Morvern Callar with Emily Yoshida

25:02Yeah, Die My Love. Yes. You're going to need to watch it if you want to keep up with the show. True. True. I mean, I guess, you know, do what you want. You don't have to, but we recommend viewing the film. Please view the film. Die My Lovely and Ramsey's film. Great film. Came out last year. It was a canon that came out last fall in 2025. It's a visceral and uncompromising portrait of a woman engulfed by love and madness starring Jennifer Lawrence, who was nominated for Golden Globe, Robert Pattinson. It's kind of mostly those two. They're very heavy on the two of them. Yeah. Some top shelf. Nolte?

25:34I was going to say some seasoning of Nolte and Spacek. But this is dry age. Let me tell you. Oh, yeah. You've got them in there. But yeah, it's a lot. It's a big showstopper movie for J-Law. And R-Patz. Yeah. And R-Patz knows he's playing sack and fiddle. Sure. But then there's a lemon pepper dry rub of Nick Nolte. I love lemon pepper, guys. I love Nick Nolte. I love Nick Nolte, too. look at Lynn Ramsey making her eagerly awaited filmmaking return. Obviously that's why we're covering her on the pod because we've been waiting for her to make another movie. And it was on the shortlist for cinematography, the 90th Academy Awards.

26:16I didn't even know that. That's awesome. It's a passionate, complicated, destructive love story between two major stars in Lawrence and Pattinson who'd never been together on screen before. I know. I guess that's not that surprising, but they are quite a pair. The bat and the cat. K-A-T-N-I-S-S. Oh, Katniss. Yeah. The Bat and the Steak. Mystique, that is. Oh, sure. Yeah, it's an awesome movie. The Steak and the Freak. Is that something? He's played a lot of Freaks. Sure. Sure. Spoiler alert for the episode, but I was a big fan of the film. I know you were, Ben. Have you seen it yet? I haven't seen it yet, Ben.

26:51You're going to like it a lot. It's also based on a book by Ariana Harwick. Mm-hmm. Anyway. There's so much good stuff to watch on the movie. There's also awesome other good stuff. Look, if you're not a member, this is a perfect month to sign up in order to keep up with the show. To stream the best of cinema, you can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI.com slash blank check. That's MUBI.com slash blank check for a whole month of great cinema for free.

27:30David? Yes? I am so excited about this episode's sponsor. Yes, me too. Might truly be the most excited I've ever had for anything to sponsor this podcast. We're excited to like sponsors that tell you how to like help your finances. Hey, easy. Okay, okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Easy. Today's episode of Blank Check is brought to you by Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Marie's here too because everyone's so excited. Yeah. I love this movie. I mean, I love this band, this show, this movie. Yes. Important correction. This film is finally coming to theaters.

28:06February 13th is the start of the theatrical rollout. Yeah. From our friends at Neon. Neon's bringing it out. We have been waiting impatiently for other people to see this film. We saw this at South by Southwest. One of the best screenings of my life. Truly. Truly. It was an unbelievable experience. Ben, you were there. Had a blast. And I had never seen or engaged with this show previously. Most of the group had not. And you don't really need it. It was like seven of us. You don't need the context to enjoy. Absolutely. It's a big thing. I think you need to know what Toronto is. Because you knew nothing other than us hyping you up for you.

28:40Well, this was the problem. And we should say it's a city in Canada. Yes. I went in. You guys had just been like, it's the best thing ever. And not just you. Other people. I can't believe how good. And I was like, this is so overhyped. And here's the great thing about David. I'm walking in. I felt mad about it. I was just like, they primed it too much for me. I want you to acknowledge this because sometimes if we tell you something's good, I see you go like put your fists up. Well, I'm just like relaxed because I need to. I can't go in with too much hype because that's not good for my critical experience of a movie.

29:09And then I thought it was better than the hype. This is the thing. This movie is truly a miracle. I think it is the funniest movie of the last 10 years easily. And listeners of the show know I am often bemoaning the state of the theatrical comedy. and this is a movie that provides the thing I've been longing for, which is you go see this with a crowd. It is just electric every five seconds, rolling laughter, and the movie just builds and builds and builds. This is a movie for Matt Johnson. Yes. Director Blackberry, one of my favorite movies the last couple of years. Him and Jay McCarroll started as a web series, became a TV series, and now is a movie.

29:48But you don't need to know any of that. This works as a clean entry point. it's a movie about two friends who are obsessed with their band playing at one venue. They want to play at the Rivoli. That's all you need to know about these guys. Before the lights went down at the South by Southwest screening I believe you turned to me and said what do I need to know? And I said all you need to know is they want to play the Rivoli. They got to play the Rivoli. I've been to Toronto many times. Have you been to the Rivoli? Never. I've stayed on Queen West though and I've certainly walked by the Rivoli many times.

30:16And I've always been like oh yeah the Rivoli there it is. It's not Carnegie Hall. No it's a fucking bar. What do you mean it's the most important music venue in Canada? You never see these guys practice their music, but all you know is that every episode starts with, here's the plan, here's how we play the Rivoli, right? We got to play the Rivoli. And this movie starts from there and explodes in unbelievable ways. I think this movie is truly like a magic trick beyond just how funny it is and for how much it's caked in the deep lore of this Nirvana, the band, the show universe that's existed for 15 years.

30:47you can just go in knowing nothing and be blown away. And for a movie that seems kind of slapdash and roughly made from the start, it starts to pull off genuine like cinematic magic tricks where you cannot believe how this thing was made. What was my Letterboxd review, Griff? Did you see it? No, please tell me. LOL, how did they make this? Truly. That was how I thought. How did this get made? Serious questions. I was also just like, how did they make this? I don't get it. You don't understand how they're getting away with it legally. you don't understand how it was cleared for release. And there is a melding of scripted and non-scripted, them engaging with real people on the street where the line between what is planned and what is not boggles your brain.

31:31It was my favorite thing I saw all of 2025. And now it's coming out in 2026. Now, listen, I do have to do some talking points, okay? Do some talking points. Nirvana the Band, the show, the movie, is in theaters February 13th. Get tickets now. We must say this. Nirvana the Band, the Show, the Movie. They're very clear that we have to say the title of this thing a few times. Nirvana the Band, the Show, the Movie. Why? It's a really simple, easy title. Nirvana the Band, the Show, the Movie. It really is a kind of like going cold expecting something fun. I don't think you need too much more than that.

32:02I know it sounds unwieldy or whatever, but just like I think you're going to have a pretty good time. If you trust our opinion at all, take this recommendation. Yes. Don't look it up. go in and I really, really doubt there is any chance you will be disappointed. In theaters February 13th. Get your tickets now. Nirvana the man, the show, the movie.

32:36I was so in on Samantha Morton. I was going to say you being such an Oscar boards Exactly. There was this period in the 2000s where she had that energy of like, is this a generational actor? Is this person about to have a generational, decades-long, defining run? To be getting this kind of attention on a big scale at a young age in small movies, that's unusual. The Sweet and Lowdown nomination was seen as a major surprise. Right. And so was the In America nom. She wasn't getting percursors for either of those. It's interesting now that, you know, we... So, you know, Griff and I just saw Die My Love the other day.

33:20And it's interesting thinking about... Lynn Ramsey. Oh, Lynn Ramsey. And it's interesting to think about Jennifer Lawrence sort of in the same frame as far as somebody who, like, broke out really, really early. But it's like this feels almost like a kind of return to, okay, this is the stuff that I should have done before I, you know, got roped into three different franchises and shit. And now that's like, like Samantha Morton was popping before that was the inevitable path for Samantha Morton. But Jennifer Lawrence, you know, had to come back to it and like get her own production shingle company and like, and like opt really like, you know, opt into this kind of filmmaking again and acting.

33:58I think Samantha Morton is just like too innately odd and even more than odd. she is like so emotionally like bracing and vulnerable where there's something a little bit uncomfortable about watching her where you feel like you shouldn't be watching this. Like there's something voyeuristic about the experience of watching one of her performances that I think was always going to prevent her from becoming like a conventional studio movie star. No, yeah. And it makes sense that most of her big budget projects are her playing like aliens in sci-fi projects. Yeah, a sticker in a tank. Right, right. She's so fucking good in that movie.

34:36She's incredible in Minority Report, but also like John Carter and shit. Like, she's used in studios in like otherworldly ways. And then like when she's playing a human character. And she plays a lot of villains. Right, yes. There's that as well. I mean, she did like fucking three seasons of The Walking Dead. She did. She popped up on The Walking Dead. I assume it was sort of like one of those storylines where the humans kind of are worse than the zombies if you think about it. From a certain point of view. Yes, I believe that is. It was like, what goes on in your town? And they're like, nothing weird happens in our town.

35:07Hide the machetes. Charismatic cult leader brings them in. They feel safe. Welcome to Evilville. I mean, Foodville. Do you want some food? The food definitely isn't other people. I truly was like, I think there are two separate sets of cannibals on The Walking Dead. I think she was the leader of one of them. There was like, I used to have to recap that show. I'm so checked out of this shit. I don't think it is. branching out into the spinoff. She was like the late season super villain who kind of replaced the Negan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I feel like every Walking Dead season now is like three different colons.

35:43Well, how many, and it's like. How many seasons of Walking Dead do you think there were? It's over now. Mothership's over? No, but of the official one. Of the official, the Walking Dead. I think that there were like, what, 12 seasons? 11. 11. 11 seasons. So the last one had 24 episodes. So that's pretty long. My favorite Walking Dead series that makes me laugh every time I see it. What is it? It's like Walking Dead, like Daryl, the Book of Carol. They did a book of Daryl and a book of Carol, I think. The Book of Daryl and Carol. I think they announced that they were going to do a spinoff show that was Daryl and Carol.

36:16And then Carol dropped out and they were like, never mind. It's Walking Dead, calling Daryl Dixon. And then season two, they were like, surprise, Carol's back. So then I think it was called Walking Dead, Daryl and Carol. Is that right? Can you imagine like not having watched any Walking Dead, but then be like, hey, I heard they're doing a season about Daryl and Carol. Maybe I'll get in. This is my moment. This is when I'm going to get into this thing. Like, are there five of them now? I'm going to now, we'll just have to wrap this little tangent up quickly. Can you tell me how many seasons there were of Fear the Walking Dead, the original?

36:48Eight. Which is Coleman Domingo. He was there at some point. Lenny James. Kim Dickens. Cliff Curtis. Yes, sorry. And that's, correct me if I'm wrong, that's the one where they started to be afraid of the zombies. That's like the start of the... Sort of. It didn't really have a very definitive take on how it was different apart from... Yes, it was sort of a prequel, kind of. It was really just like another series in the world. Then there was The Walking Dead World Beyond. That's the kids, like the first generation. Oh, I've never even heard of that. That was like YA Walking Dead, correct? That was like Stranger Things Walking Dead.

37:25Then there was... You could be making this up right now. I have no idea. Tales of the Walking Dead So that's like Walking Dead anthology Correct Okay each episode's A standalone Then there was Walking Dead Dead City Of course What the fuck That was Maggie Okay Who is of course Lauren Cohen's character And Negan Jeffrey Dean Morgan's character Definitely needed A full series Oh you know what Actually I met A listener That had two seasons Who worked at a dispensary He was a stuntman On that series Okay So shout out I can't remember his name But good guy Then you have the ongoing The Walking Gave me a free joint The Walking Dead, colon, Daryl Dixon, which indeed was then rebranded The Walking Dead, Daryl Dixon, The Book of Carol.

38:07Daryl Dixon, The Book of Carol. And then don't forget that there's also The Walking Dead, The Ones Who Live, in which it turns out that Andrew Lincoln, as Rick Grimes, the main character, is not dead and lives, and he's hanging out with Danai Gurira as Michonne. And then you're like, who else is there? They're like, I don't know, Robert De Niro. You're like, it's like everyone, They all had like, yeah. That was the thing where right when they killed him off, he was like, he doesn't want the workload of a full series. He's sick of fucking being in like Georgia for eight months, you know, like sweating in a beard.

38:40This is the start of Rick Grimes movies. That was the announcement was he's not going to have a spinoff. He's going to make a series of Rick Grimes standalone films. And then they were like, nevermind. He's back. He's in a new series. He's fucking back. We called and nobody wants to do that. And he's got a new supporting cast. Now that's a lot of people from the old. It's the same fucking bullshit. It's the same fucking shit. It's just, I mean, whatever. Like, it's fine. It is just funny after doing nine seasons where they're like, I think I'm ready to stretch my movie legs. And it's like, the iron is cold.

39:07You cannot strike it. Also, movies are dead. Yeah. Well, sure, but I mean... Partially because of... I'm like, this was hot. You know, it was once hot. You could cook an egg on this iron. Yeah. You know, like six years ago. There's that similar... The moment that Christopher Maloney chooses to leave SVU and go like, I really want to make a play in movies was very bizarre timing. He's back, right? Oh, he's back big time. Okay, good. He still hits people's heads against walls and said, you sick fuck, or whatever. Okay, good. You disgust me. I'm glad they haven't lost their capacity to be shocked, to care.

39:45A job like that can really descensify. Yeah, it'd be funny if season 28, they're like, yeah, okay, let's go get him, I guess. Who cares? What do you do? He fiddled with them. Okay, yeah. He killed. It's against the law. He starts making like Megyn Kelly apologies. Oh my God. I shouldn't laugh. What a sick sad world. The first time they say a fibophile on SVU we know we're cooked as a culture. Christopher Maloney walks out of an interrogation room and says, we don't need to worry about this guy. He's just an a fibophile. It's not that bad. Just a great line we've drawn in the sand here. As you said, a sad sick world, one that would fit in No, no.

40:25Walking Dead spinoff. Walking Dead present day America. Walking Dead 2020. Or Glasgow, Scotland. Okay, here we go. Back on rails. Morven Caller. Morven Caller. So I saw you. Griff, did you see this in theaters? You would have been a youngster. No, I actually didn't see it until the Fun City disc came out. Again, as Emily was saying. I missed your screening, which I regretted. Yeah. Oh, you weren't there. I was not. We went to your shorts. The culinary after. We did. Yeah. Aaron was there. Aaron was there I mean when I think back on that I'm just like yeah who I don't know it's a fog it's a fog it's truly but it was it was something it was a fond memory of of that era well you know what's good uh huh movies movies love them love them and this one what a picture what a picture it's a normal film it's a very normal film about a woman with a normal state of mind, dealing with a normal situation.

