Modern WisdomPeople Are Starving For Offensive Movies - Critical Drinker
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 29,516 words- 0:00 – 6:02
Future Of The James Bond Franchise
- CWChris Williamson
What is happening with James Bond? Give me the updates.
- CDCritical Drinker
It's a bit of a mess at the moment. Um, so in a nutshell, uh, it has now been corporatized. Uh, it- the, um, Broccoli family, who have been running James Bond on screen ever since the 1960s... And I can't believe I'm saying the word "broccoli" in relation to James Bond, but there it is. Um, they... It was originally Albert Broccoli, and then his daughter, uh, Barbara took over. Um, and they have, i- in a way, safeguarded it to some degree. Um, it's debatable how good of a job they did in the Daniel Craig era, but you know, they kept it from becoming too exploited. Um, I think they got, uh, a little bit frustrated with dealing with Amazon, who had bought over MGM, which ultimately owns the rights to Bond. Uh, and so the most recent development is that they have tapped out, essentially, and now Amazon have got full creative control over the Bond franchise, and they are already talking about turning it into the next Marvel cinematic universe. Uh, essentially you're gonna have the Bond cinematic universe. So what they want to do is spinoffs of Moneypenny and, you know, can she shuffle files quickly enough to meet her deadlines and, you know, Bond the early years when he was a kid and, uh, you know, we're, we're probably gonna have TV shows with all the other 00 agents. You know, with all them getting, like, their own little spinoffs and, uh, and then having big team-up events. Uh, that's what they want to do. It's about exploitation of the IP. Uh, so that's where we're at now, and it's not a good place to be, sadly. There's a reason that Bond has endured, uh, as a franchise and as a character for the past, what, 60 years now. Uh, and it's not because he was milked dry, uh, by a big money-hundy- money-hungry corporation.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, they did step in and manage to turn around Lord of the Rings in a manner that I think was actually impressive.
- CDCritical Drinker
I mean, it takes a certain level of skill to destroy something as thoroughly as they did and to blow a billion-dollar, um, you know, uh, show. Uh, but they found a way, you know, in the same way they-
- CWChris Williamson
And then run it back on season two.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah, they'll keep going with it because they said they were gonna do five seasons, and they will, just out of pure spite. Uh, kind of in the same way that Disney have, uh, managed to absolutely tank Star Wars as a brand, one of the most, um, recognizable IPs in entertainment history. Uh, in the space of less than a decade, they've completely and utterly destroyed it. So it's, it takes a certain level of skill, but luckily, that skill seems to be prevalent in Hollywood these days. (laughs) It's great.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, well, we saw this recent thing with Bezos stepping in with The Washington Post. You see that, he was saying-
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... "We're gonna have more balance," et cetera, et cetera. I don't know. Maybe we'll start to see some more of that crossover a little bit into the world of Amazon, Amazon Prime.
- CDCritical Drinker
I, uh... You might see it. Um, the problem is that Jeff Bezos, um, does not run Amazon Studios. Uh, that is run by a woman called Jennifer Salke, uh, and she is the one who's largely responsible for failures like The Rings of Power, um, because she is very much into the message, as I talk about in my vide- videos quite a lot. Uh, and she in- essentially directed, uh, the way that Rings of Power has gone as a show. Um, the... Even to the point where they had a Tolkien scholar in who was tearing his hair out saying, "No, all of this stuff that you're writing is complete nonsense. This would never happen in Tolkien's world." Uh, and for his efforts, he was fired. Uh, so that tells you everything you need to know. So yeah, Jeff Bezos may well indeed, um, be wanting to restore a bit of balance, which is great. But as long as people like her are actually in charge of their creative output at Amazon Studios, that's not gonna change. So people like her have to go, sadly.
- CWChris Williamson
I was thinking about how Bond seems to have been protected, but as you've suggested, it's, you know, one very tightly, uh, defined set of boundaries around who it is that's got creative control. And as soon as you start to build that out into teams of 150 with a couple of people at top that, uh, paid a few million dollars a year, I imagine that your ability to stay true to the source material starts to go out the window.
- CDCritical Drinker
It absolutely does, yeah. And as I said earlier, there's a reason that the Bond franchise has been this cultural mainstay for the, you know, all the decades that it's been around, well over half a century. Um, it's... There's something timeless and, um, and consistently appealing about James Bond as a character, and they never lost sight of the fact that he was center stage in everything. It is about Bond. Uh, we don't want a Moneypenny spinoff. We don't want a, a Q Department spinoff or anything like that. You can't franchise Bond, uh, because he is the core of everything, and he's a character that needs to be used sparingly. You know, one movie every couple of years. Uh, don't delve too much into his private life, into his backstory.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
Maintain the mystique. Maintain the things that have made characters like him so appealing for so long. Uh, that's, that's been the secret f- to his longevity, and they're gonna lose that, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
It is interesting how the sort of allurement of Bond is in his aloofness. It's the fact that there are all of these open loops, and as soon as you begin to say, "Well, this is the, the real woman that he loved, and this is why he's womanized all the way down from... And this is what happened in his past, and he did it often and blah, blah, blah, blah."
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
And you think, "Ah, okay, this..." As soon as you give an answer, all of the speculation that was exciting gets, uh, collapsed down to... It's like Schr- Schrodinger's bond, you know? There's so many different versions that it could be, and then they tell you, and it gets collapsed into the version that it is based on what they said. But yeah, d- I mean, fucking She-Hulk. You know, we didn't... Didn't we... Like-
- CDCritical Drinker
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
You know, there we go. Like...
- CDCritical Drinker
(laughs) Why did you have to say that name? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Sorry. Yeah, I'm aware it's a, I'm aware it's a trigger word for you.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah. (laughs) Uh, y- I mean, wow, it was a disastrous show. Uh, I think everyone recognized that. Uh, nobody even at Marvel can pretend that that show was a success, and, uh, it's been pretty much scrapped now. So, uh, they can chalk that one up to, uh, bad ideas, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. What did you think of, uh,
- 6:02 – 8:25
Was The Loki Series A Mistake?
- CWChris Williamson
Loki? What did you make of that?
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, Loki as a show, um, the concepts were interesting, but I hated how it absolutely cucked him as a character. Uh, Loki at his best is actually a really intimidating character. They'd gotten him right when they did him in Avengers, th- the first Avengers movie, where he was actually kind of terrifying. He's actually really physically powerful, uh, incredibly intelligent. He's a schemer, he's a manipulator. That is the, the core element of Loki. Uh, when they tried to do this TV show with him, he's getting knocked out by people, he's, he's crying all the time, he's emotionally vulnerable. You know, the... he comes up against a female version of himself, who, of course, (laughs) is better than him in every way because she has to be.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, and, like, all of those things diminish him as a character and they make him less interesting. In the same way that, you know, having Bond no longer be able to seduce women and, and have him be emotionally vulnerable diminishes the mystique of his character. He was always more interesting as a, an idea rather than a, a flesh and blood human. Uh, they did the same thing to Loki. Um, you know, the, the more vulnerabilities you introduce to a character like that, the, the less, uh, interesting he becomes and the, the less, uh, menacing he becomes, so it was-
- CWChris Williamson
We s- (clears throat) we saw it with Thor as well, right? That you go from this beautiful arc where competent, powerful, maybe a little bit, sort of, um, naive, so immature, sort of-
- CDCritical Drinker
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... childish in a way, but that was part of charm. And then over time, it just gets ramped up and up and up and up and up. And then he's doing the splits over a set of dragons or whatever and, uh, yeah.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah. I mean, how many movies can we have where Thor needs to find his true purpose in life? Like, he's done that about five times now it seems. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
It's a permanent mid-life... Well, I suppose if you live for a few thousand years, you get a couple of mid-life crises, so perhaps that's...
