Blank Check with Griffin & David - Dunkirk with Bilge Ebiri

Episode Date: September 3, 2017

In the final episode of our mini series devoted to the filmography of Christopher Nolan, Bilge Ebiri (Village Voice) joins Griffin and David to discuss 2017’s war thriller, Dunkirk. But how do the movie’s different temporalities align? What are other ways to conceal Tom Hardy’s face and body? Will Nolan’s next genre pursuit be a musical or a comedy? Together they discuss Mark Rylance getting pegged by Hollywood as the gentlest man, the mastery of Nolan’s large scale action sequences, Kevin Costner’s oil machine and Tulip Fever. Plus, announcing the next mini series on the films of Kathryn Bigelow.

i can practically see it from here what What? Podcast! Yeah, sure. I don't know, right? Whatever. I don't know. This movie doesn't dialogue. It's a quotable movie. Yeah. You should have just done a plane.

Just made a plane noise. Ben and I were talking about how Nolan was just obviously, when he's pitching the movie, he's just like... Oh, no! I love the idea of Nolan coming in in his crisp suit hair slicked back just give me a moment to sit up here and took out his shoe box

placed all his miniature tin airplanes on the floor that he had like personally built in his garage took a deep breath and went and Chris here is a check Yeah, took a deep breath and then went. And Chris here is a check for $200 million. 20 against 20%. Is that good? Here is a blank check with Griffin and Dave.

If only they had said that to him. This is the name of our podcast. It is called Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David Sims. We're the two friends as a hashtag. It's a competitive advantage. No other podcast has that going for it. We do. Here's another thing about us.

Kind of stores a context. You're all over the place. I'm trying to do sensory overload a la Dunkirk. I'm trying to fucking blitz your brain. This podcast is about filmographers. Filmworkers who have had massive success early on in their career and they give a series of blank checks.

Sometimes those checks clear. Sure. Sometimes they clear. Yep. Sometimes they bounce, baby. Not this time. Not this time. This time it's clearing.

For sure. And it's a real blank check of a movie. It is. In a weird way. Even though it's a war movie. Yeah. The horri a war movie. Yeah. The horriest of genres. Yes.

This is the last film. Sad emoji. Until his next film. But of this miniseries. Yeah. At that point, it'll be a one-off. It'll be a throwback Thursday. Exactly.

When we cover another. Throwback Sunday. Another Nolan. Because we've been talking about the films of Christopher Nolan. It's a miniseries called The Pod Nightcast. Podkirk. It's called Podkirk. This is Podkirk.

We're talking about the movie. Yeah. Which came out, what, a month and a half ago now? Not even. A month ago. A little more than a month ago. Six weeks ago. It came out mid-July.

That sweet spot in July. Yeah. We're tipping than a month ago. Six weeks ago. It came out mid-July. Middle of July. That sweet spot in July. Yeah. We're tipping into September right now. Yeah. And it's still going strong at the box office. We had said in our Interstellar episode that Dunkirk wasn't coming in or close to Interstellar's box office. I think it's going to pass it in the next week or so. Yeah, it's doing a great job.

It's doing a great job. It's also been the worst month for movies. After, I think, an okay summer. Like the last few weeks have been. Excuse me, have you not seen Leap? I have not seen Leap. Birth of the Dragon? Is it Leap colon Birth of the Dragon?

Yep. It's one movie. It's a mashup. Weinstein cannot afford to release movies anymore, so he's smuggling movies inside of other movies. To Leap fever? Yes. We are only days away today

two days away from the release of Tulip Fever. Have you seen Tulip Fever honored guest? I have not. Do you want to introduce our guest? Sure. He's my favorite critic

to read about. Hey, read about. You don't like reading his work. You like reading other people. Read his writing about Christopher Nolan. I wanted him on this podcast, and I'm sorry we couldn't get you on Interstellar,

but scheduling was too crazy for Interstellar. Just because I feel like you're the biggest Interstellar fan in the world, if I'm a big Interstellar fan. I'm a very big Interstellar fan. I don't know if I'm the biggest fan. If you could do an installment of TARS Talk, we can put aside a little time in this episode for some TARS Talk, our regular segment.

Oh yeah, we're just going to do that every week now. Now, David Reese makes it clear he actually likes Case more than TARS on that episode. That makes sense.

I mean, David Reese is a real case. Yeah, he's... Critic for the Village Voice? Which still exists. Still exists. Still exists. It's still here

in online form only, sadly. Welcome. Thank you so much. Happy to be here in online form only, sadly. Welcome. Thank you so much, man. Happy to be here. Fan of the podcast. Huge fan. Fan of the podcast. I'm pleased to report that I am actually an hour into this podcast already while you guys

are at the beginning. You are at a different temper, Holly, than us. And Ben right now is a week ago. He always is, though. That's not unusual. Producer Ben, the Ben Ducer, the Poet Laureate, the Haas, our finest film critic, Dirt Bike Benny, Soak and Wet Benny, the Fart Master, the Meat Lover, the Fart Master, the Fart Detective, the Fuck Master.

He's not Professor Crispy. He is the peeper. Yeah. He's graduated to certain titles over the course of different miniseries, such as Producer Ben Kenobi, Kylo Ben, Ben Sate, Ben Nyshamalon, SayBennything,

A. LeBenz with the dollar sign, Warhaz, and announcing it here, Sure. Perdue Urbane. Perdue Urbane. That's what you settled on. Perdue Urbane.

Not Ben Kirk. Ben Kirk's good. Not yet. I mean, look, when he catches up with us, he can reckon with it. I'd visit the French town of Ben Kirk, get a croissant. Yeah, Dunkirk.

Hi, guys. Hey. Hey, everybody. What's up, Lennon? So this movie, Nolan makes Interstellar. Sure. Interstellar does well, but still, we thought that was kind of viewed as a disappointment. I think just in the light of how huge his, he has a high bar.

Previous movies have been. Right. And also how previous sci-fi movies like that had done. Yes. Right. Right. Gravity the year before wins best director and makes like crazy amounts of money hand over fist.

Right. There was sort of this revival of adult sci-fi that's still been going on. It's weird. Like every year now there's one high minded adult sci-fi movie. If you been going on. It's weird. Like every year now, there's one high-minded adult sci-fi movie. If you think of Arrival last year, what's this year? I don't, I guess this year Blade Runner's like the closest equivalent, right? Was, well, yeah. Was Arrival and The Martian the same year?

Or were they different years? No, they're different years. Right. The Martian's 2015. Arrival's 2016. Right. But there's like one kind of like real world part of science. Oh, Valerian. Which everyone years. Right. Martians 2015. Arrivals 2016. Right. But there's like one kind of like real world part science. Oh, Valerian.

Which everyone loves. Life. Hey, not a bad movie. You haven't seen Life? No. I hate that director. With a passion. He's the safe house guy?

The safe house guy. The safe house guy. The safe house guy. The child 44 guy. I have not seen either of those movies. Awful. Yeah. But Life, you know, the whole

muscle. Is he the Snabba Cash guy or whatever that is? He is the Snabba Cash guy. People love that Snabba Cash, right? I have no idea what you guys are talking about. This is my job. Snabba Cash Easy Money? Yeah, he did this movie called Snabba Cash Parentheses Easy Money. Love the title. Which was Dutch.

Is he Dutch? Daniel Espinoza is his name, isn't it? He's Scandinavian. He's Scandinavian. Because that's where, like, Joel Kinnaman came from. Oh, sure. Well, he's Swedish. And it was a big overseas success. Yes, he is Swedish.

And I think they made, like, four of them. And they were always saying they were going to, like, adapt it with Shia LaBeouf. Snabacash. Snabacash. Or Zac Efron. At some point, I think Zac Efron was attached to it. He gets floated for a lot of Scandinavian remakes, I suppose.

But Snabacash, they were trying to make Snappacash happen. What is, I guess there hasn't been a big sci-fi movie this year yet. I guess Blade Runner. I guess that's the one, right? But it's weird because it's a sequel. But I think we're thinking more like space movies, right? Right. Great space movies.

Because I feel like it's that run of like. Which Life was definitely trying to position itself as one of those. Also, Passengers definitely thought they were going to have that last year. And then Arrival came in and had an interesting strategy, which was to be a good movie. That was their strategy, was what if good? No, but Arrival, Gravity, Interstellar, The Martian. I feel like there's one more. I feel like every year between September and December, there's been one kind of like,

this is a realistic look at space. Yeah. They're spinning. There's a lot of spinning. Space has got spinning now. Space now with more spinning. I'm not seeing anything. I'm sorry.

We're lacking one this year. Thor Ragnarok. Yeah, that's hard sci-fi. Hard like a Ragnarok. Yeah, that's hard sci-fi. Hard like a Ragnarok. Yeah. But I think the expectations are very high, and it's sort of like, you know, has grown since then. It wasn't like a total flop, but it was kind of like,

what does he do now? Sure. What does he do now? Batman's done. Not doing Batman. Right. And there were, I feel like, rumors for a while circling things, but he keeps a tight lid on it.

I guess so. It's always his Howard Hughes movie. He plays it close to the chest. Right. Very close to the chest. Right? Like, what's he going to make now, for example? That's the thing that happens after every Nolan movie,

where I think to myself, well, what the hell does he do to kind of... Yeah, impress people again. Yeah, because you have a lot of big directors who are like, well, I'm going to go make a small movie now. And usually it's because they've done something bloated and obscene and annoying. Like, you know, Michael Bay or somebody.

But with Nolan, you know, you don't necessarily... I mean, I'll watch whatever he does, but you don't necessarily hear him say, I'm going to make a small movie now. No. Right. Well, he's very good about not being an asshole about his brand, I would say largely. Agreed.

In terms of where thinking people would care to hear that, you know. I mean, I'd care to hear it. Yes. He's in a very interesting position because, like, as Alex Ross Perry very astutely said in our Insomnia episode, he's one of, like, two or three living filmmakers who filmmakers who can like call the shot and force the entire industry to change if he decides to do something. Okay. In terms of actual filmmaking process, release strategy, what have

you, you know? And I think he like takes that responsibility seriously. So while like I would love to see him make a little movie, not because I don't like the big ones, but because it would be interesting to see him go back and forth, I think he's like I got this power. I got to do big things

to try to like advance filmmaking. So it kind of becomes this question of like, I guess what genre is he going to take on next? Like he's weirdly in that sort of position now where it's like, oh, a sci-fi movie. He's talked about making a horror movie. It's hard to imagine him making a horror movie.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I can see him producing something, you know? I mean, he produced Man of Steel. And Trans horror movie. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I can see him producing something, you know. I mean, he produced Man of Steel. And Transcendence. Right. Lest we forget.

Gone but never forgotten. Maybe he'll make another Singularity movie. Yeah. I'd love to see him use it, because he's done that thing where he, a couple of years ago with the Brothers Quay, where he helped take their films around and did a little documentary and actually did

appearances with them. Right around that same time he also released a Blu-ray of Zviagintsev's Elena, right? Yeah, right. He's been paying for restorations and stuff. Which is sort of the Scorsese mode. The film foundation.

Yeah, you're trying to have some of that stuff and also I think maybe a little bit like Coppola in the 70s there was that period because there was that period where Coppola was

indestructible until he was destroyed utterly loudly destroyed he did like the Napoleon tour he did Napoleon

he helped get Kurosawa films produced and released and Lucas did that too Tarantino did it although it didn't really always work for him but there was the in the 90s too where Tarantino presents Chunking Express

I think the problem was that Weinstein ultimately abused that I think he started like turning Tarantino into a brat Are you saying you don't have tulip fever? Someone asked us on Twitter if we were going to do a one-off for tulip fever, and my response was, how can you do a podcast on a movie that doesn't exist? You haven't seen it. Were you invited to the screening that they then called me and said,

we're not going to have the screening, the day of the screening? And I was like, okay. I think I was. And they were like, instead, we will not be screening the movie. It wasn't like we're rescheduling it to this day. It was like, so we're not going to have this screening, and instead there won't be screenings of the film. It's so weird.

I mean, because the film has come out in other places. And people have said, like, it's bad, but, like, it's not like it's some, like, horrendous, misshapen, like, it's just like a crappy movie. No worse than the last movie they made. I mean, there must be some weird contractual thing. Or maybe, I mean, there's also... I mean, let's not forget Harvey is known for being vindictive

with his film releases. Sure. Yeah, but he also has this thing where, like, he had some upfront deal. Let's get into Harvey Todd. He had some deal... Poor Christopher Nolan. Yeah. He hasn't been talked about much. He has this deal with Netflix where they, like, offer him a certain amount of money up front for 10 releases a year.

And some of the movies he didn't want to release started like, oh, I'll put it in one theater so then I can put it on Netflix the next week and get my money back. We're doing that thing where he siphoned them off to the Lifetime channel. Sure. Which he's done with two or three of his long-delayed movies. He did that with Grace of Monaco. And he did it with Sweet Frances. That was weird.

Right, where suddenly it just quietly airs on Lifetime as a TV movie. Yeah. So the Tula Fever thing's very bizarre because it's like he's used other escape routes to not release a movie. Right, but this is, maybe he has some clause where he has,

I don't know. Yeah. I mean, that said, he has made me want to see Tula Fever. I mean, this is kind of amazing. I never wanted to see Tula Fever until now. And now they're advertising it as the sexiest thriller of the year. Yeah, the movie that Harvey Weinstein doesn't want you to see.

That should be the tagline. Did you read about, I think someone tweeted there was like a SAG screening or like a DGA screening where literally people were in line. It was a WGA screening. And they came out and were like, actually, never mind. sag screening or like a dga screening where literally people were in line and wga and they came out and were like actually never mind someone put out a paper sign written in ballpoint pen that says sorry screening canceled we are showing annabelle which i think is you should see the sign because it's so like plain and just sort of like there's no no malice to it. It's, it's a sweet little sign that someone drew for the WGA crowd. But I just love that.

Like, you're like, man, I can't believe they called me and canceled the screening two hours before it started. It was like six hours. Okay. And those people were like,

man, I can't believe they wrote a sign and told us the screening was canceled 30 minutes after the screening was supposed to start. They should have just played Annabelle and been, then been people were like, that was Annabelle. They'd be like, no, that was Tulip Fever. You didn't catch it?

You didn't catch the fever? Yeah, that was Tulip Fever. Anyway, see you later. Please leave. All right, Dunkirk. But this is one of those movies, like Inception, that he has had boiling for his whole career.

He came up for the idea, he was on the beaches in the 90s with his wife and was like, a Dunkirk movie should be done but I don't have the money or the skill yet or whatever and he just sort of had it in his pocket. I feel like he always has them in his pocket.

