Transcript of Is The Day Of The Blockbuster Movie Behind Us? | Hour 3 New

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This is the Dan Levator Show with the Stugatz Podcast.

Brian Windhorst on Karl-Anthony Towns.

Oui, sir.

Quote, he's kicking Wembanyama's ass in this series, and if he can do it for a couple of more days, he's going to the Hall of Fame. And I do believe, and Zazzle and I were just talking about this during the break before we get to Amin's weekend observations, I do believe that you're about to see as crazed and wonderful a fan experience as you will ever see. Bonkers with how it is New York reacts to the all of this— their team being a betting underdog, their team having the smallest player, their ability to say this is against all odds. We have a bunch of players and a coach who were doubted. We're facing this extraterrestrial who's 7-3, and we unmasked him. We proved that he was not ready quite get for whatever it is his dynastic building will bring in the future. This is going to be nuts tonight. And then also, the president of the United States is going to be literally sitting in the middle of it because he's having trouble standing.

We didn't talk about this enough. I interviewed, uh, James Edwards III of The Athletic yesterday on SiriusXM Radio, and he talked about the logistical differences They're telling the media people, hey, once the president is in the building, wherever you are, that's where you're gonna be. There's a lot of questions that if he stays to the end of the game, are the media even gonna be able to get to the interview room to interview the coaches and the players? Because with all the security— Secret Service security details out there, this thing is not gonna be like a regular game where people can come and go as they, as they choose to go get drinks or water, whatever.

I, I don't think that I'm being hyperbolic when I do believe tonight is going to be the most outrageous fan experience. It's the biggest game in New York City in, in 50 years. There's never— right. You can make the case ever. And I think I agree. I mean, there have been some massive Yankee games, right? But I think this is right there, if nothing else. And you have the entire city that roots for the New York Knicks. And I'm just like, I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's gonna be so much fun to watch. I love just watching it from a fan perspective, even though it is Knicks fans. I think it's gonna be wild tonight. I do just wonder, there's a part of me, and I'll probably— it probably won't matter, but when the cheapest ticket to get in the building is what, like $12,000?

It's a car.

How can, how can a regular Knicks fan afford that, you know? But, but it's gonna be packed, like it's gonna be sold out and it's gonna be crazy, so I guess it doesn't matter, right?

This is also the first road game that the president is ever played, right? And I know what you mean. Well, he's from New York. No, he picks so wisely the places that he shows up at because it guarantees a warm reception, be it NASCAR, UFC, the SEC, UFC, the national championship game down here in Miami, which is like the only MAGA metropolis. He, he has been wise about the places that he's chosen. He is going to a famously liberal city. And yes, the clientele over there, to get in the building, you got to be very affluent. But take, take the temperature of the country right now. Vibes ain't great. And this is certainly on the surface potentially the most hostile crowd he's ever faced when he's tried to reach out to sports to kind of normalize himself and gain acceptance. I'm very curious because tonight, depending on how the Knicks fans react, it could be memorable for a lot of reasons.

And I'm sorry, I mean, what also is going to wind up happening because fans, because everyone is being forced to get to the arena super early tonight. That arena has the potential of being super jacked up.

Yeah, right. And nasty though. New York can be nasty, and they're going to be angry about the fact that he's causing them 2 hours of delays.

100%. I can only imagine what it's going to be like in Madison Square Garden because it's a confined area.

It's a Penn Station. It's gonna be so crowded.

I went to the national championship game and I dealt with the extra layer of security there, and I dealt with a lot of ball, and there were certainly a lot of Republicans around me that were also quite frustrated with their experience trying to get into that building.

That'll be nothing compared to tonight.

New Yorkers love nothing more than to complain about something that other people would be awed at. "Ooh, the president's here!" Like, "Ah, shut up, get out of my way!" And that has no bearing on how they voted. But Dan, to illustrate the complexity of a night like tonight, so you've got again the Knicks hosting a Finals game for the first time in nearly 30 years. You got all the celebrities that come to those games anyway on a Tuesday in January. They're coming tonight, right? You've got Victor Wembanyama, the most recognizable athlete right now, right? Then you got the Knicks up 2-0. Now you've got the sitting president and you've got the, again, the most popular mayor—

always sitting because he can't stand up.

