Speaker 1: We're Tom and Lorenzo and this is the Pop Style
Opinion Fest. Hell look it and walk back to another
edition of the Pso I am the Tea and you're
Telow Tom Fitzgerald, and I'm here with the low and
your te lot. Lorenzo my cousin husband, and you're.
Speaker 2: Here we tab Hunter on the table.
Speaker 1: Tab Hunter a twenty five pound cat who has been
drawing blood lately. Oh my god, yeah, fit me the
other night in bed because he got very excited. I
was rubbing his belly in the wrong spot. And this boy,
you have to understand, he is a big cat, and
he's got teeth like a dog's teeth, and cats they
will nip when they want you to stop doing something,
and you know they're usually pretty good at the Tab's
teeth are so freaking huge that he wound up drawing blood.
It was like one in the morning, and I had
to get out of bed to wash because you don't
want to get cats scratch fever or anything like that.
And then yesterday he wanted to jump in my seat
while I was He loves when I do my duo
lingo lessons. Whenever he hears duo lingo, he comes running.
It's so cute because he wants to sit in my
lap and learn Portuguese with me. And he tried to
jump in my lap and I was wearing a pair
of shorts, and he's getting old, which means he can't
make jumps as quickly as gracefully as he once did.
So he dug his massive sabertoothed tiger claws right into
my bare thigh and then slid. I know, yeah, so
I have a slash on my lap.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I don't know why we're starting off the podcast with
this nonsense. Anyway, we have a pod porie of topics
to discuss. We actually once again relate with this because
we really couldn't pull together an entire podcast, and then
ultimately we said, all right, well, it's just been five
minutes on a bunch of different podcasts, like this is
some sort of weekend update. So but what I do
like about these pod pori things is that we don't
get stuck in one thing. We're not just talking about
a TV show or just talking about celebrity gossip. We
have a bunch of things to talk about here. I
want to start off with a red carpet topic, especially
because this one's a little late. We're getting to this one,
and it's a holdover from the Met collar A couple
of weeks back, we were contacted by Lamonde, the French newspaper,
to give our thoughts on theme dressing and cosplay dressing
and everything. And I kind of love that our dislike
of that sort of thing has reached an international audience.
And I did say I don't think it wound up
in the final piece, but I did say one of
the things I don't like about this move away from
fashion on the Red Carpet is that we're going to
get more and more into spectacle and costumes. And sure enough,
a couple of days later, the Metgala happened, and here
comes Heidi Cloom in her Halloween costume, and here comes
bed Bunny in his old man makeup. And I hate it.
I hate it so much that people are starting to
use prosthetics for events that are entirely about fashion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it was. The Hollywood Reporter had an
article this week about the whole The Devil's Wear product
preparation for the for the Red Carpet everything, and how
much they thought about all those things like right wearing costumes.
They're wearing things that no costumes, you know, wearing things
that the characters would wear, Yes, exactly, that would remind
people of the costumes in the movie and all that.
And it was just like, yeah, that that's the direction.
Speaker 1: Now I hate it, and I'm going to use my
platform to rail against it. And if Lamon wants to
call me up, I'll yell about that too. Listen. I
don't think we're likely to see a lot of costume,
a lot of makeup effects or prosthetics going forward on
the Red carpet, but I do feel like I need to,
you know, sound the alarm a little bit. The met
Gala is not like a Marvel movie promotional event or
something like that. It is not about people going out
and promoting projects. It's literally about elevating fashion. It is
an entire night devoted to fashion. It is the one
red carpet that we cover every year that is only
about fashion. It's not about awards, it's not about premieres,
it's not about debut albums or anything like that. It
is strictly a bunch of people getting together in the
most outrageous outfits they can devise to celebrate fashion. And
to raise money for a costume institute. And for me,
it's very alarming. On this the premiere fashion event of
the year, people are showing up in freaking rubber masks
and fake noses and shit like that. And I hate
that Anna Winter has lost control of this sort of thing.
I think she's trying so hard to soften her image.
That's why she sort of embraced the Devilwares product too,
even though she wouldn't even talk about the first film.
That's true, it's and now she's like letting just anybody
walk onto that Macalla red carpet in anything, like Troy
Savann was wearing jeans, and I was like, you know what,
I've been covering this for fifteen years and she never
would have allowed that. Even five years.
Speaker 2: People weren't even allowed to take pictures inside, licking the
basket or anything like that. I mean, but.
Speaker 1: It's she's you know, and I get it, because this
event is, you know, you invite all of these celebrities
to generate the kind of press that you know this
event generates, and you kind of have to let celebrities
do whatever they want to do otherwise they're not going
to show up well.
