The Big Picture - ‘A House of Dynamite’ Is Ready to Explode

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

Sean and Amanda start the show by covering the major box office success of ‘Chainsaw Man,’ reacting to the news that Cinemark is opening myriad new 70 mm IMAX screens across the country, and discussing what it represents for the future of moviegoing (2:00). Then, they deep dive into Kathryn Bigelow’s new film, ‘A House of Dynamite,’ starring Rebecca Ferguson. They unpack their very complicated feelings by highlighting what they found successful, including a titillating first act and some strong performances, and they address its major flaws, most notably a wild third act that features a deeply unsuccessful performance from Idris Elba (12:59). Finally, Adam Nayman joins the show to discuss Kelly Reichardt’s new film, ‘The Mastermind,’ starring Josh O’Connor as an outcast loner (1:07:46). They talk about Reichardt’s ability to identify this type of character and give credit to her and O’Connor for crafting such a wonderful performance. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Adam Nayman Producer: Jack Sanders Unlock an extra $250 at linkedin.com/thebigpicture Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennacy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the big picture of conversation show about nuclear deterrence, mutually assured destruction, and asymmetric responses. Today on the show, Amanda and I will discuss one of the biggest movies of the year, Catherine Bigelow's long-awaited 11th feature film, A House of Dynamite, which is now streaming on Netflix. It was a good joke that you, like, wrote, because every,

podcast that we do is about that. But then you just fed right through it. So I just wanted to let you know. Good job. Well, I wanted to deliver it in a serious fashion that suggested the severity of this issue. It is factually accurate, but perhaps this like podcast's tagline is asymmetric responses. Well, we'll see about how we talk about this new film. This is a tense thriller about a potential nuclear attack on the United States of America. Amanda Duggett. I have some notes about this movie. We will take it to DefCon 1 very soon. I really, I didn't do enough DefCon One research, like DefCon System Research. This is a recurring thing at the movies.

Yeah, maybe now is the time. I'm realizing right now that I should have Googled it. Maybe now is the time. Later in this episode, our pal Adam Neiman is going to join us to talk about Kelly Reichart's new movie, The Mastermind, one of my favorite movies of the year. I'm very excited to talk to Adam. And we're also going to talk about the box office and some news. So we'll see you soon.

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LinkedIn.com slash the big picture. Terms and conditions apply. Let's start with the box office. As suggested, on our critically acclaimed Springsteen Delivered Me from Nowhere episode, Chainsaw Man is the number one movie in America. How many times have you seen it? Well, you know, I started,

the first screening at Saturday was not early enough for me so I could only get there, you know, at noon. I would really love it if they could start the 9, 10 a.m. just so I can fit in one more, you know? Yeah, I'll call AMC about that. So you saw it five times. 12, 2, 4, 6, 8. Impressive.

I haven't seen it yet. I will see it. Something is obviously happening with anime, fandom, and the box office. The idea that, like, literally Sony distributing huge movies in the anime world, like Demon Slayer, a month and a half ago, and this film is showing something is changing. We're not as...

We need to basically do, like, a long episode about this. and I know that this content will be incoherent to you and it will be incoherent most of me. Right, like are you, you know. I mean, I've seen like the classics, you know, like I've seen like Akira and Ghost in the Shell and those movies and I have some familiarity with the storytelling style. But this is like a TV show that became a movie.

And this is young people, right? Young people who live and die by anime and this was a big event for them. And so they like go out to the theaters the same way Gabby's dollhouse was for small children except those children were not old enough to go to the theaters by themselves. They couldn't go by themselves, yes. And their parents didn't want to take them.

I mean, there are obviously plenty of adult anime fans, but Chainsaw Man is not like Demon Slayer. It's a fairly recent TV show that just came out. I want to say three years ago. And I remember Charles Holmes telling me, like, you should watch this, you would like it. And I never watched it. Yeah.

But, you know, it's been a pretty bleak October at the box office. True. And it's mostly been The Conjuring Five and Demon Slayer and Chainsaw Man and bigger movies, these sort of like old school star-led movies, The Smashing Machine, Roof Man, After the Hunt, Springsteen deliver me from nowhere, adult dramas. That very few people loved and nobody want to see.

Yes. None of them really had strong word of mouth. None of them, I mean, they're operating in the way movies operated in 1995 or even 2005, and that's harder to sell than ever. there needs to be like a boom around the movie, right? Like there needs to be like a big conversation. So I bring that up because I thought there was an interesting bit of news this morning in Variety. They reported that Cinemark, one of the theatrical distribution chains, is opening new 70-millimeter IMAX screens in some of their locations. And those locations are not Los Angeles or even Seattle.

They're in Colorado Springs. They're in Rochester, New York. They're in smaller cities, still cities, of course, but like just smaller cities around the country. And it's a small piece of news on a Monday morning, but it does indicate to me that it's like one more link in the chain of how the business is changing. Right. That it's like movies are being eventized. These theaters are being built literally for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. And you can charge more for those tickets.

You can fit more, usually more butts in those seats. And it just eventizes going to the movies. Like, does that what I'm saying make sense? Yes, and we've been talking about that, like, for each audience or each market, in its different way, it has become more akin to a concert than the movie going of our youth, which is like we just got dropped off at the mall every Saturday in order and would go see whatsoever. And so people make plans in advance for like fewer things, but they're willing to spend more money for it. They probably have more of a previous connection to the material than just. just kind of wandering in and checking out what's going on. And this, hmm, I'll just like flip through, this sense of discovery.

What's this roof man? Yeah. I'd like to learn about it. Oh, you know, is he on top of a roof? Channing Tatum, I like him. I guess I'll wander in. That sense of discovery is just not how people see the movies. But on the other hand, all of the, like, anime fans will go see the movie when it's

in theaters. Like, all of the nerds will seek out the prestige, you know, the premium format. people for wicked for good or for kind of, you know, the IP stuff, if you know about it and you have some sort of previous investment, then you will actually spend a lot of money on it. Yeah, you'll go to the early access screening. You'll buy the popcorn bucket. You'll go back on Friday night. You know, you'll make it a part of your identity in a way to participate in these things. That's definitely chains on men. That's definitely wicked for good. It's interesting. I mean, it's just clearly a much smaller business

and I think about all of my freakouts over the last six or seven years on the show and I have been way more chilled out I think about it this year, relatively speaking, because I think I'm just accepted. It's just a lot smaller. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that there can't be grand slams

like The Odyssey. The thing I think I'm still holding on to is when sinners and weapons succeed, which are modestly sized movies, 50, 70, 90 million dollar movies. I don't want to just punt on that stuff. So that's the one last thing that I'm like, I probably will continue to yell at studios on the podcast.

I mean, I think we should. You have to empower like genuine visionary filmmakers and give them money to do their thing. Like if you're not doing two to three of those a year and two of them will miss and one will hit, then it's like why even have a movie business and that's like at the heart of my feeling around this. Right.

So just big picture, yelling at, corporations is good. We will continue to do that. Just in general, like, whatever the suits want to do, that's, you know, we will, we will hold them accountable. But yeah, I agree with you. And I think those are still, especially in the case of sinners, money-making opportunities when you get it right. And that's always been the business, right? Like, this is a weird, weird business, where you spend a lot of money and however many spreadsheets or, you know, McKinsey consultants you have, There's no guarantee, and something hits or something doesn't. Sometimes you can make a billion dollars, and a lot of times you lose a lot of money.

So if there are, you know, corporations are always going to try to corporatize it. But, yeah, if you want to stay in the business, stay in the business of making movies. Now streaming on Paramount Plus is the epic return of mayor of Kingstown. Warden? You know who I am. Starring Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner. I swear in these walls. Emmy Award winner, E. You're an ex-con who ran this place for years, and now, now you can't do that.

And BAFTA award winner Lenny James. You're about to have a plague of outsiders descend on your town. Let me tell you this. It's going to be consequences. Mayor of Kingstown, new season now streaming on Paramount Plus. The other thing that's interesting about this, or exciting to me, and the 70-millimeter IMAX, which, again, I called everyone interested in nerd, and I include myself in that. suppose, but the business is getting smaller, but there is, like, there is a really specific

enthusiasm that we see across culture more broadly, which is things are not as broad, but the enthusiasts are really the enthusiasts. And so there are a lot of like-minded people out there who care enough about IMAX 70 millimeter that they are building them, not just in like the coastal, quote-unquote movie temples. And that's cool. And it is, I mean, we see it, you know, in the response to this show. We see it at, like, the rep theaters. We see it in Jack's Halloween costume, Jack. Do you want to spoil what you're being for the people?

We need to free each other's hearts. That's right. I'm Joe Cross. It's like, we're still working out how Jack is actually going to execute this. Not the third act Joe Cross, right? Like first and second act, Joe Cross. Maybe I'll leave that up for interpretation. Okay, great.

It sounds elaborate. But so, you know, movies are a thing, which is really exciting. Yeah. They are just, they are a thing in a different way. And they are, to your point, like, the market is smaller. So that is bad for rapacious corporations that only want to use it to make money. But I don't know. We like movies.

We do. I have talked about this a lot in my other job here at the Ringer over and over again. Anytime I talk with anybody who's developing a new show, which is that we're just in the era of hyper-niche. There are certainly like 25 or 30 massive podcasts, but most of the most successful podcasts in the world right now, have like good-sized audiences, but their audiences are hyper dedicated to what they do. And movies are actually now closer to podcast than podcasts are to movies. You know what I mean? Like somehow the, just whatever you are interested in, in media, everything is kind of shrinking down and congealing together. And it's for the same reason that

Joe or Jane moviegoers, like, I'll wait for streaming for Roofman. They are also probably going to listen to their podcast, which is available to them quickly right away. Obviously, scale of these things is not comparable when sinners makes, you know, $400 million, that's dramatically different from smaller sizes of media. So that's why, like, I'm going to keep fighting for those things. I'm very interested in the premium large format thing. It does, it's obviously generally a good thing because you want as many people to have access to the cool ways that we get to see movies here in Los Angeles, in New York, and Chicago, and a handful of, actually Chicago doesn't have a 70-millimeter IMAX theater, which is crazy. Right.

So you want people to be able to see things in that way. It does feel like movie going as getting like a little closer to like stamp collecting or like the jazz clubs and ghost world. But as long as people, it's like open to anybody to participate. Okay, that's little, you are the stamp collector, right? And that's, and that's, I guess that's a different way of monetizing it, which is good. It's just a hobby. It's really good that you have hobbies.

