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827 - Bastards in Heaven feat. Hesse Deni (4/25/24) (Patreon)

Published:
2024-04-26 02:52:45
Imported:
2026-06

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Will, Felix & Hesse review Alex Garland’s Civil War. War may be hell, but at least we’ve got those damn good bastards the War Correspondents around to get the one perfect shot that will let everyone know, HEY…don’t do a Civil War. 

Tickets to Will & Hesse’s Movie Mindset screening & talkback of Death Wish 3 in NYC on May 4: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chapo-trap-houses-movie-mindset-screening-of-death-wish-3-w-will-hesse-tickets-877569192077

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Comments

bator

first

Fel

My conspiracy theory is that Civil War is genius because they come upon a real crime and show 0 interest in documenting or pursuing it

Christopher Small

My thinking on Civil War was that, rather than sidestepping contemporary politics, they should have run at them headlong. Jam modern issues into the centrifugal blender of revolutionary politics for, like, a decade until you have shit like the Supreme Court declaring Velâyat-e Faqih while Al Franken sits on a pile of human skulls in Minnesota. Have fun with it, damnit

Alex B

TWO Hesse episodes back to back?!?!?

Poppy Chulo

Bring Katherine back and give her Matt's spot until he comes back. She's a natural host and fits the vibe of the show seamlessly.

Lord Drewcifer

Saw this movie in St. Louis at 2:15 on a Wednesday. There was only one other dude there, and we were totally silent except periodically hooting at every Missouri mention. 10/10 cinema experience

JD Nonce

She is probably the best recurring guest. Always has good input. Interesting and cracks me up

ploob

Exhibition is alive and well! 'Please don't kill me'

Migz

Alex Garland is the Ken Olin of movies

NYCM&AHole

Lol a better world is possible

plainwrap

Some fuckin' civil war... the U.S. government surrenders offscreen because Garland didn't want to show actual U.S. troops fighting each other. And in that last battle all of the 'realistic combat' was offset by the fact that all of the streetlights were on and everything was lit up nice and bright.

Noah Mickens

Of course it was intentional that the journalists were portrayed in a bad light. You missed it.

Noah Mickens

This thing that you imagine the movie might have been if they "tuned it one degree" or whatever - that's the movie. Alex Garland made it that way on purpose.

Dan

Civil War is a top tier gnr song, and movies like this will keep being made until everyone recognizes that

Michael Naatjes

Robert Evans the Movie produced by Bellingcat

Michael Talley

And that they make such a big deal about how they're neutral and then lead the military straight to the president.

ploob

This is pedantic but Kirsten Dunst's character is wearing body armor that would stop that 9..

Mr Boof

Replace the fuhrerbunker secret service agents with Joe Biden’s horrible dogs

David Browm

The Western Alliance breaks into the White House "The forward team should have Biden by now. Let's go." They turn into a hallway of gore. Their comrades bodies are torn apart. Limbs and organs strewn throughout the room. "What the fuck happened-" The whole team freezes as they spot four figures slowly moving towards them. It's already too late.Then they hear the growling. "Ah gosh I'm really sorry about this, Jack." Biden says from behind his protection, in between bites of ice cream. Before the team has a chance to even react, Major, Commander, and Battleship lunge with bloody jaws agape.

Rusty

The way those iHeartRadio/ Cool Zone Media sickos talk when the subject of civil war in the US unsettles me, like a part of them wants it to happen so they're proven right

Noah Mickens

The drinking game for this episode is to take a shot every time they say, "I know he didn't do this on purpose, but if he had, it would have been great."

Michael Naatjes

It's a noxious phenomenon like libs loving Handmade's Tale. They're larping because their politics lacks any material conditions

Bai

I think the movie offers a brilliant (unintentional?) satire of journalism. The movie begins with the President giving a speech, yet no one's watching the TV except Kirsten Dunst. The plot is set into action by the journalists trying to interview the president– a completely pointless endeavor that they embark on to satisfy their own selfish desires to capture the “objective truth.” Even if they got the interview, no one would watch it. The journalists end up becoming basically the lib-pilled Jan 6th rioters who–in the last scene–literally lead the soldiers into the White House to murder the President.

Tyler Sutherland

*"journalists" coming across a horrific crime against humanity* "Oh no! ... Anyway ...."

Tyler Sutherland

it'd be funny if movies started using "AI" to dub over movies for every market it shows in so if it shows on a screen in Missouri they mention Missouri, if it's in New York it changes all mentions to New York, etc.

Tyler Sutherland

alex garland was very specific in that he thinks the press are gods amongst humans, he was portraying every journalist in this movie as being, in his mind, heroes. this was not him taking shots at them or showing them in a bad light, he really believes this shit because it's standard lib-brain to think The News™ is sacrosanct and not either entertainment or propaganda, or both.

