The Best Movies of the Year … So Far. Plus: 15 We Missed!

20:53Sean Fennessey:I intend to. Right now, as people are listening to this, you're on spring break. Yes. Are you having a good time? Are you relaxing? If I'm doing this properly, I'm on a golf course right now when this episode comes out. All right. I can't promise that that's what's going to happen, but I have a tea time. that's beautiful by yourself solo you're gonna chat the people up are you gonna put your when you're doing solo tea time with other people i do not listen to headphones okay i'm glad you knew that i was gonna ask where you're going with that no no i um you know i'm i'm one with the force and the force is with me when i'm on the golf course and i really feel happy and calm and i'm i'm in a dad era and I'm appreciating that part of myself.

21:36I was born for it, so to speak, and love nature.

21:40Sean Fennessey:I love the state of California. Great. I'm very happy in the state of California, despite its many myriad problems. And I intend to be calm. How many movies I watch, I don't know. I feel like I don't have to watch very many though because of what we're about to embark upon here. Let's just start. Okay. I think the first and most important movie for us to discuss is Reminders of Him. We have been venturing on a Colleen Hoover adaptation series of discussions ever since the enormous success of It Ends With Us. Was that last summer? Last August? The August before that? 2024. 2024, right. Right. It was before Cy was born and my first podcast back was with Juliet about the Blake Lively lawsuit.

22:22Interesting.

22:23Sean Fennessey:Okay. So It Ends With Us was a huge hit. It made almost$300 million a year. even before that film was released Hoover had become one of the most successful novelists of her time and they're cranking him out now. Yeah. This is I think the third prominent Hoover adaptation with a fourth incoming. With Verity on the way. Yes. Verity has been pitched as the bigger and better Colleen Hoover movie starring Anne Hathaway. This one is a little bit smaller. It is based on one of her 2022 novels. It stars Micah Monroe, Tyreek Withers, Rudy Pankow, Lainey Wilson, the country singer in her film debut, Nicholas DuVernay, Lauren Graham, and Bradley Whitford as parents.

23:03Sean Fennessey:God, we're so old. It's directed by Vanessa Caswell. The summary of the plot is as follows. Desperate to rebuild her life with a daughter she's never known, Kenna finds unexpected compassion in a secret romance with local bar owner Ledger. As danger develops for both of them, Kenna hopes to find a second chance amid unbearable heartbreak. What did you think of reminders of him? Just incredible new frontiers in not just baby names, but character names. I do feel that the Colleen Hoover universe teaches me about worlds that I don't have access to. Otherwise, I didn't know that there were the questionable grandparents naming their children DM.

23:51I have to assume that it was the grandparents who gave the name. That wasn't one of the things that was addressed.

23:55Sean Fennessey:It's not explored. Yeah. We know that Micah Monroe's character, who is in a very nasty car crash and is convicted of manslaughter because her beloved is killed in that car crash, is pregnant at the time of the car crash. And she goes to prison and she gives birth in prison, Waltston Prison, or I guess in a hospital, Waltston Prison, and then has to give the child up. And she gives the child up to her boyfriend's parents. but we don't know who names the child but the child is named DM. Yes. Now DM, for longtime fans of the challenge, the real world road rules challenge, know that there was a great competitor on that show called DM.

24:34Sean Fennessey:So this is not the first DM I've ever encountered. But when you have the word ledger and DM as character names. You do wonder if it's like a ipsum lorem or lorem ipsum whatever thing. Or even just like, have you been hanging out at the bank too long? Like what actually is happening here? I'm on the social security name website right now. DM not in the top 1 ,000 names. Okay. Kenna, 750 for the last couple years, which is up a little bit. Ledger, can you guess? I can't be top 2 ,000. It's 502. Ledger? Ledger is by far the most popular. It's skyrocketing. It was 975 in 2017. Oh, my God. And 502 in 24.

25:17Sean Fennessey:That is absolutely fascinating. I will say Kenna, there was a great kind of like electro hip hop artist named Kenna who I remember from the late 2000s. Yeah. Where do you think Sean is in 2024?

25:33Sean Fennessey:461. 436. Pretty good guess. Yeah. You're on a downward trajectory for sure. It's a little out of fashion. But you're like, you're pretty close to Ledger, which is amazing. It's a little out of fashion. Well, after me, you know, broke the mold. Guess where Amanda is. I'll say 262. 496. Wow. You're plummeting. No, we're out. It's the most 80s name of all time. My house, Zachary and Amanda, it's really, really tough, but it's okay. A lot of the crap. We're phasing out. Michael, Stephen, you know, these names are going out. And you know what? Good. Bring a new generation of ledgers and DMs in. This movie is fascinatingly without incident.

26:10Sean Fennessey:Yes. It is barely a story. yes and thus possibly the least objectionable ethically of the Colin Hoover films and also my least favorite I would say well so is that because of what you kind of go into these movies for because yeah this movie is a straight line and very few of her stories based on what I've seen in the film adaptations are straight lines they're kind of consistently like pivoting backwards and hiding information from the audience and making you unsure of what's really going to Kind of Hitchcockian in a perverse way. Yes. Where she's like hiding critical pieces of information so that there's a big surprise.

26:50And also everyone is like pretty evil to each other.

26:53Sean Fennessey:Agreed. There's something ugly about it. This movie is really more of a pure melodrama. It actually kind of feels like a Douglas Stork movie where it's like something terrible has happened. And there's a woman who wants to get back to her kid. And it's just about her straight line path that the only divergence is she falls in love with her dead boyfriend's best friend. who was an NFL prospect at the time of this death and has come back to town because of an injury to become a bar owner. They fall in love. He's trying to keep that information from his dead friend's parents while they're looking after this five-year-old girl.

27:27Sean Fennessey:Now, this is a movie with a five-year-old girl. Very well cast young actor. She's very good. Very good in the film. And just, I found it like, not really emotionally connecting, but not ever evil or strange in a way that I have found these other movies. And so it kind of just flows by you. And even though it does not have any of the salaciousness of the other Colleen Hoover films, what is even the second one? Oh, right. The Alison Williams one where... Regretting You. Yeah, Regretting You and they're having an affair and then they flashback. That film is very bad. Yeah, but like in a silly tasteless way, that's pretty fun.

28:03When they actually do the flashback and Dave Franco is like de-aged.

28:08Sean Fennessey:Yeah, 37-year-old Dave Franco is supposed to be 17. You know, you chuckle. But so Reminders of Him doesn't have any of that absurdity, but it is still trying to do the hide-the-ball structure. And it leads you on to what is supposed to be this major revelation that is not a revelation at all, and there's not even really any tension. It does set up the question of why are these grandparents like this, which is it's honestly some of the worst grandparenting I've ever seen in my entire life. It's the only like really weird thing in the movie where you've got first of all also using Lauren Graham and Bradley Whitford.

28:48Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Who you know Lauren Graham of course we will talk about Gilmore Girls in this episode because of another film. But you know Bradley Whitford known to be apoplectic as an actor from time to time. But there is like an intensity and weirdness in their caretaking of this child and their relationship to her mother. that is not matched by certainly by Tyreek Withers as the best friend replacement son across the way, who's also a super handsome former NFL player who's building a home on the land that he purchased with his NFL money, but he can't ever finish the home because he doesn't want to be far away from DM.

29:29Sean Fennessey:I hate when I'm a business owner and a sick athlete who looks like Tyreek Withers and I've had to step away from the game. and you know I could probably have any girl I want in town but what I really need is the recently released convict who killed my best friend it's just a huge bummer it's just a huge bummer but you know what she looks like Michael Monroe what are you gonna do what are you gonna do I did also feel that the it was a I thought that this was maybe a a fair-ish portrayal of a pretty unjust criminal justice system you know but of course it's like unjust to the sad white lady so you know it does feel like a 50s movie where it's like through a series of misunderstandings, someone has been put into this terrible situation.

30:10Sean Fennessey:And they're really a good person deep down, but this bad thing happened. Wasn't their fault and they're screwed. It's an interesting attempted pivot by Micah Monroe, an actress that I love that is, you know, between Chris Ryan and I, one of our girls, you know, the star of It Follows and many other horror movies over the last few years. You know, had a huge hit with long legs recently and she's attempting to get into a new lane. and I think wisely to attempt to get some of this Colleen Hoover-Dowe you know she's not quite a skilled an actor I think some of her like slackness as a performer really works in scary movies it doesn't quite play as well here well she and Tyreek Withers are on a different like energetic level than the grandparents yeah and then and also like then the situation around them which I guess enables their love affair but it doesn't match up Tyreek Withers has instantly joined the jock movie Hall of Fame.

31:06Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Because when you think about his burly bro, and I know what you did last summer, his first round draft pick in him last year, the horror movie. And now this, he's being typecast a little bit. Yeah, I guess so. He can pull it off. You guys spend a lot of time talking about who is not a convincing athlete and asked to play athletes in films. You buy him. Yeah. Yeah, and he generally is appealing. He's also very sweet with the little girl, so that goes a long way. They are good together. Yeah. I know that stuff that got me. Yeah, yeah. Well, sure. Yeah, of course. Yeah, girl dad. This movie is...

31:43Sean Fennessey:Okay. It's like totally forgettable. I had forgotten it. It's fine. Again, it is like the least offensive and also the most boring of the Colleen Hoover adaptations. Do you think Verity will be enough of a big deal that it warrants its own episode of this show. I hope so. I mean, we could also do, we could do Verity and then we could do all the, like, the romance adaptations. We could do our long-threatened Nicholas Sparks episode. Oh, wow, yeah. But listen, Verity, Dakota Johnson, Anne Hathaway, Josh Hartnett, directed by Michael Showalter. Yeah, a lot of real people involved. I hope everybody came to play.

32:22Sean Fennessey:Yeah, Amazon MGM too. Let's go. Riding high off of the success of Project Hail Mary. Okay, let's pivot away from reminders of him. Wait, speaking of romances, Kiki in Housemaid 2? Oh, I forgot to add that to the document. So you're like, you're happy about this. Like your girl's in her slop era and you're about it. She wants to be in her slop era. Also, The Housemaid, which is not a Colleen Hoover adaptation, but is like of that literary mold, way better than any of the movies we just mentioned. That's the most fun I've had. The Housemaid is more fun. Yeah, and so I'm just hoping, and Housemaid 2 with Amanda Seyfried is apparently coming back, which is great for me.

32:57Amanda Seyfried and Kirsten Dunst together, I say yes. We just, we need to up our game from Brandon Sklenar. Like the next husband. It should be Ben Affleck, but he's too famous for that. Who's a little younger than,

33:09Sean Fennessey:who's like 42? Who's like Kirsten Dunst's age who would be a fit for this world? I don't know how old everybody is anymore, you know? I mean, it should be like a Chris Evans type. That's the kind of person who should be going into that spot, you know? And I feel like he could play that, this material really well, rather than trying to do ghosted and be like, isn't this so funny that I'm doing a stupid movie like this? Like, actually be like, I'm making like a schlocky erotic thriller that we can all laugh at and chew popcorn. Anyway, another movie we've both seen, I presume. Oh, yeah, of course.

33:42Sean Fennessey:Is Paul McCartney Man on the Run. Yeah. This is Morgan Neville's latest documentary. His first of two documentaries this year about major figures in popular culture. His next documentary is about Paul McCartney's friend, Lorne Michaels, which comes out in April. This one documents McCartney's extraordinary life following the breakup of the Beatles and how the love he shared with his wife, Linda, became his bedrock and influenced a journey that would lead to the formation of his band, Wings. Let's talk through your feelings on this, okay? Because this is your, not only like your music documentary world, but like this era of Paul is really your jam.

34:20This means a lot to you.

34:22Sean Fennessey:The first - I mean, not that it doesn't mean a lot to me, but this is... You're Beatles through and through. I'm Beatles through and through. You like Solo Paul. Of course. And also, like, what I liked the most about this documentary was just once again seeing all the archival footage of them on the farm looking shaggy and weird. And there is something idyllic about he just goes in the woods with Linda and shuts out the world and makes this music the way that he wants to. I respect it. I would go crazy if I had to do that, but I think you would be very happy. This is what you want in life. I really think, I think Ram is one of the most inspiring pieces of art of all time.

35:04Sean Fennessey:I am utterly, I think Paul's a crazy person in a way that I relate to. And that he's like, I'm about my thing and that's it. Sometimes to the point of isolationism and egotism. and sometimes to the point, not in my case, but in his case, of utter brilliance that it creates this magic out of him that only he can tap into. And this period that this movie is focused on has been a huge kind of area of personal study for me. And so there's actually no way that this documentary was ever going to live up to my expectations. I just know a little bit too much about this. Yeah. And I've listened to so many interviews with Paul about this period.

35:43Sean Fennessey:And, you know, the McCartney-Ram wildlife stretch and then the formation of wings. I've spent a lot of time with that music and it really means a lot to me. But I think this is pretty good. I think it's definitely very watchable. And if you are less of a psycho about Paul, I think you'll learn a lot about his psychology and the aftermath of the Beatles. The movie does, I was curious how you felt about this. It attempts to engage with the who broke up the Beatles and what was Paul and John's relationship like. And I feel that there's been a lot of management around this over the last 20 years particularly were sort of like Yoko and Sean have worked very hard with Paul and Paul's family to make it clear that these two people did not hate each other.

36:29Sean Fennessey:That even when things were challenging and they were sniping at each other, when they were publicly beefing on record, like literally on songs, that they still were blood brothers. How do you feel the movie like engaged with that? What did you make of it? Like many, like most recent music documentaries, This is made with Paul McCartney's cooperation and involvement, and he is an executive producer. So I felt the management of everything from his side slightly. And, you know, it's not I mean, it is public record that when they finally split with remind me the Wiley manager's name. The Klein. Yeah.

37:07Klein. Klein. When they are finally freed or, you know, part ways. Exactly. You know, that the archival clip of John Lennon being like, yeah, well, Paul was right, is included prominently in the. And even when they show the clip of Paul being interviewed after John's murder, they it's they have Sean Lennon narrating like his interpretation of it and trying to make it smoother and better.

37:38Sean Fennessey:Paul famously gave this, infamously gave this sort of like blank, disaffected interview, maybe a day or less than a day after Lennon was murdered. And it's a little bit of a black mark on his legacy because he just seems so unfeeling. It ends with, yeah, it's a drag. And then thank you, walks off. I mean, it's really, really. Yeah, but I did also feel that it was fair to him the way that Sean kind of characterized that, that it was sort of like this is a traumatic event and that this is a person who spent his life trying to protect himself. Right. And that in these events you can't give people too much.

