‘A House of Dynamite’ Is Ready to Explode

28:43Yes. And this is Tracy's character, the general's character. And he's talking with another officer and the officer's like, really, do you let your kids stay up that late? And the Tracy character goes like, they give you a choice. And the other character's like, no, they do not. And I was like, that is succinct and makes me understand a lot about these people without it being like, and here is the sonogram of my life. You know, which like we've all been there, you know, like we've all looked at those. Well, anyone who's, you know, looked at those pictures. But no, so he's wonderful. And he also, he is playing like a familiar part, but because he is our friend, Tracy Letts plays it with both gravitas, but also like a real, like you believe him, like, you know, points are made.

29:36No. Even if, even if you're like extremely anti-war as both of us are, like, you're just like, well, I see what he's saying. You know, I saw Begonia for the second time last week. and I was thinking about something after I saw that, which was that being right is not a solution. Yeah. And I felt that way similarly about Tracy's character in this film. Like being right is not the solution to the problem. It is working together with people to better understand one another, to try to fix things over the long term. The thing that I noticed the second time I watched it that I think is a clever bit of structure in the screenplay is that these first figures that we meet in Act One are these like observationist cogs in the machine.

30:15They're in the situation room looking at screens. Even the Ramos character is waiting for someone to tell him what to do. Yeah. In the second act, we're moving closer to the center of power. You know, we're meeting, you know, General Anthony Bradley. That's Tracy's character, who is the combatant commander at StratCon. Okay. This is cross-cutting. He's a big deal because the whole room stands up for him. Yes. He is the leader of this space. He is clearly one of the most elite generals in the United States of America. Yeah. The movie starts cross-cutting with another character who we've heard in the first act, along with Tracy's character on a series of Zooms.

30:52Right. Named Jake Barrington. That's the Gabriel Basso character. He's this young bureaucrat. He's got a pregnant wife. Yeah. Stressed out. He's on his way to work. Right, because his boss, the head of the NSA, is getting a colonoscopy. Yes, he is unavailable. Which is a funny detail. Sure, and it could happen this way. It could totally happen. What are you going to do? Yes. and the thing I like about the way that that character is set up is that he's not at work when this call comes over so what do you do if you're 37 and you work at the NSA and you have the most powerful general in the world the head of the Department of Defense Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States on a Zoom call and you don't have service and you're 900 yards from your office in front of the White House that was pretty clever Pretty clever setup for the severity of this conversation too, which is this is the only person really who's available who can speak to the international relations that might be informing this situation.

31:50Because like there's a lack of information because there was no satellite pickup of where specifically this missile came from. Right. Again, like through the first like 60 minutes, I was like, this movie is really clever. And the obscuring that information in the first part, maybe this was a huge, like a boon to this. You know, like I was a little skeptical because I don't really like that. Now let's see it from this angle perspective. And everybody always calls that Rashomon, but that's not what Rashomon is. Rashomon is people lying about what happened. This is just a different perspective. I've just seen Rashomon in so many reviews of this film.

32:23Just like do it to the camera, not to me, you know? Okay, I see. That's what bothers you is when you think I'm yelling at you. Yeah, I'm just like, okay. It's not Rashomon, you fools. Anyhow, so you've got this character who's trying to race to get into the room so that he can explain. Like he can't get through the security at the White House, you know. And they've shown you like Rebecca Ferguson going through security and everything before. So they were like setting up the world and then peeling back little layers of it, which I like. Yes. And then he has to get on the phone with Russia, which is just like cribbed from a West Wing episode.

32:59But that's okay. Do you remember this one? I do. Yeah, yeah. Why should we destroy ourselves 10 times over? Surely once is enough. If you know, you know. What's up? what's the new secret social network the social reckoning here we go in production right now not ready for it at all yeah they turned a museum into the capital for Jan 6 I thought that I know I saw that in Vancouver I read that piece too I I think that this stuff is mostly effective yes it's like you're still on the train you're all along for the ride with it I am through this I am and I'm kind of waiting to see because it does feel like this character this NSA character has more information than we need to learn.

33:39We've already seen that the GBI does not intercept the ICBM, right? That Ramos's team fails. Then we see it from this character's perspective as well. We see Tracy's character - Does it fail or does technology fail? Well, I mean, that's an interesting data point in this movie. It's only 61 % chance in testing of being successful. A coin toss. That's what$50 billion buys us. Yes. All great points. All good stuff. This does feel like a very well-researched and by all accounts accurate representation of what would happen here. Okay. We're continuing on. As Barrington says, it's like trying to hit a bullet with a bullet.

34:18Yeah. You forgot that he has to call Gretelie, who has a day off and is taking her small child to Gettysburg. Metaphor alert! Yes. So that specifically is when the movie really starts to tip over for me. No, no shots once again to Gretel Lee, who I think is put in a bad position. No, it appears as though she is making the most out of her past live success. You know, very fun cameo in the studio this year. She was in the film Tron Aries, which I'm the last person who will ever see that film. You know, this movie, she's on screen for four minutes being a mom. She's tearing it up on the morning show.

34:54Oh, good. Okay. She's not just a mom. She is also a mom who is the DPRK expert. Yes. And she also knows a lot about how China is using AI or testing AI to launch missiles or some shit. She was on word salad patrol in this movie where she just has to spit a lot of jargon through the other end of the phone to communicate to the audience. While people are reenacting the Battle of Gettysburg behind her. I think if you want to teach your children about the Civil War, that's great. If you want to go to a reenactment, that's great. I'm not criticizing that specifically. Putting her in that scene is really bad writing.

35:35Really bad writing. Yeah, it's silly. It is like the most hat on a hat thing ever where it's like, let us go back to our war 200 years ago so that we can reflect on our current state of war. I mean, it does give like, this movie is in rooms and on screens. It's why it's there. And so it's why it's there to like be outside and give them something to direct. I understand it. Yes. But I was like, oh, I see. I see what we're doing here. I, I, and this is where the movie loses me. And it's not the, it's not my most frustrated aspect of the movie, but it is the most like point at nose. Again, as a student of the West Wing, you know, like I was still, I'm, I'm on the train and I'm aware of the train tracks at that point, but I will, and I'm locating my exit, but I'm still on the train.

36:22But that's hopeful 19 year old Amanda with her stories. That's not what we're talking about here. This is an elite filmmaker with the biggest media company in the world. Okay, I know. But if it turned for good, if it landed the third act, then I would have been okay with it. You know what I mean? That's all I'm saying. It's like you're locating the nearest exit and you are aware of the load-bearing metaphor, but you're going to keep going. Yes, I'm with you 100%. It does not land the plane. Okay, but before, actually before it gets to, the first thing I think that you see in Acts 3, which I only noticed again last night, I think it's before you meet the president because the president has only been, it's only been Idris Elba's voice.

37:09Yes, a black screen in the YouTube boxes. That's right, because they can't get him on like the right secure feet or whatever in time. So you have not seen him yet. And I do think before you see him, you see a guy who's like an elite flyer, and he's somewhere in the South Pacific, and first he's surfing, and then he has to get out and surf, and he has to have a locker room talk. And I just, listen, Catherine Bigelow casts the three hottest guys you've ever seen as the fighter pilots, and I was like, yo, thank you. It's so funny you say that. They're so hot. They're just like shirtless for no reason.

37:50And I was like, this is my girl. I watched this with Eileen as you watched it with Zach. And really, this is the upside after all of our movie theater conversation about Netflix and streaming movies in general. It's like, it's Friday night. Yeah, here we are. What are we watching? There's a good movie out this time. And she said the exact same thing. That guy in the locker room, she was like, who is that? What have we seen him in before? Look him up for me, please. Yeah. And that doesn't happen very often with the movies. And I think it is exactly what you were describing. Of course it is because he is surfing and then he wanders in.

