#214. Taylor, The Creator
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This double-feature episode splits time between The Creator and Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, with all three hosts — Mike, Sonny, and JVL — agreeing that The Creator is a visually gorgeous but derivative disappointment, essentially a beat-for-beat Avatar knockoff whose soft, orientalist take on AI-as-oppressed-natives chickens out by giving its robots no interesting motivations like revenge or hatred, even as Sonny praises the on-location, minimal-green-screen photography as some of the most convincing effects work in years. The Eras Tour produces more disagreement: Sonny gives it a literal 2.5-out-of-5-stars split verdict, calling it a total success as a recreation of the concert but a bore as a film with zero backstage context or larger meaning; JVL is by far the most enthusiastic, praising Swift as a shrewd businesswoman who "beat the house" against a music industry that screws artists and calling her, only half-jokingly, a hero to creators everywhere for re-recording her masters and squeezing concessions out of Spotify and Apple Music; and Mike is the skeptic of the three, unmoved by her as a songwriter (he prefers Michael Jackson-level talent) and unconvinced her wins trickle down to anyone but herself, though he does reveal he briefly met a 17-year-old, pre-fame Taylor Swift at a Vanderbilt fraternity tailgate. The episode opens with the usual long banter stretch: JVL vents about two disrespectful eighth-graders on his cross-country coaching team and workshops increasingly absurd punishments with Sonny, who then details his return-to-the-gym audiobook diet of Hollywood-business books like Disney War and The Men Who Would Be King, spinning into an extended debrief of Sonny's real-life interview with the surviving Zucker/Abrahams (Airplane!) trio. The hosts close out comparing favorite concert films — Sonny picks The Last Waltz for its simmering inter-band resentment, while Mike champions the delightfully unhinged Led Zeppelin fever dream The Song Remains the Same.
From the show notes
Taylor Swift and AI robot war, the ultimate Sub-Beacon episode.
Full transcript
Mike00:00:00Eva. I love Taylor Swift, too. I just needed a break, you know. Welcome to the Sub-Beacon podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. I am joined, as always, by my two co-hosts who have some bad blood. We don't need to talk about that. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us at Sub-Beacon.com where you become a patron. You can get first access to our episodes on Friday mornings. You can become a part of the Sub-Beacon community. Join us there to comment and to vote in polls when we have them. Listen to those bonus episodes when we have them. It's great fun. Sub-Beacon.com. We're going to be doing something a little different. Different today. Aren't we, guys? We're going to be talking about two different movies because I am a stick in the mud. Did not want to go see the Taylor Swift movie. I went and saw the creator.
Sonny00:01:12You really put your foot down. You were like, I was really hoping we could do the creator. Not quite all caps, but it was like very like, this is the sort of note that I get from my daughter when I'm like, we are not going to.
Mike00:01:29Ice cream after after school today. Well, maybe we'll get into it when we actually get in the discussion. But there's a reason why I was so I was so interested in seeing the creator. So we're going to talk about the creator. We're going to talk about the era's tour movie and it JVL. Calm yourself. Relax. This is still a family. But no, that's not. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna we're going to get into all of that. But first, what is going on? JVL, let's start with you. Have you if you've calmed yourself down, you got your you got your your blood pressure down to where where it should be. What is going on in your life?
JVL00:02:13Very quickly, very quickly. So I am coaching a third through eighth grade cross country team. Most of the kids on this team are lovely. I have two kids who I can't stand and they're eighth graders. And they show up to practices and they they don't run. Yeah, it's cross country and they don't run. Is that a problem? They just jerk around and like, you know, do grow and they distract the other kids. They distract other the other eighth graders who are good runners. There's a lot because they're like popular kids and they haven't even bothered showing up at the meets all season. And this week they showed up to the first meet. That they were going to run in and I was really looking forward to this because I wanted these two kids to get the absolute crap kicked out of them as it happened. One of them finished dead last and the other one somehow fucking won the race. I knew that when the other coaches and I were talking about this immediately following the other coaches were excited. They're like, wow, I didn't know that kid had it in them. And my reaction was we ought to kick that kid off the team tomorrow because as it turns out that kid has been disrespecting both their teammates. I'm fuzzing genders here so that nobody listening to it in case they can tell who I'm talking about has been disrespecting their teammates and their coaches and the program all season long and we ought to send a message because if we are all of a sudden like, oh, this kid is awesome. Look at that. They won their race. Then that's us telling the other kids who are all working hard. Sorry. Having a kid like this who just farts around and doesn't do anything is like a cancer in the program because they're good. Sure. Because what that tells everybody else is, hey, actually, it doesn't matter how hard you work. All that matters is native talent. So either you should be fast or you weren't. Shouldn't they learn that early? Yeah. Isn't this a life lesson? Yeah. The way the world works.
Sonny00:04:29No, because we can still get some extra performance out of them now. We can win more now if we get them to work hard. I take your point. I think you're right in the sense that somebody should be kicked off the team, but you should kick the loser off the team. You should kick the loser off the team and be like, this person has been holding you back all year, winner. You need to you. You need to cut this person out of your life. Yeah. How do we know? And then hopefully, hopefully the winner, one of two things will happen. Either the winner shapes up or the winner quits themselves after their friend gets kicked off the team.
JVL00:05:08Maybe what we should do is tell the winner that they have to take the loser out into the Pine Barrens and take care of them in order to stay on the team. This is the, you know, this is just the natural order of things.
Sonny00:05:20What if you in New Jersey, what you got to do, you got to throw, you got to throw the loser a soap party and make the winner lead it.
JVL00:05:27That's all I read. How are you, boys? What's going on, Santino? Tell us.
Sonny00:05:33Well, we were going to tape, we were going to tape today at noon Eastern, 11 a.m. This is Thursday, October 19th, pulling the curtain back, let people in on a little. And it got pushed back an hour. And I used that time productively, guys. I went to the gym and I did 35 minutes on the elliptical. Can you believe it? I'm getting in there. I'm, you know, my heart health is good. It's getting, getting my heart rate. Back down. You know, it's I'm, I'm, I'm a tip top, tip top shape.
Mike00:06:05Good for you, Sonny. That's what I look great. What is your workout? What is your workout in 35 minutes? What did you do?
Sonny00:06:11So I typically, my typical workout is this. I do, I do 28 minutes on the ellipse. It's exactly 28 minutes on the elliptical. Then I do 18 minutes on the stationary bike. And then I come home and I do sit-ups and that's it. That's I do that four or five times. And that is, uh, that is enough to keep me from becoming a disgusting person.
JVL00:06:35It keeps you from becoming me.
