Welcome to Nice Ashes, I'm Mike.
And I'm Nate.
What are we smoking today, Mike?
We are smoking an Oldova Series Zero or O. Probably O.
Probably O.
Series O. The cap tasted a little better than the last one.
Okay.
It's a little darker.
It's not a Connecticut, it's a Cameroon.
These are all Robusto sizes, so we're back to the preferred size.
I'm doing a V cut.
Me as well, and the cap does taste better.
It's a little sweet.
Medium bodied and sweet in my opinion.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is a bit sweet.
I like it.
So far.
So far anyway.
Initial impression.
Who are you pairing it with?
I am pairing it with, surprise, surprise, Estella Artois.
There we go.
Well, I'm mixing it up.
I'm doing a Johnny Walker Black and a Michelob Ultra.
Hey, there you go.
Yeah.
So I figured after the last one, I was like, oh, maybe a shitty light beer will do the
trick.
We'll see.
I mean, you know, I usually drink the IPAs and, you know, high ABVs.
And I just kind of felt, ah, let's just, you know, take it a little easy.
We've got, I don't know that this episode is going to be as controversial as our last
episode and the stuff that we're talking about, but there is definitely some controversy adjacent
to what we're talking about this episode.
So yeah, this is like the dark, uh, double episode here.
It's very dark.
I would say that content wise, this is a lot more darker.
Yeah.
Less controversial, but darker.
Yeah.
So what are we talking about this episode, Mike?
We are going to talk about the Sound of Freedom, which is apparently a very controversial movie
that came out over the summer.
Yup.
And it made a ton of money.
Did you bring up the box office?
No, but I know that they did a big campaign of pay it forward.
So people, they would get people to go see it in theaters and they would say, you know,
if you like the movie, buy a ticket for somebody else.
And so they kind of cultivated this community of people who liked the movie, I guess.
Yes.
Uh, let's see.
I'm looking at box office, trying to find it.
It made $238.5 million.
There you go.
Against a 14 and a half million dollar budget.
So it was a very successful film.
Yes.
And I had wanted to see it even before like the controversy came out, I guess.
But my dad, we were spending time with him a while back and he said, have you guys seen
Sound of Freedom yet?
It's an excellent movie.
And I guess we're going to do a movie review and then we're going to kind of get into some
of the controversy surrounding it, I suppose.
Sure.
Plot synopsis.
I will, I will do the plot synopsis because I, I initially heard it was a vigilante superhero
movie.
Uh, you know, people were criticizing it.
And so I didn't know what to expect going into it.
It's based kind of on a true story.
It is a cop drama based loosely on a true story surrounding human trafficking in South
and Central America to the United States.
Uh, child sex trafficking.
Mostly child sex trafficking.
Yes.
It reminded me of Black Rain, which is from the 80s.
Have you ever seen that movie?
Uh, Nate?
Uh, I don't think I've seen that one yet.
I know it's on my watch list.
Okay.
It's a cop drama with an American cop in Japan surrounding the Yakuza.
And this is a cop drama with an American cop in Central and South America.
Uh, so it's similar themes, you know, it reminds me of like the cop dramas with the T word
involved made in the two thousands, the earlier two thousands, you know, uh, it's perfectly
adequate.
The acting is good.
The casting is good.
The, uh, script was fine.
It's a perfectly adequate blockbuster ish style drama, cop drama.
Yeah, I guess.
Um, so you wanted to do, do you want to do the, the plot synopsis then?
Or is that your plot synopsis?
That's my plot synopsis.
I mean, we'll get into the details as we go, but I wanted to open it up.
It is not a superhero movie.
It is not a political movie.
It's a cop drama movie with child trafficking as the crux and it's half Spanish.
So you got to turn the subtitles on, you know, and it's perfectly adequate.
It's yeah, I guess, uh, off, off the bat, my dad was like, it's an excellent film.
Well, I gave it a six out of 10.
It's fine.
Uh, I guess if you want, if you want, if you want this movie, just watch taken just the
first one.
It's, it's shorter runtime, much more action and, uh, it doesn't, uh, doesn't have weird
overt religious overtones.
But basically this movie is based on Tim Ballard's career, uh, loosely because so he works for,
I think, uh, the department of Homeland security.
He rescues one child who has a sister that's still in captivity, I guess is what you would
call it or something.
And so he then quits his job to go and just spend time down in South Central America somewhere
looking for the sister.
And then that's kind of it.
And the, the true story is Tim Ballard never left American soil to go and mano, Imano fight
a sex trafficking, Kingpin, fisticuff style to rescue a little girl.
It's a Hollywood ization of a true story.
I do not have any problem with that.
Oh no, I don't, I don't have any problem with it either, except that people, some people
were saying, well, he really did quit his job and he really went down there and saved
her.
Uh, he did not though.
It's some copium.
I like blood sport.
I don't think that Frank Dukes actually went and fought in the Cuma.
Okay.
But at the movie is perfectly adequate.
You, you and I know, you and I know.
So you know, I think it's, it's fine as how it goes is, is, is a decent movie and you
might like it more if let's say you are Christian because there's a scene and I always thought
this person was you Mike, because he always had a cigar in his mouth.
Yes.
When he goes down to, goes down to South America and he meets this person who did time and
was part of a gang or something.
I don't know.
And then now he's buying kids to set them free.
So he's kind of the Oscar Schindler of this movie.
And I guess the, the, the, that was kind of one of the first scenes where I was like,
okay, the writing is a little, little off because well, one, Edmund Dantes, I'm sorry,
Jim cavies, cavies.
I don't know.
What the fuck Edmund Dantes.
Yes.
He's down there somehow.
No, he, he plays Tim Ballard and he's like, Oh, I, Hey wife, whatever his wife's name
was, I guess here on the credits, it was Catherine or something, but he's like, Hey wife, I, I'm
going to go down and I got to go save this, this kid.
