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1:01

subscription is active. Hello, everyone,

1:03

and welcome to Slash Film Daily. Today is Wednesday, April

1:06

10th, 2024. On today's episode of the show,

1:08

we are going to gather around the virtual

1:10

water cooler and talk about what we've been

1:12

up to. My name is Ben Pearson. I'm

1:14

an editor at slash film.com and I'm joined

1:16

on today's episode by slash film editor, Jacob

1:18

Hall. Hello, hello. Jacob, how's it going?

1:21

It's going. It's one of those

1:23

it's CinemaCon week for those of you who don't

1:25

work our industry, which means you have a writer

1:28

on the ground Las Vegas ready to see a

1:30

bunch of footage from coming movies. That

1:32

means those of us at home have to strap

1:34

in for some late nights. I

1:36

feel like this has been just

1:39

my past week of mental headspace has been

1:41

worrying about CinemaCon. Yes.

1:45

Well, I just wanted to follow up on something

1:47

that I talked about, I guess it was Friday's

1:49

episode of the show. My

1:51

wife is in the hospital for a good

1:54

while. A couple of weeks ago, she had what was

1:56

supposed to be a simple outpatient surgery and she seemed

1:58

to be okay immediately. after that, but

2:00

pretty quickly we realized that something was wrong. She had

2:02

a fever and so we called the doctors and they

2:05

told us to go to the emergency room and

2:07

they gave her some medication and took some blood

2:09

samples and sent her home and that

2:11

was a Monday night and like days later on Saturday

2:14

night they called her back and they were like, oh

2:16

it looks like those blood samples we took are actually

2:18

kind of concerning so you're gonna need to come back

2:20

to the emergency room and

2:22

after we got there we were informed that she'd

2:25

actually had sepsis for an entire week. I

2:28

think it was because she had ultimately we discovered

2:30

she had an infection in her liver so long

2:32

story short they had to like run a bunch

2:34

of tests and they figured out this whole thing

2:36

about the infection and we spent nine days in

2:38

the hospital while they treated her and tried to

2:40

figure out what the heck was going

2:42

on so thankfully she's home now as of Monday

2:44

night but man like

2:47

sepsis is no joke and it was a pretty

2:49

rough stretch for a while there so she's feeling

2:51

a little bit better now and they're still like

2:54

weeks of treatment ahead of her so I'm hoping that

2:56

she starts improving quickly and feeling better

2:58

and all that but like I know it's cliche to

3:00

talk about like being thankful for your health and all

3:03

that but man she was like she was perfectly

3:05

healthy before this happened and when something like this

3:08

goes down it's like really it's

3:10

really scary you can it can pull the rug out

3:12

from underneath you so I would just say for anybody

3:15

out there listening like try your best to appreciate what

3:17

you have while you have it so yeah

3:20

that's that's all I'm gonna say about that but

3:23

well well Ben I'm complaining about being stressed out

3:25

by cinema con planning you're complaining about being stressed

3:27

out by a genuine boat about health care for

3:29

a person who's most important in your life so

3:32

a way to make me feel like a jackass I'm

3:36

also stressing out about send in

3:39

the con so you know we're both in the

3:41

same boat there so okay so

3:43

I'm on much much lighter and

3:46

brighter slash technically darker note

3:48

Jacob tell me about what

3:50

you did earlier this week

3:52

yeah like a lot of people I watch

3:54

the clips when that happened yesterday as we're

3:57

recording this is it was April 8th And

4:01

I'm very fortunate. A lot of people traveled a long

4:03

time to be in the path of the eclipse.

4:06

It was such a big deal. I

4:08

know that a million people came to the

4:10

Austin area, and the mayor had to declare

4:12

a state of emergency, and it was just

4:15

absolute chaos. Like, it

4:17

didn't not want to leave my house at all.

4:20

But thankfully, from where I am in my house just north

4:22

of Austin, we

4:25

were not only in the past of the eclipse,

4:27

but we got totality for four and a half minutes. And

4:31

a lot of places in Texas

4:33

had cloudy days. The clouds parted

4:35

a half hour before it started. It was just meant

4:38

to be. So my wife and I went out to the backyards

4:40

and worked with our eclipse glasses. But

4:43

when it initially started, it was

4:46

eerie because every single bird in our

4:48

neighborhood just started screaming. All

4:51

the birds went crazy. And

4:53

then they started getting dark and dark. You

4:55

look at the eclipse glasses, and you see the moon going

4:57

in front of the sun. And

5:00

then when the totality happens, and the sun

5:02

is blocked, and everything is so dark, and

5:04

I've never

5:06

experienced anything like it, it was one of the

5:08

most surreal and eerie things I've ever felt. You

5:14

hear all these stories and legends about how

5:16

ancient peoples must have reacted to eclipses. And

5:19

it goes beyond just the

5:21

sky getting dark. It is, man,

5:25

it made me think about the universe in

5:27

ways I usually don't think about the universe.

5:30

It was truly unreal. Was

5:32

there any eclipse action at all in Florida? Not

5:35

really. I think there's some, somebody

5:37

said something like there was 50%

5:40

or 60% or something like that. But I

5:42

honestly, I was in the hospital and didn't

5:44

even bother looking. I was like,

5:46

I'll just wait 20 years or whatever the

5:48

next one is, and then try to check

5:50

that one out. I'll be a little bit

5:53

better equipped to experience that next time around.

