One Mailbag After Another, and the Updated PTA Movie Rankings

Summary

The Big Picture – “One Mailbag After Another, and the Updated PTA Movie Rankings”

Podcast: The Big Picture, The Ringer
Date: September 29, 2025
Hosts: Sean Fennessey (A), Amanda Dobbins (B)
Special Guests: Adam Nayman (D), Andy Greenwald (E), Jack Sanders (C)

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Episode Overview

This lively mailbag edition arrives in the midst of a cultural event: Paul Thomas Anderson’s (PTA’s) “One Battle After Another” has opened to buzz, box office debate, and nearly universal acclaim. Sean and Amanda sift through listener questions about the film and about PTA’s legacy, hosting honest, funny conversations about the art, business, and culture of movies, with deep dives into PTA’s career, rankings, generational impact, and cinephilic context.

They’re joined by guests Adam Nayman—author of Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks—and Andy Greenwald from The Watch, both offering nuanced, personal takes on Anderson’s latest and what it means to experience a once-in-a-generation movie in the theater.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The "One Battle After Another" Box Office Conversation

• Opening Numbers and Cultural Handwringing

  • “One Battle’s” $22.4M domestic, $48.5M global debut is PTA’s biggest opening, set to surpass “There Will Be Blood."
  • Box office speculation addressed as “shareholder disease,” with Amanda quipping: “It’s not your money. Who cares? Let’s fund great things.” [05:51]
  • Sean frames the film’s budget as an anomaly—the creative result of key relationships (e.g. Mike DeLuca at Warners, TCM/Spielberg/Scorsese alliance) more than a bellwether for Hollywood risk in general.

• Art vs. Content, Short-Term vs. Long-Term Value

  • “Box office is a short-term analysis game… Movies can be valuable over time—they’re like an annuity.” – Sean [06:59]
  • Example: “Aquaman” made a billion, but its cultural value as “forever movie” is dubious compared to films with staying power, like “The Ten Commandments.”

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2. Memorable & Comic Moments in “One Battle After Another”

(Mailbag segment, fun tone)

• Standout sight gags, one-liners, and performances are celebrated:
  • "Life, man. Life." – Bob (Leo) in Sergio’s back room [14:19]
  • Benicio del Toro’s “Sensei” dance; Leo falling off the roof; skateboarder delivering news.
  • “These are noise triggers.” – Amanda on Leo yelling at Comrade Josh [15:41]
  • “Semen demon!” — James Downey’s character [16:05]
  • Bob’s bathrobe/Halloween costume discourse and PTA character costume ideas (Dirk Diggler, Roller Girl, Reynolds Woodcock, Punch Drunk Love suit). [17:02]

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3. PTA, Format Wars, and Where to See the Movie

• Sean’s “VistaVision” screening at LA’s Vista theater breaks mid-movie, leading to a technical deep-dive on formats (film vs. DCP, IMAX, 70mm) [22:11].
• Both co-hosts urge listeners: see it in a theater you like, as big as possible, film if you can, but don’t let perfection be the enemy of good.

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4. Paul Thomas Anderson: Updated Rankings

Sean’s List (descending):

10. Hard Eight
11. Punch-Drunk Love
12. Licorice Pizza
13. Inherent Vice
14. Boogie Nights
15. Magnolia
16. Phantom Thread
17. One Battle After Another
18. The Master
19. There Will Be Blood

“Boogie Nights is amazing—a five-star classic that changed my life…but it’s at 6. That’s weird.” – Sean [29:00]

Amanda’s List:

10. Inherent Vice
11. Hard Eight
12. Licorice Pizza
13. Punch-Drunk Love
14. Boogie Nights
15. Magnolia
16. There Will Be Blood
17. The Master
18. One Battle After Another
19. Phantom Thread

“I find that I respond most to the PTAs [of] later period, when the heart starts opening a little, and also where women do start showing up in the movies.” – Amanda [134:04]

• Rankings spark good-natured bickering about “Boogie Nights,” “Inherent Vice,” PTA’s evolution, and “weed dad energy.” [32:13]

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5. Cultural Significance: Generational ‘Event’ Movies

• Listeners and hosts reflect on seeing “One Battle” as a true event—comparable to “Titanic,” "The Matrix," “The Dark Knight,” "Avatar," "Get Out," “Endgame,” and “Barbenheimer”—and the rarity of “I saw the Beatles” moments in movies now. [34:38, 35:22]
• For Gen Z, “One Battle” is a first lived “film history” moment; guests cite “Parasite” as the last of that magnitude for younger cinephiles.

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6. Comparing “One Battle After Another” to “Eddington”

• The two films capture the era’s anxieties, but diverge philosophically:
  • “Eddington is a movie about being on your phone; ‘One Battle’ is about being in the world.” – Sean [46:37]
  • Amanda: “‘Eddington’ has no hope, and… ‘One Battle After Another’—it wants to have hope. It believes in the next generation.” [48:52]
• Both films probe the impotence and confusion of aging activism and politics in the digital era, but PTA’s film offers a glimmer of renewal via the Willa character.

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7. What Makes a PTA Movie a PTA Movie?

• Protagonists: Creative, horny, bumbling, socially inept, “good at solving things but in a bumbling way.” [53:04]
• Recurring threads:
  • Playfulness about sexuality (“a horn dog pervert—that’s one of his things—but also a wonderful dad,” Sean) [54:47]
  • Collision of satire and real emotion.
  • Male psyche, father/daughter and generational tension.
  • Distinctive technical touch—camera movement, color, ensemble.

“There’s a sense of perversion… processed through the movies and the kinds of characters that he writes.” – Sean [54:47]

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8. Syllabus & Influences: The "One Battle" DNA

• Top influences cited by PTA & Leo: “Star Wars,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “The Lion in Winter,” “Searchers,” "Midnight Run," “Battle of Algiers,” “French Connection.”
• Extended cinephile syllabus: “Putney Swope,” “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Cheech and Chong,” “The Big Lebowski,” “Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Zabriskie Point,” “Duel,” “Silence of the Lambs,” “Nashville,” “Short Cuts.” [58:07–63:00]

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9. Small Moments That Linger

• Sean: The hawk/Blackhawk helicopter visual metaphor as sky shifts from threatening to military [64:43].
• Amanda: Sensei’s moments with families (“Don’t be scared… It’s okay,” in Spanish), non-subtitled and deeply moving [65:12]. Also the “Steely Dan”/karate cross-cut.
• The poignant final montage of Willa with her parents, happiness replacing memory of crying—a parent’s experience of time and change [66:54–68:46].
• Discussions of POV/camera mediating parental distance: “You never see [Perfidia]…It’s as close as I can get to understanding this.” – Sean [68:46]

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10. Listener Q&A: Community, Culture, Connections

• Halloween costumes and PTA iconography
• Power outages in the theater: worst possible scene to miss in “One Battle”
• Dating and the Big Picture listener community: Single fan seeks date for live show with hosts offering to play matchmaker [71:13–72:59]

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Guest Interviews: Commentary, Critiques, and Emotional Impact

Adam Nayman: Critic, Author of "PTA: Masterworks" [75:05–115:24]

On Critical Consensus

• “Film culture is trying to find things to rally around. People have invested a lot in PTA… because he’s always pushed for final cut and is very ambitious.” [75:53]
• Acknowledges that early praise comes from a predominantly white, male, cinephile base—and the coming discourse will carry further, deeper scrutiny.

On Art, Authorship, and the Political Text

• “We have a tendency to graft filmmakers onto their movies and look for those strands of autobiography… This is not an impersonal filmmaker.” [81:00]
• Discusses gender and race: Perfidia as absent revolutionary black woman, the text’s fraught and loaded handling of legacy, abandonment, and fetishization.
• “He is taking a small part of Vineland and scooping out her narrative into the present tense… It’s just very loaded when it’s not just an absent female character, but this absent female black revolutionary.” [88:04]

On Style and Impact

• Raves about Benicio del Toro’s “Sensei” sequences and the clarity and propulsion of the first 40 minutes (“feels like five minutes… fluid and intense storytelling” [92:41]).
• Notes the emotional power of small gestures: Bob’s line about not knowing how to do Willa’s hair (drawn from Maya Rudolph’s family experience) [105:27].
• “My emotional takeaway: it’s about time… And the password is time. Bob gets it right, and that’s his little triumph.” [112:08]

Andy Greenwald: The Watch [115:27–end]

On Seeing “The Master”—PTA as Life Event

• Shares a personal story linking a screening of “The Master” to major life changes (pregnancy, death, confronting Harvey Weinstein pre-revelation) [117:59], underlining how PTA movies become milestones.

On “One Battle After Another”

• Describes being “in awe of the Jenga Tower of feelings” and needing more viewings to fully digest the film’s tonal pivots [122:51].
• Finds it “electric to see a movie made by an artist telepathically intuiting what it feels like to be alive at the moment the film is released… just so compelling and exciting.” [126:03]
• Lauds Leo’s performance and the cast mixing “the greatest actors of their generation” with emerging talents; calls Teyana Taylor and Chase Infinity standouts [131:19].
• On parenthood and emotion: “The last two lines of this movie have destroyed me in a way that I don’t remember a movie destroying me before…” [126:22]

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps)

“It’s not your money. Who cares? Let’s fund great things.”
— Amanda (05:51)

“Box office is a short-term analysis game. It’s not a long-term analysis game. Movies can be valuable over time—they’re like an annuity.”
— Sean (06:59)

“Eddington is a movie about being on your phone. One Battle After Another is about being in the world.”
— Sean (46:37)

“I delivered a cogent, deeply analytical analysis.”
— Sean, teasing Amanda about his “Aquaman” rant (12:19)

“The password is time. Bob gets it right—and that’s his little triumph.”
— Adam Nayman (112:08)

“It is legitimate—a deeply felt performance—Leo… I knew he could do almost anything, but I didn’t know he could do this.”
— Amanda on Leonardo DiCaprio (107:35)

“The last two lines of this movie have destroyed me in a way I don’t remember a movie destroying me before… It gave me that feeling of being alive in myself, not just alive in a moment.”
— Andy Greenwald (126:22)

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Tone & Language

The tone mixes passionate cinephile enthusiasm with warm, relatable humor. Sean is bookish and earnest, Amanda is wry and quick with a retort; both revel in granular detail but keep things accessible, honest, and personal—mirrored by the guests’ energy and intelligence.

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:56] – Box office debate and why this PTA budget is unique
• [11:43] – Launching the mailbag and comic moments in One Battle
• [22:11] – VistaVision, formats, and the heartbreak of a broken projector
• [27:05] – Updated PTA movie rankings (Sean then Amanda)
• [34:38] – Generational importance: event movies and moviegoing experiences
• [46:37] – “Eddington” comparison: movies about/against the digital age
• [52:35] – “What makes a PTA movie a PTA movie?”
• [53:04] – Detailed discussion on PTA character archetypes and humor
• [58:07] – PTA/Leo's movie “syllabus” and influences
• [92:41] – Adam Nayman: Speed, clarity, and emotion in “One Battle”
• [105:27] – The emotional resonance of Bob’s line about Willa’s hair
• [112:08] – Final thoughts from Nayman: Time as the heart of the film
• [126:22] – Andy Greenwald: On parenthood, generational connection, and emotion

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Memorable Moments

• Sean shopping for 4K physical media at 7:30 a.m.—an ode to movies as forever objects [09:02]
• Amanda and Sean debating who in fact is “ranting” about Aquaman and who is being the “herd one” [12:06]
• The mailbag query leading to an impromptu “Big Picture” listener matchmaking service [71:13]
• Andy Greenwald being blindsided during “The Master” screening by life events and Harvey Weinstein’s intro [117:59]
• Del Toro’s “few small beers” and “Sensei dance” winning MVP of supporting performances [96:18]

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Final Takeaways

“‘One Battle After Another’ isn’t just Paul Thomas Anderson’s biggest movie; it’s a bracing, funny, ambitious film that’s sparking event-movie energy across generations and cinephile circles. Sean, Amanda, and their guests frame it as both the culmination of PTA’s thematic obsessions and the rare release that feels like living, breathing cinema—a moment where art, time, and the messy, beautiful business of life all connect on screen.”

Summary by Segment:

• Box office matters but art and relationships matter more; this is a meeting point between industry anomaly and passion project
• Rare, generational cinematic event—worth experiencing in the biggest, best way you can
• PTA’s evolution is traceable in every frame and every ranking; his movies grow with you
• Small moments—funny, sad, or sharp—linger as much as the spectacle
• “One Battle” sits comfortably among “Star Wars,” “Titanic,” “Get Out,” and “Parasite” as a piece of cultural memory in real time
• This is a movie to rally around, to scrutinize, and to treasure for years to come.

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“If you’re listening and haven’t seen the movie in theaters, I’m pissed at you.” – Amanda [141:16]

“That goes double for me.” – Sean [141:29]

Transcript

[A]

I'm Sean Fennessy.

[B]

I'm Amanda Davins.

[A]

And this is the Big Picture 8 conversation show about Paul Thomas Anderson. And one battle after another. We're back at it. We're having a mailbag to talk about the biggest movie of the year for us. Later in this episode, we'll be joined by two friends of the show. First, Adam Naiman, our mean pod guy, beloved ringer contributor, author of Paul Thomas Anderson Masterworks, a book I highly recommend, as does Amanda. He'll pop in to talk about one battle. He wrote a piece about the film fortheringer.com, he's got a lot of great insights. And then our pal Andy Greenwald from the Watch will join us. He'll talk about that fateful night when you saw the master with him and you guys went all Lancaster Dodd together. And he'll share his One Battle thoughts, too.

[B]

Yeah, it's a convention of girl dads.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Plus me.

[A]

All my beautiful boys are coming together over this film. And my beautiful girl.

[B]

Thank you so much.

[A]

Okay, but first, let's talk about the One Battle box office. So much speculated about. Lot of hand wringing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What will we do?

[B]

A lot of people with shareholder disease.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Which I thought was a really. I can't remember who coined it on. On the Internet, but good job because you guys got to let go, you.

[A]

Know, here's what I'll say. One of the reasons why I want us to talk about the box office on a regular basis is that the box office does matter. I'm not saying it doesn't matter. Yes, it does matter.

[B]

The box office is a. Is a barometer and also indicates what gets made and what doesn't going forward. That all matters. All the people being like Warner Brothers is not going to get its $150 million back or all this sort of stuff. Like it's not your money.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So chill out.

[A]

This episode is presented by State Farm. Life's full of decisions, big and small. And sometimes you make movie ones you can really stand behind. For example, I was wise enough to stick around through the mid credits during Ryan Coogler, Sinners. And unlike my co host Amanda, I got to see a very special sequence with a great buddy guy. Among other things, State Farm gets it. Making confident choices can make all the difference. That's why with the State Farm personal price plan, you can choose the right amount of coverage to help create an affordable price for you. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price Plan like a good neighbor State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and. And eligibility vary by state. We are aligned on that because there has to be. There are gradations of understanding in this specific environment. So this weekend, one battle after another made $22.4 million in the United States and Canada. It made $48.5 million globally, easily Paul Thomas Anderson's biggest opening weekend. His highest grossing movie is There Will be Blood at $77 million. This movie is going to fly past that whether or not it gets to the 130 or 145 or 165 million do dollar budget is to be determined. I think I mentioned this to you last week, but I had a kind of pre pod conversation about this with Van Lathan who I think is currently having this conversation on the Midnight Boys as we speak. He has a lot of feelings because there's a lot of pocket watching that goes on in the world of superhero movies. He was very angry about Killers of the Flower Moons, you know, quote unquote failure at the box office. And that not being called to task in the same way that a lot of films that he really cares about are called to task. Okay, here's, here's what I'll say. One of the reasons why I feel comfortable saying that I don't care about the box office for this film is the fact that this film was made is anomalous. This is not an indicator of whether or not movies like this will be ever made again because there are no other movies that are like this. And one of the primary reasons that this movie has been made is twofold. One, Mike DeLuca is the, the co chair of the film division at Warner Brothers right now. Mike DeLuca is the executive who helped Paul Thomas Anderson get Boogie Nights and Magnolia made it New line. This is his guy in Hollywood. This is what happens. You make relationships with people who have power. You keep those relationships and over time those relationships pay off. Secondarily, tcm. There was speculation some years ago that TCM was going to be deleted from your cable package.

[B]

Turner Classic Movies.

[A]

Turner Classic Movies, which is a huge obsession of Paul Thomas Anderson's and reportedly Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese came together and pled with David Zaslav to not get rid of the channel. And also offered to participate in helping promote the channel over a number of years. And in doing so, they all forged a bond with David Zaslav. The sort of partnership in which they were seen together at events. David Zaslav, of course, runs the company that paid for one battle after another. This is corporate synergistic relationship building at its finest. And Paul Thomas Anderson very wisely has used all of these convergences to get a $150 million movie about revolutionaries made. This is not like Black Adam failed. It's a completely different circumstance.

