Ep. 230: the bradford city fire & the hubris of stockton rush

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Okay. In the third and final chapter of our little miniseries, our little. What do you call it? Not a mini, like a little. Like a little sidebar that we've been doing these past couple of weeks. [00:00:18] Speaker B: It's our side quest. [00:00:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of awful, awful atrocities taking place on. Right in the public eye, right in full view of the public. I present to you the piece that I was gonna do last time we spoke, but time was against us. But you remember, you remember our piece way back in the day, listeners. Corrigan on Hillsborough. Yes. Footballing tragedy left an indelible scar on British sporting culture just. Just in the public consciousness as a whole, really. Hillsborough is an indelible mark in British culture. This, I believe, is second only to that in terms of not. I'm not minimizing anything here. It's not a fucking contest, you know. [00:01:14] Speaker B: I don't think anyone takes, like, second, only two as, like, active ranking. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Just in case. Yeah. Coming in at number two. I will relay to you the tale, the awful tale still in living memory. Survivors to this day exist. It had an anniversary quite recently, which was marked with a fantastic, very, very, very exhaustive, emotive, hard hitting, very fucking. What's the word? Granular. Detailed documentary on BBC1. And I will talk to you about it now. It's the 1980s, all right? It's 1985. It is May 11th. [00:01:59] Speaker B: That's when I was born. Oh, I wasn't born yet. [00:02:03] Speaker A: You were. Okay, this is just. [00:02:05] Speaker B: Just pre. Corrigan. [00:02:06] Speaker A: Bc. [00:02:08] Speaker B: Bc. Yes. [00:02:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I like that. Look, I'm not by any means a sports guy, as you know. Not real sports anyway. Right. [00:02:20] Speaker B: Sports entertainment. [00:02:21] Speaker A: So to anyone listening, I apologize in advance for my fudging the details here of the sporting context. [00:02:32] Speaker B: Sure. [00:02:33] Speaker A: But what this tale does bring with it is footage, video footage, which you're all queued up to watch. I'm gonna give you a. I'm gonna give you a little nod to press play as I start to talk about the events. And you can see them unfold for yourself in real time. Okay? [00:02:51] Speaker B: Okay. [00:02:52] Speaker A: This was broadcast live across the Yorkshire region of the UK on a football. Live football program called the Big Match. It was broadcast to some 500,000 people. [00:03:09] Speaker B: Okay? [00:03:10] Speaker A: So this happening. Half a million folks, yes, indeed, saw this unfolding live as it happened when we are in Bradford. All right, we're in Bradford in the north of England. It is May 11th. [00:03:25] Speaker B: Can I just ask a quick question? And I don't want to derail too far. No, please, just because. And I know, like you said, you're not a sports guy. So I don't even know if you'll be able to answer this. I can try it, but obviously in the UK there are a lot of football teams. Right. Like many, many football teams. And so you say this Bradford City, you know, game is broadcast to half a million people. Yes, Right. [00:03:51] Speaker A: Half a million people. In 1985, mind you. [00:03:53] Speaker B: In 1985. [00:03:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:55] Speaker B: So sitting at home on their couches watching Bradford City. I've never heard of Bradford City. So I assume this is not like the, you know, it's not Manchester United. It's not, you know, one of those ones that is like, oh, everybody, you know, all the kids on the playground are wearing Bradford City clothing. So just for, like, I don't know, I guess for context of how this works, like. So you said this was sort of the Yorkshire region. [00:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:26] Speaker B: Is that how these things are normally broadcast? Like, so they certainly were at the time. Area that this is close to is going to get this game. [00:04:33] Speaker A: So let. I will. And again, I'm, I'm. I'm kind of fumbling around this, but here's my understanding. Basically what you've also got to take into account here is that in 1985, there were four TV channels. [00:04:44] Speaker B: Right, right, exactly. You didn't have this guy with like, here's every single league. [00:04:50] Speaker A: Yes. [00:04:50] Speaker B: Having its own dedicated channel as well as. [00:04:53] Speaker A: Which in 1985, the UK television picture was very different in that the UK was broken up into TV regions. [00:05:02] Speaker B: Oh, okay, right, yeah. [00:05:04] Speaker A: So in South Wales, across all of Wales, where I'm from, you, it was S4C was the little Channel 4 region, but ITV was broken up. I did Espadwarek as it was. [00:05:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, wait, hold on. Okay, I know that one. [00:05:19] Speaker A: But, but even, you know, the, the big, the big channels, ITV in particular was broken up into regions. It was broadcast regionally and you would have local football games. Right. That ain't this. So is not so much the case anymore. [00:05:35] Speaker B: I don't believe so now you probably would pay for like a sports package that gets you. Oh, your area. Right. Like, now that I think about it, even here, like, we can get football channels or whatever. And I know it's like, oh, here's the Premier League channel, here's the. This league channel. So, yeah, yeah, okay. But for the time at which this is occurring, what would have happened is that the BBC is broken up into regional television. [00:05:59] Speaker A: ITV is. BBC is national, but ITV would be. [00:06:03] Speaker B: Broken up, broken up into regional sections. And so the people who would have Been watching this live would have largely been in the area of interest of these teams. [00:06:12] Speaker A: Exactly. This. [00:06:13] Speaker B: Okay, thank you. [00:06:14] Speaker A: You wouldn't have been watching this in London. You wouldn't have been watching, you know, on the south coast. This was. Yorkshire TV was broadcasting this on the air. The Big Match was the name of the show. [00:06:24] Speaker B: Okay. [00:06:24] Speaker A: But you see, the thing is, for Bradford, this was a huge time for Bradford City. This was a massive event for them. They had won. They don't by the time of this. This was the last game of the season for them, right? And they'd already won the league that they were in. They were in what was then at the time known as the Third Division changed now, I believe now it's called League One, and then that's like two below the Premier League. So. So Bradford City were moving up, right? They were moving up a league and they'd already won it with one game to sign. [00:07:00] Speaker B: Now, thanks to. Welcome to Wrexham. Understand. [00:07:02] Speaker A: There you go. [00:07:03] Speaker B: Promoted. [00:07:04] Speaker A: That's it, exactly. That's it, exactly. You know as much about it as I do. [00:07:08] Speaker B: Sure. [00:07:09] Speaker A: So the. The city was in a absolutely fucking celebratory, jubilant frame of mind. They had, you know, the club itself, Bradford City itself, some years earlier, had kind of narrowly avoided financial ruin. And a lot of fans, some 11,000 fans, many, many of whom working class guys taking their kids, families in absolutely fucking party mode, were on their way to Valley Parade, which is Bradford City's stadium. That's their home stadium. [00:07:58] Speaker B: Okay. [00:07:59] Speaker A: They were looking forward to seeing the captain get the trophy handed to them. You know, police presence, families. It was. It was. It was a big fucking moment for the city. So let's talk a little bit about Valley Parade, please. It had fallen into some disrepair. There had been promises from the club to invest almost half a mil into upgrading the stadium, but that hadn't come to pass. And the most vulnerable section of the stadium was known as the main stand. [00:08:37] Speaker B: And it's not really the one that you want to be vulnerable, the main one. [00:08:41] Speaker A: No, no, absolutely not. Hadn't really had anything in the way of an architectural update since, you know, since the early 1900s when it was first built. It was built between 1907 and 1911. [00:08:59] Speaker B: See, this is another thing from watching. Welcome to Wrexham. Like, one of the most expensive things they've been talking about it on this season is the fact that you have to upgrade the stands and the pitch constantly and obviously especially the stands. And I'm sure what you're about to tell me about is going to have Contributed to that. But like, it really. The stands go fast. You have to every few years make sure that you do an update to them. And extremely expensive. [00:09:25] Speaker A: Yes, well, that absolutely had not been. [00:09:28] Speaker B: The case from 1907 to 1985. [00:09:33] Speaker A: Yes, yes. So we're talking, yeah, 75, 80 years of. Of dangerously outdated architecture just to try and paint a picture here. Wooden stands, wooden kind of bleachers, I guess you'd call them. Yes, wooden support beams. A roof coated in tar. Bitumen, kind of coated roof. And most lethally, underneath, the empty space of the seating had accumulated years and years. Well, certainly months, probably years worth of refuse, rubbish, litter. [00:10:16] Speaker B: Right, yeah. Everything everyone dropped down there. Paper. [00:10:19] Speaker A: Exactly this. Exactly this. Yes, paper. Plastic. Built up and accumulated over time. And as is the. Often the case, there were warnings, you know, in. In just the year before this, the city. Sorry, the County Council, The West Yorkshire County Council had warned Bradford City that a discarded cigarette or a match or anything could quite easily start a blaze. [00:10:47] Speaker B: Sure. I mean, we've seen this with the, like, other things that we've talked about in the. Our little mini series here, our side quest that, like, rarely do these things really come out of nowhere. There's always someone who said something and, you know, we're dismissed for it or whatever before something really terrible ends up actually happening. [00:11:08] Speaker A: Oh, and there's. There's so many contributing factors, Corey. This. The. The stand itself was built on an incline. It was built on a hillside location. Right. Ready? Airflow just kind of moving through the stadium. There's a sports historian, a guy by the name of Simon Inglis, who compared the design of that stand almost to the cockpit of an old World War I plane. You know, nice, not resilient. So many. So many factors that were just waiting, waiting, waiting for something like this to take place. And tragically, you know, like I said, there'd been a promise of renovations. The materials to renovate the fucking stadium had arrived that year, in March, of course. But the club decided, it's a big season. We'll wait until. Exactly, exactly, exactly. We'll wait it out. [00:12:04] Speaker B: So stems are full right now. What are we gonna tell people? They can't sit there. [00:12:08] Speaker A: Quite right, quite right. I think probably at this point, you should hit play on the video. [00:12:16] Speaker B: All right, let me go ahead and do that. Is just from the beginning. [00:12:20] Speaker A: Yeah, you can go from the very top. It's quite a short clip. No more than four, five minutes. [00:12:27] Speaker B: Oh, it's seven minutes. [00:12:28] Speaker A: Seven minutes. There we go. There we go. Now, you will notice, please, the time Code on the clip. [00:12:35] Speaker B: Yep. 15:43 and change. [00:12:39] Speaker A: Exactly this, 3:43pm so already, as you are watching that clip, a. Some kind of. Some kind of spark, be it a cigarette, be it a match, has already dropped under block D, which you can just see in the background of that video behind the game as the camera is pointing right to it. Okay. [00:13:04] Speaker B: Is it. So is it behind the goal or where. Where would it be? [00:13:08] Speaker A: You. You won't need to ask that question. [00:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll see. Okay. Yeah. [00:13:13] Speaker A: And there are. I've read quite a few, you know, very educated guesses as to how this started. I. Some people have reported seeing somebody having dropped a cigarette and smoke starting to rise. Somebody shouted, piss on it. People were pouring coffee or whatever drinks they had in their hands between the boards to try and extinguish the flame. Tell me what you're seeing now. See the smoke yet? Three. [00:13:42] Speaker B: Nope, still just. Just folks kicking around the ball at this point. [00:13:46] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:47] Speaker B: As far as I can see, because. [00:13:50] Speaker A: At this point, any second now, you're gonna see smoke. [00:13:54] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, now I see fire. Oh, now I see. [00:13:57] Speaker A: Okay. [00:13:58] Speaker B: Fire, fire. [00:13:59] Speaker A: Smoke started to thicken. The police have been called. Fire services are on their way. [00:14:03] Speaker B: Yeah, there's sort of like a yellow barrier wall thing at the back of the stairs stands, and that has ignited very quickly. It went from being like, is there like a little bit of yellow back there? To like, it is in flames. And now people are rushing sort of onto the pitch. [00:14:22] Speaker A: Yep, here we go. Okay, so we're at about 3:44, 3:45. Flames have burst through the floorboards. The flames are now really reaching almost to the top of that stand. The entire stand is now caught fire literally three minutes later. There are blocked exits. [00:14:40] Speaker B: Corrigan as well, I was gonna say, because what we