going on sabbatical. What's the reason behind that? Oh, all these kids are just seemingly like saying taglines for things and like, oh, I would love this, you know, Dunkin Donuts, you know, mocha frappuccino.

It's delicious. It comes, you know, it's like it's it's it's live ad reads in real life, like essentially. And that's, you know, that ties into the first thing that they introduced. But it's like belaboring the point by that point. And I'm just like, it does all tie together.

I will give them they don't write at all at any point. Every step of the way does tie in along the rest of that story. But like I said, it's just a lot by the time you get to the end of the movie. And for the movie to end the way that it does, it almost feels like a Nana Nana boo boo pulled one over on you the audience like okay, what was the fucking point of this whole movie then? I mean, it's not to say it's, you know, oh, it was all a dream, but I mean, it has that kind of whiff to it.

This is kind of the, this is kind of in wrestling, this is the dusty finish. It's like, well, I'm going to have my cake and eat it too. I'm going to have the guy get pinned, but he's not actually going to win the title. It's just going to look like he won the title, but the heel still gets away with the belt because of bullshit or because of, you know, a technicality. And it's like, okay, fine, fine. fuck you then.

It's just, I don't know. I can see someone watching this movie and going, whoa, I really loved the upbeat and hopeful ending. But it's like, I also don't like a movie that seemingly by the end of it, just like, well, I just wasted your time for two and a half hours. Isn't that fun? I was like, I guess, yeah.

But that was the complaint people had with The Matrix Reloaded. Literally, the same complaint people were having then. It's kind of part of my complaint now. Well, and then it does... without even almost addressing it, it opens a door along the way and just sort of passes on by that like, That was going to be my question for you is by the end, is it a real, I'm using quotes there, real time loop movie? Or is all of it AI generated?

Is he within the program the whole damn time, really? I mean, we don't know. It's not really answered. But like by the end, as much weird shit is going on, you're just like, well, yeah, maybe it doesn't have to be reality at all because nothing that we're watching is reality. That all of this is part of the AI simulation. that he is trapped in and thinks he's in a time loop.

I don't really know. But it certainly leaves that door open and then gives you that option to think that if you want, but doesn't really even address it. Well, and I hadn't even thought about it in terms of taking that step further, because like you mentioned, I mean, with the way the film ends, it is almost like, was this whole thing just a, is he already in the AI? And it doesn't even matter. that is one of the possibilities. Again, they do not spell it out for you.

No, they don't. And I don't know, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. Like, genuinely. And I'm not saying that just to be, you know, dismissive, but it's like, make a fucking decision. In some, well, in some respects, like, is it a nihilistic ending?

Is it an upbeat ending? Like, you're not making a choice, that's fine. But, if you're gonna rob us of an actual ending with character growth and development from the characters that we're supposed to feel like we went on an arc with, and then you just reset it at the end of the movie and they're not in on it. But Sam Rockwell is. Sam Rockwell's character is in the same spot he was at the beginning of the film.

Like there's no arc for his character. It's like Chris Hansen. But within the story there is. Right. Because he now has a whole new, like he's been doing it essentially wrong for the last 117 times.

Like now, according to what he thinks he knows, now he knows the real answer and this is the way to make it work. So like it does reset with a new hopeful spin on it and has like a new growth within the storyline of like this, this weird one-off time led to something that could then fix the problem that he's been doing wrong every step of the way. Again, is it, I don't know. Is any of it real? I don't know.

If he's not in a simulation, what the fuck does any of this matters? You know, if, if it's not a simulation, if it is a time loop and he's got a real piece of machinery that keeps sending him back in time, then yes, this is actually kind of a hopeful thing. And there was growth to the story, if not the characters, that like gives you a chance to do something new in the future. But I don't know. Like, again, it doesn't it just sort of lets you decide, which some people hate that in a movie.

I know. So I don't know. It gives you both of those options. Like, here they are. Could be either one.

So if you want the grim, he's screwed forever ending, you got that one. Or if you want, maybe this is a real thing going on and he can fix it. You have that one, too. Take your pick. Which would you like?

I don't have any problem with open-ended films or open endings or ambiguous endings. What I have a problem with is making a decision to do both things so intentionally. Yeah. Where it's like, you know what? Leave a little ambiguity.

Because by the way the film ends, I actually don't think that he's in a simulation. By the way, I mean, why would the film show that otherwise? Yeah. It's one of those things where, like, if you look at films and they're made with intent and it just doesn't exist on its own, it's not an organic creature, it's being made with intent by people who make it. It's the way I look at it.

Very rarely does someone in a film show you something and that is not the case. Most of the time they're foreshadowing something that they're setting up intentionally. It's rare is it like they're foreshadowing something and they don't pay that off. We're talking fucking J.J. Abrams and Rian Johnson in Star Wars where that's the case.

Anti-payoff. Most films, it's, you know, Chekhov's gun. There's a gun in the first act. In the third act, it's going to go off. This film, I don't know.

Like, you can't have both. Because if you have both, it robs the movie of any emotional weight. Because then it's like, well, what did any of this matter anyways? And it's like that. I don't find that to be a satisfying ending.

I find that to be a cop-out. That is a cop-out ending in the vein of lazy time travel and multiverse stuff that is just... Doing, you know, it's like those that Spider-Man movie, like, I'm sorry, but I. was just like, this is just fan service. Like, that's all this is. This is like masturbatory with, you know, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire.

And they're like, oh, I don't know if they're gonna be in the movie or not. And it's like, oh my fucking God. If there's even a question, they're gonna be in the goddamn movie. I think the aspect of them in there is totally fan service. I think they're still doing interesting things in the rest of that movie, but it's overshadowed completely by the, hey, look who's in this movie of it all.

Right. And that's, and for me, this movie kind of has that issue of like it by the end of it it doesn't i don't think it really feels like it has to say anything it's like well it could be either in that fun and it's like i'm not when not when they're both kind of unsatisfying and not really well explained and it's just like well she said that there could be a pug so there's a pug at the end like what does that mean like see that's like all. Of the crazy stuff in the first portion of the ending is ridiculous and seems kind of unsatisfying the wrap back around version that gives you this hopeful well maybe we fixed it if we keep going on this road i actually liked that addition to it and i think maybe if they just stuck with that one it would work like you could still make it a time loop and have him have to start over again but without the crazy stuck in the cg aspect that kicks in so hard at the end of that finale finale that like Without that, I feel like.

The other one kind of works on its own. Yeah, it's like again, it's it's like we've already alluded to. There's just so much going on. There's so many ideas like at once. It's like you it's not that you can't. do all of them, but you run the risk by trying to do all of them of not doing any of them very well.

And I feel like it's just, again, to go back to like the derivative nature of the film in terms of the tropes and things that it is presenting to us as like, not new, but it's like, wow, Sam Rockwell traveling through time to try to kill AI. Like, where have you ever heard that before? Like, it's like, yeah, fucking Michael Biehn. And Juno Temple is Sarah Connor, like, or Ingrid, I guess, you know, Hayley Richardson is kind of a character split in two, really. Like, it's, I didn't dislike the film.

I don't want anyone who's listening to this to think I disliked it. It's just, I have a hard time watching a movie where at every opportunity they have to cement themselves as their own thing, they just defer to something else and something else that I would just rather watch. I would rather watch Terminator than watch this. If you're going to keep referring to Terminator, I'm just going to rather watch Terminator. But this one goes off on those weird subsections that, again, almost I feel like is selling itself short on other a concept.

I agree. It's like we don't care about the interesting stuff we've set up. We're going to forego the idea of replacing your children who are killed in school shootings with with a clone of them that is completely fucked up. And then to go even further to, I think the most interesting scene in the entire movie is Juno temple talking to those two parents that are like, well, we were just like, let's make her Muslim. They were like, make her seven feet tall.

Let's make a silly. What a fucking missed opportunity, by the way, to not show us that, that person, by the way, I expected them to like walk into frame as it like, you know, like, walk into frame and then cuts away or something. We didn't even get that shot. I was like, are we gonna see this person? No, we didn't.

Okay, fine. That was too much. To show us the centaur cat was, that was more important. Yeah, we got that for some reason. Right, but instead, you know, like the thing that you've been setting up for a scene, but that scene I think is the most interesting scene to me because it is a conversation in a film about something I've never heard being had a conversation about that way.

And that's like interesting and high concept and novel. And it's just in this movie and this movie does nothing with it. It doesn't even explain it. Like by the end of the movie, I don't understand what it was other than the AI just fucking with them. And that's the, that's the part that I think is really sold short.

Cause again, I don't think there's that much to the addicted to their phone sub story. And I think we, finish out you know we kind of have to have the the future story with with hayley further down the line so the only other one is the the cloning school shooting win and i'm like that one is the most satire the most interesting like sci-fi setup and like creates this weird future world of like this is one step away from where we are with you know the The fact that everyone is in and of just the basic how blasé everyone becomes about school shootings. Like, ah, we're on lockdown again. All right, let's go sit in here and be bored and complain about the fact that we're stuck in here. Like that kind of crosses over from one story into the next.

But it's like then once you see, OK, now we've gotten so used to it at this point, we're never going to fix the problem. So instead, we're just going to deal with it by cloning your children who keep getting killed. and giving you the option to like electric grandmother them and come in and pick out which one you want. And like, that's, that's a cool concept that like, I feel like is if not its own entire movie, like I said, definitely a full 30 minute episode of black mirror or a subsection of a movie. That's maybe only two things. And like, we really kind of lay into the satire of this as we work into the other half of the story.

I feel like there's so much more going on in that second one that could have worked. And we just kind of like work it in as, as like some jokes to lead into a tie in further down the line, but we never really dig into that one the way we should. And that I think, you know, I, I, I totally agree. It's like, why did you, why did you add this in here? If, if ultimately there's no payoff to it when it's such a good idea, when it's such an interesting idea, when that, when, like you said, that idea alone, you could, you could do a Stepford wives riff on that.

Cause I mean, it's like Stepford, Stepford wives adjacent. I mean, really. And, and, it's, it, it, it speaks to how does the AI get into the home in this universe, in this world? And we don't even under, we, we barely even get to spend time with that because there's just, what's funny is, you know, I'm sitting here saying like this movie is too long, but it's going to sound crazy. There almost needs to be more movie.

