The Big Picture - ‘Argylle’ and the Death of the Winking Action Movie

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

Sean and Amanda discuss the wildly unsuccessful elements of ‘Argylle,’ Matthew Vaughn’s meta spy thriller starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell (1:00). Then, they try to contextualize it within what Sean has dubbed "wink action"—a subgenre of action that rose around the turn of the 2010s and has finally started to peter out (44:00). Finally, Sean is joined by Mads Mikkelsen and Nikolaj Arcel to discuss ‘The Promised Land’ and the key creative differences between making movies in Hollywood and making movies internationally (1:20:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Mads Mikkelsen and Nikolaj Arcel Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are a lot of quarterbacks in the NFL draft this year. My name is Danny Kelly and I host the Ringer NFL Draft Show with Danny Heifetz, Ben Solak, and Craig Borlbeck. We cover trades, free agency, and the draft, obviously. We'll tell you about everything, including which quarterbacks are good, which quarterbacks are not as good, and which quarterbacks are just Kirk Cousins. Search the Ringer NFL Draft Show on Spotify. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture,

a conversation show about spies, lies, and the unsanitized. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Mads Mikkelsen and Nikolai Arcel, the star and writer-director behind The Promised Land, an absolutely rip-roaring historical epic that I highly recommend. I hope you'll stick around for my conversation with them. Second time for Mads Mikkelsen on the podcast. You

may recall he came on for another round a few years back. This time it was in person. Amanda, wow, the energy, the aura, the power of Mads. Bob, you were sitting right next to me when we talked to Mads describe it for me how was it cool calm collected one of the cooler people just wanted to share his thoughts

about a lot of different things that weren't even the movie which was great if you want to hear Mads being cool stick around until after we're done that being said

I'm back you're back from a week long sojourn to the east coast meeting and greeting the people how was it? We were touring for the rewatchables, and men were coming up to me in the streets crying and saying,

I've seen Argyle. Have you seen Argyle? And the truth is I hadn't. In fact, we were in Philly. This is a true story. Sierra and I are getting out of the car to the venue. This was an incredible moment. And there was a guy in a pickup truck behind us

who stopped his pickup truck so that we could exit our car and walk towards the venue and as he saw us walking he clocked chris and he started screaming yo and he was pointing at his radio because he was listening to i don't know if it was the rewatchables or the watch or the big picture but chris's voice was coming out of the car. It's very funny. So then he called Chris over to get a selfie. Okay. But this man wasn't going to the event? He wasn't going to the event. He was just driving around the neighborhood of Philadelphia. And then he, so he saw Chris, Chris walks over to take a selfie. And then he saw me and he was like, oh my God. And then, so he called me over. And as I'm walking over, another car came up behind him. And this car was not really excited about the prospect of waiting for us to take a selfie

while this guy hung out the side of his car. So the guy was like, oh shit. So he like drag raced off the side of the road quickly, almost killed Chris in the process so that he could park his car. So then we could take a selfie together. So we took this selfie, lovely guy, just a working man in the city of Philadelphia. And after we were done with that photo, we started walking towards the entrance to the venue and two men were walking past in the distance and one guy screams, yo, fantasy, I just saw Argyle. And this was on like Thursday night. Yeah. So that was the true opening. Yes. So he was like, okay. And he literally said, can't wait for the pod. Yeah. I'll bet yeah so the pod is

here um this is what this is what we've built this is what it's all been for the whole careers for people to approach you in the streets of good hard blue collar cities pay these people to approach us they're like we're gonna have five plants right outside the venue so as soon as you guys show up they're gonna make you feel good before you go on stage it was very strange nevertheless what did i miss did i miss anything while we were out uh visiting the people right outside the venue. So as soon as you guys show up, they're going to make you feel good before you go on stage. It was very strange. Nevertheless, what did I miss? Did I miss anything while we were out visiting the people?

I don't, I mean, Bobby, did he miss anything? Marty met the Pope. Really? I missed that as well. I didn't see that. Huge, huge moment for Catholicism. We are so back.

He met Mike Francesa? That's incredible. I would love to see Scorsese meet Francesa. Do you think Marty and Francesa, yeah, they would talk about movies. Absolutely. Francesa has movie takes famously every year around the Oscars. Definitely. Huge Good see Scorsese meet Francesa. Do you think Marty and Francesa, yeah, they would talk about movies. Absolutely. Francesa has movie takes

famously every year around the Oscars. Definitely. Huge Goodfellas guy, Francesa. I think Marty and his daughter made a Super Bowl commercial as well. Oh, interesting.

So, I mean, that's in the future, but they're, you know, we're in the phase now of them teasing and promoting the promotions that will be aired during the Super Bowl. I fully support Francesca

leveraging I'm Marty's Young Daughter. I think there's no downside. Absolutely. And it's like a great buddy comedy, what they have going together. Chris Nolan, he declared that IP is dead. Oh, right. In an interview with Deadline, he did say that. IP is over.

Sure. I mean, yeah. Okay. I think I saw one. Did Denis Villeneuve say nolan is our greatest filmmaker did that happen yeah well they did an event together okay which all credit to bobby bobby tried to get me a ticket to and unfortunately i didn't have child care lined up so i couldn't go um you could have witnessed those two titans I know imagine me solo with Denis and Chris Nolan listen I admire both filmmakers

yeah so Denis Chris said Denis no no no Denis Villeneuve said Chris Nolan was like the greatest filmmaker

or something and then Chris Nolan was like Dune 2 is his Empire Strikes Back yes so they're both thriving

can you believe the kind of podcasting we're going to do about Dune Part 2 we are so fucking set oh yeah guys being yeah that's another thing that i did this weekend is that i did a photo shoot with my son who spotted a uh like a bus bench oh yes with the dune 2 ads and was like drawn to it and we had to stop and he had to crawl on it he had to stroke austin butler's face and he really did i didn't coach him

he gravitated towards the austin butler and not the timothy chalamet yeah you know so big fade rautha vibes yeah it's incredible he's in we're all in on dune too have you seen the uh the popcorn buckets that they're selling relative to dune too like a snl sketch about it already oh did they you know yeah i missed that yeah is that on the IO at a beer? Yeah. Okay. Well, it doesn't seem like I missed much. No. Monkey Man trailer? Well, yeah. I was in the city of Los Angeles

when that dropped and I am fired up. In fact, I was with Van last week and Van was like, you and I are going opening night. I was like, I'll be seeing it well before then. Van, nice try.

But yeah, I'm fired up about Monkey Man. Monkey Man, just a wonderful thing. You know, like I do want to talk a little bit about what happened with action movies as we talk about Argyle but yeah, I'm fired up about monkey man, monkey man, just a wonderful thing. You know, like I do want to talk a little bit about, uh,

what happened with action movies as we talk about Argyle. And it is kind of related to what happened with monkey man, a movie that was made for Netflix. And then Jordan Peele, I suppose convinced universal to buy the film back from Netflix so that it could get released in theaters because it's a movie that in theory makes you feel something and you want to see you in a big crowd. so why don't, why don't we use that as a pivot to Argyle?

A film that was actually made for a streaming service but released by Universal, much like Monkey Man will be. Argyle. Did you like Argyle? I thought Dua Lipa was wonderful and was the best part. And I almost texted you both, I told you so about Dua Lipa but I had like two hours and 14 minutes left because she's in it for approximately three minutes at the very beginning and then

things go rapidly downhill yeah this is from the twisted mind of Matthew Vaughn the filmmaker behind Kick-Ass and X-Men First Class and most recently the kingsman trilogy and this movie is quite poor uh this is not a good movie it's really bad and it's kind of astounding no and it's not fun bad because i was sitting next to you sean fantasy when i saw the

argyle trailer for the first time and i was what? And then I saw it three to four more times. And I thought maybe it could be a bit, you know, maybe there would be something like fun in its absurdity and it could be in on the joke and we could all have a nice time. And I had a terrible time. I didn't have a very good time. And I did have the movie spoiled for me before I saw it. And I was trying to figure out if that's spoiling, which occurred because there was a deadline.com tweet from 2021 that in the tweet literally revealed the plot. And this was just served to me in my for you on Twitter where somebody was like retweeted and was like, lol, this is the whole movie's twist. If you haven't heard

the twist I'm not going to spoil it yet though we will spoil it later in this conversation. If you haven't seen the movie and I suspect you haven't because this movie did not do very

well at the box office I think it actually would be fun to just listen to us talk about it because some of the twists and turns are inane, idiotic, ridiculous, silly, but kind of funny.

Yeah and sort of hard to totally follow in their specifics to the point that trying to recreate them would also be funny yes this is this is a movie where i swear to you i saw i saw the friday that it opened i had to see it by myself which is just sad but it's here we are i did this by myself bob did you see it by yourself you did yeah i did wow we are so pathetic but like 2 45 p.m on a a Monday. Yeah, I was there. I was awake.

I wasn't looking at my phone. I wasn't distracted by other people chattering. And they would explain parts of the plot in the movie, and I forgot it in real time. I was sitting there watching, and it just fell out of my brain because it was so both convoluted and stupid that I just couldn't hold on to it. So how much of this movie do I actually remember? It would be interesting. I had some mishaps with my travel over the weekend and there was a chance that I was not going to be able to see the film before we had to record a show. We're already recording late as it is. And if I hadn't, you very valiantly offered to do a reverse Amanda to explain the

entire plot of the film to me. Which I think would have gone quite well. Well, it would have been amusing because there are some twists and turns that are borderline incoherent in this movie. And there are also some set pieces that I would not believe if you had tried to explain them to me because they just defy our expectations of what is good movie making. I think it's an unusual situation where, you know, I generally like Matthew Vaughn movies. They're getting worse, and I want to talk to you about that. But I wouldn't say he's an enemy of mine. I love Sam Rockwell.

I think he's wonderful. I got no beef with Bryce Dallas Howard, who's the star of the movie. You got some beef? I have beef. Okay. I tend to not like movies that are centered around her. So that's like a recurring thing that I noticed during this movie. Okay, well we can explore that a bit more.

And I think in this particular case, it might be what they're trying to do with the character rather than her, which was very grating to me. So I don't really blame her, but this plus the Jurassic movies, not really for me. Interesting. what about Lady in the Water do you like that film M. Night Shyamalan no did I see that one um it's his fairy tale yeah

no I didn't see that absolutely not um this also has a hallowed cast of supporting actors Brian Cranston Catherine O'Hara Henry Cavill the aforementioned Dua Lipa Ariana DeBose your favorite actress John Cena Sam Jackson this is a this is a heavy hitters list and I will also say to your point about seeing the trailer I think if we had just

written out the the sort of like first act of the movie in a synopsis style and just showed it to you on a piece of paper you would have been like hmm

this is kind of an Amanda movie yes it's a spy movie about a writer yes that's great right movie about a writer yes that's great right and a little zany yeah and you know and making fun of itself which when done right i do actually like a lot though it can go wrong i have a whole theory about why this movie went wrong that i will i will present in this discussion um This is the fourth installment of a tie-in series.

Okay. No, no, no. So do you know this? Let me just explain this to you. Explain it to me. Explain it to me. So this is insane. And I became aware of this on two fronts. One, because I was at the bookstore and saw you can buy a hardcover copy of Argyle the book. You know me, I like spy novels and I like to know what's going on with the book to movie pipeline. So I was kind of curious about that. And I was separately aware that there was also like a pretty widespread internet conspiracy theory that Taylor Swift was somehow either the big reveal of the movie and or the secret author of this book. Okay.

