Episode 237
The Running Man (2025) with Worker's Lit
This week Evan and Bill are joined by the folks from the Worker's Lit podcast to talk about the 2025 film "The Running Man," directed by Edgar Wright and starring Glen Powell, Colman Domingo, Emilia Jones, William H. Macy, Josh Brolin, and Michael Cera. With a special appearance by Lee Pace. This episode is part two of our collaboration with Worker's Lit covering a book and the movie based on it, in this case the Stephen King novel by the same name. During the episode we discuss how much more capably Wright and Powell portray class consciousness than King, note how the movie improved on the book, and remained loyal to it by having a less than satisfying ending.
Check out the episode we did with Worker's Lit here!
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Transcript
Evan: Oh, well, it's fine. It's fine. Honestly, it's probably better that way because
Speaker:Evan: I think there's more, it kind of doesn't make as much sense to be like,
Speaker:Evan: hey, here's this one about the running man.
Speaker:Evan: Here's one about another movie as well as this one.
Speaker:Jacob: I do think the long, I mean, we didn't get into it. The long walk book is a
Speaker:Jacob: decent bit better than the running man book, but I haven't seen the movie.
Speaker:Jacob: I didn't get it around to seeing the movie anyway.
Speaker:Evan: It's a pretty depressing movie.
Speaker:Bill: It's a fucking depressing book. Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Really?
Speaker:Bill: For like two seconds, I was like, do you guys want to do that?
Speaker:Bill: And then I was like, but then I'd have to read another Stephen King novel.
Speaker:Bill: So forget I ever even thought about suggesting that.
Speaker:Evan: Well, they already did it.
Speaker:Jacob: Oh, we already did it the long way.
Speaker:Bill: Oh, okay.
Speaker:Jacob: It's a lot better. It's not great, but it's significantly better.
Speaker:Bill: Well, good. I'm spared to even say that.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah, walking is a lot. It's a lot easier to write a book about walking than running.
Speaker:Jacob: Stephen King is good at writing people in pain, and that is what most of the
Speaker:Jacob: book is, and so it is effective.
Speaker:Bill: That says something really bad about him, I think.
Speaker:Jacob: Oh, it's all he cares about.
Speaker:Lenore: It does the whole, like, people who are already on death row rebelling within
Speaker:Lenore: acceptable bounds for the audience.
Speaker:Bill: Yeah.
Speaker:Lenore: And as, like, a pressure release valve, it does that better because it's not,
Speaker:Lenore: like, as explicitly racialized and, like, misogynist as Running Man is.
Speaker:Jacob: But it's still, you know, just fine. Anyway, sorry, this isn't about the long...
Speaker:Evan: Hello, and welcome to Left of the Projector. I'm your host, Evan,
Speaker:Evan: back again with another film discussion from the left.
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Speaker:Evan: of our weekly episodes that drop every Tuesday. And now on to the show.
Speaker:Evan: This week on Left of the Projector, we're going to be discussing a remake and
Speaker:Evan: book adaptation of Stephen King or Richard Bachman's book called The Running Man.
Speaker:Evan: If you go way back to episode 69 of this show, you can hear a discussion of
Speaker:Evan: the Arnold Schwarzenegger version of this film, which I believe this one is
Speaker:Evan: much and far superior to that.
Speaker:Evan: The most recent adaptation of Running Man stars Glenn Powell, William H.
Speaker:Evan: Macy, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Josh Brolin, Colin Domingo, and was directed by Edgar Wright.
Speaker:Aysha: A lot of guys I love to see, just gonna say.
Speaker:Evan: You may have noticed we just posted on our feed a collaboration post with Workers
Speaker:Evan: Lit, where we discussed the book version of this film.
Speaker:Evan: And you can go listen to us discuss the book, and then you can come back here
Speaker:Evan: and finish listening to us talk about the film. You may remember we had Lenore
Speaker:Evan: and Jacob on to discuss Drag Me to Hell, episode 217 for those counting at home.
Speaker:Evan: This week, I'm joined by Jacob, Lenore, and Aisha. Welcome back to Left to the Project.
Speaker:Bill: Also, I'm here.
Speaker:Aysha: Thank you so much for having us.
Speaker:Evan: Sorry, Bill.
Speaker:Jacob: I forgot you on my podcast, too. I'm so sorry. It's a bad day for Bill. Hi, thank you.
Speaker:Aysha: It's a bad night for Bill.
Speaker:Jacob: Bad night for Bill, except you've had some good takes about Stephen King tonight,
Speaker:Jacob: so it's a good night for Bill in that regard. Hi, I'm Jacob,
Speaker:Jacob: and I'm excited to talk about something I liked a lot more than the book version,
Speaker:Jacob: which I didn't like very much.
Speaker:Evan: And do you want to tell us about Workers Lit? I believe when you were on last
Speaker:Evan: time, it was a slightly different iteration of your podcast.
Speaker:Evan: So what has changed? What should we know? What should the listeners know?
Speaker:Aysha: I'm here now.
Speaker:Jacob: Yes, I'm just here now. Yeah, there's more women. We did. I should do or Lenore,
Speaker:Jacob: do we want to you want to take it or do you want me to?
Speaker:Aysha: We joke about how we're the only majority woman podcast in existence.
Speaker:Aysha: But Jacob is pretty good at the pinch. Go ahead, Jacob.
Speaker:Jacob: Well uh so in november we switched
Speaker:Jacob: from socialist shelf uh to the name workers lit that
Speaker:Jacob: is because we wanted to expand what we were talking about uh
Speaker:Jacob: our tagline is now workers lit the your favorite podcast
Speaker:Jacob: about fighting for the narrative we put out two episodes a week one episode
Speaker:Jacob: as me lenore and aisha and we are discussing a piece sorry we are discussing
Speaker:Jacob: a piece of literature um talking about its context where it comes out of the
Speaker:Jacob: book itself the politics around it and how it contributes overall to the battle for the narrative.
Speaker:Jacob: And then we also release an episode of the week about politics and the narrative
Speaker:Jacob: battle that's going on around some kind of political issue that's ongoing.
Speaker:Jacob: That is me, Lenore, and our other co-host, Jen.
Speaker:Jacob: And we have a pretty good time. We sort of have the culture side of the podcast,
Speaker:Jacob: the culture and art side, and the ongoing politics side.
Speaker:Jacob: But we consider those both to be essential parts of the ongoing battle for the narrative.
Speaker:Jacob: And so we are workers lit and uh we are here to talk about running man we're
Speaker:Jacob: very excited and very happy to be here.
Speaker:Lenore: Yeah, look forward to November when we add a cooking channel to our show.
Speaker:Jacob: Yeah, it's going to every year.
Speaker:Aysha: A fishing mini game?
Speaker:Jacob: Yes. Every year we add a new until we're doing like 30 episodes.
Speaker:Jacob: Yeah, in 20 years we will have video games. You know, shocking.
Speaker:Aysha: I mean, All My Maidens is kind of our third podcast. I'm going to be real because
Speaker:Aysha: you come on it all the time, Jacob.
Speaker:Bill: Tabletop role-playing games. Tabletop role-playing games.
Speaker:Lenore: Ooh, that's a good one.
Speaker:Aysha: I do. So I have thought about doing a show. But the thing is,
Speaker:Aysha: I like all my podcasts are like people do things for me and I'll just sit there.
Speaker:Aysha: So I have never had a good time playing a tabletop game. I've tried like twice.
Speaker:Aysha: And my DM was dog shit both times.
Speaker:Aysha: So I'm like, what if what if I made a podcast where the point is to make me enjoy playing D&D?
Speaker:Evan: Well, Bill knows things about that.
Speaker:Bill: I know quite a bit about that.
Speaker:Jacob: D&D.
Speaker:Evan: Not the dog shit part. The other part. Sorry.
Speaker:Aysha: I had a DM who kept, like, he was mad because he wanted us to fight stuff,
Speaker:Aysha: but I kept, like, flirting my way through everything, and he wasn't prepared
Speaker:Aysha: for it. And I was like, come on, pussy.
Speaker:Bill: He's bad at running a game.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah.
Speaker:Bill: I want to note, Evan, I want, like, dollar in my, like, tip jar,
Speaker:Bill: my virtual host, co-host tip jar, that I have not derailed with D&D extensively.
Speaker:Bill: I'm not the one continuing conversation about D&D right now,
Speaker:Bill: okay? I'm not the one subjecting people to listening to things.
Speaker:Evan: Usually after the episode's over when we stop recording, you're just having
Speaker:Evan: a conversation with our guests for like 20 minutes about Dianne.
Speaker:Lenore: Well, I think if they were to do a death game like The Running Man or whatever
Speaker:Lenore: else the network has IRL, it would be one of those actual play shows,
Speaker:Lenore: except if you roll a natural one, they just drop you into the fucking lava pit
Speaker:Lenore: beneath Dr. Evil's meeting table.
Speaker:Bill: They do that.
Speaker:Jacob: Into the crocodile waters.
Speaker:Bill: It's the treadmill. It's the crocodile mode. it's running man and then you know
Speaker:Bill: um god what would you call that hey.
Speaker:Jacob: This movie is full of what feels like dnd characters glenn powell in this movie
Speaker:Jacob: feels like a dnd character michael serra feels like an artificer there's a lot going on michael.
Speaker:Aysha: Serra's like house of tricks and traps.
Speaker:Bill: Michael serra was i there are points in this movie where like again what you
Speaker:Bill: you know you said on the Another episode, Aisha,
Speaker:Bill: I believe it was you, Aisha, said that like, you know, someone was like,
Speaker:Bill: this movie is nothing like the book. And it's like, did you read the same book as me?
