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The B.E.E. Podcast - 1/25/22 - Christian Toto - SILVER (Patreon)

Published:
2022-01-26 01:32:35
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2026-06
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Content

Bret reviews Licorice Pizza and assesses its standing within Paul Thomas Anderson's towering body of work. Author and film critic Christian Toto and Bret discuss writing about contemporary Hollywood's absurd political posing in Virtue Bombs and the glaring lack of pushback it receives from the film industry's most powerful players.

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Comments

Alex Waller

I think Licorice Pizza was about the hustle of the two kids in a setting like LA where there's tons of huge egos and glamour. Neither of them are very glamorous, they're not great students, athletes, etc. but they do have a certain drive and will that carries them through and keeps them from getting completely run over by the arrogant/crazy big shots they encounter throughout the movie. They have energy, they run wherever they go, they've got something that's going to carry them through. I think that was the point of focusing so much on the waterbeds and the pinball arcade, that kid had hustle and go-gettiveness in spades even if it was all kind of goofy and naive. I don't know really know how I feel about the movie but its definitely my favorite PTA film along with Inherent Vice, I don't think the rest of his films are very good and There Will Be Blood is a downright terrible film. I'd probably rank it among the worst of the decade instead of the best. But whatever, I really enjoyed the movie review.

Michael Walsh

Fifty + minutes spent on a film you didn't really care for? Zzzznnnxxxx. . . CT was an informative guest, but the ongoing Hollywood post-mortem makes for a sad –if sometimes morbidly funny- topic.

Jorge Castillo

I’ll listen to it, but I’m getting tired of BEE turn to the hard right. Instead of inviting people who challenge him, he keeps bringing these irrelevant characters nobody has heard of that just confirm his opinions (not to mention reruns or Q&As). Not really worth subscribing to.

John

Each creep to the right Bret makes breaks my heart a bit more. I KNOW he's smarter than this.

BrienPiechos

A failed art major? This guy is LITERALLY HITLER! Kidding. But Bret, Jews aren't white. They're Semitic, thus the term Anti-semitism. A term that should by definition include other Middle Eastern races but is exclusively used to describe disliking Jews whereas Islamophobia is the preferred term for an anti-Arab position regardless of the individual's actual religious beliefs. And the reason why the founders of Hollywood aren't being lauded is not due them being white males, it's because of the probability of their past behaviors being drudged up and put on trial posthumously by the woke mob. They don't want any more attention because shining any light on the culture of that era is followed by character assassinations. The #metoo movement removed more Jews from positions of power than 1933 Germany. Anyone in Hollywood advocating for more attention to be paid to these men of "a bygone different era" will quietly be told to stop. That's not kosher with the narrative.

BrienPiechos
>>76516380

Smarter than what, actually acknowledging the facts on the ground and making an informed opinion? You just want him to parrot what CNN tells him to like a good little bootlicker?

BrienPiechos
>>76513708

Refute what he said then. Nobody on here cares about your opinion. We pay to hear Bret's.

Brian Rooney
>>76521593

I dunno, man. I don’t really care for your opinion. It sounds like you’re just parroting Ben Shapiro.

BrienPiechos
>>76521593

Shapiro is a gatekeeper who fulfills the role of redirecting genuine populist interests back into the acceptable parameters of dialog where Israel is never questioned, immigration is never fixed, banks aren't held accountable, 2A means owning but never using a firearm in self defense, and being "conservative" means buying a Let's Go Brandon hat. That you can't see the glaring difference between the way I approached the topic and what Shapiro would say about this situation just proves you are firmly ensconced in that media-generated paradigm of "red vs blue" and have absolutely no idea what's going on.

Jorge Castillo
>>76513708

This is literally the comments section, bud. You seem a little triggered. Take a deep breath.

E
>>76516380

Isn't everyone entitled to their own thoughts and opinions? I enjoy Bret's take on things; it's why I subscribe

Billy Schafer

I’ve come to expect that whenever Bret has a guest with conservative leanings, the subscribers will usually get riled, but I don’t understand what they find so annoying about Christian Toto. The bulk of their discussion was how social justice and identity politics have polluted Hollywood films and television. Bret’s been lamenting about this since Podcast One, so, I don’t blame some listeners getting worn out by the subject. Still, who can argue that he and Toto are wrong? Toto has a point that more prominent A-list stars – especially if they’re true liberals who value free speech and artistic expression – need to speak up and reveal the Hollywoke cult for what it is – vindictive zealotry that masquerades as activism. I was particularly upset at Stephen King’s backtracking. The man’s been making fuck-you-money for forty-five years, and he feels obligated to placate Ava DuVernay?! I wish he had channeled Tarantino and retorted with a something like, “I reject your hypothesis.”