I'm a proponent of hobbies, as you know. Go outside. Yours does not involve going outside. No. But that's okay. No. My collection is getting really good. Yeah, what did you get on the criterion sale?

A bunch of stuff. Okay. I filled out my Olivier Asseus stack. I feel good about that. Right. I got the lone wolf and cub box set, which I'm feeling good about. Okay. I actually got it ultimately mostly for Shogun,

Assassin. Do you know about that? No. Let me describe it to you. Okay. Lone Wolf and Cub, these Japanese samurai movies. Shogun Assassin is a re-edit, dubbed re-edit from 1980 of the first two lone wolf and cub movies with a completely different score, a synth score.

And that movie and that score and the dialogue from that dubbed movie became the backbone of Jizz's liquid swords. That is cool. Which is, you know, Wutan Clan members' first. solo album. And so I've heard lines of dialogue from Shogun Assassin thousands of times in my life as a nerdy 11-year-old listening to Liquid Swords over and over again. And now I'll be able to own the movie that those lines are pulled from. Anyhow, thanks for indulging that.

Movies are doing great. You want to talk about House of Dynamite? Yeah. Okay, so this has been a very interesting rollout for this movie. Sure, yeah. I'll give the details first. As I said, This is Catherine Bigelow's new movie, her first film in eight years. It's written by Noah Oppenheim, who is also a screenwriter who wrote Jackie. He is also someone who managed the NBC news team during a very fraught time in its history. The movie stars Idris Elba as the president of the United States, Rebecca Ferguson, Gabriel Basso, Jared Harris, our good friend Tracy Letts, Anthony Ramos, Moses, Ingram, Greta Lee, Jason Clark, star-studded cast. The radars at Fort Greeley, Alaska, detect a nuclear missile. The president and his entourage must use the limited time.

they have to try to shoot down the missile before it reaches Chicago. That's the log line of this movie. Now, you saw it at Dennis. Did you watch it again at home? I did. I watched it last night with my husband. Who was just, I told him, you know, after bedtime tonight, I'm going to have to watch the new Bigelow movie. And he doesn't always want to participate in my podcast prep. But he cleared his schedule for this one. Thank you, Zach, for all that you do. That's nice. So he had not seen it before. No. Okay. So what did you think? Yes. What did you think seeing it a second? second time if people missed our festival episode. Right.

And maybe what did Zach think? I'm curious about that as well. You pointed out it was the last film that I saw at Venice. So it was after, I think I saw 15 or so films of varying quality. And also Tracy Letts and the entire cast were there and I got to go to premiere and I got to see our friend. So I was, first of all, in a great mood. And second of all, it really was a pallet cleanser after what was. was, you know, there is a type of film that goes to a European Awards Festival.

And it is not usually a snazzy political thriller, American political thriller, featuring movie stars showing up. It can be a little more art house. So I, and to really put it in context, I believe it was earlier that day, or maybe the day before, I had seen Jude Law playing Vladimir Putin in an Olivia Assas movie speaking of... I do want to see that movie, even though no one seemed to like it. And I saw... And more problematically, Paul Dano as the titular Wizard of the Kremlin, doing an accent that I just didn't really understand.

Please leave Paul Dano alone. Paul Dana was wonderful. And we don't talk enough about... Wild Life. Yes. It was like an incredible movie that he directed. So, you know, in terms of implausible world leaders, I was like, again, I was already primed, but I... Right. Good point.

I really, really enjoyed it. I watched it. I was not bored. I was very stressed out. I was happy to be there. Came home. And then everyone in New York and you saw it and were pretty sour grapes about it. And so it was interesting watching it again last night. I see your I understand your notes, especially about implausible world leaders, and I think probably it's just the ratio of notes to enjoyment that differ between us. I think we should talk about that. But I'm still kind of watching it at home, especially. I was like, this is pretty good, especially in terms of the context of things that I pull up,

especially on Netflix. And I was really stressed out. Like, there is an effective quality to the filmmaking and I guess it pushes enough. of my buttons that I found myself like very, very jittery. And I think that's what it's trying to do to an agree. So it's effective. Yeah, I think it is effective in some ways.

I think in part because you had me very hyped about the movie. I went in with high expectations. I think in general, your reaction at Venice was not uncommon. Most of the Venice reactions were very positive for the movie. Also, Bigelow Academy Award winner, one of the great living filmmakers, right? One of the more interesting filmographies,

she's obviously kind of settled into this mode that we can talk about in her last four films, essentially, but a director known for creating, like, the ecstatic moment, right? Yeah. She is able to generate energy when you're watching a movie that is pretty rare. So, you know, my, I saw this movie before that faded New York Film Festival press screening, which we can talk about a little bit

just because I've heard from like nine friends about it. But I saw it in a Netflix screening room, and I was pretty disappointed by it. I think, like many people, loved the first third. Yeah. Loved. Was as locked into a movie

as I have been all year. Yes. The second third was delighted by Tracy's performance primarily and also Gabriel Basso, who's an actor who I think is really promising, who was very good in juror number two, who was trying to wipe the J.D. Vance slate clean.

I did. It took me a minute while watching the movie at Venice to place him, and then I placed him as J. Vance and I was like, oh, oh, you know? And I don't end the associations that it's bringing from. And he's sort of a Netflix. Is he also the, what's the name of that show?

The Night Agent? He's the Night Agent. He's the Night Agent. Yes. He's a star on the rise. And he's very, very good in this film as a Deputy NSA bureaucrat. And I found the third act to be like pretty much a fiasco. It is.

Really one of the most disappointing things I've seen in a movie in a while. I think re-watching it last night, like, I see it. And as Zach put it, Zach liked the movie as well. We both agree that the third act kind of gets pretty loosey-go-sie. And I remember even watching it when Idris is in the basketball arena and the nuclear weapons assistant and the Secret Service guy are talking. I was like, what's going on here? This is very strange. Well, it's a function of the structure, right?

So, like, let's talk about that. And what the point of the movie is. So the movie is, it's a three-part repeating 18-minute real-time sequence in the moments before a nuclear attack. So in the United States, we learn, even though the satellites have missed, this ICBM is flying directly at the center of the United States. And in this parable, I guess, we see the reality. reaction from basically all sectors of the federal government that would be implicated. That includes the executive branch and the president's Situation Room, which is where we find Rebecca Ferguson's character, the National Security Agency, that's the Gabriel Basso character, the Department

of Defense. Jared Harris plays the head of the Department of Defense. The Army at Fort Greeley in Alaska, which is responsible for overseeing the missile response in the United States. And that's where Tracy is, right? No. No, no. That's, Anthony Ramos is there. Yes. Yes. Tracy is in the Army or the United States Strategic Command, Stratcom, which is in Nebraska. Okay. But I thought, oh, I thought it was like undisclosed location. No, it says Nebraska.

Oh, it does? Okay. And then FEMA as well. Right. For reasons that I think are a little bewildering. I think this script has a lot of stray string attached to it. Right. And it's because.

We're in the White House press room. Yeah. Yes, but like not really getting to know any characters. We get like maybe 90 seconds. with Willa Fitzgerald, maybe three minutes with Moses Ingram, maybe four minutes with Greta Lee. The movie has an unusual disinterest in its female characters. You know, Brittany O'Grady from the White Lotus is just like Gabriel Bassel's wife.

You know, that's a small criticism, but it's one that on the second viewing, I was like, hmm. Well, I mean, Rebecca Ferguson is the entire movie. She is, but she only gives you, you only get 27 minutes, you know, 28 minutes really with Rebecca Ferguson. And so this, like, repeating structure where we see the events through all of those, the eyes in all of those worlds, but certain information is obscured each time. So the film opens primarily through the eyes of Ferguson's character. She plays someone named Olivia Walker, who is just a senior officer in the situation room, observing these events. We see her, I think the movie sets up that character very well. She's up at 4.30 in the morning with her sick toddler.

Yeah. Who can relate, right? Very humanizing moment. Yeah, it's just, and then he gives her, like, a tiny dinosaur figurine that shows up throughout the thing. I mean, it's absolutely brutal. Yeah, and just a very effective way to get us invested in her, right? And the kid's, like, sick. And so as her workday is playing out, she's trying to figure out how to get in touch with her husband and son who are, like, at the pediatrician.

And, you know, and there are lots of, like, rules and regulations in terms of how you're supposed to communicate as a human being versus, like, a public officer, which she. does very well. Yes. Yeah, it's, I found it excruciating. I also hadn't seen my kids in 10 days when I saw this for the first time, so I was really, really stressed out about it in the way that you're supposed to be.

Absolutely. I think also she is a classic Bigelow heroin. Yeah. She's kind of like favoring competence porn in the face of immense tragedy. Like this goes all the way back to Blue Steel. Like she's consistently very interested in these characters. Johnny Utah is one of those characters,

you know, obviously. Jessica Chastain's character in Zero Dark 30. There's a lot of echoes of these kinds of characters in her movie. She's really good at getting you connected to these figures. We also meet Major Daniel Gonzalez. That's Ramos' character who's sort of the commander at Fort Greeley, who seems to be having a very bad day and seems very, like, upset and, like, frustrated with his staff, even before this incident begins.

The reason for doing the movie this way is very obvious, which is it's just a revelation that there's been a lot of accepted protocol in the event of something like this for decades because we've been living in a nuclear era for a very long time, even though we don't think of ourselves as living in the nuclear era the way you might have in 1961.

But that it is very rarely, if ever tested, and even when it is tested, it's a test. And so what an actual attack would reveal is a kind of like emotional unpreparedness for something like this and then this revelation that we're all just human beings and the fate of the world lies in the hands of people and maybe flawed people

and maybe distracted people or maybe even people who didn't come to work that day. Right. And that that is in and of itself very scary and very tense making like you're saying. Yeah, I mean, you're right that that is part of it. I think there is a broader illustration at play which is just that

that we're like that ever like we're fucked you know that we are living in a world and we are not thinking about the fact that like everyone is armed and this can happen in two seconds and there's really nothing you can do and there are no good options and right in the event of this starts there's not like a yeah there's no cure all right and that and that we're all going including all of these public officials are going around living our life like it you know it's unthinkable and people get evacuation alerts and are like brought to bunkers and they're like, are you kidding me? Like, we're not doing this.

You can't be serious. But everything is very, very possible. Yeah, it's an interesting time to look at this because if you think about it like this. Somebody could have been born in 1945 after the proliferation of the atomic bomb. And that person could have died two weeks before this movie came out and they would have lived to be 80 years old.