41:26In a normal way. Emily, you were saying that you never read the book. I haven't, no. I thought about doing it just for this occasion, but then, I mean, there's probably a reason I have it. Oh, nice. You have it. Okay. It's written in Scots. I think it's a bit of a tough note to crack. I was gonna say. Oh, really? I've been trying to... Oh, incredible. Maybe that's why I have it. I was committed to the goal of trying to read all these books before the Linda M.C. episodes. Because the adaptations are so different. But in every case, apart from Ratcatcher, she's, well, Kevin is pretty long, but the other books are kind of like thin little volumes like that she's drafting.

42:02Oh, this is like 250 pages, but like double spaced and pretty large font. I can get through this. But it is a little similar to Clockwork Orange and Trainspotting. OK. The slang is not as extreme. Yeah. And you were saying while we were watching the movie, like, I've always wanted to read the book, but I'm worried the book would explain some of the stuff I like goes unexplained in the movie. Yeah. And the book, I have not made it all the way through because it's been a tougher read. It's like very modernist. And it's basically a stream of conscious monologue. Then it sounds like it was accurately adapted.

42:35Correct. By the way, the book, as I've gotten through it so far, does not really explain shit that much. Okay. Okay. It is because it's not like her trying to explain herself to the reader. This is what's so incredible about her, in my opinion. And what's so fascinating that after Ratcatcher, she doesn't do original scripts. that it's all adaptations. And she takes these books where you're like, how the fuck do you adapt that? Or why would you even try to adapt that? And she finds a way to make these films that, to me, I feel like she represents the inner life better than anyone else. Yes, 100%.

43:08And she takes these films that are about, like, just kind of absurd tragedies or, like, nightmarish circumstances. The kind of things that are, like, so dark that people would rarely have the courage to even try to depict them on screen. And also avoids the kind of clean narrative of, it's a story of someone getting through this, overcoming it, working through it, processing it. They're movies that are absolutely about staying in. Living in the state. The headspace of the unimaginable. I mean, it's funny because it's like, yeah, she does almost uniformly depict people going through kind of unimaginable tragedies or difficult times.

43:47Crazy psychological turmoil. And yeah, it can translate that novelistic interiority, I think. She just has such a way with visuals and I think is very specific about the actors that she works with and like, are you down to go on this journey with me, basically? And that's how you get a Joaquin and You Were Never Really Here and Jennifer Lawrence and the new one. But like, I think of it almost as like the way that it doesn't feel completely oppressive to watch her movies, except I would say maybe, and I haven't watched it since it came out, but like, I don't know that I will ever watch We Need to Talk About Kevin again.

44:22It should be so unpleasant. But aside from that, I think it doesn't, it kind of goes down easier than you would think, I think because you are so with the character in it. And that feels like counterintuitive. counterintuitive. Yes. But the fact like, you know, when you're thinking about somebody, a friend of yours who's going through a rough time and you just like, oh my God, I can't, I can't even imagine being them in this situation. But when it's you going through the hard time, you do compartmentalization, you find the absurdness in the situation. There's a whole like landscape of textures of what you're, what you're feeling as you're dealing with this tragedy or, you know, whatever you're going through.

44:59And I think that she does such a good job. Like it's not uniformly sadness, you know, agony, all of that, that there is humor, there is, you know, poetry and there is, you know, levity sometimes in the midst of absurd tragedy. Definitely. I think that's very well said. This movie's fun. I think this movie's fun. This movie's super fun. I think it's the, it's probably the fun, we were talking about this the other night. It's like the funest one. I think it's her only fun movie. The character is committed to trying to have fun in a way the other, her other protagonists are not. Die My Love is kind of, is quite funny.

45:32She's trying to have fun. It's funny. Yeah, and has that sort of like heightened, almost farcical stuff. But I wouldn't, it's maybe not fun because it's still quite stressful. They were all intense. I saw people catching wind of art hints that this was coming up. And there was a lot of like sicko mode, hehehe, can't wait, five weeks of the darkest shit ever. And like people who have seen the Ramsey canon being excited at it. Because by and large, and Kevin may be the exception here, although I do, I find that film watchable, even though it's the toughest of the five, is that these aren't like oppressive, punishing movies.

46:09They are intense mood movies. They are like deeply felt movies. But even you, Ben, were like worried and expressing this to us the other night when we were hanging out going in of like, when should I fucking watch this? And maybe we should watch this all together at the office because I don't know if it's going to bum me out to watch it too much at home. And that's because you read the synopsis, which like starts with when she discovers her boyfriend has committed suicide. Yeah. And you're just like, oh, so this movie's immediately going to put me in a bad headspace. You're someone who gets very emotionally affected by movies.

46:39And we were trying to explain to you the other night out, like it's not what you think it's going to be. Right. It might sound dark and I suppose the subject matter is dark, but it's not punishing. It's not going to roll off your back. It's not like you're going to go like, oh, it deals with it in a light way. but she her movies aren't meant to be they're challenging but not in that kind of punishing I want you to suffer way they're just like very unconventionally structured narrative she also is just a she is a movie maker like she is so like it's it's it's fucking cinema baby like there's so much to look at and be swept up in it's not sparse it's her films are never sparse They never feel silent or dry or anything.

47:28There's just always a wealth of visual ideas. So even if it is something tough that you're watching, you're still watching a movie. They're sensory. They're very gripping. It feels so lived in and alive. Yes. I was really struck by just how I felt anxiety because I really was so immersed and rooting for the character. And then even at the end, it hit me too of like, we did just watch her cut up her husband. And yet, he deserved it. Boyfriend. Oh, I'm sorry. It's still. She is wearing a ring though, I noticed. I thought it said in the synopsis, husband. I think it's boyfriend, at least in... I take it as boyfriend.

48:11Either way. You're rooting for her, even though she... I mean, that's quite an act. For some reason, I just always get annoyed right at the start. I'm with her unconsciously because it's not like she says anything the movie basically starts with like four minutes of total silence sure but I'm with her in that he doesn't say could you please send the novel he just says send the novel I'm like you know can we ask nicely like you're you're putting her in a really tough situation also he has zero and then you're like that's why I send the novel yeah he has zero explanation of why I did it like it's the most pat like just don't ask any questions I was tortured and the fact that the people at the pub call him Dostoevsky I'm like, was this guy kind of a pain in the ass?

48:53Like, you know, you kind of... Which is a very dark kind of gallows humor-y way to think about it. But the movie has that gallows humor. And I think Ben is right in that when she's chopping it up, you're almost like, yeah, good. I'm glad she's getting this out of the way. Yeah, this is funny. This is a good job by her. It had to smell horrible, the smell. Right. It's just... Hey, man, it's Scotland, too. It's like, you know, it's a place with the most gallows humor because it's dark. Everyone dies when they're 58 because all I eat is fried Mars all the time. Don't come at me, Scott. You don't die.

49:26I mean, I think I was also very primed for this movie when I saw it. Because aside from being in my Warp Records era, I was also in my like Belle and Sebastian era. Like Scotland was like overrepresented in my pop culture intake at the time. So I was just like, okay, I kind of, there is that like wry sense of humor that even though this is a very different film, had a different tone than a Belle and Sebastian album circa 2000. Yes, I would say lovely Stuart Murdoch is more on the precious side. Yes, but a lot of those songs are very, very dark. They just sound cute. But you're right that it's like a bone-deep sensibility thing where her finding levity and humor in these movies isn't some strategic like, well, I got to put some jokes in so it isn't too oppressive.

50:06It is like that is her worldview. It comes across in the way she like interrogates all of these characters and figures out, like burrows into their mind and their feelings. And she's also like a funny person. Like when you read interviews with her and shit, you know? I know you were talking about you had a kind of intense. Yeah. No, it wasn't intense. I wish it would have been intense. It was just like she had no interest in even looking at me. The one time I got to, you know, do a panel with her after I think it was for You Were Never Really Here. And, you know, I mean, we do a lot of these in our line of work.

50:40You get a little de-sensitive. This was still a big one for me. I was like, this is one of my heroes. And like, how am I going to not come off like a total asshole? and ideally, how do I get to have a drink with her after this? And it was like, nope, it was not happening. Do you think maybe you put her off when you were like, I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy. That might have done it. Yeah, she's like, what is this in reference to? I don't watch. Yeah, it was, I kind of probably blacked it out. It was humiliating whatever happened. I find something perversely life-affirming about her movies, A, because they make me feel so deeply.

51:18And I think a lot of her films have central characters who are kind of catatonic, who are going through such extreme things but don't know how to process them in the moment and almost go numb. But the way she makes her movies makes me feel the range of human experiences, even if it doesn't have some kind of like sense of conquering the challenge at the end. There's like a little bit of like, just like, well, this is about like being alive is this. It's all of this shit, you know? You hope nothing this extreme ever happens to you. I also just like, I was thinking of this after Dying My Love. I'm just like so grateful for her just always depicting people who are not, there's no assumed normalcy like we were saying about anything.

52:04And like, I don't know. I just find that so, as somebody who often has to deal with notes for things where it's like, can you make this person a little more, you know, whatever, relatable or, you know, somebody that we can least understand at first glance. Like, oh, it's that kind of person. There's no like, oh, it's that kind of person with any of our characters. And I just think that that in itself is life affirming to me because it's like respectful of a range of human experiences and psychology. We'll crack open the dossier in a moment because there are a lot of good quotes from her about that.

52:35But I want to read this first. Sure. Because I opened with the second half of the note he leaves for her. This is the first half. Sorry, Morvern. Don't try to understand it. It just felt like the right thing to do. My novel is on the disc. Print it out and send it to the first publisher on this list. Just the assumption. If they will not take it, try the next one down. And then only past that point does it move to the emotional. Right. I wrote it for you. I love you. Be brave. Right. Right. Okay. Fine. I mean, I'm not trying to discount the experience of whoever this person is, but the movie does discount his experience kind of like that's like baked into what you're watching.

53:14is that he's completely abstract. And so you can project like the darkest tragedy onto him or you can project sort of almost a weird comedy onto it. He was hot though, probably. I think he was hot. I mean, the guy she fucks in Spain is hot. I almost wonder if it's the same. Yeah, she's got taste and she has like the right radar. She lets the other friend pick off the like bucket hat weirdo loser. The straight up wanker. Yeah, he is a big wanker. Fucking wanker. You know, the other crazy thing is this novel comes out of the exercise of Alan Warner trying to write a book about the boyfriend. He starts it from that perspective.

53:50Right, right, right. Sure, sure, right. And then he goes like, this is feeling like... It's a little tropey. It's like obvious. Right, and he was... What's the quote? The rigidity of the perspective was frustrating him. And so he was like, as an exercise, like, what if I write her? And then it just all started unfolding, which is that adage that everyone says of like the way to write a novel is you write 30 pages and throw them out and the book starts on page 31. Like he almost needed the whole exercise perhaps of working out the boyfriend as a lead character to then throw out and write the other person.

54:25And that's probably why it's so good that, yeah. Is there any idea in the book of what the book, his book is about? James' book? Oh, what's his book about? I mean, I just feel like it's some sort of authentic slice of life thing, right? Sure, yeah. Because like, why else would the publishers be into it? Like, it would be so funny if they were, it's like sci-fi. Can you explain the rules of how the spaceship works to us? Yeah. Like, what? I mean, the funniest thing to me would be like, if it was about, if the book was called Morvern Caller. Sure. It was like about her. By Morvern Caller. Because he says, I wrote it for you.

55:01And I'm like, is this, you know, some sort of ode to my amazing girlfriend? Right. Morvern Caller. She works at a supermarket. She's so mean. It's a book called My Crazy Girlfriend. Where I'm in so far, and I'm under 100 pages, it hasn't really gotten into it, which does feel like kind of part of it, that the book remains this kind of abstract idea. For most of her time in the public sphere, Lynne Ramsey had a career marked by trials and tribulations, but in her early years, she had a speedy trajectory upward, I would say, pretty much to Mervyn Caller. It's after this that it becomes... Oh, it gets very bumpy.

55:42Cursed, right? With all these projects that fall apart and all. Anyway. So she goes to England's National Film and Television School for education. Then she writes a short film called Small Deaths. It plays at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival and wins the jury prize, the short film jury prize. Her second short is Kill the Day. Her third short is Gas Man. She wins another Cannes jury prize for that. Off of that, she gets Rat Catcher. That goes to Ken's uncertain regard. She wins the BAFTA for best debut. So it's like things are going great. After the release of Rat Hatcher, Ramsay gets attached to the first of many unrealized projects, a multi-director anthology project about sex?

56:26What? What? Along with Gaspar Noé and Hal Hartley. Never happened. It was an anthology series called Uncensored that was supposed to be Ted Hope and James Seamus. Yes. Friends of the pod, hand-selecting directors. They wanted to explore sex. Hand-selecting? My goodness. Instead, she decides to make Morvern Caller, an adaptation of Alan Warner's debut 1995 novel. She first learned of the book when she was shooting Rat Catcher. It was recommended to her. She was attracted to the title character because she's subversive. JJ found that there were two different stories she told at different times about.

57:03She also at one point said it was when she was making Gas Man. Who knows? But it was, you know, early in her career, she gets handed this book. It reminds her of Camus the Stranger, but with a young woman, she's got an edge. It's very modern. That was the big thing she said, that she felt like she had not read this kind of like super modernist in the headspace of an unlikable, undefinable, inexplicable character from the perspective of a woman before in the same way. Can I just, I found this in the book. Go ahead. First of all, his like suicide note is much more like flowery and verbose and overwritten versus sparse.

57:36It's as annoying and rude, but in the opposite direction. But then it's pointedly like, after a good while, I started paging through the disc. The novel thing was page after page of words, then a number, then more pages of words and another number. You had to read it to get to the end. You couldn't see the point in reading through all of that just to get to the end. Without reading a word of it, I toddled over to the video and put on the thing. Not the original, but the remake with special effects. She pointedly doesn't read the novel. She's just like, what is this shit? Then she finishes watching the thing and she prints it out.

58:07I, I, okay, I'm going to read this book. This is the thing, the book really doesn't like demystify. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think I want to say, Young Adam, have you ever seen Young Adam? Film came out the year after. That's a David McKenzie, right? It is. Also Scottish, also existentialist, also horny, much more, not a movie I just like. If you want to see Younger Deggers, big old thing. You can, it is available. His thing is there. You can see his thing. I know. But you can see it. That movie's got a lot of floppy things. Yeah, it does. Okay, cool. But that is a much more, in my opinion, rote existentialist Scottish guy.

58:45Whereas this is so much cooler and so much more interesting. That is a movie that has the characters kind of state the inner monologue. A little bit. So yeah, she's very interested in this character. She likes the feeling of escape. She likes exploring the slightly lost generation, disenfranchised youth going out, traveling, having nothing to do. She calls Morvern something of a western cowboy character. Of course, she does have a hat sometimes for you to get that and boots. But this notion of she rides into town, no one knows what's motivating her. She does a thing, she rides off. And she's got this weird void.

