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

0:00This episode is brought to you by the autographed journey credit card from Wells Fargo. The autographed journey credit card from Wells Fargo is built for travel. You can earn rewards wherever you book, your favorite hotel site, your go-to airline, and more. You get five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants, and other travel and one point on other purchases. Whether it's a big vacation or a quick getaway, from booking your state of that first meal when you arrive, you're turning your trips into rewards with the autographed journey credit card from Wells Fargo. For more at Wells Fargo.com slash autographed journey, terms apply. I'm Sean Fennese, I'm Amanda Davin, and this is the big picture and conversation show, but the best and the rest on today's show we will share our favorite movies of the year so far and run through several 2026 releases we missed in the deluge of awards season.

1:00Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Ben David Grubinski, the writer-director of the very fun new action comedy Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice. Ben David is an avid cinephile and super smart writer, and you can feel his passion for all different kinds of movies and Mike and Nick stick around for our conversation. I think you will really enjoy it, but first we have some movie news to get into right after this. This episode of the big picture is presented by State Farm, sure, being an expert and movie trivia is impressive. You know it's even more impressive? Being smart about saving money, and a great way to do that is by saving when you choose to bundle home and auto with the State Farm Personal Price Plan, bundling, just another way to save with the Personal Price Plan. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state, coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Okay, Amanda. So let's be clear, we have three-day old movie news. Three-day old movies. Today is Monday, we're recording on a Friday, so in the event that Avengers Doomsday is pushed back to 2029.

2:02We will not know about it, but we do know that Jumanji 3 has been pushed back to Christmas 2026. I tell you that and you say what? Yeah, I say big screens for Doomsday, great. I say I had, I would say that I, Amanda Dobbins, a professional film podcaster of sorts. Now at this point have too much information about how many large format screens Doomsday may or may not be eligible for it. Put a little context around it. Avengers Doomsday is coming out the same day as Doomsday is doing part three. We talked about it last week on the show, and we were like, this is weird. How's this going to work? This doesn't really make a lot of sense, but these two very similar movies. Of course, Jumanji moved off of December 11th to Christmas, so now it seems like Doomsday can move up to December 11th and maybe get some iMac screens in the process to make more money for them. We were talking about who's going to blink, who will move first?

3:04This would be certainly a blinking and a moving first for Doomsday, however, probably a smart move for them, however, I kind of feel like Doomsday is just more fun and cooler. I just think it would be more of an interesting movie event weekend. People are very angry that you tried to coin Doomsday. I did coin it because I put the three where where that where that E is supposed to go. Because we learned that the movie is called Doomsday Part Three. A lot of people like Doomsday exist, bro. No, not Doomsday with the three. Okay, everyone. So just simmer down. Yeah, I love to market. I love to be part of marketing. I'd seems like they will move. That's what we speculated, right, that it is Doomsday Part Three and Warner Brothers and the position of strength here and that it would probably, and they also, it is Doomsday Part Three. Doomsday Part Three. Excuse me. Doomsday. Doomsday. Doomsday. Doomsday. Just that three is doing a lot of work backwards E. I know. It looks like my son tracing right now. We're having similar issues with inverted shapes on our letters.

4:10They already had the screens tied up for two weeks. So it was written in the ink of IMAX that Dune had the upper hand. Yes. So it does seem like the, the blink. This is useful for me because now I know the holiday party is going to be December 12th. Okay. We can all talk about Doomsday at the holiday party. No, no, no, no, that would just be, oh, we can talk about Doomsday, not Doomsday. Correct. You're really going to have to work on your annunciation. Doomsday. Yeah. We'll have seen it, I guess, and hopefully have recorded the podcast that I'm contractually obligated to record so that I can get quite drunk at my own holiday party. Yeah. I, you know, this is like a stupid story, but it is kind of interesting to me because what date your movie lands on is pretty consequential right now. The, for example, you know, we're heading into week two weekend two of project Hail Mary, which is reportedly tracking to make like $50 million this weekend, which would be a crazy hold. Great. That is great for a lot of reasons. And you know what? When we saw that preview of that movie back in April of 2025, I was like, God, this is

5:13a long time to wait for this movie. Turns out they picked a really good weekend to release a big event movie when there wasn't a lot going on against it the first weekend or the second. So this stuff is actually consequential to the business. I mean, it's about resources. It is about access to iMac screens and to big format because there are a limited number of them. And people are locking them up a year and two years and three years in advance. Yeah. So on Monday in the intro to the Spielberg episode that Hail Mary, I think 54% of its box office came from large format screens that this is just just kind of where the movie business went. And if you don't have a movie that cost $200 million to access those screens, you're going to take a hit financially. So anyway, thought we would put a little pin in that one. Speaking of pins, let's pull the pin out of the, the murder she wrote grenade. Okay. Murder she wrote is my wife's favorite television show. I do know that my wife adores Angela Lansbury. And when things are low in our house, you can rest assured that she will be firing up murder she wrote to come back to her special happy place.

6:17So as announced this week that there will be a murder she wrote movie starring Jamie Lee Curtis. Jamie Lee Curtis just came up in the 1980 movie draft. You had some short words for her. I'm maxed out. That's all it is. Okay. I, she has been overexposed like four times now, you know, we're on the, we're on the fifth Curtis sense. And my opinion doesn't even matter. How does I lean your wife feel about this? We haven't even spoken about it. What? I know. Just been a busy week. Okay. We haven't gotten into it. Um, I'm going to run a buyer. I don't know if she has any JLC feelings. Okay. Can you text her right now? Would she respond right now? I'll find out. Okay. Let's find out. I mean, she's taking care of a sick kid. So I don't, I can't guarantee you. Yeah. We love you. We love you. Let's get well soon. Hi, hun. We're live on the podcast. Yeah. Oh, yeah. What do you think about that? I know. But that's okay. What do you mean? Do you think H-O-N? Yeah. I think honey because it's short. Well, what if it's short for a till of the hunt? But do you also, when you say, yeah, do you sell the a till of the honey?

7:17I just, you just blew right past that. Do you, when you type out, yeah, I know how you text with me. But when you guys are texting, do you have different, um, of course, text. Yeah, yes. Of course. But do you do Y-E-A-H or do you do Y-A-H? Yeah. If it were you, I would say Y-E-A-H. I know. If it were Eileen, I would say Y-A-H. Yeah. Yeah. Why is that? That's really weird. Is it? No. I mean, I guess that's normal. I don't really think that I have different texting vernacular depending on who I'm texting. You're getting me. Um, I guess my parents slightly because they are still lawyers who text an email with like full punctuation, like absolute psychopaths. You'd never feel more in trouble than when you get an email from my mother. It's, I do, I don't, I don't really change this slang person to person, but I understand why you would. But I, I think Y-A-H is weird. Yeah. One thing about me and Eileen, we've been together since 1999. Yeah. No, I know. Like our verbal and textual language has, has really, we have a big, a lot of history,

8:21a lot of data. How is she saying to your phone? Just showing. No. Oh, Eileen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no last name. No, no, no. But you don't have any dad and Eileen or the only people that have that delineation. Cotton, Kyle and Cara and Grace, my siblings, my, my wife and my dad are the only people who know last names. Um, my mom and dad are the only people Zach is obviously last name because we met as adults. You can edit that. And I know, but now it freaks me out. I need everybody to have the first and last name and I made some new friends the other night and like we were leaving dinner and I was like, okay, so I'm going to need first name last names to attach to these random phone numbers and my phone because I can't have them saved without last names. Okay. Um, no response. I thought that was some pretty good vaping. I put on do not just do not disturb. So I don't know if I'm going to have to keep looking. Okay. Let's keep talking. You know, the movie is going to be directed by Jason Moore kind of seems like a smart use of IP, even if you're over indexed on Jamie Lee Curtis these days, I don't know. I, again, like familiar but new. That's my whole thing. Like this is something we've never seen a movie version of this mystery movies are kind

9:22of work. The knives out films work. But what's, yeah, is the point of this to find a new generation of murder, she wrote I'm Jack and Lucas murder. She wrote any familiarity. I mean, I'm familiar with the title. This is absolutely like, no, just, yeah, I'm familiar with it. You know, it was a network television show, a weekly murder mystery who done it show. My mother would also watch it. So I have seen a ton of it. It's very like cozy mystery. Angela Lansbury lives in Maine. Yes. And she is a mystery writer who is also a skilled detective who is called upon when there are murders. There have been a great many murders in her small town and is in Maine, New Hampshire. I'm sure. I mean, she's doing Maine Miss Marple. Yes. And which is also your wife's preferred mystery, yeah, over Poirot. But it wasn't like ironic. It wasn't funny. The murders weren't particularly violent and you could always definitely guess by the first commercial break, like who did it and that is fine. That's part of what's soothing about it. But so doing something like cutesy funny, what?

10:22I don't want it to be too the way you bunch movie. I think it would be actually better if they played it more straight. I do think that there's something really fun about the show to go back to, which is that it was a launch pad. Much like shows like Seinfeld where you could spot dozens of people who would go on to be really famous actors. Or Lawnord or yes. Or Lawnord. Yes, that's another good example. Or it would be like an interesting place for a much older actor to come in and do a single guess shot where you find like a screen star from the 50s would come in as the killer in one episode. And that was always a lot of fun. If the movie brings that energy, I think it would be pretty cool. But I don't know. It makes sense. Coming on Christmas next year, just like a nice movie for murder. She wrote up against the untitled Nancy Myers movie. Oh wow. Oh wow. That's the news. Yeah. And then you put me on the glacier and you set me out to see. Yeah. Or you just moved to, I don't know, West Palm Beach, probably. Okay. More movie news, Ryan Gosling coming off of this Hail Mary success it was announced is teaming up with Daniels for their first feature for Universal, it will be unsurprisingly

11:26a sci-fi comedy. So this will be three straight sci-fi movies in a row for Ryan Gosling with Project Hail Mary star fighter. He's Sean Levy star wars film. More counting that as sci-fi. And that is certainly science fiction. I guess so. And yes, it is, you're right. And this new movie, you know, you're not the biggest Daniels person in the world. I also, the Daniels new movie has been percolating scheduled, unscheduled, has been something else, has been something else for, for since everything everywhere are all at once. Essentially, does that raise any flags to you? I don't know. I mean, it's been, it will have been more than five years since everything everywhere all at once came out. But there was also a big gap between Swiss Army man and everything everywhere at once. I think obviously the ideas in their movies are very ornate and complicated and the way they like to make movies is unusual. I don't know. I mean, I think bringing Gosling onto your movie is a good idea. It does seem to be pretty in keeping with the tone that he's pursuing as an actor when you look at Barbie and you look at the fall guy and Hail Mary, you know, all those movies

12:29kind of have varying degrees of success. Right. But there is a kind of like joking, you know, joky serious that I think is also in what the Daniels do. I'm interested. I like everything, everything everywhere all at once. I think it's now taken on a much more outsized reputation, both good and bad because of its best picture win. Yeah. It's best picture. It's Oscars sweep. It's actually. Yes. That was pretty. It ran the table that year. Yeah. I like Ryan Gosling. Okay. Whatever he wants to keep doing. I mean, sure. Yeah. And, you know, I do want like one really evil Nick Reffen movie in the next 10 years. Okay. You know, like one movie that's like, I know you love the place beyond the pines. Really show me. You know, so we've, we're still in the Gosling press tour moment and then, but we're also sliding into a lot of Robert Pattinson for the drama content, which we'll talk about next week. We are. I'm getting dots for my lane. And they're, oh, that's exciting. And they're both giving a lot of good content.

13:32And so I would write Gosling and Robert Pattinson in a movie work against each other or like, is it like the center couldn't hold? That's a very interesting. They're closer in age than you'd think, right? They're closer in age and they do have a sort of, you think brothers, offbeat sensibility. Yeah. And they both like to do really weird shit. And then they will also, I mean, Pattinson is never quite as broad as Gosling. Yeah. Pattinson's 39 and Gosling is 45. I'm just, I'm just putting it out there. That's interesting. I feel we've been living with Gosling for so much longer partially because he was a child star, but teen star, but I would be into that. I mean, Twilight is not that much after the notebook, right? No, but it is that much after the Mickey Mouse Club. Sure. And remember the Titans and all of that stuff. Dots, but no response. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. All right. Wow. Dots disappeared. Oh, wow. So maybe now she's doing a lot of research. She's got to inform herself before she, you know, it takes the opinion.

14:35Bated breath over here. Fortunately, we have a lot more podcasts to go. So we'll see if she ever gets back to us. All right. The Oscars are moving from the Dolby Theater in Hollywood to LA Live and the Peacock Theater. Yeah. This is happening in 2029. The Dolby Theater is relatively small, 3,300 seats. The Dolby, or excuse me, the Peacock Theater has about 7,000 seats. I don't really know if this is interesting news or not because you and I don't go to the Academy Awards. Right. We probably won't go. This makes it so much more convenient for my plan next year. Okay. I hear what you're saying with the traffic at LA Live is so much worse, so much more. I'm going to wear you guys down. This is a year-long project. I'm planting the seats. But this is 2029. So it's at least three years away. Okay. Three years away. Yeah. I've already been put on the glacier after the Nancy Myers and after the Beatles, too. So we're thought. Yeah. And after the Beatles, that's right.

15:35I have to come back from the glacier. Okay. Simply put, I mean, it's not murder she wrote without Angela Lansbury. Maybe I could accept a prequel kids version of it, but it's just another mystery show without her. Okay. See, I agree. The Queen has spoken. Yeah. I had that inkling as well, but maybe it's not for us. Maybe it's for a new generation. It can be a new murder, a new murder show, I guess. What if she's like a murder podcaster? This is like, that's what's going to happen. And I want to light myself on fire at the same time. I don't want it either. But you know, if they're updating it, that that's what they're going to do. It's going to be insane when some hallowed figure of Hollywood history dies over the weekend. And we're opening the podcast with all this bullshit. I really hope that doesn't happen. You're not going to call in from spring break. We'll see. We will see. The Oscars moving, I think, you know, makes sense. They want to have to be able to have more people at the theater. I'm sure it's a money issue in a lot of ways. How much are they paying to host the show in that space? It does make it significantly, I don't know about less special. Who really gives a shit like what theater they put the show in?