Speaker:Bill: Like the book running man feels like the pitch for the movie.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah.
Speaker:Bill: Like that's, that's what the book felt like. It's like, Hey,
Speaker:Bill: here's a rough draft of an idea that we can make better.
Speaker:Bill: And Edgar Wright read that book and was like, oh, I have a brain and brain.
Speaker:Bill: some marks of sensibilities and a creative vision and I've created incredible
Speaker:Bill: movies, I can take this rough idea for a possible story and turn it in something
Speaker:Bill: people would actually fucking want to watch.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah, it was fun. I had a lot of fun watching it.
Speaker:Jacob: Don't forget a hot cast because Lenore can tell you that I was fighting for
Speaker:Jacob: my life watching Glenn Powell climbing around that hotel room in a bathrobe.
Speaker:Jacob: I was like, I was the cartoon dog hitting myself in the mirror.
Speaker:Aysha: I was surprised by how female gaze-y it was. Like, it really was like, look at this man.
Speaker:Jacob: It was Jacob gaze-y, actually. It was for me.
Speaker:Bill: I honestly, I think Glenn Powell called for that. I could see him doing that.
Speaker:Bill: I think he's that kind of guy.
Speaker:Evan: Let me ask this. Did you all read the book first and then watch the movie?
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah.
Speaker:Lenore: Yeah.
Speaker:Jacob: Yes.
Speaker:Bill: Wait. Also his baddie wife. Both of us watched the better thing first and then subjected ourselves.
Speaker:Evan: But I had seen the movie, like, when it came out, so it was,
Speaker:Evan: that was easier to have happened.
Speaker:Bill: I watched this one, then read the book. I started high and went low.
Speaker:Jacob: Yeah.
Speaker:Aysha: So all the, like, basically everything that bothered me in the book, the movie fixed.
Speaker:Bill: Yeah.
Speaker:Bill: He's a likable character.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah. You root for him. The first scene is him holding his adorable child and
Speaker:Aysha: shaking at her and being like, look, she's sick.
Speaker:Aysha: Don't you care about me? And I'm like, yes, your kid is so cute.
Speaker:Bill: You have a baddie wife. He didn't shake her because that would be bad. You don't shake bad.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah, I know. He didn't shake her, but metaphorically shook her in the face.
Speaker:Aysha: And he's like, look at this child.
Speaker:Aysha: How can you say no to this child? And then his shitty boss is like, get out of here.
Speaker:Bill: And then you're immediately fed information that the reason he's blacklisted
Speaker:Bill: is because he was protecting his fellow worker.
Speaker:Aysha: Right. He was forming a union.
Speaker:Bill: Multiple times. Talking about union. Also, just put his life on the line to
Speaker:Bill: save somebody else's life.
Speaker:Bill: And the jobs they show him doing are jobs you could expect someone to be a physically
Speaker:Bill: capable being of doing. You know, like high rise, like welding and like all
Speaker:Bill: that construction stuff.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. The movie, you don't get any information about what his job sort of history
Speaker:Evan: was and why he would have like a physical, you know, the book. Sorry.
Speaker:Bill: In the book, the only thing you learn about his possible job is that it involved
Speaker:Bill: radiation, which, as we all know, makes you hail and hearty.
Speaker:Bill: That's how you do parkour.
Speaker:Aysha: Maybe it was like Captain America. It like it made him like swole. Yeah.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah. He's also like his hot wife. Like Jesus Christ.
Speaker:Bill: He got bit by an irradiated Glenn Powell.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah. Yeah. Super hot wife who's like a waitress at a club and is like,
Speaker:Aysha: I'm going to start stripping.
Speaker:Aysha: And then he's like, no, don't do that. I will go kill myself instead.
Speaker:Evan: Did they, in the book, something we didn't mention that I think is interesting
Speaker:Evan: is they specifically call out that they get married at what, like 16 or something?
Speaker:Bill: Very young.
Speaker:Evan: Whereas in this, it's just sort of like normal stuff.
Speaker:Evan: Kind of, I don't know. Everything that he left out from the book was like,
Speaker:Evan: good job. Thank you for leaving that out.
Speaker:Aysha: Did we mention that we'd already, like, we did an episode, yeah,
Speaker:Aysha: already on the book. So refer to that.
Speaker:Aysha: Listen to Worker's Lit. You now have to listen to our, because this is part
Speaker:Aysha: two, so you have to listen to our show.
Speaker:Bill: Yes, this is a two-part. You mentioned that in the intro.
Speaker:Jacob: Yeah, you mentioned it, yeah.
Speaker:Evan: I did. I can add that in.
Speaker:Aysha: I was probably just not listening. So.
Speaker:Aysha: So
Speaker:Aysha: cold the the levels of like so
Speaker:Aysha: the book feels very dated i said in the other episode i
Speaker:Aysha: think well obviously like this movie came out last year so it
Speaker:Aysha: doesn't feel dated but i actually like was very
Speaker:Aysha: struck by this movie the portrayal of
Speaker:Aysha: the dystopia in this movie i actually think
Speaker:Aysha: is one of the more likelier ways that
Speaker:Aysha: we're heading as a society like i think
Speaker:Aysha: the portrayal like this idea that like there's
Speaker:Aysha: no jobs and and and because of
Speaker:Aysha: ai but like the movie doesn't say that but like in
Speaker:Aysha: our world it's like all of the jobs are gone most people
Speaker:Aysha: are unemployed so the only jobs left are these like very dangerous industrial
Speaker:Aysha: jobs or like pouring yourself out to a tv network to die for money and i really
Speaker:Aysha: think that is the future like or pouring yourself out literally literally Like.
Speaker:Jacob: In his wife's case, literally having to do sex work.
Speaker:Bill: Really specifically, it's a service economy. It's a complete service economy.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah.
Speaker:Bill: It's a service economy that's bottomed out. And like that's all there is.
Speaker:Evan: It feels like a more, it's almost like a Paul Verhoeven from Total Recall,
Speaker:Evan: but like on steroids, modernized, because that's an 80s move or well,
Speaker:Evan: maybe 1990, something like that.
Speaker:Evan: And this is sort of like the hyper version of hyper capitalist hell where everyone
Speaker:Evan: is just watching these terrible TV shows or just churning them out reality television.
Speaker:Evan: And it's just it's right.
Speaker:Aysha: We see him watching some of them with his daughter.
Speaker:Jacob: I'm sorry. I'm going to put my foot down and say that there is nothing that
Speaker:Jacob: is depicted on this TV that is bad and dystopian as the masked singer, a real TV show.
Speaker:Jacob: I'm telling you, that is the most I'll buy that for a dollar ass thing I've
Speaker:Jacob: ever seen in my entire life. Jesus Christ, Mr. Beast.
Speaker:Aysha: Or like The Biggest Loser.
Speaker:Aysha: Stuff like that. All of the stuff that we have, we have so many evil shows.
Speaker:Aysha: I also like the Kardashian ripoff they have. The Americanos. I really like that.
Speaker:Jacob: Latina Kardashians is awesome.
Speaker:Aysha: The little scene where he's sitting there just muting and unmuting it was really funny.
Speaker:Lenore: I have a friend who keeps our group in the loop on what's going on with 90 Day
Speaker:Lenore: Fiance and Real Housewives and all that shit. I believe it was on Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Speaker:Lenore: Where, like, one of them was, like, dressing down the other.
Speaker:Lenore: And I remember, like, one of his favorite things he's ever seen is one woman
Speaker:Lenore: saying to the other, your husband only has one Rolex.
Speaker:Lenore: This is real.
Speaker:Aysha: This is real. So, like, yeah, you see him, like, taking care of his daughter
Speaker:Aysha: while his wife is at work.
Speaker:Aysha: And you see him, like, loses her favorite sock or something.
Speaker:Bill: And he's upset.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah. Also, like, and I think that I wouldn't usually mention this,
Speaker:Aysha: but like, I think this is specifically like juxtaposed to Stephen King's racism
Speaker:Aysha: is that this his wife is black in this movie.
Speaker:Aysha: And his daughter is black in this movie. So, yeah, I'm glad that they're...
Speaker:Bill: Also, he never once uses any racial slurs. That's also a big part of it.
Speaker:Aysha: Right. And I feel like it's got to be intentional by the director to immediately
Speaker:Aysha: be like, listen, it's 2025.
Speaker:Jacob: Stephen King was like, I did the not say a racial slur for two hours challenge. He's like sweating.
Speaker:Lenore: Yeah.
Speaker:Evan: One of the criticism I've actually saw from some people who kind of maybe the
Speaker:Evan: same people who thought the book was better kind of group or whatever.
Speaker:Evan: I don't know. Is that the, especially the beginning where you're sort of hit
Speaker:Evan: over the head with the universe, where there actually is world building that
Speaker:Evan: it's like, there was too much somehow. Like this is too much in your face kind
Speaker:Evan: of thing. And I just don't understand.
Speaker:Aysha: No, that's how movies work. You have, you look at things.
Speaker:Bill: No, no, no, no. Nowadays, nowadays we make movies so that people can,
Speaker:Bill: watch them while doing while in another room.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker:Lenore: Well, if you played the Fortnite event that explained the plot of a movie.
Speaker:Jacob: You'd be on board.
Speaker:Bill: This isn't a Marvel movie, Lenore.
Speaker:Evan: But that's why I think they like the book more. They don't want world building.
Speaker:Evan: They want, I don't know, Stephen King dialogue.
Speaker:Bill: I think actually that is a really good point.
Speaker:Bill: We're assuming this is coming for somebody who was comparing it to the book.
Speaker:Bill: And it's like, the book is that kind of like, you only have to pay half attention
Speaker:Bill: to this. You don't really have to.
