Rob Ager! What an amazing guest. Been watching his channels for many years now. Love his taste in film and his analyses so its great to finally see an interview with the man. Very cool.
I went to Liverpool in the late nineties. The city didn’t seem in a great shape. People were actually baffled we, a French family of four, had actually chosen Liverpool for our summer holidays when we were basically living four hours from the southern French coast. They really did’t understand we we had chosen Liverpool for vacation (it was almost a pilgrimage, for us, in the land of our beloved Beatles…). I remember many, many signs on buildings repeating ‘To let’, ‘To let’, ‘To let’. ! I also remember of course the Mersey, Strawberry Fields, red bricks and my brother finding Michael Head’s address (singer of the Pale Fountains, wonderful band) and being amazed that the guy had given up music altogether and did’t want anything from life besides watching football matches at the pub, with a couple of beers. Everybody was very nice. The city was beautiful in its own way -I grew up in an old industrial town in France so I have a feel for these atmospheres. I also heard it got better since. Great to hear about it and also your life and work. Best wishes from a friend of Liverpool, and of your channel.
1) So glad I am not alone in finding Nolan's films underwhelming. I like parts of The Dark Knight and I find The Prestige enjoyable enough, but I've never been able to warm to his work. 2) I chuckled a bit when you were both discussing different versions of All Quiet on the Western Front. There are three versions of it: the first is from 1930, the second from 1979, and the most recent came out on Netflix last year. I've only seen the 1930 one, which an early masterpiece of sound cinema IMO. It really made great use of sound to depict the horrors of war at a time when "Talkies" were still a bit of a novelty.
@Collative Learning Tsk tsk, it's an all time classic, Rob! We're not all perfect haha. There isn't just the sound version of 1930, but there is also a silent version made for cinemas that didn't have speakers.
Memento is the only Nolan film I really like. But it also happens to be one of my favorite films of all time. Never seen a movie that was edited in such an odd way for such a good reason. Hope Rob gives it another chance someday. I love his videos. His analysis of Kubrick films in particular.
Memento is alright. I like The Prestige better, which to me is the only very good Nolan movie. But after Interstellar I gave up on him altogether. It's even worse than Interstellar which already is insufferable.
I get the complaints against Nolan, but I adore his strict adherence to doing everything in camera. The Prestige is my favorite, Interstellar would be if it ended in the tesseract...I feel the studio made him tack on the sappy sweet ending.
This is wonderful. It was so heartwarming hearing of Rob's daughter and their connection through film. I had a very similar experience and it just takes me right back there. I was around 10 or so when I saw Escape from Alcatraz and loved it. Birdman of Alcatraz with Burt Lancaster is fantastic too. Loved Cool Hand Luke, All Quiet on the Western front book and the 79 movie. Twelve Angry Men is superb. Talk about masterful dialogue! So many more I would love to hear you talk about. Someone in the comments mentioned One Flew Over the Coocoos Nest. Almost no movie I've seen has moved me like that one. I have a vision of my dad deep in dissociated bliss so close to the TV on the floor and I do the same thing. It is absolutely transformative in all ways. So much more to say about Rob's volunteer work and how much they see at shelters and clinics etc. I did that for a bit and it is very difficult. There's no way I could now. Richard, I love your writing and have been hoping you would do more film analysis yourself because I've really enjoyed everyone you've done. Thank you so much for getting back on this channel. So special. Love the easy connections you make. Wonderful banter, great host. Thank you Mr Ager. The true outstanding pioneers of RUclips make it all worthwhile. How would we survive without our therapeutic artforms?!
Kafka has a lot of the prison movie sentiment covered. Maybe it’s some deep guilt or shame to escape ourselves, break our egos, and then earn our freedom. I like them though. Alcatraz and Shawshank especially.
Very interesting conversation from start to finish. I love the part about the writing in new movies, very accurate. Nowadays the important thing isn't to convey the characters' emotions through a story, but rather to force a certain feeling to the viewer through some cliché formulas : a scene must have tension so we bring a problem out of nowhere, a scene must have a moving dialogue so we quickly write one about friendship or something, a scene must be funnier so we'll add a pun in the middle... That's why it feels so unnatural and meaningless. And all blockbusters are like that nowadays. They're not trying to build up anything. 😵💫 The part about how movies can depict what's in our minds makes a lot of sense too. Many artistic mediums have that ability, but due to their animated nature, movies are probably among the best to achieve it. It makes them a more living experience and a better depiction of our evolving imagination.
Great to see these 2 together. I’ve been a fan of Rob’s work for years. My parents are both from Liverpool and can confirm the archetypal discussed at the beginning of the chat. Brilliant discussion and great to hear those accents as I’ve been living abroad for most of my life.
Fabulous discussion. Huge Ager fan - I've been following his channels for ages. Richard - enjoyed your interviewing style. Actively listening, engaged & intelligent. Thank you!
Nolan is overarrated but he does know how to do BIG cinema. The Prestige is often overlooked as one of his better ones. Interstellar is a borefest most of the time except for the space bits. I liked Dunkirk but I think its unorthodox structure made it a bit hard to get into. Tenet was just trying to be too clever for its own good and couldn't really get the audience invested in the climax.
I use to listen to Rob all the time and even bought some of his downloadable videos on his website. Great to see him in this channel, and thanks for reintroducing him to me again.
Thank you gents! Watching this helped get me through cooking a brutal vegetable soup recipe 😜. I remember reading “All Quiet on the Western Front” in elementary school as my first palpable introduction to war. And the movie A.I. really made me rethink the hierarchy on the value of life forms. Why is carbon more valuable than silicone, for example? Who decides this, if there are unlimited life forms in the universe? This had me thinking. I also enjoyed the movie “12 Angry Men” in school which was a required film that we debated in social studies. Loved all the commentary in your YT video on these things. Thank you
A while back I remember leaving a comment on one of Rob's videos to basically stop saying things like "I know this might be going too far here but..." or "I know people in the comments are gonna say that's going way off on a tangent"... Why? Because the next time you watch (whatever movie) - you DO notice these motifs, you DO notice what you never noticed before, there ARE hidden depths, there are many ways to interpret a scene... The guy is an expert, end of.
The absence of fun! There it is! Ironically, we're approaching in era of a complete lack of sincerity. This is coming off a decade of serious, totally-sincere, gritty films. We're pingponging between extremes of over-sincerity and a complete lack thereof, a mix that so many films made between to 50s and 90s had mastered.
