For the first time since ETV began, Renan and Bill examine a film that is actually in theaters at the time of recording: Denis Villeneuve's ARRIVAL, starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, and Forest Whitaker. It is not every day that Hollywood releases a sci-fi movie aimed at adults, let alone one that messes with your head like this one does, and it's certainly rare for a film to be built around linguistic theory. Also in this episode: other big budget "puzzle" films and how they get made; examining the work of the Nolan brothers, Twin Peaks and Westworld in particular; the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and Fermat's principle of least time; the short stories of Ted Chiang (and George Saunders, for good measure); and Bill has a bit of a cold, so bear with us here.
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