LOWRES: M. Night Shyamalan is BACK... But the BAD M. Night

this is movies a podcast by the act of Cinema and with me today he brought a big bowl of Curry it is Jacob a Miller the cinematology not Hans Hans is not with us this evening he didn't want to watch another M Night film how unfortunate Jake how are you doing great great what a shame on Hans uh apparently he didn't have a good time going to his uh local Indian restaurant so he's holding this against ight I I wouldn't blame him one bit you know he's got a very sensitive colon that Hans I don't know if you've heard this I don't know if you've experienced this I don't know if you've smell this before but hans's colon is notorious of course well it's funny you say that because actually that brings back the memory it's almost 3 years later after we uh finished the last leg of like principal photography on Mass state Lottery and I can still smell those farts man in that small apartment in ever certainly the one in quinsey on the first leg I I think that place is probably condemned since then but it was not just Hans it was definitely all four of us but but it was mostly Hans and he blamed you for you know he blamed you for breaking the toilet seed he said Jake's big ass broke the toilet seed I do have a big ass but this is this is news to me I don't know we never solve that mystery of who cracked the toilet seat that that one fateful morning that should be the sequel tol yeah yeah that'll be the sequel to mass Day Lottery it'll be very West Craven's New Nightmare because we'll all be playing ourselves as the characters and then solving a new mystery I think it'll work fantastic but uh you know who is kind of the modern master of mysteries ight sha that's what the m stands for is Mystery ight Shyamalan who it's not even a new film at this point it's been out for a while but I saw that you watched it kind of recently why did it take you so long well been doing a lot of movie marathons my days off from work because this is my Shameless plug amca list uh is a gift from the gods so on my days off I'll go to the uh go to the AMC up here or down here in Dallas and I'll rack up like three movies a day when I go and uh so trap has been on my radar I've been so pumped for it since I first saw the trailer but uh just things kept coming up like uh shoots on other projects and then extra days at work so it's just been a process to finally get to the theater but a few days ago I did I I did that in a marathon where uh I saw this last after I saw strange animals or not not uh strange darling yeah uh and then I saw blink twice from Zoe Kravitz and then I saw this one last so I had a good good sandwich of uh mystery and thriller films so yeah I you I knew something was up with your movie viewing and that you must have had a pass where you were marathoning it cuz I I I check up on your letter box and I saw blink twice but I also saw DD and I was like in what world is he going to the movies to see Dee this is this is very out of left field I I had a friend that really loved it and the the trailer did look pretty cool and I thought the uh sort of nostalgic appeal to it was was kind of cool because you and I really came up in that time and it that one short review it mostly does the job but then at some point you realize oh he just this like 29-year-old director just he he made an autobiography and he sprinkled a little bit of fiction in it so it it's a little self-serving and uh the whole 2008 online kind of atmosphere to it isn't really explored as much as it promised so it's kind of a gimmick for this guy to tell his own autobiography so you and I should make our own autobiography films and just you know instead of uh the the main character's name being Jay you just name him like gray or something like that yes gray that's a very common name is gray I've heard that not Ray not uh not not Fay but we'll go with the color gray yeah so well it's enigmatic too so sure uh you know D I heard good things about it I heard it was very Myspace era which that appeals to me certainly but if that is not really explored as much as one would hope I didn't know the director was 29 years old that makes me dislike him in that movie a little bit because you only wind up with a movie that goes to theaters and you're 29 years old if you're sucking some old guys's dick probably you're you're doing something that has nothing to do with your talent or your skill and someone gave you a big opening as a result of that and I don't you know they haven't been kind or as kind I should say to the Asian-American filmmakers in 2024 compared to say 2020 where it was just like yeah we're going to put every single Asian-American movie on HBO Max and put that on the front page and uh Hey spoiler alert for anyone who wants to watch an Asian-American movie they all [ __ ] suck every single one of them [ __ ] sucks you have authority on that too you're you're apparently a sworn in member of the tribe so yes I was I was uh inducted many many a year ago so Masonic temple thing where they like n you on the on the shoulders but instead of a instead of a sword they just use chopsticks it's exactly like that what is it I have a I have a masonic temple nearby what is that group what is that group that what is it the Freemasons the Freemasons yeah that's who I'm thinking of yeah it's a lot like the Freemasons where you can show up you know you don't have to do much you just pay a fee and you can show up in like gym shorts you you know which is like the only organization where you can do that so but yeah that's like Asian people anyway speaking of Asian speak yes the other kind of Asian yeah suddenly now we consider Indian Asian when I was a kid we we did not I mean it's part of Asia we all know it's part of Asia but what else is part of Asia Russia are they Asian no but we're talking about M night and we've done a series a little bit on M night we we talked about his earlier films we covered the six cents signs unbreakable and I feel like we did one more did we I The Village the maybe the village I it could have been the village I feel like we were planning to talk about old but that conversation got wrapped into another episode maybe or maybe we did do I don't know I don't know we can kind of do a rundown because it's been a while since for one since I've been on the show but two since we've had that conversation so can do a short preface if you want sure I mean well I would like here's what I've been doing recently I've been doing this little workaround if I need to take a week off from recording which at the moment I don't because we've been doing these listener sponsored episodes where people pay 100 bucks and we got a complete Rush of them and have to make the show now twice a week as a result of that for people wanting us to watch really horrible stuff like Laquisha or the pest or all these mostly good but sometimes really painful to sit through movies and it's been a second since um we did M night but what I was saying before was I've been packaging the episodes that all have a common theme together so this will probably wind up in that I'll have to put out all the M Night episodes is one big like nine- Hour episode at some point and we were intended to continue doing that but then I think maybe we just got tuckered out with the village or something we hit some kind of Roadblock and then maybe we did Texas Chainsaw one and two instead I can't I can't remember really it's been a while but we wound up going off that course and getting into something else and then yeah you had basically a year off from appearances on on movies which I think this one now because it was a tie between you and Jerry for most guest appearances this now gives you the lead again right the king like the Barry Bonds of movies yeah yeah so we're talking about trap tonight and trap was a movie I caught opening day I was looking forward to it I when I saw the trailer originally it it didn't register as M right away and I was really into two things the premise and also Josh Harton coming out of retirement essentially to become a leading actor again now that he's in his 40s and I thought he was great in Oppenheimer from what I saw in the trailer I thought okay this guy's doing something kind of interesting here and the idea of oh this concert is a whole sabotage to get this serial killer how's he gon to get out of this that's a that's a great idea that's a fantastic idea it felt like old school Mite and I was excited to go watch this movie but then I sat down and it was one red flag after another and by the halfway point I was like this this feels like M night is back but in a bad way the bad M night is back but I don't know what was your experience with this movie first in the promotional phase of it the marketing and then when you finally did get to sit down and watch it yeah I was so hyped for this movie that was this was one of my must-sees of the year I'm I'm a big emite guy I've always liked him and even his lesser films I think you and I have agreed that even when he misses he swings as hard as he can and one of the things I admire mostly about him is at least for the last I don't know 10 years he's been self- financing all of his movies including this one he put up $30 million of his own money to make this one and that kind of risk is I think what sets him apart from most filmmakers even even not stylistically if you want to get into that of course but anyway so this one to me had a real I mean I just loved the trailer I love the way it was shot and it it does translate in the film with great cinematography and there felt like there was a a claustrophobia that was really going to be uh built into this film and Josh hartnet I've always enjoyed as a lead actor so I thought that combination and like you kind of mentioned with the formula being a cat and mouse kind of story and then with the technical approaches it looked like he was going to take it looked to me like this was going to be his attempt at this kind of classic hitchcockian style suspense thriller and and I thought there's got to be something too uh he he plays his hand really heavily in the trailer and reveals that partnet is the killer from the beginning so there's got to be some way he's going to turn it on it on its face in the end and when I saw it what I saw in the film was half of an ambitious take or or a modern take on trying to make a new Hitchcock Style movie and trying to tap into maybe his roots and but add a little bit more of a budget into it but on the other hand I found a movie that just really wanted to be funny and Goofy and really mesh these tones together that I thought were entirely opposite I think there was plenty of room to be funny and to be satirical but I thought he leaned way too heavy into that I think a big element of this film that might have bogged him down was giving his daughter a platform which he didn't do it totally shamelessly but in that second and third Act of the film it takes over and it completely sucks away the wins that the First Act might have had so it is a bit of a disappointment to me I think it's got its merits I didn't hate it but this is the second one in a row now by him that I haven't been really really yeah crazy about I didn't like knock at the cabin that put me to sleep and this one didn't put me to sleep it's entertaining but it's just not at all what I wanted it to be or it's a fraction of what