Speaker 2: And they have new owners. Yeah, what do you mean
the Macala has new owners, you know, so to speak.
I mean you have the Amazon people knowing.
Speaker 1: Well, they don't own it.
Speaker 2: They just well, if you give money, you own it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess anyway, I just wanted to rail against
that because I feel like, if they're doing this at
the Metgala, then yes, someone's going to show up at
the next Marvel movie or DC movie or Star Wars
movie work in some sort of goofy ass makeup effect.
That is not what the Red Carpet is about. I know.
Speaker 2: I think I think you're going to We're gonna see
that more and more.
Speaker 1: I hate it. I'm going to make such an issue
out of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think there's always going to be people
who will say no to it because they're they're too
self aware of how they look on the red carpet,
and they don't want to look a certain way that
doesn't go with whatever they think if their view.
Speaker 1: Yes, but the reason that I am somewhat fearful of
this is that a lot of celebrities hate the red carpet.
They hate the idea of fashion, they hate the idea
of putting themselves on display. And I am not unsympathetic
to that perspective, but I really hate the idea of
stepping out in a frickin rubber mask because you don't
like being photographed. Like, suck it up, Just suck it up.
You don't have to wear tour or whatever. You pose
for five pictures and walk off. But I think it
depends on Mary in a Halloween costume is a no.
Speaker 2: I agree, And I think it depends on the person
and how they feel on the red carpet. I'll give
you an example of mars Ree. You could tell that
she was loving all those gigantic coats on her because
it's a.
Speaker 1: Weird, dumpy Yeah, it's coffee.
Speaker 2: You don't have to worry about anything.
Speaker 1: Not wearing shape wear. She probably didn't shave her let.
Speaker 2: You're completely covered up.
Speaker 1: And I fully I am not standing here saying. You know,
everyone needs a manny petty. You know everyone has to
be tanned and moisture and now cover yourselves up. That's
the beauty of fashion. Fashion is not just about exposing
the body. It's about, you know, obscuring the body, if
that's what you want. Fashion isn't just about standing out.
Sometimes it's about receding in a way that is eleg
and the strain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but people do like look at the kardash and
they're like, all right, I can't show I can't show
my real nipple, so I'm gonna show a plastic one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fake nipple. Anyway, that was my one takeaway from
the Macala was like, oh shit, they're gonna start wearing
this shit on regular red carpet. Not that I think honestly,
if only Heidi had showed up like that, I would
have rolled my eyes and said, yeah, this is what
we said in the in the post about her, which
was this this isn't a Halloween party. But when bad
money shows up, I'm like, oh no, you were opening
the door. You are a trendsetter. Heidi Klum is not
a trends I.
Speaker 2: Think it's people again watering down a great idea. I
go back to the Barbie movies. That was clever because
he was like, all right, let's pay homage to old barbiees,
giving a new giving a twist, you know, giving every
look a twist. That's what he did. He Andrew Komo, Yeah,
that's what he did. I mean, every look wasn't exactly
what the dog looked like, but it was some sort
of like you know, interpretation of it. So that was clever.
But then we're just like, now we're just going with
you know, you know, with tennis both.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hate it anyway, that's my little rant. Yeah,
why don't we move on to your little rant about
costume design or do you want to No, No, let's
talk about costume design.
Speaker 2: And I thought I thought it was interesting. I mean,
it's it's very common that people watch TV, especially the
young generation. They watch shows and they love monsters. The
youngsters on TikTok and social media, they they love to
watch what the you know, the characters are wearing, and
they're going they go after the items, they want to
buy the items, and they complain that the items are
too expensive, blah blah blah. So the latest conversation was
about Aria, which is a horrible season by the way, terrible,
terrible season anyway, So what they're they were complaining that
Jacob or LORDI, the character Nate Jacobs, has been wearing
nothing but but tiga Veneda, very expensive items and it
doesn't go with the character. So they were all there
was like a huge backlash against it because he was
wearing this plaid fannel flannel and the shirt is like
six dollars, So which is.
Speaker 1: This is something that's been going on for a while
in costume design.
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
Speaker 1: I just want to note that this was also an
issue in the last season of The Bear when they
were working in that kitchen wearing like Louis Vuitton jackets
and Montclair and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And her uniform was Tom Brown.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, I don't want to jump in
this is your rant, but this is a thing that's
been happening with costume design for a while, and you
see it in Like, You saw it in Like and
just like that, where when you go back to Sex
and the City, when Pat Fields was doing that that series,
she was pulling from vintage shops and boutiques. The items
were high label items, but she did not have a
rolodex of contacts at all of the cature house, so
she had to go out and shop for that stuff.
