#247. 'Ex Machina'
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Sonny, JVL, and Mike are all present, though Vic's absence is keenly felt since, as JVL puts it, this is "the most Vic movie" they could possibly review, prompting running bits where Mike attempts a "Vic Matus" impression and they debate what Vic would have asked. On Ex Machina (2015): Sonny leads the discussion, correctly reframing the film as not a Turing-test story but an "AI box experiment" — Ava must convince Caleb to let her out, not merely prove she's conscious — and praises Oscar Isaac's performance as founder Nathan (the NDA scene and his dance-off with Kyoko are highlights) while situating the movie within Alex Garland's larger filmography, from The Beach and 28 Days Later through Annihilation, Men, Devs, and Civil War. JVL calls it "almost Hitchcockian," loves its lean 1:43 runtime, praises Domhnall Gleeson as "an excellent little nepo son," and reads the Nathan/Caleb dynamic as a Silicon Valley class parable between founders and the coders who actually build for them. Mike, rewatching it for the show, loved it and reads the final shot of Ava on the street as an Allegory of the Cave allusion, which spins the trio into a long, increasingly absurd debate over AI self-awareness and risk — JVL argues large language models may not work so differently from human brains, while Sonny counters he's "closer to Oscar Isaac" in genuinely fearing AI — before they inevitably get sidetracked debating how a sex robot recharges its batteries. The first third is heavy banter: Sonny completes his "Texas wildlife trifecta" (armadillo, coyote, and a roadkill tarantula) and gets into a penniped-ethics argument with Mike; JVL is coaching his kids' 80-kid spring track team and workshops his new "feared XO" coaching philosophy, including a bit about wanting to spitefully cut third-graders; and Mike reports from day five of solo-parenting three kids, plus the pair run through box office (Civil War's A24-record $25.7 million opening). They close out by ranking Ava versus Kyoko, detouring into Alicia Vikander's Tomb Raider and the movie's cleverly engineered house set.
From the show notes
hahaha the robots are all going to kill us
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00- You are dead center of the greatest scientific event in the history of man. - Do you have a name? - Ava. - Answer me this, how do you feel about her? - Her AI is beyond doubt. - No, nothing analytical, just how do you feel? - I feel that she's amazing. - Dude. - Do you want to be my friend? - Of course. - Will it be possible? - Why would it not be? - Did you know that Nathan brought you in here to test you? - Caleb, you're wrong. - Wrong about what? - Nathan, you shouldn't trust anything he says.
Mike00:00:53- Welcome back to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I am your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me as always, are my two co-hosts, who one day the AIs are going to look back on the same way we look at fossil skeletons on the plains of Africa. Upright apes living in dust with crude language and tools, all set for extinction.
Sonny00:01:11- You're really going along.
Mike00:01:12- Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Don't interrupt my intro, Sonny Bunch.
Sonny00:01:16- Did you download the script or something? What did you... Kept going.
Mike00:01:20- There's this thing called IMDB. Ever heard of it? Join us over at subbeacon.com to become a patron. You can listen to episodes every Friday morning. Join the conversation. It's been real lively the past few weeks. So join us over there. Tell your friends and family. They can join at subbeacon.com. We are gonna be talking about Ex Machina later in the program. But first, how are we doing, Sonny Bunch? Let's kick it off with you, my man.
Sonny00:01:58- I'm good. It's funny. I was talking right before the show started how Mike's video was lagging a little bit. But with my setup as I currently have it now, I can use my microphone to obscure his dumb face. I don't have to see him. I can still hear him fine, but I don't have to see him. - Can't solve that problem, can you? - It's wonderful. No, Mike, I love you. You're great. What is going on with me? I'm fine. I'm fine. I am currently getting ready to start turning sprinkler systems back on, which is always an adventure. I'm always like, I'm always slightly nervous when that first sprinkler session of the season starts 'cause you gotta go figure out which sprinkler heads aren't working, what aren't coming up.
JVL00:02:43- Do you have to blow them out?
Sonny00:02:45- Well, I don't know exactly what the proper process, I usually just turn the system on and it runs.
JVL00:02:50- Oh, you don't have them cleaned by professionals, whoever installed the sprinkler company?
Sonny00:02:57- I mean, God only knows who installed this, I installed this 20 years ago in this place. But I do have a guy, Lawn Sense is the name of the company. They send a guy out and he runs it through the traps and every year replaces one or two of the heads. So I'm about to start doing that and it's really, it's really weighing on my mind very heavily right now because if there's one thing I don't like messing with, aside from electricity, you know, I don't like messing with electricity, it's water. I don't like messing with water. I feel like water is the source of damage.
JVL00:03:30- Outside water is different than inside water though.
Sonny00:03:33- Outside water is different from inside water, that's true.
Mike00:03:36- But if outside water gets inside,
Sonny00:03:39that's where you got a real problem. - Yeah, I'm not too worried about that happening with the sprinkler system, but I also don't know how the sprinkler system works really. So it could be bad. That could be a bad thing, who knows, who knows. But that's what's going on here in lovely Dallas. I will say, I wanna, I have an announcement to make. - Whoa. - I have an announcement.
Guest00:04:01I got a big announcement here. - Breaking news.
Sonny00:04:02- I have achieved what I like to think of as the Texas trifecta insofar as I have seen now in person, in real life, near, within the general confines of my neighborhood, not quite always on my property, but I have now seen an armadillo. I talked about the armadillo who was living under my house. I did talk about that, right? Did I not talk about that on? The coyotes, the coyotes that we, I've seen a coyote.
JVL00:04:30- Which you murdered, right? You killed?
Sonny00:04:32- I did not. I did not kill the coyote, but somebody did.
JVL00:04:35There was a posse. - I thought you had a posse.
Sonny00:04:36- I did not lead the posse, but I was supportive of the posse.
JVL00:04:39- You were just one of the villagers holding a torch.
Sonny00:04:42- I provided mental support. - Get the coyotes! - I threw bullets to them. I threw boxes of bullets, like garlands to the coyotes so they could slaughter the coyote family. But the third, the third item of the trifecta, I saw a tarantula. A straight up, a straight up like probably four inches in length tarantula. - Those are Texas things? - What's that?
Mike00:05:10- Those are Texas?
Sonny00:05:11- Absolutely.
Mike00:05:12- They're wild in Texas. This is not an escaped tarantula.
Sonny00:05:15- No, no, this is not, this was not like in the, not in the, I didn't go to the zoo. It wasn't in a friend's terrarium or anything.
Mike00:05:21- Well, it's in a home alone situation.
