The Big Picture - A Mailbag for All Time. Plus: Alex Ross Perry Returns!

Episode Date: May 12, 2025

Sean and Amanda open up the mailbag once again to answer all of your questions about underrated indie directors they’d like to see get the “Sean Baker treatment” at this year's Oscars, why Amanda majored in classics, recent films that are the most likely to inspire the next generation of filmmakers, and much more (3:05). Then, Alex Ross Perry returns to the show to discuss his new genre-bending music biopic, ‘Pavements.’ They discuss what attracted Perry to making this stylized vision, the complicated and interesting process behind making the movie, and what types of projects he’d like to take on in the future (1:02:33). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Alex Ross Perry and Bobby Wagner Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Look, it's not that confusing. I'm Rob Harvilla, host of the podcast 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, except we did 120 songs. And now we're back with the 2000s. I refuse to say aughts, 2000 to 2009. The Strokes, Rihanna, J-Lo, Kanye, sure. And now this show is called 60 Songs That Explain the 90s, colon the 2000s.

Wow, that's too long a title for me to say anything else right now. Just trust me, that's 60 Songs That Explain the 90s colon the 2000s. Wow, that's too long a title for me to say anything else right now. Just trust me, that's 60 songs that explain the 90s colon the 2000s, preferably on Spotify. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer, so download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes.

Plus, enjoy zero dollar delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees exclusions and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Whatever you want to know, we're opening up the mailbag today and taking your questions. Bobby Wagner is here to read them. Later in this episode, Amanda and I will be joined by our pal, Alex Ross Perry, to talk about his hilarious, ingenious new movie, Pavements. It's a biopic, jukebox musical, documentary, meta-textual deconstruction of the 90s indie rock slacker icons, Pavement.

And also the idea of making a movie about a band. Absolutely. There has really never been a movie like this before. It is incredibly strange and incredibly interesting. Also, Alex is like a nine, ten, eleven, twelve time champion of the show. He's been here many, many times. You have never interviewed him with me before. Did you enjoy that experience? I did. Well, because, you know, I just with him, I was just chatting.

He's a pal. He's a pal. And I just got to ask what I wanted to ask about instead of having to be like, so, when you sat down... I guess I did ask a version of that. You did ask a couple of, like, interview questions. It was mostly like, what's wrong with you?

In a nice way. Why is your brain like this? This was, I think, a four or five year odyssey for him to get this movie on screen. We hosted a screening on, was it Thursday night at Videots, which was really fun. And Alex is the best, so stick around for that convo. First, we need to talk about the fact that there's really no news other than the Cannes Film Festival starts today.

Yeah. How do you feel? I'm making peace with my life at home, you know? And I'm making peace with my life at home. I know? You're making peace with your life at home. I'm not there, I'm here. I had a great weekend. And that's... I need to...

To go through life, I think that I just need to accept what I have, instead of being angry about what I don't, which is a first-class ticket to can. You always make it sound like you're a terribly poor 19th century Polish farmer. You know, like I returned back to the land and things are difficult. I'm not, I'm not really. I cannot continue in this life. But you're your podcaster. You know, when you talk about movies, you didn't get to go to the

Quasette this year, which is too bad. Next year? We'll see. We'll see. Um, how will we cover Cannes from here? Um, I guess I'll just like angrily send you links while you're golfing. Very cool. Yeah. So it won't be that different from most times here in Los Angeles.

That's it. You want to go to the mailbag? I do. Bobby Wagner, producer of the Press Box. What's up, man? That's correct. I'm having a fun time talking about journalism, the horse and the occupation. Great blogging episode. I have a mailbag question to start this off actually. My mailbag is from Amanda on YouTube and it's for Bobby Wagner and it's Bob, how was your trip to London? All my trip to London was great. I got to actually see a couple films. I went to Prince

Charles and I went to BFI, which was incredible. What did you see? I had never, I realized I had never seen a movie in a foreign country at all. In all my travel, I had never actually gone to the movie theater, which is crazy to me, because I don't know. It just seems like something I would have done. But you know, you're too busy worried about seeing churches and cathedrals, which is what you usually do in Europe. You are. So that's true. This is only one cathedral for me.

This is actually, this is the best part of the Venice Film Festival is like you don't, you just kind of look at the church from the outside and then you just go see cool movies, you know? Right, which is a preferable thing anyway. What movies did you see? I saw Memories of Murder at BFI. Nice, at South Bank? Yeah, yeah, right down the river.

That's a very cool place. And then I saw Parallax View at Prince Charles. Oh, that's really fun. Amazing. What was the vibe? Like what was the demo in the Prince Charles? The demo was actually, so I was noticing this when I was seeing movies there, but it was like a lot more like diversity of age,

a lot older people coming to see it. Whereas like in New York, it's all just a bunch of like, and I can say this because I am an annoying 29 year old, a bunch of annoying 29 year olds. Like, yo, I'm here to see this. I'm so fired up. Yeah. A lot of older folks, which was, which was cool. Like a genuine round of applause when the name Gordon Willis came up in the opening credits.

It was on a film print. It was, it was kind of a rough one. And I was like, this is a clip. This is a good vibe. Okay. Well, we've sourced some questions from listeners. The questions are getting more and more ornate and difficult. That's true. They're sort of like, if you were a man that was born in 1972 and you had a cat, but you were a filmmaker, what film would you put your cat in? And I'm like, sir, it's like Monday at 9 a.m.

I think some of it's email. You know what? It's like you're confronted with the blank page and you're like, I gotta fill it. And I do appreciate that people want to fill it. But, you know, we had a robust conversation before we hit record about charging my various facial devices, you know, and there is room for that. And there is room for one sentence questions along with these.

Did you notice that I deleted a couple? I deleted a couple as well. Okay, good. Not because they were bad questions, just because we didn't have the time. We did a lot of homework for Paul Newman, and we had to catch up with the rest of our life. Just in terms of your facial devices, as you were talking, I was picturing you, like,

the pre-cog from Minority Report, like, laying in a bath backwards, but you've got, like, all these nodules attached to your head. Is that what it's like? Well, it's not that different, except I don't do it in the bath because of, you know, like electricity and not wanting to shock myself. I do actually, I often do it while on my computer, you know, so I was prepping this morning while wearing my LED mask.

So you need to do a get ready video for the big picture Instagram feed, and you need to post that immediately while you're wearing whatever masks you wear. Do you know what they look like? Have you like seen pictures of them? Honestly, no, and I don't want to see them and I don't want to see you in them. It's very common. Like Jack and Bobby at least are like, you know, open to the wider world. They knew what I was talking about.

You know, Bobby has some issues charging his Theragun so he sees my difficulty right? This is true anytime I'm going to use them like I need the Theragun real bad right now. There it is it's dead and it only has one specific charger so it's not like I can just throw it on the phone charger or whatever. And also then like certain devices can't do like the high speed charger like the zip halo so you got to find them like a different outlet but like it's. That's me but for my daughter's yoto at night, when it runs out of battery. And I'm like, no! Our Yoto has not been charged in like three months.

The Yoto is right behind iPhone and most essential device in my home. Like, by a significant margin. More than my television. I need that Yoto every night. We were having some real issues with the karaoke mic not being charged, which was purposeful from certain members of our household. And then Knox also just like kept finding random chargers

and then trying to plug them in. Like none of them matching. I know I was impressed and I was also like, once again, childproofing is impossible. You know, because like, where did you get this cord? It's another charging cord that I haven't been able to find for five years. Well, I mean, stop buying so many masks to wear at night and you won't be able to find those cords. No, I think the problem that we have here is that we need to decide as a society,

we need to come together. Maybe the new American pope can make a ruling on this. I don't care who does it. We need to decide whether we're a USB society or a USB-C society. I'm so sick of not having the right USB cable when the U in USB stands for universal. We're trending C right now, clearly, but it was 10 years of USB and we can't get over what we once had. So in this transition, you just need to have both on hand at all times.

You need to have backup cords. That's very stressful. I agree. I'm not happy about it. I think Bobby is right. We pass the buck onto the consumer and it's a shame. Yeah. Well, the lightning cable revolution is it is literally just a financial ploy to get more money from you, upgrade your devices. So this is the hell that we live in. No questions about chargers or cords.

Well, let's see. We don't know. There may have been a few added at the end. Jack may have slipped a few in there. Bobby, what's the first question? The first question comes from someone named Tracy. I'm not sure who wrote this one in. Can you shed some light on the third chair? While I love all the folks who regularly guest on the show, it's clear no one is better suited for the job than Tracy Letts. He knows his stuff, he does the work.

He's outrageously funny and he brings in the important Born In 65 demo. Chris Ryan is great, of course, but he's stretched so thin with his other ringer duties that he's dead inside. Also, if Tracy had the title of third chair, maybe you could get Carrie Coon to come on the show. And she is hotter than a hen in a wool blanket. Signed enthusiastic listener. Well, I wonder who sent that.

I think these are great ideas. Really, really strong points. Chris is not dead inside, but otherwise I think that Tracy brings a lot to the show. He's welcome anytime. He does, I think, have a homework list of films that he needs to see before he comes on the show. First among them, Ghost. So Tracy Letts, if you're listening, I know it's on your list. I'm waiting. I can't wait for your review. And obviously, Karrie Kuhn is welcome absolutely anytime, a legend in the game. Obviously, Karrie is welcome.

I need Tracy to watch Avengers Endgame and then maybe we'll talk. That's top priority right now. Tracy's wonderful. He needs to leave New York and move back to Los Angeles. And as soon as he does, he's welcome anytime, you know, bring his entire family. Sure. They can afford it. Carrie, she's the biggest star on TV right now. Come on.

Tracy, what are you waiting for? Your third career awaits you. Playwright, character, actor. Right. Third chair. There we go. What's next? No, Tracy, Tracy, don't leave New York, man.

What an East Coast soul on that man. You should not go back to LA. I don't know. I don't know. California, I like it. I like it. I'm pro. I like it too. But I... It was pointed out to me again this week that I'm raising two native Californians. And that is weird. I do need to keep

my East Coast soul. And so if... Maybe we need our third share. What's it worth? To be connected. What's it really worth? Do you really feel Californian? Like, are you that relaxed? No. That's not what California is.

That's a fallacy. What is it to you? Everyone in California is uptight too. It's just in a different way. Yeah, but in a way I find pretty annoying. I think one is about anger. Like, East Coast is anger and West Coast is anxiety. That's my differentiation.

As someone who is fluent in both, I would say that... East Coast is anger and West Coast is anxiety. That's my differentiation. As someone who has flown in both, I would say that I have... I agree on that. I have, I had plenty of East Coast anxiety. There is something aggressive versus passive aggressive of the two and I let's like, if we're going to do it, let's just, let's say it.

Let's get it out there. Okay, all right. I understand. Can I tell you something that happened to me when I got, when I was driving to work today, I was getting on the five and I was getting ready to, on the turn on, and there were two cars in front of me, stopped, and the guy who was two cars in front got out of his car, and he walked over to the guy whose car was directly in front of me, and he started screaming in his face. Clearly something had just happened, some sort of altercation on the road.

And he pulled the guy's car open and was demanding that he get out so they fight in his face. Clearly something had just happened, some sort of altercation on the road. And he pulled the guy's car open and was demanding that he get out so they fight in the street. And it was one of the most New York things I've ever seen happen in California. And the guy would knock it out of his car. He wouldn't take his seatbelt off. He was terrified.

And then the guy very, very- I do think that is the right decision. Oh, of course. I wouldn't have done the same thing. I'm not fighting a guy in the street at 9 a.m. But then the guy, so he closed the door on the guy and then he spit, not at him or in the car, 9 a.m. But then the guy, so we closed the door on the guy and then he spit not at him or in the car But just on the ground in front of him as if to say I reject thee

Which I thought was a very dramatic kind of Shakespearean moment got back in his car drove off and I got to work Okay, so there's a little bit of New York still inside of California. Sure. I was fine. I was getting ready to turn around though I was like, I don't know if I want to be stuck behind these guys I'll find another on ramp to the five. Yeah. Any any who a lot of movies so far real world star moment for you You could have videotaped that and gone viral. Yeah, you just tweeted that no context You just tweeted a video of this fight happening No context mid shouting the guy who had gotten out of his car Picked up his head and looked me right in the eye as if to say don't take out your phone and I

That's incredible, okay next question comes from Kadir. Is there any underrated indie director you would wish to get the Sean Baker treatment in this year's Oscars? And then Kadir goes on to say, personally, I would love to see the universe where Kelly Riker wins a bunch of Oscars. I mean, me too.

You know, it's not out of the realm of possibility. We said that the mastermind her new, is playing a can this year. Some people think it could be an Academy Award contender. Ten years ago, I was like, directors like Kelly Riker never competed at the Oscars and everything's changed so much. It could happen. I'm not ruling it out. We both listed a bunch of people here.

I mean, there's a ton of people that I think exist in this orbit. Some of whom are indie, some of whom are just kind of smaller studio filmmakers, some of whom have been around for 20, 30, 40 years, some of whom have only been around for a short time. But James Gray is the first person that popped into my head. In part because there was some casting news on his new movie, Paper Tiger. Did you see this? And Jeremy Strong out, Miles Teller and...

Scarlett Johansson in. So Miles Teller and Adam Driver will play brothers in this movie. And I think, I don't know if it's a love triangle or not with Scarlett Johansson in. So Miles Teller and Adam Driver will play brothers in this movie. And I think, I don't know if it's a love triangle or not with Scarlett Johansson, but Anne Hathaway is gone. Jeremy Strong is gone after his wonderful work in Armageddon time with James. Um, Gray to me is like the epitome of this, where it's like everybody agrees he's great. He's never really had that like explosive, wow, he did it moment where everyone recognizes it. In the United States anyway. In the U.S. yes.

In France he's won 15,000 Cezars. I wrote down Boots Riley who has a new movie coming out with Demi Moore I think later this year called I Love Boosters. He's only made one film and a TV series but kind of feels like he's in a similar vein. Lin Ramsey has a new movie at Cannes. I know we both love Mike Mills. We do. Mike Mills would be...

He's kind of the... He's in that Sean Baker, Kelly Reichard zone of eight or nine independent features, most critically acclaimed, not a huge box office driver, but somebody... And it's been a while since he's made a movie. When was Come On, Come On? Like four or five years ago. 2021.

Yeah. Because I was pregnant with Knox and I Like four or five years ago. 2021. Yeah. Because I was pregnant with Knox and I remember it. And it just absolutely took me out. It's a great movie. I thought very underrated, maybe due to COVID in part, but underseen. David Lowery, he also has another movie coming out later this year. Same zone, with Anne Hathaway, Mother Mary. Carla Simone popped in my head.

I think she also has a movie at Cannes. I might have just been looking at the Cannes schedule as I did this, but she had Alcaraz a few years ago, summer of 1993. Andrew Hay, who had All of Us Strangers, who we thought could be... Yeah, another one where we just... Oh, there's another question where I should write All of Us Strangers down. Okay. Um, Lucretia Martel, I thought of Sean Durkin.

Kelly Freeman Craig, who did Edge of 17. And are you there, Margaret? Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret. Jeremy Saunier just had a huge hit with Rebel Ridge, but hasn't been an Oscar guy. Safdies. Sure. Josh and Benny both have movies this year.

Yeah. Never been Oscar nominated. And you were a bomb bag. I mean... I thought about it. I mean, he's been nominated for three screenplay Oscars. Sure. And one best picture, but...

It's not... He never really was competing, right? Yeah, never in the... It's like always a bridesmaid situation. And he's, you know, one of our favorite working filmmakers. So, Jay Kelly. Yeah, I'm ready. Coming out this fall.

