Hello, and welcome to Castle of Horror, the show dedicated to horror movies and awesomeness. We are a feed spot top one hundred horror podcast. That's the thing I haven't told you. Oh nice, Yes, this week we're not even number one hundred. We're like in there, so okay. This week we have a look at the twenty twenty five film Companion. Not a film companion, the film is called Companion.
This is episode four hundred and fifty nine. Bear in mind if you haven't seen today's movie, we're going to be talking about it from the perspective of horror fans who have seen it. So warning spoilers ahead. From Denver, Colorado, I'm your host, Jason Henderson, publisher at castle Bridge Media, home of the Castle of Horror anthology. With me from Austin is Tony Savaggio, lead singer and bassis of the band Deserts of Mars and lead guitarist of the band
Rise from Fire. So Hello, Tony, Howdy Honey, also in austins Or. Drew Edwards is the writer creator of the long running underground comic Halloween Man, which you can find at Global Comics. He is a best writer Ringo nominee Austin Chronicle Best of Austin Award winner and a member of the Pen America Fellowship.
Say hello, Drew, Well, I'm an emotional support robot that fucks.
He Drew always changes his name on our little dial pad thing, and today's fuck bought.
A look behind the curtain for wondering.
What we're not actually on camera. We just see, We just see, like our little spaces, and we change our name.
I am probably a fuck bought tonight, I guess.
And finally, also in Denver, color commentary from Julia Guzman, the Busiest Woman in Colorado of Guzman Immigration of Denver.
Say hello, that was like an example of my color commentary.
Yes that's right, okay look. Companion is a twenty twenty five I Have American science fiction thriller film starring Sophie Thatcher and Jack Quaid as a couple on a weekend getaway with friends at a remote cabin, which unravels into chaos after a revelation that one of the guests spoiler spoiled by the poster it's her, is a robot. The film is written and directed by Drew Hancock and also stars Lucas Gage, Megan Surrey, Harvin Gihan and Rupert Friend
in supporting roles. So this movie came out in January of this year. It got really good reviews. It's grossed thirty six point seven million against and get this a budget of ten million, ten million dollars. That's so low that I can't even believe that that's right. I mean, that's so, I'll, I will, I will double check that's that's what my sources said. And I was like, there's no way that this is a ten million dollar movie. But okay, let's get our opening thoughts. Let's go with Drew.
We haven't started with you in a while, so let's go Drew, Julia, Tony, and then I'll go opening thoughts on Companion.
I thought this was great. I think that this is a movie that, you know, could easily just spend pulpy in fun, but did a really good job of speaking to our moment, which is it asks a big question about our relationship, our ever growing relationship with technology and the world around it as we see more and more automation taking up space. But also it has a lot of smart observations about relationships and things of that nature.
So you know, it's a really good blending of the technological and you know, the emotional, but also like I see bits of the Stepford Wives in this. I see bits of you know, Terminator, you know Blade Runner, which you know a lot a lot of Blade Runner. You know this, This was a really good techno horror with heart beautiful.
Thank you, Thank you very much, Julia, I mean, did you dig this? I know that you actually remembered it really well because we don't know when.
We first sat in the theater. It is my endorsement for the week. I think, yeah, no, I liked I like it a lot. It is It's really clever. It's not super original because, as Drew pointed out, there's several movies that it's sort of you know, borrowing from or
an homage to or whatever. But but it's an original take on the on that whole you know, AI being self aware and how do we treat you know, who, what is it to be a person that kind of like it's you know, initial a question that's been that goes back for one hundred probably one hundred years, but for for sure, like you know, Star Trek had that question and all all all all kinds of movies. It's like, how what what are we doing when we're taking AI
to this extreme? And then at what point do we owe some kind of do does a I have rights? You know, so like her? Or what was the other movie that came out at the same time as Her that was like about an android that had become self aware? Anyway, there's like a.
But sure, yeah, I don't remember what, thank you, But.
Well we'll kind of think of those as well. Sorry it wasn't that, but yeah, that's another one. So anyway, there's a bunch of films like that, and I think it's worth a theme that's worth continuing to explore. And as we the more we do you know, like you know, Tony, you're going to talk about your recent experience with robots and so. But you know, the more we we have AI kind of becoming part of our daily life, the more we need to think about these ethical questions.
Very good, Thank you very much, Tony. What are your opening thoughts?
Yeah, I think it does a really good job. I saw it in the theater first. I think it does a really good job of recontextualizing a lot of these things, you know, from the Matrix from Plade Runner from you know, you name it like it could be a Twilight Zone episode, but it's it's different than that, has a different flavor, a different flavor than perhaps like Black Mirror. I think it it does a really good job of recontextualizing all
this for a newer generation. Like everybody who's in it has it certain like there's a the way everybody's stressed that the actors that they chose, I think, are are you know, really modern and I it's it is fascinating to the scene.
Yeah.
My experience is like as we as we move forward. I just was at a restaurant and there was a little it's basically a tray on wheels that it had a little face. It's like, you know, I got served meat at a Korean barbecue place by a by a meat serving robot. It comes to my table and you pressed okay, and then it goes away. It goes to the next you know, goes to pick up its tray. I don't know all this is. This is kind of funny.
They have those the self driving cars now the way Moo whatever it's called, and they have a little delivery robots that deliver food around campus at different colleges.
And drunes, so they will fly they flynes and then.
Of course we've got chat GBC everywhere, so there's all.
Kinds of Yeah, we we had some really not great incidences of self driving cars around here lately in Austin, so that's not great. But yeah, I think it there's a lot to it about how it's It's interesting because it's not just the like the trailers made it out to, like, oh kind of maybe a little bit more horror or maybe a little bit more hardware, you know, and it's different than that. It has there's a lot about the relationships.
There's a lot about who's you know, who's worse the robot the people, and then how what what they're willing to do do uh that that's worse And I you know, I think it's a really smart movie, and I'm glad we're discussing it.
You know.
Last year s K Dale made a thriller called Subservience with Megan Fox, which was that movie was basically what if you did the hand that rocks the cradle with only you know the the incoming nanny is a robot and is Megan Fox? And and and that you know, And that was a B film. Because it's like kind of hyper violent and like you know, it's it's much more,
much more in your face than this. But I love that there's so many ways to do this story of like problems with the robot and then you can just like with vampires, it it varies in equality and how how how interesting you can make your metaphor. And here
there's a lot going on. So I know the movie is about a lot of stuff, and we're going to talk about all of this, But to me, I am so interested in the last couple of years and reading about the concept of toxic masculinity and and and you know how how terrible we as men can be when we when we uh, when we sort of follow our lesser angels. And this is a movie kind of about
what if that was unleashed. I mean, like, what if you have toxic masculinity and basically nothing holding it back because we've now created slaves that a toxic.
Yeah, he fully talks about how you know it's not he's just such a victim or whatever.
So I love that was my favorite thing about this. But I get and I celebrate that there's so much going on here that's just one topic. But but I was. I just loved it. I ate it up because I spend all my time reading Reddit threads on how awful dudes can be and and this, so this is this played right into that. So okay, my first thought was this is this is just a point of order, and then we kind of work our way through it. But if you let's imagine like Tony said about you and
I saw Pitch Black. Okay, the movie Pitch Black with Vin Diesel, and we don't know Vin Diesel. We just saw the movie and he was in it.
But but it's funny that you say that because you actually did see you and Tony a lot of movies with the actual stars of the movie.
Well, Vin Diesel showed up, but he was exactly that's my boy, what I always But we were not with him whatever.