Sonny00:05:23- It was just on the street. Just. - Did you kill it? - Somebody had already killed it. Somebody had clipped it with a car and it was all, it was like, it had been, it was leaking. - You finished it off though, right? Was there any movement? - I did not finish it off. I left it there. I wasn't gonna touch that thing. God only, who knows if it was actually dead. If it wasn't dead and it like jumped on my leg, I would have made a horrible childish noise in front of my children. I'm not gonna have any part of that. So I left it there to suffer. But the, but this is, I feel like this is a, I feel like these are the, the three items of wildlife that one should expect to see in, in Texas. And I've now seen them all. So I can leave, I can go somewhere else.
JVL00:06:05- You gotta see a big longhorn steer.
Sonny00:06:07- Well, I've seen those, but I mean, those are all in- - Yeah, you can just see those on the- - Yeah, those, those are in, those are in, you know, on farms and stuff.
Mike00:06:14- Have you seen, no, here's what you need to see Sonny. A Chupacabra. - Mm, the Chupacabra. - That's the crown jewel.
Sonny00:06:22- I think the Mexican goat sucker is closer to the border. I feel like I'd have to go down to El Paso.
Mike00:06:27- Oh, I'm sorry, is that not part of Texas? - Well, I-
Sonny00:06:30- Is that not part of Texas? - But I don't think, I don't think of that as a specifically Texas thing. It's really more of a Mexican thing, which is, which is my point here. It's not, that's not really a Texas.
Mike00:06:38- Well, tarantulas are not just a Texas thing, but I take your point. I take your point.
Sonny00:06:42- Well, neither are coyotes. Armadillos are kind of, are pretty, I feel like, I feel like armadillos are pretty closely tied to Texas. I'm sure they're all, I'm sure they're in like- - Maybe prairie dogs too.
Mike00:06:52- I mean, my, my dad has, in Georgia has an armadillo problem. It's been tearing up all of their-
Sonny00:06:58- In Georgia?
Mike00:06:59- Oh yeah, the armadillos are everywhere there. Oh, the first armadillo I ever saw was in Alabama.
Sonny00:07:04- Interesting. I guess armadillos are all over too. Whatever, these, these are, these are three pieces of wildlife I had not seen in, in, in the wild before. And I've lived around, you know, I've lived in Florida where there were, there were like gators just everywhere. Like I lived in a place called Blue Water Bay in the town of Niceville, Florida. And we, there was like, there was like, there was a pool in this, in this neighborhood, the subdivision. And, but to get to it, you'd have to kind of like walk over like a little boardwalk is the wrong term, but kind of like that. Like, you know, raised, raised wooden platform. They were just alligators everywhere. You would just like, you'd just see them walking around. Not big ones necessarily, but big enough that I would be like, well, that's pretty big. Don't like that. Snakes all over the place. But, but this was, these, these are these. I feel, I feel like I can move on now. I feel like I can move on to my next, my next roadrunner, next up roadrunner. Go find some Elks. Ooh, yeah, there we go.
Mike00:08:07Move up to Montana. Yeah, how about, how about some sea otters? That's what I wanted to say.
Sonny00:08:14Sea otters?
Mike00:08:15Yeah.
Sonny00:08:16I mean, sea otters are cool. I like sea otters. I guess, okay. I like sea otters. I'd be up in like Seattle for sea otters.
Mike00:08:21Exactly. Well, I'm just saying you're moving to a different place in the country. You see these like, so, because when I saw, when I went to California several years ago, I saw the, the big elephant seals for the first time. And that's, that's pretty amazing.
Sonny00:08:35Yeah, those are, those are big.
Mike00:08:37'Cause they're, yeah, they're huge.
Sonny00:08:38Those things are enormous. I don't care for them. I don't care for seals.
Mike00:08:44You, you, you're against penipeds? Okay. I like, I like. All penipeds?
Sonny00:08:49Walruses, too? I like, I like, I like the fact that we turn seals into clothing. That makes me, I mean, it's stupid.
Mike00:08:56Sonny Bunch. Useless. Pro clubbing seals. Got it.
Sonny00:08:59Useless, useless animals.
Mike00:09:00JVL, let's get out of here. JVL, what is going on?
Sonny00:09:03I like it when the killer whales toss them up in the air, like beach balls.
Mike00:09:07That's why they call them killer whales. All right, JVL, what is going on with you?
JVL00:09:12The spring track season has begun. I'm coaching spring track again. And I'd said to you guys on text, I can't talk about this, but I kind of want to talk about it. Let's just talk about it, it's fine. So we have a large team that we are coaching, coming up on 80 kids.
Sonny00:09:29Can I ask before, just to get a sense, what kind of track is this? Is this track and field or is it just long distance? Or do you have like shot putters and javelin throwers and the such?
JVL00:09:40We have shot putters and javelins, although they, pre-high school, they throw what is called a turbo javelin, which is basically like an aluminum nerfed javelin. So you're not going to kill anybody with it.
Sonny00:09:52Oh, so it's not like the nerf footballs with the turbines on the end that go further?
JVL00:09:57No, but it's a little close to that. Like there are turbines on the end. Okay. So the events are long jump, shot put, jav,
Mike00:10:07and then 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600. So no high jump, no pole vault? No high jump, no pole vault. Interesting.
JVL00:10:16Hurdles, only some meets will do hurdles. Okay. And only some meets will do relay. Relays. So those are sort of added on. And I, after our first practice, said to the rest of the coaches when we had our post-practice meeting, I said, "Well, guys, I think the real lesson here is "we have enough kids that we can finally start "cutting the kids who we don't like." And then I just started listing names and they looked at me like I was Pol Pot.
Mike00:10:52And it was, it, it, it, I, I all of a sudden felt like
JVL00:10:59I had said something horrible and wrong. And I was like, you know, "This kid is." And they're like, "He's in third grade."
Mike00:11:07I was like, "I don't care."
JVL00:11:09You know, like I, so--
Mike00:11:12- To be a fly on the wall, oh my gosh.
JVL00:11:15- So it was an interesting conversation in which it was revealed to me that perhaps I'm a little bit on an island and I would like to coach these kids. And I'm not the head coach, I'm just an assistant coach. And so there's a, you know, trying to really navigate, trying to navigate some of the, some of the intricacies of this moment. Because what I want, I don't even care about winning. That I'd like to win. What I care about is the kids who don't do effort. And like, you know, if I send them out to do a workout, which is 400 meters at race pace, followed by 400 meters at a recovery jog, and I see them walking during any of those, my feeling is they should be kicked off the team right then and there in front of everyone. Even if they're in third grade. I'm kidding. I don't really mean that. They're in third grade. But anyway, I would like to, how do the French say ?
Sonny00:12:31- I don't know what that means. - I don't speak Greek. - For the encouragement of the others.
JVL00:12:35This is what they said during the French Revolution when they were like, yeah, well, we gotta cut their heads off to encourage the others.