Yeah. They would have lived their entire life, never having seen a nuclear attack on the United States of America. First of all, congratulations. That's wonderful for this imaginary person that we are inventing. It is also interesting, though, because I think just reading what Bigelow has been saying about this, she's echoing what you're saying, where she's like, this can and maybe will happen, and we don't even think about it.

We don't even consider its potentiality and just how charged it is. I think the script is pretty overwrought in describing metaphorically the way in which that is true. At the end of the film Idraselba delivers the titular metaphor, which he says that he heard while listening to a podcast. Right. In general, when the person says the name of the title, which is also after the- Sometimes it's good.

But like the number of times that you have like the Leo on Once Upon a Time in Hollywood meme in a good way versus like the dud-d-da-da. This is also the film is divided into three segments and each has a subhead. And the subhead of the third is a house built of dynamite, you know? And so it's the second time that they are just underlining,

you know, highlighting and different, colors, the title of the movie. I agree. It's not subtle. I agree. The third act, everything that's going on with Ideselva in his... Let's talk about two first. We'll save it. We'll save it. In one, like I said, the movie had me.

I was very invested. It ends in this incredibly emotional moment that you described where Ferguson's character calls her husband, reaches her husband, tells him to just drive west away from urban centers. Yeah. And try to save your family because I'm fucked. I have not been brought into the locked safety room. I'm here.

And if there is a strike on Chicago, there's probably going to be one on DC. And then this is it. Yeah. And they've already been asked to make a dead list, which is the names and social security numbers of everyone who's left behind in the situation room. Yes. Yeah. And it's, I mean. And there's something like in. And they're writing it like on a piece of paper, just like passing it around like White House situation room like memo, notepat, you know, which is so everyone's so unprepared. I also really like the chaos of everyone just like leaving for the day because something terrible is happening that there's that great moment where the man that she's working with in the situation room goes outside and tells the man who's working at the concession stand to leave for the day.

Yeah. That is just like just very quiet, very little said between two characters, but like really delivers the severity of the situation. So at that moment, you're like, okay, the end of Act 1, if you don't know about this repeating structure, you're like, okay, so we're really going to find out, like, what's going to happen here. We are watching a nuclear war movie. That's what this is going to be. And then the film goes back and resets. Yeah. And it resets. And it resets with Tracy. Which is great. Obviously, Tracy is a wonderful actor. And he's very, very good and very funny and has also simultaneously incredible

gravitas in this role as what I would say is like a pretty typical kind of part, which is the more war hawkish general who, when faced with a kind of threat to the country, his only response is to try to encourage leadership to act, to get ahead of this, to kill. Now, before he does that, he does talk about Francisco Lindor. Like multiple times. Francisco Lindor comes up twice. Francisco Lindor, the shortstop for the New York Mets, probably my favorite living athlete, somebody who's very dear to me, very dear to Jack.

And I just want to say thank you to Tracy for that. I came out of the screening night. That's the first thing I said to Tracy and the first thing I said to you. I was like, this is for us, really for the two of you, but I was happy for you. It was very nice. I enjoyed it. Also, you know, this movie does a sometimes effective and sometimes clumsy thing of every single person you meet has like a little bit of characterization. Yes.

And this is Tracy's character, is the general's character. And he's talking with another officer and the officer is like, really, do you let your kids stay up that late? And the Tracy character goes, like, they give you a choice. And the other character is like, no, they do not. And I was like, that is succinct and makes me understand a lot about these people without it being like,

and here is the sonogram of my life, you know, which like we've all been there. You know, like we've all looked at those pictures. Well, anyone who's like, you know, looked at those pictures. But no, so he's wonderful. And he also, he is playing like a familiar part But because he is our friend Tracy Letts plays it with both gravitas but also like a real, like you believe him.

Like, you know, points are made. No. Even if you're like extremely anti-war as both of us are, like you're just like, well, but I see what he's saying. You know, I saw begonia for the second time last week and I was thinking about something after I saw that, which was that being right is not a solution. Yeah. And I felt that way similarly about Tracy's character in this film. Like being right is not the solution to the problem. It is working together with people to better understand one way

to try to fix things over the long term. The thing that I noticed the second time I watched it that I think is a clever bit of structure in the screenplay is that these first figures that we meet in Act 1 are these like observationist cogs in the machine. They're in the situation room looking at screens. Even the Ramos character is waiting for someone to tell him what to do.

Yeah. In the second act, We're moving closer to the center of power. You know, we're meeting, you know, General Anthony Bradley, that's Tracy's character, who is the combatant commander at Stratcom. Okay. This is cross-cutting. He's a big deal because the whole room stands up for him.

Yes. He is the leader of this case. He is clearly one of the most elite generals in the United States of America. Yeah. The movie starts cross-cutting with another character who we've heard in the first act, along with Tracy's character, on a series of Zooms. Right. named Jake Barrington, that's the Gabriel Basso character.

He's this young bureaucrat. He's got a pregnant wife, stressed out. He's on his way to work. Right, because his boss, the head of the NSA, is getting a colonoscopy. Yes, he is unavailable. Which is like, is a, you know, a funny detail. Sure. And it could happen this way.

It could totally happen. What are you going to do? Yes. And the thing I like about the way that that character is set up is that he's not at work when this call comes over. So what do you do if you're 37, and you work at the NSA and you have the most powerful general in the world, the head of the Department of Secretary of Defense,

and the President of the United States on a Zoom call. And you don't have service and you're 900 yards from your office. And it's like running in front of the White House. That was pretty clever. Pretty clever setup for the severity of this conversation too, which is this is the only person really who's available who can speak to the international relations that might be informing this situation. Because like there's a lack of information because there's a lack of information

because there was no satellite pickup of where specifically this missile came from. Right. Again, like, through the first, like, 60 minutes, I was like, this movie is really clever and obscuring that information in the first part, maybe this was a huge, like a boon to this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I was a little skeptical because I don't really like that. Now, let's see it from this angle perspective. And everybody always calls that Roshaman, but that's not what Roshaman is.

Roshaman is people lying about what happened. This is just a different perspective. Okay. I've just seen Roshamon. It's so many reviews of this film. Just like, do it to the camera, not to me, you know? Okay, I see. That's what bothers you is when you think I'm yelling at you.

Yeah, I'm just like, okay. It's not Roshaman, you fools. Anyhow. So you've got this character who's trying to race to get into the room so that he can explain. He can't get through the security at the, you know. And they've shown you. And they've shown you like Rebecca Ferguson going through security and everything before. So they were like setting up the world and then peeling back little layers of it,

which I like. Yes. And then he has to get on the phone with Russia, which is just like cribbed from a West Wing episode. But that's okay. Do you remember this one? I do. Yeah, yeah.

Why should we destroy ourselves 10 times over? Surely once is enough. If you know, you know, what's up? What's the new secret social network? The social reckoning. Here we go. In production right now. Not ready for it at all.

Yeah, they turned a museum into the capital for JN6. I know, I saw that in Vancouver. I read that piece too. I think that this stuff is mostly effective. Yeah. It's like you're still on the train. You're all along for the ride with it through this. I am.

And I'm kind of waiting to see because it does feel like this character, this NSA character, has more information than we need to learn. We've already seen that the GBI does not intercept the ICBM, right? That Ramos's team fails. Then we see it from this character's perspective as well. well, we see Tracy's character... Do you say fail or does technology fail? Well, I mean, that's an interesting data point in this movie.

It's only 61% chance in testing of being successful. A coin toss. That's what $50 billion buys us. All great points. All good stuff. This does feel like a very well-researched and, by all accounts, accurate representation of what would happen here. Okay.

We're continuing on. As Barrington says, it's like trying to hit a bullet with a bullet. Yeah. You forgot that he has to call Greta Lee. who has a day off and is taking her small child to Gettysburg. Metaphor alert! Yes. So that specifically is when the movie really starts to tip over for me.

No shots, once again, to Greilie, who I think is put in a bad position. No, it appears as though she is making the most out of her past live success. You know, a very fun cameo on the studio this year. She was in the film Tron Aries, which I'm the last person who will ever see that film. You know, this movie, she's on screen for four minutes being her mom. She's tearing it up on the morning show. Oh, good. She's not just a mom.

She is also a mom who is the DPRK expert. Yes. And she also knows a lot about how China is using AI or testing AI to launch missiles or some shit. She was on word salad patrol in this movie where she just has to spit a lot of jargon. through the other end of the phone to communicate to the audience. While people are reenacting the Battle of Gettysburg behind her.

I think if you want to teach your children about the Civil War, that's great. If you want to go to a reenactment, that's great. I'm not criticizing that specifically. Putting her in that scene is really bad writing. Yeah, it's silly. It is like the most hat on a hat thing ever where it's like, let us go back to our war 200 years ago

so that we can reflect on our current state of war. I mean, it does give, like, this movie is in rooms and on screens. And so it's why it's there to, like, be outside and give them something to direct. I understand it. Yes. But I was like, oh, I see. I see what we're doing here.

Yeah. I, and this is where the movie loses me. And it's not the, it's not my most frustrated aspect of the movie, but it is the most like, da, da, da, da, da, point I knows, you know. Again, as a student of the West Wing, you know, like, I was still, I'm on the train and I'm aware of the train tracks at that point. but I will, and I'm locating my exit, but I'm still on the train. But that's hopeful 19-year-old Amanda with her stories.

That's not what we're talking about here. This is like, this is an elite filmmaker with the biggest media company in the world. But then two things, but if it turned for good, you know, if it landed the third act, then I would have been okay with it. You know what I mean? That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. Totally.

It's like, it's you're locating the nearest exit and you are, you are, you are, you are aware of the load-bearing metaphor, but you're going to keep going. Yes, I'm with you 100%. It does not, it does not land the plane. Okay, but before, actually before it gets to, the first thing I think that you see in Act 3, which I only noticed again last night, I think it's before you meet the president because the president has only been, it's only been Idris Elba's voice. Yes, a black screen in the YouTube boxes.

That's right, because they can't get him on like the right secure feet or whatever in time. So you have not seen him yet. And I do think before you see him, you see a guy who's like an elite flyer, like a, and he's somewhere in the South Pacific. And first, he's surfing. And then he has to get out and surf and he has to have a locker room talk. And I just, listen, Catherine Bigelow casts like the three hottest guys you've ever seen as the fighter pilots. And I was like, yo, thank you.

