‘A Minecraft Movie’ Is the Most Important Movie of the Year So Far. And These Flicks Are the Best …

25:56And it worked. Movies can be that. And I think that they should be that. I hope things in the real world sort themselves out fairly soon. But it's interesting because this came at the same exact time that the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood news hit, too. And so, obviously, I'm tremendously excited about that movie as you are. Love the original film. Love Fincher. I don't love that it's being made for Netflix, but I also fully understand that if not for Netflix, this movie would not be getting made. Because Fincher is the kind of person who can get it made. In all likelihood, Brad Pitt handed a script to David Fincher.

26:32Fincher and QT know each other. They all just said yes. They all just said yes. Some text messages were exchanged. Do you think they're texters or emailers? I'm not sure. Okay. I'm not sure. I don't have Brad on text. Nor do I. I can't confirm. But I think in general, I'm thrilled that that movie is happening. I can't wait to see it. I can't wait to see it in a movie theater. I can't wait to be able to watch it whenever I want to on the Netflix streaming service. I'm not against that at all.

27:00But the movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is about trying to get out of the kind of like second tier pit of TV stardom. You know? So, like, the Rick Dalton character is so desperate to be a movie star and to get elevated out of bounty law. He's happy to have bounty law. Right. But he wants to be in The Great Escape. And the irony of shifting this world and these characters, you know, where, frankly, a movie star is saved at the end by a movie stuntman and a movie actor. It feels a little rough. It feels a little rough, you know. And there are plenty of TV sequels that were born out of original films, this being a different version of that.

27:44But it furthered my take, and the take is this. Creatively, TV is in a much better place than movies right now. Much better. And there are a lot of reasons for it, some of which are related to the global financial crisis that we are talking about. Okay. Keep going. I don't think I can disagree with you, but I do think it's kind of, A, a boring take. and well it's one that I usually historically resist hard but I have watched a bunch of tv this year I mean I just think we're I sorry to be the negative person because I know this is like your therapy session and you had a religious experience at Minecraft or whatever but neither of those things are true but we're like I mean I think we're we're just in a really rough time like shit's bad shit's bad in the world shit's bad on our screens shit's it's just not like nothing the tv is the tv is not bad though that's the point I haven't liked any of it I caught up with what?

28:36I White Lotus. Okay. Thumbs down. Uh, I thought the season was okay. I thought the finale was pretty weak. Yeah. I, I'll, I'll give you my, my full take on everything. So my sense of things was that one of the reasons why TV was so bad was that one, it was trying to be more like movies and two, it was expanding at a rate that was unsustainable. More new shows, more movie stars filtering into the shows, more people getting opportunities to write shows, which is great. but a lot of people were very untested or unseasoned. Seasons being expanded, episodes being expanded, a real dilution of the product.

29:11And it was just too much. A lot of the, even the prestige stuff, I thought over the last five years has been really, really thin girl. This year, the lineup is this from stuff that has come out. Severance, The White Lotus, Adolescence, The Studio, and The Pit. Those are probably the five biggest, most noisiest kind of in our universe shows. They're maybe not the most popular. like Landman was huge, for example. There's plenty of stuff even on network TV and on the mainstream streaming services that is really popular. But for our purposes, which is like talking about quality work, that's probably the highest level.

29:47There's something to recommend about all five of those shows. You may not individually like all five of those shows, but very rarely am I watching five different shows and thinking to myself like, wow, they really kind of nailed this. The White Lotus might be the weakest of the five, which is kind of fascinating. I'm only just now getting into the pit. Obviously, you should listen to Chris and Andy on The Watch. You should listen to the Prestige TV podcast. They're covering these shows really closely. Joe and Rob are covering these shows really closely. I think I'm just a little surprised that the thing that didn't used to work, which is trying to jam high-level movie talent into a TV format, or would work like every once in a while, but you would forgive, like the big little lies where you would like forgive some of the TV-ness for the quality of having high leverage work.

30:34Right. When you watch the studio or when you watch Severance, I'm like, this is as well directed as any movie that has come out in the last three months. That's true. I mean, the studio is the only TV show I currently like on TV and it's great. It is also leaning so heavily on movies and the myth-making of movies and it is, I mean, I do understand it's a TV show and a pretty episodic TV show and then it's just kind of vignettes of like, here's this day and here's what this experience is like. But, you know, both the filmmaking language and the actual text, like, it's about movies. So it is TV, but it is, like, borrowing from what, you know, it's somewhere in between.

31:16Adolescence is your classic, like, British miniseries. Somewhere between TV, somewhere between, like, movie. I mean, I know that it's episodic, but it's short. It's four hours, though. You know, it's not 98 minutes. Right. And I understand that it couldn't be 98 minutes, that it wouldn't be effective in that way. But it is also, it's not the pit. It's not, you know. Right. It's not, which is like bringing back your beloved 90s, like medical ER drama, but like with great filmmaking. And the puppet that recreates live childbirth, which is why I will never watch that episode. It's a hard set. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

31:55I haven't seen that episode, but just the show in general is incredibly challenging. But the point you're making is why I'm feeling this way, which is that there's different modes that are successful right now. It could just be a blip. It could just be, you already described how like the calendar was such that it was hard for movies to get done in a certain period of time. So we had a dip. The first three months of the year historically is not usually a very good bellwether for the quality of the movies for the entire year. There's Emmy windows to consider here for some of these shows. This is an unusually strong crop to me.

32:26But also, I understand that White Lotus and Severance are like the most popular and the water cooleriest. And that's what like everyone's talking about. But those are both second and third season with a lot of time spent and a lot of frustration from the viewers of how that time is being spent. And it's like a very classic bullshit TV thing where it's just like the longer you try to stretch something out, you keep, you know, going back. like how much more can we get out of this diminishing returns but that's the same thing that I was complaining about with movies and why a Minecraft movie works but the problem is is that the new thing that we're getting at movies is a Minecraft movie and the new thing that we're getting on tv is like White Lotus season three which is like maybe not ultimately that as satisfying as you want it to be but incredibly well made well cast pretty interesting through five and a half episodes I was like this is quite good right um so look I it is my life's mission to be the number one defender of movies.

