The Big Picture - Dune. DUNE. DUNE!

Episode Date: October 25, 2021

This is a podcast about ‘Dune.’ DUUUUUUUUUUUNE. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chris Ryan Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's me, Sean Fennessey, host of The Big Picture. If you're a fan of this show, there's a new Spotify feature that lets you automatically follow the show. Tap the bell on the show page to get notified as soon as new episodes are released. By turning on new episode notifications, you'll also automatically start following the show. All the latest episodes from shows you follow

can be easily accessed in the What's New feed on home. Now let's get into the show. I'm Sean Fancy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Dune. At long last on today's show, we are diving into the year's most anticipated movie, Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction classic, Dune. The movie premiered over the weekend in theaters and on HBO Max. To discuss the film is Denis Villeneuve's number one fan and the big picture's one true spice lord. It's Chris Ryan. Hello, Chris. What's up? How you doing, guys? We're talking about Dune. There's been a lot of anticipation for this film. I'm going to start with a very simple question before we start

describing everything that is happening in Dune, which is quite a lot. Amanda, how did you feel about Dune? Desert power, baby. Sure. Yeah. I will be honest, for the first hour of this movie, my mind was blown. I was sitting there thinking to myself, holy shit this is incredible i'm gonna have to like go door to door and apologize like to sean and chris and every other person who was like dune is important like i believe in the power of the sandworms you know and in this house we believe in dune yeah and like and then we got to you know like science fiction plot fiction plot and questions of pacing and themes and whatever. And my mind started to wander a bit. But just as a visual spectacle, I was completely amazed.

I truly think it is an achievement. Okay, Chris Ryan. Amanda was amazed at least for one hour. How did you feel? Yeah, I mean, I completely agree. It was mind-blowing. It was legitimately mind-blowing. There's something about Denis Villeneuve's movies in particular, but I think we need to come up with like, this needs to be a recurring question on this podcast, is at any given point during the runtime of this movie, did you think to yourself, this is the best movie I've ever seen? Because

I often think that while I'm watching a Denis Villeneuve movie, and then the rest of the movie happens, and you're like, that was a really good movie. But he is able to create the sensation of sitting there and being like, yo, Zimmer's here. Greg Frazier's here. Oscar Isaac's here. Denis's here.

Fucking child emperor Dune, herbert is here we're just going for it and you're like this is the best movie i've ever seen and then like yeah he's in the chop the chopper in the sandstorm for like 20 minutes and he's thinking about you know his own importance in the you know history of hero narratives and stuff like that and it gets a little dull but like damn dude dune dune i think what you've both located is ambition and denis villeneuve is a filmmaker with massive massive ambition it is a ambitious move to try to adapt this famously unadaptable novel into a film for anyone who has not seen dune i don't know what you're doing listening to this podcast but just for the same but why don't you do the plot

for the first four books? Just real quick. Okay, yeah. So I'll just carve out three and a half hours as I recap the plot of Dune. No, it's not that complicated, but I think we'll talk about some of the complexities of the story.

But, you know, this is a 1965 novel that Herbert wrote. It's, you know, an epic interplanetary tale. It's about a young boy. It's a messianic story. The boy's name is Paul Atreides. He may or may not be this Messiah, Kwisatz Haderach, a figure who can control space and time and unite the galaxy. So, you know, this is a very similar familiar outline to a lot of Messiah science fiction stories we've seen over the years. Dune may or may not be the kind of patient zero for a lot of these stories.

The film hops from this forest like Caladan planet to the sands of Arrakis, where most of the film takes place. That's where a powerful resource called spice is harvested. And Dune tangles with white savior stories, colonialism, destiny, discipline, love, war, family. It is a big tale. It's a big mood. It's, like I said, been considered unadaptable for many years, despite the fact that David Lynch made a version of this movie in 1984. Famously compressed, famously difficult shoot. Lynch essentially disowned the movie. The great filmmaker Alejandro Yodorovsky also tried to adapt this film in the 1970s.

He never actually got it off the ground, though his ideas for it were chronicled in Jodorowsky's Dune, this great documentary from five or six years ago. Would recommend people check that out. So that's part of why there has been so much anticipation for this movie, which has been pushed a year because of COVID-19 and also has been the center of all of this controversy around HBO Max doing day and date with all of their major releases this year. And also, like I said, if you've seen Star Wars, if you've seen The Matrix, Blade Runner, Alien,

these movies do not exist without the Dune story. So much of what that story is doing has been picked apart by the various science fiction, fantasy, adventure stories in American movies over the last 60 years. So this is a huge, huge deal. That being said, I basically agree with you guys. I think there are times during this movie where you're like, this is probably the most impressive physical production in the history of movies.

This is the meeting point, the true meeting point of what our technology is and what physical production can be. It's unbelievable. And then there is a bit of a, You know, I mentioned this, Amanda, when we talked after Telluride. And I said, I didn't know that this was part one. Now, the reason I didn't know that

is because I was trying to not read too much about this movie. Did you find that out when it says Dune part one? When I sat down in the movie theater. Or at least, I didn't think it said part one. I don't think it said that either.

I also saw a screening and then I rewatched most of it this week on an HBO Max. At our screening, I don't think it said part one. And I double checked with my husband as well. So they added that on for you at home, Chris. Wow. So I was, you know, and we can talk about the pacing of the film itself,

but about 80 minutes into the movie, I was like, holy shit, they are definitely not finishing this movie. There is no way. I knew it was a two and a half hour movie. And so there is some anxiety, I think, in terms of having a long, deep conversation about this movie, because it's almost impossible to grade. There's no way to say, it's kind of an incomplete because the story is not finished. We still don't know if there will be a part two of this film, et cetera. Well, Chris, can I ask you something? Because I saw it after Sean and thus I had heard Sean's personal anguish and also read some of the tweets at like the outrage that this was only part one and that, you know, they weren't marketing it as

part one, but that it was an unfinished story. So I knew that going in and I assume you did as well because you don't live under a rock I did so were you pissed off no because yeah I wasn't at all like I that's a hundred percent opposite experience also I lived through Benedict Cumberbatch's press tour for that Star Trek movie where he was like I swear to god I'm not con on my children's lives I do not play con and then it was like I'm Khan so all this shit where it's just like please I just want to finish the story of Dune you must go see Dune in the IMAX where it is intended

is bullshit they were definitely making two more movies about Dune they didn't say like let's give them 300 mil and see if it works everyone being like will it be greenlit like we don't know. Like Warner brothers says it might happen.

Guys, they're making part two. It's going to be okay. They made cry macho. They'll make. We got to calm down, but I, it did make me wonder.

I have a lot of questions about like the marketing and the presentation of this movie. And we'll talk about it's box office and HBO max success, but just like really simple, just, just say part one, throw, throw it in there because it did radically change my experience of it. And I wasn't, I didn't have that moment of like profound disappointment in the middle of the movie or like even trying to orient myself. I was like, cool, cool. This is like part one of a, they're trying to do a big epic. Like I, I understand how those movies work and I, you know, I, I just, I don't get why no one mentioned that. Well, it's, this is an unusual circumstance. I mentioned this a couple of weeks

ago, but obviously the Lord of the Rings films, for example, which were made 20 years ago, were made successively. And there was an expectation that Peter Jackson was always going to be able to complete the trilogy. He was making them back to back to back. So that was an example of taking on a big, massive story that could not be contained within one film and knowing you were going to get the whole story. Denis Villeneuve, in an interview with Christopher Nolan at the DGA over the weekend, talked about the fact that because Blade Runner 2049 was not a commercial success, the studio would not greenlight part two, nor did he think he could have accomplished

a back-to-back production of a movie of this scale, that it would have been too hard. It would have been too long. It would have been too intense on the crew and on the filmmakers. So it was a crapshoot and it's still hard to know what success is to dictate. But that being said, I agree with you guys. I'm almost certain they're going to make part two. That would be one of the most

bizarre things to happen in cinema history if they were just like, well, we couldn't get it going. You know, we couldn't get it funded. Tough. We're walking away. So we can plan on a part two.