November. November, it's Clooney and Adam Sandler. I was looking at... I was texting with Bill and Van and Chris this weekend, and we were texting, and Craig too, and we were texting about whether or not Michael B. Jordan could compete in Best Actor this year, and what the odds are for him.

And we were like, yeah, you know, it's like huge movie, acclaimed, like this box office hold that it has going on is crazy, it's gonna cost $300 million more than likely, maybe even more than that. It's getting into like bigger than inception mode, which is really quite something. Um, and then I looked at some of the, uh, projections for best actor. And it's insanely competitive. Um, let me see if I can pull this document up. This is just like a speculation.

Yeah. But Timothy Chalamet, Marty Supreme. Right. Jeremy Allen White in Deliver Me From Nowhere. Of course. The Springsteen movie. Sure. Leo in One Battle After Another.

Yes. Paul Maskell in The History of Sound. Okay. Dwayne Johnson in The Smashing Machine. Yeah. Jesse Plemons in Begonia. Talked to somebody who saw that recently who said he's a lock. Okay, wow. George Clooney and Jay Kelly per our conversation

Colin Farrell in the Ballad of a Small Player new Edward Berger movie from Netflix Michael B Jordan for sinners and Denzel for highest like where's Denzel? Yeah, that's a fucking stacked ass category And then of course, there's one or two people who we don't even know about who will slide in and it's a really interesting balance of like old and new. You know you got your Leos and your Denzels and your Clooney's and you also got your Plemonses and your Chalamets and your Michael B's. So could be a really exciting best actor race this year. I'm excited.

You think but you think Bomback you think he's gonna do it? No, I don't I don't think he'll win again. But they asked who we would like. I also wrote Selena Tiamma down. Yeah, is she... What's going on with her? Has not made a movie since Petite Mamel? Yeah, which was just absolutely magical. Great film. Um, I don't know. People take time.

They do. Bob, any additions to this? Anybody you thought about that you're a big fan of? Nothing really comes to mind. That's a pretty extensive list. I mean, I'd like to see Boots Riley win an Oscar, because I think it would be funny, but I don't think that's really on the table. You never know. You never know. Stranger things have happened. Okay, what's next? I'm going to bounce around on this list here a little bit. So I'm going to go down to the bottom and ask a question from Roman. Can you remember the first time you were truly let down by a movie, whether from your own expectations or from the marketing of the film. Thanks and lots of love.

The first time. Okay. I mean, I have one very vivid memory. Go ahead. I remember figuring out the twist of the village, like in six minutes and getting super mad the whole way through and knowing where it was going. And maybe that's when the Shyamalan twist thing codified in my mind. Obviously, you know, it's something that he did in Unbreakable as well as in the Sixth

Sense, but sitting there watching the Village and feeling like, is this, spoiler alert for the Village, which came out 21 years ago, is this, are they just in modern times and they escaped to get away from society? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then that being the exact thing was, it's not that I was like, oh, I'm smarter than movies, even though I know I act like that all the time on the show. It was just that unfortunate thing where you're gratified by your own cleverness, but you're disappointed by the fact that you sat in that feeling for an hour and a half. Yeah.

I said, I like that movie. Yeah, but it's not what you want from that experience. Exactly. You want them to pull it off. The first thing that popped into my head was the 2010 film, How Do You Know? Great, great call. You know?

Directed, you know, a James L. Brooks comedy starring Reese Witherspoon. And it's just not, it's just like five minutes in, you're like, oh, this isn't going to happen. This is not going to work. That's a really good call. That's a tough one. Is that Nicholson's last or second to last movie?

And Owen Wilson in his butterscotch stallion era. You remember that? I do. It was just, It just doesn't come together. Reese Weathersman's a softball player? Mm-hmm. Sure. Like you do. She was based on... Bob, who was the blonde softball player? Was it Jenny something? Oh, Jenny Finch?

Jenny Finch, yeah, who was kind of a phenomenon for a little window there. Felt inspired by Jenny Finch, right? I think that's right. I never saw that movie, but if it's a blonde softball player, Jenny Finch is very famous. Lots of like weird, you know, digital only content of like Jenny Finch striking out Major League Baseball players at like softball All-Star games. That's a lot of good stuff.

That's a real turn of the 2010s. I remember that very well. Do you know her? Do you know anything about her? No, I don't. Yeah. She was... Another reason why this movie didn't pin out for me,

because I wasn't there for like real-life tie-in. Yeah, yeah. That's a really good call. I'm sure there were plenty of movies in the 90s when I was... You know, like The Sixth Day was a Schwarzenegger movie that came out in the late 90s, where I was like, all right, cool, we're on a run here. He's got nine good movies in a row. And it just was a stinker. And that led to, I think, like,

Eraser, The Sixth Day, End of Days, he Eraser, the sixth day, end of days. He had, like, a little run there at the end of the 90s. It was just Bummer Town. They all weren't that great. But, um... I was really into Alicia Silverstone and Chris O'Donnell in 95. So, Batman and Robin was... You know what else was a bummer?

Was Excess Baggage with Benicio Del Toro. Did you see that one with Alicia Silverstone? No. I think she gets kidnapped by him. That was one where I was like, I think that might have been her Silverstone? No. I think she gets kidnapped by him. That was one where I was like, I think that might have been her first movie after Clueless. Yeah. And that did not hit.

What's the John Cusack movie about dogs? Must Love Dogs. Yeah, that I saw at the Battery Park, AMC or Regal or whatever it was, that on a hot summer day didn't click. Didn't play? Yeah. Must Love Dogs. Haven't seen that one.

Diane Lane, John Cusack, Elizabeth Perkins, Dormit Mulroney, Stockard Channing, Christopher Plummer. Well, you know. That's quite a cast for a movie called Must Love Dogs. Okay. What's next, Bob? My answer for that, by the way, would be I Am Legend, which I thought was going to be the coolest, greatest movie ever.

And I was 11 years old and I was like, wow, this kind of fell apart. That's a good shout. That movie is not good. No, it's not. Next question comes from Austin. What are your favorite what ifs in movie history? As in movies that were almost made, actors almost cast in iconic parts,

or directors almost directing certain movies? So did you write these down or did Austin? I didn't, I assume Austin did, right? Okay. So Austin gave us a bunch of fake... or candidates, I guess, or maybe his favorites. Um, they include Tom Hanks dropping out of Nixon. Okay. And being replaced by Anthony Hopkins.

I'm not sure if I knew that. I didn't either. Tom Hanks is a little young for Nixon in 95, wasn't he? Yes. Um, David Fincher almost making World War Z. Now David Fincher is my answer, but for a different movie that he almost made. Okay. My answer would be 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which is a movie that he was

going to remake and would have been the biggest Fincher movie ever. And Disney, which owns the rights to that story because they made the jewels for an adaptation back in the 50s, I want to say. Were uncomfortable with the way that he wanted to shoot it, hard to believe, a David Fincher movie, and it never happened. And now he's like rich and in his 60s and crushing it at Netflix and he'll never go back

and try to make something that hard to be my guest. Also, Gosling wasn't fired from The Lovely Bones. That was a famous... I'm not sure The Lovely Bones could have been saved by Gosling, but Mark Wahlberg is terrible in that movie. Um, Peter Jackson adaptation of a story about a little girl who's killed. And like her, I think her like spirit presents itself and helps this guy solve what's the case. I'm happy for Ryan Gosling.

Saoirse Ronan, Stanley Tucci. I do. Yeah. Oh, and Stanley Tucci is the creepy. Yeah. Gosling's fine. Emily Blunt, if she was let out of her contract at Fox to be Black Widow in The Avengers.

She's doing fine. Okay. Keanu Reeves didn't tour with his band. Do you know the name of his band? Dog something? Dog Star. I was right. Must love Dog Star. Um, Keanu Reeves didn't tour with his band Dog Star and did Heat instead of Val Kilmer.

I think it worked out. Yeah, we're good. And we got all this great Dog Star memorabilia. You know, I've got that whole storage facility full of Dog Star stuff, which I'm excited about. Anything else? Any other ones that jump out to you? Yeah, the secret history adaptation that was supposed to be Al Pacula

and a screenplay by Didion and Dunne. Whoa, is that a 90s thing? Yeah, it's a 90s thing and then he died. I didn't know about that. Yeah. And so, I mean, you know, this is who knows how true it is. That would have been great. I mean, it could have been great.

It also could have been awful. Like, you know, but it's Didion and Dunne, like lived very cool lives and hit and miss on the screen place. But I would like to see a secret history movie. Agreed. Bobby, do you have a what if that you're interested in? I don't know if this would be my number one in history, but I'm really curious what would have happened

if Stanley Kubrick didn't die and he finished directing AI. I think that's a movie that I might have liked more. But I also in turn then would have liked to see where Spielberg would have put the energy that he was intrigued by with that script and movie into, like what movie would he have made because he didn't get to make AI and take it over from Kubrick would have been interesting. We'll never know. Also, Kubrick almost made Napoleon. Right.

Oh, that's a great one. And that's a great one. And that Tashin book that is the entirety of the pre. Right. Oh, that's a great one. That's a great one. And that Tashin book that is the entirety of the pre-production of Napoleon, that includes like the script, all the storyboards, all the costumes, like everything that had been picked out. And then I forget what the reason was that that movie was not made, but that's literally a 700 page book with one of those Tashin books that has like that carbon paper. Like the paper is so thin.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like you're reading an ancient Bible. Um, okay. Kubrick's Napoleon plus Barry Lyndon could have been the greatest double feature of all time. But he wouldn't have made Barry Lyndon if he had made Napoleon. That's why he took all that energy and research and put it into Barry Lyndon. So that would have been weird if he was like, now that I've completed Napoleon, I shall make Barry Lyndon.

What if he did Barry Lyndon first and then Napoleon? Okay, next question. Dana, can you talk about the movie theater business model? make Barry Lyndon. What if he did Barry Lyndon first and then Napoleon? Okay, next question. Dana, can you talk about the movie theater business model? You mentioned in your Oscars Hangover Mailbag episode. That certain movies would not be financially able to play in a thousand theaters nationwide. Why is that? When a movie decides to have a limited release,

I assume part of the way they control this is by picking certain cities. But do they also limit their movie to a certain number of theaters in that city? And if so, how do they choose? It's both. It's an agreement between the theaters and the studios that they want to book certain films. In the case of Thunderbolts,

there's not really much of a conversation. Every Disney movie plays on thousands of screens. They don't do limited release. They don't do, you know, slow rollouts for films. I think this most adequately applies to like your A24s, your Neons, your Sony Pictures classics, the films that like, you know, usually start small, like Friendship opened over the weekend

in only a couple of theaters, in only a few theaters around the country. And I think it's going wide on Labor Day, or on Memorial Day weekend. And so I think what the limited release opening is leading is kind of testing the ground for how wide it can or should go. Friendship's the kind of movie to me that like, I would guess it'll go into like 1,500 theaters. It'll be a super competitive weekend because it's Mission Impossible,

The Final Reckoning, and Lilo and Stitch. So it's kind of like counter-programming. But the theaters have to want to book the movie and the studios have to want to expand it. So it's like a negotiation and how they're booked. I don't know what it... It's like a symbiotic relationship. It's kind of the reason that CinemaCon exists.

Like, it's not actually to, you know, give us funny stories from Las Vegas. It is because these studios are to some extent courting the movie theaters. Now it's like a very bizarre co-dependent relationship because like what else are the theaters gonna do? So that's a little bit of a, we want you to show these things, but also you don't have any other options.

But yeah, there's ongoing conversations between both sides of what is gonna be the best business for us. Yeah, and I don't think that there was much, too much talk about Sinners last year at CinemaCon. I think maybe Ryan Coogler was on set and shared like a Zoom video. And then this year, because the movie was two weeks away, there was hardly anything

about Sinners at all. But that's the kind of movie that's kind of interesting in this question that's being asked because that was a movie that fought for the premium large format screens and got them and got them for two weeks. And then Thunderbolts came in and took those screens. And now after two weeks, Sinners has taken them back. So I think Sinners is getting IMAX again this coming weekend. And that isn't something that was prearranged.

It's something that basically was caused by demand. So as much like planning and strategizing as you can make, if a movie takes off, it can get theaters that it wasn't originally planning on because the theater business has to be attentive to the customer demand. So it really is case by case. I don't know what was the movie we were talking about where I was like this movie can't play a thousand screens. Was it a Nora maybe? I have maybe. Yeah. It might have been. I don't actually don't know what the maximum theater count that movie

ever had was even though they ended up doing like 20 million total in US box office. And they ended up doing like 20 million total in US box office. But, you know, the business is in a weird spot. It's harder and harder to find phenomenons. And so they have to be like more reactive. You can't just be like nine months in advance. You can't just be like, well, our schedule is locked. Like, do you know what the number five movie at the box office was this weekend? Revenge of the Sith?

No, good guess. Thank you. Clown in a Cornfield. OK. Which is a new horror movie from IFC and Shudder, which is pretty fun. And great title. And it is what is on the label.

I assume that is the premise. Yeah. So it's like Thousands of Beavers or Hundreds of Beavers? But with murderous clowns. Which one is the, is it hundreds or thousands? It's hundreds. But thousands could be the sequel. Could be. The hundreds of Beavers folks I know were listeners to the show.

I, I listen. The greatest title ever, ever written. It was a great film. Clown of the Cornfield is, I didn't have that on my bingo card, it's like opening at number five a month ago, six months ago for sure. But here we are. We live in a time or rains Bob what's next? Philip asks my question is which fake movie from the studio works the best. Okay, so I am not caught up yet All right. Okay, because I think all of the ones that that Philip mentioned here are probably from episodes that you've seen

There's Sarah Polly's artful drama about a woman finding herself. I've seen that one. There's Scorsese's Buscemi vehicle Kool-Aid. Sure. And there's Ron Howard's taxi driver action movie. Oh, right. Where they got it. I think there are more throughout the series, so maybe you don't.

But these are the three that Philip mentions. I'm sorry. Once again, I was watching a lot of Paul Newman movies. Which has the most commercial viability? Which works the best is how it's phrased. I mean, you got to go with Scorsese. Mm hmm. Like that's and the I would watch it, even though like I slightly agree with Catherine Hawn, it's like Steve Buscemi, wonderful actor, is not like the first person I pick to headline, you know.

Because he's not beautiful enough or like what are your thoughts there? No, I just... Well, I mean, I guess it's a new spin on a cult leader and so it's a different interpretation of the magnetism and the cult of personality, literally, that, uh, that sprouts up. But, you know. The most recent episode, Zoe Kravitz appears in the episode. Oh, cool. And she is nominated for an award for a movie.

And then she is pitching a future film. The future film is called Blackwing. I won't spoil it for you. But, um, that's the one that I was the most like, -"Hmm, I would like to see that." -"I would watch it." Uh Okay. But that's the one that I was the most like, hmm. I would like to see that. So that's my answer. Okay.

The Ron Howard movie I thought looked terrible. Yeah, not my vibe. Funny episode, but I thought that looked really bad. I thought it was a really funny episode just because of the way that they went about it. Where they were like, I love this movie. And then it went on for five more minutes. We've been there. We've been there.

We've been there. Yeah. Okay. We've been there. We've been there. We've literally also been in that screening room. Oh, the literal one? Yeah, no, that was on the Warner Brothers lot. That's where I saw Horizon, part one. That's where I've seen, you've been in this. Oh yeah, I've been in that room. It's that room.

