145: Is ‘M3GAN’ a Killer Good Time? Plus: will the VFX shops unionize?

Welcome back to across the movie. I’ll present it by Bulwark Plus. I am your host Sunny Vonage Culture Editor of The Bulwark. I’m joined at always by alyssa Rosenberg of the Washington Post, Peter Zimmerman of Reason Magazine. Alyssa, Peter.

How are you today? Maintaining.

I am also maintaining that I am happy to be talking about movies

with friends. Yeah. It’s been a it’s been a fun couple days in all of our various households. Alright. First up in controversies and nonngeversies.

Have you noticed how lots of special effects, extravaganzals are kind of blah. Not really that extravagant. Just kinda like, it’s alright. I’m not talking about Avatar the way of water, of course, which was a pain taking decade plus long journey from James Cameron’s brain to your iMac screen. I’m just talking about your average monthly, say, or try monthly or bi monthly.

However, often these things come out, MCU extravagan extravaganza. Right? So, like, surely, surely, the people who listen to the show and were watching that movie kinda wondered why Black Panther would kinda forever look like muddy garbage. On the screen. And I I bet some of you asked why certain sequences, especially towards the end of Black Adam, looked like they were quickly assembled trash despite the fact that they pushed the movie back for FX reasons and didn’t bring it back up on the schedule to take advantage of a huge dead period in the release calendar.

I imagine you scoffed when people said that MCU shows like Falcon in the winter soldier or she hulk looked as though they had cinema quality special effects because they certainly did not. Maybe ant man goes to the quantum universe forever. It has a lot of fun or whatever that title of that movie is. Maybe that’ll fix what’s what’s happening here, but I don’t really have my hopes up. After seeing the trailer, it turns out that all of these FX driven spectacles are made by Oh, hold on.

I gotta check my end. That’s actual people. They’re made by actual people. And those people are being worked incredibly hard and for relatively low pay by the folks in charge of making these movies. Right?

So according to a story in Vulture, the FX houses are overworked. They’re understaffed. One of police told Vulture that the the folks at Marvel were asking him to work on a project that would require eighteen hour days, seven days a week for three months straight wait, which sounds like not a lot of fun. After walking away from the offer, the folks of Marvel didn’t really take the hint. They’re like, hey, you wanna work on our next project?

He was like, no. No. Thank you. Despite there being nearly six hundred FX houses, employing somewhere between thirty one and a hundred seventeen thousand employees. That’s an enormous range.

I don’t know really where that number comes from, but it has to do with the fact that there are contract players and regular players and all that sort of stuff. And despite demand being higher than ever, the studios are trying to keep prices down. They’re just trying to keep prices down. Marvel comes in for a particular thrashing in this piece. Those quoted said that the mouse house, the the Disney, which owns Marvel, the mouse house, all offers them less money and hires fewer people than would be expected to be needed to get everything done.

In time, the world of v f x interestingly is one of the very few areas of Hollywood not to be unionized, actors, writers, and directors all have unions where everybody’s gearing up for a writer’s union strike, you know, that’s that those are the unions that really get the headlines here. But arguably the most important union in the business, at least in terms of quality of life for its membership is I Etsy, which is the group that covers pain treatment for the so called below the line talent. Right? The grips, the lighting guys. Wardrobe folks, hair making people, etcetera, etcetera.

They’re more than a hundred fifty thousand people in this union. And the VFX wing of I Etsy is trying to bring Those workers under the union umbrella need us to say studios not thrilled by this. It’s a difficult area to unionize just in general given how many effects houses are independently run and staffed by contractors versus full time employees, etcetera. And audiences who have grown a them to enormous CGI spectacles coming out regularly. Again, basically, you know, for for a while, we were getting one every two weeks or so.

They are gonna maybe start to wonder why the flow of product slows if more people have to be hired per production and are only required to work, you know, ten hour days instead of seventeen hour days, thus reducing the number of productions that get made overall. Honestly though, fewer CGI spectacles that actually look better would probably be a boon for consumers and the industry are at large, right, Peter? So I have

a somewhat complicated reaction to a story like this. And so let me sort of walk you through how I think about this. On the one hand, I just I don’t think there’s anything obviously and inherently wrong with a corporation, even a big corporation that has a a lot of money in kind of objective terms negotiating with contractors. That’s just how business works. The thing that Marvel was alleged to have been doing here that is obviously wrong is that they were trying to get contractors to stop sharing salary information, and that’s not legal.

