The Big Picture - ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ and the Will Smith Resurgence. Plus, Viggo Mortensen!

Episode Date: June 11, 2024

Sean and Amanda talk about the successes and shortcomings of the two biggest movies at this week’s box office: Will Smith’s return to franchise moviemaking in ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ (1:00), and ‘The Watchers,’ Ishana Night Shyamalan’s directorial debut (43:00). Then, they briefly discuss ‘The Dead Don’t Hurt’ (1:03:00), Viggo Mortensen’s second directorial feature, a Western starring Mortensen and podcast favorite Vicky Krieps (0:00). Finally, Sean is joined by Mortensen to discuss the project, where it came from for him creatively, the importance of casting Krieps, his favorite Westerns, and more (1:08:00). To watch episodes of ‘The Big Picture,’ head to https://www.youtube.com/@RingerMovies. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Viggo Mortensen Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Bill Simmons. I am thrilled to announce our newest YouTube channel. It's called Ringer Movies. If you're a fan of our movie coverage here at The Ringer, then you're in luck, because every episode of The Rewatchables and The Big Picture, now on YouTube. Like Bill said, Ringer Movies will feature full episodes of my show, The Big Picture, The Rewatchables, as well as special live episodes, deep dives into movie history, and a bunch of other fun stuff featuring other movie-loving Ringer personalities. Search Ringer Movies on YouTube and experience the joy. Chris Ryan impersonating Wayne Jenkins on camera.

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And this is the Big Picture 8 conversation show about what you're going to do when they come for you. Today we are diving into three new releases. The Weeknd's box office champion, Bad Boys Ride or Die. Shauna Knight Shyamalan's debut feature, The Watchers. And Viggo Mortensen's The Dead Don't Hurt. Funny thing about this, Viggo Mortensen on the podcast today, Amanda. Yeah. He is the writer, director, and composer of this new Western, anti-Western, inverted Western,

starring your girl, Vicky Krapes. Yeah. I think it's pretty much a Western, but about the person that you don't expect the Western to be about. Precisely. I talked with Viggo about that. I hope you will stick around for my conversation. Viggo Mortensen is simply the man.

I think anybody who likes movies knows that, and he was a great guest. But first, Bad Boys Ride or Die. Mm-hmm. Qu, quote unquote, saved the summer box office, which we will discuss. Everybody's got to relax. Everybody just settle down. I mean, it's good that people went to the movie theaters. Will Smith himself went to the movie theater. He did. And then filmed it and then put it on every social media platform.

I didn't see that. Oh, you didn't? Yeah, he went to, he surprised an audience in Baldwin Hills. And like, he sat there the whole time. And then he walked out with the people and was like, hey, that was a good movie. And then everyone, you know, was like, oh gosh, it's Will Smith. And then like a little party formed in the hallway. Oh, okay.

And there were cameras throughout. I would have enjoyed that at my screening. Yeah, me too. I went to a 1230 PM at the Burbank 16 by my lonesome. I was at a 12.15 at the Landmark Pasadena with me and three other people. Two ships passing in the night of east side viewings. Right, but I couldn't handle the traffic on the way back. You couldn't? What do you mean? From Burbank, so. Oh, you couldn't cope with that. Yeah. I had a very stressful Friday of movie screenings.

Nevertheless, Bad Boys Ride or Die, this is the fourth film in the Bad Boys saga, if you can call it a saga. It's directed by... They're trying. They're trying to make an expanded universe. Adele L. Arby and Bilal Falah are the directors of this film. They also directed the previous Bad Boys movie,

which was called Bad Boys for Life. If you ask me, this should have been called Bad Boys numeral four life. And the last film should have been Bad Boys Ride or Die. You know, that's just me being the marketing executive. Could have been Bad Boys forever. Could have been. Could have been. Which I actually did think was the title of the movie until it ended and Bad Boys Ride or Die flashed up on the screen.

And I was like, oh, missed opportunity. The fourth film, this is the second in four years. You may recall in January of 2020, Bad Boys 3 was released. And then what happened? And then we all went into our houses for three to four, five years. Not ideal.

The last film was a pretty modest hit. And this film looks like it's going to be a pretty good hit. Of course, stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence reprising their roles as Mike and Marcus. Has anything else happened to them in the interim? Well, we'll get back to that. This film, you know, the Bad Boys movies are very rarely about story, but I'll give a brief summation of the story. Yeah. You know, their lieutenant, Lieutenant Howard, is no longer with us in this film, played memorably by Joe Pantoliano in all of these movies. And for some reason, Howard has been framed for some sort of relationship with cartels. Right. And they're sullying his good name.

And this is devastating news, especially since Mike and Marcus appear to be, after Mike's marriage and Marcus's survival of some sort of physical episode. It was a heart attack. Was it officially a heart attack? Yeah, it was a heart attack. He had a minor heart attack.

He recovered. And their purpose is renewed to clean the good name of their beloved ex-boss. Right. I don't really understand a lot of why the lieutenant was being framed. Nevertheless. Oh, I don't either. Very, very confusing series of events. And I'll be honest, I didn't revisit Bad Boys 3.

It looms large and, frankly frankly joyfully in my mind. You loved it. Well, yeah. Because it was like after 20 years, it was getting the band back together. My Will Smith feelings were far less complicated. And at some point it was just like a cartel witch, right? Yes. And some fire.

And then they made a good Reggie joke. Yes. Which I appreciated. So I felt like as a fan of the franchise, it hit the right amounts of absurdity and nostalgia. And it was nice to have them back. And you can do that once, but I don't know whether you can do it twice.

But that's all I remember about Bad Boys 3. So I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to know that. Well, there's one other key character who recurs. Oh, sure. Right, right, right, right, right. And Mike, a.k.a. Will Smith, finds out that he has a son with the cartel witch. Yes. And that son grows up to be a member of the cartel,

a drug dealer who is imprisoned at the end of that film for vicious crimes, but then becomes a key player here in helping Mike and Marcus effectively undo the selling of Howard's name and also reveal this kind of vast conspiracy across Miami where all these films take place that is happening essentially to seize power. It's a pretty junky script I would say. Yeah. I thought it was a pretty fun action movie though.

Yes. And that's pretty standard for the Bad Boys movies. The Bad Boys movies are tricky right because obviously my beloved Michael Bay directed the first two.

Bad Boys 2 is iconic. An important action movie of the last 25 years. And it did things that action movies weren't really doing before. And it did things that action movies weren't really doing before. It was that confusing sense of chaos and comedy

inside of action sequences that had obviously been done before, but maybe not at the scale that Bay was doing it. The third film was pretty fun. Yeah. It's okay. And it does have that getting the band back together feel. And that's nice.

This film, I thought, was simultaneously terrible and great. When it was fun, I was rocking out. Sure. When it was just exposition sequences or characters revealing themselves to be evil, I was like, this is really quite poor. There is a certain joylessness to everything but the action sequences. Yeah. And even, I'm sad to say

some of the mike and marcus stuff so what's going on with that because obviously this is this is the secret weapon of the franchises you've got two of the great comic action actors of the last 30 years they have incredible chemistry they always have martin and will have always been so good together and it feels like maybe they didn't get enough time to be funny together in the movie. They only really get like four sequences where they're doing bits. But even those bits, I don't know. It seems like not everything is there. I honestly don't know what the secret sauce is.

It opens with Marcus needs to stop to get a snack, right? And then they insert themselves into a robbery of like a bodega and you know managed to solve everything while also like arguing about skittles and hot dogs and like i was amused but i never laughed and that's kind of how i felt about the whole movie i was like i don't hate this and i'm i'm glad to be back with you guys, but we're not getting to the actual part where I'm laughing out loud. And neither was anyone in my screen. No one was laughing at my screen either. I do think that they were taken with the action sequences because I think that the film now has shifted to Adil and Bilal trying a kind of very exciting form of contemporary action filmmaking,

which is very video game influenced and very irreverent, but colorful, exciting, pretty goofy, and is mostly effective for these movies. I think that you want to walk away from these movies feeling like you had a good time. I didn't have a bad time. I didn't either. I didn't either.

But I never... I would say I am firmly mixed on this movie. Yeah, me too but yeah i don't know what that like that alchemy between the two of them is it just that this is a couple of 50 year old men who have kind of like outgrown making a movie like this like will smith a father of many children martin lawrence is he is certainly not the same martin lawrence he was that i grew up on on the tv show martin really one of my favorite sitcoms of all time. Yeah, but I don't think that they're that different from 2020 or 2019 Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, except for the pandemic and also recent public events.

So... How much do you think that factors into your perception of this movie? Because obviously the public at large... Yeah, not that much. Didn't care. And honestly, not that much. And to be perfectly honest, maybe the reason that they didn't spend so much time on the comedy is because they spent an extraordinary amount of time and money

on Will Smith's wardrobe and grooming. And my guy looks amazing. And I was like, wow. So what you guys decided to do comeback-wise was just like to make sure that will smith has that like movie star running down the bridge moment um from bad boys but like in every frame of this movie so i like i i noticed it and i was like wow good for will smith back in some ways his his character is also saddled with this I have to be a good dad thing to this son that I just found out about who's also in a cartel, so it's tricky.

Isn't that crazy when you learn you have a 26-year-old drug dealer son from a relationship you've forgotten about? That is wild. I just can't wait until it happens to Chris. And then we make, I mean, wouldn't that be just the absolute best movie you've ever seen? Chris, this is Javier, your 26-year-old son. And then Chris has to do Sicario. Chris getting it on with a witch, though. I mean, come on.

Look at the ideas that are coming from this brain. I know. You know what I'm saying? This is a bad boy's reboot. It's Chris and Knox. He's saddled with... Oh, my God. Knox's bucket head.

