Midsommar

We wait. So it's not that I don't like talking about myself, and that's actually far from the true. I don't like picking movies that I like, and I think I'm not the only one who suffers from that problem. I don't know if you suffer from that problem, Mark Bentley, because you on your show that's like all you fucking do. So that's that's what I want to do.

I don't want to talk. I'm getting tired of talking about movies I don't like. Actually, Wow, Mike White has joined the call. How dare you? I mean, but that's the Chevy Chase podcast will be ending soon.

Wow. Jesus Christ, Hey man, I thought you were having a good time on that one. But I'm I am not of that same mindset for whatever reason, I rarely am the one picking the movies we watch, and at least on the show recently, and even more so than that, I rarely pick movies that I like, let alone love. I mean, there are few and far between movies that I've covered on this show that are some of my quote favorite movies. I mean, I've covered them on other things, like we did the episode on Fletch on the Chevy Chase podcast, speaking of the Chevy Chase podcast, nice plug Begley without mentioning it.

But I rarely pick movies to watch of my own volition because I find it hard to be impartial, because holy shit, I mean, the movies this month, for the most part, are movies that I really like or resonate with or want to share because of a reason that I'll explain when we get to those episodes. But this is a movie that I wanted to watch with you because to your point, you are one of the few people that I know who does not do that thing that I do, which is, like you said, pick things that you necessarily don't know or haven't seen, or roll the dice on. You just want to watch things you want to watch, which I get, which is why I felt comfortable asking you to watch this with me, because I knew you liked this movie.

So this isn't going to be some sort of like Sisiphian task, motherfucker, let's push the boulder up the will together, or the movie that you don't like. So yeah, I probably wouldn't have accepted in the first place. I think I'm setting those boundaries with certain things these days, So that's one of them. Especially if the movie is three fucking hours long. I'm not gonna sit through.

That's fair. That's fair. And again, like you know, that's the other thing I didn't. I didn't require you to watch the director's cut. You didn't have to.

If you didn't, I did know. I mean, I'm glad you did. But to be fair, I think either cut of this movie is perfectly fine. I think you would probably agree because you've seen both. I think one does different things than the other one.

I know ari Astor has said they're both perfectly fine. One is a more fuller picture of the story. I look, I think there's gonna be there's gonna be plenty to talk about with this movie. Whether or not you want to watch the director's cut or the theatrical cut, I think is my point. It's a it's maybe a fuller picture of their relationship, Christian and Danny's relationship.

I don't know that it adds all that much else. There's one missing piece that you kind of get at the end of the movie as to why somebody looks the way that they do when they're being tottered around in a willbarrow. But other than that, the longest really the only completely deleted scene really is just a deeper look into Christian and Danny's relationship, their argument, their discussion at that point gives you not necessarily new information, just I think a little bit deeper into their four year long relationship. So on that note, ladies and gentlemen, if you are listening to this episode of the Culture Cast, I am still your host, Christashio, much to the chagrin of at least two people out there, I know for a fucking fact, And I am joined by my speaking of Midsummer, and I'm joined by my good friend from the aforementioned Cambridge and with Sean and I guess we didn't mention that, but yeah, you're on Cambridge with Shan, which is one of your shows, and then Wake Up Heavy, which is your other show.

My good friend, I guess, yeah, the man who will be seeing less of but his commentary is no less prescient Mark Begley. I think I ate one of her pubic harrors. God damn it. And yes, ladies and gentlemen, on this episode of the Culture Cast, I am taking a month for myself to program movies this year that I want to talk about, and the first one is Midsommer. I will not be saying what the rest of them are.

I will just be letting the month play out and mentioning them at the end of every episode, as opposed to saying what it is upfront, like we did with Mike White March. With Patch Adams, which was recent. Geez, that was like the last thing man, You're on two back to back episodes, Mark Begley, Holy shit. Yeah, that's one of the reasons I'm not taking some requests for bad movies anymore. A Patch Adams, No, I didn't mind that movie that much.

You. I was just saying you enjoyed it more than I did. I'm not even sure that that's If people listened to the last episode, they would know that that was a lie of bold face what even? But I know I'm watching it again. That yeah.

Fair. I, however, and I think you would agree, cannot say the same of this movie. I have seen this movie a fair amount, as I'm sure you have at least seen it once. Clearly, on this episode of the Culture Cast, we will be talking about twenty nineteen's Ari Astor's sophomore film, Midsommer. What time is it?

Nine pm? That can't be right. The sky is blue. This is what nine PM is like here, Welcome and happy Midsummer unbelievable. Let our at feast comment, it's like they're trying to make it gross.

What they play. Pool skinning the fool. So we're just gonna ignore the bed that bear, dude, of all the things, so let me sleep through. That sounds fun. So.

The film is written and directed by Ari Astor and it stars Florence Pugh as Danny, a woman who's whose life goes through ship. Yeah, boy, she's going through some ship. Her life is turned upside down by a series of traumatic events that lead her into the arms of a Swedish death cult. I don't want to ruin the movie primarily because I think you should go watch the goddamn thing. To Mark Begley's to Mark.

Begley's spoilers, spoilers ahead. Yeah, we're going to spoil those years old now, that's true. Amazing, that's true. Ten years is the is the limit? Anything within ten years?

I try not to spoil that. Hey man, this is my show. Is the wrong guy on here? Then? But to be fair, I think we're I mean again, like, I think you should go watch it.

I think it's a movie worth checking out. I think it's a movie worth watching, non spoilery stuff. Yeah, well, you know, use the mic white text. Then if you haven't watched it, turn this off and go watch it. But exactly, I mean, that's my point talking about the ending of the movie because of w oh yeah, no.

We're talking about the whole movie. Yeah, but I think you know, again, if we're not spoiled, if we're not, if you haven't seen it yet, go watch it, because we are going to spoil this movie completely obviously. But I think it's worth watching, and I think it's worth watching without researching it ahead of time or knowing where the plot goes, because it benefits from the pace that Ari Aster is setting with the movie, which he does with most of his movies. So Mark, I'm going to turn the floor over to you. First thoughts on Midsummer When did you see it for the first time?

The usual, all the good usual questions that you're used to with the show. When did you see it? Thoughts? Then? Thoughts?

Now, I saw it when it came out in the theater, so this was pre pandemic, just I think about not a full year it was. I think it came out in the summer of twenty nineteen July three, and so I was still working in the office where I work, and I would I would occasionally cut out early. There was a movie theater fairly close to where I work, and it's not a very busy theater, and they had regular early showings, so they would have ten o'clock showings at this place, and I'm like, Oh, this is fucking great. I can go there and then I can go home and finish my work stuff. And so I had seen Hereditary in the theater as well, because that got so much hype when it played the festivals, and then when it eventually came out, I went and saw it and enjoyed it a lot.

And so I was really looking forward to this one because I am a fan of folk horror and it was obviously leaning in that direction, and I thought, oh, this is you know, we don't get a ton of folk horror now. It was a big thing in the seventies and maybe cod save in the eighties, sixties and seventies especially, and I like a lot of those. And I was also intrigued by the fact that it was going to be a daylight horror movie. So most almost all of it, except for that aforementioned extended scene, takes place in the daylight. Because of where they are, it's almost all day there that time of year.

The sun only sets for maybe a couple hours, you know, late late, late at night. So that's always intriguing to me too. How that plays out of bright sunlight. Kind of an empty space the area where they are, you know, this village, very few buildings, mostly wide open space. I mean they're in kind of a little valley, but not many places to hide, I guess, is what I'm trying to get at.

So that all intrigued. Yeah, they're not. No, Yes, that intrigued me, and you know, liking Hereditary as much as I did, and thinking, okay, you know this guy's onto something here. I'm gonna take a little tangent here real quickly. I don't think ari Astor is any kind of genius or anything.

I think that Hereditary maybe got a little b overhyped and it's a fun movie, but you know, there's there's some stuff about it that always sort of bugs me when I watch it, And yet I think some of it that is also intentional, So I sort of go into his stuff now with Okay, you know, maybe it's going to be heavy handed, or maybe it's going to be really spelled out, but I think in part that's intentional. I don't know the directors of this movie. I think more or less gives the gives up the ghost of what the intent of the frame. Almost the tone and color palette of this movie is literally a fucking fairy tale, right, Like that's well and that's what it feels like to me. And Hereditary has that same like store weird, story book like quality to it, like Doll.

I mean, that movie's more than Doll. I mean it's about the juxtaposition of the dollhouse and the househouse, Like that's the whole thing with that. But this movie doesn't have that so much. But Hereditary does kind of this movie. In that movie, the traffic and that weird it's like hyper reality, right, it's hyper it's super stylized, and so.

It's kind of on the nose and spots too. I think a lot of the stuff is both of those films. I haven't finished bo Is Afraid yet, we can talk about that later, but I think the on the nose stuff is sort of what bothers. Some people kind of bothers me. But then I think, oh, I get that this is intentional as well.

But for this one, like a lot of the things that happen are telegrammed if you're just paying barely enough attention. I mean, my daughter catches. She's better at catching stuff anyway. But the second time I watched this movie was with her, and that was a couple of years ago. We talked about it a little bit.

If anybody wants to hear us talk about it. That was the August twenty twenty three episode of Wake upeb be called the Return of the Living Kid. So we talk about it briefly. But she is a lot better at picking up on things like the not the murals. But the tapestries.

Tapestries, the murals, I mean, there are some murals, especially in that sort of dorm room that they are staying in. And if you look at the pictures that are in this shit happens in the movie. So it's not like any big The characters are. A bit dumb. Sometimes, Hey, well, is your I mean that little darker than the other ones.

Why is no one recognizing this but the people watching the movie? Yeah, that's the fun part for me is this it's so spelled out everywhere they go, right, and they joke about. It's a fairy, That's what I mean. Like there's like a it feels like there's a level of inevitability to it, right, like like you said, the foreshadowing, right, like the inevitability of the scenario. Yeah.

And but they also the characters themselves, the idiot Americans even joke about it in time at times. Or what's the one character's name who's doing his thesis? I always forget their names. Oh, Josh, Josh William Jackson. Harper, he supposedly knows what the what that ritual is.

And and Pele, you know, basically cuts his slashes his finger across his throat. So and then so when happens, it shouldn't be a surprise to anybody, yet it still is because it's you know, these Americans who had never witnessed anything like that before in they're shocked. Or and the British, the British people, but it it just kind of makes me laugh how it's all spelled out. And I don't know if it's a not a stab at audiences, but like you know, it's right here, this shouldn't be a surprise this love ritual that my I never I'm not going to get any of these names right the girl maya Yeah, seeing it spelled and then hearing it, I get. That's what confuses me because they're pronouncing it differently than how it's spelled on screen.

But you know when she does that, it's like duh. I think the fun part about it is that the stuff works, the love the love spell works, that you know, all this stuff works, and is is what they're doing real? I mean, does it do with everything that they think that they're doing. Does it work? I mean kind of.

Does the wicker? Does burning the wickerman bring the crops back? Yeah? The mat is the may Queen blessing the crops. I don't know.

I mean, and you know, again, I think to your point, like the the the obviousness of what he's doing with but ari Astor is doing is really something that I think, to go back to your digression about Hereditary, I did not like Hereditary the first time I watched it. I actually with what you were talking about. I went into it with the previous co host of this show having told me it was like the scariest movie i'd ever seen. I was like, Okay, I'm like, fu fucking all right, I mean it's a it's I have. I came to it much later and enjoyed it much later after the fact.

That's recent, But that's only after I watched Midsummer last year for the first time. Like in god, probably, I would say probably around this time last year was the first time I had even seen midsomb I had not gone out of my way to watch it because I really didn't resonate with Hereditary. I just to your point, I found Hereditary to be very overrated when I watched it the first time, and I I will say, I think in subsequent rewatches I enjoy Hereditary an immense amount. But I think that a lot of that And this is not a bad thing. And I'm not saying that like you can't joy something because of one specific thing.

I think that there are plenty of things where one specific thing is good enough in the movie to watch it. But my god, Tony Koleet's performance in that movie is amazing. She's phenomenal in that film. And it's a film about mental health, and so is Midsommer. And you know, Hereditary is about I mean again, the idea of inherited, you know, inherited mental health as it being an hereditary thing, and in this movie there is a little bit of that in this movie.

But this is more about how mental health and grief kind of intertwine one another into this kind of nasty combination that causes a woman who is seemingly rational to buy the end of the movie, kill her boyfriend, who again I'm not This is not something I'm saying because I think you disagree, But I think as there are people who watch this movie and don't and miss the fucking point. This is not a yes girl movie at the end. The end of this movie is immensely sad like. The movie ends with a woman who is like fucking on adavan, which I was on last year, and it is a hardcore mental health drug being taken advantage of by a cult who convince her that it is a good idea to murder her boyfriend. And they don't really convince her.

I mean they do, but they don't. But they do, I mean, the machinations are there, but he's also he is a piece of shit. Nobody's aren't going to argue that he's not. I mean, he is a terrible like, Oh, I mean, to your point, he's overwritten, especially in the director's cut. It's like this guy is almost the entire director's cut is, like you said, just expanding on their relationship and really coloring his character even more negatively and making him seem like that much more of a dickhead.