You can’t do that. People can talk to each other and give each other salary information If they want to do so though, they also can’t really be compelled. They shouldn’t, I think, I I should say, they shouldn’t be compelled to do so if they don’t want to. So I’m not, you know, I like, I’m a libertarian. I’m not like a a big union guy.

At the same time, I’m not inherently opposed, like, to the to the general idea of private sector unions. Right? Like like like it just sort of in theory, they’re not necessarily something that I I think is, you know, inherently bad. But it does seem to me like the idea of unionizing here is a response to a specific circumstance, which is that at the moment, Marvel is the chief by Marvel in really Disney because Disney also in Star Wars and sort of a bunch of these big effects driven IP franchises. They there was there was a a single buyer that has outsized power in the market right now, and they are using that power to drive down wages in some circumstances.

And they’re really driving down wages in some circumstances. There was one example of somebody who is basically being asked to work for something like eighteen or nineteen dollars an hour, which is what they’re paying, retail work occurs like at the local, you know, like chips and beer shop, you know, a couple of blocks from me. It’s just not a lot of money for very high tech work. Right? And so Marvel and, you know, to a sort of more general extent, dominates here.

And that is the circumstance that this is that unionization is being talked about responding to. And unionization might be an effective response right now to Marvel and to Disney’s dominance. But I guess I do have some concerns about the long term effects of unionization here. One of the things we did learn from the story as well is that there’s just obviously not enough trained, talented tech work effects workers in Hollywood right now. And there’s some one said that there were possibly as many as one third of the number that you actually need to get all the work done.

And that’s one of the reasons that they’re also slammed. And all so right. And the the products are coming out, kinda not looking so great. And I guess I I would be concerned about the possibility that over the medium to long term, the union wouldn’t end up being a force for delivering high quality material and making sure that enough people can get entry into the workforce. Because what happens with unions over time is that they tend to negotiate towards sort of towards towards a kind of workplace sclerosis in which what is like, what prioritizes the needs of current union members rather than the quality of the work or or the the entry of new workers into the workplace.

And so I guess I would be somewhat concerned here Again, I’m not inherently opposed to the idea of private sector unions, but I would be somewhat concerned that ten or twenty years from now when Marvel is maybe not the dominant player anymore. When the when the marketplace has shifted, that you end up with a situation in which a tech union is not a force for making better high quality pictures, but in set of force for making sure that its members get paid and that its members don’t have to work more than a certain number of hours and a certain type of schedule. And that’s not necessarily going to be good for consumers ten or twenty years from now. Though, again, I can understand being mad at Marvel for negotiating. I mean, these these people are, like, quite highly trained high quite highly quite talented artisans.

I can understand being upset when they’re like, we’re gonna pay you thirteen hundred bucks a week and also demand that you work every weekend for the next six months.

Yeah. I mean, I my one my one I I agree with you that there is always a a problem of union capture of the essentially getting getting jobs in the place process. Right? Like, this is this is one of the knocks on sag is that it’s very hard to get into sag, or it

can be very hard to get in the SAG, and then And there was another weird note in here, which is that one of the people who was kind of on the pro union side, one of the the FX workers who was interviewed in this story suggested, I think probably correctly that there are ways to do all of these things that are cheaper. And so I’ve heard this that, like, the directors who are at work out outside of the Marvel system and have, like, visions that they stick to upfront rather than what Marvel does, which is, like, the movie is still being edited and reworked, you know, six weeks before the release like the ending is being totally changed and that’s one of the reasons why the effects always come out so shoddy is because they don’t have time. I’ve heard that. But guess what? If you’re making if you’re making movies that where the effects work is better, but also cheaper, then that’s less money overall for effects work.

