333 REALITY BITES!

333 REALITY BITES!

Netflix has released a set of "rules" for using AI in their productions.

Also discussed: Sketch, Marvel Ultimates, American Psycho 2.

Transcript

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Oh, no more. Oh, dear. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I break your concentration somewhere between science and superstition, such sights to show you. Strange eons. Welcome to strange eons radio that is Eric over there. Hello. That is Vanessa over there. Hello, and I am Kelly guys. Last episode, I talked about Netflix's Zodiac. Oh, yes, not another bit of Netflix news, they have released their guidelines for production parties using AI, production partners, partners. So they said parties. Oh, I probably did say parties. I was like, wait, what does that mean? That sounds much better. Yeah. Would you like to hear the five core rules? Oh, god yes, do not copy others. Works so AI outputs. Can't replicate copyrighted material. Okay, I'm not sure how they stopped that at this point when it's already been taught on protect Netflix content. AI tools cannot train on or store Netflix's production data. Interesting use secure tools, which means sticking to enterprise approved AI platforms when possible. It says here when possible, which is a very vague way to have a rule, kind of indicates the whole rule. Yeah, final output needs approval. So brainstorming with AI is fine, but anything in the Final Cut requires permission. I don't know if that means permission from Netflix or the filmmakers or AI, if it's only permission from the filmmakers, that's like regulating your own product, right? I think this is fine. We double checked it and we love it, A plus plus. And finally, respect union rules so they can't use AI to replace actors or crew without proper consent. Yeah. So I think this is kind of interesting. At least there are rules. That's actually something, I guess a little bit it says here, let's see. For context, Netflix recently became one of the first major streamers to openly embrace AI generated footage in the final production. They used it in a movie called The eternat Oh yeah, created a building collapse sequence 10 times faster than traditional effects, and they kept the show within budget, but they also got flat flak last year for using AI generated photos in what Jennifer did, which was a documentary, and they showed footage of like, a train, oh, derailing. But that that footage was, I did see the clip of that? Yeah. So I'm not sure how that works when you're doing a documentary and it takes AI from the news. I mean, the AI is taught on the news footage, so I don't know exactly how that all works. In this article, I read the bigger picture. It says the experimental phase of AI in production is over and it's actually being used now. Netflix is threading the needle between cost savings and avoiding disasters, and as one of the first to formalize ground rules, these guidelines could set the precedent for other studios. I think it's obviously going to set the precedent for other studios, and that, when possible, part is a bad precedent. Yeah, there's a nice little wiggle room there, because we all know the people that run businesses at the high level are always thinking of their own stuff, not looking at other people and going, well, that's a great idea. Just do what they're doing well. And certainly they are all on the upfront and not worried about how much money it's going to cost, as long as everybody is following the rules exactly. Denmark passed an interesting law. Do you see about that this recently, where you own the copyright of your face. If somebody publishes a photo of you that you don't want up there, they have to take it down, or you can sue them, or for the news, even for the news, I'm not sure what that'd be, but I don't think let's say you committed a crime when they're reporting on it. I don't know that's so that's, but that's the same as regular copyright there, right? An exception for certain kind of usage, but, but, you know, like, somebody can't make AI porn of you, or to post a photo of you saying, Wow, look at this person being an asshole, or, God forbid, being a nice person, and posting that on, I don't know how you prove it, but that's a cool thing to do, because that cuts down. Well, if it's your photo and it's posted by somebody. Be this, not you, yeah, that's yeah. Really watch, almost from the way it sounds, that's all it takes. Wow. You go, nope, I don't like this. I mean, granted, there's going to be public figures exceptions, there's going to be stuff like that, but if you're private citizen, yeah, that has no reason for whatever to use your image. Yeah, because can you imagine the next format of bullying in like, schools, Oh, Jesus, with AI that you can that's so awful. It's so awful to think about. Yeah, this is one of the ways that, when I was talking to this guy who was dealing with AI and everything he his feeling is that AI will destroy us in one of two ways, very unlikely that it will gain sentience and destroy us, very likely that it will drive us insane, because we will no longer know what to trust. That's what I'm worried about. That was his his prophecy for the human race was we are, you know, we're 50 years from just blowing everything because of AI, yeah, it's like, how do you trademark, like, how do you make something so, you know, it's real, yeah, versus not real. Because right now, nobody knows. Like, we're at the point now where you you can't tell, yeah, like, you just, you simply cannot tell. Like, I was trying to get a haircut recently, and I was trying to find photos of the cut that I was after, and I realized when I got to the hairdressers that three of my pictures were AI generated women with fake, not real hair, and it looks like real hair. I mean, I know what fake hair usually looks like. And so I told her up front, look. I know that this doesn't even exist, but this is kind of what I'm after. I was like, This is what it's called, and this is what I'm looking for. And she was able to work with that, but I just had that moment of like, oh my god, I got duped. And I look at this crap all the time. I'm like, It's my job. So yeah, just we're existing in a really terrifying precipice right here. So yeah, nice knowing you guys. But on the plus side, I bet really both low budget, previously low budget content, like films from nations that might not have a larger studio system, are going to start looking really good. I can't wait until I don't have to do this show anymore and we can just, we've got hundreds of hours of my voice and face. I just