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Louis Virtel is joined by culture reporter Kyle Buchanan to discuss pop it-girl Olivia Rodrigo’s new album before diving into Steven Spielberg’s new movie Disclosure Day and whether he still has his finger on the pulse. Plus, Matt Rogers stops by to chat about the Culture Awards, podcasting and his new movie “Stop! That! Train!”

TRANSCRIPT

Louis Virtel [AD].

 

Louis Virtel And we’re back with an all new episode of Keep It. I’m Louis Virtel, and thank God today we are joined by one of my favorite people, just to gab with, but specifically about movies, and we’re on the Spielberg beat this episode. It is once again, the fabulous Kyle Buchanan. Welcome back to Keep It.

 

Kyle Buchanan I am so happy to be here. They basically keep me locked in the building, they just feed me Slim Jims and Red Bulls and I’m happy for it.

 

Louis Virtel Weho Pride, come on out of the basement and get on stage. Oh, thank God you are here. Not just to talk about Spielberg, but also a new album from an angsty young woman, which is my vibe and sometimes yours. Oh, absolutely my vibe. We have the new album from Olivia Rodrigo, which I have to say, I was mad at her initially because I love when album artists commit to. A motif every album, you know how, like, Peter Gabriel, when he had the two-letter albums, kept that going for a while, and then he disrupted it. Or Sufjan with the States. Sufjam with the states, or Ed Sheeran with the cymbals on the keyboard. I wouldn’t know. Okay, moving on. Olivia had two albums in a row that were four letters long, and now she’s got a long-ass album title, which is You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love. It is nonetheless a critical triumph, and according to Metacritic right now, the highest rated album of the year. What do you think of this album? Also according to Kyle Buchanan.

 

Kyle Buchanan Yeah, I love this album. I’ve been listening to it non-stop since it came out I have a special relationship with Olivia in that she sings songs that are completely in my range for karaoke So there’s an investment there. She’s giving me material. She is like, you know the talk singing the acting She’s basically the Rex Harrison of pop girlies. Okay, and I need her on that wall. The guest sucks up to me so hard

 

Louis Virtel I get worried for the listeners, but that is brilliantly said. Yeah, so- The Yule Brenner, if you will.

 

Kyle Buchanan Yes. So, I really love this album. I think it’s so intelligently written. The pop hooks are irresistible. I mean, truly, I’m hard-pressed to find fault.

 

Louis Virtel Ah, there are lots of big hooks. I do find sometimes each of the individual songs, and I think Sabrina Carpenter, her one-time adversary or whatever, sometimes has this problem, especially in her last album. I do think it gets a bit verbose and can crowd a pop hook sometimes, but otherwise I love that she incorporates so much kind of 80s throwback moodiness, which is such an unexpected vibe for somebody who has been so kind of paramour Avril Lavigne angst forward. You know, this is a different shade of angst, and she even equips Robert Smith to be on this album too, which is a really ingenious move. And even that.

 

Kyle Buchanan Angst feels strangely joyful to me. I was talking to my friend over the weekend and enthusing about the album and he said, I’m not sure I’m in the right head space to listen to a sad album right now. And I thought to myself, this isn’t really that sad to me, I mean, especially the first half of the album is really intoxicating and fun and exciting even. And even the sad songs on this, there’s so much witty wordplay that I, you know, I would be like, I’d be empathizing with her And then I’d say, um. That was good. That was a good Olivia. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel My only resentment as it comes to Olivia Rodrigo is I do feel like there are artists that have been in this vein before that haven’t quite gotten the critical credit and I’m going to just bring them up right now. The Veronica’s. Okay. When Untouched came out, no one gave a shit. That was not a classic at all. It did not make the radio. People said, where is Australia? We don’t care. In recent years, it is now like the Australian national anthem. I can’t take a fitness class without hearing untouched by the Veronica’s. And I would say sometimes Olivia Rodrigo feels a bit pastiche. Like it is so throwbacky that I’m wondering what the path forward can possibly be.

 

Kyle Buchanan Sometimes or all the time. And I don’t mean that necessarily in a bad way. I mean, like, I get that kind of like obviously 80s with the, you know, Robert Smith and the Cure, but like that 90s Courtney Love, Veruca Salt vibe is absolutely present. Yeah, Veruca salt’s pretty accurate, yeah. There’s even, you now, songs on this one like, you know My Way that feel very Avril Lavigne working with the Matrix. But I don’t necessarily mean that in a good way. I feel like the lyrics are so her that I don’t mind if the sound feels a little retro. She, much like Sabrina Carpenter. Is one of those people who loves to wear her references on her sleeve, and I kind of appreciate that. It’s that vibe of, you know, potentially like a big sister telling you, these are the albums that I like, and she gets the opportunity as a singer, as a a singer of quite some renown, to bring a lot of these references and these actual artists on the stage with her.

 

Louis Virtel I also think my favorite thing about this album is there are plenty of songs that feel like from beginning to end, they’re gonna be one vibe, for lack of a better word. And then you have something like Stupid Song, where suddenly it becomes this hard driving song. You think it’s gonna be like Driver’s License, just like a sad, a cry in the dark kind of song. And then it turns into this thing you can really jam to. And that like juxtaposition is really surprising. So she has like really interesting musical ideas too, that I think are all that keep this album really cohesive, ultimately.

 

Kyle Buchanan Yeah, and the idea of having your life emotionally ruined by a British twink is one that I can relate to. Oh! I’m sure many listeners can too, but I am curious, Lewis. Given that this is sort of based on her ex, Louis Partridge, who spells his name, his first name like you do, what do you think when you encounter a Lewis who goes by Louis?

 

Louis Virtel Oh, they’re ruining my life. They’re doing this on purpose. I think the number one offender of, or disruptor of the name Louis is Louis CK, who people, his name is L-O-U-I-S CK. And if you ask him how it’s pronounced, he says Louis C.K., which is bizarre. And the world says Louis, C. K. And he’s just let it go. So I think it’s that, you know. A disregard, lack of attention to detail that has really ruined my name. Like Lewis Tomlinson from One Direction, people call him Louis Tomlison, not his name. It’s Louis.

 

Kyle Buchanan Lewis Tomlinson. And if you’re with the vampires, same thing. Yeah. Wait, wait, wait. When people were canceling Louis C.K. Were you like, I’ve been here. Yes, right. For the pettiest reason.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, no, right. Arguably most deserving. I do feel like it’s coming back in a way. I’m seeing Lewis’s here and there now. Could you ever be a Louis Virtel? Oh, no. Straight men always believe it’s Louis.

 

Kyle Buchanan Like they go there right away. Immediately, yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Great men do?

 

Kyle Buchanan I feel like it’s so, um, zesty to pronounce.

 

Louis Virtel The opposite’s true, I think they think Louis is zesty. Oh, is it? Yeah, like it’s a little like, oh, like, first of all, a male name beginning with L, already on the rocks. I think with an S, that’s ladylike, you know? If you say so. You know, Louis is more like, you now, Danny DeVito on taxi.

 

Kyle Buchanan Whereas, you know, as a Kyle, if there’s a Kylie involved, I’m all for it. If I call you Kylie, I mean, what could be a greater compliment? I mean truly a term of

 

Louis Virtel Yes, right Anyway back to the assignment. What are your favorite female singer-songwriter albums just period? Oh gosh Well, I’m such a Fiona Apple person. Yes, you are

 

Kyle Buchanan Like, I feel like what Tori Amos is to you, Fiona Apple is to me. I want more.

 

Louis Virtel I want more, I love Tori, but she’s not my number one.

 

Kyle Buchanan Well, I know you are, but I feel like, yeah, okay. I mean, do you prefer Liz Faire in her pre-Matrix or post-Matix? Oh, Jesus, pre-matrix, yeah. The first three albums I love dearly, and Amy Mann, of course, yes. Oh, yeah I love Amy Mann as well. Yeah, I love Fiona Apple. I mean I was just literally listening to her the week before the Olivia album came out, so maybe the pump was primed. Which album? When the Pawn.

