Civil War (2024)

Speaker 1: Hold your ears, folks. It 's showtime people pay good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas, hot popcorn and no monsters in the projection booth.

Speaker 2: Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring. Turn it off.

Speaker 3: 19 states have seceded. The United States army ramps up activity. The White House issued warnings to the Western forces as well as the Florida alliance.

Speaker 4: The three term president assures the uprising will be dealt with swiftly. Let me know if you want to try anything on. Are you guys aware? There's like a pretty huge Civil War going on all across America?

Speaker 2: We just try to stay out with what we see on the news. Seems like it's for the best citizens of America. The so called Western forces of Texas and California have suffered a very great defeat at the hands of the United States military. Mr President, do you regret the use of airstrikes against American citizens?

Speaker 4: They're moving to DC today.

Speaker 5: We need to go down there. They shoot journalists on side in the capitol. Every instinct in me says this is death. What?

Every time I survived the War song, I thought I was sending a warning home. Don't do this, but here we are.

Speaker 4: There's some kind of misunderstanding here. All right, you're American. Ok. Ok.

What kind of American are you? You Don't know.

Speaker 2: The Western horses will reach the white cuff on July 4th. Oh my God, you're in the park in the park. We're gonna hang back.

Speaker 5: I'm not hanging back.

Speaker 2: One nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. God bless America. MIKE WHITE: Welcome to the projection booth. I'm your host, Mike White.

This is not just the projection booth. This is the Kulturecast because I'm joined by Mr Chris Stu Man. CHRIS STACHIW: I really love Captain America and Iron Man. Isn't that what we're here to talk shit?

That's not what we're here to talk about. Well, I guess I gotta. MIKE WHITE: Leave also with us is Mr Father Malone. FATHER MALONE: Oh Well, we watched the movie about the silverware right about cutlery.

MIKE WHITE: On this special crossover episode. We are looking at the new film from Alex Garland Civil War. The film stars Kirsten Dunst as Lee, a War photographer who travels with her frank journalist friend. I never really caught what this guy's deal was.

Joel played by Wagner Maura after a suicide bombing in New York CIty. The two decide to go off to Washington DC where they hope to get an interview with that dastardly president played by Nick Offerman. One of many cast members from Garland's devs show, including one of their traveling companions, actually, both of their traveling companions, Sammy, who's played by Stephen McKinley Henderson and the young girl who wants to be a War photographer as well. Jessie played by Kyle Spy Callie Spinney and surprise.

This whole movie is actually about her. What do you know, we are going to be spoiling this movie as we go along? So if you haven't seen Civil War and Don't want it ruined, just turn off the podcast and go away. We Don't want you here.

But if you do want it ruined. Keep on listening, we're gonna be talking about all of the ins and outs of, especially the end of this movie. So Chris, what did you think of Civil War? CHRIS STACHIW: So I've said this to you in private or in, you know, pre post one of the recordings we've done in the last couple weeks about how I kind of regretted my decision to agree to watch this movie only because when I finally got around to watching the trailer, it quote, gave me the big I and I mean, the movie I think fails pretty hard in actually making good on the trailer's promise of engaging.

I wouldn't say engaging dialogue in terms of the characters, but engaging in a filmic dialogue with the audience. And I say that only because of the person who's directing and wrote the movie at this point, we've come to expect a lot from him as a director and a writer because he 's pretty much a writer director when it comes to the movies that he's done. And I mean, it's kicked off of him right there. Is that, but I will say I was, pretty underwhelmed by the movie in a lot of ways and I get what Alex Garland may have been going for.

But at the time in the place that we live in now, even this feels pretty defanged as a movie. I mean, it's, it's a, it's, it's making some points, I guess, but I Don't, I Don't necessarily agree with who the movie focuses on because I think that once you realize what the movie's kind of game is and what it's driving at, it feels like it's become quite a pedestrian movie in a lot of ways. And look, there is some pretty interesting imagery in the third act but to what end is kind of where I come into it with all of this.

Look, I saw what January 6th actually looked like. Like so many other people. Did you wanna show me helicopters blowing up the Washington monument and shooting rocket launchers at the Washington and the Abraham Lincoln statue of the memorial? Like, go right ahead.

I it's not, it's not really that shocking anymore. I mean, that 's, that's maybe the saddest thing about this movie is, this movie is really not that shocking. That's why I say it's kind of pedestrian in a lot of ways because the, this is the future only dialed up one or two degrees. And I'm not saying that to be some sort of, doomsday say or anything because I'm far from it.

I tend to find myself to be a rather positive person, but this movie, the trailer did a lot better of a job making me feel a certain way than the movie did. And I think that's because those short form snippets of things, once you see what it actually is in the grand scheme of the film, it's like, ok, it really is just that in the third act, in a lot of ways this movie may have been better as a mockumentary or even found footage. I mean, it kind of is sort of found footage. E but yeah, I was a thoroughly underwhelmed and felt like, oh, what was I making a big deal about with this movie before going to see it?

MIKE WHITE: And how about you FM alone? FATHER MALONE: It's hard to quantify just how disappointing this movie was to the point where I've actually become quite angry about the film. Because like you Chris, when we agreed to do this podcast months ago, it was right after the trailer had come out. In fact, I think it was the day the trailer came out.

And I had watched it and I agreed to do this with an immense amount of trepidation knowing Alex Garland and knowing what he's capable of and knowing how thoughtful a filmmaker he is and writer, particularly that him handling the notion of an American Civil War. Given our current political climate was a horrifying notion to show us exactly where we can go and what can cause it and how we would deal with it. And that 's what the trailer foretold. So this entire time I've been dreading it up until it's released before I watched.

And I thought I might even just call this off. I might not, I might just not show up for the podcast. Tell you guys, I didn't see it and now I watched it and it is not only a situation where this isn't the movie that the trailer promised, it falls down on like every fear that I had and then it falls down on a bunch of other levels. It do.