Tyler Sutherland

being jealous of Robert Evans is not a valid replacement for a personality. pick up a football.

jmc4564

Yeah I think this ep kind of misses. In the movie the journalists all suck. Nothing they do has any influence except to proactively kill a few people, and inadvertently kill so more. Maybe a garland is a dumb person, but the movie was good for that portrayal.

NYCM&AHole

No I like the idea of the dogs down there too because Hitler had his dog in the fuhrerbunker

Goff Costello

Dream Baby Dream is 100% a hypernormalisation lift

Mr Boof

Blondi bit Albert Speer’s niece on the leg so she had to get replaced by another German Shepard named Obergruppenführer

NYCM&AHole

They could refer to Biden as the obergropenfuhrer

Last Years Man

Criminal that there's no mention of Commander in the fantasy of Joe 's white house collapsing. Commander must not be erased! His liberation is the real denouement!

Alex Herter

GnR - Civil War ending *chef’s kiss*

Fel

Just to get the most “orange man bad” line possible

Jonathan Nathan

Have one of Matt Christman's weirder prophecies come true when Larry Kudlow is revealed to be the Mahdi

Bai

I agree, you just have to accept the death of the author.

Jonathan Nathan

Are we still keeping the faith that Matt's coming back?

Doug K

So many instant classic lines here. Love "couple months ago they were doing a walk and talk noe they are doing a shoot and kill"

EVERY MORNING I WAKE UP AND OPEN PALM SLAM A VHS INTO THE SLOT. ITS CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK AND RIGHT THEN AND THERE I START DOING

how did yall whiff the mark on this so bad lol you arent supposed to love the journos, they are clearly monsters. joel is a fucking psychopath and so is the young one; the horror of the movie is not the war itself or the battles, its the grins and smirks those two trade with each other in D.C thats horrifying. joel laughing it up with the militia commander while his guys do warcrimes is horrifying. they are not aspirational, its not a love letter to war correspondents, its very plainly a condemnation.

Kolisi’s Stepson

I don’t know if you can say all that. It’s so poorly written and devoid of any point of view. It’s just war porn.

Sam Schick

The only correct reading of the movie is to think it was a subversive takedown of journalists, the need to have political priors confirmed, the depressing desire to have your reality put into media rather than engaging with it in real life and that material conditions are more important than identity politics. Then going home and looking up interviews with the director and realizing that he’s an idiot and everyone who actually likes it or hates it for the reasons he made it are also idiots. I choose to live in the reality I made for myself. If jan 6th is the example, an American civil war would likely be depressing, underwhelming, and embarrassing to watch. I think the movie hit that tone pretty well. Also it’s not far fetched to think the two most populous states with economies in the global top ten would ally in a civil war scenario.

Ben Clausen

Agreed, Every Morning… The journalist are clearly psychopaths and the constant insanely upclose photographing of violence is pointless and seems to be a compulsive voyeuristic thrill for them. Kirsten Dunst seems to be waking up from the illusion, says she always thought her photos were a warning sent back home, but they clearly didn’t work. Documenting atrocities in images hasn’t stopped us from committing said atrocities at all. The final “interview”with the president is meaningless and clearly isn’t informing anyone or reporting on anything meaningful, as predicted by the old man, and then we’re left with the photo of the soldiers posing with homicidal maniac smiles next to the president’s corpse, marqueed across the screen during the closing credits. I thought that was purposefully disgusting. Soldiers on both sides were clearly shown as war criminals, but the journos were the worst in my opinion. The young one doesn’t even check on Kirsten Dunst when she’s shot. Just snaps a photo and keeps walking to photograph the next killing. Totally psychotic.

Osborne MOCs

Garland has stated in interviews that he very much wanted to portray the journalists as heroes, your interpretation was not his intent at all.

Ross McWilliams

I still say an American director should make a movie about a modern day English civil war.

Zach Pierce

What’s so civil bout war anyway?

J.P. McD.

I haven’t listened nor watched the movie, and while I’d like to believe Noah’s analysis, it sadly has the same stench as when the Chapo boys said the Mayor Pete documentary is stealthily a takedown of him. It clearly was not.

Evysaurus

Civil War really is the closest thing Atlantic readers have to Dirty Harry and honestly that kinda rocks. It’s a completely psychotic suburbanite fantasy but it’s so violent and ridiculous that it transcends the sum of its parts. Aaron Sorkin wishes he could make something this snappy. Needed more Jesse Plemons tho.

Osborne MOCs

lol ok still an incorrect reading of the movie though

Shiv

I also enjoyed it (for the most part) bc I did not listen to any Alex interviews and to me it seemed to be about image-capturing narcissists (journalists sure but also…directors) and how shallow they can be. fun stuff!

Shiv

this was aces 💫

Shiv

i would like to know why President Offerman didn’t launch nukes

Nolan

Let me guess the Libs are WAY more capable in war than they really would be?

