Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff

[00:00:00] Hi friends. Welcome to Charlie and Steve. Watch stuff, and today we are watching

Saltburn, a hard left turn from all of the cartoon back content that we've served you thus far. Joining me. As always, he just got back from hydrating himself in the bathtub. It's my good friend Charlie Peppers. Charlie, how are you doing today?

I'm doing good at

That

Dirty bath water just always does the body right.

Gotta love that dirty water, as they say in my old hometown of Boston. And we are also joined by a very special guest today I am very excited to introduce another special guest onto the Charlie and Steve

Tuff podcast.

I'd like to welcome on the host of Slayer Fest 98 and the co-host of my bloody Judy.

It's Ian Carlos Crawford. Ian, thank you so much

for joining us on Charlie and Steve Tuff.

Thank you

for having me

I got a prop

because

I needed to bring it up. It's Jacob El Lorde's bathwater

oh my God. This is the, the first moment I've ever regretted not being [00:01:00] a video podcast is this moment right here. My goodness. Well, Ian, thank you again for joining us. I would love to just take a moment and have you introduce yourself to our audience of who you are, where they can find you. The floor is now officially yours.

I'm a podcast host. I freelance Wright. I'm a professor. you can find Player Fest 98 is started as a Buffy Rewatch podcast, but now we cover anything kinda like nerdy and or gay. Like I've been thinking of doing a episode on Saltburn. And My Bloody Judy is a horror podcast I do with my best friend Zachary Patton Garcia. I. And he also sometimes co-host Slayer Fest with me. Yeah, and you can find us on all socials and all that and Spotify, YouTube, all those places.

And we will make sure that our show notes have all of those YouTubes and links and all of those places that you can go find it very quickly. What are you a professor in

oh, writing?

I teach Intro to writing.

Yeah.

Very cool. That's awesome. I, I, I love, I just have a lot of respect for teachers 'cause I don't have the patience for it. So people that do I, I really [00:02:00] respect.

I am gonna cut in just to pump Ian up a bit more. Ian's being humble. Ian's also a talented writer and one of the things that makes Ian's podcast so good to listen to, not only does he love the things that he consumes and that he talks about, he has such an understanding of the emotional lives of all the characters in the shows and the things that he goes on about. For example, one of my favorite things to listen for in your podcast is the way that you talk about Cordelia Chases. Character growth trajectory. It's, I'm so glad that y'all are covering Angel now, because I am not only jazzed to see what your thoughts are on your welcome all the way in season five. And you just, you just rep season two, right?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So I'm, I'm very, I'm very interested to see what your [00:03:00] cord, your thoughts and all of your Fred thoughts are, going forward,

I, I, I am excited, like for season three, that's what I'm excited to talk about. 'cause like, you know, we finally get Fred, she's there in season two at the end, but she's not really like a fully formed character.

And I think Cordelia. already started her arc, but I do think season three is when they really like lean into like, Ooh, look.

She is becoming a full hero. Like almost like a combining character

Oh, absolutely. I am obsessed with her learning how to fight. I love Billy that episode so much.

Yes.

of it, I don't think have aged quite as well, but I think that that could also be part of the point of that episode. I don't think that parts of that episode are supposed to age well. I'm excited about the work you do.

Thanks. I appreciate it. Charlie. Charlie who is thriving, I appreciate you ever like pumping me up, so I appreciate it.

I feel the exact same way. [00:04:00] And I also, 12 outta 10, recommend starting a podcast with one of your best friends, because that's how Charlie and Steve watch stuff came together. And we're having a lot of fun doing that so far. So make sure you check out both my Bloody Judy and Slayer Fest 98. You kind of just got a little preview into Slayer Fest 98 right there.

So if you liked that little conversation, you're definitely gonna like all the conversation that Ian has over there. And so before we jump into the movie itself, I'd actually, you kind of touched into it a little bit Ian or Charlie, you can go first. I'd love to hear about how you two know each other, how you got connected the whole point of this podcast, our friends talking about stuff that they watch together.

So I would love to hear about how YouTube . Became friends.

I, I don't remember. I think I just loved you from afar because of your work that you do on Slayer Fest, and I might've dmd you or like complimented something. How did we first connect? What's your memory of that?

I don't remember the first time, but I know that you were very, very nice about my podcast and I was like, oh, [00:05:00] this guy's so sweet and so nice. And then we became friends.

Yeah, yeah. And I also, Ian is a big action figure collector like me, so that was another thing that. Stood out. Me and Steve are both massive nerds and at some point, Ian, I need to pick your brain about how you find these specific figures that you find. Because I do all of my action figure shopping. I'm such a bad gay on Amazon. don't, don't come for me, so I don't know how to like get the best prices and the best deals, and also Amazon's evil, we'll impact that later.

I mean, unfortunately Amazon usually does have the cheaper prices. I, I'll, I'll, I'm a big eBay gal, like usually eBay, like I'm very good at like The way people open, like Twitter or Grindr is how I open eBay. Like I will just mindlessly scroll through eBay and like I have a zillion different like wishlists that I don't ever, like, [00:06:00] I'll buy one out of every like a hundred things I put on a like category. But my big thing is me and my best friend Zach always talk about this, like, the best way to do that is I will like, 'cause you know, it notifies the person if you put it on a list or like you liked the item they've listed. Even if it's something that I'm like, I, this is ridiculously priced, I will like it just in case they give me a deal.

'cause sometimes they'll, like, if it's not selling, they'll send you a, like, sometimes it'll be like a ridiculous, like 50 cents off, but sometimes it will be like 40% off of the item

and then I'll buy it. So that's like always my, like anything you remotely like, and then maybe they'll send you a deal even if it looks like a ridiculous price. And that's usually how I do that. And like I am always looking for. Like, oh, will I use this for an image later on in the podcast? Like, will this be something I could use? And that's kind of spend way too much money on it still. But you know,

No, but it adds to your happiness. I read this article that said that having a shrine or a collection [00:07:00] of any kind, it boosts your quality of life because you're surrounding yourself with things that bring you joy. So you're good. You can still afford your rent.

I read something about that, that it was like a lot of our generation, it's become more common for like our generation to still collect like toys and stuff like that. Because it's like we can't afford a home, so we buy, you know, other shit that makes us happy.

Absolutely. My home

is just gonna

it hurts.

Legos. And this economy just make a home of Legos.

It hurts, but it's so true.

Well, thank you for taking us down that little memory lane of connection. I, I, and look at that podcasting creating community. It's a beautiful thing. So let's, let's get into the reason why we're here today. I was down in LA

This past week. I had a wonderful trip down to Los Angeles. I live up in San Francisco. I took the opportunity to catch a flight down there,

and

a couple of my best friends from college lives down there.

Charlie obviously lives down there. I got to see [00:08:00] a bunch of people,

and Charlie hits me up when I told him that I was coming, and he goes, well, do you wanna come to a ? Screening of this movie, Saltburn. Charlie's in the Writer's Guild and he was invited to a four year consideration screening of Saltburn.

I'm sure you've been invited to other four year consideration screenings as well, but it just worked out that he was able to get me on the guest list for this one. And so we were like, well, let's content the shit outta this. We're gonna go to this screening, we get to hang out together,

and we get to go to this movie and PO about it after.

So we got to see this movie in person together in Los Angeles, and not only did we get to see this movie together in person in Los Angeles, there was a talk back afterwards with the writer and director Emerald Fennel and the producer Margo Robbie, just casually sharing the room in the air with Margo Robbie and Roseman Pike, who played the mother of Felix, And so we got to see this all together. Charlie got to, and Charlie had seen it once before this, I had seen it for the first time. So Charlie had the privilege of knowing what was coming. And [00:09:00] so I kind of felt him looking at me anytime there was an opportunity to take in genuine reactions to what was happening on screen.

We'll talk about this few times, I'm sure. But from here, I, I want to Charlie, feel free to talk about any of the stuff that I, I just kind of covered in terms of the groundwork of what we were doing. But I, I want to pass the ball to you and, and let you take us through this wondrous adventure that was Saltburn.

Yeah, let me take you through the saltburn estate, if we will. I, I have more thoughts about that talkback session and reading your reactions as well, but I'll save those for the very end. I am also going to just let our listeners know that I read the screenplay for saltburn and in my notes I have some really interesting character descriptions and bits of action that I thought were really illuminating that I'm gonna throw in every now and then as we're moving through it, just to get your thoughts on it.

'cause I think it heightens the [00:10:00] view viewing experience of the movie and I just wanna hear what you both think about them. We open on the face of an older Oliver and he is in this nondescript black room and the first thing that he says is, I wasn't in love with him. And that first line sets the tone of the movie because we think, we think that we're going into a love story. And I would also argue that the first act of the film is a love story in some regard. But whether it's a friendship, love story, a romantic love story, or a psychosexual love story is up for debate. And I think that knife's edge walk is really what makes the first act fire on all cylinders for me. But I wanna go through a few different scenes and I'm gonna stop every now and then to get your thoughts on them. 'cause I just think that so much of this. First act in this movie in general is just so delicious. So after [00:11:00] we get the flash forward to Oliver as an older man, we go back to him. It's the early two thousands. He is at Oxford. He doesn't quite belong. He's seeing all the other students. He has foppish hair.

We feel really bad for him. Then he sees Felix, and the way that the script describes Felix, I wanna share it. This is the character description Oliver takes in every detail of him. The shattering beauty, the moth eating jumper, the easy smile, the posture. Farley might be the one talking, but Felix is clearly the gleaming center of the universe. A superstar on arrival. He doesn't mean to be, it's just always been that way. So. Steve, Ian, I want your thoughts. When you first watched Saltburn, did you think that this was love at first sight, and did you assume that these two were gonna be boyfriends?

I, so the internet as always led me astray on this because [00:12:00] I thought I was going into a like More like weird, call me by your name. That's what the inter, the internet, like so many people have no media literacy or know how to interpret movies. And so many people were like, can you believe they don't even kiss?

