Marvel’s Box Office Woes, ‘Alien: Earth’ Preview, and ‘Families Like Ours’

22:21Andy Greenwald:And I also think that there's just, there's stuff they can throw at this that actually will still hit, but it is probably long-term diminishing returns if you're still spamming the same aging star buttons. So I had another question about another franchise, a flip side. Now, we're not going to get too into Alien Earth, which premieres tomorrow night. We're recording this on Monday. It premieres Tuesday night with the first two hour-long episodes or about an hour-long episodes. This is from Noah Hawley. It's his interpretation, his take on the continuing kind of expansion of the alien universe, which really got picked up in earnest again by Ridley Scott a few years ago, about 10 years ago, with Prometheus and Covenant.

23:04And then since then, we've had Romulus. you know you have people who have their preferences in terms of whether it's alien or aliens or maybe they they really love like some of the prequels i i actually am quite fond of prometheus and covenant but i was uh checking out the noah holly show which we won't get too into a critical discussion of or even a spoilery discussion because i want people to go in as open-minded as possible um but i realized you know i've talked about this before on when i've talked about alien with sean on Big Pick, this is my favorite franchise, I think, in terms of a franchise where it's like, I have really pretty much found stuff to love, if not like a lot about each one of these films, even Resurrection.

23:51And it's weirdly the world I'm most curious about. And I think one of the reasons why is because there's a lot of negative space to fill in with your imagination or you have to go really deep into Alienpedia research to find it because it doesn't often rise up to the mainstream main texts. There may be a Weyland-Yutani corporate timeline, but its references are really limited to whatever the POV character you're watching, whether it's Ripley, whether it's whoever. So Noah Hawley, who I think has obviously proven that he can take previously existing characters or worlds like X-Men or Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo and then give it his own spin and use it as a lens through which to view the past or the present.

24:45I was very excited and curious about this. And then when I realized watching these two episodes, which I think have a lot to recommend about them and I will continue to watch, and this is in no way like an indictment of it, I realized I am a fucking nerd about Alien more than I thought I was. And I'm actually a pretty annoying person because little things I was getting comic book store guy about. Like I was like, well, I don't know. I don't think they would listen to Nina Simone in this, you know, like in 2142 or whatever year it is. And there are little bits that he has taken liberties with, whether it's canonically adjusting it or suggesting different kinds of historical moments that are on the alien timeline, or just tonally.

25:32He has very specific, very deliberate pace to his stuff that I was like, I realized that it wasn't just my visceral reaction. It was like the nerd in me that was reacting. You haven't seen these episodes yet. You're going to check them out. We'll talk about them on Thursday. I wanted to know if there's a franchise that you are protective of.

25:52Andy Greenwald:It's a great question. I do just want to address the bulk of your statement. My personal failings. No, I think you're doing very well. I'm here to affirm you. No, I mean, just in terms of like, as a man in midlife, who's like, that's not how chestbursters walk, you know? look I you're talking to a man who a moment ago was was clowning someone for talking about Mount Wondagore and I'm like actually it's a pretty tall mountain so I think there's probably is some dark magic up there so top five Marvel mountains we're good um this is a safe space um I think this is going to make for an interesting conversation about the show to a degree that I didn't realize because cards on the table I think I have seen more alien movies than I even realized.

26:44Andy Greenwald:Like I've seen of the seven or eight, right? Franchise. I've seen probably five of them. Some of them multiple times or part, you know, like that aliens, alien three. What's the fourth one? The resurrection. Those, those are on TV a lot. Like I've seen those a bunch. I saw Prometheus famously or infamously in the front row of the Cinerama dome with you and - With blood type gin. with you in fantasy in 2012. Still one of the more haunting experiences of my life. But that said, I have no allegiance to any kind of larger canonical truth. And so I think we'll be a good pair to discuss that for that reason.

27:26Andy Greenwald:I was thinking about your question before we started recording. It doesn't have to be a franchise either. It could just be like a property or a story that you're like, I don't really like, I don't play loosey-goosey with this. I think that my household, including my daughter who's here today, will have a similar attitude about Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey in terms of just getting the mythology right. So that'll be fun. What about Jon Bernthal's kind of street level way with the dialogue? I'm rewatchable. I want Jon Bernthal in everything throughout history. So I'm okay with that. No, I do think, though, the alien thing is interesting because it's, is it the last, and I know why it was, you know, for a while it was a crown jewel, it was very protective.