Ok. Iiii I would, let's not get into the nuts and bolts of it. Now, I guess this is just sort of our, our, our, our basic opinion, but like on a, on a just a very surface level, this script needed to pass by Mr John Milius because it makes no sense what's going on militarily in this movie, any of the actions that the military actions occurring in the film were supposed to be shocked by the fact that this is taking place in America. But if you had just told me that this is Kosovo and these people are speaking English but they're actually speaking, you know, Czech or something like I would have believed it because it has no bearing on America.

It's this meandering road movie when we were told it was going to be this Civil War movie. I Don't know why. Maybe it's because it's called Civil War. If you want to see a, an American Civil War movie, see Joe Dante is the second Civil War that there was like a showtime movie he made many years ago.

I'm, I cannot believe Alex Garland made this movie. It because I like all of his movies. But what this movie did reinforce for me is that Alex Garland has a third act problem across all of his films. They all fall down in the third act.

They're weird enough and interesting enough that they carry you and you Don't really mind it, but it's a big, and it 's a huge problem here. The third act of this movie with the troops in Washington DC ought to be fucking horrifying and it was pedestrian at best and at worst, it made zero sense at all. Like just like what I was saying, tactically militarily the president with the Western forces on the way is still sitting in the White House. What, what the f th that's the level of logic going on in this movie And by the way, we're not supposed to think about any of it because he's gusted it up by making it confusing.

Like the idea that Western, states, like California and Texas have teamed up. Oh, ok. CHRIS STACHIW: That's the most unbelievable part of the entire movie. The basic premise alone.

FATHER MALONE: He puts it in there. So you can say like, well, it doesn't make sense so we'll ignore the politics of the movie, but it's all politics, motherfucker. CHRIS STACHIW: I would actually say, and I just want to get this because I Don't know if you're gonna say it, Mike. But I just want to mention this is like the worst, most ineffectual zombie movie I've ever seen is really what this feels like.

It feels like someone just CG ID out all the zombies in a zombie movie because in a lot of ways that's what this feels like. If you told me this was from the last of us, I would have been like, sure, I, yeah, it was taking place during that. Like, because in a lot of ways, like it's. FATHER MALONE: You know, you could call this movie Tales from Dawn of the Dead taking place during the early days of the zombie apocalypse, right?

CHRIS STACHIW: Yeah. But just no zombies at all just Don't. FATHER MALONE: Run into any. MIKE WHITE: That's, it's the later days of the zombie apocalypse where all the zombies are dead or they've starved or winter has come.

I was so thinking of World War Z while I was watching this and I kept thinking, well, what's going on in other parts. And I'm talking World War Z. The book, please. Not.

The movie's amazing. The book with all of the, oh, here's this person in this area and they tell their story. Then we go over here, they tell their story. And then I asked you guys to go back and watch this movie, Smog and Thunder, which is subtitled, I think the War of the California's and it's all done with mostly all done with still images.

It's all these paintings of what happened during the War. And that has that whole World War Z trope where we go to this person who talks about this, we hear from this person who talks about that. I was waiting for that in this movie. But yeah, I was getting major zombie land vibes through this to the point where there's a part in the movie where there's a body laying across the road and there's like the Santa Village and you hear these and it doesn't make any sense what the fuck is going on.

It's just like provocative images that there's like bubbles and music. Carol Christmas carols going on and there's this body on the road and I'm like, is that a real body? Is that just a mannequin? And I still Don't know, even after they ran it over the car, I still Don't know if it was a real body or a mannequin.

And there are these soldiers there just hanging out, just two lone soldiers just hanging out and they are trying to kill the sniper that's inside of this big mansion. And as soon as I saw the mansion, I leaned over to, the guy I saw the movie with and I said, it's Bill Murray in there. And I mean, that's how much I was getting zombie land from this. I thought they were going to look for a Twinkie.

After a while. CHRIS STACHIW: You mentioned the film you asked us to watch in Smog and Thunder, which for me is very much like Confederate States Of America in the way that it's done. It's that Ken Burns and Thing and it, like I watched that and I would have watched that three more times because I would, I would rather even throw this movie out of my memory because I can't believe Alex Garland made it because I kind of forgot to mention this in my opening Salvo as it were. But annihilation is one of my favorite films.

It's an amazing movie does have a third problem act, but it's in a lot of ways, it's the least third problem acting, having movie that he's done maybe other than ex machina, but I'm, I'm in the minority on that film. It's, it's not one that resonated with me, but that's probably my biggest disappointment here is that this is an Alex Garland movie, which it's like a Jonathan Glazer film being bad. Like he doesn't make movies very often. But when he makes his films, they are his films and his name is the written credit.

So I can't, if this isn't the movie he wanted to make that there's no one he can blame. But himself, it is one of those scenarios where you can blame the director because the director is also the writer. FATHER MALONE: You mentioned that the sniper scene, which it happens to be my favorite scene in the movie. Just for kind of the reasons that w what doesn't work for the rest of the movie works in the scene for me where it's all confusion.

We Don't know who these soldiers are if they're soldiers and we Don't know who they're shooting at and why they're being shot at. And it also has the mo look, Alex Garland is kind of this like pastoral futurist. He really loves nature and he really shoots it beautifully. And in this scene, in particular, the there's inter cutting between Kirsten Dunst and Callie Spay as they're taking photographs of the action and the camera slowly racks focus to these like flowers that are laying in front of them and it's all slow motion.

He does it twice and it's gorgeous and I loved that scene. But what works in that scene like I said, the confusion if we Don't know what's going on, shows a bigger problem in the movie, which is, we're, we're dealing with protagonists who are all journalists and we learn nothing about what's going on from anybody. We go to a town that has decided we're not, we're neutral, we're not engaging in this and they kind of ask them questions but ask them in an outraged way. Like how can you be blah, blah, blah and, but Don't really get into it.

Don't find out anything more than that. Just the sound bite version and then they're back on the road meandering on this road trip movie to nowhere. CHRIS STACHIW: That's why I felt like a zombie movie to me is that I'm not gonna explain anything. Wow.