They play this movie very close to the chest. He doesn't talk about it much. There's very little kind of information circulating around. A couple big actors who were cast in smaller supporting parts, but then it was like, oh, he's mostly using unknown. Harry Styles is in it. All I knew was that Harry Styles was in it.

I didn't know Ryan Lance or Branagh were in it until I saw the trailer. I knew very little. I just knew he was making a Dunkirk movie. I never try because he hides it all the way anyway. I never really try to sort of dig in. But everyone kind of assumes like, okay, Christopher Nolan's doing a war movie. He's going to go fucking huge. He's going to make this big, bombastic, like is it going to be two parts?

Like what kind of epic is he going to build? And then he releases this weird 90-minute like kind of like experimental exercise it's 105 minutes but I remember when the news broke that it was 105 minutes everybody was like

what the fuck his shortest movie ever if you exclude following which should be excluded which he made for

a few bucks less than this one which was an S&E mutual I think that was part of his Fatty Arbuckle deal but yeah no I do remember

we say it on this podcast I think you're like did you hear how short Dunkirk is it's nuts after Interstellar which is his longest movie and is long right I love it but it's almost three hours long and when the early word comes out people are like it's like it's very short.

You, like, don't really have, like, character arcs. There's, like, very little dialogue. Yeah, where did you see this? Like, it's, like, this experiential movie. Because I saw the Lincoln Square Press screening. I assume you did as well. But I had had, like, some of my friends had seen it already and told, like, I just remember Ehrlich saying, think Captain Phillips not saving Private Ryan.

Like, that was all he sort of said to me. And I don't know. Like, what did you expect going in? I didn't know much going in. One friend who had seen it earlier said, it's insane. And that was kind of all he said. Sure. It is insane.

I think that's apt. That's good. I think that's apt. That's good. I think that's good. And so I was prepared for it to be insane, whatever that meant in the context of a Christopher Nolan movie. I was prepared for some sort of a sensory experience. Yeah, yeah. But that's about it. I don't know.

I was a little frightened. And it is a different, well, it's also that very first shot, that very first shot of the soldiers walking through that town. With the papers, the leaflets flying. And also, it's weird. And when I saw it again, I caught this. Although, you know, it's like,

it's hard to catch this, but they've just like stood up or something. Like, it's just like a split second of them cowering and then they kind of stand up and sort of start walking more casually. And it's such a weird way to begin but immediately pulls you in. I agree.

And he literally sums everything up with just like one or the leaflet, you know, the we surround you. You, us. And then there's just that like loud, clangy, like you saw it in Lincoln Square, too. Yeah, I did. The big IMAX in New York City. And the gunfire where you're just like, and then that's the whole movie.

Right. At that point. Right. the gunfire where you're just like and then that's the whole movie right but also like the thing that strikes me in that opening scene is he like kind of throws down his gauntlet which is like this is not a movie about the anime this is not a movie about the fight this is a movie about survival because it's just

you're just hearing them you're exclusively hearing them which immediately is very unusual. It adds a really strange energy from that opening scene where it's like we're just watching the back of this kid's head. The own white head. Right. It feels like he's being shot at by ghosts

because he's framing it so particularly around this dude who is like, you know, like, like such an ideal cinematic cipher. Like, Nolan found this kid

who like had done one short film before, I believe. One episode of a TV show. I'd never been in a movie before. He'd been in like some miniseries. Yeah.

Yeah. And just like has one of those faces where it's like, yep, that looks like a kid in war. You know? Yeah.

No, he does. And he has a certain like integrity to him. But is asked mostly to just like survive throughout this entire film. But also this opening sequence, there are like eight or ten boys who look like him. I know watching it, I was like, which one's like the lead guy. Sure. And then very quickly, like through process of elimination,

you're like, well, I guess that's our hero. Cause everyone else is dead now. Uh, the opening is actually, I forgot. Of course it has that.

It does have that, um, title, uh, the title card with the, you know, the enemy, the enemy and praying for a miracle or whatever,

you know, they're good people on both sides. On many sides. On many sides. Many sides. When did you, because you were making the tick. Yeah. I saw it like, I guess it was, I saw it like maybe two weeks later.

Because I was making the tick and then it came out when I was at Comic-Con. Mm-hmm. And then I was back shooting this other movie. So I saw it a little bit late, but I saw it at IMAX. Yep. Lincoln Square. And by the point I had seen it, it was like firmly in like dad mode territory. Like I had like missed the Nolan bro window of like the the rabid nolan stands and i saw it in a theater that

was mostly like fathers and grandparents with their like children being like no this is important right sure sure you know um i mean you texted me after you saw it and said i'm very curious to see what you think about this right because i thought you know i thought of our saving perverion episode don't like war movies right you don't like war movies and this is a war movie with everything stripped out like that you might cling to it's just right or uh yeah sentimentality right right and i like you know it has some sentiment i was very shell-shocked when we did our saving perverion episode like i was donald trump had like just been elected. I was fucked up by a lot of different things at that time. But I

just, like, that, watching that movie the night before recording, I was, like, fucking losing it. Like, white knuckling it the entire time. And I feel like my opinion of that movie has grown since we recorded the episode. I feel like I was very complimentary of it, but I also was like, I can't fucking deal with this movie.

But when I, like, think about it more, I don't know, I can't fucking deal with this movie. Yeah. But when I like think about it more, I don't know if I have the courage to watch it again, but I think that it more. I've seen it like so many times. Right. I'm like, God, that's what a great fucking movie.

But all the things I think about when I replay it in my mind are like the dialogue scenes, the character interactions. The Tom Hanks shit, the Spielberg shit. Right. Right. And this movie is like, what if it's just like the storming the beach

of Normandy in one way or another like the entire movie is operating at that level of intensity with very little else to grab onto so it's like

it's a movie designed for me not to like it sure that having been said I like it sure do you like it I love it

yeah it's great like I feel like how many times have you seen it four wow that's a lot of time I've only seen it twice I wanted to see I checked it. Yeah, it's great. How many times have you seen it? Four. Wow, that's a lot of time.

I've only seen it twice. I wanted to see it. I checked it out in 35mm. Yes, I did too. I have still not seen it in just regular 70mm, and I would like to. Oh, no, right. Sorry, I saw it in 70, which was great. I have not seen it in regular 35mm.

In 35 on a smaller screen, which is what I saw it at the i guess uh village east or what's the um and uh it feels like a different movie it really does interesting more so than any of his others did kind of in different formats i mean the 70 you know there was a lot of format excitement around this movie certainly even i think even beyond like film twitter or Nolan bros or whatever like I had like a lot of people in my life just asking me like how should I see it like I know that's important you know like what should I do the point is like he's able to make these things feel important like people know that these aren't arbitrary decisions and even just like they made those t-shirts they were like handing out at the midnight screenings that like, I saw Dunkirk in 70mm. Jesus Christ.

You know? It's like a vacation. I find IMAX very overwhelming in general. I found it very overwhelming for Interstellar. I found it very frightening for this. I can't handle how big it is, especially when there's a lot of negative space, which this movie, especially in the air scene,

which just makes the air scene so tremendous to me in IMAX and then I saw it in 70 and I I had seen it already so obviously like a lot of the tension is uh gone the second time anyway and I had a great time like you know but I mean was that just that I was seeing it it's like I can't you know it's hard for me to it's weird without the IMAX it it really does feel like a different experience you know not less immersive necessarily but it does feel you know strangely

a little more unified okay and it's not it wasn't as loud also it's just very very loud I like big loud movies I love IMAX

I've been waiting for years for someone to use IMAX properly yeah I think Nolan does it but you know

when I saw Interstellar first time I saw Interstellar I saw it in. I think Nolan does it, but when I saw Interstellar, the first time I saw Interstellar, I saw it in 35. Sure. And I loved it. And I think the second time I saw it, I also saw it in 35. I finally went and saw it in IMAX,

and I actually found it kind of distracting in IMAX because it cuts between formats so much. It does cut. The cut is harsher. Whereas this, the cuts are much rarer and briefer. And it's like 80%? Where you can see the bars. 75% I'm at?

It seems like 70. It's way up there. I couldn't, you know, I'm not a mathematician here. It seems like 65% of the movie is I'm at. But you really, I mean, I guess it mostly cuts to the black bars where you're like, you know, on the boat with Rylance. That's what I noticed. It was mostly for dialogue because it's a sound issue. You know, but there's not much dialogue in the the way so the boat stuff mostly felt like it was

like it was 35 and then a couple of the brano scenes where he talks for more than 10 consecutive sets sure you know but other than that the like large majority of the movie is in this crazy boxy overwhelming like that's the other thing like you see imax movies where people shoot like oh shot 20% on it right and it's like mostly you're watching a letterboxd image that you're used to and then everyone saw oh my god TARS is taking up the entire screen TARS right no I mean I remember it with Catching Fire the Hunger Games movie where it's not in IMAX until she gets into the arena and then it suddenly expands out and I remember being like happy that they like tried to take advantage of the format that way. But rarely do you really like...

Right. Well, I loved it in Interstellar, but it was my first time. And I love space. But I sit in the back. Yeah. I sit closer. Right. I'm a little dork who wants to sit in the back seat

because I'm scared of the big picture. Right. And, of course, they call me Patricia Hayden because you can see me in the middle. If you're looking for me, that's where I'll be that's where my press screening i'm sitting in those back seats and this guy is sitting across from me who's got like all these papers around him and he's like what are you doing back here you should sit over there and i was like i like to see the whole screen yeah i just want to sit and he was like i'm only sitting back here because i have to do all this work for the studio like he was like taking notes the whole movie and he was like, I'm only sitting back here because I have to do all this work for the studio. He was taking notes the whole movie.

And she was like, but Mr. Nolan sits right there. And he pointed right in the middle. He's like, that's his seat. And I was like, okay. He's keeping it warm for you. Yeah. I guess so. Yeah.

I mean, I feel like there is an innate glass ceiling to my enjoyment for this movie just because of the kind of film it is. But I definitely sat there and felt like, okay, this is pretty exemplary filmmaking. This is an insane achievement. Game recognize game, you know? Right. One master of IMAX to another. Griffey Nooms tipping his hat to Nolan.

tipping his hat to Nolan. But it is a very bizarre movie in that it doesn't offer you the traditional handles to sort of like hold on to and carry you through the story. Other than the Rylance plot, I would argue, which unsurprisingly was the thing that I was the most keyed into. A nice British man driving a little boat. A nice man with nice clothes uh so so the gimmick of the movie if it if you can call you can call whatever you want but the you know the

format of the movie is these three timelines right we are hashtag the two friends these are hashtag the three temporalities and uh i remember reading that beforehand and thinking like oh that sounds like a christopher nolan thing right there. Yeah. But I like that the movie is more, it tries to be explicit about it. Like, the mole, one week. You know, the sea, one day. The air, one hour.

Right. It lays out its cards real up front. And to me, at least, the second I saw how it was laid out, it was like, oh, this completely makes sense. This isn't like a gimmick for gimmick's sake. Made sense to me. I mean, did you have any trouble? I've seen some complaints about the timeline. I've seen my share of complaints about the timeline.

I never really understood what the problem... Because I guess it's hard to articulate finding a thing confusing, but... Yeah, and I didn't find it confusing. And there are moments where you're disoriented, but I think in a pleasant way. I think Nolan likes to be a little

ahead of the viewer at various points. And I think he likes to kind of pull you in in that way. With a film like this, I find it so engrossing and beautiful and just riveting that it makes me an

attentive viewer. Right? And that's one of the things that Nolan does that I really appreciate is that he finds a way to make sure that you're paying attention. Like it's like in The Prestige, are you looking closely? You're absolutely right. Yeah, he's right. He's trying to make sure your mind doesn't wander. Yeah. And I am by nature an inattentive viewer.

I mean a lot of films I review. I struggle with it. Yeah, a lot of films I review, I have to watch twice before I can kind of figure out what the hell I even think about it. And that's why with Nolan, I'm never distracted. You know, I'm never kind of pulled out of it, almost never pulled out of one of his films. I mean, I'm always kind of locked in, even when I don't know entirely what's happening. I'm totally with him. Well, there's this other element too,

which is like, you know, time is obviously this like a big overarching thing in Nolan's whole filmography, you know? Like there's the shift of like, I think his movies like, when we were starting the main series, I was like pushing this confidence thing up the hill really hard you know it's all about

confidence but at a certain point it like shifts into being about time more than anything like his fascination with time which I think falls into this bigger thing he's at which is like I think to one degree or another Nolan's always making movies about movies

but unlike some filmmakers who get like tagged with that label and it, oh, they're just referencing the movies they grew up loving. I think Nolan movies are about the way that people process movies. Yeah. You know, like, I think they're movies about watching and processing information and how information is told to us and all of that sort of stuff. Like, I mean, Inception, like,ception, that's literally what that movie is about. The reason why everyone's so into the metaphor about it tracking for filmmaking is because it's like,

you know, he's like the BFG. He's trying to cook up some dreams for us. You know, he's trying to make this artificial world that we can buy into. And then he casts the BFG. Right, right. In this movie. Yes, yes, he does.

Which I thought there's a weird amount of farts. Like on the moonstone. The scene where they run out of like gas on the boat

and Rylance just powers it through farts felt a little glint. You're in oil, you're in oil. And he's like fuzz wimples

get me to Dunkirk. Then he farts and it explodes and everybody burns and dies. Yeah, it just felt like that was a weird meshing of tones because on one hand

something very tragic is going on and on the other hand the dogs are farting well also Tom Hardy really could have used it more you know like he's the one who's really

got a fuel issue in this movie right right he should have started farting in that tank when his propeller stops turning and then he has to

fart to get it going you just see him with a can of beans. A can of hands. You know. Yes, yes, yes it is. Yes, you were correct. It is very inappropriate.

Was the Saving Private Ryan podcast like this? Yeah. Worse probably. It was probably worse. Probably worse. Yeah, we're irreverent jokesters, I would say. Yeah, we're irreverent jokesters. Right.

But I think this idea of being so fascinated by how things play out in real time, like people trying to fight against time. Yeah. It's like this boiling point with this movie. But the other thing, you know, that I think stops it from just being like a gimmick or Nolan doing it for like the sake of Nolan loving disjointed narratives and all of that is that like if you were to try to construct this movie chronologically tom hardy would only be in the last like 10 minutes sure yeah you know it just and i think

it would also there's just like something horrifying and very uh suspenseful about the mole stuff for the first half of the movie because you know nothing's gonna go right right because you know they're not making it off the beach. So all of their schemes such as they are, such as like, let's try and get on the boat with this guy on the stretcher and like, let's try and crawl onto, you know, like, you're just like, oh God.