33:21But I watch closely. But that's apples and oranges because really like what you're getting on TV that is comparable to Minecraft is like Love is Blind and Traitors. In terms of the number of people who are seeing it and... Yeah, but production value is different. Like I make this comparison because of budget and priority at the studio. You know, like the White Lotus is the most important thing happening at HBO until The Last of Us comes out. And it does have just a tremendous number of brand tie-ins. So... It does. It is very financially important to that streamer, just like a Minecraft movie, which is owned by the same company, is very important to that.

33:56Now, eyeballs, you're right. Yeah. There's so much dumb shit on TV that gets huge audiences. Right. I'm not defending any of that stuff. I watch a little bit of it. But to me, when you're talking about the playing field, you're literally talking about like, Chris Ryan always talks about how one of the problems with comic book movies is they've taken so many great actors off the board in the last 10 years. You know, like your Chris Hemsworths just have not had a chance to even explore his potential as a movie star because he has so much commitment as Thor. This is the same thing. You know, there is something happening.

34:29Like Sam Rockwell being like, I'm going to Thailand for three months to go do two episodes and be with my wife on The White Lotus. It's beautiful. And I love them. That just seems like thriving. That just seems like great decisions. For him, I'm sure it's great. He's going to win an Emmy. he was outstanding on the show. He's always outstanding, but he wasn't in a movie. You know what I mean? Sure. Like, there is, like, there is a give and take here. So, obviously, I make a big show of, like, don't watch TV. TV sucks a lot of the time. But for me, like, when I see Adolescence and someone like Stephen Graham, who's, like, is a big movie actor, making that a priority in his work and then that becoming...

35:07I don't know if that's... I think that's, like, among the most watched series that Netflix has ever. It is, yes. Just, like, instant. And, you know, also, like, the power of just look what happens when you put something good on Netflix. I know you're very upset about the, the Netflix vacation of Fincher and Tarantino. I'm not very upset. You just spent a lot of time just being like, I, you know, I would prefer it be in movie theaters. You know, I think Netflix does, should be putting it in front of people and make, frankly, making more money that way. Um, but you're right. You put a good show.

35:37Yeah, absolutely. And so many people found it and way more people found it than would have found it in a, in a movie theater. it's not a movie also so you know I don't know what to say about the in-between things and that there is sort of like this possibility of like a four hour at home streaming quasi TV quasi movie sensation that 100 million people watch and talk about. You almost can't plan for it. But also it's like I guess that's bad for movies but also is it? I mean at some point we're just I don't know if people respond to it I think it's art I don't know I think ultimately what I'm trying to get at is not like oh this is so bad for movies it's just that I rarely think TV is better than movies and at this exact moment in time this past this quarter that has sucked in the world at large yeah we're down bad it feels notable and maybe things will bounce back shortly you know honestly we have Warfare on Friday and Sinners the Friday after that yeah and what is coming in the last week of Oh, and Havoc on Netflix, unfortunately.

36:43And a handful of other movies that are coming out in April that I've seen and that I really like and that I'm really excited for. I don't know if they're going to be like massive hits on the order of Barbie, but it's going to be fine. I'm just noting that for one time in the seven years that we've been making the show, we're in second place, man. Like there's just no getting around it. We're in second. The big thing to cheer about is a Minecraft movie, which it - I liked your positivity. Get back to it. Okay. You know, you started, you were in a happy place. I have to close the loop on the take, okay?

37:15I mean, like, it's bleak out there. It's tough. The closed loop is one of the reasons why TV was so bad is that the comic book movie machine and Star Wars and IP kind of got sucked into TV during the pandemic. Right, right, right, right. Initially spurred on by Bob Iger, who then left, and Bob Chapek pushed all those stories across. Nobody likes those shows for the most part. they um have kind of messed with the timelines of a lot of the storytelling and they kind of like pulled down movies from the inside because they kind of like the comic book movie apparatus like basically started to go like this once they started going on tv all the time and that clearly got me thinking that like something that is obvious but i'm going to say it because of what's happening in the world right now which is that the globalization of movies, which started in the 1970s when Jaws went wide and Star Wars became a phenomenon, was further through the 1990s, and then reached a kind of, I guess a kind of apex in the parlance of Bill Simmons in the 2010s when the Chinese box office became so important to U.S.

38:27movies. and what played in China was Marvel, Jurassic World, The Fast and the Furious, Avatar, et cetera, et cetera. These kind of like, kind of wordless franchises. Movies that play. Spectacle. Spectacle, yes. Beyond spectacle, identifiable brand, minimum story, continuity that keeps you on the daisy chain of content. that built up expectation from a, you know, basically a stock portfolio perspective, pushed out all the stuff that we like, all the middle stuff. And now it's just haves and have-nots. It's just indie and spectacle stuff. And also, at least the Chinese box office has completely disappeared because they learned how to make movies from Hollywood and now just make movies for their audiences that their audiences prefer.

39:22Yes. Niza 2 is the highest grossing movie in the world right now. It's a Chinese production, an animated film that has made over a billion dollars. Almost the entirety of its haul has come from China. So they picked up our tricks. They're doing our thing better than we are in their home country. They don't need our movies. In fact, they don't even show all of our movies anymore. It's like a battle to get onto a lot of screens there, even though they have more screens than any nation in the world. We got fat on that money. executives got fat almost literally off of that growth. A number of things happened.

40:00Movie theater attraction, COVID, all this stuff that went down. In the process of that, Appetite's lost interest in going out to a movie theater for a movie like Black Bag. Black Bag becomes streaming movies now. Streamers make them directly. There's no box office incentive. I'm obviously rehashing basically the long 10-year arc of the book that I'm going to write at some point in my life. But, it's interesting that like we really need a Minecraft movie or Barbie or Sonic the Hedgehog to revive. And you'll get an Oppenheimer every once in a while. Yeah. Those that can still happen. And when it happens, I'm going to sing it from the rooftops.

