Queer Projection
This is a movie podcast about finding queer themes damn near everywhere. Hosts Alethia St. Joan and Danny Carroll share a 30+ year friendship that has been bound together by a shared love for movies. A trans woman and a gay man respectively, Alethia and Danny explore what these movies meant to them while they were young and closeted, and what revisiting these movies means for the actualized, arguably maladjusted adults they’ve become. It’s a heady, often crass and sometimes crude blend - part nostalgia trip, part queer theory, part film criticism. Check it out!
Queer Projection
Signs
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On the menu today is an alien invasion movie via M. Night Shyamalan through a judeo-christian Mel Gibson lens. Plus a Culkin brother, Joaquin Phoenix doing his best with what he has, and Abigail Breslin's debut. Served with corn. Enjoy!
Alethea, be honest with yourself, how would you react during an alien invasion? And I mean like a malevolent one, you know.
SPEAKER_05A malevolent one. Um, I would probably proceed with um, you know, a boarding up of the windows or a actually, you know what, just based on a lot of properties I've seen, I think I would try to be near a body of water because you know, this for the world, like it seems like that might be a good bet.
SPEAKER_04Oh, you are you are following the rules of the movie Signs, which we are going to do today by M. Night Shyamalan. Um, I, on the other hand, would probably try and reason with the unreasonable aliens and get myself fried. You know, I I I would absolutely be Mars Attack style, released a white dove, and get immediately lasered. Like that. I guess we gotta do Mars attacks now. Alright, today we're not doing Mars attacks. We are doing Signs again by M Knight Shyamalan. Uh let's just wish we were doing Mars attacks. Yeah, well, we're not, so let's get into it. Here we go.
SPEAKER_00And now we're pleased to bring you our feature presentation. We're going to board up every window in this house. How do we know boards will do anything? Because they seem to have trouble with pantry doors.
SPEAKER_02I have these, you know, notebooks full of different like premises or ideas, and there were two of them that I had that weren't related. One was kind of the an alien invasion from one family's perspective. And then a totally unrelated thing, I put down a family finds a crop circle in their backyard, and I was like, okay, well, let's put those together. And but when I'm thinking about it, and again, that's a while ago, but I think more Night of the Living Dead and the Birds were really the inspirations for science.
SPEAKER_01Said they would probably invade. They would use ground tactics, hand-to-hand combat. They wouldn't use our technology or fight an airborne battle, because they know eventually we would use nuclear weapons, then the planet would be useless to them.
SPEAKER_02The movie industry was still geared towards, it hadn't become what it is now. It's still geared towards big, buoyant, original movies where everybody was, you know, a part of it and and and the audience was up for new ideas every weekend. And that was not an anomalous thing, and it wasn't seen as a r that much of a risk. It was that's what the industry was. So me writing a spec screenplay and saying, hey, um, do you want to be in it? It it was pretty quick, actually. You know, I both both me asking Mel and him saying yes the next day, and then Joaquin, I I went actually handed him the script right here in New York at Balthazar. And then I drove home, and by the time I drove home, he said yes. And we became so close, all of us, at that time. It was such a uh wonderful experience.
SPEAKER_04What you're about to see may disturb you.
SPEAKER_02It was a way kind of preceding found footage movies. It was like a little found footage moment, very similar to that comes with found footage. That's the premise that makes it so scary that, oh wait, it's real, you know. But the comedy in that moment, that walk was so funny, and vamos, kids, vamos, you know, like he's talking into the camera, he's losing his mind, he's in this closet and he backs up into the clothes. I was just in Brazil, and they were all talking about why did you pick Brazil? Why did you pick that? So it was again my feeling of like kind of bringing in international culture a little bit, being an immigrant.
SPEAKER_04Alright, we'll see how that one ends. Okay, everybody, welcome back to Queer Projection. My name is Danny Carroll. This is Alethea St. Joan. Alethea, how are you doing today? I'm doing well, Dan.
SPEAKER_05Alethea, we have a little early summer storm brewing up here, and that uh puts me in an that puts me in a good place. A good headspace. Oh yeah, I love it.
SPEAKER_04Oh god, I kind of miss that. I miss the rolling clouds above lower Manhattan. Oh yeah. Um, so yeah, queer projection. Welcome back. Who are we, Alethea? What do we do?
SPEAKER_05Uh Dan, I believe this is the podcast in which I pull up my notes app and I read a spiel. One suck. Uh yes. And this is also the podcast in which we revisit the films of our closeted queer youths. Uh that would have uh occurred in the 90s and 2000s, and then we re-examine them as arguably maladjusted queer adults in this uh totally normal year of 2026. Now, seeing as how we've been best friends since 1997, Dan, looking back into our cellulite past, we're finding queer themes where? Damn near everywhere.
SPEAKER_04Damn near everywhere.
SPEAKER_05Damn near everywhere.
SPEAKER_04Alright, you got it, of course, if you're just joining us. That's the deal. We're gonna be mining signs today, the M. Night Shyamalan movie, for both our uh shared experience back as teenagers and where we might find queer themes in this one. I don't know where I'm gonna find queer themes in this one. It has been so long since I've seen this movie. I feel like it has I I don't know, I feel like it lost favor at a certain point in time.
SPEAKER_05M. Night Shyamalan in general did for a while, but he's been reclaimed.
