‘The Electric State’ Is a Netflix Nightmare. Plus, 10 (Better) Movies We Missed.

30:11Is it, like, the reason that, Like, we still have action. You know, is it the worst thing that's ever happened in the end of civilization? I don't know, but it's really bad. No, I think because we know what the budget is and we know that that comes in theory, though not in actuality, at the expense of 10$32 million movies or 20$16 million movies. You know, the whole core Jefferson calculation. Obviously, that isn't what Netflix would do. Netflix is doing this very purposefully. They've done it over and over and over again. I forgot to mention The Gray Man the last time the Russos did this and they made a really awful bastardized version I think they're both pretty dire yeah but The Gray Man at least had a very open cynicism and dark I would argue that's worse because they wasted high level talent at least in this it's like Chris Pratt is in the middle of one of the least interesting star decades in a long time he's just playing Han Solo over and over again I think also these movies as opposed to like a big budget failure at the box office, they hold like a negative space in our cultural memory.

31:18They don't, they're either awful or we don't think about them. They don't really have fans. They have not created any other business for Netflix, which is one of the things I find most curious about this is there's no attempt. Adam Project 2. Yeah, but there's no attempt to like build a theme park or to merchandise these things. They exist only in this closed loop of entertainment that Netflix, and it is their business model so I understand it. But I think the fact that it doesn't have any other relationship in the world other than just going to this place feels so anathema to what movies are, which is like a place for everybody to be together and have fun together.

31:54And sometimes it's in a movie theater. Sometimes it's at Disneyland. I'm not saying Disneyland is like a sacred space or anything, but it is like kind of an extension of culture that allows people to feel connected again. This is the opposite of that. This is a neurocaster. This is the people in this movie being locked in on this giant thing that is meant to distract you from the world. We're obviously having a moment together personally about it. I appreciate that. But it's only because it's like gun to our head. You know, it's like this is the biggest movie of the weekend by far. And so we have to talk about it.

32:22And so, you know, it's been interesting watching the Russos do the press tour. They've said a number of things that are very silly. I thought it was very amusing that they pointed out the fact that Netflix shouldn't be doing this, that they shouldn't be. Yeah, they say that as they walk out the door to go back to Marvel to make what will probably be two of the biggest movies of the century. you particularly don't like what they represent which is interesting because they come from something that you not only cover but admire yeah and I think that what they had to me okay so there's nothing personal against those guys obviously who gives a shit but like I think that what bothers me is that one thing that sort of defined them on the first 10 years of their career was a very like practical humility like they were very good at like figuring out like how can we elevate whatever material we happen to be engaged with whether it's an episode of Community or, you know, like a Captain America movie, what have you.

33:15And then after Endgame, I think they bought into this idea that they were Spielberg and that they were going to change movie making and that they could basically start DreamWorks with Agbo, which is their company. And hearing them talk about like going back to Marvel with all the tools and the technological innovations that they've developed at their company, when I'm like, You guys routinely put out stuff that is the definition of slop now. Citadel is the worst fucking thing I've ever seen by far. That's their series on Amazon. Yeah, and it's like all of these things, there's almost this weird perverse smirk about how much they cost.

33:58And you're never like, man, I can see it. I can see how you guys spent. I can see every dime on the screen. There's this weird blindfolded participation by all the creative community that comes into these films where they're just like, I'll fucking do the voice for Mr. Peanut, man. Like, just tell me where to sign. I have a real like shame on you attitude about Woody and Stanley Tucci and like people who know way better than to do a movie like this. And, you know, mailing it in is mailing it in. Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt are different. They're like trying to be stars. This is a big star project.

34:29I kind of understand that. You know, Gene Carlo Esposito, this is the second movie in a row this year where he showed up to be the bad guy and like with a nothing part. Yes. And nothing really to do. He basically is like sitting at a table and having his face on a TV screen somewhere. Right, and possibly filmed everything way after, you know, or like from his closet. That's the thing about this movie is that this one didn't really feel like one of those, like, oh, they didn't even have a script for this. Like, this actually feels like a pretty complete story that has like a beginning and middle and end.

34:58It's so flat. It's so like, there's no dynamic range between any of the set pieces. You're never like, oh my God, can you believe it? like this is happening it's just like oh yeah no shit like there's a mall full of robots who are living in peace and harmony now we go to the deserted mall and the like apocalypse and now all of a sudden they took a submarine to Seattle and they're they're gonna attack the evil corporation's building and it I you're right like this is almost like would it be better not to acknowledge it at all but I suppose the way you tied it in which is like it's hard not to look at the box office weekend and then assume that most people who are like, I literally have two hours.

35:38I can do one of five things. And it's like, they probably watched this. And then I think a lot of adults are people who are looking for, I would imagine they watch Adolescence, which is the number one show on Netflix and is four hours long. So it is a really tough fight that theaters have on their hands if you put it up against this. What do you think the energy is going to be like in Vegas when we go to CinemaCon? Well, my energy is going to be... I think that will be different from the theater owners and the studios. No, it's not good. Because to Chris's point about, I think there were many, many people, I think a majority of America, who said, I don't have time to go to the theater to see a movie this weekend.

36:20And I think that they do see it, do that most weekends. And that's bad. I don't even know if I buy that they were sitting there thinking, okay, well, I have two hours and I can't make it to the theater, but instead I'm going to turn on the electric state. I think the mentality of most people is like, I definitely don't have time to go to the theater. And I guess I'll just like click two buttons and not pay attention to something and like not remember this. And this thing has that Netflix movie thing where they're constantly describing what is on the screen. So you kind of don't even have to watch because all of the dialogue is just about like, I'm sad because my parents died.

37:00I'm also sad because I lost a mother. You know what I mean? There's never any nuance to any of the drama. It's self-evident that everybody's like, I'm sad because of this. Well, I think an overlooked part of this in particular, if we're going to make it a binary, and it's not necessarily a binary, but let's just say for the sake of this conversation that it is, is that in people's minds, the electric state is free. That's a fixed cost that they pay every month and they look at Netflix maybe every day. Maybe they only look at it eight times a month, but that's more than they go to the movie theater.

37:30Going to the movie theater is$40,$60. $80,$100. Netflix, firing it up at 8 p.m. after you put your kids to bed, in our case, or after you've had a long day at work, or you have a dead afternoon on a Saturday. And if you go to the movie theater, there's a guy on his phone, and the projection isn't great or something. Yeah, but even the financial point is essential. But I do also think they're not even, they think of Netflix as Netflix and not as like, I'm going to watch a movie on Netflix. Totally. It's almost a different activity, like a different, you know, art form. Which is what they wanted.

38:05Yes. They wanted it to be that fixed ecosystem experience, not a wider experience. And the fact that they are like licensing fewer movies now, but the stuff that they do license is all of the stuff that they could basically like pretend like it's a Netflix original, even though it came out from Lionsgate in 2012 and it stars Jason Statham. So like it is all part of a very, as always, a very sophisticated strategy that they deploy. but when it's in the service especially at the highest end of the budget in the service of something like this I find it very very depressing I agree with you so here's the one thing I will say and it's my hope I think they've gone away from this largely in movies and I know they had turnover in the executive department of that in terms of their film stuff yeah they still will do things with television that nobody else would ever get the spotlight on these kinds of shows whether it's Ripley from last year or Adolescence from this year I can't believe that that many people get an opportunity to check out something so formally inventive, so beautifully acted, so beautifully written, so important.

39:10I wish that they could do that with film. You know what I mean? Like, it's almost like if we're going to take the poison, please give us some medicine. The thing that is missing, because they, I mean, look, this is Roma, The Irishman, Marriage Story. Like, they've put out a lot of great movies over the years. But there's something wrong with the way those movies. The Killer, you know, the Knives Out movies. They put out a ton of great movies. To me, it's more about shifting to being more like an old studio, which is what I want so many studios to do, which is like have a real development team that actually develops properties, not just with insanely powerful directors.

39:47Because for the most part, what they do is they, in the past, they have recruited your Martin Scorseses, your David Finchers, your Jane Campions, your Alfonso Cuarons, and saying like, what's the one that nobody else will make? We'll make it for you. Which can create radical art and maybe win awards, but usually not. But then those movies also go into the negative zone that I'm talking about. And then they start to feel as though they don't exist. There's no physical representation of them. They don't play rep theaters. They only exist inside this closed system. And so they don't feel as much like a contribution to the wider art form.

40:23That's not good. If they change the model, which they're not going to do, but if they change the model, obviously the movies could go into the movie theaters. They could be sold physically, whatever, all the things that I would want, but they would probably live on in a deeper and more true way. In addition to that, a movie like Novocaine, I'll use this as a pivot point, to me kind of feels like what they should be doing more of. Yeah. And we saw with Rebel Ridge and Carry On last year that there's a huge audience. Matt Bellany and Lucas Shaw talked about this a few weeks ago when they were looking at like, what are the most watched movies on their service?

40:52I don't think they're going to make a lot more$300 million movies. I do think they're going to make a lot more$60 million movies or$50 million movies. In the case of Novocaine, I think it costs like$18 million, which is, well, you saw it? Yes. I was one of two people in a 500-seat theater on Saturday afternoon. So I think 500. I, you know, did my best to count. Roughly. Yeah. You counted 500 seats? What? You counted 500 individual seats? I had 20 in my aisle, and then I started doing some multiplication, and then I stopped. Math. This is the new movie from Dan Burke and Robert Olsen who made a couple of movies that I've liked.

