Last Looks: Return to Oz

24:32And, like, just the weird names of characters. I love the dumb shit that Carpenter puts in his stuff that's just so idiosyncratic and him. Like, Desolation Williams. What a fucking name. Great name. When I did Sleeper, there's a character named Genocide Jones, and that is a tribute to John Carpenter, the way he names characters. What is it? Napoleon Williams in Assault on Precinct 13? It's like Napoleon somebody. It's always like a really flamboyant first name. And a very generic, you know, like Slaughterhouse Bill.

25:08Jason Mantzoukas:I mean, it's very Thomas Pynchon, right? With one battle after another, like all the names mean something. But here's the thing. I like Ice Cube. And I think, though, he falls into that category of not knowing how to walk that line between dumb, tough guy. Like, that's what, like, Kurt Russell has in spades, right? You believe that he could maybe win in a fight or that, like, he's got a bravado and ego. And I feel like with Cube, it's like, no, this guy's just cool. No, no, he's the same guy from Friday. Right. Yeah, exactly. He's great, but he lacks that. What's wonderful about Kurt Russell, especially in these movies, let's say Big Trouble, is that character loses fights.

25:55Jason Mantzoukas:That character is willing to be embarrassed, you know, or willing to be. And that we don't have in this. Everybody's at maximum heroism, you know. I agree. Like you want just somebody that just feels like they're. Should have been Statham. Right. Or you just have Natasha Hendricks not be, like, you need somebody to have, like, everyone was too cool and too tough. And if that's the version of the movie and you're making a B movie, then you need to make them dumber, but also cool and tough. But I feel like they were just cool and tough. But maybe that's directing. I don't know. Everyone seems so pissed off.

26:31Jason Mantzoukas:Every interview that I read, they're like, he fucked us. Even Ice Cube is like, I'm a big John Carpenter fan, but don't watch that movie. and I'm like, oh man, I feel bad. Because it's like, it's literally the last thing Carpenter made that I think is interesting at all. I don't know if he's made anything since then. He made one movie after that, I think in 2010. Oh, that Amber Heard movie or whatever that I never watched. Where she's like in an insane asylum. I don't know. Did John Carpenter ever talk about working with Chevy Chase? Because that is really interesting to me. Oh, I'd love to know.

27:06Jason Mantzoukas:Oh, that to me is like, that, because that guy kind of peak Chevy Chase, like right where he's like, not peak, but like, oh, it's not going to go great. Right. Like, but like you could tell he'd be like an asshole. Oh, I bet you there's some good stories there. Also because John Carpenter is so no bullshit. Yeah. He's like, he says what's on his mind. I love it. Apparently, according to the blank check, Beverly D 'Angelo is the only person who has never said a bad thing about Chevy Chase. There's always, always one defender. Only, always one. I will point out Beverly D 'Angelo was married to Al Pacino forever.

27:49So, like, Chevy Chase is probably not a big deal. Yeah.

27:52Jason Mantzoukas:So much more easier to handle. I did a short film with Beverly D 'Angelo, who was absolutely lovely, very sweet, kind. But the funniest detail I remember is that we were going to set. We were at this restaurant. and um she pulled up to set and gets out of the car and she's like al's in there like al just sat in the car the entire day because they were going to go to a concert that night so he was just out in the car the car didn't turn around the car didn't like he just sat in a parked car for maybe eight ten hours and i love like i just love that he was there didn't come in didn't roll the window down just sat in a parked car and you check all the time i wonder what the concert was it was like for their kid.

28:36Jason Mantzoukas:I feel like it was a band that both of them would not be going to. It would be the equivalent of them going. We're going to see Vampire Weekend. Exactly. It felt like something very odd like that. Just to give you a little sneak in, because I had to Google this as we were talking, John Carpenter claimed that Chevy Chase and Daryl Hannah were the stuff of nightmares and impossible to direct. in particular Chase would often refuse to wear his special effects makeup and would remove it prematurely ruining a day's worth of filming oh my god I need to dig into this movie a little bit more Chevy will be on the show he's great at improv he's so comfortable on stage the Disney Plus Hulu HBO Max bundle the best in entertainment in one bundle This month, stream Disney and Pixar's blockbuster family favorite, Hoppers on Disney+.

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30:55Jason Mantzoukas:Taxes and fees extra. Default terms at mintmobile.com. Ed, you've been out in L.A. a lot, and that is because, well, I mean, you've lived in this world. Your stuff has been optioned. You are a legend in the business, but you got to be the showrunner of one of your projects for Amazon, right? Yeah, yeah, Criminal. God, it's been like three years, it feels like, since it started. But yeah, no, I had developed it at Legendary before the pandemic. And then a couple of the people from Legendary ended up being execs at Amazon. And so they revived it over there. Now, I will say that I got to see two episodes of the show, early cuts of the show.

