Best Picture Power Rankings and the Winners and Losers of Movies in 2024. Plus: ‘Superman’ Is Here.

25:38Yes, my brutal boys and girls. God bless all of them. There you go. The Babylon Hive continues, right? And then like there's a box office budget multiplier is one that we've been adding to the algorithm. Just sort of like how profitable was this at the end of the day? There's not just like the Letterboxd score, but there's like how many people logged in on Letterboxd is a metric that we're tracking. Metacritic score. Just trying to, and I really think we got it right this year. It was a little janky last year. The Eras Tour movie came at the end of the year like a wrecking ball and really destroyed everything.

26:15But I think this year we really got it. Do you want to hear our top 10? that is box office in addition to other things. So number one, Doom Part II. Okay. Number two, Inside Out II. Number three, The Wild Robot. Number four, Wicked. Number five, Deadpool and Wolverine. Number six, Challengers. Number seven, stay with me. Number seven, Long Legs. Number eight, The Substance. Number nine, Furiosa. Number 10, Alien Romulus. for stuff like challengers and long legs and the substance i feel like these are films that are just going to stay alive in the conversation for years and years and years to come because when you talk to people who like love cinema they're going to say have you seen the substance this year did you watch challengers whether or not those performed at the you know the box office multiplier obviously helps something like long legs but like um i think there's just like an interesting maelstrom that we need to consider that goes beyond what the box office can tell us these days because the box office is so different.

27:23That is just like I saw there was something so big in this movie. I felt like I had to see it on the screen. And I don't know that people feel that way about the sexy tennis that is Challengers. I had to go to the cinema to see it. But if they see it at home, it's going to linger with them. You know, that's my argument. I love that you've put so much thought into the methodology. That's exactly the kind of dumb shit that I'm interested in. Yeah, yeah. I don't know that I haven't looked at the numbers that you've collated, but I'm not sure if I fully agree with where you landed. In part because I think Deadpool and Wolverine being the second highest grossing movie of the year and also being a movie that essentially kept the seat warm for an entire wing of Hollywood is not measurable, but incredibly important.

28:07And I think really undermined a lot of my suspicions about where culture was, it's incredible success. Well, because on the episode that we did with the Midnight Boys about it, I was like, is this what people want? I remember asking that question because like, as I sat in the movie theater, I laughed. I got all the references. I was happy to have been on the journey with 20th century Fox's superhero stories and all of the unmade movies. And it was great to see Gambit. And, you know, against my own sincere will, I laughed at Ryan Reynolds. But I couldn't, I was like, God, this is so up its own ass.

28:40I can't believe it. And it still was like monumentally big. I mean, it was, it's basically an old school box office success. You know, it's a movie, it's a remnant of 2018 and not of 2024. So I see a movie like that as being pretty significant in this measurement that we're having here. It was always going to be though, like when people were sort of spinning their webs about this is the end of Marvel last year. Those of us who might have been on a Marvel-based book tour were saying they have one movie coming out next year, one movie, and it's Deadpool and Wolverine, and it's going to make an obscene amount of money.

29:22And it's going to give them the space they need to lick their wounds and figure out where to go from there. I think the writing on the wall for this has been happening since Spider-Man No Way Home. That was a similar sort of nostalgia play that worked way more than I even expected it would. And so there's this in the, I don't know, pause, superhero pause or dying gasp, however you prefer to call it. There is this clutching at nostalgia straws, which is why Downey and Chris Evans are coming back to the MCU. you. That is the space we're in, at least in that avenue of storytelling. I was just on a text chain with friends last night about the Chris Evans coming back thing, and we discussed it when you and I talked about Red One, but what a disappointment that he just has done absolutely nothing with his Marvel capital and is now just going back after making three horrible streaming movies.

30:19It's a real drag, especially relative to what Sebastian Stan is doing, where he's just like, absolutely, I'll go work with a Romanian auteur and try to elevate his work internationally. It's like, it's just such a, it sucks. We talked about exactly this and I, as much as I hate that for Chris Evans and what's, what's even more disappointing is that he can do, we saw Knives Out, he can do it. There's, there are things that he can do. He just doesn't have the taste or the advice that Sebastian Stan is getting. Yeah, but he does have the taste. He made Snowpiercer. He made Sunshine. He made Scott Pilgrim versus the world.

30:54Like, he knows who good filmmakers are. He proved to us. It's more like he doesn't care, which is obviously his right as a person. That's depressing. That's depressing. Anyway, we don't have to spend any more time on Chris Evans. I tell you what, I love your case for Universal, the fact that they spoke to a lot of different kinds of audiences in an effective way. So let's go with Universal as the studio. Let's talk about the movie star. Now, I was chatting with our friend Craig Horlbeck this morning about this. And he had a great comp that may be completely baffling to you, but I'm going to make an attempt to explain it.

31:30There's a famous football clip from the last couple years in which D.K., or excuse me, in which Buda Baker intercepts a pass. He's a safety for the Arizona Cardinals, and he's running to bring that interception into the end zone for a touchdown. And while he's running, he doesn't realize that the wide receiver, D.K. Metcalf, is on his tail and is about to knock the ball out, forcing a fumble and halting that interception touchdown. That is what Timothee Chalamet is doing in Glenn Powell in the movie Star of the Year race. Where Glenn Powell, up until about three weeks ago, I was like, well, this is the story.

32:10Huge streaming hit in Hitman. It's going to get him a Golden Globe nomination. Plus, Twister's cherry on top. This is a box office star. This is a guy who can carry a franchise. Everything that we've been saying on the show for the last five years, but everything that's been kind of in the ether of Hollywood for the last five years with Glenn, it happened. Anyone but you carried over from last year, he's the guy. He's our pick. And then Chalamet showed up on game day, college game day. And I was like, holy shit, A Complete Unknown is going to be a big hit. On top of that Dune Part II phenomenon that you were citing earlier.

32:42And so my gut is like, wow, he DK Metcalf the button on Glenn. Right? Does it feel that way? Absolutely. I mean, like you put you you put a bunch of these sort of like ideas in the doc and I was trying to find alts for you just to keep like the conversation interesting. And I could not make a good case for anyone else other than Timmy as the movie star of the year. The bookend of Dune Part II and A Complete Unknown, again, the slightly different demographics they're serving in terms of Dune Part II obviously is in the Oscar conversation, but not the way in which A Complete Unknown has put him in the best actor conversation.

33:22He could totally win, Joe. He could absolutely win. And I think he might. And so, and we liked the movie. Yeah. And we liked him. And more than anything else, we liked him in the movie. So there's all of that. And then there's like the lingering fumes of one of our favorite conversations from last year, which is like somehow Wonka worked, you know. And so Timmy at this point feels undeniable, which is exciting because in the age of is the movie star dead, this young crop coming up of your Zendaya's, your Timothee Chalamet's, your Florence Pugh's, your entire cast of Doom Part II, let's say. Um, like that they can actually have movie stardom, not sort of the faint echo of movie stardom past is exciting.

34:15And it's only good for, you know, the conversation about the impact of movies in general. I would argue, too, that he is doing it in a way that perhaps no one has ever done it before because he's got a big challenge, right? You can't become a movie star now just on the back of exciting action or drama features the way that Paul Newman did or Harrison Ford did or Tom Cruise did or Denzel Washington did. You know, obviously Hollywood is in a significant, significantly different state. You need to use franchises to elevate. And so he has very deftly chosen franchises. He's aligned himself with a couple of filmmakers.

34:52and he's also taken traditional risks in terms of, you know, relatively big budget dramas. So if you look at like the full scale of his career, two movies with Greta Gerwig, you've got obviously the two Dune films with Villeneuve, you've got a Bob Dylan portrayal with James Mangold, all celebrated directors. You've got Wonka with another celebrated director and Paul King, but a much like playing to kids, not playing to adults, totally different. you've also got like even this you're obviously Luca Guadagnino and Call Me By Your Name and getting an Academy Award nomination at an incredibly young age even the stuff that doesn't work like Beautiful Boy I thought was like the right try the right attempt Bones and All is like the right thing to try to have a well-rounded CV as a young actor and so being someone that Wes Anderson calls you know exactly yes and you know now is obviously working with Josh Safdie who he's wanted to work with for a long time.

35:51He's known those guys forever. That's a cool A24 period piece. That's also a different, it's a different card in the deck. And so now it's like, you look at the arc of his career and it's like, he's not Leo. He's not Brad Pitt. He's not George Clooney. He's not like, there's no 90s or 2000s archetype that he is really following. He's doing a little Daniel Day-Lewis. He's doing a little, a little like, I don't know, who's a young heartthrob. Like he's doing a little Christian Bale. He's doing, he's kind of moving all over the place. in terms of the role picks. How is he not? It's interesting because I've heard him talk about the fact that he wanted to be Leo, but then he realized that that wasn't really exactly what he wanted or exactly what was available to him.

36:37But there is some Leo in there, in the mix, for sure. There absolutely is, but Leo would never go on College Game Day. He wouldn't do that. He wouldn't go on Theo Vaughn's podcast and hang out and talk about Bernie Sanders. I mean, he wouldn't talk to Brittany Brodsky and like know all the inside jokes. Yes, exactly. That is. He might date a Kardashian. But, you know. Yes. But even that is like Leo hasn't had a very famous girlfriend in a long time. Maybe younger Leo the same way Chalamet is young. He prefers to be the star of that relationship. Yeah, that's interesting. And I think what goes along with all of it, genuine talent, obviously, that's in the mix.

37:19That's in the mix for plenty of people, but it's in the mix for him. But then also the narrative around a complete unknown, the amount of sweat equity that went into that project, the musical training, the footage of him rehearsing on the set of Dune, nothing, nothing, I think, can match watching him rehearse to be Bob Dylan while dressed as Paul Atreides. That's just undeniable. It's pretty cool. It's just really a huge relief to actually have someone like this. I'm like, wow, definitely we'll be thinking about this guy in 20 years. Unless he's felled by some terrible scandal, I think he's here to stay.