Which she is not. She is in no way affiliated. But if you've seen the movie or even the marketing, you can understand that the Bryce Dallas Howard character is whose name is Ellie Conway, which who is the author of Argyle, the book, that is available in stores. From the dressing and the just approachable millennial girl persona to most specifically the cat in the backpack, which is something that Taylor Swift does in Miss Americana, the documentary. She has the same type of cat, and the cat, do you remember, is in that little backpack with the astronaut? I've expunged all memories of that film from my mind.

Sure. Anyway, it's a notable visual reference for people who are hanging on to that sort of thing. So people were like, oh, so Taylor Swift must have ghostwritten this spy novel that then got made into this movie, and she's going to be in the movie. Okay. We haven't gotten to the spoiler sections yet, but that doesn't happen.

Just so everyone knows, Taylor Swift has nothing to do with this. They were just borrowing on it for marketing. This is not related to the tortured poets department. No. Okay. Um, and, and, you know, having seen the movie, I think it's like, I have not been afraid a fan of like all of Taylor Swift's recent work, but like, it's rude to think that she would be

associated with something like this okay um so what happened is in reality is that this book was like commissioned for the movie and it's a tie-in and matthew vaughn wanted to buy wanted to option a different novel by the novelist Terry Hayes. That couldn't happen. So he's like, why don't you write a different spy novel? And then I will turn it into a movie, but with this meta element. Okay. So in the movie, we're seeing like book four, right? All of the events are from book four of the Argyle series.

But in real life, these novelists, Terry Hayes and Tammy Cohen, wrote book one under a pen name that was published like three weeks ago to go along with the movie. I mean, it's the most baffling thing. The key thing that you need to take from all that is that like Matthew Vaughn asked for all of this. Right. to take from all that is that like matthew vaughn asked for all of this right like this like they like conceptualized and was involved and was like here's what we'll do is we'll make like a tie-in spy novel and then do this meta thing where it's someone writing the the book in real time and you know like that was all created right so the expectation there is obviously that, I guess, Barnes & Noble dwellers would stumble upon an exciting new release from a big publisher in the spy realm. They'd get curious about Ellie Conway as a figure,

the pen name that those two authors operated under, and that they would then read this book and then get excited about hearing more about the wide world of Ellie Conway. And then they would watch a movie that skips the next two books in the series to portray sort of in a quasi meta way, the events of the fourth and fifth book. That's a lot to keep in your mind for a silly spy thriller. It's very confusing. I did a lot of reading and i think that that is i think i got it right like the the true authors their names were only revealed like two days ago i said oh you know yeah breaking news well i don't know if it's like breaking but there has been like a lot

of mystery they obviously didn't deny the taylor swift thing for a few weeks because they were getting like a lot of pre-orders you know and interest in that sense it would have been funnier if it was like the author of Argyle book one was Henry Kissinger it's only because he died that we can reveal the truth at some point this the theory also mutated so that it wasn't Taylor Swift who was doing it but it was JK Rowling oh god I'm like like the internet has like been going absolutely insane so wow a guy goes on one trip you know this is like this is what happens when you go away i'm just like on message boards it's really funny um yeah so there's a book out there uh-huh that i haven't read okay i won't be reading it it's apparently especially having seen this film that's the other thing is like the movie's coming out two weeks later and it came out

it stinks so like what was the idea here i mean there's a whole build-up towards the potential future of this series which like pretty clearly will not be happening um we can talk let's talk about the plot of the film because it does center around and opens with this elaborate imagining of this spy named argyle and the various figures in his life and the sort of like the agency that he is operating against and his you know partners in in spot in espionage the sort of like the agency that he is operating against and his, you know, partners in, in spot in espionage. Yeah. It's like the climax of a, a bond movie, but like very visibly a parody of it. And everything is intentionally CGI. It almost has that, like, you know, that, that Barbie, we're not in the real world. We're in a fake world thing. Um, and it's Cavill, who has, you know,

either not been cast as Bond or played his fair share of Bond wannabes. Doing Bond, Dua Lipa is the, you know, the Bond woman. She's great. And then there's a terrible CGI motorcycle chase. John Cena shows up as, like, you know or like his his team mate and then there's some double crossing that i didn't totally understand because they're like looking at their phones and it's like dual leap is calling her boss but also it's henry cavill's boss and

there's been like some sort of you know betrayal and then dualua Lipa dies or like has her like diamond cyanide capsule right and then there's a shootout really you're going into the text here this is really it's like the first time I read Tom Wolfe you know where I'm like what really is important to the tale and what is imagining this is the only like borderline palatable part of the movie so you want to get all the details of the first four minutes and then we'll fly through i have to i have to ground this scene because there is a big reveal there is a big reveal okay yeah okay there are several reveals but one's like really important to me so i just need to set this scene so like juleep is gone that's that's hit number one for amanda

then there's like a lot of shootout and people show up and at some point ariana debose like pops up in a jeep and if you're like me you're like oh ariana debose is in this movie i didn't realize academy award winner who's been in literally every movie release of the multiplex for the last four months. Shout out to her work in Wish.

Yeah. And Sesame Street. We watched that episode again yesterday. Great stuff. So she shows up for two seconds and then she dies.

And then... Damn. Listen, it's the first four minutes of the movie. You knew what was happening when you were watching it. You were like,

this is an imagined world. Exactly. You weren't thinking this is the story of the movie. You knew what was happening when you were watching it, though. You were like, this is an imagined world, right? You weren't thinking. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. And then I don't totally remember what happens.

He's like, I it's, it's unresolved. And you cut to the reading that Ella Conway, AKA Bryce Dallas Howard is giving. And so, and that, that's how they set up this like movie within a movie. Metafiction, whatever.

Yeah, very quickly, she's kind of concluding this book. And she's trying to get to the end of it. And she's trying to write this kind of final chapter of the book. And she gets a call from her mom. And her mom has just read the book overnight. She's read this ending. And her mom is like, this ending isn't right. It doesn't work.

I'm going to come see you. Right. I'm going to help you. We're going to workshop this together. No, you're going to come see me. Well, no, she says, I'm going to come see you. And then she and then Ellie says, actually, I'm going to get on a train and I'm going to come see my mom and I'm going to surprise her at my parents' house. Okay, right.

So she gets on this train and on the train how ellie you i mean you just skipped her entire characterization which is like the the airbnb glass cabin like in the middle of colorado and she's drinking like little pint glasses of ipa because she's colorado you know she's not a like a wide millennial she's a beer on here some real like relatable like when i when it's all over we wrap this shit up on the big picture that's where i'm going to that house it was like the spawn of like cottagecore tiktok yeah pandemic trends i was like this is just it's really just very upset does she live on a lake though i think i feel like she lived on she did live on a lake yeah it was sick that

house it was really nice like she those books. Also, where she's giving the reading is like, you know, it's supposed to be like the trading post store and like the one place in Colorado, you know, but then it's like the world's largest Barnes and Noble on the inside and everybody has like a leather throne that they're sitting in. And it's like, what are we doing here? And it's also extremely well attended. A lot of people who worked on this movie don't live in the real world anymore. I want to say Matthew Vaughn, again, who I like as a director, is married to Claudia Schiffer. So, you know, this is a person with an elevated imagination of the common experience. On the way to see her parents, she gets on a train. And on the train, she encounters a man in a beard and a long haircut.

And that man is Sam Rockwell. And he says he's a spy. Right. And then the movie sort of, it becomes clear what this movie is. Right. Which is that... Which was already clear because that's in the trailer.

Good point. Which is the trailer that everyone has seen 9,000 times. Like 800 times. That and Arthur the King. Yes. The Arthur the King, I noticed, not on our upcoming lineup. Is that something you want to change?

Mark Wahlberg dog movie? The number of times that I've seen... Well, this is great. I'm taking a couple of weeks off from the show and you're going to be hosting the show. I'm dead serious. In late March, if you want an Arthur the King episode, you can book any guest you want. If you want it to be a dog to join you, can we book Arthur, Bob?

Do you think Arthur the dog would come on the show? At a cliffhanger, we don't know if he's alive, according to the trailer. Oh my goodness. What if he just dies and then the movie ends that would be a tough beat for arthur is arthur the dog yeah there's arthur no arthur the king yes it's the name of the song but i think arthur is the dog okay it's not referring to the eight i know he's the king okay oh boy can you tell we haven't potted in two weeks there's a lot of silliness going on right now. We're talking about Argyle.

I know. Well, it's weird because, like, the plot mechanics of Argyle don't matter, but they're also the only thing that you can talk about because this movie has no meaning. There's no theme in the film Argyle. Like, there's no deeper context. It's just a spy romp, a kind of action comedy. And it slowly becomes clear that this world that she has created is somehow intertwined with the real world.

And that the espionage that Sam Rockwell's character is responsible to is related to the writing that she's been doing. And that there are some people in this group, this organization called The Division, that want to get the information that she has. Because whatever she writes, according to Sam Rockwell's character, comes true. That like almost she has this kind of predictive quality to her fiction writing. Now, there's, of course, a reason for that. And the reason, and I guess we should just spoil it here, right? Yeah. So if you don't want to know anything else about Argyle, which I get it, you know,

you couldn't get a sitter over the weekend or I don't know, you had to catch up on True Detective, or you were out supporting the Rewatchables Live and you just couldn't make it to that precious 9 p.m. screening of Argyle. You could turn the pot off if you want. I wouldn't recommend it, because I'm going to say some dumb shit about this movie that's kind of entertaining. But it turns out that the long-suggested question of who is Agent Argyle is actually who?

Ella Conway, a.k.a. the writer of the series, a.k.a. Bryce Dallas Howard. And she is an amnesiac, brainwashed CIA agent. Yes. Who has been brainwashed by an illicit group that is trying to get her to reveal all of the secrets about her spy organization. Right?

And in doing so, she only knows how to process those secrets by writing them out and writing them through. Isn't that basically the premise of the movie? I mean, yes, yes, yes.

It's like the big reveal an hour and 20 minutes in that it's like actually Argyle is R. Kyle. Right. A.K.A. Rachel Kyle. Right. Which is Ellie Conway's

real name. Yeah, but she's being... Just a normal one here on a Tuesday. Someone in the theater when that reveal happened literally said oh brother out loud okay but so also by the way the way that that is revealed is in the quote-unquote french countryside which where where do we think that was actually

burbank filmed i mean but like yeah it could have been London could have been I think this film is shot in London yeah so some yeah could have been in a Shepperton studios so that's where Sam Jackson spent his one day yes and clearly never left that location right but getting a lot of those lately actually I don't know if you saw the film the marvels where he just sat on a spaceship for two hours yeah but this is really one day so he's there to give like one speech um and then he goes back to his lair where he's he watches the lakers for quite literally the rest of the day i did too i thought it was really funny and drinks red wine um but that leaves what are we calling her ella conway rachel kyle r kyle r That leaves R. Kyle, like, out in the, like, fake vineyard with Sam Rockwell.

And he's like, no, this is really who you are. And she's like, I don't believe you. No, I'm not. Like, and he's like, yes, you are. And they go back and forth. And then finally, he just, like, attacks her. And her, like, you know, her physical instincts catches in. Yeah.

Kick in. And now she can, like, you know, do whatever like impressive martial arts she knows how to do. That was like me teeing you up on the Hillary Clinton Barbie episode. Yeah, exactly. Just say a word. And then she's revealed and she's like, wait, how did I know how to do that? And she knew how to do that.

So that's how she finds that out. Then a lot of weird things happen. Yeah, but I want to go back to you. So she is, she's like part of a PSYOP program So she's like part of a PSYOP program. She's the target of a PSYOP program. And it's Bryan Cranston and Catherine O'Hara who have been brainwashing her. But why are they brainwashing her?