Like you have a chance here, you might as well. There's, there is no benefit to not unless you're gonna set the movie as people like random everyday civilians at the beginning of the conflict as if this were somehow like Red Dawn adjacent. If we're this far into it where the forces are knocking on the White House's door, what the fuck movie? Like I get it, but this is not the time to not explain it because that's an opportunity to reinforce whatever the fucking point you're trying to make is because best I can tell the point is War journalists have a penchant for the dangerous and then get PTSD and possibly die.

No shit. Yeah. MIKE WHITE: And yeah, I would have been fine if this was a film about War photographers. And yeah, like you were saying, Father Malone said it in Kosovo, set it in the Ukraine, set it in the Gaza Strip.

You know, like we've got all of these places right now that are active War fronts. It's like, ok, well, go ahead, set it there. The thing that captures your interest about this movie you're supposed to is these are Americans fighting Americans. I would like to know a little bit more.

I Don't need a powerpoint presentation. I Don't need an opening scroll to tell me, you know, in the year 2426 blah, blah, blah. You know, like, I Don't need any of that kind of like judge dread as opposed to dread, judge dread type, you know, opening scroll type thing. I would just like a little bit more information that would be great or just go to some other characters or have something, some, something here like this.

All it is basically an older photographer, passing the Torch to a younger photographer. And that's the movie that is all it is really and all of the interesting things aren't interesting, you know, all the things that I wanted to see just Don't hold my interest. CHRIS STACHIW: It just happens to be set in the United States that it doesn't even matter. FATHER MALONE: There's no payoff to it.

There's no reason to set it in the United States other than because it's a provocative thing to do. Given the current situation here and speaking to what you said, Chris, that I can't believe this is Alex Garland who wrote it. Given the like the level of research in detail that went into a screenplay like Sunshine to then go here with this script and look, he tries to sidestep it, like I said, by just making it so obscure and weird and odd that we can't find out any facts. We Don't know anything that's going on.

But the facts that we're given are so unusual and so like, I cannot wrap my mind around some of them. Like, you know, the sort of the Texas California one being sort of the prime example, but just like other little bits of little crumbs of details that were given, Don't make any sense to me. And as a viewer, I'm sitting there trying, instead of watching a movie about photojournalists, which is what this fucking movie is. I'm trying to suss out what on earth is causing this conflict.

W what is going on here. And another thing that this is another thing that really bugged me just on a plot sort of level, Kirsten Dunst. And the, is it Sammy? Is he the male lead?

They're going to Washington DC. MIKE WHITE: Sammy is the old guy. CHRIS STACHIW: He's from Dune from that amazing Denville new film Dune. MIKE WHITE: And for some reason I thought he had passed away and that's why he wasn't in Dune too, but apparently he's alive and, well, so I apologize to Mr Stephen mckinley Anderson.

The guy who you're looking for is Joel. FATHER MALONE: Ok. So Joel Pablo Escobar, basically. So they're going to the Washington DC because they want to get an interview with the President before the Western forces come in.

Right. And they're acting like it's a huge secret. Like, Don't tell any of the other journalists what we're doing. Don't add anyone, Don't, Don't, Don't leak it to anyone.

The Western forces are approaching the White House with an intent on assassinating the president for all to see every journalist is going to Washington DC right now that this should have been a movie about battling journalists on the road trying to like one up each other on the way there or something because I Don't know, none of the movie logistically makes any sense. CHRIS STACHIW: Hear me out here. What you're asking for is essentially cannonball run. But during a modern American Civil War now I would watch thousands.

Yeah. Well, or that, but I just like the idea of cannonball, run a bunch of quirky characters. You've got the Klansmen in one car and the white nationalists in the other and they're on the way to the White House. I mean, you know, what?

Make it fun. At least that was the thing. Make this a funny movie. You could have made this a funny satirical film.

It would have worked way, it actually would have worked as a movie. But you know what? We're just gonna do nothing. It's like, it's like an hour and 40 minutes of doing nothing, which is not something I would give Alex Garland, a notion that he's capable of doing.

Frankly. MIKE WHITE: It's so strange because there's like two really tense scenes in the film and that the film does not open with a tense scene though. The whole weird thing where you're like, you see the girl who's gonna suicide bomb and you're just like, oh, she's putting that event, she's probably a suicide bomber. And then, like, 10 minutes later, she runs into the crowd and blows stuff up and I'm like, I'm a pretty savvy movie goer.

I Don't know if everybody else is gonna get this. But, ok, but anyway, the two scenes that I felt had a lot of tension. One was at the car wash where the guys are strung up. There's no resolution to that.

We just cut to them in the car and we go, ah, they're probably gonna shoot them anyway. So it's better that they shot them now than later on. And I'm like, oh, we're just aborting that scene. Ok, yada yada baby.

And then the other tense scene and this one actually pays off is the Jesse Clement scene and I'm just, like, waiting for him the entire time. He's in the one scene, ladies and gentlemen, one scene with this guy, whereas he 's all over that trailer. That trailer, I have a lot of problems with that trailer because I feel like I was sold a bill of goods. That scene was fantastic.

And I love the tension. I loved how he's just fucking with them. And you're like, ok, great. Like these are the kind of people that are out there right now, probably like three miles from my house, you know, like protesting right now, the trial of Donald Trump.

And it's like, ok, more of this place like this is what I want, I want this tension. This is what I was sold when it came to this movie should have had me on the edge of my seat feeling queasy the entire time instead of bored. CHRIS STACHIW: And I mentioned that that scene is in and of itself a yada yada moment because the line in the trailer is, what kind of American are you? Then they cut in the trailer in the movie?

He goes, what kind of American are you central American South American? Like, wow, what, what and then you just under you undercut the entire scene by having it go in the weirdest possible direction that makes no fucking sense. The question, what kind of American are, you should have been the central tenant of what this movie is about. That is the singular line of dialogue in this film?

