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The Big Picture
The Best Movies at Telluride and Venice, and the 10 Most Anticipated Fall Films
02:23:18
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- [00:00]
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's 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 eligibility vary by state. I'm Sean Fennessy.
- [00:58]
B
I'm Amanda Dobbins and this is the.
- [01:00]
A
Big Picture, a conversation show about our journeys to the fall film festivals. That's right. I once again visited Telluride, Colorado for their intimate annual celebration of cinema while Amanda returned to Europe for the 82nd Venice International Film Festival. Amanda, how are you?
- [01:17]
B
I'm great. I'm still in Europe.
- [01:18]
A
You're in Europe. We're going to get to that in one moment. A couple of programming reminders here. We're going to talk about our favorite films from the festivals. We are going to talk about the films that we're looking forward to this fall, the ones that we haven't seen. Now you've seen a lot, I've seen a lot. But there's still a lot of holes. We're going to talk about probably the best picture race and where it stands for the first time this entire season. And then later in this episode, I have a conversation with Alex Russell. He's the first time writer director of one of the pleasant surprises of the year, a film called Lurker. It's a music industry thriller. I don't want to spoil anything about it. It's going more wide this weekend. People should check it out. Russell's been a writer on the Bear and Beef, two of the best shows of the last five years. Super smart guy, really good conversation. Stick around for that. But first, screw the news. Let's just talk about Venice. You're in Europe. What are you doing right now?
- [02:02]
B
Well, it's 10:30 at night, local time. I have just gotten home from Velido. For those of you who like me. Well, I know about Venice now, but I did also recently read the Wikipedia page two days ago for the city of Venice. Yeah, that's a travel tip that I have is when you're somewhere, pull up the Wikipedia page. I learned a lot about the lions that are on top of the fancy church here. Anyway, Venice is a series of violence. The film festival is held on the Lido, and I am not wealthy enough to be staying on the Lido. So I have just returned via water bus back home from the House of Dynamite premiere, Kathryn Bigelow's new film for Netflix, starring our friend and friend of the podcast, Tracy Letts.
- [02:50]
A
Is he top billed? Is he the number one star of the film?
- [02:53]
B
No, but pretty good billing.
- [02:55]
A
Good.
- [02:55]
B
Yeah, he was there. I have a picture of him in a tux. I got to see Tracy. One of the great delights of this trip. So it's 10:30 here, I'm podcasting, and I have in fact poured myself a glass of white wine because like I said, I also have been on the Lido since 10am this morning. I did three movies today. That's what we like to hear. I wore a dress that could go from 9am awkwardly on a water bus, through a press screening, two premieres, and then back on the water bus home. But here I am. And I realize I haven't spoken to you in person in a month, so it's nice to see you.
- [03:34]
A
It's lovely to see you. We've been trading some text, though you and I tend to be a little bit more restrained in our opinions pre record, so a lot of this will be new to both of us. As we discuss it. We'll do Venice first. I feel like that's the best thing to do because you're fresh off of a screening, you've been seeing movies. I got back last night from Telluride, so I'm. I've had some time to gather my thoughts. But you are. You're in the moment right now. Is this your fifth drink or your eighth drink today?
- [03:58]
B
Uh, I. So technically this is my third, but I didn't really consume the other two, that they were more like placeholders so that I could have a place to sit and fill out our. Our document. The second one was actually at the Campari Lounge, which is a sponsored lounge directly across from the red carpet on the Lido. And in two trips, I had never been. So I have been here in Venice for eight days, which I feel insane. I'm so lucky, and I feel absolutely insane. I've been lucky enough to be here with our friend and colleague Yassi Salak, who has come and seen a lot of movies with me, but Yassi insisted that I go to the Campari Lounge before we left. The official sponsored Campari Lounge. It wasn't my best Negroni of the trip, so I didn't drink all of it.
- [04:53]
A
Shock. Fired at camp. Geez Louise. Okay, well, tell us about the festival. Like what's the scene been? Like, what's the energy like? I think we'll talk about the themes of these festivals this year and our favorite stuff that we saw. But what's the vibe like? How did it compare to 2023 when you were there?
- [05:08]
B
So it has been extraordinarily chaotic is what I would say, and really, really packed. I think when I was here in 2023, it was during the actors strike and so there were a lot of movies and a lot of movie stars who would normally be at Venice who were not, who did not show up. Some people got waivers, but a lot of people couldn't come this year. Everybody and their very famous boyfriend or girlfriend is here as well. So it has been totally star studded. I made a list off the top of my head. I'm just going to read to you. This is all people that I saw in movies or saw on the red carpet. Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Emily Mortimer, Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig. I can't even read all of these. Julia Roberts, Jacob Elordi, Oscar Isaac, Jude Law. I also saw him walking around while I was getting gelato. Lewis Pullman and Kyra Gerber, Dwayne the Rock Johnson, Emily Blunt, Sophia Coppola, Mark Jacobs, Idris Elba, our pal Tracy. It keeps going. And then I would look on Instagram and be like, oh look, there are some more people that I didn't even know were here. So hugely star studded. This is a festival that likes Hollywood, that likes Netflix, that likes movie stars, that likes them riding up on their water taxis, water bus for them and lets them shine and really lives up to the, you know, plays into the glamour. It's right on the ocean. The Lido is on the Adriatic Sea. So that has been really fun. There are just also a tremendous number of people here and the feeling that I've gotten from talking to others is that it seems like it's maybe a bit over credentialed and that things got a little, a little crowded, a little complicated. I mean, you know, it is also.
- [06:55]
A
Italy, but was there a Yasi shaped straw that broke the camel's back here? Like, what happened?
- [07:01]
B
Oh, I mean, it's just. It has been really difficult logistically to get around and see movies because they are on a different island. And once again, like, some of the islands you can walk between and there are bridges, but not the Lido. And so most people can't stay on the Lido. And so you're going back and forth. And there are some shuttle water buses, which are again, boats. So there are some boats, but not enough people have not been able to get to the island to get to their screening. The lines are forever. There's been a lot of coverage about how the city of Venice, more broadly is kind of at its wit's end with tourists. And it does feel like the city and the festival are, like, a bit at odds. Yossi got a ticket for improperly using, like, her water bus pass, which I had never seen happen for. And they were on every single subway, you know, like the train ticketers. And it seemed like they were some.
- [08:01]
A
Sort of, like, water jail right now. What happened? What does it look like? Consequences.
- [08:05]
B
She just had to, like, pay a fine. And as she pointed out, you know, like you, she wasn't allowed to buy the ticket on the boat, but she could pay the fine on the boat anyway.
- [08:14]
A
How convenient.
- [08:15]
B
Yeah. Which. And we've seen them all festival. It seems like there have been fewer shuttles. It just kind of. It's beyond capacity. And everyone's been very late to screenings.
- [08:27]
A
That's what I was gonna say. What's like, the ramifications of that on the festival itself?
- [08:31]
B
So they do admit people into screenings after the fact in, like, an extremely nonsensical and officious process where you have to wait until they've decided that they can lead you via flashlight to a seat. But they do, unlike can let people in. And I think part of the reason they have to is just because it so difficult to get everyone where they need to go. But it's miss, you know, it's resulted. I was 20 minutes late to the wizard of the Kremlin. I got in. I personally felt that I saw most of what I needed to see. But you can feel that people are stressed, and it just feels like there's no room for discovery. How about that? Because of the way that the screenings are set up, it is also a longer festival and then also just the logistics of getting around. You can't really dip into something, if that makes any sense.
- [09:30]
A
It does. I don't want to neg the festival that you attended because there are a number of movies that you Saw that I'm extremely excited about. But that has been one of the reasons historically, why I have not wanted to go to Venice, is because it's very different from the way that I like to do this, which we'll talk about when we talk about Telluride.
- [09:46]
B
No, I mean, I thought of you on one of the shuttles, and I was like, you would absolutely hate this. I mean, I saw 15 movies. So I did my homework. You know, I planned. I at some point thought I was gonna have to sleep on the Lido because we also had some thunderstorms. And, you know, these canals and these boats aren't built for this. I made friends with some listeners. Actually, this was after the J. Kelly screening. And so it was like 12:30, pouring down, rain, lightning and thunder. But I made friends with Ruthie and she navigated, and together we made it home. I really think I would have been arrested had it not been for them. So I'd like to thank them very much.
- [10:29]
A
I'd like to not thank them, because it would have been very funny if you were arrested in Italy.
- [10:33]
B
I just want to say, listen, with my name, I can't be having any skirmishes with them.
- [10:37]
A
Oh, my gosh, I forgot about that. In Italy, of all places. Geez Louise.
- [10:42]
B
That's what it says. And then there's a Dobbins at the end.
- [10:44]
A
It's tough. For those who don't know Amanda's middle name is Nox.
- [10:48]
B
Yeah, it is.
- [10:48]
A
It's complicated. And back in the news. Making more content these days. Yeah, there's like a whole. There's a Hulu special now. There's a book.
- [10:56]
B
Yeah, no, I mean, I know. Listen, I guess she's, you know, she's got to make money, too.
- [11:00]
A
She's got to tell. Speak her truth, just as you speak your truth on a weekly basis. This episode is brought to you by the HBO original drama series Task from the creator of Mayor of Easttown. Set in the working class suburbs of Philadelphia, an FBI agent heads a task force to put an end to a string of vi violent robberies led by an unsuspecting family man. Don't miss Task, starring Mark Ruffalo and Tom Pelfrey. Streaming September 7th on HBO. Max.
- [11:25]
B
Anyway, this. It's insanely beautiful here. And it's pretty. It is surreal every day to go back and forth to see these major movies in this beautiful place. But, you know, I've been here for eight days. I'm worn down.
- [11:43]
A
So give me the headlines, you know, like, you've now seen 15 movies, which is, you know, that's more than I saw at my festival, I think. I guess I was there half the amount of time. But still, that's a lot. We'll talk about your favorites, but, like, kind of, what are the big takeaways? What are the. Like thematically, even just from a, you know, if you were putting a headline on this episode, what would you say? This movie or this moment or this idea.
- [12:05]
B
Right. Late capitalism bad and makes men crazy. Okay. Would I say. And then also getting old is hard. Would be the two things. Things, you know, that you're grappling. So, like the overarching. I don't. I do think that I saw several movies about late capitalism and it was not. They were not pro. But in general, there's not a huge thematic through line of the programming. It is really just kind of a ton of heavyweight directors. Right. And so, you know, we had Noah Baumbach, Guillermo del Toro, Yorgos Lanthimos, Olivier, Catherine Bigelow, who am I forgetting the.
- [12:50]
A
Coppola, Park Chan Wook, Alice.
- [12:52]
B
Yeah, exactly. Paulo Sorrentino opened the festival. So this was, you know, I came to see a lot of directors who I expect a lot of just like to see what they're up to next. And so I think expectations are pretty high for Venice. And, you know, as with all things, some. Some movies hit and some don't and some critics get grumpy and some don't. And so it's, you know, I would say that the through line, it's trending upwards. I think if you talk to everyone on day three or day four of the festival, I was having a fantastic time, but it seemed like morale was low. But maybe we're back.
- [13:39]
A
Yeah. My understanding is that maybe the. One of the best was saved for last and that you were able to go out on a high note, which is always a good feeling at a film festival. I mean, do you want to. Do you want to just start giving us your favorites? Like, what were the best experiences you had? What were the best? Like, what are the films that we should be caring about out of the festival?
- [13:56]
B
Okay. So I made a list and I ranked them.
- [14:00]
A
Wonderful.
- [14:00]
B
So number five, just for you. Sean Fennesee was a. Is a documentary.
- [14:07]
A
Thank you.
- [14:08]
B
Called Megadoc, directed by Mike Figgis. And it is on the set making of the film Megalopolis, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. And Francis is. Was here for the opening ceremony. He gave an award to Werner Herzog. And then he's just been hanging around to hang out with the rest of his family, because Sofia Coppola was here today, but he was not at my screening. He was very present in the movie, which I thought, for people who listen to this podcast, is just amazing. I was locked in. I thought it was so riveting and it is nerdy, but Francis Ford Coppola just invited Mike Figgis to come document the entire making of this movie. And so for a movie that I think both you and I walked out of with like a lot of questions about, you know, a lot of.
- [15:03]
A
A couple of them are answered in this documentary.
- [15:05]
B
They really are. And some amazing things about the production and art design and just. And like how to create a world. And, you know, Coppola famously sat on this movie for many years for a number of reasons, but one of them was because the technology didn't exist yet to create what was in his mind. And so watching them try to get there and not quite in real time is fascinating. Shia LaBeouf finds the camera in this movie a lot.
- [15:41]
A
Yeah, I had a chance to see this as well. And that is my number one takeaway was Shia is shying at an all time rate.
- [15:48]
B
Yeah. But it's really. I think it's really well told. It does. He gets sit down interviews with almost everyone, including Dustin Hoffman, but it's incredibly edited. One of the. He gets a Dustin Hoffman meltdown during a scene and then cuts to like a very obsequious, like talking head Hoffman. It's really, it's really very clever. And you know, as Figgis says in the documentary, most of the great making of movies documentaries are about disasters. And so you can kind of see them realizing in real time that things aren't really lining up. And he's there for all of it. So I just. I was wrapped. I loved it.
- [16:37]
A
Yeah, I think you nailed it. Figgis, for those who don't know, is really a feature filmmaker. You know, he made Leaving Las Vegas and Internal affairs and, you know, mostly worked in the 80s and 90s. I can't remember the last time I saw him like Figgis movie. But one of the things I liked about the movie is in most documentaries, I would hate this. But since he's a seasoned filmmaker, he's like going in front of the camera at critical moments where he's like, shit, I kind of don't know what to do now or like, how do I get Adam Driver to talk to me? You know, there are a couple of moments that are really revealing where he is participating in the doc and Natalie.
- [17:07]
B
Emanuel's agent doesn't want me to film her eating, which that was as awesome.
- [17:12]
A
That making it into the doc was so good.
- [17:14]
B
Well, she didn't give him anything else. And it also does confirm what I was thinking about the performance the whole time. Aubrey Paz is amazing in this. Just very funny. Aubrey Plaza ink. Yeah, it's great.
- [17:24]
A
I'm glad you enjoyed that. Okay, what's next?
- [17:26]
B
Great question. What did I put at number four? Oh, yeah. So this is another movie that's on your list because it premiered here at Venice and then Emma Stone and did Jesse Plemons also fly to tell you?
- [17:38]
A
He certainly did.
- [17:40]
B
Jesse Plemons was on my flight to Venice, which was very exciting. And this is Begonia, which I just absolutely clicked with. This is my preferred Yorgos Lanthimos flavor. You know, it's. It's dogtooth and the lobster.
- [17:56]
A
Yeah.
- [17:57]
B
And. And in some ways is familiar, but I think also up, maybe it doesn't upend, but is playing with your expectations of Yorgos Lanthimos movie throughout. And. And it really got me. And then I. The Jesse Plemons performance is lights out.
- [18:16]
C
Yes.
- [18:16]
B
I mean, Emma Stone is also really, really great. But, like, we all know that he is fantastic.
