Wrong Is Right (1982) — "The U.S. of A. may not always be right, but God knows we're never wrong."

Weird way. Two one stretched in a moment world War three. But first, a word from our sponsors. Meet TV superstar reporter Patrick Hale. He's onto the most incredible story of his career.

Two Adam bomb. The bad news is it involves an Arab terrorist. Why trust me Television, you reach millions, a trigger happy general. Now, mister President hit him first? Good guys, never shoot first?

Why not the president of the United States, he's heard a rumor. About the bombs. Well, don't say yes, don't say no, don't say maybe. See you'll call that, but don't I say you stay president? And it may result in World War three.

The good news is his ratings are going through the roof. On television, Columbia Pictures presents Wrong Is Right? A very funny look at the world Rated are starts Friday Man's Plaza, Westwood. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Culture Cast. I am your host, Chris Dasher, and I'm joined by my good friend he loves a good war.

Who doesn't really? The host of the Projection with Podcasts, Mike White. You call that news. We've pedaled Ti Shashtra. Can I just ask why is it you just like watching movies that are too topical impression for their own good.

Hey, hey, let me get this straight. We're in the middle of a war with Iran and you watch a movie about a fake war with Iran for money. Yeah. Kind of weird, right, Yeah, And an incompetent president and his advisers running everything. Yeah, it's kind of wild, right.

Just a tad, Yeah, just a tad. On this episode of the Culture Cast, we are talking about a film that you may have never heard of, but by the end of this episode you may want to take a gander at it. We're talking about nineteen eighty two's satirical film based on the book The Better Angels. Wrong is Right? So the film is written and directed by Richard Brooks, based on, like I said, the book The Better Angels by Charles McCarey, and it stars Sean Connery as Patrick Hale, a news reporter with a penchant for covering violence, urder, suicide, and everything in between.

He gets embroiled in the an alphabet soup of letter agencies up to no good that may be trying to start war with the Middle East. They might be trying to regime change, It might just be for oil. Who knows It's definitely not the world. Mike. I'm kicking it to you first, as always, what did you think of Wrong Is Right?

And why did you pick this movie? I mean, I can assume I know why, but I'd love to hear straight for why you. Well, this was a pick for me due to my friend. I believe it was Robert Hubbard recommended this one to me forever ago, and this was I don't want to say this was the tipping point, but this is one of the things that played into the whole idea of us doing this Sean Connery month, just because I had this backlog of Sean Connery films that I wanted to finally sit down and see. And I really didn't know anything about Wrongness right before we started.

I looked into it a little bit beforehand to find out that it was based on a book. I downloaded that sort of reading that a little bit, but was not able to get through it as much as I would have liked. Yeah, and I don't remember how Robert sold it to me. I think he just that you need to check this out. And the poster image of Sean Connery standing there with his arms wide open welcoming people and then having this nuclear blast going off behind him.

It's like, okay, yeah, whatever this is, I'm in for it, let's do it. And I Yeah, was kind of blown away by the subject matter, like you're saying, very precient. This is nineteen eighty two that this movie comes out, and yeah, really really speaks to a lot of stuff that we are dealing with today. They make a lot of references to things like Nixon, Bay of Pigs, those things, and Yeah, it's amazing just how much those things still resonate today. And even having a president who's kind of in shock when he realizes that if you spell dog backwards it's God.

Kind of reminds me of when Trump figured out that US is just like us. Nobody ever thought of that before the they don't have this big a brain. Well it's a whil, a shark, a lion, and a giraffe. And they asked me. Mister president, pick the whale and I said, that's a whale.

Clearly it's aware. Let swims in esh it has finned, So that's a bear. Okay, No, you're you're very you're you're Your last couple picks have been a little too close to the last one. The last one I feel like definitely similarly too close to home in terms of like, you know, quote subject material unquote uh, and this one I think similarly maybe not so much subject material, but definitely characters involved in the film are very representative of people, places, and things that are I existing now in a way that I think you and I clearly can like, oh, well this is like that, and this is like that, and this is you know, here's this person. It's like, Okay.

The thing I think that's really sad for me as someone who's just like older, and I think this is the other thing that a lot of people my age are always like, well, this is it's never ever been like this before. No, No, it has. It's actually been like this like the whole fucking time. That's that's kind of that's kind of the problem, is that it's been like this the whole time. It's never not been like this.

In our political system, there's. Always scheming and power grabs. It's just they're taking place often clandestinely. At least they used to. That was, you know, back in the day when people used to do things clandestinely, when when people were attempting and I'm going to use a word that we were called earlier in the week.

When people are attempting to be ideologues in the open is much different than doing it privately, and people don't do it privately. It's like out in the open now if people are even ideologues at all. Frankly, I think we live in a post ideological society where nobody like it used to be we would invade a country for the oil, for whatever. Now it's just well, we're just doing it just because. And it's like, wait a second, like the pre ten of an ideology, I could at least somewhat respect that as an attempt to like OBUs gate why we're doing things.

But now it's just like we're just gonna do it for whatever fucking reason we want. That's always been the case. It's just they've never been outwardly you know, engaging that way or openly engaging that way. And this movie is just a you know, satirical look at things. It ain't satirical any it's just that's the thing that's hard with a film like this is like, it's not funny, and I wonder if it was funny then I can't imagine it was super raucous time at the theater.

But I think probably then people thought to themselves, well, this could never happen, It would never be like like this, this is just flights of fancy. And now it's like this is so far from being flights of fancy. We are we are devolving into a moral cesspit with the political system in our country further and further every day because there doesn't seem to be a bottom, at least in this film, there's seemingly somewhat of a bottom, which again, like to the film's credit, you should never have thought there was a bottom to the people will go to try and secure power, wealth, and you know, influence for themselves. So I enjoyed. I think I enjoyed what the movie was getting at.

I'm not sure how much I enjoyed the movie because it was really like narratively disjointed. Yeah, there's definitely way too many. Oh yeah, there's way too many characters. I mean, you can definitely tell that this was based on a book. It really reminds me of the film Winter Kills, where it's very labyrinthine as far as the plotting and just how many characters that we have.

I think that one pulls things together a little bit better than this one. This reminds me also a lot of Doctor Strangelove, especially some of the quote unquote funny character names. I mean, you've got Bakuano in the first one, and here you've got General Wombat and here it reminded me a little too of like Whoops Apocalypse. As far as just like all of the different side stories that are going on that kind of to the larger story, I think they could have definitely tightened it up quite a bit, like the opening stuff with the kind of television stuff that they're doing when it comes to like the woman who murders her husband or Jennifer jason Lee super young Jennifer Jason Lee poisoning her parents.

But it's all done safely and as a way to kind of have a catharsis and enjoy that. And then also for ratings, you know, it's like, oh, hey, we get to see these people's fantasies of murdering their husbands or getting attacking muggers, those types of things. All that could be completely cut. Like when I looked up the AFI Flat synopsis, because the one on Wikipedia was garbage. They don't even talk about that whole opening of this.

They just dip right into the Catherine Ross of it. And that was very surprising too, Like so many of these characters are introduced and only get killed like a few minutes later. I'm like, Oh, cool, it's gonna be showing encountering Catherine Ross and they're going to be, you know, doing this adventure together. No, she's dead with him in just a few minutes. He's just dead in the first ten minutes.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, killed by the terrorist Suzi. Yes for me. But but I will say, Chris kind of going back to this whole like you know, going into countries to uh invade for for oil and stuff. I mean, you forget about all the reasons that we have gone to war. I mean, all those weapons of mass destruction that Iraq had, uh, the you know, all the nuclear weapons that Iran was developing, the way that the president of Venezuela was you know, dancing and mocking our president, as well as just unleashing all of those drug boats that were flooding our country of fentanyl.

