A milestone episode: PART TWO of McQueeners presents SHAME.
A momentous uncovering requires a momentous cast! Not just just one, or two or even three. But four absolutely depraved individuals looking at the crowning jewel of the McQueeners trilogy.
There's a lot of history between SHAME and Laura. Videos, excited faces and soft bans on Instagram, to name a few. To help we welcome Josh Martin and Kat Whitacre of "Uncomfortable Brunch" to the table as we reminisce tales of our past and what this film has brought to us, good or bad. There's a tonne to expose here, mostly that Fassbender pulls out the performance of a lifetime in one of the saddest and most tragic depictions of addiction in recent cinema history. Ryan still thinks that Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick in DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES is probably sadder but anyway.
Are you asking "What is Uncomfortable Brunch"? Well, you're obviously a terrible fan as we kinda covered it when Josh was on for the Jackass Quadrilogy way back when but to repeat, you watch uncomfortable art films around midday on a Sunday to alcohol and brunch items with a cinema going crowd; it's awesome! SHAME is playing at Uncomfortable Brunch, at the Enzian Theatre located in Maitland, FL, on September 4th. Tickets can be found here (if they are still available); https://enzian.org/film/shame/
Sit back and enjoy this very special and long episode to commemorate this specially sad film.
Ryan: All of the, uh, all of the dick scenes in Steve McQueen stuff is nonsexual. Just in general. None of it is, uh, it's all pretty sad. It's all very sad.
Laura: Yes.
Josh: Wait, maybe you saw something in Twelve Years of Slave that I did. I mean, I saw it differently.
Laura: Oh, no.
Ryan: It's just stuff we're gonna have to cut out.
Laura: Well, hello there. Welcome to on the Beat, the podcast that uncovers full frontal male nudity in cinema. My name is Laura, and I am joined not only by my co host, Ryan, but we have two other people in the room. This is very exciting. We've never done this before, but we have had Josh Martin here from Uncomfortable Brunch. And joining him is Katie Whitaker, also from Uncomfortable Brunch. You didn't mention her last time you were Josh.
Josh: Um, yeah, so I learned. So I've learned.
Laura: Uh, welcome to you both. I'm very happy to have you here.
Katy: Hello. I'm happy to be here.
Josh: I'm fine.
Laura: Great.
Ryan: So I don't get to say fucking hello or anything?
Laura: Like waiting for you?
Laura: No.
Laura: Well, no. I guess I kind of cut you off.
Ryan: No, you cut me off. You didn't really give me a fucking chance to say anything. M. I'm only 50% of the show.
Laura: Not today.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: All right. Well, we brought everyone here today to talk about a momentous film. A film that means so much to so many people. The 2011 Steve McQueen picture Shame, which is categorized as a psychological erotic drama, which I find very weird. And it's also rated NC 17.
Josh: It is shame.
Laura: Shame.
Ryan: I know your name.
Laura: Why did you put your notes away?
Katy: Tell us why this is rated.
Josh: It made me giggle so much when I put this on. I actually just watched it again last night. And the blue MPAA screen comes on at the beginning of the Blu ray, and it says NC 17 for some explicit sexual content. And that's it. There's a lot more in this movie than some explicit sexual content.
Laura: There's buttholes.
Josh: There's a lot more.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: And there's ass eating.
Josh: There is ass eating. And I don't think it's simulated. I really took a look this time around.
Katy: And he is, uh did you pause it?
Josh: I went frame by frame for a minute. Not a full minute of frame by frame. It wasn't like I didn't spend.
Laura: I.
Josh: Didn'T spend 240 seconds.
Laura: He's nose deep.
Josh: Yeah, I know. He's really in there.
Ryan: Yeah. I would assume that Fastbender does not mess around when it comes to doing things on a film set. So it's like, you know, steve, you want me to eat the ass?
Josh: Right? Yeah. We're going to go for realism here. So I'm going to do it for real.
Ryan: Michael, I didn't say anything. All right. Okay, good. That's fine.
Laura: I'll do it.
Ryan: Don't worry.
Laura: Oh, yeah. So this movie stars Michael Fassbender as Brandon and Carrie Mulligan as Sissy. Love it. Well, we've already talked about McQueen, so.
Ryan: We don't have to go. I'm not going to delve into M, the McQueen, uh, filmography one more time. Um, but this is his second film.
Laura: Yeah, he co wrote this film with Abby Morgan. And I was expecting to find out a little bit more about Abby, but.
Josh: I didn't really she didn't make very interesting movies, I don't think. Suffragettes.
Laura: Uh, the Iron Lady.
Josh: Iron Lady's not very I mean, it's pretty it's.
Ryan: I mean, could we no. Go one episode without having to talk about Margaret fucking Thatcher?
Laura: Not when we're talking about Steve McQueen.
Katy: Yeah, I mean, you were talking about Hunger last episode, right? So you can't really do that one without talking about Thatcher.
Ryan: Well, I made my piece in that episode in regards to Margaret Thatcher.
Katy: So not going to revisit the rant?
Ryan: No, I think well, it was a single sentence and I feel like it hits home.
Josh: Listen, I'm just glad that you guys got to have your Reagan too.
Katy: Did they involve the C word? Because I feel like I would have.
Laura: Um, well, before we drop too hard into this film, I want to throw the synopsis out there. Uh, so let me put on my synopsis voice. Brandon, a 30 something man living in New York, eludes intimacy with women, but feeds his deepest desires with a compulsive addiction to sex. When his younger sister temporarily moves into his apartment, stirring up bitter memories of their shared painful past, brandon's life, like his fragile mind gets out of control.
Josh: There's no way Steve McQueen wrote like it's all technically true. But no, that is not the tone of this fucking movie.
Ryan: No.
Katy: I also kind of found myself wondering if Sissy was her actual name or if it was just like the relationship is what defined her.
Laura: Yeah.
Katy: She was so codependent.
Laura: Yeah. Those phone calls and messages that she left him were upsetting. Uh, just like the Brandon.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: And those whispers and breathing. Like all of the her like her brother.
Ryan: She's a troubled soul.
Katy: I feel like they definitely had some sort of weird sexual relationship growing up.
Josh: Steve McQueen says that he intentionally did not outline that, but he never personally thought that they did.
Laura: Really?
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Yeah, I read that too. But there's something about the difference in the relationship where she just they're completely different people. Right. And she's just incredibly comfortable with herself. And she's just the type of person that doesn't give a shit that she's totally naked in front of her brother.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Like, it doesn't face her at all.
Josh: I read about her nude scene in it and how she actually she said she's very, um, kind of uptight about doing nude scenes in films. Mhm, unless it really needs to be there. And she's like, this is obviously this character and it works. But she said in a real life that she is so conservative. She wears like, shorts and a t shirt. To the beach, like, in real life.
Katy: Sounds like my kind of right.
Josh: But, uh but she did say that she found it kind of liberating to do that scene.
Laura: Well, I mean, she hounded Steve McQueen for this job like crazy. And he wasn't interested. And she kept bothering him and bothering him.
Katy: Well, good for her. She did a great job.
Laura: Yeah, no, I liked her a lot. I was trying to find the thing that I wrote. Well, Steve McQueen told her that she was good, but to be in his film, she had to be 16 times better.
Laura: Wow.
Laura: Um he said that to her?
Katy: That's so rude.
Ryan: Wow.
Laura: And this was her like, she called this a dream role for her, which is why she bothered him. I think she got a tattoo to prove to him she could do it.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: So she basically begged.
Katy: Is she did method acting by getting a tattoo?
Josh: Because she's basically Jared Leto. Or, no, it's Shia Laboof. That's who did the tattoo. Oh, like shia's better.
Katy: I don't like you comparing her to either of them, but oh, my goodness.
Laura: Which is weird. We haven't talked about Shayshe Labou yet, but he is running rampant on the website.
Katy: Actual Cannibal. Shia LaBeouf.
Josh: Is that true?
Ryan: Is he an actual cannibal?
Katy: No, that's an old meme.
Ryan: Uh oh, right.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: Actual cannibal sharing memes with Arnie Hammer.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Arnie.
Laura: Arnie.
Ryan: Arnie. Yeah. Good old Arnie.
Katy: I think there's a documentary about army Hammer coming out pretty soon.
Ryan: Oh, I can't wait.
Laura: Would watch? Yeah, definitely. I love the hammer. I have no problems with the hammer yet.
Laura: No.
Josh: Yeah, I hope that he is into that shit. I really hope, like, I don't think he does it.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: I just wanted to be into it, though.
Laura: I know. I want him to really just be a freak. Like a real freak. But also have consensual freaks.
Katy: No, but I also think that he, uh, could find people who are into being eaten. So I don't know.
Ryan: Well, that guy did in Germany. He found someone who was going to eat him. There's that other story, that kind of Craigslist story, where, uh, a guy was like, oh, I want someone to kill me. To kill me in this very specific way, which was to be encased in concrete. Just they murdered him, took his.
Laura: Guy, did it.
Katy: And then he still got convicted of murder, I think.
Ryan: Yeah. Because obviously Craigslist is not the or at least the European version is not the blanket, law abiding, uh.
Laura: But he.
Katy: Told me to but he wanted it.
Ryan: But he wanted it. He put it in writing on the website. What's wrong? It's fine.
Laura: I love that this film almost opens, uh, with nudity. I mean, it's two minutes in.
Ryan: Well, it does. That weird Steve McQueen wibbly wobbly time thing that he does.
Laura: Yeah, he does that a lot. Back and forth.
Ryan: Four scenes running consecutively together. Some that rewind and repeat back at slightly different angles over the course of about five minutes.
Laura: Yeah.
Katy: He loves that nonlinear storytelling. I know we're not talking about his filmography because you're establishing that in something else. But I watched Twelve Years of Slave, and it also does that whole back and forth. That's just the way he likes it. It's just the way he tells that story.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: He does it in Hunger, too.
Ryan: Well, the thing is, it works really, really well in hunger because it's the main crutch of hunger is the fact that it goes from one perspective to another perspective quite seamlessly. And I don't know if it works particularly well or at least distinctively, in my opinion, in Shame and then also Twelve Years a Slave, I would say that's the only kind of detriment I had to it.