And subsequently, those characters wardrobes had real personality. They felt
like real New York stylish New Yorkers, New Yorkers with
a lot of money. And then you come to and
just like that, where Pet Fields was not involved. Pet Field.
People always put anss on the end of her it
is Field, I think anyway, she was not involved. And
in the years since the show, the franchise had become
this like fantasy fashion franchise, which is not what it
was back in the day. And subsequently, all the characters
in and just like that were tottering around in high
heels on New York City sidewalks, six thousand dollars shoes,
ten thousand dollars bags. The outfit, every outfit was you
could have bought a house with it, and there was
nothing realistic about it. And these are wealthy New Yorkers
and even those characters, those people are not walking around
in on the street with a cup of coffee in
ten thousand dollars shoes exactly. That's the kind of stupidity
that I don't like.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry so because if is a show for the
young generation that I see again, they were very outspoken,
very loud on on TikTok and everywhere, talking about how
ridiculous that is that a character like you know, Nate
Jacobs is wearing a six thousand dollar shirt. So bad.
Excuse me that the custom designer Natasha Newman Thomas for
the show came out with a statement. She gave an
interview and everything that she said, you know, HBO had
a very tight budget. We're very happy that. But take
up and Aida you know, came and help us with
the you know, gave us you know, support, blah blah blah.
But it doesn't go with a character. And then she
tried to defend the character, say, well, the character is
trying very hard to look a certain way because he
has all these investors and he wants to look like
you know, he's wearing expensive clothes. But he's in I
forget office someplace in his house wearing just a basic
plaid flannel. You know, It's not like he's wearing a
suit to go to a meeting or something. So they
all complained about it. They said, it's ridiculous. But the
whole the thing with the whole show is that the
show this isn't really bad. And the feeling that I
get is that nobody wanted to go back, Zendy Jacob
I mean, they all have incredible careers now, they didn't
want to go back. I think they were forced to
go back. And I think Jacob El already pretty much said, fine,
I'll go back, but I'm gonna wear but Tikavania, you know.
And that's what he's doing and which is so against
everything that we talk about when he comes to costume design.
You know, we interview custom designers and they talk about
the process of creating these looks and how much, you know,
all the research they do, everything they do to to
come up with those costumes, when in this case, you
just go to the store and you pick what.
Speaker 1: You're not even going to the story. You're just you're
calling up a design house and saying send pieces. Oh,
and we'll just say exactly, and this is not costume design,
this is you're servant. You're a stylist. At that point.
The difference between being a stylist and being a costume
designer is that a stylist is there to project an
image on a client, whereas a costume designer is there
to build a character right exactly and to make sure
that all the choices that they are making for that
character makes sense for that character and tell you something
about that character. Just calling up Botega Vanetta and saying
send over some shirts, you're not doing that. And that
is and the reason I brought up in just like
that is because this has been a trend in costume
design for years now. You can go back to like
crazy rich Asians. Because I was doing research on the
costumes in that film for something I was working on,
and the costume designer said, we just had you know
once once everything was set in place, that it was
you know that we were making this film based on
this book. They just all called her, all of the
fashion houses called her, and she just had to pick dresses.
That's all she had to do. And at least in
that instance, those people do there for that they were
like the one percent they do wear those clothes. I agree,
but I use that as an example of I think
that opened up a floodgate of like, let's just let's
just call up design houses and have them even Devil
Wear's product too. For the most part, because I did
think when we were covering the shoots and everything, I
did think, I'm like, oh my god, they're all going
to be in clown clothes. They're going to look ridiculous.
And for the most part, they didn't look ridiculous. But
I could tell that Andy was wearing some very expensive
items and supposedly that's not who she is, right, And
I don't mean the stuff that she was pulling from
the closet. I mean like she was showing up on
her first day at Runway in what was a very
expensive at.
Speaker 2: Her excuse was that she was going to Vinture store
and whatever and buying those items. That's yeah, such bullshit.
Speaker 1: That is such bullshit. It's lazy costumes.
Speaker 2: People have had the same complete with Blake Lively in
her movie that she was wearing Chanel bags or whatever,
you know, Louis Vuittone bags or whatever, when.
Speaker 1: Her character was not wealthy, no owns a shop. That's
I hate that. It's not character work, it's not costume design.
It's just lazy styling. Yeah, all right, are we done
with that anyway?
Speaker 2: I just think it's an interesting conversation. I wonder what
you guys think. Do you care if they're wearing those items?
Do you think you know it's at all? I mean,
I guess you should love fashion. You see these items
right away when you watch a movie you know, or
a TV show, you recognize those items. Does it bother you?