Again, it's like three or four movies, right? Because there needs to be more movie. Cause like you can't conclude this story this way because it's so interesting. Like the setup of Juno temple losing her son. And then these group of mom's, themselves being very blasé about it, just being like, well, let's go to this place, and we as the audience don't understand what they're talking about, and neither does Juno Temple, which I don't understand makes no fucking sense, by the way.

Like, in this universe where gun shootings at schools are so... that kids are dying four to five times at least. You're telling me this woman who has a kid has never heard of the kid cloning service? I don't know. It's very secretive. It's very logical jumps.

You know, like, if you're gonna, I think of something like The Sixth Day, right? Because that's a conceit in that movie. It's like, clone your dog. clone your pet that died and your kids can never be sad. It's like, okay, it's being advertised. It's a capitalistic fucking thing.

Like that makes perfect sense. Like this, if this is a, if this was a real universe in a real world, the way this film is trying to somewhat portray itself, You wouldn't have a character being like, I've never heard of this. What? There's help groups for this shit. What are we doing here?

You're telling me that when kids die and they're just replaced with a version of themselves that looks just the way they do, no one's asking questions. It's weird because the film's asking me to take logical jumps with it, but it's not setting out ramps for me to get enough air to clear the fucking Snake River Gap. Well, they've almost like found a way to get themselves out of these scenarios with their own plot line, because it is one of those, if it were to be taken at face value, you'd be like, yeah, this doesn't make any sense. And why wouldn't people know about this? But because they've already interwoven this other story that like, it's all AI.

So even that aspect of it is the AI just messing with you, that we're telling you, well, the AI is going to give you twist and turns it's going to give you an interesting plot because it knows that's what you want so it gives you this secret society and the government's kind of covering up but also paying for it but also doing whatever they want because that seems legit anyway because it's the government but it gives itself almost like a fake out of just like well It doesn't make sense because it's not supposed to make sense because it's AI slapping it together. And that's why it's this weird, awkward thing that doesn't make any sense. Which again, sort of makes sense seeing what AI puts together sometimes in the real world.

But that's not, I mean, that's a very convenient way to write a screenplay. I was going to say, is that also not just us doing like heavy lifting for screenwriting gone awry? But at the same time, similarly to a film that just came out, Digger... and I won't spoil that film. Not that anybody is going to go see it. Apparently, apparently, which is a shame because I think similarly to this film, it takes the conceit of this film and goes further with it in a lot of ways in terms of like having a thing within a thing.

And this film and that. Film, I think succeed and fail in different ways because digger succeeds because it has all those cutaway moments to other things. And we're understanding the world and the setup and they all tie back into each other here. And, I don't want to come back to the main story. Like, I want to stay with Juno Temple through this entire, like, I want to see her story through to the end.

And then to have her character's story just end ignominiously. Like, she doesn't die, but she just stops. She's just kind of there. She just stops mattering in the conclusion of the film. It's just, I don't know.

It's weird because Hayley Lou Richardson's character is the main character, sort of, but not really. Because she's the Sarah Connor of the film. She becomes the main character, yeah. I have a tough time with a movie like this that's so muddle-headed. Well, and it also presents a whole nother thing that I think is equally as interesting and equally could have been its own movie or definitely its own little episode of something.

Because when we get to, because I could care less about the annoying boyfriend character of hers, but the presenting this new game concept that basically is just can I just go live in the VR world? Can I just go to the AI and stay there? That's a really interesting thing. Like that seems like that's, if not an entire movie, a huge section of a movie that you could devote all this time and like kind of give you more of what's going on there and like what this person's sort of wrestling with, because it is a legit question. Like it is by the end, that was the part that I think hit me is like, as they're having that conversation, it's like, Well, if why?

Why stay here with all the pain and the horrible things that are going on if you don't have to? If the option is presented to you to just go be happy all the time, well, why wouldn't you? Isn't that half the reason a huge portion of our country is addicted to drugs? It's like a release, an escape from the god-awfulness of this world, even for a little while. Well, this gives you a arguably not safe, but a safe version of it that is just there all the time.

You don't have to worry about coming down because you're never coming down because you're in there all the time. And I'm like, that's a real interesting sci-fi situation to throw out there that once again, we just sort of gloss over and it becomes sort of part of the bigger story, but barely. And I think that was also really frustrating. And to go to something that I've been I've taken a break from it. My girlfriend and I have, but I was watching Westworld and there is parts of that show that are directly kind of referencing stuff like this, where it's like the the world of artificial or virtual reality and the world of the real.

And where is the line between the two? And what does what do some of those things look like for either? of these kind of separate tracks of things and what does it mean for someone to get like we've already talked about with this movie give up their you know earthly body to just essentially become a brain in a jar or a brain in the you know a brain in the computer i mean that's it's like you said like There are so many interesting ideas here that it's like, oh, it's going to all feed into this one mega AI idea. And it's like, okay. But to what. It's referenced later, but that's about it.

To what end? Like, what are you doing with it that hasn't been done or is... novel and creative and interesting because all it seems like to me is they want to tell a story about how bad AI is and how destructive AI is and how we need to have limiters and guardrails on AI and we need to do it before we create it because once you create it, it's kind of too big to fail. It can't be limited. Which again is interesting in this moment in time because that's all that's on TV right now. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, that's the conversation that's being had out in the open right now. Every day. Yeah. And so it just, I don't know. It's almost like this movie just feels out of date already, like out of touch already.

Like we're already having this conversation movie. This ain't 2030. This ain't 2027 even. This is 2026. This is only October of 2026.

And AI has only really been commercially available to the public. in a consumer capacity for like a year now, not even another year. Well, I'll be dead. So we don't need to worry about 20. I mean, really? Yeah.

Like, I mean, that's essentially what they're saying is like, you know, once it hits an exponential growth point, there will be no way of doing anything. It will be, it will be too much, too far, too gone. And it's like, yeah, I don't, I don't sit here and think like, Oh, Skynet is going to happen. But If all the AI is connected to each other and making decisions in and of itself and it can self-actualize, then it's no different. Maybe it's not bloodthirsty, but I don't think...

And, you know, I think it was you and I that talked about this. Ultron in Age of Ultron, when he got on the internet, was like, yo, fuck these fucking people. Fucking humanity needs to go. And it's like, yeah. I don't think AI would have any sympathy for humans if it saw what we've done to one another.

I don't really. To one another, to the environment. I'm technically a human, but. It's like, yeah, AI that's making decisions based primarily on numbers and binary decision-making processes is... It's going to look at humans and go, this planet is better off without them because we have made this place worse in a lot of ways by the need to exist in a certain way.

Continuing, we have made things worse. You know, I think about a movie that I enjoy so much more than this one that has the same kind of feel to it in terms of the kind of message it's getting at. Didn't Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright do this already with The World's End? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of other stuff at play there, but it's, I mean, that's the thing. I really, and it was one of those that didn't hit me that first time.

Like, I had to revisit that and went, oh, no, I think this might be the best of his trilogy there. Like, everybody loves Shaun of the Dead, and so do I. But, like, it's a much more mature movie. Like, it is telling a much more interesting and mature story than you get with Shaun of the Dead is just dealing about a guy who doesn't want to grow up, essentially. Whereas this is several years later, and it's Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg and everyone involved just being like, no, this is what happens when you have to grow up.

And it is a way more interesting story, and it does kind of touch on some of these points. Again, I think it's a little more focused, and maybe that's why it works better, where this is a scattershot of sci-fi ideas, and that's why it's hard to latch on to the right ones that you need to be a satisfying story it's. I mean again i i give credit to edgar wright who i think is a much better screenwriter than the screenwriter of this film i i i think edgar wright actually reads his script once or twice before he submits it i'm not saying this guy doesn't but this seems like this seems like a first draft like there's so much of this that it is like strike through strike through strike through strike through strike through strike through like too many characters Too many cutaway scenes.

Too many endings. Ambiguous ending that serves nothing that the film set up. How much more... Decide on one fucking thing, dude. I don't know.

The problem I have is if you want to do a thing that Sam Rockwell... being the crypt keeper in a time travel anthology multiverse anthology movie i'm down for that but that's not even what this is like that's it is but it isn't like. But it focuses too much on the story for it to really do that right so like we don't get enough time with the sub stories so those don't work but then it spends too much time on those so we don't really get enough on the wraparound story to make it satisfying either so they're like at at odds with each other And for me, that is such a missed opportunity because to go back to the first thing we were talking about, and I think like the thing that for me is the reason I would, and I did say, you know, go check this film out, Sam Rockwell.

And that's, I'm not going to say that's it, but he does so much of the heavy lifting in the movie. And I think that the other reason the movie kind of peters out towards the end is as the film goes on, Sam Rockwell's in it less. As the film goes on, we're cutting away to other things that have nothing to do with Sam Rockwell. And- none of those things as good as the actors are in those scenes are nearly, are nearly as engaging as that first 15 minutes of Sam Rockwell is like nothing, nothing the film does is nearly as engaging as his opening monologue, which is just, again, makes it feel more like an anthology thing. Cause anthology things, the ones that are middle of the road to bad have a really good concept and then just flounder for the rest of the time and just kind of flail and grab out and reach out at anything that they can to try to bring in as many and all this is interesting.

And this is interesting. Like, pick one fucking thing. Like don't do eight things, please. Jack of all trades, master of none. Come on.

That's kind of how we come into this. Yeah. Cause there's a lot of ideas thrown out there and it's, it's just, it, it doesn't give you enough time and it's very varied in the way it's like, there's some very grim moments in this. And then there's a lot of comedy too. So that's what I was going to ask you is how do you feel like with the amount of comedy?

Cause it's, Almost a full on comedy at times. But then there's also some really grim stuff along the way. Certainly the bigger points. So I don't know. It's a weird balance or attempting to be a balance between the two.

I think the comedic bits work because Sam Rockwell is, I think, just such a quirky, fun and interesting actor. that anytime he's doing anything, you're just kind of like, oh, this is kind of fun and upbeat. And, you know, even if he's, I mean, even in something, I mean, again, not to say like, oh, his character in Three Billboards is like fun or anything, but his character in that movie is like, I'm not a huge fan of that movie, which is unfortunate because I really like Martin McDonagh's other works, but he's my favorite part of them because his character is just, again, he's really playing against type in that movie. But at the same time, it's like you empathize with that character in terms of just like him being a fucking moron.

