Red State

H We're I appreciate knowing that. Before we even started recording, you essentially said this movie is not good. It is your fault that I watched it, and I don't want this on my feed. The fun Oh, we'll get into that. Oh oh oh oh.

I don't know where I was going with that, but Kevin Smith, you know what's funny. This is the second time, though I would pause it in a lot of ways, it's the first time we've talked about a Kevin Smith movie on this podcast. Because most of the podcast pre twenty eighteen aren't great. They're fine, but it's a different time and a different place and a different group of people doing the show. I have found a much more interesting group of people, aside from Mike White and a couple other people to do the show with yourself included.

So let's just say, for the sake of argument, this is the first time we've talked about a Kevin Smith movie on this show. And on this episode of the Culture Cast, I'm joined once again by my good friend. He's all the way from Wake Up Her, Heaverry, Wake Up Heavy and Cambridge and was Shawn another show, but that's a monthly show. The other show is it's kind of monthly right now, you're like Jack Jeff them playing what we want when we fucking want it? Your friend in mind, the host of Wake Up Heavy, Mark Begley, simple, just shit itself.

I was expecting something Michael Park said, but it would have been said more intelligibly than mumbled. Like I don't know if you watched them making up this movie, but he mumbles a lot that. That John Goodman quote kind of sums up my consensus of the movie. So we're gonna be talking about We're gonna be talking about Red State on this episode. What is this man?

It's like Craigslist for people want to get fucked. I thought Graiglist was Craigslist for people who want to get fucked. We're getting laid boys, all three of us at the same time. It's gonna be like fucking my mom. This is whatever Aaron's block porn sites.

Man, they make socially backwards kids. Don't bet you boys want to get up through the deal business. Don't you get drinking because I ain't drink alone. I don't let no man in men unless it's got at least two peers. This man goddesses.

Now you Travis, we alcome family either out. I hate the wickedness in America, rampant fornication, adultery, abortion, flavoring sexuality everywhere, your fucking pitch. Let me the fuck out of here. It's up to the righteous the curb the spread of his disease. You might take him calling a grown up in here seldom stripped selto sos, dripped down God, none of your fear, good sir, It's go on here now, but we can be fully mobilist and on site in an hour.

Come out with your hands up and here will not be harmed. Repeat it will not be harmed. I think it's the use of the word repeat that makes this work every time at a stall and a god so clearly and all my wol thing, those good people, they're gonna kill you two. You getting down on your knees and free. He said, this is gonna be a simple and I served sim will just shit itself.

Go. I fear God. I fear God. You better believe I fear God. How much you think a cross like that cost?

The dollars are common sense. Before we talk about the movie, The reason that we got here is because Mark Begley and I over on his feed and on my feed, but more importantly, his feed talked about m Night Shamalan's latest apocalyptic thing movie, Knock at the Cabin, which is an adaptation of a book. And also, I know you've been watching The Last of Us, so post apocalyptic apocalyptic stuff is kind of in vogue right now once again a little bit. Maybe not as much as maybe it was at other times, but I figure, hey, let's talk about a Kevin Smith movie that is opposed to apocalyptic. It would have been a lot.

Yeah, it could have been. Well, yeah, I was gear. It's been a while since I watched this. I think my friend Ronnie and I did a movie date with this movie back in the early twenty ten. So we start.

He moved back to Frozno, I think in two thirteen, and I'm like, well, you're here now, I'm here. I work from home a lot of the time. He wasn't doing much of anything, and I said, let's get together and watch movies. And I believe it was his suggestion. I don't think I even knew that Kevin Smith was still making movies at the time.

I figured he had retired. That was what I heard. He was one of those guys that retires and then comes back, retires and comes back or or says I'm only going to make this amount of movies and stop, like you know, you know who does, And I like that aside as you know who does? What is he fucking Voldemort? Now we don't mention this man might as well be.

So. I don't know if we watched it before Tusk or after Tusk, but it was around the time that Tusk came out because we saw these pretty close in proximity to each other. And I didn't remember that much about it Red State. I knew it was Westboro Baptist Church type rip and then the stuff at the end, the apocalyptic stuff, but I was expecting more of that because we were watching it because of Knock at the Cabin, and I'm like, they're not They're not a death cult. This isn't Biboo and Sheimu waiting for the comment to come or who are there?

Fuck those people in the heavens gape people. Okay, their names will ever for forever will now be Biboo and Shemu. I believe you mean t and Dough. Yeah, totally me for not remembering. So they're not a They're not a d Times cult necessarily, but like many of those fundamentalists groups, they believe we are living in the end times.

Like I said, I'm knock at the cabin. They've been saying that for millennia because all that stuff happens all the time. Fornication, sodomy, this, that, and the other thing that they rail against has been happening since the beginning of time, since the beginning of people. So I was expecting more of that. They don't really talk about, like they're not prepping for the end times.

They're just a weird right wing fundamentalist group and it's really only at the end when that unexpected thing happens that we get into that. So I'll say this, let me see this about Kevin Smith before we go any further. I was waiting, by the way, I wanted to ask you fucking beat me to it. So you didn't, I mean you totally did, because because like you know who, I feel like he's a director who people inherently have an opinion about. If you're a movie go or in a movie watcher, and you're dialed into movies as much as you and I aren't, so many of the people we podcast with It's there's no way you don't have an opinion about him in a lot of in a lot of ways, I think he wants that, just like Tarantino, right, like, have an opinion about me, please.

I think those two are somewhat two sides of the same coin kind of deal. I'm glad. I mean, you could say this about both. I much prefer Tarantino's movies to Kevin Smith's movies I enjoy. I am not a Tarantino hater like some friends of the show might be.

I think I like, genuinely like nearly every single one of his movies. I definitely can't say the same thing for Kevin Smith. But I'm happy, like with Quentin Tarantino, like with Jordan Peel, like with him Night Shamalan. I'm glad these guys are out there making movies. I'm glad for him that he is able to do this by Hooker by Crook.

However, I read a little bit about this film in particular and how it got its funding and how it was, you know, an ongoing project of his for about four years from inception to completion, and good on him. I say, he's definitely for me at least less obnoxious than Quentin Tarantino. They're both those fast talking, hand moving this that you know if you watch interviews with either of them, they're similar in that way. I think Kevin Smith is a little more normal guy, not maybe as portentious as Tarantino. I'm definitely not as pretentious as Tarantino.

I've only watched probably five or six Kevin Smith films. Clerks pretty shortly after at least it made it to video because it was a big thing, like She's got to have it and like zero Dogs, these again up and coming guys who just got it done somehow, and then Mall Rats and Chasing Amy, and after Chasing Amy, I just completely lost interest. I'm like, this guy is not making movies for me. And I've seen this twice now. I've seen Tusk, which I actually had been meaning to go back and rewatch because it's insane.

Oh yes, please sign me up. I'll do that. And you know, you know, let's just stop this show and do that instead, because the fact that anyone is uttering the words I have been meaning to rewatch that movie is music to the ears of the person who thought it was the funniest fucking thing when it came out almost a decade ago. So it's a funny It's a fucking funny movie. It's not the I find it to be a very good funny movie.

Yeah, it's not a good movie, but in a lot of ways, neither is this movie. But you know what, I fucking love this movie. This movie is so it's it's it's it's if like the guy who made Clerks made a movie about religious people, and it's exactly that. I mean. In Clerks there's a lot of no punches pulled, and in this movie there are very few punches pulled, which I think is very off putting for a lot of people, myself included.

But I don't mind a director who goes, fuck your fuck your expectations, here's what I'm trying to do, and I like there. Like you've already mentioned, there are few and far between of those directors still around from this time, let alone doing it now who are just coming into the industry now. I think it's easier in the industry now, given the amount of access to various forms of places to put your media, YouTube, any streaming platform. But like Kevin Smith got it done in the fucking nineties, Like in the system quote unquote, like nobody gets to do that anymore. That's not a thing.

His movies for me are about as subtle as a sledgehammer. Yeah, and that's the thing that keeps me from enjoying them more than I do this one. I don't think Rich State is necessarily a bad film, and Tusk, as bizarre as it is, is a lot of fun. And that's why I've been meaning to watch it because I only I saw in the theater and that was it. So one time when it came out of the movie, the five dollars have made for the beater.

