021: EDDINGTON

021: EDDINGTON

From Out There in the Dark by Basement Inc.

September 12, 2025 · 40 min · Episode 96

About this episode

Azed and Tom discuss Ari Aster's controversial film EDDINGTON, exploring its political themes and critical reception.

Ari Aster’s latest film, EDDINGTON, has polarized critical intelligentsia. While a few have hailed it as a “masterpiece” many others have decried it as at best an ambitious flop. As with Aster’s last “flop” Beau is Afraid, critics and audiences alike seem confused and disappointed by Aster’s non-horror films. Without the surface excitement of supernaturally tinged serial killings or sadistic torture, Aster’s non-horror films seem to lean more art house than grindhouse. With Eddington, Aster has made his most accomplished and politically potent film to date. Set during the 2020 lockdowns, Eddington scales the mass paranoia and detachment from reality which proliferated at that time-and continues to grow- way down to a tiny western town. Embedding huge political and moral concerns in the fabric of everyday small town western American life is what gives Eddington its power and clarity. What happens in microcosm also happens in macro. That the petty bickering and fully formed silo’s of disinfo serve to mask the data processing center being negotiated to be housed outside Eddington, perfectly encapsulates the way our behaviors and ideas often are manipulated and exploited for…

People in this episode

Hosts: Azed, Tom

Topics covered

  • film analysis
  • Ari Aster
  • political themes
  • art house cinema
  • 2020 lockdowns
  • critical reception

Keywords

  • Ari Aster
  • EDDINGTON
  • film critique
  • political cinema
  • art house
  • 2020
  • lockdowns
  • critical reception

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: EDDINGTON, Beau is Afraid

Places: Eddington

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