41:28Villains, Significant Other, which was on Paramount Plus a couple years ago. It stars Jack Quaid. Yeah. America's Good Boy. Yeah. The Nice Boy of Hollywood. Yeah. This is his second genre movie of the year that he's headlining after Companion. Also stars Amber Midthunder, Ray Nicholson. I have some thoughts on Ray Nicholson. Amber Midthunder from Our Beloved Predator. Absolutely. She also appears in Opus. Or Prey. Rather. Yeah, Prey. Yeah. it's about an assistant bank manager who can't feel pain who after a bank robbery his like physical pain he can't feel physical pain he can feel emotional pain for sure we see that throughout the film yeah and after a bank robbery his budding love interest is kidnapped and he decides that he's gonna chase after these bank robbers and try to track her down and because he can't feel pain he can survive on this journey in ways that others would not be able to.

42:23I remember when you first saw this trailer, you were like, I don't know. I feel like we got too much of this stuff. You know, like I feel like... Yeah, fake Wick. Yeah, post John Wick. Yeah. Nobody. Yes. Yeah. I just watched Love Hurts. The Kiwi Kwan movie. The Kiwi Kwan movie, which I thought was very bad. Maybe having seen Love Hurts has made me like Novocaine more, but I kind of liked it. I think mostly because Jack Quaid is very winning and you basically need your star to be great for this movie to work. and I'm just on board with him, so I liked it. Me too. It is amazing because you spend a lot of time with just him on screen, and then you can just see the Meg Ryan take over his body in certain moments in that very winning way, which is just kind of fun.

43:08See the Meg Ryan, yeah. That's a good way of putting it. In the interstitial moments, it is part of his ability to ingratiate you to this character. You have empathy for him. Yeah. I liked the first 45 minutes of it. And then at some point, it's like, what's your definition of fun? And is your definition of fun watching his thumb bend 45 different ways? That part was tough. Yeah. I mean, it is gross, and that is what it's supposed to be. But I got over it a little bit. I liked the Nepo Baby square off at the end. With Ray and Jack. And that's another one where you can see it jump out a little bit.

43:46So it was fine. I think that you're quite right. It would have played very well at home on a Saturday night if I were like sitting down and like, I guess I want to watch a movie. I think it will when it goes to VOD. Yes. Again, I don't think that anyone consuming Electric State is sitting down thinking, and now I'm going to watch like a, you know, tub of popcorn and like Friday movie night. It's just kind of like. Now I'm going to watch. I hope we all get to that point where we're just like staring at popcorn. here we go you know I think that as Chris said is slap is like widget content and this feels like a fun mid budget movie that plenty of people could watch at home happily who are these directors they they made the movie a significant other with Jacob Jake Lacey oh yeah you remember the yeah in the forest in the forest yeah that was cool pretty cool yeah that was a real COVID era they're talented they definitely I think the movie is very episodic in the final 45 minutes as Amanda said where it's just sort of like he keeps getting himself into incredibly violent showdowns with people and they can't hurt him which becomes iterative at a certain point.

44:57Like you said the first 45 minutes I thought they were pretty adept at like the rom-com stuff. You know like this burgeoning romance between Amber Midthunder who also I thought was very good in this. Good supporting cast. Like it worked a lot. Yeah Matt Walsh is super funny in this movie. Betty Gabriel is super funny in this movie. It was better than I thought it was going to be is ultimately where I landed on it. Also starts with a 90s kid. There's Everybody Hurts, R.E.M., playing like Lally's Rock, which is like very funny. A number of very good needle drops throughout this movie. They never address whether Kurt Cobain is still alive in the version of reality in Electric State.

45:33Well, let's call the Russos. You have their number. Give them a call. One last thing about this. Ray Nicholson I mentioned is Jack Nicholson's son. He's making a bid now. He's been in movies a little bit in the last five years, but I saw another movie that he was in that I think came out this past weekend called Borderline. You guys familiar with this movie? Small indie starring Samara Weaving also set in the 90s also set in the mid 90s she plays a pop star I think named Sophia and he plays her stalker her mentally unwell stalker and the movie is very much told from it's like a it's very king of comedy it's not quite funny it's not quite scary but it exists in that zone between those two.

46:19And he's really, really good. And you obviously are looking at Jack Nicholson's son and he's making Jack Nicholson faces. He can't not go crazy the way that Jack does. But in the same way with Jack Quaid, where I'm like, I don't know, man, like being an epiphanian baby doesn't mean you're untalented. Like you have your parents' DNA. The essential presence, like when it jumps out, it's like, oh, that same quality that makes like the way that your eyebrows go up and you'd be like, you know, I'm leaning in. Like I'm charmed by you, Jack Quaid. Like, you know, it has, it's there. Yeah, so I liked that other film with Ray and I thought he was a really good villain in this movie.

46:56Very pro forma, not surprising, but very good at what he was doing. Let's go back to streaming movies. Yeah. Let's talk about The Gorge. Oh, sure. Which we've overlooked. We have, we left it. We never got to it on this show. You never got to it at all. That's okay. No, I chose to watch a different movie. So Chris and I are going to attempt to share with you in the same way you shared with us the story of the electric state, what happens in the gorge. See if we can do this as a duo CR. Okay. I mean, Miles Teller plays a soldier. I mean, I honestly could have all my loved ones dangling over a shark pit.

47:33And it's on me to remember the names of the characters in this movie. And they would just be chum. I would not be able to save them. Same. I don't know what their names are. Tyler plays a soldier with PTSD who's kind of kicking around, I think, like, the sort of Ventura, Carpinteria area based on the skyline. And he gets hired by, he thinks, the CIA.

47:57Just like a really overcast kind of... Yeah, all right. I was just going to say, what are the identifying characteristics of that skyline for you? More just that it's just like a lot of gray, like, ooh, like, you know, beach haze. You know, like the fog is rolled in. And he gets hired by Sigourney Weaver, who he believes is CIA. There's only one person in this conference room and she's just like, I'm in the CIA. He's like, I totally believe you. For the record, he's a sniper. Yeah, he's a sniper. He's not just a soldier. Sorry, he's the best, the best. Okay. Except, well, he has some competition.

48:25So is he out of the game? He is out of the game. He's home. He's rotated back to the world. He's hanging out in Carpenteria and he gets hired by Sigourney Weaver to do a job on a parallel track, another plot. Anya Taylor-Joy plays a Eastern European Balkan woman who's also a sniper who Is she in Carpenteria? No, she's in like Romania or like Where actually? I don't know. I can't remember. But they are both brought to this space called the Gorge. The Gorge is colloquially described as the gate to hell which I think would have been a better movie if it had been that because instead it is a giant pit guarded by two towers on one side and the other and it's a and you're not supposed to talk to your mirror, you know, sniper over on the other side.

49:14You're just supposed to keep what's in the gorge from coming out. It's just basically like you're like the stopgap method from stopping whatever demonic presence is down there from getting out and there are demonic presences. Oh. The reason for this, I've been trying to think through because it's actually a great setup. It's awesome. Scott Derrickson has incredible first acts. He always, I was just going to say that, he always sets his movies up so well and sometimes pays them off for me, not always. but this is the director of Sinister, Doctor Strange, the Black Phone. The setup is that you've got these two snipers on opposite ends, essentially on opposite ends even of the sort of like international relations and they have made this tacit agreement unspoken in the shadows that they will protect the world from what is inside of the gorge by every, I don't know how long the cycles are.

50:02Is it one year? Is it three years? However long the cycles are. Cycling in one elite sniper to shoot down whatever would be climbing up from the gorge to attempt to get into the world at large. The problem is in this case that these two insanely hot people have been enlisted as the snipers and they fall in love from across the way. They do the love actually thing. They literally love actually it. And they have like nights together where they like share wine across the way and they play music for each other. Is it like we're using like binoculars? Yes. Yeah, binoculars and writing on a whiteboard to be like.

50:35Because you know they have their scopes and everything with their rifles. And they, you know, he looks like Miles Teller and she looks like Anya Teller-Joy. They're like, I want to fuck this sniper across the way who's from Bulgaria or whatever. Okay. That'd be like an awesome Joachim Von Trier movie. I want to fuck this sniper. The movie, part of the appeal of the movie is part of what works against it, which is that it's five different movies. It is an elite spy sniper movie. It is a story about young love. Okay. It is eventually a video game movie because, of course, they have to go into the gorge.

51:08well, first they have to get together. They get together. They have a magical night together. In whose tower? In Anya's. And it's the sin. It's the original sin. It's Adam and Eve biting the apple. Okay. And it's like they take their eye off the ball, which is the gorge. What would the international relations, like, parallel to this? Well, it's good that you asked that because we find out as it goes on that what's actually in the bottom of the gorge is not, in fact, the gate to hell, but rather a massive military industrial complex complex bioweapon experimentation zone yes it's gone terribly around labs and like they've just like all the people who've been down there since like World War II have basically become deformed demons so you get down there and it's essentially giant spiders why do they have to go down there?

51:51they one of them falls right? yeah and then the other goes down after them to save them right when Miles Teller why do they fall? because they're just really getting after? no when Miles Teller was going back from his date he needs to return to his post his cord gets cut his like little Oh, does he like zipline over? Yeah. Cool. You guys into ziplining? The moment all the way up until I think some of the dialogue is really shoddy in this movie but the moment up until the cord snapped I was like I'm pretty much in on this. Like I really want to know where this is going. Yeah. As soon as they get into the gorge I hated it.

52:24Hated it. Yeah, there's like demon soldiers with like personalities and it's kind of like what sounds like what happens with Novocaine which is a really good hour and then an hour of like kind of monotonous action. So is Sigourney Weaver ultimately not from the CIA? We find out that she's in fact not CIA. He just didn't ask for ID and she was, she's employed or runs the bioweapon company. How would you appropriately ask for ID from the CIA? I don't know if it works like with a cop like where you like, you could get to ask like, license and registration, please. Yeah, I think the CIA operates under subterfuge anyway.