Yeah, there you go. And the most popular mayor in New York City history upstairs. So keeping track, you have Secret Service, you have the mayor's security detail, you have NYPD, you have NBA security, you have Madison Square Garden security, and all of these units need to be in communication with one another. We've never seen an event like this ever before.

You see behind— I mean, if you're watching live on YouTube or the DraftKings Network, if you're watching us on Peacock and NBC Sports Now, uh, you see Donald Trump, uh, sitting in a way that you might see someone sit if they'd had a seizure in a nursing home. He doesn't sit up straight sometimes, even while people around him are sitting up straight. It does look unhealthy the way that he simply sits.

I have been to Madison Square Garden when the president has been there though, and their operations were pretty good. I know it was a totally different time. That was the first term, and, and things are a little bit different right now. But Madison Square Garden has handled this exact situation before, but they handled it with a UFC crowd. This is a whole—

not this exact situation. There's never been this exact situation. I'm purposeful in saying the times that New York has felt like this is after 9/11 when the Yankees are playing the Diamondbacks, when the Giants are playing the undefeated Patriots. But those are just sports stories. Those are, uh, even though they had, uh, emotional ties, especially obviously the 9/11 link, uh, it wasn't an arena in the center of the town, something that they embrace as their Mecca, even though it hasn't been Mecca in 50 years. And it's been 53 years since it like the mecca of basketball. Using the phrase mecca of basketball has been a punchline for a quarter century because of how irrelevant their basketball team is. And they've dwarfed a great Stanley Cup Final, a great Stanley Cup Final. They're dwarfing it because of what that city, uh, feels about this sport, that team, that arena. So when I say to you, Amin, and we'll get to Amin's weekend observations in a second, that Wembley's never felt what he's going to feel tonight, because it's not just the pressure and being down 0-2. It's what Windhorst and people like Barkley are saying when they're talking about what's happening in this series.

This is a quote from Charles Barkley: Wemby is in shock right now. Been a long time since he got his ass kicked like this. He's going to own the league soon, but right now he's being owned. Karl-Anthony Towns is taking him to the woodshed. Wemby's never been under this kind of duress when this kind of tired.

Yeah. I mean, Dan, this is the part where someone asked me, well, how do you learn? Because I'm like, there's some things you can't just learn. So how do you learn? I said, unfortunately, it's happening before our eyes. How does he learn? He learns by turning it over when less than 10 seconds. He learns by taking a bad shot. He learns by popping instead of rolling. All of these things that's happening. We're watching the education of Victor Wemby right now. Unfortunately, that education, that graduation won't happen until after they've lost this series, and it'll happen for years to come. But I'm trying to remember, every single one of the great players had to struggle. They had to go through the struggle. LeBron had to go through what he went through in 2011. Shaq had to get swept by Hakeem Olajuwon, right? Kobe Bryant had to shoot 4 air balls in Utah. Even Magic Johnson, who you could say, oh no, he won out the gate. But after that, losing to the Celtics, People don't remember it now. They used to call him Tragic Johnson because he played so poorly in that first—

He'd already won 2 finals. They called him Tragic Johnson.

Think about that. They all went through this. So as much as we love him and he's different and all this and he reads and he went to the park and he plays chess and he's with the monks and all that stuff, you still have to eat this shit sandwich. What do you learn?