Oh, it's that room, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What else have I seen there? That's where I saw The Way Back, one of the last, that's the Ben Affleck movie. Yes, sports's that room. Oh, it's that room? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What else have I seen there? That's where I saw the way back, the one of the last, that's the Ben Affleck movie. Yes, sports drama, yes. Sports drama. That was like one of the last pre-pandemic movies

that I saw trying to think. But so, yeah, I've literally been in that, though they sit in the middle. In the front. In the front. I will sit in the front, but I'll forever. Yeah. Okay, next question comes from Tim. I'm curious about why

Amanda majored in classics and hope that she will discuss it some on the pod. I was the only person with the major in my entire graduating class and I meet so few people who share this background, so I'm genuinely interested. But the real question for the movie podcast is does Amanda feel or think any sort of way about the ancient history movies? Asking this with the idea, of course, that we have Nolan's Odyssey adaptation coming in hot. So this is going to be a point of discussion. I don't know if I've ever heard you answer this. Thank you so much, Tim, for asking, for being curious.

So I think the reason, so I went to Dartmouth and they have a wonderful classics program and they just have Like a lot of like great professors and so I think I I had to take a survey course and I met Edward Bradley is one of the professors and It just seemed sort of like a small college like old-school Like fun experience. I like like, part of it was the professors in the department. But the other thing was, it did feel like the classics were the building blocks for most of, like,

Western storytelling. And so, to, because I liked reading, because I liked movies, I, you know, because I like the arts, I was like, this seems like my blind spot. And so to study these stories and this world will then give me the language, like story language, to then to read everything else.

And that is sort of true, at least for the Western canon. What was your intention? Like, what did you hope to do with it? Nothing. Which is, you know, useless. Um... I mean, I guess that... You weren't like to be an academic or to be just a journalist. There was a time where I thought maybe I'll be an academic. I did also maybe want to work in books or magazines or I think maybe I thought I wanted to be in books for a while. I'm surprised you didn't become a book editor now that I know you as well as I do.

Because I, like, it was on the table, but it's so slow and I wanted to do magazines, you know? Like magazines is actually the fusion of, you know, books and then my attendance span. Well, back then, but now- Back then, and now it's- Now it's TikTok and one magazine, yeah. But so, I mean, I do like reading,

so I thought it would be useful. So that's why. So as a result, I don't really think that it affects... I don't pay a huge amount of attention to... They don't really make that many, like, classics adaptations. I'm obviously very excited for The Odyssey, but I would say that it more informs the way that I watch all movies or something.

You know, and you can just... It's not even that they're ripping it off. You just like, I have a respect for the patterns and the like, the forms and the formulas of literature and what people can do with them. And I, it's not copying to me, it's that real artistry isn't finding a fresh way to tell, like, the three stories that, like, we all come back to. BOWEN I was thinking about this particular concept, actually, over the weekend. I was listening to Plain English,

Ringer podcast hosted by Derek Thompson. And their episode last week was about, is this the worst time in American pop culture? Like, are things as bad as they've ever been? And Spencer Kornhaber, who's a writer at The Atlantic, I guess had written a piece about it, I have not read that piece. Is this the worst time in American pop culture? Like, are things as bad as they've ever been? And Spencer Kornhaber, who's a writer at The Atlantic, I guess had written a piece about it. I have not read that piece.

But they were using, Derek was kind of premises it upon a couple of things, one of which was music and how new music is, accounts for the lowest amount of listening than it ever has, apparently, in the kind of American consciousness. But then the other thing was just that the IP-ization of movies and television has created this kind of circling the drain quality, which is something that we talk about all the time, hopefully have been nuanced about over time.

The one thing that kind of like scratched at me as they were having their chat and that Derek was zeroing in on was it's not that it's just IP. Like over 100 plus years of movies, this is even more true in the centuries of books, is that there is like an archetypal story structure that is repeated. And I would venture to guess there's been more than 10 adaptations of Robin Hood in movies since 1920. I would venture to guess the same is true of Christ-like stories

or of Knight's Tales or of Romeo and Juliet-esque Doomed Lovers. And sure, like, there's something super specific and kind of soul-deadening about 11 Transformers movies in 15 years. But even the Transformers movies are like underdog stories about a band, like a group of bandits who have to overcome, you know, the more powerful, you know, galaxy conquering Zeus-like figure. Like, so if you kind of like pull back a little bit, I think you can be a little bit more generous about the state of stories if you put it in that context. But you kind of have to do some of the work that you were doing in college, I think, to have that perspective on it.

Well, also, the first Transformers movie, which is... A masterpiece, thank you. Well, but also like a fresh spin on, you know, Robin Hood, but also... Like, I don't know, Sisyphus or, you know, whatever. The first time you're reinterpreting it in that way, or you're starting with this recognizable story, like in a new world, and what does that new world teach you?

It's fun. By the eighth one, when you've then had to reinvent and add like five more villains, and you've gotten away from the basic story structure, you're saddled with all this canon, and also like it's just robots going like this, you know, like the robots going like this is the only good thing.

But that is very good. So, but yeah, and it is very good, but it's like, I think what you're saying is true and right and is honestly like a lot of the reason that we like genre movies because genre movies are just these archetypes and reason that we like genre movies, because genre movies are just... these archetypes and stories that we know so well. By the way, we're not doing anything. This is just Joseph Campbell.

We're not reinventing the wheel here. So I think you're totally right, and then it is also possible to get saddled down in like, sequel-itis and just a hat on a hat on a hat on a robot. I think I just get a little bit concerned with people. Like, it's never been worse. And I'm like, how many, did you watch all 280 films that were released in 1937?

Like, if you didn't, I'm not sure you're qualified to absolutely certify that fact because at that time, there were tons of incredibly redundant Westerns that were using the same story structure over and over and over again. Maybe they didn't have as much lore attached to them as what we have now, but they had a kind of blandness in the way they told their story that you could just completely tune them out.

What's worse? You know, like, I think it's all just kind of a squishy debate and I'm as guilty of anybody as of like raising the temperature on a take. But it's an interesting thing to think about even at our lowest moment that most of this stuff is just iterating on stories that are thousands of years old, which you studied. Not thousands of years ago. How many years ago did you study? Like, six years ago.

And I remember everything. That's the other thing. That my, like, you know, my mastery of both dead languages, ancient Greek and Latin, was exact. And anytime Zach and I are traveling and we find like a Latin description, he just loves to be like, all right, what does that say, big kid? I've never gotten one right. Like, literally never. Latin is hard.

The other reason I majored was that you had to, there was a language requirement. And for most languages that are spoken, you had to go to language lab. But for Latin, obviously you didn't. So a lot of the athletes, and especially all the hockey players, took Latin. And so I just took Latin with the hockey players, which was a great time. They knew how to throw a party. Enough said. Bob, what did you study in college?

I studied good old journalism. Bob, what did you study in college? I studied good old journalism. I have a journalism degree at New York University, which is my alma mater. Beloved, definitely no problems going on there at all these days. They make you double major. You can't just major in journalism. So I was also an American studies major. Oh yeah, the classic American studies. The one true myth. Zach was a social studies major, which is the actual myth. Honestly, yeah, American studies is basically just like social studies, but they're like,

we've thought differently about it now. You know, we have some different takes on it. So those are my majors. Okay, what's next? Question comes from Cameron. Question for Sean as a burgeoning physical media obsessive. I'm curious if there are any Blu-ray white whales out there that you've been hunting for but haven't been able to obtain.

I've been trying to find 28 Years Later at a sub $100 price. I believe they're reissuing 28 Days and Weeks Later ahead of the release of the new film. So you can take that one off your list. I do have the double disc that features both movies on one thing, which I don't know when I got it. Must've been a long time ago, probably around when it came out. So I do have that. Dogma is like a long-desired one that is finally coming out.

They're re-releasing the movie in theaters in June. I'm trying to figure out what to do to finally do Kevin Smith, try to get Kevin on the show, Matt and Ben on the show, CR, Yasi threw her hat in the ring, she wants in. To finally do Kevin Smith, try to get Kevin on the show. Matt and Ben on the show. CR. Yassi threw her hat in the ring. She wants in. She wants in because of the Alanis of it all. I really like Dogma, but I just assumed that you guys

were gonna just go full Kevin Smith. You're more than welcome. I mean, you know, it could be a nine-person pod. You sit between Matt and Ben. That seems great. So I was thinking about this also when we were doing Paul Newman, there, there was a really great Blu-ray company that went out of business some five or six years ago called Twilight Time and they, they issued editions of Exodus, Ombre, and the Long Hot Summer on Blu-ray.

And those are all like 80 bucks, a hundred bucks on eBay. And I'm like, I don't really know that I need to own these movies, but I would like to have them for my collection. Um, so those are on my list. And then near dark is probably the single biggest one. There is a, I think I'm almost certain there's an existing American edition of Catherine Bigelow's vampire movie, but it's consistently like at least a hundred dollars on eBay and it's weird that it hasn't been issued.

I have to assume it's like a music rights thing, that it hasn't been re-released because a lot of people would buy it. Um, but that, that's the shortlist I made. There's also like hundreds of movies that are just not available in the format that I could make a 10 hour episode of, but I won't do that to spare you. Thank you. Is there anything you would like to own on Blu-ray? Everyone is like, when will Amanda, when will the domino fall?

When will she topple? I don't have a collector's mindset. I just don't for this. So like the thing where you're like, I really need to own the long hot summer. I think it's important that people be able to see movies, you know, that like they not be lost to, you know, time and corporations and the foibles of technology and licensing. But like, I don't also, I just don't have that mindset where it's like, I need to have every single thing here in my house right now.

And I buy, I do understand like the format also. For books, I prefer to have... I guess I am a physical media for books. I mean, you've seen my house. It's really... I was gonna call you on this, but I'm glad you will cite this. But I can't be...

There's no way to be definitive with books. And so I just kind of buy the ones that I want to have and that I want to revisit. And I don't know, I'd rather go to a movie theater to see an old movie. I'd like, I'll put the money towards like video. It's just showing more stuff that I want to see all the time.

Okay. But that's where I am. I like, I really honestly don't think it's going to happen. The plastic's also really ugly. I just do actually think it's pretty ugly. I'm sorry. Okay. That's where I am.

Next question comes from Scott. I recently spent an entire Saturday enjoying a Los Angeles movie marathon with a friend of mine. We watched Hail Caesar, Boogie Nights, Wrath of Man, Point Break, and Once Upon a Time of mine. You don't need to be snotty about it. I have a fun idea. Okay. Oh, great. Yeah. Just a thing I've been thinking about. And I think inspired by a couple drafts that we've done and that I was sort of able to do it. So I would do a yuppie cinema.

And also it's inspired by certain parts of people's lives, not naming any names. So here's what I've got so far. Baby Boom, Working Girl, Broadcast News, Wall Street, Fatal Attraction. Yeah. And then I think you ought to have like pesto pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, you know? And what are some other really, really 80s foods? You want to watch 10 straight hours of moderately wealthy people having problems that are manageable. Don't you? But it's an interesting cultural moment.

It is also just because those are all like, 87, 88, 89, so they are movies about my parents, more or less, and the time that we were born into, which is sort of interesting. Like, I just, I find it funny. I find, I love, obviously I love Working Girl, I love broadcast news, I love, I find it, I find it funny. I find, I love, obviously I love Working Girl. I love broadcast news. I love Fatal Attraction.

I think like Baby Boom and Wall Street are culturally interesting and I like them. I don't know. It just is like a funny grouping of things. Who's watching your kids while you do this? Right. I guess the person who inherits them via a mechanism that's never really explained in

Baby Boom. It's okay. Yeah. There's a flaw in the film. I don't know. I mean, I did this for the Frida Cinema last year, the great cinema, the OC. You don't have to be angry. I'm not angry.

You're just kind of like, I do this. You know, it's a mailbag. I'm not angry. I'm literally just like, my whole job is thinking of themes for movies and then watching the movies and then explaining the theme on a podcast. Sure, yes. So, when I was getting ready this morning, and I was like, I was doing my prep. So, I actually, I did, I wore my LED mask for part of it.

And then, this was crucially when I took my LED mask off mm-hmm, but I was just sitting there looking at my computer and like Zach came in the room and Like looked at my face and then like looked scared in a way that I recognized Yeah, it was like Darth Vader taking off the mask. Yeah. No he was like and and I realized I had to explain my facial expression and I was like I'm just like I'm just doing some mailbag questions and I'm thinking, I'm modulating my action. And I was like, you didn't do anything.

He was like, okay, I thought I did something. And then he said to me, he was like, be kind to your public, they wanna ask you questions. So be kind to your public, they wanna ask you questions. I know you're not giving me this lecture after eight years of being unkind on this podcast. Um, okay, what's next, Bob? Bob, you have a marathon that you would program?

Um, I mean, it's hard for me not to just think about the fact that I would watch every Mission Impossible movie in one day, but that's really too obvious. This is one of my favorite things about rep theaters is when they curate stuff like this. You can tell that they're really just kind of like searching for a theme and then putting all these movies in there. Like you can tell that they're really just kind of like searching for a theme and Then putting all these movies in there like Metrograph does a really great job of this right now. They have a collection of

Illustrating the future like all the movies that Sid me did the production design for which I went and saw Blade Runner during so it's like little stuff like that. I think it's really cool So if this is the type of brain that you have when it comes to watching movies check out your local rep theater They are listen to this podcast. Or listen to this podcast. I hope you're already listening to this podcast. Bob, I'm just clocking this artwork behind you. Oh, yeah. Is this new?

No, this is I've had for a little while, but since we moved- You rehung it. I like it a lot. I put it in my office. Thank you. Okay. There you go. Spencer asks, my question is about family movie traditions the three of you had growing up.

For me, it was a blockbuster runs every Friday night, immediately after school, no exceptions. So what were those family movie traditions you had growing up and any you're looking to pass on to family and friends? I mean, blockbuster runs are also part of our youth. Yeah, totally. I's not that dramatically different. I remember spending hours and hours, and like, you know, looking at the backs of VHSs

and hoping that there would be like a cassette behind the cover, you know, that you could grab. A very resonant feeling. But the family tradition that comes to mind is, I think probably started when in high school But the family tradition that comes to mind is, I think probably started when in high school or maybe when I was, or college, but for Thanksgiving night and Christmas night, I would always go to the movies with my dad

and usually my aunt Betty and uncle John. And that's a fun thing to do, but my dad always had the pick and just like a hilarious run of like the worst holiday movies. You know, like The Savages, like Synecdoche New York. I'm trying to think of some of them. That will now make it three references to Synecdoche New York on this podcast.

I know, what else? Let's see, what's something and a half grams with nine grams, do you remember the drug? Yeah, the Inuit movie. Yeah, the Inuit. Is it nine and a half? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No.

Well, you know, like all the numbers get jumbled together, but it was not an uplifting holiday movie. You know, so, and then I remember, and then- 21 grams. 21 grams, yeah. So he just like gets it incredibly wrong and I'm sitting there with my aunt and uncle just being like, this is like really inappropriate

for all of us to be watching this together. Or, you know, classics like, we went to see the romantic comedy Morning Glory, which is wonderful. And when we left, my dad was like, so will that win any Oscars? Same reaction to Chris Rock's Top Five, which was, I think, the first holiday movie

that my dad, that Zach and my dad spent together. Oh, no, no, no, it was actually Inside Llewyn Davis, which my dad and Zach absolutely loved. And I was like, it was pretty good. And then my dad said, Amanda doesn't like it if people don't talk in the movies. Which is true, which was great criticism. So... Hard to believe you ended up here.

So my dad roasting me on the holidays is my favorite holiday movie tradition. I don't... We didn't have a ton of traditions. I went to the movies all the time, obviously, with my parents. My parents split up when I was about 10, and so I would spend every other weekend at my dad's house. My dad lives on the beach in a kind of like really run down version of a Michael Mann house. And he lived in, oh shit, what was the name of the community? It was right next to Gilgo Beach where all those terrible murders happened. And, you know, when we were kids, every Saturday night, HBO premiered a new movie at 8 PM on the network.