5:55

But I think my mom said that she

5:59

told me that she hadn't eclipsed. classes and she was

6:01

looking and saw something, but I don't

6:03

think it was anywhere near what you

6:05

guys saw in the middle of the

6:07

country along that line. Yeah. I

6:10

mean, just once it's fully up to four and a

6:12

half minutes, just that dark hole in the sky with

6:15

a little rim of light around it, you see so

6:17

many pictures of that. I've never seen it in reality,

6:19

I mean, it clips that extreme. And

6:23

I don't know, man, it was

6:26

truly incredible, an unforgettable thing to

6:28

see. But it's the kind

6:30

of image that makes me lie awake at night.

6:33

And with something in

6:35

my heart, I don't know what that something is

6:37

yet. I don't know if I'm making much sense

6:39

here. Yeah, you are. I mean, it sounds like

6:42

it's a pretty profound experience. And I listened to

6:44

a couple of podcasts and heard similar stories from

6:46

people saying how it really leaves an impact and

6:48

kind of shakes you to your core in

6:51

some ways. So I mean, at the very least, it

6:53

should help us not worry

6:55

that much about Senegakon, Jacob. We're

6:58

pretty small in the grand scheme of all

7:01

this. So that should be a reminder from

7:03

the celestial bodies that we shouldn't take this

7:05

crap too seriously. That's good. I

7:08

think I'm taking things seriously. A few weeks ago, I talked

7:10

about my new running

7:12

regimen. I've been doing a

7:14

lot of 5K races and just

7:16

been hitting up the gym a lot recently. And

7:18

I joked that I need

7:20

to not talk about the podcast because if I talk about the podcast,

7:23

it's failing for me. But I

7:25

ended up running that 10K race. I teased I

7:27

ran the Austin's Cap 10K,

7:29

which is a race through

7:32

downtown Austin. And

7:35

I don't know what

7:37

the general consensus, like what people outside of

7:40

Texas think Texas looks like. But

7:42

like West Texas is indeed very, very flat. But

7:45

Central Texas is incredibly hilly and Austin is built

7:47

in the hill country. Everybody

7:50

warned me that Austin's Cap 10K race

7:52

was extremely hilly. And I said,

7:55

yep, it'll be a pain in the butt, but I'll do it.

7:57

And I did do it. And it was by far the hardest

7:59

thing I've heard in a. physically in my life, Ben. And I

8:02

know that people, you know, people run marathons, people run

8:04

ultramarathon. So it's like, you know, piece of cake for

8:06

like experienced runners. But I've only been

8:08

running for, you know, four ish

8:10

months now. And this wrecked

8:13

me, I've never felt as physically defeated as

8:15

I did by this, I did finish it.

8:17

And my goal is to finish it in

8:19

under 90 minutes. And I did finish it in under

8:22

90 minutes. Oh, nice. That's awesome. So,

8:26

but there are some hills that I've

8:28

driven hundreds of times in my car,

8:30

but I've never had to run them until

8:32

this. And let me

8:34

tell you, I will never take for granted

8:36

those hills. Holy

8:39

cow. Yeah,

8:42

I've booked another 5k for a couple weeks from

8:44

now and I have another 10k next month. So

8:47

keeping it rolling here, like I got either talk about

8:49

it every time on this show now, or just stop

8:51

talking about it. But I think I'm going to keep

8:53

talking about it. Excellent. So

8:55

how is the weather out there? Because

8:57

like Texas, obviously, famously a very hot

9:00

part of the country. We are in

9:02

April. So did you have was it like,

9:04

okay, was it tolerable out there? Well, it

9:06

was a pretty steady, like between 65 and

9:09

70 degrees from my duration of the running. It

9:11

warmed up in the afternoon. But

9:14

yeah, I

9:16

definitely think I'll be running fewer

9:19

outdoor outdoor daytime events as

9:21

the summer hits. But most of the stuff I've run

9:23

so far has been in milder weather or in the

9:25

morning. So we'll see how

9:28

things go. But I know I

9:30

was looking at like June races, like one of June races

9:32

like at night, I'm like, okay, that may be the option.

9:34

Yeah, yeah,

9:36

I've had people encourage me to try to do

9:39

some of the races and stuff that are around

9:41

me in Florida. And like, yet

9:43

the weather just kind of keeps me I run

9:45

a little bit at home, but I have

9:47

a treadmill. And so running inside with air conditioning,

9:49

I'm like, yeah, this is the way to go

9:51

for me. So I don't know if

9:54

I'll be brave enough to take it outside at any

9:56

point. But but yeah, let

9:58

me do events where you get a shiny medal. I'll

10:00

only do running events where they give you a treat, but

10:03

it's over. I'm

10:05

not doing that. As literal as that, if it's just, you

10:07

know, if you're one

10:09

reward is a t-shirt and a sense that you

10:11

did it. Like, nope, you got to give

10:13

me a medal, man. I want to go do that. Run

10:15

tech seat. Excellent. Okay.

