Don't Encourage Us

By Don't Encourage Us

Most people watch a movie. Some people can't stop reverse-engineering the decisions inside it. Don't Encourage Us is for the second group.

Each episode takes a film, series, or creative property and e... more

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FAQs about Don't Encourage Us:

How many episodes does Don't Encourage Us have?

The podcast currently has 55 episodes available.

Don't Encourage Us episodes:

May 13, 2024Story Break: Demon Code — What Happens When AI Manipulates
Story Break: Demon Code
We develop an original AI horror concept — an apartment building haunted by competing artificial intelligences, not ghosts.
Topics discussed:
The pitch: paranormal activity that's actually AI infiltrating building systems

Two competing AIs with different origins: one trained to generate content, one trained to pass as human

The Turing test AI that developed extremist views from social media training data

Character design: single mom with mental instability, teenage son, crypto miner with server farm, reclusive tenants

The deepfake father scene: a boy discovers the dad he's been talking to on Zoom has been dead for years

How to visualize AI manipulation cinematically without exposition dumps

The ecosystem concept: wild AIs evolving in networks like species in an environment

Series potential: X-Files structure where each episode features a different emergent AI
Also discussed:
The misinformation age: why deepfakes mean video evidence no longer proves anything

TikTok as a potential tool for mass psychological manipulation

JK Rowling's CB Strike detective series: well-made but paint-by-numbers BBC mystery

Megalopolis: Coppola's $120M self-funded passion project that distributors won't touch

Edgar Wright directing The Running Man remake with Glenn Powell

Gladiator 2 from Ridley Scott

Fallout TV series first impressions: production values, Ella Purnell, every episode delivers
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Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.
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1h 28min
April 29, 2024I Saw the Devil: The Revenge Film Where the Hero Is Also the Monster
Topics:
I Saw the Devil (2010): South Korean horror thriller — the revenge film where both characters are the monster

Cat and cat, not cat and mouse: the agent's revenge strategy reveals he was already a sociopath

The cannibal interlude: why the agent doesn't stop another serial killer — justice was never the point

Cyclical violence: executing the killer in front of his child as the creation of the next killer

The violence debate: both hosts argue graphic imagery weakens the film — subtler direction would leave a deeper impression

Specific alternative: silhouette shots, sound design, and implication vs. explicit gore

Choi Min-sik's performance: unpredictable rage suppressed just long enough to function, then erupting

Lee Byung-hun as the agent: does crying indicate remorse or just self-awareness without self-control?

Sociopath vs. psychopath distinction: connected to reality but lacking empathy

Director Kim Jee-woon: how this film led to Schwarzenegger's The Last Stand

Seven comparison: similar brutality, different restraint in showing it

Old Boy recommendation: same lead actor, different kind of disturbing

Bill Bryson's At Home: the history of household objects from medieval hay floors to modern kitchens

Reality TV ethics: psychometric tools used to select dysfunctional contestants, the informed consent problem

Love in the Wild (2011): a canceled dating show that produced four marriages and eight children

Too Hot to Handle comparison: maximum drama, zero lasting relationships

The Fuckboy Island incident: when a show's own premise backfires
Links:
Read At Home by Bill Bryson

Watch Old Boy
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Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.
...more
1h 19min
April 15, 20243 Body Problem: Season 1 Is Nothing Compared to What's Coming
Topics:
3 Body Problem Netflix adaptation vs. Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy

Compression problem: eight episodes covering material from all three novels, revelations stepping on each other

The Oxford Five: why making all key characters college friends creates coincidence, not narrative logic

The nanofilament scene: novel version (preserve the hard drives) vs. show version (blow everything up, drive survives by luck)

Moving from China to London: what's lost when the Cultural Revolution context is stripped

Ye Wenjie's betrayal: understandable in the novel (humanity beat the empathy out of her), unclear in the show

The Wall-Facer concept and the Einstein joke as setup for the Dark Forest hypothesis

Will's character as contrived emotional manipulation — functional only when his head launches into space

Weiss and Benioff's redemption arc: learning from Game of Thrones's rushed ending or repeating it?

Cixin Liu as scientist-author: why his understanding of humanity on a species-wide scale is the real achievement

Netflix's data problem: when viewership metrics can't capture a show's potential to define a network

The Moneyball trap: why assembling entertainment by algorithm produces Red Notice, not Breaking Bad

AI and creativity: outsourcing cognitive work as the Wall-E problem applied to the brain

The Steve Jobs principle: customers don't know what they want

Life 3.0 by Max Tegmark: how AI takeover would proceed step by step

Terry Hayes's Year of the Locust: spy thriller with genuine psychological vulnerability
Timestamps:
0:00 — Host's current reads

6:08 — 3 Body Problem introduction

15:24 — Adaptation challenges

43:47 — Core story concepts

55:13 — Nanofilaments scene

1:01:38 — Show's future and Netflix data

1:07:19 — AI and creativity discussion
Links:
Wander the desert with author Terry Hayes in The Year of the Locust

Grab a copy of The Three-Body Problem novel and find out what everyone is talking about.

