Peter
00:00-00:06
I mean, it is the sweatiest, dirtiest, stinkiest 1970s movie I've ever seen.

Eden
00:16-00:20
Welcome back to the Middle of Culture. I'm one of your hosts, Eden.

Peter
00:19-00:21
And I am your other host, Peter.

Eden
00:21-00:26
Peter, hello. It's the end of the summer. How's the weather?

Peter
00:26-00:43
Uh it cooled off for a little bit and it was really, really nice. I mean we had a few days that were in the 70s. It was delightful. It was down into the 50s at night, windows open, it was glorious, and now it's like 90 again and it sucks.

Eden
00:43-00:44
Oh boy.

Peter
00:44-00:46
How about you?

Eden
00:44-00:46
Yeah, we have been in the 70s.

Peter
00:46-00:49
Ugh.

Eden
00:46-00:58
We we've been in the 70s. It's been very nice. Um I did just see my my little, you know. Uh running ticker on the bottom said cooler in two days. So I'm like, oh, tell me more.

Peter
00:55-00:58
Ugh. Sounds beautiful.

Eden
00:58-01:02
Yeah, I guess Wednesday we're getting down into the 60s for a few days.

Peter
01:02-01:05
Oh god, I'm so jealous.

Eden
01:02-01:06
So I'll take it. I'll take it.

Peter
01:06-01:18
Although I do want it, I would rather it be a little bit warmer just until the 13th of September because I would like there to be no inclement weather for the upcoming wedding since it is outside up the canyon.

Eden
01:06-01:22
Anyway, Fair. Fair, fair, fair. Anyway, uh, what you been up to?

Peter
01:20-01:47
But You know, n I've been racking my brain trying to think uh how to answer that question that I knew would eventually be coming. And I am coming up. I'm coming up real short. I mean I I'm trying to think maybe I do think I can say since we last recorded I did finish Donkey Kong Bonanza.

Eden
01:35-01:42
Coming up, goose eggs.

Peter
01:47-01:50
Was having a lot of fun with it, finished it.

Eden
01:50-01:51
Mm-hmm.

Peter
01:50-02:37
I'm a little sad that I finished it because now I don't know what to play. But I did finish DK Bonanza and uh that was a great game Went on a little longer than I thought. Didn't feel like it went on too long, and I thought that they had some really smart mechanics at the end, but it was one of those I'd gotten home from work and I thought to myself, you know what? Work sucks and there's lots of bad shit that's going on there between some really stupid ass administration people who, you know, I'll leave it at that. But I thought, I'm just gonna play some Donkey Kong Bonanza. I'm at the end game. I'm in the final boss fight. I'm gonna hurry and finish that up. And so I finished that out, and yeah, that was not even close to the final boss fight. There was quite a bit more of the game to play.

Eden
02:35-03:38
Oh no See, I would have just I would have just stopped watching seven if it was that miserable.

Peter
02:38-03:34
But it was fun. So I finished Donkey Kong Bonanza Because of all this other stuff that's going on in my life right now, I've put pause on uh Wind and Truth just because It's not really a heavy book, but it's a little bit more heavy than what I feel like I can handle right now. Uh we continue to plug away at Taskmaster, I will say series seven. We sort of uh hate watched. We really didn't like any of the three guys who were on it. The two women were delightful. The three guys, one was just a jackass, one was rude, and the other was just super, super weird. And so we kind of I mean, I think there was one day where we watched three episodes back to back because Liz was just like, we need to watch another one so we can be done with this series faster. So we're on series eight, and series eight is a lot more fun.

Eden
03:38-03:39
Just skip.

Peter
03:39-04:23
You know, it wasn't that miserable, but I don't know. So we're on series 8 now. Series 8 contestants, much more enjoyable. We are having a good time watching that again. Um But then I guess the only other thing, and and you know, music, it's been a little weak the last few uh weeks. The one thing that I had texted you about last Friday is a new Deftones album, Private Music. It's good. It's good. I mean, I'm not one of those people who think that the last two Ohms and Gore were terrible. Apparently there are people who felt that way. I think that this feels like a fairly logical continuation of the sound that they were developing on those two albums.

Eden
04:22-04:40
Yeah That was kind of how I felt about it too.

Peter
04:22-04:37
And so uh I I think it's good. My only disappointment is, and this is maybe more of a me thing than an album, it's just not grabbing me. I mean, if I go, oh, maybe I want to listen to it and I'll enjoy listening to it. But I don't find myself going, ooh, I want to listen to that album again.

Eden
04:40-05:12
Um it I listened to it today because you texted me about it and I was like, oh, the Deftones have a new one out. And I listened to it and it wasn't bad. I had a fine time, but I was also talking with my friend at the comic shop about it today because I had it on while I was like working at the comic shop listening to it. And afterwards we were talking and he was like, Oh, I saw you were listening to the new Deftones. What'd you think about it? And I was like, Ah, it's like fine. Like it's not bad, but also they just peeked with around the fur because it was 1997 and it was awesome.

Peter
05:11-05:16
And see, I I'm one of the white pony people who would say that was the peak.

Eden
05:16-05:39
Uh White Pony is very good. Don't don't get it twisted. White Pony's very good, but around the fur is like one of the great like nineties alt rock albums. And then we also started talking about, we were like, well, it does have that song that features quite heavily in that scene from Queen of the Damned, which is one of the great Uh, it's not that good of a movie, but it's great movies that you'll ever see in your life.

Peter
05:39-05:41
Sure, sure.

Eden
05:39-06:01
So And then we were talking about how uh Anne Rice adaptations are often that kind of thing where it's like It's kind of bad, but it's also great. And that's true of her books. Like, that's how I feel about the Vampire Chronicles as a series is They're not very they're kind of bad, but they're great, and I really like them.

Peter
05:53-05:57
There you go.

Eden
06:01-06:04
But what are you gonna do? The vampire Lestot, what a king.

Peter
06:04-06:46
Yeah. Only other thing I'll mention is uh my boys, my boys from the Bay Area testament Favorite thrash metal band, everybody can go on and on, and they can argue about Metallica versus Slayer versus Megadeth And they're all wrong and they're all missing the boat because you know who never turned into a bunch of just like emo mascara wearing shit bags. Testament never did. In 1994, when Metallica was making albums like Load and Reload and You know, Megadeth was doing euthanasia and moving on to cryptic writings and risk.

Eden
06:34-07:55
Yep Nice.

Peter
06:47-07:56
Testament was getting dropped by their record label because they released low their heaviest album with the first time that Chuck Billy broke out his death metal growls and and that was not what the uh record label wanted and testament was just like we don't care we're a metal band fuck you And so I will forever love testament. Well, they have a new album coming out in October, Parabellum, and the first single from that dropped last week as well. And boy howdy, that is a banger of a thrash metal song. If you go into it, know that you are going into just classic thrash metal with, you know, 2020s production. And it's awesome. We've got Insane drums with their um Chris Dovas, their new drummer. You've got Steve DeGiorgio all over the place with his six six-string fretless bass. And you've got Alex Lifeson and Eric Peterson just like trading solos and shredding up a storm. Great album. I mean great open great first track for an album, great single. I think it's gonna be another banger, and that's actually something I'm really excited for. So That's about it for me though. How about you? What you been up to?

Eden
07:56-08:11
Well, before we talk about the stuff I've been into, we should mention the music related thing that happened. That's kind of a bummer. And that is what happened with the former member of Mastodon, whose name I can't think of right now.

Peter
08:09-08:11
Brett Heinz, yep.

Eden
08:11-08:18
Brett Hines. We we talked, I think on a previous episode, we talked about how things broke bad apparently in Mastodon.

Peter
08:18-08:21
Yeah, and and super weird.