[B]

I like. I'm not van.

[A]

You know, I know.

[B]

I'm just like, why are.

[A]

Yeah, no, I'm getting it out. I'm getting it out.

[B]

Here's what's good. When you get $150 million from a corporation that we don't think that much of to fund awesome art, you know that I am pro that every single time. And honestly, if you're, if you're mad about the superhero stuff, maybe they should make better superhero movies is kind of where I am.

[A]

Of course, I agree with that.

[B]

Spend a shitload of money on good things is where I am. That's what happened. It's not your money. It's. I mean, maybe the people posting are actually Warner Brothers shareholders, which. I have some notes for you as a financial advisor, but it's, it's been.

[A]

A tough couple of years.

[B]

It's not your money. Who cares? Let's fund great things.

[A]

This episode is brought to you by the Wells Fargo Active Cash credit card. This is an ad for the Active Cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game with your mom or grabbing a coffee with your dog. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases made with it. Say it with me. The Active Cash credit card from Wells Fargo. Learn more@wells Fargo.com ActiveCash terms apply. It's not our money or your money. It does matter when big movies completely fail.

[B]

Yeah, listen, I understand. I would like people to go see this in order to suggest to these faceless corporations that spending all of this money on actually good things does yield results because that's the only way that you'll get them to do it again.

[A]

And I think one of the results that it's important to think about, and we discussed this somewhat around Sinners, which ended up becoming a huge financial sensation. Way bigger, I think, than even the most optimistic fans of Cooglers expected. But this is also true of a movie like this. Box Office is a short term analysis game. It's not a Long term analysis game. Because the information around how much money a movie generates over one year, five years, 25 years, is very opaque. The studios are not incentivized to release how much money they garner from licensing a film to a streaming service, what their VOD numbers are going to be, what it means when a movie wins awards and comes back into the conversation. Movies can be valuable over, they're like an annuity. They, they can generate revenue over long periods of time.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And a movie like one battle after another is an interesting contrast to something like, like a dead stock movie. The example I used when Van and I were talking about it was Aquaman. So Aquaman came out in 2019, in December and it was in the midst of the height of the superhero movie fervor and that movie made a billion dollars. People may forget, but Aquaman starring Jason Momoa and Nicole Kidman made a billion dollars. That movie that year was obviously tremendously profitable and successful. We are now in a completely different era of dc. The next Aquaman you see will not be Jason Momoa, that Aquaman movie, which some people will watch and still have some affection for, but will become increasingly obscure over the years and will generate less revenue over the years because we're now in the James Gunn era and probably in 10 years we'll be in a different era of DC. These movies are not as valuable over time because they are a product of their moment. One battle after another is never going to make even close to a billion dollars. So I'm not trying to conflate the two things. But if one battle after another does win Best Picture and does have a six month run towards success and becomes a forever movie, it becomes valuable over time. Just this morning I was shopping for 4Ks as I often am at 7:30 in the morning.

[B]

I honestly am going to start dissociating like we were just yelling about Aquaman for a long time. And like you're right, I'm not yelling.

[A]

I'm making a very reason.

[B]

But it's like, you know, I am not yelling. I feel like, I feel like I am the strong. I don't know, it's what you know.

[A]

I'm sharing some, some hard earned goals.

[B]

Okay, so you were shopping for four case.

[A]

And the Ten Commandments was on sale for 1499 on 4K. I don't own the Ten Commandments.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I was like, maybe I should buy that movie. I don't even think I like the Ten Commandments to be totally honest with you. And I'm of course a man of lapsed faith.

[B]

What time of day is this?

[A]

Early in the morning. Okay, so right before my daughter woke up.

[B]

Okay, so you, like, you roll over, you check the time. Do you check email first or you go straight to Blu Ray?

[A]

I wake up in the morning, I call the hotline, and they say, rise and shine. And I start giving the passcodes. It just got me thinking about the value of a movie like the Ten Commandments, that. The fact that 70 years later, the studio is still making money on it, they're still finding a way to format it and put it out in the world because it's a forever movie. It's a movie that feels important. It's a movie that has a kind of historicity to it that a movie like this could have. And that is another reason to make movies like this is to create a lineage, not just to make something that will satisfy people for six months and then it will expire. That is a reason to take a chance on a movie and to spend a little bit more for something on a grand scale. That's. That's why I'm sharing all this information with you. So to me, make art, not content. Yeah. If you want to do the snapshot when this movie makes $92 million worldwide and everybody wants to bang the drum about how it's a failure, let's talk about it in 10 years and let's talk about it in 20 years. We're probably not going to be doing the podcast at that point, so we won't talk about it, but someone will, and they'll remember that I said this in such vociferous terms. And you know what? I completely understand all the people that are listening to this right now, and they're like, you're a PTA fanboy and you have no perspective or objectivity. And you're right, I don't. And I don't give a fuck. I'm very happy that this movie is here.

[B]

Who do you imagine that is listening to this podcast?

[A]

I'll tell you who I'm imagining. Lunatics, haters, and punk trash.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And they need to.

[B]

Yeah, can we talk about that?

[A]

They need to step back.

[B]

Can we talk about that movie instead of Aquaman?

[A]

Yeah. So a CinemaScore.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

95 on Metacritic. Very high.

[B]

Yes. People like this movie.

[A]

It has a 4.5 average on Letterboxd, which would make it one of the highest rated movies in the history of that app.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So anything you want to get off your chest before we dig into the mailbag? Because we'll talk about all kinds of details of the movie in the mailbag.

[B]

I would like to thank everyone, including the multiple people in my life who listened to our. Our one battle after another full spoiler episode. Heard me say to turn off the episode if you haven't seen it yet. And actually did my friend Lauren, my father in law and my friend Maureen. Hi. Maureen, who was really came through with childcare this weekend, all listened to the episode then said, no thank you, we will turn it off and go see the movie. So that's good. It's nice when people are taking things seriously.

[A]

You like being hurt.

[B]

I do.

[A]

That's the takeaway from that story. You are hurt.

[B]

I would also add as we will be talking about spoilers in this episode. So once again you've gotten to hear Sean rant about Aquaman and I did not rant.

[A]

I delivered a cogent, deeply analytical analysis.

[B]

It is also like you're just edging closer and closer to being like, no, no, no. These Blu Rays are my investment. My discs are currently.

[A]

Who says they're not? I am contributing to the history of film culture day by day.

[B]

But you're just imagining a postclobok like anxiety. Like, you know, here's my 4k of witness versus here's my something but you don't have it. Or did you get witness?

[A]

You don't have always had witness, but.

[B]

You don't respect it.

[A]

It's like I don't respect it. I think it's good and not great. That's how I've always felt. I don't think it's bad.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I don't want to have sex with Harrison Ford. The premise of appreciation for the film is I want to have sex with a 78 year old man. No, I don't. I think he's great.

[B]

78 and witness.

[A]

But right now I think.

[B]

Isn't he. Is he only 89?

[A]

He's 114 years old.

[B]

I think that you're missing out on, you know, some of the great joys of us.

[A]

We're out of a canon.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I'm glad that everyone listened to you and didn't listen to the episode. That's great. That's great for our business.

[B]

No, it's people who are going to get like, who have tickets.

[A]

Yeah, get educated. Go see the film. We're gonna start talking about this very shortly. I just wanted to have like something really strong out of the shoot. Cause I knew we were gonna get into spoilers. That's, you know.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

This is programming.

[B]

All right.

[A]

I'M doing great programming. All right, Jack Sanders, help us with the mailbag. We got a lot of good questions.

[C]

A lot of good questions. A lot of questions. I mean, this is definitely the most amount of questions we've ever gotten, especially really. I probably read 500 emails. And that was just Friday to Sunday night, thank goodness.

[A]

Okay, that's great. This is obviously. This is the super bowl for this podcast, you know, for. Not just because it's Paul Thomas Anderson, but what the movie turned out to be. Yeah, it's obviously, it's a huge deal for both of us, and, you know.

[C]

It'S a little bit of a silly start. So it's only fitting that our first question comes from Tyler, who says, there are so many LOL moments throughout the film, but what piece of dialog or gag made you laugh the loudest?

[A]

It took me five seconds to write down 10 things. Okay, the first one.

[B]

You did a lot of blogging in this document.

[A]

Did I?

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you did. And that's good. That's great.

[A]

Well, I'm. I'm just activated. I'm activated by the cinema. The first one is life, man. Life. That's my favorite three seconds in the movie, which is when Bob is sitting in Sergio's back room.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And is reflecting briefly, not talking on the phone. I like to thank Warner Brothers, the company we were just talking about, for putting that on TikTok. I was able to rewatch it a couple of times over the weekend, so that was one that jumped out to me. What's one that you like?

[B]

I mean, the entire Benicio del Toro sensei like sequence is either deeply moving or incredibly funny. I do think, you know, there's a reason it's in the trailer, but when Leo is getting into the trapdoor, you know, through the tunnel. And just one more. Viva la Revolucia. It's like genuinely, really, really funny. Benicio's dance at the end. I mean, you know, a few small beers is funny, but for me. For me, it's the dance. And also Leo just falling off a roof. The sight cat.

[A]

Incredible.

[B]

And then the skateboarder being like, hey, man, your guy fell off the roof and got arrested.

[A]

Fell 40ft. Those are great. I also like Leo screaming at Com. Anything he yells at Comrade Josh is great.

[B]

Get him to.

[A]

These are noise triggers.

[B]

Oh, yeah, that's all really funny.

[A]

What kind of revolutionary are you, man? We're not even in the same room. Then he's like, clearly you don't have kids, you fucking idiot. When he's at the end of the phone call with him. Love that. I really like when Tim goes to visit the Christmas adventurers downstairs and they start talking about chicken licking. He's like, yeah, I love their nuggets. Yeah. Yeah, that line is great. That always makes me laugh.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, you already did. Haters and punk trash.

[A]

Haters and punk trash. When Bob is saved at the hospital and he jumps into Sergio's car and he's like, let's do a selfie. That's really good. Semen demon. James Downey's line, delivery of semen demon is magnificent. That got a huge laugh at my screening on Friday. Tom fucking Cruz, which I don't think we made much light of in the moment. I think the comb licking from Sean Penn, which is obviously disgusting, but he's also quite brilliant. There's like. There's a hundred of them in the movie. You know, that's. That's one of the. The joys of a Paul Thomas Anderson movie is a lot. A lot of small, funny moments. Okay, next question.

[C]

Next question comes from Kelsey. One of the things that jumped out to me was thinking about how many men will be dressing as Bob Ferguson for Halloween this year. What PTA film characters do you think make the best Halloween?

[B]

Well, you. Would you like to share the text message that you sent me and Chris Ryan at 9:30am on Friday morning?

[A]

Yeah. I was at the Vista to see the film again and there were three men dressed like Bob Ferguson. This was the opening day. Opening morning of the movie.

[B]

So, yeah, so we have to pass. So it's 9:30 in the morning for a 10am screening.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

So you got there early? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everyone got there. Okay. Did you have to wait in line?

[A]

No.

[B]

Okay. And then on opening morning at the Vista were already three people who presumably they could have based the costume on the trailer. They could have, but the vibe at that location would suggest that they had already seen it once and were already like, had gotten a costume together for the Friday morning.

[A]

I didn't ask anyone if they'd seen it previously, but, you know, this wasn't like, incidental. Morning, I rolled out of bed and I'm still wearing my bathroom. Like, they were wearing the glasses, you know, like the blue blocker glasses. So, yeah, it was weird.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Interesting fact about the Halloween costume. Colleen Atwood says this is not a robe you can buy a costume designer that the material she made it from, she and her team made it from materials that they had found. So you can't just, like, hop on the etsy you probably can hop onto Etsy. You can't just hop onto Amazon and buy this bathrobe. But I suspect you will see a lot of Bob Fergusons this year because it's very easy to pull off that costume. I mean, other PTA characters, there's so many. I think Dirk and Reed Rothschild are both really good ones. Sure. The Roller Girl, a very common one. 1998, I think Lancaster Dodd with the slicked back hair and the pack of colors. Right.

[B]

I mean, you kind of have to go in a pair, though, for most of them. Right. You have to do Joaquin and Philip Seymour Hoffman. You have to do. Because, like, you could do Reynolds Woodcock solo, but you would just be fancy. Unless you have.

[A]

Do you think Zach and Knox could do Daniel and H.W. plainview? I think that would be good.

[B]

You know what? Last night at dinner was the first night that Knox asked me what I'm going to be for Halloween.

[D]

Oh.

[A]

And we know you don't do that.

[B]

And I explained to him, I was like, I'm going to be a mom, you know? And he was like, no, I want you to be something too, so that it's life comes for us all.

[A]

You will be getting dressed in a Halloween costume at some point in the next five years. You gotta brace yourself for that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. I mean, I think you could try to be Reynolds Woodcock if you wanted.

[B]

To, because you also, you know, the tailoring is really important. But again, you have to have the dress to go with you, and those are harder to come by.

[A]

I'll tell you, the Punch Drunk love suit is something you could pull off that blue suit that Sandler wears.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Not a ton of.

[B]

And if you just went everywhere with like eight, you know, women dressed as the sisters.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

And some SnackWells, you know, or it's SnackWell.

[A]

Right? Snack. Well, I think so. Yeah. The pudding or Healthy choice. Healthy choice.

[B]

Healthy choice. Sorry. Yeah.

[A]

Okay. No free ads.

[B]

Do either of those still exist?

[A]

Genuinely don't know. I hope they're both doing great. Okay, next question.

[C]

Next one comes From Amanda's Instagram DMs from a gentleman named Nick. The power went out in the middle of his one battle after another screening without telling you where it went out. I need to know. Yes. When it went out. I need to know what you think would be the worst place in the film for the power to go out.

[B]

I mean, like, the most obvious answer is obviously during the car chase.

[A]

Yeah, the car chase.

[B]

That would be bad.

[A]

You've gone through 2 hours and 35 minutes of movie.

[B]

And then working back from that, I think, like this scene between Willa and.

[A]

Lockjaw.

[B]

No, no, no, no, no. I was like, the standoff with all of the, you know, the crazy Jan Six guys.

[A]

And, like, when she's apprehended.

[B]

Yes. And when she's arrested. And, like, before, like, when Avanti is coming, you know, and, like, what's going to happen there? That's a pretty high tension thing. You wouldn't want it to cut out in the middle.

[A]

That would be unfortunate.

[B]

I think it would be a real bummer if it cut out, like, right during the bank robbery to chase. To, like, you know, of Perfidia in that prologue where. Because there is so much energy, I think it would be tough if it cut out shortly after that during that convenience store sequence. Like, right before the wig gets blown off. Alanaheim's wig, which is a shot I have been thinking about a lot, the.

[A]

Wig flying and very Goodfellas, as it's been pointed out. That's a real, like. Oh, shit. Well, listen, the consequences have hit.

[B]

Yeah. We all like Marty. You know, it's not a crime.

[A]

I love him. Love the guy. Love the guy.

[B]

What else?

[A]

Those are some great calls. Yeah, all those are great. I mean, I think that there's also just some comic moments, like, actually. So I'll tell you the story of my Friday screening because this is relevant to a question later on. So let's. Can we just jump to the question about format? Yeah.

[C]

A lot of people ask this question, which is just basically, what is your favorite format to watch the film in?

[A]

Okay. So on Friday morning, as I said, I went to the Vista. I had already seen the movie three times. The three ways in which I had seen it was, I saw it with you and 70 at the DGA. I saw it at the premiere, on IMAX, at the Chinese, and then I saw it again with you at Universal city. Walk in 70 millimeter IMAX. Those are three of the six ways you can see it. The way that Paul Thomas Anderson says you should see it is in VistaVision.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

There's three screens in America that are available to the public in which you can see it in VistaVision. There's a fourth on the Warner Brothers lot, not open to the public. We do happen to have one of them in Los Angeles. The Vista ran the film on Thursday night and I read that it broke.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And they were able to get it back going, and there was some delay, but I shared this with my wife because I saw it with My wife. On Friday was our wedding anniversary. We had a whole day together. It was great.

[B]

Oh, that's nice.

[A]

We saw the movie in the morning, we had lunch, we picked up our daughter, had an afternoon with our daughter. Then we went out to dinner. We had a huge day. It was 16 years married.

[B]

That's really good.