Fingerless

liberal paramilitarism hasn't been a threat since 1848, but given all the weird democrat veterans, maybe they'd be good at regular militarism. there's some bloodthirst behind their eyes

Fingerless

the thing i think about in that regard was, during Greg Abbott's standoff, one of the guys in the militia facebook groups was asking if he'd still be able to get his pension checks if a conflict broke out

Blank

Hesse is queen

HuffingGasInTheShed

Gotta give Axl his credit for writing a top tier protest lyrics. My hands are tied For all I've seen has changed my mind But still, the wars go on, as the years go by With no love of God or human rights And all these dreams are swept aside By bloody hands of the hypnotized Who carry the cross of homicide And history bears the scars of our civil wars

Tim O'

Jesse Plemmons plays a former Liberal Driller

Tim O'

Children of Men's director is Mexican, which is hitting around your target but still a great movie.

will michel

once again the haters are seething. this episode was hilarious

Robert Peterson

Feel like this missed the point badly…at no point does the movie show their journalism having any beneficial purpose. Journalism they are doing is important *in their own minds only* like it’s just journalists jacking off to the war

drizzly_november

That montage is so incredible. And just like that scene argues we willed 9/11 into existence through our collective fantasies, I think Garland is aware of how his movie fits into our current dreamscape. You could make a very similar montage of movies like White House Down or Olympus has Fallen, or games like Modern Warfare 2 or The Division 2, leading up to 2020 and January 6. We love our libidinal horrors, don't we, folks!

Doug Cartel

remember when the war correspondents were driving into Baghdad with the 3rd ID going WAR IS BAD FOLKS, BUSH IS BAD FOR DOIN WAR

Karl Childers

will keeps using the word "sententious," apparently it means "pompously moralizing." the more you know.

Doug Cartel

imo the reason california and texas unite in secession is because the script writers are so scared of The Power Of Film (journos included) that they were like "lets make an alliance that doesnt make sense, we dont wanna give anyone any ideas"

Eziekbby

Is it possible to listen to the Patreon episodes on Spotify? I see theres an RSS link for the show but I dont see anywhere to paste it in Spotify. I've connected my Patreon to Spotify but none of the premium episodes show up in my feed.

eeeezypeezy

I thought the key to the whole thing was when Dunst's character had a ptsd flashback and breakdown, and once she finally snaps out of it she actually finally fucking shoves someone out of the way of the bullets. I read it as a criticism of spectating political violence without trying to end it, ie what most of this film's audience is engaged in on a daily basis. Will saw the world in the matrix's code when he noticed that it's actually really fuckin clear who the good guys and bad guys are, but seems to have missed all the signs pointing to the main characters not actually being heroic or good people.

Coleman

Nah this movie was good. The fact that it's journalists at the center is a conceit that works but isn't really the story. The movie is basically an American _Apocalypse Now_, another good movie that doesn't make a lot of literal sense.

Wesley

Really tired of slander against the lovely city of DC. Not our fault the federal government is here.

DJ Smith

Is the movie non-sensical because Jessie Plemmons character sentences people to death based on obscure criteria that no other person could possibly have insight to? The hosts say so, noting that the states he seems to approve or disapprove of don’t seem to even align with the war. Or was that maybe the point of the scene. He doesn’t have to make sense or answer to anyone in this world, he has a gun and the command structure is broken. I don’t listen to movie mindset, but Will and Hesse whiffed this one pretty badly, IMO. No comment on Felix, he admits to playing video games and not paying attention to the film.

Adam Foster

I don’t think it’s entirely inaccurate for the movie to show journalists being allowed to film these things with soldiers, but for it to be realistic they would need to be embedded journalists and we’d need to see the bit where they sign an agreement giving editorial control to the military they’re being embedded with (which is what is happening in Israel on the sparse occasions CNN rolls with the IDF)

Chris

Even with ample warning I was not prepared for how bad the needle drops in this movie were

Chris

I also did not expect it to be so goddamn boring for 90% of its runtime

William

This sounds completely ideological, it sounds like the most lib brain movie of all time

Doug Cartel

"It's funny how you SHOOT a gun and SHOOT a camera shot!" Yeah, a lot of US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan would use that excuse. Oops! Shot the journalist! Battlefields are so confusing, camera flashes can look like gunshots! Morons.

Cole Durkee

I always love his movies, but tend to really disagree with what he thinks they are about. He’s just a lib and that’s ok too

Kvvvy

A delicious word indeed

Kvvvy

I'm deeply disappointed to learn that "California Uber Alles" wasn't on the soundtrack. Immense missed opportunity, 0 stars.

Joe S.

It's always nice when will learns a new word.

K102.1FM Mornings w/ Jonny Corndogs

The problem with DC isn't DC's fault. The problem lies with the rest of the country dropping off their industrial waste (Senators, Reps, Lobbyists, NGOs, etc.) and then having the nerve to say things like "Washington is a swamp!" Of course it's a swamp, you sent them the likes of Ted Cruz, Louie Gohmerrt, Chuck Schumer, Bob Menendez, John Yoo, Karl Rove, Diane Feinstein (rest in piss), and everyone in the goddamn Federalist Society!