SPEAKER_04I just I feel like I I recall from like recent experiences reading about this movie and things like that, that it it doesn't it have like oddly Judeo-Christian overtones to it, if I'm remembering correctly.
SPEAKER_05Well, yeah, most of M. Knight's work uh does. That's been a singular theme for him. I I I mean I mean his first feature film is called Praying in Anger. Um Yeah. And it's pretty per my memory, uh pretty stark and sort of naked about its uh thematic intentions. Okay. But uh you know, I think I have I have a sneaking suspicion that um I'm going to find this movie to be just wonderfully open-hearted and have my heart opened uh by it. I love having my heart opened. Yeah. I'm much more just susceptible to having this heart just wrenched right open these days.
SPEAKER_04Oh shit, hold on.
SPEAKER_05Daddy, is there an alien in your pantry?
SPEAKER_04Okay, one second. I gotta- I'm just gonna Alright, let's continue. Okay.
SPEAKER_05So I'm technically working right now. So do yeah so l um tell me, what what is what like still resonate or uh what like basic what is your memory of this movie? Like what are you what are you bringing to it?
SPEAKER_04I remember it being kind of a a like a thriller, a danger thriller. Uh it the family is stuck in a house surrounded by aliens, is basically all I remember. Is that the aliens are invading Earth and they're just sort of like trying to wait it out or something like that, and just the experience of a single family on a farm uh experiencing an alien invasion from the ground. I don't know. That's that's my memory of it.
SPEAKER_05Um I mean I think That is a part of it, and that is the that provides the skeleton for uh much, much sort of broader contemplative thematic uh things. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Well, so okay, I I mean I'm glad we're doing this movie because we've done a this is our second alien movie of the season, I believe, E.T. the first, or did we have another one?
SPEAKER_05Our second of the season, we've had other alien movies before this. Right, right.
SPEAKER_04But you know, disclosure day, the Spielberg epic is about to come out, getting a new John Williams score for the day now.
SPEAKER_05And and he said Fable Man's was gonna be his last one, but but Steven Spielberg like twisted his arm and he's like, alright, fine.
SPEAKER_04He was like, no, John, aliens are real. But also You have to do the score.
SPEAKER_05But also, it would be their 30th collaboration. He's like, You're not gonna leave me hanging on 29, you gotta do the 30th. I love that.
SPEAKER_04Oh, I could I do love a good round number like that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Um okay. And we're gonna do a bonus up on Disclosure Day when it opens in two weeks. I I fucking love that Steven Spielberg's like basic pitch for this to audiences is oh, they're real, and I made a movie about it.
SPEAKER_04No, yeah. Just so straight to camera in the trailer, just being like, you have to see this movie because it's not just a movie.
SPEAKER_05Uh advanced reviews, I mean, they can't get into it, but but reactions are extremely positive at the moment.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, people are people are raving. But this is about signs. So let's actually talk about M. Night Shyamalan. So, okay, let's actually let's dive into him as a as a director and his trajectory because I think it is actually important to the themes here. Now, M. Night Shyamalan, uh, born in India to Indian parents, raised from a very, very early age in Pennsylvania, where he went to Catholic school as a non-or unbaptized Catholic, which in a lot of the stuff that I found online about him, he talks quite frequently about that being a huge part of why his movies and things lean into the spiritual and the religious, and maybe even the Judeo-Christian in a very, very specific way. So I'm gonna be looking for that stuff because I find that very interesting.
SPEAKER_05And God, that's still relevant in like most of his recent work, especially something like Knock at the Cabin, which I I I absolutely love. Oh, definitely. And Old to it to a lesser extent. Uh Old is a movie that that is a motherfucking hill that I will die on. I will defend that movie to the end of my days. I love Old. It's good. Oh, people people think that movie sucks, and I think they suck. You suck!
SPEAKER_04Well, I think people can be very easily disconcerted, and I think it's an extremely disconcerting movie. So okay. M. Night Shyamalan, everybody knows, huge debut was the sixth sense.
SPEAKER_05Uh yes, that was his second film, I believe. No, third, I'm sorry. Yeah, third. Praying with anger, then there's a Rosie O'Donnell one. Um Wide Awake, I think it's called. Wide Awake, yes. And he also wrote Stuart Little. Like that was just an early like screenplay job for him.
SPEAKER_04Wait, do you wrote do you remember Stuart Little 2 with the trailer with Creed in it where they have him like flying just like hero show? Oh my god.
SPEAKER_05Yo, Creed was in like every fucking movie trailer for a good two-year period. Stuart Little? I know, it was crazy. Um but then the sixth sense was just such a phenomenon. Do you remember?
SPEAKER_04Oh, explosive, you know, like it it was it changed people, you know, it changed culture. And that movie still fucking rolls. Oh yeah, that movie, uh that movie gets me so weepy. Uh I just I love it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Um and then after that, he followed that up with it a uh a a film I consider amazing, but it wasn't it kind of didn't do much in comparison to the like, you know, cultural, you know, seismic uh tsunami that Sixth Sense was. Unbreakable starring Bruce Willis. Totally awesome movie, I think. Yeah. Uh and then uh came this film, which was a certifiable hit.
