Episode 259
Obsession (2026)
The highest grossing film made for under 1 million dollars since 1973's "Enter The Dragon", Curry Barker's directorial debut "Obsession," starring Inde Navarrette, Michael Johnston, Cooper Tomlinson, and Megan Lawless (as well as a special appearance by Andy Richter), has proven that people still want to go to the movies. As long as the movie is worth watching. Join us as we discuss the breakout hit's comprehensive dismantling of the "nice guy", incels, the importance and reality of consent, and the seemingly innumerable viewers that missed the point of this film entirely.
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Transcript
Evan: Hello, this is Evan from Left With Project. Before we get into today's episode,
Speaker:Evan: I wanted to briefly give a trigger warning.
Speaker:Evan: As in the movie, we'll be discussing sensitive topics including rape,
Speaker:Evan: suicide, and sexual violence.
Speaker:Evan: If you want to avoid that piece of this episode or this episode in its entirety, you may do so.
Speaker:Evan: We will be discussing most of those topics at the 50-minute mark of this episode.
Speaker:Evan: Most of the pieces before that will generally be free of some of those topics.
Speaker:bill: Hello, and welcome to Left of the Projector. I'm your host, Bill,
Speaker:bill: back again with another film discussion from the left.
Speaker:bill: If you'd like to support the show for as little as $3 a month,
Speaker:bill: you can go to Patreon forward slash Left of the Projector pod.
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Speaker:bill: Show everyone you got the best taste around.
Speaker:bill: Wherever you're listening, give us a rating and subscribe so you'll get notified
Speaker:bill: of our weekly episodes that drop every Tuesday. Now, on to the show.
Speaker:bill: This week on Left to the Projector, we are going to be discussing a movie that
Speaker:bill: everyone seems to be talking about.
Speaker:bill: A film that has become the highest grossing film of all time with a budget under $1 million.
Speaker:bill: A movie that you might say that the general public is obsessed with.
Speaker:bill: That movie, of course, is Curry Barker's Obsession.
Speaker:bill: As you may already know, the film was shot on a shoestring budget of $750,000,
Speaker:bill: and everyone on the crew and in the cast made pennies on the dollar,
Speaker:bill: given what it is now grossed in theaters.
Speaker:bill: It's quite a remarkable run and should make you rethink how working-class crew
Speaker:bill: members in the industry should be paid.
Speaker:bill: Obsession stars a small cast of mostly newcomers, Indy Navarrete,
Speaker:bill: Michael Johnston, Cooper Tomlinson, and Megan Lawless.
Speaker:bill: It also has Aidy Richter. It will just be the three of us today. So Ward, Evan.
Speaker:ward: Doing pretty good.
Speaker:bill: How are we all doing?
Speaker:Evan: I'm obsessed.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, we've been talking about this movie a lot. I really enjoyed it. Since we all saw it.
Speaker:ward: And a lot of people are having bad takes out there. So we've got to hop on and cover the episode.
Speaker:Evan: The funniest shit I see, though, is when you go on threads or even Twitter and
Speaker:Evan: someone's like, unpopular opinion.
Speaker:Evan: Bear is the bad guy. It's like, no, that's actually the common held opinion.
Speaker:ward: That's what they're trying to tell you.
Speaker:bill: Not only is that the common held opinion, that's the fucking one.
Speaker:bill: This isn't about opinion.
Speaker:bill: That's like going common-held opinion, global warming is real.
Speaker:bill: It's like, yeah, that's not an opinion. That's just the truth.
Speaker:Evan: But yeah, this movie has now made, as of recording, $409 million,
Speaker:Evan: which is actually quite fucking insane.
Speaker:Evan: It makes $2 million almost every single day in the theater since it came out.
Speaker:bill: And it's streaming now, too.
Speaker:Evan: And in the theater at the same time.
Speaker:bill: You don't have to go to the theater watch it and it's still making that money.
Speaker:ward: Yeah you got Peacock go.
Speaker:bill: For it.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah it came out god I don't remember the official but I think it's been in
Speaker:Evan: the theater way longer than a normal than most normal run time you know I'm
Speaker:Evan: sorry not run times theatrical release times it was released,
Speaker:Evan: we don't have to dwell on this thing it came out May 14th it's July,
Speaker:Evan: 11th and just yesterday on July 10th it made $1.2 million despite being able to stream it.
Speaker:bill: Now it is.
Speaker:Evan: Although I think you have to pay to stream it though now. Like you have to buy it or rent it.
Speaker:ward: It's on Peacock.
Speaker:Evan: Oh, it is? Oh, that's still crazy.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, I mean just like the loan that's nowadays nothing runs that long.
Speaker:Evan: Two months.
Speaker:ward: I think it's a run like that.
Speaker:bill: Now except for morbius they're gonna put it back out,
Speaker:bill: yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Well we don't have to like talk too much about the you know the financial thing
Speaker:Evan: and actually you could listen to uh ward and myself on the proles pod talking
Speaker:Evan: about movies and this movie
Speaker:Evan: and the terrible industry that is hollywood and the terrible industry that is capitalism but yeah.
Speaker:ward: I like how you kind of buried the lead that like we've already covered this
Speaker:ward: movie with Jeremy from PulsePod,
Speaker:ward: but not as in-depth as we're going to cover today, but it was more a little
Speaker:ward: slight overview and then focus on financial exploitation in Hollywood.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, we didn't really get too much into the movie.
Speaker:bill: Also, I wasn't there yet.
Speaker:ward: Yeah, I hadn't seen it, and Bill wasn't there, yeah. So if you want more of,
Speaker:ward: the financial exploitation around this film in Hollywood, check out that episode.
Speaker:Evan: And we can link that into the show notes. I don't know actually when that episode
Speaker:Evan: comes out. So maybe it's out. Maybe it's not.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, that could literally come out after this. Keep an eye out for,
Speaker:bill: it.
Speaker:Evan: That actually would be good because then they would be forced to listen to –
Speaker:Evan: well, they're already listening. The listeners are already listening. You're here.
Speaker:Evan: You're here, you're family.
Speaker:ward: And we appreciate that.
Speaker:Evan: Maybe I'll just give a brief plot overview for the listener.
Speaker:Evan: I feel like most people have seen this, but this movie stars basically only four characters.
Speaker:Evan: We have Bear, who plays sort of the main protagonist, I guess you could say.
Speaker:Evan: He works at a music store, and he works with his three friends,
Speaker:Evan: Nikki, who was played by Indy Never Eddie, Ian, his best friend,
Speaker:Evan: played by Cooper Tomlinson, and Sarah, played by Megan Lawless.
Speaker:Evan: And it kind of opens up with, we find out that Bear really likes his friend
Speaker:Evan: Nikki, but is afraid to tell her and has been presumably like in love with her for a long time.
Speaker:Evan: And is unfortunately pouring his heart out to a poor waitress at a diner,
Speaker:Evan: practicing what he's going to say. And it's so, it's actually,
Speaker:Evan: if you haven't, the first time you see it, you're just kind of blown away.
Speaker:Evan: I kind of feel like the whole, until the title card, I think it's a really good opening for a movie.
Speaker:bill: A great opening. And I actually think it sets the tone for Bear's character so perfectly.
Speaker:bill: And it provides a great, because that waitress clearly really liked,
Speaker:bill: like, she sat there and had a positive response to this boy doing this.
Speaker:bill: And like, in the beginning, if you don't know better, you're like,
Speaker:bill: oh, he's actually confessing his feelings to her. yeah he's doing it and it's
Speaker:bill: like oh and she seems receptive and this.
Speaker:ward: Is going good.
Speaker:bill: Exactly like it start like this movie literally starts out with like the lesson
Speaker:bill: of like this motherfucker will ignore everybody else because of his obsession in,
Speaker:bill: like because he has a preconceived notion about one person meanwhile there's
Speaker:bill: this person right here who's like willing to sit through this and And on top
Speaker:bill: of that, this is a man who just thinks it's okay to just
Speaker:bill: impose his shit on a person like this, which says everything about his character.
Speaker:Evan: But he's sort of somewhat forced to by his friend, Ian, who I feel like from
Speaker:Evan: that opening scene, you realize he's a fucking douchebag.
Speaker:bill: I mean, he didn't have a gun to his head. He could have said no. Okay.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah.
Speaker:ward: Could have said no.
Speaker:Evan: Fair enough.
Speaker:bill: He didn't have to do that to that waitress. No.
Speaker:Evan: And she's like, you know, and she was like willing to stay. And they're like, no, just go away.
Speaker:bill: Yeah. They just dismissed this woman completely out of hand.
Speaker:bill: They treated her like a prop in their own little lives, which is like,
Speaker:bill: it sets the tone for these characters so perfectly.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. And the thing I wrote down when I was,
Speaker:Evan: writing those, I'm like, this is his pathetic plan to get Nikki,
Speaker:Evan: you know, like for someone who he's friends with, it would be kind of weird
Speaker:Evan: to have this, you know, this, this is his opening.