28:12Andy Greenwald:I mean, there was something kind of amazing about the way the franchise was, you know, gently handed to a new generation's auteur for those first four movies. That, you know, that was also sort of the, like the Mission Impossible idea at the beginning, too, that was very nice. And in this world of like just absolutely origin story, just, you know, ravaged, like, like there, there is no more, there is no more coal in Northern Pennsylvania because there was once a reference to who made the predator or whatever. Like the fact that there's this less, there, there, there, there has been relatively, the Weyland-Yutani and all that has been relatively underexplored is kind of remarkable that there's even anything left there.

28:55I thought, and Noah certainly digs in. And I almost think that where, say, Tony Gilroy with Andor had Knights Templar behind him being like, this is the way, like, you cannot stray from this path. You can do anything you want within this, but this has to happen in this year. The Force is this thing, et cetera, you know, et cetera. So the Force gets mentioned in Andor, but there are no lightsaber battles. There is a kind of resistance to indulging in some of the stuff that obviously the Mandalorian and a lot of the Filoni stuff has gotten into. I don't think there is a library of Congress for Alien necessarily.

29:42And I think Noah Hawley kind of, I wouldn't say exploits it, but I think he's like, this is my take on it. And one of the cool things is for, you know, alien movies can take on different genres like war or haunted house or slasher. They should also be able to take on different points of view in terms of what's interesting about this. And ultimately, I kind of like agree with his idea where there's been six, seven movies where, yes, some philosophical ideas obviously are at play. And Prometheus is like one of my favorite sort of 21st century genre movies, honestly. but these movies are like people getting chased by a thing that will kill them Noah's show is about identity what it means to be a human being what what is memory if you can write it you know like all these these very heady sci-fi ideas so I'm curious to see where he takes

30:37Andy Greenwald:it it's interesting because it's almost like he is himself kind of it's not it's not a relic but his ability to do this and that being recognized as a as a skill and an asset has fallen so far out of favor in the last 10 plus years since he did Fargo like you know he did and I was lucky enough to work on a season of Legion which the whole selling point I remember Laura Donner coming into the room being so excited that it had nothing to do with James Marsden as Cyclops or any of the movies you know that was the whole selling point and then briefly he was doing that when Fox still had the rights to the Marvel character.

31:14Andy Greenwald:I mean, before the merger, he was doing that with Doom. He was writing a Doom thing that was just its own world. And so this is another, and maybe the last example of that being a plus of FX, you know, flexing its aesthetic muscles and saying, we want to do a Noah version of this as opposed to, I mean, there would have been a long line out the door for the bake-off of, let's just do the movie franchise on TV. Now, I'm saying all this having not seen the show, and if we don't like the show, that's a different argument. but in terms of what their priorities were for it. So to answer your question, I mean, my number one gut answer is probably predictable but also not something that's liable to come up, which is Twin Peaks.

31:52Andy Greenwald:Like, don't come at me conflating Bob, the evil spirit, with Judy, the evil spirit. Like, let's understand who works for who in the hierarchy of darkness, you know, coming out of the Black Lodge. I'm pretty in the weeds with that stuff. but I also don't think anybody is either trying to or checking for like a reboot. You're really going to regret saying that. First of all, what if they ask you? And second of all, what if it's like Jeremy Saulnier and we're like, oh shit, but what if it's good? Okay, so you're talking about a franchise that I feel weirdly ticky-tack particular about accuracies other than Harry Potter?

32:35Yeah. I think, honestly,

32:39Andy Greenwald:these have been active conversations. I think X-Men would be one. Yeah. Yes. Because I think over 60 years that franchise has been so many different types of things and so many different stories have been folded into it. Within the same universe, there's a very poignant and super emo struggle about identity. And then there's also whole storylines where they just play softball at the mansion. These are all different iterations of these characters. And so I think that I'm not one of the people who's just like, where's the new casting of Wolverine? What are we doing with this? Because of all the things that they have to get right to please people, but also be true to it.