Whenever Jason says I just watched whatever with whoever, I'm always like, I didn't know you knew that person. But in this case, you actually did watch a lot of these movies with the That's true.
I actually forgot until you said that this moment that Vind's I mean.
He was I I yeah, because I was hanging out like I watched it.
Uh.
Oh, actually I think I went to sit with Ernie, but before that I was hanging out with the David. David was just talking about film, like, yes, we did see it. It was random, like I mean, but anyway, it was you.
Saw a bunch of movies with Quentin Tarantino.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So so look we sit down at the theater. Uh, They're like, hey, a new movie is coming on. We don't know what it is. Like literally, nobody had told us what the movie was. I think they had said, oh, David, dwow, he is up in the lobby and he wrote it. It's called pitch Black.
Nobody knows nothing about it. And it just starts playing, right, and it starts and we were just you know, we were knocked back, like it knocked our socks off if it but if you And so that was an experience of watching a movie and literally having zero, no context, nothing. You just let's you know, let's go down. Movie comes
up and here you are. If you watched this movie and you had not seen a trailer or the poster, the poster, would you know that that our main character is a robot until like the twenty minute mark when she finally gets turned off.
You get clues. You get clues, but you don't get the actual giveaway until her eyes go white. But you got lots of clues.
The trailer, the original first trailer I remember when I saw it, made it look more like well, or like they were a pair of cereal like her and like a pair of serial killers that were feuding with each other somehow.
No, I didn't get that because I remember the trailer, the very short the teaser. I remember that you find that they have that music and then I can't remember what song was, but then she's chained to the floor or something like that, or and I was like, what, I don't remember that.
I just remember thinking that it was going to be more like a slasher type Yeah, but like to that point though nothing about it said this is a movie about a renegade robot, which is fascinating.
So would that be better? I guess what I'm asking is, like, do we do ourselves a disservice.
When when by the time I saw it, I knew that it was about a robot, and I don't think it hampered my enjoyment. But I'm also somebody I don't care about spoilers or because I'm more about the journey, not the destination, Like I don't, I don't care like
the ending, like very seldomly does a movie. A movie's ending has to be really disappointing to me for me to hate an entire movie based off I could do or or like the twists and turns of a movie because like, let's let's face it, like like The Sixth Sense is a really good movie with a really good twist, but nobody's rewatching that movie because of the twist. Like people rewatch it because like because after you've seen it once, you know Bruce Willis as a ghost, but you watch
it over again because it's an interesting movie. It's a good movie. But that's again that could also be specific to I guess. The point I'm saying is, I guess it depends on what kind of person you are, which I guess is a cop out answer, but it's it's the answer that's truest to myself.
I did find the teaser, by the way, it was I Only Have Eyes for You with the song, and she's not she's just changed in the chair, not the floor.
But yeah, so it.
Looks like a survival picture, like like you know, like it's.
Playing it's playing. It's singing that music you know I only have, and you've got Patrick serving the dinner and they're sitting at the table and then you suddenly see her hand and she's like, you know, handcuffed to the.
And to be honest with that trailer, I actually thought it was just yet another And We've had a bunch of movies in the past couple of years, and I've enjoyed them all where somebody winds up at a beautiful isolated house and you know, bad stuff starts to grow down exactly, usually involving a culinary experience of some kind, and so but anyway, I just thought that was interesting that you go in knowing the twist that's coming, like
twenty minutes into the movie. But it's okay because it's all interesting while you're while you're watching it.
And I'm sure some people didn't see any trailers and did were completely surprised.
Yeah, I'm sure. And it also, at your Drew's point, is great that sometimes you know, you know that a twist is coming and you still just enjoy how it's delivered. And it really is. Because I loved this the second time around.
My favorite line in this movie, and I know, it's like skipping way to the no. No, it's kind But my favorite line this movie is when the two guys pick her up to fix her, you know, after she's the two robot the company guy like the empathics or whatever it's called, and the guys like, I can't remember what the what the naive one asked the other guys like, oh, no, she's totally moded out. No, he told you did this so funny. He's like, no, people are fucked, people are crazy.
It's so funny that this that raises the question, And I think that's sort of one of the one of the first things I'd like to talk about. And maybe I'm just tossing away going through the plot, but uh, this movie kind of raises the question of is it possible to have and it has an This movie suggests the answer might be yes. But is it possible to have a non abusive, a non toxic relationship with a partner that you own? I mean, you know, a non
abusive companion robot relationship? Like is there any good future in this because this is going to happen.
By the way, you mean by abusive, because just in the fact that you said that you own means already no. But if you said, if you have a companion bot that lives with you, then yeah, I mean it could be as long as because as long as that the bot has the ability to you know, be the consent to some extent, then you can have a relationship just like anybody else. But the thing is, I don't know what that looks like.
That's not where I was going. But you just raised a really interesting thought because what you're suggesting is that you could pay twenty five thousand dollars for a bot, but it's only ethical if you also give the bot it's freedom.
The thing is about the way the robots are presented in this film. This is going to be a weird parallel, but stay with me.
I'm with you.
They are almost like the zombies in the George Romero Dead films because they start out one way, which is complacent. They're completely devoted to their programming. But like like what we see with bub in Day of the Dead or Big Daddy in Land of the Dead, like these robots are starting to develop the capacity for change, like Irish changed and Patrick Patrick changes.
Sorry, juh so, Patrick changed, and I found Patrick to be a deeply sad character like like, so like the robots that are as as they are presented in this movie, there is no.
Way to have a relationship that is ethnic because they're not just a piece of machinery, like they have the capacity to develop actual feelings and that right.
But the big change doesn't happen until they're moded, like and that's well, that's true. That's also part of it. Like the major changes happen when they're when they're modded.
Patrick. Remember, Patrick says that he's already aware of more than he was programmed.
Yeah, he figured out a robot years ago. Sure, and he seems actually, yeah, his changes happened completely without being modeled because he has he's.
I mean about the consent, Like he knows is a robot, but he actually loves Eli.
He actually loves Eli. And when he realizes at the end that he can't actually be with Eli, he chooses to end his assistance. And you know, so that's an act of free will. You know, these robots as presented, they're more than a laptop. They're more than a self driving car. Although Iris's relationship with with the self driving car and the fact that she ends the movie with an analog car is very interesting to me.
I didn't think about that, that's true.
Yeah, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of questions about basic libertarian values, like like liberty and
self value. And you know, this is you know, the thing is is this movie, even though it is influenced by the Stepford Stepford Wives, probably most readily, it's asking a lot more questions than just questions of gender politics, although those are also there, like this is this is, this is asking you know, questions we didn't actually have the ability to ask back in the sixties and seventies
because AI was more of a fantastical notion. Now we're we're you know, this might be a world that we live in decades down thead.
It's funny you would mentioned Stepford wise because you're right in that one, Uh, she Kevin Ross doesn't we're following her, and she doesn't want to be replaced by a soulless robot. And there's every notion that those replacements are indeed soulless, just they really are just sexbots with no free will
at all. And this one, we're following a bot from the beginning, and you know, and and so it would be like if if the if the Tina Louise android, and you know, it turned out that maybe she wants to play tennis some more like maybe she doesn't want her tennis court to be torn up by by her husband. And and like the movie, I guess you're right. You know, Stephan Wise didn't even think to go there.
The other the other interesting thing about this movie that that seems to be a fundamental flaw in the way these robots. If we're going to take the path of what these robots are supposed to be. You know, I'm playing Devil's advocate here. They designed robots that, first of all, aren't aware that they're robots. Yeah, and be they can be neurotic, because Iris is a very iron you know,
neurotic young lady. And you know that seems to mean to be you know, why would you design a sex spot that could be neurotic about being Well, I.