It's so funny you say that. so, then they're just like sure, let's for no reason. And I was like, this my girl. I watched, I watched this with Eileen as you watched it with Zach. And really, this is the upside after all of our movie theater conversation about Netflix and streaming

movies in general. It's like, it's Friday night. Yeah, here we are. Where are we watching? There's a good movie out this time. And she said the exact same thing. That guy in the locker room, she was like, who is that? What have we seen him in before? Look him up for me, please? Yeah. And

that doesn't happen very often at the movies. And I think it is exactly what you are describing. Of course it is because he is surfing and then he wanders in. And then the two other flyboys are also quite attractive. And they're just there and they're talking about like taking presents home to their kid. You know? And I was just like, yes. That's mom porn.

Here I am. No, thank you. So she still has an eye, you know? She still has passions. And I was like, okay, I'm back in. We'll talk shortly about how this movie looks and the formal. choices. I do have some feelings about that, but her casting instincts are still. The cast in this movie is mostly pretty good. Until we get to the president, which I think is really the fatal

flaw of the movie in a number of directions. So we do ultimately find out that it is, in fact, Idriselba, that he's only been on the black screen. I think it's because he's on a sat phone. It's not because they don't have any video. And so is his wife, Renee Elise Goldberry, who is saving the elephants. She's in Africa. Yes. She's in Africa, which, okay, again, I know we're trying to get a variety of topographical experiences. I think, I think, that saving the elephants is also supposed to be like some sort of metaphor of, you know, pointlessness of trying to preserve this world in a time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And trying to experience a natural world. And those elephants are real. Sure. I'm great. I'm glad. Well, it's better,

listen, you want to talk about CGI creatures and Netflix movies this year? I understand everyone's like see Frankenstein in theaters. I mean, it wasn't the first lady riding on a stampede of elephants. It wasn't an action scene. You know, so the president is just having a normal day. He has, he's just taken a meeting. He has this in-person event. It appears to be a young women's basketball camp led by WMBA star Angel Reese. And so he's got to get in the car and go and he's got to perform the role of being president. And when that is happening, he becomes aware of this event. And he is very quickly hustled out of the event. First of all, just like the whole act of like going to the Angel Reese event, just like lead balloon.

Like the movie, the momentum and interest in the movie just like dies, just like sinks. Because you're like, we already know what's going to happen. There's no, nothing surprising about what's going to take place. Any moment where we see him like making nice with the kids and with Angel, you're like, okay. Well, I don't know. The very small little girl who. She made a shot. That was awesome.

It's great. I was like, yeah, I was stunned by that. This isn't TikTok. It's a fucking movie. Like, we can watch nine-year-old. make baskets all day long. I think you'll find that all movies that want to be successful now do have to have a TikTok moment, including

a little girl shooting a thing. I started feeling that like you can look down in your phone energy in Netflix movies during this part of the movie, which is not what you want to act free. Here's the problem is that Idris as the president has no interest or charisma and is just like whining about his knees

and his jump shot throughout it. And so he's charismaless even in this moment where you know, if you think of a president and like the casting of Idris and is like clearly meant to evoke Obama and is, but also not. But there's also, there's definitely some like George W. Bush and even a little Donald Trump in this. Sure, but there is also in the situation room, there is a framed photograph. There's the famed photograph of Obama and Biden and everyone watching the Osama raid. Like, you know. This takes place in our world. Yes. Yes.

And so But he's But he doesn't have the charisma Of any of the people that you just named You know what I mean? To me Like it's so confusing But to me this is just a complete failure of casting

This is a 53-year-old British man Being asked to shoot a basketball In the movie, not a good choice No Well it's definitely when he They cut to a double You can see it For when he actually makes the shot

They cut to a double I didn't even notice that They do Because he cannot Full's form also was not great. I, it's a bad performance and a badly written character. And it totally spiked the movie for me. In addition to the fact that I already felt like once they go back to repeating the structure again,

I was like, this really better be good. Like there better be something in this third act that makes this pay off. And I think it thinks it's doing that and it doesn't and we can get to that. But Idris is, he's just miscast. I don't think that the movie really, I think the movie thinks it needs a star in this part instead of an actor with gravitas in this moment. Right. And he has no gravitas.

And when he's trying to do like a little bit of a foxy accent thing that doesn't really work, which is weird because his accent to Stringer Bell is so good, but this accent is kind of all over the place. And it also just the way that he shot in this series of events, it's meant to be this kind of the anguish of this man, like a lot of tight close-ups, a lot of like hand-on head. And I just didn't buy it at all.

Like it really doesn't work. As Zach said, it's like a really bad Idris Elba performance also, which is very confusing. Like, this is a person. Yeah, and who has a tremendous amount of charm and, like, pull on the screen. And, you know, the characterization from the very beginning of, you know, he calls his wife, who is again away, saving the elephants. And you see on his phone that she's labeled as the boss in his phone.

And he's just, you know, tired, beleaguered, just kind of low energy doesn't want to put up with this. The conversation about my mother-in-law, I'm just like, this is like stand-of-comedian hackwork. Right. This is like what people think the president is talking. It's like all this post... Is it? You know, no, it is. It is.

It's like a little bit of the Barack Obama, Michelle Obama dynamic, right? Where he's like constantly kind of in her, the glow of her power. Right, right, right. I'm so sorry. I'm such a loser. Barack Obama. Right. So there's some of that.

Yeah, but like he wasn't a loser. You know, that's like that thing. No, of course, of course. I mean, Idriselba is also, he's like incredibly tall and handsome. Like, he's not a loser. He's the president. I know. So, but anyway, to me, it's more about the movie just downshifting specifically to spending

almost all of our time with this character as he is moving with this guy, Lieutenant Commander Robert Reeves, who is this military attache who hangs with him. Right. As soon as it becomes clear that this event is happening. Well, isn't he with him? at all times? He is, because he is the man holding the nuclear diner menu.

Isn't that what it's called? I thought the nuclear football is usually more like a device that you push. Oh, maybe. You know, that that's like the button, but it could be that as well. I don't know, but it's holding the guidebook. It seems like that's not protocol.

Like the protocol is a bunch of cards that Idraselba is, as the president is carrying with some 20s and a rubber band, which is a detail I liked. Yes, that's like EV drivers with their cards. Remember when after like three years, of having a money clip, you were like, now my spine is forever altered. And he's about sitting on your wallet.

Do not sit on your wallet. Oh, is that what it was? Put your wallet in your front pocket. And so, and then you switch to a money clip? No. Well, I have sort of, you know, I'm going to share this with you. Okay. Oh, you have one of that's what Zach has too.

Yeah. But I remember one, it was like the day that Zach came home and was like, did you know that alcohol has calories? And one day you came home and you, one day you came working and were like, did you know that if you sit on your wallet, your spine is forever altered? Yeah. I have some questions about the act of being a chiropractor, but that was one tip from my chiropractor that was very helpful.

As soon as they are traveling in the car and then eventually in, is it a helicopter or an airplane? No, it's an airplane. No, I think it was a helicopter, but it is like a very stable. No, it's a plane. It's a plane. I'm pretty sure they're on a small plane. Oh, yeah, you're right.

Yeah, they're on a small plane. Okay, no, you're right now because you see them, you see them jogging. and, you know, Idris has to, the Secret Service guy has to, like, keep physical contact with him until he's on the plane. But then I did notice the plane itself is, like, just very clearly a set, like, and very, very stationary.

They really, really... This is part of it, too. It's like this whole movie that has been building up to this sense of finality just to start... the air starts going out of the balloon and I'm like,

is the air going to go out of the balloon all the way before this movie even ends? You know, we do see that this is what the president would have to do. He would have to try to gather all this information maybe over a phone call about what we know about the incidents thus far, what the percentages are.

He's going to hear strongly worded cases from military leaders, from diplomats and bureaucrats who are attempting to avoid massive destruction. He's going to have to try to understand a world that maybe he hasn't spent a lot of time thinking about. Like, what are really the motivations of North Korea right now or China or Moscow? Right. And then say Counterstrike, do nothing. Yeah.

So, and he and Jared Harris, who play the Secretary of Defense, which, okay. Another kind of nightmarish performance, in my opinion. Just like, we should not be casting English actors in these roles.

Idris, Rebecca Ferguson, and Jared Harris. Like, what are we, you know. It's very dumb. It's really, like, we have great American actors, see Tracy Letts. Yeah.

Rebecca Ferguson, her accent is bad, but her performance is good. She's, like, barely trying. She, well, she kind of usually struggles with this, honestly. Sure, yeah. I'm never like, well, she's from Kansas. Like, you never think that.

She has, like, the Mark Ronson and Transatlantic thing going on, you know? But so he and Jared Harris, like, have a conversation as president and secretary of defense where they're, like, is this what, like, what are we supposed to do? We only got one briefing about this. I got another briefing about, you know, this what to do in the Supreme Court. where justice dies and does he want to cross? I thought that was like decent, you know, writing. Again, the casting didn't make a ton of sense. Yeah, I'm just pulled out of the movie.

Yeah. But the writing itself, I was like, I get what you're trying to put across here. I think it's the problem too, though, is that the point of the movie is clear by the end of the second act. Yeah. And it's kind of done what it's supposed to do. And then it doesn't really know where to go. Or it thinks, like it has a pretty, it has the idea of what it wants to do, but it can't

really accomplish. It's the intensity that it necessitates to make it feel impactful. In my opinion, this is how I felt watching the movie. So we follow through. We've seen earlier in the film that Moses Ingram's character, who works at FEMA, has been identified as a DE, a designated evacuee, and that she gets to get on a bus and go to Raven Rock, which is a nuclear safe facility. That's self-sufficient nuclear facility. Yes, in Pennsylvania. And we see that other characters from the film are headed in that direction and all people are kind of converging on that. And that's something we've seen. There's a long history of

nuclear scare movies in even just an American movie history and British movie history. Like there's tons of great ones. People point to fail safe over and over again. The Sydney Lumet film, which I think is way superior to this movie. You know, Dr. Strangelove is one of these movies. The British Film Threads is one of these movies. On the

Beach, the Stanley Kramer movie. There's a whole long history of movies that are about this thing. So, like, we have an awareness of what this is, where they're headed. But before the president makes his decision on the plane, we see this image of everyone, these buses pulling towards the gate

that is leading to Raven Rock, and then everyone pulling in. Yeah. And then we see Anthony Ramos fall to his knees outside of Fork, really? Yeah. And then the movie ends. And then that's it.

Yeah. And this is one of the most, like, kick the full bucket of paint into the street movie, like endings to a movie I've ever seen. I'm just like, what the fuck? And I know what it thinks it did. Okay.

