Barbie - Part 2

Jordan and TC review the movie Barbie and also begin to discuss Mission:Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One.

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
Ninety seven one the Freak as youheard just now on the League Idea,
unless you're listening on the podcast,which because you probably didn't get the League
idea, now you've probably got someadvertisement capacities. Yeah, thats a podcast
with Freddie Prince Jr. Which isthe one with the microwave sounds right right,

(00:30):
start Bad Culture Hour. That bandplaying in the background is Geese,
a great new Brooklyn band. Verycool stuff happening up there. They're embracing
the Grateful Dead in Williamsburg, whichI'm thrilled for. Uh Geese. If
you're listening, you're playing at ClubData in November. Son of Stan wants

(00:51):
to open. Oh so it wouldbe nice, yeah, nice move power
move. That's right. They onlyhave a radio show on a hard hitting
they're not up there at w ABCon Saturday afternoons that in New York.
Yeah, okay, Uh no,it's w NBC Wins. Yeah. Yeah.

(01:11):
Is it where Stern was on huhokay, he was making sure.
Well, that's why he's got thescene in private parts where they say it
that way right right right now?I remember? Yeah, yeah, that's
right. Is that the drop guy? The program director card? Okay,
man, I need to I'm gettingmy butt kicked. I need to go
back and watch that. You geta lot going on. It feels like

(01:32):
it's Stern in here today, thoughI don't know if that's a loss for
a pig Vomit or not. Youknow, like to get Paul Gimatti to
play you in the movie, don'tyou feel like, I mean, like
Howard's getting to write the narrative.I doubt that that's how the story went
down in pig Vomit's mind, thathe was just there trying to wreck the
Howard Stern show. Yeah, well, pig Vomit should get his own movie
then, But I mean, yeah, in that sense, he's losing.

(01:53):
He's never gonna get his own movie. But is it ever really a loss
of Paul Giamatti's playing you. I'mtrying to think of the Paul GMTI characters.
No, No, you say likehe's he's a nice thing, you
know, Yeah, it's cool.He seems cool. Yeah, he played
Jerry Heller. Yeah, I lovethat. He certainly did. Uh.

(02:14):
For a long time, I didthink that it was just a weird coincidence
that he and Bart Giamatti have thesame name and I found out it is
actually his son. Paul is Bart'sson. That's incredible. I thought it
was his nephews. And when Ilooked it up recently, when it's a
nephew thing, it's like, Okay, you know that's just uncle that you
see it. Yeah, But whenit's Paul Gimatti was commissioner, Bart Giamatti

(02:37):
was commissioner. Okay, yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, Paul Gimi
was in a movie about wine.Yeah, his parents Miles. Yeah,
yeah, that's a great movie.Let's do sideways talks. Yeah, no
chance, movie about wine. Shootme in the movie about Santa Barbara though.
We were just discussing Santa Barbara.Yeah, yeah, we have been

(03:00):
talking Barbie and uh, we're Iwe were kind of we're kind of talking
the summer blockbuster seasons and in general. And uh, I feel like I
feel like Barbie and Oppenheimer are thesame film, and I feel like Mission
Impossible touches on the same on thesame topics. And I think that it

(03:21):
all happening at once. You know, they're the Venn diagram. There's a
lot of overlap in all three ofthose movies. And I think it's just
that there's a lot of existential crisisis going on in the minds of both
production studios and directors these days.Yeah. I mean I've been saying I've
said it several times on recent shows, so I should probably stop repeating it
so that I don't sound stale.Um. But you know, a good

(03:45):
opinion is a good opinion. Manall arts about man search for meaning.
Yeah, you can say that everyweek, you know it does. It
is coming at you pretty strong inall these Barbie probably forefronting it the most.
Yeah, it's they're being very likeit's it's it's talking to God about
why I'm here. That's a scenein the movie. Yeah. Yeah,
yeah, that that is true,and you get you get some of that

(04:09):
in Oppenheimer. But you're right,you don't get it as directly. Yeah,
but you get sort of There istalk about one's own destruction. There's
talk about destruction of the whole world. Uh. There's a point in both
movies at which now everything from thispoint forward is going to be different in
the world. Um. I don'tknow. You can draw parallels a lot

(04:30):
in a lot of different movies,but I would say that like Barbie and
Oppenheimer are closer together than sideways andnecessary roughness, you know. So yeah,
and then Mission Impossible brings it alltogether because in you know, of
Jay, Robert Oppenheimer became a god. Barbie became truly herself, which in

