Marc Andreessen: How Movies Explain America

In this episode of Monitoring the Situation, Marc Andreessen, Katherine Boyle, and Erik Torenberg dive into the movies that best explain America, from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to Tropic Thunder to Fight Club. They explore how Tarantino’s revisionist masterpiece reimagines 1969 and the end of America’s cultural innocence, why Tropic Thunder was the last un-cancellable comedy, and how Fight Club evolved from a left-wing critique of capitalism to a right-wing prophecy about alienation and identity. Along the way, they trace the parallels between the counterculture of the 1960s and the internet culture wars of the 2010s, and debate whether we’re living through another great American cultural reset. 00:00 Intro 02:10 Los Angeles: The Ultimate “Fake It Till You Make It” Story 04:55 The 1960s Cultural Revolution 08:15 When the Dream Turns Dark: Manson and the End of the Sixties 10:40 Tarantino’s Twist on the Manson Murders 13:10 The Easter Eggs and Alternate History 16:00 Cliff Booth, Sharon Tate, and the Genius of the Ending 20:15 The Counterculture, Violence, and Comedy Collide 23:15 Why Audiences Laughed Through the Violence 26:30 What Tarantino Says About America 29:45 From Once Upon a Time to Tropic Thunder 33:10 Tropic Thunder: The Ultimate Hollywood Satire 36:30 Robert Downey Jr. in Blackface 40:50 Booty Sweat, Les Grossman, and the Genius of the Marketing 44:30 Satire, Offense, and How the Film Aged 48:20 Oppenheimer: Nolan’s Epic and Its Moral Dilemma 53:45 Was Oppenheimer the Hero or the Traitor? 01:03:00 The Morality of the Bomb and the Cold War Reality 01:08:40 AI, Scientists, and the Burden of Invention 01:12:30 Fight Club: Nihilism, Masculinity, and "Capital A" Art 01:15:30 Could Fight Club Be Made Today? 01:16:00 Closing Thoughts Stay Updated: If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Thinking Big: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1161700. Thinking_Big Follow Marc on X: https://x.com/pmarca Follow Katherine on X: https://x.com/KTmBoyle Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Marc Andreessen?

  LA in a lot of ways is sort of, you could describe it as like it's the archetypal American city. Here's the larger significance of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, or my view of it, which is it captures a time and place that was absolutely critical to the evolution of modern America.

• 0:12Katherine Boyle?

  The reaction from the audience is extreme laughter. You were laughing during the most violent sequence for 20 minutes.

• 0:19Speaker 02

  Some movies don't just entertain, they help explain America. On this episode of Moderating the Situation, Katherine Boyle and I are joined by A16Z general partner Marc Andreessen to talk about the films that capture the country's turning points. From Hollywood's golden age to the counterculture, from the comedies we could once make to the stories that still define us. We look at how different directors across decades have reflected and sometimes predicted where America was heading and what its art reveals about the culture behind it. Let's get into it.

• 0:49Erik Torenberg?

  Well, excited to have the Moderating the Situation crew back for another episode on movies. Mark, thanks for joining again.

• 0:57Marc Andreessen?

  Yes, excited.

• 0:58Erik Torenberg?

  So we wanted to go deeper into some of our favorite movies. Mark, I know from watching movies with you that one of your genres you enjoy is movies about Hollywood. And so we wanted to start with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Why don't you talk about what's remarkable about that or why you wanted to talk about it?

• 1:12Marc Andreessen?

  The reason I like movies about Hollywood, I mean, one is they tend to be very entertaining because of course the people who make movies about Hollywood are from Hollywood. They know where all the bodies are buried and they tend to put them all in the movies. And so they're, you know, all run of spectacular Hollywood movies. So for people who haven't seen, I would recommend Mulholland Drive. It's one of Eric's favorites.

• 1:28Erik Torenberg?

  And that name is Robert.

• 1:31Marc Andreessen?

  And then The Player, which also is the all time one. You know, there's a bunch, of course, you know, famous ones like Sunset Boulevard. But, you know, the iconic Hollywood movie, you know, now is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, you know, like Quentin Tarantino. And so the reason I like Hollywood movies is because, you know, there are a handful of cities that have a claim to be like the ultimate American cities. And, you know, New York City is one of those, you know, I think, you know, San Francisco in some ways, you know, where we are is, but LA and Las Vegas also put them on the list. By the way, for Las Vegas, see Bugsy. I'll talk about that another time, but that's the iconic Vegas movie. But LA in a lot of ways, you could describe it as like it's the archetypal American city. Literally, it's a, there is a great book we can put in the notes called Thinking Big, where it goes actually to the creation of the city of Los Angeles. And basically like Los Angeles, you could argue is the ultimate American city because it was the ultimate fake it until you make it thing.

• 2:16Marc Andreessen?

  Like it was the thoroughness of cities and very specifically like it was desert. Like there was absolutely nothing. In LA and then, you know, literally it was like a land development deal by a bunch of wealthy families in the late 1800s and they literally placed newspaper ads in eastern newspapers. You know, this is before, you know, photography made it into newspapers. And so like, you know, when there was like a picture of something in a newspaper, it'd be a drawing. And so they would list land plots for sale in Los Angeles and they would have like line drawings of like, you know, orchards and like, you know, beautiful, everything's green and paltrees. And then, you know, people would like buy the land, move across country and discover that it was just like blasted out desert. And then, you know, they famously created the city. They carved it out of the desert. And then, you know, it's a famous saga of how they went to get the water, which turned into another great LA movie, Chinatown. And, you know, as you'd expect, you know, Hollywood kind of goes for a certain interpretation of history. And so it, you know,

• 3:00Marc Andreessen?

  sort of painted in retrospect as like a purely evil activity. But, you know, there's actually like a very kind of straightforward reading, which is like, this is what was actually required to create a city. But it wasn't as black and white as sort of the Hollywood history has it. It was a more complex story, but still, you know, very, very interesting, amazing story. And, you know, cities like Los Angeles are created every day. So, you know, that's a pretty big deal. So anyway, like movies about LA, I think when they reach the level of capital A art, you know, they become movies about America. And so it's like a great testbed or a great subject, you know, through a great lens through which to look at the history of America. And Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is, I would say, one of the top movies along that theme. Let me start by saying, if anybody watching this hasn't seen Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, pause the podcast immediately, go watch the movie. And then come back, because we are going to spoil the shit on it.

• 3:45Marc Andreessen?

  And it's tremendously fun to watch if you haven't read about it. By the way, I'd also say like, it's a tremendously entertaining movie. Like, it's one of the most entertaining, top of the pond movies. You know, it's like infinitely rewatchable. The cast is ridiculous. Every frame of the thing is amazing. So it's also a very fun movie. So, okay, so here's the larger significance of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, or my view of it, which is it captures a time and place that was absolutely critical to the evolution of modern America. And I think Catherine, you'll remind me, but I think of the year, was it 69?

• 4:11Katherine Boyle?

  69, yeah.

• 4:12Marc Andreessen?

  69, yeah, 69. And so to put this in context, and the movie, you know, kind of goes through this, but the movie doesn't explain all the cultural backstory. It shows you what happened, but it doesn't explain the backstory. So I'll just go through the backstory. So, you know, basically like what we now consider to be the kind of the cultural revolution of the 1960s, you know, really started, you know, probably in like around 1964 with the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and then kind of expanded or metastated. To include, you know, the sort of hippie movements and then, you know, the sort of birth of like modern rock and roll and the rise of the counterculture. And, you know, all of a sudden, everybody's, you know, has long hair and they've got beads and they're, you know, they're wearing suede jackets and they're now washing their Levi's. And, you know, sort of that whole counterculture. And so there was this like incredible explosion of, I mean, this was when the baby boomers were, you know, coming of age as basically high school and college kids.

• 4:53Marc Andreessen?

  This incredible explosion of art, culture, creativity, social innovation, you know, the birth of the, you know, the commutes, you know, the entire hippie movement. And then, of course, this is also a world where when the Vietnam War was ramping up. And so this was, you know, the wrap up in conscription of people, you know, kids, American kids being sent off to Vietnam, but, you know, kind of, you know, I'd say non volunteers. And so, you know, the kind of anti war movement kicked in, the college protests kicked in. And like the entire thing was like, you know, we kind of remember it as like this, like incredibly like sort of spontaneous and, you know, largely positive explosion of kind of, you know, breaking out of the stultified cultural norms of the 1940s, 1950s, you know, the creation of the modern kind of liberated American society.

• 5:31Marc Andreessen?

  By the way, obviously also right alongside that, you know, the civil rights movement and the feminism, the gay rights and, you know, kind of the whole explosion of modern morality through that period. And anyway, if you read the histories of the time, basically from 64 to 69, it was just basically this like just glorious, wonderful thing with like absolutely no downside. Like, you know, these kids that were like rioting on their college campuses or protesting in the streets or like, you know, getting stoned all day or, you know, having their whole hippie thing or moving to communes. Going back to the earth, like they had discovered a far superior way to live, right? They had discovered a far superior way to like coexist with nature and to fight against the man. And to fight against, you know, evil corporations and, you know, you know, fight for the environment, to fight for the planet, fight for peace and the whole thing. And so it was this like incredible kind of wave of positivity and like, you know, the very good argument that there was a lot too, you know, a lot of people do believe that.

• 6:15Marc Andreessen?

