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Ari Aster Thinks You’re Being Manipulated
Season 5 · Episode 95

Ari Aster Thinks You’re Being Manipulated

Master of horror Ari Aster tackles the scariest film of his career — about the real-world villains hiding in our midst.

Lever Time

August 11, 202537m 24s

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Show Notes

You might recognize director Ari Aster from his groundbreaking horror films like Hereditary and Midsommar. But Aster just dropped the scariest film of his career: Eddington, a dark COVID-19 comedy starring Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, and Emma Stone, about social media-driven polarization, gun violence, and the looming tech takeover.

Today on Lever Time, David Sirota speaks with Aster about the inspiration behind his all-too-prescient film. Did the coronavirus pandemic break our brains, leaving our communities with no commonly accepted set of facts? How do we navigate today’s AI slop-driven informational hellscape? And is it possible to avoid the twisted fate of Eddington, Aster’s fictional New Mexico town?

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