- [18:21]
A
Yeah. This is also number four on my list of movies that I saw at my festival. So we match on that. This is Adapted from a 2003 Korean film called Save the Green Planet, which is a pretty wild movie. And it's written by Will Tracy, who wrote the menu and was a writer on Succession. And it was. It's fun to see Yorgos working outside of where he had been working, I would say, the last four or five years. And I agree this is my flavor of Yorgos too. I thought this was the funniest movie he's made in a while. And agree. Plemons is amazing. And someone had told me three months ago, and I said it on the pod, that they saw the movie and Plemons is gonna win best actor. And that was sight unseen with every other movie that we're seeing this fall. But there's certainly a case that he could because he's extraordinary in this movie.
- [19:08]
B
I certainly hope he's in the conversation. It feels like other people at the festivals weren't as excited about it as we were, but I think, you know, your Lanthimo spectrum may vary and. No, for me, it totally worked. I also can't wait to talk about the ending with you, but whatever.
- [19:26]
A
Yes, we'll do a whole episode about Begonia. It's a hard movie to talk about given the way that it's plotted to have a sophisticated conversation. But I'm glad you liked it because I liked it too.
- [19:37]
B
Yeah, my number three is a surprise to you and to me, but it's completely genuine. So it's the Testament of Ann Lee, which is the film directed by Mona Fastfold and written by Fastfold and her partner Brady Courbet. And it stars Amanda Seyfried. And it's about Ann Lee, who was one of the founders of the Shaker movement, which I knew very little about, including, as it is explained early in the film that the Shakers got their name because they had Quaker beliefs, but also their worship involves ecstatic movement. And so they are the Shaking Quakers, thus the Shakers. And so I. So I didn't know anything about that. I'm not sure I would immediately sign up to learn about an American religious movement. And then, guys, I gotta tell you, it's just a full on musical which not in the traditional sense, but Daniel Blumberg, who did the Brutalist score, uses traditional Shaker music and kind of fashions it into their actual musical numbers. And for me, it was the choreography that was what really sealed. It is amazing. And they're going for it. I personally observed more walkouts at this movie than I did. But that was all old Italian people, respectfully or not that respectfully. In general, I think the proportion of tickets to old Italian people who only stay for 10 minutes in a movie could be reexamined at the Venice Film Festival. That would be my note. But I don't always love singing. And sometimes the Fast fold Courbet thing works for me and sometimes it doesn't. And I thought this was really wonderful.
- [21:40]
A
I'm so excited. I talked to a couple of people in Telluride who saw this and they gave me the same first half, ecstatic. Second half I had some problems. Note that you heard from a lot of people about the Brutalist, yourself included. So it hasn't diminished my anticipation. It's really right near the top of my list for movies that I'm pumped for. But I'm glad you liked it.
- [21:59]
B
We'll talk more about it. I mean, it has a lot in common with the Brutalist thematically and maybe in some ways to me it's more fully realized. But whatever, it was really cool. So I liked that a lot. Number two. Okay, so my number two and my number one. I'm obviously recency biasing here right now so hard because I left House of dynamite like 1 hour ago and I saw no other choice, which is the new Park Chan Wook film over the weekend and until 9pm tonight, Central European time. No other choice was like far and away the leader of the festival. Interesting for me. And do you think that's going to.
- [22:50]
A
Win the Golden Lion?
- [22:52]
B
I do. I could see it because it is weird and wild and very him, but also very surprising. It's another late stage capitalism movie, but very funny. Like a satire in a lot of ways. Some incredible set pieces and you know, it's two and a half hours long and much like decision to leave. I thought we could have, you know, we could have just. Just like a little bit. But like, who am I to tell Park Jeon Wook you know, when to stop filming? So no, I thought it was wonderful. I really, really liked House of Dynamite. And I know that you haven't seen that it just, you know, premiered here. And I don't want to say too much about it, but I don't want to spoil it for people. But it is like a propulsive, political like thriller, I guess. And it's under two hours. I was riveted. I think there is like one and a half false notes in the entire thing. They just absolutely nailed it. Performances are great. I'd like to let you know that Tracy Letts talks about Francisco Lindor several times in the film. In the film.
- [24:07]
A
Holy shit.
- [24:08]
B
Yes.
- [24:09]
A
Tremendous news.
- [24:10]
B
I know. And that's what I saw him for like two seconds. And yeah, that's. I think he improvised that just for you.
- [24:16]
A
So my. Be still my heart.
- [24:19]
B
So it was great. I'm very excited for people to see it. I really, really liked it. Again, you know, it was a long day and I just, I just. I'm coming off the high of the movie, so maybe I would rank it differently. And you know, it is. One is like international art house and one is like very, very well made, taught 90s. You know, like Hollywood, they don't make them like they used to anymore. And it felt so nice to see one of those also. So again, they're different flavors, but I thought both were great.
- [24:53]
A
Well, your top three are my three most anticipated movies.
- [24:56]
C
So.
- [24:56]
B
Yeah. So eat shit.
- [24:58]
A
Yeah, that's great. That's great to hear about House of Dynamite. At Telluride, there was a prevailing idea which someone had shared this with me before I traveled for the festival and I wasn't sure whether or not to believe it, but they were like the best Netflix movie this year is House of Dynamite or like the best contender. And we'll talk about the other films that we saw from the studio. But that seems to be the reaction coming out of the screening that you were into. The reviews early on are kind of like, this is their best movie. There's maybe some other films that were not playing at the festivals that we can talk about as well. But I'm super excited. I mean, it's been eight years since we've had a Kathryn Bigelow film.
- [25:35]
B
Yeah. Can I just also tell you that Katherine Bigelow is 73, which is something that I learned today when I googled how old is Katherine Bigelow? Because she looks. She looked astonishing. She was wearing, like, a great double breasted, like, jumpsuit situation, you know? She's also one of the great American filmmakers. I don't. But she looked great.
- [25:54]
A
I mean, always. She's always been a striking person. Well, I'm pumped for that movie. Honorable mentions.
- [26:00]
B
Yes. Okay, here we go. Well, I mean, this is. This is really funny. The films by my three favorite directors.
- [26:11]
A
That should tell you something about these movies.
- [26:14]
B
I would say, well, so listen, we'll do a whole J. Kelly thing. I saw J. Kelly. I was at the premiere. I am not a monster. So I cried. Okay? It moved me. And I thought that there was a. There was. I liked it. I wanted to love it more, you know.
- [26:35]
A
This is the new Noah Baumbach film. Yeah.
- [26:38]
B
Yes. Oh, no, I'm sorry. We just went. We went straight to that. Noah Baumback.
- [26:40]
A
Jake Starring's been a thing for us for two years, but not for most people listening at home.
- [26:44]
B
And it stars George Clooney. Maybe you've heard of him. The Prince of Venice. And Adam Sandler, another fave of yours.
- [26:54]
A
Yes.
- [26:54]
B
Everyone on. All the young Italian women on the carpet were chatting. Adam, it was very cute. And his whole family was here. Yeah, that was a very cute carpet. Greta Gerwig is in it, like, very briefly. Laura Dern is in it pretty briefly. But you have seen it, and I think you're a bit higher on it. I just need to see it again. I need to see it again.
- [27:21]
A
Yeah. I think I had the good fortune of seeing it after I saw the reactions to it out in the world, which were. Frankly, the reviews out of Venice were mixed, I would say.
- [27:34]
B
And some people just need to, like, take a Xanax, you know, like, it's, it's. It's. Noah Bombac is good at making films. It's not bad. It's just not, you know, again, it's a little bit like, what's your flavor of Baumbach? And you and I share A love for Frances. Ha. And also for a marriage story. But like, we have Greenberg in us, you know, like we have. And it is Greenberg. It is not.
- [27:59]
A
No. So, you know, it's a movie about an aging movie star played by George Clooney, who resembles George Clooney in some ways. Adam Sandler plays his business manager. Laura Dern plays his publicist. It's a movie about a journey that an older movie star goes on. Like I said, I got to see that it was, you know, the reviews were not very kind out of Venice and Venice is a very. Can be a tough crowd. The critics at Venice and J. Kelly played really well at Telluride. And yeah, I mean, I can to critics, but especially to the patrons. It was probably the second most talked about movie, maybe the third most talked about movie at the fest. It's also just like a much more Hollywood friendly and academy friendly crowd at Telluride. I thought it was very good. It is very different tonally from basically any bomback movie. It is the most sincere, straight, emotionally straightforward. There's not very much bitterness or that like bite that is so good about so many of his films. And so I think it's good to know that going in if you're waiting for that to hit, because outside of like a key scene with Billy Crudup, there's not a lot of that in there. And I knew that and so I felt better about kind of accepting what it was attempting to do. The other thing that I'll just say very quickly, to me, it's the biggest accomplishment filmmaking wise in Baumbach's career. It is the most beautiful looking movie that he's ever made. He's not really well known for his, like, visual dynamics. Shot by Lena Sangren. Shot on location in Italy. You know, like, there's some stuff about it that is really nice.
- [29:23]
B
Yeah, it was very beautiful. That was a nice hotel. I'd like to go there.
- [29:27]
A
Wow, look at you. Three drinks in, just blaspheming our Lord Noah Bomba.
- [29:32]
B
Like I said, it's really just this drink because I left most of them floating so I could do my work. I also, at some point, the bathroom situation. And I mean, it's Europe writ large. But like, so the main. The main Palazzo del Cinema. Sure.
- [29:50]
A
We're talking J. Kelly. You have pivoted to bathrooms. That should tell you how you feel about the movie.
- [29:54]
B
They have. It seats a thousand people and they have five bathrooms, like five stalls for women. Not five different bathrooms, like five stalls. What are we doing? I think and anyway, so I can't drink that much because the bathroom thing becomes like a real. You know, you can't get there. Also, they're like tiny little airplane seats. I'm sorry. I know I sound so American right now. Like, I am. I hate myself. I need to go home anyway. No, I need to say Jake. I need to see. I need to see it again.
- [30:24]
A
You will, and we'll talk about it again. We don't want to give anything else.
- [30:27]
B
I mean, I love him so much. Okay, so the next. The next from my favorite director is Sophia by Marc, which is a Marc Jacobs documentary directed by Sofia Coppola. Once again, I extended my trip to Venice, Italy, longer than it needed to be in order to see Sofia Coppola in person, debuting one of her films. Always worth it to me. She looked great. It was very fun. It premiered this afternoon. I would say there is absolutely no tension in this documentary whatsoever, which is quite a choice. However, it is beautiful to look at. And it's about him preparing for a show. And so, you know, and she uses a lot of archival. And it's kind of like. And like a lot of good music. And their interviews are funny. I had a nice time. You know, I don't. I think if you. If you care about the. The title of the film, which is Mark by Sophia, then you will like this film. But, you know, it's not. It's not Hearts of Darkness, so that's okay.
- [31:30]
A
There was a recent big takeout piece about a 24 in the new Yorker. I'm not sure if you read that story.
- [31:35]
B
I did.
- [31:36]
A
But in that story, very near the end, Sophia is quoted about why she wanted to make her Marc Jacobs documentary with a 24. And I believe her quote was, because they'll let me do it how I want to do it.
- [31:47]
B
Yeah. And she did.
- [31:49]
A
And that sounds like she did.
- [31:50]
B
Yeah. I would like to, at some point, discuss some of the music cues with someone else, but I had a really nice time. She was wearing Marc Jacobs. Marcus. Mark was there, too. It was nice. I had a nice time.
- [32:03]
A
It's time for you to talk about after the Hunt.
- [32:05]
B
Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay, so here we let. Let me start by saying this. And I'd like to. And I'd like to explain why. And. And I think that it's important context for the festival as well as my experience. I had to leave after the hunt early.
- [32:21]
A
Oh.
- [32:22]
B
So I had to leave after the hunt. I mean, I don't really know. Early, because I needed to get to the J Kelly premiere. And so here's what happened after the Hunt already started off a little weird because it is not in competition here at the Venice Film Festival at Luca Guadagnino's request, according to the festival. This is of course, the new film by Luca Guadagnino starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield and Ayoidiberi. Um, so because it's out of competition, the screening times were a little weird and it's been a little bit. It was a little harder to see. And so the only way I could see it was. Right. Jammed up. I was, as I texted you, I was going to have to sprint from after the Hunt to J. Kelly. So that would have been okay had there not been torrential rainstorms in Venice that day. And. And also had the Screening not started 20 minutes early. So we, I mean, sorry, 20 minutes late.
- [33:28]
A
Got it. Okay.
- [33:29]
B
So we, the press, the people who had tickets to the screening, stood outside in thunder and lightning for 20 minutes waiting for the screening to begin. I listen, again, not to be American, but like, I think it would have been a liability issue in the United States. But there we were just standing outside holding umbrellas like lightning rods. And then when we got in, there was speculation, and I have heard that it is all speculation. I cannot confirm this in any way, shape or form, but there was speculation that perhaps it was a sound test by a certain someone that left us out in the lightning and the rain for 20 minutes. And I mentioned this to an usher at the. At the screening area and he just laughed and said I wasn't there and walked away. So that's all the reporting that I have for you, I think that might inform the reactions to after the Hunt. I would just put that out there for everybody. Interesting.
- [34:32]
A
I have not heard this. So it was just an unfortunate setup leading into the screening.
- [34:37]
B
We were all soaked and it was like. It was miserable.
- [34:42]
A
And this stuff matters. Like this context weirdly matters. And you never see this in the trades when you're reading the review. Yeah, but festivals are usually fun, but they can be pretty anxiety producing and a little bit frenzied.
- [34:54]
B
Right. And so I think that everyone was in a very bad mood when this screening started and not willing to give the film any belief, like, you know, the benefit of the doubt. I also mentioned that I. So that's why I had to leave early. I had to leave early. So I don't actually, I can't speak authoritatively on where the movie's politics net out. I think I have a pretty good idea. I also had Many people. I did like my own Rashomon and had everybody I saw reenact the last 20 minutes of the movie for me, which was fascinating in its own way. But this is, it's, it is tar. But we don't have tar. We already have tar, and we don't need another one. And it is about cancel culture. It is about sexual assault. It is about believing women. It is about Woody Allen because it literally starts. The very first thing you see is a title card that says it's a prologue, and the title card says it happened at Yale in the Woody Allen font, which, frankly, I thought was really funny.
- [36:04]
A
I was amused to look learn that as well.
- [36:07]
B
And the whole prologue is funny. I think I personally, from what I saw, felt the movie knows what it's doing and knows that it's trying to provoke people and even knows it's going to piss people off. It is like a little bit of like, you know, Gen X yelling at Cloud and, or Gen Z, but I think intentionally, and I wonder if maybe it's been not quite getting the benefit of the doubt on that. That said, I don't know how it concludes and, or at least I do, but that's secondhand. And number two, it still is a lesser tar. And there are, there are scenes that are almost like there, there is a scene where Julia Robertson is a blazer, like, yelling at someone younger than her about, like, you know, sexual politics and power politics. So we've seen this before and, and we've seen it better. Okay, so it's kind of. I still, I kind of had a good time. I, I. The way that Julia Roberts dresses is like an actual attack on me. It's, it's like, you'll see and you'll just laugh because it's how I dress, but, like, better. And also it's Julia Roberts wearing it. So that is something I'll be working through personally. But I don't know, I'm excited to see the rest of it. I'm excited to talk with you about. Or maybe I'm not. Maybe, like, we just shouldn't talk about it because then all the young people will be mad at us and will.