38:11Not be in front of the cameras. Totally. But for every one of those, you know, the whole Linda can't sing thing, you have him talking about his view of it. But it's every wrinkle is met with a very pro-Paul riposte, which is, I mean, that's what it says on the label. So what are you going to do? And this is a pro-Paul, you know, we're not anti-John, but we are. I love John. This is a Paul. Ethan Hawke is right, you know, that you can't have a favorite Beatle, that it's the, you know, what they made together that is so beautiful.

38:43Sean Fennessey:But I love a lot of what all of them made individually, too. Same. And I do think there's been a lot of work to explore what John made over the last 15 years or so. There are multiple documentaries about his work around Imagine and around the albums with Yoko. And there's not as much of that with McCartney. There have been plenty of McCartney objects for us to engage with. Remember that Rick Rubin Hulu movie where they're sort of like just going back and listening to his songs and kind of deconstructing them? And Paul works, his world works very hard to mythologize in perpetuity. this one I think I I might have preferred a little bit more of a tighter focus on like a year or two this is my own personal interest yeah to get a little bit to really like dig into the psychology a little bit rather than as you say almost it's almost like they're knocking pins down where they're like this year happened this is how the band formed this is how the band worked I thought it was interesting the way that they talked about how he would dispense with members and that he had he does have this kind of almost militaristic approach to going through the work and that's one of the things that did clearly disrupt the Beatles, right?

39:48Sean Fennessey:That Paul was like, work, work, work. And George was like, what about me? Yes. Can I hang out a little bit? You know, like I've got some feelings. Yeah, I've got some ideas. Yeah. So I think it was like, it was honest, but it was softened and leavened to your point. I do think, I mean, nobody is better than Morgan Neville just making these movies kind of like glide by. Like he just, his editing team and the way that these things are constructed and the way that he is able to kind of like put a little bit of a spell on the lead subject to get them to give you enough good stuff that you feel satisfied is very rarefied air because I think they all trust him because they're partially having some handle on the material themselves.

40:28Sean Fennessey:But I liked it. I liked it. I think it... If you're us, then you'll enjoy watching it. Yeah. If you're a Beatles head, then it's very pleasant. And it really just is fun to see a lot of that old footage, which you've seen before, but it's like assembled, as you said, very slickly and it's very watchable all in one place. It's funny because on a future episode of Blank Check, you and I are featured on the new season of Blank Check. Yes. But on a future episode, like I really personally explored because of the movie that I talked about, how appealing I find this period of Paul's life. No, I know that about you.

41:04Sean Fennessey:You know, and how there's something about it that is really like calls to me. I know. So. I mean, I did. I know that this is, it means something to you. It's part of how I understand you is that really you just like want to be with the sheep in Scotland with Eileen and Alice. But then when I was watching that infamous interview, I was like, damn, when I die, Sean's going to talk just like this about me. I was just like, this is, it's a drag. Bye. And like, and as I was watching, no, I was like, well, Sean Lennon has some like very insightful, like psychological, you know, points here. because you would just be like, I can't deal with this.

41:42Sorry, it's a drag. Bye. That's okay.

41:44Sean Fennessey:But privately, imagine what I'll say. Exactly. I know. That's a very funny pivot. Okay. Let's talk about two movies that I don't, you didn't see either of these, right? No, I didn't. And they are inextricably linked and fascinating. So just hang with me a minute while I talk about that. Yeah, it's Horror Corner. Let's go. They're the two big, I would say, studio movies, non-Hail Mary division over the last two weekends. The first is Ready or Not 2 Here I Come, which is a sequel to the 2019 cult hit starring Samara Weaving and the other is They Will Kill You which I just saw last night which is directed by Kirill Sokolov which is a new Warner Brothers horror action movie starring Zazie Beetz.

42:20Sean Fennessey:These two movies are linked because they are the same movie. They are fascinatingly almost exactly the same in terms of what their plot is. One of them is the sequel of course but the sequel kind of expands its world to show that Samara Weaving whose character in the first film was hunted by her in-laws on the night of her wedding because her in-laws were Satanists who were participating in a cult in which... Happens to the best of us. I mean, you know, part of the reason that first movie is a lot of fun is because that's how a lot of people feel when they enter a new family where they're just like, are these people trying to kill me?

42:53Sean Fennessey:What the fuck is going on here? It was a really good joke, stretched out and used, that deployed a lot of great gore. And speaking of wonderful kind of scream queen horror girls like Micah Monroe, Samara Weaving might be the best in the business. so that first movie is a lot of fun this new one adds a bunch of new actors Catherine Newton comes on as her sister our beloved Sarah Michelle Gellar is here Sean Hattesey from the pit is here David Cronenberg Elijah Wood the movie picks up immediately after the first film so she's drenched in blood the house is burning down she's wearing the wedding dress and she's arrested and taken to the hospital and the story goes from there she very quickly gets picked up and taken back and is brought into a kind of expanded universe of Satanists that are trying to kill her, I think the movie is okay.

43:45Sean Fennessey:I think it has like lost all of its novelty because we saw the first film. It's the same filmmakers. It's the Radio Silence guys who I've had on the show before who I think are really talented. Some fun kills. There's some good creativity. Catherine Newton, another emerging Scream Queen, has good chemistry with Samara Weaving, but it's very hard for this movie to recapture what was special about the first film. In part because when characters fail in their efforts to kill the person who is meant to be killed on behalf of Satan, they explode into a giant pool of blood. Oh, okay. Which is one of the amazing revelations of the first film.

44:22Sean Fennessey:And then they play that note like six times in this movie and it's a lot less effective. Okay. I wish this was better. It's not bad. If you liked the first movie, it's an okay time at the movies. They Will Kill You is weirdly the same. It's about a woman who gets a job at a hotel slash like high rise as a maid. And the reason that she got there is because someone is working there who is very close to her, who she's attempting to rescue. But she doesn't fully realize that the people who own, operate, and live in this high rise are also Satanists and they need sacrifices to come into their space so they can kill them on behalf of Satan.

45:00Sean Fennessey:Let's drill down on this a little. So the people who own and operate the hotel also live in the hotel? They do. I guess it's more of like an apartment building. It's more of an apartment building. Okay. So it's a, it's almost like a manor in a way because there is this sort of like maid service team. I'm trying to, oh, is it like assisted living? Like is everyone of a certain age? No, because it's, I mean the other stars of the film are Patricia Arquette, Heather Graham, Tom Felton from the Harry Potter films, Mahala from Industry. So it's not old people. Okay. I mean, there are hotels that also offer residential services.

45:41It's basically like a co-op. Okay. Built on Satan's portal. So Satan owns the co-op and then they work for Satan? Or is it a collective?

45:50Sean Fennessey:Unclear whose name's on the deed, I'll say. I think the movie has the same idea. It's more like Kill Bill meets Looney Tunes in terms of how it's executed. it has some very fun action Zazie Beetz surprisingly excellent action heroine she does a lot of machete killing she does a lot of beating the shit out of people and exploding their heads a lot of sawed off shotgun blasts okay the movie has an energy and a real comic sensibility it feels like Joe Dante at times it feels like Sam Raimi at times has a lot of stuff I like but it's like barely a plot barely okay and at 94 minutes, I found it to be a little bit long.

46:34Sean Fennessey:And it's just very weird that these movies came out at the same time. The director, Sokolov, is super talented at the set pieces and some of the gore stuff.

46:46Sean Fennessey:It's kind of like the Deep Impact Armageddon thing where like, how did this happen? And then did they think very obviously like, okay, shit, well, they're putting their movie out here. We got to put it out a week later so that we can get a little taste of that or something. I'm not sure. I will say there were people were much more into they will kill you at my screening last night than were into ready or not to. Well, that's the first week of it, right? It was. So I saw both on opening night. I saw both on opening night with normal crowds. OK. And. This one clicked more, maybe just because it seemed more new and because it was a little bit more outsized.

47:18Sean Fennessey:Yeah. But they're neither of them are as good as I would hope that they would be. OK. That's my report on those two movies. OK. I think you can skip them. yeah once they were described as like gory horror movies where you're there for the kills not for the you know intricate psychological yeah neither of them really explore that exploration and blocking um I hope Samara Weaving gets a really great movie soon though I think she's pretty special I think she's got incredible screen presence you know most amusingly uh utilized in Babylon when she comes on as like the Margot Robbie looking girl right yeah Margot Robbie unseats which I think is one of the best jokes in that movie.

47:56Sean Fennessey:Okay. Next movie. Movie I haven't seen. Midwinter Break. You Didn't Get To. This is adapted from a novel that I have not read, directed by Polly Fenley, and it stars Leslie Mettenville and Karen Hines. Two goats. Yeah. It's a shame you didn't get to see this because it's about an older couple, empty nesters, and then they go on vacation to Amsterdam, and then some revelations about their inner lives and their relationship and how are they going to deal with them. But it's basically about Irish Catholic guilt. But but but this time, here's the twist. A woman. So I was just like, what's happening here for I was like, Leslie Manville, get it together.

48:42Honestly, that's that's not fair. She's working through her things in her own time. And obviously, both actors are wonderful. But it's like a lot more about religious guilt than I tend to relate to.

48:54Sean Fennessey:Women really can have it all now. Irish guilt and everything. Yeah, we really can. I mean, it really feels like a classic. The seniors at the Lincoln Center movie theater that I think sadly since closed on an afternoon. This is made for them. And it's not bad, but I'm not at that phase of my life yet. And I don't know if I ever will be. Angelica Kaur too. Yeah. I love these two actors. they're very good yeah I intend to see this yeah because I do have a soft spot for I these movies are kind of like aspirational is not the word but like 45 years Andrew Hayes movie is I would presume a much better version of this movie the thing is that it's just there's not a ton of revelation in it honestly besides the religious stuff and you know your mileage will vary on that I think alright but maybe yours won't let's talk about the AI doc okay I made a last minute choice to see this as well as They Will Kill You last night wow okay and I I really wanted to see it for a couple of reasons um the full title because you love AI well I I think that there's probably a bigger conversation about it that we we need to have um just by the nature of industrial design right now this movie is much bigger than what is happening in the world of movies, but the AI doc or How I Became an Apocaloptimist is the new film from Daniel Rohr and Charlie Tyrell.

50:29Sean Fennessey:Daniel Rohr, last seen winning the Academy Award for Navalny. And he was already on this show. We recorded an interview with him, but not about this movie because he also wrote and directed a movie called Tuner, which is coming out in May, which is about a piano tuner who gets ensnared in a criminal enterprise. And it is a very, very good movie. Surprisingly good for a guy who hasn't made a scripted feature before. This new movie is a pure doc, hoping to figure out what's happening with artificial intelligence. A father-to-be embarks on an eye-opening journey to learn more about the most powerful technology humanity has ever created and what's at stake if we get it wrong.

51:06Sean Fennessey:On the surface, this is a very standard doc style where he brings in well over a dozen experts in all directions. Scientists and academics and also critical leaders in Silicon Valley and doomers and optimistic voices and folks in politics, all to kind of get this survey of this moment that we find ourselves in. And he shoots it through the prism of, I'm about to have a kid. And what's going to happen to my kid? And very early on in the film, one of the people says, most of the AI risk people that I speak to say that your child will not make it to their teens because of what AI will do. And then there are all these other people where like we are on the brink of as close to a utopian existence as we will ever have in this country when you look at what, you know, genome mapping we'll be able to do, how we'll be able to handle the environment, so on and so forth.

52:03Sean Fennessey:It's very hard, virtually impossible to get your arms around this entire subject in a 95-minute documentary. It does a pretty good, it really is AI for dummies in a way that I think has a real utility. in terms of explaining to the lay person not just what AI is because a lot of people just use chat GPT or they did use Sora until they shut Sora down. And they are using it with Gemini and they are using it in a lot of these AI assistants that appear on a lot of different services. They're using it when they go to the hospital or the doctor. So it's already integrated into people's lives. But I think the movie is good about explaining both the ecological impact and then the human impact, the geopolitical impact a lot of potentialities.

52:47Sean Fennessey:The movie kind of resists having a final say beyond I hope it's okay. And that's probably the right choice. Did you also become an apocaloptimist? You know, I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about this. And I did want to talk to you about how you think about it. Because there's the very obvious reactionary, ugh, this is terrible. This is ruining art. And I hate it. And then there's also the like crude capitalist like it's happening no matter what accept it it's going to run things and it's going to do so in a way that we can control and as with most things I tend to fall in the middle of this like I see the ways in which it can improve things and I see the ways in which it can really damage people I don't feel like I'm an apocalyptic fearing person about this I don't wake up scared about it but I'm an optimist about virtually nothing so I don't how do you feel about it?

53:44I mean, I am. I think that the reality is somewhere in the middle and that's where I am as well. I mean, I don't wake up fearing Skynet. I have no interest and not just an acute Jacob Lordy, like I'd rather be sunburnt on the beach kissing sort of way. But I was talking with my husband about this in terms of AI assistants recently and people using them to do kind of some of the mundane computer tasks or scheduling or all sorts of things. And I was like, I don't, I also don't, I would not be, I don't have an assistant and I wouldn't be a good assistant because I'm not good at delegating because then you just have to do it again yourself.

54:24And so there is an element to all of this where I just don't, it will always, it will be technology that if it's trained appropriately, it's just like the next thing that could make your life easier in some ways or could do other things. and then will also not be as good at other stuff. And, you know, is it ruining art? Yes, but also like plenty of other things were ruining art before. So again, I don't, it's not awesome. One thing I don't, I don't willingly use it.

54:56Sean Fennessey:I don't either. I'm not a ChatGPT person. I don't, I try not to rely on things like Gemini when I'm doing searches. I think that it's obviously been built into our lives in ways that we don't see. as well. There's a lot that is happening that is assisting us in all kinds of ways that we don't realize. One thing the movie does well is that it locates this really core kernel idea that there's more or less five people that are making these decisions about how this is working. And that these five people are in a race to unlock AGI rather than just AI. And AGI is this kind of elevated independent operating power.

55:34Sean Fennessey:This like, you know, it's represented in the film as almost like this Rubik's cube that lights up that will ultimately take us to the next level of utility. And maybe in fact, if handled correctly with the right safety provisions, becomes this all-knowing problem solver for us. But these five people, I won't be able to remember all of them, but obviously Sam Altman at OpenAI, you've got the folks at Google DeepMind, you've got Meta, you've got Anthropic, and I believe you've got Microsoft AI. Those are sort of like the five power players in this space. And what's really scary is that the best way to move quickly in this race is to remove safety.

56:15Sean Fennessey:And if you remove safety, you can get to the endpoint quicker and then you will be deemed the winner of the race and then you can control the landscape. Now, these five people, these are all American companies or companies that are mostly American. You've also got the Chinese government. You've got, you know, UAE and Saudi Arabia. You've got North Korea and South Korea. You've got all these competing forces. You've got who's able to manufacture chips. Like, it's a broad geopolitical landscape that you have to consider. And at some point, the chips depend on resources. Yes. Most of which are made in Taiwan, which is controlled by China.

