Evan: Oh, well, it's fine. It's fine. Honestly, it's probably better that way because

Evan: I think there's more, it kind of doesn't make as much sense to be like,

Evan: hey, here's this one about the running man.

Evan: Here's one about another movie as well as this one.

Jacob: I do think the long, I mean, we didn't get into it. The long walk book is a

Jacob: decent bit better than the running man book, but I haven't seen the movie.

Jacob: I didn't get it around to seeing the movie anyway.

Evan: It's a pretty depressing movie.

Bill: It's a fucking depressing book. Yeah.

Evan: Really?

Bill: For like two seconds, I was like, do you guys want to do that?

Bill: And then I was like, but then I'd have to read another Stephen King novel.

Bill: So forget I ever even thought about suggesting that.

Evan: Well, they already did it.

Jacob: Oh, we already did it the long way.

Bill: Oh, okay.

Jacob: It's a lot better. It's not great, but it's significantly better.

Bill: Well, good. I'm spared to even say that.

Aysha: Yeah, walking is a lot. It's a lot easier to write a book about walking than running.

Jacob: Stephen King is good at writing people in pain, and that is what most of the

Jacob: book is, and so it is effective.

Bill: That says something really bad about him, I think.

Jacob: Oh, it's all he cares about.

Lenore: It does the whole, like, people who are already on death row rebelling within

Lenore: acceptable bounds for the audience.

Bill: Yeah.

Lenore: And as, like, a pressure release valve, it does that better because it's not,

Lenore: like, as explicitly racialized and, like, misogynist as Running Man is.

Jacob: But it's still, you know, just fine. Anyway, sorry, this isn't about the long...

Evan: Hello, and welcome to Left of the Projector. I'm your host, Evan,

Evan: back again with another film discussion from the left.

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Evan: of our weekly episodes that drop every Tuesday. And now on to the show.

Evan: This week on Left of the Projector, we're going to be discussing a remake and

Evan: book adaptation of Stephen King or Richard Bachman's book called The Running Man.

Evan: If you go way back to episode 69 of this show, you can hear a discussion of

Evan: the Arnold Schwarzenegger version of this film, which I believe this one is

Evan: much and far superior to that.

Evan: The most recent adaptation of Running Man stars Glenn Powell, William H.

Evan: Macy, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Josh Brolin, Colin Domingo, and was directed by Edgar Wright.

Aysha: A lot of guys I love to see, just gonna say.

Evan: You may have noticed we just posted on our feed a collaboration post with Workers

Evan: Lit, where we discussed the book version of this film.

Evan: And you can go listen to us discuss the book, and then you can come back here

Evan: and finish listening to us talk about the film. You may remember we had Lenore

Evan: and Jacob on to discuss Drag Me to Hell, episode 217 for those counting at home.

Evan: This week, I'm joined by Jacob, Lenore, and Aisha. Welcome back to Left to the Project.

Bill: Also, I'm here.

Aysha: Thank you so much for having us.

Evan: Sorry, Bill.

Jacob: I forgot you on my podcast, too. I'm so sorry. It's a bad day for Bill. Hi, thank you.

Aysha: It's a bad night for Bill.

Jacob: Bad night for Bill, except you've had some good takes about Stephen King tonight,

Jacob: so it's a good night for Bill in that regard. Hi, I'm Jacob,

Jacob: and I'm excited to talk about something I liked a lot more than the book version,

Jacob: which I didn't like very much.

Evan: And do you want to tell us about Workers Lit? I believe when you were on last

Evan: time, it was a slightly different iteration of your podcast.

Evan: So what has changed? What should we know? What should the listeners know?

Aysha: I'm here now.

Jacob: Yes, I'm just here now. Yeah, there's more women. We did. I should do or Lenore,

Jacob: do we want to you want to take it or do you want me to?

Aysha: We joke about how we're the only majority woman podcast in existence.

Aysha: But Jacob is pretty good at the pinch. Go ahead, Jacob.

Jacob: Well uh so in november we switched

Jacob: from socialist shelf uh to the name workers lit that

Jacob: is because we wanted to expand what we were talking about uh

Jacob: our tagline is now workers lit the your favorite podcast

Jacob: about fighting for the narrative we put out two episodes a week one episode

Jacob: as me lenore and aisha and we are discussing a piece sorry we are discussing

Jacob: a piece of literature um talking about its context where it comes out of the

Jacob: book itself the politics around it and how it contributes overall to the battle for the narrative.

Jacob: And then we also release an episode of the week about politics and the narrative

Jacob: battle that's going on around some kind of political issue that's ongoing.

Jacob: That is me, Lenore, and our other co-host, Jen.

Jacob: And we have a pretty good time. We sort of have the culture side of the podcast,

Jacob: the culture and art side, and the ongoing politics side.

Jacob: But we consider those both to be essential parts of the ongoing battle for the narrative.

Jacob: And so we are workers lit and uh we are here to talk about running man we're

Jacob: very excited and very happy to be here.

Lenore: Yeah, look forward to November when we add a cooking channel to our show.

Jacob: Yeah, it's going to every year.

Aysha: A fishing mini game?

Jacob: Yes. Every year we add a new until we're doing like 30 episodes.

Jacob: Yeah, in 20 years we will have video games. You know, shocking.

Aysha: I mean, All My Maidens is kind of our third podcast. I'm going to be real because

Aysha: you come on it all the time, Jacob.

Bill: Tabletop role-playing games. Tabletop role-playing games.

Lenore: Ooh, that's a good one.

Aysha: I do. So I have thought about doing a show. But the thing is,

Aysha: I like all my podcasts are like people do things for me and I'll just sit there.

Aysha: So I have never had a good time playing a tabletop game. I've tried like twice.

Aysha: And my DM was dog shit both times.

Aysha: So I'm like, what if what if I made a podcast where the point is to make me enjoy playing D&D?

Evan: Well, Bill knows things about that.

Bill: I know quite a bit about that.

Jacob: D&D.

Evan: Not the dog shit part. The other part. Sorry.

Aysha: I had a DM who kept, like, he was mad because he wanted us to fight stuff,

Aysha: but I kept, like, flirting my way through everything, and he wasn't prepared

Aysha: for it. And I was like, come on, pussy.

Bill: He's bad at running a game.

Aysha: Yeah.

Bill: I want to note, Evan, I want, like, dollar in my, like, tip jar,

Bill: my virtual host, co-host tip jar, that I have not derailed with D&D extensively.

Bill: I'm not the one continuing conversation about D&D right now,

Bill: okay? I'm not the one subjecting people to listening to things.

Evan: Usually after the episode's over when we stop recording, you're just having

Evan: a conversation with our guests for like 20 minutes about Dianne.

Lenore: Well, I think if they were to do a death game like The Running Man or whatever

Lenore: else the network has IRL, it would be one of those actual play shows,

Lenore: except if you roll a natural one, they just drop you into the fucking lava pit

Lenore: beneath Dr. Evil's meeting table.

Bill: They do that.

Jacob: Into the crocodile waters.

Bill: It's the treadmill. It's the crocodile mode. it's running man and then you know

Bill: um god what would you call that hey.

Jacob: This movie is full of what feels like dnd characters glenn powell in this movie

Jacob: feels like a dnd character michael serra feels like an artificer there's a lot going on michael.

Aysha: Serra's like house of tricks and traps.

Bill: Michael serra was i there are points in this movie where like again what you

Bill: you know you said on the Another episode, Aisha,

Bill: I believe it was you, Aisha, said that like, you know, someone was like,

Bill: this movie is nothing like the book. And it's like, did you read the same book as me?

Bill: Like the book running man feels like the pitch for the movie.

Aysha: Yeah.

Bill: Like that's, that's what the book felt like. It's like, Hey,

Bill: here's a rough draft of an idea that we can make better.

Bill: And Edgar Wright read that book and was like, oh, I have a brain and brain.

Bill: some marks of sensibilities and a creative vision and I've created incredible

Bill: movies, I can take this rough idea for a possible story and turn it in something

Bill: people would actually fucking want to watch.

Aysha: Yeah, it was fun. I had a lot of fun watching it.