And she's like, that sounds great.
And so he does.
And I'm like, that's not how that conversation would have gone ever.
There's not a, there's not a relationship on the planet that that conversation would
be that.
Right.
You know what I mean?
So it was highly unrealistic.
And then he's like sending his wife like a text message from a tent in the middle of
bum fuck nowhere.
One, you're not going to have cell reception.
Well, the satellite phone, it's a satellite phone.
Okay.
Fine.
And so the two, like her response was, I feel like she's our daughter.
And they did that a lot.
That was a very common trope in this film was what if it was your child?
And then that, that overrode all logic in the movie, right?
That was the, that was the Trump card in this movie was what if it was your child?
Don't get me wrong.
It was a Hollywood cop drama.
Hollywood sex trafficking is terrible.
And I was uncomfortable for a good portion of, of at least the very beginning when they
were getting into all that stuff.
And that one guy played a really good creepy sex trafficking person.
I thought he was over the top.
Yeah.
Weird Al Yankovic, but creepy was.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
Daniel Radcliffe discount.
Daniel Radcliffe only cause he played weird Al in the movie.
Right.
Okay.
The scene that really kind of took me out of it was the older version of Mike was down
there sitting on the table smoking his cigar and Edmond Dantes sat down.
It was like, I gotta go find this kid.
And older Mike was saying, well, why?
And Edmond Dantes was saying, well, I don't like child sex trafficking and I want to save
her and her brother and all this.
And the other guy, I guess his name is vampiro says, that's not, that's not the real reason.
Tell me the real reason.
And Edmond Dantes, Edmond Dantes goes, God's children are not for sale.
You know, and then there was like 13 hallelujahs and stuff from the church.
I didn't think it was that over the top.
I'm not as sensitive to that as you were.
And that's true, but it's kind of one of those things where it's like, what, if, if reuniting
siblings isn't a good enough reason, then why is God's children not for sale?
A better reason.
I took it less as like a religious to overtone and more of like a fanatic, but he was like
a fanatic, a fanatic anti-sex trafficker, right?
Which is not a bad thing to be.
No, I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be.
You could take it in that way.
So you could take it is that vampiro didn't want Tim Ballard to do this only for one child
because vampiro knew how many children were in captivity, right?
So he wanted to make sure that Tim was not just going to stop after rescuing this one
child.
But I don't, I don't see why you couldn't say something along the lines of I quit my
job so I could come and rescue children on the ground here in your country.
Why wouldn't that have been as, as good or why were all of his other reasons not valid?
You know what I mean?
Like if you would have said something like you want to, you want to reunite the, the
brother and sister and what else, you know, no child is for sale or, you know, even the,
even the same line, but it just, it kind of came off as like, well, that's not quite a
valid reason either, but if that's the one you're going to accept, I guess the movie's
got a movie.
You know what I mean?
Well, I think it was supposed to be a more bad ass line to hit with the, the movie going
public.
Well, obviously.
Yeah.
But it, you know, and that's part of the thing is you put these lines in and you want it
to be as iconic as I'll be back or, you know, 1.21 gigawatts or anything.
You know what I mean?
It just, it felt, in my mind, it felt a little forced, but also I kind of knew that Jim said
his greatest honor in life was portraying Jesus and Mel Gibson's anti-Jewish film, The
Passion of Christ.
I never watched it.
That's probably never watched it.
Yeah.
So, you know, it was just some of that stuff where it's like the relationship between Tim
Ballard and his wife in this film felt like she was always a thousand percent behind him.
And I guess I appreciate not bogging down a slightly over two hour long movie with household
domestic drama, but it kind of took away from some of the realism.
I did not consider the film to be super realistic.
I, well, and I'm not saying it's super.
I'm just saying, you know, this is probably just another natism, right?
Like the, the, the training room having the dining room table in the floor and the caramel
apple salesman in Hocus Pocus 2.
It's just one of those things where it kind of broke the reality of the film.
Like I'm fine with films setting up their own reality, but if you're not going to have
the wife put up any fuss, and I know Tim Ballard in real life has like nine kids, two of them
are adopted or something, but still that's a fuck ton of kids.
Oh, and they showed that he had like a brood.
He had a fucking hockey team.
Oh yeah, for sure.
But I mean, if you're not going to have the wife put up any kind of fuss whatsoever, don't
even include those scenes then.
You know what I mean?
It's just, it just adds runtime for no, for no reason, or just do it once and say, Oh
yep, this is going to put a strain on our family, but you know what?
This is important to me too.
I'll figure it out.
And then that's it.
We never have to see her again.
We don't need the text messages.
We don't need to, we don't need to be constantly reminded.
He's a family man.
He's got nine kids for fuck's sake.
We know he's a family man.
Right.
No, I, yeah.
I thought it was perfectly adequate.
It grossed more than Indiana Jones.
Yeah, I don't, it's better than Indiana Jones, honestly.
I haven't watched Indiana Jones, but I mean, having watched Barbie, it's not as good as
Barbie, but it's better than most everything else I've seen this year.
That's new, better than a Soca.
Oh God.
I took a dump the other day.
That was better than a Soca.
So it's worth a watch if you want to watch a cop drama about sex trafficking, which is
depressing and uncomfortable at times for sure.
At least the beginning part of the movie for sure.
Yeah.
Especially when they're pulling out like the files and things and I still couldn't get
over the fact that that dad brought his two kids to this like dance or beauty competition
thing in this fucking runaway hotel.
Yeah.
And the woman was like, oh no, you can come back at seven tonight and pick them up.
And then he just like, ah, okay.
And left.
Right.
And it's like, well, that's the number one way to get your kids in sex trafficking is
to just leave them with some random person in a hotel room.
Right.
Places that you're not even in a conference room of the hotel is a hotel room.
Yes.
I did like that.
They spliced in images of children being taken or videos.