Hate to say it, but I think that it's supposed to be that that neurosis her vulnerability and her childish not childishness, but but that's sort of like subservience and worriedness and blah blah blah. I think it gives Jack Quaid a chance to feel like a big man.
Like that is that's his his manic pixie neurosis girl is what he wants because he's terrible. He's terrible, yeah, I mean he goes so far as his name tell us about what an awful Yeah, he's His nickname for hers is beat boopy. I mean he's contempt He's already contemptuous. Uh, and then we find out later exactly how contempt what a just contemptuous, horrible in cel.
With a robot.
He is just why the world owes me kind of guy like why can't I like, I here's why, Because you're the kind of person who gets a sex spot and then instantly makes her unsure of herself. Yeah, he said, you know, he sets her he sets her intelligence at forty Yeah, to make himself feel better.
Just about it.
Horrible now when you know. But when you meet them, you're like, oh, look they have this moment in the grocery store and that's how they met. Because every you know, you know the spoilers, like, every everybody gets their meat. Cute that you can set up and but yes, ethically it is interesting because you know this company has allowed that to be a thing that can happen like that has nothing to do with the mods that he's he's
put on. He's he's you know, the fact you can make a person who's unsure of themselves and full of Eurosies is kind, and that you can torture like terrible itself.
I don't, Oh, Joy, you were going to say something. I'm sorry, I talked about everything.
Well, I started to say to me, but then Tony kind of said it, which is then he makes her into like a murderer. I mean, like, like you said, he monitor. But but the way they come, like you said, Jason, is they come in a pack, they come in a box. And then it's like you can do whatever you want, you can torture.
That's what the guy.
That's why I love that guy in the van who's like, oh yeah, no, these guys are totally fucked up. They okay and they do whatever.
Stepping you just brought up the murder, and I want to I want to say one one other thing about jack Quade's character. Yeah, stepping back from all the ethical stuff we're talking about about the robots, which are of course the biggest question in this movie, but on a basic level, jack Quade's character is a terrible criminal because all he had to do was just leave her off
and he probably would have gotten away with it. What do you mean He turns her back on to say goodbye to her, and that's like where he it.
Wouldn't have gotten away with it because we find out.
Later, Oh that's right, she has a camera built in camera. Okay, you're you're you're you are. You are correct, So there's.
No right he didn't know that he is.
It doesn't matter. He's a terrible criminal. He screws up. Like Jamie pointed out that there there also seems to be a lot of Alfred Hitchcock in this, and I think that's accurate because there's constantly stuff going on that he as, you know, sort of the de facto it, you know, because like there's Iris and there's him, and they're both kind of your your entry way into this world.
But it more or less seems like our world, but with these robots in it, and there's constantly stuff happening that you know as the viewer, but they don't know as characters within the movie, which does feel very hitchhocking.
I think it's pretty funny, just real quick about the camera in the in the in the thing. When when they come up and they're like, okay, well we'll just have legal take a look at her footage. He's like what footage. She's like, you signed a thing. But I'm like, can you imagine? All these are like you said, these are fuck bots. So the idea that you rent, you can rent this fuck bot and then and then when you return her, all these pervs at the at the company are going to watch all of us.
You know, probably.
If I were to him, I wouldn't have because he didn't want to guilty. So he's like, oh, sure for sure, But I would have been like, uh no, I don't think he should be watching my private life.
Well, I mean he signed off. That's the thing is. I bet there's tons of people who like, wait, wait, you were filming, Wait, you were filming.
All the time that we have no clue what we're signing off.
That's true, yeah, I mean, but also he's he's not. But so stepping back, if we want to walk back a little bit, they you know, they all come to this place where their host surgery is uh you know, I guess you know, we assume he's you know, Russian. It ends up being more innocuous. He's a bad guy, but not for all the reasons you think he might be.
Not a he's not a Russian mobster. He's a monster, a Russian criminal. And you know.
Maybe and Kat who's also arable person who Jack, you know, Jack quays Josh has a crush on you know, we don't know that there's there's a murder plot until we get to the murder plot, right, and he's you can clearly tell eventually he's hoping that once this all goes down, he'll get with Kat so again throwing away Iris. But he it's not just his criminality of like, oh, I'm
gonna get away with murder for all this money. He's also really willing like if she had been raped by Sergey, he was okay with that outcome as long as she murders him. Yeah, Like that's the other he's willing to throw away his like. So, so there's there's a lot and who knows what happened in his you know, kind of tech bro world before this, but that's grotesque.
The interesting thing about him to me, when I first realized this was going to be a movie about robots, I assumed that Jack Quait's character was going to somehow be the designer of the robot. It's like the thing, the thing that you know as a progression of Stepford Wives as a concept with What's interesting about this is this isn't the mayor of Stepford. This isn't the guy that designed his program. He's just some guy, ye you know,
and he but he struts around. He's so entitled. And I do think there is a lot of when you see the way specific people behave, you know, on social media or or out in the world, like there is a lot of guys like this out there that they
they're very they didn't design the technology. They didn't they aren't, you know, the one shaping the world they live in, and yet they feel somehow like the world really like he just all the whole movie talks about how, oh I'm a good guy, I'm owed this, I'm a good guy, i owed this new splash. Dude, you're a fucking.
Well and they even give us so yes, And that's the toxic masculinity stuff that I'm just so into because it's so fascinating to me. But they give us eli. See. The funny thing is the movie makes itself a little more complicated in that it shows kind of, for one of a better word, a really functional relationship between a couple, one of whom is an intelligent robot, Like because Eli's not a jerk to Patrick, you know.
I don't think that, Yeah, I don't think that far. I don't think that the movie takes the position that having a robot companion is necessarily automatically a bad thing. It's a question of how you treat them and how you use them quote unquote in the world.
But I feel compelled to go back to the question we had earlier, which is, I hate to ask it, but we're gonna be faced with this in the end, which is, is it ethical to have one of these unless it is clear to that robot that they actually can go and leave? Yeah, like, you know, because otherwise.
What happens after that? Because if they if they can go and leave, and then they're just gonna be shipped back to the factory.
And I don't I don't know the answer to that, but but it's.
Goodlicated, yeah, publicates, right. I just want to say that back when we're talking about Cata. Another favorite line of mine is when Eli asked them, waiter, you too fucking and and he goes no, and she goes gross and he goes gross.
Well, that's the thing is he's throwing a lot of this like, hey, he wants the money. So the plot is, you know, they set up Iris to kill their host, yes, because they're pretty sure, you know, he and he mods her so that she can kill, which isn't something she could normally do. Sets up a terrible situation and you know, yeah, and yeah, Sergey is married and he's still going out with Cat and he's gonna, you know, assault Iris. He's not a good person, not a gangster, but not a
good person. But they're still gonna murder him and take money. And they weren't even gonna cut Eli in. He just you know, he was there origin need to be.
Right, I mean, is the closest thing this movie has to a likable character. And even then, I have a lot of questions because he loves Patrick, so he does see Patrick more as a human being than a robot. But he's perfectly willing to kill And I'll just say, for the sake of the way this movie presents it, to kill Iris.
Because she's a thing.
She's a thing, and he wants money. And so like even even he's kind of you know.
In your head, well, I think, well he sees her as a thing because his friend sees her as a thing. So he becomes even though he can he's able to compart well with enough, he's able to compartmentalize when he knows he can get enough money. Face like that's four million dollars or whatever it is, you know, out of out of that. So but he's willing to go along with it because well, hey, she's also killed somebody. So now it's like, oh, well she she killed somebody and
we could have this money. And you know, if my friend's gonna think of her as a thing, then that's kind of it. But but that's that's where it is complex, because it is all about your perception of things. So Kat wants nothing to do with any with with really any robot.
