Criticism

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast produced by me, Fraser McGruer for Aleph. In this series of podcasts we take a look at interesting topics and discuss what we think they tell us about analysis and decision making. I'm here with Chris Wragg, Nick Hare and Jordan Fermanis of Aleph and this week we're discussing Ludovico Einaldi. Who the hell is Ludovico Einaldi? As a cultural gatekeeper you might know about this person. Yes, well not only that but yes he's a composer and not only that but he appears, he's in my iPod so he crops up occasionally and he came on the other day because I had it on like random and I was thinking to myself this is like surprisingly kind of bland, unchallenging but nice. I thought who is this and it turned out to be this Ludovico Einaldi and I thought I bet critics hate this guy and lo and behold I'm right. Now do you remember a while back we did a podcast about things that are inexplicably popular, things that are popularly hated. And we're not doing exactly the same. We're doing the opposite of that almost. So the podcast we did before was about things that sort of everyone hates but somehow still someone out there is watching them like Mrs Browns Boys. Whereas this is stuff that are actually liked and considered very good by the populace at large but detested by critics. And so into that box we could put Einaldi, Jack Vettriano, Thomas Kinkade, both artists who are massively big sellers but loathed by critics and I think there's any number of films which fall into that category as well. So I think it's an interesting phenomenon because often when you get this sort of situation, these are artists who are kind of at the front line of this battle between sort of elitist critics and populist sort of people who like something because they think it's good. So it's almost like you get this kind of little culture war around these people. And critics are often accused of gatekeeping and I think the critics tend to see these things as sort of blandification of high art or sort of pastiches or hack work. So, you know, there we go. What is going on with these kinds of things and is it good or bad? I mean, are the critics right? Are these people actually bad and people that just have got terrible taste or is it something deeper going on? Yeah, nice. We've got the reverse of this, the exact reverse, right, as well. Which is our podcast, which is loved by critics but hated by the general public.

Speaker B: 00:02:59

Surely we straddle both. We're broadly loved by both camps.

Speaker A: 00:03:04

Yeah, no, I think you're right, Chris. You've got it in the top right hand corner. Yeah, no, I was thinking James Joyce, Ulysses, you know, critics love it, everyone else might pretend to but I've never bloody read the stuff I've got in the books. Okay, so what's that all about? How do we want to kick this off? Where do you see us going in this? What are we going to address?

Speaker B: 00:03:27

Well, I think we were going to talk about types of things that are hated. I don't have specific examples of genres and examples from that but I've got some sort of themes of the kinds of things that I think are hated. So that's...

Speaker A: 00:03:46

We'll go off with that and then see where we go. Just before we do, so we'll start with you, Chris, but Mr Ainaldi, I'm just intrigued, it's piqued my curiosity, who is he? I mean, I know he's a composer but can you just tell me a little bit of flesh on that? He's sort of a popular minimalist, I suppose. He's kind of like the... New contemporary? He's sort of Steve Reich for the man on the bus. See, you can tell that I'm starting to be a snooty gatekeeper but he's very inoffensive, like that's what you couldn't hate it but it's sort of solo piano, very accessible, sort of unchallenging chord changes, sort of a bit predictable, sounds a bit like an AI wrote it. Look, I sound like I'm being mean about it but I don't really mean to be. But do you like it? It's okay, it's not Chopin. Yeah, okay, all right, cool. Chris?

Speaker B: 00:04:42

Yeah, no, I was just going to sort of say that, you know, what are the themes of those things? You know, Nick was talking about artists and musicians, you know, mentioned films but what are the kinds of things that get critics goats? You know, what are the things they particularly don't like? And we talked about blandness but I think, you know, if you look at some of the terms that are used by critics to, well, to criticise things in the negative sense of criticism, you know, they're words like kitsch, words like schmaltz, you know, in poetry you have things like doggerel, you know, and so what are those, you know, what are the characteristics of the things, you know, that are criticised with those words? And so I think there's an element of, well, with schmaltz of over-sentimentality, you know, so a naked sentimentality, nothing hidden about it, it's right out there and obvious. Doggerel is about...