SPEAKER_04Um certifiable hit, yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_05And like a little more basic or le uh slightly less ambitious or ambitious in a different way than the previous two films. Like twist E, but it's not like it's not like it's not as like crazy a twist as you know in the previous two films.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, no. Sixth Sense somehow managed to keep everybody in the dark about that to the like that was a true, like that was a true twist at the end of that movie.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but even now, like knowing the twist, it doesn't take like it doesn't take away from rewatching the movie. It actually adds to it. It doesn't. It really does. It's so good. Like what a miracle that movie is. Um do you remember seeing signs at CCM, The Regal there, in like a big group of us, like that night, probably opening night. Tell me about it. I rode my bike there. I don't even really remember who it was. It was 2002, I think. So who would we have been hanging out with then? That would have been a blend of the drama kids and the uh highlighter pod smokers. Yeah, that's a really you know, that's a very accurate grouping. Um but I remember I rode my bike from Exit 8 to CCM and then back in the dark, and I was quite scared. I oh yeah. Because I'm sure I passed many fields of tall grass where anything could be lurking. And I kept hearing any message, like little like little clicks and kind of things.
SPEAKER_04Well, so I do remember when this movie came out, even though it was a big sort of blockbuster, that it was a big moment for the question of CGI in movies, because I think a lot of people were sort of wrenched out of the experience by the very specific CGI alien that is prominently featured at the end.
SPEAKER_05Yes. Um You know what? It's only kind of a couple of shots that are really bad though, because he actually does a smart thing and keeps it relatively obscured for most of that sequence.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Per my memory, anyway. There's just a couple of like close-up shots of the face and some extremities that look very cartoonish.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think we were in a tough spot with CGI back then because there was such intense pressure to use it, but like, you know, again, bringing up Steven Spielberg. Yeah, you're like, dude, what Stan Winston was still alive. Give us a fucking puppet. Right, right, there's that. But no, also I think one of the things that Steven Spielberg really did that I think screwed so many other filmmakers, is just how good the early CGI looked in Jurassic Park. That I think it led a lot of people to believe they could pull off all kinds of things doing the same thing, but it was Steven Spielberg's specific understanding of how it would look visually with that T-Rex and needing all the other components for the other shots and doing it in the rain and all this stuff. Like, he implicitly knew how he would get the CGI stuff to look right.
SPEAKER_05And I think that was only a skill he had at the time. There is one shot in particular in that T-Rex sequence that exemplifies this perfectly because it starts, it's when the T-Rex like first comes out, and he she's like she's like knocking against uh Jeff Goldblum and Sam Neil's car with with like her nose, and then the flashlight starts beaming out of the kid's car and it notices it, and then its head rises out of frame, and then suddenly we see we go from that, there's a break, and then we see a fully CGI body walk out of that shot and go toward the car in the same shot and it's seamless. Uh go from a puppet to CGI and it's so fucking good.
SPEAKER_04See? Exactly. So then we get we get the like the rest of the 90s and early 2000s where the technology just isn't there and everybody thinks they can pull the same stuff off. Do you think George Lucas is a little more to blame for that though? Especially with the prequels. Uh yeah. I mean, I think he is to blame for the fact that Disney now shoots inside a giant screen tank, maybe. But like just the I think I I I I think James Cameron admit too, probably.
SPEAKER_05Or maybe he's or maybe he's just riding the wave that George Lucas created.
SPEAKER_04You're right, but uh you know, I I think I was just shit, what was I what was I? CG Gai. I think it was well yeah, no, it was Terry Gilliam in with Andor. Uh he I I'm pretty sure it was Andor. Oh, he directed Andor? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know. He was You need to watch Andor. It's the only good one that's come out lately. You have to sit down and watch the whole thing.
SPEAKER_05All right, alright, alright, alright, I'll watch it.
SPEAKER_04God damn it. We could do a bonus episode if that'll push you towards the. Actually, no, that's a great idea. Yeah, I want to do a bonus episode.
SPEAKER_05I want to do a bonus episode on Last Jedi as well.
SPEAKER_04Okay, cool, cool, cool.
SPEAKER_05Because Last Jedi is awesome.
SPEAKER_04Last Jedi we could do as an episode. Again, I think the the bonus episodes should be stuff that breaks the mold of this podcast. It either has to be a s such a queer movie that we don't have to mine anywhere for the themes, or like not a movie. You know? Like I think that's what the bonus episodes are.
SPEAKER_05Maybe a short story?
SPEAKER_04Short story, or like a short, like Gentle Gender Troublemakers was. You know, that stuff is great for bonus episodes.
SPEAKER_05Okay. But anyway. I would love to do a short story, and that short story was is going to be Stephen King's The Jaunt.
SPEAKER_04Okay, we're getting we're getting kind of off the beaten path here, talking a little too much about CGI, but I do think it's important because I do think a huge wedge in terms of people's perspective on this movie is that CGI alien. There's all kinds of other stuff that you know people can debate, but I think when it came out, that was the thing of like, oh god, the alien reveal was so dumb. It just looked like you know, like that was the reaction from some people.
SPEAKER_05I definitely felt that way about the CGI. I I specifically remember feeling that way in the theater, even though I still love the movie. Um the very first reveal though, well, you first see it on like top of the barn through the little girl's window, but like that birthday party video in like South America when the thing just s you know steps onto the street and looks at the kids and then just walks off.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05A little CGI-y, but still a very effective moment.
