Transcript

Matheus Siqueira: Welcome to the first episode of “The Shitty Diary of a Wannabe Cinephile.” So, what’s the idea behind it? I’m Mateo Siqueira, and this is basically just what the title says. It’s a shitty diary of a wannabe cinephile. So, I’m just going to keep commenting in a very single take, no-cuts edit. Let’s go back to the roots of podcasting. I first had a podcast way back in 2000, and Yeah, podcasts existed back then when I just used to talk about what I thought. Was it a success? Nope, but it was fun to do. So, I think that’s what I’m going to do nowadays. This is the beginning of just a flow of thoughts with errors, with my mistakes, of the latest things that I.

So, let’s start by what I watched yesterday. So yesterday I watched the first episode of the new Fallout series. And it was a very interesting episode. I played the game, the game I just played was Fallout 4. So no, I’m not a very huge, big Fallout fan. I didn’t play one, two, three, or the online one that came out after Fallout 4, but Fallout 4, that I think I played, I know way back when it launched on PlayStation 4, I liked it quite a lot, you know, it was very interesting.

And what I remember was the soundtracks, the soundtracks of that game was, oh my God, it was so good. So good. So, because it was kind of this old-school American music, and the irony of it, with this World that was in shambles from the Atomic bombs that exploded all over, was, I think, kind of like the highlight of the game and what I liked the most. The story wasn’t the best, but this whole world that at least in Fallout 4 existed was very attractive, you know because it kind of stopped, at least in Fallout 4, it stopped America in its heyday. So right after, you know, it was the boom from the fifties, the sixties, I believe it’s like end of the fifties, correct me if I’m wrong, it’s like end of the fifties, beginning of the sixties. This kind of America that still has hope, this America that still hasn’t gone through the whole disillusion of, you know, the drugs of the hippie phases and the disillusion of.

Not being able to achieve this new world of love and peace. So yeah, before that, where there was this, this idea that America was still, still a paradise and life was still good. No. So I think this is for me, at least the strongest point. Of the, of the game and of the series, because the series from what I’ve read and what I’m seeing is inspired in the, um, the specific in the fallout four game, and I know people will say, okay, the fallout Vegas is also amazing.

I haven’t played it. Probably one day I will, maybe, I don’t know. But, yeah, I think this, this is quite interesting because what I like the most about this series, uh, the game, I think also translated really well to this series. So the first episode was directed by Jonathan Nolan, and again, I’m avoiding, uh, I’m really bad with names, actors’ names.

And I don’t know. So, and I’m not going to keep checking to see if I’m mistaken or not, because this is a shitty diary. This is not a good diary. Nope. This is a shitty diary. So, as a shitty diary, allow me to present my Maybe alternate, maybe not correct facts, but if I’m not mistaken, this first episode was directed by Jonathan Nolan, the brother, no, I imagine, or the family of Christopher Nolan.

And if I’m not also mistaken, he’s one also of the creators of Westworld, at least the good Westworlds. I’m not sure he, he, he kept on doing the. The series which kind of fell to shit, you know, after the second, second season. Anyways, that’s another, whole another topic to discuss. But, I mean, the first Westworld is amazing, you know, it’s one of, in my opinion, one of the great series, the first season of Westworld is one of the best series recently done.

So, why am I speaking this? Because I think the first episode of the Fallout, I haven’t watched the rest, and there’s spoilers ahead, okay? So, yeah, if you don’t want spoilers, I’m already Spoiling everything to you. So, uh, the first episode of the fallout series, I thought it was very good. You know, it was quite interesting.

I think it did a very good job of world building. So it presented this America. It starts now with this America, uh, in this happy America, that’s Quite obviously negating the reality of the situation that, that, that, that, that they are going through. So I found this, this open scene was really, really nice to set up.

Uh, where this society began, you know, where this new post-apocalyptic society began. And it began in a society that’s already kind of creating their alternate version of reality. So you have this kind of kid’s party. You have the cowboy with the actor that is amazing that I forgot his name, which will afterwards appear as a gal.