But that's the point is, like, if you were doing it in order, most of the movie would be these guys just not getting saved. Before these rescue missions to come after them started very late within the narrative. Or you just start on the last day, but then there's nothing as impressive about it. It doesn't allow you to experience just the desperation of these people just waiting there. Exactly.

And like, I mean, like Saving Private Ryan, you know, you heard at the time veterans say like, oh, it really captured the experience of getting off the boat and just walking into chaos. And I read some interview with a veteran about this movie. We said it better than any. It got the idea of how miserable and scary it was to have to be dive bombed. Sure. You know, to just hear that noise for like a while, have nothing you can do except just like lay on the ground. Right. And just hope you don't get blown up. And it also captures

that thing about those German bombers which was they could pretty much fly vertically. Right. And that great shot which is you know which justifies the IMAX on its own of just that head in the foreground. And the noise. Yeah of that head in the foreground with that

tiny tiny plane in the distance, which you can see it so clearly in IMAX, is just so well done. Yeah. And just so terrifying. It's very frightening, especially the first time. And he just makes it inhumanly loud,

as it should be. But that's a good point you make, which is like, we're watching this movie. We know the different timelines going on. So you're like, well, there's, I mean, they're not going to get saved now sure they're going to have to live through this because the first thing they do i mean well oh right we should mention okay so like right we we talked about the scene where he's running to the mall right he gets to the mall what does he try to do

he pulls a real griffin newman finds a oh oh he tries to try to take a poop he tries to take a poop which is something you don't see in war movies either, too. Which I will say, you know what? You're right. This is a good way to get me locked in on a character. Yeah. Especially for a movie that isn't going to do a lot of character building. It's going to ask you mostly just like accept this kind of like cypher character.

Yeah. If I see someone taking a deuce, I immediately like I feel like I'm in their headspace. And that's the other thing about this film. In a way, much more than his other films. It's very intimate in that way. That's very true. He usually struggles with intimacy, I would say. And the fact that this movie is basically one giant, insane combat set piece in some way,

and yet it is in this movie that he achieves what is probably kind of his greatest moments of intimacy, is quite ironic, I would say. And also kind of his most probing specific kind of human tragedy, which is this guy has been holding in a shit for a week because he's there on the beach and he's trying. He's trying. He gets performance anxiety. Well, he sees a guy burying another soldier on the beach just a little farther away. Right.

And they join up. Goes in and helps. Yeah. They become buddies. This is Anurin Barnard. That's the actor who plays Gibson.

Mm-hmm. Who is, he's a Welsh actor. I don't know what to tell you. But that is kind of the quiet through line in this movie. Like, in the same way

that Bridge of Spies, like, is Tom Hanks going, like, I just want to get home and get into bed I think Fine Whitehead is just like I just want to take a shit I've been holding in a shit for a week I've had the worst week of my life it's a bad week they have and I cannot find a toilet anywhere

well look it's like 24 he probably goes eventually I don't think so. When we're cutting away, he's managing it. Another interesting thing about the whole taking a shit

narrative element is one of Christopher Nolan's favorite movies is The Thin Red Line. You're a great movie. In The Thin Red Line, the novel, there is a great scene where a character tries to take a shit. Really? And a Japanese soldier comes on him and he has to kill the Japanese soldier.

And it's actually the character played by Jared Leto in the movie. And I believe they actually shot it for the film but didn't use it. And it's actually, is it Jared Leto? I think it's Jared Leto. It might be one or the other, but it's another, it's another character who we see very briefly in the movie.

And I believe they had shot that scene earlier because it's like the first, it's like the first person that any of them kills or something like that. Yeah, sure, sure. Right, right, right. There's some, you know,

very emotional element to that kill happening in that scene. So I'm sure that Nolan, being Nolan, you know, there's some, you know, very emotional element to that kill happening in that scene. So I'm sure that Nolan, being Nolan, being kind of an obsessive geek about this stuff, probably remembers that scene. Yeah, probably does.

I mean, I'm sure that that's, yeah. I mean, considering the things he includes in this movie, which is a bullet train of a movie, right? Yes. He puts that in there.

Well, let me just say quickly, interesting trivia fact, I don't know if you know this, but to prepare for that role, Jared Leto sent a box of shit to every one of his castmates. And that's a big cast.

That's why Clooney was really mad about it. He sent them all poop. It wasn't that he got cut out. It was the box. Actually, okay. That was the only way he knew how to get in a character.

This is true, by the way. Apparently, on the shooting of that film, Woody Harrelson, whenever he was on set, was often right off camera farting in people's faces. Why? Apparently, it's a thing they... He just likes to do that?

They were there for like a year. They were wherever they shot, like the Philippines or some jungle territory. Apparently, Woody Harrelson was just going around shitting in the background. Ten comedy points to Woody Harrelson was just going around shitting in the background of scenes. Ten comedy points to Woody Harrelson. That's a great bit.

Ten background points. Yeah, and also, I mean, whatever works. Clearly, the results they got out of everyone. Maybe Woody Harrelson needs to fart on more sets. They shot, for 100 days in Australia, 24 days in the Solomon Islands. Sorry, I just wanted to find out where they shot the Thin Red Line.

124 days. It's a long shoot. A long shoot. A lot of farts. So we've covered the whole movie at this point. So temporarily won. He's on the land with this guy. He's on the mole, the beach.

The mole is these beachheads. I feel like some people also get confused by that because they think there's sort of a spy in the movie. Not really though. Right. But I know people who definitely thought that. That's what that referred to. Especially because it's the first title card so we haven't set up. It's like

oh land, sky, sea. People think it's like oh which one of these characters is going to end up getting outstid by Anderson Cooper? Yes, exactly. Great, great poll. Thank you. Thank you.

But yeah, I mean, I think what? Quickly, they find… They find the… Well, they're walking around and they find the guy on the stretcher and they sort of run him up. This is our meal ticket. Well, what happens is I think they see… Silently. They see the… I think he sees the stretcher and they sort of run him up this is our meal ticket well what happens is I think silently I think he sees the stretchers

and then the dive bombing happens right because he tries to get in one line and the guy's like this ain't your line mate you know

because he's like it's the grenadiers it's the grenadiers right and then the dive bombing happens which is rough yeah but I think

he's seen the I think he's seen the stretchers at that point the. Yeah. But I think he's seen the, I think he's seen the, he's seen the stretchers at that point. The dive bombing happens. And I think after the dive bombing, he and the Frenchman like kind of exchange a glance and the next thing you know, they've got a stretcher. They're like, let's go. Because they're like, we got to get the fuck out of this.

This is not, waiting in lines here, not going to work. See, when you said pulls a Griffin Newman, I thought you were referring to that because that's totally what I would do in that situation. I think a lot of us would do that. Let me just find someone who's close to dying and be like, hey, buddy! How are you doing? I would put myself on the stretcher so I know. Someone take me!

That's what they should have done. Because, of course, then they're running and they run through all these lines and you see that they're stopping French people from getting on the boats. You sort of get these glimpses of how this is all being organized. They run over the little plank, which is, I don't like that.

That always freaks me out in any movie. I'm like, oh no. Because it's like one board, right? It's literally like, yeah. And three guys. Three guys. Three wait, but they do it. Three men and a stretcher.

Three men and a stretcher three men and a stretcher and then they're cheering for they get him on the boat and of course are it's just like all right get off you know yeah yeah this not for you right like is that the entire they don't get back that's not the boat that they then sneak onto is it or is no no they're they're pulled off and i believe that that's the boat i'm not sure about this, but I think that might actually be the boat that Harry Styles is on. That sounds original.

I believe it gets bombed. Yeah, because that boat almost immediately, right, goes, because that was the problem they had. They were lining these people up to get them onto these one, these moles that had these big boats, but then the boats were such easy targets. And that's why they stopped, essentially,

trying the destroyer's evacuation. Which brings us to temporality two. Dos. Sneak attack. What if we have nice men take their little fishing boats? Good British folk. Solid people. Yes.

What is interesting, though, is right before they cut to... The Moonstone. The Mark R they cut to the Moonstone the Mark Rylance the Moonstone somebody yells where the hell is the bloody Air Force yes right and every time I see that movie

oh now they're gonna cut to the Air Force I'm like no wait they're cutting to the Moonstone no no Christopher Nolan he's he has a plan and I remember at first I was like is he gonna rigidly stick to like

we go mole sea air mole sea air mole sea air I'm not cutting between like I'm not doing like sea, air. Mole, sea, air. Mole, sea, air. I'm not cutting between like, I'm not doing like, sea, mole, air. Sea, air, mole. But no, he

just, he doesn't do that. He doesn't know what the fuck he wants. He's a grown ass man. So yeah, so this is a nice man with a good sweater. And he has a fishing boat. A very nice looking pleasure boat. And a very handsome little son.

Yeah, who's his son? Who's that kid? Blondie McBritish? Christopher Nolan Jr.? Yeah. Tom Glyn Carney. He feels like the kind of guy who, you know, could be playing Ron Weasley, you know, like if the timelines matched up or whatever. He's got nice red hair in real life.

Yes. Okay. Okay. He's got nice blonde hair in this movie. I. Okay. Okay. He's got nice blonde hair in this movie. I was going to say, learn hair colors, but in real life,

he's got red hair. That's a good dye job, actually. Yeah, good job, guys. What else has he been? Because he does look familiar. Nothing, like literally nothing. He was in

the British TV soap Casualty, which is set in a hospital, and he's done some theater, but that's it. That is all. It's crazy. Good actor. He is but that's it. That is all. It's crazy. Good actor. He's good.

He's excellent. Everyone's good. Yeah. Right? Oh, everyone is fantastic and, you know, when I did watch the film again, it really struck me

how good Killian Murphy is, which we'll get to. I mean, but he is exceptional in this movie. I agree. I think he is the best performance in this film, but he is not my favorite character in this movie, because I think you can guess who my favorite character is.

I don't know. I'll give you a hint. He's the guy who is underqualified for the circumstances that he is in. Sure, sure. Barry, how do you say his name? Keegan? I don't know it's spelled like Keoghan

who's an Irish actor who I just saw the killing of a sacred deer last night and now I hate him and I can't look at him oh he's in that okay

it really is amazing how different that character is from this one you will really gain even more appreciation for his work in Dunkirk after you see

the fucking killing of a sacred deer I can't wait. I thought he was fucking great in this movie. He's good in this. He's got a great face. He's got this just sort of like this sort of putty face. He's sort of frozen

in this sort of like, as the British would say, gormless expression. Yeah, and he's got sort of these beady eyes that are weirdly expressive still. He looks like he could grow up to be either Christian Bale or Shane McGowan. He's like caught in that moment when

his fate is about to be decided by the gods and you don't know in which direction it's going to go. Apparently he was in the movie 71, which I saw. Do you remember that movie? I forgot about that. That movie, I saw it at the New York Film Festival or something and it's sort of mostly blacked out of about that. That movie, I saw it at like the New York Film Festival or something

and it's sort of mostly blacked out of my memory. I mean, I remember being, that was another intense, rattling,

military experience. Did he play one of the young kids in that movie? He must have. Yeah. Let me see if he's, no,

there's no other, but yeah, I don't know. He's Georgie boy. He's George. He does some work on the boat. Yes. At first, I thought he was the second son.

I thought he was related. And then very clearly not. No, he's more just like, they're loading the boat up with lifeboats, and then Mark Rylance, I guess, decides, I'm just going to take the boat. Yeah, because apparently that was a problem. Right.

Where the Navy requisitioned certain boats. They were literally taking your boats. Yeah, they got rid of the pilots. And very often the people that were driving these boats did not know the waters. And a number of boats, I think, I don't know if they sank, but like a lot of them just did not get to Dunkirk because they were being sailed by people who just did not know the boat or did not know the waters.

Right. But Rylance is a pro. He's a steady hand. This guy knows from the ocean. He does. He knows the sea. He's a mariner. He's a mariner.

And he knows it's pronounced Dunkirk, not Dunkirk. Dunkirk. He's, I mean, look, Rylance, it's funny because he's this incredibly versatile actor. Yeah. Who like especially like, you know, plays like Jerusalem or whatever, like he can do anything. And now he is getting pegged. He's getting a certain peg.

Yeah. Most definitely. But he's great at, I mean, there's a reason to peg him there. Yeah. Yeah. And it's something that no one else can do as well as he does.

Like, like even if he's capable of doing a thousand other things, English, Mr. Rogers. I mean, like, what do you?

The gentlest man in film. They need to cast him as, like, a Mission Impossible villain or something like that. Yes, like, he'd be so good at that. Because even if he played it folksy, he could play it terrifyingly folksy, you know? Yeah, I think he should play Clayface in the next Batman movie.

Nolan loves him. Maybe Nolan will come back. Do you think, alright, here's will come back. Do you think, all right, here's a side question. Do you think if Nolan came around to Warner Brothers and he said, I don't like the DC universe.

I don't like the Joker. I don't like what you guys are doing. I'll make you a Batman movie if you just wipe it all away. They would be like, yes, yes, we will do it. 100%.

You mean just get rid of all the other movies they have planned? Yeah, we just ignore, you can keep Wonder Woman. I know that did well and that was good, but you get rid of everything else. movies they have planned. Yeah, we just ignore, you can keep Wonder Woman, I know that did well, and that was good, but you get rid of everything else. Oh, I think they're waiting for somebody to come and do that. Like, just say, someone tell us what to do.

Yeah, exactly. I think they're in that mode where you start acting really shitty to the person you're dating in the hopes that they dump you. Yeah. You know? No, you're right. I'm passive-aggressive, I don't want to end this, so let me just be kind of a brat so they get tired of me. It's so No, you're right. I'm passive aggressive. I don't want to end this. Let me just be like kind of a brat

so they get tired of me. It's so endlessly baffling where they're like, Ben Affleck, you know, rumors Ben Affleck's going to leave. Ben Affleck's like, I'm not leaving. And they're like,

no, he was never going to leave. Anyway, the Batman movie is not going to be connected to the universe. Everyone's like, what? And you're like, well, it is, but it won't. And people are like, okay.

And they're like, anyway, Joker movie? Martin Scorsese's attached. And people are like, what? And they're like, anyway, Joker movie? Martin Scorsese's attached. And people are like, what? And they're like, wait, hold on, but a different Joker movie. From the directors of Crazy Stupid Love. Or the writers of Crazy. No.

No, the writers and directors. The directors. The Ficarra and Requa. They didn't write it. They didn't write it. They directed it. Every single announcement from them now feels like a cry for help. It really does.