sit here as a as an AI construct, and be just as snarky and pissy to you guys as I am in real life. Ellie's reaction to this movie is, speak for five minutes. Oh my god. I just want to know. I just want to know now what that would be. Also make sure it comes in at four minutes and 59 seconds every single day, except for once every 10 times, just to make it feel real, right? Yeah, I have seen some stuff you guys. I watched a movie called sketch that just came out. It's available on rental, and it is lovely. It's got Tony Hale as the widowed father of a couple of kids, and the young girl is dealing with the mother's passing by. She's always sketched things out, but her sketches have gotten darker and darker, and they somehow end up in this lake that brings things to life, the entire sketchbook ends up there, and all of these monsters come out, and they are all like live action versions of her 10 year old sketches. And so they look ridiculous, but they're very deadly, and it's very funny and very sweet and a little sad, but I just thought it was a really adorable movie. And the thing that I really loved about it is it was written by now. I've forgotten his name. I picked up a a workbook for screenwriters, and he had designed something called a story clock. Seth Worley, yes, Seth Morley and I picked this up years ago, and I just really liked the way that when you write, you know, I used to write all my timelines or my plot points in a straight line, but when you write it in a clock, and you kind of know where it's supposed to show up in the movie, you can start mirroring things and stuff like this. And I thought, well, this is an interesting way, it really, really worked for me. And then when I saw his name pop up on this I was like, Oh, this guy is not just a guy who came up with a neat idea. He came up with a neat idea, then applied it to a script, and then it turned out to be fantastic. So it is called sketch. It is available as a rental. It's really great. You know, I have railed against parents who want to turn their kids into horror fans too early. Obviously, JAWS is my favorite movie, and I can't go into open water because I saw it at the age of six. So you might not understand what you're doing to your kids when you put this stuff in front of them. This movie is. Really, great introduction to horror. Really, oh, that's so cool. It's cute and just scary enough. And the kids are the main people, and the kids are the brother and sister are adorable. They actually like each other. They've got they get stuck with this shitty girl from school that they don't like. And you could, you're just like, God, I want this girl to get eaten. And, of course, because it's a kids movie, she finally redeems herself too. Everybody is just really, really good in it. So very highly recommended sketch, a short film in this year's Seattle Film Festival that had a very similar idea. It was a Spanish short film, and the lady had this box that was sealed, and her kid finds it and opens it, and the things from the box that were drawn by her as a kid start to come to life. Very different take but that, that sounds like, you know what? That's horror. I'm gonna add it to my list. Yeah, I don't have to just watch pressing shit all the time. I know, right? Yeah, sometimes you can watch days feel good horror, you know? Yeah, that's awesome. Well, not as cute, but equally important, I saw the Now You See Me, and now you see me too films, because I need to prep myself for now you see me now. You don't coming in November. Do you really? I saw that? Well, I'm glad that this is called now you see me now, because I live in a world where the sequel to Now You See Me is not called now. You don't I know, right? It's the stupidest thing I've ever Well, I remember seeing the first one, but I couldn't remember anything that happened in it, so I was like, uh, all right, I'll go ahead and watch one and two. Cool. The first one very interesting, because they make Jesse Eisenberg kind of a sex symbol. They try to sell him as like, a hot, interesting, young, cool magician, guy who's like, burning through ladies, but there's one that might just capture his heart, and it's very weird, because it's Jesse Eisenberg. It's like, no, no, no, no. They do learn their lesson for the second one, and they cut that shit out because you're like, Absolutely, God, no. It also has Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Morgan Freeman, Dave Franco, Michael Caine and I left Fisher in the first one. It's actually a lot better than I remembered it. It was pretty solid, pretty fun, and has a really, really cool ending that I cannot talk about because otherwise there's no reason to watch the movie. Now You See Me too. Less never seen it. It's It's okay, it's watchable. It's totally like, it's fun enough. But they replace, for some reason, Isla Fisher has not decided not to be in it, so it's Lizzie Kaplan instead. It's a different character, but they just don't talk about Isla Fisher and what happened. And you're like, and two, they get at least content set of the number two. They could have done two. Now You See Me too. What helped a little bit with the now you don't but no, it's just the number two. Yeah, it's just the number two. Nope, nope. It's the stupidest title of all time. It kind of makes no sense. The second one, like, really, when you start to think about what's happening, it's it falls apart very quickly. But you do get to watch Daniel Radcliffe one of his earlier I'm actually a bad guy role, like a joking, ridiculous bad guy because he's Daniel Radcliffe, but it's still like a, it's a, it's a fun enough film. So I'm looking forward to the third one, where Isla Fisher will return as one of the four horsemen. There are only four. I don't know why they couldn't get one of the four actors back for the second fucking film, but whatever. So yes, highly recommend. I guess it's I think they're both, yeah, they're both on Netflix. So I remember actually being very surprised how much I liked the first one, yeah, yeah, yeah. I have not seen the sequel. Oh no. I don't even know if I realized there was a sequel. Sort of went okay. Did you see that ready or not? Has a sequel, and it is titled, here I come. And thank you. Oh, maybe I was thinking about that because Elijah Wood is in the sequel to ready. Yeah, so, and it takes place, I guess. Like, if you remember that movie ends with her on the steps, starts with her on the steps. Just takes place immediately after the last like, everything about this sounds like what I want to see reading about that the other day. That one sounds really fun. Okay, so in