Happy Sad Confused - Patton Oswalt

Episode Date: November 3, 2020

In a long overdue debut on "Happy Sad Confused", the great comedian and cinephile Patton Oswalt joins Josh to geek out over his favorite B movies, his comfort movie of choice, and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During the Volvo Fall Experience event, discover exceptional offers and thoughtful design that leaves plenty of room for autumn adventures. And see for yourself how Volvo's legendary safety brings peace of mind to every crisp morning commute. This September, lease a 2026 X-E-90 plug-in hybrid from $599 bi-weekly at 3.99% during the Volvo Fall Experience event. Conditions apply, visit your local Volvo retailer

or go to explorevolvo.com. DC high volume Batman The Dark Knight's definitive DC comic stories adapted directly for audio for the very first time Fear I have to make them afraid He's got a motorcycle

Get after him or have you shot You mean blow up the building From this moment on None of you are safe New episodes every Wednesday Wherever you get your podcasts Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now.

Today on Happy, Sad, Confused, a good old geek out session with Patten Oswald. Hey guys, I'm Josh Horowitz. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Patten Oswald is the guest today. Shockingly, a first. guest, unhappy, sad, confused. One of those that you would think would be like, at least appear once, if not be a regular. But I guess our paths haven't crossed as much as I would have hoped over the years,

as much as I am a fan of Patton's comedy, his film work, his TV work, just being an all-around cinephile and geek. He is a like-minded individual, somebody that I feel sympathetic. with, and I have a feeling if you listen to this podcast, you probably admire and love Patton as much as I do. This was a fun, as I said, it's a geek out session. This is just kind of a 45 minutes of reveling in all the movies that we love, all the genre stuff, we love, all the B movies we love. Patton is actually promoting a kind of a B movie marathon that he's hosting for Shout Factory. It begins Saturday, this Saturday, November 7th at 9 a.m. Pacific time, 12, news.

Eastern Time. There's an encore presentation on Sunday, November 8th at noon, Pacific Time, 3 p.m. Eastern Time. And it is a live stream of six classic, I guess, is maybe it's classic the right word? I don't know. Notorious B movies that Patton has selected, including chopping mall, battle beyond the star, shriek of mutilated, suburbia, eat my dust, and cue the winged serpent. So if you want to watch those six movies along with Padden Oswald, go shout factory TV.com. You can also watch it on shout factories on the app on Roku

and Amazon on Apple TV, etc. You can't miss it. Yeah, always good to geek out with Pat and Oswald. We talk about those movies, but we also talk, of course, about his comfort movie. His selection was a bit surprising to me, but a cool one. We're talking a classic

whodunit. We'll get to that in a bit. We also, of course, talk some Star Wars. We reassess. We got his take on the rise of Skywalker, which I was curious about. He's a fan of Mandalorian, no surprise there. Yeah, we touch on a lot of cool stuff. So this was long in the making, long overdue, but I'm glad it happened.

Pat and Oswald, the main event on happy, sad, confused today. And speaking of today, it's a weird day. If you're listening to this on the day, we drop it. It's election day, guys. It's, I don't know. If you listen to this, weeks in the future, years in the future, months in the future, I don't know what this introduction will sound like. Was this the beginning of a new wonderful era in the United States where we righted the wrongs of the last four years?

Or was this the day when we sank further into the malaise, the misery, the totalitarianism of the crazy man that is Donald Trump? I'm hoping it's the former. If you're listening to this on Election Day and you have not voted yet, get out there and vote. Look out for your fellow citizens. sins every vote counts guys if you get online be prepared to wait wait it out some of the lines might be long um and and just keep a level head today and yes in the days to come we might not know the results for for a little while and that is okay we want every vote to be counted okay that's the way it's always been it just so happens because of the pandemic it might take a little

longer this year, and that is all right. Other things to mention besides our teetering democracy, no new episode of Stur Crazy this week. We took the week off because of the election, but that doesn't mean you can't check out all the old episodes of Sturr Crazy we've done for Comedy Central. We've done something like 30 of them by now, I think, which is crazy to me. There's some really great ones if you want to dig up the Will Ferrell one, all the way back to the beginning will are net there are people we talk to that didn't have the first name will by the way um and some really cool guests to come i will mention i usually i don't like to jinx it but we've already taped this one next week's episode of stir crazy is with one of my favorites zachary quinto

and he brought his a game super funny episode of stir crazy next week on comedy central's youtube and facebook pages also got a chance to talk to you a bunch of cool folks for mtv recently my interview with Emma Roberts is up, talking about her new Netflix movie Holiday. I talked to Jack Dilling Grazer about We Are Who We Are, his HBO series. So, yeah, keep it busy, guys. Trying to stay sane in an insane year. Hope you guys are safe and healthy. I hope you're wearing masks and keeping your distance from folks.