Speaker:Evan: and so we the thing that also i think is really well set up in this movie i
Speaker:Evan: this isn't wasn't my idea this was uh jared from uh concessions podcast
Speaker:Evan: he commented on threads somewhere that nikki initially is very much shown as
Speaker:Evan: like a really good caring person you see her wanting to give money to a homeless
Speaker:Evan: person on the house person on the street,
Speaker:Evan: which the other character which will maybe talk about what she remarks in response,
Speaker:Evan: they set her up as really being this heartfelt woman, I think because you're,
Speaker:Evan: then seeing her quote-unquote obsessed evil side.
Speaker:Evan: I say that in quotes because she's being forced to do this.
Speaker:Evan: But they make her seem so likable that the switch of her character makes it more unbelievable.
Speaker:bill: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: But yeah. And we, we then, then after this, it's, it's kind of funny.
Speaker:Evan: The, the way that they describe it in Wikipedia kind of, they have like one
Speaker:Evan: line describing what's going.
Speaker:Evan: They don't even describe the diner scene, but then we find he's talking to Nikki
Speaker:Evan: on the phone. They had, they're going to trivia night and first his cat dies
Speaker:Evan: because of his negligence of leaving out like oxycodone in his house. So this cat dies.
Speaker:Evan: And then he finds out that Nikki had lost her, you know, her crystal necklace
Speaker:Evan: and so he goes to a what do you call the what kind of store do you call that like a.
Speaker:bill: Woohoo store it's a.
Speaker:Evan: Woohoo store a woohoo store to buy her a crystal but instead buys this one wish
Speaker:Evan: willow which i love every interaction with the store owners in this movie the two interact.
Speaker:bill: The store owners are great absolutely.
Speaker:Evan: He thinks that she's giving him attention and he's just she's just talking on
Speaker:Evan: the phone like through her uh wow.
Speaker:ward: That's crazy he is the most awkward individual he's so incredibly awkward the entirety of the movie.
Speaker:bill: Yeah it is kind of painful to.
Speaker:ward: Watch he only starts to loosen up whenever he has complete control over nikki yes and it's disgusting.
Speaker:Evan: The thing the other thing that i forgot about ian that i think is the first
Speaker:Evan: time you realize he's kind of a dick is he tells his advice to bear is to use
Speaker:Evan: a term that nicky hates calling her freaky nicky as like a way to flirt with her and yeah.
Speaker:ward: He tells him that he basically tells him to nag her.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah.
Speaker:bill: Yeah nagging man that's so stupid i remember when i remember the days of the pickup artist on mtv.
Speaker:Evan: Well now it's all those like the looks maxing guys trying to like go out and
Speaker:Evan: hit on people and they fail because they're complete fucking idiots.
Speaker:bill: Did you hear about a looks-mackser dying from injecting himself with gold?
Speaker:Evan: I thought he died from drowning.
Speaker:ward: I did hear about that. I heard the gold story.
Speaker:bill: I think that might be a different one.
Speaker:ward: Maybe a different one, but I heard the gold one.
Speaker:bill: I think we... Two bozos down, I believe.
Speaker:Evan: No big loss there. No, maybe he, oh, I don't know. Maybe I was going to say,
Speaker:Evan: maybe he injected himself with gold and that made him, it weighed him down in the water.
Speaker:bill: It's too heavy, he's sick.
Speaker:Evan: Oh, but yeah, the, um, I think I messaged both of you, like,
Speaker:Evan: did he just leave pills open in his house?
Speaker:Evan: Are you meant to believe that he's just like this much of an idiot?
Speaker:ward: Like he must've. How else did the cat get into that?
Speaker:bill: Yeah, cats don't have thumbs. If they did, they would rule the world.
Speaker:bill: So, you know, I have to assume he left them open. And like, they weren't,
Speaker:bill: were they even his pills?
Speaker:Evan: No, his grandmother's.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, they were from his grandmother. So like, what was doing? Like, what?
Speaker:Evan: It does seem clear that his grandmother had just died.
Speaker:ward: He's probably taken them on the weekend.
Speaker:Evan: Maybe. Beth, I think it seems clear that he had just, he tells Nikki later that
Speaker:Evan: he took his grandma's apartment. So she probably died and left him the apartment.
Speaker:bill: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Presumably. But he didn't clean up all the pills and medicine because he's like,
Speaker:Evan: yeah, I'm just going to do these drugs.
Speaker:ward: He's just so busy obsessed with Nicky. Can't keep his apartment clean.
Speaker:bill: He's very pathetic.
Speaker:ward: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: And then when he's in the room and they show the title card,
Speaker:Evan: he's like sobbing on the bed. It's like, dude, get a grip.
Speaker:bill: The fact that, like, all right, he's crying over his cat. Like,
Speaker:bill: I'm not going to judge him for that.
Speaker:Evan: Okay, okay, fine. All right.
Speaker:ward: I'll give him that.
Speaker:Evan: You're right. Okay.
Speaker:ward: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: I take it back, Bear.
Speaker:ward: I don't like because it tries to make him a relatable character and he's a piece of shit.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, okay. See, I don't think it actually, see, I think it actually does the
Speaker:bill: opposite because he then,
Speaker:bill: fucks, like, listen, if, if I came home and my dog was dead,
Speaker:bill: I don't give a fuck what, like, I'm not going out to drink later that night.
Speaker:bill: No fucking way. Are you kidding me?
Speaker:ward: No way.
Speaker:bill: Like, there's like no fucking way. Like the fact that he died.
Speaker:bill: He didn't say anything to anybody. He didn't, you know, the fact that he just,
Speaker:bill: because there was the potential that he could tell this girl that he's obsessed with, that he likes her.
Speaker:bill: So he just ignored all that and then went out.
Speaker:Evan: And he also randomly drops the information about the cat when they're at the bar, right?
Speaker:bill: Yeah. As a way of basically getting something out of.
Speaker:ward: Yeah. Yeah, like going against Ian's probably like only like decent advice,
Speaker:ward: which is don't fucking talk to her about this shit on trivia night.
Speaker:ward: This is a group thing. Don't ruin a group activity for your seven year long promposal.
Speaker:ward: Like that was the only decent advice Ian said.
Speaker:bill: I mean, but like all of them are just like. Don't fucking ruin trivia night.
Speaker:bill: How old? How old? All right. So like Sarah is trying to get into college.
Speaker:bill: so we have to assume they're what like all supposed to be like around 17, 18?
Speaker:Evan: I think older. I think that.
Speaker:bill: Oh wait they're drinking at a bar.
Speaker:Evan: No I think they're all about 23.
Speaker:bill: So she's just early mid 20s.
Speaker:Evan: Well is it possible that she went to school? No I think she probably didn't
Speaker:Evan: go to college and she worked at her dad's music shop. Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: But now is like realizing she wants to go back to school. But they may have
Speaker:Evan: already they may have gone to college.
Speaker:ward: I feel like she might be also like a year or two younger than them.
Speaker:bill: Because they were drinking in a bar. They were served. I mean,
Speaker:bill: obviously, I am aware that you can get fake IDs.
Speaker:Evan: No, I think it's clear that they're all about like 23-ish would be my guess.
Speaker:bill: But it's like they all have like, I do think that another through line of this
Speaker:bill: movie is that none of these people have,
Speaker:bill: any communication skills. Like they are incapable of communicating basic information
Speaker:bill: to other people in their lives of any kind.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. That's, that's pretty, uh, pretty correct.
Speaker:bill: They are all lying to each other and themselves about multiple things that involve
Speaker:bill: other people within their group.
Speaker:Evan: To be fair. I recall when I was, you know, that age, I mean, you're not.
Speaker:bill: Oh yeah. A hundred percent. They, I'm not saying.
Speaker:Evan: No, I understand. No, no. I mean, like, they all work in a music store.
Speaker:Evan: They're all getting, you know, minimum wage or barely above it.
Speaker:Evan: Two of them want to go to different kinds of art school. Sarah wants to be an artist to do tattoos.
Speaker:Evan: And Nikki wants to be a writer.
Speaker:Evan: Bear and Ian don't seem to have any actual goals.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, none whatsoever. They just seem like shiftless.
Speaker:ward: They both just want to fuck Nikki.
Speaker:bill: Yeah.
Speaker:ward: That's it.
Speaker:bill: That's basically it. That's their goal.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, and then she tells him that he's going to quit, that she's quitting the music store.
Speaker:Evan: And that's why he decides, it seems like, to go to trivia night.
Speaker:Evan: But it had nothing, he didn't, the cat thing didn't have any playing to it.
Speaker:Evan: It's more like, oh, I might not get to see you as often anymore. I gotta take my shot.
Speaker:ward: Yeah, this is my last shot to be able to confess my feelings.
Speaker:ward: Yeah. Right. Fucking loser. You had seven years.