I shouldn't say I liked that.
No, that's not the right way to put it.
It was, it was effective.
It was very effective.
And then at the end of the movie, they showed images from the raids and videos from the
raids that they showed in the film.
I liked that.
I was like, again, I don't like it, but it was very effective and it was impactful to
the story.
That was, that was some good filmmaking.
Disturbing.
I didn't, I didn't think the, yes, I didn't think the script was the greatest script of
all time.
I didn't think the acting was the greatest acting of all time.
There are definitely tens of moments, but it's, I don't think it's going to stand up
against other, other films in terms of becoming a classic or, you know, it's not, it's not
going to be a classic.
You know, it's better than guardians of the galaxy three.
It's better than ant man.
You know, it's better than a lot of the movies that are coming out.
Modern.
Yeah.
Significantly better.
I mean, it's, I watched the whole thing and I was focused on it 100% the whole time.
I was too.
Like I said, there was just a couple of scenes where I was like, Oh, that was kind of, you
know, jarring in terms of kind of popping me out of the realism that this movie is trying
to set up because they've got the very dark and gritty child sex trafficking.
And then they cut to like super supportive wife who has no qualms about, Oh, you're not
going to have a pension.
You're just going to go down to South America.
Hey, that's cool.
Like when are you going to be back?
You don't know.
Hey, that's fine with me too.
Whatever.
I can totally watch nine kids.
Not a big deal.
Go for it.
Like it's a hyper irresponsible, highly dangerous action that you're about to do.
Yeah.
Like she never once said, well, what if you die?
Like what if you die, you know, as he's going and sneaking into the, what the gang lords
base camp and they all have automatic weapons and they're the most inept people on the planet
because they're all drunk and sleeping all the time.
But you know, right.
So there were, there were some things where I was just kind of like, ah, but by and large
it's a, it's a, it's a decent film.
Yeah.
I don't think there's anything controversial in the film.
It's not overly political.
I didn't see anything political in it.
Really.
It's not like they were, they were pointing the finger at rich Americans, but they didn't
point the finger at any particular rich American.
And they basically just pointed out the root of the problem.
I mean, I think, I think in the movie they only pointed out kind of these wealthy people
that like to buy kids and they, they happened to mention in passing that one of the biggest
importers was LA in a list of other cities, right?
That weren't in America.
That was the only American city they mentioned.
LA makes sense because it's a border town or close enough to the border to be kind of
a hub.
Yeah.
So I didn't feel like it was overtly anything in that sense.
It wasn't saying, and this might be where we get into some of the controversy around
the people involved in making the film, but it wasn't, it wasn't the movie itself was
not spouting any conspiracy theories whatsoever.
It seemed to be fairly fact driven outside of, you know, the, the regular Hollywood embellishments
on Tim Ballard did not really go down and punch out a gang leader to save a child.
Yeah, it is typical fantasy elements.
And he even came out and said that never happened and they, they took it and embellished it.
So he's not even trying to, you know, he's trying to downplay how good the movie makes
him look, I guess.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a move.
It's a movie.
It's, it's not a, a biography.
Yeah.
It's not a documentary.
It's supposed to be exciting and it was engaging and entertaining.
So yeah, disturbing at times.
I was a huge fan of the musical score throughout the thing.
I didn't even notice the music.
Yeah.
I mean, it was largely forgettable, but it had a lot of those kind of like ooh and ah,
kind of like him choruses, which I, you know, I'm sure they did for a reason, but that's
a low budget movie.
Well, well, Tim Ballard, Tim Ballard's a Mormon.
So they probably got the Mormon Tabernacle choir or some shit to do it.
Who knows?
But right.
And Mormonism is not at all implicated in child sex, drug or anything like that.
Right.
Not according to the film.
Right.
So the controversies, tell me if when I'm wrong.
Well, okay.
Yeah.
Tell me when I'm wrong.
Jim Caviezel is a controversial political character.
He is a Q and honor and he has publicly made some controversial statements.
One of the producers was Mel Gibson and he's obviously controversial because he's Mel Gibson.
The writer of the story is somewhat controversial because he's made some conspiracy type theory
statements.
All of these conspiracy stuff is unrelated to the movie and the movie was made way before
they made any of these controversial statements.
It's unrelated.
I don't know that the conspiracies are unrelated, but keep going.
Okay.
The movie was delayed because they sold it to Fox, which was bought by Disney and Disney
wasn't going to release it.
And then they crowdfunded and bought the movie back and did a release.
And they ginned up controversy on purpose, I think, as part of the advertising campaign
to save money.
Which is smart.
That's just smart.
Yeah.
Well, and they did the pay it forward ticket sales thing.
Right.
And for some reason, Hollywood types didn't like that.
I think that a lot of the writers that I read who were criticizing it were a little too
defensive.
I think they might be implicated in wrongdoing with other things, kind of like the Harvey
Weinstein type of shit.
You know what I mean?
There's a lot of copium going on.
I think too, Mike, the director has spouted some QAnon theories as well from what I remember
reading.
That doesn't surprise me.
Birds of a feather and all that.
Right?
And people making this film are probably going to see eye to eye on a few things.
Yeah.
The other thing I think we should mention right now is that there are a slew of allegations
now against Tim Ballard in real life from his foundation he created to help rescue children.
But a bunch of women from that organization have accused him of sexual abuse or sexual
assault or something of that nature.
Did these come out after the movie?
Yeah, as far as I know.
Are any of them reputable?
The accusations did.
You know what, Mike?
I don't know.
And that's part of what we're going to talk about.
Okay.
I did not know that.
Because of these theories that some of the people involved in the film have, it seems
that for whatever reason, a lot of democratic or liberal people think this is a QAnon masturbation
film as it were.
This is playing into the Trumpism, Christian moral values, QAnon conspiracy theory stuff.