  And that it was like a time of great cultural creativity that, you know, led to enormous amounts of like amazing art that we still have today. And so that, you know, there's a lot to like about it. And then basically what happened is in 1969, it sort of came that the sort of positivity came to a screeching halt. Yeah. It's sort of the movement, you know, basically like, you know, turned, you know, very much the dark side, you know, that sort of began the long slide into the sort of 1970s. And that slide was basically a slide into, you know, variously among. Other things, you know, it was a slide into like drugs, you know, very bad drug overdoses, you know, the shift from sort of soft drugs to hard drugs, you know, a lot of people who participated in the sort of cultural movement in the 60s ended up like dying. We'll talk about the death later on because, you know, the movie directly hits that. But like there's just an extraordinary amount

• 6:57Marc Andreessen?

  of death that followed, you know, degradation and that, you know, turned into, you know, sexual liberation. It turns out has dark sides, you know, maybe it isn't so great for everybody. And specifically, maybe it isn't so great for women, at least in some ways. And then, you know, and then look, you know, the 70s, it was like, you know, Vietnam went very bad. And then the energy crisis, that economic recession, inflation, you know, just, you know, this very kind of, you know, bitter divisive, you know, politics, you know, a lot of ways, you know, they sort of the beginning of the political kind of dynamic that we see playing out today. So the 70s kind of things went really bad. And then, you know, the book ending movie, Once Upon a Time, is the movie sort of about that pivot point. I'll talk about that. And then, you know, Boogie Nights is maybe the movie on the other side of that, right? Which is like, once the culture's kind of sliding down the hill into chaos and madness and disease of death, Boogie Nights, Kef, was that on the

• 7:40Marc Andreessen?

  other side. But for the purpose of today's discussion, we can focus on 1969. And so if you read the history of the time, basically what happened was it was the Charles Manson murders, specifically in Los Angeles. And then I put sort of on behalf of America, it was the Manson murders that basically were the turning point. And so the Manson murders are the thing that people point to and they kind of say, oh, that was the moment when we all kind of realized, oh shit, there was a dark side to this whole thing. And like, oh my God, here we go. And so let's talk about that at length. Let me just close off this introductory part, though, with kind of the most amazing thing about the movie that I found, which is if you know the history of that period, I mean, the Manson murders were super famous at the time. They're still famous in American culture. Kind of everybody knows that there was this guy, Charles Manson, that had this death cult. He was implicated these kids to like go out and kill random people. And, you know, there's still like all these, you know, questions like, how the hell did he do that? Right? And so everybody

• 8:25Marc Andreessen?

  knows that he was kind of intertwined with Hollywood and intertwined with the movie industry and the music industry. And he was part of that whole thing. And so, you know, everybody kind of knows that, oh, and then specifically for people who know anything about that, there's sort of famously, the Manson murders are also known as the Sharon Tate murders, because there was this like incredibly, you know, vivacious, attractive, bubbly, you know, enthusiastic, blonde actress named Sharon Tate, who at the time famous, that was actually married to Roman Polanski, who was, you know, one of the leading, you know, kind of new, you know, Hollywood movie directors at that time. And they were this new Hollywood glamour power couple. And then Sharon Tate, among other people, you know, Sharon Tate was one of the people murdered. And so Quentin Tarantino comes out, you know, when he first announces the movie, he comes out and he says, you know, Quentin Tarantino is going to make the movie about the Charles Manson murders.

• 9:07Marc Andreessen?

  And if you've seen, you know, any other Tarantino movie like Pulp Fiction, for example, you're just like, oh, my God, you know, it's gonna be like, this is gonna be horrible. Like, like, like, the Manson murders are bad enough, but like, you know, turn them into like, a, you know, Tarantino style, you know, mass slaughter, violence, you know, reservoir dogs, you know, just like blood and guts, you know, exploit, you know, basically super high exploitation movie as he'd done in the past. It's just like, it was a horror show. And I was actually, I was actually personally worried about it because my wife got all excited to see the movie. Because, you know, she, you know, because it's gonna star Leo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, and it's gonna be about Hollywood, it's about fashion, and, you know, all this, you know, design and all this creativity. And she's like, we gotta go see this movie. And I'm like, I'm like, we can't go see the movie because you are going to be so traumatized

• 9:52Marc Andreessen?

  by what he puts on screen. But like, you're never gonna want to ever see a movie ever again. And you're gonna hold it against me for the rest of my life, but I didn't prevent you from seeing this movie because it's obviously just gonna be a complete horror show. Like, it's just gonna be a disaster. And actually, Sharon Tate's family actually came out and basically said, when this movie was first announced, basically said, like, wait a minute, hold on, like, you know, we don't want the memory of our, you know, of our, you know, of our, of our family member, you know, who, you know, we still love, you know, many decades later, you know, kind of, you know, turned into basically fodder for, you know, basically Hollywood exploitation. And then there was this like amazing thing that happened, and nobody knew anything about the movie, which is Tarantino, at least the way stories recorded, Tarantino actually let, I think it was Sharon Tate's, it was either sister, and maybe sister

• 10:32Marc Andreessen?

  or something like that, read, read the script. And immediately, the family did what they, and they came right out, and they said, we completely approve, for everybody who's been here. And I remember at the time reading that, and I was like, what the hell? Like, how, how is it that you could possibly get that, that, that Tate family of all people on board with putting this on screen? And of course, you know, that, that, that leads to kind of the, you know, the movie sort of turns into a Valentine, a Valentine to Hollywood and to America, and specifically to Sharon Tate. You know, it's like, it's like, you know, it really, you know, kind of restores your memory in an amazing way.

• 11:05Katherine Boyle?

  It's something very smart in the movie, for those of us who, who love Tarantino and follow his work. So I think that, that was like the common theme was like, oh, God, this is gonna be horrific, right? Especially if you've read about, if you know the Manson murders, if you've read about how gruesome they are, like, yes, that was sort of the dominant theme. But his, you know, he, he had, he made a few films between, but like, I'd say the last other fantastic Tarantino film was the revenge fantasy in Glorious Bastards. Which is of course, you know, again, like, could have been, but it is extremely gruesome, but at the same time, it's a revenge fantasy of what could have happened. What could have happened if someone had killed Hitler?

• 11:46Katherine Boyle?

  And so, in the very beginning of the movie, there's a scene with Leonardo DiCaprio, also at the end, but there's a scene in the very beginning where it shows all of his films, and he has the famous flamethrower from Inglourious Basterds. And so if you're a Tarantino fan, you're like, wait, wait, wait. Which direction are we going in? Are we going in gruesome violence with no purpose? Which I would argue Tarantino is always misunderstood in that way? Or are we going in a, are we going in a different direction? A little more fantastical, a little more what could have happened? And so, for those of us with like the eagle eye and the theater, I think, I think we kind of, we kind of knew, you know, especially as you said, like, the family said, oh, it's great, it's gonna be fine. We kind of knew, okay, this, this film is not gonna be nearly as bad, and Tarantino's gonna take us in a different direction.

• 12:31Katherine Boyle?

  But he did put that little Easter egg in there for us in like the first 10 minutes of the film.

• 12:35Marc Andreessen?

  So, it's funny you bring it up, because I, of course, totally missed that when I was watching the movie. You know, I just thought it was like, it was like a re, you know, he, so, for people who haven't seen it, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a sort of a Stephen McQueen-style movie star of 1960s, maybe Rick Noll. This kind of, as the movie starts, his kind of career is imploding. He's trying to figure out how to kind of turn things around to stay relevant for the times. And it does, it shows these bits from his, his prior movies in the universe. But I just figured it was just like a throwaway, oh yeah, I see what's flamethrower, that's funny, ha ha. Like, it didn't even for a minute occur to me, I mean, you know, just, oh, this, we're gonna spoil, well, the flamethrower plays a critical role.

• 13:08Katherine Boyle?

  A pretty critical role.

• 13:10Marc Andreessen?

  If you've ever been happier to see the flamethrower get taken out, than, at the end of that movie. But yeah, I mean, I, I just, I was like, literally, I enjoyed the movie so much when I was watching it, but I did not know, I mean, I knew it had to be something amazing that I wasn't expecting in order to get the tape camera on board, but like, I, I still was, I, I still was like, sitting there in a state of dread throughout the entire movie, you know, still anticipating that he would somehow, anyway, so to spoil the movie, he, at one time in Hollywood, he, he basically, he basically tells you the story of the Manson cult of Hollywood at that time, that sort of how that all intertwined, and he takes it all the way up to the night of the murders, but then- He takes a left turn in the history as he does, this is no friend of history. And so, and so the kid, the Manson cultists, who had real life culture, take in the movie,

• 13:54Marc Andreessen?

  they go in the house next door, which is Leo's house with Leo's friend Brad Pitt. And Brad Pitt's character, by the way, I don't know if you know this, Kevin, curious if you know the backstory of the Brad Pitt character, it does quite say this in the movie, but it explains a lot, which is basically Tarantino's conception of him as he's basically the most deadly man in the world at that time. So he's like, you know, he plays not just a war hero, but like a greed beret, like, you know, super highly decorated, you know, basically super soldier, but he's become a Hollywood stuntman. And so basically, the Manson killers basically walk exactly to the wrong house because number one, they're up against this guy who basically like, you know, spent the preceding whatever, you know,

• 14:36Marc Andreessen?

  20 years, you know, killing people for America, you know, basically Captain America. And then, and then number two, it turns out Leo still had the flamethrower in his garage.

• 14:45Katherine Boyle?

  Well, there's also, there's also the backstory that you're not totally sure how good Cliff is. Like, there's a whole backstory of did he kill his wife, which is actually in the film and also in sort of the backstory. But like, he is, he is, he is, you know, a deadly, as you said, like a very deadly person. But that final scene, and yeah, there's no way you can anticipate, like even if you knew, okay, maybe it's not going to be as gruesome, or there's going to be some sort of like revenge fantasy. There's no way you can anticipate how genius like the run up to it is. And then also the final scene, because there's this whole other thing that happens in the movie where you forget that you're watching a movie about the Mansons. Like, you forget that you're watching this horrific, like what it's supposed to be.

• 15:28Katherine Boyle?

  And there's a, there's like a 30 minute scene of Rick Dalton, who's the, who's sort of this, you know, aging, like he's losing his place in Hollywood. He sort of, you know, is sort of at a loss for why he's no longer powerful, right? Like, and he has this moment where he stars in this like, kind of cheesy Western with this like 11 year old girl. And it's like a movie within a movie, and it is like probably the Best encapsulation of like what happens to actors in Hollywood. So you kind of lose track of the fact. It's like here's Sharon Tate and she's at the Playboy Mansion. She's dancing. She's this new generation, but here's this old generation of like hyper masculine figures who can't get work.

• 16:10Katherine Boyle?

  And there's, it's just a genius movie within a movie where the little girl says to him, and it's probably like one of the most memorable lines. She's like, that's the best acting I've ever seen in my whole life. And I mean, it's like, just even if they'd stopped the movie there, it would have been just as brilliant, right? But then it goes on to this other sequence where you're like, oh yeah, we're watching, we're about to see the most gruesome, you know, possible like this. I mean, and, you know, I wasn't alive in 1969, but I can imagine it's like if, you know, if Jennifer Lawrence, if it happened to Jennifer Lawrence, or if it happened to Margot Robbie or Robbie, who's actually playing her, right? It would just be this horrific thing. But you kind of forget because there's all of these just beautiful hilarious sequences that run up to it. You forget that you're watching a movie that's supposed to end in this horrific violence.