Obviously, we're going to be spoiling this movie throughout this entire conversation. If you have not seen Dune, check it out on HBO Max. Or I would say... Go see it in a theater. Go see it in a movie theater. I mean, wear a mask, be safe, but go see it in a theater.

Yes. So, Chris, why don't you maybe just start us off? We'll talk about Villeneuve and the filmmaking as an opening gambit here. Why is he such an important director to you? Why do you respond to his movies so much? And what did you think he brought from those skills to Dune? Jeez. Well, I think that as his career has gone on and as he's done bigger and bigger movies,

he always seems to have another gear when it comes to understanding scale. So with the exception of a very few filmmakers, Kubrick, Spielberg, a couple of others, Nolan, Denis Villeneuve really understands physical space, how to make things look proportionally big or small or place things in a world. I honestly just think he has an incredible

holistic eye for what can be possible on a screen. Now, that could be a shootout on a highway in Juarez, or it can be possible on a screen. Now, that could be a shootout on a highway in Juarez, or it can be a spaceship landing on Arrakis. But he has this ability to sort of come up with images that capture, I think, the actual magic of moviemaking. Like seeing those ships emerge out of the clouds

as they descend onto the ground. Most filmmakers would be like, then this fucking big ship flies in and bang, and then we're moving on. There's a VO, and maybe there's a bad piece of music. He's like, no. The majesty of this is the descent and the clouds

parting for this new period of time that's beginning on this planet. He just gets that. He got that in Arrival. He gets it in Blade Runner 2049, gets that. He got that in Arrival. He gets it in Blade Runner 2049, no matter... Obviously, we love Arrival. Blade Runner 2049, I think,

gets mired in some of its own kind of navel-gazing for a while there. But yeah, I don't know if I'm doing a good job kind of quite capturing why he's such an amazing filmmaker, except to say that I think he understands every element of what being a

filmmaker is on an almost natural, he was born to do it level. Amanda, I feel like he's a little more hit and miss for you, but you've talked about Arrival many times on the show. What do you think he brings to this movie that, say, another contemporary could not? It is a really visual understanding. As Chris was saying, there's a coolness to all of his work, both emotionally, which can get a little dicey if you want to critique Villeneuve. You can say that he is just incredibly gifted at making evil and like very beautiful. And I think like some of his most famous sequences and many of his movies are just, and even in Dune, you know,

I'm thinking of the opening scenes when the, Atreides? I was about to say Gristides, and I was like, no, that's not it. That's the first Amanda. Hey, this is a movie about a guy

named Gristides, opens his grocery store. You are from him. With Tim T. Chalamet's family. How about that? He's greeting like the emperor's, you know,

his herald. Emissary. Yeah. And the homies from the guild. The scale. And sure. Yeah.

And I mean, and that's just like, you know, borrowed from Nazism and like, it's both i mean and that's just like you know borrowed from nazism and like it's both like chilling and visually arresting right and you can think of like the many raids in sicario you can think about even like blade runner which is like cool like in more of a robotic sense but there is just there's's some distance, but it's also like pretty breathtaking. And then the other side of cool, just like being stylish and being, I mean, the costumes,

the absolutely beautiful people in this movie to a person, the gadgets look more like how I felt about sharper image gadgets in like 1995 when I, you know, I was like, oh my God, this like a refrigerator like plugs into your car or whatever, but you know, like I thought they were cool. As someone who can be turned off by certain elements of science fiction and kind of like the whiz bang elements that chris was alluding to this like this is awesome and this like i didn't detect any like nerdiness you know nothing to turn me off there is like a real um stylishness to all of it that maybe doesn't always convert to substance but i just think this movie has so much style in his style and is so immersive

and like a fully realized world that I was kind of like, this seems cool. Like sure. All these spaceships look beautiful. Yeah. I think that coolness is, is the right word. Cause it's a, it's a malleable word in terms of thinking about this movie and whether or not people are emotionally connecting to it. I think some people who are fans of the book and have been a fan of the story for a long time found it very easy to connect to what Villeneuve was after. And part of that is probably because he's talked about how this is a movie he's wanted to make since he first read the book when he was 13 years old. This is a big story for him. But you're right, amanda that it doesn't get snake bit by the trappings of genre you know it doesn't feel like too hunkered down in mythology it doesn't the gadgets and the kind of the ships

and the the action are all very breathtaking but they're done on his terms they're not done on the terms of kind of like modern movie making this doesn't look like an mcu fight scene at the end you know like there is so much time and attention and detail put into the design of the movie. And even just the way that those ships descend, Chris, the way that you're describing it, that too is about the pace. The fact that they're willing to take their time in the action indicates that he's after something, I don't know about deeper or better, but different than what a lot of contemporary big top productions are like. He's also thinking about it as a story, not as a spectacle just for an audience. So that's

supposed to be Paul, who I think is 15 in the books, but he's a young guy. He's a young kid. He's never seen that before. He's supposed to have that sense of wonder that the audience winds up having because they're shooting it basically from Paul's perspective. I mean, the next shot is Paul looking up. So you're like, oh, okay. So this is Paul seeing these ships descend. He's blown away by the majesty and the pomp and circumstance of that whole thing. And even though he's kind of curious about what his role is in all of it, his dad is a little bit more cynical. His dad's like, how much did this cost? But Paul is like, what the fuck is happening? This is amazing.

So should we talk about the design or the story? Where do you think is the best entry? Well, I kind of, we have like a very, the design. Like the design, respectfully. What were you going to say, Chris? No, I was going to say that we have a very interesting focus group here of people with varying levels of engagement with like Dune, you know,

and like whether or not this was a successful adaptation whether or not the story was legible and all that but we could talk let's talk about fucking brutalism let's do it so obviously the uh the visuals are a huge part of any villain new story and because this is this incredible blending of the real and the digitally rendered and it mostly takes place in a desert and a real desert um there's an extra level of attention that has to be paid to make things look weathered beaten um that they have to exist over centuries and it's kind of amazing i think what he's able to accomplish here and what the filmmaking team is able to accomplish like i just wrote down a series of things that are in the movie that were incredible to look at i think the ornithopter

the thopter is the thing that is jumping out to people that dragonfly like helicopter apparatus which appears over and over again in the second half of the movie um obviously the the pyramid like palaces of arrakis you know the the dunes themselves and and and the sandworms we'll talk more about the sandworms, I think, throughout this conversation. Amanda, you already mentioned the costumes and the still suits and even the design of the characters. Baron Harkonnen, for example, is a character who in the book is written about as this almost slug-like creature. They take a Brando and Apocalypse Now approach to him. Sean, were you disappointed in the depiction of the Baron?

Because I know that your relationship to Letterboxd is a lot like the Baron's relationship to Arrakis, right? You're just trying to bring order to it. Yeah, I'm the Baron of Letterboxd. I've been saying that for many years. What about the Harkonnen spider, Chris? When I saw that gloopy spider, I thought of you as well. Yeah, that was very much like Chris.