Excellent discussion here! Really enjoyed it. Heard you are familiar with NLP, so I'd love to see you and Rob talk about your thoughts on NLP in detail. Also would like to see you two talk on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Your and Rob's experiences in the fields would come strongly for discussing the movie and the novel (the movie is already renowned as well for its strong social commentary outside the mental institution context).
Nice to see Rob Ager doing collaborations with others. Hope we get more of this! I love his analyses even if I don’t always agree with them; they’re well-researched and quite informative.
@@hwoarangthedoorbell a sh… is someone who has no clue , does no research , eats whatever mass channelers like that paid for disinfo agent Anger serves . Why should there be any irony ? I could as well say : „ stup.. Id…ot
@@georgwagner5916 I know what the term means. I just think it’s really cringe whenever someone uses it as a serious insult. I mostly associate it with 9/11 truthers or QAnon conspiracy types who scream it at others. If you don’t like Rob Ager, nobody’s forcing you to watch this video. If you don’t like his research, you’re more than welcome to go into detail about what specifically you think is poorly researched or what qualifies as misinformation.
@@hwoarangthedoorbell I can tell you: Ager has made several statements in his YT comments I think are dubious, in praise of the modern right wing and even in defense of Donald Trump. He also made a vide (since taken down, either by himself or by YT, I don't know) where he claimed he wasn't going to be vaccinated as he was worried about "side effects." When I brought these things up in the comments on one of his videos, he went nuts, calling me a liar and "intimidated by" him and a load of nonsense. He lied about it, I think to backtrack because YT cracked down on the deleted video maybe.
Great interview. Delighted to see Rob give his thoughts. Would like to have heard some thoughts about the serious knobbing that went on in Eyes Wide Shut. Even more than the stuff he already did.
I've been following BOTH of you for well over a decade. Pleasantly surprised to see you both know each other. Some day, the three of us (that's Rob, Richie, and myself) will do a project together. Laugh if you want, but it will happen.
"Star child" a little on the nose, are we Kubrick? Ha😂 it's not obvious, but I think it's key. He is saying, "we are children playing in space, brainwashed by our massive 'monolithic' television screens..." i thank rob ager for all his video analysis.
Haha, that's not strong. Come to Liverpool and you'll find a range of scouse accents, some so strong a lot of peopple around the country can't understand what they're saying or get the lingo itself. The one that cracks me up is that a lot of Liverpool born taxi drivers seem to have developed an accent of their own.
Brilliant long form interview. One additional comment regarding the walking during the 'briefing on the Moon' discussion around the 86-min mark. We must bear in mind that is the filming took place BEFORE we landed on the Moon, so although NASA had an appreciation of walking in reduced gravity we had not seen (or experienced) the bouncing walk so Kubrick did not have the same imprinted TV footage that we have from Apollo's 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17.
I really enjoyed this conversation- it made me laugh, introduced me to new ideas and gave me a glimpse into the life of decent person - a satisfying meal for my mind. Thank you both!!!
I know what Rob is talking about. When we (American) lived in England our son had an English accent when talking with his primary school friends, then an American accent when he talked to me & his Dad
I see Rob Ager's face as terribly attractive, very masculine, friendly-looking handsome head on this dude. Incredibly insightful analytical INTP mindset too.
I would highly recommend a canadian movie called "Incendies". It's not a prison movie, although there are prison scenes. But it's a very strong movie, I loved it.
Great interview! While I largely agree with your opinions on Nolan, I wonder what you think of The Prestige. It has some of the problems that later Nolan films do, but for my money it's easily his most effective film.
Great interview. Love this types of free flowing chats and wish there was the more of it. Ben watching rob since 2007 and would love to sit down and chat with him
That bit around 39:00 minutes where Rob starts talking about a character saying something important that you have to remember for later in the film (I think they were talking about Christopher Nolan at that point in the video), I remember when I watched Jacobs ladder and it was at the part where Danny Aiellos character was doing his chiropractor thing and he cracked Tim Robbins neck and he had that momentary vision and he said "what did you do to me" and Danny Aiello said "I had to get in there deep" and then Tim Robbins said "in this light you kinda look like a cherub" (I can't remember if that's exactly how he said it but that was the sentiment) I remember that sticking with me for a bit and then I said "that's his guardian angel". It all just kind of hit me when he said that. All that talk about Eckhart and how it was all a matter of perspective whether you were seeing angels or demons, I just knew after that scene that that was his guardian angel. I was a kid when I watched it the first time but even then I was just really into it. I've always had a fascination with strange and thought provoking movies. Also, the ending of that movie makes me cry every single time I watch it when his kid is leading him up the stairs to heaven. It's such a beautiful scene and I crack every time.
Forgot to mention that same guy then told me whenever he visited his psychiatrist he would get a voice telling the shrink was an a-hole. I laughed and told him that was normal and that I had the same thing with my employers.
Ah interesting to hear about the Simon Weston gig. He gave a talk at work the other day and he basically said everyone's just a person, just have a laugh with each other and at yourself.
Ah, wow! I just love Rob Ager and his work, especially on the Shining! I have been watching everything! 🤗⭐️😀🙂 And - I love your work! Followed almost everyhing! 😀🤗🙂⭐️ This just have to be great, I am so looking forward! Thank you! This was a very nice friday-night suprise for my taste and heart! ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Have a very nice evning, all the best, and love from Norway 🫶
Lol, I love the fact that the beginning of this video they're both talking about being scousers. A scouser came to our primary school (In Scunthorpe) when we were kids. It was 1988 and Liverpool football team were very popular and there was also that scouse guy on Grange Hill, Ziggy. This kid was instantly the most popular kid in school, just for the way he spoke. Incredibly powerful that when you think about impressionable kids.
I saw a tenant in theaters when it came out, definitely a fun spectacle with the loud sound design and planes crashing into buildings. However, at the end I was left with this feeling that the story was a jumbled mess. I’ve seen it a second time and watched a bunch of RUclips videos explaining the film and I still feel like he got a little too far up his own ass with the story. Arrival is an example of a heady sci-fi movie that plays with time, but the way all the narratives come together so cleanly makes it a much more rewarding film to sit through.
I felt like some lines in the new Mission Impossible were written by AI: "Get off my back, I'm under a lot of pressure here!" Multimillion dollar budget but dimestore writing.