Okay, he's saddled with the father guilt thing. And then also clearly with the captain who's dead, who they're trying to clear his name. There's some like father-son stuff going on there. So it's like a bit heavier than you really want from a bad boys movie in addition to uh the actress ray seahorn is introduced as uh howard's daughter and she is seeking a revenge for his death and for the sullying of his good name and so she you know ray seahorn also has got a daughter there she also has a daughter comes into play there's a lot of characters in this

um and ray seahorn who is so fantastic on better call saul really one of the more complex tv performances for me i don't know if you watch that show um but for me like in the last 10 years she's really quite interesting in that movie. You're kind of always looking at her face and trying to figure out what it is she's thinking. And in this movie, she's such a one-dimensional character

and it's just a movie full of one-dimensional characters and that's okay. You know, it's an action movie. It's not a complex drama that's playing out over eight seasons. But I just felt like

a real waste of her skills and one more person who's like emotional trauma we had to contend with in this world. Yeah. And that's the thing. Like they're navigating a lot of different strains of emotional trauma.

And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I want you to make jokes and fight a crocodile. Yeah. And I'll buy no crocodile. We did get that. I had some questions about that too. Did you notice how at the end of the last film they set it up so that it was supposed to be like Mike and Rita, his boss, were going to be together.

Right. But then the movie just shoots the right ahead to he's marrying some other woman. What happened there? Last film, they set it up so that it was supposed to be like Mike and Rita, his boss, were going to be together. Right. But then the movie just shoots the right ahead to he's marrying some other woman. What happened there? I guess they needed to do that so that Rita could have her own character arc within this movie and fit into the conspiracy theory. Does she need that? I don't think that she does, but that's at least that seems like the choice that they made. This is considered

a mild spoiler. So if you don't want to know anything about the plot details of the film Bad Boys Ride or Die, please fast forward. This is quite literally the most obvious thing. I've never seen a telegraph

like this in a movie where Yoan Gruffydd shows up in the movie. I know historically I never see the twist coming. I'm like a very stupid movie watcher. And I saw this clear as day. It was like they played like Doom Metal every time

Yohan Gruffit's face appeared on screen where they were just like, this guy's a bad guy. But it turns out he is a bad guy. He is running for mayor of Miami. I believe he's an attorney general or a prosecutor DA. And he's dating Rita, who is a high-ranking official in the police department who we thought was going to be

Will Smith's wife at the end of the last movie. And that's obviously, it's because of what you said to introduce a character arc. But I'm like, why does this Bad Boys movie have so many character arcs?

I don't know. This is pretty crazy. In addition to two of the cops who we saw in the last film who were being trained by Mike and Marcus who were portrayed by Vanessa Hudgens

and Alexander Ludwig. And it turns out they're not just trainees and young police officers, but they're also a couple. Right. And then they have an arc in the movie. But their arc is fine. That's fine with me.

It's very small. It doesn't distract. They're fun supporting characters. And it's fun when Vanessa Hudgens, like, you know, pulls a gun on everybody who comes into the house. And it's just like,

what are you talking about? It is weird to me that in 2024, Vanessa Hudgens is the ninth lead in the Bad Boys movie. That is, that's also true. Tough. That's kind of tough. Yeah. Eric Dane is a name we haven't said yet. He is the big bad of this movie.

I still can't really figure out what was going on. So he was a special forces soldier who was kidnapped by the cartel, but just kidding, he was actually secretly working for the cartel so you're sitting through the credits and you see eric dade and you're a woman of my age or just someone of our generation what age is think mick steamy right you think that i think you don't think the very uh deeply disturbed father on the show Euphoria. Oh, right. Okay. So you have a little bit more of a bridge.

I have. White-haired Eric Dane. White-haired Eric Dane, yeah. This was quite jarring to me. I'm headed out. I was like, that is not who I remember as like the second dreamboat on Grey's Anatomy. Seasons, what, three through eight? I don't know.

I'm just learning now that Ericic dane and rebecca gayheart are no more they split that's too bad sad to hear there was a time when they were the two most beautiful living people yeah and they found each other wait like age has it was really a reflection of my own mortality when eric dane showed up but so for a while i was like oh wait that's eric dane but at that point any exposition as a as relates to his role in the cartel or whatever i found it highly confusing um when he was mcsteamy yeah i did not watch the show i was not really up on that never i'm sure i've seen an episode here too no it was just never a thing in our house oh my god yes what what conventional medical drama of who cares? I know, but that was like a real moment in the early two thousands.

One thing I'd like to know is that TV sucks. I'm a huge fan of movies. I haven't watched TV in like a really, really long time. As you know, like I, I did finish down Nabi and I was really sad. My rewatch.

And then I was really sad. And then I remembered the movies. So thank you to that. Bring me to the third one. That's what I say. Yeah. I, but I was really sad. And then I remembered the movies. So thank you to that. Bring me to the third one. That's what I say. Yeah. But I was not, I was obviously aware of the headlines and the sort of like the fervor around the show at the time.

But was there anything about McSteamy that was sinister? Not sinister. He was maybe like a little bit of a bad boy. And if I recall, he was also involved at some point with McDreamy's ex-wife, who was Kate Walsh. I love Kate Walsh. Yeah. I think, again, I don't need the gray's heads coming from me. I'm really supportive. I do my best to... This was like 20 years ago. It was 20 years ago, and I haven't caught up. Juliette Lemon still watches every single episode.

Still going. It's still going, which is amazing. It is amazing. Good for them. But no, not truly evil. I say that because he's so naturally evil. He, like, yo and gruff it when he comes on screen. I'm like, oh, he's the villain. There's not going to be a twist here. Like, he is definitely a bad person. This movie is perfectly solid um i was a little confused why theresa randall was no longer playing martin lawrence's right wife she has been replaced by tasha smith right which you know one of those things where they're trying to just like oh yeah just don't look over here this woman who's been in the last three movies is not in the movie like several ring camera she has like several ring

camera like close-ups yes yes you know i mean tasha smith is an actress i like but like i've been watching these movies i know about these movies very strange uh i i don't feel like bad about this movie i think in many ways this is kind of what people want from the movies you know where it's like yeah it's mindless it's familiar it's fun it had like all the things that i'm remembering about the plot and the storylines of the four films. Most people don't care. Like it's just not, it's not, it's not ultimately not relevant. Sometimes when we are talking about like the latest installment of something or a late season of something or like something beloved and they kind of like keep going back to the well with diminishing returns and you're, it's like

you've besmirched like the good name of, you know of the rings or whatever nonsense it's like we're not besmirching anything these were michael bay movies yeah it's like it's it's not as good as bad boys wanted to but like i went to see bad boys you know yeah yeah i feel similarly um i do i do think that a dylan ball have they have something cooking and i'd like to see them with like slightly better material like I feel like with a better script bringing their thing

to the table I do think that they could make something that you know when I'm overselling on Michael Bay or overselling on Chad Stahelski or filmmakers like that

who I really like they could do something really really exciting but right now they're in the gears of franchise Hollywood

and they're doing very well. And this movie did very well. To go back to what we were discussing earlier, I didn't think of The Slap once while I was watching the movie. I, of course, really like Will Smith as a movie star.

So let's be clear, I seldom think of The Slap when I'm thinking about the events of 2022 and Will Smith. I'm thinking about all of the stuff afterwards. Yeah.

So you think the slap was a good thing? No. And everything after that was bad? I mean, you can't hit people on stage on live television. You can't do it. It's like a good rule of thumb. But like, I think- He could have killed him!

I literally was about to say he could have killed him! I think about that more than I think about the slap. Which, by the way, is a ridiculous Judd Apatow tweet. You can just like read Judd Apatow tweet. You can just like read Judd Apatow's Twitter to me and I would just, I just crack up. There have been some good ones. I lose the plot. You know, and all the videos after the fact of just being like, and with, and I noticed his glow up so much because like whatever lighting they had in those I'm so sorry videos and I'm like working on myself yeah was just like this saddest oldest will smith you've ever seen um and i'm i'm happy he's he's looking great and feeling great again so i don't know if i i'm sure i've talked

to you about this um i don't know if i've talked to, I assume I must've talked about this on the podcast before, but, uh, you know, the bad boys, the original bad boys movie is the reason why Will Smith is a movie star. Yeah. I think a lot of people would credit Independence Day, but that came one year after the first bad boys movie. Right. Um, in 2010, I wrote this big story about Michael Bay and I interviewed so many famous people. And now when I look back on that, working on that piece, I'm like, how did this happen? I interviewed Steven

Spielberg. I interviewed Ben Affleck. I interviewed like Scarlett Johansson. There are tons and tons. It was for GQ in a time when people still like did magazines. It reminds me of a different era, but it was an oral history of Michael Bay's career. And of course he has worked with most of the big movie stars over that period of time. And he's kind of a joke now, so people don't think about it this way, but I had a 45 minute phone call with Will Smith

just about Michael Bay. And he was the goddamn most charming person I'd ever talked to in my life. He was so funny and so nice and so smart. And obviously he's Will Smith for a reason, but he told this long story, which he has told before, but he told the long story about

taking the shirt off on the bridge and running down you know and the moment that you were referencing earlier as the transformative moment of his professional life that that was the moment when Michael Bay was like this is what I'm going to do for you and this is what you can do

yeah and it worked yeah and he's made so many great movies it's very strange that you know he's made four movies in four And he's made so many great movies. It's very strange that, you know, he's made four movies in four years. He's made Bad Boys 3. He's made King Richard.

He's made Emancipation. And he's made Bad Boys 4. I've heard about Emancipation. And that is really the polarity of the Will Smith experience. Big time blockbusters and these reaches for prestige. Sometimes the reaches work. Sometimes they don't. Emancipation really did not work. King Richard, of course, obviously worked as for prestige. Sometimes the reaches work, sometimes they don't. Emancipation really did not work.

King Richard, of course, obviously worked as a movie. I really liked a lot. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor. But there is something missing in the Will Smith story that we talked about when we did the Hall of Fame, that we talked about over the course of this show for years and years, because we both really like him as a star,

where he never really takes on a cool movie. Django is the biggest example where he turned down Django. And I think about Django in my mind with Leo Will Smith and Christoph Waltz. And I'm like, God damn. And went in Sam Jackson. And I'm like, Jesus, like that would be the most powerful quartet of men in a movie. Since when? I don't know.