I get that it's like, and now we must all live with the consequences of this terrible predicament that we find ourselves in a nuclear war. Well, there's no good answer. And there's no good answer. Yeah. I understand that. I'm certainly not for the continued proliferation of nuclear arms. I don't really believe in violence at all.

Yeah. But this is a movie. This is not a guidebook to the procedures in the event of a nuclear attack. make complete your film okay say something yeah than like gosh this sucks yeah am I crazy no I it does feel like many people felt that way I sort of got it I was like okay there there are no good endings I agree with you I wish that the Idra stuff and the stuff in the plane and when he's presented with the guidebook and the you know attache is like you know I call them rare, medium, and well done, I wish that that were performed at a higher level. And I wish that

hit because if you get to it, then the essential nature of those scenes is like, it all comes down to one guy like on a plane in three minutes with like a diner menu in front of them and also think about the guy in question like right now who's making those decisions. Like it's not good. And it should be a lot scarier and um just a lot more emotionally frustrating than than it is because of who's in it but i don't know i i i the raven rock of it all that that being the last image and then like i don't know what anthie ramos is doing in this movie that's a i like respectfully that's a really really great theater star who has been sort of um who has stuck out of every single Yeah, except for Transformers' Rise of the Beast.

Sure, and I guess he's kicked ass in the Beast War movie. So the last two shots, I can't defend it any other way. The sense that there are no good options, I think it didn't bug me as much as it seems to have bugged you. Well, I think that the Ramos image is meant to be kind of in dialogue or kind of a recurrence of maybe that final image of Jessica Chastain at the end of Zero Dark 30, right? where she's like, she's on the helicopter and she's just kind of like the weight of the world is on my shoulders and what does the future hold?

This is disastrous, right? There's something in the cinema of Catherine Bigelow in the last 10, 12 years that is kind of like, these giant systems have been built over time and they're starting to calcify and when we're confronted with something that is really scary,

like in the event of the attack on 9-11 or, you know, in a hurt locker, like trying to disarm IEDs or if an actual nuclear attack, This is the absolute pinnacle of what she could be addressing, yes. Which I've since Googled while doing this podcast. And so DefCon 1 is reserved for U.S. is under nuclear attack. Right.

Did you know that? I think I ascertained that information. Well, I think this was an issue in Mission Impossible, the Final Reckoning, where it took like a very long time for them to get to DefCon 1, even though. I mean, I did think a lot about Mission Impossible, the Final Reckoning. Because the alternative. I've only seen it once. Well, the alternative to there is no answer is Tom Cruise has to single-handedly, like, you know, take the entire missile system offline and take everyone's missiles back one by one, you know?

I wouldn't say that movies. But Haley Atwell has to switch a key. Right. But, you know, it is like, they're in the room, and Angela Bassett, who's the president, is like, no, no, no, I guess we're going to have to bomb everyone. and there's always a room full of people being like you have to bomb everyone until Tom Cruise shows up. So I don't know which one I thought was more plausible. Do you know what I mean?

I don't know which was more cinematically effective. They did need Haley-A-Wil to like point that drive at the ICBM in this movie. And she's just like a very quick thing. Yeah, and then she's just in Trafalgar Square, you know, carrying it around. I'm going to rewatch Final Reckoning. I had a better time with that movie ultimately, even though that movie is also deeply flawed.

Just the biplane sequence is so much better than anything in this movie. The good part of that movie is the last 30 minutes, you know? Right. So you leave on like, oh, wow. Maybe if they just ended with Ethan Hunt on a biplane in House of Dynamite. If we just cut them together? Yeah. We just saved cinema?

That could work. Yeah, there we go. I found this very, very frustrating. Now, the report out of the New York Film Festival was that journalists were openly laughing at the ending of this movie. That there were like snickers and like, seriously, bro? like that was the energy at the end of it, which I'm obviously being a little performative here on the show. Yeah. I wasn't like offended at its conclusion.

I was just like, what a wet fart. Like what a weird decision. I don't know if it's, I don't think it's cowardly. I just think it's a miscalculation as to what the film is trying to accomplish. Right. You know, that like it made its point kind of 14 minutes in and we got it. And it didn't really further that point to any degree that moved me. Yeah.

And I'm only being as specific about this because it's like, I really respect this filmmaker. Like, I really think she's incredible. Right. But I, if you go back and look at the filmmaking versus the politics of all of the movies that we really admire, it's not like the, like, the- It's squishy. Political, theoretical, theoretical answers are there. Yes. You know? So I would even be willing to forgive that in the same way that I am willing to forgive it in Zero Dark 30, which is a film that, like, politically just seems really incoherent and inconsistent and untrue in some ways. but is, I think, like, a ravishing movie, like a thrilling movie

and visually, like, so accomplished, amazing performances. This movie, she, like, changed some stuff. She used to make a very kind of grand, poetic style of cinema, you know, especially the early movies, like Near Dark and Point Break. Those movies are gorgeous. Yeah. And over time, she's reduced it, right? So, like, I think maybe more representative of the modern visual condition

where, like, the camera is a little shakier. it's a little bit more like invasive. Right. I mean, this is almost like documentary, like fly on the wall. Yes. Which is, I think, trying to adapt both to the material and the fact that it is people on screens and rooms. And so it does, it moves through a lot of people. And the first 10 minutes you're like, oh, okay, we're assembling the cast of characters and you're giving me like two pieces of expositional biography about each person. person and but at some point in that first 30 60 minutes it's like really flowing together yeah

and you're like oh you have like you've established this whole world I know where I am I do feel like I'm in these rooms and you are making screens and and dialogue exciting but not not in a point breakway like I'll it's not it's a different style they're not like showing torture on screens so you know there's there's some there's some issues with that yeah yeah no I'm her movies are not perfect. I'm not trying to suggest that. This movie is edited by Kirk Baxter, who is David Fincher's long-time editor is one of the greatest living editors.

Academy Award winner. And I totally agree with you that this, a movie like this in less gifted hands would be very rough. Would it feel much, I think, much more quote-unquote Netflix, you know, where it just kind of just feels like an episode of the night agent. It doesn't feel like something with some grandeur to it.

But, you know, in recent years, like, she's really interested in, like, the machine of power, right? Like the CIA, police force, military, and I think it's kind of dulled the movies a little bit. Okay. You know, Detroit was obviously also a misfire.

Yeah. And I don't, I don't know. I mean, I don't know, are we going to get another Catherine Bigelow movie? You know, like, it took a long time to get this one going. She's in her 70s. She's in her 70s. Which, I mean. This movie is vital.

It's not that it's not vital. Like, it definitely feels like it is made with a real energy, but. I just wish this wasn't the material that she took on. So last time we talked about this, we had it in Best Picture. Yeah. And it's gotten pretty mixed reviews now. That's right. I do think that there is a strong contingent in the academy that still just worships her and thinks she's really great.

Right. Where are you at on Best Picture at this point with us? I mean, it does seem like it's dropped out. A lot of critics had a lot of fun. taking this one to the woodshed, which I, like, that's everyone's right, you know,

who doesn't love a good pan? I'm very generous in letting me kind of on cork on this one. It's fine if you don't like it. There are plenty of movies that I don't like. I still am so baffled

by the Frankenstein re-evaluation. I bought a ticket to go see it again at the Egyptian this week. Okay. Because I have to. I guess so, yeah. But to me, in every respect,

this is superior, but Del Toro has a huge contingent in the academy, and I guess, you know, people like that shit, and I guess they don't care about CGI wolves. So... I think there's been a bump in that kind of movie being more, even more accepted than

this kind of movie. Yeah, and but it just in terms of, I think Netflix only gets so many spots. Yeah. And it seems like Frankenstein is taking this spot. Yeah. Even though out of the festivals, the first two festivals, Venice and Telluride, we would not have said that.

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On Friday, we'll do the full analysis of the four Netflix movies because Train Dreams re-premiered an AFI last night and raves out of AIFI for that too. No, I'm going next week. Okay. Well, but we could, I mean, they have four. I think it was yesterday afternoon, which is why I could. it go. Or there was a screening.

The screening was yesterday afternoon. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, they've got four movies and it does feel like it does feel like it's on the outside looking in right now. Yeah. It does feel like Frankenstein is in front of it. I think there's going to be a Jay Kelly upswing, especially because it's a movie that's going to play well with the Academy. And Train Dreams, like, you can scoff at the like natural world stuff. I'm going to see it. I'm going to see it. It's fine. It's fine. There's another natural world movie that I'm more annoyed with. Okay, we can talk about that in November.

We can. See, you knew which one I was talking about. Listen, I did. Relax, you know. Enough moss. I think that we will have a very similar conversation in reverse about that movie. Okay. You know, where it's like I see the flaws. Yeah.

But I'm ultimately okay with it. Whereas you maybe are not. But let's not talk around it any longer. Any chance editing or sound get in at the Oscars here? Kind of tough to get editing without a Best Picture nomination. It just, it seems like it'll be crowded out. Yeah. Only five knobs.

The sound designers, especially Paul N.J. Audison, three-time winner for two Bigelow films. Okay. So very hallowed figure in that, in that world. I don't know. It's possible. Is this sound good?

It seemed pretty good. And the score, as you have here, I thought was great. It is very good. So it's Volko Bertelman, who was the composer on All Quiet on the Western Front. And also the upcoming ballad of a small player, which I actually don't have on the schedule right now, I don't really know if I want to spend an hour talking about it. I said I haven't seen it.

Okay. Listeners, if you'd like to hear a long conversation about Ballad of a small player. We'll see it. We can have a small conversation. I've seen it. I saw it. I didn't like it. Right. But listen, you know, Colin Farrell forever.

If I saw a Big Bowl beautiful journey and had things and found things to say about that, I can see this one. I hear you. The best score race is insane. Yeah. It's incredibly competitive this year. So here's the lineup. You got Johnny Greenwood for one battle after another. Sure.

Did you see Thomas Bangalter from Daft Punk playing that and a DJ set in Europe this weekend? That's awesome. Yeah, the opening song from One Battle After Another, crazy stuff. And then bled into The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. Anyway, very cool. Ludwig Garanson for sinners. Where in Europe? I assume Paris.

Yeah, I know. I'm just like, that's... I know. It was Burgain on Saturday night at 4 a.m. We need to do that in L.A. And that's like, that's the kind of FYC I want to go to. You know what I'm saying? Maybe you should get out in front of that.

That's a good idea. Invite me. You know, like, I will be on the floor. I mean, it was, it's fair. There's a lot of, like, solemn head down during the beginning of it because it's that, like, well, sure. Yeah. Okay.

