The Big Picture - ‘Cocaine Bear’ and the Top Five Cocaine Movies

Episode Date: February 24, 2023

That’s right, folks, ‘Cocaine Bear’ is here. It’s a movie about a bear on cocaine. That’s the movie. Sean and Amanda break it down and then share their favorite cocaine movies (1:00). Then, Sean is joined by ‘Turning Red’ writer and director Domee Shi to discuss her first full-length animated feature and her ascendant career at Pixar, on both the business and creative sides (57:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Domee Shi Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about cocaine. That's right, folks. Cocaine Bear is here. It's a movie about a bear on cocaine. That's the movie. So we're going to talk about that movie and our favorite cocaine movies today on the podcast. This is really happening. Excited about that, Amanda? Is this a good idea? I am not so sure. I don't know if it is either. You have a whole personal section on here.

Yeah, well, I haven't made any notes on that because we're going to share our feelings in real time. Before we get to that, I do want to point out that in the second half of this episode, we have much more wholesome content, honestly. One of the best interviews I feel like I've done on this show in a long time, Domi Shi, the director of Turning Red, which is the wonderful Pixar movie that was released in 2022,

nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film. Domi was here on the show. She was really fun and insightful and talked about basically her whole career, her rise through the ranks of Pixar, and how she made her movie. I hope people will stick around for that conversation, which I promise is more wholesome than what we're going to be discussing in the first half of our talk here. So there's no normal way to segue. Let's just, let's talk about it. Let's talk about Cocaine Bear. The trailer for this movie dropped and you thought what? That's funny. Okay. I thought I will enjoy 15 minutes of this movie and then, you know, nap or meal plan through the rest of it, which is what you do with premise movies like this.

But I thought it had at least a solid 20-minute setup because a bear on cocaine, that's funny. Good bit. Yeah. I will say that I didn't pay very close attention to the trailer. It was on during sports, and I kind of saw Alden Ehrenreich doing something and seeming sort of funny,

and I'm happy to see Alden Ehrenreich get opportunities to be funny, as are you. And the film rules don't apply. One of my favorites. So I was like, oh, sure. Okay, Cocaine Bear. I will say that I thought it had a completely different plot than the plot of the film that we saw, aside from the bear on cocaine. And I think my plot was better. And, like, more opportunity for things

I would have enjoyed watching. But I was at least like, sure, yeah. I like, it could be at least a little funny. I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the movie. I think I was expecting in part because this movie is directed by Elizabeth Banks, the actress turned filmmaker and comes to us from

Lord and Miller, the, you know, writer director producing duo that has brought us, you know, across the spider versus producers and has brought us 21 jump street and the Lego movie and has this long heritage now of a kind of like goofy meta hyper-intellectualized movies about dumb stuff, you know, and they're really kind of the masters of that. And Elizabeth Banks, who is now, you know, she made a Pitch Perfect sequel, and then she made the Charlie's Angels reboot, which you saw and I did not, which was not very successful. But those first two films had a real comic sensibility. So I think in my mind, I was like, this will be a hard comedy, like almost a, maybe not an Aptovian comedy, but like a premise-bound comedy with lots and lots of gags. It kind of sort of is, but it's really not.

In fact, it's like a deeply violent and sometimes gross kill comedy. And the comedy is not as funny as I wanted it to be. And so I'm trying to remember a movie like this where I was like, it is a true neither fish nor fowl. And I had hoped that this would be wildly successful even as an absurdist property. And ultimately it was just not that successful for me. What did you make of it? You and I went together to see it and I thought we would at least laugh. Like I thought, as we mentioned on the last podcast, we've been in a good groove of seeing movies together. We are. We're hanging out a lot. thought as we mentioned on the last podcast we've been in a good group of seeing movies together we got to the point where like i was giggling at a at corey stoll's like oversized brain so in an ant-man movie not in real life yeah yeah yeah i should all respect to corey stoll

and his modok money which i hope he's enjoying his travels around the world with that so like we're game you know i oh yeah and i felt like cocaine bear caught us at like an open place and we were like there to have some fun and you and i didn't laugh once it was like you could feel the silence in that room and they made us come see it in person which is fine that's not that's all right that's our job and also it's going to see a movie in the middle of the day for a living i'm not complaining but i felt like they insisted on the in-person experience because they wanted it to be that sort of in-person everyone's laughing goading each other on didn't work out didn't work out we didn't laugh so it's not funny and then the plot is

extremely convoluted. It really is. So here, let me give you my pitch for Cocaine Bear, okay? You want to share your pitch before we tell the audience what this movie is actually about? Why don't we tell them what it's really about? Okay. And where it comes from, and then we'll do the Amanda version of the movie.

Okay, all right. So, you know, it is what it says on the label. After ingesting a duffel bag full of cocaine, an American black bear goes on a killing rampage in a small Georgia town where a group of locals and tourists must join forces to survive the attack. So this movie is inspired by a real story. There was a 175-pound black bear that died after ingesting a duffel bag of cocaine in December of 1985. The cocaine had been dropped out of an airplane piloted by a man named Andrew C. Thornton II, who was a former narcotics officer and convicted drug smuggler because his plane was carrying too heavy a load.

So Thornton then jumped out of the plane with a faulty parachute and died. The bear was found three months later in Northern Georgia alongside 40 open plastic containers of cocaine. And that is very much the premise of the movie. It opens with Matthew reese portraying this andrew thornton character having a great time zooted out of his mind throwing bags of cocaine off of a plane that is about to crash the bags land in a forest and then we learn very quickly

this bear is going to do some blow and do some killing and now there are a lot of other plot contrivances that kind of meet. This is like, it's kind of like a meeting point movie where there are about 10 characters who are all coming from different directions and all have different motivations, but they all eventually kind of cross paths with this cocaine bear. Right. We can talk about the details of how they converge.

I'm not sure it's important. That also makes it sound a lot more intentional and like developed than it is. I mean, that's the other problem. There's like a drug cartel element to it. There's a mother-daughter element to it. There's a breakup element to it. I don't know. There's some nature loving to it, I guess. Yeah. Conservationist, maybe. I don't know. Definitely some social media photography to it. People guess. Yeah. Conservationist, maybe. I don't know. Definitely some social media photography to it. People trying to get

the bear on camera. None of it really adds up. It's all really loose. Yeah. The tone is really loose. The writing is really loose. You're not really

with anyone the whole time. There's not like a character you're rooting for. Now, Keri Russell is ostensibly the star of this movie. She plays a mother figure whose daughter wanders

into the forest and then, of course, gets lost in the face of the cocaine-beared terrorism. And Keri Russell's wonderful. I always loved Keri Russell.

But she doesn't have a whole lot to do here. And, you know, there are other, you mentioned Alden Ehrenreich, beloved. He's making a comeback

rooting for that guy. That's great. He looks like absolute shit in this movie on purpose. I really enjoyed it. O'Shea Jackson Jr. is in this movie as his cohort, Aaron Reich's. They're drug dealers. They're working for Ray Liotta, who is Aaron Reich's father and a kind of drug kingpin. This is Ray Liotta's final film performance. And the film is dedicated to him. And frankly, that's disrespectful. That's really troubling for me. Ray Liotta, of course, an icon of the screen

and I love him very much. Brooklyn Prince, who people may know from the Florida Project. She's in this film as the daughter of Kerry Russell's character. Isaiah Whitlock Jr., you know? Clay from The Wire. He plays a police officer.

Margo Martindale, great character actress. She plays a park ranger. There's talented people involved in this film. Yeah. What happened? Tell me your version. What do you think this movie was? So I thought that this was a movie about a group of friends who go camping and take a large amount of cocaine to do while camping.

Because I'm told that this is one of the things that you do while camping. Maybe not cocaine. Maybe you're doing... So it's two things that you do while camping. Maybe not cocaine. Maybe you're doing... So it's two things you know nothing about. Camping and cocaine. The one time that I have been camping, which was with you. That's right. It was for your wife's birthday.

Because the only person on this earth who could get me to go camping is your wife. One night. And we did do drugs, but they were legal in the state of california they were they were yeah it was weed that was that was good that was a good that was a fun time the camping the the the camping it was okay i would say that the food spread that we brought was awesome one of the great cheese plates of all time um like i literally i packed like i was going away for three weeks you know um there were a lot of snacks well what else do you do i didn't really understand what you were else we were supposed to do while camping and also when i'm anxious i just

bring all my own supplies so that i don't have to worry. So I was just like, I got it. I got the dried apricots. I got several different types of crackers. Yep. I got the cheeses. You're a survivalist, but not in the way we think of it. Right. You're like a bourgeois survivalist. Right.