I mean, you forget about these reasons. And I don't see why, because this is you know, this is as good as you know, bringing democracy to these other countries. We have to do that. We have to import democracy into other countries just so that we can make sure that they are running the right way and that we get their all their oil. And see, that's it's the idea of Like I said, there was an ideological movement where it was like, we're going to bring democracy to the communist countries of the world, and they don't know what they have as a system doesn't work, but we what works for us will work.

Forevery like apocracy and capitalism, you know, and it's like, you know what it hasn't actually uh, And the people pushing that were the ones who were benefiting, and the people that were pushing it were also the ones who were going to benefit if other countries had democracy. Because again, a democratic country is able to interface with another democratic country a lot more kind of on the same level than a country that's like an autocracy or a meritocracy, a theocracy. They're dictated by different things. And so this is a you know, we're trying to bring democracy to the world, but what we're really trying to bring to the world is capital We're not it's not really democracy, it's democratic capitalism.

We're trying to bring the free market quote free market to the world. It's like that's I mean, when you're having people at the table who are going to make money off of it, pushing it, that's what we call a conflict of interest. And I'm I didn't go to law school. I got about as close as you can without going and even I know what a fuck it of interest is. But again, in a post ideological society, if you don't even claim you're doing anything of value, and you're just doing it just because you don't have to justify anything, We're just doing it because there's no auspices of democracy or anything.

It's we're going to go into Venezuela, take their oil, and then the next day we're going to divvy it up among the six biggest oil company. Okay, Yeah, it. Feels like with all that oil, it could have actually gone to the American people and thus we wouldn't be paying seven dollars a gallon these days. So I know, I know it's just temporarily until we. Get pay Yeah, four years.

I mean, I love this whole thing of There have been so many democratically elected leaders that we have just toppled because we don't like them. So yeah, we've got Chile, we've got Iran way back and I can't remember if it was the fifties or sixties, we just toppled that whole thing. It's just because yeah, we can and we will. And then we're not even going to talk about Africa and all the shit that CIA was doing down there. Anyway, it's hard to talk about recent things with this because it's.

Oh yeah, traffic. Well absolutely, and then just some of the interesting parallels that we have that they have these bombs and it's just like, all right, you know these two suitcases filled with nuclear bombs. All right, great, you know we see that and stuff like, you know, some of all fears price of one. Well that I love that they end up being on the fucking World Trade Center at the end of the movie or that word right word here, Well, it's pretty interesting that they're there. And then also the whole idea of one of them was supposed to go to the US and the other one was supposed to go to Jerusalem.

It's almost like the movie new that we were going to be, you know, under Jerusalem's thumb in twenty twenty six. Well, and that's I mean again, it's like, you know, watching this movie in nineteen eighty two when it came out must have felt like, oh, well, they're talking about the times now, and maybe if people in the future see it, things will be different. It's honestly shocking how disappointing it is that things haven't changed that much, you know. I mean there's a scene where it's like they locked the gas station attended in the bathroom so that they could just get gas, and it's. Like, oh, I know, that was wild when people were going nuts.

And of course I know this is like a few years after the gas crisis, gas crisis, right, yes, but. It's kind of an elevated version of that, but we're we're barreling towards it once again. Oh yeah. And it's fascinating to me too that this is you know, the Iran contra stuff had just started to happen here, and it's like, when this movie is out, it is actively going on. It's like, right, all right, great, yeah, Like and that for a lot of people, well probably even still today, was much to even believe.

It's like, what we got in bed with Iran and we're selling them arms, the same arms that are probably being used against us today. Like, yeah, great. Yeah, that's what we do, folks, that's this is how we play the game. You know, Like there's a reason why those hostages weren't released when they were you know, during Carter's administration. There's a reason why the Actober surprise failed.

Here we are and uh yeah it was Reagan interfering and all that stuff and making some behind the scenes steals. I want to I want to start at something that we like you mentioned, you know, a couple of minutes ago about the opening of the movie, and I think it's the maybe the thing that the movie is the most prescient about is the de evolution of our media into nothing but just and again, like I would say, Schlock is maybe being flippant but exploitative to the point of transgressive, and not in a progressively transgressive way, in a like just completely dismantling of what one would consider to be serious journalism. Because Patrick Hale, Sean Connery, I think for me one of the best parts of the movie otherwise kind of jumbled movie, kind of isn't given much to do, but but does a really good job at just reacting to the things and playing I think what one would consider to be like through the eyes of the audience.

Is Sean Connery's character a little bit. He's not scuzzy enough, like d to like to have a character like this in this movie. If you were doing this now, he'd be like a he'd be like essentially like a on location Tucker Carlson is kind of what they're getting at, or like a Candace Owens type or a Ben Shapiro, Like he's really trying to like ingratiate himself into the like the inner sanctum of the politics, to the point where at the end of the movie he's literally with the president, like communicating with him. So I don't think they pushed him scuzzy enough, like I you know, having seen the Offense last week and seeing how far Connery can push himself as an actor to really play against type, and then to see him here like being given the opportunity to do that again and just I don't know if it's the script.

I don't know if it's him just wanting to like pull it back. A little bit. But he is not scummy enough. I mean, this is what I expect is like TMZ levels, which is why he's going to like harassing people outside of things being present on the scene of like big things happening, like he is that, but he doesn't go far enough. And I think it's interesting because in this day and age, like God, I mean there were people live streaming January.

Sixth, you know what I mean, like while they were there. It's like, I don't think in eighty two they could have even contemplated how much further we would get with things, because this is what their take on satire is, like, it's not really Breton circuses yet we haven't gotten that far. He really should have been more of a Dick Thornberg from die Hard type of character, like a William Atherton, because he should Yeah, because you like Connery, but you probably shouldn't like the character that he's playing in this wood. Yeah, this is kind of irascable. He's kind of a piece of shit, Like that's the point.

He's he's an ambulance chaser in journalism, right. I mean the stuff that they do at the beginning with him joining the Skydivers, like some of the stories that he's on kind of reminds me of like twenty four hour party people in this whole like, oh yeah, I do all of these things for journalism kind of stuff. And you know, I'm a serious journalist, but I get stuck doing all these things. I don't take him seriously as a journalist, like he is doing all of these like stunt stories. I mean, it's funny because it kind of reminds me a little bit of broadcast news, the other Brooks broadcast news.

And then also of course there's a lot of network in here. But yeah, I just don't get this whole like if it bleeds it leads type of personality from Connery. It's almost like he's the wrong person in the right place a lot of this movie and just is chasing down the story. But I don't get like I'm doing this because I'm venal, Like I really would feel that from other people, I think, and and like that I think would make this story stronger as it is. Conor is basically he is what he is.

He's basically just here as a surrogate for the audience. He's flat in this movie. He's very flat in this movie, Yeah, which is kind of a shame and. Kind of a shame. I mean for me, it's Connery, Like, contrast that with the offense, That's all I'm saying.

Contrast that with the Hill or Anderson tapes, Like we're not even a decade removed from some of those. It's shocking how underplaying he's under He's really playing this like really flat, and I don't understand why, unless it's just the source materials flat. But I can't imagine that that's the case. I think maybe it's just would it be hard to see Connory as a straight up villain. I don't know when the offense got away with it, and like it was obviously like one of the best parts of that movie.

If you don't know, go listen to the episode that Mike and I did with Spencer Parsons about it. But like, he played that role so well, like this, just give him the reins, let him go, let him go. He's such a great actor. It's honestly, the biggest disappointment for me with this movie is not the plot. It's not the messiness of the story.

It's that Connory is just kind of fair. Right right, And it's not that there's not enough of him. He's in so many of these scenes, but yeah, he doesn't seem to be really bringing I mean, like a Spradlin, who we've talked about before on the show. Many times, and especially like you when we talked about The Godfather, you know, talking about the what no fucking zd of at all? You know, like Spradland a great actor and even like a fucking bean Stockwell, like these guys can play scumbacks still well, and like they surround these characters with these great character actors.