Anomalie

Yay more Hesse!

Damen Irving

I never heard that interview with Garland before. God damn—how stupid can you be?

plainwrap

Brits just love arbitrarily redrawing country borders to lump together ethnically-hostile groups.

drizzly_november

Chris is right about the Brooklyn Brewery guy, he was right next to Anwar Sadat when he got assassinated. He apparently learned to home-brew while on assignment in the Middle East because he couldn’t buy beer there.

Robert Peterson

Obviously everything Garland says is obnoxious - but point to one thing in the MOVIE itself that indicates the journalists are actually doing something important. Not where they themselves think they are doing something important. There is nothing of the sort - they are just essentially mercenaries in search of professional success or self-aggrandizement and that is the fucking text of the movie

Wesley

It's not a swamp though. DC is more than just the National Mall, Federal Center, and K Street. There's an entire city northwest, northeast, and south of those, full of food and culture and parks.

Podcast subscriber 78

I hope Will is exaggerating about how he and Katherine act in a movie theatre with other people around.

Matthew Krueger

Goddamn, do I miss all of his on the beam free associating.

Jed Levin

Who was it who joined the conversation near the end?

Mids Advocate

I really think all the dumb promotional materials surrounding this movie and Garland’s idiotic interviews made people hate this movie. It’s actually (maybe accidentally) very good, especially in theaters where it’s technical stuff really shines. I think it’s a movie about how much Americans are addicted to war and violence. It’s not an ode to war journalists, it’s an indictment of them. They are like all Americans fascinated with violence, mediating their relationship to it through a screen (or lens in their case), just they are closest to the source. It’s also got a kinda “End of the Myth” sorta feeling. A lot of the horrific violence we see mirrors a lot of the violence American wars directly inflicted on civilians or indirectly caused in other countries. As our international and national frontiers close all that violence that has kept the US together has to go somewhere and in Garlands movie it came home.

Chris

S. Craig Zahler should remake Civil War with the exact same script

Pædiekeix

Hesse ep LFG, ma’am I loved reading siddhartha thank you for that diamond of high school lit

Brit Naylor

This review really misses the mark. I thought the movie was pretty obviously a critique of journalism. I don’t see how it is reverent of journalists at all. The end of the movie makes them out to be adrenaline junkies and jaded, ineffectual idiots dying for a dumb cause. “Who are they making these images for?” Yes, exactly.

Whucko Jaang

Ostensibly that is the meaning sententious is suffused by. ...BOO-JWA

lake

People should be loud and rowdy in movies.

Drew

We love Hesse

Will Menaker

The notion, repeated throughout here, that this movie was some kind of intentional critique of the venality and amorality of war correspondents is pure unadulterated cope belied by film and everyone who made it. And as long as I'm here Ex Machina and Annhilation were mid too! Sorry Garland-heads, but this is the final L you will be taking.

Chris

I liked DEVS

G

Josh's Letterboxd review comments section is the real Civil War

Karl Childers

devs had an interesting setup but didn't add up to anything or pay off its core idea, kind of a pattern even in the garland scripts i do like tbh

Park

Finally a movie that sucks off war journalists harder than Restrepo

Christopher Small

Honestly, Ex Machina just seemed kind of confused. "In order to prove my robot was conscious, I had to show that it could coldly and mechanistically manipulate someone's emotions." Huh? How does that prove anything?

Thom

Would've loved Matt's take on this. Hope the dude is doing well

A Kalman

Really missing Matt on this one

Christopher Small

I like how in Robert Evan's Civil War book the roided out ex super soldiers decide to be a polyamorous hippie commune for no explained reason

Sam Schick

I thought the shell shocked, seen it all before, matter of fact nature of dunst’s character was a great stand-in for your average American on twitter. Even the voyeurism of a photojournalist seemed to track with a terminally online American

Gummy

Mid takes

Will

I’m sure this movie is dumb, probably won’t see it. But you know who besides CTH also doesn’t like photojournalists in war zones like, say for example, Gaza? The State Department. The State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA, Israel are all nodding along enthusiastically to this episode.

Mids Advocate

Garland accidentally made a good movie about America’s love of violence! Intention doesn’t matter! And you liked it! It’s okay! And Felix watched it on a iPad screen his opinion doesn’t count!

Chris Wade

Those talks were pretty interesting, but it became very clear very quickly all these guys were in the Hurt Locker except for taking photos of dead people instead of bomb disposal

Carter Keeling

Missing Matt here, but damn Hesse brings the heat

Karl Childers

i actually think ex machina is kinda brilliant cuz it reveals that tech CEOs don't know or care anything about consciousness they just want to control other people and have sex slaves. its a movie that reveals what the people who are making AI actually want by contrasting it against what they say they want

Toshio42

Joe Biden facing a hitsquad of competing jarheads, telling them about Corn Pop and his leg hairs back in the day.

werp

yeah dunst having a breakdown at the end of the movie signaled to me that she no longer believed the lie she told herself but st the beginning we see them leave a water site getting bombed and they go back to a relatively stable hotel

werp

the photojournalists as the main characters served as apolitical avatars for the movie but are shown ultimately to suck as much as everyone else

Alex Herter

what’s so civil about war?