But I do remember at some point after it was dark, that's another thing. It's like once it gets dark, then there's like nothing to do, you know, besides the fire. That's why you got to get high as hell. So we got really high and then we did like riddles. You remember this? No recollection whatsoever. Yeah, and I remember it because I got the riddle right. But I remember that moment of just being like, wait, I know.

And it was like I was ascending to a higher plane and I was like, I've solved the riddle. When you say we did riddles, like did we read riddles from a card? No. That sounds deranged. No, I think did riddles, like, did we read riddles from a card? No. That sounds deranged. No, I think our friends, Anna and Clay, like, presented riddles. What? Because they were the experienced campers.

Yeah. And so we all sat around the campfire and they, like, had some memorized and you had to solve them. Oh, my God. I don't remember this at all. Yeah. And then the other thing I remember is that when we drove home the next morning, you made us listen to the Jets on the radio. That was a really tough moment. Don't remember that either, but that tracks. That checks out. It wasn't a happy Jets game. So what you're saying is you thought that the film would be a recreation of the weekend that we had camping, but with cocaine. But then

the bear obviously gets the cocaine, does-hmm. Does all of it. Like steals the cocaine from the campers, snorts it. Yeah, they don't secure it. They put it in the bear bag, but the bear gets the bag, you know? Oh, yeah. We didn't get any bear technology. That's true. No bear bells.

No bear bag. No bear spray. I mean, the movie is set in the 1980s, so I don't know how far we've come in terms of bear technology. I actually have been camping, I want to say four or five times at this point. My wife loves to camp and I don't love to camp. One thing that I like, I'm super into couches, TVs. I love to just walk over to my cabinet and pull out a box of Cheez-Its, you know, like that's one of my hobbies. I like to take a shower and then sleep on a mattress. That's sort of where I am. Another thing that I really like is being able to like access a bathroom in the middle

of the night. That was my number one issue. At some point, I really had to pee while we were all camping, but like I didn't know what to do. I didn't know. And, you know, I like I didn't have my contacts in, obviously, because I was asleep. But where were my glasses? Because I can't.

So how am I going to get out of the tent? Am I going to get eaten? Because I can't see before I can pee. It was very, it was stressful. But then I couldn't go back to sleep because I was stressed out about all of it. Didn't think this is where we'd be going on this show. But here we are. Handful of times I've been true blue camping.

Like we went camping in Montana. You really got to make sure that your bear gear is in order. Yeah. Because they will approach you, you know? Like they're not necessarily violent. And there is actually a card at the beginning of this film that indicates the American black bear is not historically violent. Right.

But you need to have all of that technology at your fingertips. And none of that stuff was really a part of this story. It was... It unfortunately fell into this kind of... you need to have all of that technology at your fingertips. And none of that stuff was really a part of this story. It was, it unfortunately fell into this kind of absurd movie, as you said, after we exited, that was sort of, they came up with the title of the movie and then the movie, and that very rarely works out. And, you know, Snakes on a Plane was mentioned recently, as Chris and I talked about, Sky Trash.

Right. And it felt very similar to that movie, where it was almost like cut together to get a reaction from an audience when you showed the trailer ahead of another movie, but not to necessarily actually make people watch the movie. I'm sure that everybody who worked on Cocaine Bear worked really hard on it. That's not really what I'm trying to say. You know, I'm sure they're passionate about entertaining audiences, but it just doesn't

work. And when a movie that is so expressive about its intent doesn't work, it hurts worse. It's more frustrating. I would have loved to have had a great time at this movie, but it just is a miss. For me, the tough thing is that it was not even funny. It really didn't land very many of the jokes. And you mentioned that it's also weirdly violent and you see a lot of intestines and brains and splatter and everything. And that's done in like, quote unquote, for humor or for shock value. It's like a kill comedy. So like, that's all fine, I guess. I mean, none of it looks very real. Can we talk about the CGI bear? Yeah. I mean, this is a huge problem. That's a problem.

Like, so all of that, but you could look past all of that if they landed the jokes. Yeah. And if it were funny and you'd be like, wow, this is totally ridiculous. But I laughed at the jokes and like that CGI bear is on cocaine.

No jokes. Just it, or they tried. And it just, the timing was just not there it was weird is that an elizabeth banks problem as a filmmaker what do you think that is going on with that as someone who did sit through all of charlie's angels like redux whatever kristin stewart managed to be funny in that movie but yeah i don't at least like the timing and the editing

and the pacing of it seems, I have two pieces of evidence now that it's Elizabeth Banks' problem. It's funny because Elizabeth Banks, who I've always liked at the movies, and I think is both a very funny and charming actress. We were talking about her brief performance

in Magic Mike XXL, and she's very funny. Wonderful, you know, the 40-year-old virgin, you know, the Hunger Games. Like, she's appeared in huge films. Always a welcome presence. You'd imagine that somebody who knows how to perform

well could nail this stuff, but now this is a few movies in a row that are really just kind of stilted, and I don't know. It is hard to make a funny movie as we have discovered, you know, watching comedies or lack thereof for the last 5, 10, 15 years. No question about it.

It doesn't land. But this is a particular type of comedy. Weirdly, the part that works best is that gore that you're describing. Yeah. I mean, there are a couple of kill scenes. at the Park Ranger's shack that is like a really intense sequence that then leads to this kind of manic breakout moment where there are a lot of deaths in a short period of time. Really well done.

Oh, yeah. You know what I'm referring to. But to what end, I guess I'm not really sure. You know, like, you don't really have a relationship with most of the characters that get killed. We don't really care about them. The deaths are creative,

but they're not really that funny. And, you know, I was thinking about this a lot because this is a kind of movie that I like a lot. I like movies that have a sense of humor that feature nature

or a creature kind of rampaging. You know, in the aftermath of Jaws, there were a lot of movies like this that were attempting to rip it off. Jaws itself is kind of funny at times. You know, the best one, I think, is Joe Dante's Piranha, which is like a ridiculous movie

about evil violent piranha that kill people in a small town. But that movie is satirical. I mean, it's about something. And it also features funny kills. Is Cocaine Bear like a commentary on anything? Is there something that it's like some

message or idea that it's trying to convey? Don't do cocaine? Like, I don't know what it is. I don't know. I mean, I guess it's borrowing a little bit from different, well, not really from different movie genres, but from the like drug cartel, we lost the cocaine, we got to get it back genre of movie, which like is a. It's a trope. It's a trope is a trope is a is a thing that shows up in cocaine movies um but it doesn't have anything to it has nothing

to say about anything and i don't even understand like some of the relationships in the movie like so alden aaron reich is ray leota's. And he doesn't want to be in the business anymore, but he is a widower. Like, what is going on? He's, yeah, he's a widower, and he has a child of his own. Right. But he's in mourning of his wife.

Okay. But also Ray Liotta needs to retrieve that cocaine because the Colombians are going to kill him and his whole family if they don't get that cocaine back. And so the kid's still just like a Chuck E. Cheese alone by himself in Missouri. I believe he's watching television in St. Louis, yeah.

That didn't make a lot of sense. It just feels unfinished. Yes. It just feels unfinished. It feels like there are five characters too many. There's a way to tightly focus this movie

on Keri Russell. Sure. Who is funny. And make it work. Can I say one positive thing about it? Certainly. So this movie

was filmed I believe they call it Secret Falls, and it's in the Chattahoochee National Forest. Anyway, it does involve a waterfall in a cave in northern Georgia, incredibly close to Ruby Falls. And I just want to say, I've heard from maybe almost a dozen people who listened to our 1993 movie draft and were like, Ruby Falls, I see you. So shout out to all my Lookout Mountain friends. Don't see this movie. It's not worth it. But, you know, our history lives on in Cocaine Bear.

When those people reached out to you about Ruby Falls, what did they have to say about the way that Sleepless in Seattle was stolen from you? I have heard from so many more people and like people in my own life. It's mostly just respect for Rob. I'm coming around on this because what it's taught me is how many people in my own life like really fear me. And because they were like, I can't believe Rob had the balls to do that. And he didn't know, you know, but everyone else is like, wow. So that's sick. That's like what I'm trying to cultivate. And I'm really proud of that. And then the most validating thing was I told my husband what happened and he, and I told him about Chris taking Pelican brief and he just winced. And he's like, that really is an Amanda movie. So like even my husband understood like the true betrayal and has a little bit of fear. So I'm, I'm feeling okay now.