• 16:55Katherine Boyle?

  And of course I'll let you continue, Mark, but it doesn't, it ends, it ends in a different type of horrific violence, but not female on female violence that characterized the Manson murders, which I think is, is another kind of subtext of, of the, of the film. It's just how, how gory and violent the actual episode is, but you, you don't actually see that. So I'll let you continue, but there's a whole other part of the Hollywood story that's really fascinating.

• 17:19Marc Andreessen?

  Yeah, no, that's, that's exactly right. And by the way, a pop quiz, Catherine, the little girl, the little girl actress, who was she, who was that identity in real life?

• 17:27Katherine Boyle?

  I don't know, actually.

• 17:29Marc Andreessen?

  Jodie Foster.

• 17:31Katherine Boyle?

  Oh, is that, oh, that's who she's supposed to be?

• 17:33Marc Andreessen?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  Oh, I didn't realize. Okay.

• 17:35Marc Andreessen?

  She's not under that name, but that's basically the character that I see on Jodie Foster.

• 17:38Katherine Boyle?

  That makes sense.

• 17:39Marc Andreessen?

  And so, and I just bring it up because like she representative of new Hollywood. So, so, because, so Jodie Foster was in that, in that era was like a rising, busy child star. And then she, she had her breakup role in, I think in Taxi Driver, you know, where she's just like, you know, it's like incredibly revelatory, you know, acting performance. So she's sort of representative of the new, of the quote unquote new Hollywood with the much more naturalistic, like the Asha. Naturalistic acting style that took over from the much more stylized style of the 50s and 60s. And so I'm just bringing it up because to your point, part of the story there was Rick Dalton, you know, basically trying to get out of basically making cliched, hackneyed genre stuff, right? Where he just plays the same tough guy over and over again.

• 18:21Marc Andreessen?

  Also, so the running joke up until that point is that Rick Dalton starts, started out his career as like a tough guy movie star. And then basically, you know, over the years, like that archetype was kind of fading in 1969. And so he was increasingly being cast as the bad guy. And then, you know, and then the thing is, you know, the bad guy, you know, gets like punched, is not the guy who punches and knocks other people out. He's the guy that gets punched and knocked out and he started on this downward slide. And he has absolutely no idea how to adapt himself to this new world. In fact, and again, and the way the movie, the way this intersects with the other, the other part of the movie is, you know, is literally would Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate move in next door? You know, to his character and he, and literally he's like, oh my God. If I could just figure out a way to get invited over for like a barbecue or something where I could just meet Roman Polanski. Who's like, you know, the, the, the, the leading kind of new Hollywood movie director of that time.

• 19:06Marc Andreessen?

  If I could just get captioned one of his movies, then I could stay relevant, you know, for the next decade. And he just had like absolutely, there was just absolutely no reason for like Roman Polanski or Sharon Tate to give, to give this Rick Dalton character, you know, the time of day, because he just, he represented the past, they represent the future. Until of course, at the very end of the movie, you know, Rick Dalton saves, you know, saves her life. And that, in that she, you know, that's, that's the significance of, of him being invited over at the end of the movie is, is that's sort of his entree to Hollywood. Having basically been taught by Jodie Foster as an 11 year old in actually how to act.

• 19:40Marc Andreessen?

  Basically, it comes together. It's, it's such a genius way. Anyway. Yeah. So, so, so basically like the, the, the sort of macro, the macro relevance of this, just to kind of restate the thesis is, you know, like if the Manson murders were, were kind of where the cultural revolution of the 1960s went bad, then once upon a time in Hollywood is sort of the, it's sort of the fantasy or the love letter to a different America in which that didn't happen. Right? And, and, and basically things kept going in like a much more, a much more positive direction. But by putting on screen the alternate direction, my view is like he really highlighted. How bad it was, that's not what happened. And so the tragedy of the Manson murders is not just the tragedy for the people who were killed and for their families, which is a profound tragedy.

• 20:25Marc Andreessen?

  But the tragedy was like for basically for all of LA. Cause like LA, if you talk to people who were around during that period, like things got dark in LA like very quickly. Like people, people, people were so freaked out by the Manson murders, like they didn't know how many other serial killers were running around. They didn't know how many other cults there were. They like, everybody all of a sudden had to like lock their doors. Like people stopped going out. Like it became like, and by the way, this was the beginning of the heyday of the serial killer, you know, Ted Bundy. And, you know, like it was the beginning of this like wave of these things where people got like really, really seriously freaked out. And, and so that was the other, but, but then just generally in America that, you know, it sounds like that was the beginning of the downward slide in the seventies. And so by, by making the what if, positive kind of, you know, all, you know, Connor Fatchell so clear, it sort of, to me, it sort of highlights and illustrates in maybe

• 21:09Marc Andreessen?

  the way that nothing else has been able to do, kind of the darkness that actually played out in real life. Totally.

• 21:14Katherine Boyle?

  Totally. And, and like I, I went back and watched the beginning of the sequence, cause it's actually a long sequence of violence. But what I remember so much, I read the reviews before not know, you know, they, they try to not have spoiler alerts and critics were very divided. It was like, this is so violent. This is extremely violent. And what, what's funny about seeing it in the theater, um, which was, I'm so glad I saw it in the theater, is that the reaction from the audience, and these are again, it's like, if you've been opening weekend, these are people who like really wanted to see this movie or are Tarantino fans, is extreme laughter.

• 21:48Marc Andreessen?

  Yes.

• 21:49Katherine Boyle?

  As it is, you are laughing during the most violent sequence for 20 minutes. And what's, what's really funny about what's happening on screen too, is that Cliff, Cliff, who's the, you know, the stuntman, um, and again, this is a spoiler, like turn this off, I'm going to go into detail, that he takes an edible, like or LSD, I can't remember if it's an edible or. Smokes an LSD cigarette. Yes, so, so, right before, so he is like, high as a kite when these guys come in, which is also like a funny part of it. And then, and the other part that you have to, like, Tarantino is so particular about details, and so the music that is playing when they come in, is actually this like psychedelic rock band, like, and he shows the kind of transition of the 60s through music through the entire thing, which is really important. But that scene,

• 22:32Katherine Boyle?

  he's listening to The Supremes, that Set Me Free, Why Don't You Babe, right? Like, so it's this perfect moment of like, set me free, and these guys come in, he's high, and he's like, is this, is this real? But, but Cliff, Cliff's response is like laughter. He's laughing at these women, right? And these women, you know, they have their, their knives, like, they are ready to, to do, to do the deed, you know? And, and, and he's laughing. And I think it's in some ways, it's, you know, Tarantino always has sort of these like takes on like masculine violence and, and, you know, can you kind of, can you, can you can take the power out of whatever situation happened in history by just like this extreme violence? And like, you know, it's about to happen, and there's like, I won't ruin the pitbull part, but like,

• 23:16Katherine Boyle?

  there is something where it's- Let's ruin it. Let's ruin it. We're ruining. Okay, like, he, he sixes pitbull on, on these women, right? But, but, but, but, watching it again, you're like, this is, it's fascinating, because if, if the Manson's had been met with laughter, right? Like, instead they were met with, these are the most evil, they're, they're, you know, they're, they're, they're taken by the devil, right? Like, they were met with fear. And, and to Mark's point, like, that set off serial killers. Like, it gave power to this extraordinary evil for, for decades. And I think the point of it is, like, what if Cliff, the most masculine deadly man in the room, had just been high and laughed? And like, you know, sicced his pitbull on, on, on these, on these women who, you know,

• 23:58Katherine Boyle?

  are kind of silly and high themselves, and like, the whole thing had become a comedy, which it turns into like 20 minutes of just sheer hilarity. Like, just absolute hilarity, even though it's the most violent thing you've probably seen in the last several years.

• 24:11Marc Andreessen?

  He, he, the Breton character beats a hippie to death with a telephone. And it's just the funniest thing ever.

• 24:18Katherine Boyle?

  It's like, it's, it's, yeah, it's like, and, and, and the flamethrower shows up, right? Like, I mean, it's, it is, there, you could not conceive of the type of violence. It meets, it meets the most horrific violence that we know is coming, right? And like, that's the backstory to this too, is like, you know what really happened? So you have this weird end of response of, you know, what actually happened? And it's so tragic.

• 24:40Katherine Boyle?

  It was women on, you know, I always think it's interesting that it was like the Manson family, right? They called themselves family. It was a perversion of the family and they actually killed a woman who was eight months pregnant, starting a family. So it's like this horrific, that's a whole, whole other narrative to this. But like, the fact that it's met with even more extreme violence, and, and at the time, it was during, you know, it was during Me Too as well. So it was violence against the women. But of course, everyone wants that violence to happen because you don't want the alternative to happen. So it, it's this very strange movie going experience that is both delightful, but also like, you know, a lot of mixed emotions that I think, you know, probably, that's why I think critics were so divided on it. I loved it, but that's why I think critics were divided on it.

• 25:25Marc Andreessen?

  Yeah. And then if you, if you kind of telescope out, you know, one, one notch, it's, it's catching your point. It's like, it's like the ultimate square in the form of Rick Dalton is like, you know, still putting brocrating in his hair and trying to be like, you know, kind of James Dean tough guy, you know, you know, when that's not what the world wants. And then, yeah, and then, you know, basically, like I said, you know, Captain America, like an icon of the American military, you know, at the time, you know, by the way, the time of Vietnam, in which, you know, the military was, you know, not, was, was not viewed the level of respect that, that American culture has right today. You know, the, the fact that those two, you know, end up basically beating and roasting a bunch of hippies to death at the height of the counterculture. It's an incredibly crowd pleasing movie. And as you said, it kind of happened at sort of, sort of, you know, very, very close to peak woke, kind of during our culture revolution of the last decade.

• 26:10Marc Andreessen?

  Like it's, it's, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't know if she, I don't know if this properly characterized as like a reactionary movie, but it, it, it definitely not, it was definitely not the arc, the moral arc of, of, of other attempts at arc during that time period.

• 26:23Katherine Boyle?