- CDCritical Drinker
Sure. I mean, a lot of these problems I would put down to Taika Waititi as a creative. Um, and he, he was straight up saying, uh, "Wouldn't it be funny if Thor goes through a mid-life crisis?" And that was as far as he got, essentially, and then he just based a movie around that. So, wouldn't it be funny if he was, like, kind of useless and he didn't know where he wanted to be in life and he was just lost and... You know, you think, "Okay, after everything he's been through, after saving literally the entire universe, he, he'd probably have found your purpose by that point."
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
You, you can't keep, uh, resetting that clock. Um, but that's what he tried to do and just turned him into a complete
- 8:25 – 11:13
Stages Of Parody In Movies
- CDCritical Drinker
joke.
- CWChris Williamson
Can you remind me of the stages that, I think it's either movie franchises or sub-genres, go through that finishes with parody? I swear that you taught me about this.
- CDCritical Drinker
Oh, yeah, yeah. Um, so I'm gonna paraphrase here because I'm just dredging this up from my memory. But, uh, you've essentially got the, the early stages of the genre, right? So, um, the, the trailblazers, the, the, um, experimental movies that define it. Um, then you've got the, um, uh, the classic era where they've nailed the, the formula, they've made it work, they, they know exactly what works with it. Uh, then you've got the revisionist era where the, you know, the classic era no longer, um, resonates with audiences, we've got to find a new angle. "Well, let's, let's look back now and try and reframe things." Um, a good example would be the Western genre where you... in the late '80s, early '90s, Westerns had fallen out of favor. Uh, you've got, like, movies like Unforgiven, uh, which start to redefine it and, and re-examine it in a more, um, mature way. Uh, and then when you get beyond that, the final stage is parody. That's where it's just like, "We, we've got nothing else to do dramatically, classically, uh, you know, in terms of mining new ideas, we're just gonna make fun of it now." And that's when a genre dies.
- CWChris Williamson
Seeing that and knowing that parody's kind of the, um... there's a couple more nails to go into the coffin and then it's about to be brown bread. Uh, once I've seen that, I can't unsee it and I'm always on the lookout for whatever it is, whether it's a genre, whether it's a series, whether it's a movie, whether it's a franchise. Uh, e- even directors, you know, um, their style almost becoming a caricature of itself. You being able-
- CDCritical Drinker
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... to predict what it's going to be, even if it's a totally new movie. M. Night ch- Shamalan, I think, is sort of perilously close to becoming a caricature of himself.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah, I think so. I mean, like, when your career is predicated on having mind-blowing twists that no one's gonna see coming, um, you're always in a competition to, to one-up yourself, um, and to try and do better next time. And you can only take that so far before everyone knows-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
... "Well, it's an M. Night Shamalan movie, so of course there's gonna be some crazy twist at the end." Um, and that, that's it, you've pigeon-holed yourself to the point where you can't do anything new at that point. So, um, yeah, he, he definitely fell victim to that. And yeah, he just ended up, you know, putting out absolute sludge (laughs) towards the end.
- CWChris Williamson
But if you wanna cast- if you wanna cast your daughter in a movie, like, you know, what a- what a lovely-
- CDCritical Drinker
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
... last hurrah.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah, yeah. Uh, uh, he, he put himself in most of his movies in smaller roles, and sometimes larger roles. Like, I think Lady in the Water was the, the most egregious one where he cast himself as a, a misunderstood genius who, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CDCritical Drinker
... was ultimately gonna reshape humanity after his death. And I just thought, "Whoa." Well, everyone thought this. Um, yeah, you're, you're reaching quite a bit there, sir. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, the lady doth protest
- 11:13 – 15:34
The Impact Change In Culture Has Had On Movie And Tv Industries
- CWChris Williamson
too much.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So you mentioned the, you mentioned the message there. I... every single time that I talk to somebody about, sort of, culture stuff and we talk about have we passed peak woke and how much inertia or momentum has this thing got, surely the movie and TV industry can only keep pushing awful productions that don't make returns for so long before they run out of money and need to change. So-
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... how much longer has the message got?
- CDCritical Drinker
It's already changed behind the scenes. That's the, the key takeaway here, right? What you see when you get movies that come out today, they were commissioned, like, two, three, even four years ago. So, they were based around the cultural zeitgeist of the time four years ago, half a decade almost. Um, and so, uh, you know, there's always a delayed effect, um, before these things actually come out. And from what I've been told by various people within the industry, um, most of the executives at the big c- uh, the big, um, studios are very aware of the problem.... they know that, uh, this stuff doesn't sell anymore. They know that the culture has shifted radically, especially over the past six months. Um, and, uh, they, they wanna fix it, they wanna change things. But they obviously have movies that are in the pipeline that were commissioned years ago and they're just coming out now. Uh, and so you're, you're kind of seeing the last remnants of it coming out now. Like, that Mickey17 movie that I just reviewed, uh, a day or two ago is a good example of that, where you've got Mark Ruffalo doing his worst possible Trump impression. It- it just, it honestly felt like a movie that, uh, would've been cutting edge, like, 10 years ago. Now it's just absolutely stale and cringe and played out.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CDCritical Drinker
Um, but that's the delayed effect that you get with Hollywood movies. They, they take a long time to get made, unfortunately. But, uh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What, uh, what do you predict for the next five to 10 years if you could throw a couple of coins onto a roulette wheel for what we're gonna see?