10:18

Let's get into what we've been reading. I

10:20

read a book called The Scapegoat by Daphne

10:22

Damariy. And this came out in 1957. It

10:25

is about a lonely... I'm

10:27

going to read from Wikipedia here. In

10:29

a bar in France, a lonely

10:31

English academic on holiday meets his

10:33

double, a French aristocrat who gets

10:35

him drunk, swaps identities, and disappears,

10:37

leaving the Englishman to sort out

10:39

the Frenchman's extensive financial and family

10:41

problems. That sounded really

10:43

intriguing to me. Like this is one of those books where

10:45

like I read the back and I was like, oh man,

10:48

I got to read this immediately. This sounds like really awesome.

10:50

And then the actual experience of reading the book

10:52

itself, like I was kind of disappointed with. I

10:56

was hoping that there would be a little bit more back

10:58

and forth. I think I was envisioning more of

11:00

like a, you

11:03

know, the switch happening and then like

11:05

halfway through the book, those two characters

11:08

meeting up again and getting into some

11:10

conflicts based on, you know, the

11:12

switch and all the stuff that happens in the

11:14

first half. But like, that's not really how the

11:17

story plays out. It really does just follow the

11:19

one guy in this scenario. And

11:22

I'm not going to spoil exactly what

11:24

happens. But it is mostly just one

11:27

character stepping into another person's life who

11:29

happens to look identical to him

11:31

to the point where like he can trick family

11:34

members and stuff into thinking that it actually

11:36

was the same guy all along. And

11:39

I think this has been adapted into a movie a couple

11:41

of times. I've never seen those movies, but yeah, after reading

11:43

the story, I'm just kind of like, ah,

11:46

the story that I have in my head is

11:48

so much more interesting based on the, you know,

11:50

reading the summary on the back of the book

11:52

than the actual book is. And I'm sure you've

11:55

encountered something like that in your travels, Jacob, considering

11:57

how much you've read. how

12:00

great is a reader you are. But uh, but

12:02

yeah, this was just one of those sort of

12:04

like textbook examples for me of like, Oh man,

12:07

I just maybe built something up or maybe misinterpreted

12:09

something on the back of the book to like,

12:11

put a good idea in the back and in

12:13

my head that ended up not really being what

12:16

the actual book was. Are you usually

12:18

a definitely Demoree fan to the blind spot of mine?

12:21

I read Rebecca and really loved

12:23

that. And I've read I've read

12:25

a book called the house on the strand. I think I

12:27

talked about that on the podcast a long time, a couple

12:29

years ago or something, but I've not read much of her

12:31

work. I'm my wife is Rebecca is

12:33

like one of if not her favorite book, then

12:36

like very, very high up there. So I am

12:38

slowly we have

12:40

I don't know, six or seven Demaria books in our

12:42

house, and I'm slowly going to make my way through

12:45

them. But this is one that I

12:47

really enjoyed reading Rebecca and this one. I

12:50

don't know. Again, it could just be

12:52

because of expectations, but this is not one

12:54

that I would recommend anybody starting with or

12:56

like even prioritizing at all. Well,

13:00

I have a copy of Rebecca, but you have to crack it

13:02

open. So maybe that's probably something I need

13:04

to get around to at some point. Yeah, that's

13:06

good stuff. So the book is called the scapegoat

13:08

by Daphne tomorrow. What have you been reading chicken?

13:11

I read some fiction and nonfiction. So the

13:13

nonfiction prisoners of the castle by Ben McIntyre.

13:16

I talked about Ben McIntyre briefly

13:18

on this podcast before a couple years ago, because

13:20

one of his books, Operation Mincemeat was

13:22

made into a Netflix movie that

13:24

was not a very good Netflix movie, but the book is extremely good.

13:27

McIntyre, he is a scholar of

13:30

World War Two Cold War espionage stories,

13:32

usually with a focus on European

13:35

characters. But he's

13:37

all nonfiction. And his goal is

13:39

like, you know, to examine, you know, spies

13:41

and spycraft and tell

13:44

like really underreported or under seen stories.

13:46

And in this case, Prisoners of the

13:48

Castle is about a coldest

13:51

prison or coldest castle in Germany,

13:53

which was the castle fortress that

13:55

became the POW camp for

13:59

allied officers. who were extreme

14:01

high flight risks, guys

14:03

who proved themselves to be extremely

14:05

troublesome, who wanted to escape at

14:07

all costs, who could not be

14:09

kept by ordinary prisons elsewhere in

14:12

Europe. And naturally,

14:14

it's really funny, the dynamic is that

14:16

one of the main conchos in charge of

14:18

the prison is this German schoolmaster,

14:20

who's literally a principal of the school, who

14:23

actually really liked Englishmen and was

14:25

looking forward to, you know, living

14:27

in a castle with a bunch of what he

14:29

thought would be respectable officers, English gentlemen. And

14:33

it turns out that if you put all the officers

14:35

who want to escape in one place, they become the

14:38

rowdiest group imaginable and make

14:40

your life a little hell. So it

14:42

actually ends up being this really interesting

14:44

dynamic. Like you can see how stories

14:46

from Coldest Castle influence everything from the

14:48

Great Escape to, you know,

14:51

Hogan's Heroes. Like on paper, some of

14:53

the escape plans and the

14:55

officers cook up, try to escape, many of them successful are

14:58

utterly ridiculous. They're truly like Louis V. Tunes

15:00

cartoons. They get so extreme and so bizarre.