Well its mighty convenient to have you both in the same place at the same time. Now, look boys, I'm not a big Nolen fan. The only movie of his I truly liked at all was Dunkirk. But let's just say my friend was on lsd at the movies a year before Tenet came out & seen a teaser for Tenet. So when Tenet came out, he took lsd again, good stuff, and went to see it. It made him walk out. But, the narrative he saw playing out subliminally & the experience he had afterward was tremendously unique & fascinating, yet very alarming. For one, he couldn't stop talking about death & how unfinal it was. "Death. The final frontier!" He kept saying. He said we are all connected to our ancestors permanently via cosmic frequency & that the dead are not, but only waiting, waiting to see us again. On & on he went about the afterlife & how all our ancestors all exist at the same time in frequency form there where they congregate with their respective fellow frequency creatures & wait together to meet again in the 3rd dimension where they can have real experiences together to cherrish with their most loved ones, because apperantly the most worthwhile existence for any spirit/frequency creature is in the 3rd dimension where you can touch, feel & behold beauty & experience love. So, they stake out & pursue each other in life & after, their soul mission to hang out in physicsl form. And that they do this over & over for eternity, or until enlightenment. This all correlates very well with the Tibetin Book of the Dead. He claimed our family & loved ones throughout this life are in fact members of said frequency field we belong to in the afterlife & that nobody we have any significant interaction with is by chance, but planned in advance in the frequency world for untold reasons. He kept saying he could see visually in his mind how it all worked & the best way to describe it so a sober person could understand it was quire possibly with math & numerology, but he did not have the knowledge necessary to do so. He offered one example, that being how close & near exact the numbers of the ages, birthdays, old phone numbers & addresses were of several members of his family & his wife's family. Convinced they have all been family countless times over, all belonging to a frequency group that has mastered the cycle. How did he get all this from watching Tenet on acid? He said the movie was psychologically, painfully awkward to sit through once he realized it wasnt going to make sense at any point. But was drawn in initially by the music & introductory action intrigue. Before he knew it a hidden narrative unfolded he described in his words as "a film makers best effort using humans most advanced art method to simulate the existence of spirits revolving in & out of the afterlife so a human can understand it". Then he got into this way crazy stuff about humans invention of making ourselves & objects move at unnaturally high speeds, like bullets & rockets, is the most advanced, high frequency thing we have ever conceived of on a cosmic & spiritual level. This being, he thinks because the faster we move, the higher our frequency gets, & that fast moving objects raise frequencies around them. It all finally concluded with him circumspecting on ways one might break through to a new frequency & enter a new cycle. His conclusion was a guaranteed way to do this would be to either make your body move at an incredibly high speed for an incredibly long time, or making an object pass through key points of the body at a high rate of speed. What do you think. Is Tenet telling us to kill ourselves? Or do all movies telling us this? Is my friend onto something, or is he just trippin? Well. See ya later.
Your friend is intelligent and the LSD opened him up further. He could have watched the tele tubbies and found deep Gnostic truth about the simulation we are trapped in (that’s not a real Sun it’s a baby’s face ! New life! Life source) and so on. I had revelations about genetics while watching Dirty Harry and eating a Chinese takeaway when I was tripping on LSD. Nolan is a risk taker and the final battle scenes are psychedilically interesting as imterpreted as spirit soldiers revolving door to fight and kill themselves but the death reverberates backwards and forwards through time. I just can’t credit Nolan for that. Am I wrong not to? Let’s ask Nolan through his favourite medium , hack exposition-heavy screenplay: “Is the Grannon hypothesis wrong or not?” “To know that we’d need to find the engineer.” “The engineers dead.” “The agency thought so too until we started picking up his encrypted signal out of morroco 3 months ago.” “Morocco? As in … Northern Africa?” “Jet leaves in 5 minutes, agent. Hope you packed your toothbrush.” * panning swooping drone shot of Marrakesh, Arabic soundtrack swells, b roll of market traders and a close up of a beautiful womans eyes in a burka* Protagonists are now dressed like 1920’s colonists in crushed cotton suits for no reason at all except they are in movieland 🎦 Arabia and that’s what we do (see inception for wardrobe pointers). Our protagonists pick up the conversation where it left off before their 9 hour jet ride because presumably they sat the entire journey in total silence. “The engineer can’t be paid in cash… he only takes …” “Hummus, that’s right. We brought 5 tonnes in via a covert shipping lane last night.” “He doesn’t like me, not since the incident in …” “Ghent, yes we know all about, bloody mess. He hates you now.” “How should I approach him?” *smiles rakishly* “By being charming ! Isn’t that what you do Agent Bumblefuck?” They laugh amiably and the shot pans out to the city, before they jump cut to the inside of a Bedouin well where a meeting with some Russian gangsters is taking place …. I mean Nolan is so predictable and derivative and formulaic at this point I feel I can write the scene and the dialogue with precision 25 seconds before it starts with 95 % accuracy and it makes my soul feel numb. Except for the scene with the reverse firing guns on the pistol range. Which was so monumentally dumb I was astounded he left it in the final edit and flabbergasted the internet didn’t mock him to death for. “How do I aim and shoot that unfires bullets in reverse and so should heal my enemies of gunshot wounds and restore them to health.” “No it’s worse than a normal gunshot wound” “Why?” “Exit wounds do more damage than entry wounds making reverse gunshot wounds more lethal.” “Okaaay … I guess…so how do I aim this previously aimed gun and I fire the trigger specifically designed to be depressed by force?” “Just… don’t think ok? Just feel it.” “Rightio! I should be good to kill baddies in reverse now! Thanks for the tips!!” 🤦🏼♂️
@@RichardGrannonFriends yeah, I haven't really enjoyed a Nolan movie since Memento. Well, ok I kind of liked the prestige a little and I enjoyed Heath Ledger's performance in the dark knight but Nolan definitely seems to have a pattern to his films that's become very obvious PS: God, I've had some strange experiences on hallucinogens but I don't know if I've ever gleaned anything that deep from my experiences. Then again, I tend to listen to music alot when I'm in that state. I really like the vibrations I feel from music in that state
@Richard Grannon & Friends Thank you for this perspective. Yes, I agree Nolen movies are not even close to what they pretend to be. It would be cool if one of his concepts actually landed it might be rewarding for ppl. I think they could land of he were an indie director, like memento landed as far as I know, & it was a indie movie right? I only seen it once, didn't even know it was a nolen film until this podcast. But what we get is portrayed as deep, profound concepts & cutting edge action scenes that all comes off as hacky, pseudo-intelligent, derivative, movie-logic themes that only make sense in small spurts & the action scenes are dry & bloodless & despite he uses primarily practical effects it still looks CGI. Yeah fuck that guy. Again, thanks for the reply, that made my friend feel extremely validated. But there is one more thing I'd like to run by for his sake... So, idk of you caught that bit at the end on how after all his conclusion of his deep speculations triggered by the trip/film he decided the most interesting & proactive thing a person could do with their human life as a spiritual being is to end it via suicide. He said the reveal of what's on the other side was extremely alluring with these realizations, but most of all it was like there was this calling for him to be there like his business there heavily outweighed his business here. He seen this all with great clarity & spoke very positively & enthusiastically about such a notion. No sadness or darkness associated with this suicidal consideration. He of course came down & did not do this & the notion to hapily take his own life in the name of adventure never returned. The only thing is, this is not a one off event. There has been at least 3 other times he took acid & ended up at the movies, or just watching one at home that brought him into this state. The difference with the Tenet trip was that there was significantly less fear to the point he could articulate all this to us perfectly & near scholarly. So I guess to put it simply , what is wrong with my friend to repeatedly have these experiences when he trips? He thought any asking his therapist who is trained in hypnosis, but decided not to bring up suicidal idiations with someone who is bound by law to report it, despite the fact the thoughts were drug induced. So that is why I ask you... not looking for free therapy, but can't trust the stuff he's paying for, so maybe you could shed some intellect for my shot out friend who is now afraid to trip again.