And I’m not sure that that’s where, like, sort of, what what unionization really wants is is a system where we just, you know, we just wanna produce movies that look better, but are, like, actually cheaper and where they spend less money on effects. They want more money to be spent on effects. In the long term. Yeah. But

alright. So, Alyssa, it shouldn’t to Peter’s point that there there aren’t enough, frankly, there aren’t enough workers in the industry making these movies be who who are qualified to work on these films and and make them for Marvel and DC and whoever else. Shouldn’t that lead to I mean, I I that’s like the best that’s the best argument for unionization, frankly. Is is the there is a scarcity of talent they need to band together to increase their wages. And and somebody needs to say to Marvel like, we’re not doing this eighteen hour a day nonsense for three months.

Right. Like, that is that is like the case for unions.

Yeah. And look, I mean, I think that, you know, Peter brought up this sort of creative practice question here because one of the complaints that affects workers have had for a long time with Marvel in particular, is that that is a franchise that has

earned a

lot of indie has earned a certain amount of credit by bringing in indie directors who have no experience directing FX heavy spectacles, have in some cases no experience directing action period and are assigning them these incredibly expensive, you know, CGI driven movies, and they simply don’t have the experience or the skill set to sort of visualize the effects work as they’re directing. And so, you know, I think that the what that person was saying makes this stuff more expensive is that the work is duplicative and done under high pressure. So it’s not that, you know, It’s not that the basic work of effects work. It can be necessarily done more cheaply. It’s that there’s enormous waste in Marvel’s production process.

Sure. But if your if your movie is is a hundred and eighty million dollar film rather than a two hundred and twenty million dollar film and The reason is because you didn’t do a lot of reshoots and reworkings at the last minute, that’s still forty million dollars less that you’ve spent. Most of it is forty million dollars that is not now going to any FX house.

Okay. I was gonna finish. But

Sorry.

That’s

fine. I’m just, like, trying to Make my explain myself.

Yeah. But

one of the things I mean, there’s a lot of I think it’s very easy to talk about unions in terms of negotiating for money, but that’s one of very that’s one of many things that unions negotiate over. And so, you know, a union that is negotiating with Marvel can negotiate under, you know, working conditions. And, you know, what like, what people can be asked to do. They can exert more collective power over the process of the work in ways that, you know, could keep people employed in ways and at levels that are more sustainable for the individual workers and for the company as as a whole. But that end up having a biz you know, a benefit to Marvel and that it produces a less wasteful process.

Right? I mean, there’s this tendency to treat unions only as, you know, it’s like the forty million as if the forty million dollars is, like, the only thing that unions are supposed to sort of extract. But if you set up a cyst like, unions can negotiate things that are good for businesses too. And I think the the sort of libertarian side of things that doesn’t treat unions as if they have any insight to offer into a company’s sort of processes and practices. Is a mistake.

And, you know, sort of devalue some of that expertise that unions can express in a collective and institutional way. I mean, you know, Marvel has also decided not to create an in house VFX shop. You know, a union like, if they did that and had to deal with a union, you know, that union could probably offer some, like, some insights into what Marvel did as a contractor that it probably wouldn’t wanna do as a full time employer. And so union’s ability to negotiate working conditions could create could create like a better creative process for Marvel that produces better visual results that’s less financially onerous, and it creates more humane, you know, a sort of more humane level of demand for the workers. Like, it could be good for everybody.

We should

note that I believe Alyssa is the only union member on the show. You will — Yeah. — member of the Washington Post Guild I

am. We’re in contract negotiations right now. And so, you know, all of this is very much on my mind. So

you you went you went to management and said no more three months straight of eighteen hour days. We’re tired of it. Yeah.

You know, we’ve been negotiating over we’re negotiating over a bunch of different things among — Yeah. — like, bereavement leave. You know, the the post has not the post does not offer us, like, inflation indexed cost of living increases. And so, you know, I I like, my salary is basically shrunk the last couple of years in the post. So, you know, it’s you know, money is part of it, but the conditions of work, like where you do it, is there a reason that someone who, you know, writes a newspaper column needs to be at their desks, you know, three days a week.

All of these, you know, unions are about money, but they’re about the way the job is done. And also about channeling the collective insight of the workers to management, to express, you know, the insights that we’ve gained by doing the job. Yeah. I

mean, I will I will I will I will push back against that slightly in the sense that I like, whatever Marvel has been doing for the last ten years creatively. The the the constant process of tweaking and reworking and making sure all of the pieces of all the various movies kind of fit together even up to, you know, a week before release or whatever. It has been working for them. I mean, that’s a this it’s the most successful run any franchise has ever had in history. So I I, you know, I I would be I would if I was Marvel, if I was Marvel in DC, I would be very hesitant to have to deal with folks who were like, you know what, we want the the we want this to be the the finale, and that’s it.