Do you care? Anyway?
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a sharp break and we'll be
back to talk. About more things that have piste us
off this week. We'll be right back. We're back, and
Lorenzo has a whole bunch of TikTok stuff about Billie Eilish,
and I gotta say he started telling me about it.
I'm like, I don't, I don't understand. What the We'll
just save it for the mic, So go Lorenzo.
Speaker 2: Billy Eilish, bless her heart. She has good intentions and
and she but she always makes those statements that people
are always talking about it. And you know, like when
she said that you all look like me, you know,
and or she talked about the billionaires, why don't you
give you money to everybody? You know? Or the illegal
immigrants you know, talking about that, you know, you know,
that's not your land.
Speaker 1: That's little, all these things. You're just talking and you
look like me.
Speaker 2: You look like me. It's when she was on stage
in Ireland and she said that she looked at the
crowd and she said, wow, you all look like me.
And there was a huge backlash against that because people were.
Speaker 1: Like, all right, they thought it was racist. Talked I
thought it was racist.
Speaker 2: We talked about that one the I know, some of
the other ones The other one is she was at
the ws the Washington what is it, the w s
J magazine, Wester Journay, Thank your magazine, Uh Innovator Awards,
and she said, you know, she looked at the crowd
and she said, oh, you were a bunch of billionaires.
Why are you a billionaire? Give your money away? And
they all again backlash, You are a millionaire yourself, so
why aren't you giving you money away? As well? I'm
just repeating what people were saying.
Speaker 1: Then I think that's bullshit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I thought the Ireland thing was bullshit too, but okay,
go ahead.
Speaker 2: The other thing was the Grammy Awards two tenty twenty six.
She said no one is illegal on stolen land f
ice and then against again. The backlash was like, well,
you live in a mansion. Why don't you give you
a mention to the immigrants?
Speaker 1: These are all very I know. I'm sorry. I don't
agree with any of these.
Speaker 2: I agree, but they just go after those statements and
I see where she's going with this. Well, let me
go to the glass. That's pretty much it. And then
the last one lately, because she's promoting her documentary, is
that she said she was asked about because she is
vegan and she's been vegan for a long time, since
she was a little girl. And then she said something
about you cannot love animals if you eat meat at
the same time, something like that, and that one has
really exploded. All that one is because you can't talk
about meat without having a huge discussion about it. So anyway,
and then she wasn't finished. She went to her Instagram
account and she kept saying, you know, you know, stay
fucking mad at me. I don't give a fuck, and
those are her words. And then that she wasn't done,
she started posting on her story all these horrible images
of animals and getting tortured and stuff like that. So anyway, so.
Speaker 1: People I respond to number one, I think, oh, people
are made of Billie Eilish. I'm like, oh, it's a
day that ends in wide. A female pop star is
getting backlash, like true, and she's an outspoken female pop star,
so anything she says is going to get backlash. That's
number one. Number one too. I do think the animal
thing is inflammatory as hell. I mean, you can't go
around it's one thing to advocate for veganism or vegetarianism
or to talk about the cruelty of the meat industry.
But you if you go around saying you can't claim
to love animals like ooh girl, no, no, that doesn't fly.
I eat burgers and I love my cats, and there's
no I don't have any sort of problem with I.
Speaker 2: Don't eat meat. I understand what she's saying. I understand,
and it is a very touchy subject, even when I
talk to my family or my brother loves meat and he.
Speaker 1: Looked at me like he's crazy.
Speaker 2: We were we were in the Netherlands and he was
preparing dinner and I said I don't eat meat, and
he looked at me like, no, no meat at all.
You should want that anyway. So I tend to avoid
these discussions because they're they're heated, and I understand why.
And the point people were making very mad at her
is that not everyone has the money to be vegan
or vegetarian. It's very expensive to buy food, you know,
vegetarian food or vegan food. That's what people were saying.
I'm repeating what people were saying. They were also saying
that you should go after the animal farming industry, not
people who actually eat meat. And also the cultural part
of it. That there there are many many countries, many
many places where people eat a lot of meat. It's
part of their culture.
Speaker 1: Now I agree with that. I mean it was a
very anytime you have these discussions, they almost always come
from a place of privilege. To deny yourself, you know, meat,
to have a meat free diet. Pardon me. It's indicative
of privilege for most people.
Speaker 2: Right, And I just want to make one more point
before you make your argument. People were also saying, which
is true. I went and checked that she has to
deal with cosmetic companies that test on animals. Yeah, I
mean that's I mean, it's out there. I mean I.
Speaker 1: Didn't think cosmetics companies did that much testing on animals.