(04:50):
us in particular viewpoints in worldviews,that is like becoming a god. And
Tom Cruise over here, Mission impossibleis God has become God. Yeah,
so there's the parallel there. Yeah. Um, what are you like?
What were your big thoughts on Barbie? Do you feel like you've already gotten
them out? I feel like I'vebeen talking a lot. I want to

(05:13):
hear No. I I thought itwas fantastic. I thought for as good.
You know, I'm here, I'mmaking comparisons, and that's kind of
the the trajectory I want to takehere is that like, I think Oppenheimer
was as good as a movie aboutRobert Oppenheimer could be, and I think
Barbie was as good about a movieabout like the role of dolls and the

(05:34):
and the role for who am Ito speak on the experience of a young
woman but like what that might belike. So because those two things are
the same to me, I thinkthey're both as good. They're both perfect
movies. Yeah, I thought,And my main takeaway from Barbie is that
it was hilarious. Again, likea Reyear iterated before, it does touch

(05:57):
on compelling social points, but Ithought none of them were in a way
that I was that anybody should reallyget bit out of shape about Um,
you've got Will Farrell in there.You know, you got a great You
got the great equalizers of Will Farrelland Michael Sarah, you know, just
on top of their game being Sarah. He popped up in Black Mirror too.
I hope we're in the middle ofa Sarah renaissance. I would like

(06:19):
to think so too, because hejust he just dipped for a while.
He just chilled. He probably enjoyedlife, and I lot of money in
the bank probably back him, right, Like, like, I think that
he can do whatever, like maybenot like he gets to be mission impossible
if he feels like it. Butwhenever, there's some people that whenever they
go away, Like I'm a bigfan of following Tara Reid on social media,

(06:43):
and it's pretty apparent that she didn'tmake the choice to step back.
Yeah, you're right, and thereis I think that Sarah could definitely because
whatever, like he's made way moreweird art movies that I've never seen that
he made big movies to begin with. Yeah, and going from I'm only
going to make weird art movies toyou know what, I'm actually not going

(07:03):
to do anything. I'm just goingto meditate in the desert. Right,
He's a pretty small step, right, right, right. Well, there's
a you know, a difference betweenbeing infamous like Tara Reid and then kind
of being famous. And I thinkif, if, if it's for your
line of work and for the thingthat makes you money and an entire generation
more or less has heard of you, then that I feel like that's the

(07:26):
normal barometer for like, you probablyhave it. You're probably fine. You
can probably write your own ticket.And because most people our age know who
Michael Sarah is, he falls intothat category of like, I bet he
can probably do what it is thathe wants. Again, he might not
have the biggest house in Beverly Hills, but he probably has exactly what he
wants. And it begs the questiondid he get back end on Super Bad?
And did he get back in onthe DVD sales of Arrested Development?

(07:50):
Yeah? Yeah, and maybe hedid, But he's been he's been doing
great and when he pops up,it's always it's always a thrill. I
think Scott Pilgrim made a decent amountof money. That's a good movie.
I would hope that you get someof that. But yeah, um hopping
you ready to hop in the missionmuscle jump over? Yeah, so you
know, up on the train,let's skydive onto the train. That is

(08:13):
mission impossible. Artificial intelligence is somethingI've been laser focused on for a long
time. U TC historians will notethat the first time that I got the
chance to do a terrestrial radio programthat I was hosting, I did Jake
and I did a segment about,hey, do you guys understand that this
is all anyone's going to talk aboutin ten years? And now here we

(08:33):
are ten years later, and Ifeel pretty good about yeah my call.
You're right. From the sag afterstrike to uh, you know, getting
your oil change, it's all talkof AI. Yeah, and uh,
you know, I with how muchit's talked about, I don't know that
we've yet hit anything close to thelimit on good art about it. And

(08:54):
seeing them put that into a giantHollywood blockbuster was pretty satisfying for me.
Yeah, it was the most current, compelling, you know, depiction of
what AI's potential power is. Yeah, it was. It was really standing
out to me how much they hadupdated previous artistic attempts to display it because

(09:16):
you know, the man I Idon't remember the details exactly, but I
was reading something of someone writing aboutAI and they claim that there was some
story like a myth written in likesix hundred a d that is like dealing
with the idea that man could makesomething that's more capable than man. You
know, like you whenever you startto have technology, like the first time
we uh, you know, pickup a rock to use it for a