40:37But it's it's not reversible without intellectual property at the moment, without eventization, without familiarity without chicken jockey. Right. And even though I'm very happy that Gen Alpha has their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that's really what this is. This is when 1990 we'll be doing a 1990 movie draft next week. In 1990 the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie came out. I was there. I saw it in the theater. Having the time of my life. The turtles were like relatively new at that time. I think they were created in the 80s and I was really into the animated series. They had a TV show first though.

41:13Yeah. They did. Yeah. But when they made that live action series, like a live action Minecraft movie, I was like, this is amazing. Adult critics who saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were like, we're so fucked. We are so fucked that this is what kids want. But it did help and it did become like kind of a pathway to a certain kind of storytelling over the next 25 years. So this is our version of that. And I want to mark it in time, even though I have some regret about it. I've shifted my doomsday feelings a little bit in this conversation. Okay. I was going to be like really a negative Nelly. We're screwed.

41:47A real Debbie Downer. And now Chicken Jockey has given you life. Well, it's just changed my state of mind about it. Okay. And it has made me maybe accept my middle-agedom. Well, that's good. If we've achieved nothing, you know, we've at least achieved personal acceptance on the fact that you're 42. Do you think, you know, September, October hits. We get Mission Impossible. We get, you know, Superman, whatever that may be, plus or minus. We get one battle after another. We get some actual movies that we care about that people maybe want to see in the box office. I don't know whether like Sinners hits or Warfare hits, but some things that aren't Minecraft hit at the box office.

42:32What's our version of Nosferatu and A Complete Unknown in December? Right. then are you just going to be like I was freaking out for nothing?

42:44No, because I think I'm right. It doesn't mean that there won't be middle ground cool movies that make$100 million. That's not, I'm not saying that's over. It's not over. In fact, I hope there are more of them. I hope there are more Nosferatus where they're like we're going to give a really interesting filmmaker $50 million because we think it can make $200 million. But what I am nervous about, what I've been nervous about is we're going to give, you know, a perfectly fine comedy director$180 million with the hope that we make a movie that makes$700 million. Those are the gambles that have it feeling like you did it in the casino last weekend.

43:23You know, where you were just like, I'm so anxious and so uncomfortable. And that's what it's like working in a movie studio right now. You're just like so anxious and uncomfortable all the time. I would not want to be them. That scene at the end of the first episode of the studio where the Seth Rogen character is just like, I'm miserable all the time and I want to throw up. And the Catherine O 'Hare character is like, yeah, it seems like the worst job in the world. They apparently still want it. In a million years, you couldn't get me to do that. It sounds like awful. And it does really just seem like the numbers are fucked.

43:54Like, as you said, you know, early 2010s, everything got so out of control and you can make billions of dollars. and now everyone's stocks and corporate structures and ownership and debt, whatever, are raised in such a way where you have to go make$700,$800,$900, a billion dollars. I thought it was very funny at CinemaCon. Every executive would come out and, you know, they all had like made up stats trumpeting how well their movies had done. And it was like, we made almost$1.3 billion. And we were the second studio to do 1.6 billion. And they were all just doing like the point somethings because no one could get to two, but one wasn't good enough anymore.

44:37Well, there was one number that was said it was 4.5 billion. And I'm like, that's not a round number. That's not a meaningful number. It's a number. It's just like it's the most that we could get to to sound significant because those are the expectations now. And I don't envy anyone. And so we're in a world of, yeah, like Minecrafts or nothing. Yeah. Familiar but new. Yeah. That's the whole ballgame. And that stinks. Well, it can be okay if it's Barbie. You know? Like, Barbie wasn't my favorite movie of that year, but I liked it. And I'm really glad it happened. I'm certainly not mad that a Minecraft movie happened.

45:12When we're here in nine years reviewing a Minecraft movie seven, then I'm going to, you know, I'm going to bleed out. Like, I'm just going to movie bleed out. It's going to be a bad scene. It's okay because the four Beatles movies will have saved cinema. Yeah. You think they'll be out in nine years? Oh, they better be. Okay. They better be. Yeah. I don't know. I'm trying to not do like a meltdown because it's not a meltdown. I don't think it's a meltdown. I think it's a therapy session. I think it's you observing and accepting things in real time. I give this a lot of thought. And paying penance a little bit for just your 10 years of superhero gluttony.

45:56And just being like, I love it. It's awesome. No. You weren't like that. You were very... I was individually critical when I felt it was necessary. But when I liked something, I tried to say, here's why I like it. Right. And then it got way more cynical than I had realized it was going to get. Sure. But you're right that I am kind of paying a penance. Because my enthusiasm contributed to leading us to this place. Sure. As did everyone's. And it's a real, you get what you want. and then it just has to keep going. Buyer's remorse. Yeah, there you go. Do you think you'll see a Minecraft movie? Maybe I'll check it out on streaming.

46:32It will be on the Mac service, but probably not for a while. Okay, because they're going to buy the window. I don't know whether I'll go to the theater. What's your thought on your kids, your boys playing video games? I'm going to hold it off for as long as humanly possible. Do you think it will happen? I don't know I try to be realistic but also I have been surprised by how much we've been able to avoid stuff I'm not interested in thus far I mean I know he's only three but I know at some point they're going to be surrounded by it and I don't Kindergarten is really the word sets in Video games starting kindergarten I just mean getting exposed to things that other kids really like.

47:21And then them talking about it and then it coming home. Yeah. So, you know, if they go to someone else's house, what am I going to do? But I think probably not in our house as for as long as I can possibly do it. I mean... I ask because obviously the success of this movie is informed by this kind of like legacy love. Yeah. This thing like, I got exposed to this when I was six. I've been playing it. Right. And I'm 16 now. And look what we got. We got my thing that I like. And, you know, like there was news this morning that it's just like we're going to put a fortnight movie in development you know like everything that is kind of in this rich terrain will then get developed and put out into the world um i was very fond of saying when i was at the beginning of my i don't know about the beginning of my career and at a time in my career where i was like i'm not going to go hungry i was really grateful to my parents that they let me indulge my interests that they let me watch a lot of television, that they let me watch a lot of sports, that they pushed me to play sports, that they let me collect VHS tapes, and that they bought me an NES when I was like seven.