There's a number of different things that we see that we... I think the movie does a good job of kind of explaining right away what it is. You know, the hunter-seeker, that little robot that comes into the room when Paul is watching the visualization of the roots that are growing on Arrakis.

They very quickly communicate what that thing is, what it's doing. I think a lot of movies like this, sometimes you see some gadgetry and this was closer, not in tone, but explanation to James Bond than it was to like, I don't know, what's a more complex or confusing science fiction franchise? I think some of the TV sci-fi that we've been seeing recently, like the expanse or foundation is just like, first, let me explain the last 2000 years, you know? And it's pretty, it's pretty in depth.

And it's deft even in how it's doing. Like it explains like the sand walk through another of like Paul's, like, I don't know, projection homework. I mean, obviously that made me think of star Wars, but it,

it is some of the exposition, like any time that Oscar Isaac has to say desert power or sea power or whatever. I was like, well, I'm sorry, guys. Like I both I appreciate it as a person who knows nothing, but you could feel the simplifiedness of it. I do think they effectively simplify it and manage to explain who all these people are and even like who the you know the the Bene Gesserit are which is done through like a warning from the doctor to to Paul and there's still enough mystery but they they at least give you like the who what where pretty succinctly Chris anything any any thoughts on the actual design of the movie? I mean, it's awesome how you can see some of it still in like Enemy. You know, like he's been thinking about these kinds of buildings.

He's been thinking about these kinds of bugs. He's been thinking about these kinds of images since the earliest days in his career. And even if they were like kind of these more smaller scale thrillers that he was working on, it's obviously like he has a fascination with certain recurring motifs that it's incredible to see them on this scale. I have been inspired by this movie in one respect, which is I'm excited to announce my new podcast, which is called The Pain Box, in which I put guests' hand into a box that creates pain and a needle next to their neck. It's like literally every neck podcast you do let's see should we rebrand the big picture as the pain box yeah i mean that's just welcome to my life i i really the charlotte rampling of it all and it's just the flex of not even showing charlotte rampling's full face and she's just like in like this sort of you know 40s net plus like she's like doing like non-garbo basically i really enjoyed

it a lot yeah um what about the action obviously the action is essential for a movie like this in a franchise like this it's not exactly what i was expecting even though i had a sense of what was going to be happening because of some of that pacing stuff but chris what'd you think of um some of the sequences i mean that he's gonna get as much credit as he needs from me for the, the guys, like kind of the wire descent that the floating storm troopers, the emperors, the emperors,

like shock troops get like just coming up with something like that. It's just like, thank you. Thank you for thinking about this. Thank you for thinking about like what one thing that I haven't seen before, or that we haven't really seen before in a movie like this instead of just having it be like another another dc thing where it's just like wow it just looks like the the screen is coming apart with all these people running into one another yeah sometimes it's spare where it needs to be spare and noisy when it needs

to be noisy the other thing too i don't think i really realize this because i am not a dune head per se i didn't read the novels, but I don't think I understood that there were no guns in this world. And so the fact that all of the fighting that takes place is hand-to-hand combat primarily, and that the characters we see gives the movie a different feel. Some of that sort of siege at the palace in the middle of the movie feels more like Braveheart than it does, you know, like blasters being fired throughout Star Wars. Yeah. They still get the explosions. Like my one knock when it does become you know, like blasters being fired throughout Star Wars. Yeah, they still get the explosions. Like my one knock when it does become a little DC,

I understand you can't make Dune or a science fiction movie in 2021 without having like spaceships fighting and then like exploding at each other. But that's the one moment where I felt like the darkness and the CGI kind of gave way to we just have to like let things explode. And I think even Josh Brolin at one point, I'd love to talk about Josh Brolin's role in this movie, but he just yells like, I thought he said everything with guns in the air,

but it might be like everything with ammo in the air. I think he said everything, everything with guns in the air, get it off the ground or something like that. Exactly. And I, and it's nice in a way, cause that's the cue to me of like, oh, okay. and so now there are going to be some explosions and michael bay didn't direct this movie

so you can check out uh which which i did a little bit but but i do think when it comes back to the hand-to-hand combat especially at the end of the movie since i knew it wasn't going to be a resolution i was pretty excited by that yeah i. I'm a huge fan of the run that Charlotte Rampling is on right now in which she's recently appeared in Assassin's Creed and Red Sparrow and now Dune.

She's just, keep getting them checks, Charlotte Rampling. Do you think that Charlotte Rampling has like a crippling gambling addiction or something? Yes, of course. Charlotte Rampling and Helen Mirren,

by the way. I just like, Helen Mirren's not in this movie, but why is she hosting like a Harry Potter- Those two are just addicted to same game parlays. Yeah,

exactly. Obviously, the movie looks amazing. Chris, you mentioned Greg Frazier shot it. This is the guy who shot Rogue One and Zero Dark Thirty. So you can see a little bit

of Rogue One and Zero Dark Thirty. Actually, Rogue One is the movie that I think I thought of the most, which I think is probably the noisy franchise entertainment of the 21st century that gets the closest to seeming not real necessarily, but full of old real things.

And that's one of the things that I like best about this movie. I guess let's talk about the music a little bit because Hans Zimmer famously did not work on Tenet, which is the last movie I think that's been released that felt of this scale, of this magnitude. He didn't work on that movie to work on this movie. And even though he's worked with Nolan many times over the last 10 years, he shifted his allegiance to Villeneuve. This is a really interesting score. I read that he created instruments to make some of the sounds in this film.

It's a very percussive score it's also a very choral score creating this kind of spiritual but also kind of militaristic attitude throughout the movie um what did you guys think of the music i mean it's a lot you have to kind of be in for you know a diamond for a dollar with this one because like it's it's like all over the movie and it sometimes drowns out the whatever human moments like i think that during the sort of uh climactic at least in the first two acts of the movie the climactic assault on arrakis and you know like a lot of uh atreides soldiers are dying it's so loud that you're kind of like wait a second like what what is happening? And are any of these guys anything but red shirts? Did Brolin die?

You're kind of looking around for that kind of human factor. But that being said, the Zimmer score meets the epic scope of the movie where it needs to be met. And it's pretty overwhelming. I saw this in an IMAX theater. So it was- Did it like shake your molars? Yes, it actually was.

It was like physically shaking to the point that this sort of became like not quite like amusement park ride, but it was like a full physical experience as well, which I actually recommend because it leads into like the spectacle spectacle of it all which is clearly what was designed so you know i also kind of didn't totally follow what was happening at that point in the movie but i didn't care because i was just like you know um and it like and when i re-watched it at home um with a on my laptop i'm really sorry i'm sorry to everybody but i re rewatched it at home with a, on my laptop, I'm really sorry. I'm sorry to everybody,

but I rewatched it on my laptop and it was not the same experience. Yeah. I, I watched it a second time at home as well. Just, just for the sake of this conversation to kind of compare and contrast how other people might have been seeing it. I think that there's something actually useful about that.

You did. Yeah. Cause my mom, I'm visiting my mom here and she's 80. So she's not quite in the movie theater business anymore, but has read Dune, the series, at least

five times. Really? Wow. So I got the little director's commentary going while we watched it. And you know, I thought it was pretty, I'm sure I'll go see it in the theater and it'll blow my mind, but I thought it was pretty effective. Even just turn the lights out, jack the sound up, you kind of got pretty close. I'm actually most interested in your mom's take then, if she's such a big fan of the series.