Similar to ladies and gentlemen, this is your captor speaking like that gets all you need to know about under siege. Two out of the way immediately. What kind of American are? You should have informed anyone who 's sitting down to watch this movie?

What they're getting themselves into and it, like you said, what a fuck. So that was a fucking lie. That's what this feels like. I can't believe we're being bait and switched by a director who up until this point, I would have considered an auteur.

MIKE WHITE: Him, it's not him cutting the trailer. It's a 24 right? CHRIS STACHIW: But he, but he, but he cut the movie together, which is where the real problem lies. FATHER MALONE: He made a movie that, that did not in any way resemble the movie that that trailer promised because that scene, the Jesse Plemons scene was what I was expecting from moment one in the movie and just an endless brutal onslaught of that type of tension.

But by the way, by that point in the movie, that was like three quarters of the way through the movie. I was bored by then. And mad that this was a like a fuckaroo that didn't have anything to do with an American Civil War. So that like any tension in the scene kind of got undercut and it also got undercut again on a basic fucking logistical level.

If somebody's saying, where are you from? And he's shooting people who are not from America or California or Texas. You just say, oh man, I'm, I'm from Missouri, I'm from Colorado. I, you know, I'm from Hong Kong.

MIKE WHITE: Well, that they are wearing badges that say press, I mean, after the War on the so-called fake news, that's the first person you're gonna shoot any, any person that was wearing a press badge take him out. You know, they just tell lies. All they do is tell lies about our president, take those motherfuckers out and. CHRIS STACHIW: They say as much in the movie, they're like, no press should be in Washington DC.

There is, they're being shot on site. Where is that? Where is, where again, where are the people? MIKE WHITE: Where are the people just standing on the streets?

We know that people are fucking idiots. You know, like, like you said, this is a zombie movie. This is post Apocalypse. So we Don't see any just normal people hanging around.

Even when it comes to that little town that they go to. There's the girl in the shop and there's the two guys standing under the building. Give me like another five minutes of this thing, show other people going to other stores and like what they're doing. No, none of that.

It just, they never run into anybody. This is, it feels very like a zombie movie because it's just so sparsely populated. This is so like a watered down 28 days later because in there, you see like the brutality of both man against zombie, but then man against man and the way that they start to turn on each other towards the end of that movie, it's like, oh wow, this really like hurts me inside to see this stuff. Where is that in this film?

Come on, Alex, you've got tamer over the years rather than more vicious. CHRIS STACHIW: And what I Don't understand is the thing that you kind of mentioned, but it bears repeating. This is an, a 24 movie that alone was getting people excited because it's a big budget, a 24 movie. I hope you're happy because this is a very disappointing Alex Scarlett movie and it's an even more disappointing, not for me personally because a 24 they're fine.

But I know that there are people who are part of the, a 24 fan club movie club. That's a thing I've got to assume unless they're seeing something that we're not. This is also disappointing. And if it's me seeing this is the first big budget, a 24 movie, not a great first showing, that's for sure.

MIKE WHITE: I feel like we are in the minority when it comes to this. I've seen nothing but praise on my feed but the Facebook feed today, all the critics, all the, all the people with opinions, they just seemed like, oh my God, what a cutting edge film. FATHER MALONE: This is not only not only critics, not only like people that I know and respect but like, like I read a review by Paul Schrader and like Stephen King, like these people, like, echoing the same idea which is, this is horrifying. This is a horror movie.

You gotta see this. It'll knock your socks off. And I'm like, where, when, what the fuck are you guys talking about? Are you like they're responding to the trailer and all that dread.

I had about watching this fucking movie. Speaking of dread, that's his best third act. MIKE WHITE: There you go. Well, he was also removed from that project.

I mean, they locked him out of the editing room is what I remember the story being, I was so caught up looking at the ghost Steelers graffiti that was on the bridge that right before the that shot cut, I realized there were two bodies hanging from another bridge right there. I'm like, you're focusing in on the wrong things. It's, you know. CHRIS STACHIW: I will say the things that I read before seeing the film were not super positive.

I know that the ringer and I think maybe IGN as well and one other place I read were pretty like middle of the road if not leaning the direction that we are. And I would actually be curious to read what Stephen King had to say because yeah, I mean, this for me, I you know what I would compare this movie to somehow. This is the, this is literally what happened to that suicide squad movie, the shittiest trailer known to man with a bad movie. This movie had a kind of amazing trailer with a movie that is such a disappointment.

I wonder if a 24 screened the movie and we're like, oh no, what? We kind of have a boring movie here. That doesn't really have much to say. Let's take like the best parts of the movie that are the, that are the nuggets, the core colonel ideas that really should have been built off of and just put them in a two minute trailer and then, you know, have some good press about the movie.

Hopefully it, because of the topicality of the whole thing. MIKE WHITE: I rewatched the trailer and yes, this is the biggest a 24 opening that they've ever had. I rewatched that trailer and so much of the footage comes from the third act comes from the Jesse Plemons. Post that scene, the scenes what I was reminded of at one point and I hope you guys have never seen this movie.

This movie reminded me a little bit of Cell, the Stephen King. Yeah, when they come to the point where it's the tent city and it's the stadium. I was just like, oh, it's like we're all the zombies, but the cellphone zombies laid and they're gonna blow up all the cellphone zombies. And then we're gonna feel bad for the cellphone zombies for no good reason.

Yeah, that I was ok. Ok. With the book. But the movie, oh my God.

Was that bad? FATHER MALONE: Dreadful? Yeah. Ii, I couldn't abide that film.

Yeah. And I agree the book was just sort of ok, he's just making a B movie kind of zombie kind of thing. Ok. That's fun, I guess.

But, yeah. No. No and no to that and no to this. No, no, no.

Across the board to all the faux zombie movies. Look, everyone here is still worshiping the altar of Don's dead. They've all been making their zombie movies him some explicitly and some less explicitly. But like, come on, give it a rest already.