38:02Clip this and save it for the future. But let's hope we don't have to use it. How many things can you clip for me at this point? How many times can I be dragged through the mud for my bad takes? Joanna, please don't draw attention to those things. I'm not the one dragging you. You had another great idea for a winner of the year, which is a genre winner. And it's pretty clearly musicals, right? This seems to be in the absence of huge action franchises, in the absence of studio comedies, in the absence of romance movies. Musicals, when you look down the list, obviously Wicked springs to mind immediately.

38:36But let's not forget that we've got three potentially big musician biopics. Of course, one loved the Bob Marley movie, which did come out at the beginning of this year and was a big hit, especially when you look at the list of movies that came out in the box office returns. Like it did quite well. And then a complete unknown, which we were just discussing. And I just had a chance to see Better Man last night, the Robbie Williams movie, which I don't know if it's going to do business, but it is certainly a unique thing. You liked it? I liked it. Did you like it? Parts of it. You know, obviously, anybody doesn't know Robbie Williams is a huge British pop star, was a member of the group Take That.

39:12and tried to break through in America in the 2000s. It didn't quite take, but he remained a massive star in the UK. This new biopic, which is directed by Michael Gracie, who made The Greatest Showman, features your kind of standard issue musician biopic story, except that Robbie Williams is portrayed by a CGI monkey, which is a very thinly veiled, not even a metaphor. It's a literalization of the fact that all entertainers are like dancing monkeys. Yeah. And half of it is very stupid and boring and half of it is exhilarating. So kind of like The Greatest Showman? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say.

39:51I would say this is better, I think, than The Greatest Showman was for me personally, for my taste. Is it cinema? Is it wonderful? No, but as a piece of pop art, I really enjoyed it. The take that sequence when they burst out of the store and dance in the street, I was like, this rocks. This is so fun. It was so good. You've listed all these films. There's also Amelia Perez. I completely forgot about Amelia Perez. Yeah. And Moana 2 and Mean Girls, which also did very well this year. The musical remake of Mean Girls. Yeah. It seems like musicals are doing well. What's your alt for this? The only alt I could come up with.

40:33This is a good one. And it's an unserious one. is in the vein of Better Man, digital monkeys. Better Man, Wicked, the Flying Monkeys of Wicked, the Strange Abominations in Gladiator 2, Mufasa's got plenty. Rafiki. Yeah. Yeah. And there was a Planet of the Apes movie this year, Lest We Forget. So, digital monkeys. It's a great pick. It's honestly legitimate. This is the one part of Wicked 2, Wicked that we'll have to fast forward through in my house, by the way. I know someone was asking me if they could take their kid like a small kid to Wicked I was like those monkeys are they startled me yeah me too it's actually quite upsetting yeah yeah okay so you know I think that there's another nice confirmation that is on the back of the Chalamet thing which is that Zendaya now I think similarly as a movie figure is not just Mary Jane anymore between Challengers which you mentioned earlier and the success that that movie had and then the fact that Chani was so central to Dune Part II, which was not promised necessarily, I guess, if you've read the novel, the fact that Villeneuve made that decision, that great bit of press when Spielberg interviewed Villeneuve and said, like, out of all the people in your cast, who do you think will be directing movies in 20 years?

41:50And he was like, oh, easily Zendaya, easily. She was the one who was, she was on the set with her camera. I loved that. Yeah, it was great. And I think that, especially after like the hue and cry after the first installment when she's sort of barely in it, having her as the, and then like, Just storytelling-wise, having her as the POV-ish character was a massive adaptation improvement, I think, actually, on a novel that I love. Zendaya, it's funny because when I was looking at your power couple category, I was really trying to convince myself that I could put Zendaya and Tom Holland in there. And I simply can't because Tom Holland has not yet been anything other than Peter Parker or, you know, Zendaya's biggest hype guy.

42:36And so as much as I like love and support them, I can't call them, you know, the power couple that one might call Ryan Reynolds and Deadpool. But Zendaya as a minted movie star, especially off the back of Challengers, a non-franchise real powerhouse turn, I think is exciting. Yeah, and the good news is that she gets to now make Euphoria for the next 18 months. And, I mean, one can only hope The Greatest Showman 2. Well, I have heard a little bit about the film that she's making with Robert Pattinson for A24 with Chris Borgwee, who made Dream Scenario. That movie sounds really good. I'm not at liberty to share too much about it, but what I heard about it sounded great.

43:21So I'm excited about that. Wow, what a tease. I think it's called The Drama. I don't know. Don't quote me on that. Okay. My riser of the year, obviously, was Glenn because Glenn got bumped for movie star of the year, sadly. But he's our riser. Who's your alt for riser? Friend of the pond. I was looking at it and I was... I think the Glenn story is undeniable. But Kaylee Spaney being in both Alien Romulus, though not the best part of Alien Romulus, and Civil War, I think is a worthy narrative. I mean, she was already sort of on the rise because of Priscilla and all of that. But I think this is a really good year for her again, in terms of like, she's in a franchise film and a film from a filmmaker that we both find very exciting at the same time.

44:05And so that was, I think it's a strong year for her. And then I think Margaret Qualley, even though she was very much in the conversation, there's something about the way that people have reacted to the substance that I think has locked her into a level of celebrity. She, even as like Andy McDowell's kid or after a really good performance in Made or you know, having a celebrity relationship or this, that and the other thing, being in a Tarantino film, I think this really pushed her into a different level. I think that's a great call. I hadn't thought of that but it does feel like she got famous, for lack of a better phrase, this year.

44:45So that's a good pick too. Indie Story of the Year to me is an absolute no-brainer. It's Damien Leone and Terrifier 3. And the fact that that movie opened at number one in America and has made an extraordinary amount of money relative to the investment. And the fact that Damien has been working on this project for over 10 years. And Cineverse doubled down on expanding the movie onto thousands of screens. And honestly, has got people in studio horror shook. because now that movie feels like a real pivot point, a real hinge moment now where everyone's looking for their Terrifier 3. And the truth is it's not replicable, but it's got executives and producers looking all over the place for potential talents in a way that is so, so good for horror and that horror desperately needs.

45:32So for me, it's exciting. Terrifier 3, I thought was okay. I think Terrifier 2 is the superior of those movies, not that it really matters. Of the Terrifiers? Yeah. Okay. But its success is very, very exciting. What's your alt? Well, what else would you put under the indie horror umbrella this year? I think In a Violent Nature and Late Night with the Devil, which were both IFC Shudder films, both had theatrical runs that did significantly better than I ever would have expected. Late Night with the Devil, especially kind of minting David Desmalchian as like a proper leading man. It was very cool.

46:06Exciting. And then Long Legs, obviously, I mean, there's very rarely been anything like that from a kind of a micro major like Neon to drive that much interest in a movie that I think actually ultimately most people were kind of mixed on. But that they just marketed the fuck out of it and it did so well. I liked it. So, you know, up and down year for horror in general. The majors, the major studios, I think, did not have a good year for horror. But I also think they'll be back next year too. Your Abigail's? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I have an alt here, but I actually, I need your feedback on this because I thought maybe Sundance as a whole.

46:45And the only reason I, obviously Sundance often lingers across the year, but I feel like in recent years, it's felt like diminishing. Its power has been diminishing. And I just know that in the conversations you and I have had over the past couple weeks, I felt like I kept hearing you say, and obviously that was a movie at Sundance earlier this year. I felt like I heard that more than I usually do. And I couldn't tell if that was just my imagination, but some titles, A Real Pain, Different Man, Mild Ass, Dee Dee, Will and Harper, I Saw the TV Glow, Kneecap, Between the Temples. That seems to me, and especially as we're in the middle of the awards conversation, and Real Pain is here, and Dee Dee is still hanging around, Different Man is hanging around.

47:28I saw the TV glow is sort of burbling around a bit in some awards circles, and Will and Harper just got shortlisted in the docs. It just seems like a more impactful Sundance here than usual. I think there's actually a whole slate of documentaries, too. Most of the documentaries that are on the shortlist premiered at Sundance. I think over half of them, including Sugarcane was there. Soundtrack to a coup d 'etat was there. A number of other films. Like we're all really good films. You know, I've done Sundance virtually the last two years. I'm doing it again this year virtually. And it's candidly better for me because I feel like I need to see roughly 30 movies so that I can be prepared for what you're describing.

48:05But I think it's a great insight because it was, the studios did not have the ability to either be in production or do the reshoots that they needed to do during the strikes. so there were tons of empty weekends over the years and that created opportunity for movies like the ones you just listed to have a little bit more breathing room to get into the conversation this year and you're right they made the most of it for the most part none of these movies did really as well commercially as you would want even a movie like A Real Pain which I think 10 or 20 years ago would have been playing at the Angelica for like three months totally it's not quite doing that but they are in the conversation for sure right I mean like Kieran Culkin's about to win an Oscar for it, right?

48:44And I saw the TV glow keeps coming up as like your favorite filmmaker's favorite filmmaker. You know what I mean? Like a lot of filmmakers are talking about I saw the TV glow as something that felt really impactful to them this year. So that movie to me is the one that probably will be the most influential on people who are in their early 20s who will go out and make movies. Because what Jane did in that film, the hallmarks are so obvious for what they were after, but there had never really been that kind of synthesis before and so I expect that movie to be a big calling card if I'm interviewing directors in 10 years who are 30 years younger than me.

49:23They'll be citing something like that. Hopefully. That's a wonderful movie so I see that as a good thing. Okay, comeback of the year. To me this was an easy one. I like your alt as well but Demi Moore in The Substance and the fact that she has not headlined a studio movie in almost 20 years and delivers, I think, a brilliant and deeply committed performance and did it in an incredibly strange movie. There's not, even though Demi Moore is known for taking chances, there's not a lot in her career that suggests she would be a part of a movie like this. So I was blown away. Not Charlie's Angels 2?