Summer always hits different once the big games start stacking up. Now you've got finals games on every other night, baseball's rolling all week, racing on the weekends, and suddenly Everybody's looking for an excuse to get together. The other night, a buddy texted me, "We've got the game on, come through." I figured I'd stop by for maybe an hour. That was optimistic. Next thing you know, everybody's locked into the game and we're all part of the coaching staff. Somebody's yelling at the ref, somebody else is suddenly an expert on pitch strategy, and nobody's even pretending they're leaving early anymore. It's one of those nights where you take a sip of Miller Lite, look around, and realize, yeah, this is exactly what summer is supposed to be. That's why Miller Lite is always part of these nights for me. It's clean, refreshing, easy to drink when it's hot outside, and perfect for long nights hanging with friends watching games. An all-American summer starts with an all-American beer. Miller Lite. Go to MillerLite.com/Dan to find delivery options near you, or you can pick up some Miller Lite pretty much anywhere they sell beer. It's Miller time. Celebrate responsibly.

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Ein perfekter Frühlingstag. Sonne. Park. Picknick.

Und so viele Pollen.

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Dan Levitar.

Amino Acid.

Stugatz. Amino Acid. This is the Dan Levatar Show with the Stugatz.

Let's do, uh, Amin's Weekend Observations.

It is time for Amin to share his game notes. No one in the media will tell you what happened better than my boy Amin.

Let's do that again.

Yeah, yep.

Then, what in the biffs, 1985? The Knicks are 2 wins away from completing a dominant sweep. Victor Wembenyama looks like a scared little kid. Donald Trump is powerful and corrupt and married to a Slovenian. And this has happened to me. I'm in Miami instead of New York. The Spurs waited to prove me absolutely right about 2 weeks too late. Told y'all. Mitch Johnson saying he needs to make sure there's environments that the ball finds Wemby. It's like Tony Montana Saying he has to make sure to do a little bump before those armed men come through the door. Stanley Cup Finals! What'd I miss? Vegas strikes a blow against cheapskates everywhere. Do we feel like this? We need Vegas to win so that Tom Don Don does not walk around high off of his horse talking about, "Oh yeah, see, I was cheap on everything and now I won." And because we hate Carolina.

Yeah, that's it right there.

French Open! That's what Mitch Johnson ought to be screaming at his guards. The French guy is open! Give him the damn ball! French Open! Maja Śwalinska had to win 3 qualifying matches just to make it to the French Open itself. She ended up making it all the way to the final before finally losing. Her prize check for being second place, Dan, is worth more than her entire career earnings. Now, I wish I could say I learned all that from the tennis group chat I'm in with Mike Ryan and Adam Lefkoe and John Isner, but unfortunately it's not that kind of chat. Donald Trump, what a name. Donald Trump says he's coming to Game 3. Doesn't it start after his bedtime?

He doesn't sleep.

It's— oh no, he wakes up early. He does not stay up late. That's him getting up. You know those tweets at 3 AM? He's woken up. Now you see right here, that's what's going to be happening right behind me. That, like, that lean. Is he sitting courtside or is he going to be in a sweep?

He's going to be in a box.

No way.

No way.

Feet on the wood. No way.

Karl-Anthony Towns, MVP. There had to be someone who laid down serious dough on that on the DraftKings Sports App, which is now live in all 50 states.

Wow.

New season of Bar Rescue, and we've got you covered at Here's the Science of Bar Rescue Podcast, hosted by real-life bar and restaurant consultant Chelsea Reynolds, commercial kitchen and food truck vet Colin Cassard, and two guys who will not be asleep in the middle of Game 3, Zach Harper and myself. Hey, Wemby, you have the ball. It's a tied game. There are less than 10 seconds in the game. It's your world. Why the fuck are you passing the ball? Hey, Stevon Castle! It's Game 2 of the NBA Finals. It's a tie game. There are less than 10 seconds in the game. Maybe keep your head up? I feel like the Vive en un Country guy. You know that guy? Vive en un Country. And he talks about like, the grass is perfect. The ball costs €150. Your cleats are perfect. You get a masseuse before the game. And then you blow the whole thing up! Oh, I love that guy, man. Hey, it's Cinebub episode 312, Death Warrant, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Robert Guillaume, aka Benson, and a bunch of people you've never heard of. The synopsis— Dan, are you ready for this one? For Death Warrant, an undercover officer investigates murder and mayhem in a prison where kickboxing comes in handy.