So, sinners, Alexander Desplot for Frankenstein. Okay. You're going to have to consider that. Max Richter for Hamnet, and even though he reuses a piece of material, it is eligible. Okay. Jerskin Fendrix for Begonia, which I think is really good. Yeah. Nick Bertel.

for Jay Kelly. Yes. Which is also a great good school. The arguably the best part of Marty Supreme Non-Timothy Division is the score. Yeah. Dan Lopatin from 100 Trick's Point Never. It's true.

I mean, it's amazing. It's incredible. It's a huge part of the film. Yeah. Bryce Desner from Train Dreams, your guy from the National, a band I don't care for. Daniel Blumber, who just won last year

for the Testament of Van Lee. I was not aware that one of the Desner's did the score for Tray. I can't. You stopped telling me. so I see the movie. Okay. I have to go in with an open heart. What about Hans Zimmer for F1? I don't remember the music. Is F1 in the best picture, right? No, it's not. Okay. I want to see F1 again. Well, it will be on Apple in December. And the fireworks go off? Yeah, I mean, that was fun. That was good. Yeah. I enjoyed that. Uh, Wicked for Good. Best score? Yeah. Stephen Schwartz and

John Powell. Okay. That's a lot of contenders. Okay. You're just nodding at me now. No, it's, I listened. Well, you're just kidding me to talk about Wicked for Good and other end. And the national, so... What's Bigelow's best movie, in your opinion? Point break. Yeah, I think that's correct. Yeah, I mean, that's just... Okay, now here's the hard part.

Yeah. What's her second best movie? Hurt Locker? I would probably rather watch Zero Dark 30 over Hurt Locker. Right. Hurt Lager loses some of its appeal, if you've seen it before, to me. I guess so, but... Okay.

But it's first time, the, like, the achievement of what it makes you feel is, like, a pretty singular piece of art. Zero Dark 30, you know, yeah, incredible cinematic, whatever, but if you're, you know, if you have some queasiness or some dissatisfaction with the politics of House of Dynamite, then I, you know. That isn't ultimately, that wasn't ultimately my problem with the movie, I think. It was more just like an absolute flaw in the design of the story as opposed to like feeling unhappy about the what it was trying to communicate politically about the events. But I hear what you're saying. I mean, I'm not as hung up on that in Zero Dark 30,

but there are some people for whom that's a movie that will never watch again. I think that most of the point is for it to be upsetting. But, you know, is it the entire point? Or is it also some of... And what is... How are you supposed to feel about? Like, look at this cinematic achievement

of me depicting torture. Yeah, I think it's more so that, like, the suggestion that the torture, like, worked and was justified in some ways, you know? I It's probably a movie that is worth a revisit I mean I think it's incredibly well made Yeah yeah

It came out at that time When Anna Perna was going strong Yeah And it felt like You know David Ellison is now Kind of the ascendant king of Hollywood Taylor Sheridan News notwithstanding And this was when Megan Ellison was just

Richard Linklater you get one Spike Jones you get one Paul Thomas Anderson, you get one. Catherine Bigelow, you get one. It was fine. That was a great time in the movies. Really a special time to be a fan of movies. So maybe I have a little bit of rose-colored glasses around that.

I would say Near Dark and Strange Days are pretty near the top for me. Okay. That's a great vampire movie and a great sci-fi future movie. Yeah, she's got a few duds. Weight of Water, K-19. These are not great. Blue Steel is a strong crime thriller, really good Jamie Lee Curtis performance. before Jamie Lee Curtis went Jamie Lee Curtis.

Yeah. Then we're all still living in it. Yeah, we are. And the Loveless is an interesting debut. El M. McKay, coming to you in December. Man. It's, listen, we're... We got to make that episode of James L. Brooks episode.

We're going to, and we're not, again, we're getting ahead of ourselves. We can appreciate what we appreciate and enjoy what we enjoy in this life. Will you be able to watch every single episode of The Simpsons before the L. Makey episode? Because it's pretty important for the Jim Brooks conversation. Jim Brooks has made some good movies

that I like forward to discussing. Okay, any closing thoughts before we bring in Adam Neiman? I thought this was a fair discussion. I completely agree. You feel heard. I absolutely feel heard. In this discussion, who is...

What we need more of is men being heard, so... Frankly, I agree. Who... Would you say you're Jake Barrington in this discussion? Um No, you're Gretaly I'm just like with my kid

at Getty's ringing me like sorry It's my day off Like here's what I know I'm getting on a bus Okay let's bring an Adam Damon Adam Neyman Adam Neyman is here

The Mean Pod guy Our beloved critic Cinema Visionary Here to talk about Well, is there anything you want to talk about before we get into Kelly Reichert's new film and Mastermind? I hope the Blue Jays win tonight.

I'm rooting for you. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh, interesting. You're rooting for me. Yeah. That's been, you know,

that's been an interesting thing to watch happening in Toronto. The bandwagon really starts to sag, you know, like by about the ALCS. Well, I'll jump off if that's what you're saying. Sorry? I'll jump off if that's,

if you have a problem with you being apart. I don't want anyone to jump off. But, you know, we had a lot of success with this team 30 years ago. It's like it's not, So, like, it's not quite the first rodeo for some of us. Like, I highly recommend being 12 when your team wins the World Series. Yeah.

Because you don't worry. My husband, who grew up in Philadelphia, has already invoked this World Series multiple times. Oh, the one that we won. Yes, exactly. And that's why our household is a Dodgers household, despite what the Dodgers did to the Phillies. Yeah. So I tried to get my kids interested. I showed my nine-year-old, Leah, the Springer home run.

And her entire response was, cool. Someone in the audience caught it. that was it so I got completely no I got completely no sold on that we'll try again tonight can we pivot to calling the crowds at sporting events the audience that sounds like a really good way in the audience caught it she's like what does that mean I'm like nothing there's 40,000 people there but it was a cool moment that was a fabulous home run it was great but I think other than that no I mean what else could take precedence over over talking about Kelly Reichard which I'm very happy to be

doing yeah it's a sensation It's actually literally in the top 10 in the box office in the United States of America this weekend. Wonderful news. Probably the last time that will be true for Kelly

until she makes the Thanos prequel film that I know she's been working on for some time. Multi-time guest of this show I know certainly one of Adam's favorite filmmakers as well. I had a chance

to see the mastermind a tell you ride. You saw it last week? I saw it this week in theaters with a pretty full house on a one on a Friday. How exciting. This movie stars Josh O'Connor, Alanaheim, Hope Davis, John McGarrow, Gabby Hoffman, Bill Camp.

It's a fairly simple movie, or is it? It's about a guy who is a bit dissatisfied with his life in 1970 and Framingham, Massachusetts, and decides to become an art thief. And he struggles at being an art thief. And that is more or less the framework of, of this story. So Adam, I'll start with you as our expert here. What did you make of the mastermind? I mean, Kelly Riker is very interested in characters who, whether they should be or not, whether they know why they are or not, there's a certain dissatisfaction. And often that

dissatisfaction is tied to some sense of, you know, disillusionment about their immediate surroundings or the life choices or the country. And she's often quite sympathetic to that disillusionment, you know, these characters who feel that things have passed them by, they didn't grab on certain opportunities, they want more, they want to embody their political ideals. And this guy is sort of the Josh O'Connor character. He's cut from that mold, but he's also a very different sort of protagonist for her because he really is a moron, you know, and the title of the film is in context sort of ironic. And I think that this is a sticking point for some friends of mine who like Reichard a lot, they find this film to be somewhat judgmental. I mean, I would say

my synonym for judgmental is it's very funny. And it's, and it, it diagnoses a very, I think, you know, a very kind of male vanity and narcissism and and solipsism, the idea that you are smarter than other people. You appreciate art more than they do. You can float rules. And I mean, he has all these things. You mentioned that he wants to be an art thief. I mean, one plot detail that I really want to talk about is in this small community where he thinks he's smarter than everybody and has better taste and went to art school. You know, his dad's a judge. So there's this sort of insulation, too, where he's like, well, how much trouble can I really

get in? And I like the way that the movie answers that question by saying a lot of trouble and the consequences that ripple out to the other people in his life are observed quite devastatingly, I think. What did you think? I mean, I loved it. I think Josh O'Connor is a pretty magical screen presence, and I have for some time now, and it is really exciting to watch different directors who also have their own interests and styles

kind of play with the Josh O'Connor of it all and really use it. And so to Adam's point, this guy is a loser, and he does a lot of things that you really don't want him to do, and in a snowballing sort of way. And because it's Josh O'Connor, the movie's playing with how much you're relating to this person versus judging this person, versus judging this person, versus hoping that this person will figure it out. It was an interesting experience in watching a movie

and trying to figure out how I was supposed to feel about the protagonist. I thought it was really like speaking to the role of an audience. to quote Leah in a, in a fascinating way. And he's great. He's magical. Yeah. The moment where I really locked in is, I mean, there's this long stretch at the beginning where he's like casing the joint, you know, and you're sort of wondering, I mean,

what kind of plan does this guy have in mind? And he, you know, there's all these little hints that are dropped that he's educated. You know, he went to art school. He has an appreciation for the work of this real artist, Arthur Dove. And I think the moment where I first started really laughing was he's handing out photos to his confederates of what they're supposed to steal. And it's almost more like an art seminar than a plan. Like they're looking at these things.

And the question of value starts coming up. It's like, so is this about the paintings being worth something? Is it about them being good? Is it because he thinks that he's the only one who can really appreciate them? Like there's this entwined sense of value, I think, in his plan. But then when you juxtapose that with what his plan actually is, I won't spoil it for anybody who hasn't seen the movie. But that cut is like something out of a Simpsons episode

where you see what he's actually spent all this time building up to, this mastermind. It's very funny how mediocre the plan is. I've chose to read the movie with two very pointed things. I don't know if either of these things are true, but these are the sensations I thought of. One, Rikert's last movie was showing up, which I think all three of us loved.