52:58Right. So the idea of them being like, by the way, I'm CIA, you know. in any case this is the when when we write the history books about cinema this will be the purest distillation of COVID era filmmaking it's two people who are rarely in the same scene together there's only like three other people in the movie most of it is VFX for the second hour cool I don't know why this movie took like five years to come out it was clearly made for the big screen and they just shuttled it to stream but it was always an Apple movie It was always an Apple movie, but, you know, Apple released Napoleon. They released Killers of the Flower Moon.

53:34It was in this time, you know, they're releasing F1. Like, they're still releasing movies. It's a big budget movie. This is a big movie. This movie has a Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score. Like, this was meant to be a mainstream movie. And I could be wrong, but my gut is that they just looked at it and they're like, this isn't good enough. We can't do the typical marketing spend against this to put it in a movie theater. So they make it to the bottom of the bioweapons. They defeat Sigourney Weaver. They find an old, no, she's just still up there in her helicopter, but they find a Jeep that they drive up the side of a mountain or of the gorge.

54:07Like you do. Because they have a winch and they get to the top and then they set off a bunch of charges so that Sigourney Weaver has come in her helicopter and the helicopter gets blown up and falls into the gorge. And then, it all explodes. In theory, all of the testing. Where is the gorge? And then, they, you know, because they're separated sort of as they escape. Yeah. And Anya Taylor-Joy gets to become a barmaid in like the Positano Coast. And one day, Miles Teller shows up and is like, I hear the rap. Okay, so it's like boring at the end. Yeah, that's beautiful. It's like Michael Caine in Italy at the end of Dark Knight.

54:45He didn't want to bury another Batman. Okay. Well, that sounds bad. This movie's not good. Yeah. A lot of talent attached to it. Sort of. Are you with me? It would have been cool if it was hell. it would have been cool if you were like why is this not a John Carpenter movie you know why is it like a weird Resident Evil movie I don't know they basically turned into Resident Evil at the end and it's not very good I think we're casting too many hot people to do jobs that not hot people do I think this is a movie that I think to your point about John Carpenter it should have been like a James Woods kind of guy should have been doing this you know it should not be always like Miles Teller looking like pretty hot but actually quite bored with the movie he's in which I'm a little bit nervous about for him.

55:30Yeah. He's off track. He's off track. He had more momentum than you could possibly imagine after Maverick, and he's way off track. So what are we going to do? I don't know. I know the Eagles are not off track. I know that in theory, he's doing great. He's doing great. He was on Saturday Night Live 50. Yeah. He was at the Oscars. They lost their house in the fire. That's terrible. I wish him no ill will. People are sending him Grateful Dead. Nobody gets his back more than me and him. Yeah, no, no, no. I see so much in him, and I just want better for him. Um, let's talk about Last Breath quickly.

55:59Okay. Uh, you didn't see this yet, right? I didn't. Okay. Um, would you recommend Chris see it? You're sort of, you're, so it's basically like Apollo 13 underwater. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Um, but, but, but without, um, is this based on a true story? Yes. Okay. Have you seen the thing? The what? The, the documentary. No. Because it's based on like a documentary. Yeah, so 2019 documentary, it's based on a true story. Same director as the documentary. But didn't know how it wound up. So I would say this was like... I mean, Apollo 13 underwater without, you know, bigger ideas or Ron Howard's budget or Tom Hanks.

56:42But I definitely was concerned. I didn't know what was going to happen because I didn't know the real thing. Same. I had not seen the documentary. And I was very concerned for the people involved. At some points really thought I was watching a snuff film.

57:02I was really uncomfortable. Like really, really uncomfortable because of the story and the way it was being filmed. But also, it, you know, it's just fine. I fully agree that I felt both enormous fear for the characters, but also walked out of the movie and was like, that was all right. Yeah. This is a common trend now. The most recent example I can think of is the Jimmy Chin, Chai Vastarelli movie, The Rescue, coming out in 2018, I want to say. And then 13 Lives, the Ron Howard movie, came out four years later. years later. That's actually pretty good. The Ron Howard movie is excellent. Unfortunately, I had seen The Rescue.

57:45So there was no drama. Right. Like I knew exactly. But we also knew what happened in Apollo 13, right? But the problem is is that the actual story of that Thai cave rescue, the details of it are remarkable. Yeah. What they did to rescue those kids is amazing. But if you watch it completely shown in the way that, that's a great documentary too. In this case, I just hadn't seen Last Breath, the 2019 documentary that Alex Parkinson made. So like you, I didn't know where the story was going. And what actually happens to one of the men who gets trapped defies explanation. It's just one of the craziest things that you could ever imagine happening.

58:20And you know, like you're watching a movie, so you're thinking to yourself, okay, well, like I'm watching this movie. Like I have to be watching it because of one outcome. But then the movie does sort of confound that for a while. And so you're like, okay, wait, actually, what am I watching? what is good. So there is like a level of suspense that it maintains. Absolutely. That is pretty gripping. I would say it's like top to bottom miscast with the exception of the captain of the boat. Which is Woody Nelson? No, he's... No, Cliff Curtis. He's awesome. I love him. Yeah. He's great. But the... Woody is kind of weird in it.

58:59He's, I mean, like, he's fine, but it's like another Mr. Peanut situation. Like that, you know, he's mostly in one little submersible. Simu Liu. Real quick, were you getting Jimmy Carter from Mr. Peanut? Sure, yeah. Okay. You know, but like... Is that who Mr. Peanut is based on? No, but he sounded like Mr. Peanut and wasn't Jimmy Carter... He was a peanut farmer. Yeah, peanut farmer. Yeah. So was he like just do Jimmy... He was an homage to the late president? Kind of wonder, yeah. I think that was probably recorded some years ago before Carter passed. Okay. Carter, his policies internationally, you agreed with them?

59:30Kind of a gorge situation? Okay. how would Jimmy Carter have handled the gorge last breath soft recommend soft recommend yeah okay I you know I think they cast people who are willing to to dive for rather than people who maybe had the emotional register but that's okay before we get to the next film yeah I just want to address something really quickly okay is this about me and you nope nobody really knows who Bernthal is playing which is why I don't know There's some speculation that it's Menelaus and there's some speculation that it's Mester. I did wonder if it was Menelaus. And so it's not my fault.

1:00:09I walked myself into that corner. I couldn't get out. I just need you to get your shit together. Figure out what the Odyssey is. Stop dive-bombing these episodes with random updates. Come in with a plan. I'll support that plan. Okay. There's nothing I want more than for you to be a star. A big shining star. Let's talk about the monkey. this is the second Oz Perkins movie in eight months. There's actually another movie coming out later this year from Oz Perkins called Keeper. It also comes from Neons based on a Stephen King story from the 80s, which I read. Not recently, but when I was a kid. And I remember being very upsetting and scary.

1:00:49And I did not think the monkey was very scary and is not really trying to be. It is much more of a horror comedy. Yeah. Emphasis on extravagant, gory kills. Do you know anything about the story of this movie? Do you know what it is? No, but I did recently learn that Oz Perkins' great-grandmother is also Schiaparelli. So I didn't know that. Yeah. So there you go. I learned that from his press tour for this film. Did you have Oz on for the monkey? No, I did not. I was pretty mixed on the monkey. I was pretty mixed on the monkey too. It has a bunch of things that I'm not a big fan of in horror movies, both or in any filmed medium, which is twins and also Crazy times for you right now though.

1:01:35Dangerous toys I don't like. Dangerous toys. Never been a Chucky guy. Oh interesting. So there is a monkey of course. Sure. A toy monkey. It's a toy monkey that plays the drums and the monkey plays the drums I think because Disney copyrighted what is the other monkey? Is it the organ grinder? This guy yeah. Yeah. I'm almost positive that's what happened so in the story that's what it is but in real life in this story they had to change it to the drums but every time the monkey performs sort of drum solo knocks energy for the record someone in the world is killed in a spectacular fashion a little part of me dies every time knocks drums the kills are fucking crazy some of them are fun sure I think it's a good testament to why kills neat context because like just pure violence or bloodshed is it doesn't do anything I mean I can admire it from an aesthetic level and there's definitely some good filmmaking in this but if there was like some goofiness to long legs it's that extracted and then blown up for an entire film this is like troll feeling yeah and I am a guy who one of my favorite movies ever made is maximum overdrive which is a Stephen King directed film about what would happen if trucks and machines took over the world for a period of time.

1:03:02Kind of the Electric State prequel. A period of time. By the way, Stephen King riddled with cocaine throughout the production of this film. But, so I don't mind like that. I don't mind funny horror, but this was like, kind of like, just gory for gore's sake. And, I never really got that into like the story itself of these two twin brothers who were kind of beefing from childhood and then realized they have to rely on each other. Here's the thing. This movie, just like Long Legs, the more I listened to Oz talk about it or read about the inspirations for it, the more I got it. That's not necessarily a good thing for the movie watching experience.

1:03:39But like Long Legs, this is very clearly a movie about processing your parents' death and the suddenness of death and how that feels to a person. This movie has two very intense death sequences for parents. he also mentioned Death Becomes Her as a big inspiration which is now I'm listening I would not say it has quite the feminist energy of Death Becomes Her but the tone and that approach that horror comedy style extreme physical comedy yeah made it make more sense to me I really like I really like Oz personally I love talking with him on the show I liked Long Legs I'm very curious to see about Keeper this is the third of the three movies and I've heard it's very good is Keeper it's not also Stephen King Not also Steven.

1:04:24No. Amanda, I would not recommend The Monkey to you. Okay. Did you see Ephus? I did. Oh, cool. Yeah. Okay, great. Let's talk about Ephus quickly. Okay. Directed by Carson Lund. It was at the New York Film Festival last year. I think it was at Cannes in 2024, actually. I think that's correct. At the Fortnite. It's about, I know Bob has seen it as well. It's about basically one last baseball game at another 1990s story, a small Massachusetts town that has an amateur baseball crew before the stadium's going to be demolished to build a new school. It has the structure of a game but no real story. It's an extremely durational game.