59:23The drug taking is more hedonistic. It's not political. It's not peace and love. That's the generational thing she wants to comment on is there's something almost like self-punishing about the pursuit of happiness in a society that's collapsing and this whole notion of a generation who believes that happiness is not accessible to them without money and there's not a clear path to making money. She also thinks that it has elements that might potentially interest whiter audiences. I've got a young girl at 21. I've got some rave scenes. I've got some sex scenes. Lots of selling points. I think I'm becoming less naive about how everything works.

59:59I do think it's just funny that Ramsey's like I mean this is frankly commercial popcorn I'll say this she chops her boyfriend up in the bathtub and we go from there I mean it's interesting the tension of the film for me and what I think if there's anything that it is about for me and I'll just like put this out there it's like that I feel like aside from just being a void which I think is maybe a little overly simplistic about her I think it is about like truly being marginal as a person. Like she, and I think the greatest tension as represented by the situation in the film is like she doesn't, she's feeling alienation from, you know, the youth culture in her town.

1:00:40Everybody else is an old corpse waiting to die. And there's an absence of sort of a literate, sophisticated adult existence, which you kind of assume her boyfriend maybe you represent it. Like maybe he was sort of the smartest guy in their group of friends that would all go hit the pub. But it's like now she's there without him. There's this, and there's this idea of like a want for something that is neither the kids taking the E of the house and hanging out with grandma. But it's like also this sort of fundamental disinterest and boredom with like. art as like a mannered thing or like as represented by the publishers at the end.

1:01:24So it's like, where do you fit in then? If you are like a hedonistic embodied young woman who, you know, finds your peers to be like empty and unsatisfying, but like you also don't, you're not quite equipped to be like a important young novelist, then where do you fit in in this world? And I don't know. That to me is like, that always feels like the tension or why she feels like, yeah, lost as a character. she's she's bored partying and she's bored at her job and she's bored relaxing yeah you know like everything isn't quite hitting for her it is a vibe and you know you're obviously watching her in like a pretty extreme state of of grief and shock distress shock you also get the sense that like she wasn't a radically different person a week earlier because her friends are largely like hey what's up yeah you know like her best friend is noticing that something seems a little off in her.

1:02:22But even when she tries to confess it, she won't hear it. This is also the thing about hanging out with people who are constantly on drugs. It's like you can get away with being like that, whether or not your boyfriend's committed suicide or not. And people just feel like, I feel a little down today. It's part of the same quote that David was pulling from the dossier where she's talking about the lost generation, everything. But she was sort of like saying that she two movies in and having made a couple of short films, she was already like, I guess this is the dominant theme of my work is like outsiders.

1:02:51And when she talks about making movies about outsiders, it's not like outsiders. I feel like how they are often defined, but she's truly making movies about people who do not know how to function. Like Ponyboy. Right. Yeah. Soda Pop. We usually are telling outsiders to stay golden. No, that movie rocks. But it's not just like subcultures or whatever. It's like people who don't know what to do or how to fit in. Yeah. And I think, I mean, she's an outsider only internally because she's still, you know, among people. Like, from the outside, she's friends. She's going on holiday in Spain. She's with her peers there.

1:03:26But she feels like she's... She's not with them, though. Right, and it feels like she's wearing, like, a fake skin or something. Yeah. But every one of her lead characters has some degree of that at their core, I think. Yeah. I think Joaquin Phoenix's character in that one is very well adjusted. Hand and glove. Exactly. That guy is the kind of guy that if I saw him on a New York City street, I would shake his hand and say, how are you doing, sir? Who amongst us doesn't suffocate themselves with a garbage bag in their mom's closet? Lynn Ramsey, here's a quote from her. I guess I'm just a dark girl who's kind of weird.

1:04:01I like bugs. Good, good, good, good. For me, it's coincidental. Both feature films of mine so far do start off with a death rat catcher as well. But they're both very different. One's an accidental death where the kid feels guilty and he doesn't tell anyone. There's some similarity to that. but I think the death in Morvern is more about identity. She takes on someone else's identity which gives her a chance to get out of her life. They, you know, like the theme of escape obviously is kind of happening in both but in Morvern I feel like there is a sort of like a appealing fantasy to what she's doing in a way of like, what if you did just fucking hack everyone up you know, who's a mill around your neck and bury them in the woods.

1:04:44Let's also be clear, right? The movie opens. She's lying on the floor lit by Christmas decorations. Christmas lights going on and off. Sort of entwined in a body. It's a Christmas movie. It is. I had to double check that Shane Black didn't write this. I have to say whatever mode they have the Christmas lights on is psychotic. I would switch out of the all on, all off. The sort of bodega mode or whatever, where it's just like... Do the chasing lights one. Or some twinkling. Yeah. Um, but yes, they're sort of like, uh, physically entangled on the floor. At first, it almost feels like it's a post-coital thing.

1:05:22And then you see the blood and then you get the sense that he has, uh, killed himself. And she is there just in this kind of like blank catatonic state. it's so gruesome too because he's moved from where he you know cut himself I don't know there's something about that too that again feels really real and that it's not just like he's like laying there in the chair in the kitchen or the bathtub yeah my boyfriend like when he was I was talking about doing this movie and I showed it to him and he misremembered it as that she killed him. This is why I wanted to clarify. When we keep talking about him, she starts popping him up.

1:06:09Yeah, his dead body like a week later. Yeah, but it is, I think, you know, it's one of those things because it's such a, yeah, it's kind of murky how it's told. You could easily make that mistake. The letter is what makes it clear that it was a thing he did of his own volition. But yeah, she like is there. you're sort of we're so used to the cinematic language of someone in this kind of situation having like a fucking Julianne Moore breakdown scene, right? Even if the idea is that she discovered this body whenever ago you're not used to seeing like a dramatic powerhouse actress next to a dead body kind of being expressionless that there is just like a catatonic state of shock and grief and then we see her just like get ready and go out and meet up with her friends at the party that she was supposed to go to with him and just say like, he's not here.

1:07:01And everyone's like, oh God, what's the excuse this time? And there's this feeling of like procrastination of like, oh fuck, what am I going to do with this dead body? Both in like, what do I literally do with it? And also what do I do with my emotions in processing this? That she keeps going like, let me just try to like get out and have like a normal day. And maybe when I come back home, I'll be in a better mood to process this. I'll be in the right headspace to chop up the body finally. I mean, it's extreme, but when you're suffering from depression, I was going to. Exactly, yeah. It's like you just...

1:07:31She has shut down. Yeah. You're incapable of dealing with things. It is circumstantially extreme, but this is exactly how I handle laundry when I am this depressed, where I'm just like, I'll just fucking do it tomorrow, you know? I'll unpack the clothes tomorrow. I think it's something about, what is it? It's executive function is what people would say. It goes out the window. It goes out the window. Right, and I also think, like as someone who suffers from like pretty extreme depression and anxiety, if I am like dealing with something that is actually intense, sometimes I'll be like, I just need to like time shift the emotions of this.

1:08:08I can't handle this right now. I need to just like get through stuff. And then at some point it will catch up with me later. Yeah, I think, I think, I don't know. There's something to the idea of this being a movie about escape, where it's like for somebody who is probably just depressed all the time anyway, this horrific thing happens, this gruesome thing that is definitely like a break in whatever the monotony was that you were feeling, you know, totally oppressed by. And in a way, like the worst thing possible then becomes an escape valve because it represents at least a marking point in like what's otherwise, you know, a bunch of, you know, just like a depressive soup.

1:08:50And like it feels like the realization she comes to eventually when she does eventually deal with the body and figure out what to do next is like using the tragedy as a rung to get out of it because it's something. It's something that happened to her. Yes. Yeah. And beyond that, I also think that you can infer from the note on the computer that their relationship has probably been one of mutual codependent depression. Yes. That's probably been their bonding element. I think that's a good read. In this together, which is like both comforting and also self-perpetuating. Yeah. Versus like no one understands me, not even my boyfriend.

1:09:32It's like there's probably a like best and worst of times to whatever dynamic they have built with each other. And then mutually like going out and escaping by dropping E with friends. Yeah. Or whatever it is. It's funny because this is such a druggy movie, but it's like, but it feels like it's giving junkie couples so much that like, and it would be there. for that as well, but it has that vibe entirely. But part of like the junkie vibe is like probably like depression as a drug, like them giving into that, you know? Yeah. Like comfortably, willingly kind of staying in that state. Yeah. Because it's like, I actually think, because I wrote in my notes, I was like, I always wonder what their relationship was like.

1:10:12And the thing is like, I don't think it was a bad relationship. But I think it like, I mean, I don't think it was like fractious. It wasn't like they were fighting a lot or there was, except, you know, if she finds out there was cheating involved, but like, it seems more like that where it's just, you kind of sink to the bottom with somebody. Insidious kind of codependency. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, in the book, his note is so much more kind of self-aggrandizing. It is almost like this self-stylized, like, you know, the depressed Russian writers. You know, it's almost like a piece of legacy for him.

1:10:47Yeah. Almost like, won't this help the text? Yeah. Right? that this book came out of this stuff. I just would be so annoyed if I was there. Which is why I think it's so much better to have it be annoying in that he's just kind of so blunt and unemotional about it. Because also then in the instructions he's giving to her, it's not like he's saying, I want the proceeds from the book to go to charity or can you buy my parents a house, right? Or like tell people my story or whatever it is. It's just like he's left her with this mess. He's literally left her with a bloody body in the house. all of the emotional work she has to do.

1:11:22And also, like, can you just, like, get this sold? Yeah. And it's like, to what end? It's so extremely selfish. Yeah, it's insane. Which is why, whether or not she's justified in doing what she does, there's almost a, like, sort of, why not do it? Nothing wrong. Right, because it's like, she's not betraying any notion of... I think we can all agree. Yeah, exactly. Like, what is gained by her leaving his name on the book? If I'm her friend, and I find out she's doing all this, I might be like, we doing all right, Marvord? That's the role of a friend. Hey, Marvord, I heard you chopped up the old boyfriend.

1:11:58I know he was dead already. Unless you'd been sleeping with him. Yeah. In which case, you don't really have a leg to sit on.

1:12:14Ding dong, ding dong. Oh my God. Hello, Creek. Hey, how's it going? And who are you? Mack Black. And what's that? That's my name. You asked who am I, and that's my name. What are you doing here? You don't know what the name is. What do you want? I'm a construction worker, obviously, as you can tell from my general demeanor, temperament, and this hard hat here. Yeah. I'm sure you've noticed the interruption, the sound. Yeah, I guess I... Jack Hammers. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. We've been hearing some construction noise. In the building. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But I've been struggling.

1:12:47Yes. What's the matter? This construction project's not going well. I have no idea what's going on. I explained to you my name is Mac Black. I'm a construction worker. I've been working in the building. He's winding up. He's winding up. He's winding up. Literally. I don't know what's going on in your life. I knocked on the door. I opened. I'm interrupting. I don't know what's going on in your life. You're struggling. What's going on? This construction project's not going well. Okay. Okay. I've been trying to build a better wardrobe. There it is. Yeah. And so what you're referring to, of course, is the sort of the furniture, the physical thing.

1:13:19Incorrect. That's a weird assumption for you to make. I'm talking about pieces that work together and hold up over time. Well, Mac, we've got news for you. Come on in. Take a seat. I have a pair of pants and I've been jackhammering them for months and nothing's coming together. We have ad copy people can't see with prompts that are a little esoteric. And one of the people who works for our show responds to those prompts in interesting ways. but nobody knows what like it's like going to an improv show where you didn't hear what someone yelled out david excuse me i'm sorry to interrupt mac doesn't know any of that he's living his own life you're right mac is such a he's such a thoughtfully realized character thank you i'm a construction worker surly demeanor hard hat and i've been taking the jackhammer is mac short for macintosh absolutely macintosh blackintosh that's pretty funny now thank you quince has the everyday essentials.

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1:18:44So Alex Warner wrote a draft, gave up, was like, I don't know how to do this. Alan Warner. Alan Warner, sorry, whoever it was. Yeah, his name's Alan. Who cares? I care a lot. No, I think we should never speak of him again. And then Ramsey, who wrote this, co-wrote this with Liana Dugnini. As an animator, and I think it was a film school friend of hers. So it took him about eight months to adapt it, which makes sense because the book is one big monologue, so it's not exactly like screaming out for a screenplay structure. And there's plottier stuff in the book. She gets pregnant from the rave hookup.

1:19:19Yeah, there's stuff like that. That's such a trait. Exactly. Exactly. And because of the nature in which the book is like telling the story and you not being able to see her physically and the reveal of it, it feels less trite, I think, than it would cinematically. I will also say, and this may speak to many people who are listening. She says, I might have finished it sooner for the fact that I'm not a disciplined person. A typical day will find me getting up too late, getting in a mad panic, drinking seven cups of coffee, smoking loads of fags. just British, you know. And then deciding... You're putting that...

1:19:54I'm doing a super grass, all right. It sounds like you're doing Borat. I'm trying to obscure the words. I understand. And then deciding who were the carpet, paint the walls or watch neighbors. Shout out neighbors. Great Australian soap opera. I could not relate more to this quote. Anything to avoid writing. Luckily, my co-writer is more organized. The script, you know, finally did come together with her help. I love that this is actually just what she tells the publishers at the end, which is one of the funniest things. the funniest lines about writing ever. When you're a writer, you can knock off whenever you want.

1:20:25It's so true. It's also like you can't make these movies without some sense of insight. She thought the pregnancy plot was really naff. Another British expression. What does naff mean again? Just corny. Okay. She just thought it was dumb. She says there's also a bunch of stuff about the culture in Oban, which is the city, town, city, is a little strong, that she lives in Scotland, that she also is kind of like, eh, let's leave the town faster. Like, forget that. I think her point, which is right too, is having the pregnancy at the end makes it feel like that's the actual rebirth moment. That's the new identity that we're kind of like opting into.

1:21:05A man would write that. Right, where she's just like, no, it's... Selling the book is the thing. Yeah, totally. Right, and then restarting the cycle. And then, of course, the big thing, of course, is the book is a monologue. This movie has no voiceover monologue, no explanation of what she's doing, which makes the movie a five-star masterpiece that we should just like kiss the feet of, in my opinion. Yeah. Like it would suck so much if she was like, maybe I should go to fucking... And it's like, no, we just like, she is inscrutable. 999 out of a thousand people would leave some amount of voiceover in if the book is this.

1:21:38Yeah. Yeah. They scraped together, budget is rated between like four to six million dollars, somewhere in there. But, you know, lots of foreign, you know, countries. To go back to that real quick, just something. No, go ahead. But also having her do voiceover narration would make her inherently a literary character, which the point is she is not. She's fundamentally not. Yeah. Right. Some of the people they fought to play her, I love this, that she was like, I wanted like Sissy Spacek, right? Like, come, you know, like I wanted a Scottish Sissy Spacek age 20. And that she ultimately gets to work with Sissy.

