‘The Mandalorian and Grogu’ Is the End of 'Star Wars' As We Know It. Plus: The Winners and Losers at Cannes.

21:25Sean Fennessey:And it 100 % is a big deal. And not surprising and probably very smart for Netflix to pick it up, being the worldwide distributor that it is so that the people around the world can enjoy the film. The thing about it is, it is so different from every other movie they played at the festival, which was a fairly restrained series of chamber pieces. And one of the reasons why it popped so much for me was because it was a breath of fresh air. It was a big sweeping war film. And so, you know, I wrote in the newsletter that it reminded me of Atonement, you know, that it had that kind of like the character drama, but then against this huge canvas of battle and history and struggle.

22:03And that's a timeless thing in the Oscar race. I'm excited.

22:08Sean Fennessey:It'll be interesting to talk about as we go along. Fatherland is the opposite. Fatherland is a post-war film. It is a very restrained, very meditative work about what's in our past and what's unspoken. And also a very beautiful movie in a lot of ways. But literally almost the emotional opposite of what Lobola Negra is doing. So it's funny to pair them up. Well, I mean, it's a showy filmmaking in its own way. It is. In terms of it is incredibly beautifully photographed as like the Pavel Pavlikowski trilogy at this point. like all are. And for all its moments of restraint, it has several very memorable or, you know, funny or the ending is like very beautiful.

22:48So it is, even though we kind of were like, okay, this is a more minor work from Pawlikowski, it's really, it's showing off in a lot of different ways, just different ways.

22:59Sean Fennessey:So let's talk about some winners and some losers from the festival writ large. Neon, clearly the biggest winner of the festival. Their streak of seven consecutive Palme d 'Or winners is intact. Yeah. And I doubted them. And we can talk about that momentarily. I doubted that they were going to have the one. And I thought that that instinct to spread the wealth would have extended to Minotaur. But they got it again. Yeah. Renata Rines for the star of Fjord. And now the new Queen of Cannes. I mean, she really is at the center of so many films that have premiered there over the last five or six years.

23:33Sean Fennessey:We just saw her this morning in back rooms. and kind of amazing the way that her star has risen in a very short period of time as a non-native English speaker and someone who's kind of bouncing between countries in terms of her productions and primarily working with auteurs on like honestly more challenging material. Sure. But doing it right. I really appreciate what she's doing. But, you know, she's also, she's been lingering like she was in Presumed Innocent. That's true. I forgot about that. She's once worst person in the world, which was also a canned film happened she kind of very quickly became everyone's like oh i'm interested i want to know more about her she also just has a huge fashion following already so it kind of seems did you see that she recreated the famous justine trier smoking holding the palm door several people were doing that over the course did you do it no i didn't because i held a palm door no because that's the only reason that i haven't i didn't get to do it this can i wasn't there for the actual handing of the palm door um but yeah she's kind of entering meme, you know, or not, internet girlfriend territory is the way to do it in addition to She's been in that position for some time for me.

24:42International cinema.

24:43Sean Fennessey:Very big fan of hers. Yeah. So happy to see that. Her performance in Fjord also is very different, I think, from what you, from the girl from The Worst Person in the World. Yes. It's a very different character and she transforms pretty ably. Jordan Firstman, clearly one of the big winners of the festival. Absolutely. His movie was acquired for$17 million, Club Kid, and I think to most Most of the most, not even most of the North American critics, most of the critics I met during the entire 10 days at Cannes were like, that's my favorite movie there. People have been asking me what was the best thing you saw?

25:12And I said, Club Kid. And you will hear a lot about it in the next six months and you'll enjoy it.

25:18Sean Fennessey:I agree. So great for him. And then Los Javis, like I mentioned, Javier Ambrosia and Javier Calvo, who are these incredibly beautiful and charismatic men who directed La Bola Negra, who, you know, are celebrities in their own right and have worked primarily in TV, have made a couple of films as well, and were judges on Spanish drag race. And I believe also international drag race. Okay. I think they at least appear at some point. I think so. Forgive me if I'm wrong. But brace yourself for nine months of them as well. Also interesting for Los Javis, who were romantically paired for many years, including, I think, during at least part of the making of the Bola Negra.

25:59And then they have since split up, but then they won Best Director together and now they're on a rocket ship for the next nine months.

26:05Sean Fennessey:Should be interesting. Listen, it's going to be great content and I'm happy for them. Everyone always says, work with your ex. That's something you hear all the time. Everyone also says, work with your ex in front of cameras yourself because what's it, you know. And promote stories about the complicated, fractious relationships between people at times of great struggle. Yeah. Okay, losers. Yeah. So we both lost. Yeah. Here's the way you lost. you missed five of the seven main competition winners. Main competition, yes. But I did see the winner of the Queer Palm. You did. Teenage Sex and Death at Camp My Asbestos.

26:39So I missed that one. That's one for me. I'm seeing it next week.

26:42Sean Fennessey:So it's going to be okay. We both missed the Uncertain Regard winner, even though I had tickets for it because it was about a family going to Tenerife. Is it La Benayema? Every time. No, that's Uncertain Regard. Oh, La Gradiva. No. No. So I think Uncertain Regard is every time. Sandra Wollner. Oh, the Sandra Wollner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is the thing that you learn when you go to camp. Yeah. You think it's really important to see every competition title. Yeah, it's not. Or like I thought it was. And then through the first three days, you're like, why did I skip all of these films in Director's Fortnite and in Uncertain Regard?

27:20Sean Fennessey:Those are the movies. This year, at least, there were more good movies in those categories than there were in competition. and I'm glad I saw the competition movies that I did but I'm regretful about missing a bunch of stuff right I mean the reason why is because we were terrified of having that missing Anora moment you know like in any way where it was there and you just didn't go see it and then it wins the palm you feel like an idiot which I definitely would have felt like you can't imagine how happy I was when I checked my phone at dinner Saturday night and I was like oh my god I made it you can't imagine what an idiot I felt like when I saw that Fjord won.

27:55Yeah, because the other loser is you who on this podcast, and I told you in real time, as you were picking Minotaur, I was like, don't do this. You are F1ing it. And you F1ed it. I did. I mean, it's okay. How can we correct this in the future? Like, what is... Do I just say F1 to you?

28:13Sean Fennessey:This is just a true thing about me. I am so smart and so stupid. Yes. And I think it is part of my appeal as a human. sometimes you'll be talking to me and I think people will be like wow that guy he's really got some ideas and then other times you'll be like people are talking to me and they're like why is this guy fucking such a moron and there is something kind of charming about that and this is a case where I was like in my bones before the festival I was like this is right and then after we saw the movie I was like this is it this is this is exactly what and we had to stop in the middle of the press center so you could get the tweets off um and then yes I did yes you did yeah Yeah, it was in kind of the trade show where they're like, come film in Ireland.

28:53And then the last moment, you got yourself a little bit talked out by other people. I did. I did.

29:00Sean Fennessey:Well, I bought into the narrative of the filmmaker who had not won. And that was wrong. You said your own narrative. You're right. I got to believe in myself more. I got to be comfortable with my own strengths and my own weaknesses. I'm happy for Christian Manju. You know, like, I think people should, I hope people will go back now and look at his movies. Obviously, most people have seen four months, three days. Like that's a legendary film from 2007. But Graduation and Beyond the Hills and RMN, these are really, really, really good movies. And he was on the show in 2022 talking about RMN. So I hope that people will dig into his work ahead of what will probably be like a long run of talking about Fjord.

29:37Sean Fennessey:Lea Seydoux did not win Best Actress. We suggested she might. She had two different movies up. You saw both of them. I saw both of them. And you're a better woman for it. Sorry to her. Now we have some good bits. I do believe that Gentle Monster was also acquired by Netflix. It was. Which makes sense. Hilarious choice. Well, but. Oh, because you said it was trashy. It is trashy. And Netflix, you know, has the whole sideline of like, you know. Right, right. Sorry I killed my boyfriend. You know, Wendy McPhee, her real story. Right. And all these sorts of things. And it is just European that. Whoops, I ate my boyfriend's liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

30:10So it makes a lot. It makes sense. Yeah. And, you know, I'm happy for Lea Seydoux. She put in the work of both films. Oh, no.

30:18Sean Fennessey:I ran over my stepdad with a snowplow. Have you ever watched any of those? No. I haven't either, but many people have. So I guess it makes sense. Okay. Final can note. James Gray. Really brutal. No prizes. Yeah. 0 for 7 in can competition history. Yeah. I don't know. It's really... What are we doing? First of all, we were so excited about it. And everyone was so hot. And we were like, what's going on? and then no prizes. And we're also just like very confused. I don't know why we can't reach a happy middle with James Gray, which is just giving him some awards. Yeah. I mean, they gave a man in his time the screenplay prize.

30:58Sean Fennessey:And I'm like, really? I don't know. I know it's a French film festival, but like... I will say that Le Figaro, the French paper, posted that they were very angry or the headline was they were very angry about the palm pick and that their personal palm pick was James Gray's Paper Tiger. So at least he still has the French. I noticed that he had a very high score in the French grid of critics, which is historically the case. But that festival has not been very good to him. Paper Tiger, very good movie. Look forward to talking about that. So now all of these movies enter the atmosphere where they are all going to be at the festivals over the next few months.

31:35Sean Fennessey:And then most of them will probably have October, November, December, January releases. And also probably 40 % of them will never come to the United States. And the ones that we missed, we may never see. Will people get to see The Unknown? I need them to. Because we got to be able to reference it, you know? I know. I hope so. It's really... I hope so. I need that. I mean, I need the whiteboard to get out there. You know, some people hated it and some people loved it. I've seen some people say, like, it is their favorite film with the festival and a masterpiece. I'm really right in the middle. I think it has, like, a lot of cool ideas and I'm glad I watched it.

32:06Sean Fennessey:But there's some absurdity and dullness to it. But I do think it would be good for the culture of this show to have bits about The Unknown. We need that and we need the whiteboard released. Oh, yeah. Please put the whiteboard in the trailer when you release all of a sudden, which I do also think we could have called Sudan, like we can say. But, you know, that's. Yeah. But I guess it's being translated several times. There are already so many things that are going to alienate normal movie watchers from all of a sudden, you know. That's true. Hey, Ken, we did it. Loved it. You feel good? A plus.

32:36A plus. I thought it was so much fun. You didn't think it was. A plus.

32:40Sean Fennessey:I mean, how many things in my life get an A plus? A plus. Okay, an A. Or A minus if you want. Okay. Because we didn't get to the cap. We did not get to the cap. We did not get to the cap, and I did not go on a yacht. So there's always next year. No regrets about the yacht. Yeah, but I would have liked to go swimming, you know? Going on the yacht is like, that's the first act in a Taken sequel, you know? It's like, I gotta get Amanda back because she's with some Bulgarians who took her to some foreign island. Anyway. So yeah, A minus. But I thought it was a great time. And I also thought it was really lovely to just be in a different part of the world watching very different movies than we normally see.

33:20Obviously, I got a little over-indexed on Europeans and their problems here and then and now. But when I was sitting watching Mandalorian and Grogu, I was like, well, you know, for two weeks I was doing something different.