I wanted it to be that's a good observation that the film doesn't have the confidence maybe to take itself seriously its premise seriously and I think it really could have and if they had then you get a much better film than what we wind up with instead it's clear that ight has an idea of what this is in his head and Josh hartnet also does and you know there have been people on X who were like oh they've really been gassing this movie up but specifically his performance and oh you know if the academy was was worth their salt they would acknowledge that Josh I saw exactly that post maybe maybe two hours ago yeah me too me too and and they're they're essentially making the case this is one of the best leading performances of the year no no it's not it could have been it could have been here so here's the thing if you don't know anything about ight you don't know anything about Josh hartnet or his acting history you could walk into this movie sit down and watch it and go wow he's acting really poorly and everyone's acting really poorly why are they delivering the dialogue in this manner and I think what happened here was that Josh hartnet put his trust into the M night to match his vision of what this character was going to be and ight probably had the same vision of that of okay there's a clear level of artifice with this guy because he leads a secret life but then that doesn't really translate in what ight does when composing the film and stringing it together and locking it into what it winds up being and so it's it's this weird artificial not believable and not really funny performance from Josh hartnet that feels like if you were to sit down and watch Dexter but without Michael SE Hall's inner monologue as the narration of the show because he does a similar thing and it makes other people around him look dumb if you just only got his verbal performance with the other actors it would be like why is this guy acting this way it's like watching The Big Bang Theory without the laugh track the context kind of removes any sense of the greater element that in play here which is that okay he's trying to fool these people and it's actually work for him to just make small talk and put up this front that he is this person that they think he is and that's a big problem with this because you don't get that with Josh hartnet you only get the facad and so every interaction is this forc thing and it got some laughs out of me especially when he's dealing with his daughter and he's like pointing down at this open Avenue at the concert he's like hey maybe we should go down there and explore that and she's like what are you talking about Dad you're being weird I I thought that was pretty funny and I didn't mind those moments but to what you said as well where it veers off and becomes a brand new movie after the one hour mark I think that was a total misstep and it almost reeks of Kevin Smith with him propping his daughter up and saying okay we've had enough of Josh hartnet now let's focus on somebody else and let's focus on my daughter well at least 's daughter isn't actually M's daughter well yeah there's that you can clearly tell that's e Knight's daughter why no no no we're not going to get into that uh no yeah about har it it was interesting to me because I I found his performance fun and I thought he I thought he did a good job for the most part but I think you're right that so that extra layer was missing he's very and I've used this term a couple times today uh not on the show but just casually it's it's a bit surface level we don't really get to kind of carve into who he is and we don't really explore that duality of his because even when The Jig Is up at the end he's still that same kind of goofball guy there there's maybe one or two minor moments where the darkness in him is is kind of shown but he he always keeps that tongue and cheek kind of quality to him and if the whole movie was going to be that way that's one thing but it's that narratively it just goes off the rails and it becomes it doesn't become a cat and mouse game anymore it doesn't become claustrophobic at all it becomes a chess game between this cunning serial killer and this young pop star and is that the movie that I wanted no I would have been totally fine with ight starter being a centerpiece of the movie with her concert being the the setpiece focus that's to toally fine like wouldn't care but once it becomes she she gets a big beefy supporting role and is a huge Catalyst in the story it's already gone too far by that point with other thematic elements that aren't clicking but that's where it just I think bones it in and says well it's gonna she's GNA be the hero now she's gonna she's going to help everybody overcome and and thwart Harnet or is she so so so what comes out of all this is a movie that has the right cast and has so many technical things going for it and has the opportunity to be something immensely claustrophobic even though you're in this giant space of an arena and it just turns into this mixed bag of of just three different movies and it by the end I was just kind of scratching my head and especially at the ending scene there's a there's a total abandon of reality with this movie there are so many leaps of logic that don't make sense that you can just register as that wouldn't happen in the real world or why is this character doing this or why is he behaving this way and the one thing that sticks out the most to me and it's probably not even the most egregious example comes toward the end when they figure out oh well he is the the character the killer's name is what the Ripper they just call him the butcher the butcher which very lazy Name by way yeah I was just about to say that they could have taken an extra second to think of a another word to use they might have they might as well have named him the killing killer yeah it's it's a it was a really poor choice and there's an a moment that comes toward the end when the police finally apprehend him and they're about to put him in the back of the police car and he stops in front of the bicycle that's on his lawn and pulls out the tool that's going to set him free later on and it's just like the police would never ever in a million years do this with a serial killer they wouldn't do this with uh Jay Walker that they tracked down and dragged out of his like get the [ __ ] out of here that you're GNA play this is how the movie is ending here but there's a lot of leaps of logic throughout the whole film and that is just one example of that well usually I'm pretty forgiving to logic issues in movies because sometimes these things need to happen in order for you to see the movie that you want to see but in this one it's just too many it's not even instances where he gets lucky it's instances where even me who I I'm so forgiving toward this in movies when you have four or five characters in a row just kind of like yeah I'll let you do this very conspicuous thing that should not be allowed at a very high security event sure like another another huge one is when he threatens the the pop star lady Raven and she I think she maybe says something to her security and she lets him go in the in the green room with her alone I mean you know this isn't me gatekeeping or anything but working with Talent like that before in in my past and in my career no circumstance especially if it's somebody that big like think out like essentially a Taylor Swift type that never happen some Rando going into a green room alone things like that would never happen um it's just too many times in a row that it asks a lot from the viewer of like yeah oh yeah see this is how he's been getting by all these years and it's like anybody else would be caught in about two weeks if they were trying to trying to kill people and be this just brazenly uh careless with everything they were doing and and as far as like the serial killer lore also goes He s up these dummy houses I guess where he keeps people and there's no Rhyme or Reason I guess to the victims because they show an Asian man who's trapped but then it's also male and female victims that he's taken and killed and the FBI expert who is supposed to be this you know Donald Pleasant style character who's tracking him down it's just this old lady and it's all very to use your word uh it's surface it's extremely surface it's oh he's mommy issues so he wasn't accepted by his mom or something and that's why he's doing all this well not to mention I think I I should know the actress's name and I'm not going to look at it right now but it's very funny how they use her character she everything that's of substance that she apparently says he hears second-handed from somebody else and then every time you see her it's she just you you see a profile of her walking in a room she turns and kind of doesn't say anything and and and that's it like that's almost every scene that she has she does nothing nothing of weight there's no weight when she walks around she's just I guess an antagonist for you to to latch on to but she doesn't say or do anything that really dignifies that uh not Tommy Lee Joneses at all no and there's nothing that would ever indicate with Josh Hart and his character either that he's got a nasty side to him that would leak out of his serial killing like all serial killers have like oh usually the home life is kind of a [ __ ] up situation usually the wife somehow knows and she's just kind of ignoring all of that for the convenience of raising her kids and having a nice house and all and I think Allison pill who plays his character's wife could have sold that pretty easily and they don't go that route they go oh well she kind of suspected him and laid a trap of her own with the ticket and she's like I guess that's the big twist why did we need that why are you over complicating it it's just all these little Hoops you're making these characters jump through that you don't need and it could have just been as simple as I don't know maybe she just phoned in and said hey I think my husband might be doing you know not trying to set him up intentionally I don't know ight I think overthought so much of what this movie was supposed to be and wound up Sab sabotaging himself in the process and that is why it's so spread out in terms of the tone and not wanting to commit to that concert EV which I think he could have very easily eaten up an hour and a half of time in the concert venue and trying to escape and trying to figure out how to get out of there it's it's really a shame and I don't want to like bash CA night shyamalan's acting but she is definitely you pronounced that name quite well you know uh well I'm you know i' I've been accused of looking Indian at times by my AI face app you know when they would do like the racial exchange of we we'll show you what you look like black and Asian and Indian well one time it came up white which registered me as Indian which I think is just because I got a more oval face and a mustache that if I was brown I could totally live in thrive in Bollywood I think uh I guess I'm going to have to look into that software too I want to see what it look like as an Indian man no that wouldn't work for you that would I can't see that nearly as well as I think most people could imagine me as an Indian person you it's a real imaginative stretch oh well okay fine I guess everybody has their Niche I mean you don't really see