And I was like, wait, it's a love story. And they don't kiss. That is stupid. And then I watched a movie and it's like, yeah, fucking makes sense. They don't kiss, what are you stupid? Like, like it's not about them falling in love. But I do think he was like, I don't know if you've, like I am of an age where like, you know, when I was a teen there wasn't like, it was like I would get like infatuated with a guy, but like there was

no chance I was never hooking up with a guy. And that's what this immediately reminded me of, like me in like 1999, like Thinking I was in love or whatever with whatever straight guy that was like in my orbit and was nice to me. And also attractive. Right? And I feel like that was, immediately was getting when I like [00:13:00] got into the movie, I was like, maybe they will like hook up once. Because

also there's those straight guys where it's like you hook up once and then they just, like, they're good. They

Then they were like, not for me. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I thought maybe that's what we would get at most. yeah, I don't know. For me it immediately read as like that unrequited infatuation.

Yeah, no, I agree with that.

I,

I,

think the, especially in the first act, I think

. Barry Oliver Ollie does an incredible job of looking at Felix with a lot of love in his eyes. They do, he, he acts, I mean, he acts the shit out of this thing the entire time. But in that first act

specifically, like it's very doe-eyed, it's very like you can maybe, and it's meant to play this way that the audience is supposed to see how

head over heels he is for this guy.

And we are the only people that can see it. 'cause clearly no one else around him can really see it. And I think they do a good job of leading into that. And that definitely circumnavigated and will get to like the, the end of [00:14:00] the plot obviously, when we get there. But it, it certainly had me going in one direction until you kind of realize that it's turning in the other direction, which I do think is sort of the point as well.

I think that it's complicated. I think that there's definitely a level of infatuation, like Ian said, it's a yes and what you said, and I think that all of the other things that are revealed come after the infatuation. I don't think that he came to the school specifically because he knew that this person was gonna be there and that everything was super calculated. I think that Felix just being stunningly beautiful, caught his attention first in all of the darker stuff. Followed. So I would say that if we were going to place mm, if we were gonna place Oliver on the queer spectrum, he's kind of giving me pan. I think that he's [00:15:00] pansexual if he's

anything. And I think that he might be a bit incapable of like the healthy attachment that you would need to make it move past that.

I would, I fully agree with that. Yeah.

yeah, he, he, he's definitely, he's giving, he's a complicated person that definitely has a personality disorder somewhere.

moving forward, the big inciting incident of the movie is when Oliver stumbles across Felix and it's their first one-on-one conversation and. Felix's bike tire got a flat. Oliver very generously says, you can take my bike. And Felix does that polite thing of, no, no, mate. No, no. Are you sure? Are you sure? Oh my God, I love you. I, I love you. And then he leans forward and he plants a kiss on the top of his helmet and he rides off on his bike as Oliver watches him disappear on the horizon. What do we think of the chemistry between these two actors zooming out past [00:16:00] the characters? Like did they do the thing when it came to just selling the energy between these two creatures?

So this is my first interaction with Jacob Belote too. And it, it, and like, I haven't got, I haven't watched Euphoria or any, any of the other stuff that he's been in. And

Steven.

Me too. Me too. This was my first like acting thing. I saw him in

Not bad, definitely not bad in every respect. But I.

I.

I knew those people in high school where if like

they gave me the time of day in a friendly manner,

I don't know if I would've been able to like, handle my shit or if I like did, I would've walked away and like been like, yes.

Oh my God. Ian, let you know I am unfortunately straight, which I know my mistake. Many people tell me it's one of my flaws. But just from, you know, being an, an awkward person who's desperate to make friends, especially when you can

identify someone as like, oh, if this person likes me, then I must be cool.[00:17:00]

Which that C word is so huge when you're younger,

yeah, yeah.

as we all just sit here not giving a fuck about what's cool now or just whatever's cool to us, hopefully at this point in our lives.

So I like

beyond the. Obvious romantic, and as you said, psychosexual stuff that begins to happen. Coming off from this, like I,

felt that specifically in their meeting, like if I was in

Ollie's place and if that happened to me with someone, I've been admiring from afar that I thought their friendship would like affirm me in some sort of way, that would be huge for me.

And so I, I felt that in that moment for sure.

So, funny enough, I watched it for the first time with my straight best friend. Like he came over, he was like down for the holidays and I was like, do you wanna watch Saltburn with me? I haven't watched it yet. I've been really dying to see it. Now it's on like Prime. And he was like, yeah, sure. And it was very funny watching him react to a lot of these scenes and I, I did assume that you were straight

yeah, it, it's, it's so funny when I saw this scene,[00:18:00] I was watching it. With my adult brain a little bit, and a lot of the qualities that Felix has when, of course, paired in Jacob o Lorde's body, which God damn I've seen euphoria, and he plays such a despicable character that I of course know that objectively, empirically, he is an attractive man. This is the first time I've watched him in something and have been aware of that in my body, for lack of a better term. I was just like, yeah, if I was in Oliver's place after that, I definitely would've tried to fuck this character.

Okay. But Charlie, don't you feel like even now you would have that? Like even now I would have that reaction like, I am fricking 40 and I

Yeah,

Ooh, this like hot, tall man is like being so nice to me. Ooh.

Like.

yeah, yeah. At at the q and a, I think Emerald, [00:19:00] the director, she said that for a man being tall is like having big breasts for a woman, which I don't disagree. But also like there are some hideous tall men in the world too. So let's, you gotta be, you have to be attract like a couple more Things have to line up.

It can't just be being dull.

You know, I had someone be like, oh, he's not attractive. He's just tall. And I'm like, no, he is hot and tall. Like,

Mm-Hmm.

Mm-Hmm.

combo.

It's a lethal combo. Lethal combo. So after that we get this really great scene where Oliver runs into Felix at the bar with one of Felix's friends. And it's never, I don't know how clear the script is about this, but I think Farley is. A second or a third cousin of some sort,

Farley, the, the curly haired mixed race character who [00:20:00] is very well played by that actor.

I love that character. I love to hate him. What did we think of Farley?

So I,

I,

just saw grand charisma not too long ago. and the guy who plays Farley is the lead character in that movie. And he's like this like poor British kid that's tried to be a race car driver, but he is just a video gamer and he's like very whiny. And Mike has this whole growth arc. So watching him as Farley was very against the grain.

It was very, very different. And I loved, like, it showed a lot of range for the kids. So if you've never seen grand charisma, I, I guess I recommend it. It's not good. It just, like, if you like cars going fast and being loud, then it's something to watch. But I, I think it was hard for me to separate the whole time.

I was just like, he's, he was very sinister and very conniving, if you will. I think he, I think he was maybe representing us Americans a little bit in the eyes of, of the Britts, if you will. But yeah, I, it was hard for me to kind of separate that the entire time just because it was [00:21:00] so recent that I saw this movie that I was like, oh man, this kid was just playing video games like last week.

did any of you see? The movie Pearl?

No. How was it?

Okay. So I do like that movie a lot. I feel like it's like a rotten Disney movie, which makes me like it. Mia Goth plays the main character and she is like fully unhinged. And the thing I liked about that, it wasn't like a favorite, but I did like it a lot. And the thing I really liked about that movie, which is true in this movie, is that we, the mother is like, really?

You hate her mom? And then in the end, her mom is right, like, her mom keeps saying like, there's something wrong with my daughter, blah, blah, blah. And like. Her mom is also awful 'cause she like kind of abuses her and is terrible to her. But everything the mother says ends up being right in the end because we know that's a horror movie.

So she ends up killing a bunch of people and the mother like is saying there's something evil in her daughter and then her daughter does go on a murder spree. And so I like that about Farley, that he's kind of an asshole, but he's also right, like I like that he clocks Oliver [00:22:00] immediately. Like I don't think he's just, oh, I don't like him.

Like I think he doesn't like him because he clocks it. And that's what I really like that he's able to be like, this character's not really that likable. We don't, he's kind of a jerk very much immediately a jerk. Right? And, but I think he just clocked Oliver from the beginning and that's why he, like, one of the reasons he didn't like him.

Oh yeah. Yeah. There's this incredible scene where Oliver and Farley have the same tutor and they're both showing their essays, and Farley kind of tilt his head after Oliver says his essay, and Oliver says, what's the matter? Farley says, you use the word thus in your essay a lot. It just, it's interesting. It feels a little put on, but good for you. And that it's a very small scene, but I thought that that was a very great kernel to show that Farley is definitely picking up on [00:23:00] the phoniness of it all.

I just, I love a character that can be both an asshole like Charlie to reference something. I know that like Gail Weathers in scream, she's

allowed to be an asshole, but she's always right. Right. In every one of these movies, every scream movie, Gail Weathers is right. And I love that. We love a like nuance to a character

Yeah. Yeah. Farley has an edge. Farley is highly watchable. Loved having him in the movie.

Definitely has a heart, but it's covered in a lot of ice, Oliver gets into the gang. He gets drinks with Felix in the group. Felix is a sweetheart and pretends that Oliver dropped $20 when he can't afford the round.

That Farley very cruel. He says, oh, no, go pay for it. You can't get out of paying for this round. Then we go into this beautiful montage of Oliver and Felix dancing and drinking and partying with each other, which again, [00:24:00] act one is very much framed like a love story. They're divulging secrets to each other. Oliver says that he didn't have the greatest childhood and that he at one point had to put two fingers down his mom's throat when he was eight years old, just to get her to vomit up because she was that much of an addict. And we can see Felix's interest in Oliver just growing because this is somebody. Speaking of Felix. Felix strikes me as somebody who loves broken things, for lack of a better term, and that is the opening that Oliver completely exploits. And I wanna speak about one moment at the end of this montage that's really illuminating the moment when Oliver watches Felix have sex through the window. I am wondering if when this happened, you both kind of looked at it like, what is going on? Or, or if you [00:25:00] dismissed it because we still thought that this was gonna be a weird call me by your name.

