Anyone Can Cook, Pt. 1 — Ratatouille

29:13And I think that's what popped for me most rewatching this today is that, yes, the kitchen is beautifully detailed and like there are copper pots and like the pantry is wonderfully organized and all that jazz. But the way that like the rats move in it, the way the humans move on roller skates and on the motorcycle, like there is a real, I don't want to use smooth again, but there is just something very like fluid and beautiful about that aspect of the animation to me. Yeah, the two kind of chase sequences from more or less the point of view of Remy, the one where he's first trying to escape the kitchen and everything's going wrong for him, and the one where he's kind of unceremoniously dumped outside and is trying to escape and everything's going wrong for him, are just an exercise in the imagination of where to put the quote unquote camera.

30:06You know, they're so mobile. And of course, they're both so low to the ground because of a rat's point of view. It's just it doesn't feel like something you could have done in live action movies at the time. You know, these days, we've got so much digital camera work going on, that this kind of thing is a lot more common. I'm looking at you, James Gunn, and your deep, deep love of swirling cameras in the middle of the action. But just like the crazy chasing around of following Remy's point of view, I think is a lot of fun. But for me, this era of Pixar was just kind of the era of trust the audience, no matter how weird we're getting.

30:51Just I feel like this early run where Pixar wasn't doing sequels yet is full of just things that are like, you know what, we're going to start up with a 10, 12 minute flashback sequence in which one of the main characters dies. After you see her as an adorable little girl, she grows up into an old lady and she dies. And audiences are going to be moved by that and not put off. You know, Finding Nemo, the way Finding Nemo opens. Monsters, Inc. We're just going to invent an entirely new world in which monsters power things by children's screams. And, you know, going back and forward in both directions.

31:30The beginning of WALL-E, taking as long as it took, and here's why I have completely forgotten how long it is before characters speaks in WALL-E, but at the time, both that and the space ballet that comes later on the ship were considered just like, what are you doing in a children's film? Like, yes, we love it, but where did this come from? And in this movie, you not only have everybody speaking with a French accent and these like bizarre caricatures of characters and a lot of like big Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, like physical comedy mixing with big, deep Pixar emotions. You're just having so much information thrown at you.

32:17I was really struck on this rewatch. I also rewatched it today. How adept the screenplay is, how adept Brad Bird is at just kind of slipping in what Ratatouille is and how people feel about it early enough that you can ingest that information without knowing you're getting something important. and all sorts of little things that come up at kind of the right time to remind you. Like Antonigo, we haven't mentioned since the beginning, but we don't want him to just come in in the third act. We'll reintroduce him to remind you who he is and how you should feel about him. Just various bits of like little information about like, I don't love the Remy explains to the tiny flying ghost of Chef Gusteau what all of the roles in a kitchen are, which is information we don't need ever again in the movie, except maybe to understand that the chef is above everybody else in the kitchen, and to understand where Colette fits into it in particular.

33:17But there's just there's a lot of kind of hard to swallow fantasy stuff in this movie. And the assumption is just that we're just going to roll with all of it. Like, sure, this rat somehow, this country bumpkin rat with an incredibly developed palate, not only taught himself how to read, but also taught himself like which flavors go together. Sure, we're going to assume that even though, you know, we're all human beings and we all have hair and we all know that pulling on your hair does not turn you into a marionette. We're just going to insert that in there and, you know, you're going to roll with it and so forth and so on.

33:55So for me, this is a long-winded way of saying, this was an era for me where Pixar was just, you know what, if the emotions are there, if you care about somebody wanting something and being denied it, somebody wanting to go somewhere and being denied it, somebody needing something and finally getting it, then all of the really, really weird details that other people would not be brave enough for, you're going to buy. I mean, it's all so audacious. I mean, this movie is called Ratatouille. Just calling it that is a leap, and having a rat be a chef is a leap. And as you said about opening WALL-E the way it opens, opening up the way it opens, this is all kind of audacious and really speaks to confidence and almost a lack of commercial.

34:45you don't feel like the sweat as much as you do now i mean i feel like i feel like we're we've entered this era of pixar where things are not functioning as they once were which it happens to every that's what happens in creative life it's things are going to start to decline as happens but you know watching this film again after the two most recent pixars being like what hoppers in toy story 5 perfectly okay films fine but just the level of craft uh the intentionality of the writing, of the direction, of the evocation of place in Ratatouille. It's just on another level. And you think about something like Hopper's, which has an interesting premise, kind of interesting workable premise that just gets overdone and harried.