Indians with long hair or headbands that's true yeah they yeah there it's always glasses you see them with it's that's the only that's the only piece they ever wear it's the only accessory of course glasses no matter what even if they have 2020 Vision yeah so so ight of course another famous Indian ight Shyamalan the man himself does his Hitchcock Cameo as the uncle I I believe of Lady Raven right who's responsible for picking do you remember what the term they Ed was to decide a girl in the audience who's going to go up on stage and dance the yeah what are they called the like dream girl or it's something like that it's something like that dreamer girl yeah yeah yeah you were pretty close so all right the dreamer girl selection I actually thought it was pretty funny that Josh Harton is like yeah my daughter over here she just beat leukemia and she's getting her confidence don't bring it up she's just getting her confidence back and ight the kind-hearted man he is decides all right well she's going to be the dreamer girl and you know another problem I had was that you have this character who is the mother of one of the daughter's friends and she keeps popping up she's almost set up as this foil who's going to have some sort of Greater influence on how that story unfolds and she doesn't it just it's a plotline that doesn't really go anywhere it's oh his daughter so we didn't even really set up the whole thing here but Josh harate is a father whose name is Cooper and he's taking his daughter Riley to a lady Raven concert lady Raven is her favorite singer and he bumps into the mother of one of her friends or ex-friends because she's got some sort of conflict going on in her school where maybe they disinvited her to some sort of dance related thing and so there's a there's a friction there but they both happen to be at the concert those ex-friends of hers are at the concert as well the mother runs into Cooper Josh harden when he's going off to the bathroom but he's actually like trying to figure out what is going on with this this whole conert why are there police everywhere why is there a SWAT team running down the hall and she tries to mend fences a little bit and then she gets more threatening she gets a little aggro towards him and essentially he's like you don't want to get on my bad side and it kind of feels like okay is she gonna be responsible in some way for this man's downfall before he leaves the concert cuz she is you know the top Contender for that but it turns out to just kind of be a Herring situation and that whole story line winds up going nowhere and really the daughter becomes less and less consequential to the plot the longer into the movie you go which is unfortunate because I really enjoyed everything that was set up between Cooper and Riley and Cooper trying to be the good dad and balancing that with oh [ __ ] they know I'm here at this concert and I'm a serial killer and I have to continue to to go take long bathroom breaks and get myself out of this situation I think you know so I was a big fan of that it's just it really really really [ __ ] itself up the second he gets out of there well yeah I mean I think that goes to what you were saying a little bit earlier that they should have just stayed in that one setting because once or if he has to get out right I think you don't make it this whole Act of the film because that's where it just completely crumbles and then there's a sequence in the house where 's daughter just again the lady Raven just traps herself in the bathroom for three minutes to just do a scene on like FaceTime or something like that and and and it there's no real consequence to the scene because all he does is he opens the door and then he just brings her into the car and then that has no consequence be because remember that too is when um it's when they're in the car and he's essentially taking her Ransom so now the the daughter is completely out of the picture now it's lady Raven is now his hostage and it's as simple as she says something to him to the effect of a trying to be like his mom and then he very briefly goes into this state of psychosis and she just slowly pops the door open and just steps out and he sees and it's not like this ironic or aha or gotcha moment it's just incredibly anticlimactic and again it's another symptom of where I think this movie and emite collectively lost the vision of the possibilities of just staying in that Arena and saying well how can this be a situation where not only one it's intense because the the character is being watched over by essentially 30,000 people and then secondly how do we root for this person knowing what we know about them that's I that's plenty interesting enough and I thought there would be so much possibility to experiment visually in this kind of concert setting and then you'd have plenty of possibilities with run-ins with security run-ins with maybe other parents or maybe he has to kill somebody inside the venue to keep his cover so many things like that could have happened but that's just kind of ushed aside for well no let's have him kind of just hop skip and jump his way out and then make the whole second or at least the whole third act this pop star flirting him and and and getting his goat pretty much you know you you mentioned before too you've worked with high-profile famous people and just the simple talking one-on-one in a green green room would not happen without security pres how about her disappearing for the remainder of the night with her limousine driver nobody goes looking for her nobody tries to get in contact with her at all she just kind of winds up at his home having a slice of pie and everything's hunky dory there's no effort made to say hey what happened to what happened to the the millionaire famous pop star that all these people showed up for that was at this concert and also we didn't wind up finding the killer at all what's the deal and not to mention there's there's so many things to unpack with that like because it's funny uh it was like when I worked for the rock who I mean is one of the biggest stars on the planet and I I didn't get to talk to him personally and part of that was that he is surrounded all day by at least five to 10 people so he's got a a former like Green Beret that watches his every move and makes sure that he's safe then he's got two personal assistants and he's got his social media assistant then he has his person that takes the pictures for his social media so he has around 10 people at any given time around him when he's going from point A to point B to shoot something or whatever a a person like this would have the same kind of Entourage around them so not not not just their one like security guy they'd have all their people that run their dayto day and that just poof they go away and then not to mention on top of that she's part of this massive FBI sting like she's she's in on the on the on the on the jig right and so she would have the entire intelligence apparatus around her and then all of a sudden it's just she just plucked out a thin air like nothing has happened and oh sure I I'll drive off my route even though I probably have to get on a plane the second I leave this Arena no way I'll go over to the uh I'll go over to the antagonist house and I'll have yeah teen crumpets with them it's I and again I'm somebody who's very forgiving of logic issues in movies but there was just a point where and and this isn't as me this isn't me saying it as somebody that's just worked with high-profile people it's just just who would even believe this chick for one second obviously she feels unsafe and she's trying to uh save face and trying to figure out how she can pin him down but who would comply with this the limo driver wouldn't nobody would no it's very difficult to F like to comprehend that M Knight after so many movies and working for I think every single Studio every single major Studio that's left right we got uh Disney this is Warner Brothers I think he might have worked for Sony at one point was it after Earth the Will Smith movie probably yeah yeah something along those and you know I don't know who did Airbender but this is a guy who's been firmly planted in the industry since the 90s and he knows it better than anyone I I he's just kind of operating I guess as the person who who handled the script under the assumption that the audience is clueless and dumb and that you know I I think he's the Primo example of a director who fumbles great Concepts almost every single time old was a similar situation where I really enjoyed the Twilight Zone nature of what that was and then by the end of it I was like okay this is how you chose to to end it I know we talked about it where he had two young actors playing the characters that managed to survive the whole ordeal in old and he swaps them out with two older actors of zero note instead of just throwing some old age makeup on was it Nat wolf or whoever was playing the lead character and the sister or girlfriend it's been a while since I've watched old folks that that one I actually enjoyed and I just forgave a couple of the choices that that he made and then I thought mostly in that one for me uh just some of the acting from the lead actors who were not typically leading people which was I think in one instance a good choice from him uh I think was just a little subpar it seemed like TV actors trying to take a big swing for film acting but Josh hartnet is not that guy he's very capable he's always been uh a strong at least supporting character and then when he's had the opportunity to lead he's he's pretty good he's always been a fairly charismatic guy and I think he's the only thing that keeps this movie from sinking any lower for me or even from a general audience because he I know you say at points his performance is bad I I think it's just the writing right no no no I let let me be clear about that because I don't think it's bad because he can't act I think it's bad because he was going for something and he trusted ight and ight didn't deliver on the other half of that he didn't he didn't help help him get to the Finish Line with what he was trying to do and so I don't I don't fault Josh Harton at all for his performance in this movie I F M night for not doing what was necessary to make it work because clearly they had agreed upon okay this is what the character is going to behave like and deliver lines like and I think in the right context in in the right uh editing style that does gang busters and for this movie it comes in funny and it doesn't really do much else it goes funny to what are you doing why are you why why are you handling this social exchange this way and it could have been great it could have been a lot better maybe not great it could have been a lot better it's just to me that um I think if har Net's not there I I think this movie sinks even further he he he levels this movie up with his natural kind of Charisma to where you almost believe it for a good chunk of the movie and again if let's let's hone in on this because I really think the the structure of the plot and of the writing is where this falls apart because everything else is still holds up great cinematography and uh they shot it on super 35 and you can really see that image quality and that image texture which makes it a lot of fun just to look at but um in terms of the plot structure you would almost