She was very... I mean, then this, I guess, segues into the story part of it. But she was very attentive to where they were cutting off the story and where they could have cut off the story if they had made three movies, et cetera, you know, that kind of stuff. And then I think she's also very skeptical that we will ever see some of the later books when she explained God Emperor Dune to me. I was like, what the fuck? That's really funny. I didn't realize your mom was such a fan. They've already announced a, I think it's a prequel series that will be appearing on

HBO Max, which indicates, I think, to our point earlier in this conversation. It's a Lady Jessica series right? Yes. Is Rebecca Ferguson going to be in it? I believe so yeah. So because we know that that's coming obviously we're going to get more Dune but the story itself is worth parsing. I watched the David Lynch or I rewatched the David Lynch version after this and it was fascinating to watch him compress the whole story of the, I guess the two books into two hours and 15 minutes, which is a mistake and hard to understand.

On the other hand, it's a little bit complicated because in this movie, you're right. The first 80 minutes is very propulsive. It's sort of stage setting. Then we get this incredibly captivating action. And then we get essentially mom and son go on a picnic for about 45 minutes. And I feel like the movie

really downshifts. And it's been interesting looking at the reaction. It seems like the reaction is largely extremely positive from fans. And I wonder what that is specifically about.

Is it about what Villeneuve brings to the film? Is it about the sort of fealty to the source material? Maybe it's a combination of things and an incredible cast. Amanda, not only are these beautiful people, these are really some of the best, most interesting actors working today. Rebecca Ferguson,

Oscar Isaac, of course, Timothee Chalamet, Charlotte Rampling is in three scenes, Stellan Skarsgård is a giant slug in this movie he's very interesting um all up and down the board you got a lot of great actors jason momoa who you know a scene stealer just amazing in this movie duncan idaho your boy chris that's my guy actually i'm more you know i'm more of a gurney hallock kind of kind of kid you you really are you really are and uh as you noted we did not Gurney Halleck die in this movie. And that's notable, I think, for part two.

So Chris, what do you think it is? Just based on your perception, what is it that brought people so, I guess like not unanimously, but so warmly, so aggressively almost to positively accepting this movie? Well, my optimistic view of that is probably just Dune doesn't really insult

the intelligence of the audience, which is always my number one rule is like, please, please, please just treat people like they're smart and they will be smarter. And all of my favorite movies, whether it's like Michael Clayton or this, do that in a really good way where it's just like you can catch up these people will learn the sort of like you can have like a throwaway line that like the spice is how we do interstellar travel and people will be like okay i think i get it like i don't need a 10 minute discourse about why that is or how spices are mined or what the history of spices are and i think if you're a fan of the books or if you're a fan of the story in whatever capacity of lynch the lynch movie the sci-fi miniseries um you don't really need a lot of hand-holding with that you know you and i think that that's in whatever capacity, the Lynch movie, the sci-fi miniseries. You don't really need a lot of hand-holding with that. And I think that that's what this movie does really well.

And I think the fact that you've got somebody who's clearly been thinking about how to bring these images to life for such a long time comes across, and there's no baby steps with the story. Amanda, do you agree with that? Yeah, I would also add that it's not... I mean, listen, this is super corporatized every single way up and down the board, but there aren't any porgs in this. I don't know what the obvious toy... I mean, I'm sure

the ships are cool. Please don't at me about your ship collection that you have at home. I'm really happy for you. You can at Chris. Yeah, you can at Chris. You can't necessarily feel like the, you know, the development like toy team in the muck on this script here and in the design and, you know, plotting out how we'll spin it into the inevitable like Dune theme park ride and all of those things i'm sure they will like you know warner brothers is part of a giant uh well not technically still owned by a cell phone company you got spun off to another one anyway do the theme song it's no it's no longer a phone company nobody wants them okay the phone company doesn't want them the cable company doesn't want them but whatever they'll try to make a lot of money but i didn't it didn't feel like obviously dumbed

down or which is interesting in a way like how do you launch a giant franchise without appealing to you know children like can children watch this i don't think so so. It's pretty grim. It's dark. It's scary. There aren't any moments of relief. There aren't any moments of humor at all when they try. I love them, but it falls flat. When you have Oscar Isaac bringing the charm about various forms of power and it doesn't completely land, I don't know what to tell you. So I'm curious how they're going to build an audience outside of those really passionate fans long term. But I'm sure that felt nice to not be

talked down to. Yeah, it's hard adult sci-fi. It's not a kid's movie. It is PG-13. And so I think what it appeals to, just like the book appeals appeals to is to teenagers i mean it's it's really a story for 13 to 17 year old males that that's the primary audience of the book over the years obviously there are many women that are interested in the story too but it's hard targeting a kind of zone of interest and obviously a lot of people who grow up with books like this if not this exact book are will are excited about these kinds of things as they get older i you know the the muadib the little desert mouse that that actually is one of the little creatures i think you could see a little plush toy for but there's there's not an overwhelming amount and you're right it doesn't it definitely does not talk down to its audience i thought it blended pretty well the complex aspects of the various spiritual interests you know the benedict they

have their kind of like shadowy order and then you also have the fremen and their vision of the chosen people and then the messiah figure and you've got a lot of mythology and history that's kind of competing simultaneously in this story it's not always totally clear who wants what and why, but for the most part, I didn't have a hard time following it. Amanda, I feel like you sometimes get a little bit more frustrated by some of the backstory that we're expected to understand in some of these movies. Did you follow all that stuff okay? Yes and no. Here's the thing. I went to a conservative Christian school, so I'm aware of the plot of the Bible and everything that came afterwards. Oh, sorry. A mother and son, like very special.

And then like they're in the desert, like, oh, excuse me, where did they think of it? So I like, wasn't too stressed out. You know, I would love to talk about drugs because, and, and the role of drugs and hallucinogenics and just like the vibe of this movie, because I walked out. I was like, that was pretty good. Drove home with my husband who has read the books. I spent the entire time being like, but like, what is it about? Like, it's about imperialism. Sure.

And like capitalism. And it's like, is it is it gas? Is it opium? Like what? You know, apparently they're in like environmental issues in the book that didn't quite translate to me. But, you know, the one thing I didn't get, even though they do say spice is like a magical, sacred, hallucinogenic thing to the Freeman, it's like, this is apparently a very druggy

book. Yeah. Like just like 60s acid. Yeah, it's space acid. And I did not get that at all from the movie, even though maybe that's just because I did tune out during like the three minute opening monologue being like, here is the history of the world.

Sci-fi movies got to stop doing that to me. You know, if you just start. Hard disagree. I like, i can't listen i tried so start every movie within a world that's what i want long scrolls lots of scroll that's fine so i can follow along but when it's just someone talking to me and saying a bunch of words i really did i was like would you like it more if it was like podcast style if it was like i'm sarah koenig yeah hey guys a couple things to know

to a guild pilot who's been tripping balls on spice so hard that he can see through time and space and plot a course for his ship

I don't know next time on Serial what if it was CR doing Pacino at the beginning of every film that would get my attention

I just like somehow can't hold on to the information process in those so. I just like somehow can't hold on to the information process in those. So maybe I missed like the one big druggie clue. But this apparently is supposed to be like an acid vibe. And even I think some of those spiritual elements and kind of what everybody's getting in touch with.