John Woodbridge

I disagree with Chapo on this one. Yes, they're right that the plot is convoluted, the self-flagellation regarding the journalism profession is insufferable, the "both sides" ideology is dumb and the plot holes are numerous etc.. But I think the film gets one main point right. It's effective at showing a society where violence and dehumanization have become the norm, all civility has broken down, and the misery that entails because of it. They're a few vignettes such as the gas station scene, or one of the earlier firefights where one of the wounded soldiers is executed and the POWs are straight-up shot. Also, the bombing of the water truck was pretty effective in showing that. I think they do effectively show what it's like to be in a world where you're willing and able to shoot someone over something as trivial as a pack of peanuts. I also enjoyed the final scene felt very "Downfall" esque, the final desperate fight of the few remaining loyalist praetorian guards of the president. In spite of all it's flaws, I think the movie does this one thing well enough that it redeems the film to some extent.

Rick Grimer

The buccee's brigade episode predicted the plot of this movie.

Karl Childers

"manipulating others emotions for selfish reasons is the definition of being human?" who hurt you

Patrick Dalton

Like it shows those things yeah but it's so empty at the core that what are we to make of these depictions of savagery beyond, as they point out, "a civil war would be bad and we shouldn't do it"

Blue Myself

I want Biden’s dog’s names to be even more esoteric military ranks. Looking forward to the worst ever behaved Cane Corso named Brevet Cornet Biden devouring the guy handcuffed to the nuclear football in one gulp like Scooby Doo eating a hoagie.

lake

AKA the best movie of all time

Brit Naylor

A lot of people in this thread seem to think artists control the interpretation of a work of art when it’s out in the world. Anyone who’s ever made a piece of art knows that it isn’t a fully conscious experience and that wonderful things can be created unintentionally. Intention doesn’t matter that much. It’s interesting that Garland thinks he’s portraying the journos as heroes when they’re clearly not. But the movie itself seems quite coherent in its portrayal of these people as pathetic and lost. I didn’t listen to any interviews so it was easy for me to read the movie as coherent.

Stolzie

It’s empty-headed but has decent scenes. Worth torrenting

Rick Grimer

Also I thought the point of this movie was war journalists bad. They pretty much act like stupid assholes from start to finish.

Patrick Dalton

Agree with pretty much all the points made but one stylistic gripe I had that wasn't raised is the heavy use if what I call "Netflix focus." The artificially tight post-process bokeh filter in nearly every shot really drives home the fact that despite the relatively big budget, most of this movie was shot in front of green screens rather than real locations with real props. Obviously it's part of a much wider anti trade union trend in Hollywood, but the result looks more like an episode of Euphoria than movies like Full Metal Jacket or Saving Pvt Ryan. I really think a big part of the impact of those films comes from the abundance of wide angle shots, where everything on screen is in focus. In contrast, Garland's use of hyper shallow depth of field, gives most of the scenes this dream-like feeling where you can never really forget you're watching a movie (only made worse by the atrocious needle drops and moody montage sequences in place of plot and dialogue)

Patrick Dalton

Utterly deranged to put this dreck in the same sentence as one of the best war movies ever made.

Chris

Not saying I disagree with your points but Children of Men did the same thing 100x better nearly 20 years ago

Patrick Dalton

One of several better movies I wished I was watching instead during Civil War lol. Thinking about how visceral and terrifying the warzone scene was at the end of CoM and how this movie flinches anytime it approaches that level of sustained tension

John Woodbridge

That's a good point, I was thinking of Children of Men during the film. The opening bombing scene in that film still goes hard.

Stanlej

Mmm yummy slop piggy happy

Sheep

The suicide bombing was pretty cool tho you cant lie the dude running in with the flag like hes an AOE guy in a videogame

Luke F

What? The point of this movie is that war journalists are bad, or at least cold and calculating. It was essentially Nightcrawler during war. I feel like I saw a completely different movie than they did.

S

That's because you're dumb

Luke F

No, you are

PrinceVocalFry

I also couldn't stop laughing throughout the movie. I just kept thinking every time the rebels saw the journalists, "kill them! They're the enemy. They profit off your blood and suffering." And of course, everything in the movie points toward that conclusion, especially considering that the only political content we can imagine is basically culture wars, which are created by the media itself. Like, the stakes in the whole movie are "will they get to interview the president before he dies" and in every scene it's " will I get a good shot of people dying." These people are monsters, the plot of the movie is totally inhumane. Low budget Matt Damon should have taken them out when he had the chance

HarshMalarkey

What's so civil about war anyway?