And just being smart and healthy because that's the most important thing to keep a level head in these crazy times. All right, here's a little distraction for you guys. As I said, a fun 45-minute chat with the great Patten Oswald. You can check out his movie marathon, shoutoutfactory TV.com, and his myriad of projects. He's always working. Follow Patten on Twitter and Instagram. He is a good follow and a good conversationalist as evidenced by this chat with the one and only Patton Oswald. It's taken a while, but I'm happy finally to have you on the podcast, and there's always

a lot to talk to you about it. You know, this year's been insane. It's been kind of a pause for a lot of us. My sense from you is that you're a bit of a workaholic. How is, I like working. I like doing stuff. So how has this year been for you? Have you taken a pause or have you kind of revved it up or what? I took a pause when the shutdown happened just because I didn't know what was going to be next. And I just was more concerned with like, how do I keep my daughter's school going? How do I, you know, make sure my family is safe, make sure my parents are okay. So I was kind of focused on that. I wasn't really focused on work.

And then it just got down to like, well, my normal state of being is trying to create stuff. So I'm just going to keep trying to create stuff. I just pivoted into writing for comic books and writing, you know, stuff like that. So that's just what I've been doing. And now I did a Zoom show a couple weeks ago, tried that out. So I'm just slowly, you know, getting into that kind of group. I guess. Yeah,

I feel like we've all rejiggered depending on the equations. Like, okay, how do I fit what I used to do into this new paradigm? Yeah. And thankfully for some of us,

it works in the Zoom boxes. We can still do a version of what we used to do at least. Yeah. So talk to me. Okay, we're going to geek out a little bit today about some of your favorite movies,

some of your favorite B movie, some of your favorite comfort movie. But I want to go back first to how you formed your movie tastes as a kid. Did you have a, was it from your parents was it from a friend was it from a sibling who was the influencer in your life that helped kind of chart your path as a movie lover you know i grew up in the 70s so i think i'm i'm of the generation that our influencer was purely chance there wasn't really

the the the structure in place for movie freaks to be um uh dipping into the oh go see this this is a lot a really early one was a i mean i guess there was a book called the golden turkey award which was the first place that I ever heard about people, you know, people like Ed Wood, stuff like that. And then, and again, a lot of the movies that they were saying were shitty in this book sounded fascinating to me. You know, they, I mean, the Golden Turkey Awards lists stuff like Pat Garrett and Billy the kid and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Pink Flamingos, which are all just brilliant,

brilliant fucking movies. So, you know, I, that, but really before that, it was whatever I just happened to come across on TV or just ran. And by the way, that's what makes a lot, I think the first wave of real cult movies, like Plan 9 from outer space, for instance, they really do have a cult quality because they, because there was no structure, they really were just shown at 2 a.m. on some local station and someone would watch it and years later meet someone. else who had also randomly seen it and they would share their thoughts on it. And it really did have a truly a viral second life. But then, you know, then I think the structure, the infrastructure kind of fell into place in the 80s and 90s. And it became an industry of finding cult stuff. And then some stuff was like prematurely tried, people tried to make stuff cult like I remember showgirls. You know, there was like a very, um,

aggressively early cult around that then just kind of didn't stick it's just not a great movie it just isn't i know you know like there there's like there's fiasco bad which you're like wow i really can't believe this is happening and then there's just bad it's just bad you know yeah so like a a true cult movie has to take time you cannot force it i i have a soft spot i don't know about you and this doesn't necessarily fit some of the ones that you're going to mention i think in a little bit but I had a soft spot for like the epic failures for like the $150 million. Like that was never like a better one to punch for me than when Kevin Koster did Waterworld and the Postman in back-to-back years.

It was, here's what was weird. Waterworld and the Postman are, yeah, are massively epic failures that both start off with, it also shows you you can have the grain of an interesting idea. There's really interesting ideas in those movies. they just don't execute them. And all the stuff with how they work out, like how Kevin Costner makes that boat work in Waterworld is kind of brilliant.

Like, real thought and design and character work were put into those sequences, but it's in the middle of all this other silliness that you're just like, why didn't you just put a little more work into the other shit so that we wouldn't be, you know, constantly being taken out of it? And then the postman, which again,

I mean, it's a little slow and weird, But I remember seeing it, I remember he's very specifically going to see that at the Alhambra in San Francisco with Greg Proops and Dave Anthony. And we were laughing our asses off the whole way through. But now we're in 2020. And that movie seems to take place in the aftermath of the riots over a disputed election. And Will Patton's character is kind of a kind of a proud boy, patriot-prayer type guy that, like, you know. So there's weird. And also, you know, there's, I think my brother pointed out.