31:41Jason Mantzoukas:And it was fantastic. You gave me a lifelong dream come true, which was you screened it for me. And can I mention the other person? Shane Black. It was amazing. It was amazing because I also, you know, the best thing about Shane Black, I will say as a lifelong fan of him was he, he gave notes the way like Columbo would leave an investigation, like bag in hand, like I'm just about out the door, turn around like, And then for half an hour, he was almost out the door, like, well, one more thing, and then had these thoughts. But it was so funny because he had the body language of someone that was leaving, but the deep, smart notes of someone who was like, oh, yeah, I'm cracking into this.

32:32Jason Mantzoukas:It was I loved watching it. I hung on every word. And I think at the beginning, he might have thought that I was like an Amazon executive. So I think he was careful to understand who I was before he gave any any feedback. I told him who you were. All right. Good. Well, I'm I am. I'm a fan. It was one of the coolest things. That was really crazy because he was mixing the Parker movie. Yes. At the same time. So he was on the lot for a couple of weeks at the same time as us. And Shane, you know, I met through Brian Udovich and Drew Pierce a long time ago. And he's a big fan of Criminal and a big fan of my graphic novels and stuff.

33:13So we have gotten together a few times. And, you know, he gives me advice about, like, writing stuff. And, you know, I consider him sort of like one of my mentors in this field to some degree. And it's great because...

33:27Jason Mantzoukas:So much so, Ed, that on the cover of your new criminal book, The Knives, you got a Shane Black quote right on the front. Brubaker and Phillips, don't hit a wrong note. Yeah, I was very thrilled about that. There's nobody better. I didn't want to ask him for a while because I was like, I got to get to know him better before I hit him. I don't want to just have him think like, I really like the guy. Like, he invited us to a party at his house a little while ago. Oh, wow. That was crazy because it was like a really big Hollywood party that's in a Shane Black movie. I was just like, oh, wow, okay.

34:01Jason Mantzoukas:You got to say yes to the Shane Black invite. I mean, that's it. Oh, yeah, totally. I'm probably more comfortable talking about what happened in Criminal than I am about that party. You should be. I just want to say I got invited. No, you can say you got invited. But I will say the new book, the new criminal book, Knives, is about this cartoonist who's going to Hollywood in the era of peak TV to work on an adaptation of his comic strip. And I'm just wondering how much of this is based on what you just told us coming to Hollywood to make criminal. I have to say it was I loved this. But I mean, like, just to set it out, I think these books, the criminal books are some of the great modern books.

34:46Jason Mantzoukas:Love them. The Knives catches us up with some of the characters that we've been following in a bunch of other criminal stories. And so it was both great to spend time with characters that I love and that I've been spending time with for years. But then exactly to Paul's point, the Hollywood stuff was making me laugh so hard. when he gets to go to town and gets to be part of the room and starts to dress and talk differently and become a douche and then immediately gets kicked out. I was like, this is incredible. I realized after I started it, it needed to be like a Kafka-esque story about a guy not becoming a cockroach, but becoming a TV writer.

35:28Yeah. Because it is like a metamorphical decision that you can make at some point. And someone asked me how much of it was true. And I was like, oh, God, Jacob is always a worst case scenario character for me. Like his childhood reflects a lot of pieces of my childhood, like growing up as a nerd who's like too much of an introvert, but who always wanted to be different. but like the emotional parts of his journey of like coming to Hollywood and, and like going from wanting to be like an individual artist to wanting to just be like a cog in the machine and, and how like every now and then you wake up and you're like, what the fuck am I doing?

36:06And like that part of it was very real. And one of the things that I didn't realize being the show runner, like, I guess I, I guess I realized because I've been in enough television now to know how much rewriting happens after the scripts are already in production or you've worked on some

36:26Jason Mantzoukas:very interesting shows that without naming names that have had a lot of restructuring after yeah oh yeah no when we were watching episode one of westworld we had like a viewing party at my house of all the season one writers uh our co-ep on that first season literally i had to stop her from like punching the screen because she's like what is this because it was completely different than what we had done. She's like, the first 15 minutes are a completely different show. Westworld, a show that is famously went smoothly. Yeah, it was. I mean, I was on season one when it was, I think everyone still thinks season one is the best season of that show.