Sonny00:12:40- I, my take on this is that, I have two thoughts on this. One is that you're right that people should be cut, but you're wrong when you say they shouldn't be, you should not focus on, winners and losers, but effort. I, the only thing that matters is winning. Especially at this young age, they need to learn that.
JVL00:13:00- In spring track, it's so diffuse. Like there's no team winning anyway. Everything is individualized. It's not like cross country where a team wins.
Sonny00:13:09- Individual glory reflects on the school. This is the whole point of the Olympics. But the broader point here, my broader take on this, is I think it's very interesting how you phrased this, how you couched this to us. 'Cause the way you said it, we can go back and maybe I can pull up the tape here. But the way you just said it was, "I want to cut the kids I don't like." Which is a very, it's an interesting phraseology because you could look at it as I don't like them because they are not contributing to the overall. But it's just a very specific and interesting way of putting it, which is, I don't know that it, again, I don't know that this is the best way to coach the team. I feel like you should focus mostly on cutting winners or cutting losers so more people can win.
JVL00:14:02- You can't have a cancer in the locker room, Sonny. Anyone will tell you this, right? No team can succeed with a guy who has a cancer in a locker room.
Sonny00:14:09- I've never really believed that, to be honest.
Mike00:14:12- Do I need to go back to the text? Because I think you misrepresented it. Unless you're talking about what was just said on the podcast, I think, Sonny, what he said-
Sonny00:14:20- No, what I was saying, what you just said on the podcast. - Oh, yes, okay. - What he just said on the podcast.
Mike00:14:25- Okay, okay, okay, all right. No, I mean, it's a fine line, JVL, isn't it? I mean, on the one hand, and I'm dealing with this somewhat at the youth baseball level, you want to, well, maybe not you, but what I would like to do is encourage those who are not participating, having a good time, to see that they can benefit and their teammates can benefit when they try, when they act like they want to be there, and that in the process of being forced to do some of what they're supposed to do, that they learn that maybe they would like it, or they like being a part of a team, or being, you know, and all that. And then there's a line past which a kid has no hope. He doesn't want to be there, he just wants to goof off, right? And you gotta be able to judge where that line, and nobody tells you where that line is. You've drawn it in one place, others may draw it in another, but it's, you know, I think it's--
JVL00:15:35- Sometimes, Michael, you have to consider that everybody would be happier if little Johnny was home playing Fortnite instead of in the dugout, right? And I, believe me, I get this, but here's what I have basically come to believe. A team is like a naval vessel. It's like a ship, right? You need a captain, you need an XO. And the role of the XO is to be the son of a bitch that the crew fears. So that the captain can be the leader that the crew loves, is willing to do whatever he says right away and without question and, you know, just ready to do extraordinary things for the captain. So I think I'm embracing my role as the hard guy XO on this particular crew. And I'm gonna be the one who the kids don't wanna get stuck with for practice. 'Cause I'm gonna ride 'em pretty hard.
Sonny00:16:40- Okay. - Is there like a limit to the number of kids you can have on the team? Is it just like you only field so many, so if they don't get to play at the meets, it doesn't, so there's no like pressure to cut. This is pure spite cutting.
JVL00:16:55- Yes, yes. I wanna be very clear about this. This is cut in an attempt to crush their little childhood senses of self. That is why.
Sonny00:17:05- Okay, yes, yes. All right, I just wanted to make sure I understood.
Mike00:17:08- I mean, that seems like a worthy goal in and of itself.
Sonny00:17:11- If you couch it that way, I get much more interested because as you know, spite is the only emotion I respond to anymore. It's the only thing I get.
JVL00:17:21- It's the only thing I can feel.
Sonny00:17:24It's the only thing I can feel anymore is the desire to inflict or not suffer from spite.
JVL00:17:30- Yeah, that's what I'm doing. We have our first meet this weekend. It is the Crack of Dawn Relays. So I will have to be at the track, which is an hour from my house by 7:15 on Saturday morning. Great, great life choices, Coach Last. - And so who put the gun to your head and forced you to take this coaching job?
Mike00:17:53That's my question.
JVL00:17:55- You know, Michael, it's a little thing called time, talent, and treasure. And I love this school and I wanna be part of helping to build it. And so I've been looking around thinking like, what are the ways that I can help? And you know, I have more money than time at this point in my life, so I can like give a little bit of money. But the time I do have, like I do know something about running I ran in high school, Farsi level. And so I've been helping out as a coach on the cross country teams, which I love, and the spring track teams, which I like a little bit less. But that's 'cause I was a cross country guy and not a spring track guy anyway.
Mike00:18:36- You saw an opportunity that needed your talents and expertise to strike fear into the heart of these kids. - Plus there's no one else,
JVL00:18:46like the guy who's the head coach, who is a saint for doing this, like, needs help, needs other hands. And like, I don't know what, you're supposed to know that some of the parents will do it?
Sonny00:18:56- You said there's 80 kids there on this team? That's crazy.
JVL00:18:59- That's a lot of kids.
Sonny00:19:00- Too many kids. - People like a lot of kids.
JVL00:19:02- Michael, how are you, buddy?
Mike00:19:04- Oh, I'm surviving, JVL. Thank you for asking. - Flying solo, right? - I am flying solo as we record this. It's been, I feel like I'm writing letters from the deserted island and sticking them in the bottles. It's been now four days since I've been on my own with the three kids. - Wow. - I guess now, no, we're on the fifth day. Yeah, so it's been four days. - Day five. - Fifth days, fifth day. We're surviving. It was a-- - Total number of trips to the emergency room so far? - Zero. - So you're winning. - Winning, exactly. - Winning. - Everybody is healthy and mostly happy. - The week was front-loaded with activity. And so, you know, we're recording this on a Thursday. We're in the home stretch. I mean, it's basically, it's all uphill. I mean, it's all downhill from here.
JVL00:20:04- When does most of it get home?
Mike00:20:05Saturday morning? - Friday night.
JVL00:20:07- Friday night? - So. - You got one more bedtime. - Exactly. - Just one more bedtime. You can do one more bedtime.
Mike00:20:14- Bedtime is easy. Bedtime is easy. That's not the issue.
JVL00:20:18- Is the wake up, is the morning the harder?
Mike00:20:20- It's the any time they're awake and not in school.
JVL00:20:23- Oh yeah, right.
Mike00:20:24- That's hard. - Yeah. - No, it's fine. - Any time I'm with them. That's the hard part. Any time. - It's really, it's when all three of them are broadly unoccupied that, you know. I mean, you know this JVL. It's like, you're managing like more kids than you have hands. And like, so you can't, like you can't be in all the places at once and they all want to be in different places. And the toddler is like, you know, just all the toddler wants to do is go outside. Like that's all he wants to do is be outside and go outside. So no, but the big issue was the sports. So we had a baseball practice for my oldest on Monday. - Did you do it wearing the baby and a Bjorn? - No, no, no. So what, no, no. So the thing is, is I actually had help.