That part for me. I, I think it's like lust than infatuation at that point. That's what it was for me.

same. I, I still was going 'cause like, call me by your name. I do think even though it was a mutual, I do think it's, it's a love story, but also it's about lust than obsession. Right. Because they

become so like, ingrained in each other and it's like, what, one summer? Right.

so I did buy, I still was like, yeah, that tracks like, he's so obsessed with this guy that he's like, Oh, what's he doing? Oh, he is having sex. Well, I might as well watch. You know, like, but then I did have trouble placing how old Barry Keegan looks both like, he could be 24, but also my age. So I kept having trouble being like, are they teens? Are they like 19? They're in college? I Did have trouble placing 'cause Jacob all lordy. looks younger than he actually [00:26:00] is. And Barry Keegan looks more like adult-ish. Not to say anyone looks like old, quote unquote. But I did have trouble placing their ages because I was like, eh, this makes sense. If this is like an 18 or 19-year-old who like is infatuated with this like tall, hot, straight guy, and then he's like looking to see if he can see through his window and then happens uh, come upon them having sex and he is like, yeah, I'll watch. That makes a little bit more sense. I don't know. I, I just feel like when you're that obsessed and infatuated you, like all sense, like goes out the window, right? Even if you are the most like normally levelheaded person

And we know that he wasn't to start

Yes. Yeah.

He wasn't, he wasn't the way that Emerald wrote, wrote it in the script during that moment. She said, watchful, clever, obsessed spying on Felix in India from the shadows, one bright jealous eye caught in the light. So. She definitely, and the writing of it then in the directing of it, wanted the [00:27:00] audience to kind of catch the foreshadowing that this guy wasn't all right, but very smartly. As we go into the second act, we're pulled in the other direction because Oliver comes to Felix crying hysterically because his dad smacked his head on the pavement, drunk, bled all over the place, and now he doesn't have a father cries and Felix's arm says that he doesn't have anyone. It's so sad, Felix is softening toward him even more and just being a good friend and eventually Felix feeling a mixture of maybe pity or just really a sense of responsibility for his pal, says, why don't you come spend the summer with me and my family at Saltburn and Oliver doesn't protest too much before. Alright, I'll do that. So [00:28:00] what do we think was going on in Felix's head? How do we think Felix saw this person? Like, did he pity him? Did he genuinely like him? What was going on in his head?

I forgot. I wanted to mention one thing think it's the tutor scene, right?

When they're both in the same room and the tutor's like, oh, I knew your mother. She, we went here at the same time to Farley. And he's like, oh, I'll have to let her know. And the. Guys like, oh no, she, she didn't know me.

I, you know, it was, I knew her from afar.

I

do feel like, yeah, like I do feel like there's a lot of things in this movie that are telling you this is what the movie's about. do really like that. And I, I just, you know, I forgot about that scene till I re-watched it today, and I was like, oh shit, I forgot that.

Like, they tell you that's what it's going to be this early on. So I did, I really, really liked that. And the tutor's like, you know, he's like this, like distinguished Oxford guy, so it's not like someone you're like, oh, they're unhinged. It's just like, oh, he [00:29:00] really liked Farley's mom, but was just obsessed with her and or infatuated with her and

It was a little crush. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like those things do still happen as an adult, right. Sometimes you'll say something and be like, Ooh, I don't wanna actually want that person to know that because that's embarrassing. That like embarrassing thing I did when I was a teen. But so Felix, I do feel like Felix is a very specific type of straight guy that I feel like I fell in love with like four of these type of guys when

Same.

19 or 20 right? And I think there's a specific type of straight guy that does love the attention, doesn't have any intentions of like, fucking you or dating you or anything. And I don't, and I always think it's subconscious. I don't think they're like, Ooh, let me seek out this gay guy who will give me attention and be like my backup partner for when, until I date a girl, and then I will throw them in the trash. But there's a, there's a meme going around. I saw it's like Andy from Toy Story throwing his toys [00:30:00] and it says like, straight guy. Over Andy and then it's like the toys being thrown and it's like the gay friend when they get a girlfriend. And I

feel like apologies Steven, but I feel like that is very accurate.

And I've had that happen numerous times when I was like 1920. And so that's what I feel like Felix is. I think that straight guy who maybe would've hooked up with Oliver once, maybe if Oliver hadn't have gotten so crazy so fast I think he probably could have hooked up with him maybe once when they were drunk or doing drugs. But that would've probably been it. Felix strikes me as a type of guy that. he likes, you know, I mean, you said he likes broken things. They mentioned when he brings Oliver that like the other one, right. And so I do feel like Felix probably is the nice guy who's kind of an asshole, but he is a nice guy in general. So he takes in these people Oliver or like this other friend that he brought home who ended up like having sex with his sister or whatever. He like takes [00:31:00] in these like cases so he can feel like, oh look, I'm a good guy. I take in these people.

But he likes to having people like quote unquote under him, for lack of better words.

Yes. And I think that that's all he knows. You know? I mean, to skip forward a little bit, there is this one scene that speaks to that, the breakfast scene where Oliver comes in and he says, oh, can I have some eggs? And everybody looks at him like he's crazy. But in front of Felix, he has like a king's breakfast with a lot of things on his plate. I think that was very much a game of, you are low on the pecking order. Don't Ask for a specific breakfast. That is only a thing that the family

proper can do, not guests who are overstaying their welcome. So I think that that's another example of Felix's privilege and him being a [00:32:00] nice guy with a lot of privilege that he's unaware of.

Like if Felix were a real person and he were alive during the BLM protest, I think that he would be one of the white guys. That's like, what privilege? No, I don't see race at all. What do you mean? Like I, so I think he's that kind of

But still would've put it in his like Twitter bio

he still would've put it in his Twitter bio. He'd been like, yeah, black Lives Matter.

I just, yeah, white, white, white lives for white, white men for Black Lives Matter, which is also great. But yeah, I think that that would've been a mind fuck for him. But, but moving on to the second act. Oliver gets the salt burn is immediately taken in by just the grandeur of it all. How immaculate this house is, the way everything looks. Margo Robbie at the talkback said that fi this house was very difficult. They didn't wanna shoot somewhere where anything else [00:33:00] had been filmed before, so they really wanted this house to be its own character. I think they largely succeeded. Every room of that house has personality. It feels large. Just it, it feels like the kind of place where if I went, I would be afraid of touching anything and leaving like finger smudges on it.

It's, it's like old old money and the characters who inhabit that house are extensions of the house. I don't think That the people in the house are versions of themselves, that they would be outside of the house. I think that the house does something to everybody in it. This isn't a supernatural story, but I think that salt burn and just what it represents brings out something in all of the characters.

And I think that that is most showcased in the scene in the library where [00:34:00] they're all watching Superbad. And you're introduced to the lovely Rosemond Pike who plays ELSs Biff, Felix's mother, and you have Sir James, his father, and you have, Carrie Mulligan's character, who is the freeloading friend who is also fucking whole hilarious because she. Is slowly growing aware that she's overstayed her welcome and it's making her super awkward yeah, the family's very interesting, but they're also talking behind Oliver's back and not being the nicest people when we first meet them and Oliver overhears them. Ian, I have a very fun question for you.

Hit

So, if Spike

were to meet Felix's family at Saltburn, who would he kill? Who would he shag and who would he turn?

Ooh. I think he would be attracted to the mom. [00:35:00] I think he would have sex with the mom.

Same.

I think I think, and I also think he might be into Jacob Alote too. Like he might turn Jacob Alote and the sister, and then everyone else gets murdered.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Okay.

Spike always reads as like a little queer to me, so I feel like

Oh, for sure. For sure, for sure. Yeah, I think that that would be interesting. I think that at first he would take pity on Oliver, but Spike is really perceptive. So I think he would see through Oliver very quickly. And I think that he would be scared of turning Oliver into a vampire because Oliver

as a vampire would be fucking unhinged. He barely has a soul right now.

Right. Yeah.

Oh my God. So that would be really interesting. But yeah, the mom, the mom's character, the way she was described in the script, it went draped over the sofa, is Felix's mother ELLs, p katten forties, [00:36:00] a former model, and socialite who's. Eccentricities and bohemian clothes only marginally obscure her snobbishness and inability to face anything close to reality. With that description, I think Roseman fucking ate, and that's definitely what came across on the screen. And as we press forward in the story, we just see, of course, Oliver and Felix getting closer. They're having these beautiful moments with each other, and we eventually reach the infamous bathtub scene. I'm not even, and if viewer listeners are listening to this, I assume they've seen it as well. I just wanna dive into what both of your thoughts were watching that. The first time were you put off, were you just, did you have to take a trip to the bathroom to kind of like, get yourself together? Like, like, give me all the tea.

Steven, [00:37:00] I want your reaction first.

Oh, sure. So I, and hopefully Charlie can back this up. I have like . A wide range of I think I do a really good job of being accepting and understanding of everybody's yums and everything like that. I've, you know, you straight white kid from Connecticut, that's probably like a, you're not getting exposed, exposed to the most

from there.

But I've, I've tried really hard since

then to, you know, understand and expose myself to, to more stuff and, and living in San Francisco, going to Emerson College, living on the west Coast in general has helped with a lot of that stuff. That said, when I say that, I could tell that Charlie was watching me for physical reactions.

This is the first time that I felt him giggling next to me because I was like, and I was saying this to my partner, Erin, as I was talking to her about it, I was like, she's seen it too. I was just pushed all the way up in my chair just kind of being like, oh, we're doing this. We're doing it. Okay. So we're doing it.

We're like up until the part where he starts slurping the water. I was a hundred percent like, [00:38:00] yeah, this is, this tracks basically based on everything that we've seen so far, if he's gonna watch him have sex with a girl, he is definitely gonna watch him masturbate. So like all, especially if we're still on the track of thinking that this is someone who is obsessed and has a lot of lust for this person, and if that's the closest he's gonna get, then of course he's gonna take it.

just, I wasn't expecting it. That's as simply as I could put it, is that I wasn't expecting it and they went all the way

and I appreciate that they didn't hold back.

And so I am, I am, I'm stronger and better for it.

So I watched it with my straight best friend and he like gagged be not because he is like so grossed out by like cu but he was like, that drain is dirty.

Like what else is he eating from that drain? And I was like, fair. But I still thought it was fucking hot. Like I thought it was so hot. And did either of you read the book?

Call me by Your Name.

You know, I almost got through it, but I didn't finish it.

It's kind of boring. But there is a [00:39:00] scene in the book where I'm gonna forget which one is which. Which one's Timothy Chalamet? Is he Ilio?

he's ilio.