37:04And I learned a lot on that show. But, you know, like all of those scripts, we would write drafts and then the showrunners would rewrite them. But I didn't realize how much on shows where the showrunner isn't adding their name to things that they've literally rewritten. Sometimes almost every, I mean, there are some episodes of Criminal that I rewrote every single word on, and there are some where I only rewrote like 80%. And there's like a couple where I didn't do almost anything, you know? So it was like, oh, this is just weird. But then in post, you end up doing so much changing and writing and rewriting and ADR.

37:39Jason Mantzoukas:But that's the job, right? That's the job, yeah. You're the showrunner. You're going to do so much, you know, work and and your name will always be associated with it. Like no one will ever say, oh, you know, like will reference anybody else but Vince Gilligan when you talk about Breaking Bad as far as like. Yeah. I mean, yes. And there were brilliant writers on there who are, you know, all great. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like that was a murderer's row of great writers. And the same thing for Lost. It's like that's you always get that heat. But it's funny when people who are in that position opt to put their name on everything as if they will be forgotten.

38:16Jason Mantzoukas:Or it's like, yeah, it's a weird it's a weird choice. I gotta say, I've talked to a lot of showrunners about it, and coming from comics, it's very weird to me not to have my name on anything I write. I have sort of an authorship kind of ego about it. So it's just it's a weird thing in the industry. And I can kind of see it both ways where it's like, I think the problem is that the critical community that talks about television is unaware of it. or even if they're unaware of it or if they're aware of it they still feel because so and so was listed as the writer they want to give that person credit because they don't want to just and i agree like i you know so it's just it's just a great it's a weird gray area but like the show runner is really the voice of the show like criminal in the end of the day i have credit on one episode but that show feels more like me and my work than anything else that's ever existed you know well it's it's interesting because it's like i think that there's a this weird miss the conception like what you're saying like when you go for the emmys a show is like an episode is nominated which i think is such a flawed concept it should be nominate the show right now i'm like who cares about the specific episode it's this is the writer's room this is the thing and you know and like you said it should be everyone should take part in that but like because a lot of the times what happens is and i think this is the thing that was written about in difficult men like you know there was a sopranos episode that was written by a junior writer and and and uh and david was it david chase yeah i was like upset about it because it was like oh this person's out in front of this sopranos episode even though it's you gets gone it goes through a process it's not like you know i think i mean famously matt weiner yeah if you got 20 percent of your dialogue through a david chase rewrite you considered that a victory like if you had any dialogue in an episode of the sopranos with your name on it that wasn't rewritten by chase i mean by the way david chase can rewrite anything i ever write and not put his name on it he is my fucking hero so i can't wait for his mk ultra show no i literally i have two different showrunner friends who have watched like people on their staff win Emmys that like they rewrote that episode page one and and was like and the person didn't even thank them and so it's like wow weird so like but how often does that happen to you like once in your life maybe so yeah it's just a weird industry and it is very collaborative so but because of that I think going into it I I honestly didn't understand how much work I would do in post.

41:00Right. By the time I was in post, it was just me. That's the final draft in that way. Yeah, it was just me. I remember when I went out to lunch with Shane the next day after that screening, I was saying that to him. And he said, look, writing the script and making it, the script and the production, that's the ingredients. Post is when you cook it. And it's like, are you a great chef? Do you have great chefs working for you?

41:27Jason Mantzoukas:You know, like, well, but this is like the thing I always like that I found because somebody who's written comics or just a very small handful of them. It was backwards. Right. Because like when you get to work in TV, you you conceive the idea. Then, you know, you cast people and it kind of changes and you're shooting and it kind of changes again based on location and actors and things that happen in the moment. And then you're editing it and it happened. You know, it's like you're kind of developing all the way from inception to completion. and comics or anything like a graphic novel is locked.

41:59Jason Mantzoukas:Like you give, I mean, yes, you have your idea, but it's got to go all the way through the process. So I imagine - Yeah, and it's got a deadline usually too. Yeah. I imagine that that might've been fun though to have more time to ruminate within a specific episode or go back like to do reshoots, like you said, you don't go, oh, I could tweak that. And I didn't realize that that was something that could actually connect here. That's the fun part of it, I think. Yeah, no, I, yeah, no, I really, I loved Post, honestly. Like, it was long at times, but, like, learning to work with my editors and also seeing, like, where, like, oh, this episode isn't working.

42:37How can we fix it? And, like, restructuring. Like, it had never occurred to me. Because Refn, I would look at the cuts and stuff, and he didn't really want to hear what I had to say about what he was doing. Like, he didn't listen to anybody.