I think so that she doesn't realize that she's revealing these critical secrets, that she needs to think that she is someone else and that they've created this entirely new backstory for her after she has been retained, after she's had this amnesiac experience. Right. And so because she has all this information inside of her, she's like a human hard drive of critical data for the division's exploits. Right. This is the best way to get it out of her and in fact when you go back to the beginning of the movie and you think about Catherine O'Hara saying

like I'm gonna come to the lake house and talk to you we're gonna workshop the ending together because your book can't end on a cliffhanger that's what she says because she needs to know what happens next right right right right so I mean I but so I guess that's clever. But so, no, because I want to jump ahead. Okay. Because are they not in the division? I believe that they are. Right. So why do they need her to reveal the division's secrets if they are in?

Do you know what I mean? I think it's more like the organization that she's in, that are Kyle and Aiden, the Sam Rockwell character, are in. That she's revealing those secrets. Oh, I see. Like the Argyle character that she has created is in their organization. Got it. Whereas Dua Lipa is in the division. Got it. Okay.

Make sense? Sort of. I think that's right. Okay. Tell you what, not really sure. Okay. The movie is a little bit incoherent. So can we then fast forward to, so there's a MacGuffin, which is like the-

The Master Key. The Master Key. And so she has to go to, what is Sofia Vitella's characters? I don't know what her character's name is. I mean, she's in Arabia and she has access to the Master Key. The Keeper of Secrets? The Keeper of Secrets, yeah. Okay.

Classic stuff. Is that like an official title? Do you think it's like she has a special license plate? It's like being a diplomat. It says that in Workday, actually. They all are part of the same system. Wait, so... Who's her manager?

Is it Bill? No, she reports to Juliet. She's on the production side. Oh, got it. Okay. She's keeping all those secrets, you know? a it's a blue collar job okay so she they she has the memory box and she looks at the memory box uh-huh or whatever it's called yeah but then like she's inside that it's like you know jacques it's me yeah you know so it's like is she she was part of the

she was a double agent she didn't understand the extent to which she was, I think. This is unclear to me. This is unclear to me. Obviously, the mind of Rachel Kyle has been refracted in a million different directions. Sure, yeah, it's very complex. It's a diamond inside of a diamond. Sure. And because of this, I mean, it is authentically confusing.

Because it's unclear if she, at this stage of the movie, let me just talk about what directly precedes the events we're talking about um she and aiden go to arabia to retrieve the master key um and so that they can avoid the division getting their hands on the location of solomon which is samuel jackson's character and whilst there, it becomes clear to Ellie Conway, a.k.a. R. Kyle, that she and Aiden were a thing. They were a couple.

They weren't just partners in this espionage organization, but they were in love. And we learn this when Sam Rockwell's character hears, they both hear, their song.

Right. Quote, unquote, their song. Yeah. Which is a song called Now and Then yeah which was

written by the Beatles which was released roughly four months ago right by AI so dog what I don't

I don't know does this film either take place in 2039 or have they had access to the AI Beatles song because they're members of this espionage group but it's not either take place in 2039 or have they had access

to the AI Beatles song because they're members of this espionage group? But it's not. Or is this just an opportunistic Apple moment where they're like, yo, we got a new

fucking Beatles song. We're getting this shit in the movie. Because it's not like they say the Beatles. That's true. At any point. They're not just like,

they aren't like, That's on purpose, right? Yeah, of course. What do you think were the other candidates for that song? You know? Like, definitely a U2 song. Absolutely. Yeah. like and like they aren't like remember yeah of course what do you think were the other candidates for that song you know like definitely a U2 song

absolutely yeah one yeah definitely one I've got You Babe Sunny and Cher oh yeah Silver Springs

by Fleetwood Mac beautiful Nothing But A G-Thing by Dr. Dre what else what else what else could possibly I can keep going like this

I just I laughed out loud at the Beatles needle drop I was like this is an insane choice to make us like

I had already forgotten that that new Beatles song had come out sure of course we all did and it was nice of them to remind me I guess did you like that song

I'm it's weird I think it won a Grammy didn't it just win a Grammy I think so okay that's exciting I didn't watch the Grammys

iconic I did I know I know you did thanks I didn't watch the Grammys iconic I did I know I know you did thanks I listened to your pod about it okay great thanks

was it good no it was a weird vibe in the room okay I was proud of Billy Joel yeah in his efforts

William Joel one of the greats Long Island the only thing that was missing actually what if it was just she's always a woman

that was the song between oh that's really good that would be amazing that would improve this movie by at least 10% yeah well we're starting

at negative 50,000 well sure but you know yeah and then basically what happens is like a series of double crosses where the Ellie character

thinks she's a part of the division but also we can't tell if she's actually doing a double double cross so she can trick the division and she's gonna get the master key and she's actually doing a double-double cross so she can trick the division.

And she's going to get the master key and she's going to give up the location of Solomon. But then actually, wait a minute, just at the last minute she decides she's not going to do it. And then there's a big chase sequence where she and Aiden have to get out of this place where they are and then get on a ship and go somewhere else. Right. And the chase sequence is when they're ice skating on crude oil?

Yes. Okay. Truly, what is that that what is that sequence i don't know was bryce dallas howard an ice skater here let's google that because they make a big thing bryce dallas howard ice skating this is riveting podcasting um no i don't think so while they're being pursued by these the spies, she turns to Aiden at a certain point and says, do I skate? Well, her backstory, the fictional, like, hypnosis thing they created for her was that she had a skating accident. And then when she, you know, recovered from that that accident she wrote the argyle series right so but my question there is can you be brainwashed into being a world-class skater on

no he he answers and says that you actually were yeah that they kept it as close to her how did the division even know that i mean i think if you're a spy you know everything was she like christy yamaguchi like what are we talking talking about here? She's skating like crazy on that crude oil, which is covering the floor of this, like, where even are they at that point? They're not on the ship yet. They're like in this lair? Yeah, division lair.

I don't know. This movie is incoherent. Right. I think they were on the ship. I think that all that whole, like, middle, it's all on the ship? Last hour and a half takes place on the ship. Oh, you know what? I think you're right the ship. I think that all that whole like middle is all on the last hour and a half. Oh, you know what?

I think you're right because there's like, no, maybe I'm confusing it with Hunt for Red October, which I just watched. Because there's like this big reveal of like, oh, you're on like a ship, but that might be a shot from. What if Agent Argyle is just like one ping only? Again, all we're doing here is suggesting improvements uh okay yeah so and then and there's been this whole thing with a dance move called the whirlybird that they do with guns and like pink and blue smoke at the end yes of the of the skating sequence which is just just you know, confusing and upsetting. Dreadful CGI.

And then, throughout, throughout the movie, just like, it looks just absolutely terrible. Yeah. And then, they have the file or something,

and, the satellites are down, but there's a different satellite above deck that they can use, you know, which is like, I love when that happens. It's like, you're telling me there's different satellite above deck that they can use you know which is like you're telling me there's another satellite above deck it's all gonna be fine they just like you know need it to upload to a hundred percent so people physically like try to keep stopping it from uploading and there there's more fighting on top of the deck and then at some point Catherine

O'Hara gets out the skating music box that plays the Beatles song and as we learn is like the the cue for Bryce Dallas Howard to become a a killer but I believe they actually say the phrase they MK altered you like to Bryce Dallas Howard's character they use the phrase MK ultra which at that point in the movie, I was like, maybe this movie is cool. Maybe this movie is good, but then it lost me again.

Yeah. And so it's, everything is about to go wrong. I don't like someone's about to die and the music box is spinning. And then at the very last moment, the music box is shattered and maybe Catherine O'Hara is taken out too. I don't know.

Someone saves the day and allows for the thing to be uploaded. And who is it? And that person is Ariana DeBose! And I started cheering alone in my theater.

I was just like, I can't believe that this Oscar winner who was in the movie previously for 15 seconds, Max, shows up again to save the day

and then explains some email that we didn't even get into because it was like far too complicated. Ariana DeBose saves the day and Argyle is

the most hilarious thing that's happened to me in 2024. It's funny because you were texting me while this was happening and you were wondering if this had happened yet. And I thought you were more excited about the absurdity of everything that happens after this. Which is that after that moment. Right. And Rachel and Aiden are reunited and they're no longer brainwashed.

And Rachel is a successful author. And they're back at the Barnes and Noble with the leather thrones. They're back at the Barnes and Noble. She's doing her reading. And then two things happen. There's two kind of like, guess what? You're going to get 13 more years of Argyle. The first one is in a slightly different hairstyle, Henry Cavill stands up at the reading and identifies himself, I guess, as the real Argyle.

Well, does he identify himself? He doesn't say like, hello, I'm the real Argyle. He just like looks like... He's not like Jim from Staples. He looks like... He's Henry Cavill. Sure, but he looks like the person that Ellie has imagined in her head. And I guess one thing that I don't think we said, just that during some of the action, early action sequences,

when Sam Rockwell is like as the real person, you know, doing the fight sequences, the movie then like cuts to Henry Cavill in the same fight sequence and it goes back and forth to communicate the confusion in her mind. Here's my problem with that. Yeah, real life versus what she imagined. Go ahead. But Aiden is not Henry Cavill. Aiden is John Cena. And R. Kyle, like the Argyle, is her.

So why would she be seeing... That's not even... Because she hasn't girl bossed up yet, you know? She doesn't... She's not even. Because she hasn't girl bossed up yet. You know? She like doesn't. She's not at that part of the journey where she understands that she is the real Argyle. You know? That's part of her journey. Third wave feminism is all about self-actualization.

And this is. She has to get there. You know? By the end. By the end, she is lifting Sam Rockwell in the whirlybird in the pink and blue smoke with the guns. She's just so powerful. That is what Hillary Clinton got us. That's what all those bar classes are for, man.

So we're introducing a new segment here on the show, which is the Girl Boss Scale. You may have heard the Midnight Meter on the Midnight Boys. But this is the Girl Boss Scale. Where does this film rank from one to a to ten one to ten bosses one being the least bossy okay and ten being the girly bossiest okay well hmm i'm well i'm just trying to wrap my head around the parameters of that scale so i guess this is a film written, directed, and produced by Mitten. I mean, it's like a one, but also a 10, you know, because what is Girlboss like really? Like this is the definition of Girlboss is just absolute nonsense. Corporately funded and promoted.

For capitalism. Yes. What do you think of the little teaser at the end? I didn't know it was there and I laughed. Okay, I'm going to explain it to you. Because once again, this is a girl boss movie, so we don't know there are going to be credit sequences. Okay, so immediately after the short bit of credits, we go to a post-credit scene where a young Argyle, so this is, I guess, technically a young Henry Cavill,

even though it's a skinnier guy, but a guy with the same haircut. He didn't have bulking 20 years ago. Well, that's a good point. And maybe Bob can be hired as a consultant for Argyle book. We had Schwarzenegger doing his thing. Well, we're going to get to Schwarzenegger here

in my dissertation on this film. Can't wait. So, young Argyle is in a pub, original well we're gonna get to Schwarzenegger here in my dissertation on this film uh can't wait so young Argyle is in a pub which says I think says Kingsman Tavern at the top I don't know how familiar you are with Kingsman films I've seen one okay there have been three of them it's kind of an ornate mythology I didn't know that there were I think that's why I stopped yeah clearly well like the the villain literally of the third Kingsman movie is Rasputin. So, they're pretty complicated. But so, this young Argyle, it turns out, is a Kingsman agent.