Josh: I mean, I like it because I get to see his dick, like, four times.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: For sure.
Josh: In the first three minutes.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Ever repeating walk down that hallway past.
Josh: The phone, like fucking slapping his knees.
Laura: I could watch that back and forth all day, every day. You rewound it for me a couple of times, Ryan, which I it was.
Ryan: Purely I wasn't doing it purely for the reason that we were doing it for but it, uh, happened. We saw it, like four times.
Laura: Yeah. Two minutes and 14 seconds. And about four minutes and 43 seconds is that whole scene, which I will remember so, uh, fondly from Josh when you showed Fish Tank at Uncomfortable Brunch and you said, I knew you were going to be here, and I brought Shame. And right when the movie was over, you put on Shame and someone took.
Josh: A video of me watching I completely forgot about this. Holy shit.
Laura: It was a video of me watching Shame. And then, uh, it was zoomed in on Michael Fassbender's dick and then zoomed back into me with this look of absolutely on my face. And I posted it to Instagram. And that is the first time I got softband from Instagram. One, uh, hundred percent. Not the last time. That was my first softband. I was sad because it took it away. And I don't know if I have it anymore. But I love that video.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: Who has that video? I don't know who took the video.
Laura: You know why?
Josh: I think Carolina did, right?
Laura: It might have been Renee.
Josh: Oh, okay.
Laura: Yeah. Dear friend Renee.
Ryan: Fake thieves. Yeah.
Josh: Well, I think that we need to make a phone call.
Laura: Yeah, I got to see if that's.
Josh: On the cloud, because that I think definitely I would put on the Uncomfortable Brunch, instagram leading up to our screening of Shame.
Laura: Good idea.
Josh: I don't care if we get banned for a minute. Whatever. It's been a while. It hasn't been since Nymphomaniac. And when we showed at the Nook that we got a softband, we're, uh.
Laura: Banding together to get softband on Uncomfortable brunches instagram.
Ryan: Yeah, okay. I mean, that's fine. I mean, look, if that's what you want to do, I don't know if.
Laura: You could edit it to where it's just, like a little blurry.
Josh: I want someone at NZN to send me a message.
Ryan: Yeah, he wants to burn it all.
Katy: He's probably going to be like, Tim.
Josh: Going, hey, yeah, he's gotten after us a couple times.
Katy: Can you take down that dick?
Laura: I love the beginning of this film. It's always captured my awe and attention. And we all know why people always ask me. Because when they find out what I do, they find out about the podcast. It's a question that always comes up, what is your favorite dick movie? And it doesn't take me long because it's always shame. It's always shame.
Josh: It's a good one.
Laura: It's a really, really good one.
Katy: Honestly. Mine is rare exports.
Laura: Well, it's coming up on Christmas time.
Josh: Oh, yeah.
Laura: Huh?
Katy: Feel free to invite me back for that one.
Josh: So many old man penises.
Laura: So many.
Ryan: Are we doing rare exports for December? Who knows? You never know.
Katy: I would happily come back to talk about old man dicks.
Ryan: Ah, yeah. Well, we wrote a bunch of stuff on a tissue the other day when we were having a beer.
Katy: Not even a napkin.
Laura: A tissue.
Ryan: Yeah, I mean, it's over there somewhere.
Laura: Yeah, it's a good list for the end of the year.
Ryan: It's the good list. Yeah.
Laura: I don't know, josh, do you have a favorite?
Josh: Do I have a favorite dick movie?
Laura: Yeah. Ah.
Josh: Oh, man, I'm so on the spot now. I wish I would have had time to think about Mean.
Ryan: I mean, you've only been on the podcast once.
Josh: True. I've never been asked what my favorite is. Okay, well, um, my gut reaction, I feel like it's not sincere because I just rewatched it. But I think Short Bus because it has them using an erect penis as a fake microphone. And that's maybe my favorite dick scene of many great dick scenes in that movie. That dude fucking ejaculates on his own face and cries. That is like speaking my language. But the threesome where the guys are singing into each other's cocks is pretty great.
Ryan: Yeah, I remember seeing short bus. I saw that clip where he ejaculates into his own mouth and starts crying. And I started laughing hysterically. We got a visit from someone from the BBFC, and they used Shortbus as an example as to how they would rate that film accordingly. Okay. But then I couldn't stop laughing. He just ejaculated his own mouth, just started crying. I don't know. Bad Lieutenant is a really good one because I'm kind of immune to as we found out over the course of doing this podcast, I'm immune to seeing other dicks and stuff in other movies. Unless it's very, uh well, it's that bit where Harvey Keitel is like he's kind of, like crying and he's got his arms outstretched and, uh, Hello My Darling's playing on the LP. And he's just greeting his dicks out. He's in a mirror. All that sort of I mean, I don't know. I remember that.
Laura: Well. It's funny because we say this all the time, that there's so many of your favorite movies have dicks in them, but you didn't remember until fucking shit.
Ryan: Ton of them do. Yeah.
Laura: And I'm like, there's a dick in that in that movie.
Katy: And whenever I, uh, told my mom that I was going to come and record this podcast, she was like, uh I told her what it was about. I was like, oh, it's like full frontal male nudity in movies. And she was just like, pornography. And I was like, no.
Josh: She's been to so many of our screenings. She has to know the.
Katy: She she likes Waters movies.
Josh: That's so funny to me.
Katy: I love that this little Midwestern woman.
Josh: She loves John Waters and Tremors. And it makes me so happy.
Laura: It's so like I love always telling my mother specifically when I see Matthew McConaughey in any sort of naked way. And I let her know. Because there's a was it that William Friedkin movie with Matthew McConaughey? And he plays a cop who's a Killer Joe. Killer Joe, which is that is a five star film. Killer Joe's a five star film. But you see his balls in that movie. So I made sure to tell my mom. I go, hey, mom, I just watched this movie. It's really messed up. But you see Matthew McConaughey's balls. So if you want to check it out and she watched it the next.
Katy: Day, you might never want to eat a chicken drumstick again.
Laura: But yeah, I said, you might be a little scarred.
Josh: I saw the stage production of that. And it's not different. But the angles of which you're sitting in the audience are holy moly.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: It was something I'm going to bring.
Laura: It all back to the Fastbender. There was something that, uh, I have a quote from him regarding nudity, which I think is very important. Uh, so quote I think it's the idea of male frontal nudity. It just baffles me. Women can parade around naked all the time, but the guy conveniently has his pants on. I remember my mom always complaining about that to me and saying, this is such bullshit. It's always the women who are naked. So I did this one for you, mom.
Katy: That's so sweet.
Ryan: Wow. Yeah, that's it. It's just like, oh, I get to see my son's, like eight inches.
Laura: But I love that we were talking about fucking dick.
Katy: Look at my boy hanging out that.
Josh: Said, uh, his mother wasn't able to make the premiere. And it was just his father.
Laura: Right.
Josh: And he and his father agreed that's probably good that your mom was which.
Laura: Is funny because he did say that. But I do talking about moms and stuff. And this mom knows what's up.
Josh: Yeah, but wanting something idealistically versus practically are different.
Laura: Well, she probably didn't expect him to do it.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: I mean, nobody wants to watch their kid eat someone's ass.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh: At least you shouldn't.
Ryan: And certainly at least the nudity certainly the depictions of the nudity and the sexualization of everything in this movie is not particularly sexy. Like, you're not looking at it going.
Josh: Like, waiting my fucking erection the whole time.
Laura: But it is wild. Like, the sheer amount of sense.
Ryan: We watched Reanimator recently, and I was kind of like, why am I getting hard?
Josh: Then there.
Laura: Oh, my God.
Laura: Dead cat.
Josh: I watched that movie with my mom accidentally. It did not go well.
Ryan: I remember once first time I ever saw Unfaithful, it was on TV. Laura knows this story as well. I ended up stumbling on it when we were I was in the living room. My mom's sitting there, and we're watching Unfaithful. And at one point, about five minutes into it, she's like, I don't feel very comfortable watching it with you in this room. And I was just like, well, I don't know. Let's just see. Let's just see what happens. And we're watching it and stuff. And Diane Lane's there. And there's a scene where she's had sex with the dude, and then she's gotten dressed again and they're talking. And literally two minutes later, he's just trying to take the clothes back off of Diane Lane. And she just turns to me and she goes he won't leave her alone. Won't leave it alone for five minutes.
Katy: I have a story about Unfaithful, uh, that I bring up anytime someone talks about Diane Lane. Because, um, back in the day when, uh, the TV you just turned it on a channel and didn't know what you were watching, um, I went to the TV Guide and I had seen that under the Tuscan Sun was playing. And I was like, oh, I'll change it to this channel. And so I thought I had changed it to Channel because it was Diane Lane. So it made sense that it was and then she was just putting on a lot of lotion and having sex with this foreign guy and then spoiler, he gets murdered with a snow globe by Richard Gere in a sweater vest. But at the end of it, when the credits are rolling, I was just like, when does she go to Italy?
Josh: What is happening? I really want to believe that you thought that was under the Tuscan's gun for, like, years, just in your head. That's what that was.
Katy: Yeah, I kind of wish I would have believed it. But I went back to the TV.
Laura: I was like, oh, okay.
Katy: Makes sense.
Laura: This is the Dirty Diane Lane channel. Got it.
Laura: Um, I feel like we haven't talked about Michael Fassbender's penis enough, because it's only in the beginning of the film.
Katy: Yeah. You don't really see his balls.
Laura: You do see his balls.
Josh: A couple times.
Laura: A couple more times.
Katy: But, um, I probably didn't pause it frame by frame like you did. But, um, I feel like we don't I'm just staring into Josh's eyes, like, I know that. You paused it frame by frame.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: I'm not denying it.
Katy: There's his balls. There's his balls again.
Laura: Well, it's during the threesome scene towards the end when he's totally unhinged.
Josh: And then when he jumps on Sissy.
Laura: When he jumps on Sissy after she.
Josh: Walks in on him jerking off and he starts freaking out at her, but he has a towel around and that towel falls off.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: That towel doesn't do its job for very long. That is so his dick was definitely touching her leg.
Katy: Yeah.
Laura: And she started screaming.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: I mean, that thing's like a fucking 13 inches long.