Speaker:Aysha: Engage with it. Yeah, the book felt more like a movie than the movie did, if that makes sense.
Speaker:Jacob: It's got its cheesiness to it. It definitely has its, I don't know,
Speaker:Jacob: the needle drop when he's walking through the city and he's like, I'm the underdog.
Speaker:Jacob: It's silly, but it's in a way that I can enjoy because I'm here to interface
Speaker:Jacob: with a piece of media and have fun with it.
Speaker:Jacob: I know this is fiction and it's silly, but
Speaker:Jacob: At the same time, like it is doing something. It doesn't have that same instinctual
Speaker:Jacob: hatred for the underclass, right? He's walking around the city and yes, people are poor.
Speaker:Jacob: Yes, there's crime. Yes, things have been stripped off. But also there's like
Speaker:Jacob: street art and there's like people that are talking to each other.
Speaker:Jacob: And the real bad shit is coming from the police and from the overclass in this.
Speaker:Jacob: When he has the natural impulse, when a guy falls down to help him up and a
Speaker:Jacob: police officer yells at him about it.
Speaker:Lenore: Yeah.
Speaker:Jacob: The bad things are largely coming from the overclass.
Speaker:Jacob: And when working class people do shitty things in this movie,
Speaker:Jacob: they are pushed into it, whipped into a frenzy by media and by organisms of
Speaker:Jacob: the state and corporations that are trying to get them to do so.
Speaker:Jacob: It is a much better understanding of how the world works.
Speaker:Aysha: I also think that specifically one thing that adds to that feeling,
Speaker:Aysha: Jacob, is the other two runners that we get to see a lot.
Speaker:Aysha: Because they mention that there's other runners a little bit in the book,
Speaker:Aysha: but they actually focus on these two.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah, so there's two other runners. One is this nerd guy who's just like,
Speaker:Aysha: hi guys, let's exchange phone numbers or whatever.
Speaker:Aysha: And then there's like this like just like crazy lesbian who's just like getting
Speaker:Aysha: pussy. That's like all she does.
Speaker:Lenore: I would watch an entire series about her.
Speaker:Jacob: Yeah, I was going to say that was when Lenore was hitting herself with the hammer.
Speaker:Bill: They were used so effectively as
Speaker:Bill: mechanisms for understanding the world the world
Speaker:Bill: view but also the ideology of the people behind everything but not only that
Speaker:Bill: so perfectly utilized to explain the different ways in which people in a system
Speaker:Bill: like this react to process and cope with the,
Speaker:Bill: alienation inherent to the system you can like these are your these are the
Speaker:Bill: you know the three wolves within the alienated person you know it's like do you bradley.
Speaker:Aysha: Even breaks that down for us in the movie yes.
Speaker:Bill: Yeah yeah yes we have it explained to
Speaker:Bill: us and it really you know but like he explains it
Speaker:Bill: in terms of the show but like i also think that
Speaker:Bill: it is metaphorically very much a way of like
Speaker:Bill: it's the three ways or one of the three like prevalent
Speaker:Bill: ways in which people react to alienation in
Speaker:Bill: that you either just fucking kind of like just ignorance is bliss and like you'll
Speaker:Bill: be like the first person you walk up to like um i cannot remember his name and
Speaker:Bill: then her you know it's like you make the best that you live you burn out but you live out you know,
Speaker:Bill: Or you're Ben Richardson.
Speaker:Aysha: And then Richards gets angry.
Speaker:Lenore: Yeah. Or you become Jean Valjean.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah.
Speaker:Bill: Yeah. I do.
Speaker:Aysha: I think it's also very effective that they're like, yes, this guy has a lot
Speaker:Aysha: of really deep anger when he like smashes the screen when he's like,
Speaker:Aysha: and then they see that and they're like, oh, perfect. We'll put him on the running
Speaker:Aysha: man because this guy's got a lot of anger.
Speaker:Aysha: I liked that. I thought it was more effective than like the 20 pages of like
Speaker:Aysha: boring test taking in the book.
Speaker:Aysha: just like them him like him them
Speaker:Aysha: seeing him first help a guy up and
Speaker:Aysha: then scream and smash uh like it's like okay so this guy he does have morals
Speaker:Aysha: but he's very volatile and he could like and he's got some like i don't know
Speaker:Aysha: he's got some like bombast to him and that comes through later when he's doing
Speaker:Aysha: his like what's up bitches like uh videos and stuff.
Speaker:Evan: It's much more interesting in this in the scene where he's negotiating
Speaker:Evan: with josh brolin like the head of the studio about sort of getting his
Speaker:Evan: getting medicine which they also explicitly say that his daughter
Speaker:Evan: has the flu which i think makes it more interesting that
Speaker:Evan: in this world people are just dying of the
Speaker:Evan: flu yes there's no vaccines presumably or like
Speaker:Evan: only the rich people can have them right but their whole negotiation of like
Speaker:Evan: i'll give your your family like safe refuge you'll get get you'll get like money
Speaker:Evan: up front and all these things like they heavily show you what ben is sort of
Speaker:Evan: up against where i don't think they affect effectively do that in the book at
Speaker:Evan: all they don't really show you the hierarchy the.
Speaker:Jacob: The hype of the show too like the show itself is very effective right there
Speaker:Jacob: is a glamour to it you have uh coleman domingo just killing his body.
Speaker:Evan: So good yeah yeah just coming.
Speaker:Jacob: Out with his you know coming out with a hat and throwing it and really just
Speaker:Jacob: chewing up the scenery running around whipping the people into a frenzy and
Speaker:Jacob: what you see is the and then the book makes attempts at this but it doesn't
Speaker:Jacob: work the same way is it makes the show out of All the people are screaming at
Speaker:Jacob: these people who are seen as the criminals, the running men.
Speaker:Jacob: running men i mean some of them are women uh are
Speaker:Jacob: people that are are despised by society and you're supposed
Speaker:Jacob: to be like look these people they want to kill you
Speaker:Jacob: they want to literally sneak in your house and stop you we as
Speaker:Jacob: a society are coming against them he's yelling look at this
Speaker:Jacob: asshole who doesn't want to work all of that like they're
Speaker:Jacob: depicting him as this villain in a
Speaker:Jacob: way to basically uh to basically whip up working
Speaker:Jacob: normal people against their fellow human beings and
Speaker:Jacob: then that is the idea of it and then of course his anger at the crowd is then
Speaker:Jacob: not just him being like i'm a badass who likes to yell at people he's actually
Speaker:Jacob: mad because they're insulting his wife they're insulting him and they're completely
Speaker:Jacob: skewing reality and it it fucking works in a way that the book doesn't.
Speaker:Aysha: I also think that a very good and specific choice the book make uh the movie
Speaker:Aysha: makes that the book doesn't i think is that they specifically say america in the movie.
Speaker:Jacob: Yes.
Speaker:Aysha: They are like, we're good Americans. We're like, they don't say it.
Speaker:Aysha: It's not America in the book. It's like some made up.
Speaker:Aysha: dystopian future it's just maine yeah it's yeah maine is just like this um yeah.
Speaker:Lenore: It's just maine and the rest of america is the people's republic.
Speaker:Aysha: The way that they say like oh us americans believe
Speaker:Aysha: in this like us and i thought that was really effective and i
Speaker:Aysha: was kind of surprised that they actually say america like
Speaker:Aysha: the thing and i've said this before i think on the
Speaker:Aysha: on the podcast is that like um like the thing about like this guy doesn't want
Speaker:Aysha: to work like americans at least on the like We like to at least say that we
Speaker:Aysha: really care about fairness and equality and hard work in this country.
Speaker:Aysha: That is something that we really value.
Speaker:Aysha: And I really like, I think it feels believable that the crowd could get into hating.
Speaker:Aysha: I think it would just take a tiny little bit more bloodthirst than we have already.
Speaker:Aysha: I can absolutely see this happening now.
Speaker:Bill: The one thing that I, like, I, I agree 100%,
Speaker:Bill: but one of the key points that I think must be stated and is made clear both
Speaker:Bill: in the book and visually in the movie, that these are not.
Speaker:Bill: The people in the audience are not working class people. They are not part of his class.
Speaker:Bill: They are explicitly petite bourgeois.
Speaker:Bill: They are explicitly petite bourgeois. And that is really the key that the,
Speaker:Bill: the, or even like middle class, it's middle class.
Speaker:Jacob: They use the term technicos at one point.
Speaker:Bill: Technicos, right.
Speaker:Aysha: It's the bourgeois.
Speaker:Bill: It's the it's the it's not entirely the bourgeois
Speaker:Bill: because they are not it's not the capitalist class it's not the bourgeois
Speaker:Bill: but it is like just below
Speaker:Bill: that or the people who are like they are labor
Speaker:Bill: aristocracy that i think it's the idea of you know yeah you turn it is what
Speaker:Bill: it's you you enrage white suburban america against anybody that doesn't look
Speaker:Bill: like you and you call them lazy, you know,
Speaker:Bill: doesn't matter, you know, if they're not a white American in suburbia, they're lazy.
Speaker:Bill: You know, all those, you know, black and brown people are fucking lazy.
Speaker:Bill: They don't work. They want to get a mooch off the system.
Speaker:Bill: And in this, what Edgar Wright is doing is by virtue of like making it very
Speaker:Bill: clear, this is a handsome white man, that this is a class thing.
Speaker:Bill: It is a hundred percent class.
Speaker:Bill: That's what it is. It's a class distinction. And they will turn those,
Speaker:Bill: those segments against each other and.
Speaker:Aysha: I like his really cute um his cute little mustache disguise where he it's just
Speaker:Aysha: kind of like him with his hair brushed differently and like a mustache glued
Speaker:Aysha: on he's like they'll never find me.