Ilio goes to look. The other guy's poop in the toilet.

Ew.

And I hate it. And I hate it. And I feel like this was a better version of that. 'cause it was supposed to be like, this is how obsessed he is with him.

He wants to look at his poop and like that. For me, I'm like, I remember reading that being like, that's just fucking gross. Like, I wasn't like, eh, but I was like, I,

if someone leaves a poop in the toilet and you look at it, you're just like, oh, that's there. Let me flush. But like, I can't see like purposely like seeking

Also that makes me hate that character. Not like the Timothy Chae character. Yeah, that's gross dude. But also you're in somebody's house in Italy you can't fucking flush, sir. Sir, not only like did you wipe your ass, did you, did you just get up after dropping a whole turd in this gorgeous home? Oh, no [00:40:00] baby.

No.

It's like, it bothered me so much because I was like, is this what a straight dude? 'cause it's written by a straight man. I was like, is this what straight men think a guys like obsess over? But like the drinking of the cu not that I'm obsessing over drinking someone's cu out of a fucking gross drain, but like what the purposes of this movie that drain is probably very clean, is my mind

goes to like, everything in that mansion is a gorgeous, I'm sure those drains are cleaner than any of our drains would be.

Right. Like

whatever. And like, because it was an old tiny bathtub, I was able to at least like be like, it's probably sitting at the top there, like the, like cum and everything. It's probably like, he's not like digging in around.

But my, I will say my, my straight best friend was like, that drains are disgusting.

Oh. Oh, I can't look at this. Like, he like had to look away 'cause he thought it was so gross. I'm always into the infatuation [00:41:00] part. Maybe that says something about me, but I, yeah,

Oh,

it was fucking hot.

Ian. Maybe it says something about me because

I'm right there with you. You, you are not alone. So

Let's, let me get along so well,

yeah, that's why we get along so, so well. I thought that was so damn sexy. And maybe it's because I've just consumed so much porn, just like we all have. Like, come on. Who doesn't watch porn? I, in my head, this was kind of the moment when I realized that it wasn't a love or infatuation story because there is no way in hell that a gay man who is into a guy in that situation, well, okay. In respect of boundaries, I would just walk away but I would also, my behavior would kind of change around that person. Afterward. I'd be like, not only do I have a crush on you, I caught you jerking off, and now I have that image in my [00:42:00] head. I think if he were, and again, I know that earlier I said he's definitely on the pan spectrum. I think that this sexuality aside shows that his intentions weren't romantic or sexual and nature. He was playing a long game for nefarious purposes. I think that this is what gave it away for me at first when I saw it. Not with you, Steve, but before that because somebody who was in love with somebody to put it past the sexual part would've reacted differently to that. What do you think?

I, I, I, I disagree

'cause I don't think?

someone who's like, I wanna, I, I don't think someone who's like being nefarious and like has mal intent and wants to murder this person is drinking their cu out of a drain. Like, that doesn't, for me, that's not like, oh look, they're gonna kill the person.

They're drinking their come out of a drain. For me, that's like, they are so demented and like overly infatuated that they are doing this and that they are unhinged because they're doing it, but they [00:43:00] are very much infatuated.

I agree with what you said. Maybe I wasn't being clear enough. I think that the

fact that he wasn't shy around him after that,

after that.

Oh, you

drinking his cu aside

A okay.

like the fact that he wasn't like, oh, hi, or butterflies in the stomach after that kind of gave him away to me like, oh shit. This isn't somebody that's like really into him. It is somebody, to your point, that has a different play going on. That's what I meant.

I mean, that's fair. The first time I gave a straight guy a hand job, I remember I was very awkward the next day and they were fine. And I was like, I was like very worried they were gonna be like, well now it's weird. But they were like completely fine. And I was more weird just because I was worried about like, what? I don't know. I felt more weird than, than he did. And I think about

that a lot. Like I I remember feeling weird

You're invested, you like, you're wondering what it means. Sorry,

Building upon that though, I do so, [00:44:00] and like I am too extremely online is my problem. I just recently deleted Twitter off my phone.

But like everyone on Twitter is so annoying about this movie and like I do, I mean like, I know we're all in agreement here, but like everyone is like, well because of the end, he never cared about him and it was always a plot to get to.

So I don't think that's the case at all.

I think it became the case, but I don't think, I think he was infatuated with Jacob Alote. I don't think he like put a, he like slashed his tire because he was like, I'm going to murder his family and take over Saltburn. I think he did it because he was like, this will make him interact with me and I will be nice and I will be the person who saves him and gives him the bike.

mm.

and I think eventually when he realized it was almost never gonna be returned is when it was like, well, I'm gonna murder the family

Okay. You know what, Ian, I like that read better than my read. I'm not gonna lie. That's a better read on it [00:45:00] because it's also more organic and it happens throughout the story rather than, I'm like, I'm looking at Oliver as this calculated person who maybe didn't have the plan all at once, but definitely by the end of act one was putting things together. But

But

what

he does to Venita when he sees her outside the window is again, just so, okay, what do we think his play was with just fingering her underneath the window and then making her eat her menstrual blood and then licking his fingers on it, which I am not one of those men who thinks that periods are gross. I think that the female body and all of its cycles are beautiful, but I just think that His character came at it from such an angle

of taking control of her and wanting to just kind of wind her up like a toy so that [00:46:00] he could kind of have a person that wasn't obstructing him from Felix. Like, what did you make of that?

I thought it was deeply manipulative.

So I wanna jump off of what Ian was just talking about in terms of like, the whole progression of Oliver's plan.

Where it starts as, and I think

it did start as just infatuation. I'm, I'm in some sort of lust love with this person. And when Oliver arrives to Saltburn and sees all of it for himself and starts to see the scope of all the things that he's now in a better position than he wa to acquire than he was before.

Which like, I guess spoilers for the end, he does get the house. But.

There's mention

of

Venetia Venita and

her mention of, oh, like, you're just like the last one. Or she says, she mentions the last one before. So I think he want a, immediately clocks her as a threat. And then what you said about kind of show asserting dominance over her and getting her out of the way [00:47:00] as someone that's gonna like, put a wedge between him and Felix because the, he, I think at this point he's still trying to, and, and there is a point coming up where I think he does switch into, okay, I'm just gonna kill them all and take their shit.

don't think that's happened yet. So I think he's still trying to position himself as close to Felix as possible. And that was his play to kind of like disarm Nita.

Yeah, I, I fully agree with that. I think if Felix had fucked him and been like, Hey, I'm in love with you. I don't think he would've killed any of them. I think he would've been like, great,

we're all good.

Like, I think he would've been fine.

And I, I think, yeah, I think him doing that with the sister, which also I think is hot because I think

the thing is, listen, I think anything that can border on like a little too much, I'm down four.

I'm like, this is kind of hot. Like, it's like a little bit gross when you see it. Like the, like, only because it's, and again, I'm not someone who's like, Ugh, because I also did this as a [00:48:00] teenager when I experimented with heterosexuality. And it was like, fine. I mean, it looked like a murder scene afterwards, but it was like, fine. And I didn't, no one ate it though. And like that's where it's like a little more taboo and a little bit more like pushing boundaries. And anything that's like that, I'm like, yeah, I'm down for it. And like the fact that he is so confident about it, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course you, of course you do it 'cause this guy's like doing all this shit.

And like, yeah. But I do think that wasn't like, oh I'm, I really wanna fuck the sister. It was more of a like, I need to control everyone to get what I want. And this is a way to control her because he even like tries to like tell her she's no longer gonna have an eating disorder, right? Like,

Right.

no, tomorrow you're going to eat this food and you're gonna like swallow it. And he, that's it. There's no like, maybe we'll do this. Or he's just like telling her what she's gonna do. I think that's also a credit to his acting because he does the awkward so well, and he like turns [00:49:00] it on when he needs to turn it on because he's like a, and I'm not using this as like a jokey term, but he's a legit sociopath, right?

Like he is both. Awkward and like infatuated the Jacob Lorde's character, but also is unhinged and wants to be in control, complete control of the situation, which is why he says things to the mom like, well, it must be hard growing up with a mother as gorgeous as you. And he looks at her like he is going to fuck her when he looks at the

and she receives it.

She is thrown and she's

confused, but at the end of the scene she's like, oh,

of

I'm so glad you're here.

Yeah. because I think the mom probably from, especially after what he heard them talking about Michelle Williams' character, I think he knew that the mom was a little bit more vicious than the kids.

Mm.

in a, in a polite, rich white lady way, right? Where

Right.

oh, the, the poor thing, but oh, she's a bore. And like he did [00:50:00] not want the mother saying any of that about him. And he made sure she did not.

Yeah.

Yeah. And that pays off in a big way by the end of the film as well. And before, and I know, I mean, if we're talking about asserting dominance and using your sexuality to control people, we can I, I know your next note is about the interaction with Farley. I just wanna shout out. I mean, if we're talking about wonderful shots in the bathtub, that scene of him with the bloody mouth singing under the water and the camera, tracking him under the water and him smiling as the blood starts to float off of his face, probably my favorite shot in the entire movie.

That one really stuck with me. I really, really like that. And I think it kind of started to show like how, I mean, you kind of see how fucked up he is, but I think like this, the smart, sinister.

Of him starts to really shine through right there. So I, I really, really like that moment.

And I think, I think we've skipped over the scene, but I have to mention this because

I need to humble bragged that I noticed it

at, I think at the breakfast scene when they're talking about doppelgangers and Felix's doppelganger walks by the window behind the sister. And I noticed that the first time I watched it and I was very proud of [00:51:00] myself. 'cause I just happened to be like disassociating looking behind her. And I was like, wait, the guy who walked by looked just like Felix. He's wearing the same shirt. And then I read that it is on purpose that there's apparently more than one scene like that where you see that's like the whole point of the movie.

Like she Emerald fennel was like very big on doppelgangers and like there's two versions of you and apparently there are more I, that's the only one I saw. But yeah, when they're talking about Dobo Gangers a guy, it probably is Jacob alert. He walks by the window wearing the exact same outfit that he's wearing at the dinner table. I thought that was cool.