Katy: Well, he's probably a shower, not a grower.
Laura: 100%.
Katy: Yeah. There's no way that thing is going to be growing.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: No, it's be horrified.
Katy: It's just what it is. But hard.
Laura: Oh, there is a funny thing. So I was reading from it was like a Newsweek roundtable back in 2012. Um, and George Clooney asks Michael Fassbender, he's like, so, did you actually pee?
Ryan: I'm glad you brought this up.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Because I think that's probably the most interesting part of, uh, this entire kind of uncovering of this moment, though.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: He asked him. He goes, how many takes? And he goes three.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: He pissed three times. I don't get it.
Ryan: Insane. I don't understand how that works.
Josh: Because it's not short.
Laura: It's a full piece.
Ryan: Full piss. Yeah. It still goes. They just have, like a fucking camel. Yeah.
Katy: Gallon of water, I guess. Uh, on the ready.
Josh: Even then, I can't urinate if someone else is in a public restroom. I can't imagine.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: To be fair, is way too confident with himself. I don't like it.
Ryan: No. I mean, we're talking about the Fastbender here. He does not give a fuck whatsoever. No, he gets that's what he is. There was that Q A session, um, that we watched that's on the DVD. Um, and he was talking about the communication between himself and, say, other actors in the moment, where an actor will come up to him and be like, well, can you speed up this little moment here? Or can you do this? Can you do that? Can you wait until I hit this marker here and then you can come in and do this? He doesn't like doing that. He likes to be a little bit more off the cuff and of the moment. And sometimes, if you're doing, let's say, an intense scene, let's say he's pinning Carrie Mulligan to the couch and his fucking dick flops out from the towel. It's just fallen off from his waist. Part of me would feel like he, uh, would get a very real reaction out of her in one way or another. He just kind of lets it flow.
Laura: He was also saying that Carrie Mulligan as an actor brought out more of him, uh, more to Brandon than he would have been able to do on his own. Which is a weird thing to say. But maybe it's because she was just like, okay, sure. Maybe do whatever. Slap your balls on my leg.
Katy: Yeah. She had a tattoo for this movie. She was all in.
Laura: She did.
Ryan: She was going to, ah, do whatever.
Katy: Needed to be done.
Ryan: Um, she was 17 times better.
Laura: She said 16. You you mean it to be 16? I'll do.
Ryan: Well, going back to the dick scene. Going back to the dick scene. I mean, yeah, the fact that it does end with a piss and Steve likes to hold on shots for a very long time, or at least like a lot of the scenes that he does, um, they're all in oners for the most part. Him ending with that piss is effectively the end of the wibbly wobbly time stuff where he's creeping out a girl on the subway. Or he's uh, having sex with a prostitute. Or he's uh that scene where he.
Laura: Where he has that uh, prostitute over and he answers the door in those boxer briefs. I swear to God, those boxer briefs give you more give you more than you got when he was naked. Did you check out those boxer shorts?
Laura: Yeah.
Katy: Because uh, when he was fully naked, there was a shadow and you couldn't really see as much.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: M. I don't know about that.
Katy: But maybe it's just the glare.
Ryan: I mean, to be fair, you got.
Josh: To watch that at night with all the lights off. I mean, you could maybe have a candle lit if you really want.
Ryan: He tried his best to hide the hog, but I mean, it's there impossible. Yes, it's difficult, those boxes.
Katy: And I don't think he was creeping the girl out.
Josh: No, I think she was into it.
Katy: She was, she was into it. And then you see her engagement ring. And so she's like, oh, I shouldn't.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Long time. It took a long time of him staring at her. And she's staring back and back and back and forth until he got right up behind her.
Ryan: Well, he did. His sexy face is what we've seen. I mean, we'll talk about his sexy face that comes up later as well. Works, um, every, uh, time.
Katy: Um, well, because he sees her again later. And then she's like trying to initiate. And I think it was after he.
Laura: Was beat up or that was the final.
Josh: Because he's sitting on the subway. He's on the subway all fucked up because he just got the shit beaten out of him.
Katy: Yeah. Because he had the man smell his fingers.
Laura: I did like that scene on the subway though. I liked that whole set up. And you can kind of see what his activities are like when he's not at work and when he's not jerking off at home or jerking off in the bathroom at work. Like when he's out, uh, testing the selection of the general public and seeing what he can get out of it. Yeah. Just seeing kind of the weird escalation of that situation without him really doing anything. Uh, I thought it was pretty good. I liked it.
Ryan: Yeah. I mean, I guess we're getting a cue into his routine and what he likes to do, why he likes to do it. Um, I mean, that whole sequence ends just before he ends up going to work with him having a quick wank in the shower. Um, he is a man who is a massive fan of the quick wank. Over the course of the duration of this film.
Laura: Um, well, you kind of learn about him that it's not as we learn more and more and more, it's not about the pleasure.
Josh: No.
Laura: It is about your necessity.
Josh: When he's jerking off at work in the stall, he's standing, come, uh, on, treat yourself. You can sit down.
Katy: It's kind of like he's like got to milk the cow again.
Laura: It is time.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: They took my computer. I have to use my mental spank bank at work.
Ryan: Well, m that happened to a friend of mine at work.
Laura: Wait, what?
Ryan: And then he what part?
Laura: Wait, what happened?
Ryan: So he would masturbate at work and then he would publicize it on Facebook.
Laura: What?
Josh: That's a weird thing to do.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: So he would do it at work and he would be like, wanking on company time. And then that would just be that's hilarious. That was his thing. I remember talking to other people about it, where it was just like, yeah, no, that's a little bit dangerous. You probably shouldn't be saying that online because boss makes a dollar.
Josh: I make a boss.
Ryan: Might find out who what we.
Laura: Should.
Katy: Have us write for him.
Ryan: Well, the thing is that also happened when, uh, I was at uni as well. There was another story. And we were just about to go to class and friend of mine, God, um, bless her, she went to go use the toilet before class. And then she stumbled in on a guy who was sitting down on the toilet doing a shit. And he was also masturbating. She just went some man was masturbating in the toilet? He was doing his shit. Smelled like shit in there.
Laura: Uh, you can't know for sure if those were both him. One certainly was. But you don't know if the poopoo was him.
Katy: Yeah, it could have been just maybe.
Josh: He was jerking off to somebody else who was shitting that just left.
Ryan: Yeah.
Katy: And also maybe he was just like trying to visualize that he was also getting because, uh is it a blumpkin where you're taking a shit and getting.
Laura: A blow job at the same sure is indeed.
Ryan: That is. Funnily enough, I don't want to bring it up again. But that also happened to someone that I knew.
Josh: How do you convince someone to do that to you?
Ryan: Thing is, I mean, I don't want.
Laura: To tales of uni.
Ryan: Well, the thing is, he had crohn's. They were at a bar, and he went and he'd been chatting to this girl. And he went to go to the toilet because he needed to go. And he described it as if something out of the ring where she crawled up over the top of the fucking toilet stall and then just started sucking on his weed.
Josh: Don't like that.
Ryan: Yeah. I think maybe the only thing he might have learned in that moment was that it was called blumpkins what had happened to him, because I told him that's what that is.
Laura: Good for you learning, um, experience. I like the idea of Michael Fatzbender, uh, acting like an American business bro. When they all go out for drinks, he's like, $20. He fucks us up.
Ryan: Here's the thing as well. Here's the thing. They are all like folk are like that business bros. I don't know if I want to say this again, but I've been in a situation where I've been in a classy cocktail bar and it's fist bumps all around. Like it's the worst fucking thing.
Laura: When Fastbender reaches over the table and fist bumps his boss. It's the strangest thing.
Josh: You're going to talk to brandon doesn't actually like any of that, though. No, I think it's just, uh, a means to an end as far as getting ahead career wise. Because when he's talking to Sissy after she fucks his he the way that he talks about him is just so unkind. But not I don't know.
Laura: He's also slut shaming her.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Real hard.
Ryan: Big time.
Laura: I mean, that whole situation was so strange. They go out to the bar where she's that fancy cocktail bar where she's singing. And then his gross boss starts hitting on her. But then she reciprocates. And then oh, uh, that whole situation is weird because I do kind of want to talk about that scene too, because it's really interesting. But they end up going back to Brandon's place where Sissy's staying, which I think is weird, first of all. Oh, wait. No, it's not weird. I said that during the movie. I go, why didn't they go back to his place? Because he's married.
Katy: Yeah, he's married with children.
Laura: With children. And his boss and his sister fuck in his bed.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Was so upset. I was so upset. Well, because it's this whole thing where this is his personal space and she's invading his space and disrupting his tightly packaged little life. His fuckery his little fuckery, uh, dungeon fuck. His fuck dungeon.
Josh: Uh, that apartment seems like it smells way better than it would in real life.
Laura: It probably just smells like Lysol.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: I don't know.
Katy: I think that he probably has some candles or something. Um, you think his lights a candle?
Ryan: If he wants to pretend to be romantic?
Katy: Well, because he doesn't. Well, just for the scent.
Josh: I don't know.
Katy: He doesn't have to wear condoms that often because he's usually just masturbating in the shower or like to a Cam girl.
Josh: Right. So that like the waste basket under his desk. There's no way that smells good.
Laura: I feel like he's really clean.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: I get clean vibes from him because she comes over. Uh, sissy is just throwing her stuff all over.
Josh: He does bitch about that later in the movie.
Laura: Everything's in its own place. Everything's very tidy.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: Uh, I just feel like there's a lot of semen being slung around that house. It's got to be a lot of extra work for him.
Katy: I feel like he's doing laundry a lot.
Laura: Yeah.
Katy: Immediately when he gets home, after they had fucked in his bed, he takes the sheets off. It's not like he lays on the filth. He's like, probably yeah.
Josh: Uh, you don't want to lie in your sister's wet spot.
Laura: No.
Katy: I think that he would do that after he fucks too. Just like he's used to doing laundry a lot.
Laura: He's probably got at least seven different sets of sheets.
Ryan: Well, he changes the sheets, but he hasn't got like a mattress protector on it or anything like that.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: So there's going to be brown stains.
Laura: Brown what?
Ryan: Well, when shit dries up.
Laura: When poop.
Ryan: No poop. There's no poop in.