38:24And then the two other fly boys are also quite attractive. And they're just there and they're talking about like taking presents home to their kid. You know, and I was just like, yes. That's mom porn. Here I am. No, thank you. So she still has an eye, you know, she still has passions. And I was like, okay, I'm back in. We'll talk shortly about how this movie looks and the formal choices. I do have some feelings about that. but her casting instincts are still, the cast in this movie is mostly pretty good. Well, well. Until we get to the president, which I think is really the fatal flaw of the movie in a number of directions.

38:57So we do ultimately find out that it is in fact Idris Elba, that he's only been on the black screen. I think it's because he's on a sat phone. It's not because they don't have any video. And so is his wife, Renee Elise Goldberry, who is saving the elephants. Yes, she's in Africa, which, okay. Again, like, I know we're trying to get a variety of topographical experiences. I think that saving the elephants is also supposed to be like some sort of metaphor of, you know. Yeah, it's like the pointlessness of trying to preserve this world in a time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And trying to experience a natural world.

39:27And those elephants are real. Sure, great, I'm glad. Well, it's better, listen, you want to talk about CGI creatures in Netflix movies this year? I understand everyone's like, see Frankenstein in theaters, but like, okay, guys. I mean, it wasn't the first lady riding on a stampede of elephants. It wasn't an action scene. You know, so the president is just having a normal day. He has, he's just taking a meeting. he has this in-person event. It appears to be a young women's basketball camp led by WNBA star Angel Reese. And so he's got to get in the car and go and he's got to perform the role of being president.

40:01And when that is happening, he becomes aware of this event and he has very quickly hustled out of the event. First of all,

40:12just like the whole act of like going to the Angel Reese event, just like lead balloon. Like the movie, the momentum and interest in the movie just like dies. Just like sinks. Because you're like, we already know what's going to happen. There's nothing surprising about what's going to take place. Any moment where we see him like making nice with the kids and with Angel, you're like, okay. Well, I don't know. The very small little girl who... She made a shot. That was awesome. It's great. I was like, yeah, I was churned by that. But this isn't TikTok. It's a fucking movie. Like we can watch nine-year-olds make baskets all day long.

40:47Well, I think you'll find that all movies that want to be successful now do have to have a TikTok moment, including a little girl shooting a thing. But... I started feeling that like you can look down at your phone energy in Netflix movies during this part of the movie, which is not what you want in Act 3. Here's the problem is that Idris, as the president, has no interest or charisma in it and is just like whining about his knees and his jump shot throughout it. And see, he's charisma-less even in this moment where you know if you you think of a president and like the casting of idris and is like clearly meant to evoke obama and is but also not but there's also there's definitely some like george w bush and even a little donald trump in this sure but there is also in the situation room there is a framed photograph there's the famed photograph of obama and biden and everyone watching the osama raid like this takes place in our world yes and so but he's but he doesn't have the charisma of any of the people that you just named you know what I mean to me like it's so confusing but to me this is just a complete failure of casting this is a 53 year old British man being asked to shoot a basketball in the movie not a good choice no well it's definitely when he they cut to a double you can see it for when he actually makes the shot that cut to a double.

42:08I didn't even notice that. They do, because he cannot, yeah. Then the double's form also was not great. What? I, it's a bad performance and a badly written character. And it totally spiked the movie for me. In addition to the fact that I already felt like once they go back to repeating the structure again, I was like, this really better be good. Like there better be something in this third act that makes this pay off. And I think it thinks it's doing that and it doesn't and we can get to that. But Idris is, he's just miscast. I don't think that the movie really, I think the movie thinks it needs a star in this part instead of an actor with gravitas in this moment and he has no gravitas and when he's he's trying to do like a little bit of a folksy accent thing that doesn't really work which is weird because his accent in Stringer Bell is so good but this accent is kind of all over the place and it also just the way that he shot in this series of of events it's meant to be this kind of the anguish of this man like a lot of tight close ups yeah a lot of like hand on head and I just didn't buy it at all.

43:08Like, it really doesn't work. As Zack said, it's like a really bad Idris Elba performance also. I agree. Which is very confusing. Like, this is a person. He's usually very good. Yeah, and who has a tremendous amount of charm and, like, pull on the screen. And, you know, the characterization from the very beginning of, you know, he calls his wife, who is again away, saving the elephants. And you see on his phone that she's labeled as the boss in his phone. And he's just, you know, tired, beleaguered, just kind of low energy, doesn't want to put up with this. The conversation about my mother-in-law, I'm just like, this is like stand-up comedian hack work.

43:51Like, this is like what people think the president is talking. It's like all this post. Is it? You know, no, it is, it is. It's like a little bit of the Barack Obama, Michelle Obama dynamic, right? Where he's like constantly kind of in her, the glow of her power. and he's constantly being like, I'm so sorry, I'm such a loser. I'm Barack Obama. Right. So there's some of that. Yeah, but like, he wasn't a loser. You know, that's like the thing. No, of course, of course. I mean, Idris Elba is also, he's like incredibly tall and handsome. It's very confusing. He's the president. I know. So, but anyway, to me, it's more about the movie just downshifting specifically to spending almost all of our time with this character as he is moving with this guy, Lieutenant Commander Robert Reeves, who is this military attache who hangs with him.

44:34Right. As soon as it becomes clear that this event is happening. Well, isn't he with him at all times? He is. Because he is the man holding the nuclear diner menu. Isn't that what it's called? I thought the nuclear football is usually more like a device that you push. Oh, maybe. You know, that that's like the button, but it could be that as well. I don't know. He's holding the guidebook. It seems like that's not protocol. Like the protocol is a bunch of cards that Idris Elba is, as the president, is carrying with some 20s and a rubber band, which is a detail I liked. Yes, that's like EV drivers with their cards.

45:07Remember when after like three years of having a money clip, you were like, now my spine is forever altered? It's about sitting on your wallet. Oh, and so - Do not sit on your wallet. Oh, is that what it was? Put your wallet in your front pocket. And so, and then you switch to a money clip? No, well, I have sort of, you know, I'm going to share this with you. Okay. Oh, you have one of, that's what Zach has too. Yeah. But I remember one day, it was like the day that Zach came home and was like, did you know that alcohol has calories? And one day you came home and you, One day you can work and you're like, did you know that if you sit on your wallet, your spine is forever altered?

45:38Yeah, I have some questions about the act of being a chiropractor. That was one tip from my chiropractor that was very helpful.

45:48As soon as they are traveling in the car and then eventually in, is it a helicopter or an airplane? No, it's an airplane. No, I think it was a helicopter, but it is like a very stable. No, it's a plane. It's a plane. I'm pretty sure they're on a small plane. Well, yeah, you're right. Yeah, they're on a small plane. Okay, no, you're right. You see them jogging and Idris has to, the Secret Service guy has to keep physical contact with him until he's on the plane. But then I did notice the plane itself is just very clearly a set and very, very stationary. They really, really... This is part of it too.

46:22This whole movie that has been building up to this sense of finality, the air starts going out of the balloon and I'm like, is the air going to go out of the balloon all the way before this movie even ends. You know, we do see that this is what the president would have to do. He would have to try to gather all this information, maybe over a phone call, about what we know about the incidents thus far, what the percentages are. He's going to hear strongly worded cases from military leaders, from diplomats and bureaucrats who are attempting to avoid massive destruction. He's going to have to try to understand a world that maybe he hasn't spent a lot of time thinking about.