48:28Because spending all that time in those worlds, it not only bolstered my enthusiasm, but it prepared me for my professional life. Sure. And I think if there were strong guardrails around that, I maybe would not have been able to find something that I really care about. And it's hard to get a career in something you really care about. That's like a mass psychosis inside of the American dream. It's like, as long as you love something and work hard at it, you'll get it, which is, of course, not true. So setting aside my good fortune, I'm always at war with this now that I'm a parent. Yeah. I don't think you can set aside your good fortune.

49:03I think it's, like, actually insane how much we lucked out and that our job is, like, seeing and watching. Totally. And I try to think about that every day. Yes. Even as I bitch about having to see all of these movies that I wouldn't, it's not how I would choose to spend my time on my own. Like that's my job. And I think, you know, I hope that our kids get to do something that they're passionate about. But like, I don't know if I can, I don't know. I think I'm trying to prepare them to have a rich and, you know, in an enjoyment sense, a spiritual sense, not a financial sense, though. That would be great, but it doesn't look good out there.

49:47It's not a good week for that. A fulfilling life. Yeah. Yeah. And... You don't think sitting in a movie theater at Saturday at 9 p.m. is a fulfilling way to spend your time? Not just sat in a movie theater at 9 a.m. many times. It's actually 11 because that's when the Academy does its family screenings. And that's compatible with nap time. Thank you so much to the Academy or the Academy Museum. So, yeah, he's sat in a movie theater plenty of times. I don't know whether I think like five hours a day in front of a video game is this set up to a fulfilling life. And maybe he'll become a video game designer.

50:20I read what's the movie? Not Everything Everywhere All at Once. What's the book? Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Yes. Didn't really like it. But that's okay. Because many people did, and those people had a rich life building video games. That would be quite a turn if one of your children is a video game designer. I would enjoy that. Yeah. You know what? Cy is very responsive to the graphics in a book. He's just really clawing at them. He is also trying to get everything in his mouth right now, but I do feel like there's something visual going, artistic going on with him. I've got to keep those Legos away from him right now.

50:56I mean, how do people do this where you have the three-year-old toys with all the parts and then you have like a six-month-old who's just like, let me jam everything into my mouse? I don't know. Yeah. And you know what? You're never going to find out. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about some good movies. Thank you for indulging. You're welcome. All of those big ideas. So you've never really been in therapy. So like. That's not true. I wasn't. I was a teenager. Okay. Well, all right. What do you feel like you learned? About what? Yeah. Like what's your takeaway from this session that we just did? I wouldn't say you were like a very generous therapist.

51:31That's the first thing I would say. It's a different school. I'm pushing back. This is more like academic study for me. I just happen to have like a little bit of a manic personality on the podcast when we talk about this stuff. But I'm really trying to understand how everything fits together because I'm hopeful for a long-term future. So what did I learn? it's mostly a positive takeaway which is that like I saw a ton of kids losing their minds in a movie theater which is something I really value you know actually I think that's great yeah yeah and it wasn't a Minecraft movie is not awful it's not evil that's good you know what I mean yes I do it's kind of it's light hearted and fun and silly and right it's not that craven thing that free guy is where by the time you got to the end of that movie and I know a lot of people felt that movie was very fun and I overreacted but the end of that movie to me was the most cynical thing you could do which was just like this original story is not enough for your dead brain so let me put something in front of you that makes you feel like I know what you really want is not me but Captain America I hated that anyhow I think it's ultimately a positive what did I learn about myself I'm over indexed on caring about movies you know can you identify these five people for us sure this is Danielle Brooks she plays a real estate agent slash portable zoo meister she drives animals around Okay, so there's a big animal farm element in Minecraft.

52:54There are a lot of Minecraft creatures, yes. Okay. Among pink sheep, for example, these evil pigs, chickens. Are there any just like nice animals? Most of the animals are nice. Okay. The guys that are bad are those pigs in the other dimension, and then also at night the evil Frankensteins and skeletons come out, and you have to battle them. Okay. Honestly, I thought some of the effects work was pretty good. Okay, cool. there's Jack Black he plays Steve he's sort of the Christopher Columbus of the Minecraft world I would say that's not problematic which is to say he is an interloper who has arrived into a quote unquote new land that he is going to colonize in his own mind but he's not the originator of that land Jason Momoa that's a garbage man he wears a pink leather jacket with fringes throughout the entire film that honestly looks cool that is Henry Henry is the young boy and that's his sister whose name escapes me the actress's name is Emma Myers.

53:49Okay. She's supposed to be like 24. Okay. Yeah, she's doing social media. She looks like 14 in the movie. Again, this is why I was like, are you sure it's nine to 10-year-olds in your screening? Is it teenagers? It was probably like 53-year-old men and I just couldn't tell because they were hooting and hollering. Minecraft movie is not going to make the best movies of the year so far list. Okay. I did do a lot of work here. Yeah. I tried to... This expanded and there are several movies that I... I've heard of most of these. One or two I hadn't though. The Shudder stuff, you know, that's your time.

54:23Yeah. Yeah, and grain of salt for everything here. We've mentioned Black Bag a couple of times already. Yeah. It's been the easy one to point to. There it is. It came out just two and a half weeks ago in cinemas. Yeah. And it's already on VOD. Yes. So if people want to rent it there, they can. This is Steven Soderbergh's second feature film this year. you know we didn't have the in-depth conversation about the plotting of the movie I think because it was such a twisty movie and I had my doubts about its potential box office performance so what I didn't want to do was do an hour of conversation about the movie and then people would be like you fucking ruined this movie for me is there anything in this movie that we didn't get into that you want to talk about in terms of reveals?

55:08yeah just the way it's structured, how it's done um you know I think it's both very twisty-turny and also ultimately, like, and Agatha Christie, like, we're all around a dinner table. And, you know, it's going to be, I accuse you, I accuse you. Yeah. Which is very fun. It has, even though it ultimately is the dinner room scene, it does have that, like, Soderbergh, Ocean's Eleven, had it all, you know, flashback, putting the pieces together, which is so satisfying. Yeah. Also, the lie detector stuff, that entire sequence is just absolutely elite filmmaking, acting, editing. Very funny. So I guess maybe plot-wise, I'm not sure I expected the solution necessarily.