Jacob: Don't forget a hot cast because Lenore can tell you that I was fighting for

Jacob: my life watching Glenn Powell climbing around that hotel room in a bathrobe.

Jacob: I was like, I was the cartoon dog hitting myself in the mirror.

Aysha: I was surprised by how female gaze-y it was. Like, it really was like, look at this man.

Jacob: It was Jacob gaze-y, actually. It was for me.

Bill: I honestly, I think Glenn Powell called for that. I could see him doing that.

Bill: I think he's that kind of guy.

Evan: Let me ask this. Did you all read the book first and then watch the movie?

Aysha: Yeah.

Lenore: Yeah.

Jacob: Yes.

Bill: Wait. Also his baddie wife. Both of us watched the better thing first and then subjected ourselves.

Evan: But I had seen the movie, like, when it came out, so it was,

Evan: that was easier to have happened.

Bill: I watched this one, then read the book. I started high and went low.

Jacob: Yeah.

Aysha: So all the, like, basically everything that bothered me in the book, the movie fixed.

Bill: Yeah.

Bill: He's a likable character.

Aysha: Yeah. You root for him. The first scene is him holding his adorable child and

Aysha: shaking at her and being like, look, she's sick.

Aysha: Don't you care about me? And I'm like, yes, your kid is so cute.

Bill: You have a baddie wife. He didn't shake her because that would be bad. You don't shake bad.

Aysha: Yeah, I know. He didn't shake her, but metaphorically shook her in the face.

Aysha: And he's like, look at this child.

Aysha: How can you say no to this child? And then his shitty boss is like, get out of here.

Bill: And then you're immediately fed information that the reason he's blacklisted

Bill: is because he was protecting his fellow worker.

Aysha: Right. He was forming a union.

Bill: Multiple times. Talking about union. Also, just put his life on the line to

Bill: save somebody else's life.

Bill: And the jobs they show him doing are jobs you could expect someone to be a physically

Bill: capable being of doing. You know, like high rise, like welding and like all

Bill: that construction stuff.

Evan: Yeah. The movie, you don't get any information about what his job sort of history

Evan: was and why he would have like a physical, you know, the book. Sorry.

Bill: In the book, the only thing you learn about his possible job is that it involved

Bill: radiation, which, as we all know, makes you hail and hearty.

Bill: That's how you do parkour.

Aysha: Maybe it was like Captain America. It like it made him like swole. Yeah.

Aysha: Yeah. He's also like his hot wife. Like Jesus Christ.

Bill: He got bit by an irradiated Glenn Powell.

Aysha: Yeah. Yeah. Super hot wife who's like a waitress at a club and is like,

Aysha: I'm going to start stripping.

Aysha: And then he's like, no, don't do that. I will go kill myself instead.

Evan: Did they, in the book, something we didn't mention that I think is interesting

Evan: is they specifically call out that they get married at what, like 16 or something?

Bill: Very young.

Evan: Whereas in this, it's just sort of like normal stuff.

Evan: Kind of, I don't know. Everything that he left out from the book was like,

Evan: good job. Thank you for leaving that out.

Aysha: Did we mention that we'd already, like, we did an episode, yeah,

Aysha: already on the book. So refer to that.

Aysha: Listen to Worker's Lit. You now have to listen to our, because this is part

Aysha: two, so you have to listen to our show.

Bill: Yes, this is a two-part. You mentioned that in the intro.

Jacob: Yeah, you mentioned it, yeah.

Evan: I did. I can add that in.

Aysha: I was probably just not listening. So.

Aysha: So

Aysha: cold the the levels of like so

Aysha: the book feels very dated i said in the other episode i

Aysha: think well obviously like this movie came out last year so it

Aysha: doesn't feel dated but i actually like was very

Aysha: struck by this movie the portrayal of

Aysha: the dystopia in this movie i actually think

Aysha: is one of the more likelier ways that

Aysha: we're heading as a society like i think

Aysha: the portrayal like this idea that like there's

Aysha: no jobs and and and because of

Aysha: ai but like the movie doesn't say that but like in

Aysha: our world it's like all of the jobs are gone most people

Aysha: are unemployed so the only jobs left are these like very dangerous industrial

Aysha: jobs or like pouring yourself out to a tv network to die for money and i really

Aysha: think that is the future like or pouring yourself out literally literally Like.

Jacob: In his wife's case, literally having to do sex work.

Bill: Really specifically, it's a service economy. It's a complete service economy.

Aysha: Yeah.

Bill: It's a service economy that's bottomed out. And like that's all there is.

Evan: It feels like a more, it's almost like a Paul Verhoeven from Total Recall,

Evan: but like on steroids, modernized, because that's an 80s move or well,

Evan: maybe 1990, something like that.

Evan: And this is sort of like the hyper version of hyper capitalist hell where everyone

Evan: is just watching these terrible TV shows or just churning them out reality television.

Evan: And it's just it's right.

Aysha: We see him watching some of them with his daughter.

Jacob: I'm sorry. I'm going to put my foot down and say that there is nothing that

Jacob: is depicted on this TV that is bad and dystopian as the masked singer, a real TV show.

Jacob: I'm telling you, that is the most I'll buy that for a dollar ass thing I've

Jacob: ever seen in my entire life. Jesus Christ, Mr. Beast.

Aysha: Or like The Biggest Loser.

Aysha: Stuff like that. All of the stuff that we have, we have so many evil shows.

Aysha: I also like the Kardashian ripoff they have. The Americanos. I really like that.

Jacob: Latina Kardashians is awesome.

Aysha: The little scene where he's sitting there just muting and unmuting it was really funny.

Lenore: I have a friend who keeps our group in the loop on what's going on with 90 Day

Lenore: Fiance and Real Housewives and all that shit. I believe it was on Real Housewives of Atlanta.

Lenore: Where, like, one of them was, like, dressing down the other.

Lenore: And I remember, like, one of his favorite things he's ever seen is one woman

Lenore: saying to the other, your husband only has one Rolex.

Lenore: This is real.

Aysha: This is real. So, like, yeah, you see him, like, taking care of his daughter

Aysha: while his wife is at work.

Aysha: And you see him, like, loses her favorite sock or something.

Bill: And he's upset.

Aysha: Yeah. Also, like, and I think that I wouldn't usually mention this,

Aysha: but like, I think this is specifically like juxtaposed to Stephen King's racism

Aysha: is that this his wife is black in this movie.

Aysha: And his daughter is black in this movie. So, yeah, I'm glad that they're...

Bill: Also, he never once uses any racial slurs. That's also a big part of it.

Aysha: Right. And I feel like it's got to be intentional by the director to immediately

Aysha: be like, listen, it's 2025.

Jacob: Stephen King was like, I did the not say a racial slur for two hours challenge. He's like sweating.

Lenore: Yeah.

Evan: One of the criticism I've actually saw from some people who kind of maybe the

Evan: same people who thought the book was better kind of group or whatever.

Evan: I don't know. Is that the, especially the beginning where you're sort of hit

Evan: over the head with the universe, where there actually is world building that

Evan: it's like, there was too much somehow. Like this is too much in your face kind

Evan: of thing. And I just don't understand.

Aysha: No, that's how movies work. You have, you look at things.

Bill: No, no, no, no. Nowadays, nowadays we make movies so that people can,

Bill: watch them while doing while in another room.

Aysha: Yeah, that's true.

Lenore: Well, if you played the Fortnite event that explained the plot of a movie.

Jacob: You'd be on board.

Bill: This isn't a Marvel movie, Lenore.

Evan: But that's why I think they like the book more. They don't want world building.

Evan: They want, I don't know, Stephen King dialogue.

Bill: I think actually that is a really good point.

Bill: We're assuming this is coming for somebody who was comparing it to the book.

Bill: And it's like, the book is that kind of like, you only have to pay half attention

Bill: to this. You don't really have to.

Aysha: Engage with it. Yeah, the book felt more like a movie than the movie did, if that makes sense.

Jacob: It's got its cheesiness to it. It definitely has its, I don't know,

Jacob: the needle drop when he's walking through the city and he's like, I'm the underdog.