Find something else like this movie should have been about American Civil War. I was dreading it and wanted it. I, and I wanted Alex Garland's fucking brain behind it. It's really insulting that he chose to just go.

Well, that doesn't matter. Don't, Don't pay Danny attention. MIKE WHITE: Oh, and the way that they tease us with like, oh, here's the map. You know, I keep seeing the map everywhere as far as who's align and who's not.

And the map shows up in the movie, but it's reversed out and it's a reflection on a window where she's looking out of, to see all these airstrikes going on. And I'm like, ok, it d it never like when she's sitting there in a hotel room which she had to climb 1010 flights to get up to. It doesn't feel like she's in any danger. I mean, there's a few moments where she feels like she's in genuine danger and I'd say that Jesse Plemons part is it.

And really, even when she's in the firefight in the fucking White House I knew, oh, well, she's gonna have to die at some point. But otherwise I was like, no, she's in no danger throughout this entire film. CHRIS STACHIW: That's how you pass the Torch. Baby is you go down and you sacrifice your.

It's like I fucking well on top of everything else and we kind of really haven't mentioned it. We've talked about it a little bit but the characters, again, this is an audio medium so you can't see me making air quotes here, but the characters in this movie aren't characters at all. If not in a lot of ways, they resemble characters in it. Like we've already talked about a zombie movie.

They're just fodder for someone to tear through. I have no emotional attachment to Stephen McKinley Henderson's character or Wagner Morris character. And we should have been the characters, we should have cared about Kirsten Dunn's character, the moment where she dies, which is heavily foreshadowed very early on when the character of Jesse asks her if she would shoot the photo of her if she gets shot. It's like, ok, so she 's gonna have to do it.

Oh For like who's writing this? That not Alex Garland? Like, I'm sorry, I remember that. I remember watching annihilation and then reading the book and then re-watching the movie and going, what the fuck is this?

Because he was transformative with the medium with the original source material in a way that makes that movie something worth watching. Separated completely from the original source material here. I'm, and I guess you kind of fantasy booked the American Civil War. But brother, if you're gonna do that, give us if you're gonna do that fantasy book it in a way, that, that's exciting.

I mean, look, I'm not saying go full Roland Emmerick, but if this is your attempt at making a big American Civil War movie, boy, I mean, I saw Better Destruction in Independence Day and that movie came out a long time. FATHER MALONE: Ago, you know, Chris. That's exactly right. And we are so inured now to seeing our national monuments being destroyed by aliens and natural, natural disasters and on and on and on that somehow firing at the fucking Lincoln Memorial or running through the White House.

I've seen the White House destroyed better on numerous occasions in the past 20 years. So who gives a shit about any of that? And also it again, just keeps making me think, how did the Western forces get across the country get Washington DC surrounded that they're able that this is their final push in. Where's the rest of the military?

What's going on here? Like I said, where was John Milius? To rewrite the script? Just give it a Polish.

Just a, just a shade of possibility, like actual logic. Like how about the president? Is it Camp David or some other their thing? And that's where they're going.

CHRIS STACHIW: He would stay at the White House. That's what Hitler did guys, Don't you get it? MIKE WHITE: 911 happens and boom, you're Dick Cheney is secreted away someplace. So where's the VP here?

Where are you? What any of this stuff? I'm guessing that he is kind of this Donald Trump stand in and caused all of this stuff is what I'm. FATHER MALONE: He took a third term.

They say, but how did that happen? Was there an election? Did he just say I'm not giving up power? I'm staying a third term.

Like these are little nuggets that might have helped me watch the rest of the movie and go, oh, it's about photojournalists. CHRIS STACHIW: The Antifa massacre guys and a lot of hand waving the Antifa massacre and a lot like Alex Garland. Are you dog whistling Antifa now too? Like, bro, I'm the.

MIKE WHITE: Actual fuck did they do the massacre or were they? CHRIS STACHIW: That's my point. That's what I'm saying. All I'm saying is you say Antifa and all of a sudden there's a whole group of people on the internet whose mouths start foaming and then there's another group of people on the internet whose mouth start foaming as well.

So you can't win is my point. So explain it a little bit more my friend because hanging a lantern on it at this point ain't good enough. MIKE WHITE: You're asking which Alex Garland wrote this film and I think it was the Alex Garland that wrote the third act of Sunshine wrote this movie because that movie just shits the bed so hard and this whole movie just shits the bed from beginning to end. FATHER MALONE: I can't defend that third act of Sunshine.

But I do love that movie. I could and I recommend everyone go watch Sunshine instead of Civil War. But yeah, again, this doesn't fall apart in the third act. It's a meandering thing from the beginning and then completely goes nuts at the end because the action doesn't feel visceral.

It feels like action movie nonsense at the end. It doesn't feel like I Don't care when any character dies in this movie. Not once and I wasn't scared for any of them. And I didn't give a shit because they Don't give a shit and they never seemed in danger.

Like you said, Mike. MIKE WHITE: It just felt like it was shot on a soundstage that whole third act, you know, just once they pull out from there, I'm just like, OK, yeah, this, these are a couple of city streets, this basically is the end of the first suicide squad. This is them. I wouldn't have been surprised if Nick Offerman was just dancing and a big blue light behind them.

You know, it would have made as much sense. CHRIS STACHIW: White House is down, baby. That's a more like if you're gonna make this movie, why not do something like like Paul Verhoeven? Because Paul Verhoeven has done on two accounts, two films that lampoon specifically American consumerism and American nationalism, maybe not just specifically American nationalism with starship troopers, but definitely American consumerism with Robocop.

Why not do something similar here? Give them a reason that is ridiculous to be at War with one another because I'd like to point out if there actually was an American Civil War at this point, it would be because of something fucking ridiculous at this point. It would have to be because at this point, frankly, everything else has already happened that would have and should have led to a Civil War. One would think including people storming our nation's fucking capital.