  Totally, totally. And, and, and just even the, the final scene of, as you said, him getting invited over and her sort of being blissfully unaware this happens. I mean, that's all magical of it. Like she had no idea that someone, this happens. And you see like the camera sort of pan up. And it's like this is like it just genuinely feels like this is, you know, in its same way than Glorious Bastards was a revenge drama of what could have possibly happened. This is also like the Once Upon a Time in America story, like what could have happened? And it was a weird movie going experience in 2019 to be surrounded by people who were laughing, who loved it, you know, it kind of went against everything you were reading in the news, which is that like, you know, no one agrees with with sort of this alternative

• 27:06Katherine Boyle?

  history. I mean, it was, it's just a brilliant film that that, yeah, I'm excited there's a sequel coming, right, Mark?

• 27:12Marc Andreessen?

  There is a deed, there is a deed, which is going to be, and let me also say, number one, there's a sequel coming, which, you know, is going to be just incredible, I'm sure. But also, there was a, there, Tarantino, it's so funny. So you guys made both, gee, I don't remember this, but back before the internet and even back before like DVDs and video rentals, if you like, if you, if you didn't see a movie when it was in the theater, like you didn't see it. And like, it might show up on TV like two years later, but they would have cut all the good parts out and they would have, you know, stuck in all the commercials. And so you like had basically one shot to see a movie in the theater. And then if you wanted to see it again and it was out of theater, you couldn't. And so there was this, there was this genre of paperback novelizations of movies. And so what you would do is you would buy the paperback novelization and you could read that as many times as you want. So, you know, my, I had a shot on these things when I was a kid, you know,

• 27:56Marc Andreessen?

  Star Wars and all these things, you know, read them all like 14 times. And so anyway, so Tarantino, being, you know, sort of a child of his era, you know, like I am, Tarantino actually wrote a paperback novelization of the movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And he specifically wrote it as a paperback novelization. And so it came out in paperback. And it very much is an homage to this. But of course, being Tarantino, it's, it actually turns out, of course, it's not just a paperback novelization. It turns out it's like an entirely new novel. And so, and it's actually funny because it doesn't, it's, it's, it's, it's, the novel is set in the same world of the movie and has, and goes much deeper into the themes of the movie. But like, he doesn't even get, he doesn't care at all about like having the plot of the movie actually in the novel. And so he just throws away right

• 28:39Marc Andreessen?

  up front in the novel, oh, yeah, yeah. And then Rick Dalton, like roasted a bunch of hippies, you know, his swimming pool that night, right? So like, it's like the plot's not the point for the novelization. So the novelization, I think, I think it's a very few people have read it, you know, kind of despite by ratio of how he how he came out of that, I think, because I think people didn't know what to make of like literally a paperback novelization in like 2022 or whatever came out. But I think it has he has a reasonable claim on being a great American novel. Because and the reason specifically, Kevin, I think you guys write a lot because it just it goes much deeper into all the themes of the, you know, that we're talking about. And so it like it goes really deep into the transformation of Hollywood that was happening at that time. You know, it goes really deep into the making, you know, this, the Western show that happens inside the movie, which is actually a real show called Lancer.

• 29:21Marc Andreessen?

  It goes, it was actually a real show with with that, you know, with that setup and with those actors. And it goes much deeper into all the characters and it goes deeper into the Manson family. And so it's, yeah, it's really amazing. And by the way, I should also say, yeah, the movie, the movie does have a scene in which it is left-handed. Did you assist whether or not Cliff Booth killed his wife? By the way, let me just say, the wife played by Rebecca DeHart, who just like, I think she's in the movie for like 30 seconds. And she almost steals the movie like she's just hysterically funny. And she plays like the meanest like wife in the world. She's just like hectoring and like screaming at Brad Pitt. And they're literally on a fishing boat. Brad Pitt has a spear gun in his lap. And it's sort of, and in the movie, it's like set up as basically, you know, there was a spear gun accident.

• 30:04Marc Andreessen?

  You know, following this argument and did Brad Pitt actually actually deliberately kill his wife or not? And of course, in the novelization, it makes her very, yes, he, in fact, yes, he. I think it's, I think it's in the, I think it's in the novel. I think it's like, yes, Brad Pitt definitely killed his wife and got married. The Cliff Booth killed his wife and got away with it. And then I think that I think, I think he says the novel, he says, and that was one of the three times that Cliff Booth committed murder and got away with it.

• 30:30Marc Andreessen?

  Anyway, anyway, for those of you who've only seen the movie, it turns, it turns, it turns out the Cliff Booth character actually, yes, has a real dark side. And yes, the hippies picked the wrong house to stumble into.

• 30:41Erik Torenberg?

  And so is the, we were talking offline about how it's, you know, there's some relevance to today. Is the connection that, you know, the 2010s to some people was seen as a sort of glorious march towards, you know, progress. And then, you know, whether it's the 2020 Floyd riots, or more recently, the Luigi, you know, Majoron murder, or the murder of Charlie Kirk, there's kind of this moment of, oh, my God, this thing has gone off. Is that kind of the?

• 31:08Marc Andreessen?

  Yeah. So I would say whichever side of the political and social spectrum you're on, like, the world that we live in today is a much darker version of what everybody thought we were going to be living in. I mean, like, so for people who were like 100% on board with like the social, so back up a second. There to your point. So like, I think there's a very direct analogy of let's call it 1964 to 1972 or something with the reelection of Richard Nixon. Like, that culture revolution that happened during the 60s, kind of the hippie Vietnam, you know, kind of revolution. I think what we, what we in America been through the last decade is sort of another version of that. Like, I think we went through our version of that. It started around, I would date it to like 2015, 2014. And then, you know, it basically that era sort of ended November, November, November 2024. You know, obviously,

• 31:52Marc Andreessen?

  if you're on the right, you're like, oh, my God, thank God, that's over. And, you know, the world could move on. If you're on the left, of course, you're like, oh, my God, what just happened? How did, you know, how did the revolution, the revolution go so bad? That is precisely what happened at the, at the end of the revolution in the 1960s. And specifically, I mentioned 1972. So Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, and it was like a hard fought race and very dramatic in the sort of right. But then he was reelected in 1972 in a landslide. Like, I usually was to gather, it was like a 49 state landslide or some crazy thing. Like, it was just like overwhelming landslide. So it's like the American people basically rose up and basically said, yeah, no more of this. It's over. And so we, you know, we, I mean, the echoes are just like profound of how this played out, you know, and they're echoes, right? It's not exactly comparable.

• 32:36Marc Andreessen?

  You know, and Iraq and Vietnam, you know, played different roles and so forth. And the economy, you know, has developed in different ways. And, you know, Trump and Nixon are different people and so forth. But, and the social movements are different, you know, and times have changed. But still, like, there was, there was a culture revolution. It was, you know, Glorious or terrible for some period of time and then get ended, right? It was just like a sequence of events happened where just like it was over and you're out the other side and you're in a new world. And, and, and, and, and then I would argue like that's exactly what that that's exactly the process kicked off in 69 with the Mass and Burgers and then sort of bookended to 72 with Nixon's reelection and then kind of slide into the 1970s and then also go to the 1980s with that transformation. And then I would argue like that that's precisely the same kind of position that we're going through right now.

• 33:19Marc Andreessen?

  And I think it's either it's either thrilling or horrifying people in a very similar way that that at the end of the 60s, uh, either thrilled or horrifying people. Yeah, Catherine, would you agree with that?

• 33:28Katherine Boyle?

  I would, I would. And I also, since you mentioned Vietnam, I want to transition to the best Vietnam war film ever made.

• 33:37Marc Andreessen?

  Okay, this is this, that, this is, everything we've set up until now is milquetoast as compared to the extremely controversial plane that Catherine is about to make. Please go for it.

• 33:45Katherine Boyle?

  It is, it is by far the best Vietnam war film ever made. And of course it incorporates every Vietnam war film every ever made, including Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, you know, once, or Born on the Fourth of July, Apocalypse Now. The best Vietnam war film ever made is Tropic Thunder. But it also happens to be one of the best films about Hollywood. Actually, I would actually say that Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, while it is incredible film is more about America, but Tropic Thunder is also about America in different ways and reveals a lot about America, but is is by far the best Hollywood film ever made. I'll let Mark talk about why that is.

• 34:25Marc Andreessen?

  Well, so let's data, so let's data, Tropic Thunder was what year?

• 34:28Katherine Boyle?

  It was 2008, which is actually very important because I think one of the things that people forget is that 2008 was also the year where we had a POW from the Vietnam War running for office against the first black president in history. And that is in very important context for all of the themes dealt with inside of Tropic Thunder, which of course is a comedy. It's a satire, but it satirizes everything in the kind of before times 2008. But I think that is a very important subtext to what came out during an election year where those two themes were on display. But I'll let Mark get into the summary since it's also one of his favorite films.

• 35:09Marc Andreessen?

  Well, it is, although I I I'm gonna I'm gonna defer. So because I, you know, I think it's I think it's a history of fun, you know, it's maybe the funniest movie, funniest Hollywood movie the last 25 years or something like it's just it's just like an incredibly entertaining movie. And just for people to just have a sense of like how much times have changed, like the most, I mean, there's many amazing things about it, but one of the most amazing things about it is, you know, they go, the great actor Robert Downey Jr. plays the entire movie in blackface. And not only plays the entire movie in blackface, like I would say extraordinarily commits for the bit.

• 35:38Katherine Boyle?

  Yes, he's a method actor playing a method actor.

• 35:42Marc Andreessen?

  So, yeah.

• 35:43Katherine Boyle?

  First movie in method, playing another method actor, you know, playing an actor in in a type of blackface. Again, which which to your point on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, when the film was first announced, this was known that that Robert Downey Jr. was was going to be playing an actor in blackface. And as you can imagine, it was the same thing that happened with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where it was like, like, you know, in the same way that the Tate family was terrified of what would happen in the film, there was a whole kind of, you know, terror of what what is gonna like, Robert Downey Jr. like, like, like, he's destroying his career, like, who does Ben Stiller think he is doing this movie, right? Like, no one actually knew the backstory or how it will be satirizing Hollywood actors

• 36:26Katherine Boyle?

  who will go through any extreme length to win an Oscar. But but when you get into the film, it is handled so beautifully and delicately. And actually, I was I was reading, I was reading about sort of how they handled it when they were producing it, which was that they invited, you know, a number of members of the NAACP, they invited, you know, a number of different, like, very thoughtful critics and said, you have to see this film first and see. And it was, again, the same sort of thing where it's like everyone saw it first and they said, don't worry, it's perfect, right? It's hilarious. And so I'll let you continue, but it like they handled it in a way.