No, as a go. I don’t know how to say this word in English. Gal, go, go. Gold. No idea. Anyways, amazing actor. I love him. What was he before? He wasn’t he, he wasn’t Westworld, I believe. No. Mm, no, I know him from the, um, the, the Cowboy series, the modern Cowboy series where he’s the villain, um, justified. And of course he’s another type of stuff.

Anyways, amazing actor. Love him. Don’t know his name right now. We, we’ll have to go to IMDB afterwards, but begins with him. Apparently, he’s doing this kid’s party. People even ask why is he doing this kid’s party? Since he was like a famous Marine apparently or something like that. But I think the important part is figuring out, you know, how, how, how it showcases that at this point of society, there’s this risk of an atomic bomb and all the parents are kind of deciding.

Decide to ignore this reality as, as if nothing is going to happen. That was a very interesting take, you know, because you have this, the starting point of a society that ignores and creates alternative realities that they prefer to live in. Um, I found that quite interesting because you have this amazing, you know, this amazing scene.

I loved it. The explosion scene, it was genius. The idea of the thump. Oh my god, yeah, very, very great. How to, how to showcase an atomic bomb in a subtle way, and this is, I think, the, the script writers, the director, I don’t know who created this idea, but it was amazing

. The idea that if, you know, the cowboy explained to his daughter that if, uh, that, that if an explosion is bigger than your thumb, then you have to worry.

And then, Obviously, we see the girl, you know, just raising her thumb, trying to figure out what happened before we even see the bomb. That, that, that was a very suspenseful scene that just, you know, wrapped up. It was artistic. I mean, you gotta love it when they don’t do the obvious thing, you know, when they do something that isn’t so, so explicit as showcasing the bombs right away.

So, I mean, this, this, this thumb-up scene, I was like, fuck, yeah. I love it. This has good directing. This was a great scene. This is what makes, at least, you know, the pleasure of viewing something. You, you, you, you, you don’t want the obvious thing happening to you. You know, just being showcased to your face, the obvious thing.

No, no. Let you a little bit, you know, decipher yourself, this kind of, it’s very obvious, but I mean, it’s this kind of thing that in your brain, you, when you see something, you hold the thumb up and you relate it to what just was said. So it was said like a couple of minutes ago. And you think, I’m so smart, you know, because I figured this out and, but yeah, it gives you the pleasure, the pleasure of what, of figuring stuff out yourself.

So, yeah, this was amazing scene. And if you can do it in a poetic way, even better. And this was very nice. And then amazing scene of seeing the city being bombarded with the bombs and the guy. And the cowboy with his daughter running away with the horse. So, yeah, I think it says it sets up the whole series.

Very nice. The series. And then we go out, then we cut and 200 and something years later, we go to the vault dwellers now, and then we have something very interesting. I’m not going to go into the whole story right now. I just think that this first scene was what was really nice. But I think that this first episode did really well was kind of set up the world.

So you have a brief glimpse of a before world, and then we have this after world. No, and then the after world, what it creates really well is first create the shock between these people who still continue to ignore the reality. So we see the continuation of the society that continues to ignore reality.

That leaves the, of these people that they live in their vaults, no, on their ground, and they Kind of create the simulacrum of everything that’s happening. Um, so yeah, there’s like a wedding going on and this farm, but this farm is whole, it is only projected because these people live in the farm and the humor here and the irony I think works really well.

Now there’s this kind of play that, okay, since everyone lives in this very, very small societies, there’s this kind of sexual, sexual relationship between the cousins. But when you really have to marry and have kids, you have to go outside and look for people from other vaults. And yeah, it’s kind of a fun play.

It works really well. This kind of naivety of the, of these people that live in the vaults. With the reality of the outside world because you soon figure out that this is like, uh, There are raiders actually than the people who are trying to marry. No, I mean the vault dwellers are these naive people They try to marry the girl with the other people from from the next vault who actually are raiders because they entered the other vault killed everyone and The guy just want to get laid and they want to have a little bit of fun before they just raid the next vault, no?