And like, you know, the Messiah character, I can't remember the frame the Freeman name for it, um, is supposed to be like a mind that can unite space and time, which like that is obviously like peak acid, but I didn't quite get to that, that mood, um, with the spiritual stuff or with the movie itself. Can I ask an Amanda question? Yeah. Would you have enjoyed this project more if the first film expanded a lot of like political wrangling going on between the various houses

and then basically ended with maybe the fall of Arrakis? But we had like a lot more Harkonnen versus Atreides versus like the emperor positioning those two families against one another because they're both getting too powerful he wants to cut their legs out and like kind of had a little bit more about the politics of the world going into it ending with this big set piece but really did not do as much Paul Messiah stuff yes because also the first part does hint as much Paul Messiah stuff. Yes. Because also the first part does hint at the Paul Messiah stuff. And you can also, when he has to be removed from the palace, and that's like the most important aspect of the raid, they're doing plenty of foreshadowing.

So yes, for me, the political stuff would be more interesting, but like, that's me. You know, there's a large group of people many of whom spend like hundreds of dollars every time on a marvel movie to watch spaceships blow up and then like people shooting each other so it's one of those things where like my response is probably not the response that makes sense for you know the the movie market at large right well i don't really feel like villeneuve is the right filmmaker for a druggy movie. That's not really the kind of atmosphere that he thrives on.

He's a filmmaker who excels at tension, you know, and even in fantastical environments, the aliens, you know, landing and arrival or the sort of like the robotics of Blade Runner 2049, everything kind of feels real in his world. You know,

there's something tactile, there's something emotional and clear about what he's trying to put on screen. This is a different kind of a story. It's interesting that

David Lynch took a shot at it, it didn't work. Jodorowsky is probably best suited to some of the space acid stuff and if you see it like in the drawings and the designs

that he and like H.R. Giger kind of put together, these like giant oversized in the drawings and the designs that he and like HR Geiger kind of put together these like giant oversized giraffes and the way that the way that you see it in Villeneuve's vision it's like palm trees in the desert you know like that is those are the that's as trippy as it gets

and we do see Paul's visions throughout the movie this sort of like orange inflected visions of the future with Zendaya's character which indicate like sort of what is coming for him but even those visions they don't feel uh informed by the melange you know they're they're they're what's they're like they're predictive in a lot of ways exactly so i think that that is something that probably differentiates some of this and also think about the time when the story was written and kind of like what the culture was.

I wonder if we're in kind of a psychedelic drug moment, you know, like the- Right now or back in the 60s? Well, in the 60s, we definitely were. Right now we're in a little bit, I guess we're in more of like an opioid style, kind of like dulling of the senses kind of moment. And so this movie is kind of the opposite of a dulling of the senses kind of moment and so this movie is kind of the opposite of a dulling of the senses it's like a full sensory experience so i mean maybe that's part of it too i wonder sometimes it's interesting how the kind of i don't

know the illicit cultures of the time inform the kinds of movies that you see easy rider feels the way that it does because everybody's smoking smoking pot when they were making it and when they were watching it same with with 2001 A Space Odyssey. You know, that's another movie that certainly has some grounding in the Dune storytelling. I don't, Villeneuve seems to be operating outside of all that stuff.

Like he's doing as specifically what he wants out of this story, which I think is interesting. I mean, as far as the story itself is told, you know, I think all three of us have kind of mentioned that it seems like in the last 45 minutes or so of the film, it's not that it loses its way.

It's just as a viewer, there's something unusual about, huh, so we're going to get out to the desert here and he's going to battle for his honor and then we're just going to stop. And maybe we have to wait three years now for another movie? That reminded me a bit of Apocalypse Now, which is, I was thinking of anyway

because of Skarsgård's performance as the Baron was very Brando Apocalypse Now anyway. But Apocalypse Now has that same issue where there's several set pieces that happen in that movie. And then when you get to the end, you're kind of like, oh, it's just a guy and a bald dude at the end of the river. And it's really atmospheric and amazing.

But I think you expect another set piece to top it. And really what you get in this film, in an apocalypse now, is the hero kind of going through a personal test to kind of come out the other side as a different person. And that's why I was kind of alluding to what would the reaction have been

if most of the first movie had been the machinations behind the scenes politically of like setting this whole thing up, ending with this attack on Arrakis. And then Zendaya and Javier Bardem and everybody are in the second movie, you know? Right, but then you don't have Zendaya in the movie, which it's funny.

I was watching those 45 minutes as a person who is interested in Zendaya being like, oh, okay, and then they're going to get to Zendaya. And I like see how the puzzle pieces are going to come together. And that is a little bit because she's obviously in all of the visions. But I do wonder whether there was like someone behind a desk somewhere being like, yes, no, Zendaya must be in. Because she's got like 5 million Instagram followers or whatever.

Nine minutes of this movie, at least. And so, you know, they're working working toward that it like it worked a little bit for me i also just am the world's number one rebecca ferguson fan so i was cool with just watching them do their dance in the in the desert for a while frankly i don't think they committed enough to the dance that would be another note like Let's do it. The sandwalk? Yeah, the sandwalk. I mean, they were doing what they needed to do. And I understand it was a survival situation, but I could have used a bit more flair. Just me. Quick thing about Rebecca Ferguson. There are some competing folks after this throne right now. Charlize Theron comes to mind. Emily Blunt comes to mind. I feel like Rebecca Ferguson is the queen of genre.

She's really in a zone right now. Mission Impossible, Doctor Sleep, she's in the Men in Black movie. She's making a run at being the face that you see. Wasn't she in that Hugh Jackman movie? Reminiscence, yes.

Also a genre movie, very much. The Greatest Showman. What's her Doctor Sleep character's name again? Rose the Hat. Sure. Yeah. She's elite in Doctor Sleep. She's the only good part of Doctor Sleep but like Rosie the Hat. Chris, Doctor Sleep pod when? I don't know. We got to make it longer than the director's cut of Doctor Sleep though. That's the challenge. That's about six and a half hours. So that'll be a long pod. What was your favorite performance

in the movie? We got so many people that we love here. Who'd you guys like watching? I personally really loved Oscar Isaac. I thought he was the most kind of warm human character. I know everybody loves Momoa. I think Momoa got the coolest things to do. But Oscar Isaac, like pretty convincing dad. Pretty, pretty, I thought very nice human scenes with Chalamet.

And I was, you know, built up enough familiarity with the character so that his death is sad. Amanda, what about you? I already mentioned that I just really love Rebecca Ferguson. And I was even watching, thinking about what is the name of the They Knew Award at this point on Rewatchables? Who is it in honor of? The Vincent Hanna Overacting Award, but it's also for julianne moore in uh sure right you know it's like i think she would both she would win that award in this movie but like in a positive way in you know somebody really needs to you know be going through like the the pain and the and the fear of putting your son in all this and like being

pretty creepy and having a weird voice. So I enjoyed all of that. But Momoa worked on me. Like I always enjoy seeing Jason Momoa, but I just couldn't take my eyes off him when he was on screen, which is not normally what I would say, especially when he's on screen with Timothee Chalamet, who is also pretty important to me. So just good for him. He's the only person in this movie who's allowed to have any fun, which I thought was interesting. And I don't know if that's just the nature

of Momoa's performance style or the fact that he can't not smile in certain sequences, but there's not a lot of smiling in this movie. Not a lot of joy, as I've been rewatching some of the Villeneuve movies over the weekend. Not a lot of smiling in this movie. You know, not a lot of joy as I've been re-watching some of the Villeneuve movies over the weekend. Not a lot of laughter, you know? This is not something that he really does

or seems to care about. So I think Duncan Idaho sticks out. I just want to say though, I'm really glad. Like we've kind of arrived at a point where like all movies need like a pass from like a comedy duo to like punch up the dialogue and have a couple of self-referential like pop cultural referential conversations in them.