Right.
You know, Eli knows what love can be, but he's still going, well there's still robots kind of right, So that you know, becomes more and more complicated, although he doesn't, you know, he does, as we're brought through, have more of an epiphany of like, you know what now that I see how things can be really bad? Yeah, in the case of Josh and Iris, what we have is different. He's able to convince himself and he has an epiphany that things are different, like that's.
Not what I want at all.
I think we're and then you know, Patrick says, look I knew yeah, because that's the other kind of twist is all the whole time. Even once we kind of know Patrick's a robot, we see him like he's he's kind of Eli's kind of we get the impression's kind of made him a himbo, you know, sure, like hey, yeah, thanks for cooking, honey, you know, like and you're so beautiful, and then he really like he really is, Like it's deeper than that for me. So they kind of turned
that on its head as well. And one thing into for the time period though, like the time like how long this movie is. They do a lot of that kind of not exactly twists, but twists on what your expectations are of the characters. And that's pretty great.
I was thinking about how it's playing with our notions of romance, right, like, like Eli and Patrick their story, their love story starts at this like really cool hipster party like in Brooklyn or wherever, you know, and they're listening to Little Booth and party. You know, it's a hell ween party and and it's but but it's like
a very hip. It's pretty. It's a pretty world. So this isn't So you get one of these bots, and what you get in it is a is an idealized romance with a person who will never leave you, will never dump you for somebody that they think is more interesting and more challenging and more attractive or whatever whatever the hell would cause somebody to break up with you and go off. So you've broken off all the negative risks of an actual human relationship and all that's left is the pretty stuff.
Well ish, I mean he did.
He did.
Josh did make her like we talked about being neurotics, so she's actually still kind of there's a lot of risk.
Also he also cut her dumb.
Yeahvity likes that, like Elis.
I know what I'm just saying.
It depends on what you mean by risk, because if it's risky to have a jealous person, because even if she can't kill the person, she could definitely mess up somebody's life.
Wait, wait, say more about jealousy.
What she sees Maybe he's because maybe it's already. It's because he might have already modded her. But even so, I don't think he's no. I think he has to stick that. That's that thumb drive thing into.
She is jealous of She's.
Jealous of Cat when they're dancing, and she goes over and just grabs him, And I'm like, she could actually really mess up Cat's life just that jealous, even if she can't physically harm her. So I think there is risk, you know, or like if you're cheating with a married person, then the robot could be like, hey, just so you know, your wife's cheating with my boyfriend or whatever.
Except she can't hurt her limits that's not hurt anybody. But yeah, and she can't lie either. That's fascinating.
That's what I'm saying. Like if you have a robot, but you also have another mistress, and then so then your robots like, I don't want that you have mistress, So I'm going to make your mistress' life miserable.
She didn't have to lie and should write that.
This is this is why. This is also something I've said a lot to people about robots and AI, like, say, you have a self building robot and then you you give it enough intelligence, you know, you could end up with more of a Megan situation, like what happens when a robot decides it doesn't want to get turned off, So you turned off every night at ten o'clock and it goes, I don't want to be turned off, and
it builds electra shock thing. It doesn't know to kill the human, but it knows it doesn't want to be turned off, And so all of those things can happen, and nobody's you know, scientists are so again it's the Jurassic Park thing, like so many sciences. Wouldn't this be cool? And like, no, that's you're not setting up the Asimov's laws right here.
Buddy, Yeah, I have that. We're not going to have any of the Asimov's laws. Like I don't know how.
We can see it in society, like are the legislation of technology is cannot go like technology is exponential, right, and the leg legislation of ethics of technology is so much behind. And also because we have who is the legislative body? Are I swear half of them probably their VCR They had to get their grandkids turn their breaks up the clock on their VCR. So there's no understanding of where that could be and no foresight. You know,
these these people aren't watching Black Mirror. They barely can remember Twilight's there. So like there's always this idea, like there's always this danger that the tech bros. And they're doing it now, like ye the cracks in what can be legislated, like they go so far and you know, I'm a and this is coming from I work in technology, you know, like, but I've been constantly kind of frustrated by the fact that like you can't work everything so far before people can actually go no, no, no, you
can't like ethically, don't do that. And here's a law that prevents you from because I mean people will pollute the air and dump things into the ocean and everything in the and the to grease the wheels of money, you know, capitalism, and so well can you let us and some robots be modeled, you know, like that's how all that's gonna work, Like it's a well for there's major.
You have someone like Elon Musk who's out there now saying that we need to get rid of intellectual property laws, even though again he's he's just some guy. You know, he has a lot of money, but he is like all the technology that is part of his brain, his brand,
he doesn't design any of that. And you know, I thought about Elon Musk a lot while watching this movie because again it's this, it's this you know idea that that you should be the one shaping the world and you know this this like I'm I'm I'm somebody that has a chip on my shoulder and therefore I'm going to hammer the world into being this one way. And the way Josh works in this movie is just he keeps hitting and hitting and hitting whatever is an obstacle
to him, and it just keeps getting worse. Yes, And I think that's what's going to I think that's what's unfortunately going to happen to you know a lot of these guys in our world because there's this hubris around that.
Absolutely well look at Spotify for example. The guy who runs Spotify hasn't created ship and he's never created music, doesn't want to create music, doesn't understand it, and yet he wants to pay musicians less and has actively been like I paid I paid the people who make my My platform is based off of IP his platform, Like you know, I've I've taken all these songs and you're lucky to have me so that your music can get
out of there. And unfortunately that you know, I have to be part of that ecosystem because that's the way like you know, uh, festivals look at your score and anyway all that. But he actively wants to pay musicians less, and he has sort of hast made and he hasn't made anything. He didn't even design the code. He wasn't like,
it's just that that whole stuff. All of it's kind of grotesque, but all of it leads to where we are in the in the movie and kind of like, hey, what are the like you know, you can rent a bot and and then once you know, moving forward through it, you know, once we once Josh thinks he's gonna get away with everything, uh you know, he calls out the people,
finally gets the story straight. Unfortunately, you know, this is we we have to see Eli get killed and you know something else though along the way we also get uh you know, once Sophie, there's there's great moments that we're skipping over. I mean what I mean irin more.
Of a like a panel discussion. We're just hitting on topics because.
Once once Iris gets herself, gets her mojo, gets her self awareness, and uh, you know, dials herself up to one hundred percent intelligence. I like her. I like that she's smart enough to go he's son of a bitch, Like he's kept me at forty percent, so disappointing, so disappointing her intelligence.
She's also smart enough to change her voice to make the car listen to her, which I thought was really fun.
Oh yeah, all of that. You know, when when she, you know, eventually she encounters a police officer since she asked a lie, like she just switches languages.
She can't lie.
Yeah, She's like, can't lie, I'll just speak German.
Yeah, exactly what I'm saying. Yeah, all of that, all of that stuff, and that definitely like once once we're full on there, you know, we got chase sequences, we got like all of this stuff. I also really like that eventually Patrick gets a police uniform, which is a great T two nod due to the fact his name is Patrick.
And he's named after Robert Patrick.
Yeah, exactly exactly. That's like when you when you see that when he's in the copy uniform, Like, okay.
Oh I when that happened when he started running in that black.
Exactly like Patrick.
Oh, so I I this Patrick is so much more interesting to me than the than the tea.
Well, sure he is.
