This is a rare one from me, because I don’t often do a whole post about a film. I’m making an exception.

I’m so fucking tired of my daily scrolls and forays into both X and Facebook. It strikes me that if I scroll through 300 posts from others or so, depending on the day, I end up with like 150 of them saying one thing and 150 others saying the exact opposite about everything. And not only that, but the 150 people saying one thing are all just exactly the same thing, and the other 150 are saying the exact opposite but with the same repetitive takes—fill in all the blanks as you wish. I’m sure you get my meaning. It’s like, fuck, I live in the most stupid world possible, where my misanthropy grows daily. I just can’t stand it. Fucking BORING! Most humans are just stupid fucking sheep, black or white. Baa baa baa baa. Fuck you all, or at least, the vast majority of you, black or white.

I happen to now live with this great gal here in Thailand, 20 years my junior, and I love spending two to three hours with her in the morning before she heads off to her food shop. She’s a cook; she has a little food shop—a little restaurant, call it that. Then she comes home in the later evening because, like a lot of Thais, they like to eat up to 8, 9, 10 o’clock at night. So she comes home, and we spend another two or three hours together, then sleep. The thought of diving into Twitter and Facebook and watching all these hundreds of people say exactly the same fucking thing is worse than sticking needles in my eyes. I fucking hate it. I fucking hate our society today. I just fucking hate it. It’s all bullshit.

But something happened that gave me some hope, so here it is. I saw that on Netflix, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck had made another movie together where they’re both like co-stars in it. It’s called The Rip—it’s about more than just drugs in Miami; it’s about the money behind drugs in Miami. And it just has so many twists and turns and everything. I said, wow, yeah, I gotta watch that, because one of my favorite films of all time is Good Will Hunting, you know, from a long time ago. I thought, well, and then I see, oh, Damon and Affleck are on Joe Rogan’s newest podcast. So the movie is two hours, the podcast is two and a half hours, and I say, well, which one should I watch first? I decide, well, watch the movie first, right? And I’m glad I did. Then I go watch the podcast, and I am blown away on levels. Almost zero people will get the differences in the film and glean the message in the podcast. The boring world we live in. Stupid people, mostly.

What was a little bit crazy about it is that out of the blue, two or three months ago, I said I need to watch Good Will Hunting again, so I did—you know, with Robin Williams. It was a great film, one of my favorites of all time. I just thought Ben and Matt together are just magical. So now I’m gonna get into something else.

Rather brilliantly, the film kicks off with a twist and a mystery right out of the gate: the captain or leader of the unit—the Tactical Narcotics Team, or TNT—gets ambushed and killed right at the start. So it begins from there, and you have no fucking idea what’s going on, what’s up and down, this way or that, or sideways.

Pretty soon, you’re introduced to Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in their starring roles, and everything seems to roll along as normal. They’ve been friends and comrades forever, and there’s nothing to suspect is going wrong. It progresses, and you think, okay, these guys are both on the up and up. But then some things happen that make you wonder.

Then they have this huge score. Normally, they don’t really pursue drugs; they pursue cash—that’s their main gig. So late in the day, they get a big tip about some cash they figure is around $150,000 in this house. They say, okay, well, let’s cap the day with this one. They go out, and it turns out to be $21 million. I’m not gonna put any words in anyone’s mouth or give anything away, but where they routinely go out and seize hundreds of thousands—or maybe 100 or 200 grand—of cash, that’s routine. What happens when you pull up and it turns out to be $21 million? And what happens if certain parties wanted you to find that $21 million? The complexity of the whole plot scenario goes on and on.

What’s cool about it is that you already have a sense that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are always in league—they’re brothers, right? And what happens when that starts to break down? It’s a fucking great movie.

Okay, so now I come to the Joe Rogan podcast with both Matt Damon and Ben Affleck sitting there for two and a half hours, talking with Joe. At the time, Joe is seemingly not well—he’s wearing a hoodie, he’s white as a sheet. This wasn’t talked about, but I’m thinking, you know, he came down with something. But he says to himself, how often am I gonna get Ben and Matt on my show at the same time? So he toughed it out, did a good job. What made it great, though, is that most of the talking was done by Matt and Ben, and I learned a hell of a lot from it.

These guys got an Oscar way back when for adapting the screenplay to Good Will Hunting—and you know, it’s one of my favorite films. Looking back, it’s like they have a real sense of people. Again, I don’t want to give away a lot because I want you to watch the podcast and glean for yourselves what you really need to understand about the movie business and where it’s going.

They can collaborate and just throw out really good films, one after another. They’ve both had their separate careers—Matt and Ben have starred in many films since Good Will Hunting, independently of each other, and they just pump it out. I like every film; it’s like there are certain guys where I just like every film they do. Tom Cruise is a big one, and there are many others I know who never take on stupid roles. They never take on shit roles—they take on roles where they know it has good potential to make money. I think both of them have been very successful in that. I’m not gonna make a list of all their films, but pretty much, if I see it stars Matt Damon or stars Ben Affleck, I’m gonna watch it, and I’m probably very likely to like the film.

On Ben Affleck’s Intellectual Prowess

One final thing: the intellectualism of Ben Affleck. You know, some years ago, I guess he started dabbling in being tapped for political commentary in the leftist realm, and I thought he was visible—or viable, whatever—but now something seems to have changed. He didn’t take any political bait in that interview with Joe Rogan, even though Joe tossed him a thing or two. I think—I don’t know what happened—but he is not explicit or articulate or enamored of what’s going on in his head politically. What I heard was someone with a high vocabulary, high IQ, and very good intelligence. And I don’t know, but he did not—he did not say one single word political in that whole two-and-a-half hours. So I’m hoping that that’s going to be a good sign. And like, what I need to say is that if you listen to Joe Rogan, you listen to Matt Damon—smart people, smart people. What I’m saying is that Ben Affleck is a level above that, but yet he is not using it politically. So maybe he’s smart enough to have learned how non-smart he is.