33:34Sean Fennessey:I had the same exact feelings. I'm glad you put it that way because there is something about being captured by a festival that can be really fun. And when things started to get good, kind of in the middle of the festival there, where we saw three or four films over two or three days, we were like, this is okay. Finally, we've come around on something here. That's a great feeling. So I'm glad we did it too. All right. Well, speaking of Mandalorian Grogu, let's now bring in Van Lathan to talk about that film.

34:02Sean Fennessey:Boom. Van Lathan is here. Hello. What's up, guys? Thank you for being here. You asked on, and I love when you ask on this show, because it's Mandalorian and Grogu time. Now, Amanda and I have seen the film. We took our respective children, who are Star Wars fans, to this movie. I'm going to give some brief details of the movie, and then we're going to dig right into it, because I've got some feelings, and I bet you guys do too. So it is directed by Jon Favreau, who is the, I guess, the official creator of the television series, upon which this is based. It's written by Favreau, Dave Filoni, who is the new overlord of the Star Wars universe, and Noah Klor.

34:36Sean Fennessey:It stars Pedro Pascal, sort of, Jeremy Allen White, and Sigourney Weaver. The story is as follows. The evil empire has fallen, but imperial warlords remain scattered throughout the galaxy. I hate when that happens. As the fledgling New Republic works to protect everything the rebellion fought for, they enlist the help of legendary Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Dijarn and his young apprentice Grogu. Amanda, I'm going to start with you. Oh, yeah. What are your thoughts on The Mandalorian and Grogu? This was incredibly boring for both me and the four-year-old sitting next to me. So, and obviously they are trying to, if not grab everyone, then grab as much money as possible.

35:19And then in the consequence of that was grabbing no one and not as much money as they would like. So I have honestly no judgment on whether it's, quote, good or bad. I knew that I didn't care at all at any point. And I was interested to the extent that my four-year-old, who was vibrating with excitement when I told him we were going to see this movie, and he brought his toy Grogu with him that Sean gave him. And any time that Grogu was on the screen, he was very excited. But the rest of the time, he was just not engaged. And I was a little worried after seeing the footage at CinemaCon that he would be scared because, you know, there was gun violence as opposed to lightsaber violence.

36:02And people like punching each other as opposed to, you know, lightsabers are fun. He's never scared about lightsabers. But I, and then, and then I didn't even know about the monsters, but there are monsters. Couldn't have cared less. Just absolutely went over his head. And his review was there was a lot of fighting, but not in a way that was upsetting to him or that has caused nightmares. so this seemed like a big nothing to me um and because star wars is not as essential to my childhood and is because my child was fine with it i'm not that upset about it but i'm here to support anyone else who has any feelings that they want to go through positive or negative okay

36:46Sean Fennessey:well what were your feelings i told you i haven't listened to your other podcast about this film so we're coming in fresh. Yes. The podcast is The Midnight Boys, by the way. One of the very best podcasts here at the ringer. Thank you. Nice little pew pew there. So look, so there's no way to look at the movie and say that it's like a coherent piece of cinematic art. You can't. Yeah. You guys, it's boring when I talk about this stuff. I'm in the bag for Star Wars. I'm in the bag for it. It is a part of my makeup. My creative and film watching makeup is Star Wars. It helped me form and understand story.

37:24So whenever I'm in the world, I am having a good time. Whenever I'm in the world, I'm having a good time. But you can't cave for the movie and act like the movie takes itself seriously. The movie doesn't take itself seriously. The movie doesn't try to advance the story of Star Wars, the individual character story of Din Djarin or of Grogu in any way. It gives you a slice of their adventure and it hopes that you will be happy with that. Right.

37:53Sean Fennessey:That's a description of what it is. Yeah. Did you like, I mean, I'll share my thoughts at length, I promise. But did you like that? Well, so when you ask me if I like it, the question is going to be, for me, is how could I not? And so that's what I'm trying to say. It's like - But just any Star Wars movie you would enjoy? Just anything that they served to you, you would say, good, I like it. Interesting when you say they served because I think that's the difference between me and a lot of other people. I think they did not serve. No. As I understand. Right. So that's the difference between me and a lot of people.

38:27Like, okay, you can watch boxing and I'm a huge boxing fan. You can watch a bad fight, a cynical fight, a stupid fight, a mismatched fight or whatever. But if you are enough of a boxing fan, then the fact that the fights are on is why you're there. Right. And so, like, for me, that is the thing about Star Wars. So I don't want to come on you guys' this very serious movie podcast. Hey, hey, hey. Listen, and like, and bullshit the audience. The fact of the matter is, I, for the most part, liked The Mandalorian and Grogu. But I know that you won't.

39:00Sean Fennessey:Well, okay. I think I've been trying to sort through my feelings. So this is a defensive pose that you're taking? No, no, no. Not necessarily a defensive pose. It's like, I've accepted something. Yeah. What I've accepted is that it, for some reason, the things that I watched first the things that I watch first have this cynical control over me. People talk about, like, Howard the Duck is one of the worst movies ever made. Not to me. I know what you mean by that. Not to me. The things... Coyote Ugly. Two thumbs up. There's a lot of reasons to love that movie. But what I'm saying is, for me, Star Wars is an experience.

39:41And so being inside of the world, there are varying degrees of disappointment that you can have. but this movie is at least from a story standpoint it's a nothing burger right but it's competently made enough that I enjoyed it and the Star Wars that I've not liked is the Star Wars that actually isn't at all well made that's not well acted that seems a little stale or wooden this movie at points seems like unnecessary and unfocused but I'm never sitting there going I'm watching a scene and not having a good time with that scene so that's kind of the conundrum I'm in when I'm talking about the movie because I had fun watching him fight I had fun watching a brolic hunt with shoulders like I had fun doing it but leaving the movie you didn't really take anything with you which is to me the mark of a good film the mark of a good film is not the experience you even had in the theater so much it's what you take with you when you leave it

40:44Sean Fennessey:You said something interesting that I leapt to when I was writing down some thoughts about the movie over the weekend, which is that this story doesn't really advance anything. It doesn't reveal any additional mythos about Grogu or where he comes from or even Din Djarin or who he is really as a person and why he's a part of the Mandalore way. It doesn't really reveal anything about that religion. A lot of this stuff was in the show, which I know you didn't see. But a lot of the directions that the show sort of pushed some of these characters is not really a part of the movie. And then I stopped myself as I was thinking about these things.

41:22Sean Fennessey:And I tend to go down these rabbit holes and I'm thinking about like, why was this movie valuable or not valuable? How did it get us closer to where we're supposed to be going with the story? And I was like, well, that's not the only thing that matters to a movie. It's not just pushing the mythology forward. But it is about how connected you are to characters and what their actions reveal about their humanity or their alien-ness in this case. And this movie doesn't have anything like that. It is just a series of adventures and, in fact, just feels like four distinct episodes of the TV show. And I know many people have said that, but it is what it feels like.

41:58Sean Fennessey:It feels like there are act breaks throughout the movie. and so if you just receive it in the way that you're describing which is like i'm going to turn my brain off to go spend time in the world to go chill in this place with these with with these people and to watch this kind of level of craftsmanship then it's fine it's like perfectly okay i didn't think it was above average i didn't think it was below average i thought it was average you use the word nothing i agree there's a kind of nothingness to the entire thing because it doesn't even really change anything about the mandalorian or grogu like if this movie never happened you could just pick up the next season and we would not really have like felt a dramatic change aside from the fact that you know one of the characters is his life is threatened severely but like maybe that won't ever come up again we don't even really know there's only one part of it that i think is useful and was emotionally resonant in a real way which is and this is this is a legit gauge on how much you care about these characters and your connection to the lore Grogu will live to be 800 years old.

43:01His father will die. His father, he will outlive his father, not like we will outlive our fathers, but he'll outlive his father by hundreds and hundreds of years. By his father, you mean Din? Din is his dad, basically, right now. No, I mean, I saw the movie. Parents come in many forms, right? Okay, well, like we honor the caregivers. His found father. So that's fine. I just wanted to make sure I knew I was talking. There wasn't like another baby Yoda somewhere. Yeah, how do yodas, which is what we've named the species in my home just to keep kids to bring you in. Yeah. How are yodas born?

43:35Sean Fennessey:I mean, we don't know anything about them. Stop it. Don't make that face at me. Okay. Sorry for asking questions. No, it's a fair question, but we don't know anything about them. Like whale fall face. Okay. And it's just, I'm just asking. We only know about three of these creatures. We don't really know the name, all of this stuff. This raises a point, which is like in this movie, I'm not sure that I thought I was going to learn about what's truly in the heart of Grogu when they showed a movie. But I thought I would learn a little something else about this world in some ways. And shit, I love an adventure movie.

44:06Sean Fennessey:I'm not against an adventure movie, but we don't learn anything. You don't, but what I was saying was that there's a whole portion of this movie where Din is incapacitated, and then Grogu gets a little solo journey. and we get to see Grogu slightly in a little way grow up. Like live in a world where his dad is not there, where he has to save Din, where he has to use his own resourcefulness, where he, and that to me, obviously because Grogu was so cute and also because you know that eventually these characters are going to say goodbye to each other. There's a final goodbye coming and that goodbye is going to be like heart-wrenching and who knows like when that's going to happen.

44:47That to me was important for that character, but also for the audience. That was priming the audience for a version of Grogu in the future where Din is not around. I mean, yes, but you have to bring all of that information to the movie. The film itself is not telling you, giving you any of that, either textually, explaining, you know, where Grogu came from or how Yodos are born, but also emotionally. Even in the moments where he's like taking care of what's Din? Din. Din, that's what we're calling him?

45:20Sean Fennessey:We can call him Mando. Okay. Yeah, well, I noticed that he is a Mandalorian, but they call him Mando. That seems confusing. Anyway, when he's burying him effectively or creating shelter for him, there's also a joke embedded in that of he doesn't make it quite large enough. And so it's going back and forth, which undercuts the seriousness of this situation. Yeah, to Amanda's point about taking your children to the movie and who the movie is for, there's a lot of confusing messages being sent. Because that segment in particular, I think, really shows off the kind of puppetry and animatronics that this franchise is very acclaimed for.

46:01Sean Fennessey:Yeah, he's really cute. And a lot of that stuff is done by hand. And in fact, the sort of deus ex machina, like alligator swamp lord who creates some sort of healing medication for the Mandalorian, that when he hands him that paste in the little green leaf, that's real. That's puppetry, right? And so there's something like kind of nice and nostalgic about watching a sequence that is made by hand in this movie that is full of all of this digital effects. and that stuff feels like it is, even though it's potentially about death, like marketed to kids. It's like a sweet, cute Grogu sequence where he is getting some agency and has to figure out how to grow up.

46:40Sean Fennessey:And then there are whole other chunks of the movie that are full of blaster battles and explosions and really high-toned action and crazy monster effects work that is extremely violent and my daughter thought scary and my daughter doesn't really get scared of stuff and thought it was very intense. And so I couldn't really figure out was I think back on the movie, like it seemed like it was marketed to like five to nine year olds, but it was made for like 25 to 45 year olds. But then it also doesn't gratify the 45 year olds who are like, I need my Star Wars to have a certain kind of a feeling. And then you look at the movie in full and you're like, what was this?