Jacob: It's silly, but it's in a way that I can enjoy because I'm here to interface

Jacob: with a piece of media and have fun with it.

Jacob: I know this is fiction and it's silly, but

Jacob: At the same time, like it is doing something. It doesn't have that same instinctual

Jacob: hatred for the underclass, right? He's walking around the city and yes, people are poor.

Jacob: Yes, there's crime. Yes, things have been stripped off. But also there's like

Jacob: street art and there's like people that are talking to each other.

Jacob: And the real bad shit is coming from the police and from the overclass in this.

Jacob: When he has the natural impulse, when a guy falls down to help him up and a

Jacob: police officer yells at him about it.

Lenore: Yeah.

Jacob: The bad things are largely coming from the overclass.

Jacob: And when working class people do shitty things in this movie,

Jacob: they are pushed into it, whipped into a frenzy by media and by organisms of

Jacob: the state and corporations that are trying to get them to do so.

Jacob: It is a much better understanding of how the world works.

Aysha: I also think that specifically one thing that adds to that feeling,

Aysha: Jacob, is the other two runners that we get to see a lot.

Aysha: Because they mention that there's other runners a little bit in the book,

Aysha: but they actually focus on these two.

Aysha: Yeah, so there's two other runners. One is this nerd guy who's just like,

Aysha: hi guys, let's exchange phone numbers or whatever.

Aysha: And then there's like this like just like crazy lesbian who's just like getting

Aysha: pussy. That's like all she does.

Lenore: I would watch an entire series about her.

Jacob: Yeah, I was going to say that was when Lenore was hitting herself with the hammer.

Bill: They were used so effectively as

Bill: mechanisms for understanding the world the world

Bill: view but also the ideology of the people behind everything but not only that

Bill: so perfectly utilized to explain the different ways in which people in a system

Bill: like this react to process and cope with the,

Bill: alienation inherent to the system you can like these are your these are the

Bill: you know the three wolves within the alienated person you know it's like do you bradley.

Aysha: Even breaks that down for us in the movie yes.

Bill: Yeah yeah yes we have it explained to

Bill: us and it really you know but like he explains it

Bill: in terms of the show but like i also think that

Bill: it is metaphorically very much a way of like

Bill: it's the three ways or one of the three like prevalent

Bill: ways in which people react to alienation in

Bill: that you either just fucking kind of like just ignorance is bliss and like you'll

Bill: be like the first person you walk up to like um i cannot remember his name and

Bill: then her you know it's like you make the best that you live you burn out but you live out you know,

Bill: Or you're Ben Richardson.

Aysha: And then Richards gets angry.

Lenore: Yeah. Or you become Jean Valjean.

Aysha: Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. I do.

Aysha: I think it's also very effective that they're like, yes, this guy has a lot

Aysha: of really deep anger when he like smashes the screen when he's like,

Aysha: and then they see that and they're like, oh, perfect. We'll put him on the running

Aysha: man because this guy's got a lot of anger.

Aysha: I liked that. I thought it was more effective than like the 20 pages of like

Aysha: boring test taking in the book.

Aysha: just like them him like him them

Aysha: seeing him first help a guy up and

Aysha: then scream and smash uh like it's like okay so this guy he does have morals

Aysha: but he's very volatile and he could like and he's got some like i don't know

Aysha: he's got some like bombast to him and that comes through later when he's doing

Aysha: his like what's up bitches like uh videos and stuff.

Evan: It's much more interesting in this in the scene where he's negotiating

Evan: with josh brolin like the head of the studio about sort of getting his

Evan: getting medicine which they also explicitly say that his daughter

Evan: has the flu which i think makes it more interesting that

Evan: in this world people are just dying of the

Evan: flu yes there's no vaccines presumably or like

Evan: only the rich people can have them right but their whole negotiation of like

Evan: i'll give your your family like safe refuge you'll get get you'll get like money

Evan: up front and all these things like they heavily show you what ben is sort of

Evan: up against where i don't think they affect effectively do that in the book at

Evan: all they don't really show you the hierarchy the.

Jacob: The hype of the show too like the show itself is very effective right there

Jacob: is a glamour to it you have uh coleman domingo just killing his body.

Evan: So good yeah yeah just coming.

Jacob: Out with his you know coming out with a hat and throwing it and really just

Jacob: chewing up the scenery running around whipping the people into a frenzy and

Jacob: what you see is the and then the book makes attempts at this but it doesn't

Jacob: work the same way is it makes the show out of All the people are screaming at

Jacob: these people who are seen as the criminals, the running men.

Jacob: running men i mean some of them are women uh are

Jacob: people that are are despised by society and you're supposed

Jacob: to be like look these people they want to kill you

Jacob: they want to literally sneak in your house and stop you we as

Jacob: a society are coming against them he's yelling look at this

Jacob: asshole who doesn't want to work all of that like they're

Jacob: depicting him as this villain in a

Jacob: way to basically uh to basically whip up working

Jacob: normal people against their fellow human beings and

Jacob: then that is the idea of it and then of course his anger at the crowd is then

Jacob: not just him being like i'm a badass who likes to yell at people he's actually

Jacob: mad because they're insulting his wife they're insulting him and they're completely

Jacob: skewing reality and it it fucking works in a way that the book doesn't.

Aysha: I also think that a very good and specific choice the book make uh the movie

Aysha: makes that the book doesn't i think is that they specifically say america in the movie.

Jacob: Yes.

Aysha: They are like, we're good Americans. We're like, they don't say it.

Aysha: It's not America in the book. It's like some made up.

Aysha: dystopian future it's just maine yeah it's yeah maine is just like this um yeah.

Lenore: It's just maine and the rest of america is the people's republic.

Aysha: The way that they say like oh us americans believe

Aysha: in this like us and i thought that was really effective and i

Aysha: was kind of surprised that they actually say america like

Aysha: the thing and i've said this before i think on the

Aysha: on the podcast is that like um like the thing about like this guy doesn't want

Aysha: to work like americans at least on the like We like to at least say that we

Aysha: really care about fairness and equality and hard work in this country.

Aysha: That is something that we really value.

Aysha: And I really like, I think it feels believable that the crowd could get into hating.

Aysha: I think it would just take a tiny little bit more bloodthirst than we have already.

Aysha: I can absolutely see this happening now.

Bill: The one thing that I, like, I, I agree 100%,

Bill: but one of the key points that I think must be stated and is made clear both

Bill: in the book and visually in the movie, that these are not.

Bill: The people in the audience are not working class people. They are not part of his class.

Bill: They are explicitly petite bourgeois.

Bill: They are explicitly petite bourgeois. And that is really the key that the,

Bill: the, or even like middle class, it's middle class.

Jacob: They use the term technicos at one point.

Bill: Technicos, right.

Aysha: It's the bourgeois.

Bill: It's the it's the it's not entirely the bourgeois

Bill: because they are not it's not the capitalist class it's not the bourgeois

Bill: but it is like just below

Bill: that or the people who are like they are labor

Bill: aristocracy that i think it's the idea of you know yeah you turn it is what

Bill: it's you you enrage white suburban america against anybody that doesn't look

Bill: like you and you call them lazy, you know,

Bill: doesn't matter, you know, if they're not a white American in suburbia, they're lazy.

Bill: You know, all those, you know, black and brown people are fucking lazy.

Bill: They don't work. They want to get a mooch off the system.

Bill: And in this, what Edgar Wright is doing is by virtue of like making it very

Bill: clear, this is a handsome white man, that this is a class thing.

Bill: It is a hundred percent class.

Bill: That's what it is. It's a class distinction. And they will turn those,

Bill: those segments against each other and.

Aysha: I like his really cute um his cute little mustache disguise where he it's just

Aysha: kind of like him with his hair brushed differently and like a mustache glued

Aysha: on he's like they'll never find me.

Bill: That's how they always make glenn powell there's another movie where glenn powell's

Bill: supposed to be like oh it's hitman um where glenn powell like is a professor

Bill: and they're like he's so schlubby and his hair is a little long and he's got a mustache.