There were people that supported Trump that were saying that he was a good Christian despite
all of the other things that he said in his entire life.
And I think that a lot of that played into part.
And the people that are saying this film is controversial are the people that can't distinguish
the person from the art or the people involved in making the art from the art.
But then you also think, well, because they said that, of course, all of the conservative
Christian people are going to go and see it and like it.
And it definitely doesn't not appeal to the Christian conservatives.
I mean, even the one scene I told you about with the, well, God's children aren't for
sale.
That's something a pastor says Sunday morning.
And you took it a different way and I took it a different way.
And I think if you're going in as a conservative Christian, you're going to take it a different
way, like a third secret way.
Oh, for sure.
And so the one QAnon theory that I saw referenced to this movie was, QAnon theory is that the
world or America or whatever is run by a ring of pedophiles who control everything.
But that wasn't mentioned in the movie.
So I don't, you know.
It was not mentioned in the movie and it was not included as like a subplot or, you know.
No, and it wasn't in their press docket of marketing materials either.
You know, right.
I think though that, and I don't want to, this is where it gets a little iffy because
if QAnon says the world is run by a ring of pedophiles and you have had Jeffrey Epstein
incarcerated and you have currently, Jisleen Maxwell incarcerated, but their client list
has never been made public, it certainly does lead one to wonder if everyone in power is
actually a pedophile.
Well, the Balenciaga incident I thought was highly disturbing and I did not look to see
whether there was any follow up on any of that.
But I'm not familiar with that one, Mike.
Oh, the Balenciaga was taking some inappropriate photographs of children and passing it off
as artistic and promoting high fashion.
Okay.
Yes.
I would not suggest looking up the pictures, but it was like leather daddy pictures with
four-year-olds.
Okay.
I have a huge, I need to say this.
I have a huge fucking issue with child beauty pageants.
The fuck is that about?
I don't have a huge issue with it, but I would not allow my child to be in a child beauty
pageant.
I think that it definitely lends itself to predators for sure.
There's a way to do it responsibly.
I'm sure.
I'm not involved with that and I would never be involved with that.
Yeah.
I mean, there's so many other things a child could do other than-
It doesn't seem to be particularly appropriate.
Dress up with a whole bunch of makeup and try and look like you're older than you are.
I don't- Right.
There's definitely elements of that.
Cuties, there's elements of that creepiness.
People notice and then-
That's a weird thing.
What is?
Did you see Cuties?
I didn't see Cuties either, but I remember one half of the population was saying it's
a pedophile film and the other side saying, oh no, this is all normal stuff.
Then you just switch the sides and then you've got the people that liked Cuties, but hate
Sound of Freedom and vice versa.
I don't know.
Are we going to have to do Cuties on the show?
Do we have to watch that one?
I don't know.
I don't really want to watch Cuties.
I don't want to watch it either.
I'm not interested in it.
No, no.
Outside of the controversy, I would have no interest in watching that film.
So I am about halfway through the cigar, by the way.
Me as well.
What are your thoughts, Mike?
It's kind of sweet and very smooth and medium bodied and I like it.
Yeah, I like it.
This one I like better than the Oliva Connecticut.
Yes, very much so.
Very much so.
Yeah.
I mean, and so that's kind of the weird thing is you've got these people that I guess spend
a lot of time looking up actors and things and directors and what their personal beliefs
are and then kind of projecting those onto their works, which sometimes happens.
You know, sometimes directors or actors personalities come through.
We mentioned this earlier.
As opposed to, yeah.
Off air, but the same people that defend Roman Polanski and his movies are the same ones
who have attacked this movie as being a QAnon supporting.
Yeah.
And as far as I'm aware, like Jim Caviezel is not a criminal of any kind.
He's allowed to have whatever political opinions he wants.
And Roman Polanski is a criminal who is still running from the law.
So there's a big difference there.
And still making movies, I guess.
And still making movies.
Right.
So just saying.
And I mean, Mel Gibson is still making movies.
Right.
He's not a criminal.
He never he has controversial political opinions.
He did get a DUI.
He's undoubtedly an alcoholic and probably an abuser and an anti-Semite or whatever.
And an anti-Semite for sure.
I mean, I'm not saying that I'm going to invite him over for fucking Thanksgiving or anything.
But I mean, so but that's part.
I mean, kind of that's the thing, right?
Is well, and musicians are even maybe even worse to some extent.
They do bad things and people still listen to their music like Chris Brown.
People I guess listen to Chris Brown.
I refuse to just on like moral grounds.
And I don't care for any of his shit.
But you know, there's there's people that do things and are continuing to do those things
and continuing to profit off of things that then like boast upon the things they are busted
for doing.
And well, yeah, I mean, Amber Heard is still in movies and she is a convicted abuser.
Right.
So or she can get convicted.
She lost a court case.
But yeah, they're not very consistent.
We've said this before is, you know, when it comes down to it, everybody's a person.
And as somebody who makes art, whether it's film, a painting, music, what have you, they're
going to have personal opinions and beliefs that are different than yours.
And I think part of the reason everything is so fucked up is as a society.
We've we've mentioned this before.
So this is if you've been listening to this for a long time, I'm sorry, I'm repeating
myself, is that we don't as a society, we don't have a civil discourse anymore.
It's oh, you're on that side.
Well, I can't talk to you.
You're evil or vice versa, whatever it might be.
But I think for, you know, being a movie made by alleged QAnoners to not see any QAnon conspiracies
in the actual film was an amazing feat of self-restraint then, you know.
Right.
And I will criticize the people who criticize the QAnoners.
I mean, QAnon is ridiculous, right?
The concept of like some Q clear and special agent who's releasing information, blah, blah,
blah, and they have the inside track of what's really going on.
Blah, blah, blah.
It's ridiculous.
But some of the stuff that they are saying is likely true and is backed up with evidence
like Jeffrey Epstein and Henry Wynne's, you know, Henry Weinstein.