Michael Walsh
>>76513708

You resent him for not toeing the Party line. Your whiny, ad-hominem remarks contribute nothing save to illustrate precisely the the kind of attitude that is ruining movies.

Jorge Castillo
>>76513708

Let’s break down your “response”: “You resent him for not toeing the Party line”: Obviously not, since I’ve been a subscriber for over two years. My problem is that he keeps making the same points showing zero evolution except inching towards the alt-right. Not out of conviction (he’s not an idiot), but because it’s the only way left to positioning himself as “against the system”. “The kind of attitude that is ruining movies.”: Bret has been killing cinema for like five years (still there, btw), and his arguments are entirely based on whatever is going on in Hollywood. He flippantly dismisses foreign films and any indie movie that doesn’t match his belief system. My problem with Bret is that he is calcifying: He’s unwilling to evolve and keeps hitting the same talking points. No better proof than his guests, of late: people who think just like him. I’ve listened to the same complaints long enough. “The Shards” is over, there’s no reason for me to keep paying.

The Dude

Has Bret reviewed the red rocket?.... If not, here's my review: I really enjoyed it. 5 stars.

The Dude

Also. Concerning Bret's Licorice pizza structural issues. I liked the structure. It plays like la dolce vita, 400 blows, and once upon a time in Hollywood. A series of vignettes connected by their characters, which comes together in the end.

Brian Rooney
>>76533612

The way Toto attacks wokeism feels like an excuse. He seems to purposely lose sight of the forest for the trees. He casts liberal A-listers as boogeymen/ wolves in sheep’s clothing/ strawmen to excuse his shitty, invertebrate political views…

Graeme

Worst interview/interviewee in a long time

Brian Rooney
>>76533612

Not to sound like a snot, but I think what the problem is, or at least why I get frustrated, is because I wouldn’t call Toto or previous guests conservatives.

Fernando

The comments are lit Bret bring Milo on LoL

Alex Johnson

As much as I love Bret talking about movies, I wish he would talk about fiction more. I find modern fiction to be far worse about wokeness than movies right now. Look at the best selling novels of the moment, they’re nearly all by women and the few by men are sci-fi novels. The idea of serious male literature is all but dead. Franzen keeps writing, I guess, but that’s pretty much it. Curious to hear Bret’s thought on the state of literature right now!

Alex Johnson
>>76549852

Agreed! One of my favorite theater experiences of the year. Ridiculously funny and I think it has a lot of what Bret said Licorice Pizza lacked for him.

Alex Johnson
>>76516380

Bret doesn’t really read as rightwing to me, more of as a liberal who’s annoyed by liberals, which, if you care about art right now, is extremely understandable.

Jason

Bret’s review of LICORICE PIZZA was spot on, as was his review in the previous week of WEST SIDE STORY. I didn’t love this guest although I did enjoy hearing them talk about some really thorny issues, but seeing everything through an anti-woke pose is as useless and myopic as the wokesters they are criticizing. I’m really curious if Bret will check out MEMORIA when it plays Los Angeles, film of the year imo.

MikeE

The fact that a film could be criticized, with no other context or reason, simply it, for being ‘a too white movie’ and that this criticism is actually not only taken seriously and socially acceptable by the vast majority in the critic/punditshere, but one could argue is becoming a widely held, unreflectively ‘valid’ attitude by many in the culture as a whole, is very telling. Equal opportunity is not the goal, diminishment of human value due to skin color is. And the notion that this is actually becoming the (faux, to say the least) righteous, correct ethical approach endlessly pushed and prodded along with perverse glee by the ‘culture makers’ ought to alarm everyone with a remotely thought-out, adult ethical philosophical framework. This is never, EVER the right way to judge human worth. And lurking right below such a perspective’s surface is always arbitrary tribal hatred and vengeance. A built-in rationalization for horrific behavior. Yeah, that’s always worked out well. That’s ’progressive’. Oh and nobody’s ancestors are ‘indigenous’ to anywhere-they ALL came from elsewhere. Humans don’t grow out of the ground, like an indigenous plant. Another absurdity that is just accepted because ‘they’ say so. It’s never about improving the lives of the actual individuals within whatever ‘group’ is suddenly given a new name, it’s about inculcating obedience, no matter how absurd or insane the dictate. Also not something that tends to end well for a society. Read some Hannah Arendt.