have right here doesn't look disastrous, like, well, it's clearly on fire and that is going to collapse or whatever. But everyone is. [00:14:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:51] Speaker B: Coming onto the pitch or whatever. And from this position, it's like, what? This doesn't look like anybody should have died. [00:14:58] Speaker A: Okay. [00:14:59] Speaker B: Locked exits are a problem. [00:15:01] Speaker A: Exits are blocked. Some people are finding that they're trapped in their seats. The pitch should now be starting to fill up. Yes. [00:15:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:10] Speaker A: Game. The game has now, of course, been completely cancelled. The game has been called off. If you were listening, if you had the commentary on, you would notice. Oh, you would hear the commentator, a man by the name of John Helm in real time, calling this live on TV again to around 500,000 people. [00:15:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:29] Speaker A: Watching this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There it Is. So you'll notice now the entirety of that main stand. [00:15:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Just. [00:15:36] Speaker A: Is now engulfed in an instant. [00:15:38] Speaker B: Some guys crawling over the fence, you know, smoke coming from his jacket. [00:15:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The documentary that I saw last week about this on the BBC, people who were there, people who could feel the heat. [00:15:49] Speaker B: John Helm, just people in front of the camera, like. Yeah, we. [00:15:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:53] Speaker B: Well, I'm not realizing what's happening here, so go ahead. [00:15:57] Speaker A: No, no, no. I mean, imagine being part of that. What the. How do you respond to that? How do you react to that? How do you. You know, how do you. How do you pass what the. Is going on in front of you? Right. [00:16:13] Speaker B: Especially because, like I said, you know, it looked like people were able to get out. It doesn't immediately look like, you know. [00:16:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:21] Speaker B: Horrifying things are happening to people. Looks like people are getting out of the stands. [00:16:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Keep. [00:16:25] Speaker B: So there's a lot of guy up in front of the camera and, like, waving and stuff like that. I don't. I don't think I've seen the guy. Nothing that has stood out as the guy. [00:16:37] Speaker A: Some eyewitness accounts spread like a flash. The smoke was choking. Two or three burly men smashed the gates open. Otherwise I would not have been able to get out. That was a fan by the name of Jeffrey Mitchell. I saw one man burning from head to foot. Another guy in attendance by the name was Stefan Crolak. Describe to me what you're seeing now. I can see your eyes widening. [00:16:56] Speaker B: Dragging largely like elderly people out of the stands. An old woman, an old man being dragged by cops, you know, from the. From the stands onto the pitch that are clearly injured and not able to get out on their own? What if I told you Pirates, nobody's cheering now. [00:17:15] Speaker A: What if I told you fire extinguishers had been removed to stop them from being used as missiles, to stop them from being thrown around during games? [00:17:26] Speaker B: That's. You can't. [00:17:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:28] Speaker B: You can't sacrifice that shit. That's, you know. Yeah, that's not how that works. [00:17:34] Speaker A: Any second now, you will see the most awful sight of a man running from the stands, literally aflame. A man on fire. Again, broadcast a half a million people. [00:17:45] Speaker B: Wow. So they didn't. They didn't pull away at all. They just kept rolling on this whole thing. [00:17:50] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. They stuck with it. [00:17:52] Speaker B: I mean, there's so many people that they're, you know, basically dragging by their clothes. [00:17:57] Speaker A: Yep. [00:17:58] Speaker B: Away from. From the stands and they're, like, kind of becoming piled up. [00:18:02] Speaker A: Yep. [00:18:03] Speaker B: They're Just sort of dragging them to the center, as far away as they can possibly get from. Oh, and there's the guy on fire. Holy smokes. [00:18:10] Speaker A: Incredible. [00:18:11] Speaker B: Surprisingly calm. He doesn't run out screaming or anything like that. He kind of just. [00:18:16] Speaker A: Yes. [00:18:17] Speaker B: Walks out in a bit of a daze and every. Everyone gets. It starts, you know, hitting him with jackets and stuff like that, trying to put him out, you know. What happened to him? [00:18:25] Speaker A: Oh, dead. [00:18:26] Speaker B: Oh. Like it's hard that he could have survived, but. [00:18:30] Speaker A: 56 others. 56 dead in that. In that event. 56 dead. More than some 260, 270 people injured. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Crush injuries, burn injuries, smoke inhalation. The footage was never kind of repeated in its entirety on tv. There were shots and scenes from it that night on ITV's World of Sport. [00:18:55] Speaker B: Mostly just the burning. [00:18:56] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. [00:18:57] Speaker B: That stands, which is an incredible image in and of itself. I mean, the quality is. Yeah, just going. [00:19:05] Speaker A: Quite something, you know. Yeah. By that evening, footage had reached the entire country. World of sport. 3 million people. News at 10, obviously a nationwide audience. And no prosecutions were brought anywhere. Right. No single individual was ever identified as being. [00:19:26] Speaker B: To this day. [00:19:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, to this day. To this day, nobody was really identified as being the one person who dropped the match or the cigarette. [00:19:34] Speaker B: Well, sure. And that wouldn't be. I mean, the person that I would think should. That would be, you know. [00:19:40] Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly this. Exactly this. There was an inquiry that very year, the Popplewell Inquiry, and the focus was placed rightly on the institution, the unsafe conditions. No individual blame as such. [00:19:56] Speaker B: Yeah, because you could, you can drop a cigarette in most stadiums. I mean, you're not allowed to smoke in most stadiums, but if you dropped one, it would make no difference. You know, it's about all the other structural things. But no one got in trouble for creating the environment that led to this. [00:20:15] Speaker A: I do not believe. So there were no prosecutions brought at all. I believe lots of reform came as a result of it. Wooden stands, newly built wooden stands in stadiums were banned. Regular fire safety inspections were mandated for the first time. [00:20:33] Speaker B: Just lock up your. Your. [00:20:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:36] Speaker B: What do you call them? [00:20:37] Speaker A: Extinguishers. [00:20:38] Speaker B: Fire extinguishers. Instead of getting rid of them, put them behind glass. [00:20:42] Speaker A: Two years later, in 1987, there was the Fire Safety and Safety of Places of Sport act, which was enshrined into law as a. As a result of this. And there were, you know, things came from this. There was 4 million raised in the Bradford disaster appeal which followed. That money helped to establish a brand new burns unit at the Bradford Hospital. There is an annual memorial there on the date of that tragedy at. At Valley park each year. And it remains, you know, for football fans in particular. The. The video that you're watching now, I believe, is used in fire safety training. [00:21:28] Speaker B: Wow. [00:21:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:21:30] Speaker B: It's like almost one of those things, like, what do you say? Just don't do anything that led to this. That's for sure. I mean, I don't even know in terms of, like, the actual event, like, once it started, given everything else that had happened, what you could do differently. You know, everybody just tried to get onto the pitch, you know, like, that was the only option that they had. It was everything else. [00:21:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:57] Speaker B: That doomed them. There was nothing that could be done. [00:22:00] Speaker A: It's an object lesson, isn't it, in a confluence of circumstances. [00:22:04] Speaker B: Right, exactly. And just the way those, you know, those little things add up and people make decisions. [00:22:12] Speaker A: Yes. [00:22:13] Speaker B: Corporate capitalist decisions that put people's lives in danger. Thinking it's. It'll be fine. What could possibly happen? We. This just needs to last two months longer. [00:22:26] Speaker A: Just get through the end of the season, of course, and then we'll sort it out. We'll take a look. Yeah. [00:22:30] Speaker B: Figure it from there. [00:22:31] Speaker A: Yes. [00:22:33] Speaker B: It's, you know, it's interesting because we did. We talked about this too, with the Hillsborough one that, like, the UK is considerably less litigious than the US is in general. You know, we love a lawsuit over here. And so that makes it so much more unfathomable from an American perspective because, like, if you, like, stabbed yourself with a plastic fork at a sporting event and went and, like, decided to press charges because their forks are too sharp, you would get money, and then the entire stadium would have to use spoons. Right. So the idea that a stage stadium could, you know, kill 57 people, injure 200 plus more, and decades later, nobody faces anything for that. I mean, it's one of those things where it's like. Well, I mean, the best possible outcome happened. Right. Everything changed. [00:23:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:33] Speaker B: And that's really what you want out of that situation. Like, you know, hopefully in some way, those families got restitution and things like that, and that's what's most important. But that. That feeling of, like, people who knew got away with it is. Is frustrating, you know? [00:23:52] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know if I. I don't know if got away with it is. Is. Is the. The terms that I think of it in. I don't think you could. I don't think you could find one Particular individual to hang this on, to pin this on. [00:24:07] Speaker B: Well, sure, but I would say that, like, here. Sure. Like, the, you know, no individual would go to jail for it, necessarily. Like, you know, which would probably happen if it were, say, like, Korea or something like that. Like, you might get executed for something like that. You killed people, you know, but here, I think the. The organization would have to pay millions of dollars to each of the families, even if that bankrupted it and there was no more of this team anymore. They would have to pay large amounts of money to the people who died in this, you know. [00:24:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I hear that, and I'll be honest with you. I don't. I don't, or I didn't read anything about any restitutions or any payments being made to any survivors. That much I don't know. I'll have to look further into that. But. [00:24:58] Speaker B: Yeah, because it sounded, with the, like with the Hillsborough one, it sounded like they didn't get jack shit for that. [00:25:03] Speaker A: Well, no. And, and Hillsborough, of course, you know, you had the, the bastard Tories and the scumbag son blaming supporters and changing their stories. [00:25:13] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:25:14] Speaker A: To, to shift blame anywhere. Anywhere but at the police. Who, who kettled fans into those fucking ridiculous spaces. [00:25:24] Speaker B: Exactly. This one has more of a sort of act of God feeling about it compared to the other one, where it became more of a political skirmish or a indictment of football culture and things like that. [00:25:40] Speaker A: Indeed. [00:25:41] Speaker B: Which is. Yeah, I mean, all of it is kind of fascinating to me. From over here, we do have, like, those, the occasional, like, football riot, which is usually when, like, a team wins and the, you know, fans decide they need to burn their city down. [00:26:00] Speaker A: Sure. [00:26:01] Speaker B: I think this happened with the Giants in San Francisco. It happened with the Phillies or. No, with the Eagles, I mean, in Philadelphia and. But usually anyone who dies in that, it's like, Like a guy died climbing up a light pole and falling down or something like that, you know, like kind of people getting a little too into the celebrations and things. But the football culture, I think, is something that is very difficult to understand for Americans, for as into sports as we get. I think that it's a whole other world from what we have. [00:26:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I completely agree. [00:26:44] Speaker B: And certainly no one's into football like that in America. [00:26:47] Speaker A: I, It. It's something that I, that, that certainly fascinates the. Out of me, but it's something that I, That I, that I, I can't in a zillion years relate to, you know, and I've, I've said this to Plenty of my friends and family who, who are kind of football fans. It's, it's, it's like an alien world to me to be that invested and that passionate about something which, which for me holds, holds no allure at all. And, and it seems inextricably bound up with violence and with bigotry and with racism and with, you know, all of that stuff seems indistinguishable from the culture. Despite, despite what the FA might have you believe, and despite how, you know, I still don't see any kind of real attempts or affirmative