'Severance' Survives Mystery and Idea Explanations of 'The Brutalist'

Hey everyone.

I will be talking with Adam and Donovan like usual about two things today.

Those two things will be episodes two and three of Severance's second season, now streaming on Apple TV plus.

And then we will talk about the film the Brutalist, which is generating quite a bit of buzz with Oscars and awards season.

We're a TV and streaming podcast, yes, but just so happens Adam and I saw that movie this week as both of our local theaters were showing it.

So we're throwing that into this week's mix.

Though we don't usually cover theatrical releases, if you're new, you'll be happy to know that we dissect every episode by putting generalized thoughts up front.

And then we take a break.

Then we detail more ideas with examples from the shows or movies that could ruin it for people who haven't seen it.

If you're spoiler averse, you can always come back to those back half segments and I encourage you to do that before I get the other two in here.

Though, I did get a chance to get caught up on the series Silo, also on Apple tv.

Plus it's the second season of it that recently wrapped around mid January.

The last time we discussed it on this podcast, Adam was questioning if he took a turn for the worst with its, I think, second or third episode of this season, particularly with the acting choices I think he had problems with from the cast that isn't named Rebecca Ferguson.

I'm glad I stuck with it.

I found the episodes building very well on top of what had come before.

It never had a particular episode that existed as an episode of television and to itself, but its conceit is great.

The momentum starts rolling.

I think the story is fascinating stuff.

The mystery on top of other mysteries worked well because it had this willingness to answer some questions.

It made me enjoy the second season, especially the last three episodes.

I'd say the last two or three episodes of this sophomore set was just really good tv.

Solid stuff.

A little better than your mediocre kind of television.

I can recommend it.

Let's.

Let's get into this week's show though.

We'll talk in this order Severance, what's been shown to us with season two.

And then the brutalist non spoilers first spoilers After a break, let's begin.

Let's get the guys in here, Alabama take projection.

I told you they would be with me.

Here they are.

It's Adam, it's Donovan and I.

I feel like I had a proper intro thought up for you guys and let me just See if I can recall it.

Listeners love this part.

I'm sure they let me just think.

We're back this week as promised to cover Severinson from Apple tv.

Plus, nothing specific on it yet, though.

You're in the non spoiler part of our podcast.

This show's likely one of Apple's biggest hits, it seems.

Definitely.

When it's its biggest since TED Lasso, I guess, since Pandemic era Ted Lasso.

I'd agree with that.

Just like cultural impact.

I don't know how they do the numbers, but I think that's.

That something came out recently that basically they admitted to this.

That's hilarious because it's like a brooding existential piece of despair and a golden retriever, you know, like, it makes sense that TED Lasso is massive.

It's two different eras.

You got to think Adam one, you were in pandemic and you're worried just shitless about COVID You needed the golden retriever.

Fast forward.

And now everything's great because Trump's president and there are tariffs and you want existentialist despair.

I mean, do the math here, dude.

This is true.

Now that my fruits and vegetables are more expensive, I finally have the time to relax and wonder what it all.

Means now that I don't have time to eat.

Don't have money to eat.

Exactly.

I mean, when you.

If you don't have money to eat, think of how much of your day that frees up how much of your time.

The implication here is that you have stopped paying for food, yet continue to pay Apple for Apple tv.

He's still on that.

Well, can we.

Can we be honest here?

Donovan hits me about church time, which I'm not.

I hope I'm not telling tales out of school here.

So he's watching Severance during.

During church services.

I'm willing to bet church starts at 9:30.

I was.

You were home.

This was over.

You're home.

Yeah.

Hits me for the password on.

Oh, yeah, I had to change my password this morning.

Something.

I got a weird.

It wasn't super weird, but it was just weird enough.

I was like, I better change my password.

You think it was.

It was probably the Canadians opening salvo.

Yeah, it was probably Donovan.

But then.

But then he messaged me much later, like two or three hours later, and asked for the password.

I'm like, oh, yeah, I had to change it.

Do we need to go out of our way to make sure that semi athletic Mark Falk continues listening to the program even as tensions escalate between our Two nations.

Yeah, I want him as a part of our audience.

I'm not even sure that we're going to be able to mail the dilly bar.

Not, not across international borders.

Those tariffs also do.

Also.

Do you know how expensive chocolate is now?

Severance, Apple TV plus.

Nothing specific.

Non spoilers.

That's getting harder and harder.

Well, I've got a.

I've got a lead question.

I got a good lead question.

Yeah, I do.

Stars Adam Scott, Zack Cherry, Britt Lauer and John Turturro's office mates.

Office employees who've had a surgical procedure that separates their entire consciousness at work from their lives outside of the office to the point where they're completely different people and certainly unaware of what the other aspect of their own lives are doing.

Now, we usually in this part we say, do we recommend it?

Who's it for?

What should we say Broadly?

We obviously like the show.

Here's my question, though.

It's a general thought question that you can answer without spoilers.

Have these last two most recent episodes.

So we're going to probably talk episodes one through three really hardcore.

Focus on three later on.

Have these last two of season two tamp down your concerns that this was developing into a high dollar?

Excellent production of a Reddit thread.

I never felt like it was veering into just pure think piece fodder.

You know, it always seemed like kind of above that.

And I do think that it's now moving at a clip that feels like it's doing its own thing, that it's independent of its.

And it would be almost impossible for them to be unaware of how obsessed over this has been, especially with as long as it took to get to season two.

But it feels like it's moving pretty organically.

To me.

I feel like moving organically is the, the anti Reddit think piece show.

Right?

Like, it feels kind of natural, but.

It feels like they have like some idea of what they're doing, you know, where they're not just like coming up with stuff, but it's like, oh, this, you know, especially with the way the first two episodes kind of fit together.

There's sort of a, there's sort of two, two halves of a whole.

It's like, oh, okay, they're direct.

You know, we're, they're.

They put some thought into this at least.

Yeah, I think they have.

I think that's the story that they're telling, is that they're telling to the media that they have a lot of this decided upon.

I think that's good because I once read an article about the guy who was in charge of keeping the lost Bible together, you know, like the show lore.

And they showed a picture of it and, you know, it's like a binder.

It's just full of paper because nobody could remember it.

They just kept coming up with things and throwing it in there.

Mitt Romney's got nothing on this guy.

Binders of women.

He's got binders of laws.

Wasn't it Mitt Romney with the binders of women?

Binders full of women.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was a quote for those born recently.

Anyway, thanks for listening.

First of all, I'm with Adam and Donwan.

Yeah, you both said it.

That it's.

Yeah, especially what Adam said.

I think the pacing, and that's something we'll talk about a little bit later, is that I really was thrilled with the pacing and.

But if I could put it up probably a little bit more specifically without giving anything away, is they're answering questions at a clip.

That makes me happy.

It seems very deliberate, doesn't it, where it's like we're not just teasing out this one thing.

I mean, obviously we're still teasing out, but we're also supplying steps along the way.

And I said something very similar in my intro when I was talking just to the audience that Silo does the same thing on its back half of this season.

And I was worried it wasn't going to, but it did.

Not quite as quick.

Not quite as quick.

Not quite as in gripping.

But I, I liked, I did like Silo.

I thought about those shows in comparison to each other as I was watching Severance have wondered if.

Because the concepts for Silo are really interesting and it's not only the.