N.M. Janice.

The negative response to this guest and the conversation is surprising. Taking issue with cancel culture and identity politics doesn't make you a right winger. Brets feelings on these matters have always seemed to be grounded in truisms and common sense. I mean honestly what is the other point of view on this? That art and artists should be censored for stepping out of line? That a film should only be championed if it has the right moral message and the proper ratio of minorities on set? For those who disagree with Bret, what are the virtues of "woke" that are not being fairly discussed. Honest question.

Jorge Castillo
>>76513708

Thank you @++Max++. I'm a fan of BEE, I've read all his books. The disappointment is real.

Christopher Webster

Woke ideologues don't care about art. They see franchises as "platforms" to push "bad politics" (to quote Armond White) onto the masses. Case in point, the recent Sex in the City reboot. Its new identarian writers are wearing that show like a skin suit. It's unrecognizable.

Jack
>>76516380

"People who disagree w my political opinions are not smart"

Charlie C

Can someone explain to me what Bret means when he says a film is high or low (or contains both). I feel like he defined it in previous podcasts but I can't remember now what it actually means

Anthony Punnett

Don’t listen to the leftist chatter! Brett you’re an oasis! more Dasha Nekresova! , love this podcast

bpvalentine
>>76668321

Unless Im mistaken, I think he means art. High and low art. Like high brow or low brow. Best I can do without context

bpvalentine
>>76521593

If you got to sit in the sections marked for whites only during segregation, that's what makes Jews white in the larger contexts, not if you've ever in a race ever been discriminated against. And if that's the reason the investors of this industry are buried and ignored from that industry's museum, maybe you and yours need to find somewhere on Earth that is purer and where blood was never been spilled, if you can find any.

BrienPiechos
>>76611377

Agreed. I am currently involved in a debate about art with a leftist who says the right cannot create art, etc. While I won't bore you with the entirety of this discussion, at least we can agree the truth is unattainable in the modern world when the left have owned the means of distribution for 50 if not 100 years. A right wing fiction writer will not be published, reviewed, or distributed by "respectable" publishers despite the content of their work and are forced to self publish or be published by an outfit who expressly press right wing books, thus by default their work will be seen as substandard and unworthy of true critical consideration. Houellebecq is still writing and poses very illiberal points about so-called progress (all change is not progress), and is often mistaken for being a right winger in the American sense when I don't feel he's taken any hard stance. He's a "cuck" on race, for certain, which alone should blow up that argument. But I think his critics simply take umbrage with his questioning the rapid change of the modern world and it's one-sidedness, casting the victims of this change, who are always European and are in reality Europeans, accurately as such, and does not portray this change as good for Europeans, especially males. He recognizes that the moment we are in is defined by seeing the non-white world as victims of circumstance and the only remedy governments have for this is to subject their own populations to victimhood alongside them. But his female characters suffer equally I feel and from the same causes. He is not tone deaf to the plight of the aging woman. When he addresses the cultural forces behind this change and existential suffering he is fair, and balances his critique with the spiritual, economic, and cultural elements at play.

BrienPiechos
>>76521593

If that is your only metric than here are some facts about Jewish-Americans and the 1950-60's: Jews wrote MLK's speeches. Jews founded all of the Civil Rights foundations, put together the marches, and carved out special places in the protected classes section of the Civil Rights acts to cover Jews, while Whites are not included. Jews were completely the driving force behind the 1965 Immigration Act, that turned out to be completely the opposite of what was promised. Jews had covenant neighborhoods where no non-Jewish person was able to purchase a homes well past the era of the CV movement. Then, lastly, the individual Jews in question who founded Hollywood chose to do so in CA because they were fleeing Thomas Edison, who refused to legally allow them to use his motion picture capture technology, because Edison believed they would use it to create pornography and release other poisons upon society. Those are the men Bret is speaking of, whose estates are CHOOSING not to make a stink about being left out of the pantheon. Why? Why don't they want recognition? Again, because anyone in 2022 who would write up a book or article about them would surely make it about sexual impropriety. Because that's the story of Hollywood and everyone knows it. Goodbye Norma Jean.