Aysha: Yeah, it's like the hot girl putting on glasses.

Bill: Yes. Yes.

Jacob: I got to say, I love the mustache.

Aysha: Yeah. And then there's the sort of completely gratuitous escaping from the hotel

Aysha: butt ass naked, which rocked. And I think they should have done it for longer.

Jacob: Yes. No, that's crazy that, yeah, I had to really examine that scene several times.

Jacob: I want to say too he's getting hunted by these hunters that in the book yeah

Jacob: refers to we got these scary hunters

Jacob: in the movie it's like the hunters we hype it up we see the guys the.

Aysha: Hunters are kind of cunty in the movie the hunters.

Jacob: In the book.

Bill: You never see as far as we can tell in the book the hunters never get close

Bill: to him until the airport there's that one hunter I.

Aysha: Think the one who like Michael Cera stabs the leg he looks like a fucking Targaryen he has like.

Jacob: Weird like.

Aysha: White hair and he's like,

Aysha: cuntily smoking a cigarette. I was like, what is going on with this? This is rules.

Bill: In the book, the hunters are the most useless people alive.

Bill: Yeah. They are completely ineffective in the movie.

Bill: They are like, it's just a team with Jason Stamps. Yeah.

Jacob: And part of this.

Lenore: Of course, sorry, go ahead.

Jacob: And their leader, McCone, we don't see until towards the end of the movie.

Jacob: It's so badass. We see him physically.

Jacob: He's got this like, this like fucking ice mask over his face.

Aysha: And he has like a weird, like he looks like he's got a solid snake outfit on.

Aysha: He's got like a battle corset.

Jacob: He's got aura.

Aysha: Yeah.

Jacob: And you're like, wow, that guy's cool. I'll bet that's Lee Pace under there.

Aysha: I literally, I clapped when it was Lee Pace looking like Big Boss. I was so excited.

Jacob: I was so excited.

Lenore: There is a subreddit somewhere in the world of this movie, I am sure,

Lenore: where you have actual tactical gear enthusiasts mercilessly taking apart the

Lenore: Running Man shit and talking about how impractical it is.

Lenore: But it's presented a certain way.

Aysha: And then there's, in the world of the Running Man, there's the AO3...

Aysha: uh people yeah yeah hunter x runner yeah.

Evan: Those reddit uh listeners can um can send me an email at left of the ejector

Evan: at gmail.com and tell me why we're all wrong about.

Bill: The about.

Evan: The about the tactical gear you know say one thing about the original running

Evan: man with Arnold Schwarzenegger they also hype up the the hunt the hunters more

Evan: like that's interesting like you actually create.

Bill: I don't.

Evan: Want to say another class but sort of like he's not quite the elite he's not

Evan: quite like he's probably came from sort of the middle class but i don't know

Evan: where where would that guy come.

Lenore: Well it's the it's the fantasy right of you

Lenore: know we talk about how um we talk

Lenore: about how the the world of the film fosters this alienate

Lenore: this intra-class alienation right and part of the fantasy is okay like if this

Lenore: dude was breaking all the rules if he was rampaging through society how would

Lenore: we stop him and like the fantasy is being one of those guys right and indeed

Lenore: that's the deal that they that that um that comes up toward the end.

Bill: Right because i made a i made a joke.

Jacob: While i was re-watching scenes from this movie that i was like here comes the

Jacob: cossacks like they're rolling up like.

Bill: Lee pace was a running man so he was working class like he's a cop he's the

Bill: class that's right there's so many little.

Aysha: Things in like storytelling things that this movie does that the book doesn't

Aysha: do like there's little seeds that the movie play okay so.

Bill: I didn't bring this up.

Aysha: Yeah yes yes i brought.

Bill: The fact that he is actually friends with the guy that runs that shop and that

Bill: guy was gonna give him a job give him the show like a job at a job at the shop

Bill: or like oh he was gonna make him a partner because again people in their community

Bill: actually care about each other as opposed to hating everybody.

Aysha: So I was looking through the negative reviews of this movie,

Aysha: and a couple of them were like

Aysha: It was just so convenient how, like, they would mention something and that it

Aysha: would be useful later. I'm like, do you know how stories work?

Evan: Guys.

Aysha: Like, the thing with the doors in the bathroom getting brought up,

Aysha: like, the bathroom plane thing getting brought up.

Aysha: And I'm like, guys, do you know how movies work?

Evan: There's a great tweet that's basically, that's like, in movies,

Evan: information is unfolded throughout it. That's how it works.

Bill: But like, also, this is truly pathetic because that's how life works, too.

Bill: You learn things and then later on, they come up again.

Jacob: It's so sick that the real world is a Metroidvania.

Aysha: The writing of the movie is deft enough that, like, for instance,

Aysha: he is sitting in the very beginning.

Aysha: he's watching like a game show where one of the questions is like how many bathrooms does a,

Aysha: luxury jet have and the answer is six

Aysha: and he's sitting there with his daughter and he's you

Aysha: know talking to her the way you talk to a baby like oh wow six that's

Aysha: a lot of bathrooms and stuff like that and then later when

Aysha: he's in the car with Amelia and he's like trying to think of like his demands

Aysha: and they had just talked about his daughter so he's like get me a luxury jet

Aysha: because like he remembers and and and i'm like oh my god it's like somebody

Aysha: wrote this and then when you have.

Jacob: A scene then when you have a scene of him going through the jet hunting and

Jacob: someone that's hiding he goes one two like through the bathrooms and that works

Jacob: and it makes sense and even before.

Lenore: That you had the the crew of the plane is fake they're the hunters and so he

Lenore: and so So he's like, oh, yeah, tell me how many bathrooms are on this jet. And they're like four.

Lenore: Yeah. And it's like, that's how I know. Yeah.

Aysha: Which is like, it's like, that's how that's how writing works. So.

Aysha: Also, what is it? Sorry, I skipped to the end, but the Bradley stuff is really

Aysha: good. Bradley's public access TV show.

Evan: But he has to be in Derry, Maine because they had to throw in the Maine thing.

Lenore: That's what makes me so confident that there's this subreddit dissecting the

Lenore: running man in the continuity of the film because that's what he does,

Lenore: right? He's taped the entire thing.

Lenore: He's gone through it with a fine-toothed microscope, you know?

Lenore: and so you can point out every inconsistency you can point out all the narrative

Lenore: flourishes that they do and that's how he blows the lid off this whole thing

Lenore: it's fascinating it's alternative media I.

Aysha: Do like the idea of him being like a running man super fan anti like a.

Lenore: Super anti fan.

Bill: Yeah that's it's like it's that like yeah he's super

Bill: fan but at the same time like he's coming at it from a class perspective you

Bill: know and like because he is explicitly like citing like calling for these things

Bill: and has contacts with people michael sarah's character who are explicitly at

Bill: working against the government and whereas in the book you have the you know

Bill: it's pollution it's so one note and then in this it's like no like this is a

Bill: referred to as an activist.

Evan: Like specifically that's kind of what he actually actually is doing good rather

Evan: than just like oh yeah like we read some books and we heard about pollution yeah i did i.

Jacob: Wrote down in my notes that i like that uh bradley's resisting the government

Jacob: by making Going Down with Ella Yerman.

Jacob: It's sick, though. I love the design.

Aysha: But I really like the little detail of, like,

Aysha: um ben is in their house and he's like helping their mom fix the stove i just

Aysha: like it's another little thing of like yeah people helping each other instead

Aysha: of him just like sitting there like an asshole while someone cooks for him yeah.

Jacob: I'm imagining ben in the book he's like this stupid lady doesn't know how to

Jacob: set a how to set an oven why should i help her the world's never helped me these.

Evan: Eggs are overcooked fucking bitch.

Aysha: Yeah exactly.

Bill: Except they were black so he would definitely use the racial slur yes.

Aysha: Yeah yeah right okay but i wasn't but but movie but movie um movie richards

Aysha: is like it's just a normal guy even.

Bill: If even if you ignore like turn off the marxist brain for like two seconds i'm

Bill: i know it's i don't like doing it but you turn it off like two seconds if you

Bill: ignore all other aspects of like what that says about that it just he's just a likable character.