But it's like, no, no, let these guys go, like, yeah, let Connery have some room to do this. But yeah, he does seem very I don't know if it's him being disinterested or like you said, just the writing just not capturing like that. He needs to be more of a protagonist because he's just being acted upon rather than being an actor of this stuff. And you get more even from like a like a Leslie Nielsen as this other candidate for president. Yes, well I must, I mean.

That's Eastern Texas. I mean you seemed. Like it, yeah, very you know. Also I was getting some bush from him too, And then it was funny. There's a moment, and I'm very curious about the history of this film, there's a moment in the trailer that isn't in the movie, and it's where it's Leslie Nielsen up in front of people at like a campaign speech, and he starts talking about gays and lesbians and just how they, you know, our godless creatures, and it's time for the conservative Christians to come out of the closet.

And I'm just like, wow, Like what's that? Where is that in the movie. I saw that as well, and I was like, man, the movie's really going to go for it. No, no, no, And then it's so funny with him being a presidential candidate. All I'm thinking of this scary movie, you know, when he when he's reading the book about the goat and the guy comes in that Alonzo Bowden comes in to tell him, you know, that something bad has happened.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, I think that's maybe where I was getting the bush of it. Also a little. Yeah Victory Harrison Ford on The Wall, Yeah yeah. A little bit of Lloyd Bridges from Hot Shots as well. You know.

Yeah, It's it's weird because, you know, this is the first time we've seen Leslie Nielsen in anything in a while together. I actually recently saw Leslie Nielsen in Forbidden Planet, which I had never watched before, and I really enjoyed it. But it was weird to see Leslie new Neilsen in like a seeming lyricous non cook. Yeah yeah, looking. I mean, look, let's just be honest here.

I know everybody's like Leslie Nielson always looked old. Leslie Nielsen was like a silver fox from like day one, apparently, like when his hair came in, it was like, it's just gonna be gray, buddy. And look, I have a very close friend who I've known since we were in our early twenties, so like a decade plus now, that also has had gray hair most of his life. So like I just always when I see Leslie Nielsen, just like he looks old. But in this movie he's like younger ish.

Like it's like this is around creep Show, right, Like we're a couple like a yeah or two around creep show. So creep Show. We're a little bit north of that Colombo episode where he and Patrick what's his name, we're going back and forth the CIA agents, Yeah, what is it. With you and picking things that are like letter letter agency. Like here, I will say that this is better than that Columbot.

This is only like twenty minutes longer, so I think that was like a ninety minute Columbo episode. But it does have a made for TV aesthetic, though, like this movie feels cheap. You know, that might be one of the worst knocks at this movie. Like outside of like the you know, the Connery is not given enough to do, Like. Technically the movie is not.

It looks like a TV movie and not like in a endearing way because you know, we're in the we're in the time where TV movies can kind of really have some like high quality value. Yeah, the lighting is super flat, like when whenever they go to the White House or the situation room, it's like you see, you know, one main shadow and one slight slight shadow, and you're just like, okay, we've got our key in our pill, all right, you know, like it's just like TV one oh one kind of stuff, and just all the sets feel like if you knock down them, you'd hear a real hollow sound coming back. You know, one. Corner here, one corner here, nothing in between. But we'll shoot the corners and we're fine, like okay, which.

Is ironic because we see Connery on a EV set when he's talking to that woman that you know, quote unquote killed her husband, and he just walks by and you see that it's this flat, and I'm like, Okay, are they going for that for the rest of the movie or are we going to pull out at some point and be like this is you know, the whole world. But like, no, like a movie, even like an Americathon or something had more production value than this, which is crazy because it's like, I don't know what the budget was for this movie, but with all of these actors and everything, they deserve better sets and better costumes than they have. And then just the tonal stuff. You know, I mentioned General Wombat. If you're going to put a character in a General Wombat, what are you doing?

Like they got away with it in uh, Doctor Strangelove because they had you know, General Ripper, King Kong. You know, like all of these guys with these crazy names. This movie has one guy with one crazy name, and I'm like, Okay, nobody's going to comment that this guy's name is General Wombat. This seems so off. Not only that, but it's also Robert Conrad who's playing it, of all people, right, so it's like he's on screen a lot a lot.

Actually, if anything, he's on screen about as much as Connery in a lot of ways, Like he's probably the second main character of the movie, and it is odd to give him so much leash and never point out anything about it or anything like just okay, sure, I don't know, like that feels plucked out of something else and throw it in here just because. And for me, I'm like, you know, that's fine, but you know it's that's of a piece of things and on its own, it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. It's of a piece in a strange love like here, it's just what's that supposed. To be funny? Like what about that is funny?

I just the name, Yeah, I guess so's it's weird too because they so I didn't realize what Rosalind Cash's name was for a while in this movie. And there's a moment where it's like hey, because they keep saying, like, mister president, you need to step down, and so they keep, you know, going back to the Oval Office, and we've got George Bizzard as President Lockwood Forrest Frosty Lockwood, I think his name is right, And at one point he's just like, well, I don't want you know, if he if he steps down, he goes. I don't want a black Ford as president, and so I'm just like, okay, thinking immediately when he says black Ford, I think of the vehicle, you know, a car, and then I go, oh, it's h He's talking about his vice president, and at the time, obviously very sci fi to have a black woman vice president.

Yeah, we can never have a black woman's president. Yes, yes, we can never bridge that gap. Will never have a woman president, thank god, because they are so emotional and they just get so bent out of it, out of shape so easily. Oh god, yeah, man, yeah, the men are always much more calm and well out, well reasoned and everything, so thank goodness. Anyway, when he says I don't want to black Ford, then finally I'm like, oh, okay, he's talking about Gerald Ford because Ford took over for Nixon eventually during Watergate.

And then I go, no, no, actually, Ford is her last name in this and I'm like, that's a weird thing that they made the vice president missus Ford. And I don't even know if they ever give her a first name. That she's almost always Missus Ford in this film. Yeah, and boy, talk about an actor who's also barely in. The Yeah, she's fantastic whenever she's on.

Screen, right, I don't know why she's not on screen more. Yeah, I would like to know, Like, what is this world like for you when you are the only person of color in this olival office and you've got just like we had before with like Billy Graham and everything. Here, we've got you know, who is it. It's not Homer Hubbard. They've got these whole you know, alliterative names, but there's like another there's just staying Oh, Billy, Bob Harper.

I think it might be the Yeah, the Billy Graham of the group, and who's right there in the White House being the spiritual advisor to the President during this whole time, telling. Him, Hey, build yourself a statue. Yeah, a golden statue. A golden statue. Yeah.

Again, the satire of this movie just pales in comparison to the world that we're living in now. Yes, yeah, Like if you had done something like that, had done I'm going to build a golden statue and we're going to have a priest, you know, dedicated and everything, they would have last you right out of the theater. And maybe that's why this movie just tanked at the box office. Some close friends and I before twenty twenty four's election, or after just right after, we made a Trump pool where we all threw in like ten to fifteen ideas of things that would happen in his next president, and then we all kind of like, you know, whoever has the most at the end of it wins like a hundred bucks or whatever. Man, we really underestimated the stupidity of the shit that would be happening.

And I think it's I think it speaks to like, you know, because I've heard people say this before. It makes me roll my eyes every time I hear it, only because I think it's people that have like never seen any other satirical films and have only seen like the one most well known and popular one right now, which you correct me if I'm wrong here. Idiocrasy I think is like the satire DuJour for like last maybe ten years in terms of like the times we live in now, even idiocracy hasn't gone far enough, like in comparative to what we are living now. So I think to your point, the thing that's maybe most shocking and kind of horrifying to me is the satire thought that it was going really far and pushing the envelope and it's like, you know, the reality of the world forty five or fifty five years from now or whatever the hell it is is going to be so much starker in what it's actually happening than you could ever even begin to approach in a like.