And he's, like, giving a code to the bartender, who I guess is also one of the keepers of Kingsman secrets. Maybe a sort of master of secrets, if you will. Is Kingsman sort of like the Knights Templar of the keepers of Kingsman secrets. Maybe a sort of a master of secrets. Are the Kingsman sort of like the Knights Templar? Uh, in a manner of speaking. Okay. Mixed with like the CIA mixed with a Savile Row clothier. I don't know why I wasn't into those.

You weren't? Why wasn't more into those? The Knights Templar? No, no, no, no, no,

no. The Knightsman movies because it's like. Kingsman. Yes. That might be part of the issue is you're just looking up the wrong movie. Why can't I find Knightsman on Netflix tonight? What service has Knightsman? But is it like it's a combo of Da Vinci Code

and spy movies, you know? Which like, sure, that should be right up my alley, but then it's not, right? You're teeing me up marvelously. You know what? Sometimes I know how to do my job. Well, the movie ends and it says, Argyle colon book one dash the movie will be coming soon, which let me tell you, listener, it will not. That movie will not be coming out because this movie got a C plus cinema score,

which is basically like getting a 38 on a math test. And it made $16 million despite costing reportedly $200 million. Who knows? You know, the action is not great. And that's disappointing because Matthew Vaughn has done some great action in the past. The first Kingsman movie in particular is very celebrated for this bizarre sequence set to a Lynyrd Skynyrd song that takes place in a church. I don't know if you remember this. Oh, I do remember. It's a slow motion action sequence. Which is really fun and creative.

I'm still laughing at the 38 on math test. You like that? Yeah. It's really bad. It's really bad. It's not good. You basically don't understand math. You know, it's not.

You gotta start over. This was a movie that no one got or spent, like, had a nice time watching, which is not where you want to be. This movie is what i call wink action wink action is a sub-genre of action filmmaking that has gotten very very very popular in the last roughly 15 years and i think it's on its way out and so i wanted to talk to you about this today both of you because i wanted to let me know if i'm i'm overthinking this but i don't think i am and i think it speaks a little bit to what our friend Crystal was talking about with the IP era too, because this stuff is all kind of interwoven.

He's nominated an adapted screenplay. Yes. Keep talking. Okay, I see what you're saying. You're saying that he should only create stories from whole cloth if he doesn't want to be accused of participating in the ip gold rush it's just funny that he used the phrase intellectual property which means a very specific thing particularly for screenwriters yeah and he knows that that's true he just didn't want to say comic book because he saw what happened to marty right he also made three famous nevertheless

uh okay so we're growing up they're good they're good um sort So we're growing up. They're good. They're good. Sort of. We're growing up and there's action comedy, right? You've heard that phrase before. You know that phrase. So that's an action movie, a pure action movie that has good jokes or a comic tone. So it's like, it's 48 hours. It's for you. It's bad boys. Probably like the signature action comedy of your youth. Anything written by Shane Black. Lethal Weapon, Last Boy Scout, Last Action Hero. You know, I just watched The Nice Guys on the plane on the way back because there was no Wi-Fi on my plane. And I was like.

You were down bad. Well, no, but I just watched. I watched Child's Play, which was wonderful. And I watched. I hadn't rewatched The Nice Guys in years. I just met like your travel situation. I know, it was tough. It was unpleasant.

And then I entered an atmospheric river here in Los angeles so not not an ideal set of days nevertheless these movies that i'm talking about you'll find a lot of them on the rewatchables they're marketed first and foremost as like a thrill ride as an exciting movie with high stakes there's murders there There's these evil villains that are really dangerous and scary. There's funny stuff in them, but they're really intense movies. They're adult films.

So all the mid-period Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, like from Kindergarten Cop all the way through like True Lies, those are basically all action comedies because someone smartly realized that Arnold is funny so that he can do laugh lines but it's still like he's got a gun in his hand right this kind of ends i think with with guy ritchie i think guy ritchie is kind of a turning point here and that's relevant because matthew vaughn was guy ritchie's producer on the first two movies that he made on Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and on Snatch. So then there's comedy action. This is totally different and,

but very related. So this is like Rush Hour, Hot Fuzz. A lot of the Edgar Wright movies fit this bill. The other guys, the Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg movie, Men in Black, of course, 21 Jump Street. So these are movies that are like, these are comics. Midnight Run. Midnight Run, totally. A comedy action movie. It's funny first. And there is serious stakes. But what you are there to do is laugh. These are more often summer movies. They're not fall movies or winter movies.

They're kind of, these are, both of these movies are kind of date movies, but you're more likely to bring your date to a comedy action movie than to an action comedy Would you agree with that? Yeah, like game night is in this category, right? Very much game night is a perfect. I'm a little stuck on Never mind. We can do semantics on another time Meaning which word should come first? Yeah Yes, and I understand that you're doing like comedy action first because it's a comedy first But i'm like doing modifiers in my head and that's what that's the face that I was making as you were talking but I'm with you your point is a valid one and I thought about this

it's fine but we're on the same page we've addressed it and um yes I like going to these movies on dates or you know by myself at 3 p.m on a Friday because no one will go to the movies with me um I'll always go to a comedy action or an action comedy with you like not once have you been willing to go to the movies with me when I text you being like, Hey, do you want to go see this? I've got a lot going on. Um, Pineapple Express, interesting example of comedy action because it's a movie that is paying homage to action comedy, but it can't help but be comedy action because it's

Seth Rogen. It's James Franco. It's Danny McBride. It almost can't do what it wants to do because of who it's cast. If it had been Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, it would have been an action comedy. Dungeons and Dragons, Honor Among Thieves, IP. But this is a movie that is actually comedy action. That's really ultimately what it's trying to accomplish.

It's in a very similar vein. It's medieval, but it otherwise, in its tone and its execution, has great action sequences, but it's funny first. So something happened. And I guess it is in the aftermath of Guy Ritchie and in the rise of this kind of IP, where we've got this mutant baby. We've got this movie that is neither fish nor fowl. That's wink action. It is like ostensibly really thrilling and funny at the same time. But more often than not, it's really glib. It's full of CGI. It's heavily influenced by online humor. It almost feels like a YouTube, Reddit, Vine amalgam.

A lot of meme jokes you find in there. And so the pre-branded IP era, like almost forced these two things together. And there was a lot of movies where if you don't have the talent of the people behind 21 Jump Street, but you're trying to make a coherent idea out of a movie that otherwise just has like IP attached to it or like a big heady concept attached to it, you end up getting one of these movies. So I'm just going to say before I give you the key examples of wink action, these movies are not wink action. John Wick, not wink action. Any movie starring Gerard Butler,

Liam Neeson, or Jason Statham, those are action movies. Mission Impossible, as funny as it is and as self-knowing as it is, not wink action. Also not wink action. Nolan or Zack Snyder movies. Very serious, earnest films. Now, Bond is complex because Daniel Craig Bond is not funny, with a few rare exceptions in the sequences. But the previous Bond films that were a little bit more self-knowing in their cheekiness. And in each era, they all become that. Yes. that were a little bit more self-knowing in their cheekiness. And in each era, they all become that.

Yes. So how would you define that? Well, I mean, Pierce Brosnan era, maybe. A little bit of wink action there. A little bit of wink action. And I think, I mean, Timothy Dalton, I don't really and roger moore i guess i guess so early roger moore no later roger moore yes yeah but i mean you could say that like early sean connery no later sean connery like a little bit even a little bit now some of that is just because like like bond himself is like literally a you know a winking character. And the knowledge of those tropes are baked into the movies themselves.

Yeah, they can't help but acknowledge them as you go through. Right. But I stumbled on that one, then I ultimately ended on the Daniel Craig movies were not. No. They were ultimately very gritty, globetrotting action films with heart and backstory. And maybe the occasional laugh, like when Ana de Armas shows up, but more played for slapstick,

a slapstick kind of humor, than what I'm talking about here. So what I'm talking about, and this is the earliest one I can think of that is a true blue definitional version, is Shoot Em Up, which is a 2007 movie starring Clive Owen that I don't hate. And I should say,

I don't hate all wink action movies. Some of them are good. Some of them are great, but they're very hard to pull off. And Shoot Em Up is a movie that feels influenced by video games. It feels influenced by this sort of like over-the-top, exploitative, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Sylvester Stallone movies of a previous generation. They're sort of like absurd in their construction. This movie is okay.

It's like definitely not as smart as it thinks it is, but I feel like it kicks off a wave of movies that includes the following. Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass, which is an adaptation of a Mark Millar comic,

which is a very violent movie about little kid superheroes that ultimately, I think, did more harm than good. I liked it when it came out. Right. I was like, this is a good idea. It was a clever spin.

He's got some real verve as a filmmaker. By now, he'd already made Layer Cake. He'd made Stardust. He's trying to figure out what kind of a filmmaker he's going to be. It's before he makes X-Men First Class, which is not wink action at all. And it's also awesome

very dashing and exciting action movie with superheroes and then this is an important one and this is I wanted to speak to you

about this because I feel like the dam really bursts here with Fast Five well I see that and I think

you know Fast Five has always sort of been the exception to the rule in that franchise as well as the world at large so I think Fast Five is great Fast Five has always sort of been the exception to the rule in that franchise as well as the world at large. So I think Fast Five is great, even if it has all of those hallmarks. It is, you know, the safe, which I always yell about, which is so funny, does have that thing of it.

Like this is, they're doing that or doing some version of that, at least. It's like a thrilling stunt that's also like, lol, we're just, we we couldn't get into the safe so we just pulled it out and are now just like driving it around fast cars around rio so we hear that i the next thing on your list well let me just say one thing okay the in fast five the issue that i have with it is the reintroduction of the ludicrous and tyrese characters into this world doing the thing that i'm with it is the reintroduction of the Ludacris and Tyrese characters into this world doing the thing that I'm talking about, which is like, ostensibly they're there for comic relief,

but they are not funny. And whatever jokes they are, and people like them. And in fact, as the movies go on, they kind of realize that it doesn't even matter if it's that funny that they're there for like their adventures.

Right. But that stuff has never worked in those movies to me. I've never really found it that fun in addition to Vin Diesel not being able to act and all the other issues I have with those movies. But the next one... Well, when you were describing Wink Action, respectfully, you were describing a Marvel movie. Yes.

The MCU and Deadpool and related Ryan Reynolds properties are the signature of this. And in the same way that many people feel that they replaced R-rated comedies, the MCU, they also kind of replaced all action comedy and comedy action because they were casting funny people in action movies and they were getting three or four funny lines. And sometimes the lines were funny and sometimes they weren't. And sometimes the films were good and sometimes they weren't good. But this ate up this whole little stripe of movie making

that we don't talk about as much as we talk about rom-coms or we talk about erotic thrillers. Like there's a series of, you know, sub-genres that we're always banging on.

But we don't talk about like where's Lethal Weapon. And this, those movies ate them. And I think Jurassic World ate them to some extent too. Which I was wondering

if it had been Chris Pine instead of Chris Pratt or Chris Hemsworth instead of Chris Pratt in Jurassic World would those movies have had a different tone?

Maybe. I think you would also need to recast Bryce Dallas Howard who is very like broad in the comedic talents

and like not that funny. now she is not being given good material you know but it's sort of uh i mean they're just like making lame taylor swift jokes you know that's not that's not like great comedic writing in argyle i think mark walberg has also gotten trapped in this i think some of it is that like he doesn't realize that he's trapped in it because he's just in his like las ve compound cranking out Arthur the King prequels. But there's like a whole, I challenge any living human to rattle off the last 10 Mark Wahlberg films. I mean, there's only two other humans on this pod, so you guys can try.

