Because this might be the inner chronicle of what we are. And we have to articulate ourselves, otherwise we would be cows in the field. Welcome to Chaos in the Field. This is a show in which we discuss philosophical themes in popular films. My name is Justin. And I'm Laura. And today we're talking about a much requested film. And by that I mean there were two people on Twitter who requested it. So that's big for us. And one that just keeps...
getting better and better every time I rewatch it. It's Christopher Nolan's space epic Interstellar. And we're absolutely delighted to be joined today by comedian and actor and travel host and podcaster. He's one third of the Action Boys.
one half of the hilarious travel show, 100 Places to Party Before You Die, and 100% of the podcast High and Mighty. And in case you still don't know who I'm talking about, it's John Gabrus. Welcome, John. Oh, thank you so much for having me. What Justin didn't say in the intro is... that one of those requests for Interstellar is from your current guest, I think. Hell yes. Oh my God. I love this movie so much. And it really, it hit me this time.
We're going to get into this, but it hit me this time that every time I watch this movie, it goes up. I get more into it every time I watch it. So I'm very excited to talk to you about it. John, when was the first time you saw the film and how have your feelings about it grown or changed since then? Funny, I feel like I'm in the same boat as you on this because I first saw it when it first came out. I actually remember it specifically because it was a really big moment for me for some reason.
Bear with me and listeners of cows in the field who enjoy these philosophical discussions. Don't worry. I'm going to bring us down into the fucking dirt, the basement with my level of intellect about movies. But I saw it. in like 2014 is when it came out. I saw it. I saw it at the Arclight alone when they were playing it in 70 millimeter. I had just gotten back from like a tour. So it was like a Monday or Tuesday after it had come out. I couldn't.
find a friend to go with me. I... mistimed my edibles and had to take an uber to the air uh to the movies and like i had a business call on the way i remember all this because i was my manager and he's like are you all right where are you headed i'm like i'm going to the movies he's like it sounds like you're and i'm like oh i'm in an uber he's like
why are you Ubering to the movies? And I was like, uh, I'm too high to drive. And he's like, okay, I sat by myself. It was, I was like one of like five. in the theater and was sitting pretty much center seat at the arc light in the set in the big dome theater sat there and the movie turned on and I fucking
I'm a Nolan head to begin with. I'm a huge sci-fi space exploration, the hippie kind of elements that come into that, like Contact is one of my other favorite sci-fi movies. And then I'm just sitting there and I just started. fucking like i'm crying everything is hitting me like crazy the the
The parking, the parallel parking scene that he has to do is like, that fuck, I was just like, my teeth hurt after that. I was squeezing down so hard. I had such an insane reaction. In the Uber ride home, I call my best friend and writing partner. I'm like, dude.
I'm a change. He's like, he knew I was seeing it after the weekend. He's like, what'd you think of interstellar? I just ring ring called them. I was like, dude, I'm a changed person. Now after that, that movie changed me. And he was like, wow, chick lately challenges me with how. And I was like,
Honestly, I can't argue. I have no idea. But I did. I felt fundamentally different when I left the theater after seeing Interstellar. And people throw around the term like transcendent experience or whatever. Something happened to me. And I kind of left and I fully didn't even get it. You know what I mean? I've now seen the movie like watch it again last night for like maybe the eighth or ninth time. And I get it more and more each time and enjoy it more and more each time. But I.
The first time it hit me, it knocked me unconscious. It was like a shot right on the bridge of the nose. John, can I ask you, following up on that, have you figured out since then how it changed you? Yeah, I guess. i think kind of my experience was that kind of re-engaged me fast five in the movie theater was the first time i was i was like back in the theater way back in the day whenever that came out and i was like
oh, movies are just fun sometimes. And then when I saw Interstellar by myself, I was like, oh my God, movies can say so much with so little. And it like...
And I couldn't get over it and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And, you know, if you have any like... cartoon confidence or cockiness about yourself and you don't feel like you're doing what your level of genius actually like I felt like that watching Cooper in the movie the first time I was like yeah let him fly the fucking plane that's what he was born to do man like I you know
I got like that shit like worked on me in such a way. And I came out of that more of a fan of movies, but even more of a fan of like science shit. Like I was like, and I'm the guy that's like science will actually save the world. like meaning IRL. So watching this movie where it happens on a sort of like, not like quote unquote grounded way. It just affected me in such a way. I was like,
And Joss and I, we've DMed about our love of like super capable human beings. And it's like people, not super, but people are very good at their jobs doing well. And watching scientists work together with different specialties to like save the world. Just working that chalk. Let me tell you, John, it's not as sexy as that in real life, but it does feel good when you get that eureka moment, like when she goes and throws the papers, right? That's like...
You know, I've not had a eureka moment like that, but I've definitely like felt like I've had a eureka moment like that. And I come down and tell Laura and then usually it's a mistake. But I know what you mean. Here's my other question, John. I think that this film. And I'm pointing at the book, the Science of Interstellar book, which Kip Thorne, who was a consultant on the film, a theoretical physicist, wrote.
I feel like Nolan made this film in part to inspire exactly that feeling in people. That feeling of like, oh my god, science is so important. And like to inspire that wonder that especially this film just like makes you feel like the universe is crazy and there's so much cool stuff out there.
I suspect that he wanted to invigorate, and I would hope it would have this effect, like young people, right? Make them want to go into science. So my question to you is, do you think if you had seen this film at like 12, you would be a physicist? Yeah. I mean, I went to school. I went to school declared as a biology major freshman year and changed it to TV, radio, TV, film. That's how old I am. Radio, TV, film, like the next semester.
But I wanted to originally be like a FBI agent profiler because of movies. Nice. And if I would have caught this one instead, I might be like... It's my dream, but I really have no... stick-to-itiveness or like uh commitment capability like so anything that's like because i i wanted to be a navy seal when i was a kid i remember when i was like 14 i was like wait a minute you're you like you get roasted at gym all the time you can't be a navy seal and then like with biology i was like
Like, you barely passed high school. You don't want to do that. Like, I kept having those realizations. But I hope... And there's a couple of lines earlier on in the movie that I didn't pick up on until this viewing. And I think partially because in your... First of all, I'm so stoked to be on this pod. It's like one of the few podcasts that I was a listener of that I didn't know the people before just followed Bilga to an episode here.
and then fell in love with you guys and stuck and listened to every movie I've seen I've listened to. If I haven't seen it, it's on my cue to be like, when you watch that, you get to listen to the cows in the field pod. But you guys are so smart.
Justin, you were like, these are the questions we think we'll ask. We'll be talking about you, the DMs you sent me. And I was like, shit. It was like eye opening just reading that. I was like, I haven't even thought about it. And I'm like pitching it like it's this important movie to me. And then your questions.
like holy shit i have not even thought about it at this level but you pointed out something about like the disdain for like technology or like wastefulness that they kind of comment on early on uh because i think on this viewing, I also realize I'm Lithgow's age. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Like if, if, if it's 2067, I'd be, I'd be 80, 80 something. So that makes sense. That's shit. When he's like,
that felt like something new was coming out every day and it was noise and it was junk. And I was like, that's a commentary I missed the first time. And like Cooper's attitude about like, we got to be pushing the limit.
that juxtaposed with like we gotta make bucks and get someone to buy the iphone 14.1 or whatever like seeing those two ideas kind of smashed together and like where my headspace is at now with like tech in society it's like it feels even more apt than it does this movie did in 2014 yeah let's actually talk about that because i so the other thing that he says in that scene is
you were born a generation too early or a generation too late, right? So you miss the 25th, 21st century, and then you're like the beginning of basically the 2000s, which was like the glory time he's talking about. But you also...
maybe if we survive this, we'll have another glory day in like space. So you're going to miss that too. So you're kind of this like, so he's this, but it turns out he's the bridge character, right? He's the person who bridges these two generations. But the other thing, so. To talk about technology, let's get into this because it's totally on my mind too. We've got Elon Musk and Bill Gates and Bezos and Balmer and all these tech guys and whoever else, right?
who effectively dictate, like, you know... all the talking points of, I mean, you live in California, so I'm sure it's even worse in California than it is on the East Coast. I think on the East Coast, you're a little bit more insulated from it. But in Silicon Valley in particular, it's just like, these people are like the gods who walk among men.
As they've shown again and again, you know, I don't want to criticize our overlords, but they're pretty vapid. And they don't really think that deeply about issues that are outside of the technology that they're creating.
I mean, just as evidenced, look at Elon Musk's running of Twitter, which has just run into failure after failure of, you know, his content moderation stuff, which turned out to be a nonsense Twitter blue. Everything that he does is like everyone on Twitter warned him against it and it doesn't work. And anyway. And I kept thinking about the theme of this film that is like love.
And like love is the only thing that transcends space and time. Only thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends space and time. Yeah, okay. Thank you, Dr. Brand. I love that quote. It's so good. When that quote hit on the trailer, I was like, okay, really? Is this the way this movie is going to go? I know. It's so cheesy and it's so good. It's so cheesy. And I remember being like, I love this film, but I have reservations.
And that was one of my reservations. I always thought this part of the film is way too corny. And it's especially towards the end when Cooper's like, love, love, TARS, don't you get it? Like talking to his robot friend about love. And, you know, I just felt like this is really... sort of that line specifically love TARS don't you get it is when you're reminded that Cooper is played by Matthew McConaughey yeah right like it just peels one layer off from like this super intense
gray steel movie and you're like, he's like, he might as well be like, all right, all right, all right, we solved it. He's got his cowboy hat on as he's floating around in the Tesseract. It just peaks like a little bit like, oh, I think the character slipped there a little, man. But this watch, it really hit me. I think actually there's two things happening in this film. One is science. It's super important. People need to learn about science, right?
That's why climate change is this horrific thing and we need to educate ourselves about it. This is a film about the perils of climate change. But also, it's a film about science and technology guided by nothing. But like, you know, capitalism, innovation without any purpose, without any like humanity or love behind it is blind and just leads to ruin. And I think.
So in the end, Cooper has to reconcile those two things. He's got this ultra-rational side where he's like, love, that means nothing. What's the social utility of love? But then he has to reconcile that with his love of Murph.
which is the thing that ultimately saves the day. And so these two things come reconciled, and that, I think, is the ultimate... point for Nolan is like it's not just the science and it's also not just the love it's sort of the marriage of the two anyway I think that's anyway that that got me this time I agree the love shit I caught on to early and I did think it was cheesy at first but
I also on this viewing was like Cooper loves science and his love of science is what's making him follow the drone, which is making him. pay attention to the scientific facts of the gravitational anomaly in Murphy's room. It's what he's pushing Murphy towards. His love of science, his love of knowledge, of learning new things and seeing new things is like so...
The world doesn't get saved if he doesn't have that built into him. His love of Murph is as important, or obviously more important in real life, but he doesn't get there going unless... that line he says about the drone when he's like this thing is just snooping around this could be used to power fucking and it feels just like
oh you bought twitter for 44 billion dollars that's what you spent your money on it's like i felt like when my wife comes home with trader joe's with exclusively frozen snacks you're like no that was what a misuse of our cash Different scales. But something you said, these guys we're referring to, these quote-unquote are scientific geniuses, it's like PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter. None of those are a love of his.
None of those are a passion project of, like, maybe SpaceX or, you know, you could, like, of course, that's everyone's passion project to get to outer space. Like, fine. But everything else seems like ploys to get power or money. Or both. They're kind of interchangeable. But it feels like there's nobody out there who's just like, I should do blank. All these billionaires...