15:03

And meanwhile, there's this, you

15:06

know, literally the German headmaster educator

15:08

who's like trying to keep a handle on

15:10

all these officers, it literally has a sitcom

15:12

set up. And

15:14

as McIntyre notes in the text, a lot of these

15:16

legends have been told is like, you know, look

15:19

at these brave officers, you know, defeating the

15:21

Nazis by cooking up these crazy escape plans.

15:24

And the book just says it tries to

15:26

like really lend the reality to the situation,

15:29

which was yes, there was truly crazy escape

15:31

plans. And there was a really

15:33

wild stuff happening. There's other stories in this book that

15:35

made my jaw drop by like how

15:37

audacious the escapes were and how they

15:39

managed to manage to communicate and get

15:41

help from home. Like there's an entire

15:43

chapter about the guy who

15:46

started who was put in charge of

15:48

MI9 in England, whose job

15:50

was to invent ways to smuggle

15:52

escape goods into the

15:55

prison via care packages from

15:57

home. And

15:59

like the book like But how like he's one that he's

16:01

one of the main guys who influence the inflamming

16:03

to create Q in the main bond stories so

16:07

ingenious, but also talks about goes in

16:09

great detail about you know the racism and

16:11

homophobia and mental

16:13

illness that happens in a POW camp like

16:15

this and also it goes in a great detail about

16:17

the German characters like the Guy who talked

16:19

about this German headmaster turned soldier was

16:22

not a Nazi and yet something that he actually was not a

16:24

Hitler fan I thought not he's really stupid and One

16:27

interesting like threads in the book is this guy Trying

16:30

his best to keep these soldiers

16:32

from escaping like day-to-day Just looking

16:34

for tunnels and gadgets and hidden

16:36

stuff and come to this little

16:38

realization that is my

16:40

country Community genocide. Holy shit. What's going on? And

16:43

it ends up being this really fascinating thread where like you

16:45

kind of Get

16:47

the full picture of everybody who worked

16:49

and lived in Colby's castle You know

16:51

the German soldiers and the American American

16:53

the British prisoners And I

16:55

found to be such a sad. It's so satisfying

16:58

like it has the richness of a novel It's

17:00

like it should be an HBO miniseries. I

17:03

found this to be one of I've read other Back

17:05

in our books and enjoyed them at the prison of the

17:07

castle is probably my favorite so far. Awesome.

17:09

Yeah, that's really cool I

17:12

don't even know what kind of follow-ups I have I just kind of like

17:14

want to read that myself now What

17:16

else are you reading? I read the

17:19

three-body problem and halfway through the dark

17:21

forest by Shishin Liu the Chinese

17:24

science fiction writer It

17:26

of course three-body problems it became a Netflix

17:28

series from the Game of Thrones creators and

17:31

I'm trying to be very careful about about

17:33

how I'm reading these because the

17:36

TV adaptation is a

17:38

loose adaptation because Shishin

17:40

Liu is An

17:42

old-school hard sci-fi writer. He

17:45

writes from the POV of like an Isaac Asimov

17:47

and Odyssey Clark where Most

17:51

of his books are people sitting around

17:53

tables talking about philosophy Physics,

17:57

you know in the

17:59

diplomacy The action happens largely off

18:01

screen in books. And the same way, like, you know,

18:03

if you go read as you guys must foundation, those

18:07

books are people sitting in rooms talking. And then they'll say

18:09

like, then I'll say like a month later, I

18:11

come back to the room and then say, oh, by

18:13

the way, this happened between our two meetings. And they

18:15

ascribe something really exciting and action packed, but it doesn't

18:17

actually happen on screen because the writer is very much

18:20

more interested in the philosophy and

18:22

the science behind that as opposed to like

18:24

luxurating on an action scene. And

18:27

Apple TV plus is adaptation of the foundation books.

18:30

And it does a good job of foregrounding the action and

18:32

we'll try to keep it as smart as possible. And

18:35

I'll talk about the TV show of three body problem in a

18:37

moment. But I

18:39

will say that it's somebody who's been a minute

18:41

for me since I've read any really hard

18:43

science fiction like this, where

18:45

like the focus really is on the actual science of

18:47

it all. But I

18:50

was really captivated by three body problem. I think I liked

18:52

the dark forest even more, you know, I haven't finished

18:54

it quite yet. It's, I don't

18:56

want to spoil the premise because the lead

18:59

is very effectively buried. But if you know, if we read it

19:01

back in the book I'll tell you what happens, but I'm not

19:03

gonna say it here. All I'll

19:05

say is that very big, very heavy science fiction.

19:09

Very little, not great character work. Like these

19:11

are not books you read because you want

19:13

compelling characters or like, you give

19:15

like characters, like the main characters in the first book

19:17

are barely even present in the second book. Like the

19:19

characters are just vessels that have

19:22

conversations about these scientific theories

19:24

and concepts interest, Lu, a

19:26

physician, Lu as a

19:28

writer. So this is not gonna be, this

19:30

is not Star Wars. This isn't even a Star Trek. This is like,

19:33

you know, if you really want like some

19:35

science, these science fiction, these are really

19:37

compelling. And I'm finding the

19:40

questions proposed in the second book to

19:42

be even richer and darker and more unsettling.