Since the Magnificent Seven. You know what I mean? Like it would just be so, but he never goes for the movie that would be hip, that would be interesting, that would reveal more about him. He's a very good actor. He can do The Pursuit of Happiness.

He can do, you know, Six Degrees of Separation. But watching him in this movie, I'm like, cool, he's gotten his thing back that he needed, but he has now done for himself just what Tom Cruise did. Yeah. Which is that he was like, things has now done for himself just what Tom Cruise did, which is that

he was like, things got scary there for a little bit. I made a big public gaffe. Everyone thinks I'm weird. What I need to do is return to safe harbor of my franchise, be really good at that, and just stick with it. And I feel like that's what he's going to do. I feel like he's going to stick with it. If you heard tomorrow Independence Day 3 is announced and he stars it, would you be surprised? No. And maybe I would even be okay with it.

I mean, I don't know whether I mind the safe harbor as much as you do because... I just see so much more because I know how smart he is. Sure.

And so talented. And I think in some ways, like, I think he just has a different rubric than you and I do of like what's cool and what's interesting to him. And he has talked. He, as you said, he is like, like incredibly smart and charming, obviously, but thinks about his career in a very specific, intentional way and has talked about like the math that he does before picking a certain project.

And I think. He has like a formula yeah and he just has different inputs than you or i do and that's fine you know it has it has served him well even if we haven't gotten like the hippest movie in the world but i you know part of the reason that it does work is because of independence day and men in black and like bad boys whatever like that is a superpower. Not everyone can do it. So going back to what works and being really charming. Did you see him on Hot Ones? Talking about Michael Mann?

I didn't watch that, no. So I only watched the clips because I still just can't believe that's how we ask questions. But anyway. Oh, I think it's a great show. It's an amazing show, but I can only watch the edited clips. Because it's too gross for you? No, no, no. Like the hot sauce?

I don't care about the hot sauce. No. The expositional robot leading questions are very strange to me. So you're a man, and when you're a man, you have certain tendencies. And a man's tendencies are to procreate and star in films. No, like the Michael Mann question was something about like you were in Ali with Michael Mann. What was it about Michael Mann's authenticity that led you to do something else? I'm not.

It is a little sideline. I'm not joking. What did you see out there in the third quarter? It was so strange. But then he just like does an amazing uh you know two minute animated i didn't see this really excited um an insightful take on what it means to be an actor in a michael man film and what that experience is like and what's unique about it and why he wanted to do it um it you know like reminded me of the the michael bay thing but in shorter form

and i was like oh right like you you can totally still do all of this if we put you in the right spots. And now it's like hot ones instead of, you know, the Tonight Show or whatever, which is funny, but it's, he still can do it. So I'm okay with him still doing it. Yeah. I think the other signature example of this is passing on the Matrix to do Wild Wild West. Yeah, that was bad. You know, like he, and it's because I think he either thinks about box office or, like I said, prestige, like a kind of award worthiness. Right. And Ali, of course, was an awards play. It's an incredibly important American story.

It is one of the best American filmmakers of the last 75 years. All the pieces make sense. And that movie is good and not great, in my opinion. A very interesting film. But it's in this bottom tier of the Michael Mann movies for me. You're talking about Ali and not Wild Wild West. Ali, no. Wild Wild West, of course, is a five-star masterpiece that everyone loves and has no controversy. But there is also a thing. I mean, Wild Wild West is a travesty, even though that song is going to be playing in my head for the rest of the day now. I mean, it was just like,

what a rich time to be 14 and impressionable. On paper, you could see it. You're like Barry Sonnenfeld coming off of cool movies plus Kevin Kline. I mean, you can't see it. But that's okay. The thing is, is that I think even at that point in 99, it's not that he was bigger than the Matrix,

but he has always been conscious of Will Smith, like the star. And if you're doing the Matrix, I understand that that is like Keanu's breakthrough, but that is a breakthrough as much for the Wachowskis and for everything that happens in the movie itself. I mean, I think it could have had the exact same effect on Will Smith's career. Like Keanu was in speed.

He was in point break. Like he was a big action star and it took him to another level. Yeah, but still Keanu is still to this day, not Will Smith, respectfully. I think Keanu's probably had a more interesting career ultimately. Sure, but that's what I'm saying.

But I think that Will Smith does look for it in terms of like, I'm building Will Smith. Yes. I'm not building like a- More business than art. Yeah. Honestly, it's more business. So I wouldn't make that decision either, but I do think there is a logic to what he is doing.

It's just not what you or I would always do. And I think the burden on him is different than the burden on someone like Keanu or Ryan Gosling or whatever. He's a black superstar. He's a black superstar crossover figure, which is extraordinarily rare in the history of Hollywood. In many ways, he was the first megawatt A-list black star in action movies. Denzel kind of came to action movies later in his career. So he did something that had never really been done before. And I think he felt a lot of pressure to continue to stay on top,

which is why he organized his career that way, which makes a lot of sense. And in fact, in the story of ride or die, the new bad boys movie, 44% of the people who showed up for the movie were black audiences, which of course makes sense because I can't, I couldn't even remember the last film that was released wide this year.

It was directed, that was sort of marketed to black audiences. There just has not been a lot they're underserved we talk about it all the time and so he is obviously working in that mode too being mindful of that so it's hard to compare careers when it comes to something as weighty as like the cultural implications of what he represents i just know that like what will's never been in a spike movie you know what i mean like will like does he doesn't go for challenging complex maybe not surefire hit movies and he gets a little you can

tell he gets a little bit anxious if something doesn't feel like the package fits together perfectly and so it leaves you with like okay bad boys 4 that's fun yeah that's fun i won't think about it again i won't watch it again right Right. You know, I didn't hate it, but it just kind of drifts off and he gets to continue on. I think if he was like, if he took on the Tom Cruise approach, maybe of like being more

in the bones of the movie. Right. Where he was like, this is almost organized around my monomania. I would be more interested in that. I don't know if he's capable of that. Yeah.

I don't... It is a very Tom Cruise-style playbook, and I think he's even talked about studying the films of Tom Cruise kind of like literally as his playbook. But I don't know... He still is so reliant on outward charm that you can't do the tom cruise like this is how you have to you know your motion smoothing thing as your you you you can't become so removed that that is its own form of fascination right like tom cruise and now at this point is like a little bit of an oddity

and like just throwing himself out of planes all the time and that has taken on its own aura. And so we all go to see what strange thing Tom Cruise is going to do next. But Will Smith is still banking on relatability. He's still just like posting like crazy to social media. He's still, I mean, I guess Tom Cruise also showed up to Tenet, but you know. He's not going to hot like crazy to social media. He's still, I mean, I guess Tom Cruise also showed up to Tenet, but you know.

He's not going to hot ones. Right, exactly. So I think he's maybe still just trying to be like the people's champion. This weekend, it kind of worked. Yeah, I'll be curious to see how the movie holds. It obviously did really, really well here and overseas. And that's another part of the story too, I think, which is that Sony,y which made this movie this is like the third or fourth movie in a row that they made adam what is reported to be a much more modest budget than a lot of the stuff that we were

talking about around furiosa we're like these 200 250 million dollar movies that keep coming up short this movie reportedly cost 100 million dollars it's already made 100 million dollars in four days uh garfield cost 60 million dollars it's already made $100 million in four days. Garfield cost $60 million. It's already made $200 million worldwide. That's another Sony movie. Haven't seen it. Won't be seeing it. Okay.

Not even when you rent it at home? I don't think I'll rent it at home. Okay. I don't think I care about Garfield. Like even when Bill Murray was voicing Garfield I didn't care. If Bill Murray

participating makes me not and I don't care. That's a good point. Did you ever read the cartoons? I did. I liked the cartoons as a kid. Yeah. kid that was very funny but like as my movie star garfield he's got like three jokes mondays lasagna he hates od right what else what else is there but there's there's sort of like a um a misanthropy and like a he's really more amanda yeah i guess so but like no he really is more a mandacore.

You don't just want to sit in your box just glaring at people the way that I do. Yes. Do you have a litter box at home? You know, we don't because we don't have cats. That's too bad. So we have other boxes full of shit, but not cat shit currently.

What's your Bad Boys movie rankings? Two, one, three, four? Oh, that was good. So do you want me to do a reverse countdown for the big reveal? Yeah, yeah. Let's get a drum roll on Amanda's voice. At number four is Bad Boys 4. I think I like four better than three.

Okay. Great kill scene with DJ Khaled in this movie. Oh, yeah, that's funny. I enjoyed that. Obviously, the signature scene in 4 is a Reggie scene. You didn't like that? No, no, no. It was very impressive.

As you mentioned, heavily influenced by video games, and they're being very obvious of it. And Reggie is a Marine and defends his home and takes out like 15 dudes all by himself while Mike and Marcus watch on the various ring cameras at the home. How many cameras are in Marcus's home? How many cameras are in your home?

There's at least two. Inside, watching what you're doing. My daughter has a monitor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then there's one security camera. Okay. Yeah. Should you be giving out this information publicly?

Really, really good point. It might honestly might not be plugged in. Like that classic thing where the camera's sitting on the shelf. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, there are, when we got our house, there are cameras all around the house they're inoperable that's what they're telling you it's a good point but it's they're out into the world not into my house oh so it's like outside watching all the things yeah someone's monitoring your situation

and then using it for various drops while you're asleep not ideal have you noticed how these movies have the same interest in reggie as like truffaut does in Antoine Donnell like like what he's gotten a lot of development over the years yeah and so that's the thing obviously the it's the bad boys to Reggie scene is a classic language hasn't aged well the spirit is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life um that's what I'll be doing all of of Alice's suitors. Yeah, I know. Me and CR. It's really, like, genuinely very funny, and I would crack up. And then I thought in three, they had just the right amount of, like, Reggie and understanding that that's something that you wanted. Reggie is the third lead of this film. Yeah, and now, right, they're, like, making a whole thing about it.

And so I thought the action sequence was cool. It is really cool. It is really cool. It is really cool. But the rest of it, I was like, okay, we've used too much Reggie. You know, the sparkle is gone on this joke.