But I'm not sure that him being more of a dickhead it really hurts the overall ending of the movie in terms of how she gets there, because I don't think that him being an asshole to her is all of what pushes her to join the cult, because there's so many other things that take place in the movie. But again, obviously, given the fact that the movie ends with the moment of looking into her eyes, you watch her face in this like expression of like agony but like joy at the same time, and then the credits are over. I'm not sure that there aren't people that think the ending is like an uplifting moment of like she got one over on her cheater boyfriend. Well, it's like it's not that, but like but but it is, but it isn't but it is like but.

People saw it as both though I can tell you very clearly that. Yeah, very because I was on Twitter at this time and it was did Christian deserve it? And there was a very clear delineation between yes and no with. People and how can we even argue this? And the director's cut was made available pretty pretty quickly after the film came out, so some people were arguing based on which one they had seen, like you're kind of doing here?

The director's cut makes him look worse? So does that still, though, justify what happens to him? Hey, look, I know she sort of has the final say in this. She gives the nod to go through with this. She could have swapped him out apparently, you know, with somebody else.

But that's what I think is the question. And also beggers the question, would that actually would they actually do that? Would would us like we're hits him either way? Like no, you don't get a choice, Like yeah, I. Mean they I think if if well, are they honest?

And I trick all these people, They trick all these people to come there, But are they honest in jen roll about what's going on? They may opuskate some stuff or not be you know that when they walked through the little Sunshine butthhole thing into the compound. They don't immediately say, hey, guess what, you know, we're going to kill a couple old people here pretty quickly, and then uh, you know, dispatch of all of you in one way or another so that we get some good crops here, because that's our business. That's how we survived. You know, they're not upfront with what's going on.

But also when things happen, they kind of you know, they explain what's going on to a certain extent, and then they're they're doomed from the beginning anyway, because that's why these kids brought them there. They brought these guests there as sacrifices. The British couple that the other guy Ingmar I think is his name, brings, they're bringing them to be sacrifices. So is it really ultimately Danny's fault that Christian dies at the end. I don't know.

I could argue, no, it's not. But the moment she heard about the trip, that was it. I mean, but that but that was it. I mean, Pele had the machinations to get her there. It seems like the whole.

Time, right, Yeah, I think that's another thing that people kind of went back and forth on, like he pretty obviously has a thing for her. Yeah, so you know, Dad's obvious. I think he's bringing her over there because he knows that everybody else is gonna end up gone. And I don't know if he sees something in her that he makes him actually think that she'll be the may Queen, or if it's just a matter of you know, maybe I can save her for my for me somehow, and the fact that she becomes the may Queen makes it perfect for him. I don't know.

But you know, his whole speech about how does Christian make you feel? Does he make you feel comforted, like you're at home if you know, if you're not catching on by then that even before the leave is like I'm very glad you're coming, you know, and it's like, oh, okay, he's. A bit of a creep. He has a bit of a creep. I mean he's a creep.

I mean he's I mean again, like you've said, though, like he's a creep. But there's a level of there's a level of weird genuineness to all of the actions taken by the Horga that is again hard to kind of reason away because to your point, they they don't say everything upfront, like you said, but they do eventually say everything that they're doing. They eventually say not just for the audience's benefit, but for Danny's benefit, exactly what's going on to get her to the point where it's like and then make the decision between one of ours or your boyfriend. And they don't say you're cheating, philandering, adulterous boyfriend. They just say your boyfriend.

They you know, there's that moment, and so you know, it's weird. It's weird to me. And I want to digress here before I talk about the moment in the movie that I think is the moment for me where I'm like similarly to Tony Collette in Hereditary And again, I know you would probably agree the Academy Awards and Oscars don't matter for anything at all, but Coaren's Pew's ability to convey emotion through her face just like Tony Collette is, I mean, the ari Astro is able to get very nuanced performances out of fantastic actors, and they're fantastic actor but he's like the nuance of their performances comes from the script. But it also I mean, again like he clearly works with them and talks with them a lot about what he wants from them and what they want to bring to it.

Because the moment where she walks over and sees him cheating on her and he's he's raping a fifteen year old, I mean ultimately, like it's a sexual ritual, but she's fucking fifteen. They say it multiple times in the movie, Like again, to your point, they're making it very clear. A lot of how how bad the things are is made upfront and honest. It's just again like there's no there's no pretense to it, but he's he's he's also drugged out of his mind. He's drugged up here.

They've manipulated him into doing this. I don't know that I would. I honestly don't know that I would call that rape. You know, I understand that she's fifteen, but they for one thing and this may you. Know, it's just it's so fucking wild.

This comes across as problematic. But she seduced him with a love potion exactly, whether you want to believe the validity of that working or not. The immense amount of gaslighting that is going on behind and not really behind, but again we see it, but we don't. We don't ever really see them having these conversations about the things they're going to do to these Americans that they've brought over. We just see it happening.

We see these moments where there's questioning of you know, when the one the one British guy disappears and then his girlfriend is like, well, why would he leave? And Connie's like why would he leave? Why would Simon leave? And like, well, they come up with this most the most bogus of stories. Oh the truckle they had two seats and I could have sat on his lap, but we don't want to break traffic loss.

So I mean it, it plays out at times like a very dark comedy because you know the most and again, the first time you watch the movie, I would almost say like the first time and at least the first time I watched the movie, I knew where it was headed. And it's like you've already alluded to it more or less, like I don't know how you could. I almost don't know how you could watch this movie without knowing where it's going by the end of it, just based on like you already alluded to the conventions of the sub genre of folk horror. Like all these folk horror movies end with one of our main characters either having a decision made that affects them or making a decision that affects someone else. And it is often like the one of the worst things you can do.

The kill List is one of them. The wicker Man is another one. This is another one, and again like they're they're these. It's weird, like there's a sacrifice that has to be made, and somebody's making the decision to make the sacrifice. And sometimes you're the one.

Sometimes you're the sacrifice, and sometimes you're the sacrifice, sir. And in this movie we get to see both of the perspectives. But it ultimately again like there's that like yes girl, there's that yes girl like of conversation that I find so weird about the movie because I really think that the movie makes it very clear how awful everything is. But I get I mean again, I can also see where you would think, not you, but the broader I guess internet dialogue would be seeing it and saying like, well, you know, if it's a fairy tale and we take you know, we you know. In in Hansel and Gretel.

There's an oven, and we know that the witch is going to end up in that goddamn oven. While we don't know that Jack Rayner is going to end up in the bear. We know that that, you know day, you know that there is a bear that will somehow end up playing into the climax of this film, because ari Astor shows us a bear. Right, he points everything out. Yeah, very, there's a bear.

Yeah, there's a building that we're gonna light on fire, like you know, you know, skin the like, there's all these things that are just like they say it up front. Yeah, it's all right, like I'm saying, if you're barely paying attention, you'll get it, you know. But but it works back and back to what I was saying, right, yeah, well back to what I was saying earlier before I got interrupted by solicitors. This is going to sound problematic as far as you know, the whole underage sex thing, but he is actually being manipulated by the cult too. They all want him to do this.

She wants him to do this, she wants to have a baby. That's the only reason he is there, right, That's why pele bring I mean, he again sets this up for her like you would be. She picked you out, she looks saw a picture of you, and that's why I brought you here, right, And you're gonna give her a baby, and that's all you're here for. And then you and then you're gonna die one way or another. It just happens to be that Danny is like, all right, well, we can rope her into this and give and get her on our side completely, Like.

Right, yeah, But the the yes girl thing, I don't really have a problem with it, because it's a fucking movie. And it's like, you know, if you want to take that viewpoint of he fucking deserved it. And I'm glad he's dead. You know, he's he's a horrible character. He doesn't kill anybody.

He's not a murderer. He's not a what I mean, if you want to call him a rapist, fine, but if nothing else, a cheater. But do cheaters deserve to die? No, of course not. Do horrible boyfriends deserve to die?

Of course not. But that's not That's not everything about Danny though, I mean her. We haven't talked about this instigating episode of the movie, right, And I love the opening of the movie that that cold blue, dreadful looking winter scenery that opens the film, and it takes a little a few minutes to get to what happens. And her sister, who's obviously you know, we're talking about mental health and hereditary that whole thing. She's obviously mentally.

Ill, polar they herself. Yeah, yeah, kills her. It's in her. It's in something, uh something she's reading or something like that. He says it.

He goes, she Jack Rayner goes, he's by, He goes, she's bipolar. She does this all the time. Is right, right, right? That's his dismissive, his super super cool dismissiveness. That's my highlight for him is dismissive boyfriend.

That's my name for him. Yeah, takes herself out with along with her parents in a very convoluted yeah scenario. But yeah, and and horribly that image of her down the hall as it is, you know, kind of pans into her with thanks trapper. It's just a horrible image, really gruesome stuff. I mean, it's not you know, bloody or glory or it's just fucks with your head.

How horrible this is? Well, and to your you know, I sometimes share some of the horror movies again, like you know, horror movies genre fair. You know, I sometimes share them with my folks because my mom is notoriously not a horror movie person. And we watched this the last time they came to visit, uh, and my mom was like, is it a scary movie? Because I had taken them to see Alien Romulus, which like is a scary movie, like there are that movie has jump scares, like that is a traditionally scary movie.

In a way, I'm not saying this doesn't traffic in that they're a couple. There's like one or two, but this movie is in a lot of ways not that, and it it's kind of I don't know, like it's not that it's a scary movie, and it's not that it's a gory movie. I think it's more just like a completely unsettling movie. And at times this movie almost and I realized I noticed it this time I was watching it because of the way that the film at times as the movie goes on, where I'm could also convinced by the way that these fucking people have been drugged the whole time. They're being drugged the whole time, right, Yeah, they're not even again, they're not like alluding to it.

They're showing us that they're drugging them constantly. And it may be even in the food, but it's definitely in the drinks that they keep offering them, and they're offering them drugs outright. This movie's not gory, or there's a couple of gory scenes, but I don't think this movie's overall gory. I think it's just overall unsettling. But at times this movie feels like it's a lie.

It's like undulating in the background. At times you can see like the background scenery undulating behind the characters, and it's that's more unsettling than any amount of a guy jumping off of a cliff and having his head smashed in Like I mean, you could like they're go watch Terrifier three, like that's you know what I mean, Like, if you want to see gore's a there's a level of gore that you can go and see elsewhere. This movie is not trafficking in that. I think what this movie is trafficking in is much much more to your point and kind of what you've already mentioned unsettling. It's I think this movie is thoroughly unsettling, because again the movie is gaslighting the audience along with the character, because we find out when it's too late, just like Danny does, what is going on.

And she should in the moment at the end when they're like you want to sacrifice him or your boyfriend, she should go, let's get the fuck out of here and run. But they obviously they can't. That's not the way the story plays out. That's not the inevitable. Well, I mean again, obviously there is that.

I mean the inevitability of it all because again, once they walk through the sun, the sun butthole, as you so athlete put it, it is game over. I mean the moment, the moment she loses cell phone sing it's gamer I mean, it's really you know, the last she gets a text message from her friends saying like, have a happy birthday tomorrow. It's like, that's the last moment. That's the final moment of contact. And then and from then on she is gone.

You know, there are so many missing people across the world, and she is now just on a long list of missing people. Essentially, her family is dead, but she may have extended family. Clearly, there are people who care about her. Who are going to wonder where she went? They are essentially missing per sins now and who the who the fuck's ever gonna find out where they went?

I don't know, that's funny. Probably they're in the middle. They are in the middle of nowhere. They take a very long drive to get where they're going. Yep.

And none of them, I don't you know, any of them would know if she wasn't on her own, if one of the other people had survived, they would never find their way out of there. No, there's too many. There's too many of the horriga anyways. I mean again, like you said, like where are they going to go? And like you have mentioned, there's at the end of the film, Jack Rayner, after the sex ritual, he's running around and we're kind of seeing some of the things that we've heard happen or have alluded to happening, get to see some of it, and it's like he can't get anywhere.

They're just kind of watching him as he's running around. It's like this is inevitable, Like they're just waiting. They are enjoying the process. And that's again like that's why this movie is so unsettling. Is these people are in a lot of ways reveling in this.

They are reveling in gaslighting these people and murdering them and torturing them and turning them against to one another. They're enjoying this. They're getting I mean, I'm not saying that they're getting off on it sexually, but when you look at what they are doing in those scenes where they're like sharing the emotions of one another, they are technically getting off on it. Like you know, when in the sex Ritual we have this, you know, kind of horseshoe of women all making noise in unison with Maya. We have them, then we have the women then crying with Florence Pew and I think one of the more again, one of the more overwhelming scenes in the movie, and has no gore.

There's no gore in that scene. It's just overwhelmingly emotional in a way that that dinner scene in Hereditary is. It's like Jesus Christ, I've never seen a more horrifying scene in a movie than that dinner scene and Hereditary because that is eminently more relatable than most exorcist or you know, possession movies are. I mean, again, for as much as the director's cut does kind of gild the Lilian away with their relationship and give us more of them being terrible towards one another or him being terrible towards her, however you want to interpret it. I think the amount of I don't know.