50:01No? No. But even movies like G.I. Jane or Striptease where she kind of transformed herself, never anything this kind of genre bound. So I think it's really cool and great. And it's been great to see her through the award circuit the last few months. And I think also, I mean, I don't want to like throw a parade for the beautiful people of the world when they decide to get unglamorous for a role because like, okay, listen, great, good for you. But like her brand has, and her personal brand has been so tied up in her beauty for so long that there's something incredibly profound and sticky about what she did with the substance.

50:42And I remember that, you know, I know you do too, just the conversations about it coming out of Cannes. And it was like, sometimes these conversations happen. It was at Cannes, right? It was not Venice, it was Cannes. It was at Cannes. Yeah, it was Cannes. Some of these festival conversations, you hear it from afar and you're like, that's everyone just trying to make a story. And this one sounded so improbable that I was like, all right you know my my pals at vanity fair or whatever it is like i i don't believe that this is going to be what you're saying it's going to be and then lo and behold it absolutely was and actually even more than i think a lot of uh people even um in the various profiles on to me that was coming out of the festivals this was just even bigger than that my alt um is adrian Brody as a bona fide leading man.

51:32And this is for you, my fatal, my favorite Brutalist fan. So I was talking to someone about the Brutalist and I was like, yeah, and Adrian Brody's like really, really good in it. You know, I'm not as high on the movie as you are, Sean, but I was like, Adrian Brody's really, really good in it. And in, you know, 95 % of the movie. And she was like, well, when has he ever not been good? I was like, I don't have an argument for you about that, But I will just say that, yes, we get excited when he shows up in succession or yes, he's been a great part of the Wes Anderson players. But, you know, he won the Best Actor Oscar and then his career as a leading man did not really continue from there the way that we thought it would with love and respect to King Kong.

52:19And so the fact that he did this is so good in it will, I hope, encourage people to cast him as the real leading man that he definitely can be. He's so captivating in The Brutalist and something that Brady Corbett and his lens knew how to do was just like, they were just shot, just the way his body was just sort of like arced around. It was like its own piece of architecture in this movie. It was just like a really, really, this is a star, remember? He won an Oscar for a reason sort of moment for him. So, yeah. I think one of the reasons why he resonated so deeply in the early 2000s is because he reminded a lot of Academy voters and the pianist of a certain kind of 70s star.

53:07of a Pacino, a Kazal, a Gene Hackman. You know, beautiful in his own way, but unconventionally appealing. And his choices as a leading man in the aftermath, I always thought were pretty interesting. You know, he made The Village. He made The Jacket. He made King Kong. He made the Darjeeling Limited, The Brothers Bloom, and Cadillac Records. That was his run. I love those. I love The Brothers Bloom. A lot of those movies are really interesting. Unfortunately for him, they're all like the fifth or sixth best movie from a lot of good filmmakers. Yeah. So he kind of got some bad luck in there too, you know?

53:46It's like he got the one Rian Johnson movie that didn't totally hit, you know? He got the fifth best M. Night Shyamalan movie, you know? Like it just didn't really totally happen. And I mean, of course I agree. I think he, obviously the movie rests on his shoulders in The Brutalist. We are with him almost the entire film. and it's hard to look away from him. I've always liked him as an actor and it is a good story. It's a good story. It's so interesting to me that he is competing against Chalamet in Best Actor because he once upon a time was Chalamet. Maybe not as much of a heartthrob or didn't have quite the CV that Chalamet has at this point, but he was the youngest ever winner and if Chalamet wins this year, he will be the youngest ever winner for Best Actor.

54:27So it's an interesting race and it's a great pick. Let's try to do the losers as quickly as we can. And I know that you just recorded an episode of The House of Midnight about Kraven. And Kraven ends now, I believe, this experiment in Sony's Spider-Man extended universe. Even though we'll still get the next animated Spider-Verse movie. And Spider-Man Noir. And Spider-Man Noir, the Amazon series, which I guess Nick Cage is going to star in. Live action, Nick Cage, Spider-Man Noir. Cool. A lot of questions. That's interesting. and we'll get another Tom Holland appearance in a Spider-Man movie I think is it Destin Daniel Cretton is making that right but this world isn't there gonna be a Venom 4 too I mean Venom just made like 400 million dollars I don't know how exaggerated the reported death of this universe is but this year we had Kraven the Hunter Venom 3 and Madame Web three of my worst times at the movie theater personally.

55:33Craven really stinks, Jo. It's real bad. Yeah. And Madame Web is perhaps even worse than I would say Dr. Michael Morbius is perhaps even worse than all of those combined. And so Madame 3, I had a good time because we were all together. That was like fun. But I did feel like a moment of sanity with you when like some of our pals were like, that was so fun. I had a great time. And you were like laughing and you were like, yeah, that was a disaster. And I agree with you. I think that film is a disaster. It's pretty bad. Narratively a disaster. And you know me, I'd love to love a Venom movie. I know you too.

56:09I think this might be a pause more than an obituary moment, but a pause they really need to take and figure it out. Well, I don't think it necessarily signals too much about the comic book movie industrial complex. We're obviously going to keep getting those. We spent some time talking about Superman. We're talking about Downey and Evans coming back. I do think that... I wanted to make an observation. Please. You've been covering a lot of these shows, mostly on House of R, sometimes on Prestige. But I didn't watch a ton of new shows this year that in theory are right in my sweet spot. I didn't really watch Agatha.

56:50I watched a couple of episodes and gave up on it. I only watched two episodes of The Acolyte. I watched one episode of Dune Prophecy. I watched I haven't watched Creature Commandos like there's a couple more that were like bigger what are some other big franchise TV titles that came up House of the Dragon I did watch House of the Dragon Rings of Power I did not watch Rings of Power Skeleton Crew I did not watch Skeleton Crew we're in the middle of right now yeah you know these are all things that are deeply important to my childhood and that in the movies I have kept up with very closely And I used to do this for the TV shows when the streaming boom happened.

57:27and I just don't have the energy, time, or interest at all for this stuff anymore. And I think what it means is a retrenchment into the movies because I think a lot of these studios and streamers understand that TV is not necessarily the best place for all of these things. Some of them it is. Oh, The Penguin is another one, which in theory, I think I would like. I love The Penguin. I think you will like The Penguin. Yeah, but for whatever reason, I never was compelled. Maybe I will now that I have some time over the break to watch it. But it's so interesting to me that with the exception probably of The Penguin, that all of those other properties are like either critically a little middling or audience-wise were a little middling or some combination of both.

58:04You know, I know you had a lot of affection for Agatha, but I wouldn't say it was like a breakout smash. That was more personal affection. I'm clear-eyed enough to say that that was personal affection. And though it was, I think, a bigger hit than a lot of people thought it was going to be, I'm not saying it was like, it didn't do what WandaVision did and like sort of cross outside of the Marvel faithful or anything like that. I think that it was a tough year in terms of like Acolyte was tough. I think Doom Prophecy is rough. That sort of stuff. I really liked Rings of Power personally. And Rings of Power is a sneakily hugely popular show.

58:40A show that I skipped that people love is Fallout. Yeah. And I need to catch up on it. But that was a massive hit. I think that's their biggest show ever, right? Amazon? Yeah. Massive, massive hit. And then next year we're going to have stuff like The Last of Us Season 2. There is going to be a Game of Thrones universe show, Night of the Seven Kingdoms, that I actually think has a possibility of being possibly better than House of the Dragon. We'll see. Just because of the source material. I think that Severance. You were asking more about franchise more than genre. But like, but I think I think what everyone is doing is retrenching and just sort of try to figure things out.

59:22And so, like, for Marvel television, for example, like you're going to watch Daredevil. Like that's that's am I. Yeah, you are. You are. I'm getting old. No, no, no, no. You are not that old, Sean. But also what's true is that while Marvel has definitely tarnished their own brand by putting out very middling to bad TV shows, like Secret Invasion, one of the worst things I've ever seen, right? And so you're like, how can I trust again? How can I love again? That is how I feel. You burnt me. You burnt me so badly. I was the guy yelling on the Movie Bro podcast about how Endgame is a meaningful work of art.

59:57You know, like I was one of those people. And it is. And I think Daredevil is going to be genuinely great. I genuinely do. I really do. I'm not just saying that so that people will listen to House of R. I think they have pressed pause, retrenched this year and are really trying to make sure because I actually think the most critical time... Lucasfilm is a mess right now, so I don't even want to talk about how we can fix Star Wars because I actually don't know. But in terms of Marvel, next year is going to be so pitiful for them because if they do Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four and Daredevil and land all of those, with the breathing room that Deadpool and Wolverine gave them financially, then you can't say that Marvel's in trouble anymore, right?

1:00:42I noticed you did not include Captain America 4 in that. We don't need to talk about the Red Hulk at all. We don't need to talk about the Red Hulk at all. Should I do a solo video about Red Hulk breaking it down when the film comes out? Yes. Into camera. Yeah. Why Red Hulk? How Red Hulk taught me to be weird. get the teleprompter out and just really do it for the real sickos out there okay what else do you want to talk about on the losers list? I mean Apple had a bad year you know they did have a lot of TV shows that I think people liked and I think a lot of those shows are actually underseen relative to the quality and I really admire the swings that they take on the TV side and being able to grow shows like Silo which is not a show I watch but the handful of episodes I watch I was like okay this is kind of like hard sci-fi and well made and I appreciate that.