Gordon Schmidt

I'll always love the Garland-Murphy-Boyle duology (28 Days Later holds up great and Sunshine is the best space movie of the 21st century) and there he was responsible for those scripts. I think his problem is he's gone too far up his ass after they let him direct. Now that Murphy has the Oppenheimer buzz they should get back together with Boyle and make another cool sci-fi movie.

Matthew

give hesse third chair. we love hesse

MG

Lovedthe subtle MST3k sounds after Will said "movie side"

I am become reply guy

My msdnc dad wanted to show me this movie, convinced him to go see dune instead :)

Alison Buki

I was struck listening to the Garland interviews by how much he sounds like an Atlantic opinion piece from 10 years ago. The movie (which I admittedly haven't seen yet) seems more than anything like a demonstration of the degree to which those politics, as embodied by the protagonists, are completely immaterial to the events unfolding

C. Andrew

Garland's Annihilation showed me that he didn't actually 'get' horror or how people react to it. A meandering movie. I made the mistake of watching his pressers and knew he didn't get American history either. No one really pressed him on it, either. Like is it just too obvious to acknowledge that we already had a civil war, and it remains our bloodiest war in history? Like idk if the movie isn't deeper than that and lacks any political meat then it's just gonna be a meandery walk through the woods that was Annihilation.

Zachary Serrins

Okay I liked this movie and still do, but pretty much all of these critiques are correct. Really wish Matt was here to talk about how good the gunfire was tho…

Christian Bendillo

Better to get these journalists out there getting shot at than to have them writing these opinion pieces that assault my eyes on a daily basis.

Declan Hertel

hesse makes a great point comparing this movie to the politically-coded non-politics of far cry 5, which extends beyond its explicit story into the fact that the bad guy says to you “when will you learn that not every problem can be solved with a bullet” in the midst of a game where 90% of your problems are solvable exclusively via bullet

Chris

bro you need to seek mental health help - Apocalypse now is an american movie about an american war wtf schizo shit is this

William

This is about as good as it gets without Matt on the pod, I think

m@tt

I had all intention of boycotting this movie but now I need to find a shaky cam Thai upload

Luke Witherell

Idk, I felt like this movie hated journalists and thought they were pointless

Jack

death of the author says fuck what that nerd says in interviews interpret the movie however you want

Soren Campbell

I’m still waiting for the movie episode on Origin that was promised us

Osborne MOCs

Losing my mind at the apparently popular assertion that Garland should somehow get credit for inadvertently making the opposite movie he made.

Osborne MOCs

Yeah it helps if you pretend the movie is the complete opposite of what it is

Louis Wilkins

Let’s just settle this in a civilised fashion and accept that you’re both dumb.

Soren Campbell

^this user thinks he fell out of a coconut tree when he in fact exists in the context of all in which he lives

JMB

I liked civil war fresh out of the theatre, but I love when this show makes me feel like Patrice O'Neal revisiting Face-Off.

meow meow

Idk how that couldn’t have been spelled out clearer. Did will need a text scroll at the beginning or something?

Shep

God what a great episode. Hesse is fantastic. If anyone is interested in a WAY better version of this shit, American War by Omar El Akkab is fucking bone chilling.

meow meow

You’re not supposed to think that the journalists in the movie are anything but immoral adrenaline junkies. How do you walk away from that movie thinking that Garland is trying to say that they’re the good guys lol

Shep

Godddd, so true. I live in Idaho and Far Cry 5 was next level masturbatory. The initial reference to Far Cry 2 - definitely the most nihilistic of the series - was spot on too.

Shep

Perhaps a civilized war fashion

Luke Witherell

I didn't even like the movie, but genuinely how are the correspondents anything but morons? Dunst even says "I thought I was making an impact," but her character arc is being overcome by guilt at just letting people die her whole life and making no difference. Then, she dies cuz of the idiot kid, and her colleagues just shrug and leave her there.

Sterling Cook

Perhaps it’s because I went into it cold, but I 100% thought this was a movie about how pointless and despicable the main characters were.

Christopher Price

good news for Kirsten Dunst that it was her non-union double Kristen who started in this piece of shit.

glaourgbn

I read the wikipedia summary, and honestly expected the point was that the journalists were evil.

glaourgbn

yeah the texas california thing is boring af. utterly devoid of moral meaning. (read "moral" as meaning "meaning fucking anything").

glaourgbn

"20:02" you can be good so long as you don't try to be good. what a fucking cunt.

Jamin Kreighbaum

There was zero crossover of what I got from this movie and what they did, I just saw it as an action movie with little to no actual political commentary, the only semi-serious theme I saw other than "war is crazy, look at this" was a kind of disgust at the pure voyeurism represented by the photographers.

Christopher

Didn't know this was a "Those Cynical Bastards" type episode

Axel H.