35:33And it just lacks that fluidity, I think, is the word that we keep coming back to. But I think the fluidity is there in every respect, in the conceit and in the quote-unquote camera moves. in the storytelling, it's just, it all feels, it all has that kind of confidence and cohesiveness in a certain disregard for commercial pressure. It feels very much like a house full of artists who are doing what they want and having, doing it on a large commercial scale that happens to work. And so I think, I think you compile enough hits, they leave you alone. And that's what happened here in this period, I guess.

36:10But I want to try to get into these details, because we'll certainly talk a lot about Anthony Bourdain and Tony and all that when we get to it. But as we were saying in the opening, he talked about Ratatouille as being the best movie about restaurant life that Hollywood has ever made. And I was wondering what you noticed in terms of the details of kitchen work and food culture that really stand out, that kind of make this film a little different from other films of its kind. For me, it's the chefs tasting everything constantly. There are a lot of aspects of fine cuisine in general that just honestly had never occurred to me.

36:45Like the fact that so much is plated by hand that actually really shocked me when I started finding out how kitchens worked. It truly had never occurred to me that when you're getting these like artful little stacks of things, somebody's probably had their hands all over your food. Hopefully not a rat or hopefully they've washed their hands and walked in their back legs. Tasha, they use little tweezers, Tasha. Little tweezers. Sometimes. And sometimes you see behind the scenes stuff and they're just, you know, they've got a punnet of raspberries that have been washed and they're hand placing. A scallop has to be placed by hand.

37:18You can't use tweezers for that. Yeah, exactly. Because it would either leave marks or cut into things. Yeah. Going for omakase sushi and just like watching people prepare absolutely everything by hand, just hands on all the time, was an interesting experience. But anyway, like obviously you make a soup, you taste the soup, sure. But at one point when Linguini's sweetbread dish is going out, the chef Skinner asks the sous chef, like, you tasted it before it went out, right? And he's like, oh, of course I tasted it before he added something to it. And it's like, you're dealing with these things that are smaller than the size of the average scoop of ice cream, but somebody is still taking a bite of them off the plate.

38:04you're going to be served them to make sure that everything is right. And just like little details about that, about everybody just like constantly grabbing a spoon, dipping a spoonful of something, sipping it, going, no, it needs this. And like tossing the spoon into the sink is something that I've seen in real kitchens that I would not expect an animated movie to take time with in this way health inspector you know how much time i've spent like tied up and walk in refrigerators it's really rough i am going to reference something that's talked about in kitchen confidential because i reread the chapters of it that are relevant to tony and the thing that i like that is referenced in that and sort of building a little bit on tasha's answer is sort of the like egalitarian nature of people being able to suggest things like what something might need i like that aspect of it i feel like that comes through remy does not usually agree with the suggestions which i think is a very cute detail but people still make them but the thing that is most again like stuck out to me most in this watch is that there is a hierarchy right like As much as it's like anybody can cook and these people are coming from different backgrounds, there is still a hierarchy and a system and an organization to the way that the kitchen works.

39:34People have very specific tasks and very specific stations. And the only way that you can pull off dozens of diners a night, pull off a turn, is that people are really regimented and get very, very good at very specific things. and I like that sort of division it's simultaneously a division but specialization but also support I like that all those different relationships and how people work together is really reflected in this and that you also get it when the rats take over right like when the rats come over yeah yeah right they each have their jobs yeah they each have their little job that remy gives them and there is something about like the amount of care that i think the film is taking to mimic a real kitchen and how a real kitchen would work from the tasting spoons that tasha mentioned to you're going to do this station you're going to do it all night and you're going to get great at it i really love that i think that's a good point and it kind of justifies the thing tasha was complaining about earlier about about uh remy uh going over with ghost gusto about uh what to uh about how the how the kitchen works yeah detailing what everybody's jobs is it's just like it's like all right that's maybe but maybe it is a lot of information but but that the film finds that important and that it kind of does express the both the kind of flow of a kitchen and the egalitarian nature of it the teamwork involved in the kitchen uh i think it i think that all kind of justifies it because it's a i think a big part of what the film is trying to say about how kitchens work.

41:12You know, speaking of how kitchens work, here's a bit of contrast for you. There's another round of exposition about how kitchens work when Colette is giving Linguini the rundown on why he needs to shop faster, why he needs to keep his station clean, why he needs things organized and so forth. And I love that. That seems much more, and honestly, a whole lot of it is just the conversation between Remy and Gusteau's magical tiny rat-sized ghost is a classic, as we both know, exposition kind of a conversation. He's literally having this conversation with his own head. But when Colette runs through, these are things you don't understand about a kitchen and need to know, it is literally like an expert in the field explaining to a newbie what they need to know and why and informing us at the same time.