buy it if a lot of these Goofy voices were still in there and it gave hartnet a reasonable vehicle to let this character navigate this whole situation but when it passes off the reins from him again to the lady Raven character the audience their faith in the in the story and in the performance is betrayed in my opinion because now it it becomes someone else's movie and and and again like you said seica night shamalan she's she's fine there there's nothing wrong with anything she does performance-wise but it's very clearly shown that at a certain point of the movie hartnet himself and the Cooper character is even cast aside to where you might think ah well this could be some kind of fun character study but they don't dig deep enough into the character of Cooper so what you're given is like we've kind of agreed a surface level interpretation of a serial killer that's trying to get by with a family in the modern world but everything Haron it does is uh is I think Betrayed at in the script and it's funny completely getting into the script uh ight has been really excited about this movie probably the most excited I've seen him about a movie he's made in a while let me tell you not to interrupt you I was watching him do an interview on one of these YouTube channels that had interviewed Taran previously and they brought up oh you know we talked to Tarantino and he's starting to feel like once upon a time in Hollywood was just so good that he better not even really make a 10th film a 10th and final film because maybe he should just go out on top and ight was like yeah I've been actually thinking that as well with trap I think maybe I might not be able to make a better movie than trap maybe this is it for maybe actually just ended here and I was like but uh what I was uh discom po at hearing that that he would even think that I mean I'm glad he's got his confidence up because I'd rather a stupidly confident M Night making big budget Studio movies than a low confidence and also shitty M Night like avatar The Last Airbender era M night knowing he's really just making total pieces of [ __ ] but I mean it's a ridiculous notion anyway sorry what were you about to go on with well the funny thing was he he's been he was promoting it online for weeks and and giving tidbits of information of behind the scenes oh this is what we did for this and we shot it this way and one of the things that he really latched on to that he wanted people to know he said well I want you guys all to know that this was the fastest script I had ever written I [ __ ] I he's like I wrote it in five months and he's like I just breeed through it and me and and You by extension I mean I write a lot and um if I'm doing it full-time five months is a long time for me to get through even a couple drafts um so initially I said that's the that's the fastest you've ever written something and then additionally like you just said I see some of the choices and then I see kind of just how it devolves into this mush by the end and I said well yeah of course you wrote it faster than anything else you gave up on the main plot and you just said you know what this is sela's movie She's she's she's gonna take the Reigns it feels like a first draft of a script these kinds of issues that we're talking about the stupidity in the writing that's things that you would typically iron out with subsequent drafts and so for him to not have figured that out as such a veteran filmmaker and screenwriter again he started as a screenwriter before he started directing he was a work for hire guy who what did he do he did like 10 Things I Hate About You steuart Little Stuart Little he ghost penned a lot of scripts in the 90s for these big movies that were successful and this feels just like a dumb early draft of a script but you know the idea for trap came about from two things and this is really the problem it was him wanting to do a Purple Rain style concert film and he realized oh I could just do that for my daughter because she's an R&B singer she's not the director I almost watched by the way Watchers on HBO Max which is not oh it's a total waste do not see it yeah the trailer had the same exact Vibe as all the M might movies I've disliked which is you got something interesting hold on one second I'm just realizing two movies in one year that ight ushed in both of his daughters into the scene maybe he was using trap as a facade for something else um because between Watchers which quick review on that a total dud they got a good cinematographer and that's it it's em night's daughter doing a take on an Irish Celtic folk tale and uh no it goes together like M night's daughter and an Celtic folk tail go together like lamb and tuna fish um so there's that and and then this one with a ca's performance and and highlighting her for more than half the movie now I'm seeing what was going on this year yeah and I wanted to build the dynasty this year and I'm sorry to interrupt but I just put those two things together I guess he was successful at you know trap when it came out opening weekend I don't think that the box office was impressive but when I looked it up before the show it had a budget of 30 million it wound up making 70 million during its run in theaters now obviously still in theaters it probably will get another week or two so it might pull in another five maybe even 10 mil and then uh you know video on demand and Blu-ray sales it's going to turn a profit like like uh after marketing and everything it they usually say make three times what what you spent on it but he's again I credit him and this is why has card blanch and didn't have to do another draft is he's paying for the movie out of pocket and he's producing so he has nobody to answer to even from the studios um he's going to make a profit on this and in a sense I'm happy because I like how entrepreneurial he is and uh it's a real Testament to how much he loves film making and and the value that he puts on his Creative Vision even when he even when he misses um so I do hope it turns a a profit and I mean it already is but it's just uh yeah even for oh I guess I guess I don't want to Trail off too long you were going to make a point about it well I was going to say between that and then watchers from my experience before I even knew that was his daughter originally had good word of mouth like girls I had worked with at uh photography studio were talking about that movie and how it was good and scary and you know it's all gen Z so I'm like I can completely dismiss whatever you're saying right now but people were still talking about it and you don't really I mean honestly for the most part I don't experience people talking about movies unless really huge so for that to come up and then I threw the trailer for Watchers on and to what I was saying before the trailer exhibited the same problem as any M Night movie which is that okay I'm on board for what you're showing me here at the beginning and then the longer it went on I was like I don't want to sit down and watch this I'm I think I'm good here and so I didn't watch it although maybe it would have been interesting to compare that with with trap U trap excuse me and uh have both M might daughters as a as a subject for a show well I can I can contrast to that really quickly and a lot of people would think I'm I'm trashing trap I'm actually not part of me enjoyed things but it's it was just that it was such a let down for me that's that's where I'm at with it too I think a bad M Night movie is still a better watch than a bad other person's movie so ight I you know because he does swing for the fences and he has a particular house formula that I enjoy I still like his failures more than I would like maybe just a standard good enough film so I didn't feel like okay maybe I shouldn't have spent $48 on movie tickets at this shitty Little Theater because they overprice it on M night's trap I still felt like all right well I want to go see an M Night movie in theaters and that's the best thing I could really for from him or from a lot of directors really yeah and then for me it's um and this is I guess where we can take a positive turn on the movie because I I think we've made the the problems with the film very pronounced and there's a number of them but to kind of touch on the contrast between something like Watchers which is which is something that wants to be way more art housee and you can tell that ight kind of just took his daughter's hand and walked her through this from day one all the way to to rap but let her keep some creative influence uh something like that that wants to be Meandering and and Artful and something contemplative and then ight who says no uh my movies have their own distinct identity I like to have fun with them even in the more serious ones there's always some tongue and cheek like like some of the humor and signs and then uh even yeah I mean signs is probably the best example when the the tongue and cheek in The Comedy Works well but this one at least has an energy to it you never get bored watching it that's that's the one thing the the only scenes that do Teeter on boring is when they zero in on lady Raven and you have to switch gears and begin to root for her which you don't want to do but the movie never gets truly unexciting whereas the Watchers I think put me I think it put me to sleep twice at different points in the film whereas this one like you said it's a bad movie for ight to make but it's still more entertaining than the other two movies I saw that day which were blink twice and uh strange darling and strange darling was was actually better uh you said hold on I remember you said that blink twice opens with a trigger warning were you making a joke or was that real no no there's this there's a title card that says hey just saying couple things happen in this so you know if you don't if you don't like watching in movies maybe don't watch this which I think is so funny because and this is no shaded Zoe Kravitz and she seems to be a reasonably capable actress she likes white boys I'll give her a pass that's true yeah and uh well anyway uh no it's it's just and I mean maybe this is kind of where somebody like ight is still a Bastion of Hope for film because as opposed to somebody like Zoe Kravitz who comes on scene and nepotism of course she gets creative rain to make a movie and has the gal I think to completely subvert the whole idea of filmmaking by putting a trigger warning on her movie that's never something you're going to see with ight and he's unrelenting in his own authenticity whether you like it or not and he will pay out of pocket to make sure that you see the version he's always wanted and that's I mean that's where I that's why I'm always excited when a film from is announced and that's why I think most people kind of like how you mentioned you heard some people talk maybe it was the Watchers they were talking about but it's why even your Normie uh your Normie kind of jaded disillusioned movie goer because now even seeing films is a subculture which is ridiculous to me um your your jaded individual of today still knows his name has some weight to it and that's why people still talk about his movies and it's um it's that's why it's still fun and that's why even though trap has all these critical issues you still come out out of it saying eh yeah it was it was dumb but at least I had fun at at times right