The grand concept of something's happened and forced humanity underground and what happens in that context, but Severance we'll get into, they just keep finding little gut punch ways to ask questions about our humanity.

But they, like you're saying they're answering the questions at a really good clip, but also in a way that tells me we're seeing the tip of an iceberg and they know what the whole thing looks like because they're not afraid to answer a question that then creates more questions.

Yeah, there's always more mystery, you know.

Yeah.

But in a good way and not in a kick the can way.

Right.

You said it.

That's.

I said it in a good way.

That's so much better.

Another thing that I think is encouraging, having seen three episodes of this season and that I think makes Severance pretty Good and worth watching is I think they have a really strong sense of who these characters are carrying over from season one.

And I think.

I think that is a really big plus.

Man, that hit me in this third episode where I was like, big time.

These actors know who they're playing.

Yeah, they do.

Fully.

It's.

I.

I think that's very, very good.

Yeah.

It's not 95 like season one.

It's 99.9 and they're in it and I'm in it.

And I'm with you.

Stick with non spoilers.

We make our own rules to break our own rules.

Like some sort of uglier, Southern shitty James Dean incarnation.

But a couple of us made it to the movies and not only that, we both saw the brutalist.

If you're not familiar with this film is probably one of the front runners for best picture for Oscars this year.

It doesn't mean it'll win.

It did win Golden Globe for best drama.

Very similar category.

It's directed by Brady Corbett.

Am I right?

Brady or Brody Corbett?

Is it Brady, right?

I think so.

It stars Adrien Brody as Laszlo Toth, a newly arrived European to the United States right after World War II and his liberation from a concentration camp.

Although he and his wife are separated in the camps, he keeps in touch with her with letters.

In the meantime, a very rich Philadelphia businessman named Harrison Van Buren and played by Guy Pierce saves him from a life of menial labor once he finds out he's an architect of some renowned from Europe.

His days in Europe.

Again, we're general here, especially because Donovan hasn't seen it.

And here's the thing, and I said this right before we started.

Donovan is not spoiler averse.

He's not too worried about spoilers.

But he's gonna duck out when we start talking about this with specifics because I just think it's.

I think everybody should probably do that.

What I told you you could probably all figure out in any trailer or tagline how did we feel about it in general?

I mean, I.

I love this movie so much.

You did?

Yeah.

And I am just going to speak lovingly about it.

Yeah.

Effusively.

And just gush about it basically when we get there.

This is my favorite theater going experience in recent memory.

That's.

That's interesting.

And I'm curious if that had to do with the movie and its plot and its elements or the time commitment you had to give it.

Or both.

Let me.

Did you read the RogerEbert.com review of this?

I haven't read any reviews.

I've gone, I'm shooting from the hip on my own ideas today.

He just went in blind man.

And I feel good about it.

I feel like I took something away from this movie.

So.

Yeah, let's roll.

Good.

I feel like I.

Yeah.

The amount of meat on the bone, if you want to use that metaphor on this one, is just.

Is endless.

It's doing so many different things and doing it incredibly well.

But actually in this Rogeribir.com review, I grabbed this quote because I thought, Blaine, we're gonna speak generally and I want this to, to go in that, that spot.

It wasn't Matt Zoller shots, by the way.

Yeah.

Brian Talarico I like, I like him too.

Me too.

Me too.

So he said some will look at the 215 minute runtime of the Brutalist and bring out that dreaded word when it comes to serious long movies.

Pretentious.

Of course it's pretentious.

You couldn't make this movie effectively without pretension.

But one person's pretentiousness is another's ambitious.

And I wish we had more movies this pretentious, this unapologetic, this willing to do more with film than so many even consider.

And I think that nails it here.

Here, here, here.

Brian Talarico says it right there.

Ambition is.

That summarizes what I thought.

I didn't use that word, but I, I thought that this movie's got so many ideas under the rocks and it does a pretty damn good job of turning over those rocks to view them as closely as it can in.

So it warrants that 3 hour and 35 minute runtime.

Even though I'm still of the mindset that movies should be two hours or under.

The thing is, when you walk out of a three and a half hour movie, there is no lukewarm on such an experience like you either loved it or you truly hated it.

That's absolutely true.

Yeah.

I did appreciate this movie's runtime and I did appreciate being immersed in it.

I was ever really bored.

I did get a little tired of sitting.

That's a different.

That's not bored.

That was just uncomfort for a second or two.

I was, my brain was turned on the whole time.

I was, the whole time I was thinking, okay, so what does, what does that have?

What would that say about this?

And what is this action, this piece of dialogue?

So it had me.

I don't know what more I can add without getting into spoiler specific stuff, but if you're at all thinking about going, don't wait for this to come to streaming.

No, it may seem more convenient to like, oh, I'll watch this at home when I have three and a half hours or whatever.

You need to go sequester yourself in a movie theater in a dark room.

We are not, you know, technically allowed to look at your phone, you know, by our social conventions that I really wish people would stick with, but.

Oh, did you have a phone looker?

No, no, no, not in this one.

I did, but I think you've got to give yourself over to the experience of this movie and to the experience of film.

Like, let it, Let it do what it's supposed to do.

Enjoy one of these rare moments where things move at the pace that I think we all long for them to move in our daily lives.

I'm gonna say something that might be surprising.

This movie was not bloated in runtime.

It was bloated with ideas.

I mean, it almost could have used 15 more minutes.

Wow.

Yeah.

Because so many hefty things going.

And I was like, no, no, go that, go that route.

It's.

I'm not saying that they were shallow in any of their decisions.

I'm saying that if they would have spent five more minutes on one particular topic, it would have been fine.

They could have done a few things.

I don't.

I think if where they chose to start and stop the story.

Yes.

In terms of years covered, the runtime works for me.

I think, I think, I mean, I would have taken 15 more minutes.

Would have been perfectly fine to me.

I think that there's a whole other life that we could, we can get into that.

When we get into.

When it comes on streaming, I'm understanding it's going to have a three day runtime.

You watch three days straight?

Yeah, sounds great.

Like 72 Hour Movie.

No, I think if that sounds like I'm being negative, I really liked it.

If I could find the time this week and could find someone willing to give, I would go see it again.

That's interesting.

I wanted you to bring that up.

I don't think I would see it again.

I think I got what I needed from it.

But I would watch scenes of it many times over.

Why do, why do you want to see the whole thing again?

I'm just curious.

Is there something you feel like you missed?

You get what you need from a good meal, but you still want another good meal, don't you?

Yeah.

I already know what happens in the Seven Samurai.

If you were like, Donovan, let's turn on the Seven Samurai?

Absolutely.

You're talking to a guy who rarely eats.

I rarely eat.

Now that you can't afford to.

You've already heard that Bob Dylan record.

Why do you need to listen to it again?

Hey, I recommend.

Let me give you my rundown on why I'm recommending this for people.

And we can get into our spoiler section.

I got a few reasons.

It'll test your ability in this age where we need to leave the world behind sometimes.

And it'll.

It'll give you a reason to do that for three hours and 35 minutes and then see it because it's saying profound things about a period we may have started to assume some things about or taken for granted.

And it's well done with good acting and good directing and pretty damn good writing.