Speaker A: 00:05:54

Yeah, what does doggerel mean? I've never quite...

Speaker B: 00:05:56

Well, I mean, it's generally a description of bad poetry but bad poetry in a particular kind of way where the rhyme is forced, where the meter doesn't run and the wrong words are emphasised and so on.

Speaker A: 00:06:12

So there's sort of, but an absence of kind of allusion and metaphor and being very sort of straight up. Okay, does it always just refer to poetry? Yes. Yeah, yeah, no, because I've, you know, it's one of those words I hear all the time, well, not all the time, but anyway, yeah, go on.

Speaker B: 00:06:27

But so, yeah, whenever you've submitted a poem to Woman's Own.

Speaker A: 00:06:33

Yeah, exactly, even by their standards, yeah. Sorry, Chris.

Speaker B: 00:06:37

And kitsch is generally about tastelessness and that's probably at the essence of what critics are going after, this notion of taste and what is good taste. And so I think there are a few things working there. One is explicitness, right? You know, not being sophisticated in the way you deliver something, here are the emotions or here is, you know, I'm not going to dress this up in classical allusion, it's just going to be, you know, Pam Ayers talking about going to the dentist or something. And then there's a sort of an ugliness and a crassness to it as well, I think. So those are the things that I think that, you know, that are particularly jarring for critics, no artifice and what they consider to be un-aesthetic, I suppose.

Speaker A: 00:07:34

So, yeah, I mean, I think that sounds, so if I give you a list of things I think fall into this category, I think we'll see that Chris's suggestion is pretty good, actually. Yeah, have you got one? Yeah, no, no, what I was going to say is maybe an absence, I guess what critics are looking for is, I don't know, is a sort of, yes, they're looking to inform, but probably what they like is something that says something about the human condition or something, some base truths or something like that, in the ways that you've discussed. I think we'll get onto the idea that, you know, critics, are they doing something good or are they, you know, or are they doing something malign? But if I, can I just, I just feel like just so we agree with what we're talking about, can I just give you a list of people I think fall into this category? So, in the music front, we've got, we've got I Now Dee, but I mean, Kenny G is another one who springs to mind. And, you know, it's a well-known phenomenon of sort of liking their early stuff. You know, R.E.M. is a good example of where, you know, all of the critics love the early stuff, but as soon as they became well-known and popular, then you've got, there's a lot of debate at the moment about a singer called Loewe, who is sort of jazz, and I think jazz people are getting very riled by the fact that, by the thought that she's jazz, because is she pop, pretending to be jazz? Those jazz people are often riled. Oh, jazz people are, jazz people are terrible for this, and I say that as a jazz person. Art, I've mentioned Jack Vettriano, Daily Telegraph called him the Jeffrey Archer of the art world, which I think is wonderful. Well, Jeffrey Archer for that matter, yeah. Yeah, exactly. He's the guy who does the paintings on the beaches, right? Jeffrey Archer is the Jack Vettriano of the literary world. But Thomas Kinkade, not that well-known in Britain, but he's fabulous, in America, if you, they've got Thomas Kinkade shops and things in the US, check him out. He paints, if you want to think, think of a chocolate boxy painting, like these twee little cottages and stuff. Um, then literature, I'd say some examples I think fall into this category are J.K. Rowling. Yeah. Like, you know, everyone, I don't think most people would say she's a terrible writer, but critics think she's a bad writer. Oh, do they? Okay. Yeah, yeah. And Stephanie Meyer, who wrote The Twilight, Twilight stories, I've never read them, but one Guardian critic called the protagonist a nincompoop with the charisma of a boiled potato. And the Washington Post said it was like reading a young teenage girl's diary boosted with enough of her made up vampire law to give it some mild narrative and sexual tension. The New York Times described it as over-earnest, amateurish writing. And you've got, I think Dan Brown is another good example of, you know, detested by sort of literary types, but loved by the general public. And I think really in the bottom right hand corner, you know, massive bestseller hated by critics would be Fifty Shades of Grey, E.L. James. And then I was trying to think, well, does it occur in other places? Like I was thinking sport, you know, Manchester United, the kind of the team that you support if you don't like football. I feel like they maybe occupy an adjacent sort of niche in the world of sports. But anyway, so do we all agree that that's a thing? And we all know what we're talking about, right? There is a thing there that we're talking about. Yeah, yeah. Feels like Cognoscenti gatekeeper-y stuff going on. Talking of the Cognoscenti,