I thought the comment about Garland and the weakness of his writing was interesting, because I’ve never seen any of this guy’s movies and only a few days ago discovered that he wrote the novel The Beach, which I randomly read in high school after finding it at a thrift shop. I did not make the connection between the author of that book (which was itself made into a movie, albeit directed by someone else) and the director of Civil War. I'm disappointed to hear that Garland's own takes about his film are so pedestrian, but maybe his creative output is more compelling than you guys are giving him credit for.

smooth trill player

these takes were a biiiit too obvious from da boyz. i went in expecting the film to be obtuse and was pleasantly surprised with what i thought was reasonable critical depth. but who the fuck am i, just some normie i guess!

Damen Irving

That sturgill simpson song ripped

Jonathan Nathan

It’s just starting to feel like he won’t.

Dan

This would be OBL’s all-time favorite film

Dan

Realistic in the sense that it’s curated. It’s not just Americans but Americans in particular do not want to reckon with the whirlwind of violence that backstops their society

James Roche

I know the chapos are probably acting under sound advice when they do it, but I am so sick of everyone having to say "in a videogame" or whatever as a disclaimer when they talk about doming Tony Blinken, etc. Very Tiktok "unalive" vibes. You should be allowed to call for murder on podcasts. Nobody who listens to podcasts does anything irl anyway.

Dan

What if the names changed as they grew? Puppy: Seaman; Adolescent: Petty Officer; Adult dog: Master Chief

Dan

But if you like esoteric ranks go with Warrant Officer

Dan

His book was a fun read once I forced the engineer’s part of my brain to stop rolling its eyes at the flaws

Dan

When I read Fahrenheit 451 as a kid and that’s mentioned about the wall screen the fireman’s wife is watching it chilled my blood. I’ve never forgotten it and now we have that capability

Stim Scrounger

No Matt Christman in the modern Civil War movie episode feels like sacrilege, but hope he’s recovering well

S

Actually you're dumb

MEAT CLOWN

This was a funny episode but I wish Amber had been there to call Will out for saying "like a dog" over 100 times.

MEAT CLOWN

As someone who hasn't even seen the movie, it really seems like this was the intent. I feel like the chapos just went into it expecting it to be a certain type of movie.

MEAT CLOWN

Yeah it was a surprisingly smooth brained take from the gang of "the main characters are supposed to be good guys"

MEAT CLOWN

I've been listening to podcasts for years and I can't figure out the stupid RSS shit either, pls help me if you find out

MEAT CLOWN

You're not the real Will Menaker, you can't fool me

Wesley Campbell Caretto

Is Hesse allergic to actually watching/finishing the movies she's going to talk about on the podcast? She did the same for the Oscar episodes and it makes me kind of irrationally mad.

Coleman

If elected President of New Florida, I will make this legal, I promise you

ploob

You can't hot dog what you don't hot dog, hot dog!

K U

I think they missed that Garland was also critical of the journalists. Cailee Spaeny's character's creepy, cold reaction to Dunst's character's death wasn't meant to be her "passing the tourch" but a statement on the lack of humanity the job requires.

GoblinHitPoints

God I should know better than to listen and not expect major spoilers. It’s my fault. Also, I recommend a documentary called War Photographer. It’s pretty upsetting, but I would suggest anyone curious about the profession to watch it if they can. Not sure it would change our hosts’ or anyone else’s minds about the job but I found it illuminating. It is a strange thing to do but it’s maybe important?

GoblinHitPoints

No smoke to the pod, stoked for movie mindset season 2, don’t yell at me please

Chuck Finnley

Nightcrawler is a better portrayal of journalists.

Munir hakim

I was thinking about watching that movie this weekend but I guess I'll go see the 25th anniversary rerelease of the Mummy

Morty Klondike

Guest says “like” every other word i mean wtf are we doing here

Gustav

Garland seems to have a weird theme-blindness about his own work. A lot of Ex Machina is about how men (fail to) understand women but he seemed pretty oblivious to that in the interviewing around it. FWIW, I went into this one having not seen any of his comments or the discourse around it and I took it to be as cynical as Nightcrawler about war reporting.

jsobrie

Classic chapo bro misogyny smdh

Petrorenminbi

Jesse Plemons really said “ummm you’re Chinese”

Fernslinger

I was thinking the same thing! I genuinely love that guy! His grill streams have been a very stabilising force in my life and I wish him nothing but health and happiness!

UncleErnie

Saw Civil War for laughs after listening to this ep and I gotta say I completely disagree with the Chapo review. Listener since 2016 and this really feels like the first time they’ve been intentionally dishonest with a movie review. They were poised to dislike it and took every bad faith interpretation possible

K H

Does Felix play DCS? You can basically learn to fly actual fighter jets.

ordna jela

I watched the film without hearing any of Garland's attendant commentary, and I would have sworn on my life that it was a film about the fallacy of trying to remain politically neutral when Shit Has Gotten Real, and the futility of reporting the facts when they no longer matter. It's a straightforward corruption narrative in which the young photographer gradually loses her soul, and Wagner Moura's friends all die just so he can get a meaningless quote that makes no difference to anybody. The author is dead, I guess.

ordna jela

Annihilation is one of the best movies of the century so far

Travis White

If I want a good message, I'll Google "Best Uplifting Facebook Minion Memes"

Season of the Glitch

Yeah the guest hosts have been making me miss his substance so much.