[A]

It was nice. So, you know, she likes Paul Thomas Anderson. She Loves Leo. We saw the movie. So. But right before the movie starts, I was like doing the, you know, annoying, like guy explaining something to a hot girl meme where I'm like explaining to her like the formats and stuff and you know, in a self aware way and. But I was like, here's the thing, hon. Like, this is kind of a risk to be going to this movie theater because this, this could break.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And lo and behold, 40 minutes into the movie, it broke. I don't know if it was the. It said that the film rolled out on itself. That was what they, they communicated to us and that there was no way to fix it. Now I know that the film played later that evening at that same theater and it didn't break. And Paul Thomas Anderson, Leonardo DiCaprio and Chase infinity were at that screening. They introduced the movie at the Vista on Friday night. But for us, the film broke 40 minutes in. They tried to fix it. We had a 10 minute break. They did fix it. It ran for two seconds, then broke again. So then they switched to DCP. I didn't even know they had a DCP projector at the Vista because Quentin Tarantino. Movie theaters are always on film. That's the whole idea. But they did, thankfully, so that everyone could at least see the rest of the movie. There was. I cannot overstate the difference between the VistaVision and the DCP to actually have in real time see the depth and beauty and the screen size that they have formatted in the Vista for how the movie is supposed to look. And having seen it in other formats the first 40 minutes, it was easily the best version of it that I saw. So kind of heartbreaking to then have to go to the dcp. You know, Eileen, she doesn't care as much about these kinds of things. It's not as meaningful to a normal moviegoer. But I actually now feel like I kind of need to go again and see it in that format.

[B]

Yeah, everything that you're saying is valuable in your experience. There are four theaters in the world that can play VistaVision. Four theaters in the world.

[A]

Okay, so what would you recommend then?

[B]

Listen, I think my best answer is the Movie theater that you like the most. Like you. Not you, Sean, though, that can be your answer too. But like, if you are deciding I.

[A]

Like a lot of movie theaters, go.

[B]

See a movie theater, but go see one that you like. And with respect to Paul Thomas Anderson, who made the film, like my favorite movie definitely of the last five years and is a genius, like, we are making like the great the Enemy of the Good a little bit here. Like, go to a movie theater, Go see it. See it as big as possible. But like, let's all calm, you know, like, because most people are not going to go see it four times. Most people are not going to be there at 9:30 on a Friday morning waiting for the projector to break. And like, I, you know, I'm with you. I saw it on 70 millimeter at the DGA and then I saw it in IMAX 70 millimeter at the CityWalk. I vastly preferred the DGA experience.

[A]

You did?

[B]

Yeah. Because, like, respectfully, I don't want to go to the fucking citywalk. Like, you know, like, it's like, that's why I don't want to go to a music park. Yeah, but people have different experiences.

[A]

That's funny. I find it actually easier to get to CityWalk than I do to DGA, but that's kind of neither here nor there.

[B]

I also was like a princess. And thank you once again to my friends who like reserved me a seat at the dj. I had like the prime seat and like a beautiful theater designed by directors. So it's not like, you know, I was watching it in my basement.

[A]

Your point about our privilege is well taken. I mean, one of the reasons why I live here is so that I can have these experiences. And I don't mind saying that I agree with you that I think if you can see it in a large format, it's better. I think it's better in a large format.

[B]

Totally, totally. And I think if you can see it on film, it is better. It's like seeing the actual painting versus a print. These things do matter. But also just see it in a movie.

[A]

Go check it out.

[B]

Yeah. Make an experience of it, but make sure you enjoy yourself.

[A]

Next question.

[C]

About a hundred of the 500 emails were, what are the updated PTA rankings?

[A]

All right, I. I want to hear yours as well.

[B]

Yeah, I've been thinking about it.

[A]

I don't feel good about this right now.

[B]

I don't agree with your list.

[A]

Well, of course. I mean, it's a list. That's the whole point. I don't ever A lot of movies are very tightly packed together and seven, eight, nine are all like four and a half, five star movies to me. And that's weird for a movie to be at number nine on the list and be a beloved movie for me. And I'll tell you, some of what I'm about to share is informed entirely by the movies I've seen most recently.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Except for number one. But we'll get there in a second.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Ten is hard eight. I think Heart eight is very good.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think it is a really impressive debut by a 24 year old. It still feels like a movie made by a 24 year old. Number nine is punch drunk Love. I. I don't know why it's number nine. It just is number nine right now. It just is number nine right now. I think number nine feels like something that like he, like. Like an exorcism of something. Like him like trying to reject what had come before. Like it, like. I don't want to say he vomited it up because that would makes it sound gross. It's beautiful, but it feels like a reaction.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To Magnolia and Boogie Nights. Number eight is Licorice Pizza. I have not rewatched licorice pizza since we did a number of pods about it back in 2223. Number seven's inherent vice.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I could make a case for this as high as 4 right now. I know you don't like this movie.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I'm keeping it at seven. I've kept it fairly low.

[B]

All right.

[A]

I do. I'm now much more on its. I'm as fully on its wavelength of Just go with it and stop trying to understand it as I ever have been. Number six is Boogie Nights. This is the lowest Boogie Nights has ever been on my list by far.

[B]

I'm mad for you. And the last time we did this exercise you ranked it like much lower than you should. And I remember telling Bill Simmons.

[A]

I think I put a three last time you did.

[B]

But I remember, I remember then being the person to tell Bill Simmons how lowly you had ranked Boogie Nights. And that was at three. And he was appalled. So.

[A]

Well, you know, I work for Bill, but I don't work entirely in service of Bill. I have my own tastes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And Boogie Nights is amazing. It is a five star classic that changed my life. I had multiple dads at the kids birthday party that we went to together this weekend.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Ask me about my first time seeing Boogie Nights. It is such a totemic movie for dads of my age.

[B]

Well, I was literally crawling on the floor taking plastic broccoli out of my child's mouth.

[A]

It gets better, Amanda. You know, just wait till those kids grow up. I didn't have to say one word to my daughter for four hours. It was a great birthday party. She played with her friends and had a great time. Number five is Magnolia. I've had a big turnaround on this movie. I rewatched it and I love it. I love it. I've completely flipped. It's still only number five. Number four is Phantom Thread.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which I think is a great film about marriage. Number three is one battle after another.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I. It's ridiculous to. To know where this belongs right now. It's just too soon.

[B]

Ye.

[A]

I obviously am over the moon for the movie. I don't think the movie is without flaw. I do think there are some story. I think that there is some. Let's just roll with it. In the filmmaking that Paul talked about in the interview that you can kind of feel in some of the plotting at the end of the movie. To me, it's not a. It doesn't like ruin the movie or anything, but it's interesting because there's like a lot of unanswered questions at the conclusion.

[B]

Well, sure. Same in life.

[A]

True enough. Number two is the master. Number one is There Will Be Blood.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

There Will Be Blood and the Master have been in my top two for five years. Maybe I'm just having a hard time letting go of that.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And maybe one battle goes up. Maybe Magnolia goes up. Maybe Boogie Nights makes a roaring return when I actually revisit it. I haven't watched it since we did a four hour rewatchables about it some years ago.

[B]

Okay. That's no way to treat a movie you love.

[A]

Well, Boogie Nights, I don't. I could never watch it again. And I will have seen it more times than most living humans, so that's not really a problem for me. And I will just say I don't feel good about the list.

[B]

Okay. I don't really agree with it.

[A]

You've already said that. What is your list?

[B]

Yeah. So number 10. Inherent vice. Get out of here. Number nine. It's just not for me. It's not for me. And I revisited it like in the last two weeks.

[A]

Don't be an enemy to artists.

[B]

I'm not. You're asking me to relate.

[A]

Don't say get out of here. To a beautiful film about lost love and reckoning with the past and what could have been.

[B]

I just. Listen, I will never Be on that level of weed wavelength, you know? Like, I just don't.

[A]

I know. I want to get closer and closer as I get older.

[B]

I'm on other wavelengths even.

[A]

Not literally. I'm so ready to be weed dad, and all I need to do is not have a job and have my child be old enough to take care of herself.

[B]

Do you really think you have?

[A]

And as soon as those two things happen, I'm going to be so. Yeah, that's stoned. That's coming real soon. 12 years.

[B]

I think you're being pretty dishonest with your.

[A]

No, you're wrong.

[B]

Don't have weed dad energy.

[A]

That's exactly the point.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's where I need to go. I need to be freed from these shackles.

[B]

And you think that that's where it would go?

[A]

Of course it would go there. I would mellow out. I would just sit on the couch and watch movies, which is all I want to do.

[B]

Okay. So at 10, I have Inherent Vice. 9. Hard 8. Like a very good movie, but 8. Licorice Pizza. 7. Punch Druck. Love. Drunk Love. Two movies that I think are magnificent, but that's just kind of how ranking great love stories. Yeah, I can stick. I can roll with six. Boogie Nights, five Magnolia, and just by the way, the fact that I haven't started singing Let me roll it yet is just an amazing act of willpower by me. All right, so 4321. Four. There will be blood.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Three, the master. Two. One battle. One. Phantom thread. Okay, there I am.

[A]

I like the differentiation.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, There Will Be Blood is an absolute masterpiece. I'm like, I understand. We've all like, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's. It's an announcement. He did it. Yay. But, you know, there are others I connect to.

[A]

You don't have to be dismissive of There Will Be Blood, one of the finest films made in our lifetime.

[B]

I'm dismissive of all the other people, you know, being like, tattoo, there will be blood on my chest.

[A]

I've never done that.

[B]

Yeah, I know.

[A]

If you could get a tattoo of any film, the entire poster on your back, what poster would it be?

[B]

I would not.

[A]

It's one of the most boring answers imaginable.

[B]

I don't know. There's a level of permanence to it that I'm not comfortable with.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

You know.

[A]

Understood.

[B]

Life keeps changing life.

[A]

Next question.

[C]

Next question comes from John. As someone in my late 20s who only really got into movies during COVID one battle after another feels like the most Monumental and important film I've had the chance to see in theaters. As people who have been having important theater going experiences for a long time. Where does this stack up for you guys? When is the last time a movie felt as significant and important in the way that this movie does? Obviously Infinity War and Endgame felt big. Barbenheimer was huge. But I don't remember a collective feeling of this movie is going to go down as one of the greats that one battle seems to have.

[A]

I think this, I actually thought this is a really good question and I appreciate John's question and I like the way that he's framing this because there's two different things going on here. One is something that we love and talk about all the time and we were really at the height of it during Barbenheimer, which is movie going events.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

When everyone is going to see something and movies take over the culture. That is very special and very rare and does not really kind of doesn't happen anymore. You know, Barb and Heim are way more of a crazy event. And then there's the other part, the second half, which is the like this.

[B]

Will live on in film. It was like, you know, I was there, like I saw the Beatles.

[A]

That's what it is. That's how it feels. That is how it feels. I made a list of a bunch of things that I don't think even quite get to the center of those two converging in any way. I do want to say in 1994, Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump and the Lion King all came out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I was 12, so you can take this with a grain of salt. But all three of those things in different ways felt very big. And I think they felt very big to three different audiences. To kids, to cool young people and to parents. But they were. There was a kind of we can have it all quality for that year. And you can disagree about whether or not Forrest Gumption, this Boomer crap or the Lion King is overrated or whatever. We can talk about that. But the idea of something happening that feels very big in our lifetime. There were not a lot of examples much bigger than that. To me, I'll say the one that I think is bigger is undeniably bigger that I know you will have some relationship to is Titanic.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

When Titanic came out, that was. That was the. That was the biggest thing in movies for years. And people were legitim. Not weird guys like me. Old people were going five times.

[B]

Yes. And then teenage girls were going like 45 times. It was like a Swifties energy, but applied to the movie theaters and to.

[A]

Leo, to a big historical drama. And certainly Leo was a huge engine of that. And Cameron's ability to do spectacle was a huge engine of that. And then the other thing that was happening with that movie is for the 12 months in the lead up to it, no movie had ever been declared a disaster pre release as loudly as that one. Right. There was so much bad press around the movie that it felt like this incredibly positive whiplash effect. And then to me, the next run of movies is all a product of IP franchise fandom kind of thing. But these were all big things and a lot of these movies are very good.

[B]

There's one exception.

[A]

Yeah, there are a couple of them that you could perceive as, well, exceptions. But the Matrix to me, because of its kind of out of nowhereness and like lack of relationship to the filmmakers.

[B]

I remember this like I, I saw the Matrix on a very tiny screen because my high school boyfriend was like, no, no, you gotta, you gotta know about the Matrix. So there you go.

[A]

Thank you to him for doing the work.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Lord of the Rings trilogy.

[B]

Sure, if you say so.

[A]

Just massive event for movie fans.

[B]

I know. And I keep hearing about it.

[A]

Massive.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Jack, you were being born. You're being born.

[C]

Born in 2000.

[B]

Okay. All right.

[A]

Let me kill myself. The Dark Knight.

[B]

Yeah. Though, I mean that was a thing for you. Notably missing from this list is Inception, which comes a couple years later and is its own Nolan thing. It was a huge knife. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Dark Knight was a bigger movie though.

[B]

Okay, that's fine. Yay, Batman.

[A]

I like Batman. Avatar.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Now none of these movies, I don't think with maybe the. I don't remember the Matrix reception being. This is going to go down as one of the greats. I remember it being like, this is a mind blowing game changing spectacle and it is a step forward in science fiction storytelling. But I don't know if we thought this is like Star Wars. Yeah, maybe I'm wrong. I don't really know. The only one of these that we knew immediately like this is movie's gonna be around forever is Titanic, you know, or it was like, this is an awards movie. It cements two young stars. It is a filmmaker who's been innovating aggressively for 20 years, reaching the mountaintop like that, you know, and then, you know, Avatar is obviously Cameron doing that again. Mad Fury Road did have the thing to me of, you know, like witness me being one of the mottos of the movie. It became like Something that you heard people talk about experience of going to the movie.

[B]

Yeah, I didn't really personally, but I mean, it was definitely a thing. And it also felt a little bit like that. The Leo, Once upon a time in Hollywood meme of pointing at the screen of every other filmmaker, anyone who has anything to do with movies pointing, being like, how did they do that? Like, can you believe that?

[A]

Maybe that's part of what it was, is that George Miller's peers located that movie as so special. This is a smaller scale, but it was a thing. Get Out.

[B]

Oh, no, it was a huge thing.

[A]

I think the way that get out got into the culture which we talked about on our 25 or 25 episode. The phrases, the conceptual ideas, the way it kind of confronted audiences to maybe think about some things in their life or in society that maybe they hadn't strongly considered before, I think was a really powerful version of it. And I do think that that movie was pretty much confirmed as a classic within six months.

[B]

Yes.

[A]

You know, and then, you know, John mentioned Avengers Endgame, just from a pure movie going perspective. That was the thing. People losing their minds in movie theaters. We have not had that since where people are, like, filming the screen and everybody is like, exploding. Like, I know you can. You can denigrate the quality of the entertainment, but that. I can't remember people going nuts. That batshit. And then. And then Barbenheimer.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which was real. That was. It was a thing that was crazy. We saw multiple screenings of both of those movies, you know, with paying crowds, and it was like they were 300 women in pink, you know, in the room, or 300 men in trench coats thinking about the powers of science. Okay, next question. Have I forgotten anything? I'm sure there's a bunch of others that I'm not thinking of, but these.

[B]

Feel like those are all. Those are the event movies in terms of movies where you're like, wow, I'm watching something that will go down in cinema history. That becomes like. I have a lot of personal examples of that.

[A]

There Will Be Blood was that for me, I felt my soul leave my body when I was watching that movie. Okay. I really did feel I had a hugely spiritual experience watching the movie.

[B]

I remember Inglourious Basterds as just being like, oh, like this is happening. And everyone. And a little bit everyone going nuts on a smaller scale. But I wasn't in the theaters for Pulp Fiction, so that was kind of my Tarantino moment.

[A]

You're right. In that first scene in Glorious Bastards, that incredible. You Know, when Christoph Waltz comes to visit the family and they're under the floorboards. There was a palpable feeling at that.

[B]

Moment, I think Once Upon a time in Hollywood, you know, especially when we saw it in the Arc Light Dome. Again, speaking of formats, you kind of felt like, oh, this is another, you know, in the Tarantino vein. I'm trying to remember. You know, the rest are like, Clueless was a huge one for me. Like Lady Bird was a huge one for me. But, you know, those weren't on the scale of Oppenheimer.

[A]

There's something about this movie is going to go down as one of the great, as John put it, that is complicated because I think there's a lot of fear about overhyping or overstating even. I can feel myself even with one battle after another. I want to sell it as hard as I can because I really believe in it and love it. But I'm like, I don't know if this will last the test of time. I hope it does, but it's a little hard to know because these things change and smaller movies that fail become huge.