1:01:34I appreciate that they're making stuff like Bad Monkey and I didn't get Sugar at all but I think it's cool that they tried. That's all on the TV side. On the movie side, they're a mess. It was just the mess of a year. It's Argyle, Fly Me to the Moon, and Wolves. That's not good. Three of the biggest sort of like punchline movies of the year, unfortunately. I think Fly Me to the Moon is not an embarrassing movie by any means. It's just a perfectly fine movie that got rolled out in the middle of July. A perfectly fine movie with like two genuine movie stars in it who should together have produced something a bit splashier than that.

1:02:11I remember when you guys recorded your Wolves episode and you were essentially like angry. Not just what are we doing here, but like why are we wasting talented people's time with this? That was real tough. It's true though. Argyle is one of the most baffling... things I've ever encountered. It's a fiasco. I mean, Apple Original Films, let's see what they have. I mean, I know for a fact that they have The Gorge coming early next year, which is the new film from Scott Derrickson starring Miles Teller and Anya Teller-Joy. Let's see what else they have cooking up in 2025 because they do need a bit of a bounce back.

1:02:51Oh, F1, of course, which is, in theory, a very big deal, the Brad Pitt film, but we shall see. Beyond that, there's a few things that have been announced. The thing that they have going that I'm most interested in is the studio, the Seth Rogen series. I am very curious. I have been told, at least on the TV front, that again, we're in a bit of a retransponting because Apple was just throwing anything at the wall, right? Like we're throwing buckets of money at anyone who will take it to make a TV show. And the tap is drying up a bit there. but it is wild because there there will be all these shows on Apple TV that have incredibly famous people in them and nobody knows they exist and that is a wild thing that Apple has done in an understandable effort to catch people's attention but they just don't know how to market their own material for the most part it's baffling it feels that way let's do one more loser and I think it's an interesting discussion point which is the legacy sequel yeah now Now, we've got a bunch of these.

1:03:57I'm not sure. I'm not sure about this, and I want to just talk to you about it. Well, okay. So you've made the list of legacy sequels from this year. Twisters, obviously, which is more or less a shadow remake of the original Twister. Correct. Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice. Furiosa. And Bad Boys Ride or Die, which is, I think, a debatable legacy sequel. I think the third film is probably more of a legacy sequel than this one. but we're in that kind of that lineage it's the same with same with Furiosa like those are sort of like yeah nine years is a good gap yeah and then and Gladiator 2 of course and Gladiator 2 but yeah yeah yeah it's tough because I would say with the exception of Furiosa all of these movies were financially successful Gladiator 2 is gonna kind of chug its way I think to profitability over the holidays and so Twisters Beetlejuice Bad Boys Ride or Die and Gladiator 2 made good money.

1:04:58I think all of these movies are disappointing creatively with the exception of Furiosa, which you and I are both like, it's good. We agree it's good. We're not going to fight with anybody about it. I know people disagree with us. That's okay. There's nothing negative really to say about the movie, but it wildly underperformed at the box office. I think we were, I think, weren't we like, I think good is higher than we landed. I think we said, like mixed like that there were parts of it that were really really good I said this week on the show it's a 7 out of 10 for me that's like I can't yeah you know it's good that's not a bad movie by any stretch but it is a movie that I thought was flawed nevertheless like all of these movies they're all kind of different you know like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice I got kind of hyped up on at CinemaCon and the hype was right which is that it was going to be a big hit and it was a big hit but I thought it was a pretty mediocre movie.

1:05:52Even though I was glad to see Tim Burton back with practical effects in that world and kind of being weird Tim, the script is real bad. I would just say not like this, Tim. I've also been asking for that, but not like this, Tim. And Twisters, I think, is a lot of fun and a good blockbuster, but deeply iterative. I just don't want to fill in for Amanda and speak ill of Twisters, but I did not have a good time with this movie. That's interesting. Yeah, I mean, I've heard some people say the same. I think Amanda and I had a lot of fun with it. I really wanted to. It was like, I was really excited for this movie.

1:06:29Really, really excited for it. I was like a true believer. Love Daisy. Love Glenn. I think it was just, it was just too, it was similar to what we were, yeah, what we were saying about Gladiator 2 and you just said. Iterative. Like, it upset me that a filmmaker that I admire so much in Lee Isaac Chung was just like, uninterested in making something that didn't feel like beat for beat in a way. I was disappointed by that, even more so than I would be in Ridley Scott because Ridley is so up and down over the years. Who's to say? But I was excited for this, this exciting, innovative filmmaker gets a franchise that was a massive blockbuster in the 90s that we loved and put really interesting people in it.

1:07:16And I was like, this is going to be amazing. And then I just thought it was aggressively fine, you know, at the end of the day. Yeah. I hear that and I've heard many other people say it. I don't know if it's like, I don't know if you can call the legacy sequel a loser. It's more of like a hold, you know, like these movies made enough money that it's going to mean, it means there's going to be a lot more of them over the next 10 years. But I'm not sure that I look forward to them. Nobody Fury wrote it this year is the thing. No one took a property and did something really exciting. and I would even I mean I would put Alien Romulus in here too though you can't really call that a legacy sequel but like that that was one that has some really exciting sequences to it and then some baffling choices as well it is kind of a legacy tweener right because I think it happens between one and two isn't that the timeline another movie that I feel very similarly about Romulus as I do to Twisters which is like in the theater had a great time the more I thought about it the more I felt I could pick it apart but the in theaters and I probably won't watch it again.

1:08:15You know, whereas I usually like to re-watch movies, I really, really enjoy a second time in this same calendar year, and I won't be doing that for either of those. But, um, yeah, I think you're right. I think that's a good call. Should we, should we, any other losers you want to hit? Should we pivot out of losers? Enough with the negativity. Let's give people the highest honor that Hollywood has to offer, shall we? We're giving out Oscars on this podcast. What honor is that? Yeah. Did you know that we're awarding Best Picture right now? Best Picture, me and you and Katie Rich did this right? Did we do the last one?

1:08:48We did. And we did this was the top 10 best picture power rankings. The Substance Sing Sing Blitz A Real Pain Dune Part 2 Wicked Part 1 Emilia Perez The Brutalist Conclave and Enora. I don't think this has changed a lot but it has changed a little. What do you think? I don't think we should be embarrassed by it which is good news. Agreed. I think it's 80 % right in the films that should be on here. Me as well. And, you know, and then we just need to shuffle the order a bit. Do you think anything has unseated Enora at number one? No. No. There's not a case for Wicked here? I mean, that would flatter my ego since I'm the one who argued Wicked onto the list last time and your big pick listeners were like, she's wrong.

1:09:34Well, you were right. You were 100 % right at that time. I would definitely put it way higher than it is currently, but I don't know that I would put it as the front runner, mostly because of the John Chu situation. Just me and me, you don't think he'll be recognized, so it's unlikely that it's likely it's going to win? Yeah, there's also the screenplay question. Do you think it's getting nominated for screenplay? Because if it's not getting nominated for screenplay, I think it's been like over 20 years since we've had a Best Picture winner that didn't get nominated for screenplay. I'll tell you what, if it gets nominated for screenplay, you can watch me put it at number one in January.

1:10:08Yeah, for sure. I don't think it's as strong as number one. I think it's like two or three, maybe three, but I don't think it's one yet. But I think it could definitely get there. The box office being a little soft internationally is interesting to me. It's done very well. It's obviously not done super well with the critics groups. Most of the critics groups, with the exception of NBR, are not really recognizing it. It's done very well with Critics' Choice Awards. My voting body, yeah. It's probably going to do well with SAG. I guess that's probably it, right? Globes. And Globes, of course, right?

1:10:46It's on the AFI list, and the AFI list is the strongest predictor we currently have in the awards conversation. I mean, it's definitely getting nominated for Best Picture. To me, it's more about the strength. Like where? The totality. And I don't know. I mean, I think three is a good place to put it. What comes in at number two behind Enora is a good conversation for us to have, though. So let's do Wicked at three and Enora at one. Yeah. I think that's about right. Now, tell me what you think should be cut. Let's see if we agree. Oh, with love and respect to Katie Rich, it's Blitz and the Substance.

1:11:21I'll definitely give you Blitz. Blitz, I think, is gone. Blitz is definitely gone. Substance I'm willing to have a conversation about, but Blitz is definitely gone. What do you think is going in where Blitz was? A Complete Unknown, which hadn't come out yet when we made this list, so wasn't in the conversation. And... I would suggest that A Complete Unknown is currently at number nine. Yeah, maybe higher. Just because of... A, it's such a traditional... I know we're talking about the new Academy and not the old Academy, but it is such a traditional Best Picture winner type of thing. And B, Timmy being like leaping to the front of the Best Actor race I think is really pushing it up the list.

1:12:06The challenge for it is, it's possible it only has two nominations. For Timmy and for Norton? Oh, for Picture. Now, Norton could get in, obviously. Norton could get in. But I don't think it has a chance at any below the line. No. I mean, it's been shortlisted for sound. Musicals usually do well there. Yeah. But it's also competing against Emilia Perez and Wicked in that respect. plus you've got kind of bigger tent movies like Dune Part 2 you got Joker Fully Ado competing there as well another musical like okay yeah let's leave it at let's leave it at 9 but I feel like it's gonna go higher but I'm happy to put it at 9 right now that's fine the substance let's table that for a minute is Conclave still at 2?

1:12:58Conclave has not been the streaming icon that I thought it was gonna be well I think it's either Conclave or The Brutalist I don't think The Brutalist is that strong as strong at the moment I think The Brutalist is still I will say I just scoped out the Vista screenings it starts screening tonight Thursday night and I think has like a two or three week run in 70 at the Vista here in Los Angeles and many of those screenings are already sold out which is very exciting obviously that's a that's a honey trap for the boys you know there's gonna be a lot of the boys are showing out and the girls of course the boys is an non-gender associated phrase.