Everyone's like, I'm a philanthropist. I love this stuff. It's like, well, then fucking put your money where your mouth is and do that. And every investment needs to have like a quick turnaround now because it's all shareholder shit. No one's ever like, well.
If we do actually invest money in this, this could be the thing that helps us solve climate change, space travel, whatever shit we're about to be dealing with and are currently dealing with. Like, that shit you hear about when you're a kid and you're like, during...
During the space race, they needed a pen that could write in zero gravity. And that's when pencils were invented or whatever, you know, in your life. Oh, like that's the shit that like fucking activates young nerd Gabrus. And now it's for sure. And like seeing that on display in this movie, I think is another part of it, like pushing to like.
Oh yeah, we built this space station. And instead of renting it out to the 20 richest people in America or whatever, we're going to actually use it to like... try to save humanity. We're going to try to save everyone. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing I like about it is, is there's the other love I think of, um, of Cooper is, is exploration. And he says the word explore.
three times at least so he talks about he says you know we used to be explorers we're actually going back to that scene where he's talking to donald and he said we used to be explorers um and then later in the ship when he when they're uh they just came out of cryo sleep
And Romilly, he's having a lot of trouble. He's got a lot of anxiety because he's thinking like, man, we're about three millimeters away from this thing just collapsing. And then we're in outer space and everything out there is going to kill us. And he says. You know that some of the finest solo yachtsmen in the world don't know how to swim. They don't know. If they go overboard, they're done. We're explorers, right? Is it our boat?
He wants to explore. He wants to get away from wherever he currently is and get out there and find the unknown. And that's another aspect of science, right? The love of science is seeking out the unknown and trying to figure it out and trying to understand it. ultimately tame it and that's what they're they're trying to do um and so what was the third one oh yeah the third one is when he gets to man's planet
And one of the first questions he asks, man, is how far did you explore on this planet? He's just like, I think he cares about the mission, but I think what he really wants to know is like, What'd you find? Like, I'm really interested in like, what's down there on the surface of the planet. So anyway, I think he's just, yeah, it's that drive to find out and discover. And I think if I had seen this movie actually at 12, that might've.
been actually pretty invigorating for me because I was someone in, so I was not a biology major to go back to the top. And I'm actually curious, John, how you. came out to biology, but did you like it in high school? But you wanted to do like FBI stuff? Yeah, I wanted to be like in the, like a special agent of some sort. And I was a smarter kid than I was.
physically capable so i was like i'll come in the science way you know like like yeah like my my idol clarice starling and i was like i was gonna ask if you wanted to be starling that's awesome of course who doesn't She got them done in town. It's a city girl. Pearson's like that. I'm obsessed with that movie, of course. Who isn't? And...
But yeah, so I got really into science and I really enjoyed science in high school and I really enjoyed learning new things and like making connections to things from across.
platforms or uh disciplines and stuff like oh yeah it's kind of like this it's kind of like this and i really enjoyed it and then i guess you know like you go you go to college and you're and it's like a liberal arts school and you're like in intro to biology or whatever and you're like oh no no no this is like i'm making the wrong i like i just drank for eight i just hooked up with three girls in the first month of school that is that is
tripling my high school numbers why the fuck am i dealing with school work right and i just i was too young too hetero to like really focus on school so i just kind of fucking was like oh but i always loved movies and i was like oh i'll work i I kind of wanted to work in movies and I started getting into comedy doing, doing like comedy theater in college. So that kind of turned me harsh. I see.
But I've always had a respect. I've pitched five different shows. I had a podcast called The Layman where I would meet with scientists and try to dumb what their ideas, what they were working down. That's a special power of mine. I'm like... Here's a dumb analogy. Tell me if that works. And the scientist is like, not exactly. I'm like, all right, let me tweak it a little more. And they're like, I guess, yeah. And I'm like, mouth-breathing listeners, that's how, you know.
MRNA works or whatever. But that is a total, that is a skill. And that, I think, is the scientific spirit, like right there, is trying to understand. And I think we sometimes delude ourselves in thinking like understanding only occurs in the ivory tower or among the people who the scientists are actually doing the exploration. But I think understanding is it's a really elusive concept.
And it's often the case that you don't really understand something until you're able to go on Gabrus' podcast and tell him. You know what I mean? That's when you really get it.
Being able to teach it is a different skill. As someone who studied something and now teaches something, like I taught improv for years and I got... better at improv from teaching it learning to articulate it yeah and what i and also learned what you liked and like craft your own philosophy to the art or whatever but then at some point it starts to be like wow if i really want to keep doing this art
I'm getting too into teaching in my person. Like I got ended up being like, I had to break off from teaching it because I had learned everything I could from, and it's not like. I'm teaching improv. It's not like I'm going to get a prodigy and be like, together we can do an awesome scene. It's not as exciting as Good Will Hunting. We're finishing each other's cool group games rather than life-changing. theories and shit. But there is a skill to that whole thing and...
So I was talking about, I alluded earlier to this Science of Interstellar book, which was written by Kip Thorne, who's a theoretical physicist. And it's a very interesting book. I read it cover to cover. I read it when the movie first came out. I immediately bought the book. The thing about this book is though, is it actually doesn't explain a lot of stuff very well.
Like, it truly doesn't. I was trying to figure out time dilation to understand, like, so we could talk about it on this podcast. And this chapter on time dilation in this does not explain it. It talks about some of the experimental evidence for it and this and that, but it does not, like, I left it being... as confused. So then I went and watched like 14 YouTube videos and I found that
none of them really explained it either. And so I don't feel like I totally understand it, but I kind of understand a little bit of it, like to at least satisfy myself. But that's the feeling of like wanting to have your own understanding satisfied. And I think like... I think it's really cool and admirable that that has continued. Because I listen to High and Mighty, and oftentimes your conversations with people are...
you're trying to find common ground and interest with someone who is often a friend, but sometimes not. And sometimes somebody who comes from very, you know, is a very different person coming from a different perspective.
But there's this kind of inherent curiosity that you have, John. And I think, anyway, I think that is shared by Cooper. I think Cooper, that's like what sort of defines him. It's his, as you put it, his love of science, but it's also his love of his daughter. But I think part of his love of science is that like... It's this desire for understanding, you know?
Laura, do you have... I'm just laughing to myself because I'm realizing I'm Casey Affleck in this movie. Yeah, so that's the contrapoint. You've got Murph and Cooper who are like, let's go out and save the day. And then you've got Casey Affleck who's like, I want to grow corn. I'm Tom. 100%. Like, no, I mean, I not like he's my favorite character. But if I'm being honest with myself, when you're talking about like.
I mean, listen, when you came down, Justin, and showed me your diagram for, like, how time violation worked, and, like, my kid was in the middle of, like, screaming about, like, a magnetile breakdown, and I'm just looking at you like, I do not know what you are talking about. at all and also like I didn't have any curiosity about it like I've just had Nolan says stuff with like I believe that he's got the science behind it or that he's thought it through so when he's like
When you're closer to a black hole, time goes slower. I'm like, that sounds right. Sure. And then when I watched Tenet and they're like, when you're inverted air, you have to wear like the special thing because air like can't go through your lungs. I'm like, sure. That sounds that sounds right. Totally. not gonna think about that for more than half a second carry on
I've told this story, but when we watched Tenet for the first time, we ended the movie. I think Laura had that exact reaction. That was fun. I had so much fun, but I did not think that hard about it. I was like, Laura, we need to rewatch it again tomorrow. And I did this. I had like a notepad and I diagrammed out some of the scenes because I couldn't figure out what was going on. It was like, I had to figure it out. You have fun differently than me. That vibe I've picked up on over the.
Well, I'm curious because Nolan is such dude bait. Like there's such film bro energy around Nolan and like. It turns out, unfortunately, I think I might be a film bro because a lot of the guys, the directors that people all like in that crew are all some of my favorite directors. Because they're good. Yeah, they're talented. Exactly. And people are like, his movies are so cold. I'm like, I love emotional movies too, but I am fine with like a cold. Like literally this movie has like.
40 minutes of dead landscape as like imagery. It's like on earth, on the water planet, on Matt Damon's planet. By the way, Laura, you saying you would be Tom in this movie played by both. timothy chalamet and casey affleck I would be Matt Damon. I would be like the guy who everyone's like, he's got a lot of good energy. He seems like he's got it all figured out. Oh shit, he's actually a coward scumbag. I would first be like, wait a minute, I'm going to be here forever alone. Beep, beep, beep.
thumbs up thumbs up come and get me absolutely it's brutal watching a movie and being like oh would I be the worst guy in this movie yeah probably At least you would have given something a try, though. I just would have been like, well, I guess I'm just going to make my corn fritters with my steamed corn with my corn souffle. And here I am. It's great.
I'm not my kids like dying of lung cancer. It's bad not to have dreams and aspirations and to like have your have your head down the whole time. But that's where I'm at. And also, Justin, like this is I don't know. Have you ever seen the movie Ghost Story? John? No, I haven't.
It's called Ghost Story, right? Yeah, Ghost Story. David Lowery. David Lowery. Anyway, the character of Casey Affleck is like a guy who never wants to move forward at all. And his girlfriend is like, let's leave this house. Let's do this stuff. And he ends up dying and then just...
haunting the house for forever and ever and ever and ever and we watched it like right when Justin wanted to move and I didn't want to move and I never want to make any change at all Justin's just looking at me and I'm like yeah I'm gonna haunt this house So I think I have like a spiritual connection with like dour Casey Affleck characters. We will talk about this on High and Mighty, but.
We were just watching The Fablemans, and in that movie, Michelle Williams is like, I was bored, so I got us a monkey. Now when I look at it, I laugh. And I looked at my wife, and she was like, I know, I know, I have issues. I was like, the character.
The character who's being described as so flighty, it might tear the family apart, has so much in common with my life. And she knew it in that moment. I looked at her. She would get a monkey because she was bored. And I was just like, without any of the fucking consequence. So it's funny to see yourself represented on camera. It's always like, yeah, and I know that's actually not ideal. Oh, no, that's me. That's me.
Well, that's really making me feel like the frozen snack thing is the least of the worries. Yeah, we got we got our own issues. We don't know time to unpack them here. Do you like Christopher Nolan movies, Laura? I'm curious. She's married to me, so. Yes, I know she has to watch them. It's been like a Stockholm Syndrome thing, I think. No, I think I am. I think there's some that I don't love as much as the other ones. Oh, do you want to get canceled? Let's do it right now.
Am I going to get canceled for saying that I think the prestige is bad? I think the prestige is bad. I get that it's about... Filmmaking and craft. I once like told a dude that I didn't like the precision. He's like, but do you understand that it's about filmmaking? I'm like, yes, no, I get that. Thank you. That's so funny. Like the only thing like, oh man, if I. only got the subtext, I would have enjoyed that. Yeah, that would have blown it wide open for me. Thank you. Oh, a movie about movies?
I don't know. That's just like a personal thing. It's also because Justin knows I have like a weird thing about how I hate magic. Yeah, Laura. Oh my God. Well, if you hate magic, that's completely reasonable. Like that is so. Completely reasonable. I really like that movie. It's not in my tops of Nolan movies, but I really do enjoy that movie. But I'm just curious because I feel like over the course of his movies.
