One moment that relates back to my essential question was when Nate and I watched Martyrs and The Host. This relates back to the essential question because, with Martyrs, we had to explain our strong opinions on the film in a fashion in which we hadn’t done before. Our primary complaint was the violence. Nate and I are no strangers to violent films, but something about this film didn’t sit right with us. No, it wasn’t the level of violence, but rather, it was the way in which violence and sensitive themes were used as a way to get the viewer to watch, rather than trying to portray an actual message. The film used abuse, torture, and trauma in the entirety of the film, to create a fake feeling “deep” message about martyrdom and seeing what’s beyond life while still being alive. In creating this “message”, the film essentially became a torture porn movie, akin the Saw and other similar movies. However, Martyrs was not honest about what type of movie it wanted to be. It felt as if the sensitive themes that are shown and the grotesque violence was all used in such an exploitative manner, while other movies with similar violence use the violence for very purposeful and honest reasons. This experience stood out because it was the first time that I truly hated a movie, and could actually articulate what aspects of the film bothered me. At LREI, most of the discussions we had about movies were a matter of “good” and “bad”. We would talk about music and shots, with nothing more to bring to the conversation. With the conversations that we are having in these podcasts, we are looking at the individual aspects of a film that we appreciate or do not. In comparison, if we were not doing this project, we would have likely just stated that we didn’t enjoy the film, and that would’ve been the end of the conversation.