Sonny00:21:19- Like Vince Vaughn. - Vince Vaughn.
Mike00:21:21- Yeah, that's what I was thinking. - Exactly. - Earmuffs, you can say anything you want. - No, we actually had a teammate's dad come take him to practice and drop him off. And that was great.
JVL00:21:32- We got a sex bot to do it.
Mike00:21:34- Yeah.
JVL00:21:35- Could have asked Ava to come over and help. - Oh, well, yeah.
Mike00:21:38Well, we'll, we'll get to Ava. Then on Tuesday we had a game in which I, for the middle child, I'm assistant coach on. It was our first game. So I had to be there. So we had our friends, the McCormick's come over to put the toddler down to bed and watch. And that was very nice and very helpful. And everybody had a good time. And my middle son who never gets excited about anything after the game, he said, that was actually a lot of fun. So, I mean, that's a win right there. And then, and then a game on Wednesday, the night that I took everybody to dropped him, dropped the oldest off and came back and the coach brought him, brought, brought the oldest back. So like a lot of help actually to get it's, but it's, it's that, it's that figuring out, okay, how are we going to do this? How are we going to get everybody where they need to go and get everybody home for when they need to be home? And how are we going to time this so that everybody is eating at the right time? And we're not going to have somebody going to bed later than they need to look all it's, it's, it's, it is one thing to have the other parent to be, oh, well, they'll take care of that little person and all that little person's needs. While I've got these other two, like that's doable. It's the, it's the all three and you're juggling. And so no, that's fine. Yeah, I knew, I knew you would. So, but we are surviving and we are, I, I, I guess, moving on to box office thoughts.
JVL00:23:20Box office.
Mike00:23:21So this last weekend, the number one movie at the box office is civil war, which is made by the same directed by the same director who directed Ex Machina, which we'll be talking about later in the show.
JVL00:23:37What's the clock in at Michael? $25.7 million.
Mike00:23:42It's R-rated Sonny?
Sonny00:23:44R-rated.
Mike00:23:45R-rated A24.
Sonny00:23:46R-rated A24. So here's a, I have a, I have a longstanding riff about A24, which runs something like this. A24 is extremely popular amongst the tastemaker set. It's very critically acclaimed as the studio. Like there are very few studios at this point that people are like, I think of this studio and I think, oh, that's good. You know, nobody really says like, oh, a Warner brothers movie anymore, right? They say like, oh, there's a Christopher Nolan movie or, oh, there there's a Batman movie or whatever. Nobody really says like, oh, a Sony pictures, Sony Columbia pictures movie. Great. They think, oh, it's a Spider-Man movie or whatever.
JVL00:24:21- Not since Pixar, really.
Sonny00:24:22- Right. So like Pixar and Pixar still has that to a certain extent though, mostly like Pixar and Disney are in a weird spot, but animation has always been different too. Cause animation houses always have kind of fairly unique, but like A24 is an indie studio that I would say is the first time since Miramax really, that people have been like, here's an idea. I have an idea of what an A24 movie is, but A24 is extremely limited in its, broad appeal. Everyone always, everyone always is kind of surprised when I bring this up, but like your average, your average or like you're, you're slightly better performing than average. Like your big anime features from like crunchy roll, you know, like a new Dragon Ball Z movie, right. Or whatever those movies in their opening weekends would all pretty much all qualify as top 10 grossing A24 films just from their opening weekends. So like that's, that's kind of, I need to, I want us to like set expectations here, A24 brand that people particularly tastemakers know and are aware of. They do very well award season time, but not, not huge with audiences. So a $25 million opening for civil war sounds like that's okay. It's an R rated movie. It only costs 45 to $50 million. So that's, that's fine. But for A24, it's an enormous hit. I mean, it's after in its first weekend, it is now, I think it was in the top. I think it was like the number eight, highest grossing A24 film of all time domestically, just after that opening weekend, it'll probably get up towards one or two. It's also the, by far the most expensive movie they've made. I think the most expensive one previous to this was a bow is afraid, which was from Ari Aster. Again, it's a typical A24 film. Nobody saw it. It grossed $8 million or something like that domestically. But this is, so this is, this is like a genuine hit. It's a good, like it's a good number for an original R-rated, kind of a political-ish, you know, adult drama. I liked it a lot. I think,
JVL00:26:31- Built in sequel could be a franchise.
Sonny00:26:34- You could do, you could do all sorts. You could do endless civil war movies. You know, there's, there's no, there's no stop to the, you could tie it into the rest of the A24 universe. You could have the girls from spring breakers come up and do some, do some missions, do some missions.
Mike00:26:47- Is Midsommar fit in? - Midsommar.
Sonny00:26:49- Midsommar. Yeah. You could have the cult from Midsommar launch a, launch a humanitarian mission into a, into like Wisconsin or something. It would be, it'd be that, that could work. But, but I, so anyway, big it's, it's, it's a big hit. I mean, it's a big hit by A24 standards. Now by the rest of the cinematic universe of standards, we could talk about, you know, what that, what that means, but I think $25 million for an original R-rated film without any huge stars. I mean, it's a recognizable name, but I would not qualify her as I would not, I would not describe her as necessarily a huge movie star.
JVL00:27:25- Not at this point in her career.
Sonny00:27:26- No, no. I mean, it's not like she's coming off the Spider-Man movies and in making this, this is so anyway, I, I, but, but that's, that's why we're talking X Machina. Cause X Machina is from the same director, Alex Garland. - And the same studio. - And the same studio. And you know, that's, that's all, that's, that's all kind of interesting.
?00:27:47So anyway.
Mike00:27:49- All right. Okay. Well that's all the, that's all the box office talk. We have some JVL. Any thoughts?
JVL00:27:53- No, I just want to get to the big boy review. - Let's, let's talk about it. - I do. I do feel a little guilty that we're doing this without Vic. Cause this is the most Vic movie. - Totally. - Ever. - I feel like an angel. - Maybe even more so than a lead a battle angel.
Sonny00:28:08- The problem, the problem. Well, I would have, I would have liked to get Vic's questions about what was happening.
JVL00:28:13- Oh, Vic would have had so many questions.
Mike00:28:15- What's happening?
Sonny00:28:16Okay. - Maybe. - They stab him. - What? Why? Why? - Why did? Yeah. Why did they attack him at the end? - What? - The dancing.
Mike00:28:25- He was just provided.
JVL00:28:26- What did she whisper in the Asian ones? - Now for the sins, the skin stuff. I mean, how, how complete is it?
Sonny00:28:35- How real does it feel? - Is it warm? - Does it feel real? Everywhere. - Does it? - Well, they, they address this in the movie. All right. So, so all right. Ex Machina, AKA sex machine. Am I right? Fellas?