That’s all we’re working on. You know? Does that? Yeah. At

this time, if I were if I were Bob Iger, and I was looking at, you know, the potential onset of not, like, you know, I don’t think the superhero market is going to crater, but, you know, clearly some of the movie going audience is not there anymore. Clearly, the sort of level of, you know, enthusiasm for you know, their sequels are not necessarily, like, building on each other, audience wise, and Fox office wise. I would be taking a look at those productions and saying, like, are there places we can tighten up the ship? You know, this has broadly worked well for us, but Are there efficiencies? Are there is there a place with a lot of waste?

You know, is this, you know, is this strategy of recruiting directors and then, you know, having everything sort of directed by a second unit and having a lot of hassle on the back end? Is that the best thing for us? Business. I mean, it would make a lot more sense for Disney to, you know, tighten up any flaws in their operation, before an audience decline sets in for real if it’s gonna set in. Yeah.

I mean, you might as well have that insurance. And if you’ve been doing it for

this long, And

this well, you know, you should probably see if there are places where you can improve the operation. I mean, I just think from a business management perspective, if that makes sense. Totally separate from the unionization issues.

Yeah. Alright. So what do we think? Is it a controversy or an controversy that FX artists want to unionize in the face of escalating studio demands, Alyssa? It’s

not traversal. It’s obviously what any of the workers in a similar situation should do.

Peter. It’s

maybe a little bit of a controversy in the way that unionization efforts always kind of seem controversial because there’s typically if that’s happening, at least one side that is opposed or not super thrilled about

it. I I mean, I think it’s probably non traditional in the sense that it’s it’s weird that visual effects are the only or one of the very few non unionized branches of the the Hollywood empire, but it’s obviously going to be controversial if if if the end result of this is, you know, a slowdown in work product, the again, I’ll be very curious to see how the consumers deal with that. Alright. Make sure to swing by Bulmer class four this week’s bonus episode on the menu. It’s kind of a horror adjacent social thriller type movie.

That had a solid run-in theaters as now a hit on HBO Max. Lots of people talking about it. We’re we’re excited to talk about it with each other. And you Speaking of horror adjacent movies onto the main event, Meghan, the latest low budget hit from bum house, which debuted to thirty million or so in its opening weekend at the box office dropped just forty percent in the second weekend, which is a an almost miraculous hold for a horror film. Usually, they drop sixty, seventy percent in that range.

So big, big box office numbers for Meghan, which stars Alison Williams as gemma, toy designer, who is working on a breakthrough and artificial reality, one that would fuse a a kind of supercomputer with an animatronic, titanium alloied American girls doll in order to ensure that kids are never sad or lonely or, you know, need parenting. Ever again. But weird things start happening. After Jemma gives the doll Meghan who is played by Amy Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis to her orphaned Denise Katie. He was played by Violet McGrath, Strachings, weird murderous things, murders, murders start happening.

Meghan is kind of like a kid your your kid’s first horror movie. Right? It’s a relatively bloodless p g thirteen fair in which nothing terribly surprising happens bad and slash or annoying people meet their demise and ways that make us kinda giggle. And both we and characters learn the importance of not tampering with tribal forces of nature, so we don’t unleash the horrors of the of the Anyway, think Frankenstein by way of trying else play with a dash of the clubhouse horror flick upgrade tossed into the mix. I I I gotta be honest.

I did not love this movie. I I I don’t think it’s that good. It’s confident. Yes. But it it’s totally paint by numbers and, like, kind of completely lacking in shocks or challenges of something.

Stuff that we’ve seen be hit be a hit more recently like barbarian or even smile. But look, this is a huge hit and it’s worth thinking about why. Right? I I can pinpoint a couple of reasons. And the first is the marketing campaign, which highlighted some of the goofier aspects of the movie.