He's gotten that reputation more and more. And whether he did make three back-to-back bleak-ass Batman movies. So, like, yes, that's very traditionally masculine energy over there. But I'm... I'm curious. Like, I feel like his movies are like, yeah, now, you know, bro city. And then when I saw Tenet, I get that it's like a lot of men in suits, like looking cool and beat. But that movie.
like broke me open. Like I saw it and was like, Oh man, I thought it was fine. I didn't care about it. And then everyone was talking about it and all. And I was like, should I rewatch this movie? And then I rewatched it at home after, and was like, Knowing full well how the algorithm works or whatever, I was like, oh, my God, this is.
Pattinson has known him for so long. He's pretending like, and I was like, just crying in my room. And I'm like texting all my friends. I get tenant now. And they've already moved on. Like they were kind of like, Oh yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. We're never moving on. We're never moving on in this house. We love Tenet. I like Nolan, and I think Nolan gets a bad rap for his, like...
You know, not having good female characters, not having enough heart. I think like people just want to have that opinion about it. If I personally like the when I hooked into Tenet was the first Debicki scene where she talks about like her relationship with Sator how he has this hold on her with the Goya painting with the point Goya forgery and I was just like. I'm all in on this film. Like I have an emotional hook through through Kat. And I thought it was great. Like, I think like.
I don't know. I think people have formed their opinion about Nolan like four films ago and like then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The thing about Nolan is that like he keeps pulling off these magic tricks for me where I don't really. I mean, I think on the whole, I'm not like I love dude movies like or movies where men do their job really well. Like, you know, that's not.
totally my genre. I don't really like war movies for that reason because they're not usually like a single woman. There's not a lot of emotional arc. It's a lot of like action and rat-a-tat stuff. But like Dunkirk, I was... riveted from start to finish. There's no narrative. There's no emotional arcs. There's I mean, there's narrative, but like, you know what I mean? There's no like dialogue really between characters. There's no relationships.
barely people talk. They leave you pretty unmoored. He leaves you pretty unmoored as an audience. It took me like 40 minutes to catch on what's going on. Yeah. And it wasn't like the time stuff either. Like I think for Justin, the intellectual piece of that is so much a selling point and it's a little bit less for me. But I think like I was like, bye. All, you know, for if you put this on paper, I should not like this movie. And I'm like completely absorbed from like minute three.
in this film. And he does that. With Interstellar too, I think oftentimes I'm not always that into space movies. That's a crazy thing to say because there's such a... huge swath of genres within the space genre or the sci-fi genre but it's not like one of my faves and like this movie I love it so much I love it so much I think something Nolan makes blockbusters
that you can re that you can rewatch and get more out of which I don't and I don't know what that means like I I've used the overuse the term sensitive bro like for sensitive bro cinema as I because I remember like A certain group of guys in my high school really liked Fight Club, but not just because it had violence in it. There was two camps when it came out. A lot of people were like, dude, it's sick. Brad Pitt is... And a lot of us were like...
the interesting like the duality you know like and and it was like it and goodwill hunting kind of did that really early on too i was like you know 14 or 13 when it came out or whatever but i feel like some people are like cool boston movie and other people are like
Yeah, interesting. I'm a blue collar guy who's like super intelligent. My family doesn't give a fuck about that kind of stuff. So I find like these movies that are like on paper bro-y, but... like give give you a little something more than you would expect it's not fucking it's not captain america you know it's the dark knight like like yes it's a fucking comic book movie but it's saying a little more you could watch it again and get a little bit more and then
the technical filmmaking aspect is just like bananas, but like, I'm going to see up in like, he's like a first weekend guy for me for life. Now. Like he just earned that credit. He can have. Several misses in my book, and I'm still gonna fucking stick around. He's got such a high hit rate to begin with. For sure. Absolutely. Yeah, I watched all of Dark Knight Rises with a raging migraine. I would not leave the theater.
I also knew that I was, like, so excited for Dark Knight Rises. We get to the theater, and the migraine hits, and it's a three-hour movie with, like, punishing volume. And scope and iMac. She didn't tell me until after. I didn't want to ruin it.
was like yeah i felt like i was gonna throw up the whole time and i was like what you should have just told me we could have left i know but then if i told you then you might have like felt like you wanted to like need to take care of me or go with me i didn't want to take it away from you dark night rises i want to john i want to i want to ask because what happened
with me so i saw this film with some other friends not with laura and then i was like holy fuck i need to see it again and so i forced laura to see it did you did you
Did you bring Tiffany to the theater? I forced her to watch it with me. I think I do it. There's movies every five years. I just go like, dude, you have to. Tiff is a little... uh forgetful uh and like uh you know when it comes to movies she's not like she's not clocking everything she sees the way i do and like keeping track of that and arguing with people on podcasts about them so like i i totally get it but like
I'll be like, every five years, I'll be like, you know what? Oh, fuck. You gotta watch this movie. Okay, we're watching Interstellar. I can't believe you. And she's like, yeah, no, I guess I've never seen it. And it's like, oh, man, I swear I would have. Okay, let's sit down, put it on. We put it on. We're like an hour in. She's like.
I've seen this. I've seen this a bunch of times. I remember. You know what I mean? I'm like, yeah, okay. So I'm like, I've already done this to you. That just happened recently with one of my favorite... uh with uh manhunter and i i just love that movie so much and it was like i did the exact same thing to tip i was like
Dude, man, this song is, I was like playing it in my car. She's like, this song rules. Where's this from? I'm like, dude, this is the song that the Tooth Fairy's listening to in his van before he goes in and fucking Manhunter. And she's like, wait, what's Manhunter? Is it In a God of the Vita? Which song was it? No, that's at the end. The one before he goes to Killian is like, Strong as I am. I'll send it to you guys. I listen to it all the time. This thing that scares me.
We're ready. We're going to do a Manhunter episode soon. Yeah, actually look forward to Manhunter in 22 or 23. So it's coming. That movie fucking. Yeah. And that's in that category of movies where I'm like, oh, Tiff, I can't believe. And she's like, I've watched this. And I'm like, okay, sorry, sorry. It's like we've been a couple for 20 years and we definitely are going to repeat some shit. So we have to deal. No, I think that's.
That's happened to us. I think we've definitely done that a few times. But yeah, in this case, I was like, Laura, you have to see this movie. So I dragged her to the theater. And I knew when I could run to the bathroom because it's a three-hour movie. So I was like, okay, I can run. I don't know if you went to the bathroom at all in that. I don't remember, Justin, if I peed in 2014. I'm sorry. You were like locked in. Justin, check your Laura bathroom.
journal that you keep. I think I blogged it on LinkedIn. Laura P. twice. Four stars. Laura P. twice. It's like, what the fuck is this review? I do. I mean, listen, after baby, I pee a lot. So that's a new our new rating. Oh, but I'm 40 and I take blood pressure medication and I'm not trying to take anything away from motherhood. But I I know you're. Every movie that's over two and a half hours long is a three-way fight between Cottonmouth...
Having to urinate and wanting to drink. I'm just sitting there like super stoned, but my mouth is dry. Giant fucking fountain water there, but also kind of having to pee.
finished fabelman's with like a newspaper mouth because i just i was like i can't sip any more water it's gonna just be the bridge too far so i was just like sat there like rattling and sprinted during the credits to the back that's dedication do you i have a question now about this do you uh time the credits like do you wait like okay i you know there's gonna be 10 credits so you go like at the 10th one it all it all depends like are you talking about trailers you mean
yeah trailers trailers excuse me excuse me yeah i usually now that i'm an amc like hey while we're talking fucking corporations using their money for Most of the theaters in LA have become AMC theaters for better or for worse. So I'm a, you know, a Stubbs member, you know, and so, and now. all of them play 30 minutes of trailers. So I just get to the movie like 22 minutes after. We have assigned seats too, so it doesn't feel crazy. And it's like, I just get there 22, like.
And I'm tired of watching trailers. I used to be addicted to trailers. I used to watch a trailer every time it dropped. I have this big, I'm sitting at it now, this huge monitor, and I'm like... Babe, you want to come in? We're going to put on the fucking blank trailer. I'm going to watch the trailer. Oh, sorry. It makes sense to have the backstory that Tiffany used to work in marketing making trailers. Oh, all right. I love trailers for like, guess what?
fucking property guess what ip's coming out get excited she likes it for like that's a good version of that so oh i that's whack like you can't do this and like so i but
Over the time, trailers started just ruining my movie-going experience. The first time I felt it was with the movie Nice Guys. The trailer had like... three punchlines that were ruined in the movie and i was like i would have liked i love that movie i would have liked it even more if i had not seen that so i now i try to avoid trailers which is impossible with going to see a movie once or twice a week with 30 minutes of fucking trailers
We watched the trailer for Tenet, I think, every single day since when it came out until... Yeah, basically until we saw it, which would have been a year after. A year plus, yeah. A year plus. We dropped it on Thanksgiving of 2019. Oh, John, I'll send you. And then you got to watch it December 15th, 2020. I'll send you this not to be released.
like for general release, but I actually edited our son to the Tenet trailer. I'll send it to you. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, because I was... He saw it a lot. I showed it to him a lot. Actually, Tenet became like his favorite movie for a moment because he watched all the action scenes. Tenet. He would request specific parts. He'd be like, I want...
the scene where they do inversion. And I was like, great, cue it up. Do you want inversion one or inversion two? Ambulance, tata. Ambulance, tata. Anyway, this is not a podcast about Tenet, but let's go back to Interstellar. And one of the things about them doing their jobs well, this does embody that in a way. There is a kind of knowing what you have to do in the moment and getting the job done that Cooper in particular...
embodies, but also Murphy. And in particular, like Murphy, both of them are faced with like this sort of impossible situation throughout the film. Like Murph is faced with the fact that Brandt hasn't been able to solve the gravity equation. And now they're just like, well, we're screwed. And she's like, well, we're just going to have to solve it, right? We're going to have to figure it out.
And that's when she goes. And again, it's love that like draws her back to her room. She gets, you know, she gets the watch and everything, which has the quantum data in it. And Cooper, you know, periodically is, you know, he's having to abandon his family and now he's going off into this journey.
He doesn't know whether he's going to come home or not. And I think it is one of those things. It's super brave, right? It's one of the most brave and... i don't know compelling things to have that kind of personal sacrifice because it's not just that he's sacrificing himself he's sacrificing potentially his relationship with his daughter which he which matters so much to him and yet he just he does it anyway because he's the only one that can pilot the ship which
honestly does seem a little bit ridiculous, but I grant the movie that like, he's the only one, he's the best pilot they've got. And I love it. I think it's great. And I think in the end, the final thing that he does is he drops himself into a black hole. Like, yeah, it's completely insane. Let's talk about that for a second, because everything you talked about, all of Coop Coop's bravery up to and including specifically this black hole thing is is bravery. Yes.
And it is in pursuit of exploration, but it's really in pursuit of protecting his family. And that's what's really interesting is that... love of his family is what makes him go into the black hole because that's the only chance that they can maybe fuck with time and get back right because like we learn that uh time
time it can be bent it can be wiggled but you can't reverse its flow or whatever is uh brant's great line big ann hathaway head over here happy to see her as like a fucking elite level scientist always i know she's so fucking awesome but But Cooper does a lot of his actions because they rush. They do that crazy cool ass landing on the water planet because it's everything is time is of the essence on this water planet. So.
He does this brave ass fucking awesome pull out of the water planet. He does that later on. He does the crazy. I refer to it as like the parallel parking thing. Like that docking sequence. Like he does all this crazy badass shit, but it's always because like.