42:06And I just, I think it's really efficiently done and really well done and also full of, you know, stuff that again, the first time I saw this, I didn't necessarily know about professional kitchens or never thought about. So I really appreciated like that little run of exposition and also how passionate she is about it, which, you know, not every character here has the passion about food that Remy has, but the ones that do it's it's just portrayed in a very believable kind of way i think yeah so i want to get into to colette and some of the other characters and relationships in this movie but for now we need to take a quick pause for a break and we'll be back to talk about those things

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44:15How many women do you see in this kitchen? Well, I... Only me. Why do you think that is? Well, I... Because how cuisine is antiquated hierarchy are being built upon rules written by stupid old men. Rules designed to make it impossible for women to enter this world. But still I'm here. How did this happen? Because, well, because you, uh, have a home. Because I am the toughest cook in this kitchen. I have worked too hard for too long to get here, and I am not going to jeopardize it for some garbage boy who got lucky. Got it? See, let's get into some of the key relationships in the movie. I guess that the central relationship here is Remy's partnership with Linguini.

44:54And I'm curious to, I mean, that's kind of played more for comedy, but there's a lot, there's some sweetness and some bonding that happens there. What do you think of the Linguini-Remy partnership in this film? I'm ready to just start tugging on my hair and see if my arms flop around. I do think it's funny that it has like stood the test of time, like referenced in other media, like people love this relationship and I do think that again I keep going back to like how it looks it is so ludicrous like as Tasha was saying this is a level of fantasy that we just have to accept but there's some little moments that I really love like when they are leaning in not Remy and not not Remy and Alfredo but Alfredo and Colette are leading in to kiss and Remy just sort of like gives up he just like lets go of the hair he knows the kiss is gonna happen and there's nothing he can do about it there's like a very sweet sort of like brotherly dynamic to them almost that I think is very charming it's almost like this is like Remy loves a meal but this is the version of a brother that he can like talk about his passions with in like a very specific way so i really enjoy that i think that's very charming i had forgotten some of the voice actors in this and i think re-watching it the memory of who they were gave some of these relationships a little bit more poignancy i'd forgotten that brian dennehy is jango remy's dad and there was something about like his gruffness this time around and the I'm going to prove myself to you nature of that relationship that I thought was really beautiful.

46:40I mean, I think they're all, I'm going to say they're all good, but I do think that they are all like a little bit, just like a little bit tweaked and like a little bit more complicated and a little bit more rich than again, you would get from like some of your other typical pre this period children's animation? I feel like I bring up Romy and Michelle's high school reunion all the time because the exchange where they're watching Pretty Woman has just been seminal to me in understanding stories where they're talking about how, oh, this we've watched this movie 36 times. Boy, we love to make fun of it.

47:17Ha ha. They won't let her shop. Oh, poor baby. But I always do cry when they finally let her shop. Like that to me is so many movies. Just it sums up the action and books too. I just stories, the story of you can't have a thing. You can't have a thing. You totally can't have a thing. You get the thing. And the emotional like upwell that comes with that. The moment where Linguini finally admits, like explains not just that Remy is the chef, but like his own part in denying and failing to support and lying and taking advantage of Remy is so, so satisfying. And, you know, justifies kind of a whole lot of terrible assumptions.

48:07The other end of that, that's almost as emotional, you know, it's not that sense of payoff, but it's that sense of pathos, you know, Pixar pathos, is the moment in which he is about to murder Remy and then realizes that Remy could benefit him and lets him go. And he's like, all right, but we're partners from now on. We're together, right? And Remy's like, sure. And then like runs off to safety. and the fact that that like Winnie doesn't chase him doesn't appeal to him doesn't you know beg him or yell at him or threaten him he just stands there and looks so forlorn and then reaches for his bike and gets ready to go and you just you see everything in that moment you see how his life has gone the series of failures that it's been and that this is just okay well one more that's how the world works I should not have expected more and then you know Remy's having pity on him I guess The beginning of that relationship for me isn't in the kitchen and doesn't have to do with fixing the soup.

49:11It has to do with Remy recognizing kind of just how pathetic Linguini is and almost taking the opportunity not to cook, but to help this very, very sad man. It's such a growth of trust. That's exactly right. Like there's so much trust that occurs like as this movie continues in all of the relationships. That's really rewarding. Yeah, you're right. It's like a slow build. And I think and I think it's also just they're good comedy team. So there's that too. I mean, it's just it's just funny to me. The biggest laugh of the film for me is is obviously just the development of their partnership and making food.