So they kind of fake this, fake being this kind of people so that the marriage actually happens, they can enjoy themselves and then actually the, the, the, the violence of it. And this is another thing that works really well. So contrasting this naivety with the violence of the world. Kind of gives the segue to the other, uh, to the other characters of the, of the world.

No, and so kind of goes slightly building up, no, it kind of builds up from the naivety. Suddenly you get really, Oh my God, this is, you know, people can be so violent. This is the real world. This is the alternative reality. This naive people living in the vault trying faking as if everything is going to be okay.

And then you have the outside world invading with this unavoidable, uh, you can’t watch, can’t look away violence, no? And of course there’s this obvious, let’s, as a wannabe cinephile, let’s talk about Plato’s cave, no? This is quite obvious, uh, At least in the beginning, you know, the, the idea of Plato’s cave, these vaults, uh, people living literally the projections.

It’s not the projections of a fire under the, you know, the, the, the, the shadows of a fire. No, it’s literally the projection of an outside world using what? A projector, no? And then in the end, of course, the girl has to go to the outside and no one else has to leave. So yeah, there’s of course, this reference to Plato’s cave.

That’s always nice I don’t know if this is going to continue happening, happening, how much the vault is going to play in the next episodes. No idea because I haven’t watched it yet. So keep, keep listening. If you’re interested in shitty opinions, but yeah, yeah, it’s quite nice. It’s quite, uh,

there’s a quite nice parallelism, no, between the vaults and Plato’s cave.

Let’s see how far this goes. Once the girl comes back. So ideally, if we’re talking about Plato’s cave, she’s going to go out to To the outside world. She’s going to discover what’s outside and let’s see if the people from the inside accept or not her conclusions anyways. And then we get the next two characters.

One is the, this kind of, uh, technocratic technocratic coat that is searching for pre war pieces. I don’t remember why from, from the video games. No, but you have this kind of armors, the whole. code thing that you have to submit yourself fully to be able to be accepted into the brotherhood of steel and then you have the gal, no, the, the cowboy from, from the beginning surprise, surprise is still alive as a mutant and he lives inside a He was, he was, you know, imprisoned inside a casket and has some ivy drops keeping him alive.

It was a nice surprise. It works quite well. Now the question that is open is, is his daughter still alive? Who is his daughter? Is his daughter the witch that people keep talking about? Those are some of the questions that are open. And what I like about Fallout, let’s talk about this. So I had a teacher that was, that’s one of the biggest critics, cinema, film critics, cinema critics in Spain and Europe called Sergio Sanchez, if I’m not mistaken, I have to double check his surname, but I think it’s Sergio Sanchez.

Amazing. I, if you want some proper film analysis and you read and you can read in Spanish, look for Sergio Sanchez. And he does something that I was really amazed is that he always independent of how shitty or good or good the movie was, if it was like really high art con movies or it was Transformers, he always managed to find something positive and something negative about the movie.

So, yeah, I think that was something really amazing that he did because even the shittiest movies that I couldn’t understand what was good about it, he managed to find something interesting. And that showcased me. I think every, everything in the world has the positives and the negatives. So let’s talk about the positives and the negatives of what I like.

Again, this is my subjective shitty opinion on the first episode of Fallout. So positives, I think the world building worked really, really well. You already not only understood who is who in this world, but you understood the underlying psychology of how this world works. I think that is, that is the question in point here.

Because for example, a shitty, shitty, shitty, shitty movie, Rebel Moon, the first one. I haven’t watched the second one. Maybe in the future I’ll watch the second one. But the first one, I was quite, you know, expecting that it would be at least interesting. But you didn’t understand. It was so bad, so bad, that the psychology of the characters just weren’t there, you know?

It was just, oh, this is a character, why is she in this group? Because suddenly someone decided that, oh, she’s so awesome fighting a spider. She’s a good spider fighter! Let’s put her in my group. I don’t know, it was kind of strange. And what missed, I mean, world building? Let’s talk about this. It was a two hour movie, the Rebel Moon movie, that had the shittiest world building possible.