Liverpool ??! then how come you chaps dont sound like The Beetles, heh?! just messn wit you Brits - great job and interview, esp liked the Kubrick info. (btw, i know how Rob feels about movin round as a youngster, me mum lived in TN, me Pa in Chicago, moved back and forth every summer , grew up with TWO American accents: one southern, one Chicagon / midwest accent. )
Tell rob to check out bird man of Alcatraz. Prison movie with Burt Lancaster. I saw it as a child and loved it. Haven’t seen it since so I can’t vouch for how it’s aged . Probably worth looking into though.
Saw it again a few months back and I still think it's good. The bird raising stuff I always found charming, and actually the film is very vocal about the invisible prisons of society. My only gripe with the film is that the scripting and acting feels too noticeably staged, but it's still a good movie.
I agree about Christopher Nolan. All of his films after _Following_ and _Memento_ aren’t really that interesting. Those first two are clever enough to keep me interested and both have a cool visual style.
Hollywood has decided to hire the writers who will go along with The Message, rather than writers who have life experience and know how to write. They're mutually exclusive categories, since The Message goes against all common sense and real-world experience. Nothing but compliant nancy-boys, with nothing to contribute but an imitation of an imitation. The Alien franchise really suffers from this. The first two movies dealt with truckers and marines; both of whom say pronounce "I love you" using r-rated four letter words. The later writers mistook this for a characteristic of the Alien universe: "In the future, everybody's a dick for no reason." So, we've got the obnoxious anger and psychopathy present in every single character, making the films largely unwatchable. This is what happens when the modern writing cadre has never worked a day in their life.
Rob Ager! What an amazing guest. Been watching his channels for many years now. Love his taste in film and his analyses so its great to finally see an interview with the man. Very cool.
Rob is the OG. He got me so much deeper into film in my late teens..
Same lol
12 Angry Men (1957). Filmed in black and white, set all in one room and still one of the best films ever.
Rob, and the Red Letter Media crew are the Godfathers of RUclips imo.
Nice to hear Rob give them a respectful nod.
I went to Liverpool in the late nineties. The city didn’t seem in a great shape. People were actually baffled we, a French family of four, had actually chosen Liverpool for our summer holidays when we were basically living four hours from the southern French coast. They really did’t understand we we had chosen Liverpool for vacation (it was almost a pilgrimage, for us, in the land of our beloved Beatles…). I remember many, many signs on buildings repeating ‘To let’, ‘To let’, ‘To let’. ! I also remember of course the Mersey, Strawberry Fields, red bricks and my brother finding Michael Head’s address (singer of the Pale Fountains, wonderful band) and being amazed that the guy had given up music altogether and did’t want anything from life besides watching football matches at the pub, with a couple of beers. Everybody was very nice. The city was beautiful in its own way -I grew up in an old industrial town in France so I have a feel for these atmospheres. I also heard it got better since. Great to hear about it and also your life and work. Best wishes from a friend of Liverpool, and of your channel.
Brilliant conversation! I had no idea Rob and Richard knew of each other. More of this please!
1) So glad I am not alone in finding Nolan's films underwhelming. I like parts of The Dark Knight and I find The Prestige enjoyable enough, but I've never been able to warm to his work.
2) I chuckled a bit when you were both discussing different versions of All Quiet on the Western Front. There are three versions of it: the first is from 1930, the second from 1979, and the most recent came out on Netflix last year. I've only seen the 1930 one, which an early masterpiece of sound cinema IMO. It really made great use of sound to depict the horrors of war at a time when "Talkies" were still a bit of a novelty.
Didn't know about the 30's version. I only saw the 70's one.
@Collative Learning Tsk tsk, it's an all time classic, Rob! We're not all perfect haha. There isn't just the sound version of 1930, but there is also a silent version made for cinemas that didn't have speakers.
@@Mitch93 Yes, that's right! I would love to see the silent version, just to see how the film plays without that wonderful soundscape.
43 minutes in and I just gotta say, Richard, good job getting this guy. Such a great guest so far.
This guy is a Legend, never seen film analyses like his.
Memento is the only Nolan film I really like. But it also happens to be one of my favorite films of all time. Never seen a movie that was edited in such an odd way for such a good reason. Hope Rob gives it another chance someday. I love his videos. His analysis of Kubrick films in particular.
Memento is alright. I like The Prestige better, which to me is the only very good Nolan movie. But after Interstellar I gave up on him altogether. It's even worse than Interstellar which already is insufferable.
I get the complaints against Nolan, but I adore his strict adherence to doing everything in camera. The Prestige is my favorite, Interstellar would be if it ended in the tesseract...I feel the studio made him tack on the sappy sweet ending.