 

Louis Virtel Uh… When the pot is that

 

Kyle Buchanan Yes. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel And so that as fast as you can on it.

 

Kyle Buchanan Yes, the greatest song. Oh, yes, which I attempted once at karaoke, because I thought it was as talk singing as an Olivia Rodrigo song. Did not go over well and it’s very long. And once I got off stage, my friend Michael Semler said, I really admire your courage. The full Paula Abdul on Idol. Yeah, but yeah, no, no. I’m happy to have like a pop girl that I really relate to. I mean, I love, you know, Chappell. I love Sabrina. But there’s just something about Olivia where, I don’t know, I feel a one-to-one vibe, despite simply not being like her at all. That’s interesting, because I don’t vibe with it.

 

Louis Virtel But I appreciate the music of it and her point of view. And also somebody where I’m like, I’m excited to see what she does next because there’s a restless quality to the vigor and the angst that she brings. And so I know that she’s not done yet. I haven’t listened to a few and Apple in quite a long time, mysteriously. I’m making me really want to. Extraordinary machine I enjoy, yes.

 

Kyle Buchanan Okay, so if you had to give this album a four-letter title, does one come to mind?

 

Louis Virtel The word that came to mind was hurt, but.

 

Kyle Buchanan Oh, well, I mean, not bad. That came to mind, I think, for a reason. That’s a good one. Yeah. But then who does the herding? Because I do feel like what I like about this album, too, is that she’s taking a little bit of responsibility for things being the way they are. Maybe a lot of it is she just has this expectation of this beautiful romance, because she’s with a gorgeous actor, Twink, and then she finds out, okay, this is not a man who is equipped to meet me where I want to be met.

 

Louis Virtel Right, I do think the most optimistic songs on the album are the ones I vibe least with her. Like, Honeybee to me is my least favorite track. Oh, I love Honeybee. Can’t go there. Really, why not? I just, it’s…

 

Kyle Buchanan It’s like, it’s sweet, I don’t know, too sweet, saccharin? Well, that might be fair, that, you know, that thing of.

 

Louis Virtel Baby boy, honeybee. No.

 

Kyle Buchanan Okay, but like, have you ever been like, pillow talking with someone that you’re in love with? Dora’s Day, Rock Hudson, yeah. Talking about it, pillow talk, go ahead. Pillow talking or like, exchanging text messages where they’re so saccharine that if you’re like, if any of our friends like, heard us or read these, they would think we were the stupidest people alive. I feel like there’s like a little bit of flavor to that with Honey Bee, that it’s sort of like, exposing, but I know that’s probably not the vibe for everybody.

 

Louis Virtel Oh no, I think I do pillow talk really amazingly. I think people would only benefit from reading my texts.

 

Kyle Buchanan I love that you’re saying this, like, with a little bit of angry defiance.

 

Louis Virtel Like, yeah, you’re a great billiard dog. Angry Defiance is how I approach this, yeah. Anyway, no, it’s definitely a thumbs up album and a very re-listenable album. By the way, just like her other ones, her other albums are also very good.

 

Kyle Buchanan Look, I love that sort of like pop punk perfection, and I think she does it to a T

 

Louis Virtel And also listen to the Veronica’s again, namely their second album, though their best song is When It All Falls Apart, if you don’t know that song.

 

Kyle Buchanan And listen to Fiona.

 

Louis Virtel Okay, them too, them, too. This episode, we have another gay luminary with us. It is the lovely Matt Rogers, who is coming direct from my text messages with our group thread that we talk to every day. I thought you-

 

Kyle Buchanan I thought you were about to say Steven Spielberg and I was like Louis, Louis, what have you heard? No.

 

Louis Virtel She’s here, the color purple. I don’t know having her beginners are. Yeah, right. Finally, yes. We will see him at Akbar. Matt Rogers is here to talk about Stop That Train and the Los Culturistas Culture Awards, which are airing now. Of course, fabulously funny and fabulously written by Matt Rogers. Also this episode though, we are talking about the new Steven Spielberg movie Disclosure Day. Because he’s family now. That’s fucking clean. Oh my God. He sure is not. My apologies to Kate Capshaw. We’ll be talking about Disclosure Day, talking about Emily Blunt in it, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth is in it in a sort of villain role, we’ll get into that. All that and more on this episode of Keep It.

 

Louis Virtel [AD].

 

Louis Virtel Steven Spielberg’s latest film, Disclosure Day, dropped last weekend. The movie stars Emily Blunt, Josh O’Connor, Colin Firth, and Coleman Domingo. Josh OConnor plays a tech whistleblower threatening to release classified evidence that aliens exist. The film opened at number one at the box office, marking Spielbergs’ first summer hit in the 24 years since minority report. When this movie came out, I had heard across the board reactions to this movie. The first one I had heard was that it was his best movie in 20 years, which is really interesting to me because Kyle, this movie is horrible. I cannot stand this movie, every single second of it is not pleasurable. It is the most techno cliched movie I had ever seen of Steven Spielberg’s. There is not one interesting shot in this movie! I can’t believe it’s Steven Spielberg.

 

Kyle Buchanan Like you, I had heard that same thing, that it’s his best movie in 20 years. In fact, I know the journalist who said it, and I accosted him afterwards.

 

Louis Virtel I feel I want to go through the list of reviews for this like Brian Teller Rico being like it’s as complicated as no It’s not this movie is terrible. Well, I do think

 

Kyle Buchanan I mean, I hate when people prescribe this sort of thing to me when it comes to just something as simple as a subjective opinion on a movie, but I do think that there are a lot of people who have their feelings on this wrapped up with their feelings about Spielberg and then ergo their feelings themselves and their childhood. This is a filmmaker that many of us have venerated or slash grown up with and we want him to make a good movie. I mean I want him too. When I when I heard best film in 20 years, I thought that’s a tall order because I really liked the Fableman’s and West Side Story, and boy, I was disappointed by this.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, let’s first of all, talk about the idea that this would be better than any of these movies. If you watch even just the America scene from West Side Story, I know that like Ariana DeBose hasn’t been in like 17 amazing movies since then. She is absolutely flawless in that movie and every sweeping shot of just that scene is like brings a tear to your eye. It’s like, you’re swept up in the action of it. You can feel that scene. There is nothing palpable about this movie. It is dead character-wise, it is dead story-wise. When you jump into this movie Josh O’Connor has a backpack full of hard drives that might get taken from him. I mean, it’s like some sort of like CBS procedural from like 20 years ago. And then Emily Blunt doing her best plays a character who is sort of being channeled alien language, I guess, and then healing people in a sort of TV psychic way. But even that it’s, like, she has no character because she’s just channeling. Insights from the outer world and there’s no there there in terms of what she’s playing and also i’m sorry some people just look british so i don’t believe her as being from whatever the midwest

 

Kyle Buchanan Being like an American weather woman and not buying that. Yeah, I mean, look, as I was watching this movie, I was thinking to myself, is this a Spielberg issue or does this have a lot to do, and it definitely does, with a very thin script? This is not a well-written movie. This is a movie that is constantly making up logic. And basically where all the characters are saying in every scene, I don’t know why I’m doing what I’m going, but I’m gonna go do it. And okay. Well, then what quest am I getting invested in? What is your goal? They don’t ever seem to know. So key information is being withheld from us, almost like lampshadingly so, when Eve Hewson says, at some point, I’m gonna ask you to explain yourself, and you’re gonna explain why we’re doing all this. It’s like, well, you could do that right now. You’re on a road trip.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, all this movie is is characters explaining what is happening as it’s happening or delaying telling you what’s happening. Literally the main connection between the two stars of this movie, Josh O’Connor and Emily Blunt, takes about an hour and 15 minutes to be established. And once you do, it’s like, what were you even doing with the first hour of this move?