56:49Sean Fennessey:The U.S. doesn't like how China controls Taiwan. There's a million different factors that come into it. But I like that the movie really boils this down to these five guys, the buck kind of stops with them and if they don't if they don't exist or operate it isn't it's xai is the one I'm thinking of it's not Microsoft xai is Elon Musk's company who was formerly involved with open AI and then felt that Sam Altman was not acting safely enough so he started his own company a kind of paradox unto itself okay it's unusual yeah someone makes this point in the film that is so powerful which is that there are more rules and regulations around selling a sandwich than there are around building AI technology right now.

57:32I mean, this is true, certainly of Silicon Valley and of every new technology. And, you know, in some ways, it's the social network, which it is just there. Here is a person who figured out something in an unregulated market that changes the way that we operate our world and each other. and the social network dares to ask, is that the person we want in charge of things or this is what it looks like? And, you know, I don't know any of those. I assume they're all gentlemen.

58:01Sean Fennessey:The three, they're all men. Yeah. Three of the five men sit for the film. Yeah, I don't know them, but I'm assuming I would not elect them to be in charge of reshaping how we interact with the world. There's one fascinating revelation in the movie or just sort of moment in the movie where, you know, Daniel appears on camera in the movie and he's really using his personal experience. His wife is in the film, you know, talking through her pregnancy. She's a filmmaker in her own right. She's kind of like helping him make the movie and being like, you can't do this, you fucking idiot. Charming like construction.

58:33Sean Fennessey:But Sam Altman appears near the end of the film. He sits for an interview and he has become arguably the most talked about leader, corporate leader in America this year. He is the new Mark Zuckerberg. He even has a new, like he has his own social network coming out at the end of this year. He does. And he was in the movie news this week with the Disney revelation around OpenAI and Sora. But anyhow, he sits for the film and Dan turns to him and he's like, hey man, I'm making this film because I have all of this anxiety and concern about this because I'm having my first child and I'm nervous. And Sam Altman says, oh, I'm having my first kid too in March.

59:13Sean Fennessey:and then we get to see Sam Altman explain his feelings about this world through that prism of he is also now indicted involved right essentialized in his family lineage through whatever he creates whatever he chooses to do and there's a feeling that OpenAI is ahead that they're ahead of everybody right now and that if they unlock the final piece of the puzzle I'm a little dubious about it whether there is a final piece of the puzzle and that we'll keep having these races because that benefits stock prices, but nevertheless. There's a couple strokes in the movie that are really smart. It's like it's very much worth seeing, but don't expect to come out of it feeling like you've got your arms around it and this is how we should feel.

59:53Right. At the same time, it feels, you know, how I became an apocalyptomist, which, first of all, is just very hard to say, but it was not designed with podcasts in mind. But that is probably off-putting to a slice of people who are AI skeptical. but it doesn't sound like it's an advertisement for these people in the way that the title would suggest.

1:00:16Sean Fennessey:It doesn't do them any favors. It doesn't let them off the hook. I think he does a good job casting a few journalists who are like, this is crazy that this is happening. You know, very bluntly explaining how wild what is happening is happening. It's worth checking out though because this is, I think this is the flashpoint issue in the American economy, in American culture. it is and it was smart of them to bring this up and we were talking about the Daniels and Dan Kwan one of the Daniels is a producer on this film it can be seen in the movie at certain times like he's also somebody who explores science fiction seems to be very interested anyway I would recommend it it is an imperfect documentary and feels very different from Navalny in terms of how it's been made but it is very very interesting why don't we talk about A Private Life now okay which you have seen part of and I I started it and couldn't finish it before the end of this episode unfortunately so this is directed by and I believe written by Rebecca Zlatowski and is a French film starring Jodie Foster, who is acting mostly in French.

1:01:15She plays an American woman psychiatrist living in Paris and is married to Daniel Latoy, a Frenchman, and mostly sees clients in French. But every once in a while when she's pissed off, she like mutters under her breath in English. And the rest of the cast is French. And the setup, the premise is one of her patients dies and then she decides to investigate this suspicious death that makes it sound more like a murder podcast murder she wrote undertaking than it is which is as a weird slightly woody allen-esque like slice of french life i mean there's just like a lot of psychotic analysis. And, you know, and at one point she accuses a hypnotist of being an asthmatic because she questions Freud's practices or financial motivations.

1:02:12But it's more about the Jodie Foster character. And as it goes on, gets a little shaggier and a little bit more about her life and her, if you will, private life than about solving this murder case. Though that ultimately is solved, I think. It's a little all over the place in a very charming way.

1:02:40Sean Fennessey:Okay. I mentioned to you that Frederick Wiseman, the late great, makes a cameo as Jodie Foster's psychiatrist. I had assumed that that's who he would be playing. and gives her some real talk and is wonderful. There's a scene with a hypnotist, which I thought was pretty cool. I did see this part and enjoyed it. Yeah, it lingers a bit longer in the places where movies like this don't, or I think more traditional thrillers don't linger. It really is as much about a psychiatrist or also just about how people are weird and how the French people are weird. And again, it's filmed in Paris. in what look like real apartments and cafes and on the street.

1:03:26I was kind of into it. I think maybe Jodie Foster is the weak link. Wow. Well, because there is, towards the back half, they're trying to do something slightly comedic. And I don't know whether...

1:03:43Sean Fennessey:I thought even the beginning was, what I saw was very comedic. It did feel a little bit like they dropped Jodie Foster into a late period Olivier Assayas movie. Yes, that's the other one. That's the other reference. But I am, and I felt like someone who could handle the comedy of it in a little, like, more open way would have made more sense. I kept thinking about Kristen Scott Thomas, another person who's my fave and also does act in French and English. But Jodie Foster is very good. Yeah, the one thing I had heard, because I believe this played Telluride when I was there and I didn't get a chance to see it there and I really wanted to.

1:04:17Sean Fennessey:Jodie Foster was very present at Telluride. I was online with her many times, was that she was great in this movie, and the movie was a little baggy. And so that's kind of the opposite of what you're sharing with me. I mean, it's what you respond to in the movie, right? Like, she is very good. Jodie Foster is always good. But Jodie Foster is in one movie, and as you said, they're all making another, you know, shaggy French movie. Yeah. Okay, interesting. I will finish this. At some point, without spoiling it, Matthew Almarek just is making love to someone. when I was going to use a different word and it's filmed as a different word to some lady.

1:04:49And they're on a porch in a random French port town and Jodie Foster and Daniel Latoya are under the bushes watching and they just go for it a while, like naked in the moonlight. And I was like, well, it's not something you see in an American movie.

1:05:05Sean Fennessey:That's true. That's very French. Matthew Almerc has got to be like 65 years old. God bless him. Yeah. And they're both quite naked and they do a moon salutation at the end after they finish what they're doing. Unbelievable. Yeah, it's great stuff. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You've been there, settling in for a relaxing evening of TV only to waste half the night scrolling through options? Enter Fire TV. It's entertainment with zero effort required. Fire TV serves up personalized recommendations from across all your apps, all in one place. Not sure what to watch next? Just tell Alexa plus what you're in the mood for and she'll put up the perfect recommendation, problem solved.

1:05:40Sean Fennessey:Stop the scroll, start the show. Find what you're looking for with Fire TV. subscription may be required. Let me tell you about Good Luck Have Fun Don't Die since I just spieled to you about AI. Under normal circumstances, this would be one of the five most anticipated or most excited movies of the year for me. It's the first movie in many years from Gore Verbinski who was one of the very first guests on this podcast when he was here for A Cure for Wellness. This is his first movie since. Star Sam Rockwell, Haley Lou Richardson, another fave, Michael Peña, Zazie Beetz again. a frenzied time traveler enters a diner attempting to stop an AI apocalypse having already failed over 100 times he recruits an unlikely group including a bereaved mother terrorized teachers and a woman with a severe technology allergy does that mean that she hates it like me or she but she doesn't need like an EpiPen no she hates it she's averse to but an EpiPen could also be an allergy I can't remember I saw the film in January, so I can't recall specifically.

1:06:44Which is like a horror film, right? Because then at some point you're stuck.

1:06:47Sean Fennessey:Well, that's a good idea for a horror film. Yeah, there you go. I think when you look at this movie, and there's another movie that is out right now called Undertone, which is about a podcast host, a pair of podcast hosts who are getting messages into their kind of call-in, murder talk show that has been a recent hit. I saw that film last year before it was picked up by A24. It has since been picked up by A24 and went into theaters and had some success. And you look at the AI doc. Look at Mission Impossible. Yeah. Final Reckoning. Just kind of the angst and anxiety that is being generated by what we don't know that technology is doing to us.

1:07:28Sean Fennessey:It is a moment in time. And then in the same way, when you go back and look at 70s science fiction, you say, oh, like, well, this speaks to concern about this. You know, what do Silent Running and Soylent Green have in common? They're both kind of like eco-terror movies, but they're done in different ways or phase four. You can kind of draw all these parallels and illusions but also I think it's important to just like drill down on the movie itself. And Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die seems like it would be so fun and it's just not that fun. And I think it's, the script is not as strong as I would have wanted it to be.

1:07:59Sean Fennessey:Verbinski, famously one of the great shot makers in movies but this movie is like not lit as beautifully as his previous films. I don't feel like all the set pieces work as well. I fucking love Sam Rockwell and I found him a little bit grating in the movie. Yeah. Well, you know, when he decides just to show up and do Sam Rockwell for the check, again, no judgment. I know, but this movie required a lot of him and I feel like he just slightly missed the mark on how to play the character where it feels a little bit like Robert Downey Jr. kind of motor-mouthing his way. It's not... I thought it really reduced the stakes and I think Vervinsky's usually good at the stakes.

1:08:35Sean Fennessey:He made The Ring, which is fucking terrifying and he knows how to play it straight and he knows how to do gags and this was maybe a little bit more gag than straight for my taste and it pains me to say that because I'm just such a big fan of his and this movie kind of came and went and I think it kind of came and went for a reason Undertone is kind of the opposite it's like a person we've not heard of before Ian Tuison who had an experience taking care of his parents as they were getting older that inspired this movie and the woman in this movie who's one of the podcast hosts is taking care of her mom she learns that she's pregnant and all these ideas about not like motherhood, but like kind of parenthood and legacy are on her mind, but she's not enunciating them in like a trauma-born way.

1:09:18Sean Fennessey:And the movie is worth seeing. I didn't see it in a movie theater. I saw it at home on a link when it was being passed around after horror film festivals. Somebody sent it to me. It was just like, you've got to watch this because it's a tiny movie made for less than$500 ,000. And the sound design is incredible. And it's all about a person who's like wearing headphones, talking into a microphone, taking calls, being alone in a house. That aspect of it works really well. I'll bet that works well in a movie theater. There's also just a lot of like cheap jump scares and annoying horror stuff to your point that I don't think you would love this.

1:09:48Sean Fennessey:I think it is, it feels a little bit too slickly designed, but I also feel like Ian Tuison is going to make like a lot of horror movies and be very successful. And a really smart piece of business by A24, who I think bought it for half a million dollars and it's going to end up making like 20 million bucks at the box office. So in case you're wondering how they keep making some of these movies, that don't always hit. Good piece of business. Can we talk about horror movie titles for a second? Sure. They Will Kill You, Ready or Not 2, Here I Come, Ready or Not, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die. We're entering like Nancy Meyers territory here.

1:10:19These are all the same movie. You know? I agree with you. They're all like very actionable, like direct to camera, taken from an internet comment.

1:10:26Sean Fennessey:Well, don't forget about Now You See Me, Now You Don't. Well, sure. But that's not a horror movie. That's about... Well, it was horrifying to me and to all South Africans. that's that's who you want to be grouped with not necessarily okay i mean there are many fine people in south africa i just i i do think that we are i mean maybe this is the intentional the intention of the marketing that they're all just kind of grouped together and you're like oh like the new you know i'm gonna taunt you movie is out i'll go see it this week but these are uh indistinguishable i think those three movies good luck is a little bit more sci-fi than horror though it does have horror elements.

1:11:03Sean Fennessey:I would say, but those three movies, it's interesting to group them together. They are wink horror. They are, we're doing a lot of gags. Yeah. It's not like comedy, but there's a lot of funny stuff in them. Undertone is the opposite. Undertone is an unsettling, quiet, scary movie. Well, I didn't group Undertone in that. I know. But I think that it's potentially a problem to keep making horror movies that are like this. It's like, we're all having fun, right? Yeah. That's not, it can work. If you're Sam Raimi, it works. If you're not, then it's a little bit more challenging. if they're good and then people will just sign up for the next one, then it's fine.

1:11:37But it does sound like these were three middling movies that all sound and in some ways are the same in terms of Satanists. And AI, Satanist, we don't know.

1:11:49Sean Fennessey:They're grouped together, I think. They could be. Let's talk about Our Hero Balthazar. Yeah. This is a new film directed by Oscar Boyson, who's probably best known for being a producer on that first stretch of Safdie Brothers movies. It stars Jaden Martell, Asa Butterfield, Chris Bauer, Jennifer Ely, Anna Baryshnikov, Noah Centineo. It's about a wealthy teenager who tries to gain his crush's attention by posting videos pleading for stricter gun laws. As an online troll begins mocking his videos, he becomes convinced the troll is a mass shooter and travels to Texas to confront him. Yeah. I was very happy to hear that you were watching this movie.

1:12:24Sean Fennessey:Yes, I did. I completed it, yeah. What did you think of this? I this movie bugged me in the right way you know and it was clearly meant to put you on edge and have that feeling of like wait are you guys really doing this and no and come on but then was always able to grab me back in um uh not a consistent tone but like a consistent commitment to its bit, which I appreciated even if I was annoyed by it. It's funny that it's a movie about a troll that is very trolling. Yes. Yes. But also, it is trolly and it stays trolly. It never lets up on the gas or tries to make a sincere point. I was reminded, and I suppose because of the school shooting stuff, of Vox Lux, which is is a movie that at some point veers into earnestness and really wants you to take lessons from it after its trolliness, and that's where it loses me.

1:13:26I mean, it's not a perfect movie. I cannot believe that's Ace of Butterfield.

1:13:31Sean Fennessey:That's the best part of the movie. It's unreal. And I knew that Ace of Butterfield was in the movie, and it still took me a full five minutes to be like, wait a second. And the movie, he comes in about 30 minutes, and all the scenes in Texas are much, much better. The Balazar character is a framing device. I agree and it's like not the greatest Jaden Martell performance. And you really feel that when Asa Butterfield shows up in the movie because historically he would be playing the Jaden Martell character and recasting him as this kind of like white trash Texas kid who's like dad disrespects him and is like a hustler.

