This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Nik Walker: Hey Alex.

[0:01] Alex Smolowe: Hey.

[0:02] Nik Walker: Hey Nick.

[0:04] Alex Smolowe: Listen, man.

[0:05] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[0:06] Alex Smolowe: I don't have jokes anymore, and I'll tell you what. I'm just fucking tired.

[0:10] Nik Walker: You dry?

[0:11] Alex Smolowe: I'm so dry, and I'm just like we're in the middle of it. We're in the middle of it. Last episode we recorded was going into 2021, and this episode is after the goddamn insurrection at the Capitol.

[0:25] Nik Walker: All this nonsense about oh by 2020, like time for 2021 to be better, and then boom.

[0:32] Alex Smolowe: Boom.

[0:33] Nik Walker: Boom. Mutiny on the SS America.

[0:36] Alex Smolowe: On the SS Mino America.

[0:38] Nik Walker: It's insane. But you know, you know, you know, Biden did come out with his uh his economic plan, and that smells delicious. Uh so excited about that. But like also just processing, man. Just processing the uh It's processing.

[0:53] Alex Smolowe: I got something for you to process.

[0:54] Nik Walker: What's up?

[0:55] Alex Smolowe: Uh they announced today that they are getting rid of the Disneyland annual pass.

[1:03] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[1:04] Alex Smolowe: You who just moved to the West Coast.

[1:07] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[1:08] Alex Smolowe: Yeah. Getting ready for all that Disney magic to come back.

[1:11] Nik Walker: Yep.

[1:11] Alex Smolowe: Uh getting to sign up for that, you know, go anytime.

[1:15] Nik Walker: Yep.

[1:16] Alex Smolowe: That you want.

[1:16] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[1:17] Alex Smolowe: And now Nope.

[1:19] Nik Walker: Sorry.

[1:20] Alex Smolowe: Well, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do.

[1:22] Nik Walker: Mm-hmm.

[1:23] Alex Smolowe: I'm moving back.

[1:24] Nik Walker: Little Justin.

[1:28] Alex Smolowe: Little Justin.

[1:31] Nik Walker: Little Justin.

[1:34] Alex Smolowe: Fuck yeah.

[1:36] Nik Walker: Which is funny because I I am. I am I am leaving.

[1:38] Alex Smolowe: Because you actually are.

[1:39] Nik Walker: I'm actually leaving. That's it. Goodbye.

[1:42] Alex Smolowe: Bye. You've been out here. When when did you move out here?

[1:45] Nik Walker: I moved out here like I don't even remember. Like September, and I'm gone, and I'm already gone.

[1:52] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[1:52] Nik Walker: But you know, that's why we're October. Like, so like six months almost.

[1:56] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[1:57] Nik Walker: Uh I have not seen you once.

[1:58] Alex Smolowe: No, you haven't seen you once.

[2:00] Nik Walker: At all.

[2:00] Alex Smolowe: At all.

[2:01] Nik Walker: But but but now I'm gone. Kind of crazy world. Best friend moves two hours away.

[2:09] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[2:09] Nik Walker: Haven't seen him in forever.

[2:11] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[2:11] Nik Walker: Yeah. Hey, he's here. We're gonna hang out all the time. Now I get COVID is a factor. I understand.

[2:15] Alex Smolowe: COVID's a major major factor.

[2:19] Nik Walker: If you care I if you cared you would have made the effort. That's all I'm saying.

[2:22] Alex Smolowe: Yeah man. You know what I do care about?

[2:25] Nik Walker: What's that?

[2:26] Alex Smolowe: My asthma.

[2:29] Nik Walker: That's it. Is the West Coast not good No, it's I found my edit point way back there.

[2:36] Alex Smolowe: Oh you found it. Oh we're just yeah we just cruise right on we're just rambling now.

[2:41] Nik Walker: I love it. I love it.

[2:42] Alex Smolowe: No, it's my asthma in relation to COVID dude I can't risk it. That was that was the point. However however as I am a professor I just found this out I get my shot now.

[2:54] Nik Walker: You get a shot for being a professor?

[2:56] Alex Smolowe: Being fr right now. Because right now they're doing teachers.

[3:02] Nik Walker: I got an email that said show that go go to any dramatists. Go to any site and show your NYU ID and you will be getting a vacuum yes sir interesting are you gonna do that?

[3:15] Alex Smolowe: I am I am I'm very excited to worried about the microchips yeah dude but you know I figure I got too many I got so many in there anyway.

[3:23] Nik Walker: Yeah there's so many microchips in me anyway. These assholes going around talking about oh I'm not gonna take the vaccine because it it's got this and that and they're gonna track me. Dude they would put their cell phones in their pockets and they're you know every device connected and their Google home listening to them and like like I'm not gonna get a a life-saving vaccine. If they wanted to track you, they would attract you over. Like they're tracking you already.

[3:45] Alex Smolowe: Right. And here's the reality. Nobody wants to know where you are anyway.

[3:51] Nik Walker: Nobody cares.

[3:52] Alex Smolowe: Nobody cares. Literally, nobody cares. The only time they'd ever care is if they needed to find you for law enforcement related purposes.

[3:58] Nik Walker: Which thank God now they are finding everybody for law enforcement related purposes because if you brought your cell phone to the Capitol for your little insurrection party, uh they know who you are and and that you were there. You're going down. It was it's capital of the United States. The Wi-Fi's good. There's some serious triangulation going on in there.

[4:18] Alex Smolowe: That's what's stunning to me is like truly, what did you think was going to happen? What was this? Was this truly like, oh yeah, we're gonna show up to the Capitol, and we're gonna like and and clearly, you know, now we know that a lot of their plan was to do do harm to people. Do you know what I mean?

[4:35] Nik Walker: So we're gonna show up to the Capitol, we're gonna do harm to people, and then the Republicans are just gonna take over. Like that's it, like that's what you think happens, is you just kidding. They'll go in, they'll overturn the election, they'll say, Oh, you you know what? You're right based on these actions. Here you go. Here's the here's the no. That's not how that works.

[4:51] Alex Smolowe: That's not how that works. They got caught up in the moment.

[4:56] Nik Walker: So what are you gonna do? You know, it's uh well.

[5:00] Alex Smolowe: They can get caught up in this dick. That's what they can do.

[5:02] Nik Walker: Oh man, it's it's been a real pleasure watching all these videos over the last week come out of people uh finding out in the in the airport that they're on the supply list.

[5:13] Alex Smolowe: Oh, it's beautiful.

[5:14] Nik Walker: They can't fly.

[5:15] Alex Smolowe: They can't fly. Gotta fly, gotta prove it's the consequences of their of their actions, and it's so wonderful. And why and and all the text messages and things from people just like turning family in left and right, like, yeah, you just tried to storm the Capitol. Yes.

[5:30] Nik Walker: You're a disgrace. I'm gonna let the FBI know where you are.

[5:34] Alex Smolowe: Disgrace. A true disgrace. And and and I think that, you know, it what it comes down to for me is this. Anytime that your party or your your your you know political belief come down to one person, right? Literally a cult of personality surrounding one man, or the idea that you have a bigger stick than they do. That is always gonna fail. And I I just let's just say that as a rule. Bigger stick, cult of personality mentality is always going to fail.

[6:03] Nik Walker: Why? Because somebody else, A will have a bigger stick than you, and B, people die. Do you know what I mean?

[6:10] Alex Smolowe: So you you cannot sustain on that. What what even yeah, pe people love to make the the Nazi comparison, which you know is apt in a lot of ways, but one of the things that doesn't line up is uh they were not flying Hitler flags.

[6:26] Nik Walker: They were not it was it was not we love Hitler and want to keep Hitler in power forever. This was an ideology. There were there were actual you know points to be made in this ideology about what was important to to that party. It was a full political idea. This is people literally with Trump flags flying Confederate flags through the through the United States capital. Are you fucking kidding me? Like the messages are so mixed, there's there's no floor to stand on. There's no foundation to the message. There's no No at all. It's it's it's literally just Trump. And and at the end, and that's angry people who are on Facebook too much. That's that's what this is.