[B]

Exactly. And sometimes you don't know in the moment. Also, sometimes it takes a second viewing or something. Going down, standing as like one of the great movies, you know, of history, like, is 80% the movie and then 20% the moment. How it's alchemized with the audience, all sorts. So you can't, you don't always like a thousand percent know.

[A]

I think that's spot on. Next time we hear one, we'll, we'll. We'll. We'll wave the flag and say, this is one of the greats of all time. Okay, what's the next question? This is a good one. I.

[C]

Well, I was also going to say, I think for people my age, Gen Z, this is, is like the first one, I think.

[A]

Really?

[C]

You guys mentioned grown ups.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

As an adult, like, the last time I think we experienced this was parasite that happened when I was a freshman in film school. So that also was very special. Like at Ithaca, we got an early screening and it was like, holy, what just happened?

[A]

Until Bombers.

[C]

But then Covid happened and, you know, yeah, movies got held up. So this feels like the first one for like this age range.

[A]

You didn't feel that for Oppenheimer? I felt like a lot of young people were really into it.

[C]

I did, and that's totally true. But as of right now, I think Oppenheimer had way more detractors right out the gate than this movie did.

[A]

Good point.

[C]

Yeah, there were people zagging from the jump saying, here's why I didn't really get with this or that. Whereas this one, it's like it really feels close to universe.

[B]

And by people, you mean me?

[C]

I know lots.

[A]

I know plenty of people.

[C]

Oppenheimer.

[A]

But it was also a billion dollar movie that steamrolled to the Oscars, you know, such an event.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And there's also something special about it being this movie because there were so. I mean, six months ago we were all very nervous, you know, like hearing bad things, what's going on, it's not playing at festivals, et cetera, et cetera. And then for it to come out kind of similar to what you were saying about Titanic.

[A]

Right.

[C]

Like there was a little bit of anxiety and nervousness around. And for it to be so great is a relief.

[A]

It's really interesting to think about that. This is for that generation to put their arms around this movie and love it. I think that would be great. Okay, what's next, Jack?

[C]

So if the PTA rankings were asked a hundred times, this question in some form or another was asked 250 times. A lot of people are talking about Eddington with this movie coming out.

[B]

Sure.

[C]

People want to know, how are they similar? How are they different? Is it a trite comparison? Is this marking a trend going forward of politically charged mainstream movies? It's a very open ended question, but did you guys think about Eddington at all following this movie?

[A]

Definitively, yes. I'm sure you have a lot of thoughts about this. I do as well. When Eddington came out, when I shared our episode, I tweeted something that said, this is the movie of the year and maybe the movie of the decade. And I was very specific about how I phrased that, what I meant by that, and this is a movie that I really, really, really, really like and think it's incredibly successful in what it's trying to accomplish. But I was like, this is a movie that captures this time in a way that I've not seen very many movies even attempt to. And one of the ways in which it captures the time Eddington, is that it is a movie about being on your phone. And the way that being on your phone can be diverting but also paranoia inducing. It can cause you to misunderstand other people, to feel. Feel a real loss of connection. It can cause you to feel rage about things that maybe don't even really matter all that much. It can dupe you into thinking things are true that are not true and that life lived through screens is a very dangerous experience. One battle after another, you said is the movie of the year and probably the movie of the decade on our episode last week. And I think in part what you were saying was that it is maybe the best. It may be the best made and maybe the most successful, but also that it might be the thing that I was talking about with Eddington.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The difference between the two films is that Eddington is a movie about being on your phone, and one battle after another is about not being on your phone. And one battle after another is about being in the world. And the talking point that me and you and Chris have brought up many times with PTA is, why won't he make a movie set in modern times? Why are these filmmakers afraid of this? And I know, at least with Paul, that he views the idea of people just looking at their phones as very uncinematic. Some filmmakers have been able to subvert that. I think what Park Chan Wook has now done in two consecutive movies with phones is pretty remarkable and does show a path for making that feel more narratively intriguing. But this movie, if you think about this movie's relationship to phones, it's fascinating because Bob is using a 1G phone that he's desperate to try to charge, and he can barely charge it. He talks on payphones. Willa has a cell phone and it gets thrown out the van and smashed on the ground.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And then Bob, at the end of the movie when he is essentially, like, kind of given up, he's like, on the back end of his life and he's no longer a progressive, forward thinking, activist person, is trying to figure out how to take selfies and figure out his flash on his phone. And the movie's relationship to what phones are and what they do is really interesting because it's kind of. It feels more like a sequel to Eddington in that way. That's sort of like in the postmortem of Eddington, the chaos of that movie, if you put your phone down and go be in the world, maybe you can make some change as opposed to just panicking about a world that won't change.

[B]

Right. Well, the very, very last shot of Eddington, though, is the. The landscape of the AI center that is, you know, being built to help your phone further ruining your life. Further ruin your life. So it's inescapable. Which. Which to me is the. Yeah, they have a ton in common. They're set in the present day about kind of impotent guys trying to figure out what to do with themselves. As the world completely falls apart for, you know, political capitalistic reasons.

[A]

So in the American West.

[B]

Yeah, in the American West. So yes, they are like. I definitely thought about them. Eddington has no hope. And I think one battle after another, I'm, you know, I'm. It wants to have hope and it believes, it wants to send the Willa character out into the world as the next generation or at least acknowledges that there's. That the next generation might be able to do something that we cannot. So it's not, it doesn't end on a. Like we're all.

[A]

You're right.

[B]

So to me those are, you know, that that is the main difference. I agree with you that like whether or not you're on a phone may determine whether or not you're fucked going forward in life. Yeah, they say on YouTube. But you know, I, to, to me it's an energy and a, and, and an outlook.

[A]

Then there's something nuanced too, I think at the end of that moment in one battle where I think a criticism a lot of older people, you know, lodge against Gen Z is that their version of activism is very soft and that it is very online oriented and not action based. And that there's like a friction in the dynamic and you can really feel the weirdness, the kind of anxiety of him ripping a story from the 80s about the 60s and trying to plug it into the present day, where if we try to conflate this too much with our modern society, then it gets a little bit dicey trying to unpack it because it's like the most that we got to in 2008. 2009 was like Occupy Wall street in terms of that rigorous activism based lifestyle. But this movie kind of presents the opposite. It says that like Willa is getting in her car and driving to the protest, you know, that she is go. She gets the bat signal to go be a part of something and goes out and finds it. Which is not. I don't even know if hopeful is the right word there, but it is forward thinking. It is the sense that like people are still fighting, which yeah, it's not a foregone conclusion.

[B]

It's not done. At the end of Eddington, the center is built.

[A]

And one of the reasons why I jived with that movie so much is because I don't have a lot of hope. You know, I'm very cynical and am not in an activism era of my life at all. And part of why Bob is so interesting to me is that that is a very resonant thing of just like, you know, I'd rather just get high and watch Battle of Algiers on my couch.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Because that's all there is left to do.

[B]

Just.

[A]

These are very, like. I think they're both very sensitive portraits of super flawed, failing people and in failing times. Yes. And Eddington is more comic and One Battle after Another is more sincere, but One battle after another is really funny and Eddington is really devastating. And so they're almost like mirror images of each other in some ways. I totally understand people drawing the conclusion. I prefer One battle after another at this point, but it doesn't take away from my appreciation for Ari's movie.

[B]

I am ultimately a softie. Or I would like to. I would like to. I. I would like to believe in hope. I like what PTA is offering at the end of it, even though I. I still think it's pretty. Eddington's hardcore. You know, I like. I. It's. It's really. It's hardcore and I really respect it.

[A]

I do, too. Okay, let's do a couple more. Okay.

[C]

Olivia asked our next question. Can you spend some time working to suss out what makes a PTA movie a PTA movie? To me, PTA being the same guy who did One Battle After Another and Punch Drunk Love is wild. What are your thoughts? Can you define PTA's films in terms of style, tone or interest?

[B]

I mean, One Battle After Another and Punch Drunk Love are about two guys with an inability to connect socially with the world who are also thinking outside the box of your traditional capitalist structures in order to. I don't try to feel something. So there's, you know, there's a lot of similarities.

[A]

I think all of his protagonists. There's a through line through all of his protagonists, for sure, from Doc Sportello to Dirk Diggler. They all have a kind of sensibility that I talked about on the last episode where they're all really horny and they're all kind of creative but socially obtuse and they're good at solving things, but they do it in a bumbling way. You know, like they're all.

[B]

And there's a man on the other line of the telephone screaming at them.

[A]

Yes, there's a mattress man on the other end. So that's one way you can kind of spot one of his movies, is there's a consistent characteristic in the protagonists. But I think there are a few other things. I think there is a sensibility about sexuality that he's very unashamed of, that I think is really just normal and Common and interesting and funny to men. Yeah, maybe to women, too. But for me, speaking as a man to men. And this movie's got like five sex jokes in it. And all of his movies have five sex jokes in it.

[B]

They do, yeah.

[A]

That's like. That's his sense of humor. And it could be seen as juvenile or could be seen as natural, naturally occurring. And there is like a sense of perversion. You know, there's a guy who watched, like a lot of pornography as a young person, you know, like. And if you process that through the movies and the kinds of stories and the kinds of characters that he writes, there's a person who cast porn stars in movies. It's a person who, you know is calling a nunnery the Sisters of the Brave Beaver. You know, like, he's like a horn dog pervert. That's like one of his things, you know, I'm sure he's a wonderful dad and he seemed like a lovely guy. I've only always had great interactions with him. I really like him personally. Just think conversations about. But he's into his stuff.

[B]

He's a part of humanity.

[A]

Yeah, he's into his stuff. And like, that's a thing that helps to make someone seem singular, you know, like, there are jokes in this movie that would not appear in any other movie like this. And we can talk about the collision of satire and real world stakes. We can talk about the male psyche and, you know, as Adam Naiman will share with us shortly, his relationship to female characters, I think Adam's insights into that are really, really good. There are a lot of things that you can look at. I wonder if Olivia. I wonder how old she is. Because I do think you can.

[B]

You don't mean to age. Shame her.

[A]

I'm not age. Shaming her. I'm just gonna cite that. If you have been paying attention since the movies have started being released, you can see progressions and recurrences that feel very connected. Yeah, that's true of most filmmakers.

[B]

I mean, I think there's obviously a difference in scale and in these movies and just in. I mean, this is a big budget action movie, you know, and Punch Rock Love mostly happens like in a warehouse in the Valley.

[A]

Yes. You know, and Hawaii.

[B]

You're right. You're right.

[A]

In Hawaii.

[B]

Thank you. Yes. With the airline miles. But so I think scale and number of characters, even though Punch Drunk Love does have, you know, a tremendous number of. Of women who also have opinions and are calling him on the phone to yell at him.

[A]

Well, also the John Bryan Score in that film, which is simultaneously very big and lush and then very kind of like nervy and weird and plinking, is very similar to one battle.

[B]

And the song that plays between the two. The receivers.

[A]

Oh, yeah, the melody.

[B]

Yeah, very much.

[A]

Very much sounds like that. So, yeah, I could see they have something. They definitely have some things in common. It's a person working a totally different scale, as you said. Okay. I mean, there's more we could probably talk about in terms of his style, but I'm not an expert in how he moves the camera or the color palette that he explores. They're all worth seeing. What's next, Jack?

[C]

Next question comes from Peter. I couldn't help but think on my drive home how much one battle after another is similar to Star Wars. The revolutionaries Jedi get betrayed by the chosen one fall apart, and all have to go into hiding. Years later, the child gets told a lie about their dead parent. Please help me find more. One battle after another. Connections.

[A]

Well, Leonardo DiCaprio himself made this. This observation in my conversation with him. He was like, I keep thinking about Star wars when I think about this movie, which is great.

[B]

We were talking about Last Jedi for some reason and training, and then it came up for one battle after another and how grouchy the Mark Hamill is in Last Jedi. But it's hard to be an aging revolutionary, you know?

[A]

That's true.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. He's a father.

[B]

I think Bob does it with more grace. Personally.

[A]

A lot of people have been asking for the syllabus for this movie. I'm a little like betwixt and between on syllabuses because I like doing them. People seem to like them, but I feel like they give away too much of the movie usually.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And also now all the filmmakers are like, I have a syllabus. And I'm like, have the marketing people been just watching the syllabus and then telling the filmmakers to just do it.

[B]

Themselves, invent the concept?

[A]

I'm not saying I invented it. I mean, the Ringer's been doing syllabuses for a long time, since before I started them. But very specific filmmaking, like watching these movies.

[B]

So you have here we have three things. We have three sections. This is where you really logged into blogspot. But the first, you have your Paul's Picks. So these all movies that he cited?

[A]

Well, Paul and Leo in part, in my conversation, cited these movies. So when we talked, Leo cited Star wars, and then later he talked about Dog Day Afternoon because of all of the phone conversations that Al Pacino has in that movie. And so phone acting being a thing to think about, which I thought was a great observation. Paul pointed out the lion in Winter, and he was like, there's no tangible connection from my story of one battle after another to the lion in Winter. But he said, it's the best acting you will ever see in your life. And so he was like, I asked Leo to look at that.

[B]

True.

[D]

Great.

[A]

And then the five that they cited ahead of the release, that was part of the official syllabus, which we got into a little bit in the talk was Searchers Running on Empty, Battle of Algiers, which we see in the film French Connection with the car chases and Midnight Run with the comic sensibility, I think specifically between Sergio and Bob. So there's callbacks in the movie.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

You pointed out Casablanca, of course, a very important one, with the French 75 and with Perfidia. Set it off is literally something that jungle pussy says when they're robbing the bank. She's like, this is set it off shit. Great moment. Terminator 2 Judgment Day, the shot of Sean. Sean Penn rising. And then a lot of people have pointed Back to that 1997 interview with Charlie Rose that Paul Thomas Anderson gave where he told his story about film class, film school. And he was like, I didn't go to film school because, like, the first day I went into film school, I sat down and the first thing the professor said to us was, if you're here to write Terminator 2 Judgment Day, leave. And Paul was like, what if somebody. What if that's their favorite movie? How could you just say that to.

[B]

People when they come in to film class?

[A]

And he turned on the idea of film school very hard in that moment. And he's obviously nodding to it in this. And I mentioned Star wars and Dr. Strangelove, which I also talked about in our episode.

[B]

Sure. And that was the first thing that Spielberg brought up when we saw him.

[A]

Talk about Strange Love. Yes. And Kubrick also. Kubrick getting older and a little bit less in fashion. But Kubrick always been a big person for pta. He's talked about it many times. So here's, like, the work that I've done. I'll try to talk about this very quickly.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

So I think you can really deepen the context of this movie with a bunch of movies. I've paired them as double features. The first one is Putney Swope, Robert Downey Sr's satire that I think I did mention last week. And then the Three Day Pass, which is Melvin Van Peebles first film about an interracial relationship. That is a very interesting movie. The next grouping is Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which also has an American Girl needle drop.

[B]

Oh, I didn't remember that.

[A]

And obviously features Sean Penn paired with that Chris mentioned. Cheech and Chong up in Smoke is probably their best movie. And the Big Lebowski, undeniable homage to Big Lebowski in this movie. Number eight is for the revolutionaries. I just rewatched the Weather Underground, which is a documentary about the activist organization, the violent activists in the 1960s, which spends time interviewing them in the present day of 2002, which is a really fascinating psychological portrait of people and the fact that so many of the people portrayed in the movie are still as hardline about their ideas as they were in 1968. And then the company you Keep, which is the last movie directed by Robert Redford that is modeled on some of the people from the Weather Underground. And a man who goes into hiding and becomes a lawyer in a small town. Pretty interesting movie. Number seven, I mentioned Uptight, the Jules Dasson movie from the late 60s about black revolutionaries. And then Judas and the Black Messiah.

[B]

Right? Recent, yeah.

[A]

The only other movie I could think of from the last 15 years in which revolutionary acts are portrayed on screen. I'm sure you're from a studio, you know, from like a big studio. Zabrsky Point and Medium Cool. I think I mentioned both of those when Chris was asking about it. Vanishing Point for the car chases along with Duel. And there is a Dodge Challenger in Vanishing Point that reminds me a lot of Avanti Q's car Parallax if you include for the score and the conspiracies. Support the Girls, which is Andrew Bujalski's movie from about 10 years ago about a hooter style restaurant and the waitresses who work there.

[B]

Is that with Haley Lou Richardson.

[A]

Haley Louichan star along with two stars from One battle after another. Regina hall, who plays the manager of the restaurant. And jungle pussy Shana McHale is also one of the waitresses. That's where they met. I wonder how they came together for this movie. And then 1001, which is Teyana Taylor's movie. A.V. rockwell's movie that she stars in from a couple of years ago that I thought was just an absolute knockout. Silence of the Lambs, speaking of American Girl, needle drops and deep focus close ups. Jonathan Demme's movie along with Something Wild, Demme's other movie, which kind of feels like two sides of the coin. The same way that this movie has 40 minutes of a certain style and then 40 minutes of another style, and then Nashville and shortcuts for the Altman heads.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

Big ensemble drama.