In the moment it was shocking and, and it compromised my vision, but long-term positive. I'm really happy for you. Thank you. Um, I'd like to open the conversation more broadly to cocaine. So we have something in common. We've never done it. We've never done it. We don't have to legally compromise ourselves on this podcast. That's right. We've never used cocaine. And we were actually having a fascinating conversation on the way home from this movie, which is that I don't think we really have any regrets about that no um and it is obviously a very dangerous drug and i don't

want to make light of it and people who have struggled with it that's not really the point of this conversation but it is something that cross paths with a lot of people's lives and some people are able to engage with it recreationally and of course it is wildly addictive and destructive but it is also like a real it is an engine of social lives, especially in creative communities. And it is also like something I'm sure you've been exposed to, I've been exposed to many times. Yeah. And this movie and this movie putting that word in the title, you know, it's meant to be an attention grabber. And it being a period piece and it kind of reflecting and recalling back to dare and nancy reagan's anti-drug stance is all very purposeful it's like wow we're 40 years removed from remember when we were fear

mongering about don't use drugs with kids and our relationship as a culture has really radically changed to drugs you very comfortably shared that we were just high as a kite on a camping trip just a few years ago on this podcast and all the listeners will be like oh that's normal like no one's going to react to that if you had done that 15 years ago on a radio show it might have been more provocative to say something like that and so I think like what what cocaine is to our culture is a really interesting thing to me I'm not totally sure how I understand it because I'm not as exposed to it as I was 10 years ago but what does it mean to you and how do you think about it well it was interesting to talk to I was 10 years ago. But what does it mean to you? And how do you think about it? Well, it was interesting to talk to,

I was just in the office before you're recording this podcast. So I was telling a lot of people about, I was like, oh, we're doing cocaine bear and cocaine movies and asking people for their cocaine movies. And everyone thought that was really funny that we were doing it,

which is cultural data point number one. But someone, everyone gave me some version of like, oh, every 80s movie ever and it's an interesting kind of reference point for us we weren't quite old enough for nancy reagan in the 80s but we like grew up in the shadow of the 80s and cocaine and those two are inextricably linked in my mind and i just sort of you know ferris bueller doesn't do any drugs in the movie but like Ferris Bueller did cocaine you know if not in high school then like once he made it to college like that's just that's a that's cocaine energy so I it's almost like a way of life and like a

cultural um almost historical idea to me a moment moment in time, almost like a period piece, as opposed to like a thing that, you know, people are dealing with. And like, you made a good point and we like shouldn't make jokes about it. It's like a serious thing. Well, the thing, I mean, the movie is making a joke about it. You know what I mean?

We're going to, but you know, yes. I don't think about it like in the present day in terms of like people doing cocaine. I think about it like in the present day in terms of like people doing cocaine i think about it in terms of just as you said a lot of people in the 80s like getting zooted you know i have a complicated relationship to drugs my my dad for years worked as a narcotics detective he was really employed at the height of anti-drug you know the drug war in the united states and we would have some conversations about it but that's a fraught conversation to have with employed at the height of the anti-drug, you know, the drug war in the United States. And we would have some conversations about it, but that's a fraught conversation to have with your dad when you're a teenager. And I was never really a big drug user personally.

But I also was the kind of kid who found like incredible absurdity between legalized alcohol and like raging alcoholism in our country and the illegal nature of at least marijuana or something like that um also obviously the drug war was a racist institution that was like and when we say cocaine and a lot of times what nancy reagan was talking about was crack cocaine and not the the sort of like magnificent you know um georgio maroder soundtracked glorious nights at studio 54 that i think a lot of people will think of when they hear that word or the kind of like Colombian drug war narcos vision of like

romantic battle and Pablo Escobar. And there are all of these major iconographies that are associated with this drug. And so as we think about it and like why it has become such an important character in

movies, because there's two ways to view it, I think. There is, of course, like the movies where people are using and selling cocaine, right? And we will talk about some of those movies and share some of those movies on our list. And then there are, well, there's three actually, because I think the point that you make is right. There are some characters in movies who even if they are not explicitly using it, you feel like it's either in their future or it's in the subtext of the story. And then there's the people behind the scenes who are using cocaine and making art.

Oh, yeah. And I thought about that a lot as I was thinking about kind of my favorites of this genre, whatever this genre is that we're inventing. I mean, in the 70s and 80s. Yeah. They were all out there. Most of my heroes were just, you know, they had the little spoon and they were just going. Like, they were just making music together.

Like, they were whistling Dixie, literally. And it created some of the greatest art in American movie history. I mean, in movie history. Well, some of them stopped doing it and started making art about either doing it or the process of stopping doing it. But it informed both the generation directly before us in terms of experience, but the subject of the art that they were making. As opposed to, I guess, like 60s. Well, you weren't really making art about drugs in the 60s, but weed and marijuana, you know. Yeah.

I mean, Easy Rider is a really good um entry point i think for this conversation because easy rider is considered you know it's obviously the kicks off the new hollywood in many ways and it was this huge independent film success and it's like the bridge from the corman movies into the 60s and 70s filmmakers and hopper and fonda but they're selling coke in that movie that's what they're that's the plot of the movie is they're they're on a road trip to sell cocaine to get free. Yeah. And it's a beautiful metaphor for kind of what happened to this country. And one of the reasons why that movie remains as iconic as it is, despite the fact that I've really personally never liked it very much,

is that selling illicit material, narcotics, that gives people a kind of recreational joy and mania. Right. Has always been a core storytelling device in our culture and sometimes it's a mcguffin but it's all about like i need that thing i need that thing but cocaine really now is almost a period piece because now everything is club drugs yeah right and that starts really around 2000 i mean there are still like plenty of cocaine movies and like in the last 20 years and we'll cite some of them but all of my friends would give examples they were like well what about go and they were like no i guess that's ecstasy yeah and then someone else was like what about that scene in long shot and i was like no they're

doing molly you know like it's which you, it's all of the same, I guess. What are they doing on Euphoria? I think it's a lot of pills. A lot of pills, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that that's the thing is there has become a pharmaceutical rise in drug use and then also a club rise in drug use and those two things. And I think that those things are certainly not consequence free. They also are addictive

and they have, you know, major destructive effects on people's lives, but they don't feel as all destructive and all like hollowing as cocaine. You know, like the cocaine narrative is like, you will be left with nothing at the end of this. And that still has a power. And so I think that's why it becomes a period piece

most of the time, because it feels like we are past that era and i agree with you we're not actually past it but at least from a storytelling device it does seem that way there is also you know someone on molly is very different than someone on cocaine yeah and it's it's situationally and historically you're telling different stories but also just in terms of how it works as character device, you wind up with very different movies and experiences. I feel like I say a lot that I don't really like watching people do drugs in movies. I find it annoying. But this exercise made me realize I don't like watching people do club drugs. Oh, interesting. No, that's what it is because it's just a little... I thought you were going to say the opposite. No.

Because if you've ever been around someone on cocaine in real life, it's so annoying. Annoying. But in like an aggro talky, like doing things way, all like the chilled out trippy stuff, like get away from me. You know, I even though that's like healthier, I think for both the person doing the drug and also society at large, I just find it so annoying. Like go on your trip on your own time, leave me out of it. Like with cocaine movies, we are often watching people make terrible decisions in very heightened States and then things go incredibly wrong. Now that's bad in life, great in the movies. How did you think about what movies to put on your list? I had just a couple vivid images of people doing coke, and then I put those on the list. And then I thought of a... And it worked out that they represented like maybe not different genres, but different tropes of coke in movies and also different eras and feelings.

I like your list. Thank you. And then I did one for fun because you said to have fun. Okay. I think you and I have fascinating numbers five. Do you want to go first? Well, this is my fun one. Because I did last night, I was hanging out with my, um, my son,

my husband and my sister-in-law. And I was like, guys, what are your favorite cocaine movies? As like Knox, like Rob's Brown. And it was a lot of, oh no, that's something or other. And then I was like, when the mule falls off the mountain in triple frontier, is that about cocaine? And Zach was like, maybe. And I was like, okay, great.

Triple frontier. So it turns out I went back and watched. Frontier? Is that about cocaine? And Zach was like, maybe. And I was like, okay, great. Triple Frontier. So it turns out, I went back and watched. So when the mule falls off the mountain, they're carrying money, right? That Ben Affleck has torn from the walls. But they do at one point land on a cocaine farm because they're trying. And their intervention is something about getting money from a cartel and it going wrong. And there is also just like a huge amount of people whose lives have been ruined by cocaine energy among those four like aggressive men. So, and I really like this movie, even though no one else does. So I'm going with Triple Frontier.