1:05:04It takes a very long time to complete including Into the Darkness. Really much more of a character study. It is made by some of the same people who made Christmas Eve at Miller's Point. This is very similar in terms of tone in terms of the episodic nature of it. I thought it was very charming. What'd you think? Same. I mean, it is guys sitting around playing baseball and talking in the dugout. And it's mostly actors that, you know, you haven't seen before of a certain age. It's not like a movie star movie. It's just a very charming slice of life of these people who do something together every once in a while and are having to say goodbye to it.

1:05:44Like, it is a little melancholy. It is. but you know in the way that baseball is I don't know I like baseball so I was turned by it Bob? Oh I loved it I thought that it was it's one of my favorite movies of the year so far I did get a chance to see it last year at New York Film Festival I thought that one of my favorite parts of it was that at times in a good way it felt like sort of a competition between the writers to see how many different baseball aphorisms they could just rip off in a row without the movie totally stalling out and it doesn't and then the other piece of it that I thought was amazing and captures the essence of baseball is it's so tactile.

1:06:19They have all these cool interstitials between the different episodic, you know, I guess, episodes of the movie. The innings of the movie, yeah. Yeah, they literally break it down into innings and they show scorecards. It feels kind of timeless, although I think it's intended to be set in the 90s where they have these old Sports Authority water bottles. The jerseys are all varying different ages. It just captures that kind of like liminal and endless quality that baseball can have. It's very, very dreamlike in its execution. So, if you love baseball or if you love a kind of like dream like descent into weirdness, I do think you will vibe with Ephus.

1:06:55What's going on with the scene? This scene of the Ephus, the Christmas at Miller's Point, like... Another generation of independent filmmakers. I love it. I think it's kind of like post-Safety's New York indie guys. Carson Lund, I think, is just a part of that whole crew of people. Some of them are friends, some of them are not. But, you know, we kind of whinge about the perilous state of independent movies but like if you want to support independent movies go check out EFIS it's very good I will support it a few more for you guys before we wrap up and get to MAG I saw Becoming Led Zeppelin in IMAX you saw it before we it was the first part yeah you invited I invited you guys and you blew me off you mostly invited Chris I was like a last minute and I couldn't make it but it's fine then we got to have barbecue and then we saw Captain America Briefness A terrible Marvel film.

1:07:46Yeah. Becoming Led Zeppelin is kind of the emotional inverse of Brave New World. It's an interesting documentary. It only features interviews with the three surviving members of Led Zeppelin and significant archival from John Bonham. I think most of it never heard before. But it's basically just a performance movie. It features like several long performances of Led Zeppelin. Good. And only goes through the first two records. Bad. but not terrible I love Led Zeppelin's perfect art so it doesn't matter to me but I'm a physical graffiti guy and four I was wondering if this was an attempt to make a second film a third film maybe even like I could see them trying to stretch it out I would be all about that extended universe Bernard McMahon directed it it's just a major sensory experience there's a couple of performances there's one in Sweden there's one in England their first big English performance when they return home from America where they're just playing dazed and confused at length.

1:08:45You know, like, eight minute version. Incredibly overwhelming and powerful in IMAX. At home, I don't know if it'll have quite the same effect, but it's still very cool to see them. Your young son, for example. I'm really excited. I mean, I did Google Showtimes and then I was like, I can't. When your kid discovers John Bonham, it's over. Yeah. I know. I'm, like, I have showed him, what is the Zeppelin, like, weird film with the elves? Is that over? The song remains the same. Yeah, Zach showed him that and I showed him the Lincoln Center tribute where Hart plays and then and then John Bottom's son is drumming so he's like kind of aware but I think this is the next step I just think we have to do it at home yeah it was really fucking loud yeah I was the youngest person in the theater by far like so many gray hairs in there rocking out to Zeppelin but they were having a ball it's just it's a very pro forma doc but it's a great music experience and in a way I would rather this sort of thing just replace the Bohemian Rhapsodies of the World.

1:09:45Like, don't pretend to tell me how the story was. Yeah, just do Queen at Live Aid and remaster it. Exactly, just show us that performance. I did enjoy what Jimmy Page had to say, and I learned a lot specifically about where he started as a session musician and working on Bond themes and how he kind of made his way while also joining the R-Birds and becoming a great musician. Robert Plant was like, then you just throw it against the wall mate and then it's over here and then you just grab it over there and then you just put it like he had nothing of substance to say the entire film but I still enjoyed looking at him he now looks like a J.R.R.

1:10:22Tolkien character but solid movie couple of disappointing movies it breaks my heart to say that the new Errol Morris documentary is not good I checked it out and I thought it was pretty pretty flat pretty flat yeah it's called Chaos the Manson Murders it's based on this remarkable Tom O 'Neill book about the synchronicity between the Manson murders and several secretive government operations. You a Manson guy? In a couple different ways, no. But in like the 60s conspiracies of the 60s sort of like... No, I'm like not there. I mean, like I have, I've listened to the, you must remember this season, like I like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood as much as the next person, you know.

1:11:07I know the basics, but no, I haven't gotten deep. this book, this O 'Neill book, is really fascinating. It's a little bit harebrained at times. We're trying to draw all these connections to things that may or may not ultimately be connected. He has a lot of source material and he's like Charlie Day at the corkboard vibes. Very much. But it's written with such momentum that it's hard to not get caught up in it. And I usually feel like Harold Morris is the absolute best at being like, you've got a lot of crazy theories. Let me bring them all together. This just felt like over-reliance on certain kind of like archival, like zoom-in, photograph style.

1:11:39weirdly not enough Tom O 'Neill I kind of wanted him to just be like the full-blown narrator of the thing and I maybe just know a little bit too much about this that sometimes happens with documentaries that's how I kind of felt a little bit if you've watched the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary there was another Vietnam documentary on Apple and I was kind of like this is just like I feel like I'm swimming with water wings on here yeah agreed I mentioned Love Hurts terrible Yeah. Terrible. It made me, made Novocaine feel a lot better. No offense to Kiwi Kwan. Kiwi and who's the other person in it?

1:12:14Ariana DeBose. Oh, yeah. So they just put all the Oscar winners together in there. Yeah, Marshall Lynch is in it. Super Bowl champion. Also looks like it was shot on like the Good Place set, right? Yes. Well, it's, in fairness to it, it's about real estate agents selling like prefab community houses. Okay. So that kind of like fakeness that comes with it, I guess is justified. It feels like that's just like a screenwriting hack to get a movie made cheaper though. you know directed by a former stuntman I usually love movies like that this one it was a no didn't hit it's a big no it's also 83 minutes well which I thought was fascinating doesn't make it good yeah it exists another kind of disappointment The Actor which is a movie that just opened in theaters starring Andre Holland as an actor in New York who is struck in the head after sleeping with some man's wife and then wakes up and finds himself in a small town in Ohio and he can't figure out what happened.

1:13:06Great premise. Thrilling setup. Yeah. Based on a Donald Westlake story called Memory from 1960. And was originally going to start Gosling? I believe Gosling. And somebody else was, I don't know if Duke Johnson was always attached. Duke Johnson who worked on Anomalisa with Charlie Kaufman. And yeah, I think there's like a filmmaking style choice that's meant to make it feel like you're in a dream the whole time that I found incredibly distancing and hard to connect with. So I had high hopes for this movie. and maybe even thought about like drafting it in an auction once upon a time because it's been tabbed for a long time and it kind of just came and went.

1:13:40That's pretty much it. The great work continues. You know, we'll keep getting into the batter's box and Hollywood will keep pitching us. That's, that's so beautiful. Yeah. It's what, two weeks to baseball season? Yeah, it's almost, it's almost here. So excited. Not a great spring for the Phillies. Not a great spring? It's more about the summer, but, and honestly, it's more about October. What do you, what happened last October? Yeah, I forgot how to hit but that's what happened who are you rooting for this year I think we gotta do Phillies again okay yeah I was worried you were gonna say Dodgers I was worried you were gonna no I mean I do wanna I wanna go I'm gonna take Knox to Dodger Stadium I hope I can be a part of that I have I've identified some possible times we gotta do the 4.30pm you know the sweet spot the post nap pre-bed time how close to the field do you wanna be I don't know if money was no object well I think he would probably be a little scared of the foul.

1:14:34And I still get scared of the foul ball. So, you know, and then once he's there. If you get close, you have the net. Did Bill say recently that he thinks the nets are bad for baseball? He did say that. He sure did. Yeah, he did. Did that resonate in your community, Bob? It sure did. Yeah. I was like, that's a very specific thing to be the one thing that was the domino that crushed Major League Baseball. But maybe he has some data that I don't know about. I think there's a few other reasons. I'm very excited for the baseball season. Clay Holmes season as I'm calling it future Cy Young winner Clay Holmes have you heard of him?

1:15:06I assume he's a Met he's a Met he's a converted reliever that they're attempting to stretch out to become a starter he had a promising spring Griffin Canning he had a promising spring he struck out nine batters today is that right Bob? seven seven shit you know injury bug has struck the Mets but I think we're going to power through March Madness St. John's who are you cheering for? I only learned that it was starting this morning. So, like, what are the number one SEC teams? I think the Vols are probably in there. I believe there are 12 SEC teams. See, like, on the one hand... 14! My goodness.

1:15:43You know, when I was an active member of the SEC fan community, we didn't really do basketball. What did you do? Run message boards? What did you do? So, I had a little cheerleading suit that I wore. Did you? Yeah. Did you have a cheerleading phase? No, no, I just had this little, I was like four. But did you wear a suit, like a cheerleading outfit? Yeah, it was like a Tennessee Vols. I don't know, someone got it for me. Listen, what do you want? I was four, okay? When the electric state happens, we're going to get that online. Yeah, but basketball wasn't really a going concern in the same way the SEC hadn't really spread its tentacles.

