#682 - Some Footage Is More Equal Than Others
Added 2026-01-08 18:25:17 +0000 UTC
Comments
Feels to kind to the doc (and to Orwell). Horseshoe theory is incredibly pernicious. Treating the CCP as totalitarian is pernicious even before any rank comparisons to fascism. Even Stalinism a) needs at least some unpacking and b) again, cannot be horseshoed into fascism. This is the weakest part of Orwell himself. And I can't not say, he was also a rat!
MOC
2026-01-13 16:15:34 +0000 UTCIt's hilarious that the 'Victims of Communism Memorial' fell victim to the free market and had to be publicly funded
Jimmy McMillan
2026-01-11 19:32:52 +0000 UTC“Not a terrain for thought…” really nice articulation of that idea in those couple of sentences
Blank
2026-01-10 13:29:58 +0000 UTCWoah looks like Andy serkis was a swappy in the 90s? Litigating his personal slights with this new film?
Blank
2026-01-10 13:15:24 +0000 UTCBurmese Days is a great novel well worth a read. Writing this from Melbourne- a tangent here...have you ever done "Wake in Fright", A Canadian Director Ted Kotcheff that is an Aussie film 'horror' classic. A Canadian eye on the Australian guy.
Peter McInnes
2026-01-09 20:34:38 +0000 UTCSad to hear this movie is such a disappointment. Sounds like you guys should have watched Ken Loach's Land and Freedom (1995), which is basically just Homage to Catalonia. Plus one vote for The Young Karl Marx: it's good, and its generally careful look at factionalism on the Left will be of historical interest to Luke, particularly.
Graeme Pente
2026-01-09 15:42:27 +0000 UTCThe Diamond Dogs album started out as a 1984 musical project, and I for one am glad it didn't happen!
Ciaran Colley
2026-01-09 11:47:19 +0000 UTCOn the animal farm ad there is not much one can add but I feel like I will never be content until we bury DUHDUHDUH marvel style trailer music in the ground
Alex
2026-01-09 00:42:34 +0000 UTCGreat episode! Always thought it was funny 1984 is Bowie’s most 70s-dated song
John Van Atta
2026-01-08 21:42:12 +0000 UTCAs someone who has taught and published on Orwell quite a bit -- I would consider myself "an Orwell scholar" -- I appreciate the attention Orwell gets on this podcast. I'm curious to see the new Peck documentary, though I'm waiting until it's on a streaming service to which I subscribe. In the meantime, I am glad to have my expectations modulated by this review. Relatedly: 1) Will and Luke, you mention I Am Not Your Negro, but have you seen Exterminate All The Brutes? In some ways, I think Peck's project with that film -- examine the legacy of colonialism with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as an anchor -- is a companion to 2 + 2 = 5 (at least, based on what I know of it). 2) Have you seen George Orwell: A Life in Pictures? it's an odd BBC documentary from 2003. There is no surviving audio or film recording of Orwell. We don't know what his voice actually sounded like. So, this documentary has an actor perform as Orwell, reading verbatim only lines Orwell wrote, in various set pieces and genre styles that somehow relate to the content or context of the piece. It's fairly interesting and is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6txpumkY5I Happy New Year!
Jackson Ayres
2026-01-08 21:22:29 +0000 UTCThe story behind that animal farm movie is sorta mad as far as I can tell. It was originally meant to be a straight adaptation using motion capture in the previous style of his Jungle Book movie for Netflix but clearly that was a flop and they look like they were scrambling to get it made and releaed any way they could. I didnt think Mowlgi: Legend of the Jungle (yeah) was great but there was ambition behind the effects worthy of Serkis' previous work in LOTR and the Apes movies. Like, If you told me there was an Animal Farm movie which was made with Apes' pedigree then I'd have been very interested to see that, so to see what we got is crazy honestly.
Gareth Lyons
2026-01-08 21:18:42 +0000 UTC