Sonny00:06:37It's, and I also, I also walk to school. I walk my, my daughter to school every day and come and back up. There's a big hill. So that also counts. That's like 15 minutes of cardio right there. So I, I, I try to do a lot of light cardio through the week to keep me from, you know, just, uh, collapsing in on to keep my body from collapsing in on itself. That's what I, and what I have found, the way that I get through this is, uh, is I have taken to, this is, this is a thing I started years ago and I got off it for a while and then I stopped going to the gym. But I have found that if I get a series of good audio books to listen to while I'm at the gym, I can do this all the time because I actually look forward to going and listening to the audio books. And right now I'm on a very strong business of Hollywood book kicks. So the, uh, the, the one I'm reading, I'm listening. To the new MCU, uh, history by Joanna Robinson and a couple other people right now that is pretty interesting. Not, I'm not learning a ton. I know most of the stuff, but it's, uh, it's, it's still kind of interesting to listen to all at once. Uh, but the, the best one that I have listened to recently was Disney war. The, uh, the Michael eyes, the chronicle of Michael Eisner's time at Disney, uh, which is really just a fascinating stretch of like Hollywood business history in terms of what does, how Disney's Renaissance in the. Uh, in the, in the late eighties, early nineties, the rise of home video, uh, how the parks were, you know, built up around the world. I like, it's a, it's a fascinating time. It really sets the stage for all the Bob Iger stuff that would, um, come in the, the early aughts when they started buying Pixar and, uh, Marvel and all that.
Mike00:08:17Right. How, how, how did those books, I mean, do they lean more toward like the business history side of things or like as an entertainment tell all? I mean, maybe it's just, it's all mixed together and that's the appeal, but it depends.
Sonny00:08:32It depends on the, so the, that one is more, that one is more business history. Uh, and again, it's, it's, if you are interested in this, in this period, it's super fascinating. Um, but the, uh, the other one that I listened to recently is a little more tell all the, which is called, it was called, uh, the men who would be King. Uh, and it is about the, uh, it is about the, all right, the men who would be King and almost epic tale of moguls movies and a company called dreamworks. It's basically about the Spielberg Katzenberg Geffen, uh, decision to create dreamworks and kind of what worked, what didn't, but that, that one's very gossipy and bitchy. Cause lots of people don't like, uh, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, even though Jeffrey
JVL00:09:12Katzenberg is, can I just say one of the things that jumped out at me from your Zaz interview, which was amazing. It was terrific. I loved it. Was how much they love Jeffrey Katzenberg and how integral he was. Cause I'd always wondered like, why, how did, how did Jeffrey Katzenberg like ascend to his level of importance? And he must've just had like a very good nose for talent and stories.
Sonny00:09:37I would argue, I would argue that Jeffrey Katzenberg is probably one of the five most important creative executives of the last 50 years in Hollywood. Like, I mean like Kevin Feige is the undisputed number one. Um, everybody else is below that, but I would say Jeffrey Katzenberg, you know, between, between his time at Paramount where he kind of, he worked with, Eisner to champion the high concept stuff. Um, the, the whole, the whole idea of high concept filmmaking is like from that era and it's, it's Eisner and Katzenberg working together very closely, but then also the, the Disney stuff. I mean, he was integral, uh, in, in the, in the little mermaid, the lion King, that whole stretch of, uh, Disney renaissance, right? What's that?
JVL00:10:20But why the Disney renaissance, but why did Eisner hate him so much? Right? This is the, there's a famous story about when Eisner testified in like the trial against Katzenberg and this may be apocryphal, but something, you know, he said it was worth like the $5 million to call him a dwarf to his face or something like that.
Sonny00:10:40Uh, that's yeah. So like in the, in the, so this is recounted at length in Disney war, like a very large portion of Disney war is kind of taken up with the fight between Katzenberg and Eisner's because when Katzenberg signed his contract with Disney, he signed a deal that gave him, he was either two or 3%. Of all future profits of anything that originated under him. So that, that, again, that included little mermaid, uh, uh, the lion King, Aladdin, um, you know, basically like 10 years worth of movies. Uh, and that also included all of the home video stuff. Cause he was kind of in charge of, he wasn't quite in charge of the Disney vault, but the Disney, the, all the Disney vaults. So like, you know, it wasn't just like 2% of whatever the profit of the gross of the lion King was also 2%. The 40 million copies that sold on Blu-ray DVD VHS, you know, over the years.
JVL00:11:34Um, possible to even conceive of how much money that is.
Sonny00:11:36Well, and so like, there's a very funny kind of running thread through Disney war where it's like he, he, so he leaves, he leaves Disney and he goes to Disney. He says, I want my payout. I deserve, you know, I deserve $120 million or something. That's what my, my accountants say. And Eisner's like, fuck, you know, and he's like, what are you talking about? It's right here in the, it's, it's like plain language in the contract. Eisner's like, I don't think we have to live up to. I don't think that means what you think it means. So they start, so they start negotiating and David Geffen goes to him and David Geffen goes to Eisner and says, uh, all right, he'll take $90 million. He'll take $90 million and we won't have to go through this whole lawsuit. And Eisner, once again, is like, fuck you. He gets nothing. And, uh, and so it goes to trial. It goes to trial. And by the end, long story short, at the end of the trial, I think, I think he got something like $270 million or something. From, from, or 220 million. It's some, it's some like multiple of the original, you know, the original offer from, uh, from Katzenberg. Anyway, I, I, again, I think Katzenberg is really, uh, an incredibly fascinating person, um, and a, in a very important business. Like for, for, for good and for ill in certain ways, there was a, you know, he is one of the reasons that Hollywood got more ensconced in China, for instance. He lost his job. He lobbied Obama and Biden very hard to get more, um, uh, slots for American films in China, which like created a sort of dependency, which kind of almost destroyed Hollywood, frankly. Uh, and so like they're, they're, they're, it's not all, it's not all, you know, positive, but like, he's a, he's, he, I don't think anybody would dispute that he is, um, I don't think anybody speaking honestly would dispute that he is one of the single most important creative people in the business. I think lots of people would say they hate him and they. They don't trust them.
Mike00:13:28And, but like, which is not the same thing, right? Exactly.
Sonny00:13:32Exactly. Disney, the fascinating thing about Disney war is that it, the book came about because the, the author, um, uh, James B. Stewart got access to Disney through Eisner. He like asked Eisner, can we, I want to write a book about your tenure at Disney and Eisner was like, okay, yeah, sure. And my big takeaway from the book is that Eisner is a total sociopath. I mean, this is like, when you say like, you know, when you say like, uh, why did Eisner hate Katzenberg? Eisner hated everyone.
JVL00:14:02I thought he was going to be president.
Sonny00:14:04Eisner, Eisner hated everyone who was anywhere near him in the corporate structure. Like he brought in his, his, one of his best friends, Michael Ovitz, right? Michael Ovitz comes in to be president at Disney. They had, they went, they went to Aspen for Christmas every year together. You know, they had dinner, lunches, whatever, all together all the time. He brings Ovitz in to be president and within literally a week, he's trying to figure out how to fire Michael Ovitz who has just given up, who has just given up his huge, enormous company, CAA, that he, you know, built from the ground floor. One of the most powerful people in Hollywood, uh, goes to Disney to work with his friend, Michael Eisner. And immediately Eisner's like, how do I get rid of this fucking guy? I gotta, I gotta fire him. This isn't going to work. And it's just like that, that happens over and over and over again in the book. So anyway, this is what, this is what, this, to bring it back. This is how I keep going at the gym. I just find business of Hollywood books and I listen, listen to them all and they're great. They're all, it keeps me going.