It's it's so much we're living in such truly horrifying times that any satirical writer who was able to open up, look into our world, close it and get back to what they're doing would be like, not even sure I could write satire. This like on on the nose, Like, well, that's such a calf, Like it's not a golden calf in. That, I don't even think it was part of the project twenty twenty five. Meanwhile, so many other things were just right there in black and white, and nobody wanted to see it or believe it. And it was a playbook for where we're headed and what we've done.

I know, that's crazy. Well, check out Bloody Involved. Check out this description of the original source novel. The novel is said in the year two thousand during an election campaign between former President Franklin Mallory that's the Leslie Nielsen character and the current president Bedford Forrest Frosty Lockwood Franklin Mallory wants to be the first president since Grover Cleveland to have two non consecutive terms. During his first term, he had attempted to a hostile takeover of Canada, incarcerated people for having criminal tendencies on psychological tests, and hired hundreds of thousands out of colleged work graduates to work on the spaceship Humanity, which sent a crew to Ganymede.

All of these programs were undone by Lockwood. Yeah, first president since Grover Cleveland to have two non consecutive presidencies. All right, Yeah, are. You saying this is like few? I'm saying that it's very prophetic.

Let's just say Charles McCarry knew what he was doing as a former CIA. Ah. Absolutely. I think the thing for me is like, did this need to be a funny movie? If you were too, isn't funny?

Nah? Well that's the thing, Like, I think it's attempting to be humorous, but I don't think it's trying to be funny. I think it's trying to be satirical, but I don't think it's trying to be comedic. But I think The issue is the way the film exists in terms of the structure and the advertising and the poster is as if it's a traditional comedic film, which I think does not help the case for the film being a success at the box, Like these kinds of films never are, and even the ones that are really good to go back to an idiocracy, which, again, idiocracy is good. It didn't predict much of anything that wasn't already obviously already happening.

But idiocracy is good. But even idiocracy in terms of like satire isn't really pushing the emblem any more than this. I don't know. I think the Terry Crew's character really I mean that he was a former wrestler and now we're going to have UFC on the front lawn of the White House. To be fair, I think Trump is in the WWE Hall of Fame, true, and he was at WrestleMania in a hair versus hair match against Vince McMahon, also a sex offending piece of shit.

So you know, it's like I said, like it's just you can't you can go far, but nothing feels like it's gone far enough, Like it almost feels like satire at this point. Would be to show a world where none of this is happening. And like, just I don't even know, how do you satirize this when this is ready completely out of control? I don't you know. And going back to what you said as first as being a comedy, like maybe it was a comedy in nineteen eighty two, but me watching it, yeah, black comedy, right, but me watching it today, I'm just like I just keep saying, like, oh, that's just like this, Oh, that's just like this.

So I'm not smiling, I'm not laughing. I'm just grinning with a rye grin the entire time. In two thousand and eight, they attempted to remake, like a re kind of assess and revive the novel and the film in two thousand and eight, when they were saying it was prophetic in two thousand and eight, right, right, fucking Bozo's in two thousand and eight, and it's prophetic. Just wait about eight years and then you see how truly prophetic it is, you know, because we're living eighteen years past two thousand and eight now, which is just the worst thing I've had to say all day. What is like I want to ask you genuinely because you and I watch a lot of films, and we watch a very large swath of cinema and television.

What is good satire in this day and age If everything that we can see in the world is as insane and like tonally against itself and at odds with what is good reality or good just decent human behavior, which again satire always like pushes in, like humans being terrible to each other or doing stupid, you know, overly stupid things like what is satire in twenty twenty six? Even look like that's a really good point. I think you're on the right track when you say, like, let's just make it more of a utopia where it's just like, well, this can't happen. People can't get along to get her, we can't agree on these things. Yes, everyone lives in harmony.

Wouldn't that be amazing? You know, it's almost like a if the Stepford Wives are real kind of a thing, you know, Yeah, very pleasant Ville. Yeah, it's like I think, okay, but then you get you know, somebody like uh Toemy Maguire coming in and just fucking everything up. Right, It would be like an inverted Pleasantville in this day It would be you know what it would be. Here's here's what the film is.

You have someone from our universe going into that utopian universe and just being like, why would I ever go back? Right? Right? But then it turns out, of course that the Utopia is not actually Utopia, and it's probably run by secret lizard people in human suits or something like you know, like it Yeah, that's how you lean further into it because like, if it's just if the hook is someone from our universe goes to Utopia, there's no satire now, like there's just oh, I'm just never. Gonna go home.

Okay. It's like one of those movies where the character goes back in time and they're like I have to go back to the future to figure out how to like things are different, like I'm good here, I'm fine, I'm not gonna. Be And it's movies. It's Homer when he makes the time machine out of the toaster, you know, and he's sitting there at the end and everything seems to be a lot better, even though March and the kids have lizard tongues that pop out of there, like I'm alright with this, even though he left, yeah, left five minutes before the you know, it's starting to rain again and all the doughnuts falling out of the probably one of the best bits of The Simpsons for me. God or just like that ned that ned Flanders Hell escape with the hooks pulling out your mouth so you smile all the time italy ho.

See that's the thing, Like satire now just feels comparative to the world we live in. It feels toothless because the things that we live in is just like ugly and gnashing its teeth at all times, and like it there's never when you have the ag former age of our country screaming at you know, an oversight committee about the dow when her job was to go in and do X, Y and Z and instead she's been doing wing ding symbols one, two, and three. It's like, what do I need to satirize? Like what do I need to poke fun at? Like you know, I just I don't know, Like I think the things that I've seen in terms of satire now are like generational satire.

There's a book I read a couple of years ago. I forget the title, but it's like all the like the Boomers all need to die is the kind of the point of the story, and it's like, what if in this world all the boomers were like being put to death or something like something to that effect. It's like, how do we satirize it that way? But like, in terms of political satire, I don't think there's a way to do it, not in a way that doesn't just feel kind of like lesser than what we're dealing with now. There are a few things, like I know, there's a book called trad Wife about a social media influence that has a baby, and it's basically like a Rosemary's Baby type of situation.

There's also the one where it's the traad wife who gets sent back in time and has to live the same way that she keeps telling me, like raw milk, all those kind of things things, you know. So it's like, so we can we can satirize that way, But again, those things feel from just those descriptions that I just gave well, but they also sounded like Saturday Night Live skits, you know, or maybe maybe a better television program, maybe a better satire a satire program where you know, they actually do have a little bit of a punch, you know, Like I would love to see those like I think the time travel one was actually just picked up by someone and I can't remember who it is, but it's like, all right, like can you make this last longer than five minutes?

I don't know. The book I was talking about. Was Day Boomsday. Nice. Nice, And that's and to your point, like I think, you know, cultural societal satire I think still has a place in the world, like the film with Jeffrey Wright that came out a couple of years ago, where he's a black man who writes, oh yeah white like a white name and it becomes supers like you can still do that because I think societal and culture oficials issues still exists.

But in terms of politics, a political satire in this day and age, like, good luck making that movie to begin with, because it's gonna age poorly. We saw that with that Twilight where hey, don't you guys get it? The President is a child like right yeah. Yeah, which again done way better by Black Mirror, where it's the whole thing of the President is a cartoon character, which kind of even fits better than a child because some of the things that go on you just simply can't believe them. Right, Well, and maybe that's where this maybe satire has gone less into a feature length format and more kind of back to something like a Twilight Zone or a Black Mirror or an anthology show where you can have these kind of shorter story We have this boom, okay, this and then we got this one, and we're kind of telling a whole story.

We're trying to get to a point or a parable or something. And that's but even again, to go back to the Twilight Zone example, that that reboot that came out a couple of years ago, like even that was too topical for its own good. And what's funny is going back and looking at the reviews for Wrong Is Right, they don't talk about the topicality of the satire being an issue. That's not really the problem. They just the critical reviews of this film are just like, the movie's kind of a mess, and it's like, but what about the satire?