Laura: There.
Ryan: Could be poop.
Laura: If there is, I do not think that Brandon is the kind of man that's into poop play.
Laura: Could be. Yeah.
Ryan: I mean, if there's a I bet.
Josh: He'S okay with period blood, though.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: You know, he puts the towel down.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: He's got special period towels.
Katy: He's probably got a red towel.
Laura: He's never in a relationship long enough that's true. To get into the period play.
Josh: Because he would he won't specifically request it.
Laura: Correct.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: Okay.
Laura: Because he's been in a relationship for four months was his longest relationship.
Ryan: But it's every month, isn't it? Or is he just like, strategically just not having sex?
Laura: He looks like the kind of guy.
Laura: That would know well, and he's also.
Ryan: Not like he's obviously not monogamous.
Katy: Yeah, he's not monogamous. So he will have different options to avoid the period.
Laura: Yeah. And I'm sure that the girls I don't know. I've never talked to a working girl like that before. But I'm sure that they maybe take some time off when they're in that bar when he's being a business bro and his boss obviously doesn't seal the deal. But Michael Fassbender, who knows the color of all the ladies'eyeballs, um, gets to go home with that girl. And I find it interesting that when he leaves the bar, that cute girl picks her up. Picks him up in the car. And then they fuck on garbage can. Right.
Josh: Like a dumpster.
Katy: It's like a tunnel?
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Like an underpass or a tunnel or something?
Katy: Yeah. Which whenever you were like, takes him home, I'm like, she doesn't really take him home.
Laura: No, she takes him to the side of the road.
Katy: She takes him to, um, a, uh, spot under a bridge where they fuck.
Ryan: They fuck in the designated fuck spot.
Laura: If you look, ah, above where they're having sex, it says fuck. Yeah. He goes, I know the perfect place.
Katy: It's called the fuck spot.
Josh: Designated Fuck Spot would be a great band name.
Ryan: Welcome.
Laura: We're designated fuck Spot and we're here.
Ryan: Welcome to fuck. Yeah.
Josh: I want them to be a SCA band.
Laura: Oh, I guess we already talked about the bar.
Laura: Does anyone have anything they want to say about her singing? New, uh, york. New York. Is that the name of the song?
Josh: Yeah.
Katy: Very intimate shot.
Josh: Well, it's all shot in real time. The two actors had, uh, michael Fassbender and his boss I can't remember the actor's name. They had never heard her sing before. They shot that at three in the morning and had three cameras rolling simultaneously. So their reaction is honest in real time. So that was pretty wild.
Ryan: Look, Liza Minnelli could fucking butt out a fucking tune quicker than that, and it probably sounded better.
Laura: Would it make you cry, though?
Katy: This isn't Cabaret.
Ryan: Would it make me cry? She fucking sung that song in New York. New York? That's all I'll say.
Josh: The other movie makes you cry for different reasons.
Ryan: That movie is not very good. But it's an easy, uh, gig, though. Get to sing one song really, really slow and then get to have a drink.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: You're like, oh, cool.
Laura: That is true. I did write that down. I thought it was i, uh, wonder how much she got paid. Unless she's got paid.
Josh: Do you think? She only did one song? It didn't just cut.
Laura: She went up, she sang her one song.
Katy: I feel like she I feel like she was singing the whole night and then they just happened to catch her last song. Yeah, that's what I thought it was.
Laura: They showed up late.
Ryan: I could only assume.
Laura: She finally goes to her show, shows up late, catches the last song, and then they book it out of there.
Laura: Let's say you do something bad at work and your boss finds out. How do you want that conversation to go? Do you know what I mean? You walk into work, you say, the boss needs to see you, and you go into a rock.
Ryan: Well, no, you say, like, in the scope of possibility, what's the worst thing that you could be found out doing at work?
Laura: There you go. That's a way to say it.
Ryan: Okay, well, no, look, then the scope is far too broad, though, because it could be like, well, no, I've got the body of his child under my desk for whatever reason.
Katy: Before we get into this. I just remembered, uh, this one time I was telling a coworker about Ed Gein. And he looked up on the work computer about Ed Gein and there was like a list of all the things that Ed Gein had in his house. And, um, he thought that vulva meant Uvula. And so he clicked on something that said vulva and realized that it was part of a, ah, lady's anatomy. And it came up in the image search on his computer. He didn't get in trouble or anything because the company worked for wasn't very good at monitoring what we were looking at. But I just think it's really funny.
Josh: That he was looking. I think that would be really interesting if you worked for a company that did flag the word, like, who's searching that on pornhub?
Katy: Well, I think that he didn't actually search it. He just clicked on those linked parts of the Wikipedia.
Josh: Okay.
Katy: But it came up with a picture of it.
Laura: Uh, it's like those memes that you see about like, little kids googling trying to look up boobs. And they don't know how to look up boobs.
Ryan: Bobbies.
Laura: Bobbies.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Sweet beer Bobbies.
Laura: Lady Bobbies Ninja Turtles.
Josh: Show me that cervix vulva.
Katy: Uh, my three year old nephew's favorite word right now is boobies. Just keep saying it over and over.
Josh: Him and Charles band. I'll detour this just for a second. Charles Band of Full Moon features fame who did like Puppet Master and all of those movies he was on last uh driving with Joe Bob Briggs a few month or so ago uh, with the movie head of the family m and this 70 year old man in earnest says boobies so many times it makes me want to fucking die.
Katy: Yeah. Not boobs. Not breasts, not chest.
Josh: Even if that said tits would have been less icky than this man saying boobies over and over.
Laura: Yeah.
Katy: He's like, we took this mechanical tongue and it took like three men to lick her booby.
Josh: And he's not like, smirking when he says it. He's not being silly. That's what he says in life.
Katy: Yeah, that's the word.
Josh: It's real gross.
Ryan: And it makes me well, what would be the preferred term though? Because boobies to me, sounds like it can be like, that's fun. It's jovial boobies.
Katy: But it's just when you use an excess, it's like, yeah, kind of weird.
Josh: If it was used once, it would be okay. But this guy said this like a.
Ryan: Dozen times because I don't see how I wouldn't want to use tits. Like, if you use tits in the sort of frequency that you use boobies.
Laura: M. Such a hard consonant.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Such a hard term as, well, I want to see your tits. It's like, all right, okay.
Laura: I want to see your boobies. I'm certainly less threatened.
Josh: That's true.
Ryan: Yeah, certainly. Obviously the torn in which I want to see your.
Josh: Mean, even though it is a silly, uh, know, being Joe Bob Briggs. And they're talking about these horror movies. It still is vaguely academic because they are talking about how they made these movies.
Laura: Right.
Josh: So I think that in that scenario, it probably would have been better if he said breast.
Ryan: Okay. Keep it clinical. Keep it.
Josh: Like me during yeah.
Katy: Do you want me to touch your areola?
Josh: Yeah.
Laura: There you go.
Josh: Dump out your breasts.
Laura: When Michael Fassbender gets called into his boss's office, he's trying to be cool. Uh, just talk about why he wasn't in on time this morning because he had a root canal, which is a lie. Then he brings up the fact that his computer was real dirty. It was riddled riddled with viruses and boobies. Yeah, covered in boobies. No, he didn't.
Josh: I like that the boss ratles off all of these different things that were like videos that were on it.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: But then, uh, he punctuates it with cream pies. I don't even know what that is. That douchebag 100% knows what that fucking is.
Laura: Ryan, what did he say?
Ryan: I'm talking like hose, sluts, anal, double anal, penetration, interracial facial, man and cream pie. And obviously he doesn't know what cream pie means.
Laura: Yeah, he 100% knows what yeah.
Josh: That guy's a liar.
Laura: I mean, he has kids, for crying out loud.
Ryan: I mean, to be fair, having a Skype window open to his child, I love that cream pie is the only thing that comes out of there in that situation. That might be obviously fine.
Katy: What exactly is a cream pie, though? Is it, like just bukkhaki? Can you please explain this to me in a clinical manner?
Ryan: So a cream pie would be as if you ejaculate into an orifice and, uh, you don't pull out beforehand and it drips out.
Katy: That's what literally just coming inside? Yes, that's it.
Laura: That's it.
Ryan: And you make sure you show you.
Laura: Got to show it coming.
Ryan: You got to show it coming out. Otherwise it's otherwise viewers will revolt.
Katy: Otherwise, that's what makes it a cream.
Ryan: This does not deserve to be in the category.
Katy: You have to show ah, the semen.
Josh: You got to have some proof.
Ryan: Yeah. Visual. You just got to fart it out or something. It has to happen.
Katy: She has to wiggle the seam.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Jostle either way.
Josh: Jostle.
Laura: Why don't you look it up?
Ryan: Or gravity.
Laura: Look it up on your work computer.
Katy: I'll wait till I get home and look it up at my work.
Ryan: Do it on the family computer.
Laura: It's probably because those incognito windows, they, uh, really work.
Laura: No.
Ryan: I don't know why. It's just like it's not that he's.
Laura: Like, saving all of these videos, because, I mean, this is still at a time where you could typically wait.
Katy: Josh just looked up cream pie, and.
Laura: It'S it looks delicious.
Ryan: There you go.
Katy: Is it just whipped cream? Uh, what is that?
Ryan: Well, thing is, it is the safest porn category to have on your computer, because it could end up taking you to a very literal cream pie looking up recipes. Yeah. Like, if you're talking to your kid on the phone, it's just like, wow, that's a fantastic cream pie.
Laura: What have you got for us?
Josh: There we go.
Ryan: Looking forward. Oh, dear.
Laura: Oh, you're really looking it up.
Ryan: Okay, sure.
Josh: This is what I was really looking for, was an illustration. I don't want to be gross.
Laura: I wonder if we'll get flagged for that online animation.
Ryan: We are an educational podcast. So you know where the library is.
Laura: You need to redo the indent for this one.
Ryan: No, the indent I made for this episode is my favorite of all the indents we've done. It's just fassbender crying.
Laura: I think it's your favorite part of the movie, too, Katie.
Katy: Oh, yeah. Continue sobing.
Katy: The caption.
