Tessa 0:18 Welcome to monkey off my backlog the podcast where we exercise our pop culture demons by tackling our media to do lists one week at a time. I'm your host, Tessa Swehla. And with me is my co host, Dr. Sam Morris. Unknown Speaker 0:32 Hello. Tessa 0:32 Our other co hosts, Andy is not currently with us as he is taking advantage of our generous monkey non paid parental leave policy. He just had a baby last week, the left for the week before we recorded this. We look forward to the day when his daughter will take his place as host on this show. But fear not joining us is our special guest, James McKeon of the let's be honest podcast and the archive admirers podcast. Thanks for coming on with us today, James. Unknown Speaker 1:04 Oh, from nothing at all. It's an honor to actually be on the podcast and discuss something that I really like. So Tessa 1:10 thank you. Yeah, definitely. We're very excited that you're joining us today. So today, in today's episode, James is going to say hello to Mr. Robot. Sam is learning about tradition, and I get a contact high from watching head. Alright, so James, on this podcast, we talk a lot about lists. We talk a lot about pop culture lists, movie lists, TV, show lists, music, video games, you name it, we talk about it. Everybody has these, like long, long lists, what's sort of your approach to keeping track of the pop culture that you want to engage with? Unknown Speaker 1:48 Like, primarily, the media that I engage with most are TV and video games. And with TVs specifically, I have just a very long list on my phone on the Notes app where I have all of the shows that I'm watching or want to watch, with like brackets for when they come out and stuff. And I keep track of it there. It's a very, very long list. And every month I'll go on Rotten Tomatoes has this wonderful feature on their website where it updates every month with the new TV coming out. So then I'll just add that on. I've kind of been in a bit of a slump lately, though, since the start of the year, because I had a scholarship exams that kind of took the wind out of me. So I haven't really been catching up on a lot of TV and stuff. It's kind of fallen by the wayside, you know? Sam 2:38 Yeah. And the thing about it is now there's so much coming out. Every week, it's easy to get that list just gets longer and longer. I used I used an app for a while to do that. So I'm glad you to hear that your list maker every time we have a guest on we debate about who are there more of us list makers out there or more people like Tessa, who just, as we say live in chaos. So yeah, it's really cool to hear you know that that approach to list making, I am very familiar with the list in an app and also not having time for for academic reasons. So I know you're going to talk about Mr. Robot today. But even though your productivity has gone down this year, anything else you've seen that you like? Unknown Speaker 3:26 It's not really it's not really like anything stand out so far. You know, a couple years back I was really like I was really into lead and I like kind of TV that pushes the boundaries of what TV is a medium can do. A Mr. Robot does that as well. Legion did that. Nothing. I can tell you the things that I was disappointed by on TV and that started like right at the start of the year with BBC Dracula adaptation. Sam 3:57 We we talked about that on another podcast. Yeah, at the beginning of the year. Boy, that was that was not good. Unknown Speaker 4:04 It was very bad. Unknown Speaker 4:07 Like I was talking to all my friends and there cuz I was like, Okay, this looks interesting. The trailer sold as a horror, and just trailers as a whole, they kind of the make or break the way you perceive. Especially TV films, not so much because you have the whole Marvel effect of like, we've shot all this fake footage so it doesn't leak to the press. Whereas TV, it's like they'll put out something. I'll hit you straight in the face with this is the genre of the thing. And Dracula was billed as a horror. Like all the creepy stuff with the books crawling, like around people's eyes and stuff. And then I know I watched all three episodes of it. Why do I hate myself? Sam 4:48 Yeah, I felt the same way. Tessa 4:50 Yeah, we were like we spent more than three hours watching this. Like I want my three hours. Unknown Speaker 4:56 It was like an hour and a half an episode. Oh, Sam 5:00 Yeah, if I wanted to watch another season of Sherlock, I'd watch another season of Sherlock. You know, that was part of the problem too, I think, oh. Unknown Speaker 5:10 But yeah, in short that the year has just kind of been marked by disappointing TV series, instead of like anything really good, because I haven't got the chance to watch anything that like I've heard good reviews about a bunch of stuff. But, you know, just haven't been productive enough to watch them. Tessa 5:30 What are the shows that you're most interested in watching? Like, what are the ones that have come out that have definitely made your list so far? Unknown Speaker 5:37 My list for like Best TV? Sam 5:39 Yes. The ones you hope won't disappoint you this time. Unknown Speaker 5:43 Like, like, before, I was saying Legion, you know, that kind of diversified with superhero TV was doing and I know that like the Marvel Netflix shows they were, you know, at the start, they were really good because they took the gritty approach to arrow talk. And it's kind of refreshing because all of the superhero films, they're, they're light and jokey. I really, really enjoyed the magicians. Because it was the sci fi series of magicians. It was like, we've taken the premise of like, what if you had magic? And then when will it really solve all of your problems? And then that got cancelled? I'm looking forward to trying to watch the rest of True Detective I watched Season One of True Detective at the end of last year. I heard you know, I've heard it isn't as good afterwards. But still like, I don't know. It's sort of like a dark detective show. Not a crime, this procedural kind of one I like those of you know, anything really with fantasy and an either or kind of supernatural elements. Tessa 6:52 Yeah, we're very big genre. fans here at the at the pop cat at the podcast. When you watch TV, this is something that Sam wrote about on