It often does in prison.

Does that apply to every Van Damme movie? Kickboxing has to come in handy. Yeah, including Kickboxer.

But in that situation in particular, you like that as a, you know, a core discipline.

Zazz, know about that Death Warrant? No. You've never seen a Van Damme movie, right?

Sudden Death.

So that's a good one.

It's a hockey movie first and foremost.

He's the goalie.

The goalie.

It's Mighty Ducks.

Yeah, it's all the same. Let's go shake their hands. NYPD announced that there will be no watch party outside of Madison Square Garden due to security concerns. Yeah, that ought to endear the president to the people. The whole TSA thing, showing up 4 hours early to go to a basketball game. Midtown Manhattan will be a 7th layer of hell, folks. Speaking of hell, Sedano, what the hell are you doing, man? Why is he in this bathroom? Why does he have tea and like—

those two things don't go together, pretzels and tea and champagne.

Put it on the poll. Do pretzel and tea go together? Do pretzels and tea go together?

Why are his legs so close together? Those are the weekend observations, folks.

I want to get to some movie-related topics in a second, but before I do that, Scott Pelley sat down with the New York Times, and the New York Times reporter asked him a lot of very good questions. It's a long interview. It is worth your time if you care about journalism. I don't think that most people care about journalism the way Scott Pelley does, because the way he's reacting to this— and he said it a couple of times— the way CBS is behaving with 60 Minutes, he's comparing it to somebody murdering your spouse because of how he cares about 60 Minutes. And one of the things that he was saying, and it's very persuasive, these are people I have been on the front lines of war with, these are people who have saved my life in circumstances, and, uh, one of the great institutions in the history of American journalism, and maybe the greatest institution in the history of televised American journalism is being slaughtered from the inside in the name of change, in the name of, uh, the president of the United States has made it so that, uh, in weaponizing government arms, uh, he has made it so that, uh, these institutions have to choose commerce, or feel like they have to choose under duress, commerce over journalism.

And so Scott Pelley, who is 69 years old and went out of his way at every turn to say, look, this is not about me, It's about protecting this thing that helps police democracy. Whether you think 60 Minutes is biased or not, 60 Minutes has a standard of objectivity and fairness that most journalistic institutions don't have and is now coming under the duress of— if you combine money with this particular administration, what you have is a gutting of principles that protect democracy. And I don't know how the audience feels about 60 Minutes, but 60 Minutes was having record-breaking ratings digitally and otherwise. They've modernized 60 Minutes so that it remains a pillar of, uh, not just credibility but also profit. So you cannot say that this thing is what Colbert was, which is too expensive to bear. The changes going on at 60 Minutes to undercut it, make it so that I ask you guys legitimately, when you see what's happened with Bezos at the Washington Post, when you see, uh, what's happened to the New York Times over the last 5 years where it isn't what it was, what is the institution that's going to be left standing here that protects democracy journalistically?

Is it going to be Pablo Torre Finds Out and nothing else?

I think this one's cutting close to the bone because I always thought that network TV would be safe from this. You had cable news for your opinionated, slanted coverage. But when Scott Pelley— and he did this New York Times, The Interview, it's available on YouTube— when he describes the thumb on the scale, that is not a news item, it's like an intention from Bari Weiss to find videos of protesters being extra violent, to change a narrative that Renee Goode was trying to drive her car into the person that shot her, the agent that shot her. When from an objective investigative point of view where Scott Pelley was coming from, that just simply was not the truth. You are trying to alter the truth and not actually using the truth. You are using conservative talking points handed down from the White House to change reality. And I can't believe that 60 Minutes is no longer immune to it and network TV is no longer immune to it and all of this is because we are consolidating all these media companies, and as a deal to get these deals brokered, they are making promises to a corrupt administration just so they can get everything approved by the government.