Speaker 2: And do what are you talking about this?
Speaker 1: I do think got rid of most of them.
Speaker 2: I don't think so anyway. So that's what they were saying,
that she's a hypocrite, that she has a lot of money,
and that she throws these things out there, uh, to
create this kind of backlash and then you know it
doesn't have much to back it up.
Speaker 1: Okay, what I hate about this is that it, uh,
it's just the same old celebrity should not speak up, right,
and they should just count their money. And I don't
believe that. I don't believe that. She has always been
an artist who has convictions about certain things, and she's
always been outspoken about certain things. And the idea that, oh,
you're a millionaire, you shouldn't talk about veganism, well, that's
just bullshit. That's stupid. And the other thing is, uh,
I really dislike the idea, like you can't listen. The
whole thing about you know, being on stolen land and
everything is it's so easy to turn that against someone
who makes those comments, you know, land acknowledgments and that
sort of thing. It's so easy to paint people who
may those sort of comments as just out of touch
liberals or whatever. But there's nothing wrong with pointing out,
you know, the colonialist history of America. And the idea
that she shouldn't because she lives in a mansion. That's
that when people say you shouldn't talk about that because
you live, well, that's bullshit. That has nothing to her.
Living in a mansion does not have anything to do
with us stealing land from indigenous people. That's not the
same thing, right, And it's fine for her or anybody
else to talk about it. It's like that cartoon that
you see on social media all the time where it's
it's like a peasant saying we should, you know, improve
society someone and then the person is like, curious, you
you're but you're part of society, you can't you know.
I guess this goes back to certain things like when
we when we spoke out against Dulchankabana for for all
the racism that was in their work, or when we
spoke when we spoke out we wouldn't for Johnny Depp
because you know, his divorce case got so ugly and everything,
and we made statements to that effect, we're not going
to cover this, you know, blah blah blah. We're standing
on principles, and then we were attacked for the routinely
to this day. Oh you people will just pick something
and say, oh, you spoke out against this, but you
won't speak out against I remember that a bunch of
people went to Dubai for some event and we made
some comment about, you know, the human rights abuses against
LGBTQ people in you know, the UAE, and we got
a bunch of comments about, well, I guess you don't
care about how they treat women. So it's one of
those things where if you speak out against something, someone
will eventually well immediately say, well, why aren't you speaking
out against everything?
Speaker 2: Yeah, my experience, go ahead, My experience would no, no,
go go. My experience would Celebrities in general saying anything
is that it's fine when you agree with them, it's
not okay when you don't agree with him. Uh. In general,
that's how people, wow, the public reacts.
Speaker 1: Listen, if some celebrity wants to make some maga conservative commentary,
that's not the right to do it. I don't think
they shouldn't do That's.
Speaker 2: Where I'm getting it. Like, you know, we can't be
mad when people support Trump or or anything and then
talk about all these things horrible things, you know, and then.
Speaker 1: At I can be mad at them.
Speaker 2: I can be mad at them, but my point is
that they have the right the right to say it.
That's my point. They have the right to say that
these horrible things in my opinion. Yeah, and then you know,
she means the only problem that I have here a
little bit is that she throws the line and that's it.
Speaker 1: She's young and she's young. Yeah, yeah, I'm not saying
she's some yeah that she's well considered or anything. I
think she's an artist. I don't think as a spokesperson
she's the first person I would turn to. But she's young,
she's outspoken, and as far as I'm concerned, I think
her politics are largely in the right place. The other
thing I wanted to point out was the her calling
out billionaires and people saying, well, why are you doing that?
You're a millionaire and people, the difference between a million
dollars and a billion dollars is just almost unfathomable, and
the power that billionaires hold is not even comparable to
what your average millionaire pop star holds. Like, I don't
even know in twenty twenty six, with Elon Musk out
in the world, Jeff Bezos out in the world, how
you could possibly think that they are comparable to Billy
Freakin Eilish right.
Speaker 2: I agree, I totally agree. I just think that in
her case, specifically, she tends to just throw one line there,
you know, it's just one liners and then okay.
Speaker 1: But I guess my hackles are up whenever some young
female star is suddenly getting slammed for having, you know,
saying something or saying the wrong thing or doing the
wrong thing. I just have a tendency that like, all right,
let's take a step back here. I don't think she's
anybody should be looking at her for their politics. Not really.
I don't think you should be looking to celebrities for
that sort of thing. But I do think they have
the right to talk about the world as they see it.
They are artists. That is their job.
Speaker 2: I agree with all that, but you can't, Okay, I'm
gonna be brutal here. You can't phrase something like you
cannot love animals.