the pop culturist website a couple weeks ago, I guess when this episode drops? Do you prefer your TV to be longer form like 45 minutes to an hour? Or even longer? Like some of those BBC episodes are like an hour and a half long? Or do you prefer prefer TV with shorter episodes? Like a lot of TV? Like the Mandalorian, for example, is kind of going more towards that half hour time slot? Do you prefer sort of those longer episodic television shows or the shorter ones or doesn't matter to you? Unknown Speaker 7:32 I it's not that it matters to me. It's more so like, for me, it depends on what kind of story they're telling. I feel like if you're telling kind of a grander narrative, where it's like, here's all the touches all these different things. I prefer to have, like an hour, long episode, 45 minutes to an hour that's good for that. But you know, that has problems in and of itself, where things can get really stretched out. hbos the outsider, Oh, God, I hated that, too. Tessa 8:01 We couldn't finish it. We we got to like the fourth episode, and we were just like, this is too long. Unknown Speaker 8:08 Yeah. Like I read the book. And it was really, really captivating. And so I was like, Oh, cool. You know, it's being produced by Ben Mendelsohn, and Jason Bateman and the trailer again. So that is really good. But they just bungled the mystery. And it went on for far too long. And then there was talks of it getting renewed for a second season, and then they're like, the other day, they said, Hey, HBO passes on a season two, I'm like, Where are you gonna go? Sam 8:31 Yeah, that that was really funny. Because I thought the same thing. I was like, Wait, what? What do you have? And it's supposed to be about Holly. And I like, but they did a whole, like, other TV show about her. Yeah, you know, cuz she's from a different series, but they're gonna make like a second version of this character and spin her off on another network. Unknown Speaker 8:54 I don't know, like they could they could adopt a short story from if it bleeds. But again, I don't know, I wasn't particularly impressed with that short story either. So. Tessa 9:06 Well, fair enough. I mean, I think that one of the problems we've been having is just during this time with all the, because we both teach that with all the academic stress and all of the existential stress from living in, we're in the US, you know, during a pandemic and staying in all the time. It's been really difficult to watch some longer form television. Just that even you know, 45 minutes to an hour sometimes feels like it's such a huge commitment. But yeah, I think you're right. It kind of depends on the story. And I think there are television shows to where, even when the episodes are very long. They don't feel like they're wrong. They're long. Yeah, like killing Eve is a good example of that, where at least the first season, where when you're watching it, you don't feel like the episode you watched was an hour, it felt like it was 20 minutes and Game of Thrones was the same way for me to wear Even though the episodes were really long, I didn't feel like anything was misplaced. Again, at least for the first few seasons later on, they kind of fell off in quality. But I think that that's how you can kind of tell when the story writing is really tight. Unknown Speaker 10:15 Yeah, story writing will do it a lot. I think. Sam 10:18 So James, I'm gonna tell you, because you mentioned to detective earlier. So you know, you could probably give Season Two a pass and just maybe skip that one. Season Three is a lot better, I think objectively. But we enjoyed watching it, because it was set in the area where we lived at the time. In fact, there's a there's a scene set in a bookstore that that we have been to several times. And so it was very familiar in that way. So we enjoyed it for that reason, but like mahershala Ali is just awesome. So So season three A True Detective. I think we both recommend that. Unknown Speaker 10:59 We'll certainly have to give that a look then. Tessa 11:02 Russian doll that was another one we watched that was over it was that over a half hour? Was it a half hour? Yeah, that was another one where I was like, this is actually really good. Well written storytelling, and I didn't feel like it was that stretched either. So I would highly recommend Netflix's Russian doll. Especially if you like genre bending. storytelling. Alright, James, you watch speaking of genre bending storytelling. You watched for this weeks monkey? Season One of Mr. Robot. I have never seen Mr. Robot. So could you give us like a quick synopsis of what the show is? Unknown Speaker 11:41 Yeah. Okay. So it's about this guy Elliot, who's played by Rami Malik. And he works in tech support. And they're doing cybersecurity for this big multinational multi billion dollar. conglomeration is meant to be like a stand in for Amazon, I guess. But then he gets drawn into this group of hackers f society who are trying to take down the takedown the company by hacking them basically. Tessa 12:11 Is this set in the future? Unknown Speaker 12:14 No, it's set in kind of present in New York. Yeah, New York. Because they go to Long Island and stuff that that's how I know it's New York. Tessa 12:24 Yeah, I for some reason, I thought this was like set in like the future like almost a Westworld type of story. So that's, that's interesting that it's like a present day type of story. So tell us about Rami Malek. He's won a lot of awards and gotten a lot of acclaim for this. How, what is his character like? Unknown Speaker 12:45 So he's kind of like, kind of like the archetypical, like, socially awkward, kind of, like techie guy, that's what he's supposed to appear as on the surface to everyone, he, you know, he's struggling with mental health issues. He is very bad at social interactions, doesn't like physical contact, things like that. But the way he plays it, it's not like leaning aggressively into that trope and making it kind of a party in an ablest way, you know, he, he plays it very well, he, you know, he stands there, he's got this almost otherworldly detachment from everything. Because, you know, at the start of this, he starts talking to the audience, you know, that's kind of like a fourthwall narration. And so you have that, and you can just