Laura: Fastbender takes Marianne, his co worker, I believe, or someone who works in his office, out on a date. Uh, after that weird moment where she goes up to him in the coffee break room and asks him if he likes sugar, which I thought, um, was weird comment.
Ryan: That is the weirdest moment.
Laura: He goes, this is it. This is my in. I'm taking her out. And he takes her out on a date, like a proper date, to a nice restaurant. He shows up late and everything.
Ryan: Here's this thing. Yeah.
Katy: He lurks outside for a bit just to watch her be by herself. And then he's like, uh, she still.
Josh: Ends up bucking him later. Not even that night later. She still makes a conscious choice.
Laura: Well, attempts within 24 hours.
Katy: They were vibing during the dinner. They had some common interests.
Josh: She was pretty judgmental of his lifestyle.
Laura: Yeah, but rightfully so.
Josh: I don't disagree, but I'm still surprised.
Katy: She thought she's like a normal, well adjusted human. And so, yeah, of course she's going to have some.
Josh: No, I understand that, but I'm just surprised that she, uh, still hooked up with him, given how judgmental she was being.
Laura: Well, that's fair.
Katy: He had held back at the end of the date, didn't kiss her, so she was like, I don't think he's interested in me.
Ryan: Well, to be fair, after the date, it was all Lukewarm. But he makes a pass at her at work.
Laura: Hugely inappropriate. But it worked for her.
Ryan: It worked to the extent that he rented a room out and they ended up in that, uh, well, I mean, she was there for, I don't know, 20 minutes. And then obviously, he uses up the rest of the room to get his money's worth.
Laura: I really want to stop you there because I don't want to move away from the restaurant until we talk about the waiter. But we're going to talk about the waiter.
Ryan: Look, Laura, we're in Steve McQueen time here. It's all wibbly wobbly.
Josh: We can jump back and forth.
Laura: We can jump back and forth.
Katy: Very nonlinear yeah, I want to talk about that waiter.
Laura: So, uh, badly. Uh, he asks them rudely if they want to start off with sparkling water. He's really trying to get that bill up right off the bat. You got to pay for that.
Ryan: Well, you always upmarket if you're a waiter. Plus, they're in New York as well.
Josh: Yeah, that's his job.
Ryan: Uh, that's just fucking he's just doing his job. But the thing is, he is doing his job. But we will be adamantly.
Laura: Sure.
Ryan: Here he's not particularly good at his job.
Laura: Makes me wonder if this an acting choice because he's like, okay, I got this one scene. I got this one scene, baby. And I know this is my first day as a waiter, and I'm going to make it. Everyone knows.
Ryan: I thought about this after this scene had passed. And it's kind of like, you know, how people's relationships, how they start, how the match is lit and things. You never really remember the good dates that you have. At least there you've got a waiter there who's a fucking incompetent imbecile. And you'll always remember that. And it was like, this is the first time we met. We had this conversation. But they never kind of seemed to vibe off of that because they're also in their own little world, this little bubble where he's just this non committal. He just can't fathom being with someone any longer than he feels like he's able to be. Like, he just can't deal with it.
Laura: He's a non monogamous human being.
Ryan: Yes.
Josh: I used to run the volunteer program for the Florida Film Festival.
Katy: Mhm.
Josh: And I had a longtime volunteer who were now friendly. Like, uh, whenever we see one another, we'll catch up for one. I don't know. No, what what kind of friendly acquaintances that we will catch up with. What has been going on in our lives over the 18 months since we've seen each other last.
Laura: Jesus.
Ryan: Not just say, oh, we're friends, and we're not through the program.
Josh: We're not really friends, though, for, uh, fuck's sake.
Ryan: Why does it have to be all.
Laura: These tell us his name.
Josh: All these no, it's a woman who's like she's like 60. Uh, no, but it was funny though, because she told me she's like, actually, you're a very intimidating looking man. But then you start talking. I think she meant it as a compliment. But it really didn't come off as one.
Laura: Well, just as you know, uh, most women are afraid of men. That's good.
Josh: Yeah. But yeah, I think that it definitely had the feeling of like, wow, I thought you were like a psychopath, but turns out you're just a pussy. It definitely had that kind of vibe to the comment.
Laura: Yeah. I'm really glad that I have a.
Katy: Very present resting bitch face because it saves me time because I am scary to a lot of men.
Laura: I had someone say that to me recently as well, that, uh, a couple of, uh, coworkers were saying, like, don't you get hit on at work? Uh, you've got to get hit on at work. And then I said, I've never been hit on at work. And they go, well, yeah, because you're scary.
Katy: Yeah, it's same, uh, intimidating. I've never received an unsolicited dick pick because me either. Because of our we're scary.
Laura: We are scary. And I didn't get my first dick pick until I was 30 and he asked permission.
Josh: First gentleman.
Laura: Yeah.
Katy: See, I would be like, no, thank you.
Laura: No, I said no because I wanted to be pure forever. Yeah.
Ryan: But now, wow. There you go.
Katy: Oh, well, I'm still pure.
Laura: Speaking of purity, i, um, thought this scene was very strange. So Brandon does take Marianne to a hotel, uh, for sexies. Okay. And it's very strange because I didn't see this from his character, and I didn't remember it happening until we watched it again today. But before he goes to get sexy with Marianne, he does a line of coke in the bathroom of the hotel.
Laura: Yes.
Laura: Which I think is a very poor choice. Um, and we were discussing it during the movie, because I go, I didn't see this from his character. I thought it was very strange. And also, when you do cocaine, boners are hard to get.
Ryan: Yeah. They're hard to maintain finishing.
Laura: If you do manage to get a boner when you're on cocaine, finishing is also very difficult.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And I think that's his goal. Right.
Ryan: Anything you might have learned from movies about drug dealers or drug users and stuff like that? Fucking on cocaine is not a fun experience. It's a taut, flaccid uh uh, very unexcited.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: You just end up it's just a lot of, like, thumbing in softies. Like, it just doesn't really work.
Laura: Oh, no.
Katy: Thumbing in softies.
Laura: I hate that.
Ryan: Have you never heard about that before?
Josh: I mean, I've heard of it, but I've never heard it said like that.
Katy: And it just hurts to think about.
Josh: I think, though, that actually it makes sense, though, because that starts to be the turning point for him, where it starts really going to shit, where all of it starts catching up in his just destructive lifestyle, which it is. He's not just some free spirit who's like, I'm cool fucking everyone. Because it all seems like it's consensual. But it's also yeah, there's a bit of an ickiness to it where I.
Ryan: Mean, it's completely impacting on his quality of life.
Katy: Uh, it's just a chore. It's like something that he does to maintain a level of just disassociation. He is a sex addict, so he does sex, uh, things to cope with life, to make it bearable. But it's not something that he sees as anything linked to actual intimacy.
Laura: Right.
Josh: Or even just satisfaction or joy. There's no point where it's like he's like, job well done.
Katy: A means to an end.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: There's no pleasure. There's no intimacy. There's no connection with the people that he's with. Which I think is maybe what I always thought this scene was about, where he's with Marianne. It's someone he actually likes. It's someone he could see potentially connecting with. And so I don't know if it's I always thought that he couldn't get hard and he couldn't have sex with her because he did care about her. But then I remembered the maybe, and you've said it, Ryan. You thought it was maybe a bit of self sabotage.
Ryan: Yeah, that's what I thought was kind of going on the minute you saw him taking the line of cocaine. It's the only moment in the movie where we haven't really seen him do any of that stuff before.
Laura: No.
Ryan: And it's just kind of like, oh, okay, well, we'd know what the effect of this might have on his bonerage.
Laura: Um, well, he never puts anything good into his body either. You either see him drinking Red Bulls coffee, eating Chinese food, and drinking beer. That's true. I don't even think he actually eats anything. It's only alcohol and caffeine.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So he's not a healthy person mentally. Uh, or physically. No. But yeah, I did think that perhaps you were right. But definitely looked like self sabotage there. Because I liked I don't know, I thought they could have been nice together, those two. Maybe she could have helped him out a little bit.
Josh: She could fix them.
Laura: Yeah, she could fix them.
Laura: Right.
Laura: It was funny because I remembered that actor, and I was like, I know her from somewhere. And it's from this movie. I know her from this movie. I recognized her from the film we were currently watching. I was like, oh, yeah, that's her. I like that part.
Laura: But that hotel actually is interesting because they filmed that hotel sex scene. Um, well, after she leaves, so he can't get an erection, right. And he's bummed out. And I think there's many men out there who this has happened to where nothing a woman says can ever help a situation. There's no boner happening. No words that come out of her mouth is going to help. It's not like, do you need, uh it's okay.
Josh: It's like telling an angry woman to calm down.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: It's exact same thing.
Katy: Whenever I've encountered this, I just go with they're there.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Katy: Just pat them on the shoulder.
Laura: Uh oh.
Ryan: Patronizing Jesus.
Laura: What if you say it's okay?
Josh: Yeah, I mean, that's the only thing, is like, try to turn into a joke. Uh, that's best case.
Laura: You just like, whisper to it.
Josh: Come on, little yeah. Come on, poke.
Laura: Are you alive?
Josh: Come on, little buddy.
Katy: Snail with a stick.
Ryan: Yeah, I've got a headache. Please just leave me be.
Laura: Well, she just straight leaves, which and he's like, I'll walk you downstairs. And she goes, no, that's okay. Which I thought was interesting because I don't know, I thought they had a little thing going. I thought that she was into him and I thought that it was weird on her part to maybe not be a little bit more the thing is.
Ryan: The relationship, as much as you're kind.
Laura: Of I'm, um, putting a lot on it.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Ah, it's laying it on relatively quick.
Laura: I just want him to be happy.
Ryan: She didn't seem particularly pleased at the end of the first date. And then he initiated something that then led to something else and then he didn't deliver.
Laura: He also took her out of work during office hours.
Katy: Well and also she's got work to do. She asked if he wants her to leave and so she's kind of wanting him to say, no, you can stay.
Laura: Yeah. He hasn't reciprocated a whole bunch.
Ryan: She's not the villain in this situation.
Katy: She's trying to gauge and the fact that he says, yeah, you should go. I think that's why she's like, you don't have to walk me down.
Laura: Yeah, okay.
Katy: She sees that as like, okay, this is done.