42:50Jason Mantzoukas:I would love a podcast that would never get published that is just you talking about working with Nick. I'm pretty sure he'd be fine with it. I told him that I had based a bad guy in one of my books on him. And he's like, oh, you should do a memoir about our time working together. I could help you with it. I'm like, yeah, Nick, you don't get to write my memoir about our crazy relationships. Our show was memoir worthy. I mean, dude, yeah, there's so many stories from that show. And they keep coming out every now and then. And it's just like, oh, wow. Yeah, that was a crazy three years of my life, too.

43:29It's just, yeah, but a totally different experience than, you know, doing your own show.

43:33Jason Mantzoukas:But what a sense of authorship you have over Criminal now, in a way that do you feel like it is as close to the kind of work that you and Sean get to do in the books, basically, you know? I mean, I think it's as close to feeling like my books as anything. Like, I've had several things, like, where people have tried to adapt my stuff that haven't gotten made. Or I haven't been involved at all. And one of the things that I think I've realized more as I work in Hollywood about what makes my stuff my stuff. Like, I'm not saying my stuff is the greatest stuff. Like, yeah, you guys obviously think my stuff is the greatest stuff.

44:15Jason Mantzoukas:but it's the greatest listen i and i have no problem uh uh putting that out into the world but seriously like i think i realized in the last like couple of years because when other people adapt my stuff they kind of sometimes they miss the part that makes it me and right like what i do generally is i use genre tropes or genres to write really character driven grounded stories where the people within these tropes are acting like real people like you or me or people you know where so you can identify with these people but they're in this big genre story and i also do things to subvert your expectations based on what you think would happen because of a because of the genre so often when people are adapting my work or have tried in the past to adapt my work into movies and stuff like incognito like great writers worked on incognito but the studios that were trying to turn that into movies didn't understand how you could do a black comedy about a supervillain and witness protection so they would constantly force them to turn it into a superhero origin story yeah and then it's like well that's like no you're not going to make a superhero origin story about somebody no one's ever heard of and they want it to be they would rather it be the it's what it's it's literally what happens to jacob in the knives yeah you know they want it to be generic they take the the the kind of kafka-esque character that he's created in the comics of this detective who finds himself in these absurd worlds or these absurd cases and all they want to make out of it is just a straight pi show without any of the trappings of kafka you know and then jacob that's the that's the crucible that jacob goes through in his hollywood chapter in the knives and then we find him later and he's back at home back writing back in the basement back drawing and writing comics it appears to be doing like what's the new character uh ed it's a basil beaver basil beaver basil beaver private eye who is who looks like it's like a black sad character i feel like right yeah it's kind of that i don't know that part of it really came out of nowhere i was like i like the idea of him sketching and making fun of the producer of the show and uh you know and i just had this idea that he draws him as like some kind of a beaver or an animal or a weasel or something.

46:47And he's masturbating as he's like saying something. And then I was just like, what if when he goes home, he just keeps drawing more funny animal things. And then it becomes like, that's his next thing. Cause he's not going to do Frank Kafka anymore because they ruined it. It's so funny.

47:01Jason Mantzoukas:I love there's so many of your books that take place inside of Hollywood, whether it's old Hollywood, I'm thinking of Fatal or the Fade Out. is another one like and they really are like like i love how much you're interested in excavating the true evil of this town i mean look when i get to like a taylor sheridan level of success i'll have other things to write about are you gonna also follow him to universal i mean he doesn't get there for three years maybe i'll get there first i would love it that's the best i love throwing down the gauntlet like that yeah fuck yeah i would love it if by the time taylor sheridan gets to universal you've already got killer be killed and velvet on it's funny i'm like wait are we dissing him no no not at all we're like i love him he is a guy i mean he's all i want is to be on land man you would be so amazing as a cartel guy on land man please you're the cartel lawyer come on it's i just started watching it it's awesome i like lioness i like all these shows that they're like but like it's amazing to me someone told me a story about him uh about tulsa king which i loved which was he talked to stallone on the phone and was like well what do you want to do and stallone like you know told him i like this like this and uh he's like okay got it and then within four hours delivered a an hour-long show to stallone he's like all right i'll do this like that well it was a rewrite of another pilot though okay got it okay okay yeah all right that makes more sense terry winter is coming back on that show yeah yeah i think in the new season stallone was basically the showrunner yeah i i had auditioned for something on there i was very excited about it and uh and the word i had gotten back was we're not really a room or a showrunner so it's gonna you know i was like i was like oh okay it is a i mean a lot of my crew came from bass reeves actually like oh wow like my line producer had done bass reeves and so yeah i had a lot that was actually the only way we were able to get garrett for uh for teague lawless uh because he's on tulsa king we we had good relationships with 101 studios we were able to like get them to move him around a little bit that's why that reshoot was so crazy that jason was part of because yes jason we can reveal that you are a part of the televised criminal universe now.