 

Kyle Buchanan And I love Josh O’Connor. And I thought that he was really great at playing an American protagonist in Wake Up Dead Man. But here, I mean, there isn’t anything to play. Wet blanket character, and so is Eve Houston. And he’s refusing to find something. Oh, I know, Eve Houston, I mean like the, probably the centerpiece sequence in the middle of the movie is Colin Firth playing GeoGuessr with Eve Houston for like 10 minutes. And I was thinking to myself, what is going on here this is so poorly paced with two characters that we don’t care about neither of which is our protagonist and we know ultimately he’s going to find his way to the heroes that’s how these chase movies work so why are we wasting so much goddamn time on this.

 

Louis Virtel Also, excuse me, Colin Firth, I’m excited for him to branch out and play villain-type roles. This role is so two-dimensional. It’s like a role that broke Orson Welles’ plays in 1978, where you gave him like a blazer and say, we’re going to shoot this all in one set, and then he can leave and be drunk or whatever.

 

Kyle Buchanan Josh O’Connor and Ephuse and they’re playing boyfriend and girlfriend in this, allegedly they have the chemistry of this glass and this table, did not buy that, and like at the beginning of the movie, you know, he finds out that she was a former novitiate and is shocked by this information. Now, mind you, we barely know this character. We have just met her. She has no traits. So when she’s like, we’ve had sex, like, you know I’m not like that anymore. It’s like we don’t know anything. We don’t anything. The performance is not giving, the writing is not given. Give me something to grab onto here.

 

Louis Virtel I watched our friend Alonzo Duralde review this on his podcast and he brought up a good point, which is this movie emerges and the first confrontation is with Josh O’Connor who again has a backpack full of information about aliens and the whole movie is about them trying to wrest this information from him. The bad guy’s getting this information back from him and he has this confrontation with Colin Firth and it feels like it’s in a parody of an action movie. It feels like is on the studio or something, you know, like I’m this bastard in this turtleneck and I’m gonna get this shit from you, young man with a backpack. You know, it’s just, it so, it’s never settled into reality and they don’t bother establishing these characters as real people at all. If you want like an encapsulation of what a cliche this movie is, look at the character Coleman Domingo plays. All this guy does is call people like Josh O’Connor on the phone and say. You have to keep going you have you have to go here You have two go here and destroy your phone and then at the end of the movie after not knowing After us not understanding why he’s doing what he’s going. He puts his hand on someone’s shoulder and said you did good I mean, it’s so what are we doing? It’s beyond a cliche. It’s it’s it Before you even get to the aliens in this movie This is of course an alien movie ultimately and the aliens are from like The cover of weekly world news at like a supermarket tabloid. It so bad

 

Kyle Buchanan And the suspense elements of this film are so strangely static. Like, first of all, anytime somebody is trying to get away from, you know, seemingly the well-equipped bad guys, all they have to do is just like, duck behind a bush or a fence. And just like at no point do the bad guys establish a perimeter around anything or anyone that they’re trying to to. They are so easy to belude that it is common.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, excuse me, there’s a sequence where Josh O’Connor and Eve Hewson are at some motel, and they are ambushed by, I’m going to say about 700 agents, who I guess they decided to get together and try to jimmy open one screen window together, while Eve Heuson shimmies out the back and succeeds.

 

Kyle Buchanan So at some point I would really like to Jimmy open a motel room window, which is something I see in the movies all the time I wonder how easy it is Seemingly very it’s another screen window guys come in here Okay, can we talk about some of the third act stuff? Yes, go ahead and skip ahead if you don’t want to spoil it

 

Louis Virtel Right, yes. Ultimately, this is a movie that can be spoiled, so just know that.

 

Kyle Buchanan Well, I mean so much of this movie ultimately funnels its way towards the idea that Emily Blunt must take this footage of aliens and release it to the local news station that employs hundreds of people for some reason. And of course the bad guys are like we cannot let her upload this to the, you know, the local new station. Cut the generators. And I’m just thinking to myself like baby go live on IG Like Spielberg, I mean, I know you’re an older man, but like, come on, there are so many ways of disseminating this information now. I just didn’t buy the crux of the stakes there, and I simply, absolutely, did not buy the way everybody just credulously accepts what they’re looking at when, honestly, it feels like Grok might have generated it. Yeah, also it’s.

 

Louis Virtel It’s like this movie wants to take place in 1978. It does, and it should have, honestly. Yeah, no, that would have been fine. Like a little revisionist history, what if something like this happened? Because literally at the end of the movie, Emily Blunt, who’s a newscaster, goes live on air and has this moment where she talks about the government has been hiding all this information from us. But the moment feels like it’s from the movie network. So it’s like that would not happen today. And also when this information comes out, everybody is standing around. Paralyzed looking at their phones in unison. And it’s so a Banksy exhibit. It’s so like nobody’s idea of how people react to news, even the fact that it’s like, aliens are real. Like would everyone just be like, oh, life has changed as we know it. I feel like people are way more cynical and like more inquisitive than this.

 

Kyle Buchanan Well, I’ve seen a lot of defenders of this movie say that if you have the interpretation we’re having of that end, that it is a cynical interpretation and what Spielberg is going for is like a more optimistic take of, well, couldn’t we all come together? You know, it’s not meant to be real-worldish, but like it kind of is, it is too muddy. Like you literally have somebody say, is that AI? This is taking place in the land of smartphones. Everybody’s got their phones out at all times. If you’re going to engage with the world we live in, unfortunately, like, and I do think it’s dramatically interesting to actually do that engagement because who would, like I just think that so many people would say this is fake or it wouldn’t bring the world together because you’d immediately have people trying to repurpose it for their own political gains. And that to me is immediately a more arresting idea than most of what this movie gives us. That’s just it. I think it’s.

 

Louis Virtel It almost teases like it’s going to understand how people would react to an extraordinary, you know, extraterrestrial event. And it doesn’t have a handle on people at all. So I don’t really know who the movie is for or what I’m supposed to get from it. I also just want to say in general, I want to get back to the fact that it’s just so shocking. It’s a Spielberg directed movie, because when I think of the best of Steven Spielberg, honestly, even mid tier Steven Spielburg, what they have in common is a sense of discovery for us as the audience. We get to be in awe of something, you know. You know, you turn the corner and there’s an amazing shot of a dinosaur. You’ve got like, that ball’s coming at you or whatever. But anyway, it’s very visceral and that sense of the cinematic. And there’s nothing in this movie that you even get to look at and think, wow. You know? Or like, that was a really surprising move or the camera swept this way. It all feels very blocked off and static.

 

Kyle Buchanan Yeah, in the very first scene with Emily Blunt, where she’s getting ready for work with Wyatt Russell there, there’s a little bit of the sense of old Spielberg magic with just the blocking. I mean, he’s a great shooter, but he’s an even better blocker. He knows how to create movement in front of the camera that can turn an expository scene into something that feels alive. But past that, I was dumbfounded by certain sequences and their poor pace. There’s a moment where Emily Blount is ordered to destroy that phone. Or feels that she must, and she throws it out the window and tells Wyatt Russell to run it over. And it is interminable. Yes, and we’re watching him try to run over it and miss. And it’s not funny, and it’s going anywhere, and I’m shocked that made the final cut.

 

Louis Virtel It must be said, I feel bad for saying that Michelle Williams in the Fablemans was kind of a two-dimensional character. I’m like, oh, is she just sitting by windowsills and almost crying this entire movie? She has more character than everyone in this movie combined. Even like Emily Blunt, who gets the acting assignment of having to make, she can kind of read people’s entire lives and tell them in an omniscient way what should be done. First of all, she’s kind of just condescending, telling them, here’s what you should do with your life, and they just are grateful to receive the advice. And then secondly, there’s never any comeuppance for the knowledge she has. We never see what really happens to the people whose lives she’s affecting. Like for instance, in a movie like Lie or Liar, where Jim Carrey is popping involuntarily with insights that he doesn’t wanna give. He at least is reacting comedically to what is happening. He’s like, I can’t believe I said that or whatever. Here, she tells this person to leave their abuse of marriage and then all we get later is I did it. I love that the aliens imbued her with-with empathy to rats.