Yeah, me and my friend Ronnie went and saw it, I think because of this, and we're like, oh, he's making He's doing something different. Now, It's not this ensemble of these fucking knuckleheads who I can horribly stand just screen. Like I like Jason Lee and other things, I do not like him in Kevin Smith movies. I've even in Mallrats. No, he is obnoxious and annoying to me.

Into I cannot stand that, like appear acting like the whole fucking entire movie just drove me nuts. I get it, I get it. Yeah, Yeah, so that that is what I think of what I think of Kevin Smith is like, we're not going to be subtle about anything, and that's fine, and that that works. There's no nuance in any of these movies there. This Red State might be the one that has actually a little bit of nuance in it.

I just say, this might be the acceptation that proves the rule. But you're gonna have to dig I mean, it's not a nuanced portrayal of everybody's I don't care if any of these people die. I don't care if the fucking kids that get kidnapped. I I don't care if the young people in this church die. I don't care if the at F people die.

And for the most part, spoilers, they all do. John Goodman is maybe the only decent person if you if you can call him that, just say, well, he he doesn't want to go along with the order to just annihilate them. So for me, that's a decent guy. Like because of Waco, because of these AERI just make sure there aren't any survivors, so there are no witnesses. Is to claim up or doesn't that feel like the US government though?

I mean as cynical as we all made. Well, yeah, I believe we are like I don't know, like okay, So Kevin Smith and me first, because I do want to get my moment of zen with that. I saw Clerks when I was fifteen, sixteen, the perfect time, right, But I saw Dogma first. I saw Dogma parts of Dogma in two thousand. There's a very famous story in my family of my grandfather and I went to Blockbuster together, and the mistake was sending me and my grandfather Blockbuster together with nobody else because we would just rent whatever, and him and I saw Dogma and said, let's rent that.

Look. I had seen Total Recall. I had seen Predator. I had seen all kinds of things. Because of my grandfather.

We would go to a condo on the Texas coast every summer and we would watch movies that he would bring from his VHS collection, and one of them happened to be Predator. One of them happened to be Total Recall. I mean, look, whatever, those are classics, those are good movies. That's not die Hard. When I was probably seven or eight, and then you know, a couple of years later at my parents' house and we go to Blockbuster, we bring Dogma back and made it about ten minutes into the movie.

Let's just put it that way. The movie and the funny thing is the state. This actually happened another time with Mall Rats, but it was on DIVX, and we were watching Mall Rats on DIVX at my parents house, and we got about five minutes into that movie, right about when they're standing outside of TSS. It's into Ts's house or Ts's girlfriend's house, and they're talking to her dad, Michael Rooker, and they're just cursing up a store and saying fuck and every every every other every other is they would say pejorative in the book, and my parents turned it off. So that was my exposure to Kevin Smith.

Once I got a little bit older and I figured out how to, you know, rent movies myself or buy them myself. I watched Clerks and Dogma and Chasing Amy I went, and I remember seeing Clerks too in the theaters with the fucking Donkey Show. I mean again, these were movies that spoke to me as a teenager growing up in the mid two thousands, as they were meant to I think in a lot of ways, or you know, obviously it was made for people your age and my age and almost nobody else gen xers, and then Kevin Smith has maintained his pop culture relevance to millennials as well, which I think. I think that's impressive. I think you would probably agree, being able to kind of be maybe less so with Gen Xers who have gotten older, but definitely millennials who have gotten older and kind of been that in between gap.

Now. I think a lot of people my age either find those Kevin Smith movies funny or like yourself, don't care anymore. And I also get it because the dick and fart joke humor. I think, Look, I haven't even seen Clerks three, so you know that gives you an idea of how much I've kept up with Kevin Smith. So I haven't.

I didn't even realize there's a sequel to Tusks coming out. It's called Tusks with a Dollar Sign, and then Moose Jaws is apparently happening, so okay, great, I saw Yoga Hosers, though I did not Wolf. Well, buddy, well, buddy, you know what, I would actually be willing to revisit that movie, just because, again, similarly to Tusk, it was maligned by the mainstream and it's like, guys, he wasn't making this movie for you guys anyway, So like, no, shit, you don't like it. Like when Tusk came out, I remember people going, this is the worst movie of the year, And I'm sitting there thinking to myself, if a Marvel movie came out that year, that can't be the case, because most Marvel movies around twenty fourteen were pretty bad.

Guys, Like, they were not the shining beacons on the hill that they were in Probably from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty is when Marvel was like peak, and then even it's now kind of diminished in its pop culture important. So people going, Kevin Smith doesn't make movies for me. Yeah, he's making movies for himself. I think you and I know that. It's pretty obvious, and so people are going to have very strong opinions about it in a lot of ways.

Something like skinnamer Ink is very close to clerks. Either you get it or you don't, and if you don't, you probably don't like it, and that's perfectly fine. There will be enough people that it does resonate with that will defend it and will like it, and we'll probably and maybe will prop it up enough. Kevin Smith talked to the right group of people at the right time, and they propped up his career to get to where it is now. And good for him.

No, I was gonna say, I see that a lot when his films come out, is he makes movies for himself and his fans. He has a fan base, and they're gonna go and watch his movies. They might not like every one of them, but that's who he's making movies for, the people that connect with the humor, the unsubtlety, the whatever pop culture references. Yeah, I think the most or the one thing that I've watched the most of his was that Comic Books shown that he had show a while, and I didn't. I didn't even last more than like a full season of that, But I was like interested in that because of the items that people would bring in and things like that.

That hits a certain fascination of mind. But I think, yeah, five or six movies of his I've seen, Maybe, I mean I've I've effectively seen all but the I think I have. I've never seen cop Out, I've never seen Jersey Girl, and I have never seen Clerks three, which for me Clerks three is a surprising one because I'm a huge fan of Clerks one and Clerks too. I will say the other thing about Kevin Smith that for us uniquely should be mentioned. Guy's a hell of a fucking podcaster, like has his own podcast network, has been doing the good work of podcasting for as long as we have, or longer, as long as the longest person that I know, Mike White, has been podcasting as long or even maybe even longer than Kevin Smith.

But Kevin Smith is a good podcaster. Two, which I think kind of gets lost in all of this, but I don't think it should because someone who is able to be entertaining outside of his movies, I think is all. I mean. I love those where Kevin Smith would go and like do stand up essentially. I know it's not stand up, but it's him kind of sharing stories from his time in the industry.

Those are immensely entertaining, and it's like, okay, so you you're you're an entertaining human being too, which I think in this industry, I think it helps endear yourself to more people than just being you know, Quentin Tarantino and I'm the movie guy, but everything else I'm kind of abrasive, and I have some edges that aren't as rounded off as someone like a Kevin Smith is, or you know people or even like or you know what, Kevin Smith's better comparison probably is Robert Rodriguez because like Robert, I mean outside of Rodriguez's personal things that he's like, you know, with Rose McGowan and stuff, Robert Rodriguez always comes off as a pretty likable guy. I know. I know people who have worked with him on things, and they've said that he is a very approachable, nice person.

So I kind of maybe that's a better comparison. But I think Tarantino and Rodriguez obviously are and Smith are all in the nineties film crew of you know, people who are doing it their way. So all of that aside, Red State is a fucking weird movie in the in in every sense of the word. It's a movie that's essentially three movies. It's a movie that at times has a lot to say and I think in a lot of ways doesn't know how to say it very well.

Yeah, But at the same time, I think it also is an interesting assessment, reassessment and kind of satirical in the pitchest black sense takedown of the religious right and the government, whichever direction they seem to be leaning at the time, doesn't seem to be of the importance. It's just the government without a political swing, just the government as the faceless entity we all believe. It is no political swing required to justify that. I think it's a very satirical takedown of the two. But it's an intense movie.

