I seriously respect "The Fall Guy" for how it puts the spotlight on an aspect of filmmaking that most people ignore. The film spends a lot of time showing all that goes into making an action movie, so when you get to the big action scenes the viewer has a greater appreciation for all the work such a thing entails. I never found myself watching an action scene in a movie and immediately wanting to learn more about how it was filmed. Maybe that breaks the immersion, sure, but it means the movie succeeded at what it was trying to do.
The karaoke scene popped me out of the film, too. It works for its purpose in the movie, but anyone who’s ever worked a full day on a film set knows that the only thing you want to do at the end of that day is go get some rest
my issue was that it constantly pulled away from the stunt scene I was interested in! I had much less interest for Emily Blunt singing a song! :D Also: I watched Ted Lasso. And Hannah Waddingham singing karaoke was one of the highlights there. Using karaoke and not let Hannah do her stuff was a slight disappointment as well :)
I mean, given how the industry works, I'm sure if it does well enough we'll get a sequel that can have all of those things. Movies are allowed to be imperfect.
Talking about simulacrum; if you're British, you must try and visit a Renaissance Faire in the New World at some point. Hundreds of people, that have never visited England, dressed like our ancestors, & speaking in a vaguely stereotypical simulacrum of RP/Cockney is such a bizzare experience! A couple of people thought I was mocking _their accent_ with my own RP/Cockney accent - and said I sounded more like D1ck Van Dyke than a real English person. I think that's the most offensive thing anyone has ever said to me! 🤣
Renaissance FEST for life! Yeah, all those people pretend to be elves, pirates, and mushrooms even tho they've never been to Rivendell, Nassau, or the deep woods
Saw a tweet the other day about Josh Brolin's portrayal of Thanos being inspired by Kurtz from Apocalypse Now. Can guarantee that most people who saw Infinity War and Endgame won't notice, and will just think Thanos is a cool/compelling character entirely on his own terms. And I guess that's okay. Kurtz' character isn't beat-for-beat the same as Thanos. The copy became something wholly new.
This is fair….. but Apocalypse Now is based on Heart of Darkness. Kurtz was absolutely also inspired from something else. I would argue that if Thanos is “cool and compelling” within the confines of the narrative , nothing else really matters. The entirety of human existence has been shaped by our need to reflect our own humanity in some what or another. Everything is based on something else. The Lord of the rings borrows quite a lot from multiple sources such as Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1862), The Princess and the Goblin (1872) by George MacDonald and Samuel Rutherford Crockett's The Black Douglas (1899). And all three of those where borrowing from other shit! The concept of originality itself probably wasn’t original, because someone had to write it down and I will bet my favorite kidney that they did not come up with it “whole cloth”. To quote The Bare-Naked Ladies: “it’s all been done before “
How about the time the U.S. government faked filming a movie adaptation of Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light so they could pull off some covert shenanigans? Yeah I know that’s a different kind of fake movie but still.
True, but he also makes movies that are entertaining on their own, you don't HAVE to know everything he knows about film to enjoy them. His genius is he doesn't copy other films, he reworks them into something else.
Hi. The idealized audience thing is similar to the concept of "implied reader" (and "implied author") that we were taught in the Berkeley Rhetoric program back in the 1980s. Applying that, and the assumption that all language aims for some persuasive purpose, I'd guess that at one level this film tries to give the viewer a deeper sense of dramatic engagement than is normal for modern action flicks, by "peeling back" one layer of the onion. (But then I haven't seen it, so who knows!)
I hate it when meta self referencing in movies is done with insane levels of self importance though. Filmmakers like Lynch, Kaufman, David Lowery and Rick Linklater are much more humble and almost invisible in their self referencing whereas others like Tarantino, Baumbach tend to basically self insert as "genius artists/directors" without an ounce of self criticism and humility which I find kind of cringe.
I found this film to be one of the most important movie to respect stuntmen yet it's just sad that this film might not be able to recover their budget in the box office...
"The Fall Guy" was always number one topic on monday mornings in school when i was a kid. Everyone talked about it. I have mixed feelings about that movie. But i keep an open mind and will watch it. Just to check if there's a Howie. Everybody loved Howie. Sometimes movies you don't expect much from are surprising.
very interesting video, but fell short for me bc this is a really common misunderstanding/shallow reading of baudrillard. but very debatable, obviously. the way one of my profs explained it, "simulacra" or "simulation" and the "hyperreal" are not any less "real," like some seem to think. they supplant the real. they are in some ways MORE "real" than what we think of as "reality." just another perspective for yall to think about.
also, i really felt the absence of derrida's absence/presence in this one. don't need to go to psychoanalysis for this argument, it's closer than you think.
I kinda agree…but this is a short video essay! I do agree with PoGs point that the experience of the hyperreal doesn’t make experience of it less ‘authentic’ for its participants.
That's one of the good things about movies- the violence and death isn't real. That's why movies with a lot of violence no one thinks twice about, meanwhile pornography, no matter how popular, is disreputable.
Acting like sex is morally comparable to violence is insane. Also, there are plenty of movies where the violence is real. People die or are injured on movie sets constantly.
@@dumbumbumbum8649 in a better world the comparison would not make sense, but i think it makes sense in this one. not between sex and violence, but porn and violence in movies. if we go see a movie we know the actors are not actually getting hit, getting shot, etc. and if they do get hurt, its not intentional. but if we watch porn, especially rougher porn, its possible we are watching someone being trafficked, and we know that the women getting hit/tossed around/etc. are actually having that happen to them. so in a very real sense, porn is more violent than movies in this world, and i think the above comparison makes sense.
If you think that the "sex" in porn is "real" in any reasonable sense I feel sorry for any partners you may have. A much better explanation is just that the US was literally founded by literally Puritans (and a good dose of good old fashioned sexism, but that's a much more complicated argument). Europe don't care about porn.
Movies are a great medium for carrying us on a journey through fantasy. Whether it be something straight from a fairy tale or through a hyper realistic story such as the above Fall Guy. Let's face the facts, real life can be a bit boring at times.