49:52but particularly the beginning when Remy's only solution is to just bite, is to bite Linguini every time he makes a mistake and he's just constantly hurting him. That's just good comedy. And I think it, again, speaks to Pixar's ability to play at both ends of the spectrum of the comedy and the emotional end just wonderfully well in these relationships. And I'm glad you pointed out the voice work because I think it is exceptional in this movie. Actually, the Dennehy thing is funny to me because it reminded me then of this classic Patton Oswalt comedy bit where he talks about going to one of these fancy Hollywood parties where nobody eats because they have all this incredible food but nobody eats.

50:43Now he's at the, except for him, he's pegging out and then Brian Dennehy comes up to him and it says character actors. Nobody gives a shit what we look like. So I guess this movie must have been the origin of that story, which is kind of funny to me. But some really nice choices here. I mean, obviously, Peter O'Toole for Anton Ego. I don't know if there's anybody else who could have done that almost because that's like, you just can't. Not anybody else who could have done it, but that's just perfection. You can't ask for a better voice for that role. And it reminded me too of just how you know voice work itself is if we should need a reminder we actually do also need a reminder is a special talent is not the same thing as acting and there's something you know what voice actors do something a little bit more and uh and i think this movie is it demonstrates that i mean even though all of these actors are you know we know them on the screen we know patten oswalt and genean graffalo neon holm and peter o'toole by dan he they've all worked in movies for a really a long time and we know them as screen presences they kind of you know justify themselves as voice actors as well not just celebrities behind a mic yeah i mean my one issue with re-watching this is that pat noswalt is just so ubiquitous these days and he does so much voice work and his uh his live action work is so centered on his voice and his persona and it it doesn't really vary much he doesn't really do voices, that rewatching this, it was very hard for me to see Remy as the rat and not as Patton Oswalt.

52:19You know, it's just, his voice is so distinctive. And we hear so much of it in so many different places. Whenever he does voiceover work these days, I'm like, okay, well, there's Patton Oswalt again. And I love him. You know, I love his work. I love his humor, his creativity, his, you know, boundless interest in criticism and being a critic himself in a really smart observational way. I just feel like he's so everywhere that especially when I hear his voice in a voiceover work situation, I do just kind of get a, it's just too familiar. I can't let the character be the character. I just feel like I have Pat and Oswald like standing behind me like speaking in the mirror that's so interesting i feel like i've missed all of those things for me that person is john ham he does too many commercials and every time i'm like john ham don't sell me on gambling or mgm or a car like i'm just trying to enjoy don draper so i did not have that patent issue but i think what was surprising for me this time is I just forget that it's Ian Holm.

53:30I don't know why. And then like midway through, I remember, and I'm like, this is him getting the opportunity to like play Bilbo Baggins as a little freak. I just, I really enjoy that and having that memory. But I do agree. Like, I feel like I haven't been inundated with as much Patton. Like maybe I haven't been watching the things he's been doing. Sorry, Patton. But it is Patton. I do see that point. Like everybody else, I have a little bit of moment of, I forgot that it was this person, but I'm never going to forget that Remy is Patton, right? At this point, like, they're just the same while watching this movie.

54:07Maybe it's because all of the humans are doing their French accents and the rats aren't. I mean, you know, Brian Dennehy does also come across as very Brian Dennehy, but on some level, I love that character. And that character doesn't require, He's not there much and he doesn't require much examination in the way, you know, Remy is a nuanced, complicated character who is also our voiceover, like, conversationalist. So we just we get a whole lot more of him. And it's kind of easier for other character actors to, like, disappear a little bit, as they well know, when they're pigging out a buffet table.

54:48Yeah, I mean, Janine Graffalo, she puts on a voice. You know it's her, but she puts a little bit of spin on the ball. Kind of an interesting character, too. Colette is the only woman in the kitchen. I think the film tries to acknowledge that and the challenges that go along with that and gives you this interesting, sweet little romantic subplot as well. What did you make of that angle of the movie? You know, I love her speech about being a woman in the kitchen and fighting back against institutional sexism. Like, of course I do. Do you know me at all? I wish that the rest of the film bore that out in absolutely any way whatsoever.