But my point being is when those real things have happened, and Alex Garland said as much, he's like I was writing this before 2020 before January 6th of 2021 happened. And it's like, OK, so once January 6th of 2021 happened, what did you do then? Oh, you just kept writing the same movie. Why?

Like now you have seen a thing that can inform something a lot more clearly than would have before, you know, what, if anything, this movie is a poor attempt to try and open the discussion to the January 6th stuff. And, like, what happened? Because again, like, if they're trying to have any message in this movie, it's about that, I guess, like, but again, like, maybe not, like, I Don't even think this movie has a message frankly if it's attempting to have one, that's probably the starting point, but it doesn't go any further than just you know, the first couple lines on Wikipedia and then you go, I read it, OK, I'm, I read the by, I read the headline and the byline.

I Don't need to know anything else like that's this movie in a nutshell. You know, pretty much a lot of the way people consume news. FATHER MALONE: Now, I think II I'm gonna keep harping on dread like that is a better representation of America than, than his understanding of American politics if this is it because in dread and like, you know what, just write dread too, man, you can make any political point you want there, you've, you've removed yourself with a little bit of comedy. Like I kept thinking about Doctor Strangelove when I was watching this movie, like, how fucking horrifying would it have been in 1962 or something to like in the midst of the possible end of the world by nuclear annihilation and here's Stanley Kubrick cackling about it, like, I would probably be scared to go see that movie but that movie is so skillfully done without ducking under or beside the central message which is the possible, you know, eradication of humankind.

Then it, oh, I Don't know. Like, it just makes me so mad that he did not engage in any way with anything, as far as the reality of the situation and we were supposed to care. MIKE WHITE: Yeah, I just felt numb the whole time. Like I recently watched a documentary called God and Country which looks at the events or looks at some of the things that have been going on in our country for decades that led up to January 6th, the whole idea of Christian nationalism and just how the platform was formed and how it has in infected politics.

And you know, because you saw those guys with the Christian nationalist symbols and flags and things at January 6. It's like, let's look at that, that was horrifying to me just to hear about and learn more about that stuff. To see the January 6th footage is horrifying still. And this just didn't give me anything, didn't give me any feelings whatsoever.

And there are all these very, you know, like, just bathed and pathos moments of like we're out in front of the JC Penney and you can see a movie theater in the back and there's a crashed helicopter and they're taking photos again. It's just a crashed helicopter. We Don't see what made a crash. We didn't see any of that stuff again.

I was waiting for there to be people on top of the shopping mall that they're in front of and booking down and signaling their friend across the way. That's more interesting. You know, even the Zack Snyder Dawn of the Dead is way more interesting than this thing. So it just didn't do what it was supposed to.

I feel like that meme of like the character with the stick poking at it. It's like do something Civil War, do something be entertaining in any way upset me, make me mad other than making me mad by not performing any sort of anything to make me feel like I just experienced something. CHRIS STACHIW: I, you mentioning Zack Snyder is hilarious because I'm sitting here thinking to myself like, who's another director who cares more about the creation of imagery and less a sort of execution on anything behind it. And Zack Snyder is that director in so many ways.

And Alex Garland is not someone that I ever would have thought I would be comparing to Zack Snyder. But given that this movie is effectively a lot of slow motion provocative in quotations, imagery for some people, but no substance behind it. That reminds me of a lot of my complaints with Zack Snyder's stuff, you know, in this, it's provocative imagery in his stuff. It's the use of slow motion to be provocative here.

It's just, oh, can you imagine Americans in a football stadium? Oh, like, yeah, I can because I've seen this in other post apocalyptic and quotations media. I mean, if this is post apocalyptic, it's not even, oh, it's not even that. Ii, I mean, I Am Legend was more post apocalyptic than this movie.

Speaking of another movie that I feel like somehow did the post apocalyptic thing. The first, what is it? Five minutes of I Am Legend. I mean, you'll remember that movie at the beginning where it's them trying to leave New York CIty that was better than this entire movie in terms of trying to capture the feeling of a big event happening.

I mean, this is a found footage movie but somehow it's just the boring aspects of a found footage movie like this would have been better as a found footage movie because at least then they would have had an excuse for not explaining things here. It's like you Don't have an excuse, you just chose not to because you're not taking a stand. FATHER MALONE: The opening five minutes of Starship Troopers is more affecting than this movie and more panic inducing like this movie never achieves a level of panic. MIKE WHITE: No, no, no.

I mean, even I mentioned World War Z before the opening of that movie when they're caught in traffic and you get the motorcycle that goes by and hits the mirror on the car and it just like, shocks you out of what you're listening out of the family conversation and then it's like, what the fuck is going on here? There's none of that. I mean, like, did he start this movie? Six months too late?

Should this have been the origins of the Civil War? I think that would have been a lot more interesting. So we're getting the end of the Civil War and really, it just ends that easy. It feels like they had like, oh, ok, we got two tanks and there's like five guys over here, six guys over there, a couple of people in the White House Don't worry about it.

And that's it. It's it. So what's going on? FATHER MALONE: It would be a bloodbath like to earn the ending of running into the White House and seeing the president execute it.

This movie should have started with these reporters embedded with Western forces or the National Force or two stories going on. Like this is supposed to be a War movie and instead it's a road movie. CHRIS STACHIW: I mean, what's hilarious is, and realistically again, breaking this down into the way the movie is projecting its logic onto the situation. If they're willing to just kill the president, why wouldn't they just take those tanks and shoot at the White House?

And we're done. We Don't have to go into the building if we're just gonna kill everybody inside anyways. The easiest thing to do is just surround it and blow it up. Just have one of those helicopters shoot at it.

I again, I fail to understand how this movie is. Like, like you've mentioned so many times, father, the logic of the movie is lacking on all fronts to the point where it 's like speaking of memes, it's like that other meme. Are we a fucking joke to you? Like, do you think we're stupid?

I'm just saying like generally as filmgoers, is this what constitutes being provocative entertainment in 2024? Because my God, that documentary and smog and Thunder from 2003, which was essentially only made to highlight those pieces of art that had already been made is better than this confederate. States Of America is better than this. A movie made in like 2005.