Movies about movies that typically only movie people will appreciate are a little... eh, for me. Like, I don't feel l'm watching a movie, just someone kinda talking at me about movies pointing and shouting "look! look! do you get it! aren't I smart?! aren't we cool?! REFERENCES! FILM-MAKING!" and its like, okaaaaay...
I think that's partly why movies are losing relevance, they're getting more and more insular, purely for people who are "in-the-know" at the exclusion of everyone else.
I don't think that's the case, at least with this movie. I know very little about the stuff that happens on set, so seeing it through this movie was very interesting and made me want to learn more.
I disagree, I think this movie does a good job of giving people a generally good idea of bts without really insulting the viewer...Its not as obnoxious as the NOVEL Ready Player One..I actually prefer the film adaptation of that book..but my god reading that book, as a pop culture geek myself..I found it obnoxious and dragging..
Interesting application of the ideas. What I might add here is that pleasure in the embrace of artificiality is quite old. It is the basis, for example, for a lot of camp. This is especially true when camp appropriates the symbols of dead power, of aristocracy. To engage in camp, one goes all in on cultivated artifice. I wonder if this desire is heightened in societies that are obsessed with chasing authenticity, as all wealthy societies seem to be this century.
okay i had a mountain of thoughts about this video and i wanted to share them so buckle up random person in the comments section i disagree that our enjoyment of films and other media comes from imagining another person in that situation. in fact, i'd argue humans are actually not completely able to separate a fake experience from a real one, hence parasocial relationships (we know the youtuber isn't talking to us specifically, but particularly obsessive fans expect trust and recognition as if they are mutual friends). i thiiiink there was a study that found people's brains treated fictional characters as though they were real friends but i don't know the source so don't quote me on that. i believe this is actually a core part of watching movies, and our level of enjoyment in a film comes down to logic vs emotion. "what i'm seeing is fake" vs "what i'm seeing is real". logic is grounded in our reality, whereas emotion steps into the film world and treats it the same way it does our own. when the latter wins, we are emotionally invested, sucked in, immersed, etc. when the former wins, we're taken out of the experience. when emotionally invested, you can ignore the logic side of your brain that says This Movie Is Not Real. you are more likely to ignore small plot holes and other logical issues that may arise, because that would damage your sense of reality. however, big plot holes can entirely pull you out, as the logical complaints get louder and louder until it overtakes the emotion and you cannot ignore the logic of unreality. logic is always there while we're watching, but we do lend movies some amount of emotional investment when we begin viewing, as we trust the movie to tell a story that we would like to experience "first-hand". bad movies can be fun because they use the logic side of our brain in a different way. we know what a good movie is, and we know that someone had to create the film. most other movies feel real enough through emotional investment, so it's unusual to see something so far removed from our expectations of both movies and of reality - and humor is all about subverting expectations. it feels like we're looking at something so obviously fake that the fact that it attempted to pass itself off as "real" is hilariously audacious, like how a child's drawing of you looks nothing like the thing it's supposed to be but it's admirable that they tried so hard. 4th wall breaks in movies attempt to acknowledge the fact that it is not real and welcome the logical part into the movie, transferring our understanding of the movie from a fictional world to our own. like bad movies, those are funny because they're based in logic and not emotional investment. when done well and intentionally tho, it uses that to reflect our logical thinking and make us feel as though the movie understands us. this is the opposite of emotional investment, where we feel like we understand the movie (though the best high-emotion movies also go the other way, when our real struggles match the character's onscreen). as an example of a good 4th wall break: if we're emotionally invested in someone's day, we might feel sad when they slip on a banana peel. however, logically, we know this event is unlikely to occur, so we laugh at the fact that the movie has chosen the most obviously fake plight among infinite creative possibilities, since it could never happen to someone without the situation being manufactured. moments that "wink at the camera" can either sate the logical side of our brain, acknowledging its complaint and aligning the movie's reality with our logical expectations, or, when done poorly, give the logical side a voice and strengthen its complaints, pulling away from the emotional side - and then later asking for our emotional investment to care about the plot. this is where we "cringe" - the movie has demonstrated that it doesn't understand our level of investment, it is incompetent, or on a more extreme level, the movie has been caught in a "lie" and insists it is real and true anyways. logical movies (aka movies that are parodies or otherwise are centered around how fake it is) can have moments of emotional investment, and emotional movies (aka movies that want us to care about the characters/story) can have moments of logical 4th wall breaks, but not committing to either can confuse how we are supposed to feel, leaving both the emotional and logical in an unsatisfying tug-of-war and causing us to cringe. remember when i said that logical movies can have moments of emotional investment? i hypothesize that this is true in "the fall guy". it gets us to empathize with characters that are movie stunt-people, and then includes moments that resonate the reality of real stuntpeople. the empathic setup causes us to understand stuntpeople, so when the movie demonstrates that it understands stuntpeople we're able to transfer that understanding, since the movie understands stuntpeople which we also understand. movie > stuntpeople > us. that was probably confusing but i hope you get me. also, since stuntpeople are real in our reality, the transfer will get less complaints from the logical side of our brain. pillar of garbage actually demonstrated this - he said the movie was real because it reflects the reality stuntpeople live in. he's not a stuntperson, so how did he know that? because the movie told him what the reality of a stuntperson is. haven't seen the movie tho so might be totally wrong anyways that's my entire philosophy on movies and how we enjoy them, i hope it was at least somewhat interesting to read
"Why do books and movies put so much effort in trying to appear real when deep down we all know they're not? (...) Verisimilitude is overrated" Advantages of Travelling by Train
It was similar to the film Hooper with Burt Reynolds. Great film about a Stuntman that has real record breaking stunts. It goes deeper then this film does on the consequences of living the Stunt man life.