If Tom Petty shows up out of nowhere, out of the trip, then we're, who knows? I mean, and he's trying to be an influencer, I guess. I mean, you know, my brother pointed out on Twitter, you know, now with the polar ice caps melting and the president trying to shut down the postal service, I think we owe Kevin Costner a big apology because he kind of called a couple of things in those movies. And what was really tragic about those two movies back to back was the. movie he made after that is a movie, a Western called Open Range, which is a legitimately brilliant Oscar-worthy film. But because Kevin, the name Kevin Koster had become this shorthand for, oh boy, no one went and saw it. And it's a, it's a fucking brilliant movie. Yeah, that's a good call. I need to go back to it. He directed that one. He directed it. It's a

great story, like nonstop great performances. He's great in it. Duvall's great. Annette Benning is great. And, like, it's just nonstop good. Right. And but at the time, it was like, oh, God, another Kevin Costner, I can't. And it's too bad because that was really, really good. So segueing into maybe not quite as ambitious failures, you're doing this thing for a shout factory,

which is kind of like a movie marathon coming up, right? I'm doing a 12-hour. That's, again, look, there's a lot of things that I miss because of the shutdown because of coronavirus. You know, everyone has personal things. I'm sure that they miss. People miss, you know, getting to go to concerts. People miss getting to, you know, just be out in a park all day and just, you know, all that fun stuff. But or going to a sporting event.

I miss going to movies. I miss going to movies. And especially this year, Halloween on a Saturday night where the next day is Sunday with an extra hour. The all night marathons this year could have been epic and we missed all of them. So I tried to recreate that feeling. And I picked Shout Factory, really let me go deep into their vaults. And they were, they were weirdly non-judgmental about what I picked. I mean, I picked some ones that are genuinely entertaining.

I've got Penelope Spiris's Suburbia in there. I've got Eat My Dust, which is a very underrated Roger Corman ripoff of smoking and the bandit where it was that, there was that window of the 70s where safety was not a thing that was considered with stunts. Like they just basically kind of said, let's film this. And then everyone, if anyone dies, let's just run. Let's just everyone bolt. We don't have anyone here.

So there's some stunts in, there's a stunt, by the way, in a, there's an early Steven Spielberg film called the Sugar Land Express. There's a stunt at the end where a guy on top of a news van gets knocked, when a car hits it. And if you watch that scene, it's like, I think that guy, like, broke his pelvis. Like, it looks, he goes down so hard and ugly. And at the time, they're just like, I'm giving him $50. and keep them quiet.

Like, it's just so brutal. But so there's Eat My Desk. But then in the middle of it, despite all these fun, bad films I have, I did pick one called Shriek of the Mutilated because there has to be always in the movie Marathon. There's got to be that one movie where the fascination is in watching that nothing fucking works.

Like, nothing works in this movie. They actually went for something. They didn't even have him. They didn't even have ambition to do anything great and they still couldn't even get to there. And there's something kind of beautiful about it to go, wow, it is a, my friend Nathan Rabin, he's a movie writer and pop culture critic. He has a term called The Shitty Miracle where a, like, look, you can, even great films have a couple of moments that don't quite work. Even shitty films will have a moment that works. We're like, oh, wow.

but then every now and then a movie comes where fucking nothing works and that's actually really hard to pull off and so when you see that like shriek of the media lady you're on god damn it i got to give some credit that's beautiful i i admit you have really filled in i mean i'm familiar with some of these but most of these frankly i you know i consider myself a decent in cinephile but i i kick myself from not never seen cue for instance which i've heard about for Oh, dude. Cue the Wing Serpent is fucking fascinating. That was a, it's a Larry Cohen film.

And he was working on another Roger Corman film. He got fired. And so he wrote this movie in two days in his, again, his hotel room for extra two days or something, cranked it out. It is one of the dumbest claymation monster movies ever made with one of the best performances I've ever seen. seen in a movie. Michael Moriarty does the most intense method acting performance you've ever

seen. I mean, it will blow you away. And there's a famous story where they showed the movie, it showed it can. Not in the prestige part of Cannes. There's another part, the international film mark where you just show up like, can I just sell this to Singapore and make my money back that I spent? So they screened it at Cannes. Reed was in the audience for some reason. I guess it was like on an afternoon he had and he comes out of the theater and arcoff the producer samsy arkoff is there and he was like i can't what is going on you've got this amazing michael moriarty performance in the middle of all this dreck and then arcoff goes the drek was my idea like he was so proud of himself there's something so great about so yeah and i end i end the marathon on that because that is

the that's kind of the central idea of the whole thing is just embrace your drek and if you embrace it hard enough you might find something amazing in it again one of the all-time great film performances is in one of the dumbest movies ever made well it's pretty stunning it was on the list anyway now it's risen higher uh thanks to dude i mean honestly you're like there must have been a meeting at new world where they were going and and by the way there were consistent reviews going It's this stupid fucking monster movie. But Michael Moriarty, my God, it's, you know, Ebert, like, Ebert's review was like, you have to see this from Moriarty.