Speaker C: 00:11:00

Jordan. Yeah, well, yeah, I thought it was interesting also to look at the role of the critic, because obviously criticism stretches back a long, a long way. And the poet Matthew Arnold said the role of criticism is to make itself inherently valuable and to rouse men from complacency to a state of achieving perfection. I thought that's, so there's like an ideal, I think, where criticism is meant to be as creative as the original thing that it's kind of criticizing. And it should be sort of considered an art form in its own right. It's a very lofty kind of definition of criticism. But I think because of that is maybe why it butts up against the general public, because if it's sort of trying to attain this kind of almost spiritual dimension, most people don't really think of art in those terms. They just, oh, that's a good book, it's a nice film or whatever. So that could be one of the reasons why there's this divergence between what critics like and what general audiences like as well.

Speaker A: 00:12:10

Yeah, go with, I mean, so let's just delve into that a little bit further, because I already, this is already eliciting quite strong emotions on me with some of the vocabulary that we're using here. But what's your view? Critics, you know, what are they for? Are they, I mean, yeah,

Speaker C: 00:12:27

are you able to, you know, wax lyrical on that? I think one of the things that I thought was that critics and audiences are using sort of different criteria to judge things. That critics sort of base their views on technical or literary or formal elements of whatever art form they're critiquing while audiences evaluate it more on joy and emotional kind of engagement with the thing.

Speaker A: 00:12:57

Yeah, the critics are like Craig Revel Hall in Strictly Come Dancing, because he's the one who's saying your whisk and chasse was terrible. But, you know, whereas the other judges are like, oh, that was really good fun and I loved it. You know, yeah, really interesting point.

Speaker B: 00:13:15

And I think that's quite, Craig Revel Hallward is actually a good nexus for what criticism is doing, which is it's sort of partly helping you know what's going on, right? So if it's done well, it's like a guide to what's going on to help you appreciate this thing better. So they're giving you technical information. Most people don't know about ballroom dancing. Craig Revel Hallward does, so he, you know, he gives you some insights into what's going on. But there's also an element, which is your sort of classic review, which is about helping you consume the thing. Should I go and see this film or read this book or listen to this music or go to that gallery? You know, so there are sort of two functions, really. One is to help you appreciate and one is to filter. To filter, yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: 00:14:08

I mean, just to say, I don't know if you noticed, but I'm quite a man of the people, right? I think one of the, you know, the elephant in the room here is the chasm that certainly lies between, you know, you lot over there and me over here is I'm quite in touch with the common people, finger on the pulse, and I'm quite anti-intellectual, right? We noticed that bit. Yeah, I thought, yeah. And I'm all about emotions. And so one of some of the things that you were saying there, Jordan, is that, you know, the public's about, you know, the enjoyment of it and the emotions. I don't give a toss whether it's sort of saying something about the human condition or not. But, and tying into that, I don't want someone to tell me what to do. They can fuck off. Seriously. You've got a strong reaction. Yeah, I do. I feel really strong about this, especially like, you know, I'm a Guardian reader. That's my paper of choice. But of course, I've got that love-hate thing about it. And nothing I can think of worse than a bloody Guardian critic. And when I read their films of the decade or the films of the year, I just sit there going, oh, piss off. You know, it's, and a final thing is the pomposity and this sort of frustrated artist within, and that being a critic is a thing in itself and an importance in that, which again, just makes you go, oh, piss off. Yeah. No other way but can't drive the car. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah, go.