I just think the amount of them two together getting to see that is not necessarily a bad thing. But I don't think it's needed because I think to everybody's point, and even to your point, in a way, like it's made very clear that he's a dismissive boyfriend, and that almost should have been enough because of how bad what happens at the beginning of the movie is and how fucked his real how genuinely fucked his reaction is to her family die. Like she is so vulnerable as a human being at the beginning of this movie that it takes someone essentially breathing on her for her to go into this arms of the cult, and she does, I mean she goes willingly. Because the other thing that we haven't really talked about, and we haven't said the word really is the idea of the Horga being her family, replacing the family that she has lost, and that is a real big part of the gas lighting kind of narrative of the movie is that they are kind of a family embracing those emotions together, like you know, sexually, or crying, or the breathing that they do, the kind of like rhythmic breathing, like all of it is this weird shared psychosis that by the end of the movie, Florence Pugh is at the center of it, and she's screaming and crying with the smoke in the background, and it's.

Just, yeah, well, that's what colts do. Though. I mean, they don't have to separate her from her family that's already been taken care of. But that's what colts. That's what colts do, is they slowly cut off all of your outside connections and make you feel like this is where you belong.

These are the people who are going to take care of you. They're going to not only empathize with you, but like physically go through the same thing as you when it's happened. You know, not that those women, any of those women are actually crying when she's crying, but that scene of them huddled around her imitating her basically would be I'm assuming comforting and you know, I'm not so sure about twelve naked women standing around you when you're having sex. That probably wouldn't be And I mean, I guess you'd get used to it after a while, and you know, somebody helping your boyfriend, my Christian is but I'm sure they don't do that for every sex act. But you know, I don't know.

They're kind of weird, so but I mean, they're a cult. It is a cult, and you can't That's why I like the ambiguity of it. Who I don't really fucking care if Christian deserved it because it's a movie, and fuck that guy anyway. He's the first contact he has that they have in the movie the phone call. He's dismissive and that very passive aggressive trait of his throughout.

Well, I didn't, you know, I don't know if the like when the party, I guess, which is one of the extended scenes, which I've only seen it twice before seeing the director's cuts, so a lot of the stuff I'm like, how does this get twenty minutes longer, you know than the regular cut that I've seen, because i'm you know, and I'm reading what the extended scenes are and stuff, I'm like, oh, I guess. I mean that just seemed I didn't notice that that was new. So at the party, I you know, some some part of that party that they all go to that she kind of drags herself too, uninvited in a way, you know, is explicit in that relationship too, where she's finding out about the trip and he's like, well, you know, I told you I wanted to go, and she's like, well, no, you told me that there was going to be a trip.

Well, so he's like back and forth with well, I implied that I, you know, and I just decided today and and then oh and I was going to invite you, but you ruined the surprise. And it's like, bullshit, you were not you know, if she hadn't found out about that, you would have never told her and then it would have been too late. And the whole time though, I'm thinking, dude, fucking nut up and just tell her you know, this is this is for my school stuff. This and Josh and I are gonna do you know, this is why we're going. But he can't.

That's why I hate that passive aggressive like, well, I invite her, but she's not going to go. You know, when he's talking to all his friends and it's like, that's not how it works, dude. And then her similar passive aggressiveness like well, you know, if it's okay with everybody, and who's gonna say no, it's not right? Yeah? Right, yeah, and be the dickhead, like I mean, they all want to nobody apparently likes her, and then you find out you know, well.

We don't know if they don't. We don't know if they don't like her, but we know that he he bitches to them about her. I don't think kil Poulter. I don't think Will Poulter likes her. Well, I mean pretty apparent.

Yeah, but you know what I mean. Also, like the the thing I appreciate about the Jack Rayner performance is whatever he's also coloring their judgment on her because of the well yeah, interrupting me while we're smoking weed, Like, bro, just don't answer your fucking phone, like you know what I mean, Like, if it's such a fucking hassle for you to talk to your girlfriend, bro, just don't answer the phone and just be like what do you need? And that's like you said, with the passive aggressive it's like, but they haven't answered the phone, and he acts like an asshole, and it's like, oh right, he's just and he's so perfectly a dickhead, like yeah, and so it's a little bolder to your point. Yeah. The other thing, though, that drives me crazy is her apologetic attitude, where it's like, girl, man, you know, knock it off, knock it off.

I don't know. So you don't get the family dynamic because her family's dead, But you wonder like why I can't. I just can't imagine being around being with somebody who is just forever apologizing out something. And I mean, you know, this is obviously showing us what their relationship is like. But I'm thinking, man, in this day and age, to have a girl be so apologizing for what?

For being yourself for you know, being traumatized by your family being killed in one fell swoop? What are you apologizing for? And then she apologizes for apologizing and it's like, God, damn, why would you be with someone that you're constantly having to apologize to? Why would you want to be? I mean that kind And that comes up when she's talking to her friend, Well maybe I'm too needy.

Well maybe you know, why should I keep calling? Should I tech it's like, God, it shouldn't be that hard. A boyfriend girlfriend relationship shouldn't be that hard. I'm sorry, it shouldn't be that much work. If it's that much work, just fucking forget it and move on to both of you.

If neither one of you has the balls to say this is stupid, you know, it's frustrating. Well, and I think, I I mean, I think ari Astor, I mean I like that ari Astor minds that in the movie because it really I mean again to your point, and I think it's like it's almost like the is decorad a replicant question of this movie, you know, like the does he deserve it or not? Like to your point, like, I don't think it matters. The movie makes it very clear he deserves it. That's the foreshadowed, very obvious, like telegraphed ending by like the imagery that we see by the artwork in the Hut.

At one point we see a literal bear on fire at one point like this, the movie is showing us its hand, but in the execution, it's it's like one of those like boxes that is essentially finally milled to like point zero, you know, zero zero zero millimeters where everything works together too well, that it's like, well, I do agree, and I would one hundred percent agree with you that everything is hyper stylized. The characters are very clearly written in very broad strokes, even to your point Florence Pugh's cacharacter, who is she's not written as like the nagging girlfriend, but to your point, like she's written as a very specific kind of girlfriend. That Jack Rayner's character has to have a very specific kind of boyfriend for this formula to work.

But again, it's a movie. It's written by Ari Astor, and so because it is a movie that is crafted by a human being, he makes these pieces work together really well. Which is a kind of again not super shrewish girlfriend, but what she does works really well with how negative he is and how passive aggressive he is. That the two of them are really I mean, in a lot of ways. I think that one of my not a complaint of the movie, but almost a thing I would I would even say, like you, you've kind of alluded to it, Like I find it almost unbelievable that they were actually ever together as a couple because they seem so fucking.

Miserable, like well, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, I agree, I accutely be Yeah, I agree with but I say that's almost would say that's almost a problem with the movie. As for as much as I like this movie, I have a hard times believing these two people don't like ever actually liked each other outside of the the like we open and it's a fairy tale, and these are like you know, Jack and Jill or Hansel and Gretel, like no characterization really like they're together and that's all we know about them, but their relationship does not seem real at all. Obviously, people get involved for the wrong reasons and stay together for the wrong reasons and all this other shit. But for me and my brain, it doesn't It doesn't work.

It doesn't make any sense to constantly be that embroiled in negative feelings. Like a boyfriend girlfriend relationship, I don't care if it's been going on for four years, five years, ten years. Should not be that much work, now, you know, a marriage maybe, but even then it's like, you know. Yeah, they don't know how to communicate either, which is the other thing, Like they're this they can't communicate. Yeah, but it's always she's always either apologizing or backtracking something that she said, or you know, apologizing for feeling a certain way about something.

That he said. And this is where that extended scene plays into it, I think the most. And why maybe if you've watched that cut, you're more likely to say, yeah, he deserved it. But also I don't I don't know that. But if it has to be that way though, for the movie to work, where it's this relationship that nobody thinks should work, it's it's obviously the tail end of it.

And you know, he can't break up with her now because that would be such a dick move because your whole family is you know, it's like, that's the that's a stupid reason to stay with someone for one thing, But you shouldn't have been together that long. And when they when they say towards the end of the film that they have been together for four years, it's like, what, why would you? Why? Why? And I get that sometimes it's just having someone there that's the comfort for you, you know, particularly for her, I think, because he's got his friends.

I mean, she has a friend obviously, the girl that she talks to, and that sends her that text, and but she she seems more isolated, and that's I think made clear in the in the early scenes of the film, where he is surrounded by his friends at all times, and she is the interloper, and she may be talking on the phone with her friend and trying to text her sister, but she's just sitting all alone in her apartment and it seems like that's sort of normal for her. So it's framed in such a way that she is the hanger on. She goes to the party that they've all been invited to, she goes to the on the trip that they were all planning to go on, and it's always this fifth wheel type scenario. And I don't know, I just I couldn't.

I couldn't live my life that way. Well, and it's and to your I mean, that's why I agree like the characterization of the Florence Pugh character. Again, the way that she's characterized, I'm not sure I love her performance, but her character is not She's not the kind of person you'd want to be with, Like she's the way that she acts and the way that she interacts with him, Like it's very clear that she does not know how to communicate with him. He doesn't know how to communicate with her. And to your point, that may be even more than just her not being able to communicate with him.

It might be her on being able to communicate with anybody at all. And again, to your point, we never see her family dynamic. We know that her and her sister don't get along, but I mean again her sister killing their parents. You know, we see her parents and her sister show up a couple times in the movie. Mm hmm.

There they are at one point on the rock where the two old people die, and then at the end when she's being congratulated as the may queen, they walk through the audience. They walk through. Yeah, so that they show, but we never hear what they're saying. And you and and you know, there's that in that scene, that extended scene where they're talking about the flowers and he's like, I don't like being in debt to you, And you know, you wonder what it was like when with her family because again, like she did something nice for him and his response is to like freak out at her, and she doesn't defend herself about it at all. She, like you said, backtracks completely and more or less takes responsibility for nothing like being nice to him, like why are you apologizing for?

What are you apologizing for? If you're not apologizing for anything for real, then stop fucking apologizing. And it's so much, you know. And in that scenario, I'm kind of like, was it was she doing that? Though?

And maybe she was? I get, yeah, I can, and I mean and why not you didn't remember her fucking birthday? I mean, yeah, exactly. He's such a fucking dick like and the thing and you know, we've mentioned, We've talked about Florence p and Jack Rayner a lot to mention Dix, like Will Polter an actor I love. I love, yeah, and he's great in this Yeah.

But he's like what they're having him do is play. I think what one might say broadly, European people think America think about like big headed, pig headed Americans of a certain stripe. They're all ugly Americans though, honestly, yeah, they all are, yeah, even I mean they're they're arrogant, they're you know, of culture that yeah, and this is and they're this is what they're studying though, which is the funny part of it. And it doesn't matter. It's like I want pictures of your sacred text.

So I'm gonna fucking break in there and do it, you know, for my thesis. Right, even though their sacred text is complete horseship, but whatever, I love it, you know, the gentleman Joe. The joke though, is that they're like because they're gaslighting everybody, Like somebody's gaslighting somebody else who keeps gaslighting somebody else. But like that it's not real, like it's literally like they it's not like that's what makes it. But is it gaslighting or is it just because Reuben Camp actually write and he's just smudging paint on things.

I think there's text underneath there. He's just not adding anything new. That's true, But this is one of the sixteen affects, like all right, like. It that makes me think of, you know, the whole idea of interpreting. They're going to interpret what he shmers on there, right, so right, it could be whatever.

This just reminds me. This is a total tangent. And I apologize to your listeners, but I you know, grew up in a Christian home and had and went to a Christian private school and and so all my friends went to different churches. And stuff, and a couple of them went to UH four Square church, which is Pentecostal, And I went to a Pentecostal summer camp with these kids one time. And so Pentecostals speaking tongues, well, the whole point of speaking in tongues is you have to have someone there who can interpret it.

Right. It's the same fucking thing right, because it's gobbledegook. And I would just sit there and go, what in the hell are you people doing? This is ridiculous, and half the time nobody would interpret it. So but that's but that's my point, Like, at what point in this horga society did everybody agree to be gas lit together?

Because because it does, right, the elders are gas litting. But but again, at seventy two, these people have to kill themselves, so the elders are only in charge for a while and then they're put out to pasture. Even so, like to be elder in the church, you're pre seventy two, I guess. So you can do with the Mormons then and have a new revelation, and then do you change that you know it's true, change that prophecy. Now it's okay to let African Americans into your church.

Now it's okay to live past seventy two. Let's change the dates. Let's hell, let's have it be twenty you know, twenty forty sixty eighty people a couple more years. Well, that's keeping. You know, maybe we'll just not do the diving off the cliff thing.

I gotta tell you, that diamond off the cliff thing is a little harder to watch nowadays for me, after having fallen off a fucking ladder shattering my leg? Does that? Does that that? That's not a positive scene to watch? Well?