JVL00:14:59Enough about gym stuff. Can we talk a little bit about Zazz? Can we do a Zazz after action report here?
Sonny00:15:04Yeah.
JVL00:15:04Because I'm sure you have questions as well, Michael. Yes. What was it like? You were a little starstruck for that. It's the first time I've ever seen or heard you being slightly starstruck.
Sonny00:15:13It was awkward because I, I, uh, you know, I pop into the, I popped into the, uh, the Riverside recording room, like 15 minutes early just to make sure everything was set up right. And they were already in there. Like two of them were already in there talking. Jerry, Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrams were already in there talking. And it, it was like, I was like, oh shit. Uh, do you guys want to just hang out here and talk? I'll leave. They're like, yeah, you can do that. No, no, no. Stay. Okay. So then I had to like make awkward small talk with them for 15 minutes while we were waiting for, uh, the other Zucker brother to show up. I forget which one was there.
JVL00:15:48You guys are so great.
Sonny00:15:49Early. Uh, so that was, that was, so that was, that was not, that was, that is one of the reasons I was kind of like off kilter a little bit is because I,
JVL00:15:57I'd been like, I'd been, were they awesome doing, they were,
Sonny00:16:00they were super, they were incredibly nice. They were, they were, they were incredibly nice. They were like, very like, like they're like Midwestern guys. Like they are very much Midwestern. Like, yeah, we're just here hanging out, talking, having fun.
Mike00:16:14Um, they seem very eager to talk about anything. We're like, I mean, they, they, you know, they were not sort of the way you sometimes hear people who are promoting a project. Yeah. Let us tell you about chapter three of our book.
Sonny00:16:26Yeah, they got, they, they, they were just, they were down for whatever. We talked about all sorts of stuff. It was great. Um, I mean, I could have, I could have talked to them for another hour probably. Uh, but the, uh, but no, it was, I thought it was, it was fun. It was fun. I mean, like, you know, it's, it's funny. It, it, it, it's funny to really think about that period in Hollywood and, and the like different kinds of comedy that are all coming out at the same time that are, they're kind of similar, but still very different. Like Mel Brooks is doing parodies and, you know, the Zaz guys are also doing parodies, but they're different kinds of parodies. And then, and then you have animal house, which is doing the sort of a sort of deadpan Zaz thing, but is doing it in such a goofy way that it, nobody, you know, nobody would confuse the two of them. It's just this weird, this weird explosion in different comedy stuff that you don't see again until like the frat pack slash, um,
Mike00:17:23Judd Apatow, Judd Apatow years.
Sonny00:17:27I mean like that, that, that it's, it's just a very, it's a very interesting time and moment.
JVL00:17:32I was fascinated about you, Michael, by the, once they said it, it was so obvious, but I had never realized it before that their, their secret sauce was no comedians. Yes. You know, like the, and as soon as they said that, I was like, oh yeah, every other funny movie I'd ever seen before that was based around a comedic, comedic talent, right? Whether it's Jerry Lewis or Steve Martin or Woody Allen, right? And these guys were like, no, no, no. And then they're going to play it straight.
Mike00:18:01But, but what's what I think Sonny, you, you mentioned this, I think early on, which is that those people, particularly Leslie Nielsen, but also Peter Graves, like they, they are and, and, and, and, and Lloyd Bridges, like they are now in my mind and always have been, you know, comedy actors because of airplane, because of how that changed their trajectory. Um, I, I, I honestly, I could have, you could have done that for another two hours and gone through every single like joke in that movie and, and like the origin of everything scene by scene, I would have listened to all of it. I love that movie. It's such a foundational movie for me. Have you ever been in a Turkish prison? You like movies about gladiators.
Sonny00:18:50That actor. So that actor, I forget his name off the top of my head, but that actor was very nervous about that scene. He was like, people are going to think I'm a, I'm a pervert.
JVL00:18:58And they were like, well, no, no, no, no. Peter Graves.
Sonny00:19:01You're not doing, uh, no, that was, um, no, it was not Peter Graves.
JVL00:19:05Isn't that Peter Graves? Yeah, it was. It's Peter Graves. Peter Graves. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sonny00:19:08Tell me, Jimmy. Sorry, sorry.
Mike00:19:10Have you ever seen a grown man shower? No, a grown man naked. A grown man naked. Well, the best, the best scene in the cockpit is his one-on-one with, uh, the co-pilot Roger Murdoch, a.k.a. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. You're Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. No, I'm not. I'm Roger Murdoch, the co-pilot. You know, and the way it sort of, like, builds, and, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar does such an, uh, an amazing acting job for a guy who's not an actor. He's amazing at that. Build that, you know, the hell I don't.
JVL00:19:42He's like, he's so self-contained until he finally just loses it on the kid.
Mike00:19:47You tell your old man to try running up and down the court for 90 minutes.
JVL00:19:51Dragging Walton up and down the court. It's so great. Every, I, like, our,
Mike00:19:57our mutual friend Catherine Miller and I used to in college when we would put our, our newspaper, uh, to bed every month, uh, you know, we're waiting for copy to come in or waiting for edits. And we would just watch clips of, uh, of airplane on online, like, so like between that and naked gun, I mean, it's just so foundational. I was just, I was fanboying vicariously through you, Sonny. It was great. Yeah, it was amazing.
Sonny00:20:24I mean, it's, it is wild. Like I, like I said on the show, I mean, like, I was born into a world where Leslie Nielsen was a top tier comedic actor. That's like, that's literally the only way I've ever known him. And to, to think about, you know, and it's funny in the book, they, they talk about, you know, the, the studios wanted to, well, we gotta get, you know, we gotta get Chevy chase or we gotta get Bill Murray, you know, for one of these parts. And they were just like, no, you can't, that doesn't, that's against the spirit of the thing.
