The B.E.E. Podcast - 5/17/18 - SILVER
Added 2018-05-17 17:25:41 +0000 UTCBret Easton Ellis discusses Avengers: Infinity War, the box office dominance of franchise films, Donald Glover's Atlanta and Saturday Night Live.
Comments
Plus the cameo chorus from Bryan Adams. 🇨🇦 is this really a gay song ? Seems too uncool, upbeat and dorky ie Canadian
Keith campbell
2022-05-26 10:51:08 +0000 UTCGlass Tiger! I didn’t realize that song was a hit on LA radio l. A Canadian 80s classic
Keith campbell
2022-05-26 09:38:12 +0000 UTCWonderful episode of the podcast! I was so excited to find the podcast on Patreon. I find BEE’s dulcet toned voice extremely soothing
Laura Woods
2018-06-03 16:36:31 +0000 UTCDelocated - Adult Swim - ranks above any comedy series that the major networks have ever created.
James Reeves
2018-05-28 17:58:32 +0000 UTCAs far as the SNL argument, Adult Swim on Cartoon Network , for millenials and swim fans, replaced SNL as far as edgy goes. I can not stand SNL at all.
Louis Bruno
2018-05-24 20:18:25 +0000 UTCI enjoyed Infinity war and I had not seen a Marvel movie since Age of Ultron, which I felt could have been better and made me hate marvel in general. Plus, I got it without having to see all the movies and I enjoyed it far more than I did. I love Josh Brolin and I think he is the last man's man actor. He was excellent as Cable. I hope Bret talks about Deadpool 2. I never looked at my phone of either movies. And this is coming from a person who used to hate Marvel, except for Deadpool and Logan. I loved the visual aspect of some scenes of Infinity War. As a writer, I always study some action scenes and am amazed at how they fit it in like pieces of a puzzle.
Louis Bruno
2018-05-24 19:53:56 +0000 UTC"he himself has been beguiled by this idea of an all encompassing authoritarian left which is faltering throughout society, to which the nation is growing weary of." - Nope, Bret is absolutely correct. There IS an all-encompassing authoritarian Left (aut-Left?) that has been infesting academia, media (TV/news), entertainment, even sports, and brow-beating corporate America (e.g. Starbucks) in the process.
Chadwick Hartwell, III
2018-05-24 14:21:37 +0000 UTCOn second thought, I highly enjoy the theme of ideology vs. aesthetics, which very much feeds into your 1 hour rants on the demise of cinema. Danke shoen :)
Michael kisselgof
2018-05-21 09:43:13 +0000 UTCAs much as I love Bret's sober position on many different aspects of our culture, I cant help but think that he himself has been beguiled by this idea of an all encompassing authoritarian left which is faltering throughout society, to which the nation is growing weary of. Bret is seemingly disconnecting that sentiment from the SJW virtue imposing, non-offensive, PC culture endorsing machinations of stock price oriented corporate Hollywood system, which are the obvious only interested in money not culture of social values. A perfect representation of what is happening throughout society's public spaces. The specter of the authoritarian left is just the reality of the non-offensive, customer inclusionary corporate ethos, attempting to minimize profit disruption by avoiding employing, sponsoring or condoning sentimental bad public actors. And the public portion of this statement is critical. The democratizing horizontal platform of the internet has created a communal social space for user agreement policy enforced, crowd sourced virtue bullying, all the while allowing increasingly responsive corporations to identify elements of the public which my negatively impact their brand. Surely this is just the semblance of public decency respectability. A veneer of reputability over a deeply conservative and regressive traditional sentimentally of aging and demographically diminishing white population. Like the millions who publicly told pollsters that they did not plan to vote for Trump but yet casted their votes for him in private, the collective pressure to conform to liberal morals is a surface one at best. Underneath the desire not to be publicly shamed online or corporately sanctioned, there still remains the As much as I love Bret's sober position on many different aspects of our culture, I cant help but think that he himself has been beguiled by this idea of an all encompassing authoritarian left which is faltering throughout society, to which the nation is growing weary of. Bret is seemingly disconnecting that sentiment from the SJW virtue imposing, non-offensive, PC culture endorsing machinations of stock price oriented corporate Hollywood system, which are the obvious only interested in money not culture of social values. A perfect representation of what is happening throughout society's public spaces. The specter of the authoritarian left is just the reality of the non-offensive, customer inclusionary corporate ethos, attempting to minimize profit disruption by avoiding employing, sponsoring or condoning sentimental bad public actors. And the public portion of this statement is critical. The democratizing horizontal platform of the internet has created a communal social space for user agreement policy enforced, crowd sourced virtue bullying, all the while allowing increasingly responsive corporations to identify elements of the public which my negatively impact their brand. Surely this is just the semblance of public decency respectability. A veneer of reputability over a deeply conservative and regressive traditional sentimentally of aging and demographically diminishing white population. Like the millions who publicly told pollsters that they did not plan to vote for Trump but yet casted their votes for him in private, the collective pressure to conform to liberal morals is a surface one at best. Underneath the desire not to be publicly shamed online or corporately sanctioned, there still remains the very conservative and rigid traditionalist American identity, which has crescendo in the repugnance of Donald Trump as president, bolstered the ranks of militias all over the country, emboldened overt racists to retake marching publicly in city streets and silenced any form of public debate over a growing wave of white supremacist terrorism. Clearly our American society has been and currently is emerging from the backdrop of a normative presupposed reality being sis gendered, straight, white, upper middle class, conservative, male oriented. The process of diversifying that normative public space in the minds of 360 million citizens is understandably confusing and painful for millions who grew out of that paradigm.