 

Kyle Buchanan Yeah, could have been.

 

Louis Virtel That’s the name of the movie.

 

Kyle Buchanan Wow, yeah, or maybe we make that Olivia’s next album, please Yeah, I mean and also like if we’re really gonna get into it I I think that Spielberg is trying to create a unifying theory for literally Everything that that has ever been like out there about alien abductions But I don’t think he can decide whether The it was a good or bad thing that the aliens abducted these poor children and imbued them with you know They’re magic powers or whatever Because these kids seem, or as adults they seem, fairly broken up, or at least traumatized by what happened to them in childhood. But then it’s a good thing, possibly, because they’re just trying to help the world. It’s so unclear and muddy, and I don’t know, I’m just like, you gotta pick a line here.

 

Louis Virtel I also want to say about, so they flashback to these two characters having been abducted when they were kids, and I want to that the scenes feel quite gross. Did you not think of, like, the traumatic flashbacks and, like mysterious skin?

 

Kyle Buchanan And when you were watching that? Yes, I did. And I don’t mind a film that’s sort of like ambiguous about that and willing to kind of like toe the line, but then so much of the like third act stuff with the aliens is so triumphant. And it feels like we’re meant to empathize with them and say, oh, it’s terrible. What happened to the aliens? But it’s like, I don’t know. I mean, aliens, I would have gone about this differently.

 

Louis Virtel Also, excuse me, some of this footage of, at the end, part of the climactic release of information, disclosure, is this footage, again, of aliens that look like the clichés of aliens, being sort of mistreated, silly.

 

Kyle Buchanan Like what like they sort of mistreated Emily Blunt and Josh O’Connor. Yeah

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, right!

 

Kyle Buchanan Yeah, they gave Joshua Connor a bad American.

 

Louis Virtel They give this one actress a different newscaster all this time to like react to the footage she’s seeing and she’s saying these like Cronkite-esque things like Edward R. Murrow-esque, things like, I’m sorry, you have to be seeing this along with me. And again, but she’s watching like Marvin the Martian be like picked a little bit.

 

Kyle Buchanan I have to give that actress a lot of credit because she was selling the unsellable. She was good. You know, I believed her as a newscaster. I didn’t believe what she was saying, but she said it really well. And again, it’s just like, I don’t think the national news would just immediately credulously be picking up this thing that they can’t vet. And it’s sort of like, you know, and that footage, I feel like… Spielberg is is not in tune with what like normal people experience or see on the social media feeds i actually felt this at can when i was watching steven sotterberg had a documentary about john lennon there alright and it’s based on the last interview that john lennen ever gave on literally the day that he was slain and most of the interview is we’re listening to this for most of them of these were listening to his interview and there’s like archival footage and photos of lennan but then Like, pfft. And this is not a good idea, I don’t know why he did it, Soderbergh’s usually smarter than this, I’d say like a solid fifth of that movie is Groxlop that is AI generated that Soderber, you know, created to sort of like fill in visual gaps of this movie. And it’s so discordant with everything else that we’re seeing. And I get the impression that Soterbergh watched that, or like, you now, somebody was coming over to give him an AI demonstration. And he said, wow, I can just type that in and it comes up. But like the rest of us who like live lives on social media for better or for worse every day, we’re seeing this like hideous looking fakey, slow-mo like shit constantly. And so the idea of not believing your eyes and immediately being able to smell a fake is so prevalent. We just simply. Are in an era where we’re not going to believe what we see anymore and so the idea that we would get this alien footage and everybody would just be like yeah you know I mean those are ground pixels so that’s definitely not AI I just don’t believe it 100% almost everybody would think it was AI.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, definitely. I haven’t seen the movie 1941 with John Belushi in a long time, but I think I feel safe in saying this is the worst Spielberg movie I’ve ever seen.

 

Kyle Buchanan This is bottom five for me and it’s hard for me to say that. I really do love Spielberg. I root for Spielberg and people that I adore are coming to the defense of this movie, but it feels a little sweaty to me.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, please. I mean, I love Spielberg so much, I want to continue this conversation by asking, what is your favorite performance in a Spielberg movie? Because by the way, there’s only one correct answer. Oh, wait. Okay, so what is you’re correct answer to this? The correct answer is Henry Thomas and E.T. Oh, he’s wonderful at that. As in that year, 1982, we talk a lot about how E. T. Lost best picture to Gandhi. The real contest should have been Ben Kingsley versus Henry Thomas, who was not even nominated that year. Yeah.

 

Kyle Buchanan No, Henry Thomas is incredible in that movie. I was just prompted by all this Spielberg talk to call up on YouTube the final sequence from E.T. And it’s just astounding. And it isn’t just the directing and that incredible John Williams score, but this little boy’s face. Yes. Like you just believe it. And of course we’ve all probably watched that audition of Henry Thomas like winning the role in the room. And you hear Spielberg saying you got the role.

 

Louis Virtel Also, just that movie’s relentless sense of telling you who these characters are. Never for a second is there any vagueness about who the mom is, about who Drew Barrymore is, who Henry Thomas is. You are so locked into that family unit, where they live on the street, how they interact with the world, why the angst that they have. Again, it’s relentless humanity, and so this void that’s in this movie is so impossible not to compare to that.

 

Kyle Buchanan Yeah. And you know, if we’re talking about best Spielberg performances, I’m sure that we could find like a greater one, but I’m going to go with Harrison Ford in the first Indiana Jones movie because I feel like people forget what made that performance so wonderful is vulnerability and care and romance. You know, it’s not just daring do and it’s not invulnerability as he sort of became later in the series. But, you know that incredible scene that he has with Karen Allen. Where the two of them, I think it’s near the third act before they go to the final confrontation. And he is pointing to parts of his body that hurt. And there is such tenderness, such a vulnerability, you don’t get that in action movie leads anymore. I think he’s just incredible in that film. And obviously there’s the wit and the athleticism. But like he looks scared a lot of the time and that ups the stakes. And I feel like it preceded this era of movies where just like action heroes seem so above it all. And it’s such an easy way to amp up the stakes when people seem genuinely frightened or nervous or vulnerable.

 

Louis Virtel I feel like Harrison Ford was almost sent here to course correct the deficiencies of John Wayne, which is there’s a stony, you know, marquee star thing to John Wayne. But when you press it in any direction, like there’s rarely any tenderness, even in his best actor winning role in True Grit. Whereas, you now, Harrison Ford, not only does he get to be, you, know, kind of stony and, you the best of us, but he’s also very funny. And then, as you said, not is tender, but there’s an articulateness about him. You believe his intelligence.

 

Kyle Buchanan And he’s so goddamn hot.

 

Louis Virtel Please

 

Kyle Buchanan I saw that at a very young age. I think I was being babysat and it really impacted me in a lot of ways. Number one, because it’s so violent, practically earned the PG-13 single-handedly. But then also he is so hot, bare-chested, late in that movie that I simply did not understand the feelings. You were the witness that time. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel I wasn’t feeling Amish about it. I have to bring up Oprah Winfrey in the color purple. I have bring up Ray Fiennes in Schindler’s List. And I just learned recently, I believe again through Alonso Duraldi, did you know that Steven Spielberg was originally set to direct the Cape Fear remake and that Martin Scorsese was going to do Schindlers List and they eventually switched.

 

Kyle Buchanan They switched, yeah, that’s why they’re both credited as producers on this Apple TV re-imagining of Cape Fear. Yeah. And I can see that for Spielberg, I’m curious what his version of Cape fear would have been like. Yeah. But I mean, can’t you kind of see like Martin Scorsese doing Schindler’s List and how that would have looked? Certainly, yes. But what would Cape Fear have been like?