Speaker:Evan: It's super awkward at the bar. Like, they're all very awkward with each other
Speaker:Evan: playing. You know, like, see them actually play trivia, but they're taking shots.
Speaker:Evan: And then afterwards, you know, They have to be 23, going to trivia and then
Speaker:Evan: we're going to go to another bar and then another bar.
Speaker:Evan: There's only such an age where I could even consider that even as a possibility.
Speaker:Evan: As opposed to being like, I'm going to be home at 10 o'clock,
Speaker:Evan: 930. But then that was the other thing that happened, too, is that Nikki asked
Speaker:Evan: to borrow $20 to give to the unhoused person.
Speaker:Evan: And then Sarah, their friend, says, great, we just paid for his for his heroin for the next.
Speaker:Evan: Does she say like for the next week?
Speaker:bill: That's yeah.
Speaker:ward: Yeah. She's shitty. Just like Ian and Bear. Nikki's the only decent one out of the whole group.
Speaker:bill: See, I don't think Nikki's decent. I don't think any of them are decent.
Speaker:bill: I like, I like the fact that she gave $20.
Speaker:ward: I don't see enough of Nikki in this movie to make a judgment call. She seems decent.
Speaker:bill: See, like I'm not willing to say she's decent because I, you're giving the benefit
Speaker:bill: of the doubt. I'm like neutral. I'm like, we get, we basically have one.
Speaker:ward: She gave the new $20. She gets some benefit.
Speaker:Evan: We have two scenes. We only have two scenes in the entire movie where she's
Speaker:Evan: actually not under the one wish.
Speaker:bill: Not.
Speaker:ward: Only that she takes the cash from her shitty friend who's classist to that dude even better.
Speaker:bill: Now i want to know if that if that would actually pay for that much heroin no
Speaker:bill: i thought heroin is expensive so i don't think that'll i don't think that'll cover that well.
Speaker:Evan: I don't think i want to google that on my uh.
Speaker:bill: Neither do i,
Speaker:bill: I don't want to Google that, but, you know.
Speaker:Evan: But, I mean, it does show, you know, and then Bear offers to drive Nikki home
Speaker:Evan: because they both don't want to go out. And Bear obviously wants to use this
Speaker:Evan: as, he's like, this is my shot to, you know, tell her how I feel.
Speaker:Evan: Which we know immediately he's going to chicken out. We just know.
Speaker:Evan: Like, she even gives, here's the thing that I think proves to him beyond a doubt
Speaker:Evan: that he is a piece of shit.
Speaker:Evan: Like, one thing after another proves it. She gives, he drops her off.
Speaker:Evan: He supposedly said he had a gift for her, which he then says he forgot at home.
Speaker:Evan: So he's not going to give her the gift. And then he uses the gift he's going
Speaker:Evan: to give her so that Nikki will love him more than anyone else in the world.
Speaker:Evan: And then she gives him two different outs to ask whether he has feelings for her.
Speaker:bill: She straight up says.
Speaker:Evan: It's like, do you like me?
Speaker:ward: She gives him a fucking chance.
Speaker:bill: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: But before and after the wish.
Speaker:ward: Showing some decent communication skills for that friend group.
Speaker:ward: No.
Speaker:bill: All right.
Speaker:ward: She's the standout.
Speaker:bill: Okay.
Speaker:ward: She's decent.
Speaker:bill: She's decent.
Speaker:ward: She's decent from what we know.
Speaker:Evan: And he refuses to, he refuses to give the answer. And then he uses the wish.
Speaker:Evan: And then it's the creepy scene where she's sort of like standing just on the,
Speaker:Evan: on the stoop. I think it's the cover of the, like the movie poster.
Speaker:Evan: She's standing in like the doorway.
Speaker:bill: Yes.
Speaker:ward: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: All of a sudden she slipped out and then she comes over and he's acting.
Speaker:Evan: And then he, like, his behavior afterwards, where he's like,
Speaker:Evan: all of a sudden she likes him, he can't even accept the idea that someone would even like him, you know?
Speaker:ward: Mm-hmm.
Speaker:bill: He is— I was listening to something else yesterday, and they mentioned the male
Speaker:bill: loneliness epidemic, which is a bullshit term.
Speaker:bill: The fact that we call it the male loneliness epidemic is bullshit because anytime
Speaker:bill: you talk about, if people talk about this and they talk about what it is,
Speaker:bill: they're not talking about being social or having a friend group.
Speaker:bill: It always comes down to just basically the American male's assumption that they,
Speaker:bill: that women are obligated to give them sex. He's not lonely.
Speaker:bill: He has a social circle. He has people that he can talk to.
Speaker:ward: They literally go to trivia night every Wednesday. They all work together.
Speaker:ward: They see each other almost every day.
Speaker:ward: It's a pretty close-knit friend and group that a lot of people in this country don't have.
Speaker:bill: Right.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah.
Speaker:bill: But like and like you don't we don't you know you don't talk about you know
Speaker:bill: when anytime they talk about the male loneliness epidemic it's about like really what about is that,
Speaker:bill: men in america think they are are you know women are obligated to give their
Speaker:bill: sex and that's basically,
Speaker:bill: because like he is not it that like it's not that she likes him or like is responding
Speaker:bill: to him positively that he finds so weird it's that she,
Speaker:bill: is now physically coming on to him but then past that he's like
Speaker:bill: totally okay with it he's like you know he hasn't he doesn't he actually finds
Speaker:bill: the fact that she wants to be
Speaker:bill: emotionally connected to him after he makes the wish irritating
Speaker:bill: he finds that annoying he doesn't want that he doesn't want to talk to her he
Speaker:bill: doesn't want to sit to be non-sexually intimate with her he just wants to fuck.
Speaker:Evan: The thing that's also so uncomfortable i mean they do a lot of ways where you
Speaker:Evan: first you think that she is now under like this wish and then you kind of feel like she's not
Speaker:Evan: and it kind of goes back and forth where they kind of give you the starts and
Speaker:Evan: stops but the very initial thing where she,
Speaker:Evan: eventually goes back, she goes back to his apartment and he's hesitant, right?
Speaker:Evan: He's like, oh this seems weird, like how come all of a sudden you like me you're
Speaker:Evan: not supposed to like me, I'm a I'm bare and.
Speaker:ward: She has.
Speaker:Evan: These like moments where she like snaps into it and out of it where she sees
Speaker:Evan: herself being weird but can't stop it those are like some of the most deeply
Speaker:Evan: uncomfortable moments plus the time when he calls the hotline yeah.
Speaker:ward: And it just ultimately comes down to him being a coward he could have just owned
Speaker:ward: up when she gave him a chance he could have just said it but he was like he's
Speaker:ward: a fucking coward comes down to it and it's a little lesson for a lot of guys
Speaker:ward: out there like literally a little bit of confidence can go a fucking long way.
Speaker:Evan: Do you think that he his behavior bear's behavior is like incel-ish definitely yeah.
Speaker:ward: Yeah he feels as he owes things as i guess that's what you're just saying we
Speaker:ward: don't see it outright but like he's probably the type that like thinks he's
Speaker:ward: better than everyone else around him like,
Speaker:ward: even though like there's nothing fucking special about him he eats fucking steak
Speaker:ward: with ketchup for fuck's sake like,
Speaker:ward: You're not special, Bear.
Speaker:Evan: But he's made clear.
Speaker:bill: He definitely has that incel. Because it's also, it's not just,
Speaker:bill: it's the way that inceldom also metastasized into what it is now.
Speaker:bill: Which is that not only are you, it's not just being incapable or being unconfident
Speaker:bill: enough to approach people.
Speaker:bill: or being emotionally aware, emotionally in touch to have conversations about
Speaker:bill: things, but then it twists and it becomes this cancerous counter thing where
Speaker:bill: it's like, I shouldn't have to do that.
Speaker:bill: I shouldn't have to be emotionally aware. I shouldn't have to make...
Speaker:bill: Basically, you should read my fucking mind and give me what I want.
Speaker:bill: I'm owed this because I'm a man.
Speaker:ward: Don't you know what I want?
Speaker:bill: Yeah.
Speaker:ward: You should.
Speaker:bill: I don't have to say it like jesus christ in the beginning like in actual like
Speaker:bill: when in the incel culture,
Speaker:bill: started it was very much and we've talked about this briefly before where did
Speaker:bill: we what movie are we talking about um,
Speaker:bill: american pie in american pie we talked about how like when the whole thing started
Speaker:bill: i mean first of all it was started with a by a woman she coined the term and
Speaker:bill: she started the community.
Speaker:bill: And then later went on to like basically leave that community when she found
Speaker:bill: a partner and how when she returned to the community, how she saw how it had
Speaker:bill: changed and it had become less about supporting people,
Speaker:bill: supporting people in the same situation and growing out of it into demonizing
Speaker:bill: anybody that made the effort to not be that way.