Eden
08:18-08:23
And it sounds like, reading through the lines, it sounds like they kicked him out the band.

Peter
08:23-08:58
Yeah, I mean it you kind of get the feeling that there was stuff going on. And I mean now to their credit, I think the band has been the the three remaining members at least in everything I've read, they were very respectful and sort of circumspect. There was never any, it was a, oh, you know. He he's twenty five years in the ba incredible, this that and the other. Couldn't have done it without him. We're so grateful for all this. Uh he apparently did not share that same level of decorum in his behavior since the exit.

Eden
08:54-09:01
No. No, he seemed quite upset about it.

Peter
09:01-09:09
Yeah, yeah, there were some there was some real like shit posting in in essence going on from good old Brett Hines.

Eden
09:09-09:29
Yeah, so he was k he kicked out of the band, it sure seems like. And then just uh last week, I believe it was, uh, was in a high-speed accident on a motorcycle and uh did not Yeah, did not make it out, and that's a bummer.

Peter
09:18-09:25
Yeah, yeah He was on his Harley and got hit by a car.

Eden
09:29-09:40
Um was a rough way rough way for uh his his tenure on this planet and in Mastodon to end, but We'll see.

Peter
09:38-09:38
That's true.

Eden
09:40-09:54
We'll see what happens to the band. You know, I'm not a huge Mastodon listener these days. I my you know my Mastodon era was 15 years ago, but you know They're a band I have a lot of fondness for, um, over the years.

Peter
09:53-10:10
Yeah. And I think for me, you know, Mastodon really had seen a resurgence in the last few years. I think that You know, things like Remission and Leviathan and um Up Through Really Crack the Sky were just phenomenal albums.

Eden
10:10-10:49
Mm-hmm Uh-huh.

Peter
10:11-10:52
And the Hunter and Once More Round the Sun were kind of okay. The one after that Empi Emperor of Sand, I think. That one was starting to get a little bit better, but yeah, their last album, Hushed and Grim, I really, really like it. I mean, I think I talked about it on this a few years back when it came out. It was one of my top albums, I think, of that year. And uh sad to kind of have them, at least this era of the band, end and then have such an unfortunate s uh coda to to everything that had happened with. I mean it really had. Mastodon had been these four guys so since its inception. So it is a bummer.

Eden
10:49-11:09
It's a real bummer. But, you know, it is what it is. We can only hope that, you know, his family finds peace and that uh The band is able to figure out what they want to do now, uh, as a three-piece or whether they replace him or what all is gonna end up happening with the uh with the group.

Peter
11:09-11:31
Well, I know that they've actually had some live shows, so they've got a another guitarist who is at least hired on as a touring guitarist and They had been doing some some live shows without him with an extra person. So maybe they're geared up to at least continue, but uh it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Eden
11:23-13:13
Okay, well we will have to see. Um Yeah. Uh anyway, uh I guess I could talk about what I've been up to. Uh also not a ton. It's been busy. The semester has bit has started. Um it's been Trainapalooza at work. We've been doing like multiple trainings a week, um, and which is not bad, but it just takes time and energy and effort and all that sort of stuff. And also, you know, as I've been working more and more on accessibility stuff, one of the things that has come up from specifically math and sciences instructors is, okay, well, I use this markdown language called LaTeX, which is spelled LaTeX. Don't worry about it. You don't say the X because it was made by an idiot who gave it a stupid name. But you call it LaTeX or LaTeX, even though it's got an X. And we do it, we use this markup language to or this markdown language to, you know, n create uh chemical formulae or mathematical formulae or all these sorts of things. But how do we make them accessible? We got these LaTeX documents that we then can convert to a PDF, but then they're not super accessible PDFs. So I have gone down a rabbit hole trying to figure out how to make LaTeX documents more accessible. And Peter, when I tell you. I have three I you and I, we're both we I think we both kind of consider ourselves techies or have been techies in the past, even if we're not like It's been a while since I've messed with a Linux distro. You know, the last time was like a year and a half, two years ago when I tried to set up a Plex server using an old laptop I installed Linux on. And Plex didn't really play well with the Linux distro. And I was like, I could figure this out or I could give up. And I gave up and I haven't really touched it since.

Peter
13:13-13:14
That's fair.

Eden
13:14-13:15
It happens.

Peter
13:15-13:16
It does, it does.

Eden
13:15-13:31
It happens. You know, I spent my time in the Linux mines, all this sort of stuff. I used to use Ubuntu or other, you know, Linux distros a fair amount. I used to carry around a thumb drive that had DSL on it so I could plug it into any computer and use it.

Peter
13:31-13:33
There you go.

Eden
13:32-13:33
Loser shit.

Peter
13:33-13:37
Lee hacker skills.

Eden
13:33-13:57
But anyway. Loser shit. But anyway, um when I tell you, I have had to install three separate programs. All of which don't have GUIs and make me go to the command line to run them in 2025 on a Windows device motherfucker?

Peter
13:57-13:59
Yeah, that's rough. That's rough.

Eden
13:58-14:15
Excuse me, Pandoc! Excuse me, Pandoc! You are great at converting different markup languages to other markup languages, but you can't put a GUI together so I can click a button? I gotta open the command line and remember what commands to type in?

Peter
14:11-14:29
So So here's my only experience with Pandoc is obviously I I've been using it on a Mac and I installed it via Homebrew, which is all through the command line.

Eden
14:15-14:18
Are you fucking kidding me, dawg?

Peter
14:28-14:40
Just so that then I can have the Pandoc plugin in Obsidian, which takes care of all of the command line bullshit for me, and I can just export something Correct, right.

Eden
14:37-14:39
Because Obsidian has a gooey.

Peter
14:40-14:55
I can use Obsidian's GUI to access the Pandoc plugin. So all I had to do was set it up via homebrew on the command line to make sure everything was good. And then I was like. No, I'm I'm I'm good. Thank you. I'm good.

Eden
14:55-15:59
Well, Mictech does not offer that, but it gives you a big button to open the command line, to open the command panel. It's like here, click this button to open the command line, and you're like You could just put a real button that so I don't have to remember how to do this, motherfuckers. But anyway, uh I have felt like a hacker derogatory over the last few days of I've had as I've had to dig into using command line prompts again. And then when it was all said and done, like figuring out Pandoc and then okay I gotta use Pandoc to switch things from P from LaTeX to HTML because I cannot make a PDF version. that is accessible because I don't know if I've said it here, but I've said it in a million meetings. PDFs are the world's worst file format. And if I could go back in time and kill John Adobe so that we don't have to use PyOP uh PDFs anymore, I'd do it. Um, I hate them. The world could w could not move on from the PDF fast enough for me. I genuinely hate them with my whole soul.

Peter
15:57-16:01
Sure. No, I support I support that rage.

Eden
15:59-16:13
Um And not just from an accessibility standpoint, because I think that they're bad, they are old, they are rife with Trojan horse possibilities in ways that other file formats simply are not, regardless.

Peter
16:13-16:23
You know, just as As an aside, I would say that it really feels like, okay, I'm not a conspiracy theorist.

Eden
16:13-16:15
They're also inaccessible.

Peter
16:24-16:51
But the fact that we're still using fucking PDFs in 2025 really makes me sit here and say, surely somebody has come up with a better alternative. That is being buried somewhere. Like, you know, the Adobe ninjas snuck in and assassinated these motherfuckers in their sleep or something, because why are we still using PDFs?

Eden
16:51-16:52
I'll tell you why.

Peter
16:51-17:04
Why There we go.

Eden
16:53-17:17
I'll tell you why. Bribery Because they gave the government money in the 90s to keep the government on PDF. Because the government was going to move to dot-dock for everything. And then the Adobe paid them off. And so when the government said the PDF was still the standard, then the banks used PDF.