SPEAKER_04Effective, yeah. I you know what? I forgot about that. I'm excited to watch that again. I have a feeling you're really, really gonna love this. Okay, great. I'm excited to be re-impressed by something. Uh you know, that's the whole point of this podcast. It's so it's really wholesome. I do want to go back and talk more about M. Night Shyamalan, because he did have, was it after The Village where he took a huge drop off in his career?
SPEAKER_05The Village started it and then Lady in the Water really like sunk him. And then he Why? Which is funny. It's just terrible. Just a terrible fucking movie. Um even though it looks great because Roger Deacon shot it. But I always I always confuse that with what lies beneath. Uh what lies beneath is is a fun one we could do as well.
SPEAKER_04Um Michelle Pfeiffer.
SPEAKER_05Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford, the hottest like on-screen couple of the 90s, I would say. Holy shit.
SPEAKER_04That mate, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Really making 50 look good. I know, Jesus. Um but yeah, after that began like a really kind of legendary fallow period for M. Night Shyamalan. I I I like he was just a joke for a long time. Like it seemed like it seemed like all the goodwill he had generated in his early films was just completely wasted. Um, I remember I remember being in the theater at some point, I don't even remember when it was, but there was this movie called I don't even remember what it was called, but it was about an elevator that goes to hell, and it's uh it wasn't even one of his movies, but I remember at the end of the trailer it said uh M. Night Shyamalan presents, and the whole theater just fucking started laughing. Wow, really? And I was like, wow, that sucks. Uh but after a few turkeys, uh, which I actually haven't seen, After Earth and The Last Airbender, like I haven't bothered. Um Yeah, no, I I hear they're not great. He he he he bounced back with this great little found footage horror film called The Visit, which I fucking love. And then he's uh he's done like Split and he's what's the other one? I forget the sequel to that. Forget me. Yeah, I haven't I haven't seen those ones. Split is really cool, and then that those those spoiler tie movies wind up tying back into Unbreakable in a really cool way. Oh, Ruby Glass. Yeah, the movie Glass does that. I'm sorry, I have to revisit that movie. Got it, got it. Then he started on uh his current trajectory, which is old, which I love, even though people don't love it. Uh Knock at the Cabin, which I think is kind of a masterpiece, and his last movie, Trap, which is silly, but a lot of fun. Okay. So he's cruising now. I like I I I've come full circle with him. Like, I I I participated in the M Night Shyamalan Hate at the time that it was fashionable, but I have come all the way back around to just like really loving him again.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and he again, undeniable career now at this point. He's served as a showrunner on that uh Apple show servant for a while. Yeah, I hear that. I heard that's pretty good, actually. Yeah, I hear it's kind of disturbing.
SPEAKER_05He isn't, I mean, which it should be. He's a terrific craftsman, and I love this mode that he's in now where he he funds all of his own movies, he keeps them relatively low budget, and they don't light the world on fire, but they always do healthy business, and that's just his model now. He's kind of following the Sodeberg method. Yeah, he's kind of like that.
SPEAKER_04I love that. Very attractive to Soderbergh. Very attractive to me. Okay. So uh yeah, I mean, he he's a fascinating character. I did not realize, uh did you know the knight in M. Knight Shyamalan is a given name? He he adopted that name. Um that is not his legal I mean, it might be his legal name now, but um he sort of got into like the ideas of you know Native American spiritual practices and naming how that relates to their spiritual practices and things, and he was like, I need to, I need to give myself a name. And he picked Knight. I mean kind of cool.
SPEAKER_05That's very cool. M. Knight Shamlon is an awesome fucking name.
SPEAKER_04It is, it is. He knew he knew it had the rhyme. But another anecdote I learned about him while I was doing just a little quick read, uh uh which I think is so fascinating and also really does speak to how he approaches spirituality and faith and things like that. You know, being raised in a private Catholic school as an immigrant, a non-baptized immigrant, constantly being told he was going to going to hell by, you know, teachers and classmates and things like that, apparently one year he got the best grade of anyone in the class in their like Catholic faith formation class, and the teacher was sort of incensed by this and brought him up to the front of the class and was like, This is a perfect reason why you all need to study harder. This guy got the best grade, and he isn't he even isn't baptized, like basic, basically making an example of him. Isn't that so strange? Like a bit backhanded. A bit backhanded. Yeah, very much so. And and I think he Well, he got the last laugh.
SPEAKER_05I mean, he fucking rocks.
SPEAKER_04Oh, yeah. But he must have been so Shaped by that because you can see from his stuff, like he's one of those creators, he's one of those directors that just has such a hungry heart, you know? And to be in that kind of bleeding heart Catholic environment, to be made in that way, in that kind of place, I don't know. I think that's fascinating and beautiful. And I'm sure our friend Sean Fortune would have lots to say about that.
SPEAKER_05Oh yeah. Um God, we have to have him on.
SPEAKER_04We do. What movie?
SPEAKER_05Oh, something really gay. Um but also something a little furry, too. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. God, I he was okay he was my movie buddy. I miss him. I can't wait to see him again.
SPEAKER_04Love it.
SPEAKER_05All right, so you know what?
SPEAKER_04I think it's time to watch. I think it's time to watch. We've done enough predication here.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_04Anything else you wanted to leave me with before you've seen it more recently. I haven't seen it probably in fifteen, eighteen years, maybe. I don't know. We're gonna find out.