56:00necessarily. I don't know whether it was like the most naughty and the satisfying plot wise conclusion with respect to Pierce Brosnan. I, you know, I think that we knew that we knew something was up there, but, um, I just, it was so well made and acted that I didn't really care. I did feel like for a movie that's so plot, I didn't care about the plot that much. Do you think that matters? Like, because Soderbergh, is the king of the exercise. Yeah. You know? Yeah. You know, the movie that is being reclaimed of his right now and is being released on 4K is The Good German. Yeah. Which is a movie that I don't think is very good or works at all.

56:42It is a kind of exercise in a post-Casablanca style of filmmaking. And one of the things that the movie got dinged for was like, this just kind of feels like a guy moving magnets on a refrigerator. You know, these are just pieces that are being moved around and not actually human experience. and yet I do feel that sort of very romantic as a filmmaker very intellectually probing as a filmmaker presence is like very upsetting at times in terms of what it's exploring so the exercise is tricky because I agree that there was like the final five minutes of Black Bag might have been my least favorite part of the movie well I maybe that's maybe that's a writing issue and not a directing issue I honestly think it might be a performance issue there's there's you know that's a table of heavy weights and then there's one person who are you saying rege jean page is not up for well he's no mercea bella you know what i'm saying by the way just casting her as the coder is still the funniest thing that's ever happened yes or the coder or the satellite tech expert whatever uh really really really good sense of humor so for me that was kind of the you know both he and pierce brosnan are like showing their hand a little bit A little transparent.

57:57Yeah. Early in the film. I agree. I wonder how purposeful that is. You know, sometimes you're watching a Vincent Price movie and you're like, well, Vincent Price is in this movie. He's going to do some bad shit. Yeah. But I don't know. I think this is a great movie about marriage. I found it ultimately to be a very romantic movie. And I think that's what it's about. So that they kind of yada yada the end of the murder mystery. Like, who cares? I think people should watch it. I think it's awesome. I do think that, you know, Universal needs How to Train Your Dragon to be a big hit so that we can get more black bag.

58:32Okay. So, go see How to Train Your Dragon. I thought the dragons looked pretty real. Pretty real? Relatively to the real dragons you've encountered? I don't know. Just like what's in my head. You had never seen a How to Train Your Dragon animated feature, right? No, I hadn't. Okay. I mean, I... It is like shot for shot. Sure. The live action. They did actually in one of the reels, they started with the animated film and then like faded into the exact shot recreation in the live one. And you were moved by that? I was like, oh, I get it. I feel like I got the lay of the land pretty quickly without having seen the animated version.

59:08And is that land you'd want to live in? I don't know. I don't think I would like to drink mead, you know? So anywhere where they're serving mead is... Not a Viking gal. You know. Okay. What about a Norse goddess riding a winged pegasus? I don't think so. I mean, I have dark hair, so I think that excludes me from whatever's going on there. You're more of a witch, right, in that Norse mythology. Sure. Yeah. Okay. The dragon, when they were fighting the dragon? Sure. If that's how you get your kicks, go for it. Absolutely. I'm going to give you a couple of movies that I enjoyed. Yeah. with varying degrees of mixed.

59:52Okay. Misericordia is a new French film. It's probably the most acclaimed movie of the year. I believe it debuted at, it was definitely at the fall festivals. I can't recall which fall festival it was at. I want to say that it was at Cantu, but it's Alain Girard's new film. He made Stranger by the Lake, which is a very eerie, upsetting, serial killer queer thriller that came out in 2014. This is very much in the same lineage as that movie. It's about a strange guy who comes back to his hometown to see what's going on after there's been a death of someone that he knows in his hometown. I'll spoil it for you right now.

1:00:35He just starts killing people in often extremely brutal and emotionally dead ways. Cool. this is a deeply upsetting very intellectually probing movie but it's not like you're cheering when he's killing people you're like oh that's fucked up I would say that these are not earned deaths that there's something deeply wrong with this guy who's played by Felix Keisel well I just meant sometimes you go see a movie in order to watch like really brutal kill scenes and be like yeah yeah there's movie death and then there's movie murder and then there's real murder movie murder is often elegant and thrilling and cut to make you excited or titillated Right.

1:01:19or to scare you and to be shrieking like make you shriek. And real murder is blunt Yeah. and kind of quiet and upsetting and emotionally distancing. Okay. This movie is getting closer to real murder. Okay. Well that sounds upsetting. So I don't know if that's a huge recommendation. It's a movie for the sickos in many ways. Okay. but I thought it was extremely effective. I think people should check it out. He's not, as a filmmaker, he's not really like a question answerer. He's just sort of like there is evil in the world, and I tend to agree. Much like me. You are the evil in the world? No, well, sure, if you want.

1:02:02Total flip side of that coin is this is a movie that I want you to watch, and if you don't like it, it's okay, but I want to know what you think about it. It's called The Ballad of Wallace Island. Right, and it stars Carey Mulligan. It stars Carey Mulligan. I'm going to read the names of the folks who also stars because that's relatively important because they're also the writers. So it's written by Tim Kee and Tom Basden and they are the stars. Carey Mulligan is a supporting character. Here's the premise of the movie. Tom Basden plays a early 40s singer-songwriter English guy who's been called to a remote island to give a performance for a very small crowd he's being paid a large sum of money and there is a desire for him to play some of his old stuff, not just the new stuff he's greeted at the shore of the island, there's not even a port of any kind, he's greeted at the shores of the island by this guy played by Tim Key, who is shepherding him, housing him, clearly a big fan of his.

1:03:05And he leads him to his estate, which is essentially a castle, which he's treating as a hotel for this guy played by Baston. It becomes very clear very quickly that this guy is paying entirely for this artist to come and perform for him and him alone, and that there are no people on this island, and that he is a super fan. So is this a horror movie? No. And that's the thing is when I explain that setup, your first instinct will be that sounds creepy as fuck. But it's not. In fact, it's probably the sweetest movie I've seen this year. Arguably too sweet. It's quite saccharine, but very effective.