I think is the thing that I maybe had forgotten because there's about a twenty minute stretch of this movie from when the moment the kids get captured to the moment when John Goodman and crew roll up in their ATF wagons. That's just intense. You have Michael Angarano just running around and shooting people, and it's fucking intense, and it's shot in a way that's meant to make you feel like you're there. And if you didn't tell me Kevin Smith directed this movie, I would not ever guess it was him. But I think that's the success here, is that he's able to sow chameleon like travel in circles of things that he clearly does like.

Because there are things here that we can point to other movies that are reminiscent of this, and I'm sure we'll talk about it because the other thing that we haven't mentioned here is this is the first time that Kevin Smith made a horror movie, if you want to call it that. Yeah, he calls it that, and I don't. I don't know what else. That most most generic term to use would be a horror movie. But I think it's horror thriller more than it is horror.

Yeah, maybe thriller horror movie even to isolate the horror away. I think what Kevin Smith does really well and that this is the thing that none of us really realized when he was making the movies. He was making movies don't really suit genre very well. Specific genre boxes. Because one might say Tusk is a horror movie.

I guess like that for me, that falls more into horror than this does. I again read those things and he's like, oh, I'm making a straight out horror movie as my next project. And I'm thinking, okay, I remember watching this a while back. What's the horror element here? I mean a real life horror again?

Like okay, because even but even then, it's more of a I wouldn't even say thriller. It's almost more like a political For some reason, I keep thinking of Dog Day Afternoon, just because that has a kidnapping aspect to it, and it's tints and all that stuff. But I don't know, I just don't buy the horror title for this. Yeah, I mean I get it. I just I don't know what else to call it, Like I guess you could call it.

And honestly, the way I looked at it rewatching it. So the setup of the movie is again, obviously it's it's Waco esque, right, it could have just been like a docu drama because it almost is like in a lot of ways, there are scenes that are shot that feel like a recreation of something, like they're trying to recreate Waco or like evoke Waco and like it's Waco crossed with Westboro Baptists, right, like what would happen if Waco took place where the Phelps family were hanging out? And obviously, you know they pay lip service to the Phelps in this movie. They say, you know, oh, they're they're a bunch of fucking They're a bunch of fucking goes screaming, whiling children. But they're toothless, like they don't do shit.

Yeah, they're not terrorists, which I think is likerding guns. The distinction here is they don't hoard guns. Yeah, their group does their sayers not doers, right, They're not actually taking the action. And I think it's really funny and I think it's really smart to have that line in your movie where it's like, no, no, these people take This is taking place in the world where these people do exist. We just are pointing out like the US government sees them the way that we should all see them, which is a bunch of just screaming children trying to get your attention.

They're not actually gonna do anything, and they never did, and they never have and they never will. Fred Phelps is long dead. It doesn't even matter anymore. They excommunicated his ass from the church the day he died. That's the real thing that happened.

I know way too much about Westboro Baptist because I'm a huge fan of Louis Thurreau and the three times he went back to visit those assholes in his The Most Dangerous Family in America docuseries, which he went in like the mid two thousands and then the tens and then even more recently and like you can see them getting progressively less and less, like the way like this, the way they talk about him here, they're like so defanged now because the worst thing for these people to get his attention because they don't know what to do with it, and their message, their message doesn't ring very true when they just keep saying the same thing over and over again, like we get it, okay, whatever, fine, Like you know the thing about Westboro Baptist and I, you know, fuck them all, but I the one thing that came out when they would protest like a fall and soldiers funeral or whatever, and it's like people would be like, why are you I appreciated that they weren't just I'm appreciated isn't really the correct word, but it just made me think they're going they're doing that thing where it's like this one group is right and everybody else is wrong.

Instead of that, I think they mentioned Unitarians. Michael Parks mentions Unitarians in one of his bits and his sermons. Who if you've ever been to a Unitarian church, it can be a little bit discombobulating because it's like everything's fine, you know, every religion is leading to the same place type of thing. Wait what, Yeah, Unitarians. It's very much like the opposite of Whistboro Baptists, where if you're doing any of these things that are laid out in the Bible, you're a sinner and you're you know, fallen in God's eyes or however you want to put it.

But it just made me think of the hypocrisy that goes on when people quote Leviticus to condemn homosexuals, and that's like, look, you've got a whole list of things in that. If you're going to use Leviticus, you need to go through and pick out all those other commandments in there. Are you eating shellfish? Are you cutting your hair? Or do you have tattoos?

And look at all these youth pastors and these megachurches or these other fundamentalist churches who are all tatted up. That church that Justin Bieber goes to, I'll tatted up whatever, you know, playing the modern music and all that shit. I like that they're kind of dragging that down in the same vein as everything else, as homosexuality had fornication, all that other stuff that they're decrying. But yeah, you're you other groups are cherry picking what's Okay, how many? I mean, I grew up in a Christian home, went to church all my life, and I would see that hypocrisy too, and think about how many of you all are divorced.

How many of you cheated on your spouse? Did you then stone that woman to death? No you didn't, because we're not dealing with Old Testament law anymore as Christians. That's how it's supposed to be. That's all gone now.

Jesus got rid of all that, So stop picking those things from the Old Testament to use for one, you know, and it's usually homosexuality. That's the big one that always gets dragged out of Leviticus and other books of the Old Testament. It's like, you've got to drag all that other stuff with you if you're going to do that. And that is the only thing I can think of that groups like Westboro would do, Like why are they protesting this soldier's funeral? You know?

And there's something in there that they're railing again. So it's like, okay, fine, I get that. I understand it. Maybe instead of saying appreciate, I can just say I understand that viewpoint, Like it's all or nothing, you guys, don't get to keep picking different things to be okay with divorce, cheating on your spouse, all that stuff. I mean, they're it's just ridiculous.

It's all read. I mean again, I'm in a lot of ways. I don't agree with anything that they've said, but I do appreciate, like you do, someone who's willing to say what they believe in. I mean, you've marked yourself as an asshole, but at least I know, at least we're all aware, we know where you stand, and it's it's firm against all these things, not just this. I mean, of course they're famous for the one quote in particular, but they are famous for one thing.

God hates fags. Yeah, and you know what, there's a lot of that in this movie. I was about to say, that's all there is in this movie. And I think, if if for me, that not just them, not just them, but those three fucking kids out of their mouths, like every other word yeah or fag comes out of their mouths. And I didn't get I don't I didn't get what what Kevin Smith was trying to say about that.

You know, also what I didn't understand because obviously this this you know, we have the Phelps family the Coopers dialed up to eleven here, so obviously, like we talked about, you know, the Phelps family hates almost sexuality. They rail against that over I would think everything else. If you were to ask Old Fred down in Hell what he hates the most while he's getting reamed by the devil, it's probably a gay sex. But but this movie like really goes in that direction and commits to it. And I guess, if you're gonna do this this way, this is what you do to make it have the most impact is you have You don't pussy foot around and pretend and look for something else that they actually don't care about.

You make these people care about the things that the actual assholes actually care about. Because as far as I am concerned, showing it that way, he adds a little ham fisted because it is, but I think it kind of works. And man, that scene of Michael Parks given that sermon is fucking horrifying. It's just you can't look away for the entire monologue. And you know, and you you know, Kevin Smith is so smart.

He has Michael Park's essentially two thirds in frame, but just in the background, you see the cross, and you see the guy what you think as a person moving on the cross ever so slightly, just to give you an idea that there. You know that this is. You've seen this before if you've seen any of the Phelps stuff, and a lot of people who watch this are probably people that knew about this. So Kevin Smith is once again speaking directly to the people who know what this is about and know what he's going for, and showing like the furthest destination that these people couldn't again maybe do what they wanted. I don't want to say the Phelps could do this, because they never have.

They never did best anybody knows. But these people do exactly what people, I guess assume Westboro Baptist was doing or imagine they might be doing. And you know what, Yeah, it is horrifying, but I think it kind of works. I mean again, it's just very unsubtle, like it's yeah, that's the thing. It's just like homos are all bad and they're all gay, and everything gay is bad and gay this and gay that, and we're gonna kill all the gays that.

Holy shit, Michael Parks. The amount of unseubtlety here is shocking. And you know what though, like I think, I think what Kevin Smith knows is these kinds of scenes always end up feeling that way, so we'll just lean on it. Like he doesn't try to do anything differently, He kind of just presents it the way it is already was at the time, I guess with Phelps as a real person, Like, yeah, it's that natural extension of all that talk with those groups too. Okay, well here's a group that actually does it.