1:13:33I was sure that you meant it in a non-gendered sense. Do you think it's going to be the intermission that breaks them? No, nothing will break anyone. We're thriving. I think they can only really run it twice a day because it's three hours and 40 minutes of hang time. But I just don't, it's missed in a couple spots. You know, like at the Spirits, like it almost blanked. I think it only got one nomination at the Spirit Awards, which is just weird because it's like the definition of an independent film. Like it was financed by a multiple, multiple number of organizations over a number of years and scooped up by A24.

1:14:08And that group was just like, no, which is so interesting. So, you know, it's divisive. It's divisive. But isn't it like, especially as we talk about the international voting body at the Academy, isn't it the sort of exactly we've been talking about this? Like, what does this what statement do we send when we call the brutalist the best picture of the year? we send a statement of art is the most important thing. Capitalism is crushing art. America is a disease is sort of some of the big takeaways. I got news for you. We don't do that anymore. Okay. That's not what CODA is. That's not what everything everywhere all at once is.

1:14:49That's not even what Oppenheimer is. It's a bit what Oppenheimer is. Oppenheimer is like, look at all these movie stars. Look at this master craftsman who made superhero movies who he didn't recognize when he was working in genre. you know like is it really the core messaging of Oppenheimer that got it best picture or is it the craft and the scale I think it's the the story of a capital G great capital M man uh that that and I mean that kind of in an ungendered sense this great figure sort of story and I kind of see that the the brutalist stands in for that that's a fair point that's that that's that's you're right in that respect, I do think that they get to that place in different ways.

1:15:26As our most cherished and most brutal of boys, where would you put the brutalist on the list? God, if I could just have that on like a nameplate outside. The most brutal of boys. The most brutal of boys right here on a copper nameplate. And I could record in that fashion for the rest of my life. I'd be so excited. I think it's at four. and I think it's in a kind of a battle with Emilia Perez in the sort of divisive knife fight we're putting Conclave at 2 then I think Conclave at 2 and then maybe Brutalist at 4 and Emilia Perez Emilia Perez might be even stronger than that I don't know if you saw the short list but like 6 throwing up 6 times on the short list is a big deal that movie's gonna get 11 Oscar nominations though wasn't 2 of it for 2 of them were for song right yeah yeah yes the short list was quite telling I think um conclave people keep bringing up as this sort of like in terms of second place here second place on a lot of people's this the the consensus second place on the ranked ballot in in that you know what i mean that it could that is going to be mid-high on everyone's ballot and that could just push it higher than you uh than if we did do ranked voting um what else do you what do you want to put next We've got four slots left now.

1:16:4810, 8, 7, and 6. I think Sing Sing is way higher than it used to be, especially as we're talking about Clarence and Coleman and Screenplay all in conversation. I think you're right. I think Sing Sing is at 6. We'll see what that January reissue does for it, but news of the Academy screenings has been very warm. We know that I'm in the tank for Sing Sing, but I feel like I'm being clear-eyed here. did you see that the Sing Sing account used your commentary to pull spirits our commentary our commentary yes I did see that so great great to make marketing materials with you as always Joanna I love to do unpaid unpaid promo it's my whole fucking life for the studios uh gosh so I don't so that leaves us with potential contenders I'll give you all the contenders right now last time around the substance blitz and a real pain and Dune part 2 filled out our list.

1:17:45I believe Dune 2 is still competing. I believe... I believe a real pain is still competing. I have my doubts about the substance. I'm a little... a little iffy on a real pain at this point. Just a little bit. Well, that's why I think it should go... I think that's... I think that's why you need to bump a complete unknown up and put a real pain lower on the list. Oh, okay. So you think a complete unknown is at 8, a real pain is at 9? Yeah. And then we have to figure out what 10 is? Yes. And do part 2 at 7. and you would put Dune Part 2 at 7. I think that's right. Dune Part 2 is a little bit shaky as well right now, Joanna.

1:18:21Yes, I do know that. Denis, I don't think is getting into director at the moment. I agree with you. That's fucked up. It is fucked up, but I guess we're all just believing the narrative that we're saving it for Dune Messiah. Just keep your powder dry for Dune Messiah, I guess, is what's happening. Just really sucks. Okay, so let's talk about number 10, the coveted number 10 slot. This is very challenging. There's quite a few films that could make it here. We had The Substance last time, but also contending, I suppose, Gladiator 2, September 5, Nickel Boys, The Room Next Door, The Wild Robot, The Seat of the Sacred Fig, All We Imagine as Light, Challengers, and Nosferatu.

1:19:04Now, as an elegant throw to my conversation with Romel Ross, I will make the case for Nickel Boys. You don't have to make the case. I was going to agree with you, and I was not intending to pander to your guest, but I genuinely think it's Nickel Boys. But make the case. It is a movie that I think for folks who work in craft and in writing will be incredibly impressed by the decisions that are made. I think Rommel has a chance in director because of the decisions he's made. That being said, for the body at large, I think it's going to be a very challenging watch. I moderated a conversation with Rommel and Anjanu Ellis Taylor over the weekend at the Arrow Theater in Santa Monica, and people were locked in.

1:19:45Locked in. I will also say Anjanu and Rommel are great advocates for the movie. So smart. So charming. The Rommel interview is my favorite of the year. So I think on the strength of that, plus that this is the movie that MGM, Amazon is pushing hardest, I feel like it's going to get there. if you told me it was September 5 or you told me it was at Seat of the Sacred Fig, I wouldn't be shocked. I wouldn't be shocked. But it feels like Nickel Boys to me right now. But it's probably not going to be Challengers. And I just want to say it a couple times because people were so bummed that we didn't even talk about it last time.

1:20:21And I agree. I think Challengers belongs on this list. What I would bump for it, I couldn't tell you. But I do believe in terms of long-lasting impact, challengers is a really important uh and wonderful film that came out this year i think people have just forgotten and i don't i couldn't tell you why um i think it's just a little too pop to be candid a little seems a little too airy and like i think i think i'm not calling it that i think that's how people perceive it i feel like queer sort of split the focus you know what i mean like Like I just, anyway, but I think that Nickel Boys as the focus of the Amazon campaign and as like a formal, an exercise in form has really excited a lot of people, you know, in terms of the big swings that Ramell took in the construction of the story.

1:21:18So I think people really want to reward it as an attempt. An attempt makes it sound unsuccessful. But what I just mean is like, yeah, we tried something. We really tried something with this movie. And it has great performances in it. And yeah, I definitely think it's on the list. And this list, like, I don't want to be unimaginative, but this is the AFI list. But the AFI list is our best bellwether. So I'm not mad that we're in lockstep with it. Many pundits, myself included, when I saw the AFI list were like, this is it. This is the best picture. And that's where I stand at the moment too, especially because now we've seen everything.

1:22:01There isn't anything I haven't seen that has been competing here. So let's run it down quickly and then we'll exit this chat, Joe. At number 10, Nickel Boys. At number 9, A Real Pain. At number 8, A Complete Unknown. At number 7, Dune Part 2. At number 6, Sing Sing. at number five, Emilia Perez at number four, The Brutalist at number three, Wicked at number two, Conclave and still holding at number one. Can it go the distance? Until Wicked gets that screenplay nomination. Nora is sitting at number one until, until, until. Joanna, thank you. You're just the best. Oh, you're just the best. Thanks for having me.

1:22:38Great chatting with you. Let's now go to my conversation with Ramel Ross.

1:22:533, 2, 1. So happy to have Rommel Ross here. Your second feature film, your first scripted feature. I've read quite a bit about you, but I also feel like there's a lot I don't know because I feel like you had a full life before you became a filmmaker. I know you were a college basketball player at Georgetown. And then what happened? What led you to filmmaking? speaking um am i allowed to talk while you're talking like could you say that and i'm like yeah cool yeah i don't want to i don't obviously i respect you this is a conversation yeah but like stealing the mic is not cool when like the mic is your thing i want you to feel like we're chatting not like i'm drilling you with questions yeah yeah so we're not it's not a volley we're like tugging for the ball productively for people to watch no this is more of the triangle offense yeah cool cool cool i like a good phil jackson reference i um yeah i don't know when i started to make photos and and become interested in film around my senior year my fifth year at georgetown um and then when i started to pursue it as a as a true desire vocation maybe it was funny i look back at my life and i'm like oh maybe i've always been this person that i am now but maybe it's latent or maybe it was transferred through sports.

1:24:08But to me, it was quite a natural transition given the way that the camera deals with space and time and predictability and the future and the way in which you deal with those same things as a basketball player, specifically a point guard in which you're dealing with space and time and relativity. So when you use the word vocation, so were you thinking when you were taking photographs, this is going to be my job? Like this is a way I'm going to make money in my career? Or was it just this is something that helps me better understand myself, something I feel natural doing. And so I'm just going to pursue it as like a creative act.

1:24:40Like, do you see those two things as connected? Yes, I see them as separate, completely separate. And I tried to keep them separate after, I think, recognizing some of the pitfalls of having work and creative pursuits too tightly aligned with all the industries which are necessary to one could say to support them. And maybe I'm using vocation wrong. I was trying to use vocation in terms of a sort of calling. But I think vocation has more to do with career than obviously. Is it a vocation? Is that the one that's... That sounds right, but you went to Georgetown and I didn't. Well, I didn't read much in high school.

1:25:17I was a scholarship basketball player and found the language quite late in life, let's say. I think a vocation sounds right. and yet like it did become your career eventually yeah so how did that evolve because it's a career in the sense that I do make money from it and I do have the opportunity to support my life but I teach full-time at a university and that's my one could say bread and butter I don't have to make art and make films I do that separately intentionally not tied to money so that I can experiment or, you know, follow my own sensibility without being too much, guided too much by the powers that be.