47:02what are really the motivations of North Korea right now or China or Moscow. Right. And then say, counter-strike, do nothing. Yeah. Well, and he and Jared Harris, who played the Secretary of Defense, which, okay. Another kind of nightmarish performance, in my opinion. Just like, we should not be casting English actors in these roles. This is stupid. Rebecca Ferguson and Jared Harris. Like, what are we, you know. It's very dumb. It's really, like, we have great American actors. See, Tracy Letts. Yeah. Rebecca Ferguson, Her accent is bad, but her performance is good. She's barely trying. Well, she kind of usually struggles with this, honestly.

47:40I'm never like, well, she's from Kansas. You never think that. She has like the Mark Ronson transatlantic thing going on, you know? But so he and Jared Harris have a conversation as president and secretary of defense where they're like, is this what, like, what are we supposed to do? We only got one briefing about this. I got another briefing about, you know, this what to do when the Supreme Court justice dies. And does he want to. I thought that was like decent, you know, writing again, the casting didn't make a ton of sense. I'm just pulled out of the movie. Yeah, performances with the writing itself.

48:17I was like, I get what you're trying to to put across here. I think it's the problem, too, though, is that the point of the movie is clear by the end of the second act. Yeah. And it's kind of done what it's supposed to do. and then it doesn't really know where to go. Or it has an idea of what it wants to do, but it can't really accomplish the intensity that it necessitates to make it feel impactful. In my opinion, this is how I felt watching the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we follow through. We've seen earlier in the film that Moses Ingram's character, who works at FEMA, has been identified as a DE, a designated evacuee, and that she gets to get on a bus and go to Raven Rock, which is a nuclear safe facility.

48:58Self-sufficient nuclear facility. Yes, in Pennsylvania. And we see that other characters from the film are headed in that direction and all people are kind of converging on that. And that's something we've seen. There's a long history of nuclear scare movies in even just an American movie history and British movie history. Like there's a tons of great ones. People point to Failsafe over and over again. The Sidney Lumet film, which I think is way superior to this movie. You know, Dr. Strangelove is one of these movies. The British film Threads is one of these movies. On the Beach, the Stanley Kramer movie.

49:25there's a whole long history of movies that are about this thing so like we have an awareness of what this is where they're headed but before the president makes his decision on the plane we see this image of everyone these buses pulling towards the gate that is leading to Raven Rock and then everyone pulling in yeah and then we see Anthony Ramos fall to his knees outside of Fork Really yeah and then the movie ends and then that's it yeah and this is one of the most like kick the full bucket of paint into the street movie like endings to a movie I've ever seen where I'm just like what the fuck?

50:03And I know what I know what it thinks it did. Okay. I get that it's like and now we must all live with the consequences of this terrible predicament that we find ourselves in Yeah. Well there's no good answer. And there's no good answer. Yeah. I understand that. I'm certainly not for the continued proliferation of nuclear arms. I don't really believe in violence at all. Yeah. But this is a movie. This is not a guidebook to the procedures in the event of a nuclear attack. Complete your film. Okay. Say something other than like, gosh, this sucks. Yeah. Am I crazy? No, it does feel like many people felt that way.

50:43I sort of got it. I was like, okay, there are no good endings. I agree with you. I wish that the Idris stuff and the stuff in the plane and when he's presented with the guidebook and the attache is like, you know, I call them rare, medium and well done. I wish that that were performed at a higher level. And I wish that that hit, because if you get to it, then the essential nature of those scenes is like it all comes down to one guy like on a plane in three minutes with like a diner menu in front of them. and also think about the guy in question, like right now, who's making those decisions. Like, it's not good.

51:24And it should be a lot scarier and just a lot more emotionally frustrating than it is because of who's in it. But I don't know. The Raven Rock of it all, that being the last image. And then I don't know what Anthony Ramos is doing in this movie. Respectfully, that's a really, really great theater star who has been sort of, who has stuck out of every single film that he's been in. Except for Transformers Rise of the Beast. Sure, and I guess he, yeah. He's kicked ass in the Beast War movie. So the last two shots, I can't defend in any other way. The sense that there are no good options, I think it didn't bug me as much as it seems to have bugged you.

52:08Well, I think that the Ramos image is meant to be kind of in dialogue or kind of a recurrence of maybe those, that final image of Jessica Chastain at the end of Zero Dark Thirty, right? Where she's like, she's on the helicopter and she's just kind of like, the weight of the world is on my shoulders. And what does the future hold? This is disastrous, right? There is something in the cinema of Catherine Bigelow in the last 10, 12 years that is kind of like, these giant systems have been built over time and they're starting to calcify. And when we're confronted with something that is really scary, like in the event of the attack on 9-11 or, you know, in the Hurt Locker, like I'm trying to just, disarm IEDs, or if an actual nuclear attack, this is the absolute pinnacle of what she could be addressing.

52:54Which I've since Googled while doing this podcast. And so DEFCON 1 is reserved for U.S. is under nuclear attack. Did you know that? I think I ascertained that information. Well, I think this was an issue in Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning, where it took like a very long time for them to get to DEFCON 1. I mean, I did think a lot about Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning. Because the alternative... I've got to revisit it. I've only seen it once. Well, the alternative to there is no answer is Tom Cruise has to single-handedly take the entire missile system offline and take everyone's missiles back one by one.

53:32Yes. I wouldn't say that movies... But Hayley Atwell has to switch a key. Right. But it is like... A drive? They're in the room and Angela Bassett, who's the president, is like, no, no, no, I guess we're going to have to bomb everyone. And there's always a room full of people being like, you have to bomb everyone until Tom Cruise shows up. So I don't know which one I thought was more plausible. Do you know what I mean? I don't know which was more cinematically effective. They did need Hayley Atwell to like point that drive at the ICBM in this movie. She's just like a very quick thing. Yeah. And then she's just in Trafalgar Square, you know, carrying it around.

54:14I'm going to rewatch Final Reckoning. I had a better time with that movie, ultimately, even though that movie is also deeply flawed. I don't know if I did. Just the biplane sequence is so much better than anything in this movie. The good part of that movie is the last 30 minutes, you know? Right. So you leave on like a while. Maybe if they just ended with Ethan Hunt on a biplane in House of Dynamite. If we just cut them together? Yeah. We just saved cinema? That could work. Yeah, there we go. I found this very, very frustrating. Now, the report out of the New York Film Festival was that journalists were openly laughing at the ending of this movie.

54:44That there were, like, snickers and, like, seriously, bro? Like, that was the energy at the end of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, I'm obviously being a little performative here on the show. Yeah. I wasn't, like, offended at its conclusion. I was just like, what a wet fart. Like, what a weird decision. I don't know if it's, I don't think it's cowardly. I just think it's a miscalculation as to what the film is trying to accomplish. Right. You know, that like it made its point kind of 14 minutes in and we got it and it didn't really further that point to any degree that moved me. Yeah. And I'm only being as specific about this because it's like I really respect this filmmaker.

55:22Like I really think she's incredible. But I if you go back and look at the filmmaking versus the politics of all of the movies that we really admire, it's not like the like the. It's squishy. Political theoretical answers are there. Yes. You know. So I would even be willing to forgive that in the same way that I am willing to forgive it in Zero Dark Thirty, which is a film that like politically just seems really incoherent and inconsistent and untrue in some ways. But is, I think, like a ravishing movie, like a thrilling movie and visually like so accomplished, amazing performances. This movie, she's like changed some stuff.