the 100 Days of horror, as you can find on Facebook, if you like, or a Facebook book page, I'll be talking about all of these dead of night also. Known as when Andy came home, I believe, yeah, it's sort of like, imagine the monkey's paw, but they open the door and find while he's still there. And this is, this is pretty good. This is a really solid film, dark, uncomfortable. John Marley as the dad, Lynn Carlin as the mom, and my Richard backrest as the kid, are pretty good performances. She's a little over the top at times. The dad's a little over the top at times, and Richard is incredibly stagnant most of the time. But that's hard to pull off. He's exactly yes, so I would say now this is a what 70, mid 70s, with a name you might recognize as the director, Bob Clark, remind me Christmas Story and Black Christmas. Oh, okay, so another and it's solidly directed, just like most of the stuff he does. So I would say if you've got because monkeys paws, one of my favorite short story things I read as a kid to make me love horror. Yeah, this is a really cool idea of what could happen if he just came back. Yeah, this is parents who get a knock on the door, and it's soldiers telling them that their son was killed in Vietnam, and then he shows up, I think, the next night, or maybe it's two nights, or pretty soon, pretty quickly afterwards. I like this movie quite a bit. Man, this one is ripe for a remake, yeah? Because, as I recall, this very low budget, probably, yeah, it's, well, I mean, it's low budget for the time, so it's definitely yeah, but it didn't impair it too much. But you certainly could have done a lot more with the ending with some more budget, yeah. And if I remember that ending is pretty powerful, yeah, yeah. If that is one of the visuals that I remember from this movie in particular. And I I think the dead of night is a cool title, but it's so fucking generic, right? Yeah, night that Andy came home is so creepy, much better. I read about it like that, and then went to try to find it, and it's barely listed that way. I eventually figured out, oh, it's called this far more frequently. So yeah, that is a cool movie. I'm glad that you watched that one, considering there's so much shit on your 100 days list. Sometimes I'm just like, Jesus Christ. So am I? What should I talk about, I'm going to talk about Luc bessons, Dracula, okay? Oh, brand new, yeah. Oh, God. Not sure why this needed to happen so soon after Nosferatu, and especially since this is, in many scenes, a direct visual rip off of Coppola's Dracula. And choice was that weird choice? Well, I mean, it's probably my favorite of the Draculas. I mean, it's beautiful, but can you pull that off? Well, no, yeah, you'd have to get in the incredible costume designer. There's some good costuming, but you can't get away from the beautiful stage. Yeah, Coppola was and beson is doing all of this, you know, in nature. So there's a lot of weirdly lit scenes that don't quite work. There is a strange kind of nod to the book and movie perfume, if you remember that, where Dracula has come up with a fragrance that makes him irresistible. Yeah, you know, it hasn't been used before. That's just cologne, gentlemen, I'll have you now. Yeah, it is a it is a strange movie. Parts of it are really beautiful. Dracula has a host of gargoyles that have come to life, that kind of act as servants. And there is a big battle at the end, where the villagers attack the castle, and they're, they're fighting gargoyles. So it's, you know, it's not a horrible movie. It is a bit of a head scratcher. It this, I remember it got in trouble too, for like, the poster looking so much like nosferat. Do for like, last year, it's not a the Nosferatu one works. They do a few little tweaks on the psycho, and they make it look a little cheesy. Yeah, I, I gotta say, you know, I as much as I liked Nosferatu, which was not as much as you guys like Nosferatu, my big complaint was I didn't need another Dracula, sure, and so to get one so soon after that, that is just a rip off of Coppola's Dracula. Was like, Well, did anybody need this? I mean, it feels like just a filmmaker who really wanted to do something and decided to do it. My other question was, who gave him money for this right after Nosferatu, France. Is it like a nationally produced, definitely, a French film. Yeah, it's got to be like France was like, yeah, here's some cash. You do something cool. They did something cool. We can do something cool, yeah. I mean, speaking of cool, though, the stuff coming out about Frankenstein, yeah, oh yeah, that looks good. Review so far, very hopeful. Have might have to see that one in the theater. Yeah. Well, I, again, I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to see things, mostly because I'm addicted to that stupid video game. However, I was able to read, and have been reading for a while now the Ultimates, which is a new series, new comic series. Marvel there. There was a previous ultimate series that came out. God, I don't know when it came out. It was at least a decade ago. Yeah, which is supposed to be very good. I did not read it, so I'm kind of trying to pick up on some of the plot pieces from that. Well, while engaging with this new one is this tied in somehow to that Ultimate Universe, because that was destroyed, and that's why we have Miles Morales in the same universe as Peter Parker, interesting, yeah, no, it's, I think it's a partial rewrite, but, um, there is some lore that's important from that one that to understand what's happening. In this one, there's some of the same setup. So in the other ultimates, it was a series of comic books that all were contained in a universe, and it was like ultimate Spider Man. Yes, the Ultimates were like The Avengers, if I remember correctly, ultimate X Men. Is this just called Marvel ultimates, or is this a bunch of comics under an ultimate brand, both? So there's, there's almost like how Marvel does the Avengers movie. But then has the individual Spider Man, what it's it's very similar to that style. So there is ultimates and ultimate two. But then they also have ultimate Spider Man One and two. And I'm talking about volumes Ultimate Black Panther and ultimate X Men. I haven't read Black Panther or Spider Man two yet, but I've read the rest. And the idea, and I don't know how similar this is to the original, is that there was something that happened in time previously, where somebody came through and prevented everyone who was going to become a superhero, from becoming a superhero? Oh, it was, it was Reed Richards from the Ultimate Universe. That's, that's the part that I they have