Fuck, if I don't dock here, I'll never see my family again. And it's all about that. And in the beginning, you're kind of faulting him for that a little. Me, myself, trying to watch it as like a... we watch i watch a lot of sci-fi movies there's always people who disagree about and but always one of them is like low-key evil right like it's always like that person is trying to undo it or they're written as the bad guy in the like shut it down you know like that person
but like in this movie Brant and Cooper disagree like everyone disagrees but no one you don't look at any one of them and go shut the fuck you're wrong Right. Like and that's what's really interesting. It's like these all these like super geniuses and they're like arguing over the best way to do something, which is just so fucking cool and sort of like unrealistic to our version of society. But it's.
so thrilling to watch and every single step Cooper makes is for his family for love so love is like love is strong enough to fight time and to fight these the odds are against him in almost every like Doesn't TARS even call it out on the doc? It's like, that's impossible. It's not possible. And then Cooper says, no, it's necessary, which for someone in philosophy, in modal logic, that's actually not.
That can't happen. But anyway, it's great. All the modal logicians in the audience were chuckling. It's not possible. It's necessary. They're like, no, necessary implies possible. Sorry. That's a cool line, Jess. For sure. rules yeah and so like that the reason he's able to do that it's necessary for love and it's possible because of love did love get coop good at flying
No, but love is going to push him here. And specifically to see Murph and the kids and the family. And so that's just... so rad that he keeps making not necessarily the bad choice but he keeps making specific to i gotta get home choices yeah no yeah and brant is not thinking about home she's thinking about uh you know population bomb slash
Her lover. Edmonds. Edmonds. Yeah. Yeah. I love that she tries to, like I picked up on it this time, didn't really catch it all the other times. Like her making the case for Edmonds. does read as just like it's my boyfriend can we go please and like but
she's pitching the argument that Coop's going to need to make it through the rest of the film, to make it back home, to save the world or whatever. So it's really funny because you're like watching her and you're like, on the on this viewing you're like okay okay even though i know love is the thing that saves everyone but you're watching her going you just want to see edmunds okay i get it you want to say goodbye and then throw zygotes all over the planet and cross your fingers.
Then the growth is exponential. She would be like, yeah. No, go ahead. Well, there's a lot of like just sort of trying to like untangle people's motivations and whether or not people are motivated for the right reasons. Because of course this movie comes down on like. Love is something that is desperately needed in order for us to save ourselves and move forward. But, you know, in the moment where she's like, I think we should go to this planet. It seems really good. Data seems great.
Data seems great. It's not about my boyfriend. And McConaughey is calling her out like that's not a very scientific way to think. And of course, he's not thinking he when he prioritizes his family, when he wants to get home, he's has his own love motivations. But the scene where.
he's talking to Donald, which is like, we keep coming back to it. It's such a good scene before he goes. And he's not articulating that he needs to go because he needs to save his kids. And maybe that's because he's also trying to protect Donald just as he's trying to protect his children, not being like, I have to go.
Otherwise, you're all going to suffocate. But what he but the reason he articulates is because like I this is what I was made to do. And and Donald is like, that's kind of fucked up is what I mean, he doesn't he's not that harsh on it, but he is like. I think I think Coop says just because I feel that way, just because I'm excited to go do this, a part of me doesn't make it wrong. And Donald says it might actually. And that's the exact echo, I think, later when.
when Hathaway says, just because I want to go see. you know, this man that I loved doesn't make my instinct wrong. And McConaughey says, yeah, it does. And we're going to overrule you right now. Oh yeah. That's fine. I didn't even realize the match between that and the fucking Lithgow shit. It's tough, right? Like I think, and that's, and maybe.
this is a good time, Jess, if you want to talk a little bit about like the parenthood angle, which we don't want to talk too much about, but like that push and pull between wanting to be, to follow your own passions and the fact that those passions will take you away from your children. Yeah. I mean, that's a classic. It just comes up in all of his films. In a lot of movies and growing up, I watch a lot of old movies for Action Boys and a lot of them are like...
My wife says I'm not around enough for the kids. I like a lot of that shit. And that's so clearly the fucking heavily gendered male. directors and writers and producers all being like well i am a good dad because i'm working on the case and in this case the case is a movie that i'm making millions of dollars on like everybody just needs to hey i'm a good dad like
My father's generation is the generation of like, I put food on your plate. That's all I was required to do. And it's like, well, guess what? I'm 19. Don't need food anymore. Could use some love and some direction. And you can. I never got it. But hey, thanks. You know, 40 straight fucking spaghetti dinners or whatever, Pop. And so, like, I feel like a lot of directors got to wrestle with that. If Nolan's off in fucking New Orleans shooting the Dark Knight trilogy for like, you know.
28 months or whatever you're gonna be missing your kids it's gonna be it's like that's that's fucked right he almost missed like the birth of his fourth kid on a movie or something like that and that's like yeah and that's where he got the idea that was uh
that was dark night i think yeah yeah it was dark night and that's and then that was like triggered like inception and everything like how he was gonna like pitch and because he had inception for a long time but he didn't have the like emotional through line no totally i i think like but
The other dimension of parenthood, when it comes to that push and pull, what I think is interesting is that the film says, ultimately, you don't want to stray too far in one direction. So it's the marriage of the two. So you have, on the one hand, like... the desire to be with your loved ones and to help them. And then you also have the calculated plan B, right? Plan B is just like population bomb. Let's just do the, you know, make sure humanity survives like fuck everyone else.
And that's what Mann ultimately is doing, right? So Mann, when he hijacks the ship, he takes it from Cooper because Cooper has decided at that point, we're going home. Screw this. Brand lied. The mission is defunct. And Hathaway's like, okay, fine. She's convinced. Okay, we'll go back home. We'll just be with our families. And that's it. We'll be the last generation of humans to live.
But Mann has said like, no, I knew all along this was the plan. So I'm going to keep going. So he represents like, so I don't think of him as like a purely evil character because yes, he was selfish in that he wanted to like stay alive. But I think he is in that moment just trying to continue plan B, the plan that was always the plan as he knew it. But I think Nolan positions that as like, that's not good. It's not good to just be motivated solely by the numbers.
And it's also not good to just be motivated purely by love. Like you can't be blind to the rest of the world. You have to somehow like bring them together in a way. And ultimately Cooper is able to do that. Like, you know, he's able to sort of. have it both ways. And that's, like, the film's resolution of that conflict. It's a little bit of, like, a deus ex machina. But, like, you know, the Tesseract rules, so it's okay. But he is able to get them both, which is good.
I love that look on Matt Damon's face when he's like, there are others, right? When they wake him up, it's like, you're our only hope. And he knows he lied. And he's like, there are others, right? They're like. yeah no we went there no dice you're you're our only hope and you're just like that's good watching it having seen it you're like oh because you see damon be like okay well
Things are going to get hairy for me. And then when McConaughey is like, I'm going back, that's even scarier because it's going to be like. Now people are going to find out I was a coward, too. Yeah. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good point. Yeah, he doesn't want to get found out. Yeah, that's right. Because if he just strands them on the planet, then he'll be the hero forever.
They'll just have failed. Brutal. I didn't realize that. He does suck. I mean, I'm trying to defend him. I always try to defend the most indefensible character, but yeah, he does suck. Well, it's just like there's so much self-sacrifice going on in the movie to watch someone do sort of the exact opposite. It's perfect because it's completely understandable behavior from man. But...
In the instance of this movie, it makes him just an absolute prick. And it's funny, like, just like his will to survive. is just enough for us to be like, fuck that, dude. You know what I mean? And it's similar to fucking Coop's attitude of like, we got to make sure we get back. You know what I mean? It's like, it's not that far off. It's like one shade different. It just, Coop has that.
like man has that same thing that exploration energy and stuff but he it's the self-preservation leads all and for cooper it's about uh not self-survival but survival of his family and yeah just by design of that earth itself yeah right yeah and it's not about sacrifice it it kind of a lot of this movie goes by fast and
You know, it's worth just mentioning like Romilly, his part of his sacrifice is he has to sit on that spaceship for 20 years, for 23 years or something all by himself. That would be fucking terrible. The actor, I meant to look up his name. I have it queued up right here. David Gyasi or Gyasi. His acting.
is so fucking good to sell i just spent 23 years in this ship talking to a robot like he he like he's got like that fucking thousand yard fucking private pile stare and he's kind of like his vibes are completely different he's not
creepy and like that you know what i take back i wouldn't be man i would be uh romley because i'd be like no no i'm good i'll stand you know what i mean like oh i don't need a chair and then that's when it's like a five hour thing like that always happens to me oh i'll sit in the middle
I'll sit, bitch, in the back. I don't care. Oh, Gabrus, you're so big. I'm like, no, no, no, that's fine. How long of a ride is it? Oh, insane traffic. We're here for three hours. My knees hurt. Like, that would be me. I'd be like, oh, no, I can get some work done. You're going to be only gone for two years? Great. I'll bang out some shit on my lap.
I'll do some research on the black hole. And it's like, whoa, nine years have passed. Where is everybody? And he was the one who was the most freaked out about being in the ship. right he had already expressed like he had like the cabin fever already and he was worried and and so he needed the i don't know the music or whatever to calm him the bird the poor guy man yeah little birdies you're right about the sacrifice everyone is sacrificing
Actually, I'm going to bring another dimension of sacrifice. So the thing that I think the theme of the film that doesn't get talked about that much in things I've read about it, but I think it's... so much on the surface. And every time I watch it, I'm just like, it's screaming out at me. It's this idea of benevolent deception.
So all of the characters are constantly deceiving one another in what they think is the pursuit of the good. So lots of examples of this. Cooper doesn't tell Murphy's not coming back. At one point, they're like, why didn't you tell her that it might... you know, the age stuff. And he's like, well, I didn't have time to explain relativity to my daughter. Right. But it's also like, he doesn't, he needs to, and he says, he says as well, like, you know, you have to.
preserve a sense of hope i forget exactly safety you want your children to feel safe children feel safe exactly that's that like situation of like you're as a parent in the situation of trying to protect the innocence of your children by deceiving them and that sucks. That's a sacrifice that you have to make because your relationship with them might be forever irreparably damaged. She does forgive him, but it is like there's a long stretch of time where...
she feels incredible resentment towards him, like that he's just abandoned her. That is an insane thing to live with. And to know that you had to do it, I think that's a huge sacrifice. But Brand also does it. I'm talking about Professor Brand. he lies to everyone basically to get them to get on the ship and leave because he's like, well, if I had told you the equation didn't work, you wouldn't have left.