FATHER MALONE: Done is better than this by Mr John Millions. That movie, it sketches out for you exactly what happened very quickly. These two teamed up and now we're fucked and you know what? I didn't need more than that.

Give me that much and we'll fucking follow you for the rest of your Civil War, man. CHRIS STACHIW: Yeah, it's III I kind of, I'm bummed out. I made such a big deal about going to see this movie because it didn't deserve it at all. Yeah, it makes me sad that Alex Garland's last movie he made before.

This was a movie I really enjoyed too because I found men to be very interesting. It's third act kind of is just to say. FATHER MALONE: Dreadfully the word I would use. It's a better movie than Civil War because it 's weirder and you can kind of go like, well, that was weird at the end, but that's for sure.

But it's a third act to bummer. CHRIS STACHIW: I, and you know, I think, yeah, I would say that, you know, speaking of people that Don't know how to end their things, Stephen King commenting on Civil War is rather ironic. One might say. FATHER MALONE: The tweet was 1700 characters.

CHRIS STACHIW: Oh, great. I Don't know. This, this is, this had all the trappings of something a lot more exciting and interesting than it ended up being. But for me, the impact that this movie had before it came out is more than after it came out.

It's like Ghostbusters 2016. Remember how angry everybody got before that movie came out? Remember when that movie came out and everybody found out the movie just wasn't funny anyways had nothing to do with the fact that it was recast as women. That's the same thing here.

This movie has nothing. And you know, the fact that it's about the Civil War is not the reason this movie is bad. It's just bad because it is not doing anything with the time that it's been given and the budget that it's been given and the people who spent their time making the film. FATHER MALONE: The trailer bamboozled us and you're right, Chris, the center line in that trailer, the line that they cut in half that they made into another question entirely was the one that was haunting me the entire time.

What would you do in that situation where a man with a gun is standing there deciding what is and is not American and your life hangs in that balance. How do you answer? What kind of an American are you? No, he just means are you, were you born here?

Because if you weren't born here, I'm just gonna shoot you. CHRIS STACHIW: Hey, I tried to do the no country for old men scene with Anton Sugar and I ended up coming up short because instead of a real nickel, this was a wooden nickel. Like there 's no, the tension there is immediately sucked out of the scene. The moment you realize what the actual line is and where that scene is going.

MIKE WHITE: Oh, gentlemen, let's pull the plug out in this discussion because this is. FATHER MALONE: Now an interview with Alex Garland. CHRIS STACHIW: I wish, I wish, man, I Don't know like we've already talked about so many other things that are worth checking out in place of this. I feel like that.

Ultimately, if you've stuck with us through this overwhelmingly negative episode is our duty to point you in a better direction. Confederate States Of America in smog and Thunder. Anything else that comes to mind that you guys would suggest so we can at least, you know, compliment sandwich this thing. FATHER MALONE: Dread.

Go see. CHRIS STACHIW: Dread. Yeah, that too. MIKE WHITE: Red still holds up, man.

I watch that movie very often and it is still so good. FATHER MALONE: I had to watch it as a pall of Clintons after watching this one. MIKE WHITE: I Don't blame you. Yeah.

CHRIS STACHIW: Or you know what children of men? Children of men is the movie that this movie wants to be so badly. Go watch that movie. Like they cop a lot of moments from children of men in this movie in a way that's like devoid of any value in this movie's, execution.

FATHER MALONE: Oh Check out Salvador. The, yes. Yeah. The James Woods, movie Oliver Stone flick.

If you want to see about photojournalists and have actual harrowing moments where you, where you are concerned, your lead character might perish. MIKE WHITE: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And to see the former, the older photographer who has been around and he's got that 3000 yard stare and you're just like this guy is seeing some shit, man.

And I got that with Duns sometimes, but at the same time it was, at the same time I was like, I Don't really care so performance, no fault of her for that. I thought that she did a great job. So there's my compliment. I thought Kristen Dunz did a wonderful job with this as she does all the time.

CHRIS STACHIW: Yeah, the actors are actually like III, I guess I probably aborted my point earlier. But to your point, Mike, everybody in this movie is fantastic and everything else I've seen them in. It's clearly none of their faults that they're not given much to work with because Kirsten Dunst still in my favorite Spiderman movie. Wagner Moura was the lead of Narcos for a reason.

I mean, and again, Nick Offerman being in this movie as the president, I thought it could have been an interest. It could have been an interesting choice. But again, with nothing to go off of it just kind of doesn't go anywhere. MIKE WHITE: He doesn't even have a conversation, he practices a speech and then he gets shot and you know what if I was one of those soldiers, I wouldn't have just yanked him right there in the oval office.

I probably would have pulled him out onto the White House lot and hung him up by his heel and shot him that way. Really made a spectacle of it, right? CHRIS STACHIW: Like, you know, be provocative. MIKE WHITE: This is what we do to traitors, be provocative.

FATHER MALONE: He's not just the shooting of the president was provocative enough and that's the thing he somehow in his, in his bid to obfuscate the actual conflict here. He's also also obfuscated how bloodthirsty this goddamn conflict would actually be the horrible bloodbath that would be an American Civil War. So, you know, fail, fail, fail on all levels. CHRIS STACHIW: This movie, when a PBS documentary on YouTube that is free to watch is more provocative than this.

We have problems when they're saying this is how this would happen and we're going to talk about it in ways that are upsetting. That 's the, that those are those ideas that needed to just be projected out from that not concocted whole cloth because we couldn't just do the thing. Like, I guess it's because we Don't really want to have the difficult conversation that the movie is the way that it is. I guess that's what it is.

That's what it ultimately feels like. Like nobody is an adult enough to have the conversation that needs to be had, which is like you said, Father Malone, if this were to happen, it would be an actual fucking nightmare for every single fucking one of us. And I Don't think there'd be any way that anybody could sit in their house and be like, I'm gonna ignore that the country is literally now tearing itself apart. I find that to be kind of an affront to anyone's logic at this point given where we are and this movie doesn't exist without us being in the state that we're in right now.