So there must have been like an hour meeting of, do we do an Oscar campaign? Like, how do we pull this? I mean, they didn't do it, but there must have been that discussion of we have a legitimate, we could get, go for an Oscar on this goddamn thing. And they should have. It's an Oscar-worthy performance. It's like Daniel DeLuis in the supporting role in Leprecon 3. How did he end up in that?

What's the fuck? Did he need to resurface his pool? What's going on? You know? So, yeah. What's your appetite generally for marathons, like movie theater marathons? Like, have you ever done those like famed like Austin But Numbathon, 24-hour things? Every time the But Numbathon or the QT Fest would happen, I was like I was cursed.

I was always working. I've always, always wanted to do those. I've done, I've done an all-night marathon at the Orphium downtown that was in the 90s. And then also in the 90s, I did an all-night marathon at the Cinerama Dome, which was amazing, beautiful prints. And I did one at the new Beverly, but I never was able to do button amethon, and especially I've wanted to do QT Fest at the, at the, at the Alamo. I mean, once the, you know, once the lockdown ends safely and we have a vaccine we can trust, I would love to do, go back to my, that now, it's weird. I grew up in the suburbs.

I had no access to any kind of good art film or anything like that. And now in my hometown of Sterling, Virginia, there's a Alamo draft house that I could have, yeah, and it just drives me fucking crazy. I could have you been to, I could have grown up with that. Have you been to a theater since all of this? I haven't. No, I would, no, I would never go. No, you can't. You can't. I just, I watch stuff on, you know, on TV. I'm trying to, you know, weirdly, I've gone it down, I've gone down a really nice, I mean, I'm very lucky I have the Criterion Channel and they did that whole noir Western thing in the summer. They just did a month, last month, 70s horror movies. So I was able to just all that great let scare Jessica to death and, you know, the, you know, the, The brood and the crazies and Texas chains, all that great golden age of American horror movies where it was about, like, America itself is part of the problem.

It's just the rot and the unease and the paranoia is the monster. It's so fucking great to watch. So you did go 70s when I asked you to pick a specific comfort movie, but it's certainly not 70s horror. It's one that I hadn't seen in a while. I revisited it last night. And there's a lot to talk about it. I'm curious. Let's talk about your comfort movie.

Tell us what you chose and in brief, why you chose it. I chose 1974's Murder on the Orient Express. Sidney Lumet, hot off of Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico. I was going to say that. I know. That's what I'm talking. Sidney Lumet, and it's, it's such a great movie. He could just do high-end, like, you know, cozy British mystery films, the rest of his career.

He was so good at that. It's still the best depiction of Poirot. Sorry, David Soucher, I love you, but that Albert Finney is amazing, including the fact that when Albert Finney was doing the movie, he was also doing a play in the West End. So he would do the play at night. He would go home and sleep, and they sent an ambulance to his house with two guys that would, he would stay asleep. They'd put him on a stretcher, put him in the back of the ambulance, quietly drive him to the

studio, and then start him into makeup, and then he would wake up in the makeup dress. So you could just get that extra sleep, shoot for the day, and then go do the play at night. like just a just an absolute monster and um uh a cast of just nothing but ringers nothing but ringers um and um it is a very cozy um movie about a murder on a high end luxury train the orient express the calais coach but what but what's hidden in the movie um that's that doesn't it doesn't tell you that it's about it but it's also about it's this whole way of living that's about to go away. It's post-World War I.

They're thinking maybe there's going to be another war that they mentioned a couple times. There's, you know, Rachel Roberts plays kind of a neo-Nazi. Anthony Perkins is clearly a closeted. You know, but everyone is just, it's that repressive old Victorian era that's crumbling and they believed

in a system of laws and closure that completely betrayed them. So they've got to take. take the law into their own hands and kill an American gangster that, and again, yes, it's a G-rated, not horror movie, except that the actual murder sequence, the way that it's filmed, is so fucking scary and disturbing, like genuinely disturbing for a movie that has no cursing,

has no, I mean, there's no blood, there's no, but the way they shoot the murder scene actually kind of harkens to, I've always said that John Carpenter's Halloween, the original one, if released today, except for like very brief nudity, would just be a PG-13. There's very little violence. It's all suggested. It's all screen. Murder on the Orient Express, the murder scene and murder on the Orient Express is more horrifying than anything in the movie Halloween. In terms of just sustained violence and the angle he shoots at, it's so disturbing. When did you encounter this, Patton?