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, I think we're gonna see the demise of the superhero genre. Uh, we've kinda seen it already. Um, there's a, a bunch of Marvel movies that are coming out this year. The first one has already flopped, Captain America. Um, Thunderbolts is also probably no one's gonna be interested in that. The big test will be in July when we've got Superman and we've got, um, what's it called? Uh, the Fantastic Four coming out, right? Two movies, same month. Uh, if they don't succeed, that's it, the genre's cooked because it's super expensive to make. So, um, you probably will see after that a m- a massive reduction in the budgets on a number of superhero movies. There's probably gonna be a switch more towards video game adaptations 'cause that's probably the next big thing that's gonna happen.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CDCritical Drinker
Um, there's a lot of money in that. The, the, the amount of money that is made by the video game industry dwarfs Hollywood. Uh, it is insane how much money changes hands there. And so if they can capitalize on that momentum and that fan base, um, it will actua- it, it'll be a new gold rush. It'll be like 10, 15 years ago with the superhero genre when that's really exploded. Um, so I think there's that, and I think you're gonna see a return to, um, a, a bit of a swing more towards the center in terms of, like, the cultural impression that these movies wanna make and the politics they wanna push. Uh, I think they're gonna be a lot more neutral. You're never gonna get Hollywood pushing conservative ideas. It's just, it's not in their DNA at this point. But they will probably be forced to concede defeat. Um, and they know this stuff doesn't sell anymore. So I think you're gonna see a s- a swing more towards politically neutral movies that are just about entertainment, hopefully. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I mean, yeah, well, d- let's not speak too soon.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Eh, people vote with their feet and their butts on seats and their dollars. And as much as you can say, "Well, we want to make something that stands up for what we believe in," you go, "Yeah, but eventually there's gonna be some very, very high up guy with a very, very sort of long job title whose entire job is to look at spreadsheets all day, and the far right-hand column is gonna be a big, bright red number with a minus in front of it and lots-"
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
"... and lots and lots of zeros after it." He's gonna say, "I don't fucking care."
- CDCritical Drinker
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
"I don't care about how cool you think this new movement is. We're a business. Ultimately, we're a business. This isn't a charity. We're not here to try and promote some message at the expense of s- shareholders, stakeholders, IP, et cetera, et cetera." Um, so yeah, it's gonna be interesting.
- 15:34 – 18:30
Why The Gaming Industry Is So Profitable
- CWChris Williamson
I mean, you, you touched there on the video game industry. I think I'm right in saying the video game industry makes more money than movies, TV, and music combined together.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah. It's, it's so weird because to some extent, like, the, the general, um, you know, culture is insulated from video games a little bit. It doesn't have that sort of mainstream impact that you might think. But the amount of money that's actually changing hands in that industry is insane. Um, the, the top level video games have budgets that would, um, almost embarrass Hollywood films at this point. You know, three-
- CWChris Williamson
What are they getting up to?
- CDCritical Drinker
I, some of them are up to three, 400 million easily for the, for triple A titles. That's a lot of money.
- CWChris Williamson
I remember, I remember when, uh, Kevin Spacey was cast in, uh, Call of Duty. This is probably about 10 years ago, I think.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and then Conor McGregor was put in it. Not that Conor McGregor's exactly a sort of a triple A star. But I do remember thinking like, "Oh, fuck, like, Kevin Spacey as a, eh, fully facial mapped all, you know, w- s- soundboard, all the stuff." Yeah, that, it always felt like, uh, video games were cool and exciting and interactive, but the prestige was held with movies, right? You know, that's what you go to go see at the, at the cinema.
- CDCritical Drinker
Sure.
- CWChris Williamson
And now it feels like if what you're suggesting is correct, that the world of Hollywood and movies are gonna have to suckle at the teat of, uh, the IP from video games. So how the-
- CDCritical Drinker
They, they will to some extent. And, you know, from their point of view, it's actually a godsend because you've got characters and storylines and entire worlds that have already been created for you. All you need to do is adapt it. And Hollywood, you know, throughout the, say the '90s and the 2000s, they were notoriously bad at this sort of thing. They couldn't find the formula to crack video games. Um, that's why you had godawful films like the Mario Brothers movies and stuff, um, from the '90s. But in the 2000s, maybe they started to get it with, like, things like the Tomb Raider films that actually were fairly commercially successful. The, all those Resident Evil movies which were dogshit interpretations of the games, but they, they made money again. Uh, and now we're into this modern era where we've got things like The Last of Us TV show, which not only is making, uh, a lot of money for HBO, it's getting lots of critical praise as well because the games were very cinematic, uh, in their own right. So you, you're seeing these conversions where games are getting closer to movies in terms of their maturity, the themes and ideas they present, the characters and, and, uh, the acting that they, they are able to present to you. Um-... and the commercial appeal of crossing that over into actual movies and TV shows, because you've got a built-in audience, a built-in fan base, and a pre-made story with pre-made characters. So, uh, th- the, the potential there is enormous.
- 18:30 – 26:17
Do Books Still Have A Cultural Impact?
- CDCritical Drinker
- CWChris Williamson
Why, why is it not as effective to do that with books? There's way more books that come out every single year than there are, uh, video games, especially triple A, although probably about the same number of very s- a very small portion of video games and books make it to the top of the tree. Um, w- why, wh- why not start to build out Red Rising or The Name of the Wind or something else?
- CDCritical Drinker
Generally speaking, because books no longer have that cultural impact. Like, when was the last time we had, uh, say, a Harry Potter series, something that like crosses over into mainstream cultural awareness? They're-
- CWChris Williamson
Fifty Shades, probably.
- CDCritical Drinker
We had th- uh, we all, we tried to do that, you know. Um, and that's great if you're like a frustrated middle-aged spinster, uh, who dr- who drinks a bottle of wine every night, but like, that's not appealing (laughs) to general audiences. You know what I mean? (laughs) And that's the reality, man. Like, the, uh, at this point, the publishing industry is super female-oriented. It is designed for, um, middle-aged liberal women, unfortunately. Like, that's all you get. And so there's n- there's no more, uh, massive fantasy series, no more fa- massive sci-fi series. Uh, you're n- you're not gonna get a, a, a Dune or a Lord of the Rings anymore, or even a Harry Potter anymore, because the conditions that, that can allow that to flourish, um, and appeal to a broad market don't really exist anymore. It's geared towards a subset of the population.
- CWChris Williamson
What's happening with the Harry Potter TV series? 'Cause I-
- CDCritical Drinker
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... I heard that ... Oh, no. I haven't, I didn't check in-
- CDCritical Drinker
We got a black Snape, man. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
We've got a what?
- CDCritical Drinker
So Severus Snape from the, from the movies and from the-
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- CDCritical Drinker
... you know, obviously from the books, uh, famously played by Alan Rickman, who was a, a great, um, approximation of the character, uh, they've cast a black act- a black actor now to play him. They've decided to race-swap him. Um, and yeah, good luck with that, I suppose. Um, yeah, the, the problem is he's, he's explicitly described in the books as having like long dark hair, pale skin, like dark eyes. Um, so we know what he looks like. Everyone, um, agreed that Alan Rickman did a great, um, performance as Snape.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, but they've race-swapped him, and it's just, it's endemic to the, the way of thinking that you have in Hollywood productions now. "Well, we've, we've got to get more diversity in there," um, no matter what it means to the, the lore or, um, you know, being accurate or respectful to the source material. It doesn't matter. Uh, and they're missing-
- CWChris Williamson
JK is, JK is still heavily involved though, isn't she? Yeah. So it's-
- CDCritical Drinker
She is, yeah. I can imagine her signing off on this. Like I've d- I think she's said in the past like, um, "Oh, well, you know, there's, there's nothing in the books that explicitly says that Harry has to be white." Sure. I mean, it's her, it's her series. Like, if she wants to trash it, uh, I'm not gonna defend her for it.