not said forgot to form your answer, because I geek. But I think it's implied that you're supposed to know this because there is an additional twist upon that twist. So I think it's important that you're supposed to know that. I don't know. I did read the comic where that happened, which was so he created a universe then with like, no heroes in it, right? But it's still populated by all the people who would have become euros. So now there is a giant, sort of 911, level disaster in New York, where the section of the city is disappeared and it is blamed on Iron Man. Iron Man then goes back through the kind of to this past time to try and start giving different people the powers they would have had, but they're now much later in life. So Peter Parker has two kids. He's married. He has a totally different life than he would have had otherwise, but now and each of them have this like orb with the thing that would have happened. So his, you know, you open it, spider bites him. The other people, you know, their serums, or whatever it is that would have encountered. So they have the choice to tough Spanish family if he opens that sucker. I we have, not, sorry, Bruce Banner is interesting because some of them don't, they don't have the ability like they're either dead or it's a very big twist. So instead of Bruce Banner, there was some Bruce Banner is kind of a bad guy. He's a science, evil scientist in this version, and they were doing gamma experiments out in the Pacific. And so there's an island, a Hawaiian island, full of people who are horrifically disfigured, many of whom Can't you. Even function like they're just and there's one basically Hulk, but it's not, it's a young girl who her, she was able to adapt to it because of the way the gamma hit her. So she's essentially the new Hulk. But yeah, it doesn't quite it works and it doesn't quite work at the same time, sure. So yeah, they're calling Iron Man, actually iron lad, but it is Tony Stark, but it's a young Tony Stark. So it's a whole, yeah, there's this whole big thing. It's a whole big thing, but it's been really fun. I think it has really good writing. It's done by Denise camp, but each of the spin offs, so Spider Man, Black Panther and X Men are totally different authors. And the X Men, one's really interesting because they went with a manga author. So it has this very like Japanese style to it, and it's very different the way it's written. Oh yeah, it's almost like a supernatural, almost horror, quasi horror. They have that weird manga esque art. Yes, hard time with that. It's like a watercolor. Yeah, it's more watercolor. It's more like, I want to say, haiku. That's so racist. It's, it's like written and it's made in a way where it's really heavily dependent on, like, the precision of the inking. It's not like cartoon. It's like, it's like, more of the art, art style of Japan. That sounds cool. Yeah, I'm interested in all this. I want to read this. Yeah, I would highly recommend it. It's, yeah, it's been a really fun read, because I feel like every time I pick up a Marvel or a DC, I just don't know. I just assume it's going to be bad, until I'm proven otherwise, and sometimes it's not terrible. And I'm like, Hey, I read that. I'll read another. Yeah, there's some that. Anyways. So I'm going to defend a movie that will make a lot of people think of a saying my wife says to me sometimes when I'm falling behind, she's like, you know, I just got off in Spokane, you're still boarding the train in Seattle. So some people are going to feel that way about me when I defend American Psycho two, all American Girl, wow, I have not seen this. Knock off those first three words. Fucking ignore the stupidity of calling this American Psycho too. And the one line that attempts to tie them together, where the teacher in class mentions Bateman. Other than that, there is no connection in any way, shape or form, to American Psycho Wow. This is a really clever dark comedy about a fucked up girl played by Mila Kunis, who is trying to become really smart and really popular. She's trying to get this like Job, or kind of job with a professor who he gives to the smartest person in his crime class every season, or something. So she starts killing off her competition. Excellent. William Shatner is in it too, and I can tell you, fuck off with the American Psycho stuff. This is way better than the reputation it's got over the years. Wow. And if you watch it as a dark comedy, it's pretty good, and she is funny and weird. Her family's bizarre. And just, I don't know this was so different than I anticipated. And so I would say this might be worth the reviewing. You may not appreciate it. That's fine, but I thought it was so much better than the like ratings arc. Most of the reviews, when you read about it, are about who's have to do with murder cycle, nothing. So move past that, and you might enjoy the film. But if you can't move past the fact she never shows a business card to another person and they compare him or some shit, I don't know that it's really good. Wow. Do you think that this started off? Do you think that this started off as a different script, and somebody said, you know, hey, I've got the rights to American Psycho. Exactly what it was, yeah, is that the Hellraiser thing where it's, oh, you've got a script. Let's just call it a hell raiser movie, and that way we'll give you the money to make it if you call this American Psycho too, we'll give you the America the money to make it interesting, which is disappointing, because I think this could add a nice it's not it would not have been a giant hit, but I think it could add a nice, solid cult following of this is more clever than I was led to believe. I wonder what it was originally called. Mila signed on before it was called American Psycho too. American Psycho too just seems like a a title that would disappoint everybody. Yeah. I mean, that sucks, whether you like or hate the first the original film. Film. There's a lot going on there, and there's a lot accomplished in it. Yeah, baggage with that title. Yeah, exactly. Like, why wouldn't anyone ever want to watch any form of a sequel to that film? I mean, it's fine. It's perfect as it is. Well, a lot of the reviewers in here would, because that's most Lucy's not like, Yeah, I know. He figured out there's one line because I was watching for it, because I had already read a little bit about watch this as a dark comedy. Do not watch it as a sequel. And I figured out, like, halfway through the movies, I got the only connection to the original is when he says his name in class wild. It's of the universe. It's in