49:39Jason Mantzoukas:Oh yeah. Don't, don't, if you don't get it twisted, everybody, I am the star of Amazon criminal. It is a pivotal role. Um, yeah, Jason, Jason was part of those reshoots, but yeah, we did because of actor schedules. Now, sometimes it's so crazy trying to get like, uh, I think my friend had a show and because of an actor schedule, they had to run for like a week. they had to run four sets to be able to shoot this actor out for the whole show in one week so it was like oh shit like so yeah when you get like so it was like our reshoot schedule was literally just built around being able to oh we only have garrett for these two days and uh so we shot two we shot in three days we shot seven days worth of material we had two sets running and a second unit.

50:28Jason Mantzoukas:I will never forget when June's dad passed away, I was in Chicago. And there was I couldn't get to, like it was a timing thing, right? My flight was going to leave at 11 o 'clock at night to get to New York. And I was on this independent movie and they knew that if they lost me for like these four days it would kind of screw up things. The way that they maneuvered that one day to shoot five days of work into this one long day and i made my flight it was something i will never forget i was like holy shit like when p like we i mean because it like it was a big deal you know amazing it was truly uh an epic feat where like things are changing set dressing is going i'm getting like appliances put on me it was it was really impressive and you know it's not ideal obviously but it's amazing when when you can make those choices i think in a weird way too you become looser you can't hold on to anything you're like we're just going we're going to get this thing and maybe you find something cool in that moment too yeah no i love that i loved the production and yeah that i mean being a showrunner is a really really fucking hard job with a lot of the the parts that i didn't like about the job were just the frustrating parts of the waiting or the having to deal with too many people's opinions about a thing but like the working with the actors and the crew and the directors and like i you know i directed like the second unit for our reshoots because like i had given up the idea that i wanted to direct i originally came to hollywood because i wanted to write and direct like and um you know i got to sit next to d reese on an apple box for three months and it was like the best film school ever and like my camera operator matt moriarty is like one of the best steadicam operators in the world and you know i just worked with these like world-class like actors and crew and well that's the thing the show looks amazing yeah and it's big it's a big fucking show and i feel like that's the thing that i was really not shocked at but like you know i think sometimes when you know it's a streaming show you see where the seams are like or the cuts like you know we're talking about john carpenter not wanting to shoot action and you see like sometimes shows will move away from that every now and then they'll really lean in but this is a show that feels like a movie it feels like it has all those things that we know from big budget uh you know it just has a pace and a tone and energy it's great i think what's also great about criminal specifically is both in book form and now in your adaptation, these are, the scale and scope of these stories is massive.

53:16Jason Mantzoukas:The books take place over the last 50 years? Yes, 70 now. 70 now? Okay. Oh yeah, because now we've caught up to modernity. Yeah, because Dead and the Dying starts in like 1952 or something. Yeah, okay. So what's crazy is you are constantly pushing us through time, not only with these characters who we visit at different times in their lives, but we're also following these characters' families. We're following fathers. I mean, so much of it is fathers and sons, both on the criminal side, mothers and daughters. By the way, can I give you my best note? I was pitching a show, a movie actually, to again, giant person.

54:03Jason Mantzoukas:And, uh, and I, and it was a comedy and it was about a father and son. And the person stopped me in the middle of the pitch and said, I got to stop you. There's never been anything funny about a father and son relationship. And I was like, Oh, uh, thank you. I get, Oh, sure. I, it was the craziest note I've ever gotten and easily disputable. But it was like... I'm just going to go to a show I hate. Frasier. That's funny. Wait, how do you hate... Wait a minute. Wait, how are you hating Frasier, Ed? What are you talking about? I'm just mad at him because I was in love with Lilith. Oh, wow. Of course.

54:45Jason Mantzoukas:For you to come that way to it? Oh, my Lord. I love it. Well, guys, I'm so sorry. I have to run to go work on that movie about the father and son, which is now a very serious drama. All right. I'll let you guys take it away. OK, we've lost Paul, which is great, because now Ed and I, we can just talk about comics because, Ed, I feel like there's been a long time. Correct me if I'm wrong. We're a bunch of these books have been out of print or difficult to find. And now they are back or they are coming back. I think it's just been, yeah, I think it's just been that they've been, I haven't been out of print, but I've been having to reprint them a lot.