It's not just a corrupt administration though. 60 Minutes has already been gutted, okay, and it's going to die here. It will not be the same thing, and it'll be changed so much that you don't actually recognize it. Anderson Cooper has left, and they're filing it under, well, we need to modernize this, but I I'll tell you again that 60 Minutes was doing very well digitally. Here's the part though that is most offensive to me as somebody who cares on checks and balances on power by journalism. You're not merely succumbing to a corrupt administration, you're succumbing to the least popular president in the history of American polling. So it's not even him at full strength, it's him just using government powers and licenses and the arming of federal agencies to do things that, um, are being done by somebody who has a lower approval rating with the American people than anybody who's ever been in office. So it's not even real power backed by the American people. It's just power that's been granted to him by the office, an office that he doesn't respect and uses to line his pockets and the pockets of his family in a way that games the entirety of the system.

Yeah, I mean, like, this all— Mike mentioned it— this is all about late-stage American capitalism, right? So Paramount gets bought by David Ellison and the Ellison family, They are very right-wing, right? And they're doing this consolidation of stuff. The only way you can go through is with approval because FTC and, uh, you know, we have anti-monopoly kind of legislation in there that prevents from this happening. But you can get around it if the government basically plays ball. And the government has said to you, we will play ball if you play ball for us, meaning you give us the coverage and the slants that we want and all this will go through. That's why this whole Time Warner thing was, uh, was such a big deal that Skydance and, and Paramount are getting them as opposed to Netflix. And I'm not, I'm not sure that Netflix getting them would have been better. Like, it's still kind of the same problem— rich people amassing all of the media so that they control everything. There was a James Bond movie, was it Tomorrow Never Dies, where it was all about— it's so prescient, it came out in the '90s— but the guy was like the biggest newspaper guy in the world.

He wanted to own all the newspapers and he could just make up the news. To benefit himself. And it sounded so ridiculous at the time, but we're at that place, Dan. There's a reason why in communist Russia all they had was Pravda, right? Like the state-run media outlet. Because when you want to control what people know, you control the media. You tell them only what this point of view is with the hope that they will be too lazy to seek out alternate means which are already cut off from them. We're seeing that in real time right now with the consolidation of all these media companies, where everything from the news to movies to TV shows, everything created with that thumb on the scale that Mike is talking about.

What's going to be left as the signature thing that people trust for news if you knock out the places that people go, like Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel or CNN or HBO? HBO Max, like what's going to be left?

Right now the gold standard I think is the New York Times in terms of like what journalism is supposed to mean. However, it's a newspaper industry, it's print, and people aren't really doing that these days. You could usually count on network television, but what's tricky about network television is they're actually subject to the FCC. There's licenses, the government can actually control that. Most people think that the FCC can control things that you see on ESPN. No, cable is a whole different thing, but network television used to be sacrosanct, and it's not anymore. It used to be just milquetoast, kind of, this is the news, zero opinion, zero tilting of it one way. And that is not the reality we're living in anymore.

So the irony of it is we live in an era now where, because of the internet and the YouTube and streaming, the barrier's all down. So you could say, hey, these guys get Warner and the first thing they do is they kill Last Week Tonight, and then they'll kill the Daily Show, and they kill all these things, these trusted people, faces like John Oliver, they will still continue to exist. They'll be able to put out their own content, own their own content, and go directly to the people and not have to deal with the middleman of the networks. The flip side also is, number one, as the populace becomes less and less informed, they cannot tell the difference between someone who's credible and someone who's not. It's the same kind of tactics that the Clippers are using in calling Pablo Torre a talking head as opposed to a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, right? And then the next stage of that though, Dan, is okay, 'cause all right, we're all going directly to the people, we're going through YouTube. Well, YouTube is owned by a pretty big company, Google, and they're billionaires, and who's to say that they're not gonna start putting their thumb on the scale, whether it's outright banning or pulling content, or whether it's as subtle as, yeah, the algorithm just doesn't happen to like your type of content, and so people aren't even able to find it.