Speaker:Bill: That's how they always make glenn powell there's another movie where glenn powell's
Speaker:Bill: supposed to be like oh it's hitman um where glenn powell like is a professor
Speaker:Bill: and they're like he's so schlubby and his hair is a little long and he's got a mustache.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah, it's like the hot girl putting on glasses.
Speaker:Bill: Yes. Yes.
Speaker:Jacob: I got to say, I love the mustache.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah. And then there's the sort of completely gratuitous escaping from the hotel
Speaker:Aysha: butt ass naked, which rocked. And I think they should have done it for longer.
Speaker:Jacob: Yes. No, that's crazy that, yeah, I had to really examine that scene several times.
Speaker:Jacob: I want to say too he's getting hunted by these hunters that in the book yeah
Speaker:Jacob: refers to we got these scary hunters
Speaker:Jacob: in the movie it's like the hunters we hype it up we see the guys the.
Speaker:Aysha: Hunters are kind of cunty in the movie the hunters.
Speaker:Jacob: In the book.
Speaker:Bill: You never see as far as we can tell in the book the hunters never get close
Speaker:Bill: to him until the airport there's that one hunter I.
Speaker:Aysha: Think the one who like Michael Cera stabs the leg he looks like a fucking Targaryen he has like.
Speaker:Jacob: Weird like.
Speaker:Aysha: White hair and he's like,
Speaker:Aysha: cuntily smoking a cigarette. I was like, what is going on with this? This is rules.
Speaker:Bill: In the book, the hunters are the most useless people alive.
Speaker:Bill: Yeah. They are completely ineffective in the movie.
Speaker:Bill: They are like, it's just a team with Jason Stamps. Yeah.
Speaker:Jacob: And part of this.
Speaker:Lenore: Of course, sorry, go ahead.
Speaker:Jacob: And their leader, McCone, we don't see until towards the end of the movie.
Speaker:Jacob: It's so badass. We see him physically.
Speaker:Jacob: He's got this like, this like fucking ice mask over his face.
Speaker:Aysha: And he has like a weird, like he looks like he's got a solid snake outfit on.
Speaker:Aysha: He's got like a battle corset.
Speaker:Jacob: He's got aura.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah.
Speaker:Jacob: And you're like, wow, that guy's cool. I'll bet that's Lee Pace under there.
Speaker:Aysha: I literally, I clapped when it was Lee Pace looking like Big Boss. I was so excited.
Speaker:Jacob: I was so excited.
Speaker:Lenore: There is a subreddit somewhere in the world of this movie, I am sure,
Speaker:Lenore: where you have actual tactical gear enthusiasts mercilessly taking apart the
Speaker:Lenore: Running Man shit and talking about how impractical it is.
Speaker:Lenore: But it's presented a certain way.
Speaker:Aysha: And then there's, in the world of the Running Man, there's the AO3...
Speaker:Aysha: uh people yeah yeah hunter x runner yeah.
Speaker:Evan: Those reddit uh listeners can um can send me an email at left of the ejector
Speaker:Evan: at gmail.com and tell me why we're all wrong about.
Speaker:Bill: The about.
Speaker:Evan: The about the tactical gear you know say one thing about the original running
Speaker:Evan: man with Arnold Schwarzenegger they also hype up the the hunt the hunters more
Speaker:Evan: like that's interesting like you actually create.
Speaker:Bill: I don't.
Speaker:Evan: Want to say another class but sort of like he's not quite the elite he's not
Speaker:Evan: quite like he's probably came from sort of the middle class but i don't know
Speaker:Evan: where where would that guy come.
Speaker:Lenore: Well it's the it's the fantasy right of you
Speaker:Lenore: know we talk about how um we talk
Speaker:Lenore: about how the the world of the film fosters this alienate
Speaker:Lenore: this intra-class alienation right and part of the fantasy is okay like if this
Speaker:Lenore: dude was breaking all the rules if he was rampaging through society how would
Speaker:Lenore: we stop him and like the fantasy is being one of those guys right and indeed
Speaker:Lenore: that's the deal that they that that um that comes up toward the end.
Speaker:Bill: Right because i made a i made a joke.
Speaker:Jacob: While i was re-watching scenes from this movie that i was like here comes the
Speaker:Jacob: cossacks like they're rolling up like.
Speaker:Bill: Lee pace was a running man so he was working class like he's a cop he's the
Speaker:Bill: class that's right there's so many little.
Speaker:Aysha: Things in like storytelling things that this movie does that the book doesn't
Speaker:Aysha: do like there's little seeds that the movie play okay so.
Speaker:Bill: I didn't bring this up.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah yes yes i brought.
Speaker:Bill: The fact that he is actually friends with the guy that runs that shop and that
Speaker:Bill: guy was gonna give him a job give him the show like a job at a job at the shop
Speaker:Bill: or like oh he was gonna make him a partner because again people in their community
Speaker:Bill: actually care about each other as opposed to hating everybody.
Speaker:Aysha: So I was looking through the negative reviews of this movie,
Speaker:Aysha: and a couple of them were like
Speaker:Aysha: It was just so convenient how, like, they would mention something and that it
Speaker:Aysha: would be useful later. I'm like, do you know how stories work?
Speaker:Evan: Guys.
Speaker:Aysha: Like, the thing with the doors in the bathroom getting brought up,
Speaker:Aysha: like, the bathroom plane thing getting brought up.
Speaker:Aysha: And I'm like, guys, do you know how movies work?
Speaker:Evan: There's a great tweet that's basically, that's like, in movies,
Speaker:Evan: information is unfolded throughout it. That's how it works.
Speaker:Bill: But like, also, this is truly pathetic because that's how life works, too.
Speaker:Bill: You learn things and then later on, they come up again.
Speaker:Jacob: It's so sick that the real world is a Metroidvania.
Speaker:Aysha: The writing of the movie is deft enough that, like, for instance,
Speaker:Aysha: he is sitting in the very beginning.
Speaker:Aysha: he's watching like a game show where one of the questions is like how many bathrooms does a,
Speaker:Aysha: luxury jet have and the answer is six
Speaker:Aysha: and he's sitting there with his daughter and he's you
Speaker:Aysha: know talking to her the way you talk to a baby like oh wow six that's
Speaker:Aysha: a lot of bathrooms and stuff like that and then later when
Speaker:Aysha: he's in the car with Amelia and he's like trying to think of like his demands
Speaker:Aysha: and they had just talked about his daughter so he's like get me a luxury jet
Speaker:Aysha: because like he remembers and and and i'm like oh my god it's like somebody
Speaker:Aysha: wrote this and then when you have.
Speaker:Jacob: A scene then when you have a scene of him going through the jet hunting and
Speaker:Jacob: someone that's hiding he goes one two like through the bathrooms and that works
Speaker:Jacob: and it makes sense and even before.
Speaker:Lenore: That you had the the crew of the plane is fake they're the hunters and so he
Speaker:Lenore: and so So he's like, oh, yeah, tell me how many bathrooms are on this jet. And they're like four.
Speaker:Lenore: Yeah. And it's like, that's how I know. Yeah.
Speaker:Aysha: Which is like, it's like, that's how that's how writing works. So.
Speaker:Aysha: Also, what is it? Sorry, I skipped to the end, but the Bradley stuff is really
Speaker:Aysha: good. Bradley's public access TV show.
Speaker:Evan: But he has to be in Derry, Maine because they had to throw in the Maine thing.
Speaker:Lenore: That's what makes me so confident that there's this subreddit dissecting the
Speaker:Lenore: running man in the continuity of the film because that's what he does,
Speaker:Lenore: right? He's taped the entire thing.
Speaker:Lenore: He's gone through it with a fine-toothed microscope, you know?
Speaker:Lenore: and so you can point out every inconsistency you can point out all the narrative
Speaker:Lenore: flourishes that they do and that's how he blows the lid off this whole thing
Speaker:Lenore: it's fascinating it's alternative media I.
Speaker:Aysha: Do like the idea of him being like a running man super fan anti like a.
Speaker:Lenore: Super anti fan.
Speaker:Bill: Yeah that's it's like it's that like yeah he's super
Speaker:Bill: fan but at the same time like he's coming at it from a class perspective you
Speaker:Bill: know and like because he is explicitly like citing like calling for these things
Speaker:Bill: and has contacts with people michael sarah's character who are explicitly at
Speaker:Bill: working against the government and whereas in the book you have the you know
Speaker:Bill: it's pollution it's so one note and then in this it's like no like this is a
Speaker:Bill: referred to as an activist.
Speaker:Evan: Like specifically that's kind of what he actually actually is doing good rather
Speaker:Evan: than just like oh yeah like we read some books and we heard about pollution yeah i did i.
Speaker:Jacob: Wrote down in my notes that i like that uh bradley's resisting the government
Speaker:Jacob: by making Going Down with Ella Yerman.
Speaker:Jacob: It's sick, though. I love the design.
Speaker:Aysha: But I really like the little detail of, like,
Speaker:Aysha: um ben is in their house and he's like helping their mom fix the stove i just
Speaker:Aysha: like it's another little thing of like yeah people helping each other instead
Speaker:Aysha: of him just like sitting there like an asshole while someone cooks for him yeah.
Speaker:Jacob: I'm imagining ben in the book he's like this stupid lady doesn't know how to
Speaker:Jacob: set a how to set an oven why should i help her the world's never helped me these.
Speaker:Evan: Eggs are overcooked fucking bitch.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah exactly.
Speaker:Bill: Except they were black so he would definitely use the racial slur yes.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah yeah right okay but i wasn't but but movie but movie um movie richards
Speaker:Aysha: is like it's just a normal guy even.