This came out when you were like five years old, so I assume it was going on. This was, I don't know, I forget, it might have been in college or something, but there was just something about this, because I'm very OCD. So I'm very, this kind of OCD guy, just kind of in his own little world, Eric Cuo Poirot, and he has to like, not only does he have to like put this, he kind of puts it together spitefully because at the end, he has to realize actually this murder was done for actually good reasons. I can't actually arrest who did it.

And he has to make this bigger moral choice, which is, again, foreshadows these massive moral choices that world was about to be put through, right, in a very weird way. So there was just something, it just hit me, it hit me at the right goddamn time. And also, Sidney Lumet, he's just an amazing filmmaker. He's amazing with images.

They pull you in. He's amazing at directing actors so that you're just constantly, can't keep your eye off the screen. I just love it. You alluded to a bit, and you mentioned some of the actors, but this is one of those, like, classic 70s, like ensembles, that, I think you alluded to this also,

where you're saying it's kind of the last gasp of an old world. That pertains to the acting, too. It's like Richard Windmark, and then, but then it's like Michael York. So it's like these different generations kind of colliding. It's like Ingrid Burney, Arm Bacall and Geelgood, but then Anthony Perkins, Martin Balsam, like these great character actors,

These great icons, Sean Connery, by the way. Yes. Um, yeah, well, also, I mean, just the fact that it's, there's so many things going on in the terms of, you know, they wanted Ingrid Bergman to play, um, uh, the, um, uh, Lauren Bacall part. She goes, no, I want to play the kind of mentally, um, um, disabled, uh, nurse. Right. She won an Oscar for it. She did. Um, uh, Richard Widmark, who basically, this is how cool Richard Widmark was. He goes, I took the role. because I just wanted to meet all these actors. I'm such a fan of all of them. So, like, the fact that a guy of that stature, Richard Widmark, who's such an icon,

especially of like film noir and everything, but he's still a fan of the movies. Like, I get to meet Sean Conrad. I'd love to talk. Like, so that was really, you know, and then in the middle of it, Albert Finney, just this absolute powerhouse. And it's so brilliant.

You've got 12 of the worlds, well, actually 14 of the world's best actors. And they, and the whole last 20 minutes, they can't speak while he goes on. So there's real tension in that room of like, how fucking long do I have to sit here? Well, you know, and you know what it takes to make a movie. That must have taken days, if not weeks,

to get all those angles. And so the tension is just excruciating when you watch that final scene. Some of the greatest mustache work, I would say, in anything way. Not only Poirot, by the way. I mean, Poirot's iconic mustache is one thing, but you got Connery, Martin Balsam's work.

rocking like this pencil thin job. Mm-hmm. Fine. Yeah. All around and that should not be ignored. And Connery is being such an anti-James Bond, just this stuffy, racist. He makes, he does that joke about, I was, I was, I was yawning with young what's his name. He thought that the producer to leave India.

Can you believe that? Like, he plays a character who goes, can you believe this idiot Gandhi? I mean, come on. So, but, but you're supposed to sympathize with him. it's oh god it's so fucking good so where do you come down on the 2017 recent remake kenneth brana who's somebody that i respect a lot like a lot of his films did it just not work for you and why yeah it just there was too many they added all this personal backstory to puaro which you don't need all the all the the character work you need of poirot is the way that albert finney his face before he finally walks down

that hallway at the end when he's made the decision that he's made and he looks at how everyone else is reacting. But he realizes it's very much like John Wayne and the searchers or Jimmy Stewart at the end of Call Northside 777. I've helped to bring some justice in the world, but I'm also not a part of it personally. Like there's something removed and am I diminished because of that. And that's all you need. You don't need all his picture of the woman and then it gets broken and then the, you know, it's just like, Guys, God damn it. So, you know, there's something very frustrating about watching that.

Also, I thought that the, um, the, the, when the David Soucher Poirot series did their version of it, they did an amazing version of it and had Poirot do some kind of, make some surprising decisions without, without ruining the faith of the original text, he really, um, they did some really cool. And actually did way more realistic of what it's like to be in a train trapped in a snowdrift. And you have to actually pack everyone in the same room where they all freeze to death and like that kind of. So that was really interesting. I just that yeah, in the Brana one, it just did.

And I love Kenneth Brana that his, oh, why can I think of the name that that he does an amazing police series, the Swedish one. A Wallander, right? Oh my God. It's so good. And even in the crime genre, one of my favorites of his is dead again. very early on. Yes. That against family.

Brilliant. And also I just, Poirot has to, he really, I will give him this. He does nail the, I am OCD to a fault. I'm OCD to a point where it negatively affects my life.