They shoot that guy through the top of his fucking head and flame has come out. Yeah, I think I think that's the plastic wrap lighting on fire. That's what one of the greatest pieces of imagery in this movie is that is that fire coming out of the headhole man. And not like that creepy. I just like how meticulous they are headhole and they're like tape in the top of the guy's head.

It's fucking creepy. And then just dump him right into the basement. Yeah, just flops down there. Yeah, it's I mean, I think it's just it's fucking brutal. It's and we're led to believe with the opening of the movie that they've been just doing this like maybe forever.

I don't it would seem that there's been no uh, there's been no end in sight to them doing this because Aben Cooper Michael Park says multiple times, you know my daddy is daddy has been founded Cooper's Dale back in nineteen seventeen. It's like fucking hundred years, so they've probably been doing this for a hundred years. Like it's it kind of is that story of you know those family, those families in the middle of nowhere that they kill the travelers by they eat them, you know, they they sterroll good Samaritans until they stop in and then they killed them. There's a little bit of that here because again they're not on the level with what they're doing. But it is then again like the religious stuff as opposed to just like the hill billy inbred people, because that's the other way you do this right, like a wrong turn or you know, hills have eyes.

This is like it's like the hills have Eyes, but with religious people. Yeah, which is and that is more of a horror film, but that siege, maybe a siege film is what I get out of this, Like Assault on Precinct thirteen or even there's a movie called siege. That's pretty fun. It's Canadian movie, and I guess those fall into the horror category. Kind of going back to that, I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this being a horror film.

But the yeah, you mentioned the monologue, and I gotta admit I was kind of checking my watch, like how long has he been gone? Okay, so do you like? I like my Parks right? I like him in doses? Okay, See that was too much for me.

I like him in those bit parts where he comes in and he shines real bright for like a couple of minutes, and I mean he's you know the Robert he mentioned. Robert Rodriguez and Tarantino have used him that way. And his kids too, one of them is in this movie. And then UM's is it the same kid that's in the kill Bill movies with him or a different son? But anyway, I know for some reason his son in this movie didn't.

It didn't ring any bells with me as seeing him and other stuff. And I know that he has an actress at least one actor's son. His son. His son was one of the family members, right, Mordecai. I believe his son had the goatee.

But I think he has another son that's also an actor. Maybe it's the same guy. Am he just didn't have a goatee and kill Bill, but I know he and his son or a son are also in kill Bill. But yeah, it was. I was sitting there going, where's the end time stuff?

Let me hear some end time stuff? And this in this speech, and then I thought, boy, this has been going on for a while. The kid in the caves and the guy wrapped up, and I was like, Okay, let's this movie is only eighty something minutes, so let's let's get to the Let's get to John Goodman showing up or something. Well, and that's the first you had to have Badger show up or Badger I freaking bad in our connections in here, I have seen zero episodes of Breaking Bad. So they one kid's mom is Skyler, the wife Skylar White.

Yo, I know that I'm not not completely out of loop. Sir the detective that has kind of a funny voice that gets shot when he finds their foo on the compound he was on. He was one of Jesse's low life friends who would pop up every now and again and be very memorable. You mean one of the best lines in the whole movie. What what?

What's in Italy? It's full of Italians, well, full of Italians, full of Italians. Okay, it's a great voice. He's fun. I guess Stephen Root.

Let's not forget Stephen Rooting this getting getting blown in his car and not Jesus, Oh my god, Stephen Root looking proper, slimy and sweaty. Steve sweat only cost always does. Yeah, I was watching I was watching this, watch Red State, and then my wife and I started watching Perry Mason on HBO, and there he is front center in that show. Oh, Stephen Root as the antagonistic district attorney who he has that same mustache, but this time his hair is slicked down, so he looks like a you know, he looks like a dude in Los Angeles in the thirties. So right, that shows very good if you're looking for something good to watch.

I think we tried to watch the first episode and it was like, this is not my Perry Mason. Oh yeah, it's not. It's not my Perry Mason either, But that's okay. That was my parents reason for not liking that. They were like this isn't like our Perry Mason's Like, yeah, but this is also like Perry Mason origin stories Perry Mason.

To be fair, it's not an attorney yet. And yeah, I've caught a few of the old Perry Mason movies on TCM over the last couple of years too, which was like, I didn't know this was a thing. Hell yeah, it was just the TV show. I love me some Raymond ber His like old man Perry Mason. Hell yeah with the William Kat isn't that the actor's name?

The greatest American hero plays Paul Drake in those movies. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, uh but where where were we going with this? Oh? I don't know if we were going anywhere with this anyways, Perry Mason's good. You should check it out on HBO.

I got us off track with Badger and Skyler And oh right, well here's the funny thing. So Michael Parks for me is the guy from Tusk, Like yeah, but that's it, like and and I guess a little bit a little bit of from Dust Till Dawn, Yeah, like right at the beginning, right, which I think to your point, that's the way. And I guess he's a. He plays the same character at the beginning of Kill Bill. That's the same guy, right, that's the same Peter he dies and from Dustill Dawn, But that's the same character.

Yeah, he's a sheriff and kill Bill he's a sheriff. And Fromdustill Dawn, isn't he. I haven't watched it in a while, that movie, But they're they're the one they they're the ones that show up to find the massacre. Yeah, and then he's the one that shows up. He shows up at the beginning and from dust Till Dawn and the convenience store with they have the woman hostage, and he's like, with, what the fuck is that actor's name?

John Hawks? Is that him? Yeah? Yeah, he's in that. It's it's them too, which is again weird given where their careers would end up.

I get about I get it about Michael Parks though, because like, I like him in this movie and I buy into it. But I do wish there was more doom and gloom, fire and Brimstone, because right, that's what this movie kind of builds towards. And I will say that this movie is more or less two movies, three movies, even like the Kids go to the compound, they get captured, and then they all get killed more or less. I appreciate. I do appreciate that.

Yeah, and they all get killed by well, one of them gets killed by the group, but the other two get killed by the fucking at ATF guys, just like unceremoniously. Yeah, well one is like everybody out when one of them, Michael Angerano's like is he dead? Yeah? Yeah, it is like tough shit. It's super weird because again, like in a lot of Kevin Smith's movies, you're not expecting people to get shot and murdered and killed.

But I like that Kevin Smith's sensibilities are it doesn't matter, this is where this character's story ends, and we're moving on because the moment Michael Angerano dies, that's it. We nothing. We don't see him floating, We nothing, It's just did you kill him? Yeah? We thought it was one of the compound people.

Okay, moving on, Like movies don't. Movies don't tend to just go forward after the ostensible main character has been shot and killed. But I think the thing that's smart about this movie is they give you an idea when they introduced John Goodman that this is no longer this kid's movie. It's John Goodman's movie. And I think, I mean, obviously, this is John Goodman's movie.

I think overall, I think it's John Goodman's movie. I think it's just weird that it takes like a half an hour to get there because we don't see him for a half an hour. We don't see him until effectively everything has more or less already happened at the compound, short of the ATF showing up, which is kind of like Fargo. We don't see Frances McDorman until a good chunk of that movie's already over, and then it most definitely becomes her movie. Yeah, for it's William H.

Macy's. And then it's sort of slides over to Boushimi and what's his name in the car and oh snap takes Peter Storman takes all that time to get to her. I like it when movies do that. Actually, and the old same you know, weathered guy shows up in the last maybe midway through the second act and changes things. And I like John Goodman in this you know east John Goodman, right, How can you know?

How can you not like him? I don't know. I mean, it's not the most it's a pretty stock in trade John Goodman role. But but like that's the thing that you know, I mean, you're not gonna get all that much. Yeah, but John, but this is not what I would have thought when I thought of John Goodman in a Kevin Smith movie anymore than you would have as far as just what the expectations of him as an actor, what he's being asked to do.

John Goodman's a pretty funny guy. He's not funny here. This this is a this I mean, in a lot of ways, John Goodman is being asked to play a immensely unlikable character. Like I don't think you're supposed to like who he is. I think you're supposed to empathize with the situation that he's been put in.