Speaker:Bill: If even if you ignore like turn off the marxist brain for like two seconds i'm
Speaker:Bill: i know it's i don't like doing it but you turn it off like two seconds if you
Speaker:Bill: ignore all other aspects of like what that says about that it just he's just a likable character.
Speaker:Aysha: Like they just made.
Speaker:Bill: An actual human being as opposed to stephen king's parody of a human.
Speaker:Aysha: Being and i like unlikable characters like i like protagonists who suck ass
Speaker:Aysha: but they have to have something right they have to have something they cannot
Speaker:Aysha: be the most boring man alive and.
Speaker:Jacob: When and because we know this is the kind of guy that will fix a stove for an
Speaker:Jacob: old lady it makes it effective later on when he's winning willing to put the
Speaker:Jacob: gun to a head of a random woman because he's desperate yeah that makes that
Speaker:Jacob: interesting in a way that a guy who from page one has said i hate everything
Speaker:Jacob: who cares what it becomes.
Speaker:Evan: Out of character instead of just being like this is just his character it actually yeah.
Speaker:Jacob: Yeah shows some kind it becomes like it shows desperation yes.
Speaker:Aysha: And then there's yeah then there's michael cera who is another like revolutionary
Speaker:Aysha: and he's great he was really fun i think that michael cera just showing up to
Speaker:Aysha: do a weird shit for five minutes should be in every movie.
Speaker:Jacob: Michael Cera can grow facial hair is what I learned.
Speaker:Bill: That's what I learned today. That's giving him a little more credit,
Speaker:Bill: I think, than he deserves based on that facial hair.
Speaker:Lenore: Yeah, if he shaved his head, he would look like Andrew Tate,
Speaker:Lenore: which is deeply unfortunate.
Speaker:Jacob: That's not nice.
Speaker:Bill: The guy that wrote the screenplay of this also is a co-writer for Scott Pilgrim
Speaker:Bill: vs. the World, which was a...
Speaker:Bill: uh michael serra uh one of my all-time favorite movies
Speaker:Bill: and a michael serra piece um along with
Speaker:Bill: 21 jump street and 22 jump street uh so
Speaker:Bill: i think he's calling it his friends uh but one of the point i think that it
Speaker:Bill: just goes to show like this screenplay was written by somebody because if you
Speaker:Bill: watch these other movies he is not averse to making these kinds of like things
Speaker:Bill: and then coupled with Edgar Wright who frequently has this,
Speaker:Bill: you know, like he has a greater commentary in his movies, even movies that are,
Speaker:Bill: you know, not entirely, you know, like,
Speaker:Bill: Shaun of the Dead is a, you know, it's a zombie comedy, but like there are points to it.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah.
Speaker:Jacob: I will say, so this whole section where he meets Michael Cera,
Speaker:Jacob: Michael Cera is someone who his whole life, due to resentment around the death
Speaker:Jacob: of his father, his father who was like, you know, the one good cop who all the
Speaker:Jacob: cops killed because he was too good of a cop.
Speaker:Aysha: Which is actually like I mean, I was like, OK, good cop.
Speaker:Aysha: But then when he describes it, like the thing that he was describing is why there are no good cops.
Speaker:Jacob: Yes. Yes, exactly. There are guys who want to protect people.
Speaker:Jacob: It's just that they get driven out.
Speaker:Aysha: Right.
Speaker:Jacob: And he he has basically been preparing his whole life to build like Rube Goldberg
Speaker:Jacob: machines to kill cops with and print zines.
Speaker:Lenore: Do you know what was fascinating to me? Like his his whole backstory is literally
Speaker:Lenore: the story of Tokyo Gore police. Like, his dad was killed for resisting police
Speaker:Lenore: privatization, which is exactly what the story of Tokyo Gore Police is.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah, I like when he gives us a little bit of Michael Cera flavor with,
Speaker:Aysha: like, the TV show being like, you can't fight destiny. And he goes,
Speaker:Aysha: that's actually not true.
Speaker:Jacob: I like the part where he's like, we're going to record. And he goes,
Speaker:Jacob: background. He pulls down the shaggle bar and he goes, no.
Speaker:Jacob: He pulls down an anarchist thing he had right behind him. He goes,
Speaker:Jacob: no. He goes, just the white background. He goes, no.
Speaker:Jacob: Oh, hardcore.
Speaker:Aysha: I laughed so hard when he pulled down Sheikovara. Like, that was a really good
Speaker:Aysha: sight gag. It really got me.
Speaker:Lenore: And he's somebody as well who, like, you know, in a perhaps,
Speaker:Lenore: you know, crude sight gag kind of way.
Speaker:Lenore: But somebody who's used to code switching for certain tendencies and organizing with them, right?
Speaker:Aysha: Also, like... Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker:Jacob: Well, I was going to say, fun as the scene is, I think if there is a part of
Speaker:Jacob: the movie that I'm kind of like, this does, is right after the Michael Cera
Speaker:Jacob: stuff, it trying to switch back into the seriousness,
Speaker:Jacob: if they're like on the level of film critique, is the part that like, is the weakest for me.
Speaker:Aysha: When he kills the Targaryen in the tunnel or whatever.
Speaker:Jacob: I think it like, it's just so wacky and so fun.
Speaker:Jacob: Don't get me wrong. I really enjoy the Michael Cera stuff. I think when it tries
Speaker:Jacob: to go back into Sirius and then it's like him thinking of his wife and all that
Speaker:Jacob: part, it takes me a second to get back into the like the feel.
Speaker:Jacob: So some of that is not as effective. But, you know, I'm kind of critiquing that
Speaker:Jacob: on the level of film here rather on the level of like ideology or story.
Speaker:Lenore: And the other thing, like on the subject of like, yeah.
Speaker:Lenore: keeping this consistent, right? Not just tonally, but also just exposing us
Speaker:Lenore: to, like, the evolution of the attitudes around the show, right?
Speaker:Lenore: You see the audience begging for blood early on later in the movie when it looks
Speaker:Lenore: like Richards might win, right?
Speaker:Lenore: It's completely flipped around, now people are on his side, Richards lives,
Speaker:Lenore: is, like, the thing, and I wish we saw more of, I wish we saw more of Michael
Speaker:Lenore: Cera's character being integrated into the audience, right?
Speaker:Lenore: I wish we saw more of the people like reading these fucking
Speaker:Lenore: um um um flyers that he's passing out
Speaker:Lenore: yeah the zines yeah yeah i wanted love i want to see that yeah and you know
Speaker:Lenore: i want to i want to see him live streaming and just him get shot in the head
Speaker:Lenore: like on stream right i think i think that's i think that's um we're missing
Speaker:Lenore: a few steps you could have had a.
Speaker:Evan: Clip of people watching his like.
Speaker:Lenore: His stream like.
Speaker:Evan: On their yes like not on the freebie because i assume you can't watch you got.
Speaker:Lenore: To watch it.
Speaker:Evan: Some other other way underground.
Speaker:Lenore: However the.
Speaker:Jacob: Other things are being.
Speaker:Aysha: Distributed yeah i think it seems like they were trying to go
Speaker:Aysha: for like a lo-fi people distribute because like because bradley's like things
Speaker:Aysha: were on tape right yeah so it seems like they they were trying to not do that
Speaker:Aysha: but then sometimes like because nobody had self like but then people had cell
Speaker:Aysha: phones and stuff even though they didn't really have like live stream i don't know it was.
Speaker:Lenore: Well I mean.
Speaker:Bill: Honestly, you could posit that, like, in this world, you know,
Speaker:Bill: for all of its flaws of the Internet, you know, one of the things that it's
Speaker:Bill: provided, you know, like, you know, access to information.
Speaker:Bill: And you could posit that, like, you know, in this kind of dystopian world,
Speaker:Bill: this state at some point.
Speaker:Aysha: They don't have an Internet.
Speaker:Bill: Early on decided, oh, wait, no, we're not. No, no, no, we're not.
Speaker:Aysha: We're not doing the Internet.
Speaker:Jacob: Yeah.
Speaker:Bill: That ain't fucking happening.
Speaker:Aysha: No for affinity. No.
Speaker:Lenore: Like, we have. We have. We have. All this technology for the state,
Speaker:Lenore: we have very much an analog society for anybody outside of this apparatus.
Speaker:Aysha: That's kind of like how the Hunger Games does it.
Speaker:Lenore: My favorite background detail, it's the focus of a joke in one scene.
Speaker:Lenore: When he's doing the train ticket, when he's getting the train ticket in his
Speaker:Lenore: disguise, there's instead of actual people manning the ticket booth, it's three AIs.
Speaker:Lenore: According to your taste, you can talk to the blonde, you can talk to the brunette,
Speaker:Lenore: you can talk to the redhead. So simultaneously, you've eliminated these jobs,
Speaker:Lenore: and also you're catering to this common denominator of just personal tastes and attractiveness.
Speaker:Jacob: All three of them are white, though. Kind of interesting.
Speaker:Lenore: Aha!
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah, interesting. Really makes you think. We live in a society.
Speaker:Aysha: Right, so I guess the next thing that happens is the scene with the girl,
Speaker:Aysha: the hostage, and it's so much better.
Speaker:Aysha: like he like she is an
Speaker:Aysha: appealing character even though she screams at him and she's
Speaker:Aysha: kind of a bitch because you know a strange man has taken her
Speaker:Aysha: uh you know has uh come into her car with a gun and i do like that like she
Speaker:Aysha: maybe less realistically but more interestingly for a movie she like gets on
Speaker:Aysha: his side fairly quick um they.
Speaker:Evan: Show like the she sees the deep like they call them deep.
Speaker:Aysha: Fakes in the movie.