Peter
17:14-17:21
Bastards.

Eden
17:17-17:32
And if the government and the banks are using PDFs, so are you, dipshit. And therefore, in 2025, we are still using the PDF. And it is because they paid people off back in the Clinton administration to keep us on the PDF.

Peter
17:32-17:34
Rat bastards.

Eden
17:32-17:44
So it's not even it is a conspiracy, but it's not even interesting enough that they like killed someone. They just opened up the checkbook and bribed some Congresspeople, you know, the legal way.

Peter
17:44-18:27
Son of a bitch Oh, that's that's horse shit.

Eden
17:44-19:01
But anyway, so anyway, we're still on PDFs. Um they suck. And so I would have to like use Pandoc to change the LaTeX to an HTML, and then I would have to use Mathjacks to and to get a line of code that I would then have to open up an HTML editor, add that line of code, and then host that HTML somewhere. And then a screen reader could read those equations until Tuesday when the new edition of Mathjacks came out and they were like You don't get this for free anymore. Now you need to pay us if you want to make your things accessible. And I was like, are you kidding me right now? I have spent I have spent two weeks trying to figure out a free solution to make LaTeX documents accessible because I know people are asking for that and I know that we need it. And what it came down to was no, we need to just go pay Aquatio, which is better than Mathjacks, and is a company that we already have. an existing contract with for a different product. We just need to go give them ten thousand dollars a year to get an institutional license for Equatio, which'll turn those LaTeX documents into usable PDFs in one click on a GUI.

Peter
18:54-18:58
Douchies.

Eden
19:01-19:06
Anyway, that's been my work complaint corner.

Peter
19:02-19:03
There you go.

Eden
19:07-19:23
Don't use PDFs. If you make the document yourself, just keep it as a doc or a P or a PowerPoint or an Excel. Just give people that. Because then it's still accessible. Don't change it to a PDF. Anyway, I don't remember what I was even talking about. What did I do this week? Uh that's what I've been doing at work.

Peter
19:22-19:24
That's what you've been doing.

Eden
19:23-19:33
Um what have what else have I been engaging with? I have been reading a fair amount. I finished vo volume 10 of the apothecary diaries at 3. 30 this morning when I couldn't sleep.

Peter
19:33-19:34
Okay.

Eden
19:34-23:10
Uh book's still good. Still a very good book series. I like it a lot. Um highly recommended if you want something that's a little light but also has really good characterization and uh fun cast of characters. Uh so highly recommended. I like it a lot. I have book 15 comes out like later this month, so I still got five more to go. 16 is currently releasing in Japanese, but has not started its translation, so we're still cooking. We're still cooking. Um what else? I have also been reading um a comic called Azumanga Dayo, um, which is very much in the vein of some of these other comics I've read this year and talked a lot about loving like Nichijo, like City. It's about like a group of kids. It's a very slice of life, but like kind of funny slice of life, less absurd, like less out of left field absurd than like Nietzsche or City is. But still like, hey, it's a group of kids in high school. You know, you've got Sakaki who is like really big and tall and strong, but like just really wants every animal to love her and she's just like the strong silent type with this heart of gold and you've got Chio who's like a fourth grader who's smart enough to go to high school and so she's like this 10-year-old in their class. And all these other kids in the class, whatever. And I'm really enjoying it. It's really fun. It's by uh the guy who did Yatzba and, which is a comic I read the first couple volumes of I really like it. It's another slice of life. that I think is really, really in exceptional. This one is, you can tell it, you can tell it's an earlier work. You can tell this is a work from the 90s. by some of the choices that it's making in terms of the types of jokes that it's telling. And it is, you know, like there's there's one of the teachers at the high school is like kind of a perv. And he's like always excited about the girls having to get in their gym clothes. And it's like, why? Why are you doing this? Why is this the whenever he shows up on the panel, I'm like, oh fuck, we're gonna get like Two com f two panels in a row. Like two. The other thing is the book is structured in a series of four comas or like uh strips essentially. They're like four panel strips. And basically nearly every chapter is just a collection of four-panel strips, with occasional ones that have more dynamic panel choices and more long-form storytelling. But when he shows up, you're like, oh, I'm gonna get like three or four, four coma in a row about this asshole teacher. Great. Not excited about it. But like it's pretty good. I'm enjoying it pretty well. Um, but it did make me like appreciate Nietzsche and City that much more because like it traffics in a lot of the same sorts of things. It is about this quirky group of kids at school and the funny things that they get up to. But A, it is it is far more absurdist rather than more just like, hey, jokey jokey slice of life. But B, it just avoids a lot of the like weird trappings. that especially 90s anime and manga, I feel like really fell into a lot. And part of that's because it's a little older. I mean, Nietzsche was done in the 2000s, City was done largely in the 2010s, but like that's not that big of a difference. It's not that big of a time difference. So it did just make me, while I'm enjoying Azumanga Dayo quite a bit, it does make me appreciate Nietzsche and City that much more. Um and then I guess the last thing I'll mention, I'm gonna go back to music, I guess. I'll take us back to the music zone simply because it's somewhat related to what we're gonna be talking about tonight. I've you know what I've been listening to a lot of the last few days? Tangerine dream.

Peter
23:08-23:17
Tangerine dream.

Eden
23:10-23:22
You know who's cool as hell? Tangerine dream. What's what's better? What's better than listening to some weird German synth music, man? It's good.

Peter
23:21-23:23
There you go.

Eden
23:23-23:45
It's real good. I have been really going in on some of their early seven like 70s and early 80s stuff. Hyperborea, Tangram, Force Majure. Lots of really, really great stuff, as well as listening to the soundtrack for the film we'll be talking about tonight. So I guess is this our segue? Unless you have something also to say about Tangerine Dream and why they're so cool.

Peter
23:44-24:58
I so I don't have something to say about Tangerine Dream now. It's gonna tie into when we get to the main topic. There's one thing that I guess I I I will mention it now because it really has. I have officially launched this, and that is uh it is I have titled it Imperfect Practice. Uh I have a new blog and newsletter. uh imperfect-practice dot com. And the purpose of this was I've been doing some writing and I've written some things on like a medium blog and And it kind of felt like I wanted some focus to what I was writing. And so I came up with this idea. And the whole idea behind it is it's just sort of. I spend a lot, probably too much time going down rabbit holes on say YouTube and stuff of Whether it's productivity tools or workflows and things like that. And one of the things that constantly bothers me and and really drives me crazy is when I will see a video or an article that is like these five journaling prompts are all you'll ever need to perfect your life. Whatever. You know, just but you know what kind of bullshit I'm talking about, right?

Eden
24:58-26:53
Oh, do I ever I actually I actually realized the other day we've been doing it for three and a half years.

Peter
24:59-26:54
Or, you know, this is the only way to manage your tasks for the rest of your life. And I I see those things and I think to myself, you're either a liar, a charlatan, or a snake oil salesman. And maybe a little bit of each. And so what I decided is look, I've tried a lot of different things over my life. I've used a number of different productivity systems and task managers and I've journaled in a number of different ways. And what I wanted was a space for me to explore the things I have tried, to share what works for me and why. and to hopefully encourage other people to to do the same, to be willing to experiment in their lives. I had sort of a revelation uh when I first was reading the book uh Tiny Experiments by Anne Laure LeConf And and I kind of shared it on here, I think when we talked about it, but it really was I I came to this understanding that a significant portion of the burnout that I've been feeling in my life. is in part because of just the nature of my profession, in that, for obvious reasons, I can't really experiment. I can't do something and say, hey, let's try this. There's a 50-50 chance this is going to work. You know, I kind of have to say, hey, here's what the guidelines have said we should do, and here's what the the peer-reviewed, you know, evidenced stuff says we should do. And I think it was that That inability to really express myself creativ creatively. I mean, honestly, I realized I think that that's part of the reason why I I wanted uh to start this podcast was Just to try something new, try something different that, you know, maybe it was gonna suck and we weren't gonna be able to do it. And I think we've done a great job and we've been doing it for, you know, over two and a half years now. But Um so that's what imperfect practice is. Is it three and a half?