16:38But a lot of shows are done at the peacock theater. Like the Grammys are there, country musical words are there sometime. You know, there's like a lot of stuff that just kind of goes into there. I've been to that space many times. When I worked at ESPN, I worked in LA live. I've spent a lot of time in that food court. Right. Which is not dissimilar to the food court that the Dolby mall is in. It's not. It's not by the, you know, the Johnny Rockets and the Lids to get to the Dolby theater. You do. I've eaten in that Tom's many a time. I've eaten at that farmhouse many a time. I've eaten in that farmhouse about coming to visit you at work. Yes. When you worked at ESPN. I don't, you know, neither one is that all that glamorous, but I do think Hollywood has a little bit more of that sheen of the town to it where his LA live is just just. It's right next to like crypto.com arena. It's Matt Bellany suggested in his newsletter that the peacock theater would be renamed by the time. That makes sense. Just, you know, Dolby cinema is also a brand sponsored or the Dolby theater is a brand

17:41sponsored theater. And this is connected to movies, though, you know, you can go to the cock and down nappy too would have you feel differently. But no, I agree with you. I agree. But also that these things are just like changing so quickly. It has a little bit of like uniclo field at a, at a theater stadium for five to eight. Like, we're very for sale, which they are, but it I agree. It feels more corporate and less like the stars are out. Yeah. I think the Oscars probably has to be really conscious about this where they run the risk of just becoming a little bit more down market that they still are the absolute platinum brand of award shows, acknowledging the hearts in America and moving to YouTube and changing locations and making the show bigger and hosting more people and having it downtown instead of in Hollywood. You know, they're all small, kind of middling things, but you put them all together. And then is the specialness still as special? I don't, I don't know. I'm not trying to concern troll, but I do think that there will be, there is an accumulation

18:42of things happening here that are going to be noticed at some point. Remember when it was at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion also downtown, like three blocks from the peacock theater, but just much sheaker. Yeah. And I think part of that is just like you remember hearing live from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and everything felt very elevated and we didn't live in this city at that time too. And some of it is just when you live in LA, you have a different relationship to these things. Right. You do also park for jury duty at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. So you know, you went some and you lose some, yeah, you still haven't had to report, right? Well, please don't speak. That exists. Okay. I had to report. I made it out. What? What were you? I had to report to criminal. What were you trying? Like a criminal trial. Yeah. Okay. They'll never catch me. Taxivation or murder. Okay. Any other news you want to get off your chest? I think that's good. I mean, again, we're forecasting into the future. So hopefully nothing crazy. Yeah. We have so many movies to talk about. This was originally 10 movies we missed and you just kept adding. And then they became 15 and now I think it's closer to 17.

19:43I saw three new movies yesterday because I'm really catching up. You did as well. You know, you can't say that the business might be in peril, but it is very active. There's a lot of stuff coming out. They're putting stuff out. A lot. And maybe too much, if that makes sense, because in the world, they're streaming. There is the catch up from the 2025 kind of festival releases that get late distribution. And then there's just kind of your general work a day. Studio movies getting released in theaters. And so you put all three of those together. A show like this is so different than what Cisco and Uber would have done in 1995. In 1995, you'd have four movies coming out and that's it. You'd cover three of them with some level of oversight and then the fourth one would be a throw away. And then you'd be done. We're going to talk about 17 movies that have come out in the last three months. We probably could have done another 17. I look at my list and I'm like, well, there's a lot more here that we miss. It's impossible to be totalizing about that. Of course, you know, as a, as a complete. And that freaks you out. Yeah, it's hard for me.

20:44We're going to talk about movies on this podcast that you have not seen, which is unusual and uncomfortable for you. But we just want to commend you on your bravery. Thank you. Thank you. And enjoying yourself in this new phase of your life. I, I intend to. Right now, you're, as people are listening to this, you're on spring break. Yes. Are you having a good time? Are you relaxing? If I'm doing this properly, I'm on a golf course right now and this episode comes out. All right. I can't promise that that's what's going to happen, but I have a tea time. That's beautiful. By yourself, solo tea time. You're going to chat the people up. Are you going to put your, when you're doing solo tea time with other people? I do not listen to headphones. Okay. I'm glad you knew that. I still have what I was going to have. I saw where you're going with that. No, no. I, um, you know, I'm, I'm one with the force and the forces with me when I'm on the golf course. And I really feel happy and calm. That's beautiful. And I'm in a dad era and I'm appreciating that part of myself. I was born for it, so to speak. And, uh, love nature. I love the state of California.

21:45Great. I'm very happy in the state of California. Okay. Many problems. Many problems. And, uh, I intend to become, how many movies I watch, I don't know. I feel like I don't have to watch very many, though, because of what we're about to embark upon here. Let's just start. Okay. I think the, the first and most important movie for us to discuss is, is reminders of him. We have been venturing on a Colleen Hoover adaptation series of discussions ever since the, enormous success of it ends with us. Was that last summer? Last August? The August before that? 2024. 2024. Right. Right. It was before. I was born in my first podcast back was with Juliette about the Blake Lively lawsuit. Interesting. Okay. So it ends with us. It was a huge hit. It made almost $300 million a year, but even before that phone was released, Hoover had become one of the most successful novelists of her time. And they're cranking them out now. Yeah. This is, I think, the third prominent Hoover adaptation with a fourth income. With Verity on the way. Verity has been pitched as the bigger and better Colleen Hoover movie, starring Ann Hathaway.

22:51This one is a little bit smaller. It is based on one of her 2022 novels. It stars Micah Monroe, Tyrick Withers, Rudy Pankow, Laney Wilson, the country singer in her film debut, Nicholas DuVernay, Lauren Graham, and Bradley Whitford as parents. God. We're so old. It's directed by Vanessa Caswell, the summary of the plot is as follows, desperate to rebuild her life with the daughter she's never known, Kenna finds unexpected compassion in a secret romance with local bar owner Ledger. As danger develops for both of them, Kenna hopes to find a second chance amid unbearable heartbreak. What did you think of reminders of him? I just incredible new frontiers in not just baby names, but character names. I do feel that the Colleen Hoover universe teaches me about worlds that I don't have access to. Otherwise, I didn't know that there were a questionable grandparents naming their children

23:53DM. I have to assume that it was the grandparents who gave the name. That wasn't one of the things that was addressed. It's not explored. Yeah. We know that Micah Monroe's character who is in a very nasty car crash and is convicted of manslaughter because her beloved is killed in that car crash is pregnant at the time of the car crash. And she goes to prison and she gives birth in prison, waltz in prison, and then has to give the child up and she gives the child up to her boyfriend's parents. But we don't know who names the child, but the child is named DM. Yes. Now, DM, for long time fans of the challenge, the real world, road rules challenge, know that there was a great competitor on that show called DM. So this is not the first DM I've ever encountered. But when you have the word ledger, and DM as character names. You do wonder if it's like a, it's Ipsom, Laura, or Laura Mipsom, whatever it is. Or you're just like, have you been hanging out at the bank too long? Like what? What actually is happening?

24:54I'm on the Social Security name website right now, DM not in the top 1,000 names. Okay. Kenna 750 for the last couple of years, which is up a little bit ledger. Then you guess, I can't be top 2000. It's 502. It's ledger is by far the most popular. It's like skyrocketing. It was 975 in 2017 and 502 in 24. So that is absolutely fascinating. I will say Kenna, there was a great kind of like electro hip hop artist named Kenna, who are a member from the late 2000s. Yeah. Sean is in 2024. Hmm. 461. 436. Pretty good guess. Yeah. It's a little out of fashion. It's a little out of fashion, but you're like, you're pretty close to ledger, which is amazing. It's a little out of it. Well, after me, you know, broke the mold. That's where Amanda is. I'll say 262. 496. Wow. You're plummeting. I know we're out.

25:54It's the most 80s name of all time. My house, Zachary and Amanda, it's really, really tough, but it's okay. A lot of the crap. My cool Steven. Yeah. Yeah. You know, these names are going out. And you know what? Good. Bring a new generation of ledgers and DMs in. This movie is fascinatingly without incident. Yes. It is. It is barely a story. Yes. And thus, possibly the least objectionable ethically of the comic over films and also my least favorite, I would say. So is that because of what you kind of go into these movies for? Yeah. Because this movie is a straight line and very few of her stories based on what I've seen in the film adaptations are straight lines. They're kind of consistently like pivoting backwards and hiding information from the audience and making you unsure of what's really going to kind of hitchcock in in a perverse way Yes. Where she's like hiding critical pieces of information so that there's a big surprise. Then also everyone is like pretty evil to each other.

26:57Agreed. There's something ugly about it. This movie is really more of a pure melodrama. It actually kind of feels like a Douglas Stork movie where it's like something terrible has happened. And there's a woman who wants to get back to her kid. And it's just about her straight line path that the only divergence is she falls in love with her dead boy friends best friend who was an NFL prospect at the time of this death and has come back to town because of an injury to become a bar owner. They fall in love. He's trying to keep that information from his dead friend's parents while they're looking after this five year old girl. Now this is a movie with a five year old girl. Yeah. Very well cast young actor. She is very good. Very good in the film. And just I found it like not really emotionally connecting but not ever evil or strange in a way that I have found these other movies. And so it kind of just flows by you. And even though it does not have any of the salaciousness of the other Colleen Hoover films. What is even the second one? Oh right. The Allison Williams one.

27:57We're getting you. Yeah. We're getting you and having a fair and then they flash back at that. That film is very bad. Yeah. But like in a silly tasteless way that's pretty fun. When they actually do the flashback and Dave Franco is like D.A. Yeah. 37 year old Dave Franco is supposed to be 17. You know you're that you chuckle. But so reminders of him doesn't have any of that absurdity but it is still trying to do the hide the ball structure and there it it leads you on to what is supposed to be this major revelation that is not a revelation at all. And there's not even really any tension. It does set up the question of why are these grandparents like this which is it's honestly some of the worst grandparenting I've ever seen in my entire life. It's the only like really weird thing in the movie where you've got first of all also using Lauren Graham and Bradley Whitford. Yeah. You know Lauren Graham of course we will talk about Gilmore girls in this episode because of another film.

28:57But you know Bradley Whitford known to be apoplectic as an actor from time to time. But there is like an intensity and weirdness in there caretaking of this child and their relationship to her mother that is not matched by certainly by Tyrick Withers as the best friend replacement son across the way who's also a super handsome former NFL player who's building a home on the land that's that he purchased with his NFL money but he can't ever finish the home because he doesn't want to be I hate when I'm a business owner and a sick athlete who looks like Tyrick Withers and I've had to step away from the game and you know I could probably have any girl I want in town but I really need is the recently released convict who killed my best friend. It's just a huge bummer. She is a huge bummer. But you know what? She looks like Michael Monroe. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? I did also feel that the it was it. I thought that this was maybe a fair ish portrayal of a pretty unjust criminal justice system.

30:02Yeah. You know, but of course it's like unjust to the sad white lady so yeah, it does feel like a fifties movie where it's like through a series of miss misunderstandings someone has been put into this terrible situation and they're really a good person deep down but this bad thing happened wasn't their fault and they're screwed so it's an interesting attempted pivot by Michael Monroe an actress that I love that is you know between Chris Ryan and I one of our girls you know the start of it follows and many other horror movies over the last few years you know how to huge hit with long legs recently and she's attempting to get into a new lane and I think wisely to attempt to get some of this Colleen Hoover Doe you know she's not quite a skilled an actor. I think some of her like slackness as a performer really works in scary movies. It doesn't quite play as well here. Well she and Tyrick withers are on a different like energetic level than the grandparents. And then and also like then the situation around them which I guess enables their love

31:02of fair. But it is just it doesn't match up Tyrick withers has instantly joined the jock movie Hall of Fame because when you think about his his burly bro and I know what you did last summer his first round draft pick in him last year the horror movie. And now this he's being typecast a little bit. Yeah I guess so he can pull it off he's been a lot of time talking about who is not a convincing athlete and asked to play athletes in films and yeah yeah and he generally is appealing. He's very speed with the little girl so that goes a long way they are good together yeah I know that stuff that got me well sure yeah of course yeah girl dad um this movie is okay it's like it's like I totally forgot a bowl it's I had forgotten it um I it's fine again it is like the least offensive and also the most boring of the the Colleen Hoover yeah adaptations. Well do you think Verity will be enough of a big deal that it warrants its own episode

32:03of this show. I hope so I mean we could also do we could do Verity and then we could do all the like the romance adaptations we could do our next long threatened Nicholas barks episode oh well yeah but listen Verity Dakota Johnson and Hathaway Josh Hartman directed by Michael Schoelalter like a lot of real people I hope everybody came to play yeah it was on MGM too let's go riding high off of this excessive project tell Mary okay let's pivot away from reminders of him wait speaking of romances Kiki and Housemaid too oh wait for I forgot to add that to the document so you're like you're happy about this like your girls in her slop era and you're about it she wants to be in her slop era also the Housemaid which is not a Colleen Hoover adaptation but is like all of that literary mold way better than any of the movies we just mentioned that's the most fun I've had the Housemaid is more fun yeah and so I'm just hoping and Housemaid to it Amanda Sifred is apparently coming back which is great for me Amanda Sifred and and Kirsten Dunst together I say yes we just we need to up our game from Brandon's clenar like the

33:08next husband it should be Ben Affleck but he's too famous for that but it should be Ben Affleck who's like 42 who's like Kirsten Dunst's age who would be a fit for this world I don't I don't know how old everybody is anymore you know it I mean it should be like a Chris Evans type that's the kind of person who should be going into that spot you know and I feel like he could play that this material really well rather than trying to do ghost and be like isn't this so funny that I'm doing a stupid movie like this like actually be like I'm making like a schlocky erotic thriller that we can all laugh at and chew popcorn anyway um another movie we've both seen I presume oh yeah of course is Paul McCartney man on the run yeah this is Morgan Neville's latest documentary his first of two documentaries this year about major figures in popular culture his next documentary is about Paul McCartney's friend Lauren Michaels which comes out in April this one document documents McCartney's extraordinary life following the breakup of the Beatles and how the love he shared with his wife Linda became his bedrock and influenced a journey that would lead to the formation of his

34:11band wings let's talk through your feelings on this okay because this is this is your not only like your music documentary world but like this era of Paul is really your jam this means a lot to you the first I mean it not that it doesn't mean a lot to me but this is your Beatles through and through I'm Beatles through and through you like solo Paul of course and also like what I liked the most about this documentary was just once again seeing all the archival footage of them on the farm looking shaggy and weird and there is something idyllic about he just goes in the woods with Linda and shuts out the world and makes this music the way that he wants to I respect it I would go crazy if I had to do that but I think you would be very happy this is what you want in life I really think I think ram is one of the most inspiring pieces of art of all time yeah I I am utterly I think Paul's a crazy person in a way that I relate to and that he's like I'm about my thing and

35:15that's it sometimes to the point of isolationism and egotism and sometimes to the point not in my case but in his case of utter brilliance that it creates this magic out of him that only he can tap into and this period that this movie is focused on has been a huge kind of area of personal study for me yeah and so there's actually no way that this documentary was ever going to live up to my expectations I mean I just know a little bit too much about this yeah and I've listened to so many interviews with Paul about this period and you know the McCartney ram wildlife stretch and then the formation of wings I just I've spent a lot of time with that music and I really means a lot to me but I think this is pretty good I think it's definitely very watchable and if you are less of a psycho about Paul I think you'll learn a lot about his psychology and the aftermath of the Beatles the movie does I was curious how you felt about this it attempts to engage with the who broke up the Beatles and what was Paul and John's relationship like and I feel that there's

36:16been a lot of management around this over the last 20 years particularly we're sort of like Yoko and Sean have worked very hard with Paul and Paul's family to make it clear that these two people did not hate each other that that even when things were challenging and they were sniping each other when they were publicly beefing on record like literally on saws yeah that they still were blood brothers how how do you feel the movie like engaged with that what did you make of it like many like most recent music documentaries this is made with Paul McCartney's cooperation and involvement and he is an executive producer so I felt the management of everything from his side slightly and you know it's not I mean it is public record that when they finally split with remind me the Wiley manager's name the outline yeah fine fine when they are finally freed or you know the alcohol arrangement exactly you know that the archival clip of John Lennon

37:22being like yeah well Paul was right is included prominently in the and even when they show the clip of Paul being interviewed after John's murder they it's they have Sean Lennon narrating like his interpretation of it and trying to make it smoother and better Paul famously gave this infamously gave this sort of like blank disaffected interview maybe a day or less than a day after Lennon was murdered and it's it's a little bit of a black mark on his yeah legacy because he just seemed so unfeeling you it ends with yeah it's a drag and then thank you walks off it's really I mean it's really really yeah but I did also feel that it was fair to him the way that Sean kind of characterized that that it was sort of like this is a traumatic event and that this is a person who spent his life trying to protect himself right and these events you can't give people too much not be in front of the cameras totally but there for every one of those you know the whole Linda can't sing thing that you have him talking about his view of it it's

