Speaker 1: Starting us off is Eddington, Thank You, Charles, a neo
Speaker 1: Western satirical black comedy written and directed by Aery Astor
Speaker 1: and this, of course film stars Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal,
Speaker 1: Emma Stone, Michael Ward, and.
Speaker 2: Some other folks. Now, of course, Charles.
Speaker 1: This film is set in twenty twenty during the pandemic
Speaker 1: in a New Mexico town where personal rivalries explode into
Speaker 1: public unrests.
Speaker 2: So pretty much.
Speaker 1: The easiest way to kind of think about this, This
Speaker 1: movie happens in May twenty twenty, and everybody is supposed
Speaker 1: to be massed up right in the state of New Mexico.
Speaker 2: The only person.
Speaker 1: That's not massed up and doesn't want to be massed
Speaker 1: up is actually the sheriff of the town, played by
Speaker 1: Joaquin Phoenix. You know, there's several scenes where him and
Speaker 1: the mare butt heads. The first time is when he's
Speaker 1: walking down the street and everybody he's the mayor's having
Speaker 1: a cabinet.
Speaker 2: Meeting or a meeting in a bar and.
Speaker 1: There's some homeless guy that's beating on the door that
Speaker 1: wants to get in, and he's called the sheriff to
Speaker 1: try to get the guy go away, and he goes man,
Speaker 1: he's a citizen man, he has the right to be here.
Speaker 1: So he plays sort of a maga esque sort of
Speaker 1: a character during the pandemic, right, so him and the
Speaker 1: mayor don't see eye to eye. The mayor's trying to
Speaker 1: rationalize with him. There's another scene where, you know, you
Speaker 1: remember during the pandemic when it got this bad, where
Speaker 1: they had people waiting in line, and you know, we
Speaker 1: had to have our space is sixty and everybody just
Speaker 1: couldn't walk in. You had to stand in line. And
Speaker 1: of course he walks in the supermarket in front of
Speaker 1: the entire line, no mask, coming in there to shop
Speaker 1: for the homeless guy or some patron who was like,
Speaker 1: I can't breathe through my mask. So you have all
Speaker 1: these dynamic that makes happening in the movie. Also, remember
Speaker 1: during the film, George Floyd is murdered. So now there
Speaker 1: are all these protests in the town BLM and Black
Speaker 1: Lives Matter, and man, I'm sitting next to a film
Speaker 1: critic of mind who is a colleague of our, Sam
Speaker 1: Leggott Junior, and we looking.
Speaker 2: At each other and I'm like, too soon for this.
Speaker 2: This is just not the movie that I signed up
Speaker 2: to watch to night. It's too soon, Yes, sir, it is.
Speaker 1: You know why, because now we are living in a
Speaker 1: time with no DEI and all this stuff that's going on,
Speaker 1: and then this is just five years ago. This is
Speaker 1: not like this is like twenty five years ago. This
Speaker 1: movie takes place five years ago. So I needless to say.
Speaker 1: I don't want to give away the twist, but the
Speaker 1: movie has a twist to it, right, and then it
Speaker 1: really gets weird.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So it got so bad because I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: the run time was.
Speaker 2: Was it like two forty or something like that. I
Speaker 2: think it's it's a long movie, pretty long, and and
Speaker 2: and the movie.
Speaker 1: Has several instances where you feel like it is going to.
Speaker 2: End, and then yet it continues going. And I.
Speaker 1: Told Charles, I said, the last time I saw a
Speaker 1: movie that had multiple endings like that was Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings, Return of the King. But at least in
Speaker 1: that movie, you just kept giving me more good stuff.
Speaker 1: This movie was the opposite. It just kept getting worse
Speaker 1: and worse. And by the time it got to the end,
Speaker 1: you know, I also had parking that I had to
Speaker 1: deal with.
Speaker 2: I realized I didn't realize the movie I put. I
Speaker 2: stayed for three hours.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking most movies will be over in three hours,
Speaker 1: so I'm standing. I got up to the I didn't leave,
Speaker 1: but I stood in the wings because I was trying
Speaker 1: to wait for the movie to be over so I
Speaker 1: could run out to my car and get I get
Speaker 1: a text the next day, you walking out of movies
Speaker 1: talking about man.
Speaker 2: I was standing in the wings.
Speaker 1: I didn't walk out of the movie, so needless to
Speaker 1: say man. I'll just wrap the review by saying, in
Speaker 1: the end, Eddington is less a searing satire than a
Speaker 1: cautionary tale about what happens when even the boldest filmmakers
Speaker 1: let ambition run amok, and trying to distill the chaos
Speaker 1: of an era defined by fear, anger, and misinformation as
Speaker 1: their delivers of film that every bit as fractured as
Speaker 1: the world it betrays.
Speaker 2: I gave this movie a D.
Speaker 1: Did not like this movie at all, not