Yeah. But is a movie with very little incident. You know, it is very much. much a portrait of a person at a stage in their life in which, like, the stakes feel relatively low. And people who didn't like the movie criticized it for not having a lot of action. So this movie feels in a way to me, like Kelly Reichardt saying, like, you think nothing happens in my movies. What if I have something pretty dramatic happen? But it is one of the most incompetent portrayals of a classical movie incident that has ever been put on screen. And then the second

half of the film is this like rolling searching journey of this person who kind of failed at what they were attempting to do and has really no recourse like is lost in society and doesn't there there's no way things will work out for this guy

in the aftermath of what he has done which I find to be like a fascinating choice and the thing that I thought of a lot was that this is basically happening concurrent to Watergate and that it's like a representation of that you know male solipsism that Adam underlining and the fact that guys kind of can talk themselves

into any situation and then they find themselves completely incapable of managing when their own ego and bad ideas drives them to a kind of destruction. In this case, it's just like a dad in Massachusetts who is not a good father and not a good husband.

He's not a good husband. Father, he's okay. But to the Watergate point, it is also very specifically in the film situated in the context of the American, like the Vietnam War and American involvement in the Vietnam War speaking of people without a plan and doing things that they should not be doing.

And, you know, Kelly Reichert is an American filmmaker who deals with American limitations to put it politely in pretty much all of her movies. And, like, in some ways, I was taken aback by how direct the metaphor and the comp was in the context of the movie. which is always interested in solidarity sometimes the solidarity is fraying right sometimes it's like old joy was sort of like a kind of companion to the big chill i'd never compare it to the big chill because i hate the big chill but it has some of the same elements that that movie has like what are your common values after you spend your you know a certain part of your life as part of a counterculture night moves is literally about activism and about the way that paranoia sort of overtakes this group of people who decide to go and do something that very similar to the mastermind in a different way who has these consequences. Here we see a guy who

has friends who seem to have these values and what his friends seem to recognize what him is he doesn't really have them. You know, there's a moment where he goes and stays with this couple wonderfully played in the film by Magaro and Gabby Hoffman, you know, who he went to art school with. And they kind of talked to him like, well, were you really part of our crowd? you kind of were like they seem to walk the walk talk the talk have certain values and he's just sort of there and so not only do we see a guy who's lost and doesn't fit in the things that might take him in the you know the parts of that community or that society that might have some sympathy for him he's not interested in them he's so arrogant and there's all of these moments where you see

the glances that he's stealing different kinds of people at different phases in life it just seems to be reflecting his own awful choices back at him like I love what he's sitting on the bus and he sees the guy about to ship out probably to Vietnam or someone dressed like a sailor with his wife and kid and then when he wakes up the dad's gone you know and it's this perfect little mirror of his own choice except what's he shipping out for he hasn't chosen any path of resistance or rebellion he's not a patriot he's not in anything he's just he's a deserter basically a domestic deserter and he doesn't even have the paintings to show for it yeah it's kind of chilling and kind of hilarious.

I found the ending to be... We were just talking about a house of dynamite at him, which I know you didn't care for as well. I was not a big fan. But the air out of the balloon at the end of this movie, I found to be very effective. I don't want to spoil it for anybody who hasn't seen it, but there is something very intentional.

And to your point, like a little on the nose about the way that this movie ends in a way that I didn't totally realize it was attempting to do. But she does something by just holding the frame at the end of the movie for an extended period of time. I remember it vividly

even though I saw this movie two months ago and makes you sit in the decision that she's made about the story that she's just told. It is very subtle but very sophisticated

and about, there's like a little bit about the utter pointlessness of life, but it's more about the utter pointlessness of this person's life and that the way

that this self-delusion has led him to this place and in this country, if you live that way, this can happen to you as well that without this kind of purpose and only being driven by your own vinglorious perception

of your own intelligence, you can get stuck. I would like it on the record that I think that this film is better than House of Dynamite, just to clarify, this is a better movie and a better movie about America

and the American condition. Yeah, I agree with that. It's interesting, this is also the old, this is the first film since River of Grass that she wrote by herself that she wrote without John Raymond,

who is her longtime kind of co-writing partner. What do you make of that, Adam? I mean, I think it's interesting. I mean, I think the other one certain women just because it's adapted from a different writer's work. So it is, it's not solely her, but I mean, that was a different novelist. I think it is interesting. I think that it has something in common with River of Grass as well, which is that again, that movie was always called a road movie without the road, you know? So she's interested in those road movie tropes or those

outcast, loner tropes. Maybe because I just saw the Bruce Springsteen movie, I've been thinking about Badlands, mostly to not have to think about the Springsteen movie. But, you know, Badlands was a big influence on River of Grass as well and the idea of kind of like low stakes badlands or like badlands about people who don't really have blood on their hands. It's a funny way to deal with it because it deflates it

but it takes a lot of the mythology and the grandier out of it as well. And I thought that there's been some good writing on the mastermind I tried to write about it when I did as well it's like a 70s movie where that grand year isn't there like all the things about Josh O'Connor that Amanda's talking about I mean he's so handsome he's so appealing you can sort of see him as this kind of

rakish, clever character. It's just, then he's just not in an actual 70s movie. He's in a movie set in the 70s, but he's in a movie where, like, the reality doesn't play ball with that romanticized self-image. And I think it's interesting for Reichert as her career has gone on. She's always had elements of funny. She's always had elements of bitter. She's always had elements of social critique.

But she's not always the same. I thought showing up was very tender because it was about what it is to be an artist. and that that's very challenging. There's a lack of appreciation. There's certainly a lack of compensation. I know it made headlines when showing up came out when Michelle Williams let it slip. Kelly Riker teaches it barred for the health insurance,

which is not a joke. And also, you know, her students are lucky to have her. She's one of the great American filmmakers and she's teaching them. And even though showing up had a lot of exasperation and like, you know, satire about faculty politics and some of the characters were obnoxious, I thought it was very sympathetic to the idea of art for art's sake.

This is a movie but an appreciator. You know, they say, you know, like those who can't do teach, I don't believe in that, but like those who can't do steal, you know? And the way that this is a guy who went to school, and again, he thinks he has better taste than his parents. He thinks he really has a connection to this guy's work. Like, he wants the money, but I think he also kind of wants the value. I think Kelly has nothing to complain about about film critics.

And I don't really think that she is. But for her to follow up a movie about artists with someone who isn't even an artist and who's sort of trying to profit from their work in a way that's, you know, again, self-aggrandizing and off-board, that's not coincidental to me. Nor is the fact that it's a kind of judgmental movie because I think this is a type. If all these guys look like Josh O'Connor, we'd be in big trouble. Most of them don't. but we know this guy you know like we know this kind of guy and seeing that

come up and you know come to him the way it does it's schadenfreude but it's satisfying I wanted to talk about O'Connor a little bit more actually so over the weekend I got a chance to see rebuilding which is

a movie that is coming out next week that O'Connor was in the debut at Sundance which is about a rancher in Colorado who's home is burned to the ground during a devastating fire and then the aftermath of that and on the surface it sounds like a pretty traditional sundance drama and in some ways it is i thought it was a very beautiful movie though and o'connor is amazing in it and it is a very different performance from

this movie where like his kind of charm and wiles are meant to be foregrounded and that's a very that's a very reserved performance and then in a month he's in wake up dead man the new knives out movie, where he plays a priest who's kind of at war with the idea of faith in his clergy, or at least the community that surrounds his church. And now the last few years of him as an actor, and I liked what you were saying, how sort of like each director is kind of like looking at what he represents as a performer and then pumping something into it, you know, like refracting what they think he is. So Locumera Challenger's rebuilding the history of sound, the mastermind, and now wake up dead man is like a very interesting, like shows how robust his taste is, shows what a flexible, dynamic actor he is, shows that he can be funny, shows that he can be really restrained and quite sad, shows that he can be romantic, shows that he can be the fool, that he can be the smartest guy in the room.

This is like a very rare to get a leading man that can do all this stuff, you know? he's not like a huge box office sensation or anything like that, but I'm now really anticipate him appearing in a movie, and it does feel like it happened all of a sudden. I also did not watch The Crown. Yeah, you missed the Crown. I know you've been there for that. But I'm just very excited.

He's now he's 35 years old. He's kind of right in the heart of when this sort of thing is supposed to take off. Even 10 years ago, if you look at him in movies, I'm like, that guy's too young. Now he looks like a man. You know, he looks like he has lived a little bit. And I'm very excited about the future of his career. But he's pretty singular still, which is what is exciting about it. Like all of the filmmakers are interpreting, you know, what Josh O'Connor is, but he does also bring, like, he doesn't speak very much in all of those movies, pretty much.

And he's pretty chatty and challengers. Yeah. I mean, I guess so, but not as much as the other, not as much as art, you know? Yeah, I think they're about the same. Well, I guess they're not really chatting when they're having sex. Or he doesn't want to. Yeah. But he does have really interesting taste and he is very clearly also, he's bringing like his half of the equation to all the filmmakers in a way that's very cool and feels, you know, like this movie is sort of a 70s throwback style of like he is, he's very handsome, but he's like he's not bulked up like a superhero.

Like he's in a lot of like fashion campaigns, but he always looks like. little scruffy in this movie. You know, he's, it's interesting. I'm a huge fan. Who would have thought you could become a sex symbol after playing Prince Charles? I mean, that's like the degree of difficulty there is. But, you know, you mentioned what these directors are doing with him. He's bringing something very good to Kelly Reichardt, too, which is this kind of upwardly mobile visibility, which I think is also reflects well on him because he wants to seek out and work with good filmmakers. I mean, Alisa, Lisa, So Rohwer is another example in La Chimera.

I mean, he clearly wants to work with good directors. And this has been the grace of Reichert's career. You know, Old Joy I saw in 2005, that's a fantastic movie where the big star in it is Will Oldham. That's not a put down of Will Oldham. Will Oldham is a huge star in my house, Adam. Will Oldham is wonderful. But, I mean, that's the kind of movie that she was making with River and Grass and Old Joy. Michelle Williams signing on to do Wendy and Lucy and beginning, not just a kind of opportunistic thing of like, here's someone who's

around and here's an indie director. I mean, that's a wonderful artistic partnership that I think has defined, you know, Williams' career as much as Reichardt. So she is a filmmaker who has often majorly talented youngest actors who want to work with her. Jesse Eisenberg was the same thing when he did. Night moves Kristen Stewart, obviously, in certain women. So O'Connor fits that mold of her working with actors who can put a little bit of light and media coverage kind of on her work, and they reward each other by working so well, by working so well together. And he's been all in on the promotion of this movie, which is nice to see, especially since, you know, the big Netflix, red carpet, Wake Up Dead Man, which he's really good in as well, is, you know,

sitting right there for him for all the magazine pieces. But I've read at least 10, 15 interviews he's done about the mastermind. That's just good star behavior. It's very unusual for her to have a tall, handsome leading men in one of her movies, too. That is one of the few things. Is he that tall? He's taller than John McGarrow. Sure, yeah, I do, but I do. Probably my favorite actor working right now.