Is the satire going too far? Is it not going far enough? Nobody really comments on because I think the movie's just too much of a kind of in some ways unfocused mess to really have like a message quote unquote, which I think that's the other problem with satires in general is unless you have a focused point you can kind of like look at eight different things and satirize those things. It's like wait a second, like you need to focus, like focus on one thing. Let's focus on one or two things.

Can do link those things together, but don't go on like we're gonna go after the Middle Eastern and we're gonna go after the Europeans, and we're gonna go after the President, We're gonna go after American people. It's like, you know, speak one or two things. Because unless you're gonna do all those things really well and you're really talented and really adept at satirizing efficiently and succinctly, the movie's just got to become bloated and directionless. And I think this movie kind of falls into that camp. Like it it has some interesting points, but it's you know, I think of something in terms of satires like more recent that I really like, like Thank You for Smoking.

That's a satirical that I think does it in a way that is interesting, that that feels we're going to go for smoking and that world and like pick a couple things and kind of go with them, but don't like tackle everything, tackle everything, and you kind of just you can't do anything. It's like, you know, Jack of all trades master. Yeah, that book I was trying to think I was called Yesteryear and it's in Hathaway just picked up the rights to it. From what I understand, huh yeah, to be in it or just to produce it. I'm not sure she might be a good person to be in it, because I think you can portray that like vacuous Instagram type of thing where it's just like, oh, I'm the best wife ever because I do this and I do that, you know, that whole tread wife influencer thing where it's just like, what the fuck you know?

Oh yeah, I must be here for my husband. I mean talk about you know, the Stepford Wives. I mean it's basically like turning yourself into a Stepford wife willing yes, oh yeah, yeah, just disconnect right there. Well, and that's the other thing in this in this movie that we do again, Like I'm glad that the movie does hammer this point home, like these people are doing any of this stuff unwillingly or against their will. All of most, if not all, of the people in this film, other than I mean, let's say, even Sean Connery really have a level of agency too.

There's like a level of autonomy, and that's maybe what's kind of part of the issue with this film is because everybody's kind of just doing whatever, and they all have their own machinations, and some of them are like double secret machinations. It's kind of hard to understand what the fuck is from time to time. In this movie. Like it it It. Doesn't hold your hand, but maybe it should have in some ways, like maybe it should have given more of kind of a framing device to what's going on, or more of like a narrative structure, as opposed to let's just follow Sean Connery around as he goes from scene to scene to scene and essentially is a bystander while other people.

I kind of wonder had they And this is going to sound weird because I complained earlier about having too many characters in this book, sorry, in this movie, and I almost wonder if having somebody else working with Connery, you know, I talked about Catherine Ross and how that seemed like it was going to be an interesting thing until she gets ganked right off the bat. Maybe having first ten minutes to the goddamn. Oh yeah, I mean, maybe give him a crusty editor. Give him a Jason Robards from all the presidents and men. Give him I can't remember, yeah, a Vincenzo or I can't remember, Hume Cronin.

I think it was from the Parallax view. Like they have these characters and then towards the end they usually either get compromised or killed, where it's just like, Okay, I have the truth. I'm going to publicize the truth. And that's the thing is, like, there's not a like Connery is definitely not a man on a white horse, nor ski even a man on a black horse who eventually learns to put on a white hat. Like he is pretty steady through this whole thing, and I was really hoping for, like, Okay, yeah he is venal, he is a shit heel and stuff at the beginning, but then by watching all of this stuff, his eyes get open to how the world really works, and then he's like, I'm going to tell the world.

I'm going to tell everyone what's going on here. And never happens. He's just like I'm here, I'm reporting, and then I'm over here and i'm reporting. I'm over here and I'm reporting. And occasionally we'll cut back to him in the newsroom delivering some of these reports, but for the most part, it's just him wandering around, and like his cameraman that shows up occasionally isn't a character.

It's just not characterized at all. Right, Yeah, it's like I don't even know if the guy's got a name, you know, like those two terrorists that I mentioned Susie earlier, which it's just a funny name for me, that you know, the terrorist Susie, But like this kind of reminds me a little bit of like a Marriette Hartley type of person. And I didn't recognize the actress whatsoever, or her contemporary, And I'm trying to remember his name because it's like, hey, like these guys could have been characters as well, and then that would have probably had it a little bit more. When her and these other terrorists are jumping out of as the airplanes or helicopters and they're blowing themselves up. Yeah it's Abu is the other one.

So Tony March and Mary Anne Marx, so Abu and Susie, and they're everywhere in this film, but you apparently get any of their motivation. And again, even if they're quiet through the whole time, but you kind of got to feel for them. Then again, me at the end when she gets machine gun and blows up on a parachute at the end of the film, that would have had a little bit more of a punch other than just this kind of like, oh my god, these people are just you know, suicide bombing themselves right here in Washington. I think it would have been more interesting to even have the Catherine Ross character as a secret terrorist throughout the film, or like a secret sympathizer. Like you, you have all these characters and you just don't do much with them, and like you said, you you then have characters that are interacting with Connery or others that aren't giving anything.

We haven't talked about the fact John Saxon is in this. Wee yeah, well really real quick. The I think the Robert Weber character is supposed to Harvey is supposed to be that editor character I was talking about, but no, he's barely in this. He just's in it like three or four times, mate, Yeah, right, And it's always opposite Connery, always opposite Connery, which, by the way, like if you're gonna be opposite Connory, you got to bring your a game. I'm not saying he didn't.

I just don't think the script. No, no, And ironically, I'm mostly known Robert Webber from his role in Twelve Angry Men. So how you know what this is Sidney Lumett had directed this. Film would have been better if Sidney la Mett had directed this film, though, I mean, Brooks is not a bad director. A lot of great yeah titles to his name.

I mean, my god, you already mentioned no. I guess well you mentioned Network, but I mean like there's I mean in cold Blood, I mean, my god, like come on, so I mean just I mean before that, even Blackboard Jungle, all kinds of stuff like it's not it's not director for hire. It kind of feels like it. Yeah. No, this was a passion project from what I understand, But because this was his penultimate film, he only had one more after this, and he wasn't.

I'm trying to think of he was that prolific, but I don't think that he was. He made thirty six films over gosh, he goes all the way back to nineteen forty two. Oh sorry, that's a writer. He only directed twenty six films over that entire period of time. Wow.

And this was the penultimate film right after he directed Looking for Mister Goodbar My God. Right, which is a fantastic film. I don't know if you've ever had a chance to see that. Yeah, that's a great One's sorry, I kind of look, no, no, I kind of cut you off about John Saxon, and like, I think he's really good in this film, as he always is. I just don't think he's good enough to do no.

Like and that's you know again, as someone who you know came to John Saxon, you know, in their mid teens with Nimara and elm Street and then having seen him in subsequent things since, like I always really love him and stuff. It's such a shame to me that this movie has him in it because when his name came up in the credits, it was like, oh, John Saxon, same with Henry Silvill, like. Oh, yeah, what the hell are we doing here. With these two, like two of the great character act just kind of being given no room to chew the scenery at all, and they normally that's all they do is chew the scenery, like that's their singular job as character act. And here they're just flat, especially Henry Silvia, Like right disappointed by Henry Silva in this movie, probably more than anybody.

Absolutely, And I feel like Patrick Hale is not the character's name from the book, and I feel like by calling him Patrick Hale, they are purposefully calling back to the Founding Fathers. Between Patrick Henry and Nathan Hale, it just but at the same time, it's like, all right, he's not and a real American hero and he's not a super female villain either, so it's like, what, yeah, what are we doing here? We just have like a piece of white toast in the middle of this movie. I don't I don't understand, Yeah, I don't. I don't know why they cast Connory in it is maybe the thing that I'm like trying to figure out every every moment he's in the films, like what what was it about Connery and what he brings to a role that they were like, this is the guy for this, Like I see it in Bond, I understood it in the Offence Anderson tapes.