• 36:57Erik Torenberg?

  Wait, wait. Did they have to apologize in the 2010s? I remember Jimmy Kimmel had to apologize for blackface or or one of these people. Or did they get away with it?

• 37:06Katherine Boyle?

  Interesting point. So they didn't, so when it came out, it was so clearly satirizing white actors who were trying to win an Oscar, right? Like, so it was clearly satirizing everyone. It was not, it was, you know, it was, it was sort of universally beloved, so much so that Robert Downey Jr. was nominated for an Oscar, which is a whole other backstory to how they made that happen, because it was kind of a continuation of the movie that they, as a joke, petitioned the Academy, you know, said, "For your consideration," and the Academy actually nominated him for an Oscar for the role. So it was so, it was so beloved, like, what he did, and how brilliant the role was, that no one cared. But I believe it was, like, 2017 or 2018, when this sort of, like, new crop of young people came

• 37:49Katherine Boyle?

  through journalism and said, like, "This is horrible." They tried to sort of cancel him. You might know Mark better if, how he handled it, but like, it clearly, they did not cancel Robert Downey Jr. for doing a satirization of, of the role he played.

• 38:04Marc Andreessen?

  So just to, just to fill this in, and then we'll get to, I'm gonna get to Catherine, the Vietnam aspects to this, but Vietnam war movie aspects to this. But yeah, so just specifically what happened was, correct me if I have this wrong, Robert Downey Jr., a white American actor, plays a white Australian actor, who is a method actor, who I think was sort of loosely inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis, as sort of, you know, sort of that kind, that kind of sort of, you know, super elite. You know, there's a couple scenes where you see, where you see, where you see Robert out of blackface, but, but dressed up with, dressed up as the, as the Australian actor who, like, has, like, I forget what's, like, translucent green eyes or something, is this very striking, striking look, and like, this very plummy Australian accent. And so it's a white American actor in real life,

• 38:47Marc Andreessen?

  playing a white Australian actor, playing a southern black man in blackface, for the entire movie. On top of that, I believe Robert Downey often, often improvises throughout his movies, and I think a fair amount of the, I think a fair, a fair amount of the portrayal was, was, was, was him on the spur of the moment, which is, which is, you know, fairly incredible, when you see it, because he fully, fully inhabits the world. And then, of course, he's, he's actually in the movie, he's actually, he's in, you know, in, in the movie, inside the movie, he's in, he's in a platoon with, of course, an actual black guy. It was a young black actor, whose name I can't recall, but he just liked it, was impressed having this.

• 39:23Katherine Boyle?

  It was such a skill to him. He's a brill- it's a brilliant, like, the way they play off each other is brilliant. His name in the film is Al Pacino, but Al Pacino?

• 39:32Marc Andreessen?

  Al Pacino, he's a rapper. He's a rapper who becomes an actor.

• 39:36Katherine Boyle?

  Yes, it, and, and there's a-

• 39:37Marc Andreessen?

  So-

• 39:39Katherine Boyle?

  So, hold on-

• 39:40Marc Andreessen?

  Go ahead, sorry.

• 39:41Katherine Boyle?

  Oh, no, no, I was gonna say, there's a whole other through line there of his, his role, because I think one of the things that everyone remembers of the film is they have the fake, um, trailers before the film starts. And he is Al Pacino, the rapper, and he's selling a drink that he calls Booty Sweat. And, and what's so funny about, like, how brilliant this film is, because not only, like, not only do they satire Hollywood in the film, they were like the first Barbenheimer. Like, what they did, they're like, "We're gonna market this in so many funny ways." They did incredible things before and after the film, but one of the things that the, that they did was they made Booty Sweat into an actual drink. Marketed it through the entire Oscar petition. Like, they, they went so far. I mean, the only film that's done this as, as exceptional as Tropic Thunder was, was Barbie.

• 40:25Katherine Boyle?

  Uh, but they, they, they, they figured out how to turn every aspect of this film into a, into marketing genius. The other smart thing that they did, by the way, that, one of the actors that, that Ben Stiller, Ben Stiller plays this guy named Tug Speedman, who is based on a dumb Tom Cruise. His name is Tug Speedman, right? Like, where did they get that name? It's Tom Cruise. But they also have Tom Cruise in the movie as, as the producer, who's based on Harvey Weinstein, uh, Les, Les, I can't remember his-

• 40:53Marc Andreessen?

  Les what? Les Grossman.

• 40:55Katherine Boyle?

  Les Grossman, yes. Um, and so, but they didn't want anyone to know Tom Cruise was in the film. So they actually sued anyone, any of the paparazzi who took pictures of him before, because they wanted people to come to the theater and not know that Tom Cruise was in it. And of course, he, like, wrote his entire role, like, he, he, to, to your point in improv. Like, he improvised that entire role and wrote it, like, it was kind of hit Tom Cruise's brainchild. I think they originally offered him something else, and he's like, "No, no, I, I wanna play Harvey Weinstein." And it is genius, but they did so many things to make sure that the entire sort of cult of the movie outside of the movie was like- Hollywood produced. Where you, to Mark's point, you have this method actor playing a method actor who is trying to get

• 41:36Katherine Boyle?

  an Oscar through his method acting, who ultimately ends up getting nominated for the Oscar, losing to Heath Ledger, the year that Ledger died posthumously, when it was awarded to him. But it's like, they could not have, it is a 20-year project. That's the other, that's the very interesting thing about this was like Ben Stiller's been working on this since the 80s, and it was just that year where they were finally able to get it made. And it is this brilliant commentary on all of Hollywood. And we can get into the Vietnam stuff too, because I think it's also commentary on that. But it's, it's, it is the best Hollywood film ever made, even in the fact that they were able to successfully sway the Oscars.

• 42:15Marc Andreessen?

  Right. Well, it was also, Catherine, your point, it was also the reset of the Tom Cruise image issues at the time, because this was after the sort of run of controversy around him and psychology and his personal life and all those things. And there was, so this run of very that publicity, a lot of people in the industry were worried that he was not going to be a bankable movie star anymore. And I think that this role in this movie was basically his recovery from that, which, which was pulled off absolutely perfectly. And of course, he then went on to be an even bigger movie star than before.

• 42:40Katherine Boyle?

  Totally.

• 42:41Marc Andreessen?

  Yeah. So it's a career resurrection in the, in the middle of this. Yeah. And then, yeah, just, just in terms of like, how, how much times have changed, or you know, somebody once said that the past is a, is a foreign planet, or, or another country. Is, yeah, like you had, you had an American actor being nominated for an Oscar for, for a character performed with black, blackface in 2008. Directed by a Hollywood filmmaker who is obviously a genius, but you know, within 10 years was like, he, you know, Ben Stiller subsequently became one of the wokest Hollywood figures, you know, in the years that follow, like, you know, all, all through the last decade, like Ben Stiller has been like, you know, to, you know, to the left of Che Guevara on every social and political issue. And so, and I, you know, I, I don't know, I've never met him, I've

• 43:24Marc Andreessen?

  been great admirer of his art, but like, I wonder how much of his shift to the far left politically and socially was, was a reaction to having made this movie.

• 43:31Katherine Boyle?

  Well, and the other thing is, I mean, everyone focuses on Robert Downey Jr., but there are like at least four other untouchable things that happened in that film. So the disability advocates, actually, when the film came out, the people who were most upset in 2008 were the disability advocates because of the commentary on what's, I believe it's what's eating Gilbert Grape, right? Never, like, I'll just say.

• 43:54Marc Andreessen?

  Well, and Forrest Gump, and Forrest Gump.

• 43:56Katherine Boyle?

  Forrest Gump, yes, yes.

• 43:57Marc Andreessen?

  And Rayman, and Rayman, but yeah, um, uh, simple Jack.

• 44:01Katherine Boyle?

  Simple Jack, yes. So the famous line that is said is, and again, I'm quoting the film, "Never go full retard", which was okay to say in 2008, except for the disability advocates, who were very upset about it. And of course, like, they were sort of on the fringe in 2008, but that was actually the thing that Ben Stiller had to apologize for, because they didn't test the film on Simple Jack, but it was commentary from Robert Downey Jr. in blackface, saying, "Everybody knows", and then saying the line, right? Because Tug Speedman doesn't play it as he should. He does the full Leo DiCaprio, what's eating Gilbert Grape, sort of like, you know, full on, right? Does the Rainmaker. But there's two other things that happened.

• 44:46Katherine Boyle?

  So the other thing that I think people didn't realize is that it is so much of a commentary on Vietnam War film, because a lot of Vietnam War memoirs in later years have been proven to be completely disingenuous, right? So it's like, people who said they went to Vietnam didn't go to Vietnam. And so in the storyline and the film, the guy whose memoir, Tropic Thunder, the movie, is actually based on

• 45:09Marc Andreessen?

  Right.

• 45:09Katherine Boyle?

  is a member of the Coast Guard who never got sent to Vietnam, who worked for the sanitation department, right? Like, and that's like a whole theme in the movie. And so there's this like brilliant commentary also on like, you know, veterans issues, and I think some veterans groups were upset about it. There were also people who were very upset with Tom Cruise's portrayal. And it was, you know, it was before we kind of all knew who he was portraying and everything, but there were people who were very upset that they felt that that was a stereotype. So like, pretty much every character, like, there was, there was people who were, and again, these are fringes, it wasn't like mass commentary. On this, but they're like, they managed to insult like every protected group in a way that like, like everyone kind of was like, well, yeah, but it's satire, right?

• 45:51Katherine Boyle?

  So it was a totally different time in America, but it wasn't just, um, you know, focus on, on race relations. I mean, it was on, you know, we had a, again, we had a Vietnam POW running for president that year and, and basically a mockery, like the greatest mockery of Vietnam film ever made. So in some ways it's like this film was just like so perfectly timed for the era we were living in.

• 46:13Marc Andreessen?