What I think it diluted it were the weak characters, the massive cringe, and the awful dialogue. Felt a lot like they gave them time to improv and sucking at it. But yeah, honoring the stuntworkers matters. Just wish the movie was clever or just better
My issue with the idea, at least how you presented it, that somehow turning reality into abstractions that only reflect symbols and framing this as a negative is... That it feels very... Anti-language? Let's take water, for example. You start with actual water. Then you might go to a picture of water, maybe a flowing river. Then a pictograph that simplifies and abstracts that picture of water, the Egyptian hieroglyph for water for example. And then when you get to words within more modern writing systems, you have attempts to notate - either via syllabries or alphabets - the sounds you need to make to represent the thing vocally, which in turn isn't representing the thing outside of an onomatapaea but... An abstract unit of meaning derived from things long forgotten. Water doesn't exist within my head as a picture of a flowing river, or the substance that I drink, but as the word water. Either a two syllable spoken word, or as the letters w a t e r in that order. My point isn't that he's wrong about there being a difference between reality, depictions of reality, symbols that reflect those depictions, and symbols that only reflect other symbols, my point is that... That's how communication has historically worked and how languages have evolved over time.
The film is about how the art of storytelling is, ultimately, to represent something in the real world. Due to capitalism, art has become driven by profit, and choices are made not for artistic merit but because they've paid off before. The simulacra ceases to be about the real world and instead becomes about itself. But the film points out that, unconsciously or unconsciously, the choices made in a story ultimately stem from the pondering of the writer, wondering how best to represent their personal perspective of and experience with the world. It reminds us that films are not "real", but are only reflections of the humans that consume them.
This movie would have been so much better as a mockumentary or something... I just didn't find it funny or romantic, and the stunts didn't land on me considering how fake movies are now (loaded with CGI even when the companies say they aren't). I think there's a ton of talent in this movie and great stunts, but unless you're watching BTS on the stunts, then there's no point in watching this movie.
A lot of what you have said here is oddly applicable to Emesis Blue and its relationship with the Horror genre. Idk if anyone here has even seen that movie, but it is really quite odd how much these equivalencies line up.
I wonder if you'll go over Synthetic Man's review throughout the whole Fallout series how he goes totally racist, sexist, and total rage bait on how the series ruins the canon or lore of the games.
I wouldn’t expect so. I typically only make dedicated videos for that sort of thing these days if I feel there’s an interesting + relevant point to be made _through_ the chud debunk, or to try and puncture a creator’s plausible deniability - and I don’t imagine either of those cases apply here.
I'm a bit of an odd duck. I worship Hastur, the fictional god of theater and madness presented originally by Ambrose Bierce but popularized by Robert Chambers. For me, the concept of Hyperreality is inextricable to my understanding of Hastur. The King in Yellow is a fiction without grounding. A copy without original. There is not some actual shepherd god of happiness that Hastur's original incarnation was heavily based on. Even if there was, it has little resemblance to what Hastur is now. Hastur is a hyperreality representing hyperrealities. Of the realities of falsehoods and fictions, and the complexity of human relationships to these things. Great video.
I've only ever heard people shit on this movie for being a meaningless action reference. Which actually plays into the commentary you say the movie is making.
Here's a dramatic take: if most of the time the audience constructs a viewer in their mind and then experiences the work through the fictional viewer, what are spoilers? I would argue that they don't exist, or at least are not particularly important. For bad works that hinge entirely on a twist, sure, but for good works involving mystery and misdirection? Spoilers don't matter. You're too busy imagining what a fictional viewer who's never heard the spoiler would experience, and while there's a tiny part of you that might be aware of the upcoming spoiled bit, that part of you can be just as entertained by watching the craft that sets up and delivers that spoiled bit.
I respect the focus on an under appreciate segment of the industry, but the final act definitely jumped the shark. The entire helicopter sequence was way over the top. It immediately felt like an addition for the sake of checking all the stunt boxes.
This seems like a weird take to focus on Fall Guy. As you point out the fourth wall breaks about the reality of stunt work (including the car rolls) oddly bring the movie closer to the “sign” in many parts, even as it emphasizes the unreality of action movies by acknowledging the artifice.
A director setting a stuntman on fire without head protection and throwing him against a rock eight times because of a personal beef is neither real, nor funny, nor anything less than a serious insult to what stunt people actually do - whatever kind of "reality" you call it. Extrapolate.
this sentiment that something has to be real to be enjoyable is really weird btw. no it doesnt. why would it have to. makes no sense youre just wasting your own time trying to justify something you dont need to
Reality isn't real. We all have to go through life with an incomplete knowledge of what the world is. We all have to believe in things that have no proof, just to get along in the world. We all run around with our personal myths and legends and they effect how we interact with the world, because we have to believe them to be human. For instance, the concept of compassion. Where is the physical proof that compassion is real, let alone desirable? What we call reality is a mix of things we have perceived through our very limited and easily fooled senses, our beliefs we accept without evidence and what other have told us but we have never experienced ourselves.
The Fall Guy was a lot of fun and plenty real. It failed because of 1,000 reasons but its quality is not one of them. You’re analysis has nothing to do with making movies and all text book regurgitation. But you did land in a decent place.
This is a heckuva thinkpiece to listen to about an adaptation of a forgotten 80s action show. What are people going to write about the inevitable $200 million version of Riptide?
tbh the overall trend of film becoming more self-reflective as the medium has aged and as a reflection and reaction to the current sociocultural climate has, imo created some of the best existentialist films of the last decade
Great essay, thank you. This movie is an unmitigated POS. It could have been so much more, particularly with these leads. Kudos to all the stunt work though, here’s hoping the “Academy” gets its shit together and recognises the enormous contribution these people bring to their grubby and greedy industry.
Love when people just declare something is pretentious without any argument at all. It's totally not just a cheap and easy way to insult something you don't like (a cheap and easy insult like, for example: "just say you don't know how to enjoy movies") ...Nah, impossible! No way someone would do such a thing, in the TH-cam comments of all places, which is famous for its well formed and articulated criticisms. Frankly, I find the idea inconceivable.
Just had to mention that the war in Gaza today is real. Israel was attacked first and is only defending itself. Not trying to make you look bad, but hopefully next time you talk about current events you’ll say the correct information.