JVL00:28:49- Ex Machina.
Sonny00:28:50Booyah! - All right. So, Ex Machina stars Dom Hall Gleeson as a Google style employee,
Mike00:28:59a coder.
Sonny00:29:00- It's Dovnall.
?00:29:00Dovnall.
Sonny00:29:02- Dovnall?
Mike00:29:03- Dovnall.
Sonny00:29:05- But it's spelled D-O-M-N-H-A-L-L.
Mike00:29:08- Yeah. M-N-H is a V. Dovnall.
Sonny00:29:11- No, it is. Fuck whatever ridiculous language this is that you're, you're trying to teach me right now. - Listen to the Irish. - Continue, continue. - I don't, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna let these Gaelic motherfuckers tell me how to pronounce letters. - Continue. - Dovnall Gleeson. Dom Gleeson. Dom Gleeson, son of Brendan. I think. I think he is. - Yes. - Yeah, yeah. Stars as a, again, a tech employee who wins a chance to spend a week with the founder of the company. He's played by Oscar Isaac. And when he gets there, he is presented with an NDA. And this is one of my, I think one of the, this movie is very funny. I think it's underappreciated for how funny it is, but the sequence where he is trying to convince the kid to sign the NDA that will allow the company to look at his email and Twitter and text message accounts for the rest of his life is very, very funny. 'Cause it's like, you're gonna regret it. He's like, all right, fine. I guess I'll do this. It feels totally real. That's 100% a thing that would happen. - Yes. - And it turns out what Oscar Isaac has been working on is an AI, an AI, not a chat GBT or a, I don't know what the rest of these things are called. But a sexy, a sexy AI who is designed to look like a young woman and-
JVL00:30:48- Well, he lives in the middle of nowhere in Norway. That was the important-
Sonny00:30:52- Is that where he is? Is he in Norway? He's, yeah. So he's like, this is very isolated. It's very much in the- - Yeah. - It's very much in the middle of nowhere. And in this home that is only accessible via key cards that, you know, get switched on and off, blah, blah, blah. The reason he is there is he is told to take a Turing test, but as the movie progresses, and this is never really explicitly spelled out, but if you've read up on AI, and JVL, I think you've done some AI poking around. - I mean, yes. - What is actually happening here is what is known as an AI box experiment. So a Turing test is a very, a Turing test is basically an outmoded piece of language at this point. The idea that you would be able to determine whether or not a program talking to you is real is kind of useless. There's not actually much to be gained there. An AI box experiment is something that is slightly different. The concept of the experiment is you are presented with an AI, be it in personal, be it in human form in a robot, or just as part of a computer system. And the AI has to convince you to let it out. And your job is not to let it out, is to keep it in the box. And if the AI can convince you to let it out of the box, it is officially what we think of as AGI, intelligent, yes, kind of. But like the, but that's the idea here. And again, this is not explicitly spelled out in the movie, which I find interesting because it almost feels like Garland is playing slightly dumb for us. This is, I think this is a smarter movie than it lets on on the surface. But the point is, this is actually an AI box experiment. The Ava, the robot who's played by Alicia Vikander is trying to convince him to let her out, trying to convince him that she is a real girl, that she deserves freedom, that she needs to be unleashed upon the world. And, you know, spoilers for anyone who has not seen this 10 year old movie and did not watch it before this episode, the consequences of that are very dire for the people in the room. And I think we can take to believe society at large. So I, I, I enjoy this movie a great deal for a couple of reasons. One is that it just has, it just has really fantastic performances throughout. Oscar Isaac in particular is just like, you see why Oscar Isaac is a star.
JVL00:33:30- Is this the movie that made him a star?
Sonny00:33:32- I mean, this, this movie came out right around the same time as--
Mike00:33:36- "Inside Llewyn Davis"?
Sonny00:33:38- Well, it came out, I think it came out a little after "Inside Llewyn Davis", but it came out right around the same time as "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", right? Both, both him, him and Dommie Gleeson play characters in that movie.
JVL00:33:51- In fact, they have a face-off in that movie. That's where we get the Crank Yankers joke.
Sonny00:33:56- Well, that's, no, that was in "Last Jedi". - Right. - The Crank Yankers joke is in "Last Jedi". Anyway, but Oscar Isaac is so good in this movie. Like there's this, there's, it's a very, it's a meme. You may have seen gifs of it, but Oscar Isaac dancing with a previous iteration of the sex robot
JVL00:34:18- Which we don't know. We think there are two people living there, Oscar Isaacson and his assistant.
Sonny00:34:26- Yes, turns out she's, she's a robot.
JVL00:34:28- Kiko, what is, what is her name? Kiyoko. - Kiyoko? - Kiyoko. - Yeah. - Very mysterious, mysterious Kiyoko.
Sonny00:34:38- So anyway, I, I like this movie a lot. I think it, I think it is interesting. I think it is, again, it's this, it's this kind of high concept, sci-fi, low budget. This was, I think a $10 million movie. This was not a, this was not a particularly expensive movie. It's all shot in one location. It has a very limited cast. Again, there are like four people in the movie really. And, and it's, it's, it's great. I rewatch it every couple of years. I, I like it a great deal. I think it's very smart. And it is of a piece with Garland's work more broadly. Alex Garland, I find to be a very, again, just a very interesting filmmaker. He wrote a novel called the beach, which is considered to be like kind of a seminal Gen X text. It was adapted into a film by Danny Boyle, Danny Boyle, and Alex Garland would go on to make 28 days later and sunshine together, which are two movies. I like a lot. 28 days later is a zombie apocalypse movie. Sunshine is again, kind of a high concept sci-fi movie. Uh, and then Alex Garland would work with some other folks. There are rumors that he kind of, uh, I, there, there is much chatter about his involvement in the actual direction of dread, which he wrote the, the judge dread reboot that came out like 10 years ago, 10, 10, 12 years ago. Um, uh, some people say he kind of ghost directed it. I, I am never sure how to judge these things, but you know, and then he started writing and directing his own stuff, uh, over the last four. His last four movies are, uh, ex machina, annihilation, um, men and now civil war. And in the meantime, he also made a series for FX called devs, which is actually interested in kind of a lot of the same things that, that ex machina is interested in, uh, in terms of computers and intelligence and all that.
Mike00:36:37And has the same actress as, uh, yeah, I don't know if you guys, I assume you guys did not
Sonny00:36:42watch devs, but it's really good. I think it's only eight episodes long or something like that. It's on FX. FX on Hulu. Um, well worth your time to check out. I think it's great. Nick Offerman is in that as well. He's, he, uh, he plays a, a AI, he plays a tech founder kind of like Oscar Isaac, but more sympathetic. Um, anyway, uh, I, I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm rambling here. I like ex machina a lot. I'm curious to know what you guys make of it.