- CWChris Williamson
Say what you want, JK. Yeah, I suppose it's interesting that you've got this sort of a, um, concern against progressive overreach thing, which in some ways/many ways JK ... uh, people might assume from the outside seeing JK tweet about trans issues, uh, that she would be aligned with. But actually, she's just very, very specific about protecting women's spaces, and I don't think that it s- seems to bleed out that much into the rest of her politics. I don't know much about-
- CDCritical Drinker
No, not at all.
- CWChris Williamson
I, I don't know much about her politics, but I imagine that she's probably quite a progressive sort of liberal lady, uh, who just happens to have one very staunch, uh, set of beliefs around women.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah, 100%. Um, it's so funny when people start saying like, "Oh, based JK Rowling." Uh, it's like just because she has a problem with trans people, like people assume like a, a whole, um, slew of ideas about her politics. Like-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
... in every other respect, she is a raging hardcore lefty, you know? It's just that one issue that she has a problem with. So yeah, like I can totally see her being behind changes like this to the TV show and not having an issue with it. So, fine, if that's what she wants to do.
- CWChris Williamson
I don't know, man. I mean, look, uh, every time that you go home for Christmas, it's, it's kind of like some sort of weird tribute that you need to do, where it's mandatory to watch at least 30 minutes of one Harry Potter movie at some point sort of between the 20th of December and the sort of 2nd of January. It just, it's on TV in the background at some point.
- CDCritical Drinker
I, I'll, I'll be totally honest with you, man. I never really gave much of a shit (laughs) about the Harry Potter movies. (laughs) I mean, for me, um, I was always much more of a, like Lord of the Rings guy or whatever. And when it comes to Christmas, you know, I've, I've got Die Hard, I've got, uh, Home Alone. I've got, uh, like all the Christmas classics there.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, Harry Potter never figured into it that much for me. I totally respect the fan base around it, and like if they love it, then great. It's just it never particularly grabbed me-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
... um, as a viewer, so.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. It seems to, whether you like it or not, it just seems to appear kind of, uh, it just sort of, uh, emerges like fucking Michael Buble, uh, around about-
- 26:17 – 29:38
Can Movie Theatre's Survive With Streaming Services?
- CDCritical Drinker
- CWChris Williamson
W- uh, I was thinking about this. I'd really love to kind of get an insight about the state of the movie industry and what's happened to it now up against streaming. Airlines seem to have movies within, uh, I don't know, uh, six weeks to sort of 12 weeks of- of them being in- in theaters, and then you can watch it on some transatlantic flight on British Airways or something. Um, you know, a lot of the time I know musicians have got problems with what Spotify and streaming has done to record sales and the fact that there's basically a much smaller pie and everyone's having to do different things. Now we've got to do more live. We need merch. We've gotta have a membership site. You've gotta get exclusive access. There's gotta be a Patreon or whatever. Um, when it comes to the movie industry and sort of what the theater to Netflix, Amazon Prime pipeline or airlines and stuff like that's done, is this- is this kind of a- a just a slow plane crash, a slow car crash into, uh, it- it not being viable and stuff's just gonna go straight to streaming? What- what do you think?
- CDCritical Drinker
I mean, to a degree you're seeing, um, streaming exclusive movies that are getting bigger and bigger now. Um, like The Gorge was one I think that came straight out onto streaming with la- with pretty respectable budgets and pretty big stars attached to them. So it's no longer this idea of like direct to TV or direct to streaming movies that are just like low-budget trash. So it's definitely changing. Um, I think, uh, the- the fact that piracy is more of an issue now, the fact that, uh, streaming services are- are able to throw so much more money at it does, um, incentivize studios to get things out on streaming as quickly as possible. So you do see, um, a really short theatrical window now and a really short gap between theatrical release and, you know, streaming or- or whatever. Um, so it's just the economics of f- for the- the new technology that we're grappling with. And also, yeah, like, um, maybe for a lot of people now, the hassle of going to the cinema, um, and the expense of it is becoming more of a- a thought for them and it's becoming more of a, um, you know, big investment for you. Because, you know, say you- you wanna take your wife and kids to go see, um, the latest Disney, you know, kids movie or whatever, you wanna go and see Snow White if you've completely lost your mind, then you know, uh, that's, you factor in the cost of tickets, you factor in the cost of all the popcorn and all the crap that like everyone needs, that's well over a hundred dollars for- for that.
- CWChris Williamson
It's probably, what, six months of your Netflix subscription?
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah. And- and that's to sit in a crowded movie theater with a bunch of people who are talking and looking at their phones and just disrupting the whole experience. Or you could wait a few weeks and watch it at home in your nice comfortable living room and, uh, do whatever you want and you could pause it whenever you want. What would you rather choose?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm.
- CDCritical Drinker
That's the reality of, uh, cinema going now as an experience. It's changing.
- CWChris Williamson
So what does that mean for the future of it?
- CDCritical Drinker
(inhales) Um, it probably means that it'll become, um, gradually more like the way we see, uh, going to the theater, you know, to go to see a stage play or something. It'll become, uh, more of a niche thing gradually, uh, where, you know, uh, a smaller selection of people who are real connoisseurs or real passionate about that particular, um, you know, method of performance still go to see it, but general audiences will just watch at home.
- 29:38 – 36:23
Have We Seen The End Of Rom-Com And Comedy Genres?
- CDCritical Drinker
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Well, I mean, we saw ... It was enlivening to see, I think, the passion around Interstellar's 10-year anniversary and, you know, they put that back into 70 mil IMAX theaters. Maybe there'd been a little bit of tinkering to sort of dial up some sound and- and, you know, refine some resolutions and stuff like that. And you think, that- that caught ... I s- spoke to McConaughey about this ex- this very thing and, uh, that's a- that's a question. He was lament- perhaps unsurprisingly lamenting the loss of the rom-com and, uh, you know, he said that you could sort of spin this thing up for between 10 and $20 million and it would be an easy return at the box office and that you get, you know, replays on holidays, replays at Valentine's Day, date nights. Um, that seems to be- that seems to be a genre which has almost exclusively just been eviscerated. Is it ever gonna come back?
- CDCritical Drinker
Well, I mean, we ... Didn't we have the Bridget Jones whatever? Like, Bridget Jones 17, like the old folks home or something? Um, just-
- CWChris Williamson
I didn't see that.
- CDCritical Drinker
That just came out. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- CDCritical Drinker
Well, I didn't see it either, but I know it did exist and so there, there's still the concept of rom-coms. I think, uh, comedies in general, just straight up comedies are dead at the, the cinema. Um, and the reason being (laughs) everyone's fucking offended by everything. And so when you, you, you've got to tiptoe around every potential issue and you don't wanna offend anyone, you can't be funny anymore. It's impossible.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, and so comedies have died. Uh, I've talked about this many times, um, on live streams and so on. Uh, we tried to name like what was the last truly good, uh, comedy that hit cinemas and the best we could come up with was like Tropic Thunder. And that's well over a decade ago.