1:14:02Sean Fennessey:And you can see he's got like all this vulnerability, but also all this anger and frustration and this kind of like lack of connection to his own masculinity. But it's such a good performance. And this is such a zag for him as an actor. I think the movie is worth watching just for him. And I think even just the conception of that character is a unique and very humanized person in a way that the Jaden Martell character is not. Yes. The Jaden Martell character feels like a concoction and the Ace of Butterfield character feels like a real person. Really like a vehicle to get you to Texas. And you would never know that at the beginning of the movie.

1:14:39Sean Fennessey:No. At the beginning of the movie, you're like, I'm going to have to be with this annoying kid for two hours. And Jennifer Ely's there and you're like, oh wow, it's Jennifer Ely. Yeah, I know. I know. It is a really, it's an interesting movie. And I think what Boysen is doing, you can see kind of in the roots of the New York movies that he made too, but him kind of going outside of that. And it is a movie about kind of the online experience versus real life. We've seen a lot of movies about that in the last five or 10 years. But this had kind of like a dinginess that I really enjoyed. Yeah. And it didn't feel like it was like cultural tourism.

1:15:09Sean Fennessey:Like it didn't feel like it was making fun of people. Like I thought he had like, empathy is not the right word, but like an authenticity maybe to how that character is portrayed. Yeah, yeah. It is also a very online movie, at least in its subject matter, that does manage to create a world in Texas outside of the computers and the screens. And I mean that both in terms of the actual filmmaking. Again, the first 20 minutes because the Balthazar character is like a wannabe influencer. And so he's doing videos and he's got the ring light and you're watching the Instagram comments. and I was like, oh no, another one of these.

1:15:46But it manages to...

1:15:49Sean Fennessey:Like 8th grade meets dream scenario or something. Yeah, and they're just kind of like, I spend enough time in Instagram comments on my own time, but it does manage to get it off the screens even as their relationship is really built around both being online trolls. This is the movie. This is like Stand By Me for a fucked up generation. There's two movies that I personally want to put a big circle around and I will speak about them briefly. One of them is Redux Redux, which was only barely on my radar because it had premieres at horror film festivals or genre film festivals last fall. It just hit VOD.

1:16:24Sean Fennessey:It stars a woman named Michaela McManus. It's directed by her brothers, Matthew and Kevin McManus. We'll be talking about time travel very soon in a movie on this list. This is also a time travel movie in a very different register than that one. It's about a distraught woman who travels through parallel universes to kill her daughter's murderer over and over again. With each death, she grows more and more addicted to revenge, putting her own humanity in jeopardy. Parallel Universe's movie feels like a very high concept movie, but it's a very small indie. The time machine that is used in the movie is very lo-fi.

1:16:58Sean Fennessey:The effects work is very clean and simple. It's a family-made movie, and I think it's incredibly effective. And the main performance by Mikaela McManus is super powerful. It does feel like it feels like this is maybe overstating it but it feels like Jim Cameron in 1982 where you're like oh this guy's about to do something when somebody gives him money it doesn't have the same level of like style and attitude that the Terminator does but you know it's aware of like movie history but it's not really riffing on movie history and it has this core idea which is really good which is if someone did something terrible to you the worst thing imaginable how would you get revenge in eternity and what would happen happen to you if you kept doing this 10 times, 50 times, 100 times, 1 ,000 times?

1:17:47Sean Fennessey:How would you do it? Where would you do it? Why would you do it? And how would you get addicted to it? And what would that mean for your humanity? Just a great idea for a movie. Again, not perfect. A little draggy at times, but very good performances and I think very worth people's time. And this is a movie, if I was working as a movie studio executive, I would be calling these guys and be like, what other ideas do you have? Because we can cook together. Stop giving this stuff away, you know? Well, I want people to watch the movie. I think it's really cool. Okay, what do you want to do next? You want to hear about Peaky Blinders?

1:18:18Sean Fennessey:I watched it. You did watch it. Okay. I did. But you have not seen any of the show. I've never seen the show. Nor have I. So this is one of the most popular television shows in Netflix history. It famously stars Cillian Murphy. It was created by Stephen Knight, the very successful screenwriter who is writing the new Bond movie. Is that right? I don't know. Amy hasn't called me lately. Okay. The movie is called Peaky Blinders, The Immortal Man. It's directed by Tom Harper, who directed my beloved Wild Rose and The Aeronauts and a number of other films. In addition to Cillian Murphy, it stars Rebecca Ferguson, Barry Keoghan, Sophie Rundle, Stephen Graham.

1:18:58Sean Fennessey:Some of these people are coming back. Some of them are coming in for the first time. Tim Roth coming in for the first time. Yeah. He plays a Brit who is working for the Nazis. A Nazi sympathizer. Yes, who is bringing currency into the UK so that it can be spread throughout the economy in the UK and thus destroy the economy. Right. Making England even more vulnerable to the Nazi regime that is attempting to overtake Western Europe. So, we've never seen the show. Yeah. I did text a bit with Chris Ryan. I texted with Juliette Levin and I pulled up my text to get some context. Two of the bigger Peaky Blinders fans.

1:19:37Sean Fennessey:We come to this not as understanders of Peaky Blinders, though I would not say it's the most complicated role. Did you like it? I wasn't mad at Killian Murphy doing bad Oppenheimer, though bad is question marks around that. What do you mean? Whether he's just doing Oppenheimer looking, you know, distraught and mournfully and like, what have I done? at the camera in close-up with some decent wallpaper on the house set behind him. Happy for Rebecca Ferguson, who keeps collecting checks. Apparently she was not in previous Peaky Blinders episodes. No. She's playing a twin, though. She's playing a twin, though.

1:20:14So that's why I thought, oh, that would be smart if her original character had been on the show. And I don't know why they couldn't bring back someone who had been on the show. I guess when you can get Rebecca Ferguson, you can get Rebecca Ferguson.

1:20:28Sean Fennessey:this has got to be the most boring movie ever that features Cillian Murphy and Rebecca Ferguson fucking in a scene. That's true. And she is pretending to be inhabited by her dead twin sister's ghost when they are fucking. And that sounds way cooler. I was trying to be family friendly on the earlier. I understand. But Matthew Hart was just absolutely going for it on the porch. Shout out to him. I just really wish... Okay. This show, as I understand it, is basically British guys in chalk-striped suits shooting Tommy guns in slow motion set to like Interpol-esque songs. Yes. And then having like sadness about that.

1:21:12Right.

1:21:13Sean Fennessey:And that's kind of what the show is. Yeah. Tom Hardy was a part of the show. He's not in this film. I think it's like very stupid but it is also one stitch away from things that are my favorite things in the world so I don't want to judge it too much I got it what we watched was the TV movie finale of a TV show and we watched that in terms of like the concept and the content of the show which is people who we think are hot having conversations Barry Kilgan just like doing Crime 101 again but for good. And that ultimately, spoiler alert, I guess. And then the shootouts to the bad to me music played very loudly.

1:22:01You know, everyone's just like on various TV sets as they were on Peaky Blinders. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. You and I are proud defenders of all three Downton Abbey movies, which again, are TV shows that then had multiple movies as a capper.

1:22:17Sean Fennessey:Yes. So that's fine. That's just, that's what this is. Cillian Murphy was available for one feature film and not any more seasons of the show. And so that's what they made. Yeah. Bless you. It's not. Can I ask, can I tell you what I asked, Juliette? This is my first question. Yes. Early Q. Are the Peaky Blinders bad or good? What was the answer? they are a murderous gang but they have been anti-fascism anti-soviets and anti-selling of illegal guns in England post-world one okay which is which is in line ultimately they're anti-heroes yeah they're part of this the post-sopranos wave of television about complicated men who do bad things and they are also friend to the marginalized yeah and they have Romani roots so they themselves come from a marginalized people yeah it's very interesting that This is the most popular movie on Netflix right now that this show is as big as it is because it is a fancy and well-made period piece.

1:23:21Sean Fennessey:You know, it's a crime movie. Yeah. But it is. The bones of it are pretty interesting. This did feel like them kind of like ringing out, as you say, like one last droplet of content from this 70 episode television show. But it seems like people who like it like it. And, you know, we're looking at the state of the art here. Yeah. This is what movies are all about right now. Yeah. The Immortal Man. you didn't take your child to see Goat did you? I tried I tried to do this on Monday but my husband was like no you will come to the grocery store with me and our other child you know I gotta say I liked it and I was a little dubious of this film which is one of the biggest movies of the year about to cross a hundred million dollars at the box office an original animated feature produced by Stephen Curry directed by Tyree Dillahir I did take my daughter to see it We had a lovely afternoon seeing the movie.

1:24:12Sean Fennessey:It is about a small goat named Will who gets a once-in-a-lifetime shot to join the pros and play, quote, roar ball, which is a modified version of basketball. That's very hard for me to say. Roar ball. Yes. It's a high-intensity, full-contact sport that's dominated by the fastest, fiercest animals in the world. Okay. Ridiculed by his teammates, Will becomes determined to revolutionize the sport and prove that, quote, small can ball. Okay. But so, multi-species. All species, including on each team. It's not defined by species. Is there a correlation between, like, do bears play power forward? Yeah, I don't know which one's the tall one.

1:24:55Sean Fennessey:There's a giraffe on Will's team. The lead figure. okay one it's animated well very good voice performances um nick kroll in particular as a komodo dragon is hilarious in the movie um patten oswalt's there jelly roll is there gabrielle union aaron pierre a lot of really good voice performances um the main character that is not will is jet and jet is i think a black panther or a jaguar a black cat. Okay. And it's very clear to me or at least it seems clear to me and I don't even I haven't read any reviews of this movie I don't know if people are saying this that this is an amazingly subtle shot at LeBron James by Stephen Curry.

1:25:47Sean Fennessey:Okay. Where Jet a female character but very clearly in the LeBron James mold of a multi-year veteran who's never really won the big one but who likes to play in their own very particular style. and that is a very egocentric style, is being forced to be introduced to this smaller style with this new teammate who seems like a stunt but actually might be able to extend his or her career. Now, obviously, Steph and LeBron never played together, but the way that the Jet character is positioned, I feel like there's a little bit of a like, whose generation of basketball was this really going on? Got it.

1:26:27Sean Fennessey:Steph and LeBron have both produced films. They've both gotten into this space. They've both won titles. They famously went back and forth over a number of years with the Warriors and the Cavs. Well, sure. Then the goat is right there in the title. Is it that subtle? It's called goat. It's not subtle at all. Yeah. And yet to me, it feels like the primary engine of the movie. Now, perhaps that's just being basketball pilled and just knowing too much about the NBA that I'm like, I can only see it through this prism. My daughter, of course, has no idea what any of that is. And she's just like, Jed is my favorite character because that's a cool black cat.

1:26:59Sean Fennessey:but if you could get Stephen Curry some truth serum to discuss this, it would be the best podcast of all time. Well, isn't that true in general about all athletes? But even Steph Curry, if you could get them some truth serum, yeah, some real stuff would come out. So I'm looking here at the Wikipedia page for goat just to figure out the various species involved. And there's a lot of specificity here. So Will is an American pygmy goat. okay uh uh Jet is a Black Panther uh main attraction voiced by Aaron Pierre is an Andalusian horse mmhmm Nicola Coughlin plays an is a is an ostrich just a regular main attraction by the way is the real heavy of the movie he's the bad guy um um Archie David Harbour is an Indian rhinoceros mmhmm he's very good he has two young daughters Komodo Dragon which I do know is real uh because they're in Skyfall and um But can I just tell you something?

1:27:55My father-in-law learned independently, like not from our podcast, because he doesn't listen. I love you, Rich, and that's okay. You don't have to listen.

1:28:03Sean Fennessey:He doesn't hear you. He was like, I just learned that Wolverines are real. Totally independently. No, I swear to you. Zach made him stop and he was like, Amanda, come back inside so you can hear this. I don't know what to tell you. No, something got in his algorithm. I don't think Rich has an algorithm. I don't know. I think they went to like Huntington Garden or some music. I don't know. They don't have Wolverines in Huntington Gardens. Well, maybe they have an exhibit. Okay. Warthog. I know what that is. Aardwolf. Is that a real thing? Yes. They're all real. Capybara. I know what that is. Everything else.

1:28:42No new animals here.

1:28:44Sean Fennessey:I got to say, I see a lot of animated movies. Yeah. This was way better than I expected. Okay. And I would recommend it to families. a musk ox and bat duo, Chuck and Rusty. Oh, they're commentators. Okay, that looks like sort of Timon and Pumbaa ripoff, but that's okay. There is some Timon and Pumbaa there in the announcers, but there's some good interplay there. Did you see Mirroir number three? No, not yet. I know. This is like the best movie of the year. Yeah, okay. You got to see this movie. I will. If it's not the best, it is one of the most interesting by far. It was a festival movie last year.

1:29:15Sean Fennessey:It's the new film from Christian Petzold. It's like 87 minutes. it stars Paula Beer as his last few films have Barbara R it's about a woman who gets into a car crash on a country road I guess it takes place in Germany because all of his films take place in Germany for the most part and she her partner dies and she is retrieved by this woman who is living in a country house not far from the car accident and Paula Beer is disoriented and she goes and she goes to live with them. She kind of recuperates for two days and then two days becomes four days, four days becomes eight days and she becomes a little bit more entrenched in the lives of this family.

1:29:59Sean Fennessey:The husband and the son work as sort of mechanics who break the rules in certain car designs so people can break the controls that certain car manufacturers create and the movie is very small, simple and quiet and is also pure Hitchcock. Like, little vertigo, a little shadow of a doubt. We don't know who we're supposed to be trusting. We don't really know what's going on with the family and why. Petzold, one of the European masters. This is easily the smallest, most stripped-down movie he's ever made. I had been told that this was going to be the last movie that he and Paul Beer made together.

1:30:37They made Undine and A Fire

1:30:39Sean Fennessey:and a number of movies over the last few years. And she took over for Nina Haas, who had been the star of like five Petzold movies before that. But then Petzl just gave an interview and he said his next movie is going to be with Nina Haas and Paula Beer. Sick. It's like Avengers Doomsday, but for German cinema. This movie is captivating and very modest. So don't get your hopes up in terms of like the incident. I'm going to see it. But I think very, very good. And I highly encourage people to see it. It's still in theaters, but probably won't be for long. And I wanted to give a little love to it before we get through the first quarter.