55:25But yeah, no, I reprinted all the criminal books. Sean did these new designs and new covers. So they're all branded. And I forced him to redesign the whole thing so that we would have these brand spanking new additions ready for when the show debuts. And that's been fun to deal with.

55:43Jason Mantzoukas:These are books that if you have not yet gotten, I cannot recommend them enough. These are stories that are so fantastic and have been unfolding now for decades. 20 years. 20 years, right? But not only, I know we're talking a lot about Criminal. I feel like you've got a new volume of the Friday books collected. Yeah. Which I think is. We've got the big Friday deluxe hardback coming out. Which this was one of my favorite things that you did in recent years that I feel like I was caught by surprise when you started doing it because it was one of the books that was launched as an online only book that has now migrated to physical copies.

56:22Jason Mantzoukas:And it's you and is it Marcos Martin? Yeah, it's Marcos Martin. The absolute genius, Marcos Martin. Yeah. This book is incredible. And is this as close to an all ages book as you get? I think so. I mean, there's fucking and swearing, but I guess so. Yeah. But it's I mean, I would give it to a teenager, 14 year up. I I stupidly thought my friend, my friend Tom, who is a writer director I was working with on a movie a couple of years ago, had I want to say an eight and a 10 year old. and I thought they they they're really interested in comics and I said look look through this and blank out all the swearing and stuff and I forgot about the monsters and one of them brought one of them to school and got yeah they got sent home from school they were having like a little bit of a panic attack so eight might be too young I got my nieces I got all my nieces t-shirts I had them custom-made t-shirts that just said poop on them and uh and I was like I I was very clear just to save their parents the headaches.

57:29Jason Mantzoukas:I was like, these are only for at home. Only these are at home shirts. Okay, everybody was excited. But one of like a 10-year-old snuck it into school and changed at school and then got in trouble. And so everybody got in trouble. And it was really juicy. I loved it. That's the kind of uncle I like to be too. Classic uncle shit. Yeah, I'm not a dad. So I'm the uncle who's like, why is uncle had outside smoking pot? It's like, because he doesn't have kids. The best. I also want to shout out the one of my favorite series that you've been doing in recent years are the Reckless Books. Oh, yeah. Which are a series of like P.I.

58:10Jason Mantzoukas:I mean, if I was talking about it as a TV show, I would say Case of the Week. These are these are pulpy, you know, pulpy, quick read books that are just a single case. They're not as sprawling as the criminal stories are or some of the ones that have these long tail effects into other books. The Reckless books, though, they relate to each other. They are very concise in a lot of ways. And they're great. Yeah, the first five of them cover the 80s, basically. They go from like 1981 to like 1989 or something. And for guys our age, for middle-aged guys, it is the sweet spot of PI stories in that it is a Vietnam vet who is down on his luck, who now owns a movie theater in downtown L .A.

58:59Jason Mantzoukas:And just show it's like all I want is to live inside of these stories. Yeah, it's very much my, I made a list of like the things, because if you have a recurring detective character, you have to give them like these eccentric things that like, so I was like, what would I want if I, I had been holding on to that idea for like 20 years of like a main character who lived in a movie theater. Great. And just, but didn't let people in. Yeah. Like it's just. Oh yeah. It's just my movie theater. he's like sitting in there with just him and his assistant watching movies and it's like you know those places this is my holy spot like no and yeah i'm i'm uh my friend duffy and i um who was on barry and is like the number two on the lowdown where we're currently adapting that as a movie for amazon that sebastian stan is attached to star incredible thank god because that's something that i've asked you multiple times yeah uh to let me uh adapt and you have said no i'm doing it Yeah.

59:59Jason Mantzoukas:And it is one of my all time favorite books and one of my favorite all time ongoing series rather. And I cannot wait to see it adapted. I think it's an incredible series. I want to ask you about I've asked you this before, but I'm going to ask you again, because when you publish books in in single issues, you always put in back matter. You always put in at the end of every issue will be an essay about a film. Usually films, a series of essays across the run of a book that are speaking that you have a friend or a film critic that are related to the book that you're reading, the movies that relate to the or sometimes you'll publish the music that you've been listening to or whatever.

1:00:46Jason Mantzoukas:But especially to me, I've found so many great movie recommendations. On those nights where I'm like, what do I want to watch? I have a list in my phone that are like the movie recommendations from the back of Ed Brubaker books. And that's like real stuff. So like, does that live anywhere? because you fastidiously will not put it anywhere but those books to incentivize people to buy single issues, I think, in a great way. I mean, it was partly to incentivize people, but partly to just make the single issues something special. But the thing is, like, a lot of those, I mean, I wrote a lot of them at first, and then I started having friends write them.