Israel _was_ attacked first… but only if history begins in October 2023. Even then, Israeli leadership knew an attack was likely imminent & didn’t take steps to prevent / mitigate it - if they had done, they wouldn’t have had the excuse to carry out a jingoistic, ‘unifying’ genocide. Israeli political leaders have come out and _said_ that their war goal is to colonise Gaza & to destroy the idea of a Palestinian nation. You’ve actually done a rather good job illustrating the point I gestured to in the video - the ‘everything was cool and great until October 7th when Israel was caught off guard and hit with an unprovoked attack so now they need all our weapons so they can fight a purely defensive war and we can’t criticise them at all because all the bad stuff you’re seeing online is Hamas propaganda!!!’ image of the conflict is so divorced from history & reality that it does not exist.
@@PillarofGarbage I would like you to please show me Israeli political leaders that have come out and said that their goal is to colonize Gaza and destroy the idea of a Palestinian nation because that has never been the case. Yes there have been many conflicts and issues between the Israelis and Arabs in the area before October 7th, but for a long time there has been relative quiet. Israel is doing all that it can to help civilians living in Gaza and only aims to destroy Hamas (a terrorist organization). The only reality and history that is divorced is the ignored reality of suffering Jews throughout history. Many times Israel has attempted peace with Palestinians and even terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, and they continue to reject the offers. They only want to exterminate and destroy the land and people of Israel. If you can’t see that truth then that is the real distortion of reality. I’m not here to argue or even attempt to change your opinion. I just ask that you look at both sides of the story because I have certainly tried. Israel is dealing with a double standard and gets criticized and hated more than almost any other country. Even when real genocides are happening in places like Africa right now they are still getting ignored. Israel is simply defending itself and has every right to do so. History, and more specifically the Holocaust, has shown us how much hate Jews experience, and we cannot let such unfathomable atrocities repeat.
@@PillarofGarbage I would like you to please show me Israeli political leaders that have come out and said that their goal is to colonize Gaza and destroy the idea of a Palestinian nation because that has never been the case. Yes there have been many conflicts and issues between the Israelis and Arabs in the area before October 7th, but for a long time there has been relative quiet. Israel is doing all that it can to help civilians living in Gaza and only aims to destroy Hamas (a terrorist organization). The only reality and history that is divorced is the ignored reality of suffering Jews throughout history. Many times Israel has attempted peace with Palestinians and even terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, and they continue to reject the offers. They only want to exterminate and destroy the land and people of Israel. If you can’t see that truth then that is the real distortion of reality. I’m not here to argue or even attempt to change your opinion. I just ask that you look at both sides of the story because I have certainly tried. Israel is dealing with a double standard and gets criticized and hated more than almost any other country. Even when real genocides are happening in places like Africa right now they are still getting ignored. Israel is simply defending itself and has every right to do so. History, and more specifically the Holocaust, has shown us how much hate Jews experience, and we cannot let such unfathomable atrocities repeat.
@@PillarofGarbage I would like you to please show me Israeli political leaders that have come out and said that their goal is to colonize Gaza and destroy the idea of a Palestinian nation because that has never been the case. Yes there have been many conflicts and issues between the Israelis and Arabs in the area before October 7th, but for a long time there has been relative quiet. Israel is doing all that it can to help civilians living in Gaza and only aims to destroy Hamas (a terrorist organization). The only reality and history that is divorced is the ignored reality of suffering Jews throughout history. Many times Israel has attempted peace with Palestinians and even terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, and they continue to reject the offers. They only want to exterminate and destroy the land and people of Israel. If you can’t see that truth then that is the real distortion of reality. I’m not here to argue or even attempt to change your opinion. I just ask that you look at both sides of the story because I have certainly tried. Israel is dealing with a double standard and gets criticized and hated more than almost any other country. Even when real genocides are happening in places like Africa right now they are still getting ignored. Israel is simply defending itself and has every right to do so. History, and more specifically the Holocaust, has shown us how much hate Jews experience, and we cannot let such unfathomable atrocities repeat.
these movies may not be real but _you_ can become _real af_ by helping support my content :) www.patreon.com/pillarofgarbage
I seriously respect "The Fall Guy" for how it puts the spotlight on an aspect of filmmaking that most people ignore. The film spends a lot of time showing all that goes into making an action movie, so when you get to the big action scenes the viewer has a greater appreciation for all the work such a thing entails.
I never found myself watching an action scene in a movie and immediately wanting to learn more about how it was filmed. Maybe that breaks the immersion, sure, but it means the movie succeeded at what it was trying to do.
Also the end credits where they should what went into those scenes was great.
for me it didn't break the immersion at all
@@mursaleensaleem1806 It didn't break the immersion for me either but I understand why it would for someone
If anything, it’s got stronger immersion with that!
If you work in film then the scenes where they chill and do karaoke after an expensive and exhausting 12-14 hour shoot will drive you insane.
Why would it drive you insane? Because as an introvert I can understand why it would drive me insane
The karaoke scene popped me out of the film, too. It works for its purpose in the movie, but anyone who’s ever worked a full day on a film set knows that the only thing you want to do at the end of that day is go get some rest
@@typemasters2871no. People need sleep
@@zenquantum1246 As a Fall Guy crew member I can tell you, the days actually shooting that karaoke scene were painful.
my issue was that it constantly pulled away from the stunt scene I was interested in! I had much less interest for Emily Blunt singing a song! :D Also: I watched Ted Lasso. And Hannah Waddingham singing karaoke was one of the highlights there. Using karaoke and not let Hannah do her stuff was a slight disappointment as well :)
Thought this was a terrible adaptation. No multicolored bean peope or game show courses to be seen anywhere
yeah sick film but the disrespect for the source material is astounding
I mean, given how the industry works, I'm sure if it does well enough we'll get a sequel that can have all of those things.
Movies are allowed to be imperfect.
Please tell me this is satire.
@@cyborgparrot1996most of this Channel is built on satire.
@@mr.stuffdoer8483night lords or world eaters or do you just like the 30,000 time?....
"In 1983, French philosopher Je-" it always comes back to simulacra don't it
over the hedge deepdive is highly awaited
Talking about simulacrum; if you're British, you must try and visit a Renaissance Faire in the New World at some point.
Hundreds of people, that have never visited England, dressed like our ancestors, & speaking in a vaguely stereotypical simulacrum of RP/Cockney is such a bizzare experience!