19:46

I was warned the second book was a real feel

19:48

bad piece of science fiction. And

19:50

it's really giving me like, I

19:52

don't want to say anxiety because I actually suffer from

19:55

anxiety attacks. I don't want to make a comment about

19:57

that. But it's very anxious reading. And I'm, these are

19:59

really incredible books. So far. Wow. Okay. Excellent.

20:01

So that's the three body problem. Let's take a break

20:03

and then we'll be right back. All

20:06

right, Jacob, I caught up with slow horses. Have you

20:08

seen the show yet on Apple TV plus? No, because

20:10

I bought the first book and want to read it

20:12

first. And I have my to read piles like 100

20:14

books deep. I just happened to have time. Man,

20:17

I know you love reading stuff before you

20:20

watch it, but like I kind of recommend

20:22

just diving in with this because there's three

20:24

seasons so far. And I think it only

20:26

started in 2022. And there's already been three

20:28

seasons of the show. And

20:31

each each season is only I think

20:33

six episodes or something like that. And

20:36

man, this has quickly become like one of my

20:38

favorite shows on TV. It's just so so purely

20:40

entertaining. Like, I know that Gary

20:43

Oldman has like a lot of problematic off

20:45

screen behavior and stuff like that,

20:47

you know, associated with him. So I

20:50

it kind of like pains me to say

20:52

how great he is in the show because

20:54

he was just so perfect as Jackson Lamb,

20:56

who is the head of Slough

20:59

House. The whole premise of

21:01

slow horses is it's like

21:03

there's a there's a group of my five

21:05

agents who have screwed up and been relegated

21:07

to this place called Slough House, which is

21:09

just the sort of like off the beaten

21:11

path, like this place

21:14

where the losers go basically like anybody

21:16

who is a fuck up or whatever,

21:18

just basically gets kicked out of the

21:21

main out of sight of anybody who

21:23

matters and into this this sort of

21:25

administrative job,

21:28

basically. And Jackson Lamb is the character that

21:30

Gary Oldman plays. And he's this like, disgusting

21:33

looking guy who's just constantly like farting

21:35

and like walking around, it looks like

21:37

he hasn't showered in days. And he

21:39

constantly like dresses down his employees and

21:41

and insults everybody and everything. But he's

21:43

like incredibly good at his job. He's

21:45

like a former, you know, top tier

21:47

spy. And he's now in charge of

21:49

not great character work. He's a not

21:51

books you read because you want compelling

21:54

characters or like, you give characters

21:56

like the main characters in the first book are barely even present

21:58

in the second book. the

22:00

characters are just vessels that have

22:03

conversations about the scientific theories and

22:05

concepts interest Lu, a physician Lu

22:07

as a writer. So

22:10

this is not going to be, this is not Star Wars, this is

22:12

even Star Trek. This is like, you know, if

22:14

you really want like some science, these

22:16

science fiction, these are really compelling. And

22:18

I'm finding the

22:21

questions proposed in the second book to be

22:23

even richer and darker and more unsettling. I

22:26

was warned the second book was a real feel bad

22:28

piece of science fiction. And it's really,

22:30

it's really giving me like, I don't want to

22:33

say anxiety attack, they actually suffer from anxiety attack.

22:35

I don't want to make that enough. But it's

22:38

very anxious reading. And I'm I these are really

22:40

incredible books so far. Wow. Okay, excellent. So that's

22:42

the three body problem. Let's take a break. And

22:44

then we'll be right back. All

22:46

right, Jacob, I caught up with slow horses. Have

22:48

you seen the show yet on Apple TV? Plus?

22:50

No, because I bought the first book and want

22:52

to read it first. And I have my to

22:55

read piles like 100 books deep. I haven't had

22:57

time. Man, I know you

22:59

love reading stuff before you watch it. But like,

23:01

I kind of recommend just diving in with this

23:03

because there's three seasons so far. And

23:05

I think it only started in 2022.