SPEAKER_05I think you're going I think you're going to be surprised by Mel Gibson of it all. Uh it's he's he is great. Ugh I I mean I mean personally, not in the film. He's great personally. No, I'm kidding. Um terrible actor, love his ideas. It's very it's it's very jarring because he he is genuinely amazing in this film and he is a complete piece of shit in person.
SPEAKER_04Uh okay, we're gonna have to talk about what the fuck happened to Mel Gibson after we watch this, if he does do that good of a job. Okay. All right. The movie is science. If you're watching with us, we'll be right back. Uhithia. All right, Dan. Happy crop circling.
SPEAKER_07That will crop those circles. Crop those circles, bench. Matthew Perry, and you're so incredibly famous. You imagine you won't get starstruck when you meet people. But you did. Is it the director, the famous director, M.I. Oh, yes, M. Shamalan. Shamalan, that's what you say. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Well, I have a story about M.I. Shamalan. Do you guys know who that is? Kind of directed Sixth Sense? Yeah. Um and in this story, I drop a few names, so I apologize in advance for this. But about 15 years ago, when The Sixth Sense came out, Bruce Willis won the People's Choice Award for Best Actor. And he asked me to present the award to him, so I did. And I went backstage that night and I met Haley Joel Osman from the movie, and I met M. Night Shyamalan. And about six months later, I was at this bar. This is back when I was drinking, and I was with a couple of friends, and M. Night Shyamalan walked in and he said, Hi, Matthew. And I went, Oh my God, hi, how are you? Please sit down, join us. And he sat down and he joined us, and we sat there for about an hour talking, and I noticed my friends sort of filtered out, and then it was just me and M. Night Shyamalan for about another hour, and I noticed we weren't talking about show business or anything. We were just kind of talking about women and love and loss and life and all that. And he mentioned that there was another club opening across town, and would I like to go with him? And I said, Sure, I'd love to go with you. And I had this weird moment which I never had had before, where I was convinced that I was gonna be a big movie star as a result of this night. Because he was laughing at all my jokes. He really was sort of into me. I think he might have been a big friends fan. He was really liking me. Yeah. And so we get to the next place, and I felt comfortable enough, sort of drunk enough, to say, we should work together sometime. And he kind of went like this. And I remember going, oh, I wish I hadn't said that. He went to the bathroom, and a friend of mine came up to me and said, How's your night going? And I said, What are you kidding? I'm having the greatest night of my life. And my channel and I've been hanging out for the last two and a half hours. It's been great. And my channel came back from the bathroom friends.
SPEAKER_04Okay, then welcome back with your projection. Uh that was a that was delightful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Although I will say I I was I thought it could go either way for you. Um so I'm happy to hear you say that.
SPEAKER_04So I it I'm amazed. There are some things that I'm pretty sure really bothered me when I was younger that I really liked, and then there were other things about it that I was just like, eh, I don't know. But I do think it is very thoughtful storytelling. Um, and we can get into that. So I don't know that before the break we did any sort of meddling with possible queer themes, did we?
SPEAKER_05I thr I think we probably talked about how we don't know where they're going to be found. Um, did you find them?
SPEAKER_04Not necessarily, but maybe in sort of a roundabout way when it comes to the betrayal of faith and inner voice and things like that. So let's see if we can we can come around to it. So uh, you know, I do think one of the things that really rubbed me the wrong way when I was younger, it it did seem to me that the conclusion of the movie, or sort of the wrap-up idea of the movie, was that like God saved them from aliens. And I really didn't like that. But on this viewing, I did not actually feel as though that sort of Judeo-Christian moral was as heavy-handed as I thought. And I and in fact, I think it was handled very delicately because it's not a very Christy movie, and the engagement with the sensation of God is really very much just engaging with belief and sort of reigniting, reigniting the part of the heart that needs to see beyond what is just here. You know? Yeah, faith. Faith. But but we call that faith. Yeah, we call that faith, but it's like I I think I had to get older before I recognized even what the concept of faith meant, unlinked to religious ideology or dogma or just religion, period.
SPEAKER_05You know what I think might have undercut it, I th I think does undercut it and might have led you to think that when you're younger, is the final shot of the film, which I think is I I think should not be that.
SPEAKER_04Him putting the collar back on, is that it?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Yeah. It's winter time and the kids are laughing. Like, that's a hat and a hat. Uh it would have been so much better if if it I I think if it just ended on uh, you know, um the Colkin kid coming back to and saying, uh I think somebody saved me, and then Mel Gibson saying, Yeah, I think somebody did. Boom, cut to black. That's that's perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, you weren't the editor. Yeah, I should have been. You should have been. They should have hired me. I already had my ed I had my Mac by then. I could have done it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Mel Gibson, yeah, I expected actually kind of more. I he did have some really supreme moments in this that I thought were done very well. But then there were other stuff that I'm like, you know, somebody else could have done better. I think Joaquin Phoenix was a great balance. I think he did great work, but he just I I could see him feeling like maybe sometimes he didn't have a lot to work with.
SPEAKER_05Well, you know, he was a last-minute replacement. He came in like five days before shooting started because it was originally Mark Ruffalo.
SPEAKER_04Oh, really? Ah, Mark Ruffalo.
SPEAKER_05Mark Ruffalo had Mark Mark Ruffalo had like a fucking brain tumor, so he had to drop out and he didn't act for like two years.