It feels like they're just sort of like lobbying. And it's funny because they finally had the hit this year. Yeah. Like they finally figured out like, here's the kind of movie people are looking for, which is slightly broader, more open-hearted. And I don't even hate these movies. Like I feel like I'm actually,

I mean, I was the one guy who gave Suicide Squad like a mildly positive review. You're crazy. You're even crazier than some of those people on the Suicide Squad. You're crazy. You're even crazier than some of those people on the Suicide Squad. You're fucking twisted, man. Twisted.

And I didn't, you know, and while I can't really say I liked Batman v Superman, I didn't hate it. I'm sorry, what's the full title of that movie?

I don't recognize the movie you just referenced. Batman BVS. Dawn of Justice, I believe. You forgot the Justice Dawns in that movie? Yeah, and so it's, I mean, it is, it's bizarre.

Yeah. Well, it's like, you imagine like that's what the sort of like development meetings within the studio are like. Okay, let's just throw some ideas against the wall. Yeah. What are some things we could do? Hypothetically, what could we do? Joker Harlan movie.

Different continuity Joker in Brooklyn. Shazam fighting Black Adam. No, wait. Black Adam's his own movie. Yeah, Shazam will come later. Just take a picture of the whiteboard.

That's our press release. We're going to do an Inhumans movie. That's Marvel. No, no, no. We're going to do it. We're going to do it. It's fine.

It's fine. Everything in there like Coke Fuel development meeting is like getting issued a statement via statement to deadline. Like they're publicly disclosing every wanton idea they have. Yeah.

Cyborg though? Yeah. I mean what a great character. I can't wait to see what Cyborg, what comes out of that other box. Everyone's favorite superhero. Now is he a, he's a half man half robot is that his deal well that was historically the thing but then if you look at the design of cyborg in justice league he is approximately 94 percent robot 94 percent robot and like three-quarter face man he's like got the opposite of phantom of the opera right where he's

just got the little sliver like if a robot lady fell in love with him he'd be like don't look at my human face. It's hideous. Is that what we're talking about here? I just you know they should have just brought in Jean-Claude Van Damme

for the part. Yeah. Yeah. The original cyborg. They should have made a cyborg too. So in the sea Mark Rylance

takes his boat out. Georgie gets on board. You like Georgie. I love Georgie. I love Georgie boy. He's real shit gets on board You like Georgie I love Georgie I love Georgie boy He's real shit And he goes like Georgie we're not going fishing or something We're going to fucking Dunkirk

To war To war George And George is like Yeah yeah yeah No I knew about that No I've been to war Yeah yeah yeah Cool

I totally knew where we were going I did this on purpose Yeah yeah yeah I definitely don't need any kind of like pillow in the back of my head You shouldn't like cover up any loose exposed screws. Georgie, do you want this helmet? No, I need a helmet. I do like, I do like, I mean, Georgie's trajectory though is really fascinating because.

Please go on. Remember when I first saw the film, you know, at the end, I'm getting a little ahead of us. No, get ahead. But at the end, when, you know, when you see the little news item where they talk about him being a hero and I, I remember initially thinking to myself well he wasn't really a hero i mean he kind of he contributes very little sure contributes very little and then i realized wait no because i mean the moment when he hits his head i mean he's basically stopping

killian murphy from hijacking well from bashing mark Rylance's head in and taking the boat back. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, it's kind of a sacrifice he does because later the Moonstone is the ship, is the boat that saves, you know, Fionn Whitehead

and all these other guys while they're in the oil. In the oil, which is... Right. I mean, it's really, I mean, in essence, if Georgie had not been there to kind of sacrifice himself,

these men would not have been saved. And that's certainly something Nolan is thinking about. Oh, absolutely. Like, every sort of, like, little bit of balance, like, on either side, he's thinking about. I mean, both of the, there are only two major

characters in this movie that die, right? Him and the Frenchman. And the Frenchman. Who dies off-screen. Who dies, well, yeah, I mean, you just see his hand. You just see his hand, but it is interesting how, I mean, you just see his hand. He's sort of drowning. You just see his hand. But it is interesting how, I mean, with the Frenchman, he's constantly conspiring to find a way off the beach or off the boat. Sure.

And numerous points saves everyone else, kind of, despite his own best interest. Right. He saves everyone on the sinking boat by opening the door. Yeah. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then later on, when they're on the lifeboat, the one that Killian Murphy's on initially, he's there. Yeah. He's kind of in the corner, and he's the one who, after they push them away, after they push Harry in—

Pulls them back on. He tosses them a little line very quietly so that they're pulled ashore. line very quietly so that they're pulled ashore. And then at the end, I mean, I think he's also I guess he's also stuck, but he's the last person who has his fingers in

the holes. He's the last person left on that boat. Basically allows everyone else to survive. Poor guy. Yeah. That's rough. That's the roughest scene. We get to that we'll get to that yeah we got one more temporality to discuss yeah oh my favorite temporality and much like aloha it's all about the sky sure that it's a conscious homage yes right uh nolan's like a huge aloha fan like

he said i think it's two cornerstones for this movie were Aloha and the Thin Red Line. Did you hear his list of movies? It's a good list. No. All Quiet on the Western Front. He likes to give his little list of movies that inspired him. The Wages of Fear. Scooby-Doo 2, Monsters Only. Dunstan checks in.

But in 70mm. The original 70mm. Of course. If you're not seeing it in 70mm, original 70mm of course if you're not seeing in 70mm it's not the same experience agreed Wages of Fear

tense movies like Alien Speed which is a great movie yeah Unstoppable

which I really enjoyed which is a great movie love that movie the Tony Scott film the Tony Scott movie yeah the movie rules Tony Scott's masterpiece is it his last movie yeah it's a great movie. Love that movie. The Tony Scott film? The Tony Scott movie. Yeah, the movie rules. Tony Scott's masterpiece.

Is it his last movie? Yeah, it was his last movie. It's a great movie. I love that movie, and I feel like it gets no credit. Oh, it's so great. When you do the Tony Scott, have you done the Tony Scott podcast? No, we should do a Tony Scott. Tony Scott made some wild movies.

Yes, he did. And he definitely had some blank checks there. For sure. Domino? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Love Unstoppable. Love the idea of Chris Nolan just sitting down at home and firing up the Unstoppable

Blu-ray. I'm so happy to hear this. It also speaks to this thing, which is all the most intelligent directors, I find, when you hear their movie taste, are not snobs. Sure. Like, the people who are snobs are people who, like, revere Nolan,

and they're like, that's the only real kind of movie. Not bullshit like Unstoppable. And then you ask Chris Nolan, he's like, I love Unstoppable. It's a fantastically well-constructed movie. What are you talking about? Fuck you.

Fuck you. Here's a 70mm re-release of Unstoppable. Yeah, what if that's what he's doing next? He's like, I've decided it's my next project. I'm going to tour Unstoppable with a live orchestra. I'm going to tour Unstoppable on a train around the country. And no one will stop us. By the way, getting back to that discussion, the next thing he might do, I mean, one of

the things he's always talked about is that Howard Hughes. Yeah, the Hughes movie. The film that he still says is the best screenplay he ever wrote which is quite a thing for him to be saying but the rules didn't apply I feel like every time he gets big footed

by some even more famous director yeah well the first time that happened was The Aviator and it was like two of his heroes Michael Mann and Martin Scorsese. And they had joined their Hughes movies practically, right? Like, yeah. Greed, Sunrise, Ryan's Daughter, Battle of Algiers, Chariots of Fire, Foreign Correspondent.

Those are the other movies. Great. All great. All great movies. I mean, that's a good list. Not many of the more movies, though. I think he was more. Yeah.

And so it makes a lot of sense because that similarly is like, here's a good list. Not many of the more movies, though. I think he was more. Yeah. And Sopo makes a lot of sense because that similarly is like, here's a speeding train. Yeah. You know, literally. But then also all the different narratives of everyone trying to stop it. It's a missile the size of the Empire State Building. Yes. What a good film. It is a great film.

It's so fucking cool years ago I did a I did a a list for Vulture of the like the however many greatest

action movies since Die Hard and and I included if I remember correctly I included Unstoppable on that list

and people got really angry movie's good man I I should watch it again. I love that movie. But Temporality 3. Temporality 3's in the sky.

You got three planes. You got Fortis Leader. We don't see much of him. He is not long for this world. Played by Michael Caine. Yes, right, right. In a vocal-only performance. Oh, is it actually?

No, I know it's Michael Caine. The guy on the radio is Fortis Leiter. That is Fortis Leiter, which I only put together later where I was like, oh, Fortis Leiter bites the dust real fast. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe an 81-year-old guy shouldn't be flying. It's Michael Caine. Do not go gently.

That's what he should do. He's an actor in the winter of his life. One last time. Tom Hardy's like, no, no, no, don't do the poem. He's like, do not go gently no, don't do the poem. He's like, do not pretend. Prank caller, prank caller. Switching.

You got Farrier, who is Tom Hardy, and you got this guy Collins. I love that actor, whoever that guy is. That guy is hot. He's very handsome. He is really good looking. You know who else

is very good looking? Tom Hardy, which is why they cover up 98% of his face in this movie. The most baller move of all time. He can act sitting down though. It's crazy.

He can act sitting down? It is. Yeah, it is. You think of Locke? He's sitting throughout Locke. I haven't seen Locke. Locke is so good. You get a kick out of Locke. That's a seated performance. I guess he's one of our best.

He's one of our best sitting actors. Right? Yeah. No, I mean, he is such a physical actor. Sure. And yet, for some reason, because of that, it actually makes sense to have him be the guy that's sitting down. Well, I also.

You know, in this one, I mean, he does so much with just his eyes in this movie. It's incredible eye acting, which he also I think did a good job with in The Dark Knight Rises, which is the other eye acting heavy Tom Hardy. And the first half of Fury Road, too. That's very

true. I forgot he has the big... So Dark Knight Rises, we covered up most of his face, but he's got his full body to act with free road it was like first 50 of the movie we've our first 25 let's say 30 we've covered up his face and he's chained to a car so he doesn't have that much range for his body and no one was like let's go a step further he's gonna be a remake of derek jarman's blue with tom hard Hardy. It does feel like both he is challenging himself. It feels like he gets off on tying his arm behind his back and still trying to win the boxing match.

But also I think Nolan at this point is like, what? I mean, he can do it, right? Yeah, I hate Tommy. Yeah, his next movie, Tom Hardy is going to be in it. He's going to play Zordon. He'll just be a head. I was going to say he's going to do an. He's going to play Zordon. He'll just be a head. I was going to say he's going to do

an entire film where he's in a coffin. We already had that movie. Yeah, but the camera never goes inside the coffin. Sure.

He's in there and he doesn't talk. And then the credits roll. He could do like a ghost story situation where it's Tom Hardy in a sheet.

Yes, yes. Tom Hardy just walking around with a sack of potatoes on his head. In a box and his name is Mute Bob and everyone invokes him

the entire movie and he never gets out of the box. And he gets an Oscar. He gets an Oscar. That's his Oscar. That guy's just got so much presence. Oh, God.

Burning up every frame. But yeah, the first chunk of this movie he's wearing like a mouth mask. Right at the beginning, he doesn't have it. And then when they sort of enter, like, you know, they go into higher altitude, he puts it on. And he basically has it on for the rest of the movie.

Right. But then he also puts the helmet and the goggles on on top of that. He gets more and more covered as the film goes on. I just love, and it's in the trailer, I just love how he says, I'm on him. Because in any other movie, he would say that triumphantly. Right. And so love how he says i'm on him because in any other movie he would say that triumphantly right and it's just just like i'm on him you know just like totally routine it's workaday yeah and apparently uh tom hardy's grandfather oh yeah had i mean if you're a brit you know yeah you may well have had a veteran parent yeah had flown for the raf over

dunkirk so and he got these real Spitfires, which are amazing. I mean, this is where the dad shit really kicks in, I feel like. My dad was obsessed with Spitfires. That is a British man who grew up after the war. They are like, Britain really reveres Spitfires as our last great combat thing. I mean, Britain has really done a lot of cool war shit after World War 2

what's the line Rolls Royce engines he's bragging sweetest sound you never did hear Rolls Nashwashes it's a great

it's his greatest dad moment it is it is and of course it's later we realize it's sort of shading because it's like

he has the son who died flying a hurricane. And then Ruby Barnhill is weirdly on the boat and she goes, R-A-F. Now, you may not have heard our BFG episode, but it's one of our most celebrated and famed episodes where he does that constantly. But it's weird. They just keep on having her yell out the initials of the royal

air force it's in ryan lance's writers that she has to now be with him in every movie saying three letters she's his hype man exactly uh but those spitfires are very cool to look at at least for me is it i found i found it very stirring to see the real thing well yeah and then the crazier thing is that nolan figured out way to put an IMAX camera in a cockpit and fly a fucking IMAX camera in the sky, which is like the greatest contribution of this movie to cinema history for me. It's like, oh, the closest we will ever come

to feeling like Superman? Like essentially watching those sequences feels like you're superhuman. Because, I mean, the plot of the air temporality is just like, they fly across Dunkirk. One of them gets shot down. Fly some more. Another one gets shot down.

It takes an hour. And then Tom Hardy makes it there. But he also has, basically, an hour's worth of fuel. Right. That determines the length of the thing. And rather than turning around at a certain point, he just going yeah that's sort of his big heroic decision he fights off some uh some other guys he defends a minesweeper but then he shows up right at the end there and and early on he flies over like three of the film's big set pieces just from the distance which

i think which i love because also you, this is the kind of movie, conceptually, it leaves no room for reflection, right? It's just one giant montage. Which is what being a soldier is, right?

Yeah, exactly. It's like you can't have time to reflect because then you would stop. But the film creates these moments of reflection by its very structure, which is another reason

why I find the temporality so compelling is that it kind of creates, and it's like, you would not, in a movie like this or in a set piece like this,

you would not ordinarily have flashbacks. There just would not be time for them. It would slow everything down. But the film creates flashbacks because of, you know. Because it can go back in time by cutting to the sea or whatever. Yeah, you see Cillian Murphy on the boat

and he's a mess and then suddenly. That's my favorite thing in the whole movie. Right. When you see him early and he's like, now, now boys, you know, everyone will get on the boat eventually.

You know, he's like totally chill. He is literally the most chill survivor of a ship sinking ever. Cause everyone else is like, Jesus, we're in the fucking water. He's like, it's warm.