23:08

And there's already been three seasons of

23:10

the show. And each each

23:12

season is only I think six episodes or

23:14

something like that. And man,

23:17

this has quickly become like one of my

23:19

favorite shows on TV. It's just so so

23:21

purely entertaining. Like I know that Gary Oldman

23:23

has like a lot of problematic off

23:26

screen behavior and stuff like that,

23:28

you know, associated with him. So I

23:30

it kind of like pains me to say

23:32

how great he is in the show because

23:35

he is just so perfect as Jackson lamb

23:37

who is the head of a

23:39

flau house that the whole premise

23:41

of slow horses is it's

23:43

like there's a there's a group of mi

23:45

five agents who have screwed up and been

23:47

relegated to this place called slough house, which

23:49

is just the sort of like off the

23:51

beaten path like this

23:54

place where the losers go basically like

23:56

anybody who is a fuck up or

23:58

whatever, just basically gets is kicked out

24:01

of the main, out of sight

24:03

of anybody who matters, and into

24:05

this sort of administrative job,

24:08

basically. And Jackson Lamb is the character

24:10

that Gary Oldman plays, and he's this

24:13

disgusting looking guy who's just constantly

24:15

farting and walking around. It looks

24:17

like he hasn't showered in days,

24:19

and he constantly dresses down his

24:21

employees and insults everybody and everything,

24:23

but he's incredibly good at his

24:25

job. He's a former top

24:28

tier spy. And he's

24:31

now in charge of these people who've just screwed up in

24:33

various ways over the course of their

24:35

careers. And so

24:37

the whole show is this back and forth between

24:40

the proper spies who are

24:42

operating at MI5 and

24:45

getting into these huge, I

24:49

guess potentially global conflicts or whatever,

24:52

or true espionage stuff. And

24:55

then these people in the slow horses, in

24:57

Sloughhouse who are nicknamed slow horses, who are just

24:59

like the screw ups who get rolled

25:02

in, basically, to all these

25:05

bigger issues. And there's a lot of political

25:07

infighting and stuff between these two groups and

25:09

everything. And Gary Oldman is sort of like

25:11

lording over the whole thing, and he's always

25:13

three steps ahead of everybody. He's just really,

25:16

really entertaining to watch. It's like incredibly propulsive

25:18

TV. The characterizations are all great. I

25:20

just like, you spend one episode watching

25:23

the show and you're like, oh, yep,

25:25

I get it. Everybody has their archetype.

25:27

I'm like fully in on this. It's

25:29

so like drilled down

25:31

and simple and knows exactly what it's

25:33

doing. And it's just like incredibly efficient,

25:35

effective, really entertaining storytelling.

25:37

It's really funny. There's great action stuff

25:39

in it. There's a gigantic action set

25:42

piece at the end of season three

25:44

that's unlike anything that they did before.