You know, I like it. I think it um I think it's a fascinating pick because we don't see those men using cocaine no but there is a kind of collective mania yes that you know my experience of this is being in bars in New York City in the 2000s and feeling like everyone who just came out of the bathroom together yeah was all really high and I was like oh I'm not really in this conversation anymore. And the same is true of Triple Frontier. These guys whose lives are kind of circling the drain as they think about one last score

going to South America, going to the Andes and attempting to steal from drug dealers who are also like part of the dictatorship of the nation right they may not be using drugs but they're on drugs it's a harebrained plot yeah i think also i was thinking about my first exposure to coke there wasn't very much of it in my college but there was like always tell of like the cool older guys um hanging out and like doing coke and then fighting each other which is like sort of the same energy that we're bringing to triple frontier and i think part of the reason i like it as well you know yeah so i i don't know it's there's something very aggro and uh ill-advised about all of it while While also being like the classic drug cartel,

we got to get the Coke or the money or something back. I think it's a fun pick. I don't really have a movie that is quite like that on my list, so it's a good addition to this one. My number five is not really about cocaine, but it approximates an experience of people getting addicted to cocaine. It's a movie of... It's a very upsetting movie.

It's a very powerful movie. It's a very powerful movie. It's a hard movie to rewatch. It's called Bug. I read the Wikipedia description of this and then it stopped halfway through. I don't think you'd be able

to make it through this. I'm good. Bug is a 2006 movie from William Friedkin, of course, one of my favorite filmmakers. It stars Ashley Judd and in like an all-time

performance, Michael Shannon. And Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon are two characters who are a bit wayward and a bit lost in their life. Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon are two characters who are a bit wayward and a bit lost in their life. Ashley Judd is in an abusive relationship. Michael Shannon, we learned fairly early on, has just come back from Desert Storm and is a veteran and may be

struggling with something. And Michael Shannon is a bit paranoid and seemingly delusional that bugs have been... He's been infected with bugs by the U.S. government. And he starts to lose his mind slowly on screen. And Ashley Judd, in a very short order, her character also starts to believe

that this mania that is consuming Shannon's character is also affecting her. And they proceed effectively in an enclosed environment together to lose their minds together. We've seen this with drugs in a lot of movies. And there's something a little garish about it because it's meant to seem like exciting or thrilling or ridiculous or somehow sexy at times. But it's pretty gross.

It's about like the destruction of the human body. You know addiction is fucking real it's not it's not a joke i mean one of the reasons why i didn't use hard drugs growing up is because it was explained to me in very clear terms at a very young age what it does to you and i got afraid of it and this is a movie that even though it's as much about mental health and a character study and also like a kind of like strange um like an optical thriller you know that what you see may not really be there it is a very clear like one-to-one mapping of what it could be like to be fully consumed by drugs and especially a drug like cocaine so the the feeling of watching this movie is very resonant to me and i i too wanted to have one curveball that is not amongst the classics.

So this is my curveball. I don't think you should watch this movie because I know you really well, but there's a part of me that wants to watch you watch it. I'm not that afraid of bugs though. I mean, I don't want them like crawling on me or whatever, but I am the exterminator in the household.

Do you know that about me? You do know that about me because you're scared also. No, no, but I am the exterminator though. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not as, I am scared of,

that's the other thing, I'm scared of bugs. Yeah, I'm not. It's a very surprising thing about me. And yet I'm not scared of Ant-Man. I'm not really scared

of Ant-Man either. He seems like a nice guy. Lovely man, Scott Lang. Number four. So this is the scene that came to my head immediately. So it's Bachelorette which is the

2012 movie directed by leslie headland and starring kirsten dunst lizzie caplan isla fisher rebel wilson and it is about a bachelorette party where one woman is getting married and then her three bitchy friends do a lot of cocaine and are just fucking awful to her and i always like this movie more than bridesmaids um it's vicious it's uh um it is it is about how people are terrible and really how women are terrible to each other and i guess the cocaine is a contributor to that but also just sort of evidence and a you know um a result of people being awful and I just it's what I think about when I think about this is like my contemporaneous example even though it's from 2012 which is when I was young

I'm just like people doing blow at a special event and then just not like being awful and that and that was our social lives it's a really funny movie it's really fun really mean-spirited yeah leslie headland working on a star wars show i was thinking about that will you watch it i don't know i haven't watched any of those shows. Okay. I do like Leslie Hedlund. What's it about? It's about four girls who do coke at a party. I would watch that. Imagine it, but that instead of the Star Wars universe.

That would be good. Is cocaine legal in the Star Wars universe? I don't know the answer to that. I don't believe they have cocaine. Does it exist in the Star Wars? Why not? Well, the same way they don't have Ritz crackers. You think George Lucas, was he abstaining? Well, that's a good question.

Yeah. Star Wars is a very creative film. Sure. It feels like more of a marijuana guy to me. It does. Yeah. But his cohort, of course we know. Exactly.

That's why I was asking. I'm not really sure. My number four is a little movie called Scarface. Oh good. You subbed this in. I did. I did. I don't want to overthink myself i think i think

that's good i think it would be really stupid to not have scarface i i think the cocaine gangster drama the gangster epic the opera the coke opera is a is a critical subgenre it's one that's important to me it's one that i think i'm probably it's i people might mistake that it means more to me than it actually does like i'm not i Like, I'm not obsessed with these movies. Like, you mentioned Blow just now. Yeah. Which, and I know has a really strong fandom. And I think it's good.

I think it's perfectly fine. American Gangster, I thought of as I thought about this. You know, a movie that I like but don't love. You know, King of New York is a personal favorite of mine, which is an Abel Ferrara movie starring Christopher Walken about a guy who gets out of prison and then kind of takes New York back. And that movie was so inspirational that Notorious B.I.G. took his name from the main character in that film. But Scarface is really

the granddaddy of these movies. And it's, of course, inspired by the classic gangster films of Warner Brothers from the 1930s and 40s. And this Scarface is a Cuban man who rises to power in Miami by way of the coke trade, portrayed by Al Pacino, and perhaps the most ludicrous performance in American movie history. The movie also happens to be written by Oliver Stone, who knows a bit about this experience. And one of the reasons why I think there's so much versamilitude in the cocaineography is that these guys know from which they snorted. And, you know, Scarface is just a beautiful epic, like a tragic movie, a wildly violent movie, a hysterical movie, one of the most quotable movies of all time. It looks like a bajillion dollars because De Palma, it's really De Palma like at the absolute height of his powers.

And even though it has become this object of fascination in the world of hip hop and in the world of cinema and hugely inspirational to all the movies that I just mentioned about all these,

you know, cocaine lords, there's nothing that beats the original. So Scarface is number four. This is a good pick. I'm glad that you subbed it in. I mean, how can you make a cocaine movies list without, you know, Tony Montana sitting in his big throne with the coke all over his nose?

Right. My number three is American Psycho. I thought about this one. Right. Directed by Mary Herron, adapted from the Brett Easton Ellis novel. When you say cocaine in the 80s, to me, you say Bret Easton Ellis or the works of Bret Easton Ellis anyway. I, you know, I can't speculate on his personal life. I suspect he used cocaine.

I suspect he has regularly, but, you know, this is, I'm bound by the laws of the United States here. So this obviously like set in the 80s, ultimate like satire of 80s yuppie culture and like people doing cocaine. And, you you know the bathroom isn't like good for doing coke or whatever you know like there are many scenes of people doing it but also uh the mania and um like aggressive uh insanity i guess that cocaine produces as typified by Patrick Bateman. Also Christian Bale really bringing cocaine energy to this role.

It's kind of just what you think of when you think of someone on coke. His eyes are bursting out of his head. Exactly. There is also a mania in this movie. Fascinating movie. Much beloved movie. Yeah. Fascinating movie. Much beloved movie.

Yeah. True cult film. I've never read this book. I read a couple of Brady Snellis' novels. This is not one that ever, I think in part maybe just because I saw the film at a young age and I was like,

that's not something I need to spend my time reading. Right. He just released a book this year, Brady Snellis. I haven't read it. It's quote unquote back

good for him fascinating fellow my number three is a movie called Climax which I almost put on my list when we did our

dance movies episode I thought you did Magic Mike's Last Dance I did not ultimately I swapped it out this is a Gaspar No film from 2018 that

is in part a kind of it's like the scariest musical comedy ever made. It's set in the 90s. It's about a French dance troupe. And it's like set during an after party after what feels like a performance. And so everyone at the party is dancing.

And of course, they're also using a lot of drugs. There are some club drugs, but this is set in the mid 90s. And so one of the dominant also using a lot of drugs. There are some club drugs, but this is set in the mid-90s. And so one of the dominant drugs at this party is cocaine. And the movie is like a real descent into hell. And Sofia Boutella is the kind of like leading figure of the movie. And, you know, a handful of the characters are caught up in this very famous moment where one character refuses to share their cocaine with another character.