1:31:11Sean Fennessey:Okay. Tell me about Marked by Sophia. I saw this in Venice, and I got to be in the same room as Sofia Coppola, who directed this A24 documentary about her friend and an essential 90s fashion designer who's still working, Marc Jacobs. Where are you in Marc Jacobs? I've never owned a piece by him. I have nothing against the men. I don't know very much about him. But you never went into any of the stores in the West Village? I've been in the store once, yeah. Isn't there one on Melrose? I don't know if it's still there. There definitely was. What's going and coming on Melrose. Well, sure. Right on the corner there, there was always that little, the side with the street splits.

1:31:51Yes.

1:31:51Sean Fennessey:And then there's the smaller avenue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then there was like an APC. There have been a lot of things there. I don't know. And I would say that Marc Jacobs, the business, has taken some turns in recent years and it is not as central to like a certain type of cool pop culture as it was in the late 90s and early 2000s when we were paying attention. Why is that? Because fashion is a fickle business, I think. And he's not owned by a conglomerate. I don't know. It's a whole other situation. But I'm just saying that to perhaps the younger people in the booth or at home, Marc Jacobs was like a real thing.

1:32:28And he and Sofia Coppola have been very closely linked for many, many years. When she won her Oscar, she was wearing a custom Marc Jacobs dress. so this is 90s and early 2000s nostalgia um for people my age and it is completely without conflict and i had a great time um and if you want to see sofia coppola just doing like a not even fashion documentary a fashion music video but with you know because it's mark jacobs she has some access she has sit down interviews with him and they're slightly more revealing than... Well, they're intimate. They're not particularly revealing. But that's okay. That's what Sophia wants to do.

1:33:14If you know the names Marc Jacobs and Sophia Coppola and that means anything to you, then you will enjoy this.

1:33:19Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. You know. Everyone looks great. I feel like it's only in a few theaters around the country this weekend, right? Yeah. I think it's a pretty small release, but then you can seek it out. She reuses a music cue. That's my only note. from another very important Sofia Coppola film. Perhaps intentional? I don't really think so. She just forgot? I don't think that she forgot, but it's like, again, the music cue in question, I guess I don't want to spoil it for you, but it's at the very end and you're just like, what? I don't know if these emotions are speaking to each other.

1:33:56Should we call her up? Yeah.

1:33:57Sean Fennessey:What the fuck were you thinking, Sofia? Okay, before we get to our last movie, I wanted to quickly give a shout out to a movie called Fantasy Life, which I quite enjoyed. Written and directed by Matthew Scheer, who you may recall as one of the annoying boyfriends in Mistress America. Very Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig coded actor. He has enlisted an incredible collection of well-known older actors and actresses for this new film. He stars in the movie opposite Amanda Peet. It's about a paralegal who's been laid off and begins babysitting this trio of little girls in a New York apartment. and the couple that he's babysitting for, sort of mannying for, is a kind of failed rock star who's gotten like a new shot at doing some touring and an aging actress who's having a little bit of a midlife crisis.

1:34:46Sean Fennessey:Amanda Peet plays the actress. Alessandro Nivola plays the aging rock star. You know that he's also been Calvin Klein? He's been Calvin Klein? On the Love Story? Oh, on Love Story. Yeah, I heard that. He had a great run as Calvin Klein. Big fan of his as an actor. he's very very good in this I haven't seen Love Story yet but also Judd Hirsch Bob Balaban Andrea Martin Zosia Mamet Jessica Harper Holland Taylor like great supporting cast most of those actors only get one or two scenes but really great and just very bomb back very Woody Allen very like shaggy funny self-deprecating small movie with the queen Amanda Peet doing a very self-lacerating introspective performance this is like a small movie I think Greenwich is putting it out, but in a slightly different universe, it's like an awards platform for Pete, who I think is a very underrated comic dramatic performer, like is always kind of stuck in the middle in terms of what she's best at.

1:35:47Sean Fennessey:But I really like her, so I think people should check that out. This episode is brought to you by the Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo. The Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo is built for travel. You can earn rewards wherever you book, your favorite hotel site, your go-to airline, and more. You get five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants and other travel, and one point on other purchases. Whether it's a big vacation or a quick getaway, from booking your stay to that first meal when you arrive, you're turning your trips into rewards with the Autograph Journey credit card from Wells Fargo.

1:36:18Sean Fennessey:Learn more at wellsfargo.com slash autographjourney. Terms apply. This episode is brought to you by TaxAct. Like an expert coach, TaxAct offers step-by-step guidance and guaranteed accuracy when filing taxes. Get tips along the way, add expert assist to talk to tax experts and let our experts do your taxes for you with expert full service. Tax Act helps you find the deductions and credits you deserve so you can get them over with. Visit taxact.com to learn more. Conditions apply. See taxact.com for details. Okay, last movie is Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice. You can hear an extended conversation with Ben David Grabinski at the end of this episode.

1:37:00Sean Fennessey:This film stars Vince Vaughn, James Marsden, Ayiza Gonzalez, Keith David, and Jimmy Tatro. It's about two best friends, Quick Draw Mike and Nick, working as enforcers for a criminal gang. The plot kicks off on the night Mike is supposed to die. However, a quote, future version of Nick travels back in time to stop this murder, joining forces with present-day Mike and Nick's wife, Alice. Yeah. So you watched this? I did watch this. Okay. And I was very charmed by it, even though I still don't think I could diagram it for you. And I think part of the effectiveness of this film is that it is time travel, John Wick with jokes, but that you don't, it doesn't get bogged down by anything.

1:37:44It just keeps moving. And it coasts on Vince Vaughn as Vince Vaughn. And he's back. He has great chemistry with James Marsden, who's also very funny. And, you know, sometimes they're shooting things and sometimes they're doing like Abbott and Costello. And it's a very entertaining experience. And then they also, it's an eclectic movie. Like clearly there's, we're pulling from, you know, an omnivorous pop culture enthusiast. Absolutely. So just just when you're like, OK, so I think I understand what's going on here. There is a full five minute discussion of Gilmore Girls. And it's not a throwaway joke.

1:38:21And I wanted to talk with you about this because I felt the intentionality of this scene, which is definitely supposed to get people like my attention and also to signal, hey, there is more here than just being really into like action movies. Yeah. Yeah. You know, our references are broad. but it just it keeps going and going and so I you know I kind of perked up at home and I was like oh cute okay they put something in for me and then a really extensive thoughtful and I ultimately think correct conversation about who is the best boyfriend in the Gilmore Girls James Marsden is right have you seen Gilmore Girls?

1:39:02Sean Fennessey:some but not all of it I have not completed the show I'm a fan but I just have not finished it so you don't know who the best boyfriend is and you didn't get any of the jokes about the Netflix stuff at the end, which I agree is very strange. I do and I did and I'm aware of how they revived the show and brought it back. And I understood the gags. I mean, Ben David is going to be so happy to hear you talk about it because the one thing that he said when we finished talking was like, I feel like I didn't get to explain enough about why I did this and why this was important to me to stay in the movie.

1:39:29Sean Fennessey:It's a really good conversation though about how you like get away with stuff when you're making a movie because this is full of just getting away with it stuff. there's loads and loads of as you said the sort of omnivorous pop cultural references lots of movie history is in this movie lots of movie style that is kind of borrowed from lots of things lots of music from our era you know prominent uses of Oasis and Dave Matthews band and Seal and Chemical Brothers and Andrew W.K. and Needle Drops galore I did feel very safe and comfortable with Vince Vaughn doing Vince Vaughn I do think it's very weird how we have kind of lost that unit of currency in movies where he just gets to be riffy, you know, and funny.

1:40:15Sean Fennessey:And that is something that was always very effective, no matter what you think of him. I just, you know, I'm clearly as movie crazy as Ben David is. And so for me, like, a movie like this just activates my brain and gets me thinking about, like, why did he pull this piece? Why did he do this? Why is he using a step printing action sequence technique in this movie that otherwise just feels like a traditional Hollywood movie in some ways? So there's lots to explore there. And we did explore it in our conversation. It's really fun. It's really weird. And I know why this is the case. But it's really weird that this is a streaming movie.

1:40:46Sean Fennessey:Because it's just so clearly a comedy written to be seen with strangers. And I can also see why this would be a marketing challenge for a movie studio. to get people to come out to it because it's this amorphous blob-like figure of different stuff with a bunch of stars who are not the biggest movie stars of all time. So I get it. Anymore. Anymore, right. They're recognizable, but not... And they make sense in that streaming universe, right? Where Taylor Sheridan's like, you like Sam Elliott? Just watch this show. So I get what happened here, but still, this would have worked really well as a movie theater movie.

1:41:23Sean Fennessey:And it says a little something that it's not Hulu. And bed loud, yeah. But even then, if it's the movie theater version of it, does the Gilmore Girls riff get to keep going for... I mean, it is long. I don't know. I think it does. Okay. I think it does. I think this is really fun. This is on Hulu right now, so people can watch it ASAP. Okay. Quickly, top fives. Yeah. So... They're pretty similar. Are they? Yeah. Okay. Do you want to start? Sure. Well, no. My number five is one that you don't have. It's in your honorable mentions. Okay. The RIP. if Matt and Ben are going to do stuff on Netflix let it be this um have we we haven't talked about Quentin Tarantino's feelings on the rip I don't want to spoil it um you have shared a little bit with me I don't know what's available for public consumption it's probably not available yet so I'll keep my mouth shut okay that's just a tease great let's just say we've been corresponding about the film The Rip um okay I like The Rip I think The Rip is an honorable mention yeah five is Project Hail Mary yeah which I really like I'd like to see it again.

1:42:24Sean Fennessey:So you've seen it twice? I've seen it twice. I've seen it twice as well. I liked it a lot. Yeah. I think it is... I'm more obsessed with the craft of it than I am the story and emotional beats of it the more I think about it. Because I feel like it... My one little note about it is I wish it just penetrated a little bit further into Rylan Grace psychologically. And sometimes the movie is kind of putting its hand up with a joke. that's saying like, you can't go too far. Right. I relate. I know you do. I know you do. I know we're different in that. We are different in that way. That's the only thing about it that I'm like, I can't turn myself over to it completely, but I really like it.

1:43:06I have a couple edits, but my edit is essentially that at the end, it allows itself to open up at least sentimentally to friendship and to finding love. And I'm like, no, no, no. You got to cut way before that. I don't need any of this stuff. I know exactly what the last shot should be. We can just, we can move on.

1:43:24Sean Fennessey:You're very poisoned. Me? Emotionally? Or, yeah. Yeah. But I also, you know, I can... The pH test is gnarly.

1:43:36Sean Fennessey:Okay, number four for you. Bone Temple. Yeah, on my list as well. Yeah, Rock Out Ralph Fiennes. I want to see this again. I've only seen it once. It's on Netflix. Oh, great. Okay. Maybe I'll watch this weekend just for fun. If people haven't seen it, I don't want to say too much more because some of it was the... Ralph Fiennes is in this movie and I won't say any more, but what he gets to do, really like it. Is that your favorite performance of the year? Hmm. Yeah, maybe. Maybe more than... You know, what Gosling does is great, but it's tied up in Project Hail Mary. Okay. My number four is Mirror War number three, which I just spoke about, so we can go to your number three.

1:44:16My number three is your number one. So we'll just...

1:44:19Sean Fennessey:Should we hold it? Yeah, we'll save it. And... My number three is Send Help. This is good. This is my honorable mention for sure. Just delightful that this movie was a success. Great to see Rachel McAdams back on top where she belongs. We're having a ripping season of Survivor. I'm feeling very good about it. So I hear it's the 50th? 50th season. Okay. And so this movie was magnificently timed. Yeah. I can only imagine it's going to go... Is it on VOD already? I think it just hit VOD. Maybe it'll hit 4K right around that finale time. Oh, that's so exciting. Okay. So number two for me is The Bone Temple.

1:44:53Right.

1:44:53Sean Fennessey:Number two for you. Is Hail Mary. Hail Mary. So we will go to my number one and your number three, which is Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Right. Which is the hardest I've laughed in a movie theater this year. Me too, I think. Just a magical movie that I've also seen twice now and I've been very happy to do so. Yeah. I mean, my number one is sort of the girl version of your number one. What is it? Which is the moment. which is the Charlie XCX mockumentary. And, you know, in the same way that you are just like full of love and wanting to connect with people via time travel, mine is about how it's impossible to connect and that fame in life or prison best enjoyed with an Aperol Spritz.

1:45:36I, you know, I'm a huge fan of Charlie XCX, and I think this is like a very knowing, funny movie where I do think that you have to not only know about, but actually be interested in both the work of Charlie XCX and the inner workings of fame and music mockumentaries. It's a not-for-everyone thing, but I very much enjoyed it. And I laughed a lot, too.

1:45:57Sean Fennessey:Do you feel imprisoned by your own fame? I don't. No, I don't. Do I feel imprisoned by having to look at my face a lot? Yes, I do. So that's tough. And do I feel imprisoned by every single Zoom meeting that I have to be on forever and ever. Like the Zoom scene where they can't get anything working and we'll, it's really funny. Do I feel that Alexander Skarsgård is both ruining my life and making it better at all times? Yes, even though I don't know him. Yeah, I mean, that would be fine if he would like to commodify me. Anyway, I just, do I feel out of tune with most, you know, health and wellness practitioners who don't think that my spirit is efficiently, you know, or adequately non-acidic to be treated.

1:46:53That's what I'm saying.

1:46:54Sean Fennessey:They're doing the pH test on you and they're like, what's going on with this gal? Too much chlorine in the mix. As Kylie Jenner teaches us in the next scene, just keep going. When they're sick of you, just keep going. That is what we'll be doing here on the show forevermore. Well, that was a lot of movies. I hope you enjoyed that conversation that was extremely long, but good. Let's go now to my other conversation with Ben David Grabinski.

1:47:18Sean Fennessey:Very happy to have Ben David Grabinski here. So, you did it. You got a big, major studio movie. Congratulations. How are you feeling? I'm feeling good. This is literally the end of the tour. I've been doing promotional stuff here in LA all week, interviews, screenings and stuff. And this is my last thing. I'm doing this. Then I'm going to the airport. And I'm going to collapse. So it's like, I definitely, you know, it's half marathon, half like victory lap or whatever, you know, just in terms of, oh, it exists. It's coming out. And then I'm like, oh, wait, it's out. So there's like a weird balance between all that.

1:47:59But I'm excited to be here and talk about it.

1:48:01Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I feel like I'm catching you in the last pure moment in a way. This isn't your first film. It's not the first big thing that you've done. But I know just knowing you a little bit and certainly knowing your work that you're an insane movie head. That you – I would – it feels like we are in close cohort in terms of how much we love movies. Is that fair to say? I mean, you know, I – my office in New York that I write in and do everything in is just all physical media. So it's like – and like those are the ones that are like – like whenever you guys like get into that – I watch like the unboxing shit too.