38:25every every wrinkle is met with a very pro Paul repost which is I mean that's what it says on the label yeah so what are you going to do and this is a pro Paul you know we're not anti-John but we are I love John this is a this is a Paul even hawk is right you know that you can't have a favorite beetle that it's the you know what they made together that is so beautiful but I love a lot of what all of them made individually to say and I do think there's been a lot of work to explore what John made over the last 15 years or so that there are multiple documentaries about his work yeah around imagine and around the um they albums with Yoko and there's not as much of that with McCartney there have been plenty of McCartney objects for us to engage with remember that Rick Rubin Hulu movie where they're sort of like just going back and listening to his songs and kind of deconstructing them and and Paul works his world works very hard to mythologize in perpetuity this one I think I I might have preferred a little bit more of a tighter focus on like

39:26a year or two this is my own personal interest yeah to get a little bit to really like dig into the psychology a little bit rather than as you say almost it's almost like they're knocking pins down where they're like this year happened this is how the band formed this is the band worked I thought it was interesting the way that they talked about how he would dispense with members and that he had he does have this kind of almost militaristic approach to going through the work and that's one of the things that did clearly disrupt the Beatles right that Paul was like work work work and George was like what about me yes can I hang out a little bit you know like I've got some feelings yeah I got some ideas yeah so I I think it was like it was honest but it was softened and leavened to your point I do think I mean nobody is better than Morgan Neville just making these movies kind of like glide by like he just his editing team and the way that these things are constructed and the way that he is able to kind of like put a little bit of a spell on the lead subject to get them to give you enough good stuff that you feel satisfied is very rarefied air because I think they all trust him because they're partially having some handle on the on the

40:30material themselves but um I liked it I liked it I think it if you're us then you'll enjoy watching it yeah if you are like your Beatles head then it's very pleasant and it really just is fun to see a lot of that old footage which you've seen before but it's like assembled as you said very slickly and it's very watchable yeah all one place it's funny because on a on a future episode of blank check you and I are featured on the the the new season of blank yes um but on a future episode like I really personally explored because of the movie that I talked about how appealing I find this period of calls like you know how there's something about it that is really like calls to me I know um so I mean I did I like I know that this is it means something to you it's part of how I understand you is that really you just like want to be with the sheep in Scotland with Eileen and Alice but then when I was watching that infamous interview I was like damn when I die Sean's gonna talk just like this about me it's a drag bye and like and as I was watching no I was

41:37like well Sean Lenin Sean Lenin has some like very insightful like psychological you know points here because you just be like I can't deal with this sorry it's a drag bye uh that's okay but privately imagine what I'll say exactly I know that's a very funny pivot um okay let's talk about two movies that I you didn't see either of these right no I did it and they are inextricably linked and fascinating so just okay hang on yeah it's horror corner let's go they're the two big I would say studio movies non-hail Mary division over the last two weekends the first is ready or not to here I come which is a sequel to the 2019 cult hit starring tomorrow weaving and the other is they will kill you which I just saw last night which is directed by Carol Sokolov which is a new Warner Brothers horror action movie starring as he beats these two movies are are linked because they are the same movie they are fascinatingly almost exactly the same in terms of what their plot is the one of them is the sequel of course but the sequel kind of expands its world to show that tomorrow we think whose character in the first film was hunted by her in

42:41laws on the night of her wedding because her in laws were Satanists who were participating in a cult in which happens to the best of us and I'm I mean you know I the part of the reason that first movie is a lot of fun is because that's how a lot of people feel when they enter a new family where they're just like are they trying to kill me what the fuck is going on here it was a really good joke stretched out and used the deployed a lot of great Gore and speaking of wonderful kind of scream queen horror girls like Micah Monroe tomorrow we think might be the best in the business so at first movies a lot of fun this new one adds a bunch of new actors Catherine Newton comes on as her sister our beloved Sarah Michelle Gellers here Sean Hattice from the pit is here David Kronenberg Elijah Wood the movie picks up immediately after the first film so she's drenched in blood the house is burning down she's wearing the wedding dress and she's arrested and taken to the hospital and the story goes from there she very quickly gets picked up and taken back and is brought into a kind of expanded universe of Satanist that are trying to kill her I think

43:47the movie is okay I think it is like lost all of its novelty because we saw the first film it's the same filmmakers it's some the radio silence guys who I've had on the show before who I think are really talented some fun kills there's some good creativity Catherine Newton another another emerging scream queen has good chemistry with some more weaving but it's very hard for this movie to recapture what's what was special about the first film in part because when characters fail in their efforts to kill the person who is meant to be killed on behalf of Satan they explode into a giant pool of blood oh okay one of the amazing revelations of the first film and then they play that note like six times in this movie and it's a lot less effective okay I wish this was better it's not bad if you like the first movie it's an okay time at the movies they will kill you is weirdly the same it's about a woman who gets a job at a hotel slash like high rise as a maid and the reason that she's got there is because someone is working there who is very

44:50close to her who she's attempting to rescue but she doesn't fully realize that the people who own operate and live in this high rise are also Satanists and they need sacrifices to come into their space so they can kill them on behalf of this little so the people who own and operate the hotel also live in the hotel I guess it's more of like a co-op it's more of an apartment building okay um so it's a it's almost like a manner in a way because there are this sort of like made service team I'm trying to oh is it like assisted living like is everyone of a certain age no because it's it I mean the other film stars the film or Patricia Arquette Heather Graham Tom Felton from the Harry Potter films uh mahala from uh industry right so it's not old people it's not a little of a problem I mean there are hotels where that also offer residential services it's it's basically like a co-op okay and isn't like built on like right so Satan owns the co-op

45:51and then they work for Satan or is it a collective unclear whose name is on the deed okay I'll say um I think the movie is has the same idea it's more like kill bill meets looney tunes in terms of how it's executed it has some very fun action mm-hmm zazzy beats surprisingly excellent action heroin um she does a lot of machete killing she does a lot of uh beating the shit out of people and exploding their heads a lot of sort of shotgun blasts okay the movie has an energy and a real comic sensibility it feels like jodante at times it feels like sam ramie at times it has a lot of stuff I like but it's like barely a plot barely okay and at 94 minutes I found it to be a little bit long and it's just very weird that these movies came out at the same time the director sokolov is super talented at the set pieces and some of the gore stuff but it's just it's kind of like the deep impact armageddon thing we're like how did this happen

46:53and then did they think very obviously like okay shit well they're putting their movie out here we got to put it out a week later so that we can like get a little taste of that or something I'm not sure I will say there were people were much more into they will kill you at my screening last night then we're into ready or not to well that's the first week of it right it was so I saw both on opening night oh I saw both on opening night with normal crowds okay and I this one clicked more maybe just because it seemed more new and because it was a little bit more outsized yeah but they're neither of them are as good as I would hope that they would be okay that's my report on those two movies okay I don't I think you can skip them yeah once they were described as like gory horror movies were there for the kills not for the you know intricate psychological yeah neither of them really explore exploration and locking um I hope samara we didn't get a really great movie soon though I think she's pretty special I think she's got incredible screen presence you know they're most amusingly utilized in Babylon when she comes on as like the margo robby looking girl right yeah

47:56the margo robby unseath which I think is one of the best jokes in that movie okay next movie yeah movie I haven't seen mid winter break you didn't get to this is adapted from a novel that I have not directed by polyfamily and it stars Leslie Menville and Karen Hines and yeah it's a shame you didn't get to see this because this is it's about like an older couple empty nesters and then they go on vacation to Amsterdam and then some revelations about their inner lives and their relationship and how are they gonna deal with them but it's basically about Irish Catholic guilt but but but this time here's the twist a woman so I was just like what's happening here for I was like Leslie Manville get it together honestly and that's that's not fair she's working through her things in her own time and obviously both actors are wonderful but it's like a lot more about religious guilt than I tend to relate to women women really can have it all now I always guilt everything we

49:00really can it's I mean it really feels like a classic the seniors at the Lincoln Center felt like movie theater that I think sadly since closed on on an afternoon this is this is made for them and it's not bad but I didn't I'm not at that phase of my life yeah and I don't know if I ever will be angelic accord too yeah yeah I love these two actors they're very good yeah I intend to see this yeah because I do have a soft spot for I these movies are kind of like the aspirational is not the word but like 45 years and your day's movie is is is I presume a much better version of this movie the thing is that it's just there's not a ton of revelation in it honestly besides the religious stuff and you know your mileage will vary on that okay all right but maybe yours won't let's talk about the AI doc okay I made a last minute choice to see this as well as they

50:05will kill you last night okay and I I really wanted to see it for a couple of reasons the full title you love AI well I I think that there's probably a bigger conversation about it that we we need to have just by the nature of industrial design right now this movie is much bigger than what is happening in the world of movies but the AI doc or how I became an apocalyptic is the new film from Daniel Roer and Charlie Tyrell Daniel Roer last scene winning the Academy Award for Navalny and he was already on this show we recorded an interview with him but not about this movie because he also wrote and directed a movie called tuner which is coming out in May which is about a piano tuner who gets ensnared in a criminal enterprise and is a very very good movie surprisingly good for a guy who hasn't made a scripted feature before this new movie is a pure doc hoping to figure out what's happening with artificial intelligence a father to be in barks on an eye opening journey to learn more about the most powerful technology humanity has ever created in what's at stake if we

51:08get it wrong on the surface this is a very standard doc style where he brings in well over a dozen experts in all directions scientists and academics and also critical leaders in Silicon Valley and tumors and optimistic voices and folks in politics all to kind of get this survey of this moment that we find ourselves in and he shoots it through the prism of I'm about to have a kid and what's going to happen in my kid and very early on in the film one of the people says most of the AI risk people that I speak to say that your child will not make it to their teens because of what AI will do and then there are all these other people where like we are on the brink of as close to a utopian existence as we will ever have in this country when you look at what you know genome mapping will be able to do how we'll be able to handle the environment so on and so forth it's very hard virtually impossible to get your arms around this entire subject in a 95 minute

52:11documentary right it does a pretty good it's it really is AI for dummies in a way that I think what is has a really utility in terms of explaining to the lay person not just what AI is because a lot of people just use chatty GPT or they they did use Sora till they shut Sora down and they are using it with Gemini and they are using it in a lot of these AI assistants that appear on a lot of different services they're using it when they go to the hospital or the doctor so it's already integrated into people's lives but I think the movie is good about explaining both the ecological impact and then the human impact the geopolitical impact a lot of potentialities the movie kind of resists having a final say beyond I hope it's okay and that's probably the right choice did you also become an apocalypticist you know I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about this and I did want to talk to you about how you think about it because there's the very obvious reactionary oh this is terrible yeah ruining art and I hate it and then there's also the like

53:18crude capitalist like it's happening no matter what except it it's gonna run things and it's gonna do someone a way that we can control and as with most things I tend to fall in the middle of this like I see the ways in which it can improve things and I see the ways in which it can really damage people I don't feel like I'm an apocalyptic fearing person about this I don't wake up scared about it but I'm an optimist battle virtually nothing so I don't know how do you feel about it I mean I am I think that the reality is somewhere in the middle and that's where I am as well um I mean I don't wake up fearing Skynet I have no interest and not just an acute Jacob Lorty like I'd rather be Sunburn on the beach kissing sort of way but I was talking with my husband about this in terms of AI assistants recently and people using them to do kind of some of the mundane computer tasks or scheduling or all sorts of things and I was like I don't I also don't

54:20I would not be I don't have an assistant and I wouldn't be a good as a system because I'm not good at delegating because then you just have to do it again yourself and so there is an element to all of this where I just don't it it will always it will be technology that if it's trained appropriately it's just like the next thing that could make your life easier in some ways or could do other things and then will also not be as good at other stuff um and I you know is it ruining art yes but also like plenty of other things we're ruining art before um so again I don't it's not awesome one thing I don't I don't willingly use it I don't either I'm not a chat GPT person I don't I try not to rely on things like Gemini when I'm doing searches I think that there it's obviously been built into our lives in ways that we don't see as well there's a lot that is happening that is assisting us in all kinds of ways that we don't realize one thing the movie does well is that it locates this really core kernel idea that there's more or less five

55:23people that are making these decisions about how this is working right and that these five people are in a race to unlock AGI rather than just AI and AGI is this kind of elevated independent operating power this like you know it's represented in the film is almost like this Rubik's cube that lights up that will ultimately take us to the next level of utility and maybe in fact if handled correctly with the right safety provisions becomes this all-knowing problem solver for us but these five people I won't be able to remember all of them but um obviously say I'm all-minute open AI you've got the folks at Google DeepMind you've got Meta you've got Anthropic and I believe you got Microsoft AI those are sort of like the five power players in this space and that what's really scary is is that the best way to move quickly in this race is to remove safety and if you remove safety you can get to the endpoint quicker and then you will be deemed the winner of the race and then you can control the landscape now this is these five

56:27people these are all American companies or companies that are mostly American you've also got the Chinese government you've got you know UAE and Saudi Arabia you've got North Korea and South Korea you've got all these competing forces you've got who's able to manufacture chips like it's a broad geopolitical landscape you have to consider and at some point the chips depend on resources and that's right most of which are made in Taiwan which is controlled by China US doesn't like how China controls so there's a million different factors that come into it but I like that the movie really boils this down to these five guys the buck kind of stops with them and if they don't if they don't exist or operate it isn't it's XAI is the one I'm thinking of it's not Microsoft XAI is Elon Musk's company who was formally involved with open AI and then felt that Sam Altman was not acting safely enough so he started his own company a kind of paradox unto itself okay it's unusual yeah someone makes this point in the film that is so powerful

57:29which is that there are more rules and regulations around selling a sandwich than there are around building AI technology around it I mean this is true certainly of Silicon Valley and of every new technology and you know in some ways it's the social network which it is just there here is a person who figured out something in an unregulated market that changes the way that we operate our world and each other and and the social network dares to ask is that the person we want in charge of things or this is what it looks like and you know I don't know any of those I assume they're all gentlemen the three they're all men yeah three of the five men sit for the film yeah I don't know them but I I'm assuming I would not elect them to be in charge of reshaping how we interact with the world there's one fascinating revelation in the movie or just sort of moment in the movie where um you know Daniel appears on camera in the movie and he's kind he's really using his personal experience his wife is in the film you know talking through her pregnancy she's a filmmaker in her own right she's kind of like helping him make the movie and

58:32being like you can't do this you fucking idiot yeah charming like construction but Sam Altman appears near the end of the film he sits for an interview and he has been become a arguably the most talked about leader corporate leader in America this year he is the new Mark Zuckerberg he even has a new like he has his own social network coming out at the end of this year he does and he was in the movie news this week with the Disney revelation around open AI and Sora but anyhow he sits for the film and Dan Dan turns to him and he's like hey man like I'm making this film because I have all of this anxiety and concern about this because I'm having my first child and I'm and I'm I'm nervous and Sam Altman says oh I'm having my first kid too in March and then we get to see Sam Altman explain his feelings about this world through that prism of he is also now indicted involved right centralized in his family lineage through whatever he creates whatever he chooses to do and there's a feeling that open AI is ahead that they're ahead of everybody