Don't worry. The water's warm enough fellas. Um, and, but also, yeah, when his, when, when, uh, Jack Loudon goes down. in the fucking water he's like it's warm don't worry the water's warm enough fellas um and but also yeah when his when when uh

Jack Loudon goes down and Tom Hardy's like oh you alright you alright and he like sort of gives him a little salute and just keeps going

and we stick with Hardy and we don't resolve that until later if you watch it on IMAX and you sit close enough to the screen which I was stupid enough to do once.

Sure. You can actually see a tiny little hand come out of the plane seen from Tom Hardy's perspective. It's a tiny little hand just goes like, like I'm mimicking an actual waving. It really is. I think it was like the fourth time I saw it. That's crazy. So you sat right at the front for the fourth time? I sat in what I thought was the sixth row,

but somehow was the fifth row, which somehow made all the difference. It was a little overwhelming, but at least I got to see the hand. A little hand. That is the thing. The temporalities thing is actually pretty pragmatic. It's not a gimmick at all, because that's the only way he can tell this story that he wants to tell.

And the fact that like we know in the same way that the thing that's so tense and stressful about watching the mole sequences is like, fuck, they still have a week to go. They're not going to get out of this easily. In the Hardy sequences, you're essentially dealing in real time. Right. You know? Like, you're not, you know, it's not a straight hour in his life and there are jumps in between, but essentially, like, every minute you're with Hardy is, like, a real minute that counts. Yeah.

So you're feeling that sustained kind of, like, what it must like to to have the adrenaline of being in a situation like that where every second feels like a year sure and that's another thing i mean with previous films and in particular i think dark knight rises you know no one has done this thing which ordinarily you don't do i think as an action filmmaker which is you know he will have an action set piece that is also a know, he will have an action set piece that is also a montage. Which is not a thing you're supposed to do. I mean, you'll have your big set pieces, but then, you know,

you'll have your montage, and, you know, those are for getting over kind of narrative bumps. Right, it's for speeding things up. But he'll have scenes where it is simultaneously a montage and an action sequence. you know, it's kind of this editorial thing that he's been pushing throughout his career.

And in Dunkirk, I feel like is the ultimate expression of that because the entire movie is basically that. The entire movie is a big montage. Yeah, but it's also a giant action sequence. Yes, yes. You're right. That was brilliant. I feel like we should just end the podcast.

Yeah. Good episode. Thank you so much for coming on. No, we got to talk about Harry Styles. Yeah. How have we not

mentioned Harry Styles? He's good. So at the press screening you were at, was it the one that I was at where as I walked there, it was in the morning.

I did see it in the morning. And I got to the Lincoln Square Theater quite early because I wanted that back seat. Give me that. Right in the back. Meanwhile, they call me Neil Flynn because I'm in the middle every week quite early because I wanted that backseat. Give me that. Right in the back.

Meanwhile, they call me Neil Flynn because I'm in the middle every week. Yes, that's right. Wednesdays at 9. And I don't know if that's the time slot. And there are like six girls sitting outside the theater. And I'm like, are you here for the press screening? Which is a silly question to ask six girls who are obviously 19 years old. But I didn't know what else to ask.

They could be writing for any number of publication. It's a silly question to ask six girls who are obviously 19 years old. But I didn't know what else to ask. They could be writing for any number of esteemed publications. Exactly. I should not. And they were like, no, no, we're here for the premiere. And I was seeing it on a Monday, and I knew the premiere was that Tuesday at that theater. And I was like, but that's tomorrow. And they were like, yeah.

And I was like, okay. They're in a different temporality. They were really in a different. And then when it came out, they were like, yeah. And I was like, okay. They're in a different temporality. They were really in a different, and then when we came out, they were like, does he die? And I was like, you want to know?

Like, I was kind of shocked and they were like, yeah. And I was like, no, he makes it. He's good. It's a movie about people making it.

It's true. It's not a movie about people dying. Yeah. Because I, when they announced Harry Styles was in this, I'm like, oh yeah, he'll get his head blown off like in scene two, right when they announced Harry Styles was in this, I'm like, oh, yeah, he'll get

his head blown off, like, in scene two, right? Like, it'll just be, like, a brief hello. You know, Nolan's not stupid. He gets that, like, there's something savvy. Or, like, what was it, the NSYNC members who were in Phantom Menace? Oh, yeah. No, there's, like... I think they were cut out.

Were they cut out? Yeah. But they were in it. That was a big thing where, like... They were, like, just cameos. Right. I think it was Fatone and Lance Bass were like

huge Phantom Menace heads sure and then Lucas' daughter was into NSYNC she was like dad please it's the attack of the clones not Phantom Menace

to be clear oh was it attack of the clones yes go on but were they cut out of it they were supposed to play Jedi Knights in the Geonosis battle

right they were given Jedi robes, shoes, and Padawan braids. And they fully shot two different scenes that were cut from the film.

They were paired off and, you know, I think just told, like, wave your lightsabers around. Yeah. There's plenty of pictures

of them on set. Like, plenty. I say this as... You're a defender of the prequels. I am a defender of... I'm a defender of the prequels I'm a defender of I'm a defender of the prequels

in general I'm not a big fan of Phantom Menace I do love Revenge of the Sith and you know Attack of the Clones is like a rollercoaster

ride of scenes I hate and then scenes I love it just veers back and forth drunkenly but how fucking

distracting would that movie have been if suddenly two members of NSYNC showed up as Jedi Knights what if they were in Sith like getting murdered

and like Jimmy Smits is like no yeah that'd be good that'd be great but that's yeah the Harry Styles thing felt weird and it felt

when it came out that he was in the movie it almost felt like okay so he's doing this weird like sort of adult blockbuster this very kind of what will likely be a very somber movie produced at a very high budget that he was in the movie, it almost felt like, okay, so he's doing this weird, like, sort of adult blockbuster, this very kind of, what will likely be a very somber movie

produced at a very high budget with mostly a cast of, like, noted British, you know, character actors and supporting roles and unknowns in the lead. Did Warner Brothers, like, push him to put Harry Styles

in there for, like, a little bit of insurance? And then the fear is, is he going to be really distracting? Are you never going to be able to get over the fact that he's Harry Stiles? And especially for me when the movie started and you see how much it is just this like sort of collection of chaos

that's ongoing, it's like, is he going to stick out like a sore thumb? I was so impressed by how well he integrated himself into the town. He totally belongs. He does belong. It took me a while before I realized,

you know, I mean, I've seen Harry Styles, I'm not a fan, but like I've seen pictures of the guy and so I figured I'd be able to recognize him

but it was actually like a couple of scenes in where I was like, oh wait, that's Harry Styles. I was more ready for him. I'm not really a Harry, but I have like people

in my life who are big Harry Styles fans. I mean, I get it. I get it. And again, I was just like, oh, he's gonna just,

because in the trailer, there's the scene of them in the boat with the gunfire hitting, and I was like, that's it. He'll just, you know, they'll just pop him off there. Yeah. And I think, I guess there was that shot of him drowning,

which I think is in the first boat sinking scene. Okay, yeah. And so, but, and so I had this weird tension the first few scenes where I was like, he's not dying. And then I just sort of settled in and he settles in. I think he's great.

Nolan argues like, I didn't even know who he was. He just auditioned against other actors and he was best for the part. And it's like, all right. I'm the most deliberate, careful filmmaker alive. Somehow I was not aware of who this guy is. Also like father of teenage girls, British teenage girls. aware of who this guy is. Also like father of teenage girls. British teenage girls. He knows who Harry Styles is.

You think he's ever talked to his kids though? No. I'm sure he's a very nice guy. He's apparently a very devoted family man. He doesn't even have like a cell phone, right? That's the thing about him. No cell phone, no email. When he's home, he's home. When he steps off that set, you better not i'm calling i fantasize about that so much

what about blank check this is me texting you to be on blank check yeah that's what i'm saying my fan is giving me a real look right now my fantasy is that i could become as powerful as christopher nolan so then not have to ever respond to anything and just be like if i'm in a room i'll talk to you text messages stress me out one day have fun doing that yeah uh that'll be the day that everyone stops putting up with me that is well great that is empirically not worth it bye griffin bye forever um all right so because we're not doing enough of the mole stuff we're not doing enough of Harry

uh and all of them because we had the whole scene where the boat sinks with the jam the bread and jam which I love the cups of tea

so I saw this movie with past and future guests Sam Raquel and he uh when the jam when we saw them

eating the toastless jam we both laughed and turned to each other and we're like I mean it's, it's so British that like. Sure, yeah. On an American boat, they'd just be like, here's some fucking Wonder Bread, eat it. And then in this movie, you have to imagine that there's like some chef in the back like furiously spreading just the right amount of jam. Like it's so perfectly placed on each slice.

But it like speaks to like the British sensibility where it's like, like well we shan't lose civility even in the face of danger apparently at the real dunkirk it was somewhat more chaotic i i could imagine but yeah but i love that but and and the film is so visceral and you get so into it at least i did yeah at that point i was like i really want some fucking jam right now. Also, you're stressed out. Yeah. It's been stressful so far. They get on the boat. I'm very stressed out because I'm like, this boat thing is a no-go.

This is a bad, this is not going to work out for them. Let's just go back to Dunkirk. Yeah, right. Guys, just find a gazebo. Don't these idiots know they have six days left? Didn't they read the title card? Haven't they seen Atonement? There's the guys singing in the gazebo.

Go in that gazebo. I'm sure it'll be fine. This movie, yeah, this movie would be a lot shorter if they had seen Atonement. Like if the characters in the film had seen it and been like, oh, this is just like Atonement. It's like a bunch of people going to sing and Joe Wright's really going to ostentatiously glide by them. It's going to be great. None of this really happened. It's all conjecture.

Yes, exactly. It's going to be great. None of this really happened. It's all conjecture. Yes, exactly. But, and then, yeah, then I just, that is a more visceral fear than like war for me is drowning. It's like a boat going under. Well, yeah. That's pretty impressive to stage the way he does.

Yes. And having come very close to drowning twice in my life. Wait, God, twice? Yeah. It was... I mean, it's so compelling watching that and just so terrifying. Especially because it's immediately very dark.

It's all just flailing bodies. And the door opening is like... It's barely perceptible except that he's looking at it. Yeah. And then later on on there's that scene when they're in the oil. There's one of the That's the worst one.

No I know. It's just like the I mean I said this once about Titanic too but like you know boat sinking movies are really just films built around a collection

of terrible ways to die. Yes. But like that one guy who is, you know, one of the guys on the, I guess the trawler, who is, you know, everything is burning on the surface of the water. Oh, and he's like hiding underneath, but he can't stay under.

And he's just like, but he's going to drown, so he has to actually surface and then just burns alive. I have spent a lot of idle time as an obsessive fatalistic person weighing in my mind whether i would rather burn to death or drown uh okay like i was like those are the two ways i would least like to die which one would be worse and then nolan's like hold my beer burning and drowning what if both what if both at the same time it's like wait but no one negates the other and he's like hold my beer burning and drowning what if both what if both at the same time

and it's like wait but no one negates the other and he's like no oil in the water you are drowning in fire yeah I'm on the record

as loving a wet you're a wet guy you're soaking wet and so you know this is a slick flick but the oil

it's an oil slick flick exactly yeah it's not good water it's bad water it's bad water it's the bad water you're in oil slick flick. The oil. It's an oil slick flick. Exactly. Yeah. It's not good water. It's bad water. It's bad water. It's the bad water. You're in oil.

The bad kind. The bad kind. They need Kevin Costner to come in with his oil machine. Do you remember that? Or with his gills. Or with his gills.

Yeah. No, but do you remember during the BP oil spill when he went to Congress and he's like, I have put $10 million into a machine that can separate oil from water.

I do remember that. And the government was like, we're good. We don't need it. What happened to it? Because I've actually, for some reason, you know, not a month goes by that I don't occasionally think whatever happened to Kevin Costner and his turning oil into water? Yeah, we could be using that. There are a lot

of applications for that thing. Yeah. Come on, Kennyny but he's like no yeah mcfarland usa gets a wide release and then i release the blueprints first i have to teach these mexican kids how to run but but the thing about that he's made some choices the thing about that movie is his name is mr white because he's a white person i don't know if you've seen it but his name is mr white i actually i didn't hate that movie i don't know if you've seen it, but his name is Mr. White. I actually, I didn't hate that movie. I don't either. I think the movie's kind of solid.

Well, it was actually, it was actually okay, right? It's Nick Carr, right? It's Nick Carr, She's a good director.

I know. I didn't really mean to rag on McFarland USA. It came like a month after the other one, which was terrible, Black or White, was that one?

Yes, that's the one that I really wanted to rag on, but McFarland USA is a funnier title, because it's just such an uncommercial title. And also, do you know that Kevin Costner wholly financed Black or White?

Yes, I know. We've talked about it, I believe, on this podcast. He read the script and no one would make it. Kevin Costner. Oh, okay. Yeah. On the oil machine. I worked in R&D.

I thought he was good in Hidden Figures, too. I sort of forget that he's in that movie. He's a good actor. I love him as an actor. I will say though, watching Hidden Figures, he kind of outpits Pitt in terms of eating in every scene. He does eat a lot. And I just could totally see him,

when they were blocking every scene, being like, I need something. Someone hand me a bagel. He's one of those actors who's just always trying to find other stuff to do and not play up too much. And that movie was the one where it feels like they let him do all of it. Yeah. Give me more chewing gum.

It's great. He needs to be, somebody needs to kind of come in and do something special with him. He's so powerful. Like he's such a fucking powerful movie star. Oh, he'd be so good in the Nolan movie. He was, wasn't he cast in a Tarantino movie? Django, and then he dropped out. Oh, right, okay.

And it was a character that then they folded in. I think they removed the character after he dropped out. Oh, okay. Was it going to be like Will Smith and Kevin Costner in Django? Yeah, exactly. He was supposed to be, I think, an earlier antagonist. Maybe, yeah, he could have done the Don Johnson part. Yeah, but it was a

different part. That was the thing. Don Johnson had already been cast, and they cast Kevin Costner. We are redeeming way too many aging white actors in this part. It's funny that no one's ever given Don Johnson a flyer, considering that he went for Eric Roberts and all those guys.

No, I think what happened was they were like, after Costner dropped out, Tarantino was like, well, we just removed his character and we gave some of the dialogue to Walton Goggins. Right, right, right. Like, Walton Goggins is carrying some of the weight that his character used to have. Very, very, very interesting. So back over to the sea. I want to take us to the sea. You've got Cillian Murphy.

They pick up Cillian Murphy. Because we should talk about that performance. And that whole segment of the movie. Which a few people I know struggled with that more. Because it is the most non-realistic, I guess. It's the most sort of fanciful seems to, like a weird word for it. But you know, like. Surreal?