the Bateman universe over in New York, wherever they're based. This was going on the American psychoverse under that ATM scene. See, I read the book, there's a scene in the book that always sticks with me that isn't in the movie and should not have been in the movie. So that's always what I think of with American Psycho. And it's uncomfortable and disturbing as hell. I have given that movie about six attempts. I do not like it, and I've never finished it. It's fine. I mean, I don't know. I always thought it was just a hyper masculine thing, which it's the book is written by a woman, right? No, okay, never mind. It is. It's man, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. It's the move the book. I guess you could read it satirically, but the book is fairly it's really dark and really weird and incredibly detailed and disturbing. And the movie, it's not quite like the shining, but it almost felt the levels like, what the fuck am I watching with this movie? But now I say, Okay, we she really created a different existence for this character. So that was a Brett Easton Ellis, yeah, did he also do less than zero? I think I read this thing, and I was like, God damn it. Apparently the book Less Than Zero has a vampire subplot in it. Whoa. I have not read that that didn't make it to the movie. And I was like, Well, this is how you would have got me to watch this fucking movie. Like I've read American Psycho specifically for the reason that I guess people freak out because it was a huge don't read this book. This book needs to be banned, kind of thing when it came out. Looks like I got to read this. I mean, it's a tough read, but I mean, not because of the content, because of the way it's written. Yeah, there's like, he gets up and does his morning routine in the bathroom. And it's like a 30 page chapter, oh, describing the Cologne he uses. And though it's like, oh my god, I used to listen to his podcast, Brett Brett Easton Ellis, and the last several episodes were him as an audio book of the new book he was writing. So he would just read the chapters and everything. And I was like, Jesus Christ, this is so good and interesting. I mean, I think he's a fascinating writer, a very Yeah, complex human being, yes, yeah. He has some, he has some interesting issues, yeah. Uh, okay, how about we take a little break, and then when we come back, we are talking Reality Bites. Yeah, what are you doing? But how this city future, but how? Who's Captain power video tapes, there are three different skill levels. This one's in toughest now we can practice any time with the power jet XP, satellite score will be hit. Captain power video tapes, I don't believe it. Believe it. Large human, the power of the future is in your hands, batteries not included, jets, figures and new interactive video tapes, each sold separately from Captain power and the soldiers of the future. And we are back, Vanessa, this was your sub genre topic. You want to explain what we're doing. So what I wanted to talk about is alternate reality films where maybe you think you're in a reality, but it's not quite what it seems, sort of like Truman Show, something along those lines. It was all a big excuse to watch my movie, the nine. So you play a lot of characters at once. Oh, a couple. Most people do. I think my house is haunted. I just, I feel like there's i. It, I feel like there someone else there. And then last night, I saw something. I think it was me, somebody there. How many times should the number nine come up? One time out of 10? I don't speak that. I know who you are. Know what you are. I'm not the one deceiving him. He'll figure it out eventually, and when he does, who do you think he's gonna blame you're not who you think you are. I can get you out of here. They have all of these characters inside my head and they want to live. Game isn't fun unless there are rules and you make the rules, they try to kill me. He's not coming back. There's something wrong with the world. You feel like a man. So what happens if I cross this line? I you let me give you five minutes to talk about absolutely so the nines came out in 2007 I was interested in this because I saw it as a Ryan Reynolds movie. It was one of our previous topics. It came up and I was, oh, the number movie. I was like, oh, like, that could be an option. I didn't go with it. So I was like, this will be the time. This is written and directed by John August. You guys might know him from the podcast script notes, which he co hosts with Craig Mason. He has 16 writing credit, credits, including big fish go Frank and weenie Charlie and chocolate factory, the bad one, Corpse Bride and Charlie's Angels. This is starring Ryan Reynolds, hope, Davis, Melissa McCarthy, Elle Fanning, Octavia, Spencer, David Denman, Ben Falcone, Dalia, salmon and Jim Rash, wow, yeah, there are a lot of famous people on this. The story follows Gary, an actor who plays a cop on TV and experiences a terrible breakup. He burns all of his girlfriend's things, and apparently burns down his house by accident, off screen, slow budget, then drives drunk, buys crack, picks up a hooker, Octavia Spencer to show him how to use crack, sleeps with her, then gets in the car, crashes and is arrested. He's then given a house arrest under the cheery but tough as nails eye of a publicist named Margaret, played by Melissa McCarthy, since he burned his house to the ground, he's put in a writer's home who is currently out of town filming in Canada. So meanwhile, he meets the neighbor, Sarah, who seems very smitten with him, and offers to have sex with him, but then bails because her kid gets sick, so she doesn't bother coming over at the allocated time. He then also just spending a lot of time alone in this house. And he starts to hear and see weird things, and finds messages about following the nines. He keeps hearing and seeing the number nines and just it's weird. He overhears Sarah and Margaret talking about him and arguing over telling him what is going on. He confronts Margaret, who tells him it's not what he thinks. And then Sarah, who offers him the truth and tells him, if he leaves the house arrest, he she will show him more. Margaret begs him not to, and when he does, cross the special line, reality seems to burn in front of his very eyes, and he enters a new story. We are now following him as a burgeoning writer about to hit it big with his pilot show. He's also being filmed as a sort of reality TV behind the scenes of pilot season. Sarah is now a network representative, and Margaret is now actual Melissa McCarthy, the actual actor. In order to make his pilot work, he is told