you see him and he's just standing there, as everything happens around and you can just hear his thoughts. It's a It's a strange dynamic that it has, but it's also just very, very intriguing to watch as the series goes on. But I won't say for why. Sam 13:55 You Yeah. And, and, of course, it's it's tricky to talk about this show without giving much away if you if you've seen more than a couple episodes. But one of the big stories about this show, when it first premiered was that this was kind of a comeback for Christian Slater, who, you know, was was pretty popular in the 80s and somewhat popular in the 90s. And it kind of disappeared for a bit. But to come back to this role, what can you what what can you say about his character? I mean, I, I really loved what he did on the show. What did you think? Unknown Speaker 14:31 I really liked it, like I don't have much of a connection to Christian Slater. I don't think I've seen him and anything like I could be wrong and just not remember. But Christian Slater and Mr. Robot. He's fantastic. He's kind of like the in for alias into the hacking into the hacking world, like political activist hacking. And he's just, he sort of set up as the character that he knows everything. He knows where all the people are on the board. So there's like this intense smokiness to him. And also like a lot of restrained kind of psychopathic tendencies. He's, you know, just like simmering on the edge of unhinged. It's a delight to watch. But at the same time, you're watching and every time he's on screen, you feel slightly on edge because you're like, you know, what's he gonna do next? Sam 15:25 That is, that's such a great description. I definitely have had a little bit more of a history with Christians later, but watching him grow into this role. And it felt like a combination of like jack nicholson and Nicolas Cage, like just like, almost unhinged, just like you said, I Unknown Speaker 15:44 Oh, my god, yes. You're just waiting for him to flip out, you know, what's gonna happen? At some stage? You don't know when and that's, that's the real like, land mine and his character. Tessa 15:56 So even though this is set in, like a present day, New York is this. would you classify this as sci fi? Or just as like a crime? Like, how would you what genre would you most associate this show with? Unknown Speaker 16:10 I'm not sure what is it? Like, it's definitely not sci fi. It's more I don't know, kind of crime cybercrime. But in the same way, that it's like, the protagonist we're following is the one doing the hacking, and it's, you know, slightly illegal, but he's going up against it, like a bigger corporate evil. So in a way, it feels more like activism, you know, because it touches on a lot of social and justices. So it, it feels like, here's this show. It's kind of Crimean genre, when it's not, like, bending into other weird genres and ways of storytelling. But you know, it feels closest to maybe a crime, social crime. Is that a thing? Tessa 16:52 Oh, yeah. And I think I think the hacktivist is like a real trope that has started to emerge in the last 10 years, especially like this idea of like a hacker who's doing, like, who's going against the government or going against corporate, I don't know, corporate evil, like you said, it's to borrow the term that you had, I think, there that has shown up started to show up in a lot of television shows and movies, especially because hackers were always kind of bad, I think for a while, and then we kind of came back around to this idea that maybe hacking could be used for, for social justice. So I think, I think that's really interesting that they're developing this trope in that way. Unknown Speaker 17:33 The show does a lot to like, it's strange that, like, it does both of these at the same time, it kind of demystifies our concept of hacking, where it's like, it's not this grand, kind of like, really cerebral thing. You know, it's a bunch of ordinary citizens who've learned these skills, and they can do these things. That, you know, in theory, you could also learn how to do it's not like Superman, who was born with these powers or whatever. But at the same time, when it does when they do like really cool hacking stuff, you're like, Oh, my God, that's, you know, that's so cool. And so it builds up an air of Mystique while at the same time tearing it down around hackers. Sam 18:14 Yeah. And so this so the first season came out in 2015, and I tried to think back to 2015 I think there was still very much you know, the Lisbeth Salander you know, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo thing was still fairly fairly popular, at least over here anyway. And I think there was still a lot of public favor for like an Edward Snowden at that point, that has certainly changed during Mr. Robots run, but it kind of felt like, you know, yeah, there was some sympathy toward this at 2015. And I wonder if maybe that hasn't changed over the last five years. And of course, this show ran all the way through 2019. So, you know, that's it. That's an interesting to see, to see the show run and how it's evolved. Which I guess is a good question to ask, do you intend on watching the other three seasons? Unknown Speaker 19:05 Oh, definitely. Yeah. I mean, cuz he like, especially on the social commentary angle, it's like, you know, when you see them in, in season one, and they like cut to news footage and stuff, and they're deliberately making this out, like a very real hypothetical. Like this is what's going to happen if such a situation arises and they cut it in between stuff that's like, you know, very clearly did happen they have protests where people have sign saying you know, free Julian Assange and stuff in the footage they cut between so it Mr. Robot does a show seems very tied into like the cultural cultural awareness that it's in, in a way that I don't think a lot of shows that take place in present day time. present a timeframes do Tessa 19:56 All right, so would you Who would you recommend this show to If you were to think about who might like the show, Unknown Speaker 20:03 I mean, I don't want to say everyone, but I think what Mr. Robot presents, it's so unique in the way that it, like, builds its story and executes it across the the 10 episodes of the first season. I feel