1:22:12But can you read her quote about Sissy Spacek, which I think is really good? Is it in there? I wanted someone between, someone a bit left of center, not conventionally beautiful, ideally with the kind of not of this world quality that Sissy Spacek had. At the time, she likes Christina Ricci, but obviously she's American. The British actresses she names are Samantha Morton, Laura Frazier, Kelly MacDonald. Makes sense, just in terms of like age. Right. She said Laura Frazier, she thought was too conventionally attractive, who later becomes best known for Breaking Bad. She's the tightly wound pharma exec person.

1:22:44Lord Lydia. Yes, and Kelly McDoll makes sense as like the most prominent Scottish actress at that point in time. But Samantha Morton's popping. If I could just circle back to her comment about like things that are more easily sellable in the movie, right? Because later in the dossier she calls out like how much it kind of collapsed commercially and how angry the financiers were with the movie. And she was like, yeah, I wasn't interested in making like a commercial movie. I think she was getting smart enough to know there were enough elements in this that she could use to trick financiers. That it's not that she thought the movie would be a hit.

1:23:21But that she says, hey, if I get an up-and-coming actress, especially when she identifies someone who has an Oscar nomination under her belt, and I can get her for cheap, and the movie doesn't cost that much, and it has nudity and rock music and drugs and party scenes, that dumb investors who don't actually read scripts or understand what movies are go like, that sounds like a hit. And then they watch the final film and they get furious. Samantha Morton, she sees photographs of her. I like this quote. And she says, she looks really quite in a trance. Something with her eyes. It's just, she just looks kind of bored is what Lynn, like, sort of reads from her, which she just thinks is perfect for Morvern.

1:24:01And on one meeting, she's like, yeah, I'm casting you right away. Like, there's no... She'd done this movie called Under the Skin. Obviously, she'd also done, like, Sweet and Lowdown and stuff, as we said. But Under the Skin is the movie that she shouts out, obviously not the Glazer movie. It's just like a 90s British indie drama about girls whose mom dies and they're sad. Never seen it. I've never seen it either. But what was the big TV thing? A Band of Gold was a TV thing she did that was a very big miniseries. She did a Jane Eyre. She did Jane Eyre and Emma. I remember those. I don't know what Band of Gold is.

1:24:38It looks like something. Samantha Morton's from Nottingham. She has a crazy life story. Her parents got divorced. And then her parents, I think, just could not raise the children. Her father was an alcoholic. Her mother was in a violent relationship. So she was a ward of court. And then she was in foster homes. And she's like a classic. Britain has such a structure for teens who go into youth drama because there's all these soap operas and all this youth theater. And she just got sucked into that world. but her teen years I mean she they were rough she survives child sexual abuse she has serious substance addiction issues she's unhoused for like a full year 100 % and then drama theater is the stabilizing force or whatever and then she basically like kind of stabilizes out by her teens early 20s starts working and people were always like what's your craft and she was like my toolbox is my past I never want to talk about it like I'm pulling from all my experiences my life was very difficult cult.

1:25:40It gave me a perspective to understand where to pull emotions from. And she didn't really start talking about this stuff, I feel like, until her late 20s, early 30s in her career. Right. She's not Scottish. She doesn't use the Scottish accent in this movie. She's from Nottingham? She's from Nottingham, which is, I mean, you all know from Robin Hood, but is, you know, no offense to any Nottingham listeners, but kind of a, you know, just boring-ish part of Central England. It's boring-ish. It's got merry men going around stealing from the rich. Unfortunately, it lacks for merry men. It's kind of pretty.

1:26:11I guess it's true she doesn't have a Scottish accent, but it's like she talks so infrequently and the most she does speak is when she's like, I felt like she was affecting the British accent, like the London accent for the publishing people or trying to be. It's funny because she's played, like she's Mary Queen of Scots in Elizabeth the Golden Age. But, and I think she could have done an accent. Ramsey said she could have done a Scottish accent, but I liked her accent and the fact that she had a similar background. And she just was like, I want you to be you. I don't want... Your voice is unique enough.

1:26:41I don't want you having to reach outside of yourself. Yeah, too far. Samantha Morton says the music really helped. She listens to music as part of her preparation. She would have headphones on. This was the first movie where they would play the music on set while she was working. So that her process was always listening to stuff right up until they called action and then taking the headphones off. She loves this character. It's a movie that lets her wear headphones, that plays the stuff over the loudspeakers. She says she would love to make Morvern Caller 2, but I don't think that'll ever happen.

1:27:13I hear Morvern Caller might be in Avengers Doomsday. Yes. Do you know there is a sequel book? Well, let's make it happen. It is Expanded Universe. I have not even cracked this one open yet, but Alan Turner's These Demented Lands, which is the second installment in the Morvern Caller universe. She fights Dr. Doom. Yeah. I don't know. yeah it's a book he wrote I think just two years later like it was you know anyway Morton also says she loved being directed by someone who is basically her age like I think Lynn Ramsey's a little older than her but like you know by a young person versus I assume on like British TV it's a lot of like fuddy duddies she says she's a beautiful woman she's a very sexy woman she's very confident about herself and that's very infectious being around her makes you feel powerful in your own species pretty cool the girl who plays her best friend Kathleen McDermott is a true found her at a fucking hairdresser in Scotland total natural professional actor she's so good I guess she was on British TV or something after that did she do some work she's got a Wikipedia page and I mean like Dolly Wells is in this as the book agent where I feel like I know from yeah like you know working with Emily Mortimer and Noel Fielding but she's so amazing in Can You Ever Forgive Me that's a performance I fucking adore that feels like a movie you watch a lot I watch that movie once a year yeah you just like throwing it on that is like another like peak depression cinema for me I think that movie like depicts depression about as well as anything short of the Lynne Ramsey filmography what's Mariel Heller up to no I know what she's working Melissa up to what happened there I mean need I say it seven Ben Falcone movies yeah she just was hot committed to working with her husband who I cannot think of a filmmaker she's got nothing on the docket yeah like I mean maybe she's doing TV she like does shit I don't know she like hosts like fucking kids say the darndest things she's doing SNL she's like at the time we're recording this they just announced she's hosting SNL in a couple weeks yeah which she'll be funny like that's fine but it is one of those she's not promoting anything she's going on I don't know but I'm like maybe she's got some fucking Hulu show I'm not aware of you never know you never know that's the unfortunate thing it is one of those she could be doing all sorts of shit she could be on like her own Walking Dead spinoff and we would never know now that I might be interested to watch yeah that could bring me back to the Walking Dead the Walking Dead colon the book of Tammy Tammy's back or she's fucking can you ever forgive me lady she's just like oh my god she doesn't even go outside there's just zombies She's like moving around outside, but she's just at home, just being grumpy.

1:30:02But you guys watched Unfrosted, correct? I saw Unfrosted. Did you get Unfrosted? Emily watched Unfrosted. I'm still 100 % frosted. I have not removed the frost. Staying that way. She is so good in that movie. She's funny. And especially because she's sharing scenes with Jerry Seinfeld, who is fundamentally not a movie star. He's a committed actor. How dare you? There's got to be a name for a kind of take where it's like, it's not a hot take. It's just a like, who cares take? Like, sure. I guess she's probably good in Unfrosted. Toasted Pop-Tart cake. Right. It is more a statement about how bad the Falcone movies are.

1:30:36And that her just basically serving like core competency comedy movie actors. Maybe the Falcone movies are good. It's not like we're watching them. David, I tried to do a little revisit recently because I was like, my girlfriend and I really like watching like 2000s, 2010s live action comedies that we skipped in theaters at the time. Because we're just like, we didn't know how good we had it. and so often you throw on something like Drillbit Taylor and you're like, fuck, this is like a 9 out of 10 now. It's beautifully shot. Right, right, right. It's shot on film. Look at the grain structure. And I was like, let me try to fuck around with some of the Falcons and especially the ones I skipped and they are like abysmal.

1:31:14They are like anti-comedy and then her showing up in like Unfrosted and just having like jokes in the movie shot by like Bill Pope. You're just like, fuck, right. If anyone puts her in a half decent thing, she is good. She has not lost skills. She's just not chosen a good project in fucking forever. Morvan Ghan, she was Ursula. She was. Films in Scotland, in Oban, where the novel is set. All those places are real. The flat, the bar. I said Glasgow. That was probably insulting for me to assume it because it's one of the only towns I've heard of. Well, Glasgow is a major metropolis, and this is a shitty seaside town.

1:31:52No offense to Oban. For all I know, it's a great seaside town, but I do find that in Britain, when you go to the seaside towns, and I might get dragged for this by seaside town residents in Britain. You know, they're from an era before airplanes when it was kind of like, if you want to see the sea and you live in Britain, you got to go to the seaside towns. It's so rude, but it's so true. And then like, you know, pretty quickly, it was kind of like, well, now we have air travel. And like, you know, Spain is like an hour away. So like, there's good, you know. And so places like Blackpool and Margate, you know, like, yeah, they have their charms, but it's a little bleaker.

1:32:27I love that. Yeah, I think there's cinematic about the grittiness and yet they're on the ocean. Well, they're on the sea. All sorts of bygone holiday options for people who couldn't get on a plane or whatever. I went to the remains of the... You've seen Carnival of Souls, the horror film. One of my favorite movies of all time. Yeah, I mean, same. But that Salt Air resort that's on the Great Salt Lake is still like the main structure of it is still there. And I like made a pilgrimage to it. It's just like, can you imagine going on vacation to the shores of the Salt Lake to like this sort of Moroccan style?

1:33:06Right. The old how the boardwalk and all that. So strange, yeah. Yeah. I mean, kind of a vibe though. It's such a vibe. I am so sorry. I must interrupt. Oh no. I just, I have made a terrible discovery. I was like, there must be some Melissa McCarthy thing she's promoting, right? Her last movie was Unfrosted. Her next film is an animated film co-written by Ben Falcone called Margie Claus where you won't believe that she plays Santa Claus's wife. I mean that I'm just kind of like auto F let's ignore. Do you know what the actual next upcoming project is? The JonBenét Ramsey thing. A Paramount Plus JonBenét Ramsey show in which her and Clive Owen are playing the parents.

1:33:42Shut that shit down. Well luckily can we swing Zazlav in there and start Zazlav-ing other companies' projects? Luckily it is on Paramount Plus so it is essentially shut down already. Let's be honest. Who's going to scale that mountain? I'm just like that's the last thing anyone should be doing I would agree top of the list I just want to say since we're talking about the seaside town thing I think snow and movies good oh yeah always good especially when it's real it's real snow but I especially love a beach snow situation it is a it is a very stark image I'm so obsessed with this and I've been saying to Nellie I've been threatening Nellie for years now I'm like we need to do a snow beach situation.

1:34:28I want to have like a cabin, but that's on the beach that has a fireplace. Until that moment, I have wonderful news for you that Taylor Swift actually wrote a song called snow on the beach featuring Lana Del Rey. And I think that might be the song for you. I have so many mixed feelings about this news right now. I'm going to need to already got on. I know. First dance. No, it's true. Just go to Montauk. In the winter. I mean, there is something about going... Sorry, Emily, please, please. I mean, the first part of this film in Oban, I guess, the squalor of these miserable-looking house parties is also deeply familiar to me.

1:35:15I feel like I grew up going to these parties, jumping through the bonfire. This is such a thing. But it's like... Anything to feel alive. Yeah, and smoking a zillion cigarettes and slipping and breaking your neck in the kitchen because of like spilled jello shots or whatever, like all very familiar. But like, then you go outside and it's fucking Scotland. And it's like such an insane effect of like, yeah, the kids are doing the same thing they're doing like basically everywhere in the world. Like they're partying the same way. But then you step outside and you're like in this like stark, like almost overwhelming splendor and the snow and the mountains and shit.

1:35:49It's like, it's wild. But if you grow up there and this is your life, you resent it just as much as wherever you are. I mean, this is the thing. Like, I've been thinking for a while. Like, I grew up the first part of my childhood in Washington State. Every single day, I saw Mount Rainier, like, on my way to school. And I totally took it for granted. And then, like, only recently when I've been looking for things like little vacations that would be easy to go or, like, easy flights out of L.A. or whatever. I was like, huh, you know, it is actually really pretty up there and people like it. But like to me, it just represented just this really boring, like, you know, I did not enjoy my childhood there at all.

1:36:26And like I would never. But yeah, it's like it's it's it's sort of wild to be experiencing complete like torpor while you're in the majesty of nature. Yes. That's what it's about. And then I mean, then like they shot this film chronologically, which is interesting. But I think often suits especially like a nonprofessional actor just to be like in the story. Also a movie like this that isn't plotty where it's like you need to be able to really chart emotional movements because they're so subtle. And it's like Samantha Morton is like barely kind of this is a real like the camera can see you think performance.

1:37:03It's so internalized. She is an actress who feels translucent, you know, is not like emoting overly. and so yeah it's like the continuity of that is really hard to track if there's not clear like oh in this scene I'm reacting to this thing and I can just stay in the moment I just do not as a director like I just I mean you have to be like yeah you have to basically be like telepathic with your actor like to get that sort of continuity and to have this like legible readable thing that's like more interested and open than any voiceover narration or whatever it would be to follow. I don't know. I just think it's like it always awes me.

1:37:46It's interesting when, I was thinking about this while we were watching it, that like when directors have specific acting styles, when directors have like established this is what their movies are like and these are what the performances are like in them, it feels like, well, first of all, if you become successful enough, if you become Wes Anderson and it becomes so known that any actor signing up, any actor auditioning, any actor offered a role is like, I think I know what he wants. I think I can guess how he wants this performed, right? But for someone like Lynn Ramsey on her second film, but even now when it's her fifth movie, but like she's not super ubiquitous, how much of it is like a rehearsal process, meeting discussions with actors to attune everyone to the same wavelength versus how much of it is a kind of tone setting on set?

1:38:37a kind of like maintaining of mood and like I think a really careful curation of the people, how you like staff the entire movie and music and yeah. I mean, I can imagine like I would probably cheat and use music if I'm thinking about how I would do like just like if you just know that this is going like you kind of like have this Pavlovian response to these different music cues and stuff that that. But yeah, I don't know. It's it's it's well, I will say I I feel like Jen Lawrence and Rob Pattinson at this point knew there's a kind of performance that you do in a Lynn Ramsey movie. And I sensed that a little bit.