1:16:19And now I know it's just like taken over collegiate sports. And I think there are probably some things we should investigate there. Like what? But, you know, but so that's fine. Like human rights violations? Yeah, but I don't really care about the SEC basketball. Who are you rooting for? Typically, I root for Kentucky because I would always cheer for John Calipari's team. He now coaches at Arkansas. They're both in the tournament. So I think I might split it, not cheer for either and go for Oregon because I love their campus. The Ducks? Yeah. Okay, very cool. What seed is Oregon this year? I think they're like a five seed.

1:16:55Okay, that's very exciting. I will be rooting very hard for St. John's. I fear tremendous heartbreak is imminent. But nevertheless, I'm very excited for them. I'm also very excited to now share my conversation with Mark Anthony Green. Let's go there right now.

1:17:20Mark Anthony Green is here, the writer and director of his debut feature film Opus. He also happens to be one of my oldest friends. Somebody I've known for 15 years. How did we, what was the first meeting? Do you remember? What happened? I don't remember the first meeting. I remember the day that I realized you were a G. Okay. Which is I pissed off Jay-Z. Mm-hmm. And long story short, I was, Sean ran GQ's website. and I had written this story that this human being, whose name I won't say, Jameel Spencer, who ran RockAware for Jay-Z. And long story short, he came to me and was like, I want you to write this story about Jay-Z buying BBC from Pharrell.

1:18:08And I was like, great. We did all the fact-checking, went back and forth with them, published the story, and all hell broke loose. Jay-Z turned this is all according to people but Jay-Z turned his plane around mid-flight as you can do with a private jet and Will Welsh was getting calls from Jana Fleischman who was Jay-Z's publicist I think still is and I had only been at GQ for like a month and I thought I lost my job and Jay-Z's fifth tweet he had four tweets under his belt total total yeah and they were all like you know I have an album on the way and that was it for the whole rollout for Magna Carta like whatever the albums were and his fifth tweet was I am partnering with Pharrell not buying his company like GQ erroneously printed and I saw my life and job flash before my eyes but then Sean was like send me every email saw all my work saw that everything had been checked and da da da and then you went to war and it was tight.

1:19:20So you've been my boy ever since. I appreciate that. I don't even really remember what I did, but I did know some people in Jay-Z's orbit at that time. Yes, you did that. I did the best that I could. You were like, hey, if this is on somebody, it's not on this 22-year-old who did his job. I've been thinking a lot about that time when we worked together, which was ultimately only less than 18 months, but we bonded pretty quickly and we definitely talked about movies in that time, but I don't think we ever had the conversation like, yo, I want to be a filmmaker one day. I don't think so. I was trying to think back to it because I was obviously, knowing me back then, I was even really movie crazy, even though that wasn't my beat at the time.

1:20:01So go to the beginning. When did you know you wanted to do it? What were the signal moments in your youth where you were watching movies and felt transported? Man, I can remember two like young experiences. One was watching Batman where Michelle Pfeiffer straddles Batman in a theater and I had my first crush. I was like... I think that was true of a lot of people back then. And I was born in 88 so I was like very young but it was like man movies. And then when I watched The Fifth Element in a theater which I stand by also I'm a diehard listener the year The Fifth Element came out it went undrafted in a draft 97?

1:20:5397 sure whatever it is it was egregious and the fact that none of y 'all drafted it and so I've shown up I might be the only director to show up at this show but you know you're saying you want to get you want to redraft 1997 you know yeah Yes. I just couldn't believe it went undrafted. What an incredible film. Yep. You have Jean-Paul Gaultier, some of the best costume design ever. You have Chris Tucker, like, throwing 2 ,000 miles an hour in a unitar, flirting with stewardesses that they casted as all mixed women with freckles and bobs. I don't know what more you could want from a film I'm sorry the very small gap in age that we have though I think explains a lot because I was 15 when this came out and you were 9 yeah you had seen like Die Hard and all the movies that I understand for me that was the first time I ever seen Bruce Willis oh interesting that's a weird way to get introduced to him I know it's a cool movie I have nothing against that movie but that's kind of the amazing thing about depending on how old you are your relationship with a thing because everything, like Die Hard, like coming after that and everybody being like, this movie, like I've read some reviews from that time of that film because I'm like, this was a masterpiece.

1:22:21Oh, people were tough on it. People were tough on it. Yeah. But if you, if I watched all the movies before it, I probably wouldn't, it wouldn't have blown my hair back. But that movie made me want to make movies. Like I left the theater as a kid being like, I want to make movies. I didn't know you could do that. So you spent a lot of time in your career before making movies in the world of style. Like you meant you already name dropped Jean-Paul Gaultier on this show. I didn't name drop him. I said his name. There's a difference. You used his name. Name drop would be like, yo, I hang out with Sean Finney.

1:22:50That's a name drop. Saying I'm a fan of somebody's, I've never met that man. That's not a name drop. I just, I gotta keep it honest. I'm surprised that's a person you haven't met though. Just given. I have met Jean-Paul Gaultier. I'm saying I don't know him. That's not my man. I can't call him like I can call you. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I have met Jean-Paul Gaultier. That is a wonderful thing about knowing you is that I'm not surprised to learn that you know Jean-Paul Gaultier. Anyway. I worked at a fashion magazine forever. You know, I went to, I've been to a fashion week or two. When you were thinking about trying to become a creative person, like you ended up at a magazine and you spent a long time at GQ.

1:23:24Yeah. All that time, obviously it appears that you were plotting, scheming, creating in your mind behind the scenes, trying to get things going. but did you see like the world of journalism and magazines as like a portal to that? Was it a, how did you? No, I, you know what it was for me? There are like four phases before I got here. There's Morehouse, Morehouse. I graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. And Morehouse taught me the type of man I wanted to be. Which was what? The man you see today. somebody that is honest that has integrity that does things with style that's not afraid that has ambition that cares deeply about his friends and family overly sensitive will raise his voice will stand on a table way more bark than bite but I don't really bark that much you know what I mean?

1:24:18Yeah. I always smell good. That I can attest to. Like you know just like I think They teach that at Morehouse? they did not teach that at Ithaca College I gotta tell you yeah it's a different experience though I will say like we were not I was not in like a classroom learning I was learning everything outside a classroom and then I worked at this clothing store Sid Mashburn and that's the first time I ever saw somebody do something at 100 % and it rocked my world you should just briefly explain to the listeners who Sid is and what that experience is he's a designer in Atlanta and I worked for him for free so that he would introduce me to somebody at GQ.

1:25:05So he like created an internship program. And, but he just, this was his dream. He worked at Ralph Lauren and L.L. Bean and all these places. And it was the first time I ever saw somebody have a dream and chase it with 100 % like a madman. And that opened up something for me. And then GQ was, to me, it taught me about both storytelling and taste and what my taste really was. And the mix of things. Like if you look at Opus as a film, there's so much humor in the movie. but I think that the balance like to me it feels very balanced and I don't know that I'm capable or want to make something that doesn't have that type of humor in it or a seriousness or like take on something important and there's like a mix like I think GQ taught me the value of the mix in addition to a lot of other things So I carry that with me, but I don't know.

1:26:24I just, your question of, you know, did I, did I always see that this is what I wanted to do? Yeah, since I was a kid. But I don't, I don't think that like being a magazine writer, editor into filmmaker, that didn't, that I didn't look at that as like a path. It's interesting because there is a pretty long tradition of that path. Really? Yeah. You know, you have critics like Peter Bogdanovich or Paul Schrader, who are basically just working critics, writing scripts, getting in the good graces of filmmakers, getting opportunities. And then you also have folks like Robert Benton, who wrote Bonnie and Clyde, who is an editor at Esquire.

1:27:09Oh, I didn't know that. He wrote the original Bonnie and Clyde. The original, yeah, the 60s version. This is that Sean Fennessey shit. This is what we're here for. But I tend to think - No, no, stop, Sean. This is, ladies and gentlemen, of the big picture, this is why the fuck we show up. We show up for him to do this nerdy shit right here. This is it. It's happening in real time. It's beautiful. I'm putting you in a continuum. I had no idea. I didn't know that. Of magazine writer, editor voices. And I totally relate to what you're describing. That the mix, the balance in building the book, as we call it.

1:27:43Yeah. is an aspect, has a relationship to making a movie. You got department heads in magazines. You got department heads on your movie. You got tone in your movie. You got tone in your issue or tone in the story that you're working on. You got photography. You got all these different component parts. And I thought about this a lot when I was watching your movie, which I'm just so proud of you for accomplishing, but I'm especially touched by it because the movie is about a print magazine journalist. Yeah. And it's a very wry and sly about that and what it's like to be one of those people, which is kind of a dying breed as a gig.

1:28:19Yeah. So tell me how it informed the actual story itself, the actual writing of Opus, the character that Ayo plays. I look at it like this. Well, first of all, now that Opus is in the world, it's not my place to tell people how to Opus. so like if this film to you is about not you saying this but if it's about journalism then that's not you know my read on it and my intention on it it's Opus is no more about journalism than it is than you know White Man Can't Jump is about basketball the basketball in White Man Can't Jump as far as like street basketball in LA the the you know the deferred dream of it all they knocked it out the part it's accurate and I think the journalism that power dynamic what it's like what it looks like what it smells like the texture of it is very accurate because I lived that life for 13 years and so that to me is like outside of making that aspect of it accurate the thing that it tackles I don't have a a front row seat too I think the thing that I tackle we all are experiencing, which is tribalism and what I consider to be a global pandemic of tribalism, this thing that has gone too far, in my opinion.