47:20Sean Fennessey:Like, who is this designed? It's not who was it made for, but it's like, what was it meant to be designed as? because Star Wars is obviously the biggest tent possible, right? It's the biggest franchise that we've ever had. And I'm a little confused about how a movie full of puppets and cute little guys, but is also overflowing with guns, gangsters, monster showdowns, old school puppetry, but modern VFX shot on the volume. Martin Scorsese voice work. Yes. Oh, yeah. Which I was like, okay. I mean, I guess this is for me and I'm here in the theater, but I was like, what? I thought about trying to explain this to my date.

47:57And then I was like, I don't really know how to even communicate what's going on here.

48:01Sean Fennessey:This is an octogenarian Italian-American filmmaker who is providing this voice. This is funny because, you know, he made an enemy of Van Lathan when he talked about these films becoming theme park rides. Tough, Marty. So, you know what is the most interesting thing about this question? This is a question that Star Wars can't answer. this for kids, for adults thing, whatever it can't answer. But it's also a question that wasn't being asked when Star Wars was created, which is a reason why it can't answer it. See, when Star Wars was first created and the movie comes out, Leia doesn't have a bra on.

48:34Okay. No bras in space. No bras in space. So if you're...

48:38Sean Fennessey:Looking back on that, huge. Formative. Not huge, but perfect. Yeah. Well, yes. I wasn't being descriptive. I'm much like space weightless, you know? It's at the moment in time. If they're perfect, they're on the web. Wasn't there a tape scenario going on? All kinds of stuff is happening, right? But I want you to think about it. We all know they make the movie. The movie is not cutting-edge cinema. It's actually bleeding-edge cinema, right? So a lot of Star Wars now feels like a very safe, contained story. But at that time, it was incredibly ambitious. So the story itself had to be something that you could come to.

49:14But, I mean, you have a guy in Solo murdering somebody because he's a scoundrel, right? The first thing you see, boom, kills a guy, right? That's right. Then you have a really scary villain with a red laser. And all of this stuff is very serious. However, it was more accessible to kids. It became for kids. It was more accessible to kids. Now, our expectations for that stuff is a little different. And Star Wars doesn't really know how to reconcile that. So the way that they've actually done it is to make stuff that's so cynical, it can only be consumed by adults, which would be Rogue One or Andor.

49:49and then in other places to try to split the baby.

49:52Sean Fennessey:Yes. It's not a question that Star Wars can answer. It's also not a question that used to be asked as robustly as it is now. So to me— Because you have a generation of pundits such as ourselves who grew up on this stuff who are reckoning with it in real time. But also because I think that media has changed in this time to where we've had stuff like was saved by the bell for kids. It was—I certainly watched it as a kid. Jesse was doing dope. okay like but that that that is the same to me as star wars which is it is sort of behaviorally aspirational but baked in a kind of childlike wonder like that is the intention of a lot of media that is made for kids that are basically like nine i would say that seems like the ripest age for star wars it's the ripest age for that sort of a tv show too the problem is that now wonder isn't enough to make it for children because it can't be too scary it can't be too violent.

50:46Like, it can't be too anything. Wonder isn't enough anymore. Like, in animated spaces, that's an easier thing to do. What you can do in an animated space is you can have some stuff on there that's for kids, then you can make a couple of adult jokes that the kids won't get, and if we laugh, we feel like the movie was for us. Star Wars cannot do this. It has not shown the ability to do this. The sequel trilogy was not for kids. It was complicated, and it was this, and it was that, and so we go can't do that so they come back they don't really know how to do this anymore and the reason why is because we kind of are in a space right now where we don't know what is for children and what is not for children you guys just said that you went to the movies your kids thought that it it was perfectly okay and it was too scary for yours i'll get i'll read alice's review okay

51:38Sean Fennessey:gave her a bath yesterday we sat down broke out the laptop and i was like just tell me what you thought. I want to know specifically what you thought. I've never done this exercise with her before. And she said, I said, what was your favorite part? She said, my favorite part was when the ship crashed into the Hutt's tree home. We should talk about Hutt's momentarily. Hutt's, yeah. She asked then a follow-up, what was it that the Hutt's were trying to do? Which then had me explore the idea of them playing both sides. Both the New Republic, not the magazine, but the actual Republic being formed, and the Empire.

52:11Sean Fennessey:And then She said, Radha wasn't trying to be like her aunt and uncle, right? He was trying to be on the good side. I did like how whenever they bumped into the villain, they fought but did not talk. And I liked that Grogu was healing the Mandalorian. Now, the fought but did not talk thing was so interesting to me. Because that is what the movie accomplishes. The movie is actually not a series of human interaction. So you can compare this movie to the first movies or to the most recent sequel trilogy. but those movies even if they did have violence in them and adult themes in them they were about human behavior and character using their actions to tell us more about who those people are.

52:52Sean Fennessey:This movie doesn't do anything to show us who these people are. It shows us that the Mandalorian is heroic and that Grogu loves him but we knew that already. That's not new. That's incredibly different from watching Luke turn literally from boy to man over the course of A New Hope. So So I think it's fair to say like this movie is very unsuccessful in that very specific way because even though it does accomplish like a two-hour adventure in the world of Star Wars, which might be more than enough for some people, it's not a good movie because it doesn't really give you anything that shows you like growth, development, an arc of progression in any direction dramatically.

53:29Sean Fennessey:So that's to your point, that's the nothing. Yeah, there are no characters and no emotion at all. Except for Radha. I guess, yeah. Radha is there in the traditional Jeremy Allen White role of being completely pulverized by the men who came before him and trying to break free of their expectations, whether it's in chef form or swole Jabba form or swole Hut form, I'm sorry. Yeah, or Bruce Springsteen, which my husband watched on the plane back. And that is still not a very good movie. I have been trying to think about why my son was not scared of this, but is absolutely he's had bad dreams in the past week from Ratatouille and Frozen, which are two animated movies where things not nearly as quote unquote scary as what we saw in Mandalorian Grogu happens.

54:22And he keeps bringing them up and he wants to talk about and unpack what it is. And I think it is because much like his mother, like emotions and sadness are the real scary part. And people being in like mortal peril, he doesn't even know what that is. And or if he does, he just knows that it's going to be OK. I guess once or twice when the fighting really started during this, he turned to me and he said, Grogu is OK. Grogu is OK. And he just thought by like willing it that it would be so. But I thought it was notable that he only cared about Grogu. and that otherwise, because there wasn't any, like there weren't any feelings, he doesn't really know these characters because he hasn't watched the TV show.

55:04And there were like no emotional stakes whatsoever for him. And so, and there's just nothing to grab onto here, especially if you haven't watched the TV show. Well, yeah, if you haven't watched the TV show, there's probably nothing for you. All of that stuff is, I acquiesce to it. I get it. it's difficult to connect with Din sometimes because his helmet's on the whole time so it's a character that has a helmet on the entire time you can't see him actually some of the most emotional moments of the television show is him having to remove that helmet and then break the oath of his sect of Mandalorians and all of that stuff all of these things are built in limits that a story like this has which is why when this movie was announced a lot of people were like there's just not enough meat on the bone to tell a Star Wars story about the Mandalorian and Grogu.

55:52I get all of that. For me, there's no real defense of the movie as a story. There's nothing there, right? As a piece of Star Wars and as the existence of a contemporary piece of the, a piece of the contemporary existence of Star Wars, I have to defend the movie because I believe in the world of Star Wars. I believe in the imagination that can go into that world. I believe in everything that the world can be and is. and I've just devoted so many hours to it in comic book, novel, in YouTube, in all of that stuff. And I think that's kind of the larger question that people are asking. You guys, there's no way to say that The Mandalorian and Grogu is a fully formed movie.

56:34I'm actually surprised at the movie being as on the nose as what it was because of Jon Favreau's involvement. And if nothing, over the course of his filmmaking career, he's shown how to make you care about a character and then put that character in a different place than like how it was when you found it. I'm a huge fan of his movies in general.

56:55Sean Fennessey:I mean he's made a few duds here and there but I think he's not just a skilled crafts person but going back to swingers like I have always thought he has a real ability to capture human human behavior like that's something and whether it's in a big world or in a small world I like it. I think this just kind of it feels like Moana 2 which was intended for Disney Plus and they kind of upscaled it a little bit and added a few more dynamic elements to make it more theatrical and to leverage a moment, maybe a week open space in a calendar to create something a little bit more theatrical. And I groused about this when Solo came out in 2018.

57:31Sean Fennessey:I was like, Star Wars movies are special and Solo is not special. And this movie is not special. And so it kind of undermines the entire premise of the Star Wars exercise. I think you could make a case that the streaming series in general, I think kind of violated a lot of that. And we could probably look back at a lot of different things over the last five years that were undermined by making them streaming TV series. But this one, I think, would work really well if you were just moving from season three of the show and then you were just like, you're on a binge and you just binge the movie immediately after watching season three and then maybe you go right into season four.

58:06Sean Fennessey:And in that way, it's a totally viable thing if you like these characters in this world. but for the big Memorial Day weekend Star Wars movie, this ain't good enough, man. That's just straight up what it is to me. It's just not good enough. I mean, I agree, but I also don't have the standards of, I don't think there was anything. And I mean, I guess if it were really good, I'd be like, hey, that was really good. And I was exciting, but I'm not bringing to it any sort of like fan expectations or anything other than I went to see a movie and it wasn't really a movie. And I won't think about it again.

58:42and with the remove it just also you know becomes increasingly clear the the generous version as van put it which is that star wars the star wars world is at such a disadvantage because they have to like please everyone and they also have to please every individual age group fan base all at once and they have to be both niche and broad and that's impossible um the ungenerous version is that they've just backed themselves into a corner and there's like no way to do anything interesting anymore at the scale that they have to do it for financial reasons. So what do you, what is Star Wars now then with that in mind?

59:25Sean Fennessey:You know, like this was a seven year gap theatrically. Yeah. We have obviously a very big movie coming one year from now, Starfighter, the Ryan Gosling, Sean Levy movie. Right. I do think that this augurs the end of an era of Star Wars. like we were in, there, there were, there have been four phases to this point. There's the original trilogy, right? There's the sequel or the prequel trilogy. There's the sequel trilogy. And then there's the streaming era. This to me feels like an end cap on the streaming era and it's under performance of the box office. Relatively speaking, feels like a, like a clear signal to Disney, like reset.

1:00:05Sean Fennessey:You got to reset. Now next year probably is a reset. How are you feeling about it? So I think what this signals for Star Wars, where Star Wars is right now is where a lot of these things are, which is a monocultural institution trying to wrestle with the death of contemporary monoculture. And what Star Wars has to do, or what anything has to do, is segment itself. And it's very difficult to do when you want to make a movie and you want everyone to talk about it, you want everyone to go see it. This is best explained or expressed, or the best example of this, shall I say, is The Last Jedi. The Last Jedi is a Star Wars movie that did everything that serious highbrow film goers want to see.

1:00:44They subverted your expectations of what was going on. They went in new places. They established new lore. They did all of that stuff. And for the fans that are looking at Luke Skywalker as this father figure Jedi god who at his height would be able to overcome any problem and do whatever, they went, that's not what we want. Right? And then as a film project, you had a whole bunch of people that were saying, that's exactly what we want. That's exactly where you have to go. And then Star Wars splintered and didn't know how to do it. Then they made a really dark space opera in Andor and they went, yeah, that's what we want.

