Not our usual dreck — this week we cover a movie with some pedigree. Ari Aster is considered one of the American auteurs of this generation. But what happens when he tries to make a movie about small town pilledness during early covid lockdowns? Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone and Pedro Pascal no less? We ruthlessly investigate Eddington (2025).
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Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe, and Jake Rockatansky. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)
https://qaapodcast.com
QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
Welcome to the QAA podcast, Premium Episode 299, Eddington Movie Night.
As always, we are your hosts, Jake Rocketansky, Julian Fields, and Travis View.
Well, another couple months have gone by and another movie has graced our eyes and ears.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
We all went to the movie theater and watched it in like beautiful high definition with like IMAX and surround sound.
We had the seats that spit at you and that shake.
And we definitely did not watch an insanely low quality cam rip where you can hear the guy recording it vaping throughout on the soundtrack.
And the image is insanely blown out.
And there's French subtitles for some reason.
And there's a watermark bouncing around the screen like some sort of demonic DVD logo.
So we definitely did not do any of that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We definitely don't have to go back to the theater this weekend to watch the film again because you feel, because we feel, we, we feel so absolutely shitty about watching, you know, one of the more interesting filmmakers of our generation through a blown out cam rip where I, every third word, I had to kind of rewind to make sure.
I got it right.
I guess you are right that I had the advantage of I could understand the French subtitles.
But yeah, I mean, you know, I probably won't make as many commentaries about the cinematography as I normally would because it's like, I don't fucking know how that shit looked.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, I mean, I know the shape of things, but I can't tell like what they did with the color grading or, you know, what the grain was like or anything like that.
There's no, no fucking dice.
I'm sorry, I that did not happen and we went to the movie theater.
There was a moment that didn't happen where I also tried to read the French subtitles because I was like, I think I might be better off like trying to rely on my on like my senior year of high school level French.
And like, I don't know any time I've tried to like, you know, try to engage with Julian in the French language.
And quickly I realized I was like, oh, even this is, I can't understand.
Oh my God, I'm going to have to try to really listen.
Je mapel Ariaster et je pour suivre Travis vien justice pour avoir pirate mon film.
I don't know what that's I don't know what he said, but it doesn't sound good for you, Travis.
No, I heard your name in there.
There's no beeping needed, but those who know know.
So, unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for all of us, the quote-unquote pilled character archetype is here to stay.
Oh, yeah.
With more and more movies having at least one character who is open to alien hybrids.
Now, this used to be portrayed solely by Woody Harrelson, living in some kind of, you know, shack or RV.
That's so true.
But now we see these types of characters inhabiting positions of power, just like in real life.
Yeah.
Yeah, this movie was, it was very interesting.
First of all, it's like probably the first time that we watch a movie by like a big A24, you know, kind of breakout talent or whatever.
Personally, I don't know.
That's fair.
That's fair.
I'm not like the biggest Ariaster guy.
Like, I definitely have enjoyed a few of his movies.
I think he never quite gets to great.
I think he's made a few like good movies that I really appreciate, but he is someone who, you know, just, I don't know, just something about it doesn't quite do it for me.
That's probably the same thing with that Greek guy.
What's his name?
That everyone's all about?
Pretty things and whatever.
Anyways, that guy.
But I will say, this is what I wrote down.
Dr. Astor has diagnosed America, and it turns out America is one sick puppy.
Everybody is yelling at each other and shooting at each other, and they're all fucking crazy.
It's a damn dumpster fire, you guys.
And there's literally a dumpster fire also that shows up.
So that's my overall opening salvo.
Yeah, a lot of the energy feels similar to when that journalist is interviewing Hunter S. Thompson and he gets out of his seat to like shoot a couple rounds off at his neighbor who's firing at him.
It sort of has that kind of chaotic vibe, at least as the movie builds.
There's definitely like a turn that was like pretty shocking, like when things escalate.
I'll say that and we'll get to it, obviously.
But what I wrote here as a kind of like the two polls that I kind of was bouncing between in terms of my feeling about this movie was it's like at its worst, it's an A24 live-action South Park.