And the last kind of scene where they're trying to like out Reggie him again, like that, that didn't work. I agree. It was what you were describing earlier

of no one is laughing at this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's related to one of the funniest scenes in Bad Boys movies history. So, yeah. So, you're reminded of how much it's not working. Right.

It's tough. But that scene, that action scene was very good. I was frustrated with the use of a QR code as a central plot point in this film. Number one, because, like, enough. With QR codes. Yeah. Like, enough. First, at restaurants, like, get out of here.

What? What? No, you just went into, like, I'm in Amanda bit mode, you know, where you're like, I have a thing now. I'm sorry. It was good. You know what? But you're looking at me, like, passionately declaiming something that I don't care about. I thought that you were going to back me up on this.

You're happy to look at a QR code? I kind of don't care either way. I don't have a strong opinion. But what I don't... I feel really defeated right now. I got in the way of your moment. So keep going. Now it's ruined.

I can't believe you're like, yeah, this is great. I'm out at a restaurant. Or I'm watching, you know, a sports game and I want to hold my phone. A sports game? I don't know. And I want to hold my phone. A sports game? I don't know. And I want to hold my phone up

to the screen to scan a QR code to get like useless extra information and also have all my data stolen and tracked. So get out of here with the QR codes. The funniest thing ever is going to be when your identity is stolen after all these years of negating cookies.

Nevertheless, because you bought an $800 teacup, they took your identity. Cookies are like the last. I feel like my cookies behavior is really normal. Uh-huh. Absolutely. Yeah. I would say. I thought of another thing that I do that i knew you would think it's crazy but oh

i make up phone numbers when i order things i'm sorry to everyone but it's like they don't actually need my phone number and i don't want them calling you have a go-to area code for fake numbers no i use i like use my area code and then I just kind of vary it. Because here's what I've learned in my time. You're a sick person. It's like, you can't do. It's like, no one is helping me out here. This is like the most genius thing I've ever heard in my life.

I'm going to start doing this. This happens every time where Amanda says something that is clearly the ravings of a mentally ill person. And then Bob's like, great job, Amanda. You did it again, girl. What are you talking about? This is so great. They don't need your phone number to send you a t-shirt.

They just don't. Exactly. I don't need text messages from these companies. Yeah. And then they're selling that phone number every which way and they have all sorts of data.

Definitely. This is just factual. I also reject every cookie, by the way. I do that too. Yeah. It's totally normal. It's just the energy with which Amanda brings it to the podcast that I think is the best You guys are both straight up Brad Pitt in 12 months.

Like, it is... This is sick behavior. One more thing. Like, you know when you... You put your credit card into machines and they read all the information. What are you talking about? I know, but... It's the same shit.

But they don't need my phone. Not every single place needs my phone number. Also, I don't need to have an account at every single place where I do business. You know what I mean? You carry a cell phone around and it picks up everything you've said out loud. Yes, I know. And that's tied to my phone. And so my phone number. And so I don't want them to tie it to my other things. You will definitely survive the apocalypse because of this so I don't want them to tie it to my other things. You will definitely survive the apocalypse because of this. I don't think I'm surviving the apocalypse. And it's mostly like I just, the spam calls were getting out of control.

It is getting really bad. And I get way less now that I give out. Is that true? Yes. So there you go. But so you can't do like 777-777. It knows that it's faking you out. Do you get the text messages that are like, hey, it's me, George Clooney.

I was wondering, have you donated $12,000 to Joe Biden yet? I get them really rarely. Okay. And I always report as junk. I always report as junk as well. I've received one just in the last week from Jimmy Kimmel. Yeah. George Clooney.

Okay. And there was a third luminary of sorts that I can't recall. Okay. Yeah. That's like not happening of sorts that I can't recall. Okay. Yeah. That's like not happening to me. I was like, sir, do not use your name in this fashion. Yeah. I'm getting less of those.

And I think it's because I'm not giving my phone number. So even there, it's just small things to preserve your sanity. Okay. Why did I? The great work continues. The Amanda Project. And the cookies. Okay.

The cookies. Cameras. I'm trying to walk it back to where we were. How do we get here? There's a QR code that plays prominently. But also, it's like the size of, it's larger than that. No one else is figuring out the QR code, and then they scan the QR code in this giant art installation.

The image is flashing very quickly, I think. It's Vanessa Hudgens' character who identifies it. We did get the return of John Sally. Do you know who John Sally is? No. He is a former NBA player. Oh. He was a member of the Detroit Pistons

during their glory days in the late 80s and early 90s. And he was a key character in the first film where he played like a hacker. And so that character, the guy with the glasses, who was the artist, is a callback to the early movies. Spider was his nickname in the NBA. And I thought he was really funny in that one scene. Yeah.

And then he gets shot in the head. And then the QR code. They do just kind of shoot people in the head, like fairly. Pretty violent series. Yeah, without discrimination in this film. But they finally scan this QR code that like is the size of Times Square. And then Joy Vance is like, yeah,

hello. Since I know it's you guys. And I was like, literally anyone could get this QR code. Really good point. Okay. You want to talk about, just crack the film.

You want to talk about the albino crocodile? Was it a crocodile or an alligator? I think it was an alligator. I choose to believe it because there's a movie called Albino Alligator that was directed by Kevin Spacey, which no one talks about anymore. Do you remember this movie? No. It was like a one location drama set on the bayou. Matt Dillon was in it.

You have no recollection of this. No, I don't. But I do have a recollection of the albino alligator that is in the Georgiaorgia aquarium um that lives very close to where my son very briefly got lost during our christmas trip and that was one of that was like i heard this story almost i don't need to hear it now i mean he just ran away like in a crowd for two seconds and he was running to zach so it was fine but i didn't know where he was and i did know where the creepy albino alligator was and were you concerned he was in that cage? I mean, it was like full body adrenaline panic. Right.

Has my son been swallowed by an alligator? I mean, it's just fucking lurking right there and you can get a lot closer to it. Alligators and crocodiles, I frankly don't know the difference between them, but I want more than like a very thin glass between me and those animals this is something that I clocked in the movie and this is once again a spoiler for the film bad boys ride or die

uh Marcus is bitten by an albino alligator and then at the end of the movie he has no wound well because in one of the annoying but ultimately I thought funniest bits of the film there's a recurring thing about how he had visions when he had his heart attack yeah i like that and he was told that it's not his time and so he can't die but he had no wound the the alligator bit his arm well what's he wearing a vest was he wearing the stuff even if you're wearing a bulletproof vest you're gonna have a wound that what uh yeah okay i didn't mind that much i bought maybe i missed something i bought Even if you're wearing a bulletproof vest, you're going to have a wound. What? Yeah. Okay.

I didn't mind that much. I bought into his mythology. So now he's impervious to pain. Yeah, well, it wasn't his time in Bad Boys 4. I think we got to move on. Okay. Bad Boys 4, perfectly fine. Yeah.

The box office, this is what's going to happen now. Some stuff's going to overperform. Some stuff's going to underperform. I feel like any of the big takeaways were like wildly overstated. Like, this is kind of what I was trying to get at a couple weeks ago where I was like, yeah, everything's like up and down now and it's way less predictable. And some stuff that used to work doesn't anymore. Some stuff that does will, right? And most of the times you're getting information from people whose job it is to narrativize this yes for the purposes of selling their trades or inflating shareholder whatever so i think inside out too will also be huge and then everybody's gonna be like okay we're fine and then two weeks later something will come out that will

bomb yeah and then it'll be like oh no we're not back right you know what it's my fault i'm sorry i'm sorry for acting the way that I have in the last four years. It's okay. I'm excited to talk about movies. That's what I care about. Let's talk about the next one. The next film we're going to talk about is called The Watchers. Yeah.

This was the other wide release for the weekend. As I mentioned, it's Shana Knight-Chamelon's debut film. She is the daughter of M. Knight-Chamelon. Of course, he produced this movie with his daughter. Speculation is wide that this movie was made, because M. Night Shyamalan made the jump from Universal to Warner Brothers, where he has a movie deal now. He has a new film coming out in August called Trap.

My most anticipated of the summer now. I'm pretty pumped for it. I know. You'll be back from vacation, right? I will. So we can see it together. I will. In fact, I made some changes to get back for the Trap episode,

which I'm very excited about. You changed your vacation? Well, sort of, in a manner of speaking. I will. In fact, I made some changes to get back for the trap episode, which I'm very excited about. You changed your vacation? Well, sort of, in a manner of speaking. I moved vacation time to a later date. Oh, separate vacation. Because I was like, there's no reason for me to be gone now when I could be home having a trap episode and then I can do something else later. Right, right, right, right, right. Which I think is actually a good choice. That sounds weird, but it's actually not weird when you look at the scope of my life. No, it does sound weird, but this was one where I think you were making balanced decisions. I think we want to have fun with that. Yeah, and I also, we want to talk about Trap, and I also did have some thoughts about that other vacation week. Okay. Oh, interesting.

Not for the podcast, just for life. Just for life. Okay, great. I look forward to that discussion. This movie is based on a 2022 novel by A.M. Shine. You read this novel? No. I haven't either. Apparently, some significant changes were made from this novel, which is notable. Do you think we should be spoiling this movie? Maybe we can just put a little box around the spoiler discussion? Because there are, of course, as are in all Shyamalan movies, twists.

I mean, what are we going to talk about if we don't talk about the... Well, that's a very fair point. The movie stars Dakota Fanning, Georgina Campbell, Olwen Fure, and Oliver Finnegan. It's a kind of folktale fairy tale set in Western Ireland. Oh, you just, you unhappily, disappointingly, just kind of yad your way through that.