action to, to call out and prosecute and criminalize. And much like, you know, over here, they did a cracking job of making drinking and driving socially fucking awful. You don't ever do it. I don't see anything like that in terms of kicking out, to use the term that the football association uses, kicking out, racism from football. It all seems like a lip service. Oh, we won't have that, you know, but games carry on, you know, games carry on, really. [00:28:21] Speaker B: Done. Yeah. [00:28:22] Speaker A: When, you know, awful, awful act of racism occur from the crowd doors, plays on the pitch, games carry on. [00:28:28] Speaker B: Right. [00:28:30] Speaker A: You know, I, I don't know. I, I, I've yet to see anything as an observer, which tells me that it's a problem which has been taken seriously by the sport and by the culture within the sport. And I, and I, I don't know, I can't, I can't get on board with that. [00:28:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that that in sports in general is often a huge problem. Putting, you know, end racism in the end zone of an American football game and being like, yep, we did it, team, like, you know, things like that. Lots of, lots of racism. And hockey, which is largely a super white sport, you know, there's baseball teams and things like that, including my Red Sox that, you know, Boston fans, more of the hockey fans with baseball fans too, are known for, you know, just saying awful shit, things like that. And it's a thing I love, but, you know, I experienced it when I played sports. There were people who would stand in the outfield at our games and call us slurs because our team was particularly ethnically diverse. So, yeah, it's a problem. [00:29:30] Speaker A: Look, I don't want to paint everyone with that brush. They're, they're, they're a good, you know, there are good football fans, I, plenty. [00:29:38] Speaker B: Of which I know probably most are. [00:29:40] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. [00:29:42] Speaker B: As an institutional issue, it doesn't feel like a lot of sporting culture is actively really trying to do anything about that segment of the population that's being hateful and shitty. [00:29:54] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, maybe I'm wrong. If I'm wrong, tell me I'm wrong. But. [00:30:00] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I think organizationally, much like in the case with, like, these horrible incidents that we've talked about on here, it's like it is. It's institutional. It's not about individuals. It's not about, you know, every soccer fan is an asshole, and it's not about whatever doofus flicked a cigarette. It's about institutional policies at the end of the day that usually don't have our best interests. [00:30:28] Speaker A: Okay, yes, thank you. Very articulately put. So, yes, let's draw a line under this. But look, 56 people fell afoul of Joe Agrule number one that day. [00:30:38] Speaker B: It's true. [00:30:39] Speaker A: And at least half a million people saw it as it happened. Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. [00:30:46] Speaker B: Yes, please do. [00:30:48] Speaker A: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, mise en scene. [00:30:51] Speaker B: I don't think anyone has ever said mise en scene. It's such a horny way before. [00:30:55] Speaker A: The way I whispered the word sex. Cannibal routine. [00:30:58] Speaker B: Worst comes to worst, Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:31:02] Speaker A: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. I'm. I'm going to leg it. [00:31:08] Speaker B: You know how I feel about that, Mark? [00:31:10] Speaker A: I think you feel great about it. Yes. [00:31:14] Speaker B: You taking us in? [00:31:16] Speaker A: I can do. I mean, taking us in. Well, hey, hey. Somebody's certainly taking us in to a world war, aren't they? [00:31:26] Speaker B: Oh, today, Marco, listen, what do you think of that? I had, it was so nice. Had like a lovely book club last night with the gang. Well attended. It was so good to see so many wonderful faces, you know, even Anna made it, who's been, you know, normally works on Saturdays but is in between jobs at the moment. So before her next one starts, Had a free Saturday and joined us. And it was so nice. And I'm like, I closed my laptop. I'm like, ugh, that was such a good time. I'm gonna turn on the TV, watch a little $100,000 Pyramid. And when I turned it on, instead of a hundred thousand dollar pyramid, we had bombed Iran. [00:32:12] Speaker A: Right? So lots to talk about here. Obviously, I've got the news on in front of me, right? [00:32:17] Speaker B: Naturally, yes, obviously. [00:32:20] Speaker A: And earlier on, I was glued. Glued to Pete Hegseth's press conference. Glued to it the way he could. [00:32:31] Speaker B: Not pay me to watch. [00:32:33] Speaker A: It was great, right? It Was great. Like, by turns talking about the precision of the strike and the fucking exemplary job. God bless our soldiers and we ask God for their protection and so on and so on while just dick riding the President. That was fantastic. I have never seen someone take command like he took command. I want to give a shout out to our commander and she. Fucking brilliant. [00:32:59] Speaker B: But so crazy. I saw a picture that was like, of. I think it was when Trump gave his little explanation and address last night. And it was like, Trump in the middle, and there's like, Marco Rubio and Hegseth, and I can't remember who the other person was, but all looking just, like, absolutely miserable. But, you know, then they're gonna have to kick his ass after this. Like, fuck. [00:33:22] Speaker A: This is news as it develops. A question came from the pool of journalists about regime change. So is this really about weapons? Is this really. Or is there a regime change kind of agenda here? You know, from both the military commander. I can't remember his name. And from Hegseth himself. No, no, no. Military operation based on a very specific target with a very specific reason. Regime changes, not the agenda here. Act real Donald Trump right now. If the current Iranian regime is unable to caps. Make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change? Meaga. He said me. He said mega. [00:34:05] Speaker B: That's like immortan Joe language. Like, what are you doing, bud? And he. It's like, he. [00:34:11] Speaker A: That's so good. [00:34:12] Speaker B: There's no communication between, like, Trump and anyone around him. So it's like the same thing happened yesterday where, like, you know, someone said to Trump, like, oh, you know, your defense Secretary or whatever. I can't remember what her. No, because Texas Defense Secretary, whatever, you know, your foreign relations, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Says like, you know, that, this, that and the other thing about Iran. And he's like, who said that? Who's that? He doesn't even know who that is. And then it's like, Toolsy Gabbard. Well, she's wrong. [00:34:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And then she rolled it back. She was like, I was misinformed. Sorry. [00:34:46] Speaker B: Yeah, she rolled. [00:34:47] Speaker A: Yeah. Ah, great. So look, again, just like, I'm not a sports historian, I'm also not a political or a kind of a military. Military kind of historian myself, either. Right. But. But are there parallels here to Afghanistan? Corrigan? [00:35:08] Speaker B: Yes. [00:35:09] Speaker A: Feels like it might be. Isn't it? [00:35:11] Speaker B: We're just doing Iraq and Afghanistan and all that stuff over again is what's happening. We're just doing a little. We're doing a sequel. [00:35:19] Speaker A: Are there Themes here I wonder that we could draw upon from both of these events because, you know, a quote often misattributed to Albert Einstein, isn't it? It's. Is that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. That wasn't Albert Einstein. That was, in fact, you know. [00:35:40] Speaker B: He never said that. [00:35:41] Speaker A: No, no, he never said that. [00:35:42] Speaker B: He did say that maybe sometimes he was just, like, talking to his family and he was like, you know what? He said that. And then he was like. And you know what the definition of insanity is? [00:35:50] Speaker A: It was actually David Lynch. He said it to Natasha Leone in the hours before his death. I know that for a fact. [00:35:58] Speaker B: Okay, fair enough. [00:35:59] Speaker A: So write that down. But yeah, the. The specter of weaponry being cooked up by bad actors. So we gotta get in there. I don't know, man. Yeah, that's right. That. That even to a layperson like myself, that. That feels quite blatant. You know, it feels quite glaring. [00:36:22] Speaker B: And I think people, yeah, largely know that it's wild because it's one of those things that, like, no one until, you know, aside from his cabinet, once he tells them they need to pretend they're on board, like, no one is on board with this. Everyone's like, please don't do this. Don't. Steve Bannon was in there like, please don't bomb Iran. Like, nobody was on board with this. And he just was like, no, we're doing it. We're absolutely doing it. And so it's an interesting, interesting moment that, like, now conservative Americans have to, like, change their entire yes. Mindset now because Trump told them this is happening and now they have to pretend that this is a good thing. [00:37:07] Speaker A: So that's where we're at this week. Friends, welcome to Jack of All Graves. Front row seats, we got the beanbag chairs. You know what I mean? We've got our cold drinks and our snacks and the fucking tape is rolling. Real time. Real time. World's End. Shit. If it ain't the climate, it'll be the economy. And if it ain't the economy, it'll be, you know, it'll be capitalism. And if it's not capitalism, it'll be nuclear war or it'll be a pandemic. [00:37:35] Speaker B: Oh, so many things. Like this is. We really are living in. In the cabin in the woods and, you know, the capitalists are the people there watching and just seeing which. [00:37:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:45] Speaker B: Which thing are we gonna pull? [00:37:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Forces outside of our Ken, you know, observers completely outside of our frame of reference. Dolphins don't know about Disneyland. And we don't know that there are people watching us going, which fucking buttons? [00:38:00] Speaker B: Except we do. We do know they're doing that. It's the cabin in the woods. If we knew those guys were there and we're like, ah, fuck, this is the worst. Choose your own adventure. [00:38:09] Speaker A: Listen. I won't say it's not thrilling. I won't say it isn't thrilling. [00:38:13] Speaker B: On that note, though, you can watch us talk about the cabin in the woods or listen to it. I posted it on the feed last week when we were, you know, Mark was out being celebrated as the super dad that he is. [00:38:26] Speaker A: I am a super dad. [00:38:28] Speaker B: Yes, You're a super dad. [00:38:29] Speaker A: Yep. [00:38:31] Speaker B: And so I posted it on the feed last week and in lieu of an episode a Joag fan Cave ep, where Marco joined me and Kristen to talk about the cabin in the woods. And we had a fantastic time. [00:38:44] Speaker A: We did. It was just a treat and a privilege to be able to chat shit about one of the what I believe to be the greatest horror movies of my lifetime is brilliant and not. I mean, I'll do that with anyone at any point. But the privilege and the treat was to be able to do that with Kristen, who is. I. I don't know. I. It's hard to. It's hard to kind of articulate without sounding like a creeper. Right. But I. I have a deep, deep admiration for Kristen. I think she is a. They don't make many like her. [00:39:22] Speaker B: It's true. Yeah, that's very, very true. She's a wonderful and unique soul and. [00:39:26] Speaker A: She captivates me just to listen to her talk and to watch the things that her face does. Do you know what I mean by that? [00:39:33] Speaker B: A lot of things. This is. She's always getting on my case about the frames that I use in our promotional images. But you've seen it. The face never stops moving. It is very difficult. [00:39:45] Speaker A: And physicality is, you know, very interesting and lively and she just embodies. Ah, man, She's. She's a absolute. Just. Oh, I want to put her in a button in my pocket. She's lush. [00:40:02] Speaker B: So you can listen to that episode on our feed. You can watch the video on our YouTube and if you're, like, super into it and you would love more of these. We're always on the KO Fi. Every month, Kristin and I put up a new one of these. Next month we will be watching. I still know what you did last summer, appropriately, like a day or two before or after the new. I know what you Did Last Summer comes out. [00:40:27] Speaker A: So. [00:40:28] Speaker B: So, you know, celebrate new. I Know what yout Did Last Summer. [00:40:32] Speaker A: Nice. [00:40:32] Speaker B: With us revisiting one of the sillier ones. [00:40:37] Speaker A: I don't even think I've seen them all. You know, I think I might have seen the first one once. [00:40:41] Speaker B: I haven't seen the third one, which is like Anna's like, least favorite movie of all time, which makes me a little curious. But the letterboxd is like, deeply abysmal. And I'm like, don't, don't, don't subject yourself. [00:40:53] Speaker A: Life is short. [00:40:54] Speaker B: But I still know, I think is very worth watching because it's dumb in a really good way. Like, it's just a very stupid movie that if you lean into that, you're. You're in for a really good ride. And you've got, you know, Jack Black playing like a white boy Rasta in it. You've got. Jeffrey Combs is in it as the guy who runs the