Because it's Sam Rockwell. It's the internal mechanism of Sam Rockwell being just an empathetic, interesting, and engaging actor. And they knew that when they cast him. That was intentional. They needed someone who could carry this movie on their back.

And a lot of the comedy comes from his dialogue and his responses and his kind of retorts to what other people are saying. And yeah, that works. But then you have this really grim, dark stuff going on that, again, feels like another movie. It feels like another... Thing entirely and that's not to say like Sam Rockwell didn't come from a future where people are getting like butt fucked by robots or God knows what like he he hints at what's going on but we never see it he talks about the way the future is but we never see it I mean you know in Terminator we see that. we see the foot crushing the skull and it's like, oh shit.

Like, okay, like this is the closest, the closest we get is him as a kid in the bunker. And we get like the little drone type thing that's, you know, got rockets built in, but that's about as close as we get as the exoskeleton step on skulls. Yeah. Which I mean, again, you know, I didn't need that, but it, again, it just, it cuts to this idea of the film is, I wouldn't consider the Terminator a comedy, but I would consider the Terminator in terms of the kind of film that it is. very similar to this film in terms of what it's doing it's just this is the like comedic version of the terminator imagine if michael bean was a little bit lighter hearted and a little bit less because it's a time loop thing sam rockwell's fed up and the fed up nature is kind of what powers his back and forth with all the characters it's this like you've said it's this exasperation like this is the 117th fucking time i have to do this like jesus and again I think they could have sold that more.

Hell, we could have seen another loop completely. Like, I don't know why this needed to be the only one. Like, that's the other thing. Like, what a missed opportunity to show us a little bit of that. Again, I know why they didn't, because they want to have all these reveals and it's like, you know, if you have a movie with time travel and you have flashback scenes. where you're not showing a character, that's intentional, because it's one of the characters that we've already seen, clearly.

Again, the movie thinks it's being clever, and it's just not. And I'm not trying to be like Mr. Teardown, things that are trying to be clever that aren't, but it's like, in this day and age, I'm a smarter audience than I think you're giving me credit for. Because I think any. Audience watching this movie would be like, one of these characters has got to be Sam Rockwell's mom.

Well, I think it also it's giving you that option of like because he never he never hits the button. So it gives you the game to play the whole way through is like, is he just a crazy homeless man? Because we never see that thing do anything. It's just he just keeps his thumb poised above the button the whole time as a threat, because initially it's supposed to be a bomb and then it's going to be, oh, it's going to send him back in time. And by the end, you're just like, so if he hits that and it just does nothing because it's nothing.

He's just a criminal. homeless man. But even the movie didn't leave any ambiguity for that. That's the problem. If it wanted to do that, I would have been totally on board. If that's the direction the film wanted to go, where by the end of it, it's like, was he just fucking nutsoid the whole time?

But we see him go back in time. Like we see him go back in time. We see, and finally, let's mention just the, Fucking one of the worst things I've seen in a movie in terms of CGI. A centaur cat? A giant cat cock?

Do we want to just, you got to go ahead and just address what happens before the end. Because I thought it was silly the first time I saw it. But by the time we got to that, I was like, OK, now you're just doing it to weird people out like that's just because I even like I try not to look too much at people's comments in the on the online stuff. But there were a lot that were just like I liked everything in the movie except for that. It was so too far for a lot of people that it was like and I was almost at that point, too.

I was just like, yeah, I'm OK with a lot of the weird things you're throwing in along the way because they all feel like they're of this same universe. as scattered as it is but that one is just like okay now it's just silly for the sake of silly and it's not like the other ones are at least kind of a clever satire even if they're a little off but like this is just ridiculous and over the top for the sake of being ridiculous and over the top and i'm like that's i i don't know what you're trying to prove like we know you're already a well established filmmaker we know who you are we know who you're capable of you don't have to like try to get people's attention. Like, they know what's possible in this movie.

That doesn't mean you have to do every dumb thing that you've mentioned along the way. Well, and they clearly can show restraint when they didn't show that seven-foot-tall Muslim woman that they allude to in that entire scene. I mean, it's such a bummer because that scene is such an interesting idea. Like, well, these parents... that have had this kid rebooted eight times now, by the end of it, they're just like, we don't even fucking care anymore. Like, it's just a fucking lark at this point.

Like, that's interesting. Those people are literal sociopaths. Like, it's... Yeah. They just seem like a full-on monster by the end of that story.

Yeah, it's like, okay, like, what, why are we cutting away from this? Like, give me more of that. And it's like, nope, we're not even going to show you the character that they're talking about. And I'm like, hold on a second here. If you know how to practice restraint there, why didn't you practice restraint at the end of the movie?

And again, again, it goes back to something else where it's fucking Ghostbusters. Then it's like, well, don't think of anything. Don't say anything out loud. Because if you do, oh, it's just a pug or it's a giant six foot tall cat. Like, oh, okay.

So now we're going to see it. Like, oh, great. It's Ghostbusters. I mean, then it's again, it's like copying from something else that again, did that thing way more interesting, way more compelling. And again, felt novel when it did it.

When this does, it's just like, oh, that's like the Ghostbusters riff. Okay. Well, I even, I remember, and it's funny because now I barely can remember this because it's so ingrained in pop culture now. But I remember the first time through watching Ghostbusters and thinking, wow, this is sort of silly and above and beyond everything else we've had in a totally different type of thing. It's a different silly mode that we haven't seen.

Like Slimer's funny, but Slimer fits with what's going on. this is a giant marshmallow man. What are we doing now? And like, eventually that went away because I saw it a million more times and it is funny and it is clever, but it, it is the one thing that doesn't exactly fit with everything else going on there. And I think you get a lot of that by the time you jump to that second one. And like, we get a repeat with the statue of liberty and you're like, wait, what are we doing in this movie?

So like, I, I remember having that response. So it's not like Ghostbusters is just like this perfect film. Like I remember thinking the same thing about that. And that's the thing. I have always bought into the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in Ghostbusters, but I think, and I think I know why.

I think it's because the way that they set it up. You have the Stay Puft bag early in the movie, which again, like if you're watching it for the first time, that is literally has no importance to you because Stay Puft's not a real brand in the real world, but they foreshadow it. early on in Dana Barrett's apartment. And for me, it works as a reveal because we have Dan Aykroyd narrating the reveal as it's happening. And that's why it is a great reveal. And then that's why it works.

It's because again, like Dan Aykroyd's like, it was the first thing that came to mind. I couldn't stop myself. And it's like, as opposed to just saying horse shit out loud and trying to will it into existence, which just seems, in terms of the world that this film is set up, wildly negligent. And doesn't really matter. Like, at least there, like, it is the... the big grand finale and it is part of the setup of what's going on in that final scene it's earned it makes sense is the protector like that you know that it has that power to do that this is just like hey i can do all kinds of weird crap want to see and that's that's.

All it felt like ai can do anything we get it like that that's the conceit and it's like yeah i i know. I know we've seen bad artwork before we don't need to see your bad artwork yeah like Well, and that's, again, like, to go back to what you said of, like, well, the conceit could be that it's, like, you know, we're not necessarily, like, trying to say that the movie's all AI, and it's trying to be AI, and it's trying to echo. AI, but it's like, okay, like, you could say that, sure. I just don't know how. I don't know how lazy and convenient that is, you know?

It seems pretty lazy. And very convenient, in my approximation. So... I don't know. And that's kind of the concerning thing with a movie like this is, you know, looking at the response to it, overwhelmingly positive.

People really seemed to enjoy this, which I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it, but I think other people enjoyed it more than I did, which makes me wonder, have we forgotten about a lot of these like pop culture things that mattered or do they not matter anymore because they've undone their own legacy, which I do think is fair. To speak to the Terminator of it all, like Terminator for me would show up on a very short list of film franchises that have fucked themselves out of relevancy in a really shocking way. Like it also like the universe would have. Collapsed upon itself by the second or third time through. Like they've gone through so many times now in every different offshoot version and reset the world so many times that I'm like, yeah, there's no way the universe wouldn't just completely collapse. just collapse upon itself just out of sheer oh my god these humans are horrible whatever powers that be are running things to be like no no we got to start over let's noah this bitch because we need to start over these people are annoying.

And that and that i think for me is that's the i don't know it's just it's so antithetical to what i perceive as a story worth telling because terminator is there doesn't need to be anything past that first movie, you know? And again, like to speak to the alien aliens of it all, obviously, because, you know, alien is Ridley Scott. Aliens is James Cameron. Terminator is James Cameron. Terminator 2 is James Cameron.

But Terminator and Terminator 2 are very similar to alien aliens in terms of the tone being so different. For me. Terminator just, it gilded the lily one too many times. Like, you didn't need a third one, let alone a second one. And the fact that the second one is so good is a testament to James Cameron as a filmmaker, more so than anything else.

I mean, like, yes, Arnold is a very charismatic actor, but James Cameron knows how to write a compelling script. James Cameron knows how to make an interesting sci-fi film. He's done it plenty of times until he stopped doing it with Avatar. And that's why it's such a bummer he doesn't do anything other than these goddamn Avatar movies anymore, because I know the films that he makes. That are compelling and interesting.

And Avatar is not one of them, but Terminator and Terminator 2 and Aliens, they are. And he knows sci-fi. And Terminator is just one of those franchises where it's like, it should never have continued when James Cameron left. Well, it just, well, it was a moneymaker for one. But also the reason two works is because he also, like he's commenting on his own thing.

Like he found, well, what if I do an entire different take on the basic same idea I just had? And like that was enough to carry an entire second movie. And especially when you throw in all the new different, specifically technological stuff, he all of a sudden, you know, you just from one movie to the next, you see that huge leap forward in technology is as much as I love the artwork in that first world. again, the artwork that is a fake version of Arnold's face that still looks like a fake version of Arnold's face, but it's so damn cool. But you jump forward even just a few years to what's going on. And again, working in some CG for you and like it, it makes a whole new plateau for you to go run around on and delivers a whole new movie where after this, like, three four and on like it's just yeah it's the same stuff we've seen before only not as good and look you know you set the bar super high with your own films what do you want lee it's you know similar to alien and aliens like alien three had nowhere to go but down because alien and aliens are such like high water marks and again i you know it it's it's hard and that's that's the thing about terminator it's you know it's how many movies are we at now like fucking five Jesus Christ.