And he's right. Cooper would not have left if he didn't think there was a chance. Now, his is obviously the hardest one to, like, wrap your head around. Like, Dr. Brandt's... Like, that deception is like... too far for me because it doesn't feel like it's it's not protecting any singular person it's hurting more people than it's protecting in a way whereas like coop going coop lying to murph
only hurts Murph and Coop. Doesn't hurt anyone else involved with the project. Brandt, like, these people could have spent more time with their loved ones. Like, they could have, you know, you could have... Stayed home and tried to invent a mask that helps fucking combat dust or whatever. More options for these people. But I guess I just don't understand why.
first of all no other scientist is like wait brand have you tried the time thing like there's too much stuff going on there like that it drives me a little fucking bananas like where it's like yeah should we go check on brand's equation it's like no he says he hasn't solved it yet and then you're like yeah people are taking off under the auspices of like don't worry we will be we'll finish this thing while you're gone it's like wait what why like
That bothered me, and I think we're supposed to be bothered by it, obviously, because he's not pursuing the unknown there. He's not exploring. He's not even trying to solve for what he's missing. He's just trying to get... plan b to happen right like he's just pushing exactly towards plan b and like exactly you gotta tell your guy what his mission is like you gotta explain like they gotta know all the parameters like you can't send someone to their death without them knowing it's like
there is no plan for you to return is a little different than uh and who knows what's gonna happen like well on this one it burned me so extra hard for some reason i guess because I've been so pissed about the idea of bosses and shit lately, and it feels like that's just childish. I feel like, and you're supposed to protect Murph. She's a child. Fucking Cooper is a grown-up ex-military fucking rocket.
a pilot scientist engineer genius it's like talk to him on his fucking level dude like it's like that's so rude and like ostensibly we're supposed to understand that like at seven years old Murph went to that NASA station and started learning under Dr. Brandt or like Dr. Brandt oversaw her getting a rapidly accelerated like education. So he worked alongside her for.
15 years 30 years and never was like like she never picked up on it he he didn't at one point go like i gotta fucking tell her we could get a 20-year head start on solving this like it's so fucked up man like it but i get it? on the deathbed scene but when you really start to unpack it you're like why would you not it's so unscience of him I guess is like part of my problem that's true yeah no it it's it's cold it's calculated here's my here's my explanation I mean you have to I think
give a certain license to the film to make it make sense, but here's the way I would pitch it. Brand has decided that Cooper has to fly in order for them to have any success at Plan B. That's one thing. So for some reason, he's the only one. And I can forgive that because it's like an extremely reduced population base. So there's not that many good pilots. Okay, so I'm like, fine. But then two...
I think Brand thinks it's possible that Cooper will be able to come back. So he'll be able to do the population bomb thing and then fly home. I think he does think that's possible. And I think they say they have enough fuel to... to do it if they don't explore all the planets. So there's like, he's like thinking, all right, there's like a chance that he'll be able to make it back. And three, I think he thinks Cooper won't go if he isn't lied to.
right so he just and so he's sort of thinking like he has like if m justifies the means yeah yeah exactly if we have any chance of preserving humanity this is it and and you know I agree that it's wrong. I totally agree. Partly because I don't think there's really much value in preserving humanity. just laying it out there. So I've already talked about this on other episodes, but I don't, I don't think there's very much value to humans in general. I like the, I like the case because like,
Even the idea of a population using the phrase population bomb, by the way, is definitely not unspecited, like unchosen. Like the idea that when we find this planet, you know, fucking Kepler 69 B or whatever.
and we drop a population bomb on it, slowly that fallout will just kill the planet. The fallout being exponential growth of the human race on their planet will eventually... destroy their planet just like we did to earth just like and it's like it's there's something like to not to get on the side of evil genius justin here but like yeah what like we're gonna just
decimate fucking whatever planet we put these people like you know what i mean we're just gonna get back to fucking uh dust bowl like immediately Not immediately, but like without, if we don't try to steer it. Yeah, yeah, 2,000 plus years. It'll take, but it just feels, it's really.
it feels like why why is it important that strangers the bloodline of like that humans just exist like that feels narcissistic and to tie it back into like the uh evil genius tech overlords we're talking about like all this shit that they're all trying to like biohack their bodies to like live longer and have kids more uh every one of them has like a plethora of kids with a plethora of women like you know pushing up and it's like my genes and like there's like this weird Mm-hmm
I'm going to throw out the really, there's a U word there a little bit. It's a little eugenical, and it feels uncomfortable. And then, like, I think this population bomb extends. I would understand why NASA would come up with that plan. But who, they're right. Who on earth would be like, if the plan was exposed, it's like your tax dollars are going to sending jizz and eggs to another planet. You'd be like, oh, wait, what?
Fuck, dude. We can have masks and food here and shit. Maybe like filter water. And that's interesting because it's like even plan B sucks. Yeah. It totally sucks. But that is, okay, just to go back to Elon Musk. So we just talked about this. This is going to be in the next episode coming right after this. But we just talked to Roxanna Haddadi about Inside Man. And we talked about the philosophical view.
Very good movie. Very fun. We talk about effective altruism and the philosophical view of long-termism. And the idea of long-termism is to try to create... We should have as many... We should try to aim to maximize... like the well-being of as many human beings, including those into the distant future. And so we should be taking action now to preserve humanity as long as possible, because potentially there could be like trillions and trillions of people in our future.
should be like trying to help them even at the expense of helping people here and there and that's exactly what the trade-off that has been given in this film. Plan B is just like, yeah, screw these people. Who cares? Let them die. Let's just go and keep humans going off on Alpha Centauri or wherever they head out.
So, yeah. That long-term shit is super stressful. I'm sure I don't want to eat too much into it, but I'm obsessed with it, too. Oh, yeah, yeah. You've been reading about it? Yeah, I've been reading a lot about it. The Chapo Trap House guys were just fucking going in on it. because there is something there is something like these people want their popular but they're good at computers like i get it if you're trying to make a probably like you're getting eugenical about the future and you're like
They're not necessarily genetically intelligent or genetically superior in any, like they don't have necessarily good genes. They currently have good jobs. that doesn't you don't need good genes to get into a good job and it's just like hey i work at this cool company and it's like let's just have and it's like well what if the future has nothing to do with coding like what if we what if we need to be what if we need farmers like
Well, cool. Your bloodline of, you know, 12 kids having 12 kids each having 12 kids each having 12 kids 12 kids each of. guys who do ruby on rails that doesn't fucking necessarily help society john did you have you heard this thing maybe they've talked about it but like there's some i think it's like is some very high percentage of currently alive human beings. I think it's like 1% or 2% are descended from Genghis Khan. Yes, I have.
recurring character on action boys charles bronson is alleges to be a descendant of uh genghis khan as well and he kind of looks like him in the drawings and the pictures of genghis khan which is kind of chicken egg who did what came first but Yeah, that shit is bananas because he just had ran through Eurasia, like hit every stop, hit every town around here.
Like young Gabrus in first semester of freshman year of college. That's right. That's right. And so Elon Musk is our current Genghis Khan, right? He's our overlord. That's like the ultimate display of masculinity is to have dominated.
the gene pool I guess in terms of the production of the propagation of your genes yeah look at Laura's face this is such a bummer I'm so bummed out y'all should we go back to interstellar yes let's go back to interstellar because fucking Elon needs love uh and love is the only thing dude you
How can we trust a guy from apartheid South Africa who's insistent on having a lot of children? It just feels too, it feels too there. It feels too on the nose. It feels too like, told you guys, we warned you about this. But I really like, while we're just... Romilly when they're when Romilly and Doyle are kind of talking like now there's no way to go back. Nope can't happen. And then after Doyle died like shit goes settles down Romilly kind of walks past Cooper and goes.
You know, on the way back, who knows what could happen by the black hole. I get such a huge, insane conceit, but he kind of just passes it off to Cooper. He's like. I don't know, get really close to the black hole. No one's ever done it. No one's ever drove through the middle or whatever. And he's like, okay, cool. And that's just such two brilliant geniuses going like, hey.
Crazy fucking idea. What if you drove directly into it? And that's what saves the movie. It's so awesome. It's like, hey, crazy pitch. Do the craziest fucking thing you could possibly imagine. He's like, oh yeah, I might check that out. The way they go through it with like the ships dropping off with one with TARS in it and then like revealing that his ship is also being dropping. You're like, oh, man. And it's just not just. And then the wormhole travel.
you know a stony 40 year old is just like a dream i'm just watching that with the fucking zimmer score which i've been blasting all i had to run errands all day zimmer score cranking out of the fucking sunroof here in LA. Weird looks at lights for sure. It's like, I'm just there and it's like. I do think it is Zimmer's like most distinctive score. I mean, the organ stuff is incredible.
Sorry, what were you going to say, Laura? No, I was just thinking, so this happened after they went to Miller's planet, the water planet, right? So... When they talk about the black hole stuff. When Rob was like, hey, should we just like jump into that black hole? Maybe he's been like practicing that really cash delivery for 20 years. Because he's like been thinking about it for a really long time.
So he's like off the top of the dome, you know, like I haven't been thinking about it for 20 years. But like, what if we jumped in a black hole? What if you jumped in a black hole? I'm not fucking going in that black hole. He's like, I don't even listen to my birds. You go ahead and jump in there. Tell me what you get. Imagine the rest of the crew's family is like...
Oh, hi, Romilly. Is Cooper back yet? And they're like, no, sorry. He's like, okay, well, I'll try again next year. Romilly's just answering the phone. Oh, he's always like, oh, thank God it's for me. and i can talk to my loved one back home for a little bit that okay but actually that brings us to the like when people complain about nolan not being emotional i mean
Yeah, that scene. That scene when he gets all the beamed messages over 17 years or whatever. And he watches his kids grow up in like five minutes. I mean... I don't think there's ever been a scene quite like that. And we spoke with Tom Schoen, who wrote the Nolan Variations book. And I just have to shout out to him because he described it.
in that book in the most sort of beautiful way. He said it was like an emotion he had never experienced before. And it really is something really special because it's this combination of like realizing the... the majesty of the universe and how complex and overwhelming it is it's kind of which is sometimes called the sublime the feeling of the sublime of like being in awe of the universe and at the same time you know
having this incredibly personal moment with your loved ones. And that mixture, I've never seen that before. And it's really moving. It's incredibly affecting, partly because of McConaughey's performance. But also partly because Nolan knows how to, he elevates the stakes at each, right? So McConaughey's crying when he sees his kids, his...
you know, Tom for the first time. Then he's crying harder when Tom's growing up. Oh, Tom has a kid. Now I'm crying even more. And then, but you don't think you could get any more, you know, sad. then Murph shows up. No, then Tom's kid dies, then Murph shows up. Right, okay, sorry. Yeah, Jesse. It's like, holy shit, he just experienced a lifetime in a second, right? And...
And that is like the, you know, when he like just read the Wikipedia on his kids life. Yeah. Yeah. It's like a fucking wild. Like, Oh shit. I actually heard red death first. Oof. Like, uh, I just watched The Fableman, so it's fresh in my mind a little bit, but that movie features a lot of beautiful scenes of someone's face watching something else.
and conveying exactly what michelle williams is going through what uh young sam fabelman's going through or in this case like this is one of the best examples i've ever seen this and like uh what's the George C. Scott, hardcore. That's another famous one where he sees his daughter in an adult film. But this feels like watching his face and then the fucking... TV light we're super in the future advanced time dilation fucking dominoes robots like all this shit is happening
All this shit is happening. And then we get like the glow, like the most familiar feeling of the glow of a TV on someone's face. Like that is like nostalgic as fuck, you know. how it feels to be in the dark with the glow of your TV, you know what that looks like. And then for Makane to fucking take us through those emotions, it's just, and you're just hearing snippets of audio.
Fucking magical. Yeah. Yes. Justin, you are 100% right. Everyone throws shit like, hey, I'm not emotional. There's no emotion. That's just because in the two-and-a-half-hour movie, he puts 95% of the emotions in a one-minute sequence. But that is a crystallized emotion. You understand it all. We feel the consequences of the... We heard the fear of the time dilation. Now we've straight up experienced the consequences. Exactly.