59:36right now and that if they unlock the final piece of the puzzle I'm a little dubious about it whether there is a final piece of the puzzle and it will keep having these races because that benefits stock prices but nevertheless there's a couple strokes in the movie that are really smart it's like it's very much worth seeing but don't expect to come out of it feeling like you've got your arms around it and this is how we should feel right at the same time it feels that you know how I became an apocalyptic optimist which first of all it's just very hard to say but that was not designed with podcasts in mind but that that is probably off-putting to a slice of people who are AI skeptical yes but it doesn't sound like it's an advertisement for these people in the way that the title would suggest it doesn't do them any favors yeah it doesn't let them off the hook I think he does a good job casting a few journalists who are like this is crazy that this is happening you know very bluntly explaining how wild what is happening is happening it's worth checking out though because this is I think this is the flashpoint issue in the American economy in American culture

1:00:42it is and it was smart of them to bring this up and we were talking about the Daniels and Dan Quan one of the Daniels is a producer on this film it can be seen in the movie at certain times like he's also somebody who explores science fiction seems to be very interested anyway I would recommend it it is an imperfect documentary and feels very different from Navalny in terms of how it's been made but it is very very interesting why don't we talk about a private life now okay which I you have seen part of and I started it and couldn't finish it before the end of this episode unfortunately um so this is directed by and I believe written by Rebecca Zlatowski and is a french film starring Jodie Foster who is acting mostly in French she is that she plays an American woman psychiatrist living in Paris and is married to Daniel a toy a Frenchman and mostly sees clients in French but every once in a while when she's pissed off she like mutters under her breath in English and the rest of the cast is French and the setup the premise is one of her patients dies and then she

1:01:44decides to investigate this suspicious death that makes it sound more like a murder podcast murder she wrote undertaking than it is which is a weird slightly Woody Allen-esque like slice of french life I mean there's just like a lot of psychoanalysis um and you know and at one point she accuses a hypnotist of being an ismetic because she questions for its uh practices or financial motivations um but it's it's more about the Jodie Foster character and and as it goes on gets a little shaggy or in a little bit more about her life and her if you will private life then about solving this um this murder case though that ultimately is solved I think it's it's it's a little all over the place in a very charming way okay um I mentioned to you that

1:02:46Frederick Wiseman makes a the late great um makes a cameo as her as Jodie Foster's psychiatrist I had assumed that that's who he would be playing and um gives her some real talk and is wonderful you there's a scene with a hypnotist which I thought was pretty cool I just didn't see this part and enjoyed it yeah it lingers a bit longer in the places where movies like this don't or I think more traditional thrillers don't linger it really is as much about a psychiatrist or I'll also just about how people are weird um and how the french people are weird and again it's filmed in Paris in what look like real apartments and and cafes and on the street it that I was kind of into it I think maybe Jodie Foster is the wink wink weak link wow well because there is uh towards the back half they're trying to do something slightly comedic and I don't know what even the beginning was what I saw was very comedic it did feel a little bit like

1:03:50they dropped Jodie Foster into a late period Olivia I say us movie yes that's the other one that that's the other reference but I am and I and I felt like someone who could handle the comedy of it in a little um like more open way would have made more sense I kept thinking about Chris and Scott Thomas another person whose my favorite also does act in French and English um but Jodie Foster is very good yeah the one thing I had heard because this I believe this played telly ride when I was there and I didn't get a chance to see it there and I really wanted to Jodie Foster was very present at telly ride I was online with her many times um was that she was great in this movie and the movie was a little baggy and so that's kind of the opposite of what you're sharing I mean it's what you respond to in the movie right like if you she is very good Jodie Foster is always good yeah but Jodie Foster is in one movie and as you said they're all making another you know shaggy French movie yeah um okay interesting I'm gonna you know at some point without spoiling it Matthew Omar like like just is is is making love to someone I was gonna use a different word and it's filmed as a different word to some lady like

1:04:53and they're like on a porch in a random like French port town and Jodie Foster and Daniel Toy are like under the bushes watching and they just go for it or wow like naked in the moonlight and I said well this is it's not something you see in an American movie that's true that's very French yeah Matthew Omar he's got to be like 65 years old God bless him yeah and they're both like quite naked and they do like a moon salutation at the end after after they finish what they're doing unbelievable yeah it's great stuff this episode is brought to you by fire TV you've been there settling in for a relaxing evening of TV only to waste half the night scrolling through options enter fire TV it's entertainment with zero effort required fire TV serves up personalized recommendations from across all your apps all in one place not sure what to watch next just tell Alexa plus what you're in the mood for and she'll put up the perfect recommendation problem solved stop the scroll start the show find what you're looking for with fire TV subscription may be required let me tell you a good luck have fun don't die since I just spieled to you about AI

1:05:56under normal circumstances this would be one of the five most anticipated or most excited movies of the year for me it's the first movie in many years from Gore Verbinski who is one of the very first guests on this podcast when he was here for a cure for wellness this is his first movie since star Sam Rockwell Haley new Richardson and other faith Michael Payne is as he beats again um a frenzy time traveler enters a diner attempting to stop an AI apocalypse having already failed over 100 times he recruits an unlikely group including a bereaved mother terrorized teachers and a woman with a severe technology allergy does that mean that she hates it like me or she but it she doesn't need like an epic pen no she hates it she's averse to an epic pen could also be an allergy I can't remember I saw the film in January so I can't recall specifically just like a horror film right because then at some point you're stuck that's a good idea for a horror film um I think when you look at this movie and there's another movie that is out right now called undertone

1:07:00which is about a podcast host a pair of podcast hosts who are getting messages into their kind of call in murder talk show it has been a recent hit I saw that film last year before it was picked up by a 24 to since been it picked up by a 24 when it's a theaters and had some success you look at the AI doc and look at mission impossible yeah and just final reckoning just kind of the the angst and anxiety that is being generated by what we don't know the technology is doing to us mm-hmm it is a moment in time and then in the same way when you go back and look at 70 science fiction you say oh like well this speaks to concern about this you know what is silent running in soyling green heaven common they're both kind of like eco terror movies but they're done in different ways or phase four you can kind of draw all these parallels and illusions but also I think it's important to just like drill down on the movie itself and good luck have fun don't die seems like it'll be so fun and it's just not that fun and I think it's the script is not as strong as I would have wanted it to be um verbinsky famously one of the great shot makers in movies but

1:08:06this movie is like not lit as beautifully as his previous films I don't feel like all the set pieces work as well I fucking love Sam Rockwell and I found him a little bit grating in the movie and you know when he decides just to show up and do Sam Rockwell for the check again no judgment right now with this movie required a lot of him and I you know I feel like he just slightly miss the mark on how to play the character where it's like it feels a little bit like Robert Downey Jr kind of motor melting his way um it's not you it it I thought it really like reduced the stakes and I think verbinsky's usually good at the stakes like he made the ring which is fucking terrifying and he knows how to play it straight and he knows how to do gags and this was maybe a little bit more gag then straight for my taste and it pains me to say that because I'm just such a big fan of his um and this movie kind of came and went and I think it kind of came and went for a reason undertone is kind of the opposite it's like a person we've not heard of before um Ian Tuisin who had an experience taking care of his parents as they were getting older that inspired this movie and the woman in this movie who's one of the podcast hosts taking care of her mom

1:09:09she learns that she's pregnant and all these ideas about not like motherhood but like kind of parenthood and legacy or on her mind but she's not even non-seating them in like a trauma-born way and the movie is worth seeing I didn't see it in a movie theater I saw it at home on a link when it was being passed around after horror film festival somebody sent it to me it was just like you got to watch this because it's a tiny movie made for less than $500,000 and the sound design is incredible and it's all about a person who's like wearing headphones talking into a microphone taking calls being alone in a house that aspect of it works really well I'll bet that works well in a movie theater there's also just a lot of like cheap jump scares and annoying horror stuff to your point that I don't think you would love this I think it is it feels a little bit too slickly designed but I also feel like Ian Tussin is going to make like a lot of horror movies and be very successful on and a really smart piece of business by 824 who I think bought it for half a million dollars since going into making like 20 million bucks the box office so in case you're wondering how they keep making some of these movies that don't always head good piece of

1:10:10business can we talk about horror movie titles for a second sure they will kill you ready or not to hear a comment ready or not good luck have fun don't die these these we're answering like Nancy Myers territory here these are all the same movie you know they're all like very actionable like direct to camera taken from an internet comment well don't forget about now you see me now you don't well sure but that's not a horror movie that's about well it was horrifying to me and to all South Africans that's that's who you want to be grouped with no necessarily okay I mean there are many fine people in South Africa I just I I do think that we are I mean maybe this is the intentional it the intention of the marketing that they're all just kind of grouped together and are like oh like the new you know I'm gonna to taunt you movies out I'll go see it this week but these are indistinguishable I think those three movies good luck is a little bit more sci-fi than horror though it does have horror elements I would say but those three movies it's interesting to group them together they are wink or they are we're doing a lot of gags yeah it's not like comedy but there's

1:11:15a lot of funny stuff in them undertone is the opposite undertone is an unsettling quiet scary group undertone in that I know I know but I think that this potentially a problem to keep making horror movies that are like this one's like we're all we're all having fun right yeah that's not I can work if you're Sam Remy it works if you're not then it's a little bit more challenging if they're good and then people will just sign up for the next one next one then it's fine but it does sound like these were three middling movies that all sound and in some ways are the same in terms of Satanists and and AI Satanist we don't know group together I think they could be let's talk about our hero balthazar yeah um this is a new film directed by Oscar Boyson is probably best known for being a producer on that first stretch of safty brothers movies it stars jaden martell ace of butterfield chris bauer jennifer ealy and abhorish nakavno sent a neo it's about a wealthy teenager who tries to gain his crushes attention by posting videos pleading for stricter gun laws

1:12:17as an online troll begins mocking his videos he becomes convinced the troll is a mass shooter and travels to texas to confront him yeah I was very happy to hear that you were watching this movie yes I did I completed it yeah um what what what did you think of this I this movie bugged me in the right way you know and it was clearly meant to put you on edge and have that feeling of like wait are are you guys really doing this and no and come on but then was always able to grab me back in um not a consistent tone but like a consistent commitment to its bit which I appreciated even if I was annoyed by it it's funny that it's a movie about a troll that is very troll yes yes but but also because it is trolley and it stays trolley and never lets up on the gas or tries to make like a sincere point I I was reminded and I suppose because of the school shooting stuff of of voxlux which is a movie that at some point veers into earnestness

1:13:25and really wants you to take lessons from it after its trolleyness and that's where it loses me I mean this is it's it's not a perfect movie I cannot believe that's Ace of Butterfield this is the best part of the movie oh and real and I I knew that Ace of Butterfield was in the movie and it still took me a full five minutes to be like wait a second yes and the movie he comes in about 30 minutes and he all the scenes in Texas are much much better the ball is our characters a framing device I agree and it's like not the greatest Jaden Martell performance and you really feel that when Ace of Butterfield shows up in the movie because historically he would be playing the Jaden Martell character and recasting him as this kind of like white trash Texas kid who's like dad just respects him and is like a hustler and you can see he's got like all this vulnerability but also all this anger and frustration and it's kind of like lack of connection to his own masculinity but it's a such a good performance and this is such a zag for him as an actor I think the movie is worth watching just for him and I think even just the conception of that character is a unique and very humanized person in a way that the Jaden Martell character is not

1:14:31and the Jaden Martell character feels like a like a concoction and the Ace of Butterfield character feels like a really like a vehicle to get you to Texas and you never know that at the beginning of the movie beginning of the movie like I'm gonna have to be with this annoying kid for two hours and Jennifer Ely's there and you're like oh wow it's genuinely yeah I know I know it is a really it's an interesting movie and um I think what Boyson is doing you can see kind of in the roots of the New York movies that he made it to but him kind of going outside of that and it is a movie about kind of the online experience versus real life we've seen a lot of movies about that in the last five or ten years but this had kind of like a dinginess that I really enjoyed yeah and it didn't feel like it was like cultural tourism like it didn't feel like it was making fun of people like I think I thought he had like empathy is not the right word but like an authenticity maybe to how that character is portrayed yeah yeah it is also a very online movie at least in its subject matter that does manage to create a world in Texas outside of of the computers and

1:15:34the screens and I mean that both in terms of the actual filmmaking again the first 20 minutes because the um the balthazar character is like a wannabe influencer and so he's doing videos and he's got the ring light and you're watching the Instagram comments and I was like oh no another one of these yes but it it manages to create mainstream scenario or something yeah and they're just kind of like I you know I spend enough time in Instagram comments like on my own time but it does manage to get it off the screens even as like their relationship is really built around when they're the part of the other I'm like this is the movie yeah this is like stand by me for a fucked up generation um there's two movies that I personally want to put a big circle around yeah and I will speak about them briefly one of them is Redux Redux which was only barely on my radar because it had premieres at horror film festivals or you know genre film festivals last fall it just hit VOD um it stars a woman named Michaela McManus it's directed by her brothers Matthew and Kevin McManus we'll be talking about time travel very soon in a movie on this list this is also a time travel

1:16:39movie in a very different register than that one it's about a distraught woman who travels through parallel universes to kill her daughter's murderer over and over again with each death she grows more and more addicted to revenge putting her own humanity and jeopardy parallel universes movie feels like a very high concept movie but it's a very small indie the time machine that is used in the movie is very low fi the effects work is very clean and simple it's a family made movie and I think it's incredibly effective and the main performance by Michaela McManus is super powerful it does feel like if it feels like this is maybe overstating it but it feels like Jim Cameron in 1982 where you're like oh this guy's about to do something when somebody gives him money it doesn't have the same level of like style and attitude that the terminator does but you know it's aware of like movie history but it's not really riffing on movie history and it has this core idea which is really good which is if someone did something terrible to you the worst thing imaginable

1:17:40how would you get revenge in eternity and what would happen to you if you kept doing this 10 times 50 times 100 times 1000 times right how would you do it where would you do it why would you do it and why how would you get addicted to it and what would that mean for your humanity just a great idea for a movie again not perfect yeah a little draggy at times but very good performances and very I think very worth people's time and like this is a movie if I was working as a movie studio executive I would be calling these guys and be like what are their ideas do you have because we should we can cook together stop giving the stuff away you know well I want people to watch yeah I think it's really cool um okay what do you want to do next you want to hear about PE blinders I watched it you did watch it okay but you have not seen any of the show I've never seen the show nor have I so this is one of the most popular television shows in Netflix history it famously stars Killian Murphy was created by Stephen Knight the very successful screenwriter who is writing the new bond movie is that right I don't I don't know Amy hasn't called me lately

1:18:43okay so um the movie is called peaky blinders the immortal man is directed by Tom Harper who directed my beloved wild rose and the Aeronauts and a number of other films um in addition to Killian Murphy stars uh Rebecca Ferguson very Cuban uh so if you rundle uh Stephen Graham some of these people are coming back some of them are coming in for the first time Tim Roth coming in for the first time yeah he plays a Brit who is it working for the Nazis a Nazi sympathizer yes who is bringing uh currency into the UK so that it can be spread throughout the economy in the UK and and thus destroy the economy right making England even more vulnerable to the Nazi regime that is attempting to overtake Western Europe so we've never seen the show yeah I did I did text a bit with Chris Ryan just I texted with Juliet Levin and I pulled up my text to get some context to the bigger peaky blinders fans we come to this not as understanders of peaky blinders though I would not say it's the most complicated role um did you like it I wasn't mad at Killian Murphy