You know, I don't want to harp on this too much, and it's a more broad idea, but I just remember going even, like, through Donovan when we were in college and shortly after going to the theater and walking out and feeling like I had been somewhere and like the world outside looked different when I walked out.

If the movie was good.

Well, it's the opening line of the Outsiders.

That's what movies are supposed to do.

But I'm just not sure that they have that effect on me that often anymore.

No.

Right.

Of course.

And I don't know if that's like a product of aging and just you've experienced more things so they.

Each one feels a little less momentous, or if it's like, I know that the entire world is in my pocket.

On the phone.

You feel like if you forget to put it on, totally silent.

You feel the notifications.

You feel whatever, like.

Or even when we're able to not look at something, it's still like our brains are divided in a way.

And I think a film of this length, it just, through attrition, forces you to have that experience where you walk out and you're like, oh, where'd I park?

Where am I?

Yeah, I was just gonna jump in.

I feel like the.

Obviously, I haven't seen this one, but some of the more impactful movie experiences I've had over probably the last five years have been longer movies.

Like, you know, probably once I finally saw it, the.

The best movie that came out last year, Oppenheimer, was long.

It was and.

And.

And demanded the way it was shot.

It demanded your full attention.

It's a lot like setting the timer for 40 minutes and reading a book.

You know, just like putting the phone or setting an alarm and just reading for 40 straight minutes without doing anything else.

It's a little like that.

And it's good for you.

It is good for you.

And this movie is good enough to make that excuse to go to the movie theater and do it.

Yeah, that's what I.

I was gonna say that.

I'm not saying.

I.

I'm.

It's perfect.

It's not a five star review for me, but I'm saying it's damn good.

I think Adam might give it the five stars.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

So let's think it.

Let's take a spoiler.

Yeah, well, let's take a break for spoilers.

How about that?

And on the other side, we'll talk about Severance season two so far.

Probably really heavy on episode two and three.

And then we'll talk the brood list in detail.

I'm George O'Connor, the New York Times bestselling author of the Olympians and Asgardians.

I'm Tim Hamilton, cartoonist for the New Yorker.

Here at Seti Bimco, we watch movies of dubious quality and fabricate revenge sequels for them that they never had before.

We also have fun games such as George's current currency.

Kerner diapers in 1960 cost $1.

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Tim?

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Wrong.

Seti Pimco Part 2, the Revenge.

Every Wednesday, any place you listen to podcasts.

So to begin, I'll say if given a choice.

Luckily we don't have to make this choice, but if given a choice, I'd.

I much prefer the Audi story than the Anyone.

I'm referencing episode two, of course.

And one Episode one, It's all in the Office.

Episode two, it's all what happened on the outside of the Office at the end of last season.

We get caught up on both of them via the two episodes.

That's probably to neither of Yalls surprise that I prefer the Audi story.

You probably could have guessed that I just found the second episode much better, even though I was happy to have the show back with its first episode and I thought it's pretty good.

Well, the second episode brought back the one element that was really missing and I'd kind of forgotten about, and that's Rickon.

Fool.

This isn't in the second episode.

I think it's in the third.

But like there's a bit where he's like reading his own faux profound work and it's.

It's so funny.

No, I think that is in the second episode.

But is that in the second?

Yeah.

Cause in the Second or third.

In the third, he's just being confronted by Natalie about maybe using his work.

And I don't think.

Oh yeah, no, he was read.

He was reading it to her.

She like read the passage about like beer doesn't.

He's like, only wine can truly make you happy.

Which is why the poor are so often sad or something like that.

It was just a.

Hilarious.

You know what?

Sometimes he'll hit on something that's close enough to profound that I get it.

You know, that's why it's funny.

Yeah.

The little joke that Mark loves, you know, kind of can't stand him in real life, but is any.

This naive guy about the world loves his.

But that's such a funny.

Like that is a good one.

Obviously severance is doing a lot of things and that's just a nice joke tucked in there, but it's.

It always makes me smile.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Cracks me up.

Like I said, you don't have to choose.

But did you prefer the second episode to the first?

Seeing the outside world more so they.

Were like two halves of a coin to me, really.

It was more.

I didn't prefer one to the other.

They were just doing different things.

Although I.

For me, although I.

Blaine, I've seen some folks, some.

Some critics say the same thing.

You said that without the.

The Audis, that they don't like it.

Like the Audis is what is kind of the.

The meat of it, I guess, and moves.

Moves it forward.

It's the emotional heart.

Yeah, that's.

That's what I was gonna.

Although I think this.

So this is what I said earlier, talking about how well they know the characters is.

I really liked seeing the actors do all their innies and all their outies in those back to back episodes because I think that you sympathize with both sides of them.

And not only that, I think they're doing a good job of making you understand that like for this inner any person to not go back to work would be non existence.

And maybe you would miss that person.

Maybe he's growing and developing in a slightly different way from you.

I think that they needed the first episode to drive that point home.

Yes.

And I think that again, I know I mentioned it when we talked extensively about the first one, the scene where Dylan kind of begs Irving to stay, you know, because he would essentially be killing off his friend.

Yep.

He would never see him.

He would never see him again.

And that's.

I mean, it is kind of like a very, very basic existential question.

Right.

But it's like, what are you?

What are you?

And like, one of the answers is like, you're your memories.

Like if, if you're.

And you're the things you, you know, like, if those things disappear, you're.

You're dead.

You might as well not exist.

You're dead.

The you that was you.

Anyway, a lot of haze being made about the new and I'll add creepy as hell intro this season.

Baby John Turturro crawling around is giving me some baby Colin Robinson vibes minus any hilarity.

Love it.

It's just weird.

But it does remind me of Colin Robinson, so I chuckle.

This is, this is just a super aside, but I kind of love it when shows mix up their opener for, like, season by season.

Yeah, I like that they did that.

I like it.

I don't want all shows doing this.

Sometimes I just want a theme song and credits.

Look, I don't need the Simpsons to do this.

Just give me a.

Give me a new couch gag every week.

You know what?

It can be easy to forget for me that Adam Scott's a pretty damn good actor because he doesn't have this full rotunda of leading man qualities.

But the way he plays the awkwardness between Mark and Haley as they begin to search for Gemma in the third episode with their flyers in hand.

It's so funny and real.

It's.

Are we gonna kiss?

We're not gonna kiss.

Well, let's go look for Gemma.

It's just.

But he says none of that.

It's just on his face.

I thought, man, he's.

I forgot that he's actually a good actor.

It's.

It's funny because it's real.

You know, that was one of the things that made me think that they just have a really good sense.

And I remember saying kind of a similar thing last season all those many years ago where I'm like, I kind of forgot how good Adam Scott is because he's like, he's usually in stuff that's, like, funny, but it's kind of lightweight.

And here he has to do a bunch of stuff just like with his face, his mannerisms, his expression.

He has to be essentially two different people who are the same person.

Right?

It's good.

Blaine, what you were saying, the way he's playing off of his co workers then to be able to shift some and even without the dialogue that he's given to his Audi is so.

Yeah, like he has a different physical presence.

It's like after seeing him back to back in episode three for the first Time again.

The season as ne and Audi.

It really.

You know, there's a weight to him when he's outside.

Obviously, it's filled with.

It's filled with grief.

It's like his eyes droop more.

And I don't know how you do that physically.

Well, and I was gonna say outside he has all this weight, and then inside, it's like.