And that's like one of the worst possible ways I can think of taking yourself out because obvious, very obviously it's not right because this is the rock. And then you get your face smashed in by the giant mallet and they take that takes forever for them to get over there and do it. It's like, can we speed up with the mallet please, I'm hurting over here. But and again, like there's that level of like embracing the shared suffering because you have the characters, the Horga making the noise and it's like what like what the what? What right?

And that's what appeal. That's the appeal that. You know, maybe an outsider or maybe the younger people you know who are kind of going, you know, somebody at some point's got to go. This still seems kind of fucked up. You know, I've been living here in my whole life, but.

This things Pele doesn't seem to think. So yeah. Well, and I mean you can also argue, whatever you grow up with, this happens every year or whenever somebody turns seventy two. You're not going to think anything of it. But a lot of those that are in that second phase, that summer eighteen to thirty six or whatever, that's these guys, that's Pele and the people that bring the British kids and all that.

So they're experiencing the outside world and know enough of it to know that this is unusual. But again, it's what you grew up with, and it's what you're led to believe is the appropriate way to do things. So some of the themes of Hereditary are folded into this movie because there is that, I mean, there is the level of like in Hereditary, the Grandma is you know, I am doing all of this for you, and this has been a thing that I am doing and you know, don't worry about it. But this is a thing set in stone for a long time. And this, I mean again to your point, Pele, and all these people leave and come back willingly to die, what are you going to say to that?

Well, I mean again, like they came back willingly. They were out in the world for how long and could have stayed away and and probably maybe some do they don't say, who knows, maybe not, yeah, maybe some. I mean again, they do let them leave. They let them leave, that's the And these people come back willingly to jump off of a cliff. You know, so do the Amish, most of them after their rum springer and they've had a taste of the outside world.

So exactly so do Mormons on their mission. So do you know, I mean, the tradition is overwhelming. There's a level of expectation and tradition that's baked into this society. And again, like you said, it's not much of a digression with religion. Like they are a religion.

This is right. I mean, it's a relig I wouldn't say it's a religious movie, but I mean they are a religious cult. Cults are you know, cults have a religious aspect to them. They they never really I mean, they never really mentioned that they believe in a god, I guess, but they definitely talks about you mentioned at one which is Norse. So right, yeah, because they are, you know, a northern country, so Sweden.

What a beautiful movie, by the way, to your point about the all the daylight stuff, I know, again we've like some of the things we've glossed over, but this is a beautiful movie. I I mean because it is all in daylight. Like, it's not a scary movie. It's an unsettling movie. And I think a lot of that also comes from the fact that it's shot in daylight.

Like what you don't see most of anything that happens in this movie. There's one there's one scary moment where Josh is clubbed over the head and murdered by the guy Will Polter's fucking skin suit. Well that yeah, this is the Halloween. Homage with the tilting of the fucking head, like Michael Myers, I mean, that's. In the fool thing.

I think that this is one of the things that Cleos sort of helping me with. I'm like, why does he look so weird? And She's like well, because someone's wearing his skin dad, And I'm like, oh, right, skin, the fool, I get it. And then and I think another scene means you can see his like leg skin and other parts of his skin on other people. Yeah.

Yeah, but that that makes me think of Connie because that is one of the things. You know, sometimes in our discussions on other films, we like the Chevy Chase stuff we've been talking about, I think in particular Three Amigos, where stuff got kind of cut out and you're like, well, this doesn't make sense anymore now that they cut that out. And with Connie it's not it's not that big of a deal, but it's like, oh, now I get why she's in that stuff, right, you know, to made up to look like a tree. You would just think it's part of a you know, another ritual thing. And she's obviously been in the water.

She's soaking wet and looks like she's been there for a while. She's starting to decompose. And so that deleted, completely deleted scene of the river sacrifice that doesn't actually take place with the little kid, it's like, oh, okay, now I get why she looks that way because they went through with it, just with her instead of with the kid from there. And did you have you noticed in the movie the scenes where you hear her like dying. There's two scenes in the movie.

Yeah, Florence k hears her, and then Will Polter hears her. Yeah, it's like a Rashamon thing. It's like you hear the scream in this scene, and then they kind of re retrack a little bit yep, and then the next person you know, in the next scene. They're all taking place at the same time, but he shows them successively and it's like, oh, okay, yeah, I get it. And then Will Polter has a really good line where he goes, no, but I heard her trying out for the sprinting Olympics, which is which is essentially he's alluding to the fact that she's being chased down by them to be murdered like and he's just I I mean to go back to the original point.

Will Polter plays again, like you mentioned, they're all dick like, just pig headed Americans. But his pig headed American is my favorite one of the movie because he's he's a man after my own heart, hitting his fucking fait pen constantly hisssing on their tree by accident, just wanting like just want some snizz. The whole movie, he's just like I want some tang and that's what I'm here for. It's like, oh, this guy, we all know a guy like this guy. Yeah, and if we don't know this guy, you might be that guy of your friend group.

But he's like he's the Again, Like, I'm not saying all the characters deserve it, but the British couple, the case is made for them deserving it because they're fucking obnoxious like they are, Like, I mean, the movie makes it clear what it wants you to think about them as to why they deserve to die. It's I mean, like and again it's a little less egregious than what the Americans do. They're essentially just like they don't agree with what they're seeing and so they're rather loud about it, like that's why they deserve to die apparently. But the Americans, like, I think Will Polter is the perfect pig headed American of the pig headed American group because he's just oh, he says all the worst things constantly always, he's.

The great he is in a film that I think is filled with black humor. He is the he's the comic relief and just regular humor. But the idea that I just it bothers me. I get it, not that I think he deserves any of it either, but how would again, how would you know? But it's like, well, then just fucking apologize.

Don't do that, like you know, I didn't know. It's just a fucking tree, like right, oh my god, I'm so sorry he. Had to be that guy though, that's the point, like right again broad strokes right, Like. I just always hate that scene because I'm like I would be mortified and be like, oh my god, I can't believe. I'm so sorry.

I can't believe I did that. Oh you know, what can I do? Well? Just to rip your skin off? But it plays out in the worst way.

It's like playing you know, Fallout Balder's Gate and picking the worst option, like antagonize, antagonize like oh I don't know, oh, like what did we do? Would we do? How do you guys? Jerk off? Like what the fuck?

Dude? Shut the fuck up, like nobody needs to hear what you have to fucking say, asshole, And he's just like says the stoke, Hey, what of the sweetest women's so fucking hot, Like, oh my god, this guy, this fucking guy, like can't take him anywhere. And then there's that scene of Florence Pew in the car and she gets falling asleep and waking up, and some of it is him talking. It's just like Jesus Christ, Yes, fucking well. I love the fact.

And I again, this is only the third time I watched it, so kind of knowing what happens to people ahead of time makes me think about the scenes prior. So he you know that happens, and that one guy Olf I think is really really mad about it and really dislikes him, and he's like, man, that dude is still staring at me. You think he's gonna do something. And then the next scene, I don't know if it's that guy's daughter or what that he's been checking out the whole time, like, hey, come with me, I'll show you. She's like, oh, she's gonna show me, and then he's that's it.

He's dead. Yeah, And I like that with like bruises on her face, So there was maybe like a struggle or something like maybe like yeah, she has like she has like bruises on her face at the end of the movie. Oh that's right, No, I did, so maybe they like, I mean again, like she she cat fishes him away so that she could get. Him right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean she takes him to his death basically. And it's just funny how I realized, you know, oh it happened in just like boom boom boom, and that guy's still staring at me.

And then she comes over says I'll show you, and he's like, hey, she's gonna show me. Yeah, you're gonna show you how they peel your skin off. And don't you love how terrible his friends are that they don't even realize that he's gone. Yeah, I don't even realize. They're like, where's mark As, Oh he's been gone for like again.

And the other thing that's n settling about the movie because there's very little daytime or day night time. We don't know how long time passing is in any of this, Like I don't have it, like you said, like Connie's been dead for a while, has she? I mean, she looks water logged, But I couldn't fucking tell you how long any of this movie takes. Because of the lack of because of the lack of night time. It's like being this movie in a lot of ways, it's like being in a casino, like they're deprived already.

Astor again, like you've already alluded to, is doing things intentionally to deprive you of things that in every other movie you watch allow you to have like markers in time of things happening, like in horror movies when it's daytime, normally you feel safe, like as a as a watcher of the movie. And in this movie, there is no day there is no night time. There's only daytime, and daytime is when everything happens. Like there's there's nothing bad happens at night other than the instigating incident at the beginning of the movie. But yeah, I.

Well, yeah, once you get there, it's almost always daylight. Yeah. Just the only other scene really that takes place in the dark of night is when Josh sneaks out to go take pictures of their sacred text, right, And that's really it. And that and I think that's why that extended scene is a little bit disorienting too, because it's like, oh, this is a fairly long scene at night in the in the dark, and so and I don't know that that's why they took it out, but I think it's also you know, do we really need to show this again? We've already had a I mean, it comes right after the old people jump off the mountain, and maybe like, well, this is too much.

This would come across as too much to these Americans, like they probably would really try to get the fuck out of there, right right. Being thrown into the river now, I mean Florence Pugh's line, right, what's happening now? It is really which is a great line delivery. What's happening now? Cut to them throwing a child in the.

River right, which they don't do they Connie instead? But I mean, I know there's I understand there's multiple reasons for taking it out, but it almost feels to me like, well, this kind of doesn't fit because it's the only extended scene at night. It's it's sort of repetitive because we just had this sacrifice and other than their long discussion which reinforces their their relationship, but do we really need that as well? Like we get it, we get that he's the dickhead gaslighting boyfriend and that she's the apologetic, like overly apologetic girlfriend. We already have that established.

We don't really need the full their full dialogue. I guess my question to you would be, does that move the inflection point of the movie, because in my mind, that's the inflection point of the director's cut, is that scene at night between the two of them, because that's the moment if you watch again, like and this is the thing about and this was the digression that I never made, but this movie. It's ironic to me that I watched this movie the year I ended up getting divorced from my partner of thirteen years, which is something that I've had to come to terms with. And that's part of what this movie is about, is coming to turn with grief and loss. And I struggle with it still on a daily basis.

And I would never in a million years join a cult to try and make things better, which is what she does. She goes, I don't have a family anymore. I have no found family. Even so I am okay with making the decision to turn my decision making over to these people entirely and soon to be part of the mass that is them. You know, that's not something I want to engage in.

But Midsummer, if you watch the movie as a relationship, as a look at relationships, the inflection point for their relationship where they it is the point of no return as far as I'm concerned, the cheating and whatever is kind of belabors the fucking point. I think. I think she makes the decision to put him in the bear if given the opportunity when he walks out on her and leaves her in the middle of that field, standing there, And that scene is different in the theatrical cut versus the director's. Cut, Well, it doesn't exist. It doesn't exist at all.

In the right, they don't have because it would be how would you cut into that? And I'm pretty sure it's not in there at all. I don't think that night scene is in there at all. The night scene is not in there at all. So my question to you, then, is the inflection point?

Is there even an inflection point in the theatrical cut with their relationship or is it just they don't Again, like I appreciate the fuller picture of the movie, but some point is to be made that, like, right, we just go into it knowing that he's a bad, dismissive boyfriend, Like. I think it comes when he basically lets everybody know that he's gonna steal Josh's idea. Interesting, Yeah, I would agree. No, it's like you are an asshole, not just to me, like you are an asshole, Like you had no idea what you were doing everybody. And I think that's the other stuff that's was cut out of extended scenes was more of him, Like because Josh doesn't one point, you should be doing in your work and he's like, what work are you talking about?

Like, your your prospectus, your thesis, right, figure it out. He doesn't know what he's doing yet until he gets there and decides to do it on that which Josh is obviously already doing, you know, So that whole thing. I mean, I get Christian's written as a really terrible guy both to his friend and like I I would even go as far as to say, because we've already we've already mentioned it about like, it doesn't seem like their friendship, Like their relationship between Danny and Christian is real. I'm not sure that they even seem like they're real friends. Like Josh and Christian, it barely feels like they're even friends.

Yeah, it's not a believable friendship. Like no, and and then and then that moment where Christian again outs himself as such a piece of garbage, where he's like, well, I just want you to know we have nothing to do with him. We don't consider him a friend or a collaborator, we're not. Two scenes earlier, he's like, we could be collaborators on this and chair information. And then scenes later he's like, we have nothing to do with this guy, and I'm forsaken him completely, Like wait, what the fuck?

Like Christian again, what he's written with such a broad stroke that it's like, I don't know, I don't know anyone like this personally that takes the wrong It's like he takes the wrong action when given every opportunity to do the right thing. And I don't personally know anybody like that anymore. Uh But and I'm not saying that I did or didn't, but like that is hard to be around, just as hard as Florence Pugh's constantly apologetic is hard to be around. Yeah, And by then that that incendiary combination is what makes this movie work, is because it's believably incendiary to the point where you're like, okay, I can get to the point the movie wants me to get to where she kills her boyfriend. But I'm gonna say lets him be killed.