[7:02] Nik Walker: No, and and and and again, and I think it's so sad because we talked about this before this before we recorded. I think what's so sad is these people truly are asking for a lot of things that a lot of people are asking for, right? The the actual asks are not that different from from the average American but but again you are believing that this one man can or cares enough to give them to you and that and you are believing it after everything that he has done to show you that he will not give them to you.

[7:33] Alex Smolowe: He will not I I did you hear about the bathroom thing?

[7:38] Nik Walker: No, what's the bathroom thing?

[7:39] Alex Smolowe: Okay so it just came out uh about a hundred thousand dollars of taxpayer money has gone to rent an apartment near Jared and Ivanka's house because they would not let the Secret Service use one of their six and a half bathrooms in their house you're lying in Washington.

[7:56] Nik Walker: You're lying to me.

[7:57] Alex Smolowe: They no it gets better it gets better. So they wouldn't let the Secret Service use any of the bathrooms. They have a half bath in there right there's not even like you know uh protecting their family their kids all this stuff they made them use a porta potty outside they got a port a potty on taxpayer dime uh the neighbors complained about there being a porta potty outside so they got rid of it temporarily the Secret Service were using Obama's garage bathroom down the street.

[8:24] Nik Walker: I they literally went to Obama's house to use the bathroom and there's just something about that imagery that is so depressing and wonderful.

[8:36] Alex Smolowe: That's literally America let me tell you that is America send it down to Obama's house. The oh my God Obama will give you a bathroom if you need it.

[8:46] Nik Walker: Well in fact give you bathroom. And then the taxpayer will pay to to fix the problem. It's like I can't. I I mean, I think that we're gonna hear so much shit. You can't. And I think we're gonna hear so much shit coming out in the next couple of days, um, about that that you know that is a akin to this. Just shit that they were doing in while in power that is just so ridiculously inexcusably uh negligent and and irresponsible that you know, some of it, some of it funny like this shit, some of it just straight up criminal.

[9:18] Alex Smolowe: Um well the the thing is they've been doing it kind of out in the open the whole time anyway. So the the question is what consequences are there, if any. You know, I know there's a million investigation it's hard now. Every day you read that someone is launching a new investigation into something, and that you know, even even the second impeachment felt a little neutered because it's like what is it really what's really happening, right? Are we just moving through motions to show that we're doing something like that?

[9:46] Nik Walker: Well, I think I think there's two things. I think you do have to I think you as much as it might be moving through the motions, you do have to set the precedent, right? We need to we need to know that the shit isn't okay. And that even even for somebody who, you know, I think uh the uh uh legal eagle, the YouTube channel, um, if you follow it, the guy was talking uh uh the the host of that channel was talking about something that I really loved, which was like, yeah, when they get into court, the defense lawyer is basically gonna go through Trump's rhetoric word by word, and the problem with Trump's rhetoric is it's ambiguous enough that you can't exactly pin, like he's not he's not saying go be racist and storm the Capitol, right? Like he didn't say that. So you can get off on technicality, but but the the host's point was like, yes, however, if this if we don't draw the line here, then we can't draw the line anywhere.

[10:36] Alex Smolowe: And that's why I think the the impeachment's important. And quite frankly, also let's make sure this motherfucker can't ever run again, ever. Like we we need Trump out. Like Trump Trump need to convict him, right? For that to for that to be possible.

[10:51] Nik Walker: They need to well, they need yeah, he just need he needs to be convicted and he needs to be barred from um it's it's I think it's yes, it it I think it does come automatically with conviction, and somebody correct us if we're wrong on that. But um, but yeah, that's here we are wrapped into politics again.

[11:05] Alex Smolowe: It's impossible not to.

[11:06] Nik Walker: No, it's it's really impossible. It's it's where we're at in this kind, you know, and I think I mean I think this actually uh not to I'm sure you have a segue plan, but I think you'd do it.

[11:16] Alex Smolowe: Well, I was gonna say, I think uh not even in terms of a punny segue, but I think that it is kind of this segue that I I think is so good. Um why our topic is what it is this week.

[11:26] Nik Walker: Um, because this week, our first our first show of 2021, you all, um well, not really, because we actually had a 2021 episode.

[11:33] Alex Smolowe: Yeah, the first show first show that we're recording in 2021.

[11:37] Nik Walker: Uh we uh we chose ghost stories, and I love that we chose ghost stories because I think that that topic, when put into the context of America, I think that America is a country that is in so many ways learning how to deal with its ghosts and learning how to how to live with its ghosts.

[11:56] Alex Smolowe: Yeah, I mean it's it's interesting. I if you think about American narrative, right? Because America's a young country, uh 200 years, and that's it. The same way that that jazz was born in America, yeah, or American is Apple Powered, but you want to say, in terms of storytelling, Americana, like Southern Gothic is Americana.

[12:18] Nik Walker: Like that is the American story, right? Like, even though we've only been here 200 years, the ghosts of our past are with us always.

[12:24] Alex Smolowe: Always. You know, from from the Civil War, like like for some reason America is very attached to the ghost story uh and like to think that we are still because we are uh you know running from ourselves.

[12:37] Nik Walker: Oh yeah.

[12:38] Alex Smolowe: Oh yeah and I think I think that's that's the exactly the point right is that we we are running from ourselves and there are things that haunt us and and so it's it's very unsurprising.

[12:49] Nik Walker: Um because because I think if there's one thing that unites us all we as a people as a culture as an American culture are united by that idea of suppression. Like we that's I think how we cope as a country is we we be and and and granted look we I truly do and I've said this on this podcast before I really do believe that America's the greatest country in the world. I really do think that I think that we have the amount of the amount of choice and freedom the the beauty of the Constitution as a document as a as a ruling document I think we have so many things that are amazing here but we have not figured out how to hold space for both that and the things that are wrong and the things that are pained and until we do there will always be ghosts and so I I it does not surprise me that that America as a country of of filmmakers um that our film that our art our cinema has produced so many ghost stories.

[13:43] Nik Walker: Yeah because that's who yeah that's who we are man.

[13:45] Alex Smolowe: And horror in general I mean usually uh when somebody wants to probe into you know the the heart of of something they go to horror right a very astute way to to attack social anxieties.

[13:58] Nik Walker: Um I think J Jordan Peel I we talked about him was that last week yes with us yeah yeah, is sort of one of the more recent examples of it.

[14:07] Alex Smolowe: But I mean, it all the way back to through the history of film. This has been there with using horror as a way to to cope with with what we're feeling.

[14:16] Nik Walker: Well, what was the first? I mean, what was one of the first horror movies, but Birth of a Nation?

[14:21] Alex Smolowe: Truly. Like, think about that.

[14:23] Nik Walker: Depends who you ask, I guess.

[14:25] Alex Smolowe: Yeah, don't ask, don't ask the insurrectionists.

[14:27] Nik Walker: They they're I went I went through because I'd I I maybe I'd watch it in film school and completely forgotten, but I went and and scrolled through it a couple months ago.

[14:35] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[14:35] Nik Walker: Just to just to be like, what is this? I was watching something else related to it.

[14:40] Alex Smolowe: Um the Shangri Lost Lost Horizon, I think.

[14:43] Nik Walker: Sure.

[14:44] Alex Smolowe: And it got me looking into Birth of a Nation.

[14:46] Nik Walker: Um really racist.

[14:52] Alex Smolowe: Really like indicative of of a time in a startling way.

[14:57] Nik Walker: Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say that uh the birth of a nation. Racist film.

[15:02] Alex Smolowe: A slightly racist film.

[15:03] Nik Walker: Slightly racist.

[15:05] Alex Smolowe: In in in an almost comical way now.

[15:08] Nik Walker: Um I mean, but but not even because it I mean, that film, and you know, again, somebody correct me on my history, but I'm pretty sure that film was, you know, um definitely one of the films that inspired the reinvigoration of the Klu Klux Klan.

[15:22] Alex Smolowe: Um so like it absolutely you can draw. And it but but it also gave birth to Hollywood. Like it it like this is it's so American.

[15:30] Nik Walker: It's so American that that like something like that and and the detractor, you know, the detractors are still like that there's like a middle ground that people had to meet on.

[15:39] Alex Smolowe: It's like uh like a yes, but maybe we should all try to get along anyway. Like, look at the good stuff that came out of it too.