1:01:31Like, my friend Jess Nevins wrote a lot of the ones that are about pulp history. and then devin farachi wrote a bunch of them and you know and then he got canceled and um and then uh kim uh morgan took over for a long time for years writing them and like i just paid everybody like a flat fee to for like one-time printing rights so the only thing we own officially is the um the the art that sean did for the essays oh so to be able to do like a printed collection of all of them i would need to go back it's like i've got to get patent and i get it some people are dead now who wrote some of them and it's like i can't get a waiver signed by them like i've thought maybe put up all of them on like a website because then it's like no one's making money off of it and maybe that's maybe that's a way around it i think everyone would be happy if i printed a book with them i think the people who wrote them would probably be happy the reason i didn't do them in the books originally was because i didn't want to detract from the books yeah and i wanted people to just because you don't get to the end of a crime novel and have like an essay about you know night of the hunter by your by the author's friend

1:02:49Jason Mantzoukas:but boy does it also give us incredible sean phillips like robert mitchum lee marvin like i love sean started doing those and then got hired by criterion almost immediately he did like sweet smell of success yep blast of silence because he did that illustration for blast of silence in the back of our uh comic when patten wrote about it and then criterion's like our one of our readers is like the art director of criterion and so criterion optioned that movie and hired sean to do like a whole comic book adapting the opening sequence and do the and do a new painted cover and it's like so i was like wow an article in the back of criminal by patten oswald got criterion to release a movie that was isn't that it that was the most influential movie on martin scorsese that no one had ever heard of incredible incredible and i only know about that movie because patten told me about it like i that's the thing i miss about the the single issues is that part of it like the building of the community yes and i do kind of miss that from only doing graphic novels yeah we have a next month we have a uh it's called giant size criminal number one and it's just like a big 48 page criminal one shot i think it comes out like the first week of december in comic stores and it's print only comic stores only and i wanted to really reward the comic stores and like sort of incentivize them to know nobody can get this anywhere but at you so buy a lot of them please yeah and this is like really find your local store go buy it this is not like and you've done this before you know did you i think you did this with maybe cruel summer yeah or yeah i well when i put out hardbacks i don't do digital versions until the paperback yeah so because it's like you can't get a hardback book on your kindle you know it's like i noticed like dan clowes and chris ware books are not available at all digitally and i'm like yeah because that's a part of the experience is holding it in your hand and reading yes but like in that single issue i got um kieran gillen my friend kieran is like a big comic book writer and game guy and i got him to write a criminal rpg module so that sean illustrated so there's like great a criminal game that you and your friends can play with a deck of cards and a table you can imagine you're sitting in the undertow post heist trying to trying to fucking backstab each other and dealing with a game master and so karen wrote that whole thing for me and sean illustrated so that's like one of our extras in this big 48 page thing and then i wrote like a sort of intro to who the, who all, who the world and characters of criminal.

1:05:31And, you know, so it was like fun to do that. So I think we may, you know, try and do that stuff once in a while, just because I just like, you know, being able to create like fun art objects that really create a community, you know?

1:05:44Jason Mantzoukas:And I think you are, you also are constantly working with a list of collaborators who I think really reward that, you know, like even what you did with, um, Are they called the Martini Editions? Oh, yeah, the Martini Editions. These are the adaptations of the Parker books that Darwin Cook did that they then published in large format that you, I feel like, were very involved in shepherding into existence. Am I misrepresenting that? I mean, I was part of their PR campaign a little bit, I think, because I wanted to sort of champion that because Darwin had always really wanted to do those. And so when they put out the first one, we did like a big roundtable interview, me, him and the editor, Scott Dunbeer, and Tom Spurgeon, who died a few years back, sadly, one of my best friends.

1:06:34And then in the second Martini edition, Darwin had passed away, like really tragically. And suddenly I found out he was sick the day before he died. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was. I didn't know it was so sudden. It wasn't as, it was a few months, I think, of, you know, but it was a thing where everybody thought he was getting better and then he suddenly took a turn, it sounds like. But so for that book, like, Sean and I oversaw that book, like, edited it and designed it. Sean designed it. And then we did a new original story for the end of it. And I felt too weird writing a Parker story. So I wrote a Grofeld story about Parker and about missing Parker as a tribute to Westlake and to Darwin.

1:07:23And but I because of that, I had to I have the unique distinction of being the one of the only people ever to get permission to write an original Parker story by Donald Westlake's widow. And I had to write the story first. Interesting.