But I don't think you're supposed to like him. I don't know if I like. His character kind of reminds me of his character from Kong Skull Island, where it's like I'm just doing my job because like John, I mean, there is like part of that to John Goodman's character. He's like I'm just doing my job, like I just want to get promoted. But I don't want to like kill people if I don't have to.

But I heard the order's son, Mike. That's where he stands though, against that. What do they call it in the movie, Well, it's simple. It's supposed to be simple, simple, just shit itself. That line is his line, where this is just go in, take everybody out.

We don't want any witnesses. We don't want it to blow back on us that we somehow fucked up again again again. And but he stands against that. He's not cool with that from the beginning to the end, or else they would have shot all of the group members that come out at the end. And so not saying he's likable necessarily, but he's standing against this idea of the government just doing whatever the fuck they want to do with extremist groups because Waco blew up in their face and something, you know, one other thing blew up in their page.

Yeah, so again kind of heavy handed, like are they really giving orders annihilate everybody so this doesn't blow up in our face? Not a stretch to believe. And I know that plenty of pote people would believe that without question. But it's just again, it's done without any kind of nuance in the film, and that's what sort of drives me nuts with him. But if it were a different director, would you just say it's a matter of fact, that's my question, or is it or is it like, oh, it's heavy handed because it's Kevin Smith.

If we know that he's heavy handed, that's my question, because that's the thing, Like, if this weren't a Kevin Smith movie, I feel like some of my criticisms against this movie may be different, differently angled if they if it wasn't Kevin Smith, because like the pithy dialogue is still there, but in a lot of ways, like it doesn't need to be like Kevin Kevin Pollock is in this movie the ride amount. I'm not saying I'm not a Kevin Pollock fan. Like Ken Pollock's he is one of the Yeah, you know what I'm gonna say, I know those actors who was in small doses. Yes, And I knew because I'm starting to think of like, so he's on Marvel the Marvelous Missus Mazel and it's always better when it's just little doses of him.

He's a great character actor. He does a fantastic Chris walkin maybe the best Chris walking impersonation other than Chris Walkin himself, but for me, he's a great character actor Jay Moore. Come on, man, does Jay Moore do a good Kevin or Chris Walkin? Yeah? First, that's actually the first time I heard somebody do an impression of Christopher Walkingers, Like, oh my god, interesting, I do love.

I'm a fan of Mafia, so that's that's why I'm a Jay Moore fan and very little else. Kevin Pollock also a podcaster, apparently unbeknownst to me that if you go and do a little research on mister Kevin Pollock, he also is anybody not a podcaster anymore? That's maybe a fucking better question to ask. Uh. I do also think that, you know, outside of the people that we've talked about, supporting cast is fine.

Kind of don't understand why Melissa Leo is in this movie, Like, I'm glad she's here. She always knows how to look that way. She's a gorgeous woman, like and they always are just like you gotta look like you gotta look like Yesterday's like the hot sit hot shit, Like come on, just we're gonna give you the bangs and we'll make you just look run. I know she does play that part well though. This seems kind of fit for her where she can be a little unhinged.

Yes, and I was not surprised to see her as the You know, I always want to say wife because it doesn't seem like there there's that much difference in age between them, but it's it's what's his name, Aban Cooper? Aban, that's right, that's a interesting name, Aban Cooper. So she's his daughter, right, and then her husband gets killed and then blaadoda. I like it that no one's off limits. I do appreciate that about the movie fucking kill the kids that they kidnap, um kill.

Kevin Pollock murdered. Pretty Kevin Pollock's murder is pretty epic, frankly, like I was. That was because, like I said, it's been a while since I watched it, so I didn't remember like any specific beats about the movie. I wouldn't have known who went first or anything like that. So those surprises surprised me again this time.

And I appreciated that no one was off limits, and it also helped, like I said earlier, that I didn't give a shit about anybody in this movie, any of the people, even Kyle Gallner, who has become a pretty big genre guy, especially in recent years. He has been like four horror movies last year or something. He's Matt Lillard's cousin in Universe of Scream, Isn't he Isn't he like Stu's cousin? I don't know. Yeah, I didn't get all the connections with I think I think I even missed some of the connections with more of the main cast or like, oh, that's so and So's sister or whatever.

Vince is the nephew of Stumcher through his mother, who is Stumcher's sister. So that's which is Heather Moderazzo, right, isn't that his sister? That was that's a that's Jamie Kennedy's sister. Oh okay, okay, Yeah, I don't think we have for Sauce Dubocker's sister, which is weird because that ship well that shit. Well talk about mister.

He was in He's in Smile. He was in that Scream five History reboot. He was, wasn't he like the main kid in that movie. He's a sad coughboy in that. Yeah.

I like him. I like seeing him show up and stuff, but I didn't really care if he'd bittered or not. I wasn't he lasts the longest, and I was like, he's most likely gonna die too. I don't care if he makes if he's the one that makes it out of this mess, don't care because he seems like a little shit too, but maybe less than his friends. But still he's a ship well, and that's the thing about the movie that I think that's the smartest thing is showing us that even though these people have been taken hostage, like, they're still kind of shit hits.

Like, look, they were just trying to get some ass. Like doesn't mean you deserve to die, but right your ship heads though, like and you know, and like you know that one friend left the other one. So maybe of all the people that deserved, he's the most deserving because he bailed on his friends. But like, yeah, Michael Angerano and Kyle Gallner just like just unceremoniously killed, Like and it's Kyle Gallner's is pretty fucked up. Like it is, it is fucked up, but again, like I think it just further reinforces, it further reinforces the direction the movie is heading.

I will say though, given what we know about the movie. Now, given what we know about the ending, Kevin Smith wanted to do all of the stuff kind of feels for not doesn't it doesn't it like? Doesn't it just like? And that's the thing that pisses me off about this movie is all of the fucked up shit, all of the severeness of the movie. This is severity of what's going on on screen ends up feeling for not.

It feels like a joke, like a gag, And I don't like that. I like that the ending of this movie was going to be something else, and financially they couldn't do it. And of all the reasons to not do something financially, is the reason that you can't get around because this movie almost didn't exist financially to begin with. So we're not going to have this cgi fuck fest of a movie at the end. But you know, I'm just gonna say, you could have done something better than this, because this ending does always still Even now, as much as I appreciate this movie, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

And it's not the kind of taste that you can get out by chewing a piece of gum either, it's a lingering bad taste that sticks for days. Because the ending is just like it's almost like Mia Copa, I couldn't do the ending I wanted, so let me tell you a joke instead. Yeah, as far as the severity of it goes, I actually appreciate that, again, only because he's trying to show us that both sides as bad as the other. This extremist religious group taken out homosexuals and fornicators, even the ones that aren't, because those three kid, I mean, right, and it doesn't matter because they're The stuff that they are doing is just as bad. Is basically what Michael Perks says, almost as bad or nearly as bad.

You were going to have sex with a woman. The three of you in one room. We're going to have sex with a woman. That's just as bad. That's in the Bible too.

Don't do that kind of Shittim and Gomorra got destroyed. They don't distinguish, just like the US government does it, between the good and the bad. They don't care, right, so both sides are the same or as bad as the other. And that's the message I get from the fact that two of the boys get killed by ATF agents, and they also kill the daughter that's trying to leave her and Kyle Gallner together. They that one tech ATF guy shoots the both of them, and that's been that's our orders, So that's what I'm gonna do.

No witnesses, so I can kind of buy into that now. As far as the ending goes, I think I liked the ending that they had to go with more so than what they were planning on doing. And I'll let you explain what they were planning on doing. I watched the clip yesterday, but that's the first I'd ever really heard of it. So the way the movie ends now is they've mentioned several times that the Cooper family of Cooper's Dell have essentially isolated themselves in a valley against any people that would be coming to funk with them or take their land or anything.