And then that character who refuses to share their cocaine with another character and then that character who refuses to share their cocaine their hair catches fire and that's like a metaphor for some of the destructive natures of drugs but the movie itself is hypnotic and also queasy making like all gaspar no films are like there's something like sickening about what he puts on screen i don't mean that he's like it's in bad taste necessarily but he has a way of like contorting your intestines while you're watching a movie. But it's also a movie about like erotic thriving and combine those two things with what's making people feel that way, which is everybody's just really, really high and they're stuck in a room together. And you come to realize like this is a movie about kind of going to purgatory and hell, but just a fascinating movie. And I don't think i realized the first time i watched

it that it was a period piece so as i was thinking about this list i was like that actually makes a lot of sense that this is 1995 i had always thought of it as club drugs but i i think it's i think it's a bit of both yeah um okay what's next basic instinct i don't know people doing cocaine and fucking with lots of mirrors that's like all that's it uh this is like the sleaze vibe of this movie encapsulates what i imagined the 80s were like even though it's a 1992 movie so katherine the sharon stone figure in this film she famously murders with an ice pick yes what would your murder weapon of choice be i don't. I haven't thought a lot about it. Like, do I have to have a weapon? It can't be like a poison or something? Like a hardbacked edition of the Goldfinch? Yeah, that's definitely what it would be.

That seems efficient and untraceable. So that's a great idea. No, so you read Agatha Christie's and then you start thinking about poison as the as the method okay so many options so many of them untraceable or attributable to something else weapons seems difficult you got to unless it's an ice pick which well no an ice pick like I when you say ice pick I know that it's a different thing but I always think of like an icicle, basically, which would then melt, which is the perfect crime. A stalactite? Yes. This is the second stalactite reference in a week on this show.

And so stalactite, I learned, is ceiling. And stalagmite is ground. C for ceiling, G for ground. Yes, exactly. We fucked that up on the pod. I didn't fuck it up. It was Chris. That's his problem.

Still sore over that pelican brief situation huh you know i just i felt like that was a real betrayal of trust like rob rob didn't know chris knew okay um anyway so could i do an icicle i mean that's super weird but you're right that is untraceable right uh sure are you wearing gloves i mean it doesn't matter if it melts like isotoners like what are you wearing um no i'm just imagining like breaking it off from the ceiling i meant ruby falls for this as well you know it's the perfect scene for the crime you asked me i did but like would this would these be like erotic circumstances like katherine like you would be in a cave no seducing and then murdering with an icicle I don't think so a cave as as previously discussed a cave is not out nature

is not really where I'm looking for those situations but the thing about Ruby Falls if I recall and maybe this was like a different attraction nearby maybe this was Rock City but anyway you had to like to enter the cave or something it was like very narrow so you had to squeeze through which i feel like would prevent authorities from finding us before you've really given this some thought i didn't you just asked me i will not never be going to ruby falls with you after that description um you know i was just thinking about is uh you as a colleague of ours noted that someone that they're close to

has a 14-year-old son, and then he's a listener of the show. Shout out to him if he knows who we're talking about. But I'm now concerned based on the subject matter of this episode that maybe this one isn't for him. We're going to record a birthday message for him, which is his birthday's already passed. Happy birthday to him. But I was thinking

that we should say don't listen to the cocaine episode in that message. For more reasons than one. Whether or not you should watch my number two at 14 is an interesting question. I watched it when I was 16 years old. The movie's called Magnolia.

Yeah. This is the third feature film from Paul Thomas Anderson who has just been on the brain lately. You know, Boogie Nights is playing this two-week sold-out run at the Arrow Theater here in Santa Monica. And Paul Thomas Anderson allegedly writing slash putting together

his next feature film, which is very exciting. Magnolia. I like how you had to introduce, like, a peg for talking about Paul Thomas Anderson. This is what I do. You don't. He can always be on your brain. He's just the animating force of your mind.

And that's cool. You don't have to, like, give me a news hook for Paul Thomas Anderson. I'm just trying to ground the listener. Okay. You know, just make sure that they don't think that I just have a full stop reel of his films in my mind at all times.

But Magnolia is a movie that I think is widely considered unsuccessful but amazing. I put it on my list. Certainly there are characters that use drugs. In fact, we see Melora Walters' character snort cocaine in the movie a couple of times. We see the bounds of addiction

in the movie and that's a part of the story, but that's not why it's on the list. It feels made by somebody on cocaine. Yeah. And I have no idea if he was actually on cocaine

and we can suspect if he was at the time. There have been rumors for years. But the movie feels like cocaine. The way that the camera moves, the way that it's cut, even though it's a three hour movie,

the way that music is deployed, the absolute paranoia and mania that consumes Los Angeles at this time and the characters who are inhabiting Los Angeles is it's a frenzy and it's almost to the point of parody now the way that people talk about it and think about it but I I think it would be a mistake to look past the like amazing psychotic accomplishment of this movie and sometimes I do you know I'm constantly like

reorganizing what this these his movies mean to me and how they fit. But this one in particular is just, it's the swing of all swings. And when I've been praising Babylon for the last few weeks and thinking about, you know, why I respond to it so much. And I just love when a filmmaker comes along and it's like, I'm just putting everything on screen. Like I just, I have a lot of ideas. It's all about how all these things intersect. And maybe it's supercharged by an illicit drug. Maybe it's not. But Magnolia is just such an amazing example of being with my least annoying friend on cocaine. Least annoying? Yeah, because it doesn't bother me. Like, I like it. It doesn't bother me either. I mean, there's just nothing more cocaine energy than going to like a men's self-help conference featuring Tom Cruise's performance in the Valley.

I mean, that is the definition of cocaine. It's also one of his cokiest performances. Very true. They never say whether Frank T.J. Mackey is on drugs. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he was explicitly against drugs based on his methodology, but he is keyed up and he is emanating that kind of energy. So it just, it feels like a movie that defines cocaine in a way. Like if you had to make a movie into, or make cocaine into a movie. Great segue into our shared number one. Okay. So I'm glad we both agree that

Goodfellas is the ultimate cocaine movie. I'm not going to come in here and say anything other than Goodfellas. But Goodfellas is for an hour and 15 minutes, an hour and 25 minutes is a much more elegant kind of a film. It certainly is violent and it's about a criminal lifestyle but it's got this glamour to it and it's all about you know the 50s and the 60s and new york at this time when men were men and you know the the gangster trade was a you know the numbers was completely different and then you know uses cocaine as this transitional tool to show you how everything came apart at the seams and uses Henry Hill's addiction and drug dealing kind of like felled La Cosa Nostra in New York, at least for a time, at least among that particular concentrated group of people. For me, it was just specifically the,

you know, driving in the car, helicopter overhead and the sheer paranoia. Like what, what made you want to put it on your list? sounds disrespectful to say but i knew i needed a scorsese movie because yeah yeah he has been pretty open about that and like a lot of his movies deal with this era and um a certain relationship to cocaine in particular and so like i really I really like Wolf of Wall Street, but I was like, I'm not going to put Wolf of Wall Street over like Goodfellas. It is the subject matter itself and also the recreation.

And I do think we all learned a lot of our ideas about cocaine, both like the glamorization and how it makes someone behave and how things can go wrong from goodfellas like don't you feel like this was sort of your your text and in that's a good question like did it explain to me how like was it a cautionary tale that like late late like laid the track i mean i don't know the cautionary tale was the the egg on the the Right, right. This is your brain on drugs. Right, which is at the beginning of Cocaine Bear.

No, I just think sort of like our historical understanding, you know? I wonder. That's a really good question. You know, like what were the key texts? I mean, I think you and I also grew up in the age of the after-school special. Sure, yeah. The after-school special. In fact,

Ben Affleck quite famously featured in an anti-drug after school special in the early days of his acting career as did many actors. And so I think that there was like a hard line morality baked into my cultural consumption

in the 80s and 90s around this topic. Goodfellas is in many ways a cautionary tale. And I've talked about this before with Goodfellas where like I grew up across the street from people who are related to the Pelleggi family. And so like I had met Nick Pelleggi and I knew a lot about the Henry Hill,

you know, who he was based on and his whole experience. And also my dad being a police officer on Long Island. Like Goodfellas was embedded in my youth in a lot of ways. But I don't think that the way that I thought about it was as a movie about drugs or as a movie about why you shouldn't use drugs or any of those things. I think it was almost like a family photo album is stretching it way too close. Right. But it was like too close to my personal experience. I didn't think of it as like a how-to manual,

but like I was exposed to Goodfellas and to Scorsese before I was exposed to like a bunch of assholes in a room like doing coke at a Saturday, you know? So like in that way that movies inform some of your like accumulated knowledge, I definitely think I knew more about it from Martin Scorsese movies than from real life for a long time. Yeah, Chris Ryan and Bill Simmons and I have talked about this a lot, where just like the ridiculousness of the whip back head shot that, you know, Scorsese is kind of famous for or parodied for.