Speaker B: 00:15:22

Well, so I'm going to sort of speak in defence of the critic because I think they do a number of interesting things. And I hadn't really considered this idea until Jordan was talking about the idea that the critic and the artist work in tandem. Actually, without being told your stuff's not very good or it's not good in this way, you haven't got that objective opinion of what's going on to improve yourself. It's like feedback for the artist, right, in an ideal model. But I also think there's a really good quote by Fellini, which is, don't tell me what I'm doing. I don't want to know. Right. So the sort of sentiment behind it being the artist is a black box, right, who intuitively creates art. Right. Now, that's not, you know, I mean, there are lots of people who know their tradecraft and all that kind of stuff. But this idea that actually, if you make it overly explicit for the artist, so if the artist knows exactly why they're doing what they're doing and how they're manipulating the audience and all that kind of stuff, it maybe interferes with their creative process and makes their art less good. Right. So the artist is not necessarily the person who wants to know or does know why they're doing what they're doing. Right. And so the critic is that separate person. Their talent, their niche is to actually understand and draw broader lessons. And you get, you know, we talked about the critic, the classic, when people say critic, you think you'd mentioned the Guardian, but James Wood, their former, you know, famous sort of literary critic, writing about novels and how you should, you know, whether you should read this novel or not and whether it's any good. There's that kind of, here's a piece of, here's one piece of art, I'll tell you what I think about it. But then you have more sort of, you know, Harold Bloom, who also did that kind of, you know, book by book review, but also wrote lots of tomes about literary criticism and what's going on across literary movements. And, you know, and that idea of, you know, how a whole genre works, you know, a sort of broader understanding of it. And then you have people like Andrew Lang, who looked at folklore and fairy tale and kind of started saying, well, this is what's going on socially with that. So you can go from, you know, you can have critiques from everything from an individual piece of art right up to entire movements or, you know, social sort of phenomenon. And really, I see the critic as an analyst, right? That's what I feel they're doing. You know, you think about critical thinking as a term, that's essentially analysis, right? So that's why I feel, you know, the artist isn't well placed. Even though they can create the stuff, they don't necessarily know why it's created, what it means, how it should be interpreted. And that's what a good critic should be doing.

Speaker A: 00:18:30

So I think there's a sense in which we're saying that, okay, there's kind of the good, critics are good. One argument is they are discriminating between good and bad things, because we can't, right? So in a sense, it's saying, you know, that they know more. So it's not about status or affiliation or any of those things. That is essentially that it reminds me of something Richard Feynman once said, where he'd had, so he's a famous physicist, who'd had a bit of an argument with a friend who was an artist, who said, you look at a flower, and you don't appreciate it, you're a scientist, you just see it as a bunch of sort of chemicals and things. Whereas I see this beautiful flower, because