A couple of people thought I was mocking _their accent_ with my own RP/Cockney accent - and said I sounded more like D1ck Van Dyke than a real English person. I think that's the most offensive thing anyone has ever said to me! 🤣
Isn't calling a British person Cockney kind of an insult as well? Also, 99.999% of Americans think Renaissance fairs are ridiculously lame too.
Renaissance FEST for life! Yeah, all those people pretend to be elves, pirates, and mushrooms even tho they've never been to Rivendell, Nassau, or the deep woods
Haha that's amazing, I can only imagine how surreal that'd feel
Crikey
Saw a tweet the other day about Josh Brolin's portrayal of Thanos being inspired by Kurtz from Apocalypse Now. Can guarantee that most people who saw Infinity War and Endgame won't notice, and will just think Thanos is a cool/compelling character entirely on his own terms. And I guess that's okay. Kurtz' character isn't beat-for-beat the same as Thanos. The copy became something wholly new.
"His mind is clear, but his soul is mad." -Dennis Hopper, Apocalypse Now.
Kinda sounds like Thanos even.
This is fair….. but Apocalypse Now is based on Heart of Darkness. Kurtz was absolutely also inspired from something else.
I would argue that if Thanos is “cool and compelling” within the confines of the narrative , nothing else really matters.
The entirety of human existence has been shaped by our need to reflect our own humanity in some what or another. Everything is based on something else. The Lord of the rings borrows quite a lot from multiple sources such as Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1862), The Princess and the Goblin (1872) by George MacDonald and Samuel Rutherford Crockett's The Black Douglas (1899). And all three of those where borrowing from other shit! The concept of originality itself probably wasn’t original, because someone had to write it down and I will bet my favorite kidney that they did not come up with it “whole cloth”.
To quote The Bare-Naked Ladies: “it’s all been done before “
@@Gus-n9u so what makes things /feel/ original?
@kieranking7173 well, I'll take doomsday or Lobo for a Big Bad anyday.
@Gus-n9u hey bro, just dropping a comment because B.N.L. is the shiz-nite!
So real movie about fake movies.
Yes
the fact that you have footage from the entire movie to show on the backround really proves that the trailers showed too damn much
How about the time the U.S. government faked filming a movie adaptation of Roger Zelazny’s Lord of Light so they could pull off some covert shenanigans?
Yeah I know that’s a different kind of fake movie but still.
They already made a movie about the government making a fake movie. And THAT movie won an Oscar.
that's some good Baudrillard application
I mean that's like half of Tarantino's career
True, but he also makes movies that are entertaining on their own, you don't HAVE to know everything he knows about film to enjoy them. His genius is he doesn't copy other films, he reworks them into something else.
Hi. The idealized audience thing is similar to the concept of "implied reader" (and "implied author") that we were taught in the Berkeley Rhetoric program back in the 1980s. Applying that, and the assumption that all language aims for some persuasive purpose, I'd guess that at one level this film tries to give the viewer a deeper sense of dramatic engagement than is normal for modern action flicks, by "peeling back" one layer of the onion. (But then I haven't seen it, so who knows!)
Great movie, it becomes a direct action movie by the end but it's very proud if that.
I hate it when meta self referencing in movies is done with insane levels of self importance though.
Filmmakers like Lynch, Kaufman, David Lowery and Rick Linklater are much more humble and almost invisible in their self referencing whereas others like Tarantino, Baumbach tend to basically self insert as "genius artists/directors" without an ounce of self criticism and humility which I find kind of cringe.
I feel like the term that is gonna define our time is Hypermodernity.
You released an answer for my philosophy exam two weeks before a have it. Thanks!
I found this film to be one of the most important movie to respect stuntmen yet it's just sad that this film might not be able to recover their budget in the box office...
You know it's gonna be a real video essay when someone namedrops Beaudriard.
"The Fall Guy" was always number one topic on monday mornings in school when i was a kid.
Everyone talked about it.
I have mixed feelings about that movie. But i keep an open mind and will watch it. Just to check if there's a Howie. Everybody loved Howie.
Sometimes movies you don't expect much from are surprising.
Don't sleep on this movie. Beneath it's status as a love letter to stunt people, is a genuine action film with a heartfelt romance
I would say it's a movie that succeeds at what it sets out to do. It aims low, but hits its target.
Please do NOT tell me bro beat me to the "anti-capitalist genius of over the hedge" punch
This video feels like a full on scientific study into why the sun rises from the east.
For real....and explaining why cardinal directions are named their names for 5 minutes. Such a weird take and pretentious.....but bad....take.
Really living up to the channel name....unless that's the point.
Seriously, like c'mon, it's just Fall Guy! 😭😭
This felt like an oldschool Wisecrack video
Hod damn ur going deep with this one
Great film. Great video essay
This kinda makes me want to watch Fall Guy
Yes and me.
The discussion of simulacra feels like a lead-in for talking about the sliding scale of art vs product in media and the tension we feel about that.
very interesting video, but fell short for me bc this is a really common misunderstanding/shallow reading of baudrillard. but very debatable, obviously. the way one of my profs explained it, "simulacra" or "simulation" and the "hyperreal" are not any less "real," like some seem to think. they supplant the real. they are in some ways MORE "real" than what we think of as "reality." just another perspective for yall to think about.
also, i really felt the absence of derrida's absence/presence in this one. don't need to go to psychoanalysis for this argument, it's closer than you think.
I kinda agree…but this is a short video essay! I do agree with PoGs point that the experience of the hyperreal doesn’t make experience of it less ‘authentic’ for its participants.
You're right, I do need to finish watching "Close-Up".
That's one of the good things about movies- the violence and death isn't real. That's why movies with a lot of violence no one thinks twice about, meanwhile pornography, no matter how popular, is disreputable.
Acting like sex is morally comparable to violence is insane. Also, there are plenty of movies where the violence is real. People die or are injured on movie sets constantly.