(09:39):
purpose, like you're you've started downthe path of like you know, I
am building things now. Yeah,and so it's easy enough to like ask
yourself the question what happens when Ibuild something that does more than I can
do? Right? That's the wholestory of two thousand and one Space Odyssey,
you know, like from the Primatewith the rock too, AI in

(10:01):
the Spaceship Controlling Yeah shut it onthe background a couple of times about AI.
Um, but like you know,the to my mind, the big
previous thing that this is uh kindof walking the footsteps of his terminator,
and this is such a It's notlike that. It's not like they treated
it like Terminator said everything that youcould say about the ways in which AI

(10:26):
would manifest itself, Like this isso much more complete in a certain way.
I mean, like nuclear war ispretty complete, but this is just
so different than that. It's notthey're not just stopping at imagining. Okay,
the computers getting control and then theyfire all the nukes. It's like,
no, the computers getting in controland then everything in your reality that

(10:46):
is mediated digitally becomes unreliable. Andwhat implications does that have for your life?
And for that to be tackled insomething like that. That's the thing
that we keep on saying about allthese movies. I can't believe how good
popular culture because this is the mostpopular culture stuff and yeah, for the
widest possible audience, but they're stilllike, you know, I really complicated

(11:09):
ideas. It's great to see.It's it's a kind of thing where it's
it makes the greatest villain you couldimagine because it's beyond it's beyond comprehension.
It's something that you could imagine isout of our control, so in a
way that you'd call a normal likebond villain or mission impossible villain is like
it, you know, a despotor someone who had a bad childhood,

(11:33):
or someone who's angry at the waythey were treated in the world. And
in this case, it paints apicture of a new out of control villain
because it's not necessarily doing it fornefarious reasons. The villain is just doing
what it is, what is itstrue nature, which was initially designed by

(11:54):
the imperfect human. Yeah, Idon't even know if we have a real
understanding of yet of what the AIwant. So because this is a two
part movie, it is a twopart movie and another one there's a quest
for a key. The mission init of itself is to find a key
and the only way to stop thisparticular villain or in this case, the
thing that will take over the world, which I guess is kind of every

(12:18):
villain. Usually they've got the nukepointed at DC or whatever, and it's,
uh, we don't know what it'sgoing to stop the machine, and
we possibly might know what the machinewants. Yeah, we do know that
there is one character in the moviewho's appeared in previous movies to be Tom
Cruise's major heel. I don't thinkhe has Ethan, but Gabriel. Yeah,

(12:39):
I think Gabriel was in one ofthe early ones. But you watched
them all recently, said, well, if he was in one, it's
either one or two, which arethe ones that I say are not really
part of the Cannon fair. ButI think he is in the first one.
You think, so, I was. I was looking it up and
I don't. I don't. Ikind of remember them hanging the word Gabriel,

(13:01):
but the thing that they're depicting isGabriel forcing Ethan into the imf by
and in the first one, he'salready in the eye. He's already in
it, right, Yeah, that'salways great when you get, like towards
the end of a serial series,you'll get the origin story, which is
always a cool way to do it. You know, you think this whole
time, like you say, whenyou're just thrown into the world of accepting

(13:22):
Ethan being part of you know,the ims or whatever, that's what it
is, right. I'm terrible withI'm terrible with words, honestly, but
when things when I'm pretty bad withcharacter names, I've decided I have to
jop them down, and I've justgiven up on that. So I'm just
like, you know, the oneTom Cruise plays, whichever his name is.

(13:43):
Yeah, there's no one named Gabrielin the cast of the First Mishamle.
Okay, is there someone named Gabriel? Yeah, Kitchurch has been around.
I remember when Kitcher ted brown hair. Yeah, and uh, as
my wife pointed out, he hada vein under his eye that you couldn't
take your eyes off of if itjust the whole time, it just once

(14:03):
I saw it, I couldn't.I couldn't be Yeah. Yeah, yeah,
No for anyone you know who isnot seen it yet, it's it's
Yeah, there's a computer program that'suh, you know, running out of
control and his broken containment and iscontrolling you know, various things around the
world on some sort of plan thatwe don't yet know what is. But

(14:26):
they've employed uh, one of Ethan'soldest enemies to carry out their bidding,
uh for the you know, gametheory reason of like you know, if
if if they can make Ethan killhim, that's good for that, Like
he's got the information. So ifEthan kills him, then no one has
the information, and that's the computer'sbenefit. Um, but if Ethan doesn't
kill him, then he's probably gonnakill Ethan. That's also to the computer's

(14:48):
benefits. Pretty tricky stuff. Itis. Hasn't Tom Cruise outside in Tom
Cruise World, not not representing anymovie or anything, but representing his religion
and his views on the world.Has you know, you know what it
is. It's not the Church ofChrist scientists, but it sounds sort of
similar, which I thought they werethe same thing when I was younger.