I got it as well. Here. I'm like, this could have been any this could have been any actor. I don't think for me, the fact that it's Connory honestly is more disappointing than it is anything else. Like if it had been anybody else, I might not have expected it is much from them, But given that Connery is just such a great actor, I expect so much more of him on screen because it's so weird to have an actor of Connery's level in a movie, and.

It's like, I want more business from him, you know. It's like, I like when there's a moment in the film where he meets with Leslie Nielsen, and Nielsen is the one that's got the tape of the it's basically the Middle Eastern guy, the Middle Eastern king his quote unquote suicide note. But it's the original audio from all that. And I love that kind of shit right where it's like, oh yeah, we took this a little bit here in this little bit here, and then we re recorded it and it sounded like he said this other thing instead. I love those types of things, like whether I'm you know, doing podcast editing or whatever, I love that kind of stuff.

They cut through this train that they're on, entering into some dark tery and you see Conrie's got the Mallory. The Lessie Nielsen campaign poster because he's campaigning hard against spread, not Spradland's character, but the Lockwood president Lockwood. And he's got the poster and at one point I thought that he's like drawing a mustache on Leslie Nielsen's poster, but they never really show if he is or anything, and it's just like a real brief moment, I was just like, that's the kind of guy that I want. I want a guy. I want Conry's character to be almost a cynical a hole that just doesn't believe any of these people.

Like, yeah, he's trying to get to the bottom of this, but at the same time, I want him to be smarter than everybody else, maybe or maybe he thinks he's smarter than everybody else, and he's also making fun of them all the time. Like had he been sitting there doodling on Leslie Nielsen's campaign poster right fucking in front of him and putting like a Hitler stash or a big old black bart stash on, this guy would have been right, man, like give me some of those types of things. Give me just like, like I said, a little business, Do a little business with what you're doing instead of just kind of sitting there with the coffee cup. I would have preferred he yeah. Oh yeah, Kolchak could get to the bottom of anything, and yeah, he needed to use subterfuge, lies, whatever it took to get into places to get these stories.

Whereas get to this point again exactly dropped into the story and it's like he just has all these connections has He's. So well known. He is like the the Heraldo Rivera of this era. You know. It's like all right, Like he shouldn't be able to walk into these places.

The president shouldn't trust this guy. No, I mean, and neither should the audio, right, you know, in my approximation, I think the film that this film could have or was in kind of in a This movie is kind of in a similar vein to and I thought about it when I was watching it with some of the scenes with the Ardie Krueger is Lord of War. Yes, film I have not watched a very long time. I used to watch it a lot. I remember really enjoying that film quite a bit.

But man, I was like, this would be better if this was just Lord of War, Like I just want to watch Lord of War instead, like it you know, you have Cage talking directly to the camera. You have him looking at the audience, you know, kind of you judging him, him judging you. Like there's none of that here, Like there's no you looking into the world in the world's looking back at you. And what does it say about one another in this conversation we're having with each other. It's none of that.

It may be just one sly wink to the camera for Connery might have done wonders, but even even that would not have been enough. Like I don't know if Connery looking directly at the camera and talking would have helped, but it might have. Just having to address the audience directly could have been interesting to understand his inner psyche and inner monologue would have allowed us to understand, like you said, because if they're not going to show it outward, just have him doing fucking vo Like, I've never seen a film so in need of vo in my entire life than this one. Just imagine how much of most, if not all, the issues we've had with the film could be clarified with some vo You'd have more Connery than you probably could know what to do.

You'd get to understand who and why his character is doing what he's doing, and if he's not going to externally react to things for a whole host of reasons, having him reacting to it through vo is just about as good of anough m. Well, even that poster would lead you to believe like welcome to my world kind of thing that he's doing with his arms and like, yeah, him turning to us and talking to us as it was. There was an alternate poster that was set up to look like a James Bond thing where he's holding a movie camera or a news camera like it's a gun. And then the title of this thing over in the UK was The Man with the Deadly Lens, which I don't think is a reference to the way that the pain it gets poisoned.

Yeah, with that little film camera that bricks his finger with that. But yeah, it's like all right, this movie reminded me. Speaking of other things that reminded us of it kind of reminded me of Wag the Dog, and I've only seen Wag the Dog one time. I don't think it's very successful. I mean that was my memory of it, that it's not very successful.

I remember just sitting in there kind of shaking my head and being like it's it's again kind of like you could take this satire way farther because it was, you know, the whole thing of like, oh, we're gonna put this crying girl on screen and she's gonna listit, all the sympathy and all this kind of stuff, and I'm like, yeah, this is a reference to the whole taking the babies off of the incubators in the Iraq War, Like I am familiar with that, and like, again, like I love him or hate him, but I think Michael Moore could have done a way better job by making that an actual documentary rather than a fiction film, because it just didn't go far enough when it came to those things like the whole like Willie Nelson singing the Old Shoe song and stuff.

I'm like, all right, yeah, Like I almost wonder if Kaufman and de Niro had swapped roles if that would have been a better movie. But yeah, that was the one that that I kept coming back to while I was watching this was just like, okay, man, this is a little bit like that Little Little Wag the Dog, Little Winter Kills, Little Strange Love, And then I am such a bad movie viewer. I've only seen Network once, but when I saw it, I was way too young for it. So I really need to go back and try to see that one again. And because I know that was a big, you know, punch in the face to a lot of people in the seventies.

I haven't seen Network in a while either. Man, I think I know what Mike white May is going to be next year. My god, Sidney lunet all month long. Oh god, god it you know, it makes me, It makes me really laugh. Like the idea that the satire doesn't go far and what a.

Weird phrase, huh, Like he set out to do something and you didn't push it far enough, Like what were you thinking you were achieving? Like, I guess I don't understand if this is what you think satire is. And again, satire is, you know, a funny. Look at the world per the movie poster, which. Boy, those movie posters are misleading to say the least.

I also like to point out Connory doesn't even look like that wrong is right poster where he's like has the two women on his legs, Like that's what he looks like at the movie. He's like ten years younger in the movie that he is on that poster he looks like Sean Connery circa Last Crusade. But I think those posters like are again trying to draw something out of this movie that's not really present, which is like, it's kind of this big, bombastic look at things like this mad cap world and Sean Connery is the crooked ring master, like none of that, none of them. That's what it's advertising though, especially the one where he's like hands out like that, like, man, I want to watch that move or advertising not.

Well, it's funny because you know, when we talk again for Sean Connery month, we're gonna be talking about the name of the Row. And I was reading about that the other night and it was, oh, Sean Connery was on a real downturn and people didn't want him to take that role of William of Baskerville. They wanted somebody who is way more bankable. And I'm just like, what are you talking about, Like Sean Connery was on the downswing. I don't get that at all.

And I'm like, oh, yeah, he did wrong? Is right? Five days well in summer never say Never again sort of the Valiant where he's barely in sort of the Valiant. He did Highlander, which to me is a wonderful film, but that died at the box office and really only gained second life on VHS and cable. It's like, oh, okay, so I think this whole wrong is right thing was really one of the you know, the parts when they're talking about this downturn of his career.

I was going to say, this to me, seems like the first step in a downturn, because Man, eighty two, I think is I think because you know eighty one you've got Time Bandits right before that you have Outland, so you know, like he wasn't going into eighty two with you know, poor films. But man eighty two on just from like eighty two, like you know, it did kind of have this weird thing. I guess the perception of Connery was a certain thing. And you'll never say never again, which just wrong is right? Never say never again back to back.

I could see being kind of a rough eighty two eighty three for mister Connery because you know, you mentioned, uh, Robert. Hubbard as the gentleman picked this movie, yeah, or suggested this film too. This movie's not good, and I think Connory being in it actually kind of makes it worse for me because we have seen The Offense. Which Connor is amazing. We've seen The Anderson Tapes, which I wasn't like that movie's the movie was good.