55:55She like she used to make a very kind of grand, poetic style of cinema, you know, especially the early movies like Near Dark and Point Break. Those movies are gorgeous. And over time, she's produced it, right? To like, I think maybe more representative of the modern visual condition where like the camera is a little shakier. It's a little bit more like invasive. It's, I mean, this is almost like documentary, like fly on the wall. Yes. Which is, I think, trying to adapt both to the material and the fact that it is people on screens and rooms. And so it does, it moves through a lot of people. And the first 10 minutes, you're like, oh, okay, we're assembling the cast of characters and you're giving me like two pieces of expositional biography about each person.

56:45But at some point in that first 30, 60 minutes, it's like really flowing together. It's cooking. Yeah. And you're like, oh, you've established this whole world. I know where I am. I do feel like I'm in these rooms. And you are making screens and dialogue. Exciting. but not in a point break way. Like I'll give you that. It's a different style of movie. They're not like showing torture on screen. So, you know, there's some issues with that. Yeah, yeah. No, her movies are not perfect. I'm not trying to suggest that. This movie is edited by Kirk Baxter, who is David Fincher's longtime editor. He's one of the greatest living editors.

57:23Academy Award winner. And I totally agree with you that a movie like this in less gifted hands would be very rough. Would feel much, I think much more quote unquote Netflix, you know, where it just kind of just feels like an episode of The Night Agent. It doesn't feel like something with some grandeur to it. But, you know, in recent years, like, she's really interested in, like, the machine of power. Right? Like, the CIA, police force, military, and I think it's kind of dulled the movies a little bit. Okay. You know, Detroit was obviously also a misfire. Yeah. And I don't know. I mean, I don't know.

58:01Are we going to get another Catherine Bigelow movie? You know, like I, it took a long time to get this one going. She's in her 70s. She's in her 70s. Which, I mean. This movie is vital. It's not that it's not vital. Like it definitely feels like it is made with a real energy, but I just wish this wasn't the material that she took on. So last time we talked about this, we had it in Best Picture. Yeah. And it's gotten pretty mixed reviews now. That's right. I do think that there is a strong contingent in the Academy that still just worships her and thinks she's really great. Right. Where are you at on Best Picture at this point with this?

58:36I mean, it does seem like it's dropped out. I, a lot of critics had a lot of fun taking this one to the woodshed, which I, like, I, that's, everyone's right. You know, who doesn't love a good pan? You're very generous in letting me kind of uncork on this one. It's fine if you don't like it. There are plenty of movies that I don't like. I still am so baffled by the Frankenstein reevaluation. I bought a ticket to go see it again at the Egyptian this week. Okay. Because I have to. I guess so, yeah. But to me, in every respect, this is superior. But Del Toro has a huge contingent in the Academy. And I guess people like that shit.

59:21And I guess they don't care about CGI wolves. so I think there's been a bump in that kind of movie being more even more accepted than this kind of movie yeah but it just in terms of I think Netflix only gets so many spots yeah and it seems like Frankenstein is taking this spot yeah even though out of the festivals the first two festivals Venice and Telluride we would not have said that on Friday we'll do the full analysis of the four Netflix movies because Train Dreams re-premiered AFI last night and raves out of AFI for that too. No, I'm going next week. Okay. Well, but we could, I mean, they have four.

59:59I think it was yesterday afternoon, which is why I couldn't go. Or there was a screening. The screening was yesterday afternoon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, they've got four movies and it does feel like, it does feel like it's on the outside looking in right now. Yeah. It does feel like Frankenstein is in front of it. I think there's going to be a J. Kelly upswing, especially because it's a movie that's going to play well with the Academy. And Train Dream's like, you can scoff at the natural world stuff. I'm going to see it. It is really affecting people. There's another natural world movie that I'm more annoyed with.

1:00:31Okay, we can talk about that in November. We can. See, you knew which one I was talking about. Listen, relax, you know? Enough moss. I think that we will have a very similar conversation in reverse about that movie. Okay. You know? Where it's like, I see the flaws, yeah but I'm ultimately okay with it whereas you maybe are not but let's not talk around it any longer okay uh any chance editing or sound get in at the Oscars here kind of tough to get editing without a best picture nomination it just it seems like it'll be crowded out yeah only five noms the sound designers um especially Paul N.J.

1:01:08Otteson three-time winner for two Bigelow films okay so very hallowed figure in that in that world I don't know it's possible does it sound good it seemed pretty good it seemed good and the score as you have here i thought was great it is very good so it's volker berthelman who was the uh composer on all quiet on the western front and also the upcoming ballad of a small player which i actually don't have on the schedule right now because i don't really know if i want to spend an hour talking about it i haven't seen it okay um listeners if you'd like to hear a long conversation about ballad of a small player we'll see it we could have a small conversation i saw it i didn't like you know right but listen and Colin Farrell forever.

1:01:46If I saw Big Bold Beautiful Journey and found things to say about that, I can see this one. I hear you. The best score race is insane. Yeah. It's incredibly competitive this year. So here's the lineup. You got Johnny Greenwood for One Battle After Another. Sure. Did you see Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk playing that in a DJ set in Europe this weekend? That's awesome. Yeah, the opening song from One Battle After Another. Crazy stuff. And then bled into The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Anyway, very cool. uh, Ludwig Granson for sinners. Where in Europe? I assume Paris. Yeah, I know. I'm just like, that's, I need to, it was Berguine on Saturday night at 4am.

1:02:24I'm just, we need to do that in LA. And that's like, that's the kind of FYC I want to go to. You know what I'm saying? Maybe you should get out in front of that. That's a good idea. Invite me, you know, like I will be on the floor. Um, I mean, it was, it's, there's a lot of like solemn head down during the beginning of it. Cause it's that like dramatic. Okay. Um, So Sinners, Alexander Desplat for Frankenstein. Okay. Gonna have to consider that. Max Richter for Hamnet. And even though he reuses a piece of material, it is eligible. Okay. Jerskin Fendrix for Begonia, which I think is really good.

1:02:58Yeah. Nick Bertel for Jay Kelly. Yes. Which is also a great score. We love Nick Bertel. Arguably the best part of Marty Supreme, non-Timothy division is the score. Yeah. Dan Lopatin from One of Tricks Point Never. It's true. I mean, it's amazing. It's incredible. It's a huge part of the film. Bryce Desner from Train Dreams, your guy from The National, a band I don't care for. Daniel Blumberg, who just won last year for the Testament of Ann Lee. I was not aware that one of the Desners did the square for Tree. I can't. Stop telling me things until I see the movie. Okay, I have to go in with an open heart.

1:03:32What about Hans Zimmer for F1? I don't remember the music. Is F1 in the Best Picture race? No, it's not. Okay. I want to see F1 again. Well, it will be on Apple in December. And the fireworks go off? Yeah, I mean, that was fun. That was good. Yeah. I enjoyed that. Wicked for Good, best score? Yeah. Stephen Schwartz and John Powell? Okay. That's a lot of contenders. Okay, you're just nodding at me now. No, it's... You reached that part of the podcast. Well, you're just getting me to talk about Wicked for Good and the National, so... What's Bigelow's best movie, in your opinion? Point Break. Yeah, I think that's correct.