I'm not gonna say she kills him. Yeah, I mean, to be fair, she lets him be killed. I don't know that she has all that much choice, but any. No, she's dropped out of her mind, and so is he. I've known plenty of people like that, and they're the worst.

And I don't even think it's really a broad stroke his character. I think it's just this is a a white dude. He's just a white guy. He's an American white guy, toxically masculine as well. He is entitled to whatever he wants.

And it's funny that he's screwing over a black guy. Yes, god, yeah, you know, and man that I don't know if that's intentional, but that's who he's screwing over. Well, and the and there is, I mean there is. I would say there is racial undertone, racist undertones to the movie. I mean, the cult is clearly very all white.

There are moments towards the end of the movie where the outfits that they're wearing are very clan adjacent. I mean, I don't know how else to put it. I mean, if you saw I mean, if you see the movie, you know what we're talking about. At the end of the movie, they're wearing outfits when they're lighting the barn on fire, when they're drugging Christian. Yeah, yeah, with like again, clan Ish headdresses like they Yeah to your point, Christian, you know, Christian is walking over a black guy.

And don't you love the fact that his name is Christian. Boy. That's not on the nose. It's not as on the nose as it could be. I think by the end of the movie, the journey that we go on with Danny, that moment at the end where she is like watching the barn burn and watching her former life go up in flames, and it's willing I mean again, like willingly, but again she's been convinced by the cult.

I mean again, like, yeah, it's willingly. But also she's been gaslit the entire movie. Like, well, she's drugged, like you say as well, and. Yeah, yeah, you know, vulnerable to begin with, and then susceptible through the power of constantly being drugged. I mean again, I don't think everybody in the cult is constantly drugging each other, but I think she has to get to the point where she is drugged to be able to do all the things that she, like you said, allows to happen, because whether or not she wants Christian to die is kind of unimportant.

There's nothing like that's it too bad, Like I mean, that's how this is ending, Like this is it has been it has been foretold by the paintings on the walls in the barn, like that, this is how this movie is going to end. It's faded that this guy goes into the bear suit, which the imagery of that is great, and Jack Rayner looking around in the bear suit is a is great imagery. I mean this movie similarly to something like Tusk, Like you have an actor who is towards the end of this movie, like Jack Rayner does very little with dialogue and a lot of just like a lot of him mooting in the face, similarly to Florence Pugh. Like I would actually say, like Jack Rayner might be underrated in terms of his performance in this movie because of how off putting he is, Like Sharon Stone in Casino.

It's like the intent is to be off putting, but towards the end of the movie his like facial expressions are just they're fantastic because he is getting so much out of that being drugged and you know, being whacked out of your mind. That's all he can do is emo emote. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, this is you know again I was I was worried that I was gonna have a hard time being impartial about this movie because of how much I enjoy it and how quickly it's become a movie that I really enjoy and again, like I only have seen it in the last year. It's a movie that I would say is one of my favorite movies and it's only been out for six years.

Like that's you know, most movies that I would consider to be my favorite movies are movies that have been out for a long time, like Goodfellas, which has been out, you know, almost as long as I've been alive. Like that's a movie that is not, you know, a movie that doesn't have a history. It's has a history, It's been referenced in things. I'm not saying Midsommer hasn't been like Goodfellas has cemented itself as part of pop culture. I think Midsommer has as well.

Rather quickly at least in terms of the horror community. I don't think outside of the horror community. I mean, like again, like I'm not saying it is or isn't. I think people probably seeing the imagery of Florence Pew the Flowers, maybe they don't know what the movie's about. I mean, and her frownie face and her frownie face.

Yet the Florence Pew frownie face is really I mean, come. On, I mean we in this movie. Yeah, we've talked about her character. But your thoughts on Florence Pugh, I mean, I love her as an actress, but I'm curious, what are what are your thoughts on? You know, I like her and just about everything I've seen her in and I think after this I searched out he could there's a one where she plays a wrestler.

Oh yeah, Wrestling with my Family where she plays Sorayah. Oh god, what the hell is her name in the w W E page. Yeah, that was a movie that was produced by the Rock I believe. Yeah, yeah, it was enjoyable. I'm trying to think of what else.

But I I generally, you know, I mean the Marvel stuff, whatever, but I generally like her in what I see her in don't forget Dune. Yeah, or forget Dune if you'd like, you know, and probably. Both of ours not in it that much, but no, and he doesn't have that much to do. But you know, I was looking down at my notes. I was looking for something in particular, but then I got kind of pulled into something I wrote down where I believe it's shortly after they get there.

They get there, and then they do that they trip out in the field before they get to walk through the sunshine. Butthole right, and everybody's greeted, and I'm pretty sure that Danny is the only one the guy says welcome home to He says welcome to everybody else, and he says welcome home to her. And I'm like, okay, something I did you know. I haven't seen this movie a ton, but it was I'm like, okay. Does she not look vaguely sweetish?

She's literally, I mean, like blonde haired, blue eyes By the end of the movie, she's literally blue eyed. Her eye color changes at the end of ye like like literally, But I don't know. There's there's a really good video on YouTube. It's seven hours long. It is a video that explains quote unquote Midsummer.

I think it more just talks about like it doesn't explain it as much as Moore talks about the visual imagery that already Astor utilizes and what he where those inspirations come from. And then like you've already alluded to how he's planting that imagery in the movie to then pay it off later on. And if if you want to sit and listen to something about Midsummer for seven hours, it's pretty great. He has like a four hour video about Hereditary also pretty great. It made me appreciate these movies a lot more, I think, at least for me as someone who again and I know you agree with this, the use of imagery and iconography is kind of an in film.

Is not a lost art, but that's a subtlety thing that isn't done as much as it used to be. And that's a thing that I think about when I think of like seventies filmmaking, where it's like you don't have to belabor the point. They expect that the audience is hip man or smart, a smart audience as they would have been called or you know, whatever the fuck they would have called him in the seventies. But now again it's like, even with something like again, you brought up professional wrestling and Florence Pugh played a real professional wrestler. Professional wrestling has a lot of subtlety to it now that like I appreciate as someone who watches and appreciates things like this movie that actually has a level of subtlety.

Even though it's hyper realistic and hyper stylized, there is some subtlety as to what's going on. There is some intent to why ari Astor is doing things, and again the paying off and the planting of things is intentional. I there aren't a lot of filmmakers who make big budget movies like this. I think is probably the thing. It's like him and Robert Eggers and Mike Flanagan, they're the ones making these big budget studio horror movies that are more than just Again not saying that there's anything wrong with something like Scream two, but I'm not saying Scream two doesn't have moments of subtlety and all kinds of themes and stuff, but it doesn't have as much of what this movie is doing.

And this is a I mean, this movie is a lot intentionally. Ari Astor is bombarding you as shit constantly in this movie. I mean, they're you know, he's doing camera tricks, he's doing all kinds of stuff. I mean, there's we didn't even talk about. There's a scene where the women are picking the flower backwards and you are hearing the conversation of the people at the table for no reason other than because it's the commentary to tear about how they're being pig headed Americans once again about the women picking the flowers, and there's no reason for it other than once again reinforcing the pig headed americanness of them.

Like ari ASTRI's just making weird choices that are weird decisions that feel interesting and fresh, and it's I don't I appreciate that while it might not be you know, I forget what they were calling it. Like what was the term for horror there for a while for a while, like elevated elevated And we don't even say that anymore, really, Like the term's kind of gone out of style, right. Are you talking about when he says why are they walking stupid? Yeah? Somebody tell those women they're walking walking stupid?

Yeah? Like why are we hearing them in the background clearly and loudly while we are watching them. That is a choice that ari Astor is making solely to once again reinforced this guy is just a fucking asshole all the time, even when something is happening. That is like a ritualistic thing. He has to add his asshole commentary about what's going on, and ari Astor makes a choice for us to hear it, because again, it's funny, but there's no reason for it there, It's just a stylistic choice.

Yeah, Well, like the framing of Christian and the mirrors at the beginning of the film, on two separate occasions. One when they come back from the party and he's he's sitting across the other side of the room, but we see him in the mirror and she's standing there and larger than him. He's separate there, obviously separated, blah blah blah. And then when she goes over to whoever's apartment that is, and they're all there and he lets her in and they're they're back in the mirror, but we see them, you know, Josh is laying on the couch and the other guy, one plea think, is sitting on a couch and will Poulter is sitting there too, and then they leave, but they stay on that shot of the mirror. I'm thinking, is he going to be in mirrors for the rest of the movie.

I mean, we need to do it that but there really aren't any mirrors at the place that they get to, so I don't think there are any mirrors there. But no that I think that sort of reinforces like you said earlier, that does anybody really like him? Is he an outsider even in this group of friends because he's not as serious about his studies And I don't know if Will Poulter is doing the same thing or not. I think he's just their pal that's tagging it along. Yeah he's Swedish pussy or something.

But he's the personality higher. He's the fun one, right, He's the fun guy of the group, is what it feels like. Like he's the Yeah, he's the fun friend, but he's like the dickhead friend. You know, there's that scene that Florence Pugh has that dream where Will Polter is like in the back of the car going eh, making like this weird face, and you're like, we all have this is that friend? Like he is just that like interminable dickhead constantly.

But he's fine. But again, he's one of those guys that maybe he's fun to have around. He's fun to have a drink with, you know, because he probably tells a fun story. You know, people like Bert Kreischer for a reason, you know what I mean, Like, there's there's a level of he's one of those. He's an asshole, but he's our asshole, like it's Christian's not a fun asshole, he's just a fucking asshole.

And yeah, it's hard to leave anyone his friends. There is a mirror in the outhouse she sees her sister. Oh yeah, that's right. One of the other times that she sees the visage of her sister walks in there, turns on the light. But I don't think there's any mirrors in their compound.

No, Well, nobody's being very reflective on their nature throughout any of the end of that. How do you do your hair? Though everybody everybody is so is so immaculately good looking all the time, aren't they? Man not an ugly person in sight in any of these and an even he's kind of cute and like I got stung by a bee Way. I don't know if this is a bit of a stretch, but the imagery, the imagery.

There's a scene right before Josh dies where he's in his bed, and I can't necessarily take credit for this one. However, I do think I would go as far as to say it does seem intentional. It's mentioned in that video I was talking about where we see a shot of jo Josh's shoes that seem nearly reminiscent of the Oh God Hailbop, those Yo yos, Oh Heaven's Gate, Heavan's Gate. Because again, the whole thing that I always thought about with them is their shoes sticking out of the end of the blankets, those like Nikes, those Nike ones that they don't even sell anymore. They're super expensive.

Like that shot felt so intentional. He talks about it in this YouTube video, and every time I watch the movie now, I'm like, I'm like, no, that is totally intentional, because he hangs on it for too long for it to not be. Well, See, this is how I took that, not even close to that. It's just it's telling us he's gonna get up out of bed, which he does immediately after that and goes that's true because he's you know, he's trying to a Christian now at this point. So I not that it isn't a nod to that at all.

I mean, it totally could be cold and a different brand of shoes. It's a different brand of shoes, for one thing. But I simply took it as, oh, he's letting us know he's going to get up and walk outside, which he does like immediately after that. I guess, I guess, and I guess. My thing is when you have a director like Ari Astor who does do a literal Michael Myers head tilt reference in his movie, I don't feel I don't know, is it?

And again maybe, and you know you you mentioned like in my old age, I don't want to watch bad movies like and you know what, brother, I get it, because here's the thing that I will say about as in my old age as I turn the old age of thirty five this year, which is not old at all anymore than you're old, because we sit here and talk about movies on the internet, which old people don't fucking do. By the way, I more wonder more and more if there are movies that I watch where I am like those fucking people in Room two three seven, where I'm looking for things that aren't there. And this feels like one of those movies for me, because I feel like there is again, if you have a moment in your movie where you have a Will Poulter skin suit head tilt like Michael Myers in your movie, it like, I don't know, I feel like with an intent like that, almost anything could feel intentional in a movie like that.

And I don't want to compare ari Astor to Stanley Kubrick because that's not something that anybody should be doing. But directors making movies with intent is something I appreciate because even if I don't like Tarantino, he controls the entire fucking process and does exactly what he wants, gets exactly how he wants it on the screen, and ari Astor and Robert Eggers and so many of these directors are doing the exact same thing, and there's something to be said for that which I appreciate. A meticulousness with which a movie is put together. I think it's just another one of those on the nose examples. I think it's a gag, it's a and I don't know if it was my wife or my daughter.

I mean, I'm I know my my daughter would pick it up, and I think it was my wife, who's not like super horror movie person at all. She was like, Oh, that looks like the Halloween mask and I'm like, yeah, fucking does. But then he doesn't till yeah, and it's like, yeah, it's a goof And I don't think you know the room two three seven stuff, the whole Like Stanley Kubrick is this alien from outer space who is just such a genius that every that he put in, every grain of sand in the scenes at the opening of two thousand, yeah, like come. On, hell yeah, man, baking soda baby, come on, I know the way that those cans were turned. I have a calum at baking soda can on one of these shelves in here.