And it was one thing when Joss Whedon did it in the first Avengers movie, but I think we've like, we, we got enough of those movies now. Like you guys can just take it seriously and be like, holy shit. Like a fucking spaceship is landing on us. We're,

we're dead. You don't have to be like, well, I guess the fucking, you know, the laundry was not going to get done tonight like just go ahead and fight a war you know like it's gay uh i guess there was one humorous moment and this is also one of my favorite performances in the movie is um javier bardem as stillgar which is uh an actor i did not know was in this movie uh so you didn't know that Bardem was in it? I did not. And he's the leader of the Fremen and he comes in to meet Oscar Isaac

and House Atreides as they've just arrived at Arrakis and greets them with the ceremonial spitting on the floor and Momoa's reaction to sort of spit back and show him that it's a sign of respect. Bardem, just elite. The fact that this movie is like, here's Rampling for movie is like here's rampling for five minutes here's

bardem for five minutes here's zendaya for five minutes here's stephen mckinley henderson for five minutes here's dave batista for five minutes it's it's it's almost gluttonous you know the way that he is picking and choosing and also a sign that like there has to be another movie you know the fact like why why would these people even sign on if they weren't going to get to be a part of completing this story? You know, we know that that's going to be coming at some point. The ending.

So the film ends very specifically with Zendaya turning and looking at Paul and saying, this is just the beginning. Were you satisfied with the way that they closed the story? Yeah, again, we knew that it wasn't going gonna be like the end of june you know it's okay i like i'm happy to be work work through this trauma with you in real time but that's not what i'm saying like this yeah because and the empire strikes back yes the empire strikes back and similarly right the empire

strikes back ends on a note where you're like well well, this is clearly not the end of the story. We know there's another movie coming. But The Empire Strikes Back is also one of the great endings ever. Obviously, it's a down ending and there are questions left unanswered. But it's exciting. And it leaves you with this anticipation heading forward. Does this do that for you? I think so. I mean, you're right that it

doesn't have the same energy as like the siege and just the propulsiveness of the first 45 minutes. It's more kind of a stream of like new beautiful people, including Javier Bardem and Zendaya, two people I'm very enthusiastic about kind of walking through this beautiful desert, like into the future. And so it's interesting because I, I feel like as someone who knows nothing, I both know absolutely nothing about what's going to happen. Cause that's a fairly new world. That's like sort of hinted at throughout the movie, but I'm not really situated in kind of what he's going to find out next. Those are characters who don't have a lot of screen time. So a bunch of new stuff. And I also know exactly what's going to happen ultimately. I'm like, I get it. Because you read the Bible? Yeah, because I read the Bible.

And I live in the modern world, so I can guess. But I wouldn't say it's like the most, you know, true crime find out what happens next ending of all time, but it is like, you know, in terms of its epicness and its sweep and it feels a little old fashioned, honestly, in a way that I didn't mind. What we're supposed to take from the ending is just like that this kid is starting not only to believe who he is and other people around him are starting to believe that he is this the one figure but also he's starting to come to terms with what it's going to cost him which is essentially his life like you know in the tent he's crying about like you know i've got these visions and like like the sort of the extremity of what's going to happen if I am really who I am is just kind of overwhelming to me.

And then he tries to get that guy to yield a couple of times. And then there's the whole what happens when you take a life. All that stuff about being reborn. I don't know if Villeneuve hammers that hard enough or hits that hard enough so that if you haven't read Dune

or aren't familiar with the Dune story, you're like, this is actually kind of a quasi-tragic moment in this kid's life to the extent that you care about it. But I thought it was very effective. I thought the whole setting for that and just him having to stand up as champion

for his mother was really cool. Her turning around and being like, it's only the beginning, I think is a little next time on Lost. I don't know. I just think that we can all get over the fact that they weren't like, we promised

Dune 2 is going to be out in 2024. Have you crafted the poster that says Dune 2 now that you've sent out that you're going to stand outside of HBO's offices? Are you ready to devote your life to protesting for this film? I'm currently constructing a paper mache sandworm. Good segue, Chris. Sandworms. It's been a joke on the pod since we first saw the trailer.

Rewatching the David Lynch version, I was like, oh, these sandworms are actually pretty good for 1984. This looks cool. Obviously, this film is something totally different. Me, sandworms, thought it worked. Dug every aspect of it. They fucking kicked ass. That's my review of the sandworms in this movie. What did you think, Chris? No notes.

You got them. Yeah. They did it. That's pretty cool. Pretty cool idea. Yep. Just kind of into sandworms and Jen. The rules and regulations of sandworms were pretty and thought the rules and regulations

of sandworms were like pretty well stated. Don't make rhythmic noises. You're going to want to get off that carry on the carry machine or the ship

before they get there. That was a fucking sick scene when they were just like, you know, he's tripping balls while they're like, you got to get off

this fucking ground. I thought it was great. No notes on the sandworms amanda you would you adopt a sandworm as a pet if you could no i wouldn't i i agree i was like cool i get all the rules of the sandworm great exposition okay but like that's my real but like what does it mean like what am i supposed to take away from like what are they supposed to represent like what you know what are we commenting on what's up with the sandworms it's like an indication of his power being able to control nature like ultimately the story the film ends with this vision of someone riding a sandworm which shows that being able to conquer something that powerful indicates you know what paul atreides actually is which is this messianic figure i mean that's at

least part of it and also just like the world is dangerous so be careful you know okay paul atreides actually is which is this messianic figure i mean that's at least part of it and also just like the world is dangerous so be careful you know okay so like you know fear nature the sea is dope etc yes all the big themes the sea is dope fear is the mind killer cr for president that's all you need to know um dude you know what i could probably get a couple like electoral college votes off of like the fucking fear is the mind killer that's my slogan yeah are you are you pulling a connor roy right now are you announcing your application for the job of president of the united states it's just a test bubble i'm just gonna see what the response is you're trying to take down sleepy joe cr wow that's really something. Okay.

So this movie made $40 million at the box office, which was a very good number relative to what films have been doing this year. Respect the Chinese BO, Sean. What's the worldwide number, brother? I think it was north of 220 million, which is good. However, the Chinese box office was actually quite weak on Dune because it opened in tens of thousands of theaters because China has so many theaters

and the movie actually did not do very good business. It is doing good business in Europe and elsewhere. But I would say if this movie was released in 2018, it probably would have done at least twice that opening. And because of the times and because of the fact that it's available on HBO max and various other reasons, it's doing fine. I think it's considered a success. It did a lot of IMAXax business which of course means more dollars that also i think indicates that we're we're getting part two here um i'm curious what you guys think it means for hbo max if anything you think a lot of people signed up to see this i don't i don't know i did have the experience last night of i was i wanted to rewatch

parts of it for this podcast so I you know logged on to HBO max clicked dune watched most of it then like went downstairs watched succession on HBO max then I was reminded that it was like the insecure final season premiere also on HBO max and then I like looked at your like which room did you watch that did you go back upstairs did you sit down I haven't watched it yet but but then also you know alongside that was like the you know your shows or whatever and it was like wherever my husband is and his sopranos we watch and like wherever i am and my sex in the city rewatch which is at the end by the way watch them all please give me the new show immediately but i was like oh okay so for for me this is like literally everything that I'm

watching all at once in one place and you know in some ways it is now for like movies and streaming and television serving the role that just like HBO served to like my family and to like prestige TV to TV like five years ago, which that seems like a great place to be in. If you're, you know, me or trying to make me happy, but it's like, I, and, and I think if they can make it a successful, like prestige thing that everyone needs to have, but I don't know whether everyone's using it the same way that I I don't know whether everyone's using it the same way that I am and even whether everyone's using it the same way that they were using HBO five years ago. I'll tell you this. My mom, who does not have a podcast, immediately started this movie over again when she finished it.