At its best, it's pretty good satire capturing the Zeitgeist, I think.
You know, fuck.
I was worried we might agree.
Yeah, and we agree?
Yeah, I mean, for- That's okay.
I can still be mean to you for no reason or something.
Somebody I saw on the Patreon comments try to make it clear.
They said that Julian has a British European, it's French style of humor that us Americans don't get.
Oh, wow.
That's so fucking clothed in nastiness.
They're trying to gaslight you, dude.
They're trying to normalize my behavior.
Don't ever let them get to you, Jake.
Don't ever think that the way I am is normal.
Fucking European, my ass.
So the best way that I could describe watching Eddington, which, as we mentioned, is the latest film from Ari Astor, who did Hereditary, which I liked, Midsummer, which I also liked, and Bo Is Afraid, which I thought was very funny at times, is that it really made me sad for young people who have known nothing but Trump, social media, the pandemic, and pillowness.
It's kind of what I came away feeling as I was like, oh, God, like, you know, because there's some portrayal of, you know, high school kids going through the pandemic and how do they socialize and their crush and how do you deal with your crush who's an activist and how do you be woke enough and all this stuff.
And I was like, oh my God, like I would be, man, I don't think I could hang in this, in today's teenage economy.
Like it must have been really tough for those kids.
I will say that I did love, I think that that's like such a double-edged sword, too?
It's like the there is some interesting cinematography, like using screen in screen or like phones or like social media posts like integrated into the movie.
But then on the other side of that, I would say it's just so fucking depressing that this is where we're at.
Like it's just it just is a bit degrading to have to have to like have like a plot point hinge on like whether they read an Instagram DM.
Like that, that is hard to swallow.
It makes me feel like an old man.
This movie tries its best and I think succeeds more than most at trying to freeze a 360 degree view, like a Matrix camera of the country's polarization around the summer of 2020.
It's like a messy quilt sewn together from bits and pieces of 60 second clips on YouTube shorts.
I think I would agree with that.
It's probably like the definitely like the best attempt at capturing the crazy making of the COVID era than like any sort of like art or movie I've seen.
But I don't know.
It still kind of like falls short.
It's far less than I would hope for.
And I think this is important because I remember when I was working on the Trickle Down episode about how like the health authorities really dropped the ball on the so-called Spanish flu there during World War I era.
And this pandemic was like forgotten for a whole generation.
And part of that was because, well, historians simply didn't write about it for until like the 60s and 70s, but also because like there was just no art about it.
There was no books.
There was no movies.
There was no attempt to kind of like process this massive trauma that like the whole country and the whole world shared.
So I think it's very important that today that, you know, we have some sort of cultural artistic kind of like touchstone to reference in order to process how horrible that experience was.
And, you know, I'm glad for the attempt.
And like I said, it's better than most, but I don't know.
It's not as good as I hoped it was.
Yeah, I feel like it's almost impossible because you're trying to make art about like the hole in our heads that was put there by like a cattle gun.
You know, it's like we're trying to like diagnose ourselves and look at what is essentially, you know, like you said, I guess it is obviously like a traumatic experience, but more than anything, it's like a boring, awful blank.
Like it's just like a weird fucking pocket that we just like lost part of our lives in.
You've been listening to a sample of a premium episode of the QA podcast.
For access to the full episode, as well as all past premium episodes and all of our podcast miniseries, go to patreon.com slash QA.
Travis, why is that such a good deal?
Well, Jake, you get hundreds of additional episodes of the QAA podcast for just $5 per month.
For that very low price, you get access to over 200 premium episodes, plus all of our miniseries.
That includes 10 episodes of Man Clan with Julia and the Nanny, 10 episodes of Perverse with Julia and Liv, 10 episodes of The Spectral Voyager with Jake and Brad, plus 20 episodes of Trickle Down with me, Travis View.
It's a bounty of content and the best deal in podcasting.
Travis, for once, I agree with you.
And I also agree that people could subscribe by going to patreon.com slash QAA.