Compared to that, the lights are on but nobody's home kind of effect.

Like sometimes.

Like, he is obviously smart and trying to piece everything together, but he's so naive.

He has no experience.

Yeah.

He dumb.

A little.

It was that Jerry's line rating of talking to his wife, his real wife.

That whole scene was.

It did a lot.

It was note perfect.

Yeah, that was funny.

That was Dylan.

He consistently gets some of the funnier lines.

Oh, yeah.

And obviously they play it that way, but he.

He really has a way of just slinging him home.

He's good.

Yeah, I loved that.

Like, all of them have little things where it's like their mannerisms are just from everything, like the kind of obvious.

Right.

To like, Helly's hair is back and she is more buttoned up to.

I noticed.

I guess I just never.

Because of the back to back.

It feels like Adam Scott is taking.

Is pausing and taking longer to respond outsource outside, whereas he's, you know, like inside, you know, And I'm just.

I love.

I think they're doing a great.

I think that's a testament, clearly, to the writers who are writing lines that.

And stories that mix match these characters and the work the actors have put into it, because they've clearly put a ton of work into this.

Kudos to the writers this season because they've got John Turturro.

They've got the John Turturro.

And it's almost like they forgot that sometimes in season one.

But this season, for three episodes, he's got this genteel look of care in his eyes, naturally.

And they're just using that.

And that longing for Burt, I don't think would be as real for me were it any other actor, for sure.

There's like.

There's just like a.

There's a sweet sadness there.

And he's always had it.

Yeah.

Except for maybe as Jesus in the Big Lebowski.

That's the Jesus.

I don't know.

Maybe you could find it there.

There's a sadness to Jesus.

He's sad.

There is a sadness to Jesus.

There's a sadness to all of them.

But I.

You know, I don't know if that's John Turo.

That's a good point, Blaine, because I hadn't thought about, you know, when he goes to.

What is it, Archives or collections or whatever they call the.

The photos and all the.

The paintings o D or whatever.

Yeah.

There you immediately read him, by the way that he carries the character as someone who would know about art, who would know about.

He's a cultured person.

He's a.

But how can he carry that in from the outside?

You know, we're back to the discussion of, like, what.

Where are the lines drawn in experience?

You know, like, you're looking at someone.

The ennie has never seen a Van Gogh.

You know what I mean?

Like, does the Enni know who Michelangelo is?

But you're kind of like thinking that must be there somewhere because he has this ability to come across as cultured.

We get a little bit more of a hint on how it works when at the end of the episode with the wavelengths connecting.

So there might be something in this wavelength versus another, and that's probably too scientific than the show really wants to deal with.

And don't.

I don't need it.

I don't need an explanation.

I love that.

It's like they almost use.

You know how, like, Star wars, the original run, the Death Star was controlled by, like, a TV control panel or something, you know?

Yeah.

Like, when they're firing up all that gear, it's like, no, they're about to make a.

An analog record.

They're recording the tape.

That's what's happening here.

It does look like that.

They're turning on all the compressors and everything.

Oh, yeah.

Letting them warm up.

I love the.

Yeah, the tubes have to warm up.

The aesthetic of the whole thing.

We've talked about that before, but, yeah, it's like, why.

Why get bogged down in science?

Here's a great idea.

Here's two waves.

She's going to try to make them line up.

Yeah.

Have we discussed how this show may be Dan Erickson and Ben Stiller's obvious jab at Scientology?

I don't think so.

I could see it with the waves, too.

Yeah, that's.

Well, go back to Ben Stiller's earlier career in the 90s, and he was.

He would occasionally pop up at places, award shows and mimic Tom Cruise to perfection.

And he does a good Bruce Springsteen.

Go look it up.

Why not take the swing?

You know, if you're him.

The stilted verbiage.

Milton's Ascension being the best example.

It sounds so much like that Scientology.

There are other examples.

Having the one leader who's.

Who's human and not a God or a religious deity or something.

And there are more.

Changing that painting to match Milchick's race felt Scientology in a way.

What did you all make of that?

That was an interesting scene in that, like, because you wondered the whole time, like, what role does.

Like, we're not totally sure where we are geographically or what is happening in u.

S.

History, or, you know, like, does religion still exist?

What would a religious.

I mean, for real, like, what would a religious leader say about the severing process and human consciousness?

But also, what.

What are these characters bringing to work as far as the baggage of culture?

You know, like, when he sees that they've airbrushed a black man into these pictures, like, what.

What does that trigger in him?

Is it.

Is it the same thing for him that it is for an audience watching in America in 2025?

Yeah, it seems like it bothered him.

And it could be the spark of his distancing from how he feels about Lumen.

If you go back and watch that scene, Natalie gives him a look that's a little.

The camera lingers on for a millisecond.

Yep, Yep.

And her face acting in that moment was great because I felt like.

I assume you're talking about a look where she says there's some level of, like, empathy and, like, can you believe they do this?

But we can't talk about it.

And then the smile slowly returns.

Yeah.

And, like, the corporate woman is back.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The fake corporate smile.

Donovan, I have a question just for you.

Yes?

When you encounter a co worker, you don't know, do they ask if they've.

If you've come to kill them?

Yeah, usually.

Okay, that's what I was thinking.

Is it because I'm carrying a knife, I'm covered in blood, like, there are goats.

Yeah, but.

But you know I gotta have lunch, right?

Is the goat subplot too weird for its own good?

No, I like it.

You do?

I like.

I like the surreal.

I like just the surreality of it.

Surreality is what the meant.

What I should have said.

I was even, like, kind of laughing at myself as they're, like, panning among the goats, and I'm like, oh, they got.

They got black Philip here.

And then it's really the guy and the go.

That's it.

Yeah.

I found myself really liking the weird contrast of, like, the goats and the grass with, like, the sterile sky and the.

I liked the question they asked, like, can we see Your bellies.

Because like, clearly these are people who are working on it, who.

Who are essentially newborns working on it with technical knowledge, working on a different project.

And perhaps that's making them think about human beings in a certain way that for whatever reason they're arguing over whether humans have pouches or not.

I did actually like it.

And also because it didn't just come out of nowhere.

We had the.

We knew about this place where.

We knew that this place existed.

We hadn't been here before.

Although some goat interpretive dancing too, last season.

Right?

Yeah.

In addition to seeing the baby goats.

It had a really great.

And I mean like, this is just like push my buttons.

But it had a really great feel of menace.

Like if you took weird folk horror and brought it into.

Under hospital lights.

Oh yeah.

The green grass and the drop tile ceiling and the way that.

I know this is like such a dumb thing to think about, but there was still a vending machine on the wall, right?

Yeah.

They train a dance and I was wondering like, does someone bring a weed eater around to like trim the edge around the vending machine?

Donovan, what do you think that.

The pouch thing.

So my read on that was they're doing, you know, they're mammalian something, right.

Like they're doing some kind of husbandry, biological experiment.

And for some.

Or something.

And so for whatever reason, because the knowledge that they have is in the air, but it's like.

It's like, you know, they're basically like, they're.

They're.

They're total innocence.

They have no experience.

But obviously they have to know a little something.

Right.

Like we know everyone here can read, people can write.

So you do bring some things over with you.

I'm thinking that whatever work they're doing in the realm of animal husbandry has.

Has led them to speculate about what the vast mass of humanity is like.