33:21Andy Greenwald:In a weird way, this is the biggest test of what I think Kevin Feige's mutant power has been, which is I can both reduce and boil down the logline of a character into a easily translatable, you know, I used the word already, to a logline. I can take 60 years of history and make it a logline. I can package it. I can translate it to the casual. This would be his toughest test to do it with X-Men. Yeah. All right. Why don't we take a break and we'll come back and we're going to talk about families like ours. This episode is brought to you by NOS Energy. Introducing new NOS Energy Grand Prix Guava.

34:00For those that want to be fueled up and fired up with a hundred mile an hour tropical tasting power, Ignite your taste, start your engine, shift your flavor to high gear with new NOS Energy Grand Prix Guava. Hit the street, grab a can and get after it. When the sun goes down, the appetizers come out. Yeah, you heard that right. Late night half price appetizers are here at Applebee's. Saucy, sweet and spicy boneless wings. Crispy, cheesy mozzarella sticks. Creamy spinach and artichoke dip. Your favorite apps, half price, available every single night because why should appetizers have curfews? Tap the banner to learn more.

34:38Dining only for a limited time at participating locations. Restrictions apply. Copyright. 2026 Applebee's Restaurant, LLC. This episode is brought to you by NOS Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat, and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard-fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of NOS Energy. High-performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage and pedal to the metal, human horsepower for the streets. Go ahead, crack open a can of NOS Energy and get after it. Evening, buyer's remorse. Buy a new car?

35:14Andy Greenwald:I'll be moving in. Let's get started. Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana. You what? Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it. So there's no... No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyer's rejoice. I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it. Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com. Okay, man. So I'm very excited to talk to you about this show. This has been a little bit of a... We're a little behind the times, I suppose, on some of these series.

35:50But we've had a really nice run on this pod. I don't know if our numbers will reflect it. of really enjoying some international television over the last couple of weeks. We talked about the Eternaut for a couple of episodes a few weeks ago. We spoke about Eastern Gate last week, which is a Polish spy thriller that you can find on HBO Max and Rules. And hopefully we'll come back to that once we finish. And now we just wanted to highlight a show that came out in Europe, I think, last year, but it was just released on Netflix in June. and it's from Thomas Vinterberg who is one of the founders of the Danish filmmaking movement, Dogma 95.

36:30There are other pronunciations of that but I'm not going to do it. It's like dogm. Oh. And yeah, so I'm just going to roll with Dogma 95.

36:39Andy Greenwald:Is it related to Dogman? My younger daughter likes that quite a bit. No. And Vinterberg, for people who don't know, is a celebrated filmmaker. He's done, most recently, he put out the film Another Round with Mads Mikkelsen, which I believe he got nominated for an Oscar for directing for that one. And other films like The Hunt, The Celebration, he's also, and this comes into play with Families Like Ours, did do a film called All About Love, which I've never seen, but is with Joaquin Phoenix and Claire Danes in the earlier 2000s that deals with a very plausible environmental disaster collapse in society and its impact on the interpersonal relationships of a few characters.

37:26So Families Like Ours is a seven-episode Netflix series. Vinterberg directed all of it. I believe wrote all of it as well. And it's essentially about an extended family in Denmark who find out as the series begins that the country is going to be evacuated because of wide-ranging flooding happening across Europe, essentially across the Netherlands has already been closed down and evacuated and Denmark is next because it's low-lying and that the floods are coming. And when I heard about the show, I was very interested. When I saw a couple of quotes from Vinterberg about the show, I thought it was going to be basically keeping that disaster and keeping that situation almost at arm's distance, at arm's length.

38:17and I have to say that I'm so impressed by the fact that he has come up with this cast of this ensemble and this cast of like 6 to 8 to 10 characters and this is all they talk about is the fact that we have to move out of Denmark what are we going to do and everything about it is like our relationship shot through all the practicalities that go into what would happen if you had to leave where you were from where you would go how much money you would need how the government would be a play a role in your evacuation and how people are feeling about losing their national identity and their heritage and their homes and the economics of everything with the real estate market.

38:55And it is so finely detailed. I almost was thrown for a loop by how intimately Vinterberg gets into this stuff. So Andy, I'm so excited to talk about this with you because it's one of the coolest shows I've seen this year.