[15:45] Nik Walker: It's so insane. And which is insane. And I'm looking at this, I'm I just I just looked it up on Wikipedia just now. I'm looking at this poster. Y'all, if you had a chance, look at the poster for Birth of a Nation because it's literally a clan member looking like a knight of the round table.

[15:58] Alex Smolowe: Like it is literally a clan member on horseback, like riding to save the day. And that's what so much of this movie is, you know, if for those of you who have never seen Birth of a Nation, Birth of a Nation, um uh, you know, and I'm reading this now, 1915 American silent drama film, um, that uh is a landmark of film history because it was the first 12 real film ever made.

[16:19] Nik Walker: Um, and it it it depicts the the saving of a white woman by a you know a s uh a dumb, sexually aggressive black man who is really played by a white actor in blackface, and the clue in the Ku Klux Klan comes and saves her and saves the day. And it it I mean, it is truly a distillment of everything that we're facing right now.

[16:43] Alex Smolowe: It is like that you can find everything in this movie. Um, so yeah, it's uh yeah, fascinating.

[16:50] Nik Walker: Yeah, fascinating. But I wouldn't consider it a horror movie except from this perspective, maybe.

[16:57] Alex Smolowe: Fair, fair. Um but there were I'm trying to think from that era, you get a lot of of you know, there's like Nosferatu, um, Frankenstein, and and all the you know, the kind of stories that that people knew, cabinet of Dr. Caligari, kind of more, you know, stylish, experimental uh horror.

[17:19] Nik Walker: Well, and and horror, I think at that point you're dealing with what? You're dealing with horror because all these, you know, all these stories, you know, uh Dracula and and Frankenstein all come from an era where we are starting to question God, and we are starting to question, you know, our our our um our our kind of uh morals as a culture.

[17:38] Alex Smolowe: So all these characters that you're describing are characters who very much go against that more that Victorian moral structure um you know and people who are trying to they're they're deformities of it they're monstrosities to to the normal order so so if if an outright monster is that right is a is a mutation of of society yeah is something that stands outside of it uh what is a ghost I I mean I love a ghost because I think a ghost is trauma.

[17:38] Nik Walker: I think a ghost is and and I and that's that's going back to six sense rules right that's the you know they're here because they uh they they have some un you know there's some unfinished business it's it's that it's it's those those things that we can't let go of right those things I mean I think you know and I I hope I'm not taking your movie away by by talking about six sense right now am I did you choose that?

[18:32] Alex Smolowe: I did not I mean I wish that I did it's such a good fucking movie. I mean it's so beautiful it is it is so good and and I I was recently reading that's that script and um the script is is pitch perfect.

[18:45] Nik Walker: Perfect it is literally perfect piece of it really it really is like M Night Shyamalan started at the top and rolled downhill like old the fuck downhill to after Earth. Um but but yeah it it is such a it's such an amazing and and even in that first setup and I'm sorry if anybody hasn't seen this so you know spoiler alert but the first scene um is is you know our hero getting shot by one of his former patients.

[19:12] Alex Smolowe: That sets up the very idea of unresolved business. Right? These people who come back to haunt you because they are not resolved.

[19:23] Nik Walker: And that's what a I think that's what always what a good ghost story is of people who their stories just weren't finished. And that is what trauma is.

[19:33] Alex Smolowe: Yeah. And it's it's interesting the way it can be portrayed, right? Because whether it's it's a malicious ghost, whether it's somebody, you know, like like the ring or something, where where this ghost is here to kill you, and there's a very kind of intentional evil about it.

[19:48] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[19:48] Alex Smolowe: Or it's a more casual ghost. It's just like the spirit of somebody who's there.

[19:53] Nik Walker: Yeah. I think the you know the best ghost stories kind of uh do both.

[19:56] Alex Smolowe: Yes. Um but it is always it is always about that kind of unfinished business, right? It's always about uh uh, you know, somebody's life energy, somebody is is doing something, stands for something, is carrying some kind of emotional capacity.

[20:09] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[20:10] Alex Smolowe: And then when they die's an incompleteness to it that like it, there's like it's almost like a universal thing.

[20:19] Nik Walker: Yeah, it's like uh like a you can't finish your job in this universe. Why where you started uh until something happens, until some kind of thing is complete.

[20:30] Alex Smolowe: Yes. Uh it's a beautiful concept.

[20:33] Nik Walker: It really and that and I think that's why ghost stories have the pot, you know, when once you get away from the you know uh the par you know, and not not the paranormal activity is not a beautiful movie, because we've actually discussed paranormal activity in this in this podcast.

[20:44] Alex Smolowe: Not not a beautiful movie.

[20:46] Nik Walker: I I mean, but but a well you would say it's a well made movie.

[20:50] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[20:50] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[20:51] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[20:51] Nik Walker: But I wouldn't call it I wouldn't call it like any kind of poetic.

[20:54] Alex Smolowe: No, it's not uh I don't think that they're even what like the Blair Witch, okay, poetic.

[20:59] Nik Walker: Poetic.

[21:00] Alex Smolowe: Same style of thing, same whatever, but there's an actual uh ethos, not ethos, but there's a character to to the ghost. There's there's whatever you're looking at. Paranormal activity is, I don't think, and maybe it's been a long time since I've seen it, but I don't think that there's really a story behind why the ghosts are there doing what they're doing.

[21:19] Nik Walker: Is there no I don't I don't remember it being this such. Um, but I think but my my point in bringing it up was to say that you know, like with you know, uh it doesn't have to be this, but I think that a ghost story has probably the most room to have a an underlying, you know, deep intellectual emotional core.

[21:44] Alex Smolowe: Um, because it it it's at the very base, I think it's just about something so human. Like there is a world, and I I did not choose this because A, because I already chose it, but B because it's not a a ghost story us, right? Us that what I chose last week.

[21:48] Nik Walker: There is a world in which I do consider us a kind of ghost story. It's not it's not by any means those are not ghosts, but the idea of a home invasion movie is a kind of ghost story, right?

[22:09] Alex Smolowe: Like even funny games has elements of that they share elements with ghost story because it all it is about these people interrupting your life and and bringing your attention to something that you missed, right?

[22:23] Nik Walker: And in bull, you know, in in funny games, it's it's a kind of about the safety that these that this family feels, right? You took they took their safety for granted and and now we're gonna have fun commenting on the fact that like we enjoy watching people safety broken for fun.

[22:37] Alex Smolowe: Um and then in us, it's very much you know, it's a whole other thing. But I think that that is an element of the ghost story of your world being expanded by force by by something that you tried to move forward with.

[22:50] Nik Walker: Um it's a confront a confrontation of the of the other. Like and it's an other that that is present with you, right? It's about something being in your space that you're unaware of, suddenly revealing its head.

[23:00] Alex Smolowe: So it can get translated metaphorically into so many different things.

[23:05] Nik Walker: Yes.

[23:06] Alex Smolowe: Um yeah.

[23:07] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[23:08] Alex Smolowe: I love it. Uh I I I know I've I've talked about it before. I think maybe on our first town hall, I brought it up. Um, one of the best ghost stories uh on film of the last decade, maybe longer, is Haunting of Hill House.

[23:23] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[23:24] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[23:25] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[23:25] Alex Smolowe: Second season, not as good. Haunting of Blind Manor is still great.

[23:28] Nik Walker: We just blind manner, yeah.

[23:29] Alex Smolowe: We sweep the stop at Blymanner because it wasn't as well.

[23:31] Nik Walker: Not as cohesive, yeah, but I mean I've been through Haunting of Hill House twice, and it's just like it holds up. In terms of how they shoot it, the mo the mood that they present, right?

[23:40] Alex Smolowe: It somehow retains its horror all the way through.

[23:44] Nik Walker: You're never comfortable watching it. Usually, like a horror after a while you get used to the scares, you get you kind of comfortable in your space to engage with it.

[23:52] Alex Smolowe: Um all the way to the end. They keep it scary, but they also keep it very, very uh human and organic, and they dig into the character.

[24:01] Nik Walker: It's like the ten episodes or seven episodes, however long it is, is just long enough to get to know these characters and like each one of the siblings and the parents and figure out you know who they are and why this is all happening and and it affects them all differently, and like it it it plot-wise, it all kind of comes full circle.