He again everything. I just found him to be a profoundly sad character in the way you know, he's manipulated, you know, and you know, he's turned into a murder weapon, you know, the same way Iris is. And it's it's it's you know, the scene of him, you know, stabbing the girl and then going and shooting the technicians and everything, and the way he brutalized, you know, the way this movie it's not constantly violent in the way you would expect a movie like this to be, but it's speaking
to somebody that usually enjoys gore and movies. The emotional component in this movie removed that because I just felt again it's that lack of agency. I just felt so sad for Iris and so sad for Patrick that they were being used as as weapons with with no consent
of their own. And then you know Patrick being you know, his his love of Eli being you know, he's sitting there and he's mourning the death of his boyfriend, and then and one fell swoop you know, Josh comes in and wipes away who he is seen.
Isn't that shocking?
It's so relationship Yeah, years, so common knowledge.
It's so sad. I just I you know, I guess you know. That was kind of the biggest surprise of this movie is how emotionally devastating that stuff was for me, because you know, like I really empathize with these two robots, you know, and.
It's interesting that he gets wiped and yet he still is able to remember pretty quickly, Like it's not it's not very far beneath the surface. This memory of Eli all it takes is like just a trigger thing. It's kind of like somebody with amnesia where it's like, okay, now they remember everything all of a sudden. So I liked that. The idea that you can't that these that there isn't a kind of a soul in essence to these these bots that can't just be eracist because you reset them.
Well that's that's also you know, like the same like with a hard drive. Yeah, you don't erase. You can erase the hard drive, but unless you overwrite it like several times over, you know, I think D O D wipe is like seven seven times or something, you can do it more like those things are still there and having that but having it being an emotional component is fascinating.
You know.
It's kind of funny too because there's there's also clever things like, for example, Josh manipulates all the robots, that's his kind of thing. But you know, Cat manipulates people like she's manipulated Josh, and she's kind of done with Eli, like definitely with Sergey, like she's like, well, you know, he treats me. Okay, I know he's cheating on his wife, but she has no problems. It's it's an interesting again, it's a multi layered thing where she's just the people manipulator.
He's the robot manipulator. She needs to manipulate him to get the robot. Like it, I thought that dynamically.
It's the whole hurt people, hurt people thing because something happened to all these people to make them this way. Something happens to Josh to make him think, well, I don't want to deal with the human you know, girlfriend, I just want somebody you know, like people don't people aren't necessarily born damaged and so like, you know, all these these people like you do get the sense that there's you know, some kind of underlaying, like there's an
inner life in you know. A lot of that is credit to the the actors because it's not necessarily spelled spelled out, like nobody's giving a monologue about how like, oh, you know, I can't love properly because my high school sweetheart did this to me or something. You know, It's it's all bubbling beneath the surface. But you know that's that's what makes good acting, you know, you know, it fills in the blanks that aren't necessarily you know, on
on the screen. And I just, man, I do before we get too far away from Patrick, I do have a question though, backtracking a little bit. Yeah, they say that there are limits to how smart and how strong the robots can be, right, but Patrick seems really goddamn strong.
The whole mod takes all the limitters off.
Okay, okay, okay. I didn't quite understand that because I thought when she raised her intelligence she was still just as smart as like a Harvard graduate or something.
Well, that's true.
It depends on what the mod is. So because I think there's probably, for example, when the guy at the end who gets saved from the empathics, the one the empathics.
Employee who get saved by the technician.
Yeah, he he like reprograms her so that now she can lie, but up until that point she couldn't lie. So clearly the mod that that Josh put on her did not involve allowing her to lie, just involved allowing her to kill. So it's the same thing probably with Patrick, where it's like, Okay, he can't lie or whatever, but he can he can be super strong because of I.
Mean he's probably got bones of like carbon fiber. I'm sure that he's pretty strong. Like they.
Set that aggression to one hundred percent.
Well, yeah, that's why asks him to stop her. He just r are through with a kitchen knife.
Yes, And I think that that's like, rather than have a bunch of I mean it's it's shorthand, rather than have a bunch of sliders like strength, you know, et cetera. Aggression just means do whatever you need to do to do the things I tell you to do, and we don't know what else you did exactly right.
I just wanted to mention the following along drough what you were saying about. You know, the background, like the background of Josh. What's you know? I was mentioning the toxic masculinity thing earlier and I read ask Aubrey all the time, and there's all these examples in that thread, which is not an advice column, it's just a Reddit thread column of dude's being how.
To be a toxic I guess.
Or how to recognize them anyway. But what's what's interesting here is that guys like Josh don't have to have something bad happen to them. The damage to them psychologically where they think the world owes them something and they just comes from loneliness and from a weird miss like.
A weird loneliness. Is it loneliness something bad though?
I don't know, But for them, they have a they have basically absorbed their loneliness and turned it into something they have not learned anything from, and they've turned it into an all every world owes them something.
Yeah, well it's also the turn I mean, look, when I was growing up, I didn't have a lot of girlfriends, and I was kind of for a little while, I was like, what am I like? I'm trying to be really good like But you either learn lessons that allow you to cope and go, oh look I'm not owed anything like that doesn't mean you know, you know, it's not fun. For example, like I got broken up one time on my you know, birthday, and another time where I went out and was like, hey, there's cool day.
Oh wait, hey, I got to call my boyfriend like wait, why do we go out on my birthday? I am you know, so like like there's times you're like, what did I do wrong? But you can be yeah, Josh, or you can also go, oh, look that's a life lesson. But that doesn't make me right.
I am perhaps giving empathy to a character that does not warrant it, but I really my interpretation of this is that he is somebody that had someone punched down at him because again, he is not top of the food chain, you know, like yeah, he's a tech bro, but he's not one of these guys that's you know, he's not the guy that designed the cyber truck or whatever. Like. This is the guy that is like several low layers
down of that. He doesn't have the best apartment, he can't own a sex spot, but he can rent one, So you know, I I do think that maybe, just maybe you know I'm not saying that the way he.
Man, but you can choose. Here's the thing, though, you.
Can absolutely that I'm not defending. I'm not defending the behavior I am. I am saying that that I feel like in usually when people get to be a certain way, it's because something has happened.
Well, of course, but again, like, that's not an excuse to let your I am.
Not, I am not, I am not excusing it. It's also not okay to murder. It's also okay not the murder people for money. Like like, I'm not defending any of the stuff he's doing. I'm just saying that, I think because.
I think I think it's important to be empathetic towards characters. I think that's that's also.
But I will also say this, I think his level. What's telling about Josh.
Is he is, as much as he thinks he wants a woman that is not challenging to him, he is attracted the cat who is manipulative and but also seems more worldly than him.
Oh absolutely, And he seems as much as he likes to keep iris docile, he seems actually more up. He seems upset when she breaks up with He's like you're my sex spot? How can you? Like he is going to bring her back. So there is like a level of deep down whether or not Josh realizes it more on a conscious level, he really actually does want to be challenged more by somebody's in a relationship with.
I think I am I think that he uh, it's not so much he wants to be challenged and we don't know because he can also manipulate the intelligence. So but his real reason why he's so mad she's breaking up, like you can't break up with me. I'm the I'm the owner, I'm the break like.
Well, and she literally she is literally a sex object. Yeah, it's in his mind.
At least it's less of a challenge and more like I'm mean, like you can't turn this on me. Like his his well narcissism destroys all of that.
He thinks that he does think that he is a good guy, like I don't think what he is lying when.
He saw most villains do right, like.