1:25:58So what led to that? What led to you deciding that you wanted to teach, you teach college. So what went into that decision making? Well, I think I've always taught. I coached basketball and I immediately, you know, worked for the State Department and taught kind of American values and nutritional health around the world while using basketball as a sort of connection point for those abroad. I think, you know, the secret aim of this Culture Connect program through the State Department was to like sort of outsource American values and to like, you know, boost America's image. But simultaneously. You were a propagandist.

1:26:38Oh, I was. And I'm going to be honest, I enjoyed it, you know, just kidding. I um but then I started to I worked in Northern Ireland um and I played professional basketball there which is cool but I also worked for an organization that would use in basketball to bridge social divides and conflicted in regions so we would go into a Catholic school and a Protestant school and bring the kids together with sports and I really enjoyed that that tie to youth so I went to Alabama and was teaching there um and so it just kind of became natural to be involved with those who are learning, you know? And so I had an opportunity when I graduated from RISD's MFA program in photography to teach at Brown.

1:27:21And I had so much teaching across so many different places that I think they were attracted to a non-academic, traditionally academic way of communicating information. Interesting. So that time you spent in Alabama, is that directly what led to Hill County? Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. I went there randomly with a friend and for a week to teach a photography course. Job opened up in a youth build program, Department of Labor funded program and was already hitting the point where I was getting a bit frustrated with my pursuits as a photojournalist, with my pursuits as a sort of fashion photographer, with my pursuits as a photo illustrative photographer, like sort of all of the individual genres of photography, like each one kind of wasn't doing it for me.

1:28:08In what way? They like creatively. Yeah. It's like, I don't want to say they became, they didn't become easy, but they just, they became dead ends. Like they, they had ceilings of communication to me. And then you were just saying the same thing in different ways. And then I was kind of understanding myself as I think under, understanding myself as a person in, as a reflection of society and being in the historic South for people of color, I'd argue there's no better place to be in dialogue with, with whatever the Black Diaspora is in the U.S. And so conceptual photography and drawing from all of these other genres just sort of collapsed into me photographing there.

1:28:51I don't know. It's never... I guess there is a light bulb moment. I love the cartoon light bulb. It's probably the most accurate illustration of human experience where you're just like, wait, there's something new illuminated. I had one of those moments when I'm photographing and I think I understand something about black visuality as general as that is which is something that was something along the lines of almost all images I've seen of people of color seem to be utilitarian they have like a very strict purpose and they seem to be in conversation with historical dialogue and requires an analysis that is not multifaceted.

1:29:41And while that's general, to me, I was like, I don't, I haven't seen images of people of color in which there's three distinct modes of narrative analysis in which none of them are true, but all of them are true. And to me, that's like a way of sort of liberating Black people from the tyranny of the camera. And so with that sort of like, uh, photographic, um, revelation that I, that I had, I also wondered in terms of film, like, what does that look like? And is there a version of that that is more, um, time-based? So as you're making Hale County, which goes on to be like incredibly acclaimed and probably much more widely seen than you would have expected as you you were marking up on.

1:30:25My God, yes. And so it's this fascinating, I guess serendipitous and hard-earned achievement. Is there any part of you that is thinking like, I'm going to make scripted feature films very soon? Like, was that on the roadmap for you in any way? No, it wasn't. Though I've always wanted to make films and I was always interested in film. You know, I grew up in like a sort of fight club and a Shawshank Redemption and just like hardcore classics that are astounding. but very commercial. And then as mentioned, like once I start to like look into myself, my relationship to it, I start to sort of develop ideas that are a little bit more on the periphery of what's mainstream.

1:31:06And so I think my desire to actually participate in that economy just became impractical given the way I wanted to experiment with things. And, you know, the stuff that I made became very self-satisfactory. And if you're working at that scale, self-satisfactory is not necessarily the right path. So never really thought about it after Hale County. I just knew that I had things I was interested in and was trying to put myself in a position through teaching and other means through grants to be able to pursue these really individual interests. So then what happens? What happens to your life and work after Hale County?

1:31:44Obviously, many more people know about you. Are you doing the water bottle tour in Hollywood? What actually happened to your life? Yeah, well, my life for a short period of time was like very fast paced in terms of, you know, promoting the film and sharing the ideas. The film lends itself to film studies and lends itself to the history of documentary and the history of documentary photography. And so a lot of speaking at universities and talking with students who are interested a lot in research, but are also just interested in ethnography and anthropology and how to ethically engage with the community.

1:32:21but I think the true turning point was halfway through the process of hell County. I met a woman named Jocelyn Barnes was also a co-writer on nickel boys and a producer. And she was one of the only people. And there were a couple of people, but like really kind of understood and was interested in, in my ideas. And we kind of, you know, continued, we started to collaborate on hell County, but she opened my world up, honestly, to kind of independent film. I knew of independent film in quotation marks as a thing because I kind of got my film education through the RISD library. I would just go and like look at titles I liked and then watch, try to watch two films a day.

1:33:02And then you come across random things. They're not collecting the most box office things. It's a lot of like really solid idiosyncratic stuff. and she, you know, works, Jocelyn, that is, works with like Lucretia Martel and Apichipongwer Sethacol butchering his name. And they're people who have really specific means of making, but yet they found ways to garner the support to make really big things. And so that actually kind of shifted the space and also the reception of Hale County because, you know, really small team. It was like, you know, myself, Robert, Rob Moss, Maya Krinsky, Jocelyn, and a woman named Sue Kim.

1:33:43We finished the film in obscurity. You know, we had a couple of grants, but not many people knew about us. And we were like, we really like this. We're unsure if anyone will. Like, legitimately unsure. I'm submitting to Sundance. I'm asking Rob Moss. He's a brilliant filmmaker himself. He teaches at Harvard. He was like, Ramel, I don't want you to get your hopes up. You know, like. The film's good. I like it. But these films don't get into these festivals because the festivals are beholden to the audience and all these other things. And the programmers may like it, but can that fill the seats?

1:34:18And he's saying this as an independent filmmaker. He's not making commercial films, but he's just trying to manage my expectations. And so we genuinely thought that the film would be something that was like on the library shelf inside the RISD library that in 10 years someone comes across and it gives them something to work with inspiration wise or visual wise and affects them. And then maybe someone will know about it later in life. So then why do you think that didn't happen? Why do you think it did get programmed at those festivals? It did get, you know, awards attention. Like why, from your perspective, obviously you're deep inside of it, you made it.

1:34:52But why did it click? Well, I'd say there's a couple reasons. I think the practical reason, the traceable reason, is that Sundance programmed camera person, KJ's, Kirsten Johnson's camera person, the year before in New Frontier. Now, that film was radical in its consolidation of documentary footage, edited by Nels Bangader, amazing editor. They wanted to put that in the main competition, but they didn't think that people were ready for it. so they put it in New Frontier and it kills amazing film so then my film comes along and then they're like well maybe this is the film that we can put into the competition and so and I'm kind of unsure I mean I know like the Ross Brothers made a film like a zip code film that is similar only because there's not many examples of like the sort of longitudinal collage of moments to make a sort of singular piece and I don't know if i think it made it i'm unsure if it made it into sundance but that's almost a predecessor to camera person is it chupitalis or was it no no it was like three four six seven nine oh yeah right was the numbers okay and so if if like those who are interested you can kind of trace the lineage the lineage of how films get to places and how they're accepted like hell county seems to be an anomaly but it's on the back of like many other films that like chipped away at people's expectations of a film to do a certain thing and then chipped away again.

1:36:20And I'm sure that there are films that are in places because Hale County was able to break through and now people are able to take more risk on these sort of poetic views of the world. I think that's really right. I think everything is operating on this kind of continuum and sometimes it's invisible. But yeah, totally. That there were some people who were kind of kicking in doors very slowly so that certain things can come through. It's interesting too that you cite that Jocelyn had worked with Apichapong and Lucretia Martel, because I feel like Nickel Boys is really in the tradition of those kinds of films, these kind of durational, deep, kind of probing stories, but that don't follow the conventional rhythms of certainly American movie storytelling.

1:37:00So I'm fascinated by this movie. I really like Nickel Boys a lot. What led to making the decision then to try to adapt a work of fiction after making a documentary? Well, the idea to do it wasn't mine. I don't typically, like, I don't read a book and I'm like, that would make a great film. Maybe, maybe I should adapt it. Like, I don't think that way, you know? We got a call, Jocelyn got a call from D.D. Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner from Plan B that they wanted to chat with me. We both go, have a long conversation, goes away over time. they ask if I read Nickel Boys ask if I was interested in adapting it I wasn't so much interested I took the meeting because D.D.

1:37:50and once Hell County came out I've gotten asked to make tons of films and I'm not a filmmaker in that sense so this was along those lines but D.D. made Tree of Life and Tree of Life is I think it's one of my Lodestar or whatever. You can tell watching Nickel Boys. There's a couple of moments where I was like, oh man, okay. I know that exact perspective from that character's eyes is yes, okay. That's crazy here. I've seen it so many times and it's inexhaustible to me. It's like everything, the ambition, the aesthetic, the risk, the payoffs, the non-payoffs, all of it works to me. And so I told Joss that I definitely didn't want to make a film unless I had creative control.

1:38:36obviously. And because GD had made that film, I was like, maybe no one makes that film. You know, like you realize talking to Jomo, who's the DP, who's made many films and made many commercials. He says a thing. He's like, most people can't make the decisions to make the films that they love because all of those decisions are antithetical to the way in which were taught to participate in the industry, you know, which is pretty eye-opening. It's hard to take those risks because you're putting your career on the line in some, to some degree. So the fact that Didi had made Tree of Life was, you know, worthy of the conversation and then just meeting those two, they seem to just be open to something fresh.

1:39:20They loved Hell County and it appeared to be a mansion made in heaven. And then from there, it started to develop. Because you're not pursuing your career the way that other young filmmakers are, do you feel then that you are more able to take those risks that you were told most filmmakers can't take because you're like i have a teaching job yeah just keep making documentaries i can shoot photos like is that so do you feel safer in that way i think that's my cheat code yeah but it doesn't work for everyone and i feel bad like genuinely almost like i'm misleading people you know like the rich person that's like you can make money all you gotta do is in the it's easy to say that when you're rich.