[24:20] Alex Smolowe: What you see in the first episode and the last, like it's just a it's a really uh beautiful way to use a classic story because it's it's based on the haunting of Hill House by what's her name?

[24:33] Nik Walker: Oh, yeah.

[24:34] Alex Smolowe: Uh the I mean an old book.

[24:37] Nik Walker: Yeah, we gotta look it up.

[24:38] Alex Smolowe: Not Virginia Wolf.

[24:39] Nik Walker: Um, it's not.

[24:39] Alex Smolowe: I wish it was Virginia.

[24:40] Nik Walker: Virginia Wolfing of Hill House.

[24:42] Alex Smolowe: Uh Virginia.

[24:44] Nik Walker: Let's see.

[24:45] Alex Smolowe: Let's see who's gonna find the first.

[24:48] Nik Walker: Oh, I'm not even looking, I'm just letting you do it.

[24:50] Alex Smolowe: Oh, uh let's see.

[24:52] Nik Walker: Shirley Jackson.

[24:53] Alex Smolowe: Shirley Jackson, I don't know where Virginia was coming from.

[24:56] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[24:57] Alex Smolowe: Um because like it it's also a very right, ghost movies are are very, very overdone.

[25:03] Nik Walker: Yes.

[25:04] Alex Smolowe: It's an easy thing, right? It's like, oh, I'm in my safe house with my family. It's always like moving into a new house.

[25:07] Nik Walker: Yep.

[25:10] Alex Smolowe: Uh that's big and creepy looking. Um, and then things start to happen and and it goes downhill from there. It's been done over and over and over and over.

[25:19] Nik Walker: So when they when you can find something new to bring to it, when you can find a new human element to explore, it's exciting.

[25:25] Alex Smolowe: I agree. I agree. And I'm actually ch I'm glad that you chose Haunting of Hill House because that is a direct tie in to my to my choice.

[25:33] Nik Walker: Let's do it.

[25:33] Alex Smolowe: Direct tie-in.

[25:35] Nik Walker: All right, man.

[25:36] Alex Smolowe: So ghost stories. Uh my I'm gonna preface this. I don't think this is the best ghost story. I don't even think it's my favorite ghost story, but it is a ghost story that is in my head right now that I have watched several times over the course of this quarantine.

[25:52] Nik Walker: Um, and that I am truly I I really think is a powerful ghost story.

[25:57] Alex Smolowe: You didn't pick Haunted Mansion, did you?

[25:59] Nik Walker: I did not pick Haunted Mansion, no, no, no. I mean Eddie Murphy, God love him, but no no no.

[26:04] Alex Smolowe: That movie was scary bad.

[26:06] Nik Walker: Scary bad and uh little little little uh little insider information. The chairs around the dining table in Haunted Mansion are featured now in what Disneyland rides, sir?

[26:11] Alex Smolowe: The chairs?

[26:19] Nik Walker: Around around the dining table in Haunted Mansion.

[26:22] Alex Smolowe: I I assume the answer is not Haunted Mansion.

[26:24] Nik Walker: It is not Haunted Mansion.

[26:25] Alex Smolowe: Pirates?

[26:26] Nik Walker: They single in pirates?

[26:28] Alex Smolowe: Chairs from the movie into Pirates.

[26:30] Nik Walker: Are now are it is now the chair that uh Jack Sparrow sits in at the end of the ride.

[26:35] Nik Walker: Oh shit.

[26:36] Alex Smolowe: In Pirates, yes, sir.

[26:37] Nik Walker: Yes, sir.

[26:38] Alex Smolowe: Nice trivia.

[26:40] Nik Walker: Thank you.

[26:43] Alex Smolowe: I know. Until I get my vaccine there, it's gonna be great. Uh, insider joke. Uh, anyway, so this movie starts in the 70s, but we don't know that when the movie opens. It opens from above on a canopy of green trees and goes slowly, slowly, slowly pushing in. Uh, a young girl at a camper with her parents playing around. And uh, she wanders off. The mother tells her not to go too far as mothers do. She wanders off to a body of water, sees a woman sitting on a rock with a big old magician's hat.

[27:26] Nik Walker: Oh my god.

[27:26] Alex Smolowe: Oh yeah.

[27:27] Nik Walker: Interesting, interesting choice.

[27:30] Alex Smolowe: Oh, I am obsessed. I've never—okay, well, so the film is Doctor Sleep.

[27:37] Nik Walker: Wow. Hi there. You wanna let me go?

[27:46] Alex Smolowe: Oh no, sweetie. No, I don't. Doctor Sleep. So I never got through it.

[27:55] Nik Walker: Really?

[27:55] Alex Smolowe: I think I've seen half of it. I don't really know. I saw a huge, huge Mike Flanagan.

[28:01] Nik Walker: Okay.

[28:01] Alex Smolowe: Cool, cool. Oh, and Mike Flanagan fan. So my—I watched half of it because I had watched Haunting of Hill House, and I thought, oh my god, I want to—and I went back and I watched Oculus.

[28:11] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[28:11] Alex Smolowe: Um, and his debut feature, which was—I forget what the name even is, but it was really, really—Ouija or whatever.

[28:19] Nik Walker: No, it wasn't Ouija.

[28:20] Alex Smolowe: He got Ouija off of this other one. It was like an indie feature they shot in LA.

[28:23] Nik Walker: Gotcha.

[28:24] Alex Smolowe: Uh, in some weird house. Um, about like a dude who lives in—like a guy disappears, um, basically like into hell, like through this tunnel. There's like a tunnel near this house. Uh, and this person disappears and nobody knows this woman's husband. Um, and like she, after recovering from it, she starts getting exposed to the—it's cool. It's very low budget, but it's good. Um, but Doctor Sleep, like I'm a huge Shining fan. I loved the book so much, and I haven't read Doctor Sleep, but like I was excited for this. Um, I don't know, tell me about—I'm talking too much. Tell me why Doctor Sleep.

[29:00] Alex Smolowe: So here's the thing. I have—I’ve heard, I’ve read in reviews that people felt that it was an uneven film. And I get where those people are coming from. I did not feel it. I didn't feel that it was uneven. I felt that it was actually really well paced. It is a— it is a long movie and it is a slow burn. And it almost needs to be. And there's—I mean, I would compare it to Hateful Eight. I think there's some fat that could easily be cut off, but I think that I would never want it to lose its pace of the slow build. Um, because that is very in line with its predecessor, The Shining, right? Arguably one of the greatest, if not the greatest horror film of all time. Um, and I think that it—I think it—with these characters, they are drawn so subtly that you want to give them time to become who they are.

Like, I tend to think of—I’m a sucker for a movie that takes its time getting the character to the place where they are—where the movie starts. The movie starts—this movie really starts, really, like the chunk of this movie, the heart of this movie, is when they return to the Overlook Hotel. That is when the movie, like, really, I think, I think it's that final showdown. It's Danny, you know, Danny Torrance reckoning with the ghosts of his past. And um, but we take a long, long time to get there, and I love the journey to get there. Uh, because it is, I think that the thing that they did so well that I think that I know Stephen King was so happy about, and you know, one of the reasons why he didn't was not too hot on the Shining adaptation was because of how much it cut out the struggle of alcoholism. And that is largely what this movie is squarely about is alcoholism.

[31:00] Nik Walker: On the house.

[31:16] Alex Smolowe: This was your brand. Jack Daniels. I used to see the bottles in our home. Our real home before all this. I smelled one once. It smelled like something on fire, which I suppose it was.

[31:31] Nik Walker: Is it still the focus of it?

[31:33] Alex Smolowe: It is—it is so the focus of Doctor Sleep. Like, it literally—the movie, I'd say it holds off several scares to give you some great character beats with the—so okay, for everybody who doesn't know what this movie's about, let me slow down. So this movie takes place—well, really it actually starts like maybe a month after the events of The Shining. Uh, The Shining, of course, being a—the story of Danny Torrance and Jack Torrance and Wendy Torrance, this—the Torrance family who are—Jack, the patriarch, is asked to move into the Overlook Hotel and be its caretaker over a winter, and the Overlook Hotel ends up having a ghostly power inside that feeds on Jack's alcoholism and his resentment of his family and turns him against his family.