I'm an artist. And he said, but the thing is that as a scientist, I look at a flower, and I see all these, when I see the colour, I don't just, I think about the wavelengths and the light, and I think about the evolutionary process that's brought it to there, and all the kind of complexities of the chemicals in the smell. So he's saying that he sees a lot more than the artist, because he knows a lot more about a flower. And I feel like that's sort of what we're saying is that the critics can look at, Craig Revel Horwood can look at a dance, and he just sees more. I accept that. I just see people moving around, I can't tell good from bad. He is able to tell what's good and what's bad, and perhaps to be able to discriminate between, whereas I just sort of think that looked a bit clumsy, he's able to, you know, identify which particular leg movement was responsible for that, and so on. So I think that's coherent as an explanation for what critics do. But I think there's also a sense, a thing that binds together those things which, where critics aren't just saying, look, Einadi isn't very good, but you know, Steve Reich is, or something, when they're drawing that sort of division. I think they do go further than that. I think there's a sense in which those sort of cultural guardians of what's good, really almost feel threatened by or annoyed with the fact that these things are popular. So it's not good enough that you can go, well, I'm, you know, this is good, and that's bad, and you can choose to ignore me. There's a certain category of thing, like Dan Brown, where it's actually a kind of almost offensive that these things are popular. But I think actually there is an argument to be made in favour of feeling that way. And I don't want to talk about gatekeeping yet, because that's not this, because I'm in favour of gatekeeping, and I'll tell you why later. But this is more that there is a sort of pretentiousness, I think, to things that fall into that category, where they, where I think, you know, it's as though this is art that is coming up and saying, I belong in the pantheon. You know, the kind of, a Jack Vettriano painting almost says, I'm an Edward Hopper. Or, you know, I'm kind of up there in the pantheon of 20th century artists, the style and everything. It's trying to get into that club. And I think, so I think there's a sense in which bad art is, which sort of knows it's mediocre or populist, that's fine. But the critic is sort of saying, okay, that's good, and that's bad. Now, the really pernicious stuff, you, the general public, you need to be aware of this, is this artist here, who's actually scamming you, because his art is pretending to be something it isn't. You might think this is high art, but it's not. So I think that makes sense. It makes sense to me, not just that they're, you know, they're able to discriminate between good and bad, but that they're particularly aggrieved about a certain category of, you know, let's say, mediocre art that is pretending to be good. And it reminds me of this Venkatesh Rao, who writes Ribbon Farm, where he came up with this, the whole idea of premium mediocre, which is where McDonald's releases a thing, which is called a sort of signature hamburger. And it's pretending to be something it isn't, and therefore deserves to be criticised in a different way, because it's trying to trick you into thinking it's better than it is. So anyway, I'm just, so I suppose I'm going a bit further and saying, yeah, maybe the critics are doing their right to be annoyed by popular, mediocre things. Jordan?