hotel. Like, it's. It's a deeply fun time. So I think I still know what you did last summer is very worth watching. And then you can listen to Kristen and I talk about it. [00:41:27] Speaker A: Fantastic. Why would you not want to do that? Why would you not sign up for that? [00:41:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just silly. [00:41:33] Speaker A: Yes. [00:41:33] Speaker B: $3. And you get to experience that. [00:41:36] Speaker A: Also, while we're talking Ko Fi things, we have a let's play. [00:41:39] Speaker B: We do on deck. Yes. [00:41:42] Speaker A: What's the game called? [00:41:43] Speaker B: Not on deck. Because we already did it. [00:41:45] Speaker A: Oh, is that what that means? [00:41:46] Speaker B: Sports metaphors that you don't understand. [00:41:49] Speaker A: Okay. We have a new. [00:41:53] Speaker B: Be up. Yes. We have done a let's play a. [00:41:58] Speaker A: Real three pointer. [00:42:04] Speaker B: From downtown on the Kofi. Now we played Night in the Woods. Oh, that's the other day. Yes. And it was a fun time, right? [00:42:15] Speaker A: Yeah, a lot of fun. One that we'll go back to. Not generally my speed. I think. I think you can play it next. [00:42:23] Speaker B: Okay. [00:42:24] Speaker A: Oh, but you'll have to catch up, won't you? [00:42:26] Speaker B: Yeah, then I'd have to catch up. [00:42:27] Speaker A: So really fun. Quirky character and story driven explore em up kind of puzzle y. It's just like an interactive storybook, really. That was the vibe I got. Beautiful kind of small town weirdness. Very low. [00:42:45] Speaker B: Definitely got a Twin Peaks influence. [00:42:48] Speaker A: It does. Yep. Very chill, very low temperature. And one that I think suits the let's play format very nicely. So why not? If you're not already? Why not do the right thing and just there's. There's so much more of us that you could be accessing that. You might not be accessing. You might be thinking, because this podcast, this will end in. In like an hour or so, and you'll be. You'll be left with this hollow feeling in your heart. You'll. You'll feel sick. You'll start to feel itchy. You won't be able to sleep properly. You'll be thinking, if only there were more I could get. Well, there is. There is, you know, Fucking. You may as well do it. Do the right thing. Everybody else is. Millions of people are doing it here. [00:43:31] Speaker B: Here. Ko-fi.com jackofallgraves for all that stuff. And a new Joag Radio is coming this week. [00:43:39] Speaker A: Joag Radio. The coming. [00:43:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that's cominging this week. So look out for that as well. [00:43:49] Speaker A: What's it gonna be about, Corry? Give us a little tease. [00:43:52] Speaker B: I was just trying to remember off the top of my head, and I don't. I recorded it last week. It's. I'm just in the process of editing it because it's hot in my office. [00:44:03] Speaker A: Just to be a little bit vulnerable. Right. I feel like I'm shit this week. I feel like I'm doing shit podcasting, right? And I hate talking about the cast on the cast, as you know. I feel like I'm doing shit, and it's making me, like, be more shit because I'm kind of telling myself that I'm doing shit. It's. It's been super hot here the past couple of days, and my sleep has been awful and I can't remember things, and I'm not very articulate, and I can't string sentences together very well. So if you are listening to this for the first time this week, and you're thinking, this guy's fucking awful, he's. [00:44:33] Speaker B: Not great at that. [00:44:33] Speaker A: There are weeks. You've got to stick with it. There are weeks when I'm not this bad. [00:44:40] Speaker B: Right, you're not doing bad. But listen, for, you know, your ego sake, sure. Let's just say there are better weeks, and that's fine. Listen, weather is terrible here, and it has been. This has, like, been the worst weather, end of spring, beginning of summer weather that we've had in the entire time that I lived here. And let me tell you, I had. [00:45:01] Speaker A: We're not talking about the weather on the fucking. [00:45:03] Speaker B: Can I. You gotta let me tell my story. [00:45:06] Speaker A: All right, all right. [00:45:06] Speaker B: Okay. So last week it had rained. It's been cold and rainy or super hot. Those have been the two modes, right? And in my town, we have these old slate sidewalks, right? They're dangerous, deeply dangerous. If they get wet at all, they're like a slip and slide. And so they're like. They're not everywhere. You get like some regular, normal, like outside my house, there's some. But then you'll get like a, you know, 50ft, 75ft of these terrible old sidewalks. So I'm walking to the library the other day and I'm like slipping every couple steps. I'm like, oh, fuck me. So I'm like trying. I'm walking in the mud to avoid it, like in the grassy, muddy parts just to stay off of this or whatever. I reach a point where it's like, there's nowhere else I can walk. I have to walk on the slate. I step onto it and I'm like passing this guy on the, on the street. And so I kind of go to like step around him and lose my footing and just face. And there was no saving it. Like, it was one of those things where it was like I couldn't when I put my other foot down to try to like, catch myself and then like put my hand down, it was so slippery. Well, that guy was literally right next to me. But like, I hit so hard the entire right side of my body. And like, at the time, what I really noticed is like, I smacked my face against this thing, but it was like, thankfully kind of like my upper face. So I got a bit of a shiner and like a little like rosy cheek or whatever. But I didn't like knock a tooth out or anything like that. But so I was like, oh. And I was walking to get something notarized and it was covered in mud and I'm like trying to wipe it off as much as possible. And I'm like. I think as I'm walking into the library, like, I think I'm okay or whatever, like, nobody will notice. Then I walk in and immediately one of the librarians looks over and goes, are you okay? [00:47:11] Speaker A: Oh, that's bad. [00:47:12] Speaker B: That's like, oh, no. Oh, no, no, no. I'm like, fine, no worries. Just a little dirty. [00:47:17] Speaker A: You were getting something. What, notarized? [00:47:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I was getting a thing. Notarized. [00:47:23] Speaker A: What does that mean? [00:47:24] Speaker B: Oh, do you not have notaries? [00:47:27] Speaker A: I mean, probably. [00:47:28] Speaker B: Okay. It's like when you have like a document, like a legal document, and you have to get it signed. [00:47:34] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, fine. Okay. [00:47:36] Speaker B: Yeah, you have a representative, a state certified person to put their little stamp on it or whatever. So I was going for that, but I go, you know up to her office or whatever and I do the whole thing. Walk home the next day. Well, I realized also that I dislocated my hip and I was like, that sucks, you know, and I kind of, you know, pop it back in or whatever and it hurts and I'm hobbling or whatever. But what I then woke up in the middle of the night because what I hadn't realized, I dislocated my shoulder too. And it popped back in while I was sleeping. And so I just woke up to like, like horrible, horrible pain in my arm. And the whole next day I was walking around like just lurching everywhere because the entire right side of my body was. Was just fucked. So that was. Yeah, I spent a good chunk of last week just like immobilized because I had eaten it so, so incredibly hard. [00:48:41] Speaker A: What a beautiful tale. That is fucking horrible. You poor thing. [00:48:45] Speaker B: So bad. But now it's like, you know, you can barely tell that, you know, it has. [00:48:51] Speaker A: Yeah, you look fine. [00:48:53] Speaker B: It's cleared up for the most part now. It mostly just looks like my regular eye bags. So we're, we're okay. Iced it a lot and things like that. And my body feels okay again. But this is everything backwards. Yeah, listen, bad weather sucks, but yes, other than that. Hey. Is what it is. [00:49:19] Speaker A: Yes. [00:49:22] Speaker B: So this week, obviously, like Mark said, he's feeling a little foggy brained. Things like that where we're catching up. It's hot. It is. Obviously I can't run my air conditioner. [00:49:34] Speaker A: In here, so I'm just carrying me and this is so nice to see. [00:49:39] Speaker B: I'm sweating bullets in here. So what we decided we were gonna do is obviously we're. We haven't recorded a new one in two weeks. We're gonna go through some of our highlights of viewing from the past two weeks and then as sort of a moment of Zen, if you will, we're just gonna, we're gonna take the focus away from Iran and from all the other terrible things going on in the world and just reflect a little bit on Stockton Rush. [00:50:06] Speaker A: Yes. [00:50:06] Speaker B: And what we've learned about him in the most recent documentaries that have come out. [00:50:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that both of the docs have different angles. You know, the Netflix one seems very much focused on him and those who loved him. Whereas I think, was it Discovery, the other one, that. That was way more about the business and about the mechanics of the sub and about the, you know, things falling apart for the team. So, you know, it speaks to just how fucking rich and hilarious an event that was that. You know, there's so much to get from it. And both those dogs have worked so much to probe, carved out their own little. Their own little niche around it. And, yeah, both very, very worthwhile viewing. I recommend them both. [00:50:56] Speaker B: Yes. So we will. We'll chat a little bit about that before we close up. But first, yeah. Shall we talk about what we watched? [00:51:02] Speaker A: Right. What I'm not. What I'm not up for is any conflict here. Right. I don't want to fight. [00:51:09] Speaker B: Oh, I don't think we're gonna fight about it. I think we have different opinions on things, but I don't think we've got to fight on our hands here because we have. [00:51:20] Speaker A: Firstly, Final Destination Bloodlines. Right. Is such fun. [00:51:27] Speaker B: I hated it. Hated is definitely last place on my Final Destination ranking. [00:51:35] Speaker A: Just to get the obvious bits out the way. I mean, there is some practical goal in this film where. [00:51:43] Speaker B: When. [00:51:44] Speaker A: Yeah, there is the kill in the. In the. In the bin. Laurie in the. In the garbage. [00:51:49] Speaker B: That is not at all. [00:51:50] Speaker A: They. They built a fake head. I swear to God. There is one bit where. [00:51:54] Speaker B: No, they definitely did not. That is so deeply cgi. That scene was where I, like, really was like, oh, fuck this whole movie, like, because it, like, looks like a, you know, like a cardboard. Like a paper doll gets cut out and, like, smacked into the, you know, back of the garbage truck. And like, it's so not one second of that looks like a real thing. [00:52:18] Speaker A: Well, you'll know that I've been outspoken about CG gore in the past. [00:52:23] Speaker B: Yeah. That's why I was so surprised that you were surprised at my rating. [00:52:27] Speaker A: But, you know, when, you know, early on that this entire thing is going to be CGGore. There isn't going to be any real kind of sense of depth or weight or kind of reality to any of the kills. But on the other hand, what it is is CG gore with the brakes completely off. This is the fucking kids get fucked right up in this film. The kills are imaginative. They are dialed right up to 10. You probably couldn't have done some of the things that this film does with practical gore. [00:53:01] Speaker B: So, no, but I don't think that that is a mark in its favor. Like, you could make it a cartoon and it would be more interesting than just something that is, like, clearly no one's there and none of this is happening. Someone pointed out like it's. There's stuff in it that just doesn't even need to be cg. Like something. It was like, you know, sitting in a cafe and it's CG in the background. And it's like, why couldn't they just go to a cafe? You know? [00:53:30] Speaker A: The whole thing feels like it's done in front of a green screen. All of it. [00:53:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's just. It is unbearable for me. On top of people that you do not care about whatsoever. A plot device that makes no sense at all. This, like, notebook of scribblings that they don't explain it somehow. She's, like, deciphering the scribbles that look like what you draw in a middle school notebook. And it's telling her things. Like, it's nonsensical and then no weight to it. It just felt to me like if you took the things that I don't like about each Final Destination movie on top of that, the, like, one of the things just really got me is how long each kill takes. And that every single one has so many red herrings to it and so much misdirection, which I think when you get, like, stuff like the other worst one, the fourth one, like, yeah, you get that there. But that's not what Final Day Destination is. And I think that's the thing for me is this one fundamentally misunderstands why Final Destination is fun and just goes, hey, you guys like seeing people get up, right? [00:54:42] Speaker A: Oh, that is absolutely what this is. And Final Destination is one of those films which course corrected after, like, the third or fourth sequel and realized, oh, what people talk about isn't the gimmick of death following you around, but people talk about the kills. So it became about the kills. [00:54:58] Speaker B: Which is. Yeah, which is exactly what I think is the worst element of Final Destination is going, oh, these