like everyone should give it a try, because it touches on a lot of issues that, you know, everyday people experience like crippling student debt, you know, big pharma, but you know, like, corporate giants like Amazon, basically selling our humanity to us. But at the same time, you know, as a show, it's constructed with, you know, this is a, you know, this is the main character he's narrating to us things that are happening. And I know, a lot of people don't like that. So I guess, safe bets, the people who will definitely enjoy it, who haven't seen it. Fans of genre television, people who like kind of sci fi esque films, not like for our future sci fi films, but you know, like, what ifs of sci fi films. Sam 21:05 And one of the thing I wanted to say about this, because the first season when I watched it, I remember thinking this and by the way, the second season, like they, they take some of the stuff they do in the first season and just go to the next level with it. There's some truly just bananas, good things that happen in season two, that are very unsettling. But I I'm not sure I'd really noticed I was aware of it. But I wouldn't have consciously paid much attention to it. And then I heard somebody talking about it. There are so many shots in the show, where the person who's talking or the subject of the frame is like in the corner. Yeah. And then like bottom left corner, blank space. Yeah, and and how that's just supposed to make you the person watching it just deeply uncomfortable. And I just thought that was neat. Unknown Speaker 21:54 Yeah, it's definitely a show that it gets under your skin. And it doesn't try it in the way that like horror will do, where they try and make like a visceral experience. It's just like, Mr. Robot, what it does, it just like puts you into and I think it's partly due to Rami Malik and all of the actors playing it so well, that you like you really get into their heads. And so you feel you know, every time something comes up, that puts a spanner in the works. You get these like needles of anxiety, it just like digs into you and you're like, oh, Tessa 22:31 tension, I like it. Well, I'm excited if you have reminded me that this show exists. And now I want to go watch it. All of it right now. All right, let's turn to Sam, what made you decide to watch Fiddler on the Roof this week? Sam 22:47 Okay, so we've talked about this on the podcast before so. But here's a quick refresher. One of the ways that we decided to kind of cut through that giant list of movies that we wanted to see was we have we had to, we have a giant Stein, and then another pint glass and one that the Stein has new movies and the pint glass has older movies, and you know, on slips of paper, we each through five in and then we just draw once a week. Unknown Speaker 23:17 Oh, that's such a good way of doing it. Sam 23:19 I it's it's like the I don't know if you've ever done this one. But it's the thing where nobody can decide where they want to go to eat. So you just put a bunch of restaurants and a hat and you pull one. And that's it. So I was like, well, it'll work for movies. Tessa 23:36 It's great. It takes a lot of stressful scrolling through movie databases out of the equation. Unknown Speaker 23:43 Oh yeah, the amount of times I've like Doom scrolled through, like Netflix or prime or whatever. And I'm like, No, don't want to watch that. Don't want to watch that. I've seen that. And they just don't watch anything, because you spent like two hours going through different categories. Sam 23:58 Now, I will tell you it it backfired last week, because a couple of months ago when we were in a much better place emotionally, I threw in because I'd always wanted to see the 1999 Japanese film audition, which is like just very, very uncomfortable horror. And then when I pulled it last week, I'm like, no, we're not doing that. So so it does occasionally backfire. But, but the great thing about this, this is you know, it's a good chance to watch movies that you've meant to get around to that occasionally one of us will slip in a movie that we've seen before we just want to force the other one to watch, Unknown Speaker 24:41 huh, or just for comfort. Sam 24:43 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of different things you can do but, but Fiddler on the Roof is a movie I watched because Tessa put it into the pint glass because I had never seen it and she thought that was wrong. Tessa 24:57 Well to be also to To remind the audience, Sam has very little experience with musicals. So I have made him watch a lot of musicals over the time that we've been together. He also saw Phantom of the Opera for the first time this year. So it you know, we're slowly working our way through some of the more classic musicals and this was one that I thought it was time for him to see. So when we drew that out of the out of the pint glass, that Tell me the truth, Were you upset when we we, you saw what we were gonna watch? Sam 25:29 So, you know, this is a three hour investment. Three hours. Yeah, I don't know that we? Yeah. Unknown Speaker 25:35 Long musical. Sam 25:37 Yeah, I mean, I think, Well, you know, actually, this was an easier film to watch than Phantom in Phantom wasn't bad to be clear. Like, I enjoyed that, too. But, but the three hour running time of Fiddler on the Roof felt shorter than the running time for Phantom, which is two and a half ish, I think. So. You know, but it's one that, you know, it's one that people talk about. And, you know, I've spent enough I spent a fair few moments with, with theater people. I've heard the songs. Did I know what they were from Fiddler? No. But, you know, it's, it's Unknown Speaker 26:18 Tosh actually aware of musicals. This Sam 26:22 is Yeah. Right. And so like, you know, I'm never disappointed to get it to get a joke or get a reference. And you know, just it's very well spoken of. So, no, I wasn't disappointed. I was a little daunted. But it. It was really it was, it was good. Tessa 26:39 All right. So three hour movie, give us your best, quickest summary of the plot. Sam 26:46 I know I have trouble summarizing things quickly. But I got this. In 1905, Ukraine. tibia, a Jewish milkman has five daughters. And of course, the problem with a father with five daughters is in 1905, Ukraine in a Jewish