- [37:37]
A
You know, I relish the opportunity. I cannot wait to watch a prickly, provocative movie about how Gen Z doesn't get it.
- [37:45]
B
Maybe it's not provocative. Ultimately, that's kind of, again, because I had to leave because it started late because of things I can't confirm. I don't know how it ties up the, the bows or if it does. So we'll see.
- [38:04]
A
Did you have a good festival?
- [38:06]
B
I did. It's really fun. I mean, it's amazing to get to be here and to roll in to all these great movies. And then there really are spritzes everywhere. You know, they're just like, here's a here. Do you want a Campari spritz or an Aperol spritz? Like, here you go. It's beautiful. It's. Yeah. It's an absolute privilege. I got to see our friend Tracy Letts, which is an amazing privilege. I did. I'm working through the Bombach stuff, but I'll get there.
- [38:38]
A
We got time. We got time to get into it. Just spoiler alert. J. Kelly was not in my top five from the festival either, though, with some caveats that we can talk about when we get there.
- [38:46]
B
Okay.
- [38:47]
A
Telluride. So if Venice is all about spritzes, I feel like Telluride's a little bit more of a beer and bourbon town and was very happy to be back there. It was my sixth time in the city, and I think it is the best place in America. It is, of course, like, a very wealthy enclave, a small town, but it opens itself up a few times a year. It has, like, a number of festivals there. I'm learning more and more. There's, like, a bluegrass festival. There's a horror movie festival later this month, which I did, only recently learned about that Alex Perry's been trying to get me to go to, which I don't think I could go to Telluride twice in one month. My wife would have my balls for that. But I had an amazing time, and having been there so many times, I just know a lot of people there now at the festival. Like, I have festival friends. I have friends from the press. I have friends from, you know, the movie business, but just people who go to the festival every year that you wait in line with and hang out with. And there's not as much of a craziness as the one that you described at Venice. For me, there is a lot of walking back and forth between the theaters across town.
- [39:49]
B
Love to walk.
- [39:50]
A
Well, it's. I mean, it's a gorgeous place, and we had perfect weather all weekend, and so it was magnificent. And then the other thing that happened is, you know, I've been encouraging people to go to this festival since I started going in 19, and people go. And, like, I would say half of the conversations with people who stopped me in the street were like, I'm here because I heard you talking about it. Now, there were a Couple of people who said that they were mad at me for telling the young people to come to the festival because now the festival is full of young people. This was a. Historically an older festival, but I have no regrets. And shout out to all the 27 year olds who are like, I'm going to Telluride, Colorado to watch movies. That's fucking awesome.
- [40:25]
B
Can I tell you, I met an 18 year old listener of this podcast. I wish I remember his name. I also met him on the water bus.
- [40:32]
A
Was it like Marcello?
- [40:33]
B
No, no, no. He's an American and he has a. He has a full scholarship to unc, I believe, starting.
- [40:41]
A
But Chapel Hill, tough loss last night. Sheesh. The Bill Belichick era, off to a tough start.
- [40:46]
B
Okay, well, sorry to him. That's. That's on them.
- [40:49]
A
Sorry to Jordan.
- [40:50]
B
That. That's what you get when you hire Bill Belichick. Anyway, he had a full ride and also they were covering like travel as part, you know, like a, A great scholarship. Congratulations to him. And he's been listening to us for several years, which means he started as a teenager and he was using part of the scholarship stuff to come to Venice and see movies, which I thought was so amazing. And I was. I just. I'm so sorry, I don't remember your name. I hope you had a great festival.
- [41:16]
C
I'm very proud of him.
- [41:17]
A
Yeah. Thank you for participating. Yeah. Our young listeners are honestly, genuinely all so sweet and nice. Yeah, they're really cool. So, yeah, Telluride, as usual, like an amazing place to be. For four days. I got to spend time with just a lot of people that have become good friends. And so that part of it is really nice. This much like Venice was incredibly star studded. Much more so than I can remember maybe since I first came in 2019, which was a really big year. That was a year of uncut gems. Marriage story, Parasite, Ford vs Ferrari. There are huge movies here that year. That of course, being one of the best movie years ever. But this year, in part because of the movies that were playing there. Just on my plane. Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell, Jodie Foster all sitting right in front of me. Margot Robbie didn't have a movie there. She was just going just to go watch movies and apparently to scout, I guess, a little bit.
- [42:05]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [42:06]
A
Because she has a production company. Yeah. So that was cool. And then, you know, just like Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Springsteen and Sandler and Emma Stone and Oscar Isaac and all 7 foot 12 of Alexander Skarsgrd, who was just everywhere, you would have been quite taken with him, as well as Harris Dickinson and Paul Meskal, who are also there.
- [42:26]
B
I saw all the photos of them all palling around in their jackets.
- [42:32]
A
I mean, that's the thing with this festival that is cool. That is very different, obviously, from the experience that you've had, is they're just hanging out, you know, like. And sure, they're hanging out at the parties and the screenings, but they're also just on the street. They're usually all really approachable. People are just. It's very relaxed. Everyone's wearing T shirts and baseball hats and jeans, and they're just there to go watch movies and to go drink bourbon and eat free food provided by movie studios. So it's just an incredible vibe. And I've given you this spiel many years in a row now. It remains uninterrupted. I did share with you before the festival that I was a little concerned about the programming slate, in part because of how strong it seemed like yours was. I would say I was only half justified in that concern.
- [43:17]
B
Right, Because I saw.
- [43:18]
A
Yeah, hey, I saw a ton of good stuff. I do think that. Here's an observation before I get into the movies. Movie culture has shifted to the international world, right? Cannes and Venice are most likely going to be the places where, for example, Park Chan Wook's new film is going to premiere. Park Chan Wook is unlikely to premiere a film at Telluride. And so that's a kind of a corridor of movies that are more or less not available as premieres at that festival and probably not to tiff either. So Telluride has to contend with that. So they have to fight for their own premieres. So the two really big premieres this year were Hamnet, which was good, and we can talk about it, and Springsteen delivered me from nowhere, which I thought was less successful. Those are two big movies from two big American movie studios. But they have to be strategic about what they can get and what they can't get. I think aside from that conundrum of what is the really super noisy premiere? The programming. Otherwise, the Telluride is still fucking amazing. Both the festival carryover stuff and then the smaller stuff and then the nonfiction is all really good. So it was generally like a better than I expected, but not great slate of movies this year. There were a lot of themes. My old pal Ezra Edelman was the guest director this year, so he programmed a bunch of older movies. I haven't seen him in years. We were talking at the festival about, I think he was the second or third ever guest on this show in 2017, but he programmed Network, all the President's Men, the Insider, and Malcolm X as a testament to how the world is going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is. It's not a good time. That happened to map neatly onto a bunch of movies that were here, including Cover up, which is a Seymour Hersh dock, which was also in Venice. But I know you didn't get a chance to see.
- [45:01]
B
Yes, I know I missed it. I'm very. I'm sad about that.
- [45:04]
A
A great film, the Secret Agent Begonia. It was just an accident. All these movies kind of all fit into the theme that Ezra was vibing on. And then there were, like, a lot of weird micro themes and a lot of movies, as a lot of people were saying in the theaters themselves, like, these movies are all talking to each other. So, like, two movies about bad dads in Hollywood in Sentimental Value and J. Kelly, three Hamlet movies. There was two monster movies. There were two movies about sort of like the mystery of identity. There were two Linklater movies, Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vogue, and there were three films about Hollywood and filmmaking. J. Kelly, Sentimental Value in Nouvelle Vogue. So there was a lot of, like, hey, did you see that? It reminded me of that going on in the room, which was really interesting. I'll give you. You want to hear my list? Do you have any questions? What are your.
- [45:56]
B
No, I. I want to hear your list.
- [45:58]
A
Okay.
- [45:58]
B
I'm jealous mostly, you know, because we didn't. We didn't have any of those because Venice does not play any of the Cannes movies.
- [46:04]
A
Right?
- [46:05]
B
So. And I was traveling, so, you know, I haven't seen any of them, and I'm jealous.
- [46:11]
A
So here's the tricky thing, is that three of the movies on my list premiered at Cannes, and I saw four of the movies on my list before Telluride even started.
- [46:21]
B
That's between you and the mountains and. God, you know.
- [46:25]
A
Okay. Do you think I shouldn't share that information?
- [46:27]
B
No. As I texted to you, like, after, you know, the fourth movie review you sent me on vacation of films that were going to be at Telluride, like I said to you, like, go on vacation, you know, and that's how you go on vacation. You do it.
- [46:44]
A
I went to Hawaii.
- [46:45]
B
It was great. I know, and it looked beautiful. But when you decide to see the movies, whether you see them at home before you go or end Telluride, that's up to you.
- [46:57]
A
Yeah, well, you know, I was looking back at last year when I did the episode about Telluride, and I missed a number of movies. I didn't get to see like 12 movies that I would ultimately go on to see that were, you know, they weren't awards contenders per se, but they were stuff I just wanted to check out and I didn't have time. So this year I tried to pre screen as much as I could, which means I saw pretty much all the Cannes films and a couple of other films. And I even saw one that was premiering a little bit early. And so what that did was that it did something that you said you couldn't do, which is it did allow for some discovery. I got to just try some stuff that I didn't feel obligated to see because it's such a short window. In Telluride, you can't get more than 13 or 14 movies done in four days. So I got 12 this year. I came in having seen 10. So 22 films on the slate I already got to see and only a couple do I really feel like I missed out on. But anyway, I'll start with my list. Number five, It Was Just An Accident which won. The Palme d' or was acquired by Neon. This is Jafar Panahi's new film. He was honored as one of the medallion recipients at the festival. And this is a incredibly striking film that is simultaneously dread induced and very funny and another film that's hard to talk about without giving anything away. But it has a lot in common with a couple of the other movies on my list. And it's weirdly the most commercial movie that Panahi has ever made. It's like a. It's a thriller. It's a proper thriller about identity. Or is it mistaken identity and the way that a community comes together to reckon with whether or not the person they have encountered is real or not real and has, like one of the best endings of a movie you'll see this year. And people, people should see it. We will get into it this year. It's interesting that it won the Palme d'. Or. I think it has been noted that Juliette Binoche is a big supporter of Panahi and the kind of the. The struggles that he has had with the regime in Iran and his struggle to be a free filmmaker. And so there's another movie that was a can that I really liked a lot that I'll get into in a minute. It seemed like people liked this movie. It didn't seem like it was the outrageous fervor that you might have expected for a Palme d' or winner playing at an American festival. But I didn't have as many conversations about it, which I thought was interesting. Number four I mentioned was Begonia, which I just liked a lot and I thought was very funny and very clever and had great performances and was honestly pretty modest in scale when you think about Yorgos and poor things. And true it was, you know, it's more or less a three hander with the exception of Stavros Halkias, who I thought was very funny in this movie. Stavi, baby, don't want to say anything else about going Yu. Number three is the, I think the headline from the festival by far, which is Hamnid. Yeah, So I saw it in July. I texted you about it.
- [49:46]
B
You did?
- [49:48]
A
I said it was very, very good.
- [49:50]
B
You did.
- [49:50]
A
You asked me did I cry? And I did cry twice.
- [49:55]
B
Yeah. So we should say Hamnet is the Chloe Zhao adaptation of a Maggie o' Farrell novel that I liked very much.
- [50:03]
A
Very popular novel about William Shakespeare and his partner Agnes and their family. And if you haven't read the novel, you don't want to spoil anything, but this is, I'm certain you've heard it described as an old school weepy. It is a period weepy. It is a very tremendous, emotionally powerful movie, very tough movie as a parent. And I didn't talk to a single person that disliked it at the festival. It doesn't mean that it won't have its detractors, but it does something that Chloe Zhao has not previously necessarily like demonstrated, which is that she has a real handle on strong narrative filmmaking with momentum. You know, she makes a much more kind of glacially paced, ethereal, emotional, psychological kind of film. And this is a movie that in the first hour I was like, ah, this is kind of moving slow and I don't really know where it's headed. And then the second hour just kind of sweeps you off your feet and also has an absolutely like, thrilling final 20 minutes.
- [51:01]
B
And the ending of the novel is unlike anything that I've read in some time. It's just, it's amazing. So if they get close to that.
- [51:11]
A
It seemed like they did. And I heard from a lot of people who read the novel about the way that it was adapted and how some things were shrunk down. That worked really well too. So it's Paul Mescal as Shakespeare and my beloved Jesse Buckley as Agnes. And did I text you that Jessie Buckley will win back then, that she'll win Best Actress?
- [51:29]
B
But you think she will?
- [51:30]
A
I do. I mean, it's an Interesting slate. And we can talk about who would be among the contenders. I guess Emma Stone is in the conversation there in Begonia and Amanda Seyfried as well. But goddamn, she just took my breath away. And she is just an amazing actor and she does so much in the final 20 minutes of this movie. So we'll talk about it when we get to it. But this was the talk of the festival. This was the movie that took over, that everyone was thrilled about. I have some doubts about its best picture contender. Dom. I do think, obviously Chloe Zhao has already directed a film that won best Picture.
- [52:04]
B
Right.
- [52:05]
A
But.
- [52:05]
B
And seems small and, you know, emotional. And also. I'm just imagining when you tell people, yeah, it's about Shakespeare and his family. You know, we also. We already did that and that was a pretty ugly Oscar campaign.
- [52:22]
A
That's true. I think in 1998, this would have won pretty easily.
- [52:25]
C
Sure.
- [52:26]
A
It may still. And I think Chloe has a good story to tell about having survived the Marvel machine and come out the other side. Maybe even having picked up a couple of things having made a movie like that. Not that there's any CGI Thanos in Hamnet, although I would have appreciated that. But it's a very good film. Film number two is the Secret Agent, which is Kleber Mendelca Filo's new movie. The Brazilian filmmaker who we've talked about a couple times on the show. This is his new movie starring Wagner Mora from set in 1977. That is one part character study, one part espionage thriller that is very much a companion to I'm Still Here, the film that was nominated for best picture last year, the Brazilian entrant. This movie to me is far superior. I was really, like, mixed down on I'm Still Here because I thought it was so standard in terms of its narrative. This is like a movie that goes in wild places that features like, an amazing central performance that feels much closer to me to like those movies that Ezra programmed. That is like the Parallax View and All the President's Men. And it's like a conspiracy thriller wrapped inside of a sincere story about a guy trying to get back to his son. I thought like an exceptional film and I'm hopeful is like, more than just a Wagner Mora Best actor showcase. I hope, like a lot of people get a chance to see this Neon pick this one up as well as they are want to do with international contenders. We were speculating on Thursday night at dinner at Telluride that Neon could have all five international feature nominees.
- [53:56]
B
That's Funny.