  Well, we still have to this day, let's not name names on, on, on, that's otherwise a fun, a fun podcast. Well, there, there are sitting United States politicians in, in serious offices who like literally faked Vietnam war records. Like that, like that's not over. Like that's actually still the case. And so to your point, like, you know, there, there were many people, obviously who served very honorably Vietnam, and then there are people who like made up completely fake stories and wrote them the rest of their career. Um, and like, you know, that, yeah. So the, the movie takes like, it's your point, the movie, among other things, takes direct aim at that.

• 46:43Katherine Boyle?

  And I believe the guy wears a hook the whole film with glasses hand. I mean, like, there's like, this movie is so brilliant. It's so brilliant. And the levels of, of commentary, um, just are remarkable to this day.

• 46:56Marc Andreessen?

  Yes, yes. And so, yes, yes. Cute. Yes. Yeah. I mean, just like, so, yeah. And maybe this is bookends the, uh, the previous, previous conversation of just like, yes, this is clearly made before the culture, before our version of the cultural revolution. Um, and so it's, it's like, uh, it's like, it's like an ancient artifact. Um, uh, like, I was like, only now are we reemerging into a world in which a movie like that can be made, like for a movie like that for the last probably, what 13 years or something would have been totally off limits. Um, and we're coming out into a world now where movies like that can get paid again. Yeah. Jimmy Kimmel's not going to bring back the man show. Uh, her return to his, uh, his, uh, his roots.

• 47:33Marc Andreessen?

  For people who follow, yes, for people who don't get the reference, for anybody who followed the recent Jimmy Kimmel, uh, sort of affair and all of the outrage, uh, it is worth going on YouTube and just, yeah, looking at clips from a Jimmy Kimmel show 20 years ago, which was literally called the man show. Um, and, uh, to just to get a sense of the, uh, the, the long and twist, the long and twisty road that, uh, some of our, uh, some of our highest, uh, most famous public figures have followed.

• 47:56Katherine Boyle?

  And also a tale of, a tale of two comedians, right? Because it's him and, and Adam Carolla, right? And it's like their, their careers have detoured dramatically since the show.

• 48:06Marc Andreessen?

  Yes, that's right.

• 48:07Erik Torenberg?

  Two other films we wanted to discuss were Oppenheimer and Fight Club.

• 48:11Marc Andreessen?

  So let's start with, let's start with, let's start with Oppenheimer just because it's more, it's more recent. So I will make the case, so I'm a, I'm a, you know, enormous Christopher Nolan fan. I've seen all his movies. I love all his movies. I think they're really tremendous. You know, I think, you know, I say this, I'm, I think Tenet is one of the best movies I've ever seen. And like, I, I, I sat through Tenet with a giant smile on my face the entire movie. Like, I just thought that was just like absolute magic. Obviously, I love Deception. I love many of his movies. But I think Oppenheimer was like an incredibly well-made movie and had, you know, incredible performances and was, was like, you know, put together really well. It was, you know, tremendously interesting to watch. I, I, I will argue that it did not reach our level of capital A art.

• 48:53Marc Andreessen?

  I think it actually quite badly fell short on sort of, I would say morality and, and, and ultimately in importance to our culture. But yeah, they have to give my feel on that. But let me just start by saying, Catherine, just out of the gate, would you agree with me on that? Or would you like to, would you like to take, would you like to take the pro side that Oppenheimer was great art?

• 49:12Katherine Boyle?

  No, I, I, I agree with you, but I probably, I probably concur. Like, I probably have different reasons than you as to why I didn't think it worked. Like, and I should, I should preface it with, like, I, I had hyped this movie so much where my expectations might have been so ridiculously high that when I finally saw it, I was like, meh. But I do think it's interesting. Robert Downey Jr. was all, he won the Academy Award finally for Oppenheimer. He deserved it for Tropic Thunder. He was fantastic in the movie, but I will say he deserved it for Tropic Thunder. And if not for Heath Ledger, he would have won it for Tropic Thunder. And I feel like that, that would have been really the role he should have won it for. But he was fantastic in Oppenheimer as well. So to your point, like, there, there were, there were many good performances.

• 49:55Katherine Boyle?

  My, my sort of criticism is probably different than yours, but it probably has a lot more to do with like the actual sort of storytelling and filmmaking than the actual content of, of the, of the work.

• 50:04Marc Andreessen?

  Okay, got it. Yeah, so I, because I would say, so for people who haven't seen it, we're gonna spoil it. So, Robert, Robert, Robert Downey plays a real-life guy named Louis Strauss, who was a, he was a very high-ranking, like, sort of important person of the, of the, of the 1950s, 1960s in the government, and ended up, I forget the exact role, but basically ended up overseeing Oppenheimer, having a security clearance stripped, and basically being booted out of the, out of the military-industrial complex after, after, you know, basically leading the creation of the atomic bomb. And the movie, the movie kind of goes through that whole story. And, you know, it's a fantastic performance. All, all, I mean, look, all the performances in the movie were fantastic. Cillian Murphy was just outstanding as Oppenheimer.

• 50:47Marc Andreessen?

  And then I was, I think it's Benny Safdie, one of the Safdie brothers, played Edward Teller. And like, almost just stole the movie just with that portrayal. And again, you know, a real person, the creator, but later the creator of the hydrogen bomb. Anyway, so fantastic performances, fantastic direction. I will argue, my critique of the movie, though, it involves the following claim, which is that Louis Strauss is actually the hero of the movie.

• 51:08Katherine Boyle?

  Yes, maybe go into that history so people understand, because that is definitely not the takeaway from the film.

• 51:13Marc Andreessen?

  Yes, that is not what the film intended. You know, the film intended, I think the film intended, let's see if Catherine would agree with this, the film intended to contrast, basically, a great man, Oppenheimer, to basically a, an aspirant to greatness, who, you know, fell badly short in the Louis Strauss character, who sort of brought the great man low, and in a fundamentally unfair way. And then it's sort of, the movie sort of sets up both Oppenheimer, and actually also specifically Albert Einstein, as sort of the key moral authorities of, of the era with respect to use of nuclear weapons. Both, both claims of which I believe are like, deeply incorrect on selfless. And this is my critique of it. So my critique of the movie is not a misexecution or any of the performances. My critique is the morality of the movie, I think, is very badly upside down. And it's upside down in a way that kind of flatters our current politics, but like, is very badly upside down in terms of what actually happened

• 51:58Marc Andreessen?

  at the time. And so, the, the movie basically tells the story of first Robert Oppenheimer, the, the sort of person who ran the Manhattan Project, created the atomic bomb, which was then, you know, at least historically gets credit for, you know, helping to end World War II. You know, when, when, when the US dropped, dropped, dropped, you know, they only be only two uses of the atomic bomb in wartime, you know, to date, where the US dropped an atomic bomb on Japan twice in 1945. And, you know, and there, you know, there's even still to this day debate about this, but you know, generally accepted history, I think, is that that, you know, that ended the Pacific Theater conflict, you know, sooner than would have it. It prevented the need for a land invasion of Japan, you know, you know, conceivably, you know, saved like a million lives or something like that. Now, by the way, it was dropping the atomic bomb on two civilian cities, right? So again, you know, like, the

• 52:43Marc Andreessen?

  morality of the time was, you know, quite a bit different than, you know, than, than maybe ours today. But, but anyway, so that's, that's kind of history of it. And then, you know, famously, the Manhattan Project was sort of this assembly of, of sort of the finest minds in America. Many, many of them, by the way, were, you know, refugee, you know, not, not often. Oppenheimer is actually is a, is a, in a movie, in, in reality, and in the movie is German Jewish, whose family, you know, had, who his family had arrived much earlier. And, but then a lot of the other key members of the Manhattan Project, you know, kind of in one of the great twists of irony were Hungarian Jewish refugees from, you know, from, from basically the Nazi kind of rampage through Europe, you know, who came to the US and, and basically, you know, helped arm up the US, as which Reteller was a sample of that. And so, anyway, so the movie tells this, you know, kind of amazing

• 53:25Marc Andreessen?

  story of the Manhattan Project. But specifically, the arc of Oppenheimer, I guess I'd say that the, the, the conventional, let me back up for a sec. I think the first half of the movie, I think, is actually quite historically grounded, and I think has, like, I, like, I, at least, I agree with this interpretation of history. And so, there's a following. So the first half, and I think the movie's maybe a little bit schizophrenic, and I should give it a little more credit than I, than I was. But like, the first half of the movie is actually a, it's one of the only recreations on film of what American elite culture and society and American research establishment of kind of leading experts at the time, the 1920s and 30s, like, how thoroughly saturated that, that world was communist. And, and specifically, it sort of recreates, you know, this sort of, the, there's actually, there's actually

• 54:10Marc Andreessen?

  a joke in the movie, there's a line in the movie, that sort of one of these, one of these jokes is not really a joke, which was the joke is, you know, because there, a lot of the movie takes place is, is set up as at UC Berkeley. And there's Sort of a joke, a joke in the movie, which is like, you know, well, you know, you know, it's so and so on the Berkeley faculty, you know, is a communist, somebody else will says, yes, like half the Berkeley faculty are communists, like every, like everybody knows that, like it's just completely taken for granted. And of course, you know, the, the politics and that aside, the issue becomes, okay, now they're working on a classified weapons program. You know, the US is, you know, is kind of variously at odds with not just Germany, but also with Soviet Russia. And, you know, there's this very big concern, you know, where, you know, the, the, this effort is, is, is inventing this, you know, super weapon. And there was a, you know, very high degree of concern that the, the secrets of the atomic bomb,

• 54:54Marc Andreessen?

  we're gonna, you know, just walk their way out of the door from Los Alamos, that we're gonna end up, you know, bad people's hands, you know, and one fear obviously was they'd end up in Hitler's hands, but another fear was they would end up in Stalin's hands. And by the way, spoiler alert, that's exactly what happened.

• 55:09Marc Andreessen?

  So in fact, the nuclear secrets walked right out the door. And, you know, and, and basically the, both the, the concepts of the atomic bomb, and then actually the specific wiring instructions for the atomic bomb, were actually walking right out the back door of Los Alamos into, into, into, into Soviet's hands. And Stalin got the bomb very quickly after that. And it was directly derived from the work that actually happened on the Manhattan Project. And so it turned out the Manhattan Project, like, it really was Ronald de Tocque's spies. And there's these famous names in history, like the Roselbergs, like the Green Glass, that you can go through and read about if you want, but like, it, like, the, the fears of all of the people who are worried about this were actually correct. It is actually what happened. By the way, there's a character in the movie Boris Pash, who is sort of a security officer at, at the Manhattan Project, if both in real life and in the movie.