You want a Sassy talking doll who does some crazy dance moves right before she starts murdering people? I got a movie for you. And honestly, my biggest complaint about Meghan is it didn’t lean into the weirdness nearly enough. If you wanna be like the weird campy horror movie, just do that. Do that instead of, you know, kind of half assing it.

And part of it is just the rating. Right? This is a PG thirteen rating, which obviously opens things up But it also hurts the movie in certain ways. It’s really hard to have a really scary PG-thirteen movie. But, you know, horror skews younger as it is.

And one reason that horror films like the Black Bone and Smile and The New Scream did well is because younger audiences who aren’t scared of COVID, but still wanted to be scared by something showed up to the theaters. So I don’t know. I’m I’m mixed on this movie, which I I think is confident, but, like, feels like a missed opportunity. I feel like I feel like there are things that could have happened here that would have made it better. Alyssa, you’re not a huge horror fan, but you did like this movie.

I I think a lot. What what appealed to you about it? I

did. So I think thinking about this as a murder doll horror movie is wrong. This is actually a satire about like, about contemporary momming basically. And it’s the kind of thing that aspect of the movie. I mean, obviously, it’s on the surface to a certain extent.

Right? Like Jemma is not sure that she’s meant to be a parent, but the movie is shot through with all of these little jokes that you would basically only get if you are scrolling mom Instagram all the time. Right? I mean, there’s a scene where JAMA is frustrated at Katie for, like, picking everything off her pizza. And Meghan, you know, this doll, like, hypes up with this to set this series, she calls the division of responsibility, which is that you know, you’re responsible for serving food to your child and your child is responsible for what they eat.

And this is ubiquitous in like, parenting’s or goals in, you know, all of the Instagram accounts that are basically like, how do I get my child to eat anything? It’s not Cheerios. And it is a theory that totally makes sense. Like, you’re not supposed to pressure your kid, or you’re not supposed to sort of do anything that will induce resistance. And it is unbelievably infuriating.

Right? Because, like, you know, what good is the division of responsibility if you if your child eats nothing. Right? Or will eat, like, three things. And so it’s one of those things like set up to, you know, it’s a theory that is propagated sort of to a parents feel sadder about an inherently crazy making situation.

Operation, but that only serves to make you feel worse because you can’t achieve the kind of like enlightened detachment that the philosophy is meant to push you towards. You know, you Ben and the art

of child quizzing is a is a real thing.

Yes. The exact you know, you have a therapist talking about attachment theory. You have that, you know, very funny scene at this prospective students day at this new school where this mom to this, like, obviously awful boy is sort of blathering on about all of these theories about how, you know, to fight kids end up being the most intelligent. And so the whole thing is like being plunged into the culture of contemporary moms. And notice it’s like, you know, men are not really involved in fathering.

In this movie. Right? You have, you know, you have Katie’s dad and sort of the opening scene, kind of advocating for the sake of her, like, oh, you know, like, let her watch screens. That way we don’t have to deal with her or whining. But this is this is a movie that is very much set in a female world.

Where, you know, to a certain which, you know, reflects the gender split of the contemporary parenting Internet. It’s very much about the expectations that mom sort of put on themselves. You even in this, you know, the climactic fight between Meghan and Jemma, I basically have Meghan saying, like, you know, sort of turning the language of, you know, feminist empowerment on GEMI to basically say, like, because you’re, you know, a modern career woman and none of this comes naturally to you. Like, you can’t be a mother. You shouldn’t be a mother.

She’s like, you know, go ahead, like, lean into your toy making genius into your career, and let me, like, let me the supposedly superior parent take care of your child. And JAMA is sort of an interesting character because she is kind of a cold fish. She is sort of sort of bad at this. But it is the climax in the movie is very much about her embracing her own imperfection and saying like, I am a better parent. You know, in my, like, failures because I can learn, because I recognize that for every rule that there isn’t accept because, you know, I can read this kid and also because I recognize that discomfort is a part of learning to grow as a human being.

And so it’s an assertion of the value of individual parenting, even by a flawed parent, over the sort of homogenized by to the Internet over the, you know, sort of, supposed hyperoptimization of a robot. It is it is just a very funny movie about being a mom today. And, you know, I think watching it coming from that experience. And, you know, I’m someone who, like, wears my parenting Instagram nonsense lightly. I don’t take it too seriously, but viewing it as like a mom’s attire rather than as a scary doll’s attire, I think made it land very differently.