Speaker:Evan: The deep fakes, yeah. Which also, she realizes that the network isn't kind of on their side, right?
Speaker:Aysha: Right.
Speaker:Evan: It's probably horror. She kind of flips pretty quickly, but let's say she does.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah, I mean, it's a movie. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Lenore: Do you know what it is?
Speaker:Lenore: It's a matter of convenience for her, right? Because she's trying to evade the
Speaker:Lenore: police or the hunters specifically, right?
Speaker:Lenore: And what's going on? The car is an electronic vehicle that is programmed to
Speaker:Lenore: comply with all law enforcement commands, right?
Speaker:Lenore: It overrides the manual control and pulls over because it is told to,
Speaker:Lenore: which is something that I can absolutely see happening in a world where,
Speaker:Lenore: like, apparently Elon Musk can remotely shut down your car.
Speaker:Aysha: Right.
Speaker:Jacob: Yeah. Unfortunately, if Elon clicks that, it might blow up, too. So there is that risk.
Speaker:Jacob: I think there's an effective scene here, too, which they try to do in the book
Speaker:Jacob: that has done better here.
Speaker:Jacob: Probably works better here because he's not thinking about sexually assaulting
Speaker:Jacob: her in the movie the way that they really lean into in the book.
Speaker:Jacob: In the movie, he's like, hey, yeah, oh, you're such a good person, whatever.
Speaker:Jacob: You're wearing my child's life around your neck. That scarf is worth enough
Speaker:Jacob: that my child dying of the flu, if you sold that thing, we could save.
Speaker:Jacob: And it is a type of like, you understand why he's doing it. You understand why he's so desperate.
Speaker:Jacob: You understand her position of like, this is not a bad woman in the sense of
Speaker:Jacob: she is spending her life doing bad things. She seems to be a fairly decent woman.
Speaker:Jacob: At the same time, she is of class position that to this guy,
Speaker:Jacob: her very existence is violent. So you see that class antagonism in a way that
Speaker:Jacob: it just doesn't quite work in the book.
Speaker:Jacob: There is a humanity for her. And there is also an understanding of the darkness
Speaker:Jacob: of her class position despite that humanity.
Speaker:Bill: Because the book is written, again, from a liberal perspective.
Speaker:Bill: And so it is everything is individualized. It is placed upon the individual.
Speaker:Bill: And it is blamed upon the individual. And the individual must take credit for it.
Speaker:Bill: They must admit they're the bad guy instead of confronting the systems.
Speaker:Lenore: May I share a snippet from the book, which is like the only bit where Stephen
Speaker:Lenore: King acknowledges like class politics at all other than the Bradley stuff?
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah, go for it.
Speaker:Lenore: Uh, here on the right, folks, we have the summer people, Richards thought.
Speaker:Lenore: Fat and sloppy, but heavy with armor. On the left, weighing in and only 130,
Speaker:Lenore: but a scrappy contender with a mean and rolling eyeball, we have the hungry honkies.
Speaker:Lenore: Theirs are the politics of starvation. They'd roll Christ himself for a pound of saline.
Speaker:Lenore: Polarization comes to West Sticksville. Watch out for these two contenders,
Speaker:Lenore: though. They don't stay in the ring. They have a tendency to fight in the $10 seats.
Speaker:Lenore: Can we find a goat to hang up for both of them?
Speaker:Aysha: God, this guy's so fucking annoying.
Speaker:Jacob: Just like everybody sucks.
Speaker:Lenore: Boy, wouldn't it be nice if they could get along?
Speaker:Aysha: Shut up, Grandpa. Go to bed.
Speaker:Evan: The seat of the car actually has a material understanding of where Bachman actually comes from.
Speaker:Evan: And they bring it around multiple times.
Speaker:Evan: I mean, just because she's watching these shows, she doesn't realize the exploitation
Speaker:Evan: that's happening. Even to her, which I think is the biggest thing.
Speaker:Aysha: She is also being exploited. People think it's fake. They think it's not.
Speaker:Aysha: These people aren't really dying.
Speaker:Jacob: And it is to an extent fake because what he realizes in the show is that the
Speaker:Jacob: show is allowed to go on the more entertaining he is.
Speaker:Aysha: Right.
Speaker:Jacob: That they don't let him get stopped by the first people who roll up on him with
Speaker:Jacob: guns because they want it to keep going.
Speaker:Jacob: So he starts to feed into the spectacle. He starts to understand the rules of
Speaker:Jacob: the game. And that is also interesting in a way that we don't have our character.
Speaker:Jacob: Yes, he does some pretty interesting operator things that a normal like working
Speaker:Jacob: class guy wouldn't be able to do.
Speaker:Jacob: That said, he does not get by purely on his skill.
Speaker:Jacob: He also gets by on this game needs spectacle. And he understands that and outsmarts
Speaker:Jacob: them because he understands their need for spectacle.
Speaker:Aysha: Also, he, like, gets a lot of help from other people, which I think is cool.
Speaker:Aysha: Like, and I don't know.
Speaker:Aysha: Like, it was, it's just, like, a very, I was going to say this earlier,
Speaker:Aysha: that, like, Michael Cera is basically a left, like, a joke about,
Speaker:Aysha: like, this is a leftist joke.
Speaker:Aysha: Like, this is, but it's funny.
Speaker:Bill: Like usually jokes about.
Speaker:Aysha: Leftists are not funny because like i have i'm on record saying the only thing
Speaker:Aysha: that has ever made a funny communist joke is disco elysium because communists
Speaker:Aysha: wrote it so that's why it's funny.
Speaker:Bill: I think that like the what
Speaker:Bill: the reason michael cera stuff works is
Speaker:Bill: because yes it is a joke but it is it it
Speaker:Bill: is coming it seems as if
Speaker:Bill: it is coming from a place of um rueful amusement
Speaker:Bill: but like acknowledgement of the
Speaker:Bill: validity and the realist the
Speaker:Bill: realism of this individual and their their desires and
Speaker:Bill: their beliefs like this it is not told disrespectfully if it was told if it
Speaker:Bill: was a disrespectful joke then michael cera would have like honestly would have
Speaker:Bill: walked out and been killed by the cops immediately that would have been that
Speaker:Bill: would have been the joke not just like oh this is a leftist,
Speaker:Bill: This is a funny leftist moment, but leftists are a joke.
Speaker:Bill: That's what that would have been. But instead, we see a person that has prepared
Speaker:Bill: for things and thought about things and does it humorously.
Speaker:Jacob: And then he does the plane thing. He does the plane thing. And like he rolls
Speaker:Jacob: up and he was like, I've got a bomb and it's bullshit.
Speaker:Jacob: But one, the network is like, OK, this is interesting.
Speaker:Jacob: And this is where he forces McCone to take off his mask and reveal that he is the beautiful Lee Pace.
Speaker:Aysha: Lee Pace. Yeah.
Speaker:Bill: Not a pot-bellied dork like in the book.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah. I loved Lee Pace in this role. It was probably like two days of filming.
Speaker:Aysha: He just rolled in and out. But he was so great. He looked like Big Boss. It was awesome.
Speaker:Bill: I pay no attention to like... I often miss other people in roles in movies.
Speaker:Bill: And my wife and I watched this together. And I did not know Lee Pace was in it.
Speaker:Bill: I had no idea. so like he takes the mess and was like oh my god it's Luke Pace,
Speaker:Bill: like a fucking idiot and my wife's like yeah you didn't know he was in this I'm like.
Speaker:Aysha: No I had no idea I didn't.
Speaker:Evan: Know he was in it either so.
Speaker:Aysha: I'm like it's like it's like that it's that man the elf man I love it it's very funny.
Speaker:Lenore: That a guy named Pace is in a film called The Running Man.
Speaker:Aysha: I love the fact that he was a former runner who took the deal I think that adds so much to it like.
Speaker:Jacob: Because earlier in the movie they were like someone in season one got 29 days
Speaker:Jacob: and then he was like you think you're hot shit for making it 22 days try 29 then you're like oh shit.
Speaker:Aysha: You know like he's pulling glass out of his eye yeah so hard that shit rocks yes.
Speaker:Lenore: Yeah no he he speaks in that i mean there there's there's a there's bits and
Speaker:Lenore: pieces where it's very like action movie one-liner like building up to something
Speaker:Lenore: like witty or hard. But like the way that Lee Pace,
Speaker:Lenore: speaks right his pace you get yeah yes exactly well you you get the sense that
Speaker:Lenore: he's developed this cadence this lee cadence for the camera right he's it's
Speaker:Lenore: as much a performance as it is a um as it is like athletic like like um you
Speaker:Lenore: know paramilitary kind of thing i.
Speaker:Evan: Mean that seems to be like what the he might be a hard guy and be like a good shooter and like.
Speaker:Lenore: You know be.
Speaker:Evan: Able to do military things but most of his power is purely because he is the
Speaker:Evan: network backing him to do all these things, right?
Speaker:Evan: So if they bring in, you know, Ben to become like the new hunter,
Speaker:Evan: he would, like he's smart and clever, but he has the network.
Speaker:Evan: I mean, he has to do, Pace has to do exactly what they tell him.
Speaker:Evan: Like he is, he cannot go against
Speaker:Evan: the network which also and.
Speaker:Jacob: We see this right here yeah we see this because killian is immediately like
Speaker:Jacob: okay put down your gun actually i'm gonna talk to i'm gonna talk to richards
Speaker:Jacob: and then he's like hey richards uh wouldn't it be sick if uh actually you killed
Speaker:Jacob: all of these hunters on this plane because.
Speaker:Aysha: He's like oh because they killed your family.