And so sometimes it would be a comedy and sometimes it would be, uh, an action movie. And sometimes it would be like an absolutely depraved crime drama. And my dad, like every Saturday night was like, well, let's watch the HBO movie, whatever the new HBO movie is. And I'm certain that I saw several men get their heads blown off at like 10 years old because my dad was like, whatever, we're watching this. And my brother was six at the time. So that's a fond memory that I have of being a kid

and seeing movies. I mean, as far as right now, what traditions we have, Alice and I go to the movies all the time. Eileen comes with us, obviously, a lot of the time too. And now, every Sunday, we've been watching a Godzilla movie, which has been really fun and it's like themed up. And she's like, I'm ready for Godzilla. Let's do it. We watched Ibera, Horror of the Deep, which is about a giant evil crustacean

that goes to war with Godzilla yesterday. It wasn't my favorite. Um, but Alice just standing on the couch cheering during the fights. Just like, I need Godzilla to do it! You know, and like at one point Godzilla rips off the crustacean's claw and starts beating him with it. Great moment. Mothra is her fave.

So she's like cheering Mothra on to wake up, because like all of the native people that like worship at Mothra's feet, and then they have to like sing a song to awaken her Okay, so she should be like wake up Mothra. Wake up Anyway, a really weird tradition that we have going but inspired in part by Tracy who told me that he and his son had been Watching all the kaiju movies and she's been digging it. So that's a good one. That's really nice. Yeah You you're in your family have any we have Friday night movie nights Okay, but it's mostly Knox just being like, I want to watch either Porko Rosso.

Thanks to Sean and Bobby for that recommendation. Though I do have to say at one point that like Knox had a straw and then put it in his mouth like a cigarette. And he's like, I'm being like Porko. And I was like, well, maybe I should have screened this. I think CR has watched Porko We know Bill and CR would approve. I think CR has watched Porko with Knox many times on Friday night. Elite.

Robin Hoods. You know, he hates animation, but he loves planes. They are really beautiful planes. Robin Hoods, really in the rotation after Videots did the special screening. Great one, the Disney one. Top Gun Maverick, obviously. And Mary Poppins has really been hanging on in a big way. Okay.

Yeah, Singing in the Rain has fallen out, which is a little depressing for me, but we had a good run. These things come in waves. We'll get there. Yeah. Wanna do one more, Bob? Yeah, I really love this question from Sharon.

Sharon says, on an earlier episode, Sean mentioned the VF's two years down the road. Conversations with future filmmakers about the past few years down the road, conversations with future filmmakers about the film I Saw the TV Globe. This film was appreciated and discussed by critics and cinephiles, but remained largely unknown to the wider public. From this comment, I began to wonder what other films

from the last few years that were not widely recognized by the Academy or general public, but then added to the film canon? What are the lesser known recent films that are the most likely to inspire the next generation of film makers? on the show Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Myasma, which is gonna star Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson, which is at movies, so that's exciting. Uh, I mean, I wrote some stuff down. Like, I just tried to look at the last few years of movies that we liked, that were, you know,

synophilic, but maybe didn't take off in any other way. The biggest one for me from last year is Nickel Boys, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know,

so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know,

so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you know, so, you could see a world where even like two years from now, it gets like a repertory screening reputation. I mean, that's what'll happen. And then also last year, I thought of Red Rooms, which we talked about multiple times, though we never devoted an episode to it. I don't know if you ever got a chance to see it. I didn't, but it was like a solid 25 minutes on the top films of the year. Yes. Well, me and Adam and Chris were all like, you know, in the sicko meme throughout the entire film.

And I've seen that film start to get memed a little bit online that in a way that tends to signal that it's gonna be a big one. I don't know, what are some other ones for you in recent years? I wrote down Nope and was surprised that you did it. Which I mean, I understand it was moderately successful. It made like $300 million, so you know, or maybe not that much, it made a lot of money. But it did make, which I mean, I understand it was, it was moderately successful. It made like $300 million, so you know,

or maybe not that much, it made a lot of money. But it did make a lot of money, but it's funny, even some movie, some thread that you started was having some fight about like Jordan Peele and how many are like hits and how many are misses and Rope was like really tossed up, you know. Yeah, it was 170 is what it made ultimately. Yeah, which is good, but not great.

But like that has been a real cause of yours and a lot of cinephiles of just like, this is the one. Yeah, I mean, it's a, it's a, you're right. And I think that there is an increasing belief among some people that that is kind of, even though it's not as fun a movie as Get Out, that its themes are so big. And it's also a movie about movies. And movies about movies, I think something is like held against them a little bit too. Like they can get very culty, but then it's a little bit

like this is only for nerds. But yeah, I like Nope. That's a good one. Just some obvious ones like Babylon, we've spent a lot of time on. Didn't really do very much business or do much with the Oscars. Ex and Pearl, the first two movies in Ty West trilogy, I think are really, really big among cinephiles. People love those movies. The Fablemans? We've been trying. I think we're gonna get to the end of the decade

and people are gonna say to the end of the decade and people are gonna say this is one of the most important movies of his career. And some people did say that and we were very passionate about it on the show, but it was not a huge Oscar movie. It was not, it didn't do that well at the box office. Right. It was almost like Spielberg waited too long

to make his super personal, biographical story for some people. But there are many shots in that movie that are very self-reflexive and get people kind of like pondering about themselves, about their relationship to movies, about their relationship to art. It's a great movie. It is also, I mean, as soon as you say, I think Fablemen's is the answer, but also we all slept on West Side Story. I mean, like, you and I didn't. Like, we loved it.

And obviously, it was affected by the pandemic, but it was like, this is like a really great movie by one of our great living filmmakers, and no one seems to really care. I was a little cool on a bunch of Spielberg stuff in the 2010s, and I've been super hot on his last two and think that they're among his best movies in the last 25 years. So, there super hot on his last two and think that they're among his best movies

in the last 25 years. So there's others like First Cow, I think also got a big hit because it was one of the last movies released before COVID. And so like a lot of people streamed it and watched it at home. And so, you know, I think Kelly Riker's kind of profile was raised somewhat among younger movie watchers. I see a real baby girl.

I see it percolating. That's an interesting one. You know, it's like, I think that it had a certain corner of cinephiles and then also seems to, it obviously wasn't like widely seen though it did make a, it did pretty well, you know, having Nicole Kidman. People were asking us about Nicole Kidman not being on our list on our 35 over 35. That seemed to be the big omission. And there's always one where we forget about somebody.

I wouldn't have put her on the list though, because she hasn't been the star of a movie that was an authentic box office hit in like 15 years. It's been a really long time. It doesn't mean her movies aren't good. It might, honestly, what happened might have been that she fell off eligibility for one of the prior lists because she does so much TV.

And then we just forgot. Yeah, the other reason was she just does a ton of television. So she's kind of shifted. But this is really, baby girl, people are seeing it. People are referencing it. It's like, I think it's starting to get memed a little bit, like the milk and everything. You can just kind of...

What do you think about the take that it didn't go far enough? That it should have been even more sexually explicit and or depraved? Um... I... There are plenty of sexually explicit or depraved movies out there. Like, I, you know, I think... I, like, to me, it didn't feel dishonest or censored in that way. Like, the parts that fell a little flat were like the girl boss stuff and not the sex stuff.

I thought that this... What was interesting about that movie was it was exploring that particular character's sort of set of... specific set of desires, which were taboo, but not, like, perverted and weird, or not like perverted and weird, or not too perverted and too weird, just kind of like something that you're not supposed to say, rather than...

It wasn't like violent. Exactly. And I think that there, that is what makes it interesting, is the specificity of it. So I liked Baby Girl. I liked it too. Bobby, what about you? You got some recent classics that you think are going to go in the canon in the next few

years? I'll throw two at you. I don't know that this movie is going into the canon, but I do think it's doing weird enough stuff that people who make films will cite it in 20 years, and that film is Megalopolis. There's some stuff visually and just audacity-wise that I think is inspirational to people who want to make the movies. And of course, there was enough coverage about that movie that there think is inspirational to people who want to make the movies. And of course, there was enough coverage about that movie that there's a lot to learn about it. The other one is The Northman.

I think a lot of people are going to be like that. Inspired me to make something so dedicated to a specific vision about a story that is not necessarily commercial, but is still an incredible act of filmmaking. Those are the two that I would say. Both really good shouts. Megalopolis comes up again in our conversation with Alex. It does. King of the segue.

Yeah. Well, thank you. Should we go there right now? Yeah. Okay. Let's go to our conversation right now with Alex Ross-Perry. Thanks so much for all your questions out there. Alex Ross-Perry is here. He's here to talk about pavements, but I was thinking about

this. You more so, I think even than CR, than Tracy Letts, than all of these, you know, Van Lathan, these Joanna Robinson, these people who like would be king, would be third chair. Like you have been fighting the fight for longer than anybody I feel like on this show. I will say at no point in that sentence that I know where it was going. It started off... As soon as Tracy came into the picture, I was like, okay, I know where this is going. I thought it started off about, we're gonna talk about tapes or something.

Or movies. Or, you know, physical movies. But then you just pivoted to people I've never met. Maybe, I mean, I guess it's, I was just saying, this is, you know, maybe the fourth, have I recorded in more physical spaces for appearances than any guest? Because you guys did one in New York. You were there.

Well, no, that you did one without me in New York. But I was thinking last night when you were talking about the long process of making this movie that we recorded the day that you or like the day before you were doing your Pavement Museum exhibition. And I went, like, we were in New York, and you were trying to explain to us what was going on. And I, like, nodded politely. And I made promises in what, that was New York Film Festival.

Yeah. So it would have been September... Twenty-two. Twenty-two, yeah. Twenty-two. Almost three years ago. And I made promises about what the movie would be. And yeah, I was like, it's this and this and this. It was 22. Almost three years ago. And I made promises about what the movie would be.

Um, and yeah, I was like, it's this and this and this. And you followed through. And it like did actually happen. I know. It's weird when stuff like that works out. Um, Sean came to the museum that's in the movie. We recorded in person. That was, I think, something I've never heard replicated, which is we did horror draft and you just gave commentary.

Which I was extremely into. And I feel like that format has never been repeated of like... I mean in many ways that is the like half of these episodes are him just being like, let me tell you about Minecraft and I'm just like, let me tell you about the rest of the world. This was really like me, you and Chris had had draft prep. And you were like, I'm here to talk about my aversion to this genre and my unwillingness to explore it at all. And it was, I thought, pretty good. I enjoyed it. I learned a lot about you. I think of you every Halloween now

and your various backyard installations. How is that going? It's gonna pop off this year, because I have, I moved upstate. So I have a big yard now. Okay, and then everything came with you. Well, I only had a few things and they were small. Can you share any of your plans off this year, because I have, I moved upstate. So I have a big yard now. OK, and when everything came with you? Well, I only had a few things, and they were small. Can you share any of your plans for this year?

Well, I've already started buying blow molds. OK. My plans are that I move, and like, Facebook Marketplace, like in small towns is really useful. In New York, it's not. In LA, it's probably not. OK. And I just, you can start picking up Halloween blow molds in like March. And I'm collecting.

You're gonna open it to the public? Is it like another museum? No, no. But I was told when we looked at the house, like Halloween in this town is crazy. So I was like, good, I need to compete. You said you're somewhat proximate to Sleepy Hollow, which is exciting. Yeah, we're like less than an hour. Yeah, it's a lovely part of New York. And that's further south, but we'll be there.

Well, so wait, in terms of recordings... The amount of information covered in like three minutes is so astonishing at this point. This is how we do. Because me trying to talk about how many locations I visited. So you... Now we're talking about my Halloween record. So you're here in LA, you never recorded with us in LA before?

No, you did in Hollywood. You came into the old studio in Hollywood. And I think you said it was like year one of the show. It might have been year one. Was it for Golden Exits? Yeah. Okay, so you also went to the Manhattan office in One World Trade. You also went to the Brooklyn studio, which is no longer open.

So this is my fourth physical... There's one more, do you remember? Oh, in South by Southwest. South by Southwest. Yes, with Elizabeth Moss. Yeah. Now that's obviously not a proprietary space of yours, but... Well, it is now. I bought it after that conversation and I wanted to memorialize that space.

Another Spotify land grab. So I've recorded in a huge amount of physical spaces, which is weird because I feel like I often do it on Zoom also. That's true. You've been on Zoom a few times. My point is... Has anyone else been in that many spaces other than employees of this company? I don't think so. I mean, I haven't been in that many spaces other than employees of this company? I don't think so.

I mean, I haven't been in that many spaces. Yeah, that's not true. As the, I, because I'm not South by Southwest and I don't think I've ever been in the Manhattan studio. So... Is that true? Yeah. Wow, we gotta correct that.

Your last New York trip was the Brooklyn studio. I guess so. I, yeah. Shame on you. What are you doing? Sorry, I had a child. Yeah, tough. It's only slightly more...

austere than this one. Okay. You don't feel warm in at home here? Um, it's warm. I might take my jacket off during recording. We're not the ones on sleep stay. We are also allowed to stop down and adjust the temperature. I see you, Jack. Thank you for your support always.

You walk into an office like this and you're like, it's either going to be 55 degrees in here, and I need to wear a jacket for two hours, or it's going to be like weirdly warm because of the lights. I think it being an unseasonably warm 93 degrees in Los Angeles this morning is a factor. We don't quite know how to react to that in May. It's usually 70 or lower in May, oddly in this city. Anyhow, hey, welcome to LA. Scintillating stuff. Yeah.

You… You made a movie. You screened Pavements last night. Yes, we did. You've been screening it around the country, around the world? You went to Canada? Relatively, yeah. You went to Venice? Yes, I went to Venice.

Famously. New York Film Festival? Yeah. The world's getting smaller when you include that. But Rotterdam. And I played a bunch of places I didn't go. Rotterdam, pretty fancy. I love the London Film Festival.

Which, you know, should be on your radar. It should. I'd love to go. It feels like the kind of thing you could lobby for. Sure. Who's, I mean, she could for. Yeah. Sure. Who's... Wait, I mean, she could lobby and I could decline. Would you decline London in October? I love London.

October. Oh, that would be... We could... Is it like right after New York? Or is it before New York? It is directly after New York. Oh, so we could just keep going. Keep flying east. OK, sure. Thanks for furthering this issue. It's really...

It's a festival I have a lot of affinity for. OK, but you did not go or you did? I did. OK. It's held in the Prince Charles among dozens of other theaters. We love the Prince Charles. It's a beautiful time of year to be in a beautiful place. And I was there for this.

And then, you know, when you're young, you can go to 15 international festivals. When you have family, you can go to like two. Right. Has the film been rapturously received and have you been called a genius? It has. Yes, these are all true things, which is... Which is interesting, not because I want that for myself,

but because it's an obtuse thing that's risky and strange and it's the risk of failure in this is severe, not because it's like controversial, but because it's like you're just giving someone something that's in a shape that is radically unfamiliar. And the response could just be like, nice try. Right? Like, I can't even think of something that that's like. So the fact that people are warm.

Megalopolis, perhaps? Almost, yeah. There's a little hint of that. This is the Indie Rock Megalopolis. I feel a huge affinity for Megalopolis. And when I saw it, basically like four or five days before our New York premiere, I was like, this is so in step with what I'm about.

And I loved the experience of being like, this is just someone else who's working through something and going like, why does it have to be this way? Why can't I just like do something different? I wish the film had gone further. As I've conveyed to you, my ultimate edit of Megalopolis is it edited together with this Mike Figgis documentary. Oh, yes. Where it's like...

Have you seen that? No. But like, as with this movie, which you've now both seen, like, wouldn't most movies, or at least a Megalopolis type movie, be better if it's like, this scene's not working. And then you just cut to them making the scene and you're like, all right, now this has some juice. Well, some of the greatest movies of all time do have that component. Like Apocalypse Now has that, Fitzcarraldo has that, and those movies' legends are bigger

because of the fact that those things exist. That sort of like external documentary about the making of the thing. But you decided to put the documentary inside the making of the scripted film and the musical that is also inside another kind of documentary about a reunion. Like it is all of the pieces altogether smashed in. It's like a Turducken.