1:01:23But then people couldn't really connect with that. That wasn't for every Star Wars fan. So I think what Star Wars has to do is realize that there are pockets of their audience that will watch anything that they put out. like I will watch LSU versus Western Tennessee Tech on 3 p.m. on Saturday and be up for every down. Subscribe to Ring Your Tailgate. Ring Your Tailgate because I love LSU football so much that I'm interested in seeing what the third string walk-on quarterback does when he gets the opportunity to come in the game. So you have a low bar for me. But not everybody's going to tune in for that college football game.

1:01:58So if you want everybody to tune in, you might have to expand the lore or do some different things. I say all of this to say that as a huge blockbuster, $2 billion entity, there are questions to answer. But if you're not a Star Wars fan right now, if you're out on Star Wars right now, then you were certainly out in 1993 or 1994 or 1996 where there was no stuff coming out, where there was nothing that you could turn on your television and see, where you had to go to your bookstore and buy books and go seek this stuff out. And for me, my fear is actually going back to that. My fear is actually not having people bring new ideas, even though those ideas are poorly executed or under-executed.

1:02:46My fear of Star Wars is not overabundance. My fear of Star Wars is the wilderness because I lived through the wilderness as a Star Wars fan, where Star Wars... So that's my deal. And so that's the dividing line that I think I'm on with a lot of people. It's a very interesting way to frame this.

1:03:05Sean Fennessey:And I would argue, Amanda didn't care because she was not fully invested in the original trilogy, even as a young person. But I was. I would assume as much as you up to a point. And then I never really got into the novels. That was something that was like beyond what I was interested in. Certainly, yeah. But I vividly remember being 11 years old, sitting on the floor of the Barnes & Noble in my hometown, reading the Star Wars encyclopedia for two hours, like just obsessed with every component of the lore. And the absence of new movies actually, I think, might have helped. I think having fewer things as I got older to pick apart helped it grow in my estimation.

1:03:47Sean Fennessey:And then when the prequels came along, which I actually always kind of liked and always kind of defended. You can check with Chris Ryan on this because I knew him back then. I could see their flaws. Yeah. And the way that they were received, especially critically, made me feel like we were going again into a wilderness because it was like, all right, maybe we didn't need to go back to this. Now, what we've had since 2016, 2015, when was Force Awakens? 15? 15, something like that, yeah. So in this 11-year period, we have 10 times the amount of Star Wars hours than we ever had for the first 40 years of my life.

1:04:24Sean Fennessey:And it's too much. We're not going to the wilderness. That's never going to happen again. it's corporately held. They're never going to stop. It makes no sense for them to stop. So there's no reason to be worried about the wilderness. What we should be worried about is this, is the watering down, the degradation. I mean, this is the essential tension or conflict of fan culture, right? Which is like, do you actually want to get what you want? Is fan service actually fan service? And I think there are many people who watch it and who get new movies and new iterations and the Easter eggs and everything and receive it as like, that actually is why I'm going to the movies.

1:05:02And then I think there is a different type of people who watch movies in a very different way, who understand fan service to just kind of be spooning things out to you. Are those people in the room with us right now? Are those people in the room with us to try to get your money. But that's always the risk, right? I mean, that's the... You know, it's just like, I'm not inherently a cynical movie watcher. So like not at all, right? So I just, it doesn't bother me. We're not going back to the wilderness, but this is the first Star Wars movie in like seven years.

1:05:33Sean Fennessey:Yeah. Right? So like as far as a big screen Star Wars experience, we are in the wilderness, right? We were, yeah. We were. We were, right? So this is the first one in seven years. Look, I would rather, with any of this stuff, any of the stuff that we're talking about, I would rather say, hey, do as much as it, I don't want to limit on it because I don't necessarily believe that scarcity breeds greatness, right? What I would say for everyone, and this is despite my criticisms of The Last Jedi, what I would say to everyone is, tell a story that you feel like is important. Tell a story that is meaningful to you.

1:06:16If fan service, once there's a lightsaber on the screen, I'm serviced. Okay? Yeah. Like, I'm serviced.

1:06:23Sean Fennessey:Interestingly, no lightsabers in this film. Right, and this is kind of not that story. Once there's a lightsaber on there, I'm serviced by being there in the world. That doesn't mean that, like, me, as a Star Wars fan, is going to look at a movie and agree or necessarily think that every decision that was made was right. It also doesn't mean that I can't be glamored. The Force Awakens is a glamoring of Star Wars fans. It is a retread of so many things that we had already seen to where it took two weeks after the movie to where we went, huh, wasn't very much in that film that we hadn't been accustomed to seeing before.

1:06:55That's kind of a remake of the first one.

1:06:57Sean Fennessey:I will say, though, one thing that that film accomplished that I don't think this film accomplished is to the point about our own children is that movie activates young imaginations for people coming into Star Wars for the first time. And it makes you think about the fact that The Force Awakens wasn't just made so that you or I or you could have an exciting new Star Wars experience in our 30s. It was made to create a new generation of fans. and I really question whether or not a movie like this can create a new generation of fans Starfighter does seem like the kind of thing that could do that because it sounds like it's wholly original in this world like it sounds like it is outside the realm of the Skywalker saga and all this other stuff but that's sort of why I question the intent of this movie a little bit is is it is it just like a mile marker is it just like well we just got to get back in theaters.

1:07:46Sean Fennessey:And so let's do the best we can because we've had so many stops and starts throughout the Kathy Kennedy, you know, seven year corridor where nothing really was being made. And that actually, it's hard to not see a movie cynically through that lens. I agree with you. People listening to the show in the last three or four years might be surprised to hear this, but if you listen to the show before that, I was very excited about a lot of the things that were happening in this kind of storytelling. And it's hard to not see this to me as like, this is like the death belch of like an entire era of movies and TV making where like this is kind of like the best they could do this is like they ate a big meal and this is like kind of what's coming up and it's not it just doesn't it doesn't sit right with me it's not a fiasco it's not the sky is falling it's just like they just needed to put 600 million dollars on the board this year and this was the best way they could do it yeah and Favreau was willing yeah and they had enough pieces in place yeah to do it that's like that's not exciting But you're absolutely correct.

1:08:44Everything that you're saying is right, right? Like everything that you're saying, there's no way to push back on anything that you're saying. It's all right. This was the most film ready adaptation that they could put on the screen and make some money and say, hey, Star Wars is back in movie theaters. That's absolutely correct.

1:08:58Sean Fennessey:Do you agree then that audiences are smart enough to know that? No. I think that true film connoisseurs are smart enough to know that, right? I think audiences just will have a visceral response to whether or not they had a good time with it. And it's difficult to have a good time with something that doesn't have a really thrilling story. It's like the Super Mario Brothers movie, which is what I compared Mando to. Super Mario Brothers movie. Very similar. Very similar, right? they go to a place, you're like, okay, this is where the story of the movie is going to get started. And then somebody makes a call and they go, Mario, we're on this planet.

1:09:35And then they leave. And then you're like, wait a minute, this movie doesn't care. They give you Star Fox, they give you all of this stuff. And then they go, hey, if you liked it enough when you were a kid, or if your brain isn't developed enough, you'll have a good time, a billion dollars, see you next time. Right? And so that has to be looked at with a certain cynicism, just like this does. I will say this, though. Like, take the film biopic, like the biopic movie. So we've got Michael. We've gotten Bruce Springsteen. We've gotten a complete unknown. We've gotten a bunch of different versions of this in the last, they've joked about it.

1:10:09We've gotten, and almost always, with what's happening right now, these movies are bad. Almost always. Some of them are laughably bad, right? And to me, when I look at them, they have almost no excuse to be bad because you could literally make a movie just about Michael Jackson during the thriller period and everything that happened and it would be a kick-ass, unbelievable movie. I think we might have even just said... This was my pitch, which is if you had called it Thriller instead of Michael. Right. And it were... And you took the Springsteen approach, but to this material. Yeah. Right. But these types of films are important for two reasons.

1:10:48Number one, they have built-in audiences because people are really interested in these people. Number two, they're big, showy performance pieces for the leads in these movies. So they're never going to stop making them despite the fact that they're almost always bad. So when I see them, I go, like, even sometimes in the pictures, like the poster, I'm like, I'm signing up for a two-hour ride that's about to be some bullshit. I'm comparing them to Star Wars only to say that it's not that I necessarily think that they should stop making that type of film. What I think that they should do is when they are taking in consideration the story and the stuff that they are doing, make that film with some actual artistic inspiration and ingenuity.

1:11:36Because there is a good Bruce Springsteen movie in there. There is a great Bob Dylan movie in there. So I don't need less Star Wars. I need Star Wars to remember the face of its father. Its father is George Lucas. And George Lucas was concerned with New Worlds, new ideas, and consistent storytelling. And that can exist in Star Wars. But then he sold it to Disney. And then, you know, and the problem with Michael, the problem with Springsteen is that if you want the music and the, like, artistry that inspires everything else, there are a bunch of people who own all the rights to that and they have to, you don't get to do it artistically if all of these other lawyers are involved, which is the shame.

1:12:14Well, then, here's the deal then. I agree with you. Make good things. Like, A plus. Yes, make good things, not bad things. And once again. According to my standards of them, I am available. I will answer the phone. Once again, I say it all the time. I've read stories about Darth Vader trying to get his lightsaber and having to decide he's not going to. The Emperor says, you're not going to bleed a crystal to get your lightsaber. You got to go take it from a Jedi, which means he then has to find a Jedi that's taking the bearish vial. The bearish vial is when a Jedi swears off being a Jedi. So he has to get a list of every Jedi that's ever taken the Bears.

1:12:52He has to find out where they are. He picks the wrong fucking guy because that guy legitimately, his only job in the Jedi was to fight. And then he has to go and fight up to the top of a mountain and get this. I have seen exhilarating, new, interesting Star Wars characters and stories that are based on existing lore. I know that it can be done. Of course. I'm going to have a good time watching Star Wars movies, but I haven't lost faith in the entire world because there's so much imagination that can be put to it if, in fact, these types of movies can defeat the same thing that I'm saying other genres of films have to defeat, which is all the stuff that Amanda just mentioned.

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1:14:53Sean Fennessey:So visit spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. I think one of the reasons why The Last Jedi resonated with a certain sector of the fandom and of film goers in general is the very famous Kylo Ren let the past die line. And that spoke to the Star Wars mythology, but you could also apply it to this kind of broader component of culture. And what you just described, there's a part of me, there's an 11-year-old part of me that really wants to see the Darth Vader wrecking shit, you know, mid-story movie where he's like having battles and figuring out how to be the real true dark overlord of the Empire.

1:15:37Sean Fennessey:then there's a part of me that's like, I already know what happened to Darth Vader. You know, like I know how he died and I know how he saved the rebellion and I know what he means to Luke and Leia. And like, I saw Return of the Jedi, you know? That story's over. It's not that it can't be done and it shouldn't be done. And I'm not telling people like, don't tell another Darth Vader story, but it's never going to be as special as that very specific feeling when something big and new arrives and it can take over for a while. And part of what I've been trying to talk through on the show for the last few years is like something is dying and something new is happening.

1:16:13Sean Fennessey:We might not always like what the new thing is. In fact, Super Mario is one of the new things. It's something from our childhood. But in movie form, it's one of the new things. But as we have gone through, and credit to Amanda for sitting in that chair for like five plus years of pretty bad fandom stuff. And… Ten years now. I mean, going back to Solo. But more of that stuff was tolerable or interesting, I thought, from 2015 to 2020 than what we have had in the five years since. That's my perspective. Just saying, Rise of Skywalker was 19. So I think 2018 is when it starts going south. Maybe it's been seven years of not great stuff.