And I have fun with several of the more recent weird offshoots. They're not terrible, but they're just fucking weird. Just for entertainment reasons. Yeah, they don't need to exist, but I try to enjoy them for what they are as they continue, and they do continue. Because there's what?

There's been three, and then there was four, which was Salvation. Where's the weird one-off that doesn't really fit the rest of the mold? To quote that one, da-da-da-da-da. I mean, that's the best thing to come out of that movie. It really is.

Oh, good for you. And how was it? Kick your fucking ass. Like, it's good God. Christian Bale, Just, you know what they say?

Christian Bale, a serious actor. Um, and then there was what? There was five, which was the, was that the one with, was that the one with five Jason eyes or Jason Clark where it's John Connor is a robot or is that six or are there seven of these? How many goddamn movies are there? I like the one that's got, uh, what's her face?

Face from Game of Thrones that Sarah Connor. I can't remember which number that is. Is that five or six? I think that's five. I think that's five.

And then Dark Fate, I think, is the one that has the blonde girl that comes back as the new Terminator. Right, that's the one with Sarah Connor. And has Sarah Connor back. Yeah. So yeah, it is.

Or we might have missed one in the middle. No, no, that's all of them. There is shockingly only two after Salvation. I swear to God, I thought there were three of those fucking movies. Well, the other one's already in the works.

Don't you worry. It's not a film. It is a anime series. So we've also. overlooked the fact there was also a TV series in the middle of all that TV series I actually enjoyed a fair amount because Lena Headey was great Summer Glau like coming off of what was. Like right after Serenity I'm pretty sure I think she looks like like literally why she got that job man they were patting themselves on the back when they did a girl Terminator in the most recent movie it's like they fucking did it already they literally already did yeah yeah technically yeah that's fair but a good girl Terminator not a naughty girl Terminator.

So And then they did the thing with... Summer was good, yeah. Yeah, and then they did the... Oh, my fucking God. Let's spoil the twist of our movie in the trailer with John Connor being a robot, which, again, like, Emilia.

Clarke, I just want to die. She's... Her track record with films is not great. Like. And frankly, a lot of stuff post-Game of Thrones.

I mean, I think of that MCU Secret War show, and I'm just like, why? I mean, that Dark Phoenix movie was great. I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, for fuck's sake. I thought that would win you over.

You know what's so fucked up? I completely fucking forgot that that movie existed. I think everyone did. It's fine. Yeah.

Is Emilia Clarke in that movie? No, but the other girl. Oh, Jessica Chastain. No. Who?

Who? She is, she's the Dark Phoenix. Oh, oh, oh, oh, Sophie Turner. Yeah. Yeah, good God.

I thought that's where you were going. Oh, no, but I mean, fuck. I thought you were doing just anyone who came from Game of Thrones. I don't think anybody from Game of Thrones has made a good movie, frankly. I thought that's what you were saying.

You got Peter Dinklage, whose movies aren't getting released until they're forced to be released. You have Emilia Clarke, who's in one of the, I mean, again, it's all of the Terminator movies after the second one are pretty bad. it's just the varying degrees of bad but i don't think anything is you mentioned dark phoenix. I straight up forgot that movie existed i. Was watching a youtuber talking about those x-men movies like the the post post uh days of future past ones or i guess the the the sequel trilogy and i was like and he was like and then in dark phoenix i was like wait wasn't that the movie with apocalypse like no there was a movie after apocalypse i was like oh what like i I don't, maybe I covered it.

I don't remember. I think I was just like, I watched apocalypse. That movie was terrible. I cannot do this any further. That's the thing.

I went back and rewatched apocalypse in the last like year or so. And I was like, wow, comparatively, this is not bad compared to where we go after this. I was like, this is kind of novel. Now I'm looking back at this going, well, I mean, I see what they were going for at least here. And this seems good, but yeah, you don't really have that at all in dark Phoenix.

And it's like I said, I fucking straight up forgot that that movie existed. And it's, you know, which is a shame because I'm such a huge Michael Fassbender fan. like fan of like everything he does and i'm sure even he can't save that movie like. Yeah i mean he's the best you got there but that's not saying much in that movie. No that's the one where jennifer lawrence just dies like immediately right that was her deal essentially she's like i don't want to be in this goddamn shit he pulled a harrison ford it was like i'll come back but only if you kill me if you kill me pretty early on i will come back No, Freddy's not dead. Freddy's not dead, I swear.

Like, all right, kill Kincaid off in the first five minutes of this fucking movie right now. Like, we don't want him in this. Like, okay, got it. Like I said, I completely forgot. But again, those movies have time travel.

Fucking movies exist because of time travel. Like, it's... When you introduce time travel into your franchise, unless it's built around time travel, like the Terminator, it's... it can get irritating. And I think that this movie does not do the irritating time travel, but I just. Well, it doesn't use it at all.

Yeah. It doesn't... I mean, it uses it in, I think, the most interesting way. The presentation of it all. Yeah.

It's interesting the way that they use it. It's like, okay, well, we're going to have it be referenced but not shown. He's going to have information ahead of time. And that's going to affect the plot, but we're not going to see like the time traveling and anything. It's like, okay.

It's still going to be questionable the whole way through. There's still a little doubt of like, maybe this guy's just crazy. So yeah. And I wanted there to be more of that. And I wanted there to be less of like all these side tangents that are ultimately go nowhere.

And again, like even with Juno Temple's character, like her character by the end of it, I'm just like, sure like all right like what journey did you go on like ultimately the film even says like there is there is no point to any of this is what it feels like and i i don't know if in a film about ai if that's the message you want to leave the audience with because that's kind of the message i left the film with. Because the characters themselves are being strung along through this story by the end of it so you as the audience member kind of feel like so are you because it's like i said it's it's giving specifically with her character, it's giving her all these things to lead her where she needs to go so that the plot can happen.

Essentially, like it gives her the business cards, which look kind of cool. And like, you don't know what the hell it means at the moment. So I'm like, oh, this could lead to something cool, but it's just a conveyance to get us to that thing, whatever the next thing is. And the same thing is when the, dad gives her the like earpiece that lets her talk to her real son which again I guess the more you dig into it never really exists it's still just the computer messing with her and trying to get her to come to the finale of the movie which is what we need to get to the finale of the movie. So that's the thing.

I feel like there's so much good in this movie. But the more I dig into it, the more it all just falls apart. Like everything I find that I like leads to something else that makes the whole of it all weaker and weaker. I totally was lost on one end, but it kept recording the other. So it might be there.

But just in case, I think that's what I found. almost frustrating with this movie is like the more you get into it there's really good stuff there but now specifically in doing something like this the more i dig into it the more it falls apart and the more like i want to like the things along the way the more you go over it and the more you try to break it down there's less and less to it it's kind of it's almost close to nothing by the time you're done digging through it all and piecing together, oh, well, this doesn't really work and this doesn't really work. But like the first run through, I feel like I like this movie. And like going back to watch it, I found a lot more problems. And the more I got ready to talk about it, I found more problems.

And now in this conversation, I found a lot more problems. So the more you dig into it, the more it tears this movie apart. And I think that, you know, and again, I don't think that every film needs to sit and hold up under intense amounts of scrutiny. Like I don't, I don't think every intent of every filmmaker is to make a film that's, you know, water, waterproof and airtight. Like I don't, I don't perceive that because I know that not everybody works that way.

Myself included, like that's not the way everybody works. But if you're going to spend this much money in this much time and all of this, all of this effort, it should at least be a tad more compelling in terms of the plot then it ends up being. And also if he was one of those directors that was knocking out like two movies a year, but it's been like eight years, man. Like you've got a lot of time to kind of pick your project and make sure it is pretty tightly put together. And I know he didn't write the screenplay, but that's one of those like, okay, but you're taking on this project.

So like either go over to get, that's the thing. Like you said, the first draft, like I feel like if you just gave this to somebody else, and was like, hey, give this thing a pass. See if you can tighten up some of this stuff. That's all it would take, maybe, to knock out some of these problems and make it, all of these things, a little tighter knit so that it all works a little better. Because that's the thing.

There's such great ideas in there, but it's like it really did need somebody else to go through and try to tighten up the holes in it and try to make it something that works a little better. But Yeah, I feel like that's also part of it is knowing what a talent the director he is and knowing it had been that long before he came back to do another movie. I would think he would he would put a little more effort into just kind of making sure everything worked on a basic level. So that's the next kind of part of this conversation. I wanted to have thoughts on Gore Verbinski as a director, because like you said, I mean, it has been quite some time since he directed a film and there was a time where he was There was a lot of Gore Verbinski for quite some time, because if you are not aware as to what films I'm alluding to, 2003, 2006, and 2007, Pirates of the Caribbean 1, 2, and 3, some of the biggest, highest grossing films of all time at that point, up until when the MCU happens.

Films in the mid-2000s were dominated by fucking pirate movies because of this guy, which is insane. Talk about a genre that had been More or less forgotten in terms of having and not only forgotten, but also deemed unprofitable by, I would say, Hollywood writ large as an industry hook. Cutthroat Island being good examples of even when people who are talented can't land the ship. And then you have Gore Verbinski making three immensely. profitable pirate films in the mid 2000s. Yeah.

I mean, those are their own issue. I feel like, um, I, my go-to, like, I still kind of think of them as, you know, making the ring and, I stand by the ring is a solid movie, especially being that it was handed off from another movie. So like, it's rare that you get one that's that good. That is just trying to reinterpret someone else's movie, but he did a great job on the ring. So I guess that's what got that foot in the door to turn around and make this pirate movie.

And yeah, It's weird because I was just talking about these on a recent episode on my show, but like because that first movie works and I feel like it works relatively well as a pirate movie, but it's also kind of all I needed. And like it ruined a perfectly good actor in the process with what is a good performance, but it also destroyed the entire rest of his career as far as I'm concerned. Because now I don't want to see him in anything. So just all he does is just chew scenery now. Why do you feel that way about Orlando Bloom?