Interesting. You know what? I clocked that, but I thought I was high. I, I thought I was just really stoned.

I'm like, oh, did I? No, I didn't. That's amazing.

Ian, if we were reviewing an episode of Batman, the animated series, what you just did right there, we would've called a Ridler Trophy. So well done. You uncovered

a Saltburn Ridler trophy.

One of the big turning points [00:52:00] that we experience. Let's talk about that party scene and that karaoke scene specifically.

I think that there was a moment of intense chemistry between Oliver and Farley on the couch, and this is why, like, I honestly wanted them to fuck. There was a moment where Oliver said, oh, you can just come to me with these things, you know, I know you fucking hate me. And Farley says, oh, I don't. I don't fucking hate you. And I think in that moment, if Oliver would've left it alone and not pressed so deep into, oh, I know what it's like, it's all good. Like I also know what it's like to struggle and to have a poor family. I think that that brought up Farley's insecurity and led to like the [00:53:00] evisceration that we saw in karaoke.

I, I am curious, this is one of the things I'm not, feel like maybe Oliver and Farley could've like, gotten along, like I do think Oliver a little. I think Oliver did It's like, you know when you like, it's like, I clock you're crazy. 'cause I'm crazy too. And I do clock my own crazy and other people. But like, I do think that's why Farley was able to clock him right away. But I think Oliver, right? Farley's the only one. Oliver doesn't kill. So I do think Oliver, like, like, game respects game, like I think Oliver at least respected him enough not to kill him. Like right. I do think there's a reason he doesn't get murdered and everyone else does. I think it's because Oliver almost felt like he related to Farley. 'cause Farley was the outsider in that fam, even though he was living there, Farley was still the outsider, right? Like, he still, you know, the way they treated Michelle Williams, they're like, oh, [00:54:00] she's, she's a the poor thing. But, oh, what a bore.

Like, that's kinda how they treated Farley too. So I think Oliver. I think it's like they had a mutual respect while also mutual hatred for each other. Right. Like Farley wasn't buying any of his shit and Oliver knew he wasn't.

I think that that was what made Oliver respect Farley though. 'cause Farley was real.

Yeah,

Farley was real. And he was the only person when Oliver walked into the room, afterbody was talking shit about him that said, oh, we were just talking about you. It's shitty, but it's also forthright, you know? And nobody else in that house. had the kajon to say, oh yeah, this is how I feel about you. And Farley was very much on that wavelength, but it started to get to the point where it was gonna impede on what the plan was with

right?

getting with Felix, which is [00:55:00] why I think he had to go. But yeah, I, that karaoke scene was vicious

I wanna quickly say about the karaoke scene before we get to the sex scene now, that like, once we get to the end of it, and I know how the movie ends, I actually think that Ali knew exactly what song he was singing the whole time and quickly calculated that he could turn it into a way to create sympathy amongst the rest of the family and make Farley look bad because it was part of the game that they were playing with each other as well.

So I,

I actually think he knew exactly what he was doing in that moment, and then because he knew exactly what he was doing in that moment, it leads to this next moment that we're gonna talk about.

Yeah. I like that. I do You think, all right. So do you think they had full on sex? Like did they, like

I was gonna ask you that. Charlie

I don't, I don't know. I, I think, I think that he probably finished Farley. I think that that definitely happened. I don't know if it was [00:56:00] reciprocated, because I don't know if, if I'm getting into Oliver's head, I don't know if he would've opened himself up that way to Farley, because he's all about control. I think that he would've, yeah. Yeah. I think that he would've been like, I did this to you and I was on top.

I, because when I, the, the positions they were in, I thought Oliver was bottoming, but was just on top. But I, in retrospect, I'm like, no, I don't think that's what happened. Like, I, I think it's supposed to be that Farley's bottoming and Farley probably finished and Oliver didn't care because he was just like, I'm doing this to control him.

So I feel like it was his last attempt at trying to control Farley before he was like, Nope, he's gotta go. Because I do wake up in bed together the next day. Like when we see the flashbacks, it's like he wakes up and he takes his phone to do the thing to set him up.

right.

What do you think,

Also, that scene was really hot.

I do think that scene was really hot.[00:57:00]

It was hot because you see Farley slowly s giving into it. At first, he's like, get the fuck outta here. Then he's like, I'll

yeah.

what are your thoughts?

I'm curious.

I felt things in, in my pan, my pants area. Got a little, got a little tight. I won't lie about it. Sorry mom, I know you listened to this . This might be the first podcast we have to attack. That's explicit and I can't wait. No, I mean, I, I think I kind of bitch you today. I, we've, we've talked a lot about Oliver trying to assert control over people and him being able to do that through sex.

And Ian, I think you make a really good point of that being kind of like his latch ditch attempt at Controlling Farley because of the real,

recognized real. And I, I mean, I read it as just like Oliver has crazy hand game, maybe he like.

Plays a lot of video games in his spare time. He's on that WASD, if you know what I mean.

But yeah, that's, that was my read on it. That one I did not tense up. I would like to say I was very relaxed

into it as hopefully Charlie [00:58:00] could relay So

I, I can relate. You were fine. I clocked it. I was like, Steve's okay with this scene?

okay.

Yeah. It, it was definitely,

it,

was a moment and I definitely, I ship it, I ship that more than I ship Oliver and Felix, because I think Oliver and Farley are on equal footing.

listen, my hot take ship is, they should have had a threesome

Oh my. Yes. And or my hot take is that Oliver and Venita. I think that Venita and Felix definitely had conversations about Oliver behind his back, and I think that

Venita definitely told Felix is like, you know, Oliver definitely wants to fuck you. And I think that that conversation happened before the fingering scene.

Because I think with Nita's competition, competitiveness with Felix, everybody that he brings home, [00:59:00] she's on some level probably trying to also get dominance over.

because, okay. Right. Like the fact that the three, these are three family members and they have a, we're naked in the field together. Rule

Mm-Hmm.

I was like, what? What's what? I, I don't understand this.

Like why

Thrones music plays.

Yeah. Like there's gotta be something weird because it just like, I mean, maybe they're nudists and that's like, they like that, but like we didn't get that and it just felt like, where is his brother and sister and cousins sitting next to each other?

So close and so naked and just like, yeah, this is what we do in the field. We get naked.

Yeah. Oh yeah. And I think they were also reading Harry Potter naked, and Felix said, do you think Harry Ron and Hermione fucked? Like,

Yeah.

and Farley was like, oh yeah, they like fucked all the time. How could they not have? So that was definitely, it was in the air.

also I have to point out they play MG mts. I think it's electric fields and, or is it

to [01:00:00] pretend

time to pretend? Yes. And that is, that and Block Party Silent Alarm are my two favorite albums. And they play songs from both albums, which is so nice.

that is incredible.

quick if we're gonna do needle. Needle drop. Riddler trophies. Did you catch

the

five seconds of Mr. Brightside that made it into the movie?

the movie?

I

there's, there's a part, I think it's actually when they're, we're about to get to it. When Felix and Oliver are driving to Oliver's hometown when they're in the Jeep, there's a certain moment where they're driving and you can hear some version of Mr.

Brightside as well. They had some really good

timepiece, needle drops. You could tell that that the, the, the crew and the director really loved the, those mid two thousands have a lot of nostalgia for that time.

Mid two thousands, like Indie sleaze Rock is like very, my shit,

Creme de la creme,

Oh my god. Krems de la creme. Indeed. You know what else is krems de la creme? This fucking awkward drive that

Oliver,

like a horror movie.

this was like a horror movie. [01:01:00] Let's talk about this awkward drive with them. for our listeners, After Oliver has his night with Farley, he gets him kicked out of the house. So Farley is now off the board. Oliver can get close to Felix. They have a couple more cute ambiguous scenes together where their faces are to the point where it looks like they could be kissing, but they end up not kissing. The director does a lot of that and it's glorious, Oliver is treated to a surprise road trip by Felix.

Felix Swoops in and says, oh, hey, I have a surprise for you, for your birthday. Let's go. And the next couple of beats in the car are just probably my favorite part of the movie and I wanna get both of your thoughts on it. Like what was going through both of your heads while they were writing to Oliver's parents? Very, very nice. Very well Kempt house.

Yeah, I think the way that Oliver [01:02:00] panics when he realizes where they're going,

going.

it's like oh, we're gonna find out what's really going on here. And I mean, it's obviously a big turning point in the movie where things kind of start careening towards kind of

climax, end game, stuff like that.

But I, I also think I mentioned before that

that

I think that there's a certain moment where it turns from, I'm trying to,

weasel my way into being like, with this guy to, I'm gonna take all their shit.

And I think this is the scene that kind of breaks him because

he's been caught in lies before. But this was a long standing lie that kind of shatters everything else. And obviously afterwards Felix is like, you gotta get the fuck outta my house. And so like he feels this desperation of the end, and I think this is the turning point where he goes, okay, actually a new plan, I'm gonna kill all these fuckers and I'm gonna take their house.

I agree. I I fully agree with that. I think, I think if Felix [01:03:00] had been, had reacted in a, oh, you lied. Okay. And then fucked him. W we still would've been okay. But I do think because Oliver knew Felix was not coming back from this because who could come back from this that he was like, okay, well now I know what I need to do. I don't know that originally I feel like maybe he was like, I'll just kill Felix. And then he realized, oh, nope, I gotta kill them all. I think I, this felt like a horror movie to me. This scene specifically, because it was like, no, no. Oh God. Like the moment I had thought there was an inkling of did he lie but he sold it so well that I was like, oh no, he's not lying about his dad.

He like does have a fucked up family, but he's fucked up from his fucked up family is what I like. Got to. But then the moment he starts like, and I think this is also a credit to his acting, is that freakout feels the most genuine thing he does throughout the entire movie. Like that is a genuine, like the character of Oliver is not pretending he is genuinely like [01:04:00] freaking out because he knows he's caught in this tremendous awful lie, which my ex had a guy court him in this exact same way

No.

he found out the guy.

Yep. They bonded over having dead parents and being like homeowners who like have trouble paying their bills. He found out the house this guy lived in belonged to his alive parents

Whoa,

Yeah.