1:16:49Sean Fennessey:Nevertheless, something's changing. Movies like this don't happen if they're not afraid. This is like a scared move. This is a scared move. Well, no. We know what's changed. What's changed is that you make a movie now. This is for all films. You make a movie now and you have... I was just talking to somebody about this. The amount of times I went to the movies and saw what's considered now to be a bad movie, we would talk about how bad the movie was for a day, two days. I was talking about a movie called Ride that my boy Derrick Darnsberg went to see. Derrick Darnsberg came out and said, man, how was Ride?

1:17:27It's like a hip-hop type movie from the mid to late 90s, right? And he goes, man, that shit was an hour and 20 minutes long. It just didn't feel like it was an actual film. We went and saw it, Rod sucked, and then we got over it. Now, every time a movie comes out and that movie is bad, first of all, we hyped these movies like, I mean, not the Star Wars stuff, we hyped these movies like, there's no tomorrow. Every film is going to be this deep exploration or there's this brand new, breathtaking new filmmaker that's going to change everything, right? We hyped these movies and then we rip them to shreds, which we should have conversations about movie.

1:18:02Any prestige in any art form is, to me, oriented around criticism. If you have a low critiqued art form, it can have no prestige. Prestige is oriented around criticism. But now, like, we take the qualities of these movies, the quality of these movies, a little bit more personally than we used to. and there is one or two places where people are allowed to direct all their vitriol and they sing very loud and then the people who are A, creating them and B, marketing them and financing them get the shit scared out of them the actors get fucking harassed the directors get I knew that they would make a movie like this because they have this political belief

1:18:46Sean Fennessey:Amanda gets clipped on Instagram and she's hectoring some poor young actress who's just doing her best trying to be a slave girl in a Star Wars film, you know? Right, so there is different. How do you make it? You don't. What you do is you say, I have this, and I think the next group of Star Wars, the next batch of Star Wars stuff that we're getting is a lot more original. It's got some characters that we recognize, but we'll see how the story is told. You go, hey, I have a take on this world. Characters be damned. World aside, how can I get this original take out? and you let the people who are fans, a part of the fandom, you let them go out and then people who don't want to fuck with it, don't watch it.

1:19:35Like, don't watch it. Don't go to it because I am... If only for Amanda. I know, I'm just like, you know, preach. Like, if we could get to that place, that would be beautiful. Unfortunately, you have two young boys. Yeah, I know, I know.

1:19:47Sean Fennessey:So you're in for a penny, in for a pound here. This is it. Even Sino's who grow the ways now. So to me, there is both the ability to be critical and be honest about the fact that we are in the dirt in terms of Star Wars content. We're in the dirt. We're in the dirt. We're in the dirt with Star Wars. We're in the dirt with Marvel. We're in the dirt. Let me ask you something. We're in the dirt. In the series, there's a couple of things that were kind of Easter egg-y, fan service-y that you were describing. Luke obviously appears in the series at a certain point. In Mandalorian and Grogu. are in the Mandalorian series.

1:20:23Sean Fennessey:Ahsoka Tano. We get the Darksaber. We get things. The Darksaber is a lightsaber. But it's dark. But it's dark. Why don't you show some respect? Why don't you show some respect to the Darksaber? It's the single ruling. When you were talking about how... And you get in, you rule the Mandalorians. I had to stuff down so many questions about where you get a lightsaber when you were describing the fan fiction or whatever it was about Darth Vader going to find his lightsaber. I mean, I just, I don't, there's, but I would watch that. Oh, you gotta talk about that. You just reminded me, because my daughter and I built a lightsaber three weeks ago at Galaxy's Edge at Disneyland.

1:21:05Sean Fennessey:And I will say - Not cheap to do. Well, it was promised, then it was delivered. That's what I'll say. We've been discussing it for a long period of time. And she chose the white lightsaber because she loves Ahsoka Tano. Not because she's a young white girl, Van Lathan. how dare you no she loves she loves Ahsoka and so but that was very special and then I saw you tweeting yesterday about being at Disneyland and ranking your favorite rides and Rise of the Resistance was at the top of your ranking and it was your first time going on it? no no that was my third time okay I went on it for the first time with my family three weeks ago and for the first time in a while I was like there's nothing like Star Wars Star Wars is the best thing that's ever existed There's a part of Rise of the Resistance that people that haven't written it before don't think is coming.

1:21:55And one lady cried. It's like she cried. It's pretty cool. They put you inside of the world. There's a part that a door opens and you're like, shit. Are there people in costume running around? Do you have to interact with them? Yes. I'll never do it.

1:22:09Sean Fennessey:Yes, yes. It's so cool. You know I hate that so much though. I really am afraid of audience participation and like character interaction. Yeah. so this would be tough for me. But I'm glad you guys loved it. It was an interesting reminder. It just, it transported me. It brought me back in a way that the movies and TV shows in the last seven years just never could. And it reminded me that, like, this does have a real power and that there's something really handmade about this world. And the idea of making a theme park ride that has that level of detail and tactility, you know? Yeah, yeah. That you felt like you were on the ship in a way that no other ride has ever given me before, even though I was a Star Tours freak when I was five years old.

1:22:48Sean Fennessey:I love Sontours. And it's great now too. They've updated and everything, but nothing is like this ride. And so I kind of got to jog my memory sometimes too, where it's like, don't just be burned out podcast guy who's like, I hate everything from when I was a kid. It is still special and it can be special again, but just not this way. You're right. This is what I'll say. Okay. So all of the things that you talked about in Mandalorian, in the early Mandalorian series. Skywalker comes into that that is fan service without a doubt 100 % but it's also story meaning Grogu is a force being he calls out to the force for assistance if he did that at that time who is the guy that would show up crush everybody and save the day and then tell Grogu about the way of the Jedi the thousands-year-old tradition that he has the opportunity to be a part of.

1:23:49Then, when he has a chance to be a part of that tradition, Grogu actually making the decision not to be a part of that tradition, both because of the shortcomings of what has happened to that order and because of his connection to his father, it is actually a real choice. So you use Skywalker, and it was so great to see Luke. As soon as the X-Wing, I was like, oh, shit. Luke was like, what's wrong with you? I'm like, eh. You know what I mean? Not now. My stories are on. Exactly. I know what's about to go down. So, yes, that is fanservice. Without a doubt, that is fanservice. But even that is something to hold on to.

1:24:27It was. When Grogu in the Mandalorian Grogu is using the Force, I'm like leaning over. Was it the Force? It was the Force. Yeah, I'm leaning over to my foreall and being like, hey, that's the Force. And that's what Luke Skywalker does. And I, Star Wars idiot mommy, am having to explicate this to a four-year-old during the movie because the movie can't do the work for itself. The movie assumes that you know about the Force. They assume that you— What an interesting and weird choice. And it doesn't even—but it doesn't use the drama for the— But you can't—so this is what I will say about that. And I'll finish off that point by just saying, yeah, you're right.

1:25:01The early Mandalorian stuff was new. It was a new way to tell the Star Wars story. But they also incorporated things about Star Wars that we already knew. And it worked until it got cynical as a part of itself because there was people at Disney, respect to everybody, that wanted to sell toys surrounding Grogu more than they wanted to tell stories. That's how you lose. You lose when you put the toy first and the story second. But I'm telling you, in Star Wars, story can still win. Now, as far as Rise of the Resistance, Rise of the Resistance has to play to people who are not massive Star Wars fans.

1:25:41I was at Rise of the Resistance with two people yesterday. One of them, Kalika, who knows about Star Wars. The other one, our friend Alexis, who is not in any way initiated with Star Wars, right? When we left, she had a million questions. I don't want to ruin the ride for anyone. Why did they stop us? Why did they do this? Why did this happen? She was exhilarated because the Imagineers at Disneyland, they know that they cannot make a ride that is just specifically for Star Wars fans. They have to put you in the middle of the world, make you fill stakes, make you feel overwhelmed, and then make you win at the end.

1:26:16That is still possible for Star Wars, and I believe that it will be done. We're just in the dirt right now, but out of that dirt, I'm telling you, something's going to grow.

1:26:24Sean Fennessey:Rise of the Resistance is one of the first things, forget about Star Wars, forget about Disney. It's one of the first experiences I've had where I had been hearing about it for years since they opened it. And I was like, wow, this is really fucking cool. And I just encourage people to check it out if they find themselves at Disneyland. All right, we got to wrap it up. Before we go, I have to say one thing. Yeah. All right. There's something that the streets are really involved in. Oh, okay. And I don't know if you guys know. All of the big pic heads like myself, shout out to the big picture Reddit.

1:26:53Y 'all know how much I fuck with y 'all. Okay. We're obsessed with the latest beef on this show. What's the latest beef? The race for third chair.

1:27:03Sean Fennessey:Oh, yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah. We're obsessed with this. Did you raise your hand for this episode because you really want me? Are you? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm the black chair, not the third chair. No, no, no, no, no. Okay, no, no, okay. I don't want to be the third chair. This is a clear, this is a clear. These chairs don't see race. This is a clear two-horse race between Tracy. Yes. And Chris. Now, I'm of the belief that it is a one-horse race because there's only one true third chair, which is the incomparable Chris Ryan. Okay. However, there are those who believe that with the single-minded focus and dedication that he has when he's on his podcast, this is a guy who has a great fucking life, by the way.

1:27:49Sean Fennessey:Talking about Tracy. Yeah, this is a guy who has a great fucking life, by the way, right? Yes. married, beautiful, talented lady, has a fantastic career, also on the screen and on the stage. But yet he is... This man is a father. He has a family. He has a family. However, being third chair matters to him. Yeah. I would caution Chris Ryan not to take him for granted in this. I would caution Chris Ryan to maybe look behind. See who's coming. I think he's hearing some footsteps. I think he's hearing some footsteps. I mean, you saw it. You saw it when he closed the computer, you know, at the end of the draft.

1:28:29He knows. And that's the beauty of Chris Ryan is that, you know, he's waiting, you know, for his moment. Tracy was on a heater in the month of May. I appreciate the work that he did watching 85 million Robert Duvall films and, you know, giving us some travel time. Yeah. But we are living in like the Tracy afterglow right now, you know, and he's also.

1:28:52Sean Fennessey:This was like Rewatchables after CR month, too, you know, where it was like, oh, okay, well, that was then and this is now, you know, let's talk in a few months. Well, you know. Well, how long would Tracy have to deliver this current level of performance? I'm a CR head, CR is the third chair. Here's the real challenge. And this is the absolute truth in this question. One, the third chair will always be the friends we made along the way. That's just how I've always thought about it, and we've made so many friends just doing this show. Two, if there is, in fact, a true race for third chair, the thing that Chris does and will continue to do that Tracy has not yet shown himself willing to do is that Chris will join us at 10.15 a.m.

1:29:34Sean Fennessey:on a Tuesday after a holiday weekend to go see Backrooms in Beverly Hills. That is the work of making this show. in addition to hanging out, talking, making our little documents, having our strongly held opinions. You got to go see the new movies at the annoying times and places where they're being held. And then come to the episode and record with us on a regular basis. You can't just say, I raised my hand for this episode and that's it. You got to do the work. And CR, pre-Big Picture, been doing the work with me for 20 years. So he will have an inherent advantage as long as he continues to do that.