I wouldn't say of the movies we watched this month it was my favorite or the one that I will return to. I think the one that I will return to heads and shoulders about any of them is The Offense so far. But I think this movie goes further down on the list than the Anderson Tapes for me this month, because I think this movie, for the most part, is kind of just it's prescient about things. But you know, even The Simpsons, the show that we've already referenced, does more by being accidentally prescient than this film does being intentionally prescient, intentionally satirical, intentionally forward looking, intentionally navel gazing, like The Simpsons has more to say, and The Simpsons is a better satire.

And The Simpsons isn't a satire of politics as much as it's just a satire of American culture. But even it understood how to push the envelope a little bit. You know, you talked about Sean Connery like just not going far enough as a character us not understanding Hienough enough as a character. My pick for something like this, if you were to go out and watch a movie that kind of leans into that more is Night Crawler with Jake Jillano, where it's like, oh, yes, seeing the kind of person that is doing these kinds of things and why they're doing it and what's motivating them, and honestly, the person at the center of this is much more important than anything else that's going on. This movie puts the heart the horse before the.

Cart, the car before the horse. Frankly, like we should have had a film about Connery and why he is the way that he is, and what's motivating him to do what he's doing, and why is he doing it, not this wacky world of things happening around him, Like those things can still be going on, but he needs to react to it more. He needs to have something to say about it. And if he doesn't, why, why are what are we trying to achieve by making this week? What are what are we trying to say?

Cause I think to me it seems like the book had a clear angle, and I think the movie maybe just kind of abandoned it or softened it for the palettes of film audiences, which this is the late seventies, early eighties. What are we softening films? What the hell? This is the time of not softening film like at all. Like we just talked about the offense that film.

Is nothing soft about that movie at all. Well, don't forget. I mean was eighty two et. I mean that's the year where we saw Et go against the thing and ET obviously won and people thought that the thing was And it's like, what, like, was that too hard for you? You wanted the cute and cuddly alien.

You wanted an alien that Steven Spielberg could make out with in the publicity photos. I yeah, Like maybe this is you know, the City on the Hill is coming forth with Reagan, and we just don't want anything controversial. Right now, right well, And that's the thing. I mean, if this movie actually really pushed an envelope or made a wave or did something truly like pushing of the envelope in terms of the satire, then there might have been a conversation about it. But it seems, again to go back to the critical appraisal of film at the time, nobody looked at this movie and said, like, ah, this is gonna really age well and this will be a pression film.

Like people were just like, this is kind of all over the place, and it doesn't seem to have it doesn't seem to know what point it's making. And I think that that is still obvious watching the film now, like it, you know, to the point we made early on, Like it does hit on things that are prescient and topical, intentionally or not, but just to effectively. Name drop does not do anything other than prove that you read the headlines of the news, but maybe don't actually read into the paragraphs to understand the complexity of the situation that's going on. I think the most. Pressient thing is the idea that they would start a war intentionally, the United States will to give themselves a reason to start a war by putting the two nuclear briefcases on top of the World Trade Center.

I think is the most satirical thing the movie does, because it's like that's, you know, as close to reality as we will ever see a movie going with stuff. You know, a nation committing terrorism against its own country for reasons exterior to go and invade or oil or other things, and you know, many people and again I've heard the arguments, and I'm not saying right or wrong. I try not to dismiss conspiracy theorists out of hand, like the nine to eleven conspiracy. Like that's what this movie kind of unintentionally is kind of talking about at the end, Like, you know, again it doesn't go granular into it, but the idea that I country would commit terrorism or fake committing terrorism for political or economic gains.

This movie has taken a stance at the United States is willing to do it. Which is a pretty dark thing to say. Well, you know, remember in the main you know, it's we've done it before, there's no stopping us from doing it again. One thing I had to laugh at in this movie was at the President when he calls his dog into the office and his dog jumps up bottom and it becomes this whole like Checkers kind of thing, and I'm just like thinking, Yeah, the guy we've got now has no dog other than Lindsey Graham and just doesn't have the temperament. You know that if there was a dog in the White House right now, it would potentially take attention away from the toddler who needs all of the attention.

I thought there was a dog in the White House. A lap dog, well, several plenty. There's a lot of lap dogs. Yeah, one of them's even got his own bourbon. There's so many lap dogs.

It's like a world of lap dog. Like just you know, and they all want one minute on dear leader's lap congratulations, but only one minute because daddy doesn't love you that much. So yeah, that they referred to him as daddy is really sick. I don't even refer to my own dad. No, No, there's a leather daddy.

I'll refer to as daddy. But that's a whole different thing. Leather daddy, I presume, all right, because he says he's on leather daddy, I presume it. You must be daddy. I'm trying to think of the stuff from Arrested Development, where Tobias is like, what do you get for a father that likes leather?

You mean like a leather daddy? Yes, yes, man, talk about a show that is still satirically funny. There we go later like there you. Go, like you you there's the satire. Yeah, there's the satire.

And not only that, but like I think for me and again, I think this is maybe a question I posed to you. Political satire is great, but I find it to be more interesting when you include political satire in something else, and it's not the point inherently, it's not the point. Specifically, it's not the entire point is not political satire. You can do it well see Wag the Dog, but you can also do it poorly see wrong is Right? Right?

Or what was the Man of the Year? Oh my got her? Don't look up? Yeah? Yeah?

Oh Jesus Christ. He reminded me of him, like who I hit this shit? Like? Good Lord? Like what are they?

They're so clever? Everybody's so clever. It's like, I mean, I guess. But I felt like I was taking crazy pills when that movie came out, because I'm just like you guys, you really think this is funny, and you think, oh yeah, I guess you're right, and I think it was just what's on Netflix? Nothing else?

Okay, we'll watch this. Jesus, that was horrible. What was the name of that Peter Capald television movie that had or it wasn't It was based on a television mini series and the movie had his character in it, and it was also like James GANDOLFEENI as well and he's playing a character from a British TV show that he's like, I mean, you've seen the clips of him just like cursing at people and calling them terrible names in the Loop. In the Loop, that's how you do political satire if you're gonna do it and like lean into it and then to go further with the film. Like it's just I don't know.

For me, I'm always you know, I'm always more interested if the satire includes politics, but is in politics focus like Arrested Developer and knew how to do it with Theishmadest stuff and all the iron you know, the Iraq War at the time, you know, stuff like that's that's how you do that. Like this is just I don't know. Somehow this feels like low hanging. Even in yeah, yeah, I mean I would rather watch what was it Scary Movie five? With Les Nielsen as the president rather than or was it three?

It was three? Yeah, I think Scary Movie five. It's no. The new one six is coming out, which will not be satire. It will just be parody because it'll be whatever has been in the news or on TV or in the movies for the last three months, just depending on you know how long it took to shoot this, and then we'll just regurgitate everything back to our It'll just regrititate everything back into our mouth.

I hope not. But man, those later scary movie films really became their rank. I'm invoking our friend Trevor Gumbel, freiberg Seltzer Joints. They really kind of started becoming Drek. And you know, I don't want to say that this movie is Direk, but it definitely doesn't hold itself as a film to be the film really that it's advertising itself as, and that I think is such a shame because if ILM had lived up to that poster, I think we'd be feeling like we did with The Offense, where it's like, why haven't people been.

Talking this week? Exactly? Yeah, because it's not great, Like that's that's why, Like there are sometimes where things are just kind of like, you know what. This really reminds me of Man and this is gonna is probably gonna even this is probably punching down a little bit. It reminds me of Deal of the Center.

But I think even to Century might have been a better movie. I can definitely see that, you know, you mentioned Lord of War, which Lord of War is like the good version of Deal is century. Yeah, I can see that. Like this, it's this movie is so frustrating because it isn't the movie that we would like it to be. And I'm not trying to be a dickhead as far as like, oh yeah, we're rewriting the movie.