Speaker:bill: anybody that attempted to improve their you know their social skills or their emotional
Speaker:bill: you know awareness or any of that they were demonized and they were castigated
Speaker:bill: and it became a very like crabs in a bucket culture yeah,
Speaker:bill: which is very apt for the society we live in and by society wow we don't live
Speaker:bill: in a society it's very barely a society yeah it's very apt for the world we live in.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, for the world we live in.
Speaker:ward: Western society is an oxymoron.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, because that is what capitalism teaches you to constantly tear down anybody
Speaker:bill: else who looks like they might get ahead of you in any way, shape,
Speaker:bill: or form, because everything is a zero-sum game.
Speaker:bill: Everything. Everything is zero-sum.
Speaker:Evan: You know what I don't understand? Why is it that Nikki's explanation for that
Speaker:Evan: first night when she stays at Bear's house, her explanation for what happened
Speaker:Evan: was that she was on mdma which we know is obviously not the case is it because she's afraid in her,
Speaker:Evan: new under the spell to tell him how she feels initially in the same way that
Speaker:Evan: bear is afraid to tell her like why make that excuse and then also make up the
Speaker:Evan: excuse about her dad like what's the need for these lies just any.
Speaker:ward: Excuse to get close to him like that's yeah like so i feel like wish Nikki is
Speaker:ward: almost like a complete copy of actual Nikki just,
Speaker:ward: can't put it all together especially like in the beginning like where,
Speaker:ward: um she's like talking about like oh it's like my cat's dead and shit like,
Speaker:ward: uh basic memories but then like later on she's able to pull like oh yeah no
Speaker:ward: back back um i started getting these feelings for you in december which like
Speaker:ward: must be pulling from real nikki's memories of like something that,
Speaker:ward: her and bear did in december because like why else would it be so specific but
Speaker:ward: um yeah now i just feel i feel like she's like an almost complete copy,
Speaker:ward: of nikki but then just absolutely everything reprogram to want to be,
Speaker:ward: with bear every want desire need that a human being has replaced with bear like
Speaker:ward: how bear's speech in the beginning is like i can't think of anything that but
Speaker:ward: literally taken to the fullest extent,
Speaker:ward: that's what the wish did to nikki and it couldn't make nikki do that because
Speaker:ward: that's not nikki so it made a copy reprogrammed basically reprogrammed it,
Speaker:ward: and then has it in nicky's body that has most of control.
Speaker:bill: See that's i i think that that is the key to understanding the way the wishes work in general.
Speaker:Evan: You mean in this in this universe.
Speaker:bill: That the wish how the wish the wish gives the wisher what they ask for in in the literal like,
Speaker:bill: It creates the wish, the reality of like, but based upon the perception of the
Speaker:bill: person making that wish, because
Speaker:bill: she very much becomes basically she becomes she behaves the way bear,
Speaker:bill: thinks you behave when you love somebody, which is to be obsessed,
Speaker:bill: to not actually know or understand that person,
Speaker:bill: or consider them as an individual.
Speaker:bill: individual, but to instead project your insecurities, your desires,
Speaker:bill: your thoughts on that person, and then react to them in a way that you would
Speaker:bill: justify that, oh, this is what, this will work.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, like the copy you were saying, Ward, is also, is not just a copy of those
Speaker:Evan: other things, but it's almost like a,
Speaker:Evan: mimicking of, as you're saying, Bill, like what he would want someone to do
Speaker:Evan: like how he would act in that same situation yeah he would lie and make up things
Speaker:Evan: be like oh yeah my my mother or my my mother is sick or whatever my dad is sick and
Speaker:Evan: these are the things and reasons i want to like be with you yeah
Speaker:Evan: but they don't actually work because you're just lying and making shit up,
Speaker:Evan: yeah and they know and they know.
Speaker:bill: Yeah as opposed to being a genuine person and talking to another person as a
Speaker:bill: person with you know an inner life of their own because I mean.
Speaker:ward: I mean, that's not what he wants at all, because I mean, even even when she
Speaker:ward: starts acting weird after the wish and he's the way he talks to her,
Speaker:ward: he's that's not how you talk to another adult human being.
Speaker:ward: It's like he's talking knowingly talking to like even before,
Speaker:ward: like the dinner scene, when it like it fully clicks in his head that it's 100 percent the wish,
Speaker:ward: before even before that, the way he talks to her, it's like a dude talking to
Speaker:ward: his Stepford wife being like, no, no, no, no, this isn't your programming.
Speaker:ward: You're not allowed to be weird.
Speaker:ward: Stop being weird.
Speaker:Evan: No, no, no.
Speaker:ward: Yeah, no.
Speaker:Evan: God, that was great. When after that first night and Bear is telling Ian in
Speaker:Evan: the store what's going on, and while Nikki is, like, staring at them,
Speaker:Evan: I was thinking about this.
Speaker:Evan: Is the way that Ian is seeing Nikki act the way that Bear had previously been acting about Nikki?
Speaker:Evan: Like, the way that he is obsessed with her and all these things that he would
Speaker:Evan: say, like, doing the thing with the waitress.
Speaker:Evan: is it just like the behavior is now flipped.
Speaker:bill: I would assume so i think he's always like creepy yeah.
Speaker:Evan: And it's and and the and the crazy thing too is we also learned that nikki had
Speaker:Evan: told sarah like pre like very recently that you only thought saw him as a friend,
Speaker:Evan: but sarah was the one that actually liked bear which nikki tells him before
Speaker:Evan: he uses the wish he's like but you know actually sarah likes you what would you think about that.
Speaker:ward: And not only that like he knew beforehand he was like oh it's so obvious like
Speaker:ward: he's known for a while that sarah likes him but just doesn't care he wants nikki.
Speaker:bill: He said that i don't remember that.
Speaker:ward: Part i'm pretty sure.
Speaker:Evan: Um
Speaker:ward: It made it it seemed like he it seems like he knew before even beforehand like
Speaker:ward: he's got at least some idea that sarah likes him.
Speaker:Evan: It probably had for a while but yeah he wants.
Speaker:ward: Unattainable nikki he's obsessed,
Speaker:ward: It's a piece of shit.
Speaker:bill: And it's like, why?
Speaker:ward: He doesn't, well, it's like you said, he feels like he's owed.
Speaker:ward: He deserves it just for existing as an American male.
Speaker:Evan: So what about this? After the restaurant scene, when he fully realizes that
Speaker:Evan: she is, that the wish worked, it wasn't just, she was on, you know, MDMA or whatever.
Speaker:Evan: The next thing you see is them having sex. Is he raping her?
Speaker:ward: Yes, he is raping her.
Speaker:Evan: Okay.
Speaker:ward: Yes, he's raping her. It's even framed like a jump cut, like a jump scare.
Speaker:Evan: It is, actually.
Speaker:ward: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: The cut that they do have.
Speaker:ward: Her eyes are fucking dead.
Speaker:bill: Yeah. That scene, that actually reminded me. See, I actually think this movie
Speaker:bill: has a lot in common with The Companion.
Speaker:Evan: Very much.
Speaker:bill: Ward, have you seen The Companion? You should definitely check it out.
Speaker:bill: The Companion actually has a much more hopeful ending as opposed to this movie.
Speaker:Evan: I'll watch it. We're talking the one with Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:ward: Oh, yeah? I haven't watched this yet.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, it's pretty good.
Speaker:bill: It's really good. I don't want to ruin it for you, Ward. Yeah.
Speaker:bill: But that is so perfectly- Don't watch the trailer.
Speaker:ward: That is so perfectly- No.
Speaker:Evan: No, don't ruin it. But what you said makes sense if people have seen it, I think.
Speaker:bill: Yeah. Yeah, that scene is deeply uncomfortable.
Speaker:bill: Very uncomfortable. And honestly, I think, you know, there's a lot of talk about,
Speaker:bill: you know, the use of rape in the cinema and TV and, you know, so on.
Speaker:bill: And I mean, especially like, you know, post like Game of Thrones,
Speaker:bill: you know, like that was such a huge thing, you know, such a,
Speaker:bill: a culture, like a hot topic, like, you know, and like the discourse over that show.
Speaker:bill: I mean, it's been years, but people's, it still comes up and for, you know,
Speaker:bill: If you're an aspiring filmmaker out there and you want to know how to,
Speaker:bill: how to actually, you know, if you, if you're going to use that kind of shit in a movie,
Speaker:bill: this is a movie that does it correctly because it's not used as a means to,
Speaker:bill: um, it's not used as like a, a cudgel or a crutch.
Speaker:bill: This is used to very much lay out the truly the nature of that of the individual
Speaker:bill: of bear and how societally we use these.
Speaker:bill: It's a vast difference than the way that rape is so often used in movies to victimize women.
Speaker:bill: You know, this is such a it's a it's a vastly different way.
Speaker:ward: Yeah, looking on. Yeah, no, especially like the way our society views rape.
Speaker:ward: Like, dude, looking at online, judging like at the discourse of this movie,
Speaker:ward: a lot of people don't understand what rape is.