Right. Well, Spencer Confidential was before the pandemic. How many Mark Wahlberg movies since Spencer Confidential can you name? There's something that's like, it's not the parent trap, but it's like the something swap or the something, you know what I mean? Yeah, let's do some math here. And then... So in 2020, one of the very last episodes we did together in person, me, you, and Chris, was our Mark Wahlberg Hall of Fame, which was Peg to Spencer Confidential. That film came out in the first quarter of 2020, right before the pandemic.

There have been one, two, three, four, five, six Mark Wahlberg movies. Was one called The Family Plan? The Family Plan. That was released on Apple TV Plus in December. Okay. Have you seen the film? No, of course not. Bob, have you seen it?

But I guess I've seen ads for it. Absolutely not. December. Okay. Have you seen the film? No, of course not. Bob, have you seen it? But I guess I've seen ads for it. Absolutely not. Okay. Is there a different, like, twist, swap type family comedy movie? He's been making a lot of, like, family movies, right? Are you thinking of polyamory?

Because it's in the news right now. No. No. Where do you stand on polyamory? It's just, like, a lot of people with time on their hands. That's what that is? That's what that is.

And definitely, that's what all of the articles about it are. Like every single person in the article, it's just like, well, I do understand. Like you don't have much else going on. I see. Generally, I agree. I'm like, who has time for this? It's just, it seems really, really like a lot of work. I actually feel that way about just anybody having an affair.

I'm like, where do you find the time? Even if I wanted to cheat, how could I cheat? Right. Then the amount of like logistics that you would have to get right on top. I mean, and that's why like it always comes out because you fuck up the logistics. Because it's like you forgot to pick up little Jojo at soccer practice because you were fucking some lady in a hotel. Or you coded it on the wrong calendar you know yeah stop being a podcast host and start being a house call doctor in New York City in the 1990s that's the thing is I maybe if I had a profession that would

allow for this kind of behavior yeah uh polyamory I don't get it I'm not seeing anything here about swaps um in the filmography do you want to hear the other films he's made yeah we'll see Bobby can you name a single one of the other five films that he's made I'm already looking anything here about swaps in the filmography. Do you want to hear the other films he's made? Yeah, we'll see. Bobby, can you name a single one of the other five films that he's made? I'm already looking at it. I would have only been able to name the one that is like the big IP adaptation. There's one big IP adaptation,

which is Uncharted. Starring him and Tom Holland. Oh, sure, Tom Holland, yeah. He's going to be Romeo. Sure. On the West End. Yeah, absolutely. Or somewhere over there.

Why not? I guess. He's got to wipe the filth off On the West End. Yeah, absolutely. Or somewhere over there. Why not? I guess. He's got to wipe the filth off of the last five years. Joe Bell. Did you see that movie? True Story, Inspirational Story. Did I actually see that movie at Sundance? It was at Sundance.

I did see it at Sundance. Didn't think it was a very good film. No. It was directed, however, by Ronaldo Marcus Green, director of King Richard and the forthcoming Bob Marley, colon, One Love, which we'll be covering on the show next week.

2021 Infinite, I believe. Wait, you skipped one. Oh, did I? You skipped one. Yeah, you skipped a voice performance. Well, Scoob,

he has a voice performance in Scoob. Oh, okay. Scoob! Exclamation point. Scooby-Doo. Scoob. Scoob!

Scoob! You guys doing Scooby-Doo at your house yet? No, although Eileen loves Scooby-Doo at your house yet? No. Although Eileen loves Scooby-Doo. I can see that. That was a big one for her as a preteen. That's cute.

I could see. And Alice, you know, dogs. It's a fucking lifestyle. So I could see that coming. Infinite. Okay. Released on Paramount+. Just for fun, let's read the brief synopsis of Infinite. Haunted by memories of places he's never visited,

a man joins forces with a group of reborn warriors to stop a madman from destroying the endless cycle of life and reincarnation. This film also stars Chiwetel Ejiofor and was directed by Antoine Fuqua. Yes, we did watch that. For the pod. Yeah. Sure. Okay.

This was a very, this was trying time well in our history just like a couple more mark walberg movies for everybody to hear about father stew perhaps you've heard of it oh yeah i think this is a movie that basically bankrupted his studio because he was like it's important that everybody know about my addiction to christ um that's great for him and then me time which in the parlance of the blank check podcast is a movie that does not exist uh this is a film starring kevin hart and mark Wahlberg and Regina Hall. It is directed by John Hamburg, who's the guy who made I Love You, Man.

And there is just no way that this is a real movie. It was released on August 26, 2022. 101 minutes. Mark plays a character named Huck Dembo. Yeah, sure. How do you feel about Huck? The name? Yeah, sure. How do you feel about Huck? The name?

Yeah. I think it's kind of overexposed right now. Chappelle has a whole thing about if you're named Huckleberry Finn in 2024, what that says about you. I mean, yes. Yeah. It's not an ideal name. Yeah. No disrespect to all the Huckleberries.

My favorite Huck is a man named Huck Seed who is a professional poker player. This is why people come to the show. I'm just this wellspring of information I'm providing. MeTime, not a fan. Then forthcoming,

Arthur the King, of course. He's got a very exciting new film called The Union starring Halle Berry and Mike Coulter who was in the film

Plane. And then another film called Flight Risk. This film is, who was in the film Plane. And then another film called Flight Risk. This film is, of course, directed by Mel Gibson, Mark Wahlberg, Topher Grace and Michelle Dockery. So that's very exciting stuff. Your girl. Yeah. Gosh, how the mighty have fallen.

You just did a list of films within a list of films. Like you're halfway through Wink Action right now. We've achieved new heights. I'm in my bag. Please, please. Continuing on. The Hitman's Bodyguard. Very mediocre.

Ryan Reynolds. Sam Jackson movie. Free Guy, of course. Noticing a theme here. Ryan Reynolds. Absolutely. Red Notice. I think Free Guy is the closest movie to Argyle in terms of tone.

I think Free Guy was the closest of any movie that I've seen on this list. Those two were tonally so similar to me. I hated Free Guy, as everyone who listens to the show knows, but I actually thought it was much funnier than Argyle. Like, I can acknowledge that there are a couple of good jokes in Free Guy, despite it being a very craven act. Argyle, I didn't laugh once during Argyle. We did the rewatch of that. We did, yeah. And that's, he's trapped in the video game yes but

he's like the guy on the side of the video game pc right what does that mean again non-playable character okay but then he becomes playable yeah hell yeah polyamory let's go and then and then at the end it's like he's in marvel and disney and everything all at once yeah yeah he's got the h Hulk hand and the shield. He's got a lightsaber. There is actual recorded evidence of me having watched this entire film. When our nation is governmentally managed by China in 20 years, they're going to point back to that scene in Free Guy

and they're going to say, this is when it turned. This was the fall of an empire. Was that the pod that we did while Amanda was laying on her side eight months pregnant? I was not on my side. I had my trusty pregnancy pillow

supporting me from both sides. So I was at a comfortable incline and I was like unbelievably pregnant, Bobby. Like you will never, like you don't, you can't imagine. You literally will never know. Your center of gravity. You know,

that was great work by you. Yeah. You did great. Thanks. I, I, I am forever grateful for your service.

I've forgotten about bullet train, which I didn't really like very much. Oh yeah, I didn't like that very much either. Definitely wink action. Yeah. And The Gray Man, too. The Gray Man, actually,

I think would have been better served to not try to be cute and funny if that Chris Evans character had not been written that way, if it wasn't Gosling, if it was somebody else. I was so disappointed that Gosling was a part of that.

But that brings me to my next question, which is, is the Fall Guy going to be wink action? I mean, it looks like it. It does, right? I mean, that's the whole conceit. I'm a little worried. Yeah, I am too.

I saw the trailer. Yeah. What's going on? So I think that America is onto this. And I think that they don't want this. This tone is like, hey, I just watched a couple of YouTube videos. Here's some jokes I wrote. I mean, the jokes in Argyle, it's like...

They aren't jokes. They're brain dead. Yeah. And a lot of these movies, the jokes are brain dead. There's a real absence of cleverness. And, you know, if the action isn't great on top of missing that, you've got kind of a disastrous recipe there. That's true.

Do you think that it's the IP thing that Nolan is talking about and that we've been talking about for the last couple of years? Like, what is it that feels like this is... Because, you know, like when Red Notice came out, people were like, no.

You know, like 200 million people watched it because it was on Netflix. Right. But like, how many of those people finished it? Because it is so clearly, you know, glued together and not really a movie and just an excuse to sell gin.

Right. That gin is good, though. It is good. It is good. I think your point about it being internet related and we talk a lot about how there are many scenes in movies that just seem like to be predetermined memes, right? And this like constant awareness of like,

they're not actually selling movies to moviegoers and audiences anymore they don't care once you're in the seat so it's whatever they're creating to create like the external attention to actually get you to whether it's click on it or netflix or get you to buy a ticket or like be a gentlemanian or whatever so okay that's a really very interesting line of thought. What you're talking about is the marketing of the movie. So in most cases, the marketing is coming in the aftermath of receiving the film. Sometimes it's done in coordination. Well, I see. I think that's true, but I would guess for a lot of these movies that we just listed, and again, I do always feel like when we do these exercises, you know, many things just don't work.

You know, and like when you listed all the movies from the 80s and 90s, those were like the actually funny good action comedies. You know, there were like plenty of action comedies and comedy actions that like also did not have good jokes in the 80s and 90s. Absolutely true. A lot of these movies that you're made, I think that they are put together with as much thought about how will it be marketed and how will we sell it. I mean, we know that they are put together. How can we sell it

as they are the actual content of the movie? Do you think everyone is too smart for this now? Everyone is a broad. I wouldn't give people that much credit i just think that it's most of the time it doesn't work like it's not funny you know and it's not and the action is bad and they're not focusing on making either of those things good so that's part of the issue.

Yeah, I wonder. I find it to be a particularly fascinating example from being Matthew Vaughn, you know, who is not Martin Scorsese, but who is clearly a very capable filmmaker. I mean, this, Argyle is like inexplicable. It's pretty weird how not good it is. And so it has me thinking like, was it laziness?

Was it just, it was misconceived or ill-conceived and it just didn't work out? Or was it a COVID thing where during the COVID production, they weren't able to pull off things. So everything's done on a soundstage. I think there's a little bit of that coming back to where it's like the means of production for films are changing back to the old way now.

And so movies are not going to look like they have for the last three or four years, which I think is a good thing. I also think, and this is something that I like about being invested in and studying movie history is is you really can see social attitudes expressed by watching movies. And they're not just expressed in the highest forms of art. They're expressed in what's popular at the time. a pretentious way talking about the attitudes of New York while talking about Sidney Lumet movies or Taxi Driver, it's because these are filmmakers working in those environments and generating work that represents them. So now what I think happened is we had this kind of boom time for social media

and internet content that over from roughly 2007 through 2025, the internet was the primary mode of communication. And it was texting and not calling. And it was tweeting and not writing. And it was podcasting or TikTok and not writing a screenplay. And so I may be reaching a little bit, but I think that there's something

in the attitude of our culture that changed a lot. And it just filtered its way into these very porous spaces, which are like action comedies are not that important. So of course we can drip all of our stuff in there. Those attitudes are not going to find their way into like Paul Thomas Anderson movies. He's kind of like a single locked equation. You know, he's an artist, you know, Barry Jenkins, he's an artist. Like, he's not going to let that stuff get into the mix. Or if it does, it'll just be as a tool

to tell the story. But with stuff like this, where it's like, every studio needs an Argyle every year. Right. It's like, it's a watered down,

repackaged, often bad version of the type of comedy or just like, you know, the type of communication, storytelling, whatever, that is in vogue. Because they're just like, you know, the type of communication, storytelling, whatever, that is in vogue.