So you know how you know how many people are involved in the making of a movie that yes that the director generally okays, But you've got costume designers doing this stuff, You've got set designers doing these things. You have the director does end up making the last call. The director is fucking what right? The director does not walk around a set and turn you know, I mean, come. On, they said they saw him doing it though, sure, I look, I mean that's why I said, like, I don't, I don't want to.

I like in my old age, am I becoming that guy who's looking for shit where things aren't? Like I don't want to be? Like ari Astor's Midsummer is full of like full of all kinds of wild imagery from you know, again, from the the Heaven's Gate, you know, suicides, to Michael Myers to you know, all kinds. I mean again, like there's all kinds you know, Swedish, you know, uh Swedish. I mean again, this is not a stretch, but you know John Bowers, you know, that's the sweetish imagery of the girl with the bear.

Like again, there's a lot of all kinds of really overt imagery that the movie goes with. And it's like, am I digging for things? Or is the movie being obvious? And I think to your point, it's like, I don't think it kind of fucking matters because the movie is being obvious because he like you's a. Lot of obvious stuff in it.

Yeah, yeah, it's being obvious, very obvious. And I think that's that's the humor that's I don't know, And regardless of what the shoes symbolize, I don't think it really points at him being some kind of Kubrickian genius one thing. It's I mean, I don't I just you could absolutely take it like as a nod to that whole thing for some reason, though I just see it as a more simple like foreshadowing of what happens two seconds later, right, And. Like I said, I totally I I totally agree with you at the same time, because there's like they're supposed. To be going to bed, you know, and then and there he's up to shenanigans and it's not even really necessary to show it.

So that kind of goes to the point of like death cult. Death cult image symbology, right, I mean again, like what's the most iconic death I mean, we don't. I mean again, in this movie we do even have people sharing communality again, which what is that? I know what that makes me think of when I see a bunch of people king stuff. I again, like I said, I don't know, but I think there is something to be said for a director who has intent with what he's doing.

And I think intent either way, I mean, whether it be. That is the point. I'm not saying this stuff is accidental. I'm not saying stuff is accidental, But I'm also not saying that I don't. I don't think, at least in the in Kubrick's case, that you know, the Apollo thirteen jacket or wherever the fuck Danny wear is in the movie is telling us that he faked the moon landing.

That I don't buy, right, I'm sorry, I think that's a crock of shit. Well, and that's my well, and that's the other thing. I think there's also obviously a line to which we can say, like that the subtext of the movie or the actual like or we are we just are we just swimming and looking. So yeah, yeah, the Apollo thirteen thing, I mean, there's no I'm not gonna float anything like that with this movie because I don't think there's anything like that in this movie, because I think anything that this movie does is way more overt than that. I mean, again, they essentially have these characters in white clan outfits.

The entire movie, white people in white outfits, you know, killing people that don't look like them, Okay, like they It's pretty fucking overt as far as I'm concerned, So. I noticed on this viewing. Maybe I noticed it before but didn't think of it. Simon, when they stumble on him and he's all hung up and flat open like that, which we see an image of, I believe at some point in the film, and his lungs are on the outside of his body, yes, and they're still pumping. Yes.

Well, I don't know if I don't know if they're manipulating him or if he's actually still alive and breathing, or is Christian hallucinating? Oh well, yeah, that's what I mean. That's again, Like I the last act of this movie is really hard to judge what the hell's actually going on because Christian and Danny are both drugged out of their mind. That's true. Like I hadn't thought about that.

Beyond belief, Like Chris I. One of my favorite gags in the movie is the closing of the fucking eyes with the fingers that is like, oh my god, like what and or the like the clapping in the face to be like, I guess he's ready. He's he's ready to be further drugged again like so, like so much of what happened, it's to compare what I would compare this movie to. And again, this is probably not a comparison that you may have a lot of context with because I don't know. We've never talked about video games, but Japanese style action games have no tutorial.

They just drop you into the game and say, just go fucking do and see what happens. This movie doesn't really explain a lot. It shows you what's going to do, but it doesn't explain a lot until right at the end, and then it explains what's happening. But again, like you've already alluded to several times, like it doesn't need to explain it. Ari Astros does such a good job of showing it that it's like the complaint that we always hear is like show, don't hell and ari Astra is showing.

Motherfucker, he's showing. And I love it. But I'm here for it, like I'm okay with it. And in it, like I've said, and I'm very on the nose way though, I mean that whole. The one for me that really makes me laugh is the just going down the love potion panel thing.

Yeah, and it's like it's explained right there, and like you said, you know, how does he notice that his drink is the only pink one on the table and then he eats a pubic hair in his pie? And it's not that they would have any context, although they do walk by that thing, Yeah, or you know they would have at some point, Yeah, and study it and you know, like, you's right, this is your thesis. Now go study that mural about the chick cutting off for pubic hair and then bleeding into your glass. But maybe I guess they're The point is like these guys are also terrible at what They're terrible people, and they're also terrible anthropologists because they wander into they they wander into what they they they wander into and see what is happening to them before.

They're just not paying attention. It's right, it's obvious to everybody but them what's happening. And Josh apparently knows what the Atti stupa is and but but it's shocked, horribly shocked when it actually happened. So did he really know what it is? Wow?

And does doesn't inform his friends, doesn't warn them that they're about to see someone throw themselves to their death. Yeah, I don't think he's a very good anthropologist because I don't think he knows what it is. And he's not a very good friend either, Yeah, because good friends to each other. No, I mean again, like that's the That's the thing about the movie is like it makes the case that, like they It doesn't make the case that they deserve to die, but the movie makes the case that, like, boy, they were really shitty people when they were alive. So well, it's it's the same we've mentioned or you've mentioned the wicker Man a couple of times, and that arrogance that and they're they're of the same culture in a way though.

I mean, he's just going to a different British island right right, right right, But he's you know, has no he thinks he's going there for one reason. I mean we find out at the end that he was basically brought there because he's a virgin and that's who they sacrifice. And all this whole time you think it's he's looking for this girl, et cetera, et cetera, that's going to be something that's either happened to or is going to happen to her, And it's like, no, dummy, you're you're the sacrifice and it's the same thing with these arrogant assholes, you know, by four, however many they end up killing, well, two British people and then three of them. Yeah, there's three guys, right, Yeah, so it's like, well.

Then there are two their own two people on top of everything else. Why would you suspect that, I guess going in there as an arrogant American, but also like they at least Josh has some understanding of their culture. But I'm you know, obviously this isn't going to get out to the wide world, or people would be up in arms, right, but he seems to know a little bit about some of the stuff. So well, it seems more like they're all murals, You're. Right, it seems, and the Horga seems more like they're co opting other things.

I mean, obviously they're a creation. I mean, the Horga themselves were created by the two producers of the film, but before the movie. That's a thing that existed prior to the movie, and so it's integrated into the movie. So that's I mean, the world feels very lived in and like it feels like again like the world feels fully realized. Of the people there in this place and to your point, like it's isolated, they're not being honest, they're doing weird things.

But again, these arrogant Americans are like not taken aback by any of it the way the British are. The Americans are not taken aback by it. They're just like sitting there kind of going that's kind of weird. But none of them are. None of them leave, not willingly anyways.

They're taken out one by one. They're killed. That's how they leave. They don't leave, they don't even try, which I'm not even I'm not sure what that says about Americans broadly, that the Americans after watching two people kill themselves and then another attempted murder and then two people disappear, that they're not like what the fuck is going on? They're just oblivious on top of everything else, which I think to your comment about this movie being very like darkly comedic, like I think for me, that's one of the funniest things about this movie is they're so fucking oblivious.

They're like, you know it, to your point about them seeing the mural, there's no way somebody could be that fucking oblivious, but yet they are, which I think works in the benefit of like, these are just like shitty morons who are so shitty they can't even realize that they've walked into a roach trap that they're not getting out of all of them, you're muted by the way. Danny does want to leave at some point and Christian says no, and I would be like, fine, I'm going adios. You know, she doesn't get the opportunity to do that, but she does finally become unnerved enough to be like, yeah, something that's not right here. I want out and doesn't get to and you know, it would be interesting. I hate the idea of it, but it would be interesting to see what her life is like later.

Well, I'm assuming the scene where we watch the attis Stupid is essentially us seeing what will be her in the future. I mean that actress. That actress looks They look similar to one another, like you can see them look at one another lock eyes, and it's like, unless something changes, this will be you yea seventy, But I mean will be following. That's a long ways off. But that's a long ways off for her.

So what is she going to be like when the next group of sacrificial lambs come in. That's what I want to see. Yeah, that would be interesting. And who of the people that are there now are the we're the most recent people that were brought in that have joined if that's a thing, because that's the question that's never answered, right, Like nobody here is like hold, Like there's there's not the scene in this movie, which I think is smart. There's not like a bait and switch scene where one of them is like, all right, I'm going to help you leave and then it turns out that they were like it was bullshit all along, you know, and they were I think the menu has that scene where it's like, oh, the coast guard showing up to help, but it's like, no, the coastguard is in on it.

Like, there's not one of those scenes where one of the cult members is like a jonestown where it's like we're sending letters for help. There's none of that, like, you know, there's none of that. There's no moment for her in that, so. You know, or if they were, I think what you're getting at is like where is the last her that showed up and stayed right? And it would be like but wouldn't they be they wouldn't be like trying to get out the whole time, they would just be like right, there.

Would either way the contact her to say get me out of here. Is my point, Like, there's none of that, so I don't. Know if there is. Could have been interesting though, like you know, they're oh, well that person has a British accent or something else, or you know, and obvious like Asian person. It's like, who what's that Asian person doing here?

Why I came with I came with Ingmar two years ago? Oh yeah, and I decided to and I decided to stay. And then you know, late at night they scramble over to the dorm and like get the fuck out of here when you can, because then that sort of becomes like your basic horror movie type thing where then they're trying to escape and blah blah blah. But there's got to be outside. She can't be the first outside person that has joined their group.

Although they do not even really imply, but it's almost explicit that people are brought into mate with them and. Then are killed. They don't say, but like it's the they don't say, so kind of the implication. Rah, that is the implication that that's the sole purpose for some people to be there. Like I mean, when they're talking about Rubin, that's what they talk about.

Well, there's inbraiding, but there's also you know outside fornicators, right right, right, I mean that's what Christian is. So yeah, and you know, that's. One of those things where like I guess I'm glad they don't explain it. It doesn't you know it, it wouldn't. It doesn't need to be explained.

They hint at things that are awful. They hint at like you know, in like forced incest essentially as you know. Right to get there to get their oracles. And yeah, it's like the things that they hint at are pretty terrible. You know.

It's again, the movie does a lot without showing people being eviscerated and torn apart and gored and mutilated. Again, we don't even see Christian get his legs cut off. We see him go down with the wire to pull it up on his knees and it cuts away to him in the bear suit looking around. I mean, they the movie almost sometimes like it takes the opportunity to avoid the thing that you think we're gonna see, you think always gonna get his legs cut off. No, we don't see that, you know, like we we don't see some of those that we you know, we see the people jump to their death, but we don't see Connie get drowned.

We don't see Simon get turned inside out, you know, Josh, we just see his legs sticking out of the ground. Like the movie has no training wheels. It is a movie where it is expecting you to watch the movie and actually watch what the director is showing you, even if it is super goddamn obvious. If you are paying attention to what the movie is showing you, it will reward you as you watch it because, like you've said, you've watched it several times and seen several different things while watching it. And I think in a lot of ways, that's a sign of a movie that has some longevity to it, is that you can watch it several times and actually get some value out of it other than just you know, like, oh it's entertaining.

Oh I'm seeing something else this time, or I'm seeing a different performance. There is something about the production even, you know, because the production of this movie I even talked about it is like beyond impressive. On top of everything else. All these are practical fucking sets. That building for the most part, I believe there might be some CGI, but that building that they're in is like impressive, like all of the sets and everything, like the set tressing is impressive.

You know, the movie itself is technically impressive on top of being an entertaining movie. And then there's some subtext and other things possibly going on in the movie. So it's like there's a lot going on with this movie in a lot of a positive way. The show Don't Tell comes back. I mean, that's another great part of this is where you're catching things because it isn't overtly explained for dumb movie audiences, like a lot of movies where let's explain what the what happened to Simon, It's like, well, it was in an image earlier.

It's it's part of the ritual. They're going to grow stuff out of them or I don't know what, and we hear Connie offscreen, Yeah, why is she drowned? What's the drownings? I don't I don't need everything explained to me. So that's why you're able to maybe see I always forget that they cut his legs off because they don't show it.

So every time that comes up and then they cut away, I kind of immediately forget about it. And then I think, how did they get him in that fucking bear? He didn't shrink. He didn't shrink, yea, he did not shrink at any point. Yeah, and possibly cut his arms off too.

Right, Yeah, he's just like a fucking torso without you know. I mean there are other Torso's in there, right, limbs sticking out of them. So, yeah, that's very true. And Will Poulter is just his skin stuffed with straw. Yeah, it's again like the movie.

The movie does. The one guy is still wearing his skin. Yeah, I think one of the guys is still wearing his skin. Well, And I you know, one of the things that I love about the end of the movie again talking about kind of seeing all these corpses being paraded into the building. They go, here's this honey or sap of the yowie tree or whatever.