And when people explain, like, all this stuff is based on Einstein. And, like, when Einstein would run thought experiments, they would be like, oh, you know, you go, and then two twins go, and one travels close to a black hole or goes across this... of light and he comes back and he's really old and isn't that funny and that's how it's portrayed and i think to nolan
He's like, okay, that's amazing. I love that. That's super cool. Let's make that into something where that has emotional resonance. And I think that's so cool. Like the fact that he wants to do that. To me, it shows he's not an emotionless filmmaker. I think part of the reason he gets a rap on the emotionless pit is that I think he's really...
overly reliant on dialogue. And I think that a lot of the times characters like are telling you what they're feeling more than they're showing it. And I think that is, this just doesn't come across that well. And I think, you know, That's just maybe, you know, the kind of person he is. But this film, in that moment, that is like, you know, that is like the purest, you know, we're just experiencing it. Like, he's not saying anything in that moment. I don't think he has a single...
line of dialogue in that five-minute stretch or whatever. And it's just, I mean, yeah, it's incredibly moving and incredibly effective. But yet, to Sean's point, it's mixed with this other weird thing. the realization of the enormity of the universe and our smallness within it. And so there's this kind of like, oh yeah, and I'm also like, we don't understand this. This is so intense and so extreme that like...
It's like we're confronting something that's so insane that we can barely comprehend it. So it's that mixture of the two. And I think that is what Nolan is so good at, for me at least. The emotions are there, but it's like... it's connected with this other really intense feeling that you kind of only get when you like, I don't know, open a physics textbook or something and start to think about like...
how insane black holes are. Or like how big the universe is, right? Like when people talk about like the magnitude of the universe or the improbability of life developing because of like what the cosmological constants have to be. It's, you know, had the narrow range of values they had to be in order for life to develop. It's like infathomable that we would come to exist. And that, you know, it's also sort of infathomable, weirdly, that...
we would be the only ones that exist in this massive universe. So it's like really an interesting thing to contemplate, like how big everything is and how rare life is.
If my wife is listening to this podcast right now, she just is about to have a panic attack. The second you start talking about the size of the universe, she gets really genuinely overwhelmed. It's really funny. It's crazy. She'll start being like, it's making... me nauseous there's just so much space it's infinite oh you know like and it's it's so it's so you're right he just touched down on another planet yes he lost like 40 50 years of his
of earth time but he is like he just shot through a fucking wormhole that somebody put there for him arguably him he put there for himself uh and is now fucking bat like He's got everything he's ever wanted, and then he's just getting every single consequence delivered to him at the exact right after he's done. Right, right, right. Oh, you completed the great American work that you've been working on forever. Great.
While you were busy with that, here are the fucked up things that happened to your family, your loved ones in the earth. And you're like, no, that's exactly right. No, that's exactly right. That's it's like Nolan's worst nightmare. I mean, in a way, because I feel like these are like these are such like.
To me, Nolan concerns there. I mean, they're everyone's concerns, but he's made his entire career based off of this issue of family and work and all that sort of thing. Well, you hear parents talk about like... oh, I was at work so much or I was on location so much that I watched my kid grow up on FaceTime or in videos. And that is just like the interstellar version of that. Yeah, it's just like.
Watching all of the fucking videos your babysitter sent you over 40 years back to back. It's like bananas. I wasn't there for any of that, but that...
Doesn't matter because that won't exist if I don't finish my current project, too. Exactly. It's such a cool... Anyway, I love it. Can I try to... Okay, sorry. Before, I want to talk about... your favorite nolens but before we do that can i try to explain how time dilation works can i before we get into time dilation because i i i'm very curious can we talk about
just the robots for a second because yeah don't worry we're gonna do some tars let's do some tars now let's talk tars uh it's such a rich like the idea that the robot is so simple it's advanced like everything about it is just good fun sci-fi it's like the the humor factor the lying thing and how that comes into play like across the uh like through other characters and shit like that i i really
on this viewing like soaked up these two giant like fucking slabs like i i i really dug them it's like the design of them is awesome the voice acting is amazing like they make me emotional Like when they make jokes and stuff like, and I'm like.
I'm watching a fucking black box with audio coming out of it, and I'm being so affected by it in this movie where everything is kind of weirdly sterile, but these robots bring something. And when... on this viewing was the first time ever when brand's like wait no you have to ask tars to do that yeah me so fucking hard i was like oh my god right they expect so much of these robots and then later on you're like
shit that's kind of what brant did to fucking cooper too it's like i kind of told him what he had to do i didn't give him i didn't let him have an option just on this one the tar the tar shit just really really got me like there's such when he's like racing to go save her like when uh the The guy dies. He's like, go! And he turns into a rolling asterisk. Yes, that's one of my favorite moments. Rolling asterisk. It's totally surprising. He jumps into his arms. Scoop.
Oh my gosh, I love it when he starts rolling through that water. That's definitely a top moment for me. It's surprising because you don't really know how they move at that point yet. We know that they kind of do the gorilla walk with their arms. they walk like animatronic scissors. They walk like the wall, like two hammers in the wall. Yeah. I love the way these things move. They have, they clearly thought a lot about it. Like there's, there's so many, I feel like they're like,
Funny, not just in the dialogue, but when they're getting ready to go on Miller's Planet, they're like, OK, is everybody ready? And they're like getting ready. And McConaughey's like, Coop's like, go, go, go. Every second counts. And you just see like in the background, TARS is like just like sliding in. He's horizontal.
know why he just sort of glided he's like I'm ready to go and I don't know why I thought it was so funny this time around oh my gosh I robots make me really emotional I don't know what it is Justin knows this like the movie Chappie I cried the whole runtime of choppy. I just, I can't handle it when people are mean to robots. Yeah. When they start like, when they start like, um, beating him and like breaking bottles over his head and stuff. Did you watch?
Did you watch Short Circuit at a formidable part of your childhood? No, she never did. So I know I'm going to get her to watch Short Circuit one and two. Don't worry. Ignore the Indian face. Well, that's the thing. I know. That's what I always say. I'm like, isn't that the one?
the brown face yeah justin's like okay but like there's other stuff that's good about this movie that you need to see but i'm also like i'm like afraid because it makes you pity robots yeah like yeah you'll you'll feel it the movie activates he gets like when he's like getting bullied you're like
robot it's johnny five no yeah you're gonna lose it with short circuit i'm sorry it's probably partly why i haven't showed i know it's like you just have to be prepared for me to be dehydrated afterwards you know and puffy My favorite part of TARS is when they're going up on the wave, and then they start coming down, or I don't know, they're getting tossed around by the wave.
he grabs Hathaway and then he's like, yeah, you see the arms? Yeah. It's great. I just, I'm like, yeah, this robot rules. I always liked those characters actually like who are kind of. robotic but got the job done. One of my favorite characters in Deep Space Nine was Odo.
Odo always like, just felt like he was like, he was the security officer. He was a shapesifter and kind of like a weirdo, but he always seemed to get the job done and like handle himself. Anyway, so I always, I always relate well to the characters who have no emotions and do their job. Well, that's lovely to hear from a partner. It's spot on. If I could paint by numbers on an MIT professor. Yeah.
Justin's learning about the spectrum of human emotion. Whenever I like learn about how to like handle like a toddler's big feelings, I'm telling Justin that and he's like. Sort of counterintuitive. And I'm like, fun fact, it works for adults, too. They can validate their feelings. Justin's like, ew. And I'm like, you know what doesn't work is immediately trying to solve the problem that they're emotional about. Or telling them that.
It's irrational to be emotional about that thing. Really, there's nothing. Think about it. You're stressed about this, but stress doesn't add any help to you. That's like the brain where you're like, hey, Spock. Go back in the fucking chamber. Go back to bed, baby. I learned my lesson on that one. I mean, we had a lot of fun fights over those things back in the day. And then we figured it out. I'm not always trying to solve the problem when I tell you something that's upsetting me.
One of my colleagues has a podcast where he talks to other philosophers and he talked to, I don't know who it was, but they said the exact same thing. But they say it like I said it. They were like 40, and they were like, oh, I learned that people really just want you to just nod and listen and tell them that you're sorry about how they're feeling. And I was like...
Fuck, yeah, I did learn that. I learned it earlier than 40, but... But later than I should have, yeah. Yeah, it was late in life. It was several partners later who had yelled at me for this shit. You're like, okay, maybe... it's not all women who are wrong. Okay, on the sixth time, I'm going to look in the mirror here. I think one of the thrilling things about the robots to bring us back to going off of lack of emotion, bringing us back to robots, and I feel like...
Something that the robots represent in a meta way, in a production way, is that amount of thought that goes into shit. I've seen 100 movies that feature hypersleep. This is the movie I think where I understood it the most, even though they don't explain it. We just see how people react to it. We see what happens when someone doesn't get into it. When man says like.
And I didn't even set a wake up time this time. And when Romilly is like, well, I didn't want to be asleep forever in case you guys didn't come back. Like all these things. It's like. and nolan's thought that out and that's like it plays into the robots it plays into how the endurance works with the lander like a lot of that stuff like it makes you feel again for like if i neurodivergency you feel like
You feel safe when you're like, yes, they've thought about a lot of stuff. And that makes you feel the cold science stuff that's going on. is making me feel safe because it's like, oh, we're in a rich movie. They've thought about TARS. They've thought about hypersleep. When this movie first came out, the Kip book, I remember being like, like the buzz around it was...
It's a sci-fi movie where the science all works. It's the way people are talking about it. Then you saw the movie and you were like... Okay. I think we need to rephrase. There is a love Tesseract. Yeah. Yeah. No, but, but, but that, the love Tesseract. But that, that feeling of.
I think what I, I call it like being in good hands, you know, like, like when you, when you feel like the director like knows what they're doing, they've thought it through. You're going to have a question. Don't worry. They've thought of that question. They have the answer to that question.
It's not going to have a bunch of like unmotivated plot details or something like that. It's going to be consistent and coherent. And the other thing about it, it's not just that, I guess. It's also like knowing that it's going to have a cool ass payoff at the end.
You know, and like, that's the thing. I had no idea where this film was going when I first saw it. Every beat, I was like, okay, I don't, okay, what are they going to do now? Like, what the fuck are they, you know, like, by the point where he's about to drop in the black hole, I was like. I don't know where this is headed, but I trusted Nolan. That's the thing. And another filmmaker who might not...
or have earned that trust in me, I might've just signed off. I might've just been like, well, this is, there's no narrative momentum. I don't really, right. You need usually like the Hitchcock thing is you, you put your, you give them a goal, right. You give them like the ticking bomb. that needs to be disarmed. And so now you know, okay, that's what has to be solved. That's why heist films are so satisfying.
Yeah. You got to get this thing out of the bank, right? Okay, goal set. But this film, the goal was like not clear because it wasn't like they're necessarily going to be able to get back home. It wasn't like they could solve the mission.
So I was like, what is going to happen? And then when he goes into the black hole, I thought, okay, this is crazy. And I remember thinking, but again, I'm strapped in, I'm locked in, I know Nolan's going to handle it. And then when he hits that Tesseract, I was just like... this is fucking awesome. Because then at that point, I realized that was the moment I realized like, okay, they're going to do the clause, the causal loop, he's gonna
He's going to talk to his daughter through gravity and all that shit. And you're just like, all right, yeah, he's pulling it all back together. All that shit he let, you know, all those like little breadcrumbs he gave you, those are all going to add up now. It's so satisfying. It is so satisfying. Like, yeah, just. I don't know. Also, John, if you've watched on YouTube or in the special features, they built that Tesseract set. It's not CGI. It's not a green screen. They just built it.