Laura: Okay, that's fine.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: Well this isn't the end of his time because he's not going to let that hotel room go to waste. He has sex with that woman against the window of the hotel. So, uh, what I was going to say is that that hotel has kind of become famous for window sex because they shot that in the middle of the day and there was people on the street that could see them.
Josh: They were like waving to him between takes too.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: They're up against boobies up against the window. You can see them from the street. So people have booked that hotel specifically ever since then to fuck against the windows.
Katy: Is that the same hotel that he walks past and sees someone?
Josh: Yeah, I think so.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: I think that's why you got the idea from well, that's what he was he was fucking around watching that instead of going to the dinner date.
Katy: Mhm.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: That's where he got the he got.
Laura: The idea that's the fun thing about living in a city, you always got to look up because you never know what you're going to see. I've never seen anything like that yet, but I want to.
Ryan: Here's the thing. So back in 2013 why am I bringing this? So in 2013, I was filming a music video in the grass market, which obviously you and me, Laura, know relatively quite well.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: And we, uh, were out and.
Laura: We.
Ryan: Were doing a music video. We had a guy out there with a sign and there was me and another couple of ladies. But in the span of about like 15 minutes, we, um, were approached by two strippers who were promoting the strip bar just a little bit further up the road. And they were completely in their scants, other than they had these two trench coats on and they were flashing folk as they went. Past.
Laura: Oh, yes.
Ryan: So that completely happened. And then literally maybe about 20 or 30 seconds after, there's a hotel just a little bit across the road from where we were, and there was a hendoo going on, and all of them must have had showers. And at whatever point, because of the nature of the sign that I'd written up, they all started to de robe, and we could all see them all cool. Uh, yeah. The power of a sign is all I will say. Um yes.
Katy: What was the sign?
Ryan: Uh, I think it just said, Get your coat.
Laura: Oh, you're taking them home?
Ryan: Yes.
Katy: See, we don't need coats here.
Ryan: No, not in Florida.
Josh: Not in Florida.
Ryan: Well, I don't know. What would you say? Get your boat. I mean, I don't know.
Josh: Get your gun. When I saw Shame for the first time, I was living in Texas, in Austin, and there was a, uh, theater called The Violet Crown that was basically the same model as Alma Draft House, but not as, uh, they were trying to sell themselves a little more upscale. That was kind of the deal. But it was still a cinema cafe. Um, more high end food and fancy cocktails, that sort of thing. But I went and saw Shame there. But I, um, also saw The Descendants, like a double feature.
Laura: Interesting.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: The George Clooney Alexander Payne movie. And that was weird. Uh, but I do remember that I saw Shame first, because I had about 20 minutes in between movies. And the theater was, uh, located at the top of a parking garage. So it was like seven, eight, nine floors up, maybe, something like that. So there was a patio, kind of a balcony situation overlooking the city downtown. And so I was just sitting out there, staring in the middle distance, because I just finished Shame. Uh, just kind of trying to absorb what I just watched and process a little bit. This guy comes out and stands next to me, and he lights a cigarette, and I do not acknowledge him at all. And he just turns to me and he's looking I could tell he was looking at me, but no, no, it wasn't bad. He just like, just get out of said, yeah, you got that look.
Laura: So we all know how Steve McQueen likes these long takes, right? So this film has a slightly shorter one. Not like the 17 minutes unbroken hunger shot that we have.
Katy: I loved that. Yeah, I loved it.
Laura: Um, this one is six minutes and 15 seconds. It's that scene, ah, shot from behind Brandon and Sissy where they're having the conversation on the couch is apparently six minutes long. And that's that conversation that they have where Brandon is slut shaming Sissy about having sex with his boss and explaining.
Katy: That, you know, he's married, right?
Laura: It's like, your boss is a piece of shit. And if you cared about your sister, you would maybe say, hey, he kind of sucks.
Josh: I don't think he cares about his sister, though, at all.
Laura: I, uh, think he's working on I.
Katy: Don'T think he he doesn't want her to be dead, at least.
Laura: Right.
Josh: But, I mean, I think it's just.
Laura: Him keeping every single person in his life at arm's length, which is why he doesn't want to bring her back into the fold, because she's also so chaotic.
Josh: I didn't time it, and I meant to this time, because actually, the date, um, with Marianne, that is a single take as well.
Laura: It is very long, and it's crazy.
Josh: Because there's an incredibly slow push in, uh, that's almost imperceptible, unless you're looking for it. I mean, it actually is more drastic than when we talked about this a couple of days ago. It does move in more than I remembered it, but it's still so fucking slow. I don't think it's as long as, uh, Hunger, but it's got to be pushing eight, nine minutes.
Ryan: Well, the thing is, there's not a lot of scenes that are as long as that thing in Hunger happens. Um, because the thing is, anything longer than that in Hunger ends up having some level of significance for it. But stylistically, I kind of feel like Steve McQueen's stuff is that he'll do things in a 1 hour. You're not really 100% sure of it ever really changing. It just kind of develops as it's going along.
Josh: I think he has a really great talent, though, for keeping it from seeming theatrical. Uh, it still feels cinematic, and it's very rare that a single take, unless you're moving the camera around a lot like Paul Thomas Anderson or Martin Scorsese, tends, uh, to feel a little theatrical to me, and it doesn't at all. And I don't really put my finger on why.
Laura: Usually those shots are pretty static, but there's also one shot in Twelve Years of Slave, where they're in the market when you first see, like, Cumberbatch. But he's moving the camera all around. He's following everybody all around. But that's also one take that's really, really long, too. But I love that for him, because it's something, again, that you don't feel it. You don't feel like, oh, wow. Because it's typically so engaging, whatever you're watching, that you're not thinking like, oh, he hasn't moved to the camera.
Josh: I don't mean this in any kind of disparaging way, but that long shot in Goodfellas, it feels like it's a spectacle. It's not as much about the content of what the characters it's really look at this cool thing I'm able to do, which is cool. It's iconic. It's a great shot, but there's something about the way that McQueen does it that's just like you really I don't think that unless you were looking for it, it's really easy to not notice all of them.
Laura: Yeah, this is kind of the part of the film where things really start to break down in an intense manner where his tenuous life at this point just becomes completely unhinged. He was like, working towards an unhinging situation and then it just falls apart. Um, so this is when you've seen him so far going into nice bars and nice cocktail establishments. And then he ends up at like.
Ryan: A real New York.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: He's like all of a sudden cruising or something.
Laura: He's at the bar from Crocodile Dundee.
Josh: Uh, yeah, I'm getting my dick sucked.
Laura: Uh, yeah.
Josh: I don't care by who.
Ryan: He'S suddenly in, uh, the interpretation of the deleted content from Cruising, directed by James Franco. Yeah.
Laura: Wait, is that where he goes first? Sorry. I was thinking about when he went to talk to that girl.
Ryan: I'm going to say this maybe for.
Katy: The.
Laura: I was thinking of the part with the where he goes up in the bar that has the boyfriend and he's talking about I don't know.
Katy: He's talking about eating her pussy. And then he sticks his hand down her pants.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: Right.
Laura: Okay.
Josh: He gets in there.
Laura: He does get in there.
Katy: He gets real in there. Probably ignores the clitoris, I would imagine. Just goes straight straight for the vulva.
Ryan: Straight in knee kissing into that.
Josh: She seemed to like it though, that vaginal. It was really upsetting to me how she was kind of okay with all that.
Laura: Yeah, she was definitely down. She walked up. They made eye contact. He did his little Fastbender look panties dropped.
Josh: She was in just from the sheer weight of the liquid that came out of her.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: It was fucking horrible.
Katy: Yeah.
Laura: And her boyfriend's behind her shooting pool or something, doing whatever that boys do. And the boyfriend comes m up. This is flashing back and forth to him being like beat up. And he says to the boyfriend how he's going to stick his balls in her mouth and come on her face.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Uh, which I love because we've all seen what that man is working with. And there's no way it would go straight over the top of her head.
Josh: He would have to aim up and then it come down.
Laura: Yeah.
Katy: It's kind of like when your windshield.
Josh: Wiper fluid isn't like perfectly aligned.
Laura: It goes over the top of the.
Laura: Top of the car.
Laura: Absolutely.
Katy: That's exactly what would happen with his dick.
Ryan: Or I mean, he could catch it in his hand and then just woof.
Josh: Just like swear it back down. Uh, like spiderman.
Ryan: Whip.
Laura: Spiderman. You're welcome. Um, and then he's out there looking for love in any place that'll give it to him. All the wet places. All the wet places.
Josh: I mean, they're all moist. Every place he goes after that scene is moist.
Laura: Very moist.
Katy: Yeah.
Laura: He tries to get into a bar club.
Ryan: Well, to be fair, after that bar sequence, though, he gets the shit kicked out of him, which he kind of deserves.
Laura: And that's when he's trying to get into anywhere that'll take him. And when he ends up locking eyes with a dude across, uh, the street.
Katy: To get into that, let's not pass over the fact that he pulls his hand out of this girl's pants and holds up his fingers to her boyfriend and asks him to smell.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh: After he says he's going to fuck her in the ass. And he's like kind of giving it all a pass. Like this guy's drunk. He's just I mean, he shoves his fingers on that.
Laura: He it's pretty grotesque, I think. Brian, you were saying the whole time you're like, he needs to get slapped. And you were saying it right before he was saying all that horrible shit. I'm like, fine. It's a consensual kind of gross situation. And then he starts being really shitty to the boyfriend. And I go, oh, if Fastbender came up to me and was saying stuff to me, I wouldn't.
Ryan: Fucking no, I'm not doing that. I'm not dealing with that.
Laura: Dealing with fucking escalated quickly. But keep talking.
Ryan: You've just threatened.
Laura: You get a Fastbender chat. No.
Ryan: What do you mean? What the anal assault and the fucking finger sniffing and he's got that manic.
Josh: Smile on his face when he's like the Joker.
Josh: He's like the young Joker in the 1989 Batman.
Katy: He's like the Joker if the Joker was a sex addict.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Um, I'm into it. Into that. You can't tell me that no one in this room is.
Josh: I mean, that's fine.
Ryan: No, put me in the situation where I've got to defend myself from fucking Michael Fassbender.
Laura: I think it depends.