 

Louis Virtel Cape Fear is mostly just an entertaining thriller but though it does have a couple of very sinister interesting moments and I’m talking about Juliette Lewis like licking uh uh what’s his name Robert De Niro’s finger and uh uh Jessica Lange getting a couple of strange wifey moments in that too. I don’t know that I love Nick Nolte as an actor, I just don’t want to see that I can’t explain.

 

Kyle Buchanan Yeah, I do feel like there’s like a contagious, like, love of moviemaking that you feel in Scorsese’s version that I know we would have had in Spielberg’s, where just like the delight in camera setups is very evident. But I don’t know that we would’ve gotten that incredible Juliette Lewis performance from Spielberg. Not that we haven’t gotten crazy or like wonderful performances from Spielburg, but that’s like, a little cracked in a way that you don’t often find in his movies. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Yes, definitely. What did you think out there in YouTube land of Disclosure Day? Were you as confused by it as I am because I remain flabbergasted like I think we uncovered everything that was weird about it But who’s to say? Let us know.

 

Louis Virtel [AD].

 

Louis Virtel Our next guest is an actor, comedian, Christmas legend, and fellow gay podcast host, it’s own occupation. You know him from the podcast list, Cultureistas with Bowen Yang, which will air its second annual culture awards on Peacock tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern. He’s also known for his Christmas special and album, Have You Heard of Christmas? And from his roles in Q-Force, I Love That For You and Fire Island. Catch him and RuPaul on the silver screen near you in the new movie, Stop That Train Out Now. Please welcome back to Keep It, Matt Rogers.

 

Matt Rogers Hi, great to be here in the golden age of keep it. Oh, thank you. Thank you. How nice of you. My sis. Yes. I feel this way.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, that’s so nice of you. Okay, actually, there’s way too much to talk about. I would love to chitchat with you. I’d just be like, let’s talk about who sucks, but we have to get to you. Beginning with- We won’t text for that. Yeah, right, no kidding. Oh yeah, I text this man every day. I actually know you more than I know our other, like my co-host this week, which is like crazy. Anyway, but okay, we’ll start with Stop That Train. First of all, this is a star-studded film. Every drag queen you’ve ever heard of is in it. Plenty of straight people are in it, in addition to every like gay comedian I’ve ever met. But you spent most of your time on this movie with RuPaul. So tell me about solving acting with somebody who throws acting challenges for a living.

 

Matt Rogers You know, it’s impossible to be there and not feel like you are. In an acting challenge. And it does sort of just standing there with Rue makes acting seem like it’s going to be harder than it is. You know what I mean? It’s like I’m supposed to be in a situation right now where this is like the stakes are really dire. And luckily that didn’t form our scenes because the stakes were dire in the film. We’re dealing with a storm of Gonza Lewis. This is serious stuff. So, you know, just being across from Rue and having, you you know, personal urgency. Sort of you know dovetailed with the themes of the film and we were able to make something happen but it was really the best the best part of the whole thing was being on set with Rue and Adam Shankman who are two I gotta say it just classic like movie f***s and I remember I texted you actually and you were like I think you you said like ask Adam and Rue what their favorite like or Her least favorite blank performance is like…

 

Louis Virtel I remember I said, I said what’s their least favorite Natalie Wood performance because Adam will know I asked. And then, yes. And then because Adam and I hung out one time and I said and we both go at the same time inside Daisy Clover like two guys.

 

Matt Rogers It was so funny because Rue also was activated in this premise. And it was sort of like you were negotiating the hamster wheel from afar. Just so you know, exactly what you wanted to happen in that environment happened in that environment. And we were in the fake Oval Office. Which looks stunning by the way. As stunning as it could and I guess it looked pretty good. I mean, I walked in and I was like, wow, this is wild. But yeah, no, there was all sorts of gay hijinks happening on and off screen doing part in some part to you.

 

Louis Virtel Paul is this kind of person, and I’ve only met Ru a couple of times, well, when he guest hosted Kimmel, but he wants to have a good time and have a laugh, but at the same time, it’s almost like on a dime he could turn really, really serious, maybe. So it’s like, you’re never fully settled having a good, like I can never pin him down. You know what I mean?

 

Matt Rogers Yeah, I think it’s kind of important that you’re never able to, like, guess what Rue is going to do next. You know, the lore of Rue is such that, you know, there is like a mystery there. And so even being around him, and I’ve now met Rue six or seven times, actually, the way that we met was really kind of funny. Years ago, Imagine was doing a reboot of Star Booty. And I had written a treatment, I had thrown my hat in the thing. Actually to be one of these, you know, people considered to co-write this movie with Rue. And this was 2018 or 19. And the plan was to do actually, it’s funny because it’s apropos for Stop That Train, like an Austin Powers-esque reboot of Star Booty with Rue. You know, for those of you who don’t know, Star Bootie was, you know, an early film in the Rue canon. It’s very like black exploitation, very B movie, you know. The vibe was very much like, you Rue on the streets, very, very like cheaply made, but iconic queer classic. And so they’re rebooting it. They actually picked my treatment. I had went in for a meeting with Rui. And again, like, I don’t know what I’m doing so I just pitch in my whole movie and we end up hitting it off. It didn’t go anywhere but we made a personal friendship. And later that day, he was like, Do you want to come be a guest on my podcast? What’s the tea? As I’m walking in, Adam Shankman is leaving. So the three of us actually all met years ago. Like, in some small part to talk about this other big, you know, dumb comedy we were going to make. And the three of us ended up working on one altogether all these years later. It would have been kind of in the same vein to stop that train, like just a, you know, big, I guess we call it actionable jokes. But it didn’t happen. But now that I’m saying it on this podcast, maybe they’ll kick up conversations again.

 

Louis Virtel I want to reiterate that the comedy in this movie, which, you know, is touted as being like Airplane in that it’s one, mocking disaster movies, two, and the rate of jokes, like it’s just, this is a movie that’s full of jokes. Which we love. It is so funny. It is such a funny movie and you give such a fabulous performance in it. Here’s the thing. It’s one of those ensemble movies where you probably didn’t get to meet everybody in the movie, you now? Like everybody’s there on different days and you’re basically just with RuPaul for your scenes. If you had to pick a favorite performance from the rest of the movie that you’re not even a part of. Um, who would you pick?

 

Matt Rogers I would have to say I really did love Latrice Royale’s running bit. Good answer. I did appreciate that very much. And I also, you know, in terms of the cameos, I guess, The June Diane Raphael kind of takes the movie for me, if I’m to be honest with you. She really did eat that up. And also, again, like you’re saying, I wasn’t there for a lot of the movie, so I didn’t know Rachel Bloom would be the lead. I said to her afterwards, I was like, you’re the lead of this film. You’re kind of the protagonist of this movie. She was like… She’s really reached her final form.

 

Louis Virtel Or I’m in that regard. Well, I want to say about June Diane Raphael, who is of course the star of Grace and Frankie. I feel like acting alongside Jane Fonda and also acting alongside RuPaul in a movie, there’s some corollary there. I don’t know, the intimidation factor and also again, the seriousness and then the, oh wait, actually I’m the funniest person here. You know that thing.

 

Matt Rogers Very much so. There is like an imperiousness, and I do think that they know they hold the place they hold in that room. I actually have not had the pleasure of meeting Jane, as you have, but I look forward to one day playing her press secretary. Yeah, she will eat you up. They do. I cannot wait for it, please. I hope that’s the way I go. But yeah, you’re right about that. They do have a very similar intelligence, very similar, obvious talent and I think they know. They know their own lore.

 

Louis Virtel Well, you know what’s also interesting about you is, I mean, you’re primarily a comedian, but the truth is at this point, you have racked up a number of just regular acting credits. And so my question to you is what’s the hardest like acting day you’ve ever had? Like what have you been assigned to do that like tested your metal?