SGT. Apone
2018-05-20 21:15:43 +0000 UTCAnother great episode! I’ve always been quick to throw MCU under the bus for all of the reasons you mentioned this week. Their formula for success is transparently applied to hero after hero with their popularity growing exponentially with each entry. Smarmy quips, unaffecting and apparently endless action scenes, “easter eggs” galore (these really get the fanboys hard), all to serve one recurring character arc - gain power, face adversity, discover motivation, repeat. It’s mediocrity at its most concerning. Although, it’s not the mediocrity of the substance that’s so troubling. Ultimately these are films for kids (well, designed for children, championed by adults and marketed indiscriminately), which has been an industry plagued with mediocrity long before Marvel came along. It’s the adoption of these kids’ films as significant cinematic accomplishments and cultural milestones by seemingly fucking everybody that should trigger a spark of concern in anyone with respect for the artform, art or adulthood in general. And yet, despite Marvel’s reliability to underwhelm (Black Panther being the most boring MCU movie to date), I kept a close eye on 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok. There was one reason for my cautious optimism and one reason only - the writer/director, Taika Waititi. The eccentric Kiwi turned heads with the hilarious vampire mockumentary ‘What We Do In The Shadows’ in 2014 (benefitting hugely from the rise of Netflix) and followed it up with the modern classic ‘Hunt For The Wilderpeople’ two years later. Without expounding on his entire filmography (produced almost exclusively in New Zealand), a thread of pessimistic optimism, wonderfully dry island humour and the surreal charm of Waititi’s imagination can be found woven throughout his career. Taika established himself as a visionary and a pioneer… and now he was directing a Marvel movie. I saw this as a true acid test for the compatibility of the strong artistic voice within the franchise. The auteur vs the template. The inspired vs the mechanical. The result was simultaneously disappointing and unsurprising. The usual issues all rear their head - terrible villain, “epic” action, arbitrary mcguffin, more of the same. But the humour was indisputably different. Ragnarok is the funniest Marvel picture BY A MILE (contested only by the other film in the franchise that was granted a little creative breathing room - Guardians of the Galaxy). There’s a casual and understated slant to the dialogue that simply works in contrast to the melodrama of the film’s narrative. Hemsworth is a different Thor; confident, naive and very funny. Goldblum is Goldbulm - half man, half meme, 100% entertaining. Waititi also hand delivers his own “native” banter and would have stolen the show had he had more screen time. Yet the improved humour and mild style adjustment are just about all that’s praise worthy here. So what happened? Was Waititi satisfied with the extent to which he could influence the direction of the picture? Or unwilling to put up a fight? And what happens when you replace Waititi with an auteur whose past features have transcended corporate restrictions and explicitly challenged the status quo? Well, it turns out they get fired weeks from post production and replaced with Ron Howard. Aren’t we lucky.
MidRangeG
2018-05-19 21:26:25 +0000 UTCI like the music choices, they fit in with Bret's glammed out LA anecdotes
George Barnett
2018-05-19 10:25:14 +0000 UTCInteresting. I would not listen to those songs by myself, but I usually really like the choices of music, gay or not.
Samuel Setenyi
2018-05-18 16:51:39 +0000 UTCBret, love the discussion of aesthetics over ideology in Atlanta. Have you watched Big Little Lies? That, too, is an aesthetic smash hit of a show...
Kyle Kouri
2018-05-18 14:12:24 +0000 UTCMan, you are so so so spot on. Love it. I literally agree with every point you make
Ben
2018-05-18 13:02:30 +0000 UTCI’m a fan of Atlanta, but I would like to know why nobody talks about the clear influence that ‘Louie’ has on the shows structure. ‘Louie’ was the first show I saw that really threw the rule book out the window.
Mitch Jordan
2018-05-18 03:47:07 +0000 UTCMy god, these podcasts are so worth the money.
Jamie Brittain
2018-05-17 22:35:23 +0000 UTCThe music choices on this show are terrible. I have to skip through them every time and they are almost a deal breaker.
Larry
2018-05-17 21:21:38 +0000 UTCAtlanta is one of the best things on TV. You're so right about the way its shot and the weirdness of the storylines, which I love love love. As a black man who refuses to adhere to the groupthink of the diaspora, I get called weird for loving this show. I relish that tag amongst my peers 😁
Kevin O Lanre
2018-05-17 20:42:42 +0000 UTCi love this podcast. my friend and i joke that bret's music taste is really gay.
Per AKA Narwhal
2018-05-17 19:15:51 +0000 UTCAnother great show
Patrick Hoelck
2018-05-17 18:58:59 +0000 UTCI don’t like Black Panther! I don’t like Black Panther! I don’t like Black Panther! I don’t like Black Panther! I don’t like Black Panther! I don’t like Black Panther! Actually I really liked it Bret
Ian Schultz
2018-05-17 17:54:20 +0000 UTC