- [53:56]
A
Okay, right. Because they've got the Park Chan Wook film. They've got the secret agent, they've got. It was just an accident. They've got. I think they have Seurat, which is a Spanish film that was not at either of these festivals, but it's fantastic. And they've got the film that I'm gonna talk about next, which is Sentimental Value.
- [54:11]
B
Yeah.
- [54:12]
A
Which won the Grand Prix at Cannes, is a new film from Joachim Trier starring Renata Renzvi, Stellan Skarsgrd, Elle Fanning, and is a kind of like, emotional continuation of the Worst Person in the World about a young woman, the daughter of a famous filmmaker, who is an actress herself and then her sister and the actress who is participating in her father's next film. And the home that they grew up in and the way that all of these things converge on each other. And it's just, you know, I'm personally very much on Trier's wavelength, but it is exceptionally moving and smart and funny. And I thought right after I saw it, this is your Best Picture winner. And I sent that to you and a couple of other people.
- [54:57]
B
You texted me. Yeah.
- [54:59]
A
And you were like, oh, interesting. And some other people were like, you're an idiot. Shut up. But this movie just worked really well on me. There's obviously a bunch of films we haven't seen yet, but I think Trier's balance of formal daring and sincerity is very exciting. And so I'm looking forward to you seeing this movie.
- [55:19]
B
I'm really, really excited to see it. It's like, it's. I mean, there's one other fall film that I'm also greatly anticipating, but like. But this is it. This will be a holiday.
- [55:29]
A
Yeah, it's worth it. This episode is brought to you by Pretty Litter. Keeping your house clean when you've got a cat is no easy feat. But with Pretty Litter, you don't have to choose between a fresh house and a healthy cat. This litter is practically magic. It's low dust, controls odors, and lasts up to a whole month. But the best part, it monitors your cat's health every time they use the box. Plus, Pretty Litter ships free right to your door. So no heavy bags to carry and no last minute pet store runs. Right now. Save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy at prettylitter.com bigpicture that's prettylitter.com bigpicture to save 20% on your first order and get a free cat toy. Pretty Litter.com BigPicture Pretty Litter cannot detect every feline health issue or prevent or diagnose diseases. A diagnosis can only come from a licensed veterinarian. Terms and conditions apply. See site for details. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn. One of the hardest parts about B2B marketing is reaching the right audience. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals and that's where it stands apart from other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title, industry, company role, seniority, skills, company revenue, all the professionals you need to reach in one place. Stop wasting budget on the wrong audience and start targeting the right professionals only on LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn will even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign so you can try it yourself. Just go to LinkedIn.com thebigpicture Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads. This episode is presented by State Farm. You know what's even more impressive than being an expert at movie trivia? Being smart about saving money. And a great way to do that is by choosing to bundle home and auto insurance with State Farm. 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 eligibility vary by state. I'll talk about some stuff that was there that I hadn't seen before because I saw most of those movies. Jay Kelly I liked. As I said, I think it's not in the a tier of Bombach, but that's I really love all of his movies. And he was honored as well with a tribute at this festival and he was interviewed by Rajendra Roy from MoMA. And then afterwards Adam Sandler and Lord Dern came on stage and gave him like a roast tribute where they talked about their experience with Noah and how much they love him. And Dern and Sandler were so funny and so great. And you know these theaters are very intimate, they're very small. You know, the Palm Theater where I saw it is like, I don't know, it's like less than 500 people. So you're watching Adam Sandler basically do stand up comedy in this presentation, but they did a clip reel of Baumbach's films, not unlike something that happens in the film and watching the best moments from all of his movies strung together. You know, one of the ideas of the movie is that making movies For Jay Kelly is the story of his life. He charts the progress of his life across the movies he's made. But you and I could chart the progress of our life, especially from adolescence into adulthood, from watching Noah Bob McMahon back movies. It's very true, you know, and, like, he's basically always five years ahead of us in terms of the arc of the story that he's telling. He's told all of these stories about the years after you go to college and graduate and don't know what to do with your life, and the years when you're in your 30s and you're like, are things slipping away from me? And the years when you're in your 40s and you're like, gosh, I'm not cool anymore. How do I feel about that? So it was exciting to be a part of that experience and think about how much I like what he's done. And I'm sure that probably softened me up on J. Kelly a little bit too.
- [58:59]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [58:59]
A
Having had that experience. Other movies I mentioned Cover up, which is Laura Poitras new documentary about Seymour Hersh, who is the extraordinary investigative journalist who broke the My Lai massacre story during the Vietnam War and has gone on to an extraordinary career. Sy was there. He was interviewed by Ezra Edelman, who was his neighbor growing up. Ezra Edelman grew up two doors down from Sy Hersh, which is an extraordinary coincidence.
- [59:22]
B
Wow.
- [59:23]
A
So they talked afterwards with Laura and Mark Obenhaus, the other filmmaker. Very cool conversation, if you care at all, about journalism and the naturally occurring deceit of the American government. Amazing movie. Definitely one of the best things I saw. I probably would be right outside my top five. I laughed so much at pillion. I think you will really like this movie. This was a Cannes film. Alexander Skarsgrd and Harry Melling, who people may know from the Harry Potter movies. This is maybe not the first, but probably the first BDSM rom com since Exit to Eden. Do you remember Exit to Eden?
- [59:56]
B
I do, yeah.
- [59:58]
A
That was not a very successful film. This film was very successful. Super funny, very sweet, very, very graphic. Lots and lots of sex in the movie, but very entertaining. And it was a big hit there too. If I had Legs, I'd kick you is a very intense portrait of motherhood. And I saw the movie before the festival, and I raced home and I said, eileen, you have to watch this trailer, but maybe don't ever watch the movie movie.
- [60:30]
B
Okay.
- [60:30]
A
Because it is harrowing.
- [60:33]
B
This is on my anticipated list, but, you know, and I'm gonna see it. Professionally, but I am also possibly stressed out about it.
- [60:40]
A
Yeah. It's Mary Bronstein, who has not made a movie in many years and is married to Ronald Bronstein, who is the filmmaker himself, the editor of the Safdie Brothers movies. And it's a movie about a mom played by Rose Byrne. It premiered at Cannes or. No, premiered at Sundance, I think. And the camera is on top of her face for, like, the entirety of the movie. It's about a mom who has a young daughter who is struggling with a physical ailment and a father, a husband who is out of town, and things are starting to fall apart around her. And we've all been there. We've all been there. I've never been a mom, but Burn's amazing. She's also in that conversation, I think, for Best Actress that I mentioned, I also saw Kelly Reichert's the mastermind, delightful 70s art house thriller with Josh O'. Connor. Sat next to Josh O'Connor during the screening. Lovely chap.
- [61:31]
B
Oh, cute. Okay, that's nice. Did he sit through the screening?
- [61:34]
A
He did, yeah. And then did a Q and A with Kelly afterwards.
- [61:37]
B
That's nice.
- [61:38]
A
And, you know, very quiet, very downbeat, very classically Reichardt. Don't expect fireworks. It's a character study, but it's a really good film. I think you'll like it. Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon. Love to. Loved. One of my favorite performances of the year. He plays Lorenz Hart, one half of the Hart and Rogers musical team. He's kind of at the end of his life, reflecting at Sardis on everything that has come before. Wild transformation for Hawk. It's very stage, like, very play. Not super cinematic, but I liked it. I liked it a lot more than Novel Vogue, which is the other Linklater movie which I didn't click with as much personally, which is a story about the making of Breathless, the Godard film, which I thought was a little too. This happened then. This happened. As opposed to having an emotional arc. The surprise of the festival was this movie called Tuner, which I tweeted about Daniel Rohrer, who is the documentarian. The documentarian of Navalny. I'm sorry for tweeting. This is his first feature film. Stars Leo Woodall and Havana Rose Liu and Dustin Hoffman. It's about a piano tuner who has extraordinary hearing. He has hearing addition as opposed to a hearing loss, which means he is hypersensitive to sound. So this makes him a very good piano tuner. It also makes him very good at safe cracking. So this movie that Starts out like a musical drama, like a character study of a guy who loves music. Very quickly turns into a thriller, like a heist thriller.
- [63:10]
B
Cool.
- [63:10]
A
It was really cool. I really enjoyed it. It was just fun. And it was that feeling that you were describing about A House of Dynamite. I was like, this is just kind of a conventional movie movie, in a good way. It was not an exploration of the deep pain inside of our souls as men and women. And then the last thing I saw that was a very sincere and sentimental thing was a documentary called Cycle of Love about an Indian man and a Swedish woman who fall in love and the Indian man's journey to go and find and meet this woman again in Sweden. It was a documentary, but is, like, entirely recreated. And the trick of it is that the recreations are basically real, where the actors who are hired are traveling through the world and all the encounters that they have with people across this journey are captured on film in documentary form. So the conversations between the man and the woman are actors and they're performed. Everything else is real. Really cool movie. Really sweet. Huge crowd pleaser, especially among the older folks at the festival.
- [64:07]
B
So is it based on real people or.
- [64:09]
A
Yes, it's based on real people who speak into camera during the film who kind of like narrate their lives and then we see these actors go through their lives.
- [64:16]
B
Cool.
- [64:17]
A
It was cool. It was nice. And it was the kind of discovery that you don't always get at a film festival if you don't pre screen like a maniac. Okay, I missed a bunch of stuff. The number one thing I missed that I feel bad about is man on the Run, which is the Paul McCartney documentary, the Morgan Neville.
- [64:32]
B
You didn't direct it?
- [64:33]
A
It just didn't match up with my timing.
- [64:35]
B
Yeah, you were just gloating about it.
- [64:38]
A
I was so pumped. And then it was like opposite J. Kelly and opposite. The other movie I should mention before we move on is I saw Frankenstein.
- [64:47]
B
As did I.
- [64:50]
A
And it wasn't good. I didn't think it was good. This is Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of the film. I'm a fan of gdt, as you know, and I thought this movie was, like, kind of a mess. It was a late announced post premiere from Venice. It was a late screening on Saturday night or Sunday night at the festival, and it was two and a half hours long. It's very faithful to the novel, the.
- [65:14]
B
Mary Shelley novel, which is important to you as a teen or whatever.
- [65:18]
A
It wasn't. I mean, I'm not a huge Frankenstein guy. More of a Dracula guy, as, you know. But, you know.
- [65:23]
B
Oh, that's what it is. I'm sorry. I was misremembering.
- [65:26]
A
But I like Frankenstein, and I like Frankenstein films, and I love the James Whale films, and that all matters to me, and it obviously matters a lot to Del Toro. Oscar Isaac plays Dr. Frankenstein. Jacob Elordi plays the Monster. Mia Goth plays two parts in the movie, and I thought it was pretty turgid. I was surprised by how much CGI was in the movie.
- [65:48]
B
Thank you. That was. I was really taken aback by how it looked and how it was shot and, you know, and they go to such efforts to, like, make the sets and make all of the. You know, there are a lot of physical effects, and then there are just some CGI wolves and a cgi. Like, it's shot very weirdly. I was really, really taken aback by how visually poor it looks.
- [66:12]
A
Well, I mean, he's arguably the greatest craftsman working in film. You know, like, he's renowned for his sets and costume design and the tactile nature of his mov. And it felt. There was obviously a lot of effort put into it, but there were just a handful of choices that just made it look not good to me. The performances are okay, and I have no problem with being faithful to the novel, but it just had no propulsion whatsoever. I thought Elordi did pretty well with what he was given as the monster. I know you thought he did well with his physique.
- [66:44]
B
He's very tall.
- [66:45]
A
He's very tall. Very tall. He looks good. I didn't, you know, the creature design, I didn't love for him, the makeup and the way that they did it, but it just kind of bummed me out seeing it.
- [66:54]
B
Yeah, I obviously didn't care for it.
- [66:57]
A
Yeah, I wasn't surprised, but that was the rare case where the vibe out of Venice was accurate to me. Two other big premieres that I saw quickly, Springsteen delivered me from nowhere. I didn't really like this movie very much. It's kind of the same thing in terms of how I feel about it as how I feel about all these movies. And people have been hearing me for years talk about these music biopics. This is a music biopic that presents itself as different because it is Bruce Springsteen during the creation of a less iconic album than, say, Born to Run or Born in the usa. And it's about Nebraska, the making of Nebraska, and how his experiences in his life up to that time informed the writing and creation of Nebraska. And the challenge of getting Nebraska on, you Know on tape. Jeremy Allen White plays Bruce. Jeremy Strong plays John Landau, his longtime manager and confidant. Odessa Young plays a woman who is in his life, who is apparently a composite of many women. Character development, I would say she is not the strongest character. She didn't do anything wrong here. But, you know, it's a Scott Cooper movie. I'm not the biggest Scott Cooper fan. I had some concerns going in. They were more or less confirmed after I saw the movie. Jeremy Allen White I thought was like borderline remarkable. As Bruce nails the singing. Nails the singing. There was a sequence where he sings a song in a studio where I was like, if you close your eyes. And we say this all the time about actors, but he nailed it. And I know that that is something that you think about when you think about these performances. The movie itself, I just thought had no juice, no energy. Bruce's struggle with depression is real. And the movie is very sincere about everything that Springsteen has endured in his life. I have empathy for that. I just found it to be not a good movie. And I'm pretty excited to talk to Chris about it because I'm very curious if he has more time for it because I like Nebraska, but it's not my favorite album of all time or anything. And I know that's a record that Chris really likes. Yeah, it's going to be around though. There were a lot of people who liked it at the festival.
- [69:09]
B
How is the other Jeremy?
- [69:12]
A
He was good, you know, like in a slightly self parodic zone, I would say.
- [69:15]
B
Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it seems that way. Okay.
- [69:18]
A
The movie is being pitched as like a love story between these two men. And I wouldn't say it really fulfills that promise.
- [69:23]
B
Okay.
- [69:24]
A
It does fulfill the promise of John Landau trying to protect Bruce Springsteen, which. That is a manager's job and a friend's job in some cases.
- [69:33]
B
Yeah. But it's like I don't really want to go see a movie about a manager. No offense.
- [69:37]
A
I mean, that is. It is in large part a movie about a manager and an artist. Of course, an artist writing a record. But yeah, there's a lot of talk about. I mean, there are scenes of Jeremy Strong alone, sitting in a high rise office thinking about his client. So, you know, it's a form of love. It is, it is. I should get a manager then. Someone really loved me. Yeah. The other movie that I saw that was a bit disappointing was Ballad of a Small Player, which was one of the big Friday night premieres.
- [70:07]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [70:08]
A
And Colin Farrell about a High roller in Macau who gets caught up in a web and loses everything and has to get it all back. And, you know, on paper, very much a me movie directed by Edward Berger, who was triumphant last year with Conclave at the Telluride Film Festival and went on to. You know, that film was Best Picture nominated and was a hit. This movie's just way less successful. And what I suspected was also confirmed, which is the script is just no good. Colin Farrell's really good. Cinematography's great. It looks beautiful, as all Berger films do. Great score from Volker Bertleman, but I don't know, it's like it's five different movies at once. Pinging around in genres. Didn't really work. Colin Farrell was at a lot of movies and was around all weekend. Seemed like a lovely guy. Seemed to be having a great time. I sat three seats down from him at this premiere. Felt that was tough. It was tough.