I won’t, I won’t say I ever saw, but it has a very shitty world building, because it presented the characters, it presented the world, it presented the rules of the world. So how, you know, what are the rules of this new world that you don’t know anything about? It presented all of this. But it did so without presenting this underlying psychology of how this world works, you know, what are the traumas of the people?

What do people want? What do people fear? How do they function inside? I think that’s the, that’s the kind of like the, the, the, What do you expect from a proper world building, uh, ground base, no? And I think Fallout, the first episode, did this really, really well. So you understand the psychology of the Vault Dwellers.

You understand, more or less, the psychology of this Brotherhood of Steel. And you understand, no, the whole, what does this main characters want? So Lucy, yeah, she, what she wants? Yes. She’s kind of like the adventure, she’s kind of like the proper call to adventure hero, no? She was really, first act, okay, she was really happy in her, in her, in her native, uh, world, but wasn’t, oh, she was okay, not really happy, no, she was okay, but she was looking for something else, she expects to find something else, it doesn’t happen, it happens the total opposite, it totally destroys her world, and then she has to decide if she keeps living in this unhappy situation, or if she accepts the call to adventure.

No, that’s it. Hero Journey 101. And there’s an amazing episode with Peter. Proper people who know script, that’s John August and Craig Mazin. There’s an episode on script notes on the script notes podcast about, um, the hero’s journey that Craig Mazin did. That is amazing. Yeah. I use it a lot to teach in my classes and it is amazing.

Anyways, Lucy, proper hero. Hero Journey 101. We have, I think it’s Titus, no? The name of the, of the, of the guy from the Brotherhood Steel. Anyways, yeah, he is a little bit more murkier. He was saved by this Brotherhood of Steel and then now, now he dedicates his life to this and almost the same thing. He’s not really happy, but he, he’s uncomfortable in his situation and then he gets called to, to action, no?

Because The person, his friend who was actually called, an accident happened. And of course it leaves you this question, was it really him that did this or not? So maybe he looks like this, okay, frustrated, but good guy. Will there be a twist? And we discovered that he was the person who put the, the, the gillette.

I don’t know, how do you call that? And the boots that just fucked up the other girls chances of being chosen for the Brotherhood of Steel. Maybe that’s, maybe that’s something there, no? But anyways, really interesting characters, world building, really nice. The surprise is that the guy is alive in the end.

He doesn’t trust anyone, of course, because he’s been a mutant for 270 years. And now he decides to go on his own, I know, vengeance, looking for something, looking for his daughter, who knows. So world building works really nice. Um, the negatives. Oh, sorry. The other thing that I like about fallout series is that it doesn’t take itself seriously.

So let’s talk about it. It’s ridiculous. No, as most fictional movies, uh, it’s ridiculous. I mean, the premises is ridiculous. The,

the, the, the, the, the, the games, the gameplay is ridiculous. You can’t help it. It’s just a ridiculous, but it’s not ridiculous in a cringy way, you know, like, okay, I’m, I’m, I’m embarrassed to be watching this, but it’s like, okay, this is so fun.

This is so campy. This is so corny. I’m loving it. Yeah. I think that’s, that’s something that is nice. It doesn’t take itself seriously. I think, I think the whole, um, maybe the, the, the cinematography also goes in line with this kind of thing. So, you know, they always make these hilarious outfits.

They always make these ridiculous weapons. And I think the same happens with the script. The script doesn’t take itself seriously. So it, uh, it, it kind of has fun with itself. It makes fun of itself. So it doesn’t pretend to be serious. It doesn’t try to make itself important. It doesn’t try to make itself deep or serious, no, philosophical.

It’s just a fun, campy, adventure type of series. I think that’s something that I really like about it. Uh, and yeah, it was also a shitty, there’s a shitty thing that I like is the soundtrack. No, the soundtrack was really amazing. So in the, in the video games, Fallout 4, uh, had a really good soundtrack, uh, using all these, you know, uh, 1950s music, but with, I mean, it’s ironic, right?