Well, because he's got that goofy... Oh, anyway, wait. Right. Who would say that? Like...

That guy. People love that. But yeah, I don't know. It's just otherwise it also just kind of comes back to the well. And that's what I was just saying is I also need to revisit two because I feel like I saw two in the theater and wasn't thrilled with it.

But I know people who stand by two and three as solid, really impressive Gore Verbinski movies. So. Maybe I'll go back and watch them again. I don't know. I don't know.

I just got burnt out on that first one and that character that was shoved down our throats for the next 20 years or whatever it's been now. Yeah. So other than that, you know, I didn't get to Rango. I've heard really good things on Rango. Rango is amazing.

I really I would say if that is one that you have not gotten a chance to check out and that is one you are thinking about watching, that should be the first thing you check out on his list of films that you have not seen because Rango is amazing. I mean, January. It's kind of top of the list. Yeah, I do want to watch Rango. Most of the other stuff, do I need to revisit or get around to?

I mean, Mouse Hunt's great. Mouse Hunt is really good, but that's also kind of outlier in and of itself. I really like- It was pre the name being part of who he was. Pre Ringu, yeah, for sure. By the ring, he sold a movie based on his name.

And from definitely Pirates on, that's all you needed. But now I feel like that's not true anymore. And now it's, you know, since the Lone Ranger of it all, it sort of killed everything. And now people are just like, oh, yeah, that guy. So he sort of shot himself in the foot with the Lone Ranger.

Which again is due to, wait, which actor was in that again? Oh yeah. Who was chewing on scenery again? Oh yeah. Yeah.

Well, who was trying to do that thing with him again to try and make another fucking three, six film franchise? Like I get, you know, to speak to the big box office bomb that just came out with Tom Cruise, Lone Ranger was not even. That much of a bomb. Those $ 10 million made by box office budget and the box office take, it made $ 10 million. Maybe it didn't actually make $ 10 million.

It probably didn't. But, you know, it supposedly lost Disney $ 200 million probably because of all the advertising. But at the same time, like what we're talking about with something like Digger is like $ 100 million and not even making that in the theater. Like this, you know, Lone Ranger made money in the theater. People went and saw it.

I don't know. It's weird to talk about a bomb in 2013 being that versus a bomb now. Jesus, mother of God. It is a sliding scale at this point. But with that one, again, it was all in the advertising because I saw the trailer and went, whoop.

Don't need to see that because it was so featured with the Johnny Depp of it all. And I was just like, yeah, I don't know if all of us are sick of him now. I think the answer was yes, because it didn't do that well. But I definitely was to the point of like, I don't want to see you do Jack Sparrow with the dead bird on his head. I just I don't I don't want to see it like.

Yeah, I was done. Well, and I think you might be in, I wouldn't say in a minority. I don't know if you're in the minority. I think a lot of people have a lot of goodwill towards Johnny Depp. In terms of pirates, in terms of the other things that he's worked on.

But I am in the kind of the camp with you where I'm like, I saw that preview or the kind of the footage for that Christmas Carol movie. I'm like, I don't need to see this again. I don't need to see him doing another Jack Sparrow thing under a ton of makeup. Like, whoopee. And also, what is it with these actors?

Like, I got to play Ebenezer Scrooge. Like, is there no other character from literature that's compelling to anyone? Yeah. Well, I think that's also part of the problem with him is like at Lone Ranger era, we were still like, well, I'm getting sick of his weird acting, but he seems like a good guy. And now I think we all are on the other side in the real world.

I don't know that anybody thinks he's a good guy anymore. You might be on the fence of like, well, everybody involved in the scenario that came out sucked. But at the same time, I was like, yeah, but he wasn't looking so good in this one at all. So I think we don't really think of him as this great guy all around anymore. behind the scenes. And then he also keeps putting out these horrible over the top characters on screen.

So he's just not really bringing anything to the table anymore. He's squandering what I would perceive to be a lot of goodwill that he had. Yeah, he definitely did. The Amber heard of it all notwithstanding. Like I think, I think he had already squandered goodwill by the time all that had happened.

Well, yeah. I mean, he spent his career seeing how much he can do. Like how many hotel rooms can I trash and still be okay in people's eyes? how much of a, but I'm a rock star, can I pull? And people are still like, well, wait, I thought you were an actor. What is this bullshit band you're putting together?

So like, I think he was pushing it for years there. And it was only when all of it came out with the court case that he's just like, well, now you can't even hide it anymore. Like everything is shoved out in front of everyone's faces that you're being obnoxious and horrible in many cases, a lot of the time. And we don't know how much of you isn't that, you know, it seems like, based on a lot of these stories you're nothing but horrible so. Well and that's i think that's the problem with what happened with the two of them is it it's like the blake lively thing it's like oh no you're both awful like i'm not gonna terrible i'm not gonna take a stance with either one of you i'm not gonna yeah take down the sexual assault or like no like you're kind of also a shithead like it's it's not that cut and dry and same with johnny depp and amber heard like yeah He was not the victim.

She was not the victim. They were both antagonistic towards one another. From day one, I'm like, you two are terrible for each other. Get the hell away from each other. And they didn't.

Like a lot of relationships, truthfully. I get that. Which happened around the time of fucking Lone Ranger. I mean, I think it was what? The Rum Diaries is where they met, which was like the film before the Lone Ranger.

So... obviously it's all falling apart on screen and off screen. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's wild. You know, we talk about, you know, movie jail and it is a thing. It's not like a real thing, but it is a, it is a, it's a concept within the film industry where you are put in the penalty box as it were with your career, because you are perceived as having some sort of hand in some failure and often it is a failure of immense proportion.

And sometimes it's on screen and sometimes it's your personal behavior off screen. If it weren't Tom Cruise, he'd be in fucking movie jail for life because of it. Oh, yeah. Like, literally. If it was not Alejandro Inarratu, he would be in movie jail for life.

Like, that's the thing. Like, Gore Verbinski was in movie jail for quite some time. Like, you know, you can say what you want about A Cure for Wellness, but that was not a big-budget movie. And neither is Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, but it's more in line with what he was making pre-movie jail. Yeah.

So he hasn't had a chance to make a big budget studio movie since 2013 because of that. Which sucks. I mean, he has a vision. He has a voice. He has a unique way of doing things.

He makes interesting movies. And it's a shame when someone goes to movie jail. I will never know and will never be able to have an opinion other than just my own personal one on if it's deserved or not. Like, you know. Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame, you know, shame. I don't know. Like, I don't know. Make three Pirates movies, shame on me for going to see them. Yeah, it's like, I mean, those movies all made money.

They were all relatively successful. Maybe they weren't critically successful, but they were definitely financially successful. You know, it's like, it's how quickly the world of film is fickle and turns on you. Like, it's very fickle. and turns on you very quickly. To, I like, again, the only thing I will say coming into like the second one, cause that's when, um, that's when they add in Davy Jones.

Yeah. The whole Davy Jones aspect. Which is great. Bill Nye is great. That's a great performance.

It's just, I wish it wasn't in that movie. Like, Yeah. So, I mean, it at least adds something to it, I guess, to come back to. Again, I haven't felt the need to so far, but I'm still considering, do I need to revisit two and maybe make myself watch three? I don't know.

I rewatched them, I want to say maybe a year or two ago. They're fine. You know, what's funny is they feel like a blockbuster of a time gone past. And I kind of miss when those were the kinds of films that were being made because it wasn't that long ago. It was 20 years ago.

But they feel like a different kind of big blockbuster film. I mean, even Lone Ranger does. Practical sets and practical effects and all these kind of big budget movies, they now the big budget is spent on CGI and volume set shooting and all these other things. At least these failures were weird and interesting and they were interesting to look at. And yeah, maybe they didn't choose the best actors for the roles, but at least it wasn't just CGI muck thrown up on the screen.

Oh, we got the previs ready already. It's like, oh. yeah, great. It doesn't even matter who you cast then, does it? Nope, not really. No, that's the best part.

Exactly. Everybody's just fucking interchangeable at this point. And that's where it feels like we are now. And in the day of The Lone Ranger, that didn't feel like... And maybe it was, and I just didn't realize it.

Maybe it was like that during Pirates of the Caribbean, but I feel like those films were a different kind of caliber of film being made. Those pirate films... In terms of what they were doing, and again, this is a comparison, but not one where it's like they're one-to-one, but they were trying to do something like Lord of the Rings. I mean, literally. They definitely were.

Yeah. And that first one in particular, yeah. Yeah. So that's interesting as you describe that, because are you saying... As we move forward into the world we live in now, the real enemy is computers.

Yeah, well, duh. Isn't that what Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die was saying the whole time? That was kind of what I was asking. It's like you just sort of presented the scenario of film history into the last 20 years that leads to the exact point of Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die. Yeah.

It's, it's, you know, it's just when the film is kind of proving its own point, I'm like, yeah, you didn't, you, I don't give you credit here thinking that you're that clever. Maybe you are. Maybe it's just sort of reasoning. It's like, look, this is why I didn't get to make movies for 20 years. See, I was making good movies with practical sets and people back in the old days.

Now look what I have to do. So he's just blaming us. It's our fault. Well, and that's in, you know, that's the thing about good luck, have fun, don't die. That I think is so interesting is again, you know, it, It externalizes the AI and makes the AI an external threat as opposed to clearly leaning into the fact that we are the reason AI gets to where it is.

And we see some of that in the movie. But again, the film is taking such a kind of different take and slant on the AI. It's like there's no room for that interesting conversation. It doesn't want to have that conversation. That's not a conversation.

It's interested and even engaging in it. It's mostly blaming the future falling apart on our just general laziness, which I agree with as humans in general, but certainly this country is loaded with people that spend all day on their phones and they aren't really worried about what's going on around them. And that's just the way it is. But that's a lot of their focus on why things are falling apart. At the AI of it all, it's like what is not even addressed is how much, like it uses like the government as a red herring, but like the government's just like, No, we're just going to let this go because, you know, money.

So so the industry is like, again, it's not just the government, but like the massive industries that are behind all of this. And they're just like, yeah, that could be bad. But, you know, money. So we're going to keep doing it anyway. Right.