I didn't read the book because I don't read like folktale fairy tales, you know, and I knew that it was in the sort of folk horror Shyamalan canon so I knew we were going to be getting there but as always like I'm disappointed when the reveal is some version of what this reveal is well I'll tell you what the I'll briefly I'll end the story so while attempting to deliver a bird, which is... I think that you, the bird is supposed to have some sort of symbolism as well. Absolutely. It is a metaphorical bird. But nevertheless,

the setup for the movie is this young woman, Mina, who works in a pet shop has to go deliver a bird. Yeah. She's an American woman who lives in Galway and works in a pet shop and has to deliver a bird. So she goes to deliver this bird. Her car breaks down. She gets lost in the woods. She identifies an older woman wandering through the woods, scurrying away. She follows her where she ultimately enters

in kind of a rectangular edifice where she and two other people are living. What would be a very chic Airbnb? You would pay a lot of money for that. Just a studio space. Not a lot of... Sure, but like from the outside, you know? lot of money for that. It's just a studio space. Sure, but from the outside,

you know? Yeah, it's cool. I think it would be marked up. The construction of that space is actually a relevant point of the movie. And we are entered immediately into a kind of twilight zone setup where we've got these four people who need to stay in this rectangular space at night because if they go outside there are creatures of some kind that will get them they are known as the watchers if you've seen the trailer for this movie i've not spoiled anything what these creatures want to do is simply observe the people who are living in this rectangular space and so the four of them at night stand in front of a double-sided mirror and are essentially a visual feast for the watchers.

And that is what quells them and that is what keeps them safe at the same time. This is a movie in a world full of rules. It's a film that takes a very long time to show its hand and then sort of shows it all at the hour mark. And then there's another 30 minutes of movie. Right. I would say a film that has extremely poor character development

and some serious pacing issues. I was talking to our friend David Sims about this. He, of course, one of the great Shyamalan heads in the world. And I was like, what's the deal with this movie? I hadn't yet seen it. And he's like, well, it's clearly a movie made by somebody who has read Lady in the Water, a book that was read to them as a little kid for years.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And imagine if M. Night Shyamalan was your dad. Like, of course, you would be interested in this kind of storytelling. I thought the movie was wildly unsuccessful. And I really love movies like this. I love folk horror and I love thrillers. And I'm a huge Shyamalan fan. While acknowledging that like one out of every three are like, woof, that didn't work at the end.

Right. This one felt not baked. It felt like it was not ready to be a movie to me. What did you think? It just didn't work at the end. The first 20 minutes, I was like, hmm, what's going on? It's a great premise. And even like, as I said said, the construction of the box and the four of them,

have you seen in the trailer, standing up, waiting to be watched? Everything that was going on there was kind of interesting. I wanted to know more. Yeah, they did not think through how they would tell you what else was going on or ultimately the reveal. Cause that's the two things in a Shyamalan or a Shyamalan-esque movie, right? It is the actual what's going on, but also like the structure of the reveal and how the information is deployed to you. And this is deployed fairly obviously, as you said, all at once. I guess the one scene at the house, and we're spoiling now at this point.

We're fast-forwarding to the hour mark, so turn this off. But when they make it back to the real world and she goes to the house to confront to to to talk to the friend and be like help and then it's like oh no she's not so you're talking about the very ending of the movie oh is that the very ending you're saying when she goes to georgina campbell's home yes yeah yeah i mean that's the end okay well maybe also part of the the pacing didn't hold me to the point that I don't really remember what happened at some point. You know, it's like they escape. I didn't really understand what the motivations were for about half the characters or three-fourths.

Well, I mean, there's some confusion. One, the rules are such that it's like, do not turn your back to the Watchers, for example. And then like five minutes later in the movie, one of the characters turns their back. Right. Later, it was like, don't leave at night. And then they leave at night and it's okay. One of them was, don't go into the burrow. And they go into the burrow.

Right. And then it's okay. So like the rules are getting broken left and right. The rules are being set by a character who we're meant to believe has all of this critical information and we're supposed to trust them. Right. Is it real? Is it supposed to be untrustworthy based on revelations later in the film?

It's a little bit unclear. There's like a dodginess. When you make a movie that's like, this is a movie about rules. If you're going to undermine the rules, you have to undermine them in like a profound way, the way that a movie like The Village does. Right. Like The Village, when you learn that the rules are bullshit,

it's because we're actually living in a kind of a fake reality. In fact, The Watchers is one of those movies where when you're watching it, you're like, is this just like a government psyop? Is this just like something happening in her mind? But in fact, it is a real fairy tale. Spoiler, it is a literal fairy tale. Well, to be fair, the Georgina Campbell character

is styled and just like looks like a straight up fairy from the very beginning. So I don't think I was that surprised because I was like, oh, you mean that not everything that is going on with this woman who looks like a fairy and or a witch who was beckoning her into her house in the woods in the middle of the night, like, you know, for quote-unquote safety, turns out to, like, not be above board. You're thinking of the Owen Ferrer character, not Georgina Campbell's the young black girl. Yes, yes, yes.

Sorry, the Owen Ferrer character. The older women, the older woman. Yes. Yes, definitely has that vibe. Right. I guess it's not even that the reveal was bad to me. It's just the manner in which it was revealed, which is, like like they use... We're deep into spoiler territory here.

Spoiler warning. There's a revelation more than halfway through the film that there's a subterranean office that was designed by a professor who'd been studying fairies and so he's built this edifice to learn more about these quote-unquote watchers right who are shape-shifting fairies who can replicate any image that they spend time studying and and once upon a time in the world there was a battle between humans and these fairies for control of the world. And the humans won.

Yes. Fairies went into hiding. Much of them were extinct. There is this handful in this Irish forest. So he's studying them. He's studying them by building this edifice and by showing himself to them and letting them expose themselves to him. And he's recording these video logs. And I'm like, as soon as he started watching video logs, I I was just like this is just like wrote 101 bad sci-fi writing where it's like he has a video diary

and he's telling you everything in the video diary like I I guess I you know I just he's seen 100 times in a movie before that's true but you know that's very rude to the Martians so continue yeah I guess so uh and spoiler alert it's not Matt Damon in the video log. That's a good point. Anyway, I just thought that the reveal of who this guy was and what he was doing, it was kind of like, yep, they're creatures. There was a moment when the creatures are revealed when the characters are outside at night and they're hiding and they see them being revealed.

And I was like, okay, so this is just like a creature movie. This is not, this isn isn't there's no idea other than just what was explained to us where it was like there's creatures you got to do a thing so maybe the lack of like revelation is part of what what what well but then there's the second reveal, which are that the people she's been in the house with are, in fact, creatures. Or there's at least one creature. I think only one. Only one. Yeah.

But she's been manipulating them in order to learn how to be more human. To get close study. To get close study. And that's also why they watch. Yes. So they can become better at transforming humans. Transforming like two humans to manipulate the humans to like take back the world. Yes.

But they go through that quite quickly. And that's obviously a grand plan. Yeah. Kind of an interesting plan. Yeah. The Stepford Wives kind of a way. Sure. But the movie also

never really presents those stakes. It only becomes the story about the Dakota Fanning character and her trauma, which frankly, Jesus,

like, Right. You know, because she was a bad kid, her mom got into a car accident and died. Oh, yeah. Blocked that out.

That was tough. Yeah. You know, this is just like, it was just really rote. The whole thing, I was like, seen this a hundred times.

Right. It's not really that well done. I want it to be so much better it could be so much better i it just it just yeah it was i was like there's just one turn of the key here and you need two turns to make this a movie no it's true at the very at the very very end to go back to dakota fanning's character's trauma she's there with her twin sister who's also played by dakota fanning and there's like clearly supposed to be some sort of idea here about doubles mirroring absolutely but then it just like is actually her twin sister and the the other person is a weird redhead child outside just staring at her didn't get it at all I thought that was a huge missed opportunity I'm like give me a

crazy ending where she's the twin sister you know the twin sister has a scar because of this car accident so there is no opportunity for them to fake each other out but like you could have played on that you could have been presented with your twin sister but she doesn't have the scar

and you realize she doesn't have the scar yeah just doesn't do any of the things that you I don't know I was really I think because

studio thrillers are like dead like we don't get them anymore I have like a lot of weight on when one comes out maybe it's the same reason why we're like trapped I gotta stay home from

I can't go to the Turks and Caicos yeah but that's also like a I'm not going to I'm not going to Turks and Caicos wow that's what I tell myself

and then I'm like drive to Santa Barbara yeah that's also like a very good trailer and Josh Hartnett one of our one of our guys yeah and Shyamalan obviously proven capable of making incredible movies but The Watchers That's also like a very good trailer. And Josh Hartnett, one of our guys.

Yeah. And Shyamalan obviously proven capable of making incredible movies. But The Watchers was a movie to your point that has a great premise and had a really good trailer. That was why I was excited about it. So it was a lot down for me. Yeah. I mean, I just, fairies. Really? You studied the classics though, right?

You must have encountered mythologies in that time. Sure. you studied the classics though right you must have encountered mythologies sure but they're I guess they have fairies but they're always like sirens you know there's always something is this an Irish thing you hate the Irish no I thought the forest looked beautiful you know it's too bad that people can't cut through it also I mean that that's just a very basic issue she's just following google maps down a unpaved road in the middle of a like notably haunted forest one thing i didn't understand was why did her car just disappear um it seems like they have some sort of vortex like a cloaking device yeah or because explain that to me like i you know well even like the perimeter around the house, they say it's like marked off because you can get back to the house from daylight.

But the very first scene, we're shown someone like trying to escape and get past that perimeter. This is what I'm saying. The rules of the world are like really squishy. I agree. So. I agree. And then you try to make sense of all of it. And what you're rewarded with is like a fairy battle.

Not ideal. No. Really more of like a fairy knife fight. I guess so. But also like, and the historical stakes are that once upon a time, like it could have been fairies. But also if the fairies are so powerful and they can mimic humans. How'd you lose yeah anyway i i'm out what were the changes from the the original i don't know i didn't read it okay i have an

important question for you would you fuck a fairy fairy because a beautiful fairy presents itself to you no these i mean these were like gremlin like they were trying to make them like hardcore fairies but the film presents the the halfling concept oh fairies and humans marrying each other. Oh, so if the fairy is imitating Ryan Gosling or whatever? But do I know that it's a fairy? Well, let me put it this way. Let me tell you what. Some of the rules they didn't get into is, like, what happens when you touch a fairy,

much less what happens in terms of... What happens when you touch a fairy? Well, they don't tell you. And they don't tell you anything about, like, any sort of... Like when you feed a gremlin? What do you mean? Yeah. I don't know. What are the any sort of when you feed a gremlin what do you mean yeah i don't know what what are the rules why can't you touch them well i don't know but what if the manifestation or whatever breaks like what if it's just a visual thing right you know

you mean like what if you have like heavy petting with a with a fairy well i just i'm like you know what what are the rules of the fairy's transformation? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. Should we call Oshana? A.M. Shine?