And that might involve pouches for some reason.

So your read is that they are all normal.

Any Audi.

Severed workers?

Yes, probably.

I think.

I think everyone there is severed.

But they.

Because I kind of took it to.

To mean that they know something about some project that's going on and there are manipulated humans wandering the corridors.

Sure.

That could be I.

Which could be what Gemma was.

Yeah, yeah, it kind of does.

You know, it could.

I think that I could be totally wrong.

Right.

Like when he says that doesn't prove anything.

He could be saying that doesn't prove anything about the disagreement we're having or that doesn't prove that they're not.

Whatever they were Looking altered by having some other.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, that's one of the big theories floating around, is that what the team.

What our team is doing is somehow creating consciousness for something.

Like almost creating an algorithm of a person that could be reanimating one of the family.

Or it could be Gemma.

Or it could be.

Who knows?

I'm just saying that they better hit me with a.

Of course there's a goat farm in the middle of this office building.

Or I'm claiming it to be a little weird for weird sake, which is.

That's the worst kind of weird.

The second being is, of course, Eric Trump.

It bothers you.

You think it's weird for weird sake.

I don't, but it gives me.

If they don't have a pretty clear purpose.

It is.

Yeah, but they probably have a clear purpose.

I just hadn't seen it yet.

Yeah.

I feel like they're.

Like they're engineering something.

Yeah.

Or studying something.

I'm still can't shake the idea that, like, some of those goat workers.

Let's call them.

Yeah, they were a little beat up.

Well, I'm surprised you're not applauding how they pulled the entire cast of the original Wicker man for these roles.

Oh, I mean, my heart.

Be still my heart when they're all standing on the.

The rise above them.

Yeah, yeah.

This.

This is content for me.

This is good.

These are straight out of a 1952 British film.

What if you get kicked by a goat and they take you to the elevator and send you back up and you get out and you're like, what.

What the hell do I do?

What the hell happened?

Why?

What is this?

This mark on my leg?

An even more realistic question might be, I forget her name if it was said, but the Brienne of Tarth, you know, she may go home with blood splatters on her.

Does she clean?

That's what I'm saying.

She gets in the elevator.

Yeah, yeah.

Because they're all severed except for Milchick and maybe his secretary, Ms.

Huang.

Seems like she might not be.

She might not.

It's hard to say.

I'm not sure.

One of the.

If we want to get into theory land, I would love to know what y'all think about this.

Go ahead.

There are people who think that Milchek and Patricia Arquette.

Cobel.

Cobell.

Oh, yeah.

Harmony Cobell.

They think that they are severed and that their innies have been given free rein and the Audis decided to essentially be killed.

That makes sense.

I was wondering if they were Changed in a different way.

But that would be the way.

Yeah.

There's a.

There's three things that I'll point to in this episode after somebody.

The most recent episode after somebody posited this one, they kind of teased this with Dylan.

Right.

I'm sure we're going to talk about him and his wife, but he.

He's clearly a better version of himself at work.

Yeah.

Than he is the guy at home.

Would you start doing the math?

He's like a guy who can't even cut the tube.

Cookies in the oven.

It's a tube.

Right.

His wife is going off to work, what looks to be security or something.

Night shift.

And he can't even be bothered to.

Also, they can't pay these severed people more that she doesn't have to have that job.

Yeah.

That's what's going on here.

Two, Milchick driving the motorcycle.

People think it seems a little out of step with what his character would be.

And it would be a very.

Anything to be like, oh, I bet my Audi rides a motorcycle.

You know what I mean?

Like, that's a very, like, childlike thing to think about.

Three, When Heli out.

Helena.

I guess.

Sure.

Audi.

Heli is talking to Cabell.

She says, I think you need a reset.

That's right.

Very specific wording there.

Yeah.

But I go to that motorcycle there.

There's a lot to be said about the cars in this show.

Not a one of them were made before 1999.

No.

But the kind of like anodyne beaten up, like in the back.

You know, they're just like this kind of like, bland that you.

Yeah, I was.

I was noticing because it.

Which I.

I mean, I.

I assume that's intentional to kind of.

It has to be story in us.

Right.

There's a whole parking lot of that time and place.

Yeah.

Just could be another sign that they're not paying these people that much.

You gotta drive a 1990 Buick.

Hey, did you guys enjoy seeing Iceland?

Love it.

You like when you like when he showed up?

Loved it.

Yeah.

Oh, episode two, Iceland from somebody somewhere.

I thought you just made the landscape look like.

No, no, no.

Yeah, yeah.

He cleans up great.

He looks.

We got a little.

We got a little.

We got a little treat.

So is he a Egan or one of their close workers?

He's the muscle, right?

Yeah.

He seems like.

He seems like the fixer.

Yeah.

I want to see more of his character.

I want to see more Milchick.

I am really enthralled by Tillman's acting.

Of course.

He's so good.

He's.

They found a jewel when they found him because I'd never heard of him, but that doesn't mean anything.

But the way he played, you know, looking at those pictures, boy, you could read five different theories just in his expression and his eyes.

So you know what it kind of.

Reminded me of, And I don't know if this is intentional or not, but two characters they had do similar things in recent proximity to each other is Adam Scott in the first episode where he kind of like, has locked eyes with Ms.

Wang, and she's like, hey, I'm.

I have to remind you, you know, I'm a supervisor, not a friend.

And it stays on him for a really long time, and you can just kind of see.

And I.

And then I believe he did the same, and I think he did a great job, but I believe they did.

I don't know.

I think we're supposed to notice the parallel there.

Yeah.

And I agree.

Blaine, he's.

He's a fantastic actor.

You can see there in one of.

In his eyes that one of his thoughts was you.

Yeah.

Let's talk about Dylan's meeting with his wife.

Man, you.

That was so good, man.

Set up some sad stories just from that.

Well, they got 18 minutes, but that wasn't the screen time.

Not least of which is how he was maybe on the outside before life got him.

Because she.

She married probably not a guy who was sitting around on the couch all the time.

Even the way that he says, hey, how did the thing go?

That's like his way of addressing it.

That was inside.

Yeah.

I thought, wait, is he supposed to know about that?

Well, I mean, I sheep.

But it wasn't.

Yeah, it wouldn't matter if he knows or not really.

I mean, everything about the control of the situation that's shown the whole time.

Like, they're.

They're not really unsupervised.

You know that.

Very creepy.

The way her voice chimes in and says, let's not talk about what it.

What's the.

They start talking about personal details.

There you go.

Yeah.

I mean, the obvious crushing moment is when his wife says, I love you, and he doesn't really know what to.

Yeah.

Because he doesn't know this person.

He's like, okay, that's nice.

He can't even.

You can see.

I talk about people acting, what's happening on the inside.

You see him kind of cycle through his options, you know, like, do you say this back to a person that you met 18 minutes ago who clearly Means something to you or.

And I don't mean like lovey dovey, romantic, like a romantic about humanity show would say.

Oh, but you know that that's an important person.

Whether you can place it or not, you still know.

And it's.

No, it's not that.

Bob Dylan said in the complete unknown, I just met you.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Does it weird you out?

Yeah.

Okay, we are going to let Donovan slip away from us for the week because from one capitalist romp to another and.

And I hope, remember, please answer my question.

If the Brutalist was a super villain, who would he fight?