1:29:46So yeah. So I don't know. I just wanted it to feel accurate. I felt like when I was working at GQ, and even in some respects at Grantland and the Ringer, there's a part of the work that is trying to identify what is going to be next and cool, and then there's a part of the work that is trying to figure out like what is you? What is us? Yeah. Once you've determined what is cool. Yeah. And so I feel like what I really like about Io's character in the movie is like she has seems to have like a real skepticism. Yeah. About the whole enterprise. Yeah. And I tend to find that like really good magazine editors really good magazine writers are like really enthusiastic but also like this is kind of bullshit.

1:30:28Yeah. Especially when you're the youngest in the room. And when you and I worked together that I was the youngest in the room. And then I stayed to where I was like, you know, ancient. But I was the youngest in the room. So there were things that just excited people in that room that meant nothing to me. You know, like a story I've told is I didn't know who Bruce Springsteen was when I first got to GQ. And we were in an ideas meeting and it's like the first cover meeting and everyone's freaking out about Bruce Springsteen. I never heard the man's name Now I'm 36 37 year old I just turned 37 37 year old black kid From The Midwest Who went to HBCU I didn't grow up in a house Where we were listening to Bruce Springsteen I didn't date girls That listen to Bruce Springsteen I just never He just never came across my desk You know So yeah So like you know Everybody being like This is the cover that's going to change the world And then there's one person in a room That's like I've never heard of him I didn't say that I didn't have the That would take balls Yeah I didn't have to juice this To let them know I knew nothing about nothing But yeah I think that there's real power In being the youngest person In the room I think there's real power In being The person that Is not Intoxicated By Whoever And especially As A journalist I think that you are able to Genuinely maintain A level of Objectivity you know like I listened to Bruce Springsteen that day and I was like I get it you know you didn't turn yourself over to him though this isn't Andre 3000 you know what I'm saying this isn't I wouldn't even say this is like fabulous like but but I'm I know this is tough I know I know but Sean I came here to pot baby I told you I'd give you my best and I'm just saying like you know I listened to him and are you auditioning now for a music podcast no no no trust me no uh I will be back on set.

1:32:30But look, I get it, you know. It's a thing. I told this story to John and to the crew because I felt like that was the challenge with Moretti. I went from that ideas meeting to the next meeting, and I asked Will Welsh, who is Bruce Springsteen? And he looked at me and was like, Jesus Christ, who's this human I hired? But he had like 30 seconds to contextualize this person for me. And I felt like that's what we had. We had a very short amount of time to show you how big this pop star was. For you to believe that he exists amongst Prince and Alice Cooper and David Bowie and Elton John. And he's in this zone.

1:33:19You just haven't heard of him. Right. You know? But I need you to get it. And I got it. he may not be fabulous to you but I get it and so that was it because you know you get very little time for the exposition part of it so yeah I am very curious to hear the story of John Malkovich being a part of this movie I'll give you an honest take with no disrespect to Malkovich who is a legend hit or miss in the last 20 years for me oh 100 % iconic actor obviously his resume speaks for itself but But you never know what you're going to get these days. And I think he's on his A-plus game in your movie. Thank you.

1:34:02And so maybe you can tell me how you got him to buy into the same spiel that Will helped you explain in 30 seconds on who Bruce Springsteen is. I think that this is one of John's best performances in his career. And I'm honored by that. I'm a huge fan of his. But yeah, I think he would say that's fair. There was a funny moment when, you know, there was an interview that I'm sure you saw. It went viral. And it's Matt Damon, and he's talking about John Malkovich showing up to the set of Rounders. And we shot Opus in 19 days. And so I'm now at the point of planning where all of your financial issues They're put on your plate as a director and they're like cool you need to go figure this out So I'm looking at the schedule that it's looking like we're going to land on in the lack of money that we have And this interview with Matt Damon goes viral where he talks about John just showing up and deciding that The character was Russian and so they had to go back and change but Teddy KGB was just like Theodore from like you know wherever yeah Bensonhurst yeah yeah and he showed up and my mommy and does the whole thing and I'm like he can't do that with 19 Days like I'll never we will it'll just we won't finish this movie and I love to plan and I love to rehearse and I and I think that it gives everyone, all artists involved in a film, the freedom to try something when everything else is where it's supposed to be.

1:35:47So I call his agent, I puff my chest out and I'm like, yo, I need to see John right now. I'm gonna come see him this week. Tell me where he is, but I'm on my way to see him. If he's shooting, you know, he's gotta make time. We gotta go to dinner, but I gotta see him this week, right? Hang up. So his agent, who I love, shout out to Brent. He calls me back and he's like, so John's in Riga, Latvia. and he says, sure, you can come, but, you know, let me know if you want this to be an email. And so chest already puffed, can't unpuff it. So I'm like, no, no, no, tell him I'm on my way to Riga. Hang up.

1:36:22I Google Riga, Latvia. Had never heard of it. Not quite fabulous either. You know what I'm saying? No, no. And at this time, I don't know, you know, but the war with Russia and the Ukraine is like, it's like two months in and it is extremely dangerous. A little geographical fact for the folks at home. Russia used to own the Ukraine. I mean, used to own Latvia. And Riga is kind of a sensitive spot between the two. So when I go, I go to London first because there was an actor for a different role that I wanted to see in a play. And my flight from London to Riga, I was the only person on the plane.

1:37:06I had never experienced that before Like I got on They closed the door behind me It's like Jesus Christ This was just a commercial flight This was just a commercial flight Yeah Yeah But no one's going to the war zone And so I got off the plane There was a building That looked like It was from the last war And they hadn't cleaned up yet Like it just It was like Blown up And they just left it My hotel was$115 a night It's the nicest hotel in Riga And so cool, you know, let's do it And everyone's staring at me So I go and I go to meet John for dinner And I see him at the restaurant And he's wearing an eye patch I don't know if y 'all have seen John in my film But he does not have an eye patch Spoiler alert And so I sit down with him And he's like, hey I'm like, hey, what's up with the eye patch?

1:38:02and he's like, oh, you know, I had emergency surgery on my left eye and they say it's 50-50 if I get my vision back. And my right eye only has 20 % of the vision. Never been a good math student, but I'm like, okay, so you have 10 % of your total vision right now. And he's in Latvia directing a play and doesn't speak Latvian. I swear I'm not making any of this up. And in fact, I'll give y 'all a photo to put up. And so then he looks at me and he says, why the fuck are you here? And you know, he says it and it's Malkovalian, you know what I'm saying? And he's, whatever, however you do it. Malkovichian?

1:38:45Yeah, Malkovichian. And so I'm like, I need you to see how serious I am and to know you're not going to fuck up my movie. And silent. And he starts dying laughing. He orders a bottle of wine. He didn't know I didn't drink at the time. so he didn't share the bottle. And we stayed up that whole night. The restaurant was really kind and let us just sit there. And we basically talked until the sun came up about everything. He's from the Midwest, loves basketball. I grew up playing ball, but also talked about the character, why this movie was important to me, what I expected from him, that I expected him to bring it every day.

1:39:26And then I went to rehearsal with him the next day to see him direct these people in a language he doesn't speak with 10 % of his vision. And dare I say, he was making choices and demanding things, and I think the play was getting better. So, you know, John Malkovich, and we had dinner that night, and ever since that moment, he brought an intensity to... set to rehearsal. He was the best creative partner that I could have had on this. I think Moretti could have been very silly. Maybe even stupid. Yes. If not executed correctly, maybe. It's a really tough, and one of the mantras that I had on set with everyone is that this film is not camp.

1:40:19Now, if you watch this film and you're like, this was campy to me, that's totally fine. Again, I'm not going to tell you how to opus, but I think if you start out that way, you could never get to someplace believable. If you set out that like, we have no intention on this feeling real or possible. And again, I watch him in this film, he is so fucking good and fearless and weird and interesting and he's falling on the floor. And the man's 70. He's 70 when we shot. He's 71 now. It's a very physical performance from him. Very physical. And he, you know, he would, he would, he would stretch constant.

1:41:04Like he, he had to physically get it up for this to get there. But after that day in Riga, that wonderful night in Riga, shout out to Latvia. We opened in Latvia today, by the way. Really? Yeah, shout out to all the Latvians. Are there a lot of, is there a strong theater going, movie theater going culture there? I have no idea. Do we have Latvian listeners out there? Yeah, shout out to all the big pick, the Latvian. Yeah, and probably all like CR guys, you know, just a lot of CR heads. I think especially on that block. Yeah. Yeah, that's his energy. That's where they're really, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:41:40But yeah, man, it was working with him, again, one of the biggest honors of mine, 37 years so far. So you and I went out a few years ago. It might have been pre-pandemic, I can't remember. And you were wearing an Ichi the Killer t-shirt. Yeah. And I was like, what the fuck? Yeah. And I knew you liked movies and you'd been listening to the show. You sent me nice notes about the show. We talked movies. I'm sure 15 years ago we were talking about movies. But I was like, I didn't know you were about that. Yeah. And I clocked that and put it in the back of my head. And then I saw the movie and I was like, oh!

1:42:13Yeah, Takashi Miike is like an all-timer. Obviously a huge thing for you. And I think if you bring that, maybe if you just carry that knowledge to going to see the movie, I actually think it opens the movie up in some ways. Yes, especially tonally. and the pacing. But there's kind of like a sick sense of humor and also something very upsetting at its core. Which, you know, as you know, knowing me, is also a thing that I really like and appreciate. But I was thinking about kind of like what were your, did you have hallmarks? Did you have movies that you looked at or tried not to look at so you didn't rip them off or things that...

1:42:45The audition was a big one for me. And that's the only like true homage in the film. Yeah. There's a very clear one. There's a clear one. Yeah. And, But I love him. But the pacing in general, if I can say, I set out to make a challenging film. One of the reasons I'm so excited to be here, in addition to loving you and listening to the pod every episode, is I think that the pacing, the format, spoiler alert, no one dies in the first five minutes of this movie. And I'm so deeply proud of that. I'm so deeply proud of the fact that we made a horror film that lets you live with your main character.