I'm good. I think I just wanted more. I don't really know what else to say. I think everybody did. But that happens sometimes. It didn't do very well. I don't think the word of mouth was very strong on this film. There were only two other people in my theater as well.

There were three in mine on a 9.30 on Saturday night. Oh, well, that's tough, yeah. Not what you want. Yeah. Not ideal. What theater? I went to the Americana AMC.

Oh, wow. Three people. So that's really primetime traffic. What's the scene like at 9.30 at the Americana? Quite busy. Quite busy. I was coming from the Arrow Theater where I went to go see by myself a screening of Me and It's Such a Beautiful Day,

which are these, Me is a new animated short film from Don Hertzfeld. He made It's Such a Beautiful Day, which is one of my favorite movies of all time. And he doesn't do a lot of interviews and he gave a Q&A after the movie. And I definitely had to leave the Q&A like a little bit early to go see The Watchers. And maybe this is part of the reason why I'm so sour about it. Right. Because this was like a thing I did for myself where I went to go see this beautiful movie that I love projected.

You drove across town for 7 p.m.? I went all the way to Santa Monica for 7 p.m., yeah. Did you do R&D Kitchen beforehand? I didn't because I had dinner with my family. Okay. Well, that is nice. Yeah, it was nice. I was sort of like, wow, how'd you get this time off? But okay. I strongly negotiated it weeks ago because I really love it's such a beautiful day and I've never seen

it projected on the big screen. And you know, it's a, it's a, you might think it's stupid because it's animated, but it's like a very profound meditation on life being like so stupid and so painful and so funny at the same time and really like speaks to something very sincere in my life these things are stupid i just don't connect with them in the way that i connect to other things well this is like a it's a true example things are for children and some things are artists expressing themselves in different mediums than the mediums that i get most excited that's what it's such a beautiful day is. And it's a painful movie in a lot of ways. And it's very deep.

And it was very interesting to hear him talk about it. So to go from that to something that's just like such a blah studio thriller, that may have been informing my disappointment. That's a letdown. I went Bad Boys Watchers back to back on a Friday afternoon. This is pretty sick. It was awesome. It was great.

What was your eating situation? Did you take a break? I'd love to tell you, Sean. At 11.50, I went to the Pasadena Sweetgreen. I loaded up Bobby on my protein as well as my vegetables. And then hit Bad Boys, bought some Raisinets because they're still available at Landmark. Thank you, Landmark, where I'm a member. And then I parceled out the Raisinets over the course of Bad Boys and The Watchers. Oh, interesting. Yeah. You showed great restraint. Yeah.

I'm not like you. I don't house it in like two seconds. I did buy Sour Patch Watermelons before It's Such a Beautiful Day, and I ate all of them in three and a half minutes before the movie started. I'm just remembering now that I had a dream about a Twizzler and eating a Twizzler last night. Her mind. It was really good. But I was like, I haven't recently eaten a Twizzler.

Can I tell you something that happened? Yeah. This is not a review. So I'm not breaking an embargo of any kind. But I saw the movie Long Legs, which is this new horror movie that is coming out uh in july and you know i love horror movies but i have a kind of like dead-eyed quiet soul about them where i'm just like i'm just moving through them through my life to feel a little bit it's your porn addiction and it no like it is but it's we're not hopefully in danger of you killing someone so

no you're right right so it's better and i like i like secret away my time with the horror movies and i saw this movie by myself this is the movie i saw the first movie i saw on friday morning and i'm again i'm not really giving anything away other than for the first time in my life on saturday night i had a nightmare about a horror movie i saw wow that's exciting yeah Wow. And that's neither a positive nor negative review, but it is something that happened. So I had an interesting movie watching weekend. Congratulations. Between seeing Such a Beautiful Day, having a horror movie nightmare,

Bad Boys 4 being fine, The Watchers making me want to drive off a cliff. Right. And then yesterday I watched Shogun Assassin, which absolutely ripped. Okay. So everything went well for me. I watched one half of Downton Abbey, the motion picture, as it's titled.

Hmm. That's nice. Well, speaking of cinema. Can we talk briefly about The Dead Don't Hurt? Yeah. We saw this together a few weeks ago. This is Vigo's second film. Stars Vicky Krapes.

You guys on a first-name basis? I don't think he knew who I was or what my name was. Okay. But I don't hold that against him. He's a legendary individual. Yeah. He's got a lot in his mind. Right.

Very articulate and thoughtful fellow. He's a human in Lord of the Rings, right? He's not an elf. He's Aragorn. Right. He's the king. And that's a human. He's a human.

Because recently I learned that the hobbits and tree people are two different species within the Lord of the Rings universe. Think of all the other things you can learn. So I just need to get some, you know, we were talking about elves and fairies. So they have fairies in Lord of the Rings, right? I honestly don't know. I really feel like the dwarves lifestyle would be for Amanda from the hobbit, you know? The hobbitsbits they eat

and they sing right you know how i feel about other people singing true this is true but they are committed to eating and relaxing and doing whatever the hell they feel like doing yeah i uh i like to sing as well eating eh have you have you started getting shushed by alice yet oh my god i am now told that i have to leave room like leave like go into her room and sit quietly by myself she's like i need space so what she needs is the entire living room but like at certain times like singing along to songs in the car and it's like songs that nox is passionate about that i've introduced him to but now once he knows about it it's like oh suddenly I'm not allowed to sing along to Tom Petty like oh excuse me yes I know

that very well yeah it's really it's very actually in our house I think I may have said this before but I'm allowed to sing but her mother is not yeah yeah well Eileen has shared that with me the sonorous tones right you know uh I also sometimes I'm not allowed to dance so that's really really tough I'm always allowed to dance with Alice. Okay. We have a dad dance. We have a waltz. That's really nice. Yeah, we do the waltz.

But I'm like trying to bring the enthusiasm and he's like, no mama. It's crazy how parenting just eats your whole life. Yeah. In a good way and in a bad way. The Dead Don't Hurt is a Western film. Yeah. It's an artfully, quietly mounted traditional Western that also seems to be interested in kind of subverting all the expectations of a Western.

It stars, crepes as Vivienne Lekouti, who is an independent woman who meets, is he a Swedish guy? Holger Olsen? You have Danish written here. Oh, Danish, excuse me. A Danish immigrant in San Francisco in the 1860s. They fall in love.

They go to Nevada. They start a life together. And then Olsen, who had been a soldier in his previous life, decides he wants to join up and fight in the Civil War. Right. So he leaves her to fend for herself in the open terrain of the Wild West. And she, of course, encounters some very scurrilous figures and becomes pregnant. leaves her to fend for herself in the open terrain of the Wild West. And she, of course, encounters some very scurrilous figures and becomes pregnant and has a family.

And the story is told in this interesting way where it's sort of like time fractured, where it's kind of sliced into pieces and the pieces are moved around. And you have to figure out the puzzle for yourself. I thought this was a pretty beautiful movie. What did you think of it? No, I did as well. I mean, I think the film and Viggo make the decision to make this movie about Vicky Grapes, which is just great from a casting standpoint.

Like, you're working with some good materials, but also, you know, Westerns, you don't usually expect it to be about the woman character, or if it is in a condescending way and this is just it's just interested in her yeah and not it also in some sort of revisionist way or like she's like a gunslinger either you know it's not like that it's like what would happen if you actually were put in this situation how would you live and survive um and his character kind of occurs in the film you see him again and again but the movie is this like semi-Deadwood reunion where Garrett Dillahunt is in the movie

and W. Earl Brown is in the movie and a bunch of like very familiar faces. Danny Houston shows up. Danny Houston, it turns out, he's not trustworthy in this movie. Who could have thought? Untrustworthy consecutively in every movie since 1985. Ray McKinnon also.

And I'd never seen Solly McLeod before who plays the Black Hat in the movie. But I thought he seen Solly McLeod before who plays the black hat in the movie. But I thought he was pretty good. Yes. I really enjoyed this. And beautiful. I think filmed in Nevada.

Gorgeous. The score is by... Which I would really like to know more about Viggo Mortensen's composing process. But you guys didn't get there. We failed to get into it.

That's okay. We were too busy talking about the great westerns and his ideas about the American ideal. I feel good about that it. That's okay. We were too busy talking about The Great Westerns and his ideas about the American ideal. I feel good about that. Yeah. I liked this movie.

I did too. Should we go to my conversation with him? Absolutely. Okay, let's go to my conversation with Viggo Mortensen. What an honor to be joined by Viggo Mortensen.

Viggo has a wonderful new film that he wrote, directed, scored, The Dead Don't Hurt. Viggo, I was wondering if you could tell me, do you remember the first Western you ever saw? I'm not positive, but I think the first Western I saw was, you you know on a black and white tv um a western series i think it was probably the rifleman or something like that i can't remember um but i'm pretty sure it was that before seeing something in a movie theater when i was a little kid i mean like most kids my generation i grew up you know not just boys but girls too i grew up, you know, not just boys, but girls too. I grew up watching Westerns on TV.

And you could still go to the movie theater once in a while and see a Western. They showed lots of Western movies on TV. I mean, I can remember several. I can't remember one and say that's for sure the first one I saw. And I liked them. I mean, it was different back then. I don't imagine there's as many kids today that play what we used to call cowboys and Indians or whatever. Maybe they do, I don't know. But I think it's probably

less common. You probably have more like Marvel heroes or something else. Not that we didn't like the Green Lantern and Superman and Batman and all that, but I remember very clearly maybe it also had to do with the fact that i learned to ride horses and be around them when i was very little three four years old but i always when i played i imagined that i was a gaucho or a cowboy or even because kids don't limit themselves at all you know um i would imagine being like a Lakota warrior, like crazy horse or something. You know, I was in Argentina as a little kid. So when I started seeing movies,

I would imagine I was an indigenous person from there to racing along on horseback and fighting great battles and saving people and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I mean, I grew up with them and I liked the genre. What is it, I assume people have been asking this, why do you think they've fallen out of fashion in the last 10, 15 years?