1:39:16Not a negative at all, by the way. No, no, I think that was the first case of that. And maybe of her reputation preceding her in that kind of way. And I read an interview with Jennifer Lawrence just the other day where she was like, the thing that's like crazy about working with her is there's a seven page dialogue scene. and we've like worked it and we're word perfect and we get on set and she's just like, I don't think there should be any words in this. Let's just jump up and down, take off our clothes and... Smash our heads and go along. There's no safety net and she's like, if it's not good, I won't use it.

1:39:47And if there's three seconds of a good piece in there, I might use it in a different place, you know? Like that's part of it, I think sometimes is not establishing an environment where everyone is so locked in that everything is perfect, but more creating a space where people feel free to sort of explore stuff and then knowing how to identify the pieces you need. So the first chunk of this movie, we've discussed some, but are there other things we want to talk about in the Scotland section before we go clubbing? Well, I mean, I always kind of forget that it's really kind of split in two. Right.

1:40:20Basically at the halfway point. Right. I was kind of like, right, it's only like 15 minutes in Scotland. It's like, no, it's not. Like, it's actually... It's like 45, 45. Right. Not a movie about someone clubbing the entire time. Right. It is her kind of like pretending to be normal, quote unquote, you know, like whatever, just kind of like acting like nothing's happened, I guess. You don't see the suicide note and have her put her name on the book until like minute 30. Right. She doesn't come around. Well, you see the suicide note right away, but... You see lines of it. You don't get to read the full thing.

1:40:52I suppose that's true. But yeah, you see her make the active decision. It's not like this happens and then she just gets up and is like, I'm going to print out the novel, put my name on it and send it out. She comes to that decision. It's so earned by the time she does it because it's a pretty extreme thing to do. But by the time she does it, it's like, okay, we're ready. And we're ready for some action. It's like we've been in hanging man mode this whole time. And finally, we're ready to go somewhere. And it's been several days with the body. And you're seeing her be like, fuck, let me just put this somewhere else.

1:41:21I'll deal with this tomorrow. But you're aware of the fact that you're like, there's a ticking clock to when this starts rotting. There's a quick and quick talk. deodorizing in the apartment. I can't even imagine. It's only going to become a worse problem. Oh, does she burn the pizza on purpose, you think? No. To cover up the smell? I don't think that was like... That's an interesting take, though. I like that. I think she just got distracted and fucked it up. Has anybody in a Lynn Ramsey movie ever cooked anything like successfully? I'm just thinking of the macaroni and cheese. Yeah. It's just bad.

1:41:55It's just... Yeah. I love it, though. I'll also say as a connoisseur, I think oftentimes a frozen pizza benefits from being a little overcooked. Yeah, I would say I would always go over versus under with a frozen pizza. And it gives it a little extra flavor. It gives a little punch. I love punch. Okay, well, I'll say I think there's something weirdly sentimental about her transporting the body and picking this beautiful location. Right. It's so fucked up. Top of a hill. But it feels like she's giving him a proper burial with like respect, weirdly. Yes. Yes. I also, I said when we were watching this, like, that's a pretty fucking good Halloween costume.

1:42:40It'd be tough to do in public. But Morvern topless with the Walkman taped to her torso. Yeah. The sunglasses, the necklace. The cognac glass. And then the cognac glass. And then like just increasing blood splatter. It's so good. It's pretty unbelievable. Yeah, it is funny. It goes from that, which feels so... I mean, clearly, she has to get completely wasted in order to do it, actually do the physical act of it. But then, yeah, you're right. Once it's the burial, it feels like the complete flip side of it. Okay, now this is past the actual physical unpleasantness of this dead body. It's like, okay, I can actually put this person to rest now.

1:43:19And then there's just this moment of total elation after she does it, where she's running down the hill. And that's when you're like, oh, wait, this is somehow a ticket out for her. This whole thing has been just going to turn it into that. And there's almost this like three women thing of she has almost magically become a different person now. There's at least in real time, she's starting to process this like new identity of, well, I have to maintain some continuity. I'm here with my friend. But like, I'm changed by this event. And also, what if I start molding myself in a new way to meet the person who has written that book and has submitted it and can't even talk about what it is?

1:44:04where it came from. Kind of also a nice location for jeans from being honest. Oh, wow. Okay, this is what we're getting to. Oh, he sees something being buried and his mind goes right to jeans. Wow. What if you did like a limited edition, like single malt scotch buried with the jeans? Oh, interesting. Fuck. So you're sort of like... Or what about... I mean, I don't want to give you too many ideas, but what about like barrel-aged jeans? Like a scotch. Yeah, yeah. damn it, you guys. See, I unfortunately knew you might like that idea. I love that idea. Maybe I like, you know, kind of toast the inside.

1:44:42Yeah. Sure. Like a frozen pizza. And Nellie's like, Ben, what are you rolling up the stairs? Nothing. I was saying, I was talking about Ben being worried that this movie was going to be too emotionally devastating. But at one point I turned over and he was crying Kiki's delivery service style. And I said, Ben, what is it? And he just went, it's a shame she took those jeans off his body. Right. Should have left him on there. Should have left him on before it's buried. Yeah. They just look like nice jeans. We both laughed at the bit when she decides to go out to the pub with her friends and she reaches into his pocket for money.

1:45:16That is the kind of like gallows humor that I just adore where it's like, it's also like, oh, she's not going to take all like 40 quid or whatever. She's going to put the other half back in and then say sorry. And also like, he's not going to use it. Right. This isn't his inheritance. What if it was like Egyptian times and you needed money to get paid? With stuff to pay? Yeah. No, but I think it's funny because it speaks to this total in-between state of whatever pre-stage of grief she's in. I don't even know if this is real yet. Yeah, it's so good. The subject matter of every one of her films, which is fictional, feels like the kind of bizarre human story that would then become like a news item and then get turned into a shitty Netflix documentary or a Paramount Plus series starring Melissa McCarthy, right?

1:46:10Where you're like, this story is so bizarre and the twists are so weird and the twists are these little details of things that are often retold to us in these very dramatic, salacious, kind of like scandalous ways. But in the moment, it's just like a woman standing over a dead body being like, I don't have money on me. He has it in his pocket. Yeah. And then you could just imagine an FBI detective like straight to camera going like when we searched the body, we found fingerprints inside his pockets and 45 quid missing, you know, and it suddenly feels like this fucking monster. It's weird that these American cops are trying to solve this strange thing.

1:46:51I mean, yeah, this is a movie and I think this is why I liked it originally. Like it's about a scammer. It's a movie about a scam, and it's really hard to think about this now after this wave of sort of millennial scammer narratives, your Anna Delvey's and all that, which are told in that fashion, or this sort of dishy, like whatever fashion. It's like, no, this is actually about the psychological state that drives one to scam, and it's a lot different than, you know, the dishy New York mag story or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, right, we now live in a world that regurgitates those stories and spits them back out to us ten ways.

1:47:31We are so inundated with the same narratives being repeated over and over again. Yeah, I love how incremental this is. And also that, not to jump ahead, but it knows exactly when to get out of the story. Which is like, she has gotten the check and we have no idea what happens next. I feel like she plays the slow dawning on her face that 100 means 100 ,000 pounds. It's so well. It's so funny. It makes me laugh every single time. She doesn't do like a big laugh or like a sort of crazy face. It looks like she has to fart. Like she does this thing where she goes, I love it. It makes me laugh every single time because she goes like, can I go?

1:48:14It's just this, it's such a great way to play it. It's also like a Chauncey Gardner moment where they keep asking her questions and her not knowing how to answer makes them go like, fuck, we're dealing with like, This is a genius and like a master negotiator. She doesn't have reps. She says 100 ,000. She doesn't even respond. She works in a supermarket. Oh my God. Right and then like, oh my God, we're going to be able to sell this so well. The like fucking like tabloid interviews with supermarket novelists.

1:48:47Mit 7 ,9 bewertet auf IMDb, bestätigt von tausenden Hörern, That Vampir System starts to start with a whole thing, but then you turn it completely through. Especially when Finn is a total loser, a killer killer. Why did he just have this book on the way? Why do millions don't stop listening to? That Vampir System. Pocket is FM's. Blockbuster-Serie. kostenlose episodes. Now on Spotify. täglich neu hör, jetzt rein.

1:49:23Let's talk about the Jet One holiday. The what holiday? Isn't that the meme? Nothing beats a Jet Two holiday. Fuck, it's two! And you can save 50 pounds per person. Was that like an omnipresent commercial when you were growing up? No, no, no, no. I think it's a more recent commercial because I've read interviews with the lady who does the voiceover. And apparently she's as amused as any of us. But right, it became a TikTok meme. You put that over some hilarious footage of someone's, you know, whatever, holiday going wrong. But I feel like it's now become that audio over footage of literally anything.

1:50:00Sure, right now, it's any catastrophe, really. It's 6-7. It's all this shit feels like the point is that the meme doesn't mean anything and it doesn't make sense. I think nothing beats a Jet 2 holiday. Okay, nothing beats a Jet 2 holiday. She goes on a Jet 2 holiday. Have you ever been on a Jet 2 holiday, David? Yeah, definitely. I mean, like, that was the budget airline. And then there's just all these countries. I mean, where they're going is like club country, right? Yeah. I mean, like... They're in Spain. They're in Spain. It's Almiria is where they shot it. I mean, there's lots of places, which is...

1:50:28Almiria is on the coast, I mean, but on the continent. But obviously, people go to Ibiza and like the other islands and all that. I never did that. That's kind of like going to Cancun, right? Totally. Like in America, right? That's where it's like you're going to club city. Yeah. But like I went to Eastern Europe where you can like basically just like drink like a fool. You can take a plane that cost one pound. Oh, my God. Like back in the EasyJet days. I don't think that really exists anymore. Actually, it sounds like nothing does beat a Jet 2 Holiday if it's one pound. What about Venga Airlines?

1:51:00How much does that run? The Venga bus is... Fuck, I don't know the lyrics. It's coming and everybody's jumping. New York to San Francisco. Wow. I feel like the whole thing with EasyJet, obviously, is you would get on... It was like one pound plus airport fees. So it would be like 30 pounds. But it would still be so cheap. And you have to bring your own seat? I mean, that was basically the vibe. It was certainly, there weren't even like boarding groups. It was just like, all right, everybody on. And like the people getting on weren't like, you know, passengers in three-piece suits. Like this is a party plane.

1:51:35Each passenger must contribute one cup of fuel.

1:51:41It comes with a little measure. It's a paper cup of fuel. I mean, and so, and there would be these cities like Tallinn in Estonia or whatever, where, you know, They'd opened up post-Cold War, and then they joined the EU. And then they were basically like, fuck, we're happy to have people from other countries just come and spend money here. The beer is cheap. We'll have some coffee. You know what I mean? My friend had a stroke in Bratislava to relearn the English language. He's doing okay. Oh, my God. I mean, speaking of, do you know that Samantha Morton had an insane stroke? Yeah, that happened later.

1:52:17Like plaster fell on her head from a set while she was filming. And it happened. She like took 18 months off and basically had to relearn how to like speak and walk and everything. And then Synecdoche is the movie she makes right after that. She's amazing. Incredible. And but she said like that's 18 months of therapy straight onto that set. And then you see like her career after that is very different. Yeah. I feel like she's become right. A much more erratic presence. She directed a movie that I think is quite good, but is incredibly difficult. The Unloved? Yes. It is a film. It's obviously about her childhood.

1:52:54It's a reflection of her very difficult childhood. Interesting. And she's continued doing stuff. She's doing stuff. Yes. But yeah, more supporting roles and stuff these days. What did I just see her in? Good question. Well, of course, you loved her in The Whale. No, it was Anemone. Oh, sure. Which she plays a similar role as The Whale. See, this is the shame. I feel like this is often how they deploy her. I'm excited for her to be in the Odyssey. Marie? Bet you she's playing someone normal. Marie Barty, party, party, Salinas, did call out that this is a little mini you're a Samantha Morton for us.

1:53:29Because we're starting off with this. We have the Odyssey. And I will say there is an unnamed third Samantha Morton movie already on the schedule. A third Samantha Morton movie? And of course, we've discussed Minority Report in the past. Is that the only other? But we're going to have three Samantha Morton movies in the first half of this year. Yeah. How many Fantastic Beasts episodes? Did we do six or seven? We did seven on the first movie. That is a crazy thing that she plays. We need to talk about Kevin's mom, basically, in that movie. Isn't she like an evangelist too? She has a weird kind of Bible-thumping vibe in it.

1:54:06But she is, yes, Ezra Miller's in those movies. Those movies are a real kind of faded dream to me. It's truly none of my business what happens in that movie. It is kind of none of anyone's business. Don't, yeah. And the third movie with what Mads Mikkelsen is now, the third Grindelwald, basically. And he's like, I will rig the magic election. And you're like, he's doing... Can he just try to take over the world already? Like, what is this? Is Fantastic Beasts the ultimate, like, I'm sorry for you or congratulations? I ain't reading all that. True. I know something needs to be said Like okay so I know that there are crimes Of Grindelwald but are they like There are some Are we happy for him about them or are they bad Like we're bad He's not good He's a bit of a rascal He's like a wizard Epstein Unlike a Morvern Caller type He has done a few things wrong He's not like a fun scam goddess You do not in fact have to hand it to him In fact we should stop handing it to Grindelwald.

1:55:11He's so sneaky though. It's just, I'll rant about it all the time. You know, they do the first movie, the movie's a success. They're like, great, here comes more. The second movie is called The Crimes of Grindelwald. What happens in it? He begins to inch towards debuting some crime. So it's like, well, okay, well, you guys need to move it along because this movie didn't do very well. He has plans for crime. Right. And then like, they're like, okay, okay, okay. Third movie. We've recast him. Death's gone. Mads Mikkelsen. It's called The Secrets of Dumbledore. And you're like, And I'm like, wrap it up.

1:55:39You guys aren't going to make a fourth. Just wrap it up. Whatever your plan was that was supposed to be, what, five movies? I think at some point it went to six. Let's compress it to three. And they're like, what if instead he and Dumbledore kind of have a knowing glance at the end of the movie and there's way more to go? There's an exclusively game moment. Wait, so the end of it, like a secret is only hinted at at the very end of the secrets of Dumbledore. Basically. He tries to rig the magic election, which involves some sort of magical moose. it's like the magic moose like kneels at like the winner and he's like I'll do a spell that rigs the election and they like stop him it's not like he tries to take over the world and they stop him but the other secret and then when they stop him he's like well I'll be off Dumbledore who I maybe am gay with see you later right like Grindelwald exists in like deep Harry Potter appendix shit as like this was wizard Hitler he like predated Voldemort he was the worst of them all and then after the books and the movies are over, J.K.