community is Who are they going to marry? The oldest daughter is the Trove to a wealthy but elderly, widowed butcher. But she instead wants to marry a would be Taylor, the second daughter? Well, if you're if you don't like the idea, that would be Taylor, you're going to hate the fact second daughter wants to marry the Marxist who comes to town? And if you think that's bad, yeah, if you think that's bad, the third daughter wants to marry a Christian Unknown Speaker 27:35 shocker. Ah, Sam 27:37 no, it's just terrible. That's the plot. And I mean, the only the the overriding issue that comes throughout the movie is are the Jews safe? And so that's, that's all your narrative tension there. There's there's plenty of plot, but it's around those two things. And then there's a lot of song and dance. Tessa 28:00 So you're not the biggest fan of musicals. So what did you think of this one? Sam 28:05 As I said, there were songs when I heard them. I'm like, Oh, yeah, I've heard that before. If I were a rich man, you know, Gwen's divani made sure that I was aware of that, that that melody, so that that was probably the only thing that I knew coming in, Unknown Speaker 28:17 when Stephanie is just responsible for so much of the cultural Zeitgeist and we don't know it. Yes. Sam 28:24 I mean, she gives us so much and has asked for so little. If Andy were here, we would start talking about ska, so it's probably really good that he's not there or something. Like I said, there's some good tunes in this movie. I mean, they're all solid. There's one tune during the wedding celebration that is aptly titled wehling wedding celebration. That's good. There's another one that stands out tibias dream, which is like this, as you can guess, a dream sequence where we're dead relatives come back from the dead and sing and dance. And it's it's super fun. Tessa 29:01 This movie very briefly becomes a gothic horror flick just for like, five minutes, and then it goes back to being Unknown Speaker 29:07 Oh, we love to see it. I mean, old films really just love throwing in a little curveball just to make sure you're paying attention. Sometimes it's resolved. It's just a dream. Or you know, like in Chitty Chitty Bang, bang, they're like, here we go. We have this fascist allegory and then like, Ana, they're all asleep in the car. Yeah, Tessa 29:28 I think dream sequences are also something that we don't do enough of anymore in movies, like just the ones that would terrify you as a child. Unknown Speaker 29:37 I think Twilight has kind of spoiled that though. In Breaking Dawn, part two, where they were like, here's the bloody climactic fight and no, it was a dream and everyone kind of went mad. No, none of that. Sam 29:50 I also think I also think that Tim Burton is maybe kind of ruin the dream sequence because he just makes entire movies that are dream sequences. And it's like, Dude, dial it down just a little bit. Tessa 30:03 So should more people watch this film? Sam 30:07 Oh, yeah, I mean, definitely more more people should watch this. I think it's, you know, high on topel otherwise just known as topel. He was one of those like, like Cher, like Madonna, just known by one name plays teviot he was dominate. He was nominated for Best Actor. This film was nominated for Best Film, the actor who plays the the tailor who wants to marry the eldest daughter was also nominated. But it did win three Oscars it one more best music, best scoring adaptation and Best Original Score by a little known up and coming composer. You might have heard of john Williams. And so yeah, I didn't I had no idea. Unknown Speaker 30:49 That man's everywhere. Sam 30:51 I know. And that's like it's night. Okay, so it's a 1964 musical. And it was adapted in 1971. So this is still a few years before Spielberg and Lucas start working with john Williams, and we get to really know what he's doing. So yeah, Unknown Speaker 31:08 like Star Wars. This was 77 Sam 31:12 Yeah, exactly. So like he was already doing work and getting recognized. I mean, this guy is still he's still kicking around to I mean, like, Unknown Speaker 31:20 he's still writing music. Sam 31:22 Yeah. But you know, so there's just so much good stuff. You know, the story is good, the songs are good. It's got bonafide people behind it. I haven't mentioned the director, Norman jewison, who directed in the heat of the night, which is the the film where Sidney Poitier plays a black detective who has to work with a very, very white, rural, Southern, mostly racist police department in the 60s, Jews and also directed Moonstruck speaking of Nicolas Cage and Cher and jesus christ superstar Unknown Speaker 31:57 are we speaking of Nicolas Cage? Sam 31:59 Well, I did mention both of them in the last five minutes in the lot in this episode in this very episode, this is a sneaky little Unknown Speaker 32:05 Nicolas Cage there if you're listening back. Sam 32:08 Yeah, if you this is like a Mr. Robot thing, right? Like where if you're paying attention, something has happened in every episode that you don't notice until they want you to. I'm pretty sure I have mentioned. I think I mentioned Nicolas Cage in every episode of Monkey on my backlog. It's possible. Unknown Speaker 32:24 Nicolas Cage or Keanu Reeves one of them. When things when things do that when they put it in, like in the background of every show, and then you notice that you're like, watsa, and then like, 10 episodes down the line. It's taught like, the the first season of The Twilight Zone reboot did that. And I was like, when I was watching the episodes, it was like, What is that? Why are that? And then at the end, they split it into this really just like, terrifying, terrifying tale. And I was like, Oh, God, okay, that's what it is. But you feel so SMERSH when you see them, Sam 32:59 I know what we need to watch tonight. Because that's, that's one that's been on our list too. So now I'm a little bit more interested in that than I was. But yeah, this is a really good movie. And it's not that I was expecting that it wouldn't be. It's just it was it was nice. It was enjoyable. Tessa 33:15 I just realized before we go on to mine, I have to ask. So James, you did Mr. Robot and Sam did the Fiddler on the Roof. Both titles of shows are about like a specific person. So James, who is Mr. Robot in