And so wouldn't you know it, But apparently unbeknownst to us the audience, but known to John Goodman apparently throughout the film is there were a group I guess at the end of the film, there's a group of college kids who the Coopers had been feuding with because they had made a compost heap that smelled really bad, and so the Coopers and these college kids were feuding back and forth, and so at the end of the movie, thinking it would be funny, they played the trumpet blast that come to signal the rapture from my nightmares that we talked about. I'll knock at the cabin right exactly, which is what made me think of this movie one to one. At the end of the movie, we hear trumpet blasts and they come out of nowhere.

Michael Parks and his family here, these wren wren And it's the moment in the movie where all of a sudden you think the movie is like going somewhere else, And it's the moment where this movie could have pivoted in a really strange direction. Now we'll talk about the real ending here in a moment, but the ending is Kevin Smith had more or less laid out in his head. Was I guess the rapture does happen, and John Goodman, while he's being yelled at by Iban Cooper passes out comes to all of the parishioners that are left start exploding, their heads and chest exploding, which look precedent for that is not unknown if you've seen Dogma. He does it. In Dogma.

He literally does that to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in that movie. At least Ben Affleck gets his chest and brain blown up. So this is precedent set in Kevin Smith movies for this happening. They start exploding and then all of a sudden, John Goodman sees an angel descend and kill one of the lasting parishioners and then puts his finger up to his mouth as the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse ride by, signaling the rapture, which my wife pointed out to me directly when I because we watched the kind of animated ending together so that I was like, so, I want you to understand where the movie ends up going could have gone. She goes, well, then wouldn't it make the Cooper's right?

And I was like, well, I guess so. I mean in a way, but they're killed, but they're taken out, they're not killed anyway. They're not raptured, right, They're they're sent to hell. That's what the angel is doing. He's condemning them.

John Goodman is left right, So I that's not the ending we got. The ending we got, is it? We have Michael Park's confronting John Goodman, and then instead of the Angels showing up, nothing nothing happens. It cuts to one week later and John Goodman is being grilled by muckety MUCKs in Man good Old Patrick Fishler. I love Patrick Fishler.

He's been grilled by at f muckety MUCKs all about what actually happened that day at Cooper's Dell. And yeah, we find out that it was the trumpet blasts were a gag. And then John Goodman tells a story like Tommy Lee Jones tells at the end of No Country for Old Men. That's that summarizes the entire film without even saying it. Isn't that what?

That's what? It reminded me of the squatch It. I was like, boy, that feels like No Country for Old Man. Yeah, that's a little less elegant than that, though the same it's the same thinking. Right, I'm going to tell a story that speaks to the themes of the movie directly, like and I gotta say the explanation of how these eco kids hippies, Oh and they find this old you know, that giant fire alarmed thing mad an old fire stision that they were getting rid of and they haul it back and I'm like, this is clunky as fuck.

Man. You know what Kevin Smith would probably say, and I this would be my response. Truth a stranger than fiction. Yeah, that's what I would like to Speaking of vocal devices, I like his chintzy ass um which McCall that he uses a little it's like a toy. Yeah, like louds, like the little speaker phone.

Well, what the hell down here? It's not the big white you know those things pops have, or I believe it was Kevin Smith's. He uses that at home to like bark orders around in his family or something. Find a fucking called. Why can't either of us of megaphone?

Megaphone? Yeah, it's a chintzy little toy megaf Come on out. I am in Tiber and no one will get hurt. I repeat. It's the I repeat that always gets them.

So that's the thing. Kevin Smith's dialogue like about things that we've never seen characters in his movies do. Like it's still funny. I'm not sure it needs to be there. Like I think back on moments in Tusk where it's like, who the oh, I find it funny okay, like it's for me, like and that's and that's the thing, Like maybe I am Kevin Smith's target audience.

I'm just not as much as I used to be. But I totally like I was self admitted, Like I stood in line to meet the guy to comicconum was very disappointed when he didn't show up. It was a long story. He showed up later and we just like fucking left because we'd waited for five hours or some shit. But I'm a Kevin Smith fan, Like I'm not gonna not gonna pretend I'm not, so it hits with me.

But some of the dialogue in this movie would one eye rolling and like just like the story at the end of the movie is a right in that same wheelhouse and just masturbatory dialogue, which nobody does better than Kevin Smith or Tarantino. Like I'm sorry, but they know how to write really clever masturbatory dialogue. They really do. Yeah, And I like I'm a fan of him, not necessarily of his movies. I'm, like I said at the beginning, I'm glad he's able to do what he does.

But I prefer this ending because it's we haven't really been leading up to I don't think that rapture ending is earned and the rest of the film, because it's it's not really a suicide cult. They're not portrayed that way. Obviously they're storing it up guns, but that's a lot of I mean, that's more you know, when the government comes to get us, which happened. Which happens, right, So that makes sense. But the I think they could have that would that ending would work if they had hit moren you know, these are the end times, one, these are the end times.

We're coming close. The countdown is nigh. Like they haven't fucking marked on their calendar or some something. The writing is like that, but it's it's really just that idea of all these groups always think it's the end times? But is the rapture?

Is the question I have though, And then again this is an ideological question. Is the rapture not happening the day that the ATF shows up and raised their compound? Is that not technically their rapture in their minds? Like that's my question, Like is the rapture actually a real thing that affects all of us? Or is it their rapture that happens the day they're finally raided and therefore it never you know what I mean, Like the Phelps family, the rapture never came for them.

Fred Phelps dropped dead. But it's like atf Ever showed up Waco. On the other hand, like the Raptures, there is that their personal rapture. I don't they could view it that way, but they should have reinforced it throughout the movie more. And I think, to your other way, it needs to be there more.

And if to your point, if it had maybe it maybe it was there more. And they cut it out on the editing room floor because the ending that they wanted they couldn't get. I don't want to say that much because that feels like a cop out, but like there are moments in this movie where you could see, like the scene going a little longer, or them maybe having a different thing to say as opposed to homosexuality specifically. It's other things like I just I wonder and like, well, look, that's a movie we can only think about, never can see. But like I do wonder, maybe was there some of that give and take.

And it's not like they approved the script with the ending the way it was, and they just changed it the day of and it's like, oh, scrap the Giant Angel shot. It's like they knew they had to change the ending from the moment they went to shoot the movie. So I wonder if it just got changed, like a lot of the rapture stuff got taken out, so it's like more of a bait and switch and less of whatever earned ending. I think it would still work though, with this ending if you had more of it, because then it's like, oh, you're thinking, as an audience member, is this really happening like they said it was going to happen. Yeah, and it's and it's not that I'm not thinking about the rapture though.

During the movie, even with the comments about the end times they talk about, he talks about natural disasters and yeah, it's always I mean, I hear this, I hear this when these earthquakes and things happen in specifically Middle Eastern countries, like that's God's condemnation of that area, and you're like, oh, you have plenty of fucking earthquakes here. Of course they happen in San Francisco, so they can point to that, and or he mentions the flooding in New Orleans, which is one of the most sinful cities in the world, so there are little bits and pieces of it. I think more of it would would make the ending either ending hit harder, like, oh yeah, you fucking buy into this shit. Perfect timing.

Thanks Eco Compost guys for doing that, because they were geared up for it, and it brought them out without their weapons because they had nothing to fear, right, and it's not really that that to me would hit a little bit harder. I don't know if that rapture ending, man, I don't know if they had gone with that, I don't know that it would work. It would be one of those fun like oh ha ha ha atf guys, these nutballs were right, but they still get But they don't get raptured. They get destroyed by an angel. Yeah, I mean that's what the exploding is, is the invisible knife going through their hearts and their heads, right, you know.

I'm I liked that there is an alternate ending to this movie. I think it's a little unfair in a lot of ways to people who have watched the movie to say, well, there's this other ending that we wanted to do, and it's a complete fucking one eighty like this is this is so far from the reality that this movie presents, Like all of a sudden, angels start showing up and shit, like whoa wait, time out, wait this actually happened. Like in a lot of ways, I am with you, like it would not have been earned if it had happened, because the movie is going in a completely different direction, but I would like to have seen it. But I will say, yeah, the ending as it works now is kind of in a lot of ways the perfect ending for the movie, because the movie in a lot of ways is about not giving the audience what they want.