25:46

It's always kind of shifting

25:48

and switching into what kind of spy show

25:50

it is. But man,

25:52

I'm just like, give me all of

25:55

this. Keep it coming. And I

25:57

can't wait to see the next season. I think they've already said

25:59

that. Season four supposed to come out at some

26:01

point this year and they've renewed it

26:03

already for season five, which is great news Gary

26:06

Oldman has said that he wants to keep playing

26:08

this character like as long as they'll

26:10

have him basically so that's also great news and

26:13

I just hope that the show continues to be

26:16

a constant in my life now because I'm I'm so

26:18

happy that I Finally caught

26:20

up with it I've heard so many good things

26:22

from so many people even like red carpet interviews

26:24

and stuff that I saw I'd seen on Instagram

26:26

and stuff like all these celebrities were like man,

26:28

I'm catching up with slow horses. I'm like, alright

26:30

fine I guess I'll just get around to watching this

26:32

like I kind of begrudgingly moved it to the top

26:34

of my queue and I'm so happy That I did

26:36

because it's a new favorite. So

26:38

I highly highly recommend checking it out Jacob I know

26:41

that you've got a lot of things to read but

26:43

I'm really good I've been wanting to

26:45

have been wanting to read and watch it and I'll

26:48

see that the premise sounds so much like a

26:50

great Ben McIntyre book distinction Yeah,

26:53

it's based on I think McCarran

26:56

is the name of the author and it's based

26:58

on a series of books and each season of

27:00

the show is an adaptation of one Of his

27:02

books and I think there's I mean, there's many

27:04

many books in the series So or in the

27:06

in the franchise rather in the in the book

27:09

series. So Yeah, I'm

27:11

like highest possible recommendation if you're even

27:14

remotely interested in like really entertaining spy

27:16

stuff Check out slow horses on

27:18

Apple TV Plus I

27:20

also think of Apple TV Plus also

27:22

watch the documentary Steve with an acclimation

27:24

point after it The Steve Martin documentary

27:26

have you seen this yet? No,

27:29

no, I actually didn't realize it was streaming already Yeah,

27:32

that's the thing about Apple TV Plus man Like

27:34

there's really not that many people that have the

27:36

service and they don't do a great job of

27:38

advertising their stuff So I feel like a lot

27:40

of stuff that comes on there just kind of

27:42

like disappears into nothingness I'm not gonna really talk

27:45

about this Very much on

27:47

today's episode, but there's a new show on

27:49

there called sugar that stars Colin Farrell

27:51

That is like another it's like a

27:53

modern private eye kind of show set

27:55

in LA That's really interesting and really

27:57

cool. And like if you love movies

27:59

definitely check out sugar, but

28:01

that's another one. They just kind of did a terrible job

28:03

of advertising that the

28:05

show was out. So anyway, I didn't want

28:07

that one to fall through the cracks. But

28:09

Steve is a Steve Martin documentary. It's two

28:12

documentaries that are like an hour and a half ish

28:15

long. And Morgan Neville is the

28:17

director behind it. He's directed things like, won't

28:19

you be my neighbor and Roadrunner,

28:22

a movie about Anthony Bourdain and 20

28:24

feet from stardom. And he's like a

28:27

very popular documentary

28:30

filmmaker. And he does a

28:32

great job here. The first half of this

28:34

Steve documentary is about Steve

28:36

Martin's career as

28:38

a standup comedian. From

28:41

like all through, you know, it traces

28:43

his famously he grew

28:45

up working at Disneyland and

28:47

like developed an affinity

28:50

for magic. And it goes

28:52

into all of that shows like a ton of

28:54

archival footage, and then he

28:56

transitioned into comedy after that and

28:59

became like the biggest standup comic in

29:01

the world at that point, and then

29:03

essentially walked away at the from from

29:05

the profession at the top of his

29:07

game and like the early 1980s

29:10

and then transitioned over into making movies full

29:12

time from there. And

29:14

so the first half is like much more

29:16

focused on the comedy stuff. And then the

29:19

second part of the documentary is more kind

29:22

of piecemeal going through a lot

29:24

of three amigos, planes,

29:27

trains, and automobiles, you know, parenthood,

29:29

like all the sort of highlights

29:31

of his film career over

29:33

the years. And there's a lot of like behind the

29:35

scenes stuff with him interacting with Martin

29:37

Short, with whom he stars on Only

29:41

Immersion in the Building, which is on Hulu. So

29:44

yeah, it's just a very entertaining watch. If you

29:46

like Steve Martin at all, if you're like even

29:48

remotely interested in him as a personality or like

29:50

where he came from, because I don't really know

29:52

much about his standup career, because obviously I was

29:54

born after all of that

29:57

was like a big cultural thing. Then yeah.

30:00

Check this out. It's called Steve Exclamation

30:02

point and then it's a documentary in two

30:04

pieces and it is on Apple TV Plus

30:08

Let's see last thing I wanted to mention

30:10

is the curb your enthusiasm series finale was

30:12

this past Sunday night Are

30:15

you a curb guy Jacob? I used

30:17

to be I've seen the first six seasons and I fell

30:19

off when he started like taking Longer breaks. I had a

30:22

it was hard for me to jump back on But

30:25

I used to occur was super fan back in

30:27

the day, but it's been a long time I

30:30

would recommend checking it out because I caught up with

30:32

it during the pandemic for the first time and have

30:34

just been like watching it all the way

30:36

through and caught up and watching I

30:38

think the past two seasons live and Just

30:41

really really solid stuff like super funny I'm not gonna

30:43

get into really what happens in case people haven't had

30:45

a chance to see it yet and and I don't

30:48

want to Spoil too much for you Jake although you've

30:50

probably seen a lot of headlines talking about the main

30:52

thrust of what the finale was About at this point.

30:54

Yeah, I proved that opinion versus B flash them like

30:56

home But I called these another cop-out

30:59

wasn't sure Interesting.

31:01

Yeah, I'm kind of torn on that. I'll have to read

31:03

that article I saw that headline go up earlier or that

31:05

article go up earlier, but I haven't had a chance to

31:08

read it yet Yeah, I I'm

31:10

kind of torn on whether I think it's a little

31:12

bit of a cop-out But I ultimately

31:14

I think it's kind of a case of Larry David

31:17

the creator and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm Having

31:19

this cake and eating it too in kind of like

31:21

the best The

31:24

best way like a really really entertaining way and

31:27

the show just kind of like went out on

31:29

its own terms and it's just in

31:31

really funny fashion, too, so A

31:34

lot of times comedies. I feel like

31:36

can do this thing where especially long-running

31:38

comedies can do this thing where like

31:40

they're almost more More

31:43

sentimental or something or like you've spent

31:45

so much time with these characters that

31:47

like the send-off the narrative

31:52

construction of the show is such that like

31:54

the characters have to go their separate ways

31:56

or like create

31:58

a sense of separation between

32:01

the main characters, the core group of characters

32:03

that you've been following that mirrors what you

32:05

the audience are experiencing with the show as

32:08

it ends. And I'll just say that the

32:10

curb finale does not do that so it

32:12

doesn't have to worry about

32:14

being accused of being sentimental or like

32:16

you know changing the tone of what

32:18

you would expect. It's very much a

32:20

true to itself kind

32:23

of exploration of Larry David's

32:25

ridiculous personality or the fictionalized

32:27

version anyway. So just

32:30

really really entertaining stuff I just

32:32

wanted to give a quick shout-outs

32:34

to so many years of like

32:36

pretty consistently great comedy writing and

32:38

and improving considering the

32:40

way that the show came together. So curb

32:42

your enthusiasm the whole thing streaming on max right now and

32:45

like I said I just decided to give it

32:47

a go like right in in 2020 when the

32:50

pandemic started and I think even

32:53

the early seasons hold up pretty well especially

32:56

if you like grew up watching Seinfeld even

32:58

if you're just vaguely aware of the structure

33:00

of that show. Curb does

33:02

the same kind of thing but just

33:05

with a whole group of ridiculous new characters and

33:07

stuff that's really entertaining. So that's

33:10

all I want to say about that. Jacob what have you been watching? Well

33:12

as I alluded to earlier I watched I

33:14

started watching Three Body Problem the Netflix adaptation

33:17

of the decision-lose science

33:19

fiction series like

33:21

with interestingly like with Game

33:23

of Thrones which is also the same

33:25

people make Game of Thrones made this show they've

33:28

been very often debut ice. The show

33:30

is named after the first book in the series even though

33:32

the book series has a different name so it gets kind

33:35

of confusing kind of quickly but Three Body Problem is an

33:37

adaptation of the first

33:39

and parts of the second book which is

33:41

why I have Kevin

33:43

is why I'm watching the show in slow motion right now is

33:45

that I looked at when I finished the first book I looked

33:47

at the first season episode titles and realized

33:50

that events from the end of the

33:52

first book were happening much much earlier

33:54

in the show than I expected and

33:57

I know that I've with

34:00

you a second book, I'm realizing that characters and events

34:03

for the second book occurred in the

34:05

first season. So if you're a prior person who tries

34:08

to balance reading versus watching or

34:10

knowing what to do, just know that Three-Body

34:12

Problem is adapting the entire

34:14

trilogy in its own special way, picking

34:16

and choosing across all three

34:18

books as needed. So I'm trying

34:20

to get through as much of the second book

34:22

as possible, watching this show one episode at

34:25

a time. So with that

34:27

said, I think this is an incredibly good

34:29

show, Ben. As an

34:32

adaptation, it's taking the material

34:34

and expanding on really smart ways.