I think the best thing I can say about it if I'm forgiving of all of the very sloppily conducted plot points is that it feels like an amusement park ride and it's to what you said it's definitely one of the more entertaining films I've probably seen at the theater this year so I'll give it credit for that um you know there was a I was going to bring this up before so originally he was contemplating the idea of doing a Purple Rain concert film style movie and then he tailored that to his daughter because of her music career he's the best dad ever first of all for that and then there's this other thing that happened in 1985 that was a sting oper ation where they lured in maybe it was a sex offender they do I know they do that with conventions and whatnot even still and they will bag like 30 of these guys but there was a there was some type of um event that they had lured a criminal to under the guys of oh you can get free Super Bowl tickets and they nabbed him that way and he had an idea for that and so clearly everything we're saying here is what happened it's he grabbed these two clashing ideas tried to merge them together or maybe he just got bored with the second one maybe he realized in the in the script he was like I can only do so much here my my brain's only coming up with so many ideas for what he can get himself into although it kind of seems like if you're really sat on if you committed to it it's endless you could have you could have figured out so much with that that could have been really interesting to unfold and where it winds up going in that action film form where there's moments that should be high stakes that you don't feel any sort of drama or conflict like somehow his family has no idea that he's a serial killer okay fine I'll believe that I'll bite then he brings home the pop star okay I already don't like this but we're here I'll play along with it and then they all just kind of weirdly turn on him and they don't question at all when he has that moment where uh she nabs his phone and runs off to the bathroom and it's that moment where boy the the real Panic is if uh if you feel the the familiarity of someone picking up your phone that you don't want picking up your phone is they're going find some naughty things on there they're not supposed to be F you know that type of thing and he tears the door or he's about to tear the door down he's trying to get in she's live stream she's on Instagram or whatever the Hell she's doing she's watching the little Korean man well yeah if I Can Shed light on that for one second this is a total personal thing for me I know the world we live in right now but I adamantly vehemently hate when films rely on phones or modern technology as a shortcut to move the plot forward and it happens here because what do she do like you said she nabs his phone she say oh let's take a selfie with the daughter and she nabs his phone goes in the bathroom does an Instagram live is that technically logical yes I hate it in a cinematic form because it just it's a shortcut to solve so many problems and I think from a writing standpoint any writer today should challenge themselves to avoid that as much as humanly possible and that's where ight where he had an hour and a half before this to I think craft a more clever kind of cat Mouse game if you wanted to go that direction and he's just it comes down to oh they want to take a selfie and she snatches the phone frees the guy does an Instagram live and that's what gets everybody to turn on him and that that to me just takes the air out of any of the tension that you have uh that maybe he will do something to her maybe maybe he's going to kill this this pop star but no that the power of of the grid so to speak it saves the day his character starts to remind me not in performance but in what he's able to get away with he starts to remind me of Heath Ledger's Joker in the dark KN where yeah he's he's now driving the limousine and he's dressed up like a cop and then he gets out and they shoot the you know he's doing so much in a short period of time and actually there's a tunnel that leads over to the neighbor's yard that nobody ever noticed in 40 years oh all right and then he gets back in and he's this master sleuth but then he gets caught and they feel bad for him and he nabs the little [ __ ] thing that gets him out of of his handcuffs all right all right um it's just it I think I just can't get over the wasted potential of the movie and that's the biggest insult and the the most demeaning element when watching it as an audience member is the trailer even promised something that was better than what was delivered and maybe not sign I don't feel like it was a total deception like something like suicide squad back in 2016 or maybe the trailer in 2015 where it's like these are two separate movies but it just I don't know it it was uh it was a big Miss from M night not the worst M night but oh yeah far from the worst it just it just could have been a lot of things it could have been on one hand it could have been a very claustrophobic kind of tense Thriller that he leaned into the the the hardest and the most uh hitchcockian elements and made something very tense and didn't have any of the levity or could have been a fun housee movie essentially that would have been a great possibility in exploring all the nooks and crannies of this kind of venue and what could somebody do to Spring themselves out of trouble and then have a little tongue and cheek humor but but still keep that undercurrent of of tension because Shyamalan can be a master of suspense but instead what yeah what we've kind of agreed has happened has been he opted out of all that and just said well we're just going to we're just to drive this baby wherever it goes and and and we'll just finish it and that's that's really how it feels by the end of the movie that maybe you because you touched on it as well maybe there was a point where he said I don't know what to do anymore and it just feels like he kind of gave up on the movie at a certain point and it listly moves on until it finally ends and that that's just what we're left with but all the while somehow whether it's because of Josh hartnett's performance whether it's because of M Knight's competency as a director even when he makes these colossal mistakes there's something that keeps you going through it uh certainly more than again anything else that's really contemporary so somehow there there's these interesting elements but for most audiences I think well I would actually say for most audiences this might be a decent diversion for guys like us that are so steeped into films and really try to have a nuanced and uh insightful look into things there there's a lot of disappointments here but on the other on the other hand I could totally see anybody kind of maybe a young guy like wants to watch a movie with his girlfriend like Netflix style thing at home this is one that I think would actually be maybe a decent diversion for the average viewer they'd still have their they would they would still have their problems with it but I think it's a movie that could get a lot of forgiveness from a general audience you know it's kind of impressive to that it managed to recoup its budget and then some I just realized and maybe it's just because these movies have been hanging on to their theatrical screenings for way longer than normal I think it either opened against or the following weekend of Deadpool and Wolverine and twisters and so it finished third place when it opened a month ago and it doesn't it feels like longer than that but it finished in third place about a month ago uh making back about 15 I think it was 15 million yeah uh wait yeah 15 million 15.5 million so it got halfway to what it needed uh to start to turn a profit if we ignore okay the theaters actually take half and yada yada yada I've coined 2024 as the year of the punished aour and this might be an example of that not in box office clearly because it it it got over the Finish Line probably just narrowly what would be considered safely but the reviews are reflecting that and uh it reminds me of because you mentioned he staked his own money on this and this is what his company is what bleeding edge or blinding Edge blinding Edge that's right have you been able to see Horizon oh yeah yeah I caught it Horizon's a similar situation where Brothers decided to put a lot on one particular filmmaker and his risky idea although I don't think that they contributed nearly as much to Horizon as they did to trap and it might have been the same amount of money that was waged I can't recall what what were your thoughts on Horizon I liked it I mean it I think it has its issues only if you look at it as an episodic entry but Matt I you know you mentioned it just a second ago you said the the tortured aour and I can't for the life of me see the effort that cner put into the film and the the actual love and the dedication he put into the film I mean and he left that pile of dog crap show Yellowstone to do this and that to me that's an easy paycheck because as bad as that show is uh he could have kept riding the wave and collecting the big paycheck and he said you know what TV sucks I'm going back to movies and I don't care I'm going to burn the bridge and give up that paycheck spend my own money to make a movie I want to see in a movie I think needs to be made it's a little melodramatic at times and I think um it kind of plots along but I can't lie and say for a minute I wasn't entirely engrossed in the movie and the production and just the the overall scope of what was going on so it's not Dances with Wolves but it's still good and and it's disappointing a little bit that audiences didn't seem to latch on to that but I think that's because like kind of like how I said a few minutes ago the Casual audience member today is just so jaded and event films like Horizon that are these big budget event western films they're they don't carry the same gravity anymore because of the for one the average attention span of the modern kind of typical movie goer and then people don't rally around films the same way unless it's a niche and luckily I think in the in the Thriller sphere that's in Thrillers and horror a genre that ight very much owns there's still some excitement around that because people still like the the amusement park kind of ride of the emotional ups and downs of those kinds of movies but um I think with Horizon it's just it's with with an audience that is is just I think out of time and cner I think really wanted to and well he really said he wanted to bring people back to the movies and it was just a time in people that weren't ready for it and fortunately Shyamalan still has the clout to to do that like we said a few minutes ago yeah unfortunately he didn't but I guess Hugh Jackman did 60-year-old Hugh Jackman uh which I I listen I'm an offender there and I kind of feel bad in retrospect because I knew damn this is still contributing to the Disney House of Mouse and what's the next headline I read after Deadpool and Wolverine overthrows The Passion of the Christ is the top R-rated movie I see oh they killed somebody at Disney World by poisoning his food with something he was allergic to and because he signed up for Disney plus you can't suo them which is [ __ ] it's insane it's a crazy situation but you know I mean I I saw Horizon opening