It is, yeah. I think I feel like people used to talk about a lot. I was going to say do we need to translate that for people under 30 who listen to this bypass who weren't on the internet? Yeah, it was like a meme before me. Like people just thought it was funny. My memory of it is that it was John Madden at the NFL games on the Thanksgiving that was rolling out the Turducken to be served to whomever was attending. Again, is everyone under 30 logging on to that? Do they even know who John Madden is?

I don't know. Do they play that game? Many people do. Okay. I don't know. It's a Turducken of a movie, which I've never said before, and I'll never say again, because it's a horrifying phrase,

but Malthmus said about Wile Wees Alley, it's an album with its own B-sides on it. 18 tracks, as opposed to the traditional 10, 11, 12. So we just thought, let's make a movie with its own discarded material in it, but let's make a movie with its own EPK in it. But you also told... Electronic Prescott. Let's make a movie with its own, like, table read in it. Let's make a movie with its own... Like, I'm in the movie. Like, make a movie with the director in the movie,

both as a character and then in, like, footage. I didn't know we had a camera rolling when I was talking. But I'm like, sure, put it in. Like, that's a fine moment. But the extra material also becomes part of the text itself. It does. It is the text. Yeah. It's the text because... It's like a movie about process. I don't know.

Like, that's a weird thing to say if you haven't seen it, but... Like, if you're making a documentary, which I've never done before, except for my short piece on Paul Schrader for Criterion Channel, it's like, what are you making? And you make something first,

and then that dictates what you're shooting next, and then you're like, we'll figure this out, we'll figure this out. And the first thing we filmed was... seven, eight, nine days of the band rehearsing. And we were like, this could be very boring. And I thought it was very interesting. So the next thing we filmed, I thought, well, the buildup to the show became more interesting than the show itself.

I feel like we're probably going to skew, like, 70-30. And then 70-30. And then the 70-30 became kind of like, that should be everything. And, uh, as you may know, the structure of this film to me, I was like, let's just rip off Dunkirk. Okay. I see it. I see it.

I think once I say that, people are like, you know, that's incredibly obvious now that you say it. It is. It is like a tripartite... I did not think of Dunkirk while watching it. But it is things taking place in different temporal spans. Dunkirk is a week, a day, and an hour. And about an hour into the movie, they all are happening at the same time. And seriously, when I was in the movie, I was like,

I've never seen something like this. I cannot believe that these three things converged, seeming like they've taken place concurrently, even though I know they haven't. And I just got really excited by like, this is a hundred million dollar World War II film made by one of our greatest. Let's just copy that as a structure and a format

for a non-fiction film about a 90s alternative rock band. Because building these different components into a cohesive thing just felt achievable to say, like, we'll hit that Dunkirk moment like an hour and 10 into our movie, where everything is suddenly like it's locked in. And now like all four wheels are turning at the same time. And the moment in the movie where the band is performing a song called Grounded, well

known to fans, at the Fonda Theater here in LA. Joe Keery is playing Grounded in a filming fake biopic moment. Michael Esper is performing Grounded on a musical theater performance of Pavement's song. And a supergroup of young women, Bully, mommy, snail, male, speedy, or tease, are playing grounded at the ribbon cutting of this museum that Sean graciously attended that you were seeing movies at the New York Film Festival during. They're all four cut together. And we have archival footage of the band playing grounded. So five. And that moment, which is two minutes in the

movie, is like, that is four years of work, to have like a bunch of different people playing the same song in different things filmed over two years. And that kind of effort is really interesting to me because it doesn't look hard. It just looks like you're cutting these things together, which is so easy to cut things together. But you have to build every one of those things

from the ground up. Like it's the simplest thing to watch and the hardest thing to make. And that challenge of process to me was like, I want to make a movie that way. Not for a hundred million dollars, for barely a million dollars. And what if we did that? Like, could that be done? Why would that be? I've never seen that.

They all look like documentary moments, but there's not a single thing in there that I didn't, you know, vehemently put my finger on the scale to create. Why not? Can I ask a follow-up? Yeah, ask all of them. All right. I mean, I'm asking Sean if I can step in. Because, okay, so...

I'm so excited to have you here for... I feel like I'm not used to being, like, at the back half of an episode now. I haven't put out a movie since Her Smell, where we talked at South by Southwest for maybe 20 minutes. So you're ready. I'm happy to be in the back half and I'm happy to have you here, so jump in. I want to ask about how you get to...

And you're both in the movie, we didn't even mention that yet. Well, our names are. Your names are in the movie. Spoiler. You zoomed yet. Well, our names are. Your names are in the movie. Spoiler. Spoiler. But you zoomed in. Is this our trailer? Yeah, we are in the trailer. And my sister-in-law, I told you, my sister-in-law saw it at Film Forum.

She was like, hey, I don't really know what pavement is, but did you know you're in this trailer? And I was like, I do. I do. You know they're in the trailer because you posted a screen grab of it when the trailer came out. Did I do that? Yeah. My brain is shot. I am shot.

Okay, anyway, that's lovely. Okay. The broad version of this question is like, like, where the hell did this come from? You know, but let's bring it back to the Dunkirk moment. So, as you said, there is a point pretty early in the movie where you have four or five different things going on. You've got archival, you've got the docu...

You've got the biopic. Yeah. You've got the musical, you've got the museum. Yeah. Those are my three things that we built. Yeah, so those are your three timelines. Yeah. That you built.

Archival plus the actual documentary up there. It would be like if you... And Dunkirk also had a component that was footage that John Ford shot during World War II. Yeah. Or, you know, David Lean more realistically. And yeah, like that would be a fine... In which we serve was blended together.

Right. Yeah, with Dunkirk. So it's many years of work and a lot of creation to get to that point. When did you, and how did you decide that what you really needed to this, in addition to the rehearsal footage that you mentioned, was all three of these things, a biopic, a musical, and a museum, and that they all needed to come together? All at once.

Immediately. This was the idea. Yeah, I was recently asked and I was on like a phone interview so I could just like look at my computer and like my first document, which is May 2020, which I must have done within a week of Danny Goodbye, one of the movie's producers, just saying, would you be interested in this? Malcomis seems not unlike a fictional character in Alex's movie.

Put together some ideas. And the idea has changed, but the idea... One of the... It was a bad biopic on paper. It was a museum on paper, and then it was a art film on paper. And I said it would be like art film like Edvard Munch. Like a very austere silent movie about like an alternative musician. Which is essentially Last Days. And that idea obviously didn't click, but I did later find that I texted Melchmus,

I was like, have you seen this movie? Asking him if he knew the film. Uh, one of my favorites, a film kind of in and out of circulation physically, I feel by the way, not very present in the culture. I feel like it did come out a few years ago, but anyway, um, for whatever reason, like this just goes into the sort of, um, like the movie junkie answer, which is if you love stuff, you just watch things all the time and we. And we all, you know this, this is your life. This is your job.

And to me, the whole question is like, I just consume. I consume and I consume and I consume and I consume fiction and I consume nonfiction and I'm inspired by whatever. And the freedom to say I'm inspired by something irrelevant is very nice. Like, usually you can't do that. You can't... I was saying to Sean last night, the Sean-produced Alanis Morissette documentary, or EP, or I don't know what your credit is on these movies.

Yeah, EP. Like, that movie and the Tina Turner movie on HBO, I must have seen around the same time, and they both have those women going to a Broadway show of their music. Right. And it's just like, in a film, like, nothing else you could do, you'd be like, that's inspiring to me. And it's not even that seeing it once was inspiring,

seeing it twice was inspiring. And I got very excited by that, because like you get older and you get tired of what you do and you're just looking for something else. You're looking for the freedom to be like, I need to just smash the wall. I need to do something different because it's boring. And this opportunity, a multifaceted portrait of a extremely complex, multi-dimensional, brilliant figure like Malcomis and the strange output of this

band and their odd story over the years, I just instantly was like, there's so much freedom here. I can do whatever I want. Especially because the band said, don't make a traditional documentary. Don't make a movie about how great we are. We don't want to be in it at all or very much. So you need to think of other ways to tell the story. And sort of it should feel written.

And with that, I was just like, so we'll have other people playing you. We'll have a whole jukebox musical where we hear the music that way. Let me film you as you rehearse for this tour. And that might be it. That might be all I need. And then come to the ribbon cutting. And that was kind of basically the promise I delivered on. Because, you know, you just look for permission to be like,

I'm bored, but I'm inspired by many things. And there's a line in the movie where Malcolm is just saying, what he says, like, inspired by, like, the Eagles for Rangelife or Classic Rock for Silence Kid. I'm always inspired by things that sound like shit to me. I don't know why that is, but I still am. And it's the same thing. It's like,

people are afraid to be inspired by something that you're like, well, this is bad. I'd like to do something exactly like this, but I want to contextualize it in a creative way where it's bad on purpose, but the process is what I'm making the movie about. But like, I'm trying to find my own truth in a form that is irrelevant to me. Or I'm trying to make a biopic, but like, you know, you're, we're watching all these things. You guys have to, so you have no choice.

Yeah. You wonder why I. So you have no choice. Yeah. You wonder why I make you do episodes about Marvel movies. I think Alex just summarized it very eloquently. Yeah. I mean, I do understand. Well, sort of. It's also because they are the most popular movie form. They were. They were. They no longer are. And now they are. And what is now? Uh, Pavements. It's really exciting.

Uh, yeah. Wait, can we go back to something you just mentioned? Second highest per screen average of the weekend after Thunderbolts. No kidding. What is now? Uh, pavements. It's really exciting. Uh, yeah. Wait, can we go back to something you just mentioned? Second highest per screen average of the weekend after Thunderbolts. No kidding. Literally, yes. But with a mass... An asterisk that would put the one in Thunderbolts to shame. Such a huge asterisk. But our producer was like, it's very funny that they had,

like, a 17,000 per screen average, and we had 13,000 on one screen. It was 4,200 screens versus one. But you got something to be proud of. You did say, though, that... So the band said that they would want it to feel written, which I don't think I had heard you say before. Why was that? Do you know?

I think Malcolm has felt that if you hired a documentary filmmaker, you'd get a documentary. And if you hired someone with a narrative approach, you would get something that was structured in a way that felt more like a piece. Okay. Uh, like a piece of material. And that was just the first thing I was told.

And I was like, I can approach this. I love writing, I love overwriting. And it was just a mysterious thing that the whole thing was just there. And I, but it's also like, this is the perfect thing for Sean. Like, you know, you use what you're supposed to do. You use your job, your opportunities to be like, I'm just going to like, put all of my attention on this thing that I care about, because I can. But no one else would let me do that.

But I have created a world where I can do whatever I want. And I can be like, I'm putting my foot down and this is the thing we're all gonna do. And for me, it's like, I love archival work. I love museum curation. I love museum curation. I love thinking about the stories told through objects. Most people do, this is not an original thing of mine. But I love it so much, I wanna do it.

And I was like, well, if I just create the conceit of a museum, I get to go through the archive. I get to wear white gloves and touch priceless objects. And I get to fill in the gaps with a production designer, which I also love. Right. And I would love to be like a pop-up curator. And it was so fun to make a pop-up exhibit and create a physical experience for people to come,

walk through a room, be together, look at things, take pictures, like figure out which corner we want to be, like, that's our Instagram corner. Everyone's going to take pictures in front of this wall. Like it was really fun to design a room that way as a physical space that is a movie set, but is also just like me getting to poke around the archives for six months. And I love musicals. I love theater.

And I just have to create my own opportunity. Like, you know, no one's going to say, like, somebody saw your movie, they'd like you to make a musical. But I would like to do that, or I'd like to at least try it. Do you think someone will see this and be like, would you like to do a real musical? Well, the only thing that's happened is people saying, we want to bring the musical back.

And do it for real. Which could be great. I want to ask about the performance in the musical, but maybe can you... You must like musicals. Well, it's interesting. I felt, I think that you and I probably have a similar... I appreciate them when they're well done,

and I also see the absurdity in them, which seems to be your take on what's going on in the musical. But explain to people how you, where you wrote the musical portion of the movie. Before you do, I just want to people how you, where you wrote the musical portion of the movie. Before you do, I just want to say to me, this is the divining thing of the movie. This is the thing that makes this... It's very special.

...such a brilliant success, the musical aspect of it, yes. Yeah. The ideas, the way you think about the band, the way that you create documentary format, the way that you replicate some of your previous experience as a narrative filmmaker, like, those are all things that I knew you could do. And I know, since I know you know, the way that you replicate some of your previous experiences as a narrative filmmaker, like those are all things that I knew you could do. And I know, since I know you well, like I know that you have an affinity for those things. The musical aspect is genuinely inspired and right on

that incredible line that I find so many musicals are of like, this is glorious and terrible at the same time. And it feels like an active choice to make it that way. Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm a big fan of the medium, but not of like the contemporary version of the mixtape musical, the jukebox musical. Not because I don't like them. I don't think I've ever seen one. I've missed all the ones that are even vaguely relevant that everyone in this movie has been a part of.

I didn't go to the Sufjan Stevens musical that came out right after we made this, but by all accounts, it's identical, but not done as a joke. Which, you know, is good for the people who made it. But like, I'm very inspired by that move, by that show's marketing material. And we've replicated that marketing material with our own marketing material. I'm just like these kind of ham-fisted shots of people like sitting there talking about finding the store. Like, we've replicated it.

Exactly, because it's so silly. And it cuts to these shots of like, people dancing to Sufjan Stevens' music, holding like a lit-up ball. And I'm like, this is just what we did. But we did it in eight weeks for fun. And no one's gonna give me a Tony for it, but I would take one.

And like, the thing about the band to me, which, you know, like, in declining order, like, Chris, favorite, Sean, familiar with you, you know, presumably unfamiliar, less familiar. LESS familiar. Yeah. So it's like, it's a sliding scale, but to me, like, like, name a band that you're like,

I could really lock in on a documentary about this band. Just like someone that you're like, this would be my shit. And like, if it was happening, I'd be like the expert with my arms crossed. The Strokes would be your answer. Yeah, okay, a perfect answer. If you were like, I'm gonna ask a hundred Strokes fans, give me like five qualities, family feud style,

that really speak to what you love about the band. It would, those answers would be very similar. This just like beautiful retro analog feel, the style, the kind of detachment, this New York quality. Everyone would give the same answers. But pavement are the opposite of that. If you ask 100 fans, someone is like, I love that Malcolm is a brat, he's a slacker, he's funny,

he doesn't take anything seriously, the whole thing just feels totally ironic. And then someone's like, he's a poet. You know, Yasi has his lyrics tattooed on her. Like, his man has changed my life. Sincerity. I cry when I listen to their music. They got me... And it's like, okay, so that's the same band. The two completely opposed.

The paradox is true, though, in his case. That's part of what makes him so flexible. And that paradox was the paradox of structuring the movie with different segments, of smashing them together, That's part of what makes him so flexible. And that paradox was the paradox of structuring the movie with different segments, of smashing them together, and of creating one piece of the movie. And the biopic does this as well, where you're like, you're merging highbrow and lowbrow,

you're merging irony and sincerity, you're merging real and fake, as like a conceit of how we made it. And the musical is just that, where I was like... A, as I say in the movie, as the character directing the musical. A, I think this will work. B, I think it will be good. C, I don't think you could do this with many other bands. And D, like... why not?

Like, just because I feel like some of these things that exist, musicals, biopics, I really feel like the decision-making process stopped and ended it, why not? It's like, yeah, oh, why not? Like, that'd be fine. People would come to that. And I just was like, why not? And it seemed like a great...