[B]

See, you're not weed, dad. You can be weed programmer.

[A]

That I would love.

[B]

Yeah. Or just a programmer.

[A]

That's really where I'm headed for you. Yeah. Will someone buy me a movie theater?

[B]

Right. No. You'll use your currency, which are discs, in order to trade it for a movie theater.

[A]

Got it. Sounds great. Thank you for letting.

[B]

That's how the new economy works.

[A]

You know, the barter system when our currency fails.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

Well, I do have some. I have some rare materials that people may want.

[B]

Oh, wait, we gotta do one more. Can we do. Yeah, do we have time for one more? That was really good.

[A]

We can do two more. Let's do two more.

[B]

Okay, let's do two more.

[C]

All right, we'll start with James and end on the special.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

James has a question here. He says, what are some small moments or shots in one battle after another, or any PTA movie, for that matter, that you can't stop thinking about?

[A]

My favorite thing in the movie is when Willa is in the yard with her dog and this Johnny Greenwood, like, kind of bluesy, atonal guitar is playing. And then the camera shoots up and we see a hawk flying overhead outside of her and Bob's house in Backton Cross. And then we cut back, I think, to Bob looking out the window. And then we shoot back to that same image where we saw the hawk flying overhead. And then we see a Blackhawk helicopter. And that is the signal that the movie is about to go sideways, that we know that the MKU is on their way and the lockjaw is here to blow up whatever is happening in Bakhtin Cross. That's just a visual filmmaking, I guess, metaphorical thing that is beautiful and interesting and a little nerdy, but that I like a lot.

[B]

Yeah, I have. I think mine are more the little character moments, not surprising coming for me, I guess. But all the scenes in the tunnel, really, all of the scenes of Benicio del Toro, of Sensei interacting with all of the families who he's giving a safe place too. And then moving and just little moments of, like, you know, don't be scared or it's okay. Like, all in Spanish.

[A]

Yeah, Non subtitle, by the way.

[B]

All of these, you know, these families and, like, what they're clutching. I mean, there is just. There is something. And the movie spends time of all of it with, you know, the opening scenes when the friend 75 are liberating that camp sort of in the tunnel, that long shot through the apartment that you talked about, I think what else I had small.

[A]

Like some people asked somebody asked me online why we don't see. Okay, so something that I love that hit me hard. Last two times I saw it was just the Steely Dan needle drop into seeing Willa performing karate. And then we get that hard close up on Benicio's face, and he says, you're not breathing. And then go back and she's synchronized to Steely Dan's dirty work. And for whatever reason, it just kind of gives me chills now. And I watch that scene for the longest time. That song, to me was Tony Soprano's song. That's the song that James Gandolfini is singing when he's driving the car in that New Jersey accent. It's very funny. And now that song belongs to that moment in the movie. But there is a moment later in the movie where Lockjaw is trying to drag Willa to Avanti Q to his car, and she hits him with a takedown.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

And she drops her knee and she hits him with a karate move. And he goes down. This is like a soldier who goes down. And so when the person was like, why doesn't she ever use karate? I was like, she does. She uses, like, a real. I don't know enough about karate to explain what it is that she's doing, but you can see that it is from her training. And I really like the through line of that, too.

[B]

Thought of another one, which is the shot at the. It's a shot mirroring the beginning of the movie at the very end when Perfidia is reading the letter. And remember. And they. They shot. They cut back to Leo and Perfidia and baby Willa or baby Charlene in bed together. And the first time you've seen it, she's crying, and no one can console her, and it's really tough. And then I'm gonna start crying. But, like, the last moment is they're happy. Yeah, it's really lovely.

[A]

So not to dispel.

[B]

Sorry to be parents on a podcast.

[A]

Not to dispel your feelings about this, but I've had a couple of friends, including our friend Michael, ask us, ask me, do you think that Bob wrote the letter?

[B]

Oh.

[A]

Which is not how I read that scene, but I think there are some people who are speculating that maybe he did that to free her.

[B]

And that's. And that's beautiful in its own way. I think I didn't respond to it that way just because Teyana Taylor is reading the letter and like, reading the.

[A]

Letter, that is what. That's how I feel. That's how I feel.

[B]

And because I really did interpret. The reasons for her leaving are very complex. And one of the things I like about this movie is that it's not just like, mom, motherhood is hard. You know, it's like everything's all entwined together. But it does. That scene is a very beautiful. And it's really a montage of just the many ways in which that period of life can be difficult and figuring out who you are as a person. And so to me, it makes sense that in the moment. In that moment, you would only remember the crying, and then, you know, 20 years later, you would remember that lovely moment.

[A]

I don't think I said this on the episode, but Eileen and I talked about it after we saw it. The other thing I like about that, those scenes is that when Perfidia is talking about how she feels about, like, her jealousy and her frustration and her experiencing postpartum, we never see her. We always see Bob standing outside the room. Because that almost feels like PTA saying, like, this is as close as I can get to understanding this, which I thought was extremely powerful. Like, obviously, from my perspective of not being able to. You kind of can't help. Like, there's not really anything you can do in that scenario if you're in Bob's shoes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But you do feel close to that.

[B]

Or. Or you see Bob and the baby together and you see her watching it, which is like a very. You know, they're writing about, like, I carried her for nine months, and now she gets to be. The person is like. Is. Is spot on. Like, that is like, really. That is, like, known stuff. Whoever's contributing that.

[A]

So.

[B]

But. But, you know, the. The camera is communicating that distance. So that stuff.

[A]

What a. What a great movie.

[B]

Yeah, it's really good.

[A]

This episode is brought to you by Hulu. Glen Powell is Chad Powers.

[B]

Hi, Glenn.

[A]

Coming September 30th to Hulu and Hulu on Disney. Plus, eight years after flushing his college football career down the toilet, hotshot quarterback Russ Holiday makes a comeback disguised as Chad Powers, an oddball athletic talent who walks onto the struggling South Georgia catfish determined to once again take college football by storm. Watch the hilarious new Hulu original series, Chad Powers, September 30th. Streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Let's do one more question, Jack. All right.

[C]

Our Last one comes from Sharon and it's not PTA related. She says. I am a longtime listener at the end. That is true.

[A]

Good point.

[C]

I am a longtime listener of the show and proud member of the DOB Mobile. I recently secured two tickets to the upcoming live show in New York City, which I am unbelievably excited about. They were supposed to be for my boyfriend and I, but we recently split up. Would you guys be willing to help a newly single big pic girl meet her big pic boy and help me put the word out that I'm looking for NYC based listeners who might want to buy my second ticket and be my date to the show? I'm 29, live in the East Village and this is my letterbox Top four, the Social Network, Phantom Thread, Ladybird and Clueless. And Amanda had me reach out.

[B]

Yeah, so can I explain why?

[C]

Of course.

[B]

So I had you write back to Sharon because I wanted to get like some parameters before people can submit themselves. So I asked for like what are three movies that any prospective New York City based date should know and love and then also to understand sort of like lifestyle compatibility. I asked what time of day to share and listen to the big picture. Jack, please read the answers.

[C]

Her three movies are the Social Network, Phantom Thread and Marriage Story and she listens during her morning runs.

[B]

I mean I think I might need to be Sharon's date, honestly, but I have to be on stage. So those are really good answers. Except for I will say I am married to someone who listens to this podcast during runs and who listens to podcasts during runs. I do feel that it is a psychotic act.

[A]

It's not something I would do.

[B]

I know that there are many people to do it. So if you are a New York City based boy who is like available and not weird and wants to buy.

[A]

The ticket, huge caveat there.

[B]

I know, but I was, I was a little nervous about this. But then I was like it is like a group event. So everyone else who has tickets to the New York City show, we're all going to be responsible for each other. We're all looking out for each other and for Sharon and also for my in laws who are going to be there. So everyone behave. But anyway, if you are New York City based single guy who is looking for a ticket to the show and is also open to the possibility like maybe you'll have romantic sparks, maybe you won't, maybe you'll just make a friend. That's great too. Email. What's our email again?

[C]

Jack BigPick mailbagmail.com.

[B]

Okay. And I'm gonna read them.

[A]

And I. I am not.

[B]

And yeah, Sean's not. I. And I'm gonna collab with Sharon and we like, we will pick someone, but then we're not. I'm not gonna, we're not gonna further put you on blast. This is just like a one time service that I'm working with you. But make the emails good, you know, make your case.

[C]

I mean, the greenest of flags. For the three movies she listed, it's.

[B]

You know, I mean, I do. I do feel like I'm being worked.

[A]

A little bit, but that, yeah, Sharon is a bot.

[C]

To be fair though, she, in the original email put down her letterbox top four before I reached out.

[B]

Okay.

[C]

And two of the three movies she wrote back was in her top four. So I don't think she's catering.

[B]

Okay. But it's good that you also need to know and love marriage story because you should understand that relationships can be complicated.

[A]

That's maybe a red flag. Loving marriage story. I'm just putting that out there.

[B]

It's. It's fine.

[C]

What are you talking about?

[B]

Will you say that, Say the email one more time.

[A]

It means you get a sick high off of watching the Dissolution of Love.

[B]

I don't get a sick high, I cry.

[A]

Do you get a sick eye from watching There Will Be Blood? Of course. Because we all live under God and capitalism, so we have to understand that.

[B]

Y Salic just texted me. Do you feel like it's important to see one battle in IMAX or regular is fine, Yeah.

[A]

I hope she listens to this episode.

[B]

You should listen to this episode. But Yassi, I'm once again answering your text on a podcast. I think if you can get an IMAX ticket, sure. But regular is fine. As long as you like the theater, go see it.

[A]

Okay. Let's go to our friend Adam. Amen. As Amanda just introduced him, one of the great scholars is here to talk about one of the great films. Adam Naiman, the mean pod guy. I don't suspect much meanness from you today. How are you doing, Adam?

[D]

I am doing okay. The Toronto Blue Jays are in the playoffs.

[A]

Okay. We didn't have to start. That was not the right place to start this conversation.

[B]

It was the only bad part of the weekend for Sean.

[D]

I'm just in a good mood. We don't make the playoffs that often, you know, it's a good day.

[A]

Okay. I'm happy for you. I guess. Let's talk about brighter news. The brighter news is that One battle after another is out in the world. And this is an unusual situation, and here's why. Nearly unanimous acclaim from critics. Not entirely unanimous, but nearly. And I think that there are some listeners of this show who know that you are a very rigorous and hard charging critic. And you are not swayed by the crowd. You follow your own light, which we all respect and admire. And you also loved this movie. So before we dig into the movie a little bit more, I'm curious what you make of the fact that, you know, we've fallen in line on one battle after another. Is this a generational masterpiece in the way that it has been discussed in your eyes?

[D]

I mean, I would say that people are trying to rally around something at the moment for a lot of reasons. I think film culture is trying to find things to rally around. And some of it is a little bit of that throwback mentality. A phrase you may have heard a couple of times, you know, we're so back, you know, never heard of it. Never.

[A]

Never heard of it.

[D]

Never heard it. You know, there's. There's a desire to have movies that kind of make us feel the way we felt at a certain point. You don't want to say, make movies great again, right? But to capture something of a past, to feel like movies are pushing against bigger cultural trends. So either find movies that are authentically political, that feel like sites of resistance, or try and construct them as sites of resistance. We like to think about people spending money the right way, whatever that means. We saw earlier this year there was that sort of really stupid cycle of press around sinners. Like, is this movie going to make its money back? And then it more than did. So that sort of gives that film a different kind of clout, right? Like a director made a movie with big studio money and it succeeded. People were trying to do the same thing with Bong Joon Ho and Mickey17, which was less of a happy ending, I think, on both fronts. People have invested a lot in Paul Thomas Anderson, right? They've invested stuff in him from the beginning because he's always pushed for final cut and he's very ambitious. And there's an idea of an American cinema that you guys are very conversant with. Sean, I watched your Altman introduction on the Criterion channel last night. I hadn't watched it yet. You know, it was really good. And an idea of like what a maverick, tough, uncompromising filmmaker works with. These are myths, right? But there's truth in them. This is one reason why people really like this movie. There's also the fact that the first wave of critical reaction to this movie is very white and very male and deeply happy to have access to it and happy to sort of try and be on the front lines of trying to say, here's some actually good news. And I'll be interested to see how it does with the longer, deeper cycles of discourse. Because if a movie can't stand up to that and if a movie can't have consensus challenged, it's actually probably not very good. But when I sat down to write the piece, not only did I not feel like challenging consensus, I felt like I was on the front lines of a movie I reacted really strongly to, in some cases was like exhilarated by, and then tried to manage that response in writing about it honestly, because he's leaving himself open to some things with this movie and that has to be talked about, as well as the craft and the performance and the we are so back stuff. I believe in all that. But it's a big enough movie that you got to chip away with it a little bit.

[A]

Are you surprised by the critical more or less consensus?

[B]

No. Because to Adam's point, it does feel like even right now in the cycle, we're still in phase, you know, like the first circle of film critics, letterbox bros. Movie nerds, to Adam's point, like a pretty predominantly white boy culture, though, you know, I guess I can be a PTA boy too, but, you know, I have half of that covered. And so it does seem like we are still like at target audience and it's gonna keep growing. On the other hand, and you know, this is just anecdotal evidence, but I have many people in my life who have tickets for a few weeks from now who don't normally go see every single movie in theater. So it feels like we're at the start of something and it's growing. And that is maybe not surprising, but exciting.

[A]

I think there's some correlation in what you're describing and what you're describing too, which is that one of the reasons why critics race to the front line to excitedly share their love and obsession with a new movie, certainly there's some ego involved and there's all kinds of clout chasing that comes with this era of criticism and the expanded nature of it and the fact that a lot of people have voices now, which is more or less a good thing. I think there is a genuine desire to proselytize for art and to encourage people who normally wouldn't go see a 2 hour and 45 minute movie about revolutionary politics in some ways to get them to go out, to go see it, to explain how exciting it is and how fun it is and how deep it is. And that's a good thing. I don't really have a problem with that. I liked what you said, Adam, though, that if the movie is not being challenged, that's probably a bad sign. I think there is a certain strain of criticism that is singularly positive. And maybe even in this conversation we have today, on the episode, we can talk about some things that maybe don't click as much or don't make as much sense. But you said he leaves himself open to some things. I'm curious what it is you think he's leaving himself open to with the movie.

[D]

Well, I mean, leaving himself open or just by nature of his authorship open. We have a tendency to sort of graft filmmakers onto their movies and look for those strains of autobiography. Right. And you know, if a movie's not personal, then it's impersonal. And that's kind of shorthand for hackery. And whatever you think of Paul Thomas Anderson, that's not what he is. Right. Even his detractors, even the keenest critics, would never suggest that this is an impersonal filmmaker. So you look at this as a film where DiCaprio's character. And it's been. It's been a byproduct of so many readings of the film already that there's, you know, a strand of potential autobiography in there. Not least of all because you're dealing with the white father of mixed race daughter, but also that Bob sort of seems to be generationally and age wise, somewhat analogous to Paul Thomas Anderson. Anxieties about parenting are now at the other end of the spectrum than they were at the beginning of his films. He used to make movies about absent fathers, dying fathers, imperfect fathers who were sort of seen from the point of view of their kids. Now that's been kind of flipped. Flipped around in some ways with this movie, but also that Bob's job is to create diversions for a revolutionary sect like he's the showman. You know, they're like Bob, make a distraction Bob, or Pat, rather, as ghetto Pat, set off the fireworks. And I read something of his shift to action filmmaking in that idea that his job is not to have the politics or the ideas, it's to create the show. And then you have what he's chosen to adapt from Vineland and then tweak very, very strenuously in the direction of kind of like, is this radical Chic, you know, that Tom Wolf idea from the 60s, Wolf, a contemporary of pensions, that you're not really that interested in the politics, you're interested in the performance and in the appropriation of that performance. With Pat, Bob, as one of the few white members of a predominantly African American sector, let's just say a diverse group of revolutionaries, but very much headed by a. By a kind of female black leader in Perfidia, Beverly Hills, played by Tiana Taylor. And that what unites Bob, Pat, and also Lockjaw, the Sean Penn character, is a degree of fetishism towards that woman, towards Tiana Taylor's character. And PTA has been written about, I don't want to say accused, because it's so loaded. Right. Like he's been written about and debated in terms of his gender politics and particularly the way women. Objects of desire in his movies. In the Master Inherent Vice, it's always chasing an absent woman. There Will Be Blood is defined by female absence. And here you have another woman who disappears. She happens to be seemingly the most principled, aggressive, you know, visionary member of this group who then sort of bails and doesn't just snitch on her compatriots, but sort of walks out on her family. This is all stuff that should not pass without comment. It shouldn't just be folded into like, wow, this movie is well made. You know, I think it serves what's interesting about the movie, which is that he is dealing. I think I said this in my review with, with you guys. He is dealing with his role in telling this story. And I can't tell if he is staying in his lane or swerving a little bit. And that's why some of the ways that people have read the movie's politics are pretty, or the question whether even really has politics, or if that's just the text or of this action movie story. It's interesting.