- CWChris Williamson
Yep. And would cause an awful lot of uproar if you did it today.
- CDCritical Drinker
Sure. It would never be allowed today. But all that stuff, like political correctness is the death of fun and it's the death of comedy and it's the death of entertainment.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, I suppose-
- CDCritical Drinker
That's the reality of it.
- CWChris Williamson
... we're seeing, you know, I think Andrew Schulz's live special Life is s- number two, number three in America at the moment on Netflix. And, um, maybe we're seeing comedians who can kind of bear the brunt and have less oversight from, uh, executives and franchise owners and different stakeholders and people that say, "We can't say that. We must not talk about this problem." Um, so there m- maybe the absence of comedy movies has created a vacuum which is gonna allow more standup specials to appear on streaming services and stuff like that.
- CDCritical Drinker
I think the hunger's always gonna be there for comedy 'cause everyone wants to have a good laugh every once in a while and you need it. And I think what you're eventually gonna see is this is all part of this growing backlash that we've seen to, uh, wokeness, for lack of a better word, that, uh, it, it's, uh, it's so puritanical. It's told you all these things you're not allowed to say, that you're not allowed to laugh at, that you're not allowed to make fun of. And I think as a collective society, we have reached the point of saying, "I don't give a fuck anymore. I just don't care. I don't care about your stupid, um, censorship. I don't care about your fake offense. I don't care if you, you think that's racist or sexist or anything." All of those words have stopped meaning anything now. You've used them to the point of insanity. No one cares anymore. And I think now the, the ground is now like prepared for comedy to actually make a comeback. If, if some studio actually has the balls to do it and make a comedy that's not afraid to be a little bit edgy and offensive, um, if they were to do something like Tropic Thunder now, I actually think it would play really well 'cause the ... Societally, I think we're ready for it now. We've passed through-
- CWChris Williamson
No, I ...
- CDCritical Drinker
... all this crap and we're ready t-
- CWChris Williamson
I think ... (laughs) Yeah. I th- I think you're right. And, uh, you might not be realizing that these two things are related, but I promise you they are. Lizzo's BMI and the preparedness of the world to accept new comedy movies. Uh, the reason I say that is I think we had a period where toxic compassion or performative empathy or "I stand up for the good guy, look at me. I'm ..." Th- this is, you know, saying good whilst doing bad, or at the very least saying good whilst not doing good, um, kind of nobody scrutinized for a while and it was all around post- posting a black square and, and, and making sure that you sort of support the message. Uh, but Lizzo has dropped a fucking ton of weight because-
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... Ozempic is a hell of a drug and-
- CDCritical Drinker
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... she appears to genuinely be taking care of her health. And you go, okay, well, if ... And the same thing at the Golden Globes. You know, the Golden Globes just proved that body positivity was a total fucking farce all along because as soon-
- CDCritical Drinker
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... as people were given an easy route to be able to get themselves out of being plus-sized, they did. And I think that that is one more little Jenga piece that gets pulled out of this tower, which was already pretty unstable, of the performative empathy, of the saying good whilst not doing good thing. And, uh, yeah, I think it's, it, it, it's so fragile that it's getting to the stage where it's in its own parody phase, if that makes sense.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
So yeah, I think, I think the, that progressive overreach stuff, I, I ... Fuck. For those of us that have been swimming in the waters of it for the last, whatever, five years, like it felt like we were already in parody come back end of 2020. And then we've just been waiting for this behemoth leviathan to finally kick the bucket.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah. And it's great to see it actually collapsing now. But it makes me (clears throat) , excuse me, it makes me sad to think about all the people that have, uh, suffered as a result of this. Whether it's all the people that said the wrong thing or, you know, they dug up an edgy tweet that they made 10 years ago and that got them canceled or they were-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
... forced to issue groveling apologies. Or the, the people who literally ate themselves to death 'cause they were told like, "Oh yeah, you're five foot two and you weigh 300 pounds? Oh, that's fine. Like, you can be healthy at any size." No, you fucking can't.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- 36:23 – 41:57
Will The Legality Of It Ends With Us Change Future Productions?
- CDCritical Drinker
- CWChris Williamson
If you'd said to me 12 months ago that Ryan Reynolds would be considered one of the l- less likable or would be sort of a declining stock, that would've been something that I ... I mean, I fucking adore that man. Like I think he's so charming, so funny, so likable, seems really down to earth, doesn't take himself too seriously. Had this sort of great-... fourth-wall breaky thing with his wife going on, where I think she posted a photo of Hugh Jackman on his birthday saying, "Happy Birthday, honey. Love you," or something, and then he did it-
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... he did it back. And you just think this, this is so cool. This is exactly what you want sort of Hollywood. They're not, they, they, they swear a lot. And this Blake Lively thing has really sort of turned the eye of scrutiny in his direction in a way that I just straight up couldn't have expected from, you know, 50,000 feet straight down to cruising altitude.
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, 100%, yeah. And look, I, I wanna be judicious about what I say because, like, the facts are still coming out and so on. Like, it's still very much a he said, she said thing.
- CWChris Williamson
Allegedly, allegedly, allegedly.
- CDCritical Drinker
Exactly, yeah (laughs) . Um, and allegedly, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) .
- CDCritical Drinker
... he is an absolute dick behind the scenes. Uh, throws his weight around. He is not the happy-go-lucky, self-deprecating, uh, you know, uh, lovable guy next door that, uh, we know him as. Allegedly, um, he is, uh, a real asshole. Um, and, you know, this is what he does. He leverages his power within Hollywood to prop up his wife, uh, which, you know, you can understand. Like, you're, you're obviously gonna want to defend her. But, uh, to the point where you're bullying directors into doing what you want them to do. Um, and so yeah, it's, it's kind of a sad downfall, really, because like you said, he really seemed like one of the good guys, uh, a guy who didn't take himself too seriously, uh, and was, seemed to be very accessible, was always up for a laugh. And, uh, we're seeing a very different side to it all now. But hey, man, you, you don't become, like, one of the biggest names in Hollywood by being nice. I think that's probably the thing to remember.
- CWChris Williamson
I don't know. I just wish ... I'm aware that every movie that Hollywood has produced has tried to tell us that sometimes the good guys actually do finish first. But, uh, I kinda hoped that that was the way that it were. Anyway, may- maybe it's not. But I, I, I wondered whether you think we'll be seeing more, um, production fourth wall breaking fuckery in the future after this sort of It Ends With Us debacle. Whether it's going to be the, uh, yeah, like the production equivalent of Me Too, that behind the scenes we're going to be hearing a lot more about not only whether a movie is good or bad, but what the process of creating that was like. Because you can say what you want, this has garnered an awful lot of attention. It's driven an awful lot of attention. If people think, th- they do, might not learn the lesson, which is to allege things incorrectly and to overblow and to selectively edit the storyline that you put out, um, that's bad. But what the lesson they may take away from it is, if I want to put myself on the front page for six months, I just need to cause a bit of a hoo-ha about the way that this movie was made.