55:29Because she delivers this speech and then she stands up for herself with Link Weenie once when he kind of comes into his own. But apart from that, she is there for a romantic relationship and to be like enthusiastic and mostly silent support for him for the rest of the movie. And it just seems like a waste. without that one speech, she would be an absolute nothing of a character. So I'm glad it's there. I kind of just wish we'd had a little more like elsewhere in the movie. She becomes kind of a classic, you know, thing to be taken away from the protagonist and then given back to him to show that he's successful.

56:12And she kind of is, you know, a classic case of Trinity syndrome. You know, She is introduced as the coolest woman in Linguini's world, somebody who's fought hard for her position, somebody who's an expert and very skilled in her field. And then she's basically only there for him to impress her and win her. So I wish there was a lot more to this character. I think it's interesting that she and I have like a complicated relationship with this characterization, I guess. But on the one hand, yes, she gets this like woman speech, like I worked very hard, et cetera, et cetera. But then otherwise, like to Tasha's point, she otherwise is like interchangeable with the male characters.

56:55Like aside from the romance, like there isn't anything else that really happens that is like, this is her distinct experience as a woman in the kitchen. Like it is, she is very skilled and she just becomes part of the team and there isn't really anything else that happens. And there's part of me that's like, that's a success. Like she's being treated in the same way. Like that's great. that's you know that's like an even playing field but then at the same time the movie does want to have it both ways by giving her this like i've worked very hard and i'm a woman and i had like distinct challenges to get here but then in the relationship with linguine like that first kiss i re-watched that first kiss and it's linguine's foot it's like a classic like animated woman thing where his back foot like slides up his leg and like he is the swooning damsel in that moment right it's her motorcycle like she is like the cool hot one so I you know it's one of those things where it feels maybe this is the thing that feels most early 2000s because it is sort of like this version of a strong female character that really just was like a male character with a couple lines of dialogue and a romantic subplot that coded her as female so yeah like i like it i like that moment i like the barbie speech but there isn't like you know there isn't more that's what it's called now yeah that's what it's called now i don't think there's like more and i want just like a little bit more you know the the history of the uh woman like lifting one foot during the kiss scene?

58:35No, tell me. It comes out of, if I remember correctly, again, I'm doing this off the dome. And sometimes I get facts wrong when I do that. This is why I do so much research. One of the stipulations of the Hays Code was that you could have characters in bed, but not with each other. And one foot had to be on the floor at all times. So, you know, to indicate that I don't know no legs were touching or something. So putting the thing where somebody would lift a leg almost always the woman because as we know you know women are flady and not attached to the ground as opposed to men who have to be planted.

59:13The woman would like lift her leg when the when the two kissed kind of as a joke on that. But then it's been lampshaded so many times in different ways. And having the man do it instead has kind of become a joke on a joke, a hat on a hat. And it's just one that every time I see it, I really love because, you know, it's respecting this iteration of joke across decades and the evolution of it. You know, the code is just sort of like, no, he's the weak one. He's the feminine one. But it doesn't play like that. It plays like a parody of something that was a parody in the first place. And I just, I love it.

59:53I noticed that too and kind of had a little he. So we're running a bit long, but I do want to get to what will be a very important issue for the three of us, which is the role of the critic in this movie. I want to know what you think of Anton Ego and the film's attitude about critics in general his review is the most quoted passage in the whole script uh there's certainly a lot to break down uh here in terms of the film's understanding of our chosen field the excitement of new discoveries etc do you listen to the speech with hearts in your eyes or are you gritting your teeth a bit i mean the cop-out answer is to say both i'm gonna say both but i think i am a little bit more teeth gritty as i get older and like more you know i'm lucky enough to spend more years doing this or whatever i i do think other people are risking so much more than us and the thing that we are doing is comparatively simpler i don't love because i think it reduces what we do to just a general like, I like this or I don't like this.

1:01:07But like, there's so much more research and consideration and thinking about form and considering storytelling. I mean, all the like, look, like even this conversation, all the things that Tasha has been like, I researched this and I have a beautiful, thoughtful take and all the things that Scott is like this very uh this very clear opinion is something i'm going to express like it bothers me that i think the film sort of suggests that like that just simply does not take as much work or as much effort which is not to say that like creative work is easy either but i think i have this like immediate like oh this is such a beautiful sentiment reaction and then if i go on twitter and someone is yelling at me about something that I wrote, then I'm like, no, screw this.

1:02:00Tasha, what about you? I mean, the first time I saw this, that speech, was just an automatic cry moment for me because the moment where he tastes the ratatouille and is transported back to childhood, I love that so much as a construct, and I double love it because they don't explain it. It would have been so easy to have another speech where Antony goes like this, transported me back to my childhood and made me remember blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the way that I felt back then, and only food can do that, the combination of taste and smell, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we get none of that.