are. This is gonna make a great compilation on YouTube later. You don't have to make a movie around it. You're just. You know that what people are asking for is I want to watch, like, a super cut of really gory kills. And then if you're gonna do that, make use something practical. The fact that every single one was fully CGI was like, what's the point? So you're not going to have a good story. You're not going to have, like. [00:55:31] Speaker A: I'm looking at the MPA website, Motion Picture association website, with an interview with the DP of Final Destination bullet lines. A guy called Christian Sebalt, and he claims that loads of the kills were built on practical effect. [00:55:49] Speaker B: Well, they're very shitty if that's. Yeah, the guy they say that about Wicked too, which is, like, very obviously all cgi. I Don't believe anyone when they say, oh, this was definitely like super practical. Like, it's not. Stop lying to me. I saw it with my own eyes. [00:56:06] Speaker A: The interviewer poses the question Final Destination Bloodlines leans into practical effects. What were the creative benefits of that? Well, does it fuck for a start? [00:56:14] Speaker B: It deeply does not do that at all. Everything is so CGI that it looks like a soap opera because it's just blurs everywhere. Like, you know, you have to soften everything because otherwise it's very obvious that none of this is real. It just. Yeah, for me it was like if you distilled the parts I hate about Final Destination and took out all of the good stuff, this is the final destination you would get. [00:56:45] Speaker A: Okay, well, my counterpoint is I enjoy a super cut of kills, as you know. [00:56:51] Speaker B: Right? Yes. [00:56:52] Speaker A: That's the thing that I really fucking like. I love when, you know, you can tell that the room full of people has just gone, right, what can we really, really do to fuck up these people in as, you know, just dialed up to 11 away as possible. And it does that. And I also quite enjoy. I, I think, I think that is a fundamental pillar of what Final Destination is. It's showing you what is about to happen in four minutes time. And then watching it in the way towards that happening. [00:57:21] Speaker B: That is good. That's not what this does. This goes, ooh, look at this thing over here. You see that thing over here? Oh, let's look at this thing over here for a few minutes. Oh, do you see that thing? It's not that, it's this. Fuck off. Like, seriously. No, like, the point is you see death coming and they don't. And so if the entire time you're showing me, you know, this thing over here, that actually isn't going to have to do with the, the death and then the death comes from over here. Well, why did we just spend four minutes looking at that? [00:57:55] Speaker A: I give it a bit more credit. [00:57:57] Speaker B: Going to call death. [00:57:58] Speaker A: I think a lot of that is intentional. There's a lovely. [00:58:00] Speaker B: It is intentional and I hate it. [00:58:02] Speaker A: Okay, well, fine. [00:58:05] Speaker B: It's not that I think they accidentally did it. They did that on purpose and I hate that. But, you know, I want to. I like that the idea is death is inevitable and I see it coming over here and I'm watching as they, like you said, inexorably move towards it. Instead of you're showing me a thing that has nothing to do with the death and making me think that that's gonna cause a death. But look over Here, you know, like, what? I don't. Okay. Neat, I guess. [00:58:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Cool. [00:58:35] Speaker B: That that didn't cause the death or, like, one of the other, like, really egregious ones is if you've seen any of the other, like, ones when the, you know, guy gets skipped, right? And then they spend, like, skip minutes on him pretending to, like, make out with the garbage truck or whatever. And it's like, obviously it's gonna take the next person. We know this, and she's in the background. You're like, it's gonna take her or whatever. But we have to sit here and watch this guy, like, as if we don't know what's going on this whole time. Just. Oh, it just was tedious. [00:59:10] Speaker A: My entire defense of this film is actually based on that particular scene. I thought it was super smart when just off the. Off, you know, seemingly off the cuff, one of the characters goes, oh, what are you expecting to happen? What? Like that leaf blower is gonna malfunction and blow that girl over there, the fucking basketball, and hit her in the head and she's gonna hit that lawnmower and you're gonna die. And then out of. No way. That's exactly what happens. I thought that was really. I don't know, I. [00:59:33] Speaker B: If they had done that and it happened like that instead of us also watching that guy pretend to make out with a garbage truck for 90 seconds while he, like, taunted everybody and she's just walking around in the background or whatever, like, you know, like, this is. It just doesn't have any sense of timing or. Yeah, just the whole thing. Ugh. Yeah. Everything I hate about Final Destination in that, I put it below. Even the shitty one. [01:00:01] Speaker A: Okay. That's a shame, isn't it? [01:00:06] Speaker B: Well, what are you gonna do? Well, Tony Todd, great ex. [01:00:09] Speaker A: That's exactly what I was about to say. Yes. If that isn't worth half a star of anyone's fucking money. [01:00:14] Speaker B: Yeah, that's basically all I gave it any points for. [01:00:18] Speaker A: Otherwise, if you haven't seen Absolute Misery, I'll. I'll. I won't. I won't spoil the moment. But, God, it's such a. [01:00:24] Speaker B: It's perfect. [01:00:26] Speaker A: He. He almost reaches through the film and talks to you directly. It's so, so, so well judged. Really beautifully executed. His goodbye, his last film. It was great. [01:00:36] Speaker B: Yes. Completely negated by everything else in the film, but he does a great job. He does in that moment. [01:00:42] Speaker A: Very sad. [01:00:44] Speaker B: Very, very sad. The man who clearly knew he was on his way out. [01:00:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:48] Speaker B: Well, the other thing. [01:00:49] Speaker A: Look at Him. Christ. [01:00:50] Speaker B: Yeah, you can tell the other thing that we both watch, that we disagree on that again, I don't think is a fight, is just. [01:00:56] Speaker A: I'm gonna tell you the story here, right? I know I told you this story. I was in such a. I was in a real hurry to watch the Matrix this week because I was buying milk at the co op and there was a. And I saw a kid in the co op, a 15 year old. He can't have been any older than 15. And it's 2025, right? And this kid was wearing a T shirt with the Matrix logo on it. Like it had the green code dripping. [01:01:23] Speaker B: Down the T shirt. Is that kid what he thinks the red pill is? That's all I'm saying. [01:01:26] Speaker A: Well, no, yeah, great point. But I thought, that kid. How fucking sick as fuck is that kid? He must be so sick. I think he might have been buying like a monster energy as well. Actually, now I think about it exactly. [01:01:38] Speaker B: What you buy while wearing. [01:01:39] Speaker A: Completely. And I thought, holy shit. If there's a kid in 2025 who enjoys the Matrix so much that he will cut around co op wearing a Matrix T shirt. I, I need to watch the Matrix again. So I, I sold it to Owen. I told him he's going on a fucking journey. And me and the boy, me and the 11 year old watch the Matrix. And. [01:01:57] Speaker B: And he was, he was in the whole time? [01:01:59] Speaker A: Oh, he was, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was impressed, genuinely. He had some questions, you know, in the first hour, of course. Yeah. But you know when it, when it landed for him, when it clicked, okay, what's going on then? Fuck. That film is a journey. Tell me why you don't like it. You think it's silly? Is that what it is? Is that what you're gonna tell me? [01:02:15] Speaker B: I do think it's silly, but here's the. I was thinking about it, right? Because obviously I was like, this is one of those movies that, you know, I haven't seen it in like 20 years. So I was like, I should give it another chance, right? Like if I have this reaction, because I know part of it is people who liked it, right? Like, just like you were talking about with something else we were watching recently where you were like, I think a part of my issue with it is my perception of the people who like it. [01:02:42] Speaker A: What could that have been? [01:02:43] Speaker B: Boy, there is no one worse than the people who liked the Matrix and especially people who like the Matrix now. And so like, I think part of it was like me going, I need to give this A fair shake. Because I think a lot of my hang ups with it have to do with the people who liked it. That said, as I was watching it and thinking this is not working for me at all, what I was thinking is, I think in general I'm not like a big serious sci fi person, right. I think I find that I like sci fi best when it acknowledges it's a little bit silly, which the Matrix. [01:03:21] Speaker A: Does not do at all. [01:03:23] Speaker B: It takes itself so seriously throughout this whole thing. And that I think to me gets really like tiresome. And when you add a philosophical element to it, I think it's really hard for. I think most things that try to do philosophy are kind of dumb. And one of the things that happens with this is I think this movie, when I was looking at it through, obviously now knowing who the Wachowskis are, yes, looking at it through like a trans allegory lens was more interesting than it had initially been. But I think the problem is that they're dealing so broadly in philosophy here that it is interpreted really broadly. And it, as we can see now because of that broad interpretation of philosophy, like the worst people on earth subscribe to the Matrix, right? Like there are lots of people now, probably if you went out onto the street and asked people, do you think we live in a simulation? More people would say yes, yes than you expect, right? Not to mention the entire like red pill movement and all these kinds of things that obviously they did not intend from it. But I think this is one of the reasons that like philosophical movies don't super work for me is that I think they usually are not precise enough in their deploying of philosophy to really have like a really super tight interpretation or I don't know. But yeah, ultimately I think what I was thinking is I was like, what sci fi movies do I like? Well, I was about to ask, don't I? [01:05:05] Speaker A: Can you. Is there an example of a sci fi or a horror or a. Or any fucking genre that leans into the philosophic that you think has done well? [01:05:16] Speaker B: Like, I think, you know, you can take something. [01:05:19] Speaker A: Eternal Sunshine, I believe is a good example. [01:05:22] Speaker B: I haven't seen that in 20 years though, so I loved it at the time, whereas I didn't like Matrix. So maybe that is the case. I think there has to. I don't know when you. Maybe it's the turning out broadly because sci fi, right, is about like extrapolation. [01:05:39] Speaker A: Yes. [01:05:39] Speaker B: It's about taking like what is and looking at what could be. And I think that's the thing is when you apply sci fi this way people start to interpret it and try to place that frame upon their world, which is not necessarily what the philosophers, you know, intended for these kinds of things. And so I just think, to me, I'm usually thinking it like it gives a philosophy bro feeling to me, someone coming to be like, yeah, but have you read what Lacan says about this or what Foucault said about that? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Like that is what that feels like to me. So I think that that's the thing with, with like Matrix is more just like part of a broader type of film that I don't really like more than the Matrix being an excessive offender of those things. Right. Like it's just kind of a. Yeah, it's. I like my, my, you know, fifth elements and galaxy quests and Star Trek and things like that that are pretty tongue in cheek about themselves. And I don't super like sci fi that takes itself seriously. So I think that's the issue. [01:06:47] Speaker A: Listen, your accusations are from a good place and they all stand up, you know, it cannot be. [01:06:56] Speaker B: Yeah, they're not accusations. They're my personal. [01:06:58] Speaker A: The Matrix does take incredibly seriously. [01:07:02] Speaker B: Right. [01:07:03] Speaker A: I was lucky enough to be watching it completely free of all of that framing and I watched it with an 11 year old and it's a blast. It's a fucking blast. There's a lot going on cinematographically in this film. Right. It's a. There's no shot that doesn't feel as though it's been poured over. You know. [01:07:28] Speaker B: I used to love watching behind the scenes things about Matrix. But see, because like parts of it, like in the second one when they built the like big freeway was. [01:07:35] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. [01:07:35] Speaker B: By my house. So you could actually, when I was a teenager you could drive by and see the Matrix freeway from the regular freeway. So like the. But I always have found like the, the techniques, the filming, the technology and everything really fascinating with the Matrix. [01:07:52] Speaker A: I, I think it's. Even if you can step outside of the, the, the, the film bro side of it, the philosophy bro side of it, I think it's a very, very accomplished film in its own right. And when it kind of gets all of the. There is no spoon guff out of the way, it also really, it's like. [01:08:13] Speaker B: It starts well and it ends well and the middle is like, oh Jesus Christ. Like