Speaker:Evan: There are also people who don't think that you can rape someone if you're in
Speaker:Evan: a relationship with them.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. I mean, in this, they're in a relationship in the sense that she's being forced to.
Speaker:ward: And you start to understand why Stalin and Lenin just shot everybody.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah.
Speaker:bill: Oh, that start making a lot more sense. Education camps make a lot more fucking
Speaker:bill: sense when you start really thinking about shit.
Speaker:Evan: This reminds me of one more later. I think maybe at the end we'll say what are
Speaker:Evan: our what we would actually use the one wish will of war. We'll save that for the end. That has to.
Speaker:bill: I thought that was going to be a totally separate episode. I thought it was
Speaker:bill: going to be a Patreon bonus where we talked about our wishes.
Speaker:Evan: Maybe it should be.
Speaker:ward: Maybe.
Speaker:Evan: If you're listening right now, you will not get to hear us talk about what our wishes are.
Speaker:Evan: you have to go to patreon slash left of the projector pod and pledge three dollars per month to listen to.
Speaker:bill: Us yeah i mean not only is it rape but it's the entire like not only is that
Speaker:bill: a physical you know representation a representation of the actual act of a physical act of raping someone,
Speaker:bill: in like the most you know basic you know like brutal you know sense of the word,
Speaker:bill: But the entire relationship is an example of a abusive, an emotionally abusive, an emotional rape,
Speaker:bill: and coercive relationship in which an individual uses their power over someone
Speaker:bill: else to control them for their own personal desires and fulfillment.
Speaker:ward: While trying to victimize themselves in the process.
Speaker:bill: Perfect narcissist mm-hmm.
Speaker:ward: You're scaring me, Nicky. Shut the fuck up, Bear.
Speaker:bill: Man, your hatred of Bear, War. I feel like you knew someone in life like this
Speaker:bill: that you particularly did not like.
Speaker:ward: No, no. I just, I don't know. I was just raised to hate men and grew up with nothing but sisters.
Speaker:ward: All my best friends in life have been women. Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: The the it's funny you mentioned before that that was like a jump scare is i
Speaker:Evan: think that like the few scenes right after that is when the movie also sort of,
Speaker:Evan: i wouldn't necessarily call this a horror film in like the true sense but from
Speaker:Evan: that point forward there's like lots more violence like right after that,
Speaker:Evan: there's the part where she's watching him sleep and it's extremely unsettling
Speaker:Evan: i actually that was probably the creepiest part of the entire movie.
Speaker:ward: It's so good.
Speaker:Evan: And apparently film some of those scenes with her going backwards and then they
Speaker:Evan: added the music with her and they show it in reverse oh yeah it's super cool.
Speaker:ward: Oh something we all also i wanted to mention was like uh the scene when um nicky
Speaker:ward: and bear like in the car but right before he makes the wish,
Speaker:ward: um they film that twice one where nicky likes bear and one where nicky doesn't like bear,
Speaker:ward: And then they splice together both of them to make the final shot so that it
Speaker:ward: kind of makes it ambiguous whether or not she actually likes Bear.
Speaker:Evan: Interesting.
Speaker:ward: So I thought that was a pretty good choice.
Speaker:bill: You know, we have, you know, primarily, we've talked a little bit about like,
Speaker:bill: you know, technique and like, you know, and like overall, you know,
Speaker:bill: typically in episodes, we primarily talk about like, you know,
Speaker:bill: the message and, you know, I mean, that's the whole point. That's what we're here for.
Speaker:bill: But this really is one of those movies that you could talk about the technique,
Speaker:bill: the actors, their performances and what was done. You could talk about that.
Speaker:ward: The costuming and makeup. like that's why like when she's in the darkness she
Speaker:ward: looks completely different yeah this movie is 26 years old.
Speaker:bill: This movie is a fucking just throw it from a technical from an artistic standpoint
Speaker:bill: this movie is fucking phenomenal.
Speaker:ward: Yeah yeah the choice to like like it was mostly the director working with uh
Speaker:ward: indy navaretti like to do like a lot of that weird
Speaker:ward: disfigure choreography um like one-on-one and then like yeah doing the shots
Speaker:ward: where like filming her backwards and then playing it for,
Speaker:ward: like playing it forwards and then add in the audio like so it sounds right,
Speaker:ward: like yeah it's really well done like shoestring budget like we said like yeah
Speaker:ward: you could talk all day about it and we're trying not to but it's hard not to
Speaker:ward: mention it yeah they yeah.
Speaker:Evan: I do hope the you know i like one of the reasons i like like buying the physical
Speaker:Evan: media is hearing interviews and the special features i would love to see some
Speaker:Evan: of the more than just like the few little clips you see Like,
Speaker:Evan: oh, like, here's this one thing. Here's that thing.
Speaker:Evan: But they show they have a video of, you know, when the day after they sleep
Speaker:Evan: together and she and she's quit or it's not going to work.
Speaker:Evan: bear is and she's just standing in the room and then we see as like he's leaving
Speaker:Evan: she like pisses herself they show like behind the scenes of how they did that and it's not just that.
Speaker:ward: By the time he.
Speaker:Evan: Gets home yes she's.
Speaker:ward: In a massive pile of her own filth.
Speaker:bill: Yeah yeah and has like vomited on herself yeah also you're skipping the part
Speaker:bill: where she duct tapes the door yeah.
Speaker:Evan: That too i have.
Speaker:bill: That in my notes that was wild i love that and the entire door is duct taped
Speaker:bill: to the wall and also this fucking loser pulls it open,
Speaker:bill: like it's just everything about bear's character is pathetic except.
Speaker:ward: For him being able to pull open the duct tape door.
Speaker:bill: But like why would you choose that way doing it like you would do like no what would be funny is.
Speaker:ward: Like him not being able to get it open at all and.
Speaker:bill: Then him having.
Speaker:ward: To crawl out.
Speaker:bill: Like a front facing.
Speaker:ward: Window yeah here's the real.
Speaker:bill: Question why did he have that.
Speaker:Evan: Much fucking duct tape at his apartment.
Speaker:bill: It's a great question it's great that was that's.
Speaker:Evan: Like multiple rolls of duct tape.
Speaker:bill: Grandma was a hoarder grandma was definitely a order.
Speaker:Evan: Or maybe he was a psychopath and he used that to tape.
Speaker:bill: Out. Oh God.
Speaker:Evan: No, he meant too much of a wuss to do that.
Speaker:bill: There are elements of absurdist comedy in this which take it to a whole other level.
Speaker:ward: Mm-hmm.
Speaker:bill: But it's never directly addressed, and it makes it so good, and actually makes it feel more realistic.
Speaker:bill: Because I actually do think that in reality, when confronted with a thing like
Speaker:bill: that, if you're in a situation like that, you would just...
Speaker:bill: pull the door open like you would just be like uh i guess i opened straight up the straight up tim.
Speaker:ward: Robinson's bit opening the door oh i was here yesterday.
Speaker:bill: 100 100 that's what it is.
Speaker:Evan: I love that.
Speaker:ward: While he's struggling she's like oh if you're having trouble leaving you can just stay.
Speaker:Evan: Home you can just stay home like this.
Speaker:bill: Movie is so.
Speaker:Evan: Fucked up.
Speaker:bill: And twisted and then you get so funny.
Speaker:Evan: Well no but then then it just keeps getting crazier is that that night nikki
Speaker:Evan: goes with bear to ian's house for like what he calls is like a guy's night but
Speaker:Evan: clearly it wasn't there's a bunch of other yeah it's a house party yeah it's a house party
Speaker:Evan: and they're doing you know Is Ian not.
Speaker:ward: Allowed to lie about the circumstances of his own house party?
Speaker:Evan: Oh. I'm sure he lies about all kinds of things.
Speaker:bill: Yeah. I think he lies about a lot of stuff.
Speaker:ward: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Well, he's been lying to Bear about sleeping with Nicky for like two years.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. So we learned that. But they're playing like, you know,
Speaker:Evan: Dare, Jenga, you know, like a Jenga set where you just, you don't like put it
Speaker:Evan: back. You just do the dare.
Speaker:Evan: And the thing that blew me away, which you didn't, I don't remember what you
Speaker:Evan: told me, is that the, that Curry Barker's dad wrote this ridiculous book.
Speaker:ward: Poem that yeah that he reads the hansel and gretel incel,
Speaker:ward: fan incest fan yeah sorry we've been talking about incel so much incest fan fiction um,
Speaker:ward: very graphic that was written by yeah curry barker's dad he was like having
Speaker:ward: trouble like thinking of something to write for that and his dad has been like
Speaker:ward: dabbling with screenwriting and so he like was like hey dad you You think you
Speaker:ward: can write something? And that's what he came back with.
Speaker:bill: And we know why his father has not been successful at screenplays because that shit was fucked up.
Speaker:ward: It was perfect for this movie.
Speaker:bill: Yeah.