Right. And my, but Poirot's got to be fat. He's got to be fat. God damn it. And so, you know, that when Tony Randall played,

played Poirot and the ABC murders, um, And Malcovich was okay, plays kind of an older Poirot. They kind of made him chubby. And then, God, what's his name from Prick Up Your Ears? And Spider-Man 2 played Doc Ock. He played him in a team. Oh, Alfred Molina?

Alfred Molina. But they made him like he was having a romance with one of the, it just is like, no, he needs to be this weird kind of on the spectrum genius that, but still has, has a moral compass, and that's what he's wrestling with, you know? Totally. So, looking at your, you've worked with so many interesting filmmakers throughout your career, and you're obviously steeped in all of this stuff. Early on, you know, you work with someone like PTA, right, on Magnolia.

Yeah, yeah. So, like, did you, for instance, as a cinephile, as somebody that kind of like knew and appreciated great work and great filmmakers, did you know back then, he was coming off of boogie night, So there was a lot of heat on him. But I don't know if he had like entered that rarefied atmosphere then. Did you know he had the goods on Magnolia? I knew he had the goods when I saw. I don't want to sound braggy,

but when I saw Hard 8 and realized that he had made a sneak sequel to Midnight Run and managed to, again, weave in in what looks like the most simple throwaway story. But then he weaved in stuff about guilt and responsibility and regret and aging and youth and love. I mean, it was just something like, wow, this guy is amazing. So again, when I saw a heart eight, it reminded me of what it must have felt like for people to have seen like, who's that knocking at my door or mean streets for the person. I'm going, oh, this is the start of a massively amazing career. Here we go. So yeah, I did, I did kind of know. And I was very excited to, and I got the part in the most

undramatic way. I was, everyone used to hang out at the Largo. And, you know, on Monday nights, I did a set and walked back in the kitchen, and there's PTA standing there with Flanagan, the owner, and we all knew each other. And he's like, hey, I'm shooting my next movie. You want to do something in it? I'm like, yeah. And he goes, all right. My person will call you.

And that was just like in the kitchen. Like, okay, thanks, man. And it was great. Is there a director that's gotten away as, again, somebody who appreciates the greats? Is there one that you've come close to working with that still sticks in your craw? Well, it's, I can't say that it sticks in my craw because I believe that people, get their roles for a reason and um i came very very close um to being in um the cohen brothers uh a serious man um i it was down to um me and um richard kind as the brother-in-law and they were just like

he's better for the role and i'm like yes he is he's goddamn better i love him he'll be so amazing but i got to go out i flew out to minnesota we talked traded our favorite heard onion stories, you know, read the pages and stuff. I talked about all their movies, talked about how I go, you know, if you do hire me, it'll be the second Oswald that you use because my grandpa Oswald, the only time he ever worked in a movie, he just got like called in, he was retired and living in Arizona. He's one of the metal workers and you can see him standing behind Nicholas Cage and raising Arizona at the beginning when he's working in that drilling sheet metal shop. He's one of the, but he's just behind him in goggles. I'm like, you know, if you want to

have your second Oswald to say, you know, so, and then we just, I asked them all these Sam Ramey questions about when they were starting. So it was just, you know, I know, I didn't get to be in a serious man, but I got to hang out with them for a while, and it was great because we're, we're big movie freaks. Yeah. And that just, that mattered. I mean, hopefully someday, I mean, I think there's stuff that they do is, there's, that, that's another one of those filmmakers that, oh, when it, when anything comes out, yeah, drop everything, I'm going to go see it. I'm, I've mentioned this before, but I'm fascinated that for the first time they're directing separately, that Joel Cohen is directing his first film solo, this Macbeth, a reinterpretation.

Yeah, but then didn't, I mean, he's done plays before, I know. Yeah, go ahead. He published a book a short story. I mean, look, they can do, it's like, it's like Big Boy and Andre 3000, do whatever you want. I mean, go, if doing something by yourself keeps you creatively happy, then that means they'll get back together and do stuff later. It's not like they're going never again you know they totally of course they will my god you you've had i mean how do you characterize your own acting career because when i look at the body of work you know before a conversation like this there's it's it's there's so much and then it's it's also dotted with kind of these fascinating it feels like you're like in that samler thing where like every five years

like a really serious cool filmmakers like i want i want pat and oswald to be i want him to be in young adult i want him to be a big fan um i wish i mean i mean sandler's career is fucking a amazing. And I think he is a very, very underrated performer. Even in movies where, you know, I think people would go, oh, well, this is just this frivolous fun. There's moments in, especially wedding singer and Billy Madison that are fucking genius. You know, so, you know, that there's, there's a lot going on. There's more going on there that I think people see. That's just my opinion. but then yeah when he goes and does something you know punch drunk love and uncut gems were so fucking brilliant how did he not get nominated for punch drunk love for god's sakes i know that