1:56:37Rowling's like, and by the way, of course Dumbledore's gay and then starts pointing towards the idea that Dumbledore and Grindelwald had some hidden romance when they were young. So then the third movie is that and people are like, oh shit, and the movie ends with them looking at each other and like raising an eyebrow. I'll just put it, I'll put it this way and then I'll stop talking about this. No, we're going to keep talking about it. In the Harry Potter franchise, yes, in the seventh book, you learn that Dumbledore had a deeper relationship with Grindelwald who you've sort of heard about as like a wizard Hitler.

1:57:04And yes, in fact, they were very close before his famous 1945 duel with Grindelwald that defeated him, which is in Harry Potter, obviously the analog to World War II, right? So 1945 was their big showdown. Fantastic Beasts 1 is set in 1926. Fantastic Beasts 2 is set in 1927. Fantastic Beasts 3 is set in 1932. It's like they're not even close to the big showdown. It's even crazier than what you set up, because when they announced it, they were like, a fun idea, a standalone adventure in the Harry Potter universe. Different time period. A guy with a suitcase chases a bunch of creatures. Then everyone sees the first movie.

1:57:45It's a hit. But people don't love it. And they're also like, it's weird. The second half, it just kind of dissolves into like Harry Potter deep lore prequel shit. And J.K. Rowling's like, eh, don't worry. I've planned five more movies that are going to get all tangled up in that. And they're like, what about the Fantastic Beasts guy? And they're like, don't really worry about him. He's still here. And then he points at shit that's happening. So true. Wait, I just want to make sure I've got this right because I've been so out of touch with that whole franchise. So Grindelwald, he both does crimes and is gay?

1:58:17Correct. Okay, incredible. Go off queen, some might say. Okay. But we don't have to hand it to him. No, no, no, no, no. I would never suggest that. No, let's just draw a clear line here. Morvern Collar. We do have to hand it to her. The movie changes film stocks when she gets to Spain. Absolutely. That's the big visual move. Yeah. She tells her friend, we're fucking going to Spain. Don't worry about money. I booked us a place. We're going for like two weeks. I already booked your... I'm going to tell your boss you're taking time off. Her friend is like, by the way, I did fuck your boyfriend. And she's like, well, let's go to Spain.

1:58:57Disassociation is not paused. I mean, she offers it up as the like, I'm sorry, I can't go on the trip with you because I betrayed you and you're going to be so angry. She's like, okay, no, I've got even worse plans for this girl now. And she has shipped the book out. She mails the book and then calls them and is like, I hope you got it. I'm going to Spain, click. And then the latter half of the movie, I would say is even lighter on plot than the first half. Not that it's plotless, but like, It is a lot of vibes. Well, speaking of vibes, can we just talk a little bit about the soundtrack? We should.

1:59:34Because it is such a part of the film. It is like a motivating fact. If there is ever no plot, at least she's still like listening to the next track on her dead boyfriend's mixtape. And she's almost experiencing and processing her emotions exclusively through the music. Sort of a Garden State Galaxy situation. I think kind of a Garden State situation. Absolutely. I want to get through like 15 minutes without like mentioning a Marvel movie. A Harry Potter movie. Wrong podcast. Okay, so. Excuse me. That's really rude of you to say when our president is right there on our top shelf. President Red Hulk.

2:00:11We must obey him. There he is. And we are contractually obligated to mention a Marvel movie every 20 minutes. The crimes of Red Hulk. What's his like agenda? What's his... More pills. Nothing good. But yeah, I feel like I have hallucinated this because I know that at some point I have seen an image that is the insert on the mixtape. I was trying to pull it up on the Amazon version and it is so blurry. You can't. Yeah. But it is in there. Okay. Yeah. It must just be in that physical release. There's a handwritten track list on the inside. Yeah. But like, because I wanted to know like what is actually, you know, canonically on the playlist and what's diegetic.

2:00:55Yeah, what's diegetic. But like my feeling of like once you're like, are they playing ween at the pub? You're like, no, we're not. The whole thing is whether it's diegetic or on the soundtrack, it's all the mixtape is my is my personal theory of it. Yeah. I agree with that. Except maybe like the techno music is probably not on the mixtape. Because then at the end, they reveal that she's what she was listening to. Yeah, yeah. Although, is that a flashback? Or does she just go back to the club? I like to think she goes back to the club. I think she goes back to the club. Oddly dedicated to the one that I was not on the soundtrack, despite being an iconic final needle drop.

2:01:36Is that possibly just because the mamas and the papas are annoying to negotiate? Yeah, yeah. But yes, what are some? We got can. A lot of can. A lot of can. Heavy on the can. I liked Can. Because there's Can and then there's a Can member named Holger. Yeah, Holger Sukai. Sukai. I've never listened to his stuff. It's so good. I gotta fuck with it. Oh my God. The one that, the thing that Fragrance is on, which is like an incredible track is like 10 minutes long or whatever. That album is amazing. I can't remember the name of it right now. I'm gonna find it. Can of, I think, Krautrock guys, right?

2:02:09They're like, I've listened to some Can because when I got into Radiohead, you know, the cool kids were like, well, you really should listen to Can if you like Radiohead and doing. No, I totally remember that. I think I had a friend's, a roommate's boyfriend who burned me all the Can records on a CD. I'm going to be burning. They're going to call 911 on my house because it's going to be burning. What's the song you mentioned? The fragrance. I'm so embarrassed to admit that I actually started listening to Can after hearing about them for so long being this quintessential band that LCD and the song Shouting Them Out.

2:02:50Oh, oh, yeah, That's what finally got me to do it. Well, that's a while back. That song came out in like 2005, so I think that's fine. That's probably like... right, I know. Yeah, yeah. Or no, that song was even earlier than that, so, you know, you're still cool, then. Yeah. No, I, you got, you got Goon Compass, Apex Twin, which I love. I love Apex Twin. Who is Goon Compass? Goon Compass? That's the name of the song. Goon Compass. Okay, I was like, that's not the name of some band I don't know. No, Goon Compass is also a name that we have given my dog. And the joke is that the track Goon Compass is playing in his brain at all times.

2:03:31And so occasionally I'll just play it on the phone when he's acting really stupid. And it's really fun. Goon Compass is what you hold up at a red pill convention. And it was followed by the subtle goon knife. I don't know Boards of Canada Scottish So important Massively important It's insane how both them and Apex Twin Have continued To feel so Just You don't listen to Apex Twin and feel like This is the 90s or whatever It feels like now They feel certified fresh Thank you Red tomato for Apex Twin Well, there's also the crazy thing of Lonely Island sampling FX Twin for the Iran so far away thing in an era where they were like, these are like dumb videos that air on SNL one time.

2:04:25Right. And we're sampling it. We're not going to have to license this. And it doesn't matter. And it never replays. And then they put it on YouTube and it got like 8 trillion views. And NBC had to pay them so much fucking money. Good days. Yeah. Broadcast? Yes. Broadcast, stereo lap. Like, this is just like the coolest shit. I'm sorry. It was like my music. So why? Broadcast was such a band for me in high school. RIP, man. Who's doing this? Is it, you know, is it Ramsey? Like, who's got such a like finger on the pulse taste? I wouldn't put it faster because the soundtrack of Die My Love is also fantastic in a totally different way.

2:05:05But like, is there a listing of the tape in the book? No, I don't care. I feel like there was something here in the dossier. Like broadcast. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So it's just Lynn Ramsey being cool as fuck, which like shocking no one. The vibe I get is that it's her. Yeah. She wanted Mamas and the Papas at the end because she wanted the final needle drop to be emotional in the way that the rest of the soundtrack is not. And to be just a swerve. In the book, Morvern has tapes that are made up already. It's not something he leaves her as a present. That was a new invention. I felt the tape was like a letter to her.

2:05:41The music's great because it's part of the narrative. I saw her boyfriend as Alan Warner, really. Oh, I love that. An intellectual who's also a muso seeing this less academic girl. A muso? A muso? A muso? Early on. It's a new one. They have a muso. Yeah, they don't name the tracks in the book. Okay, okay. And I used electronic music that was very cinematic and sound design in order to avoid the MTV pop promo feel. That is what's effective about it is that it's a very hip soundtrack that also doesn't feel like and now that's what I call compilation. Right, it doesn't feel like a bunch of labels where like, hey, can we get our cool song?

2:06:14No, or even like just pulling the NME chart or whatever. What label is going to be like, and she does what to the body? Okay, yeah, no, you can use absolutely any tracks. And also from a playlist curation standpoint, I love that it also has a mix of older stuff and eclectic stuff. Well, that's the thing. Like the Scratch Parody. Yeah. You know, Velvet Underground. The two of you would make a lot of mixtapes, right? Oh my God. Are you kidding? I mean, I know. You're, yes, but I'm sure you're I'm just like was it a mix of Coolio songs? Your favorite Coolio songs? I throw a track or two on them. I feel like Griff you and I also made mixtapes but maybe they probably curated them in very cool ways.

2:06:52Like right like you guys were probably good at like having your the energy go up and down. And then like in the days of actual tapes before the CD thing because that was there was a couple years where I was still doing that you would like you know hook up the tape recorder to the TV and do a little movie quote in there in between songs. This is what I'm talking about. This is bespoke tape making. I have no doubt that Emily and Ben's tapes were cooler, but I was doing that kind of intentionality. So now I want a teen Griffin tape. I would have to dig in and see if I could find one. But I was very into the ordering and cutting things up with skits and fucking other shit.

2:07:31I never did skits. I wasn't the ordering. I would get movie quotes from fucking Kazaa. I would be taping off the radio and I would have like my thing, like I plugged my, I guess my aux cord ready to go. Like, and I would hear the song starting back. Okay, perfect. Like I would do that. I remember that. I would have a sort of burning. Yeah. I would have one like a tape. It wasn't even a mixtape. It was just like, I have this one ready to go. If like a song I like is playing on the radio and I just like hit record. I also made music video mixtapes. Did you guys do that? Where like I would have a blank tape in my VCR because I fucking watched MTV and shit all day.

2:08:06and then when something I knew I loved was coming up, I had like two tapes of like compilations. See, I was the person who got those because I never had MTV growing up. So like my friends would take pity on me and be like, here's all the cool shit that's happening on MTV. Right, like FYI, this is the last year of cool music videos. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I would watch, you know, like Busta Rhymes videos, you know, or whatever, like anything where I was like... Coolio, yeah. Cool, yeah, Coolio. Maybe like every single thing Coolio had ever done. Let's try and see if we could dig up maybe one of our mixtapes.

2:08:36I know, that was a good challenge. And we can put out the track list. Bonit gems. I must have a listing somewhere. I mean, I really had a... I did a lot in high school. Then when I was in college and I did radio at LMU, at KXLEO, 88.9, I got much more into it as this professional endeavor and I would do my own art for it. I would make mixes that I would send out to a bunch of people that like had a title and were like a quarterly mix or something. Would you, Griffin, this is for you, would you get the taste for girls? Genuine, genuine question. No, I was looking through. It's kind of like, you know, putting yourself out there.

2:09:20Yeah, there was, I'm going through a thing right now, I'm feeling very annoyed at the fucking Apple Corporation. They're no good. Who had this whole like iTunes match feature where it's like, oh, if you take the time to upload something that isn't on the Apple Music server. We'll save it here. You are talking about why I am saying things like, maybe it's time to get back into CDs. Like, all of these services have failed us. All of them have failed us. Yes. There was a big high school crush, long distance on-off person, young woman, where we would mail each other CDs with very long letters. How postal service of you.

2:10:01It was. So, but that's how I first heard of Dentel. Like, one half of Postal Service was on a CD sent to me from... He was a senior when I was a freshman, and he was, like, here in New York at school. And I would, like, get cool music sent to me by this, like... It was... Yeah, it was so fun. This was... Yeah, we, like, lived a state apart, and we would have, like, you know, three-hour, like, Sunday night phone conversations, AIM, and then, like, the big love language was the mailing of these CDs. and I had them on my phone forever and I'm looking now and iTunes has like gutted them where it has like three out of 18 tracks left because of just whatever fucking licensing agreements they have.

2:10:41So I still have a drive that's basically everything I ever burned like that and you know, got indexed and everything. But like, it's on its last legs. Like anytime I've plugged it in, I'm like, oh God. Yeah, it's like this big. I lived that way forever and the promise of iTunes match, I fucking fell for it. Yeah. I fell for it. I fell for their fucking award. I gotta say though, even now, I have just had another, you know, and it's like from, it's a lateral move, but I finally was like, I just can't, I can't, and this is a big move for me. I had to get off of Spotify. Like I just could no longer in a good conscious be on Spotify, but like my life was on Spotify for like, basically from the day they started, I had like a premium membership.

2:11:24I had so many playlists. I make a playlist every month and I've been doing it for so long and it's like almost a journal of my life. Me too. I can't give it up. But I did the shift. They have a thing called Song Shift and it's okay. But I shifted everything to Apple Music, I guess, because it was like the other one. This is my problem. I made that move and then I just started to get annoyed with Apple Music. So now I'm with drawing. I downloaded something called Doppler. I'm creating an iPod back on my iPhone. There you go. And that's right. And so those corporations don't have their grips on me at all.

2:11:56This sucks. I was like methodically buying CDs through like 2012 and like importing them and then choosing like the best high quality version of the cover and everything. And I was just like, it's all saved here and then there's a backup and then I got rid of the backup and then it's fucking Cloud. They got us! They got us with the Cloud! You want to hear about a really sad, like going to Amoeba Music on Sunset Boulevard. I still don't forget to it. Well, it doesn't exist there anymore. I mean, it exists, but it's not the same. It's not the same. The main one still in San Francisco exists, right?

2:12:26I think the Berklee one, yeah. But going there, loading up like a stack this high of CDs that cost between like five and six dollars a piece, burning them all, like ripping them all. And like you would like it came out to like 20 cents a song. And it's like that's sustainable as like a college student who like, you know, was constantly broke. That was still sustainable compared. And like everybody like I feel like we all do Spotify and shit now because it's like, oh, 10.99 a month. You can have like the entire music catalog. But it's like, no, it doesn't. It doesn't. By the way, we're buying you CDs at Amoeba.

2:12:59The musicians have already made their money. But it's just also just that, I mean, whatever. Now we are, we're getting, it's Andy Rooney-ifying in here. But the vibe of like, I would go to the record store. I've definitely done this rant before. I would have enough money for like one to two CDs, right? And so like, I would take forever on my choices. And then the choices I made, I had to listen to them to death because I was like, I spent the money. Like, I'm not just like putting these on a shelf and I'll get to it. No, you're like, there's three weeks of this being the one CD I'm bringing with me in a Discman every day.