- CDCritical Drinker
I think, uh, if they've got any sense, they'll be very careful about doing stuff like that, because then you're getting into lawsuit territory. That's the reality of Hollywood. Um, most of the time when you sign onto movies like this, you sign an NDA. Uh, you, you definitely have a non-disparagement clause, uh, in, in any contract like that. Uh, and so if you break that, you're getting into s- the territory where everyone has to sue everyone else. And that can bankrupt you and ruin your life. Um, this was an exceptional circumstance. I don't know if we're gonna see more like this. 'Cause everyone thought, like, after the Oscars where Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, it's like, "Oh, damn, there's gonna be, like, a punch-up at every Oscars ceremony now 'cause someone's gonna want to garner the attention." It, it's not happened.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, so I, yeah, I think they have to be very careful when they do stuff like that. This is something that was just quite unique. Um, and yeah, there's, there's always things that you learn about movies after the fact. There, there's plenty of movies that have had tortuous production, uh, processes, uh, whether it was just difficult shooting or, you know, the actors and directors being absolute dicks towards each other. Uh, it's hilarious when it happens, but it usually comes out years down the line.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I remember watching a behind the scenes of maybe the third or the fourth episode of the final series of Game of Thrones. It's the one where they had the battle at Winterfell.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
And, uh, the actors and actresses were talking about how, you know, it's pretty cold, and they just sat on their little stools with their name on the back with the little foot thing. They just sat on that shivering for ages and ages and ages for the shot to be gotten right. And, uh, I don't know, I've been on a couple of movie sets but I've not exactly sort of lived and breathed it in that way. But I do get the sense that it, probably from the outside, seems like it would be all glamorous and fun and sexy. And you turn up and sort of say the lines and, "Oh my God, here's an award. Like, go and spend your $100 million." But in reality, it's lots of waiting.
- CDCritical Drinker
There's also, there's ...
- CWChris Williamson
Lots and lots of waiting.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah, there's a lot of waiting around. Um, I mean, I could say from tiny little bit of experience, like, uh, I used to be an extra on things back when I was at uni. Um, just as, like, for beer money basically. And yeah, you spend, you can spend the whole day just, like, sitting in the green room or just waiting on, on site, just waiting to get used and nothing happens. Like, and it's, uh, it's usually boring and it's quite cold (laughs) if, especially if you're in Scotland. Um, and so yeah, it's not always a glamorous process for sure. Um, but that's just the nature of the work that they do. I'm sure the stars are looked after for the most part.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, they'll have a big RV and the makeup artist-
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and the masseuse and so on and so forth.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah, for sure.
- 41:57 – 44:07
Making Of The New Snow White Movie
- CDCritical Drinker
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, you mentioned the disparagement thing. Uh, Rachel Ziegler, uh, what happened? Or do we know, 'cause Snow White's coming out imminently?
- CDCritical Drinker
10 days I think.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CDCritical Drinker
From, from now, yeah, the 21st.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, and have you got any idea how much they've had to retrospectively edit, add, remove stuff from that? Or is it all speculation?
- CDCritical Drinker
It's speculation at this point. No one's really come out with a, a, you know, good reliable leak on this one. Uh, we do know that they put the movie back by an entire year. Uh, and I think you can surmise that they did a lot of reshoots during that time. I'm pretty sure they changed the entire dwarf thing, where they were gonna be played by live-action humans and now suddenly you've got these CGI monstrosities that are just pure nightmare fuel. Um, and so (laughs) it's just-... it's the g- it's the most predictable failure ever. Like, when you have to do all of this, when you do massive reshoots like this, you add tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars to your budget.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
Um, and the, the word of mouth around the film is terrible, everyone hates the idea of it, Rachel Ziegler is super unpopular as a, on a personal level. Uh, this movie has got everything that you could possibly ask to go against a movie. It's, it's all pinned to this film, uh, so it's a perfect storm of shittiness and it's gonna be hilarious when it comes out.
- CWChris Williamson
I was gonna say, this is, uh, this is like, uh, catnip for you. This is just pure YouTube channel fuel.
- CDCritical Drinker
Sure. And, you know, there's always that temptation to r- like, report on every new development and it's like, "No, I'm not doing that. I'm not gonna go to that extent." No, I-
- CWChris Williamson
This isn't, this isn't the Snow White Breaking News channel.
- CDCritical Drinker
Sure, exactly, yeah. Because like, y- you can put Rachel Ziegler's face onto a thumbnail and you'll get like a million views over it, it's insane. But I'm, I'm gonna wait now just, wait till the movie comes out and then do a review of it 'cause I've talked about a few different aspects of it, and that's enough at this point. And, uh, man, yeah, you can only beat that horse so much but it is content gold for, for YouTubers, that's the reality of it, just like The Acolyte was for Star Wars, you know?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, when something truly terrible comes out, like people... it's just human nature, they like to see it get torn down.
- 44:07 – 47:59
Is Meghan Markle's New Show Heavily Curated?
- CDCritical Drinker
- CWChris Williamson
Speaking about, uh, beaten down horses, Meghan Markle, new series.
- CDCritical Drinker
(laughs) Is that that From- or sorry, With Love or something?
- CWChris Williamson
Yep. Yeah.
- CDCritical Drinker
Meghan Markle? Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CDCritical Drinker
It'll, it will probably shock you to know that I haven't watched that.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) I, I thought that you'd been-
- CDCritical Drinker
Not quite my thing.
- CWChris Williamson
... at the front, at the front of the queue of Netflix, there's this, like, a-
- CDCritical Drinker
I, I was, I... Polo, that was bitchin', man, I couldn't get enough of that stuff. Um, but yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
There was a, a screenshot floating around on Twitter that's her hands reaching down toward a cake or something and the sentence says, "When I think of honey, I think of bees."
- CDCritical Drinker
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
As in, like this (laughs) really profound insight, uh-
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and, uh, there, apparently there's one episode where she spends a good bit of time explaining how to build a balloon arch. It's like, you don't, bitch, you don't build a balloon arch. What are you talking about?
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
You don't know how fucking balloon arch is made. You know your, your butler's butler knows how to make the balloon arch.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah. It's like, what can she teach normal people? Like what has she got that people can aspire to? There's nothing really.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, it's a, it's-
- CDCritical Drinker
Like, you're just gonna do another generic like home lifestyle show. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Exactly. And a th- a thinly veiled PR rehabilitation process. I, uh, this is allegedly, uh, on the podcast run that she had, that she did briefly. In between each answer from the guest and her response, there was a producer sat next to her telling her what to say. So that's how heavily curated it was-
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that she was being ventriloquized by some person sat slightly off camera.
- CDCritical Drinker
It's so funny when you've got people like that who have actually no discernible skills or personality or like personal history that makes them interesting but they're somehow famous anyway, and so you've got to try and do something with them. Like, what do you do? I think the Kardashians kind of encountered that problem with Kim where it's like her one and only ability is to stand still looking hot and, uh, like any time she has to speak or do anything like intelligent, she's completely lost. But, you know, somehow you can parlay that into a billion dollar empire. It's insane.