All we need to say about that is there's a reason the Epstein client list hasn't been
made public yet.
Right.
There's I mean, I recently watched a debate between Richard Dawkins and a cardinal that
took place like 10 years ago, and he was a cardinal in the Catholic Church from Australia.
Lo and behold, that guy is now in trouble for some inappropriate behavior with children.
Right.
So Catholic.
I know a Catholic cardinal inappropriate.
No, I know.
And then in this country, it's never talked about why the last pope stepped down.
Right.
Like, why did the last pope step down?
Well, I know why.
And I'm sure that you know why.
But it's not talked about on CNN.
In a position that is normally until you die.
Yes.
In a position where normally you never quit.
You know, he's not allowed to leave the Vatican for a reason.
Right.
He just lives in Vatican City and he's got an arrest warrant in Great Britain, that guy.
You know what I mean?
Like he's wanted by the police.
For some reason, we don't know what that reason might be.
Yeah, we have no idea.
You know, no idea.
And you're from Wisconsin.
They had a school for the deaf and blind children that they literally sent predators to on purpose.
It's wild, you know, wild.
The things that go on and are just covered up.
So it's not like these fears are not are unfounded is what I'm saying.
Yeah, that's the strange thing nowadays because there's all there's these allegations against
Tim Ballard now since the movie and since the QAnon support.
And I guess Tim Ballard even mentioned something that could be construed as supporting a QAnon
conspiracy theory.
But honestly, I don't know what all the QAnon conspiracy theories are.
You know what I mean?
It's a very complicated.
How do all the people that don't like QAnon know all the QAnon conspiracy theories?
Like are they just looking for reasons to apply that label to people to then, you know,
discredit them?
I don't know.
Yeah, Tim Ballard saved over 200 some kids from child sex trafficking.
Is he the type of person you think that will be making sexual advances on women in his
organization?
I don't know.
I don't know him.
Or is it more likely that it's a smear campaign to tank the movie?
I don't know.
It's kind of like the allegations against Russell Brand.
I don't know Russell Brand.
So I don't know if the allegations are true.
But what I do know is that every allegation made against him was made anonymously by people.
There's no evidence for any of it.
And it just happened to coincide with him getting a contract with a major streaming
platform where he is calling out government officials.
Yeah.
So is that a coincidence?
I don't know.
I don't really like Russell Brand.
I mean, I know he was hot for a while, but I didn't really care for most of the movies
he was in.
I don't really like him as an actor.
You know what I mean?
I don't care for his movies at all.
I never really looked into him as a person.
So I don't know.
That's just based on his output.
He was a drug addled sex addict who went to treatment for both at one point in time.
And now he's doing a political show and he's kind of hippie dippy.
And he's sober and he's reformed his life.
And now he's basically creating content that questions government narratives around pretty
much everything.
Like that's kind of the premise of a show is what's the government narrative?
Can we poke holes in what they're saying in a way that we know they're not telling us
the truth here and here and here and here?
You know?
Yeah.
If you ask me in the street, I would say probably yes.
You probably could poke holes in most of the things the government tells you.
But right.
And he's popular enough to where he is a threat because he was famous for being a comedian.
So and again, I don't know if the allegations are true, but since every allegations made
by an anonymous person, hard to tell, isn't it?
Yeah.
And you can make the argument that if there truly was abuse, you would want to remain
anonymous so he wouldn't take retribution or something or whatnot.
But also, I don't know.
You know, I mean, that's definitely a possibility.
I don't know.
I mean, that's the whole thing is like, you don't know.
And you'd likely nobody will ever know.
And the thing is that it doesn't matter anymore because they're all doing and this goes back
to her last episode or previous episode is nowadays it almost doesn't matter because
they can do the Fauci.
They can come out before anything's been decided.
Anything's been confirmed by court of law and they can make these allegations, ruin
people's reputations, get them canceled or get them blacklisted from media or from their
livelihoods.
Then they maybe get exonerated later, vindicated, what have you.
And it's been proven that that was all fabricated against them.
But nobody runs the story on that.
Right.
Look at Marilyn Manson.
Yeah, they're already down to tearing down the next person.
So did you know that the allegations against Marilyn Manson were dropped and that the woman
who made them admitted?
Yeah, she admitted that they were lies, but that didn't, you know, he lost, I'm sure,
millions of dollars.
Yeah.
I don't know of a political reason for those allegations, by the way.
I don't know.
So I mean, you know, that's the weird thing is you say one wrong thing and that's kind
of it, you know, it could have been anything.
Right.
Well, we're entering a different epidemic period where there's a lot of stats being
generated that middle management male managers are not spending alone time with lower level
female employees and it's hurting their careers potentially.
Yeah.
And that's a problem for those women.
You know, they didn't do anything wrong.
Yeah.
Well, and it's, you know, it's a weird time because a lot of things that were normal and
fine in the nineties and early two thousands are no longer normal and fine.
And I'm not saying everything from the nineties and early two thousands was fantastic or great
or free from criticism, but we're getting into an era that is hypersensitive and people
are more apt, and I'm not saying this is wrong, but people are more apt to think twice before
doing any single thing with the thought of how does this open me up to liability?
If I mentor a female subordinate, does this open me up to liability?
If I mentor even a male subordinate, does this open me up to liability?
If I mentor anybody, does this open me up to liability?
And you're losing a transfer of wisdom, a transfer of knowledge.
For sure.
For sure you are.
But we're in a weird place.
We're in a weird place.
We're in a very weird place.
And you got to mix in AI too.
I can show you a little document that I received recently about the limitations of AI and what
you are and are not allowed to use it for in the workplace.
It's very interesting.
We're entering a very strange space.
Yeah.
Well, and I've seen those things and I think we'll do an episode on AI later, but I've
seen things where you can kind of trick AI into giving you answers that it should not
be giving you or it's been programmed not to give you.