Eden
26:54-26:56
It's three and a half years.

Peter
26:55-27:02
Geez. I should yeah, for some reason I was thinking it was less than that, but I think but you know, you are absolutely correct. So there we go.

Eden
27:01-27:10
That's what I said. What I said it when we were s doing our like wrap up year last year. I said best of two years, but it was three. We've been doing this a long time.

Peter
27:09-27:11
Wow. What about?

Eden
27:11-27:13
Well, I'm excited to check out your new blog.

Peter
27:13-27:19
So yeah, so there's a blog, like I say, and I'll put links in the show notes, imperfect-practice.

Eden
27:13-27:14
Sounds fun.

Peter
27:20-28:45
com. There is a newsletter you can sign up for. I'm keeping it, I'm trying not to overwhelm. Basically what it is is it's going to be two articles a week. There's one longer article that's about some topic that's been interesting me. Uh the one that got published this morning was looking at um just sort of my thoughts on e Inc and why I'm a fan of e Inc. devices and some of the advantages I think that e Inc. has. Um then I do at the end of the week and so tomorrow the the next one will go out, which is just sort of my week wrap up. It's A very short article that is uh some of the things that I enjoyed this last week or things that worked for me, and then kind of one thing that didn't work, because that's the other thing is I want to be honest, I want to be transparent and not only talk about things that I find that work, but if I try something that doesn't doesn't work, then I want to talk about that. There is actually an accompanying new YouTube channel. One of the things I wanted to learn is I wanted to learn how to do more video editing. So I've started There is a YouTube channel that has videos that it's not the exact same. I do rewrite. I basically the way I go through is I write the article first as an article. And then I'll take it and I'll adapt it to like a video script, then sort of cut it down and make it more streamlined, something that I think flows better on camera. And so I thought, I don't know, it would be fun for something that I wanted to try, something that I wanted to play around with. And uh if people want to check it out, that would be great and I'd appreciate it.

Eden
28:45-28:59
Very cool. All right, let's talk. The main event tonight. Dear listeners, um It was one of those times where I was like, what's something that I wanted to that I've wanted to watch for a while?

Peter
28:58-28:59
Mm-hmm.

Eden
28:59-29:06
Because I know I didn't want to do something that was like too onerous, too time consuming. I was like a movie. Two hours. Easy.

Peter
29:06-30:46
Sure Oh, yeah.

Eden
29:06-30:47
Easy peasy mac and cheesy in and out. What's something I've wanted to walk f watch for a while? And I was talking with some friends. And a movie came up and I was like, you know, I've never seen that movie before, but I I've heard good things. It seems like a thing I would be into. It has a really like It didn't it wasn't very popular when it came out. It didn't get really great critical reception uh release, but has been really heavily reappraised and has gone from like kind of a cult classic to just like A film people talk about as like in the canon of films from this era. And so, dear listeners, I had Peter and I watch uh William Friedman's 1977 film, Sorcerer. And I will be up front, dear listeners. I I chose this movie because I thought I would like it. Spoiler alert, it's great. It is a hell of a movie. It is two hours of just incredible cinema. But I was talking with Peter about it yesterday. He texted me. He was like, I haven't gotten to the movie yet. I'm I'm gonna get to it tonight. We can record tomorrow. And I was like, cool, that's great. I'm gonna warn you up front. I really liked this movie and I don't think you're going to like it. So I told him that before he got to it. I also told him to go in blind. I told him to not look up anything about the film. I said, Have you ever heard of the movie Sorcer? And he said, No. And I said, Don't look up anything. That's what we're watching. But then as I was thinking about it, I was like There's a certain world-weary nihilism to this film that I know Peter likes when it comes to other things. I you love a good metal album that's about how the world sucks and it's never getting any better.

Peter
30:46-30:48
Oh, totally.

Eden
30:48-31:05
And that is essentially the thesis of the movie Sorcerer. And so I thought, well. I think there's a 60-40 chance that maybe he was like, this is a pretty good and brutal movie about the nihilism of everyday life. So Peter, how did you find the movie Sorcerer?

Peter
31:05-31:09
This is a heavy movie. This is a heavy movie.

Eden
31:07-31:16
It's real heavy.

Peter
31:10-31:20
This is a movie that is a little bit too heavy for where I'm at personally right now, but but Let me tell you something.

Eden
31:16-31:42
Fair It's so good.

Peter
31:20-33:03
You asked if I was familiar with this movie, and I said no. I am a lying son of a bitch. I had not seen this movie, but as I am watching this movie, this movie, let me tell you, the movie Sorcerer from 1977 ends in an absolute fever dream. But it's but it started with my own personal fever dream. I am watching this movie and I am hearing the Tangerine Dream soundtrack. And I am like, okay, there is some other movie that's the exact same story that had a Tangerine Dream soundtrack. There must have been. What was this? And I started digging into it. I paused the movie and I'm digging into it and I'm like, no. It is this movie. When I was but a wee little lad, my cousin Jeff, his dad Mike, had the soundtrack to this movie on vinyl. And I used to listen to this when I was at Jeff's house during the summer while our mom was at work, and I remember being so fascinated by this concept. of these rickety old trucks driving across this shoddy ass bridge full of dynamite that's gonna blow up if they bounce. And I wanted to see this movie so bad, but I never did. But I've known about this movie since I was like five years old, and I've wanted to watch it ever since I learned about it, and it turns out that this movie that I I thought it was some other movie, but no, it was this movie that I've had lurking in the back of my mind for 40 plus years. And I finally got to watch it.

Eden
33:03-33:08
And it's heavy, but it's also real it's real good cinema.

Peter
33:05-33:10
It's heavy. It is an interesting movie.

Eden
33:08-33:23
It is Who Yeah.

Peter
33:10-33:23
I will say this. I did not love it But I did not hate it at all. And I was very much like very invested in it. Like it grip it grabs you by the throat and it does not let go.

Eden
33:23-33:28
No, it does not.

Peter
33:24-33:52
So it was I liked it better than I thought I was going to at the very beginning and it didn't take very long until again I was fully in because all of this came rushing back from when I was a a child, this fascination with this movie and and this wanting to watch it, but never like knowing more about this movie than I've known about a lot of movies, but never having seen it. It was a very, very bizarre experience to finally watch.

Eden
33:53-34:05
I bet. That's interesting. That's really, really interesting. Well, yeah I I agree with you that it is heavy. That it is like it is not e like it is not breezy cinema at all.

Peter
34:05-35:12
Oh gosh no I mean it was a downer, but but watching it as a watching it is a real experience.

Eden
34:05-35:46
Like it is it is unsparing. It is the Oh my god, the scene on the bridge is some of the most tense filmmaking I have watched in a minute. Like, i it is twelve minutes of you holding your breath and sitting on the edge of your seat, and it's It's electric. I I have n few movies make you feel that way when you're watching them where you are uh the anxiety is building inside of you because you don't know what's gonna happen. And the way that it leaves it kind of ambiguous during certain parts of it, especially the very end of that scene where you're like, did they Did that truck make it or not? Which we'll get into we'll get into as we disc as I do a plot breakdown of the film, but I was, yeah, it was one of those ones that I was as delighted as I'd hoped that I would be when I picked it. So I'm glad that you also like like found value in watching it and you weren't just like. That was a pretty big bummer, Eden. You picked a you picked a real downer, bud. Cause I did. It's a downer It's a downer. Uh but William Freakid makes a good movie, is the thing. He's a good filmmaker, and he did a good one. Uh anyway, so Sorcerer is the poorly named 1977 uh Multiple times.