1:19:49doing bad Oppenheimer though bad is is question marks around that what do you mean whether he's just doing Oppenheimer looking you know a distraught and mournfully and like what have I done yeah at the camera and close up with some like decent wallpaper on the house set behind him um happy for Rebecca Ferguson who keeps collecting checks apparently she was not in previous peaky blinders episodes no though she's playing a twin no she's playing a twin though so that's why I thought oh that would be smart if she if her original character uh had been on the show uh and I don't know why they couldn't bring back someone who had been on the show I guess when you can get Rebecca Ferguson you can get Rebecca Ferguson um this is going to be the most boring movie ever that features Killian Murphy and Rebecca Ferguson fucking in a scene that's true like and like she's and she is pretending to be um inhabited by her dead twin sisters ghost when they are fucking and that's where I was trying to be family you know friendly on the earlier I understand yeah

1:20:51but Matthew Park was just absolutely going for it on the on the portrait of him uh I just really wish okay the this show as I understand it yeah is basically British guys and chalk stripes suits shooting Tommy guns in slow motion set to like interpole-esque songs yes and then having like sadness about that right and that's kind of what the show is yeah Tom Hardy was a part of the show he's not in this film um I think it's like very stupid but it is also one stitch away from things that are my favorite things in the world so I don't I don't want to judge it too much I got it what we watched was the TV movie finale of a TV show and we watched that in in terms of like the concept and the content of the show which is people who we think are hot having conversations very cooking just like doing crime 101 again but for good um and that ultimately spoiler alert I

1:21:54guess and then um and then the shootouts to the bad to me music played very loudly you know everyone's just like on various TV sets as they were on peaky blinders that's fine there's nothing wrong with that you and I are proud defenders of all three down nabby movies which again are TV shows that then had multiple movies as a cap um as a capper yes so that's fine that's just that's what this is Killian Murphy was available for one feature film and not any more seasons of the show and so that's what they made yeah bless you it it's not can I ask can I tell you what I ask Julia this is my first question yes early Q are the peaky blinders bad or good what was the answer um they are a murderous gang but they have been anti-fascism anti-soviets and anti-selling of illegal guns in England post world one okay I which is which is in line

1:22:58ultimately anti-heroes yeah they're part of this the post soprano's wave of television about complicated men who do bad things yeah and they're also friend to the marginalized yeah um and they have Romany roots so they themselves come from a marginalized people yeah it's very interesting that this is the most popular movie on Netflix right now that this shows as big as it is because it is a a fancy and well-made period piece you know it's a crime movie yeah but it is the bones of it are are pretty interesting this did feel like them kind of like ringing out as you say like one last droplet of content from this 70 episode television show um but it seems like people who like it like you know we're looking at we know we're looking at the state of the art here yeah this is what movies are all about right now yeah is the immortal man uh you didn't take your child seat goat did you I tried I tried to do this on Monday but my husband was like no you will come to the grocery store with me and my and our other child um you know I got to say I liked it and uh I was a little dubious

1:24:01of this film which is one of the biggest movies of the year has about to cross a hundred million dollars of the box office an original animated feature produced by Stefan Curry directed by Tyree Dilla Hay I did take my daughter to see it yeah lovely afternoon seeing the movie um it is about a small goat named Will who gets a once in a lifetime shot to join the pros and play quote roar ball which is a modified version of basket ball it's very hard for me to say roar ball yes it's a high intensity full contact sport that's dominated by the fastest fiercest animals in the world okay ridiculed by his teammates will becomes determined to revolutionize the sport and prove that quote small can ball okay but so multi species all species including on each team is not defined by species he's there a correlation between like do bears play like power forward yeah I don't know which one's pretty much there's a there's a giraffe on on Will's team the lead figure

1:25:04okay one it's the animated well very good voice performances um Nicole in particular as a commoto dragon is hilarious in the movie um Pat Naswaltz there jelly roll is there Gabrielle Union Aaron Pierre a lot of really good voice performances um the main character that is not Will is jet and jet is I think a black panther or a jaguar a black cat okay and it's very clear to me or at least it seems clear to me and I don't even I haven't read any reviews of this movie I don't know if people are saying this that this is an amazingly subtle shot at LeBron James by Stefan Curry okay we're jet a female character but very clearly in the LeBron James mold of a multi-year veteran who's never really won the big one but who likes to play in their own very particular style and that is a very egocentric style is being forced to be introduced to this

1:26:09smaller style with this new teammate who seems like a stunt but actually might be able to extend his or her career now obviously Stefan LeBron never played together but the way that the jet character is positioned I would I feel like there's a little bit of a like whose generation of basketball was this really going on got it Stefan LeBron have both produced films they both gotten into this space they both won titles they famously went back and forth over a number of years with the warriors and the calves well sure I then the goat is right there in the title is it that subtle called goat um it's not subtle at all yeah and yet to me it feels like the primary engine of the movie now perhaps let's just being basketball-pilled and just knowing too much about the NBA that I'm like I can only see it through this prism my daughter of course has no idea what any of that is and she's just like Jed is my favorite character because that's a cool black cat but if if if you could get Stefan Curry some truth serum to discuss this it would be the best

1:27:09podcast of all time well I'm isn't that true in general about all athletes but even Steph Curry if you could get them some true serum yes some real stuff would come out and so I'm looking here at the Wikipedia page for goat just to figure out the various species involved and there's a lot of specificity here so will is an American pig me goat okay uh jet is a black panther main attraction voiced by Aaron Pierre is an andalusian horse um Nikola Cofflin plays in is a as an ostrich just a regular main attraction by the way is the real heavy of the movie he's the bad guy um um Archie David Harbor is an Indian rhinoceros he's he's very good he has to be to you know which I do know is real because they're in skyfall and um but can I just tell you something my father-in-law learned independently like not from our podcast because he doesn't listen he doesn't listen I love you rich and that's okay I don't you don't have to listen he doesn't hear you um he was like I just learned that Wolverines are real but totally independently no no I swear

1:28:14to you no Zach made him stop and he was like a man to come back inside so you can hear this I don't know what to tell you no it's something got in his algorithm I don't think rich has an algorithm I don't know I think they went to like huntington garden or some mus I don't know they don't have Wolverines and only ten gardens well maybe they haven't exhibit okay okay um warthog I know what that is art wolf is that a real thing yes they're all real uh capybara I know what that is everything else no no no new animals here I gotta say I see a lot of animated movies yeah this was way better than I expected okay and I would recommend it to families a musk ox and bat duo chuck and rusty oh they're commentators okay that looks like sort of to moan and boom but rip off but that's okay there is some to moan and boom but they're in the announcers but there's some good interplay there uh did you see mirroir number three no okay I know this is like the best movie of the year yeah okay you gotta see this I will if it's not

1:29:15the best it is one of the most interesting by far it was a festival movie last year it's the new film from christian pet sold it's like 87 minutes um it stars poly beer as his last few films have barber are uh it's about a woman who gets into a car crash on a country road I guess it takes place in germany um because all of his film stick place in germany for the most part and she her partner dies and she is retrieved by this woman who is living in a country house not far from the car accident and she the poly beer is disoriented and she goes and she goes to live with them so she kind of recuperates from two days and then two days becomes four days four days becomes eight days and she becomes a little bit more entrenched than the lives of this family the husband and the son work as sort of mechanics who break the rules in certain car designs so people can break the controls that certain car manufacturers create and the movie is very small simple and quiet

1:30:19and is also pure hitchcock like little vertigo a little shadow of a doubt we don't know who we're supposed to be trusting we don't really know what's going on with the family and why pet sold one of the european masters this is easily the like smallest most stripped down movie he's ever made I had been told that he this would this is going to be the last movie that he and poly beer made together they made um and denay and a fire and a number of movies of the last few years and chief took over for Nina Haas who had been the star of like five pet sold movies before that but then pets will just give an interview and he said he wants this next movie is going to be with Nina Haas and poly beer sick it's like Avengers do this day but for German cinema um this movie is captivating and very modest so don't get your hopes up in terms of like the incident but I think very very good and I highly encourage people to see it it's still in theaters but probably won't be for long and I want to give a little love to it before we get through the first quarter okay tell tell me you won't mark by surf Sophia based on this in Venice um and I got to be in the

1:31:19same room as Sophia Coppola who directed this a 24 documentary about her friend and I essential 90s fashion designer who's still working mark Jacobs um did you wear it where where where are you in mark Jacobs I've never owned a piece by him mm-hmm I have nothing against them in okay I don't know very much about him but you'd like you never went into any of the stores and I've been in the village isn't there one of the main empire I don't know if it's still there what's what's going and coming on well sure yeah there was always that fame you know that little the side with the street splits yes and then there's yeah but then there was like an APC that even there been a lot of things there I don't know um and I would say that mark Jacobs the uh the the business has taken some turns in recent years and it is not as central to like a certain type of cool pop culture as it was in the late 90s and early 2000s when we were paying attention why is that uh because I fashion is a a fickle business I think um and he's not owned by a conglomerate I don't know

1:32:23it's it's it's a whole other situation but I'm just saying that to perhaps the young people in the booth or at home mark Jacobs was like a real thing and he and Sophia Coppola have been um very like closely linked for many many years when she what when she won her Oscar she was wearing a custom mark Jacobs dress so this is 90s and early 2000s nostalgia um for people my age and it is completely without conflict and I had a great time um and if you want to see Sophia Coppola just doing like a not even fashion documentary a fashion music video but with you know because it's mark Jacobs she has some access she has sit down interviews with him and they're slightly more revealing than well they're intimate are they're not particularly revealing but that's okay that's what Sophia wants to do if you know the names mark Jacobs and Sophia Coppola and that means anything to you then you will enjoy this yeah I'm looking forward to it you know what everyone

1:33:26everyone looks great I feel like it's only in like a few theaters around the country this weekend right yeah I think it's a pretty small release but then you can seek it out and she reuses a music cue that's my only note from another I from another very important Sophia Coppola film perhaps intentional I don't really think so honestly yeah I don't think that she forgot but it's like again the music cue in question I don't I guess I don't want to split it but it's at the very end and it's both and you're just like what this I don't know if these emotions are speaking to each other to call her up yeah fuck you thinking Sophia okay before we get to our last movie I wanted to quickly give a shout out to a movie called fantasy life which I quite enjoyed written and directed by Matthew Sheer who you may recall as one of the annoying boyfriends in mistress America very no bomb back and Gregory coded actor he has enlisted an incredible collection of well-known older actors and actresses for this new film um he stars in the movie opposite

1:34:28Amanda Pete um it's about a apparently paralegal who's been laid off and begins babysitting this trio of little girls in a New York apartment and the couple that he's babysitting for sort of manning for um is a kind of failed rock star who's gotten like a new shot at doing some touring and an aging actress who's having a little bit of a midlife crisis Amanda Pete plays the actress Alessandro Nevillea plays the aging rock star you know that he's also Ben Calvin Klein he's Ben Calvin Klein on the oh on the story yeah I heard that I think big fan of his is an actor he's very very good in this I haven't seen love story yet but also Judd Hirsch Bob Ballaban Andrea Martin Sasha Mammett Jessica Harper Holland Taylor like great supporting cast most of those actors only get one or two scenes but really great and just very bomb back very Woody Allen very like shaggy funny self-deprecating small movie with the queen Amanda Pete doing a very self-lasterating

1:35:32introspective performance this is like a small movie I think Grennitch is putting it out but in a slightly different universe it's like an awards platform for Pete who I think is a very underrated comic dramatic performer like is always a kind of stuck in the middle in terms of what she's best at but I really like her so I think people should check that out snoring gasping during sleep feeling fatigued wake up to Zeppbound Terzeppetide the first and only FDA approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea OSA an adult with obesity Zeppbound is an injectable prescription medicine that may help adults with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea OSA and obesity to improve their OSA Zeppbound should be used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity Zeppbound is approved as a 2.5 5 7.5 10 12.5 or 15 milligram injection Zeppbound contains Terzeppetide and should not be used with other Terzeppetide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines it is not known if Zeppbound is safe and effective

1:36:33for use in children do not share needles or pens or reuse needles don't take Zeppbound allergic to it or if you or someone in your family had medillary thyroid cancer or multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2 tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck stop Zeppbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain or a serious allergic reaction severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems tell your doctor if you experience vision changes depression or suicidal thoughts before schedule procedures with anesthesia if you're nursing pregnant plan to be or taking birth control bills taking Zeppbound with a sulfonoluria or insulin may cause a little blood sugar side effects include nausea diarrhea and vomiting which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems talk to your doctor call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zeppbound.lily.com Zeppbound and its delivery device base in QuickPin are registered trademarks owned or licensed by Eli Lilly and company its subsidiaries or affiliates this episode is brought to you by Volkswagen there is such a thing as becoming too comfortable in your day to day but our favorite films with stories that make us change the way we think

1:37:35they weren't made by people content to just sit back and watch the world pass by this is your sign that you shouldn't either from us VW and the other drivers out there grab the wheel do what you love even if it means taking the road less traveled learn more at VW.com okay last movie is Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice you can hear an extended conversation with Ben David Gurbinsky at the end of this episode this film stars events Vaughn James Mars and I use a Gonzales Keith David and Jimmy Teatro it's about two best friends quick draw Mike and Nick working as enforcers for criminal gang the plot kicks off on the night Mike is supposed to die however a quote future version of Nick travels back in time to stop this murder joining forces with present day Mike and Nick's wife Alice yeah what do you see watch this I did watch this okay and I was very termed by it even though I still don't think I could diagram it for you and I think part of the effectiveness of this film is that it is time travel John Wick with jokes but that you

1:38:43don't it doesn't get bogged down by anything it just keeps moving and it costs on Vince Vaughn as Vince Vaughn and he's back he has great chemistry with James Mars and he's also very funny and you know sometimes they're shooting things and sometimes they're doing like Abbott and Castello and it's a very entertaining experience and then they also it's an eclectic movie like clearly there's we're pulling from it you know I'm neverist pop culture enthusiast and so just when you're like okay so I think I understand what's going on here there is a full five minute discussion of Gilmore girls and it's not a throwaway joke and I wanted to talk with you about this because I felt the intentionality of this scene which is definitely supposed to get people like my attention and also to signal hey there is more here than just being really into like action movies yeah John movie isn't yeah yeah art you know our references are broad but it just it keeps going

1:39:46and going and so I you know I kind of perked up at home and I was like oh cute okay they put something in for me and then I've really extensive thoughtful and I ultimately think correct conversation about who is the best boyfriend yeah in in the Gilmore girls James Marson is right do you have you seen Gilmore girls some but not all of it okay I haven't I have not completed the show I'm a fan but I just so you don't know who the best boyfriend is and you don't get any of the jokes about the Netflix stuff at the end which I agree I do and I did and I'm aware of how they revived the show and brought it back and I yeah I understood the gags I mean Ben David is going to be so happy to hear you talk about it because the one thing that he said when we finished talking was like I feel like I didn't get to explain enough about why I did this yeah why this was important to me to stay in the movie it's a really yeah I got it it's a really good conversation though about how you like get away with stuff when you're making a movie because this is full of just getting away with it stuff there's the loads and loads of as you said the sort of omnivorous pop cultural references lots of movie history is in this movie lots of movie style that is kind of borrowed