@@curiositytax9360 Interesting. That makes sense.
@@Fredrik-iz4ou Inception? Yeah terrible. He peaked with The Prestige and I really haven't liked much since.
The GOAT of film RUclips. :)
This is wonderful.
It was so heartwarming hearing of Rob's daughter and their connection through film. I had a very similar experience and it just takes me right back there. I was around 10 or so when I saw Escape from Alcatraz and loved it. Birdman of Alcatraz with Burt Lancaster is fantastic too. Loved Cool Hand Luke, All Quiet on the Western front book and the 79 movie. Twelve Angry Men is superb. Talk about masterful dialogue! So many more I would love to hear you talk about. Someone in the comments mentioned One Flew Over the Coocoos Nest. Almost no movie I've seen has moved me like that one.
I have a vision of my dad deep in dissociated bliss so close to the TV on the floor and I do the same thing. It is absolutely transformative in all ways.
So much more to say about Rob's volunteer work and how much they see at shelters and clinics etc. I did that for a bit and it is very difficult. There's no way I could now.
Richard, I love your writing and have been hoping you would do more film analysis yourself because I've really enjoyed everyone you've done.
Thank you so much for getting back on this channel. So special. Love the easy connections you make. Wonderful banter, great host.
Thank you Mr Ager. The true outstanding pioneers of RUclips make it all worthwhile. How would we survive without our therapeutic artforms?!
Rob's brilliant, fantastic interview!
What a brilliant conversation, I love Rob and his movie knowledge
Kafka has a lot of the prison movie sentiment covered. Maybe it’s some deep guilt or shame to escape ourselves, break our egos, and then earn our freedom. I like them though. Alcatraz and Shawshank especially.
Enjoyed this! From someone who also is torn between art and psychology 👍🏼
Very interesting conversation from start to finish. I love the part about the writing in new movies, very accurate. Nowadays the important thing isn't to convey the characters' emotions through a story, but rather to force a certain feeling to the viewer through some cliché formulas : a scene must have tension so we bring a problem out of nowhere, a scene must have a moving dialogue so we quickly write one about friendship or something, a scene must be funnier so we'll add a pun in the middle... That's why it feels so unnatural and meaningless. And all blockbusters are like that nowadays. They're not trying to build up anything. 😵💫
The part about how movies can depict what's in our minds makes a lot of sense too. Many artistic mediums have that ability, but due to their animated nature, movies are probably among the best to achieve it. It makes them a more living experience and a better depiction of our evolving imagination.
Great to see these 2 together. I’ve been a fan of Rob’s work for years. My parents are both from Liverpool and can confirm the archetypal discussed at the beginning of the chat. Brilliant discussion and great to hear those accents as I’ve been living abroad for most of my life.
Fabulous discussion. Huge Ager fan - I've been following his channels for ages. Richard - enjoyed your interviewing style. Actively listening, engaged & intelligent. Thank you!
Nolan is overarrated but he does know how to do BIG cinema. The Prestige is often overlooked as one of his better ones. Interstellar is a borefest most of the time except for the space bits. I liked Dunkirk but I think its unorthodox structure made it a bit hard to get into. Tenet was just trying to be too clever for its own good and couldn't really get the audience invested in the climax.
Fantastic guy!!! Very interesting, and hilarious conversation. Thanks for sharing. That was a lot of fun. ❤🖖
So glad to see you hosting Rob :D
Very interesting video! I am super happy to see Rob lived in Canada, as a fellow Canuck.
My favourite cinema analyst discussing with my favorite human psyche student. I am flabbergasted.
Thank you gentlemen
I use to listen to Rob all the time and even bought some of his downloadable videos on his website. Great to see him in this channel, and thanks for reintroducing him to me again.
I discovered this podcast today. So interesting!
I love "Midnight Express" so much! Saw it when I was a teen back in the 80s, and not long ago also. I love the music too.
Thank you gents! Watching this helped get me through cooking a brutal vegetable soup recipe 😜. I remember reading “All Quiet on the Western Front” in elementary school as my first palpable introduction to war. And the movie A.I. really made me rethink the hierarchy on the value of life forms. Why is carbon more valuable than silicone, for example? Who decides this, if there are unlimited life forms in the universe? This had me thinking. I also enjoyed the movie “12 Angry Men” in school which was a required film that we debated in social studies. Loved all the commentary in your YT video on these things. Thank you
1:33:20 the "never let a good crisis go to waste" philosophy.
My two favourite Scousers! I audibly gasped with delight when I saw it in my recommendations.
A while back I remember leaving a comment on one of Rob's videos to basically stop saying things like "I know this might be going too far here but..." or "I know people in the comments are gonna say that's going way off on a tangent"...
Why? Because the next time you watch (whatever movie) - you DO notice these motifs, you DO notice what you never noticed before, there ARE hidden depths, there are many ways to interpret a scene...
The guy is an expert, end of.
The absence of fun! There it is! Ironically, we're approaching in era of a complete lack of sincerity. This is coming off a decade of serious, totally-sincere, gritty films. We're pingponging between extremes of over-sincerity and a complete lack thereof, a mix that so many films made between to 50s and 90s had mastered.
Excellent discussion here! Really enjoyed it. Heard you are familiar with NLP, so I'd love to see you and Rob talk about your thoughts on NLP in detail. Also would like to see you two talk on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Your and Rob's experiences in the fields would come strongly for discussing the movie and the novel (the movie is already renowned as well for its strong social commentary outside the mental institution context).
Eddy Murphy has a prison movie..think it’s called “life”…. It’s hilarious, and touching. I highly recommend it if you are wanting a good chuckle.
Indeed, "Life" is a great underrated movie
Very interesting. Cheers!
Huge fan of Rob Ager! Great discussion.
Love it, great interview!!! Wouldn't mind more♥️
Nice to see Rob Ager doing collaborations with others. Hope we get more of this! I love his analyses even if I don’t always agree with them; they’re well-researched and quite informative.
Quite dis informative and well gate- kept , so the sheeple THINK they are informed
@@georgwagner5916 I can’t take anyone seriously when they use the word “sheeple” unironically.
@@hwoarangthedoorbell a sh… is someone who has no clue , does no research , eats whatever mass channelers like that paid for disinfo agent Anger serves . Why should there be any irony ? I could as well say : „ stup.. Id…ot
@@georgwagner5916 I know what the term means. I just think it’s really cringe whenever someone uses it as a serious insult. I mostly associate it with 9/11 truthers or QAnon conspiracy types who scream it at others.