1:48:34when you do with the movies. But it's like, it's, I don't know. It's like movies are my life. It's like the only thing I care about. So it's like, that would be a problem if it also wasn't my job. Luckily it is. Like if I was this obsessive and I couldn't rationalize it as like part of the work, then maybe it would seem more insane.

1:48:57Sean Fennessey:Let's go to the beginning before we get to the end. So I'm curious what the movie was that lit your torch, that got you excited about the idea, not just of loving movies, but of trying to make movies. Do you remember what that is? You know, it's funny. I know the movie that rewired my brain in terms of tone or what movies could do, which was Batman Returns. Because, like, I'd seen Batman. Everyone my age was obsessed with it because it came out when I was maybe like six or something. Yeah, we're about the same age. And it was sort of like a phenomenon on for children and you know everyone's seen it to death you basically have the movie memorized even like the diet coke commercial and i remember seeing batman returns and it's not that i was necessarily conscious of it but realizing how different it was like this big swing it was taking in terms of humor and stuff for some reason just it really made me like aware of like what filmmaking is or just like because it's like the contrast of the two like it's not like I was sitting there thinking about these things in the way I'm explaining it now like in hindsight I think I get it but that movie was just like a bomb that got dropped on me where like I was really I was like kind of scared of it and it was just so it just felt more interesting and then watching aliens uh in uh my grandma's basement I was watching it on cable by myself I hadn't seen the first alien i did not know what i was getting into and i vividly remember the there's like a bit when they're in a room and there's like a sensor and you like know the door is like 10 feet away or something and then they realize the aliens are closer than the distance to the door and that just my brain was like everything got rewired because it was just like i was like a cartoon character it's like whoa but it's not they're up there and it's like and i just remember feeling like, oh, if I could ever do anything, 1 % as good as that.

1:50:57Because I wanted to make movies since I was, you know, before even middle school to a point where I talked to someone a couple years ago who I had not talked to in like 30 years. And they're like, oh, I'm not surprised. You were always talking about how you were going to make movies. And I was like, is that something I've like retconned for my own life? Or is that a thing I used to say? And I guess I just did all the time. So you're from Nebraska.

1:51:20Sean Fennessey:You grow up in Nebraska? I was born in Nebraska, but I moved to Arizona when I was really, really young. So I lived in Arizona until I was 16. And then I moved to Iowa and then moved to LA right after college. How does one who's from Nebraska, Arizona, Iowa chart a path to making movies? It's funny because all I ever want to do is be a director and I had never thought about writing. And I just thought I'm going to move to LA and I'm going to make movies very naively and you know i've like read every book you could about filmmaking and you know a lot it's funny because like when i was like in middle school or like early high school like my film school was just like movie magazines like starlog and all that stuff but then my film school became dvds like i don't think my life would be what it is if there hadn't been that era when they spent so much money making special features and stuff where like i remember it's like the commentary for Ronan.

1:52:21Like I was obsessed with like the first two DVDs I got were like Ronan and Next Friday, which in a weird way, probably actually, I'm saying that out loud. I realized like those two things are kind of combined or maybe my dumb sensibility.

1:52:34Sean Fennessey:That is in a lot of ways what this new movie is. But I remember like watching like a featurette about like storyboards on Next Friday and then listening to audio commentary with Frankenheimer a million times. And like, I just, you know, it just I was obsessed with all this shit but I didn't have a plan and then when I was in college I stayed there one year uh over the summer and I didn't realize no one was going to be there because it's like suddenly like everyone I knew was gone you'd go to the local bar and then there's like one guy there and I had no idea it was gonna be vacant I'm like what am I supposed to do with my time and then I uh pirated a copy of final draft I just there was like some website where someone's like, hey, you can download Final Draft.

1:53:16And I wrote a script. And then someone said they liked it. And I was immediately one of those idiots who's like, I guess I'm a writer. I just needed one person to say they thought it was good. So I just started writing. And then I moved to LA. And someone ended up optioning a script that I wrote. And then I just started writing for a living. And then it took over everything. And then I kind of got sidetracked from whatever my plan was to direct. And then I made a short in 2010 called Cost of Living, and I wrote this action movie that I was trying to make from that. And I spent nine years trying to make it, and I couldn't get anyone to make it because it had a gigantic car chase in it.

1:54:03It's a really insane, surprising, I guess, if anyone's seen my movie, like an action comedy thing with vampires. Carrie Coon was attached to star in it, and there was like a huge extended like 20 page car chase in the middle. So I kept trying to get people to make it and there's no way to make it cheaply. So after like nine years of almost making that with the same producer as the movie I just made, I was like, what can I write that you can make for nothing or close to nothing? And I wrote happily. And then, yeah. Your first feature. Yes. Can we go back to... We can go back to whatever, I'm rambling.

1:54:39Sean Fennessey:No, no, the moment when you sold a screenplay that was optioned. How old were you? I was 22. Okay. So were you like, I'm in, this is going to be my career and this is how I'll make money and I'm set? Well, it's funny because there's like the concept of an overnight success, which is, you know, you're young. People are like, oh my God, we're going to buy this thing. We're going to make this. You're set. I sold a script. I was like, this is my life now. And they're like, we're going to make this in six months. I'm like, no one lies about these things. This is the truth. And then it didn't get made.

1:55:16And I was like, oh, okay. And I write my next one and they're like, we're going to make this in six months. I'm like, okay, it's cool. It's fine. I had that setback at 22 where that didn't get made. And then that one didn't. And it's like, okay, well, you know, probably get a movie made at like 25. And then it just kept, you know, you're like Lucy with the, Charlie Brown with the football. And it took about almost a decade of that happening and me being like, oh, this just might be my life is that I'm going to work and make a living consistently, maybe writing stuff that will never get made. And then, um, and I'd have some things that I'd be on for like years, like for like really big directors and at studios and stuff where you do drafts and something for three years and everyone's like, yeah, we're probably going to make this in this quarter or we're going to do this thing.

1:56:00And you know, like a dozen times. and then I spent a month working, doing some rewrites on this movie called Skip Trace for Rennie Harlan and then they went off and made it and almost everything I wrote got, all my dialogue got rewritten and then I got credit on that and I still don't know really what the rhyme or reason for it is. Like I spent all this time and all these things that were going to quote unquote get made and I just spent a month working on Skip Trace and then it becomes like your first credit. And then it's also a movie that made like, I think 14 billion dollars overseas and then seven thousand dollars in America so you kind of there is no I gave up a long time ago on like having a plan for my career because you sort of just realize okay opportunities fall in your lap chase the ones you think you can do a good job on and then see what happens weirdly this movie is like the first thing that was like I wrote a thing I wanted to make it and then it got made you know it's like I like when I did are you afraid of the dark it's just someone calling you and because I'd written a draft of the movie saying hey do you have any idea for a show and I go okay and then people are talking to Brian about doing a Scott Pilgrim show and then we had dinner and then I was talking about it and he's like do you want to do it with me and I'm like okay it's like these things just keep sort of like and then you just try to do great work hopefully and then this is the first thing where it's like, I'm going to get this movie made, I'm going to do it, and then it happened.

1:57:30So again, I don't know if there's a lesson from any of that.

1:57:33Sean Fennessey:I'm still very interested in the 04 to 19 range. Like pre Are You Afraid of the Dark, pre Scott Pilgrim, pre Happily, because I know plenty of people who are screenwriters and aspiring directors. And I think at a certain point, sometimes what happens is even when you're selling things, you start writing things to sell them and you give up hope on them ever being anything. And then so that your career becomes kind of working creatively into active anonymity. And like you broke the spell, right? Like you did it. You got films made, you got shows made, you're here. But was there a part of you that was worried that you were like, I will just be pouring my heart and soul into ideas that will never be realized at any point?

1:58:22I mean, you know, if I'm just going to be like really candid and honest instead of saying just sort of what's like an interesting answer, it's that I think something's like wrong with my brain where I don't know how to think that way. It's just like because this is the only thing I've ever wanted to do and it's like the thing I care about. It's just like I just keep doing it and kind of naively assume eventually it'll work out. if I didn't feel that way, I probably would have got discouraged or something. But that's also just a weird thing to say about the fact that like, you know, I was making a living and I, you know, it's the only job that I've had since I was like 23 or 24 or something.

1:59:07But it's just, it's odd because when you grow up loving movies and like reading every interview, you get this idea in your head of like what a successful career is. And you think it's, oh, it's this thing. And then you make your first movie and then maybe the second one's not as good. and then you do this and then you get into it and you're like, oh, those are kind of narratives people create in hindsight to kind of describe how their career went. And then you realize, you're like, oh, this is just kind of chaos, you know, and you just, in hindsight, you can maybe come up with like a canned short answer of the arc of it.

1:59:40I think I might have made things just more confusing.

1:59:42Sean Fennessey:Well, did you ever feel like in that period of time, like I missed the boat, like the industry changed. It's not as easy to do the thing. Because one of the things that I really like about your movies is that you have a sensibility, maybe not a style, but a sensibility that is very familiar to movies that we grew up on. There's like a lot of McTiernan and Shane Black and Tony Scott and, you know, the like high level, like artisan craftsman with like a real sense of humor inside of these action movies. And that is like a little bit out of fashion or like comic book movies kind of sucked that up a little bit and kind of ruined it.

2:00:20Sean Fennessey:And I'm curious if you've just ever felt like I'm just a little out of time when you're trying to get those movies made. You know, I really like trying not to be like on trend. I guess that might be a way of putting it where it's like I try not to think at all about what people are doing right now in terms of filmmaking or like it's not like I'm watching an action movie that came out six months ago and I'm like, oh, this is how we're shooting that now? That's what we got to do. I try to cling to the things that I'm passionate about and kind of hope that'll give it like a sense of specificity, you know, because I think that if I'm kind of trying to chase what other people are doing, then it's like I kind of don't have a North Star.

2:01:04Like I don't really know which way is up. It's like I have to just kind of stay in my lane of like, to me, what feels like just the most fun way to do the thing, you know, so it's like, all the action in this is just all my favorite Hong Kong action filmmakers just kind of getting filtered through my, you know, weird personality. But it's, I, but I also just personally think stuff like that you can't improve on. Like, I think if you sat down tomorrow and you watch like Speed or Hard Boiled or any of those things, you can't say, oh, if only they had modern film techniques, this would be more exciting.

2:01:41There's, I don't think there's anything that we could do, it's like, okay, let's add a drone to the fight. I totally respect the craft of everyone who's trying to push the envelope. But I just keep going back and being like, I don't know, it's like, if someone made a movie today that felt exactly like McTiernan, it would just blow the roof off of everything. And it's like... And I don't know. To me, does that answer the question? No, it does.

2:02:06Sean Fennessey:I mean, I'm trying to get down to the, boil down to the like formalism of the work that you're doing, even though you're making just very fun movies. There is, and this was something that people said about McTiernan and Tony Scott and definitely John Woo too. You know, they were real artists who really seriously considered the structure and dynamic of what they were making. and you don't think about that when you see Speed when you're 10 years old in a movie theater and you're like holy fucking shit this is blowing my mind but if you do go back and it sounds like you did really go back and kind of like deconstruct and try to understand how they did what they did and then try to rebuild from there while retaining your own self which some filmmakers do and some don't but it's interesting that like they did that about Pasolini right McTiernan famously like a real really into the European auteurs and you're doing it with them and like do you have a consciousness of being part of that step ladder of creativity.

2:03:00You know, I mean, this is the best way I can really explain my process is that the day before I left for Winnipeg to make the movie, I introduced a screening of Last Action Hero at Vidiots and then I brought my DP, Larry Fong, and we sat in the back row and I was just asking him some questions about how he used lenses in that movie. And then we went to Panavision and found lenses that McTiernan used for those movies and then that's what I used on my movie. So that level of specific insanity where it's like, I'm not sitting on set saying, what would McTiernan do? But I did figure out what his lenses were.

2:03:38It's like, for me, it's just like, I make movies because I really love movies. And I like that the sum total of my influences are so kind of disparate that it kind of becomes a new thing. you know because I try because it's like if I'm making something that is you know my favorite Hong Kong action movies and this thing and this thing and this thing and this thing and I find kind of this package that I can filter all that into that is kind of coherent then it feels like fresh I think that because like when people read this script sometimes they'd say oh it's like Back to the Future meets Goodfellas and I'm like that's a cool thing to say but I think it's a little bit more like sexy beast and I think it's a little bit more like this thing and then you start to realize it's like okay because if I say it's this meets this I have to say 400 movies you know because it's like it's to me it's a buddy action comedy it is a time travel movie where everyone's kind of lovable idiot and there's no one to talk about science and it's a one night gone wrong movie so which is one of my favorite types of movies where it's like the movie is just one night they have to be you hope that they're going to live until sunrise and they'll figure out their shit.

2:04:55So that's like, to me, the simple way of describing it. But then when other people start talking about it, I just have to, because it'd be funny, like I'd be in meetings and someone would be like, yo, it's just gonna be like the next Back to the Future. I'm like, no, that's a perfect movie. And it's also a different movie. And it's like, but then I'm like, oh, whatever. It doesn't matter how people describe it.

2:05:14Sean Fennessey:Can you tell me a little bit about that process of going into rooms and trying to sell your movie to people? You know, the funniest thing about this movie is I didn't have to sell it. And that's never happened to me before. I had a very, very fortunate situation, which is that I was really busy making Scott Pilgrim. And my producer, Andrew Lazar, who had been attached to the other movie I almost made forever, and has been like, for some reason, believed in me more than anyone. And I've been in rooms where he does it in front of me or when I'm not around. And he's like, I promise he's going to look, I work with Wachowskis the first time.

2:05:47And he'll give these passionate speeches like I know he can do it and um I was busy and he took the script to 20th and shared it with some people he knew there and then they seemed to really like it and they were all talking about it I don't know any of this is happening and I'm making Scott Pilgrim I'm literally I'm making the voice record stage and then he calls me and he's like hey so they're really excited about this movie can you come in and talk to him on Monday I was just like what and I was like, okay, sure, whatever. This seems a little too good to be true. And then I went in and met with Steve Asbell and Sarah Shepard and Richard Milton and I just talked and they asked me questions and I was talking about tonally the comps and the kind of actors I was thinking about and all these things.

2:06:31And then at the end of the meeting, they're just like, okay. And then they made a deal and then we started working from there. And everything else ever, you sort of have to go in and do the razzle-dazzle and like, you know, really like confidently pitch the thing. And this was a situation more where I think they just wanted to make sure that I had a vision in my head. I had a concept of how I was going to direct action. I think it was just sort of, they wanted to see if I was going to say anything that made them worried about it. I guess I maybe didn't. And then it just, you know, then it went from there.