1:40:50from lots of things lots of music from our era you know prominent uses of oasis and Dave Matthews band and seal and chemical brothers and Andrew WK and needle drops galore I did feel very safe and comfortable with Vince Vaughn doing Vince Vaughn I do think it's very weird how we have kind of lost that unit of currency in movies where he just gets to be riffy you know and funny and that is something that was always very effective no matter what you think of him I just you know I'm clearly as movie crazy as Ben David is and so for me like a movie like this just activates my brain and gets me thinking about like why did he pull this piece why did he do this why is he using a step printing action sequence technique in this movie that otherwise just feels like a traditional Hollywood movie in some ways so there's lots to explore there and we did export in our conversation it's really fun it's really weird and I know why this is the case but it's really weird this is this streaming movie because it's just so clearly a comedy written to be seen with strangers

1:41:55and I can also see why this would be a marketing challenge for a movie studio to get people to come out to it because it's this amorphous blob like figure of different stuff with like a bunch of stars who are not like the biggest movie stars of all time so I get it anymore right they're recognizable but not and they make sense in that streaming universe right we're Taylor Shardin's like you like Sam Elliott just want to show so I get what happened here but still this would have worked really well as a movie theater movie and it says a little something that it's not yeah but even that if it's the movie theater version of it does the Gilmore Girls riff get to keep going for I mean it is long I don't know I think it does okay I think it does I think it's really fun this is on Hulu right now so people can watch it ASAP okay quickly top five yeah so they're pretty similar are they yeah do you want to you want to start sure well no my number five is one that you don't have it's in your honorable mentions okay rip if if Matt and Ben are gonna do stuff on Netflix

1:42:59let it be this um have we we haven't talked about Quentin Tarantino's feelings on the rip I don't want to spoil it um you have shared a little bit with me I don't know what's available for public consumption it's probably not available yet so I'll keep my mouth shut okay that's just a tease great let's just say we've been corresponding about the film the rip um okay I like the rip I think I the rip is an honorable mention yeah uh five is project home area yeah which I really like I'd like to see it again do you see it twice I've seen it twice I've seen it twice as well I liked it a lot yeah I think it is I'm more obsessed with the craft of it than I am the story and emotional beats of it the more I think about it um because I feel like it my one little note about it is I wish it just like penetrated a little bit further into Rylangrace psychologically and sometimes the movie is kind of putting your it's hand up with a joke that's saying like you can't go too far right I relate I know you do I know we're different in that we are different in that way um

1:44:04that's the only thing about it that I'm like yeah I can't turn myself over to it completely but I really like it I have a couple edits but my edit is essentially that at the end it allows itself to open up at like at least sentimentally to the to friendship and to finding love and I'm like no no you got to cut way before that I don't need any of this stuff I know exactly what the last shot should be we can just we can move on um but you're very poisoned me emotionally or yeah yeah but I also you know I can the pH test is gnarly okay number four for you bone temple yeah on my list as well yeah rock out right fine I want to see this again I've only seen it once it's on Netflix oh great okay maybe I'll watch this maybe I'll watch this weekend just for fun I don't if people haven't seen it I don't want to say too much more because some of it was the refines is in this movie and I won't say anymore but what he gets to do really like it is that your favorite performance of the year?

1:45:04hmm yeah maybe maybe more than I you know what Gosling does is great but it's kind of it's tied up in Project Hill Mary so okay um my number four is mere war number three which I just spoke about so we can go to your number three yeah my number three is your number one so we'll just should we hold it yeah we'll save it and my number three is sent help this is good this is my honorable mention for sure um just delightful that this movie was a success great to see Rachel McAdams back on top where she belongs we're having a ripping season of survivor I'm feeling very here it's the it's the 50th season okay and so this movie was magnificently timed yeah I can only imagine it's gonna go is it on VOD already I think it just hit VOD um maybe it'll hit 4K right around that finale time oh that's so exciting okay so number two for me is the bone temple right number two for you is Hail Mary Hail Mary so we will go to my number one in your number three which is Nirvana the Band the show the movie right which is the hardest I've laughed in a movie theater

1:46:07this year and me too I think just a magical movie that I've also seen twice now and I've been very happy to do so yeah I mean my number one is sort of the girl version of your number one which is the moment which is the Charlie X-X mockumentary and you know in the same way that you are just like full of love and wanting to connect with people via time travel mine is about how it's impossible to connect in that fame and life or present best enjoyed with an apparel spritz um I you know I'm a huge fan of Charlie X-X and I think this is like a very knowing funny movie where I do think that you have to not only know about but actually be interested in the both the work of Charlie X-X and the inner workings of fame and music mockumentaries it's not for everyone thing but I very much enjoyed it and I laughed a lot too do you feel imprisoned by your own fame I don't I know I don't do I feel imprisoned by having to look at my face a lot yes I do so

1:47:12that's tough and do I do I feel imprisoned by every single zoom meeting that I have to be on forever and ever like the zoom scene where they can't get anything working and well where it's really funny do I feel that Alexander Scarsgard is both ruining my life and making it better at all times yes come on I don't know him yeah I mean that would be fine if he would like to come on if I may anyway I just the do I feel out of tune with most uh you know health and wellness practitioners who don't think that my spirit is uh efficiently um you know we're adequately non-acidic to be treated that's what I'm saying yeah they're doing the PhD test on you and they're like what's going on with this gal yeah that's true but as Kylie Jenner teaches us in the next scene just keep going when they're sick of you just keep going that is what we'll be doing here on the show forever more uh well that was a lot of movies I hope you enjoyed that conversation that was extremely long but good uh let's go now to my other conversation with

1:48:15Ben David Krabinski very happy to have Ben David Krabinski here so you did it you got a big major studio movie congratulations how are you feeling I'm feeling good this is literally the end of the tour I've been doing promotional stuff here in LA all week interviews screenings and stuff and this is my last thing I'm doing this and I'm going to the airport and I'm gonna collapse so it's like I definitely you know it's half um marathon half like victory lap or whatever you know that just in terms of oh it exists it's coming out and then I'm like oh wait it's out so there's like a weird balance between all that but I'm excited to be here and talk about yeah I feel like I'm catching you in the last pure moment in a way this isn't your first film it's not the first big thing that you've done but I I know just knowing you a little bit and certainly knowing your work that you're an insane movie head that you I would it feels like we are in

1:49:18close cohort in terms of how much we love movies is that fair to say I mean you know I my office in New York that I like I brighten and do everything and it's just all physical media so it's like and uh like those are the ones that are like like whenever you guys like get into that I watch like the unboxing shit what you need to do with uh the movies but it's like it's I don't know it's like movies are my life it's like the thing only thing I care about um so it's like that would be a problem if it also wasn't my job luckily it is like if I was this obsessive and I couldn't rationalize it as like part of the work then maybe it would seem more insane let's go to beginning before we get to the end so um I'm curious what the movie was that that let your torch that got you excited about the idea not just the loving movies but trying to make movies do you remember what that is you know it's funny the I know the movie that rewired my brain in terms of

1:50:20tone or what movies could do which was Batman returns because like I'd seen Batman everyone my age was obsessed with it because it came out like when I was maybe like six or something or about the same age and it was sort of like the phenomenon for children and you know everyone's seen it to death you basically had the movie memorized even like the diet code commercial and I remember seeing Batman returns and it's not that was necessarily conscious of it but realizing how different it was like this big swing it was taking in terms of humor and stuff for some reason just it really made me like aware of like what filmmaking is or just like because it's like the contrast of the two like it's not like I was sitting there thinking about these things in the way I'm explaining it now like in hindsight I think I get it but that movie was just like a bomb that got dropped on me where like I was really I was like kind of scared of it and it was just so just felt more interesting and then watching aliens in my grandma's basement I was watching on cable

1:51:28by myself I hadn't seen the first alien I did not know what I was getting into and I vividly remember the there's like a bit when they're in a room and there's like a sensor and you like know the door is like 10 feet away or something and then they realize the aliens are closer than the distance to the door and that just read my brain was like everything got rewired because I was just like I was like a cartoon character but it's not they're up there and it's like and I just remember feeling like oh if I get ever do anything one percent as good as that because I wanted to make movies since I was you know before even middle school to a point where I talk to someone a couple years ago why not talk to in like 30 years and they're like oh I'm not surprised you're always talking about how you were going to make movies and I was like is that something I've like wrecked Han from my own life or is that a thing I used to say and I guess I just did all the time so you're from Nebraska you grow up in Nebraska I was born in Nebraska but I moved to Arizona when I was really really young okay so I lived in Arizona until I was 16 and then I moved to Iowa and then

1:52:34moved to LA right after college how does one who's from Nebraska Arizona Iowa chart a path to making movies um it's funny because I all I ever want to do is be a director and I had never thought about writing and I just thought I'm gonna move to LA and I'm gonna make movies very naively and you know I like read every book you could about filmmaking and you know a lot it's funny because like when I was like in middle school or like early high school like my film school was just like movie magazines like starlogging all that stuff but then my film school became DVDs like I don't think my life would be what it is if there hadn't been that era when they spent so much money making special features and stuff we're like I remember it's like the commentary for Ronin like I was obsessed with like the first two DVDs I got were like Ronin and next Friday which in a weird way probably actually I'm saying that out loud I realized like those two things are kind of combined or maybe

1:53:35my dumb sensibility that is in a lot of ways what this new movie is but I remember like watching like a feature at about like storyboards on next Friday and then listening to audio commentary with Frank and Hymer a million times and like I just you know it just I was obsessed with all the shit but I didn't have a plan and then when I was in college I stayed there one year over the summer and I didn't realize no one was gonna be there because it's like suddenly like everyone who was gone you'd go to the local bar and then there's like one guy there and I had no idea it was gonna be vacant I'm like what am I supposed to do with my time and then I pirated a copy of final draft I just there was like some website where someone's like hey you can download final draft and I wrote a script and I and then I someone said they liked it and I was immediately one of those idiots who's like I guess I'm a writer I just needed one person to say they thought it was good so I just started writing and then I moved to LA and then it got and someone had

1:54:35optioning a script that I wrote and then I just started writing for a living and then it beat just it took over everything and then I kind of got sidetracked from whatever my plan was to direct it and then I made a short in 2010 um called cost of living and I wrote this action movie that I was trying to make uh from that and I spent nine years trying to make it and uh I couldn't get anyone to make it because I had a gigantic car chase in it um it was it's a really insane it's surprising I guess if anyone see my movie uh like an action comedy thing with vampires Carrie Coon was attached to starring it and there was like a huge extended like 20 page car chase in the middle so I kept trying to get people to make it and there's no way to make it cheaply so after like nine years of almost making that with the same producer as the movie I just made I was like what can I write that you can make for nothing or close to nothing and I wrote happily and then uh yeah your first feature yes can we go back to then go back to whatever I'm

1:55:41rambling no no the moment when you sold a screenplay that was optioned how old were you I was 22 okay so were you like I'm in this is going to be my my career and this is how I'll make money and I'm set well it's funny because there's like the concept of an overnight success which is you know your young people are like oh my god we're gonna buy this thing we're gonna make this your set uh I sold a script I was like this is my life now and they're like we're gonna make this in six months I'm like no one lies about these things this is the truth and then it didn't get made and I was like oh okay and I write my next one and they're like we're gonna make this in six months I'm like okay it's cool it's fine I had that set back at 22 where that didn't get made and then that one didn't it's like okay well I you know probably get a movie made at like 25 and then it just kept you know you're like Lucy with the Charlie Brown with the football and it took about almost a decade of that happening and he being like oh this just might be my life is that

1:56:43I'm going to work and make a living consistently maybe writing stuff that will never get made and then um and I'd have some things that are beyond for like years like for like really big directors and its studios and stuff where you do drafts and something for three years and everyone's like yeah we're probably gonna make this in this quarter or we're gonna do this this thing and you know like it does in times and then I spent a month working uh doing some rewrites on this movie called skip trays for Rennie Harlan and then they went off and made it and almost everything I wrote got all my dialogue got rewritten and then I got credit on that and I still don't know really what the rhyme or reason for it is like I spent all this time and all these things that we're gonna quote-unquote get made and I just spent a month working on skip trays and then it becomes like your first credit and then it's also a movie that made like I think fourteen billion dollars overseas and then seven thousand dollars in America so you kind of there is no I gave up a long time

1:57:44ago on like having a plan for my career because you sort of just realized okay opportunities fall on your lap chase the ones you think you can do a good job on and then see what happens weirdly this movie is like the first thing that was like I wrote a thing I wanted to make it and then it got made you know it's like I like when I get already afraid of the dark it's just someone calling you and because I'd written a draft of the movie saying hey do you have any idea for a show and I go okay and then people are talking to Brian about doing a Scott Pilgrim show and then we had dinner and then I was talking about it and he said do you want to deal with me and I'm like okay it's like these things just keep sort of like and then you just try to do great work hopefully and then this is the first thing where it's like I'm going to get this movie made I'm going to do it and then it happened so again I don't know what there's like a lesson from any of that I'm still very interested in that like oh four to 19 range like pre are you free to the dark pre Scott Pilgrim happily because I know plenty of people who are screenwriters and aspiring directors and I think

1:58:51at a certain point sometimes what happens is even when you're selling things you start writing things to sell them and you give up hope on them ever being anything and then so that your career becomes kind of working creatively into active anonymity and like you you broke the spell right like you did it you got films made you got shows made you're here but was there a part of you that was worried that you were like I will just be pouring my heart and soul into ideas that will never be realized at any point you know if if I'm just going to be like really candid and honest instead of saying just sort of what's like an interesting answer it's that I I think something's like wrong with my brain where I don't know how to think that way it's just like because this is the only thing I've ever wanted to do and it's like the thing I care about it's just like I just keep doing it and kind of naively assume eventually it'll work out if I if I didn't feel that way I probably

1:59:55would have got discouraged or something okay but that's also just a weird thing to say about the fact that like you know I was making a living and I you know it's the only job that I've had since I was like 23 or 24 or something um but it's just it's odd because when you grow up loving movies and like reading every interview you get this idea in your head of like what a successful career is and you think it's oh it's this thing and then you make your first movie and then maybe the second one's not as good and then you do this and then you get into it and you're like oh those are kind of narratives people create in hindsight to kind of describe how their career went and then you realize you're like oh this is just kind of chaos you know and you just in hindsight you can maybe come up with like a canned short answer of the arc of it I think I might make things just more confusing but well do you did you ever feel like in that period of time like I missed the boat like the industry changed it's not as easy to do the thing because one of the things that I really like about your movies is that you have a sensibility maybe

2:00:59not a style but a sensibility that is very familiar to movies that we grew up on that there's like a lot of McTiernan and Shane Black and Tony Scott and you know the like high level like artisan craftsmen with like a real sense of humor inside of these action movies and that is like a little bit out of fashion or like comic book movies kind of sucked that up a little bit and kind of ruined it and I'm curious if you've just ever felt like I'm just a little at a time when you're trying to get those movies made you know I really like trying not to be like on trend I guess that might be a way of putting it where it's like I try not to think at all about what people are doing right now in terms of filmmaking or like it's not like I'm watching an action movie that came out six months ago and I'm like oh this is how we're shooting not now that's what we got to do I try to cling to the things that I'm passionate about and kind of hope that'll give it like a sense of specificity you know because I think that if I'm kind of

2:02:01trying to chase what other people are doing then it's like I kind of don't have a nor star like I don't really know which way is up it's like I have to just kind of stay in my lane of like to me what feels like just the most fun way to do the thing you know so it's like all the action in this is just all my favorite Hong Kong action filmmakers just kind of getting filtered through my you know weird personality but it's I but I also just personally think stuff like that you can't improve on like I think if you sat down tomorrow and you watch like speed or hard boiled or any of those things you can't say oh if only they had modern film techniques this would be more exciting there's I don't think there's anything that we could do it's like okay well let's add a drone to the fight all I was totally respect the craft of everyone who's like trying to push the envelope but I just keep going back and being like I don't know it's like it's so made a movie today that felt exactly like me tearing in it would just blow the roof off of everything and it's like