Katy: Christ on the day.
Ryan: Get myself into a fight, ends up on TMZ. It's like, oh, Scotsman fucking fights. Magneto. Like, what the fuck am I going to do there? Christ.
Laura: Wow.
Ryan: Anyway, he goes on a sex tear. Goes on a sex tear?
Laura: He sure does.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: He goes into that cruise. And it's not even a bar. It's like a glory hole factory.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh: Uh, they don't even mop that joint at the end of the night. They just pull out hoses and spray it all down.
Ryan: Like a kennel.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: It's like a kennel.
Josh: Kennel.
Laura: It's a fuck kennel.
Katy: They get the power washer out.
Laura: Uh, that seems pretty romantic. That's like the most romantic scene out of the whole film, in my opinion.
Josh: When he's angrily getting his dick sucked by that dude.
Katy: Uh, absolutely.
Josh: I mean, I like it.
Laura: Uh, again, the amount of sex the amount of nips dicks and butts that are in this movie, it still makes it like m the least erotic film.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Oh, my God. In existence. Like, I'm watching it and I'm getting no tingles. Like nothing's happening at all. And you're watching all this crazy stuff. And you said, Ryan, you go, isn't there a threesome in this film? I don't remember. And then boom.
Josh: It is the saddest threesome ever with the music.
Katy: It's because of the score. Like if there was any other song.
Josh: If it was the Benny Hill score, it wouldn't have been as sad.
Laura: Yeah.
Katy: It would have been kind of funny.
Laura: And then his crying face while he's.
Ryan: Just like almost not the crying face.
Katy: The way that the Threesome is filmed, it's so zoomed in to everything. It's very claustrophobic.
Josh: It's kind of hard to tell what you're looking at at times.
Katy: Is this someone's ass? Is this someone's vagina? The only thing you can really tell is whenever he's, like, eating the girl's butthole, you're like, okay, that's a butt.
Josh: And he's like, going to fucking town.
Ryan: He's out all night pumping that's overlaid.
Katy: With his sister, leaving him a voicemail that sounds like really desperate and yeah.
Laura: The old suicide voicemail.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: While you're having a threesome, I'll be there.
Katy: And I was just like, oh, no, this is getting to a really sad point. There's no place in this where you're like, yeah, this is going to have resolution. This is going to turn out okay for everyone.
Laura: Uh, the music swelling. And then.
Ryan: The only thing swelling his angry coming.
Katy: Yeah.
Laura: And then just like the regret on his face.
Ryan: He's got, like his sexy overbite face with the grimace.
Laura: Yeah. Don't like that. I don't like that. It was like that weird because he's, like, looking at himself in probably a mirror or something like this anti Patrick Bateman moment where he's crying instead of luxuriating in his muscles.
Ryan: Yeah. He's ripping and dipping. He's just getting it done.
Laura: Ripping and dipping.
Josh: Gross.
Katy: Yeah. Company time. Ripping and dipping.
Laura: And it gets to the part where he is on the train on, uh, the subway to go home at some point.
Josh: This looks like 630 in the morning.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And the train is stopped and everyone has to get off because there's been an accident. And so you immediately think, okay, it's like that classic Chekhov's gun type of situation. Because earlier in the film, you saw Sissy standing right at the edge of the platform of the subway. Right?
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: And goes, get away from there. Are you crazy? And then you have someone that is obviously throwing themselves in front of the train. You go. Oh, God. There you go. She's gone and done it. He runs home and nope. Just kidding. She's litterus.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Well, m it's the triggering moment for him to be thinking a little bit more logically about the voice messages he'd been receiving.
Katy: Yeah. I was like, does he think that she threw herself on the tracks? Or does he think that she's done something and he needs to get home right away to make sure she's there?
Josh: I think it's the latter. I don't think that he thought that she threw herself.
Laura: You don't think so?
Josh: No, I think that's the turning point where he stops thinking about himself for a goddamn minute and realizes, oh, shit, this is what's happening in the world.
Katy: I kind of feel like he was trying to get home to make sure she wasn't the one on the tracks.
Laura: That's what I thought. Because he was calling her and calling her after. He was like, oh, wait a second. I don't know. I thought that was the trigger moment for him to go, well, the only issue I'd have, what if I lose her?
Josh: I mean, I think that's absolutely true. I just don't think that he thought that she did that way.
Ryan: Because at no point does the film ever kind of allude itself to the fact that if that did of to us, it feels a little bit more intelligent that we're like, oh, we remember that bit from before. This triggers in his own mind to then kind of think about this. It's more of a Hollywood moment where we're thinking, there's his reaction. There it is. That's happening. Oh, my God. There's our legs just sticking out.
Josh: Oh, if I saw that, that would be a fuck this movie. I don't care. Everything that I saw before it, I would be writing that movie off. I would be so angry if that's how that fucking ended.
Ryan: One same it's the same reason why, uh, the Hollywood version of The Bicycle Thieves just would not work. It just wouldn't work at all.
Laura: Okay.
Ryan: I don't know. He understood.
Josh: I got it.
Laura: Uh, when he finally gets home and sees her blood everywhere, um, in that very white room. So white.
Josh: And she's wearing all white.
Laura: Yeah.
Katy: I really wish he stark.
Laura: I really wish he would have got White Stripes video.
Katy: She lived. She did. She woke up. She wasn't in a coma. She called him a shithead.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: There you go.
Ryan: Uh, which made you kind of feel like when he's rubbing his hands up and down her arms and stuff. Like how many times she's tried to kill herself.
Josh: Well, they mentioned that earlier when the boss the douchebag boss like, uh, what did you do? She's like, I was bored as a kid.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh: Must have been real bored.
Laura: Yeah.
Katy: Well, and also whenever he catches her in the he comes home and she's in the shower. And the first time that we see her and she's like naked, you see that she has hospital, um, bands on her wrist.
Laura: I didn't notice that.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: He sees that girl again. I think we mentioned that earlier. The same, um, redhead from earlier. The beginning of the film is certainly more keen when he sees her again, um, on the train and is it going back and forth again in time. At this point, he left the hospital and was doing that heavy sobbing as well, towards the end of the film.
Katy: Well, this is the end after he left the hospital. Right?
Ryan: Because after he sobs near the pier and stuff, he's, um all still bloody acting right there.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: Okay. But, um, then effectively, um, the film starts to repeat at the point where he's at the subway where it's the exact same shot as before. And then he's on the train and he still has the scars that he's had from the preceding days.
Laura: Yeah. So he's healed up from getting punched in the face by that boyfriend. And that's when he sees that same girl from, uh, the beginning of the film.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: But this time she's really wanting him to take her home.
Ryan: Uh, yeah. She's in no hesitation whatsoever.
Laura: She's probably still married. Yeah.
Katy: She still has a ring, right?
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: But that's where it ends. You don't know.
Ryan: This is his turning point moment. This is where he can maybe not.
Laura: Probably not.
Josh: Probably not.
Ryan: Well, I mean, the ending is ambiguous, so we're not really sure. We're not really sure.
Katy: We just feel really bad.
Ryan: Would it make us feel better if we're like he doesn't I mean, really.
Josh: His biggest crime is that he lacks empathy.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh: Uh, anything he's engaging with isn't none of it's non consensual. He seems to pay top dollar. Good for him.
Laura: Yeah. Definitely tips.
Josh: If you're going to do that, if you're going to have that lifestyle. I think that he's doing it the best way, the most ethical way that a person like him could.
Katy: Yeah. When he fucks the girl against the window and she's having trouble getting her bra on, he's like, do you need help with that?
Josh: Right.
Katy: She's like, no, I'm good. And so he's polite.
Laura: He opened the door for a woman with a trolley or was like a baby carriage at one point.
Josh: He's unkind to his sister, but really he's only unkind to her because she is crossing his personal lines.
Laura: Right.
Josh: Do I think that that's a good thing? Probably not. Be a better person.
Laura: Uh, well, she's also not treating very well.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: He's not actively being a shitty person to her.
Katy: I mean, as far as, like, outside.
Josh: Of being just dismissive, as far as.
Katy: Alignments go, I would put him as like, lawful neutral and her as chaotic.
Laura: Good.
Katy: Because she wreaks chaos wherever she goes.
Laura: Wow. In terms of awards, this film has won it's won several. It was obviously more on the independent circuit than anything else because of its rating, unfortunately, with an idiotic rating. But, uh, probably the most prestigious award, uh, that Michael Fassbender won for this was Best Actor at the Florida Film Critics Awards.
Josh: Really? I know some people who are part of that.
Laura: Well done. Bravo Fastbender for that award.
Josh: Uh, do you think that the NC 17 rating is warranted?
Laura: No.
Josh: I don't either.
Laura: That's an inherent problem that we have in the rating system in this country is that if you show a dick, it turns up as, uh, what is it? What is like it's excessive sexual themes or something. But it's not. It's a penis.
Josh: Right. They're all fucking Baptists.
Katy: They like, watch it. And they're like, oh my gosh, I saw a dick.
Laura: I can't see the dick. Well, it's completely unfair. It doesn't make sense. The whole thing needs to be revamped and revisited. Because if you have a dick in a movie and I think that it's more prevalent if you have some sort of dramatic film, uh, especially with themes like this rather than a comedy film, if a comedy dick, you can keep your R. We've got plenty of comedy dicks and movies. You've got the hangover. Uh, forgetting Sarah Marshall. Sarah Marshall. Yeah.
Katy: That comes to mind.
Laura: Twice. You see Jason Siegel's Dick More in Forgetting Sarah Marshall than you do see Michael Fassbender's in Shame.
Josh: I think that to your point, that yeah, it's because it's fucking sad. And that's really what they have a real problem with, is they don't want anybody to think that the world's a bad place.
Laura: It's egregious.
Josh: And really the difference between NC 17 or R, like, what are kids going to go fucking see it either way?
Laura: I mean, you would have yeah, that's true.
Ryan: But probably one of the main things kind of presiding over an NC 17 for the movie is the fact that it's not an American funded film whatsoever. It's a British funded film. It's like lottery funded, and it's film four funded. Um, so that's probably one of the primary reasons why it did not ring particularly well in United States is because.