@@dumbumbumbum8649 in a better world the comparison would not make sense, but i think it makes sense in this one. not between sex and violence, but porn and violence in movies. if we go see a movie we know the actors are not actually getting hit, getting shot, etc. and if they do get hurt, its not intentional. but if we watch porn, especially rougher porn, its possible we are watching someone being trafficked, and we know that the women getting hit/tossed around/etc. are actually having that happen to them. so in a very real sense, porn is more violent than movies in this world, and i think the above comparison makes sense.
If you think that the "sex" in porn is "real" in any reasonable sense I feel sorry for any partners you may have.
A much better explanation is just that the US was literally founded by literally Puritans (and a good dose of good old fashioned sexism, but that's a much more complicated argument). Europe don't care about porn.
This’ll help with my essay on Baudrillard problematising authenticity, cheers 🥂
Movies are a great medium for carrying us on a journey through fantasy. Whether it be something straight from a fairy tale or through a hyper realistic story such as the above Fall Guy. Let's face the facts, real life can be a bit boring at times.
Movies about movies that typically only movie people will appreciate are a little... eh, for me.
Like, I don't feel l'm watching a movie, just someone kinda talking at me about movies pointing and shouting "look! look! do you get it! aren't I smart?! aren't we cool?! REFERENCES! FILM-MAKING!" and its like, okaaaaay...
I think that's partly why movies are losing relevance, they're getting more and more insular, purely for people who are "in-the-know" at the exclusion of everyone else.
I don't think that's the case, at least with this movie. I know very little about the stuff that happens on set, so seeing it through this movie was very interesting and made me want to learn more.
im okay with that because not all movies are made for all people
I disagree, I think this movie does a good job of giving people a generally good idea of bts without really insulting the viewer...Its not as obnoxious as the NOVEL Ready Player One..I actually prefer the film adaptation of that book..but my god reading that book, as a pop culture geek myself..I found it obnoxious and dragging..
2:22 checkpoint
This is one of your most insightful and analytically refined videos to date. Very well done.
Interesting application of the ideas. What I might add here is that pleasure in the embrace of artificiality is quite old. It is the basis, for example, for a lot of camp. This is especially true when camp appropriates the symbols of dead power, of aristocracy. To engage in camp, one goes all in on cultivated artifice. I wonder if this desire is heightened in societies that are obsessed with chasing authenticity, as all wealthy societies seem to be this century.
okay i had a mountain of thoughts about this video and i wanted to share them so buckle up random person in the comments section
i disagree that our enjoyment of films and other media comes from imagining another person in that situation. in fact, i'd argue humans are actually not completely able to separate a fake experience from a real one, hence parasocial relationships (we know the youtuber isn't talking to us specifically, but particularly obsessive fans expect trust and recognition as if they are mutual friends). i thiiiink there was a study that found people's brains treated fictional characters as though they were real friends but i don't know the source so don't quote me on that.
i believe this is actually a core part of watching movies, and our level of enjoyment in a film comes down to logic vs emotion. "what i'm seeing is fake" vs "what i'm seeing is real". logic is grounded in our reality, whereas emotion steps into the film world and treats it the same way it does our own. when the latter wins, we are emotionally invested, sucked in, immersed, etc. when the former wins, we're taken out of the experience. when emotionally invested, you can ignore the logic side of your brain that says This Movie Is Not Real. you are more likely to ignore small plot holes and other logical issues that may arise, because that would damage your sense of reality. however, big plot holes can entirely pull you out, as the logical complaints get louder and louder until it overtakes the emotion and you cannot ignore the logic of unreality. logic is always there while we're watching, but we do lend movies some amount of emotional investment when we begin viewing, as we trust the movie to tell a story that we would like to experience "first-hand".
bad movies can be fun because they use the logic side of our brain in a different way. we know what a good movie is, and we know that someone had to create the film. most other movies feel real enough through emotional investment, so it's unusual to see something so far removed from our expectations of both movies and of reality - and humor is all about subverting expectations. it feels like we're looking at something so obviously fake that the fact that it attempted to pass itself off as "real" is hilariously audacious, like how a child's drawing of you looks nothing like the thing it's supposed to be but it's admirable that they tried so hard. 4th wall breaks in movies attempt to acknowledge the fact that it is not real and welcome the logical part into the movie, transferring our understanding of the movie from a fictional world to our own. like bad movies, those are funny because they're based in logic and not emotional investment.
when done well and intentionally tho, it uses that to reflect our logical thinking and make us feel as though the movie understands us. this is the opposite of emotional investment, where we feel like we understand the movie (though the best high-emotion movies also go the other way, when our real struggles match the character's onscreen). as an example of a good 4th wall break: if we're emotionally invested in someone's day, we might feel sad when they slip on a banana peel. however, logically, we know this event is unlikely to occur, so we laugh at the fact that the movie has chosen the most obviously fake plight among infinite creative possibilities, since it could never happen to someone without the situation being manufactured. moments that "wink at the camera" can either sate the logical side of our brain, acknowledging its complaint and aligning the movie's reality with our logical expectations, or, when done poorly, give the logical side a voice and strengthen its complaints, pulling away from the emotional side - and then later asking for our emotional investment to care about the plot. this is where we "cringe" - the movie has demonstrated that it doesn't understand our level of investment, it is incompetent, or on a more extreme level, the movie has been caught in a "lie" and insists it is real and true anyways. logical movies (aka movies that are parodies or otherwise are centered around how fake it is) can have moments of emotional investment, and emotional movies (aka movies that want us to care about the characters/story) can have moments of logical 4th wall breaks, but not committing to either can confuse how we are supposed to feel, leaving both the emotional and logical in an unsatisfying tug-of-war and causing us to cringe.
remember when i said that logical movies can have moments of emotional investment? i hypothesize that this is true in "the fall guy". it gets us to empathize with characters that are movie stunt-people, and then includes moments that resonate the reality of real stuntpeople. the empathic setup causes us to understand stuntpeople, so when the movie demonstrates that it understands stuntpeople we're able to transfer that understanding, since the movie understands stuntpeople which we also understand. movie > stuntpeople > us. that was probably confusing but i hope you get me. also, since stuntpeople are real in our reality, the transfer will get less complaints from the logical side of our brain. pillar of garbage actually demonstrated this - he said the movie was real because it reflects the reality stuntpeople live in. he's not a stuntperson, so how did he know that? because the movie told him what the reality of a stuntperson is. haven't seen the movie tho so might be totally wrong
anyways that's my entire philosophy on movies and how we enjoy them, i hope it was at least somewhat interesting to read
Also Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
"Why do books and movies put so much effort in trying to appear real when deep down we all know they're not? (...) Verisimilitude is overrated"
Advantages of Travelling by Train
It was similar to the film Hooper with Burt Reynolds. Great film about a Stuntman that has real record breaking stunts.