Because they're just trying to make money, right? And so they're like, this is what's making money or this is at least what's popular on the internet so how can we do it in a way? If we do the same thing,

then we'll make money, which like is never true. And also there's a whole other complicated thing about like what's popular on the internet is very hard to make money off of but i but they're learning that in real time i want to pose a kind of like final aspect of this theory to you guys which is that because the generation that is beneath us and even to an extent beneath bobby is more earnest is it possible that this mode of action

comedy no longer resonates because you can get a much better version of this already on TikTok so movies shouldn't be trying to be like that because we already have it but when you make Oppenheimer or Past Lives which is like can only be a movie and is not winking at you while it's being made or while it's being shown to you that that is a more likely to be a more resonant experience in the movie format i mean i i think this is unfair to barbie to put in these terms but like barbie is very winking now it's winking in a i think wildly sincere sure but it's there's nothing sincere about argyle i mean that's true but but what's what's strange about it is that it actually still is trying to be sincere like i you know was making fun of girl boss stuff but it does try to land those moments of like no

she can do it and she has to figure out who she is and you know it was clearly like corporate quadrant tested for that sort of message so i think it's trying to be sincere i just think it's like very poorly executed you know is it though i mean that just feels like a man writing a female character that doesn't totally understand how to do that i'm just i to my larger point about barbie i don't think that it's necessarily the the winking or the the raised eyebrow itself i agree i don't think that i don't think that accounts for the success of barbie no no no that that like um turns younger people off or anyone off. I mean, sometimes it does. There are people who really don't like that type of storytelling,

but this is also the same generation that went to all of the Marvel movies like 45 times. You know, like I think of your sister who just lived and died by Endgame. I mean, you did too, but... I wouldn't say lived and died, but I greatly enjoyed it. And that is a combo of all of the the humor and the the glibness of the avengers and i guess intense stakes and sincerity as well

so i'm just throwing ideas yeah yeah you know i i it's obviously like a fool's errand to try to define generationally the ways in which movies are received across the world. I mean, some of it is just like, don't you think that a thing gets played out? Yeah, absolutely. And the more you try to do something, the rewards diminish over time. No doubt about it.

And that certainly happened within Marvel movies and even that specific style of humor and action in Marvel movies. What I like about thinking about this, though, is that it doesn't do the thing... Like, we now use, you know, to Bobby's point about the way that Nolan is hiding what he means by Marvel

and comic book by using this, you know, this phrase IP to explain it. This actually extends beyond that era that we're discussing. You know what I mean? Like, the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies are comic book movies, but they're incredibly earnest. Incredibly earnest incredibly earnest like they have a couple

of jokes in them but and the same goes for the dark knight you know like that's not a movie that is winking at you at all um in fact it's like played like a hard-bitten drama that just happens to have a guy with face paint on so but i do think that this it doesn't just define comic book movies it defines something that is much bigger about like basically the 21st century and what kind of movies we could easily make between 80 and 150 million dollars that we think frankly like young men under the age of 30 would want to go see because that's who most of these movies are targeted at and if it's ending it's interesting i think that part of the reason that it's ending is because there's something going on right now where like people only want to go to the movie theaters for things that they feel are big and

worthwhile and the tone of the wink action comedy movie or whatever is like inherently undercutting it being big and important it breaks the kayfabe right like it breaks the notion that we're all here suspending our disbelief so so that we can watch this movie together and be blown away by it. Like the thing that Barbie and Oppenheimer and all the movies that have been big in the last three or four years, outside of like the handful of Marvel movies that still stuck around with that with the same similar tone, is that earnestness, yes, but also like spectacle. Yeah, Top Gun Maverick. Top Gun Maverick was this all over.

Exactly. And Argyle and like a whole host of movies that you named right here like they either don't have that spectacle because like they never got put in movie theaters and they were just released straight to streamers or like they just didn't have that same you know like je ne sais quoi that like a movie has that like i mean not they did also they didn't have the spectacle they looked bad like red notice they were literally it was a CGI coliseum you know

it's like they feel small it's like it's almost like small potatoes in the way that they're created and also like dialogue tone the jokes and stuff it's just like this is not the big leagues

like this feels small time now it is in some ways communicating to you this doesn't matter you know this and in a way like I don't want to

undercut all entertainment you know like most entertainment doesn't matter it's just a way to kill time or to kind of pass the days and it's okay that there are movies that are like this but it's fascinating that a movie like this didn't resonate at all like people were just we are in the most open corridor for a movie to jump out and have box office success right now that we're

going to have for the rest of the year and it didn't work and despite Dua Lipa cameos and you know a heavy marketing presence and all this other stuff that didn't work so And despite Dua Lipa cameos and, you know, a heavy marketing presence and all this other stuff that didn't work. So I'll be curious to see, even with the Fall Guy, which is coming very soon. And again, that is actually

weirdly prefab IP that is based on something, you know, that, you know, people don't actually understand that it's based on. It's an interesting contrast with Mean Girls too, which has done pretty well

and is IP and just felt like it's an interesting contrast with Mean Girls too which has done pretty well and is IP and just felt like more of an event yeah you know and that there's an eventizing

that even with the stuff that feels frothy that you basically need and you can see in some cases like they just couldn't figure out how to gin up the event

for Argyle they just couldn't figure out I mean arguably they did. Like, I can't tell you how many Taylor Swift conspiracy posts

like, were available. They tried their best, but it just, they didn't have the goods. Sometimes you don't, you don't have the goods. Who do you have

in the Super Bowl? To win? Yeah. Chiefs or Niners? I guess it's going to be the Chiefs again, right? You think so? I mean,

I lived through last year, so I know not to underestimate them. Good point. Wags, you got a Super Bowl pick? No. No. I think the Niners are better, but why would I ever pick against Mahomes?

So, yeah. What do I know? I'm just a schmuck that watches baseball, is waiting for the Mets to come back. Let's go. This might be the year. 84 wins. Let's go. So you know that the new Taylor album is just a Joe Alwyn breakup album?

Great. I mean, that, that guy's about to take some hits. Did you see that Post Malone is featured on the opening track, Sean? Is that a fact? That's a fact.

And the song is called Fortnite. I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing. I just wanted you to know. Um, I wish her well. I wish her well. He's an actor. It's germane.

People seem disturbed by the way in which she presented yeah her new album it sucked it was very tacky and you could tell like it fell flat

everyone in the room was just like absolutely not it was not her uh savviest night I would say interesting

okay what do you think that revealed about her character I wasn't like I just wanted you to know that Joe Alwyn this like poor guy who's just been in a couple, you know, Yorgos Lanthimos movies, is just about to be put on blast like you've never seen.

What do you think he did? I think he, honestly, he wouldn't. Is he really dumb enough to do something that would transgress against this person that's obviously going to write an entire album about him? How stupid do you have to be i think that he didn't want to be in public with her and she oh my god and and she's like the subject of the album yes i i'm i'm telling you now i i'm again i'm not endorsing i'm just letting you know what's coming your way the world's smallest violin playing just for her yeah he didn't want to be in public with me and that's why now she's just going to be on the field at the Super Bowl.

It appears he's in yet another Yorgo Santhimos movie. Well, that's great. He made his way into Kinds of Kindness. And did you know that the album title

is like a subtweet of a group chat that Andrew Scott started that Joe Allen was on with Paul Meskel called The Tortured Boys Club? What?

That's a real thing. Yeah. Wow. That's a real conundrum for the ladies of the internet to be confronted by choosing between the Paul Meskel, Andrew Scott, Joe Alwyn triumvirate. It's not a conundrum for me.

I'm 100%. You're with the boys? Yeah. But it's like, but like we already knew that, like, as you know, is my taste like the world's greatest NFL linebacker or the guy who's on the tortured boys club text chain with Andrew Scott. Like it's obviously option B. He's a tight end, but I hear you. I hear you. Oh, he's apparently, I guess he's actually a wide receiver. If you want to be semantic about it. I don't.

I think that the NFL is too semantic about everything and I think we should just be clear. We got wonderful feedback about the Philip Seymour Hoffman episode

and also just amazing feedback about your performance on the Barbie freakout episode. Some of the best feedback we've ever gotten and I want to say thank you. I also want to say thank you to the Blu-ray heads

who really, really, really showed up for me me they showed up and they said thank you you made me feel seen you made me feel a part of this world and I love you and I just want to say I love you back I love you back to all my blu-ray boys and girls thank you so much uh you just you need to like have an archive and you need to like be circulating you know like A museum has a permanent collection and then they're bringing things out. That's just what you need to do. I'm waiting for one of the great institutions. If the University of Texas at Austin would like to speak with me about this or if UCLA is interested in collaborating in some way

where they could display my great works and I could come and discuss them with aspiring students and cinephiles and collectors, I'm happy to do it. But I'm just waiting for the right partner on this. I was just trying to help with your storage problems. Yeah, it's an issue. So you listened? I listened to all of it.

Knox listened to some of it this morning, actually. That's really nice. Knox knows. He gets it. He's got some storage issues. He requested talking. That's what he said, which is what he's got some storage he requested talking that's what he said which is what he calls podcast and so i put that on and yeah and he said sean and

then tim was talking and i said yeah that's tim and then i this i'm not making this up i was very flattered he went no mama because he knows that i talk as well yeah this is it this is how we brainwashed yeah so then i put on a podcast and then he like ran out to like hug a bottle of honey. So, you know, it was like a short-lived but it was nice. Well,

I want to appreciate all the little boys and girls that are listening and not just our own children to the pod because now they get to hear Mads Mikkelsen's voice. Let's go to my conversation

with Mads Mikkelsen and Nikolaj Arsell. Here with Nikolaj Arsell and Mads Mikkelsen, writer, director, star of The Promised Land. Thanks for being here, guys. I was wondering, is Ludvig Kaelin a well-known figure in Denmark? Is he a person that is taught in school or that anyone knows about?

Not a single person in Denmark had heard about Ludwig Kaelin before the book and the film came out. So actually, no, he was a complete unknown. So what did you think when you read the book? I was taken with the I was just taken with the sort of epic story and the, and the nature of, uh, you know, everything. And, and I was, of course I was interested in the historic, uh, part of it, which was like, okay,

the first person to ever go out on the Heath, uh, which at that point took up, I think one third of the entire Denmark was just Heath and it was the true wilderness. Okay, I hadn't heard the story before. And then, of course, the way that Edith Yesen, she wrote her novel, was also fleshing out these extremely interesting, complex, you know, very poignant characters and the journey that Ludwig has. So I was just, I fell in love with the book quite quickly.

I mean, I think I was 50 pages in, and I kind of knew, okay, I really want to do this as a movie. Mads, were you looking for a chance to work with Nick again? It was mostly the potato thing I fell in love with. No, I've been waiting for 10 years for him to give me a call. And he did actually pitch it like that. He had a pregnant pause when he talked to me on the phone. It's about this man who's growing potatoes on Heath.

Pause, pause, pause. And Nick, anything else happening? And then it turned out, yeah, a lot of things is happening in this story. And very importantly, obviously for us actors, they're very fully fleshed, very complex characters. I mean, my character is a man who wants desperately to be part of something that he hates, which is already very complex and interesting. You know, I hadn't quite thought of it this way, but is that in some way like a metaphor for, you know, you guys have had experiences in Hollywood, but you're also, you know, you're great European filmmakers as well.