Jon

Will and Katherine got sued for defamation irl

D.O.D

Civil War pairs well with a re-read of Chris Hedges' "War Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning"

D.O.D

Damn you know he's rattled when he's responding in the comments.

D.O.D

Not even slightly, that book was pretty mid. Civil War is way more successful because it doesnt try to create a whole world, just shows some vignettes

Bushwald

On the Grill Streams, I think Matt has talked about how boring it is to analyze a movie based on what the director intended to say. See Matt and Amber's takes on the latest Joker movie, for example.

Natalie

this episode ruled

Natalie

yeah let's get me likey clitoris on the pod instead

Ulysses Vogel

The suicide songs were crazy w it

Paul F. Holzfäller

Anybody who’s interested in some good modern USA civil war fiction should check out the comic series DMZ by Brian Wood. Very interesting characters and storylines.

zona

Yeah, i didn't love the movie but they're wrong about nearly everything in this episode

Dyyyyylan

Love Hesse, but I don’t listen to the movie eps due to spoilers and them generally being uninteresting if you either have or have not seen the movie

Ahmed Razick

Call of Duty Modern Warfare: Civil War II Electric Boogaloo

Ben Davies

Haven't seen this dogshit, but judging by Alex Garlands comments, this movie isn't about America at all, it's about the UK and specifically it's about the centrist obsession with preventing someone based like Corbyn from getting near power again

RG13

Apropos of Alex Garland and his antagonistic attitude toward this show, there was a quotation I came across two days ago while perusing my copy of Susan Sunday Magazine. It read, “While interpretation is often a knot that needs untying, it is not an umbilical cord by any stretch of the imagination.” — Fernando Bylines, Ohioan Journal of Film and Medicine

Brian

I saw the movie and listened to the episode and I have no idea what you mean by dishonest and bad-faith. I thought this was spot-on.

Louie Luke

That guy chose the support class

Cordoba

Completely agree. The journos are obv not good guy in the film (besides Thufir Hawat). They are thrill seeking and not really that interested in ‘truth’. The whole movie they are scrambling to complete a suicide mission to the white house to get the big story. They are complete narcissists.

Morty Klondike

Classic hyphenated name. Are you an only child too? Smh

katherine

he was don't worry

Podcast subscriber 78

Lol. The next time you see Felix, can you PLEASE tell him to do another this is sus series and review another show like Council of Dads????

Matthew

I waited until seeing Civil War yesterday evening to listen to this episode and I have to say I disagree with Will - he's still being too generous by calling it "dogshit" Other than that, great episode and spot-on analysis of why Alex Garland's Civil War is irremediably terrible 🙌

Christopher

Everytime Felix and the Chapo Boys bodyshame someone I'm reminded how uniquely ugly each and every individual member is. It should be statically improbable to have 3 faces built for audio only podcasting but here we go I guess!

Ruby1997

I hated this movie so much I subbed to hear more people rip it.

Cassie

What did they say

Khemith

STFU Felix can get it.

Khemith

Sounds like this would have made for a great third or fourth Police Academy Movie.

Rio

So this mfer's job is watching movies to talk about on a podcast she doesnt even run and she couldnt even sit through it without having to get a smoke break?

Nate Christy

I just saw it, the two dudes on either side of me fell asleep within the first hour, girlfriends had to wake them up, lmao

Zinedine Sloterdijk

I listened to this again after watching the film. A couple of points: obviously the photojournalist would be sending their photos and dispatches outside the U.S., ya know like, to the rest of the world? Jesse Plemmons: pretty obvious he’s a racist, that’s why he gives the 2 white women a pass, and classifies Wagner moura as being “centra American”, and executes the Chinese men. Also, unregulated militias pop up throughout conflicts and carry out mass murder of civilians behind the lines. Look at the Ukrainian, Lithuanian etc. militias e.g. after Barbarossa. Minor point: the old guy was only going to Charlottesville, not DC. Charlottesville was where the WF was massed, safety. Thought this episode was lazy, not bringing your best (no Matt to provide historical commentary as opposed to Will’s film criticism).

Zinedine Sloterdijk

Exactly, they completely missed the point of the scene to such a degree, it weakens their critique of the film

Reece Coren

i saw a ten second scene of a guy being shot to death and people in press vests dramatically taking pictures and had to gouge my eyes out like Oedipus

TurpStrankton

ive never watched this movie but ive seen the last fifteen minutes a dozen times or more, "dont shoot!" bapbapbap, another bapbapbap when theyre on the ground