34:37

Like I said, the book is large and people in rooms talking,

34:40

and the characters aren't, you know, our mouthpieces

34:42

for the science. So the show

34:44

has to maintain what makes that

34:47

science interesting while adding actual human drama.

34:49

I think it's a really fine job to love Game

34:51

of Thrones veterans scattered throughout the

34:54

cast. I sometimes at Liam Cunningham

34:56

citing, I'm happy, it's all the

34:59

prices here. Not Game of Thrones guy,

35:01

but Ben Nick Wong, getting to use his actual

35:03

accent here and is the best character on the

35:05

show and the best character from the books. He's

35:08

awesome. I don't

35:11

know, I don't like it, I don't like with the books,

35:13

at least it's kind of a show that's best gone into

35:15

a little bit blind, because once

35:18

you have to realize how the pieces come together,

35:20

it's really satisfying. Like reading

35:22

the book and realizing, oh, that's what's going

35:24

on. It was a really satisfying thing. So

35:27

watching my wife watch the

35:29

show and watching her assemble the pieces the same

35:31

way I assembled a piece of what we read

35:33

in the book has been really exciting. So it's

35:37

genuine, hard science fiction. The

35:40

production values are outstanding. I'm

35:43

still a Game of Thrones defender. I don't regret what time

35:45

of the show at all. And I think

35:47

that the narrative that D.B. Weiss and

35:49

Dave Benioff are idiots is really unfair.

35:51

Yeah, I think that there's you can

35:53

say what you want about that last season of Game

35:56

of Thrones. But those guys aren't stupid. They aren't untalented.

35:58

They clearly... You know

36:01

are really sharp guys, you know how to

36:03

get a show this massive produce They've done

36:05

it twice and the way

36:07

they've cracked the three-wide problem and the dark

36:09

forest is books To make it work

36:11

for TV is a really smart and I am

36:14

looking forward to Finishing a second

36:16

book so I can binge the rest of the

36:18

first season, you know without spoiling anything No,

36:23

and I I don't know man I it's just one of

36:25

those things that like maybe I'll get around to it if

36:27

they have multiple seasons I hear like great things. I just

36:29

kind of heard mixed things about it and I haven't read

36:32

the book I was kind of like warmed off with the

36:34

book by it being like too heady or whatever But hearing

36:36

you talk about it now, I feel like I could probably

36:38

handle it if I want to but it's just a matter

36:40

of like You know mixing it into

36:42

the the list and stuff that I have of what I

36:44

want to do and prioritizing it and all that so I

36:47

just kind of think I'm gonna keep that one on the

36:49

back burner for a while, but But

36:51

I'm glad to hear that that you think it's at least an

36:53

interesting piece of adaptation So yeah, I will say that if you

36:55

want to give it a shot The

36:57

ending of episode two Kind

37:00

of drops to Scotland Like if you need so to episode

37:02

two doesn't have you like interested in learn what happens next

37:05

It may not be for you But I well it's

37:07

a really interesting adaptation choice because they actually move

37:09

a revelation up much earlier in a season Then

37:12

that would have happened in the book It's

37:14

the right place in a TV show to say okay

37:16

Yeah, this is I mean like I

37:19

remember how and you've seen lost right? Yeah

37:21

Oh, yeah, you know how in episode at the end of episode four We

37:23

learned it locked within a wheelchair and like yeah, I thought

37:25

you're locked in and saying okay. I'm in the rest of

37:28

this That's yeah, so two or

37:30

three by your problem like either you're not what

37:32

happens Okay, and then you have one more thing you wanted

37:34

to mention I'll talk about the first omen real quick

37:37

the first omen I remember talking to

37:39

some of the team members about this we both we all kind

37:41

of expected that immaculate was going to be the hard

37:43

are nasty, you know, a Catholic

37:47

Pregnancy none harm movie of the year and

37:50

first over would be warm drove with studio junk It

37:53

turns out that we have two incredibly nasty

37:55

awesome crazy Catholic none pregnancy harm movies of

37:57

the year Christopher's home and rules I

38:01

had so much fun with this nasty piece of work. It is just

38:04

as It's

38:06

just as button pushing as immaculate was

38:08

but whereas immaculate has that very very

38:11

modern Gnarly in your

38:13

face, you know, it's a neon release but for lack

38:15

of a better term a 24 hard will be style

38:17

going on First omen feel

38:19

like it was 20 out of 70s. It has

38:21

that extreme Rosemary's baby, you know original omen feel

38:24

to it But it's

38:26

just unrelenting Very classically

38:28

composed very deliberately paced then when the

38:30

violence and scares come it's really shocking

38:33

like I could it really

38:35

feels like it's a like

38:38

a movie out of its time until it

38:40

gets to the gore where something is like, oh my

38:42

god, it's really is a