[A]

Yeah. I've been thinking a little bit about the conversation that we had about it and the way that the end of the movie confronts you with the idea of what did Pat and his cohort in Perfidia accomplish, if anything at all. And I think you're right that the movie is not communicating. This is good politics. And I think a lot of the immediate online backlash from people who reject revolutionary politics is just this very binary reading of like, if this is in a movie, then it's bad. And I think the movie has this really interesting relationship to the first generation of revolutionaries where more or most of them, if not all of them, are either murdered, sent into exile, imprisoned, or left behind. You know, in the case of Bob, who's just a dad, a burnt out dad on a couch, there is a very hopeful portrait of Willa, who is excitedly pursuing her future, but is kind of left with the wreckage of everything that came before. And I think that crosses over interestingly with the showman concept that you're suggesting, Adam, this idea that what did I really do with the last 30 years of my life? I made some fun movies. And what did that. What did that amount to, which is maybe self critical, maybe just something that kind of all men in their 40s and 50s start doing where they're just sort of like, what was I. I thought this was so important. Why did I waste my time on this?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, to Adam's point, about the autobiographical or semi autobiographical nature of this, like, you know, most of that, that feeling and the obviousness of it is located in the Bob character and his sad bathrobe. But, you know, the perfidia Beverly Hills character has her own version of that. And I think we walked out of the theater saying, like, okay, so where will the challenges to this movie be? Like, what will people. And that character is obviously, that's him taking on someone other than his experience and like, going for it. That is a character who is the leader of the politics, but also, you know, is subject to all of this fetishization and then rats and then disappears. So you, like, you have a lot of sticky things there. I do think that the characterization of perfidia and like, explains it and develops it and brings in those, not just the sense of a failure. I didn't get to hand down what I needed to do, but all, you know, that everything having to do with whether you call it postpartum depression or just what it means to have a kid, what it means to experience the, like, the sexual, like, abuse, I guess, you know, or fetishization and. And how that affects your politics and who you are as a person and how you want to do things. Like, it is. It is all in the text now. I'm, you know, whether it's developed enough, whether it's centered enough. To Adam's point, I think that, like, those will be the good conversations and as more people see it and it grows. But I, you know, like, the perfidia Beverly Hills stuff is a prologue to the rest of the movie, you know, and that character does hang over the rest of the film, which is different than it being about that character. So I completely understand if there's pushback, but I like I like, you know, it's pretty textured, especially in the context of women characters in PTA movies.

[D]

Well, like, this is a guy. He uses female absence.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

A lot. Right. I mean, and There Will Be Blood. There's no women. And you sort of see what. Aside from Mary Sunday the kid.

[A]

Look at the relationship between Daniel and Mary.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

From for sure. But I mean, there's an absence there that defines Daniel's psychology and the kind of homosocial, homoerotic thing in their wee blood. The master's all about, like leaving literally Doris Day behind. You know, every woman in that movie is sort of like a specter of his teenage sweetheart. Her advice, quite literally is about Shasta being gone. I mean, Phantom Thread, the absent mother, Reynolds mother, and weather. Elm is sort of replacing her. Like, of course he's going to structure this movie. And everything Amanda said about perfidy is exactly right. And that's his authorship. Right. He is taking a small part of Vineland and scooping out her narrative into the present tense because he likes to tell the story this way. It's just very loaded when it's not just an absent female character, but it's this absent female black revolutionary whose example hangs over not just her husband, but also her daughter and the other models of resistance we see in the. In the movie. It's not about good or bad. It's just. I can see where the anxiety from some viewers is coming from in that case, because it's extra loaded.

[A]

This episode is brought to you by Disney. Tron Ares is coming soon only to theaters on October 10th. Experience the invasion that could end it all.

[D]

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[A]

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[D]

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[A]

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[B]

Right.

[A]

And she's explaining that this is the new consciousness.

[B]

Right.

[A]

You know, your unoriginality. I'm not, you know, I'm not interested in that. And it's, you know, her trying to claim not just a version of independence, but a new way of being alive and recognized in the world. And immediately after that scene is the bank robbery and her arrest and her humiliation and eventually her turning on her friends and then her disappearance from the movie. And that's a consequence of her trying to break the expectations of a person in society, of a woman and a mother, of a person's politics. And I don't think it's. I think it's very sympathetic to her, you know, and I don't think it judges her, which I think I said last week. I think it just shows how borderline impossible it is to actually execute on those kinds of ideas and to live in that way when everybody expects you to do a certain thing in the world.

[B]

There is also, just to credit Teyana Taylor's performance, the way that she even says that line like, this is a new consciousness. It is not the rallying cry that she has, you know, in the opening scene. Yeah. And it's complicated. And that is communicating a lot, not just about where she is in her own life, but where she is in relationship to the revolution. I mean, it's an amazing performance. There's been a lot of speculation about who should get the. They can all get supporting nods, but I know where my vote was going. I might know what it's going. Yeah.

[A]

Tiana Taylor.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

What's most striking to you about the movie? What surprised you the most?

[D]

I mean, I was surprised, even as a fan of his, just how fluid and intense the storytelling is in those first 40 minutes. I mean, one common refrain, not just from critics, but like on Letterboxd with Friends, is they're like, that first 40 minutes takes like five minutes, you know, and he has this amazing ability. I wouldn't call him a montage driven filmmaker necessarily. This is definitely, in some ways the shortest, I guess average shot length or, you know, less long takes than some of his other movies. But he does something here where he crystallizes, like, speed and clarity at the same time, which is very hard to do. You know, people sort of see him as a show off, you filmmaker sometimes. And here it's not so much showing off. There's no time because the narrative just sort of moves so quickly. So I wouldn't say I was surprised by that, but I was exhilarated by it. I saw the movie with my brother Matt, who's an editor and sometimes does special effects. We were trying not to talk, especially since the first time we watched. We kind of just kept nudging each other with some of the cutting and sort of going like, wow. Even for this budget level and even with this filmmaker, this is pretty virtuosic. But I have to say, not surprised. But the. The part of the film that has stuck with me the most is Benicio Del Toro. And the degree to which that sequence, I mean, it's the parental nature of his care because there's so many families there. And those little glimpses of the families on the margins in his various homes and rooms, the little things you see kids doing, they feel very authentic and they feel very tender. I don't think I've ever seen a better depiction of multitasking in a movie. Like, in a very charged sense, this is like life or death. And Bob's trying to find a cell phone charger and there's this big police confrontation brewing. But the calm that Del Toro has. And it's not disengagement, right? It's not the calm of someone who's disengaged. It's not the calm of someone who's cynical. It's like that line play defense, which I think is the best invention in the Anderson script. And, you know, it's set up with the scenes of Willa rehearsing her. Her moves. That idea of playing defense and teaching defense and self defense. I think Del Toro's sublime. Like, I'm not thinking in terms of Oscars. I'm like, he's one of the best characters I've ever seen in an Anderson film. Everything about his performance and what he does to help elevate DiCaprio's acting and give him in the movie, something to bounce off of. And I don't know how deeply he went into the Weeds with spoilers already. But this is obviously, you talk about the movie already. His final scene where he's pulled over.

[B]

I mean, is the shimmy.

[D]

The little shimmy. The way you realize that he's kind of getting himself into a DUI in order to sort of protect Bob. The delight he takes in not quite being able to walk the straight line. People are already. And I'm. I have mixed feelings about clips from this movie showing up already, but I've already seen people capping the few small beers bit where he's kind of laughing under his breath. And it's beautiful. It's a beautiful, humane performance. I wrote in the piece for Ringer that he seems to have wandered in from a Jonathan Demme movie, which for me is a high compliment. I'm sure Anderson would take it as one because Demi is a huge filmmaker for him. We can maybe talk about the American Girl music cue at some point if you guys want to, because I think that that's important in the Demi of it all. But, yeah, Del Toro is my mvp. He's so frigging good.

[B]

Same.

[A]

So, two things about that. One, I said, I think last week about how much I love that same sequence that Adam is talking about where they're walking through, you know, Sensei's world, essentially, and introducing all the people. And then there's that great conversational set piece where Bob's on the phone with Comrade Josh and he's really starting to unravel. And the thing that a cool choice that Anderson makes in that scene is he doesn't just hold the camera on Leo the whole time. He keeps cutting back to what Sensei is doing. So he goes into the bathroom at a certain point and washes his hands. And you get the laugh line of him answering the what time is it? Question. And then you get this series of extended shots of him trying to pull the rifle out from under his bed. And, you know, there's a shot underneath the bed of Sensei reaching towards, but not quite able to grab the gun that, like other filmmakers probably would not spend a lot of time cutting back to that other character and showing that there's a balance there. And I think my favorite thing that PTA told me when I talked to him for the show was that he and Benicio and Leo just kind of worked all that stuff out. When Benicio got back there, that he wrote a scene, but that Benito got there, he had a very limited amount of time because he was shooting the Phoenician scheme. And Benicio was like, I love this. But can we just sit down and talk through what all of this is so that I understand and we can make it make sense? And it sounds like they rewrote it a lot, which is amazing because it just seems like a very assured, very clearly defined, all in one guy's head kind of a thing. And I'm as guilty of. Of valorizing the mega genius autor more than anybody. But they've talked a number of times throughout this cycle of the amount of moments during the making of the movie where they were like, okay, let's set aside what we thought this was gonna be and actually do it based on what's standing right in front of us now, which is, I feel, like a new way of hearing ETA movies discussed. You know, they're usually discussed as these, like, granite chipped monuments to genius.

[B]

Well, even. Even when we saw Spielberg interviewing pta, remember, and they were talking about how they find that final sequence. And do you remember Spielberg then goes like. And then you storyboarded it, you know, and Paul Thomas Anderson was just like, no, you know, we just wrote it. And he, like, responded with, like, a very loosey goosey thing that did indicate, you know, a small moment of like, no, we were, you know, we were feeling it out.

[A]

Yeah, it's so interesting. I mean, it's. It's a relief, as somebody who just runs a little tight sometimes, that maybe as you get older, you can let go, let things happen. I was encouraged by that. What else, Adam?

[D]

I think that, yeah, we're talking about the movement of the camera. I mean, this stuff is obviously military precision, right? And the juxtaposition of the different groups. I mean, Anderson's very, very good at this, at personifying different movements within individuals and cults of personalities. So, like, you see Sensei's World and Lockjaw's World, you know, they both kind of preside over these different groups of people who are sort of helping them. They come into. Into conflict with each other. And then, you know, the way that Bob moves, kind of stumbling, falling on his face. Willa's movement is constrained because she's constantly being passed from group to group. And then even when she's finally on her own, she's literally kind of handcuffed. She's forced into this position of driving, which I thought was really funny that, you know, like, part of the way she becomes goes from being a teenager to a real teenager, she kind of, like, has to drive. It's such an automotive culture. But I think what you're saying about the Spontaneity of the Del Toro scene. It's actually something that I think Anderson's earlier movies were conceptualized more around because at that point people were seeing him as an Altman esque filmmaker, Right? So people would be like, well, how do you find those moments with the actors in Boogie Nights and Magnolia? Not that the camera wasn't a big deal, but that there was. The rhetoric was that he loves actors. And then starting with There Will Be Blood, the rhetoric sort of becomes, oh, my God, these visuals. Oh, the size, the scale, the period piece quality of them. So I think this movie finesses some of those things together where this is obviously made with military precision, but there's the possibility of some spontaneous give and take between the actors. It kind of feels like people like sneaking their stuff in a little bit. And, you know, actors are kind of taking their cues from each other. I mean, I'm sure you guys talked about it, but I know you have, because I've listened to the various coverages of the film. Just the way that that final sequence, it's one of the most expressive action sequences I've ever seen, where it's not just that it's suspenseful or exciting and spatially coherent. That way of visualizing the themes in the movie and the rise and fall of the road and the fact that he kind of is able to bring it all back to the Searchers at the end, which every American filmmaker is since the 70s is trying to do. You know, they've all talked about it, Scorsese and Spielberg and Schrader. You know, this is my Searchers. This is my Searchers. And it's not a contest. But Anderson Searcher is pretty darn amazing when she doesn't know if she can recognize her father because of the different kinds of communication and trust. Right. Another critic pointed out that when Penn is carrying Willa around at one point, he's carrying her like Ford carries. Like Wayne carries Natalie Wooden researchers right on his hip. You know, these things are integrated at such a casual high speed, you know, high velocity level even.

[A]

You know, what's another example of that? I noticed this when I was watching the movie this weekend is there's a cutaway to Avanti when Willa is trying to get away from Lockjaw and it's just hard on his face, which is just like one of the shots of the Native American characters in the Searcher where there's sort of like the amusement frustration, this kind of like, ugliness of this culture that is proximate. But, but, but so far, Away from what we're experiencing, like, a lot of little gestures like that that are so great. And it's kind of risky to be like, I was really thinking about the Searchers, you know, in 2025, like, because we've heard that so many times. So to pay it off is really impressive.

[D]

Well, yeah, because the idea of thinking with the Searchers, it's a cinephilic idea. But when you think about with the Searchers in terms of what it's about and how little that that movie or how much it's about, how little has been resolved in a lot of these ways in the 67 years. And it has to do a lot with Pen's performance. Did you guys. Have you guys talked or thought about. A friend of mine pointed this out to me last night, that DiCaprio's last shot, his last image, rhymes visually with the last. We see a lockjaw. You know, I take Lockjaw's ending very much. Yeah, dying. You know, dying. Thinking he's the good guy. To me, that's boomers burning in hell, right? But this pathetic little corner office. You've achieved nothing. You look like shit doing it, and then you die, and you think you did something. You don't realize that you've left nothing. But, I mean, Leo's last shot I don't think is as critical, but it's a mirror. And I don't know what you guys think about the point of the whole movie is that a dad learns to use an iPhone, which is a bit productive. But even just the use of selfies and photography and, you know, you know, self image in this movie, I think is pretty potent as well. I've still only seen it the once, so I'm sort of. You know, I watched it the one time, wrote about it, and then I'm just picking and choosing little nuggets that I see people leaving out there until I can watch it again. I want to update the book at some point, which will involve watching it, you know, a bunch of times. But there's a lot.

[A]

There's a couple of echoes inside of that triangle where early in the film, when we first see Perfidia, she's wearing a black, tight T shirt and fatigue pants. And that is the outfit that Lockjaw is wearing at the end of the movie. A tight black T shirt that Willa mocks him for.

[B]

Why is your shirt so tight?

[A]

Yeah, my shirt. Yeah. Bob's bathrobe is the same color and design as the shirt that Perfidia is wearing when she's shooting the machine gun. You've got all of these echoes of these characters and the ways in which they're bound together and are not really talking to each other. That's the other thing, too, is I think that there's like a. There's definitely a comment about people in that generation, in the generation in front of Willa, not really knowing how to talk to each other. And then that leading to a lot of confusion and the expectation. Like, even Sean Penn saying, like, you know, maybe if you were a little nicer, we could have got to know each other. And the difficulty of parents getting to know their children. Like, there's a lot of amazingly insinuating pieces of writing throughout this or in costume design, or even just the idea of, like, a car chase that goes up and down, you know, that that is so exciting on its face. And then metaphor packed and also something you've not seen before in that specific way. So it's just when you do watch it five or six or seven more times and expand the book, I think you will see how rewarding it is. I mean, I'm on four, and I'm still really enjoying it. And the other thing, too, is that I have found you mentioned a version of this, for sure, that you had a much more emotional relationship to it the second time around.

[B]

It was less funny, more visceral and upsetting.

[A]

Right. And I'm finding that, like, different stages of it, I'm having different emotional reactions to different scenes. Things that I thought were funny now I think are sad.