And like that, that complicated thing of of Hollywood represents this big thing in filmmaking, but also you guys have done such great work in your home country. Did that cross your mind as you were working on this idea? It crossed my mind for sure. I mean, it wasn't like an overt sort of metaphor for me, but it certainly was part of when we were writing the script, me and Anas Thomas, the co-writer, we were talking about the whole experience

because we had the experience together of sort of having had success in Denmark and then coming to America and trying to do one big studio movie, which every director kind of probably wants to do at one point in his or her life. Not everybody, but some at least. And it wasn't a pleasurable experience at all.

It was actually the opposite. It was like, okay, be careful what you wish for because it's not that much fun. And so, yes, for sure, it seeped into the idea of like... But I think for me, it was more about the ambition, having so much ambition and drive and wanting to obtain a certain goal that you might sometimes lose track of what's important.

That's what the story is's important right that's what the story is about and that's what i felt was sort of like emotionally connected to in the story what did you make of ludwig when you read the script do you relate to him in any way did you find him to be an easy character to access yes and no i mean i always find something i can relate to i can find some kind of core that is very stubborn in me obviously not as stubborn as him and he's also have this sense of justice that he's constantly chasing and that doesn't always serve him too well or people around him but i could relate as an actor to him and and because i thought it was it was fleshed out in a fantastic way that he's not a likable character not at all for for a long long time he keeps making the wrong choices

and everything around him that he should should be seeing everything that should have been important to him could just might as well burn in hell if it was up to him right but slowly it sneaks in the film sneaks upon him and the little girl sneaks in there and barbara sneaks in there and and without him really realizing it he he's he's changing and and i thought that was a beautiful normally that's like one big thing that happens to a character and then he sees the light but that wasn't the case here and we were we were both very stubborn about it it had to be this slow slow development And we keep saying on page 68, a little thing happens and the sky opens, right? And so we had that conversation for a long time that we should stick to our horses.

And even though we felt that we were losing the sympathy of the character, we will stick to it, stick to it. It's a really unusual archetype. At first, it seems kind of like a John Ford Western hero, but he's also very fragile and kind of vulnerable and obviously goes through a lot of changes as the movie goes on. I was wondering how you thought about, did you think of models or characters that you had seen before as you were kind of shaping him

and what you and Mads would do with the character? I think we were mostly thinking about just finding the truth of who he was. I mean, if you think about it finding the truth of who he was. I mean, if you think about it, okay, so he's a bastard, right? He's somebody who's an illegitimate child of somebody who's noble born. But he's just been a stable boy his entire life, right? Then he gets sent to the army. He's in the army for 25 years, building himself up to be a captain.

And then after that, he really wants to become somebody so everything in his life is about proving himself to his probably long dead father right proving that he is capable of becoming part of the sort of noble society and if you're that obsessed with something then that it kind of you get tunnel vision and i think that we wrote him really as a man who has so much tunnel vision that he's a little bit naive as to what life is. I mean, there's even a conversation in the film where I think one of the ladies in the film, the noble woman,

she has a conversation with him and she's, is this the longest conversation we ever had with a woman? And the conversation is literally like 10 seconds. And he very earnestly kind of says, yes, I think it is. You know, like it's an interesting character, right? Somebody who's like kind of a little in his own shell and then trying to see if we very gradually, very slowly could bring him out of that shell. What about that ambition? Is that something that you both relate to in any way? Do you see yourselves as striving towards something in the

way that he is so single-mindedly? No, I'm completely unambitious. No, I'm kidding. No, I mean, I think we can relate to ambition. I get very ambitious on behalf of a project I'm in, on behalf of a film. And then it only lasts for me two, three, four months, and then I can let go of it until I start calling him and say,

how's it going with the editing? But yes, ambition in that sense. But I don't get blinded completely because I also have a different life. I can turn around and go the other way and I don't have to miss what I'm doing. I'm not like, this is my life. So I can't recognize it in this magnitude that Ludwig has. I think that, just to add, I think one of the things that also shaped the character is also the time, 1750s, right?

So for us, it was also extremely important. There is a tendency, and I understand it for good reason, and we also had some compromises with that, but there's a tendency that we kind of like try to squeeze 2023 morals into anything that happened 200 years ago we see it with everything that's happening today but we had to be honest about how you treat each other how men and women live together how a little kid is being treated at that time so so important for us that we didn't got in the way and said,

oh, we can't do that. No, we can't do that today, but they did that in the 1750s and we have to be honest with it. Yeah. I actually wanted to ask you both about that. The historical drama is a sub-genre that is very rare these days. Rare in Hollywood. I think rare in Europe too. It's obviously they're difficult to mount at times but they were the coin of the realm for filmmaking for 30, 40 years. They were the bedrock. They were the MCU

of the 40s, 50s, 60s. Yeah, exactly. So one, what do you make of that that they've gone away in this way and what was it like trying to mount this one?

Well, I mourn the fact that they're not getting made all the time but honestly, I know this might sound naive but I think there's a comeback for them because I think that the only way you can get people in the theaters in these days where streaming is everything is big spectacle.

So I think that when people get slightly tired of superhero movies and the adult audiences also want to go into the theater and have that experience, this is the kind of film they'll want to go see. Like the big, epic, big scope, but still adult material themed films. And so I miss them a lot. Some of my favorite films are big epics. I don't know.

I mean, genres in general for me, it doesn't play a big part in my world. I will respect the genre and I'll have to embrace it and it will be a hat I'm wearing, obviously, what's in there. The characters, the story we are telling is what's important. But there is something beautiful for us. I used to be a dancer and so I used to do stuff without any words. So I'm also still a big fan of what the old school films could do, tell stories through imagery and faces.

Like I love Buster Keaton. I mean, he could say a billion things without saying anything. Right. So, so, so it's a, it's a nice gift that it once in a while it comes my way.

And, and it's rare that it happens in a Danish film. I wanted to ask you about that because I was reading some of the reviews of this film and I'm sure you're used to this but so many of the pieces and I'm sure you did this purposefully but are focusing on your face

and your face has a special effect in movies. You have one of the great faces in movies right now. Is it very strange to be reading a piece and have somebody pointing that out

you know and recognizing that this thing that is you? No, I think that we're relieved because we set out to let the face talk, you know, and we do that with the other characters as well.

I mean, it's part of the way of telling the story. We're relieved that they don't go puking when they see the face, right? And that they actually find themselves reading something off of what we're doing. You can't just stand there and have a face. You obviously have to go through something for us to communicate

with the audience, right? So yeah, I think we're just more relieved. It's not a victory in itself. Do you find yourself writing less dialogue because you know Mads can do something

without saying it? Yes. The short answer is yes. Yeah, the short answer is yes. But also because I know you, Mads. We've done a film together before and we've had a lot of fun. But I remember, like distinctly remember that some of the things we did, even on the last films, was takeaway dialogue.

Like you always used to say to me, you know, I can say this without saying it. I can say it with my eyes. I can say it with a movement. And I realized that he was right. And that's, to me, this is probably the film I've done with the least amount of dialogue and also the most satisfying film I've ever done. So I think that's something I would want to keep working on,

which means I have to be casting him every time from now on. Because you have to have an actor who's extremely talented and who can express so much with his eyes. Because you might just be standing there with your face, but you have so much going on inside you emotionally, right, that we can see what's going on. And if that wasn't the case, it would just be like, okay, here's the face again doing the same thing.

Which it isn't, right? And we have to tell the listeners, there is dialogue in this film. There is. This is not Buster Keaton, I promise. Yeah. I'm a fan of dialogue. I've done tons of really dialogue-heavy films, and that's a good reason why we have dialogue,

especially in our society. So the whole idea of coming home from working in the field, closing your door in the 1750s, and somebody asks you, how was your day? It's just not happening. What do you mean? I just survived another day. So you don't have that small talk, right?

So that in itself just made it easy to skip some of the dialogue. And it's not that we can tell the same without dialogue. It's that we actually don't want our characters to be conscious about how they feel. We want the audience to be conscious about how they feel. We want the audience to have an idea, but the character should be a little less smart about how he's feeling. He should be a little more confused.

So rather have him do something irrational than saying something very clear. Interesting. That's well put. This isn't a $200 million movie, though, despite the fact that it has this epic scope how do you make a movie that is this size feel so big yeah no it's certainly not a 200 million dollar film I think it's more like 7 or 8

I think the way you know the simplest answer is be prepared so the way I would do especially a big film like this in Denmark with a small budget is just like storyboard every single setup that we have to do

get to know the locations really well talk through all the scenes with the actors really at depth and then when you get to so that you don't waste a single minute of a shooting day it's not going to waste with you standing around trying to figure out

what you're going to shoot how you're going to shoot it you already know so it's like it's kind of probably the hitchcock way of doing it he always used to say when i'm prepared for my film like shooting is is kind of like a little boring because i'm i'm already done the film in my head it's not quite like that for me because i like to keep myself open especially for the impulses of actors and working with the actors but but the main sort of like ideas are already planned out. It makes sense.

The film is very painterly in a way. So you can see you had images in your mind. But the most important partner for you in that situation is also obviously… My DOP. Absolutely, yeah. You work with your entire life and they've been growing together. And it's just, I mean, the two of them together, it's just like we can get away with stuff

we cannot get away with in American film. It's like we're literally over here doing a scene, and it's pouring down, and somebody over there is standing with that little glass thing. He looks through and says, we got sun. And then in two seconds, everybody lifts something. We run over there. I start getting dressed, and he's ready.

He wants to go. The DUP wants to capture this now. So that's not this whole, let's talk for four hours and get the trucks over. No, we just run over and do it. So is that what it is? It's a smaller crew, smaller team. You need that energy and that flexible team. Right.

You go over there and catch like a little bit of a scene during the sunlight, which you then know, okay, we got that, and now we can go back to our rain scene again. So it's very flexible. I must say I love the Danish title of this film. Yeah. Why is that not the title here in the United States? We love it as well.

We love it as well. I actually fought to keep it. But the thing is, you know, the U.S. distributors kind of felt that the bastard, because in Denmark it only means illegitimate child. We need to say that Danish child is the bastard. The bastard, right. So in Denmark it only means illegitimate child. And here, of course, it has various different connotations.

And they felt it was a little too negative. They felt that people would think they were going to see a film about a bad guy. So I think that was the reason. And I sort of trusted them on that, even though I still do love the original title. Well, one of the things that I like about the title is it's kind of flexible. You've played your fair share of villains in your career, but Simon Benenberg in this movie, this is like an all-time villain to me. I mean, he is absolutely incredible and devious and insecure and doing terrible things to people.

And so if you look at the movie in another way, maybe he's the bastard, you know, in the U.S. description of that word. But I was wondering about Simon, like, what is it like to watch someone going for it? He is really going for it in this part. It's what we hope for. It's what we saw in him at the casting. It's a very fleshed out, well-written character. But it's not easy.