39:07Andy Greenwald:I think our listeners are excited that there is a second show in as many episodes that immediately talks about the Svalki gap. did you notice that like the third line of the show is about the polish corridor and evacuating through it um yeah so look when we love something we're like a dog with it but we just get our teeth dug into it and uh no i i'm so excited about this show for a number of reasons the number one reason would be it's fantastic it is beautifully directed wonderfully acted really engrossing and thematically and emotionally rich, which is the sweet spot for me for any hour-long TV show.

39:48Andy Greenwald:The other reason, and we can talk about this in tandem with the actual specifics of it, or we could talk about it, sort of carve it out separately, is that this is, I found this so thrilling as a way forward for what has been a very, very stagnant

40:07Andy Greenwald:American drama moment. for the serialized drama. This is the first horror slash dystopian high concept show that I can remember seeing in a long time that is terrifying because it is so relatable and plausible and in some ways maybe even inevitable. There are no zombies. There are no sci-fi elements here. There are no high concept CGI dam breaking moments. there's just this incredibly disturbing and artful lingering of the camera on water and how water is everywhere in Denmark and how water is inevitable and how it's coming and it's part of the beautiful, truly beautiful landscapes of Winterberg films in the opening moments of the series.

40:55But he opens the series at the end of a school term where it's sunny and it's Copenhagen in late spring, early summer.

41:03Andy Greenwald:And he doesn't ignore the fact that life absurdly goes on. So there are moments of happiness or joy or new romance or new beginnings. And I think that one of the things that people who watch the show that will resonate even before you get into the climate terror that's baked into the heart of it is a very familiar post-COVID ongoing end of the post-war democratic order feeling of like, oh god we're we're living through the worst moments like you don't want to be alive for the interesting times and yet here we are and what do we do about it like it's just you don't really have a choice in that and that feeling of inevitability is amazing but but the bigger thing is that like just i i do want to get your thoughts on that like clearly to break through these days you do need some sort of high concept hook for a lot of our storytelling and this has a incredibly high, almost impossible to fathomly, that's not the word, concept.

42:05Andy Greenwald:Like almost imperceptibly high concept, but it is also an emotional family drama. And I think it marries the two wonderfully in a way that both is exciting for the show and just made me kind of inspired for other types of storytelling we might see going forward. Yeah, I mean, most of what the drama is on screen is it will feel scope-wise no different than, I mean, honestly, take any family drama that you watch where it's largely confined to people's houses or workplaces. The conversations are pretty quotidian because they're about like, oh, have you talked to your ex recently? Did you text this person back?

42:47This person owes me money, but I don't want to ask them for it. And then there's a large chunk of the story is about a first love. It's about the main character largely is this girl this girl Laura who's played by Amaryllis August who does a great job as like the centerpiece and the sort of heartbeat and the person who's connecting a lot of these characters but you've essentially got like Laura and her father her father's new newish wife and their new child then you've got Laura's mother who has had some emotional problems over the years who is kind of trying to figure out whether or not she's going to be able to join Laura's father and his family in Paris, or whether she will be basically dropped down to the Bucharest tier of people who need state-sponsored evacuation.

43:40Andy Greenwald:Let's talk specifically about it before we even get into the family stuff. So one of the things that's so brilliant about the show is that, is it likely that a country will proactively end itself to get in front of what are going to be terrifying and draconian changes? I mean, compared to even what we have now in terms of like immigration. Well, if there is going to be one, it's going to be a skated evening country. What's so brilliant about it being Denmark is that, and it's on screen, right? Everything you see in the opening moments, even the shots inside the stats minister office, which I remember that word from Borgen, right?

44:18Andy Greenwald:It's like, there's some really nice chairs in there. Like the gym at the random public high school is pretty nice. Like everything looks very beautiful and considered and sun dappled. And there's like, you know, rustic bread on the tables. And it's a healthy place. And the healthy decision that the country makes is to say, okay, stay calm, everyone. but we are going to evacuate all of you forever in these six groups. It doesn't go that. And the first group is people who can pay their own way. And it doesn't go that smoothly. But the fact, I just, the decision to do it in a Nordic country makes it sting even a little bit more, right?