If you don’t like Rob Ager, nobody’s forcing you to watch this video. If you don’t like his research, you’re more than welcome to go into detail about what specifically you think is poorly researched or what qualifies as misinformation.
@@hwoarangthedoorbell I can tell you: Ager has made several statements in his YT comments I think are dubious, in praise of the modern right wing and even in defense of Donald Trump. He also made a vide (since taken down, either by himself or by YT, I don't know) where he claimed he wasn't going to be vaccinated as he was worried about "side effects." When I brought these things up in the comments on one of his videos, he went nuts, calling me a liar and "intimidated by" him and a load of nonsense. He lied about it, I think to backtrack because YT cracked down on the deleted video maybe.
Ager is a true pioneer. Grannon has a good voice. Great interview.
Great interview. Delighted to see Rob give his thoughts. Would like to have heard some thoughts about the serious knobbing that went on in Eyes Wide Shut. Even more than the stuff he already did.
Been watching Rob's channel for awhile now. I love his detailed analysis of different aspects of films and the themes they explore.
Nice one. Please have rob again.
I've been following BOTH of you for well over a decade. Pleasantly surprised to see you both know each other.
Some day, the three of us (that's Rob, Richie, and myself) will do a project together. Laugh if you want, but it will happen.
"Star child" a little on the nose, are we Kubrick? Ha😂 it's not obvious, but I think it's key. He is saying, "we are children playing in space, brainwashed by our massive 'monolithic' television screens..." i thank rob ager for all his video analysis.
came from collative learning, great interview
Always wanted to see an interview Rob Ager. Seems like a salt of the earth kind of guy, interesting to hear about his history with social work
Great interview! I think some appeal of prison escape movies is a mindset of injustice (imprisonment) to justice, freedom, and possibly redemption.
God bless Rob Ager. I am new to this channel so I would like to extend blessings to Richard Grannon as well. Cheers to you both.
"Me accent is not very strong", said with a strong accent. I think it's cute, the strong accent.
Two of my favourite thinkers together, what a treat!
Haha, that's not strong. Come to Liverpool and you'll find a range of scouse accents, some so strong a lot of peopple around the country can't understand what they're saying or get the lingo itself. The one that cracks me up is that a lot of Liverpool born taxi drivers seem to have developed an accent of their own.
Brilliant long form interview. One additional comment regarding the walking during the 'briefing on the Moon' discussion around the 86-min mark. We must bear in mind that is the filming took place BEFORE we landed on the Moon, so although NASA had an appreciation of walking in reduced gravity we had not seen (or experienced) the bouncing walk so Kubrick did not have the same imprinted TV footage that we have from Apollo's 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17.
I really enjoyed this conversation- it made me laugh, introduced me to new ideas and gave me a glimpse into the life of decent person - a satisfying meal for my mind. Thank you both!!!
I'm gobsmaked! Rob Ager is one of my favorite film analyst and Richard has helped me so much...what an astounding interview! Thank you! 😘😘😘
I know what Rob is talking about. When we (American) lived in England our son had an English accent when talking with his primary school friends, then an American accent when he talked to me & his Dad
I really enjoyed that lads nice one
Rob Ager is the man.
I see Rob Ager's face as terribly attractive, very masculine, friendly-looking handsome head on this dude. Incredibly insightful analytical INTP mindset too.
Much respect to ya Rob.
A great pleasure!
And yeah, Nolan showed his talent with Momento, and then he was 'put to work'.
I would highly recommend a canadian movie called "Incendies". It's not a prison movie, although there are prison scenes. But it's a very strong movie, I loved it.
New to this channel but love Rob - here to support.
When did this happen??
Rob Ager is brilliant! love to see him with you! Awesome!!!
Great interview! While I largely agree with your opinions on Nolan, I wonder what you think of The Prestige. It has some of the problems that later Nolan films do, but for my money it's easily his most effective film.
Didn't really like that one either. Watched about half of it. All his films feel gimmicky to me.
Great interview. Love this types of free flowing chats and wish there was the more of it. Ben watching rob since 2007 and would love to sit down and chat with him
Looks great 👍. 4am was a bit too early though at my end of the world to join live though 😊. Also, "The 12th Man", is an "exceptional" movie.
12:35 My idea of a good life if Rob and the other people I watch choose the content.
Haha, I can definitely relate with Rob on having my feet or my foot(s) in different rooms / worlds at the same damn time 🤣🤷🏽♂️
Last weekend I again watched Lynch's "Eraserhead" for the third time, and then immediately watched for the first time Kurosawa's "Rashomon".
That bit around 39:00 minutes where Rob starts talking about a character saying something important that you have to remember for later in the film (I think they were talking about Christopher Nolan at that point in the video), I remember when I watched Jacobs ladder and it was at the part where Danny Aiellos character was doing his chiropractor thing and he cracked Tim Robbins neck and he had that momentary vision and he said "what did you do to me" and Danny Aiello said "I had to get in there deep" and then Tim Robbins said "in this light you kinda look like a cherub" (I can't remember if that's exactly how he said it but that was the sentiment) I remember that sticking with me for a bit and then I said "that's his guardian angel". It all just kind of hit me when he said that. All that talk about Eckhart and how it was all a matter of perspective whether you were seeing angels or demons, I just knew after that scene that that was his guardian angel. I was a kid when I watched it the first time but even then I was just really into it. I've always had a fascination with strange and thought provoking movies. Also, the ending of that movie makes me cry every single time I watch it when his kid is leading him up the stairs to heaven. It's such a beautiful scene and I crack every time.
love Rob. he's great.
The poor guy with the vocal hallucination telling him to have a W--k. Hilarious!
Forgot to mention that same guy then told me whenever he visited his psychiatrist he would get a voice telling the shrink was an a-hole. I laughed and told him that was normal and that I had the same thing with my employers.
@@collativelearning Those poor shrinks get a bad wrap. But sometimes......??
Ah interesting to hear about the Simon Weston gig. He gave a talk at work the other day and he basically said everyone's just a person, just have a laugh with each other and at yourself.