Oh, sure.
Then it kind of raises the question is, is it truly AI?
Because not yet.
No, yeah, not yet.
But it's funny because they're calling those little two wheeled scooter boards, they're
calling them hover boards, but they're not hovering their own wheels.
Right.
You know, so it's weird with the things people call things.
Oh, yeah, and I truly think and this maybe is conspiratorial of me.
I think a lot of the finger pointing about this movie is trying to point the finger away
from them because they're implicated in wrongdoing, not wrongdoing related to sex trafficking,
but other wrongdoing.
You know, so if the focus is on somebody else's wrongdoing, then it's not on my wrongdoing.
You know, all the people that knew about what was going on with Weinstein, none of those
people have come to account.
Right.
Did Kevin Smith know what was going on?
Did Quentin Tarantino know what was going on?
How many of these people knew exactly what was happening?
How many people are doing that exact thing that just aren't in the public eye?
Yeah.
Well, and the other thing too, and it gets a little more complicated with, I guess, Weinstein
because he was in a position of power that could green light or shelve your project.
So even if you knew what was going on, are you motivated to not work with him or turn
him in?
Or are you motivated to maybe look the other way?
Not saying you approve of what he's doing, but if you have something you want to get
made, you know, so it gets even muddier when you try and like break down individual motivations
of things.
For sure.
And that's what I'm saying.
I'm not trying to say like, yeah, I know.
I'm just trying to spell it out a little.
Yeah.
I know that people are probably doing something wrong, but they could be implicated in wrongdoing.
Is this journalist doing anything wrong?
Probably not.
Do they know of some wrongdoing that's going on at the workplace that they're not exposing
and maybe later will become tangled up in it?
Maybe so.
And I know that for a while it was conflated that this was like a systemic issue.
And I don't think it is.
I think it's very correlated with things like the entertainment industry, where there's
not a lot of professionalism in that industry.
It's been a long standing practice to be abusive.
It's not an engineering firm, right?
Yeah.
I don't imagine there's a lot of weird shit going on or engineering firms.
I mean, I'm sure there is, but I'm sure there's probably is probably not child sex trafficking.
Yeah, it's probably not systemic in the same way that it is in Hollywood and in journalism
and in politics.
And we know that politicians are scummy.
Yeah.
Yes, indeed.
So yeah, I mean, I don't know.
It was a fine movie.
It kept my attention.
I think in the long run though, it's going to be largely forgotten because it had a few
issues pacing script acting, whatever.
I mean, it was fine.
It was fine.
It's a perfectly adequate popcorn movie if you like cop dramas.
And a lot of people really do.
Yeah.
Not much different than an NCIS episode.
No, not really.
Yeah.
Not really.
And this is the most popular show on TV for years.
So if you're into that, I am not particularly into that.
But yeah, I mean, I'm not.
Like I said, I think the other comparison is taken.
And that's a completely fictional.
It's not even based on anything real, I guess.
You know, but that's a lot more action based.
Yeah.
That's more action.
It's not really a drama.
And this is more of a drama.
And then there's kind of a little fight scene.
And there's there's definitely tense moments for sure.
And I don't know, I guess, Mike, how did you feel with Vampiro kind of confessing that
he slept with a 14 year old?
I mean, it all played into the story, right?
Yeah.
There's this guy, Gumbag, who turned against the lifestyle.
Yeah.
Right.
Which is common in drug enforcement and in everything else.
You have to have informants.
So this guy was involved with the drug trade and all the things that go associated with
that.
But this isn't about the drug trade.
This is about trafficking.
So that's what he's up and into.
And he was the contact man for all these guys who like one of the baddies was a drug trafficker
whose side gig was human trafficking.
Yeah.
He's not a full time human trafficker.
It's just one of the many illegal businesses that he's involved with.
Yeah.
And some of them like it was interesting because some of them were into like the weird stuff
and some of them were just there purely for business.
Yeah.
So yeah, yeah.
It even showed a sympathetic eye to some of these traffickers who felt uncomfortable
with what they were doing, but they still wanted to make the money.
Yeah.
And they're not universally like creepos.
They're just business people involved in the legal industry.
Yeah.
I mean, I guess like you could take that either way as an audience member, right?
Like normally you would think, well, anybody involved with that whatsoever is evil.
And it's true probably, right?
Anybody involved in child sex trafficking is evil.
But it was, I guess it was nice that they showed the range where some were way more
comfortable with it.
Like that one guy Bulldog or whatever his name was who took the little boy out and was
going to do stuff with them.
And then Edmund Dantes wanted to go stop him, but he had to play characters.
So he had to be like, no, this boy is mine or something.
And then there were other ones that were kind of uncomfortable, but like, well, it's still
going to make me rich.
So, you know, and it kind of goes back to what we were talking about last episode where
you were saying that the more wealth somebody has, the more likely they are to want more
wealth and everybody else that's poor or less well off than them is just kind of a thing
in that really a person.
Right.
Yeah.
If anybody disagrees with that, just think about how people look at the homeless, right?
I know people that look at the homeless like not very well, like subhuman for sure.
And they are human beings that are having very serious issues.
It's very difficult to get over that because you have to deal with all the homeless behaviors,
which are not good.
But yeah, but a lot of the underlying stuff is if we had a, I don't know what you would
say, a more supportive mental health culture in our society, a lot of these issues would
be addressed.
Oh, for sure.
I mean, if we had universal health care, then these people would have access to mental health
care.
Yeah.
Instead of I'm not saying it has mental health issues, but I'm just saying that not every,
no.
According to the federal government, 40% have full-time jobs.
But you don't see those people because they're living in cars and they're driving around
and they're trying to get housing again.
They just don't make enough money to make ends meet.
Yeah.
They're not living in the camps causing a ruckus.
Yeah.
So.