 

Matt Rogers Well, you know, that’s actually interesting. There was a, it actually came a really, really early. There’s a scene in Fire Island where, and my characters kind of like a very much like a funny support the entire time. I’m just kind of there to give the gay window dressing. But if you’re a fan of Pride and Prejudice, which, which Fire Island is an adaptation of, you would know that my character Luke is a comp of Lydia, who basically in Pride and Prejudice, she sort of gets like screwed out of her, you know, her standing. And the way that Joel Kim Booster, who wrote and starred in the movie, decided to map on that was my character, Luke, he has an interaction with Zane Phillips’s Dex, who’s the Wickham of the movie. And I guess what happens here is he’s an only fence creator who records me without my consent and puts it on the internet. And so there’s a character where there’s a moment where my character realizes that it’s been happening. And I realized I had to go from like laughing and celebrating to actually having a low grade anxiety attack. And like you said, I’m a comedian, I didn’t train in acting at all. I think I always wanted to do it, but it was going to be one of those things where it was like, When I get the opportunity one day, we’ll see if I can. And then in that moment, I was like, oh, this is, you know, whenever you’re reading a comedy film on the page, you’re just reading everything for laughs. And then you get there and you’re like, Oh, I have to actually play this. And so that was the first moment where I was, like, you know needing to negotiate a true emotional arc within one scene, which is the hardest thing to do. I think it’s very easy to read a script, which he comes in sobbing, or, you know you’re coming in and playing one action. It’s the, it’s the realizations and the turns. That you sometimes have to play really quickly, which are the hardest things to do. But I also get very excited when I’m tasked with them. And it’s interesting, you bring up being more of a comedian. I haven’t felt like that in a long time. It’s been really interesting five years because my career is changing and instead of having a five-year plan at this point, I’m more just like listening to that.

 

Louis Virtel Ben, please, like it keeps turning up dividends. I like the surprise turns your career takes. But then you also have these like standards you return to. Like you have Christmas shenanigans every single year. Yeah. And I assume you’ll be having that again. Yeah, I have to remind myself who I am, a clown. But you like, you’ll return to that of course this year too. And at this point it’s become such a standard of years. Do you have to like actually psych yourself up for the holiday? Like, you know, like the way Mariah’s like, here I go putting on that fucking suit again. You know, do you feel like you’ve, you have more to explore when it comes to Christmasing.

 

Matt Rogers Well, you know, what’s funny about that is it’s so every year I have to rename the tour. So because if you just, if you’re just say it, Matt Rogers Christmas show, it’s going to get, it’s gonna bring you all the way back to 2017. So I have to rename The Tour. And unfortunately, I have sort of peaked on stupidity every single time. Like the album was called Have You Heard of Christmas?

 

Louis Virtel Which is so great. Yes.

 

Matt Rogers And then I was like, I was, like, I don’t know what else to call it. So last year I did, my tour was called Christmas in December. So now this year, I’m sort of like, I don’t know how I get dumber in terms of titling the thing. So that’s really the challenge. At this point, I know that for me, Christmas kind of starts in like… I guess September when I have to start getting ready and, you know, for the tour that I do. That’s not a big deal. I’ll get my voice in shape. I’ll in the spirit. It’s just naming the fucking thing that is giving me the most anxiety now. I’m like, I don’t know how to get dumber. And it’s such an important thing that I do. So that’s now that the cultural awards are coming out, I can sort of pivot to that.

 

Louis Virtel Well, I think you should use the culture awards as inspiration, because when I read the rollout of the nominations for the culture award, and if you didn’t see the culture words last year, they were not only fabulous, but fabulously written, I just want to say, first of all. And the thing that shocks me about the culture awards, I told you this at the time, was you have all these celebrities, there’s a Bravo universe of celebrities, but there’s also like actors and actresses, you know, people from the legitimate world, shall we say. And it- felt to me like everybody was so dialed into the voice of the show, which is extremely specific, which is to say, it’s kind of mocking the idea of award shows, but at the same time, it’s very sincere about the sometimes stupid things we love about celebrities, you know, like, and trying to celebrate that and giving an accolade to that. So I guess my question is, were there any celebrities who dialed into the award shows that you were especially pleased with and maybe even surprised by?

 

Matt Rogers You know what’s funny is I was I every year after we do this, we do we always have comedian friends that we’ve known for years and years come and do the show. And so Darcy Carden has done the show every year. And she mentioned this last year, but Josh Sharp said it to me a couple weeks ago. He was like, you know, you’re asking these a list celebrities to essentially do alt-comedy, which like… Is that you know something that our generation of comedians knows well because of the kind of boom that happened in new york when i was coming up but then all of a sudden you realize you’re speaking a language that these people have never been asked to know you know and so then you get there and you have to explain to someone like lisa rina let’s just say who you know her bit in our show is she walks the nominees for Outfit of the Year. And so on paper, I can see it happening. You know what I mean? Like I can Lisa Rinna coming out as Carolyn Bassett in her argument chic in Battery Park. I can that happening on stage, but the question is, is it going to actually happen with the real humans I have set into this rat maze that is the cultural words that Bowen and I create? And what always ends up surprising me. Is that people have as good a sense of humor as I thought they were going to. And if they’re not, they were stopped by their publicist mid-process. It’s an interesting process booking the culture awards because you obviously want people to say yes, but you also want people to said yes that are going to execute the very specific things that we’re asking them to do, you know? And so I just always cross my fingers that people are going I have- not just the sense of humor, but the capability to carry things out because I’ll just tell you not every actor is a performer, and that is something that, you know, is a tough realization when you put something in front of them. I’ve had just as many times I was impressed than I was truly disappointed. Oh, interesting. I didn’t know that. But again, that’s for our texts. And all in all, when we look at what we’ve made, I’m like, wow, like I actually have some. Some real faith that people are going to get some of the hybridization that we’re asking them to do, because it’s an ask.

 

Louis Virtel Now, talking about Bowen, who of course is also a mutual friend of ours, what do you disagree with him the most on when it comes to maybe celebrities or fandoms, et cetera? Because I think of you guys as pretty simpatico. And also, again, a key to the success of the Culture Awards is you both have a unified voice in this alt way. What you want out of the celebrities is identical. You’re very squared away on what success means in terms of the award show. So I’m curious what you actually don’t vibe about.

 

Matt Rogers That’s so funny. I would say if we don’t agree about things, it’s probably because I have a more optimistic view of everything and he has a more pessimistic view of everything. I think that I am willing to give people the benefit of the doubt a little bit more and he is not. I think he’s much quicker to condemn. This is the, sorry to make it astrological, but Pisces Scorpio dynamic that we have.

 

Louis Virtel Ask any scientist they’ll say.

 

Matt Rogers Bowen does not suffer fools and I make a career out of suffering them sometimes, it feels. Like even like, I know you’re not keen into this, but like the summer house stuff at all. Like I’m like, I really am willing to give people the benefit of the doubt and like sociologically I’m looking at myself, I’m, like, wow, like these people really got you. And Bowen just tends to be a lot more forgiving. So I would say, you know, in terms of the stuff that we artistically consume, like… He’s really more on the cool like Laura Nero like side of things like you. You mean my side? That’s right. And I’m sort of more like off book on Olivia Rodrigo already. You know what I mean? Speaking of which, what do you think of the new album? I think it’s fantastic. I think that she has done something really cool, which is that she’s been able to really get more specific while she gets more famous. I think that like her voice is getting clearer, as opposed to someone who’s now on their third album and their voice is getting more broad. You know what I mean? I do think that watching her sort of follow her instincts in a less compromising way, like she’s got Robert Smith on the album, which is not something I think a lot of her. Peers are doing, I think it’s cool to watch her become like an alt rock girlie. I remember I saw her last year at the forum a week before I saw Alanis Morissette at the Forum, and I was like, Oh, I hope she becomes this. Yeah. You know?