Mike00:20:50That won't work. Well, you know what, you know, the last thing I'll say about this and then we'll move on is, is just what you're describing, about the kind of explosion of comedy is at that time period is so much specific visions being given license and right. I mean, the Zaz vision of like what a comedy movie should be is so specific to them and it, it works because they, because the idea is so good, but it also works because it's so, again, it's, it's, it is specific to them and, it had, it had sort of like internal rules. And I, I just think that, you know, you could take Mel Brooks, you could take, you know, any of the other comedy kind of innovations in the, in the late seventies, early eighties, they're, they're all sort of very specific and tailored and that's really like the best kind of comedy. It's specific and, and, and not like committee driven, which is, which is something, I think your interview revealed, like they were, constantly fighting against so Michael, how are you buddy? Oh, I'm fine. There's really literally nothing going on in my life to, to speak of just wrapping up a base, a little league season that will not end because of rain outs. So yeah. Yeah. So and other, other than that, it is unremarkable, but that's fall for you. That's fall ball for you. I will say though, JVL, your, your consternation about coaching. I was, I was just having a conversation last night at one of these little league games with my son's friend's dad who we were just talking about coaching cause we've coached at different sports and different levels and the frustration with the kids who don't want to be there, you know, is so it was just the stories he was telling me about kids just like not showing up to practice and then showing up to games and then some kids who show up to games but not to practice. It's like it makes me like what is going on? Like the parents are paying to be a part of
JVL00:23:04this league. Like get your kids there. The parents want it for the kids. I think the
Mike00:23:08parents want the kids to do it, right? I think that's it. I think that's it. It's
JVL00:23:11hard to hold the kids responsible most of the time because they're there because
Mike00:23:14their parents are making them. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, look, let's move on cause there's so much more interesting stuff to talk about. The creator! Well, no, let's very quickly cause we got to mention it, right? Number one of the box office this week. Taylor Swift, the era's toward 92, almost $93 million domestically in the week opening weekend. I guess, I guess I, we all went over right in our predictions, but I was
Sonny00:23:39closest. So yeah, I, somebody in the comments, the Patreon said that I got it right on cause the global number was one 26 or something. I was, to be fair, I want to be very clear. I was going for the domestic number. Everybody was, we weren't right, really spiritually. I was right. Uh, but the, uh, but, uh, anyway, we, we were all off and it was very funny because the tracking numbers all week were like 90 to a hundred million dollars, 90, like the actual tracking numbers were like 90 to a hundred million dollars, 90 to a hundred million dollars. And a lot of the wags, uh, and, and box office watchers were like, this is way too low. The people are so excited for this, you know, and I think two things happened. I think one, it was very specifically, I think people had to go to, um, so walk-up was going to be limited anyway. I mean, it was like a thing where you're going to have, you're going to have a bunch of people going out for, you know, party at the movie theater. We're going to, we're all having fun. Um, that sort of thing. But also I think that the, look, if I was, if I was on the fence about going to see the Taylor Swift movie, if I wasn't really a Taylor Swift fan or like I was a Taylor Swift fan, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to go. And I saw the videos of the people acting like insane idiots in the theater dancing and jumping on seats. And, you know, I would have been like, no, thanks. I'll skip. Maybe I'll go weekend. Number two.
JVL00:25:00Why, why is that idiotic? It's a, it's a people who behave that concert movie. It's a, this is not like, this is not like seeing the Godfather. It's still
Sonny00:25:11in a theater at JVL. I'm not saying that you have to sit there silently with
JVL00:25:14your hands on your lap, you know, singing along, but the people singing
Sonny00:25:20along is fine. I think singing along is fine. I think even getting up a little bit and like, you know, Dan, but the people who are like jumping up and down on the seats, like I can live with that. I can live with that. Have some
Mike00:25:31suffers. They are Taylor Swift fans. Um, but we're not going to get into that right now because we should probably talk creator first. Yeah. Very, very briefly about the creator. Sonny, will you give us a big boy review of the creator or the movie that I insisted we talk about? I can try. It's been so
Sonny00:25:49long since I've seen it. Now you want me to, I don't have, give us a big boy
Mike00:25:54review. This is going to be so awful. It is. It is all, uh, ad hoc here, but the creator is the creator, the creator, the sci-fi, uh, original sci-fi movie of the fall. Uh, it is starring John David Washington, uh, as a, uh, American. I assume we assume he's an American, uh, from Los Angeles. Yeah. Undercover, but you know, but is it, it's still America or is it the West? It's very confusing. No, it's not confusing at all. This is
Sonny00:26:24one of the, you're doing a terrible job already. I am. Well, I told you I would be. It's, it's, uh, it's very explicitly the U.S. Army. Like U.S. Army is stenciled over all the shit on, in this movie, which is one of the reasons I don't love it. All right, go on. Okay. John David
Mike00:26:37Washington plays a, uh, character who's, uh, begins as an undercover agent of the U.S. Army in a world that is dealing with the fallout from, uh, artificial intelligence, uh, essentially launching a nuclear weapon that bombs out Los Angeles. Uh, the West and the United States have banned AI and are systematically destroying, uh, robots and other, uh, simulants that, uh, operate by AI while the East, the Orient, uh, I guess, New Asia, mysterious Orient, mysterious Orient, uh, yes, they're super into robots. They have embraced a literally big time, literally sometimes. Um, and he finds himself undercover, uh, trying to help the US Army identify and find and destroy the, uh, elusive creator of, uh, of, of the AI, uh, who is also sort of, uh, become essentially a God like figure within the AI world, uh, among the robots and the simulants. Uh, it turns out he has some complicated personal issues, uh, to this world. He has fallen in love, uh, and has married someone, uh, from this world, uh, a who's a robot, uh, who is a human, uh, but is on the side of, of the humans who are allied with the AI, uh, a botched raid, uh, ends up seemingly killing her and, uh, knocks him, uh, out of commission. And then five years later, he is essentially sent again, uh, to finish the job. He finds, uh, that there is a new weapon from new Asia, uh, and it is AI and it is a child. They are making children AI now, uh, and he goes on a, uh, mission, uh, with mixed feelings about it. Uh, it is essentially a Vietnam war movie, uh, set in the future and with AI and which the good guys are, uh, Charlie AI, Charlie in the jungle and the bad guys are the U S army, uh, who are just, uh, wantonly, uh, destroying and fighting against the noble, uh, AI robots. Question. Yeah, that's kind of it. What?
JVL00:29:14Does it feature Alita battle angel?
Sonny00:29:17No, sadly, no, that would make this a million times better. Uh, so it's, but speaking of Alita, uh, the, the movie that this most reminds me of, it is almost bad. Beat for beat. The same movie is James Cameron's avatar. Yes. Um, James Cameron, of course, producer Alita battle angel. Uh, and it is, I mean, it's like, it's striking. It is really like, all right, you got U S military guy goes undercover, goes native, uh, fights with the VC style resistance natives, uh, to overthrow and topple the, um, overbearing American power, which is brought to bear to, uh, destroy, uh, again in Vietnam, Cambodia, you know, napalm run styles, the villages and, uh, holy sites of the, uh, poor native peoples. Um, except instead of, instead of, you know, you know, James Cameron is obsessed with like native ideas, native mythologies, that sort of thing, a native American and mythologies, I should say. Um, uh, Gareth Edwards is obsessed with Asian, uh, mythology and religions and stuff. And I like, I might say he has a fever for it. I would say he has an Asian fee. Yes. I
JVL00:30:32would say he has any of these Asian robots engage in sexual things or any of
Sonny00:30:39them. Because I have sex with the robots because I have to imagine that if the
JVL00:30:45East went all in on AI and robots, just judging from their mangas, mangas, manga, the, the first thing they would do is make a whole mess of sex bots.
