The Big Picture - F---, Marry, Kill at the Movies: ‘The Housemaid,’ ‘Song Sung Blue,’ and ‘Anaconda’

Episode Date: December 29, 2025

Sean and Amanda have an action-packed show today where they cover three new releases. Before diving in, they react to the recent trailers for ‘The Odyssey’ and ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ and quickly discuss ‘Zootopia 2’ and ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ (1:38). Then, they discuss Paul Feig’s ‘The Housemaid,’ starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, which they found disappointing and prompts a discussion about what type of movies are being made for women in 2025 (9:09). Next, they talk through ‘Anaconda,’ starring Jack Black, which they describe as a cynical, depressing exercise in IP franchise filmmaking (38:37). Finally, they briefly touch on ‘Song Sung Blue,’ a musical drama about a Neil Diamond tribute band starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson (50:00), before director Craig Brewer joins Sean to break down how his filmmaking career started, explain why music plays such a profound role in his work, and tell a fascinating story about the lengthy process behind casting Hudson (1:01:35). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Craig Brewer Producers: Jack Sanders and Jacob Cornett Shopping. Streaming. Celebrating. It’s on Prime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennacy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. This is the big picture of conversation show about the final movies of 2025. Today on the show, we're discussing three 2025 wide releases that maybe you checked out with your family over the holidays. All three feel familiar with roots. traditional Hollywood subgenres, but all three are also a little bit different. I'm referring to the soapy, sexy melodrama, the housemaid, the meta-action creature comedy anaconda, and the Neil Diamond-inspired true-life biopic Song Song-Sung Blue.

Which of these three did I like? Here's a hint. Later in the show, I have a conversation with director Craig Brewer, who also wrote this movie and wrote Hustle and Flow, and Dolomite is my name, directed that. film. Song Song Blue is his latest. A little bit similar, a little different from his previous work. At heart, it's a musical, sincere, and deeply felt movie.

Stick around for our conversation. Craig is a wonderful guy and filmmaker. We'll talk about these movies right after this. This episode of The Big Picture is presented by Amazon Prime. You know how in every great holiday movie, there's that last minute scramble to make it all come together? From gifts to hosting essentials, Prime's fast

shipping is always there for you during the holidays, especially when it's last minute and just can't wait. So if you need fast free delivery that saves the day, it's on Prime. Head to Amazon.com slash Prime to shop now. Okay. Last Lix. Yeah, here we go. This is the end. So we're not going to do the Odyssey trailer because it's too late after everyone has seen it. I mean, it will have been a full week. So you want to talk about it? I mean, let's talk about it. My review is it looked good. Yeah, that's the problem with this discussion is I'm in. Yeah. And I think the The production design looks impressive.

Yes. I got particular chills watching the men rowing on the giant ship. That's spoke to you. That is very practical and beautiful looking. I thought the Cyclops looked cool. Yes, the brief glimpse we saw of the giant in the cave. I assume that was the Cyclops. Yeah.

And I thought Ann Hathaway looked very pretty. Sure, yes. That is well. Once again, I found myself Googling what I can do to try to look like in Hathway. Well, these are high bars that we're setting for ourselves. Matt Damon, of course, playing Odysseus in the ancient Roman Greek text. Greek text, how dare you? Yeah.

Lock it down. You know, I've obviously been on a big upswing with Christopher Nolan in the last few years. I thought you were going to say I've been on a big upswing with Homer. No, no. I read The Odyssey in school like so many others. Never read the I read the Iliad. Really? Never read it.

I read it in the, or did I read it? Yeah, I read some of it in Greek. in Greek. Yeah, I think I did. Well, I just know that Mainan is the first word of the Iliad and that means rage.

And that's what the Iliad is about. And that explains why you connected with it. I'm very excited about The Odyssey. I do think it's probably the one battle after another of 2026 for us where it's like you can count on somewhere between three and 12 episodes about the movie.

It's just very exciting to see Christopher Nolan using his power for good. A big grand story that is not, no capes, you know, different kind of heroism than what we're used to in this country, right? About a man just trying to get home to his family. Yeah, that's right. And be a good guy.