But I feel like a fair number of them, and I don't know any stats, so this could just
be me talking out of my ass, but I feel like a fair number of people that struggle and
have trouble keeping jobs, well, one jobs aren't really designed anymore to be kept.
The companies kind of go for the lowest common denominator, who can do this job cheaper?
But a lot of people that have mental health needs have vast issues trying to fit into
corporate America or things like that.
So yeah, they're not having an easy go of things for sure.
And then you've got a whole architecture subtype of, was it like homeless aggressive or something
where they put spikes on benches and they make their exterior window wells slant at
a degree that somebody can't lay and sleep there and stuff.
And I don't think we should, as a society, be encouraging people to sleep on window wells.
We should have a better system in place to help these people.
But I also don't think we need to be doing hostile architecture either.
It's definitely implicates our society and how cruel we are that we would rather just
make a bench that somebody can't sleep on than solving the root cause of the problem.
Even though we're supposedly the wealthiest nation that has ever existed on the face of
the planet and we have hundreds of billions of dollars to support various wars around
the world, but we don't have enough money to take care of citizens in this country.
We can't forgive student loan debt because it costs too much money, but 150 billion to
help Ukraine and Israel is no big deal.
Yes.
I've actually confronted some people that don't think that college should be publicly
funded with the idea that maybe we should no longer publicly fund grade school or high
school education either, because it serves the same function.
So why don't we just stop paying for preschool and kindergarten and high school, and then
you can pay for that out of your pocket for your child and I don't have to pay it out
of my property tax and to save me money every year.
So people don't seem to like that argument.
They don't seem to like that very much when you say, yeah, why don't you just pay whatever
it costs to hire a teacher and a building and everything else out of your own pocket.
Do you see what they're doing in Oregon?
They have removed reading, writing and math requirements for students of color to graduate.
You're fucking joking me.
Absolutely not.
Isn't that what we used to be called the soft, the bigotry of low expectations, right?
The soft bigotry of low expectations.
Yeah, you would think.
So it says here, and this is OregonLive.com, Oregon high school students won't have to
prove basic master of reading, writing or math to graduate from high school until at
least 2029.
The state board of education decided unanimously to extend the pause on the controversial graduation
requirement that began in 2020.
So they're saying basically that they are suspending those graduation requirements because
those graduation requirements are discriminatory against minority students.
Yeah, don't solve the root of the issue.
I'm guessing there's some schools out there that are seriously underfunded for the needs
of the students.
Yeah, I mean, there's something.
I don't know.
I mean, I'm not, I'm not a educational professional or whatever, what have you.
But I have never seen anything in my life that says making the requirements easier for
one group of people makes them better later on.
Right.
Or more able to compete or more able to sustain themselves later on.
That could be on the football team.
That could be on anything.
Like it doesn't necessarily have to do fully with education, but it seems like it's only
going to continue whatever problem is currently going on.
And probably make that problem even worse.
Possibly, possibly.
But we don't have serious and honest conversations about things anymore in this country, seemingly
at times, at times.
No, and we don't have, what do you call it?
Respectful discord or something like that where you and I can disagree on the one scene
in Sound of Freedom where he says, God's kids are not for sale or whatever.
And I took it in a religious rah rah, God loves us.
And you took it in a general kind of, you know, no kids are for sale and, you know,
like not on my watch kind of thing.
But we're not name calling each other.
Right.
I mean, this is a very small, it's like, it's one little line in a movie for entertainment,
but you have people that get worked out about football games.
So you know.
Well, we talked about this in an earlier episode, and I'm sure people are tired of hearing about
it because it's in the news everywhere.
But we're not having an honest discourse about why we have, for example, women's sports.
Why do women's sports exist?
Yeah.
Fundamentally, why do women's sports exist?
Why does Title IX exist?
Right.
It's to protect women because women cannot compete against men in sports.
That's why.
So if we're going to allow that to weaken, then all we're doing is taking away the protection
that was there put in the first place because we were in a position where women weren't
participating in sports.
So we're just going backwards, basically.
Yeah.
Well, and I think a big thing is you can't really litigate equality.
You can when it comes to the letter of the law and having equal access of opportunity,
but you can't, but it comes to social beliefs.
Yeah.
We have to change, like you said, the underlying beliefs in the things and why we don't have
more respectful discord on TV.
Why are all, and this is why I don't watch news.
The main reason is, well, the main reason is they repeat everything every 15 minutes
or 30 minutes or whatever it is.
The other reason is anytime you watch any kind of news, they're always arguing and yelling
at one another.
And that's what's being modeled to everybody in the country that watches the news.
Why can't you have?
Why can't you model civil discourse?
Why can't you model that?
Because the ratings aren't as good probably, but they're perpetuating the issue.
They see people on TV yelling at one another and then their neighbor does something that
they don't understand.
Well, I'm going to yell at them.
Yeah.
I'm sure that there's a lot of people that see a flag of whatever variety in their neighbor's
yard and get pissed off about it instead of trying to understand the root of their neighbor's
reason for it as an example, right?
As an example.
Yeah, that's the main reason I don't have any flags in my yard or yard signs or whatever.
I don't either.
I don't want the grief, which is, you know, I mean, on one hand it's kind of sad because
it's like, well, you should be able to put whatever you want out and not have people,
not worry about people targeting you for whatever reason.
But then again, I also kind of think like, I don't need to know what neighbor so-and-so
thinks about this issue or that issue unless I'm actually their friend or talk to them,
you know?
Right.
The listeners don't know this, but they're going to find out now.
I travel around the state a lot and I take pictures of interesting things, things that
I think that are funny and I send them to Nate.
Yeah.
And a lot of it's...
You said one and it took me a long time to figure out because it said living waters or
something and I thought it sounded like a church, but it did not look like a church.
So I wasn't quite sure what it was.
I thought maybe it was like a water treatment plant.
Yeah.