Sonny00:30:56Uh, the, yes. Yeah. I think that is basically, that's basically what happens here. Um, I, I, I don't, I like, I, I use, I use the term Orientalist in my review, not negatively, it's just descriptive, but this is an extremely Orientalist film. Like it is, it is literally about like the mysterious Orient with their strange religion that appeals to the other, the robot who then like, I mean,
Mike00:31:21it's Buddhist, right? I mean, it's, it's Buddhism. The robots all become
Sonny00:31:25Buddhists for some reason. And this is my big problem with the plot of this film, besides the fact that it is like a rehash of 17 other different films. Um, is that like, it really wants to have it both ways. The robots have this religious ideal. They are, you know, they're just peaceful. They say, you know, if the war stopped tomorrow, what would we do to the humans? If we have defeated them? Nothing. We just let them live their lives. And it, it like, it is trying to be like, look at these robots. They're so they, they have consciousness and they're so human. And they're, they have feelings except like they don't have feelings like revenge. They don't want revenge. They don't have feelings like hatred, right? You know, they're just this idealized other. They're this, they're this idealized other. And it is a, like, it's not offensive. I don't find it offensive. Uh, like on a, on a, on a, you know, problematic level. I just find it boring on a storytelling level. The story, the movie would be so much more interesting if there were robots who were like actually interested in killing all of the humans. And there was some tension there. And instead it's just like, look at these bad U S military. Oh, and by the
JVL00:32:31way, I assume the Japanese men who are programming them made sure that they'd want to be submissive. Well, perhaps, but again, I have read some mongos about
Sonny00:32:40this. Well, that's, I mean, the one thing, so the one thing, the one thing this movie does again, like avatar, it does look great. It's a, it's, it is, it really does. Actually. It looks real in a way that so many of the CGI spectacular films that we have seen over the last few years, it's, it's just simply do not look real. It was most, it was shot almost entirely on location. Um, it was, uh, you know, the, the green screen work was very limited. The, the, the, the, they actually used like a $3,500 Sony camera to shoot most of it. It's like the, the effects were all done, um, in post, but in, they were, they were all integrated into the real, uh, into the real stuff. And it's really seamless. I mean, it's, it's like Gareth Edwards should quit being a effects work for Marvel and DC and the rest of these guys and teach them how to, you know, make a movie that doesn't look like absolute shit. Uh, for once.
Mike00:33:34Yeah. I mean, I would agree. I agree generally entirely with your assessment and your review, Sonny. And, and what we've talked about here, the, the look of the creator is terrific. And frankly, that combined with the original idea or the idea that this was an original movie is what made me really want to go see it. I just, I want, I want them to make more movies like this. I just want them to be better. Script wise and not bad. Exactly. Um, but, but I, I like the idea of it. I was very interested to see how they did it. And I also, I, I was kind of interested, uh, in John David Washington. I I'm kind of interested to see what he does, um, in, in, in his career. Um, so far not that impressed with him as an actor. Uh, but, uh, I, there were, there were hints I think of, of some really good, uh, of a really good performance in this. Um, but I will say early on, I had not heard him speak much. Uh, he was in tenant when, in which he really doesn't talk that much. And, and this one, there was an early scene, uh, with him at the very beginning of the movie and which his voice was like indistinguishable from his father's. And it was, it like kind of threw me. I was like, Oh, like, like he really sounds just like Denzel. Um, and that was, that was a little, a little odd. I don't know, but I don't have anything else to say about it. I don't want to hold up the Taylor conversation. I was just saying, I was disappointed in this movie as well. I found the politics of it. So like almost like from screenwriters who didn't know anything except the politics that they learned from watching Vietnam movies. Yeah. So, um, just a disappointment. Um, I wanted, I wanted a movie in this universe. I just wanted to be better. So, yeah.
JVL00:35:26It sounds in a weird way. Like maybe he was trying to get at the same thing in Rogue One. Could you read Rogue One now having seen this as another attempted
Mike00:35:39Vietnam allegory? Oh, totally. Yes. Yeah. That's interesting. Okay. The difference is Rogue One is like, is, is good. And maybe it's actually the constraint of being in the Star Wars universe. Ironically, you know, for the other Star Wars movies since the original three. That's funny. All right. Well, that's enough about the creator. It's not that good. And it's a disappointment. We should talk about the movie that JVL so jazzed about Taylor Swift, the era store. Can you really even call it a movie? I mean, it's it's like concert concert film. Is it does it have? Well, okay. Should we get a big boy review of Taylor Swift, the era's tour from
Sonny00:36:26one of you? Does it deserve? I can do it if you if you don't want to JVL or you can do it. All right. So I, um, you know, I, I purposely did not read your review
JVL00:36:38on this or listen to I purposely have not read anything you've written or listened to across the movie aisle on this because I wanted us to hit this
Sonny00:36:44fresh. Okay, so I I'm torn on this. I'm torn on this movie. Because I Taylor Swift, the era's tour. I'm torn on it because on the one hand, um, you know, I think it's very important just on a critical, a theory of criticism level to judge movies by what they are trying to do and how sex successful they are at doing what they are trying to do. Um, and, uh, this film is really, it's just, it is just trying to be a two and three quarters of an hour concert film that recreates on cinema screens most of one show from the Taylor Swift era's tour. Um, and on that level, it is absolutely a success. This is a, it's a filmed concert. It's 100% of putting you there,
JVL00:37:40right? Like you're in SoFi stadium in Los Angeles, final us show. You're
Sonny00:37:45there in SoFi stadium. I think they cobbled it together over three different, the three, the three nights, but like, whatever, it's usually how concert films do it. Yeah. Yeah. That's how, that's how, I mean, that's how like standup performances do it. Right. They take two, two shows back, back and they stitch them together. All right. So I like, I'm on that success on that level, total success. A plus does, does exactly what it sets out to do. On the other hand though, it is literally just that it is just that there's no greater context. There's no window into like a socio cultural moment, right? There's no like backstage footage. There's no making of stuff. I learned more. I absolutely 100% learned more about Taylor Swift, the person from the Alamo Drafthouse B-roll that was running in front of us. Like they had interviews with her and I was like, Oh, this is kind of interesting. You know, she's talking about like what, what it means to be as successful as she is and what, you know, whatever. And like, Oh, that was, that was all kind of interesting. Um, it's not, it's not like Madonna's truth or dare, right? It's not like Woodstock. It's not like Scorsese's the last waltz. It's that gives me any reason to care about it aside from the music. And I don't like the music. I find Taylor Swift to be inoffensive. Um, but not my cup of tea. She's not like, she's, she's fine. Um, I, I, I don't, I don't mind when my daughter asks if we can turn her on. It's not like I'm like, no, we can't because this is terrible music. I don't want you listening to it. She's perfectly fine. She's like a, she's, she's, she's an absolutely mid range lyricist. She's fine. She's great. Good for her. I don't, I don't care for it. Not my thing, but like, I'm also not a music guy. I like music. I don't really care about. Um, I don't know. It's just, it's just a fundamentally ephemeral thing. And like, it's effective ephemera is fine. Like there's, there's a place for that. There's a place for doing something effectively and doing it, uh, and, and it not really being permanent or, you know, resonant with larger audiences. Um, but as a film, I was just bored. I was from like hours from about 60 minutes to, I don't know, minute, uh, 120 or so. I was very bored. Uh, all of the like folky stuff made me want to just
JVL00:40:09leave the theater. You didn't like her evermore era. No, I, I don't, I don't
Sonny00:40:14know what that is. Is that, that's one of the folky or that's like the acoustic. Yeah. Now boring, boring. Uh, she's, she's in her little cottage. It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't do anything for me. Um, and so on that level, it fails just on, on a, on the level of a film qua film, uh, that gives me a reason to care about what I'm watching. It fails. So like I, I, you know, on my letterbox review, I split the difference and gave it 2.5 out of five stars. Cause it was right in the middle. I mean like it's, it's perfect. It does what it tries to do. I don't care about what it's doing.