the show? If that's not a spoilery question? Unknown Speaker 33:35 Not really the guy that Christian Slater plays is Mr. Robot. So it's not Rami Malik's character. It's like it comes there's a patch on his jacket that says Mr. Robot, and because you know, he's the in for Elliot, like I said into the into the world. So he's, he's also Iran, then into the narrative of the show. So hence, Mr. Robot. Tessa 33:59 Okay. So Mr. Robot is Christian Slater. Sam, who is the Fiddler on the Roof. Sam 34:05 Okay, so first of all, there is a literal Fiddler on the Roof. There is the guy who plays the fiddle on the roof. But he is a metaphor. He is a metaphor for tradition, Jewish tradition, and the things that come with that historically, you know, so I mentioned earlier that a big part of the film is are the Jews safe? Well, the answer is, of course, no. And so the Fiddler represents this idea of balance, you know, Fiddler has to, if you're a Fiddler on the Roof, you have to have good balance, otherwise you will fall off the roof. So, you know, being a Jew is is having balance and balancing tradition, with just the ability to live amongst people who are at best indifferent to you and often at worst, hostile to you and navigating that uncertainty. It's very precarious and the film's very concerned about that. That. So, you know both both of both of our characters. Both of our titular characters are in some ways, metaphorical symbolic. All right. Speaking of metaphors and symbolism, Tessa, last week, you talked about the 1960s television show based off the fake band that was at times a real band, the monkeys. So this week, you continued by watching the the feature film that came out in 1968, after the television show had run its course, the movie is called head. Why are you so interested in the monkey still, I thought that was my thing. Tessa 35:38 I was interested in watching head mainly because for once in my life, I felt like being a completionist and watching everything that had the monkeys in it. So we'd already watched the full two season run of the show the monkeys, and head was just like one other thing that we could do. The other reason I wanted to watch it is because both head and A Hard Day's Night, which I will probably watch at some point here in the next few months. I have been on my list for a really long time. And I know that specifically raphaelson and Schneider, were inspired by A Hard Day's Night to make the monkeys TV show. So that was also part of it is that I really had wanted to watch both these sort of musical New Wave films for a while. I actually originally wanted to watch them as a double feature. But since I went did had went ahead and did the monkeys TV show, I decided to just just keep going. And I think actually, if I could if I could interject something here. I would say that this is a really useful tool I found to is crossing things off your list to use, like the momentum, Unknown Speaker 36:45 so you can get the monkeys off your backlog. Yes. Tessa 36:49 He said that over there show. Yes, perfect. Yeah, so that that's kind of part of it. I think it's just like, when you you know, when you're like, Okay, I need to watch all of these movies, like make it into a whole event. Like, we watched all of Quentin Tarantino's films last year. We, I mean, we had obviously seen some of them, but neither one of us had seen all of them. So we decided, Okay, we'll just watch all of them, we'll just one a night, watch them. And that has a lot of that kind of project has a lot of momentum to it. You know, after you get one or two under your belt, you just want to keep going. And I feel like that's what kind of happened with this television show is I wanted to keep going, I wanted to finish out, you know, really the story of the monkeys, and it is quite a story that they have. Sam 37:35 So before we talk about the movie, James, I have a question for you. Because our episode last week, which I guess by the time people are hearing this, they will have heard the last week's episode last week, but it's still fresh in my mind, because I haven't edited it yet. But I talked about the Beatles White Album. And, you know, Tessa talked about the monkeys television show. And one of Andy's friends who's in a metal band was on to talk with us. And, you know, we just kind of had a conversation about you know, this many years on, you know, who's who's really familiar with, you know, probably heard of the Beatles, but who's really familiar with their work? And if you know that the Beatles, you know, who knows the monkeys anymore? Is that like a thing? So like, I'm just, I'm curious, just because we're having this conversation, like, you know, what's your experience with either of those bands? Unknown Speaker 38:28 So I feel like, I feel like I'm kind of an oddity in, in the sense that like, I project to a lot of people, old man vibes. And. And, like, I like I mean, I'm not intimately familiar with the Beatles, but I definitely, like know, a lot of their songs. And this is largely to do with the fact that like, when I was six, I think I got a big Goodman, stereo radio thing had two big speakers on it. And the first three CDs that got with it were the Beatles number one hits cream, Queen's Greatest Hits Volume One, and Johnny Cash his greatest hits. So like, the kind of fostered this love for old music, you know, unlike analog stuff, you know, like, I'm really into collecting vinyl and I, I ordered a vinyl there and it came with a cassette tape of the album, too. I was really happy. So I feel like the Beatles, the kind of The Beatles are big. And everyone says like, Oh, that's kind of a phrase that people use. Oh, they're like the new Beatles or whatever. The monkey is not so much. I've heard of the monkeys, the one like, Hey, we're the monkeys. People say we're monkeying around. I've heard that song. And because like my father girl in London in the 70s. So you know, he brought a lot of that with him. But I don't think apart from I think in the minions movie. They had that song. But apart from that, I think the monkeys have kind of faded from, like culture like the Beatles have kind of they had a bit of a resurgence with yesterday when that came out in music 2019 but the monkeys are just kind of gone. No one's talking about the monkeys. Sam 40:16 I