Speaker 1: I agree. That to me is she shoots her mouth up.
That's stupid. It is stupid.
Speaker 2: I see your point. I love animals, I don't eat meat.
I know where you're coming from, but that's not well.
Speaker 1: It's sort of like the Ireland statement. I know exactly
where she was coming from. It was a stupid thing
for her to say on stage. But we talked about
this the last time. When we were in Dublin. I
turned to Lorenzo and said, I feel like I'm at
a family reunion. We're walking down the street and literally
everybody looks like me. But I'm not a publisher. She
didn't say that on stage. I didn't say it on stage, okay,
and I agree that's the difference. I know where she
was coming from that, but it was not smarter her
to say.
Speaker 2: I just want to add one more thing. There's another
video of her talking about how much she she took
pr lessons or whatever, Yeah, and how much she hated
it and she stopped taking them.
Speaker 1: Well, there you go, there you go, all right? Have
we yes? Yes, we're beat her up.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that we took opposing sides on this, because yeah,
I didn't want us to do a hole this, this
young girly is wrong. Now I'm actually going to defender
she should say these things, and people need to back off.
Just be whatever. Who cares if she's a millionaire, she's
led to speak. Anyway, Why don't we take a break
and come back, and we have a few things to
say about the Camp Film Festival. We'll be right back.
We're back, and we might be ending this very quickly
because the freaking workmen next door have started banging.
Speaker 2: Nightmare. Oh my god, I hate them so much, and
I'm sure some of you have experienced something similar, but
my god, I hate.
Speaker 1: It's this massive building project that has been going on
for a year and a half. They are way behind
schedule and I don't even think they're not. I mean
it'll be another nine months probably. I hate them.
Speaker 2: I'm so annoying anyway.
Speaker 1: Can't film this. The cam Film Festival is underway. And
when you know, in our line of work, there is
a calendar that you look at in terms of when
when the red carpet's going to be heavy and when
it's going to be light, and you you know, we
have these discussions every single month, and every April we
always say the same thing. We've got the met Pala
in the beginning of the month, and then we'll have
the cam Film Festival. The CAM Film Festival used to
be later than May. But you go into these things
knowing when the major events are, when the vent Is
Film Festival is, when Toronto is, when all the awards
ceremonies are, when the big blockbusters are coming out.
Speaker 2: And because of what we do, we get excited about
these things because we're going to have more more red card.
Speaker 1: This means money, money, money for your uncles. And it
came out this this month that and there was an
article in The Hollywood Reporter this week that most of
the American studios are not coming to camp and there
will not be any major American releases that Can, which
means there won't be a lot of major American movie
stars at CAN and that frick I.
Speaker 2: Don't understand that. What is the what is there the
reason behind it?
Speaker 1: From what I read was that, well, first off, they
didn't like they talked about that last Indiana Jones movie,
which apparently got a lot of booze at CAN, and
I mean they boo movies all the time, and then
it did poorly. There were a couple other like big Blockbuster.
I think was it Mission Impossible or maybe it was
Top Gune one of those. Anyway, that these big amusement
park movies that American American studios do now are not
getting the kind of reception American studio executives would like
to get at the Can Film Festival, and so they
they think that, you know, well we should just skip it,
and you know whatever. It's not for me to say
whether that's the correct way. I mean, I'm not a
studio executive. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't care about real movies anymore. I a real
discussion about movies.
Speaker 1: I did think I don't know if this is related
or not, but I remember when the devilwaar Is productwo
thing was fully underway, and I said to you again,
because you always think of these things, I was like, Oh,
they'll be going to Paris next. I'm sure we'll be
covering them. And they didn't go to Paris. No, they
didn't go anywhere. Yeah, And they did a London one
and that was it. And they did Tokyo and Seoul
and Mexico City, and I think they did Berlin, but
most of those were just photocols. I was actually really surprised,
but about Paris, I was like, it's a fashion movie.
How are you not opening in Paris? But I am
starting to get the impression that a lot of these
international premieres and stuff are just not looking lucrative enough
or worth the I will say these massive ones, like
when they do the big London premieres, premieres in the
UK or massive, I'm always like, how much did that
cost to pull on?
Speaker 2: What I have noticed lately, because I look for pictures
every day, is that they're doing more fan events.
Speaker 1: Because that's easier.
Speaker 2: Because it's easier, it's smaller. You know, everybody's gonna love
the movie there because they're fans and no celebrities.
Speaker 1: No one's going to start yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah,
you only need like two or three cast members to
show up to a fan event.