Yeah, exactly. The weird circumstance of it being knocked down the stairs. It feels more Hollywood, I guess. Oh, you mean the Georgie stuff? Yeah. I thought you meant finding him on the boat. No, that's all good.

Which I love. That's like a Powell Pressburger moment. Exactly. Him just sitting on... And the propeller is just turning and you hear the propeller sound in the back.

And he's so fucking good in this. We've talked about him a lot in this miniseries. It's a minimal Nolan miniseries. He's in most of these movies. But he's doing this very odd kind of like,

there's something sort of heightened in an old Hollywood way about his performance. Oh yeah, absolutely. But he's playing a totally broken, deconstructed version

of an old Hollywood like matinee idol in a weird way. That scene where he says, you know, where he tells Mark Rylance to turn the boat around, it's so well done. Like, physically, it's such a great bit of acting because, you know, he kind of does this thing with his hand. He's kind of flicking and pointing.

He's like, turn this boat around immediately. Right. But he's also concave as he does so. He's just so broken. But there's just that little bit of kind of officer training. I just want to run immediately. And I also, you know, it's also so touching because once you do find out, once you do kind of get that quote unquote flashback and you see him on the lifeboat earlier, then you sort of realize what this guy has been through. Because he was on i mean

we know essentially he was blown up twice out of the water i mean he was on that boat that was you know that that went down so which is why he was on that lifeboat yeah so presumably he made it back on shore and then he probably wound up on another boat which was then blown up again right and now he's being picked up by these guys. And the first thing he realizes is, oh my God, these assholes are going back to Dunkirk. And it takes him a second. Because he doesn't know, nobody knows anything in this movie

and he does not know that the boats have been requisitioned or activated. No, why would he think about that? The civilian fleet is such a ludicrous concept. He's just like, these idiots are going to Dunkirk. Yeah, and they sort of conceal it. Well, they lock him in the cabin, which seems like that's a poor strategic decision.

Yeah. The kid does. The kid does. The kid does. But you totally get why he does it. No, you do. He's frightening. Right.

But it's also, I mean, I actually love that bit with the kid kind of contemplating whether to lock him in. Yeah. And then locking him in. In any other movie, I feel like, you know, he would be locked in and then there would be some sort of struggle. But here it's, he's trying to get out and Mark Rylance comes down and he's just like, why the hell did you lock him in? You can't let him out. And he's already gone at that.

Right. That's the climactic moment. That's where he shoves Georgie. Right. Right. Poor Georgie. Poor Georgie. What a good cat.

He's kind of an idiot. But like a boy. It really is, though. I mean, it is such a nightmare when you put yourself in Cillian Murphy's shoes. Everything that's happened. And then he finds out they're going back to Dunkirk and then they lock him in. Yeah. Right.

No, it's true. At that point, he's ready to kill everybody on that boat. Especially considering what a gentle environment it is to anyone else. The moonstone. The whiz poppers and fuzz wimples. Yeah, exactly. They're farting corgis on that boat and yet but I think also, especially to Brits

but to Americans too, the idea of being shell shocked is such an abstract concept we're all aware of. Where it's like, oh yeah, they're quiet. It's what happens to you. You know, like people don't really... And it doesn't get dug into in movies. It's hard to dig into it in movies. I agree.

Because it's such an unambiguous thing too. Right. And in addition to the fact that Kelly Murphy is such a good physical actor, you know, I think he's really good at harnessing this certain kind of squirminess that makes him really well-suited for, you know, I think he's really good at harnessing this certain kind of squirminess that makes him really well suited for, you know, like the moments like what the one you outlined where he's sort of contradicting through his body everything he's saying with his mouth are really fascinating. But also he is such a pretty man and he has such stunning eyes and to watch those eyes just be dead. Yeah. And his face kind of look broken.

Yeah. Without him doing any obvious contortion, you know. It's a stunning image to see. Like when they first pull him out and you're like, oh, fuck. This guy is just completely broken inside. There's no hiding from this. He is a beautiful man. And that is why the first time they worked together together Christopher Nolan covered his face with a sack.

Put the sack on, Killian. Who's got the best mouth in Hollywood? Tom Hardy. What am I going to do? Cover that mouth every time. Put a mask over the mouth. Not in Inception. He's pursing his lips in Inception.

Yeah, that's true. So what else should we talk about? I mean, there's the tugboat scene or whatever. After the sinking, they hit Tommy and Harry Styles and various other characters end up in that boat. Oh, yeah. To take shelter. You're talking about the spy sequence where they're trying to figure out?

Yeah. The trawler. It's a trawler, technically. A Dutch trawler. A Dutch trawler. Which is claustrophobic, and they're getting shot at. It's horrible. I mean, that's the scene where I really panic.

Yeah, that one flipped me off. Well, it's also, if you remember, it's intercut. Well, it's intercut with a couple of things, but when the water's starting to come in, it's intercut with uh the collins drowning or all nearly drowning right that's intercut right with that sequence and that's actually something else that nolan does in this movie that is you know because you mentioned um the idea of when you first saw it you thought oh is he going to kind of really rigidly stick

to this sure the one two three yeah and instead what he does is he going to kind of really rigidly stick to this structure? Sure, the one, two, three, one, two, three. Yeah, and instead what he does is he almost cuts around sort of thematic elements, right? So that's a scene where he's cutting around this idea of water. And there's that other scene. Stuck in the water. Yeah, and then there's that other scene where the Moonstone is trying to avoid a plane while another plane is attacking Branagh and those guys at the mall. Right.

And then there's another one. There's actually another one earlier that I caught the last time I saw it, and I can't remember what it is exactly, but there is another moment where in all three different temporalities. He's matching things together. All three different temporalities. It's a kind of a turning moment where I think it's when Tom Hardy first sees in his, I guess his rear view mirror.

I guess he has one on a plane. Yeah, why not? Who needs to see behind you? Where he sees the plane headed towards the Minesweeper. Which kind of, eventually we later realize the kind of central sequence at the end. That's the final oil set piece. Right, yes. But he, so.

Yeah, he's grouping things together um so yeah he's grouping things together grouping things together so the structure is almost symphonic it's an almost symphonic structure good word which is why and then and then all these other little things come into play because at the end i mean the the very last bit of sort of suspense in the film is this tiny little moment of, is that planes or are that planes landing wheels going to come out in time? Yeah. While the Winston Churchill speech is being read. Right. And he's pumping it out.

And finally, also Zimmer's score is chilling out. Yeah. And has become melodic, which it has not been for the whole movie. For the whole movie, it's this weird sort of like drone. It's like a dog whistle. It's like an escalating dog whistle. It's never quite completes a. It's like an escalating dog whistle. It never quite completes a musical

sentence until the end. And then finally, he has... I mean, also, you get that shot of Hardy's face afterwards. It's like tantric sex. Exactly. It's a real treat for the audience. Did Sting actually score this movie? Yeah, he did. It's like sorbet

after a 15 course meal. No, but a meal where they keep they're sort of like rattling the plates around and they're like throwing the food at you. It's like sorbet after a food fight. But like then there are these moments in the movie it's hard for Nolan because

I think like when you have the slightly plottier segments like Bobby,orgie sorry getting pushed down the stairs or harry styles turning on the french guy all of a sudden uh and there's more dialogue all you know and there's more like we kind of it's not just a sensory experience we have to think about character motivations i don't think these scenes are bad yeah i just think that like they are somewhat jarring yeah that's a complaint i've heard registered that i get more than the complaint of like i don't get how the timelines match up sure uh i don't really have a problem with it i'm more just throwing that out there i feel like we're all

big dunkirk fans so yeah yeah and it's also i mean just the fucking the the satisfaction you get when the timelines start to merge you know i mean as you said symphonic it's this crescendo where suddenly like everything's in harmony um it's it's pretty powerful like it's it's this thing that he's capable of doing that i think very few filmmakers are and especially very few working at this kind of scale within the studio system which is he can get an emotional response out of the mere craft of what he's executing not even the content of what he's communicating yeah but it's that same thing that happens in like inception where you just have these like emotional responses to like oh my god these fucking 12 things happening at the same time

all this different movement and the music swelling, all these different images that now have this combined kind of power. There is a weird kind of like perverse giddiness that comes from like, oh shit, Hardy is now there. Branagh is there. We haven't talked about Branagh at all. Yeah, he's great. You know, like.

Him. Yeah. I mean, he's doing exactly what they hired him to do, which is be Kenneth Branagh. Sure. Deliver the minimal exposition we have. Yes. And just be this pillar

of fucking moral integrity. He's basically doing his, the same part he did in the, the Olympic, Olympics opening ceremony with Danny Boyle.

He's basically just the guy in the middle of it all. Yes. You know, he's got an ace up his sleeve. He's got a signature move, which he fucking owns. He slams down the table a couple different times,

every time just as effective, which is slowly taking off his cap while turning his head to look off at the horizon. He does it like three times. Boy, does he kill it, though. If I had a move that good, I would do it fucking 12 times. He should play Iago again and just try

taking his cap off through, you know, midway through a soliloquy. Some could argue that doing it three times is gilding the lily. And I would argue he actually shows an amazing amount of restraint in not doing it 20 times. He doesn't go into the ocean of ham in this movie. He does not. And it's right

there. Do you know about the river of ham? What is the River of Ham? Please tell the viewers. When Kenneth Branagh was directing Thor 1, Ray Stevenson, who of course played Volstagg, our favorite character in the MCU, Volstagg. Sure, one of the Warriors 3. The jolly, meat-loving member of the Warriors 3.

Yeah, not the subtlest character, to be fair. He's a fat guy who is always eating meat with his bare hands. He's sort of the Brad Pitt of The Warriors 3, right? Yes. He's the, yeah. Rusty, that's the character. Yes. Branagh was directing him.

Mm-hmm. And Stevenson said, I don't know about that. It feels like it might, you know, I'm worried about dipping a toe into the river. No, no. Did he even say? I think Branagh's the one who says it. It said it might be you know, I'm worried about dipping a toe into the river. No, no, did he even say, I think Branagh's the one who says it. He said it might be hammy. Right. And he said, trust me, with this performance, you want to go, you want to dip a toe into the river of ham.

River of ham. I think that's his phrase. And then Stevenson said it's a good river. And Branagh said, I've swam in that river many a time. It is a man-made river, which I have built. I built it. But no, but he's like, he's knowing exactly

how much paprika to put on the sandwich in this performance, which could be very overcooked and overcranked. I think if you're too aware... No, you know what? I should give Ray Stevenson credit.

I googled it. Ray Stevenson said, yeah, you're right. I was right. You know what? I'll dip my toe into the river of ham and Branagh said trust me I've swam in that river many times okay you'd enjoy it right Stevenson's the one who who coined the term yes yes sorry uh but Branagh then revealed that it was his river all along it was the Kenneth Branagh memorial river right um but he's not really hamming it up I mean he's hamming it up in more of a Mrs. Miniver way

which is sort of like he's just his upper lip is so stiff you know his non-existent upper lip it's true

he's the thin-lipped man he's the thin-lipped man but this is this is the kind of performance that I feel like exceptionally tricky to pull off where you have to

carry weight in a film representing something more than just like playing the character organically in like a behavioral way you have to represent things and you have to carry the audience along and I feel like I've seen actors who are too aware

of that responsibility and lose the human element and I've also seen actors who I think are so concerned with playing it human that they don't fully rise to the occasion of what the movie's asking them to do. It's kind of a perfect balance. He's like right in the strike zone. And James Darcy listens

to him. James Darcy's great too. He's solid but he doesn't have to do much other than nod. Well and he says like don't they want the boats? I don't know. He has to ask the questions. Destroyers. Where are the destroyers? Where are the air force there is quite a bit

of exposition that Branagh goes through in the film it's all on him pretty much I didn't actually catch most of it the first time not because

I didn't have a problem with hearing the dialogue it's more that you're just so wrapped up in what's happening that you stop paying attention to the dialogue in the movie

it's hard to process words you've gotten so into the movie's wavelength which is all this sort of movement and bombast and this sort of paranoia of scanning the frame for any possible threats

that when suddenly just two people talking on a pier you're like what the fuck is this? And he's actually offering a lot of information. You know he is.

I mean the Air Force the Tom Hardy scenes I'll admit the second time I saw it it was clearer. Especially what's being said over the radio. I barely understand the imax i struggled they're just you know like you know i i and i i the second time i was like oh that's michael but apart from that i didn't really have i don't know i haven't yeah it's not a dialogue heavy

movie i mean there's i i often don't understand you know at not a dialogue heavy movie. It's not a dialogue heavy movie. I often don't understand at least 25-30% of what I hear in movies as far as dialogue is concerned. With this one, it just didn't... So you don't pay attention. You don't listen to what anyone says. Basically, I am what's wrong with movie going today. You're just taking pictures of the screen

with your phone. I just want to know if Harry lives or dies. He lives. He lives. They make it off of the horrible trawler. Right, where he's the one who becomes very paranoid and very accusatory. It's not like it's a difficult turn to understand, but it's more like I'm like,

oh, I have to suddenly think about this as a human being in a different way rather than just sort of like this person who desperately wants to survive in a very basic way. And I don't have a problem with the scene. It's more just, it's plotty. Yeah. It's also, the dialogue is a little florid at this moment. It is.

Because there's that line, he says, I bet he doesn't even speak a word of English and if he did, it'd be slathered in sauerkraut. And you're like, all right, he's German. You're saying he's German. I mean, Jesus Christ, economy here.

There's people shooting outside. But I like that he isn't. I like that he's not German, that he's not a spy, that he's just like a French kid. He's a poor French kid

trying to get on the English boat. Who's just trying to survive like the rest of them and in the process has ended up doing a lot of good. Sure.

Has helped their men a lot. You know? Like, his initial instincts were were totally based in cowardice yeah but now he's a cowardice we can all understand right right and he is he is risen to the occasion yeah and he's so well also with harry styles i mean his character there is a strange and touching quality to his character he's such a you know he's a guy who doesn't really think very hard about about these things i mean you know this guy isn't talking he must be a spy

and then later on he's also the one who really has to kind of express this notion well we're we lost we had to evacuate we're all going to be humiliated. He's the one who has to express these very basic, very base emotions that are then turned around and undercut and redeemed by the movie. Which is why it helps having someone with a bit of a rock star swagger

like that. That sort of movie star confidence and that look and everything because it's a guy who needs to be completely convinced that his first impressions are 100% correct. Sure. You know? Because even when he figures out

he's French, he's still annoyed at him. Right. Which is, at that point, you'd think, like, all right, well, let's drop it. And as a character,

it almost feels like he thinks he's the lead of the movie. Like, he's making these decisions as if, like, I'm the leader everyone's turning to looking for an answer.