1:30:11Sean Fennessey:That's just a fact. Tracy's also shopping for third chairs on some other podcasts. I'll just put that out there. A little third chair curious. There's a little bit of a loyalty question. Is Tracy a third chair thought? What are you talking about? You're trying to see. Let's not slut shame anyone. Let's just say. The other thing is I don't want to discount the Van Lathans and the Joanna Robinsons and all the people. The Rob Mahoney. It's a clear two horse race. And Chris is way ahead. Like us big pig heads know. Chris is way ahead. But what I liked more than anything, it's the last of my rabble rousing that I'll do.

1:30:54What I liked more than anything is Tracy told Chris his face. I'm like, yo, what is he on? He told Chris to his face. I'm coming for you. You know, it's like a movie. You know, it's like a movie. like, I watched John Wick not too long ago. John Wick is all bound and all like that. And he's looking at Viggo and he's going, I'm going to kill you. I always wonder in movies like that, like, how you going to kill him? Shouldn't you? You're dead, dog. You're caught. Din does it in Mando. Din does it in Mando. When he's tied up in front of the huts. Whenever somebody says, you can't wait till I hear you die screaming alongside.

1:31:27That's what Tracy did. Tracy was like in his face, looking at him. Chris has got the power. He goes, yo, I'm coming for you, dog. I appreciated it.

1:31:35Sean Fennessey:I did too. I did too. Van Lathan. tailgate midnight boys higher learning rewatchable what else you've been doing everywhere i'm everywhere i'm doing a lot of stuff it's fun i'm having a great time here at the ringer and so thank you for being here no problem okay let's go to my conversation now with daniel roar i'm here with my east side of los angeles compatriot daniel roar welcome back man Nice to see you on the show. So cool to be here. So you co-wrote and directed a feature film. I did. Last time we spoke, that wasn't what you were doing. Right. You were doing something mysterious when we last spoke.

1:32:17Sean Fennessey:You had directed Navalny, which then went on to become an extraordinary sensation and won you many prizes. Congratulations. Thank you. But I don't know that I saw this trajectory. What's been happening for the last three years? When we last talked, I was in my clandestine spy days. Everyone has to go through it. It's just a phase. I was in Kiev, I think. It was a couple weeks. It would have been, that would have been in January or February 22. So just before the war started. And I was doing my clandestine Ukrainian stuff. And did you know, you went because you knew that things were on the precipice of...

1:32:51I didn't know the war was going to start. I was with Bellingcat Christo, the guy in Navalny. It was like, I got, we're doing this big expose in Kiev. And we want to make a movie about it. And I was like, oh, gee, okay, great. It's like, I'm looking for something to do. That's why I was in Kiev when we last connected. And I was on a film set, a documentary set, interviewing whistleblowers from the Department of Defense who wanted to blow the whistle on this clandestine operation that had gone belly up. And they were accusing Zelensky and his government of sabotaging this mission. And I was making a documentary about that.

1:33:26And we didn't end up making that movie. but yeah a lot of water under the bridge since that conversation I'm no longer doing I'm sort of like moved out of the spy genre the nonfiction spy genre and to your point of like whoa didn't see this like fun heisty crime movie coming down the pike that was kind of the point I did Navalny that film was a sensation but you know when you're 29 you win an Oscar it's really cool like not gonna lie it's pretty sick i imagine uh but also it's really daunting uh-huh and and it very much had this sense of like oh what do i do now and people would come up to me like wow you just made like the ultimate movie of your life you should just retire ha ha ha ha but that made me anxious and so for me it was very much like okay how do i cope with the feeling of like what the fuck do i do now and the way i chose to deal with that was by you know doing something completely different.

1:34:24And the world knew me as a documentarian. You know, my first film was about the band, Robbie Robertson and the band. It was a music doc that sort of takes place in the extended Bob Dillon cinematic universe. And we saw this in the Chalamet movie last year. Bob Dillon was a folk musician. People loved his folk music. He did really well. Accolades. He was lauded for his folk music. And then he was like, you know what? I think I want to play rock and roll. And so he plugged in and he went electric. And in my own little tiny way, Tuner is me proving to myself that I can play electric, that I can do that too.

1:34:55Sean Fennessey:Was that always on the menu for you? Did you see yourself as being a lifetime documentarian, or did you know you always wanted to make scripted films? No, I can point to—so anyone who knows me is used to seeing me with a little blue book like this. I carry my sketchbook wherever I go. It's sort of an important part of my creative process and how I cope and navigate life. And I've been doing it since I was 14. And I can go back to being 15 or 16 and passages like, dear future Daniel, if you're not a Hollywood director, you will have failed me. You will have disgusted me. You will have like really intense.

1:35:34It's a burden, yeah. Yeah, like 15-year-old me was dialed in. And so, no, I always wanted to be making movies. Documentary was the tributary. The most amazing tributary. I love documentary. I love nonfiction. I will always be doing both. I'm always making documentaries. I just premiered a documentary at Sundance. And I hope to always be making fiction films, different skill sets. Some of the fundamentals are the same, but really not so much the same.

1:35:59Sean Fennessey:You know, I had Robbie, who has since passed away, on the show actually for Once Were Brothers. I didn't talk to you for that movie. Yeah, I was mad that they sent him and not me. Yeah, well, I was happy to talk to Robbie, but I didn't know you then. And I'm glad I got to have that conversation. But, you know, we didn't actually, I don't know how much we spoke when we spoke about Navalny, about kind of how you ended up at like 26 years old making a movie about the band. So maybe before we... Dude, I was 24 when I got that job. How did that even happen? Okay, so I was in Toronto. I dropped out of college when I was 18 or 19.

1:36:29I started making documentaries. So the technological revolution that I kind of clung on to was that in like 2010, 2011, 2012, DSLRs became a thing. So for the first time, you could put some stuff in a backpack, some equipment in a backpack, go make a movie that looked like cinema with a shallow depth of field and kind of that sort of cinematic air and feeling. And before then, documentary was like Panasonic GH2s where you're running around with like mini DV and it kind of looks good but kind of like shit. But you know what I'm talking about? It doesn't look like cinema. Often more handheld. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:37:05And so here I was sort of coming of age when this technological shift's taking place and it's like, oh, I can just go make movies. And for me, that was very empowering. So I'd like film a bar mitzvah in Toronto, where I was from, and make a couple thousand bucks. And then I would go make a movie. And I'd fly somewhere in the world that was of interest to me. I did one of those on the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip. I did one in a slum in Uganda. I did one in the high, high Arctic in northern Canada. And I would just tell stories and make movies and like make a documentary. And I did probably four or five of those films.

1:37:34I'd send them to film festivals. They mostly got rejected, but I just keep making stuff. And that was sort of my film school. And so by the time I was 23, I had made enough of those movies that in Toronto, people kind of was like, oh, it's that kid who keeps showing up to the documentary film festivals. And the other thing about documentaries, I could just go do it. I found that very empowering. If I was doing a fiction film, I'd need my mom to do craft services. I'd need my friends to come act in them. I'd need my dad to let me use his car or whatever it is. And I did that in high school. But by the time I was like 19 or 20, it's like, I just want to be out in the world making stuff.

1:38:09And I was very motivated by that. And so I just did enough of those shorts that they knew me a little bit in Toronto. I knew that I wanted to find a film that was sort of bigger, that would put me into a bigger stage, a first feature film. Robbie Robertson had written his book, his memoir called Testimony, came out in 2015. I read this thing and I just sort of like lapped it up. It was like, so he's such a great storyteller. It's an amazing musical odyssey. and I identified it as something that is Canadian. So I could get this thing financed in Toronto, but it'd have a global, like certainly an outside of Canada scale and scope.

1:38:46And so I went on a campaign to get that job. Took me like six or seven or eight months to get in front of Robbie. And I went to meet with Robbie Robertson. It's my first time in Los Angeles. I went to the Village Studio. I met with Robbie and I kind of just like put up a mirror. I was like, dude, I am you. I will fucking die to make this movie. Like you can hire some like big wig documentarian. It'll be one of five projects that that person's doing. But if you like hire me, I will like literally leave it all on the ice. Like, come on, like I got to do this. And he was like, you're hired. So that is shocking though.

1:39:19It was very agreed to that. Irresponsible perhaps from his perspective. Like if you think about normally who his guys are.

1:39:26Sean Fennessey:He's best friends with Martin Scorsese. I know. So it's like, that wasn't lost on me. But, you know, Robbie, to his credit, he just saw something in me. And when someone's like sitting across from you and it's like, look, on paper, I may not look like the obvious candidate to do this job, but like, I am telling you, look into my eyes, I will like die to do this. Like, I won't eat until the job is done. Like, that is compelling. And so I gave him that sort of pitch. He hired me. That job took two years to make. You know, I made it in a broom closet in Toronto with a couple of my buddies, which was a fun experience.

1:40:00And it turned out well. And it was the opening night film of TIFF and Robbie was pleased with it. And, and Marty came to the premiere, which for me was, you know, he was the executive, him and Ron Howard were the executive producers of that film, which is wild for me. And, uh, you know, that sort of set me on the path, which, you know, COVID hit just as that film was premiering. I think that film was in theaters. Magnolia released it February 20th. He was one of the very last people I spoke to before lockdown. Is that right? On the show. That makes sense. Yes. Maybe the second to last person I spoke to.

1:40:32It could be. So that film premiered in theaters. I think we did a week, you know, in like 800 theaters, art house theaters, and then everything shut down. And so I was like, okay, my life is over. Like many of us thought, like any momentum, I had no momentum. It all stopped. You know, I didn't have a career at that point. I had just done this one movie and I was looking for the next thing. And, you know, by contortions of fluke and destiny and whatever you call it, I went out in the world. I flew to Vienna, Austria on a hunch. I met someone who introduced me to someone and I met, and then I eventually met this guy, Christo Grozev.

1:41:06And that meeting that person, meeting Christo was what led me to Navalny and the experience of making that movie, which was its own fever dream. Crazy. Like there's still the cognitive dissonance that I went and did that movie. And you know, that, that film was pure chutzpah. It was just like, you know, courage and bravery. And I wouldn't have been able to do it now. You know, I'm at a different point in my life. It was just, you're 26. You have nothing that's holding you down. And like the leader of the Russian opposition is like, okay, come make a movie about me. And I'm like, okay, you know, again, I'll leave, I'm going to leave it all in the ice here.

1:41:39Like this is one of those things. I'm just going to give it my all. We put together an amazing team. We made that movie. And that film was kind of like the rocket sauce that really propelled my life. And I, it's, That film is the original miracle of like, it's extraordinary that that film happened. It's extraordinary that I met Navalny. It's extraordinary that he was as amazing a subject as he was, that we were able to make that movie. In the rolling out of that movie, I met my wife. You know, we have a family now. So it's like everything good that's manifested was because of the original sort of fluke of getting to do that film.

1:42:20and you know to the original question of like you follow up Navalny with a film like Tuner it was it was I was thinking about being 15 years old being in Toronto making movies like running around on the subways with our cameras shooting stuff in the alleyways you know getting our friends to be acting in it like that's what I was doing in high school and I came to documentary not through journalism like many of my colleagues but through like Tarantino and the Coen brothers and Scorsese and Christopher Nolan. Yeah, movies you liked. Movie, yeah, yeah. My cinematic heroes. And I always had in my head.