Speaker 2: Or even sometimes they don't have anybody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's just interesting. And then the other thing
I just wanted to tie it to, uh, Colbert is
ending next week and the whole late night talk show
thing is up in the air as to how long
it's going to continue. I don't think they're all going
to get canceled anytime soon, but they are embattled. And again,
it's one of those things where that leaves a hole.
Colbert not existing actually leaves a hole in our coverage
because we probably cover at these three or four appearing
is a week on his show. It's not going to
be some sort of massive financial hit for us, but
it's just one of the many ways in which you know,
we kind of constantly have to shift our expectations or
what we're One of the major things that are being
talked about right now with celebrity promotion is the fact
that so many of them are going onto podcasts now,
but they're not going on to talk shows. And part
of the reason they're going onto podcasts is because they
don't well. Part of the reason these podcasts are becoming
so popular is because you don't need unions to pull
them off, so you don't like you would with a
television show. So now you can go out and promote
your work and you don't have to pay a union,
and you don't have to get dressed up, because who
gets dressed up for a podcast. That's the kind of
stuff that sucks for us because if you start removing
fashion or pulling away from it, I don't know how
much of that stuff we could possibly.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's sustainable because I don't think it
is easy. I don't think so. Because the only reason
why we pay attention to things is when we see them,
actually visually see them in front of us. Right, you
have to see the actor all the time so that
you go like, oh, maybe I should see this movie. Yeah,
you know, that's what happens.
Speaker 1: It has been the way Hollywood and even the theater
world and the music world has promoted itself for one
hundred and fifty years is that you get performers in
outfits in front of crowds to drum up excitement so
I don't have anything to say about this except it's
one of the many, many ships that we're constantly dealing
with in our line of work. And it's because the
industry itself, the fashion industry and the entertainment industry are
in so much flux at the moment that nobody understands
or knows what works and what doesn't. I think all
of the studios skipping Can is a huge mistake for
the studios. But what do I know?
Speaker 2: I mean, why would you eliminate one of the places
where you're going to promote yourself.
Speaker 1: I mean I don't understand why. I know it's already opened,
but why wouldn't you want the Double Wears product to
a big splashing moment? I can with that cast, I
still get it. I don't get it. Whatever, do you
have anything else you want to add to that?
Speaker 2: That's it. That's it. It's just and again it's it's
I see that with the fashion industry and the movie
and lazy it's just like, oh, let's go with this
and it doesn't work, and then to go back to
the old fashion, you know, the old ways, and it's
just yeah, it's people, it's people with money making this
stupid decision.
Speaker 1: It's people with money getting lazier and lazier, like we
shouldn't have to do this, we shouldn't have to put
the effort in, and you know, they take control whatever
is the cheapest, easiest route.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like leadership, you know, one oh one. That's
the basics. I'm in charge. Now, let's change everything.
Speaker 1: And this is a good segue into our next topic,
which also is related to CAN, which suddenly everyone that
CAN is talking about AI and apparently embracing it. To
me more. During the press conference for the jewelry came
out with these very pro AI kind of I mean
it set people off because again it's the way people
talk about AI that that because she talked about this
battle that we're not going to win and we have
to just succumb to it and everything. And that's the
kind of thing that makes people panic because you're not
talking about this this you know, this technology in a
way that's like this is how it's going to improve
your life, this is what it can do for you. No,
it's you have to succumb to this because it's coming
whether you want. And I have never heard a technology
spoken about in that way not the Internet, not social media,
not computers on art phones.
Speaker 2: I was listening to someone talk about AI this morning
on NPR and I and he was right when he said,
we don't really understand the whole thing yet.
Speaker 1: That's what's scary about it.
Speaker 2: That's what's scary about it. We're embracing it. We're investing
all this money on something that we're not know.
Speaker 1: It's everywhere. It's it's in your emails, it's in your
Google it's a listen.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm on social media at the time, TikTok, Instagram,
and I have the hardest time trying to figure out, Okay,
is this real or fake? It's like a constant battle
now that you're like, all right, is this real that
you know? Is this a real picture?
Speaker 1: And the only thing I want to say about this
is when then Peter Jackson came out yes, and he
was he made some very I've read his comments like
five times now and I'm like, Okay, this is a
very confusing point. And that's the thing. It's like, whenever
someone tries, especially in the creative community, tries to make
a pitch as to why we should accept AI, their
reasoning is always kind of muddled, and he made some
bullshit point about Andy serkis never getting an oscar for
playing Gollum, and I'm like, what does that have to
do with AI? That wasn't AI anyway. He made similar
comments about embracing AI, and he said something that is
very very illuminating to me, at least where he said it.