2:03:05it I don't know I to me does that answer the question no it does I mean I'm trying to get down to the boil down to the like formalism of the work that you're doing even though you're making just very fun movies there there is and this was something that people said about McTerry and Tony Scott and definitely John Wu too you know they were real artists who really seriously considered the structure and dynamic of what they were making yeah you don't think about that when you see speed when you're 10 years old in a movie theater and you're like holy fucking shit this is blowing my mind but if you do go back and it sounds like you did really go back and kind of like deconstruct and try to understand how they did what they did and then try to rebuild from there while retaining your own self which some filmmakers do and some don't but it's interesting that like they did that about Pasalini right McTerry and they're famously like a really really into into the European of tours and you're doing it with them and like do you have a consciousness of being part of that that step ladder of creativity you know I mean this is the best way I can really explain my

2:04:06process is that the day before I left her when a peg to make the movie I introduced a screening of last action hero video it's and then I brought my DP Larry Fong and we sat in the back row and I was just asking him some questions about how he used lenses in that movie and then we went to Panavision and found lenses that McTerry and used for those movies and then that's what I used on my movie so that level of specific insanity where it's like I'm not sitting on set saying what would McTerry and do but I did figure out what his lenses were it's like I um for me it's just like I make movies because I really love movies and I like that the sum total of my influences are so kind of disparate that it kind of becomes a new thing you know because I try because it's like if I'm making something that is you know my favorite Hong Kong action movies and this thing and this thing and this thing and this thing and I find

2:05:08kind of this package that I can filter all that into that it's kind of coherent uh then it feels like fresh I think that because like when people read this this script sometimes they'd say oh it's like back to the future meets good fellows and I'm like that's a cool thing to say but I think it's a little bit more like sexy beast and I think it's a little bit more like this thing and then you start to realize it's like okay because if I say it's this meets this I have to say 400 movies you know because it's like it's to me it's a buddy action comedy it is a time travel movie where everyone's kind of lovable idiot and there's no one to talk about science and it's a one night gone wrong movie so which is one of my favorite types of movies where it's like the movie is just one night they have to be you hope that they're going to live until sunrise and they'll figure out their shit so that's like to me the simple way of describing it but then when other people start talking about it I just have to because it'd be funny like I'd be in meetings and someone would be like yeah it's just gonna be like the next back to the future I'm like no that's a perfect movie

2:06:11and it's also a different movie and it's like but then I'm like whatever it doesn't matter how people describe it can you tell me a little bit about that process of going into rooms and trying to sell your movie to people you know the funniest thing about this movie is I didn't have to sell it and that's never happened to me before I had a very very fortunate situation which is that I was really busy making Scott Pilgrim and my producer Andrew Lazar who had been attached to the other movie almost made forever and has been like for some reason believed to me more than anyone and I've been in rooms where he does it in front of me or when I'm not around and he's like I promise he's gonna look I work with the Chowski's the first time and he'll give these passionate speeches like I know he can do it and I was busy and he took the script to 20th and shared it with some people he knew there and then they seem to really like it and they were all talking about it I don't know this is happening and I'm making Scott Pilgrim I'm literally I'm like in the voice record stage and then he calls me and he's like hey so they're really excited about this movie can you come

2:07:12and talk to my Monday I was just like what and I was like okay sure whatever this seems a little too good to be true and then I went in and met with like Steve Asbel and Sarah Shupper and Richard Milton and I just talked and they asked me questions and I you know I was like talking at tonally the comps and like kind of actors I was thinking about and all these things and then at the end of the meeting they're just like okay and then they like made a deal and then we started working from there and everything else ever you sort of have to go in and do the razzle dazzle and like you know really like confidently pitch the thing and this was a situation more where I think they just wanted to make sure that I had a vision in my head I had a concept of how I was in a direct action I think it was just sort of they wanted to see if I was going to say anything that made them worried about it I guess like maybe didn't and then it just you know then it went from there it's funny too because like we didn't send it out to the town we didn't meet with any

2:08:14other studios I only had one other conversation about the movie where some people came to me and they were like they had financing and they're like oh you can make this independently with us and we have this fund and I had him and I was like okay and then at the end of the meeting they're like but you have to get rid of the Gilmore girls scene and I was like what they're like yeah it's just not going to work if people haven't seen the show I'm like I kind of respectfully disagree with that and then that's totally going to be the one that's like the number literally in our document to discuss your movie I mean I was like we have to talk about the Gilmore girls scene well we will but I'm saying that I I'm at a major studio and they didn't want to round off any of the edges of it and I and I was so ready to have someone be like yeah we like it but we don't like this part and then it didn't happen and then when I made the movie I thought okay they're gonna see it and they're gonna be like but you can't open with like this musical sequence and and then they didn't and it was like two things are true it's unbelievably difficult to make the movie

2:09:19but I also had a lot of support creatively so it's like it was very very difficult technically and in all these things but at the same time I'd talk to the studio and I'd be like so what do you think of the daily so they're like they're great I was like okay well I'm just gonna keep working on my headaches over you're trying to figure this stuff out and I don't understand why just I've been trying to make you know a big action movie forever and then the first one I get to make is also very idiosyncratic and they were very supportive and that feels like a big contradiction but I shouldn't really overthink it because like yeah it exists I did it there's definitely something happening from at least from my perspective at 20th where they're like we're just new line in the nineties and we just are finding interesting strong voices and sometimes we plug them into our franchises and sometimes we do originals and you're gonna get predator badlands and send help and you're gonna get all these movies that feel like movies that we really liked when we were younger and most of the time they're working and that's like a it is kind of the thing

2:10:22that I've been begging for for like 10 years on this show and it's very exciting to watch so it's even more fascinating that they didn't fuck with what you wanted to do I mean Steve is a real one Steve Aswell I joked about this in my intro the other night of the premiere but like if the head of your studio really likes psycho too you can have a dialogue you know because I would you know if someone really doesn't love movies it can be a little tough for me to kind of explain where I'm coming from or kind of because my passion comes from that so it's like if it's really helpful that you know I you can also say something that might sound insane where you're like saying I want the action if you like this and you're mentioning a movie that has zero humor but he has enough of like film knowledge and love that he can tell what I'm saying is aesthetically I'm looking for this but also I'm trying to do this thing and I've had some

2:11:22experiences with some people when you say something they get so binary like I once pitched on a movie and and I can't name what it is but it was like a tent pole and I was pitching to a studio head and I said I pitched a joke and he stopped me and he goes this isn't a comedy and I said well I think I kind of want this to feel like the Star Trek from 2009 in terms of that energy where that's like a big relic in adventure but it's also a comedy he was like but that's a sci-fi this isn't a sci-fi I was like well well I'm saying I want it to be like this and the guy's like no but this this doesn't have like spaceships in it and I realize I'm like I'm fucked yeah because it's like the you know like when I'm talking about like intention or what I want to do it's not like one to one in a literal way so if you can't kind of like yeah I that's where I can get screwed in terms of like communicating with someone because they'll just be like wait what then they just get fixated on like the other thing right it's tone versus content and sometimes people can't see the middle but Steve is like just a guy who seems to really love all kinds of movies and Sarah Shepard

2:12:26my exec on it was just really really helpful and I think she just always always like kind of excited that she's making the original action movie because it's it feels like most people do want to be doing that it's just some it can really get hard to push that up a hill or whatever yeah I think I was expecting a totally different story from you about the long journey to get this made for that exact reason well I think but you have to consider it in context of everything else which is I think that even though I hadn't gotten a movie like this made there was kind of a vague idea of people like well maybe he could do it or like people are like you know I do kind of like his stuff there's sort of this accumulation of having a decent reputation or feeling somewhat competent so it's like I and I've known Steve for a long time but we haven't worked together and it's just one of those things where it's like just the right time right thing where they understood the material and saw the potential of it and I don't know it's funny because there's other things that you do which

2:13:31you try so hard to get made and then nothing happens and I think that it you know like there's there's all these different other factors and it's also just the Andrews are really really good producer you know and he's like just really really really obsessive and passionate and very gets like riled up about stuff and he just for some reason really believed in this movie and I think that he has that kind of is like a contagious sort of passion so it's sort of like I had a hype man that I didn't know was hyping it up and I was over here in a corner with Brian just working really hard in the Scott Pilgrim show not even thinking about what I was going to do next and then I was just very fortunate that when that got done it's like I just shifted into the long headache of how do I make a movie of two Vince Vaughn's kind of stuff I wanted to ask about Vince it's nice to see him in this register it's been a little while since he's been specifically in this register it's also very funny that this is coming on the heels of centers where there's all this

2:14:33kind of fascination and adulation for what Michael B Jordan is doing in the filmmaking technique of Kugler with the twins and you're operating into somewhat similar. Well my storyboard artist did centers I mean also like theory wrote and stuff he's this brilliant guy and while he was doing my stuff he's like oh yeah I just finished centers and I was like how is that going he's like oh it's funny and then he was talking I was like oh wait there's two Michael B Jordan's in that and I'm like you know like a month away from shooting I was just like oh man this is different obviously but somehow there's like fucking movies of two denieros and all these guys and I'm just like I didn't know I wasn't I didn't know that that was going to be a zeitgeist thing and also you don't benefit from anything they learned because we're all siloed off and we're all on our own little like horrible adventure figuring out how the fuck to do that technically you can't call Kugler and be like hey man just explain it to me how does this work no you know we don't we're not on each other's phone list but I I met him after the Creed premiere and it was one of the coolest things has ever happened like one the Creed premiere

2:15:37were like I remember being there and realizing what that thing was and it was one of those exhilarating nights in my life and afterwards I met him and he was like the nicest most humble person and I watched someone say to me he's like oh you know Christopher Nolan's here and he looked like the most excited person who ever lived and I was like I this guy yeah well he's one of us and he's gonna be so successful I'm like the fact that he just he seemed like so happy that directory respected had watched the movie and I was like how can you be that talented and have that kind of you know he's definitely still that humble but he's also just such a movie nerd yeah that's why I think everybody kind of is so drawn to him in that way but anyway I mean I'm just a little curious to hear you talk about the idea of shooting the the double stuff and how how challenging that must be I mean just the thing about it is like okay doing action is very difficult but in a great way shooting one guy as two people sucks so much shit you know it's like

2:16:40because you want it to feel effortless and you don't want someone to watch and think oh that was difficult and I'm also working with an actor who can kind of be a little bit loose and it's not like he's gonna get every do every syllable exactly the same way it was written and you want to encourage him to kind of you know don't feel like you have to be so rigid and locked in but then that process is that because you know you'll spend six hours shooting one side of the scene with him and then he has to come back and act against himself and then you you are like totally locked into gigantic fucking computer control camera that does the move and has to match the thing and figuring out how to do that and within a schedule is just you know it requires so much prep and then you have to pivot sometimes based on like how a scene is going and realizing you have to change your methodology based on performance and because you don't want to like I never wanted to feel like this was put in a box because of it and I don't think it feels that way but that

2:17:44requires a lot of work it's one of those things where it's like I was like doing two movies at once I was doing a movie that was so easy and fun which is all the stuff with the gangsters so like I'd have a day that's just with Jimmy Teatro and Lewis and Arturo and Keith David and it's just like you're like the movies this is the best and we're just working together and trying to make the scenes as cool and interesting as funny as possible and you go home at night well although it was like 42 nights in a row and I'm like this is the best job ever and then next day it's like okay so we have to have a crane that fits within the sound stage to that goes overhead so he can do a walk and talk but if we back up this way like we won't be able to do this thing but then I have to go back and have Vince gets an earwig and do this thing and it's sort of like it was like two jobs at once it was like a job that was like logistics and you're trying to be creative and make sure that you're still doing what you want to do and then one that was just like do you know sometimes just if you have two people to see and it can be just two different actors it's just like how do you make this scene work

2:18:45and so no time travel doubling in the next film well I will say this when I wrote the script I turned off the part of my brain that thought about how difficult it would be to execute anything because I just was trying to follow my creative instincts and that's just what I'm always gonna do it's like because if you you have to somehow separate those things because if you are thinking about that too much it's gonna kind of it's gonna keep the stuff from being as good as it can be because like if you're just if I'm writing a scene and I'm like oh that's gonna be hard to do it'll like just get in your way so it's like I trying to avoid that so basically on my next movie I'll probably come back and be like I don't know why shot in a water tank the whole time it's getting like one of those things where it's like but you know it's just I had a really great idea involving water yeah a movie starring a kid a dog and it takes place on water yeah you should do it yeah no I'm just gonna it's gonna come back and I'm just gonna be doing like that just staring off in the distance

2:19:45and I was like I love the movie and I'm proud of it but man air bud water polo movie yeah I want to talk about the needle drops um I feel very seen by the needle drops in the movie and that's all I can ask for just like an just an emotional like thunderbolt I think with some of the choices even if they're not even songs that I love they are uh referential in a way that I found satisfying and you were talking about that earlier can you how do you make those decisions how would you are you writing songs into the script and then getting your heart broken when you can't get them uh I wrote all the songs into the script and then I ended up using about 60 percent of them and there's two that I had to clear way early because they're kind of performed in the movie so I can't like shoot that and then be like oh hey can I get the song because then it's just like well then I don't have a scene uh one of them which is kind of a spoiler and I'd rather not talk about I think it's worth mentioning is I do have no ways to song and I got it before they decided they were gonna have reunion I think that if I had gotten it later I would never I never would have

2:20:50gotten it and I wouldn't have made the movie without that song yeah my number my number one karaoke song really yeah yeah that's a good one yeah I personally like it obviously or else I wouldn't have like I love it in the movie but um you know it's the the music is all kind of part of the same thing which is I want to make stuff that feels really really really specific and my specific I mean just what feels right to me and I think that if I'm really following my gut on that stuff about what feels right in the moment tonally or energy-wise or pacing-wise then I think it'll lead to a movie that doesn't feel generic you know um I probably I'm not patting myself on the back because some of my think this is really stupid but I do think I'm probably the only person who would have put a day Matthew's song in a strip club and uh I really enjoy that as well that's just you know it I don't know it seemed it made me laugh really hard so it's like I um I will

2:21:50remember I did a friends and family screening really early in New York before I like turned in my first cut to the studio because I just wanted to show it to some people and just make sure nothing was confusing them and just sort of like get some feedback to be like hey does this thing track for you and just ask some simple questions but the main value of it was that when that song came on everybody laughed and I was like okay well at least I at least I know that someone will be as amused by that is I was and then um I I think one of the only notes that I got from a really really high-up Disney person was uh just make sure he keeps that song in the strip club it does I mean it works it doesn't work if it works for you it works if it doesn't work for you I don't know what to say I there was a I saw a really funny thing that someone had posted where they're like look I want to love a movie with that many girl more girl references but I can't support a movie when they play Dave Matthew song in a strip club and uh I'm like that's valid it's that's I'm not gonna argue with that take but yeah it's just all the stuff what happens is