• 55:53Marc Andreessen?

  In the movie, he's sort of portrayed as this white guy with basically, essentially a stick up his butt, like this like guy who's like, you know, like constantly like, you know, cross-examining and not trusting the scientists and thinks that I'm a higher, Oppenheimer's probably a spy and the whole thing. He's kind of portrayed as this like over the top, you know, kind of thing. But like, if you, if you go, if you read his Wikipedia entry of like what his life story had been up until that point, he's another one of these guys who are just like, yeah, just this incredibly impressive backstory of like service to the country, of fight of communists. And then, you know, and then like, you know, whether he was right about Oppenheimer, we'll talk about, but like, he was right that like, Los Alamos was Ronald de Tocque's spies, and this is gonna lead to catastrophe, you know, with, with Stalin getting the bomb. And then, you know, The Strauss character was also very worried about that. And again, you know, outside of whether he was right about Oppenheimer per se, he was, he was right about the, he was right about the broader issue.

• 56:39Marc Andreessen?

  And so, so, so that is what, that, that, that is what actually happened. And so like all of the security concerns that are kind of a setup to what, you know, is sort of portrayed as the persecution of Oppenheimer, like they were all completely legitimate security concerns. And in fact, the worst case scenario actually did happen, like all the secrets like walk right out the door, went, went straight to Stalin. The first Soviet, we now know this, the first Soviet atomic bomb was wire for wire compatible with the US Nagasaki bomb. Right? So, so, so, so they got literally the worrying threats. And, you know, for, for people who have read about nuclear weapons, like it's actually very hard to detonate a nuke and they have to be wired in a very specific way. It's like you can't, they're, they're very difficult to set off and like the Soviet spies on the Haddon project literally like transferred that information to, to, to, to Russia, made it clear power.

• 57:21Marc Andreessen?

  And so anyway, like within that, there's this arc of basically Oppenheimer, you know, was he or was he not? And there's one arc actually, which is was he or was he not himself a Soviet asset, which is, it's generally viewed historically that he wasn't literally a Soviet asset, although I think there are still questions around that in fairness, and we could talk about that. But then there's just this broader thing, which is even if he wasn't, like, was he trustworthy and could, could he be relied upon? And then there was a specific thing that actually happened, which the movie presents a version of that I think is not, is, I understand history is not correct, but which is, Oppenheimer basically worked his butt off to, to deliver the atomic bomb for the purpose of beating Germany and Japan. But then immediately upon that happening, the US weapons program shifted into making the hydrogen bomb, which was going to be the, you know, the big one that was going to be used ultimately, you know,

• 58:06Marc Andreessen?

  ultimately was going to be used in the Cold War, you know, as, as a deterrent against the Soviet Union, you know, as a project led by Edward Teller. And, and the accusation always was Oppenheimer deliberately slow rolled the development of the hydrogen bomb. Like he, he tried to prevent that from happening at first, the, the, you know, and, you know, Oppenheimer's version of the story is it's one thing to like have a nuke that could take out a city if, to end a war. It's another thing to have a nuke that could take out the planet. You know, and, and so like, you know, should we really be doing this? But there's another version of the story, which is you were completely in favor of beating Germany and Japan. And then, but the minute it came to beating the Soviet Union. You know, you got coal feet. Hmm. You know, isn't that interesting, right? That that that's the thing that you didn't want to have happen. And then there's just the reality that like Oppenheimer's backgrounds and political activities

• 58:48Marc Andreessen?

  and like all of the people around him, including his wife and his girlfriend and his brother, were actual like, I don't believe this to be the case. I think his wife, his girlfriend and and his brother were all actual communists, like actual capital C character communists. And then Oppenheimer himself was like embroiled in communism and it's sort of communist, you know, sort of adjacent organizations, you know, his entire life. He's not known ever have been a member of the Communist Party, although again, there's, there's, there's, uh, there's ambiguity there because the Soviets had a practice of having their best placed assets actually never become members of Communist Party. Because of course, they were trying to protect them against exactly the kind of persecution that Oppenheimer got, got, got, got leveled against him. Uh, but as anyway, so in a movie, ultimately, his security clearance gets, gets stripped

• 59:30Marc Andreessen?

  and he sort of resigns to disgrace. The movie paints this as like a great act of moral heroism on his part, where basically he won a credit for the little bomb, but he didn't want the big bomb to happen and certainly didn't want to have anything to do with it. Um, you know, and, and look, you know, he's dead, they're all dead. Like, you know, I, I don't know that we'll ever know like what, what, what lay in their hearts, but there are very interesting questions around this. Uh, and then there's the, and then there's my most stinging indictment of the movie, uh, which is Einstein was the exact opposite of immoral exemplar. Uh, Einstein was Stalinist. Like Einstein was like a full on like Einstein was pro-Stalin. Like, not even just pro-communist, was actually like pro-Stalin. And Einstein thought about like, American democracy was like not going to cut it. And like, we clearly needed to get to communist dictatorship. And there's a, there's a book that goes through this called When Reason Goes to Holiday,

• 1:00:13Marc Andreessen?

  uh, that came out a few years ago, that kind of goes through all of Einstein's writings and speeches, kind of reconstructs this history. And so the movie kind of presents Oppenheimer and Einstein as like the adults. And especially Einstein is like the moral adults in the room. Uh, to a degree that I just think is like, basically at this point bizarre. And the, and the reason it's bizarre is because, you know, the whole thing is set up of like, oh my God, what if the atomic bomb destroys the world? Oh my God, you know, this, this whole thing and all politics involved in that, so, you know, and so forth. But like, we're sitting here 80 years later and, and the thing that we know today, and I don't know that any of us would choose to have had the events play out this way. And maybe the world would be better without the bomb or whatever, but like, what we know today is World War III did happen. And so basically, like, everybody, everybody in sort of the military political establishment in 1945 kind of took it for granted that there was going to be World War III with Soviet

• 1:00:58Marc Andreessen?

  Union at some point, and it was going to be a land war, you know, in Europe and around the world, and it was going to kill probably, you know, on the order of 200 million people, and it was just going to be absolutely devastating. And like, you know, in any other era, like, of sort of geopolitics, like, that almost certainly would have happened, given how, given how tense it got, especially in the 60s and 70s. And like, literally, it didn't happen. Like, World War III is the dog that didn't bite. And the reason World War III didn't happen is sort of, I think, fairly obvious, which was mutually assured destruction, right? That the fact that both sides had nukes basically meant that neither side could go to war with the other, and that resulted in, you know, it resulted in a cold war, but not a hot war. So I, you know, I think if you kind of stack up Oppenheimer, and Teller, and these guys, you kind of say, you know, by building bombs that could destroy the world, they prevented at least one, you know, major world war. Yes, you know, by the way, it's

• 1:01:42Marc Andreessen?

  not many. And by the way, the existence of nukes may prevent another world war for 500 years, right? You know, we don't know yet, but like, you know, that mutually assured destruction is still in effect. They may be, they may be, they may be causing us to not have a hot war with China, right? Does the fact that both the US and China had nukes. And so, anyway, so, and by the way, that's all debatable, and you could argue that, but like, that's the argument, that's the argument that ought to happen, like, especially with what we know today. And I just thought the movie, like, I thought the movie just, like, really cheated on the morality of it, because it kind of presented this, this guy just slammed on that the nuke was bad, and that these people were bad, and the whole thing was bad, and that Einstein was like, or, sorry, that Einstein and Oppenheimer were moral heroes, in some extent, kind of trying to line up against us. And I just thought that that really cheated the audience.

• 1:02:24Katherine Boyle?

  I think, I think you and I are much closer on our critique of it. My, my sense is very similar to yours, that it started out very strong, right? Like, your portrayal in Berkeley, like, was a very interesting, you know, like, you kind of, you saw this complex figure and complex character, and then there's this whole middle section on The Manhattan Project that kind of culminates in what I would say is, like, incredible, like, visuals and sound, like, actually, like, the movie excels in both score and sound. And if you saw it in a theater, you were like, the, the, the sound editing is like, the thing that won the Oscar, right? I think they won 10 Oscars. I mean, they won everything, but it's like, Like sound editing and score, like just incredible movie making. And then to use your word schizophrenic, like the third part, which is all about,

• 1:03:09Katherine Boyle?

  you know, Robert Downey Jr.'s character being like a villain. It sort of ends with this, you know, there's this brilliant scene that I think everyone remembers where they show him giving a speech to all the people at Los Alamos. And then they show like him envisioning bodies in Hiroshima, right? And you kind of see the juxtaposition, you see him sort of losing his sort of, his sort of, you know, conviction that he did the right thing. And I feel like if they had just stopped the movie there, it would have been the commentary on like, okay, like we don't really understand his legacy. But instead they had to tie it up. It was almost like if, you know, for writers and artists, like if you don't know how to end something, you kind of tie things up with neat bows that have nothing to do with the thing that happened before.

• 1:03:52Katherine Boyle?

  And it felt like the third section on the security clearance and on him being a hero was almost like the filmmaker's apology. Like, actually, no, no, I'm gonna decide, I'm actually gonna paint this for everyone and side that he was actually a good man. And there's no sort of moral ambiguity about this figure. Like he was actually a good man. And actually, the real villains are the national security hawks and the people in Washington and the bureaucrats. And like, and then it was just this sort of portrayal of, you know, the evil bureaucracy coming for the beautiful scientist. And it sort of mimicked, I think, also a conversation that was happening in 2023 when it came out, which is all of these great AI scientists basically saying, oh, well, no, AI is actually gonna kill us all. And, you know, I know this because I'm an expert. It was like the same sort of thing.

• 1:04:34Katherine Boyle?

  And I kind of felt like that was also the sort of language of the end of the film is like, no, no, it's normal for people who build incredible things to like actually regret their innovation. And it just felt like way too buttoned up for a film that has a lot more complexity. And that if they had just ended it at hour two, it would have been a masterpiece.

• 1:04:53Marc Andreessen?