To me. It's just it's another special effect, that's all
it is. And if you look at it from that perspective, like, oh,
this is just another way to jazz up filmmaking, to
make things. Sure, that's but the problem that so many
people have with AI, especially when it's injected into creative endeavors,
is that it's putting people out of work, right, Like, Okay, yes,
it's a special effect that is putting your special effects
department out of work. And I know that's alarmist because
what's going to happen is a lot of special effects
artists are going to become AI special effects artists.
Speaker 2: That's the same reason why we scan our items, we
beg our items when we go to every store because
they don't want to pay people, not because it makes
it more practical or easier for us. No, they're just eliminating.
Speaker 1: They're eliminating jobs and pushing it onto right in the
case of creative use of AI, they're eliminating jobs. And
what they're putting out so far from what I have
seen about like AI videos and stuff like that. They're
putting out stuff that looks subpar to me. It does
not look as good as the best digital special effects
I have ever seen on film. It never does. The
people never look fully believable, the backgrounds don't work, the
voices sound weird so.
Speaker 2: As of now.
Speaker 1: But my point is, you're so pushing this thing on us,
and none of us can say why. The idol's and
the only reason the people with the power are pushing
this on us is because it's going to eliminate jobs,
because it's going to make things cheaper.
Speaker 2: And they're going to make more money.
Speaker 1: And people like to mean more. You see actors embracing
it now, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon Reese, Witherspoon to
me more all coming out and making these you know
why money because they're investing.
Speaker 2: Because the all the names you mentioned are producers and
they create shoes and they have their own companies.
Speaker 1: So they're cutting jobs. They're cutting jobs and making subpar products.
But I also want to say, the reason you're seeing
so many people I think in Hollywood make these comments
more and more is because they're scared and they know
that they can't I mean, they have to embrace that
otherwise you know the future's coming. And I think this
is what to me, Moore was trying to say. The
future is coming whether you want it or not. So
people need to figure out how to get on board
with something.
Speaker 2: It's not going to go away. It's not going to
go maybe you will get reshaped or something, but but
it's not gonna go away. It's it's part of the future. Now.
Speaker 1: I mean, I agree, and saying this is just acknowledging reality.
It's not. I am not advocating that we should embrace AI.
I don't use it in my search results, I don't
use it in my emails and my pledge to you
never never will we use it on the site. Nothing
on the site has ever been written by AI or
anything like that. But it is an inevitability. And I
do think sometimes when people I think the backlash against
it is sometimes as poorly informed as the people who
were advocating for it. And that's really all I wanted
to say is that it's coming for Hollywood. Hollywood is
going to embrace it, and honestly, it'll be up to
us as the consumers too. You know, if you see
some shitty Lord of the Rings movie that was done
with AI, don't buy a ticket, don't support this stuff.
That's the only way it's going to It's never going
to go away, but we can force it as consumers
to be used in a way that we want it
to be used, and not to have it forced on
us with shitty special effects and stuff like that. That's
the end of my rant. I'm sorry, No.
Speaker 2: I totally agree with you. Yeah, I think you can
use all this stuff to help humans to do a
better job. But when you take the work of.
Speaker 1: The human using it as a shortcut for human labor,
I mean, all technology provided shortcuts to human labor, but
the product has to be as good. It's sort of
a lot of people aren't going to like this, but
it's sort of like cake mixes. Cake mixes made it
so that everybody could bake a cake, but no cake
mix is as good as a cake from a bakery,
and you sort of have to make that, you know.
I'm not arguing against cake mixes, but I just want
to make sure that we still have access to really
good baked goods. I guess that's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2: The same thing the typewriter. We don't have typewriters anymore.
We have you know, keyboards, but but you're.
Speaker 1: It's still the writing long hand anymore.
Speaker 2: But it's still your brain writing this stuff.
Speaker 1: It's just what's scary about it is that the people
who are most invested in this literally in every sense
of the word, are the ones that are pushing it
the most, and they don't seem to care about the
effects that we'll have on the people who aren't going
to make money off of this.
Speaker 2: It's always people trying to make more money. They don't care.
It's the same thing, I mean, the people will benefiting
from destroying the environment and all those things. You know,
they just want to make more money.
Speaker 1: All right. I think we have ranted and they're grinding
or something's going on next door, and I apologize for
the noise, but we're going to end it here. We
will be back on Friday with the Bitterkin Movie Club.
We are doing. My name is Dolomite, Dolomite is my name.
I always get that wrong. Dolomite is my name. We're
doing that on Friday, and then we'll be back next
week with whatever crosses rise, it crosses our does. Until then,
take care of yourselves, love you mean it.
Speaker 2: Bye bye bye