- [70:56]
B
That is tough.
- [70:56]
A
It was. It was a little. It was quiet in the room during the movie, which is really not ideal.
- [71:01]
B
Yeah.
- [71:01]
A
So that wasn't great. I think those are the big ones. I don't think I. I don't think I missed anything.
- [71:07]
B
Yeah. I'm trying to think if there's anything I. Else that I saw we. That didn't really work. Frankenstein, for sure. I'm. You know, I mean, there are a couple, but I don't really think anyone needs my thoughts on legrazia or.
- [71:20]
A
I thought it was so dull. I really like Sorrentino's movies, too, and I thought it was very dull.
- [71:24]
B
I mean, you know, I know I say this a lot, but, like, I. The West Wing did a really good episode that was like this, but, you know, 45 minutes and written by Aaron Sorkin. So, you know, I liked the. The rap stuff was funny. I sort of liked the disco music.
- [71:43]
A
It was. I kept waiting. I mean, this is the new Paolo Sorrentino movie about a president in the final days of his term trying to make a couple of decisions before he leaves office. And it has this kind of amusing techno hip hop motif where this very young music is starting to strike this older president, who's played by Tony Sorbillo. And I feel like the movie is almost like. Almost the music is a metaphor for the movie, which is like, there's a lot of buildup and no delivery. There's no, like, catharsis. There's no. It doesn't hit. So that was the patron screening at Telluride, where, you know, like, they give you a press orientation. Julie Hunsinger who runs the festival, who does an amazing job every year, she kind of breaks down what's on the slate, and then the patrons come in who have lined up and they get a special sneak preview. It's more or less the first movie of the festival, and that was that. This was the movie this year. And, you know, the patron screenings are a crapshoot. And this one wasn't great.
- [72:40]
B
I mean, it opened the festival here because this is Italy, but, you know, makes sense. It was fine. And then. And I did see wizard of the Kremlin. I was late. I missed the first 20 minutes. It didn't really matter because Jude Law doesn't show up for an hour. So this is the Olivier Assayas movie adapted from a French novel.
- [73:01]
A
Okay.
- [73:03]
B
In which Jude Law plays Vladimir Putin and Paul Dano plays, like his fixer, you know, like the titular wizard of the Kremlin. Alicia Vikander plays his love interest. Jeffrey Wright is there. And that's what I missed, actually, is why he was there. Jeffrey Wright, Yeah. But I was always happy to see him. And it has, and it really documents Juana's from late 90s ish until the present day and Putin's rise to power and Russian political maneuverings and oligarchs and all this sort of stuff, but with a typically sas, blunt force philosophical dialogue at you, plus narration. And. And yeah, and like Paul Dano's doing a ton of voiceover in a questionable British accent because it's another thing where it's people from all over the world. And so they're all, you know, they're all speaking, like, differently accented English.
- [74:16]
A
Not ideal.
- [74:18]
B
The dialogue, like, with his movies. At some point, you know, like, you just. It keeps hitting you and you get in a zone where you're like, yeah, actually, you're right. You know, like, it does all add up. And I do kind of see what you're saying. And I. And I think I did even quote a conversation from this movie in reference to another movie. So it's not without merit. I also kind of thought, like, Jude Law was pretty good as Putin. I had a fun time, but I wouldn't say it's a successful movie.
- [74:49]
A
Bit of a cold streak for us as. Yeah, it's not ideal. Gotta go back to the Carlos days. Okay, so I asked you to put together most anticipated movies of the fall list.
- [75:00]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [75:01]
A
And our lists are really funny because we share two movies and then the other three movies are the three best movies at each person's festival. So that kind of makes Sense. Listen, it's very self selecting here.
- [75:12]
B
We do our jobs, right?
- [75:14]
A
Sure, sure.
- [75:15]
B
I was given an assignment. I pay attention.
- [75:17]
A
Okay.
- [75:18]
B
We do my job.
- [75:19]
A
What's your number five? We can just go do this. Do this quickly.
- [75:22]
B
My 5 is if I had legs, I'd kick you the. The Roseburn mom movie, which I'm nervous about. But you know, I gotta challenge myself.
- [75:30]
A
It is. It's very safties inflected.
- [75:34]
B
Okay.
- [75:35]
A
I say that with love.
- [75:36]
B
You know, we deserve a safdies too.
- [75:38]
A
You know, that's exactly right. Okay. My number five is a house of dynamite, which. Yeah, I'd like to see soon. I'd like to see soon. Yeah. Yeah. That sucks. What's your number four?
- [75:49]
B
Marty Supreme.
- [75:50]
A
Yeah, this is my number three. Yeah, this is Josh Safdie.
- [75:53]
B
I'm excited.
- [75:54]
A
Which is not currently on a festival slate. The trailer came out while we were on vacation. I've watched it six times.
- [76:01]
B
Okay, I'm not watching it. I'm just gonna go see the movie.
- [76:05]
A
Yeah, I'm pretty pumped. Timothee Chalamet plays a table tennis wizard circa 1950s.
- [76:12]
B
Yeah. Of course.
- [76:13]
A
Gwyneth Paltrow plays his potential love interest. I noted Fran Drescher in the trailer.
- [76:20]
B
Great.
- [76:21]
A
A couple of other notable people in there. I'm very, very, very excited about this movie. This is like.
- [76:26]
B
Yeah.
- [76:27]
A
The last movie of the year. You know what I mean? Where it's like it's coming out on Christmas. We'll kind of be like leading up to this movie through December. Looking forward to it.
- [76:35]
B
I'm ready.
- [76:36]
A
Yeah, me too. Okay, what's next? My number four. My number four is no other choice. Which is the park film that I'm pumped for. I know. Stop rubbing it in.
- [76:45]
B
My number three is Hamnet, which you liked very much, as did everyone at Tell Ride. And you could tell from afar that this was the like the Telluride breakout. I mean, I do think that, you know, Paul Maskell posed for just like tremendous amount of photos in his car heart. But he looked great. So.
- [77:02]
A
Yeah. And he's very good in the film, but he's not the story of the movie to me.
- [77:05]
B
Yeah.
- [77:07]
A
My number three, as I said, is Marty Supreme. What's your number two?
- [77:09]
B
Okay. My number two is sentimental value, which you have seen and I have not. And I would like to.
- [77:14]
A
Yeah. I'm not rubbing it in. It's good.
- [77:15]
B
Yeah.
- [77:17]
A
My number two is the testament of an Lee, which is one of your faves at the festival.
- [77:21]
B
Yeah.
- [77:21]
A
It's all the seifered heads the stock's been hitting pretty consistently for about five years.
- [77:27]
B
Yeah.
- [77:28]
A
Ever since Elizabeth Holmes, she's been just nailing it on. And one of the things I was going to say is when her Oscar campaign really happens, we need to do the I finally watch Mamma Mia episode.
- [77:39]
B
Yes, you do. Also, you have never seen the Tom Hooper Les Mis, right?
- [77:45]
A
No, I haven't.
- [77:45]
B
Yeah, yeah. Which. Another. There, there's like two shots where she's singing and like intense close up. And I was like, oh, no, we're getting into Les Mis territory. But they get away from it and she's. She's really good. So it's going to be quite a ride for you. Have you seen Mean Girls?
- [78:00]
A
I love Mean Girls. She's very funny. And Mean Girls. She has espn. No, I love her, but it's funny that I've not seen her two biggest movies.
- [78:10]
B
Yeah, that's okay. We'll catch up.
- [78:13]
A
Number two for me. I said Testament of an Lee. Number one for you is the same as for me. What is it?
- [78:17]
B
One battle after another.
- [78:19]
A
Still haven't seen it.
- [78:20]
B
No festivals.
- [78:21]
A
It's coming out in three weeks.
- [78:22]
B
It's so soon. As soon as. As soon as I get back. Heck, we gotta jump into. That's not true. Actually. I have to go see Caught Stealing. Really jet lagged.
- [78:30]
A
That'll be interesting. We're gonna talk about Caught Stealing later this week on the pot along with highest to lowest. But before we do that, before we take off, let's try to. Let's try to hash out Best Picture.
- [78:42]
B
Okay.
- [78:43]
A
This is really hard right now and really fake. I think we actually got 8 out of 10, maybe even 9 out of 10 at this time last year.
- [78:52]
B
Wow.
- [78:52]
A
But this year we just haven't seen nearly as much. So let's just like. Can we just list them before we start trying to rank anything?
- [78:58]
B
Yeah. Okay. So number one, Sinners.
- [79:00]
A
Sinners, yes. Which we know at least is out in the world. People love it. It's almost certainly going to be nominated for Best Picture, although not definitely. As more films start to come across. I feel strongly in saying Hamnet. You know, that seems right too. Is there? Yeah, I believe sentimental value will be there there.
- [79:18]
B
I think that that seems right as well.
- [79:22]
A
How do you feel about House of Dynamite?
- [79:26]
B
I think I. Yeah, I think it could now.
- [79:30]
A
Do you think this is the only Netflix movie that will be nominated for Best Picture?
- [79:33]
B
Well, J. Kelly is probably. The Academy has never given him an Oscar, but really liked Marriage Story. You know, I feel like he's on the Radar. And it is such a, as you said, like slightly older voter in a Hollywood movie. Right. Though, like, we say that every year, and I feel like that becomes less and less true as years goes on. It's really just because the Academy gets more international, but I think that it's still American enough. Yes.
- [80:07]
A
Okay. Jay Kelly, Sin Hamnet, Sentimental Value, House of Dynamite by Jay Kelly. One thing I wanted to ask you. You know, there's a big. There's a lot of movies on Netflix's, which we talked about in our auction episode. Do you think there's room for Train Dreams to come back in? Because Frankenstein, J. Kelly, Small Player. These are much more muted receptions than we were expecting. And I was wondering if that means that there's a Train Dreams opportunity there. I know you haven't seen it yet.
- [80:33]
B
Yeah, no, I haven't seen it yet. That's a Sundance movie and Joel Edgerton and Logging. Am I getting this right, even though I haven't seen it?
- [80:43]
A
Yeah. Based on a Dennis Johnson novel.
- [80:46]
B
They always have a late breaker. You know, they always figure something out. But I don't know whether it would be Train Dreams or whether it would be. I mean, it's pretty open.
- [81:00]
A
Yeah, there's another film.
- [81:01]
B
I'm not saying no.
- [81:01]
A
Yeah, there's another film called Left Handed Girl, which was produced and edited by Sean Baker, which I think is directed by Xi Chung Tu, the. His longtime producing partner, collaborator. And that could also be a late breaking Netflix movie. I don't. I don't. It's not as big, but I'm kind of. I'm fascinated by Netflix having like six eligible movies, whereas, like, three months ago you'd be like, yeah, Frankenstein probably pretty good. Like Nightmare Alley got a Best Picture nomination. You know, you'd think Frank and maybe Frankenstein will be better received outside of the festivals. Maybe regular audiences will like it, but I don't think so.
- [81:41]
B
Yeah, I don't think so either. Okay, so how many do we have?
- [81:43]
A
We have Sinners, Hamnet, Sentimental Value, House of Dynamite, J. Kelly. That's five.
- [81:49]
B
Okay.
- [81:49]
A
We have a few that we haven't seen. I'll throw Marty Supreme, One Battle after another at you.
- [81:53]
B
I think both are likely or at least, you know, possible right now. They always come through for pta.
- [82:01]
A
And you were not super high on Smashing Machine. Right, Right.
- [82:04]
B
I think that I. I mean, I'm not in the, like, the mma ufc, like, wrestling world at some point is just kind of like, I. I actually thought all of those. The footage of Dwayne the Rock Johnson Pulverizing people set to beautiful music. Like, it was actually quite beautiful. I liked that. But I was sort of befuddled by, I guess, the pacing of the movie. And some of that is just because I'm not as invested in the sport aspect.
- [82:41]
A
Yeah, I had a chance to see it a while ago, and I really liked it. And it's very much a spiritual sequel to Benny's show, the Curse with Nathan Fielder, which may surprise some people to hear that, based on the trailer that they watched of the movie, which is a kind of more classically triumphant sports movie trailer. But I've been begging for five years for Dwayne Johnson to make good movies. And this is a step in the right direction for sure. And I think what Benny's mission is and what Dwayne's mission is is a very interesting. Not a contrast. They're working together. But Safdie is into something very strange in this movie. Actually, David Sims, I saw in Letterboxd, comped it with Lenny Cook, the documentary that Benny and Josh made some years ago about the college basketball player Lenny Cook. And I like that as a way of thinking about how they think about sports and how this movie thinks about being an athlete. But anyway, we'll talk more about Smashing Machine because it's out in a month, so we'll get to it when we get there. Okay, so, Marty Supreme. One battle after another. What else is out there?
- [83:41]
B
Let's see. I know we're forgetting. Well, let's do international, okay? Because we get a few internationals every year. We're. Well, and so this is one. I don't know whether I think there's room for both. Begonia, which is not international, but, you know, and no other choice. I think that they are. They are twinned or they're not twinned, but they have. They have a lot in common. And they are also out there in the best way in terms of. You know, those directors like to. Like to push the audience. So does no other choice get in? It's, you know, it's neon. It's. I think there's going to be a major push for it. I. I think it's a contender for golden lion, you know, is. Is this the year that it breaks? That park chain Woke. Breaks through Best Picture Is. Is. Is a good question.
- [84:39]
A
My gut says yes. That's not really based on anything, having not seen the movie, except just that we've seen a lot of international films break through in the last few years. I think the appreciation of park is growing over time. We included the handmaiden in our 25 for 25 countdown list, you said it's a lake capitalism movie. That's a theme that's been fairly dominant with the Academy. You could certainly make the case that Anora is another one of those films.
- [85:04]
B
And maybe I'm wrong. And they would do Begonia too. It feels like the Academy likes favorite poor things costume drama Yorgos, and this is having a little bit of fun at that audience's expense. So I don't know.
- [85:25]
A
I'll go with that. I think that makes a lot of sense. Then that leaves, I think, two behemoth Hollywood movies.
- [85:32]
B
Oh, sure.
- [85:32]
A
Wicked Part 2, Wicked for Good and Fire and Ash.
- [85:36]
B
Oh, that's right.
- [85:37]
A
Avatar, which of course, the first two were nominated for best picture.
- [85:43]
B
Yeah.
- [85:43]
A
Okay, Can I proffer a take? I'm not saying I believe this. If this were the fantasy football podcast Take Purge, I would definitely pitch this. Here's my pitch. Avatar, Fire and Ash will be the best Avatar movie, but will get no Oscar nominations.
- [86:00]
B
Okay.
- [86:01]
A
I don't know if I believe that because it obviously is going to get best visual effects, but I feel like.
- [86:07]
B
Oh, so that's the part of the take you have a problem with? Well, because rather than it'll be the best one, I mean, the best one is. You can say that with your whole heart.
- [86:16]
A
I mean, most people don't even seemingly care about them, except for the real Cameron heads. Even our own beloved Chris Ryan, dumped on Avatar, having never seen it.
- [86:25]
B
Yeah. No.