Wait.

sociopathic.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Ian, I got que. How did he handle? Like did he freak out? Did he, Jacob a lordy flip?

He, he just was like, I don't want to, he found out some other things that he was like, I don't wanna talk to this guy anymore. And then slowly found out he had lied about, like, ev he also said he was a doctor. He was not a doctor. And like basically called the guy on everything. And the, the guy did not handle it well.

It is like a still ongoing crazy thing. Yeah. And so that's what I like because I had just recently [01:05:00] heard that story from my ex. I was like, oh my God. Oh my God, this is like, what happened to him? Fuck. I don't know. I, I think that I, I, the thing I love about it is that Jacob o Lorde doesn't, his character of Felix goes with it, right?

Like, once they're there, He doesn't do anything with the parents. He's just like, oh yeah, blah, blah, blah. Like charming Oliver's parents, but you know, he's like deep down fucking furious,

He doesn't look at him, doesn't make eye contact with him. He is so fucking infuriated this scene, and it's all through a smile.

and that smile is, you never see that kind of smile for the rest of the movie before or after. It's a completely, it's really expertly acted. They actually, in the talk back that we had specifically shouted out his acting in that scene as just like kind of masterclass, sort of like you can tell how fucking mad he is, but that he's also gonna wait until they leave to express that.

Exactly. And he acts it actually pitch perfectly.

So also, I wanted to bring up a point, because again, I'm too online. [01:06:00] Everyone keeps saying like, oh, the eat the rich theme, like blah, blah, blah. I don't think that's the theme of this at all, because Oliver is rich. Like when they get to his house, that is a very big nice, I mean it's not Saltburn Castle Dracula mansion big, but it's like a beautiful neighborhood, a very nice house. So I really think if anything that was like showing us that it was not the theme. Like the theme was not Eat the Rich. Like I think it was just like talented Mr. Ripley infatuation people are crazy. Is what I think it was. I don't think they were, the theme of the movie was Eat the Rich. I mean you guys went to a talkback unless they did say that was the theme. But I feel like if it is, that kind of undermines it. 'cause Oliver, while not as rich as the Saltburn family is still like well off and has his happy family and has just like doesn't want to talk to them.

I was just gonna say, I don't think they made the, the argument that the message was eat the rich, but, because I feel like if [01:07:00] they made that argument, I would've literally gone, your, your outfits more expensive than my life. so it's kind of hard for you to say that, but maybe that is what was being said and I just missed that.

Charlie, do you wanna either back me up or refute me there?

I don't wanna refute you. I wanna say, going off

of what Ian said, Ooh, I wanna say that I don't think it's about

eat the rich. I think it's a showcase for the cognitive dissonance of being rich, because I think the,

the

which is different.

the mom's character, is the perfect encapsulation of that theme, like the lunch scene that they have that we'll get to shortly after we talk about a couple more things.

But I think the inability to just attach to what's actually happening outside of just the grandeur of where you live and where you shit, and where you, you know, jerk off in the bathtub is [01:08:00] showing that class can really disconnect people from their humanity and their truth and. Human connection and vulnerability.

I also think it's about loneliness. I think everybody in this film, Felix included, feels very lonely. that's ultimately in my, through my perspective, what the movie's trying to say about people with this level of wealth. But yeah. Yeah, that is what I got from it. Before we get too in the weeds, I wanna move forward to I call it the breakup scene, but really it's Oliver's clusterfuck of a birthday party with 200 people who don't even know that it's his birthday specifically. I still felt sorry for Oliver while this scene was happening, which is a testament to Barry's acting.

Him just

saying, Felix came.

Just talk to me. I, I, I just need you to look at me and feel like saying. Fuck off. You know, piss off. I don't wanna talk to you. I think to go off of your point, [01:09:00] Ian, I'm gonna push back your

timeline of when he decided to kill the family. I don't think that it's when Felix took him to the parents' house, I think it's how he treated him at the birthday party.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I would agree with that. Yes.

yeah, I think that it wasn't until Felix was like, oh fuck off, fuck off that. He was like, oh, I'm grabbing some pills. I'm putting them in the bottle and I'm definitely gonna poison you in the maze.

That, that was what I meant by like, if Felix had been like, well, you lied about your parents, whatever, we can fuck. He would've been fine.

Like I do think if Felix had just been like, whatever about it, then no one would've been murdered probably. But I do think, yeah, because I, because I like, to your point, I do think also Oliver was upset.

Like he didn't want, I think he didn't want to, and I say this again with quotes, he didn't want to have to murder anyone. Right? Like he would've preferred if Felix and him could've been like happily ever after and like whatever. I mean, I'm sure he would've found something else [01:10:00] to be unhinged about, but I don't think it would've ended up where it was if Felix had been like, I get it.

Do you wanna kiss on your birthday?

I think they, Oliver would've been fine.

there's a

fanfic out there somewhere.

somewhere send it to me if you find it.

Yes, please. Yeah. It's Charlie and Steve. Watch stuff@gmail.com please.

Not that, not that.

I'd like to, I'd actually like to, yes. And that I actually think, and, and I'm skipping around a little bit, but I, I actually kind of low key think that he also kills Venita because she talks shit. She talks. So like we're skipping ahead to that scene. But she kind of has this like, I see you,

I, I like, I see exactly the worm that you are like this, like reading this dressing down and he's like, okay, I'm gonna be right back.

I'm gonna grab a couple of razors and we're gonna take care of this really quick. Anyway, we can skip back to the party scene. And the only thing I really wanna say about the party scene is just, I, I found it very . One of the most valuable things about the talkback I think was just hearing about the logistics of that party scene and just kind of the logistics of shooting at that house in general.[01:11:00]

I think I can insert this now. Roseman Pike actually lived at that house the entire time that they were shooting,

read that.

so she got the shining treatment for sure. Like she got to kind of like encapsulate the character inside of the house and I think she even kind of offhandedly admitted that Elsbeth kind of stuck with her for a little bit after she left the house.

So that's always an interesting thing to hear from actors that they like take characters with them after they're done working on it because they embody them so fully. And I'm sure that living in the place where you're also working on this like dark story kind of digs into you in a certain way that I can't understand, but it certainly sounded like they had things to say about it and just

the logistics of this huge party scene.

I mean, it's not the first party scene we've seen in movies, but I think this one was

kind of especially well-crafted, well done. It felt very chaotic. I think the lighting was very dark and yet we saw a lot of shit going on and they said that they only covered it with two units. Over the course of 48 hours, which if you know film, that's kind of bonkers that they did it with such a small amount of crew and really just one of the units was rolling around capturing B-roll [01:12:00] and the other unit was capturing the stuff that they had written.

talk about skeleton crew, kind of like coming through and being able to capture this incredibly woven party scene. So what, what did you guys, what did you capture from those, that party scene?

The thing I liked about it was that I did feel Oliver's panic. Right? And like you said, Charlie, it's a credit to his acting that I did feel a little bad for him, even though it's like he fucking lied about having a dead parent, which is. Such an unhinged thing to lie about, but I did still feel like, oh, I just, but like, can we get past, even though like I don't, I probably wouldn't be able to get past that if I found out a friend had lied about that.

Like

Like, how do you trust any other thing that comes out of their mouth, like,

right

yeah, it, it's absurd. It's balls to the walls bonkers. Yeah, I definitely, I felt sorry for him. And even the scene, like when he follows Felix into the middle of the maze and they have that scene together. I [01:13:00] think that Jacob o Lorde and Barry elevated that material because in the script it literally says that Felix is disgusted and feels pity. But I saw more emotions than that flickering through Jacob o Lorde's face. When that scene happened. I saw a little fear for his own life, I'm not mistaken, flash through his face when. Oliver just charged him and said, I gave you what you wanted. You just needed to save somebody. You needed to, you know, fix a broken thing. I think that that was the first scene that Felix fully saw the desperation and just the mess that Oliver is, and it just so happened right before he drank the spiked champagne,

It's also the first time that any of this stuff has ever been said straight to his face.

yeah.

every, that, this is all [01:14:00] information that Oliver's been taking in from other people about Felix, Felix. Things that people think about Felix, that I think that they're either too afraid to say about him, or they just don't wanna like, stir up that nest because he kind of runs, like, he kind of runs the place.

Like he's the one who's bringing all these people in or telling them to go. It's not anybody else really. And if it is, it doesn't really have anything to do with them. So I actually think that he's seeing Oliver for the desperate . Sociopath that he is,

but he's also being dressed down in a way that I think he

recognizes that he maybe thinks about himself, but no one's ever had the guts to say straight to his face.

And I actually think that that's part of the reason why he so willingly takes a swig of that drink because he's like,

Oh.

crazy. And also

I just got told something about myself that I think I feel really heavily so I'm gonna take a sip of this drink because I need to take a moment for myself because of that.

Yes. Yes. And to what you said he saw Oliver for who he was. [01:15:00] He had a come to Jesus moment with his own place in the world. Then on top of that, I'm sure that another thought he had was, wait a minute, how many people like Oliver am I surrounded by? Is everybody lying all the time? And what are they lying about?

Yes. And I do think there was a moment when Felix almost kissed him.

really?

have, they get so close for while they're arguing, their faces are so close while they're at that statue, which I read that that statue, which is like a devil ur thing, was molded after Barry Keegan which I love. And they get so close when they're yelling at each other. And I forget, it's before he hands 'em the bottle, I think. And like Jacob o Lordy. Like, like you said, it's like he's fearing for his, and I don't know that he's fearing for his life, but he's afraid of him. But he's also like, I think there's like actual sexual tension there because Felix [01:16:00] leans in for like one second, like leans in closer and then leans back. And I think it was that thing where he's like, Oliver almost gets dominance over Felix in that scene almost.

Interesting.

and I feel like if he had then he wouldn't have handed him the bottle if like Felix had folded and was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's fuck. Oliver would've been like, great. Don't drink this bottle I'll get us other champagne and we're good

Oh, that's so funny.

He would've been like, pour one out, pour one out for my birthday.

Here. Give this to the girl that you're hooking up with. Not, don't you drink it

Yeah. Where's Farley? Where's

Yeah.