We don't get to see the heroes survived, they all get gunned down. We don't get to see John Goodman's character again. He does what they say, and then he doesn't do what they say, and he still gets promoted anyway. So like even our hero gets a quote hero gets the benefit of doing the right and wrong thing, so his moral compass who knows which direction it's spinning. And yeah, there are some people left.

So even the villains survive the movie quote unquote the villains. So it's it's an ultimately in a lot of ways, like the movie's intentionally unsatisfying and I think maybe, just maybe it is the perfect ending for this movie to just tell the audience to go fuck themselves, like because in a lot of ways, it totally is like it's it's it's all those you know, screw the audience jokes from The Simpsons right where it's like you're expecting one thing and it's something completely different, and no, it is that different thing and this is not a bit like that's what it is. Like, Yeah, like in a lot of ways, the movie deserves this, this kind of one hundred percent subvertis subversive ending, because yeah, like all the hoops that has to jump through are such bullshit, like and it was college kids with a compost heat and then they got that that it's like, well, how much further does this go?

Like is this just a lie? You call yourself in? Like who? Like what it was mad libs at this point because at some point it just at some point it feels like it's supposed to be a joke and it's just you're like standing at the edge of the cliff looking over and you don't jump, And that's where this movie is. It's like it's gone as far as it can go without going over the edge, and Kevin Smith knows that, and I think again, it only it's not it's gonna work for every third person in the room.

If that, it's not going to work for everybody, clearly, I think everybody. I think more people would have been satisfied if it had been the aliens or aliens pretty much angels coming down from the sky and killing people. I think more people would have liked this movie if that had been the ending, Like it would have been more of a mainstream success. Harriet's to the Gods. My friend Ericon Danikin shows up.

It's true they're all blue eyed and blonde haired too, which would be but you know, I mean, hey, you know, for that group of people, fine, I like I like this movie. I'm glad we rewatched it, but it is not an apocalypse movie. Yeah, it's I think the ending either way is tacked on and an easy way to wrap things up, like how do we get out of this without actually just killing everybody? And I like the idea of rapture stuff just because, like I said, I had those nightmares when I was a kid, and one of my I think one of the best shows in the last twenty years, The Leftovers, which deals with the Rapture in a very very interesting way. I had that.

I had that on before we started because I've never seen it before. Oh man, Yeah, my wife and I ate that show. Up Man Yashar, who we did Crimes of the Future with, that is his favorite show of all time, and he talked about it on the Last of Us podcast about how much he likes it. So it is definitely one, like I just said, one of the best shows of the last twenty years, hands down, that would think it one of the best show. Amazing cast everybody.

I love Carrie Coon, She's outstanding in it. Justin throw crazily, justin Thorreaw, there you go. Connection back Louis. That's Louie Thurrow's cousin. Oh yeah, no ship Yeah yeah, Louis Louis Thurreau show.

Yeah, Louis throw all them. Yeah. I need I need to. I need to actually sit down and watch it because it's I'm only in like the first half an hour. It's interesting.

The girl that's from that's in screen the last two screen movies and Yellow Jackets is in it when she's younger. Um Regina Hall, Regina Hall. Yeah, it's it's really good and it's a really fascinating concept, and um, yeah, I won't spoil it obviously, but the end is is pretty satisfying. Interesting, it's it's the end is satisfying on a damon Lindall's offing. Yeah, it's satisfying.

And well, no, you know what, I don't say anything else about it because it could be kind of spoilery. Yeah, it's a very compelling show. And I think that that was on around what this was twenty eleven. The Leftovers was around this time, right, a couple of years. It's been a yeah, it's been a while since it was out, so was up four seasons three?

Oh just three, yeah, twenty fourteen. The point of reference why we talked about this movie was was the was the trumpets the trumpets of your dreams. You know, look, I think if nothing else, that scene at the end of the movie where the trumpets start blaring is really intense. It kind of calls back to the intensity of the earlier parts of the movie that I was talking about with Michael Angerona running around the compound. It calls back to that intensity because it, you know, if the rapture were to happen the way they claim it will or whatever the hell It would just be that where it just happens and all of a sudden you're like, what is happening?

I don't understand and like horrifying, It would be horrifying. They capture that moment in this movie really well. If they capture nothing else, they capture some scenes of like genuine intensity that I think, again, Pete, real people have had to you know, deal with, like like people in Waco, because again, we have some interesting scenes between Michael Parks and Melissa Leo at the window when they're shooting back at the ATF, which is like I think, I mean, anything with the two of them is pretty great. I mean, most of this movie, the character stuff is really good. The character interactions is great.

I don't think the movie overstays. It's welcome. It's literally almost barely even a feature film, and like it's an hour and twenty eight minutes or thirty eight minutes. But hey, I don't know, it's still weird to me that it's a Kevin Smith movie. Like of it stands out even more than Tuska does.

That's why I think I had no concept that he had done a movie like that until my friend mentioned it. He's like, yeah, did you know that Kevin Smith made this movie called Red State that's all about and I don't know why if it was an end Times thing that we had been discussing that brought it to his mind or what. It's like, Oh yeah, we should watch it or you should watch it. And I'm like, okay, I'll check it out. I haven't really been interested in anything he's done in years, so why not?

And yes, I'm looking at the castlest for the Leftovers right now. You should look at it. It's just it's just fucking stacked stacked Ghostbusters Afterlife's Carrie Coon. I've been told that's how she liked her a lot. I like her a lot.

She's in episode seasons of What's the Show with Bill Pullman? Oh the Center? Yeah, she in one of the seasons of that. Yes, I believe she is. Yeah, Regina Regina King, Regina King.

I knew I was not saying the right name. I do love me some Bill Pullman. Yeah. Bill Pullman's great. He's great in that series too.

That's another good, very good series, especially that first season. Man Jessica Bale show. Yeah, the season with her is fwarped. Yeah, it's fucked up. I'll have to watch it.

That's been It's been one of those things that Netflix has been suggesting to me forever. So I say, I think that's my favorite. The first season is my favorite. It's it's pretty twisted. And Christopher Abbott's in it.

Who I like, um, Jessica Bale's really good in it. Hey, Stephen Williams is in The Leftovers for Fox's sake, all kinds of people, great show, great great great good stuff at really scratching your post apocalyptic itch. Unlike this movie again, like I can I but like I say that, but yet, like the last third of this movie kind of has to do with the expectation of the apocalypse happening. I mean, the entire final fifteen minutes of the movie is all about the apocalypse and the rapture. So and is Aban Cooper in heaven at the end of the movie, No, he's in prison.

But the best part of this movie is Kevin Smith screaming at him at the end of the movie. Shut up, as if we don't recognize it's you screaming at him, Kevin Smith, we know your voice, sir. If there's anything about Kevin Smith, we know it's his voice. I love that. It's just an exasperated shut the fuck up, so tired of hearing you sing man, yeah, singing your fucking Looney Tunes songs, you know.

I Yeah, I'm excited if we do end up talking about Tusk kind of seeing, because I haven't seen that fucking movie since it came out. Effectively, I haven't either, so it's ten years now. I think, yeah, well that's twenty thirteen, Yeah, thirteen or fourteen. I think a twenty four film. If you can believe it own, is it really?

Yeah? Oh my gosh, that's like the A twenty four film. Nobody will claim. I fucking unabashedly love that movie and I watched it so many times when it came out and I owned it on fucking Blu ray. I've only seen it the one time, and I've been meaning to go back to it because I don't think I was quite prepared for where it went.

Any funny the storyline was, but it was it went left when I would have gone right. You remember the ending of the movie, right, Oh yeah, The ending of that movie makes me laugh every time, and justin long as a podcaster, and I at the time, I saw that movie. I had no idea what podcasters did I do like that that he was, Yeah, that was That movie came out like right at the beginning of my podcasting career beginning, so it was like, oh, he's a podcaster getting murdered by Michael Parks. Okay, like I'm game. So he's good at playing um self aggrandizing dickheads.

He really had in that new one too, Barbarian. Yeah, still haven't seen it. It's all right, that's what. It didn't tickle my taint like it did for so many other people. For everybody's grundles were getting grabbed real hard about it.