BrienPiechos
>>76533612

Then perhaps it's time to acknowledge the tired paradigm of "conservative" is kayfabe. No one with illiberal viewpoints or beliefs actually want what the conservative establishment are selling. People wanted the promises of CANDIDATE Trump, not President Trump, and those are very, very different things.

BrienPiechos

I wonder if Bret has even seen the Many Saints of Newark? That kid was GREAT in it. The movie was not great, maybe on the tail end of good, at least it as watchable, but his performance as the budding Tony Soprano was fantastic. He saved the movie from the meddling of woke injections by the producers. It is unfortunate they decided the entire fulcrum of the film had to be "gorgeous Italian woman is a wanton for black dick and racism causes a ruckus." It's a tired cliché, woefully uninteresting, and really doesn't bring the sort of emotional tension any viewer can invest in unless, I suppose, you're a white woman cheating on your spouse with a black guy or visa versa. Shitty plot, good acting.

Alex Waller
>>76719767

Dude, there was no woke stuff in The Many Saints of Newark. The mob in New Jersey used to run out of Newark and the riots and their aftermath pushed them out to the suburbs like we see in the show. The African Americans who worked with the mob but would never be treated as equals decided to start their own thing and pushed the mob out. This is actually what happened and the movie was telling us that story, I don't think there was any type of messaging in there.

Anthony

Bret seems reluctant to the push for inclusion of underrepresented groups in art because it would allow for the possibility that if there had always been an equal playing field in these areas, the people we hold up (white men) as having creating the best movies, novels, etc. might not have risen to the top. And I’m sure that understanding, somewhere deep down, haunts the circumstances and what ifs of his own literary success.

BrienPiechos
>>76719767

At the very core of all wokeism and anti-white message movies is the attack on white male sexuality, pairing lustful beautiful white women with black men, prompting some violent sex crime by the enraged white male. This movie revolves around that incredibly worn out trope. If you don't get the sanctimonious "wipipo bad" plot, you get the "white man penis little" story. It's either/or at this point. From the prevalence of this pairing on screen you would think it's as American as insider trading and vote rigging, but statistically WF/BM pairings are the rarest interracial combos and as of 2010 made up less than 1% of all interracial marriages that include a white female (not to be confused with 1% of total marriages or population). This story could have been told BETTER without this element. It's tired, we have all been subjected to it so many times it's uncountable, and absolutely no one is compelled, entertained, or "converted" by it. It's simply an attack vector to ensure white characters are not portrayed in a favorable light no matter what. And they used a beloved franchise to shoehorn it in yet again, knowing it would offend what are left of Italian American Catholics who would be a captive audience. The Sopranos deserved better, the plots were always better, original and organic to the characters, and this was just more Hollywood woke drivel. Again, it's unfortunate because I believe David Chase truly desired to deliver a product worthy of the Sopranos franchise. But I do not believe for one second he wanted to include that plot line. It's a concession.

Marresmarre2

Well Toto ain’t wrong… but the discussion is so boring. Conservatives should stop complaining and start making interesting content. Not just bad westerns and Christian do-good-shit. Have some fun. Entertain us.

BrienPiechos
>>76791053

And how is that possible when Blackrock own EVERYTHING and enforce a rubric on diversity quota, censor based on message, and can withhold funding for productions that have a message that goes against the narrative? You don't seem to understand how anything actually works.

BrienPiechos
>>76728640

LOL. No, seriously, LOOOOOOL. Level playing field? Do you not realize that while European and Asians were creating masterpieces Christian missionaries were still striving to convince every population untouched by the Ottoman Empire on the planet to cease ritualistic cannibalism? Do you not realize the massive head start on the arts, especially literature, Europeans and Asians have on the rest of the world? And when representation is forced no one LIKES any of it. No one is buying these books. Nobody likes HBO anymore. Hollywood is only surviving now by recycling ancient franchises and recruiting old actors. Nostalgia is the only selling point they have left to push because nobody wants to pay for the type of content you think "matters." Hell the only reason Black Panther did the numbers it can boast is due to a massive corporate support campaign which included actually purchasing the seating. If teachers can't recommend something to boys, especially, they will enjoy, and only push the tired, boring old content like Frederick Douglas, for example, reading will always be seen as a grueling task. Boys will never learn to enjoy reading. Even in the 80's public school was nothing buy slavery and Holocaust education, with the rare opportunity to read something fun like Catcher in the Rye when you were in high school. All "inclusion" accomplishes is saddling kids with more guilt trips and making them hate the educational process. You let us know when one of your "underrepresented groups" creates a novel that is objectively on par with the centuries of masters you flippantly dismiss due to their race and gender. I won't hold my breath.