1:02:34We just get the image. And again, we're back to Pixar Trust. Pixar trusts us to understand what this all means. So, I mean, it is hilarious to me that Anthony Bourdain called this movie out as being like the most accurate film had ever seen about the kitchen when it's so inaccurate about criticism. The fact that anti-ego is very clearly insanely rich. We know that he didn't grow up rich. We know that he grew up in rural poverty. So absent an extremely rich uncle leaving him a whole bunch of money, presumably he worked his way up as a critic uh whose whose only thing is saying that all food is terrible i look at the way people respond to any criticism today as you know they they think they're better than uh you know people create things uh they think their opinions are so important i'm like where are the people like who don't aren't interested in the opinion of somebody who only ever has sour things to say.

1:03:40His speech where he talks about how negative criticism is fun to read and write, I think that's 100 % accurate. And I think the observation that one of the greatest positions of critic is discovery and championing of the new, I think that's very true. Although I kind of wish that he called out that that's fun too. Because one of the happiest experiences I ever have as a critic is when I watch something, you know, small and obscure and unheralded. And I kind of feel like, ooh, I got there first. And now I get to tell everybody about how great this thing is. I get to do my absolute best to make sure everybody I know sees this movie.

1:04:22I'm going to take people I know to see this movie. I'm going to show it to them. And I get to write about it and why it's unique and why people should see it. That's a great feeling. So I like that part of it. And maybe for that to land, he's got to be a monumental villain. But for me, the tooth-gritting speech is where he comes into the press conference and proclaims that Linguini has been working without an opponent. He's been playing the game without an opponent and that that's against the rules. And every aspect of that. I have talked to hundreds of critics over the years and hundreds of people just at film festivals.

1:04:59And here's what they all do. They love movies. And they're perpetually looking for something great and exciting and new and challenging and fun, or even just like comforting and well made. None of them have ever considered themselves an opponent of film, or, you know, an opponent of the filmmaker. Maybe some of them think of themselves as an opponent of the mediocre, but I don't know. The way the critic is portrayed here strikes me as the perspective of a filmmaker who has only ever engaged with critics by reading negative reviews of their work that they disagree with and has never spoken to a critic for two minutes.

1:05:43yeah well i mean that's the thing is like there's all this research that's clearly been done about the way kitchens work but not a conversation with a film critic and i think i think i think you've seen you see this in other depictions of critics on screen which are you know that just it's just a working out of aggression hello lady in the water yeah it's just like there's a certain amount of animus there um that uh and and a disrespect i think to uh what it is that we we do and a misunderstanding of what it is that we do i i do sort of grit my teeth even the part that i should embrace in that final speech the part of not new discoveries there's almost there's still something there about like oh so we're useful when we're helping somebody you know we're like aiding someone's career you know like when we're giving them a boost you know and again it's it is exciting as a critic when you discover something it can lead people to it but like the whole idea I think of criticism is to evoke thought it's not really about tearing movies down and or raising them up it's about kind of just going as deep into movies as you can and helping people think yeah and bringing people with you and yeah and of course you know over the years it gets worse and worse because as our field gets more and more desperate it's like what are you kidding me like it's it's you know for anyone even to have a job doing this is incredible and uh you know the pay isn't great and uh you know leave us alone uh so uh so and i think it kind of but i get it and it sort of works but i think to tasha's point the ending works because of that moment because of of the idea of food this proustian moment of this dish bringing him back to this moment in his childhood that is an incredible sentiment that's that's that's art there and and the rest of it i can kind of wave off because because that's kind of the moment that justifies you know that character's existence in the movie to be uh above some of the irritations of it i will say uh as far as we're only useful when we're helping somebody's career that that's not the way i mean it i i think we're most useful when we're helping you know people who want to watch good films or you know want to experience uh great art when we're helping point them in that direction and like i've engaged with some filmmakers over the years like I will confess to a little ego boost when one of them retweets one of my pieces and says, this person gets it, or this is a really good idea, or this is really well written, or whatever.

1:08:16But ultimately, the lowbrow idea of what we do is that we're a consumer's guide. Is this worth your money or not? I think maybe some of the better work that we can do is steering people in the direction of, you're going to spend money on movies, spend money on these movies. probably the most meaningful interactions I've ever had about my own criticism are people saying, I watched this because you told me like that it was good and why it was good, why it was interesting. And I loved it. Thank you for bringing it to me. Or I read your thing and it helped me think about this thing differently. Or it helped me think about this genre or this area differently.