44:59Andy Greenwald:Because these are the people, supposedly they're doing the right thing. Yeah, this is what it looks like when it goes well. That's it. That's perfectly said. And so it really digs into the fact that like even, you know, morally upright people will tell the people they love or won't tell the people they hate if they have advance warning they will think about themselves first and become selfish or maybe they won't you know but either way everything is so interconnected in in a globalized economy and everything is so online and you know hidden behind uh passwords and apps and your bank card It isn't really a ticket to getting your, like the way that the show just calmly, rationally, Nordically pulls at that string in a way that is deeply disturbing.

45:44And my brain is so not wired for this kind of thoughtfulness at the moment

45:48Andy Greenwald:that I definitely found myself more anxious than even the show probably wants me to be where I'm like, it's not just that this is the slow spiral of an entire civilization. It's that, Oh, someone's going to T-bone this car that they're in. I have that heightened anxiety of American storytelling where I'm like, but then also there's going to be a sniper. Thus far, in two episodes, there isn't. It's a much more slow and thoughtful horror. I feel like you can feel the dread because when you're talking about how there's no zombies in this and when you watch a dystopian like Last of Us or Walking Dead, not to lump them all together because I love those shows or like love zombie storytelling.

46:33Generally speaking, there will be this kind of like how the tribe of humans who rose after this mirrors human society now, you know, and the enemy within, how we are our own worst, the villain is us, et cetera. And the thing that's brilliant about this show is the cause and effect plotting that you can feel unfolding before the characters realize it. So there are characters in the beginning, in the first episode, who are ahead of it. They get basically inside information about what's coming, and they sell all their properties. They had some commercial properties, they had some inherited properties, and they basically, at a cut rate, get out of the real estate market and have transported euros, I think from Switzerland back to Denmark and are sitting on like a fortune essentially and are the only people who seem to have been ahead of the curve.

47:35I know that is going to come up again. And you watch them in their brief moment of like, aren't we the smartest two fucking guys in the world? And that kind of like anxiety, there's so many examples of this in the show or you're like, oh, dude, you can't have all your money tied up in your house. That's such a real thing. And now this guy is broke or whatever. And all that stuff, exactly what you said, like this idea that I go and give somebody a piece of plastic and they give me goods for it, is what happens when you start taking that stuff away?

48:09Andy Greenwald:And what happens when you're left with the frayed bonds that we are able to either ignore because of social convention or because of status or because of you can use money to put the problems away. There's an interesting character introduced, I think more prominently in the second episode, but it's played by David Denchik, who's an actor we've seen in... Yeah, he was in Ticker Taylor. He was in The Second Top of the Lake. He's a very familiar face if you watch stuff not filmed here. And he plays one of the characters you're speaking about, the married men who are clever, brother, right? And he's pitched as the villain in a way because he's an asshole and he behaves terribly.

48:54Andy Greenwald:But his emotion is somewhat justified, right? Well, he's not that much different than the guys who have kind of cashed out of the market. They've just done it in this gentlemanly, wise way. you know like what they've done is morally as dubious as what the david denchek the peter character does but it's like percept the perception of it in society would be different because these guys are such shy retiring lovely men who just happen to have made like gotten out of the market at the last possible second i also really like the um it could have gone so in watching it there were just so many moments where I was like, in a weird way, this is a repeatable format, the way the office was like, let's make an American version of this.

49:46Andy Greenwald:Like what will climate crisis do to this country and that country? There are reasons why this is particularly good to be said it here, not just because of the Nordic element that we talked about. But in the same way we were talking about Eastern Gate, like I think it's both fascinating and rich from a story perspective, but also from a global audience perspective to see countries that are not the big whales, that are not able to just, like, well, let's all just put all the people in the middle. Yeah, send them to Paris. That's not possible. I think that's really interesting, but I also think that just aesthetically, it is so un-American in wonderful ways.

50:22Andy Greenwald:Like, for people who I don't know what the amount of our listenership who's like, oh, Vinterberg sounds interesting, but I'm not a real dogma guy. Like, this is not there's a couple like dream sequences, but other than that But this is a very human level, emotional... It reminds me a lot of Another Round. I mean, it's got a very loving eye for Denmark, for Copenhagen, but it also has a very honest eye about the failings of the people. And think how badly this could have gone. Like the idea of like a 18-year-old flowering and first love being like the... against the backdrop of an apocalypse. It could just go so wildly wrong and it's very tasteful and it's very compelling.