Speaker:bill: The average studio, I don't think they're going to touch what he's doing. No.
Speaker:bill: You have to get to, you have to be Lars von Trier before you get to that.
Speaker:bill: Lars von Trier didn't start with that, okay?
Speaker:Evan: No, no. That's not your first.
Speaker:ward: Wait, is that why we lost the extended cut of the brick scene later?
Speaker:ward: Is it because of the Hansel and Gretel poem? We could lose that if we get more
Speaker:ward: bricks, if you're asking me.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, and the other thing that's crazy, one of them says at the party,
Speaker:Evan: what kind of spell did you put on her? Which is also super weird, and,
Speaker:Evan: the poem also kind of gives it away.
Speaker:bill: Because this is a world in which...
Speaker:bill: You can go to a woo-woo crystal shop and buy a toy that grants a wish.
Speaker:ward: Since, like, the 70s or 80s, you can just be buying these things.
Speaker:bill: Like, that is the reality of this movie, which takes it to a whole other fucking...
Speaker:bill: It adds a level of, like, fucked-up weirdness, like, surreality that is, like, next level.
Speaker:Evan: Sarah could have gotten the one with Will to get into that Luther art school earlier.
Speaker:bill: How does,
Speaker:bill: how does like how does like everyone not know about this thing.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah it's weird i think it's like one of those like when they show like the
Speaker:Evan: fake reddit whether he's looking at it it's very clear that it's like this collectible
Speaker:Evan: thing that people just don't actually open they just sort of buy it as this,
Speaker:Evan: collectible thing and then some people try it and the people who said it doesn't
Speaker:Evan: work probably it means they like got a really fucked up wish and the people
Speaker:Evan: that are saying like it does work or you know never actually used it so i feel
Speaker:Evan: like anyone who actually uses probably is like no don't use this fucking thing.
Speaker:ward: I like that little scene because it just showed to Bear's character that he's
Speaker:ward: a piece of shit because he didn't even really want to know. He didn't click on any of those posts.
Speaker:Evan: No.
Speaker:bill: Yeah. He didn't want to know.
Speaker:ward: He didn't care.
Speaker:bill: We have no reason to believe that the one wish willow acts as a monkey's ball.
Speaker:ward: Yeah. It just seems to be through the perception of the wish maker because like
Speaker:ward: we have like as a best guess because like we have Bear's perception of Nick.
Speaker:ward: what love is applied to nicky which that's that could be arguable,
Speaker:ward: um and then ian's wish asking for a billion i wish he had a billion dollars
Speaker:ward: like it wouldn't make sense like that it would just drop cash on him right then
Speaker:ward: like he does he's in disbelief he doesn't think he's actually going to get the
Speaker:ward: wish but also he's not rich enough to ever expect or think or
Speaker:ward: know or experience experience uh,
Speaker:ward: what it's like to have a lot of money in his fucking bank account so of course
Speaker:ward: it won't go to his fucking bank account it's gonna float his house yeah if.
Speaker:bill: You are if any one of us was like i wish i had a billion dollars like like the
Speaker:bill: first like our perception like our mental image is gonna be cash.
Speaker:ward: Yeah it's not gonna be like you can't even fathom that amount of money briefcase
Speaker:ward: of bearer bonds i got you know what kind of weirdo wish did you make i don't even know.
Speaker:bill: What a bear.
Speaker:ward: I don't.
Speaker:bill: Know what a bearer bond is i'm.
Speaker:ward: 45 years old.
Speaker:bill: And i don't know what that is.
Speaker:ward: Watch a heist movie, dog.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, I know. I meant, like, you know.
Speaker:ward: Like, that's how I know about him in reality.
Speaker:bill: Like, I don't know. Like, in Mission Impossible. Like, I don't know anything
Speaker:bill: beyond the movie's perception of what a bear bond is. Oh, it's, like, literally.
Speaker:ward: Like, the same thing in real life, a bear bond. It's whoever holds them on. Give them that money.
Speaker:bill: Okay.
Speaker:bill: So, like, a fancy IOU, basically?
Speaker:ward: Kind of, but you can have it to, like, up to, like, hundreds of thousands of
Speaker:ward: dollars on a single piece of paper versus.
Speaker:bill: Like, half the carry cash. On an IOU, you can have as much as you want.
Speaker:Evan: I owe you one wish Willow.
Speaker:bill: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Well, the thing that I think that maybe we should,
Speaker:Evan: before we get to the ending, the thing that I send you both that I thought was
Speaker:Evan: interesting is the owner who created the one wish willow has created a product
Speaker:Evan: that anyone can only use once. It prevents you from making a second wish.
Speaker:Evan: Even if you were to get it for all your friends, they can only use it once.
Speaker:Evan: They couldn't get it for those same friends.
Speaker:Evan: They've created a product that actually does not create more demand.
Speaker:Evan: Like it is an anti-capitalist product in like a weird way. Although, weirdly.
Speaker:bill: It's that rice cooker. It's that rice cooker that was so good,
Speaker:bill: it went out of business because nobody needed another rice cooker.
Speaker:ward: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: I mean, it's partly a joke. I'm partly joking about it, but once you've done
Speaker:Evan: the wish, and like Bear's not going to tell anyone to use, like to buy one of these, even though.
Speaker:ward: No, he ended up buying them for his friends.
Speaker:bill: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Oh, you're not right.
Speaker:ward: Instead of like taking a friend to the store.
Speaker:Evan: And then Ian, of course, does the selfish thing instead of.
Speaker:bill: $5.
Speaker:ward: Well, first, like Bear is. goes about it like the fucking
Speaker:ward: shittiest way is like he calls the line to amend his wish not to cancel it yeah
Speaker:ward: to amend it she's being weird but i still want to maintain control over her
Speaker:ward: yes that is still don't want to be
Speaker:ward: her to be the real nicky oh would you like to talk to the real nicky,
Speaker:ward: no click um because he's a piece of shit and then like yeah it's not until she
Speaker:ward: fucking oh god murders Sarah with
Speaker:ward: a fucking brick that he tries to get his friend Ian to cancel the wish.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, and has to bury her body.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah.
Speaker:ward: Which Nikki didn't feel too particularly happy about and brought that thing
Speaker:ward: back out into the living room.
Speaker:bill: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Where did they actually take it? It's like maybe they just load it into the trunk.
Speaker:bill: They just put it in the trunk. Yeah. We just see them loaded into the trunk.
Speaker:ward: Yeah. But then Nikki brings it back inside the bedroom.
Speaker:Evan: She also cuts off Sarah's hair and puts it on her own head.
Speaker:bill: And then like attempts to recreate the tattoos on herself as well.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. And I think I told you this too, in the TV, when they're in like the final
Speaker:Evan: scenes on the TV is a video of bear sleeping that Nikki took.
Speaker:bill: Yeah. Which the sleeping with the words.
Speaker:ward: Not her written on it.
Speaker:bill: Yes.
Speaker:ward: Or not me. Sorry. I mean, which. Yeah.
Speaker:ward: So many signs, so many chances bear could fucking do the right thing.
Speaker:bill: But you loved the sleeping thing because it really comes back what what,
Speaker:bill: what it made me think of was the way in which,
Speaker:bill: stephanie meyer and twilight with,
Speaker:bill: fuck edward that's the vampire um how that,
Speaker:bill: book, those books and the movies romanticized basically this kind of behavior,
Speaker:bill: this obsessive stalking behavior.
Speaker:bill: And one of the key points was he watches her while he's while she sleeps.
Speaker:bill: And isn't that romantic? It's like, no, that's fucking stalking.
Speaker:bill: That is obsessive stalking behavior it's not romantic it is dangerous and wrong,
Speaker:bill: and like this movie is like straight like it just takes all those toxic things that our culture has.
Speaker:bill: Largely led young girls to believe are supposed to be romantic that are actually toxic and abusive
Speaker:bill: and flips the narrative is like actually this shit is bad it's toxic it's abusive
Speaker:bill: and it's wrong and actually what you should be doing is talking to the people
Speaker:bill: talking to people you have feelings for and communicating things and treating them like whole people,
Speaker:bill: with their own rich inner lives and their own desires and free will.
Speaker:bill: That's what you should be doing.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah.
Speaker:bill: That's how you have a relationship with somebody.
Speaker:Evan: What do you think that... So, in the end, when Nikki has gone full after bashing
Speaker:Evan: Sarah's face in, and they're at Bear's apartment... Wait, I'm sorry, go ahead.
Speaker:bill: Right before that, I think we would be remiss to leave out that right before
Speaker:bill: that, as he's about to leave to go meet Sarah, Nikki, the real Nikki,
Speaker:bill: talks to him in her sleep.
Speaker:Evan: Says, kill me.
Speaker:ward: Yeah.
Speaker:bill: She says, it's not me. Kill me.
Speaker:Evan: And she's like, don't wake her up. Like, she's actually like,
Speaker:Evan: the wish Nikki is sleeping for once.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, yeah, she says, she's like, she's sleeping.