1:04:06Yeah, I mean, that's just... Okay, now here's the hard part. Yeah. What's her second best movie? Hurt Locker? I would probably rather watch Zero Dark Thirty over Hurt Locker. Right. Hurt Locker loses some of its appeal, if you've seen it before, to me. I guess so, but it's first time. The achievement of what it makes you feel is a pretty singular piece of art. Zero Dark Thirty, yeah, incredible, cinematic, whatever. But if you're, you know, if you have some queasiness or some dissatisfaction with the politics of House of Dynamite, then I, you know. That isn't ultimately, that wasn't ultimately my problem with the movie, I think.

1:04:49It was more just like an absolute flaw in the design of the story as opposed to like feeling unhappy about what it was trying to communicate politically about the events. But I hear what you're saying. I mean, I'm not as hung up on that in Zero Dark Thirty, but there are some people for whom that's a movie they will never watch again. I think that most of the point is for it to be upsetting. But, you know, is it the entire point? Or is it also, is some of, and what is, how are you supposed to feel about, like, look at this cinematic achievement of me depicting torture? Yeah, I think it's more so that, like, the suggestion that the torture, like, worked and was justified in some ways, you know?

1:05:31I, it's probably a movie that is worth a review. visit. I mean, I think it's incredibly well made. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it came out at that time when Annapurna was going strong and it felt like, you know, David Ellison is now kind of the ascendant king of Hollywood, Taylor Sheridan News notwithstanding. And this was when Megan Ellison was just Richard Linklater, you get one, Spike Jones, you get one, Paul Thomas Anderson, you get one, Catherine Bigelow, you get one. It was fun. That was a great time in the movies, a really special time to be a fan of movies so maybe I have a little bit of rose colored glasses around that I would say Near Dark and Strange Days are pretty near the top for me okay that's a great vampire movie and a great sci-fi future movie you know she's got a few duds Weight of Water K-19 these are not great Blue Steel's strong crime thriller really good Jamie Lee Curtis performance before Jamie Lee Curtis went Jamie Lee Curtis yeah then we're all still living in it yeah we are and The Loveless is an interesting debut coming to you in December man it's listen we gotta make that episode of James L.

1:06:42Brooks episode we're going to and we're not again we're getting ahead of ourselves we can we can appreciate what we appreciate and enjoy what we enjoy in this life will you be able to watch every single episode of The Simpsons before the L. McKay episode because it's pretty important for the Jim Brooks conversation Jim Brooks has made some good movies that I look forward to discussing okay Any closing thoughts before we bring in Adam Naiman? I thought this was a fair discussion. I completely agree. You feel heard? I absolutely feel heard. I'm glad. In this discussion, who is... What we need more of is men being heard.

1:07:18Frankly, I agree. Would you say you're Jake Barrington in this discussion?

1:07:28No, you're Gretel Lee. I'm Gretel Lee. I was just looking with my kid at Getty's ringing me like sorry it's my day off like here's what I know I'm getting on a bus okay let's bring in Adam Naiman

1:07:45Adam Naiman is here the mean pod guy our beloved critic cinema visionary here to talk about well is there anything you want to talk about before we get into Kelly Reichert's new film The Mastermind I hope the Blue Jays win tonight I'm rooting for you. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, interesting. You're rooting for me. Yeah. That's been an interesting thing to watch happening in Toronto. The bandwagon really starts to sag, you know, like by the ALCS. Well, I'll jump off if that's what you're saying. Sorry? I'll jump off if you have a problem with being a part of it. I don't want anyone to jump off. But, you know, we had a lot of success with this team 30 years ago.

1:08:21It's like it's not quite the first rodeo for some of us. Like, I highly recommend being 12 when your team wins the World Series. Yeah. My husband, who grew up in Philadelphia, has already invoked this World Series multiple times. Oh, the one that we won. Yes, exactly. And that's why our household is a Dodgers household, despite what the Dodgers did to the Phillies. Yeah. So I tried to get my kids interested. I showed my nine-year-old, Leah, the Springer home run. And her entire response was, cool, someone in the audience caught it. That was it. So I got completely no soul on that. I'm going to try again tonight.

1:09:01Can we pivot to calling the crowds at sporting events the audience? That sounds like a really good way of describing it. When the audience caught it, she's like, what does that mean? I'm like, nothing. There's 40 ,000 people there. But it was a cool moment. That was a fabulous home run. It was great. But I think other than that, no, I mean, what else could take precedence over talking about Kelly Reichardt, which I'm very happy to be doing. Yeah, it's a sensation. It's actually literally in the top 10 in the box office in the United States of America this weekend. Wonderful news. Probably the last time that will be true for Kelly until she makes the Thanos prequel film that I know she's been working on for some time.

1:09:36Multi-time guest of this show. I know certainly one of Adam's favorite filmmakers as well. I had a chance to see the mastermind at Telluride. You saw it last week? I saw it this week in theaters with a pretty full house on one on a Friday. How exciting. This movie stars Josh O 'Connor, Alana Heim, Hope Davis, John Magaro, Gabby Hoffman, Bill Camp. It's a fairly simple movie, or is it? It's about a guy who is a bit dissatisfied with his life in 1970 in Framingham, Massachusetts and decides to become an art thief. And he struggles at being an art thief. And that is more or less the framework of this story.

1:10:23So Adam, I'll start with you as our expert here. What did you make of the mastermind? I mean, Kelly Reichardt's very interested in characters who, whether they should be or not, whether they know why they are or not, there's a certain dissatisfaction. And often that dissatisfaction is tied to some sense of, you know, disillusionment about their immediate surroundings or their life choices or the country. And she's often quite sympathetic to that disillusionment, you know, these characters who feel that things have passed them by. They didn't grab on certain opportunities. They want more. They want to embody their political ideals.

1:11:00And this guy is sort of the Joshua Conner character. He's cut from that mold, but he's also a very different sort of protagonist for her because he really is a moron, you know, and the title of the film is in context, sort of ironic. And I think that this is a sticking point for some friends of mine who like Reichardt a lot. They find this film to be somewhat judgmental. I mean, I would say my synonym for judgmental is it's very funny. And it diagnoses a very, I think, you know, a very kind of male vanity and narcissism and solipsism. The idea that you are smarter than other people. You appreciate art more than they do.

1:11:40You can flout rules. And I mean, he has all these things. You mentioned that he wants to be an art thief. I mean, And one plot detail that I really want to talk about is in this small community where he thinks he's smarter than everybody and has better taste and went to art school. You know, his dad's a judge. So there's this sort of insulation, too, where he's like, well, how much trouble can I really get in? And I like the way that the movie answers that question by saying a lot of trouble and the consequences that ripple out to the other people in his life are observed quite devastatingly, I think.

1:12:11What did you think? I mean, I loved it. I think Josh O 'Connor is a pretty magical screen presence, and I have for some time now. And it is really exciting to watch different directors who also have their own interests and styles kind of play with the Josh O 'Connor of it all and really use it. And so to Adam's point, this guy is a loser. and he does a lot of things that you really don't want him to do and like in a snowballing sort of way. And because it's Josh O 'Connor, the movie is playing with how much you're relating to this person versus judging this person versus rooting for this person versus hoping that this person will figure it out.

1:12:59It was a really, it was an interesting experience in watching a movie and trying to figure out how I was supposed to feel about the protagonist. I thought it was really like speaking to the role of an audience, to quote Leah, in a fascinating way. And he's great. He's magical. Yeah, the moment where I really locked in is, I mean, there's this long stretch at the beginning where he's like casing the joint, you know? And you're sort of wondering, I mean, what kind of plan does this guy have in mind? And he, you know, there's all these little hints that are dropped that he's educated you know he went to art school he has an appreciation for the work of this real artist Arthur Dove and I think the moment where I first started really laughing was he's handing out he's handing out photos to his confederates of what they're supposed to steal and it's almost more like an art seminar than a plan like they're looking they're looking at these things and the question of value starts coming up it's like so is this about the paintings being worth something is it about them being good is it because he thinks that he's the only one who can really appreciate them.