Oh man. Yeah, I can see that that scene is, Ooh. I think that that is now my favorite scene in the movie. Just because of how you're able to project onto it so readily with all those colors that we just mentioned.

I just, I, I, I have been a very unhinged gay man, and when I was 19 or 20 and surrounded by straight [01:17:00] men, so

Yeah. It, we go places But, pressing forward into the third act. like obviously anyone who's listening to this knows that Oliver poisons the champagne. Felix is found dead in the maze, and we get this incredible, incredible lunch scene where one of the footmen is struggling to close the curtains and they're all just talking about the shepherd's pie. And the room is just filled with this blood red. And

Venita is pouring wine until it pours over the glass and the mom doesn't know what to do with herself. And Farley is the only one feeling. Actually, I'm gonna pause on Farley for a second, yes. And to what you said about Farley earlier, Ian Farley definitely clocked his crazy in Oliver, but I think Farley has a heart.

Farley Farley has a heart, and I think Farley [01:18:00] has it in him to be cruel. I don't know if he has the ambition to be as calculated as Oliver was. I think that the difference between them is that Farley is not calculating. He can be calculating to an extent, but not to Oliver's extent. And I also don't think that he's a sociopath. He just has a very wicked tongue that can just spit the truth. And I think this scene shows it with him unable to contain his grief and feeling the most out of everyone What do you both think?

I think Farley like all of them are too comfortable and

it's really his undoing in this scene because he was so comfortable with the situation that even though he does clock Oliver and he is able to say the truth in that moment and try and express his grief, Oliver has that

trick up his sleeve of being like, well, you're the one with all of those drugs in your room on the night that somebody died.

And [01:19:00] that's what ultimately gets him out, which I, again, like Ian was talking about, if Felix had said, okay, you're right, let's fuck, then no one ever dies. I think if Farley keeps his mouth shut and goes along with what the parents want in that moment,

moment.

Oliver never says that thing and gets him kicked out of the house.

And

I actually, I, I don't know how you guys felt about this, and I've heard differing opinions, actually. I was, I, I'm surprised when people

when people

say that they didn't

know that. Like I, I was like, oh, Oliver killed him. Like that was, it just felt very clear to me that Oliver killed him. He's like, he's the only one who's kind of not struggling at that scene,

which only to me lent more that he's like being way too cool about it.

And so, but other people read it as like, oh, I didn't realize that it was him. Until the very end when they revealed it. Did you guys,

did you go,

go,

I was one of those people

were you one of those people? Yeah. I was just like, oh yeah, he's fucking killing them now.

That's awesome.

fooled me

[01:20:00] is the point, which is definitely the point

Yeah. I I would've been one of the people in the Saltburn house that Oliver would've been able to, but that's just my nature. I wanna see the best in people. But

on his hand and it was over for you,

yeah, yeah.

I mean, same. Let's be

Yeah. Let's be real.

I would've been like, I, I would've been like, oh yeah, sure. but yeah, sure. You're fine. You're fine. You can stay. Let's throw on my birthday party. I thought that Felix killed himself.

killed himself.

I thought that he committed suicide because the weight of what Oliver revealed about his place in the world was too crushing.

I will say the one thing I was waiting for was, 'cause we don't see his body, and I thought they were doing that on purpose. I thought it was gonna be like, suddenly we get an image of like he's impaled on something or like His face had been bashed in, and I, I had assumed Oliver killed him, but I was just like, Ooh, is it something super gruesome?

Is that why we're not [01:21:00] seeing the body? Because it was like, even from when the family ghosted, we see it like from the body's point of view kind of. I, I was like, Ooh, is there gonna be like something really awful? Like his body's disfigured. But no, it was just that he was poisoned and fell over. But like, the thing I was waiting for was like some kind of like horror movie murder reveal.

So the thing that made me not think suicide, because I think that's what they want you to think, is that he was in the same place as where that conversation happened. If he had ended up in a, not necessarily like with that sort of blunt force trauma, but if he had ended up literally anywhere else, then that maze, I would've been more likely to be like, oh, he wandered off and then something bad happened.

To himself rather than like he died in the same place where they had that conversation. It just felt two together for me. Like how does no one clock that?

Yeah,

But that's just me.

I'm also cynical.

Yeah. It's, it's so funny. I, I think Yeah, there's a lot of, oh my God, I wanna talk about this now in the poker face writer's room [01:22:00] be like, what would Charlie Kale think about this this is a very vicious way for Felix to be taken out of the picture. And I think what follows just reveals Oliver more and more, like not only does he then go on to like fully stick his dick inside of Felix's grave and pump into the ground with it.

Which we found out at the talk back that there were a certain amount of thrusts that they were allowed to do before the rating had to change to NC 17, and that number is 11, so you got 10, you got 10 thrusts, and that's it.

That's so weird that that's like,

They did say that this was the scene that they had to fight for the most as well, which probably

It was the end scene That was Barry Keegan's idea. Right. To go fully naked. There was like some I, there was like one of the scenes where you see his dick. I read that. It was like his idea.

Mm-Hmm.

Smart man.

[01:23:00] Yeah. Which also jumping ahead to that last scene. Good for him. And that's all I'll say, but going back, I, I think the scene where he fucked the grave, I was in the screening for that in last month and the person sitting behind me when he started thrusting into the dirt said, the fuck am I watching And the whole theater started laughing But yeah, it was just, it was so That I did not find sexy. I found it absurd, but also brilliant and amazing and really funny in a dark, twisted way, which I think was the intention

oh, yeah. Yeah. Well also, I just think that scene

just for me is like the end of like closing the case on he was infatuated with him. There was no, he didn't wanna, [01:24:00] not that he had to, but he didn't want to his hand to be forced to have to kill him because he was And I think it's what he says at the beginning. I loved him, but was I in love with him? It's like he was so infatuated that it wasn't really love, but like he wasn't doing that for anyone else. Right? Like it's not like people were watching that was for him

and it's because he wanted to fuck him and he was like so infatuated with this guy that he could get off fucking the like dirt he's buried in, which shows what a sociopath is.

Because to him, that was like, you know, he's sitting there crying, Whose thought is this was someone I was in love with. Well, I know what I could do to feel better about this. Like, who has that thought? And for me, that just shows like how unhinged he is, how he doesn't know what love is, but he thinks he knows. And Felix was the object of his affection. Whichever way you look at it, Felix was the object of his affection because I don't think he's coming in dirt at a grave [01:25:00] site to like make people believe, like who, who's watching that? He needs

Right.

So for me that was like, because that was like his brain was like, yes, this is the thing you do now because I'm so like lost in my grief. That like proved to me that like, okay, even though he killed him, he still was like fully infatuated with him and that was not his plan all along was, was not to kill him.

I agree with that. I think he's, I think he's grieving that lost like this is what I could have had and I, and I never got it. So I'm gonna just kind of close that door and I'm gonna continue with where I am now.

I was just gonna ask you if, 'cause you said that you had, that somebody interject during your screening. Did you hear, and it might've been during the scene, I think it was somewhere towards the end, did you hear the woman behind us go, is this supposed to be art?

Oh

you not hear that? Oh, yeah. Someone sitting right behind us said that, and I chuckled.

I was like, all right, well, that person's net worth is more than mine. Probably

you know what I, [01:26:00] I think we are allowed to enjoy movies with fucked up characters. Like I don't have to morally agree with everybody that I see on screen. Also, that would be boring.

I'd argue this is the only place you can get away with it.

this is the only place you can get away with it. Like, I wanna see people be fucked up on screen. I don't wanna see it done in a shabby way. I wanna see it done with the. And I'll talk about the script on a whole when we get to the end, but I, yeah, I think highly of the way that this film and that character were executed, but everybody's entitled to their opinion, you know?

you can't really get away with being like, yeah,

me and OJ bros. But

oh, no,

of, you kind get away with it for a fictional character,

you can.

I mean, that's a, that's a thing that I always like, I'm too extremely online, but like when people are like, ugh, like [01:27:00] Yeah. Yes. I love that Oliver was like a fucking queer sociopath. Villain. Yes. I love that. Like, give me more of like nuanced characters I love. I don't know. I, you know, the argument I had a lot around when it parti came out when people are like, well, gay people are allowed to be chilled in movies too.

And it's like, right. But like, does the gay couple have to be hate crime? Like, they should

be murdered, but does it have to be that they're like, beat up and murdered because they're gay?

Like that feels like we don't need it. something like this where it's like he is a gay sociopath or queer sociopath, pansexual, bisexual, however, like Clearly we know that it's, he's probably not a hundred percent straight. And I just, I find that interesting and I don't love when people feel characters have to be like morally upstanding.

I mean, I counter this a lot covering Buffy. There's, you know, I think the reason Charlie, I feel like you can probably agree the reason we love these characters 'cause they are [01:28:00] flawed.

They're not

just perfect, they're flawed and all of them are, and like people, and this is in all fandoms I'm sure, but like, when people interact, usually it's someone that doesn't follow me. It's like they will pick and choose what flaws that they think makes that character. You can never forgive them.

But then we'll apply it to a different character and it's like, but they're all flawed. That's why we love this show because no one is perfect. You know, we just covered a season three episode called Beauty and the Beast,

has a talk with the girl that's being abused by her boyfriend. And the thing I like about it, not that I like what she says, but she does not say the right things

to a woman who's being abused. And I, for me, that feels more real Like, it's like, yes, Buffy can be flawed and she's just like pissed and annoyed. So she says these shitty things to this like poor teen girls being abused. And for me, I like a character that can do that. I like that. It's like, yeah, she's being an asshole. And for me that reads more real than someone being like, we need to catch this murderer.

Let's sit down [01:29:00] and talk about it. Because like she would be pissed and annoyed even though this is a terrible way to like channel it. I like when a character isn't always just like morally perfect

Yeah.

Also, to go off what you said, Ian, I like when a character has such a defined reality that that reality determines how they're gonna react to everything around them. For example, I know exactly what scene you're talking about when Buffy says, oh, you wanna know the secret to never getting abused?