SPEAKER_04I didn't know that a story about Mark Ruffalo. All right, we're gonna table that one. Yeah, no, it's it's it is very interesting. He's and yeah, it would have been a very different flavor for that character with Mark Ruffalo. So yeah, god, that part of casting is such a fascinating part of the filmmaking. But yeah, no, I I think, and here's one of the things that I really liked about the movie, but I don't know, was kind of throwing me off at first. Uh, I think what this movie does very well is you enter into this movie and find sort of a very flat world. I feel like the air is kind of dead, the performances are kind of flat, and then you start to realize, like, oh, this is a house in sort of a perpetual state of grief. And I think they get that flatness of grief afterwards, that feeling, baking that into the stylization of like like there's almost like a Twin Peaks delivery to some of those opening things. Like, I I think they they react, yeah, they react to the alien stuff with curiosity, but at the same time with just sort of like a huh, I guess this now, you know, which is so right for people whose lives had totally been ripped out from underneath them in so many ways.
SPEAKER_05So the whole vibe and the dialogue in particular and the acting styles get super fit uh like lynchy 1950s. Yeah, especially in the sequence when they go when they go downtown for pizza. Like when Roaquin goes to the army recruiting office. Right. Yeah, it's very it's very I don't know. Um Right.
SPEAKER_04We've got we we say we save the UFO book for city people, wasn't that it?
SPEAKER_05Yeah. For city people. Yeah, and that's just in this it's just all the possibly relevant information on an alien invasion you could possibly have down to a house that looks like their house. Yeah. Family that looks like them being being destroyed.
SPEAKER_04A good a nice, nice sort of like slathering on of the whole coincidence idea that he's sort of, you know, the signs, right? The book depicts the whole thing. Isn't this a sign? You know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_05A lot of people take a lot of people take issue with the purity and earnestness of M. Night Shamalon's writing in particular, which I mean I guess in the hands of lesser actors, like this could some of the scenes could read almost like a regional theater kind of kind of situation. Yes. Uh no no shade to regional theater makers.
SPEAKER_04Never.
SPEAKER_05I don't know. That's just kind of his house style. And I'm like kind of here for it. I like things that are earnest and pure.
SPEAKER_04Yes. I agree. And I think my love for things that are earnest and pure has only increased as I've gotten older. And so where this movie might have hit me wrong at one point, it is it is settling nicely into my worldview, you know, about surrendering to what is behind the thin layer of reality, whatever that might be, you know? And not in the AA way where it's like recognition of a higher power, just recognition that there's definitely something more, you know? And it, you know, it doesn't have to be, you know, it's it's just, you know, it's it's into my arms by Nick Cave. I don't believe in an interventionist god. But but still the feeling of faith remains.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's not even necessarily a higher power. It's just a cooperation and an interconnectedness among all living things. Yeah. That that has meaning.
SPEAKER_04That just happens to very conveniently work out in the midst of an alien invasion, you know? Yeah. Yeah, no, it is. I I I again it's it is because it is unafraid to do that, I think that's what elevates it. It's not hiding or embarrassed about taking that turn. It's not asking, is this okay? It's and I think that's the strength, you know. I still feel like there's something strangely amiss in the final alien moment, though. Even though it is very satisfying in so many ways, um, and the wife scene stuff, I think it's it's it is great. It's heavy-handed and and and so sentimental, but but works in that moment and and lines it up perfectly. But I'm sorry, the thing that I can't get away with, and this is I think my biggest issue with this movie altogether, like why the alien just kind of takes the beating. Like he makes he poisons the kid, and then like there's no real fight. He just sort of like staggers around as he gets wailed on with a bat, and it's just like this sense of threat. Like, I don't so when the alien is holding Rory Culkin, like what is he threatening there? Like, why isn't he just running off with a kid or just killing him right then and there? Like, especially if this is some sort of like you took my fingers revenge thing because he notices it's the same alien. Like, I just don't get the alien's motivations in that moment, which is I know a big thing to ask for.
SPEAKER_05But I think it was not particularly thought through. I mean, especially the fact that that like water is the thing that kills them and they come to the planet Earth to harvest human beings. Right.
SPEAKER_04It must be upset about that. Yeah, and no, it must have been a production thing. It must have been the type of thing where they just they filmed the bat swinging scene with an approximation of where the alien would be, and then when they went to put in the alien, they were like, well, the alien can't really do much based on what our flexibility is here with these already shot scenes. Like it really could just have boiled down to that, which is annoying. I don't know. Again, that's a CGI failure right there.
SPEAKER_05There should have been a puppet. Yeah, because the the thing should have just totally blended into the background, like we know that it can do, and like appear almost invisible if the kid just kind of sitting there.
SPEAKER_04That would have been a great one too. Yeah, there's all kinds of things there.
SPEAKER_05They just they just kind of fucked up the alien, unfortunately. It was more of an afterthought. But also, like, um, it being the alien that got its fingers cut off, they don't really do anything with that. That feels like one of those things that like a writer would be like, oh, that's good screenwriting, bring that back, but there's no meaning or like function attached to it. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's done for the sake of like knowing that that's like a setup and payoff kind of thing, but not actually taking it any further than that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And unfortunately, it seems like so much, like it seems like he decided, okay, the aliens are this outside threat, and the actual consideration of the invasion itself. I I don't know. One of the things that struck me in this viewing that I don't think got across to me when I was younger, is that it seems like from the aliens the way they like it seems like it was a very sloppy invasion, you know? Like it it and there's on some level, like I think that story like really works. The idea that these are some like roving aliens and like shit, we are just like really at the you know, like a predator species at the end of their wits, and there's like, oh, this planet filled with like people with blood, and we can use that, and so let's go and and harvest them and and be on our way, you know. That kind of like okay, let's quick coordinate our invasion. All right, we're up in the sky. Oh sh- oh shit, they saw us. Well, whatever, we're coming anyway. We get down there, and oh god, they got bats. Alright, never mind, never mind, never mind. Let's go, let's go, let's go.