1:43:31I'm so deeply proud of the fact that that main character is a black woman and that you see her at home. You see her at work. You see her on a date with Young Mazzino in one of the cutest scenes of the year. You get to live with her. And another thing that Japanese horror films do that I'm deeply inspired by, when they do the gory thing, they go all the way. And so, and that's just kind of, I think it's a sensibility that I share with them. Like, if you're going to do it, go all the way. And that felt like, to get this message across, like a really both challenging, because it's not your traditional paced horror film, but like challenging in a rewarding way.

1:44:19and I was deeply inspired by that. So, you know, Train of Busan, there's just a lot of those films I think I constantly reference. Watch with my DP, Tommy Maddox Upshaw. And then there were films that like, you know, I don't want to give too much away, but in the folk horror genre, you have the classics, The Wicker Mans. I put Midsommar up there as a classic, a modern classic. And there were things that they did that we just didn't do because they did it. I, you know, they go off into a remote place and they take their cell phones. And outside of that, you know, to me, it's like, cool. you know like those devices that are fun and you got to get rid of the phones uh so you know yeah I don't want to give away too much in that regard but I think knowing what not to do we did that a lot with the character you know like if Prince was known for something or like I took wigs off the table because of David Bowie I didn't want people to think oh he's David Bowie um I was trying to write down I wrote down Prince Bowie's sliced stone because of the kind of reclusive nature.

1:45:44Alice Cooper was a big and I liked his theatrics a lot. Makes a lot of sense. Yeah, but also Nile Rodgers worked with Bowie. He made Let's Dance with Bowie and a bunch of other great records. Nile Rodgers and The Dream write the original songs. I've said it on this show a couple times that original songs for a fake pop star in a movie is like a recipe for disaster. Almost never goes well. Yeah Their songs are extremely credible Yeah Thank you In this movie Obviously you've got great Great writers and producers doing it But how did you get them to do that? I asked them really nicely Okay Now here's the thing Everybody that made this movie is underpaid But nobody's more underpaid Compared to what they get paid To do the thing that they do Than Nile and Dream There was a point in time Where they were working with Beyonce And working with me And then back to Beyonce And then back to me Right?

1:46:39True story And they had just one Cuff It had come out The last hit that they wrote for her And so they were working on Cowboy Carter at the time And I had I don't think we paid Dream and Niall Enough to cover their travel Like the way that they normally travel That's how little we had In the budget to pay them So You knew them? I had met Dream a few times Yeah, I profiled him in Vibe Magazine in 2007. For real, that's that Sean S. Fennessey. Let's go, baby. I love Dream. Yeah, yeah. And no, but like, that's the thing that I think is a misconception about a lot of, you don't get to be that successful and that good if you're not still an artist at heart.

1:47:29So they read the script. Then they sat down with me. And I'm like, this is the thing I really want to do. And I believe in this. And I think John can pull this off. And I think that y 'all are the people to do it. And then to their credit, not only are you trying to do a very difficult thing, like you said, and you're doing it for, you're basically working for free. But then you got to let me be demanding and choosy because it has to hit a certain standard. And not only does it have to hit a standard, but it has to fit in this movie. It can't just be a one-off. Like it can't be its own thing. It can't just be a good record.

1:48:07It has to be a good record that services the story. And so they allowed me to be that, to direct them, to work with them, to collaborate with them. And the songs are fucking incredible. I think that you have to be very self-possessed to be a filmmaker. I've interviewed a lot of filmmakers over the years. And I've known you since you were young. Yes. And so I don't really know how you learned how to like fly to Latvia and tell John Malikovic, like, I need you to fucking focus or told Nile Rodgers, like, this song needs to work better for my movie. That is something that people struggle with, artists.

1:48:47And when they do do it, sometimes it comes across as like insecure and overbearing. So, like, how do you figure out how to do this? This is your first movie. You made short. You've been working towards this for a very long period of time. But I think actually doing that thing that you're describing, sticking to your guns, being a guy in his mid-30s, talking to people in their 70s who are legends and telling them, I need this to be what I want it to be. How did you do that? I don't know. I mean, I don't know that I can look at. I can't step out and look at myself. Well, this is what being interviewed is all about.

1:49:21I know. But I could talk to you about them. I don't know that I—I don't know. I really don't know. I think I just believe in this movie this is my favorite thing it just is I I'm so deeply proud of this film I think it's so fun so weird it says something it's just so not about me so I don't I can't wait to get on that plane to talk to whoever about it you know when you were on set for the first time or for any time really during the set what was the number one thing that you were like shit I didn't know it was like this I didn't know it was like this. What is the sort of, I don't know who Bruce Springsteen is of film directing for you?

1:50:02Of film directing? You know, I didn't know that it, I didn't know that it was so controllable. If you want your set to run like a Parisian atelier, like, sorry, this is some fashion shit, but like you go to like an atelier where they're making very expensive clothes, it's silent. like in Phantom Threat right it's like you can hear a pin drop there's one voice at a time and if you want your set to run like that it can run like that if you want people to be miserable then it can also run like that you want it to feel like there's always like a boot on everybody's neck and it's chaotic whatever it can feel like that and I was surprised by how the tone the vibe was really a reflection of, you know, me, my DP, my production designer, Robert Pazoka, who's incredible.

1:51:01Like, the department hit. Like, if we showed up and we had a great attitude, then everybody had a good time and I believe the work was better. And that also came from the actors. You know, Ayo, John, Juliette Lewis, Murray Bartlett, Tony Hale. You know, none of these people brought an ego into this. and you know Stephanie Suganami who this is really her first film but like you know Stephanie she's got more followers quote unquote than anybody in this movie she could have come with a certain type of ego with all the prosthetics she you know she couldn't see for two days and never complained you know I had to go and check just and I think that we all kind of agreed one we don't have time or money to have an ego but But it felt so good making this movie.

1:51:56And I think I thought I was going to feel tortured during that part of the process. I've seen the film compared to this wave of eat the rich movies, for lack of a better word. Like Blink Twice or The Menu popped up a bit. Yeah. And I see the movie a little differently than that. And I don't want you to have to feel like you have to give it away. but when I saw it I was like I think I wrote I was very impressed and I felt a little indicted yeah and I think that's because the movie has a strong point of view on not just that tribalism that you're talking about but on for lack of a better word the media apparatus that attaches itself to fame and power and kind of like very as gently as it can siphons energy off of it yeah to create their own little version of success yeah This is a very small but complex and powerful idea that I relate to and understand.

1:52:57Yes. And I try to have some critical distance from myself, having worked in magazines, interviewing filmmakers. I do think it's a little bit of like a pipe bomb to put in front of the people who do this for a living. Yeah. And I'm curious how conscious you were of that choice. And even if I'm reading the movie correctly or if that's an incidental turn. Again, you got to opus how you opus. And I'm just grateful that there has been such a strong reaction. I set out to make a challenging film. One thing I did not set out to do, nor does Mark Anthony the Human believe, is that journalists are bad.

1:53:38That critics are bad. that media is backwards or anything like that so that's not how I read it that's damn sure not how it was written or the intention and I feel like you know with you on here I want to be honest about like it it bummed me out for like a week that it got mixed reviews yeah and that some people not every critic But some felt like they were being attacked or challenged. Challenged, yes. But like they felt like they were being attacked by me. And that bummed me out. But... Ironic, having been a journalist. Well, because I think, to me, what I think it points out is how incredibly difficult that job is.

1:54:34Yeah. To me, what it points out is a lot of the backwards thoughts that I had when I was 22 and ambitious and thought that I had it all figured out. If you are a critic that watched Opus and you didn't like it, I have no hard feelings. I've done some interviews and it's like, fuck the critics. And I'm like, I don't subscribe to that. Like if you didn't like it I again No hard feelings I hope I get you on the next one I hope you like the next one Right But I think that the indictment is something we're all a little guilty of. And I set out to make a film that challenged us all and myself at the top of that list.

1:55:30And so I feel so deeply proud and accomplished in that challenge. And I invite you to go to a theater, have an amazing time, see John Malkovich dance and flail around, see Iowa Debris give a fucking incredible performance. listen to some incredible songs do the thing that we all are listening to this pod because we love to do which is to watch movies and if you feel challenged in that my hope is that it makes you ask questions and as an artist I don't pretend or posture to have the answers and I can't think of a more rewarding cinematic experience than going to a theater and feeling challenged that's my favorite thing that's what makes me want to make movies that makes me love movies.

1:56:20It's not when you say the thing that I agree with. It's when I feel challenged. And I think the reason that tribalism, which has gone well past entertainment, as we all know, I feel like it has created this division to where there is no nuance and there is no conversation and there is no, So, you know, it's all my guy's bigger than your guy. And if you rock with my guy, you can do no wrong. And if you don't, then it's fuck you and you can't do anything right. Every sports. Yeah. And I just don't see the world that way. Yeah. And so this film is the most, there's so much honey with the medicine, but it's the most fun interrogation of that.

1:57:07And so I invite y 'all to see that. And again, I come in peace. I am at the very beginning of this show, the pod. James Gray was on probably within the first year. We'd never met before. Gotten to know him a little bit since then. He's been on the show multiple times. You know, I've listened to every episode of this podcast. You told me. I know. It's like a little daunting. No, no, no, no. You're very nice. And to the progression of like figuring the format out pre-Amanda. You know what I mean? Yeah, a lot has happened. Yes. It's gotten a lot worse, right? It's really sick. No, I mean, you're just in your peak.

1:57:42That's not... This is the prime. I'm personally not, but maybe the show is. But anyway, I bring that up because I was talking to James on the show. It was going really well. It's like, he's from the same part of Queens that my family's from. Same thing as when we're talking now. I'm just like, I know this guy. You know, you're just like, you're talking to somebody and you're just like, I know this guy. I know you've had this a million times with interviewing people over the years. And I asked him near the end of the conversation, I was like, you know, you've made a lot of great movies but you've kind of like taken some hits from critics over the years too.