That's the issue. And that's why AI is really the esthetic of fascism, because when you can squash journalism and get rid of everything that you have here and then manipulate what people are seeing and create fake things, you end up with an ability to influence the way people learn anything.

Don Lebatard.

It sounds to me like everybody could use a hug because a hug is always the right Great size.

Stugatz. All I have put in my body today is 3 cups of coffee and an entire cup of honey.

Don't let him fool you.

He said in the break that he's jittery.

This is the Dan Levatar Show with the Stugatz.

I'm startled, Amin, by how heavy your tongue remains and as it relates to the way all of this is going to change. I don't know if you guys saw, but Matt Damon says of Christopher Nolan's movie The Odyssey, it's the last time that anyone's going to be able to make any movies like that. Because Matt Damon's been talking to everybody about what's coming to film with AI and, uh, how much is going to change with the Christopher Nolans of the world no longer given the power to make, uh, the movies the way that they have made them before.

The problem, Dan, isn't that they can't make the movies the way they did before. The problem is the the vehicle through which these movies made money, which was extended box office runs and then home video, right? Physical sales of DVDs. I was talking about this last night where Shrek 2, which is a delightful movie, for the longest time— and it might still have this record— was the highest selling DVD of all time, right?

That—

so whatever they made at the theater, and they made a lot at the theater, they made multiple times over with home media.

Many of the, the comedies and like those kind of R-rated comedies existed primarily through video. Like what happened with Zoolander. Zoolander, everyone knows Zoolander, box office bomb, came out during 9/11. Yeah, and it just had this whole second life on DVD and, and Blockbuster Video. That whole market is gone.

So as a result, to make a movie like The Odyssey that costs a shit ton of money, right, it becomes increasingly more difficult to make the box office large enough to, to reconcile not only the cost of the movie but the cost of marketing, which can go from 25 to 50% of the cost of the budget.

As you've seen Netflix take over Hollywood, there are very few directors who have the kind of cachet that Tarantino does when he says, "Mine's opening in the movie theater." So his next movie, which might be his last movie, uh, is going to open in theaters. It's, uh, it's a sequel basically to Once Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where it sort of follows— it might not be a sequel, might be a prequel— it's following the story of Brad Pitt's character Cliff Booth.

It's a series. This isn't a film. This is going to be a series that David Fincher is helming. Tarantino is not directing it, and it's going to be on Netflix.

And by the way, this just came up in The Hollywood Reporter: Netflix is no longer going to work with directors that insist on theatrical releases. So they're, they're saying, look, we're not doing this anymore. Maybe Scorsese is kind of grandfathered —but at some point—

No, Tarantino's grandfathered in. He's starting in theaters with this. This is going to be in theaters for about 2 weeks and then is going to Netflix because Tarantino and Scorsese are among the last ones that say, "No, my thing needs to open in the theaters. I represent— I respect film more than I respect whatever it is that we're doing with television." And we're— but there are very few directors who are going to be able to do that, and Netflix is going to be able to overpower them too.

Right. They've announced, like, this is it. Like all these people here, when they die out, that'll be the end of that. And so everything is made for a home screen. And Netflix has certain kind of preferred viewing experience kind of guidelines of how the thing should look, how it should be, what color grade it should be. And as a result, that's what that homogenization of all of these Netflix contents looking alike. It's basically because Netflix said, we want it to look like this. Well, A big part of movies is that, hey, this director and this DP, they want it to look like this. And losing that is losing the essence of what this storytelling tool is.

Tarantino— I saw quotes the other day— is crushing movies today. Doesn't like anything out there except one movie that really grabbed his attention, which he loved from start to finish. The Rip with Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck. The one, you know, that takes place in—

Hallelujah! No, no, no, it's Ben Affleck and Damon. It's not Brad Pitt. Oh, I thought I said that. Sorry.

Takes place in Hialeah. That Quentin Tarantino loves that movie, grabbed him from start to finish.