- CWChris Williamson
Run Skims, run, run Skims update, yeah. Well, I mean, look, I really enjoyed Suits. I think I bailed out in season five or six. Like it kind of got a bit confusing and I... But the first few seasons of Suits I thought was great, I thought she was like a good character in it, she sort of definitely visually fit what you would have wanted to expect, the sort of overly glitzy, everybody is unnecessarily hot in this law firm for no apparent reason. Uh, but I thought that was, I thought that was good and I enjoyed her in that but yeah, I mean, holy shit, what a way to, what a way to not only torpedo your own trajectory but that of a literal royal at the same time.
- CDCritical Drinker
He, he's so gonna regret this in years to come (laughs) , he really is.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think he'd be able to... I mean, can you as a royal divorce someone like that? Like that just seems like it would be such a huge U-turn. The amount of egg-
- CDCritical Drinker
You can.
- CWChris Williamson
... that you'd need to wear on your face would fucking suffocate you.
- 47:59 – 55:43
Are The Oscar's Still A Huge Event?
- CWChris Williamson
energy. Speaking of which, give me your thoughts on the Oscars. Should we have thanked the sex work community before we started the episode today?
- CDCritical Drinker
That was a weird one, yeah. I mean, I'm not sure if like honoring them is quite what you should be doing, like maybe help-
- CWChris Williamson
Like a land, like a land acknowledgement before you start.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah but (laughs) 'cause like, um, what was that actress saying? Like, "Oh, we, I wanna pay tribute to the sex workers of the world." Like my you should like focus more on helping them so they don't have to like be doing this for their, their careers.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, I don't know. Um, I don't think there's anything particularly noble about that but, um, yeah, man, the Oscars in general were just a snoozefest this year. There was nothing particularly controversial, there was noth- nothing particularly interesting and Nora pretty much, uh, was the big winner of the night. A p- a fairly solid stodgy drama. Like there wasn't a huge, huge amount I could say about it. Um, yeah, the, the Oscars were just-... boring, really. There was nothing really to pick up from it.
- CWChris Williamson
Would Dune 2 not have been in the bucket for this one?
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, it would the- I think it was nominated for Best Visual Effects or something, so it-
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- CDCritical Drinker
... was there, but, uh, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
I don't know, I just figured, you know, it's this epic movie, did really well at the box office, fan favorite, uh, artistically seemed to be sufficiently legitimate and edgy that m- it would, you know, justify people that know what movies are about to put it in.
- CDCritical Drinker
I think they wanted to do a bit of a 180 from the previous year, where there was a lot of, um, big name box office successes, uh, up for contention. You know, you had things like Oppenheimer, Barbie, that sort of thing. And, um, this year I think they wanted to go the opposite direction and it was very much, like, smaller films, um, you know, independent movies, all that sort of thing. Like, very much tr- your traditional Oscar bait kind of movies. I don't know if they thought that was gonna give them a bit more, uh, legitimacy and, like, raise the interest in it or what, but it seemed to have the opposite effect, really. No one was really talking about it.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I... Do you think it was, uh, purposefully sedate? Was it 
- CDCritical Drinker
I think so.
- CWChris Williamson
... m-
- CDCritical Drinker
I, I think that maybe there was a memo that got passed around saying like, "Right, don't get political. Okay? That, that shit ain't working for us anymore. Like, I don't care how much you hate the orange man, uh, there's no point ranting about it 'cause no one cares anymore. We've done this-"
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
"... for 10 years and it's, uh, it's old now." I think so, because they were pretty, pretty toned down about it, for the most part.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. I mean, o- or alternatively, Hollywood realizes that nobody really cares all that much now and that celebrity lore is genuinely losing steam and they're adapting. I'm aware that, uh, both me and you might be, um, skeptical of Hollywood's ability for, like, self-awareness, but, uh, (laughs) um, perhaps that's actually happening.
- CDCritical Drinker
It might be, to a degree. And, uh, the... Yeah. The way I described it was like, Hollywood's, uh, this, this entire, like, awards season, they gave the impression of a man who has been bent over a table and, like, violently humbled by th- by society at large. They have been told in no uncertain terms, "We don't give a shit about your political views, we don't care what protest or what cause you want to support, we're not interested in that. And we're increasingly uninterested in your actual movies even." So, uh, yeah, the, the... It was very toned down. It was very, um, sedate and almost intentionally non-controversial. And if anything, that is a good thing. (laughs) Like, it's good that they're, they're recognizing that. And now, that's probably where I would recommend that they go as an awards ceremony. And maybe they need to let go of the idea that the... it's gonna be this huge event that, like, hundreds of millions of people are gonna tune into.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
It's not, really. It's an industry event. It's a chance for them to, like, recognize talent within their industry, uh, in the same way that companies have award nights for, like, best employee of the year or whatever.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, yeah. Okay.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah, it's like you're not gonna pretend that, like, you know, the, the average person on the street's gonna give a shit about, like, Microsoft's top coder this year or anything.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
But-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
... for the people in it, for, uh, the, for the people in that industry, it's super important. So, great.
- 55:43 – 1:04:11
Is Star Wars Redeemable?
- CDCritical Drinker
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- CDCritical Drinker
No.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, Star Wars, is it redeemable?
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh... That's a complex question, right? Can it get back to being profitable financially? It can, yes. It needs to rest for between five and 10 years before they start doing more stuff. The ideal scenario would be, um, stop making new things in Star Wars, um, say that we're kind of shelving this brand for a time, fire everyone at Lucasfilm who's responsible for anything that's happened in the past 10 years, uh, and then come at it fresh with a new trilogy of movies to great fanfare and great fan anticipation. Let people miss it again, 'cause that's what we need. Um, so yeah, it, that can come back to being profitable. Will it be this cultural juggernaut that, like, you know, you, you walk down the street and, like, everyone you, you meet will have heard of someone like Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader? Um, will it get back to being that? Probably not. No, I think that's, that time has come and gone sadly, um, and it's just, it's brand destruction and there's certain, um, there's certain bits of damage that you can't undo, and I think this is one.
- CWChris Williamson
You had a, a tweet. I think this is four or five years old now, but-
- CDCritical Drinker
I think they are.
- CWChris Williamson
... how to be a Hollywood creative today. Number one, pick some old franchise with a loyal fan base. Number two, remake it, but remove everything that once made it popular. Number three, insult the fan base when they protest your creative decisions. Number four, blame negative reviews on toxic trolls. Number five- (laughs)
- CDCritical Drinker
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... move on. And uh-
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah, that is still valid.
- CWChris Williamson
... it still holds true, it still holds true today.
- CDCritical Drinker
(laughs) Yeah, that's pretty much it, and, uh, wow, they just do not learn from their mistakes on that one. It's crazy, man.
- CWChris Williamson
You can lay the playbook out, and it's always gonna happen. So yeah, we have this odd world in which, um, we're at Star Wars saturation. Meanwhile, George R. R. Martin seems to be having a competition with Patrick Rothfuss for who's gonna write their next book last.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Like, I, I saw he opened a coffee shop or something the other day?