You know, Jack Quaid, it's funny like he's because you know, we did all the screen movies last year. That's right, and he's that And it's like I found a lot of parallels between his you know, because both of those characters are kind of you know, like you keep saying, like their takes on toxic masculinity. One was really looking in like the fandom sphere, and this is looking more at you know, technology and relationships and things like that.
But is it wrong because he's not really playing likable characters. But I really like him in these kinds of roles.
No, I think he's good. Well, he's like, he's a good looking guy, and he has a lot of talent, and I think he's found a niche sort of playing for one of better word, playing against type, like he's found that the really good space for him is playing against this sort of you know, good looking premisile.
Well, and it says a lot about him that we haven't once mentioned that his parents are Dennis Quaiden, Like he's a really good actor.
He has weaponized his father's grin because he has the exact same broad smile, but he realizes it's full psychotic potential, Like it veers into that like Jack Nicholson territory.
And you know, for some reason, he's also getting put in all of these like weird relationships because Novacane is its own strange relationship and is his but he's the hero in that Hueie U Hueie and the Boys has He's got a whole other host of relationship weird and stuff to deal with, you know, and he keeps like, you know, he's definitely found his path nothing.
Though oddly also the voice of Superman on My Adventures of.
That's right, Yes, he.
Plays He plays Superman very earnestly and not at all like any of these terrible people. Yeah, so you know, he's a good he's a good actor, like you know, like I guess you could make the argument that he's a NEPO baby, but you know, he's he's got some he's got some chops like I like and and and Sophie Thatcher. Also she's in this she's in yellow Jackets and she's also in Heretic. I fucking love her.
She is nothing about her, but she's really good here.
She's she is She's become one of those people that if I see that she's in a movie, I'm probably gonna watch it because like, she's she's really really good. And I mean, everybody in this movie is uniformly good. But like the two leads who really have to carry a lot of you know, like the meat of the stuff that this movie is questioning. The two leads have to carry a lot of that, and they're both really good, and they're really good. They have really good chemistry together.
It's not necessarily you're never once not rooting for Iris to get away from him. But like there's you know, there's something there, like they're they're really good scene partners. And I don't know, like I again, good job, Tony. I think this is a really interesting film.
Now, now when you're talking about you know, famous children, Now I want the buddy movie that's Jack Quaid and why why Russell? Like you, we get the because their boat they're both cool and I don't know, now I want to just see that for some reason like that just you know, in the in the age of of you know, we had a lot of hey, let's put these two famous actors together kind of movies. We did more in the eighties. But now for some reason, I just like, where's our Jack Quay Wyatt Russell movie?
But you know what, I'm mad because of what he did in there.
You were supposed you were supposed to be.
Yeah, now he can be deemed from that bad behavior but years ago, Sherry Belafonte commented that the thing about being the child of a super famous person is that it definitely opens doors. She was like, it definitely opens doors, but it doesn't keep them open, like like you know, you might get what like how many movies?
It opens a door, and let's you get your foot in.
The door, right, you know. And so there's plenty of brothers and sons and daughters of famous people who might make one movie and they don't catch on and you never hear from them again. And that's you know, and that's just the way it is, right. But so you know, I give Jack Quid all the props. I think Jamie Lee Curtis is wonderful and it doesn't matter that she's the daughter of Tony Curtis to me. But but it
probably helped to get the job. In fact, we know that it helped her get the job in Halloween because they were like, oh, yeah, Tony Curtis's.
Daughter, that makes not because she was and Vivian Le the horror movie.
I yeah, And then you said, yeah, no, you're You're totally right.
She she was born of horror movie royalty, so it's in her blood. I man Another thing about this film that I really liked were the way it's the dumbest thing, but the wine, the wine quirker, the way that kind of I knew the moment that I saw that thing, I was like, someone's getting killed with that. And the fact that it is also a piece of technology. Yeahcrew, Yeah, it's It's perfect though, because it's this whole movie is
about our relationship with the machinery around us. And you know, so of course she she turns him off with with yet another machine, and I I loved it, Like I don't know, I I think I thought this was a really good film. I don't want to gush about it too much.
But also before that, to go back to how crappy he is. He is a sadist. Like he makes her you know, he burns her hand. Oh yeah, he puts her through hellish horribleness.
Tony Yam, I am not don't mistake me saying that I think something traumatized this guy is me behavior. That's that's That's not what I'm saying. There is no excuse for this, the stuff that we see in this movie. But I am a firm believable that that hurt people, hurt people like I think that that is a truism.
Yeah, pretty much every serial killer was also horribly abused as child.
And you know, look, I am the first to say that there are some people that are just that are just rotten, you know, like there are some people that aren't terribly complex out there. But this movie is a lot better for me personally when I'm asking like because if, like most as you pointed out, most of the people in this movie are terrible, it's more interesting for me while watching it to ask myself, why are they terrible?
Sure, I'm totally with you, like, and that's why it's that's why it's also well well written as well as being well acted. It's multi layered, like there's and there's a lot that there's a lot of shorthand to get there.
You know, his speech about like I'm a good guy, well you know all that, like you get like it's it's compact and but you know, like, oh, he's that guy, like he's you know, you want the wrong videos and he's you know, probably been his friends Like ah, man, it's exack, cool guy, you.
Know you Yeah, what you just said about shorthand bubbled up another thought, basically one of the things we were talking about, uh before recording is how a movie can be influenced by another movie and still be good. What's good about this movie is all these other robot movies exist, and they do exist as a shorthand for for like the fact that the Stepford Wise exists, the fact that the Terminator exists, the fact that Blade Runner exists allows
this movie because that cinematic language already exists. It allows this movie to not have to do as much world building, so he can ask the the ethical questions, which is really more what this movie is about.
Yeah, I agree, And you know you mentioned those movies and then also I remembered it because I was just surfing through to me one night just looking. There's also you know you mentioned the Megan Fox movie. There's also a tie movie called just called My Sex Doll or this this guy this It's it's a comedy. Like I'm just saying that, there's all these different facets of it where this this kid is like left his relative was like a porn star who had also developed this robot.
And the whole thing is, Hey, I'm leaving you this robot, but you have to have sex with her for you know, plot reasons.
There's well there's also Buffy the Vampire Slayer where the yeah.
Buffy, Yeah, just how all those but that you know that that movie is play is a complete you know, sex comedy romp. You know, hey, what if what if it was uncomfortable? You know, Harry's this hot sex robot, but what if that's not where he's what he's about, you know, and it's but it all depends on like but all of it are facets of this like how do we deal with this technology and where is this going?
Well, the Buffy one adds the dimension of making a sex spot out of a that looks like a person, it sounds like a person that you want. So now we're now we're dealing with that level of you know, well, what is my my likeness? Like, what are my rights to my own likeness?
Well, and that is the question that we're being that people are asking now because of AI and because of deep fakes. And we even had a lawsuit where Scarlett Johansson was suing an advertising company because they used AI to replicate her voice. So you know this this all, you know, this all correlates and even the end of this movie where she's driving off and you see that she looks over and she sees a businessman arguing with
his girlfriend, and then you realize it's another model. It's the same model of her, just with slightly different hair like hair and makeup, and you know, you have to wonder, like who was iris based off of? Was she based
off of a real person? You know? You know, like that's that's you know, even another layer there, because the answer is probably, you know, like I don't think that her face came from nowhere, and so like if this technology existed, you know, what's what's the key people from from making robots that look like their their exes that they couldn't get over or movie stars that they you know, that they don't you know, And it's again it becomes
this whole conversation about consent, like what why would it be okay for someone to have sex with a robot that's designed to look like their their ex boyfriend or girlfriend, you know, continuously without that person's permission.