And you know, in a very famous Jack Nicholson scene, has him chasing his family throughout this hotel with an axe, and it's horrifying. It's really a very powerful movie. Um, this film picks up right after that and is Danny—Danny, the son in The Shining. You found out that he has a power called the Shining, um, or that he calls the Shining that allows him to interact with the dead and allows him—allows him kind of psychic powers and all these kind of—it's actually a very undefined power.

[32:52] Nik Walker: Very undefined, yeah.

[32:53] Alex Smolowe: But the beginning of Doctor Sleep is him learning how to use that power. And it takes him a long time. Like, he starts off on this journey when he's a kid, but then by the time he's like early 30s, he's just like his dad, he's alcoholic, fighting with bar people, you know, waking up in rooms that he doesn't know who they belong to, and then he goes on another journey of like trying to kick it again. And that's the journey that proves to be successful. He finally does kick it, at least for a while. Um, and at that moment he meets a young woman, a young girl named Abra, who is in his new town that he's in, who also has the shining, but has it stronger than he ever had it? And Abra is being pursued by this woman named Rose the Hat, played by Rebecca Ferguson in this movie, and she's basically a witch who pretty much, you know, kind of has the shining, but more so is kind of the shining cannibal, like feeds on people who have the shining, so like, you know, puts them in enough pain to where their shining turns into smoke and like sucks the smoke out of them.

And um, it really becomes—the movie becomes about grown-up Danny Torrance and Abra defeating Rose the Hat. But what is so wonderful, like I said, is just the beats of character study and the beats, like the long journey that it takes Danny. It takes him over—like, it takes him about 40 years to really kick this habit. And even when he's kicked it, it's still not like he's just keeping it at bay, you know? And you really—I uh, Ewan McGregor's performance is so good, and it's so quiet and um, I thought it was an interesting element of this movie is because if you told me, like, hey, like they're gonna do a sequel to The Shining, yeah, incorporating footage from The Shining and characters from the Kubrick version, knowing how Stephen King felt about it also, it sounds like a really bad idea.

Uh, but they kind of pull it—like, they recast a bunch of roles like from the original act. I know Scatman Crothers' character, they cast with somebody else. Um, I think Wendy found somebody to play Wendy—all of them, which like, why do you think that that works when it really, really shouldn't?

[35:18] Nik Walker: So I think that that's actually—that's actually something I wanted to bring up. I think that one of the cool things in the theme of talking about ghosts, right? Um, Shelley Duvall and Jack Nicholson's performance in that movie, in The Shining, are iconic. You cannot get around the fact that that, especially if you're jilling, if this movie is taking place in the Kubrick world, which it is, um, you cannot get around who those people were and what they brought to the screen. Um, I think to Mike Flanagan's credit, I think that what he decided to do was rather than do some de-aging bullshit, use the essence of the kind of film of the genre of the film to his advantage, and say, I just want people who fill out the essence of these characters.

I don't want carbon copies. I'm not trying to make carbon copies because this is not—you know, The Shining was, I think the way I interpret it, is The Shining was very much seen through Jack's perspective. This is Danny's. So how did Danny see these people? And it works to that extent. Like, Wendy is a much more grounded character in this movie than she is in The Shining, right? In The Shining, she's kind of, you know, f—in a place that she's on the edge of madness from the beginning. Um, here she is a much more—like, you get to see her separate from Jack after they've moved on from Jack, and she's just a good mother, and she cares for her son, and they have a good relationship, and it's a really cool thing.

So I think that's part of it. And you know, and there are other characters that come up that I don't want to ruin anything for anybody who's seen it, uh, who he recasts, and it works, like it all works because it's its own film and it's seen through a very different character's eyes. Um, but what I love most about it, I think that he—I think Mike Flanagan knows how to film a good ghost story better than anyone else right now. I really think that. I think that he just deals—maybe, maybe in America. I think I'm pretty sure there's some Japanese filmmakers working right now who would kick his ass. Um, but in terms of American filmmakers, just in terms of like the negative space and allowing for sound and for just a hint of images to do the work for you.

Um, there are so many things that are just really powerful about this film, um, and a sense of tension, playing with that iconography of, you know, who usually dies in these films, and stretching that out as long as you can. And um, and just giving you well-rounded characters. Like, I think that goes back to having such a great source material, obviously. This book, Doctor Sleep. I mean, that's so important, you know. I mean, a ghost story and horror in general, I think, is where a lot of people lose it is not having the grounding of not knowing who your character is.

[38:20] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[38:21] Alex Smolowe: Um, why you should care in the first place, right? Like, something coming to kill you is only threatening if you care about what is gonna die.

[38:28] Nik Walker: Exactly.

[38:29] Alex Smolowe: Exactly. And why it's coming to kill you. You know, I think it's one thing to just have scares, but like I think that's one of the most—you know, Rebecca Ferguson in this movie is so good, and one of the reasons she's so good is because she has so much material to work with, and you very quickly understand that for her character, this cannibalism is how she knows to survive. It's not about, you know, she does absolutely have a sociopathic bent to her, but she is more just somebody who is afraid to die, who truly does not want to die.

[39:03] Nik Walker: Such a gifted boy hiding his light under a bushel for so long. You could live a long, long time, live well too. And don't yourself. No consequences, no hangovers.

[39:21] Alex Smolowe: A wow. Live long. You must be lonely being the last one.

[39:26] Nik Walker: I mean the last one in the world.

[39:28] Alex Smolowe: Sweetie, I'm not the last. Far from it. I'm just the prettiest.

[39:36] Nik Walker: That you know, just in again in line with the film, facing that inevitability of reconcile reckoning, you know, and going back and facing up to the eventuality of anything. Um, and so she has—she's like, I'm going to—it is worth it to her to kill thousands, millions of people just in order to live a little longer.

[39:59] Alex Smolowe: And um that very much ties in with Danny's struggle, right, of alcoholism, right? The idea that you are it is worth it to you to destroy your life and other people's lives with alcohol.

[40:11] Nik Walker: Yeah, in order to not have to face up to the pain that you can't reconcile.

[40:16] Alex Smolowe: And so it it it's just a beautifully constructed film in that way. Like I said, a little long, not perfect, and the final showdowns at the overlook, you know, can sometimes feel for a movie that has really been so subtle with its Easter eggs, I think by the time you get back to the overlook they they it is a little like, oh my okay, yeah, we're back in The Shining.

[40:38] Nik Walker: Like but that is not a fault that like takes me out of it. I really do love how it ends. It's not it's not overdone.

[40:44] Alex Smolowe: It's just Yeah, I mean I I think if I have one th and again I haven't watched it. I didn't know it went back to the overlook and I'm I'm super interested now that you gotta get to get to the end.

[40:57] Nik Walker: Um my my one problem with it compared to the first one is it seems more fantasy.

[41:04] Alex Smolowe: Oh yeah, I agree.

[41:05] Nik Walker: Right. It does this this thing and and Stephen King's son, uh Joe Hill wrote a book called Nosferatu.

[41:12] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[41:12] Nik Walker: I don't know if you read it. They turn it into a show with Zach Quinto, I think.

[41:16] Alex Smolowe: Um it's the same kind of thing.

[41:18] Nik Walker: There's like there's a bevy of characters that have supernatural powers that are never explained, right? They're just kind of evil and and introduced and they they exist from the beginning almost like a Deus Ex Machina, you know, like there is no there's nothing to them except that they are weird and they have you know they they give a weird character traits and and they have these superpowers.

[41:41] Alex Smolowe: Um and so you can kind of use them however you want.

[41:44] Nik Walker: And it it's it's kept me from really uh just because The Shining itself is so straightforward as a ghost story.

[41:51] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[41:51] Nik Walker: And it's and it thematically it's so it's so on point and and never you know they don't introduce a random evil guy out of, you know, who shows up in a weird jacket and a weird car, and like I'm weird and I'm here for you now.

[42:04] Alex Smolowe: Um, it's very much uh it's about the characters and it stays with the characters, and it's it's them dealing with all the outward pressures, and and Doctor Sleep to me just seemed a little more I don't know, it broadened the world maybe a little too much for me.