We're saying it needs to be this, that and the other thing, and that's not what this movie is. It just needed to be stronger. Like I am tempted to go read The Better Angels and read what the original intention was again this. I believe that Brooks wrote this with the author, so it might be more of the same, but I don't know. I'm I really just wish that this had been a stronger thing.

Like I even I was reading reviews where people are like, Okay, I'm trying to watch this as the cult movie and to see what the appeal is if it was a cult movie, if it is one of these movies that nobody caught on too in nineteen eighty two, And here I am all these years later trying to watch this and you know, kind of get that inside track and be the people that are just like, well, why is no one talking about this? Well, there's a very good reason why people aren't talking about it, which is a shame because I wanted it to be. I was hoping, like, oh cool, this is gonna be one of those secret hidden gems where it's just like, how come nobody sees this and sees how smart this was and how prescient it was.

Well, because it just kind of misses the mark time and. Again, yeah it you know, I will go, I will go one step further. I kind of, yeah, I kind of disliked this movie only because if you're going to give Sean Connery time and space to do something interesting and you don't give him anything to do, you're gonna, like, you say, bring the author in to do an adaptation of his novel that was clearly successful, and it's not going to go anywhere. Like, I don't know, I honestly would just rather watch Lord of War. I tend to not be that dismissive about things and say like, well, I'd rather watch something else, but with a satire it being such a like genrecific thing, and you are like, this is a satire.

Death of Stalin is a satire. Yes, it is a very sun one. Yes, I would rather watch something like that than this. And that's the problem. It's not like I don't have any other options for political satire that are in this same realm.

It's just none of them have Sean Connery in it. That's too dad. But the one that does isn't very good because it just doesn't It doesn't do enough. And you know what, if you're gonna make a satire, you kind of gotta give yourself some venom. You gotta be a little poisonous, you gotta kinda do something with a little ill intent, because the best satire has an edge to it, and this movie is a dull spork.

It is completely toothless. It is you know, it's like that dog that growls at you and then you notice it doesn't have any teeth, and you're just like, well, it's like my dog. My dog had passed away last year when he would bark at people. And then it's like, dude, guy has no teeth, Like what is he gonna gummuna death? Like the same thing, It's like, what are what are we going to do with a film that's trait trying to be a satire that doesn't achieve a at a satirical point or message, like it's kind of a failure.

You know, it's unfortunate, and you know, at least it's not like last year's films were they're all bad intentionally. At least there's none of that. So is this I guess I want to end it on this. Is this better or worse than Man of the Year in terms of being satire? Oh gosh, shevoked it.

I wouldn't have thought about it. And technically, second time you've invoked it in as many episodes, because I think we talked about it at least publicly or maybe off recording with Spencer about me. Yeah, yeah, I think it was off Mike, but are offline. But yeah, I would say this is better than Man of the Year. Yeah, because I Man of the Year just had that Maudlin feel and this doesn't get Maudlin and I really can't take Maudlin.

So yeah, I'm gonna say Man of the Year edges this out only a little bit. And you're gonna laugh because I actually, for whatever reason, Robin Williams and Maudlin just kind of goes together for me in a really weird way. And maybe I'm wrong, Like, you know. The film where he goes to hell. What dreams may what may come?

Yeah, that's like a maudlin. Oh see, I like what where what dreams may come? I'm thinking of the my wife is dead from Goodwill Hunting? You know, talk about being a bad film critic hashtag I've never seen Goodwill Hunting? How about them Apple?

Well, now you've got your thing for I've never seen Month. I don't like them Apples. Will May of the Year edges this out just a look, but the maudliness of Man of the Year, I can see it going either direction for the audience, Like, if you're not down with that, it's not going to resonate with you. But if you like seeing Robin Williams be sad and cry, you know, tune in. Hi.

I'm Susan and I'm Sharon and where are the hosts of. Eighties tv Ladies. Check us out wherever you find your favorite podcasts, and please like and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. At Eighties tv Ladies. You can find interviews and exclusive behind the scenes content on all of your favorite eighties TV ladies.

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Please join us as we examine one of the greatest sitcoms in television history. Taxi on Night, mister Walters at Taxi Podcast. Good night, mister Walters, Good evening, and welcome to Knight's Gallery. Thank you, Rod, and I want to welcome everyone to Midnight Viewing, where once a month we talk all about your follow up to the Twilight Zone, Rod Serling's Night Gallery. They say it's Rod Sweling's Night Gallery, and it isn't really Rod Duel's Night Gallery.

It's somebody else's. Oh we know, we talk about it a lot. Your curators at Midnight Viewing are the Projection Boots, Mike White. What can happen to human beings when trust is wiped out by suspicion. And culture casts?

Chris Stashure small boy Incased in the Crystal Ball, and I'm Father Malone, the kind. Of thing that usually infests nightmares. Join us monthly at Midnight Viewing the Night Gallery Podcast at Weirdingwaymedia dot Com. Doesn't remotely belong to me. I have no proprietary interest in that at all.

Within these walls, men come to seek God. He has come to seek a killer. We found the body horribly mutilated under a window which was which was found closed Sabada, a man of reason in a world of blind faith. Yes, small blood here you mean that he mitted suicide. Elementary and a crime there could not be suppressed in states he did not write with his times.

Don't like this place? I find it more stimulating? Should we tell him? No, I am most curudicious in the library for myself. May I do so?

No? But what if you should learn it of his uncode written with lemon juice? Hi? Who's that your overestimates? Tenants?

This one I graduate did not commit suicide. When he is challenged by a man of cruelty and power, the hunter becomes the hunting brother. I did you twa matter has occurred of the uttermost gravity. Thank some one else not chosen to look in the wrong direction. Several men of God might still.

Be with us. Our monk to me that that's here, and they also will have blackened fingers and black and cown. His thing is back, just as brother William for told, Yes. I was right. He knew, just as I too would have known had I been the murderer.

You go that way, lock them up. One final murder has been playing pasta pasta how we get out what's so difficulty? And it's his Sean Connery, f Murray Abraham. The Name of the Rose, a story of unholy murder. All right, So we'll take a break and we will play preview for the next culture.

That's right, Like Mike and I kind of already talked about a little bit with the Name of the Rose, we are gonna be talking about the Name of the Rose. It was supposed to be this episode, but it's not because Richard had him was busy. We love Richard. We move things to Richard because we love him. That's what we do for the people we love.

Folks, you should do something for the person in your life that you love, like move a podcast recording if that's something you can do. So we'll be talking about that with Richard. We will have an interview that I did with Ilia Baskin so many years ago when I covered the film, probably in like twenty seventeen. Uh So we'll have that interview. It'll be the three of us talking about Sean Connery as a monk.

So if you're into that, comeback for that until then, Mike, where do people find you and the things that you work on? Well, pretty much everything that I do is available available at Weirdowaymedia dot com, with the exception of the show that we do with Richard over on our Patreon, which is wrapping up pretty soon. That is ranking on bond and you can get that through patreon dot com, slash Projection booth and patreon dot com slash culturecast. How about you, Chris. Well, like you mentioned, we do do a Patreon exclusive show which is coming to an end very quickly.

Actually, I believe we're two and. A half weeks removed from the end of the show, almost something like that, maybe a month. We will be doing another show afterwards. It will be on a normal feed. There will be a Patreon exclusive nature to it, which is you'll be able to get it a month early ad free if you want to get it for free.

It will be on a normal feed like all the other fantastic Weirdingway Media shows that I'm sure you're listening to, and if you're not, like Mike said, you know where to find them, like rate and review this show over on iTunes or Spotify wherever. You're getting it. Just make it one of those two. It helps us out immensely. And yeah, come on back for the next episode where we're going to talk a little name of the Rose with our dear friend, the Monk Richard had them