Whoa. Which was a pretty cool thing to see for her. You know what I mean? You have to remember, we're very keyed into like the ability to, to sort of navigate all these apps and stuff. She was pretty thrilled with like, you mean I can start it from the beginning and kind of watch it again. And I think a lot of people are going to do that. And I could see this movie becoming a bit of a,

like, I like, I like to do an edible and make screenshots of fucking Arrakis kind of movie and, and have like a really long legs in that regard. Um, you know, is it good for the movie business and is it good?

Did Denis Villeneuve want us to be able to watch it at home? No, but I'm sure Dune two will be a theater only release. I'm sure that will be part of like the leverage he brings to it. And if it only made 40 million in the U S this weekend, I look like you don't have to be a genius to look at the response it's gotten online and see

that this was obviously probably the most well-received movie of the year and also makes other movies that came out this year seem worse in comparison. Do you know what I mean? People were so into this and were like, holy shit, they really made an incredible film that it makes you go back to some of the other stuff you're like that was

pretty good this year and you're like no it wasn't that was nowhere near as good as Dune you're right it is a level setter in that way and the one of the things that was fun about being able to re-watch it again at home over the weekend which I did was one I got to watch it with my wife which was exciting and she was also into it she likes science fiction I think because we were able to watch the film with closed captioning it was much easier to follow the storytelling as well which is like a there's upside to that to that revisit I think we first talked about that with um with the Coen Brothers anthology Buster Scruggs years ago but just that instant re-watch that you were describing Chris that your mom did that's a huge benefit for anybody who's super into this world.

It's going to be a bit of whiplash for us and for other movie watchers when starting on January 1st, HBO and Warner Brothers is no longer doing this. You know, the Batman is not coming to HBO Max right away. That's going to be an in-theater only experience. Then it'll be interesting to see what kinds of movies they put directly onto the service and whether they feel a little bit more like what a lot of netflix movies feel like which is like not quite studio productions you know dune is like a classical studio it's like the ten commandments you know or ben hur it's a big noisy you know overwhelming huge cast the the best of the best special effects.

And HBO Max is going to make original films and they're probably not going to be that much like Dune if I had to guess. So the business is going to continue to evolve. Let's close with two things. One, I want to talk about Oscar potential. This film has been very well received. It's gotten really, really good reviews.

There's obviously a noisy fandom. thing that i think amanda as we start to do a few more oscar shows over the next couple of months the oscars really really really needs a movie like this in the race this year really badly i i can't overstate how desperately they need a mainstream movie that a lot of people have seen to compete for big awards. Obviously, we're just speculating at this point, but Amanda, do you think that this film will be up for Best Picture? Do you think it will be up for Best Director? Will any performances be recognized? What do you predict here? Remind me, because I forgot to Google this. Are we 10 nominees? 10 nominees for Best Picture. No matter what. No matter what. Then yes, probably. It will. I think that if it were however many nominees you want,

that the Academy would find a way once again to shoot itself in the foot. I feel like the more and more you and I say the Oscars really need this movie, the more and more the Oscars are like, no, no, thank you.

We will only do this. This Jane Campion Netflix film will be the... Please! Why do you have to bring Jane Campion into this? I'm not this. This Jane Campion Netflix film will be the... Please! Why do you have to bring Jane Campion into this? I'm not trying to knock Jane Campion.

I'm talking about the Oscars as like the Super Bowl. I'm sure that Power of the Dog is going to be like a quote-unquote better movie than Dune. I'm just saying that

nobody is going to be like, oh, God, I got to tune in for Cumberbatch tonight. You know what I mean? They'll do it if they're like, I want to see fucking Baron Harganan float over the Oscar stage. Right. You know, which is like, and I'll be honest, like, okay, cool. I'm turning this off now.

But I think with 10 and with the year that this, like the movie industry has had, and also with the fact that it doesn't really smell of like MCU franchise, you know, Christmas holiday toys, like grossness in the same way, they'll probably make it in. Whether Villeneuve makes it in for best director is less clear to me just because there are only five spots. And to me, I feel like the strongest case here is for Villeneuve, that this is such a hard movie to make. And the scale and the imagination

and the execution and the... You're basically a field general trying to manage all these people to make a movie like this. And he pulled it off. That could be one case where the near guarantee of sequels will be a little bit going against it

because people sometimes are like, we'll get you on the last one. That's what they did with Lord of the Rings, right? Very much so. Yeah, that's very possible. although the fact that the movie is still not been greenlit who knows what how that will impact it i think you can almost bank on you can you can wager on fan duel right now production design cinematography visual effects all the below the line categories this movie at this point i feel like is probably going to run away with all of those uh not just nominations but probably awards since it's such an incredible spectacle feast.

I mean, is there any other movie on this scale that could slip in? It sounds like Eternals is not the one. No, I've not seen it yet, but it does not sound like it's the one. I don't believe so, unless there's some sort of Spider-Man 3 moment where people, it's acknowledged not just as a popcorn movie but as like an achievement of some kind which I don't think is going to happen

but you never know with this sort of thing. I mean, West Side Story is going to be kind of a big mainstream movie but it's not the same as this.

It's not drawing in the Dark Knight crowd that they so desperately wanted starting in 2008 which had them change the rules in the first place. Any performances you think could get recognized?

Oscar Isaac? Maybe, but it's not flashy enough. I mean, this movie doesn't go for the laugh lines and the hamminess, which for the most part is to its credit. So there's nothing memorable. There's no one scene stealing with 10 minutes besides Momoa. And I don't really think Momoa. Probably not. Yeah. So that'd be great, but. I'd be into Oscar Isaac getting nominated

for this and card counter. Same. And winning twice. Yeah, then we're going to do a second card counter pod when that happens, Chris. Great. All right, let's end with this. Chris, you're the Villeneuve lord.

You're the master. You're the guy. Thanks. Where does this sit in his filmography for you? Where does Dune sit? Let's focus primarily on the six English language films that he has made. What is this?

So no En Sandis, right? I mean, let's throw En Sandis in since that was his introduction maybe to American audiences. So of the seven films... I'm high off the spice. I have it third right now. Okay. I accept that. Yeah. Just coming out.

I have, do you want me to just go through my ranking? Do your ranking. Sicario. Arrival. These one, two. Yep.

Dune three. Prisoners four. On Sundays, five. Enemy six. Blade Runner seven. I, I,

we, enemy is number seven. Chris, I love you so much. Absolutely not. Amanda. Enemy is number seven chris i love you so much absolutely not amanda enemy is number three absolutely i did not prepare to just like have a blood fight with you guys about tarantulas and jake gyllenhaal just like being so weird okay get on board enemy yeah listen even the duality of man amanda of like jake gyllenhaal's having a hard time and you know can we work it out did you sell your jake stock no i love jake gyllenhaal but honestly for the past eight years it's just been like let's like put jake gyllenhaal in a completely deranged setting and have him lose his mind and like you walk out of every movie being like is jake gyllenhaal okay and the answer is he's fine he's doing yoga on instagram

he loves russ and daughters he's thriving he's in some time yeah all the time he's doing totally okay but i've and especially i want to say from like 2010 to 2015, people are just making movies just based on Jake Gyllenhaal being like, I would like to be like, I have an alienating breakdown on screen. Because David Fincher broke that boy in half on the set of Zodiac and he never recovered. And he is recreating that in every role he picks. So I would just say out of the two villaineneuve movies that center around Jake Gyllenhaal

just like not being able to handle it, I'm going to go with Prisoners over Enemy. Hard to disagree. I rewatched Prisoners. What the fuck is wrong with that movie? You know, like, what the hell is going on in that movie? Why was everyone like,

this movie's great. It should be a hit. Girl, that has logged on. It's so fucking depraved. For sure. It's so depraved. It is like really upsetting and on sundays is also i like but is really upsetting in this context they're all upsetting yeah they are they are on sundays is about a tragedy the prisoners is messed up like what is really really messed up and that and that Chris just yells, just make Prisoners again

like every three months on this podcast about Denis Villeneuve is also like somewhat fucked up. If Deakins had not shot Prisoners, people would be like, this movie should be banned. But he did.