Aysha: Like they just made.

Bill: An actual human being as opposed to stephen king's parody of a human.

Aysha: Being and i like unlikable characters like i like protagonists who suck ass

Aysha: but they have to have something right they have to have something they cannot

Aysha: be the most boring man alive and.

Jacob: When and because we know this is the kind of guy that will fix a stove for an

Jacob: old lady it makes it effective later on when he's winning willing to put the

Jacob: gun to a head of a random woman because he's desperate yeah that makes that

Jacob: interesting in a way that a guy who from page one has said i hate everything

Jacob: who cares what it becomes.

Evan: Out of character instead of just being like this is just his character it actually yeah.

Jacob: Yeah shows some kind it becomes like it shows desperation yes.

Aysha: And then there's yeah then there's michael cera who is another like revolutionary

Aysha: and he's great he was really fun i think that michael cera just showing up to

Aysha: do a weird shit for five minutes should be in every movie.

Jacob: Michael Cera can grow facial hair is what I learned.

Bill: That's what I learned today. That's giving him a little more credit,

Bill: I think, than he deserves based on that facial hair.

Lenore: Yeah, if he shaved his head, he would look like Andrew Tate,

Lenore: which is deeply unfortunate.

Jacob: That's not nice.

Bill: The guy that wrote the screenplay of this also is a co-writer for Scott Pilgrim

Bill: vs. the World, which was a...

Bill: uh michael serra uh one of my all-time favorite movies

Bill: and a michael serra piece um along with

Bill: 21 jump street and 22 jump street uh so

Bill: i think he's calling it his friends uh but one of the point i think that it

Bill: just goes to show like this screenplay was written by somebody because if you

Bill: watch these other movies he is not averse to making these kinds of like things

Bill: and then coupled with Edgar Wright who frequently has this,

Bill: you know, like he has a greater commentary in his movies, even movies that are,

Bill: you know, not entirely, you know, like,

Bill: Shaun of the Dead is a, you know, it's a zombie comedy, but like there are points to it.

Evan: Yeah.

Jacob: I will say, so this whole section where he meets Michael Cera,

Jacob: Michael Cera is someone who his whole life, due to resentment around the death

Jacob: of his father, his father who was like, you know, the one good cop who all the

Jacob: cops killed because he was too good of a cop.

Aysha: Which is actually like I mean, I was like, OK, good cop.

Aysha: But then when he describes it, like the thing that he was describing is why there are no good cops.

Jacob: Yes. Yes, exactly. There are guys who want to protect people.

Jacob: It's just that they get driven out.

Aysha: Right.

Jacob: And he he has basically been preparing his whole life to build like Rube Goldberg

Jacob: machines to kill cops with and print zines.

Lenore: Do you know what was fascinating to me? Like his his whole backstory is literally

Lenore: the story of Tokyo Gore police. Like, his dad was killed for resisting police

Lenore: privatization, which is exactly what the story of Tokyo Gore Police is.

Aysha: Yeah, I like when he gives us a little bit of Michael Cera flavor with,

Aysha: like, the TV show being like, you can't fight destiny. And he goes,

Aysha: that's actually not true.

Jacob: I like the part where he's like, we're going to record. And he goes,

Jacob: background. He pulls down the shaggle bar and he goes, no.

Jacob: He pulls down an anarchist thing he had right behind him. He goes,

Jacob: no. He goes, just the white background. He goes, no.

Jacob: Oh, hardcore.

Aysha: I laughed so hard when he pulled down Sheikovara. Like, that was a really good

Aysha: sight gag. It really got me.

Lenore: And he's somebody as well who, like, you know, in a perhaps,

Lenore: you know, crude sight gag kind of way.

Lenore: But somebody who's used to code switching for certain tendencies and organizing with them, right?

Aysha: Also, like... Sorry, go ahead.

Jacob: Well, I was going to say, fun as the scene is, I think if there is a part of

Jacob: the movie that I'm kind of like, this does, is right after the Michael Cera

Jacob: stuff, it trying to switch back into the seriousness,

Jacob: if they're like on the level of film critique, is the part that like, is the weakest for me.

Aysha: When he kills the Targaryen in the tunnel or whatever.

Jacob: I think it like, it's just so wacky and so fun.

Jacob: Don't get me wrong. I really enjoy the Michael Cera stuff. I think when it tries

Jacob: to go back into Sirius and then it's like him thinking of his wife and all that

Jacob: part, it takes me a second to get back into the like the feel.

Jacob: So some of that is not as effective. But, you know, I'm kind of critiquing that

Jacob: on the level of film here rather on the level of like ideology or story.

Lenore: And the other thing, like on the subject of like, yeah.

Lenore: keeping this consistent, right? Not just tonally, but also just exposing us

Lenore: to, like, the evolution of the attitudes around the show, right?

Lenore: You see the audience begging for blood early on later in the movie when it looks

Lenore: like Richards might win, right?

Lenore: It's completely flipped around, now people are on his side, Richards lives,

Lenore: is, like, the thing, and I wish we saw more of, I wish we saw more of Michael

Lenore: Cera's character being integrated into the audience, right?

Lenore: I wish we saw more of the people like reading these fucking

Lenore: um um um flyers that he's passing out

Lenore: yeah the zines yeah yeah i wanted love i want to see that yeah and you know

Lenore: i want to i want to see him live streaming and just him get shot in the head

Lenore: like on stream right i think i think that's i think that's um we're missing

Lenore: a few steps you could have had a.

Evan: Clip of people watching his like.

Lenore: His stream like.

Evan: On their yes like not on the freebie because i assume you can't watch you got.

Lenore: To watch it.

Evan: Some other other way underground.

Lenore: However the.

Jacob: Other things are being.

Aysha: Distributed yeah i think it seems like they were trying to go

Aysha: for like a lo-fi people distribute because like because bradley's like things

Aysha: were on tape right yeah so it seems like they they were trying to not do that

Aysha: but then sometimes like because nobody had self like but then people had cell

Aysha: phones and stuff even though they didn't really have like live stream i don't know it was.

Lenore: Well I mean.

Bill: Honestly, you could posit that, like, in this world, you know,

Bill: for all of its flaws of the Internet, you know, one of the things that it's

Bill: provided, you know, like, you know, access to information.

Bill: And you could posit that, like, you know, in this kind of dystopian world,

Bill: this state at some point.

Aysha: They don't have an Internet.

Bill: Early on decided, oh, wait, no, we're not. No, no, no, we're not.

Aysha: We're not doing the Internet.

Jacob: Yeah.

Bill: That ain't fucking happening.

Aysha: No for affinity. No.

Lenore: Like, we have. We have. We have. All this technology for the state,

Lenore: we have very much an analog society for anybody outside of this apparatus.

Aysha: That's kind of like how the Hunger Games does it.

Lenore: My favorite background detail, it's the focus of a joke in one scene.

Lenore: When he's doing the train ticket, when he's getting the train ticket in his

Lenore: disguise, there's instead of actual people manning the ticket booth, it's three AIs.

Lenore: According to your taste, you can talk to the blonde, you can talk to the brunette,

Lenore: you can talk to the redhead. So simultaneously, you've eliminated these jobs,

Lenore: and also you're catering to this common denominator of just personal tastes and attractiveness.

Jacob: All three of them are white, though. Kind of interesting.

Lenore: Aha!

Aysha: Yeah, interesting. Really makes you think. We live in a society.

Aysha: Right, so I guess the next thing that happens is the scene with the girl,

Aysha: the hostage, and it's so much better.

Aysha: like he like she is an

Aysha: appealing character even though she screams at him and she's

Aysha: kind of a bitch because you know a strange man has taken her

Aysha: uh you know has uh come into her car with a gun and i do like that like she

Aysha: maybe less realistically but more interestingly for a movie she like gets on

Aysha: his side fairly quick um they.

Evan: Show like the she sees the deep like they call them deep.

Aysha: Fakes in the movie.

Evan: The deep fakes, yeah. Which also, she realizes that the network isn't kind of on their side, right?

Aysha: Right.

