A warning before this episode, today's film depicts a sexual assault, which is discussed in the review.

As much as Ben and John have told me not to and just as often as I've reminded them of the same,

and as much as it kills me to admit it, I do read the comments from time to time. That's because it's hard not

to be curious about how my work is being perceived, especially when that work is a 40-hour

week of editing Dick Jokes into Star Trek podcasts and watching two three hour

war movies, 90 minutes of which include Brad Pitt 3-point lit side butt. I should be satisfied enough with that. It's a good life and I'm happy to have it, but it's not good enough. I also want to see how it's going and if it's working and if it matters to people. That's being greedy.

Doing this should teach me a lesson but it never does or at least that lesson never sticks. Imagine being a film director, you know an

actual artist where there are actual stakes. You've worked for months with

thousands of people through storms and reshoots and

rewrites and so forth to get the butt lighting just right it has to be so

tantalizing to read the comments. How do you not do that? When the reviews started pouring in

about Troy the first time around I've got to believe that Wolfgang

Peterson was not affected by them he He's an actual artist, unlike me. But like me, I'll assume he also

has a semi-strict Don't Read the Comments Policy and a group of friends to remind him of the same.

They'd say Wolfgang, babe, your Schnitzel is going to get cold if you don't stop reading that issue of DAS Premier magazine.

And he would.

Schnitzel is good.

I never saw Troy when it was in the theater, but I sure did hear about it.

What I heard deterred me, and I never saw the film until now.

I think that was a good thing because the studio spent a

million dollars and added 30 minutes to make Troy colon directors cut and

ordinarily long run times are a thing we complain about on this show, but it turns out you can do a lot of positive

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