He is really handsome, but there is like a little bit, like of a baby bird that I have to take care of quality to him in every single week. Well, but I think that's how a lot of people seem and they're using that in this movie. Yeah, yeah. I think it aids her well because she can really bounce off of her perception of guys like that you know like you can really feel her reading like oh this guy thinks he's hot shit which is not a kind of character that she is prone to writing very often um and it's a perfect fit for him well no or when she has these like semi disinterested husbands or these kind of know-it-all characters

they kind of exist at the margins of the of the film i mean again you you watch a director's films and enough and you find rhymes between them it's interesting because i thought a lot of night moves during this film, but I wouldn't say that the performance that O'Connor's giving is like, but Eisenberg did in that film, which is like genuinely almost a sociopathic performance and a very scary one. But yeah, she, I mean, I just think that there's a, and some people mentioned inside Lewin Davis with this film because it has that kind of drifting, a kickerous quality. And I think that there's something similar to the way O'Connor can rumple his handsomeness, you know, the way that Oscar Isaac sort of did in that movie. So, you know,

depending from scene to scene, he can be quite seductive or can sort of seem quite pathetic. One thing I love, because I know we're being careful to not spoil the movie, but it's a measure of how good a filmmaker she is. Everywhere he goes, once he's kind of disconnected or has to bring himself on the road, the artwork and the artwork and the hotels he's staying at just seem to mock him so much because they're just so atrocious. The frame. Yeah, there's one like where he's in the bathroom or something and the entire frame is just some terrible piece of art that's some terrible kids. pitchy piece of art. And now he's been, you know, he's been liberated from his sad little house and, you know, hanging out in the basement with the boys planning heists and stuff. And now he's just stuck in these hotel rooms of the damned with these like crooked velvet paintings. I mean, I mean, again, in describing and they're hearing you guys talk about it,

and I know a word that kind of keeps coming up, it's like, it is a little mean. Yeah. You know, some of the grace that you might see in some of her other movies isn't necessarily there. But I do think it's well aimed. I'm glad Amanda brought up the set and you go both to the 70s political context because she doesn't lay that on too thick but there's like a Richard Nixon jump scare laid in the movie that's just it's like mad magazine it's priceless it's really funny i think the night moves comparison is the best because a lot of her films end in these kind of like elegiac ways where you're like meant to think about where these characters will go from here but they they're not upbeat but they're not downbeat night moves

is really the only one of those movies that i think about where i'm like the end of that movie there's just like a kind of hopelessness like a displacement and that's very similar to this even though this movie is much funnier than Night Moves is Well, when she did Night Moves I remember interviewing

I mean I've been interviewing her for a long time lucky to right I mean I interviewed for her for the first time in 2005 when Old Joy came out She's one of the great no bullshit interviews

Like she will answer directly Whatever you ask her And I remember that the reception To Night Moves There was a little prickliness Because first of all people were like Why are you making Move Out Environmental Activists

that doesn't idealize them or beyond, not just, and, you know, because she said it's more interesting as drama, but also she's like, these people are all like, why does your movie have a plot, you know? Like, it almost becomes a bit of an insult to a filmmaker when you say, but your movies are so minimal and nothing happens in them, and that's what's great. I mean, I think that it is maybe not the broadest tonal range in the world, but she's made lots of different genres and variations on lots of different kinds of movies sort of within that range. So when you were saying that the movie feels like a bit of a reaction to the reaction to showing up, you know, I can see that. She's very aware of what people write about in her

films. But a good half of her films have like theft in them, you know, some sort of theft, some sort of stealing. Even in certain women, there's a kind of quasi heist in the middle section where James LaGroes and Michelle Williams are trying to take the marble or whatever, the stone away from that old guy. Like people scheme all through her movies, you know. It's about time she made a heist movie. She should make another one. You mentioned this when we were having an 24 conversation recently, but there was a big profile of the studio in the New Yorker some months ago, and she was quoted a few times in that piece, and she talked about how she was very grateful to have gotten to made two movies at 824, but that, you know, they're kind of not interested

in the kinds of movies that she makes. And if you look at the distributors of her movies, she's kind of been jumping from lily pad to lily pad, and she's a very interesting occupant of independent cinema in the 21st century, right? Her career, after River Grass was like a long period of time before Old Joy and she's basically been making movies for the last 20 plus years and she's made a movie with IFC she's made now this movie is with Mooby as Mooby is making this big push

this is the last release before the wide release of the new Jennifer Lawrence film Die My Love which is going to be on like 3,000 screens and it does seem like every five years or so there's a new art house imprint that is like we're

a big deal and in the aftermath of the substance they're doing this but this is What's great about these companies is that you also will finance the new Kelly Riker movie and put it on screens in America. And it could make a million bucks. It can make five million bucks if you're lucky and you market it correctly. And, you know, Adam, at the top of this conversation, we had this discussion about how movies are being eventized and 70 millimeter IMAX screens are being built in cities like Rochester and Colorado Springs now in order to serve films like The Odyssey. and I don't think that independent cinema is like going away per se but it is very challenging theatrically distributing a movie like this

and you really got to have smart people working on the other side of it it's not good enough for the movie to just be good it has to have this apparatus around it to get people to know about it and obviously we're doing our part yeah we're trying our best but we also I can't build an episode around the mastermind and expect anyone to listen to it so there's like there's a paradox there that is challenging. And I give her credit.

I recently heard her talking on the business with Kim Masters about how this is how she wants to work. She wants to work on films at this scale so she can tell the stories that she wants to tell.

She doesn't want anybody telling her how to make her movies. And the consequence of that is sometimes they don't get as seen as widely as possible. But I'm very happy that she is continuing to work in this way. I don't know if you have any

reflections on this current moment in independent distribution. No, I have a lot of reflections on it And they would be in line with what you're saying, not solutions, you know, just just observations. I mean, I'm, you know, obviously I'm located in Toronto and I won't go on and on about what rep culture and art house culture looks like here. But it may be a little less robust than some listeners might think because, you know, for 10 days, you have everyone focusing on TIF and Toronto. It kind of feels like this cosmopolitan film epicenter. And obviously we have great young and mid-career filmmakers here and we're the home of David Cronenberg.

But our rep options are somewhat limited. Our art house options are not as wide as you'd like. There's great local theaters showing older movies and building audiences that way. But a lot of the movies that open in L.A. And certainly a lot of the independent films and foreign films that open New York, they don't get a look here. And when they do and when audiences are full, it's because you do have those smart distributors kind of, you know,

paper the house with students and reach out to film programs and eventize the screenings, even through something as simple as social. media. You know, we're reaching out and trying to get U of T students in there to, you know, to see a movie like anemone. It's a challenge. And I think Kelly is an example of a filmmaker who, she's not like straining to keep her budgets small and her movie small scale. I think it's her sensibility. I mean, there was also, there was an interview recently, a filmmaker, I'm sure you'll talk about later and maybe I can, I'd love to talk about because I don't love the movie,

which is Chloe Zhao with Hamnet, had that interview where she's like, you know, you don't have to go spend a bunch of money. You don't have to spend more than your producers willing to spend. You don't have to make something that loses money, which is like a weird way of putting it, especially after a movie like Eternals, which I know thought up to her how much that movie costs, right? But it's certainly something directors are addressing more and more in interviews as the economics of this becomes so much more transparent, partially because of podcasts and blogs, that almost treat this stuff like sports stats sometimes. Sometimes does unveil something really real about how the economics of how this works

and sometimes just seems to build up more mythology. Any closing thoughts? I thought the parenting was okay, you know? I don't think it's the worst decision that he makes. He believes those kids at the bowling alley? Yeah. By themselves. It's the 70s, you know?

Things were different. They have money. So wait, wait, which part of the parenting, though? because that's fine. That's fine. Oh, yeah. Once he leaves them and his, yeah, it's not good. Definitely a bad spouse also.

Yeah. But I, yeah, I thought leaving them at the bowling alley was just fine. They need to learn not to eat junk foot on their own, you know? Personal responsibility. We're learning a lot about you in this episode and your parenting style. Adam, what are you working on, man? What's coming up next? I'm going to leave my kid at a bowling alley tomorrow.

Yeah. Well, the audience will be there at O'Don. to watch her so it'll be okay uh you know i continue to slave away on my long long gestating still unannounced book project which everyone will be you know excited to hear about when i finally say what it is it's the thanos prequel right that kelly is adapting yeah finally try my hand at that trying to catch up on the you know the rest of the movies worth seeing this year i think i think i think seeing marty supreme soon which i which i which i hear has some juice and watching watching some watching some blue jiggins.

You would be surprised to know, have still only managed to see one battle after another the one time. Okay. Wow. You're four behind me. Yeah. You better get those numbers up, really. You've got to step up at them. I had my kids alone for two weeks while my wife was traveling far away.

I did not leave my house after 6 p.m. for two weeks. So a lot of baseball, but not a lot of new, not a lot of new releases. We've both been there. Listen, I've got one of those this week. Yeah. I mean, I came out of it stronger. nothing can hurt me now, except then my immune system completely collapsed as soon as my wife came home. And I was like, guess what? I'm sick. Which is why, if anyone's wondering, I look even more

haggard. You know, people send me, I love listeners to this show. People send me this stuff. I don't seek it out. But I do like, apparently people think I look like Samoa Joe. Yeah. Yeah. Are you familiar with his work? I am. He's great. He's brilliant. He's having a moment, I feel like. Is he the champion at AEW right now? I don't follow anymore, but I know, you know, his deal. Just learned who this is? He's a brilliant, brilliant professional wrestler. Okay. But, you know, for people who are watching,

if they're wondering why I look particularly haggard and old, that's why. Next time it'll be less, less so. You look beautiful to me. Yeah. Oh, I appreciate that. The only thing more beautiful than your face is your mind, Adam. And thank you for sharing your mind, as always. Yeah.

Go Blue Jays. Wow. I don't endorse that. Will this be out after the game? It will be out this afternoon, so no. Oh, okay. So, yeah, we'll find out in real time. I'm certain we have cursed them by having this discussion. But Adam, it was wonderful to see you. We'll see you soon.

Thanks for having me, as always, guys. You can take care best to your families. Thanks to Adam. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode later this week. Number 7 on 25 for 25. You want any hints? Anything you want to share? I thought about wearing a red shirt today. And then I was like, oh, I should. should save it. Wow. Okay. I'll have to think about my color as well. We'll see you then.