Peter
35:26-35:46
In fact, can I just say there is literally only one scene where you can vaguely make out the word sorcer on the side of one of the trucks? You can visibly read the name Lazaro of the other truck at least ten times more than you can read the near the name Sorcerer on the one truck.

Eden
35:47-36:10
Multiple times. Yeah. Ugh. It's it's a weird choice. And and it's so subtle that like when I was talking about it with my friend at the comic shop today, and I was like, oh man, it's such a banger. And talking about how I'm, you know, spoiler alerts for a 40-plus year old movie at this point, sorcery is the one that bl I'm like, yeah, it's named Sorcerer after the truck that blows up. And he's like.

Peter
36:09-36:12
Yeah.

Eden
36:10-36:14
No, sorcerer is the one that lives. And I'm like, no, dog.

Peter
36:12-36:16
Nope. Lazarus the one that lives.

Eden
36:14-36:33
Victor. Yeah, Lassaro is the one that lives. Jackie's truck is the one that lives. Victor and Cossum's truck is the one that explodes and that's the one that's named Sorcerer. And he was like, fuck, you're right. Yeah, like I had completely gotten that wrong. Because it's a terrible name for a movie.

Peter
36:33-36:35
Yes, it is, it really is.

Eden
36:34-37:17
It has nothing to do with it. When I heard of this movie for the first time, I thought it was gonna be like I thought this was Excalibur, which is if you've never dear listeners, if you've never seen nineteen eighty one's Excalibur, go watch nineteen eighty one's Excalibur. That's a banger film. Very nearly what I picked for this week, but I was like, I've seen Excalibur, but I've never seen Sorcerer. Because I wanted to plumb the 70s or 80s, because this is my favorite time. We've talked about it. It's my favorite time period for film. Um it's a terrible name because it does not evoke in the viewer what that name seems to imply. Like it does not You expect this to be some sort of fantasy thing, and no, it is just like hard scrabble drama action.

Peter
37:17-37:24
I mean, it is the sweatiest, dirtiest, stinkiest 1970s movie I've ever seen.

Eden
37:21-37:21
Oh.

Peter
37:24-37:33
I mean, you can smell We have, but I mean this is just sweaty and filthy to a whole nother level.

Eden
37:24-37:28
And we've seen we've seen we have watched some sweatys.

Peter
37:34-37:43
Just Like you can smell the dead animals, the chickens, the bio, and the cigarette smoke through the screen just pouring off of it.

Eden
37:34-37:50
It truly is. Yeah. Uh uh apparently it was a miserable filming experience, and boy does it seem like it.

Peter
37:50-37:51
Oh god, I believe it.

Eden
37:51-38:02
It sure seems like it. Anyway, I'm gonna do a quick breakdown of what happens in this movie. If you have not seen it yet, listeners, go watch this movie, because it's really something to watch.

Peter
38:01-38:03
Hey look, guess what?

Eden
38:02-38:03
But here's what happens.

Peter
38:03-38:11
Guess what? You can find this. I don't know where you watched this, Eden. Did you know that it is all up in 1080p on YouTube?

Eden
38:11-38:13
Hell yeah. That's not how I watched it.

Peter
38:12-38:27
The Yeah, it's all out there.

Eden
38:13-38:36
I downloaded a 4K uh Blu-ray rip of it, but uh or maybe a ten eightyp blip rip blu it was a Blu-ray rip of some ilk. Uh but that's cool that it's on uh YouTube in its entirety. It's a cool movie. I I I very nearly like when I finished it I was like Should I watch the Wages of Fear right now?

Peter
38:27-38:29
There's no excuse to not watch it.

Eden
38:36-38:54
Should I just cue up the movie that is also that this is basically like a rerun at adapting the movie or the book of? I very nearly did, because apparently that movie's also banger. Like one of the greats of s French cinema. But I did not because it was like two and a half hours and I was like, that's just long enough. I think I'm not gonna do that.

Peter
38:53-38:55
Yeah. Yep.

Eden
38:55-40:59
Anyway, so Sorcerer, based on the French novel The Wages of Fear, by Georges Arnaud. Uh Considered a remake of the 53 film, but in many respects a very different creature of its own. Um, it is a story of these four dudes who find themselves basically trapped. in this kind of unnamed Latin American village and their opportunity to try to make a lot of money, the life-changing amount of money, to maybe get out of the situation that they're in. The movie opens with four quick vignettes that basically introduce us to our four main characters and let us know kind of who they are and why they're in this terrible position. Starts off with an assassination in Veracruz. Nilo, this man, walks into a uh uh hotel room, shoots a guy with a silenced pistol, and then walks out. That's it Second uh vignette. It cuts to Palestinian resistance fighters blowing up a bomb in Jerusalem and then getting caught, one of them getting away. After make blowing up a bomb. Number three, you meet Victor, who is this German man living in France, works for his wife's company, his wife is some his wife's uh family's company. His wife's dad is like a baron or duke or some shit. Like aristocracy, old money stuff. He is married into this family. He's clearly done some shady stuff with the business. He is trying to convince his brother-in-law to get the dad to bail them out. The brother-in-law is like, he's not gonna, he's not gonna. They're trying to get this all figured out over the course. They've got 24 hours from the uh the like government people or whatever. The brother shows up, he's like, I talked to dad, my dad, he's not gonna do anything. He's like, go talk to your dad again. And so the brother then goes to his car and commits suicide in the car, just in the parking lot of the restaurant where, you know, Victor is having lunch with his wife.

Peter
40:52-40:55
Yep, blows his brains out.

Eden
40:59-42:12
And so he goes back in, tells the mater D to tell his wife he had a business call, and just starts trucking it down the road. And that is the last we see of Victor for a fair amount of time. And then we cut to Jackie, who is a dude from the Irish mob who hits a Catholic church that is allied with the Italian mob for Bingo money. It goes poorly because one of the dudes shoots one of the priests who's back there counting money, who happens to be the priest brother of the mob boss. Um, they get in a car wreck as they're driving away, like a really catastrophic car wreck where Jackie is the only survivor. He escapes, he meets up with one of his friends, and his friend is like, yo. That priest is the brother of the mob boss, so you gotta get out of here. And basically tells him to go to Baltimore, go to the pier, tell them your name tell them like talk to this person, don't say my name. We never spoke and we'll never speak again. And then it opens on them in this village called Pormenir, um, somewhere in Central America, South America. It's mostly filmed in the Dominican Republic, but it's really loosey-goosey with where it's taking place.

Peter
42:08-42:15
Let's say it seems like Central America, because they keep talking about going to Managua, which is in Nicaragua.

Eden
42:15-42:17
That's true.

Peter
42:15-42:19
So I just assumed Central America because Managua came up.

Eden
42:17-43:39
It's probably like ni yeah, Nicaragua or El Salvador, somewhere in there. Um basically they are all work all three of these dudes, not Nilo, he's not there yet, but Jackie and Victor and Cosim are all working as day laborers. Barely scraping by. This is a town you can only get into and out of basically by plane, but that means you gotta afford a plane ticket. And none of them are making enough money to afford a plane ticket. All of them have fake documentation, because this is the 70s, and apparently you could do that a lot easier. Um Uh so the three of them are working, um, trying to make ends meet, trying to raise enough money to do anything that is not just day labor. Um they eventually start meeting up with this other guy who's going uh he's a German dude going under the name Marques. It's fairly loosely implied that maybe he's a Nazi who's on the run because he's an older German guy in the 70s. So we can put pieces together here. Um they the there is a big US conglomerate that is uh that is drilling for oil. And they have a huge fire at one of their oil drills. And so they need to take or they need to get dynamite to that oil well to put out the fire. Because apparently that's how it works. I don't know.