Speaker:Jacob: And he shows him a video of the hunters killing his
Speaker:Jacob: family not some random person killing his family and
Speaker:Jacob: then we write it off and never think about it again but a very like
Speaker:Jacob: as retaliation for you killing that guy
Speaker:Jacob: earlier these people came to your family's yeah
Speaker:Jacob: came to your family's uh place where
Speaker:Jacob: you they we swore safe passage and
Speaker:Jacob: killed them and of course we know they can do deep fakes but
Speaker:Jacob: he still is you know outraged and at this point we don't know if this is real
Speaker:Jacob: or fake um and his killian the network's whole perspective is we can have this
Speaker:Jacob: whole new show ben richards the sixth hunter and it'll be badass and cool and
Speaker:Jacob: this will be a great season finale for uh you know a show that we need to get
Speaker:Jacob: people more invested in and.
Speaker:Lenore: How deftly you can manipulate the the audience sentiment right because again
Speaker:Lenore: like recall the hunters are the shit they're built up as like the the the the
Speaker:Lenore: greatest super soldiers and then you know you have coleman domingo turning around
Speaker:Lenore: and saying oh my god they broke the one rule that you never break as a hunter it's unforgivable.
Speaker:Jacob: And they try to co-opt the slogan richards lives
Speaker:Jacob: which is a thing people have been saying it's been this like low you know it's
Speaker:Jacob: been bubbling up from the ground it's the thing michael sarah's character was
Speaker:Jacob: distributing in zines and they try to say oh richards lives fighting against
Speaker:Jacob: the hunters don't we love that like they try to take that like you know just
Speaker:Jacob: natural outburst of resentment against the system and turn it into something they own.
Speaker:Jacob: And Richards refuses that.
Speaker:Lenore: Yeah.
Speaker:Jacob: Yeah. He refuses that offer.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah. And then revolutionaries.
Speaker:Aysha: So I don't know how I feel about like it works in the movie like he doesn't do 9-11 in the movie.
Speaker:Aysha: The the network drives the plane into the building themselves or it gets shot down or something.
Speaker:Jacob: Yeah, it gets shot down, but they make everyone think he tried to.
Speaker:Aysha: So because he's not a nihilist like he is in the book, he doesn't kill himself.
Speaker:Aysha: he escapes um the one
Speaker:Aysha: thing that i didn't like in the movie is the final line we get from him where
Speaker:Aysha: amelia says i'm sorry that they did this to you and he says i did this to myself
Speaker:Aysha: yeah and i was like that's weird because he.
Speaker:Jacob: Clearly not very much.
Speaker:Aysha: Did it where why it.
Speaker:Evan: Feels like a network it feels like a studio note they're like you need to just
Speaker:Evan: like slide this in there i don't know yeah.
Speaker:Aysha: I was like what do you mean.
Speaker:Jacob: Like the whole point was that he had no
Speaker:Jacob: other option and his child was dying right right like yeah
Speaker:Jacob: i think for me it is a
Speaker:Jacob: it's a little too cute by half the ending i like where
Speaker:Jacob: it shows the explosion and then we cut back to
Speaker:Jacob: bradley doing his youtube he's like but did he really die or
Speaker:Jacob: can can jet fuel melt steel beams you
Speaker:Jacob: know like he's showing that i think it's a lit i
Speaker:Jacob: can it's a movie right i think it's a little much that like richards
Speaker:Jacob: is both alive and personally executes killian and says that line i think it's
Speaker:Jacob: a little i do like the concept that he is the the person who ignites all this
Speaker:Jacob: shit that we know the ground is being laid we know there are revolutionaries
Speaker:Jacob: doing revolutionary propaganda using this as an ignition switch right he becomes the.
Speaker:Aysha: White yeah him becoming like the girl on fire there at the end was a little like okay whatever.
Speaker:Jacob: I think a little much but it's it's interesting, though. It's fun.
Speaker:Bill: My response to that is, is they were being faithful to the book and having the
Speaker:Bill: ending be not that great.
Speaker:Aysha: I think it should have ended with bradley's like did he die or didn't he look
Speaker:Aysha: at this like i think that would have been cool not showing his family and.
Speaker:Evan: Everything like kind of giving you the that was too much.
Speaker:Bill: I think this really i mean i agree 100 and i did not like i really did enjoy
Speaker:Bill: this movie i 100 i enjoyed this
Speaker:Bill: movie a great deal i it was a lot of fun but i did not love the ending,
Speaker:Bill: and I lost my train of thought.
Speaker:Evan: Well, I think what they could have done, which would have been better,
Speaker:Evan: was, like you said, they show Bradley showing his YouTube post or his post.
Speaker:Evan: And then the very last scene is like, they have this riot that occurs.
Speaker:Evan: Like they could have slowly done sort of like a, not found footage,
Speaker:Evan: but sort of like news, the news is now showing this uprising and like seeing
Speaker:Evan: little pockets of parts of different cities,
Speaker:Evan: starting to, you know, rebel, including people like Amelia.
Speaker:Evan: Like, they're also joining it. And then they could have just cut,
Speaker:Evan: that could have been the end. They don't need to have him shooting him.
Speaker:Evan: They don't need to show the family. That would have just been the better ending for me.
Speaker:Jacob: I do like Coleman Domingo walking off the show. That was kind of fun.
Speaker:Jacob: Oh, yeah. He's like, fuck this. He's like, I'm fucking, I'm fucking out of here.
Speaker:Bill: I remember.
Speaker:Lenore: Because, like, if there's one thing that, you know, that class has,
Speaker:Lenore: it's opportunists who know which way the wind is blowing.
Speaker:Aysha: He's like, I'm going to go kiss Richards on the map.
Speaker:Lenore: That's my new.
Speaker:Bill: Thing I remember my train of thought um the way that it pivots to Richardson
Speaker:Bill: being you know like that and doing the part you know like actually take Killian
Speaker:Bill: out and all that you know sea space and everything it's
Speaker:Bill: This is very much a, you know, the way in which me like movies, um,
Speaker:Bill: and media in general has like gone so far, like now where you cannot make movies with,
Speaker:Bill: you know, or you can't make mainstream, like big movies that you expect the
Speaker:Bill: audience to really go and turn out for with ambiguous ends.
Speaker:Bill: People can't handle ambiguity.
Speaker:Bill: Like they just can't handle it. and
Speaker:Bill: it's like you i wouldn't imagine them as
Speaker:Bill: also and then beyond that if we look at more from the
Speaker:Bill: like marxist perspective it's the idea of like you know the western
Speaker:Bill: world like great man theory baby like you
Speaker:Bill: know it's all great man theory you get no no
Speaker:Bill: matter how far you get in a you know like a
Speaker:Bill: major production like this in terms of like actual like cogent like thought
Speaker:Bill: you know like that would that would reflect in some way marxist like thought
Speaker:Bill: or leftist you know thought it's like it's the gravity well of great man theory
Speaker:Bill: like they gotta like you know they gotta come back to that.
Speaker:Aysha: Also i think that this this is a um a thing that i uh,
Speaker:Aysha: criticism that I have of a lot of stories that I think there's a lot of book
Speaker:Aysha: series, especially, and I'm thinking of like Ancillary Justice.
Speaker:Aysha: I don't know if you've ever read that book, but like stories that are told within a fucked up society.
Speaker:Aysha: And then it's like, for some reason, they always feel like they have to solve it.
Speaker:Aysha: And I'm like, it's okay to just show somebody struggling
Speaker:Aysha: within a framework it doesn't always have
Speaker:Aysha: to lead to them burning down
Speaker:Aysha: the system and that's kind of what i liked about
Speaker:Aysha: the does 9-11 ending in the book i
Speaker:Aysha: just like the idea that like sometimes there isn't like one person is not going
Speaker:Aysha: to topple the system so he does the only thing that he feasibly can do which
Speaker:Aysha: is like take as many with him as he can And it's very nihilist and it's, I think,
Speaker:Aysha: an okay ending to not a good book.
Speaker:Aysha: But like, yeah, I think there is this weird pressure that like if you introduce
Speaker:Aysha: a fucked up society, you have to fix it by the end of your book, which I don't like.
Speaker:Aysha: I wish people didn't feel compelled to do that.
Speaker:Jacob: Yeah, I think my ideal ending to this movie would be, as I just said,
Speaker:Jacob: you have Bradley being like, you could even have, did he live,
Speaker:Jacob: like, with his fun thing? And you have riots.
Speaker:Jacob: And maybe even you have, like, Coleman Domingo walk.
Speaker:Aysha: You could even have Richard standing there, like, in his fucking hoodie,
Speaker:Aysha: watching the riot or something.
Speaker:Jacob: Yeah, you could have Coleman Domingo walk off the show or whatever,
Speaker:Jacob: him not be able to control it.
Speaker:Jacob: But, like, yeah, it's just a little too cute by half, and it falls into the great man theory thing.
Speaker:Jacob: that said quite a fun movie and it takes
Speaker:Jacob: fun movie it takes the takes the book and it fixes the parts that i had serious
Speaker:Jacob: troubles with and it takes the things in the book that are genuinely like kind
Speaker:Jacob: of interesting and fun in it and it runs with them it runs with them fast and
Speaker:Jacob: it runs with them well you know good cast good directions fun needle drops yeah
Speaker:Jacob: hot people for sure highly recommend do.
Speaker:Evan: You want to know what stephen king thinks of the movie Yes.
Speaker:Jacob: What did he say?
Speaker:Aysha: Does he hate it?
Speaker:Evan: No, he said he liked it and called it a bipartisan thrill ride.
Speaker:Jacob: What?
Speaker:Lenore: What does that mean?
Speaker:Aysha: What?
Speaker:Bill: I hate that man so much.