SPEAKER_05Like, that's it's like their army is c it's like their army is commanded by like their version of Pete Hagseth.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean it in it is the same broad strokes as Independence Day, where it's just like, oh, we're picking on you because you have what we want, but you're one in a long line of conquests, and and we just like bit off more than we could chew with you because of the guts of the human species, you know. Is telling exactly that story and doing it so peripherally as to be almost like, in my perspective, as a sci-fi, not a little weak sauce, like a little sloppy.
SPEAKER_05And but but I think that that it that's not that wasn't M. Knight's prime primary concern.
SPEAKER_04I know, and I think that's very apparent in the final product, which I think is unfortunate, because the the antagonist should be better fleshed out. Even if the antagonist, if you're not meant at all to really know their motivations. Because again, I do like the whole thing where it's like they're getting dribs and drabs from TV and radio, and they're not really trying to listen in at all because they just don't want to be bothered by the horrors because their life is already a horror, because they're surrounded by grief on all sides. Is there anything more you want to say on the alien stuff?
SPEAKER_05Well, I mean, aside from the ending, which the the alien confrontation at the ending was like the major thing that bumped against me when we like literally we first saw it in 2002. Yeah. Just because I thought it looked so bad.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. It just felt bad.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and I viewing it now, I think there's some shots where where it's hidden enough that it works, but then there's other close-ups where it it is just not looking good.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's it's like a combination of bad CGI and and poorly planned blocking almost seems to be what kills that scene. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I but I you know, I still but I still like the swing away and the point of the point of view and the back coming out, and then and then all the water raining down in the lens. I loved all that. Tak Fujimoto, baby.
SPEAKER_04Yes. No, I agree completely because thematically in in like and like the release in that character in that moment, the giving over to the implausible, and yet at the same time the full open recognition that yes, this is the solution, of course it is, that is beautiful. And I will say it's beautiful, and I th and it is in the script itself, in the structure, very well done. I just think it was tucked into other things that didn't have great payoff. But no, I so f I so I so see that journey, you know, and and so I I don't know, I I do think where the queer themes lie are um in in Mel Gibson's characters, sort of uh the un the the you know from the moment the aliens land, from the moment he's like protecting the family, like in the house, from the moment it gets real, he has a succession of moments where you see him realizing in a few different ways that like giving up giving up is not an option. You know? Like like letting the bad things just come is actually not an option. You you can't actually do it. And and he he sees himself fighting the desire to just completely let go and let what will be be and just not fight it because like it's just too painful to the heart, but then he's like, no, I I yeah, I don't know. Those moments landed for me. The moments of like, like, what am I doing? Like, this can't this can't be it, I think, is what he says when they go for the axe, or or some commitment to resistance in the future, and and I I think and I'm gonna stretch. This is gonna be a stretch for me. Um that there is a moment like that in a lot of queer people's lives. Um a return to caring, if that makes sense. Uh so you know, you are raised as a queer person in most of the time um an anxiety-laden environment, and and you have to build a character to survive that, and many, many people develop sort of bitter uh personalities, especially in their late teens and early twenties, and and a real sort of nihilistic way of looking at things. Now, I think youth, period, does that, but I think queer youth does it at a higher level and capacity. And I am constantly seeing queer people in my life have moments where they're like, you know what? I've been that bitch for so long that I actually am ready to embrace sincerity again. And for some people, you know, I know, but I there are a few people in my life who like literally went back to the church. They were like, I found a an LGBTQ-friendly uh church with a lesbian priest, and I found that thing again that I had departed from.
SPEAKER_05Um you know, I could I could totally see myself being open to that because I'm not a religious person, but I was raised going to church. Um religious religious imagery, religious iconography, just religious uh culture, I mean stu cultural ephemera, religious music and stuff, uh uh all still tends to um I I I still tend to relate to pretty powerfully and respond to pretty powerfully. My basic, my one thing is uh if as long as a denomination is for universal human rights, it's kind of my only thing. Like they just have to check that box and then I'm fine with anything.
SPEAKER_04Did you read the Pope's last missive is a big volume on AI and humanity?
SPEAKER_05Uh what is he is he embracing it like Martin Scorsese and Bernie Sanders?