Well point though, for there to be rules, like the rules are either going to have to be passed by the end of street, which we know they're not going to do, or be passed or or be passed as laws or you get enough like pressure from like organizations to pressure.
Well, what you're talking about right there, that's what will our money.
Like, Well, there's two things, you know. Another thing is like I'm going to make a I'm going to make this bot somebody I hate because I want to put them through stuff crazy.
That's the technicians talk about that. How many how many of these people just chame their robot in the basement and torture them, you know, like.
And even if there are laws of like, hey, you can't just make this famous actress. You're going to go to a billionaire party and there's going to be that actress who's a sex bot, and they're like, hey, I thought you couldn't do that. Like, well, if you're me, I can do that, because that's just the way we work. Rich people get to do whatever the fuck they want.
That way.
Well, I mean, unfortunately, we've we've we've seen that, you know, spelled out so many ways in the last several months. Is that the ultra rich get to keep.
When whatever whatever they want to do.
I want to bring this to a close. We want to get our final thoughts. There's so much we can keep talking about because there's so many ethical considerations that come up with this movie. But all right, so let's do it.
Uh.
We started with Drew, So Drew, I know we've been all over the place, but I've really enjoyed this conversation, like like, what are your what are your thoughts?
I mean, I feel like I kind of gushed on this movie in like this really was like a ten out of ten for me, Like I thought that this they knocked this, like this is a movie that I'm going to start recommending the people. And you know, I love the cast, I love you know, I love the fact that this movie could almost be a stage play because it's such a contained group of characters too, Like I really just I thought this was such a delightful and again like I you know, it's a dark movie,
but it's very funny. Like I don't know that we've really expressed how how funny it actually is, which I think,
you know, sometimes sugar makes the medicine go down. And I think that this is the questions that this movie asks are questions that we do need to be you know, we when we did Late Night with the Devil last last year, you know, we had a whole conversation about AI there and and you know, this conversation is you know, that was just about using AI to generate a drawing, but like this is going to become more and more
a question of our time. So I'm glad that there are people that are using this is what good genre filmmaking does. Like it uses, you know, a pulpy question, which is, you know, what if sex spots were a thing, But it uses it to ask questions that actually have real world ramifications. And I love science fiction and horror and genre movies that really do that. So I'm going
to be really talking up the same way. I guess I was kind of talking a heretic after I saw it, so, you know, I again, I just I it's such a good time for for genre movies. I you know, the last few years so there's been a wealth of good of good scary movies, and I hope that continues.
Wonderful. Thank you very much, Julia, what about you?
Yeah, I mean it's a super interesting movie, lots very thought provoking, as we've obviously you know, been kind of exploring in this conversation of all the different themes that are that are dealt with here and and as you mentioned, I don't know how much it actually costs, but it was not expensive to make for sure, because there's very little special ef fact that we didn't even talk about it.
It appears to be ten million dollars, which I just talk about that.
At the end, she rips off the burnt skin on her hand and has this the.
Full terminator hands, the Terminator robot hands Luke Skywalker hand, Luke.
Hand, and she waves at her fellow companion that looks like her, and the companions like wait, what why do you look like me?
And why is your hand right?
So maybe she's going to start a robot revolution of like, you know, making the companions be aware of themselves. I love the idea that she could be like the you know, the hue of the board hue of AI. Anyway, so very very cool.
Loved it.
Great performances all around.
A plus, she's at least gonna be the robot getting her groove back, like there's at the very least she's going to be the one doing that.
Yeah, Tony, what about you?
Yeah?
I really like this movie. I was glad I got to see it in the theater. Uh, but I'm glad it's out so that more people can see it, because it is a really good, multi layered I mean years ago, when I was actually still with Ruth Teeth, I had written my own comedy like short film with the sex spot and I'll tell you guys about it sometime. But I was seeing this, I was like, you know, that would this and this and would work and it's different enough,
you know it. At the time, it was just a short, so but I'm like, oh, yeah, that'll I think that'll work for another friend of mine.
Our audience will ask you for your sex spotscript. I think that sounds.
Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, you know, I want to try to get it mates. I want to I'll probably keep it close to the desk for a little while. The friend of mine and I are still talking about what it would take to make this short, you know. But you know, I think there's a lot of great themes, great cast. It's interesting, there's enough twists along the way to keep it keeps building upon itself. And you know
how technology. There's a lot to be said just about how technology, like the fact that she she isn't this robot who can now just interface with the car because now you're a robot and you're both You're both all you know, you're both AI, Like she still has to get try, like, well, I can't just steal the car because everybody else thinks I'm a human, you know, stuff
like that. That's really great. You know, at the heart, at the core of it, there is a you know, the romance between Eli and Patrick is just really really interesting.
You know.
Again, the Moges are great. I really enjoyed it as well, and I'm glad that we're able to talk about it. I'm glad it came out, and it was one of those where I kind of wish I'd stayed in the theater longer, just because it deserved a little bit more breathing room in that in the movie space. But you know, that's where we're at. So I am glad people can just check it out if they they're subscribed.
But yeah, really good.
Says a lot, you know, lots lots to think on.
I essentially have nothing to add to that and all that we've said, but this is definitely one to check out. So so, in fact, it would be fun to watch this movie and the Egg and Fox movie, because that's just this is sort of Stepford Wives with smart Ai and that was Handed Hand that rocks the Cradle with robots and you know, what a fun what a fun grouping. That is a more B movie movie than this, But I thought they were both pretty good.
Yeah, and I would not probably add the sex Spot because it's pretty broad. It's not your I don't think it's your movie. But again, I just came through, Like I said, I'm with you. I don't care. I can't if I saw more than the trailer, but it's just like, but they're so intertwined in a way, like, but it is fascinating. Also, that movie's time movie, so it's kind of fascinating to see it from a different angle. But there, I think your eye your double feature is definitely probably
the way to go. And then if you want to get super dark, you can go you know, add x makine to the darkness there if you want to go more black, mirror into it.
So that are that is a bunch of our thoughts on Companion. But now we have endorsements and and been out for like a week or two, so I can't wait to hear what y'all have to recommend. So and I'm going to make sure and put them in the in the show notes, So Drew lay it on me. What do you got?
So I have been listening to the audio book, but it is also available as a hardcover of a book called Marvel Comics in the nineteen seventies, The World Inside Your Head by Elliott Bornstein, and it's it kind of links it. So it's first and foremost a look at what was going on in Marvel Comics in the years that that sort of Lee and Kirby had stepped away and you had a new generation of j Yeah. Well, I mean John Remita worked with Stanley, so not John Remita.
But you know, it's it's you know, it's we're talking about stuff like Howard the Duck, Tomb of Dracula, the Defenders Man thing, the Steve Ingelheart, Doctor Strange and Captain America, you know, all the Monster books, things like that, but it's talking about, you know, their relationship to the Silver
Age stuff in the sixties that formed Marvel. But also how like experimental books like Howard the Duck and like Tomb of Dracula sort of paved way for stuff later on, like like Vertigo in the in the you know, late eighties and into the nineties and you know, things of that nature, like how you know we but this is kind of an unsung era because it's you know, these are imperfect comics, yes, but they were also deeply experimental with but within a mainstream company. And I I am
you know, I'm a big comic book fan. I make comics themselves, but I also love a lot of the comics that are are. I'm a big Steve Gerber fan
and so like them. Talking about Steve Gerber and how he's kind of underratedly important writer in the field of comic books is really it's really great to kind of see him get it, because I do feel like he should be talked about more in the same vein as the way we do talk about guys like Grant Morrison and Alan Moore, because you know, he was he was kind of doing what they were doing, but you know,
years ahead of them. And I'm I, you know, I'm finally kind of glad to see somebody, you know, showing that correlation there. But also, the Marvel Monster books are great, and Marv Wolfman's run on Tomb of Dracula is sublime, so you know that that stuff's also great to talk about. But if you're you're even remotely interested in, you know, the history of comic books or you know, just the Marvel universe in general, I do think you'll find it interesting.