1:03:43And the turn of the key on the story is that this guy that Bazden plays was a member of a duo in the 2000s. And Carey Mulligan was the other half of his duo. They were a male-female singer-songwriter team, and they were also a couple. They have since split. They're not in touch. She shows up the next day at the island with her new husband. They live in Oregon together. And they have to figure out how to make it work on the island because they're being paid a vast sum of money, and she really needs the money. He maybe doesn't need the money as much, and he's quite dismayed by this circumstance.

1:04:21Okay. the chemistry of these actors is great it's very Sundance-y I'm not saying it's not it's very John Carney how is the music? pretty good okay pretty good but in what flavor? it's not transcendent yeah well it's not my favorite genre of movie of music yeah sorry of music yeah it is a genre of movie that I like quite a bit it's not my favorite genre of music there's a kind of it's like lollipop folk yeah I just came up with that in my head five seconds ago, but that's, you know what I mean. Listen, I know what you mean. And I knew what you meant before I even asked the question, which is why I asked it.

1:04:59Yeah. And I'm not saying that the reason it goes to watch Bazden play folk guitar. Okay. Jesus Christ. But it doesn't happen as much as you think it does. Okay. And what's interesting to me about the story is kind of what happens to a person who's an artist and really famous. And then like life goes on. Like 10 years go by and you're still that guy from 2009. When I was writing about music and covering music, Like, I'll give you an example. One of the best experiences I ever had with a band was Franz Ferdinand. I spent an afternoon with Franz Ferdinand right when they were hitting after their first album leading into their second album.

1:05:30I profiled them, I think, for Spin. I can't remember. And I just had the best time. They were incredibly cool guys. They were very inviting to me. I was hanging out in the lead singer's apartment for the day. And I'll always like that band, not just because I like their music and I wanted that assignment because I like their music, but because I liked them. And I had a nice connection with them. and so when I listen to those songs I feel good yeah the Tim Key character has an even deeper connection to the music by the artists that Baz and Mulligan play in the movie and I got it music matters it's beautiful it carves a little niche into your life now I just have Take Me Out just like playing in my head yeah banger incredible song you might watch it and be like Sean you should be shot publicly but maybe not Probably won't.

1:06:20Okay. Let me tell you about the assessment. Okay. This is an interesting one. Not really your bag, but very important conversation topic for us. So, it's soft science fiction. Okay. It stars Elizabeth Olsen, Alicia Vikander, and Himesh Patel. Sure. Almost entirely them, although we do have Indira Varma and Minnie Driver and a handful of supporting characters. Okay. Set in the future. they live they're scientists and they live in kind of like a remote locale near the water but it also has a kind of like mountain terrain and I don't like the mountains stick with me I like the mountains when they're near the water oh yeah okay like Los Angeles interesting the movie is directed by someone named Flor Fortune never heard of this person before the assessment that is transpiring is in this near future you need to be assessed as to whether or not you're fit to have a child.

1:07:17Vikander is the assessor. Elizabeth Olsen and Himish Patel are the couple. She visits them in this remote locale and she's meant to spend a week with them to assess whether or not they are fit for childbearing. The way in which she does this is she essentially becomes a child in the house and monitors their ability to navigate the experience of the child. So like, does Alicia Vikander take over an animatronic baby? No. She as an adult acts like a three-year-old. Oh, okay. I'll just say the movie is is very stylish. The production design's great. It's well shot. Performances are good. Elizabeth Olsen is clearly working very hard to put, you know, Wanda in the rear view, you know?

1:08:07His Three Daughters is another example of this where she's just trying to totally different performance style. The movie is worth seeing because Alicia Vikander is a three-year-old girl in the movie. Okay. And I know because I have a three-year-old girl in my house. And the tantrums and the defiance and the love and the confusion, the emotional confusion that she shows is crazy. Now, Alicia Vikander is also a mother of young children. Right. And so that's obviously very informed by being a parent. If it was not, I would be stunned. It would be impossible to give this performance if you do not have kids.

1:08:38You might not even like where the movie nets out, but I was like knocked out and kind of terrified by her ability to become a tiny child while also still being beautiful. That sounds cool. But then it does veer into the night bitch conversation of, like, do you want to spend your spare time exploring this deeply traumatic part of your life? It's the same terrain. Yeah, it's the same terrain. Yeah, I put the three-year-old to bed and then. Well, one of its conclusions, and this isn't a spoiler, I don't think, is just that like no one is fit to do this. That no one is suited to handle these circumstances.

1:09:12that like feeling bad and the experience of parenting is a feature and not a bug. You know, that like the idea that you're never going to be perfect at these things. But then what if you were confronted by someone who told you your imperfection makes you invalid? Right. Is hard. It's hard information to hear. Anyway, I thought it was a really interesting movie. I think it could have been better. But it hit me at the right time in my life. Okay. That's what I'll say. I think maybe it's helpful that I'm like, as you know, I kind of like exited a hard era of parenting. Yes. And I'm in like a positive era of parenting.

1:09:46Right, right, right. So. Have you found that like the whole numbers or like the three and a halves are easier?

1:09:57I found two and a half to three to be great. I found three to three and a half to be impossible. So you're finding the whole numbers to be difficult. And yes. And I'm finding three and a half to four to be wonderful. Okay. And I think that was similar when she was one to two. What do you, are you having a different experience? No, I just, people feel very strongly about like that ones, like the halves are tough and the holes are, you know, but I can never remember which one. I mean, I just, you know, I have a three or three-year-old boy who is like Sonic the Hedgehog, you know? So it's, it just is what it is.

1:10:35I never forget a conversation I had with a parent who was like the daughter of a neighbor of mine who came outside. She had two young boys and she came outside and she was like, and her boys were running around and being crazy. And she was like, and they tell you it's terrible twos. It's not terrible twos. They tell you it's three-nager. It's not three-nager. The thing is four-nado. Oh. Four-nado is the thing that they don't tell you about. Because you get through three and you're like, I did it. Yeah. I have a big kid. Right. And then four. Okay. So I have been protecting myself. yourself? Yes.