The fuck. You won't feel any ye tree, you won't feel any pain, though seemed to be they do. That's gonna be a fuckings. That was to quote Tyler the Creator, So that was a fucking lie. Like I love that though, because again, like I think, it goes back to the subtext of the movie, which is like this cult is full of shit, like they are a cult founded on nonsen sense, which is again, I think again more or less the point of the movie, which is cults are inherently founded on nonsense.

To go back to Heaven's Gate, they thought that an alien spaceship was on the back of the Hailbob comment and they were gonna get taken away by it. That is inherently fucking insane. You know. Jonestown, they believed that, you know, Jim Jones could do no wrong, and I mean there were people trying to leave Jones down, but a lot of people bought into his message and killed themselves because he told them to. That's fucking wild.

And these people feel compelled to throw themselves off of a cliff at the age of seventy two. Because because they don't they don't want to get old and die in pain. I mean, yeah, that almost makes a lot more sense than the other things you mentioned, you know, like why would you want to live that way? I mean, think about it, the life expectancy and living to be one hundred years old. Why though, why would you.

I mean, at thirty, you might well, I want to live as long as I possibly can. And it's like, well, yeah, unless you're riddled with cancer and an enormous pain, or you have Alzheimer's and you don't even realize anything that's going on. You know, there's all these. Things man know about. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense than we're going to meet the aliens up in the when they pass by Earth and their spaceship and go to Heaven.

And those people probably believed it till the second they died. Oh shit, the aliens are in fact not coming. Well no, I'm no, I'm not saying they had to change of heart. I'm saying they believed it up until they die. No, yeah, yeah, so good for them they think that that happened, I think them, How would they know otherwise?

How would they know? Otherwise They're not going to know their plan failed, right dead? Yeah, Yeah, there's a you know, there's there's very little failure on the other side of that for the people involved. They don't. Yeah.

I I The thing that I think for me, I ultimately walk away from this movie with is it took a while for me to come around on some of these horror directors from the mid teens, like Robert Eggers and ari Astor. Because you mentioned bo Is Afraid, which is ari Astor's most recent film, I think he's working on something else right now. Ari Astor and Robert Eggers and Mike Flanagan. It's taken me a while to come around on them, and I have come around on them quite hard, because, like I've said, Midsummer's I'd consider it to be one of my favorite movies, and I've watched it a lot. I'm glad that I have, but some of it took a little bit of teeth gritting, because I tend to find when things are over hype they do not live up to the hype.

But in my mind, Hereditary and Midsummer live up to the hype surrounding them, being I think worth the entries and worthy examples of some of the finest, finest examples of that subgenre of horror, be it Exorcisms, Last Possession horror for Hereditary and for Midsummer folk core, you know, and boas A is its own fucking bag of you know, bag of tricks, and its own weird thing. But Midsummer, I think is a really good folk horror movie. Like, on top of it being a. Lot of us, you can put Hereditary in there too because it's revolves around a cult as well. Yeah that's true, Yeah, a lot of And the colt stuff in that movie is even more is so low key compared to the cult stuff in this movie, because the cult stuff in Hereditary, if the Internet explainer videos are to be believed, those are the entire like town is in on it, like like the people at the party chopping the nuts are in it, like everybody is in on the cult, like literally, and it's like that's again, like that's a part of that movie that kind of gets under you know, underappreciated because of how obvious the cult stuff is in this movie and how obvious the demonic possession stuff is in Hereditary.

But there is a cult aspect. You're totally right to that here. It's just like amplified to the nth degree. I mean that the nuts thing is a perfect ample of like I'm going, who the fuck for one thing, you can't make a cake that fast. I'm sorry cinema sins on Hereditary, but you don't make a cake or brownies or whatever that fast.

You you know, it's got a bake, it's got a cool then you frost it and it's like they're chopping the nuts, and then ten minutes later she's eating a fucking piece of cake. But I think that in that case, it's like, this is the inevitability though of this story. This has to happen. Now, it could have just been she picked up a fucking candy bar that was left there by the same girls. If this is a you know, all a conspiracy, Like every single candy bar in the little jar on the table has a nut in it, right, it's all you know, it's it's hershe's with almonds, It's it's almond Joy's.

There's a snicker that there's tons of you know. They make such a point of it throughout the movie. Does that candy have nuts in it? It's like, why would you pick a fucking candy bar that has nuts in it? She knows she has a been.

An allergy, right, right, so let's make. A let's make a big point about this and then show the first scene at that party is a girl furiously chopping nuts. Which that's not how you chop nuts either, you know, So it's obviously a plant for what's going to happen. This is an inevitable event. This girl is going to die this way, he gets stoned, you know, the whole Yeah, like you said, the imaginations.

Well in the poll is marked with the market pole. Hell right, yeah. I mean it's like it's all like Midsummer and Hereditary are movies that exist, and like the stories are almost solely like Midsummer exists solely for Danny's benefit. The entire movie is being done for one person to join this fucking goal. It's as bona fide insane.

Hereditary is being done so one guy can be possessed, one adult male child can be possessed by essentially a a a lord of the Iron World. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like all for one person's benefit. Like, and you know it's like that's that's the joke. Yeah, it's everything Grandma did was for this. Yeah, and apparently it worked.

So there you go, And all the cult members in Midsummer were all drinking the tea and drugging everybody just so Danny would join them. Literally by the end of the movie, it's like this is all being done for Danny's benefit so that she at the end of the movie, when the credits hit and we fade and we cut to black. She has been broken and she is now part of the cult, and that is it, and and that's it. Well, apparently she's happy. She's silent finally.

So inevitable, Like you said, the inevitability of Midsommar is just like the inevitability of Hereditary. It's like it's there was only one way this movie was ever going to end. And ari Astra makes it clear from the moment you sit down in the movie where we're going. He takes it in some very interesting directions, obviously, But yeah, I think whatever his next film is, but I mean I have seen BoA's Afraid, it will take several rewatches because it is a dense movie. Kind of like this is a dense movie, and I think it is more.

It's kind of become a joke in our house. We need to finished Bo's Afraid. My Daughter's Life go ahead. It's very esoteric. As we got about halfway through, I was enjoying it.

It's very anxiety inducing. I mean, that's the whole point. It is an anxiety nightmare for this character. So everything that happens is like, oh my God, get me out of here, and you're right along there feeling the exact same thing. I'm not sure why he has gigantic testicles, but I haven't gotten that far in the movie yet, so that may have.

Been a choice by Joaquin Phoenix a little who. I was going to ask you if you've seen his short film The Strange Thing about the Johnson's I have. Wow, boy, you see your fucking laugh. Yeah, well that was sort of the thing that came out when our Hereditary came out. Well, you guys really need to watch The Strengthing Strange Thing about the Johnsons.

And I'm like, oh, I'm gonna track this down. Yeah, did you regret that one. Holy holy uncomfortable watch? Yeah? Uh but me leal incest not a thing I really want to watch.

Uh yeah yeah, and that movie. I mean again, like I think Ari Astor knows how to do unsettling and uncomfortable. Yeah, better better than anyone. I mean again, you know, that was one of my early things early on in this episode, is talking about the unsettling nature of the movie. And I mean it's no surprise that it's already Astor making Midsummer because he you know, with Hereditary, whether or not the entire town is in on it.

You're creeped out the entire fucking time, and everything feels weird and unsettling, and you know, the moment you leave the room, the talking stops, you know, like it's you know, it's it's that, and you know the people are watching. And then you know when you walk in, everybody starts talking like, is that what's going on? And in midsummer and hereditary, Yes, in fact, that is what's fucking happening like And it's that level of like unsettling and like you said with boas afraid, anxiety inducing that I think that's probably why I resonate with this movie so much. I really enjoy this movie, and I like I like what this movie has to say about relationships as well. I think that this movie has some interesting things to say about relationships and like the culpability of people in relationships.

Because to your point this time when I watched it, because I have not watched it since I got divorced, it's interesting to watch this movie post a kind of traumatic event similar to the traumatic event that's been drug out in this movie. Essentially, this is a breakup movie for the ages in a lot of ways, it hits different as someone who's gone through that traumatic kind of event, and so I, like I said, I really, I really appreciate this movie and I enjoy this movie and the imagery of this movie. I mean again, it's a lot of bright color, which for a horror movie like this is this is the kind of only thing like this in a lot of ways, like full horror, there are whole full horror movies that do operate in the daylight.

Wickerman is one of them, but there is not a whole lot of movies like this one. It's all in daylight all the time, and it's a in half of the movie is just like kind of a fucking hallucination and a trip fest. Like I don't know, it's it's a unique movie, and I think it also, you know, we didn't talk about the A twenty four of it all, but man talk about kind of cementing A twenty four as a horror powerhouse, because this is this is right up there with some of those other movies that we've mentioned as like really making A twenty four the brand that they are now and kind of the you know, now you know the A twenty four. Look, this is part of a part. Of what established that in a lot of ways really, so I think Hereditary established that, to be honest with you, that's fair.

That was that was one of their first you know, we hear about box office and all that stuff now, but that was one of the earlier ones that kind of really broke through. I mean, I was able to see it in my hometown, which is not a big movie place. Same, I don't know how many A twenty four movies had played here prior to that. To be honest with you. Did Tusk play in your town?

Because yes it did. Tusk wasn't a movie. Tusk wasn't exacted even earlier in twenty four movie enough. Yeah, And I think that was just the strength of Kevin Smith, whatever strength he had at that point. But think about the visuals of But think about the visuals of Tusk and the kind of the look of that movie.

It. You know, even if we say, like even if we don't like the movie, because we have varying opinions, you can go listen to our episode on it. The A twenty four look is there with that movie. It totally It totally that house that they're in, the like the color palette, that's used like it's very like, it's just like this, this movie has a very distinct look and unique color palette to it that you said Hereditary is obviously the big one, but I think I think Hereditary started it, and then something like Midsummer showed that, like it doesn't have to be dark and brown and beige a twenty four movies can also be like wildly colorful but also completely and supremely unsettling, because flowers that are breathing is just again like undulating flowers and stuff like that.

It's like, you wouldn't think that's creepy. But this and like Annihilation are like again like the usage of beautiful horrifying imagery is again like I don't know, certain directors are able to do it, and this is this is one of them. So the final any anything else? We talked for two hours, I mean, I could keep going. I know you're not really I mean, you know, it's all kind of minor stuff, Like I'm curious about Pele's parents burning in a fire when he's a kid.

It's like, well, was that part of the thing or was he I mean, he seems like he's been there forever, but was that why he's there part of the thing. He doesn't make it sound like an unnatural role event. But I mean, yeah, he's a good liar too, like the guys. Yeah, the guy is a known liar. I like the idea of poor Florence Pugh being fed a whole fish tail first and being expected to eat it.

I love that scene. There's just there are some weird scenes in this movie that are just funny. I mean again, like Jack Rayner in a bear suit, him like looking around and that weird reaction that he gives like it's funny. Like there is a lot of comedic unintentional or I mean again, not unintentional, but you wouldn't think it would be in a horror movie. You'd be having these kind of pretty broadly physically comedic moments.

But you know, I mean again, I think this movie has a fair amount of him in the third act. I you know, I just love everything that Jack Rayner does with his face where he's just like pouting and looking around in his eyes are kind of going big and small, and I just it's. Just think there's a lot of intentional humor. I think that's some of the stuff that and again in Hereditary well I think that's one of the things that sort of gets missed with his film. Well, isn't that the joke?

The girl goes to Sweden and joins the death Cult and breaks up with her boyfriend and offers him up as a sacrifice to join the death Cult. But it's the punchline there, you know, the grandma offers up her family to a demon for wealth and riches but dies in the process. I guess it going to hell in the process. What's the punchline there, I don't know, but it's a pretty dark joke. Oh Ari Astra's movies are pretty funny.

Like they are, they're darkly funny. I mean, look, I know that we talked about this on the Tusk episode, but I find the ending of Tusk to be hilarious, Like it's super fucked up, but it's funny. And I think Kevin Smith's intent with Tusk was to make a movie where by the end of it, you're supposed to laugh at how fucking absurd the movie is, and midsummer and hereditary and you know, the Lighthouse, like the absurdity of the scenario that these characters are in the comedy that can come from that. I mean, Ari Astor and Robert Eggers and these other directors, they don't pass up the up opportunity to take those little small moments and inject them into the movie, because they end up being like that Florence Pew lineup, what's happening now?

What's happening is like, oh my God, like yep, we're all you, Florence Pugh because at this point, like how much worse can this fucking get? Like, you know, we've watched people kill themselves and what are we going to turn to now? Cannibalism? Like it? You know, her exasperation in that scene is is well warranted, but it's again like a funny moment in an otherwise kind of unsettling and horrifying movie.