It goes deeper then this film does on the consequences of living the Stunt man life.
What I think it diluted it were the weak characters, the massive cringe, and the awful dialogue. Felt a lot like they gave them time to improv and sucking at it. But yeah, honoring the stuntworkers matters. Just wish the movie was clever or just better
My issue with the idea, at least how you presented it, that somehow turning reality into abstractions that only reflect symbols and framing this as a negative is... That it feels very... Anti-language? Let's take water, for example. You start with actual water. Then you might go to a picture of water, maybe a flowing river. Then a pictograph that simplifies and abstracts that picture of water, the Egyptian hieroglyph for water for example. And then when you get to words within more modern writing systems, you have attempts to notate - either via syllabries or alphabets - the sounds you need to make to represent the thing vocally, which in turn isn't representing the thing outside of an onomatapaea but... An abstract unit of meaning derived from things long forgotten. Water doesn't exist within my head as a picture of a flowing river, or the substance that I drink, but as the word water. Either a two syllable spoken word, or as the letters w a t e r in that order.
My point isn't that he's wrong about there being a difference between reality, depictions of reality, symbols that reflect those depictions, and symbols that only reflect other symbols, my point is that... That's how communication has historically worked and how languages have evolved over time.
Wow, I've never cared less about a spoiler warning for a movie.
The film is about how the art of storytelling is, ultimately, to represent something in the real world. Due to capitalism, art has become driven by profit, and choices are made not for artistic merit but because they've paid off before. The simulacra ceases to be about the real world and instead becomes about itself. But the film points out that, unconsciously or unconsciously, the choices made in a story ultimately stem from the pondering of the writer, wondering how best to represent their personal perspective of and experience with the world. It reminds us that films are not "real", but are only reflections of the humans that consume them.
This movie would have been so much better as a mockumentary or something... I just didn't find it funny or romantic, and the stunts didn't land on me considering how fake movies are now (loaded with CGI even when the companies say they aren't). I think there's a ton of talent in this movie and great stunts, but unless you're watching BTS on the stunts, then there's no point in watching this movie.
A lot of what you have said here is oddly applicable to Emesis Blue and its relationship with the Horror genre. Idk if anyone here has even seen that movie, but it is really quite odd how much these equivalencies line up.
I wonder if you'll go over Synthetic Man's review throughout the whole Fallout series how he goes totally racist, sexist, and total rage bait on how the series ruins the canon or lore of the games.
Has anyone else done that? If not I welcome a roast of SynMans idiocy.
I wouldn’t expect so. I typically only make dedicated videos for that sort of thing these days if I feel there’s an interesting + relevant point to be made _through_ the chud debunk, or to try and puncture a creator’s plausible deniability - and I don’t imagine either of those cases apply here.
I'm a bit of an odd duck. I worship Hastur, the fictional god of theater and madness presented originally by Ambrose Bierce but popularized by Robert Chambers.
For me, the concept of Hyperreality is inextricable to my understanding of Hastur. The King in Yellow is a fiction without grounding. A copy without original. There is not some actual shepherd god of happiness that Hastur's original incarnation was heavily based on. Even if there was, it has little resemblance to what Hastur is now. Hastur is a hyperreality representing hyperrealities. Of the realities of falsehoods and fictions, and the complexity of human relationships to these things.
Great video.
Take a drink each time he says the word “pastiche”
So, kinda like Tropic Thunder…
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
Great video
It's turtles all the way down!! 🐢❤
I've only ever heard people shit on this movie for being a meaningless action reference. Which actually plays into the commentary you say the movie is making.
Over the hedge
Here's a dramatic take: if most of the time the audience constructs a viewer in their mind and then experiences the work through the fictional viewer, what are spoilers? I would argue that they don't exist, or at least are not particularly important. For bad works that hinge entirely on a twist, sure, but for good works involving mystery and misdirection? Spoilers don't matter. You're too busy imagining what a fictional viewer who's never heard the spoiler would experience, and while there's a tiny part of you that might be aware of the upcoming spoiled bit, that part of you can be just as entertained by watching the craft that sets up and delivers that spoiled bit.
I'm going to make a piece of media called "Simulacra". I don't know what it is or what it will be about or anything, but I know it will be something
Goddamn this is a good video
Isn't assuming that our existence is real a bit of a stretch?
I respect the focus on an under appreciate segment of the industry, but the final act definitely jumped the shark. The entire helicopter sequence was way over the top.
It immediately felt like an addition for the sake of checking all the stunt boxes.
This seems like a weird take to focus on Fall Guy. As you point out the fourth wall breaks about the reality of stunt work (including the car rolls) oddly bring the movie closer to the “sign” in many parts, even as it emphasizes the unreality of action movies by acknowledging the artifice.
this is so true!! this is reality!! I buy it!!
A director setting a stuntman on fire without head protection and throwing him against a rock eight times because of a personal beef is neither real, nor funny, nor anything less than a serious insult to what stunt people actually do - whatever kind of "reality" you call it. Extrapolate.
Does "the Bubble" qualify as well?
this sentiment that something has to be real to be enjoyable is really weird btw. no it doesnt. why would it have to. makes no sense youre just wasting your own time trying to justify something you dont need to
i LOVED this movie
Reality isn't real. We all have to go through life with an incomplete knowledge of what the world is. We all have to believe in things that have no proof, just to get along in the world. We all run around with our personal myths and legends and they effect how we interact with the world, because we have to believe them to be human.
For instance, the concept of compassion. Where is the physical proof that compassion is real, let alone desirable?