1:14:05Like there's this entwined sense of value, I think in his plan. But then when you juxtapose that with what his plan actually is, I won't spoil it for anybody who hasn't seen the movie, but that cut is like something out of a Simpsons episode where you see what he's actually spent all this time building up to, this mastermind. It's very funny how mediocre the plan is. I've chose to read the movie with two very pointed things. I don't know if either of these things are true, but these are the sensations I thought of. One, Reichardt's last movie was showing up, which I think all three of us loved, but is a movie with very little incident.

1:14:41You know, it is very much a portrait of a person at a stage in their life in which like the stakes feel relatively low. And people who didn't like the movie criticized it for not having a lot of action. So this movie feels in a way to me, like Kelly Reichardt saying, like, you think nothing happens in my movies. What if I have something pretty dramatic happen, but it is one of the most incompetent portrayals of a classical movie incident that has ever been put on screen. And then the second half of the film is this like rolling searching journey of this person who kind of failed at what they were attempting to do and has really no recourse, like is lost in society.

1:15:22And there's no way things will work out for this guy in the aftermath of what he has done, which I find to be like a fascinating choice. and the thing that I thought of a lot was that this is basically happening concurrent to Watergate and that it's like a representation of that you know male solipsism that Adam was underlining and the fact that guys kind of can talk themselves into any situation and then they find themselves completely incapable of managing when their own ego and bad ideas drives them to a kind of destruction in this case it's just like a dad in Massachusetts who is not a good father and not a good husband he's not a good husband father he's okay it's but to the Watergate point it is also like very specifically in the film situated in the context of the American like the Vietnam War and American involvement in the Vietnam War speaking of people without a plan and doing things that they should not be doing and you know Kelly Reichert is an American filmmaker who deals with American limitations to put it politely in pretty much all of her movies and like Like, in some ways, I was taken aback by how direct the metaphor and the comp was in the context of the movie.

1:16:36Well, she's always interested in solidarity. Sometimes the solidarity is fraying, right? Sometimes it's like Old Joy was sort of like a kind of companion to the Big Chill. I'd never compare it to the Big Chill because I hate the Big Chill. But it has some of the same elements that that movie has. Like, what are your common values after you spend a certain part of your life as part of a counterculture? Night Moves is literally about activism and about the way that paranoia sort of overtakes this group of people who decide to go and do something that very similar to the mastermind in a different way has these consequences.

1:17:10Here we see a guy who has friends who seem to have these values. And what his friends seem to recognize about him is he doesn't really have them. you know there's a moment where he goes and stays with this couple wonderfully played in the film by um uh by uh by Magaro and um Gabby Hoffman you know who he went to art school with and they kind of talked to him like well were you really part of our crowd you kind of were like they seem to walk the walk talk the talk have certain values and he's just sort of there and so not only do we see a guy who's lost and doesn't fit in the things that might take him in the the you know, the parts of that community or that society that might have some sympathy for him.

1:17:51He's not interested in them. He's so arrogant. And there's all of these moments where you see the glances that he's stealing different kinds of people at different phases in life. It just seems to be reflecting his own awful choices back at him. Like, I love what he's sitting on the bus and he sees the guy about to ship out probably to Vietnam or someone dressed like a sailor with his wife and kid. And then when he wakes up, the dad's gone, you know, and it's this perfect little mirror of his own choice, except what's he shipping out for? He hasn't chosen any path of resistance or rebellion. He's not a patriot.

1:18:23He's not in anything. He's just a, he's a deserter, basically a domestic deserter. And he doesn't even have the paintings to show for it. Yeah. It's, um, kind of chilling and kind of hilarious. I found the ending to be, we were just talking about a house of dynamite, Adam, which I know you didn't care for as well. I was not a big fan. But the air out of the balloon at the end of this movie I found to be very effective. I don't want to spoil it for anybody who hasn't seen it, but there is something very intentional. And to your point, like a little on the nose about the way that this movie ends in a way that I didn't totally realize it was attempting to do.

1:18:58But she does something by just holding the frame at the end of the movie for an extended period of time. I remember it vividly even though I saw this movie two months ago. Yeah. And makes you sit in the decision that she's made about the story that she's just told. It is very subtle, but very sophisticated. And about, there's like a little bit about the utter pointlessness of life, but it's more about the utter pointlessness of this person's life. And that the way that this self-delusion has led him to this place. And in this country, if you live that way, this can happen to you as well. That without this kind of purpose and only being driven by your own vainglorious perception of your own intelligence, you can get stuck.

1:19:37I would like it on the record that I think that this film is better than House of Dynamite. Just to clarify, this is a better movie and a better movie about America and the American condition. Yeah, I agree with that. It's interesting that this is also the old, this is the first film since River of Grass that she wrote by herself, that she wrote without John Raymond, who is her longtime kind of co-writing partner. What do you make of that, Adam? I mean, I think it's interesting. I mean, I think the other one is certain women just because it's adapted from a different writer's work. So it's not solely her, but I mean, that was a different novelist.

1:20:07I think it is interesting. I think that it has something in common with River of Grass as well, which is that again, that movie was always called a road movie without the road, you know? So she's interested in those road movie tropes or those outcast loner tropes. Maybe because I just saw the Bruce Springsteen movie, I've been thinking about Badlands mostly to not have to think about the Springsteen movie. But you know, Badlands was a big influence on River of Grass as well. And the idea of kind of like low stakes Badlands or like Badlands about people who don't really have blood on their hands.

1:20:37It's a funny way to deal with it because it deflates it, but it takes a lot of the mythology and the grandeur out of it as well. And I thought that there's been some good writing on The Mastermind. I tried to write about it when I did as well. It's like a 70s movie where that grandeur isn't there. All the things about Josh O 'Connor that Amanda's talking about, he's so handsome, he's so appealing. You can sort of see him as this kind of rakish, clever character. Then he's just not in an actual 70s movie. He's in a movie set in the 70s, but he's in a movie where the reality doesn't play ball with that romanticized self-image.

1:21:10And I think it's interesting for Reichert as her career has gone on. She's always had elements of funny. She's always had elements of bitter. She's always had elements of social critique, but she's not always the same. I thought showing up was very tender because it was about what it is to be an artist and that that's very challenging. There's a lack of appreciation. There's certainly a lack of compensation. I know it made headlines when Showing Up came out when Michelle Williams let it slip. Kelly Riker teaches at Bard for the health insurance, which is not a joke. And also her students are lucky to have her.

1:21:46She's one of the great American filmmakers and she's teaching them. And even though Showing Up had a lot of exasperation and satire about faculty politics and some of the characters were obnoxious, I thought it was very sympathetic to the idea of art for art's sake. This is a movie, but an appreciator. You know, they say, you know, like those who can't do teach, I don't believe in that, but like those who can't do steal, you know, and the way that this is a guy who went to school. And again, he thinks he has better taste than his parents. He thinks he really has a connection to this guy's work.

1:22:17Like he wants the money, but I think he also kind of wants the value. I mean, Kelly has nothing to complain about, about film critics. And I don't really think that she is, but for her to follow up a movie about artists with someone who isn't even an artist and who's sort of trying to profit from their work in a way that's, you know, again, self-aggrandizing and off board, that's not coincidental to me. Nor is the fact that it's a kind of judgmental movie because I think this is a type. If all these guys looked like Josh O 'Connor, we'd be in big trouble. Most of them don't. But we know this guy, you know, like we know this kind of guy and seeing that come up and, you know, uh, you know, come to him the way it does.