So yeah, I find a lot of it very funny, whether it's intended or not. There's to me a lot of humor in this film. Yeah, I agree. So final final thoughts on Midsummer Mark. Uh, you know it's I the first time I saw it, when I went and saw it in the theater, I kind of walked out like yeah right, And then I watched it with my kid, and I always seem to get a little bit more out of something when that happened, either she explained something that I missed or it's just kind of get her positive vibe and think, oh okay, yeah, and liked it more of that second time and on this third time, I being the longer version, it was interesting to note the pace of the film and I'm like, man, this is a slogo, you know, but I like, I like what's happening in every scene.

There's something going on with these asshole Americans. And then and with this, you know that that versus this group, and I enjoy that play off of each other, and I know where this is all headed. I'm curious to see if I can spot the additional stuff, which most of it I didn't except for the one long extended scene, and so that was fun to parse out. And and you know, she watched it with me again, so that was nice, and she was kind of like again able to sort of clue me in on like, well that was new in this scene because I couldn't remember, Like, oh okay, that makes sense. And then I started looking at the deleted scene information on IMDb and I'm like, oh, okay, okay, okay, I'm getting I'm getting it.

I get what this is going and why people think that he deserved it more if they watched the director's cut. Okay, I understand now. Yeah, I enjoy it a great deal. And it's so long though it's one of those probably every couple of year movies. For me, this is not something that I will watch even annually, just because of the length of it.

But yeah, it's a heck of a lot of fun, and it's it's fun to catch more stuff every time you watch it. You know, movies like that are great, how about you? Yeah, you know, I was worried it was gonna be hard for me to be objective about a movie I enjoy so much, and I think I think I've done as good of a job as I can. And you know, I think sitting here and talking with you about it, you know, I think it's allowed me to see things about the movie that I maybe didn't see because of again, the way I interpret the movie, which is something that I appreciate about. You know, doing an episode like this about something that I inherently enjoy is to hear what someone else thinks about something that I like and see again like good Bad is kind of unimportant, but more having a lively conversation, and I think, you know, I think we had I think we had a lively conversation about one of my favorite movies that, like you said, is it's a lot the movies a lot, It's three hours I whenever I watch it.

I watched the extended cut, and like I said, I've seen it a fair amount. I watched Long Legs a fair amount last year, you know, like this, This and Long Legs were what I watched a fair amount last year. I don't They're two very drastically different films by drastically different filmmakers, but are two similar films in terms of the show don't tell and the show don't tell of things as you you know, as you were talking about at the beginning of this to bring it all, you know, circular like the you know, I'm I'm in my old age. Like in my old age, I want to watch movies that are actually trying and really trying to do something, because like I don't have all the time in the world anymore to wait, like you said, to technically waste it on things that aren't great.

And I'm not saying don't watch bad movies, far from it, but like if I'm gonna spend a lot of time and effort talking about something for two hours, it better be something that's spending three hours every second doing something, because I mean, again, that's this movie. There is very little, if any wasted time in this movie. This movie does not waste a lot of time. Like you said, there's always something to look at, always something to see. The movie is doing something.

It's actively trying to engage you as an audience member. If you look away from this movie, it has probably failed at what it is doing because ari Astor is really trying to create a mood and a vibe with this movie that I think when it succeeds, which I think is most of the time, if not all of the time, for me at least, this is a unique horror movie that again in my mind, to call it a horror movie is like to compare it to things that are hard to compare it to, because I'm not saying it stands alone, but there's very few things that are like this. This is, in and of itself its own thing, and the full core that it draws inspiration from paved the way for something like this to exist, and full core is something that I also personally enjoy So I'm glad that we got to do a horror movie for my birthday month, and you know, we get to talk like, you know, like literally a day after your birthday, so you know, you know, we're you know, two days but who's count Yeah, well right, yeah two days now.

And I'm and you know again, I will be curious when you finish bo Is Afraid, maybe we could you know, talk about bo Is Afraid in the future. We're going to have to start it all over again at this point because it's been so long since we watched the first half. I mean literally at least a year, if not longer than we started the first half of it and didn't get through. And it wasn't we stopped it because we weren't enjoying it. It was like, Okay, this is a really long movie and it's kind of late already.

So it's one hundred and seventy nine minutes without the director's cut, like there is yeah, yeah, yeah, like it's it's. You mentioned Oz Perkins, and that's got to be another guy who gets thrown in that group with Ari Astor and Robert Hators. Totally. I agree the fact that I kind of forgot about him bothers me. I was a lot like there's another name to add to this.

He keeps saying those two and I'm like, there's somebody else, who is it? It's our boy oz. Yeah, because god damn dude. Talk about a movie that I came around on hardcore Black Coat's Daughter. Oh yeah, I mean everybody that listens perfect movie.

Yeah, everybody that listens to my show knows that it took like four watches for me finally Oh okay, you know, And a lot of it was because it was show Don't Tell, and I missed some things that are pretty crucial to the story. And it's like, oh, well, duh, right now, I get it. And that's one of my favorites. It's still my favorite of his. Actually, i'd agree.

I think for as much as I like Long Legs, I think I think Black Coat's Daughter. Man, can you imagine that being your first movie? Yeah, it's like a perfect movie, and it had It's not only is it a perfect movie, it has what I would consider to be like two of the great your actresses of like that time period. Know as little about that movie as possible going into it, because that's another movie that benefits. Like you said, I think it benefits from knowing very little about it because it by knowing very little about it, it requires you to watch it actively and several times.

Well, you do need to watch it actively, because that was my mistake the first time. I was like working and watching interesting and I missed. I'm like, I got confused about you know, the timeline, the whole thing. And it's imagine watching imagine not actively watching Midsummer and you know, it'd be like you there's like shit you would miss You'd be like, why are they what's why is his glass red redder than the others? It's like the movie, right, well, that movie.

Yeah, that's what I said. At the beginning, you just have to be paying attention. You don't even have to be paying attention like you know, taking notes and with a magnifying glass. You just have to be watching what's on screen. And it's all spelled out at the beginning and throughout.

And that's why, even though it's almost three hours long and and it is slow moving, but something unfolds every scene, you get new bits of information. You just have to be listening and watching actively. It's a slow burn. It is a slow burn of a mo like you know, it's there are some moments in there that really you get some of those big pops of things going on, but it's a slow burn. And again at a three at a three hour pace, it's yeah, it's it's a lot.

I uh yeah. So let's take a break and we'll play a preview and some ads for the next Culture. Cast from weirding Way Media, Cambridge, and with Shawn is a podcast about two guys obsessions, past and hobbies. Those two guys are. Mark Bigley, host of Wake Up Heavy, Recollections of Horror.

And Ronald Zuriggian, host of the Skelevator YouTube channel. Each month, we talk about the toys, comics, movies, books, TV shows, and other cultural phenomena that captured our imaginations and helped shape who we are today. From Masters of the Universe to Saturday Night Live, Star Wars to Harry Houdini, the Muppets to The Elephant Man. Ronnie and Mark dive deep into the recesses of their minds to pull out treasured memories of things lost but never forgotten. Join us on the first Tuesday of each month over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com or Wherever you listen to podcasts.

Join me Jamie Benning on the Filmmentaries podcast, particularly if you enjoy stories like design A Nina Rhodis, Jamiro convincing George Lucas to push him around to help gain the support of his crew on the Ailing Howard, the. Duck Plam, the door opens, It's George, everybody. Gash makes a B line to me, I'm literally back against the wall. Or here Puppeteer Tim Rose's emotional story behind that iconic Amerlac bar shot in Return of the Jedi. I believe it or something to be proud of, but not the cell.

Burg or how star was Editor Paul Hirsch tackled cutting so many successful films. The thing that I learned from working with the Palm is that tension depends on a clock. You need to have the sense that time is running out. Maybe Oscar winning sound designer Mark Mangini's insightful chat about his work on Blade Runner twenty forty nine. Not a single sound from the original Blade Runner in the new film A great deal of inspiration.

That's the film Youmentary's podcast with me Jamie. Benning, Hello, Twisted Humans. Do you find yourself wanting to know more about the latest murder, conspiracy, cult or haunting than this is the podcast for you. In nineteen fifty two, there was a record high of UFOs reported hundred sightings. There has been evidence of human sacrifice, double worship, and it is haunted by more spirits than can be counted.

A family of two adults and two kids reportedly saw a giant flying thing with glowing red eyes. And meanwhile, the family's nanny that helped Veronica to care for her and Lucian's children, was found bludgeoned to death in the basement of their family. Hope, I'm Militia. And I'm Sierra, and this is twisted and uncorked. When I wrote Naked Lunch, you just couldn't say enough discussing may whine on American trash.

Well, now Hollywood has turned it into a movie and critics are chattering again. The movie mind blower of the year, The Spellbinding, a stunningly surreal toward the Force. I thought you were finished with doing weird stuff. I thought I was too, But I guess I'm not. David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch rated R.

So because Mark Begley, I coughed this from you one hundred percent. Playing TV spots is such a better idea than playing trailer spot. So on the next episode of the Culture Cast, we will be talking about a movie that I don't necessarily remember a whole lot, but it's one of my favorite books. So I am hoping that the movie lives up to the expectations of the book. So I'm kind of giving myself a little bit of a moment here.

Maybe we'll see. We're gonna be talking on the next episode about Naked Lunch, which, as Bart Simpson would say, I can say two things wrong with that title, and I would be joined by everybody's favorite moth Daddy, Richard Haddam. He will be joining me at not like the book. No, I'm not like the book at all. I know, which is again like I'm.

It's genius though, the way that was done. Yeah, that's I'm excited to rewatch it, Like I I watched it so long ago that I don't remember it at all, essentially, And I read the book two years ago, and I have read the book two times since. And it is a book that I go back to when I am stoned frequently because it is fun to read while high. It really is. I think the best way to read Naked Lunch is stoned because it's it's a it's wild.

I mean, it's it's william S. Burrows is one of my favorite authors. It's just wild. There's another movie that does this, but I can't think of what it is. But it's basically, it's like I'm making of the book, right, That's what the movie is.

It's it's telling you the story of how the book was made, basically. Theoretically, not not not literally because there aren't mugwumps in real life, but so says you, since it's not It was, you know, touted as impossible to film. David Cronenberg got around that and made a very interesting movie that is a companion piece to the book. There is another movie that did that same kind of thing, where it's like, you're never going to be able to make a movie out of this book. Well, it's like, well, let's do this, let's do it this way.

Of course, I can't think of it. I'm excited. I mean, I'm I knew that about it. That it's like you know, the it's it's got Peter Weller as as a you know william S Burrows, you know, I mean, and he does. It's kind of like it's kind of like Hunter S Thompson with fear and loathing right, like again like it's not the real person, but it's not not the real person.

Like but again I'm going to say about real thing. You know, I'm going to say Peter Weller does a better william S Burrows than Johnny Depp does a Hunter S Thompson. I'm going to argue that point right here. So so I'm excited to see Peter Weller do william S Burrows because william S Burrows has one, I would say, one of the great voices. So I I could listen.

Very subtle, it's a very subtle, but he ge, he gets it in the right places. Nice. Okay, I'm excited, and I know you have I know, I wanted to mention this because I know you like Burrows. You're a You're you're a you like Burrows, right, I mean. Yeah, I'm more of a Cronenberg fan in regards to this movie.

I mean, I've read Naked Lunch, and I've read Junkie but and seen up a bunch of videos and things like that. I yeah, no, it's more the Cronenberg aspect of the movie. To me, Queer is very good. By the way, it almost made the cut this month for a movie to watch. It's very good.

It is a good adaptation of the book. And Daniel Craig, I can't remember if I read that one. It's kind of you read Junkie, right, I mean, it's yeah, it's pretty much Judge. It's very similar Queer. Queer was not finished.

Queer is an unfinished manuscript, so it's it's it's it's very similar to junk So but but yeah, and we'll be joined. Like I said by moth Daddy, Richard had him on that episode where we'll continue to talk about William as Burrows and maybe Richard will get to extole me with his love of Burrows. I've never asked him, so we'll see. So until then, where could people find you and the things that you work on? Mark Bigley?

You can find both of my shows, Cambridge and Mashawan and Wickip Heavy over on Weirdowaymedia dot com. What about you Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Same place for everything that I work on other than the one show that I do with our friend and co host of the Chevy Chase Podcast Mike White. We do a show over on Patreon called Rankin on Bond with the aforementioned Richard Hadham where we talk about James Bond once a month, and we are nearing the end of the Roger Moore tenure, which for many people means, oh now they're going to finally tune in because they're sick and tired of listening to us say the same thing for like eight episodes. But that's okay, so on to Timothy Dalton, folks.

But that's that's where you can find that and maybe some other things coming soon. Some bonus episodes of this show. Haven't done a bonus episode in a while. There is going to be a bonus episode this month. Last month we recorded one, but we ended up releasing it just as a normal episode.

So like, rate and review the show on iTunes, please and thank you. That is the best way that you can engage with me and this show, Like rate and review all weirding Way media shows or any content that you engage with whomever. However, because content creators, unless they're getting paid, aren't making any money doing any of this. Shocking, I know. We do this out of the goodness of our hearts because we like to entertain ourselves with our friends while talking about movie.

Begley, thank you so much for joining me. It's been a lot of fun. It's been way too long since we've done one of these. Yeah, and as always, we'll catch in the next episode. Street