1:11:06Okay. Just in case. Now I have a girl. Girls are different. Yeah. And I'm hopeful that we got through the worst of it. But this movie conjured those feelings in a very specific way. Anyway. I think you're doing great. That's my assessment. Thanks. Thanks. We're doing our best. Seven Veils. I'm mixed on this movie, but I want to recommend it. This is a new movie from... We live in hell. I know. I know. It's not great. New movie from Adam McGowan, legendary Canadian filmmaker, Sweet Here After, Exotica, a number of other movies. He made a movie in 2013, I want to say, called Chloe with Amanda Seyfried and Julianne Moore, you may remember, is kind of an erotic thriller about a young woman who's obsessed with an older woman.

1:11:49This is a reunion with Amanda Seyfried who plays a theater director who's trying to navigate a complicated relationship in her life, her ability to have power. This movie has a podcasting element that I found very amusing. She's confronted by an interviewer on a podcast who's raising some challenging questions for her. The reason to see it, I think, is Seyfried, who's a favorite of mine. I don't know if you watched the clip of her on Jimmy Fallon playing the musical instrument singing Joni Mitchell. Oh, I did watch that. And then I thought you were going to say, I don't know if you watched the clip of her on Vogue doing her Get Ready With Me and talking about her eczema.

1:12:23It was great. She has eczema? She does. And shout out to her. She just starts like absolutely nothing on the face. And so you can see some of the eczema. So I watched it because I was like, with some postpartum stuff. And, you know, she's obviously an incredibly beautiful person. But I saw both clips. Interesting. I really enjoy how she uses her fame to make stuff like this pretty continuously. And then we'll do like a Hulu crime show that stinks and then be like, okay, I got to get this Adam McGowan movie made. But she was on stage at CinemaCon during the Lionsgate presentation because she's going to be in that movie The Housemaid directed by Paul Feig.

1:12:58And it was Brandon Sklenar from It Ends With Us and the forthcoming drop, which opens this weekend. Sydney Sweeney. Mm-hmm. And Paul Feig and Amanda Seyfried. And Sydney Sweeney was treating her like she was Catherine Hepburn. She was like, this is my goat. This is the actor for whom I want to have a career like. Like she was hailing her. Yeah. Which is interesting because is Amanda Seyfried even 40? She's 39. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sydney Sweeney's very good at selling things. So that's one thing to keep in mind. But Amanda Seyfried rules. Big fan of hers. You ever seen her Architectural Digest home tour?

1:13:42No. Oh, yes. Is it like in upstate New York? No, this was the one of the New York apartment. And so they have just like a lot of closets and stuff where she's, you know, hidden things. And then she's like, yep, here's another place where I hid some stuff. When she was on the pod, she was zooming in from her barn. Yeah. I think they spend a lot of time in the barn.

1:14:06She's pretty great. Okay, next one. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl. Again, a little mixed on this movie, but it has a lot to recommend. A24 released earlier this year. It was a canned last year. Rangano Agnani is the director. This is a Zambian production with clearly some U.S. financing. it's about a woman who is driving one night on her way to a party and discovers her dead uncle's body in the street the ramifications of her uncle's death like hit like a bomb in the community that she lives in it sounds very serious and at times it is like gravely serious but there is like an oddball absurdist quality to some of the filmmaking I saw this at Vidiot's with a packed house and had a really good experience seeing it I think the performance of Susan Shardy as the lead character, Shula, is really, really good.

1:15:02This is a real, like, I want to see the next filmmaker's next movie. But I wanted to give it a quick shout out. One of Them Days, which is now like one of the most popular movies on Netflix. Also definitely one of the best movies that we have seen this year in theaters. Probably the second best studio movie of the year. I chuckled throughout. Did Great Business. Another movie why I don't understand why there are not more movies like it. Lawrence Lamont directed. It's produced by Issa Rae. It stars SZA and Kiki Palmer. Very funny. No other thoughts? We talked about it. We did. With Yassi. And we were like, this is really great.

1:15:39Every single one of the bits works. Incredible chemistry between Kiki Palmer and SZA. SZA in her film debut. Crazy. Really, really, really funny. Yeah. Reminds me a lot of Chris Tucker showing up in Friday. Obviously, Friday is a huge inspiration for that movie. but when Chris Tucker showed up in Friday, I want to say I was 12 when that movie came out. I was like, what the fuck is that? I know who SZA is, but you know what I mean. Presence? Yeah, Steven Soderbergh. Also on VOD right now. Two for two. Two for two. This is a ghost story about a house and a family that moves into a new house and the ghosts inside their past and the literal ghosts inside their house.

1:16:19I enjoyed your interview with my friend Steven, But he talks about, because he does all the camera work for this, which is essential to the film. And so just imagining him like tiptoeing around in grippy socks, like really changes the, like, you should see it again once you have that image in your head. Because it's really, really quite amusing. I was so glad that I thought to ask him that question and he had such a specific answer. But also like Steven Soderbergh as the ghost of this family with the camera is an amazing, amazing concept. and exercise all its own. Isn't it also a perfect metaphor for how he sees himself in the world?

1:16:56Yes. You know, as this like ghost haunting humanity as he tells his stories. Yeah. I really enjoyed that. A couple of quick Shudder ones. I wanted to give some love to the dead thing, which is my friend Elric Kane's directorial debut, which is on Shudder right now, which I won't spoil it for anybody who hasn't had a chance to check it out yet, but is a fascinating parable about the perils of dating apps. Okay. And the challenges of meeting new people in the world in 2025. I am very grateful to be married. It does seem tough out there. Meeting strangers in strange places and them thinking they know things about you is something that I find troubling.

1:17:34I guess the only time you would have had that when we were younger would have been if you were going on a blind date and a friend told you some information about that person. I guess maybe you could respond to a classified ad and go on a date. Did you ever do that? No. I don't know. By the time I was out of college, I was on my way. I do know that, but you know did you? no of course not did you ever place a class of my dad? no of course not if you did what would you say? I'm not putting myself out there no absolutely not Gen Z mommy seeking a baby to take care of great really good so The Dead Thing is kind of like a very ambient anxiety provoking thriller with horror elements The Rule of Jenny Penn is a wildly unpleasant movie okay let me make sure I have the filmmaker's name right, but it stars John Lithgow and Jeffrey Rush.