night and there were four people in my theater now granted I did see a 11:30 at night screening of this 3our plus movie right and I was maybe one of half the theater that was awake by the end of it because we didn't get out until like 2: in the morning 2:30 in the morning and there were just as many people that showed up for Reagan which I saw I went to go see Reagan the other day I'll be seeing that this weekend I believe but when people aren't excited to see theer come on no it was listen it was it was not it was not good you're not I don't think you're going to be you might have something kind to say about something because you're a more generous critic than I am with at times but I really regret it I mean I I guess maybe I regret of not a correct word but it was probably the worst movie I've seen in the theater this year I'll say that I'll definitely say that wait I I would be totally on board do they do a segment where they play uh the rap and Ronnie song from the 80s you know that one right no I don't know that one see if Hans was here I would have him pull it up immediately but no they don't do that I mean what what I'll give it credit for is they had a budget they got J Phil Collins Genesis and Guns and Roses are on the soundtrack Dennis Quaid gives a good performance but the writing is bad and the person who wrote the script didn't have an idea of what 3A structure was and also John voyet is a complete monster in the fil I'm writing a piece for it right now on my substack jellis dos substack outcom I'm dropping we're recording this early in the 12:36 a.m. September 1st Sunday it will be dropping later today for my Sunday reader and uh go check that out but I'm going to be talking about right-wing films in general and the misfires and successes in that particular genre and Reagan in my opinion is a big old Miss it's not my son Hunter my you know was that you know it's not that movie but it's not uh on the level of um you know an S Craig Zer film oh boy you see I'm not gonna I'm not gonna play this during the episode but I'm gonna check this out Jake just sent me the link to the rap and Rodney song that he referenced there rap and Rodney Reagan yes sry rap and Rodney is Rodney Dangerfield yeah that's when yeah he did he did a rap Comedy album I I remember that one oh boy uh but yeah I I I thought I was going to see it but if you're cautioning against it maybe don't let me don't let me steer you away I'm sure they could use the money I listen I I I mean ially see it for free because on A-list I just I pay a flat fee a month and I essentially get I go to the movies three times a week for free after that so so I don't know how it calculates out but it's like I'm literally spending zero dollars to see it uh so that's kind of cool well and then if you got two hours I will say it's a little too long but I still like when movies that are clearly not done by the Hollywood studio even if they're total piles of [ __ ] wind up coming out looking successful so I wouldn't mind if that happened but now I'm starting to see this counter narrative because it has bad reviews on Rotten Tomatoes I think it has like a 15% and the conservative audience wants it to be a success wants it to be good and so the audience rating is now like 100% And I'm seeing you know these X accounts that make their bread and their bread and butter is just going oh well the leftist said this the Liberals said this so it must be this actually and it's like no this is not a case where they're maligning it just because of politics it's actually just not good it doesn't feel it doesn't feel like a workable film but I think it's interesting that it exists I guess and that it came out and I don't like how Reagan's been turned into this villain of modern history by people who weren't even alive for his presidency this I think I saw you pointed out it was funny BEC I know exactly when I saw this you you had posted something on X about um like you must have heard it in passing but something like a like some 22-year-old in 2024 America saying like groaning like Ronald Reagan and it was so funny because you and I live almost 2,000 miles apart from each other within 48 Hours of you posting that the 48 hours before I had an exact conversation with somebody who at the time was I think 22 going on 23 and she had said oh my God I hate Ronald Reagan and because there was a a documentary on him in the corner and I said what do you know about Ronald re yeah I like listen you at least I was around to remember when he died this person literally was maybe maybe just getting out of diapers when when good old Alzheimer's sent Ronnie off to the pasture um it's just funny how like and this is the thing um that I think isn't funny about a movie like this Reagan film and then a movie like Horizon 2 these kind of biopics of of of people in high status like that like presidents were usually as commonplace when you and I were growing up and then these kind of event westerns like Horizon and now it's somehow they've become Antiquated just because of how I think again how jaded and disillusioned the average even gez almost even the average Millennial now has be has become with films or or just seeing a story that may or may not confirm their biases I mean that was a big thing with Horizon too wasn't there was a big stink of about some of the representation of uh of tribal Warfare and cner to his credit actually stood up and said listen I'm not here to sugarcoat anything and if you have an issue with that like you're you're just going to have to move on I guess and and Horizon is as benign as it gets when it comes to any sort of ethnic or racial con like he throws black people in to moments where they would definitely not be and then there's also this little very mini storyline with Chinese rail workers adopting the prostitutes son so it's like okay you get a little flavor of everything I I but who cares about any of that I really enjoyed the World building of horizon when it comes to Reagan and what you're talking about here the idea of him is this Boogeyman they only know three things they know he prevented people from getting their HIV medication he uh his wife n loved giving [ __ ] like who the [ __ ] can prove that Lov giving [ __ ] in her Youth and then uh you know he also dumped schizophrenic homeless people out onto the streets by closing the uh you know the the mental facilities that they were residing in okay so they know those three things this man won 49 out of 50 states in his second election he was you know the way that I put it and I I talk about Reagan a lot in the article then I'm going to be in later today Reagan for the longest time was kind of the Ronald McDonald of America he embodied so much of the 20th century Spirit he was a cowboy he was an actor he had been divorced and he was popular he was a well likee guy president yes yeah and now you know we've taken this turn where to be patriotic is viewed as a conservative value now and it wasn't that way before 2016 and Frank you go on Facebook you see people's aunts and uncles who were saying hey lock up Trump trump should die why didn't that bullet Miss Trump and you'll see probably an American flag or something that would go contradictory of whatever you might assume somebody who would vote in the opposite direction would go but in their head they've worked it out that way but this younger generation the Gen Z some Millennials to have any sort of pride in your country or your country's history is just now viewed as rightwing and I don't think that's the case or it has to be the case well and you know what's really interesting and this actually ties back into trap the subject of this conversation the funny thing is out of all people and and I've been saying this at least in private conversations maybe not on on like movies or my old podcast for years has been it's fascinating to me that emite is somebody that understands that and he always has and he injects that into his movies even if it's um even if it's consciously and it's fascinating to me because he's obviously I believe he's actually an immigrant I think he moved here when he was maybe three years old but at the very least he's a very ethnic guy whose parents were from a different place and uh obviously like people put a punt on his name but he's this guy and he always has in his films he he boasts this very Americana view of day-to-day life and that's one of the intangible things I've always liked about his movies and it's here in trap what I enjoy that he does here and almost from the get-go in this film and that he does in all of his other films is he shows the world in really this kind of Pennsylvania Philadelphia bubble he likes to live in which I think is doubly cool uh he shows it as it is he shows people as they are he doesn't show this tragic or over romanticized version of the of the country or even of Pennsylvania or Philadelphia at large he shows it for what it is and you can tell that he has a genuine love for it and it it's it speaks subconsciously in all of his movies and I think that's something that hopefully like like you were kind of saying with with audiences right now and just again this this weird kind of social Paradigm that's come over them where even the slightest reverence toward your neighbors or your country seems overtly conservative or something like that emite has this language and the subtext in his films that I think allows people to really really look look around and kind of immerse themselves in what's good about their society I mean I know that's kind of a long diet tribe but I've really noticed it as an ongoing theme in all of his movies probably tracing back to the first time I saw signs and then I've paid attention to it especially since his big comeback he's always had this this kind of quality in in this U I think this this reverence this unspoken reverence that he has in his work maybe you have yeah no I would totally second that I would coign that completely and it's something that I think has informed his work and gives it such a unique flare I mean we haven't had a Pennsylvania filmmaker since what George Romero who loves to go back to that location for almost everything he does unless you count um David Lynch but he he latched on to his Northwest routs because he grew up in Pittsburgh I think but he spent some time in the Northwest and he latched on more to that but he he's a Pennsylvania guy yeah he worked in the industrial industry I believe when he was starting and made a racer head I saw that you got into Twin Peaks recently which is like 40 years too late but better late than never what was the hold up I just oh gez life was the hold up and I think just the Litany of things I was told I needed to see the Litany of things that were currently coming out that I wanted to see and then just between uh oh jeez this just a whirlwind of life my friend I never got the time to sit down and dedicate the energy to watch something like this and then when I finally did it's just be it's now become a part of my personality for the better I feel better for having watched it and now I'm a super fan I got watch did you get through all of it I got to watch the return but uh I like it's next next to my queue I'm literally days away from starting it wow I you know I kind of spoiled I get to watch it all at once yeah it was such a moment back in I think it was what 2017 that the return came