Don't get hit to Buffy in her reality. That is true because she was born to be a killer. So that's very valid for her. But for her to say that to a girl without super strength and without fight training is deeply insensitive. But I get why somebody like Buffy would say that. Willow wouldn't say that. Cordelia wouldn't say that because they're not slayers and they're not going through all this trauma, but tangent listen [01:30:00] to Ian's podcast. It's amazing. But yeah. So moving on past that grave scene, we have the scene where Oliver leaves the razor blades for Venita. Venita ends up dressing him down, calling him Spider-Man,

but she still kisses him back when he moves in to make things sexual. What do we think that was about?

I mean, I think it's like, was still tension, Right.

And she, I think it's almost like whatever the version of kissing would be of a hate fuck where it's like she does kind of hate him, but she does think he's hot and he does still have a little bit of like, sexual control over her. Like she's still, I, I think it, it's something where it's like, you know, you hate someone so much, you kind of wanna have sex with them, I guess. And that's what I think it was, where it's like he does still have that like sexual hold on her, but she does hate him. She does want him out of her life. Yeah, that's, that's how I read it. I don't know,

No, I agree. And [01:31:00] I'd like to mention that I, I think at this point, everything that Oliver is doing is an attempt at an assertion of dominance and to keep himself as much in the picture as possible, so. He's covering his contingency plans, which I think he did with Felix, which I think he did with Farley already,

where he's like, okay, this option hasn't worked.

I'm gonna go to this option. So

I think he walks up with the razor blades, a little threateningly to again try and assert dominance. She doesn't give a shit. She's drunk, she's talking shit. She tries, he tries to

use the sexual angle because he knows that works one time, it works for a second,

and then she's like, no, wait.

Fuck you

and fuck the horse that you rode in on. And then I think at that moment he goes, okay, well I have her in the perfect position where it's gonna look like his sad sister killed herself in the bathtub after drinking a bottle and a half of wine, or two bottles of wine or whatever. So I, I think that there was, again, that progression of like, this play at dominance didn't work.

This play at dominance didn't work. I'm out of options. So now this is the route that I [01:32:00] see in front of me.

Yeah.

Also, do we think he, he actually slit her wrist, or he just like knew she was drunk and depressed and kind of like pushed her to like,

Oh, I think he definitely, I think he pushed her toward it. I would even say, I would love to be a fly on the wall for this conversation. I think that he, much like when he told her what she was and wasn't going to eat, I think that he very devil on the shoulder coarsed her into doing it. I think that there were definitely words exchanged and I, I would even say that to save face. She was like, oh, fuck you, you fucking psycho. Get outta this room. Get outta the bathroom right now. He left and then she slid her wrist.

I could see that. Yeah. Yeah.

I, I think

I think he did it

probably be out. You'd think he did it.

' cause he killed everyone else physically.

I mean, he did.

Yeah.

think he did it.

Cold, cold world. No blanket. So yeah, I definitely, and I, what's very [01:33:00] interesting, backtracking slightly before we go to the very end of the movie, the scene where Elsbeth is kind of coming to reality and expressing some healthy grief for her son and saying, oh, river, what a silly middle name. You never think that when you give your kids a name that you'll have to put it in a gravestone one day.

And that's really, and it's the only, only moment in the movie where she isn't la la la, la la la la in the clouds and just talking about, you know, plates or a party or bitching about somebody, and Oliver crushes it. He says, oh, what font did you use for the grave times New Roman? Great choice. And that is what sets Sir James the dad, to just think, oh, I need to get him the fuck out of this house. And also puts a really bad [01:34:00] taste in Nita's mouth. But yeah, he gets kicked out of the house and that's really sad. Or air quote, sad. Then we catch up with him when he runs into Elsbeth, all grown up, and she immediately welcomes him back with open arms years later because her partner, the father of Felix and Nita has died. So he's out of the picture and we flash forward again to Oliver being written into the Will for Saltburn, and we realize that Elsbeth is the person he's been speaking to this entire time. And he murders her after telling her how he has been pulling strings this entire time. Did this scene blow your mind when it happened?

I mean, it didn't blow my mind, but I was like, Jesus Christ. He is like a villain. Villain.

Mm-Hmm.

Yeah, I think [01:35:00] it was more of like a satisfying confirmation of what I like, kind of . Figured was happening. Did we, did they give like context for how her health declined? Because I feel like he also had a hand in that, like, especially after he was written into the will, like the fact that she's even in the hospital bed in the first place.

Or are we just supposed to read it as like, she just makes it to also old ailing age and he's just there to take over 'cause he, he doesn't waste any time pulling that tube straight out of her throat,

I,

I felt that in my chest.

I, I see. It's like weird, right? Because I, I think there's something like, a part of him kinda liked El Smith because he did take care of her while she was like, I, I mean like he could've just like murdered her the way he murdered all the rest of 'em. But like one assumes, I mean, he was there and her, you know, she was in perfect health when he got there, so he had to have been like, taking care of her, or at least, I mean, I guess they're so rich that it's like [01:36:00] making sure people are taking care of her. I don't know.

I

almost feel like

he was like, he adopted her as his like mommy figure. But then once

Hmm.

was done with her, it was like, all right, I'm done. Let's pull this like tube outta you. 'cause I'm done taking care of you.

Yes. And to that, I agree because after he disconnects her, he tries to throw her arm over him. To give him

Yeah. Yeah.

the arm is like dead and deflated, which also psycho. But that, that

supports your theory that he saw her as a maternal figure and also they were romantic with each other as well. Like they were, I mean,

It's ambiguous, I think.

that, yeah, it's left ambiguous.

I, I kind of head tilted at that, that's pretty much it. Then we get that glorious scene to murder on the dance floor, which I've been listening to a lot since this movie dropped. 'cause it's a fucking bop I've never heard before. What did we think of that [01:37:00] nude dance through the house.

I mean obvious aside of it just being . A spectacular feast for the eyes. And to quote one of my favorite show scrubs, the Todd appreciates hot, no matter the gender. And so, but the one moment that I liked the most, which was kind of like Oliver's little victory, like I'm on the top of the, I'm rocky on the top of the stairs, popping my fist is when he plays that little marionette box or whatever that thing is with the four rocks of the deceased family members on top of it, just kind of showing that he has dominated this family and he is the victor of this fucked up story.

I thought that was like a very like pitch perfect way to kind of

close the story.

story.

and be like, oh, this is what this turned out to be.

I agree.

Yeah, I thought it was great. And also it weirdly put me on his side like it was,

he was fucked up for doing everything he did, but there's something about seeing a villain delight in their villainy. And just enjoy themselves, [01:38:00] letting it all hang out that I'll never get tired of. So

that's actually a,

I feel like this is a good place to talk about this. I'm sorry, I'm, I'm interrupting you. Were you rooting for him the entire time? Like were you rooting for Oliver throughout the movie? Because I found myself rooting for him the entire time,

even while he was doing the fucked up things, because I liked

him more than the people that he was with.

Even though he had some very dark sides and some very obviously, like I liked the game that he was playing. I wanted him to win whatever game he was playing. I didn't realize that's how he was gonna win. But at the end of it, I felt satisfied in the fact that I felt the person who deserved to win won, even though it was a messed up journey.

And that might say something about me, but I don't have therapy till Wednesday, so.

I, because of how I am, my brain just kept being like, but if Felix and Oliver could just fuck, would solve all the issues of the movie

Me too. [01:39:00] Me too.

That's all I wanted. I was like, I I was looking at it like, oh, Oliver's so close. I wish it were me but

Yes.

Yeah, that's so, it, it kinda, I felt that way until he fucked the grave. But then when he fucked the grave, I was like, oh, too much. But at that point, I still didn't think that he killed Felix. I just thought that Felix killed himself. But as soon as he stuck his dick in the grave, I was like, nah. Done. And he won me over with murder on the dance floor all over again.

It was a great victory lap. I really enjoyed it as a victory lap,

Yeah.

no matter how you view the victory.

And that's it on Saltburn. Let's jump into rating this so we can start with you, Ian. Out of, so we use, we usually use batter rings when we're talking about Batman, but we're gonna use cocktails this time. So what would you [01:40:00] give Saltburn in terms of a five cocktail rating?

Like what would you rate it?

five.

Okay.

out of five. Yep.

It

Woo.

one of my favorite movies of 2023. Like, it's like Barbie and Saltburn were my favorite movies.

Yeah. Yeah.

I think the, the like, the way I've been talking about it with people who maybe didn't like it, I'm like, I, I get, like, there's a lot of things, right? It's, it is a little bit messy, but like the vibes are delicious. Like, and everyone's hot

Mm-Hmm? , Steve.

Amen. I am, I'm gonna give saltburn four and a half cocktails. It's not often that I like really want to dive back into another movie and see the things that I've missed, but I definitely wanna do that even more so after having this conversation. I'm gonna be on a fucking doppelganger hunt after this for sure.

So, yeah, four and a half cocktails for me.

I'm gonna give it five cocktails. It's my first five rating on Charlie and [01:41:00] Steve. Watch stuff Za Can't believe we made it. We're here. Super excited to have, watch this movie more. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's funny, I wouldn't have given this movie that rating if I'd only watched it once, watching it a second time. Knowing, knowing what's coming. Heightens the experience so much, and I'm so excited for you, Steve.

Right on. Very cool.

on. Very cool.

Well, that's going to

do it for this episode of Charlie and Steve watch stuff. It was a a pleasure to go through our first non Batman piece of content. We just got real deep into Saltburn for ur. This was not only was this our first non Batman podcast, this was easily the longest podcast that we've ever recorded.

So I want to say a very special thank you to Ian for joining us on Charlie and Steve Tuff. Ian, one more time. If you could just throw out where they can follow you, the shows that they can find you on, [01:42:00] and we'll make sure that we have all of, all of those links in our show notes that they can go find as well.

Well, it's been an honor and I'm flattered to be your first non Batman guest and on your longest episode you can find me on all social media platforms at Ian x Carlos. You can find Slayer Fest 98 on all podcasting platforms and all social media platforms at Slayer Fest X 98. Same with my bloody Judy. And we are at my bloody Judy on all social platforms.

Beautiful. Thank you all for joining us. Have a good rest of your day. And you know what? A little dirty bath water never hurt nobody Later.

Bye

Bye everybody.