Speaker C: 00:22:38

Yeah, I think, because what Nick's talking about there is the art. And I think a similar thing is happening with the criticism as well, because in recent years, I came across this concept of bad faith criticism. So an example would be like clickbait, where the purpose is not to provide a genuine critique of something, but just to generate a review as a form of entertainment for its own sake. And so obviously, now, social media platforms and stuff are very keen to publish this kind of content and disseminate it. I think that kind of drives an interesting sort of wedge between the general public and established critical opinion, because it's more about kind of self-promotion and entertainment, rather than critical rigour. Sort of rage bait.

Speaker A: 00:23:37

Yeah. Are there such things as critic awards? Do we know? Do critics ever sort of get nominated

Speaker B: 00:23:42

for stuff? I'm sure there are. And meta-criticism is a whole academic discipline, you know, the criticism of criticism. Yeah, do they have awards? Yeah, exactly.

Speaker A: 00:23:54

Yeah. Well, that's kind of what we're doing now, right? But just one thing, actually, what you were saying there reminds me of, what's the guy who writes Black Mirror, right? Charlie Brooker. There you go. Who I used to love reading his... Screenburn. Yeah, his, yeah, we used to in The Guardian on a Saturday. He's a classic example of a critic, who actually was, and he was quite performative. And then, and then, lo and behold, turns out he is an amazing writer and can create wonderful things, going on to write Black Mirror. And I'm sure he's done other stuff as well. Yeah, there is a joy, though, in reading a critic who shares your snobbery about something. Giles Corrin is one. I love restaurant critic, and I love reading his snooty put-downs of kind of regional restaurants. And of course, there's only one thing worse than Guardian critics, which is the below-the-line comments in the critique thing in, you know, the bloody Guardian readers who are chipping in. Okay, look, we need to move towards a conclusion. Nick, can you help us in that? Yeah, so I guess that I wanted to put some, to sort of formalise your object, because you were being a bit critical of the critics, saying that there's, and I think there's a couple of criticisms of this kind of thing, which you can see, actually, as a sort of status power type behaviour. So I think, first of all, you've got the critics as sort of, who are trying to status, raise their own status as critics, who need to have taste that diverges from the mainstream, right? They have to, because otherwise, if they've got the same taste as the general public, how are they adding value? So critics and the general public agree, actually, nearly all the time, if you look at kind of scores on Rotten Tomatoes and stuff like that. There's a huge amount of disagreement. So where do critics, where can critics carve out their niche? I think it's saying that things that are really sort of inaccessible or difficult or pretentious are actually amazing. Because they're things that most people won't bother with, or will dislike, or will be turned off by. So that's a really good place. If you're a critic, it's really good to jump in there with the things that, you know, actually, other people won't want to waste time with, and start claiming that those things are amazing. So that's a cynical interpretation of, you know, what they're having to do is differentiate themselves, and they're finding the easiest things to differentiate themselves with. And, you know, and that's sort of things that are sort of bland and popular, or things that are massively complicated, like Ulysses. The other thing is that is to see it not as actually as about critics, but as about insiders and outsiders. And I think, you know, being inside something is nice. Being in a kind of culture or subculture is nice. If you're in that subculture, you actively want to keep people out. If you're an outsider, you actively want to get in. Right? So there's a battle there about who belongs in a thing, you know, is loyve jazz. Jazz people are like, no, we don't want that. She's got way too many fans. That will that will make jazz less of a good subculture, because it'll be too many people who like jazz and inverted commas. Whereas the people on the outside are like, no, we've got this really good thing. We want to get into the jazz gang. Because the jazz gang is cool. And we want to get in. So you can see that as a kind of battle between insiders and outsiders. Yeah, it'd be like, hey, I love jazz FM, let me in. Right. So exactly. So anyway, but I just want I want to put the case before we wind up that gatekeeping is actually really good and important. Why? So I think something should be hard. Something should be inaccessible. You're an elitist. I am. Yes. And I think you can see that that the I think the battle lines would be remarkably if you were to look at the sort of elitist versus populist, the kind of metropolitan versus rural or the sort of Republican versus Democrat or the progressives versus conservatives, you'd find the same sorts of opinions about inaccessible art. You would tend to find that they would people who like Thomas Kinkade, I reckon Thomas Kinkade fans much more likely to be Republican. I want to find out more about this Thomas Kinkade. Well, I'm just so you know,

Speaker B: 00:28:11

so he is he is a he is a very strong Christian, isn't he? Oh, I think so. Yeah. So I mean,

Speaker A: 00:28:17

that is not surprising to me at all. That makes perfect sense. But but the thing is that things do get ruined when they're popular, right? Things do get ruined when they're popular. I'm sorry, but popular influxes of people ruin things. And I and the give you an example, Mount Everest. And also a lot of people online say thrifting, which is why do they yeah, going to like thrift thrift shops. And yeah, apparently now that's that's kind of became become a big thing because of Instagram and stuff. And now, of course, you can't get that. Is it for me and my beautiful

Speaker B: 00:28:53

eccentric? That's sort of limited in the in the context of a limited resource, right? There's only so many secondhand but clothes or so much space on Everest. So there's this interesting