think so. And, and I kind of wonder, too, you know, like the the Beatles came, did that transatlantic flight and just kind of took America by storm and have never really left in terms of cultural consciousness. I'm not really sure that the monkeys returned the favor. And if you want to talk about niche, let's let's talk about this movie. Tessa. I got to I got to summarize Fiddler on the Roof. That was easy. Why don't you summarize head? Tessa 40:42 Well, I can't that's that's I'm just gonna say that. No, no, that's not gonna happen here. I will do my best to describe what kind of movie this is. So as Sam mentioned, head was released in 1968. It was directed by jack nicholson. Yes, that jack nicholson made this movie. This was before the shining and before you know any I don't think he really been in anything yet that had made him famous this so he was a director before Unknown Speaker 41:12 what year was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Yeah, so not even that, like that's the one that put them on the map. Tessa 41:20 Yeah, so 1975 was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Yeah, so this is much, much earlier than that. So yeah, it's kind of odd, because we think of actors who become directors. But jack nicholson, I did not know this apparently had the opposite career where he was a director first and then and then got into acting. So it was directed by jack nicholson, it was written by Bob raphaelson, who also created the show with with Snyder of the monkeys. It's a musical adventure film. That's how several places on the internet described it as I was trying to find, trying to find something to say it's sort of a musical adventure film. But basically, this film really leans into that new wave, New Hollywood style of filmmaking that was just coming into being in the late 60s. So films like easy writer, the graduate, you know, these films that we think of that, that sort of embrace some more eclectic filmmaking styles. And of course, I talked last week about how the show also broke a lot of those sort of stylistic narrative tools, like there's a lot of fourth wall breaking, there's a lot of, you know, just sort of slapstick humor, but also they play with time quite a bit. There's a lot of just just really, really interesting cuts that are made here. So that's that's kind of what this is. But the base of the at the most basic, the plot of this is that the monkeys as a group are trying to escape the Columbia Pictures lot that they're that they're filming the show. So it's a very meta film, like they're, it's a film about this group who was in a TV show, filming their TV show, but trying to get off of the picture lot, but also parts of it are still the TV show. So it's, it's very much a deconstruction of the show, and of the monkeys as a group. Sam 43:15 And by the way that this movie is like, you know, I don't know, maybe five times as much going on as Fiddler on the Roof, but it's half the length. So, I mean, there's a lot of stuff thrown at you, right? So how does deconstruction, right? That's, that's really the best way to describe this movie. So what's what, how, how do Tessa 43:35 well part of it, like I said, is this is this meta way that they're talking about the monkeys? I mean, the monkeys has always been a little bit meta, because the they're playing. So as I mentioned last week, for those of you who maybe missed that episode, Mike Nesmith, Davy Jones, Peter Tork, and Mickey dolenz make up the monkeys. But they're sort of playing heightened versions of themselves, you know, this band, which was supposed to be a fictional band, but it ended up being a real band that sold so many copies of albums, they were, you know, besides the Beatles, they were one of the most popular bands of the 60s, even though they weren't supposed to be a real band. And so, you know, there's a lot there about, like, you know, the way there's a lot in this movie about the way that their success was really commercially driven, instead of artistically driven by the end of the show, you can definitely tell that a lot of the members of the band were checked out of the whole process, they didn't want to be there anymore. They were tired of the studio telling them what they could record and what they couldn't record and where they had to be. There was a rule at one point that no more than two monkeys could be in the recording studio at a time because they kept making too much trouble for the for the studio. So there was a lot of drama on the show. And this movie is really trying to address those those issues and What I thought was interesting is when I actually dove into this, like into the background of how this movie was made this this movie was written by raphaelson. But it's based on things that the band actually said like one weekend they got together, and they all got super, super high. And they talked about being the monkeys into a tape recorder. And then raphaelson wrote this script based on what they said, even though none of the monkeys are credited as writers on this film, which really upset them actually, like they actually staged strike they wanted to walk out of on the film because of that. So it's really interesting the ways in which they talk about fame, the ways in which they talk about commercial success. It's very anti capitalist in a lot of ways. Like they compare being a band to being on a production assembly line, just, you know, cranking out these pop hits that none of them really wanted to, to do. They all wanted to do their own music. And I think it's worth remembering that all all of these musicians were all very different from each other, even though they were put together in this band. I mean, Mike Nesmith went on to be like a country rock star. And Peter Tork was a folk musician, he was really big in the in the New York folk scene, Davy Jones was, of course, a all he wanted to do was be a British pop star. Yeah, he just, he just wanted to be the Beatles. And so you know that that was his thing. And Mickey dolenz was just sort of this cut up, you know, child actor, and he was a great musician, too. But you could see where all these different personalities, they didn't really want to be in a band together. And so that's kind of also what this movie is about. So I mean, I know I just said a lot of