1:39:58Take a chance. Why not? It worked for you, bro. But like, I don't have the same circumstances as you. Like, I think because my logic or my reasoning as to how I got to where I am is basketball was so important to me. I was supposed to go to the league. I was on track. Like, all the stuff. So many injuries. I've always felt like photography, art, and filmmaking and writing are like a second life. And I know the mistakes that I've made. Though injuries set me back in basketball. I know the, the sort of intellectual mistakes I made and I take photography and art as something that's way more spiritual and way more, uh, I just have a different relationship to it.

1:40:42Like there's no, I don't really compromise. I'm not in it for, I don't want to go to the NBA for, in terms of film, that's not my interest. Like I'm trying, I'm like trying to fill the void that was produced when I failed at basketball. It wasn't my fault. and like my mom died around the same time. So it was like a double huge gaping hole in me. And I don't know if it's fillable, but that's what the craft or that's what the art is doing for me. So I'm just not interested, genuinely not interested in anything that isn't working on that, in that space. You're very evolved. I gotta say, like most people don't have that, like willing to accept their own definition of success and not others, I think is something that is super complicated.

1:41:24And I think the same goes for this movie, which I saw in a festival setting. And I would say half the people I talked to were like, I've never seen anything like it. It blew me away. And then the other half were like, I've never seen anything like it. I didn't get it. And so you really have this very rigorous approach to telling this story in a way that, despite even being inspired by something like Tree of Life, like I've not really ever seen a movie like this. I've not seen a movie that uses first person in this particular way, that has like a kind of fungibility with it, but also sticks to its own rules.

1:41:52Can you just talk about developing the idea of shooting the movie this way? And then maybe also some of the practical consequences and upsides of shooting this way? We're going to go conceptual first. Okay. And I'm going to forget your question. Okay. I'll come back to it. I thought about this one in particular as to why I make images in the way I do. and the whatever voice that people say that I have with art and with language as it relates to the art that I make is that I think, and this is a huge general statement, like the history of of people making work is so deeply tied to their identity that it's invisible.

1:42:37And so the easiest comparison is just music. You think about when people get instruments and they're learning how to play and they're from an Anglo background. They're doing classical stuff. They're doing whatever. You give it to a black person who has had a completely different experience in the same culture. And then you have something like jazz, which is mind blowing. Right. How can you use that same thing that we've been using for hundreds of years and just do something so wild? Because the way that that person has been forced to relate to the world, channeled through their instrument, produces different use.

1:43:15And so looking at film and photography, I don't believe in the way in which the camera's been used historically. It just doesn't work for me. I just don't understand why people use it that way. It's confusing to me. But when you were watching Fight Club or Shawshank, two movies that you cited, did you also feel that way? Did you feel like this isn't right? Like this should be different? No, but I wasn't self-interested spiritually. I wasn't trying to find myself. There was no internal gaze at all. It was all external. I was programmed. I was working in American culture, which is how we are. And some could argue how we need to be to have this experiment go on.

1:43:59That's another conversation. But I'd never looked back at myself. And the loss, the two losses in my life just forced reflection. And that kind of opens up a sort of like, a sort of just, you're more disappointed with what you took for granted, you know? Yeah. And so coming to use the camera for this film in POV, which is which i say and what which we say for people to understand it but we actually called it on set sentient perspective um because pov is not what we're doing pov is action cam it's gopro it's lady in the lake um it's enter the void sentient perspective is using the camera as an organ it's using the camera as a way to um align the audience's perceptual encounter with the film world with the characters, which is one that is not the same as the objectivity that is used in POV or the traditional objectivity of the camera while having subjective moments in many different ways across many different films in many different genres.

1:45:04So when you use the word organ, like what do you specifically mean by that? Meaning like, I like to call it observational logic. And it's kind of taken from observational footage or using a camera observationally in documentary space. But observational logic is, to me, an issue with shooting at 24 millimeters or 17 millimeters and having the whole thing be clear and in focus as a person's eye gets to wander the frame, right? But that's a good thing because human beings can see at that scale. But the thing is that without trying to be one-to-one with human vision, human beings, our attention is always focused within there.

1:45:43And having everything clear and allowing the audience to look around undermines our sensorial perceptive attention moment. So if you get a narrow lens and you shoot really shallow and you use the camera in a way that mimics the attention of consciousness, then to me, that's observational logic. You're not observing, but you're using the logic of observation in a human. And that's a different way of using the camera. And I do that in Hill County, which I use as a proof of concept when talking to the producers and those about the film. It is... It's stupid to say stuff revolutionary, but as I was watching the film, I think I had a similar experience as some other people I saw it with, which is in the first act of the movie, it takes a moment to adjust.

1:46:29It takes a moment to understand, and I think even more so accept that you have broken a rule, an expectation for how you tell a story. But if you accept it, then it kind of rewires your brain for what all movies should be. You got to accept it, though. You have to. That's the thing, yeah. It's hard for people to accept because if you accept this, you have to look at yourself differently. I think because you're not looking from you anymore. Right. What the camera always does is it allows you to maintain a distance. And it's not even that. What we're doing in Nickel Boys is also not a distance. It's just one less level of abstraction and adjacent.

1:47:08So it's just a little bit different. um so so i mean that was my exact experience was i found that it was literally distancing at first and then the opposite afterward it was it was like the the portal to empathy as soon as you accept it yeah but that's a really um it's a it's a heady and bold choice like did you find was anybody like pushing back on this were they like don't do this it's never gonna work like what what are the conversations like because you're obviously you're working with um you know plan b is very accepting of creative people and support creative people historically. But still.

1:47:40But this is the thing. No one could make the film but them. I didn't know that until we're in the process. And then I see them calling on others to trust them. Don't worry about it. We got it. You know what I mean? I was talking to Muncher, who was about the sort of powerhouse of folks that we had. We had Alana Mayo, Orion, Jeremy, Dee Dee and Jocelyn and David Levine from Anonymous Content. And like, it's going to be hard to put another collection of people, if they're behind the same idea, who's going to say no to all of them? You know? And they like, you know, they fought for the film at all.

1:48:25And they didn't have to do much fighting. They're the ones that are in control. And so they, yeah, I don't think the film could have been ushered into pre-production to production and through production with all the conversations we had with anyone else because I don't know if they'd be willing to, like I said, make the decisions to make the thing possible. What about the actual physical production? Because, you know, actors are not necessarily trained to perform in this way. I don't know if your crew had worked on things that had, you know, similarly been done this way. But I imagine, like, the performance style has got to be different, you know, if you're performing to the camera in that specific way.

1:49:01Like, were there hiccups? Was it hard to get people to kind of get on board with this strategy? It wasn't hard to have people get on board. I think in general, just the language of the production was different. And the language of, yeah, the language of the film is so specific to itself that everyone just had to come in and learn at the same time. I'd never directed actors in this sense before. I directed in other ways. I had really experienced production heads though. I had like the best AD in the game, James Rock. You know, we had Nora in production, design, had Joe Mode, amazing DP. And I can name every single person, but they're experienced in getting the job done.

1:49:47And I know what the images should look like. I know what it should, around what it should feel like. And then the rest is kind of everyone always being honest with if something isn't working or isn't working. and trying to honestly trying to pick out like a lot of the small ways that can undermine the performance like like we had like a very specific point in the camera in which we wanted the actors to look sometimes they would forget and look three inches to the right or left because they've never been asked to do this before that destroys the shot yeah because the person is looking past the person and those subtle things are easy to miss because we're worried about so many other things um like we you know we had a manifesto that myself jomo and sam um sam was a uh the other operator would read and one of the lines on it was something along the lines of um the camera has there are no scenes there's no direction for the camera to face there are no essentially that it's a single point perspective in which no action is oriented in any direction.

1:51:02The camera as the character finds what the world will be and the world exists before. And so that's really hard to design. That's really hard to, you know, most of the actors in the scenes are not even on the, on, on camera because the, the character's eyes never get to them, but they're vital for the scene to feel alive so that you just sense that off screen something is happening. Like those types of things were the difficult, um, cause we didn't get to rehearse. You don't get to rehearse that. We don't get to rehearse telling the, the extras, you know, when Elwood gets called to be off of the labor duty, I want you to look into the camera as if you're looking at Elwood, who now you're pissed off that he doesn't have to work as hard as you anymore.

1:51:49Like they've all been trained never to look into the camera, but now we need them to look into the camera as if they're looking at the character so that the camera, if people glance around a little bit, they actually feel like they're still that center. And those things, we learned that on set. Oh yeah, we actually need people to be looking. We need more movement over here because it actually feels empty. And that's the kind of learning process that everyone was open to. I want to ask you about the moments when you're not using that strategy. There's one that is sort of a version of that, which is that the film goes out of its way to not shy away from the violence that is incurred upon the characters in the story, but it's not explicit about showing that violence.

1:52:29It feels like a very purposeful choice, but it's unmistakable that something awful is happening while you're doing that. But that, in a way, seems to almost be like a comment on the comment that you're making by seeing the world through these characters' eyes. I was wondering if you could talk about that decision a little bit. Yeah. I think it emerges from, you know, So like Hale County is a responsive film. I kind of pseudo think that almost all films that are, for lack of a better word, don't even know why I'm saying this, black films are responsive films. They're responding to the history of cinema and the history of photography, right?