Evan: It's probably horror. She kind of flips pretty quickly, but let's say she does.

Evan: Yeah, I mean, it's a movie. Yeah, yeah.

Lenore: Do you know what it is?

Lenore: It's a matter of convenience for her, right? Because she's trying to evade the

Lenore: police or the hunters specifically, right?

Lenore: And what's going on? The car is an electronic vehicle that is programmed to

Lenore: comply with all law enforcement commands, right?

Lenore: It overrides the manual control and pulls over because it is told to,

Lenore: which is something that I can absolutely see happening in a world where,

Lenore: like, apparently Elon Musk can remotely shut down your car.

Aysha: Right.

Jacob: Yeah. Unfortunately, if Elon clicks that, it might blow up, too. So there is that risk.

Jacob: I think there's an effective scene here, too, which they try to do in the book

Jacob: that has done better here.

Jacob: Probably works better here because he's not thinking about sexually assaulting

Jacob: her in the movie the way that they really lean into in the book.

Jacob: In the movie, he's like, hey, yeah, oh, you're such a good person, whatever.

Jacob: You're wearing my child's life around your neck. That scarf is worth enough

Jacob: that my child dying of the flu, if you sold that thing, we could save.

Jacob: And it is a type of like, you understand why he's doing it. You understand why he's so desperate.

Jacob: You understand her position of like, this is not a bad woman in the sense of

Jacob: she is spending her life doing bad things. She seems to be a fairly decent woman.

Jacob: At the same time, she is of class position that to this guy,

Jacob: her very existence is violent. So you see that class antagonism in a way that

Jacob: it just doesn't quite work in the book.

Jacob: There is a humanity for her. And there is also an understanding of the darkness

Jacob: of her class position despite that humanity.

Bill: Because the book is written, again, from a liberal perspective.

Bill: And so it is everything is individualized. It is placed upon the individual.

Bill: And it is blamed upon the individual. And the individual must take credit for it.

Bill: They must admit they're the bad guy instead of confronting the systems.

Lenore: May I share a snippet from the book, which is like the only bit where Stephen

Lenore: King acknowledges like class politics at all other than the Bradley stuff?

Aysha: Yeah, go for it.

Lenore: Uh, here on the right, folks, we have the summer people, Richards thought.

Lenore: Fat and sloppy, but heavy with armor. On the left, weighing in and only 130,

Lenore: but a scrappy contender with a mean and rolling eyeball, we have the hungry honkies.

Lenore: Theirs are the politics of starvation. They'd roll Christ himself for a pound of saline.

Lenore: Polarization comes to West Sticksville. Watch out for these two contenders,

Lenore: though. They don't stay in the ring. They have a tendency to fight in the $10 seats.

Lenore: Can we find a goat to hang up for both of them?

Aysha: God, this guy's so fucking annoying.

Jacob: Just like everybody sucks.

Lenore: Boy, wouldn't it be nice if they could get along?

Aysha: Shut up, Grandpa. Go to bed.

Evan: The seat of the car actually has a material understanding of where Bachman actually comes from.

Evan: And they bring it around multiple times.

Evan: I mean, just because she's watching these shows, she doesn't realize the exploitation

Evan: that's happening. Even to her, which I think is the biggest thing.

Aysha: She is also being exploited. People think it's fake. They think it's not.

Aysha: These people aren't really dying.

Jacob: And it is to an extent fake because what he realizes in the show is that the

Jacob: show is allowed to go on the more entertaining he is.

Aysha: Right.

Jacob: That they don't let him get stopped by the first people who roll up on him with

Jacob: guns because they want it to keep going.

Jacob: So he starts to feed into the spectacle. He starts to understand the rules of

Jacob: the game. And that is also interesting in a way that we don't have our character.

Jacob: Yes, he does some pretty interesting operator things that a normal like working

Jacob: class guy wouldn't be able to do.

Jacob: That said, he does not get by purely on his skill.

Jacob: He also gets by on this game needs spectacle. And he understands that and outsmarts

Jacob: them because he understands their need for spectacle.

Aysha: Also, he, like, gets a lot of help from other people, which I think is cool.

Aysha: Like, and I don't know.

Aysha: Like, it was, it's just, like, a very, I was going to say this earlier,

Aysha: that, like, Michael Cera is basically a left, like, a joke about,

Aysha: like, this is a leftist joke.

Aysha: Like, this is, but it's funny.

Bill: Like usually jokes about.

Aysha: Leftists are not funny because like i have i'm on record saying the only thing

Aysha: that has ever made a funny communist joke is disco elysium because communists

Aysha: wrote it so that's why it's funny.

Bill: I think that like the what

Bill: the reason michael cera stuff works is

Bill: because yes it is a joke but it is it it

Bill: is coming it seems as if

Bill: it is coming from a place of um rueful amusement

Bill: but like acknowledgement of the

Bill: validity and the realist the

Bill: realism of this individual and their their desires and

Bill: their beliefs like this it is not told disrespectfully if it was told if it

Bill: was a disrespectful joke then michael cera would have like honestly would have

Bill: walked out and been killed by the cops immediately that would have been that

Bill: would have been the joke not just like oh this is a leftist,

Bill: This is a funny leftist moment, but leftists are a joke.

Bill: That's what that would have been. But instead, we see a person that has prepared

Bill: for things and thought about things and does it humorously.

Jacob: And then he does the plane thing. He does the plane thing. And like he rolls

Jacob: up and he was like, I've got a bomb and it's bullshit.

Jacob: But one, the network is like, OK, this is interesting.

Jacob: And this is where he forces McCone to take off his mask and reveal that he is the beautiful Lee Pace.

Aysha: Lee Pace. Yeah.

Bill: Not a pot-bellied dork like in the book.

Aysha: Yeah. I loved Lee Pace in this role. It was probably like two days of filming.

Aysha: He just rolled in and out. But he was so great. He looked like Big Boss. It was awesome.

Bill: I pay no attention to like... I often miss other people in roles in movies.

Bill: And my wife and I watched this together. And I did not know Lee Pace was in it.

Bill: I had no idea. so like he takes the mess and was like oh my god it's Luke Pace,

Bill: like a fucking idiot and my wife's like yeah you didn't know he was in this I'm like.

Aysha: No I had no idea I didn't.

Evan: Know he was in it either so.

Aysha: I'm like it's like it's like that it's that man the elf man I love it it's very funny.

Lenore: That a guy named Pace is in a film called The Running Man.

Aysha: I love the fact that he was a former runner who took the deal I think that adds so much to it like.

Jacob: Because earlier in the movie they were like someone in season one got 29 days

Jacob: and then he was like you think you're hot shit for making it 22 days try 29 then you're like oh shit.

Aysha: You know like he's pulling glass out of his eye yeah so hard that shit rocks yes.

Lenore: Yeah no he he speaks in that i mean there there's there's a there's bits and

Lenore: pieces where it's very like action movie one-liner like building up to something

Lenore: like witty or hard. But like the way that Lee Pace,

Lenore: speaks right his pace you get yeah yes exactly well you you get the sense that

Lenore: he's developed this cadence this lee cadence for the camera right he's it's

Lenore: as much a performance as it is a um as it is like athletic like like um you

Lenore: know paramilitary kind of thing i.

Evan: Mean that seems to be like what the he might be a hard guy and be like a good shooter and like.

Lenore: You know be.

Evan: Able to do military things but most of his power is purely because he is the

Evan: network backing him to do all these things, right?

Evan: So if they bring in, you know, Ben to become like the new hunter,

Evan: he would, like he's smart and clever, but he has the network.

Evan: I mean, he has to do, Pace has to do exactly what they tell him.

Evan: Like he is, he cannot go against

Evan: the network which also and.

Jacob: We see this right here yeah we see this because killian is immediately like

Jacob: okay put down your gun actually i'm gonna talk to i'm gonna talk to richards

Jacob: and then he's like hey richards uh wouldn't it be sick if uh actually you killed

Jacob: all of these hunters on this plane because.

Aysha: He's like oh because they killed your family.