Speaker:Evan: Like, don't wake her up.
Speaker:ward: Yeah, please don't wake her up.
Speaker:bill: Please don't wake her up. Kill me.
Speaker:Evan: And he just leaves.
Speaker:bill: And he leaves. And he leaves, and then goes to Sarah and is immediately titillated
Speaker:bill: when he's starting to feel like, oh, I'm getting the attention I want.
Speaker:ward: Mm-hmm. He was totally gonna kiss her in that car.
Speaker:bill: 100%.
Speaker:Evan: Yes.
Speaker:ward: Nikki justified, question mark?
Speaker:bill: She would be justified if she killed him.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, wrong window.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, wrong window. Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: The great part about that scene is you knew something was gonna happen,
Speaker:Evan: but they drag it out back and forth, you know, back and forth on each window.
Speaker:Evan: And you're like, what's going to happen? What are you going to do?
Speaker:bill: And yes, despite the fact that they, as Ward has said, they cut the brick scene,
Speaker:bill: the brick scene also goes on for a while.
Speaker:ward: The unrated, the unrated cut of this movie is like one minute longer and it's all brick scene.
Speaker:bill: Jesus Christ. That scene is already really long.
Speaker:ward: I'm actually, I want more.
Speaker:Evan: You know why they had to cut some of it? Because it wouldn't have had left any
Speaker:Evan: face left for her to like cut it off.
Speaker:ward: Sleep yeah that in like um actual like.
Speaker:Evan: Production reasons.
Speaker:ward: They wanted a wider release for the.
Speaker:Evan: Movie when.
Speaker:bill: They when they cut to sarah's face after that holy shit that's one of those
Speaker:bill: brutal that's one of those brutal things i've ever seen in a movie and i've
Speaker:bill: seen some fucked up movies.
Speaker:ward: I've seen a.
Speaker:bill: Lot of fucked up movies that's one of those brutal things i've ever seen in a fucking movie.
Speaker:Evan: So after that happens and the bear that happens and they're back at the apartment
Speaker:Evan: bear locks himself into the bathroom and first he has a gun and he's thinking
Speaker:Evan: of shooting himself but he's a wimp and he can't do it and then he starts taking it.
Speaker:ward: Comes down to him being a coward he's a fucking coward yeah from the beginning.
Speaker:Evan: He takes a bunch of pills and then right after he's taking a bunch of pills
Speaker:Evan: you hear the one wish willow sound it's the jinkle the jinkle,
Speaker:Evan: Because Nikki has found it. What do you think she wished for? I have my thought.
Speaker:ward: Well, real quick. First, he tries to throw up the pills.
Speaker:Evan: Yes, he does.
Speaker:ward: And he tries to back out. Well, he can't because he gets interrupted by the wish.
Speaker:Evan: Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker:ward: So, like, even choosing the more arguably, and we probably shouldn't be talking
Speaker:ward: in these terms when it comes to fucking suicide.
Speaker:Evan: He's taking the humane way out. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker:ward: Well like he's choosing the arguably
Speaker:ward: more coward way out taking the pills overshooting himself and then even,
Speaker:ward: then more cowardly tries to throw out throw him up and back out of it yeah to,
Speaker:ward: keep the wish going to maintain control like oh maybe there's some other way
Speaker:ward: out of this instead of just i don't know killing himself,
Speaker:ward: like he should be doing in that fucking moment or what he should have done earlier
Speaker:ward: like nikki fucking begged him to do which was fucking kill her.
Speaker:Evan: Before she had to then commit her own murder.
Speaker:ward: Before she had to kill sarah kill ian and then be left with fucking bear's dead body up to you.
Speaker:Evan: So i think that she wished that bear loved him her more than anything else in the world.
Speaker:bill: I think she wished,
Speaker:bill: bear loved her the way she loved him.
Speaker:ward: That's what i'm.
Speaker:Evan: Thinking but as wish nikki or not wish as wish nikki like okay.
Speaker:bill: As like that yeah like she for the wish recreated the.
Speaker:Evan: Mutual mutual obsession.
Speaker:ward: Yeah for me the one is while like she's watching him sleep and she's like i
Speaker:ward: feel like you don't love me like i love you like it's not mutual.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah yes.
Speaker:ward: Exactly like that's what makes me feel like.
Speaker:Evan: And then he comes out because all of a sudden he's like oh i can't die because
Speaker:Evan: i now i love you for real real.
Speaker:bill: I that was that was my was like it's just it's a mirroring that's that's how i.
Speaker:Evan: Because she's making the wish as wish nikki not making the wish as right real
Speaker:Evan: she can't make the wish as real nikki and then yeah and then she as soon as
Speaker:Evan: he then dies in her arms wish nikki goes away,
Speaker:Evan: and now she's fucking the most like it's really a brutal sad ending i mean i think if real nikki.
Speaker:ward: Got a chance to make that wish she would wish to fucking die oh yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Period or she wished that bear dies.
Speaker:ward: Well she doesn't know that like yeah he needs to die.
Speaker:Evan: True for.
Speaker:ward: The wish to be over true and she's already begged for herself to be fucking killed.
Speaker:Evan: She.
Speaker:ward: Hates her existence.
Speaker:Evan: What you, Cory Barker said that he believes that she would, Nikki would then
Speaker:Evan: just go to prison for a long time and has no way to defend anything because she can't remember it.
Speaker:ward: I think she might be able to remember a lot more than like people would give
Speaker:ward: her credit for because like I feel like it's maybe it's not like 100% like get
Speaker:ward: out moment where like she's in the back watching everything.
Speaker:ward: But like she's not completely detached.
Speaker:bill: No.
Speaker:Evan: If she was completely detached.
Speaker:bill: She wouldn't be screaming.
Speaker:ward: And even then, like, she has to explain completely unbelievable circumstances,
Speaker:ward: to American law enforcement who doesn't give a fuck.
Speaker:bill: First of all, this is a technical note. Evan, we definitely need to put some
Speaker:bill: kind of trigger warning regarding discussion of suicide in the beginning of
Speaker:bill: the episode, an audio point about lengthy discussion about suicide.
Speaker:bill: And for, you know, you can leave this in there.
Speaker:bill: I will say this, for those of you who are listening, if you've just listened
Speaker:bill: to us discuss suicide and all
Speaker:bill: this, please understand that we are not completely unfeeling about that.
Speaker:bill: At least two of us here have discussed at length, between the three of us,
Speaker:bill: at least two of us here have discussed at length the fact that we have suffered
Speaker:bill: from suicidal ideation and chronic depression for large portions of our lives.
Speaker:bill: We are not unfeeling or unaware of how serious that kind of thing is.
Speaker:bill: That said, I think that the fact that Corey, uh, uh, fucking Corey Barker,
Speaker:bill: thinks that she would go to prison to me says he has certainly never had any
Speaker:bill: kind of suicidal ideation because to me my immediate thought is oh you fucking kill yourself
Speaker:bill: okay so it's like real quick you only have one option this one like nope there's always that one.
Speaker:ward: So the original ending she kills herself that was the original ending that curry
Speaker:ward: barker wanted was that she killed herself and then like he talked with the crew
Speaker:ward: and like everyone else and was like okay it's kind of bleak so let's like.
Speaker:bill: Yeah let's try let's.
Speaker:ward: Try a different one.
Speaker:bill: I think it's good to leave it open i think i think it's arguable to say that
Speaker:bill: it's less bleak for her to not kill herself on screen i don't know about that,
Speaker:bill: yeah seriously but you know.
Speaker:Evan: Six one way,
Speaker:Evan: The thing that you actually would hope would honestly happen,
Speaker:Evan: the best case scenario, is she leaves, she finds all of Ian's money,
Speaker:Evan: gets a bunch of it, and leaves the country.
Speaker:ward: See, my happy headcanon was that Fleezacine calls in saying that she has been
Speaker:ward: under Bear's control this whole time,
Speaker:ward: and then tries to plead out that way.
Speaker:ward: that like it was bear that killed sarah and ian,
Speaker:ward: and they committed suicide and i was able to get out like that would be that's
Speaker:ward: my happy headcanon is that's how she makes it out and then she becomes a writer,
Speaker:ward: she's able to tell her story she grows from it,
Speaker:ward: like that's my happy headcanon like probably not fucking happening but like,
Speaker:ward: that's but if in this world the one wishwello.
Speaker:Evan: Do like police believe that the one wish.
Speaker:ward: Wallow is real?
Speaker:bill: Fuck no.
Speaker:Evan: No, right?
Speaker:ward: No, you can literally be too smart to be a cop in this country.
Speaker:ward: You think they'll figure out magic? Fuck out of here.
Speaker:Evan: Oh, man.
Speaker:bill: The one wish willow is such a bizarre fucking thing.
Speaker:bill: Like it's a toy they sell for six 99 that grants wishes.
Speaker:Evan: Weird world.