1:42:57It was also Robbie. After I did Robbie's doc, before I found Navalny, Robbie was like, you gotta go find a script. Go find a script you can sink your teeth into. That's what Marty would do. Enough of this documentary stuff.

1:43:07Sean Fennessey:He was a big cinephile too, Robbie. He was, oh yeah. And we talked a lot about that. And one of the, something that I think about that's, you know, as we're here talking about it, that's sad is that Robbie never got to see me do that. Because he kind of saw that I could and he sort of had that belief in me when I didn't always have it in myself. And, but he inspired me in that way. And Robbie's life is a testament to doing the impossible. Like this vision that you have for your life, it's like, it can be ginormous. You can do, it's like, like the only thing that stops you from achieving something amazing is your own self-perception of what it could be.

1:43:43and that's what Robbie's life was this kid from Toronto who grew up and became this rock star and you know so Robbie saying to me like go find yourself a script enough of this documentary go do fiction go do a real a movie movie that you can sink your fangs into he probably would have said something like that and you know that would have made me think oh maybe I could do that you know

1:44:08Sean Fennessey:well okay let's talk about it because I was going to ask you all these questions like you know Errol Morris did this Steve James did this they've all had their try at a scripted film and they worked out or they didn't work out. You know, Asif Kapadia, like all great, all great documentarians, legendary documentarians, people who kind of like push the form forward. Yeah. But you're, you're describing yourself as somebody who always wanted to be making scripted films. And I'm curious, like what, if you had to learn anything or relearn anything, having made these movies the way that you did as you prepared to make this one.

1:44:38Well, look, on, on my first day of shooting Tuner, I got on set and I said to everybody, you know, spirit of transparency, like every single person here has more experience making movies than I do. You've all been on sets more. This was like, I've only been on set a couple of times when I stepped on my own set. But the button on that was, but I have more experience making this specific movie because I've been making this movie in my head and on paper and in drawings and in writing for two, two and a half years. And I really just tried to summon both the humility and the chutzpah required to like get the job done.

1:45:18But it's a, like I had never worked with actors before. Leo Woodall, who is wonderful in the film, he really taught me a lot about, he probably, Leo's probably taught me more about working with actors than anybody else. And not necessarily overtly like, this is how you direct actors, but more just like in process. But yeah, it's a different skill set. But as I look to like, as I understand who I am and where I come from, like I started out drawing comic books. Like I was 12 years old, 13 years old, going to comic book conventions with a portfolio under my arm, talking to big artists, being like, hey, will you look at my drawings?

1:45:53And I've always been a visual artist. And so the idea of making a fiction film always seemed like a very natural extension of what I've always wanted to do. The documentary, my documentary career was almost like a tributary that is a reflection of my love of politics and history and current events and geopolitics and all of these things where documentary is an amazing lens to explore those issues. But cinema has always been my first love and making movies has always been my number one passion. So after Navalny won the Oscar, you know, for a second, I'm like, oh my God, what do I do now? This is amazing, but scary.

1:46:35And the answer was like, okay, doors are, a door might open that doesn't open for a lot of people. And so I wanted to go make a movie. And I wanted to make a movie that, that, that, you know, was, was like the films I loved watching that was propulsive and fun and engaging and like musical and, and romantic, like a movie movie. and that's what I that was my mission for this film that's what I set out to do I was trying to describe

1:47:00Sean Fennessey:the movie to someone just outside earlier and I was like you know it's like it's like Rain Man meets the shine meets heat you know like it's not it's a very it's tough it's a very odd collection of different kinds of stories like where did the conceit come from like obviously you get this opportunity and you got to run through it but like did you have a drawer full of scripts and things that you knew that you wanted to do? No, not at all. It was very much like, you know, I sat down. I really tried to like drop a game plan and quarterback it. Like I had this dream that like, you know, maybe with the success of Navalny, I could get to a point where I could make a real movie.

1:47:41And so, you know, it was about designing a movie that I would want to watch. And I want it to be a crime story. I had this idea of doing something auditory. Like that was just so interesting for me. But the sort of linchpin was that I had just met my wife. I had just become her boyfriend. And she was sort of taking me around to meet her friends. And one of her friends that I went to have dinner with was this couple called Michelle and Peter. And Caroline and Michelle were like kibitzing and hanging out. And I'm chatting with Peter. And I was like, what do you do? Pete, nice to meet you. What do you do?

1:48:12And he's like, I'm a piano tuner. I'm like, huh, tell me about that. Like, that's interesting. and he took me into his like little garage, which is like a piano exploded and its guts are on the walls. And he's like, well, piano tuning, you know, I go and make sure the instruments are in good shape and I keep them. And I'm like, no, I know I get that. But like, what is like, what's your day to day like? And he's like, well, I'm in my van and I sort of bop around and I have some clients who are like real musical people. And I have some clients who are just like rich people. And I, you know, prefer obviously like the conservatories.

1:48:45He just started describing his work And in no time, he was talking about philosophy and spirituality and talking about entropy and atrophy and the forces of the universe that want to pull these things out of tune. And the natural order is chaos. And it's my job to restore order where there wants to be chaos. And I was like, this is amazing. And it's auditory and it's lonely and he's by himself. And some people treat him like he's the plumber. And some people revere him like he's like, oh, my God, thank God you're here. And I loved all of that. And I thought it was a really interesting job. I like the itinerant quality of it.

1:49:15But I liked how it kind of like defied modernity in a way. Like, you know, there's no way to kind of like, there's no like smart piano tuner, no apps. It's really just like a guy. And, you know, I really appreciated that. And I followed him around. I went to work with him for a day. And sure enough, you know, within 10 minutes, we're in this like ballroom.

1:49:37Sean Fennessey:What did he say when you asked him, can I follow you around? Oh, I was like, you're a weirdo. Yeah, basically. I was like, can I come to work with you? Can I just like do a ride along? He's like, I don't think he got, Peter at that point hadn't seen Navalny. He didn't really, you know, I don't think he had a full understanding of who I was or what I was about or what I did. I just, he knew I made documentaries. So he thought it was odd, but he was also like, probably not because my clients like would not be into that. I was like, well, maybe just ask because I'd love to if it's okay. And so I ended up doing a ride along with him and we went to this, you know, the guy had a ballroom in Brentwood or something with this giant Yamaha, like, you know, a really expensive, big, beautiful piano.

1:50:16And I was just sort of sitting there and taking pictures and doing some drawings and being in the space. And, you know, they were like doing construction next door. And Pete was like a little like, oh, fuck, goddammit, they're making a lot of noise. And then within 15 minutes, like the cleaning lady or the housekeeper was like, hey, can you take a look at the toilet downstairs when you're done? And Pete was like, no, it's not. I'm the piano guy. Like And like, okay, this is a really interesting world and moving around and montage-y and itinerant. And we're meeting different people and going different places.

1:50:47And so that was sort of the genesis and the nucleus of the piano tuner. And then I was like, how can I make this a crime story? Like, where is the crime part? And then I kind of had this epiphany that like, what's tactile and hearing? Safecracking. And then I was like, is safecracking a real thing or is that just a movie thing? So then I went down that rabbit hole and I started doing all this research in safecracking. And I called LA's like top safecracking guy. And, you know, the reality is, is it's like kind of somewhere in the middle. It's like the way you see it in movies is sort of fictionalized, but it definitely is a real thing that exists.

1:51:17There's something to it. Oh yeah, and there are people who can go in there with a stethoscope and do the thing and, you know, open a door. And I was like, okay, well, that's all I need. So I was just sort of off and I sort of developed from that. And I wanted to make something that was musical, that was propulsive, that was auditory, where the sound design really helped, you know, elevate the production design. Because I didn't know how much money a movie costs to get made. I figured someone would finance a movie, cost a couple million dollars. That's what I understood. But I wanted to make something that punched above its weight class that, you know, when you'd watch it, you'd be like, oh, that feels both refreshing and familiar at the same time.

1:51:52That's sort of what I was going for. And, you know, once Black Bear got involved, the whole thing sort of came into focus. I was able to go, you know, do this impossible dream of making this movie.

1:52:04Sean Fennessey:Do you play music? I learned a little bit of guitar when I was doing Robbie Robertson's movie. Okay. So I do play a little guitar. Enough that if like a guitar, a real guitar player was next to me for like 15 seconds or 20 seconds, they'd be like, oh, hey. But that's it. So that's really interesting because the movie obviously, in addition to having this incredible sound design, is very musical the way it's cut. Sure, sure. And obviously the music is a huge part. There's a lot of jazz needle drops, especially in the beginning of the film. It's a very, very, it feels like a movie made by a musician.

1:52:32Well, thank you. I really appreciate that. You know, there's this whole convention of like write what you know. I heard that a lot when I was trying to, you know, come up with a screenplay idea. And, you know, what I understood is like, yeah, write what you know, but also maybe like write what you're interested in. Write what you'd like to know more about and explore. And, you know, the idea of a conservatory and this woman who, you know, met this guy, but they seem great for each other, but maybe it's not the right time. All of these things, in a way, were metaphors for things happening in my own life.

1:53:03I met my wife just as she was embarking on her first feature film. And so it was like, hey, you're wonderful. Like, this is really cool, but like, don't get in the way of this big dream I have. And I was like, I totally get it. I'm only here to support. You know, all of these sorts of things. But yeah, I wanted it to have the authenticity and lived in this. And I think that's what drives me to documentary in the first place. And an overlap between fiction and documentary is just an exploration of something fascinating. Like, I'm really interested in music. I'm really interested in classical music and jazz and learning more about the history of jazz and through this film and literally getting, you know, one of the great luminaries of jazz to do a cameo in the movie was really exciting for me.

1:53:45And, you know, while it's an unfamiliar world to me that I had to learn about, the sort of themes and emotionality of the film felt very real to me. And everything else was like stuff I could learn.

1:53:54Sean Fennessey:Tell me about hopscotching in the kind of subgenres and tones and making sure that that was all working. Because it is like, it's a romance. Yeah. And it's a crime movie. and it's a movie about a person with a special gift. Yeah. I mean, that was the scariest part of the movie. It's like, you know, it sort of starts off and it's like kind of like kind of a, not comedy, but almost a comedy. Like it's kind of light. Totally buddy comedy in the first, yeah, 20 minutes. Kind of buddy comedy in the first 20 minutes. And then like in the same movie, like the guy's head gets blown off and like, you know, carnage and death.

1:54:24And like those films have to be in the same movie. And the sort of miracle of that whole thing is that we were able to like get the tones and the frequencies right and thread those genres into one another. You know, I worked with Greg O 'Brien, my extraordinary editor, who really helped us find that frequency. And we, that was the biggest challenge. But at the script stage, I sort of just understood how everything had to bleed into one another and sort of like the elements that would adhere everything. Like the music in a film like Tuner is like the adhesive that just brings everything together, right?

1:55:05And if you can sort of figure out those elements, figure out how you're going to shoot it, the sort of propulsiveness of it, we were able to get it all working when we were cutting the film. But those sorts of like tonal shifts were certainly tricky. And the thing going into it that I was like, I hope this will work. Like if we don't figure this out, we're fucked. But I think we will be okay.