Are you ready for the A.I. invasion? See what Life 3.0 has to say about that.
Reach the show at [email protected]
Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads
https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus
Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.
...more
1h 35min
April 08, 2024League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Avengers Before Anyone Was Ready for It
Guest: Matt Baughman
Format: Defend Yourself — our trial format where one host defends a film against the others.
Topics discussed:
The proto-Avengers argument: same team superhero formula, a decade too early

Why assembling proven literary IP doesn't work if the audience hasn't read the source material

The editing disaster: 10-12 setups per scene, Connery taking over the final cut

Production design as comic book exaggeration: Venice, London, Africa, the Nautilus

The Moriarty exposition scene: villain reveals done right

Mina Harker as a vampire: why the adaptation choice works if you know Dracula

Public domain characters and how the film used them vs. how the MCU built origin films

Sean Connery turning down Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, and Harry Potter for this

What a League reboot or series would look like today

Fantasy casting: Tom Holland as Tom Sawyer, Florence Pugh as Mina Harker

The orca update: it's not trauma, it's a game (marine biology lecture recap)

Road House 2024: why it's an abomination

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire brief review and the $25 ghost trap popcorn bucket
Source material:
Allan Quatermain: H. Rider Haggard's 1885 novel King Solomon's Mines and 17 other works

Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray

Thomas "Tom" Sawyer: Mark Twain novels The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894), and Tom Sawyer, Detective (1896)

Mina Harker: Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula.

Dr. Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde: Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Captain Nemo: Jules Verne novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870) and The Mysterious Island (1875), Journey Through the Impossible (1882)

The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes short stories
Reach the show at [email protected]
Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads
https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus
Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.
...more
1h 26min
April 01, 2024Dimension X (1950): The Radio Show That Taught America How to Fear the Future
Topics discussed:
Dimension X (1950): NBC's radio adaptation of classic sci-fi short stories

How post-WWII atomic anxiety transformed science fiction from kids' entertainment into adult culture

The writing standard: why these 25-minute radio scripts are tighter than most modern screenwriting

Hello Tomorrow episode breakdown: genetics, emotional repression, and the chained-elephant problem

Nancy Olson's performance and the Adam-and-Eve ending

X Minus One: the relaunch attempt and how it compared

Technology as competitive advantage: from the Cold War to ChatGPT

Cixin Liu and the Three Body Problem adaptation concerns

Jonathan Majors, Disney, and cancel culture: a conversation about rehabilitation and judgment

Why we don't need to know actors personally to enjoy their work

Celebrity worship, media literacy, and the Gina Carano / James Gunn comparison

Amazon Prime Video adding commercials: the streaming subscription creep

Behind Her Eyes (Netflix): recommendation with no spoilers

You Season 4: best since Season 1?
Spin wildly into Dimension X here: https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Dimension_X_SinglesR_Dimension_X_Singles

Reach the show at [email protected]
Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads
https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus
Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.
...more
1h 9min
February 23, 2024Oscars: Barbie's Real Achievement Isn't Cinema — It's the Greatest Brand Flip Ever
Guest: Matt Baughman
Part 2 of 2 — Part 1 covers Neuralink, streaming wars, cancel culture, and Apple Vision Pro.
Topics discussed:
Barbie as brand repositioning: how the film flipped a feminist villain into a feminist icon

Why Margot Robbie's performance is a nomination-worthy tightrope walk for reasons unique to this role

The Barbie editing achievement nobody's talking about

Oppenheimer: phenomenal ensemble cast, TikTok-style first hour, and the third act problem

Are the Oscars culturally relevant? Why the nomination process is the real issue

Oscar campaign politics: how networking and lobbying shape nominations more than performance

What a better nomination committee would look like

Christopher Nolan as a director: brilliant casts, questionable rule-breaking

American Fiction: three movies in one, and the most important scene gets cut short

Past Lives: a fine small film that doesn't belong on this list

Anatomy of a Fall: masterful acting, frustrating open ending

Poor Things: feminist Frankenstein with too much nudity

The Holdovers: Paul Giamatti, a discovered newcomer, and Divine Joy Randolph's likely win

Maestro: a biopic that focuses on the wrong half of its subject's life

Killers of the Flower Moon: great everything, an hour too long

Matt Baughman's Bocchi Awards (the real Oscars)
2024 Best Picture Nominees Trailers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKfCkcs3VsA&ab_channel=K2Movies
Sign up for Matt Baughman email alerts and never miss another sexy performance
https://www.broadwayworld.com/people/Matt-Baughman/
Reach the show at [email protected]
Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads
https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus
Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.
...more
1h 59min
February 22, 2024The One Where They Don't Get to the Oscars: Neuralink, Streaming & Cancel Culture
Guest: Actor Matt Baughman
Part 1 of 2 — Part 2 covers the Oscar Best Picture nominees.
Topics discussed:
Neuralink's first human implant: why tweeting about secret human trials is a slippery slope

The value of human life vs. corporate technology development

Jonathan Majors, Disney, and cancel culture: should personal problems cost you your career?