- [86:26]
A
What?
- [86:26]
B
I was thinking about Avatar while I was watching Frankenstein because I was like. Like, Big Jim would not let this out the door, you know, like.
- [86:35]
A
Oh, I agree with that.
- [86:36]
B
He just. It's just, it's. It's maybe not the world that I want to spend all my time in, but when you go see it, like, he makes it look good and like, I don't know. I don't know what that was.
- [86:49]
A
There is a handful of other titles that we're not. We haven't listed, but I think could make some noise. So Rental Family is premiering at Tiffany later this week. New Brendan Fraser movie directed by Hikari, which has strong word of mouth. I'm gonna put Train Dreams on this part of the list here.
- [87:08]
B
Okay.
- [87:11]
A
What else do we need to. I mean, maybe Springsteen hits, you know, maybe Springsteen for a certain kind of audience is a fit. You know, Bohemian Rhapsody, once upon a time was an Academy Award winner, so that's not out of the realm of possibility. Obviously. Complete Unknown did very well with the Academy.
- [87:28]
B
Me.
- [87:30]
A
And then we neglected to mention it was just an accident.
- [87:33]
B
Right.
- [87:34]
A
Which won the Palm and has neon behind it.
- [87:39]
B
Right.
- [87:40]
A
I think we've gotten. I think we've gotten everything. I mean, there's probably a few things that we haven't seen. Oh, what about. Is this thing on?
- [87:48]
B
Oh, my God. We totally forgot about that.
- [87:52]
A
That's premiering at the New York Film Festival. New Bradley Cooper.
- [87:55]
B
Right. So it was after the Hunt, so. No, I. Listen, like I said, I don't know how it ends.
- [88:05]
A
A classic Amanda story. I must tell you, I missed the last 20 minutes of my most anticipated movie at the festival.
- [88:11]
B
It's not my fault.
- [88:13]
A
No one's blaming you. No one is blaming you.
- [88:15]
B
I tried so hard. I was in line, you know, Figure out your sound another time when I'm not about to die in a lightning storm. I think that you should put it on the list.
- [88:29]
A
I'm not putting it on the list. I'm putting. Is this thing on on the list for sure.
- [88:32]
B
No, yeah, yeah. That's what I meant.
- [88:33]
A
Also, the testament of Ann Lee, we need to add as well.
- [88:36]
B
Sure. You know who really, really loves Bradley Cooper is the Academy.
- [88:41]
A
They sure do. 14 Academy Award nominations.
- [88:44]
B
I know. So.
- [88:47]
A
Okay. Gosh. There's going to be another surprise that we don't see coming. One thing that was an interesting conversation point on Sunday and Monday at the Telluride Film Festival, once we had seen everything and we had read the Venice reviews, aside from House of Dynamite was. Is Weapons in Play?
- [89:05]
B
Oh, yeah. So we haven't talked about this, but I'm going to have to go see it. I have accepted that. I know that I have to, like, 40 million-plus box office on the first weekend. I was like, what's going on?
- [89:19]
A
It was an amaz. It's an amazing phenomenon. It's very exciting. I mean, you know, I worked hard to do a competent solo episode, but there was an episode that really demanded a crew having the conversation. So later this month, me and you and Chris, we can talk about it once you've gone to see it and we'll do, you know, a proper look. Maybe once it hits, VOD will be the time to do it. But. Yeah, man. I mean. And look, the feeling that I had in the theater when I saw it at the premiere, I was like, this just works. You know, when a movie is just, like, really working and it's working for an audience. And it has obviously, like, stymied some critics because they feel like it doesn't fulfill some of the narrative suggestion that it throws out there. And you might you might feel that way when you see it. You might be, like. You might find it a little enervating in that way, but as, like, a thrill ride. It's just so fun. It's just such a fun time at the movies. So you have to see it.
- [90:05]
B
Yeah, Yeah, I agree with you. I'm going to see it. I'm. I'm stressed out already thinking about it. My counterpoint is just anecdotal, but I sat next to a listener and my flight to Europe, which was very nice.
- [90:19]
A
That's a lot of time to spend with a listener. How was that?
- [90:21]
B
Well, we. We slept for most of it.
- [90:22]
A
Okay.
- [90:24]
B
You know.
- [90:25]
A
Was it Y. Is that who you're referring to?
- [90:27]
B
No, I'm sorry, I can't remember his name. He was very lovely and helped me with my suitcase. But he asked if I had seen Weapons because this was forever ago now. And I said I hadn't. And he said that he had seen it twice. And then he had told I believe his parents, who are movie people, to go see it. And that was not received well by the next generation of movie parents that they weren't there. So I do wonder if there is a generational.
- [90:57]
A
There could be. Yeah, there could be.
- [90:59]
B
I'm just passing that along. Then he watched Better man on the Plane at my sort of recommendation.
- [91:06]
A
This is a very crowded year, as you can see from the 17 movies that we just listed. But it reminds me of the Sixth Sense, which was like a you have to go see this movie feeling. That movie was a bigger phenomenon ultimately than Weapons, but Weapons did really well in what turned out to be like a kind of medium summer. It became one of the big stories, one of the smallest movies to do so well. It's in the same year as Sinners. It's possible that Sinners, which is from the same studio, will block it out, and maybe only Amy Madigan will be competing in supporting actress, which is a fairly weak category this year, Supporting actress. So she could, you know, the movie could just be in the conversation. Maybe a screenplay nomination is somewhat possible for Craigger. But, yeah, great to have that movie. Just great to have that movie in the movie culture. All right, let's try to just, like, just help me bang this into order a little bit. Okay.
- [91:52]
B
Okay.
- [91:53]
A
All right. I'm gonna list all the movies that we just. That we just mentioned.
- [91:55]
B
Okay.
- [91:56]
A
Sinner's Hammond, Sentimental Value, House of Dynamite, J. Kelly, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Begonia. No other choice. It was just an accident. That's 10, right. Wicked for Good Avatar Fire and Ash. Rental. Family Train Dreams. Springsteen. Deliver Me From Nowhere. Is this thing on? The Testament of ann Lee. That's 17.
- [92:12]
B
Okay.
- [92:13]
A
There's probably something we've neglected to mention just because we're flying blind here. We don't have a producer right now. Jack. Come back soon.
- [92:21]
B
I think he's on his way. Jack. Travel safely.
- [92:23]
A
Yes, Jack. Please be safe. Help me put them in order. What's a number one right now in your mind?
- [92:30]
B
Number one?
- [92:31]
A
Yeah. Hamnet. Is it sentimental value?
- [92:36]
B
Sentimental value. I think I trust you on that one.
- [92:39]
A
I mean, I did say this about Anora. You did in the same way. Very early. So my radar has gotten better. We've come a long way from the get out for best Picture days, as you know.
- [92:51]
B
Right. Also, the Academy has changed too. They have so sentimental value. Think right now, based on festival stuff. I think there's more. Hamnet. Yeah. Over any sort of festival consensus around the Venice stuff. But then, you know, you should put House of Dynamite on there. I don't. I don't think House of Dynamite is going to win Best Picture just because I think they already did the Bigelow thing, you know, but they also did.
- [93:20]
A
The Chloe Zhao thing. This is also a year where you could have two women nominated for Best Director. Very. Maybe even three if you get the Testament of Ann Lee.
- [93:32]
B
Wow.
- [93:32]
A
Think about that. That never happens.
- [93:35]
B
It's true. Sitting in the Testament of Anley, which I really, really liked, I did think to myself, I was like, I don't know if this is gonna get the same reaction that, you know, first of all, it has a lot in common with the Brutalists and it was obviously made by the same team. But. But the Brutalist is bigger. I mean, it is longer, but it is trying to do. It is more ambitious, at least in the traditional masculine sense of that word. And it's about a dude. And so sitting there I was like, I don't know whether this will get the same level of attention that a movie about a Holocaust survivor architect is going to get. So. And that's not the movie's fault. I think that's just the way the voting in the world works. So I don't know. I would be thrilled if it got nominated, but I don't know.
- [94:35]
A
Well, we're in a tricky spot here because we got too many movies for not enough spots.
- [94:43]
B
Yeah.
- [94:44]
A
So look at what we have. Sinners, J. Kelly.
- [94:46]
B
Put Wicked for good and Avatar Fire and Ash on there. Like we know that's going to happen.
- [94:50]
A
Well, I'm not Convinced that Avatar is going to make it. It. I know doubting Big Jim is the costliest bet in Hollywood, and I'm not and not advising anyone make that bet, but I think it's just a little too soon. From the way of Water, I think it. And if it disappoints even slightly, I could see a movie like that. You know, I'm.
- [95:09]
B
I'm fine. We don't have to give it a spot, but I think Wicked for good. We just gotta, you know.
- [95:12]
A
Yeah, we gotta put our head down on that one. Yeah, I agree with you. Okay. Sinners, I think, is getting in.
- [95:17]
B
I really thought Frankenstein looked so much like Wicked kid.
- [95:21]
A
Yeah.
- [95:22]
B
Like when they're in the lab. Sorry. It just. I was. And that's not a compliment.
- [95:27]
A
No. It's the color grading and the lighting is just a little off. And it has that kind of that Netflix sheen on it that we sometimes.
- [95:32]
B
Complain about, but there's just like a flatness to the way they're filming that's very confusing. Anyway. Yes. Sinners.
- [95:37]
A
Sinners.
- [95:38]
B
Yes, I agree. Okay.
- [95:39]
A
Do you think J. Kelly will make it?
- [95:42]
B
I don't know. I don't know.
- [95:46]
A
Interesting.
- [95:46]
B
Probably right now. Yes. The. The Telluride reception kind of makes me think, yes. I'm gonna put George. I. I think Sandler will make it. And the Sandler campaign will go a really long way. And it definitely seems like he has signed up. He flew straight from Venice to. To Telluride. The whole family was here.
- [96:06]
A
He was also at Telluride. I got a chance to say hi to him, and he's the greatest. He's. I thought he was like. Like pretty brilliant in the movie in a weird part that in the wrong hands would have been terrible because this is. That's another movie that is about the relationship between an artist and a manager. And I thought handled that relationship way differently and better another way. The two movies at T Ride were talking to each other. I thought he was great. We'll see. We'll see how people feel about it. I'm putting it on for now because there's going to be a lot of weight behind it. And I do think there's a good. Like. Like it's time for Noah a story to tell.
- [96:42]
B
Absolutely. Okay, so let's. Let's do non American.
- [96:47]
A
Okay.
- [96:47]
B
Oh, okay. I just saw you highlighted one battle after another. I think you should put it in. I agree.
- [96:52]
A
They always come through.
- [96:52]
B
They come through for pta.
- [96:53]
A
Yeah. I think, you know, we haven't seen it yet. We've got A lot of content planned to cover this movie over the next 30 days. We're all really excited. We don't want to waste any more breath on it. To me, we got three spots for five movies. I, I, I could see a world where no other choice and it was just an accident get in.
- [97:13]
B
I could as well. I think that makes sense. I mean it's really just a question of can like can Neon split its own vote like that.
- [97:21]
A
That's what it and that's that would be an amazing act if they got sentimental value. No other choice and it was just an accident in it could happen that.
- [97:31]
B
Would see it is I, I know that sentimental value is technically not it's not American, but how much of it is in English? You know, just to.
- [97:43]
A
Because every single fanning and that's it.
- [97:47]
B
Okay. Oh, interesting. So it's kind of all over the place. I'm just trying to figure out because American voters can really, you know, code in do I have to have subtitles or do I not? And as in terms of international but so that's going to scan as international to it.
- [98:06]
A
It has some correlation to the American film industry.
- [98:10]
B
Okay.
- [98:11]
A
So it's not going to be the same as sitting down for it was just an accident or no other choice which are, you know, there are no American actors in those films. There's no English spoken as far as I know. No other choice in those films. Marty Supreme Begonia, Avatar Fire and Ash for the last spot. Spot. H I don't know. I mean, it's impossible to know with Marty because on the one hand it looks huge and it's shalom and it's a 24. And they currently do not have a film on the list. And they never don't have a film on the list.
- [98:42]
B
Right.
- [98:42]
A
You know, I'm obviously incredibly biased and I really like Josh a lot and love what he's up to as a filmmaker. And I don't think a 24 is going to miss on a movie. But, but I don't know. Maybe it's maybe Uncut Gems was not nominated for best Picture. There's no guarantee that the kind of movies that they make that Josh makes is gonna. We don't know. We just don't know. Begonia Yos is nominated all the time.
- [99:07]
B
That's true. But it does feel like people went so nuts for poor things in part because it departs from the dog tooth of it all. And, and this is going back a little bit. So on the other hand, if we think Jesse Plemons is going to be nominated or possibly win Best Actor and Emma Stone will be in the mix, then that gets it back in people's good graces.
- [99:37]
A
You're right about that. I think there's a decent chance that it gets at least one of those two nominations and not Best Picture. And here's why. Focuses Money will be on Hamnet. That's going to be the movie that they really get behind. It doesn't mean they're not going to support Begonia, but their prized pony will be Hamnet.
- [99:59]
B
Okay.
- [100:00]
A
Focus has also never won Best Picture in its entire history.
- [100:04]
B
Wow.
- [100:05]
A
Hamnet. You know, it should have been Brokeback Mountain. It should have been Brokeback Mountain, and it wasn't. They've had, obviously, a ton of great movies over the years.
- [100:11]
B
Years. Downton Abbey, the grand finale.
- [100:15]
A
It's in play.
- [100:15]
B
You know, put. Put that in. Put that in. Number 10. Have you seen it yet?
- [100:19]
A
No, no, I had to skip a screening while I was on vacation. But we'll. We'll do a solid 18 minutes on it at some point this month and talk about how much we love those movies. Those movies are rock.
- [100:29]
B
I can't wait. I'm so excited. I My. Right now I'm saying Marty Supreme.
- [100:33]
A
I am, too.
- [100:34]
B
My gut is telling me I am, too. I think that's. That the witches, Chalamet, Gwyneth A24. The fact that it's like a period piece, you know, again, like some, like the. The costumes, like, read a certain way to people.
- [100:48]
A
Yep. So, okay, here's our. Here's our top 10. I put the. To me, like, four through 10 is not really in any order at this point, so please don't aggregate. Amanda. Number 10 is J. Kelly. Number 9 is Wicked for Good. Number 8 is Sinners. Number 7 is One Battle After Another. Number 6 is. It Was Just an Accident. Number 5 is no Other Choice. Number 4 is Marty Supreme. Number 3 is House of Dynamite. Number 2 is Hamnet. And number 1 is Sentimental Value. Gut reaction. How many out of the final ten do you think we got right. Right now?
- [101:20]
B
Seven?
- [101:21]
A
I'm gonna say eight.
- [101:23]
B
Okay, that's good, but we do. I mean, listen, it's. Until this past week, we've been saying it's an incredibly weird year. There are no obvious contenders. We don't know what's going on. So I'm trying to, you know, be kind to us. Us. Seven or eight would be good.