2:22:55you know you pick 29 songs and then you have the worst time of your life trying to get all of them and the amount of phone calls that I had and uh and I then I brought in the supervised the music supervised I'd use on happily and her job really is she's like a missile aim at a problem where she's like right I'm gonna make some calls and then you know 12 hours later she's like okay so I talked to this guy at the label and I talked to this person but we're trying to show a clip to this guy in the band and she's just you know she's really tenacious uh and like that was one where I'm like if Dave Matthews watch this and said he doesn't approve it I'm in trouble and I don't know who watched it and approved it but somebody I guess he says know a lot to movies in fact I have a director friend who was at the premiere and he's like how'd you get that song he wouldn't let me use uh Dave Matthews song in my movie and I'm like I don't think that this is a huge leap to think that he must have thought it was funny yeah but I also don't ever want to know because I don't want to get disappointed and find out he's like oh what's that I didn't see that well there's the only story about him in that respect I've heard is is credit Gerwig writing him the letter to use

2:23:58crash and ladybird and that she wrote a very long and emotional letter to him about how important his music was and this puts it in a different context than the way it's used in that film but there's something actually nice about imagining Dave Matthews getting both versions I got to tell you the opposite of that story which is what happens when you write that letter and you're not credit Gerwig is on my first movie you might be surprised to learn that it took like 11 months for me to clear all the songs and it was like a real difficult thing as there was no money but there was a song that I had a hospital by modern lovers and I had to write a letter to the band and it was in the cut and it was in the sequence and it just worked perfectly and like I wrote him a letter and I would kept waiting and waiting and waiting to tear it back from him I'm having a brain part but there was John Gerwig yeah and then I just ended up having radio silence and I had to mix the movie 48 hours later and I didn't have a song there and I like freaked out and like I don't know what to do and I like watch the scene and I called my music

2:25:01supervisor and I was like the only other song that whatever work is like people ain't no good by Nick Cave and she's like well like I know their manager or some shit and she's like hold on and she calls me an hour later and she's like I can get that and I was like I freaked out I was like doing a victory lap I was like oh my god this is like a scene out of a movie I got this amazing song and I've never seen it a movie before I locked the cut I mix it I show the movie to someone and the first thing they say is I like that you use the Shrek 2 song and I was like the what? I didn't see Shrek 2 and they're like it was really funny that you decided to use the Shrek 2 song I'm like what's what what Shrek 2 song and I hadn't googled the song to see if it was in another movie and then it was like the first three people who watched the movie mentioned that they love that I use the Shrek 2 song I'm like I didn't know it was a Shrek 2 song you've ruined my victory lap so now anytime I watch my own movie I'm like hey here's the Shrek 2 scene I think that's so if he had read that letter and said yes I'd have hospital my movie but instead I'm now forever haunted by the fact that I accidentally put a Shrek 2 song

2:26:01you have to take that as a W based on the fact that people enjoyed that that reference yeah I'm just not part of the I missed the Shrek generation I only ended up seeing those movies like after I made that because I'm like well let me go see what these Shrek things are about when our former producer left the show we did it like a tribute episode to him and what he wanted to do and he's a bit younger than us it was was talk about Shrek because it's just it's just an inch behind us so you're you're forgiven at that time there's a thing people don't understand culturally is that in like 2001 to 2003 or whatever it was not cool to see animated movies if you're an adult and then it shifted and like you go see like the Incredibles and all this stuff then by then it's like it's like this memory whole thing where I remember people being like oh those are like cartoons and then everyone forgot that adults didn't go see those things so like Shrek came out at that last gasp of me of people feeling like yeah I'm 19 and 20 I'm not going to go see a cartoon movie and then so yeah I miss Shrek but I didn't even ask you why should I worry but

2:27:05I almost don't want to ruin that that's another but speaking of animated movies and music and the way in which they infiltrate our minds in an early age I the I will say about that opening it you could easily read the script and not know that was what the opening of the movie was because it was just I wrote one paragraph and I mentioned that he's going around the lab and singing along with the thing and then I had like this huge elaborate kind of thing that was super boarded and planned out and spent a whole night shooting it and then I know that there was meetings where people were like hey we have like 40 hours of daily's of Ben Schwartz singing a song does anyone can what scene is this that's very funny but I can't believe I got that and I'm still kind of waiting for someone to call me and say hey we just realized you put that song in the movie and I'm like yeah okay but I also just think this is if only for people have already seen it or a second

2:28:06viewing thing I think the lyrics of what he's singing considering how that scene ends is kind of an added joke for me but yeah let's quickly talk about the step printing shots so you talked about colliding influences right and I say one thing though about those yes that Theo Vaughn is that you see the guy's name yeah sure he did a podcast Vince Vaughn a thing and there's a point in it where he is trying to talk about the step printing but doesn't know what it is and just one of those charming things I've ever seen is him being like there's like scenes when the camera and like it and he's like describing step printing and I'm just like this is really charming explain it and explain why you wanted it to be in your movie well so there's some been some really nice things that people said about the movie where they said like someone said it feels like a long car why made like a 90s buddy action movie and look I love long car why when I was

2:29:10in London I saw a chunking express the Prince Charles theater I think it's a masterpiece but I have to be honest about my influences is I've been obsessed with step printing since I saw this movie called Warriors of Virtue because Ronnie you did the bride with white hair which I saw after which is a perfect movie I remember sitting in a theater watching Warriors of Virtue and being like what the fuck is happening where he was doing the step printing thing which is what happens to step printing is some people who watch it think it's in something slow motion but it's also just because I can't begrudge someone not for not having a vocabulary for what it is because it is a weird thing is that you basically there's 24 frames in a second and so when you're shooting it's like there's successive frames you know 24 in a row but when you're doing step printing it's like you repeat a frame for three times like because I was doing it with eight frames within a second so it would be like a frame will be three seconds long the three seconds long I mean three frames long so you're basically getting these bits of motion where it's kind of becomes see I'm even

2:30:14explaining it poorly but basically it creates this kind of surreal feeling for motion where everything is happening and normal time but you're skipping frames so it creates this sort of weird dream like saying book motion a little bit and it's just one of those things where it's like I just it just felt like a thing to do and it also just felt like you know why not try it or in such a homogenized time of content consumption that when something like this pops up I mean we're not used to it we don't understand it that people are like what the fuck and I'm so I'm surprised that nobody was like take this out well there was discussions about it and there was more in an earlier cut I would I'm being perfectly honest I'm saying that the movie is like the exact movie I wanted to make there's definitely I had pushed that that a little bit further in a way that I understand that people maybe wanted a little bit more restraint with it but I think that everything about

2:31:20the movie to me is I try to not think about I try not to have that fear of well this might not be forever one because I think with movies like this right now it becomes so like well we have to grab them and they have to know the plot at the two minute and 30 second mark and we have to make sure we don't make any choices that might alienate a couple people and I just have to follow my gut and my gut was I just thought it was aesthetically interesting and I thought it was additive and it made it just to me it just felt right instinctually and you just sort of keep chasing things that feel correct to you and then hope some other people respond to it or at least respond to the swing of it you know makes total sense a couple more for you before we go um you see a lot of movies I follow you on letterbox uh yeah I do watch I watch a little bit too many I would actually I came home and would watch a movie I did 42 nights in a row and then I was it was October in the second half of the shoot and I would get home at 8 a.m. and I was I would watch a movie so I'd

2:32:22watch all the Friday the 13 movies in a row because it was that and I would throw on something it was like 90 minutes long and I would watch a movie then go to bed which is probably stupid but I don't make movies but that's what I do every night okay well that's no big deal but you watch movies that's crazy yeah I've listened to this and I never picked up on it I know I know you thought this is the gardening show um how you feeling about the state of movie going how you feeling about your film being a movie that's going to streaming even though you've been able to show it in movie theaters like how how do you how do you feel the whole the whole kit and caboodle well look uh there's two things that I really love I love movie theaters and I love physical media and I'm sitting here talking about a movie that's coming out and streaming and that's the reality of it but you can put that in a box and you can say okay yes obviously I would prefer to see this movie in 40x yes I did make this movie for audiences um but I also

2:33:23got to make a movie that is a big action comedy where no considerations were ever made for any of that bullshit no one ever came like I think the first big laugh is like 13 minutes into the movie no one was ever like oh well you know someone's gonna turn it off if they don't know this by this point there was never ever a discussion about anything except how to make the best version of this movie and I basically just put my whole brain into that which is I was just thinking I never thought about streaming I never thought about anyone watching in their laptop I never thought about anyone watching on their phone I just tried to make the movie that I wanted to make and a movie that felt right and correct to me and you know we can get into the state of the business and I think movie theater is the best thing in the world and I think there's nothing better than seeing a movie with a crowd and this is a really good crowd movie but I also have to put all my energy into the work and it's like you know in soda bird quit he quit because he didn't like making movies anymore and then he realized that he's like no I like movies just the business is like

2:34:27stressing me out and that's I spent a long time like talking about the state of the business and you know we have some mutual friends who like like you know like Griffin I will just certainly talk what shit for fucking hours about it but I realized that if I just try as much as possible put my brain into making a movie I'm proud of and try not to get in my head about any of those things than that was just it because it's like a big movie studio let me make a big action movie that has a very long scene with people discussing Gilmore Girls so that's the win you know even though is a very good crowd movie and I think it really plays on the big screen so both the things are true and the thing that is the most important thing is that I was supported creatively but it'd be I'd be lying if I said I didn't wish it didn't wish I could have everyone could see it in 40x you know so I can't really do 40x anymore my back is too bad honestly I'm just I wish

2:35:29I was built different but I'm not I just saw all three Lord of the Rings extended editions in 40x so I did like four hours in the theater there's so real I respect it's part of the reason I ended moving to New York is a well the first night I was there a Griffin I saw red one in 40x and I walked down like that was really fun the experience of that was really yeah and it became this thing where we have like a 40x group chat and then we pick the one movie new movies that seem right to do it sometimes it's really great and sometimes it's like what are we doing here guys before I ask you what's the last great thing you've seen I do have a Keith David story for me I really feel like your movie gets Keith David in a way that I appreciate well let me tell you it was a guy who has a they live chat to just drafted an adraft the thing about casting this movie is sometimes because like you're making a studio movie and what happens is you come to a table with a list of actors you want and then they come to a table with a list of actors that if you cast

2:36:33we will greenlight it and then the joy is when there's overlap you know and with that one there was a moment when someone said I think it was someone at the studio they're like well Keith Dave is available when you be able to cast him and I was like hold on hold him wait you guys are saying like I could I could try I could get Keith David for this and I was like the second I knew that that was like an approved actor for it I'm like let's fucking go and I was like doing the Chris Farley show with him the whole time like in between takes like I pull chair up next time like all right so is it true that the the rumor that you had a fight scene in Roadhouse they got cut out and he's like well and then he would tell me a story uh and you know there's a line in the movie when he says Michael be street pizza by morning and I put that in there because he's talking about gargoyles and he's like you know the best thing was about gargoyles he's like I like when someone called someone street pizza and I was like and I just was like okay interesting and then I was like by the way I rewrote this scene and he looks at it and he goes he's like you added street pizza to my line I was like yeah and he was like so happy dude he when he wasn't shooting would call me

2:37:37and ask how it was going it's a head just miss you guys what's going on with the shoe and he's the only guy in the show in the movie who'd seen Gilmore girls from beginning to end multiple times and he has a cat who his daughters would call his son like oh yeah your sons over there so he's a cat guy loves Gilmore girls and he's Keith David so it was this is accidental perfect storm of perfect and you know the thing about it that I love is I needed someone who could be imposing and someone who could be funny and those are kind of contradictory things and he has a lot of presence as a bad guy and I think he's just really funny I remember like Jimmy Teatro like on the end of the first day working with him he's like so he's like a comedy actor right Keith and I was like actually you know yes I mean you get to like talk him stuff like he's like yeah the first time people let me be funny was men at work and it's like all right Keith David we talk about men at work what that was like and then you just talk about making men at work yeah the the biggest reason that you should try to be a successful director or filmmaker as you can

2:38:40get away with that kind of shit if I was just to do it on the street and you walk up to Keith David I'm like hey kind of talking about roadhouse be like get the fuck away from me but it's like hello sir starring in my movie can I ask you questions about shooting roadhouse he honestly looks exactly the same as he did 40 years ago that's the other thing too is like he's kind of preserved in amber so you've been able to port this presence from a lot of these movies that you feel so connected to him too would be also he and Jimmy are so funny together I this is the level responsible I am I cut that stuff down even though it's my favorite shit in the world because it's just pacing matters and I could have been really indulgent and kept every frame everything those guys did because I love every fucking frame of it there's so much funny stuff with them that I couldn't justify keeping in because you can only stay away from kind of the main pot so long but I also could just watch a whole movie those two guys being those two guys so that becomes the real thing where it's like I can't actually be indulgent like there's the stuff at anything in

2:39:44the movie that is sort of quote unquote indulgent is also functional that would I can't justify having like six straight minutes of those guys just being father and son even if it just you'd play it for people and they it would get bigger laughs than anything but you also like we got to get back to the stuff you gave us enough yeah okay Ben David we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen as I as I mentioned you consume a lot of movies I'd forgotten about this because I haven't had much sleep and I've been doing so much press this week and then my assistant who's also a producer on the movie Mal texted me and she goes so what's your what are you gonna say at the end about your favorite thing I was like oh fuck and then I immediately for some reason when I thought I think it feels also connected to the movie is I watched Wic is pain again have you seen that I have so when I was on my way to South by I put it on my iPad and explain what it is so Wic is pain is this documentary about the making of the John Wick series which I have like a lot of strong feelings about those movies and I could talk

2:40:54about them for like 10 hours I was at Fantastic Fest at that first screening when like people realize oh this is a thing where everyone laughed and he said oh when I went to Paris I guess this is a good way to explain my insanity I went to Paris for the first time and what I did was I went to all the shooting locations from John Wick for because and someone's like oh this really shot amily I'm like yeah yeah yeah but that's like this is the church from the the thing and I'm just really really fascinated by those movies I think four is truly a masterpiece just all caps masterpiece and I even remember when I heard what the running time was I'm like oh they're finally gonna fuck this up this is just there's no way they can justify being that long and then I remember walking out of the theater I'm like that was exact length that should be if anyone complains about the length I'm gonna get a big argument with you but anyway the doc covers all of it and it is so candid in a way that I don't understand how it exists it is so interesting

2:41:54and it's really I just I'm just I think it's so cool that they're honest about you know conflicts and all these things how far it was yeah how much they fucked up and and it and I just but I find it very inspiring like and I was like watching it before I went to South by it's kind of this trick you do you like one case of screening doesn't go as well I want it to or if case I got caught up on this I kind of do things to remind myself you know like what I care about so I'm like I'm gonna rewatch Wick is pain and I was like sitting on a plane watching I was like these movies are so cool so cool seeing how they shot them oh my god a bunch of my stunt guys are in these shots and it just like it was very like it's like very centering for me but I think that if you like action filmmaking at all or like those movies I think it's really interesting and I think it's a rare kind of candid look at kind of what you know you have all the hard work and interpersonal conflict all these things that happen when you're making shit like this you know it's a great answer it's a really great documentary and David thanks for doing this thanks for being

2:42:58here I be lying if I said I wasn't this was the interview I care the most about if anyone else who interviewed me here's this I'm sorry but I was so excited about this and this felt like the perfect way to end my promotional tour then go to the airport um oh yeah thanks for having me congratulations thanks to Ben David Griminski thanks for producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode thanks Luke's cabin offer production support will be back on Friday to break down the drama and the other drama the super Mario galaxy movie the alpha and the omega of april at the movies we'll see you then