That's gonna be the first on our list.

Well, he's obviously fighting Captain America, right?

I would think so.

And his name would be the Brood.

A list.

That's bad.

You get it.

That's bad.

That's so bad.

It's good lot to go with here.

And it's hard not to start at the end and work my way back or what I did mentally on the way home from the movies.

But.

But hey, that early image of the upside down Statue of Liberty is a perfect directorial choice once you see the film and maybe even before you see it.

That's so good.

I mean, I really don't know how to start unpacking this.

Let's listen, let's try to go backward if at all.

Okay.

We'll go reverse chronological of.

Of how it's presented.

Well, and that.

That works too, because the film also does that.

Wait, it does.

There's that shot of the first interview at the very end with his niece.

They show her again in that interview room with the Soviets.

Oh.

Oh, it's so brief.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

It's so brief that I almost didn't consider it.

So I would say that we have been invited to analyze the film this way.

Yeah.

Well, it ends in 1980 and he's way more renowned than I mentioned.

At the top, he's a famous architect of your Frank Lloyd Wright type of figure.

And there he is in a wheelchair, old.

His wife has passed away at this point and Laszlo is being celebrated for his work.

And is that his niece or his great niece would be.

His great niece.

His great niece.

That is his niece's child.

Right.

And his.

Well, that is his niece speaking.

But his niece is.

His great niece is being played by the actress who has played his niece the whole time in that scene.

Oh, okay, okay.

Why?

I don't know.

Resemblance.

I mean, it has to mean something.

Well, there maybe, but this also was made on.

On the cheap for a movie of its stature.

It's $10 million or so and that's apparently really cheap for a big movie.

I think the director, Corbett, kind of had to scrap some funds together.

That's.

That is honestly my.

My one bigger complaint is that I can see that.

Not that it's a cheap movie, but I could A lot of times these period pieces movie, you really feel like you're there.

As far as, other than costuming, I didn't quite feel like I was ever in the time period.

Maybe that's not here nor there.

I.

I completely felt like I was there.

Yeah, you were in Pennsylvania in 1952.

I, I think they did a few clever things and I'm going to start from the beginning.

I know we wanted to start from the end, but that, I think it sets the mood when you have this young woman, who we're not sure who she is, being interviewed in a language that we don't want to meet as Americans immediately recognize.

Oh yeah.

And then it flashes to him in this very confusing scene, right.

It's dark, very dark.

Very.

Cameras moving everywhere.

You have no idea.

I thought it was a concentration camp scene.

I thought that given that she was being interviewed and it seemed to be like a post war situation, that he was perhaps somewhere in Europe.

And we're going to start there about how, you know, he's been liberated from a camp and now he's gone somewhere else.

And the general chaos of where do you put all these displaced people?

He's in the cogs of that machine.

But that's slow reveal of them going in to New York and you see the Statue of Liberty and I mean, what an immigrant coming to America, it being an immigrant story.

You know that when you sit down in the theater and them opening with the Statue of Liberty and then somehow not feeling cliche is as I'm saying it out loud, I'm becoming more impressed by the fact that they pulled that off.

Oh yeah.

It's disorienting on purpose.

It's very good.

And I think the, the way that they showed that disorientation and that chaos and you just, you immediately are ready to feel a lot of things that aren't said out loud.

Huh?

You know, even when they're going through, I assume, Ellis island and the guy's speaking and it's also being repeated in another language and they say if you have somewhere to go, you go to this place.

If you don't, if you're moving on and here's a bunch of humans wearing those large numbers around their neck in this very.

Like, how many times can he be dehumanized?

Obviously, this is better than being tattooed in a concentration camp with a number.

But this massive government body is still processing you in some way.

And you already have a sense that he is.

That there's a lot under the surface with him.

You know, he carries.

It wasn't shocking to me when it's revealed, and not just because, you know, that's what the movie's about, but when it finally comes out just how renowned he had been before the war.

This is not surprising.

It's funny that it doesn't feel dehumanizing until you reflect back.

Like you see the numbers on him and you.

I think, oh, thank you.

Okay, we're gonna start in America.

You know, the rough stuff's over for him.

Maybe.

Of course there's gonna be conflict or there's not a movie.

But movie runs in a hefty 3 hours, 35 minutes.

And I'm not so sure that besides some obvious themes.

We'll talk about that.

It's also kind of about attention and attention spans.

It's almost like the film touches on where we put our attention while it challenges our very attention spans at the same time.

You know, the primary example is that he spends his entire, most of his adult life bridging the gap between he and his wife that'll never be recovered despite them being reunited.

And it's like that's his attention, that's his focus, and he jumps on it any chance he gets.

Despite having to deal with Van Buren.

The fact that it's 3 hours, 35 minutes I think is a choice beyond just.

I gotta tell the whole story.

Yeah, yeah, I think so too.

And I think it.

It is naturally doing things that make us ask these questions.

And, you know, I read there's a great.

On Rogeribert.com interview with the director where he is asked a question that's not about money.

But by like the third paragraph of his answer, he's talking about how hard it is to be an artist.

Yeah.

And having to depend on essentially industrialists to survive.

He said, I know people who are up for best picture who struggle to pay their rent, you know, those sorts of things.

So I.

How many things is this about?

You know, there's that postmodern, like, it's so self referential and like what you're saying.

And it's.

It's about art.

Right?

It's a piece of art about art.

That's where I was going to go with this.

Yes.

But it's also about.

It's asking questions of attention span.

And, you know, he even pointed out that by the time it was printed to 70 millimeter film, when that's delivered to a theater, that's 26 reels of film for this movie.

It.

It's heavy.

It is literally heavy.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's a lot about capitalism.

Capitalism and how art exists in a strict, burgeoning capitalist land where at first glance there's only hopes fulfilled and dreams achieved and everybody gets the golden ticket.

If you just think about it cursory.

Cursorily.

I was turned off about viewing this initially because the mode of artistic expression here is architecture.

Because I guess because I just don't know a lot about architecture.

I can't speak on it.

And it's not the most exciting if you're from our realm, which I dabbled in music.

You are a musician.

I've done some writing.

You do a lot of writing.

If you do those, architecture can feel forward and maybe even stiff and boring.

So when I first found out he was an architect, I was like, well, don't want to watch a movie about an architect.

But it fits perfectly because in the end, you know, of that replica, he kind of built builds to join his.

He and his wife's confinements in their concentration camps.

You don't like architecture?

Nah, it doesn't interest me at all.

You know.

What's the other thing that doesn't interest me?

Oh, food.

Food is art.

I'm not interested in that.

See, I think architecture appeals to me because it's.

I mean, this.

This sounds trite, but it's like the manipulation of space and the creation of something inspiring or comforting or.

That makes me think that's.

That's like turning air into sound for music.

I was with it.

I get that.

With that same idea.

It can turn me off because I'm thinking, just give me a place to put my bed, you know, and my tv.

Well, it's a bit like fashion in that, like you.

You have to have money to participate in this as art.

Yeah.

Which can be a turn off for sure.

Yes.

You know, you made me think of something.

This movie.

I don't think it's wrong to read this movie as a comment on streaming culture and getting things for free.

Who.

Of course, it's about ownership.

Capitalism, art and ownership.

Was it inspired indirectly by.

I can stream this and don't take it away.