(15:11):
But in the purview of Tom Cruise'sreligion, hasn't he made public statements about
his stance on AI and his stanceon futurism and things of that nature.
Certainly did Yeah, yeah, Elon, does I feel like Tom Cruise pinned
a letter or something? And thisis the foremost expert on Tom Cruise,

(15:33):
at least in the Metroplex setting tomy right. So I thought, I
go down to Tom Cruise rabbit holes. Yeah, I thought he might have
done that, but you know,like you can't help Oh, and this
is something I wanted to say.When the movie starts, it's the first
thing after that initial long sequence,you know, that twenty minute sequence before
the opening titles. You know whatit says the first title, A Tom

(15:54):
Cruise production. Oh you know,he's a big didn't say Paramount Pick Presents.
It didn't say, I mean Skydancewas listed after Tom Cruise production.
Paramount Pictures was listed after. Andthen what gets you top billing in a
credit is who paid the most moneyfor it? And Tom Cruise paid the
most money for this. And Iwill say a couple times that there were

(16:17):
some like I know he didn't Iknow mcquerie style. That's his name,
right, Christopher mcqui um. Iknow his style as a director can have
some weird extended pacing, but therewas some odd pacing in this. It
just looked like Tom's fingerprints are allover the cut of this movie, if
I mean, Tom's fingerprints are allover Christopher's career. Correct, correct and

(16:38):
right, you're you're right. Andso the way that that unfolds itself,
I can't just I couldn't help butreally feel and again, you know,
kind of like talking about Barbie.I didn't take it too seriously, but
I couldn't help but feel the touchof Tom Cruise's agenda on this movie and
what he's trying to say you feel, I really feel his personal beliefs coming

(17:00):
through and his acting aside, Likehe acted more in Maverick than he did
in this movie. And this moviehe's acting, of course, and because
he's jumping off of things and likebeing amazing person. But when I'm talking
about like just conversationally and like justdoing the normal actor things that actors do,
when there's a medium close up onhim, he's become so weird.

(17:22):
He can't even be comfortable in amovie. So yeah, just to me,
it reads is weird. Like whenhe's having that, I like it.
It makes me laugh. It's kindof the most charming thing about him.
But like when they get into thelittle Fiat or whatever, you know,
that's the little hyper super electric carthing, and he's fumbling around with
it, he just is like hisacting is clunky and odd, and he

(17:44):
sort of looks like he did onOprah when he's jumping on the couch a
little bit. He's just become biggerthan himself. And I really see that
when I'm watching him. And Ididn't go into that thinking like, oh
man, I'm gonna see Tom Cruisebeing awkward on screen, But it just
felt that a little bit more sothan it did in Maverick. But this
is, you know, several yearslater, this movie has been made.

(18:04):
Yeah, I guess I'm not fullyinterpreting whether or not you're saying it's a
good or a bad thing that hisideas are so imprinted on the movie.
But I don't think it's bad.I don't have any problem. But yeah,
I guess I don't think about AI, and I guess I don't think
it's bad either. But I justknow, like so much just in in
Tom Cruise making art about AI,Right, some of the things that are

(18:26):
rooted in some of his opinions thatI find troublesome, and some of the
things he espouses and people he endorsesand ideas that he tends to indorse,
I see them coming through in away that like, you know, I'm
putting myself at risk saying this onthe public airwaves, but you know,
like the Church's stance on psychology andstuff like that. Yeah, of course,

(18:47):
And so I see some of that, And I'm not all together here
to disagree with Tom Cruise that weneed to pump the brakes on AI and
such. But I just see itas like a more narrow agenda that he
might be trying to put forth alittle bit. And I do, I
really do think that he thinks hemight be God. Yeah, well,
you know, you know, weall it's an open question. I think

(19:08):
it'd be a little arrogant to saythat he's not. Yeah, fair,
you're right, you're right, Um, that question was a rose. Oh
no, it's not. It's notgonna give Tom carte blanche. You know,
Like I think it's worthy of criticismthat one of his best friends,
uh in Traveler imprisoned his own wifeand hasn't let her out to the public