SPEAKER_04No, no, no. He is he's like, uh we're ready to lead the fight if we gotta, about for the you know, the preservation of the human soul against the onslaught of you know the machines. Like he he it it's it's beautiful. And again, we got another progressive pope and it's awesome. Um hopefully that can do something. So no, there is a sincere thing going on. I've been listening to a bunch of podcasts about it and reading about it that like uh there is a return to spirituality in churches and things happening, and it's across demographics, you know, young, old, liberal. Conservative, whatever. It seems that for the first time, the sort of flat, the sort of downward trend of people who claim to be religious is flatlining, meaning as many people are joining churches as leaving churches for the first time in like 40 years or something. So I think in this era there is for everyone a deep, deep need to return to some sort of what else is there feeling. And I think it's manifesting in different ways in different people. And I think that's why a movie like this I see the point that M. Knight Shyamalan is trying to make here. Because don't forget, one of the very important things to recognize that we talked about at the beginning is that like he went to Catholic school, he aced his religious formation classes and was an unbaptized, you know, kid like Indian kid that was very much very much viewed as an other, but appears to have taken some real sincere lessons from Catholic school. And that you know, that is that filter, the filter of that mind is going to result in very interesting and creative things, and I think it is on display here.
SPEAKER_05And you know what? The the weakness of the aliens is is very like it has the effect of like holy water on a vampire to them.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Again, sci-fi in me is like, alright, well, huge liability for the aliens going to a mostly water planet if all they needed were a few bags of blood. You know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_05Well that that's that's War of the Worlds-ish, though, right? Because it's just like the thing with MEBA this like got to them, right? Right.
SPEAKER_04Did you not do your research? You were buried underground for 40 years. At no point in there did you sniff the air and go, oh no, you know, like come on.
SPEAKER_05Wait, I thought it was millions of years, or is that just the Spielberg movie?
SPEAKER_04Uh I forget, I forget, I forget.
SPEAKER_05Because in the Spielberg movie, though in the Spielberg movie, those devices had been mil been there for millions of years, and then during the invasion, the aliens travel down lightning bolts, or like tubes that appear as lightning bolts and into them. It's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I do remember that. See, that is cool. That is him saying, I am going to care for a moment about the mechanics of this science fiction. That is somebody doing it right. Like, I, you know, like I don't know. I don't know. This is this is good storytelling, but it's not good sci-fi storytelling. Girl, let's dig into something here. Like, why did you care enough to put this on our list for this season? You know, what were you feeling in that moment? Talk to me about it. Because again, this is about our background as well.
SPEAKER_05Well, practically, it's it's it's one of the big films of our youth. It's a film that we definitely saw together in a big group. It's a film that I have vivid memories of seeing and it just being kind of in the air. And I love Vem Night Shamalon. I kind of wanted to do one of his films. And I couldn't I couldn't think of like explicit queer things off the top of my head. So I thought maybe that could be a good thing and and and lead to some surprises. But you know, like it doesn't always work out. Listen, yeah. Well, I will then, you know what I mean. And it's not even the movie's fault. It's not that's not matter good on the movie's part. It's just us. The movie that in M. Knight's career that this resembles the most is his second to last movie called Knock at the Cabin, which uh is about a gay couple two uh two dads and their daughter, uh, in an end-of-the-world scenario. Honestly, in some ways, I might even say it's better than this film.
SPEAKER_04Maybe, yeah, it could be he he evolved the ideas he was trying to get across somehow. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I believe M. Knight's always been, you know, kind of an ally, having, you know, been grown up as an other.
SPEAKER_04Right. And that's where the queer themes are baked into it, because he's another, even if he isn't an LGBTQ one.
SPEAKER_05But um But I think but I think his being a girl dad has really just, you know, kind of Pedro Pascaled him.
SPEAKER_04Hey, why not? Why not? Yeah. Let it be. Okay, well let's put a button on this. Um this is a great movie. And again, I do think I did find a queer theme in here, in terms of the idea of return to self, and that there is a period in everyone's life where you have to return to yourself in some great capacity, which often uh requires embracing life and or forgiving parts of yourself, and that is on full display here. Um so I I I really did enjoy this. And I cried. I cried, so it got me. But these days, remember, I um I cry at everything.
SPEAKER_05So Did you cry at the dinner scene?
SPEAKER_04Yes, the dinner scene, but also the asthma scene.
SPEAKER_05Um, the scene boarding up the house and just trying to keep the kids calm, and he's telling he's telling Abigail Breslin about uh the moment she was born. He's like, when you came out, you smiled at us, and they say babies can't smile, but you did. Like that that stuff's all great.
SPEAKER_04It's great, but I was it kind of gave me chills watching it this time because this is prior, this is those moments are in are still in his given up phase. So subtly what he's doing is trying to give his kids some like good feeling before they all get killed by aliens, because in his head that's still a major possibility. But it isn't until they get down into the basement where he says, This is not a possibility, this is not happening. And it's uh it is a demand to God, and that demand to God requires he face God on God's terms and look him square in the eyes, and that's when it starts working out for him. I think it's that's elegant. That's great. But I think those two moments, they're beautiful, but they are a little disturbing because of what I think that character's trying to do there.
SPEAKER_05So Yeah, it's like it's like it's like the it's like uh Jeanette Goldstein reading uh reading her kids to sleep while the Titanic's thinking. Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER_04Well, all right. Alethea, this was a good one. I'm back I'm very glad we watched it.
SPEAKER_05So yeah, we actually went longer than I thought we had. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Okay, everybody. If you still think we're amazing, see you next week. This has been Queer Projection.
SPEAKER_05Danny, what are what are all these glasses of water doing around? Can you can you answer me this?
SPEAKER_04Are they full of amoebas?
SPEAKER_05Okay, but this one has dust in it, this one has amoebas in it, this one has a Colkin's DNA in it. Goodbye, everybody. Bye.