1:08:56So, you know, as champions of the new, I don't think of that as primarily to the benefit of the filmmaker it's to the benefit of people human beings are scared of new things it's just infinitely demonstrable throughout human history yeah so you know being out there in front saying like i will i will take the hit of experiencing the new thing and tell you what yeah that kind of tell you what temperature the water is advocacy is great getting people to to push themselves a little bit to kind of expand beyond what what um what they may may you know do on their own etc that is, oh, that's great. Oh, that's a good function of what we do.

1:09:34But over, under, throughout your career, roughly how many times have you confronted a filmmaker with a new project coming up and said, pray that you don't disappoint me, you know, in your best like Darth Vader voice? I don't know. If I had that kind of power, if I had that kind of form, maybe I would do the anti-ego thing and just, you know, be the kingmaker or something. But it has not happened. I mean, where are all of our individual butlers in all of our individual mansions. I was promised. I lost my butler in my giant mansion. Ratatouille promised me that with this career. I don't understand what went wrong.

1:10:13And also, you know, that people would hang on my every word and, you know, make specialized dishes just for me out of absolute terror of disappointing me. This is why I crash filmmakers' press conferences all the time, you know, because the press hangs on my words far more than theirs. well anyway well we have a lot more uh criticism ahead of us uh in the next episode when we uh bring in tony uh the the anthony bourdain biopic in relation to ratatouille but we're gonna stop for now and come back with feedback

1:10:56this is Becca and Tanya from scrubbing in with Becca Tilly and Tanya Rad Becca can I ask you a question how do I convince myself I need something before I buy it oh so we're doing that today well I'll be shopping online and suddenly I'm like well technically this counts as self-care you're definitely not alone there that's why Klarna stands out. It's about smarter tools that help you feel more confident with your money. Klarna brings payments, cashback, and money management together in one place with flexible ways to pay. It helps you make smarter money moves without the stress. That's the goal, right?

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1:13:34Now it's time for feedback. But first, we wanted to check in on the FPU, the film spotting podcast universe. On the Mothership podcast, hosted by Adam Kempinar and Josh Larson, the fellows are digging into Spider-Man Brand New Day and offering their choices for the Dissident Cinema Awards. Michael Phillips' new podcast, The Movie Racket, continues to question popular assertions about the business, like Howard Hawks' idea that a good movie is three good scenes and no bad ones, which he discusses with Billy Murnett. and FilmSpotting SVU and Movie Deathmatch are turning out episodes weekly and monthly respectively so keep an ear out for those too.

1:14:12You can find all of those podcasts plus the latest Next Picture Show episodes at filmspotting.net. Now it's time for feedback where we address some of the responses we've gotten to recent episodes or anything else in the world of film. We got a terrific email from Josh in Los Angeles about the Coen's Oh Brother O 'Art Thou which we had recently paired with The Odyssey. It's too long for us to read in full, but I do want us to read an excerpt, and maybe we can bring in some of the specific ideas that Josh offered us. Tasha, want to give us the gist? Sure. Josh writes, I really enjoyed your discussion of O Brother Where Art Thou, because I've been a stan for the last 25 years.

1:14:49It's overstuffed with themes, ideas, and illusions, so it provides much discussion fodder. Can I make a humble contribution? This is my theory. The Coen brothers watched Sullivan's travels, and like all carbon-based life forms, they loved it. I think they were struck by the vast distance between where the movie began and where it ended. It began in a modern, fast-paced, thoroughly modern Hollywood, but it ended in a prison camp in a dark swamp in an almost medieval Louisiana, a place still dominated by stifling traditions. White supremacy, like the Klan rally in O 'Brother. Violent eye-for-an-eye vengeance, like the chain gangs and Sheriff Cooley's posse.

1:15:23a moral system dominated by patriarchy, e.g., I'm the paterfamilias, and puritanical Christianity, e.g., down to the river to pray. He's bona fide. The Coen brothers might have wondered to themselves, how could these two settings possibly exist in the same country at the same time, 1937 or 1941? Take your pick. And by asking this question, they stumbled into a question that historians, my tribe, have been asking for decades. When did the South stop being backwards? When did it modernize? When did it start to catch up to the rest of the country? Yeah, and so that is just a portion of this letter.