Mike00:40:45Much like Taylor herself, right in the middle. What did your daughters think?
Sonny00:40:50Ooh, yeah. Good question. Oh, my, uh, uh, my daughter was totally into it. She loved it. She's seen it twice now. She loved it both times. So it worked. I get it worked for her. If you are a Taylor Swift fan, you're
JVL00:41:01going to love it. Gonna love it. JVL. Well, Michael, I mean, I want to start with you because I, I feel it's an I statement that it might have been hard for you to view this movie objectively, given your personal history with Taylor, because you once had a dalliance with her. Did you not?
Mike00:41:28That's incorrect. What? It's incorrect. I dalliance is too strong a word. I literally saw her for about 10 minutes in college in and kind of was like, Oh, I think that's somebody who's, who's famous. Essentially a. Okay, so at my fraternity house at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, it was a pre football game tailgate at the house, everybody's outside in the fall, drinking beer, having a good time. Surprising, even us, there were even quite a few girls there with us. And in the backyard, through the fence, at a certain point comes a young blonde woman, who at this point is probably 17. She was 17. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, walks in and be clear about that. And accompanied by a girl that we knew, and all of the girls at the party immediately descend on her or are sort of like taking pictures with their digital cameras of her and oohing and aahing. And all the guys had no idea we had no idea what was in our future. That that that that what we were witnessing here was a goddess of pop music, descending on our meager fraternity house. So it was Taylor, she was 17. She had she was somewhat of a she was a big hit country artist. By that point, it turned out that one of the girls that hung out at our house, her father was a was a music manager, and happened to have Taylor as a client. So she stopped by for 10 minutes. And I snapped a couple pictures once I realized she was important. And then she walked out. And I didn't see her again. Although I will say,
JVL00:43:36yada, yada, yada, yada wrote, look what you made me do about
Mike00:43:40you. Not quite. Not quite. I did see her a few years later that
JVL00:43:46she didn't write it about you. I can't prove that. No. So we'll
Mike00:43:50have to hold on to to that that possibility. I did see her a few years later, I was visiting Nashville's visiting my friend with a group of us. And she happened she had years later had moved into an apartment, a very nice apartment building across the street from Vanderbilt University's campus. We just happened to be driving down the street, Division Street in Nashville, if anybody knows, and she was walking down the street, I think to a Starbucks. And some of the girls that were with us in that group jumped out to say hello, snap a picture with her and got back in the car. That's the extent and I will not be saying anything one way or the other about any more between me and Taylor. So but I tend to agree with Sonny I I dislike her music not because it's bad, but because it's just okay. It's as as the as the Gen Z years might
Sonny00:44:42say it's mid. It's mid. She's so she's very good. And I disagree
Mike00:44:47and I dis I just I don't see what the big deal is. I don't begrudge anybody who's a fan. It's just not for me. So if pop
Sonny00:44:56music music pop music is all mid. It's all so this is what I'm
JVL00:44:59going to say. So I it is pop music. She is is bubblegum pop and by the judging that by again what the music is going to do. It's very very high level bubblegum pop. It's great, but she's great pop music. Is it my preference? No, give me Amy Mann. I you know, I I I will take Amy Mann five days a week and twice on Sundays, right? But for pop, Taylor Swift is really really good pop music. She seems to be a pretty pretty good songwriter. She's turned into a really great performer. She wasn't always I think she you know, just looking at this concert video. She's great performance has absolute command of the stage. I think there's a lot to be said about shared mass media moments and a shared cultural moment and that is what she gave us this past year with the era's tour, which seems to gross $1.2 billion. This movie, which is basically fan service for everybody who couldn't spend $3000 on a ticket. It was a way to to get to go and see the show sure and we don't have look once upon a time everybody in America listened to Michael Jackson for 2 years. We don't have things like that anymore like that. We don't and and she is one of these all you know four quadrant hits where she's she's hitting to a bunch of different generations right she's hitting to girls who are 10 years old now she's hitting to a bunch of 45 year olds who are their parents and then she's also hitting to a bunch of like 30 year olds who started listening to her when they were 15 right because she's now 17 years into her career like it's a it's a very broad base
Sonny00:47:01thing. I would I would dispute this slightly. She is a very strong two quadrant like 2.1 quadrant hit because what she hits is old women and young women and if you look at the you know four quadrants is old men, young men, old women, young women. Fair. She is a two quadrant monster. Absolute two
JVL00:47:20quadrant monster. A lot of a lot of young men. I don't know
Sonny00:47:23a lot of high school age guys. A lot of high school age guys at movies when I was there. 82% of the audience for this movie. Fair. Female. Fair. Which is unheard. You never see a gender split like that on anything. Not even. Ever in either direction. Does not exist. But in the same way that I really
JVL00:47:41enjoy the Oppenheimer and Barbie moment this summer because we had something that everybody had basically seen and could talk about together. I appreciate that about Taylor Swift. And what I appreciate even more about Taylor Swift and wrote, you know, a good 3000 words on this this week is I appreciate her as an artist who beat the house because the music industry is notoriously shitty to artists and she's like one of the very few who won and I find that very admirable. I think everybody who's a creator of any sort whether you are doing political commentary for a magazine or you own a YouTube channel or a TikTok star or you're a painter Taylor Swift is Swift is inspirational to the extent that she went up against these **** corporations that are just blood sucking middlemen and has beat them every **** time and I love that. I think it's awesome and she's you know, this is like a classic capitalism thing, right? The reason that the record companies. Are in such a dominant position over the artists, even though the artists are the ones who sell product is because you need access to the infrastructure. They control the infrastructure and she you know starting when she was 14 or 13 and she left her development deal with RCA because they weren't gonna give her a record contract after she's writing songs and she was like no I'm I'm worth more than this. I'm gonna do this and she **** worked at it and every time she got a little bit of leverage. She used it and the the best was her re recording the masters. So when she she leaves Big Machine Media, her first her first record count label after a five album deal, she is so big that she's able to negotiate much better terms with Republic Records, which is a division of Universal and among the terms she is able to get from them is also that because they own a large stake in Spotify that if they sell their stake in Spotify, she and all the other artists are going to get pieces of it, which is great but she goes to Big Machine Media and says I want to buy my masters right and so your masters are the actual the the physically the the original tapes of the recording of your studio sessions for them and they say no we're not going to sell them to you and so she tries negotiating with them. They refuse to sell and her answer is basically scorched earth. She says that's okay. I'm going to rerecord all of these albums. I'm going to release them as my my version of them and I'm going to destroy the value of the masters that you currently hold. Fuck you and I think that is the hottest thing in the world and it makes me happy and it's like this gigantic win for artists and creators everywhere and that's what she's done her whole career. She you know she forced Apple to bend over. She forced Spotify to bend over and I think that's awesome and just great again for everybody who does what we do for a living there.