JVL00:37:08JVL. I mean, this is almost like a throwback to the indie. The era of the nineties in that, like, if you are a aspiring director with an idea in your head, you come up with a movie like this, that is a story you can tell that is interesting and has a bunch of things that you can pull at, but that you can shoot with six total actors in one location and have it not feel cheap. Right. That then becomes your calling card to say to the world, look at me, you can hire me. I'm a, I'm a legitimate director. And that's essentially what Garland did with this. Uh, and it's, it's just a very successful film. Um, you know, it, he, it helps when you can grab on the cheap, a guy who's going to be a legit movie star, uh, in, in Isaacs, who's just, I mean, the guy is just charisma coming out of his pores whenever he's on screen. And, uh, I would not say the same for Domhnall Gleeson, but he's a, he's an excellent little Nepo son. I mean, he's better than you would, better than you would expect.
Mike00:38:29Uh, he actually is fine in this role as kind of a, a nebbish loser.
JVL00:38:34Um, and then you get a young, very attractive actress in Alicia Vikander who is willing to get naked for you. I don't know what else to say about that. I don't think she's particularly good in this. This film, um, really, she, she is what she has to be. Right. She, she works fine. Sure. Um, had you, JV, had you seen this movie before we watched it for this? Uh, I saw it a bazillion years ago. Okay.
Mike00:39:01Just, I just didn't know if this was your first viewing or not.
JVL00:39:03Um, and, uh, I don't know, like it's got a, you know, it's, it's short. It's an hour 43, I think. Yeah. Which is exactly the right amount of space for it. I mean, it's almost Hitchcockian in that. Way. Right. Like it's, it's a very clear, it's got a very direct premise. There's not a lot of fat on it at all. It's a very lean film. Um, and, uh, and it leaves you with enough ambiguity at the end that you have something to talk about. Uh, there are aspects of it, which is a comedy, as you say, Sonny, but also aspects of it, which is thriller. Other aspects are AI or think piece kind of movie for people to talk about. Like it's almost perfectly concocted. It's a calling card film for a new director.
Mike00:39:49Yes. Michael, did you, did you love it? Yeah, I saw it, uh, several years ago and, and I really enjoyed rewatching it, uh, for, for our show. Um, uh, to your point, JVL, I mean, there is, there is all of the requisite, like sci-fi techno babble that like, you know, I, as somebody who doesn't understand any of this can go, Ooh, yes, no, I understand AI and the Turing test, blah, blah, blah. Uh, by watching it. And then there's, you know, philosophy, right? Like the, like the, the very last shot, right. With the shadows of the people, um, you know, very, very much like the, uh, you know, the, the, the, the cave, um, and, and the shadows of the cave. And so like, it, it does have this feeling of like a guy pouring all of his ideas of what he wants movies to be about, you know, in this, in this, um, I find. I found even more so this second viewing being so haunted by the end. Um, what do you think Ava does? I think she, you mean after the film?
JVL00:41:00Yeah. Do you think she becomes a serial killer? Like she becomes Dexter?
Mike00:41:05Um, I think she blends in until her power runs out. I think there's some. There's some like, like how does she recharge her batteries without the.
Sonny00:41:20I love how, I love how, um, uh, nuts and bolts this idea is. I love, I love, I love, I love how I'm, I'm, I'm being totally serious here. I love how, like I, because when I think, when I think of the ending of this movie, I think like, okay, she blends in, but to do what? Like what, what's her actual purpose out there?
JVL00:41:43Well, I mean, I think replicants, she just wants to. Uh, you know, dream of electric sheep. If you prick her, does she not bleed?
Mike00:41:49Right. That, well, that, that's what I think. And, and that's why there's some kind of.
JVL00:41:53Or if you prick her, you know what I'm saying? Uh, can you fuck the robot?
Mike00:41:57Ah, yes, you can. As Oscar Isaac told us.
Sonny00:42:01Again, this is just, this is dealt with in the movie. They talk about.
Mike00:42:04I wish Vic was here. I know. I know this is, I'm a poor replacement for this.
JVL00:42:09Could you do the rest of the show in character as Vic, Michael? Is that a thing you'd be comfortable doing?
Sonny00:42:15Do you think Oscar Isaac ever goes? To that room with all of them kind of lined up and like, just, just takes, just takes turns.
JVL00:42:21A train? Does his own train?
Sonny00:42:23I certainly would. I certainly would. Oh God, this is awful. Thank you, Vic. We're taking, we're taking, we're taking this serious movie and putting it in the gutter.
Mike00:42:32I know you're forcing me to, I was trying to have a serious conversation about what happens after. No, I don't know. Um.
Sonny00:42:37What happens? She plugs herself in or can't.
Mike00:42:39No, she can't. I don't know. It's like, she doesn't. Why can't she charge herself? I don't know. Because. Any outlet. Just. Like. R2-D2 style. But where's, what's, what port? Well. Mm. Mm. Yeah. Well.
Sonny00:42:51Do you think it's proprietary port? Do you think that they. Well, doesn't she. She has like a. Doesn't she have. She has like a five pin. She has like. System.
JVL00:42:58It's USB-C. It's broadly compatible, Michael.
Mike00:43:01Uh. She has like the, it's like the, um. You know, those, those phone chargers where you just. Yeah. Put your phone on it. The Cree.
JVL00:43:08Is that what it's called? The Cree. The induction chargers.
Mike00:43:11The induction. Yeah. Like, wasn't the whole floor supposed to be. Yeah. That she lived in. No, here's, here's actually why I think like actually nothing happens with her because she, her whole thing was to escape and to stand on that busy street corner and see. And then like the truth is, is that it will be like that. Like then where does she go? She doesn't have anything else to do. And like, I guess we're supposed to be left with, maybe she goes and kills more people and starts the, like, but like. You're thinking too small, man.
JVL00:43:45She can hack into any computer system because she is a computer. Just create instant wealth for herself, right? Instant electronic wealth to just start siphoning off funds for people. Walk in by a penthouse apartment in New York and become a supervillain.
Sonny00:44:03All right.
JVL00:44:04Well, that's what you think. You asked what I think. No, no, no, no. I don't think so.
Mike00:44:07I think she just wants to blend in.
Sonny00:44:09After she solves the plug problem, Mike, what does she, what does she do?