It takes some skills to go back and forth and up and down with the emotions he's doing. You guys made a very smart choice. The character himself is feeling pity for himself in a lot of the scenes. And it is a smart move because he just becomes that little boy who's got all the toys and nobody wants to play with him. And I think that's beautiful and explains a few things. Yeah. I mean, you said it yourself. You used the word insecure, which is not actually, not a lot of people kind of notice that,

but that's exactly the key into him is his insecurities. He's kind of a little bit like Ludwig. He's the dark mirror version of Ludwig. He also wants to be somebody, even though he is somebody already. He just wants to be more. And I think one of the great things about having somebody like him

I just remember in the room we were casting various young sort of actors trying to against Mads I had Mads in the room and everybody's a little bit insecure with Mads because everybody's a fan of Mads all the young actors want to be Mads but when he came into the room

he also is a fan of Mads but he just held his own and he immediately commanded the room and like sit down a fan of Mast, but he just held his own and he immediately commanded the room and like, sit down, do this, remember, and Mast and me was like, oh, here's a guy who is unafraid and he just got the part from being so fierce. Yeah, there was not one time I won the eyeballing battle. And it's something for a young actor to sit there and command the room. When you're playing

a part like that, or maybe not quite like that, but do you bring a different energy to the set if you were meant to be an intimidating character or a dominant character?

I might, I might not. It's that whole question about do I stay in my character for five months and do I insist on having my kids calling me a different name you don't do that i definitely don't do that but but would even still

even in your attitude with the people that you're working with would you change that at all not if you ask me i know yeah you're just a good guy at all times even not one character you're playing but what we do do uh let's just emphasize that we take our characters extremely seriously, even though we leave them when we go home and say hi to our kids. What we do do is that there is a certain atmosphere in the scene. We might want to contain that for a period of time, four, six hours. That doesn't mean that you can't come up and say that's a phone call, and I go, no, no, there are no phones in the 1750s.

That doesn't mean that. But we're trying to stay focused in a bubble so we don't have to get in and out all the time, right? But sometimes it can be nice to be a little playful, have fun with your fellow actors because that's kind of the rhythm the character is in. He's a little unpredictable. And then it can be fun to do that.

But that's as far as I will take it. I'm a professional liar and we are adults in the room and we have to, the more we can communicate about a scene, the better it gets. If not,

it's just a one man show and it wasn't the scene. And also, we have a seven year old girl in this film who's very, sort of like, almost in every scene

and you can't stay in character. Like, you have to, you have to just be uh funny with her and playful and have fun and be like a father figure to her she doesn't understand if you kind of like try to weirdly stay in character right no it doesn't work yeah i mean she doesn't she definitely need to understand that you know we're gonna make this scene i'm gonna shout at you i'm gonna hit you i'm not gonna hit you for real uh but right when i say cut we're back we're having

fun again she has to understand that. Interesting. There's a really interesting idea in the movie that I like a lot, and I was hoping you could talk a little bit about it. Mads' character is really aspiring to something, and he's illegitimate, and he's worked very hard, and he knows in his mind what he thinks an aristocrat in Denmark at this time is. But when he's finally confronted with one

he's just an absolute piece of shit he's just the worst guy and there is like some there's obviously realization that he has as he witnesses some of this person's acts but it feels like this big spring-loaded metaphor about like careful what you wish for exactly and try not to don't reach too far that's the whole movie right there exactly but so like how is that in the book did you know that is that the thing that you most

clearly connected to that wasn't as fleshed out in the book he wasn't as clearly sort of wanting to be noble in the book I think that

that was something that we definitely hit upon I think one of my favorite scenes in the film is not a scene that anybody really notices,

but it's just my personal. It's like after his first meeting with the shingle, the antagonist and realizing exactly what you were talking about. Oh, wait a minute. I'm now I've arrived, but is this really like what I want to be arriving at is that he then goes home.

He sits in the rain and it's just thinking like, uh, on his way home. And I love that because you can, he sits in the rain, and is just thinking on his way home. And I love that because you can sort of see in masses, again, there's the face, but you can see there's so much thinking going on. And I personally put some of that into it as well. I mean, one thing is you've met this woman, but another thing is like, wait a minute, who is this guy and what does this mean that this person is what I know, what I want to become and all that.

But it's interesting. You saw it. It's interesting that you acknowledge that. I've never thought about it. I don't see it like that. And we would have had a long discussion and end up in the same place anyway. But I don't see it like that. He's a captain in the army.

He's been surrounded by nobility. Everybody who is his rank and above him on ability this is as high as you can get without having a noble title captain so he's surrounded with these people he knows how the game is he knows that it takes six months for an ability to go to captain and it takes him 25 years and he's not even complaining that's what life is and this is what is the general thing for all the characters. Nobody's really complaining. They're just trying to survive and find their way through the maze.

So for me, I think it's more of a disappointment that now he gets to meet him, a very important man in the area, and this is going to be a struggle. This is going to be harder than he thought. I think that's more what I would put into it, though, because he's not naive. He knows that some people are like that. I like that you both can have different points of view. Both make sense and both work.

But that's the thing. We can have that discussion and it will probably end up the same place. But it's just nice to address it. Absolutely. One thing the film does really well is it shows you the difficult physical act of this life. That this is hard work. You talked about it. There's difficult physical act of this life, that this is hard work.

You talked about it. There's not a lot of small talk. Do you, at this stage of your life, like having a part that is this physical where we have to see you bending over and slamming a spike into the ground and working? Yeah, I don't mind it. I can still do it. It's getting, it's a little harder than it was 20 years ago but um i absolutely don't mind it that's something about when when you when you have the real wind and you have the real

heath uh you get some freebies right you don't have to act that it's there and lift that thingy can we make it lighter no lift the thing it's just it's not easy it's easier to you don't have to act anymore right and uh so i i enjoy it i definitely enjoy it and but we also have a trailer now we can afford a trailer now we can go in and have a cup of coffee you know and get warm again and go back out so yeah is the heath uh i've never been to denmark is it is it a known area is it understood in the same way that it's a hard land and that it's not not nothing can be done about it effectively right it's still i mean obviously now everything can be done we have the machinery and the industrialization that happened but the heath is

a big part of nordic culture and also germany has still has huge swaths of protected heath and the reason why they're protected is because there's not a lot left right and they have to protect it and even the place where we shot is very protected. Like Mads always likes to say, we actually had to bring Heather from the Czech Republic to the Danish Heath because we weren't allowed to touch the Heather where we were shooting. Interesting. Do you feel like you're going to continue to make films in Europe now?

Like, is that... Absolutely. Yeah? Yeah. Did he warn you before you made a film in Hollywood? He did not warn me, and I a film in Hollywood he did not warn me and I don't know why he didn't

I think you know he probably but there's nothing to warn about you knew that everybody knows that so that's quite a few Danish directors

who's been invited and it is a different journey for them than it is for an actor absolutely and one of the things that's always the case is that they see something they love.

And they say, we love you. We really love you. We want that energy. We don't have that energy. We want you to come and do that. Second, you come there and you see the budget is above $5 million. All of a sudden, it's like, but can you change completely? Right.

So that is kind of the journey. It's not the same for an actor. This is obviously a bigger budget film. You say good morning to 500 people. At the end of the day, you still go in and you create a little space that is intimate and it's a fantasy little land and you do your scene. You can't call your director in the middle of the night as I can with Nick. It's not the same.

But the work itself, and that is quite different for a director. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm in a good company because I think every single Danish director for the past 20 or 30 years who's gone to Hollywood has made his or her worst film in Hollywood

and then run screaming home and go like, never again. So I don't think there's a single... I mean, yes, Niklas Refn's Drive is actually probably

the one good Hollywood film that came out of it, the English director. Susan Beer did a couple of TV things as she pulled off. Yeah, but that's different. It's not a feature film. Often their best films are made in Denmark. Right, right, right, exactly. But it's about the liberty, right? It's a final cut, you know.

That's what I was going to ask. Ultimately, do you think that there's more respect for the filmmaker in Denmark? I don't know. I'm not going to use the word respect. It's just a was going to ask. Is it ultimately, do you think that there's more respect for the filmmaker in Denmark? I don't know. I'm not going to use the word respect. It's just a different animal over here. There's so much more at stake when it comes to parches like that. So we're just, I've never heard of a film that didn't, where the director was not the boss in Denmark.

It's never happened. You might have the producer. You're the studio executive and the producer and everything in one. If you're the director, there's nobody above you. And that makes it easier because you have your film and you do it the way you want to. And you fail and succeed on your own terms, right? Interesting.

So are you going to do another one in Denmark then? I am definitely going to do another one in Denmark. I might work in Europe sort of generally. I wouldn't mind doing English language films out of Europe. And honestly, I wouldn't mind coming back here, but I think it would be on different terms. I would probably be going more towards like an indie kind of film, you know, indie production, maybe that would be fun. But I think a studio film, I don't think I'm going to do that again. I've had the good fortune today of talking to Julia Binoche and Julianne Moore, which is an unusual day to talk to three great actors such as

yourselves I asked both of them like what are you looking for at this stage of your career you've done a lot of different kinds of parts you've had a

ton of success what did they say well you know sometimes they give you the like well it's all about the character and of course it is and I

respect that but also and sometimes it's not all about the character for me I can answer that is that true yeah it's definitely not. I mean, I need to like the character.

I'll find it interesting or dislike. There has to be something in there. For me, it's about the story. It's about his dream. What is your dream? And can I see that dream in there? It immediately becomes my dream. Like, this is going to be the best film in history.

Luckily, it's never going to happen, so we get another chance later. But I'm more on the story than I am on the character. They will go hand in hand eventually, but I will definitely talk about other characters when we go through the stories and say, why is he not going that way? That will make him that edgy.

So it's the overall thing that interests me more than the character. I have to like the character to a degree, of course. It's interesting. I see in Riders of Justice and in Another Round and in this film, they're not a trilogy or anything, but there's something running through the characters that you're pursuing. And I know that obviously you helped work on Riders of Justice as well.

And I don't know if it's maybe the stage of life that you guys are at or the kind of way that you're grappling with the morality with these people, but I really like it. Like, I'm wondering how much you're thinking about that. Another round. Another round. Okay, cool. Yeah. It's something about middle-aged men trying to be happy.

Yes, yes, yes. I mean, that's what it is, right? I think it's probably that. Probably, yeah. With very different means, I would say. Yeah. I mean, there's no running away from it that we get older and all of a sudden we have different stories we're telling.

But I don't think we address it differently. I mean, obviously it's a big, huge difference for Nick to get kids from the last film to this one. His perspective of life is obviously completely different now. So that is a major thing. But the numbers getting older is not having the same impact, I think. Yeah that is a major thing. But the numbers getting older is not having the same impact, I think. Yeah, for me it did

because after I got kids, I got 10 years older in one year. But other than that. I can relate. I just got hit as well. Yeah, it takes a toll. Oh, yeah. We end every episode of the show

by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen. Have you seen something good recently? That's easy for me. I just saw it yesterday. It's Team America. Had you seen it before? I've never seen it before.

I had to tell them about it. I was sitting in the car and I was just laughing my ass off. I was just like, what? Everything about it, the stupid puppets and the sex scene that never ends

it's just felt like coming back to the 80s and I couldn't stop laughing it was so funny that's a great one Team America

what about you Nick? I know this is probably a little boring to say but I really loved Poor Things I watched Poor Things in Telluride and I was completely

blown over by it I really loved that but I love Lantimus in general and I was completely blown over by it. I really loved that. But I love Lantimus in general, but this was, like, I think my favorite film. It is elevated for him, for sure.

Great recommendations. The Promised Land is fantastic. Thank you guys for doing the show. Thank you so much. Thanks for having us. Thank you to Mads.

Thank you to Nick. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. Thanks to Amanda, of course. Amanda, we have a draft coming later this week. We sure do. It's the 1991 movie draft. It was your idea. It's a banger of a year.

Really good. Well, if you're interested in that, stay tuned to The Big Picture. We'll have the 1991 movie draft later this week. See you then.