He shot it. Like I can't change what happened. That's true. And that's why I'm willing to give it like a bit more space. If fucking Sicario had kazoo music playing I said enemy at number three Sean's getting

kicked off the pod oh wow that's crazy fortunately for you you don't have that power Amanda flexing the Benny Jezzer yeah what if I just suddenly did the voice I should have practiced you should work that into the show in an ongoing way Yeah, what if I just suddenly did the voice? I should have practiced.

You should work that into the show in an ongoing way. Enemy is last. Wait, so you went Sicario, Arrival, Dune, Prisoners. That was your top four? I would probably put Enemy at four. I think Sicario is the best. Arrival is number one for you, right? Yeah, obviously Arrival is number one one and i really thought chris was gonna support me on that i support you we both love when we did our top 10 yeah of the decade you did arrival and that's a cario so i thought that we were like agreed on that but my taste is like a constant

it's like an evolution like it's always like it's like sand dancing on a lot of ways. I love that you think that you being like Sicario rules is an evolution. I think that that is that's very special and it's good that you have a good sense of self.

Sicario is where Sierra and I meet. That's like that is literally Sicario is really good. That's the bridge of our taste. exclude me from it.

You're unexploded. You and me are the two we are like Jeffrey Donovan and Benicio like in the car together because you and we were defending that movie in the Deacon's Pod.

Oh, against Sean? Yeah, you were like, Rango? That was crazy. And now you're just like number one, Sicario? What's wrong with you? What did I say? What did I say otherwise? What movies did I pick? Or were we talking about No Country for Old Men? I mean, No Country for Old Men is better than any

Denial of the Movie. You were trying to do Rango and like 12 coen brothers movies yeah coen brothers are fucking sick let's do another coen brothers i also like the coen brothers but like joel coen movie coming in december that's gonna be dope can't wait that'll probably get nominated for an oscar right yeah yeah what are the best pictures right now what are the locks what are the stone cold locks well you said power of the dog let's go it seems like king richard and belfast are like the two awards or like the the two festival favorites that like no one's actually seen but it seems like people are targeting those there are a handful of unseen movies that are not that people are speculating will be in the mix but we don't know here are those movies plus that story i mentioned

nightmare alley which i don't know anyone who's seen nightmare alley the new caribou del toro movie uh the tragedy macbeth which premiered at new york film festival but has not been screened out here and licorice pizza that's right so when p PTA. House of Gucci as well. Solid sweep. All five categories. Last duel, I guess. Not Oscar material, huh? I mean, it is to me. Yeah, I know.

25 years ago, it would have been nominated for Best Picture with no question. Chris, you see Last Duel yet? You haven't seen it yet, right? I haven't seen it yet. Can we get Tenet

back in the Oscars? Can we try again? No. Okay. resubmit for 2021 i think we should submit this pod for best picture what do you think wait are we not like gonna do a an agreement together on the rankings we're just gonna yell at each other well you're sicario has to be a number one sicario i get that i mean it's like social network all over again that's fine okay i have refined taste I'm willing to accept what's your third

Amanda what's your third one is it Dune I think so yeah yeah right now I mean I also am high on spice and Timothy Chalamet okay so we'll do Dune at number three we're all agreed enemy number four glad to hear that. Absolutely not. No. Are you fucking girl-dadding prisoners

out of the cut here? What are you doing? I thought it was really disturbing. If I'm being totally honest. It is really disturbing. All of these movies are, except for Arrival, which is hopeful.

And you guys were like, no, no, no, absolutely not. But like Sundays are, that is my day with my daughter where I'm just with her all day and I watched it with her and I was like, what am I doing? This is so evil.

Sean, you can't do that. You can't watch fucking prisoners with a baby. I did it. Do you turn her away from the screen? Of course, yeah. Okay. I wear headphones too, so she can't hear it. Oh, okay.

That's all right. That's fine. So she's just looking up at you being like, why is the big man sobbing? Well, she has to take a contact nap. You know, it's just a sleep on top of me. So she's taking a contact at you being like, why is the big man sobbing? Well, she has to take a contact nap. You know, it's just a sleep on top of me. So she's taking a contact nap on top of me. And then I'm watching the movie while she's doing that.

Okay, but she can't hear it. So Sundays you watch the Jets and Prisoners. Yeah, I had a tough day. I had a really tough day. Nevertheless. Okay, so you guys really want Prison prisoners to be number four that's important to you blade runner 2049 is better than prisoners what are we talking about i would put both ncds and blade runner above prisoners and enemy but that's just amanda talking but i know that i know

that i feel like i'm a guest i'm not gonna i'm not gonna dictate this don't fold don't fold come on this is training for the movie draft. I need you to stand by your principles. Okay. This is how he got the matrix and like win stuff. You know, just focus. I'm doing everything.

You literally have a literal bot army, like, which is awesome. And I love you for that. I love is that Villeneuve cannot help himself, but put like a phrase at the beginning of a movie to explain the theme of the cario means hitman yeah yes the phrase at the beginning of enemy uh is chaos is order yet undeciphered that's the first thing you see

when enemies are enemy let's go number seven but whatever okay um blade runner 2049 is four on sunday is five prisoners six i'm sorry cr enemy is seven that's okay that's the negotiation or would you prefer to flip on sunday and uh prisoners i'll accept that because the ending of on sunday is like a lot um it's traumatic it's it's i mean it is adapted from a play i believe but it's a little bit like okay radiohead needle drop to what what radiohead song would you have wanted to hear in dune i couldn't believe there was no radiohead villeneuve loves radiohead i probably would have gone for just like zendaya turns around goes it's the just the beginning and then chalamet close up and then creep starts like a children's choir

that would have been good i feel like the bends is appropriate given uh all of the hallucinogenics it's too like rock though you gotta have like something like it needs to be like kid a or something yeah the national anthem perhaps of arrakis. Wonder what that is. Okay. So just to recap the rankings that were brokered, I don't know, undiplomatically here. Number one,

Denis Villeneuve movie is Sicario. The number two, Denis Villeneuve movie is Arrival. The number three movie, is it Dune? Are we saying Dune?

Yeah. Dune is number three. Blade Runner 2049 is four. Prisoners is number five. Enson D is number six. Enemy is number seven, which is just shameful. Guys, great conversation. Great podcast. Thank you so much for diving

deep into the sand with me to talk about. What are some of the highlights? I think Amanda being like, sorry, I've read the Bible was good as an explanation for why she doesn't need any exposition ever. That's like the eighth time she said this on this podcast. Guys, it's right there. 40 days in the desert Guys, it's right there.

40 Days in the Desert. It's all right there. Okay. Amanda, thank you. Chris, thank you. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. Later this week, we have another great filmmaker.

Edgar Wright returns to the show for a long and deep conversation about his new movie, Last Night in Soho. We'll see you then.