that's kind of how it works for me. Or I'm like o. I get it, I understand what the Matrix is. Stop explaining it to me. And then you get like, cool stuff. [01:08:31] Speaker A: You do. And yes, you do. You get plenty. And it's, it, it's. To this day, it's. It's one of the most memorable cinema experiences I've ever had. You know, life just ain't the same after you've seen the Matrix for the first time. It's brilliant. Five stars. [01:08:47] Speaker B: There you go. I did not rate it. I just don't think it's fair to rate it because again, it's just not my thing. [01:08:52] Speaker A: Did you not rate it at all? [01:08:54] Speaker B: No, I didn't rate it. No, I didn't. [01:08:55] Speaker A: Huh. [01:08:57] Speaker B: I just, you know, I, I tend to not rate things if I feel like I just am not the audience for it. You know, it's like I don't think I'm giving it a fair shake by just not liking that thing. [01:09:09] Speaker A: That's interesting to me. [01:09:11] Speaker B: So. Yeah. Because I think it's about my things more than it's about the movie. [01:09:17] Speaker A: Okay, I get, I get it, I get it, I get it. [01:09:23] Speaker B: Let's see. Obviously, 50th anniversary of JAWS the other day. [01:09:29] Speaker A: Oh, you gave it another spin. Yes. [01:09:31] Speaker B: Yeah, give it another spin. Come on. I watched it twice, Mark. I watched it, you know, obviously on Blu Ray and then it was on tv, so I just watched it again. Why not? So happy 50th anniversary of JAWS to all of you who celebrate, which I assume is all of you, always a wonderful time to watch that. In fact, there's like I always put something on for Walter while I'm recording and Jaws was on again. I was like, maybe I should put Jaws on. And I was like, he's gonna be bored by that. And I put on dog TV instead. But lots of Jaws happening in this house. [01:10:08] Speaker A: What is on dog tv? Is it just dogs? [01:10:11] Speaker B: Well, this particular. There's like a. So this channel I think is called like Bark TV or something like that. And so it's like different dog related things. Like when I left, there was a dog exercising in a swimming pool. And you know, it had little talk bubbles of like, what the dogs? Oh, heck, like, you know, things like that. And then there's like just all these different, like, oh, this dog is going to the park and this dog is doing this. He likes action, though. I was watching a movie the other day called Arctic Arctic Fury from like the 1950s black and white kind of nature documentary slash narrative movie. And it had like all these scenes where there was like an eagle attacking a bear and stuff like that. And Walter woods fixed. He is like, this show rules. And then as soon as they brought people on, he went to sleep, like, fair enough. Another thing that I watched this week, speaking of old things, was I watched A Night To Remember. Have you ever seen A Night To Remember? [01:11:18] Speaker A: I know of it. It isn't what I've seen, I don't believe. But, yes, I know that. I know of it. [01:11:23] Speaker B: So A Night to Remember, if you're not familiar with it, is kind of the OG Titanic. There were bajillions of Titanic movies. So I don't mean it's the first Titanic movie ever made. I think the first Titanic movie came out, like, nine months after it sank or something like that. Like, they immediately started churning these things out. But it was based on a book that was really kind of one of the things that initially got me into, like, maritime stuff and things like that. What was that? [01:11:53] Speaker A: Oh, that was my watch. Sorry. [01:11:57] Speaker B: But A Night to Remember was a book about the Titanic made into this. This movie that obviously shaped a lot of what the 97 Titanic would be. But this focuses rather than on the passengers. It focuses mostly on the crew of the Titanic and sort of what happened once it hit and how these guys, like, sort of reacted to it, what they did to try to get people off the boats and things like that. And so it's super interesting, and it's very. It's, you know, really focused on realism. It kind of wanted to capture what it was like for those people who were on that ship. And then once it gets to the sort of shit, hit the hits the fan part. It has some just really memorable moments. Like I was saying, obviously I've seen the 97 Titanic a bajillion times. No disrespect to that movie, but, like, there's a scene in this where this one guy is putting his wife and child, or children into the boat and his son is sleeping on him. And he's, like, reassured them, like, I'll see you. And we get to, like, shore, and he's, like, smiling through it and all this kind of stuff and putting them in the boat, putting his sleeping child in there, kissing him on the face and all that, and watching them get lowered and the expression, you know, as he's trying to smile through it and, you know, the sadness behind his eyes because he knows he will never see them again. And I'm like, there is not one single scene in 97 Titanic that's as heartbreaking as that moment right there. It is so tragic. And I think the limitations of the filmmaking in the 1950s mean that it focuses, like, more on those individual moments of tragedy. I mean, there is some incredible effects work in this as well for the sinking of the ship and everything. But you really feel like how deeply tragic this whole situation was, as well as, you know, the degree to which the people who survived were often a lot of terrible rich people. Yeah, well, it makes no, you know, it is, like, very clear that a lot of the people, like, more people could have been saved, but the rich people on the boats were like, absolutely not. We're not taking any more people on here, and stuff like that. So it's a. It's a solid one. If you've never seen A Night to Remember, check it out. [01:14:25] Speaker A: Nice. Were they really Titanic films being made, like, straight after it happened? [01:14:30] Speaker B: Immediately, including, I think, like a year later? There was one that starred one of the survivors. Yeah. There was instantly an industry for this. You know, people. Last podcast on the left was joking about this as well this week. But the idea of, like, why true crime now? Like, why are people so interested in this stuff? And people have always been fascinated by these things and in many ways were much more shameless about the way that they engaged with tragedy than we are now. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. [01:15:05] Speaker A: Even more shameless than we are now about tragedy porn because we at least. [01:15:12] Speaker B: Like, try to pretend we're being respectful about it in this day and age. Like, we know we shouldn't gawk. And there was. They made no, you know, bones about that at that point. People would just take stuff from the scenes of tragedies. They gawked. They spread rumors and gossip like they loved a tragedy. [01:15:33] Speaker A: Well, okay, thank you. I will just briefly talk through friendship. [01:15:38] Speaker B: Nice. [01:15:38] Speaker A: If. If you watched friendship and thought, yeah, Mark will really enjoy this. You were right. I declare Tim Robinson to be the just the absolute funniest person in that I've encountered in the last 20 years. He's brilliant as is. [01:15:53] Speaker B: I had a question for you about this. [01:15:54] Speaker A: Oh, please. Yeah, yeah, please. [01:15:56] Speaker B: Because if. If you remember, my take on this was that this is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life. So the, like, a 24 Ness of it ruined it for me and that I felt like everything between the, like, I think you should leave esque parts of it did not work for me. But I'm curious, like, because obviously the focus of friendship is male friendship. Right. And about sort of it's this satirical, you know, take on the, like, male loneliness epidemic idea and things like that. Do you think that there's anything aside from just that you like movies like this. Do you think there's anything about this that speaks to you more as, like, a man watching a movie about men? [01:16:44] Speaker A: Right. It's a great question. And in the first third, I mean, the big hook for me was how close to home I found some of it interesting. Okay. [01:16:55] Speaker B: Yeah. I wondered. [01:16:57] Speaker A: I don't. I don't make friends very easily at all. Right. And I've kind of grown comfortable with that almost because I know I won't be able to change it. [01:17:10] Speaker B: Right. [01:17:11] Speaker A: I can't. I can't change who I am. I can't change how. How, you know, small talk with strangers makes me sick. And you've kind of got. You've kind of got to go through that bit when, when, when you try to make a friend, because it's, It's a Ness. It's so. It's, it's social, isn't it? Socializing. You've got to go through that bit to get to the meaningful stuff. And I, I, I can't seem to get past that first part. And I, I've. I've kind of had to grow comfortable with it because I know that that's just. Just how I'm wired. I can't. I, I'm not somebody who immediately picks up friends easily. Right. And there have been times when Laura has tried to set me up on friend dates, and they've been friends excruciating. And it's never quite. It's never taken. So that, that kind of first, third, the, the almost. The arc. The emotional arc of finding somebody who you think I'd. I'd love to be their friend and realizing that you aren't ever gonna get there is. Is. Yeah, it did. It. It. It definitely, definitely struck a ch. It starts to layer in the fucking amazing. Some of the amazing comedy in this film. And when, when the comedy hits, it's fucking. It is great. Yeah. It, it all landed. Corrie. [01:18:32] Speaker B: Mm. Yeah. I think, you know, obviously, even just you're kind of framing it, I think, in a way that this speaks to. Of, like, you feel like this is. You're framing it like it's an issue with you. Right. Like, I'm the kind of person who. I have trouble breaking through this part of the social process or whatever, where I think this movie is kind of saying, like, a lot of men have this problem, right. Like it speaks to you because I think this. [01:19:01] Speaker A: Oh, hello, There's a moth on me. [01:19:03] Speaker B: Moth friend. [01:19:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:19:06] Speaker B: But, like, I think maybe there's something to that that didn't necessarily speak to me, I think women are. I mean, not that it's easy to make friends when you're, like, not amongst a whole bunch of people all the time, but I do think that we are sort of. We grow up being able to socialize in those ways easier than men do. [01:19:23] Speaker A: Listen, I mean, being sat in a. In a. In a kind of a small crowd and knowing that if I were to contribute anything I would have to say would absolutely murder the vibe of this room. So not contributing and then worrying that, you know, you're conspicuously not contributing, it's awful. It's so. It's so painful, and. And that just leads me to avoid social situations because that loop is so, so, so horrible. Not contributing because you don't know how to contribute in a way that other people wouldn't. Recoil. Act. Yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly. And this film plays that out. What if you took the fucking, you know, what if you completely ignored that voice and just. Just did it anyway and it went as bad as you could imagine. [01:20:21] Speaker B: Yeah. It also kind of confirms all of the fears of, you know, what if you actually did put yourself out there? [01:20:27] Speaker A: Yep. [01:20:28] Speaker B: Dumb. Interesting. [01:20:30] Speaker A: Yes. [01:20:32] Speaker B: Another thing. I watched this week from Dusk till Dawn, which is another. I'm revisiting things I haven't seen in 20 years. [01:20:40] Speaker A: Hello? [01:20:41] Speaker B: Apparently. Okay, here's my thing. I really like Robert Rodriguez and I really hate Quentin Tarantino. [01:20:49] Speaker A: Agreed on both counts. [01:20:51] Speaker B: You have one half of the movie that is nigh unwatchable. For me, that's just, you know, self insert Quentin Tarantino nonsense that's deeply misogynistic, creepy, predatory. Creepy. [01:21:05] Speaker A: Predator. Yeah, sure. [01:21:06] Speaker B: Right. In a way that doesn't. [01:21:07] Speaker A: You don't have to squint too hard to see Quentin's bits, do you? [01:21:10] Speaker B: That's the thing is, like, I think. What? It never has. Yeah. The problem with him. And I think, like, at the time, maybe it wasn't as obvious, especially because a lot more stuff was openly like this. [01:21:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:21:24] Speaker B: But I think when you look back over everything that Quentin Tarantino writes is like, you know, what if I got to be the cool guy who said the slurs and sucked the feet and, you know, all these kinds of things. [01:21:36] Speaker A: What if I could be the guy who sucked the feet? This is Korea. [01:21:42] Speaker B: Yeah. And so there's like, the first, you know, hour of this movie or whatever for all that, like, Clooney is doing his darndest and things like that to pull it out of, you know, and. And Harvey Keitel and all this kind of stuff. There's still just that gross film of Tarantino over it. And then you get to where it gets very fun, and the, you know, everything sort of explodes into mayhem and goofiness and, like, you know, there's the guy playing the torso guitar and like, all these very silly sort of things and plot and all that kind of stuff kind of goes out the window at this point, you know, like, there is nothing really left of what he had written in this film going on here. And it just becomes something that is, like, much more fun and random. You've got, you know, Tom Savini in there with his dick gun and, you know, all that kind of stuff that I get a kick out of. And