Ugh. I'm gonna go ahead with some spoilers then.

1. Recently on this board it was discussed that some 8kun autists had discovered an odd assortment of so-called "aquariums" around the country that were not in fact aquariums. Just houses and little buildings with a five sided star painted on them. While they are in Texas, and the Texas star is the Texas star, I found it scattered throughout the movie very conspicuously. At one point, when Ashton Kutcher, who basically plays the Devil, is giving a little speech to Novak about listening, even in the silence, he's wearing a black cowboy hat and right behind him, on his house, is a giant star. It's literally right to the left of his black hat the entire speech.

2. Ashton Kutcher is a big proponent for ending child trafficking. He has a foundation called THORN dedicated to raising awareness of it. Kutcher was recently "struck" with an odd autoimmune disease that literally made him deaf and blind for a little while. You can tell he is taking this roll VERY seriously. I honestly think it's his best work. You can tell he wants the audience to know how seductive and brilliant the Devil can be, but that he's still the Devil. By the end of the movie you realize that his religion/doctrine is nothing but leftist Hollywood Nihilism. He took that role knowing he would portray that and knowing his character deserved to die at the end. I would love to sit down with him and pick his brain in real life and see what his energy feels like.

3. Ashton Kutcher's name in the movie is Quentin. We learn at the very end that "Mike and Dan" the two hapless police officers who write off everything as accidents and coincidences, call him "Q." It begs the question of course what BJ Novak's understanding and feelings about Q are, given that he had him represent the Devil and Nihilism, but something tells me he did that intentionally so that his message wasn't too obvious. If you've seen BJ's new show "The Premise" you see that's a hallmark of his work. He's very careful not to pick a side. He wants the audience to think hard about the issues he's addressing, and he doesn't make it clear what his position is. But something tells me that's by design. I think he's smart, and I think he secretly leans to the right.

4. As the Devil is known to do, Ashton's character loves mixing truth with Nihilism. It's how he's able to sell it, but also how he accidentally helps bring Novak's character to the light. At one point near the end he says "A myth (or a conspiracy theory) is just a truth you can sense without having all the facts." He's saying point blank that the conspiracy theorists of today, namely, us, are right. We don't have all the details, but we can tell all these things are connected somehow, we're smart people, but without all the facts, our theories sound crazy to other people. He nailed that.

5. Kutcher's character says outright the reason he placed his recording studio out in rural Texas is because the people there are so smart and brilliant but they don't have the right outlets to express it. But after we realize who he is it becomes clear, both to Novak and to us, that the reason he's there is that those are the souls he hasn't yet bewitched. Why spend his time in liberal cities? He already has them. They already embraced Nihilism and they talk and act just like him. One of the ways this is portrayed is by the empty phrase "100%." It's something Novak always said when he was back in New York, and it was something he said to people to imply he understood them, when in fact he knew he didn't, and it was because he didn't care. Novak realizes this at one point and says into his handheld microphone "I was the story, and the story sucks. I've never loved." Love is the opposite of apathy. Novakk shows how, while the people in rural Texas might not have fancy words, they care about each other. They listen to each other. They're there for one another. They love. It was completely alien to him. All he cared about before he met Abeline's sweet family was fame and success. When Granny says "Do you have any family in Texas? No? Well you do now" you really see it sink in.

I loved this movie. Deeply. I think maybe you should watch it again and put your Q glasses on. You might enjoy it more that way. I've seen it twice now and I can't stop thinking about it.