  Yeah, it felt like if you wanted to conform with present A moral, like very badly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so anyway, so that's my like long extended argument for why Lewis Strauss is actually the hero of the movie. He was correct. Oppenheimer could not be trusted. Oppenheimer needed to be rejected from the project. Also, Louis Strauss has shown the movie as being very jealous of Einstein, but if you squint, you could say he also had Einstein's number. Andrew Einstein was not to be trusted,

• 1:05:19Marc Andreessen?

  which was 100% true. And then, yeah, Catherine, to your point, like, like, if you, again, I guess exactly right, what you just said, the comparison AI, like, if you read the history of those people at that time, specifically people like Oppenheimer, you realize, yeah, the people who invent the technology have no special moral claim. They had no special predictive power for the consequence of the technology, and they have no, no basis for a superior moral claim on the implications of the technology. And I will say this, the movie, you know, the movie being made by geniuses, like, there was a scene in the movie that actually did kind of hit that, which was, which was, which was based on a real life thing that happened, which was Oppenheimer, after the war, visited Harry Truman at the, in the White House. And basically, and this is sort of in the histories and in the real world histories, Oppenheimer basically went to Truman and basically, essentially, basically confessed enormous guilt

• 1:06:03Marc Andreessen?

  for having built the atomic bomb and for, for having, you know, for the US having dropped it on, on Japan. And, and actually, in real life, Truman is, I forget the exact quote, but it's in the Truman biographies, you know, Truman basically said, basically, you know, basically, by got him out of his office as fast as possible and told his chief of staff, like, I think, I think the exact line was, never let that weepy son of a bitch in here again. And then I think the line of the movie is based on something Truman apparently actually said, which was, you know, Robert, you didn't make the decision to drop the bomb. It's not on you. I made the decision. Right. Which, right, which, which is like, which is like an incredibly powerful thing, which is the duly elected commander in chief of the country made the decision as he should have.

• 1:06:41Marc Andreessen?

  The, the, the scientist does not have the moral authority inside how the technology is used. It's, it's, it's our, you know, in our system of government, that the commander in chief has that authority, you know, and our elected representatives. And so I, like, to the movie's enormous credit, it did include that. It did show that. And again, like, in my fantasy cut of the movie, that's the end of the movie. So they kind of nodded that. But like, like I said, they, then, then, then they let, then they let him off the hook at the end. Shall we close with, with Fight Club? Fight Club. Well, we could spend an entire, we could spend hours on just Fight Club, and we probably should at some point. I would just say about Fight Club. Fight Club's an amazing, I think it's, I think it's 100% true art with capital A. I think it's amazing.

• 1:07:25Marc Andreessen?

  I think it's, you know, definitely going to stand the test of time, you know, already is. It's one of those movies. And it's one of those movies that has that characteristic we talked about last time, where like, if you watched it the week it came out versus a year later, versus five years later, versus 10 years later, versus 20 years, versus 30 years later, like, it has new meanings as our society evolves. And it's got, and you can kind of, you can, at any, at any kind of point in time, you can kind of use it as a prism on our society. It's, it's, it's amazing in retrospect. I guess my, my sort of social, political kind of, kind of analysis of it would be like, it was clearly intended as a left-wing movie at the time, because it was sort of, it was sort of, you know, and the novel that, you know, that's the famous novel that it's based on, you know, and it's sort of this, you know, almost like, what was it? Remember the original, like,

• 1:08:08Marc Andreessen?

  it was the sort of left-wing anti-capitalism of that era, like left-wing anarchism, you know, a little bit like that, you know, the 90s version of like Luigi leftism or something, where it's like, you know, capitalism is this, you know, basically is horrible right-wing machine that's like crushing everybody's spirits. And of course, in the movie, Ed Norton plays, you know, it's sort of an office drone who just like effervesces his life, and, you know, has no future and like hates himself, and, you know, ends up doing all the things that, you know, kind of play out in the movie, which, you know, and then, by the way, the movie culminates in basically the destruction of capitalism, you know, basically, what is it? He, they, he takes down the buildings containing, I think it's like all the, what is it? All the bank records or credit card records, to kind of, you know, wipe this slate clean and start, start, start the economy, society over again. So at the time, it's just like, wow, that's like a really left-wing message. I mean, of course,

• 1:08:53Marc Andreessen?

  it's, you know, it's like, it's, you know, David Fincher and it's Ed Norton or Brad Pitt, and it's like one of the best, most entertaining, you know, most captivating movies ever made. It's phenomenal, but like, it's fundamentally a left-wing movie. You watch this today, and you're just like, wow, it's like ultra-right wing. Like, it's like ultra, ultra, ultra-right wing, because it's a, to start with, he's a white guy. Right, right. And so they're like, it's literally, you view it today and you're like, wow, it's, you know, it's, you know, the stereotype would be it's a right, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a white, you know, it's a privileged white male incel, you know, basically, right? You know, with like every advantage in the world who said, you know, nevertheless has built up this persecution complex, right? And you just, through these lines, you're just like, wow, that's like an ultra right-wing movie. And then, by the way, the, the sort of argument the movie makes about like capitalism is like the great, you know, atomization of

• 1:09:36Marc Andreessen?

  society and like, nobody has any type of anything and people are just like interchangeable cogs in the great, you know, kind of, you know, in the great kind of machine of modernity. You know, they kind of put in this assembly line through complete meaningless until they die and like all concept of like family and community is like completely ruptured. And like capitalism is like, you know, basically the machine that does that, you know, neoliberal capitalism is the machine that does that. But sitting here today, that's a right-wing critique. And so, and so I probably shouldn't name names, but I did talk to somebody who was involved in the making of the movie. I said, I don't want to, it was a, I don't want to represent his, his views, but I specifically my name, but I talked to somebody who made the movie and I laid up my theory that it was a left-wing movie at the time and now it's a right-wing movie. And this, this person basically said, oh, no, he's like, it's very clear in the movie that at the end, you know, that he greatly regrets what he's doing.

• 1:10:21Marc Andreessen?

  Like, you know, he, he like has, you know, he's filled with regret. Like, it's a very, you know, kind of sad, tragic ending. And, and I was like, oh, well, then if you just like used AI to just go in there and tweak the final scene of, of the Edward Norton character standing, you know, watching the building stem down. And if you just tweak the final scene to where he would have like a sly little smile on his face, like all of a sudden, like the entire movie becomes like this, you know, basically ultra right-wing construct to finish. Anyway, I'll pause there. I just, I was just going to say, whichever way you interpret it, like, I think that movie definitely is definitely, I think it's amazing. I think it'll, I think people will be watching it and discussing it, you know, a hundred years from now.

• 1:10:54Katherine Boyle?

  Yeah. To bring it back to the original thesis of this podcast, monitoring the situation that's going on in the internet, what went viral this week related to Fight Club was the PSAs that Brad Pitt and Edward Norton put out before the movie came out in theaters. And if you, I won't, this is one thing I won't spoil, but it was going viral, like, why don't we make PSAs about like staying silent in the theater like this anymore? You have to watch it. It's like, 90 seconds and it just confirms that Brad Pitt is the goat. He is hilarious and that he puts serious thought into everything he does, including the please stay quiet in the theater PSAs that went out before the movie came out. Theaters 25 years ago, so watch it. I'm glad it's going viral again and we should definitely make actors do those PSAs for theaters.

• 1:11:40Marc Andreessen?

  So Catherine, that movie came out in? 1999.

• 1:11:43Katherine Boyle?

  1999, yeah, 1999.

• 1:11:45Marc Andreessen?

  Which is kind of universal, I remember, just like a year of like absolutely amazing movies.

• 1:11:49Katherine Boyle?

  Yes.

• 1:11:50Marc Andreessen?

  Maybe did that, maybe did that single year for movies in the last like 40 years? Or longer, so question, could that movie, so number one is that movie was, at least according to the accounts that I've read, that movie was very difficult to make. And then once they had in the can, like people, the original people who saw it like were, you know, it's just like, a lot of people just like didn't know what to make of it. You know, because it is very simplistic reading of it, right? Which is just like total nihilism and like just destruction and, you know, signs of violence, you know, to no purpose. It's one of those movies where like you have to have a lens on the movie. You have to have an idea of the movie or the movie has to get its idea across to you and you have to, you have to catch the idea before you can actually watch it properly. Because if you just watch it otherwise, it just seems like it's just like tremendously nihilistic, which I, you know, very much, I very much don't believe that it is. But, you know, I think it was very controversial at the time.

• 1:12:35Marc Andreessen?

  It was very hard to get made, you know, it was misinterpreted by many people over the years. And by the way, the people who made it might be, me is misinterpreting it. And so that movie could get made during that era. Could that movie have gotten made after the 90s?

• 1:12:51Katherine Boyle?

  I feel like it's the, like the consummate 90s film, right? Like, like just the, as you said, like the critique on consumerism, like the sort of early critique on, you know, kind of the consumerism affecting masculine like traits, right? Like, like the whole, the whole reaction of, you know, we're going to have a Fight Club to kind of reclaim our, our masculinity and sort of our life and our, you know, that, that felt like was actually, I mean, it's, it's interesting because it's the same critique, it's the same conversation that's happening right now. But it really was also a 90s conversation to sort of, you know, and that's the same thing as, I believe 1999 was also American Beauty. And that's a similar sort of, like all of these movies had the same sort of, to your point nihilism, but sort of this David Foster Wallace-esque sort of,

• 1:13:37Katherine Boyle?

  consumerism is destroying us, we're moving to the suburbs and we have to reclaim in some way. And like the sort of, I don't, like the portrayal of. Any man feeling constrained in their it was always sort of like the consumerism and the suburbanization of America is destroying sort of masculine freedom, right? So there were like, that was like a very 90s coded end of the 90s film era. Like, I don't, so part of me is like, I don't, it could probably be made, but it would probably be made with totally different ethos and maybe a totally different take on that thesis now. Like, the thesis is slightly different than what it was in the 90s, which is that, like, you know, like Walmart is destroying you, right? Like, it's a very different, now it's like tech has destroyed you, but at the time it

• 1:14:22Katherine Boyle?

  was Walmart and capitalism were destroying you.

• 1:14:24Speaker 02

  Mark, Catherine, thanks so much for coming on and talking about movies again.

• 1:14:27Katherine Boyle?

  Awesome. Thank you so much, Mark.

• 1:14:31Speaker 02

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• 1:15:14Speaker 02

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