1:23:03It's schadenfreude, but it's satisfying. I wanted to talk about O 'Connor a little bit more actually. So over the weekend, I got a chance to see Rebuilding, which is, um, a movie that is coming out next week that O 'Connor was in the debut at Sundance, which is about a rancher in Colorado who, whose home is burned to the ground during a devastating fire and then the aftermath of that. And on the surface, it sounds like a pretty traditional Sundance drama and in some ways it is. I thought it was a very beautiful movie though and O 'Connor is amazing in it. And it is a very different performance from this movie where like his kind of charm and wiles are meant to be foregrounded and that's a very reserved performance.

1:23:45And then in a month, he's in Wake Up Dead Man, the new Knives Out movie. where he plays a priest who's kind of at war with the idea of faith in his clergy, or at least the community that surrounds his church. And now the last few years of him as an actor, and I liked what you were saying, how sort of like each director is kind of like looking at what he represents as a performer and then pumping something into it, you know, like refracting what they think he is. So Locumera, Challengers, Rebuilding, The History of Sound, The Mastermind, and Now Wake Up Dead Man is like a very interesting, like shows how robust his taste is, shows what a flexible, dynamic actor he is, shows that he can be funny, shows that he can be really restrained and quite sad, shows that he can be romantic, shows that he can be the fool, that he can be the smartest guy in the room.

1:24:44this is like a very rare to get a leading man that can do all this stuff you know he's not like a huge box office sensation or anything like that but i'm now i really anticipate him appearing in a movie and it does feel like it happened all of a sudden i also was not did not watch the crown so i know you've been there for that but i i just i'm just very excited he's now he's 35 years old he's kind of right in the heart of when this sort of thing is supposed to take off even 10 years ago if you look at him in movies i'm like that guy's too young now he looks like a man You know, he looks like he has lived a little bit.

1:25:13And I'm very excited about the future of his career. But he's pretty singular still, which is what is exciting about it. Like all of the filmmakers are interpreting, you know, what Josh O 'Connor is. But he does also bring like a he doesn't speak very much in all of those movies, pretty much. And he's pretty chatty in Challengers. Yeah, I mean, I guess so. but not as much as the other not as much as art you know yeah I think they're about the same well I guess they're not really chatting when they're having sex or he doesn't want to yeah but he does have really interesting taste and he is very clearly also he's bringing like his half of the equation to all the filmmakers in a way that's very cool and feels you know like this movie sort of a 70s throwback style of like he is He's very handsome, but he's not bulked up like a superhero.

1:26:12He's in a lot of fashion campaigns, but he always looks a little scruffy in this movie. It's interesting. I'm a huge fan. Who would have thought you could become a sex symbol after playing Prince Charles? I mean, that's like the degree of difficulty there is. But you mentioned what these directors are doing with him. He's bringing something very good to Kelly Reichart, too, which is this kind of upwardly mobile visibility, which I think also reflects well on him because he wants to seek out and work with good filmmakers. I mean, Elisa Rohrwacher is another example in La Chimera. I mean, he clearly wants to work with good directors.

1:26:48And this has been the grace of Reichert's career. Old Joy I saw in 2005, that's a fantastic movie where the big star in it is Will Oldham. That's not a put-down of Will Oldham. Will Oldham is a huge star in my house, Adam. Will Oldham is wonderful, but I mean, And that's the kind of movie that she was making with River and Grass and Old Joy. Michelle Williams signing on to do Wendy and Lucy and beginning not just a kind of opportunistic thing of like, here's someone who's around and here's an indie director. I mean, that's a wonderful artistic partnership that I think has defined Williams' career as much as Reichardt's.

1:27:20So she is a filmmaker who has often majorly talented youngish actors who want to work with her. Jesse Eisenberg was the same thing when he did Night Moves, Kristen Stewart, obviously, in Certain Women. So O 'Connor fits that mold of her working with actors who can put a little bit of light and media coverage kind of on her work. And they reward each other by working so well together. And he's been all in on the promotion of this movie, which is nice to see, especially since, you know, the big Netflix red carpet wake up dead man, which he's really good in as well is, you know, sitting right there for him for all the magazine pieces.

1:28:01But I've read at least 10, 15 interviews he's done about the mastermind. That's just good star behavior. It's very unusual for her to have a tall, handsome leading man in one of her movies, too. That is one of the few things. Is he that tall? he's taller than John Magaro sure yeah I do but I do probably my favorite actor working right now he is really handsome but there is like a little bit like a baby bird that I have to take care of quality to him in every single movie well but I think that's how a lot of people see him and they're using that in this movie yeah yeah I think it aids her well because she can really bounce off of her perception of guys like that you know like you can really feel her reading like oh this guy thinks he's hot shit which is not a kind of character that she is prone to writing very often.

1:28:48And it's a perfect fit for him. Well, no. Or when she has these like semi-disinterested husbands or these kind of know-it-all characters, they kind of exist at the margins of the film. I mean, again, you watch a director's films enough and you find rhymes between them. It's interesting because I thought a lot of night moves during this film, but I wouldn't say that the performance that O 'Connor's giving is like what Eisenberg did in that film, which is like genuinely almost a sociopathic performance and a very scary one. But yeah, she, I mean, I just think that there's a, and some people mentioned Inside Llewyn Davis with this film because it has that kind of drifting, picaresque quality.

1:29:29And I think that there's something similar to the way O 'Connor can rumple his handsomeness, you know, the way that Oscar Isaac sort of did in that movie. So, you know, depending from scene to scene, he can be quite seductive or can sort of seem quite pathetic. One thing I love, because I know we're being careful to not spoil the movie, but it's a measure of how good a filmmaker she is. Everywhere he goes, once he's kind of disconnected or has to bring himself on the road, the artwork in the hotels he's staying at just seem to mock him so much. And it holds the frame. There's one where he's in the bathroom or something, and the entire frame is just some terrible piece of art.

1:30:06Some terrible, kitschy piece of art. And now he's been liberated from his sad little house and hanging out in the basement with the boys planning heists and stuff. And now he's just stuck in these hotel rooms of the damned with these crooked velvet paintings. I mean, again, in describing it or hearing you guys talk about it, I know a word that kind of keeps coming up. It's like, it is a little mean. Yeah. Some of the grace that you might see in some of her other movies isn't necessarily there. But I do think it's well aimed. and I'm glad Amanda brought up the set and you both did the 70s political context because she doesn't lay that on too thick, but there's like a Richard Nixon jump scare laid in the movie that's just, it's like Mad Magazine.

1:30:47It's priceless. It's really funny. I think the Nightmoves comparison is the best because a lot of her films end in these kind of like elegiac ways where you're meant to think about where these characters will go from here, but they're not upbeat, but they're not downbeat. Nightmoves is really the only one of those movies that I think about where I'm like, the end of that movie, there's just like a kind of hopelessness, like a displacement. And that's very similar to this, even though this movie is much funnier than Night Moves is. Well, when she did Night Moves, I remember interviewing her. I mean, I've been interviewing her for a long time.