1:07:40Jason Mantzoukas:That makes sense. And we've come full circle. Shane Black's new movie, Play Dirty, is an adaptation of one of the Parker books. I think it takes two or three pieces from different ones. To me, that movie, I really liked that movie. I thought it was a lot of fun. But I felt like it felt like a weird mishmash between a Richard Stark, Parker, but also a little bit like one of the Grofell books. and but also about 50 like a shane black movie yes you know like it was very clearly what i feel like it is when it wasn't parker it felt shane black yeah and it was like and i think that that was like one of those ones where like the parts that i like the most about it i think are the things that the critics maybe didn't like like people don't understand parker as a character not at all yeah not at all they want him to be likable yeah they want him to talk about his feelings and have not at all never he is never gonna do yeah i told shane i was like this is one of the best portrayals of parker since lee marvin honestly because this stoic asshole yeah but that's what people don't get they're like oh they want and it's like maybe walberg who's usually such a charismatic guy usually very funny in things like i always think of him and the other guys and oh yeah you know and uh and the daddy movies yeah yeah daddy like all his stuff with will ferrell is what i think of and i you know i love those oh yeah so seeing him as parker i was like honestly i was relieved that it wasn't downy because i couldn't imagine a version of downy as parker because he well downy wants he wants to be liked so much yeah you know and that's not parker no i mean downy's one of the best actors in the world i mean kiss kiss bang bang is still incredible you know incredible shane because he's perfect for shane yeah i feel like he's perfect for shane black but i remember when he was listed i was like oh no that's yeah he should be grofell the guy who talks too much and is an actor and it's like flamboyant and stuff like but shane was like no he wants to do like a lee marvin and i was like oh cool well let's see it and then of course you know he he didn't do it and they got walberg instead and walberg really does sort of he's closer he's very like tight-lipped and tough and you know so i felt like it was a it was a really good parker but then i was looking at some of the reviews the first day i'm like oh i'm gonna stop reading these because yeah i didn't read it's like the same thing when like the guy who's the who's the like main critic for the times doesn't understand what a showrunner does you know you're just kind of like okay so you don't know anything about parker but you're going to review this movie so okay but that's that's that's it that's where we are that's where we That's where we are.

1:10:19But I just am hoping that we get like another Nice Guys movie or something. Because I just feel like the Nice Guys is a movie that gets better every time I watch it. Give me more.

1:10:28Jason Mantzoukas:Give me more of that. Absolutely. Well, I'm being told we got to wrap up. And I could literally talk about this for the next two hours. You're one of the greats. Thanks for making the time. Thank you. And I cannot thank you enough for having me on Criminal. It was the thrill of a lifetime to spend two hours in makeup having bruises and cuts applied to my body, looking like someone had beaten the shit out of me. It is a pivotal role. Thank you again, Ed, for joining us. Now it is the moment you've all been waiting for. It is time to announce our next movie. Next week, we'll be going from a slow-moving train to a zombie craving brains.

1:11:06Jason Mantzoukas:Ooh, I love that. That's right. We'll be watching the 1993 teen horror rom-com, My Boyfriend's Back. The movie stars Andrew Lowry and Tracy Lind with an A-plus supporting performance by Edward Herman, Mary Beth Hurt, Matthew Fox, and an unhinged Philip Seymour Hoffman. Yes, you don't want to miss this one. The IMDb breakdown of the plot says a teenage boy comes back from the dead because he's determined to win the most beautiful girl in school. Here's the thing. He's not her boyfriend. And Jason and June love this movie. So, are they right? Are they wrong? Well, Rotten Tomatoes gives this movie a 13%.

1:11:41Jason Mantzoukas:And Ty Burr from Entertainment Weekly says, My boyfriend's back is obviously aiming for the subversive high school yucks of 1989 Heathers, but the storyline never bothers to make sense. Which, honestly, I agree with. Listen to the trailer. They say you only get one chance at life. But for childhood sweethearts Missy and Johnny, true love will never die.

1:12:16Jason Mantzoukas:My Boyfriend's Back

1:12:32Jason Mantzoukas:movies, music, audiobooks, and e-books, and comics for free. All right, that's it for Last Looks. If you listen to us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, please rate and review us. Please make sure that you are following us and have automatic downloads turned on. It helps the show, and we appreciate it. Visit us on social media at HDTGM, and a big thank you to our producers, Scott Sani and Molly Reynolds, our engineer, Casey Holford, and our social media manager, Zoe Applebaum, as well as our intern, Quinn Jennings. We'll see you next week for My Boyfriend's Back. Finding ways to be financially savvy is a smart move, and knowing you could be saving money for the things you really want, like that dream home or new ride, is a great feeling.

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