[D]

Well, I mean, since becoming a parent, I'm just. I'm just a mess all the time. But I took my older daughter, I took Leah to karate on Saturday, which is literally one battle after another because she's impossible. But she's eight and a half, and she was doing her little stuff. I just teared up. And I mean, I think that that has to do with just being a parent more than the movie. And I think in some ways, projecting yourself into that vision of parenting is dicey. But it's not so dicey for Anderson because as people have pointed out, that line about not knowing how to do her hair, which choked me up in the theater, that comes from an interview, I believe that Maya Rudolph did. That Maya Rudolph did, sort of about her father. Right. And that line is absolutely loaded. Like, that's not just like, oh, dumb dad. I mean, that has to do with not being able to connect maybe on a certain level culturally, or there's not just something that mom can't do. But it has to do with hair. It has to do with, you know, with racial identity. But it's a beautiful line. And I think when he says it is what gets me so much. It's like, long into the chase, you know, like, she's disappeared. She's been taken. We know what's happening. He's already tried. He's already failed. This is kind of downtime with Sensei. And he just thinks about something so tangible about her, like it's such a little tangible strand of some larger failure. And it choked me right up in the theater. And, you know, it's almost like it's almost going on set as people are focusing on Pen and Tiana Taylor and Jim Downey, who gets my Oscar vote, because Jim Downey's the greatest. But, I mean, what DiCaprio does as a movie star in this film, much like what I think he does in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, it's almost so good that you take it for granted now at this point. And I'm not just talking about the significance of the casting and how funny it is to have Leonardo DiCaprio, of all people, as a girl Dad. I will stop myself from describing his extracurriculars, because I don't know him, but the casting's pretty funny, you know, and he folds all of that into a performance that I think is really quite something.

[A]

I think that's part of the reason why it's getting so much acclaim, because it feels like such a transformation.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But it is.

[B]

It is legitimate. Like, he really. It's an incredible, deeply felt performance, which I just. I knew that he could do almost anything, but I didn't know he could do this.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

Can I ask you guys, at your very screenings, whether these are, like, secret Christmas adventurer screenings that you guys get or, you know, you're seeing it with normal people.

[B]

Sure.

[D]

Did people, like, laugh with recognition at Jim Downey? Like, does the public understand who this is or care?

[A]

I don't think so. I mean, I think he immediately gets laugh lines. And so, yeah, it's a little hard to tell if they're picking up on it.

[B]

I think that he did at the dj. No, no, no. At the IMAX on Wednesday night, which was like. Like, you know, true.

[D]

What does he say?

[A]

Like, punks, punk haters and punk trash. We're going to eliminate that. No more lunatics.

[D]

Yeah. I mean, that's a truth social post.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

And I think. And it's funny, too, because if you know Downey's history at snl, he's pretty strenuously down the line in terms of their political content. He's nor McDonald's. I feel like tapping my heart when I say this. You know, he was nor McDonald's confederate there and they refused easy applause and all that Weekend Update stuff. So, like, when Jim Downey is kind of doing the Christmas adventure bit, you sort of know, the pen, the pendulum has shifted in. You know, for even Downey to put a stamp of approval on a movie from this side of the partisan aisle, I think is pretty great.

[A]

Yeah. The other funny thing is that he actually did become more famous in the last year because of the Conan meme, but is unrecognizable relative to how he looks in this movie. So even then, I think the levels of recognition are maybe not there as much. I agree with you, though, about the Leo thing. I think it's pretty special. It's very rare that the best, the actor most capable of giving a great lead performance is also the biggest star at the same time. That's not common. And not that Leonardo DiCaprio needs more laurels per se, because I think he's had a wonderful life. But it's very, very cool that he is spending his capital making movies with these people because he could be making a lot of crap right now.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

And dragging an audience. I wouldn't say dragging them kicking and screaming.

[A]

Maybe.

[D]

Let's not say dragging. Let's say pulling an audience towards this. Because, again, like, we talk about echo chambers of criticism. I mean, you guys navigate this stuff, you know, smartly all the time. But, like, there's a huge difference between what we think is what people are talking about and what the larger pop cultural sphere is talking about. If you were to go by my timeline last week. Week. Just like the moon landing.

[E]

Yeah.

[D]

And then you look at how much it makes in its opening weekend, and it's less than, like, Conjuring Last Rice, which is a movie I swear no human being has seen. I've seen it and I didn't see it.

[A]

It's one of the largest films of the year.

[D]

Yeah. So DiCaprio is one of the few actors who can bridge this and bridge it just effortlessly, without special pleading. How much did it make its first weekend in North America? Not that I'm a box office guy, but like 22 and a half million dollars. Yeah. That's not. Paul Thomas Anderson fans. Paul Thomas Anderson fans can get the master a hyper screen Average Leonardo DiCaprio can get this movie a $23 million North American opening.

[A]

Well, I'm sure we will talk about this earlier in this episode, but one of the things that I think having Leo in your movie does is set aside the opening weekend box office. It just creates a level of awareness that there is a new Leo movie that even if you don't see it opening weekend, you're probably gonna check it out.

[B]

And he also has been, like, pounding the pavement in a way that he hasn't, you know, he doesn't make movies that often anymore, but he has not been doing press at this level. Like, if they, if they announced a Hot Ones next week, I would not be surprised. Which is. He is, he is saying yes.

[A]

Yeah. Not since the 2000s, really, has he done this much press. Yeah. Which, you know, I think is.

[D]

It should be.

[A]

Was contingent on getting the.

[D]

Sean, Sean. Sean Penn should go on Hot One.

[B]

You're right.

[D]

If I'm drafting one battle after another, cast members for Hot Ones, it's. Sean Penn is the first draft.

[A]

That's a good draft. We should do that. The Hot Ones draft period is a great draft for us.

[B]

Oh, okay.

[A]

Just in the entire sphere of entertainment.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Maybe we can come team up with Sean Evans on that one. Okay. Okay. Closing thoughts. What do you like? What is the. Well, I'm loath to be like, where does this stand in your rankings? But kind of like, what is your biggest emotional takeaway from this movie?

[D]

My emotional takeaway from this movie, I tried to put it in the piece, which is that it's about time, you know, And Anderson, he, he won me over for the first time in real time. I mean, we're around the same age. I think you were more into him when you were younger than I was. I, I saw him as a filmmaker to react against. I talked about this in the book, we've talked about it. That when I was 20, I was like, no, you know, I, I, I like Robert Altman and I like Scorsese and this is leftovers and all that. And then that match cut in There Will Be Blood, which I didn't understand until I got older how true that is about how time just jumps away. But I mean, just on a formal level, when I saw that and There Will Be Blood, I'm like, I like this filmmaker now. I'm on board. You know, it's just so beautiful. And this movie gets at that idea of time. I mean, time is the password. Time is what Bob doesn't understand. Time is what the guy on the other side of the phone doesn't really understand just because it's the password in the end. Bob gets it right, you know, what does the guy say? He's like, you know, time doesn't exist. It controls us. And Bob's like, fuck that. You're not a parent. You know, that's the part of the movie that I. That I took away from. And it's what, you know, as I tried to put in the piece, it's what made Dakota work for me because I was worried that he's Willing optimism. That doesn't exist. And people. I know, some people say it should end it by the side of the road. But the Searchers doesn't end by the side of the road. The Searchers ends with Ethan. Ethan not being able to go inside the house. It's a beautifully ambiguous ending, and I see the ending of this movie as ambiguous. He's willing hope into it, but I believe in the hope. You know, I think Bob knows what time it is, and that's his little triumph.

[A]

I love that part of your piece and that observation. I hadn't thought about it in that way. And the other thing about that last moment is, even to the very end, Bob says, you know, that's like a three and a half hour drive. That's the most dad thing you could ever. Is like trying to prep your kids with some information ahead of their trip.

[B]

Right.

[D]

And what a beautiful detail that it's a drive because you know, what we've seen that she can do that.

[A]

That's right.

[D]

And I think that that's a wonderful little detail. And again, the other thing that kind of choked me up in the theater was just when he says, be careful. Because that's really, at this point, all I feel like I have to offer the people in my life I care the most about. I mean, they're not old enough for me to send them out on their own, of course, but my daughter walked away to school herself this morning, and I was like, be careful. And I wasn't doing it as a bit like, you know, it wasn't a bit. I was just literally like, you know, be, be careful. And I think that being able to thread the needle between either revolutionary politics as subject or texture, but shrink it down to something human like that. He's always been good at that. Is this my favorite of his movies? It's always going to be the master. But that's because that speaks to the oblique, conceptual, desperate kind of movie making that I really love. I mean, that movie is tough, and this movie's not. This movie is more pleasing in the end, but he's earned it. Man, you know, I don't know if we've earned it, but he's. He's earned it.

[A]

I feel that I have earned it.

[B]

Yeah, I know.

[A]

I feel I've put in the work.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

It'S pretty good, you know, it's pretty good. Pretty good movie.

[A]

It's pretty good. You're pretty good. Adam. Adam. Thank you. We'll have to figure out what you're coming on next for. I don't know what that's going to be. Be whatever. The next hot one.

[B]

The hot.

[A]

The. The hot one. Hot one's drafted.

[D]

That's it.

[A]

That'll be it. Next time you're in Los Angeles, me, you, Amanda, CR. And Sean Evans. That'll be a good pot.

[D]

Sounds great. Thank you, guys.

[A]

Okay, buddy. Thanks, Adam.

[B]

Thanks, Adam.

[D]

Yeah, bye.

[A]

Okay, now let's go to our friend Andy Greenwald. Andy Greenwald's here. Co host of the Watch. One of the biggest boys I know. A man boy. Would you describe yourself as a man boy?

[E]

I tried that for a while, but as I've sort of moved into my latter 40s, I think it doesn't really work anymore.

[A]

The boyishness evaporates slowly over time. So on this pod a few weeks ago, Amanda told a story.

[B]

Oh, good.

[E]

Oh, yeah, we're doing this.

[A]

Great. There's a story about Paul Thomas Anderson films. She was. You were 14 years old. How old were you on the night of this movie going experience?

[B]

I don't know.

[E]

This was September 20, 2012.

[B]

Yeah. So I was 28 years old.

[A]

Okay, 28 years old. And it was a date.

[B]

I think Zach and I were dating at this point because you had moved to Los Angeles, which, you know, cleared up his schedule, so that then. And Chris had as well. Yeah, go ahead.

[E]

If I may help with the timeline, you were dating because the first time I met you was at another film.

[B]

Screening right after the Avengers.

[E]

After Marvel's the Avengers.

[A]

Well, I was there for that one.

[B]

Yes. And so Flatbush Farm and Barn has since closed, which is sad. It's a. Yeah, but that's where we were.

[A]

But. So you guys went to go see the Master then? Yes.

[B]

Yeah.

[E]

In the fall in the Ziegfeld Theater, I believe.

[B]

So. It was the New York premiere.

[A]

So who. Who among. Among the guests who was there in our party, or just guess list, if you can.

[E]

Well, I think it was us and Zach and Chuck Closerman.

[B]

Yes.

[E]

And maybe someone else who you could. Rashomon style. Bring them on next week. The person I'm forgetting, but I. Oh, I don't remember.

[A]

I remember Joaquin Phoenix. Was he present? He didn't show up.

[E]

He loomed large that night. It's a very big theater.

[A]

More ways than one. Did. Did. Did you guys go somewhere afterwards?

[B]

Okay.

[E]

So may I interject? So I. It's a. It's beautiful to me that this night was meaningful.

[B]

Okay.

[D]

For you.

[E]

And has played a large role in your podcasting. This night is also of outsize importance in my own life.

[B]

But not.

[E]

Yeah, both because I got to spend time. Thank you so much. With the Lovely and charming 28 year old date of my friend Zach. But also because I had a very unique experience as we got into the theater. It's plush seats. There was a lot of like hubbub. Cause it was a New York premiere and they were doing some like, introductions and things before the movie for people in attendance. And two things happened at the almost the exact same instant. One was I received a text message from my wife with a positive pregnancy test.

[B]

Oh, wow.

[E]

And I stared at this with utter disbelief and shock. And the only thing that pierced my sudden surprise was the voice of someone up front introducing the beloved executive producer of the movie, Harvey Weinstein.

[A]

Stop it.

[E]

Who then went on like a rapturous monologue about the luminous Amiac. So all at once I have imminent fatherhood.

[B]

Wow.

[E]

And a true life monster speaking now. These moments are inextricably linked now. Okay, I sort of quiet my heart rate. And it's also when you know, as. As you both know that when you get the within the family positive test, you don't share that. So it's too early. So you may begin acting like a limited.

[B]

Let me ask, like, is that a. Are you responding via text message or are you hopping out to make a quick phone call?

[E]

Well, no, because there was security to get in and you can't miss a PTA movie.

[B]

So that was just a text response.

[E]

That was a text response. And more than one. And then I was just trying to quiet my heart rate and just lose myself in this world of lightly masqueraded Scientology or whatever was to come. And then they finish and Amy Adams speaks and whomever else. And they start to dim the lights and I'm clutching my Coke Zero or whatever. They don't give us snacks and press screening. So I had nothing. And it was before I learned about water or water bottles. I've only learned about that when I moved here. So I was dry mouthed clearly. And then I got another text and I hoped it would be like, and isn't it great that we're having a child. But it was a text from the same person informing me that her great aunt had that moment died.

[B]

Oh my God.

[E]

So all within about a 90 second span next to you in blissful puppy love. I had the full spectrum of births. Death, Harvey Weinstein.

[B]

Right?

[E]

And then the fucking Master starts.

[B]

That's good.

[A]

And the Johnny Greenwood's music's like.

[E]

Like the blue water. And I was like, absolutely like your friend on a bad acid trip for at least the first 60 minutes of the film.

[A]

Yeah, that is better than I ever could have imagined.

[B]

That's really good.

[E]

So then. And I don't know how much of this factored into the stories you've been telling, but then we did go out to a place that I loved in Manhattan which is like a. A secret. Step down. Japanese Izakaya.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[E]

And they serve beer by the pitcher. And I ordered a pitcher of beer and then I said, oh, do you guys want some? Because I was.

[A]

And you didn't share your news with anyone at the table? No. Did you feel. I've told the story of going to see the Master a few times on the show? Because I saw it with Chris. He had also recently moved out here. And Alex Papademus. We went to a midnight showing at the Arkansas on a Thursday night. That's not a short film and it's a long movie. And we walked out into the streets of Los Angeles at 2:30 in the morning and everyone who had walked out of the movie was just like gobsmacked. Did not know what to say to each other. It's not the kind of movie that after you've seen it you're like, okay, let's break down every scene. It has a different kind of power. And so you're coping, channeling, figuring out how to feel about these huge events in your life.

[E]

I have no idea how I feel about that movie to this day. I don't think I've ever really seen it.

[B]

Part of power here is the thing about the Japanese Izakaya's pat is that Chuck Closerman was also in attendance. So we were. Yeah.

[A]

Was she breaking it down?

[E]

She was holding court.

[B]

She was holding court. And I think that I was. I mean, I, you know, congratulations, you know, and also condolences. Yes, but like the origin of a Girl Journey. Yeah, yeah. Which will come into play very shortly. But. But I was also, I was contending with having seen the Master like new friends. And then my first time experiencing Chuck hold Court, which is a sight all.

[A]

On its own, very fun thing.

[B]

So all I really remember is just being like, oh, this guy.

[E]

It's like going to your first ice hockey game and sitting right next to the glass where they get snatches.

[A]

I do one thing. I mean, he doesn't live in New York and neither do I anymore. But I do miss. Miss being out for drinks with Chuck. That's amazing.

[E]

Yeah.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Did you like the movie?

[E]

Which one?

[A]

The Master.

[E]

I have no idea. At the time, I had no idea. I think that it's not dissimilar to one battle after another, which I exited feeling so many emotions all at once and being in awe of the Jenga Tower of. Of competing feelings that I was experiencing. And I had almost no desire yet to hold court about any of it. Like, it filled me up with something that I'm not sure.

[A]

Should we wrap this segment or.

[E]

I gotta go. No, no, I'm ready. I'm ready. But I have come to love the Master, but not in the same way that I have loved some of his other movies. I would say it is not in my top five.

[A]

Interesting. Okay, good to know. One battle after another. Is it in your top five?

[E]

I think so.

[A]

Okay.

[E]

But I. This is such a hedge. I do need to see it again.

[B]

We did this earlier.

[A]

You've seen it a lot.

[B]

He's seen it four times. I've seen it twice.

[E]

I definitely. And I said this briefly a moment ago on the watch, just that I tried to stay completely in the dark about a lot of it, but the one thing you can't keep out, because it's not technically a spoiler, is everyone saying this is a masterpiece and that this is a generational film by one of our great talents who has finally ascended even further. And because of that, and because of how deeply, deeply connected I was feeling to certain moments and momentum early in the movie. Then when it became, and I say this actually not as a pejorative, as a good thing, when it became a PTA movie, sometimes I was like, whoa.

[A]

Oh.