More Rob Ager please. He's brilliant. 👍👌
Ah, wow! I just love Rob Ager and his work, especially on the Shining! I have been watching everything! 🤗⭐️😀🙂 And - I love your work! Followed almost everyhing! 😀🤗🙂⭐️ This just have to be great, I am so looking forward! Thank you! This was a very nice friday-night suprise for my taste and heart! ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Have a very nice evning, all the best, and love from Norway 🫶
Lol, I love the fact that the beginning of this video they're both talking about being scousers. A scouser came to our primary school (In Scunthorpe) when we were kids. It was 1988 and Liverpool football team were very popular and there was also that scouse guy on Grange Hill, Ziggy. This kid was instantly the most popular kid in school, just for the way he spoke. Incredibly powerful that when you think about impressionable kids.
Been a fan of Rob Ager since the beginning, thats what got me here! Peerless pioneer. Would Rob Ager recommend some cool podcasts? TIA!
So glad to see this happen!
I saw a tenant in theaters when it came out, definitely a fun spectacle with the loud sound design and planes crashing into buildings. However, at the end I was left with this feeling that the story was a jumbled mess. I’ve seen it a second time and watched a bunch of RUclips videos explaining the film and I still feel like he got a little too far up his own ass with the story. Arrival is an example of a heady sci-fi movie that plays with time, but the way all the narratives come together so cleanly makes it a much more rewarding film to sit through.
Great points on current films. Ager is great as always.
This was excellent. Thank you.
Try "Swimming Pool" 2003 with Charlotte Rampling. Not one that either of you would ordinarily choose.
I felt like some lines in the new Mission Impossible were written by AI: "Get off my back, I'm under a lot of pressure here!" Multimillion dollar budget but dimestore writing.
😂😂😂😂 the cure for everything…rub one out…then nap ❤❤❤😂😂😂
Wow I never knew you lived in Canada for 5 years, that’s wild! I’m from Leeds and I’m living over there atm haha
*Wendy:* Rob! Rob! There's a crazy woman in room 237. She attacked Danny!
*Rob:* Are you out of your fvcking mind?
Well its mighty convenient to have you both in the same place at the same time. Now, look boys, I'm not a big Nolen fan. The only movie of his I truly liked at all was Dunkirk.
But let's just say my friend was on lsd at the movies a year before Tenet came out & seen a teaser for Tenet. So when Tenet came out, he took lsd again, good stuff, and went to see it. It made him walk out. But, the narrative he saw playing out subliminally & the experience he had afterward was tremendously unique & fascinating, yet very alarming.
For one, he couldn't stop talking about death & how unfinal it was.
"Death. The final frontier!" He kept saying.
He said we are all connected to our ancestors permanently via cosmic frequency & that the dead are not, but only waiting, waiting to see us again. On & on he went about the afterlife & how all our ancestors all exist at the same time in frequency form there where they congregate with their respective fellow frequency creatures & wait together to meet again in the 3rd dimension where they can have real experiences together to cherrish with their most loved ones, because apperantly the most worthwhile existence for any spirit/frequency creature is in the 3rd dimension where you can touch, feel & behold beauty & experience love. So, they stake out & pursue each other in life & after, their soul mission to hang out in physicsl form. And that they do this over & over for eternity, or until enlightenment. This all correlates very well with the Tibetin Book of the Dead.
He claimed our family & loved ones throughout this life are in fact members of said frequency field we belong to in the afterlife & that nobody we have any significant interaction with is by chance, but planned in advance in the frequency world for untold reasons.
He kept saying he could see visually in his mind how it all worked & the best way to describe it so a sober person could understand it was quire possibly with math & numerology, but he did not have the knowledge necessary to do so. He offered one example, that being how close & near exact the numbers of the ages, birthdays, old phone numbers & addresses were of several members of his family & his wife's family. Convinced they have all been family countless times over, all belonging to a frequency group that has mastered the cycle.
How did he get all this from watching Tenet on acid? He said the movie was psychologically, painfully awkward to sit through once he realized it wasnt going to make sense at any point. But was drawn in initially by the music & introductory action intrigue. Before he knew it a hidden narrative unfolded he described in his words as "a film makers best effort using humans most advanced art method to simulate the existence of spirits revolving in & out of the afterlife so a human can understand it".
Then he got into this way crazy stuff about humans invention of making ourselves & objects move at unnaturally high speeds, like bullets & rockets, is the most advanced, high frequency thing we have ever conceived of on a cosmic & spiritual level. This being, he thinks because the faster we move, the higher our frequency gets, & that fast moving objects raise frequencies around them. It all finally concluded with him circumspecting on ways one might break through to a new frequency & enter a new cycle. His conclusion was a guaranteed way to do this would be to either make your body move at an incredibly high speed for an incredibly long time, or making an object pass through key points of the body at a high rate of speed.
What do you think. Is Tenet telling us to kill ourselves? Or do all movies telling us this? Is my friend onto something, or is he just trippin?
Well. See ya later.
Your friend is intelligent and the LSD opened him up further.
He could have watched the tele tubbies and found deep Gnostic truth about the simulation we are trapped in (that’s not a real Sun it’s a baby’s face ! New life! Life source) and so on.
I had revelations about genetics while watching Dirty Harry and eating a Chinese takeaway when I was tripping on LSD.
Nolan is a risk taker and the final battle scenes are psychedilically interesting as imterpreted as spirit soldiers revolving door to fight and kill themselves but the death reverberates backwards and forwards through time.
I just can’t credit Nolan for that. Am I wrong not to? Let’s ask Nolan through his favourite medium , hack exposition-heavy screenplay:
“Is the Grannon hypothesis wrong or not?”
“To know that we’d need to find the engineer.”
“The engineers dead.”
“The agency thought so too until we started picking up his encrypted signal out of morroco 3 months ago.”
“Morocco? As in … Northern Africa?”
“Jet leaves in 5 minutes, agent. Hope you packed your toothbrush.”
* panning swooping drone shot of Marrakesh, Arabic soundtrack swells, b roll of market traders and a close up of a beautiful womans eyes in a burka*
Protagonists are now dressed like 1920’s colonists in crushed cotton suits for no reason at all except they are in movieland 🎦 Arabia and that’s what we do (see inception for wardrobe pointers).
Our protagonists pick up the conversation where it left off before their 9 hour jet ride because presumably they sat the entire journey in total silence.
“The engineer can’t be paid in cash… he only takes …”
“Hummus, that’s right. We brought 5 tonnes in via a covert shipping lane last night.”