- CDCritical Drinker
Cocktail bar, yeah. ... coffee.
- CWChris Williamson
Cocktail bar, d- yeah, and you think... Uh, d- someone had tweeted, it's like, it's been 2,100 days since-
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, it's more like-
- CWChris Williamson
... Winds of Winter came out.
- CDCritical Drinker
... more like 4,000, uh, days.
- CWChris Williamson
Is it?
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah, it's, uh, Nerdrotic, an absolutely excellent channel that you should definitely have on here to talk to. But, uh, yeah, he's... Every time something new about George R. R. Martin comes out, like some-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CDCritical Drinker
... business venture or whatever, he'll just post the number of days since the last book. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Uh-
- CDCritical Drinker
That dude will do... Like, George R. R. Martin will do anything to avoid writing that book, and I think we all know why. He doesn't know how to end it. He doesn't know how to continue this series.
- CWChris Williamson
Is this the final one, or is it the penultimate?
- CDCritical Drinker
No. So there's one more called Dream... uh, sorry, A Dream of Spring. That's supposed to end the, The Song of Ice and Fire. Uh, realistically, that's never gonna happen in his lifetime. He's already really old and fat and really unhealthy. And, um, if he even gets Winds of Winter done, that'll be a miracle.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow. That sucks.
- 1:04:11 – 1:10:06
Navigating Streaming Networks
- CDCritical Drinker
now.
- CWChris Williamson
Are you a Severance fan? This is something I haven't watched, but increasingly I'm seeing break the internet.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yes. So, um, I only started it relatively recently, so I'm like four episodes in, um-
- CWChris Williamson
Season One?
- CDCritical Drinker
... fastening ... Yes, Season One, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, so I'm late to the party on this one, but a very interesting show, really cool premise, um, deals with some very interesting ideas from that premise.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
You know, if your lit- your personality's literally split into two people with two different memory sets, um, what do they do? How do they come into conflict with each other, and can they interact in some way? So very, very interesting. Um, hopefully it doesn't go down the bad road of mystery box storytelling where the answers are, like, super disappointing and you just think, "Christ, I waited like five seasons for that."
- CWChris Williamson
Lost.
- CDCritical Drinker
Yes, exactly. Um, hopefully they've learned some lessons for that. But yeah, man, uh, like, Apple TV, they don't make a lot of stuff, but they do generally make pretty good stuff. I will say that for them, so-
- CWChris Williamson
What was that one with, uh, Jason Momoa where he was blind? Was everybody bli- maybe everybody was blind? Sight-
- CDCritical Drinker
Oh.
- CWChris Williamson
... or something? What the fuck was it called?
- CDCritical Drinker
Oh, yeah, I need to check that out.
- CWChris Williamson
Jason, Jason Momoa, Apple TV. Uh, See it was called, See.
- CDCritical Drinker
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, 7.6 on IMDb, 63% Rotten Tomatoes, uh, came out in 2019, only did one series. Um, it was really cool. Uh, yeah, all of their descendants have lost their sense of sight. And, uh, it's, that was, that was pretty fun. And I remember thinking that was the first thing I ever saw on Apple TV, and I was like, "Ugh, Apple TV, they're just gonna be buying up other series." But no, they're a legitimate, uh, uh, uh, like, production house, and they're making this stuff, and they're commissioning things, and the ideas seem to be interesting. And, uh, yeah, the only issue is that for every new exciting network or technology that has a production house attached to it that actually makes good stuff, it's another membership that I need to buy. Then I'm like, "Okay, well, I need Max, and I need Disney+, and I need Apple TV, and I definitely need Netflix. And obviously I need Amazon Prime," and before long, you're like, "How the fuck do I aggregate all of this stuff?"
- CDCritical Drinker
I mean, unless you're willing to sail, sail the high seas, of course, that's the solution. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Ah.
- CDCritical Drinker
You know, even just a, you know what would be useful is just, like, a search engine that encompasses all of streaming network-
- CWChris Williamson
An aggregator.
- CDCritical Drinker
Oh, yeah, exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, that'd be so good. Well, just put your logins here, and we'll give you all of the options that we think that you'd like, and then if you could, um... I, I've thought this for ages, a lot of the time you don't know what to watch. People will send you Spotify songs, they'll send you, um, albums and, and, uh, tracks from artists freely. There's no wa- I don't even know how I send a friend something from Netflix. I don't even know, I'd take a photo of it and say, "Hey, you should find this on Netflix," but I'm not gonna do that, it's just not in, it's not the sort of head space that I'm in when I'm doing it. But if there was a way for your friends to refer to you what they think you would like-
- CDCritical Drinker
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, Steven suggested that you should watch Severance with a little note or this, a star rating or something like that, that would be fucking awesome.
- CDCritical Drinker
But yeah, I mean, we are in th- this weird scenario where, um, there's all these different streaming networks. They don't really communicate with each other, and like, if you wanna watch one thing, it's on one network. You wanna watch something else, it's on another. Uh, and it means lots of logins, lots of, uh, subscriptions. And it does really start to mount up and, uh, the- the ones that are ultimately gonna stand the test of time and the ones that are gonna be successful are the ones that have got some other bi- business attached to them, right? So-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- CDCritical Drinker
... Amazon, right? Uh, it- it almost doesn't matter whether Amazon Prime Video is successful or not, because they make a shit zillion dollars every day from, like, their actual online website. I mean, of course.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- 1:10:06 – 1:10:58
Critical's Upcoming Projects
- CDCritical Drinker
- CWChris Williamson
Dude. Uh, what are you focused on over the next couple of weeks and months? What have you got? Apart from obviously the, uh, star-studded release of Snow White, um, what else are you focused on?
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, we've got some more movie projects in the works because I did, uh, a short film that we released last year. Um, we are doing, uh, more of that that we're working on right now and we're hoping that we're gonna launch a Kickstarter, uh, in the near future to- to hopefully finance that. And, um, we- we wanna branch out. Like, rather than just doing one movie, we wanna do a slew of, like, smaller films and give people t- who back it an opportunity to get some of their projects made as well. So, uh, it's like a- a- a little mini production studio that we're gonna start to do where we can crowdfund, uh, movies and, like, let people vote on the things that they wanna get made, which we- we think is hopefully gonna be quite an interesting idea.
- 1:10:58 – 1:11:33
Where To Find Critical Drinker
- CDCritical Drinker
- CWChris Williamson
Unreal. Where should people go if they wanna keep up to date with all of that stuff and everything you do?
- CDCritical Drinker
Uh, so yeah, you can find my channel on YouTube, The Critical Drinker. Uh, I also have, uh, a gaming channel called The Critical Gamer, very imaginative, and you can obviously find me on the usual places like X and so on.
- CWChris Williamson
Fuck yeah. Dude, I appreciate you. Until next time, man.
- CDCritical Drinker
Thank you very much. Pleasure.
- CWChris Williamson
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