I liked it. I, I think people are being a little hyperbolic. I, I think Christopher Nolan's gonna be just fine. I think there was always going to be—

oh, but that movie's not gonna— like, that movie's not gonna, you know, make money.

I— we'll see. The Christopher Nolan movies do make money at the box office. He always has his market, and I think he can get big enough to a place that if, uh, if he has a budget in mind, that there's always going to be an appetite. And I think that you're going to start seeing people rebel I think you're gonna see people going back to local news, small, smallly circulated newspapers. People rebel against their devices. I think that that tide is turning. The same way that vinyl records came back, I think people are going to be yearning for a lifestyle that predated cell phones a little bit. Hailé!

Matt Damon, if you've heard him interviewed recently, is talking about the innards of what's happening here with the change, and when he mentions the rip, he's like, like, yeah, we have to establish again the storyline, we have to repeat it 11 times during what it is that we're doing to hit the viewer in the face again and again with what it is that we're trying to do with the storytelling. And I wonder if some of this stuff is going to be so antiseptic and algorithm-based that, uh, I don't know if you guys have, uh, seen some of what it is that happens with, uh, these games that you might play on the internet that are a little bit addictive, that you keep getting new games funneled to you that are more addictive than the original game because the formulas can figure out based on what it is that you're doing how to keep giving you stuff that will be more and more addictive. I wonder if all of that is going to take place so formulaically that the Matt Damons and the Tarantinos and the old people of this world are just going to be run off by Netflix's ability You've heard me say this before as it relates to Netflix.

Whatever you think their business is, their business is they're in the information business. They know how and why you consume, you being whoever's listening to this. They know based on how it is that they're gathering information that's exclusive to them, that they're proprietary about, that they share not even with the directors of the big movies because they, they want to have all of the information to themselves. I wonder how these tech companies are going to be able to game every everything so that everything at Netflix looks a little bit the same.

It already does, Dan. But while we're talking about movies that look the same, let's talk about a movie that's terrible. Backrooms. Oh my God, you saw it? I saw that movie's trash.

I've been wanting to see it because I love the horror movies. Me and my boys, we go to all the horror movies. Both my boys saw it last week separately, and they both had the same reaction. They, they said it's not good.

That's the scariest thing about that movie is that I'm gonna have to think about me spending 2 hours watching So I shouldn't see it. I mean, wait for it to come on streaming and then you can shit on it from the privacy of your home.

I'll shit right on it.

No, it just— like, that's the— now this is the flip side. You want me to turn into a real old man here? Obviously a lot of people have been making a big deal about two movies: Obsession. Oh, what a movie! And Backrooms. I haven't seen Obsession, but there's a part of me, as I'm witnessing all this fervor and having watched Backrooms last night, I'm like, are people going to these movies because they're good Or are they going to these movies because they've seen the trend on TikTok? Like, oh, that's cool, I want to be on the in crowd, I want to be on the in on this trend, and so I'm going to go see this movie. Oh, it's made a gazillion dollars, I want to be— say, people who said, oh, I saw in the theater. I don't know if it's an actual appreciation for the thing that's getting made, and that really sucks. Everything just turns into a trending topic or something to be part of rather than actually standing on its own merit.

I think that's happened with Obsession. Because Obsession is growing in the box office every single week. So clearly there is a trend out there. It could be social media, TikTok, or whatever the hell. I think that is happening with Obsession, but in general, who cares? Like, isn't it just about whatever gets you to the theater to see this art?

I, I, I, I think I care. I care. I care. I, I care that movies are getting made and seen because they tell a story that's good. And not because people just want to be in on the in-crowd. That bothers me on some level.

This is different than like Minions though, where you had a bunch of teenagers going to see Minions because there was like a funny trend you could do in the theater. People are going to see Obsession. Minecraft, you mean? Yeah, it was Minions first where they were dressing as the Minions, but yeah, it was both. Either way, you had this like ridiculous thing that they were doing and there was a bit involved in it where this seems to be people freaking out, reviewing the movie on TikTok, and it going viral in that way and getting people out to the theater, which is a good thing. We're not having the same amount of conversations face to face as a society. So sometimes those conversations have to happen online to get people out to the theater.