51:11Andy Greenwald:Did Carl on Walking Dead ever get a girlfriend? Inevitably, I'm sure. I know he lost an eye so he must have gotten something back, right? I mean, is that Hammurabi's code? Am I getting that? Chixxing eye patches? Am I getting that wrong? I think that's probably true. No, but it understands the youthful story in its own right. It's very sweet and it's ground level of that but it also understands something that, you know, I think was the experience, like I was saying before, of anyone who was parenting through COVID of like, it's just kind of their life. So they have to be optimistic and hopeful because that's what else do people do?

51:46Andy Greenwald:And we all have that fiction, you know, to a degree during these moments and it's what keeps the species alive. So I kind of, I really responded to and appreciated that. And then also just big picture. This is, I think there was a moment early in the year when we were like, this year hasn't really had as many bangers as last year or it hasn't been as strong of a TV year. I think low-key turning high-key, it is becoming the opposite. I think, remember, I have a tween here, so my use of the popular slang term low-key did get a look. Yeah. I didn't call anyone zesty yet, though. Anyway, I think it's been a really strong year, but particularly in terms of what's exciting for me is dramas that aren't afraid of being about something other than a satisfying adaptation of another thing or filling a particular hole or a bucket like so this is a year i think i would slot families like ours on the list with with and or with adolescents um and also in the pit of being like we are one thing but we are not afraid of also being alive to the world.

52:58Andy Greenwald:And the world that we're actually living in. And I think that all of those shows do a good job of not holding your hand. Right. And I think that that is something that makes it sometimes difficult for me to watch some American drama. You know, like, not all. If Gilded Age is considered a drama, I guess it would be. Yeah, I mean, it's not like comedy. Like, Gilded Age is also, like, an incredibly dense, incredibly fast-moving, sometimes you realize it like somewhat low stakes and then it becomes the highest of high stakes. But there are a lot of shows where I think that they're a little bit... Either they're only about the mythology and the fabric of the story that they're telling.

53:44So maybe those are something like... Those are maybe more like comic adaptations, I think, probably, or superhero adaptations. That's not necessarily a drama. But something like Morning Show would be a good example of like, there's like a very explicit leading you to the conclusion that you should be led to going on. And, you know, even if the stories are quote unquote ripped from the headlines, they're not applied to like normal people. They're applied to like fabulously rich television anchors. And this is kind of nice to watch real people deal with real things, even if there are some very extreme things.

54:18Andy Greenwald:One of the biggest problems of grown-up art in the last 10 plus years, 20 years, it's not just that like the best and I saw the best and brightest minds of our generation pitching Jim Gunn at DC. it's not it's not that so much as like with everything in the country it we're so stratified that like literature and even tv and film kind of disappeared up its own ass in terms of like everything is about how certain people feel about the idea of thinking about things as opposed to you know what 25 years ago we had the wire right um and there's different ways of expressing that and engaging with the world but one of the things that is so exciting and and and you know thinking about things and thinking about how we feel things is how we get masterpieces like The Leftovers.

55:01Andy Greenwald:So I'm not trying to paint or too big of a brush here. But when I was reading over the weekend that the producers of The Pit for season two were like, absolutely, we're going to be talking about this big, beautiful bill and what it's going to do to health care in this country. Like, that's what the show is a vehicle to do, in addition to talking about Dr. Robbie's emotional state and whatever. Like, that's exciting to me. We were joking or laughing a little bit about when Tony Gilroy came on the show and was like, you know, I've been reading about the meeting in which they decided to do the final solution for years.

55:32Andy Greenwald:And now I've finally found the correct Disney funded Star Wars show to explore it. That's awesome. Like, I like a world that isn't where the art isn't didactic or heavy handed, but also isn't running from stuff. Like adolescence being such an exciting example of them being like, we want to do something aesthetically challenging and really push ourselves in the intellectual filmic space, but also what is this going to be about? And how are we going to use these skills? I don't know. I'm also someone who just over the weekend was remembering that Mike Mills made that movie Come On, Come On a few years ago, which is just like, hey, Mike Mills, what do you want to do?