Speaker:bill: I see.
Speaker:ward: I even like the theory that the, the, like the shop owner, like lady behind
Speaker:ward: the counter cash register in the beginning, like she uses a one wish willow.
Speaker:ward: And that's the man we see later is because they're trans and that was their wish.
Speaker:ward: And that's, that's why I love that. It's like, oh, can you make a wish?
Speaker:ward: No, I already made my wish. Like, we see that.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker:ward: Didn't make an evil shitty wish. No problems. No fucking blowback from that wish.
Speaker:bill: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Not at all.
Speaker:ward: Even then with fucking Ian's wish, what fucking blowback is that except for
Speaker:ward: the physical fucking mass of a billion dollars in your house? And even then...
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, and then he dies.
Speaker:ward: You have a billion dollars. Like, is the mass that big of a problem now?
Speaker:ward: See, Ian would have been fine if he didn't go over to his fucking friend's house
Speaker:ward: though. If he just stayed at home with his billion dollars, he'd be alive.
Speaker:Evan: That's true. He's not exactly a smart guy.
Speaker:ward: No, not at all.
Speaker:bill: No.
Speaker:Evan: He's a fucking idiot.
Speaker:ward: Yeah. He's a piece of shit. And like another note to why he's a piece of shit
Speaker:ward: is like whenever, um, like they're all out, uh, drinking and like Nikki,
Speaker:ward: like at the beginning of Nikki's like, Oh, I want to go home.
Speaker:ward: Like, just give me a fucking ride home. And bears like, I'll give you a ride home.
Speaker:ward: And Ian's like, Oh yeah, go ahead and take your girl home.
Speaker:ward: and like she fucking hates that and it's like kind of shows Ian's character
Speaker:ward: is that like we find out later that like he's been sleeping with Nikki and so
Speaker:ward: it shows that like he either views her as his girl or Bear's girl.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah somebody else's.
Speaker:ward: He doesn't see her as her own person.
Speaker:bill: Yeah. I'm trying to find evidence that the shop owner.
Speaker:Evan: I don't think that ever came up in any of it.
Speaker:ward: It's a theory. It's a, it's yeah, it's a fan theory. I like it.
Speaker:bill: I know that I'm no, I meant I'm literally looking at the movie and I'm like,
Speaker:bill: is there a, is there a tell?
Speaker:bill: Like, is there a clothing? Yeah, is there a tell? Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Well, I do know until Curry Parker's next film he's making is set in the same
Speaker:Evan: universe. And he said the only nod of this movie will be that there'll be like
Speaker:Evan: a news story on TV in the background talking about what happened during this movie.
Speaker:ward: I think that's a nice touch. Like, make it in-universe, different story,
Speaker:ward: just to have it referenced in like a TV show or a newspaper in the background.
Speaker:ward: Granted, nobody's watching.
Speaker:Evan: And the cast is crazy. Did you see the cast of his new movie?
Speaker:Evan: It is, I'm trying to think. It's called Anything But Ghosts,
Speaker:Evan: and it's starring Cooper Tomlinson, Bryce Dallas Howard, Aaron Paul, and Violet McGraw.
Speaker:ward: I'm in.
Speaker:Evan: And most of the people became attached to the film, I think,
Speaker:Evan: after this had been released. It seems like Blumhouse was the production company
Speaker:Evan: from the first one, and I'm guessing they saw, oh, damn, this dude's got some
Speaker:Evan: skills. We'll be in his movie.
Speaker:ward: Have you ever seen any of the.
Speaker:bill: He has a couple guest appearances and it's always sunny.
Speaker:Evan: People don't I guess people.
Speaker:ward: Don't also realize.
Speaker:Evan: That in they have a bunch of sketches with Cooper Tomlinson and Corey Barker.
Speaker:ward: Yeah started out as a YouTuber any seen any of his YouTube videos a couple I
Speaker:ward: like the Dune Intervention one yeah that one is that one's hilarious they have
Speaker:ward: intervention for their friend his YouTube channel has 605.
Speaker:Evan: Million views I'm sure many after the.
Speaker:ward: Oh yeah probably but yeah I didn't see i think it's called this.
Speaker:Evan: Is a bad idea.
Speaker:ward: It's like deeply unsettling and uncomfortable a lot of the watch do we get.
Speaker:Evan: Ward's uh miserable marxist take on this movie.
Speaker:bill: Well because miserable marxist we only have miserable marxist responses to movies
Speaker:bill: that we would otherwise enjoy but have terrible messages and this movie the
Speaker:bill: only miserable marxist response to this is that american movie moviegoers.
Speaker:ward: Can't yeah that's a big thing yeah you're right i could be i could be i could bash it like how i um,
Speaker:ward: In similar vein where it's like, um, like how I did, like how I feel about squid
Speaker:ward: games where it's like, you know, sometimes you got to be more overt.
Speaker:ward: You got to really bash people over the fucking head to get a point across.
Speaker:ward: And yeah, this movie could definitely do that.
Speaker:ward: Like, no, rape is a really fucking bad thing. Like controlling your partner
Speaker:ward: or somebody who doesn't even in, isn't even in a relationship with you is a fucking evil thing.
Speaker:ward: like you know they could probably go more overt on that as my miserable marxist take.
Speaker:bill: Yeah but at a certain point you're actually just.
Speaker:ward: Like yeah it's gonna pull away from the movie yeah yeah,
Speaker:ward: it's hard to blend like a super over the top yeah thematic theme when you want
Speaker:ward: to try to maintain a form like
Speaker:ward: it's hard to do it sometimes you can snow piercer would be a great example for
Speaker:ward: me yeah but yeah it's just he treads that yeah it's hard to do i will admit.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, there's a reason he's like.
Speaker:ward: You know, he's the goat.
Speaker:bill: Yeah, yeah, basically. Yeah, I almost said exactly. I almost said exactly.
Speaker:bill: Okay, there's a reason he's the goat, but that's not a term I really ever use.
Speaker:bill: And it felt awkward and weird for me to say it.
Speaker:Evan: Well, I got nothing else. Well, what's he do?
Speaker:bill: I mean, this, this is a movie that proves that, you know, for all the talk about,
Speaker:bill: you know, the dying in the movie industry and the way these people,
Speaker:bill: these execs talk about things that really, you know, people do want to go to the movies.
Speaker:bill: They just want good original content.
Speaker:bill: It doesn't have to have the fucking rock in it. It doesn't have to have Chris Pratt in it.
Speaker:bill: You know, it doesn't have to have a goddamn superhero. and i'm not trying to
Speaker:bill: you know i i like superhero stuff sometimes occasionally oh she.
Speaker:ward: Wants to be in a marvel movie after this oh.
Speaker:bill: She was walking dog before this movie.
Speaker:ward: I don't fucking blame her for one in the fucking bag.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah she got 24 grand for this.
Speaker:bill: Movie you mean she wants to be able to pay her bills for the rest of her life i'm not shocked.
Speaker:Evan: Uh let her do that then she.
Speaker:bill: But like, you know, people, people want fucking people want movies and they
Speaker:bill: will go to the movies to watch them.
Speaker:bill: Stop underestimating.
Speaker:bill: Stop belittling audiences and stop thinking people can't fucking understand movies or enjoy them.
Speaker:Evan: This movie outgrossed a Star Wars movie. Think about that. This movie is.
Speaker:bill: Which one? Do you mean Grogu thing?
Speaker:Evan: I mean, regardless of how good it is, the Mandalorian movie, but the fact that- Okay.
Speaker:ward: Bill, 10 years ago, I tell you, hey, some,
Speaker:ward: random YouTuber that you don't really know is going to make a horror movie that's
Speaker:ward: going to outgross a blockbuster Star Wars theatrical release.
Speaker:ward: Would you fucking believe that 10 years ago?
Speaker:bill: No.
Speaker:ward: It's been seven years since the Star Wars movie was in theaters.
Speaker:ward: Like, so even knowing Grogu is a piece of shit, like.
Speaker:bill: Do you mean personally, Grogu himself is a piece of shit?
Speaker:ward: The Grogu movie.
Speaker:bill: He does eat frogs, helpless frogs.
Speaker:ward: I haven't watched the movie. All I know about it is.
Speaker:bill: I didn't see the movie either.
Speaker:ward: Apparently Yoda's species instinctually builds those little mud hut homes.
Speaker:ward: I like that. what what yeah like yoda's yoda's house.
Speaker:Evan: Oh that's just like instinct,
Speaker:Evan: what the fuck yeah we've gone out the rails you saw this.
Speaker:bill: Movie in the theaters is that real is that true yeah what the fuck,
Speaker:bill: see.
Speaker:Evan: You may as well see it it's not it's it's it's it's it's fine you know it's
Speaker:Evan: nothing off the chart it's too long,
Speaker:Evan: yeah i want you for free yeah oh yeah all right everyone well um this is left
Speaker:Evan: to the projector for myself bill work don't drink and drive.