At a certain point, I thought was becoming kind of an urban myth that he created this world of like the hard zoom in on a character's face as they whip their head back as they were snorting a line. Right. That's something that we imagine when we think of like scorsese coke movies but then vinyl came out and then they literally were doing that in vinyl in every episode of bobby cannavale and i was like this isn't a myth like this actually is what how he is trying to visually execute on the idea of doing a line and then feeling the chemicals hit your brain so yes like to i agree with you that it is like the the grammar of cocaine use comes from watching his movies for sure but then you get older and you get more exposed to it and you realize like it's not quite that like that's maybe his idea of it right but it's not journalism no no no but it is this idea of it in the movies that is why you, in a lot of ways, like why we have this list and why we're, and Bright Lights, Big City would have been the companion, I think,

to that movie. For sure. Which is, of course, based on another novel from that time, Michael J. Fox, allegedly had some dabbles with the drug himself.

Oh, okay. Well, as a young Reagan, portraying a young Reagan, that makes sense. You know, City of God is one that crossed my mind.

Right. Can I ask you, what is the drugs in Foxcatcher? I don't remember this. So, I thought about putting Foxcatcher on my list, not specifically because it's like a movie about cocaine.

It's not a movie about cocaine. It's about a movie about an incredibly wealthy man who is obsessed with the wrestling team and also has a confused sexual identity. There is a version of drug addiction, especially amongst wealthy people and aging wealthy people, that is like very isolated and paranoid. And even though, again, I don't know if Foxcatcher is about cocaine per se, it seemed like a

rendition of an under-discussed or under-exposed aspect of drug use that I thought was interesting to think about it in those contexts. But we can kind of elongate. Yeah, what a strange movie. I was thinking about it recently because it was nominated for a bunch of Oscars that year. And we had just talked about

Whiplash on the rewatchables. And so I was thinking back to that era in moviemaking. Also, Bennett Miller, has he made a movie since that movie came out? I don't think so. It's nine years ago.

It's remarkable. Any other honorable mentions you want to mention? I don't think so. I mean, like I mentioned Wolf of Wall Street remarkable. Any other honorable mentions you want to mention? I don't think so. I mean, like I mentioned Wolf of Wall Street, but that's more, I also think of that

as a Quaaludes movie. For sure. Because that is the single best scene of Leonardo DiCaprio's acting. No, I mentioned all the rest, but they kind of blur together of what's Coke and what's Molly

and what's all of the above. Do you think you'll die having never used cocaine? I hope so. Me too. Don't you think that would be productive for us? I hope that for you as well. Thank you.

And for all future generations. Yeah. Let's just go to my conversation with Domi Shi, you know, just normal stuff. Normal segue. Delighted to be joined by Domi Shi. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for being here. I want to start with this.

You're having a big career. You've achieved a lot already. Everything's exploding. But I want to know the first animated work you can remember falling in love with. The first thing you saw that you thought, hmm, I get that. That gets me. I love that. Yeah.

I think that would have to be Disney's Aladdin. My parents and I immigrated to Canada when I was two years old. And I remember when I was around three or four, my dad came home with a VCR player. Is that what it's called? A VCR player? Yeah, I think so. Or is it VCR? Well, I would say VCR, but I think VCR player works.

A VCR, yeah. It was our first VCR that our family owned, and he bought our first VHS tape, and that was Disney's Aladdin. And I remember I popped that in, and it was just amazing. It was like the most incredible thing I've ever seen. The songs, the colors, it was an amazing, funny story. But also, I was just so enamored and confused by how hot Aladdin was. And I was like, how is this possible? He's a drawing. And yet, why am I in love with him?

That informs a lot of the turning red ideas, I think. It was an awakening for me. Why Aladdin? Why did that, why your dad chose it? Yeah. I mean, I think at the time it was like, you know, probably one of the most popular or highest grossing animated films. And he just picked it.

And my dad also, he is an artist himself. He was an art professor back in China. And he's always encouraged that artistic side in me. Like he would buy animated films for me. He'd buy art books for me. Like the Totoro art book was one of the first books that he bought for me just to look through and to like study. And yeah, he really encouraged me to pursue something creative. Did you share your longing for Aladdin with him? No, I don't think he would have understood. Although I think I like

asked him at some point like, dad, can you help me? Like, can you teach me how to draw a torso? And he's like, oh, I'm so glad you're you have such an interest in the in human anatomy of course I'll teach you when you started doing that were you aside from you know responding to your your feelings were you um imagining a career or professional life just a job where you could draw create be a part of that world that didn't happen until um i started drawing more in school like in elementary school um i just remember i was doodling in my sketchbook and then a classmate was like oh my gosh that's so cool can you draw like this for me or that for me and i i would suddenly start taking requests from classmates to draw their favorite pokemon

or their favorite cartoon characters. And I became like the drawer, like the art kid in my class. And like having that identity, I loved that. That made me feel like I had like a purpose. And I just loved seeing the reactions on my classmates' faces when I would show them a piece of artwork or I would give them a drawing. And then at some point, I think in grade four, I realized I could monetize it. Like I started charging like a dollar for a drawing here or like I would have this barter system where, you know, I would do a Pokemon drawing for a kid and he would give me like a Pokemon card or like I would start collecting like pogs and Pokemon cards and yo-yos and I would have yeah and then eventually money and it wasn't just the boys either like the girls would come to me as well and they'd have interesting requests like

can you draw me with my crush on a swing and I was like yeah and for 50 cents I'll color it in and then I was like oh my gosh like maybe I could do this for a living I was very thrilling to be given like money and a payment for like drawing and it that like that was that was my first experience and uh you know like realizing maybe I could do this for a living. But I couldn't live on pogs. I had to start charging real money at some point. But I didn't know that until later. But yeah, at the time, I was like, yeah, pogs.

I'll draw for pogs. That's really funny. So you learned that art is also a business at a fairly young age, which I feel like isn't necessarily always something that dawns on creative kids. Yeah, yeah. I think I attribute that to my parents and my dad because, you know, he went to art school. He was an art professor, but he, like, drawing and painting and art was, like like the only thing he could do so when we first immigrated to Canada like like the only way that he could support us was through like drawing in any way

possible like he you know did portraits for people on the street he would do commissions he would like even early early on like he would take like a factory job where he's painting ceramics on a conveyor belt. But it was all just to try to support our family. So art and yeah, I think I was exposed at a young age to how art art can be used to to support yourself financially i don't really fully understand kind of the pipeline to a career in animation so i'm curious to hear you know a canadian girl with immigrant parents you're great at drawing and you're you're earning pogs and 50 cents at a time but like do you know you want to study art in school and then immediately find your way effectively to Hollywood animation? Like, how are you thinking about what your career is going to be?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I did not think that I would be here. Yeah. Directing animated films. I think I just knew that I wanted to draw for a living and I didn't exactly know what career that would be. But in high school, you know, I started getting, I started participating more online, like online art communities, like DeviantArt or

Tumblr or Blogspot. And, you know, I would post my artwork, but I would also follow a lot of artists that I really respected and admired. Um, and I would like, you know, comment and ask them questions like, where did you go to school? How'd you learn how to do that? And a lot of them went to Sheridan College, which was this, um, yeah, it's this college outside of Toronto. And they have this animation program where a lot of artists I followed online were students of. And I think at the time I was like, I just want to learn how to draw like them. So I'm just going to go to school where they went to school. And I kind of just, yeah, I just had that in mind. And I worked on my portfolio with my dad and I got into the animation program.