2:07:05It's funny too, because like, we didn't send it out to the town. We didn't meet with any other studios. I only had one other conversation about the movie where some people came to me and they were like, they had financing. And they're like, oh, you can make this independently with us. And we have this fund. And I was like, okay. And then at the end of the meeting, they're like, but you have to get rid of the Gilmore Girls scene. And I was like, what? They're like, yeah, it's just not going to work if people haven't seen the show. I'm like, I kind of respectfully disagree with that. And then I take it.

2:07:37Sean Fennessey:That's totally going to be the one. And that's like the number, literally in our document to discuss your movie, Amanda's like, we have to talk about the Gilmore Girls scene. Well, we will. But I'm saying that I'm at a major studio. And they didn't want to round off any of the edges of it. And I was so ready to have someone be like, yeah, we like it, but we don't like this part. And then it didn't happen. And then when I made the movie, I thought, okay, they're going to see it. and they're going to be like, but you can't open with like this musical sequence. And, and then they didn't. And it was like, two things are true.

2:08:13It's unbelievably difficult to make the movie, but I also had a lot of support creatively. So it's like, it was very, very difficult technically and all these things. But at the same time I'd talk to the studio and I'd be like, so what do you think of the dailies? They're like, they're great. I was like, okay, well, I'm just going to keep working on my headaches over here trying to figure this stuff out. And I don't understand why um because i've been trying to make you know a big action movie for ever and then the first one i get to make is also very idiosyncratic and they were very supportive and that feels like a big contradiction but i shouldn't really overthink it because yeah it exists i did

2:08:53Sean Fennessey:it there's definitely something happening from at least from my perspective at 20th where they're like we're just new line in the 90s and we just are finding interesting strong voices and sometimes we plug them into our franchises and sometimes we do originals and you're going to get predator badlands and send help and you're going to get all these movies that feel like movies that we really liked when we were younger and most of the time they're working and that's like a it is kind of the thing that i've been begging for for like 10 years on this show and it's very exciting to watch so it's even more fascinating that they didn't fuck with what you wanted to do i mean Steve is a real one.

2:09:30Steve Asbel, I joked about this in my intro the other night at the premiere, but if the head of your studio really likes Psycho 2, you can have a dialogue. Because I would... If someone really doesn't love movies, it can be a little tough for me to kind of explain where I'm coming from or kind of... Because my passion comes from that. So it's like, if it's really helpful that, you know, you can also say something that might sound insane, where you're like saying, I want the action to feel like this. And you're mentioning a movie that has zero humor. But he has enough of like film knowledge and love that he can tell what I'm saying is aesthetically, I'm looking for this, but also I'm trying to do this thing.

2:10:18And I've had some experiences with some people. When you say something, they get so binary. like I once uh pitched on a movie and uh and I can't name what it is but it was like a tentpole and I was pitching to a studio head and I said I pitched a joke and he stopped me and he goes this isn't a comedy and I said well I think I kind of want this to feel like the Star Trek from 2009 in terms of that energy where that's like a big rollicking adventure but it's also a comedy he's like but that's a sci-fi this isn't a sci-fi I was like well well I'm saying I want it to be like this and the guy's like no but this this doesn't have like spaceships in it and i realized i'm like i'm fucked yeah because it's like the you know like when i'm talking about like intention or what i want to do it's not like one-to-one in a literal way so if you can't kind of like i i that's where i can get screwed in terms of like communicating with someone because they'll just be like wait what they just get fixated on like the other thing right it's tone versus content

2:11:16Sean Fennessey:and sometimes people can't see the middle. But Steve is like just a guy who seems to really love all kinds of movies and Sarah Shepard, my exec on it, was just really, really helpful. And I think she just always kind of excited that she was making the original action movie because it feels like most people do want to be doing that. It's just it can really get hard to push that up a hill or whatever. Yeah, I think I was expecting a totally different story from you about the long journey to get this made for that exact reason. Well, I think, but you have to consider it in context of everything else, which is I think that even though I hadn't gotten a movie like this made, there was kind of a vague idea of people like, well, maybe he could do it.

2:12:02Or like people are like, oh, you know, I do kind of like his stuff. There's sort of this accumulation of having a decent reputation or feeling somewhat competent. So it's like, and I've known Steve for a long time, but we hadn't worked together. And it's just one of those things where it's like just the right time, right thing, where they understood the material and saw the potential of it. And I don't know, it's funny, because there's other things that you do which you try so hard to get made, and then nothing happens. And I think that it, you know, there's all these different other factors. And it's also just that Andrew's a really, really good producer, you know?

2:12:40and he's like just really really really obsessive and passionate and very gets like riled up about stuff and uh he just for some reason really believed in this movie and i think that he has that kind of is like a contagious sort of passion um so it's sort of like i had a hype man that i didn't know was hyping it up and i was over here in a corner with brian just working really hard in the Scott Pilgrim show, not even thinking about what I was going to do next. And then I was just very fortunate that when that got done, it's like I just shifted into the long headache of how do I make a movie of two Vince Vaughn's kind of stuff.

2:13:17Sean Fennessey:I wanted to ask you about Vince. It's nice to see him in this register. It's been a little while since he's been specifically in this register. It's also very funny that this is coming on the heels of Sinners where there's all this kind of fascination and adulation for what Michael B. Jordan is doing and the filmmaking technique of Coogler with the twins. And you're operating in a somewhat similar mode. Well, my storyboard artist did Sinners. And he also did like Fury Road and stuff. He's this brilliant guy. And while he was doing my stuff, he's like, oh yeah, I just finished Sinners. And I was like, how is that going?

2:13:50He's like, oh, it's funny. And then he was talking. I was like, oh wait, there's two Michael B. Jordans in that. And I'm like, you know, like a month away from shooting. I was just like, oh man. I mean, this is different, obviously. But somehow, there's like fucking movies with two De Niro's and all these guys. And I'm just like, I didn't know. I wasn't, I didn't know that that was going to be a zeitgeist thing. And also, you don't benefit from anything they learn because we're all siloed off. That's right. And we're all on our own little, like, horrible adventure figuring out how the fuck to do that technically.

2:14:20Sean Fennessey:You can't call Coogler and be like, hey man, just explain it to me. How does this work? No, we don't, we're not on each other's phone list. But I met him after the Creed premiere and it was one of the coolest things that's ever happened. Like, one, the Creed premiere were like, I remember being there and realizing what that thing was. And it was one of the most exhilarating nights of my life. And afterwards I met him and he was like the nicest, most humble person. And I watched someone say to him, he's like, oh, you know, Christopher Nolan's here. And he looked like the most excited person who ever lived.

2:14:53And I was like, I, this guy is going to be so successful. I'm like the fact that he just, he seemed like so happy that a director he respected had watched the movie. And I was like, how can you be that talented and have that kind of, you know...

2:15:08Sean Fennessey:He's definitely still that humble, but he's also just such a movie nerd. And that's why I think everybody kind of is so drawn to him in that way. But anyway, I mean, I was just a little curious to hear you talk about the idea of shooting the double stuff and how challenging that must be. I mean, the thing about it is like, okay, doing action is very difficult, but in a great way. Shooting one guy as two people sucks so much shit. You know, it's like, because you want it to feel effortless and you don't want someone to watch it and think, oh, that was difficult. And I'm also working with an actor who can kind of be a little bit loose.

2:15:47And it's not like he's going to get every, do every syllable exactly the same way it was written. and you want to encourage him to kind of, you know, don't feel like you have to be so rigid and locked in. But then that process is that. Because, you know, you'll spend six hours shooting one side of the scene with him and then he has to come back and act against himself. And then you are like totally locked into a gigantic fucking computer control camera that does the move and has to match the thing. And figuring out how to do that and within a schedule is just, you know, it requires so much prep.

2:16:22and then you have to pivot sometimes based on like how a scene is going and realizing you have to change your methodology based on performance and because you don't want to like i never wanted to feel like vince was uh put in a box because of it and i don't think it feels that way but that requires a lot of work it's one of those things where it's like i was like doing two movies at once i was doing a movie that was so easy and fun which is all the stuff with the gangsters So like I'd have a day that's just with Jimmy Tatro and Lewis and Arturo and Keith David. And it's just like, you're like the movies.

2:16:58This is the best. And we're just working together and trying to make the scenes as cool and interesting, as funny as possible. And you go home at night. Well, although it was like 42 nights in a row. And I'm like, this is the best job ever. And the next day it's like, okay, so we have to have a crane that fits within the soundstage to, that goes overhead so he can do a walk and talk. But if we back up this way, like we won't be able to do this thing. but then I have to go back and have Vince gets an earwig and do this thing. And it's sort of like, it was like two jobs at once. It was like a job that was like logistics and you're trying to be creative and make sure that you're still doing what you want to do.

2:17:33And then one that was just like, do you know, sometimes just if you have two people in a scene, it can be just two different actors. It's just like, how do you make the scene work? So no time travel doubling in the next film? Well, I will say this. When I wrote the script, I turned off the part of my brain that thought about how difficult it would be to execute anything because I just was trying to follow my creative instincts. And that's just what I'm always going to do. You have to somehow separate those things because if you are thinking about that too much, it's going to keep the stuff from being as good as it can be.

2:18:14Because if I'm writing a scene and I'm like, oh, that's going to be hard to do. it'll like just get in your way. So it's like I'm trying to avoid that. So basically on my next movie, I'll probably come back and be like, I don't know why I shot in a water tank the whole time. It's going to be like one of those things where it's like, but you know, it's just, I had a really great idea involving water. Yeah.

2:18:33Sean Fennessey:A movie starring a kid, a dog, and it takes place on water. Yeah. You should do it. Yeah. No, I'm just going to, it's going to come back and I'm just going to be doing like that, just staring off in the distance. And I was like, I love the movie and I'm proud of it, but man. Air Bud water polo movie. That's it. Yeah. I do want to talk about The Needle Drops I feel very seen by The Needle Drops in the movie and that's all I can ask for just like just an emotional like thunderbolt I think with some of the choices even if they're not even songs that I love they are referential in a way that I found satisfying and you were talking about that earlier can you how do you make those decisions how would you are you writing songs into the script and then getting your heart broken when you can't get them I wrote all the songs into the script, and then I ended up using about 60 % of them.

2:19:22That's pretty good. And there's two that I had to clear way early because they're kind of performed in the movie. So I can't like shoot that and then be like, oh, hey, can I get this song? Because then it's just like, well, then I don't have a scene. One of them, which is kind of a spoiler and I'd rather not talk about, I think it's worth mentioning, is I do have an Oasis song, and I got it before they decided they were going to have a reunion. I think that if I had gotten it later, I never would have gotten it. And I wouldn't have made the movie without that song. Yeah.

2:19:51Sean Fennessey:My number one karaoke song. Really? Yeah. That's a good one. I personally like it, obviously, or else I wouldn't have put it in the movie. But, you know, the music is all kind of part of the same thing, which is I want to make stuff that feels really, really, really specific. And by specific, I mean just what feels right to me. And I think that if I'm really falling my gut on that stuff about what feels right in the moment tonally or energy wise or pacing wise, then I think it'll lead to a movie that doesn't feel generic. You know, I probably I'm not patting myself on the back because someone might think this is really stupid.

2:20:31But I do think I'm probably the only person who would have put a Dave Matthews song in a strip club. and

2:20:38Sean Fennessey:I really enjoyed that as well that's just you know it I don't know it seemed it made me laugh really hard so it's like I I will remember I did a friends and family screening really early in New York before I like turned in my first cut to the studio because I just wanted to show it to some people and just make sure nothing was confusing them and just sort of like get some feedback to be like hey does this thing track for you and just ask some simple questions but the main value of it was that when that song came on, everybody laughed and I was like, okay, well, at least I, at least I know that someone will be as amused by that as I was.

2:21:17And then I think one of the only notes that I got from a really, really high up Disney person was just make sure he keeps that song in the strip club. It does. I mean, it works. It definitely plays. It'll work. If it works for you, it works. If it doesn't work for you, I don't know what to say. I saw a really funny thing that someone had posted where they're like, look, I want to love a movie with that many Gilmore Girls references, but I can't support a movie when they play Dave Matthews' song in a strip club. And I'm like, that's valid. I'm not going to argue with that take. But yeah, it's just all this stuff.

2:21:51What happens is, you know, you pick 29 songs, and then you have the worst time of your life trying to get all of them. And the amount of phone calls that I had, and then I brought in the music supervisor I'd use on Happily. And her job really is, she's like a missile aim at a problem where she's like, all right, I'm gonna make some calls. And then, you know, 12 hours later, she's like, okay, so I talked to this guy at the label and I talked to this person, but we're trying to show a clip to this guy in the band. And she's just, you know, she's really tenacious. And like, that was one where I'm like, if Dave Matthews watched this and said he doesn't approve it, I'm in trouble.

2:22:27And I don't know who watched it and approved it, but somebody, I guess he says no a lot to movies in fact I have a director friend who was at the premiere and he's like how'd you get that song he wouldn't let me use a Dave Matthews song in my movie and I'm like I don't think that this is a huge leap to think that he must have thought it was funny but I also don't ever want to know because I don't want to get disappointed and find out he's like oh what's that I didn't see that

2:22:51Sean Fennessey:well there's the only story about him in that respect I've heard is Greta Gerwig writing him the letter to use Crash in Lady Bird and that she wrote a very long an emotional letter to him about how important his music was. And this puts it in a different context than the way it's used in that film. But there's something actually nice about imagining Dave Matthews getting both versions. I got to tell you the opposite of that story, which is what happens when you write that letter and you're not Greta Gerwig. So my first movie, you might be surprised to learn that it took like 11 months for me to clear all the songs.

2:23:23And it was like a real difficult thing because there was no money. But there was a song that I had a hospital by Modern Lovers and I had to write a letter to the band and it was in the cut and it was in the sequence and it just worked perfectly. And like I wrote him a letter and I kept waiting and waiting and waiting to hear back from him. I'm having a brain fart. Was it with Jonathan Richmond? Yeah. And then I just ended up having radio silence and I had to mix the movie 48 hours later and I didn't have a song there. And I like freaked out and like, I don't know what to do. and I like watched the scene and I called my music supervisor and I was like the only other song that would ever work is like People Ain't No Good by Nick Cave and she's like well like I know their manager or some shit and she's like hold on and she calls me an hour later and she's like I can get that and I was like I freaked out I was like doing a victory lap I was like oh my god this is like a scene out of a movie I got this amazing song and I've never seen it in a movie before I lock the cut I mix it I show the movie to someone and the first thing they say is, I like that you use the Shrek 2 song.