1:18:27That's star power for you. In a James Ashcroft movie about two men in a retirement community, one of whom is a judge who has had a stroke and is physically unable to move half of his body. And so he's bedridden for a lot of the time and in a wheelchair. He's played by Jeffrey Rush. Another guy, Dave, is evil and possessed by something. Presumably Jenny Penn, which is a little girl's doll that he uses to communicate and torture this bedridden judge who is a very angsty person himself. That sounds horrible. John Lithgow really, really channeling the Raising Cain, you know, Dexter era like monster mode.

1:19:12He's fucking terrifying and weird in this movie. Also surprisingly limber for a man in his 80s. He's got a dance sequence that is quite notable. This movie is also on Shudder right now. Pretty good. What are your thoughts on going into a retirement community at some point in your life? Me? Yeah. This has already been a depressing podcast. Do we really need to talk about it? I'd like to know, yeah. What are your thoughts on elder care? Because this is a parable about the evils of elder care. And the whole time watching this movie I was like, where the fuck are the nurses and the orderlies that are supposed to take care of these people?

1:19:48where are they? I am grateful for caregivers around, you know, and we need more of them. Are you afraid to offend someone right now? No, I just, it's very fraught. I don't know. I don't want to, like, I don't want my kids to have to deal with me. So. No, that's the whole point of having kids. I don't want, no, I don't want to. You don't want your kids to have to take care of you? No. Oh my God. Can you imagine how? You are what's wrong with this country. We have family first, Amanda. God. Family first. Go away. wait so you want to go into a community when you're older i mean no i don't want to join any community ever as you know that's like one of my main issues um and like they have all those activities you know and i like i'm not a joiner like i'm pickleball canasta no i'd like you want me gin rummy and the talent show right the talent show like can you imagine me doing any of this you but you're you're a musician no i'm not you're an artist no you're an orator i just sit somewhere and read, you know, but I guess I don't really care where.

1:20:50Maybe you should go to that island from the assessment. Okay, that sounds good. In this giant wooden box that they live in. Okay, so you're out on elder care and particularly people who take care of older people. No, I appreciate them. I just don't. Listen, my kids are going to be so annoyed with me. And then they have to like. This is really your perspective on this? I'm actually quite surprised. Yeah, I don't want to be a burden to them. Wow. We see the world very differently. I guess so. That's revealing. Okay. Not that you haven't been revealing another commentary earlier, but if my daughter doesn't take care of me, we're going to have big problems.

1:21:25I'm putting that out there right now. Right now, Alice. Mickey 17? Good movie. Yeah, I liked it. Yeah. It's not Bong's best. It was surrounded by a lot of Warner Brothers release delay, David Zaslav panic. Yeah, general angst and anxiety. Yes. also a big filmmaker following up his Academy Award winning film always brings a lot of dread and undermining. I think it's a fun sci-fi comedy. Robert Patton's in forever. He's great. Yeah. I still have not watched the final choice. Sure. Kind of Pregnant. Yeah. Co-written by and starring Amy Schumer. Okay. Gotta be honest. I thought it was pretty good.

1:22:07So did Yassi for what it is. I mean it is it is as we said on Garbage Women Bridesmaids but for Pregnancy. The Amy Schumer character steals a fake bomb from a Hatch store. Are you familiar with Hatch? Hatch the noise machine? Yeah, I think it is. Same company? Yeah, they also make a lot of pregnancy clothing. But it's like pregnancy clothing that only fits models wearing bombs, not actual pregnant people. They do fine work in noise machine technology. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People like it a lot. And then it turns into the red light, green light thing, right? This is how we handle wake-ups in the morning.

1:22:45Yeah, we have like a different brand because I can't really. Hatch calls people mama a lot. And so I'm out on that. You know, if you're trying to sell me something, you can't. They don't actually call you. They're just sending emails. The package. Well, listen, I get an email with it and I'm not happy. Anyway, or if it's on the packaging, I'm not happy. You're very chill. You spent two hours talking about Minecraft and I'm just telling you the plot. I'm kind of pregnant. Okay. I was podcasting. So she steals a bump and then she pretends to be pregnant to like keep up with her friend Jillian Bell, who we really like.

1:23:20Oh, yeah. And then she makes other pregnant friends and like develops a romantic relationship with Will Forte, even though he thinks she's pregnant. I love Will Forte. He's really funny. She's really funny. You know, she does all of like the the body humor and stuff that she normally does. But with pregnancy, it's like a very rich text. I would say that you know it's a ridiculous story that wraps up very quickly but all the bits are very funny over under 1.5 sex scenes um I can definitely think of one so I don't know if there's a second one but the one that she has is very funny so is it hardcore or no um well it's you know harder than you might expect it's funny got it uh not an ideal year no for us um It will be an ideal week.

1:24:12I'll tell you why. 25 for 25. A very special Amanda-coded episode. Yes. Looking forward to having that conversation with you very soon. We're also getting a can lineup on Thursday. So we're going to record on Thursday morning. Right. And that's just going to be just a list of films that we're not going to be able to see because you wanted to go golfing. Why don't you go? What's stopping you? Because I'm taking care of my two children while you take my husband golfing. You're doing all that and they're not going to take care of you. How does that make sense? It don't. Can line up, which is going to basically be like an Oscar preview for us.

1:24:47Yeah. In many ways. You're such an idiot. What do you mean? It's whatever. Go ahead. Keep talking. I mean, you got to take care of your own life. You got to figure out your own stuff. I was trying to. When you guys booked this, I said to both of you, I would like to go to Cannes. I don't live in your house. This is literally your husband's birthday weekend. Literally. I know. Literally. literally so show him some respect and love as i will when we are in oregon together okay golfing all right um so just a podcast about oscar movies we're not going to get well there's also going to be a warfare conversation which you won't participate in probably because it's extremely upsetting yeah you also didn't invite me well after your civil war performance you've been disinvited from all future alex garland combos uh you know many people are saying civil war was right yeah many people that uh look just like you so that's fine handsome masculine uh okay uh thanks to jack sanders for his work on this episode we appreciate you and like i said later this week number 23 on 25 for 25 we'll see you then

1:26:05Thank you.