[42:18] Nik Walker: And and I I I've heard that I've absolutely heard that that that is a complaint, like that. Actually, some Tori said it to me. Our friend Tori said he was like, you know, I I loved it, except for this goddamn, you know, knockoff Gambit from the X-Men character who's like just running around.

[42:32] Alex Smolowe: And I was like, yeah, like I get it. I get that.

[42:34] Nik Walker: Um I I think that he took a big swing, right? Because if you think about it structurally, in in The Shining, it's the house, right?

[42:44] Alex Smolowe: The house is that is that that energy that is looking to cannibalize on Danny's talent, his shining.

[42:51] Nik Walker: In Doctor Sleep, it's a person.

[42:54] Alex Smolowe: And I and so it does it definitely does have a very different feel than The Shining.

[43:00] Nik Walker: It is not it is not trap people in a house and and chase them with their demons. It is it is, you know, your demons have kind of splayed all over the world, and they are slowly but surely gathering speed and strength to come find you and make you pay.

[43:17] Alex Smolowe: And that is a very different type of movie.

[43:20] Nik Walker: Um, but but I I I I I bought it, I bought it because for the mere fact that we know so little to the film's credit in The Shining and the book, we know so little about the actual lore of The Shining that to me it felt like okay, there is room to build off of this into something a little more specific because what does it say?

[43:44] Alex Smolowe: If the ghosts of the of the overlook are this powerful, what does that say about the world in which they're in?

[43:50] Nik Walker: Right.

[43:51] Alex Smolowe: Um, but again, I understand that criticism because it it is a very different people people who went, I think if people went into this movie, like they that you know, the marketing team had a choice here they could either connect it to The Shining or not and they chose to because why would you ever want to lose that brand recognition.

[44:07] Nik Walker: Right.

[44:07] Alex Smolowe: However looking at the title of I'm you know I'm I'm I just want to make sure I'm saying this right when I when I look it up but looking at the two third the the novel uh 2013 novel that he wrote that cover does not in any way let you know that it's a sequel to The Shining.

[44:26] Nik Walker: Like there's no reference to it at all.

[44:28] Alex Smolowe: It looks like an entirely different book.

[44:30] Nik Walker: And I think that that actually might be might have been the better way to push it.

[44:37] Alex Smolowe: Um because I think I think the expectation that it's going to to somehow you know fulfill the the beats of The Shining is an expect like and also because The Shining there is no way you make a movie as good as The Shining I'm sorry.

[44:53] Nik Walker: It's just not going to happen. You know what I mean like it's just just in terms of like that movie is I think I think that's that's the reticence is like not only does The Shining not need a sequel was it not built for a sequel.

[45:05] Alex Smolowe: Yes.

[45:06] Nik Walker: Um but the it's it's it seems like they're using it as marketing.

[45:12] Alex Smolowe: Like like there's there's nothing that that says Doctor Sleep needs to exist.

[45:17] Nik Walker: So it's either they're trying to do something really new uh and let's see what they're I there is there is no way that you walk into Doctor Sleep gung ho about it really it's more a curiosity than anything like okay like The Shining was great wonder what this is gonna be.

[45:31] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[45:32] Nik Walker: Um and I think that that kept me from engaging with it on the level that I should have.

[45:37] Alex Smolowe: So I'm gonna go back and do it.

[45:39] Nik Walker: If you can if you can separate it from The Shining, I think that you will have a movie that really does a lot of wonderful things.

[45:46] Alex Smolowe: And that I I did. I had to I had to really get that idea out of my head.

[45:50] Nik Walker: I was like this is not The Shining. It is a very different film.

[45:53] Alex Smolowe: But on its own it really is interesting.

[45:56] Nik Walker: It's uh my my mom is is a therapist um and she got her start uh her specialty was working in in ACOA the adult children of alcoholics yeah um which is, you know, you think about alcoholism as a problem and you think about the alcoholic as the as the problem and the person who needs the help and all that stuff you don't think about the people who live under the effect of no an alcoholic and what that does and the children who have to grow up with alcoholics.

[46:24] Alex Smolowe: Yes uh which is a whole other spectrum of trauma and of stuff to work through and as as you get older and and become an adult.

[46:33] Nik Walker: So um it sounds like this this gets into that.

[46:37] Alex Smolowe: It does I would say very well very well.

[46:40] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[46:40] Alex Smolowe: So interesting check it out sleep.

[46:43] Nik Walker: Doctor Sleep I love it. My my dinner just showed up.

[46:47] Alex Smolowe: Ooh I don't know what what did we got babe burritos?

[46:51] Nik Walker: Yeah I guess I'm an A Nick says hi back she says hi back.

[46:59] Alex Smolowe: I I hear that I guess um well I guess we'll move on to mine.

[47:05] Nik Walker: Talk to me then let me hear it.

[47:07] Alex Smolowe: So okay so ghost stories.

[47:12] Nik Walker: Uh so so recently I shared with you the the book I'm writing, right?

[47:17] Alex Smolowe: Yes, you did.

[47:17] Nik Walker: Brilliant.

[47:18] Alex Smolowe: And by the way, Alex, uh, for for those of you listening, Alex Smolowe great writer.

[47:18] Nik Walker: Great writer.

[47:24] Alex Smolowe: Who knew?

[47:24] Nik Walker: Who knew?

[47:25] Alex Smolowe: Uh, we'll see.

[47:26] Nik Walker: That's it's been coming along.

[47:28] Alex Smolowe: Um, but it it's given me a way, you know.

[47:31] Nik Walker: It was interesting.

[47:32] Alex Smolowe: I I I showed you some pages and we had a conversation about it, and you you kind of brought up that my natural inclination in storytelling is to cover loss.

[47:43] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[47:43] Alex Smolowe: All the stories I do have have something to do with a great great loss.

[47:47] Nik Walker: Um, so like the book I'm writing about about someone whose wife dies and going, you know, searching for her soul basically.

[47:53] Alex Smolowe: Um, so that that's kind of where my emotional creative mind goes when it comes to ghost stories.

[48:01] Nik Walker: It's like that that's what really turns me on is like what a ghost represents is something that you had that went away, and it's it's coping with not being able to get at something that you had and understanding it and coming to a conclusion with it, right?

[48:18] Alex Smolowe: Coming coming to a reality where it doesn't matter, where it's always gonna be with you.

[48:23] Nik Walker: Um but more, you know, not like my favorite ghost stories are not the ones where there's shit popping out at you and and trying to kill you.

[48:34] Alex Smolowe: Um so that being said, my selection, uh, I saw this movie when it came out uh a couple years ago, not knowing much about it, and I was just wrapped up in it.

[48:47] Nik Walker: Yeah, um, I've seen it twice, once then and once now, watching it for this.

[48:51] Alex Smolowe: Uh since I watched it the first time, I remember I just remembered it.

[48:55] Nik Walker: Like emotionally what it carried with me and and and visually and just something about it really, really resonated with who I am.

[49:03] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[49:04] Nik Walker: And it's pretty obvious.

[49:05] Alex Smolowe: Okay.

[49:06] Nik Walker: Uh, given given the title.

[49:07] Alex Smolowe: But uh, so it starts out.

[49:09] Nik Walker: There are two people on a couch, uh, husband and wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, you don't know.

[49:15] Alex Smolowe: Um, it opens up, we're in square aspect ratio, and the woman they're laughing with each other, and she just says scared I don't know.

[49:29] Nik Walker: Uh quote pops up.

[49:31] Alex Smolowe: Whatever hour you were there was a door shutting. Virginia Woolf, A Haunted House.

[49:37] Nik Walker: That's probably why it was in my head.

[49:39] Alex Smolowe: Virginia Woolf.

[49:40] Nik Walker: Uh it's a quote from A Haunted House.

[49:43] Alex Smolowe: Uh, and then it goes back to them on the couch, and she starts talking about how when she was a little girl, she would write notes to herself and leave them all over the place so that she could find them again.

[49:54] Nik Walker: And when she found them, it would be like finding a piece of herself uh and reconnecting with with uh her past self, reconnecting with something she thought wasn't around anymore.