Jacob: And he shows him a video of the hunters killing his

Jacob: family not some random person killing his family and

Jacob: then we write it off and never think about it again but a very like

Jacob: as retaliation for you killing that guy

Jacob: earlier these people came to your family's yeah

Jacob: came to your family's uh place where

Jacob: you they we swore safe passage and

Jacob: killed them and of course we know they can do deep fakes but

Jacob: he still is you know outraged and at this point we don't know if this is real

Jacob: or fake um and his killian the network's whole perspective is we can have this

Jacob: whole new show ben richards the sixth hunter and it'll be badass and cool and

Jacob: this will be a great season finale for uh you know a show that we need to get

Jacob: people more invested in and.

Lenore: How deftly you can manipulate the the audience sentiment right because again

Lenore: like recall the hunters are the shit they're built up as like the the the the

Lenore: greatest super soldiers and then you know you have coleman domingo turning around

Lenore: and saying oh my god they broke the one rule that you never break as a hunter it's unforgivable.

Jacob: And they try to co-opt the slogan richards lives

Jacob: which is a thing people have been saying it's been this like low you know it's

Jacob: been bubbling up from the ground it's the thing michael sarah's character was

Jacob: distributing in zines and they try to say oh richards lives fighting against

Jacob: the hunters don't we love that like they try to take that like you know just

Jacob: natural outburst of resentment against the system and turn it into something they own.

Jacob: And Richards refuses that.

Lenore: Yeah.

Jacob: Yeah. He refuses that offer.

Aysha: Yeah. And then revolutionaries.

Aysha: So I don't know how I feel about like it works in the movie like he doesn't do 9-11 in the movie.

Aysha: The the network drives the plane into the building themselves or it gets shot down or something.

Jacob: Yeah, it gets shot down, but they make everyone think he tried to.

Aysha: So because he's not a nihilist like he is in the book, he doesn't kill himself.

Aysha: he escapes um the one

Aysha: thing that i didn't like in the movie is the final line we get from him where

Aysha: amelia says i'm sorry that they did this to you and he says i did this to myself

Aysha: yeah and i was like that's weird because he.

Jacob: Clearly not very much.

Aysha: Did it where why it.

Evan: Feels like a network it feels like a studio note they're like you need to just

Evan: like slide this in there i don't know yeah.

Aysha: I was like what do you mean.

Jacob: Like the whole point was that he had no

Jacob: other option and his child was dying right right like yeah

Jacob: i think for me it is a

Jacob: it's a little too cute by half the ending i like where

Jacob: it shows the explosion and then we cut back to

Jacob: bradley doing his youtube he's like but did he really die or

Jacob: can can jet fuel melt steel beams you

Jacob: know like he's showing that i think it's a lit i

Jacob: can it's a movie right i think it's a little much that like richards

Jacob: is both alive and personally executes killian and says that line i think it's

Jacob: a little i do like the concept that he is the the person who ignites all this

Jacob: shit that we know the ground is being laid we know there are revolutionaries

Jacob: doing revolutionary propaganda using this as an ignition switch right he becomes the.

Aysha: White yeah him becoming like the girl on fire there at the end was a little like okay whatever.

Jacob: I think a little much but it's it's interesting, though. It's fun.

Bill: My response to that is, is they were being faithful to the book and having the

Bill: ending be not that great.

Aysha: I think it should have ended with bradley's like did he die or didn't he look

Aysha: at this like i think that would have been cool not showing his family and.

Evan: Everything like kind of giving you the that was too much.

Bill: I think this really i mean i agree 100 and i did not like i really did enjoy

Bill: this movie i 100 i enjoyed this

Bill: movie a great deal i it was a lot of fun but i did not love the ending,

Bill: and I lost my train of thought.

Evan: Well, I think what they could have done, which would have been better,

Evan: was, like you said, they show Bradley showing his YouTube post or his post.

Evan: And then the very last scene is like, they have this riot that occurs.

Evan: Like they could have slowly done sort of like a, not found footage,

Evan: but sort of like news, the news is now showing this uprising and like seeing

Evan: little pockets of parts of different cities,

Evan: starting to, you know, rebel, including people like Amelia.

Evan: Like, they're also joining it. And then they could have just cut,

Evan: that could have been the end. They don't need to have him shooting him.

Evan: They don't need to show the family. That would have just been the better ending for me.

Jacob: I do like Coleman Domingo walking off the show. That was kind of fun.

Jacob: Oh, yeah. He's like, fuck this. He's like, I'm fucking, I'm fucking out of here.

Bill: I remember.

Lenore: Because, like, if there's one thing that, you know, that class has,

Lenore: it's opportunists who know which way the wind is blowing.

Aysha: He's like, I'm going to go kiss Richards on the map.

Lenore: That's my new.

Bill: Thing I remember my train of thought um the way that it pivots to Richardson

Bill: being you know like that and doing the part you know like actually take Killian

Bill: out and all that you know sea space and everything it's

Bill: This is very much a, you know, the way in which me like movies, um,

Bill: and media in general has like gone so far, like now where you cannot make movies with,

Bill: you know, or you can't make mainstream, like big movies that you expect the

Bill: audience to really go and turn out for with ambiguous ends.

Bill: People can't handle ambiguity.

Bill: Like they just can't handle it. and

Bill: it's like you i wouldn't imagine them as

Bill: also and then beyond that if we look at more from the

Bill: like marxist perspective it's the idea of like you know the western

Bill: world like great man theory baby like you

Bill: know it's all great man theory you get no no

Bill: matter how far you get in a you know like a

Bill: major production like this in terms of like actual like cogent like thought

Bill: you know like that would that would reflect in some way marxist like thought

Bill: or leftist you know thought it's like it's the gravity well of great man theory

Bill: like they gotta like you know they gotta come back to that.

Aysha: Also i think that this this is a um a thing that i uh,

Aysha: criticism that I have of a lot of stories that I think there's a lot of book

Aysha: series, especially, and I'm thinking of like Ancillary Justice.

Aysha: I don't know if you've ever read that book, but like stories that are told within a fucked up society.

Aysha: And then it's like, for some reason, they always feel like they have to solve it.

Aysha: And I'm like, it's okay to just show somebody struggling

Aysha: within a framework it doesn't always have

Aysha: to lead to them burning down

Aysha: the system and that's kind of what i liked about

Aysha: the does 9-11 ending in the book i

Aysha: just like the idea that like sometimes there isn't like one person is not going

Aysha: to topple the system so he does the only thing that he feasibly can do which

Aysha: is like take as many with him as he can And it's very nihilist and it's, I think,

Aysha: an okay ending to not a good book.

Aysha: But like, yeah, I think there is this weird pressure that like if you introduce

Aysha: a fucked up society, you have to fix it by the end of your book, which I don't like.

Aysha: I wish people didn't feel compelled to do that.

Jacob: Yeah, I think my ideal ending to this movie would be, as I just said,

Jacob: you have Bradley being like, you could even have, did he live,

Jacob: like, with his fun thing? And you have riots.

Jacob: And maybe even you have, like, Coleman Domingo walk.

Aysha: You could even have Richard standing there, like, in his fucking hoodie,

Aysha: watching the riot or something.

Jacob: Yeah, you could have Coleman Domingo walk off the show or whatever,

Jacob: him not be able to control it.

Jacob: But, like, yeah, it's just a little too cute by half, and it falls into the great man theory thing.

Jacob: that said quite a fun movie and it takes

Jacob: fun movie it takes the takes the book and it fixes the parts that i had serious

Jacob: troubles with and it takes the things in the book that are genuinely like kind

Jacob: of interesting and fun in it and it runs with them it runs with them fast and

Jacob: it runs with them well you know good cast good directions fun needle drops yeah

Jacob: hot people for sure highly recommend do.

Evan: You want to know what stephen king thinks of the movie Yes.

Jacob: What did he say?

Aysha: Does he hate it?

Evan: No, he said he liked it and called it a bipartisan thrill ride.

Jacob: What?

Lenore: What does that mean?

Aysha: What?

Bill: I hate that man so much.

Aysha: Girl, what do you talk? Grandpa, go to bed. Every time I see him,

Aysha: I'm like, Grandpa, let's get you to bed.