Josh: Of the also Fox Searchlight did not do a proper release for it. Luckily, they were cool and didn't make them cut it an R rating. But that had a $6 million budget and they bought it for $400,000. They never had a lot of faith in that.
Ryan: Right, okay. Yeah, that's pretty disgusting.
Laura: So, uh, let's go around and we're going to rate it so it's on a scale. You could do a zero to five if you want. And we're going to start with, uh, the dick scene. So from zero to five in terms of visibility and context, five obviously being the highest, what would you give the dick scenes in this film? We can start with you, Katie.
Katy: Um I guess I'll do four.
Laura: Okay.
Katy: Because we never see it erect, but he is a shower, not a grower.
Laura: I mean, that's an NC 17.
Josh: Yeah, I agree.
Laura: Sure.
Ryan: Yeah.
Josh: Um, ah, no, I'm fine with giving it a five. I think that the context is great. Uh, the music being played during it is sad. And so it's a sad, sad penis.
Laura: That's sad penis.
Josh: And I mean, it's a sad penis attached to a sad man. And I think that for what the scenes are trying to convey, uh, I think it does an excellent.
Ryan: Uh, mean. I would I would probably give it five and kind of obviously, to echo the sentiments of Joss and things, it's a very sad, floppy dick that's kind of slapping against these thighs and things. The thing I really like about the moment and it's the thing that we only kind of really hinted at a couple of it ends up in a piss.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: It's not sexual. It's one of the few scenes in the movie that's not sexual. Absolutely.
Ryan: There is, uh, actually weird.
Josh: All the full frontal nudity is non sexual.
Laura: Yes.
Josh: Because same with Carrie Mulligan, which.
Laura: Other.
Josh: Than the prostitutes the prostitutes don't count.
Ryan: All of the dick.
Laura: Uh, now oh, sorry. This is my favorite dick movie. I love Michael Fassbender. I love Steve McQueen. And what I in talking in terms of, uh, I don't want to say realism, but realism to the fact that that man just woke up in the morning. Yes. And people sleep naked. I don't know if everybody sleeps naked, but I know a lot of people do. You know what I mean?
Josh: He has the walk of somebody who's walking to the toilet first thing in the morning. Like his stride.
Laura: Absolutely.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: And I think that I like that. He woke up, he's naked, he's going to take a pee. He's at home. Also, you're just relaxed at home. It's not one of those situations where you wake up and you wrap the sheet around you.
Laura: Right.
Laura: Which is, uh, such a common thing I see in films. And I hate that. And also, people tuck their sheets in. Can you imagine being sleeping at someone's house and then you just take their whole sheet and you wrap it around yourself? Who's done that? Nobody does that. Anyway, that's, uh, my two cent.
Laura: Let's go around for the last time and give our ratings for the film. Same scale, zero to five. Five being the absolute best. Give it a five.
Katy: Thank you.
Laura: Okay.
Josh: Josh?
Laura: Same.
Josh: Um, uh, I give it a five on Letterboxd.
Laura: Actually.
Josh: Um, most of the Steve McQueen stuff ranks very, very high for me.
Laura: Absolutely.
Josh: Big, big fan of it, stylistically. And I like sad shit. And it doesn't get a whole lot sadder than this movie.
Laura: But I laughed. I laughed so much during this movie.
Josh: I laugh more than I do than twelve years of slightly.
Katy: Uh, it's like an uncomfortable laughter, though, because it's just like the fact that he's furiously having a threesome while he's getting a suicide voicemail. And also like this not funny.
Laura: Ha ha.
Laura: Well, when he's furiously masturbating and she walks in on him, uh, that's funny. The waiter is funny. What wine did you get? And, uh, you already suggested the Pinot. Give us the pinot.
Katy: The boss with being on the phone with his children, and then he's talking about like, anal, double anal, interracial, whatever.
Laura: Waiting for that kid to come back while he was listing all that stuff.
Josh: But I think that it's sad in the way that life is sad. I laugh at all kinds of things in life, but it's generally pretty shitty coping mechanism.
Ryan: Unlike hunger, um, and unlike Twelve Years a Slave, there's actually relatable human elements in this movie that we can attain at some level of like we've not gone to prison, we've not become a political prisoner, and neither have either of us been a slave. So, I mean, we can also kind of relate a little bit closer to this and laugh at some of the more uncomfortable moments. Certainly I wasn't laughing when Paul Giamatti's like, showing us around the slave room.
Laura: Um, yeah, well, there's the human element that is threaded through all of his know, and you always have that emotional.
Ryan: Connection to the yes, we can relate to all of his films on a human level, just probably not on a personal level.
Laura: I want to go first before you with your rating because I'm really curious to see where this is going with you. So I'm giving it a five. That's easy. I love this movie. I love it. Everything it does. I've loved it since I saw it the first time. I love it now. It gets better every single time. Now, here's the thing with Brian is that Shame was the first, uh, Steve McQueen movie he'd ever seen. He didn't like it the first time he saw it. I mean, I was going to explain.
Ryan: This whole situation, at least, so that, uh, I didn't feel like I was being ridiculed for it.
Laura: It is baffling to me that he didn't like this movie.
Ryan: It completely colored my opinion of his work because I really didn't like Shame at all.
Laura: You were going to like any of his films. We watched Hunger.
Ryan: Here's the thing. Let me say my piece, okay? But I think every time I've ever brought up Shame or someone else has brought up Shame, it's been like, well, you're a fucking idiot. Obviously. Everyone likes shame. What's your problem? And I think the issue I have with Shame and I feel like it's the same issue I've had with, uh, it the second time around as well, is that it didn't get its hooks directly into me from the off, which is like what happened with hunger and less so with like twelve years of.
Laura: Sleep walking around naked right in the beginning. How is that not a hook?
Ryan: Well, here's the thing, and obviously it's all right. It's okay. Yes. But, uh, one of the main issues is just for me, is just the sense of just being able to get pulled into the story and a sense of relatability and just kind of getting myself into it. I love, stylistically, what he does, and I like the way that he does it. I don't feel like there's certain elements of this that I feel like, uh, are 100% successful. But at the same time, um, there are things about this that I can appreciate. Maybe at the time when I saw it the first time, I didn't fully appreciate it for what it was. Um, so here's the thing. I think for the last 3 hours, I've been playing with either a three and a half to four to four and a. Half. Um, and rather than feeling like the person who's going to be ridiculed for the remainder of the time, I'll just give it a four and a half.
Josh: I'm going to ridicule you for not sticking to your guns. Um, I think that your reasoning is completely valid and I do agree. I fucking hate that whole, like, what do you mean? Of course everyone loves this. Go fuck yourself. Yes, your subjective opinion is objectively wrong.
Laura: He's talking about me.
Josh: Yeah, I know.
Ryan: I'm talking about you and a handful of, uh, other people who have entered our lives and kind of spoken about shame and things like that. I don't like feeling like I get pushed into a corner with things that are relatively quite populist. There you go.
Laura: Are you sure you want to stick? I know I'm a bully. I've been told this before. You want to stick with that four and a half?
Ryan: Well, the thing is satisfied now that we've put ourselves in it's. No. Hunger, like, I'm saying that right now, it probably deserves more of a four than a four and a half. But there are certain things about it that I genuinely quite appreciate now, looking at it from, I mean, when did the film come out? Like, back in 2011. So I've obviously grown up a little bit since then. Um, but there are issues I have with the film still standing now that I feel like I don't know if I could sit through and watch the film again. As much as we will be going to the screening, I will be watching it again and maybe I'll appreciate it a little bit more. But at the same time, it's nowhere near being anything like what hunger is to me. Hunger just from the that was the first time I watched it as well. That just immediately hooked me and I just thought it was a fantastic story. And with Shame, I feel like it is inherently flawed, but there are certain elements about it that I enjoy. And to be honest, he follows up with twelve years of slave and I feel like that's probably his best film out of everything that he's done. So either way, that's kind of where I stand with it. I'm glad I was able to say my piece because I've been fucking badgered, um, for months and months and months, um, over the case of this. And I was actually terrified to do this thing. Uh, even more so than if we did cover the rest of Jane Campion's fucking filmography, which will be an absolute fucking slog. For the sake of this, yes, I will recommend shame and I want this chapter of my life closed indefinitely.
Laura: Wonderful.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Well, thank you for that, Ryan. I'm so pleased that we were able to share because this is a big one. This is a big one for me in my life. It's a big one for us. It's a big one I don't know. For uncomfortable brunch. I think tip top.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Tip top film.
Katy: And they should come watch it on September 4.
Laura: 4Th. 4th.
Katy: September 4. Um, which is also Ryan's birthday, right?
Ryan: OG it is, yeah. I'm m one year older, which means one year closer to the grave.
Laura: That's September 4. Uh, if you're in and around Orlando at NZN, comfortable brunch starts at noon.
Katy: Doors, uh, open at 1130. Uh, I am going to try to make sure that my parents are there. Lovely. Um, because it'll be funny.
Laura: It'll be great.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: Because this is coming out when? The 2? September. So the weekend that week.
Laura: Yeah.
Josh: Two days later.
Laura: Uh, so if everyone's on top of their game, you should be listening to this and go, oh, boy. Yeah, I don't have tickets. I got to get tickets. Or you already have tickets because you're smart. So get on it. But gosh. Well, thanks for being here.
Josh: Thank you for having us.
Katy: Yeah, this is fun.
Laura: Such a pleasure.
Katy: Anytime you want to talk about dicks.
Laura: Which is most of all the time, call me over. That's fair.
Ryan: Well, there's at least another 200 something that we know of right now, according to my mom.
Katy: She's like, what is it, pornography?
Laura: And on that note, coming to you from Ho's, slut's, anal, double anal, penetration, interracial facial and cream pies, which we all know what it is. Now, I have been laura, I'm dropping out.
Ryan: Like I should do, if you know what a cream pie is.
Laura: That's right.
Ryan: Yeah. And repping and dipping.
Laura: Had Josh and we've had Katie.
Katy: Bye bye.
Laura: Goodbye, everyone. Thank you so much.
Josh: Was he wearing latex ah gloves?
Katy: Did you hear about sorry. If, um, you were to did you hear about the TikTok where he posted a picture of his friend's butthole?
Laura: But no.