1:15:57So I do not want to shortchange what Josh has done here because he kind of breaks down a lot of the elements in O Brother, Where Are Thou that depict 1937 Southern society, you know, and it's just a lot of good information here that I wish I could summarize in full. But I think there's something, and maybe it's something we can include, I guess, in the show notes or something, Tasha, right? Something, maybe put this letter in full on the Patreon. Yeah, we can put it on the Patreon, not locked. So, you know, anybody can read it. That's probably a better place for it to live permanently because people can find it that way.

1:16:35Yeah, because there's a lot of ideas here. But I think just the basic... Also, there may be a character limit for show notes. It's long. It's long. I know, show notes is not right. But the Patreon, we could probably put this letter in full there because there is a lot here. but I think this main idea that Josh has is such a good one. And it kind of, it was just nothing I ever thought about because when I think about Sullivan's, this movie being the title of the movie that the director intends to make in Sullivan's Travels, I think of almost just as a joke that the Coens have taken, they've just taken and gone and ran with rather than something that is actually related to the substance of the film Sullivan's Travels And then also then to the history of the South and what their take is on it in What Brother Were Out There.

1:17:21So I think that alone is kind of an exciting idea. But maybe I'm a dum-dum for not picking up on that originally. I don't know. What do you all think? I guess I, if Josh was here, I'd be asking him for a source material on the South modernizing, the South being like the rest of the country. I mean, to my mind, you know, without getting into when did the South stop being backwards is such a like a loaded and slanted question in so many ways. A big question. It's a rhetorical question. Yeah. But the way Josh is posing it is also a historical question. I would say that, you know, in my experience, the South still has a very different culture.

1:18:09And maybe it's not as remarkably different as it was in 1937. I don't know enough about comparative cultures in 1937. The ideas, certainly the ideas coming up in the movie of like the dawn of like mass communication that transcends a region. and the kind of the end of cloistered regionality is very interesting in that regard. But in terms of, you know, progressive politics versus conservative politics in particular, I don't know that the South is the same as, quote unquote, the North. Right. Well, let me actually be, to give Josh some credit here, I want to read something he writes at the very end of the letter, which speaks to what we've been saying here, which is uh here he says suffice it to say since the 1990s many historians have argued that maybe earlier historians were asking the wrong question instead of the south modernizing becoming more like the rest of the country the rest of the country ended up becoming more like the south this is why more people need to watch the movie with an exclamation point so uh yeah i mean i i side with tasha in this and that like i'm from maryland grew up in maryland never left we are technically the south the areas of maryland that are outside dc very north like super blue but you drive like 30 minutes into like rural parts of maryland and it it is it is incredibly southern so i just i i just like i i have like a lot of squishy feelings i think about generalizing in this way if only because i've been to other parts of like new england that also feel like the south but they're new england do you know what i mean so like i i think maybe this question of like maybe the rest of the country ended up becoming more like the south maybe i mean i think there is just like a broader conversation here about like the many ways in which american culture has been frozen for a long time no matter where you are that probably can't be uh answered in this conversation yeah it's true and and the degree to which culture in particular spreads those changes yeah whether it's south to north north to south east to west the the degree to which culture puts us all on the same footing like historically i think is very interesting and maybe you can point to some of the political particulation that is going on in the very modern era.

1:20:43And maybe there's a before and after thing with culture being articulated the way it is, you know, with the diminishment of the mass audience for anything. We don't have the kind of things that Oh Brother in particular is holding up as, you know, the one song that everybody loves that's getting us all on the same page, like the Sullivan's travels, communicating, you know, comedy puts us all in the same place and therefore everybody loves a comic movie because it boosts the downtrodden and makes the higher up higher born understand the downtrodden. You know, the more culture, the more cultural audiences granulize, the less, you know, passing on of culture to one from one region to another we can get.

1:21:32well I would recommend you know reading Josh's letter in full because there's just so much about it gets into so much detail about specific conceits and characters and sequences in A Brother We're Out There it's a film he's thought about a lot and it's a nice letter from him so thank you I think it looked like this may have been he said it's a great discussion I'll be tuning in from now on so maybe he's a new listener so we appreciate that thank you Josh that's it for this episode of the next picture show in our next episode we'll talk about matt johnson's tony which follows another grimy imposter in a professional kitchen this one a college-aged human named anthony bourdain look for that next tuesday on your podcatcher of choice for ad-free versions of the podcast and extra content find us on patreon at patreon.com slash next picture show you can find us at next picture show.net and on blue sky at the next picture show if you want to keep track of when new episodes drop until then please remember that the next time you get perspective it might go nicely with that bottle of Coval Blank 1947 which you've been saving for a special occasion

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