he has to fire Melissa McCarthy, who is his best friend, and replace her with Dahlia Salem. I have no idea who she is, but people seem to think she's hot shit in this universe. He agrees, and then the whole thing ends up blowing up in his face. In a flashback, we see Margaret in a previous life telling him something along the lines of him being a god and the nine are like angels, while humans are the sevens. Then we meet Gary as Gabriel, an acclaimed video game designer, and. His car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, and he leaves his wife, Mary, Melissa McCarthy, and young daughter, Noelle, to get a phone signal. He runs into Sierra Sarah, who offers him a lift, but instead poisons him with her water bottle. She tells him this is an intervention, and the other gods, angels are worried about him and wants him to leave this world, but he's obsessed with Melissa McCarthy, and he just won't. So Will he leave this world, thus destroying it and everyone there with a fiery blast? Will we finally see why he finds Hope Davis super irresistible and hot, even though she's just a terrible person in every reality? Or will he become a CGI diamond and go into the sky and end up in a cut scene with Melissa McCarthy and her husband making really bad pancakes with Elle Fanning. Hmm, who's to say? Please don't watch this film. Oh, this is, I don't know what the fuck this is. This is a low, low, low budget movie. It is definitely set in the director's house. All the exciting stuff happens off screen, and we just skip through time. It is broken into three different segments and film styles. The second being very much basically shot on a DVX tape and trying to be the office. The film feels very similar, in some ways, to Matthew McConaughey serenity. It takes about half of the film to get to anything supernatural at all. So you just see him walking around the house looking bored, shifting to Sarah at one point, talking straight to camera for no reason. Is weird as hell, and it doesn't work at all because she's not really the main character, and it seems basically just to be harping on the Office for no reason at all. And you're like, Why does are we seeing this character we've never met before in a doorknob store talking to camera? I don't know. You can see all these actors have talent. Definitely, I think, a fun role for them, because they're like, we get to do something different. But I can only assume John August has some career ending dirt on each and every one of them for them to have helped him out on this please skip this movie, please. It's a pay for rental on Amazon. Only a little bit of trivia. Tagline. You never know when your number is up. Replace all the O's with nines. Melissa McCarthy's role was written specifically with her in mind. The house where Gary stays and Gavin lives is John August's actual house reality TV segment, largely unscripted. Cameraman asking reality TV questions from behind the leaves of the cameraman is voiced by John August, weird. Much of the content in the second part the reality TV section is heavily influenced by John August. Experience working on a failed TV series, DC and a bunch of random crap add up to the number nine throughout the movie, including dice rolls, mice traps, license plates, bus ads, etc. Oh, what. What year was this? This was 1999 2007 2007 Yes, 2007 so a lot of these people had done enough that they were kind of famous. They even talked about Melissa McCarthy leaving Gilmore Girls in the second section to do his pilot, and therefore she left this, like career hyping thing to be there. I mean, that didn't really happen. She that's not how that happened in real life, but in the story of real life, that's what so these people have done a few things. I don't think Elle Fanning is famous at this point. Interesting. I guess I thought, as soon as you said this and Ryan Reynolds, I was like, Is this the one where he hears the animals talking to him the voices? Okay, well, maybe we should have watched that one. I probably should have. I probably should have. I just thought the plot sounded really interesting. And I'm really bummed, because having listened to a fair number of script notes back in the day, I always thought John August sounded pretty sensible and interesting, and now I'm like, Screw you. Craig Mazin, who is incredibly irritating on his own podcast, is much more talented. No one likes to be duped. I feel really, really like mad about it, but that's okay. It's fine, just don't watch it. Just don't watch it unless you want to see, uh, Ryan Reynolds turn into a CGI diamond. That is jaw dropping, at least weird. So I don't want to say that I will be passing on this movie. So good. My work here is done. Instead, I will be telling you about Shutter Island. I You. You You You You You from 2010 directed by Martin Scorsese, who's directed taxi driver, Raging Bull, good fellows, casinos, gang of New York, the departed The Wolf of Wall Street, and written by Leisha kagardis, who wrote the very cool night watch that supernatural Russian film. He also wrote Pathfinder Terminator Genesis, and he was the creator of the altered carbon series and birds of prey, and is based on the novel by Dennis Lehane, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, who's in critters three, the quick and the dead, and 23 episodes of growing pains. Mark Ruffalo again, Mirror, mirror two, Raven dance. Mirror, mirror three, the voyeur. And nine films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, playing Bruce Banner. Also in this is Ben Kingsley losing Gandhi Schindler's List species just recently in the killer's game, which I think you both still need to watch. Also in this, Michelle Williams, Max von Sydow, Jackie Earle Haley, Elias Cotes, John Carroll Lynch and Ted Levine. You know, are you about a size 14? Have you guys seen Shutter Island? Yeah, a while ago. I'll just say that I oppose this sub genre, because in order to show that reality is not what it seems, we kind of have to spoil the movie. It's true. That is a bummer, and I apologize to our audience for that. Well, with that in mind, I chose a movie I had never seen based on the fact that the trailer pretty much spoiled the movie when I point first saw it. So we are introduced to us, marshals Edward and Chuck, and when they are called to Shutter Island, they are investigating. So Shutter Island is a federal mental institute for the criminally insane, and they are investigating a patient named Rachel who escaped the day before. I should say this takes place in the early 1950s and Edward lost his family in an apartment fire a few years back, and