But even then, like, even as I was in the animation program, like, we're learning different, like, all the different aspects of animation. Like, it's not just animating there's like layout there's like environments there's um you know character design uh storyboarding and it was storyboarding that i like was immediately drawn to because like that um that involved the most drawing and the most i think like creative thinking and problem solving and it kind of combined all the things that I loved about drawing into this career. And at the time too, I was thinking very practically. I was like, man, I love 2D animation, but it's kind of dying in North America. And I just decided in my second year in animation school that I wanted to pursue storyboarding as a as a career so I kind of just focused like the rest of my time in college on like my storyboarding

portfolio um yeah so you did eventually become a storyboard artist at Pixar like is that how you got hired to be to be specifically in that role? Yeah. Yeah. So I applied for the story internship at Pixar, um, in my third year, uh, of, of, of animation school and I got rejected. Um, but then I applied again the next year and, and I got in and, uh, yeah, it's like, it's it's like story boot camp uh I didn't realize how hard it was gonna be until um I started it like you've literally you you get an assignment at the beginning of the week on Monday and then you have to board out basically an entire story and pitch it to a room full of your peers, other story artists, maybe sometimes story supervisors or even a director or two will sit in on your pitch. And that was the scariest part for me. I think like that's like that was that like that that that one scary thing that I always have tried to avoid for my whole life was like pitching in front of people.

Like I was the drawer. I was the art kid. I let my drawings kind of speak for themselves and I didn't ever want to or have to talk about my drawings. But when you're a story artist, you have to pitch your work like you actually have to you know like use a like back in the day like a pitch stick and like go board by board pitching the sound effects like and the dialogue like woody walks across the lawn boom and yeah it was it was horrifying but um but yeah i i also realized at the time i needed to be able to get over this fear if I wanted to become a story artist, if I wanted to do this for a living. So I just kind of threw myself into pitching.

And yeah, you just have to not care about sounding like an idiot. When you're in that position and you're even in that internship phase, you're talking a lot about art and drawing. And I think we kind of take for granted that Pixar is like a place of animation at this point. I think it actually has a bigger reputation as a place of storytelling because of the way that it's been written about and covered over the years. But when you're in that internship, are you like, I want to be a writer-director of animated movies? Like, what are you imagining for yourself? Oh, man. Yeah, I think in a good way, like, over the course of my life and career, I can only think, like, short-term.

Like, my short-term goals, I think, like, thinking too far into the future freaks me out. So at the time I was just thinking, man, I would just love to be able to make a living drawing storyboards, uh, you know, forever. Uh, and, and, and that was honestly my goal at the time. Um, I just wanted to be able to, uh, work with like the best storytellers in the industry and like help them tell these stories that will reach millions of people I think that that was what was really exciting for me at the time so what happened what happened like how did you then go from storyboard artist to a creative engine of projects inside the company yeah I think so I was hired after my internship to be a full-time story artist on Inside Out and uh that was an amazing show to be on um because especially as a first-time film sorry as a first time story artist uh fresh out of school um because I felt like man if there's one thing I I feel like I can confidently say I'm an expert at it's like like

knowing what goes inside the mind of a 13 year old girl and wow I've lucked out being on a show where that is like currency and um and i think uh i really um like thrived on that show i think pete doctor the director um really created this um open and um safe uh space in the story rooms in the for like anyone to kind of chime in and and he is such a um open director he he will hear out any idea like he's not gonna take it or or like agree with it but he will like listen um and I think like working on that show and working with him really helped me develop my confidence early on and my, and, and really helped me find my, my voice and what my strengths were as a storyteller, like my quirky sense of humor or like, yeah, like how I like to lean into um yeah just weird weird ideas uh but also you know I had that expert I had that experience of of being like Riley in the movie like a 13 year old girl who's

going through all all the emotions and um so that so working on that show really helped me develop like my confidence in my voice but I also felt like something was missing at the time too like I was kind of missing the days of being a student um in animation school and working on my own projects and being creative and not having to like you know answer to anybody and just like make something purely for myself so I started working on a side project um that I was just gonna like I was thinking I could eventually turn into a short film that maybe I'll get a couple friends to help me animate um and uh it was it ended up being Bao uh it started off as just this idea of, oh, wouldn't it be fun if I did a Chinese take

on the little gingerbread man? Like a dark, kind of effed up version of that story, which is already kind of effed up because everyone wants to eat him. That's right. But then I was thinking about, well, in my life um the person that constantly talks about consuming me is my mother and she because like every time i would visit her um back in canada she would be like oh domi i wish i could put you back in my stomach so i knew where you were at all times and it's perverse it's sweet but also yeah but creepy I was like man that's such

a weird emotion and I need to explore that in a in a short I also like I can kind of relate to that feeling because I have cats now and sometimes like when I'm petting them I really just have this violent feeling this emotion inside of me that I just want to like bite them or consume them or like like there's just something about seeing something that's so cute that you want to eat it um and I knew like like that could be a universal emotion that I could tap into with this short um but yeah at the time it was still going to be like a side project. I'd even boarded out like a, like my first pass of Bao was like way raunchier and weirder than what we finally made with Pixar. In your mind, was that like an indie project that

had nothing to do with Pixar? Yeah. Yeah. It was indie. Oh my gosh, yeah. Like that whole montage in the middle where Bao is growing up and his mom like doesn't recognize him. I had this one gag where she like looks under his bed and there's like rolled up tissue paper, there's a bong, there's beer bottles, there's like food, like cooking magazines, like Bon Appetit but that's like like food porn yeah yeah it was but then yeah of course when I eventually did pitch it to Pixar as an official short I I tweaked it a bit sure yeah but you so you effectively how do you get the chance to pitch that then like does someone find out that you have an idea or do you approach somebody like Pete or somebody within the organization and say like, I think I can, and this is when the shorts were like a really a primary part of the theatrical storytelling for Pixar too, where you always had

a short connected to one of the features. Like, did you say, I think I have one of these and I want you to make it? Not that directly. I mean, I like once I had worked on, uh, bow for a little bit and I had an outline and I had some drawings, I had a basic beginning, middle and end. I started pitching it to various people like like coworkers just to get their take on it, like any new ideas, any thoughts. And then eventually I worked up the courage to pitch to Pete Doctor. And then at the time it was like I had no ulterior motive to pitch it as a next theatrical short. I honestly just wanted his feedback on it. But he liked it so much, especially the ending where the mom eats Bao, that he really encouraged me to pitch it to the studio. Like it was was off of his encouragement I think that I was that I had the the nerve to pitch it um but then at the time too uh and they don't do this

anymore but Pixar would have these like open almost like these open auditions for like to hear pitches for their next theatrical short so anybody at the studio who was a full-time employee could sign up and pitch three ideas for the next Pixar theatrical short. Then you'd go through several rounds until finally one person's idea was selected and that ended up being mine. But yeah, I think I really lucked out in that I showed Pete first and I got his excitement. I, I, I got him excited about it, which got me excited about it too. Um, cause then I don't think I would have been brave enough to sign up for the open, uh, open editions. It was a huge success, obviously. You won an Academy Award before the age of 30, which honestly is just like rude, I think. It's just like an amazing. Sorry. So did you know at that point, like this is going to be an entree to getting the chance to do this in a feature length? I know you're moving in short-term goals, but when does it start where, you know, the opportunity to make something like Turning Red comes up? Oh, they approached me after I finished Bao

and after it premiered with Incredibles 2. Pixar asked me if I'd like to enter development and work on three ideas to pitch as a feature film. And of course I said yes. Did you feel that you had three ideas? No, not at all. I just said yes and I was like, I'll figure it out later. But that's usually what they do at Pixar. They have this process where they like to home grow a lot of their talent and a lot of their new filmmakers and directors. and so that's usually the path towards being a feature film director at Pixar that you would start,

you would start with a short and then progress on to pitching ideas for a feature film. But yeah, at the time, I didn't know really what I was signing up for. I just wanted to continue. Like I had such an amazing time making Bao and I just love the collaborative process so much. And bringing this weird little story to life and kind of uh seeing people's reaction to the stories uh in the theater just reminded me of when I was a kid and I would show

a classmate a drawing and I would see their face like light up or like react like I just love that that feeling like sitting in the audience and just hearing them like gasp and laugh and you know like just yeah just think like feeling that I was in control of all these people was like very intoxicating the turning red itself is just feels like tremendously personal and specific and some Pixar films feel like that but there it often feels like there's an attempt at a kind of universality and I'm curious like what it was like to pitch something that feels in many ways like really ripped from your life like is that was that common uncommon as far as you knew at Pixar

can you talk about that experience yeah I, I pitched Turning Red as this very universal experience that we've all gone through. We've all been where May is in the movie, where we wake up one day and we don't recognize ourselves in the mirror. We've shot up a couple feet. We've grown a lot of body hair. There's weird smells. There's weird emotions rolling on inside of us. Like puberty has happened seemingly overnight. And I pitched that universal experience from a very culturally specific lens of a Chinese-Canadian girl. And I think that's what drew Pixar to the idea was that it was both very broad and universal

and something that a lot of people could relate to, but also told in a way that they hadn't seen before, which made it feel unique and fresh and different. Yeah, I think that's why they selected it. I'm curious when you're working on a piece that is, you know, inspired by your own experience. I ask this of every filmmaker who does this, and this is very common in movies lately, especially in 2022. There were a lot of films that were about filmmakers' adolescence or their, you know, their young lives and how they came to understand the world um do you talk to your family about that about the like or do you

let them know that you're making a movie about that or seek permission or how does that work when you're you know drawing so closely from your own experiences yeah uh i think I like maybe warned my mom early on that I was going to do another film loosely inspired by our relationship together. And I think her one note was like, make sure this mother is more beautiful than the mother in Bao. And I was like, OK, cool. Note taken. And then we got Sandra Oh to come on. I was going to say you did do that. Yes. I'm like Ming is, cool. Note taken. And then we got Sandra Oh to come on. I was going to say you did do that. Yes.