Why can't we make more movies about good guys? Despite all the, yeah, the temptations along the way. That's right. It's hard out here for you guys. Got these sirens singing us songs trying to get us to come sully ourselves. Odysseus says no. No, thank you. Yeah.

I got to go see Anne Hathaway. Who among us? He sort of says no. Sort of. After saying yes, you know? Well, they're very, they're tempting. You know, that's their whole thing. You think he'll zag, like, you think Wonder Woman will be in this?

Like, what do you think is going to happen? You never know. Okay, I mean, will there be, I guess there's going to be an Avengers Doomsday trailer while we're out. Oh, right, there were like six of them. Jack said he saw one. And he described it to me, and it was like Chris Evans holding a shield. What?

No, no, no, no, no. Chris Evans is holding a baby and the camera slowly pans up from the baby to his face and then it cuts to text it says Steve Rogers will return in Avengers Doomsday and then a clock starts ticking down

to when the movie will be played in theaters. Is it his baby? Who knows? I'm not very, I'm not really caught up in that. Baby Thanos. He went back in time,

went back in time, got in the Dolorian, got baby Thanos, was like, I'm bringing his baby with me. Was Thanos purple when he was born? Or does he take on powers I don't even have a joke I don't know what you're talking about

He's an alien, yes He's an alien with purple skin Okay And that is like That's what he's like And not just how he appears To human beings You know

Is this like Is Pandora a real place question? I'm trying to engage Yeah I appreciate it You know I'm getting involved In all the blockbusters For 2026 I think it's reasonable

To be concerned About Avengers Doomsday Okay I certainly am I think it's reasonable I would love to love to love it. I really would. I would love to love it too. I would love to let joy back into my heart after my weekend. It's been how many years now? At the box office where I saw Zootopia 2 with my child. It's a thumbs down for me. A shameful act. I took a brief nap during it as well. Once they

went to Zootopia. Hard to believe you thought it was confusing. Once they went to Zootopia Burning Man, I was like, I can jump out of this for 10 minutes. You missed the Shakira song? No, they performed it again at the end. And my son said I want to stay for this. But anyway, I had... Thank you. I had what I thought was like maybe the apex of my parenting when after I took a quick nap, my almost four-year-old son said, what's happening? And I like startled awake. And what I said as I was half awake was, I don't know, but everyone's okay. And that reassured him. And then we moved on. Everyone was okay. Sometimes you have to lie when you're a parent. And that's an amazing example of that. Well, it's just scintillating stuff. Thank you so much. And then we saw the Mandalorian and

Grogu trailer, which he was very excited about. So, yeah, the trailer is bad, actually. So I wait until he sees Star Wars. It's going to be fucking amazing. I mean, you know, he was interested, but perplexed by Grogu. Are we all? But you could see the wheels turn it, you know? So maybe it's my year of blockbusters. Maybe I'll be really, really into Mandalorian and Grogu. Maybe I'll be really into Avengers Doomsday. Obviously, I'm going to be into The Odyssey. You know, it's just going to be Cinema Amanda with my popcorn.

Me showing Knox, like Captain America Winter Soldier is going to hit, like, fucking crack. Like, it might be like six more years, but it's going to be unbelievable when I'm like, that's Bucky Barnes, my friend. Let me tell you a little something about this winter soldier. It's going to be incredible. Do you know how many avatar questions he has for you,

like waiting for you when he's, I'm ready. Like, There's way too many guns in that movie. I realized like, you can, yeah, no, he can never ever, he can never, ever see it. But. Never ever. I'm trying to keep him, though away from that.

At 78 years old, you won't be allowed to see it. And I was like, what are we doing here? And Knox just sat down and just was like, I told him he couldn't have them that those were for big kids, but not in our family. Those were for Navi. And then he just sat down watching the Nerf guns for like 15 minutes. I mean, that's why they make them. They're very alluring.

I told Chris this story, and he was like, yeah, of course he did. Yeah. So he can never see Avatar, but he has, through various advertisements, learned the full title. And so when anyone says Avatar, he says, fire and dash. It's incredible how screwed you are. I know. It is astonishing.