I don't have to pay for it.

But don't you dare take it down off of YouTube.

You can't make a three and a half hour movie in this day and age without it being even inadvertently a middle finger to streaming culture.

Right?

Yeah, well, maybe specifically music streaming where no one buys the album, they just stream it.

And if it's not on YouTube, it doesn't exist to me.

Well, and I would say the concerns of the film world are very similar in that, like, if.

If it's an.

An HBO owned thing and then HBO decides they don't want it on whatever HBO Go is called now.

It just doesn't exist, you know?

Can't believe you still call it that.

It's Max.

What's a HBO Max?

No, just Max.

Max.

Paw Paw.

It's Max.

But you know what I mean, it's possible for things to just be lost now.

And like, in the era when you would think that we have infinite amounts of space for things, you can't even go down to like the local film store and talk to the nerd behind the counter who knows how to get the movie you want to watch.

Like, there are streaming things that were created and never printed on anything that now just don't exist.

Yeah.

Young people, I can comment on this because I'm around them a lot.

Young people, if it's not on YouTube or Netflix, it's like it doesn't exist.

You tell them about something and they go, oh, is that on Netflix?

No.

Oh, and you can just see their interest drain.

I couldn't watch HBO when I was in high school because we didn't have hbo.

Okay.

So like.

And that was, to me, that was almost like a.

Being a kid and not understanding that HBO was only like, not that much more a month.

It was almost like a socioeconomic thing.

It's like.

Well, like when I would hear people talk about watching the Sopranos, it was like, oh, their parents have money.

You know, it's like, Netflix is cable.

Yeah.

And if, if it's not on Netflix.

Yeah.

Right.

Let's get in the specifics of the movie.

Then.

Laszlo recreates and creates with his own ideas.

He also kind of gets this opportunity to reclaim what religion, or maybe ideology and religion that aren't his can mean to him.

He's building this very Protestant type community center.

And in the end, it might very well be more about his time at a concentration camp and his wife's time.

Well, I think the, the ending is much debated about.

Yes, it is, online and amongst critics.

And I don't really want to talk extensively about this because it just seems completely loaded with landmines of when you start Talking about Zionism, it's like, oh, yeah, you know what that means?

And yes, in 2025.

But it's interesting that his niece only starts talking when she says they do that flash forward and suddenly she's married and pregnant and telling them, I'm going to Israel.

Yep.

Only time she.

Yeah, you're right.

And then she delivers a speech where she's gone from someone who refuses to talk to someone who can give an authoritative, very well done speech to a large group of people.

For her uncle, who apparently cannot speak for himself at that moment.

Yeah.

People thought that the.

The ending, if you take it at face value, you know, you go from this, like, incredibly nuanced world building thing to a very tidy summary of like.

And then he did this, this and this, and it all kind of worked out.

You know, he talks multiple times when he's asked about architecture and he said, well, the best way to describe a cube is how a cube is built.

Something like that.

And says over and over that he's astounded that his buildings survived the war.

He thinks that they work as art because they're not eroded by moments in time and the waves of politics or the waves of war.

All these things.

To then have his Zionist niece say this is about the Holocaust was interesting.

It can be interpreted that how she wants to see it.

Right.

That's kind of what I'm getting at is like, I think that they're.

I think it's very moving.

If that is, if we, if we take it at face value.

If we take it.

And you don't have to.

Because.

Because what you were saying about him and his wife's relationship in the.

They just did such a good job.

I mean, Adrien Brody in this, if he doesn't win all of the awards, I don't.

I don't understand why we have awards.

Him and Felicity Jones, Right.

Who plays his wife, the way that they go through this traumatic period and reunion and then to say the building's about it, all this.

I mean, it's.

It's so moving for it to be reduced at the end.

The niece says it's always about the destination, not the journey.

And it's such a pop psychology thing to like, wrap up all of that nuance and subtlety.

Yeah.

If what she said is true and it's not just how she wants to interpret it and present it in 2025 or, excuse me, 1980 when she's talking about it.

You're right.

It's a beautiful, deep, resonant structure that's that's going to go well beyond.

But if it's not, then there's also this notion of how do we interpret art?

And is that your ownership of the art is your interpretation?

Harrison Van Buren may own or pay for the structure or have a large chunk of it, but he's got no real input into its art, its structure, its layout, its design or its interpretation.

Especially as the years go on and, you know, who exerts power over art.

There's a lot of that, I think, happening here.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I think, you know, I'm not.

I don't want to diminish her speech at the end if it is to be taken at face value, because, again, I do think it's very moving and does work as a tidy explanation of what you just watched.

You know, it's nice to see that he went on to, you know, when they do those flash frames of like, he worked on this church, he worked on the synagogue, he did all of this.

That's a life well lived.

You know, that he moved not only past the horrors of the Holocaust, but I think it was interesting, the director said, what do you say here?

This is about a character who flees fascism only to encounter capitalism.

And he.

He still seems to continue to.

To thrive in spite of it.

I don't.

This.

As we talk more about it, just more and more doors open.

He thrives eventually, but the part we see is not a pleasant type of thriving.

Well, then the question is, I think he is set up as a character for whom he may not say that the destination is more important than the journey, but he would say the art is more important than the artist, or the art is worth suffering for because it will outlast the individual.

For him, all the things that he did would mean that he was thriving.

Yeah.

The scene where Van Buren rapes Lazlo was not.

It was not graphic.

Almost to the point where I questioned what I saw.

The verbal abuse in the scene was apparent and sick.

So I was shocked at how blatant his wife was when she confronts Harrison at his home at the dinner.

And I appreciated it that she just used the word, the exact words, you're a rapist.

And I thought all that was her showing up.

Yeah.

For that very first meal where he.

Then Buren throws the coin at him.

Yeah.

Yes.

And that this may play again into the idea that he's willing to take all of that.

Laszlo is.

In order to accomplish this goal of building this building, whatever this building means to him.

But his wife has a much stronger sense of it's.

Not a sense of self and it's not pride, but it's like, why are you taking this from this guy?

She was never charmed by the whole thing.

And to see her, I loved the way that all of that played out, that she was his champion.

Went in, yelled at him, and then the guy retreats.

And as people have said online, he ends up lost in a piece of art that he could never comprehend or fully own.

If it had ended there, I.

I would have loved it still.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I'm not so sure if I wouldn't have loved it even more, because I really dig a certain kind of ambiguity.

There's still that.

There's still a ambiguity to what Zofia's daughter had said at the end in 1980.

A very important character, in a way that signifies where this movie wants our thoughts to go, is that of Harry Jr.

He's like his dad, but worse.

He.

He wants to cheat Laszlo out of Pavement.

He wants to do more with less.

He's the first to sexually assault someone in the movie.

His character really gives this view that if you don't think the older generation of America is full of rotten, like the wife says, wait until you see what's coming next.

And in that, there's a bit of Donald and Fred Trump even.

Yeah.

I mean, in the.

His.

His dad is a self made man.

Right.

And the son's a little spoiled.

Right.

So he has all of the bad qualities on that.

That exponential growth or growth or devil.

Right, right.

Growth into.

Into being a shithead.

Everything was played well with that because he.

In some ways, he could have been so much worse.

But then he ends.

There are moments where you think like, oh, they could really have leaned into this cliche of the little shit son.