I do feel bad for certain cities that don't have like their local art house cinema that has a lot of cool stuff going around it. Down here we have a really good one, the Coral Gables Theater. You can donate to it and they have special showings and, and speaking engagements there. If you have the appetite for that sort of stuff, you have to go out and find it, but you will forever be served. The market is just too big for people that have a deep appreciation for everything that you romanticize about cinema. That market is always going to be there. I'm going to the movies twice this week.

I, I, and I, I go to the movies. I'm someone who goes the movies, but I couldn't tell you the last time I went to a— the movie theater twice in one week.

You have tickets already? You buy your tickets well in advance?

I do. It's funny for a guy who hasn't seen any movies go to the movies that often.

That's BS.

But on Friday, I'm going to see Disclosure Day. Oh, that one looks good. Spiel— you know about Spielberg? I know all about that. Dan, during— you know about Steven Spielberg?

During Team USA's first game, you'll be at the movies.

I'll be all right, don't worry. So I'm going to Disclosure Day on Friday. Now, did I— did I know that that was Team USA at the same time? No, but it's okay. And on Wednesday, I'm going to see Let's see. He-Man. Oh, I can't wait for He-Man. I was a little bit worried when I saw the trailer for He-Man. I grew up on He-Man. That was my number one cartoon when I was a kid. I was a little bit worried when I saw the trailer, but massive positive reviews. Everyone loves the new He-Man movie.

Are you going to catch one with Brie Larson?

Yo, I, I can't tell the difference. Like, Brie Larson, that's Captain Marvel?

No, that's the other Brie.

No, that's the one that you named.

I make the same mistake. I don't think— yeah, I don't— I can't tell them apart. Brie Larson. I get the names.

Catching you up, Dan. Zazz thought an actress name was the name of a porn star. That's the first one they came to mind.

She's playing Evil-Lyn in He-Man.

Yeah, the porn star is.

No, I didn't think it was the porn star. Yes, you did.

I don't know her name. You said Brie Olson.

And this is Brie Larson.

And we all were like, did we mean—

well, it wasn't either. It's Alison Brie.

It is Alison Brie.

Alison Brie! From Community.

Zazzlo mentioned— I just heard the word in everything that he just said, chicken there, and it made me think that we did not do Enough with Tim Payne, the formerly anonymous soccer player who has now become an international legend with 5 million followers, because it was pointed out that he was the single most anonymous player playing in the World Cup, and we changed his anonymity by making him famous. Not we, but others did this, and it made me— it reminded me that Tim Payne, in speaking or trying to speak Spanish, tried to say thank you for the support, but instead said, thank you for the chicken. Hola, todos. Muchas gracias por todo el pollo. All the chicken. Very much thanks for all of the chicken is the way that Tim Payne shed his anonymity. Hola, todos. Muchas gracias por todo el pollo.

His following now on social media is greater than the population of the country he represents.

Again, though, all he had to say was apoyo instead of pollo, but he just said chicken. Hola, todos. Muchas gracias por todo el pollo. That Spanish could not be any worse. All of the accents are in the wrong place.

He's from New Zealand. How many Spanish-speaking people do you think he's encountered in his life? But hola?

Like, you're— hola, hola, hola. Like, anybody can do hola. He did well there.

No. Hola. I— 10 out of 10.

He made it an ole. Hola.

All right, 8 out of 10. You can't—

in hola, you can't put the accent in the wrong place.

One more time. Hola.

Ah, 4 out of 10, but it's not the 0 out of 10 with the Pollo thing. Give him a break. He's from the other side of the planet.

Apoyo. Apoyo. Come on, dude.

He didn't ask for any of this.

Put the emphasis on the wrong syllable.

You can't thank people for their support by thanking them for chicken.