And originally, when the movie wasn't Dunkirk, when the movie was Mishima, where I thought it'd be chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, the musical would have been first. And the musical would have been a sort of breezy, Billy Elliot-inspired, chapter two, chapter three, the musical would have been first. And the musical would have been a sort of breezy, Billy Elliot-inspired, small town, working class story about kids who just want to get out of their small town through music. And it would have been a way to give the first 30 minutes of the movie 30 straight minutes of music.

45 songs, just one after the other. Right. Performed in Broadway style. No, that would have been a movie. This was, of one after the other. Right, performed in Broadway style. No, that would have been a movie. This was the first one we thought we raised three times as much as we did. And, but then it became theater as a way of differentiating it. And then it became less literally the story of the band.

And then it became a sort of Greek chorus throughout the movie. So like the whole idea was there immediately but everything changed up until the edit. And I just thought it'd be fun to like, the whole idea was there immediately, but everything changed up until the edit. And I just thought it'd be fun to, like... You know, I love... I got to go to work in Times Square for two months. I will say I was very moved by your performance

sitting at a folding table during rehearsals. That was like the... It's me and Banderas and Baby Girl sitting at the folding table doing theater rehearsals in, like, the canon of recent nonsense. And that movie really gets one thing wrong, which is after the show opens, he's still in the theater at the table. And I've learned like that would never happen. When the show's open, the director's retired and the stage manager runs the show. And that show opens, they go to opening night and then

like weeks later he's still showing up and sitting at the lighting console, which is bogus. An expert like me has learned from doing this once as a joke. But I sat at the table. Yeah. And, you know, I contributed. But I wrote the musical, which is sung through. No dialogue. At my residency on Bergman Island.

Which was a great thing I did after seeing the film, which I assume you both... Yeah, of course. You probably liked the movie. Have you, speaking of Bergman Island and Jukebox Musicals, have you seen Mamma Mia? No, I've never seen it. Wow, okay. Well, that is...

Well, I just, you know, there's a climactic Abba song used in both films. Very movingly. Yeah. I feel like that maybe is your pavements. Like, you should deconstruct Mamma Mia and then rebuild it through different mediums. And yeah, I'll say this of being on Bergman Island that we went, there's like, it's called Foro.

Far, yeah. People may not know what it is. You should explain like what it actually is. The actual island or the movie? Yeah, well, the island, or people could just go watch the movie. So, Ingmar Bergman just moved to some island off the coast of an island called Visby, which is off the coast of Sweden. So, it's an island off the coast of an island.

I think the island of Foro is, like, maybe the size of Silver Lake. It's, like, preposterously small. And, um, it feels like you've left the planet Earth. He filmed four or five movies there, notably Persona and Shame, Parts of Scenes from a Marriage. Mia Hansen Love makes the film Bergman Island. I saw it, like, on a Thursday, applied for the residency on a Monday. Mia Hansen Love makes the film Bergman Island. I saw it like on a Thursday, applied for the residency on a Monday.

I was there the following summer. And you know, I had like, I was there for three weeks and you go to Bergman's house to work, which is seen in the film. Actually, there's an important thing coming here for you that you'll be excited by. And it's at the end of the movie when Vicky Creeps goes to like his house,

which is presented as like this sanctum And you just go to his house and work and his house is so quiet I had to open a window because I was getting a migraine. It was so quiet Like i've just never been somewhere that's that hermetically Removed from civilization And it's on the beach. It's on the rocks and I had to open a window so I could hear the ocean because I was like I feel like i'm in a deprivation chamber. And that's where he worked. And I, there's no Wi-Fi, so I downloaded 40 pavement songs, and I crafted this structure based on the chronological working of their discography

of the 40-ish songs I had chosen. And looking at the lyrics of like, oh, this lyrical passage suggests this guy leaving a small town, They have a song called All My Friends. Everyone's going out tonight. Tonight, all my friends are strangers. And I'm like, that's a great song to show that this guy is moving away from the people he's come up with and he's leaving. There's not a second of that in the movie,

but it was very crucial in like the story of the musical. And it just kind of got built from that. And this is all the way of saying like, this is 20 minutes of the movie. And, like, I worked on it for a year. And that's insane. That's very silly. Um... And you, like, did rehearsals and you filmed rehearsals

and then built a set. Like, the audition scene, A, like, I wanted the chorus line, all that jazz, like, New York, creaky wooden floors, audition scene. You could script that scene and hire actors to do it, or you could just like put out a casting call and hang up signs saying you're being filmed.

And we got half of our cast from that open call. And we got a lot of people being like, is this a prank? What am I doing here? But it's a good scene. And I just wanted that scene in the movie. That's where I sit hard at that table. Yeah, it's really...

But, you know, I had to pay attention. Yeah. I had to watch what everyone was doing. You're looking for something, you're not sure if you're gonna find it. You're communicating all of that. Well, really, Angela Trimber, who was the choreographer and ultimately co-director of the... You know, I was just like, I'm not gonna tell you who to cast.

You cast who you can work with. Mm-hmm. We had Michael Esper, Zoe Lister-Jones, and Catherine Gallagher. So for the ensemble, I was like, you guys just need mercenary dancers. Cast whoever you want. And it was fine. And, but yeah, we did a lot of work for something that's like inscrutable in the movie. But to me, that's like, isn't that part of the fun?

Like, isn't working more fun than having worked? If you're doing something cool. Yeah, if you're doing it on your own terms and your own ideas, yeah. Right, like, it's not that I wanted the musical to be over. She said with sorrow in her voice. Well, I don't know, I think not everyone, like, it's, you know, like, because you, as you said,

you get to do exactly what you want to do. You are just making this crazy thing, and everyone's going for it with you. Yes, it's create... I mean, the Synecdoche New York comparison comes up. A movie of horror, but... I respect the comparison. And...

That's the Alex I know. That just popped out. That was not Press Tour Alex. I respect the comparison. Oh, yeah, we're off the record now, I think. I respect the comparison and I get it. And what I respect is what I wanted out of that movie. But anyway, so the Bergman thing, so I'm in his house, I'm writing the musical,

and then we rewatched Bergman Island when we were there. We were staying in the house where the characters stayed. And the house where some scenes from scenes from a marriage were shot. That's a Russian nesting doll right there. In his house, the scene with her, and what's the guy's name? And the house where some scenes from scenes from a marriage were shot. Um... That's a Russian nesting doll right there. In his house, the scene with her, and what's the guy's name? Anders Danielsen Lee? Yeah. Yeah.

They're like in his living room. And then they walk and then they're in his library. But they skip a room in the middle, which is Bergman's... video room. Oh, my God, your face. Where he has... Are his videos in there? I counted like 2,500 video tapes. Oh, my God, your face. Where he has... Are his videos in there? I counted like 2,500 videotapes.

Oh. Organized alphabetically and, you know, sort of by section. Because he has a lot of theater and there's like a theater section. And everyone... Alphabetically by title or... Yeah. And then within the theater section, that's alphabetical and there seem to be like subsections of different countries.

But then, you know, this legend, oh, he's so cold to his children and this and that. And behind the door is an entire shelf of children's movies. Twenty Swedish Pippi Longstocking films. And I'm like, we couldn't have been that cold if he had like a hundred tapes for his grandchildren to come watch. Or, as you know, maybe he was just trying to avoid spending time with them by putting something on the television.

Yeah, but it's far away. Like, you don't bring your grandkids there and then... It's a good point. It's not like they stopped by. And there's nowhere else to go. It's the ends of the earth. Sure, but once you're there, you gotta have... Gotta kill that.

...20, 30 last seconds, yeah. And, but you know, so like the screening room, as seen in the film, was right in front of our house, which is not where his house was. It's like in front of his other house. Okay. Kind of like his office house. I don't think I knew that you had done that.

I knew a lot of what was going on during the production of the film, but when I visited the museum, which is just, again, another ingenious stroke of the movie, I don't think I understood what was happening. I was like, I thought it was just a day's event. It was sort of a celebration oriented around the production of the film,

not that it was an intrinsic part of the design of the movie. And did you even explain that? Maybe you did. I don't know. At the time, I wanted to get you on camera because I wanted to have interviews with experts and have you talk about music and movies. And we just ended up not doing that

because there's too much going on. Yeah, it was intrinsic. And we didn't announce that on Saturday, there'll be four bands playing and the guys will be there. We just, the reason there's 800 people in the room is because we all told our friends to come. The label brought 200 people. The band's families came.

It was a scene. I remember it was a rainy day and it was a scene. We really stacked the room. But people who just happened to be like, oh, I'll go to that on Saturday. We're like, what on earth is going on? Like, why is the band here? Why are all these bands playing? But it was just filmmaking in public, which is interesting to me. Because that is documentary filmmaking, but the entire conceit was like, I spent nine months curating this room and we spent a month production designing it. Custom building vitrines to hold zines

and xeroxes of zines that we couldn't find and like fakery on top of other stuff. And I noticed that pavement shirts were $300, $400, $500 on Depop and grailed. So we just made an entire wall of fake t-shirts, where it's, if they were real, that'd be like $10,000 worth of shirts. But instead, that's like... $1,000 worth of production design. And they were all aged to look very old. And it's authentic, like, but that's, but instead, it's like... a thousand dollars worth of production design. And they're all aged to look very old. And it's authentic, like, but that's, you know...

If you take a picture in front of it and you have a good time, what does it matter that we made that last week and it's not from 1994? Like, that's not what it's about. But it was intrinsic, and... Because, like, another movie, a movie I would watch, a movie you might even executive produce, you have the ephemera, you just shoot it against black felt.

That's fine. I'll look at that. And another movie would interview Sophie Allison from Sacramami and have her talk about her love of the band. But that's the ob... I didn't want to do that. I wanted to take the ephemera and put it in front of everybody, have the band look at it on camera for the first time in decades, and have the musicians not just speak, but just sing their three favorite songs. But in the movie, every one of these younger artists,

they get two songs and you hear each one for 40 seconds. That doesn't mean we didn't fly these bands in from all over the country. There's an entire other song everyone played that I couldn't even tell you right now, because I forget. This is not in the movie. I don't remember what the third song she played was. I don't know. I definitely stayed for Snail, Mail, and Bully,

I think, when I was there. And it was just a good show. It looked fine. Yeah. Yeah, it was a good show. And some of the artists requested to play the song a second time, which obviously confused people who had no idea what was going on. And we filmed the ribbon cutting twice because we had the ribbons, the ribbon was a prop, and we filmed it once from the front and once from the back.

And the same speech, and of course, everyone in the room was like, why are they doing this a second time? Steve really did it with Gusto in the film, I gotta say. One of his most spirited moments in that. He's having fun. He's having some fun. The shot of him lifting up the scissors was filmed by Joshua Weinstein,

who made the film Menace. He was there shooting for us that day. Had a real murderer's row of fiction, non-fiction people there. So the people who just show up are like, what's going on? Don't really know that we have a film. And the musical. So they show up for the audition. Once they're cast... Yeah.

So, yeah, explain that. And then there is a climactic performance of the musical with an audience. We performed it for an audience three times. Okay, wow. And privately just for cameras once. Or sort of once with like, we need to do that one again. Like, people got cast in the show.

None of the ensemble had heard of the band. One girl, a girl... Sophie, long brown hair, is like a real indie rock fan. She knew the band. No one else had ever heard them or heard of them. And ultimately, we cut all the scenes of me explaining the band to them. And, you know, just being like, this is the vibe. Like, imperfection is fine. Embrace it. Sloppiness is a virtue, you can, you know...

Musical theater owners don't want to hear that. They don't want to hear it, it doesn't have to be perfect. That's not what they love. You're just giving these people a shot, these people who go to an open audition and then suddenly they get cast in a role that's an official actor's equity stamped production on a stage in New York.

Like, that's legit. It's like being an actor who just wanders in and ends up being a corpse on Law and Order. That's what you want, that's what you moved to New York, like, that's legit. It's like being an actor who just wanders in and ends up being a corpse on Law & Order. That's what you want, that's what you moved to New York for. So they're having a blast and they're giving it their all. They don't care about the cameras. I learned very quickly, these people, these performers, these eight members of the cast, and ultimately even

Zoe, Michael, and Catherine as the leads, they're excited to be in a movie, and they know we're filming, but they don't really care. Because keeping in mind, that was three years ago. Michael and Catherine as the leads, they're excited to be in a movie. And they know we're filming, but they don't really care. Because keeping in mind, like, that was three years ago. Like, I couldn't explain the movie. I could just be like, it's this tapestry of a bunch of bullshit, of an artist you have no context for, that means nothing to you.

And this is going to be interwoven. And everyone's like, I stopped listening to you while you. And this is going to be interwoven. And everyone's like, I stopped listening to you while you were explaining this because we're on the clock and I need to like do my routine. I need to work on these bizarre lyrics. I need to figure out this choreography. Film us all you want. Like I genuinely don't know or care. And certainly once we're on the stage, because we then did a week at our theater of building the sets, doing tech rehearsal, certainly once we're on the stage, because we then did a week at our theater of building the sets, doing tech rehearsal, certainly when we're in there, they're like, I so don't care that you're filming.

Like, the filming is so immature to my creative process of doing this. And that's really nice to have your performers in a movie be like, I don't even want to think about the movie that you're making. Instead of like, I'm hyperfixated on the movie that you're making. Instead of like, I'm hyper fixated on the movie that you're making. I only care about the shot, the image, my line. Can I try that again?

It's amazing to be like, I've scripted all of this. You're all in this bubble. This Bergman-esque bubble of performance and reality. And you just don't care. Like you're just living, you know, like then when I saw it, it was something like Zone of Interest. And I was like, why is this movie filmed this way? Like, what do just living in like... Then when I saw it, it was something like Zone of Interest. And I was like, why is this movie filmed this way? Like, what do these shots look like?

And it's like, oh, they just had cameras all over the house. And the actors didn't know. And I'm like, see, that's incredible. Like, that's just an idea of someone being like, what if... Yeah, we surveilled this family. What if? Like, what if I just did this thing that's incredibly obvious? I'm not inventing technology. I'm not like, you know, remaking the wheel. But it's just like, what if we just did it this way? Make a virtue of deficiencies, as Malcolm says in the movie.

Like, just do something. We don't have the money to do so much. So why don't we just use, we don't have the money to... You see a scene in a movie where someone goes to see a play. And if something's got to give, for example. Sure, yeah. You know, you have to pay all those people to sit in the room until AI replaces the work of SAG actors, as is obviously threatened by the special effects industry.

But we had people pay us to be in the movie because we put on a show for them. They bought a ticket, they were cheap. So yeah, how are you publicizing it? It was Pavement's Instagram and Mattersur's Instagram and it sold out in 10 minutes. There was just like two workshop performances, Friday and Saturday, $30, come on. And people were like, what is this, I'm going.

And that was it. And they were in the movie and the reality of what was happening was very vague to people. We have cameras everywhere, which is either relevant or not. Some people were like, something's up. Some people were like, I recognize that guy, he's a filmmaker. He's like running around, like, moving, like, talking about the cameras.

There must be something going on here. But we did the museum and the musical without announcing that there was a movie. So there's no reason to be like, what's up? It's more just like, like, people walked into the museum, who I vaguely knew, and I was just sitting at a table. We had three very easy days at the museum. And then one very complicated day. And the other day, I was at a table, tea, laptop.

People would walk in and be like, what are you doing? They're like, oh, we're making a movie right now. It's like, what do you mean? It's like, oh, well, that guy over there, talking to those people, that's my friend. He's an actor. He's playing a curator. And that other guy is filming them. And they're all mic'd and they're signed up.