1:53:02The problem that it has been. The technology of racism, I say. And so looking, like watching people suffer is something that has been happening in cinema over time. I'd say it's been a predominant, a dominant narrative for people of color, specifically American film history. And so one has to wonder how that produces our version of a person, how that changes or ignores or desensitize our relationship to seeing those people suffer. But also, to me, it doesn't seem right or real. And not that cinema is right or real. I think people think that it is right and real when, in fact, this sort of monocular consolidation of space is probably one of the most dangerous things that's happened to our brains as it relates to images, human beings, consciousness, time, space.

1:54:04I'm very guilty of this, of believing that this is how things are. Yeah. I watch a lot of movies. Yeah, that's true. It's so dangerous. What is it doing to our brains? To look at the world photographically, to say, whoa, that's photographic or that's cinematic, that's not good. That's not a good way to see the world. Well, it depends on what you're looking at or what you're trying to portray. True, true. So depending on the subject matter, in this case, I think I felt like I understood your intention. But we're walking down the street and something happens and we're like, whoa, that was photographic.

1:54:34That means we see the world as photographs. What else does that mean? I don't know. I'm not smart enough, but I don't think that it's talked about enough. This is worse than it's ever been though. Yeah. Because we have phones in our pocket that allow us to all feel like we can make cinema magic. It's complicated. It's so true. But what about, so then there's a related matter, which is - Oh, but wait, but wait, but wait. Let me, sorry. No, no, I just, I remember what you asked. And I wanted to finish because when we're thinking about trauma in its variety of forms, one has to wonder, having gone through traumatic moments ourselves, what one looks at during those moments.

1:55:12We're used to watching people go through it. We see the big picture, but I don't know, when I broke my bones and had my shoulders sticking out and all these things, I'm not looking at my shoulder like, damn, that's traumatic. I'm like looking up at the ceiling like, oh God, I don't want to look to my left. And like, I'm looking like at the wind on the thing being like, don't think about your shoulder, don't think about your shoulder. And so taking that into a film in which a moment in which someone's being, violence is being enacted on them, what's their experience of it? I believe that we focus, from my experience, we focus in on details, which become the sort of icon of the moment.

1:55:52And then we go back into the world. And so just trying to, one, respond to it being overly visualized in the past, but also just try to be more realistic. It's interesting. So I feel like the film style is operating on this slipstream of using both maybe inspirations from directors like Malick, but then also taking the tools that you have learned as a documentarian and filtering them into narrative feature filmmaking. So there are moments where we see found documents or we hear something or there's abstractions. There's this idea of the sky and the stars. We see alligators. and very metaphorical choices at times.

1:56:36These are also really bold strokes in an adaptation of a novel. You don't have to address every single one of them, but the documentary elements in particular I found interesting in the way that you included them in the telling of the story. So what goes into making those decisions? When do you think this is the right time to show us this headline from this story or this image, this historical image that is referencing something that truly happened as opposed to the narrative world that we're living inside of? Yeah, I think I love the question. It was it was an intuitive process for Joss and myself, because as you're mentioning, we have our ties in nonfiction.

1:57:14But I think in particular, the film in its first form was an edit of the film in images and camera movement. the final film if you compare those two they're not far apart 80 overlap you know like in the edit you have to use what works and just because you said archival image goes here doesn't mean that it would go there if it's not functioning but the idea was always specifically for Coulson's narrative it's so tied to the real world and the way in which dramatic narratives traditionally exist in this rarefied space of cinema makes it feel... in the cinematic otherworldly sense where we leave and it was something we experienced in the theater and it's not something that we would encounter in the world.

1:58:08And when I look at the Nickel Boy story as it ties to the Dozier School for Boys, the reason why the Dozier School for Boys existed in Florida, North Florida, boys being murdered, and the reason why Coulson's novel existed is partly because of America's visual constitution. They're inextricable. You can't treat black boys the way that they did at the Dozier School for Boys without the language of photography pushing forth a stereotypical idea of Black folks in the late 1800s, in the early 1900s, in the history of the Southern documentary photography. They're inextricable. And so how do you not allow, how do you remind people that Coulson's narrative is not only based on an actual school, but that actual school is part of a system of visualization that still exists today and should not be separated from the production aesthetics of high-quality film.

1:59:06Do you see making the movie as breaking and reconstituting that visual history or just representing it or somewhere in between? I hope it's doing five versions of that. I think that it is because I think that that reminder isn't often done. I think that it's not useful for the industry always to have people have to reflect on the complicity of this story and the way in which their community has been redlined, you know, or have to think about the documentary images, the nonfiction images from the black family archives of the 70s and 80s. and that these joyful boys under a Christmas tree or jumping outside could be a dozer boy or might be their neighbor who had a, like, I don't think that those direct ties making someone emotionally, not intellectually, because you can read this in like a short story or in a New York Times piece, but to have it happen through images is just a different relationship to the brain.

2:00:14I don't think that that's normal. I want to ask you about one scene. There's a scene that takes place in the future in a bar. It's an amazing, incredible. Unbelievable, right? I mean, you made it. I made it with a whole bunch of people. But also, watching this shit unfold in real life, everyone, everyone, see the actors are like doing their thing. There's not no one that's in that bar that is not like, oh my God, this is, isn't this unbelievable? It's not just me. You know when you're watching a movie and you're like, this movie is having a moment, right? Yeah. You know, obviously it's incredibly a pained sequence and it is very revelatory about what's in the story and what the story has been about and who these characters are.

2:00:56But I haven't read the novel, so I don't know even how to compare what Coulson wrote and maybe how some of these things are revealed in the storytelling. But I was just hoping you could maybe talk to me a little bit about staging that sequence and like why it's in the place that it is for how you wanted to tell the story. Yeah. Well, that was a centerpiece, although it's not in the middle centerpiece scene there are a couple and as you know the film is very rhythmic and very musical in its use of images and so it like ebbs and flows and it doesn't doesn't sit very often um though though it does sit maybe more than i'm i'm giving it credit to in this moment that but that sequence is almost stationary yeah true true that's true It probably is the longest one as well.

2:01:42Yeah, what to say? That was the one that, there are a couple of things where we're like, if we can, things that we knew we had to nail, or had to do 80%, if we can do, if we can nail this, we're like, if we can get Anjanu, Anjanu's our first, if we can get Anjanu to be Hattie, if we can nail the Chickie Pete bar scene, if we can integrate the archival, as imagined so that it it's abrupt, but it's not, it's, you don't question it in the way in which you would when things have a little bit of a seam in between them, then we think that the movie can work. This one in particular, because it's, it does the thing that everyone experiences in life, which is running into someone that you knew from the past and having to reconcile the gap of information between them remembering their face as they are younger and they're not being they're being like a sort of distance between who you are who you want to be and what you think each of you think of each other just that really complicated and then in the context of the dojo school for boys is really profound because there's so much trauma that is spoken, but never really experienced or seen in the film.

2:03:09We just knew it just had so much power, so much power. And we had to do it right. And Craig Tate is, I mean, David's in that scene. And I don't want to give it away for people who haven't seen it to know how it's shot and whatnot. But what a blessing, if that's the right word, a secular blessing for Craig Tate to have been he was actually cast very late and blew everybody out of the water I've never I've never experienced anything in cinema this is a wonder the entire film is conceived as wonders this is like a 15 minute 20 minute take and just I don't know there's nothing realer there was nothing he was that as I was watching it I was like okay we are we are truly having a moment yeah so congrats on that.

2:04:04It's really great. One last question. I love that Ethiopian jazz record at the end of the song and I was wondering why you chose that song. Because of what you felt. Yeah. Yeah. The film was very very very very very conceived. You know? I say it's similar to Hell County because people look at Hell County and I remember some of the early comments like, whoa! It was just like so random the way that this thing, like you put this here then that was there and I was like, yeah, random. I just, this is is just it's a collage that's all that it is it's a big long montage there's nothing strategic about any of it yeah um and i almost think that i would like mockingly say that and hope that they knew i was joking but also like come on man like you were concerned about those comments you will also get them about oh boy yeah you know you gotta brace yourself for some of that yeah the montage i made a proof of concept of that montage uh before we wrote the script um because joss and i were trying to figure out if the, like how to, how to build this thing out.

2:05:06We needed something to get to, you know? And I heard, I heard that song and it just, you know, logged itself as an earworm. As some people say, it lodged itself in my head and just never forgot it. And then once I read the Nickel Boy script, I was like, if I make this movie, I know how it ends. It ends with this wild, you know flood of psychic images from one of these characters and this is the song and so many conversations about well what about this song what about this song from all the people who are rightfully stress testing the idea right it's not a song that you would normally put at the end of a film that's dealing with this content or a film that even looks like this because it's just not it's just not it but the dissonance works so well yeah yeah it's a great choice yeah uh ramel this has been great i we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen have you seen anything good lately wow i've seen so many good things uh i'm gonna say the thing that i watch the most and i've seen the most um which people are gonna be like oh i can't believe you said that la jete chris marcus la jete it's well that seems to be an inspiration on your work.

2:06:27Yeah. It's only 30 minutes long or so, but, you know, I probably watch it once a month. Do you remember when you first saw, this is Chris Marker's documentary, sort of? Yeah, exactly. Whatever it is. Whatever it is, yeah. When did I see that first? I think it was probably grad school. I was like 32, 33. Yeah. It's just like one of the pieces where you watch it and you're like, oh, I understand something different about the world. And this, I don't know how he does it, but this form and all of its concentric pieces is a proxy for whatever it is. It gives you access to something else. And so I'm sorry I couldn't say anything more contemporary, but I have my go-tos, and that's just one of them.

2:07:07It's a great recommendation. Thank you so much for doing the show, Ramel. Congrats. Yeah, no, thank you. Thank you.

2:07:18Thank you to Ramel Ross. Thank you to Joanna Robinson. Thanks to Jack Sanders. thanks score producer Bobby Wagner for his work on today's episode next week it is time for Bob Dylan it's time for Timothee Chalamet it's time for a complete unknown is it time for a meltdown from yours truly tune in and find out we'll see you then