Speaker:Aysha: Girl, what do you talk? Grandpa, go to bed. Every time I see him,
Speaker:Aysha: I'm like, Grandpa, let's get you to bed.
Speaker:Evan: He wrote that in X, by the way. He said, I've seen it. He said it's the diehard of our time.
Speaker:Lenore: Yeah, he also wrote an X that the Epstein files were fake.
Speaker:Bill: Like, you know, I hate him so much.
Speaker:Aysha: If it was the diehard of our time, he would not be wearing any shoes. I call bullshit.
Speaker:Jacob: I don't even have a response.
Speaker:Aysha: I guess he isn't wearing- And it'll be a Christmas movie. Yeah.
Speaker:Jacob: A bipartisan film.
Speaker:Bill: My God, he's so dumb.
Speaker:Aysha: I think, like, is he literally saying to, like, all of the chuds who love him,
Speaker:Aysha: you can like this movie, too, even if it's about-
Speaker:Aysha: defeating the fascist American government, which we know you love.
Speaker:Jacob: And they'll just say, oh, that's communism. That's what they'll do.
Speaker:Jacob: That's the thing, is a right-winger will watch this movie.
Speaker:Lenore: Well, there is, it's funny, like, sorry, go ahead.
Speaker:Evan: No, you go.
Speaker:Lenore: Well, it's interesting, right? Because, like, you can, I think the dystopia
Speaker:Lenore: of the book is more that way, right?
Speaker:Lenore: Like, it's very much like a North America, like, you know,
Speaker:Lenore: I don't know if it's post-America or whatnot, but, like, it's set in, like,
Speaker:Lenore: North America dystopia, but like it's dystopia i
Speaker:Lenore: would argue is very like like anti-communist tropes
Speaker:Lenore: coded right well they call it co-op city something co-op
Speaker:Lenore: city yeah there's stuff about like oh the block midwife right
Speaker:Lenore: who's shitty like there's this reference uh blink
Speaker:Lenore: me'll miss it to like this shitty underfunded like state health care system
Speaker:Lenore: uh for which there is a thriving black market that people can go around it and
Speaker:Lenore: it's interesting to me that like the movie the movie very much doubles down
Speaker:Lenore: on the capitalist dystopia of it, right?
Speaker:Lenore: Which I feel like is more of a symptom of the book being written at a time when
Speaker:Lenore: America was already gearing up for his victory lap in the Cold War.
Speaker:Aysha: The movie...
Speaker:Aysha: Like, actually, there was, like, some of the, like, pageantry and,
Speaker:Aysha: like, bread and circuses of the movie really made me think of,
Speaker:Aysha: like, the Turning Point USA fireworks and, like,
Speaker:Aysha: it just, like, really made me think of that.
Speaker:Lenore: We are Ben Richards!
Speaker:Evan: I think the way that Stephen King views the world is the way that so many liberals
Speaker:Evan: do, where it's just simply the binary of like Team Blue, Team Red.
Speaker:Evan: So he watches anything, any media, even one that's based on his own writing,
Speaker:Evan: which is he probably perceives it in that same way.
Speaker:Evan: And so bipartisan thrill riots like, oh, yeah, it's like the blue MAGA,
Speaker:Evan: you know, network versus like, you know, I guess, whatever. It doesn't matter. The same team.
Speaker:Aysha: Is wait is steven king a liberal yes.
Speaker:Evan: Oh yeah yeah shit lib yeah.
Speaker:Aysha: Big time oh holy shit i i i for sure thought he was a right because they're.
Speaker:Jacob: The same thing he's a.
Speaker:Lenore: He's.
Speaker:Jacob: A liberal yeah well really not not like a yeah he's a un unwell i would have i would have.
Speaker:Aysha: Pegged him as a donald.
Speaker:Jacob: Trump he doesn't like trump he says yeah he's very he's very much mark hamill
Speaker:Jacob: mark hamill's a little nicer than him but yeah mark hamill at least doesn't.
Speaker:Bill: I find the fact that mark hamill plays that role in the long walk like so fitting
Speaker:Bill: because i'm like that's it's just steven.
Speaker:Jacob: It's it's.
Speaker:Lenore: Steven king.
Speaker:Bill: The politics he's fallen into yeah yeah i'm like it's.
Speaker:Lenore: Well it's it.
Speaker:Aysha: Mark hamill's a zioness.
Speaker:Lenore: Yeah there's also but yeah no that that is mr is such a it is such a it is such
Speaker:Lenore: a fascinating piece of casting you're absolutely right to have somebody who
Speaker:Lenore: is like this wide-eyed twink in star wars it became like an icon now he's don't.
Speaker:Aysha: Worry mr skywalker i saw.
Speaker:Lenore: You and now he's this like this like schlubby asshole who's totally been who's
Speaker:Lenore: totally a creature of of whatever is running america in the long walk right
Speaker:Lenore: it's just the total decline of everything that people used to think was cool
Speaker:Lenore: about this country right.
Speaker:Jacob: Thing that is cool was this movie. I think it's pretty good.
Speaker:Jacob: And I think it's pretty solid.
Speaker:Jacob: And I appreciate getting the chance to talk about it. And I probably wouldn't
Speaker:Jacob: have ended up watching this film adaptation at all. I just assumed it was bad.
Speaker:Jacob: And so I appreciate y'all giving the ask on that.
Speaker:Lenore: Yeah. Very, very pleasantly surprised.
Speaker:Evan: Yeah. Do you want to remind everyone? I know you talked a little bit about your
Speaker:Evan: podcast, but maybe things you have upcoming that you might want to share that's... Or...
Speaker:Evan: Maybe you want to keep it spoiler free.
Speaker:Jacob: No, Hunger Games is actually coming up, interestingly enough.
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah, we're doing the Hunger Games next week.
Speaker:Jacob: The Hunger Games is coming up. So that's going to be kind of a thing that rhymes
Speaker:Jacob: with this nicely. If you like dystopia, we've covered several of them.
Speaker:Jacob: We've talked about Battle Royale.
Speaker:Jacob: We've talked about Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents.
Speaker:Jacob: We talk about a lot of shit that we hate, too. We talk about a lot of shit that we like.
Speaker:Jacob: We've done the whole range of things. Honestly, if there's a type of book you
Speaker:Jacob: like or a type of book you hate, just go back into our back catalog you're gonna
Speaker:Jacob: find you're gonna find something.
Speaker:Aysha: We recently did the first gay gothic romance novel from the 80s which i suffered through.
Speaker:Evan: The the uh the kamala harris book episode i found that fascinating because i was never gonna read it.
Speaker:Aysha: That was right that was right before i came on the.
Speaker:Bill: Show this is why this is why at one point this is why i will not do book stuff
Speaker:Bill: like that i will sit through it i will sit through a two-hour movie that i fucking
Speaker:Bill: hate, I'm not reading the book for multiple days that I hate. That ain't happening.
Speaker:Jacob: You say that and yet the proof there is a contrary proof to that.
Speaker:Aysha: There is a whole other episode of this.
Speaker:Bill: I legit regretted it. I was like, fuck, I asked for this to happen.
Speaker:Bill: I'm the one that said to Evan, Evan, you should do this.
Speaker:Aysha: The maddest we ever have gotten, the maddest we've ever gotten was when somebody
Speaker:Aysha: He asked us to read LA Confidential.
Speaker:Aysha: And when he got on, we were like, we're going to kick your ass.
Speaker:Aysha: That shit is like 600 nations.
Speaker:Bill: That's like when we just went on, the first question we had was,
Speaker:Bill: why did you make us watch this? Why?
Speaker:Jacob: Why?
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah.
Speaker:Jacob: Well, Lenore and I have been on twice, and we've enjoyed both movies that we've
Speaker:Jacob: come on for. So, you know.
Speaker:Evan: We'll pick a bad movie. You have to want to.
Speaker:Lenore: No, no. For real. For real. I do love venting about bad shit.
Speaker:Lenore: I mean, we just did it over on the other podcast.
Speaker:Evan: Since you did do that. Oh, sorry. Since you did the Sam Raimi one.
Speaker:Evan: And have you either of you seen or have you seen the new his new movie Send Help?
Speaker:Jacob: No, I haven't.
Speaker:Evan: It's very good.
Speaker:Jacob: Is it okay?
Speaker:Aysha: Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard it's good. I was going to say I also have
Speaker:Aysha: another podcast called All My Maidens, which is an Elden Ring lore podcast where
Speaker:Aysha: people come on and explain Elden Ring to me.
Speaker:Bill: Wait, you don't know the lore?
Speaker:Aysha: So the premise is I played 200 hours of Elden Ring and I had no idea what it was about.
Speaker:Bill: That's funny.
Speaker:Aysha: After 200 hours. So people come on and explain to me what Elden Ring is about.
Speaker:Jacob: It's a lot of fun.
Speaker:Bill: One of our previous guests, my good close friend, Aaron, is a huge fan of that
Speaker:Bill: and tries to tell me about the board. I'm like, I don't play video games,
Speaker:Bill: really. I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker:Aysha: The answer, apparently, as I have discovered, is it's mostly a game about gay drama.
Speaker:Jacob: Gay ancestral drama.
Speaker:Bill: Okay.
Speaker:Aysha: And yeah, marrying your brother. That's what that game is about. Anyway, on that note.
Speaker:Evan: Awesome. Well, Jacob, Lenore, Aisha, thank you all for coming on.
Speaker:Evan: And you can find your podcast wherever fine podcasts are sold, I presume.
Speaker:Evan: And check those out.
Speaker:Evan: Check out Left of the Projector. And we'll catch you all next time.
Speaker:Bill: Have a good night, everybody.
Speaker:Lenore: Thank you for having us.
Speaker:Jacob: Peace, y'all.