[50:07] Alex Smolowe: Um it goes on for a while.

[50:11] Nik Walker: These are very long shots uh that just sit on these actors being with each other, curled up in bed, slow, slow.

[50:21] Alex Smolowe: I I believe or let me ask you a question.

[50:24] Nik Walker: Are these pretty much the only two actors in the film?

[50:28] Alex Smolowe: Pretty much.

[50:29] Nik Walker: Is it a ghost a ghost story?

[50:31] Alex Smolowe: Yeah, yep.

[50:32] Nik Walker: A ghost story.

[50:32] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[50:33] Nik Walker: What is it you like about this house so much?

[50:36] Alex Smolowe: Seriously.

[50:40] Nik Walker: What does that mean?

[50:42] Alex Smolowe: We've got history.

[50:46] Nik Walker: Not as much as you think.

[50:49] Alex Smolowe: The film is A Ghost Story.

[50:51] Nik Walker: So, yeah, talk to me about that.

[50:53] Alex Smolowe: Because I actually have not seen it.

[50:54] Nik Walker: You are Casey Affleck.

[50:55] Alex Smolowe: So you haven't seen it.

[50:56] Nik Walker: I have not seen it yet.

[50:57] Alex Smolowe: Okay.

[50:58] Nik Walker: So how do you explain this movie?

[51:03] Alex Smolowe: Okay, so A Ghost Story for context.

[51:06] Nik Walker: Uh it's directed by David Lowry, who uh his first uh debut feature, not his first feature, but his his breakout feature was a film called Ain't Them Body Saints, uh, with the same two actors who are in this movie, Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara.

[51:21] Nik Walker: Um then he off the success of that, he went and he made Pete's Dragon for Disney, right?

[51:29] Alex Smolowe: So what happens with directors when they make a big hit, an indie hit, they get approached to do bigger things.

[51:37] Nik Walker: Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

[51:38] Alex Smolowe: So he flew to New Zealand or Australia or something to go make Pete's Dragon big money, big schedule, big everything, Disney, you know, whatever.

[51:47] Nik Walker: Um so he was wrapping up post-production on this thing, completely exhausted.

[51:53] Alex Smolowe: And this is a guy he's from Texas, he's like kind of the artsy type, you know, um, you know, cinephile, whatever.

[52:01] Nik Walker: Uh really just wants an experience to kind of ground him again after this whole big thing.

[52:08] Alex Smolowe: Not that it went bad, the movie turned out well, you know, it wasn't like a bad experience, but he wanted to do something.

[52:13] Nik Walker: So um he had an idea for this this thing.

[52:15] Alex Smolowe: Um I was reading about it based on something that he was having a fight with his wife about moving back to Texas, and he realized that that he's so he he started wondering why he's so connected to physical spaces, right?

[52:27] Nik Walker: He wanted to move back there because he missed it.

[52:29] Alex Smolowe: Um and he started wondering about it, and it was kind of mixed with an anxiety about the world ending and and climate change and something.

[52:35] Nik Walker: I don't know.

[52:36] Alex Smolowe: Wow.

[52:36] Nik Walker: Um, so he came up with this idea for A Ghost Story.

[52:39] Alex Smolowe: Uh it super simple premise, where it's a couple living in a house, and the guy dies.

[52:45] Nik Walker: He just gets into a car accident right out right out front and dies, and becomes kind of trapped in this house and and spends the whole movie under basically a bed sheet with eyes cut out, representing him just being there.

[52:57] Alex Smolowe: It's never he doesn't move very quickly, he just stands there.

[53:01] Nik Walker: There's no aggressiveness to it, he's not, it's not really a physical presence, it's like an emotional presence.

[53:07] Nik Walker: He's just there in this house.

[53:09] Alex Smolowe: So would you would you even say that this is like a horror movie as much as it's a supernatural?

[53:12] Nik Walker: This is not a horror movie.

[53:13] Alex Smolowe: Wow.

[53:14] Nik Walker: This is not it's it's an existential horror movie, uh, in in the sense that it gets you thinking about everything about where you are and who you're with and where you're going. Basically, over the course of the film, so he dies, you you spend more time, she's in the house. You know, there's an incredible scene. As an actor, I think you're you're gonna really appreciate what Rooney Mara does in the movie.

[53:41] Alex Smolowe: Always do.

[53:41] Nik Walker: Um there's one thing, and and she didn't have to do it, I think. If I in reading about it, you know, she didn't have to do this, but uh the real estate agent brings over like a I'm sorry, your husband died pie.

[53:53] Alex Smolowe: Jesus Christ.

[53:54] Nik Walker: You know, like uh, oh, I left this for you. Um, and again, this movie is is all very, very long takes. It just sits there, it just lets you sit there and watch. Um, and so she picks up this pie, you know, she comes in the door, puts her bags down, whatever, sees the pie, picks up a fork, kind of starts to go at it, starts to go at it more, sits down on the floor and eats the entire pie in one sitting, and then goes and throws up.

[54:19] Alex Smolowe: Like she actually did this.

[54:22] Nik Walker: Just like letting it just letting it go deeper and deeper and deeper, and just desperately struggling, trying to get this food to give her what she was looking for like any kind of of relief to the the trauma she was facing to the you know wow the grief she was struggling with uh and he's standing there in the bed sheet in the background watching as this happens yep um you know not trying to interact just observing and what starts to happen is time starts to become a little bit fractured you know not in terms of jumping back and forth but in terms of all of a sudden the camera will cut around the corner and it'll be a week later and then it'll cut and it'll be two years later.

[55:02] Alex Smolowe: Wow and you watch she bring somebody home after a while and and he kind of the the spirit that he is kind of lashes out you know something falls off a shelf but that's it that's all that happens um and then she packs up she moves on a new family comes in he deals with them before she moves out of the house she writes on a little piece of paper sticks it in the wall and paints over it and he spends the whole movie as this ghost the only thing he does even as time passes is kneel down and scrape at it trying to get to it um just to try to get to to her and that can and what this means that he's been separated from her and and she's gone and and he stays in the house and then the house gets demolished uh near the end and and the city grows up around him and the music I mean the music's amazing um and it all loops back to the beginning again the whole universe kind of resets and loops back and it's just it's a very, very uh it's heady, um, it's it's artful, it's stylish, uh, it's it's very low budget, very like you can tell that that it's a it's a work of uh a work of love, a work of passion.

[56:19] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[56:20] Nik Walker: Um it's just one of those things, man, that just leaves you thinking. You know, it just leaves you in this emotional like swamp where you don't know who you are anymore after you after you've watched it. And yeah, so that that to me makes it a successful ghost story in in that that's that's what you're supposed to be thinking about, right?

[56:39] Alex Smolowe: No, it's I love that.

[56:42] Nik Walker: I think that's so fucking cool. And I and I I just love I love anybody who's trying to push the form. Like I'm I even looked at his I I I was reading uh a review I just went and like kind of scanned a review of his um his Pete's dragon right and and so you know and they're saying that he brought something new to you know he didn't just do the Disney movie that he actually you know right tried to push the and I think that that's what it takes and and especially in a ghost story where you know yeah you could go for the jump scares you go for this but you're you're talking about somebody who's like no let me do an examination of what it means to to lose and what it means to be lost.

[57:22] Alex Smolowe: Completely and it it was interesting as I'm watching it trying to notice the feeling that it gives you right because there's certain things that are that a ghost movie a horror movie even does right there's there's like a you get that anxiety of knowing what's something's gonna happen you know that there it's the whole idea that right in front of you it is not what it seems.

[57:46] Nik Walker: Yeah.

[57:46] Alex Smolowe: Um, and he does that. You know that there is there is that horror. It's just approached from a completely I want to say like humanistic, literary kind of perspective where it's it's the dread of eternity. It's like you're watching this thing just stand in this house as an echo, as and and understanding that he can't go anywhere, right? That that this casual, every you know, everybody's got it. It's this this relationship where you love this person, but you have problems and you're making plans and life's going on, and then to suddenly just be ripped out of it but left in it is just the it's like a hollow feeling that you get.

[58:34] Nik Walker: It's really um it's it's not a fun movie to watch.

[58:40] Alex Smolowe: I would imagine not.