out see Twin Peaks took me a remember when it was coming out and and everybody talking about it it was just it was a huge moment yeah I mean Twin Peaks had a second wind in the Tumblr era where people started grabbing Netflix Stills in the caption and it was memd in that form and I tried to watch it twice and it didn't connect with me and then later on I think I had finally like penetrated blue velvet I was like into that movie I enjoyed that movie I gave Twin Peaks another shot I was like okay I understand David Lynch's world now and his style and this comes easy and I want to marathoning the first two seasons then the return is announced actually you know what no and then I watched fir walk did you check out fir walk with me yeah loved it okay loved it fir walk with me seems to be uh you know people who who really love Twin Peaks sometimes do not like firew walk with me it's gotten this reappraisal as of recent but uh even in the in the 90s when it premiered originally people thought he was suing his own dick with that movie and we're not responding well to it and even now I've show I've like shown people firew walk with me and it's uh tepid you know but the the return I think you have to first set your expectations aside that he's not going to give you what you want oh yeah 100% but um there's a there's a sort of pleasure in understanding that by a Midway point of the series because as soon as I mean I don't want to anything for you but I kind of know what's going on but I I have sh away from what do you think you know uh there so I'm aware that Cooper is back but he's not really back okay all right that's all you really need to know that's all you really need to know all right so on that note watching that over because it wasn't 17 we I think there were 17 episodes but it wasn't 17 weeks maybe there's 18 episodes they did two episodes a week and so it became this 2hour of Television that you would tune into on Showtime and about halfway through that you go oh this isn't going to happen by the end this is not you're not going to get what you want here coup's not going to be fully coup and so you have you know I wind up really liking his second form the form you get in most of the series and really thinking that was a hilarious character and it's made me want to go back many times and there's some episodes there you could just one oneoff watch and their great Cinema on their own so I I envy you that you can watch that for the first time all over again because it was such a a joyous occasion when that premiered and then how it wound up ending was perfectly David Lynch so actually speaking of um Twin Peaks and of of Cooper that movie blinked twice I saw from Zoe Kravitz not the worst movie ever made but the most redeeming quality is Kyle mclin is in it oh I had no idea he was in that movie yeah in a small role um so it's yeah that that's a treat as a fan because I'm getting through it I'm like ah I know what this movie wants to be it's not as smart as it thinks it is oh cool Cooper yeah yeah but yeah I I'm I'm stoked to watch that and whether you want to credit it as a Lynch as a pencil pania filmmaker there seems to be a very specific kind of filmmaker that comes from Pennsylvania and it looks like the likes of people like Lynch Romero and even Shyamalan all have these tongue-and-cheek quirks so it's got to be a thing with it's got to be a thing with these Pennsylvania types maybe it's just being in the suburbs but also being like within a relatively close proximity to the city so you get exposed to the art and the culture even if you're kind of far away from it I that people are going to see as you and I start to make more films I think people are going to get an actual sense of these kind of Boston bred perspectives because I mean I have some wild and crazy ideas outside that framework but I do have some ideas that take place in the confines of where like you and I grew up and I think people are going to see that it's way different than what something like that piece of crap movie The instigators tried to s instigators I listen I enjoyed it enough for an Apple for an apple plus movie I think it was kind of I don't know I know you hated it you despise that movie oh yeah it it was again if if you guys want to follow me on the old letter box it is a chat GPT movie about Boston I I couldn't hate it just because listen the same day I watched that movie I went into North quiny and I walked over to I thought I was going to pick up a a dinner from my mom's favorite dinner spot in quiny and I was going to surprise her and then I found out oh they're closes and they're in Greece for two months so that's a nogo okay but that exact location turns up in the instigators and it's it's frequently featured throughout and there's like a bar that Casey Affleck works for there I was just like wow I just lived all this this is me this is my life I went to yeah I went to school there I know it brought back all uh the good memories of living there but then I just thought this is so phony this is every line is so in you would think they they must have paid a ton of money to to Affleck and Damon for this because yeah they like going back home and even though they were kind of preppy Cambridge boys they weren't really like they didn't come up the way you and I did uh everything is so forced every line is so oh yeah say this like oh yeah it's almost as stupid as trap I'll say that trap I think is a Dumber movie but the instigators similarly there are leaps of logic in the film that these characters take and it doesn't make sense and some characters are in it and then just like who cares what happens even though their name actors like they clearly spent a lot of money on the film and then didn't bother I mean honestly it's the same same deal as trapping that it feels like a first draft it feels like you didn't bother to polish up the script here you just had the names and you went ahead because you could and it was the same guy who did Roadhouse earlier this year which I thought was a trip I really enjoyed Road oh yeah yeah that was fun the the funny thing is uh the kindest review I could give to the instigators it's like if and this is a tease to everybody out there in the audience is uh the instigators is like if you did a spoof of Mass state Lottery no I don't even put it in the same sent in that way I I would say it's far away from Mass state Lottery even as a parody because and here's the thing I I'll give tidbits to to the audience about MSL is uh one of msl's strengths that I like the most after seeing a number of cuts of the film are it's real down and dirty kind of look that you get into the nooks of the Boston area that every that no other Boston movie has shown so if you like that kind of atmosphere we've got a lot of it in here uh that is seamless because we we shot this gorilla style we were going out in the street we were going into Dunkin Donuts and not we were shooting there uh whereas the instigators is like this big budget spoof of all that and it's it's just I I just don't believe a single frame of that whereas when we were shooting MSL the moments that feel the realest and that feel the most tense and authentic in MSL are partly because of the way we shot in in the performance and everything but really just because we're just out there on cold ass nights in the winter shooting this for real and and it just comes from the elements whereas the the instigators is this big budget fabricated pile of pile of fooy a bunch of phony baloney I thought they were going to make references to Old spuckies Pizza down the street from where we filmed oh wow MSL yeah see yeah that's the kind of Shameless like crap that was just in this 2hour movie that was just just entirely like well I listen I liked it I'll recommend the instigators but uh I think listen I understand your point I I would agree with it and if I wasn't uh maybe so nostalgic for for quiny and Boston I would be harsher towards it but I don't know I I'm nostalgic for I'm nostalgic for the world that existed when we were actually there it's long gone that that you know that that was crazy for me I don't know the last time you went to quiny but I checked it out a couple of weeks ago and there's so much of it that is just totally redone in the shape of a lesser Boston they tried to make it look like Boston Common essentially the businesses are either completely just corporate or they're Chinese that's new and walking down the strip that I used to work on I used to work for a Dermatology Clinic um and then up to my summer school where I had to attend for two years in a row because I was just like I'm not showing up to class I don't [ __ ] care I'll I'll just tough it out for six weeks at summer school don't care it's so different now it's wildly different and even the center of quiny they were having some Festival that was very crunchy Portland Vermont Bernie Sanders type was that yeah the the fat like blue hair chick that you put on blast on yeah I kind of feel bad about that because you know standing next to John Adams yeah just resting on her smartphone but I don't understand what what compels these These Girls these big Hogs of women uh to just walk around with their stomachs fully exposed I mean there used to be something called Shame there used to be something called modesty like even if you thought oh wow someone used to be something called bulimia that's what yes yes yes these things out of fashion apparently how did that become uh Lindy you know that's what I'm wondering so uh any anyway we got to wrap up this show here because almost I was just really happy to be back so I wanted to kind of get into a few things and and make my presence known now that I've taken the crown back yeah now now you're number one although you know we've been doing so many shows with Mony Jones and eggy that I feel like it's getting pretty pretty high up you you and Jerry might have some competition now just because they arranged so many episodes with us based off these horrible YouTuber you should have been on for the channel awesome films that we covered that was really traumatizing to sit through those that [ __ ] me up um there there may be a time in place but I the the the mental recovery needed after watching channel awesome movies is I I don't know if my old age now I I don't know if I have the fortitude for it I might have to take drugs yeah I might have to get on some some crazy pills I didn't want to do that that might be the best way to uh tough it I think White knuckling it is really a recipe for all sorts of spiraling mental spiraling so I'm glad to be done with those although there might be like one or two lingering there I think there's a linkara film we're talking about we really get hard up for YouTuber movies but uh anyway Jake it's been a pretty big year for film making for for yourself and for myself you want to talk about what what is the plan with the shore are you going to be putting out um I know you've got something lined up for October right that you're thinking about and um you know you're going to be working on a short film soon what's what's the situation yeah so it's been it's been pretty cool we had a we had a short film that we did back in the spring that premiered down here in Dallas at a at a local Festival it did pretty well actually got great response uh you know I have my own issues with it of course but I it's the best