2:24:26And I was like, the what? I hadn't seen Shrek 2. And they're like, it was really funny that you decided to use the Shrek 2 song. I'm like, what's Shrek 2 song? And I hadn't Googled the song to see if it was in another movie. And then it was like, the first three people who watched the movie mentioned that they loved that I used the Shrek 2 song. I'm like, I didn't know it was a Shrek 2 song. You've ruined my victory lap. So now anytime I watch my own movie, I'm like, hey, here's the Shrek 2 scene. So if he had read that letter and said, yes, I'd have hospital in my movie. But instead, I'm now forever haunted by the fact that I accidentally put a Shrek 2 song in there.

2:24:58Sean Fennessey:You have to take that as a W based on the fact that people enjoyed that reference. Yeah, I'm just not part of the... I miss the Shrek generation. I only ended up seeing those movies after I made that because I'm like, well, let me go see what these Shrek things are about. When our former producer left the show, we did a tribute episode to him, and what he wanted to do when he's a bit younger than us was talk about Shrek because it's just an inch behind us. So you're forgiven for not catching it. At that time, there's a thing people don't understand culturally is that in like 2001, 2003 or whatever, it was not cool to see animated movies if you're an adult.

2:25:34And then it shifted. And like you go see like The Incredibles and all this stuff. And by then it's like this memory hole thing where I remember people being like, oh, those are like cartoons. And then everyone forgot that adults didn't go see those things. So Shrek came out at that last gasp of people feeling like, you know, I'm 19 and 20. I'm not going to go see a cartoon movie. And then, so yeah, I miss Shrek.

2:26:00Sean Fennessey:I didn't even ask you why should I worry, but I almost don't want to ruin that. That's another, but speaking of animated movies and music and the way in which they infiltrate our minds at an early age. I will say about that opening, you could easily read the script and not know that was what the opening of the movie was because it was just, I wrote one paragraph and I mentioned that he's going around the lab and singing along with the thing. And then I had like this huge elaborate kind of thing that was super boarded and planned out and spent a whole night shooting it. And then I know that there was meetings where people are like, hey, we have like 40 hours of dailies of Ben Schwartz singing a song.

2:26:40Does anyone, what scene is this? That's very funny. but I can't believe I got that and I'm still kind of waiting for someone to call me and say hey we just realized you put that song in the movie and I'm like yeah okay but I also just think this is if only for people have already seen it or a second viewing thing I think the lyrics of what he's singing considering how that scene ends is kind of an added joke for me but yeah

2:27:14Sean Fennessey:let's quickly talk about the step printing shots so you talked about colliding influences right can I say one thing though about those yes Theo Vaughn is that how you say the guy's name yeah sure he did a Vince Vaughn a thing and there's a point in it where he is trying to talk about the step printing but doesn't know what it is and just one of the most charming things I've ever seen. It's him being like, there's like scenes when the camera and like it, and he's like describing step printing and I'm just like, this is really charming. Explain it and explain why you wanted it to be in your movie.

2:27:53Well, so there's been some really nice things that people said about the movie where they said, like someone said, it feels like if Wong Kar Wai made like a 90s buddy action movie. And look, I love Wong Kar Wai. When I was in London, I saw Chungking Express at the Prince Charles Theater. I think it's a masterpiece but I have to be honest about my influences is I've been obsessed with step printing since I saw this movie called Warriors of Virtue because Ronnie Yu who did The Bride with White Hair which I saw after which is a perfect movie I remember sitting in a theater and watching Warriors of Virtue and being like what the fuck is happening where he was doing the step printing thing which is what happens with step printing is some people who watch it think it's in something slow motion but it's also just because I can't begrudge someone for not having a vocabulary for what it is because it is a weird thing is that you basically there's 24 frames in a second and so when you're shooting it's like there's successive frames you know 24 in a row but when you're doing step printing it's like you repeat a frame for three times like because i was doing it with eight frames within a second so it'd be like a frame will be three seconds long and three seconds long i mean three frames long uh so you're basically getting these bits of motion where it's kind of becomes see I'm even explaining it poorly but basically it creates this kind of surreal feeling for motion where everything is happening at normal time but you're skipping frames so it creates this sort of weird dreamlike thing

2:29:24Sean Fennessey:almost like a flip book motion a little bit and it's just one of those things where it's like I just it just felt like a thing to do and it also just felt like you know why not try it? Well, we're in such a homogenized time of content consumption that when something like this pops up, we're not used to it, we don't understand it, people are like, what the fuck? And I'm surprised that nobody was like, take this out. Well, there was discussions about it and there was more in an earlier cut. I'm being perfectly honest, I'm saying that the movie is like the exact movie I wanted to make. There was definitely, I had pushed that a little bit further in a way that I understand that people maybe wanted a little bit more restraint with it.

2:30:15But I think that everything about the movie to me is I try to not think about, I try not to have that fear of, well, this might not be for everyone. Because I think with movies like this right now, it becomes so like, well, we have to grab them and they have to know the plot at the two minute and 30 second mark. And we have to make sure we don't make any choices that might alienate a couple people. and I just have to follow my gut and my gut was I just thought it was aesthetically interesting and I thought it was additive and it made it just to me it just felt right instinctually and you just sort of keep chasing things that feel correct to you and then hope some other people will respond to it or at least respond to the swing of it you know

2:30:57Sean Fennessey:makes total sense couple more for you before we go you see a lot of movies I follow you on Letterboxd Yeah, I do watch a little bit too many. I would actually, I came home and would watch a movie. I did 42 nights in a row. And then I was, it was October in the second half of the shoot. And I would get home at 8 a.m. and I would watch a movie. So I'd watch all the Friday the 13th movies in a row because it was that. And I would throw on something that was like 90 minutes long. And I would watch a movie then go to bed, which is probably stupid. I don't make movies, but that's what I do every night.

2:31:32Sean Fennessey:Okay, well, that's fair. No big deal. But you watch movies? That's crazy. I've listened to this and I never picked up on it. I know, I know. You thought this was just a gardening show. How are you feeling about the state of movie going? How are you feeling about your film being a movie that's going to streaming, even though you've been able to show it in movie theaters? How do you feel about the whole kit and caboodle? Well, look, there's two things that I really love. I love movie theaters and I love physical media. And I'm sitting here talking about a movie that's coming out and streaming. And that's the reality of it.

2:32:05but you can put that in a box and you can say, okay, yes, obviously I would prefer to see this movie in 40 X. Yes. I didn't make this movie for audiences. Um, but I also got to make a movie that is a big action comedy where no considerations were ever made for any of that bullshit. No one ever came. Like, I think the first big laugh is like 13 minutes into the movie. No one was ever like, oh, well, you know someone's going to turn it off if they don't know this by this point. There was never, ever a discussion about anything except how to make the best version of this movie. And I basically just put my whole brain into that, which is I was just thinking, I never thought about streaming.

2:32:53I never thought about anyone watching on their laptop. I never thought about anyone watching on their phone. I just tried to make the movie that I wanted to make and a movie that felt right and correct to me. and, you know, we can get into the state of the business and I think movie theater is the best thing in the world and I think there's nothing better than seeing a movie with a crowd and this is a really good crowd movie. But I also have to put all my energy into the work and it's like, you know, when Soderbergh quit, he quit because he said he didn't like making movies anymore and then he realized that he's like, no, I like movies, just the business is like stressing me out and that's, I spent a long time, like talking about the state of the business.

2:33:33And, you know, we have some mutual friends who like, like, you know, like Griffin, I will just sit and like talk about shit for fucking hours about it. But I realized that if I just try as much as possible, put my brain into making a movie I'm proud of and try not to get in my head about any of those things, then that was just it. Because it's like a big movie studio. Let me make a big action movie that has a very long scene with people, discussing Gilmore Girls. So that's the win, you know? Yep. Even though it's a very good crowd movie and I think it really plays on the big screen. So both of the things are true and the thing that is the most important thing is that I was supported creatively.

2:34:17But I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish everyone could see it in 40X, you know?

2:34:22Sean Fennessey:I can't really do 40X anymore. My back is too bad, honestly. I wish I was built different, but I'm not. I just saw all three Lord of the Rings extended editions in 40X. So I did like four hours in the theater. You're so real. I respect it. But it's part of the reason I ended up moving to New York is, well, the first night I was there, Griff and I saw Red 1 in 40X. And I walked out, I'm like, that was really fun. The experience of that was really fun. Yeah. And it became this thing where we had like a 40X group chat. And then we picked the new movies that seemed right to do it. sometimes it's really great and sometimes it's like what are we doing here guys?

2:35:03Sean Fennessey:Before I ask you what's the last great thing you've seen do you have a Keith David story for me? I really feel like your movie gets Keith David in a way that I appreciate. Well let me tell you as a guy who has a they live tattoo just drafted in a draft yesterday. The the thing about casting this movie is sometimes it's like you're making a studio movie and what happens is you come to a table with a list of actors you want and then they come to the table with a list of actors that if you cast, we will greenlight it. And then the joy is when there's overlap, you know? And with that one, there was a moment when someone said, I think it was someone at the studio, they're like, well, Keith Dave is available.

2:35:42Would you be willing to cast him? And I was like, hold on, hold on. Wait, you guys are saying like, I could get Keith David for this? And I was like, the second I knew that that was like an approved actor for it, I'm like, let's fucking go. And I was like doing the Chris Farley show with him the whole time, like in between takes like I pull a chair up next to him like all right so um is it true that the rumor that you had a fight scene in Roadhouse that got cut out and he's like well and then he would tell me a story uh and you know there's a line in the movie when he says Michael B Street Pizza by morning and I put that in there because he's talking about gargoyles he's like you know what the best thing was about gargoyles he's like I like when someone called someone street pizza and I was like and I just was like okay interesting and then I was like by the way I rewrote this scene and he looks at it and he goes, he's like, you added street pizza to my line?

2:36:29I was like, yeah. And he was like, so happy. Dude, he, when he wasn't shooting, would call me and ask how it was going and say, Hey, I just miss you guys. What's going on with the shoot? And he's the only guy in the show, in the movie who'd seen Gilmore Girls from beginning to end multiple times. And he has a cat who his daughters would call his son. Like, Oh yeah, your son's over there. So he's a cat guy, loves Gilmore Girls. And he's Keith David. So it was just this accidental, perfect storm of perfect. And, you know, the thing about it that I love is I needed someone who could be imposing and someone who could be funny.

2:37:02And those are kind of contradictory things. And he has a lot of presence as a bad guy. And I think he's just really funny. I remember like Jimmy Tatro, like on the end of the first day working with him, he's like, so he's like a comedy actor, right? Keith. And I was like, actually, you know, yes. I mean, you get to like talking to stuff like it's like, yeah, the first time people let let me be funny, was Men at Work. And it's like, all right, Keith David, can we talk about Men at Work, what that was like? And then you just talk about making Men at Work. The biggest reason that you should try to be a successful director or filmmaker is you can get away with that kind of shit.

2:37:40If I was just a dude on the street and you walk up to Keith David, I'm like, hey, can I talk about Roadhouse? Be like, get the fuck away from me. But it's like, hello, sir, starring in my movie. Can I ask you questions about shooting Roadhouse?

2:37:50Sean Fennessey:He honestly looks exactly the same as he did 40 years ago. That's the other thing too is like he's kind of preserved in amber so you've been able to port this presence from a lot of these movies that you feel so connected to into your movie. Also he and Jimmy are so funny together. I, this is the level of responsible I am. I cut that stuff down even though it's my favorite shit in the world because it's just pacing matters and I could have been really indulgent and kept every frame everything those guys did because I love every fucking frame of it. There's so much funny stuff with them that I couldn't justify keeping in because you can only stay away from kind of the main plot so long.

2:38:32But I also could just watch a whole movie of those two guys being those two guys. So that becomes the real thing where it's like, I can't actually be indulgent. The stuff, anything in the movie that is sort of, quote unquote, indulgent is also functional. that would I can't justify having like six straight minutes of those guys just being father and son even if it just you'd play it for people and they it would get bigger laughs than anything but you also like we gotta get back to the stuff

2:39:00Sean Fennessey:you gave us enough yeah okay Ben David we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen as I mentioned you consume a lot of movies I had forgotten about this because I haven't had much sleep and I've been doing so much press this week and then my assistant who's also a producer on the movie Mal texted me and she goes so what's your what are you gonna say at the end about your favorite thing I was like oh fuck and then I immediately for some reason what I thought of and it feels also connected to the movie is I watched Wick is Pain again have you seen that?

2:39:32I have so when I was on my way to South By I put it on my iPad can you explain what it is for people who don't know Wick is Pain is this documentary about the making of the John Wick series which I have like a lot of strong feelings about those movies. And I could talk about them for like 10 hours. I was at Fantastic Fest at that first screening when like people realized, oh, this is a thing where everyone laughed when he said, oh. When I went to Paris, I guess this is a good way to explain my insanity. I went to Paris for the first time. And what I did was I went to all the shooting locations from John McFour.

2:40:11Because, and someone's like, oh, this is where they shot Amelie. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's like, this is the church from the thing. And I'm just really, really fascinated by those movies. I think Four is truly a masterpiece, just all caps masterpiece. And I even remember when I heard what the running time was, I'm like, oh, they're finally going to fuck this up. This is just, there's no way they can justify it being that long. And then I remember walking out of the theater. I'm like, that was exact length. That should be, if anyone complains about the length, I'm going to get in a big argument with you.

2:40:41But anyway, the doc covers all of it. and it is so candid in a way that I don't understand how it exists it is so interesting and it's really I just I'm just I think it's so cool that they're honest about you know conflicts and all these things how hard it was yeah how much how much they fucked up and and it and I just but I find it very inspiring like and I was like watching it before I went to South by it's kind of this trick you do you're like well in case the screening doesn't go as well I wanted to, or in case I get caught up on this, I kind of do things to remind myself, you know, like what I care about.

2:41:18So I'm like, I'm going to rewatch Wicca's Pain. And I was like sitting on a plane watching and I was just like, these movies are so cool. So cool seeing how they shot them. Oh my God, a bunch of my stunt guys are in these shots. And it just like, it was very like, it was like very centering for me. But I think that if you like action filmmaking at all or like those movies, I think it's really interesting. And I think it's a rare kind of candid look at kind of what, you know, all the hard work and interpersonal conflict, all these things that happen when you're making shit like this, you know?

2:41:50Sean Fennessey:It's a great answer. It's a really great documentary. And David, thanks for doing this. Thanks for being here. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't. This was the interview I cared the most about. If anyone else who interviewed me hears this, I'm sorry. But I was so excited about this and this felt like the perfect way to end my promotional tour than go to the airport. Yeah. Thanks for having me, man. Congratulations. Thanks to Ben David Grabinski. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode. Thanks to Luke's Kavanaugh for production support. We'll be back on Friday to break down the drama and the other drama, the Super Mario Galaxy movie, the Alpha and the Omega of April at the movies.

2:42:27Sean Fennessey:We'll see you then.

2:42:42Thank you.