he is haunted by the memory. So there they meet Dr Cawley, who explains that Rachel had killed three of her kids and simply believed that they weren't dead. She thought the kids were in the hospital and all the staff were her neighbors. And in Rachel's room, they find a note saying the law of four, who is 67 so the marshals begin to investigate, but a storm is coming, and they are stuck on Shutter Island for a couple of days. In this time, Edward has frequent flashbacks to his time in World War Two as a soldier, and he is haunted by the fact that he killed all of the Nazi guards of the camp in Auschwitz in cold blood. We actually see these scenes, and they are very effective. I mean, this is a very beautiful and haunting looking film, but as the investigation goes on, things are definitely not what they seem on Shutter Island, and Edward is hiding some secrets himself. He explains to his partner chuck that he had ulterior motives to come to Shutter Island because the man who burned his apartment down and killed his family is an inmate there. As the story goes on, Edward is continually visited by the ghost of his dead wife, who tells him mysterious riddles that bring him close. Officer to the missing Rachel and the man who burned down his apartment, but he also keeps bumping up against the question of who is patient 67 at one point, he finds a woman in a cave on the island, and she claims to be Rachel, and warns him that the doctors are trying to have him committed to the institute because he's asking too many questions. At one point, he can't find Chuck, and Dr Colley tells him there was no Chuck and he arrived on the island alone. Okay, so this movie is as dull as a butter knife, but I will say that it has a lovely third act that happens when Edward realizes that he is patient 67 a twist that was telegraphed in the very first trailer for this movie, oh no, and that his family wasn't killed in an apartment fire. We then get a flashback of what really happened. His mentally unstable wife had caught their apartment on fire, and he had moved them all to a small house on a lake, hoping it would clear her mind. Instead, he came home one day to find that his wife had drowned their three children, and he ends up killing her in a breakdown of his own. The entire movie has been an elaborate bit of role playing to try and bring him back to reality. And you know, it seems to work. I'm going to give away the best part of this film, so maybe skip ahead if you're interested. His doctors, including the man he thinks is Chuck, who is his actual doctor, have told him that if he can't snap back to reality and stay there, he's facing lobotomy. And after this, he does relate to them what really happened in a really, very well acted scene. But sometime later, we come back to him on some steps at the hospital, and his doctor comes to ask him how he's holding up. And Edward calls him Chuck, signaling that he is slipping into his fantasy again. But as the guards are motion to come pick him up and take him away to get lobotomized, he says to his doctor, you know, this place makes me wonder. And Chuck says, yeah, what's that boss? And he says, what would be worse to live as a monster or to die as a good man? And you can see the doctor realizing, as he's being taken off, that he just doesn't want to live with the truth of killing his wife just a little bit of trivia. The movie is filled with anagrams for the characters names and indeed, the title Shutter Island is an anagram of truth and lies and truth denials. The movies $40.2 million opening weekend take in the US marked a career best for Martin Scorsese, and went on to gross over $293 million worldwide, making it the highest grossing movie of his career, until the Wolf of Wall Street. And that final line that I thought was so good that was not in the book. So the movie is a bore, and especially if you know that it is all fake. But I will say that that final scene where he's talking to the doctors and everything is being revealed to them, is is really, really solid. I was just like, oh, this is really good. It's just the movie leading up to it is a snooze fest. I remember liking this. And then I realized everything I remember that I liked about it is just that. And segment, I don't remember much else about the film. Yeah, I remember him walking around the hospital a lot, so I only remember the first place. There's all sorts of things that if you if you go in knowing it, it might be worth watching it again, because you will see, like in every scene that Edward and Leonardo, that he's in, the guards are standing right behind him, and like his partner, who turns out to be his doctor, the guards are never standing right behind him. And there's stuff like that that goes on where, you know, Edward starts interrogating a guy, and he grabs him, and you see his partner kind of do one of these things, and all of a sudden, the two guards come and take him off of the guy he's beating up and stuff like that. So there's little snippets and everything. I really wish that the trailer hadn't kind of given it away, because can't remember who, who had seen it and told me it was awesome. And I said, tell me this is he patient 67 and I'm like, Whoa. I said they kind of hint at it in the trailer. Is that the reveal? Yeah. Like, okay, well, I don't want to watch this now. Yeah, so they should have lied to you. They should have said, What are you even talking about? I mean, she's just crazy. She's just saying some that would be insane. Kelly, that'd be dumb if they put that in the first trailer. That would be bonkers, absolutely bonkers. Eric, you want to talk? Sure? Why not five minutes. Okay, I'm done. Okay, so I got the Sylvian experiments in 2010 should have you. Threats. She Can you star kill another time. You'll be fascinated to know that the Rotten Tomatoes score for this was nine. This is available on YouTube, directed by Hiroshi Takahashi, who did Tales of Terror from Tokyo and the house of the serpent. He's also the writer, but his writing credits are a little more prestigious the ring, the ring two and Juan origins, and starring Yoko chosokabi, who is in the ring too, grudge two and act baby male, amazing. Mina Fuji is in cinema, fighters, the werewolf gang, the villager side and the werewolf gang. And Momoko Hatano, so the opening, it starts. The movie starts with the couple watching what is 16 millimeter footage from an experimental surgery done quite a quite a while ago. And the idea is a surgery is done to release hallucinations, or are they seeing an alternate reality during the middle of this, the screen goes completely bright