- [101:38]
A
Oh, that'd be. Yeah, that'd be solid, considering we do this for a living and get money for it. Begonia Fire and Ash, Rental, Family Train Dreams, Springsteen. Is this thing on the Testament of Ann Lee, Frankenstein and weapons. We're not predicting to go into Best Picture, not to mention the one or two other movies that hit in the next four months that we don't really know about.
- [102:01]
B
Right, right.
- [102:02]
A
So. Or at least we don't. You know, I don't think, like, the Jarmusch film, for example, is going to contend. I don't think Ellen McKay is going to contend. But you never know. A James L. Brooks movie. You never know. Die, my love, you never know. Did you see Late Fame?
- [102:17]
B
I didn't. I missed it.
- [102:19]
A
That's the new Kent Jones movie, which I'm looking forward to, which is Willem Dafoe and Greta Lee. Heard nice things about that movie. Roofman, Roofman, Roofman.
- [102:31]
B
Kirsten Dunst got a Town and country cover. So I saw that, you know, all is right in the world.
- [102:37]
A
Is that a good thing to guess?
- [102:38]
B
Well, no, but in it she said that Sophia is working on the script for the next movie they're doing together. So that's. It's absolutely gigantic, as you would say.
- [102:48]
A
I'm happy for you. Okay. I think we've done Yeoman's work here. Feeling good, I feel.
- [102:55]
B
No, but I'm excited to see the rest of the movies. I'm excited to come home.
- [102:59]
A
It's after midnight in Italy.
- [103:01]
B
Yes, it is.
- [103:01]
A
You fly home tomorrow?
- [103:03]
B
I do.
- [103:03]
A
Do you feel ready to come home?
- [103:05]
B
I'm. I'm really. Again, I love being here. It was fantastic. Even when I swore I would never come back during the rainstorm. But I do. I miss home. I miss my children. I miss my husband. Yeah. I miss a normal size shower.
- [103:25]
A
Is it too small or too big?
- [103:27]
B
Oh, no, this one's very small. This is like a little, like. It's like a locker. But that's okay. No, it's been lovely to be here. It's very beautiful. Thank you, Venezia. And goodbye.
- [103:41]
A
Goodbye, Amanda. Let's go to my conversation with Alex Russell here with Alex Russell, feature directorial debut.
- [103:52]
C
Yeah.
- [103:53]
A
Lurker. How are you feeling?
- [103:55]
C
I feel very nervous.
- [103:57]
A
Okay. About this conversation about the reception of the movie. About what?
- [104:02]
C
All of that. I think. I think the exposure. I feel very exposed right now talking to you, but I'm glad that people like the movie. I think there's so many more opportunities now for people to not like it is how I feel.
- [104:22]
A
Why? Because you only had it in a festival context and that's a very warm.
- [104:25]
C
Space for it to premiere.
- [104:26]
A
Yeah.
- [104:27]
C
Yeah. I do Think it's a warm space people want. People want to like the movie at Sundance, I think. And it's full of.
- [104:37]
A
I.
- [104:37]
C
You know, I packed out my screening with people who worked on the movie. So it was.
- [104:41]
A
That's a cheat code, a tried and true strategy.
- [104:44]
C
But the people who worked on the movie had to like working with you to do that.
- [104:47]
A
Okay, so I want to talk about all that and how you came to make this movie. So my sense from watching it was that it had a real texture and sense of comfort in the world that it's portraying, which is essentially kind of the inside, outside of the LA music scene, at least proximate to a successful artist. And I heard you say in a couple of interviews that this is like a world that you knew or know. How is that the case? How do you know this space and how do you know these characters so well?
- [105:21]
C
Yeah, I mean, all of my friends to this day are still in music. Music managers, artists, producers, DJs. You know, I don't know how exactly that happened, but it just is my existence in la. And I feel like I've seen these kinds of ensembles and groups and fallouts and dynamics and sort of like the gravitational pull of a new artist. And I've seen those cycles play out, I think, numerous times in a way where you start to see patterns and archetypes and stuff like that. So, yeah, I feel like all the characters in the movie, I've seen some version of that guy, and there was some imagination used, I think, in constructing them. But I think knowing that world just allowed me to stress test any. Any of the details, which I think for this movie in particular was key, because if it felt inauthentic, it's like the corniest movie of all time. And that was my big fear in making it.
- [106:34]
A
Yeah, I'm curious about some of the aesthetic choices in the movie too, because it feels very surveillance observational. You know, it feels like we're very close to a natural world. Instead of something that, like, made by a different filmmaker, this could be like a really stylized movie. It is very colorful and loud and. And doesn't feel invasive necessarily. So was that because you were attempting to kind of replicate the feeling of the scene that you had witnessed yourself?
- [107:01]
C
Honestly, a lot of that came later in the process when I started having conversations with my dp. Pat Scola is my dp. He shot that movie Sing Sing, and I think he really brought, like, a warmth and, like a human quality to these kind of darker interactions that everyone's having, which I Felt really served the movie. I think they're, you know, the first thought for making something like this could have been super, like, Finchery cold or like a nightcrawler type of feeling. But I guess it was nice to establish some contrast there because it. Things will already feel that way because of what happens in the movie. And there's some things that feel more precise as you get into the second half. And I don't know, I wanted you to feel like these were real characters and real people, and the, you know, the interactions they have are very relatable. So I wanted people to understand that this was supposed to be somewhat realistic.
- [108:17]
A
Was there like an inciting incident or a moment that you witnessed when you were inside this world before you started writing that flipped a switch and made you think, like, this could be. There's the arc of a story inside of this. This space or with that person or something that they did.
- [108:35]
C
Nothing in particular. But so many of the things that happen in the movie are similar to something I've witnessed or an extrapolation of something like that. You know, I've been in rooms like this, but it was more of like a feeling, an overall sort of maybe feeling of disgusting that I felt within me, that I wanted to explore. And it was very low stakes at the time because it was just like, can I explore this feeling? Covid had just started when I wrote it, and I was like, I really want to explore this. This kind of like, nauseous feeling that I have. And this is what came out of it.
- [109:19]
A
Well, what do you mean? Like, what. Why did you feel nauseous? Because you related to one of the. Or more of the characters.
- [109:26]
C
I think it was more of a. In a male friendship type of way. Like, this is. I'm participating in a strange hierarchy, you know, and it wasn't the first time, like, I'd felt that way when I was in college or high school. And sometimes you're one of the characters, sometimes you're the other. And, you know, boys will not talk about that kind of thing.
- [109:55]
A
Yeah, you. So you felt like you had been on top and on the bottom of certain social dynamics.
- [110:00]
C
Yeah, I think so. Or it's like, it's not binary like that, but there's always some awareness of who has something the other person wants. Socially, I always talk about how, like, you know, sometimes you'll get a text from your cool new friend, and on the same day you'll get a text from your old friend. And like, who do you text back first? That's a social Calculation that if you have any shame, you might feel a little guilt about it. But no one sees it. No one sees that calculation except for you. And that was the kind of thing I wanted to get into in this movie, I guess.
- [110:47]
A
Did you feel that before you were an adult in Los Angeles? Like, did you. Do you have, like, in high school you felt that way?
- [110:55]
C
I don't think my awareness of it was. I don't think I could have articulated it, but I think it was something that was growing in me. And something I do want to emphasize about this movie is that, like, the setting is a setting. And I think, think this movie could have taken place in a lot of different spaces where there's like six guys. And this was just the one that I knew about, you know, and the one that I had so, just so recently been a part of.
- [111:32]
A
We're talking about you, you know, starting to write this during COVID But, you know, your, your background before this was writing for television. Was your intention always to be making features? Like, how did you even get involved in writing and making things in the first place?
- [111:48]
C
I mean, I'd done a lot of small amateur stuff for no budget leading up to that point. And then once I was a TV writer, well, I should say the absolute ceiling for my hopes, dreams and ambitions was being a staff writer on a TV show.
- [112:11]
A
Okay.
- [112:12]
C
So the idea of me directing a movie that I wrote was beyond far fetched. Actually, in this moment, it sounds really surreal that that's real because it really.
- [112:27]
A
Dude, you're here.
- [112:30]
C
Yeah, I did it. And it actually is the movie that I was trying to make, which I could imagine a million different ways it could have gone wrong or like, you know, especially going to a festival. I'm sure there's so many people who go there and they're like, you know, I didn't necessarily have the resources or I miscast someone or I didn't totally know what I was doing and I didn't. But like, you could go there and just know in your heart that it's kind of.
- [113:00]
A
It's a little off.
- [113:01]
C
It's a little off. Or it's like half of what you were really, really hoping happens all the time on the screen. And then you still kind of have to stand on it and be like, it was always my dream to make this movie. I would say in this case, it really was what I was hoping it could be. And I think that's kind of what fortifies me against this time of being exposed is like, I actually do really like it And I'm glad when people do, too, or when they get it, it feels. It's intoxicatingly validating.
- [113:35]
A
I can imagine. I mean, you're having, in the arc of the young writer director, the exciting festival debut that announces a new voice is a. So you also have the perils of the sophomore slump to prepare yourself for emotionally, too. So just as you crest out of the positivity of number one, we don't need to go there yet with this movie. You mentioned it could be a cold Fincher movie. You mentioned that it could be, to me, a very clear signpost for the movie is King of Comedy. This is a world that we've seen portrayed before. The sort of the established person and the person who's desperate to get close to them. I mean, All About Eve is a version of this, obviously, but this feels completely different from that too. Were you a cinephile growing up? Did you find yourself accumulating a lot of references, or is a lot of this a much more. More naturally flowing act of creation?
- [114:28]
C
I don't like when you say cinephile. I don't think I can compete with a lot of these directors when it comes to all the. Their references and what they've seen. I like movies like everyone else, and I watch them when I have free time, and there's some that I like a lot, but I wouldn't be able to go to toe to toe with anyone who's been on this podcast, you know, but maybe that's an advantage.
- [114:54]
A
Well, it's not even. It's not a competition either, you know, it's more just like sort of what speaks to you and what are the things that resonated with you when you were watching movies as a younger person?
- [115:03]
C
Yeah, I mean, I do historically love a very taught, tense, obsessive story. I feel like the ones that people think of when they watch this movie are not necessarily the ones I was thinking about, but I get it.
- [115:25]
A
What were you thinking about?
- [115:27]
C
I was thinking the most about Whiplash, Nightcrawler, which people would guess, and Almost Famous. And when I set out to write this, I was kind of like, the first half's gonna be Almost Famous, and then the second half's gonna be Nightcrawler. And then it was just kind of immediately dark from the beginning, so there wasn't some massive, like, tonal shift in the middle. But those, like, those were kind of the primary references. And then there's a lot I stole from Whiplash or, like, some structural things, and it really simplified things to Know that this was really just about two people and the tension between them and how that evolves, that helped me write it a lot.
- [116:19]
A
Well, when you say it was dark from the beginning, was that a function of just the DNA of the story? When you started filming, was it the casting that you did that made that so?
- [116:28]
C
No, I mean the script. Like, I think just when I set out to write it, I had these ideas of what it might feel like, but then you could just tell something's wrong at the top. And I liked that more, actually. And it's more, you know, you're playing with the intrigue of, well, how. How wrong is it? How wrong is it gonna get? And who do I like? You know, it reminds me a lot of.
- [116:58]
A
I don't know if you care about these movies, but a lot of the 1950s Hitchcock movies, movies where they all start and you're being introduced to characters and you can tell one is kind of malevolent without actually doing anything bad.
- [117:10]
C
Yeah.
- [117:11]
A
And this has a very similar tension.
- [117:14]
C
Yeah. You could just. You see it in his face. You see in his neck, the way he's like, moving his neck around, trying to act like nothing's going on. Yeah. And then, like, you know, in the early stages of. After Ed sent out the script, which, again, it was so low stakes at the time, it was like, the fact that I'd finished it, I felt like such a huge accomplishment to me. I was like, wow. I wrote a new feature length screenplay during COVID while everyone else was baking sourdough. I'm ahead of the game. And then when we sent it out, it was like. And I was a very much baby TV writer at that time. I'd barely done anything and I had just gotten like a manager. And I think in my meeting with my manager, the first one, I was kind of like, yeah, I have this idea for. They were just like, yeah, go write it. Just do it. And I think in the back of their minds, they were like, we don't know if this guy can write.
- [118:15]
A
Yeah, yeah. But like, guy wants to write the screenplay in la. Yeah, welcome to the party.
- [118:18]
C
Yeah, exactly. And then when they read it, they were like, oh, this actually might be something. And then the more people I showed it to, they were like, this is maybe something. And within a few months, we sent it out and. Wait, why was I talking about this?
- [118:40]
A
Just the feeling of going through the process of writing it. Like, you were like, it was a very low stakes endeavor.
- [118:45]
C
Yeah, it was low stakes. And it became. It sort of bloomed into Like A, my calling card to get TV work. And then B, it was like, now this, now that someone has told me that this could be a thing, I couldn't let go of it. But I was, I was never thinking I was going to direct it until people told me that maybe I could.
- [119:13]
A
Why did people tell you that? Just because you knew the world really well?
- [119:19]
B
I.
- [119:19]
C
Well, I don't know why I was told that, but now I know because like you, like in the hands of another director, it just so many of the subtleties, so many of the little details and stuff that would make it feel inauthentic, they would just get flattened, I think. And so much of this movie is just, just a look or the intonation of a line. And I think I really had a sense for what it was supposed to be because I had written it. And that was the primary advantage I had going into directing, was I knew what every scene was about and what every line was about. And I could, you know, express that.
- [120:06]
A
Was there any. Well, I don't know how. If you had trained to direct anything, obviously it's a very technical skill as well as a creative act. And it's a lot of decision making and a lot of responsibility and trained.
- [120:22]
C
No, what I had done was read some books about it. Okay, and what books? I feel like none of them really even made a difference to me. What is it like Mamet1? Oh, oh, isn't there some Mammut one called like On Directing?
- [120:42]
A
Yes.
- [120:43]
C
And then I, you know, I read books about other roles. Like I read a whole book about First Ading, which actually was really, really helpful. And, you know, I had spent barely any time on set because I'm a TV writer. Like, especially in this era, you don't really get invited to spend time on set unless you're the showrunner or high level producer. So I'd spent a grand total, if I want to say, I don't know, eight days on a set before I shot this movie.
- [121:14]
A
This is a miraculous story that you got to direct this movie.
- [121:17]
C
I know.
- [121:17]
A
This is part of the reason I wanted to talk, because I was like, who the fuck is this person? Yeah, I know, I don't know who. But the movie is so assured and it's so unusual to be. You have a knack for it, obviously, and you knew the story you wanted to tell, but I had a feeling you were going to be like, I don't know how I got here. And there is a little bit of that in the story that you're telling.
- [121:36]
C
I could retroactively tell you what worked. And it's that so much of directing is casting. And by casting, I mean casting and hiring. And I use the same methodology for both, which is that I would evaluate the person kind of based on their understanding of the script. And that worked really well, I think for casting and for anyone who did something technical that I really didn't understand that well. So at the same time I knew all the things that I knew and I knew I could look at the monitor and say, well, does this make sense? Is this what I was going for? And to be only assured in that and not, not try to. I had like horse binders in a way in that I couldn't get tripped up by so many of the other things that you can really care about. There was, you know, most of the time I didn't know what lens we were putting on the camera. If I did, I don't know if that would have helped me that information, you know. But what I can tell you is that I spent months with my DP talking through what every scene was about before we even started shot listing. And I think I have a good sense of whether someone else knows what they're talking about. And that's very important because you, I mean, as a first time feature director, no matter what, you're not going to know everyone's job as well as they do. So if you have a sense of their, like, what's your meter on this person talking about their thing, I can do that.