(19:30):
for a decade. Now, I'vegot a problem with that, to be
frank, um, But you know, I the whole his journey to scientology
broadly, I find fairly sympathetic,Like, uh, whenever you see I
think we think it was the episodeAlex was on U. I talked about
this briefly, so I don't wantto just like regard to say at the

(19:52):
same points, but uh whatever,Like it's it's really funny how little is
known about the earlier part of hislife. And I guess I'm with the
seminary, right, Yeah, Well, but even that was he didn't say
that. Like one of the guysin seminary with him was like, oh,
yeah, he was. He wasin seminary. Like, I think
that he has told a version ofhis life that like doesn't include that chapter

(20:15):
at all. If his life storyparallels his character of Frank T. J.
Mackey in Magnolia, in the interviewscene when a lot of things are
brought up about his past and theway that he gets upset with people interviewing
him. Yeah, but he hewas in seminary. He got kicked out
for drinking, He got kicked offhis high school football team for drinking.

(20:37):
His mother had to escape his father, like you know, it was just
like a leave with the kids inthe middle of the night type situation.
Yeah, you know. Like that, that to me suggests why he might
have had the early problem with drinking. And so if he's in this situation
where like he's got these giant problemspresented in life, he's not been given
a blueprint for how to successfully gothrough things without turning to alcohol as a

(21:00):
teenager. You know, like he'sin high school getting which you know,
listen, I understand drinking in highschool. You know that all of the
people that I hung out with.But I I because of that, I
can tell you it's it's not asign of like things going well. Yeah.
Um. And so you know,like he's he's just a classic person
who's like he's a drift. He'sbegging for some kind of thing to come

(21:25):
along and be the father that hisfather flatly refused to be. And so
for someone to show up and he'dbe like, you know, for David
Miskovic to step in and be likeI could be your daddy. Yeah.
Uh, you know like that thatall works like that. I don't condemn
anyone for that, you know,like I condemn his dad, but I

(21:45):
don't condemn Tom. And then youknow, like I said, I do
condemn the Then this father figure,like you know, uh, traps his
wife in a secret base in thehills and doesn't let her out. I
think that's bad. Um. Butyou know, I don't know. I
think all of his journey he soundslike a human to me. Yeah.
I like that. The movie isabout friendship, you know, it always

(22:08):
is big. Yeah, yeah,that main that main thing that's kind of
said. They're all embarrassed to sayit, and uh, you know,
I just find it like it's yourfriendship at the end of the world.
It was kind of like what Iwould probably be my mission impossible dead reckoning
tagline. It would be friendship atthe end of the world. It's beautiful.
Yeah, yeah, but you knowagain, you get that in Oppenheimer,

(22:30):
you get that in Barbie. Ithink these are I think this is
the Trinity. It is the HolyTrinity of twenty twenty three, you know,
Summer Blockbuster obviously and maybe for yearsto come. But it's there's you
can't help. I know, moviesare just a comment on what we're doing
in life out here in the realworld, but you can't help. But
like I drew major parallels through allof these movies, or at least I

(22:52):
had fun doing it as an exercise. Yeah, yeah, No, I
think you're right. I support youryeah, your points. What about Saw
Patrol, Dude, stop it.We got Barbieheimer not doing it. You're
not gonna do Saw Patrol, whichis ao saw. The New Saw and
probably the New Paw Patrol come outthe same Friday, so there's gonna be
Saw Patrol. The bizarre parallels.Yeah, and I haven't seen any of

(23:18):
these three Trinity ones yet, butI have seen Asteroids Sitting and I own
it now, so beautiful. I'mputting parallels between Asteroids sitting. That's amazing.
That's something I wanted to run outand see and still haven't seen yet.
But oh, you know, you'rekidding me. I feel yeah,
I know. It's a bummer.I feel like the order that I saw
the three films in influenced which onesI liked best, because I heard some

(23:41):
people on the station and otherwise sayingthat they think Mission Impossible was the best
film out of the three. Interestingand I would put it in my bronze
category. It's amazing, but itjust it just was something that you know,
was ground barking in some ways,but not not in a way that
those other two were. It's notit's not a race, you know.

(24:02):
I'm not in the Academy, soit doesn't matter. We'll see Oppenheimer will
be nominated. I bet Barbie couldget a NOD. I feel like it
might get a production stuff. Yeah, I think it might get a Best
Picture nod though. Yeah, yeah, I'd be surprised if it didn't.
Yeah, really, but yeah,I have a lot more to say about
Mission Possible. I'd love to dothat next seven one the Freak