white, and her two children, they see that her two children in the back watch, just watching what's going on. And they look a little not so good from that, which is weird, because, anyways, cut to a woman looking around an apartment, and then wakes up in a hospital looking place. So it's kind of like she's dreaming, but then she's in a hospital, so that seems to be real. The nurse there says, everything will be fine. You've died, and will be all will be known soon. So the nurse takes her and shows her laying in a coffin. So she sees her own body laying in a coffin. As this is going around. You feel is there a very large facility run by the woman that was the mom watching the 16 millimeter trailer. Then a large group of teens are getting into a van to go and kill themselves, one of them being one of her daughters, so But while they're killing themselves, this other van pulls up, pulls them all out, and one of the guys is wearing an oxygen mask, and they drug the rest of the kids. And so she's going to do the experiment on her daughter. She splits open her head, cuts her brain, puts this weird little thing in it, they go and so the idea is she's trying to figure out if these were hallucinations, and what was the reality the camera picked up, which they really don't explain that particularly well, but and the other half of the movie is the other sister trying to figure out what's going on. She's got police detectives and stuff, and they're trying to figure out where her sister is, what happened to her, and she hadn't seen her mom in years. But as she's investigating, she figures out one of the facilities with her daughter connected to she goes to where her boyfriend works and her mom is working there, but somehow the boyfriend didn't know that. This is a hard movie to explain, because it is not perfectly linear. It jumps around to different things and different times, and dream world comes in several times, and you kind of figure out is the sister dreaming the the other sister and one of the inmates escape from the facility at one time they don't know where they are when they find her, wow, she's. Some crazy shits going down. This is I'm surprised I haven't seen this shown up in Lovecraftian movies, because it's very much reality. Trying to cut that veil of reality between what you see and what might really be there, and there's astral projection, or are you just imagining you're seeing yourself? There's a lot of that going on in this movie. I don't know what the fuck gave it a nine. It's well acted. It's well shot. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe, only I didn't look at how many people had reviewed it, maybe, like four people reviewed it that just didn't follow the story, which, okay, I kind of get that, but, and overall, pretty good. It does have one big problem in that there are kind of three endings. Oh, it feels like you hit an ending and oh, wow, holy shit. Then something else happens, like, what? And then someone else comes here. Well, okay, which one of these three is, and they're not necessarily agreeing with each other, so, but this was not a lot of trivia on this film. There's very little written about it. It was an installment of 6j horror theater movies that were released in the in oh four, including infection, preemination, reincarnation, retribution and kyodon, which seems to be the they tried to jump onto the J horror thing and missed it, because I really don't recognize a lot of those titles. Didn't you say this came out in 2017 though? Well, the 2010 was the release, I think the release in the US, but it was 2004 to the theater, theater run. But sounds kind of interesting. It is that was pretty good, pretty decent film overall, well put together, well constructed. But it is, it takes some confusion to kind of get through, to kind of see what's going on, which I think is good for these kind of films. If you're watching a movie where you're supposed to see alternate realities and you're going, Oh, okay, I get it right. Seems to be probably isn't doing what it should be doing, yeah, what did you watch this on YouTube? Oh, that's and I think that's the only thing I could find it available on, how did, how did this even come on your radar. I don't remember. I think I was looking I think I just did alternate reality things. And for some reason, in the 100 days, I have been watching very few foreign language films, which is really unusual. I thought, well, let's, let's get one in here. Excellent. Well, that brings it to my choice for the next sub genre, yeah, and I will fall back on what I do when I can't think of something really cool, and pick a year. And this time the year is 1986 we have to have a film from 86 and it cannot be my favorite film from 86 Trick or treat, or my second favorite film, The Wraith. Really, these are really getting thinner and thinner. We could do 1940s sci fi movies this true. So 1986 is what we'll be talking about next week. Okay, next episode. That brings us to the point where we say thanks to everybody out there who's supporting us in some way, whether you're liking sharing posts on the strange eons radio talk page, whether you call us on the strange eons radio hotline, yes, which you can reach us on, 253-237-4266, you can also text that number. You can call. You can leave us a message. We would love to hear from you questions at strange eons, radio.com send that on, send them on. Okay, cool. And also, if you feel like you need to support us in a financial way, God bless you. Yeah, you can do that at the buy us a piece of pizza link, which is, I think, on the website page. And we have, like, PayPal subscription type things if you want to just drop us a couple of bucks a month and forget about it. That is allowed as well. Yeah, that's fine. It's called value for value. And we value you, right? And this give some value back. Okay? We are looking to we've been experiencing, as you know, experimenting, as you know, with lapel mics and experiments have not been great, but to move to the next level, you know, cost. Little bit more. So you know, if you're feeling generous at some point, great. Would not hurt our feelings at all if you decided to throw a check in the mail, yeah, however you want to do it. Okay, so that is it. We will be back in two short weeks. We are talking about films from 1986 See you next time. Transportation and other considerations for strange eons, radio produced by Pan Am airlines. When you think of traveling, think of Pan Am. You can't beat the experience. Guests of strange eons radio stay at econo lodge Everett. 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