Peter
43:38-43:47
You know, all I remember is when the whole Kuwait thing went off back in the nineties and there were oil wells there that were going up.

Eden
43:39-43:41
I don't know shit about shit.

Peter
43:47-43:56
That that was the idea, that if you create a big enough explosion right where it's burning, that it'll pull the oxygen away and stop the the flame, I think is what it is.

Eden
43:56-44:19
Regardless, they need to blow up the fire at the oil well. But this company was lazy because it's a multi- it's a American multinational who's like doing things shadily in Central America somewhere, and they didn't store the dynamite well, so it's leaching nitroglycerin. So it is extremely like liable to explode.

Peter
44:17-44:20
Yeah, very, very unstable.

Eden
44:19-45:28
But the guy who runs this the guy who runs this oil well is like, is there any way that we can, you know, put off like getting some new stuff here? And the guys who run the company are like, look. You get it out, you start this well up again, or we shut you down and we all go home. So he's like, well, we're not gonna do that. They explore different options for ways to get the nitroglycerin, uh the nitroglycerin leaching dynamite. The only way that they can figure is if they get some big trucks. Load three boxes in each truck that are like, you know, uh carefully placed in sand so that they won't move too much, and then drive the 218 miles. from where the dynamite was stored to where the oil well is. They put out a call in the town to uh find drivers. All our main characters are the four people who are good enough drivers to make it. Jackie, Victor, Marcus, and Kasim. During this time, Nilo has shown up and he's like dressed better than everyone else in town. He seems like he has money. It's kind of weird. No one can figure out who he is or why he's there.

Peter
45:28-45:35
Quick question. Do we do we know why? Because that was never clear to me. Okay.

Eden
45:35-47:29
No, it is not clear, especially in the American cut. Apparently, I did a a fair amount of reading about this. The international cut, specifically the German cut. There are s there's like 15 extra minutes. So it's a half an hour shorter, but there's 15 minutes of footage that is not in the theatrical cut Which is weird. It's very weird. It sounds like a much worse cut of the film, much less interesting. But in this uh Nilo kind of apparently explains why he's there. But those are scenes that clearly Friedkin didn't want in the final film, and that one of the post hoc editors making the German edited version. Added back in, which really is just interesting to me how much of a movie is built in the edit bay. But anyway, we never find out why Nilo's there or what he's doing. But at the last second, as they're getting ready to depart, Marquez is dead. And so the guy from the oil company is like, well, we gotta call the cops here. And uh Jackie is like, no, we need four drivers. This guy's here. I'm just gonna take this guy because he was like one of the other folks who drove for it. Even though they all know he killed Marquez. But whatever. They take him with. So they split into two trucks that they there was some very cool scenes of them assembling these trucks from basic like Parts of other trucks. These are like old 50s trucks that they're building together from bits and pieces. One of them has Lazaro painted across the uh front of it, as we said. That is the one that Jackie and Nilo are going to be driving. The other one that they will be going 15 minutes behind them, the one that Victor and Kasim are driving, says sorcerer underneath the uh the doors on either side. Um they load the uh the dynamite in, they go on their way.

Peter
47:26-47:35
And and I just that's a really I think there are a lot of things that are very effective in this movie at building the tension.

Eden
47:29-47:30
Go ahead.

Peter
47:36-48:20
And this scene is one of those because you can see them painstakingly. They've got each box. And they've got this little sling of rope hooked up and then they're hanging it, and instead of just carrying it from the hut they're in to the trucks, they then like kind of pull it on this pulley system so that it's less likely to bump something that's gonna jostle it enough. So I I thought it was I wanted to bring that up because again, it was a really cool moment of it's building the tension of how precarious the situation is. It also at other points when you see the trucks bouncing your ground, you're like, well then how are they not all exploding? But whatever. Willing suspension of disbelief to a certain degree.

Eden
48:17-49:06
Yeah. Absolutely. Um, they get on their way. There is a bunch of nasty things that happen. You know, uh there's a very tense scene where Victor and Cossum's truck is going along this like kind of corner bridge built out of uh wood and it's very very tense. Uh one of the br like one of the uh um beams breaks So one of the front tires goes through it, but they're able to like push up and keep going, and the the dually wheels on the back don't then fall into the same hole. They're able to barely make it. There's a really weird scene where there are some indigenous folks like running a la there's this one particular indigenous dude.

Peter
49:03-49:06
Yeah. It's so weird.

Eden
49:06-49:52
Apparently, apparently this is like a really pivotal scene in both the book and the French film Wages of Fear. Um so that is why it's there but I didn't understand that scene at all. Like why is he running in front of them and like kind of acting like a weird Faye spirit sort of thing? And then just like sits down and laughs as they continue driving. It's weird. Um but then we get to the big like set piece, the thing that cost a fifth of the budget of the movie and most of the shooting time, which is this, as I said, 12-minute scene. where there's this terrible torrential rainpour or downpour. They are on this fairly narrow road that's down this heav big hill, they get to the bottom, and then there's a wooden and rope suspension brick.

Peter
49:52-50:00
And I think it's important I think it's important to note that before this we'd had a scene where the road forks.

Eden
49:53-50:00
That they have to drive go ahead.

Peter
50:01-50:06
And Jackie wants to take the fort to the right, which would sound like it would be kind of the high ground.

Eden
50:01-50:06
Yes.

Peter
50:07-50:34
And Victor's like, no, the map says we go down here, we got to go down here. And Jackie's like. Yeah, but it's gonna be easier up here, it's gonna be safer, and and Victor's like, nope, we have to go down here. So they've gone down this. And the scene as they get to the bridge is it's torrential rain, like you said, and they're going down a fairly steep hill. They get to the bottom of this and anybody who's tried to drive in mud or snow or anything looks at it and goes, Ain't no way those trucks are going back up there. Impossible.

Eden
50:34-50:38
No, there no, there's no way they can turn around.

Peter
50:35-50:40
They have no choice. The only option at this point is to cross the bridge.

Eden
50:40-51:09
Yep, it's nasty. Um, and so they do in one of the most harrowing scenes you'll see in a minute. Both of them are able to make it across the bridge. Both of them, what they've had to do is one person is driving the truck while the other person is basically walking across the bridge to try to guide them. Because there are parts where the tires would go where it's a bit thicker. Um, and so hopefully they'll make it there.

Peter
51:09-51:14
Oh yeah.

Eden
51:10-51:29
C The bridge is real rickety and apparently in real life those trucks fell off that bridge multiple times during the filming of those shots. Those bridges went or those trucks went in that water a lot of times, apparently. Uh also, this was a fun thing to find out. Almost all the driving was done by the actual actors.

Peter
51:28-51:30
Wow, that's wild!

Eden
51:30-51:47
They had they had stunt cast like stunt crew for this film that did nothing. Because in those scenes where it is the actor directing the other actor to drive across the bridge, that was the actual actor directing the other actor to drive across an actual bridge.

Peter
51:45-51:49
Jeez, that's crazy.

Eden
51:48-51:51
Uh is there any question why this was a miserable film to make?

Peter
51:50-51:51
Yeah, none at all.