things. And I don't, I didn't even scratch the surface of what this film is. So there's a lot of pastiche of images and music. And like I said, the monkeys keep trying to escape the show. But they keep getting pulled back in by the show that can't ever get off the lot. It's very anti capitalist anti war. There's a lot of Vietnam War images in this. It's very also anti police, which I think is really interesting. There's a lot of those sort of civil rights layers to this as well. And what else? What else do they do? Well, so So James, you mentioned the the Hey, hey, we are the monkeys theme song, huh? Yeah, that's obviously something a lot of people know from the show, right? They're like, Hey, we're the monkeys. But this movie has a song that starts the exact same way. But it's like a, it's called de Diego. It's like a word chant. But it's like, Hey, we're the monkeys. And then they go on this whole song about how like everything they make is fake, and they put it out there, but then they take it back. And like, nobody knows who they are. And it's all commercial. It's just such an interesting like, look at how they felt about the show. And they were off name some of the songs here. There's the porpoise song because I do sing a lot. Diego, like I said, circle sky. Can you dig it as we go along, which was actually written by Carole King. So that's really interesting. Daddy song which was written by Harry Nielsen, do I have to do this all over again. So there's also some of those like, pretty famous monkey songs in here as well. Sam 48:08 By the way, I think, I think Davy Jones rather than the Beatles Davy Jones wanted to be cliff, Richard, I think I think that was his like thing. porpoise song. By the way, if you've seen Vanilla Sky, the Cameron Crowe film with Tom Cruise, Cameron Crowe reuses porpoise song to really nice effect. I know, Peter Tork pieces out after this movie. This album, The soundtrack album was the one he had the most involvement in. And then he left, which I think is I think it's super interesting. Tessa 48:35 Well, it's interesting, because the movie is much better than the last season of the show is Yeah, but it's also the end of the monkeys as we know it. Like they were all done after this movie. Sam 48:46 I think I was last week years old, when I realized that raphaelson and Schneider used the money they made from the television show to make movies. And head was the first of those movies. And and so they continued using this money along with jack nicholson to make movies like easy writer, five easy pieces. The last picture show I had no idea that that that had I was such a fan of the monkeys. To me, that's just the end of the monkeys. For a while, I had no idea it was the beginning of something else. I guess, knowing that kind of changes how I feel about this question, but I want to know, this is kind of a niche thing, right? So would you recommend it? Tessa 49:30 I would recommend it. But I actually think you need to watch the show, or at least several episodes of the show in order to understand what they're doing in the movie. I think if you watched this movie without any understanding of who the monkeys were, it would be really hard to get some of the really clever things they do. Like in the show. If they didn't film enough material for an episode. They would do an interview with the monkeys at the end and they would always joke about it like oh, we have to do we have a minute left that Have to fill wheat let's do an interview and Mickey dolenz hated those interviews you could tell. But they make a joke about that in the in the film like, oh, if we don't have enough material we're gonna have to do an interview. So it you know, if you don't if you don't know that information from the show, I think it actually would be kind of difficult to understand what they're doing in the in the film. But even if you just watched a handful of episodes, and then watch this film, I think I discovered a lot of music that I was not aware of by the monkeys that I am now putting onto playlists, because they're it's just, they were really good musicians. Not all of them are great, but some of the songs are really, really, really special. And so I would definitely recommend as anyone who's a musical lover, especially music of the 60s, I think I This made me want to watch some more movies by raphaelson Schneider like this made me want to watch easy writer which I haven't seen we actually bought a whole box set based on what just watching this movie because we were like, We want to watch these, this sort of movement of films that happened in the late 60s, early 70s. So, you know, if you're a film nerd, I think that you would like this to all right tune in next episode, Sam checks in to see where Neil Gaiman falls on the Templar debate with Marvel 1602. I will explore an abandoned mansion in the video game gone home. And I don't know will end be with us. Will he not be with us? We're not we're not completely sure. Again, he's on parental leave. So we'll we'll see if he joins us and what he decides to check off his list next time. James, where can listeners of our podcast find you on social media? Unknown Speaker 51:38 mainly on my Twitter. You can find me on Twitter at spicy Nigel that's my main method of communication with people. I make podcasts like you mentioned earlier on. Let's be honest, and archive admirers which is still in the developmental stage. Their LinkedIn my bio car from that I don't really use any other social medias. Tessa 52:01 That's perfect. All right, Sam, where can people find you? Sam 52:04 I am on twitter at Sam underscore Morris nine and on letterboxed at Archie Leach nine. Tessa 52:12 You can find me on Twitter at suela Tessa Swehla spelled SW e h LA and you can find me on letterbox to under the same name and find us on Twitter at monkey backlog or email us at monkey off my backlog@gmail.com Let us know your thoughts about what we discussed in this episode or anything else pop culture related that you have enjoyed recently, we always like adding to our list. Our theme song Hot Shot by Scott Holmes can be found on Scott Holmes music.com please rate review and subscribe on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Help us help you get that monkey off your backlog. Transcribed by https://otter.ai