1:58:11And you're like, beloved in France but not as much in the United States. Yeah. And I was like, what is that like to read someone right so specifically and so lethally about something that you poured your heart into? And he was just like, it hurts so much. Yeah. And not a lot of people had said that to me before. And then after I asked him that question, I asked a lot of directors that. And for like years, I would ask that question. Yeah. Because there's like a real vulnerability to it, especially a lot of people who write movies, you know, not if you're making like Jurassic World Rebirth, right?

1:58:44if you're like, I'm a writer-director. And I think that there is a misconception. Again, if you didn't, like, whatever. But there is a misconception that Opus was made. I've heard that Opus was made in a different way. Like, that it wasn't a first-time filmmaker that gave everything that he had, or she had, or they had, to make this thing happen. that we didn't shoot in the 19 days, that there was one report that said our budget was four times what the budget actually was. And I say, yes, any negative review, letterbox, whatever, it hurts. But I also feel like in my rookie season, I'm being held to a standard that I'm okay that I'm like, don't lower it.

1:59:45I'm okay with that. Yeah, it's a good attitude. It's genuinely how I feel. I also think this movie absolutely slaps. And I think that when you watch this film, you will be like, wow, that was fun. And yes, John is incredible. Io is incredible. You know, whatever. I think that there's so much good and so proud of this film. So there isn't like a, I'm just excited that people are finally getting to see it. And I want to know what everyone thinks. I think that it's a little, you know, the thing that they teach you, that people who love me have said before and during this process, is do not read the reviews.

2:00:35but the film there's like an Emperor's New Clothes parable inside of Obis and it feels somewhat hypocritical for me to section myself off and to not read reviews because some of them are mixed I think like you know he's a great example of a director that I think takes big swings and it makes interesting things. And this is what I think we're here for. We love original films and we love when people take swings and, you know, when things are a little messy and challenging and, and I love this film. And so I'm not, I mean, like I said, I was bummed for about a week, truly bummed, but I was like, cool, you know?

2:01:32And I think every director you make, you really make the movie for yourself. I made this film for that kid that watched The Fifth Element. That's like, I didn't know you could put a blue alien on stage singing opera slash hip hop and then have somebody pull stones out of her that saved the world. I didn't know you could do that. And to that little kid, he is having the time of his life. Do you... I always ask directors, like, what are you going to do next? Yeah. After their movie comes out. And there's, like, a lot of ways this can go. Yeah. And you and I have not really talked about it. We had, like, a three-minute conversation about it.

2:02:15Yeah. At a birthday party. At a child's birthday party. Yeah, shout out to my man, Knott. Okay? He is everything good in this world. And I believe in him. He's the reason. We go. We do it. Yeah, I promised myself This was like I don't know, maybe October September, October of last year I Have never When I made my short eight years ago I knew that this is what I wanted to dedicate Myself to Nothing had kind of checked every box And scratched every itch for me And I made this short I went into debt making the short and never had more fun in my life and never felt more satisfied. So I'm like, okay, cool.

2:03:05You found the thing. Now you got to just figure out how to do it and how to do it enough to get good at it. And then, you know, hopefully you'll be great at it one day. And so I promised myself that I would make something immediately after so that I was like working during this part of the process. So I'm making this film. It's about a man who's haunted by ducks. And it's a dark comedy. And I'm deeply, deeply excited and proud of it. And it's going to be really, really fun. So I've been working on that and assembling the team. And yeah, it's totally different than Opus and a very different tonally.

2:03:58it's a yeah it's just a different thing and says a different thing and a new challenge but yeah let me ask you one last question about that of course so Opus the trajectory of that movie is like over six years yes six years very long development where it was where it ended up all that stuff takes a long period of time through some of that time you were working at GQ at a certain point most of it at a certain point you stopped to make the movie but now you don't have the like life raft of your former career. Yeah, I don't. You're like in the new era of your professional life. Yeah. And, you know, Brady Corbett talked about this on this podcast that like directing movies is not necessarily if you're doing what you want to do the most profitable enterprise.

2:04:46A lot of directors, especially independent filmmakers, well, Sean Baker has obviously been talking about this quite a bit recently. It's not easy. Yeah. If you're a stick to your guns kind of person with a strong vision and wanting to do things with some level of control. So, like, how do you make money? How do you pay your rent? There's two things. One, again, this is my rookie year. So when I drive to the paint and I get fouled, I can't bitch about that. When Sean Baker, who's been making interesting, wonderful, like, films that really get under your skin for 20 years, he's allowed to stand on a stage and to say, I should make more money.

2:05:32And by God, Sean Baker should make more money. We should figure it out. There should be some type of governmental grant, some type of subsidy, whatever. Nations have this. Yes, they do. It sounds crazy, but they literally do. And you're like, you add value to the world and we are going to have one less tank and Sean Baker's going to get to make five more movies or live in a comfortable house. Like whatever you want to do with it. And so I don't think it's like, it's just not my place to be up here and to be like, I'm complaining about how much money I'm not making or whatever. That's not what I mean.

2:06:06Yeah, I know. I'm not trying to set you up for that. I know how it, no, no, no, no. I know ain't nobody, brother. You would never. I wouldn't. So I'm saying the next thing I'm saying, I don't want it to sound like a complaint because I genuinely do not have that. I think what as a director, you know, what did Hawthorne say? You know, family's always rising and falling. I feel like there was a point in time, you know, when like the American Zoetrope cats, like they weren't making money at first. And before that, directors really didn't make money. And then it went crazy. and you're getting paid millions and millions of dollars and the box office is a global massive thing that we track and now it feels like that's less of the thing.

2:07:07It's like if you made jazz before the boom, jazz during the boom, and then jazz after. I say this, I'm a jazz musician. I am a filmmaker. if being a filmmaker means that I will make very little money and I'll have to you know figure out how to buy the clothes I want I've done that before I knew that was the first thing you were going to bring you see what I'm saying like but you know how to hustle I'm just saying if I got to figure it out if I'm on eBay to get the sweater that I want two years later because that's really the sweater that I want and I don't have that I'm not it is not like some financial thing again I think that is the person that I knew in 2010 that's the same in 2010 I was like how is this broke kid so well dressed this is insane to me you figure out your angles and you don't accept the life you don't want and all that I'm saying it's just this is the greatest gift that I've that like I found a thing that makes me feel this good and so I don't know if you're a young filmmaker I think I'm in no position to give you advice the thing that I will say that I would just keep in mind is every day that I went to set, every day I went to the edit, every time I got a note from the studio, every time I read a review, be it good, be it bad, be it mixed, every time I got to sit down and talk to somebody like yourself who I genuinely respect.

2:08:34Throughout every day of this process, there is a base level of happiness that I have because this is what the fuck I want to do. If that means that I don't make as much money as whoever who was making movies in the 90s cool man you know that's a bummer I love money that'd be sick but like Oz Perkins said a similar thing when he was here he was like I do do this to make some money yeah I need to you also don't want other people to make money on the thing and you not make money that's a whole other and that's not what I'm talking about that is gonna happen but I'm saying like rookie season you know keep in mind why you would want the money is to make you happy.

2:09:17And I sit here with this film out now and I've never been happier. So, you know. Mark Anthony Green, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen. Yes. I wanted to say an honest answer. I obviously was thinking about that on the way here and then I was like, do I say something else? You try to flex on me? Not flex, but I was like, oh, because the thing isn't out yet. But it is the answer, and it should be out soon. A very talented director, homie of mine, her name is India Slim, and she made this short, it's a coming-of-age short called Crust, and the BBC produced it, and it is so deeply beautiful and moving.

2:10:13I don't know when it's out, but I just saw, it's the last thing that I saw, and it really, really moved me. And she's so talented, and I love short films, and I just— Have you spoken with Amanda about that? About short films and her relationship to them? She hates short films or something? Yeah, yeah. She thinks they shouldn't be on the Oscars. Well, I'll say this as Sergeant of Arms of the Dob Mob. Like, I'm not going to go against my OG. So, you know, I can't do that, especially not here, you know. But yeah, it's beautiful, crust, and I'm excited for that to find its place in the world and for y 'all to see her first kind of like narrative thing.

2:11:02Thanks for being here. Man, this was such an honor to me, you know. We did have a conversation about what this would be like Like seven years ago Would it be weird? No I wasn't worried about that I was just like I can't wait to see the movie I think I said that to you probably ten times And you held it for me for a long time I did I needed it to be right And to just have it done And also the thing that I'll say is like It takes There was no part of this process that wasn't like physically carrying a thing over a line. That was surprising to me. That it never like went into like autopilot, but that you are at every step, every filmmaker, unless you are again making like some massive thing that has hundreds of millions of dollars to throw out a problem and all the things.

2:11:52You were just like, cool, we have to physically carry this thing over the line. And I love that, but I couldn't have you see it until she was ready. And now all of y 'all get to see it because she's ready. I can't wait to see it again. Congratulations. Thank you, brother.

2:12:16Thank you to Mark Anthony Green. Thank you to CR and Amanda. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. Thanks to Jack Sanders for his work as well. Thanks to Christopher Nolan. Thanks to the Odyssey-R for yet another vigilant update. It really is funny that on IMDb, the writers are listed as Homer and Christopher Nolan. I hope that that, I hope those are the credits. Story by Homer and. I just hope Homer's relatives are getting residuals. I hope there is like a guy like working at a, in a, like a market in Athens. He's like, I'm going to go to WGA arbitration. Because my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather wrote this.

2:12:53Could be the first shot in the Oscar campaign against the Odyssey. Which is no doubt coming. later this week as I mentioned 25 for 25 begins I wish you guys the best on this project I can't wait to listen thanks so much Chris we'll see you then