[58:41] Nik Walker: I imagine this is actually a pretty beastly part of it.

[58:45] Alex Smolowe: It is so you can write a book, but the pages will burn. You can sing a song and pass it down, you can write a play and hope that folks will remember it. Keep performing it. You can build your dream house. But ultimately, none of that matters any more than digging your fingers into the ground, a bury it fenced post or fucking.

[59:16] Nik Walker: Which I guess is just about the same thing. It's hard, it's hard if you're willing to get on its level. You could also, you know, it could also put you to sleep or or make you go, huh, whatever.

[59:25] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[59:26] Nik Walker: Um, depends on who you are and and what you like. Uh, but I know for me, you know, trying to engage scene by scene and and break it down and feel what what they're trying to get at. Just that there's such a connection to it that I have. I love that um so a ghost story, David Lowry. Please watch it. Uh like I said, that the performances are amazing. The music is amazing. I'm also looking and seeing that he is directing the new Peter Pan and Wendy.

[59:43] Alex Smolowe: He is.

[59:56] Nik Walker: Yeah, so back to Disney.

[59:57] Alex Smolowe: Back to Disney.

[59:58] Nik Walker: Um and that's always a good sign when they bring you back.

[1:00:01] Alex Smolowe: Um it is.

[1:00:02] Nik Walker: I'm I'm nervous.

[1:00:03] Alex Smolowe: I'm nervous about Peter Pan Man. I there they've never made a pe a good Peter Pan movie.

[1:00:09] Nik Walker: Uh think about how many people have tried.

[1:00:11] Alex Smolowe: I'm going to do that.

[1:00:13] Nik Walker: Why would you say that to me?

[1:00:14] Alex Smolowe: Why would you say that to me?

[1:00:16] Nik Walker: Why would you say that?

[1:00:17] Alex Smolowe: Okay, since Hook.

[1:00:19] Nik Walker: Thank you.

[1:00:19] Alex Smolowe: They've tried. Peter Pan is one of those those things, right? It's in the public domain, so whoever can do whatever with it. And they think, oh, well, everyone knows Peter Pan, so we should we'll do a new take on it. Right?

[1:00:32] Nik Walker: Um and they keep trying. There was the one there was Pan and then there was Peter Pan.

[1:00:42] Alex Smolowe: I d I don't know.

[1:00:42] Nik Walker: I can't even keep track of him. There's the one Hugh Jackman was was Captain Hook. Uh and then the guy who did Beast of the Southern Wild just came out with Wendy trying to put his his spin on it, his kind of artsy, like it's about trying to hang on to childhood, you know, give give power to youth kind of whatever, where the pirates are just people and um I I w I worry every time a Peter Pan movie's gonna come out because I I just think that there's a disconnect.

[1:01:15] Alex Smolowe: Well, I think I think the I think that if you do this right, if you do it right, what what what makes a Peter Pan movie great? I think that people get very bogged down in the fantasy of it. Very or very bogged down in the style of it, right? What is your what is your hook gonna look like? What is your Peter Pan gonna look like? All these things.

[1:01:36] Nik Walker: And I think that to me, what makes the Peter Pan story so wonderful is that idea of it's funny we we just talk about loss, but that idea of childhood found again, right? You have in in Wendy you have a a young woman who you know their her father is trying to for her father and mother trying to force her to grow up, she's not ready to grow up, and Peter Pan is literally personification of don't ever grow up. Don't ever grow up, you know what I mean, and and rebel and and live this adventure. And I think that that is why Hook was so to me is so wonderful, and I know other people disagree with me, but that absolutely hook is that film. I mean it it it inverts it inverts the Peter Pan story a little bit, right? It it it makes what Peter Pan represents something uh, you know, hopeful, Spielbergian.

[1:02:31] Alex Smolowe: But I think I think that's kind of what I think any good Peter Pan story is a story that I I think to be honest with you, I think Peter the success of the Peter Pan story depends on how you draw Wendy. 'Cause because and and also how you like I think that there is a like so many of these Peter Pan movies like I I ha that I've seen have just tried to like do you know make this into like some prestige film and and stuff. Peter Pan is like he's a little anarchist. Like he's crazy.

[1:03:02] Nik Walker: Do you mean Peter?

[1:03:03] Alex Smolowe: Well, right? Like what what does it represent? Like, what is the message of Peter Pan? It's the why. It's like, don't it's it's the imagination, it's the everything is possible, it's rules don't apply, right?

[1:03:14] Nik Walker: Right.

[1:03:14] Alex Smolowe: Well, that's why Hook work because the message of Hook is like you're gonna grow up, and that's okay as long as you keep your little spark, and and that's why like that's that's the message of Hook. But the message of Peter Pan is like get away from the adults.

[1:03:29] Nik Walker: Well, but no, wait, what what the message of Peter because at the end of the day, Wendy returns back to London, right?

[1:03:36] Alex Smolowe: Right.

[1:03:36] Nik Walker: To me, a Peter I think the thing that they miss in Peter Pan is that Peter Pan doesn't go with her.

[1:03:42] Alex Smolowe: No, it's Peter Pan is not a perfect character. Peter Pan, like like, especially in today's context, Peter Pan is actually like like it's almost like he and Hook are actually on kind of the same if I'm telling if I'm telling the Peter Pan movie, I'm telling it through Wendy's eyes. Because Peter Pan and Hook are on the same wavelength of like, yeah, Hook is absolutely on the extreme side of this, but Peter Pan's whole thing is like no, you you shouldn't have to grow up sooner than you want to, which is Hook's thing. But Peter Pan at the same time is like you can't be a kid forever. That's the that's the the tragedy of Peter Pan. That's the heart of it is like Wendy chooses to go grow up. And so it it has to be this choice, right?

Of of yeah, you could live as a kid forever, or you you need to understand that, like, yeah, you're gonna grow up, like you will, and and and facing what that actually means, and and that goes back to you know, the the you know, finding never land, which I think is such a beautiful movie. Um, that that idea of like trying to protect childhood because in adulthood, what does adulthood bring is disease and death and an understanding of the world, and Wendy having to make that choice of yeah, you know what? I I'm I'm not ever gonna become a Captain Hook, but I can't be a Peter Pan forever either. I have to at some point grow up.

[1:05:06] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[1:05:07] Nik Walker: Um so I don't know what they're gonna do, but I think that's I I trust I trust it in this guy's hands.

[1:05:12] Alex Smolowe: Yeah, it's it from what you're telling me. It sounds like uh one of our most talented directors right now that we've got. Very excited for it.

[1:05:19] Nik Walker: Um that all right then ghost story Doctor Sleep, a ghost story. Love it.

[1:05:25] Alex Smolowe: Uh let us let us know what you think it should be. How's our how's our Twitter been doing?

[1:05:30] Nik Walker: I mean, I have not been on the Twitter, actually, so I'm pretty sure our Twitter is dormant.

[1:05:34] Alex Smolowe: So let me off Twitter. I've been off I've been off social media since the insurrection.

[1:05:38] Nik Walker: Yeah, I've not checked once. So you know, guys, yeah, let me you know, tweet at me, and as soon as I as soon as I uh get back on that that Twitter, I will next Twitter, a ghost story.

[1:05:49] Alex Smolowe: Nick's Twitter, a ghost story.

[1:05:50] Nik Walker: But guys, stay safe. Uh, you know, if we don't talk to you before the inauguration, happy inauguration day, uh, you know, don't don't overrun the Capitol.

[1:05:59] Alex Smolowe: Don't do it.

[1:06:00] Nik Walker: Just don't do it.

[1:06:01] Alex Smolowe: Just don't do it.

[1:06:02] Nik Walker: Get some champagne.

[1:06:03] Alex Smolowe: Yeah.

[1:06:03] Nik Walker: Sit back and just sit back and enjoy.

[1:06:07] Alex Smolowe: Enjoy.

[1:06:07] Nik Walker: All right, y'all. Peace.

[1:06:10] Alex Smolowe: Bye.

[1:06:10] Nik Walker: Little Justice.

[1:06:14] Alex Smolowe: Little Justice.

[1:06:17] Nik Walker: Little Justice.

[1:06:20] Alex Smolowe: Fuck yeah.