thing that you have shot to date and it's visually terrific and I think you should definitely uh give it a give it a second run online because it's worth watching I think you did a great job with it great well we're we're looking at the possibilities of touring it around I'm just scrapping up the funds to kind of see if I can get it into markets around Texas and then Branch out and give it just give it a road show of some sort because there is a feature idea that I have ready to go with that film and with the resources that we have already like the location it it would make a fantastic feature so that's something i' I've got in the back pocket uh yeah and this next one I'm going to get to work on really soon I think uh actually by Monday I'll probably have a script locked but it's another kind of organized Festival going on in town here and the theme is 80s horror and what I want to do is um well without saying exactly what yet is man well I just want to make something really fun and uh making the I did last year for Halloween was one of the most fun times I had had shooting something in a while because we came off of uh MSL after a few legs of the shoot and then I was really busy working on other people's movies for for a number of years which was great getting in the experience but it made me miss just running out when I had the time and shooting uh shooting some some my own stuff so we did that last year and it was great I mean it was a crazy amount of work we shot it in 4 hours and uh turned out to be about 10 and a half minutes and it was a 48 Hour film from the second we started rolling cameras to when I put it out because I knew I needed out it out on Halloween we shot it on the 29th and I dropped it on Halloween day so we're going to have something else for this year luckily we'll have more time I've got about six seven weeks to make it then submit it and then hopefully we get uh some recognition at this local Festival again I know the organizers were really happy to get me back involved they really seem to like the last ones so and then just the general kind of community down here in the neighborhood has really rallied around the energy to make another and I have I have a couple ideas that I want to put into one short it'll be a bit ambitious I think but it's going to be a lot of fun so that's what's uh that's what's coming up next and I you know hopefully by Monday I've got the script locked because we're going to shoot it intermittently for the next probably five weeks yeah I mean that's all terrific I mean I I I'm really happy seeing you back to work in the director's chair because of that interim period where you were working on big budget movies real like serious uh organized sag Productions and what have you and now it's it's time to get back in the driver's seat and start coming up with stories and you know putting the pedal to the metal well there yeah there's no turning back now as far as I'm concerned this is this is is the only way forward and to to plug even more like the release of MSL there's been a lot of talks behind the scenes on that that I've been really excited about and I mean yeah it's just no turning back now so anything I can do to keep creating or to keep mobilizing what we're doing that's that's that's the only move that's it's the only chess chess move and we might both have movies that we're going to be directing in November I don't know we shouldn't speak about that for the time being because you never want to like Jinx what could be happening what could happen we'll see I think November is starting to build all this energy around it to be an important time a weirdly momentous month for this year so yeah election election season and then possible big projects on the fold that elections two projects Hans flying to America what else Thanksgiving I don't know there's a there's a lot that could be happening in November and I think it's going to be a very exciting time so long as all the right pieces fall into place which right now it doesn't look like that's going to be difficult to accomplish so let's keep our fingers crossed that it's a good important month and not a chaotic negative month I think it's going to be good though I think I have a it's going to be good don't quote me on that I now listen my my senses have told me before Joker 2 is going to be a musical which is oddly specific but if I'm wrong here don't hold it against me anyway uh you can follow Jake on X at theologist and what is your you want to plug your letter box or you want what else yeah yeah I've been trying to be more active on that because I hate all the Zoomers that are on it so if for nothing else follow me on there despite them yeah just it's um just Cinema ologist on litterbox I try to I I hate to be that dude that's like the second I see a movie I review it and go on there but I I want to add some balance to the what I what I think has been a a place that was started with good intentions but has since become a meme of itself the culture that it spawned I think is really gross and not something I'm a fan of and I try not to contribute to that although you know I I'm definitely guilty of writing humorous reviews on there I think sincerity is underrated but you need to have some sincerity but you need to have I I think that's the way people latch on to it if you have a take that's subversive but you you you paint it in something that somebody can stop and chuckle at I unfortunately I think that's the game you need because I started out on there writing very serious takes on what I thought of movies and um it's not I don't think yeah I think no you're you're right about that it because it is built for that it becomes not the spot for it because enough people will do that and no one's really visiting it for that reason they want little quippy reviews that are gonna go that's that's funny that's true I guess and that's how you get followers on there I would know because I have 606 followers on letter box it's pretty good I think I have a solid like 70 the 70 is not bad listen I've seen people on there who have like 30,000 I don't know how the hell they managed to do that but that's rare the idea of a high follower count on letter box is much more modest than what I I have 88 wow that's a bit more than I thought there you go 88 very important double digit number there how about that all right well uh on that note anyway trap I think we talked about it very well for a full hour you know exactly what you're in for if you listen to this episode and you haven't watched trap yet uh maybe we got to go back to M night maybe we got to check out I think there could be potential in doing split and glass as a double feature cuz I have never I haven't watched glass and I haven't watched knock at the cabin I haven't watched the last air bender or after there's still like enough in the ight U that is a blind spot for me that I haven't covered praying with anger Wide Awake actually you know what we were supposed to do Wide Awake the Ros o' donnal movie and I had it downloaded it took forever to download and then we didn't wind up doing it and that was the end of the M Night series until now so leave it to Rosie O'Donnell that fat pig she de derails everything everything I did watch her talk show when I was a boy though I will her best performance is in Tarzan as the voice of the little boy ape boy ape I want to name my son name uh she's she you know what she's good at she's good in I know this much is true which was an HBO limited series with Mark Ruffalo who I also so typically cannot stand but for real life reasons not for his acting he's usually pretty okay as an actor I can't stand him because he's 5'4 that's that's one of the he looks like he stinks I think that's the biggest thing for me he looks like he smells like a like a men's locker room I think yeah that well that's just called being Italian actually whoa okay we don't need Mediterranean Prejudice coming out in the 11th Hour of this podcast but uh all right we'll we'll we'll have you back on very soon maybe we'll do a year-end wrapup if you continue doing these triple features of movies like Reagan and DD on your trips to the AMC yeah yeah absolutely I I mean it's just good to be going back to the movies this much and like again if you can latch on to one of these kinds of memberships like whether you do Regal or AMC or Showcase Cinemas if they still have those they used to have that back home wow wow showcas is actually you know what they do have a showcase I went to go see alien Romulus at a at the one Showcase Cinemas that I know is still up in atam I massachus it might be but uh then Alamo Draft House came back because it was bought up by uh Sony so that could be good thing Alamo I might wind up doing because I I I've made an effort kind of like you to be like okay this year I'm going to try and see as many films in the theater if I have the option as possible I'm going to give my patronage to movies as frequently as I can because it does make a difference I went to go see a seven and a half hour Hitler movie at um in uh oh God where did it play [ __ ] where did it play I forget where it played but the experience of watching that rare film which hadn't been screened in something like 40 years over two nights going in okay three and a half hours this night three and a half hours this night it made a significant difference in the viewing experience because I tried to watch it it was called hour Hitler a film from Germany Francis Ford Copa technically produced it but retroactively he released it in America he gave it a venue and it's a very interesting film that is not like any movie I've ever seen before and I tried to watch it on my iMac here and bringing it up on the TV and it just I couldn't do it I couldn't sit and give my attention to it and having to be stuck in the theater and watching it and being so bored for hours of it you still retain a lot and you take away a lot even when you're bored to be bored is not necessarily a bad thing I'm not the first person to say that but it's true especially for a movie of that length you're going to want to take a nap at some point you might want to walk out of the theater some guy actually cracked open a beer 20 minutes into the first part of the movie and fell asleep and started snoring so that was the experience of our Hitler a film from Germany but it was a great great picture uh anyway all that to say that's also why I saw Reagan a couple of days ago is like when when am I going to have this experience I'm going to hate it extra if I watch it as an illegal download on my computer I might as well go sit in the theater and just take that feeling in let me see what this feels like to watch this movie in a theater and as bad as the movie was still it's fine it's a fine time wasn't I just just I think we should go out and see as many movies as we can and these kind of memberships if you can do them or if you can just afford to do the 20 bucks of a week to see a few movies or whatever uh see them because I don't I don't think we need to we need to keep that from being Antiquated I think a lot of a lot of people right now wouldn't mind that and that's the problem so let's keep going to the movies from being Antiquated that's that's my big PSA today it's a good closing line but unfortunately I always have the closing line and that has been movies for this week thank you for listening