And so you can watch the behind the scenes of like McConaughey floating in this thing where they, what they did was the other crazy thing is some parts of it are extended with CGI, but. Not the parts you might have thought. So when there's like a bookcase that's being extended and it's all shimmery, that's not CGI.
that is them using projectors to project stuff behind the bookcase. So it's like all practical or almost all practical. That's a fucking dream, man. And that's why it feels, that's why it doesn't feel absolutely corny like he's in the fucking phantom zone or whatever.
at the end like that's what makes it feel substantial and have some fucking meat or something to latch onto when you're in there because that is like texture in depth you gotta push it you're in a bananas situation in the movie it's like yes you've been along for the sci-fi ride but now we're in a fourth dimension set up by fifth dimensional beings. We don't even know. What is the fifth dimension? Is that explained? I can try to explain it if you want. Oh, yeah.
We said before we get to time dilation. But time dilation, actually, it's helpful to have the fifth dimension to explain it. All right, everybody get ready for some graphs. All right, let's get into it. Let's get into diagram. So think of like this. So we experience space in three dimensions, right? You got up, down.
forward, back, left, right. Right. So there's three dimensions, but physicists think there's really time is the fourth dimension. So you have to sort of think of it like, like a circle is to a sphere, like a circle is two dimensions, spheres, three dimension. So what is a four-dimensional sphere? It would be like a sphere snake, right? It would be like a thing extended in a four-dimensional. So the tesseract is a four-dimensional cube. That's what a tesseract is.
Okay, so now what's the fifth dimension? So it's a cube that's like, that's a cube snake. It's like a cube snake. And then the way it's often represented is like, you can see diagrams of these, like two dimensional diagrams of these things.
it yeah it's kind of like a cube inside of a cube when you when you see the actual diagram of it anyway okay so uh now think of so to think of five dimensions we actually can't conceive of it because uh our brains just can't do it so what we do what they do is they say okay take one of the previous dimensions and like eliminate it and now now so you you take like um
Height or whatever. Well, actually, eliminate two of the dimensions. That's the easiest way to do it, honestly. So take now like a flat plane and say like one dimension. You have one dimension of space and one dimension of time. Okay, so you have like a flat.
sort of surface. And now we don't have three dimensions. You have space, you know, but whatever. Okay. So now think of this space as itself being malleable, right? So you can twist and bend it. What are you twisting and bending it in the fifth dimension? That's the fifth dimension is what it's being twisted and bent in. Because it's outside of the space, for lack of a better term. It's outside. Exactly. There's another dimension that's outside of the four we're now representing with just two.
Okay, but now think of, take a big, so imagine it's like, the way physicists think of this is like, it's a rubber sheet. So think of it like a big rubber sheet. And in a rubber sheet, if you put a really heavy object on a rubber sheet, it will bend it, right? If like you were... suspending a rubber sheet and then you put like a big ball in the middle would like bend that that sheet in the middle and would create a big indentation in it
And so now that's what gravity is supposed to be. So gravity is supposed to be like a large object bending space-time. So what it's doing is it's like curving the coordinates around it. Okay. Now, remember, it's not just bending space, it's bending time. So one of those dimensions that it's bending is time. Okay, so here's how I think of time dilation. And again, this took a lot to get to this point, but I think this is not...
really entirely accurate, but it's close as accurate as I can understand. So the speed of light is constant, right? This is one of Einstein's constants. So it sort of moves across this... time dimension at the same rate. So it kind of traverses space-time at the same rate. But now think of the bend that's induced by gravity slash the large object. So now what it's doing is if you take like, if suppose you had on the sheet like...
five lines, like those are like going to be measured like the light speed, right? So it'd be like five clicks of the light speed. Think of those as like your heart beats, the beats of your heart. So each time you go forward, it's one heartbeat, right? And then forward is another heartbeat and so on. Okay, so now you've got five lines lined up and then you've got five lines lined up next to each other. So that's like two people's heart beating in parallel.
Now, one of these guys goes through a bent space-time. So now his heartbeats are elongated, right? So they're elongated both in space and in time. So it's like he got longer. And so his heartbeats relative to the guy with the shorter heartbeats are each going to be longer. So he's going to have fewer of those heartbeats.
covering the same distance as the guy with the not-bent space-time. And that is time dilation. So he's experiencing time at a different rate? Yes. Or... time is acting at a different rate whether he's whatever whatever whoever's feeling what so those longer heartbeats they both come out on the other end of this rubber sheet and the person with
longer heartbeats would be less aged exactly they would be younger yeah because they would have like i'm seven heartbeats younger than you or exactly then when i then we both started the exact same heartbeat okay that That's really... I can't believe my nose is bleeding. Justin's eyes rolled up back into his head as he was explaining it. It took quite a bit of energy to figure that out. And I don't understand the math, honestly.
understand the math but conceptually that is the best way i could understand it and it makes sense like the heavier the ball yeah the kind of longer the route you have to exactly ostensibly you're taking the same path but like it's feeling like you have that extra that extra time that it would take to go around the weight, the ball, the gravity. Yeah. It's like, it's like your foot.
steps got bigger almost or something like that so you could cover more ground with fewer footsteps that's another way of thinking of it and anyway for me but the crazy thing about this is that because it's elongating the time part and the space part that's the part that took me so long to get my head around is that you're...
It's the two dimensions of space and time together are like one. So you're like simultaneously elongating one and the other. That's why when you're undergoing it, you don't experience it any differently. It just feels normal. So that's why when they're on the planet, they're not like... whoa they're just they're just like moving normally because the two dimensions warp at the same rate or whatever yeah
And anyway, the black hole is the most extreme version of this. So what they call a singularity is where space and time are bent to infinity, basically. Now, that has nothing. There is like another... Singularity has another meaning with AI, right? Yes, that's right. And those have nothing in common, right? No. AI singularity is the moment when AI...
is able to reproduce intelligent AI on its own, I think. That's the singularity. That's the Terminator 2. Both singularities are totally terrifying. But, yeah, it's cool. I mean, that's the kind of shit that, like, you know, if I was 12 and I was learning about this, I think I would have been really excited. Like, as a philosopher, like, that's the kind of stuff that really... is exciting and interesting about the physics. Like all I was learning in high school physics was like...
you know, rolling balls down inclined planes and shit. And I was like, this is like mediocre. Because I was doing more advanced math at the time when I was doing physics. So it was always like, well, we can't do the real math. So we're just going to do this baby math. And I was like... Let's do the fucking real math. Like, come on. And they wouldn't teach it to us. And so I always just felt like it was like baby math. That's what it always felt like. And then I never pursued it later.
because I was an arrogant asshole or something. I don't know. I probably should have. But stuff like this that really, I don't know, it's so cool. Yeah. Laura doesn't give a shit about anything. No, I think you're wonderful. I just don't have this in my body. Because I remember, I remember like, we, we like.
had a little we you could take regular geometry or you could take um non-euclidean geometry that's where you get rubber sheet geometry and all that right and this was like a ninth grade i remember they say like It was taught by a PhD, actually. We called him Dr. whatever. I can't remember. But anyway, he came in and he did a demo for the Algebra 2 kids to be like, do you guys want to do this? And he was like, well, think about it this way.
When you have a triangle, you can't have two right angles. but you can if the triangle's on a sphere. Boom. And I was just like, check, please. I will be taking regular geometry. This sounds scary. I think I like Euclid. I'm more of a Euclid gal. Bye. He's like, can I blow your mind? And I was like, I will be a corn farmer. Thank you.
I'll be burning your crops so I can steal your kids away. Joke's on me, though, because I married somebody. He's always like, can I show you this diagram that I drew? I need to rewatch Tenet so that I can diagram it for you. It better be Euclidean, Justin. Yikes.
so wait John so okay so to come back to Nolan I want to ask you like as as we're sort of wrapping up I want to ask you like you know where in the Nolan filmography Interstellar falls for you and like what some of his other you know what are other manola movies you love and that kind of thing i i mean i love inception of course uh just hot
hot dudes beautiful women too but hot dudes and suits with guns and shit like that's just all for me you know what i mean it's like it's like heat in your mind like the movie in your mind and it's like that Heat, dream heat? Like, that's literally, like, that fucking rules. But I think Interstellar might be my fucking favorite. I curse so much. My favorite Nolan. I feel like.
I can't get enough of it. And I like Prestige. I love Dunkirk. I like all the Dark Knight movies, but I got to say, it goes into interstellar Inception. I'm excited for Oppenheimer. I can't. This is one of those instances where you're like, someone's like, they're making a movie about Oppenheimer. I don't give a fuck.
Christopher Nolan's making a movie about Oppenheimer. Christopher Nolan's making a, that's going to be really interesting. And I have not like, it's so stupid of me. Like just fucking first thought dumb of like, well, Christopher Nolan. I...
I am so happy to like lean over to my wife and be like, Oppenheimer invented the atomic bomb. You know, like I'm like, that's good. And Nolan telling that story, that's enormous. I don't give a fuck about it for some reason. But Nolan, like he brings that power.
You know what I mean? I want to watch him make every genre because I like the effort he puts in. A lot of his movies feature funny moments, but I think Interstellar features some of the purest straight... jokes like characters cracking jokes and and them landing and that feels so un Nolan like as well it is funny that most of the comedy is given to a robot like that's a fun uh something to analyze about Nolan's idea of humor
Jonathan, I read your first draft. I feel like we need to bring humor up to 90%. You know that Oppenheimer apparently... was one of the people who did early work on black hole physics, like on some of the early physics, like black hole stuff. So, so there's a bunch of through lines. Cause there's that there's the shout out in tenant. Like, I think like.
He's circling these themes of these scientists who are pushed to the extreme. Well, the Oppenheimer thing, upon watching Interstellar, when it's like... you're making drones to do this. And like, we could be made. And it's like the atomic bomb is like the, like, the theoretical the uh distillation of that idea of like we have unlimited knowledge it's like cool i figured out a way to destroy populations of other people and it's like no we could like we could have
We could have a microwave that makes things cold really fast. Like, come on. Like, we put in so much money into, like, weapons and shit. It's like the NASA shit is like the dream. Like, let's give us some hope. We have... The ocean is as undiscovered as space. I would like to see Nolan do an underwater movie, much like my man Cameron. I would like to see Nolan go underwater or even more directly up against E.
ecology shit. I just like Nolan's perspective, his fucking fully right-brained perspective on this stuff. It's just so appealing to me. Yeah, I would... I'm trying to think, is there a genre you would want Nolan to do, Laura? Or anything he hasn't done yet? I mean... I don't know if Nolan would work well in horror, but I'd be curious about it. I think this has got some, maybe it's just space has horror elements generally, but this is the one that I, the movie that I feel the most in my body.
Um, so I'd be curious. Do you know what I want, John? Tell me what this, tell me what you think of this Nolan fantasy movie or Nolan, like middle ages, right? Like middle ages makes more sense. Cause that's like that grounding. Yeah. Yeah. Out dude. I'm a fantasy fucking nut. If you give me a Christopher Nolan movie and we got fucking some of his class, we got Leo Dio and fucking T. Hardy rocking swords and axes and shit.
I'm going to have to rent out the entire theater to myself. Speaking of rubber sheets, I'm going to need rubber sheets for a different reason. I'm going to be doing my own science experiments.