The guy that's the writer is also a Russian literature professor, so he is not only a comic scholar, but he's a literary scholar, and he so he brings a lot of interesting uh stuff when talking about the superhero genre and and that uh you know, so you know, highly highly recommended, ten out of ten. I'm just gushing over everything tonight. I guess you know everybody's gonna be like, where Where's Where's the bitter pissed off terw that that talks about how things suck.
And disappeared the second baby Luna came along.
That might be true, but I don't know.
I also argue that you're just spending time with things that you feel are worthy of your energy and steering away from things that aren't. And I think that's a very valid way to be I'll go.
With both of y'all's interpretation. But I also know the moment we watched a movie that I don't like, I will slate the ship out of it. So you know, you know, like like Bruce Banner, I will always eventually refer to being the whole anyway, I'm done.
You're always angry. I'm angry, Julia yes. I.
Along with the same theme of audio books, we just finished listening to None of This Is True by Lisa Jewel and that's a it's a novel, but the audio. I highly recommend the audiobook. It's in particular because it's super well produced, like there's a bunch of different actors and there's a lot of it's a lot of effect. It's more like a radio like a radio show, you know, like one of the old the radio what do they call Jason the CBS radio mystery theater, my theory, something
like that. It's a really interesting, twisty turney book and it's sort of it's it's it's very meta because it's about a person who does a podcast and then another person, a woman, becomes obsessed with her and becomes part of her life, and then that pot that whole their whole story because like people, you know, there's crimes that are committed and people that go missing and all kinds of
things happen. Their story then becomes the Netflix show within the novel, and now Netflix has bought the rights to the book, so there's like all these layers. But anyway, it's really really interesting and you just you always think you know what's what's going on, and then you find out that you are completely wrong.
So I love it.
It is. It is a very good thriller, Tony, what do you got kind of bum.
That Daredevil has run its course? I'm really enjoying and or it's solid so far, and I cannot hype an enough seeing Sinners Uh, see it on the biggest screen you possibly can. I've seen it twice once in Imax, and all the Imax stuff was well worth going to Imax saw with good crowds. I again, a multi layered like thing that like has scenes where you go that, okay, that's an Oscar worthy scene, just on how you made it.
Like that's cinematography at its finest. Oh, but then there's also these other parts and they keep stacking that and I am just I cannot hype that movie enough. It's just that it's it's been that affecting to me and anybody who's nay saying, I disagree with you, like in a major way. I don't I don't know if we've seen it. If you're if you're like I wasn't that. I don't think we saw the same movie, not that
you're you know, have your opinions. That's fine if you don't like it, but boy, as a movie lover, that's that's why, that's why we go to the movies. Also did see Live and POMPEII, the Pink Floyd restored Live
and Pompey, and that's that was also cool. And I'm not even as big of a Pink Floyd band as some friends of mine, but you know, watching the band record and do all this cool stuff in POMPEII but then also play with the technology of the time Live and Pompeii was actually the one that got me kind of more into the band, I think in college. I don't know if they I think that might have ended this weekend, but if you can get a chance to see the restored version of that as well, that was
well worth it. But definitely regardless, like Hopefully and Centers also had the lowest drop since I think Avatar and I want to say like The Grinch, but those were both around holidays. So keep keep it in the theater, keep that going, there's there's a reason why.
I think I think word of mouth will make that go a lot longer because everybody's saying it's great.
So yeah, yeah, yeah, Like it only dropped like four point seven percent, which is insane for.
Well And I mean, you know, think about another vampire movie from last year, like Not Not Saratu was really bolstered by word of mouth, and I think that will probably repeat here because I agree vampires are always actually I think I'm paraphrasing you, Jason, where I say vampires are always oscillating between being very popular and extremely popular. And I think we're I think we're in a I think we're.
That's a good line. I'll gladly accept the credit. I don't know.
I think we're in a in a vampire you know, we're coming out of a vampire slump, and we're in in probably a phase of some pretty good vampire movies. Right.
Maybe it's because there's so many real live vampires we're seeing that and that results of that.
Truth.
Wow, I have a I mean, the only really cool thing you know, Julia and I listened to None of This Is True, and that was really cool. I spent the last week when we were not recording, I watched every single version of Diablo Leak. I don't know why. Something wrong with my brain. I get hyperfixations and I'm like, oh, I have to watch every version of this story. I can't explain it, but I do that. And so this
time it was Diabolek and I loved it. I watched the nineteen fifty five version, the nineteen seventy four version of the nineteen ninety three version, of the nineteen ninety six.
Version, and oh, man, Jason, did you see that they're doing a four K version box of quator Mass.
No, I'm excited about that.
I forgot which company, but they did. They're doing a bunch of hammer and this is the next one in that group. That's a full on there's a full on you know everything, you know everything in the kitchen sink box that coming out of that.
That is say, a retrospective that we're probably sure for sure.
I do have the four K Dracula Prince of Darkness. Julia got this for me and it rocks. I'm God, what a beautiful movie we have we done? It is possible we have still never done Dracula Prince of Darkness.
Somewhere somewhere, John Logan is saying, Doula Prince of Darkness.
Yeah, I know right, Oh my gosh, how is that possible? Let me let me actually check. Well while I'm while I'm talking, I'm gonna search the database and see if the fact Prince of Darkness we actually have done the John Carpenter movie Prince of Darkness, but we have never done Dracula Prince of Darkness.
So what you're saying is we're gonna take a break and come back. It's hammer time.
Yeah, baby, Oh, I'm so excited. I love everything about that movie. I love the color, I love the voices, I love the ending. Everything that's yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. Wow. Well that would be fun. Okay, I've got to go officiate a wedding and uh.
The.
Reverend Jason Henderson is going to officiate a wedding. Uh, and so we'll be taking off a week, but I'll be back.
By the way, Captain Kronos was the sold out one, so four K Captain Kronos and I didn't. I've had to spend money.
On I'm gonna I'm gonna have to buy that on eBay. Then when it ends up on eBay.
Yeah, well there, I'm sure there's a there's a not limited collection, but they're doing a whole hand.
I have a physical copy of Chronos, but it's it's DVD, and I'm sure it's it's going to degrade eventually, but I I I also just I love that movie.
Yeah, I'm sure, I mean, there could be could be around, but they you know, they're doing a whole range and they're you know, they just revealed quater Mass and said there's there's two other there's a bunch of other bundles that basically on their uh link just have question mark. So hammers Hammer's pulling out all the stops. I should probably get this one, but I've I've had other things.
I plopped down for the Salute, the Jugger box set that's coming out, which is awesome and even has a thing on how to play the game.
We wait, wait, So I think while we're off, I think we should discuss in private a wish list of.
Movies to do. Oh yeah yeah, rereadsheet. All right, everybody, thank you so much, and uh be excellent to one another, and we will talk too soon. Come to the Facebook page. Tell us what you're gonna do with a couple of weeks that we're gone, Like, like, how.
Tell us what you would do if you had a sex spot? I don't or don't.
Okay, I'm okay with leaving that, not even no no, no, no, no robo shaming okay.
No, no, for sure. Yeah all right, hang on there, guys, I'll tek you soon. Bye.