Yeah. It

it I I can see that I can see that working much better. And that those those parts of the movie are probably the best written stuff in the film for sure, like the the whole kind of mommy wars aspect of it. Peter, the the part that landed least for me was all of the business ethic stuff. Which just was, like, so kind of lazily and shotily done. I thought that to the extent that, like, I was really hoping for a last minute reveal that, like, Jemo was gonna team up with Meghan and, like, take over the world.

Like, Meghan would make like, offer a deal, like, we should work together and we could blame the murders on the kid, and we’ll we’ll all get away with it. And, like, I thought that would’ve been that would’ve been much funnier and darker and and instead it was just kind of like we all learned to lesson about the importance of meddling with nature. We shouldn’t do it. I didn’t like it. I’m

sorry, Sunny. I’ll I’ll see what I can do. Thanks time. I didn’t care

for it. Can you send this can you send these notes to Jason Blum for me? I would appreciate it. So I

I guess I feel like In that respect, what that movie was doing was it was borrowing from the the classics and modern classics of horror. All of which posit that in some ways, the the villain who keeps the the franchise going is the hero, but that the villain is also the villain. Right? And that’s Jason, that’s Freddy. That’s, you know, the Halloween movies, that scream even.

Right? It’s, frankly, it’s Godzilla. Right? Like, all of those movies. Are sort of movies about this monster is actually a murdering monster.

We’re not gonna pretend that it’s the hero except occasionally every now and then it is the hero. Godzilla gets me the hero. But, like, No. It’s not the hero. It destroys and murders and kills, and that’s what it does.

At the same time, the movies may named after the the bad guy because that’s how horror movies work and you have to both enjoy the bad guy being bad and then the bad guy, the villain creature, murder or whatever that drug that keeps the franchise together also has to be the villain who gets destroyed in the end. And then to me is just in keeping with the movie’s whole ethos, which is that this movie really smartly draws from a lot of, like, main stream often action movies as much as horror films. And is and just like borrows and steals in a way that I think is very effective and very smart and like So Kayla Cooper is the screenwriter here, and she is very much an up and comer in Hollywood. She’s got a bunch of movies coming out and, like, seems to be sort of poised for for bigger success. And like the whole third act of this is just Terminator and Terminator two.

It’s almost It’s not quite beat for beat. Like, that that’s a little bit of an exaggeration.

Yeah. But

it’s really close to beat for beat, but not in a way that made me feel like, oh, this is just this is just a rip off. I don’t care anymore. It was like, oh, you’ve You’ve seen Terminator. You appreciated how that movie worked with the fake death and then it comes back without the legs and it’s still like, oh, it’s even more murder y than ever and you’ve got a rate like all this stuff like just stealing from the best in a way that I thought was quite effective and quite clever. And then the movie is is pretty witty, and it does a pretty good job of developing its concept in, I don’t know, ninety seven, ninety five minutes, whatever it is.

You know, throughout. Right? Like, in the way that Blum House just like, I don’t I can’t remember a a horror movie. From the last decade or so that Blum House has released where they just botched the premise. Like, they got they had, like, a good idea and then it was just completely you know, stoop like, the the development of it was completely stupid.

Even that’s not to say I liked all of them. That’s not to say I think they’re all, like, works of genius. But they basically are, like, here, let’s take this idea. And actually run it through its paces and do do some basic work with it even if, like, I also think this movie had a bunch of ideas that could have been explored much more in-depth and at at greater length. It could have been weirder.

It could have leaned even more into the mom’s stuff. It could have been even more about, like, leaving your kids, you know, with with a combination of Siri and an iPad. And like, what what wait. Is that actually a horrific scenario in the fact that that millions of children are being raised by this like, weird amalgam of, you know, of Amazon and Apple creation. Right?

Like, that sort of thing, and it doesn’t it doesn’t go that far. It’s just like, here’s a here’s a funny doll. It does a dance. It’s knows its kids. Right?