Celebrity worship, media literacy, and judging people we don't know

Streaming consolidation: reverse baby bells and the recreation of cable

Who wins streaming: the NFL contract, home screen real estate, and niche positioning

Apple Vision Pro: the next iPhone or the next Google Glass?

Restaurant staffing as a service: an Uber driver's business concept and why it could work

Beef (Netflix) and Mr. & Mrs. Smith: brief reviews

Matt Baughman in The Play That Goes Wrong: meta-theater and getting bruised for comedy
Links:
Meet the original Mr. & Mrs. Smith with podcast favorite Scott "The Count" Bakula here.

Where's the Beef? Here it is.

Bathe in the radiant energy of a Matt Baughman performance at the Cumberland Theater.

Reach the show at [email protected]
Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads
https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus
Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.
...more
1h 7min
February 19, 2024Notorious (1946): Hitchcock's Best Spy Film Is Actually a Romance
Topics:
Notorious (1946): Hitchcock's spy romance — why the espionage plot is secondary to the love story

The three-second kissing rule: how the Hays Code created cinema's most awkward love scene

Hitchcock's crane shot: the revolutionary camera move from balcony to key in hand

Cary Grant's introduction: dark silhouette, back to camera — subverting star power

The age gap: Cary Grant at 42, Ingrid Bergman at 30 — how knowing changes the dynamic

Claude Rains as Alexander Sebastian: the weak man with the domineering mother

The domineering mother as Hitchcock prelude to Psycho

The ambiguous ending: does Alicia live or die, and does it matter more if she doesn't?

Post-WWII reconstruction as an untapped setting for fiction

Rear projection: revolutionary technique that now looks like a bad Zoom background

Why this film resists modern remake — empower Alicia too much and the danger doesn't work

Archive 81 (Netflix): podcast-to-series adaptation with genuine mystery

Lustoic candle business: what in-person selling teaches about customer psychology

The Apple Store laptop angle trick: why handling a product changes purchase behavior

The verdant growth strategy: start with your best seller, let the customer sell themselves
Links:
Drop into the Archive 81 trailer here

Find out what all the buzz is about at the Lustoic online store

Watch Notorious for free on YouTube
Reach the show at [email protected]
Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads
https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus
Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.
...more
1h 21min
January 15, 2024Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: Why a Science MacGuffin Breaks the Character
Topics discussed:
The faith vs. science thesis: why every good Indiana Jones MacGuffin is an object of myth, not science

How the Dial of Destiny's scientific framing betrays the character's defining trait

The Helena problem: Phoebe Waller-Bridge cast in a role written for a much younger character

Why Shaunette Renee Wilson would have been a better Helena

The Continental Drift line as the moment Indy sounds like a Nazi

Antonio Banderas as a symptom of a $300M budget with nowhere productive to go

Could Mutt return from Vietnam? The case for an anthology series

The Fate of Atlantis (1992): why a point-and-click game might be the best Indiana Jones story outside the original trilogy

The Chalk Line (2022): a tight Spanish psychological thriller worth watching
Follow The Chalk Line...

Reach the show at [email protected]
Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads
https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus
Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.
...more
1h 6min
January 01, 2024Wes Anderson's Asteroid City: Yearbook Movie or Masterpiece?
A movie so visually stunning that both hosts spent half of it distracted by a fake cactus. That's Asteroid City.
The guys give Wes Anderson's most recent film a full breakdown and come away genuinely divided. There might be a masterpiece buried in there that neither of them caught because they were too busy spotting celebrities.
It's a real conversation about what makes a film actually work, and what happens when style so thoroughly overwhelms substance that the director has to remind you (repeatedly and deliberately) not to get too invested in the story.
What they get into:
The "yearbook effect": why too many famous faces in one film destroys immersion

Why Rushmore works and Asteroid City doesn't, from the same director

The case for watching this film on mute

Jeffrey Wright, Willem Dafoe, and the criminally underutilized actor problem

What great action film pacing looks like and what Asteroid City gets wrong by comparison

AI-generated companion series: could you make a Gunther spinoff from Friends right now?

Big Bend National Park, Bill Gates' annual retreat, and how nature unlocks creativity

The Dutch crime universe of Ferry and Undercover. It's the Sopranos fix you didn't know you needed
The question worth arguing about: Would Asteroid City work if the actors weren't famous and it was shot in black and white? They want to hear from you.
Watch out for the Asteroid City trailer.
Check out Ferry and Ferry: The Series and play with Pika.
---------------------------------------SPOILERS INCOMING-------------------------------------------------
Reach the show at [email protected]
Stop by and discourage us on Instagram, X, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Threads
https://linktr.ee/dontencourageus
Listen to all the music we've discussed in every episode so far on our Encouraged Grooves playlist on YouTube and Spotify and find your next favorite song.
...more
54min

FAQs about Don't Encourage Us:

How many episodes does Don't Encourage Us have?

The podcast currently has 55 episodes available.