Eden
51:51-54:30
Um Jackie and Nilo get across first. It is very precarious, but they're able to do so. Victor and Kossim get their second. It is even more precarious than the first one. And at the very last minute, you see the uh Ropes snap and so it leaves it pretty ambiguous whether or not the truck sorcerer is able to make it or not. So at that point I was like, oh, it's cooked. Like that that truck's gone. But no, they're okay. They keep going, and then there is an enormous tree that has fallen across the road. And so they're like, Oh, well, now we're fucked. Like this is a ten foot across tree, like enormous tree. Um, but thankfully Qasim knows a bit about explosives thanks to his time as a Palestinian freedom fighter who made bombs. And he figures out how to improvise uh an explosive device, essentially. They take one of the crates, uh, because The be the reason there's two trucks going is they know they need one to two crates of dynamite to stop the well. So they're sending two trucks with three each. So if one of the trucks is gone, okay. If one or two of the things from one of the existing trucks is gone, okay. We got one of the six. That's all we need. Um so they take one of the uh boxes from sorcerer and they set up this, you know the complicated pulley system where they have to take Nilo's pocket and cut it out of his pants and fill it with sand so that they can poke it and then it would slowly using a counterweight. Basically, cause a spark in the nitroglycerin glycerin that would make the dynamite go off. And it works. It works. They're able to keep driving. Things seem like at this point I was like, okay, maybe everyone's gonna make it. Dear listener, I should not have thought this. I should not have thought this. I I did not know what I was getting into. They're driving along. Uh at this point, sorcerer is in front after they have uh they backed away from the uh tree and then blew up the tree. So now they've switched spots. Lazo Lassaro used to be in front, sorcerer is now in front. They're driving along and Kossim and Victor are having this conversation. Victor's talking about his wife, how he misses her. He left on their 10th anniversary where she gave him this watch. And I was like Oh, these boys is cooked. And sure enough, at that moment a tire pops. And they go over a cliff. Simple as that. Tire popped. They went over the cliff.

Peter
54:30-54:33
Which makes which makes the dynamite explode.

Eden
54:31-55:29
Boom. Explosion. Yeah, and that's it. That's it for both of them. It's that for their truck. It's that for their dynamite. At that point, a few minutes, you know, after that, uh Jackie and Nilo pull up. And they stop to see what happened. And at that moment, some freedom fighters show up who are like, hey, we're gonna kill you and take your supplies. They Jackie tries to bluff his way through things. He takes one of them to the back. Um, and he's like, oh, we just have like Kleenex. and chocolates and normal stuff. And he's like, oh, great. That's exactly what we need. Um and at this moment, Nilo pulls out his gun. He's the only one who's had a gun this whole time. He pulls out his gun and shoots the two dudes who are in front while getting shot in the gut himself. And then as the guy who is in the back with Jackie turns around to see what's happening, Jackie.

Peter
55:28-55:32
Just machetes him.

Eden
55:30-55:34
almost decapitates that man with a s with a shovel no less.

Peter
55:33-55:34
Oh, yeah.

Eden
55:34-55:49
He uses a shovel to basically decapitate that dude Um and then he pulls Nilo back into the truck as Nilo is kind of bleeding out. They keep driving. It gets really weird and spacey at this point. Nilo dies.

Peter
55:49-56:45
Yeah, here's here's the fever dream at the end He's dressed sharp.

Eden
55:51-57:46
Yeah, Nilo dies, they are in this weird sort of alien-looking landscape. He starts hallucinating Nilo, laughing at him. He starts just saying, you know, like, what do I do? What do I do? All this sorts of weird stuff. And then the truck dies. 1. 3 miles from the well. And you're like, oh shit, what's he gonna do? And then it cuts to him carrying a box of dynamite and then getting to the well and the folks take it away from him and he just collapses. And I'm like, oh, everyone's dead. Everyone's dead. Au contraire, dear listeners, Jackie's not dead. It cuts Two, Jackie is now back in Porvenir. He's given a Colombian passport so that he can look official and he can leave the country. He's dressed sharp. He's still beat to hell. Like he's covered with bruises and cuts and stuff. But he's dressed sharply. They cut him a check for 40K because they were each supposed to make 10K and he was the only survivor. So they cut him a check for all four of them. And he's like, what am I supposed to do with a check? I need cash money. Um and then but the guy's like, no, we're gonna take you straight to our bank. They're gonna cash that cash money. I have to write a check because I don't got the cash. And so he's like, okay, things are going to turn out okay. Can I have like a minute before I go get on the plane? And the oil guy's like, the plane's waiting for you, bud. You're the big ticket roller. He goes and he asks the lady who'd worked in the bar there to dance with him. And at this moment, it zooms out, a car pulls up. And out comes his friend who told him to come to this place, as well as the hitman from the Italian mobster, who both unholster their guns and walk into the bar.

Peter
57:46-57:48
Cut the black.

Eden
57:47-57:55
The end. Credits start. Whew, this movie was a lot, Peter.

Peter
57:50-57:55
It was a lot. Like I say, this is a heavy movie.

Eden
57:55-58:31
It's i it it's just so like nihilistic about things and so unsparingly and unsympathetically so. Like sometimes when a thing is nihilistic, it like really digs into How does that make you feel? Like, how does the nihilism of the situation like weigh on you as a person? This is just like unsympathetically like. Nobody makes it out alive, man. Nobody makes it out. Everyone dies. Which, like, we all know is true. Everyone does die. Ain't nobody. That dude who swaps out his bo his kids' blood is not gonna live any longer than the rest of us.

Peter
58:29-58:40
It's true Yeah.

Eden
58:31-59:26
But like it's just bleak. It's just really, really bleak. But also just an incredible film to look at Ugly Mm-hmm.

Peter
58:40-59:48
It's it's interesting because It is at moments both this incredibly lush, beautiful film alternating with this incredibly just, like I said, grimy, filthy, sweaty, ugly film. And it's a fascinating juxtaposition between them going through these parts of this beautiful jungle, but then other times, you know, when it's so overcast and and torrential downpour and everything. what just a scene before seemed like this beautiful, lush, green, vibrant, lovely place now seems like such a sinister, imposing, oppressive place for them to be in. And I think that that was one of the things that was most uh most effectively done is the way that That Fried can so effectively makes the environment another enemy in the movie, you know, and just like that tree, they get to the tree and um um what's his name now?

Eden
59:42-59:44
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Peter
59:49-59:53
Um Schreiter's character's name, which Jackie.

Eden
59:53-01:00:07
Jackie It's eight trees.

Peter
59:53-01:00:06
There we go. Thank you. Jackie loses it and like grabs machete and throws it to Nilo, and he's like Come on, and Neil is like, we're not cutting through that. And he's like, Well, if we cut he I think at one point he's like, we just gotta cut down eight trees and we can make it around.

Eden
01:00:07-01:00:39
It's only eight trees Yeah.

Peter
01:00:07-01:00:38
And he's just like in the swamp up to almost his neck, still arm flailing in the air as he's hacking at little twigs and stuff like that and a the other truck at this point has caught up to him and they're just like looking at him like, Dude, you done dude done lost it. Um so y you really do you get this this sense that the situation they're in, that the environment they're in, I mean the city, the oppressive just it it feels oppressive. Everything about it feels oppressive. Intentionally so.

Eden
01:00:39-01:01:21
It really does. Um, in talking about so again, we talked about it's not a good title Um, although it is better than the working title, which was Ball Breaker, um, which it was. It was that, but that's also a terrible name for this film. Um But yeah, so they changed it to sorcerer, and Friedkin, this is what he said about it. The sorcerer is an evil wizard, and in this case, the evil wizard is fate. The fact that somebody can walk out of their front door and a hurricane can take them away, an earthquake or something falling through the roof, and the idea that we don't really have control over our own fates Neither our births nor our deaths. It's something that has haunted me since I was intelligent enough to contemplate something like it. So yeah, that's rough.

Peter
01:01:20-01:01:25
Yeah, totally.

Eden
01:01:21-01:01:26
That's rough. Uh, what are other things you want to mention about this film? Anything else?