Speaker A: 00:29:04

and really interesting article called Geeks, Mops and Sociopaths by a guy called David Chapman, which analyses the progression of subcultures. And he says, before you've got a subculture, you have a scene which is just creators. They create cultural capital that then draws fanatics, people who want to put energy and support those creators. And they make social capital, right? They connect those creators to other fanatics. And they're all geeks so far, right? They're people who are really into that subculture. And then it either stays geeky or mops arrive. What are mops? Members of the public mops, right? They're not as geeky. They want to enjoy the subculture. They contribute very little, but they're needed to turn the scene into a subculture. Now you've suddenly got a vibe going. The problem is, then you have too many. They dilute the culture. They don't appreciate how complex or weird it is. And they want to start simplifying it and making it more accessible. And finally, the sociopaths turn up. And they're the people who actually monetize it. They work out to turn this thing into liquid capital. And then it's, you know, as Danny says in Withnail and I, they're selling hippie wigs in Woolworth's Man, you know? So I think subcultures are worth protecting, you know? And they do get ruined. There's no doubt about it. So yes, what I'm saying is, you know, there's a role for gatekeepers. It's always used negatively. But I think gatekeeping is good. And anyone who's been in a subculture who's seen it be ruined. I'll give you an example. I went to a Wargaming conference recently. And there were some people there who were sort of saying, Wargaming's, you know, inaccessible. It's too esoteric. And you've got all these kind of this weird lingo and all that. And you should make it more accessible. And I thought, well, why do you want to access it if you don't like any of the things that are hard or inaccessible about it? It's like, you want to get in there because there's something about it, which is kind of interesting and clicky. And but you don't want to put in the hard work of learning about the actual culture. So, you know, if you suddenly throw open the doors and say, well, now everyone's, now what's happened to Wargaming? It's ruined. Sorry about that. I probably won't come. I probably won't come along to the next conference. Replace our little cardboard counters with NATO symbols on with, you know, plastic models of soldiers and stuff. Sounds much better. Sounds good. Yeah. Anyway, there you go. We've got to stop there. But super, super quick question for super, super quick answers from you lot, obviously not from me, which is, have you got a bit of art, whether it be music, film, whatever, you know, or actual art, which you can't decide, is it good or is it bad? Were you a genuinely undecided whether it's brilliant or not? Because I've got one, which is Terrence Malick. Okay. Arguably a genius film director. But there's one film that he did, and I do love the Thin Red Line that he did. Although I did see people walking out of the cinema. Not Tree of Life. My son hated it. Tree of Life. I remember watching that. And I think one critic, I think actually I saw a critic saying he couldn't decide. And the critics, I called it a sort of a three hour perfume advert is I watched it. And at the end of that film, I honestly couldn't decide was that genius or was that just a load of old tut, you know? A load of old tut. Right, there we go. It was a load of old tut. Okay. Anything

Speaker B: 00:32:24

else from anyone? Yeah. That's so funny, because when you were saying that, I was thinking of that of that very film as not something I, something that was sort of critically, you know, well regarded that was patently terrible. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Anything else? Anyone?

Speaker C: 00:32:45

Yeah. I think for me, the music of Kanye West, I can't decide. Is he? People say he's a musical genius and all this stuff. And then I listen. I'm like, I don't. He kind of sounds crazy.

Speaker A: 00:32:57

But do you think he might be? You're not smoking what he's rolling.

Speaker C: 00:33:00

But I just, it's one of those ones where I'm not sure if he is or not. Yeah. I can't.

Speaker A: 00:33:05

Feels like a fit. Yeah. Well, so my, I think one of my favourite films, possibly my favourite film about the last three years is Mandy with Nicolas Cage. Oh, I've not seen it. Nicholas Cosmides, I think the director, Cosmatides, something like that. It is incredible. I hadn't seen a film like it. And it was just like I watched it. I thought, thank God people are still making stuff like this. And then I had this horrible feeling that it might be actually accessible and popular. But then luckily I checked it out and it turns out it's still a bit of a niche thing. And like a lot of people don't like it at all. So I was like, phew. After this, millions will watch it on the podcast. In that case, I like it now because I know it's not a kind of, you know, it's not accessible enough for it to be really popular. So no, but I can carry on liking it with my head held high.

Speaker B: 00:33:55

Phew. Phew. Thin Red Line, another, as you say, you know, Terrence Malick film. I did walk out in the middle of it, but then I watched it again. And because I was like, I should probably, it sounds like the kind of film I should like. And I'm, yeah, undecided. It's a very long film, I think. And there's a lot of, I think any film where there's lots of monologue and introspection always borders on the pretentious.

Speaker A: 00:34:33

Oh, good. Well, if it keeps out the likes of Chris and you, then I'm on board.

Speaker B: 00:34:37

Yeah. I like it. Go and watch it.

Speaker A: 00:34:39

Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:34:40

Spend four hours of your life.

Speaker A: 00:34:41

I've seen it. I saw it at the cinema. Yeah. Okay. Thank you as always for listening to the Cognitive Engineering Podcast. I'm Fraser McGruer. I've been here with Jordan Fermanis, Nick Hare and Chris Wragg of Aleph. Until next time, goodbye.