so, yeah, that's my thing with From Dusk Till dawn has always kind of been the same since I was in high school or whatever and saw it for the first time, is that it's like half of a movie that I have no interest in, and half of a movie that I'm like, yeah. [01:22:59] Speaker A: I agree on all counts. It. It isn't just a movie with one of the most famous genre shifts in all of cinema. It's also got one of the biggest vibe shifts in all of cinema. As soon as soon as it gets taken out of Quentin's hands, it starts to become fun. Yeah. [01:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. So that's my thing with that movie is it's like. It's. It's not that I don't like that movie, you know, it's just that half of that movie is movie I'm not into, and half is like, I. I really like Robert Rodriguez. I think he makes very fun things. It's just the Tarantino half of a lot of stuff he does is awful. [01:23:39] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I don't disagree with any of that. Let me see. I'll talk on the show. Yeah, I will talk on the shrouds. It's very difficult not to think that this is probably going to be David Cronenberg's last film, isn't it? [01:23:58] Speaker B: Yeah, from what I gather. I mean, I haven't seen it, but from what I've seen of other people talking about it, that seems to be the vibe that comes off of this. [01:24:06] Speaker A: Movie, because the guy is not what you're ever going to call prolific. [01:24:15] Speaker B: And I mean, it's not like, not unprolific, just not super. [01:24:19] Speaker A: He, he. Yeah, he went through a phase where he was banging him out like Spider, and he went, you know, a history of violence and Eastern promises and so on. But he's really slowed up and he's fucking 82. [01:24:33] Speaker B: That's crazy. [01:24:33] Speaker A: Isn't that wild? [01:24:34] Speaker B: I was thinking someone posted a clip that was related to the whole Iran thing or whatever, but from Dead Zone earlier today. And so it was 1979. And I was like, that's fucking crazy. [01:24:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:24:47] Speaker B: You know, made that movie 46 years ago. [01:24:51] Speaker A: Good God. I, I, you might know this about me, but I will always, always get a kick out of watching a movie which is the exact movie that someone intended to make. Right, Right. [01:25:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:03] Speaker A: And say what you will about the Shrouds, for example, you might say that it is two hours of conversations, which it is. It's two hours of often just two people in a scene having a conversation. That. That is, that is what is going on here. [01:25:23] Speaker B: All right. [01:25:24] Speaker A: Right. It is conversations with people, with characters in rooms. That's what this movie is. [01:25:31] Speaker B: Yeah. I can see why it's been polarized very much. [01:25:35] Speaker A: I can clearly, clearly see why it's been polarizing. It's. I've often said he's telling one story throughout his entire career, and he tells that story again here. [01:25:47] Speaker B: Sure. [01:25:48] Speaker A: What if something was in the wrong place? What if something was where it didn't belong? The framing of the story this time is a character. Carve or Kaas, I believe he's called. [01:26:04] Speaker B: Who? [01:26:05] Speaker A: Fucking. This is so, so fucking autobiographical, this film. He. Right. Have you seen Vincent Gallo in this film? Have you seen how he looks? [01:26:15] Speaker B: Is it Vincent Gallo? [01:26:17] Speaker A: Oh, have I got that wrong? Wait a sec. [01:26:19] Speaker B: I'm like, if it is, then no, I think I thought it was somebody else, and I have no idea. [01:26:26] Speaker A: It isn't Vincent Gallo. I saw him. Look, I saw a movie with him in recently. He was in that fucking vampire one that I saw. [01:26:32] Speaker B: It's the, it's the French fella. [01:26:34] Speaker A: It's the fucking French guy. It's Vincent Cassell. It's a different Vincent Cassell. [01:26:38] Speaker B: That's it. [01:26:38] Speaker A: Different Vincent. Have you seen him in the Shrouds? Have you seen how he looks? [01:26:42] Speaker B: I mean, only in, like, the promotional image or whatever. I haven't, like, watched a trailer. [01:26:45] Speaker A: He looks, he looks like David Cronenberg, right? [01:26:48] Speaker B: Oh, he does. Yeah, that's true. [01:26:50] Speaker A: He's got the fucking white hair and he dresses like him in the black suits, and he's fucking gaunt. And coming, as it does, freshly off the back of, of the death of Cronenberg's wife. It's all, you know, it's, it's about the, the, the interloper here. The, the thing that shouldn't be where it Is the idea is that the living don't belong in the grave. Our main guy has invented a technology with which quite a. In quite a joag way, actually. It enables the living to watch the dead in their graves. No, not a camera. It's more of a 3D imaging system that allows you to watch them decay and allows you to zoom in with them and almost be with them in the grave. And that shouldn't be, you know, that the living don't belong in the graves. That's with that, you know, you shouldn't do that. [01:27:46] Speaker B: I think about it a lot, though. You know, my dog is in the backyard. [01:27:49] Speaker A: Oh, yes. [01:27:50] Speaker B: And I often think, what, what Stage composition. [01:27:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:27:54] Speaker B: What does he look like right now? [01:27:55] Speaker A: Well, that's, that's, that's the, the premise of this film. What if there was a tech which enabled you to just simply open the app on your phone and look in. [01:28:04] Speaker B: See what they're up to? [01:28:05] Speaker A: And see what they're up to. See how. [01:28:06] Speaker B: Where are the worms crawling in and. [01:28:07] Speaker A: Out of exactly this and this in. In much the same way as any number of his other films. There's political intrigue and there's betrayal and there are companies warring against companies for the technology. [01:28:24] Speaker B: And they're saying, I really had no idea what this was about. [01:28:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:28:28] Speaker B: I just knew it was something death centered, that's all. [01:28:30] Speaker A: Yes. And there is surgical fetishism. You know, there's the, the fetishizing. [01:28:35] Speaker B: There it is. [01:28:35] Speaker A: Amputation and mastectomy. Yeah, it's. It's everything. Nothing here is. Ironically, nothing in this film is out of place. If, if, you know, you've. You've seen any of the guy's catalog, it ain't a fucking page turner. You will. The edge of your seat will remain unoccupied. [01:28:58] Speaker B: Right. Okay. [01:28:59] Speaker A: I tell you this, there's gonna be a lot of real estate at the edge of your seat during this film. But. But it is entirely the film that he set out to make and he's fucking earned that much. You know? [01:29:14] Speaker B: I mean. Yeah, I feel like it's interesting to see filmmakers doing that. Like, obviously, that's what. What's his Face did with Megalopolis. [01:29:23] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. [01:29:24] Speaker B: For better or for worse, that's the movie he wanted to make. Yeah. And I was gonna say, again, not a great movie. Clint Eastwood and Juror number two, but he's apparently maybe got one more in him. Even though he's like 92 years old. Seems like it's kind of. I don't know, maybe this has something to do with just medical care and how long people can live now or whatever. But it feels like a lot of auteurs are getting the chance to go out on the, the film they want to make. [01:29:57] Speaker A: Oh, listen, I'd love nothing more than to get another few out of him, you know, even if it's a fucking greatest hits one for the fans, you know what I mean? [01:30:08] Speaker B: Sure, do it. [01:30:10] Speaker A: But on the other hand, Dave made. You've earned this. Just film your little conversations, you know, get the last fucking drops of mileage, get the last gas that you can out of that one story that you've been telling us for 50 odd years. And I'll keep watching. [01:30:30] Speaker B: Who. Yeah, if you're, you know, wreck or not wreck here, who is the shrouds for our listeners? What kind of person is going to like the shrouds? [01:30:42] Speaker A: It isn't. If, if, when you think of your favorite Cronenberg movies, if you go to Scanners, it probably isn't for you. If you go to Crash, it probably is. [01:30:53] Speaker B: Okay, there we go. [01:30:54] Speaker A: Yeah, it's definitely more crash than it is scanners. Sure. [01:31:00] Speaker B: Nice. There we go. Well, shall we close out with, you know, little revisit of a maritime disaster that now we are just, just past the two year mark since it happened. [01:31:17] Speaker A: We didn't at the time know how lucky we were. Right. Genuinely, we didn't know how fucking good we had it when just two years later it's there. What? Just off the top of my head, three real good wars going on at the minute. [01:31:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:31:35] Speaker A: If not more. [01:31:37] Speaker B: I, I think about this a lot and this is just maybe like a tiny little side tangent. But there is, you know, obviously there's like elements of nostalgia and thing that make you, make you think times before were better. And there's elements of privilege to that too. Right. If you were never amongst the people who were targeted by things that were going on, you're gonna think a time was better than it is now. So certainly, you know, there are times when things have been really bad for groups of people, but better for those of us with more privilege or whatever. But I think it's interesting to look back, let's say from the place of privilege that we have on. Like, say, I think when I got married, right. 2009, and there were plenty of things I was upset about in the news and stuff like that. But I was also just like watching Wipeout, seeing the balloon boy hoax and like, you know, just generally like the time when, when we talked about Twitter, what was the complaint everyone had about Twitter in 2009. Why weren't your friends joining Twitter? What did they say? [01:32:42] Speaker A: Oh, it's too short. What are you gonna say in one paragraph where you're gonna say. [01:32:46] Speaker B: Or more specifically, everybody just talks about what they had for breakfast. Right. Like that was the thing everyone said about Twitter. No one was like, oh, I hate Twitter. It's where everyone goes to like get radicalized towards hate speech or things like that. Right. Like, if you were sort of like a middle class person in 2009, you're. You could sort of focus your political anger on issues and not on every single thing falling apart around you. [01:33:19] Speaker A: What was the moment, the cultural moment that Twitter really landed for you? When did you get it? [01:33:26] Speaker B: Oh, I mean, I was an early adopter in 2008. I was amongst the top 20 tweeters in Portland, Oregon. I was on board. I got text messages because at the time, like you didn't have apps or things like that. I got texts. When certain people like Wil Wheaton tweeted, it would go to my phone. I was very on board very early on that. So, you know, but I think for like it became mainstream obviously around like 2016, during the, you know, the election that year and has become a horror show since then. So the Oceangate situation was amongst the few sort of things that takes you back to that feeling of pre2016 social media and things like that, where we're all just watching something inconsequential to us unfold with our full attention for this week long period. [01:34:26] Speaker A: That's very insightful. I hadn't thought of it like that. That's one of the, one of the things that gives me the warm and fuzzies thinking back to Ocean Gate, not because it was funny as fuck, but because felt like the old days of Twitter. It felt right, you know, like people being inappropriately hilarious. [01:34:43] Speaker B: Yeah. And we were all talking about one thing and it wasn't that we're all gonna die. [01:34:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:34:47] Speaker B: We're all just watching this thing unfold. And so, you know, two years later, and there's. It's funny because again, we, as we were just talking about with the Titanic, people started immediately making media about the Titanic. Instantly. There was stuff that came out about the Titan when it exploded on your sort of news magazine shows. I'm sure that happened over there as well. Right. Like whatever. We have our 2020 and Dateline, stuff like that. I don't know what you have. [01:35:20] Speaker A: Well, yeah, you've got Good Morning Britain and you've got Loose Women and You've got fucking Jeremy vine, you know, what would you have? [01:35:28] Speaker B: Do you have a show like, that would cover, like, normally say, true crime or something comes on in the evening, and then it's like, let's. They're gonna interview all the people who are related to this story and, you know, go through the timeline of what happened. Do you have something like that? [01:35:43] Speaker A: Not so much. I don't believe on prime time anymore. Not in the evenings. [01:35:47] Speaker B: Okay. [01:35:48] Speaker A: That's very much, I think, the preserve of daytime TV now. [01:35:53] Speaker B: Interesting. [01:35:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Lorraine. And it's all quite lightweight, you know, all quite fluffy. Lorraine Kelly. [01:36:02] Speaker B: Interesting. [01:36:03] Speaker A: Yes. [01:36:03] Speaker B: Because that's like our weekend, like our Friday night in America. You've got the dueling two shows, 2020 and Dateline. And I don't think. And I think Sundays maybe, and I don't know if they still have it, But CBS has 48 hours, and those are like, you