1:31:18Lucky to, right? I mean, I interviewed for her for the first time in 2005 when Old Joy came out. She's one of the great no bullshit interviews. She's great. She will answer directly whatever you ask her. And I remember that the reception to Night Moves, there was a little prickliness because first of all, people were like, why are you making environmental activists that doesn't idealize them or beyond not just and you know because she said it's more interesting as drama but also she's like these people are all like why does your movie have a plot you know like it almost becomes a bit of an insult to a filmmaker when you say well your movies are so minimal and nothing happens in them and that's what's great i mean i think that it is maybe not the broadest tonal range in the world but she's made lots of different genres and variations on lots of different kinds of movies sort of within that range so when you were saying that the movie feels like a bit of a reaction to the reaction to showing up you know i can see that she's very aware of what people write about in her films but a good half of her films have like theft in them you know some sort of theft some sort of stealing even in certain women there's a kind of quasi heist in the middle section where james lagrose and michelle williams are trying to take the the marble or whatever the the stone away from that old guy like people scheme all through her movies you know she she she it's about time she made a heist movie she should make another one.

1:32:34You mentioned this when we were having an A24 conversation recently, but there was a big profile of the studio in The New Yorker some months ago, and she was quoted a few times in that piece. And she talked about how she was very grateful to have gotten to make two movies at A24, but that, you know, they're kind of not interested in the kinds of movies that she makes. And if you look at the distributors of her movies, she's kind of been jumping from lily pad to lily pad. And she's a very interesting occupant of independent cinema in the 21st century, right? Her career after River of Grass was like a long period of time before Old Joy and she's basically been making movies for the last 20 plus years and she's made a movie with IFC.

1:33:11She's made, now this movie is with Mubi as Mubi is making this big push. This is the last release before the wide release of the new Jennifer Lawrence film. Die My Love. Die My Love, which is going to be on like 3 ,000 screens and it does seem like every five years or so there's a new art house imprint that is like, we're a big deal. And in the aftermath of the substance, they're doing this. But this is what's great about these companies is that you also will finance the new Kelly Reichardt movie and put it on screens in America. And it could make a million bucks. It could make five million bucks if you're lucky and you market it correctly.

1:33:46and you know Adam at the top of this conversation we had this discussion about how movies are being eventized and 70 millimeter IMAX screens are being built in cities like Rochester and Colorado Springs now in order to serve films like The Odyssey and I don't think that independent cinema is like going away per se but it is very challenging theatrically distributing a movie like this and you really got to have smart people working on the other side of it it's not good enough for the movie to just be good it has to have this apparatus around it to get people to know about it. Obviously, we're doing our part.

1:34:21Yeah, we're trying our best. We're doing our best. But we also, I can't build an episode around the mastermind and expect anyone to listen to it. So there's a paradox there that is challenging. And I give her credit. I recently heard her talking on the business with Kim Masters about how this is how she wants to work. She wants to work on films at this scale so she can tell the stories that she wants to tell. She doesn't want anybody telling her how to make her movie. and the consequence of that is sometimes they don't get as seen as widely as possible. But I'm very happy that she is continuing to work in this way.

1:34:53I don't know if you have any reflections on this current moment in independent distribution. No, I have a lot of reflections on it and they would be in line with what you're saying. Not solutions, just observations. Obviously, I'm located in Toronto and I won't go on and on about what rep culture and art house culture looks like here, but it may be a little less robust than some listeners might think because, you know, for 10 days, you have everyone focusing on TIFF in Toronto. It kind of feels like this cosmopolitan film epicenter. And obviously we have great young and mid-career filmmakers here and we're the home of David Cronenberg.

1:35:28But our rep options are somewhat limited. Our arthouse options are not as wide as you'd like. There's great local theaters showing older movies and building audiences that way. But a lot of the movies that open in L.A. and certainly a lot of the independent films and foreign films that open in New York, they don't get a look here. And when they do and when audiences are full, it's because you do have those smart distributors kind of, you know, paper the house with students and reach out to film programs and eventize the screenings, even through something as simple as social media. You know, we're reaching out and trying to get U of T students in there to, you know, to see a movie like Anemone.

1:36:06it's a challenge and I think Kelly is an example of a filmmaker who she's not like straining to keep her budget small and her movie small scale I think it's her sensibility I mean there was also there was an interview recently a filmmaker I'm sure you'll talk about later and maybe I can I'd love to talk because I don't love the movie which is Chloe Zhao with Hamnet had that interview where she's like you know you don't have to go spend a bunch of money you know you don't have to spend more than your your producers willing to spend you don't have to make something that loses money which is like a weird way of putting it, especially after a movie like Eternals, which I know thought up to her how much that movie costs, right?

1:36:42But it's certainly something directors are addressing more and more in interviews as the economics of this becomes so much more transparent, partially because of podcasts and blogs that almost treat this stuff like sports stats sometimes. Sometimes does unveil something really real about how the economics of how this works and sometimes just seems to build up more mythology. Any closing thoughts? I thought the parenting was okay. You know, I don't think it's the worst decision that he makes. He leaves those kids at the bowling alley by themselves. It's the seventies, you know, things were different.

1:37:20They have money. So wait, wait, which part of the parenting though? Cause that's fine. That's fine. Oh yeah. Once he leaves them and his, yeah, it's not good. Definitely a bad spouse also. But I, yeah, I thought leaving them at the bowling alley was just fine. They need to learn not to eat junk food on their own. You know? Personal responsibility. We're learning a lot about you in this episode and your parenting style. Adam, what are you working on, man? What's coming up next? I'm going to leave my kid at a bowling alley tomorrow. Well, the audience will be there to watch her, so it'll be okay.

1:37:56You know, I continue to slave away on my long, long gestating still unannounced book project which everyone will be excited to hear about when I finally say what it is. It's the Thanos prequel, right? That Kelly is adapting? Yeah, finally. Try my hand at that. Trying to catch up on the rest of the movies worth seeing this year. I think seeing Marty Supreme soon which I hear has some juice. And watching some Blue Jay games. You would be surprised to know have still only managed to see one battle after another the one time. okay wow you're four behind me yeah you better get those numbers up really step up adam i i i i had my kids alone for two weeks while my wife was traveling far away i did not leave my house after 6 p.m for two weeks so a lot of baseball but not a lot of new uh not a lot of new releases we've both been there listen i've got one of those this week yeah so i mean i i came out of it stronger nothing can hurt me now except then my except then my immune system completely collapsed as soon as my wife came home and I was like, guess what?

1:38:59I'm sick. Which is why if anyone's wondering, I look even more haggard. You know, people send me, I love listeners to this show. People send me this stuff. I don't seek it out. But I do like apparently people think I look like Samoa Joe. Yeah, yeah. Are you familiar with his work? I am. He's great. He's brilliant. He's having a moment, I feel like. Is he the champion at AEW right now? I don't follow anymore, but I know, you know, his his deal. But just learn who this is. He's a brilliant, brilliant professional wrestler. But, but, you know, for people who are watching, if they're wondering why I look particularly haggard and old, that's why.

1:39:37Next time it'll be less, less so. You look beautiful to me. Yeah. And I appreciate the only thing more beautiful than your face is your mind, Adam. And thank you for sharing your mind as always. Yeah. Go Blue Jays. Wow. Blue Jays. I don't, I don't endorse that. Well, will this be out after the game? It will be out this afternoon, so no. Yeah, so concurrent. Oh, okay. So yeah, we'll find out in real time. I'm certain we have cursed them by having this discussion, but Adam, it was wonderful to see you. We'll see you soon. Thanks for having me as always, guys. You can take care. Best to your families.

1:40:09Thanks to Adam. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Later this week, number seven on 25 for 25. Any hints? Anything you want to share? I thought about wearing a red shirt today, and then I was like, oh, I should save it. Wow. Okay. I'll have to think about my color as well. We'll see you then.

1:40:52Oh man! Zu...

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