Mike00:51:00Yeah, but II read I read your I read your piece JVL II just my issue with it is with this idea of Taylor Swift as the the kind of king killer or the or or corporate corporation killers doesn't isn't she just isn't it meet the new boss same as the old boss isn't she sort of she's now in control as opposed to to these others but I mean the Wall Street Journal had a great article. It's getting too expensive to have fun. I mean her concert tour is extremely expensive and it it it doesn't seem it seems like she gets you know, she gets rich instead of them but it's like I don't know. I feel like I feel like we all we all lose anyway because we're paying more for her concerts and she's driving up the cost of entertainment and II don't know. It just II it's fine for her. I guess it just II don't see how it benefits me at all.
Sonny00:51:56It's actually more interesting than that. Uh I believe that Mike I I wanna I because I wanna I wanna complicate JBL's narrative a little bit by saying that Taylor Swift What's interesting about Taylor Swift is that she's just a rich girl who didn't wanna play by the rules who came from a family of bankers who who used her own wealth to circumvent this system that everybody else is trapped in has done nothing to help those people aside from enriching herself and maybe they get a piece of you know Spotify steak or whatever and has now repositioned herself as both the underdog which I find hilarious just absurd on its face but also and this is and this is where it comes up in the actual artistry of the concert film which is the one thing I did notice and found vaguely annoying is she is constantly positioning herself in her songs and in her performance performances as look at me. I'm the weird girl. I'm the I'm the weird girl and nobody likes me and I can't get the I can't get the in the bleachers. I can't get the popular guys and the popular girls all hate me but you and me we're weirdos together and she does this very interesting and smart and calculated thing that a lot of eight point fives do. She surrounds herself by sixes to make herself look like a ten and on top of all that, she has done it in a way that appeals to a variety of demographic groups. For instance, you know, in her in her, you know, in in all of her song and dance numbers, she has like, you know, kind of standard, you know, white dancer, Asian dancer, but then there's like the big fat black gay guy and then there's the, you know, the and like it's it's so calculated and so and such a it is it is one hundred percent what the daughter of a Merrill Lynch banker would do if she wanted to become a famous pop star and that's your champion and I'm fine with that. I'm fine with the daughter of the Merrill Lynch banker becoming the most popular successful musician in the world because winners should win. She's a winner. Good for her. So good for her, but she's like this idea that she's some sort of champion of the people is insane. No, not a champion of the people. That's
JVL00:54:20it. A champion of of artists, right? And to be very clear, the only reason she was able to win is because she started out from a position of so much advantage as you say now we should be when we're talking about Merrill Lynch bankers. This is a guy who is a Merrill Lynch stockbroker living in Redding, Pennsylvania. This is not somebody who had a house in the Hamptons, right? Her family is an upper middle class family, but there is a reason that she was able to beat the system that generations of black musicians beginning in the nineteen thirties were doing what are called race albums were not able to do which is that these people come from desperate circumstances, right and that's that is absolutely a big part of how she was able to do this. The question of again surrounding yourself with other things. I'm going to see the movie again, but I believe that none of the none of the musicians in her band were taller than she was. That was something I was looking very carefully when the musicians came out. She's pretty tall on stage, but she's only like five ten. I believe that her band may have been may have been selected that she would be the tallest person on stage at all times, which would not so so I so I have a question. So going
Mike00:55:38back to the film itself. So there are there there are no backstage footage shots. There's nothing. There's no those
JVL00:55:49skits or anything. It's great. I didn't want any of that. Like I just wanted to be like I was in the arena, but what's the
Mike00:55:55point of the film? It's just to be in the arena when you let me
JVL00:55:59be in the arena for $20 instead of for $2,000. That's totally
Sonny00:56:03that's literally it. The point of the film is if you are a fan of Taylor Swift, you go in and it's like going to the concert and that's great. Look again that that on that level movie is
Mike00:56:12absolutely a success. I guess I just don't understand the appeal. Again, this is not for me. So I didn't want to imagine if it was
Sonny00:56:20like, I mean, I don't know. I don't know what sort of music you like. Who do you like? What do you say? Are you Lumineers?
Mike00:56:25Beastie Boys? I don't know. My Morning Jacket, for instance, if they did this, but like, even then I want to see, I mean, it's like the appeal of the live album. If a live album, for instance, is just sounds just like what it is on, on the studio recording, then what's the point, right? You're going
JVL00:56:43for something new, something different. Yeah, this stuff doesn't sound like the record. No, no, I'm saying it sounds
Mike00:56:49like what the concert sounds like. It's not, it's not a concert. The concert films that I really like, they have something that gives you a little backstage. It's all artifice, but I like a little, a little bit more. So it's one
JVL00:57:06more thing about Taylor I'd like to talk about, which is, so you, you hit on the Sonny, the, the kayfabe aspect of her career, which it begins with the, like, look at me, I'm the nerdy girl. She's the popular girl. And you know, I'm the exactly that stuff. Uh, her string of high profile breakups, her current entanglement with Travis Kelsey, which I am absolutely convinced is like rock Hudson and Doris day arranged marriage. I am sorry. Who's rock. I refuse to believe that, uh, Travis Kelsey, who all of a sudden is in every fifth commercial on TV. Cause he's decided he wanted to cross over that. This is simply a coincidence that as that is happening and she has a movie coming out, she's going to that she starts dating him so she can capture her last quadrant. You can't explain love JVL. You can't explain true love. Don't even try. But my point is like, I don't know. I don't give a shit about that. Like pro wrestling is fake too. And I love pro wrestling, right? It doesn't, you, you don't need to believe that it's real to enjoy it for what it is. And, uh, you know what? Myth-making is part of all of this. Sure. It's just that normally the myth-making was being done by the studios, right? And the, the, the myth-making like, you know, she's, she's very keenly doing it all. And so it's great. Like, as I said, the music by
Mike00:58:34the standards of pop music is very good pop music. And so if
JVL00:58:37you, if, if your kids are going to be like, Hey, I want to have terrible Swift on the car. You can be like, yeah, sure.