It’s, it’s, it’s happy music in a, in a shitty world, but it works so nice. Uh, it gives so much character to the world. I, I, I love it. I love it. I, I, I hope this continues. I haven’t finished watching the series, but yeah, I think it works really well. And I think the soundtrack, it’s always going to be a highlight, no?

Of the series. Uh, negatives. I don’t know if this is negative or positive, but this is me as a wannabe cinephile, so I’m going to say it. So this is Jonathan Nolan, no? So I’m kind of divided. So there’s this whole scene that there’s this mob, no, and they’re chasing this guy who took the parts from one of the rockets and the brotherhood of steel is going after him.

And you have these amazing, amazing, amazing, and I’m, I’m really shocked by it. And this is again, this, you know, Jonathan Nolan, uh, did a great job here. So the cinematography and the, and the way it was constructed and the tension and everything, it was amazing. So I loved it. But then you have this, this, this whole contrast where it was happening.

The soundtrack was absolutely, I mean, the soundtrack was this happy-go-lucky, uh, 1940s, 1950s music that was going on. And it’s really, it’s really interesting because you have this dramatic scene where people are being shot, there’s like a massacre, but the music is happy. So it’s kind of this, it’s like, it’s kind of like a wink to the audience, no?

Like, yeah, this is serious, but you know, it’s also fun. Uh, but I, I, I don’t know if I liked it or not. I’m just really confused. No, I have to, to watch it again. Maybe you, you, you know, you have to, it’s, it’s one of these things that I don’t know if it’s good or bad, I’m just confused. So, yeah.

This is a great thing about cinema and about art. Sometimes it leaves you in a, in a limbo, in a grey zone where you don’t really know, you know, what, what, what’s up with it. Uh, and the other thing that I didn’t like, I mean, the, the other thing that, that I, I think it’s not working really well is some of the characters.

So Lucy, amazing character. I think the Brotherhood of Steel, amazing character, no? The guy from the vaults, amazing character. This technocrat guy, I don’t know. I don’t know. I think it’s going to be one of these love/hate things. I think you’re going to see people who love him, you’re going to see people who hate him.

Uh, I don’t know. He, it’s like, okay, I’m the scientist. I’m going to go and find this missing part, but I’m not really interested in all this drama. I just want to, you know, go and find my pieces. So I think it’s kind of a, one of these characters, we just going to, you know, people are going to say, okay, I like him, or I hate him.

Uh, and this, the whole, the whole, uh, naivety of the people of the vaults, uh, at least of the people from the first vault that we saw, uh, it’s like, I don’t know. You, you, you, you have the feeling that they are very naive. You have the feeling that this, this, this, this, this all good people are going to end up dead because they’re so naive and that, you know, that’s how the real world works.

So you kind of, okay, I mean, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s there. It’s kind of the whole, it’s not black or white. It’s all, all a bunch of shades of grey. And you, you, you have this kind of dichotomy, uh, that I don’t know if it’s going to work or not. But yeah, we’ll have to see.

I mean, first episode. First episode, it’s too soon to say, I’m just commenting on what I just watched. Um, and yeah, maybe we can talk about more about Fallout. Uh, because there’s a lot to say about it, but I think I’ve been talking too much, uh, I don’t know if I’ve been talking too much, but I, I talked quite a lot.

And if you’re still here, thank you for listening. Uh, and if you’re not here, then, you know, why are you even listening to this? Uh, so anyways, uh, yeah, keep listening. If you want to hear my shitty opinions on stuff, um, and if you like it, I don’t know. Send me a message or something. I have no idea.

Uh, anyways, uh, thank you for listening. Uh, and, uh, see you in the next shitty episode of my diary of a wannabe cinephile. And before I forget, this is an idea that I came up with. But if someone else already did it before, then my apologies for not knowing, but anyways, um, see you. Thank you. Goodbye.