2:13:34You know the album backwards and forwards. My semester and change at CalArts was defined by convincing a friend to drive me to a movie I wanted to see at the Arclight and then going to Amoeba for like an hour afterwards. Oh my God, yeah. That was the great one too. For my first couple of years, I was at Loyola, so I was like clearly around town. So yeah, I was like going to Hollywood was like a thing I did on the weekend. And it was like, those were the spots. It's like Fred 62, our client. And even beyond that, like even when I stopped sending mixes to people and I was never on Spotify, I was just like pot committed to the fucking Apple Corporation.

2:14:15but I used to like make a playlist for every year of my life to be like, I can look back on this and this will be the 12 tracks that like evokes the feelings of what I went through that year, whether they're like songs linked to specific events or moments or people, or it's just what I was into or discovered. It was less like songs that came out that year and more just like what was in my rotation. And at some point I just fucking stopped doing that. I never listened to music. So it's a goddamn podcast. Well, I think a loss, in addition to making the mix, is the interpretation of mixes that are made for you and reading all sorts of shit into it that you want to be there.

2:14:52But to steer us back on topic a little bit. Yes, let's go back to Morvern Cutler. James' mix for Morvern, I think, is a more interesting suicide note than the one he actually leaves. If this is what it is, absolutely. A guy who wrote a whole book that she doesn't even read. And if it truly ends on dedicated to the one I love. Yeah. Which is a great ending for a like emo mix. It's heart ripping. Like for a guy who's trying to express himself, this feels like the words that he can't say, which is also very twinned with like Lynn Ramsey's approach to storytelling, which is like these people can't say these things themselves.

2:15:29These things like are bigger than words. Yeah. And it's clear that that is a language that they actually did share. Like he leaves her his music and that's what she packs up. that is the priority when she finally leaves the apartment. She takes all of his record collection with her. And it's like that more so than his pursuit of writing seems to be the thing that they connected with on some sort of spiritual level. Keep the music as his ultimate I love you more than saying I love you and I'm sorry. We don't really know what Morvern's interests are or whatever. She's so opaque. It's hard to understand what...

2:16:04Her bluff with Dolly Wells of like, isn't that what's great about being a writer that you can kind of piss off. It doesn't feel like her trying to imagine what a writer would say. It's her testing out this life for herself. Right. Totally. She's like, if people buy that I'm a writer and they give me a bunch of money, then what do I do? I sit around all day and I smoke and I go like, I'm coming up with something. She's also 21 or whatever. I mean, it's not like more of her needs of direction in life. No, but I think she wants to not. Right. Do you know what I'm saying? I think her dream is just to float.

2:16:36Sure. At least for now. She is disassociating. Well, this is the thing, though. I don't know. I always am turning this over in my head when I watch this movie. Because it's like she talks about she likes the ants. And she is... I don't know. I think it's kind of funny watching this so close back to back with Die My Love, which has a lot of very physical performance. And very external performance of boredom. I keep using the word torpor. But I feel like that's what she's really, really good at expressing. and Jennifer Lawrence is doing that in that film as well. But it's like here, there's sort of the built-in excuse of everybody's on ecstasy all the time.

2:17:13So you can kind of be feeling the branches of the trees all the time. There's an excuse for that. But I don't know. But it still feels like what we're picking up is that there is some kind of internal poetry in Morver and Caller, even if it is not this studied kind of thing that her boyfriend was into. She wants something. She there is a lyricism. There is like an artist spirit in her somewhere. It just doesn't express itself in the way that like, you know, it's typically legible. And like you can imagine if she is ever called upon to like make a second book, it's probably not going to go so well.

2:17:49But that doesn't mean that she doesn't. She's not in some way tuned in. Right. Yeah, or like living an emotional, lyrical life in some way or another. I also think it's fascinating in the meeting with the book publishers. I mean, they're like hitting it off. They're like loving her. They're buttering her up. They're offering her the money. And then you cut to like the sun has set and they're still drinking, right? This has gone beyond business deal. She's seemingly already literally signed the contract. And yet they're here still talking. And she mentions the supermarket thing. and they're like, oh my God, supermarket novel.

2:18:25That's unbelievable. Hilariously sells itself. We gotta get a picture. And she holds the champagne glass up to her face and she almost looks embarrassed in that moment. And I don't read it as a, oh fuck, if I get attention does that like, does the spotlight on me increase the possibility of being revealed to be a sham? I think it's more that the attention isn't really what she fucking wants. This is like means to an end to buy an idea of freedom. But what you're saying of there is some internal poetry in her, but she doesn't seem to have any need to have that validated by the outside world, even her closest friends.

2:19:05But it's even still, it's like she is experiencing being perceived perhaps in a way that she never has been before. Maybe it's because of like false auspices or whatever. But like the idea that somebody would look at her and say, project this idea that she has depth, that there's that there's something really interesting there. Like I, I feel like what, because I know exactly the moment you're talking about. And that's what I read from it is like, is like, oh, my God, somebody thinks I'm like, I'm sure that her boyfriend loved her, but I'm sure her boyfriend was like, oh, this is my working class girlfriend or whatever.

2:19:37And like and like now she's having these eyes on her thinking of her as being somebody who like, wow, she's full of ideas and feeling and depth and all these things. And it must be like, yeah, it's just an interesting suit to put on, I think. Well, yeah. And in her like the Lynne Ramsey canon of outsiders, she's the only outsider who is like given a path to the inside. And the fact that the movie ends before we see any of the results of that, all we know is that the door has been opened for her. creates like really, really interesting ambiguity of like, what the fuck happens to this person? Well, I mean, there's always Sasha who got left in reverb and lived off oranges and juice and burgers for a month.

2:20:22Like, I truly think that's her future. But maybe that's the darkest reading possible, but I just like, because I do think she goes back to the club, both spiritually and literally at the end. Right, right, right. And just, you know... becomes like Sasha. He's a laugh. But I also, yes, I think there's the larger, like, the indescribable desire to escape oneself, right? My favorite fucking SNL sketch of the last 10 years, which I cite all the time, is the Adam Sandler, Romano, Italy tours one. I fucking love that sketch where he's like, we will take you to a nice place. You will eat good food. That will not make you a better, a different person.

2:21:07If you're sad where you are now, you will be sad there. It is one of the greatest, like, genuinely pieces of art about depression I have ever seen. It is one minute of slow burn where he's just straight up naming the sites and the experiences. And then he goes, but I must restate, you will still be the same person you are at home, just in a nicer location. So funny. I love that. And he's like, you know, sort of like, we can give you activities to do with your wife. if we can't help you know how to talk to each other, like that kind of stuff. And there's this degree of like, if I'm perceived as a novelist, does that make me a different person?

2:21:44If I have money, does that make me a different person? If I go to a different place, if I take different drugs, if I'm with different people, and the thing she can't escape is like actually her inner life. The thing that Lynne Ramsey knows how to bring like about cinematically better than anyone else is just like her headspace. Yeah. No, I mean, I think it's really interesting. Like her last conversation with with Lana is like, you know, when she's saying she's going to leave again, ask her to go with her. And my whole life is here. And it's like, there's the same crapness everywhere. So stop dreaming.

2:22:20And it's like, I always think like, I will always remember. I hope my mom's not listening to me. I went to this music festival. It was the Matador Records 21st birthday party in Vegas in 2010. And I had my equivalent of this in Vegas with the Lana of my life. And I had this mountaintop experience seeing guided by voices and all these fucking bands and stuff. and then got back to I was living with my mom in Seattle at the time we're outside of Seattle and Guided by Voices was on tour and they were gonna be playing in Seattle like the next weekend and I was like I think I'm gonna go and my mom was just like you can't just do what you want all the time like otherwise you will become a hedonist but even like you might be a bad one though I mean because it's like she is something of a hedonist in that she goes she clubs she has sex.

2:23:19She takes drugs. But like, there's no real sign of pleasure. Yeah, but she's also searching, like, the way like Lana, you could say Lana does the same thing. But Lana is also very much Lana has a good time. Lana has, yeah, she has a good time and she also has like a community and it might, but it's like absolutely not what Morgan wants of her life at all. There's a balance. She's searching for something. Yeah. In Lana, there's some sort of like, okay, but at some time I gotta like, resume real life. I understand I have to play the game. She has that self-enforced... At some point, I gotta grow up.

2:23:55It's holiday for a reason because you've come back from it. And then it's Monday. How do I destroy Monday? Yeah. I mean, she's the original Spring Breakers. It's what of Spring Break, but forever. This is a better movie than Spring Breakers. Although that is a great film. It's a movie entry. It's a great film. But I do I would do a total double bill of these like I would be a really fun double feature. They pair up like absolutely. It was in one of the earlier quotes you read that she literally like talks about Lynn Ramsey hedonism as like this kind of defining cultural shift of like the use of drugs across generations of it being this idea of like counterculture political statement.

2:24:35She says this right. Right. The 60s you do psychological expansion versus like self punishing internalized. Yeah, and it's not about... You're not really... There's nothing to rebel against. Someone from Warp Records, though, who saw this film, they screened it early for them, said it was like, this is like a modern-day Easy Rider. And I do love that. Because Easy Rider is the sort of 60s version of the like, hey, man, let's just tune in, drop out, you know, drop asses. But that feeling of like whatever they were fighting for in the 60s and 70s has settled into something else and everything feels wrong, but it's not really clear what we should be pushing back against.

2:25:12there's not a clear target. She thinks she should have pushed to black comedy more. Although more recently for Die My Love she was interviewed and she's like I rewatch it now. I saw it with an audience like a young audience and they were laughing and enjoying it and made me feel good. This movie or Die My Love? More in color. Oh, okay. Yeah. A retrospective screening while she was on the Die My Love press store. And she thinks like oh, you know, I pissed off the financiers. they wanted a different poster. I love the poster. The poster is like an incredible poster. Like, you know, they kind of dumped it.

2:25:49I'm pissed. I was pissed off about it at the time. But it's a classic Lin Ramsey thing of like, it got a bad release because they didn't like working with me because I didn't want the shitty poster and it was all worth it because the poster's on my wall and I like it. And honestly, yes. But I mean, yeah, I do think it's probably the funniest movie of her filmography. It's got the most jokes in it. And I think a lot of that is because it's so in touch with like youthful folly, I guess, which is like the oldest person way to say what I mean. But like, you know, the thing with the dollar bill out of the pocket, like these sort of just like you're just sort of figuring out how to scrape through life.

2:26:27And it's all it's all embarrassing. Everything is mortifying for some reason. And it's all funny. It's like it's it's inherently funny. so the film stock change happens when she goes to Spain and you know hinges on that cab ride and she said they had to reshoot the cab ride seven times because they couldn't figure out the right way to process the film stock and working with the new material does it change as soon as they get to Spain or is it when they get on the cab and then go to the village we changed the film stock I'm sorry you're right we changed the film stock for when Morver decides to leave the hotel that's right So it starts on the cab ride when they venture outside of the resort.

2:27:06Yeah, yeah. It's so funny when her friend is like kind of high on E and is like rushed to leave and doesn't even put her clothes on. But then it's like, what are you looking at, pervert? Yeah, that's like, I mean, that is the funny shit where it's just like the shamelessness. But also, you know, like, yeah, everything is embarrassing. And there's this very like MTV Spring Break style like party scene where there's a woman there who is just like blotto, right? who just like is not catatonic because of depression, but is clearly just on 10 ,000 things. And you keep having the camera like pan across her against like guys like Gyra.

2:27:44Yeah. And then, I mean, there's the swimsuit swap thing on the pool, which is just like that long take. Push on her face. It's so good. I also love where you see like across the balcony, like there's two guys on the balcony. He's going like, and then there's someone on the back being like, I'm trying to sleep. I'm like, why are you trying to sleep? Why are you here? Go anywhere else. I know. I feel so bad for all the old people. They show in the lobby of that hotel. I'm just like, you are in hell. You should leave right now. It does feel like you can just go down the road or something. But in a movie without a lot of dialogue, the whole kind of like all the core things are talking about are summed up in the exchange in the back of the cab between Morvan and Alana where she goes, where are we going?

2:28:25I don't know, somewhere beautiful. And it's like, it doesn't matter. Like, I don't know. We're going to find a place that's beautiful. Like, the next place will solve it. The next adventure will, like, solve it. You know, I just need to keep going forward to the next experience. Do you think, I see my understanding is always that when she does that, she leaves with the intention of leaving Lana wherever they go. Like, from the outset. You think that's planned, like, leaving her on the side of the road with the note? Yes. I don't know. That's always been my understanding of it, which is extreme.

2:28:56But like, I think it's like she makes some decision at some point. But it also could be that like the third time that Lana brings up fucking her boyfriend, she's like, okay, fuck this bitch. I think it's like all improvisational. I think it's all like instinctual moment to moment. And I also love that you imagine there's going to be some like bigger blow up with Lana if they reconvene at the end of the movie. And she's just like, of course, we're all like on spring break. You leave me by the side of the road. I found my way back home. Yeah. How much longer were you there? It's like everybody bounces back.

2:29:25It's like your bones are still soft. You can kind of like bounce back from these fights with friends or, or, you know, your, your friend can tell you that her boyfriend is dead. And you're like, yeah, stop being so crazy. Like, you know, there's something I was thinking about this in that conversation. There's another part. I wrote it down somewhere in this film that, and there's some of this in Die My Love too, where I think that so much of like, it's sort of her, Lynn Ramsey's approach to comedy. but it's like, it's also just kind of really good at conveying alienation is like, there's so many frustrated, like, non responses to things like things that should be these peak admissions or revelations or something, they never get the reaction that you think they should.

2:30:07And there's something that's so frustrating, but I think also very real about that. You will rarely ever get those big cathartic moments where you finally tell somebody a secret you've been keeping for so long and they react appropriately well she keeps telling people like my boyfriend fucked off and she wants people to ask follow-up questions yeah and they never and they just go like yeah sounds like the kind of thing you know he'd do and then in the bathtub with lana there's like the real like i gotta tell you it's a funny uh subtitle moment because it's like translated phonetically into like something that's bad happened um but she goes like what And she was like, he's gone.

2:30:46And Lana, like, won't hear her say it. Yeah. He's gone to another country, the undiscovered country, you know? Because Lana is just like, fuck, fuck, fuck, it's something to do with me. Like, you know, everybody is so, you know, narcissistic. Caught up in their own shit. Yeah, yeah, that it never comes to that. No one will, like, let her confess, which I think helps push her to being like, then why do I fucking have to live with guilt or trauma or grief about this? Yeah. I was just going to say, shooting the cab ride so many times, Lynn Ramsey said that the taxi driver was one of the highest paid people in the entire movie.