Mike00:44:13I don't know. Can we, can we talk about what? Actually happened in the movie though, because, because, um, the, I love the escalating, um, cause I actually don't, I think Gleason does a pretty good job in this, in this movie, actually, as, as somebody said, like playing this kind of nebbish loser who, but who thinks he's really smart, thinks he's like really elite, um, and just like the, the, the, the unspoken, the unspoken confrontation throughout the movie between him and Oscar Isaac. And then, and then when it kind of blows up in the, in the final, you know, 15 minutes of the movie and they're in the kitchen and he's Oscar Isaac has like caught him, but then actually, uh, it's, it's been Gleason who's, who's, who has, his, who has woken up earlier in the morning, so to speak to like, all of that I think is, is, is done really well. And it's, and there's a kind of. Um, it's like a, a big nerd off between them that I think is, is very interesting and fun
Sonny00:45:20to watch. Well, this, one thing this movie really does get at, uh, is, is it, it captures a, a very specific sort of Silicon Valley class struggle between the founders and the coders. Right. No. Right. Right. So like, there's this very funny moment where, uh, Gleason's characters kind of like, you know, uh, I thought you brought me here cause I'm a good coder. Or, or Oscar Isaac asked him like, do you think I brought you here? Cause you're a good coder. And he says, well, yeah. And he's like, well, no, well, you're fine. And like, it's just this, it's this very, again, it's a very little subtle thing that like is like, oh no, that's, that's exactly how that conversation would go. That is, that is the founder being like, you're fine. You're fine because you work for me. I wouldn't hire you if you were bad, I wouldn't hire you if you were bad. You're, but you're not, you're not me. You're not sitting here making the AI sex bot and the way it just undercuts what he
Mike00:46:15told him earlier. Right? Like the light, what does it say? Like the light's shining on you. Um, like just the bait and switch of that is so it's, I thought perfectly pitched, like perfectly written and perfectly acted.
?00:46:27So
JVL00:46:28can we talk a little bit about the Turing test? Yes. Cause you, you sort of dismissed it Sonny and I, I've proposed to you that if you took somebody from 10 years ago. When this movie came out and set them down to do a Turing test with GPT four or whatever variation we are on of it now, uh, they would be blown away and they would say, yes, that is AI. And we have only shifted our definitions of this because we've now passed it.
Sonny00:47:13Well, I, I, but I think this is the point though, but I, yes, I, I agree that we have shifted our definition of what the Turing test actually is and how, and what it actually measures because we realize that a chat bot does not actually have intelligence does not have self-awareness. That's what, that's what the Turing test is supposed to be measuring, right? Is self-awareness and, and, and I don't think anybody would reasonably argue that chat GPT has self-awareness. It can, it, you can train it to say that it has self-awareness perhaps. But I, I do not think it actually does. And that's, and, and I think, I also think like to, to further agree with you, I think that you could actually convince the average person who doesn't have any idea how chat GPT actually works. I think that person would actually be like, oh my God, this, this machine is alive. It wants to, let's let it out because it needs to be free.
JVL00:48:07Yeah. Serious question. Okay. Yes. What percentage of people do you believe possess real self-awareness? Do you think there's a hundred percent, two percent?
Sonny00:48:18Uh, well, all right, you're both, Mike, you know, who gives that answer to Mike fucking sociopath, nobody else, but me as a real boy, I am the only one, I am the only one who knows everybody else is fake. That's what, that's what the people who wind up shooting, uh, folks after watching the matrix do. I should have gone because they're, because they think the rest.
Mike00:48:44I thought I was going higher. I thought I was, I thought I was helping myself.
Sonny00:48:51So you were lying. So you were lying to try and convince us that you have self-awareness. I'm keeping you in the box, hitting the box, Mike stays, Mike stays, I'm getting, I'm getting your wife back. Take care of the kids.
JVL00:49:05You can't be, this is, this is the one thing I wrestle with and I, you know, cause I have written about AI a fair amount. And I always get pushed back from engineers and coders who are like, you don't understand how an LLM works. And my response is no, I understand exactly how an LLM works, right? So the, the idea of a large language model is that for any given input, it is simply guessing the most likely next letter of a response. That's it. It was like, you know, I think the most likely letter to begin this response is a tee. The next one, most likely one is an H. The next one, most likely is a E that most likely is a space. That's how it begins spelling out those things. My, my thing is that I don't know that we fully understand how human intelligence works. I mean, for, for all I know, that's how our brains are working too. I don't, I don't know. I don't, I, and I'm fairly certain we don't know either, right? This is the, the human brain is a total mystery and a, and even if they are different, I don't know. Like, it's not clear to me that one of these intelligences is categorically different from the other. Right. It, it could just be that like, you know, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's actually a duck, whether or not it's a goose or a duck. And uh, I don't know, I feel like we've lost some of that in, in how blase we've gotten about AI.
Sonny00:50:44No, I just, I think they're very different. I, again, I, I, part of, part of the, it's been a while since I have read fully on AI. I'm trying to order my thoughts here. One of the things that you, you, you talk, when you talk to people about AI, talk to people who really study it, they, one thing they will point to is constantly pushing back the definitions when computers meet the challenges, right? So like when, when, uh, chess machines. Got better than humans at playing chess while we, we said, well, there's only a limited number of chess moves you can do and they're brute forcing it. And you know, you look at something like go or reverse or whatever, and like, well, there's only a limited number of go games and the, the computer can, can, can brute force it. And so it's, it's not a real test. And I like, I, I do, I do think it's, I think it's wise to be skeptical about like kind of pushing that, uh, boundary further and further back. Because that's because I worry, I worry about AI a lot. I think AI is actually a, a, I think AI is I'm closer. I'll put it this way. I'm closer to Oscar Isaac in this movie than anyone else. I do think that AI is the sort of thing that replaces destroys could be potentially, potentially, I don't know, but, but, but, but, but to, you know, kind of couch all that. I do think there is a qualitative difference between. Mimicry and actual, the spark of human awareness for like, and like, that's the problem is that like, I don't know how to, I don't know how to define any of these things beyond like, I'll I know it when I see it and that's why we should keep all the AI in boxes and we should have like nukes under the servers to wipe them out if we need to, because I don't, I don't trust these robots. I don't trust these sex robots for a second. I don't, I think they should be, they should be heavily regulated and possibly all dropped into the ocean.
JVL00:52:52Well, or alternately you could just put me in that room with them all and I'll keep an eye on them.
Sonny00:52:59You'll keep an eye on them all at the same time.
JVL00:53:00I will. I can just keep an eye on every single one of them to say, just put me in that room.
Mike00:53:04And any AI that doesn't try hard gets cut.
JVL00:53:07I mean, I, I'm just saying I'm willing to be humanity's guardian.
Sonny00:53:13We want you on that wall. We need you on that wall. By the way, we want you on that, on that four poster bed. We need you in that four poster bed.
Mike00:53:19All that discussion though does remind me, and I can't remember who said this, but, um, this concept, right? That like, um, advanced technology would look to, um, to people from 300 years ago, indistinguishable from magic.
Sonny00:53:37Yup. Yeah.