And it's like that's the part that's equally as dumb and ridiculous that we don't even address in this movie. It's like we're just playing the individuals for being dumb. But I'm like, no, the forces that are running this country and this world are also made up of really dumb people that all they really care about is creating things that will make them more money. And that's what leads us to the end of the world. And that's why we're letting this go now.

It's just like, well, we could stop it and put some guardrails up but you know that would cost us money and we we like money so we could care less about what's going to happen in a year from now if we can make more money at the moment like well yeah okay rich people good idea it's not really a great plan in the grand scheme of things but again this is why humanity will fall apart well and. I i feel like you know for a film that is wanting to tackle ai to not have the human component be part of it other than a small child staring into a AI screen and, Oh, that's what it is like that. I don't know. Like we are like 1988. Yeah.

It's like, we are like a downfall here. Like this is, we know that at this point people will walk willingly into the arms of Skynet. Like they're not going to fight Skynet. They'll just be like, take me now. And it's like, like you said, the idea of there being a digital world that you can escape into that is seemingly like, limitless that you can control and you have you know agency over it's like yeah that's great but it is just a cage that you're in like that's the west world of.

It i mean that's a line in the movie you're living in a cage so like yeah it's like it is what they throw out there but they they barely scratch the surface on again what is a way more interesting concept than than is what what they do with it in this movie. Right. And that's the shame. It's like, you know what? You just keep introducing these ideas and then you just throw them out like they're not interesting.

Like, and by the time you get to the idea that you settled on, that's the least interesting one of them all. Like you threw all these other ideas out and threw them on, hoisted them on the petard of all these other things in the film. And then by the end of it, it's like, that's the one you settled on? Or the big finale of it all is like still an interesting concept, but the visual presentation on it is the thing that I feel like it's from the 80s. Like, it's just like, here's a big tech CGI thing that, you know, at the time we would have made a cheesy anime that looked like this and had a giant robot monster made of cords.

But now it's a big CG robot monster made of cords. So, yay? Progress? Like... It's it's the thing that feels like really dated of it all.

That really, at the end, it just needs to be a boardroom with people waiting to find ways to make money. And they're like, but you're you're killing our planet. You're killing these humans like like, yeah, but I mean, look at our profits. So, you know, who cares? So that's the reality of all.

But maybe that's equally as boring and certainly not as visually interesting as a giant cord monster. So whatever. Well, and that's I mean, that's the that's the problem, right? I mean, the the the boring dystopia of this all is like it It would never be any of this. It would literally be, like you said, human beings take advantage of one another and profiting off of it.

That's what we do. Yeah, that's what we do. Beginning of time, that's what we've done. We just found new, more technological ways to do it. And for me, I'm like, okay, so you're telling me that we have no hand in our own undoing other than like, I want to get into this digital world and be there.

Like, which by the way, is never really explained as to how that, what is that doing for the AI? That's the minimal of all these crazy side stories. Like, I think that's the one that has maybe the biggest question to sort of like wrap your head around. And like, it's the one they barely even scratched the surface on. And I don't understand why.

Yeah. Well, again, because I feel like it just needs somebody else. Like I say that about many of these screenwriters and directors and like as much as I sometimes fault them for, you know, this movie had like seven writers on it. It's going to be great. But at the same time, I'm like, when you just got one and things aren't really working right as the end result, like maybe hand it off to somebody and be like, give this another pass and like figure out what isn't working on it.

But I don't think people want to do that. That does seem like a weird studio involvement thing that we don't want most of the time. But sometimes I feel like it would actually help to have somebody else give it a look, like see what they need to do. Well, and, you know, Gore Verbinski has story credit on Rango and A Cure for Wellness. So it's not like he has no writer credit or zero writer credit.

He has a writer credit on his first short film, but he's not a writer. So it's one of those things where it's like he resonated with the script. He read the script and wanted to work on the script. And it's like I... And had visuals that were going to look great.

And a lot of them do. Like he has some really good stuff in here visually. Not necessarily the finale, but the other stuff along the way. Like I feel like he does have a vision to what he's trying to do. It just doesn't necessarily mean you don't need to have somebody else fix the problems in the script.

Well, and like you said, that's the thing about the movie, I think, overall, is I feel like there's a lot of fun, interesting novel ideas that are configured. Well, maybe they're not. It's a novel combination. They're not novel ideas. And that's the problem, because once they start untangling it and we realize that it's not nearly as exciting or interesting or well thought out as it seemed initially, it completely falls apart under the weight of its own premise.

And it never gets back to the first 10 minutes. Of the movie. And there's two and a half hours of a movie. after that first 10 minutes. And that's such a shame because you could have just had this be a 30 to 40 minute short. This could have been a Black Mirror episode.

You don't have to have... a two and a half hour existential crisis in AI. It's like, it's not even that. It's not even speaking to what's going on with AI. It feels like flights of fancy. And I'm like, I don't know if I even fucking care about flights of fancy with AI.

Because it's like, this is boiling it down too far. This is simplifying it too much. This is taking human beings out of this more than it should. Human beings are complicit. in our own creation of all of this. Like this is not just, oh, it just happened overnight magically.

Like, no, people are pushing to do this. And to miss that is just, I think to miss a much more interesting point that the film could have made. And it just, it was not interested at all. I don't even know that it needs to be a decent episode of Black Mirror. I think it's like a whole season's worth of ideas.

You know, it's like, you can have one that's the time travel story. You can have one that's the addicted to phone story, the school shooting story, the cloning story. the giving yourself over to the computer simulation story. Like there's a whole season's worth of ideas in this one movie that you could even just give it a little more story in a 28 minute scenario. And it would probably feel a little better with the viewer than what we get with just, it's almost more frustrating to just score a hint at them along the way here and then not really give you anything satisfied. with any of the stories by the end. And it just feels like a waste of everybody's time.

Because Sam Rockwell, he's good, but by the time the movie ends, he's kind of been taken out of it. And he's not, it's not as much his movie. It's Hayley Lou Richardson's, which is fine. She's fine. Which again, I think she's great in it.

But again, she's got, Little to do in the beginning. And in the end, most of what she has to do again, she's doing a good job with, but it doesn't mean anything to the movie. If we've lost, you know, if we're to the point, we don't really care what's going on. No matter what she delivers, it can't really save the movie. Whereas there's so many other movies she's in that she's like amazing in and it works within the movie and it makes her look better.

Whereas here she's trying to carry that last half of the movie, but the story itself is just kind of cutting the legs out from under. And that's a shame because like you said, she is really good in the things I've seen her in. Yeah, definitely. And this is, again, she's being given a role we've seen played by someone who is still acting, you know, right now. Linda Hamilton still acting was in the fifth, God, the fucking fifth season.

Of Stranger Things. Jesus Christ. To speak about things that need not be spoken about. Speaking of things that ruin all the goodwill that they built up with their fan base in like. The one fell swoop.

Um, it's, it's funny. Cause if you're going to do this story, I just, I don't know. Maybe I don't want to say don't do this story, but give it another once over or another twice. So at least what I'm saying, it just needs to be tightened up or just half it and do two movies and focus on more of the stuff in each movie or again, individual episodes. Like there's so many ways to break up these stories that you can devote more effort and time to it.

It's just cramming them all in this one thing. Does it really work? work exactly and again i think it's just the more you pick at it the more it it it's just, it all falls apart. It's one of those things where I wonder like, did Gore Verbinski think that because of the things that had happened before, nobody would pay him again? That might be true. And I'm like, I mean, if that's what you think, like, I guess you just throw everything at the wall and see what happens.

But I, you know, part of not working is your own choice. Like, you know, he made a cure for wellness three years after Lone Ranger. So he wasn't in movie jail the way so many other. People have been in movie jail. You know, I'm never making another goddamn film movie.

You know, there are plenty of those. You know, I, I don't, I don't know if Maggie Gyllenhaal is ever going to get to make another film. When your film bombs to the tune of $ 100 million, you don't get to make another movie. Which is a shame, because again, just looking at what she did and what vision she had, and I'm like, this is the kind of people, even if it doesn't work, you want them to keep working, for God's sakes. That's how we get impressive artwork, is they can all knock it out of the park, but you have to at least keep letting them Do something.

So I don't know. Maybe that's part of it. Maybe he didn't have faith in delivering what he used to or again, didn't have faith in the studio system to put it out there. Because also, do you remember when this came out? Did anybody pay attention when this came out?

Like, I feel like they didn't promote it much at all. And before I knew it, it was streaming. So it's like it did not get a real studio push, which something, you know, for the cast that it has and the director behind it, like it probably should have. Again, finished product wise, maybe not. But for what it was on paper, it should have had a big studio push.

Well, and, you know, it made money. Of all the times to come out, it was released on President's Day weekend of this year. So it's, you know, it came out against Wuthering Heights Goat and Crime 101. And Wuthering Heights made about eight times as much money as it did. It took in $ 4 million over the President's Day four-day weekend, which is on a budget.

Of $ 20 million. Not bad. And up against Wuthering Heights, which kind of has a little name recognition, right? I feel like, yeah, people are going to know kind of what they're drawn to on that one. Whereas good luck, have fun, don't die is even in the name kind of weird and maybe silly.

And like, I don't know what to expect from that. So maybe I'll wait till that's streaming. Like, no, I agree. It doesn't have that curbside appeal. That's something like.

Wuthering Heights does and Wuthering Heights was pretty hyped up as well so this and this was not advertised at all like you said I saw it just on fucking streaming one day I was like oh that's on streaming now cool that looks interesting it has Sam Rockwell and I didn't even know anything about it I found out about it about. It just being the movie geek I am and paying attention to those circles but that's the only way I didn't see I don't think I saw any ads for it beforehand I think I went and sought one out after I heard people talking about it and found one online. But again, when you've got to do that much digging on your own, like the studio is not pushing, like it's not being crammed down your throat like so many other big budget movies are.

So again, I don't think they had much faith in what he was putting out there. Again, maybe before it even they saw what they had on their hands. But Also, that title, I was thinking that earlier today. I was like, as much as it's a fun title and I like it, and I do think that's part of what made me remember it when I first heard about it. In the concept of the movie, does that make any sense?

No. That's a gaming term. It's a gaming term. And like the only game is them going into the cubicle or the pod or whatever they put them in. And then like they stay there.