[E]

I didn't know that the brakes were on this car or that we were turning right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to see it again. So all of that's gone and I'm more deeply engaged. And I would also say, and I'm curious for you guys, as the. The masters of cinema, to comment on this. I was very excited to go see it in VistaVision because I also a format I learned about six weeks ago when they announced it. And so I did see it at the Vista, which was a wonderful theater on the east side of la. And I didn't know two things. I forgot that they don't have assigned seats. So I didn't get to the theater two hours before with the rest of your letterboxd lads who were already there, most of whom were talking about the master. Not a bit like there was a lot of talk about the master in that and then two. So because of that I was in the second to last row, which I would prefer over it being in the front. But VistaVision not a big format.

[A]

No, it's a very. It's a tall and narrow screen and they've refashioned the screen at the Vista for this film.

[E]

So I felt lucky to see it in an intended format. But it did not do the thing that I most wanted it to do at the start, which is I want it to be in the movie. Movie in the last row with a small screen was a little bit like watching something on television.

[A]

One thing, one thing about the Vista is it is a huge room and there's lots of room between the aisles, which is so unusual. Movie theaters is actually the exact opposite of the citywalk where the aisles are too close together, the roads are too close together. I would recommend checking it out in imax.

[E]

I want to see it again and I want us to be more immersed in it so I have a smoother ride. But I felt, I don't know. Do there specific things you want to get into?

[A]

I was just curious for your take on somebody who I know likes his movies and the girl dad part of it is always interesting.

[E]

I mean, those are the two biggest planks. I mean, like in terms of. There are things that I am just in awe of in terms of performance. Like this might be. This is top three Leo performance for me. Top two, maybe rising further. I think Benicio is perfect in this movie. I think Teyana Taylor, everything that has been compelling about her, whether it's music videos, music or her episode of my super sweet 16, he put it into a movie which is shocking and awesome. But the two main threads that I'm carrying, which I think neither are particularly insightful or unique. One is it was absolutely electric to see a movie made by an artist who seemed to be telepathically intuiting what it feels like to be alive at the moment the film is released and how exciting and important it is for artists to deal with the moments that we are living in. And not like in a, you know, like a pedagogical way, but like with art, with fiction, with heart, but like to just look forward for once instead of Just always running backwards. I found just so compelling and exciting. And then. Yes, girldad.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[E]

The last two lines of this movie have destroyed me in a way that I don't remember a movie destroying me before with the needle drop.

[B]

I started crying on this podcast about that last season and I'm not a dad, so I have one, but.

[A]

Well, that's good.

[E]

So you're up there. You're hashtag dad. Girl. As a daughter of fathers, I feel like how you should begin everything on this podcast. I said this on the watch. But like that is the new Want to have a catch dad from Field of Dreams for me. I can't say it or I will start crying. And I'm as grateful as I am for a movie to be like, like contemporary and alive to what's happening and not running from anything or the complications or nuances of it. I was so happy to have a movie that gave me that feeling of being alive in myself, not just alive in a moment.

[A]

I'm glad you liked it. You did just remind me of a story that I told very briefly over the weekend to a friend. But in 2007, I was working at Vibe magazine. I was working with our friend John Carmonica. And what would happen when I was working at Vibe is artists would come in and they would want to introduce themselves to the magazine so that they might be spotlit featured. Somehow you experienced this many times, I'm sure in the spin days, especially spin.com days. And in 2007, Tiana Taylor came in when she had a song called Google Me. It was her R and B pop breakthrough, still relevant to this day. And she came in with a manager and a handler and just talked at me and John for an hour and obviously was captivating. I mean, she's like one of the most magnetic looking people in the world and has so much, so self assured. And it never really happened for her as a musician, you know. And yet she didn't go away. And I probably would need a hundred hands to count the number of artists that we ran small profiles of who never made it and have not been heard from again between 2005 and 2008. But for whatever reason, she kind of hung in the culture, right? She's like in the Fade video, the Kanye video, she got married to Iman Shumpert, she started taking more acting parts and then kind of out of nowhere has been plucked to be the most critical character, like the engine of the movie in this PTA movie. It's just a. It's a fascinating Road. Because that was 18 years ago. Yeah. When I met her. 18 years ago. That's fucking crazy to me.

[E]

It kind of reminds me of a time, like, definitely closer to 18 years ago than five years ago, when I was stopping by Atlantic Records to do something, like hear the new Paramore single or something.

[B]

Right, right, right.

[E]

And as I walked in, the newly appointed president of one division of Atlantic was there to introduce the workers to the new artist he had signed. And the artist was Janelle Monae, who performed in the Artist, and the president was Sean Puffy Combs. So a lot of, like, near misses with predators in my time in New.

[A]

York hasn't happened again. It's tough. It's not ideal, but it is funny.

[E]

You do remember when people are like, this is going to be the next someone, and then it's not the path you expect.

[A]

But, you know, in the. We've just had a whole second episode about this. You're. You're at the tail end of it here. And we didn't. I don't know.

[E]

They call that the closer.

[A]

Sean.

[B]

Yes.

[E]

You are the Edwin Diaz.

[A]

You are it. He pitched well. How? How? He pitched well. How dare you.

[E]

I already said I was never going to.

[A]

He pitched well. Actually, Andy did say on a podcast that in a way, he doesn't. He doesn't hate the Mets. Like, he doesn't feel, like, anger towards the Mets.

[B]

Where is the anger directed?

[E]

The Cowboys, Sure. Mostly Braves in baseball.

[B]

Okay, Yankees. Stop it. I'm. I've renounced the bridge, so.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I've told every single person I know from Philadelphia.

[E]

Yeah, no, the Met. Like, also having lived in New York for so long, the Mets are the correct choice. And many of my good friends, Sean included, are true believers.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

The alternative is they're out. The no playoffs.

[A]

They're out.

[B]

They're out.

[A]

We've gotten this far in the seventh season. This is the first time it's come up.

[B]

Sorry, you can't rip the Phillies for the game. Chris literally said playoffs again this year.

[A]

No. And I think Philly fans are celebrating in part because they don't want to.

[B]

Dad, last year, I mean, I was there watching all.

[E]

Yeah, it was bad.

[B]

Yeah, it was real bad.

[A]

We can all unite over there that we're friends. We're actually friends. The name that hasn't. I don't think has been uttered is Chase Infinity throughout this whole conversation.

[E]

And as the TV critic here, I could say was exceptional and a standout and presumed innocent last year.

[A]

I'm loathe to spoil Presumed Innocent. But if you haven't seen the show Presumed Innocent, I guess she plays a. She's a huge part and you would not.

[B]

This show itself spoils it in the third episode, but what. Whatever does it. Or the fourth. Like, yeah, you see, maybe it's the fifth. I don't know.

[E]

But like, maybe it's the finale.

[B]

It's not the.

[A]

Don't know.

[B]

It's well before the end.

[A]

Yeah, it.

[E]

It's a fun show.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But another. Another actress who, like, when I saw her in that show, I was like, oh, she was good. But I was not like, this is a generational superstar come to us.

[E]

Well, but there is a thing, right? Like the greatest directors, and you two could speak on this much more cogently than I could, but, like, they know what they want from actors and they know what they love in actors, and they can get it. And so you look at the IMDb page for this movie and you have a mix of the greatest actors of their generation who have been Oscar rewarded in Leo, in Benicio, in Sean Penn, and then you have in key supporting roles the artist Jungle Pussy and also Dijon. And then also a guy who composed the music for the early Safdie brothers films. And then the interrogator who is so disturbing and you look him up and it's like, oh, he's an interrogator. And somehow they are all playing on the same field.

[A]

It's the best. It's the best thing about PCA movies.

[E]

That's so cool.

[A]

It is always the collision of. Here's Joaquin Phoenix and here's a character actor who you've never seen before. Like, for example, in this movie, the woman who plays Willa's teacher, when Bob brings in for the teacher conference, you know, and he's like, all these fucking slave owners. That woman is a theater actor. She's never appeared in a film before. The Philippines, you know, I'm sure you'll get to that naturalistic and perfect in that scene. It feels like we're in that school and he's obviously doing a lot. Leo is very big in this movie and he's very big in that scene where he just starts crying and then explaining everything.

[E]

So it's funny in this movie, but.

[A]

I love that ability, that kind of handpicks pick people out of nowhere. And it seems like Chase Infinity obviously is a working actor and is going to have a big career. So she wasn't like nobody, nobody. But if you told me she's Meryl Streep 40 years from now, I couldn't be like, absolutely not.

[E]

You know, But I think there's two different styles of. I mean, I'm sure there are many more than two, but, like, directors who, quote, unquote, know what they want. There's a version of it that I think actors find very oppressive, where they're just told where to stand and how to say a line. And, you know, they're really just chess pieces on the bigger board of the frame. And then there's directors who know what they want, who have already seen. They have. They're able to hold the cut movie of their dreams in their head and get there. You know what I mean? So that the actors feel like they're alive and they're playing things, but they're being. Either they're being put in the position to succeed and be the best versions of themselves in that process.

[A]

It seems like that's what he was really able to accomplish in this movie, is that he wasn't acting like the conductor, you know, or it was like, you play this note at this exact moment. It didn't seem like that kind of a second where.

[E]

Cause I haven't listened to the. Because I only just saw the movie. I've not listened to you guys expound upon it. I don't want your listeners to have.

[B]

To thank you for following the directions always.

[E]

Oh, whenever someone tells me I don't have to do something, that's easy for me. Amanda, where are you with the movie and are there.

[B]

I'm incredibly high, and it's definitely top three of my PTAs. Yeah, I was blown away by it.

[E]

What makes it top three for you?

[B]

I mean, we've been talking a lot about it in the arc of his career. And, you know, as Sean has pointed out, in a lot of ways, it's like, it is a summation of all of the different phases and things that he's been doing. But I find that I respond most to the PTAs that the later period when the heart starts opening a little. And also where women do start showing up in the movies, I mean, I would just not. You know, I. I don't say that as, like, I must be a woman in a movie for me to like it, but I do notice the correlation.

[A]

And so they get equal billing in the last three in a way that they did not previously.

[B]

And so I just kind of. I find them more accessible, I guess, or just like, I can connect to them more easily. And I think that this has everything that is great about the last three movies. It Obviously has the, you know, like the huge spectacle and the action sequences that is brand new. It brings in like what we know from other PTAs. You know, I can't. I really don't like PTAs inherent vice. Yeah, but, but this takes pension and takes like, not the same lessons, but it just, it like everything from all of his other movies works together in this in a way that's pretty amazing for me.

[E]

It also, I think, feels very personal, you know, in that this is a movie about a hero who doesn't do anything other than parent. Ultimately, like everything that he does, he's kind of a patsy. He's kind of along for the ride. He's pushed into things. He falls off the roof. He's the beneficiary of so many people's hard work and sacrifice to get to a point where he's like, hasn't done anything except maybe he's done the most important thing. And also, you know, as pta, being a parent of biracial kids in the world, like, I just feel like that there's something that he was willing to play with that he probably couldn't have in the past. Wait, what is your top three? I'm sure you said it on the podcast.

[B]

We just. We did it earlier in this podcast. What did I do? Did I do Master 3 1. Battle 2. Phantom Thread 1.

[C]

Yes, we have the same number one.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, Phantom Thread is, you.

[E]

Know, I think It's Phantom Thread 1. Boogie Nights 2. This three.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

I bumped Boogie Nights all the way down to six on this episode.

[C]

That's so wild.

[E]

You should watch Boogie Nights again.

[A]

That is what I said. I said I have not seen it since we did the rewatchables. And I have been rewatching most of his movies, but that one is so committed to memory that I was like, eh, I'll come back to it another time.

[E]

I think the thing that. The reason I want to see it again. Well, there are many reasons, but one of the reasons is there are aspects of his filmography where he makes choices that are so, at least to my mind, feel so intentionally confounding that sometimes I feel locked out of them. And there were moments in There Will Be Blood, but ultimately I did not feel locked out of that. The Master was more of that.

[A]

Yep.

[E]

I'm one of the few people that doesn't like punch drunk love at all. And I did not like licorice pizza at all. And so when that happens in this movie, I wanted to like, I want to see it again, to let it feel as part of the whole. Not detours from it. One thing that I do admire, and I think it's kind of something he has in common with the other Anderson, with Wes, is that there's scenes in this movie where I'm like, he's still doing the thing where he's having Dirk Diggler make a movie inside of a movie. There's like. There's things that are so. Like. It's not that there's quotes around them, bracketing them, but they are stylized and filmed. Like, we're having a laugh here, aren't we?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yeah. The phone call with Comrade Josh is like such a meta moment, you know, of like a guy. Just a guy on hold using that as a bit. Exactly. It's like I'm called the cable company, and I'm trying to get them to help me, you know, unlock my password so that I can get the cable to work in my house. And that's such a universal thing. But it does feel a little quote markish.

[E]

There was a moment in that moment. There's a moment in watching that scene where I was like, oh, this is what my younger daughter saw me doing when we were. When StubHub sent us fraudulent tickets to see Hamilton. And I was like, ma', am, this is a Broadway theater. They don't wait for latecomers.

[A]

What kind of revolutionary are you? Yeah, truly, it's tough.

[E]

The most Porsche Washington of all time.

[A]

Okay, any. Any closing thoughts? When are you gonna go next?

[E]

I don't know. Maybe I'll have to see it. I'm traveling, so I may have to go see it in London. The BFI is that. What's the format there? Do they have the same formats there, or are they.

[A]

They do. I believe they have 70 millimeter. I don't know if South BFI. South bank has an IMAX. I'm sure some intrepid listener can communicate that to you.

[E]

Have you guys already done the box office spin and your take on the spin?

[B]

Yeah, Sean did a whole lot monologue.

[E]

Okay.

[A]

Feel good about it?

[E]

Yeah, I do, too. But I also kind of appreciate that we are in a world where there is goodwill towards, like, I'm sorry, Step on the podcast. I did 30 minutes ago. But, like, it's not too long ago that, like, other. Other studios would go on background like Paul de Garabadian and be like, that those numbers are actually bullshit, that this movie sucks and it's doa.

[A]

Yeah.

[E]

And now you can. Could get any person in town being like, an Encouraging start truly for original film. Which is nice.

[A]

Yeah. I think a lot of the one thing that we didn't talk about is the idea is that this movie's gonna be around for a really long time. Like Warner Brothers is not gonna put this on VOD for like five months. Good. So unlike other films where if you make less than $30 million in your opening weekend, you can expect to see it at home. I don't think they're gonna do that. I think they're gonna try to play it out for a long period of time, hope that they don't have a big second week drop. But also I think it's. This is an occasion. Not all occasions with big movies from auteurs are true for in this way. But this is an occasion where I'm like, if it doesn't make back its budget in the next six months, that's okay. Like it's probably going to be a legendary movie.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And not our money again.

[B]

That's what Amanda was saying.

[E]

But. But yeah, I did have a moment where I'm like all the hype, all the the like. Even before anyone had seen the movie, like in the trades it was announced that like a big deal for an original movie, but Warner Brothers is ponying up this much Money because it's PTA's most commercial script ever and it's a great role for Leo. All of which is true. None of which said that in minute six of the movie, Sean Penn as a raging boner in his camo pants.

[A]

I mean it's such a PTA movie still. No matter what, no matter how exciting the chase sequences are and there's explosions.

[E]

He's like, I gotta be me, right?

[A]

Is a PTA movie. Well, I just a. Incredible way better story than I ever would have guessed.

[B]

Really good Totality of life. There you go.

[A]

Like a truly a button on on this for a girl dad. I mean perfect.

[E]

I know.

[A]

From. From conception to teenage dad.

[E]

That was the night I.

[B]

There you go.

[E]

That was the night I became a hashtag girl dad.

[B]

There you go. Beautiful.

[A]

Yeah. Thanks for letting me share it. Thanks for coming by, Andy.

[B]

Thanks.

[E]

Always a pleasure.

[A]

Thank you to Adam Naman. Thank you to Andy Greenwald. Thanks to our producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. Interesting week.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Number 10 on 25 for 25.

[B]

I'm excited.

[A]

You're very. You're very smiley right now. It'll be a good one. And after that, the Smashing Machine. I've also invited Van.

[B]

No, I don't.

[A]

Join us. And. And maybe Van wants to counter some of my one battle thoughts as well.

[B]

All right, he's sitting in the middle. Middle. Because I just like I'm gonna be a coffee break for me. I love you both, but go see the movie in theaters. If you're you're listening to this part and you haven't seen the movie in theaters, I'm pissed at you.

[A]

That goes double for me. We'll see you later this week. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. You know what fall means, right? Game Day parties are back. Whole Foods Market has everything you need. Kick off with impressive appetizers like heat and eat boneless chicken bits or a shrimp cocktail platter. Then score big with big flavors for big appetites. Feed your team with made in house marinated chicken wings and Teton Waters Ranch.

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