What we call reality is a mix of things we have perceived through our very limited and easily fooled senses, our beliefs we accept without evidence and what other have told us but we have never experienced ourselves.
Thx for dumbing it down
based. free palestine
🎉
pymtron movie when?
yes
@@PillarofGarbage ITS CONFIRMED LETS GOOOOOO
The Fall Guy was a lot of fun and plenty real. It failed because of 1,000 reasons but its quality is not one of them. You’re analysis has nothing to do with making movies and all text book regurgitation. But you did land in a decent place.
This is a heckuva thinkpiece to listen to about an adaptation of a forgotten 80s action show. What are people going to write about the inevitable $200 million version of Riptide?
Man did I just stumble across a parody of Breadtube
LMAO.
❤❤❤😊
tbh the overall trend of film becoming more self-reflective as the medium has aged and as a reflection and reaction to the current sociocultural climate has, imo created some of the best existentialist films of the last decade
The war on Gaza comment made me puke, really sad to see people not knowing what is going on in the world. 😢
Lee Majors did it better.
Great essay, thank you.
This movie is an unmitigated POS.
It could have been so much more, particularly with these leads.
Kudos to all the stunt work though, here’s hoping the “Academy” gets its shit together and recognises the enormous contribution these people bring to their grubby and greedy industry.
Far as adaptations of 80s action shows go, it's probably about as good as it could possibly have been.
This is quite possibly the most pretentious video I've ever seen. Just say you dont know how to enjoy movies...
aw, cute
Love when people just declare something is pretentious without any argument at all.
It's totally not just a cheap and easy way to insult something you don't like (a cheap and easy insult like, for example: "just say you don't know how to enjoy movies")
...Nah, impossible! No way someone would do such a thing, in the TH-cam comments of all places, which is famous for its well formed and articulated criticisms. Frankly, I find the idea inconceivable.
Just had to mention that the war in Gaza today is real. Israel was attacked first and is only defending itself. Not trying to make you look bad, but hopefully next time you talk about current events you’ll say the correct information.
Israel _was_ attacked first… but only if history begins in October 2023. Even then, Israeli leadership knew an attack was likely imminent & didn’t take steps to prevent / mitigate it - if they had done, they wouldn’t have had the excuse to carry out a jingoistic, ‘unifying’ genocide.
Israeli political leaders have come out and _said_ that their war goal is to colonise Gaza & to destroy the idea of a Palestinian nation.
You’ve actually done a rather good job illustrating the point I gestured to in the video - the ‘everything was cool and great until October 7th when Israel was caught off guard and hit with an unprovoked attack so now they need all our weapons so they can fight a purely defensive war and we can’t criticise them at all because all the bad stuff you’re seeing online is Hamas propaganda!!!’ image of the conflict is so divorced from history & reality that it does not exist.
lol free Palestine
@@PillarofGarbage I would like you to please show me Israeli political leaders that have come out and said that their goal is to colonize Gaza and destroy the idea of a Palestinian nation because that has never been the case.
Yes there have been many conflicts and issues between the Israelis and Arabs in the area before October 7th, but for a long time there has been relative quiet.
Israel is doing all that it can to help civilians living in Gaza and only aims to destroy Hamas (a terrorist organization). The only reality and history that is divorced is the ignored reality of suffering Jews throughout history. Many times Israel has attempted peace with Palestinians and even terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, and they continue to reject the offers. They only want to exterminate and destroy the land and people of Israel. If you can’t see that truth then that is the real distortion of reality.
I’m not here to argue or even attempt to change your opinion. I just ask that you look at both sides of the story because I have certainly tried. Israel is dealing with a double standard and gets criticized and hated more than almost any other country. Even when real genocides are happening in places like Africa right now they are still getting ignored. Israel is simply defending itself and has every right to do so. History, and more specifically the Holocaust, has shown us how much hate Jews experience, and we cannot let such unfathomable atrocities repeat.
@@PillarofGarbage I would like you to please show me Israeli political leaders that have come out and said that their goal is to colonize Gaza and destroy the idea of a Palestinian nation because that has never been the case.
Yes there have been many conflicts and issues between the Israelis and Arabs in the area before October 7th, but for a long time there has been relative quiet.
Israel is doing all that it can to help civilians living in Gaza and only aims to destroy Hamas (a terrorist organization). The only reality and history that is divorced is the ignored reality of suffering Jews throughout history. Many times Israel has attempted peace with Palestinians and even terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, and they continue to reject the offers. They only want to exterminate and destroy the land and people of Israel. If you can’t see that truth then that is the real distortion of reality.
I’m not here to argue or even attempt to change your opinion. I just ask that you look at both sides of the story because I have certainly tried. Israel is dealing with a double standard and gets criticized and hated more than almost any other country. Even when real genocides are happening in places like Africa right now they are still getting ignored. Israel is simply defending itself and has every right to do so. History, and more specifically the Holocaust, has shown us how much hate Jews experience, and we cannot let such unfathomable atrocities repeat.
@@PillarofGarbage I would like you to please show me Israeli political leaders that have come out and said that their goal is to colonize Gaza and destroy the idea of a Palestinian nation because that has never been the case.
Yes there have been many conflicts and issues between the Israelis and Arabs in the area before October 7th, but for a long time there has been relative quiet.
Israel is doing all that it can to help civilians living in Gaza and only aims to destroy Hamas (a terrorist organization). The only reality and history that is divorced is the ignored reality of suffering Jews throughout history. Many times Israel has attempted peace with Palestinians and even terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, and they continue to reject the offers. They only want to exterminate and destroy the land and people of Israel. If you can’t see that truth then that is the real distortion of reality.
I’m not here to argue or even attempt to change your opinion. I just ask that you look at both sides of the story because I have certainly tried. Israel is dealing with a double standard and gets criticized and hated more than almost any other country. Even when real genocides are happening in places like Africa right now they are still getting ignored. Israel is simply defending itself and has every right to do so. History, and more specifically the Holocaust, has shown us how much hate Jews experience, and we cannot let such unfathomable atrocities repeat.