1:55:28Sean Fennessey:I noticed a very interesting name in the credits of this film. Joanne Sellar is listed as a producer who is Paul Thomas Anderson's longtime producer. Produced many of his films. Yeah. And I think this is her first film that is not a PTA movie that she's produced in some time. Like, oh, he had the mighty have fallen. Yeah. Well, so how did she get involved? What did you learn from her? So Joanne Sellar, who was a producer of the film with Lylee Yacoub and Mike and Teddy from Black Bear. You know, she is this sort of like epic producer who's produced like some of the greatest films ever. and, you know, she was, had this sort of professional, I don't know, this like thing with PTA for 25 years.

1:56:08It almost feels like a professional marriage of sorts. Her and her husband, Daniel Lupe, who's an amazing producer as well. And, you know, I never really litigated the details, but, you know, as it happens sometimes with people, you work with someone for a long time and, you know, you wake up one morning, And you're like, maybe this isn't right anymore or something like this. And that's just life. And that happens. But I came to Joanne. I was fortunate enough to meet Joanne via Rob Ramsey, who I co-wrote the script with. And Rob and Joanne knew each other. Their kids went to school together. And that's how I came to meet Joanne.

1:56:45And Joanne was sort of looking for projects to do and reading scripts. And she read Tuner. And she really saw something in the script. And she and I really hit it off. And, you know, her experience is kind of like, you know, those movies, come on. They're just like, you know, it's pretty intimidating when you look at the filmography. But I was so lucky because with Joanne and Lila, I had a first film that was kind of a smooth endeavor.

1:57:11Sean Fennessey:Yeah. And, you know, a lot of first-time filmmakers, it's like, you're up Schitt's Creek and you don't really have the support. But with Joanne and Lila, a problem never got to me before it was solved. And that's sort of the mastery of an amazing producer. It's like I'm focusing on the creative. And if something happens, if someone falls out, if there's an issue, when it's brought to my attention, it's like, hey, this thing happened. Kind of a bummer. But here's our working contingency. Here's our plan. Here's our overcome. And that was very meaningful for me and something that I really appreciated in working with the two of them.

1:57:47Sean Fennessey:I think the movie is really accomplished. And I really liked it a lot. Thank you. And I hope you make more movies like this. I am really interested in your perspective on putting a movie like this out into the world in which it's a little bit more challenging to release effectively an independent feature commercially. Especially because you, in your 20s, had such an amazing experience releasing what is usually not considered very commercially viable in docs. But you got attention for them. And now, like, what are your expectations with putting a movie like this out in the world? You had festival premiere and all that seemingly went well.

1:58:19Sean Fennessey:but like now you're going to be in the marketplace. Sure. And, and market don't lie. Those numbers don't lie. And, and that just is what it is. And, and I accept that and understand it. But at the end of the day, you know, I look at some of my film heroes and, and, and I just read that amazing Stanley Kubrick biography. Oh yeah, sure. And Stanley Kubrick was like obsessed with every morsel of the process, right? Like making the movie through to promoting the movie through to the key art, through to the trailer, through to, he was across all of it. And, you know, my perspective is I really know what I love to do and I love to make movies.

1:58:56The marketing and selling of a movie is kind of a different job. And so as I look to like the type of career I want to cultivate in my sort of film heroes, I look to like a Soderbergh or a Linklater, these guys who are just sort of like movie a year, love to work, love to stay busy. They'll go do a$2 million indie movie and then a$75 million studio movie and then a doc and just sort of flirt between the two. Like that to me is really exciting. The, the, the prize of the Oscar and the attention that comes with it is that I get to work. That's the prize. And I understand that about myself. So look, my expectations, what I hope is that everyone in the world sees the movie.

1:59:34That's my dream for it. Of course, that's why we do this, but I'm sort of clear eyed and I understand that it's a tough market and there are overcomes and everything like this. Um, um, but at the end of the day, I also believe like if something's good and cool and like original, like people will seek it out or find it. I do believe that too. And maybe it's not like, you know, the film doesn't gross$150 million globally, but maybe like, you know, some people see it in theaters and then it finds a home on streaming and people see it there. Like I just, I just try and be optimistic about people wanting original stuff, especially in a moment when like, you know, everything is turning into computer goop.

2:00:11I think that to me really matters but I really just try and be like fully committed and fully detached like I want this to do well I work my hardest to make the best possible movie but there are so many forces that are outside of my agency so I'm kind of like I hope it works the guys who are in charge of marketing are doing a great job and meanwhile I'm going to go off and make my next one because that's really what drives me what I'm so passionate about

2:00:35Sean Fennessey:yeah so you're about to go make the next one I want to make the next one. Smart to do it before the movie comes out. Very savvy strategy on your part. Because if it bombs, I won't get a job. Well, you never know. I'm not saying that. Yeah, look, I, more than anything, again, I just love to do this. Like, for 20 years, I was just like, for 15 years, I was like, what a dream it would be to make movies. And I have books of, like, every film I saw. And I'd save the ticket. And I'd write a review. And I'd give it a star system. I'm like, I had a whole thing before Letterboxd was a thing. My books were Letterboxd for me.

2:01:10And so the fact that now I can have this career is extraordinary. And I feel very, very, very lucky to be able to do this. And it's what I love to do. I'm so driven by the work. And being a film director is this all-encompassing job where you never have a second off. And I love that. And it's just like my work and my family. So the next film is, if you read the script for the next one after watching Tuna, you'd be like, that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense. Like that's a natural, let's say evolution. So it's this sort of like heist con man story. That's almost like to catch a thief. But if you took Cary Grant and Grace Kelly and swap them with Zoe Saldana and Matthew McConaughey, that's the movie.

2:01:50And it's sort of this like expat in Positano in the Amalfi coast who has this little restaurant who moonlights as this prolific thief and he's really good at it. But on one particular job, he crosses paths with somebody else and gets them into all kinds of trouble. and that is sort of the premise of the movie. So sort of jazzy and propulsive, much like Tuner, but with a much bigger canvas, which takes me outside of my comfort zone. And so that's something that I'm really excited about. It's like, you know, the tone and the sort of like genre work I know that I can do. Never done a car chase before though.

2:02:21You know, never done all this big location work. Never worked with these big movie stars. And so all that's just exciting. And these are just, you know, motivated by being outside of my comfort zone, but knowing in my heart that I got this. And that's a very empowering place to be sort of operating from. So we're shooting the film this year and it's been really, really exciting for me. Just in the preliminary stages of getting it set up, we just got it greenlit, of scouting the film, working with McConaughey, working with Zoe and just getting the thing off the ground has been a wonderful, wonderful opportunity.

2:02:56Sean Fennessey:Good luck. Thanks, man. We end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what is the last great thing they have seen. What have you seen? You must be, you gotta be doing some Oscar cramming, right? I'm not an Academy member. Get out of here. Yeah, I swear. I swear. No kidding. Yeah, I'm not. You've won and you've not been, what's going on there? The doc branch is a little, they're a little persnickety. I see. Well, maybe now that you're a feature filmmaker as well, you'll get invited. Maybe. Well, I'm, God, the last great. That's fascinating. Isn't that funny? That's so funny. I like literally daily, I'll get an email from someone and be like, hey, can you watch our short film?

2:03:32It's like we're going and I'm like, I'm not an Academy member. And they're like, OK, thanks. Goodbye.

2:03:35Sean Fennessey:Like they don't, you know, you should just automatically be inducted. I thought that's how it worked. But at the end of the day, it's like, trust me, I'll take the award over the membership to their club. Maybe one day I'll get in. But in the meantime, God, what's the last great thing I watch? I've been watching the classics of Italian cinema. And so I trip. Yeah. So really like, like just, just learning the fundamentals, you know, before I go make a film in Italy and I rewatched Cinema Paradiso. Yeah, sure. And it probably has the best ending of any movie ever in the history of movies. And if I was ever became an actor and I had to do a crying scene, it's like, okay, cry.

2:04:16I would think of the ending of that movie and just, it would get me like that. And then, you know, more contemporary what's out now. I like everybody watch Marty Supreme and I and I I felt it was such a complicated movie for me I recognize I recognize myself in Marty but that's challenging because he's kind of a sociopath yep and then a bunch of people were like yeah but you're on the other side you got a kid now I know hopefully you're being a good guy now I'm after the hero's journey that's right I was never a bad guy like Marty but I but you know there's this sort of like fast talking Jewish yeah trope that Stryver enough people were like oh you he reminded us of you and i was like i don't know how i feel about that but i love the propulsiveness i love the cadence i i love you know how how josh safty just pulls you into that movie and doesn't let you go and that's something that i'm very inspired by those are always my favorite kind of films um so i think those are two safe bets and then i just saw sarah dosa's new film time and water i just saw it as well yeah very good and and that is a film that I had to see in a theater that was, you know, meditative and patient and thoughtful and, and just like a, just like, just like all Sarah's films.

2:05:27Sean Fennessey:Tell people what it's about because it just premiered at Sundance. So Sarah does this new film, Time and Water. Is it Water and Time or Time and Water? Time and Water. Time and Water is about this, three generations of this Icelandic family who they're sort of like identity as a family is almost moored around their love and appreciation for the natural beauty of Iceland, where they're from. And in this case, the glacial fields that Iceland's famous for. And it's about how the family shifts over time and the sort of pain and challenge of these glaciers, which do not shift over time. That's the whole conceit.

2:06:02They last thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years. And they're sort of living, breathing things, these giant ice sheets. But except in this changing climate of ours, the glaciers are dying. and so it's about this family coming to terms with this thing that doesn't change but it's changing now and how do you mourn how do you mourn the almost like the death in the in a family of when your family's a glacier like that's your family member who's dying it's like how do you mourn that how you so it was like beautiful and thoughtful and i just did a documentary that premiered at sundance and i was struck by how similar it was to sarah's movie insofar as it's like big thing in the world, big issue that's moored around like a personal story.

2:06:43And in my case, it's about AI and entering fatherhood, which is how we approach our AI documentary. And so the Andreas, I think is the name of the protagonist in Sarah's movie. And he and I kind of had a hug after both of our films premiere. And I was like, how are you feeling? He's like, pretty good. How are you feeling? I was like, dude, we did it. We did it. So those are some, that was a long answer, but those are some films that I saw that have stuck with me. Great recommendations. Daniel, thanks for coming back. Thank you so much. So cool to be here.

2:07:15Sean Fennessey:Okay, thanks to Daniel. Thanks to Van. Thanks to Jack Sanders for his production work on this episode. Thanks to Lucas Kavanaugh for getting all that info about Paul Schrader in the document. Appreciate that. I mentioned we saw Backrooms and that's coming later this week. Yeah. Pre-sales are through the roof. I've seen that. Gen Z is extremely fired up. You know, I go where Gen Z goes. Do you think there might have to be some sort of like Gen Z horror mommy thing that we develop as well here? For me or just in general? Just watching both you and Sierra get a little startled in a movie. It was a lot of fun.

2:07:48Honestly, it was really mostly Chris. He jumped a lot. He did get a couple of jumps. And I was like, well, I won't spoil it, but I knew it was.

2:07:55Sean Fennessey:Okay. We will get into back rooms very soon. And until then, see you.

2:08:20Sean Fennessey:Good energy in. Ah, good energy out.

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