- [123:19]
A
The one thing that also really makes this movie so successful is that the world of the music feels incredibly real. It's like a very unique challenge to try to make original music that is inside a world and make a pop star believable. This is one of the most impressive examples of it I've ever seen. Can you just talk about how you worked out the music for Archie's character and what you wanted that to be and so on and so forth?
- [123:47]
C
Yeah, I mean, so much of it again was leaning on people who knew better than me. I had an idea of what type of artist he was.
- [123:56]
A
How would you describe that type of artist in like a post Frank Ocean World? Like, what is that?
- [124:02]
C
Maybe it's like post Frank Ocean World.
- [124:04]
A
Okay. I was trying to figure out like what. But I used to be a music critic and so I, I'm just trying to think of like what I would even. How I would even describe everything is too reductive. Like R and B is too reductive.
- [124:15]
C
Yeah. DIY pop. Post Frank Ocean Yeah, like, and I wanted it to be, in a way disguised by that so you couldn't say exactly like, oh, this is. This. This is based on this artist so exclusively. You know, I think it's an amalgam. And it was something that I was able to find throughout the process that once we did, I was so relieved because, like, you're saying, like, that's the thing that you can take you out of the movie so easily. If I just don't buy that character. And so much of that, the picture becomes clear once you have cast, the picture becomes, you know, maybe I was going to go this way with it. Now that it's Archie, he wasn't written British, you know, he was written as an American artist. But once it was Archie, I was like, oh, that's kind of a. That's a cool element that just adds a dimension to it that still makes sense within the story. And, like, you might not have ever seen an artist that's exactly like how he's presented in the movie, but you do feel like he could fit in some Spotify playlists.
- [125:27]
A
Yes.
- [125:27]
C
You know, so again, a lot of my friends being music producers and stuff, my friend Kenny, who makes a lot of music kind of in this genre, I was. We had very few conversations before all this music was already done. I was kind of like, you know what it is?
- [125:45]
A
Did you have it on the page? Did you just describe what the sound was like when you were writing?
- [125:51]
C
No, I kept it a little bit vague because I knew we would have to find it. And there were other things where, like, in prep, Archie was like, I think I want to dye my hair. I was like, oh, I don't know if this is like, a dyed hair artist. Is that like, too kind of like pointing to, like, a Frank Ocean pop star?
- [126:10]
A
Yeah. Yeah.
- [126:13]
C
But at the same time, I really wanted to just let him do what he wanted if he was feeling it, if that helped him get into character. And, you know, I relented pretty easily. And then once we saw it, it just made everything clear. And it just. I don't know, like, the color he chose was like a rose. You haven't really seen it. But, yeah, the whole time I was just like, does that work within the realm of, you know, what is my cringe meter for if this is believable or not? So many of the decisions are just that.
- [126:48]
A
That one of the other reasons why the movie works so well is the energy between Theodore and Archie's characters. Did you rehearse? Did you have them spend time together? Beforehand.
- [127:00]
C
Yes, yeah, I did. And it was very lucky that it did work because Theodore was attached to the movie in 2021, so. So there was three years that passed before we were actually shooting. I was afraid he was going to age out of it before I figured out how to get it made. But he was, I think, you know, he's very youthful looking. So it's still just bare. If it was like two more years, it would have been, it would have been too much.
- [127:30]
A
Why is this guy still working retail?
- [127:31]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then it just turns into a different story.
- [127:34]
A
It's true.
- [127:35]
C
And even my friend Zach who's in the movie, like, you know, he's like now in his mid-30s. And we had to make it a part of the thing that it was like, why is this old guy around? Right, right. But when we first wrote it, it wouldn't have been, you know, it wouldn't have been in the script. Why was I talking about that? Oh, yeah, the energy between them. I always knew that Theo was going to just be this unbelievable, like, discovery for everyone when they saw this. The question was, does it really feel like a two hander? Does whoever plays Oliver come to bat, you know, against Theo? And it would make the movie better if they did. And you know, Archie, when I first met with him, he was aware of Theo. He was a fan and he was really excited, I think, to go up against him as a serious young actor. Like, I think both of these guys, you know, they're both trained and they both are really hungry for a role like this. So I, the way, the way it happened was I met Archie. I was like, oh, this could work. Maybe he's British. And then I, I flew to Paris. I kind, I turned it into a little bit of a vacation, but I flew to Paris. This was 2023. I flew to Paris to meet. Or no, I flew to London to meet Archie. And then we took the Eurostar to Paris where Theo was shooting something. And then I kind of like, I want to say they're like Gen Z Cusp. Yeah, they're like kind of late 20s. And I had spent time with both of them and I was like, okay, hopefully I can just put them, like put them in a room and see if they get along and we'll like maybe casually do a couple scenes and you know, hopefully I can like walk away for a sec and just. They'll love each other and that's the, that's the best. Like directing in general is when your, your cast starts to like, become friends independently. Of you.
- [129:49]
A
Is there any part of it that would have been good if they didn't? Because the, obviously the, there's a, you know, a slingshot in quality to their relationship in the movie.
- [130:00]
C
I thought about doing something like that. Like that's the kind of thing that I think sounds great in theory where it's like, yeah, we, you know, all of us will eat lunch together on set without you.
- [130:12]
A
Yeah, exactly. You hear like in the 70s, this was a tactic that is deployed by mean spirited directors.
- [130:18]
C
Yeah. I think for me overall the benefit was largely in the favor of like, like everyone gets along really well and they both had to feel good about getting cast together. So they ended up just like playing Fortnite. And that was the moment where I was like, oh God, they're playing Fortnite. Let me just take a walk around the block. Let them have this momentary Gen Z. Yeah. And I was like, oh, they both. I've never played Fortnite. Like it. I'll let them. There's only two controllers. Look like, get out of here. And then that was that. And like we, I don't know, we've. We all love each other very much and we're. I couldn't have asked for a better cast. Like for me, going into it as again the person on set with the least set experience. I was looking to everyone else for a lot of support. Like all I really had to offer was steering the thing in the direction of what I felt was right. And that's all I had was like my gut feeling about is what is on the monitor working for me and if not, let's figure out how to make it work.
- [131:33]
A
Did you ever have a day or a moment where you felt like, ooh, like I don't have my arms around this or this is in trouble, or I miswrote this moment, the last thing.
- [131:45]
C
Yes. There were things where I felt you get to the day and like, oh, I, this is way too long. I miswrote this. This is indulgent. Or you know, I don't think we need like a monologue here. That was like me as a early stage writer trying to sound clever to myself, you know, know. So that kind of thing was really easy to jettison or rewrite in the moment because there had been so much time between writing it and now directing it. I wasn't hyper precious about the words and you know, like doing tv, that kind of thing happens all the time. You're like, well, it doesn't work or location's different. Rewrite the scene right now. And. And I felt pretty nimble with, like, oh, that doesn't work. Let's cut that line. Or experiment with new lines. But what was great is, like, both myself and the cast, we all really knew what every scene was about. There's a simplicity to every scene individually, and we could play within that and try variations and sometimes find something that just felt a little more off the cuff or felt a little more fun or felt more right, you know?
- [133:11]
A
When you were done with the movie, were you like, this is a great film. It's gonna go to Sundance. We're gonna. We're gonna do great. We're gonna get sold. We're gonna be the belle of the ball. We're gonna have a very nice September release.
- [133:22]
C
We're gonna get into Sundance.
- [133:25]
A
Okay.
- [133:29]
C
These things are very hard to get off the ground in the first place. And I knew there was a version of this that I completely exposed myself to be a fraud. And I wasn't meant for this. And even if that had happened, maybe it wasn't my fault, but it would have really knocked me down. And I don't know. I think I was just so exhausted. We had all developed an addiction to Celsius on set, and then I immediately stopped drinking them when we were done. So I was. I was. I was in bed for, like, a week after. And I'm pretty delicately built in general, so getting through that was tough.
- [134:14]
A
I've had one Celsius in my life, and it didn't go well. So I can only imagine. Yeah.
- [134:18]
C
No, but you build up a tolerance. You start with, like, a couple of sips. No, I mean, I will say this. There were so many times on set where I was like, this is the scene. This is what I was hoping for. Maybe it's even better. And I could really feel that in the moment. And I would be, like, giddy, and people would be like, why is Alex giggling? Why is he? And I think people really appreciated that. I seemed excited because a lot of people in their little bubble of what they're doing, don't necessarily know how it's going.
- [134:53]
A
Yeah.
- [134:53]
C
Or. And a lot of people are looking to me like, are you happy? We don't know how to evaluate that. Even actors sometimes are so stuck in, like, the emotion of the moment, like, maybe a vulnerable moment that they come out and they're like, I don't know if that was good, but it's really kind of their vulnerability persisting. And my only real true fear when we wrapped was like, when. When I look at this in the edit Will I feel as good as I felt about the times I was happy on the monitor? Right. That was because that's what I was going off. I was prioritizing and converging on all these moments that were like, I feel it right now. And this is totally what it should be on. You know, from camera to performance to story, all of that converges in the moment on the monitor. And I'm like, this is working. When I feel like if it. If it works, that's what we were prioritizing. So if my sense of that was not calibrated, then by the time I get to the edit, we're just left with all this stuff that I was wrong about.
- [136:07]
B
About.
- [136:09]
C
But the truth is, the movie is made up of a composite of all the things I was excited about on the day. So I would. If I do. If I do get to do another one, I will trust that more and worry about it less. Like, if I feel good about it in the moment, that's probably the right thing.
- [136:29]
A
What has to happen for you to do another one?
- [136:32]
C
Someone has to let me.
- [136:34]
A
Do you have scripts?
- [136:35]
C
Are you people have to listen to this podcast and go see it.
- [136:38]
A
Yeah. That's. No guarantees on the former, maybe on the latter.
- [136:41]
C
Do I have scripts? Yes, I have scripts I'm working on. And you know the thing you were saying about sophomore slump is we want to avoid it.
- [136:49]
A
We certainly do. Yeah.
- [136:51]
C
But I think easier said than done. Yeah. I mean, I have.
- [136:57]
A
Do you have a desire to have, like, a bigger production, more money, or is the scale of this story like, the kind of register that you'd like to work at?
- [137:06]
C
If I were to guess the next one will be. Will be slightly bigger in scope, but I don't. You often see someone, like, have some, like, Sundance darling movie, and then they give you a billion dollars for the next one.
- [137:26]
A
Yeah.
- [137:27]
C
And you kind of wonder what happened there.
- [137:30]
A
I was talking with your Sundance alum Aima Victor a few weeks ago, and they were saying they're not gonna make a Jurassic World movie anytime soon. But, you know, like, is that. That's.
- [137:39]
C
I would like to see that.
- [137:41]
A
Yeah. Ava's version would be great. But that's like. You're not gonna try to trampoline into a large budget franchise.
- [137:50]
C
No, because so much of. Of what helped me make this was the constraints. The fact that it was so low budget and I had very limited time. Makes you very creative. You have to solve this problem. And it's much more exciting than writing, because when you're writing, you unfortunately have Infinite time. And when you're shooting, you really don't. And you have to be like, well, well, what is this scene really, really, really about? And how do you crystallize this moment? And often making that choice is the most elegant one. Like, there's this one scene where it's sort of the. On the ensemble of the movie on a patio at the tail end of a party, and Matthew is, like, kind of seeing the attention of the group go elsewhere, and we didn't have time. You know, everyone was cold. So we're like, okay, what if we only have, like, one hour right now? Which we did. I feel like if we had all the time in the world, we would have shot it like a dinner scene. So we get everyone in the ensemble's reaction. We get everyone's line on camera. But we didn't have. And that would have taken hours and hours. This was like, what is it really about? It's about the feeling of the ensemble, and then it's about what Matthew's feeling. So, like, let's tag the ensemble. Let's feel the group dynamic, and let's land on him and stay on him as the rest of the scene plays out and the rest of the dialogue can happen off camera. And that, to me, worked so much better and was so much more intense than if we had given everyone equal real estate in that moment. So stuff like that I really enjoy. I really enjoy you telling me I shouldn't say don't give me any money on the next one on this podcast, but, like, don't give me just enough. And that will give me the constraints and the boundaries that I need to get creative and to try and get it done and not have sort of infinite creative leeway. I think that's what I'd want.
- [140:13]
A
Yeah, I think that's wise. I hope it works out for you. We end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen? Have you seen anything that you've liked recently?
- [140:27]
C
Eddington, please speak on it. I just liked it. I thought it was so funny. I thought it was so funny. I was laughing so much watching it. And, you know, I also. I had heard so much about it going into it where my expectations were mixed, maybe, but I had a feeling like, I'm going to like this, and it's just. It's a fun movie I do want to like. There's one thing I was thinking about on the way here, which is, like, both of those movies are period pieces, and one is five years, one is Seven. And I have this theory that you need to wait seven years to make a modern period piece like Social Network is one. Uncut Gems is another. Those are exactly seven years apart from where they take place. And so is my movie. It just weirdly feels like the amount of time that needs to pass for a time to crystallize or not in the eye of the storm. And that's why I think for Eddington, with Eddington, you feel like, oh, man, that's kind of bold that you would do it right before. It would be okay.
- [141:46]
A
It's still a little close.
- [141:48]
C
We're not quite ready.
- [141:49]
A
But I think that's actually a feature and not a bug where it's like we can't get too far and not realize that this was.
- [141:56]
C
Yeah.
- [141:57]
A
If not the start of something, like the. The apex of something.
- [142:00]
C
Yeah. It's just, like, slightly abusive, as it should be.
- [142:03]
A
I know, but that's his mode. It's like, I'm gonna pummel you and make you laugh at the same time. It's my. That's my favorite movie of the year, so it's a great show.
- [142:11]
C
Yeah, it was. It was good. I. And I saw the Wind Rises the other day, which was awesome.
- [142:18]
A
Beautiful movie. A lot of guys smoking cigarettes, flying planes, dude.
- [142:22]
C
All the, like, mechanical, you know, it's like kind of steampunky stuff in the Miyazaki world is really cool to me. It's really stuck with me.
- [142:32]
A
These are great recommendations. I thought Lurker was an incredible debut. So thanks for doing this.
- [142:38]
C
Thank you so much.
- [142:43]
A
Thanks to Alex Russell. Thanks to our producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode. Later this week, Amanda will be back in the United States of America, where she belongs, assuming she is not arrested.
- [142:53]
B
On the way out, I was gonna.
- [142:54]
A
Say we will be talking about Spike Lee's highest to lowest and Darren Aronofsky's caught stealing to New York City thrillers. And spoiler alert, Spike Lee was on the pod. Talk to Spike. It's a great conversation this week. See you then.