Well, it seems like right now at this moment, they're slightly coming back into fashion, probably due again to the popularity of a couple of different Western series on TV, even sort of a modern Western, which be yellowstone i guess um but other sort of mini series and things that people seem to be interested in those again and and this year there's a few not just our movie there's a few westerns that are going to be seen in movie theaters. There's a slight revival, but I agree. It is kind of a retro genre now and has been for probably more than 10, 15 years

with an occasional bright spot, whether it's The Unforgiven or some other ones over the last 20 years or so. Yeah, I don't know. I just think there's just new genres. I mean, it is a business. So let's say if our movie or any of the other Westerns coming out this year make money, they'll make more. And if they don't, they won't. I mean, it really comes down to that as much as anything.

I don't think it's as much. I mean, yes, it's popular taste because if it makes money, it's because people are going to see it right um but i think sometimes it's not always people deciding what's made clearly about studios in particular but you know a lot of times producers i'll hear the line well that people don't want that you know we have to kind of or making a trailer for a movie you know well we have to like you have to think about the dumbed down audience i said why do you have to think about the dumbed-down audience. I said, why do you have to think of that? I think audiences are smart. I don't think you have to spoon-feed them stories.

I think people really appreciate it when the story is well told and you pay as much attention to what you don't show and what is not said in a story. I think people appreciate that in any country. It's just a mentality, I think, that sometimes people who are in charge of especially big productions understand that they want to make their money back. They want to make sure everything's understood 100%. Everything's underlined, every T is crossed, every I is dotted.

That's not such an interesting creative approach to me what spurred this one why did this become something that you wanted to do um well i was it was something i wrote during the pandemic lockdown in 2020 and um i had made my first movie that i directed falling and that was ready to come out, but I had nowhere to go with very few exceptions. Spain was a country, for example, that didn't close down theaters. I mean, they got down to 50% capacity, but people kept going to the movies. They wore masks. There wasn't a big controversy about that. It didn't become a political football in the same way it did here. So people went, they were respectful. So they were able to keep the movie theaters open. And that movie,

Falling, stayed in theaters for like five months. It was like a word of mouth kind of thing. It's good. But everywhere else, I couldn't. So I was home and I was reading and I was writing. And this is a story, the first image that came to me it was of this little girl that you see in the movie running around in the northeastern forest you know maples red oaks black walnuts dreaming girl that was kind of mischievous stubborn very much her own person you know independent little person she grows up to be this woman vivian who is free thinking independent woman and uh like an ordinary woman but with an extraordinary point of courage and decency and i thought well where do we put this woman maybe it'd be best to put her on the Western frontier, you know, in the 19th century.

In a society with very few laws, dominated by just a few powerful, unscrupulous men, who are not averse to using violence to achieve their goals. That'll make for a big challenge for Vivienne. You know, she'll have a tough time on on it just being herself in that kind of place. So that's how, once I realized that, I said, okay, so I'm making a Western. I like Westerns. I know something about them. I've been in some of them. I like horses and drove with them. I like those kinds of landscapes. It's going to be fun. And it's really fun with our team just to research thoroughly as we could everything. And we're using all the photographs of the period, firsthand accounts, diaries, books, and also just watching all the Westerns I remember seeing,

watching new ones, watching tons and tons of bad movies where there might be something interesting there. I found particularly interesting in the preparation process, watching the early Westerns, say starting in around 1910 or so, silent Westerns, most of them not really well-conceived works of art. But what was really fascinating trying to because we're trying to sort of design the look of our movie is that that's not so far removed from the actual events they were portraying so the buildings were right people could really ride these were

people who had experienced or were sons and daughters of people who had experienced the things that they're talking about. Outlaws and Indian wars and the cavalry, the coming of the railroad, all those things. They were recent memory. And so you can see those details in those movies. A lot of them were really right. They were as useful in some cases as, say, the Smithsonian collect their photographs of miners, cowboys, women, buildings from the time. It was really great. That whole research process was a great deal of fun. I watched tons of Westerns and enjoyed that, of course, but also just trying to get right the

what the society was like even in a small frontier town. Unless you're a Native American, you came from lots of different places. So as important as it was to get the lamps and the saloon right, or saddle, or what have you, clothing, I wanted to get the cultural, racial, ethnic, and linguistic diversity of our country back then, even in a small place like Oak Flats, and certainly in San Francisco, which we've seen too. That was important. I thought that was, and that was really fun to explore that and get that right. You know,

I mean, there's been lots of Westerns where you, where you see people from different cultures and you hear different languages, but by and large, the principal characters in almost all Westerns are almost invariably Anglo-Saxon born in the USA, or at least, you know least fluent English speakers and usually white

for the most part. I thought, well, why not have the two main characters be people who don't have English as their first language and secondary characters who are the same as true and come from different parts of the world? Why not?

Why not have a woman be at different parts of the world. Why not? Why not have a woman be at the center of the story who's not a big ranch owner, who's not a vigilante? She's not a woman who's going to grab a rifle and go shoot all the bad guys. She's like an ordinary woman who has an extraordinary courage and decency. That's different. Why not stay with her if her male companion goes off to war? I haven't seen that.

I'd like to explore that. What happens, not only what happens to little girls and women when their dads and sons and partners, brothers, whatever, go off to war, not only what happens then, but how do they survive? What do they think about? What are the consequences for them? I thought that was worthy of exploring, and lot of fun doing it of course you need you have a really strong female character who has a strong interior life

and can transmit a lot even in silence you need a fantastic actress to do that who's got that those skills and someone you would believe is from another time. And so I naturally thought of Vicky Creeps for that, but you never know. If you're going to get lucky, maybe they're not available. Maybe they don't like the part. Maybe they've played something similar recently. Maybe they just don't like the story, period.

But fortunately, she answered right away. When she said that, I thought, okay, now we're in business. Let's not mess it it up let's surround her with a really good cast and let's prepare and tell the story really well and uh but having her that was the first step and it was really important you you anticipated a few of my questions i did want to know why this was effectively an immigrant story because i've thought of what you said before where very rarely do you see a western where someone who has just come to the country somewhat recently is the lead of your movies that's fascinating the other thing I noticed is you know on the surface it does feel

like uh it could be perceived as a schematic western you know there is a white hat there is a black hat there is this kind of like perversion of the law. There's a lot of things that we see, but also there's no great train robbery. There's no high noon moment. Like it is, it does feel like a subversion of the genre as much as it is like you having admiration for it. Were you actively thinking about trying to do things that you'd not seen before?

Or is that just something that comes naturally as you're developing the story? I wasn't, when we talk about having a woman in the lead, we talk about staying with her when the guy goes off to war and the diversity i was speaking about in terms of the society we see i wasn't doing it just to do it oh i'm going to do this and i'll show them or something i was just doing it because it was of interest to me and i thought that it was historically true and why not there were probably lots of women, like Vivienne, for example. It's just that storytellers,

whether they were novelists or newspaper writers, and then later screenwriters when the movie started, they haven't been, weren't interested in telling the stories of those women. They were more interested in telling the stories

of battles and adventures and robberies and stuff that men did primarily. And I just thought it was interesting to explore but I wasn't doing it just to make my mark or something. I wasn't trying to reinvent anything in terms of westerns in that regard. In fact, with our cinematography, the way we paid attention to detail i wanted to make a movie that looked and felt like a classic western you know that maybe howard hawks or bud bettaker made i mean anthony mann well you don't think too much about how the camera's looking

at things you're just seeing the landscape, you're seeing the people simple, elegant, let's see it let's imagine that we're there like what I liked when I was a little kid when I would see westerns, you know I'd want to be one of them

I'd ask myself, would I be as brave as like if I was a little kid seeing this movie, I would say would i be as brave as like if i was a little kid seeing this movie i would say well would i be as brave as vivian would i be like that would i make the mistakes that olsen makes would i acknowledge that would i admit it i'd be terrified you know i don't um just so you really live it so i was trying to be respectful of certain traditions, codes of the classic Western. And I think that by doing that, probably the things that are different

in terms of the storytelling and characters stands out more, but in an organic, believable way. Even if it's something you're not used to seeing, staying with a woman when the guy goes off, for example, but it's done in a way that it feels like an old western not like a not like a carbon copy or some kind of retro homage at all but like really like one of those movies what was your thinking behind the non-linear structure of the story i was curious why you made that choice um that is unusual it's becoming more common i guess on on screens to see that because of series that do that a lot these days but i do

realize that it's traditionally been more common in literature novels right than in movies and westerns especially it's not the norm but I don't know it just came out that way the story. I liked it and I did try in editing. I thought well when we're in the editing process so let's take a couple days. I just want to do it just to remove any doubts that I or anybody might have that's part of our team. Let's restructure everything and make it linear and it worked okay. It was all right. But I didn't find it as interesting.

Example, I didn't like the way we got to know Vivian as much. I really like, like, boom, this is how it's going to end. And then there's a different way that you watch her the rest of the way. Knowing that there's a certain, every moment is somehow different, precious, or appreciated in a different way that you watch her the rest of the way knowing that there's a certain every moment is somehow different precious and or appreciated in a different way likewise when you see in scene two a bunch of guys get blown away or you hear some get blown away and you see a couple and then you as you start keep watching the movie you realize oh these are integral to the story these are characters we are now getting to know and among other things um including wilkins and waiters you know as a scapegoat we understand bit by bit why these people had to die

why why why did they all kill on scene two And getting to know them when you know what's going to happen to them, it just gives it something else. And there's something interesting, at least in this case to me, about the spectator having more information than the characters in many instances. There's a scene where Weston, a young sociopath, sort of nemesis, right? Of Vivian and Olsen. He comes to pay a visit in a very gentlemanly fashion. And she's gardening alone outside their house, which is up a canyon,

very isolated. And she sees him. She keeps him at sort of a polite distance because she's seen him a couple of times at the saloon. She knows he's kind of full of himself he's just arrogant a little hard you know probably and so but she's polite and she asked him he wants a cup of tea or something and but we're thinking something entirely different we know that he's a vicious killer

and he's extremely dangerous and no don't ask him in for tea. You know what I mean? But of course she doesn't know that. And I enjoy that. You know what I'm saying? So it just worked for me. I liked being ahead of the characters in a way. And I also liked the different way that you look at people,

which is how we should always look at everybody, really. It's like anybody you know, and your family and friends, life is precious, life is short. One day, and it could be sudden. You might get a phone call, and so-and-so got hit by a car. What do you mean?