know, they're gonna deep dive into some crime or current event and tell you everything about it. And so those things covered, you know, what we knew about Oceangate and things like that, like right out the gate, you know, within a few weeks, we had little episodes about it. But now, two years later, you know, people are saying maybe it's too soon, but enough time has passed that we can really kind of delve into what happened here. And so we had, we. We discussed a bit a couple weeks ago that Discovery came out with one documentary about this, and then Netflix came out with a larger documentary, I think a larger in scope. [01:37:00] Speaker A: The first time that, you know, the one time that you want a Netflix documentary to be eight episodes. [01:37:06] Speaker B: Right? [01:37:07] Speaker A: And we are one fucking time. Yeah, I could have watched a lot. [01:37:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I could have watched this forever. So the Netflix one, I think is really interesting because in this one, you. You get other people who worked for Oceangate speaking for themselves. So the. The one that had aired on Discovery, we got sort of people who had gone on various test things or who almost did. You know, you had the influencer who almost went. He was supposed to be on the first journey, but it was like the weather didn't allow it yet. Josh Gates, who noped out of going on it. And so you had this kind of frame of like people who sort of saw firsthand, like from a tourist perspective almost what was going on. Whereas the Netflix one, you get this inside view of other people who worked for Ocean Games. [01:38:03] Speaker A: Not tourists. Corrigan. Mission specialists. [01:38:05] Speaker B: Mission specialists. Mission specialists. I love. There's this. There's a couple of sort of home movie type moments in the Netflix one where people are introducing themselves, stuff like that, and you can tell even like they think it's silly. This is my role. I'm a mission specialist. One of many red flags that you see in this documentary. What were some of the things that stood out to you? I know I have, I have several things that stood out in the Netflix doc, but I'm curious what really, or in both, for that matter, but what stood out to you here? [01:38:46] Speaker A: Like I think I said earlier on this evening, the. There was no one could with a clear conscience say that any of this came as a surprise. [01:39:00] Speaker B: Right. [01:39:01] Speaker A: Right. [01:39:01] Speaker B: Yes. [01:39:02] Speaker A: And the focus of the Netflix doc being on Stockton Rush himself just brings that into the sharpest relief. This guy, it, this guy. This is what happens when money meets idiocy and determination. That's, that's, that's what I took away from the Netflix documentary. When the cult of personality is so strong around an individual and everyone has the potential of lost profit if they fail to indulge this guy that so much gets just glossed over and, you know, lied about. Sim. Yeah, that, that, that was my takeaway. It's this wonderful intersection between idiocy and money and where that can lead you, where that can take you. [01:39:55] Speaker B: Yeah. And to the. Those points, a couple things that, that brings to mind, like for one, the, the idiocy thing there, you know, they have this one guy talking at the beginning who still. It feels like he kind of bought what Stockton Rush was selling about himself. And he's like, he refers to him like, basically like, you know, well, he was genius, you know, and he just kind of like. But his ego. No, he even says, he said he was a humble genius and you're like, well, that is very quickly dispelled by everyone else in this. Like both of those terms was neither of those things. You know, they, they talk about his, you know, he went to school, he went to Harvard for engineering and was like basically a straight C student. He was absolutely not, you know, a standout genius by any stretch of the imagination and. But seemed to think himself too good for it as well. And there's a point at which one of the guys who worked for him was like, I honestly don't know if he ever graduated or like what his training was like. People who worked for him did not see him as this genius. You know, this was like this guy who was more concerned with, you know, glory and things like that than anything else. He was also a man, like you said, with this kind of people having. Having to sort of Kiss the ring with him. He was. He had never experienced pushback on any huge level because of the amount of money that he had. He's descended from two signers of the Declaration of Independence married to a woman whose, you know, wealthy grandparents perished on the Titanic. You know, that he is like the. I can't remember if it's like, she is descended of the people who created Macy's. They're extremely wealthy people who, like, at one point in this. This was wild, when they're having, you know, issues with regulation or whatever. Stockton Rush literally said, I will buy a congressman. I will buy a congressman. Imagine like just knowing you have so much money that the government, you just go buy some guy. I'm just gonna go pay some dude X amount of money. And he will make it so that we can do this thing. [01:42:28] Speaker A: And were it worthy, if his ambition was even somewhat loftier, right, if. If he was talking about colonizing Mars or, you know, cracking kind of clean energy production or something, then, all right, it. It might be a little bit easier to write off people just going along with the safety terrors that were going on and the corner cutting and the, the. [01:43:03] Speaker B: Yeah, doing this for a greater purpose. [01:43:06] Speaker A: But. But it's such a trivial ambition that the guy had. It was such a lot of cash and suffering and just tragic comic levels of incompetence on something so frivolous, you know, something. [01:43:24] Speaker B: So ultimately, yeah, his goal was to be what he called one of the big swinging dicks. [01:43:32] Speaker A: Exactly. This. Yes, exactly. [01:43:34] Speaker B: That was the whole thing. He wanted to be mentioned a gates. [01:43:36] Speaker A: Or a jaw dropped. [01:43:37] Speaker B: This was his phrase. Yeah, he wanted to be mentioned in the same sentences as Bezos and Musk, and he called them the Big Swingin Disks. And he wanted to be one of them. And that was the extent of his sort of dream here. And to the other point, you said of people kind of having to be beholden to him. Is that what you see with these people who worked for him, who basically, over the course of this, he fires pretty much everybody who's along for this ride, but they worked for them, him in ways in which they were kind of trapped too. Like there was, you know, I think there was a woman who was like, ready to leave, but then the pandemic hit and she was like, fuck, like, what? I'm not going to be able to get another job doing this right now and I can keep doing this one. You know, there were people in these various positions that it was like. Like they'd quit jobs to work for him because they Thought that he was doing something that was greater. You know, they had good jobs and they took pay cuts to come work for him and then realized, like, holy, what did I get myself into? But what were they going to do then? Like, he really had people trapped. [01:44:48] Speaker A: Yes. [01:44:48] Speaker B: And at the mercy. [01:44:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And for what? And for. For what? [01:44:54] Speaker B: Right. And that is kind of what you see happening over the course of this, is people becoming more disillusioned with him. And as that comes out, his reaction being, well, then you're fired. [01:45:06] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. [01:45:07] Speaker B: Basically, yeah. It comes down to like. Yeah, finally you get a guy who's. Who gets fired after pointing out there's a crack. [01:45:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:45:15] Speaker B: In the submersible. It's like, this is. You can't go down there like this. There's a. There's a big crack in the. In the ship. And, you know, he fires that guy and then the ship implodes. [01:45:33] Speaker A: I mean, the. You. You've got to think that there is a script currently being hammered out. [01:45:41] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. It's probably. It's like a race to be the first company get that done. I'm sure. [01:45:48] Speaker A: And that's. Now, you know, that. That's where my mind is turned to now. What kind of tone would a movie take? What kind of. What kind of. What kind of. What genre? What kind of blueprint, then would an ocean. [01:46:05] Speaker B: I want to see like the Steve Carell ocean Gate movie. [01:46:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Nice, nice, nice. [01:46:11] Speaker B: I think he does a really good job of playing those, not just in a Michael Scott way, but, like, you know, he plays a lot of these guys who are, like, very hapless but egotistical and unaware of, like, what the fuck they're, you know, how they're perceived by everyone else and things like that. I think Steve Carell would make a very good Stockton Rush. [01:46:34] Speaker A: I think my version leans more towards the kind of a Coen Brothers vibe. I would. I think there's a. There's a Brad Pitt kind of Stockton rush. But. [01:46:47] Speaker B: Okay, interesting. [01:46:49] Speaker A: But is much like William H. Macy and Fargo is at the center of something which is completely unraveling day by day and is doing his very best to put forward this confident, you know, billionaire, entrepreneurial, in control, big swinging dick kind of face on it all. But behind closed doors, he's punching walls and losing his shit. That. That's. That's the movie, I think, is in this story. [01:47:21] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I can definitely see that as well. I mean, I think there. When there is something inevitably made about this. If they're gonna do it right there has to be a degree of farce. There has to be a degree of absurdity to the whole situation. You can't make, you know, the. [01:47:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you see the death of Stalin from, like, five, six, seven years ago? [01:47:46] Speaker B: I did, yes. [01:47:47] Speaker A: Something along those lines. [01:47:49] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:47:50] Speaker A: Very serious events. But, yeah, with. With just painted as, like I say, tragicomedy. Just so fucking stupid, but with such awful consequences that there's comedy in there. It's definitely a satire for me. [01:48:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think, you know, this is one of the reasons why neither of those documentaries really focused on the other people who went down with them. I mean, you get a little bit JP Nargile and, you know, his daughter and whatnot, but I think one of the reasons that they don't spend a lot of time on those people is because there is a tragic element to that. Right. You know, like this. He took people with him who didn't deserve that. The. The focus kind of has to be on him and, you know, the comedy of errors that is his entire. What brought him there because the other people dying isn't really funny. But you know him, this whole process is. [01:48:58] Speaker A: And both documentaries do a really good picture, a really good job of painting that picture. That he is the product of his upbringing, of his, you know, his privilege, of the societies that he's been a part of, the funding that he's got, the expectations that are placed upon him. Awful that, you know, he was able to wield that influence in 2023. But the story goes way back, further than that, you know, and I'd love to see that. That painted. [01:49:30] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So an interesting, interesting little addition that we have here. It'll be interesting to see what else comes out about this because it absolutely is imminent that there will be at least one, if not more films about this that come out. [01:49:47] Speaker A: Do you still have, within the next year or two, contacts in the biz? Do you still have contacts in the industry? Can you get any inside fucking scoop on this? [01:49:57] Speaker B: Gonna hit up like John Pallono or someone, be like, do you know anything about Titan things coming out? I don't know who you would talk to about that. You probably need, like, studio people to. To tell you what's going on, but if I hear anything, I'll please let you know. But friends, we wanted to just sort of, you know, close out with a little bit about that. If you haven't seen it, watch Titan, the Oceangate submersible disaster on Netflix. I can't remember what the one that's on Discovery is called because we watched that like two weeks ago but I. [01:50:32] Speaker A: Can'T remember what I had for lunch so I'm not going to remember. [01:50:36] Speaker B: Yes. So clearly Mark is going to remember zero things. But you know, take that with you to your, to the rest of your day and be glad no matter how terrible your boss is, he's not going to implode you 4,000 meters under the sea. [01:50:56] Speaker A: No. Jesus Christ, no. And for your. It's called Implosion the Titanic Sub Disaster. It is quite on the nose as a title. [01:51:04] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. Yep. [01:51:06] Speaker A: But do you know what? [01:51:07] Speaker B: What's gonna happen? [01:51:10] Speaker A: I, I love them as much as one another. I thought they were both excellent. Excellent pieces indeed. [01:51:15] Speaker B: And worth your time. [01:51:16] Speaker A: Yes, worth your time. Unlike the last hour, 50 minutes of this podcast. So I apologize deeply but have a great week everyone. Yes, we love you very much and stay spooky. [01:51:31] Speaker B: We do. Do.