I mean, I think where Stiles is actually good rather than just blending in well is that scene on the train at the end where he's so ashamed in this way he can't articulate. He thinks they're all going to be greeted as cowards because they basically ran away

in a very elaborate way. And he's struggling to process that they are being greeted as heroes. And you really need somebody and that's why he's struggling to process that they are being greeted as heroes. And you really need somebody. And that's why I think his performance is really valuable here because you really need somebody to express that very clearly and very compellingly so that when it turns out that the guys are just trying to give them a beer,

so that turn, that emotional turn really resonates. Otherwise, it was just kind of confusing and we didn't quite know what they, how they felt. And then suddenly they were, it would still work, I think. No, sure. But it just wouldn't work really as well. It's a very effective moment. Yeah, that emotion of humiliation really has to be expressed very clearly at that moment. Can't stand that John Nolan doesn't look at him, even though he's just blind.

That's John Nolan from Following. Right, right. He's in all his movies. Is he also blind in The Prestige? Is he in The Prestige as a blind man? There is a blind guy, but it's not that blind guy. I think of John Nolan, he's always in the board in the Batman movies.

He's in all the Batman movies. He's always like, you can't do it. In Dark Knight Rises he says like that's outrageous and then Pat Leahy the senator from Vermont is Sidney Exner

and he's like I'll tell you something about Bruce Wayne you know like yeah he's in a lot of those movies he's like an old English guy who's his uncle yeah

cool he's great sorry yeah he was yeah yeah yeah it's pretty much the effecting

I mean because it is yeah it's it's a stressful movie when you said like you know the scuttlebutt about like will nolan do a horror movie and it's like this feels like this is the closest he could make to a horror movie this is sort of in his wheelhouse which is like he's even said that i think he's even said it's not really a war movie it's a horror movie or something because it's just a survival movie yeah yeah but and also right the enemy enemy is so hard to grasp at and it feels almost like... It's horrifying the way the enemy is acting.

Well, and there's that line... Rather than like, we have no personal perspective on them. There's that quote that I'm going to fuck up now that's like, all war movies are propaganda because movies make war look cool. Uh-huh, yes.

You know, in one way or another, there's a sort of heroism that happens to whichever side you're leaning on. Right. Most World War II movies, people are like, well, that was the good one. Right. We were doing something right there. Yeah. There are a couple that don't. No, sure.

And it is interesting the responses people will have to those. Right. But then even then, you would argue that those movies are saying like are propaganda in an anti-war way. Oh yeah, absolutely. In some kind of way. It's either the brutality of war or the,

you know. But this is weirdly one of the few war movies I've ever seen that feels completely apolitical because it's just about here are people

in this situation trying to survive. Like that's all it's concerned with. Not the larger aspirations of what they're fighting for or who they're trying to survive being attacked that's all it's concerned with, not the larger aspirations of what they're fighting for or who they're trying to survive being attacked by or any of that.

And in a weird way, like as much as I don't like war movies, I used to have this like thought when I was like a kid and I would like doodle movie ideas in my notebook when I wasn't paying attention to math class. Real cool kid. And I was like the only kind of war movie that I feel like I would ever

be able to come up with is just that. It's just a movie of one person trying to survive being in this situation. Or a horse. Or a horse. A war horse, if you will. A war horse, if you will. Maybe you can make War Horse 2. Hardly Horson.

Hardly Horson? Hyper Horse. Hyper Horse. War Horse 2. This movie is kind of... Hardly Horson. I don't know. Hardly Horson? Hyper Horse. Hyper Horse. War Horse 2, The Widowmaker. Yeah. Oh, sure. Let's do it. But it is like, it's a very tense movie.

It's a very experiential movie. And then that final scene where it's like, you haven't even considered the emotional context of what they've gone through. You haven't even considered how they process all of this. The sense that they'd be ashamed is like a totally new idea. To us're like why of course not what are you talking about like you just went through the worst horror like yeah we're we're all so humbled by the very idea of it but but that's the other thing i think it speaks to is like right these kids are so young like these are like young boys in this situation so they don't know how they're going to be like uh taken in once they

return home because they don't really understand what they've been through. Yeah. Which I find very profound, like emotionally devastating. Absolutely. And there's also, yeah, the film is very good about sort of keeping you in the dark at these various points to sort of mimic the way that the characters themselves don't really know what's happening what was going on another thing about that is visually something that always jumps out at me in the movie is uh towards the end when we're in tom hardy's plane

and uh we see this shot of the plane flying and you see the town of dunkirk from from the sky finally and it's just fascinating because it's like this like pleasant little resort town it's the only moment when you yeah it's a nice seaside town yeah and it's the only moment when you kind of get that it almost looks modern i mean there's some buildings there at all like that does not look like a building that would have existed in 1940 for all i know maybe it it's not. I also find that so touching. The way that right at the end, the film kind of opens up very briefly to just

give you a little bit more context. Right, because everyone just thinks of a beach when they think of the Battle of Dunkirk or the evacuation, whatever you want to call it. Can we talk about the last couple Hardy shots? I know we've just invoked the fact that he takes the mask off. Setting up the sequel. It's true.

I mean, Hardy Still like 17. Exactly. Hardy as Prisoner of War and for some reason he has like a mask on his face. I don't know.

Whatever. It's Fury Road. Yeah. He's in a cage and it's just his eye is exposed. Right, right. Yeah.

It's one of those cages where you can just pull apart the little bar. His next performance Please. He's going to be wearing a morph suit and the only part It's one of those cages where you can just pull apart the little bar. Yeah. His next performance. Please. He's going to be wearing a morph suit and the only part of his skin is going to be visible. It's his pointer finger.

Great. What do you want to say about the last or a barrel? What if he's in a barrel and he sticks his finger out of the barrel and wiggles it? Yeah. He plays like a whiskey maker who gets trapped. Yeah. No, I just think, whiskey maker who gets trapped in a barrel. No, I just think there's something to... It's almost like this Nolan thing of take something away from people and make them realize how much they cared about in the first place.

The fact that the biggest star of the movie is wearing a mask the entire time in a plane, physically constricted, right? Set within very narrow confines in terms of even the timeline of what he's in. That, you know, once we have the sort of relief of, oh shit,

Zimmer's swelling, the landing wheels have come out, you know, I don't know how to fucking describe stuff, right? He's pulling the thing. Landing gear. The landing gear, you know, is set he he gets on the beach and then everything sort of like widens out like you were saying like you finally get hardy in these in these wider shots where he's a smaller element and he takes the mask off and here it is like he's fucking he's tom hardy he's got the best face in the world sure and now he's going to give you like a full

face reaction shot and to immediately undercut that with like oh no they got him he set his plane on fire he sets his plane on fire that shot of him looking at the burning plane I find very he's well lit

it's very warming in general and then you see the guy swarming I just think it's like nice red glow he's It's very warming in general. It's very warming, and then you see the guys swarming. I just think it's like... Nice red glow. He's not like a legendary war hero, you know? He's a guy who saved these people, and then he got caught, and now he's just going to go through a lot of bad shit.

Sure. Like he's just some guy who was doing his job in a way, you know? Yeah. Anything else you guys want to say before we play the box office game? I mean, you should remember the box office. Yeah, it's kind of easy. I don't know. Closing thoughts?

You've said a lot. I've said a lot. You've said a lot of great things. I've said too much. No. No. That's crazy. I do think that there are a couple of these little things in the film that, you know,

where they do provide a little bit of additional historical context. Like the whole bit with the Royal Engineers building these makeshift piers with the trucks. Oh, yeah. That is actually an incredible sight. Yeah. Which was actually one of the big things about the Dunkirk evacuation was that they built these, you know, makeshift piers so that, you know, some of the boats could approach. And, you know, the film actually, like the first time I saw it, I didn't notice that at all. Right, right.

And then the second time I saw it, oh my God, this is actually a through line in the movie. We come back to it several times. And there's that very sort of self-satisfied shot of the head of the, I guess, I guess he's like the head of the Royal Engineers there. Sure, sure. An officer just kind of beaming at their handiwork, you know, after they built that pier. I love that.

It's good. That pier is crazy. Yeah. And there's that sort of triumphant, swelly moment he gets you there when the boats are arriving. Yeah. And then Hardy fights off the last German plane. Yes.

Before just gliding down. Like he finally, there There is a lot of release at the end there. I read in an interview that Nolan said his pitch to Warner Brothers after he had put away his little 10 planes was he said

I want to make VR without the headset. The very didactic interpretation of that is, like, well, the way he used IMAX and wanting to put the camera in the plane and really kind of immerse you

in the situation. But it is a movie that, like, is constructed in terms of its use of every single element, the way it tells the story, what it shows you, what it doesn't show you, to just put you in the headspace

of these people trying to survive these moments that you're catching them in. um and i think like on that on that score he like really succeeded i mean he's made a very weird movie that's a weird movie it's a weird movie and i think it's very much uh an unexpected type of film as much as it's a blank check movie there is an astonishing amount of restraint and reserve in it. And that he's choosing only to really tackle a couple different goals and a very slight kind of three slices of this larger story and all of that.

Yeah. We said in our, uh, you know, when we were in the first chunk of our mini series, the first four, uh, yeah we were in the first chunk of our miniseries, the first four, yeah, right, the first three Nolan movies that are

these neo-noirs, that, like, it's kind of weird that he made the shift to being this big blockbuster filmmaker because it feels like he could have been this for the rest of his life. And it's, like, sort of sad to think he probably won't make a movie like this again. Like, he's just going to feel the need to escalate and to escalate and to escalate. But this movie is this weird

case of him going bigger and smaller at the same time. And it makes me very excited about his future if he's going to keep on taking risks like this and keep on going like sure I'll play within the genres you know. Right and keep having them pay off. That's the really sort of triumphant thing about it.

It's not just going to be increasingly grandiose pictures. Right. He's not just going to be just, you know, increasingly grandiose pictures. Right. He's not going to have Cleopatra. Yeah, which is sort of what happened to James Cameron, I think. And I love James Cameron, but it is very much a— Yes, he's bigger every time. And he is one of these guys who always says,

well, I'm thinking about making a movie, doing a smaller movie next. Yeah, okay, James. Yeah, sure, right, right, right. And then he's like, but at the same time, 3D with no glasses? Can we do it yeah right but but that's like you know i feel like a lot of filmmakers we covered there's a bit of like you can't go home again you know yeah and either what they turn into eventually is still good or they lose their way and then when they try to go small again they get fucked yeah but

they kind of ultimately in one way or another get away from whatever they were originally doing because success kind of becomes this cage, the strapping, the expectations and everything but like Nolan seems to be interested in figuring out how to make the biggest movies he can but not feeling burdened by the need to make them epics

to not like self justify their size by pumping them full of self importance or narrative bloat or any sort of things that I think can really ultimately like sink interesting directors. It's an interesting movie. You can definitely imagine the guy who made Memento making this movie. Yes.

You know? Yes. Ben, wait, sorry. Do you have anything you want to say? You haven't talked much. Yeah. Well, so this is a dead husband movie, right? So...

I'm just saying all the men who are doing this movie have wives. Yeah, more or less. You got that element. Right. I wanted to point that out. But did the lights stay down during the credits at your screenings? I think so. I don't know.

I think so. Why? No know. I think so. Why? No bloopers? No outtakes? That's what I thought was going on. If you stay until after the credits, there's a sequence where the entire cast and crew sings Build Me a Buttercup. Now that I would have liked to have seen.

I would like to see a Christopher Nolan comedy. I know that the accusation is that he's humorless, and I completely disagree with that. These movies can be funny. It's hard to imagine a... An out-and-out, like a comedy of manners directed by Christopher Nolan. But isn't that what happened with Coppola, basically? He was like, I'm going to make a romantic musical comedy next,

and then that was when it all came crashing down. It was. And yeah, I guess maybe, I mean, that would be the actual challenge for him. If he could mount like some sort of like big, like let's play the box office game. Sure. I was going to say musical would be interesting to see him do,

but he would have to pick, it would have to be a Les Mis-esque kind of musical tragedy. Sure, like a sweeping I don't think he could do Anything Goes. I don't think Robot musical. Tars musical?

Tars the musical. He could do a musical. Dancing with the Tars? Dancing with the Tars. One of Stanley Kubrick's greatest regrets was apparently not being able to make a musical.

Sure. That was the one genre he really loved and really wanted to tackle. And you can kind of see it in all his movies. I mean, Clockwork Orange

has several musical scenes. And 2001 is sort of like a weird musical. But he made a great comedy. Nolan doesn't have that on his belt yet. Yeah. But why doesn't he make,

well, number one at the box office on the weekend of July 21st was Dunkirk. It was the movie Dunkirk. Well, number one at the box office on the weekend of July 21st was Dunker. It was the movie Dunker. What was number two at the box office? It was a comedy opening against it. See, this should be a slam dunk for me, which would make it a boring segment. But I'm so overtired and so jet lagged.

It's the biggest comedy of 2017. Girl Strip? Girl Strip. Yeah. Now, could Nolan make a Girls Trip? You know could he step into Malcolm D. Lee's shoes? Probably not No probably not

Not everyone can do everything Can I stand for Girls Trip for a second? It's a good movie Everyone talks about Tiffany Haddish Well deserved Regina Hall has been doing Such fucking consistently good work For like 18 years She's a very underrated actress well deserved Regina Regina Hall has been doing such fucking consistently good work

for like 18 years she's a very underrated actress a really crazy underrated actress right and I just feel like I know a lot of people saw Girls Trip

and were like who is that lead woman I'm like you've seen her in 18 things she's been in like she's been in a bunch of crazy successful movies equally good at supporting and leading roles.

She's got that end monologue that she delivers in her keynote speech. It's like eight minutes long of straight talk. I just think she's a very good actress. What did you think of Girls Trip? I still haven't seen Girls Trip. It's really good. I really want to.

Number three was a big Marvel movie. Spider-Man Hulk. Yeah. Michael Keaton the movie. Michael Keaton is the movie man, is the vulture man. Yeah. He's a Trump voter.

Yeah. What did you think of Spider-Man? It's kind of a boring box office, actually. I was not a fan of Spider-Man. Yeah, you actually didn't like it. I actually did not like it. Right, I remember now. Because I had a good time. I mean, it was like a TV show to me, you actually didn't like it. I actually did not like it. Right, I remember now. I was surprised. Yeah.

Because I had a good time. I mean, it was like a TV show to me, but I had a good time. That's my exact feeling. I feel like I watched three episodes of Spider-Man the TV show.

Sure. It just felt kind of inconsequential to me, but like, inconsequential, but watching it, I was enjoying it immensely. Sure, sure.