And it seems like it's a utopia type of thing not like a gamer game so it's not like don't die kind of a game it's a live here in perfection for all eternity which doesn't match that little shout out so i don't know that was again it's like once again as a concept it seemed like a good idea within the story that you wrote, it doesn't really make any sense. And it makes me sad because it feels like, like you just alluded to, like, what is the point of even having that as the title? Again, it's memorable. So I think that's- But for whom and for why is it memorable? That's the question.

For the finished product, it doesn't make any sense. But as a, well, this is weird that might at least stick in people's heads when we're running a lot of ads for it, but then they also didn't run a lot of ads for it. So- It totally fell through the cracks and it has a weird name that probably puts off regular people. So they're just like, oh, that sounds weird. I don't want to see that.

And then they don't. And now you get to a movie that most people don't know is even out there. Which I think that's the biggest shame for me is that it just kind of came out and nobody, you know... I didn't hear any groundswell about it. Nobody said, hey, you should go check this out.

You know, I, Mike, the projection booth, Mike White and I covered the end of Oak Street earlier this summer. And that film feels like this one where it's like, just kind of came out. Nobody said shit about it. Nobody. At least got a push.

Like I said, trailers for that one, but not new. Still, it didn't get the buildup like something of that scale should have. And Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, big budget dinosaur movie did not get up. I did not get a push that it should have. yeah yeah where this didn't even get that so it's like and I feel like that's a lot of movies now like We're making less, it feels like, because they're kind of complaining that like the studio system's falling apart. Meanwhile, we also had like a huge, really impressive year, financially speaking.

So it's weird. It's scattered the way that things are working in the film industry now. But in theory, we're making a lot less movies in practice, probably. I haven't done the math, but I'm sure it's less movies than it was, you know, 20 years ago when Gore Verbinski was a big name. And like, I feel like of the ones that are getting out there, a lot of them are getting out there with no push.

And I don't know if I'm blaming streaming because they're just banking on, well, whatever, it's just going to end up on streaming and somehow we'll end up making our backend off of that eventually. But it just seems like the stuff doesn't operate on the level that it used to ever since streaming got involved. It's like when it was your only way to make money was opening weekend, they would, uh, just announce it and promote the hell out of it. And people would be out there pushing it. And like, you knew what the new movies were.

Whereas now I feel like stuff comes out all the time with real names in it. Sometimes with real directors, even with a decent budget sometimes. And I don't hear about it. And I do nothing but talk about movies and listen to other people talk about movies and read stuff about movies. And like, I'm like, when one gets past me, I'm like, you guys aren't doing your job.

Like I'm paying attention to this stuff. And I still don't hear about a ton of this stuff. And that I think for me is similarly clearly to you. That's the big issue, which is if if you are not allowing me as the film viewer and the film kind of like enjoy or to have the opportunity to to have any sort of buildup for any of this, how can you expect me to go and see this film in theaters? And it's like, you know what?

It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. No, you're right. Like, obviously no one went and saw the movie because you didn't fucking advertise it. They didn't know it was a movie first and foremost. And then you didn't promote the one that you had once it was finished.

So it's like, They've just changed the way that movies operate now in the in the presentation of it all. Like you still have a handful of movies that do spend as much on advertising as they did on the budget, which is insane to me. But you've got all these others that are still getting made, but you're not doing anything with them. And I'm like, well, then what's the point? Like, why are you putting these filmmakers and screenwriters and actors through all this work? to then just dump it on a streaming service somewhere and then nobody gets to see it because they don't know.

That it's out there. Well, and that is the thing that's nice about this film is this film was seen, there was a kind of, you know, Hulu groundswell around the film, which is, which, you know, I think benefits a film in the long run to have kind of a second or, you know, first life as it were on streaming. But yeah, it's, you know, I think it's a shame that this movie kind of got abandoned by the studio. But like you said, I kind of see why because I think if you enjoy this movie and like it really resonates with you, good. I think it's, it's, I'm not saying it doesn't for me.

I'm just saying there are parts of this movie that broadly do not work. And it's weirder that it got approved. You know, that the green light happened for something that was as big a budget as it is. Again, it's minimal for the kind of movies he was making 20 years ago, but still, it's a good amount of money for a movie that's a really weird premise, a weird title that most normal people don't know what to do with. And that has sort of a whole lot of weird sci-fi ideas crammed into the plot.

So it's like, I can see why they would have issues with it, but also why did they still throw as much money as they did behind it? Like it's, I'm surprised they got to where it did really. As opposed to just making the changes and maybe saving themselves a budget. Yeah. I don't, it's.

Just not making it at all and going with another script that was cheaper and didn't have as many weird, problematic, crazy plot lines. I feel like they read the part with the cloned shot high school kids and they were like, this is... this is, this is it. We'll put, we'll wrap all of this. We'll wrap the movie and all this other stuff. But ultimately it's about that.

Cause that's what it feels like, right? It feels like that's the point of the movie. And it's like, you know what? If you want that to be the point of your movie, make that the point of your movie, like make that the focus. Cause I would have, I would have been engaged with that film because that's the most outside of the beginning of the film.

That's the most engaged I was with the film was when it was, Juno temple and this whole kind of what is, what does all this mean? And what are the implications and ramifications for the parents and the kids and society and all this? It's like, that's not interesting. Sam Rockwell running around in this like mylar bag is, and it's like, yeah, I guess, but unless it's going to be that the whole movie, which it ends up not being, it's not going to be more entertaining. And it's like, well, that's what happens.

It's like, oh, okay. Self-fulfilling prophecy. It's definitely the most interesting part outside of the opening, but To me, when I was watching it, every time I've seen it, I'm just like, this is the part I can't believe didn't get cut because this to me is the part that's going to really piss people off because people rightfully so are very upset about even the concept of school shootings. So like the fact that Not only is it in here in a weird sensationalized way, but it's also like that's one of the lighter moments. Like it's very silly the way it presents not just the cloning part, but even the school shootings in the teacher part of it.

And then when we get the lockdown and then it follows up with that later when they're like, oh, you know, lost so many of them. Like it's just such a light tone to something that is not just tragic, but tragic on a level that people will completely disown something because it even mentions it sometimes like definitely as we've seen like people would with the drama drop the drama that's it and That was an on and off switch for people on that movie, that if you were OK with that, you liked the movie. If you couldn't get over that, you were done with that movie, period. Didn't matter how good the performances were. Didn't matter where the story went.

They were talking about something I don't want to talk about. And like they they don't want to push themselves on, you know, an interesting project, whether it's good, bad or otherwise. They just don't want to address that topic. It's the blazing saddles of it all with the drama. Like the drama is about the, the age of oversharing that we live in now.

And like, what happens when you overshare when a group asks for you to overshare and you overshare and then everybody gets mad at you for oversharing. It's like, yeah, what the fuck did you want me to do then? It's like that. That's the fucking point of the movie. So I don't know why anyone was frustrated about it when that was the point of like, it was unlike this movie.

It wasn't just added in to trivialize the entire thing. Like, every honestly this entire movie trivializes school shooting and it's. Like yeah this is more i couldn't believe it got made because of that yeah it's more offensive in that regard than it is in any other regard at all like i like you said i'm shocked given the amount of just like i would say hissy fits thrown about the drama which is completely undeserved it's like like i said it's like the blazing saddles racist thing like they're making fun of the racist like the drama is making fun of the people that are like pearl clutching constantly and especially about like thought crime stuff. Like it's, you know, for Robert Pattinson to have been in the drama, which is kind of about thought crimes.

And then in primetime, which is also kind of about thought crimes, I think is very interesting. But again, to have the school shooting be a through line from, from that film to this film, and that one is lambasted for it, and this film was like, well, that's the most interesting part of the movie. It's like, wait a fucking second here. How does this work, then? Are you clutching your pearls while on the edge of your seat?

Is that what it is? Was the drama too serious and honest about it? I don't understand what you want, because I didn't see anyone complaining about it in regards to this film, but that's all I heard in. Regards to the drama. Genuinely.

It's so divisive, and it's like, divisive about what? That's the point of the movie. Maybe because it's... it's thrown out there as a serious topic in the drama and everyone responds to it even within the movie. Like it's a serious topic because it is, but this is treat like it's the most satire of it all too. It's the most really over the top performances are in that little section there.

Cause I mean the time travel in part in the diner is taken way more seriously than Then that snippet in the middle is complete crazy over the top satire that feels like an alternate future world, you know, that like it's not taking any. It's supposed to be this. It's supposed to be two days before this movie takes place. And it's like, yeah, I mean, it's not future world, but it feels that's why I'm like, it's very Black Mirror because it feels like an alternate universe where this is going on. But like, it's not kind of I mean, the whole thing kind of feels like a weird alternate universe or an AI simulation, if you will.

But yeah, I think that's what I felt was so weird about that. That was the part I got in and was like, I can't believe this got made as it is without somebody having a fit and like stopping the production before it even got that far. Because by the time it got out, then it's just going to piss people off. And yet somehow it didn't. I don't I don't know.

I was shocked by that because I think it's interesting, but I usually will try to wrap my head around these kind of concepts, not completely turn off on a movie because of it, which Most people, definitely your regular film goers, that's usually how they respond to stuff like this. If they don't like the topic, they're done with that movie, period. They don't want to address it. They don't want to dig into it and try to figure out what the movie's trying to say. They don't care what the movie's trying to say.

They're done with it. Which is, I think, really lazy. And that's, you know, that was the discourse I heard around the drama was like, oh, it's, you know, a school shooting thing. I'm out. And it's like, oh, fuck you.

Like who cares? Like it's like, that's my thing. Like, I feel like we have to, as a society, dig into these concepts because you can say I'm done, but guess what? It's not going away. Like it continues every day on the news.

You see another time. So I'm like, we can't just pretend it doesn't happen and things are okay. It's like, we need to examine what the hell is going on here and, and try to figure out that's why that part of the drama is so good is because she's trying to figure out what led her to that. And we are the audience trying to figure out, well, how did she get to that point? And thankfully, how did she get herself out of that situation?

Like that's the kind of stuff we need to figure out to, continue on as a society. And like, people just don't want to do that. They just turn off. Which is such a shame for me because the drama, I think the drama is such a fun movie and it's such a good of how heavy that part of it is. Somehow it's still fun.