 

Louis Virtel Well, also, I think it’s kind of, you put your finger on, there are two different types of artists, which is people who get better as they become more popular and people who like, they were meant to be kind of niche altogether. And as they blow up, they have less to accomplish. Like I would say Alanis Morissette, who, you know, her first album or her first US album emerged with all of these, you now, not just the, not just you ought to know, but like, you ironic as a bizarre song and you learn as a very adult. And then as she went on, she’s like, I’m just going to keep doing my small Canadian thing and we’ll see who dials into it. Whereas Olivia, you’re right, is expanding in an interesting way.

 

Matt Rogers I recently just saw her compared to Fiona Apple, which I thought was really interesting too. Like this massive sort of generational success. And then obviously, we haven’t seen Olivia totally reject that the way that Fiona has rejected that. But there is something very modern in the way she’s not fully going for the pop star thing. And I do think it will, I already think she’ll be here for the rest of her life. Whereas, you know, I think other people, they indulge in those commercial instincts such as someone and I don’t like picking on her this much. You know I used to love her. We went to go see her together for my birthday in Vegas. But someone like Katy Perry, when she goes and hosts American Idol and she goes to Vegas, I think something in those experience might tell her be more broad, be more abroad, you’re for everyone. And that dilutes what she’s doing artistically. Whereas Olivia, I think, is very specifically looking out in the crowd at the girls that are there and saying, who are we all going to become together? I’m going to speak directly to you and what our clear niche interest is together, if I really think about why we’re all here. Yeah.

 

Louis Virtel You know? I also think this is a problem comedians sometimes have too. As they get broader, they feel like they have to change the voice they came in with, the thing that made them popular basically. And sometimes that works and sometimes it doesn’t. You know. Yeah. I believe this is public knowledge. You’re gonna be in Mr. And Mrs. Smith with- Yeah. Which is a fabulous show. And tell me what you’re looking forward to about that. Cause I feel like that’ll be a new version of you I have not yet seen.

 

Matt Rogers Yeah, so I’ve done one day on it, and it’s kind of cool to come to that place where I’m like, I’m involved in something I can’t really talk about. I will say that it remains as surprising as the first season. It doesn’t immediately answer questions about the first season, but those answers come. And I think that it’s going to stay very true to the of what it was, while also being… Surprise, it’s going to be surprising and the guest cast is going to gag people. Okay, that’s what I want to hear. Just like the first season where one of the fun elements of it was this sort of Will and Grace, you know, celebrity wheel of cameos, I think it might deliver something like that again. And I think they’re going to let me hold a gun too. Which girl? I’m laughing. I know, call me Miss Congeniality.

 

Louis Virtel Before I let you go, I have to say the one thing you still have to develop into its own TV show is the Troll Bowl from the live I know I don’t think so honey comedy specials that people don’t know. I don’t think so. Honey is of course the famous and feature on the Los Culturas podcast, but also during the live shows. They will have comedians come on stage at about 50. And there’s an option where if you don’t prepare a rant, you can do a random one drawn from a bowl that you have to do on the fly. That should be a TV show. I will never forget having to talk about why I quote unquote hate Chelsea Clinton. By the way, it’s so therapeutic. And also it takes away the ego of like, this is what I honestly feel about this thing. It’s like, we all know you don’t feel this way about this because you just had to draw it from a hat and it’s funny that way.

 

Matt Rogers And also, like, what ends up coming out of your mouth, um, when you realize those things in real time. It’s like, I’ve pulled Princess Diana one time when we did a live show in London. Horrible person. And then suddenly, you’re saying things like, drive your own car. And you’re like, you know, I didn’t realize I had that in me. I don’t think that, but I guess I did. Some part of my id was like, drive your own car. But that’s why the troll bowl forces you into enjoy your ugly Crayola beanie, baby. Yeah

 

Louis Virtel A purple bear, fuck off. Yeah, truly. Wow, look at you fired up with a baby. I don’t think so, honey. Yeah, right. An okay wedding dress. Do you know whose wedding dress I was just thinking about? Girl, Dua Lipa, I think, has the best celebrity wedding dress of all time.

 

Matt Rogers She’s also got the best celebrity husband of all time. Oh, we can’t get into that. That man is just brutal. Also, not a hot yokel. Oh my god. No, my thing too is like, why are we even talking about the James Bond of it all? Like, that’s him. Yeah, right. That’s him!

 

Louis Virtel He’s married to a bond girl. True. Is he too tall? I just, you know, it’s that Jacob Elordi thing, where it’s like, you do have to like, hide behind a couch sometimes.

 

Matt Rogers See, my hot-take Jacob Elordi doesn’t do it for me in that regard. Like, I think he’s a great actor. I don’t see him and think, woof. And I know that I’m in the minority there.

 

Louis Virtel You know what I will say about him? I don’t know that I do either, but it’s a voice thing for me. It’s a Voice Thing. Yeah, which is its own category of people. Like, for instance, Shane Fonda, a voice actor.

 

Matt Rogers Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don’t think he mumbles. I find him to be very sort of almost like mealy-mouthed in a way. Yeah This garble-mouth Tall girl though. I did like him in Wuthering Heights a movie that I appreciated and no one else did I guess I thought he

 

Louis Virtel I was okay, I loved him in Saltburn. I thought he was the best part of that movie.

 

Matt Rogers He’s good. Yeah, did you stomach euphoria this year?

 

Louis Virtel It’s just shocking to see him on that show because he’s like, you know, 39 now or whatever. But, you now, but they did play Ride Like the Wind by Christopher Cross on that Show, which is one of my favorite songs. So I have to.

 

Matt Rogers Oh, Christopher Cross. I just had a wholesaling like spring.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, no, I mean, again, it takes you away, as the song says. I had a sailing spring, and that’s good. Nobody had a better 1981 than that man. Oscar and Grammy for Album of the Year. He swept the Grammys. Anyway, look up 1981 some time.

 

Matt Rogers I just had Mindy Kaling on the podcast and she knows as many Oscar facts as you, I think.

 

Louis Virtel Oh, is that what you think because I can’t wait for her to meet me and be disgusted with first of all me But first second of all her lack of knowledge

 

Matt Rogers You have to get her in here, I think that would be really good.

 

Louis Virtel Because I wanna see the face off. Matt, thank you so much for being here. Come back to Keep It more often. I think the last time you were here was like two years ago or something. Come back more often.

 

Matt Rogers I know I wanna come in and guest host.

 

Louis Virtel We yes, we can get more. We can do an all Callum Turner episode and really let Queen out.

 

Matt Rogers Please, I’m so ready to talk about Callum.

 

Louis Virtel Stop that train in theaters now. And also Las Culturistas, the culture awards is out this evening. So eat it up and all this little statuettes.

 

Louis Virtel [AD].

 

Louis Virtel And we’re back with the most riled up part of the episode. It’s Keep It. Kyle, what’s going on in that amazing break?

 

Kyle Buchanan Of yours. Thank you, Louis. Well, you know, as Keep It’s chief video game correspondent. Oh, God. Okay, let me grab the table. I must reluctantly issue a keep it to my beloved Nintendo. Now, I want to preface this by saying, like, I am such a Nintendo loyalist. I have owned, like every system. I’m basically a Gold Star gay, but for Nintendo, like I may have dabbled. I may have occasionally borrowed a PlayStation for Final Fantasy, but it was like all above the Well, like, gold star, I swear. Um… So it brings me no pleasure to discuss nintendo did a nintendo direct last week which is basically like a supersized video presentation of like the video games they have coming out this this year and the two big games published by nintendo itself that they’re touting this year are a remake of star fox sixty four and the legend of zelda ocarina of time these were for these were video games released for the nintendo sixty four originally We’re remaking games from 97 and 98. Like, to put that in perspective, that is before Daphne and Niles consummated things on Frasier. Okay, I’m there. And, like, come on, Nintendo. I love you. You make some of the best video games of all time. So, like make some new ones. This idea that, you know, in the second year of the Switch 2’s life, you’re going back to the archives that far and just doing remakes? Like, where’s my new 3D Mario or, like something new? I mean, I appreciate it because, look, I am the target audience. This is, like… You’re pandering straight to me, but I don’t always want to be pandered to. It reminds me of, you know, when I used to go to Ackbar on Friday nights, when I was young and I would hear, like, Hole and Block Party, and I’d be like, this is so cool. But now I still go to ackbar Friday nights and they’re still playing Hole and block party. And I’m like, okay, even though I am the demo here, I feel like a young audience ought to be experiencing, like, their new shit. Like, enjoy finding new flavors. Even if you’re gonna bring back these new franchises, or these old franchises. Do something fun with it. And I feel like we’re seeing that in the movies right now. Obsession and Backrooms, those are two very popular movie franchises or they’re about to become movie franchisers with Gen Z because they’re not hand-me-downs. They’re not remakes of something older. They’re something new and something exciting. So come on, Nintendo, give me something newer if you’re gonna pander to me. At least release Mother 3 in North America if you know you know.