And they're like, what are you doing? And I'm like, nothing, I just hired him to play this character. He's over there doing his own thing. None of that ended up in the thing, but this guy Jay, who plays Peter Delfino, the curator of the museum, is a die-hard fan. And we were like, yeah, just come six hours a day, walk around, same costume, same wardrobe,

and just everyone who comes in, introduce yourself as Peter Delfino, curator. Just talk to people. And we were like, yeah, just come six hours a day, walk around, same costume, same wardrobe, and just everyone who comes in, introduce yourself as Peter Delfino, curator. Just talk to people and just like, get their stories. Their stories about the band. And then he's the one presenting the ribbon cutting. And I'm like, I mean, I'm directing the movie, but I'm like mostly just kind of focused on the cup of tea.

And, you know, I left the museum to go record the big picture. It's not like I had to work that hard. We all... I just left for a couple of hours. And then came back. So it's not like I was, you know, actually doing anything. Uh, but I had done work for months and months. And that's like kind of an amazing way to work. Like you can just hit record and leave.

How did you afford to get Griffin Newman in the movie? That's a great question. Um, blackmail. Yeah. Severe black question. Blackmail. Yeah. Severe blackmail. Very effective. The good Griffin story is like, we wrapped the movie, the biopic, which features Joe Keery as Malcomus,

Matt Wolfe as Spiral Stairs, Fred Heckinger as Bob, Logan Miller as Mark Ible, and then Griffin as Steve West, the drummer. And Steve West now is like a burly man, big guy, beard, he's a mason. But at the time, he was like kind of a scrawny, gingery guy. Um... we all went out for pizza when we wrapped. I left to go get something or go to the bathroom, and I come back and Griffin's sitting there with this whole cast, and as I sit down, he's going.

So the way Warren Beatty renews the rights to Dick Tracy every ten years is by making these bizarre little pieces of ephemera. He was blank checking at the table. He's just like, somehow in the five minutes I was gone, he just immediately was like, I need to lock these guys in on the right situation of Dick Tracy. So he's true to himself and you know... That's beautiful.

Griffin fans will be happy to know he was, as our producer said, the latest, he's like, this guy's the latest one every day. He's your friend. Why is he the only one who's not on time? It's like, Joe's on time, Heidecker's on time, Schwarzman's on time, this guy's your buddy, why is he the only one we're waiting for? And I was like, it's the scorpion and the frog. Like, he just has to, he just has to go down.

But he was a very welcome presence. One last thing about the movie. So, this is like a very daring exercise. Feels as much as like a creative expulsion of something as it is like a intellectual exercise. Is any part of it like an audition for a kind of thing you would like to do in the future? Because it is so many different kinds of things.

Yeah, what could that even be? I don't know. You look like you, I mean, Ty West, he said, no, you're not going to come back from Venice and have somebody say, congratulations on your experimental documentary, here's a job. And he was right. Yeah, you're getting great press though. And the, I think that this band resonates with so many people who potentially have power to help you make something.

No. No? Do you know what the band does? No. Just people who are fans of the band. No. Gen X has no power and no money. Oh, interesting.

Explore that. We learned while fundraising this movie for two years. It's tough. This is why we have so much Baby Boomer content. They have the money. What about Elder Millennials? Are we more powerful? That is why the Sufjan musical was on Broadway

and the Pivot musical was a joke. It's great. It's great for us. What will we do together? Yeah, how do we leverage this moment? We don't. We skip Gen X. That's tough. It's great, though. It's great for us. What will we do together? Yeah, how do we leverage this moment? We don't. We skip Gen X. That's fine. It's our time. No, it's not. That's what Minecraft tells us. It's our time.

Is this true? I think so. I'm dead serious. This is my big theory. Oh, go on. Yeah, but we're using it for Sufjan? That's the problem. I always, always, always point to Seth Rogen. I'm like, Seth Rogen is the one who shows us the way.

He was the one who was like, he got taught by one Gen X guy, Judd Apatow, how to make your own industry. And now he like has a tremendous amount of power. He has his own weed business. He produces television shows and movies. Makes ceramics. He's younger than us. Like, and he has a kind of, he's younger than me. He has an entrepreneurial state of mind. I don't know how old he is. I think he's 41.

So he's in between. He's in between. I see. And I, you know, I had my famous like meltdown slash celebration of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Trolls animated movie where I was like, what the fuck is this shit? Like they just, they're repeating me at nine years old to me at 41 years old, but it worked. So what can we do together? How can we make hay of this?

There's no hay. Okay. We tried to raise money for this movie for a year. But this movie is about guys in their 50s. I'm talking about what about our 40s. That's the thing I'm pointing to. But who is that? The Strokes? Well, yeah.

I don't think there's capital in that. But you're only thinking of music. Like what else in the world at large, you know? You're saying like what... What is the ultimate millennial drama that Alex Ross Perry can author? I don't even know what those words mean. The millennial drama.

Think about it. But what is that? How can you be the Bergman of your time? How can you reflect? But nobody wants that anymore. I wonder. The seriousness of that kind of storytelling is so not interesting to people of a certain age.

That's true. And I know this because the Broadway show I did see around this time was Stereophonic, which was wonderful. And I love Fleetwood Mac. Like, this is a band I like. And I love Fleetwood Mac. Like this is a band I like and I know the story as well as anybody. And this is Baby Boomer Crack, this show.

And I was so into it. It was so beautiful. The staging, I think it's coming here. If it comes here, you should 100% see it. Well, Sean doesn't like Fleetwood Mac. No, that's not true. I just think it's, they're overrated. Yeah.

Okay. Well, this, I mean, you know, this is fun. This is not literally Fleetwood Mac, but it's... But you like that style of music. You like that's not true. I just think they're overrated. Yeah. Well, this, I mean, you know, this is fun. This is not literally Fleetwood Mac. But you like that era. You could hang for a three-hour play about a band, I mean, almost famous. Like, you would watch this play for three hours.

And it is remarkable. But that's, again, I was like saying to the inter, during the intermission, I'm like, it's just so funny. Like, this Baby Boomer shit just will never go away. And this guy turns around, like big white beard, like a tight-eyed bucket hat. And he was like, did you just say like, it's funny. I was thinking about this show during the first half,

like Baby Boomer art, like, yeah, it's really what this is. And I was like, dude, look at yourself. I just blew your mind with that. Like, what are we talking? Like, this is so obvious to me, like, why you would be here, like, grooving on these, like, 70s music narratives for, you know, the 50th straight year. But stuff like that isn't, like, we just, the fan base of the band,

they're not putting the money into the culture. They're, we're, that whole generation is hamstrung by the fact that the Baby Boomers still have the power to tell their own stories. And the money and, and the, yeah. Can I pitch a theory that I just shared with somebody on another podcast? Oh, great. boomers still have the power to tell their own stories. And the money and the... It's true. It's true. Yeah. Can I pitch a theory that I just shared with somebody on another podcast? Oh, great. We love your secondhand theories.

I don't know if this will be used, but it occurred to me kind of in mid conversation and it's related to what we're talking about, which is we were trying to talking through like why the rep theater culture is doing so well, like at least in big cities in America right now and how a lot of younger people are showing up for older movies and they're building those relationships to like Heat and Thief and movies that came out 20, 30, 40 years ago. And to me, I started paralleling it to sitting in the car with my dad and the onset of classic rock radio.

Like classic rock radio becoming a format and arguably like a key format in the sustainability of FM radio through the 80s, 90s and 2000s. And how that music just got bled into our personal cultural lifestyle as adolescents. And then we came to accept the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac. These bands mattered to us, even though they had all broken up by the time we were born, basically. Well, except for those of us that made our own choice and realized Kiss was the ultimate from

that era. But that's your version of that made our own choice and realized Kiss was the ultimate from that era. But that's your version of that. But the fact that that music was sustainable, whereas Perry Como was not sustainable to my dad, even though his parents loved Perry Como. My dad worked his whole career for classic rock radio. 1029, Philadelphia's... See, it did come up.

Philadelphia's Magic, and their TV commercials were Fleetwood Mac, Bruce Springsteen, all that stuff. And that was the, you know, that was it growing up. And this was 1993. You know, that music was 20 years old at the time. And it was classic rock to me. It was classic rock to that generation. The problem is that, like, to get analytical here, I agree that this movie culture thing

is happening. The weird thing is that my movie culture of what I was hooked on when I was going to the movies seven days a week, when I was 20 through 30, that was all about discovery. All we cared about, all that was being given to us was things that you've never seen before. You mean like going to Film Forum?

Yes. Yeah, yeah. I would go to Film Forum and see 35 different auto-premature films. Because that was a full retrospective, and I had seen four, and I needed to see every single one. That is not what programming is anymore. And if that happens, it doesn't have the numbers you're describing.

There are strains of it in Los Angeles. Like the cinema tech, the American cinema tech will do a month-long program that is just one film. And this happens in New York as well, and people do go. But what you're describing, the boom, is not like people are showing up for Daisy Kenyon and it's sold out. It's more like people are showing up for Thief.

And it's like, well, to me, that's just watching cable. Like, I don't need to go to the movies to see the movie I've seen. I always wanted to go to be like... It's not though. But it's not passive. It's... Oh no, I know it's not.

It's definitely not passive. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's a huge activity. To me though, there's a split in the demographics because there are always, maybe somewhere between 30 and 50% of the audience is like, just looks like Chris. And they're just so pumped to see Thief for the 300th time. But the other half has never seen it. And I know because I go to the video, it's all the time.

Maggie always asks people, raise your hand if you've never been to video, it's or seen this movie before. And half the people raise their hands and then they just haven't seen Thief. So they are discovering it. It's just not at that like sustained, synophilic academic approach to movies. It is more like an eventized emotional. Which I'm all in favor of.

I'm all in favor of it seeming less exclusive. But to this point, like, what's one of the most consistently screened movies? Probably doesn't go two weeks without screening in New York or LA possession. But back in the day, it was the complete Zulaski. We were seeing Shaman and On the Silver Globe and what's the other one with

the great long title? Like... I don't know. Color, like, love, love is the most beautiful thing, love. It's like, it wasn't about possession. That was the least relevant part of the Zulowski series. It was about these ones that had never played. Yeah.

That the Prince didn't have subtitles. And it's just different. I mean, it doesn't matter. It's like it's going pop. It is. Which is good. Which is the same thing we're talking about with the legacy. If this movie's about one thing other than a band, to me it's about the way that these legacies, histories,

consumption, media, narratives change, get codified, get packaged, get sold. That's what the entire biopic portion of this movie is about. Which we've not really talked about, even though that's where we throw in a headline of you guys doing an episode on Joe Curie. Which is plausible in that if an actor was being tipped for like, this is his moment, you would be like, we need to talk about this because this is a thing.

But in an ironic, unironic, post-meta point of view, when I was watching the movie again yesterday, and I was like, Joe Curie is phenomenal in this movie. He's really... Like, really beautifully walks that line between, I know that I'm satirizing, but I'm also emotionally connected to this performance. And so you kind of did do the thing that you were making fun of midstream.

He's completely the real deal. I mean, I know you love Free Guy, which I guess he's in. I've never seen it. It's a piece of garbage, but I'm glad he did well. I only know he's in it because he's in the real deal. He's completely the real deal. I mean, I know you love Free Guy, which I guess he's in. I've never seen it. It's a piece of garbage, but I'm glad he did well. I only know he's in it because he's in the trailer. What's... He works at the video game company, I believe. Sure. Yeah. In the trailer, there's a shot where he has his feet up on a desk,

and he goes like this. That's all I know about his performance in the movie. I mean, all respect to him. Free Guy sucks. Yeah, I don't know. He's never mentioned it, except passing when he mentioned knowing Jodie Comer. Free Guy is my Cinequia New York, actually. Yeah. I get what it was trying to do, and I respect that, but it's terrible.

Yeah. But that kind of like, you know, cultural snake eating its own tail is just interesting to me. And as I'm sure we prepare, I realized this last night, you know, wrapping up with you and Chris, but like, Amanda, what would you say the odds, you know, wrapping up with you and Chris, but like, Amanda, what would you say the odds are that six months from now, Sean and Chris admit that they cried during the Bruce Springsteen biopic? ALL LAUGH

Like, two to one? I was pretty sus of it when I saw the trailer. Yeah, this is the thing is that Sean's heart is like too protected, which is like his own version of, you know, like this moment is coming for him and he doesn't know. Like, the most fascinating podcast of 2024, in my opinion, was Sean, Chris, and Mallory talking about a complete unknown and parsing through your feelings. And like, which in many ways is the movie that you're parodying in, in pavements, like big time.

I mean, they're like multiple Timmy with a guitar, just being like, big time. I mean, there are, like, multiple Timmy with a guitar just being like, oh my God, now he's watching, like, now he's riding Blowing in the Wind after banging Joan Baez. But also... And we haven't seen it. We haven't seen the movie. It was a good scene. In Complete Unknown is a good scene, you're saying. You like that scene.

I like that scene. Yeah. Last night during the Q&A, you were making fun of, you know, that scene. And I think you do a perfect sign up of it. That scene in every movie. The musician sits down and writes... But, there is, I can be honest about it, and I think the problem with Sean is like maybe he can't be honest about it. That's not true.

Or there's something, like, it's so stupid. It's hack work. It's not how creativity works. It's so stupid. And, but when they do it right, and I'm like, oh my God, they're playing, you know, they're writing this. All you're responding to is hearing something that you know that touches you. Yeah, but you had that watching the Bob Dylan movie and you'll have it during the Springsteen movie. And then you're gonna, you know. The Bruce Springsteen movie is tough on me because I'm honestly not,

I don't dislike Bruce Springsteen, but I'm not like a Bruce Springsteen movie is tough on me, because I'm honestly not... I don't dislike Bruce Springsteen, but I'm not like a Bruce Springsteen disciple. He's not a person that influenced my adolescence the way that Bob Dylan did. So I don't come to the table with as much on the line for that one. So maybe the odds are like four to one that you and Chris are gonna be like, look man, I'm not a disciple, but I'm... Not only will Chris cry, Nebraska is Chris' favorite album. So the whole, the movie is about the writing and production of Nebraska. I'm just picturing the two of you watching Chris cry, Nebraska is Chris' favorite album. So the whole movie is about the writing and production of Nebraska.

I'm just picturing the two of you watching that movie and it's like the last scene of We Own the Night. And you guys are walking in Wahlberg just holding each other, being like, they're just crying and you're just like, I love you, man. I love you too. No, that was us at the end of Nosferatu, yeah. That's depressing. It's possibly the saddest thing I've heard in a long time.

I just feel like that's coming for us. Like, I watched the entire Bob Marley movie on someone else's seat on a plane last year. It's not a weird movie. Yeah. And it seemed like the same thing. But it's like, what was the press around that movie that I saw in the New York Times? Here's how they made The Wig.

Mm-hmm. Like, is that the mo... Like, here's the press around pavements in the New York Times. Here's how they made the movie. And it's like, don't we love stuff the most, like, here's the press around pavements in the New York Times. Here's how they made the movie. And it's like, don't we love stuff enough to be like, I don't care about the wig. I don't care how long this guy learned how to play the harmonica to play famous troubadour Bob Dylan. Like, how's the movie?

What is the movie about? Like, and I reread the New York Times article from 15 years ago about I'm not there. It's such a good article. Fascinating stuff. Yeah. New Yorker, the New Yorker? No, it was the New York Times. It must've been like a Sunday magazine. It was such a long article.

It was a long Todd Haines piece. I thought it was the New Yorker. I, this was a New York Times article, um, where his discussion of being told to approach Dylan was so exactly the same as how I was told to approach Malcolm. Don't use the word genius. Don't use this. Don't say that. And I'm just like, this is what I love about the project of what you guys are always doing

is like, what do we want to talk about? Do we want to talk about the thing? Or do we want to talk about the facetious quality of what this thing is made for? And if you guys were just analyzing box office and marketing, that would be boring. But what I like is like, can't we talk about the thing? Like isn't the thing, isn't the creative process more valuable than the set dressing of the dreadlocks or of the prosthetics? Isn't there more to this than that?