Evan: He wrote that in X, by the way. He said, I've seen it. He said it's the diehard of our time.

Lenore: Yeah, he also wrote an X that the Epstein files were fake.

Bill: Like, you know, I hate him so much.

Aysha: If it was the diehard of our time, he would not be wearing any shoes. I call bullshit.

Jacob: I don't even have a response.

Aysha: I guess he isn't wearing- And it'll be a Christmas movie. Yeah.

Jacob: A bipartisan film.

Bill: My God, he's so dumb.

Aysha: I think, like, is he literally saying to, like, all of the chuds who love him,

Aysha: you can like this movie, too, even if it's about-

Aysha: defeating the fascist American government, which we know you love.

Jacob: And they'll just say, oh, that's communism. That's what they'll do.

Jacob: That's the thing, is a right-winger will watch this movie.

Lenore: Well, there is, it's funny, like, sorry, go ahead.

Evan: No, you go.

Lenore: Well, it's interesting, right? Because, like, you can, I think the dystopia

Lenore: of the book is more that way, right?

Lenore: Like, it's very much like a North America, like, you know,

Lenore: I don't know if it's post-America or whatnot, but, like, it's set in, like,

Lenore: North America dystopia, but like it's dystopia i

Lenore: would argue is very like like anti-communist tropes

Lenore: coded right well they call it co-op city something co-op

Lenore: city yeah there's stuff about like oh the block midwife right

Lenore: who's shitty like there's this reference uh blink

Lenore: me'll miss it to like this shitty underfunded like state health care system

Lenore: uh for which there is a thriving black market that people can go around it and

Lenore: it's interesting to me that like the movie the movie very much doubles down

Lenore: on the capitalist dystopia of it, right?

Lenore: Which I feel like is more of a symptom of the book being written at a time when

Lenore: America was already gearing up for his victory lap in the Cold War.

Aysha: The movie...

Aysha: Like, actually, there was, like, some of the, like, pageantry and,

Aysha: like, bread and circuses of the movie really made me think of,

Aysha: like, the Turning Point USA fireworks and, like,

Aysha: it just, like, really made me think of that.

Lenore: We are Ben Richards!

Evan: I think the way that Stephen King views the world is the way that so many liberals

Evan: do, where it's just simply the binary of like Team Blue, Team Red.

Evan: So he watches anything, any media, even one that's based on his own writing,

Evan: which is he probably perceives it in that same way.

Evan: And so bipartisan thrill riots like, oh, yeah, it's like the blue MAGA,

Evan: you know, network versus like, you know, I guess, whatever. It doesn't matter. The same team.

Aysha: Is wait is steven king a liberal yes.

Evan: Oh yeah yeah shit lib yeah.

Aysha: Big time oh holy shit i i i for sure thought he was a right because they're.

Jacob: The same thing he's a.

Lenore: He's.

Jacob: A liberal yeah well really not not like a yeah he's a un unwell i would have i would have.

Aysha: Pegged him as a donald.

Jacob: Trump he doesn't like trump he says yeah he's very he's very much mark hamill

Jacob: mark hamill's a little nicer than him but yeah mark hamill at least doesn't.

Bill: I find the fact that mark hamill plays that role in the long walk like so fitting

Bill: because i'm like that's it's just steven.

Jacob: It's it's.

Lenore: Steven king.

Bill: The politics he's fallen into yeah yeah i'm like it's.

Lenore: Well it's it.

Aysha: Mark hamill's a zioness.

Lenore: Yeah there's also but yeah no that that is mr is such a it is such a it is such

Lenore: a fascinating piece of casting you're absolutely right to have somebody who

Lenore: is like this wide-eyed twink in star wars it became like an icon now he's don't.

Aysha: Worry mr skywalker i saw.

Lenore: You and now he's this like this like schlubby asshole who's totally been who's

Lenore: totally a creature of of whatever is running america in the long walk right

Lenore: it's just the total decline of everything that people used to think was cool

Lenore: about this country right.

Jacob: Thing that is cool was this movie. I think it's pretty good.

Jacob: And I think it's pretty solid.

Jacob: And I appreciate getting the chance to talk about it. And I probably wouldn't

Jacob: have ended up watching this film adaptation at all. I just assumed it was bad.

Jacob: And so I appreciate y'all giving the ask on that.

Lenore: Yeah. Very, very pleasantly surprised.

Evan: Yeah. Do you want to remind everyone? I know you talked a little bit about your

Evan: podcast, but maybe things you have upcoming that you might want to share that's... Or...

Evan: Maybe you want to keep it spoiler free.

Jacob: No, Hunger Games is actually coming up, interestingly enough.

Aysha: Yeah, we're doing the Hunger Games next week.

Jacob: The Hunger Games is coming up. So that's going to be kind of a thing that rhymes

Jacob: with this nicely. If you like dystopia, we've covered several of them.

Jacob: We've talked about Battle Royale.

Jacob: We've talked about Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents.

Jacob: We talk about a lot of shit that we hate, too. We talk about a lot of shit that we like.

Jacob: We've done the whole range of things. Honestly, if there's a type of book you

Jacob: like or a type of book you hate, just go back into our back catalog you're gonna

Jacob: find you're gonna find something.

Aysha: We recently did the first gay gothic romance novel from the 80s which i suffered through.

Evan: The the uh the kamala harris book episode i found that fascinating because i was never gonna read it.

Aysha: That was right that was right before i came on the.

Bill: Show this is why this is why at one point this is why i will not do book stuff

Bill: like that i will sit through it i will sit through a two-hour movie that i fucking

Bill: hate, I'm not reading the book for multiple days that I hate. That ain't happening.

Jacob: You say that and yet the proof there is a contrary proof to that.

Aysha: There is a whole other episode of this.

Bill: I legit regretted it. I was like, fuck, I asked for this to happen.

Bill: I'm the one that said to Evan, Evan, you should do this.

Aysha: The maddest we ever have gotten, the maddest we've ever gotten was when somebody

Aysha: He asked us to read LA Confidential.

Aysha: And when he got on, we were like, we're going to kick your ass.

Aysha: That shit is like 600 nations.

Bill: That's like when we just went on, the first question we had was,

Bill: why did you make us watch this? Why?

Jacob: Why?

Aysha: Yeah.

Jacob: Well, Lenore and I have been on twice, and we've enjoyed both movies that we've

Jacob: come on for. So, you know.

Evan: We'll pick a bad movie. You have to want to.

Lenore: No, no. For real. For real. I do love venting about bad shit.

Lenore: I mean, we just did it over on the other podcast.

Evan: Since you did do that. Oh, sorry. Since you did the Sam Raimi one.

Evan: And have you either of you seen or have you seen the new his new movie Send Help?

Jacob: No, I haven't.

Evan: It's very good.

Jacob: Is it okay?

Aysha: Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard it's good. I was going to say I also have

Aysha: another podcast called All My Maidens, which is an Elden Ring lore podcast where

Aysha: people come on and explain Elden Ring to me.

Bill: Wait, you don't know the lore?

Aysha: So the premise is I played 200 hours of Elden Ring and I had no idea what it was about.

Bill: That's funny.

Aysha: After 200 hours. So people come on and explain to me what Elden Ring is about.

Jacob: It's a lot of fun.

Bill: One of our previous guests, my good close friend, Aaron, is a huge fan of that

Bill: and tries to tell me about the board. I'm like, I don't play video games,

Bill: really. I don't know what you're talking about.

Aysha: The answer, apparently, as I have discovered, is it's mostly a game about gay drama.

Jacob: Gay ancestral drama.

Bill: Okay.

Aysha: And yeah, marrying your brother. That's what that game is about. Anyway, on that note.

Evan: Awesome. Well, Jacob, Lenore, Aisha, thank you all for coming on.

Evan: And you can find your podcast wherever fine podcasts are sold, I presume.

Evan: And check those out.

Evan: Check out Left of the Projector. And we'll catch you all next time.

Bill: Have a good night, everybody.

Lenore: Thank you for having us.

Jacob: Peace, y'all.