Yeah, they could have.

It was.

Yeah, it was.

But then by the end, when he drags a crippled woman out of the room, you're like, oh, this.

This dude is a monster.

Yeah.

Because he played it fairly subtly and it's written fairly subtly up up to the end.

Suddenly is not quite the adjective or adverb.

It's.

It's a step up above subtle.

Like you could probably get the read on him.

But then of course, he does the.

The horrendous thing of dragging her lot to unpack here, least of all the racism and nationalism.

I don't want to be always the America's Got Problems guy, but interesting to set the movie right after a time when we're so glorious, just after beating the bad guys, you know, we were so Wonderful.

And yet how did we treat those?

We just helped in some cases.

The idea that people can just fall through the cracks, you know, even in that post war boom.

Even the way that he is Van Buren.

Didn't they say early on that he made a lot of his fortune during the war by he did something with like building ships or something like that?

I think Attila the cousin tells Lazlo that pretty early on that's where the family money is, is coming from.

Attila the cousin Attila.

Yeah, I know that with the way you said that hit me again.

Another idea.

Yeah.

And you could.

Everybody could probably tell what the idea was.

There's these two men on.

Placed in different stations in life.

One profiting on the thing that destroyed the other.

No, it's just.

I mean it's right there on the surface, you know.

Yeah.

I was shocked by the rape scene and the rape.

But I also didn't see it being an addict story.

Didn't know that going in.

Or wouldn't have guessed.

No, I wouldn't.

And again, it's like how many things is this movie doing?

It.

It's heavy.

It's almost.

I said earlier, I think it.

It looks at each of those rocks.

It.

It looks under all the rocks well enough.

But it does make perfect sense that he's an addict.

There's.

That's not that I didn't expect.

It doesn't make it not perfect.

It.

His bifurcation from his wife doesn't stop his love.

But when he finally sees her again and her changes, he can't replicate that love hardly.

It's not that it's gone.

He just can't do it.

And instead he creates.

He maybe creates this center in honor of her in a way, but also tries to rewrite history.

And that is a much addicts story.

Yeah.

So Corbett, the director, he.

He doesn't include any World War II moments.

Leaves everything from the concentration camps and the war, even Laszlo's trip to America.

All that's unseen.

Boy, that's a big choice for a movie of this size.

Could have been a monetary choice, but it's a.

Still a big choice.

I think it works really well.

You know, apropos of nothing going on in the world at large, I am interested in the idea that we have a more complete picture of World War II than we would have had.

We lived through it in some ways.

Like you couldn't have known everything that was going on at every moment as it happened.

And so like at that dinner that he has where he meets the Lawyer who's finally going to help him to get his wife out of Europe.

They are asking these questions like they vaguely know something horrible happened, you know, but do you really know the depths of it?

Yeah.

And the way that he never really talks about it.

Like, Attila doesn't really want to talk about it.

Right.

When he first gets there to the.

Point where he's not even European, he's an American.

Right.

He's.

He's Catholic.

We're Catholic.

That's right.

That's right.

That's what he says.

That had a.

Not to derail in this direction here, but in talking about, obviously it's a film about capitalism, but it's also about America in the same way Mad Men is about America.

Agreed.

Attila saying, I am Catholic.

Miller and sons.

There is no Miller, there are no sons.

It's saying, you can do whatever you want here.

Huh?

Yeah, you can do.

Be whoever you want to be.

Listeners are going to hate me for constantly doing this.

But that's.

That's what Bob Dylan said In his famous 2004 interview in 60 Minutes, you know, when they said, why did you change your name?

He said, because it's America.

You can be anybody you want.

Yeah.

I love that notion, though.

This is presented in a sad way most of the time.

The complaints I've seen about the movie, I think are very fair.

I can see them.

I think they make good points.

I don't even know if I fully agree or disagree.

Some of them have been that Laszlo's design would have had more impact had they been shown that and not told that or maybe just ending it, you know, without the epilogue.

That's a fair complaint.

You know, should.

Should there be more showing and less telling?

And even if you want her speech to be dissected in two or three.

Different ways, and I'm gonna say it for the third time, the idea that she says is very, very moving.

After you've just watched this film about people trying to put a marriage back together after this just unfathomable tragedy.

But it's also about, like, who gets to write history at any given moment.

And the way that it's like kind of curtly explained, kind of goes hand in hand with like.

Like all the newsreel footage that they use and almost like a cut up kind of thing.

Yeah, they do.

Pennsylvania.

Yeah.

When there's this whole section about Pennsylvania is the heart of civilization, you know, like put together by the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce or whatever about.

That's a sentence I never thought I'd.

Hear you say, but they want to make you believe that.

Yeah, they did.

Whoever made that clip.

Of course, we know now that that's like a Rust Belt idea that has just fallen by the wayside as the 20th century ended.

But if you.

If the war had just ended and you're, like, working at a steel plant, I mean, you're driving Western civilization, you know, and people really believe the summation.

But have you ever.

Does a kid ever encounter that idea now in America?

No.

So who has the authority to say what about whatever, whether it be a state or a work of art, it's like, who gets to talk about it at what time matters more than the thing itself.

Yeah.

And what you say and think about it is your ownership.

Your interpretation is your ownership.

Yeah, Right.

And it's even presented in the same way that a lot of that footage was that it looked of its time.

I thought the aesthetic of the epilogue was genius, the way that it looked like it was shot on VHS.

Part of it.

And, like, very, very 1980s.

Yeah.

It was doing the same thing that those newsreels did earlier.

We could keep going, but we could.

Talk about this for three and a.

Half hours or longer.

I'm trying to be better about putting some chatter at the end.

You want to mention how MTV screwed the pooch with the Challenge All Stars 5.

Do we want to put our complaints here?

What a shift of gears to.

I mean, from the brutalist to the challenge.

Wow.

This is.

This is.

We don't have anything definite to say about it because we haven't seen it.

It's a challenge All Stars 5, MTV US on it.

It is ironic that they are trying to make it more accessible, and then.

They didn't make it.

Us people who watch every season have missed out on the first episode.

Yeah, yeah.

None of us have watched it.

None of us or our usual crew.

I don't.

I don't.

I haven't talked to td.

I don't know if he's.

You want some.

Some challenge news?

Sure.

Today.

Today is Sunday.

Yes, it is Sunday.

The second.

Groundhog Day.

Groundhog Day.

So the scuttlebutt Today is bananas is teasing an announcement which will have been made by the time this podcast is out, but it seems to hint fairly heavily that he might have a meme coin on the way.

Oh, Jesus Christ.

So I was hoping it was better than that.

A fucking meme coin.

Would you invest?

And how much would you invest in a Bananas meme coin?

Well, seeing how I usually toe the line right around broke is zero.

They got banks to give you a loan.

I think.

I think Trump maybe stopped the loans there for a minute.

Can I still get one?

What a hilarious.

You think it's a.

A non sequitur to go from brutalist to the challenge until you find out that it is just capitalism run amok all over again.

I know, but yeah, Yes.

I love that we were able to talk about the capitalism in the brutalist, but there's.

There's more.

It's capitalism and art and ownership and interpretation and nationalism.

Yeah.

That's it for today.

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We'll be back next Tuesday.

Sorry for the absence, just a little hiccup last week, but we should be up and running.

Talk to everybody later.