Yeah. Which I mean, again, I think is a testament to everyone involved in that movie. And I think the drama is up there for me for one of my favorite films of the year, but it's, again, for it being divisive because it chooses to tackle a topic that is upsetting to some people but doesn't show anything, this shows more than that does. I don't know. It's so weird to rag on one movie for that but ignore another one.

It's like, oh, I guess because that one is serious and this one's fun. And it's just like a throwaway thing here. You forget about it by the end of the movie because it ultimately doesn't fucking matter. Like it literally doesn't matter, which is just, I don't know. You know, it's that whole cult of cool thing, right?

It's like, oh, well, the most interesting thing from Phantom Menace was obviously Darth Maul. And it's like, not fucking, not even close. Or Boba Fett in all those, like the Star Wars first three, like he was not the most interesting character. He's the most cool looking, sure. But I don't think that was the most interesting question I walked away from.

And I walk away from this movie. We know it was taxation and trade routes, obviously. Well, given the world we live in now, it's clearly that's all it is. It's all come full circle. It always just weirds me out that there are these invisible lines people are unwilling to cross that have no consistency whatsoever.

Like whatsoever. And it's just cognitive dissonance of a kind that I really have a hard time dealing with. Well, and that was part of going back an episode, like that was part of why, number one, I was surprised that that last movie, Primetime, got made because of what it was about, but then also was weirded out by how much it didn't really have a serious enough tone about what it was tackling. Now, granted, it was tackling a lot of other stuff too, and still did a good job of what it was trying to do, but I feel like it glossed over the heaviest part of what was in that story, maybe on purpose, because it. Didn't want to.

I'm thinking more and more to get into it. I watched it two more times since, and I don't think that the movie's intention was ever. To confront any of that. Genuinely. But it's still such a part of that story.

Yeah, that's the problem. It's like it's a movie about kid diddling. How do you not deal with kid diddling in your movie? Yeah. But yeah, something as big and mainstream as that Giddy made, I also thought was weird because that's another one of those that people just like, nope, I'm out, I'm done.

And like, well, yeah, rightful. so on that too. But also, once again, if we don't examine what the hell's going on here, it's never going to even lessen. I don't know that you're ever going to stop it, but you can't even begin to figure out what's going on to try to deal with it. if we don't look at the problem, it's like ignoring it doesn't make the problem go away. Whether it's, you know, meeting kids for cookies or shooting up a school. Like, All of these are really heavy issues, but like, I think it's okay to examine them.

I think it's okay to make a movie about them. It's just how you go about doing it is, is the key effort. But sometimes people just will not engage whatsoever. Do you think there's any topic that's off limits for film to tackle? Cause I don't.

Not really. Not if it's done right. I mean, it's, I mean, we just not with, is that not the most harsh ones right there that are going to be the biggest problem you're going to have? Like I can't, think of other things that are more button pushing and that are going to turn people off more. And we're seeing people do it on a regular basis.

So it's just most people don't want to have anything to do with it is the problem. So I think, yeah, as writers and filmmakers and actors, it's okay to delve into that stuff as long as you find a way to do something interesting with it and to be trying to examine, again, the problem, not exploit the problem. And that's what this feels like. I mean, this, you know, I'm not going to say like this feels like a response to the AI of today, but it does. Like it doesn't say anything unique or interesting enough.

And it doesn't have, it doesn't follow down the paths that it kind of creates for itself. It kind of bulks at doing those where I'm like, you know what? I'm not going to say don't watch this movie because Sam Rockwell's in it. And him being in anything I think is a good thing, but it never lives up to the premise. it crumbles under the weight of its own high concept. More or less the moment they leave the high concept kind of area of the film, it starts falling apart.

And that's a shame, because I had no expectations for this movie, but by the end of the two and a half hours, I was like, I'm okay not coming back to this. It felt like it had plenty of time to say what it needed to say, and by the end of it, I was like, I don't feel like you said anything. And maybe that's the case, but I don't feel like the film was trying to say nothing. And that's kind of the problem. What if they did come back to it?

What if we got another loop at this movie with some carryover characters, with new characters brought in? Would you be willing to go down that road if they presented another one that's at least kind of that same loose concept with a new sci-fi nonsense thrown in? But why would it have to be this? Well, I don't know. Why do they hit all these sequels they make?

Well, this wasn't like financially successful enough to like warrant that. I mean, in a world where that happened, sure, I'd watch the next one. This because I've already watched one and it's like going to be another hour and a half, two hour movie. It's not going to be 10 hours of television where, you know, I'm. fucking hate watching Walking Dead season 12 because I, oh, sunk cost fallacy. It's like, when you could have gotten off the train at any point here.

Like, I would watch another movie in this universe, but I don't think they do anything in this universe unique enough that someone else couldn't take this idea and run further with it. And do something more engaging with it. I don't think they've done anything here unique enough to warrant them being like, we're going to follow this further. Like, I'm good. Like, I'm good.

Yeah, I don't think it's a good idea just based on how off the rails this goes at points along the way. But again, I think the ideas are interesting enough to have their own movies. So like if they took one or two of them and made a more focused movie and even again, if we brought back and did another pass with Haley Lou, like I could watch her do anything. So like if you kept her, whether or not you can get Sam Rockwell to come back, probably not. But I mean, if you passed it off to her and gave her a more interesting and better put together story, I would watch that.

Again, do I think it's a good idea? Probably not, no. And that's the thing. It's like, I'm honestly, I'm Switzerland. I would watch it, but I don't really need another one.

Sam Rockwell, I want him to go do other things. I'm excited for him to be in that Martin McDonough film later this year, who I'm a huge fan of all of his works. And his work with Sam Rockwell, I think for the most part, has been really great. So I'm excited for that. But ultimately, at the end of the day, I'm kind of just like, what a bummer that this movie wasn't better.

Because rarely do we get Sam Rockwell as the lead in anything. Like, and that's, like, for me, that's my, like, final takeaway from this movie is, like, this is a Sam Rockwell-led movie and you fucked it up. Shame on you. Like, shame on you. Like, he's such a good actor.

Like, come on. You took him away from the movie eventually as time went on. Like, he should be the lead throughout, but then you break up the story into so many other side stories that he's not part of that what is his screen time by the end of it is, I guess, statistically, maybe he's still the lead, but I don't know. I bet there's a lot of time he's not on screen in this movie. No, I'm sure that there is as well.

And it is not great. Like, I think that by the movie's end, it's like, well, I'm here for Sam Rockwell and you're not giving me that. Like, I'm kind of out. And that's, I think that's my, that's like I said, I'm not disappointed by the movie because I didn't have any expectations. I just. temper your expectations going into a movie with Sam Rockwell as the lead, because it's not as exciting or fun as you would hope it would be.

And that I think for me is the biggest missed opportunity. Yeah. I think that's my takeaway is like, this is one of those, and it's what I kept coming back to in the middle of this is like, if you don't go in with big expectations and you don't think about it too much, not that I encourage people to do that most of the time, but again, I feel like that's the way a lot of regular, I always use quotes around the regular movie people, I feel like a lot of them are just there to watch something and pass a couple hours and entertain them. And that's all they want. And like, if that's all you want, there are many entertaining things in this.

There are great performances. There's even some decent effects earlier on. But, like, by the time you get to the end, if you don't think about it too much, it's fine. It was an entertaining movie. Now, if you want to stop and be, like, an interesting moviegoer and dig into it and see what else is going on there, then you're going to be disappointed because it all falls apart.

I did, like, looking at the writer, he did do Love and Monsters, which I remember... liking at the time i have not revisited since like 2020 when it first came out but he's not a bad writer but he's also done a lot of weird stuff if you go back so maybe that explains how uneven some of this is because he's also the guy who wrote the story for monster trucks and did the screenplay for door in the lost city of gold so it maybe explains why it's a weird mixture of things. Monster Trucks, the film with the alien inside of the monster truck flying around. Yeah, you know, Monster Trucks, everyone's favorite film of 2016. I never saw that movie. I didn't either.

I saw the trailer and went, what the hell is going on here? So again, I factor that in. It starts to make a little more sense. But I do remember liking Love and Monsters. So he has skill.

I just want to see him make a better attempt with his next movie. Well, didn't he also do with Ricky Gervais the invention of lying, which is fun. I mean, it's insufferable because it's Ricky Gervais. Well, I was going to say, everyone kind of hates Ricky Gervais at this point. So it's hard to take anything he does without the Ricky Gervais of it all.

Right. Can't divorce him from that. Yeah. No, no, I get it. I get it.

But yeah, otherwise, I feel like We've covered most of it there. Okay. Well, on the next episode of the Culture Meltdown coming to you next week on the CultureCast and Movie Meltdown feed, you're going to hear Brian and I. Well, we're taking a. Little bit of a different direction with what we're doing.

We're not going to be doing another Sam Rockwell film. We're going to be talking about a film that's a Godzilla film. So there's that. Boy, what a pivot, huh? kaiju people love kaiju. I love kaiju you love kaiju i'm all for it who loves kaiju we love kaiju and we're going to be joined on that episode by the projection booth mike white it's going to be the three of us doing a little godzilla action uh so come back for that episode until then brian where can people find you and the things that you work on once.

Again we are part of the weirding way media family now so definitely go check out everything over there at the spreaker site itself and it's got all the different shows on there but in addition to that if you just go to movie meltdown.com that will lead you to all of the stuff we've got out and links to everything. And as for me you know where to find me weirdingwaymedia.com is the best place to find me and the shows that i work on all of those shows uh are can be found there i mean every single one uh there's nothing that can't be found there other than on patreon so i lied uh you can find the patreon show at patreon.com slash culturecast or patreon.com slash projection booth where Mike White and I, along with Richard Haddam, talked about James Bond for far too long, which is like years we talked about James Bond.

Started at the beginning and ended at what is presumably the end of at least James Bond as we recognize it. So if you want to contribute and hear those shows ad-free and exclusive on Patreon, $ 10 level on mine and Mike's Patreon is how you can do that. So head on over there, like, rate, and review this show on iTunes and then Spotify. Hit up Brian's show, hit up my show, hit up the other shows, and leave a review. It helps us out more than money ever could But money's nice, too.

So and yeah, come on back for the next episode when Brian and I sit down and talk about Godzilla with Mike.