Alex Johnson
>>76728640

I mean, on one hand, yes. Minorities are woefully underrepresented in most forms of art. On the other, much of what we get out of this push for representation is dogshit made for the sake of representation rather than actual art as good art made by white men, which does still exist, is sidelined in the sake of making things “fair.” What we get is more minority content, some of it good (Sally Rooney’s Normal People show, Lady Bird, Atlanta) and most of it terrible like the new Candyman reboot.

N.M. Janice.

Denying someone an opportunity to express themselves and tell their story due to race, gender or sexual orientation is absolutely deplorable and evil. I don’t think any right minded person would argue that. At the same time, if you believe that someones identity and ideology is more important than quality and vision, then Bret is right in saying that this culture doesn’t understand or appreciate art. It is possible to hold two ideas in your head at the same time.

BrienPiechos
>>76728640

Or, worse, when a traditionally White franchise is rebooted with a black lead. The threat of doing this to 007 and Superman have been the most long running and vocal pushes. And why is this bad? Because it's a disservice to all parties involved. Blacks should take pride in creating their own franchises built on a black lead, not usurp a White one as some sort of scalp. The only parties benefitting from this practice is the ones who benefit from racial animus. And whether or not you agree with woke ideology or pro-white identity politics, those people do not have any of our best interests in mind.

Dirk
>>76513708

Every opinion broadcast is essentially a radical left wing opinion. So much so that Hillary Clinton would be considered right wing today.

Dirk

The arrogance of the radleft is how they presume in this chat that there aren't a lot of BEE subscribers that don't appreciate these sorts of talks/guests.

Christopher Ibanez

At this point, the long-winded complaints about cancel culture/wokeism are so trite and overdone, that I’m as annoyed with them as I was with identity politics maybe five years ago. I agree that current movies generally aren’t as good as they used to be, so don’t watch them. I watch almost exclusively films from the past and there is a surfeit of incredible stuff out there that keeps my excitement for film alive and thriving. When I started listening to Bret in 2014, his takes seemed genuinely iconoclastic to me; like a disaffected liberal lamenting an emerging trend of censorship and mob mentality polluting the arts. Now, his incessant ravings about “the left” and the omission of any criticism of the right, who are literally banning books at this moment, reeks of right wing partisanship. His masochistic drive to watch movie after movie that anyone could tell based on premise alone is going to be shit, just to confirm his doomsday narrative about the death of film seems kind of pointless, and beyond repetitive. That said, I think Bret is brilliant. His monologues about some of his favorite films are so richly detailed and impassioned that I’m sure a book about film authored by him would be nothing short of amazing.

Adam Chin

Bret's Licorice Pizza review (and ersatz PTA career retrospective) was stellar even by this podcast's standards. Grand work gentlemen. Feeling blessed to live in an era in which film criticism at this level (by an artist at this level) can be accessed for just a few fiat dollars per month. Also please get Camille Paglia on!

Ashley

I usually listen to the pods a few times after they come out, while it does seem like he’s harping away at the same subjects, I think it’s different when you’re someone who has created in this realm and is an artist. To see the form you have worked within change and become something completely different would be a topic for constant analysis I think. I feel like he’s grieving a dying friend.

Peter Walker

Ugh. Bret as crumb maiden is tiresome.

Peter Walker
>>76662429

Ummm… where does Gina Carano’s “My Son Hunter” fit into this? I wonder if Bret will cast his aesthetic vs ideology lens over that toilet of a film. From Star Wars to Kevin Sorbo in 6 tweets.

Dorian

Opinion on „The Sadness“

Matt Markwalder

I don't feel the need to 100% agree with someone's views in order to find them interesting and worthy of consideration. In fact, I prefer to hear from people whose ideas don't necessarily align with my own. This is what makes life interesting. Things are never just "black" and "white". Left, right, center - none of that matters to me. Please just be intelligent (and try not to take yourself too seriously). Another excellent episode, Bret. I look forward to reading Virtue Bombs.

tjn1126

does anyone have a link to the article?