FATHER MALONE: Or that, you know what that, that town could exist, but that would be its own movie. Like how does this town exist amidst all of the bloodshed? There's tons and tons of promise in this movie. All preparation.

No agent you just mentioned. CHRIS STACHIW: Zone of interest essentially, by the way. Right? MIKE WHITE: I mean, yeah, even it feels a little bit like, the barter town that Mad Max goes to in the third movie where it's ok.

There is no violence in this town because we take all of your weapons and we have this like, regimented world where we've got everything. It needs to be the way that it is. It's, you know, it's almost like the logic of the wastelands or something like it should have been something like that where like, ok, you check your guns when you come to this checkpoint and that's it for this town and something. FATHER MALONE: Something, if you're gonna make a zombie movie, make the zombie movie, make the communities, make it the wild west again because that 's what it actually takes.

You can't just say I'm making a photojournalist road movie and, against a mythical backdrop about a Civil War in America where nothing really actually happens and nobody's really mean mean to each other. MIKE WHITE: You know what, Father Malone, that town that they came to, that should have been the same town that Don Johnson went to and was supposed to impregnate all those women and a boy and his dog. FATHER MALONE: Oh, yeah. Speaking of better apocalyptic movies, go check out a boy and his dog, everybody.

What a fucking good one that is just. CHRIS STACHIW: Go watch fallout on prime video. It's so much fun. And you know what if the apocalypse happened?

I would hope that Walton Goggins was a cool cowboy shooting people and who fucking cares. You know what at this point as much as I want to say, thanks for the reality of this movie, Alex Garland. If the world is gonna end, I'd rather there be all sorts of fucked up shit on the other side of it to be entertaining for somebody because the likelihood of me being around if something like that happened is essentially zero. But, you know, giant rats and cockroaches being killed with guns and swords and shit.

I'm on board. Give me 100 episodes of that and not an hour more of something like this, you know what? FATHER MALONE: Not only that, not only the crazy cool action and all the fucking, you know, beautiful sets and offense, but like they're dealing with America on an actual political, realistic manner in the most sort of out there way possible. And actually commenting on our, our situation as opposed to this movie, which is supposed to be about it.

MIKE WHITE: Well, gosh, it's like you and I were talking a little bit about the boys before we started recording. That's all about the corporate greed and sponsorships and all these, you know, the guys who get away with that, you know, that's supposed to be the hero to everybody, but he's actually a vicious murderer, but somehow they get the ratings back, they win over the people. Like, that's interesting stuff, you know, what would have been going on? Like, I agree, we're, like, five seconds away from having, like, mass murder for across the country kind of thing as far as, like, if this were to happen, people would just be like, oh, ok, this is great and just strap on all the guns do whatever they want to become mass murderers.

You know, because that's fun. Where's the things? Like gladiatorial games? Like, I'm surprised they didn't come to a town and it's, they get captured and have to fight somebody, you know, like they're fighting a bear from the local zoo.

Like, what's the actual infrastructure of the world? FATHER MALONE: Yeah. Pay no attention to that. This is about photojournalism.

MIKE WHITE: It's about photojournalism. I guess all the grocery stores still work. CHRIS STACHIW: Electricity works too apparently. And sure does.

FATHER MALONE: Yeah, I mean, you know, look, the highways are a little clogged but, you know, just take the back roads and you're ok. CHRIS STACHIW: It's like, like I said, it's the most boring zombie movie I've ever seen. Like, when? Ok, cool.

I guess you didn't have a budget. They're invisible zombies. Like the last of us fall out. Twisted fucking metal even is a better post apocalyptic anything than this.

Because you know what at this point, like I said, as much fun as it is to fantasy book, the reality. If it were to happen, I would just want to see the weird shit that happened instead because this is just, this is just so pedantic in every sense of the word. And Alex Garland should never be considered pedantic by any stretch of the imagination. MIKE WHITE: Chris, when you're not riffing on mainstream movies, what are you up to these days?

CHRIS STACHIW: This is why we Don't riff on mainstream movies. By the way, this, this is the reason folks, that's why we Don't do it, but that's why possibly you may be hearing it more often. But yeah, if you want to hear everything that I'm doing normally very positive, not this kind of critical of weirding way. Media.com, which is a podcast network where you can find everything that I work on and so many, many other things that I Don't.

So yeah, weirding wayed.com. What about you fone? FATHER MALONE: Oh, I'm also over there at the weird way. Media.

You can check out our show, midnight viewing the horror anthology podcast where we're currently taking a look at Tales from the dark side. You can also hear me over on dark destinations that is a radio drama that I write and produce. MIKE WHITE: Find that all over at the weirding way and as for me, you can hear everything that I do also at Weirding Way Media.com, including a brand new show that we have coming out called the Chasing Chevy Chase Podcast, which should be dropping it in about a week from the time that this comes out.

So looking forward to hearing reactions to that, not necessarily looking forward to hearing reactions to this episode because we were pretty mean to Alex Garland and just had to be so negative about this movie. CHRIS STACHIW: Such a bunch of negative nellies, even though one of us said annihilation is literally one of their favorite movies, but it's OK. That part will get forgotten because we're just so mean to the guy who was given 100 and $50 million to make a big budget movie. FATHER MALONE: Sorry, I love dread.

I Don't care what anyone says, Alex Garland. I lo I love him. I'm looking forward to the next one next month, man. You know, like I'm a fan of the guy.

It's just that this was such a horrible misstep in every direction. MIKE WHITE: Did you guys stay till the end of the credits with this one? Because this is actually in the ex Machina Universe you get to see. There's a, there's a moment when it's Nick Aman there on the ground and then Oscar Isaac comes dancing it.

FATHER MALONE: I would have. Yeah. Couldn't redeem it though. Could it.