“He doesn’t like me, not since the incident in …”
“Ghent, yes we know all about, bloody mess. He hates you now.”
“How should I approach him?”
*smiles rakishly*
“By being charming ! Isn’t that what you do Agent Bumblefuck?”
They laugh amiably and the shot pans out to the city, before they jump cut to the inside of a Bedouin well where a meeting with some Russian gangsters is taking place ….
I mean Nolan is so predictable and derivative and formulaic at this point I feel I can write the scene and the dialogue with precision 25 seconds before it starts with 95 % accuracy and it makes my soul feel numb.
Except for the scene with the reverse firing guns on the pistol range. Which was so monumentally dumb I was astounded he left it in the final edit and flabbergasted the internet didn’t mock him to death for.
“How do I aim and shoot that unfires bullets in reverse and so should heal my enemies of gunshot wounds and restore them to health.”
“No it’s worse than a normal gunshot wound”
“Why?”
“Exit wounds do more damage than entry wounds making reverse gunshot wounds more lethal.”
“Okaaay … I guess…so how do I aim this previously aimed gun and I fire the trigger specifically designed to be depressed by force?”
“Just… don’t think ok? Just feel it.”
“Rightio! I should be good to kill baddies in reverse now! Thanks for the tips!!”
🤦🏼♂️
@@RichardGrannonFriends yeah, I haven't really enjoyed a Nolan movie since Memento. Well, ok I kind of liked the prestige a little and I enjoyed Heath Ledger's performance in the dark knight but Nolan definitely seems to have a pattern to his films that's become very obvious
PS: God, I've had some strange experiences on hallucinogens but I don't know if I've ever gleaned anything that deep from my experiences. Then again, I tend to listen to music alot when I'm in that state. I really like the vibrations I feel from music in that state
@Richard Grannon & Friends Thank you for this perspective. Yes, I agree Nolen movies are not even close to what they pretend to be. It would be cool if one of his concepts actually landed it might be rewarding for ppl. I think they could land of he were an indie director, like memento landed as far as I know, & it was a indie movie right? I only seen it once, didn't even know it was a nolen film until this podcast. But what we get is portrayed as deep, profound concepts & cutting edge action scenes that all comes off as hacky, pseudo-intelligent, derivative, movie-logic themes that only make sense in small spurts & the action scenes are dry & bloodless & despite he uses primarily practical effects it still looks CGI. Yeah fuck that guy.
Again, thanks for the reply, that made my friend feel extremely validated. But there is one more thing I'd like to run by for his sake...
So, idk of you caught that bit at the end on how after all his conclusion of his deep speculations triggered by the trip/film he decided the most interesting & proactive thing a person could do with their human life as a spiritual being is to end it via suicide. He said the reveal of what's on the other side was extremely alluring with these realizations, but most of all it was like there was this calling for him to be there like his business there heavily outweighed his business here. He seen this all with great clarity & spoke very positively & enthusiastically about such a notion. No sadness or darkness associated with this suicidal consideration. He of course came down & did not do this & the notion to hapily take his own life in the name of adventure never returned. The only thing is, this is not a one off event.
There has been at least 3 other times he took acid & ended up at the movies, or just watching one at home that brought him into this state. The difference with the Tenet trip was that there was significantly less fear to the point he could articulate all this to us perfectly & near scholarly.
So I guess to put it simply , what is wrong with my friend to repeatedly have these experiences when he trips? He thought any asking his therapist who is trained in hypnosis, but decided not to bring up suicidal idiations with someone who is bound by law to report it, despite the fact the thoughts were drug induced. So that is why I ask you... not looking for free therapy, but can't trust the stuff he's paying for, so maybe you could shed some intellect for my shot out friend who is now afraid to trip again.
@@RichardGrannonFriends so I guess I am asking for a little free therapy. But for entertainment purposes.
Liverpool ??! then how come you chaps dont sound like The Beetles, heh?!
just messn wit you Brits - great job and interview, esp liked the Kubrick info.
(btw, i know how Rob feels about movin round as a youngster, me mum lived in TN, me Pa in Chicago, moved back and forth every summer , grew up with TWO American accents: one southern, one Chicagon / midwest accent. )
Tell rob to check out bird man of Alcatraz. Prison movie with Burt Lancaster. I saw it as a child and loved it.
Haven’t seen it since so I can’t vouch for how it’s aged . Probably worth looking into though.
Seen it as a kid too, but not since. good from what I remember.
Saw it again a few months back and I still think it's good. The bird raising stuff I always found charming, and actually the film is very vocal about the invisible prisons of society. My only gripe with the film is that the scripting and acting feels too noticeably staged, but it's still a good movie.
Rob Ager is the best
Liverpool had traumatized young Ager so much he had to turn into lawful Hannibal for a living.
I agree about Christopher Nolan. All of his films after _Following_ and _Memento_ aren’t really that interesting. Those first two are clever enough to keep me interested and both have a cool visual style.
Hollywood has decided to hire the writers who will go along with The Message, rather than writers who have life experience and know how to write. They're mutually exclusive categories, since The Message goes against all common sense and real-world experience. Nothing but compliant nancy-boys, with nothing to contribute but an imitation of an imitation. The Alien franchise really suffers from this. The first two movies dealt with truckers and marines; both of whom say pronounce "I love you" using r-rated four letter words. The later writers mistook this for a characteristic of the Alien universe: "In the future, everybody's a dick for no reason." So, we've got the obnoxious anger and psychopathy present in every single character, making the films largely unwatchable.
This is what happens when the modern writing cadre has never worked a day in their life.
Good stuff boys
👌Thanks!
Rob Ager taught me everything I know about film analysis
And that is not much and 88 percent disinfo. As is anything on YT. Wake up.
@@georgwagner5916 lol
@@georgwagner5916analytical skills for film isn’t disinfo
As a Canadian, I can say for AAAALLLL females here….GOOOOOOD LORD…”LAY ON THE ACCENT THICK…please”🙏🏻. 👁👄👁🤤🤤🤤🤤
😂😂🤷🏻♀️ don’t judge me…I’m “ILL” 🤪😂😂😂
Now, now.😈
Ayyy rob Ager, here from NY!
We like Rob and films xxx
There's a lot of every problem you mentioned in every city
Amazing guest, this interview was way too short
Richard, you’re an excellent interviewer and conversationalist. More please. This was fun and interesting. Thanks guys.