 

Louis Virtel Uh, this feels to me like hearing that Disney is doing a live action release of like a mid-tier movie, you know, like we’re getting live action Mulan. It’s like love reflection. Don’t know if I need the full live action version of that movie. And is he still going to be named Mushu?

 

Kyle Buchanan Oh my God, Luce. On the way over here, like, I passed a billboard for the live action Moana. It looked like a joke. I literally burst out laughing. And I’m sure it will make money, but it just felt like- You don’t think the rock looked ravishing? I feel, again, like the rock looked croc generated. We’re talking about, I don’t believe my eyes.

 

Louis Virtel Do you smell what the grok is cooking?

 

Kyle Buchanan There you fucking go. Yeah, no, I mean, look, it could never be like clear this gap we have about like in art, like across mediums about like, do we do the safe thing? Cause nobody knows anything right now and we’re all really scared about where things are going. So either you do the same route and you just remake shit until the end of time or you blaze new trails. And then those new trails can be just as lucrative, you know, and honestly, I think necessary to the health of multiple mediums.

 

Louis Virtel I want you to know I’m in a pop culture trivia league and they are very insistent that like video games are pop culture So I agree in a set of questions. I’m gonna get a video game question and I will probably miss it I want to know that I got one this week. I got a perfect score on this week’s quiz, which is very rare It was it so it starts off with a vague The question starts out vague and you get more points for buzzing in early I got it by the end which is who is the main frog boss in Super Mario 2?

 

Kyle Buchanan Oh, a wart. Yes, okay. That’s an easy one. Like I say. I can name the bosses in order. We got Mauzu. Oh yes, Triclide. Uh huh, yes. Claw Grip is there, yeah.

 

Louis Virtel Oh my god, what a gay moment of Awakening when you could play as the princess and she was a little bit better than everybody else.

 

Kyle Buchanan I loved that because that gave me so much cover as a young gay boy like of course, I’m gonna pick princess she hovers Yeah, she flow no other reason. Yeah, there’s an untouchable effervescence about her kind of like Kylie Minogue Uh-huh. Well, I mean and that brings us to Street Fighter 2 where I’m sure you were picking like Cammie and Chun-Li Oh, yes. Well for talking about Street Fighter to only Chun-li Cammi comes in Super Street Fighter, but well, yes

 

Louis Virtel I mean, but then when she does come in. And I have my long yellow braids. Uh-huh, exactly, exactly. And my military outfit. Who’s letting her into the military in that outfit? I think it’s she. Yeah, no, no. The military could use some tips from him. All right, my Keep It is not as delightful as that. My Keep It to Nate Bargatze, who is a comic, whom I, generally speaking, have had no problem with. I thought he hosted the Emmys and it was not good. And his entire bit hosting the Emmys was… Every time somebody goes over like we’re gonna and in other words shaming people for giving a good award show speech which I absolutely cannot stand if you’re gonna be the host of an award show be game for the fun of an awards show I feel like straight men have a problem understanding that a lot of the time. Anyway, he went to the UFC 250 fight on the White House lawn, the abomination of abominations. I want to be clear, I write for Jimmy Kimmel Live. Jimmy made the joke the other day that is so true that we’re building this billion dollar ballroom so they can have a safe place to throw events. Meanwhile, they just had this thing on the fucking lawn. It makes no sense. Anyway, you don’t get to be a quote unquote, apolitical comic and then take pictures at the UFC fight on The White House Lawn with like loser ass Sarah Huckabee Sanders or whatever, like the lowest of the low. Did you actually like? Like download what happened at this event. There was a fighter at this thing who got up and said, Michelle Obama is a man.

 

Kyle Buchanan To Joe Rogan.

 

Louis Virtel Yes. So we couldn’t get lower. We cannot get lower, this is the worst of humanity exalted to a certain degree by our own president and the utter losers around him who at the very best will be forgotten by history if we don’t prosecute them fully at some point. This is a disgrace and anybody who was at it is a disgraced and Nate Bargatze and his extreme, strange theme park ambitions are a disgrace. I want this bastard to go the fuck away.

 

Kyle Buchanan Yeah, so many dispiriting angles here, but the first one I’m going to pick is that there should be literally no overlap between Emmy hosting and appearing on the lawn of the Trump White House for UFC event. Please. That is what happens when networks are like, well, we’ve got to appeal to the demographic that is least likely to watch award shows, and they hire someone who seemingly hates being there, hasn’t watched any of it, and dislikes the entire concept of it. Right. Um… Also, the idea of, I’m apolitical. I think we all know what that means now, you know? There’s just like, there’s tells, there’re dog whistles and we can’t keep ignoring it. Like the other day, I was scrolling on Hinge and someone had attempted to match with me and I’m looking at it and it’s like, you know, it’s a pretty hot guy. And I get to the very last picture and he’s holding a rifle. And I was like, okay, I’ve got to scroll back up to the bio information. Please don’t say moderate, please don’t say moderate and I scroll up and it says political views moderate. And again, we know what that means.

 

Louis Virtel Yeah, there’s just nothing left to unearth about this person. I can’t imagine going to this event just period. But then shamefully taking pictures with the people there who are just like the worst of the worst. I’m disgusted that he thought we wouldn’t clock him for this. You know, that he could get away with just being like, I’m trying not to be involved and the whole political thing. Meanwhile, like. We have our own brains. We have our own eyes. We can see what you’re doing. And again, somebody whose entire bit at the Emmys was, we’re all full of shit here. Still going to a UFC fight on the White House. Meanwhile, that’s like completely legit. It’s almost like the thing people have contempt for with award shows is women being treated with respect. It’s like that’s the whole thing.

 

Kyle Buchanan Yeah, they’re a lot more full of shit where you were going. Yes.

 

Louis Virtel Interesting. Kyle, you were a dream as always. Thank God you were here to unpack Spielberg and this new quote unquote movie with us. I feel pretty happy for a girl so in love. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Olivia, for making this a relatively sunny week for us, despite the movie we saw. Kyle, if I’m looking for you on social media, where can I find you?

 

Kyle Buchanan I am on Still X, where I’m trying to evade all that fucking grok slop. You can find me at Kyle Buchanan and you can also find my writing on the New York Times and I’m on The Daily this week, the New york Times podcast, talking about Gen Z movie going habits. Ooh, you can find these unless, of course, the generator in your…

 

Louis Virtel Building goes out. Right. You won’t be able to see it. There’s no way. There is no way! Thank you to the fabulous Kyle Buchanan, thank you to my friend and sis, Matt Rogers for joining us today, and thank you for listening. We’ll be back with an all new Keep It next week. Keep it as a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Caroline Reston, Kelsey Gante, Kendra James, Lindsey Gomez, and me, Louis Virtel. Our team includes Matt DeGroot, Rachel Gaewski, Delon Villanueva, Claudia Sheng, Mia Kellman, Jay Banks, Charlotte Landes, and Jordan Cantor. Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.