Peter
01:01:26-01:01:34
Um Yeah.

Eden
01:01:27-01:01:34
Because I I think it's worth talking once we're done talking about the film itself, it's worth talking about the cultural legacy of this film and what happened to Sorcerer.

Peter
01:01:34-01:02:36
I I just think i it's interesting. It's one of these as I was reading and seeing what the original budget was and what it ballooned up to. You can see why. I mean, some of these scenes, it's It's not surprising. I mean, I remember thinking to myself as I was watching this that these are some real good explosions. I mean, we've got the explosion at the very beginning. We've got the explosion when the oil well goes up. We've got, I mean, there's some there's some nice destruction in this movie, some very effective, very uh extravagant-looking destruction. But that scene of the bridge just as you mentioned, it is it is gripping in a way that I don't recall the last time I watched a a movie and felt that same sort of just tension. as they're trying to just literally drive a truck across a bridge. And the fact that that can be so tense and so impactful, I think that tells you how well it was executed.

Eden
01:02:35-01:02:39
Clenched butthole for two 12 minutes straight.

Peter
01:02:37-01:02:45
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Eden
01:02:39-01:03:10
You are just like, oh, I am on the edge of my seat Um and I just think I think Freakan's got it. Like I have seen a number of Freakin films. I've never gotten to this one I just think it's really something special. Like, I've seen French Connection. It's obviously one that if no if folks have not seen The French Connection, it is one of the classics of early 70s cinema. You know, Gene Hackman, Jo Rob Scheider is there, or not Rob Scheider. J. It's a J name. What is it?

Peter
01:03:09-01:03:11
Roy Scheider.

Eden
01:03:10-01:03:19
Roy Scheider. It's not a J name either. Roy Scheider is there. I was thinking Rob Schneider. That's different. This movie with Rob Schneider is a much worse movie.

Peter
01:03:18-01:03:21
It's much worse, but I would still watch it.

Eden
01:03:19-01:03:21
But I'm imagining it now.

Peter
01:03:21-01:03:24
I would I would watch that movie.

Eden
01:03:23-01:03:25
I'm imagining it now.

Peter
01:03:25-01:03:28
Now I want to see a movie.

Eden
01:03:26-01:03:30
I want I I don't want 2025 Rob Schneider to make it.

Peter
01:03:29-01:03:34
No, no, no.

Eden
01:03:30-01:03:37
I want 198 I want 1980 or 1998 Rob Schneider to make this movie.

Peter
01:03:34-01:03:36
Yes, yes.

Eden
01:03:36-01:04:00
But regardless, Scheider is in French Connection to That's Where He and Friedkin met. Incredible stuff. The Exorcist obviously is the Exorcist. Like What else needs to be said? It's one of the great horror movies of all time. To live and die in LA is incredible. Like the guy makes good movies. Um, but like this one just really felt like something else. But it was kinda sent out to die.

Peter
01:03:59-01:04:00
Yeah.

Eden
01:04:01-01:04:14
Because what came out just a couple of weeks before Sorcerer was supposed to come out in June 24, 1977. What m what was a big movie that came out in summer nineteen seventy-seven, Peter?

Peter
01:04:14-01:04:25
Oh, I think it was this. Oh, it was kind of this cult classic. It was like space battle, space, no, no, sky b star.

Eden
01:04:25-01:04:29
Something like that Star Wars, yeah.

Peter
01:04:25-01:04:29
So Star Wars, that yeah, Star Wars, that that was that movie.

Eden
01:04:30-01:04:43
Just that little uh that tiny little sci-fi pastiche made by that up and comer George Lucas Who's like, you know, he was from that same crew as kind of Friedkin and Coppola and Spielberg, but he was just like the up-and-comer.

Peter
01:04:35-01:04:36
Yep.

Eden
01:04:43-01:04:54
He wasn't gonna be out here making one of the most successful movies of all time that Inarguably change the face of cinema forever, often for the worst, but sometimes for the better.

Peter
01:04:50-01:04:53
One hundred percent, unfortunately.

Eden
01:04:54-01:05:17
Um N no. That's the problem. This movie came out d a few weeks after Star Wars, so nobody wanted to go see a tense thriller named Sorcerer when they could go see Star Wars for the thirteenth time. And it was just sent out to die. It took two distributors. What I saw at the start of this movie and it was like universal and paramount present.

Peter
01:05:14-01:07:00
And Paramount Just Yeah.

Eden
01:05:17-01:08:04
I was like How did that happen? It's because neither of them wanted to do it by themselves because they were like, we're both going to take a loss on this. I guess if we do it together, we'll take less of a loss. Which is wild to me. And what else is I think is interesting is when it came out, people didn't really like it very much. Like its critical reception at release was tepid. It was it was fairly um you know middling when it came out. Uh Roger Ebert liked it. He was about the only one. Everyone else was like, like one one person, John Simon, said Friedkin spent $21 million to perpetrate a film that could usefully studied in courses on how not to make movies. And so that was the tenor of both the cultural and the critical apparatus in regards to this movie. It was seen as a huge failure. It was following up on his two very successful films, and then it was like Maybe you only had two good films in you, Bill, like you got you ain't got it this time. But that has slowly but surely changed its way around because all many of those exact people who were like, I said this movie was bad. I was wrong, dawg when I watched this in 2001, I'm like, holy shit, what a movie. Um, and so it has been really interesting for this movie to find like a place culturally and to figure out what this movie is going to be um in terms of its i it its cultural longevity and understanding as part of the cinematic canon. Um because I think it deserves it. I think it's really, really solid. And I think that it's wild to think that this it just works this well. And like part of that comes down to the editing. I think it's extremely well edited. Like, there's no time wasted. It doesn't ever feel like there's like. f fab flabby scenes like everything just feels really tautly put together and again the soundtrack is killer. . It is one of Tangerine Dream's best soundtracks. And they put out a lot of good soundtracks. Let me tell you, folks, you wanna Pick a soundtrack they did, it's good. Like, I'm not kidding. They're incredible incredible songwriters, incredible composers, and it just fits this like kind of weird haunted vibe that just is this undercurrent of the entire thing. Because it has these weird kind of spacey synths That you know, I I could see a version of this film that had a full orchestral score, and it's a worse movie.

Peter
01:08:03-01:08:05
I was gonna say it would be weaker because of it.

Eden
01:08:05-01:08:26
It doesn't hit as hard because it's not as alienating. I think, and again it's early synth, so it it feels weird and it sounds fuzzy and it alienates you as a listener. And I think it works very, very well for the movie. Honestly, I'm so glad that we watched it. I'm glad that you indulged me because I had a hell of a time.

Peter
01:08:25-01:08:27
Yeah, very interesting movie.

Eden
01:08:26-01:08:47
I thought it was an absolute Hell of a movie to watch start to finish. And again, I am gonna go download Wages of Fear, the 53 French movie, and get to it at some point. Because I gotta see what's the movie that when this one came out, people were like, well, it's not as good as the original. I gotta see what the original is then.

Peter
01:08:45-01:08:55
Yeah. No, I I I don't think so other than like I say, it was it was a fascinating experience.

Eden
01:08:47-01:08:49
Any final thoughts before we wrap up here?

Peter
01:08:55-01:09:05
to finally watch this movie that I had not realized had been bouncing around in the back of my mind for again over 40 years.

Eden
01:09:05-01:09:11
Yeah, well, now you've seen it. Now you can say you have seen box office bomb, sorcerer.

Peter
01:09:10-01:09:11
That's right.

Eden
01:09:13-01:09:25
All right, dear listeners, we are gonna take off now. Um leave us a review, leave us some stars, write us an email at feedback at the middle of culture if you feel so inclined, and otherwise, we'll see you in a couple of weeks.