I always think that stuff is worthy of an aside. And so in this format, it's easy for us to say, for one minute we can talk about the costumes, but we don't need to hyper-focus. And that's like also about the erosion of the media economy around culture, which is a much longer conversation that we don't have time for.

But that's what the Range Life stuff is about. It's about the erosion of all that. And obviously, it's, you know, Joe looks enough like Malcolm X that there is no wig needed. There is no, he's a great musician. There is no training needed, but like... Were the clothes really on loan? That was a joke.

Oh, from the mud clothes? Was that a joke? Not the mud clothes, but throughout the wardrobe. Oh, no, no. The thing that Steve West says about the mud clothes is that the ones at the museum that are still dirty from... And one of my biggest regrets is that I wrote on the placard, on loan from the band members, and the day I printed it, I was like, I should say on loan from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (*LAUGHTER*)

And I was pretty bummed at my failure on that one. You're still thinking of gags from the movie. Yeah, I know. There's a couple other things that I thought of subsequently. And some of which, like, including you guys, could be fixed in the edit. But no, none of that. I mean... Could they get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

You tell me. I'm a voter. Yeah, you're a voter. Have they ever been on the ballot? I think that... Were they not? There's no way. I feel like recently they might have been. Let me ask this. Has an independent band ever been on the ballot? No, that's a very interesting question.

Literally a band that is not affiliated with a major label at all. I don't know, but Matador is so close. I mean, Matador is the A24 of independent labels. You know, it is like, it is so- Is or was? At least was, in Pavement's heyday, for sure. So I- I don't have my phone, or we just pull up your Instagram

and look at the ballots. I know. It just seems like one of those things- They do it differently. If they do it online now, they no longer give you the paper ballot. Oh, it's sad. It seems like one of those things... If they do it online now, they no longer give you the paper ballot. It's not sad. It seems like one of those things that much like the way movies are,

you know, awards are bought and sold, and you're told by Sean's return from Telluride, here's the movies you have to deal with for the next four months. It just seems like one of those things that you're like, actually like to even get towards the ballot requires like a corporate investment. It doesn't feel that way. I don't know people in the committee. Are there ever like that level of critics' favorite bands that are like numerically irrelevant in the ecosystem of music history?

Well, there's sort of like the old timers list though that people like 30, 40 years after their original contention for the Hall of Fame, they then get re-added. You know, they'll be like, oh, we forgot like the Sherelles. So now we got to add the Sherelles. MC5 maybe. MC5 is even though... MC5, maybe. MC5 is a good example of that, yeah. So I could see them getting in once all of the baby boomers

have died and Gen X is in their 70s. And then... And what a day that will be. Yeah. People are like, you know... It'll be like one day until then the Gen X is dead too. The last World War II veteran is gone, I'm like, I'm just waiting for the last baby boomer to go.

I mean, yeah, I would welcome a list of what 90s bands are in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Nirvana, obviously. I would welcome... Yeah, did Beastie Boys make it? You're the voter. Did Tribe Called Quest? I mean, yeah, I should have put them in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the movie is what we're saying. I think they could get there. Anyhow, we gotta wrap up soon,

but before we do it, like, you like are an observer of movie culture and an addition to being a filmmaker. You always have like takes, like, you always have takes on the business. Sure. What are you holding on to? We text the takes. I mean, we could just read the text thread. We do. The epic news and deals. Nothing publicly viable. I mean, it just kind of feels... I feel bad saying this to you guys.

This is like telling a kid there's no Santa Claus, but it feels like it's over. It just feels oppressive. It feels bad. Because creativity is not valued in the ecosystem in the way that I think it should be. I don't really know what I'm saying with that, but it just feels like when you spiral,

I'm like, finally some truth, and then a week later you're like, just kidding, we're back. Minecraft! I don't know, like someone put something in Sean's water, he'm like, finally some truth. And then a week later, you're like, just kidding, we're back. Minecraft! I don't know, like, someone put something in Sean's water, he's like, all happy again. I just feel like, um... Like, the studio stuff is just like, it just feels over. Obviously, there's beacons of hope.

Such as? Well, like when something cool is successful. Like, Sean, I mean, I don't think I'd go 24 hours without getting a text from Sean about Sinner's box office. Okay. Yeah, yeah, you really are. It's just like, guys, have you seen these Wednesday numbers? That's insane. You reveal too much. Amanda doesn't have to hear about those things anymore,

because I can just share them with you and David and Griffin. You still text them. You sent some of them. Yeah, not as much as I do. But I get no response from you, and I know I can get some engagement over here. Well, it's when you sent it to me and Chris, and I'm like, well, Chris can deal with this, like, contextless screenshot of the top ten Netflix movies that you sent me at, like, Wednesday at 8 p.m. Sean does the work, even when he's never off the clock.

I'm never off the clock. Well, you don't send those to me either, you just send me memes. I do, but they're good memes. So whenever I make a Sean meme on the group chat, I send it to you with no context. So you don't understand what... But I have the context of having lived through the event that inspired the meme, so I can kind of get it.

With no understanding of what we were talking about. I feel like, to answer the question somewhat seriously, like, what worries me as a vaguely impartial participant... You're not, but okay. ...is like... It's becoming the same problem with American politics, where there's two parties and nobody thinks that they actually represent the best of what people want.

And the problem is that like the so-called independent hope of the last decade seems like all those companies are upgrading themselves and getting out of the business of what they've built, which is obviously a huge problem because it creates a hole in the ecosystem. Mm-hmm. This movie's being released by Utopia, a company I think does a lot of good work. After A24 and NEON, I don't know what people would say is third in the ecosystem of independent film distribution, in the way that there is no third in political parties. Well, I mean, it is-

And everybody in America knows that's a fucking disaster. Yeah. It's a huge disaster to be like, there's bad and there's less bad. And then there's 45% of nothing. And then there's like some other options you can use. And if the parties get too big and they don't speak to the interests

of the people that supported them, I'm talking about movies now, if the companies get too big and they don't speak to the interest of the people that supported them, I'm talking about movies now, if the companies get too big and they don't speak to the interest of people who supported them, then who's left? Because they've now, they've ruined the ecosystem. It's possible that it can't be rebuilt, and I don't mean to be like a mouthpiece for studio executives, but the impression that I've gotten in the last two years or so is that they realized that they kind of fucked it and that they're trying in some ways to DIP and to become less reliant on the thing that got everybody so fat over the previous 25 years. Whether or not they can actually accomplish it, I don't know. I do think whatever is happening at Warner Bros. and Universal, those are two companies

that are trying to basically turn back to 1990s, 80s, 70s, where it's like it's filmmaker focused, it's original stuff. I don't know if that's actually gonna be sustainable at the scale that we're used to. And they're not gonna stop making IP movies, that's not what I'm suggesting. But there's at least an awareness that the bloat of 2002 through 2019 was never sustainable and the international money was never sustainable,

and the international money was never sustainable. So whether or not studio system can be fixed, I don't know. You're right though that A24 and Neon are like, we could and probably will try to get bigger. And that takes a lot of independent movies off the board. What was like, maybe folk, but like one of those companies that like, the movies just got bigger and bigger, and then they just kind of like toppled and went away.

You know, like a paramount fan... Like those companies just end up getting too big for their britches. And they realize they're outspending their resources and they're not meeting market demands. And like, this is the mo... Like, speaking of this movie, like, we all just want it to be 1997. Right? Like, we want it to... Yes.

The thing that I... The thing that just doesn't exist, and this minted all of your heroes. Uh, Virgin Suicides to Lost in Translation, Bottle Rocket to Rush Mortarail Tenenbaums, Heartate to Boogie... What we don't have is like, nobody saw your movie. It's kind of a disaster. Critics liked it. Here's 15 times the amount of money.

Try again. And then everyone's like, generational masterpiece. Like, not the amount of money. Try again. And then everyone's like, generational masterpiece. Like, not a lot of money. All the things I know. That is the exact kind of searing insight that you always bring. All the things I just said,

you know, those are modest swings. And the success, the dividends on those movies will last 100 years. Because it was just like, I mean, what does Rushmore cost? $10 million? What's Royal Tenenbaum's? 20? Like, these movies will last until the. Because it was just like, what does Rushmore cost? $10 million? What's Royal Tenenbaum's? 20? Like, these movies will last until the end of time.

There are some, like, Emma Seligman is somebody who I feel like is on a more traditional trajectory. She made a super small movie with a friend, then she made a slightly bigger movie for a studio. It didn't perform maybe as well as they wanted it to, but she's somebody who, like, in theory could keep building at the right scale. But that's a scale, that's a different scale,

because all the things I listed, like, those first movies were studio movies. Those weren't produced and then acquired. Somebody let Wes make Bottle Rocket at Columbia. That's someone who was James L. Brooks. Right, right. It was a disaster. And then within two years, it was like, what's your next dream?

Forget about the disaster. And this just doesn't happen anymore. And within two years, it was like, what's your next dream? Forget about the disaster. And this just doesn't happen anymore. And that was the thing that made all of our heroes. Everyone we love from our lifetime. There was a loose change division in studio filmmaking that doesn't really exist anymore. And there's just too much money at stake to be like,

go make Rushmore for $10 million. Or like, go make this for like a little bit of money. Oh, Oscar nomination? Like, now what do you want to do? And as I always like to complain, she's a great example. I'm a great example. Like, listen to Phillip Sundance 2014. If that was 2004, by two years later, I would have made a $10 million movie of my complete desire. That just doesn't exist anymore. Like, we just missed the boat on like, let's nurture, let's build up. Because it just becomes like, what job do you want to get? And spending four years making something as deranged as this is like,

just, look, I can like do my own thing. This is creatively fulfilling, which ultimately is what matters. It's not financially rewarding at all, but we never made the movie for more than, like, seven days at a time, so I didn't really have to miss too much family time. Obviously, the musical took weeks and weeks, but every day of rehearsals, I left in time for dinner,

because again, I was doing very little. And then I was like, all right, it's the week of the show. I will not be home for dinner this week. And that's that. And the week of the Range Life shoot with Joe and the guys, it's like, I will not be home this week. But every week of prep, I was home for pickup for dinner this week. And that's that. And the week of the Range Life shoot with Joe and the guys, it's like, I will not be home this week.

But every week of prep, I was home for pickup for dinner. Cause I wasn't working that hard. And that's the inspiration of Malcolmus is like, I have a thousand complex ideas that might approach brilliance or insanity. I'm just going to work at them like 70%. And then like when I need to, I'm going to go above and beyond. And for him, that's when he's on stage. And for me, I'm like, all right, this is my week to like actually lock in.

And then I'm just going to like give it 50% for another month. And then I'm going to like really lock in again. Yeah. And he's very inspired. 50% of the time is sending memes of me. Yeah. Well, this was pre that, but now, now, now my life is much richer because of the meme, because of the meme work, but I don't know.

It just feels like that's a big problem. And something like you're saying, what does this lead to? It's like, historically, big things. Now, like, nothing leads to anything. Like, I left the agent I'd been with since Listen Up, Philo was at Sundance, specifically because there's no path into, like, you want to work on a Hollywood movie, you want to work on a studio film. And I was just like, I want to get off this treadmill. I can't do this anymore. Like, this is of no interest.

As a writer, yes, that's all I do. As a director, who cares? Like, this is what I want to direct. Like, stupid stuff where I'm making films in public with audiences that pay to be in my movie. I want to like break the rules and break the form. I don't want to make like, Pablum. And like, nobody wants to do that. Everyone who grew up my age wanted to be all these heroes.

And some people get to do that, but I'm just nervous that the system is not going to continue to be even remotely supportive of something that gives anybody the chance. Right? Like, just cause money's getting harder to unlock. Like no one's working. No one's making anything. I have so many friends, producers, five, six projects. anybody the chance, right? Like just cause money is getting harder to unlock. Like no one's working. No one's making anything. I have so many friends, producers, five, six projects. They can't get anything.

They have actors attached. They have locations. They just can't get the money. No one's giving the money. This is unfortunate. And I say to people, oh, what's your advice? Well, who do you want to release your movie? They say, so send them the script and see if they want to make it now.

I did, they passed on it. Don't make the movie. Like, I'm sorry to say it, but like, you will lose your money. Don't make the movie now. If the company who you want to release it won't make it, they're not going to buy it later if they could just buy it now. Or if they do, they're going to buy it for a third or a quarter or a fifth of what you spent on it. And that's bad business.

And bad business doesn't lead to more business. So like a sinner, that's an anomaly. We love anomalies. Independent anomalies, it's like, I mean, you do the math. Like two years of Sundance, like 75 narrative films, documentaries, a hundred, like five sales, 10 sales. Like people aren't talking about that enough. That's very bad.

Not for those movies. That's just bad for business. And like, to have a very strange music film, documentary, you know, there's dozens of these. Hundreds a year, maybe. Premier, Venice, where of course Amanda has a great time and I had a less great time. Yeah, it's okay. Just very, very hot and a lot of issues there. Yeah, logistically it can be complicated. Yeah.

But now you know what to do with your kids. And I told you about the camp there. Yeah, oh, they're not coming. Well, there's a camp for them. Oh, okay. I told you, there's a camp. I know, but you didn't tell me which island. It's on the Lido.

Oh, I didn't know that. You drop them off, you walk't tell me which island. It's on the Lido. Oh, I didn't notice. You drop them off, you walk to where the movies are. It's literally down the street from the movies. All right. You know, it's very validating to be like, music documentaries don't go there. They don't play at the New York Film Festival. They don't even get released in theaters.

We don't get, like, maybe one screen. And so it's an absurd privilege to have finished this thing exactly as we want it, for half the money we needed. You're really turning the boat around. You were ending this episode in a really down note. So please have some gratitude for your greatness. Well, talk about the industry negative, talk about myself. I feel very fortunate because the thing's being released. And because of the Film Forum in New York,

it's an exclusive eight or ten week theatrical, because Film Forum still requires that. So we get to have screenings like last night and throughout the next couple of weeks, throughout the country. And that's a privilege for any movie, but for a music documentary that was made, not to be a music documentary, but to be like,

this is a film. This is a film created as a film, not as like a piece of promotional content for the brand, for the back catalog. It's a real privilege, but, um, you know,, like maybe I earned it by having done this for 15 years. Maybe I earned it by writing the coattails of an iconic band. But regardless, like, this didn't create a sustainable model for anything. Like, I hope no one's inspired by this movie because it will lead them to...

You just said it's important to be inspired by dumb shit. Exactly. Yeah. Well, I hope someone hates it and they get inspired to make something. Um, but yeah, people are like, man, like they really just not the pavement movie I wanted or it's like, well, then make your own pavement movie to the, to the next series. I'm not sure there will be another pavement movie after this. Well, no, because we put all five of them in one. Yeah.

You can't, you did it all. Uh, Alex, thank you so much. Yeah, congratulations. Thank you for having me all. Alex, thank you so much. Congratulations. Yeah, thanks guys. Thank you for having me. Lovely to see you both as always. And happy to be here for my sixth physical in-person space. What number are we on though?

Is this nine? Of episodes? Well, that I'm not prepared to answer. I'm not either. Anyway, thanks Alex. Thanks guys. Go see Pavements. Thanks to Alex Ross-P Pavements. -♪ MUSIC PLAYING I would say that my excitement is like maybe doesn't core. No, it does correspond.

So you have revisited it. Oh, yeah. I did it. I did it last night. And I was just like, this is, I like, I was just like, I love us. I love that we're doing this. I really, this makes me so happy, which is when you guys find out what movie is awesome. What a great tease. We'll see you then.