Like, it’s like, there’s a great little tiny gag in the beginning about how where Gamma tells her boss that in the original Furby thing, a fur baby thing that, like, they’re they’re sort of what a version of this toy, whatever it’s called, they they just, like, but but and, like, tracking all of the conversations with kids without telling them. And the boss is, like, you didn’t tell me to put, like, uh-huh. Right. Like, it’s just it’s the concept surveillance society. It’s got all of that stuff in it.

Great little sort of it’s it’s witty enough. It’s clever enough. It doesn’t overstate its welcome. And, like, it starts with, I think, you know, one of the best ironic you know, what it what’s the word I’m looking for, sort of absurdist. I ironic commercials, like, since Robocop or Starship Troopers.

Right? Like, it just it borrows again, borrowing from the best It does a bunch of stuff that you’ve kinda seen before, but in a new way with modern techs, and it mostly works. But I also so the other thing I will just answer the other question you asked real quick, which is why did why is this movie at Theatro Hit, part of it is marketing. But part of it is this movie is a good theatrical experience because all of those ironically funny bits They’re kind of ridiculous things. They’re much more amusing when you see them with other people.

And this is a movie that doesn’t that isn’t a big screen experience because of the big screen and the big sound. It is a big screen experience because you need other people in the room to to fully appreciate and enjoy this movie. I saw this at a four PM screening on a Sunday at at the Alamo Draught House near my house and it was absolutely packed and I definitely enjoyed this. Because it was a packed house with a bunch of other people who were there to indulge in the ridiculousness of this completely silly premise. And before you say

think yeah. Go ahead. I was

gonna say, I also just really like Alison Williams in this. I think, you know, she is someone who, you know, since her real sort of breakout performance in girls has been kind of tired as a nippo baby. In a derisive way. But, like, I actually think she’s very good at playing these sort of cool characters. Like she does and get out, you know, people who are sort of controlled and calm on the surface.

And there’s something just waiting to be, you know, let out. She is just she is a facade that is just waiting to crack. All of the time. And I think it makes her her talent for this kind of like funny social horror. It’s just a it’s an excellent

match. Yeah. Well, this is this is one reason again why I I kept hoping for there to be something more at the end. For there to be for her to, like, really kind of embrace that cold They’re like, you know that moment in get out where she’s fumbling for the keys and she’s like, I can’t find it. And then she just looks up and she has, like, sociopath eyes.

And and later, she’s eating the fruit loops and she’s, like, scrolling through, like, athlete Instagram accounts or whatever. And I’m just, like, that See, that that is like a good use of her talent. And you see something similar in the I think it was a Netflix original, the perfection. Where she she has that same kind of, like, real there’s like a real darkness to to what she’s doing there. And again, I I think she’s very good in this.

I like Alison Williams a lot. I I I kinda wish you would being more stuff, but but I I just was I was hoping for something a little more heightened than than what we got. And that’s like how I felt again, that’s how I felt about this whole movie. Just like everything in it was like a six when it should have been a nine or a ten on the the upthirness scale. It’s contemporary corment.

That’s a thing. That’s a

real thing. And

corment was

never, like, was never great, but Korman also delivered at a low budget on his concepts. And he knew that he and, like, rarely over delivered but he delivered. And he taught other directors to deliver, and then they went on and it over delivered.

No. Yeah. Alright. So what do we think? Thumbs up or thumbs down on Meghan.

Peter, it’s not like a great movie, but it’s enjoyable. Thumbs up. Alyssa. Thumbs up. Go with your mind.

Wine mom friends.

I got I have to give it a thumbs down just because I am disappointed. I like, it’s it’s competition. It’s not a a bad movie exactly. It just does not do as much as it could have done with the the premise and the concept I look forward to Meghan six twenty years from now when she’s clawing her way out of hell to fight Jason — Yeah. — from Friday the thirteenth in space.

Or something. She’s that’s gonna be great. She’s

in your Siri, like, she’s coming back.

She’s coming back. Alright. That is it for this week’s show. Make sure to head over to Bulwark plus for a bonus episode on Friday. Make sure to tell your friends.

Strong recommendation from a friend is basically the only way to grow podcast audiences, Fotro will die. If you did not love today’s episode, please complain to me on Twitter at sutteva and chuck them in to that it is, in fact, the best show in your podcast feed. See you guys next week.