You mean they're dead. I'm never going to be able to talk to them again. Yeah, that's what I mean. You know what I'm saying? We should think like that that all the time but we probably couldn't bear it um but in a story told this way you do that you get to know vivian in particular and others cloud you're the piano player candle the owner of the saloon wilkins you. You get to know people that are not long for this world

fairly well. And I like that. I like the choice a lot. It works really well. It's also really funny that you mentioned that scene with Weston because he also has this portentous gift where he's just bringing a big pile of shit with him. It's like we should know that this guy

is maybe not good news um i'm curious uh you know you mentioned some of those characters and the movie is dotted with all of these incredible actors in pretty small parts you know like john getz comes in for like a minute ray mckinnon is in for like two minutes you know danny houston has a pretty small role. But I think especially if you're a fan of the genre or you're just a fan of good actors, it's very exciting to be like,

oh, God, I love him. He's going to be a big part of the story. And then he kind of vanishes. So I'm kind of curious what your thinking was even with casting seasoned actors like that

in those parts. Well, I mean, they're perfect. Every single one of them. They're so great. And anybody that comes in and does what you hope and then some it's always great no i was honest with him i said it's not a big part but if you like the story

it's not a big part we don't have a huge budget we can't pay you a ton of money um but would you like to do this it wouldn't take too long and you could have fun if you like it but if you don't that's no problem and each of them really liked the story and wanted to do it and they did a great job whether it be wl brown or colin morgan who plays cartwright garrett dillon has a bit bigger part so it was danny houston but still they're not constantly in the movie you're right it's a movie about this woman really um but even the smallest part you know shane graham who comes in and plays uh he's not that well known to audiences but he's really good he plays the deputy and um of course solly mcleod who i think is a real discovery he's amazing he's from scotland and then when he was 10 or 11 moved to england i mean the farthest thing from

what you necessarily think would be someone who really play an authentic western bad guy and could ride like the baddest horse in the movie and he worked really hard and did all that great and he's that's a hard part to play because you want it it's got to be someone who has a certain attractiveness and can be charming even winsome and uh and then on a dime can be super violent with no remorse merciless you know sociable and and to get that across and in the relatively few scenes he has is an accomplishment he's terrific but everybody that worked on this

Ray McKinnon, you mentioned him as the judge, it's just this one scene but he's so good he's so good it raises the level of everybody else's work when someone comes in like that and Earl, he's so good as Kendall, too.

He's just part of the place. He really lends authenticity. And it's not just, you don't even have to have seen Deadwood or any of the other things he's done, but there's something. You just feel it's real when he's talking, his behavior, his gestures, all these guys. So it was a real privilege to have them say, I like this, I'll come down and do that. I liked the mini Deadwood feeling, though, of the movie. There was something nice about that.

I was a big fan of that show. I was curious about, over the course of your career, you've made so many films. Is there a filmmaker that you've worked with over the years who had the most significant influence on you now that you've directed a couple of movies i don't know if there's any one i mean an obvious person to mention is cronenberg who i've worked with four times and we're also friends and we share more

things than just movies you know when we talk and communicate or write to each other um what is it that you took from from cronenberg like is there something in particular that he does i i took something similar from him i mean i've been really lucky the list of people i've worked for is you know really amazing i took something no matter how different they are as people and kinds of movies they make i got the same thing from him as i got from Jane Campion, Matt Ross, people you've never heard of, Ana Piterba in Argentina, Agustin Diaz-Yanes in Spain, David Olhofen in France,

Ron Howard, 100%, Peter Weir, you know, all these people do two things extremely well. They prepare meticulously. They don't leave any stone unturned. So when they arrive, they're calm, they're team, and they've communicated that to their team while in preparation. They're already working well as a team before shooting starts and from day one they make it clear to their crew and their cast one way or another they make it clear that their ideas their thoughts about things questions suggestions are not unwelcome like Bring it on. In other words, all these different kinds of directors, all these women and men,

are secure enough in what they're trying to do that they're not threatened by someone coming up with an idea that may or may not be better than what their approach was going to be that day. And that's what I learned from all of them. And before I made my first movie on the first day I said listen don't come to me tomorrow or the day after with a really great idea

for the scene we're shooting today because it would be too late just speak up I may not take it on board but even if it's not something that I totally agree with it may stimulate another thought and the idea is we're making this together and

at a limited time to shoot this story. Let's make the most of it, make the best possible movie out of this story. And I think not only is that practical and smart and helpful to the director, but but it also creates a genuine feeling of uh collaboration from the start so that the crew and the cast they don't feel like well this is just another job paycheck and i'm here for my technical skills and end of story and you know do my work and then go home and that's it it actually is something i'm doing together and this i'm part of telling the story too and my opinion matters so that's what i've learned from those good directors i've been

lucky to work with so many that had that those skills that that approach i can always tell who's done that when i speak to a filmmaker because if it's someone like you who knows how to communicate intentionality with all of your choices you've thought through it and probably even been questioned about it while making the movie in the first place. So it's always a good place to be. Um, Vigo, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers,

what's the last great thing they have seen. Have you seen anything recently? Hmm. Well, I've recently rewatched some movies, some Westerns actually that I could recommend, I could recommend

they're just fun The Furies, which was the last movie Walter Houston made Barbara Stanwyck, right? She's awesome, she's a parent daughter they're just butting heads and these are like sort of in the hands of lesser actors it would have been just two over the

top because their big egos colliding and it's it's like not operatic but it's it's big big yeah yeah yeah it's like a little it's melodramatic yeah and then if we're talking about that another barbara stanwood one is um 40 guns sam fuller yeah yeah that's an insane movie. I mean, he's the master of Pulp Fiction movie storytelling, really. And he brings it, you know, the opening shot where she's riding full tilt. Have you seen that movie? I have, yeah. She's riding at the head of 40 guys that work for her and they're 40 guns. And it's like hell for leather coming straight at us, right?

And it's not like vivian in our story neither of these is what i was saying you know these are sort of she's a powerful she is the boss she's like what what's his name tc jeffords and the furies played by walter houston he is the boss the big rancher and she and that and furious she's the daughter and they butt heads right and over yeah ownership of the land and he doesn't approve of who she must marry and support us would be big fights and uh and then in 40 guns she is the boss she's the big landowner and she's kind of the boss person in the story but it's that's a great there's some great shots there's a really cool and everybody talks about all the action stuff

in that and the sort of larger than life sort of sam fuller stuff but there's a amazing tracking shot long tracking shot through the town in that movie early on that's really impressive you know just looking at all the details and all that i just think of the first ad how much work they had to do that's a good one and um yeah i've been watching i've been watching some older movies recently maybe because i'm not talking about about this um i recently lost i hadn't seen it for a long time mccabe and mrs miller robert altman's movie yeah another strong woman at the center of that movie yeah exactly totally different kind of story and you know very much his style like overlapping conversations and story lines and yeah, like what he had done in MASH and continued to do

in other movies. But there's something, I mean, the art department work in that movie is incredible. This sort of filthy, sordid, muddy, wet, snowy, later on town, mining town in the Northwest. It's really, really, really good. And what I was thinking about that was how much I love the music which is a very simple you know there's three Leonard Cohen songs in there and sisters of mercy winter lady and a stranger song and they're just so tied.

I mean, they work on their own. Obviously, it's something they did before the movie was made, but they are so tied to that movie. It's perfect. It's perfect. There's so many different ways to make a movie, to make a Western movie. Those are three quite different types,

and they're all good. They all stand out. Those are good recommendations, and I like the way that you made yours, so congr're all good. They all stand up. Those are good recommendations, and I like the way that you made yours. So congrats on the Dead Don't Hurt. Thanks, Viggo. Thank you. Thanks to Viggo Mortensen. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his help on this episode.

Thanks to Alea. Thanks to Jack. Later this week, we're covering Inside Out 2. We're building the Pixar Mount Rushmore. We've never done a Mount Rushmore before. So just the four? Just four. Okay.

Four films that represent... Have you been to real Mount Rushmore? I haven't. Nor have I. I have looked at the face of the Mount Rushmore from North by Northwest. I was also going to make that reference. Okay.

But are you allowed to climb on top of it in real life? Slide down the nose? I don't know. Okay. Perhaps we should explore more about Mount Rushmore before building one of our own. Okay, that'd be great. I'm just going to come in with some facts.

You can make a little deck with Edward Norton. Can I make a suggestion for when we build our Pixar Mount Rushmores? I think you guys should say which film is which president. Too many times when people build their Mount Rushmores, they're not representing the differences in the presidents. All right. So I'm not Googling right now. Can Amanda name all four presidents on Mount Rushmore?

I have not been. George Washington. Yes. Abraham Lincoln. Yes. Teddy Roosevelt's on there, right? Mm-hmm. And who am I missing?

Think of some presidents. A very important document in American history. Well, shit. A very important document? Yes. He was the key writer of a very important document in the foundation of America and then later became president. Okay. Oh, Thomas Jefferson?

Correct. Okay. All right. We did it. Look at me. So we'll have to find the Washington. AP history, baby. The Jefferson.

This is a great call, Bob. Thank you. I think this is absolutely right. And I'm already percolating on what's what. Perfect. You know, that's my one of two production notes a year. Okay. Crushing it.

Thank you for listening. We'll see you later this week.