Because it had a security fence and security lights and everything and it was like totally
locked.
You couldn't get into it unless I guess they opened it for Sunday service.
But...
Yep.
Yeah.
It was a church.
And the funniest part is that right down the street for them is a huge church.
It looks like they bought a farm field.
They have baseball fields and a kid's playground and it's like a nice church like I would have
went to when I was younger, a big Catholic church with all the family stuff.
And then down the road they have like the military compound, the prison, the prison
yard.
I take pictures of people's vehicles that are all tricked out with crazy nonsense.
And their yards.
I love taking pictures of people's yards when they have the shrines for whatever reason.
That's pretty common around here.
And Mike's, for any listeners, Mike's favorite flag is the Blue Lives Matter flag.
I like the Blue Lives Matter flag when they mix it up with other things that are like
not necessarily appropriate.
Yeah.
That's always the top.
If I see something that's like racist mixed with the Blue Lives Matter, maybe a Trump
flag, I'm like, yeah, let's take that.
Yeah, it's hilarious.
Or like the mixed messages.
I love the stuff that's mixed messages.
Yeah, and the people don't even realize it.
Yeah, they don't really realize that they're sending mixed messages.
It's like, that they don't tread on me mixed with like the blue line.
Like, okay.
Who's going to tread on you, bro?
Yeah, man.
Well, I think we're getting pretty close to the end of our sticks, right, Mike?
We are.
My fingers are burning.
Yes.
How'd you like it?
I like it.
I don't, you know, this is one I would definitely smoke again.
I don't know that I'm necessarily going to go out and seek it out, but it's not one that
I would ever say no to.
I'd be more than happy to smoke this one.
Yeah, I would recommend it if you like sweet medium bodied cigars.
It's definitely a winner.
I wouldn't shy away from having it again, for sure.
It was part of a pack.
I would say, oh, that's going to be a good one.
Yeah, I'm not going to buy a box of them.
No.
These olivas, they make the nub series and those nub cigars are good.
And they have the nub bushel packs and everybody, if you have a humidor at home, buy the nub
bushel pack because that's just a great sampler to have.
And these olivar packs.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And any olivar sampler is going to be good.
Yeah.
So you might not like all of them, but you're going to probably like a majority of them.
Right.
And I don't think we've had something that's like vile or anything.
Like it's not like a, not like a gurka where they're really up and down.
Yeah.
Or like an underground.
And they, people love those damn things.
We are just, yeah, people love those damn things.
We are definitely on the outside of that one.
Yeah.
It's not as good as a Rocky Patel vintage or anything like that, but it's good.
Yeah, it's good.
And I guess it's good that we're kind of on the outside of some of the cigar stuff because
we don't have sponsors.
We don't, we're not being paid for opinions on any of this stuff.
So this is just, I like to, like to just regular people opinions on cigars and movies and books
and other things that we sometimes talk about.
So right.
Yeah.
It's a, and we're all smoking a reasonably price cigars.
So for the most part, for the most part, every once in a while we do a special stick or whatever,
but yeah, and they're always good.
All right.
Well, so far, not, not always.
But you know, some are better than others for sure.
Yes.
So anyway, uh, Sonder Freedom, if you want to watch a cop drama about human trafficking,
then it's up your alley.
Uh, it's perfectly adequate.
Yep.
I think, you know, there are people out there that say it's absolute rubbish and there are
people out there that say it is excellent.
And the reality is somewhere in the middle, but better than average, I would say.
So I would watch the Barbie movie first.
I recommend watching the Barbie movie.
I enjoyed that movie.
I, you know what?
I maybe enjoyed it more in retrospect than I did actually watching it, but I think, I
mean, I'd have to watch it a second time.
The Barbie movie was entertaining and it was a little more entertaining than Sonder Freedom,
I guess.
So the Sonder Freedom was mildly disturbing.
So well, yeah, it depends on how uncomfortable you like movies to make you.
Right.
It was not, it's, it's probably Schindler's list level uncomfortable for me.
I didn't cry or anything at Sonder Freedom, but it was definitely uncomfortable.
No, you know.
Yeah.
There was something uncomfortable with it.
It's not as good a movie as Schindler's list.
No.
I think, I think that, I guess the other one that's like really difficult, but I absolutely
love it is Requiem for a Dream.
And that is, that is a one way trip to like depression kind of that film.
So, but it's, it's fantastically done and, and everything.
But yeah, I mean, Sonder Freedom is good.
It's fine.
It's, I don't think it's the like underdog best picture winter thing by any stretch,
but perfectly serviceable for what it is, a fictionalized, embellished account of a
true thing that happened kind of, you know, or a true person that exists, but Hollywood
put him in different circumstances.
And it's fine.
It's good.
You know, I guess in the same sense that Gladiator is moderately historically accurate, but not
so much so.
And it's more entertainment.
So right.
Gladiator is better.
Well, yeah, for sure.
Undoubtedly, undoubtedly.
Yeah.
It's better than any movie that's going to come out this year for sure.
Yeah.
So it's one of the better movies of this year.
Let's, let's just say that easily.
And the all of us series.
Oh, I'm a fan.
I would smoke it again.
Probably not going to buy a box.
So yes.
I mean, just if we're being full, full disclosure, full disclosure, I'm not going to go out and
buy a box.
This is not like a series are it's not the joy of black.
Let's say that.
Yeah.
The joy of black.
I've actually been looking to try to find more.
Like I want to find a sampler of all of them because they do have several.
And I'm like, God, that was a really good cigar.
Yeah.
I just want a box of the joy of black.
That'd be, that'd be awesome.
So yeah, they're good.
Yeah.
Christmas is coming up.
Mike and I always accept gifts of boxes of cigars.
So sampler packs with two of each kind.
Yeah.
We'll put you out as a sponsor on the show.
So anyway, thanks for listening.
Be safe.
With a hello Diamond Echo.