Yes. I'm like, Ming is hot. Don't worry, mom. yeah, but you know, honestly,

like I don't really, like I felt like I made this movie not really for my family or for my mom. I think it was mainly for myself. And I think that's like if you ask a lot of filmmakers and make these autobiographical stories that they're working through stuff that you know cinema is therapy for them and I think that was definitely the case for me too like I really wanted to understand myself a lot better at this time period. When I was 13, when I was going through puberty and adolescence, when everything just felt so weird and off and scary and wrong.

When I was fighting with my mom all the time, but also seeking and craving her approval. I think I just wanted to understand and unpack like that point in my life. Yeah, I think I wanted to make this movie for that 13 year old me and just tell her that this is going to be okay. I have a young daughter at home and it's been interesting.

You know, my wife and I were watching the movie and thinking about not just how it's this portrayal of, you know, you or someone like a at this turning point in their life and and the mother figure but also the mother's mother's figure and the idea of the way that generationally like a lot of this stuff is absorbed and maybe not always openly discussed but um the like the brain signals are sent to each other like it felt like a very thoughtful and mature way to understand like who you are like is that sort of theme like does that have to be developed over time or when you sit down with this idea are you like I know exactly what this is I know exactly

how what the through lines are to tell this story uh yeah no not at all I think i started turning red with just this image of this of of ming and may of like this mother and this daughter and their dynamic together i think i i usually start with character first and like what is that relationship what is that dynamic that we're going to kind of follow throughout a story um so that was the first thing that kind of came to mind. And then when we brought on Julia Cho, our writer, and she's been kind of like the main writer of the entire film and the entire process. Like she really, she really like dug deeper into that relationship. I think working with her in the story room really helped us identify what this movie was going to be about. like it's like Teen Wolf, but with like a Chinese girl. And it's like Incredible Hulk, but like cuter. And I think I had all of these fun ideas. And I think I stayed kind of like surface level puberty jokes.

But then I think working with Julia, she like kind of like cracked it open. And she's like, but what are you really trying to like solve in your life? And I was like, my relationship with my mother and um and that and and that came through i think like a lot of iterations like pixar films take at least four years to make and we have at least eight screenings like eight different times that we put up the movie um like in storyboardboard form and, like, a very rough form. And we rewrote it eight times, too, because I think we were constantly trying to search for, yeah, like, what is it that May has to eventually kind of learn and come to terms with at the end? And I don't think we got it exactly until literally the very last screening

and this was like after the audience preview when the movie was like like it had to be finished in like like six months or something I think yeah and I think too it was honestly because I didn't have that real life closure with my own mother too so So that last scene in the movie where May and her mom are kind of talking on opposite ends of the portal in the bamboo forest. And it's basically the goodbye scene. It's like them kind of coming to terms, you know, like, yeah, just eventually move a little bit further away from Ming. And their relationship is not going to be the same as it once was when she was little. And they both have to realize that. And we needed her mom, Ming, to say something to her along the lines of, I love you and I'm proud of you but she couldn't

actually say those words because as me and Julia knew Asian parents don't say that yeah like with words they say it through action and through like fussing over you and through like other means but never like directly with words but this moment like like Ming had to say something to Mei in order for us to feel good that about them that you know this is sad but like it's going to be okay uh and Julia she like wrote so many different alts for that last monologue that Ming gives to May. But then I think she finally hit it when she came back and she had this line that was like, the further you go, the prouder I'll be. And I was like, that's it. That's the line. That's the emotion. That just encompasses the entire immigrant, parent, child experience where they work so hard and they sacrifice so much and if they do

their job right you're going to just move further away from them it's like yeah like it like that sentence I feel like encapsulated that bittersweetness of of uh of that immigrant parent child relationship so well um but yeah that didn't happen until like the very end which was nuts and it yeah it just took a lot of iterating and working with a collaborator like julia who who who could speak to that experience herself too i think like that was really necessary that like both of us had like could draw from our own relationships to kind of inform the story in that way. What does your mom think of the movie?

She loves it. But it was really interesting because when we screened it in Toronto, we had the Toronto premiere of Turning Red, and I invited my parents to see it. And it was their first time seeing it. And my dad, who's a little bit more, you know, hard on his sleeve, more emotional than my mom, like, you know, reacted in the moment. He cried, he laughed, he was so like delighted and proud

of me and the movie. And my mom was a little bit more reserved. She like was like, congratulations. It's beautiful. You know, it's lovely. But she kind of held back on like any like specific feedback or thoughts until the next day when I got like a huge like block of text from my mom. And in it was this very detailed analysis and breakdown of all of the things that she loved about the movie, like all of the details, like down to, I love how you coordinated all the aunties' outfits. I love this and this and this. Like things that I was just so surprised that she noticed.

And then at the very end of her like giant block of text, she ended it with, I hope I was a good mother. And then I was, like, crying. I was like, oh, my God. And then I, like, responded back. I, like, texted her back. I was like, you were, of course, you were great. Like, you're amazing.

You're not a monster. Like, I wouldn't be here without you. And then she texts back, I'm crying now. And I texted back, me too, mom. And that was our heart-to-heart mother-daughter moment. One day after and through text, which that's progress. That's a good step. That's a great story.

So what are you doing now? You have a job at pixar yeah you are effectively on the senior creative story team um but you know you've you know again academy award nominated for this film i assume you want to make more films so like what what is the balance of your career after something like this yeah well um yes it's true i'm now one of the vps of creative at the studio um and i kind of help out uh other films and first-time filmmakers kind of through the process of development of like pitching and getting their outlines approved and all that but yeah at the same time i'm also back in development, working on my next feature because I love storytelling so much

and I love animation and I want to be, I want to constantly, you know, keep making stuff with amazing people. And yeah, I'm really excited to get back into drawing again because I haven't, I feel like i haven't drawn in a really really long time and i want to do that but it is tricky though like being a creative and being an exec um because they kind of uh required two different parts of your brain and but you can't like when you're being creative you can't be an exec like you're being creative, you can't be an exec. Like, you have to, like, lobotomize that part of your brain and, like, turn off that analytical part and just focus on creating and playing.

And, like, you know, the sky's the limit and just be in that space. But that's been hard for me to kind of separate the two. I feel like I know too much now about the inner workings of the industry and the studio and budget and all that stuff. And I almost wish sometimes that I could go back to when I was younger and I was just making stuff that made me laugh. Yeah. You're cursed with good success i guess so yeah yeah but but now i'm like oh if i add that that's like an extra like i know like adding an extra character will cost that much more or like and i'm like why am i thinking about this right now i shouldn't i shouldn't be can you say anything about what what's in development uh not

at the moment amazing but I hate when that happens. I know. I'm sorry. It's okay. But it'll be very me. And that's all I can say. We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen. Have you seen anything that you like lately?

Like a movie or anything? Anything. Someone recently answered the Roman Colosseum. So preferably a movie. But if there's something else you want to talk about. Oh, I wish I saw that recently. You're on your way to Europe. Yeah. Last great thing I've seen, the season finale of White Lotus season two.

Yeah, that's great. Tell me about what you liked about it. Oh my gosh. I mean, yeah, it was such a spectacular finale. Tragic and hilarious. And Jennifer Coolidge. She is legendary. just written by one person like mike white wrote so much story it's incredible and he and you like track each of these characters and like what they're going through and they and all of their arcs kind of finish in like a very interesting and satisfying way i don't know he's amazing i've loved his work ever since i don't know the days. Like School of Rock is one of my favorite films of his too. So yeah.

It's a great recommendation. Domi Shi, thank you for doing this show. Congrats on turning red. I absolutely loved it. Thank you so much. Thanks to Domi Shi and thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode. Next week on The Big Picture, we will be resurrecting the big picks, aka the alternative Oscars, with our pal Wesley Morris.

We'll see you then.