Got him in the gooch, got him in the gooch real hard, so, mister Begley. Final thoughts on Red State. I enjoyed it both times I watched it. It's unsubtle and unnuanced and whatever, like most of Kevin Smith's film but stacked up to a lot of his other movies. It's it is a lot more even keeled.

And I do like the idea of well, those kind of groups. I like movies about extreme religious groups. And I also like that I appreciate that in this movie no one's off limits. I could have very easily seen John Goodman dying in this film as well. Kind of surprised he makes it, but so I appreciate that, and it's worth a look.

It's worth a it's a it's a different Kevin Smith film. If you don't like stuff like Zach and Mirie make a Porto or the fuck that one movie is called, then maybe you would like this. Damn Mark, I've never even seen that movie. I don't even didn't even realize it was his movie until yesterday. That's a pretty fun one.

Justin Long has a has a great bit part where he says, and I quote, oh, be your chirp up the Mountain of gayness. And he's doing like his like very low Justin Long voice too. I don't know how to describe it. I like Justin Long. We used to watch Ed.

I don't know a few are familiar with that TV show he was on years ago, and that was my first exposure to him, and I've liked him ever since. Mine was Galaxy Quest m oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah, where he plays like the star trek nerd. That was a long time ago too. Huh yeah, I just I just remember him playing like the nerdy character was like, yeah, it kind of works.

Yeah, he's pretty much a nerd and ed too, I believe. Yeah, he's great. I'm looking, man, We're gonna get to talk about a Justin Long movie at some point. That's exciting. There's always cheaper screepers.

Oh yeah, someday, man, I I'd love to talk about that movie. I realized all except the latest one. I realize what was going on how that movie until years later. I don't think any of us fucking new. I don't think any of us would have supported if we had known.

It's such a shame because it's such a good goddamn movie too. That was pre like. I mean, I had the Internet, obviously, but I didn't know about every person's personal life at every moment of the day at that time. Still, if you watch this movie and talk about it, you support this, not the fucking case. Not the fucking case.

Just like if you watch a movie about the Westboro Baptist people being murdered, doesn't mean I agree with them being murdered, which is the case with this movie. And I liked this movie just fine. I mean again, I think to your point, it's a Kevin Smith movie that stands apart from all the other stuff that he's done, and you know what, in a lot of ways, I think he is a director kind of needed that. I mean, at the time that this movie came out, it was kind of in a lull and he was just I think it was just kind of the clerks guy, like, you know, oh, the funny guy. So the funny guy, the worst weird clothes.

Ah, it's all Kevin Smith. Yeah, like that's that was him and he is not that now. And you know, there's a possibly a sequel to Tusk coming out, which is someone who's a fan of that movie. I hope so. And you know more, Kevin Smith's stuff is never going to be unappreciated by me.

I just need to get around to watching it. So this movie is the same I saw it when it came out. I remember watching it that summer on DVD. I thought it was I thought it was fun then. I think it's fun now.

The snaffoo with the ending is what it is. And maybe if you had another ending, just don't mention it, don't say what it was, just tell me about it. Don't tell me about it. But you know, ultimately it's it's a weird little movie that I think exists in a weird time and a place where these kind of things were being talked about a lot more mainstream. And now it's like, to fucking be it, We're past mainstream with this stuff.

We've we've evolved from the quaint, pastoral nature of them saying God hates fags to things that are so much worse than It's like, God hates fags really seems pedestrian now, like in a in a really disgusting way. So, you know, I think Red State was a product of the time and maybe a harbinger of things to come. Even so, it definitely hasn't gotten any better. That has creeped into more mainstream evangelical churches. Yeah, yeah, this movie came out I think ten years after Jesus Camp did, But you can see the through line from something like that to something like this, and it's yeah, it hasn't gotten any better, And now it's it's ever present all the time everywhere because certain things aren't unmixed anymore.

They're mixed permanently and can't be separated, as they would say, though there should have been a separation, and there was supposed to be at one point, but yeah, it's it. I don't know. It feels oddly pression in a way. And I think if this movie came out now, I think people would be I think what's funny is if this movie came out now, people would be pissed, like right proper angry and like in the funny in the way that it probably wasn't then, Like if you look at the backlash, there was backlash from the Phelps family, but who gives a shit? Like who cares?

Boo fucking who? But yeah, I saw that, and I'm like, wouldn't you just ignore this? If you were that group, You're you're giving You're doing exactly what Kevin Smith wants. And I like that he you know, interviewed groups protesters that would show up. He called them on stage and had a chat with them.

Yeah that's great. You know most people would just be like, you know, get them the fuck out of here. Fuck you. But I like, why would you just not ignore this? Why would you?

Whatever? I would that would be me. I would fucking ignore it. So I look, I'm with you. Ultimately at the end of the day, like this movie coming out when it did, I wish it had come out sooner or like more recently, more contemporarily, because I think this movie's impact might have been read a different way, especially about the way we wish should treat these kinds of people.

Because the thing I do want to mention as we close this episode out, the thing that we didn't bring up is the reasoning that Patrick Fishler's character gives as to why they wanted all of them killed because it just doesn't fucking like them, because fuck them. But the funny thing is is that mentality like we I mean, John Goodman's character even says it. He's like, you know, if we all turn on one another, we're no better than the animals are, right like ultimately if we don't understand it, And it's like, you know, ultimately, John Goodman, yeah, maybe is a little bit of a hero as fucking strange as that. Maybe. But you know what, these days, I don't think those him and the other mucky muck muckey muck, they would probably be people that are more in tune with what this group is talking about.

To be honest with you, right, just think of who's being voted into office these days. They hold many of these views. Now they're not voted into into office obviously, but they work for the government, and administrations have interesting ways of getting these people into these types of higher up jobs. So yeah, it wouldn't be a matter of fuck them, I hate these nuts, you know, and be like, oh, I gotta agree with Aban Cooper, right right, exactly exactly. So No, it's if it came out in a time and a place where it could kind of come out the way that it did, and I think if it came out now would be a very different movie.

So it's very much of a of a time and of a place and of a feeling in the world, at least our corner of the world. So so until the next time you and I do one of these mark which maybe Tusk, who knows, maybe maybe not. Where can people find you if they're not already looking for you? Dot Doc? I heard I hear you in there.

Come out, Bagley, you can Travis, I just heard trumpets outside. You can find me at Wake Up Heavy Recollections of Horror on Weird New Way Media. And I'm gonna plug my other show which Chris mentioned early on in this episode, Cambridge and was Sean also on Weirdwaitmedia dot Com. Having a lot of fun recording that with my friend Ronnie, who was the guy that I saw this movie with. I think or he suggested it to me and definitely saw Tusk with and lots of other crazy stuff.

So check that one out. Everything's up at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. And how about you, mister big round Balls. Hey, it's me this Big round Balls favorite line for while at heart. Weirdingwaymedia dot Com is where you can find all the bullshit that I work on, including this show and so many other shows, where I get to share my opinion on the Internet and you get to listen if you'd like.

So Weirdingwaymedia dot Com is where you can go, but if you want to hear other people's opinions, that's also the place you would go, like twisting in on corked eighties TV ladies, filmentories, feminine critique. I could continue, but you should finish for me and just head on over to Weirdingwaymedia dot com. As for this show, culturecast dot Com, Patreon dot com, slash Culturecast, I will keep saying it because that is part of this So I will say it at the end of every episode, even if I'm sick and fucking tired of saying it. I've done this five hundred fucking times. Don't you think I'm sick of this too?

I bet you're sick of hearing it. Patreon dot com slash culture cast. Yeah, you can go there, but like rate and review the show wherever you get it. Begley, Mark Begley com on Mark. Hey, I've got a Patreon too.

You can go. You can listen to shows early and add free. Look at that dot com slash wake Up Heavy. He doesn't say that as much as I do, so you should go to his patreon too. And as for this show, yeah, Begley, thank you so much for joining me.

This was fun. Somebody's coming for you, man. The light keeps changing on I'm going what's going on outside? Yeah, thank you for joining me. This was fun.

Yeah. And as a time maybe maybe depending on the movie. Yeah, I do know that. And as always, we'll catch you on the next episode.