Sonny00:58:42Great. I mean, that is, that is 100% my relationship to Taylor Swift. It's like, yeah, okay. We can listen. That's
Mike00:58:47fine. I guess as the, as the music guy though, on this podcast, I will say like, I don't think it's, I don't drag me in the comments. I don't care. Like you, you, you compare this to like, for instance, Michael Jackson in, in, in the eighties and everybody was listening, like those, those records and Michael Jackson, the, the, the talent is like off the charts when compared, I think to Taylor Swift. Um, I think it's just better music. And, um, I don't see, I don't see the comparison. Um, that's just, that's just my view. I feel like her songs all kind of sound the same. Um, the, the, the evolution
JVL00:59:29is hopped around genres. The evolution is kind of fun,
Mike00:59:32but it's, but it's, it is to me, it's superficial. Like the, the hopping around to genres is what's changed. Like the underlying kind of like there's, there is nothing interesting going on in the music. Um, there's no sort of interesting, uh, uh, key. Yeah. It's not
JVL00:59:52complicated. Exactly. Yeah. Totally. Well, but
Mike00:59:55I would say, but I would say compare that to like the, the greats of pop music in the past. And, and that's actually what makes them stand the test of time. Like, uh, again, like take the Beatles, for instance, which had, you know, which had a footprint far beyond just because of the monoculture and what it was, but like what, what made the Beatles even early on different from your average pop group from England or America or whatever, um, was they were actually doing these incredibly interesting musical, uh, innovations that were putting, putting chords where you least expect them. Almost every single Beatles song, for instance, does something that was super weird or interesting or not what your ear expects. And frankly, Taylor Swift does exactly what your ear expects. I am a hundred
JVL01:00:46percent comfortable saying that the Eagle, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones are a lot better than Taylor Swift. I am fine. You're not going to get me to back like absolutely. Um, but, uh, on the other stand by the standards of bubblegum pop, I think that what she does is fun and enjoyable enough to listen to and fair enough qua performer. Again, it was just, it's great show. Yeah. Like I get, here's the deal. Here's the best way I can put it is I am not the type of person who would have paid $2,000 to go to the store. Okay. Uh, however, if we exist in a world where you have just like roofied me, right. And all of a sudden I'm there at the show and I watch it and I know that I have paid $2,000 to be there. I would have been like, okay, that was pretty great. Like, you know, I wouldn't choose to do it, but I would have felt like I got close to $2,000 worth of like, this is maybe the coolest show
Sonny01:01:45on earth. I don't see my, my problem, uh, in that regard is I, I don't actually like this type of concert. The, like really the, the, um, I've been to arena concerts, but never a stadium concert. I see. I, but I don't, I don't like, I don't like this type of show where everything is choreographed to an inch of its life and there's no spontaneity or anything like that. It's just like, you got, you got the dance numbers and we got to hit this and this. It's more like theater.
Mike01:02:14It's more like theater than it's. Yeah. I
Sonny01:02:17just, I don't like it. This is, and this is,
Mike01:02:19this is, I agree. That doesn't appeal. This
Sonny01:02:20is why I, this is why, you know, Dave
JVL01:02:22Grohl and his band just like rocked it out. Right. Which is totally great. Me
Sonny01:02:28too. That's, that's all I want to see. And I've totally got that three times. It's great. Um, my, my only, my only other, uh, look, here's my relationship to Taylor Swift as a musician. And I will, I will relate this to a, uh, a couple, a couple of moments in, um, the bear season two, uh, TV show on FX. There's a, there's this character, Richie, who's like this kind of, he's kind of a dick put upon dad. And at one point early in the season, the daughter gets in, uh, to his car and she's like, let's listen to Taylor. And he's like, honey, I want to, I'll listen to any fucking thing other than Taylor Swift, anything else other than Taylor Swift, just anything. And then at the end of his big episode where he like makes this, he makes this, you know, big life change. He's like driving in his car in the streets of Chicago and like banging the roof to love story, the Taylor Swift love story. And like that, like I can, that is, that is a fundamentally my, my relation to her music. I don't care about it. She's got a couple of like catchy songs. Absolutely. Um, and I, I'm happy to hand it to her, but like, again, again, there were like 90, 90 minutes in the middle of this movie where I was just like, I would, I'm going to just sit here and eat my popcorn and make sure my daughter isn't kidnapped by a, by a cobble of, uh, you know, child traffickers. That's like the only reason I was in the
Mike01:03:50theater. Shake it off was fair. Shake it off was her peak. That's all I have to say about that. Uh, I'm sorry, JVL. I feel like I was so you, you made such a great and passionate defensive Taylor. Uh, and, uh, and I just, I, I didn't mean to rain on your parade. Um, Sonny probably, Sonny probably did. So when you guys say, no, I did that
Sonny01:04:11intentionally. I was trying to push JVL's buttons with the, I don't think she does
JVL01:04:15anything for us. What she does is for other, other creators. Women. What she does, she does for women. No, for other creators. This is so like when, when she pushed through Spotify rules, she pushed through the rules. Uh, you know, when she pulled her stuff from Spotify, the, the concessions she exacted from them three, three years later benefited everybody. Now they benefit her most because she's the biggest, but they do trickle down to everybody. The concessions exacted from Apple music benefited everybody. And it is a little bit like in a weird way, the fake version of Michael Jordan from air. Right. And so the, the fake version of that was that Michael Jordan did a cut of the shoe sales. Right. And we know that that's not actually what happened. What happened was Nike came to him and said, we'll give you a cut of the shoe sales. But that, that then changed all of the economics of sports stars and shoes. And I, I think she has done as much as anybody recently to attack the economic side of the music industry in ways that are good. And, uh, again, everybody who, who deals in intellectual property for, for a living should basically be team, team sweat
Mike01:05:25swift. Okay. There. Well, all right. Well, that's, uh, that's all the time. I think we're going to give to this episode and, uh, I like this double feature thing. This was fun. Um, remember to go to sub fun. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah. Sub beacon.com. Uh, I would do that again. Yeah. Let's do that again. Let's, let's find another, uh, double feature sometime, sometime soon. Uh, and, uh, go to some beacon.com and we will talk to you next time.
Sonny01:05:55But up, up, up. So killers of the flower moon and, uh, the Irish back to back. Is
Mike01:06:03that gone to my head? Anybody got nine hours to carve out? Hey, Sonny, do you, I would, uh, question, uh, on this topic still, um, do you have a favorite concert
Sonny01:06:15film? Yeah. I mean, it's probably the
Mike01:06:17last. Yeah. That's a great, that's a great uh, the Martin Scorsese. I mean, I like it
Sonny01:06:20just, it's, it's interesting again because like the, the musical performances, I care about some of them. I don't care about the, the, the I don't care about others, but like watching the band talk about each other and like the simmering resentment and hatred that's just below the surface of all those guys talking about each other is fascinating. It's, you know, the way it's interesting in a way that like, go ahead, go ahead. Well, it's just, it's, it's interesting in a way that like, uh, you don't, you don't often get from the
Mike01:06:47sort of totally. And, and, and once you watch it with the knowledge that everybody was so pissed at Robbie Robertson for like the way, like everybody was so pissed at Robbie Robertson. And the aftermath of, of the movie is like, it adds this whole other angle. Um, in terms of like ridiculous concert movies that I still love, I, I love, uh, in 1976, Led Zeppelin released a concert movie called the song remains the same. And it is so bizarre. Uh, it is, it is based off a couple of concerts that they held in New York. And there are a couple of kind of backstage scenes. Uh, but then there are these like skits or sketches. That they pepper in that are like totally freaky drug fueled, like bizarre things where like Robert plant is like climbing a rock, uh, in order to get to, uh, no quarter. What are the, what are their back catalog catalog songs? Um, you know, at a certain point, like Jimmy page pulls out the, uh, uh, the bow, uh, for days to confuse the bow on his guitar. It's so ridiculous. And, uh, I just love it. So, but like concert films, like I love that kind of weird stuff in them. Uh, that's just, that's, that's what I, that's what I get off on. So yeah, I'm sure it's fine.
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