56:09Andy Greenwald:I'm sorry to pick on him, but he was like, I want to make a movie where the National makes the songs and Joaquin Phoenix is a radio journalist interviewing children, but his kid comes along and will shoot it in black and white. I'm like, I think we're done with tweed twiddling like that for a while. You know what I mean? sure sorry i like npr weird drive by him mike mills seems like a great guy beginners great film but i was just thinking about this movie existing and i'm like we are we are a little bit past the time for that now you know what i mean like let's talk about the rising sea levels the last thing i have to say is that from what little we've seen of one of the main characters yakob he's this architect who's got the new wife and he's laura's father and the first few episodes are largely built around him unloading this house that he's got in Copenhagen so that they can get out of there and go to Paris and all of his money is tied up in this house.

57:03I gotta say, if I had to hug a house like that, I might just take my chances with the waters.

57:09Andy Greenwald:That's the thing because it's multi-level, right? So you lose the basement. Sure. You put a boat tie on the balcony and then you work with it. It's beautiful. I do think that's Holger that's Uncle Holger's plan right like he's like I'm sticking it out and it is a it's a pretty big country I understand that it's all pretty flat but like just get a catamaran do you think at any point in the season there'll be a cutaway to our friend of the pod Rene Redzepi and like just the kind of like you know the new Nordic cuisine guys and how they're feeling about this like are they going to rebrand as like a floating restaurant or do you think that in the timeline of the show when he comes to LA next year he just stays yeah it'll be while he's on the coast they waited for him to get to LA before they were evacuating not to put too much on you but did this show give you any feelings about your decision making vis-a-vis being a renter or about where you have your money do you feel prepared for this eventuality did this make you feel any type of way Yes.

58:19But more about money isn't real. It's just the idea that these people can't get their money out of the banks and the bank has a bureaucratic wall that comes down and is like, well, we aren't allowed to give out that much cash anymore or whatever. And I think there's a lot of things in this. Even the transactional nature of how these family members now are also in business together and who owes what you know to who whether it's money favors okay like we're gonna bring the ex-wife to france with us whatever it is i i don't want to say too much because i want people to be able to enjoy it like on a first blush but we'll talk about it again maybe next week or something uh on thursday we'll talk about alien earth um you know and if you have an abundance of time we can drive eastern gate but i think alien earth will take up a lot of our conversation on thursday

59:13Andy Greenwald:Do you think people now, if they happen to see you in Silver Lake, but you're pulling two away suitcases behind you at all times, should they assume that it's just full of euros? Kroner. I'm zagging. Are you zagging? Are you buying the dip? No. Not to make too big a... What about you? Do you feel like you're prepared for this? No. I live kind of on a hill, so I feel like I have a little more time. I'm not talking about water. I just mean in general. No, again, we're not going to spoil the show, but Jakob's new wife has a very memorable reaction when he leans over during, like, quiet looking at the iPad time before bed.

59:57He's like, by the way, we're broke.

59:59Andy Greenwald:No, he's like, we're broke and we have to close the country. She has a very, what I would call, honest reaction to it that I think is kind of how my mind and body would respond. That said, and we can explore this when we revisit the show because I really hope and this is a classic me saying this in the 57th minute that like I hope people actually do watch this show but I would love to do cutaways to many other shows in the reality of this show like the industry guys like the trading floor watching these events Rishi kind of shorting the corner exactly like I think that would be incredibly rich content that would be good alright man great seeing you again thank you to Kaya thank you to John thank you to Andy's daughter we will leave you there we'll be back on Thursday to talk about the first two episodes of Alien Earth hope everybody has a great week it's going to be a good one

1:01:00the right window treatments change everything your sleep, your privacy the way every room looks and feels at Blinds.com we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50 ,000 five-star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered. Real design professionals, free samples, zero pressure. Right now, get up to 40 % off site-wide, plus get a free professional measure at blinds.com. Rules and restrictions apply. This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT.

1:01:33Hey, it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons Podcast. Have you guys heard about ChatGPT work? It's the new way to use ChatGPT for bigger multi-step projects. And when you need more than just answers, give ChatGPT work access to your apps and files, and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets, slides, and structured reports. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode available on Plus and Pro plans.