I went to see, I took my son to see Spider-Man, and actually, I took my son to see Spider-Man and, actually, I took my son to see Spider-Man and the day before I had taken him

to see Baby Driver, which I probably shouldn't admit to since that's an R-rated movie. But, and it was interesting seeing how,

you know, I mean, both films are hits. Yes. Baby Driver's made like a hundred million and Spider-Man's made like four hundred

or some absurd amount of money. But it was interesting, like like the crowd at both places the crowd at baby driver was totally wrapped yes i mean they were just locked into that movie nobody left to go to the bathroom or to get more popcorn or whatever spider-man movie was more packed i mean it was sold out screening and and it was just it was like a carnival i mean half the people in that room were not really watching the whole movie i mean people were i i sat i sat in one of those kind of you know um like i had some the passage to get to the exit was right in front of me right so. So I could see all the people leaving. I just constantly, like I constantly had to keep moving my legs just so.

And it just occurred to me, you know, these people, they don't actually, half the time, they're not even really watching. Like it's Spider-Man. It's the Marvel movie.

You just have to go because that's. It's like voting. It's like a civil obligation. Yeah, it really is. And it, I mean, the marketing genius behind creating movies where it's

seen as an obligation. You're not even really having fun. But put your time in because it's going to pay off for the next one anyway. Yeah, that's the movie that's opening this week and the kids want to see it, so you go see it and it was fine. It passed the time. You don't actively want your two and a half

hours back. Right. But nothing special was done with it. Nothing. It passed the time. You don't actively want your two and a half hours back. Right. But nothing special was done with it. Nothing. I mean, it's just, it's just so depressing. It's weird to me how many people I talk to who say, like, I only go see Marvel movies in theaters. And it's not because they're Marvel fans. It's just like, I don't really like seeing things in theaters. I mostly watch stuff on Netflix.

But it's funny because Marvel movies are often visually uninteresting. Right. So drab. Yeah. But it's funny because Marvel movies are often visually uninteresting. Right. So drab. Yeah. But hey, man. See, my weird thing with Spider-Man was I really liked all the Peter Parker stuff. I liked all the high school stuff. I don't think it amounted to much.

But when it was operating just as kind of like a teen dramedy, I was really locked into it. Sure, sure. Anytime Michael Keaton was Keaton-ing it up. I enjoyed everything he did. Yes. Right. But anytime it like went to Spider-Man fighting somebody, I got totally disconnected. There's just nothing to really watch.

Right. And I could watch like those Raimi swinging sequences a thousand times in a row. I still find them thrilling. I agree. And that first Raimi is really, I mean, it's like 90% teen dramedy, 10% swinging scenes. Yeah. It is really, I mean, it's like 90% teen dramedy, 10% swing scenes. Yeah, it's like that movie is like a weird, like, it's like a Douglas Sirk version of a high school movie. It's great. And the little montages, you know, when he's imagining what he's doing, what he can do with all that money.

Those two Raimi movies, those two rule. We gotta do Raimi, man. We gotta do it. Because the first one is like one has some major issues, but it's so fucking charming and there's so much style. And also, it's setting down a template

that is gonna be the bedrock of so much of these movies that follow, except they're gonna be way watered down. But what you're talking about, those sort of wild

comic book-y montages. And it's simultaneously so much more heightened than the comic book movies we get today. Very it's simultaneously so much more heightened than the comic book movies we get today. Very broad performances. And very emotional and human.

There are these very human scenes. There's that one in the backyard when Mary Jane, Peter's throwing out the trash. Yeah, Mary Jane just got yelled at.

Her dad's yelling at her and they have this conversation where you realize they've known each other but they've never really talked to this degree. It's such fucking... I haven't seen the first one in a while i re-watched the first two after seeing homecoming which i enjoyed i thought was fun but yeah we gotta go we gotta go

war for the planet of the apes is number four oh i'm sorry i didn't let you guess it it's war for the planet this is when you realize how badly what i believe number five did this is my frowny face i believe it is valerian in the city of a thousand planets opening that weekend yeah that weekend why didn't they open it and then i suffered as a film critic through august where i was like the fuck do i even review this week like there's nothing and like why not just open it like the ass end of August? It might make some money. Such a, I wonder if they thought,

I wonder if their gamble was they looked at, they looked at Dunkirk, they looked at the fact that maybe Interstellar was seen as kind of a disappointment, even though it wasn't really, but they, maybe they just thought

to themselves, you know what? we're banking on Nolan whiffing. I guess so. I think it was hubris. I think like my big thought I had watching Valerian

was like Which is a great movie and one of the best of the year. I had issues with it but there's things I love about it. So good. We're seeing it on a big screen. 100%.

Which is sad which is wide open I guess. Two weeks later I was like I want to see it again and then it was like, yeah, yeah, go on down to Times Square

and no other theaters because it's gone. Yeah. I saw it like Times Square and it was like, there's a 910 and that's the only time it's playing today.

But I think, you look at the marketing of that movie and they didn't sell the story at all. The marketing was just like, here are the images because I think the images

are so crazy. That was the selling point. I agree. I agree but I think like it's hard to sell a movie to people without any sense of like Yeah the pitch in the trailers was like there's a city of a thousand planets and you're like oh and they're like and they gotta save it

oh from what? I don't know anyway go see it. That was all they had for you. That kind of like James Franco in Spring Breakers, like check out my shit marketing campaign is only going to appeal to a certain kind of nerd. I just look. Not people who are like. And I also I also think that like in a lot of the way that Luc Besson talked about it, I think he felt like the comic had more cachet culturally than it does. Yeah.

Especially overseas. In Europe it does obviously. I just read this interview with Luc Besson where he was like, it's fine. I'm doing the accent. I have no idea what he sounds like. I think he's a very nice man. The old people will see Dunkirk and the young people will see Valerian

and I was like, what are you fucking smoking? No one's seen Valerian. That's not the play. The play isn't we get to share the audience here. Right, the kids love Dane DeHaan. I love Valerian. We're going to talk about it one day, I hope. I think we'll have a lot of fun. We'll see.

I think it'll be a testy episode. I think you'll get very angry. Yeah, I'm going to get real mad at you. Despicable Me 3, baby drivers hanging around. They had a great run. The Big Sick, which has had a get real mad at you. Despicable Me 3, Baby Drivers, Hanging Around, that had a great run. The Big Sick, which has had a very nice run this summer. Wonder Woman. Good runs.

Yeah. It's been an okay summer. I think it's been an okay summer. There's been a lot of nice original movies to root for and then a lot of crap that you just kind of have to ignore. Yeah. I've seen a lot of films I liked. I mean, I actually really liked War for the Planet of the Apes.

Which I didn't like. We were on opposite poles on that one. I know you liked that one a lot of films I liked. I mean, I actually really liked War for the Planet of the Apes. Which I didn't like. We were on opposite poles on that one. I know you liked that one a lot. Yeah. But it was, I mean, but that opened the week before Dunkirk, right? It opened okay and plummeted. Yeah. Really underperformed.

Yeah, it actually did underperform. And that was, you know, unfortunate as far as I'm concerned. But it was really, that also seemed like a bit of a misstep. Yes. Like, the week before Dunkirk. Week before Dunkirk, a very bleak movie. Like, very bleak. And Plan of the Apes is as well.

Like, they're similarly kind of, like, brutal. Yeah, kind of a war movie. Like, big ass. It is almost called War of the Plan of the Apes. Yeah. I mean, I actually think that there's quite a bit, like, the Venn diagram between the people who are interested in War for the Planet of the Apes and people who are interested in Dunkirk is, you know.

It overlaps. It overlaps quite a bit. I agree. It's especially confusing because of how barren August is. I know. It's been weird. There's like no movies coming out this week. But there's also this weird.

Apart from Tula Fever. Yeah. There's this weird thing that happened this summer that I think is largely positive where a lot of those like, you know, Civic Duty, I guess it's my obligation to go see its sequels and franchises that everyone. Transformers. Pirates of the Caribbean. Sure. There's another big one I'm forgetting. There were a lot of mistakes made this summer.

Where these like series finally started bombing. Well, I think where it was just like, it's fine, it'll do okay here and really well overseas, and instead it was like, it did terribly here and okay overseas. Right, and people were like, look, no one likes these movies, they haven't liked the last three, but we can make another one, these idiots will go see it, and people started rejecting them.

It's a weird miscalculation on those two fronts. There's one other one I'm forgetting that falls into that. I wrote an article a couple years ago that never ran basically around this idea. It's like, what happens when the franchises start collapsing? I mean, because,

because there is, you know, there's always the expectation that one or two might, might fail, but which is why each studio has so many of them. but they're really, I mean, they're,

I got the sense this summer, even though I saw a number of them that were quite good, I really got the sense this summer even though I saw a number of them that were quite good I really got the sense this summer that it has begun they are starting to these structures are collapsing I feel like Cars 3 even fits into the same thing Cars 3, Fate of the Furious

didn't do as well maybe as they hoped it did fine but the last two did so well Kong Skull Island was a play that was sort of a half-hearted franchise play that didn't quite a half-hearted franchise play that didn't quite work. The Mummy, obviously,

was this sort of out-of-the-box franchise where they're like, you guys want to see this, right? Tom Cruise, what could possibly go wrong?

Alright, we gotta wrap up. But I think that makes Nolan more and more powerful. It's a good ending for the Nolan series. It keeps on boosting

his kind of legacy that it's like, he's this guy who's still making original movies and it seemed in defiance of all these franchises that would work in spite of audiences hating them. They would still keep on going. He cracked the code. He cracked the code. And now that the franchise model is starting to become less and less reliable, hopefully,

I don't know, hopefully it will empower studios to give more people Nolan-type chances. If not that big out of the gate, you know, let them go out on a limb. Because blank check movies don't exist as much as they used to. It used to be if you made a big superhero movie, that was really successful, and then you got to make your own crazy passion project. And now it's like- The Book of Henry.

Right. Right, you know? But so often now it's like you do the big franchise movie so then you can get another franchise movie. You do it so you can get a Star Wars. You can really graduate to the next level of franchise. Like, you look at Justin Lin who, like, revived Fast and Furious, and it's like, okay, this guy has a meal ticket now.

He can make whatever he wanted. And then for years it was like he's thinking about rebooting Terminator. Like, he was going to direct Genesis,esis then he ended up doing the third star trek and now he's gonna make a hot wheels movie he almost made like a born movie it's like yeah shouldn't justin lynn be able to go into a studio and find a spec script and go like i want to make an original action movie for 80 million dollars hasn't he earned that position if he has like a big enough star in the lead role yeah but it doesn't really happen. And Nolan's kind of the one guy who's calling the bluff of the studio and being like, I made these fucking Batman movies for you.

Let me make my movie about the cruelty of time over and over and over again. Yes. So that's Christopher Nolan. That's the Christopher Nolan. We might do a bonus episode, but not next week. No. Because scheduling has been crazy. Really?

But don't worry. It's all good. Everything coming out but not next week. No. Because scheduling's been crazy, guys. Really weird. But don't worry. It's all good. Everything coming out is good. Yes. Hopefully next time you hear from me, I will be more well-rested. Nah, you're all right. I'm not. You never deserve to say that.

Oh, thank you. So next week is our episode on The Devil Wears Prada. Next week we have a special treat for you. It's a one-off special with my 19-year-old sister, Romalee Newman. Yes. We talk about her favorite movie of all time, The Devil Wears Prada. Next week we have a special treat for you. It's a one-off special with my 19-year-old sister, Romalee Newman. We talk about her favorite movie of all time, The Devil Wears Prada. It was a great episode.

We've already recorded it. I think it's really fun. Yes. And then should we debut the next? Well, we know Bigelow's next, right? We've announced that. Well, let's make sure we make it official. Hyperformal.

The week after that you will get The Loveless. Yeah. You ever seen The Loveless, Bill? Oh, yeah. Is it good? I've never seen it. I like it. How do you feel about

Catherine Bigelow in general? I like her. I have my hot take quote unquote on Catherine Bigelow is that I'm not a big fan of The Hurt Locker. Interesting.

But I love K-19. I think that is a masterpiece. That is quite a hot take. Yeah. K-19 and That's a nuclear take yeah k-19 and um yeah that's a nuclear sorry sorry yeah no um but i mean i i love our zero dark 30 is incredible yes i saw strange

days again recently and that movie is it is hard to believe that that movie exists that's that's sort of the uh the bedrock of the blank check argument for Catherine Bigelow is Strange Days. That is a wacky movie. It's got cool future drugs. Yes, it does. In Strange Days, though, it's like if you look at the big studio flops of, I think, 1983 and 1984, which are, I believe, Streets of Fire. Sure. And what's the other one?

Was it Brain Scan? Never. Oh, the Christopher Walken one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that what we're talking about? Yeah. Christopher Walken,

Natalie Wood, the movie that Natalie Wood was working on when she died. That she died on. It's not Brain Scan. That is an Edward Furlong movie. That's why I was confused. Brainstorm?

Brainstorm. Brainstorm. Brainstorm. Yes. Those two, like, Strange Days is yeah those two like Strange Days is basically

those two movies put together smashed together and she was involved sort of involved with Streets of Fire I think she was the one who suggested

Willem Dafoe for the part right and James Cameron was apparently had an office next to Walter Hill

and Larry Gross I guess he was working on either Aliens or Terminator while they were working on Street Fighter. Probably the Terminator, I would guess. It's around the same time. I'm convinced that embedded in the DNA of

Strange Days is our brainstorm. Yes, you're right. Bigelow recommended Willem Dafoe. We'll be talking about that next week. Yes, we'll be talking about that in a couple weeks. We'll be talking about all kinds of things. Yes.

We're going to keep talking. I promise you that. I'm going to try to get some sleep in, and then we're going to keep talking. Yes. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, subscribe. Check out our Reddit for some real nerdy shit. Thanks to Ant for Guto

for our social media, to Bowen and Patrick Reynolds for our artwork, Lee Montgomery for the theme song. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you.

People can follow you on Twitter. Yes. And my name, Bill Ghebiri, and they can read my reviews in the Village Voice. That's right.

Please do. Good reviews. Thank you. I like them. I give your reviews two thumbs up. Oh boy, Griffin Griffin you just embarrassed everyone we bring on this show

yeah look I give you reviews zero wormy apples so you don't have to worry about that I'm not gonna pull a Neil Rosen on you yeah yeah see you guys next week and yeah finish it up Griffin you're the

man who finishes the episodes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do.

And as always. It's going to Dunkirk. It's way. Just what I need. I don't know. Whatever. I don't know. That was great.

I'm very happy.