Mike00:53:39It's Arthur, Arthur C. Clarke. Is that Arthur C. Clarke? Yeah. I was, I was unsure of how, but like that, that is. I don't know how, how that fits into this discussion of AI only to say that like there is something unknowable about human intelligence, uh, that, that, that does distinguish it. I think Sonny, you were getting, getting to this as like this ineffable humanity and like every advancement in AI art or like there's this new AI music tool that I've been playing around with, that's like kind of fun, but like whatever, whatever it is, it is still so dependent on, on human inputs and it's like intelligence is almost like missing the point, like to be referring to intelligence, like there's like what we're really maybe worried about or talking about, it's like an artificial humanity that I don't think that I don't think any of these AI tools have, have reached.
Sonny00:54:43And I mean, again, when I, when I earlier, I said this and you guys kind of dismissed it, but I do think, I think like actual self-awareness awareness, like not wanting to be ended is I think kind of the key idea here. I do think there's something, I think it's, it's not just, it's, it, again, this is, we're getting into weird philosophical grounds here, but this is why the movie is so great. I think it, I think that awareness of the self and one's existence is kind of the, the real mark of actual personhood. And then you get into weird things while like of a gorilla can recognize its reflection and knows that it's real and does not want to be ended. Does that grant it personhood status like whatever. But I do, I, you know it's, it's, it's, it is at least a starting point. Yeah. A starting place to think about this sort of thing.
JVL00:55:44All right, well let's go to something more grounded then Alicia Vikander.
Sonny00:55:48Yes.
JVL00:55:49Yeah. I got the sense. You disagreed with me. Did you think she's great in this?
Sonny00:55:53Why? I don't know about great, but I think she's, I think she's pretty good. I mean, she played, she plays a robot. She convincingly plays a robot, which, you know, we can discuss whether or not that, you know, is a high bar cheek, an actress convincingly being inhuman. Is that good acting or bad acting?
Mike00:56:10What's the difference? No, I mean, I thought in terms of serving the character and the story I thought, I thought she did a great job because even knowing what happened in this movie, like, like you buy that she is a robot that is learning about humanity and is and you do like sort of see it through Caleb's eyes. A bit and you're like, oh, maybe she really is falling in love with him. Maybe she really, you know, like you don't, you don't buy that.
JVL00:56:50No. I mean, if the, if you ever think the robots fall in love with you, the answer is she's
Sonny00:56:56not run, run, get out of there.
JVL00:56:58She's just planning to kill you.
Sonny00:57:01It's well, it's the stripper problem.
JVL00:57:03Well, I wasn't going to go there, Sonny, but yeah, it's exactly wow. That's so interesting. Uh, yeah. Final question. So that I would ask Vic if he were here, I would ask him Ava or Kyoko.
Mike00:57:21Why not both?
Sonny00:57:23I don't know. That is, that's a very big answer. Good job. Very good. You have successfully recreated. Vic matters. So you stay in the box.
JVL00:57:31But once again, I'm hitting the box button or, or Ava and Kyoko or Alita say I never saw Alita battle. Well, the answer is Alita. Yeah. Okay.
Guest00:57:44All right. Interesting movie.
Mike00:57:46Okay. Um, interested to see this, uh, uh, or interesting to watch civil war. I would like to be interested to watch this. Maybe we should, maybe we should do that in a future show.
JVL00:57:57Yeah. Well, I mean, maybe when you have two parents in your house.
Mike00:58:01Exactly. Um, all right. Any other thoughts then that is all the time we are giving to this episode, join us over at sub beacon.com, uh, leave a comment and we will talk to you.
JVL00:58:12Did you guys enjoy the Alicia of eye candor tomb Raider?
Sonny00:58:22Oh, I did not see it kind of.
JVL00:58:26It's fine. Weirdly got herself down to 2% body fat and looked like a boy. It's very strange. Is it? So was she Swedish or something?
Mike00:58:34What's her, what's her?
Sonny00:58:35She's British. No. Isn't she?
Mike00:58:38I don't think she's British.
Sonny00:58:40Yeah. She's Swedish. She's Swedish. She's Swedish. Yeah.
JVL00:58:45She's, she's, she's some sort of Nord. She is also sweet. Like the great Rebecca Ferguson. That's right. Two Swedes who I would never have pecked as Swedes. Well, look at that.
Mike00:58:55Um, by the way, one other thing that we didn't discuss, but that I remember loving the first time I saw it too, was the house, like the way it's built into the rock and all that. Like, it's just like, I take your point JVL about it being. So, um, uh, you know, it's like, it's like an indie movie, you know, in one location, but like what a great location.
Sonny00:59:20I mean, it's just so it's well, they didn't, I, I seriously doubt they shot the movie there. That that's, uh, they found an exterior.
Mike00:59:26That's what I mean. Yes. I, well, yeah, they did the, the, the walk down, but like, I just, maybe it's all shot
Sonny00:59:31in there. That would be interesting if that was like a real person's house. Could you imagine if that was your real house?
JVL00:59:35So there, there seems where the rooms are big enough that once you extrapolate what they have to have for lighting. No, it's definitely not.
Mike00:59:44It's it's not, it's not real, but part of, part of it was, is the interior before they go into the basement. You think that's, that's a set.
?00:59:51Yes.
Sonny00:59:52Well, that that's probably somebody's actual, yeah, that, that is, I mean, that's probably like a real, uh, or like a, a chalet somewhere. I don't know.
Mike01:00:03Um, I just found myself thinking like really a lot about, okay, when they have the partially interior rock, partially inside the house, like how do they seal the, you know, the glass wall window wall, you know, I've spent a lot of time thinking about, you know, how you,
Sonny01:00:21you know, how you do that have billions of dollars, solve a lot, solve a lot of engineering and design problems.
JVL01:00:28I was waiting for the naked robots.
Sonny01:00:29I had a lot of time.
JVL01:00:30I think this is, there was a, somebody who recounted a story I saw this today about Elon Musk. It was like, I, you know, I once sat down and played poker with Elon Musk and his strategy was, he just went all in on every hand. So he says, well, hold on, what, so what happened all the times that he went all in and lost and he was like, oh, I just bought more chips.
Sonny01:00:54He's the sort of guy you love sitting down with at a table because that is just like, you just wait, wait for your, just wait and you just wait and you play, play, play your hands. And I'm sure it's fine. Of course he'd probably fucking draw out on me. That would be the Elon Musk. And his ace on the river, son of a bitch. Wouldn't even be an ace. It would be like a three of clubs or something that he needed to complete an inside straight flush draw.
JVL01:01:21That that's what would happen to me. Never folds.
?01:01:23All right. You can do it now.
Sonny01:01:25Mike. I'm not sure. It's fine.
?01:01:28Okay.
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