2:31:20Because they had to keep bringing him back. Oh my God. When they would develop the film and be like, oh, we fucked it up. Yeah. And then go back and reshoot it again as they figured out what the visual look was for that final chunk of the film. That's so wild. And then the sex scene, she had never shot a sex scene before. And got in there with them and had all these ideas of like, you know what I don't like in sex scenes? and I'm trying to avoid that. More crying. Everybody should be crying. Once you actually get in the room, she's just like, it's so awkward to like figure out and step through and you find yourself falling into the same ways of shooting it.

2:31:52And she just sent every, like the whole crowd of the room. And she was just like, it's just us and the camera and just like try shit. Just try stuff and like feel it out. Oh, my trying shit with that dude. Yeah. Handsome guy. It is a laugh line of its own where he opens the door and it's just like, oh. I lost my mother. I lost my mother. Okay. Let's fuck. Oh my God. This premiered at Cannes, but in Director's Fortnight. I was going to say, it was going to be, Ratcatcher been in certain regard. This was also put in certain regard. Ramsey was pissed off by that, so she moved it to Director's Fortnight.

2:32:30She somewhat iconically married Rory Stewart Kinnear, the guy she co-writes we need to talk about Kevin with later, at Cannes, impromptu, just, I guess, because she was a little sick of being at Cannes. They had to get out on a boat so they could take advantage of maritime law. It had to go far enough. That's disgusting. It did the festival circuit. It gets distributed in the UK by Momentum. It released 2002. America, it got released December 2002 by a company called Cowboy Pictures. Yes, right. I don't really know much about them. Yeah. It got great reviews, but made zero money. Can I read this quote about the wedding?

2:33:19Because it's really good.

2:33:23So the captain does the ceremony. This is like a thing they offer a can. But you are legally required to be 12 miles out in international water. Not sure we got that far. During the ceremony, we hear screaming coming from an island and think that someone is being murdered. We look over and see a couple of naked ladies and a camera crew making a porno film. Oh my God. International waters porn. To ring the boat's bell to get them to shut up. It's absurd straight out of a Fellini film. That's incredible. That just sounds like what her life is like on a daily basis. And I might enjoy it for a week and then be like, this is a lot.

2:34:02And I think she just, she's chaotic, especially back then. Yeah, yeah. This film, this is very interesting to me because this film came out Christmas time 2002, Griffin. And I was like, oh, a Christmas box office. Surely we've done this one before. I don't think we've ever done this one before. Is this not Catch Me If You Can? No, it is not. Okay. I guess that comes out the following week later. It comes out literally on Christmas. Correct. Okay. This is the first weekend of a little film that's a sequel in a fantasy trilogy. What could it be? It's called The Lord of the Rings colon The Two Towers.

2:34:36That's right. Never forget. Treebeard. Yeah, he's there. Now, Emily, you like the Lord of the Rings movies. I do. That's the best one. And that's your favorite, right? That's the best one. Is that, you'd claim that when we do PJ? Oh, absolutely. Well, I mean, I already put in my... No, you want a different PJ. I put in... Oh, yes, you have a PJ. But I also would take that one as well. But you enjoy Aragorn throwing open the doors and going like this. Gondor calls for aid. Wait, no, that's Return of the King. That's true. You like putting on a pair of PJs. No, I like the last March of the Ents.

2:35:06some may say we march to our doom. I like that one Ent who kind of like puts his head in the water. Yeah, and douses it. You know, because it's on fire. It's so good. Like that guy. All about the Ents in that movie. Yeah, anytime I rewatch that and the Ent sequence comes up where they start, I just start bawling. It's like it gets worse every time. Like with age, the Ents make me cry. I think I'm just like growing up into being an Ent eventually and I just see my future in front of me. Tree Bird hasn't really worked recently. What's the last movie he wrote? I heard he was on the Epstein list. Oh, really?

2:35:39Oh, shit. Don't even joke. I'm joking. Also, it seems like he did 17 seasons of NCIS Miami. Yeah, he's right. He's the chief. No, he's great. We love Treebeard. Yeah, he's NSF. Naval Cups. Well, clearly he's still thinking about what his next film is going to be. Right, he's indecisive. Yeah, he's indecisive. You know, Lord of the Rings The Two Towers is opening to$102 million. which is very good. Wow. In like a five day I think. Yeah. At least but still. Yeah. That makes more sense. Pretty hefty. Yeah. Was quite a big hit. Number two at the box office is a film that I very much enjoy. A romantic comedy.

2:36:19Oh it's not Gangs of New York it's Kate and Leopold. Incorrect. Gangs of New York however is number four. We'll get to that. It's not Kate and Leopold. No it is not. Oh because that's a one. I don't know. Well David. You don't gotta give me that attitude. Then is it two weeks notice. Yeah. They're the two you always cite. I love two weeks notice. Mark Lawrence's two weeks notice with Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock and Donald Trump, unfortunately, is in that movie. Was also quietly... In which Hugh Grant says the word, Pokemon. Yes. Beautifully. Also quietly quite a big hit. Huge hit. Made like 90 domestic.

2:36:51$200 million worldwide. That movie is, I really recommend, I really think that is the height of Sandy rom-coms. I think it's a really, really funny movie. And Hugh's obviously very, you know, doing his thing very well. I was going in a Simpsons hole last night and I rewatched Fish Called Selma. Sure. Incredible episode. But there's the moment where the Jeff Goldblum agent calls Troy McClure and is like, and you got an offer for a buddy comedy with Christian Slater and Hugh Grant. And he goes, those degenerates. It's funny. It's a very funny snapshot. It's Christian Slater, Rob Lowe, and Hugh Grant.

2:37:24Right. Yeah. Anyway. Number three, The Box Office is a less successful rom-com in my opinion. Okay. Falling from number one. It's also set in New York City. Made in Manhattan. Also, quite a big hit. Yeah, big hit. Yeah, no slouch. A robust December. Do you like Made in Manhattan? Yeah. The thing I always remember about that is when I first moved to LA, I knew somebody who worked on the crew in Made in Manhattan. I was like, wow, I really know some people who are showbiz. Glamour. That's also one of the most quietly stacked cast movies. Sure. Hit me I mean after Ray Fiennes Bob Hoskins Hoskins is there Tucci's there Tucci's there Chris Eigemann is in it He sure is Francis Conroy Yes Natasha Richardson Yes That's about it Okay well No Amy Sedaris Well well well I'm sure she's funny I've seen the film Don't really remember it Number four at the box office Opening new this week You guessed it Griffin The disappointing opening Of Gangs of New York There we go Which was much hyped And opened to only 9.4 million dollars It did stretch all the way to 77 domestic.

2:38:33And it's like 200 worldwide? Correct. How much? It costs like I think it costs like about 100 million dollars. Oh, okay. I mean, but like at the time that was a lot and obviously it's like a close to three hour very violent epic. Like, I adore that movie so much. I love the Mr. Scorsese stuff on it so much. Yeah, it's good. It's clear that he does not really want to talk shit about it. It is mostly like I'm mostly happy. No, the part where he's like I had to like convince myself to stop thinking about it. I was like, oof. I can't even imagine. Mr. Scorsese is great. I wish it was a year long. I could have done with so much more.

2:39:08Four episodes per movie. But it's really well done. It is. It is. But it is interesting. There's always been this question of like, especially now that Harvey Weinstein is so thoroughly out of the picture. Harvey Weinstein, that like, does Marty not want to go back and like recut Gangs of New York because there was infamously so much interference there? And his thing has always been like, you can't rewrite the narrative of a movie. The movie that comes out is the movie the culture meets. I don't want to revisit my work. Yeah, I somehow feel like, you know, if it's possibly your last project you're working on, maybe you would rather make another movie instead of...

2:39:42But that's how it came off to me, is that he was just like, gotta force myself to move on. It also has always felt, yes, beyond that, that even like in the immediate aftermath, he was just like, I spent 20 years of my life tilting at this windmill. I'm proud of enough of it. that I can't keep obsessing over trying to get this perfect. Movie rocks. I've seen it so many times. It's an okay film with incredible stuff. Huge masterpiece. Completely rocks. Number five at the box office is a sort of a counter-programming solid hit for teens. It's been out for two weeks. It makes$56 million domestically and an additional$713 internationally.

2:40:23Is it not another teen movie? No. When you hear about the disparity, what does that suggest to you about the lead of the film? Is it perhaps primarily a film with an African-American cast? And it's young. Yeah. Oh, it's one of my favorite movies of all time. You want to say it? Drumline! Nick Cannon and Drumline! Oh, what a perfect movie. I have not seen since 2002, but I remember it being lost. Oh, I've watched it. Quite good. A few times. Number six at the box office, making only$3 million less than the opening weekend of Gangs of New York is the opening weekend of the Wild Thornberrys movie.

2:40:59Here's a box office stat I love. I think it, when Box Office Mojo still stood tall and there was the chart for David saluting Red Hulk. Maybe he'll bring it back. There was the chart for lowest second weekend drops of all time. For a long time, Wild Thornberrys held the record because it went up a historic amount. 22%. Wow. Kind of a soft opening and then the families just waited. They waited for school to be out. Totally, totally. Oh my God. Yeah. So it like did okay but the second weekend jump was crazy. Number six is, well, number seven, of course, is the hot chick. Of course. Number eight, we covered it recently on this podcast, is the underwhelming Star Trek Nemesis.

2:41:44Number nine is the somewhat underwhelming Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. And Star Trek Nemesis dropping hard. It was number two the week before? Yeah, it dropped 76%. I saw like every single one of these movies except for Wild Thornberry. That's like a real loose Wild Thornberry. And number 10, Die Another Day, which has been out for a couple of months. And we've also covered on our Patreon. So, you know, things are going well at the box office. Morvern is obviously a little lower on this list, opening number 56. Okay. But, you know, three screens, 4 ,000 screen average, okay, so not amazing.

2:42:15It did feel like... It made less than a million dollars worldwide. It felt like there was a feeling of Morton having an outside chance for supporting actress this year for Minority Report. I feel like she wasn't getting precursors. I agree with you. But she kept being on the bubble list. She was on a bubble list. But yeah, I mean, like no significant awards for it. And she hasn't been nominated since in America. But I feel like Control and The Messenger were both similarly bubble performances where she got on precursors. She's good. I think her biggest performance post that boom is Longford, where she got an Emmy nomination, which is a TV movie, which she's fantastic in, playing Myra Hindley of Serial Killer.

2:42:56And, you know, she's what? She's in The Messenger. I said, right. She's already in that. She got to the curse. She's really good in that. Control, she's really good in. Sure. You don't like that movie? I have mixed feelings about that movie. I love that movie. I think she's really good in that. what else does she kind of pop in? She's in Cosmophilus. I can't say I really remember that. Cygnectomy, we shouted out. She recently did that TV show, The Serpent Queen, which she was the lead of, which about Catherine de Medici that I think was supposed to be kind of cool. And she did Harlots, an early Hulu British co-production.

2:43:34Yeah. And she is in Anenomy, which is not a film I liked, but she's totally fine in it. playing the character's mom. And yeah, she's still working. But yeah, she's, you know, it's a different kind of vibe than what you might have expected. But then like, this is one of the best movies of the 2000s, but I don't watch it going, Samantha Morton is about to be a Hollywood movie star. I watch it going like, what an interesting actor she is. And I hope she continues to do interesting stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Which she kind of did. Yeah, she did. Yeah. But you agree with what I'm saying of, there was that feeling of that wave of UK actresses and then I'll add Cate Blanchett into the pot in the late 90s and the early 2000s where it was a feeling of like is one of these Meryl Streep?

2:44:20Yeah, totally. Is this the start of the next Meryl Streep and which one is it? Right. And it does feel like Cate Blanchett won that race at least in terms of took her a while but yeah. Duration. Right. Yeah. Yeah. She was in there. Emily? Thank you so much for being here. Anything else, Emily, you wish to shout out? Well, yeah. I don't know. It was funny. like this is like I said it's a very very special movie to me and I never I realized also going in I don't think I ever wrote anything about it right because why would you I guess like an anniversary maybe yeah but no it's still like not on anybody's radar so I don't know I feel I feel I feel very glad to get to finally talk about it to somebody yeah you jotted down notes while we were watching the movie on my Fargo replica yes Jerry Lundergard's notepad you'll have to rub on it to see what I wrote yeah it's just yeah it's a picture It's a draggy tree horn drawing of a guy's dick being bit.

2:45:12Yeah, it's the guy from the hotel room. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I said this off mic and I just want to make sure I get this on the record. This movie really made me miss being young, tripping on LSD so badly. Because old tripping just don't hit the same. When you're old and tripping, it's because your fucking shoelaces are untied. You know what I'm saying? Oh, man, you said it. The walker gives out. You said it, Buster. You know what I'm saying? It's very different. It's a different animal. That was so solid. Thank you. Thank you so much. And we also should just say, if you're struggling with depression out there, if you're having thoughts about hurting yourself, contact somebody.

2:45:54There's 800 numbers. Reach out to a family member or friend. Yeah, look, these are going to be more emotionally intense episodes. Oh, Lord. For this run. I feel like we will try to... Every single one is a trigger warning, I would say. Yeah. Yes. in this whole filmography. Yes. Yeah. But thank you. And thank you for being here. I wish I had something to plug, but everything that I'm working on won't come out until we're all like in our 50s. Shogun will arrive on our screens. Shogun Season 2 is about to start filming. People will be happy to hear it. I think it will be filming whenever this comes out.

2:46:29Right. And if you haven't watched Season 1, it's there for you on Hulu and it is incredible. And Emily's episodes are incredible. You can also plug the mortal engines, the abstract idea of them. They are me-engies. They're always there. I mean, they're actually not. They're made up. They're always there. They're immortal, so they're not always there. They're not going to be there. That's part of the tension. Yeah. Tension, that's what we like. It's London. Tune in next week to hear us talk about We Need to Talk About Kevin. That's right. We need to do it. We got to do it. It's on the schedule.

2:47:02We need to talk about We Need to Talk About Kevin. and as always wait hold on oh over on Patreon we recently did an episode covering 28 years later the bone temple oh can't wait to see them bones we've heard so excited good thanks I can't wait to enter I hear it's good that's the that's the Patreon franchise no we're just doing that because we've done all the other 28 oh okay you're catching up yeah you might as well yeah you become a member at Patreon.com slash blank check please do Yeah, and we're also doing the Oz movies. Correct. We're in the middle of our Oz commentary series. It's a funny contrast to do Lynn Ramsey and Oz at the same time.

2:47:42I think it's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. What we're doing here is good and important. Tune in next week for Kevin. Well, now it's hard to figure out a good upbeat note to end on. I know we were trying to dig ourselves out of this hole. Maybe we just dig the hole deeper and put some G's in there. I'll let David sing. I'm a prayer for you, my baby. It's the best. cheeseburgers and orange juice in the club