I just think, yeah, I feel like, well, I don't know, we talked a little bit about- A period piece like that much of a period piece from Nolan rather than just his sort of everything takes place in contemporary- and the 1920s at the same time like yeah yes yes it's a victorian era uh the 40s or now or future i guess uh but yeah i would love to see him go back and like you know
Because I think there's a lot of untapped stuff there. Like, I mean, I think we were talking about Genghis Khan earlier, and I think, like, a Genghis Khan movie would be, I think, nuts in a way. Like, just...
you know what those battles were like and you know nolan he would be like it has to be period perfect right like the the fighting would have to be period accurate there wouldn't be any of these like battle scenes where the guys are just like swinging their swords haphazardly that would all be
much more serious and take, yeah, I don't know. Anyway, I think it would be awesome. Precise is the right word. I was going to throw out the adjective tight, but Laura, I think precise is the, like his movies are tight, but they are, it's precision. It's fucking. watches you know and not the kind that you can program the second hand to wiggle but like imagine how long it takes to pass on a quantum theory
Via Morse code. He must have been there moving those books for so long. I know. I thought about that too. And I like that she's just like smiling to herself, like dictating it. She's like, la, la, la, la, la. Five years later. That's a lot of data. Yeah.
Although I don't really understand what quantum data is. Nobody knows. It's okay. Don't explain it, Justin. I don't know. Nobody knows. Nobody knows. Is your favorite movie Inception? Yes. My favorite is Inception. But the thing that I was surprised by was that Interstellar has like jumped in the top three.
for me and i just think like every time i watch it it goes up higher and higher and um i think it's really good i think he um yeah my top three are inception and interstellar and tenet and i think The rewatch ability of those is part of what makes them so appealing. They're always going to be fresh in my mind because every couple of years you watch it and you're like, just pick up on that much more shit. You know, like I never really put.
That fucking anomaly that brings all the tractors to their house, like in the beginning of the movie, like, and it's like, oh my God, he's already doing, like, it's already happening. Like the ghost is already there. Also the anomaly that takes him down in the, in the plane, the very first, the very beginning of the film, he says, and so I wondered if also that was him or like if he was flying over his.
over his farm or something and he hit it, you know, or whatever. Anyway, I don't know, but like, or he knew he had to take himself out of that. Like the fifth dimensional beings are ostensibly maybe him too. And they knew he couldn't go on that mission fully. Like he couldn't become a pilot because he would have been one of those 12, right? He would have been a man. That's true. Probably. He probably would be dead on some fucking barren planet somewhere or in the long nap. But.
somehow someone knew to hit him with that anomaly there like it can't be a coincidence we're learning that it's not like the movie wouldn't have a coincidence so it has to be him doing that or the beings that did that made the tesseract who also are probably coop as well oh and the movie ends with the coda of the movie is
we're going back out like to be continued or not you know like the end or not it's so old school awesome shit of like well great to meet you my great to meet you my 80 year old daughter You're saying everyone in this room is a grandchild or great grandchild of mine? No time to interact with them. I don't know. I got to get them. Smell you later. Peace out. I got to go get Bran. And that's just, and she, and like.
Murph knows it. He knows it. It's just so rich. I love it. It makes me so happy where he's just like, no, you're right. It's back to the grind, exploring. It's time to get back out there. Nothing I know about Earth is real anymore. Like, nothing I was here for. My house is weird. Oh, I forgot about that. The house is on. Weird-ass house. Weird-ass house. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's also like he goes back, it's like a museum, and he just goes and lives there.
And he's like repairing tars or whatever. And he's living in his old museum house now. That would be very strange. But anyway. Like, hey, Cooper, the toilet, the plumbing is fake. Oh, no. We got to get a cleanup crew here. I've been fucking dropping heat in the downstairs path. All this non-corn food is ripping me to shreds.
It's true. They don't talk about food. They probably got way better food now that they're flying through space or I don't know. I don't know. They're just eating that like really great like space ice cream that you got when you go to gift shop when you were a kid. It's not ice cream. Ice cream of the future. Oh, God. Oh, man. Love Dippin' Dots. John, thank you very much for being here. And for folks out there, the podcast is High and Mighty, also Action Boys. The show is... 101 Places.
to party before you die. I jump in there. I've said it enough. It's on HBO Max now, all eight episodes. I co-host it with actor, comedian Adam Pally, and it's the best job I've ever had. I don't know if it'll ever happen again. But I'm zen about it now. The victory was the fact that I got paid to drink with a good friend around America. Like, that rules. And I would love to do it again. But just watch, enjoy. It's...
More than you think it is. Both of us had parents die young. So the before you die element is like earnest. We like want to chase life because we don't know how long we have. Unless, of course. love can go across time. But we don't really get into that on HBO Max. We don't have time in our 24-minute episodes. But yes, please, check it out. And if you're into movies, the Action Boys is a Patreon, but we have some free episodes.
it's sort of the exact opposite of cows in the field in that we have very uh like meathead mouth breather discussions about uh uh classic action cinema 70s 80s and 90s but it's uh and it's obviously we're aiming for comedy more but fuck man this has been a real pleasure for me to be on cows in the pot like i could not stop thinking about i like Made my wife listen to your podcast. I'm making all four of us do an episode. I might be together like it just this was so thrilling. This is like I.
I was looking forward to this. I was looking forward to rewatching Interstellar and looking forward to talking to people smarter than me about Interstellar. thrilling that i got to person i'm gonna just leave that to justin but yeah laura i laura i think it's safe to say you may too be smarter than me maybe not in the fucking categories of tar your husband tar is over there
I also had to adjust his honesty setting a few times in this relationship. John, thank you for those kind words. If I can just... you know, spin it back. You know, we watched all of 100 Places to Party Before You Die. It rules. The show is hilarious. And the first episode...
In Denver, where I grew up in Denver, and I was like recommending it to all my Denver friends. And there are so many good jokes. I won't... repeat any of them here because some of them are very not safe for work but go watch it very good it's very funny I will say the close the closing joke that we I make in the Denver episode
to me was like the canary in the coal mine i was like i can't believe the network let us put that on tv and and that to me is like finally someone just putting my raw sense of humor on television like it's great and it just feels Felt so good. It's the first job I've ever had in Hollywood that didn't activate my imposter syndrome. So it felt like beautiful. I felt like I was doing something like Coop.
Just because I was enjoying it doesn't mean it was bad. I finally happened to also be really good at that job. I didn't realize that. I was finally a dude. being very good at something. What more can you want in life? That's amazing. I hope there is a second season because you do have to get to 100. You have to get to 100. I think it has to happen. And even if like...
If they don't renew you, you should just do it as a web series or something. It should happen, I think. Oh, I think we'll see it under a different name somewhere else if we can. Eventually, it'll be like, Gas Station TV presents six more places to... die or whatever you know exactly we'll just keep lowering the stakes until we're we're only playing on hospitals and shit
It is great. And this Action Boys and then High and Mighty, which is also an incredible show. And I think one of the things I was marking this to Laura, and I will just tell you because, you know, why not? We're here.
And I can't remember which one it was. I listened to a bunch of them recently and they've kind of blended together. But you guys were just riffing on how much you loved food and adventure and all these things. And it was just like... I was like, man, John really loves life in a way that like I...
wish I could love life like this much. And it was, I was just like, this is incredible. Like it's, I just, it was in so infectious and so like inspiring for someone like me who just literally, I don't know if you've listened to Minority Report where I talk about how I want to.
be in a milk bath and live in a virtual reality. That's kind of my go-to, but it's nice to see someone who really, I don't know, has the zest for life and is sort of unapologetically... um you know pursuing that i think that's like awesome and it's inspiring and people should listen because it is really it's infectious and it will make you happy so check it out i appreciate that's really kind of you to say yeah
I have like Coop's energy towards exploration, but my exploration is like trying food that I've never had before. Like a little, doesn't really help society in any way, but I'm out there. I refuse to say no to something someone offers me, which has gotten me in some problematic situations, but I cannot resist.
if someone makes me something or offers me something, I just always say yes. And like, that's just like the way I have to live my life. And I chose, I made that choice and like, I, it's led to a lot of adventures and I, I'm, I'm glad. you picked up on that i'm glad i yeah oh i hope you say yes to something that seems scary or dumb in your near future exactly that's you are my inspiration for that job because really like i think it's not just that you say yes but i
Tell me, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you like are excited about it, right? You're like, yeah, like I'm yeah. So for me, I feel an obligation to say yes. But in my mind, I'm thinking, no, no, don't do it. No. And then you're like. And then I'm feeling anxious. I'm like, oh no, am I going to die from this? If I had to psychoanalyze myself a little bit, it would be for sure one of the reasons I like trying new things and doing things for the first time and I don't have fear for it.
is because there's not... Aptitude is not expected of me. So there's something about that. I'm not good at something like... I don't have the stick-to-itiveness to become an elite scientist. But for me, I could try anything because it's like, well...
If I suck, I could say to myself, well, this is the first time you've ever played water polo, dude. You're allowed to suck. But if I worked really hard at it for five years and still thought I sucked, it would like undo me. So I am cheating a little bit. I am keeping myself in my... If everything is new, I never have to master anything. Jack of all trades. I could be like, I do a lot. I'm a polymath. And what that means is I'm lazy in the long run.
But I call myself a polymath and dance away on that. And I think I should Google that to make sure I'm right. But I know you're right. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. Yeah. I that I.
I, it's, it's a lesson that I think many more of us can learn. And I, probably a lot of us who, a lot of people who listen to this podcast could probably learn because a lot of people in my circles are very, we are like the kind of people who do one thing. Like I. worked on this book for literally 15 years of my life and i mean in a way like it wasn't entirely that but like i was
Yeah, you thought about if for a really long time. It's a culmination of 15 years of life, of work. Of if, yeah. A hundred percent. And you know how many people are going to read this book? Like probably 30. like it's it's like so sad i mean that's how like 31 i'm ordering the science of interstellar and the power of if don't you worry
Yes, the meaning of If. The meaning of If. Yes, but... I'm like, I read The Power of If, a completely different book. It changes my life, and I keep telling everyone, Justin Koo's book changed my life, and I'm reading a completely... like some self-help novel. Yeah, yeah.
The power of it. Actually, it should have been the power of it. It should have been the power of it. John, I wish I had had you as a consultant. That would have been good. We would have reached like 50 people instead. Yeah, and then marketed it as self-help, you know. I think that's the other problem is it's in the philosophy genre.
on Roach immediately loses. Well, listen, once we get our philosophy slash parenting self-help series going, then we're really going to be successful. That's where the money is. Yeah, that Venn diagram is going to be seven people and you guys are two of them. That's true, actually. How many philosopher parents are there? Fewer and fewer every year. Okay, we are at... This is the fifth ending, so we should, yeah. Yes, I know. Now I better end this fucking podcast.
We are at Cowspod on Twitter. You can find us on the web at cowspod.wordpress.com. You can buy a shirt with two cows on it at cowspod.threadless.com. And in two weeks, we'll be talking, as aforementioned, we'll be talking with Roxanna Haddadi. about the movie Inside Man. And very exciting episode. We've actually already recorded it. We talked about long-termism. It's great. Check it out in two weeks. And then two weeks after that, because it just came up, Fantasy, I'll just mention...
We're going to be talking to John DeVore about Willow. So look forward to that. All right. Bye, folks. Bye.