everyone's like oh it's an outrage he didn't get nominated for uncut gems yes it was an outrage but fucking punch drunk love that little dance he does in the aisle when he oh my fucking god it's so brilliant what the fuck right but back to you patten are you fulfilled as an actor do you get enough on as an actor you you oh yeah i mean look i i i've always said i'm in this for the money in the anecdotes so i either want to be in the best movies ever or the worst and i have great stories about it so i'd be just as excited um to work with the cohen brothers as i would get to work with like uwee bowl you know like because i would get a cool story either way right and i get to travel someplace weird and do this ab so fucking lute that's you know if you're just if you're

structuring your whole career around award season and trophy chasing it gets really boring really fast have the adventures first and all that other shit works itself out you know and also i want time to do other things you know making movies is great i still love doing stand-up i still love getting to go watch movies this is going to sound really pissy but the first year that i went to sundance i went there with the film big fan and as happy as i was to be there with big fan and support it you know, but being there means you do every single interview that comes your way, which I did, but I was also, it was bittersweet because I have my fucking laminate. I can go see movies and I only got to see two movies while I was there.

Totally. So then they brought me back as a jury member on the short film jury, and that was fucking great. Watching short films at a film festival, that's all I wanted to do. If a film festival comes back, I just want to go back and I'll just, like, have I ever got to go to Tell Your Ride or Toronto or even, can i would just go see the shorts because you see all these young directors like oh that person yeah that person's going to be huge i just saw it it's so exciting um i want to mention a couple things that you presumably have been working on in the last year one i'm excited about is uh modoc yes talk to me a little bit about this is going to be for hulu um modoc is basically uh me

and my friend jordan blum who is a brilliant writer off family guy and um american dad and he is a he has the deepest comic book knowledge of i thought i had deep uh deep brain uh pits but that dude and so we this this character modoc which is so he is such a ridiculously brilliant character a super intelligent angry floating head with little shrunken arms and legs and this little floating scooter that wants to rule the world you know and become emperor modocs we're like how do you make a series him from his point of view. And the idea, what I loved was the fact that he hates the Marvel superheroes, Spider-Man, Captain America, as much as he hates all the other villains.

Because in his mind, I should be, it should be me, and then Dr. Doom and the Green Goblin. But he's like down at fifth and sixth place, and it drives him crazy. So he truly hates everyone. And he's his own worst enemy. And it's just comedically, it's so fun to play. And it's a... We took what could have been a very one-note thing, and thanks to Jordan and his writing and world building. We made a very deep kind of beautiful show about fatherhood and family and ambition and humility with everything in the Marvel toy box we wanted to use, they let us use, including some X-Men stuff, which I was shocked.

They let us use. They're like, yeah, you can go ahead. And we're like, whoa, group. So that was really exciting. I don't know about you, but I can't believe how deep we are and how just how many levels in we are into comic book movie TV shows. I mean, like, you know, you've got a couple years on me, but like I remember growing up and it was like an event when like they made a flash TV show on.

Yeah. Yes, it was like they were so few and far between the fact that you're talking about Modoc and we have like all these like these MCU now TV shows coming. and all these multiverses like now, that's the next thing. It seems like both DC and Marvel are going to just basically embrace the multiverse thing. Well, I think it's also because there's a generation that grew up on that stuff when it was very limited and it was being done by people that only saw this as a property, we'll just make some money and that's it.

And they're like, well, no, there's a whole world here. And you can use it to smuggle stories about, you know, racial inequality, trans or gay rights, economic inequality. You can use that as a way. Just like George Romero used Night of Living Dead to basically, he made a movie about how the late 60s America was burning to the fucking ground. He's like, no one wants to watch that.

So I'm going to smuggle this in a monster movie. Right. And that's happening now with superheroes, and especially, especially with horror films, the wave of horror movies coming up right now. And these streaming platforms like Arrow and Shutter that are giving these. filmmakers that can't get distribution the movies that are coming out on these platforms are

insane are so good and so brilliant and are addressing all this stuff that's going on where are you at with uh star wars right now are you watching mandolian what was i'm i'm basically i'm i'm in i'm in mandolian territory where i think that is the way for oh my god christ christ is this the way is that what you're saying this is the way the stuff that they're doing with that show and the places that they're the gaps that they're filling in but without doing it they're not they're not doing it with um to quote a brilliant south park thing they're not using the the member berries model remember this member this member it's there for a specific um emotional or logical reason rather than look at this look at this um i don't know if it's i don't know when

this episode drops we probably shouldn't talk about episode one yet but some pretty pretty big, goddamn things happen in that. Yes. Which, oh, shit. It was satisfying, yes. Yes. Well, satisfying, but also titillating. Maybe that's not what I think it is or maybe, but like, still, the fact that they're doing what they're doing with it in such a brilliant way, you know, is, it's fascinating.

What's the post-mortem as one geek to another on Rise of Skywalker? Let's be honest here. What happened? Patton. This is just one geek's opinion. I loved The Last Jedi. I thought it was fucking brilliant, and I'll fight anyone on it.

All the way. All these people fucking Force Awakens comes out and was like, it's just the same goddamn thing. Ryan Johnson comes along, takes it in new directions, which is what Empire did. Everyone goes,

what's all this new shit? And then the rise of the Skywalker people, God bless them. they got spooked by the internet. They should have just gone, hey, fuck you guys. We want to keep going. He opened up this whole new run.

That thing at the end where the kid just randomly moves the broom. And you're like, oh, the force has no place. It just goes anywhere. It still comes down to people's moral choices as to where to take that, which is what the Mandalorian is doing in a brilliant way with baby Yoda. But he opened this door and then you just, I mean, again, all these, all these fucking angry nerds who by the way are also about fucking never apologize and don't listen to all this goddamn PCSJW shit yeah well let's take this the next step just don't listen to the internet period just fucking go do something creative that you want to fucking do and then people no one knows what they fucking want do what you think is creative and risky and people will show the fuck up for it has your buddy jason wrightman given you a sneak peek at the new ghostbusters patent

I am not going to say. I'm just going to leave it at that. I am not going to say. Should I be excited as a Ghostbusters stand and a Jason Reitman fan? I'm not going to say. Okay. Okay. Look at my smile.

They can't see it, but I can. He's smiling. Sorry. Have you ever made a pitch? You've done so much for Disney. Have you made like a Star Wars like Disney Plus TV show pitch an animated series pitch? No.

I mean, again, as much as I love playing in the toy boxes, I want to create my own toy box. I mean, if I was in my 20s, yeah, I'd want to do that as a way to like learn how to do it. But now that I'm in my 50s, if I do create stuff, me, yeah, Modoc was modoc. But I want to now create my own realm. I want to try, whether it fails or not,

I just, I did a few comics for DC and Dark Horse this summer that'll come out in the fall. Did a Modoc mini-series to tie in with our TV show. But I want to create some original stuff and then see if it's good enough for other people to run with. You know, I just want to know if I have it in me. Maybe I don't, but I got to know one way or the other. So there's some stuff I'm going to, I think once things get rolling again,

there's stuff I want to create from the ground up and to see how that feels. What's the most prized piece of movie memorabilia that you own? The most prized piece of movie memorabilia. I have the original maquette that the Pixar guys used the sculpture of Remy when they were figuring out, because they build, you know, 3D models of it before they animate it. So I have that and you see like where they finally nailed it. And the thing I wish I could find is apparently Brad Bird did a pencil test of Remy doing my

Black Angus Steakhouse bit, which, and he showed her to Disney. He's like, this is the voice I went there like, he's really cursing a lot. And they're like, no, no, he won't be like cursing in the movie like this, you weirdos. So like, so there was that. I'm trying to find that. But yeah, the little Remy McKett is really beautiful. That's awesome. Something really amazing about that.

Well, I don't want to take up too much of your time. You've got 7,000 projects to attend to. Yes, I do. And a country to save. I have my daughter's lunch to attend to. show. Exactly. But I will, I will mention again, Padden Oswald's six-pack movie marathon September, oh, sorry, November 7th, Saturday at 9 a.m. Pacific time, noon, Eastern time. There's an encore presentation on November 8th at noon and 3 p.m. Eastern.

Can be viewed on Shout Factory's main website and a thousand other platforms that I'm sure you guys can figure out because you guys are all smart. Yes. Right? Yes, God damn it. Patum, thanks so much for your time, man. say hey dude thanks for having me on and please please be safe uh there's no second wave coming the first wave never went away and now that the winter's coming it's going to be even worse so please please be safe okay and so ends another edition of happy sad confused remember to review rate and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts i'm a big podcast person i'm daisy ridley and i definitely wasn't pressure to do this by josh

Hey, Michael. Hey, Tom. You want to tell him? Or you want me to tell him? No, no, no. I got this. People out there. People.

Lean in. Get close. Get close. Listen. Here's the deal. We have big news. We got monumental news. We got snack.

Packular news. Yeah. After a brief hiatus, my good friend, Michael Ian Black, and I are coming back. My good friend, Tom Kavanaugh and I are coming back to do what we do best. What we were put on this earth to do. To pick a snack. To eat a snack. And to rate a snack.

Nemptively? Emotionally. Spiritually. Mates is back. Mike and Tom eat snacks. Is back. A podcast for anyone with a mouth. With a mouth.

Available wherever you get your podcasts.