He's the most avatar boy I've ever encountered in terms of, like, he's an adventurous kid who wants to run around and see the world. old. That's fucking Avatar, man. This all started because he wanted to know about a movie with parachutes. And I was like, well, can I tell you about some jellyfish parachutes? Yeah. And then he asked me the names of the creatures. I was like, I don't know.

You gotta show them in order. Like, we have to start with Avatar. Like, set the world building up. That is your problem. Okay. And I will refer him to you. I think we should just get him right in touch with Big Jim. Just see if they can connect. Big Jim just sold the hell out of that movie. He just did so much

press. I've never seen him do so much press. Yeah. It's whatever. I mean, Leo was on podcasts this year, you know? This podcast. Yeah. That's a fact. Leonardo DiCaprio in 2025 was on this podcast. It's true. So listen, anything's possible. Dream big, as they say. Dream big. Somebody was dreaming about the housemaid. I don't know who it was. It wasn't me last night after having seen it. But we should talk about it. Yeah. A very interesting modern artifact, I would say. I am going to be very honest with the with the list.

of the show, I did not have, like, a bad time. I'm not, I, I'm not, I, I'm not sure what kind of a time I had. I, I don't think it's, I don't think it's, good. But I was at times entertained. Okay, so I have, I have decided to use the fuck, marry, kill delineation for this episode. Oh, great, okay. There are three movies, and we must decide which ones we will fuck, which ones we will marry, and which ones we will kill.

Yeah. Now, you can, you can decide to fuck all three if you really want to, I guess. Be in the spirit of the housemaid. The housemaid is the obvious fuck, right? Because it's like you've got to at least give this one shot. You know, Sydney, Sweeney and Amanda Seifred in a steamy, campy, erotic thriller. I mean... Sure.

For all the straight boys at home, sheesh. Like, that's just crazy town on paper. So, you know, co-produced and directed by Paul Feig, the movie is set in a pretty similar register, I would say, to a simple favor. A movie he had a big hit with, like, 10 years ago. and made a sequel to very recently. It is based on a 2022 novel of the same name by Frida McFadden. Are you familiar with the novel in any way?

I'm not. Okay. As I said, Sidney, Amanda Seifred. Brandon Sclanar. Yeah. Plays the husband figure in this movie. Elizabeth Perkins plays his mom. Nice to see her.

The story is thus, a young woman with a troubled past who becomes the live-in housemaid for a wealthy family. Their seemingly perfect life unravels when she discovers their household hides dark secrets. We will be spoiling the movies in this conversation. Yes.

If you haven't seen the movie The House Made, you don't want the twists spoil for you. Do not listen to this episode. There would be no point in discussing this movie if you did not discuss the twist. Correct. Did you like The House Made? I, again, did I, do I want more of this?

I want more good versions of this. We were talking recently. I don't even know whether the episode is coming. out yet. Yes. Is this thing on an L in the K? Is that what you're thinking of? No, I'm thinking of Gone Girl, which is this movie owes a great debt to and obviously is quite poor in comparison to. Yes. But I like that we're trying to make the Gone Girls of the world, you know? This doesn't live up to it. And I think some of that is because the reveal itself is like fairly disappointing. And I do also just think that the performance

are okay to good. I would agree with that. Yeah, I would say the script and the production design, which is a major part of movies like this, are not as good. Yes. We have to talk about interior design in this country. We have to talk about it and what we're aspiring to.

You are the host of several shows on this network. Is anyone stopping you from speaking of interior design? I'm inviting you in. Okay. It's a big tent, the interior design tent. We've got to talk about the shiny gold door handles on the cabinetry. We've got to talk about great rooms. We've got to talk about, you know, the double floor.

But then there's no walls and no doors. And where is anyone supposed to live? You know, where is anyone supposed to get any sort of private time? No idea what you're talking about. We've got to talk about our choice of wallpaper. One, we're going to use it, when we're not going to use it. Oh, what fun. You're also on notice for your choices in wallpaper.

I haven't seen that yet. I saw half of it after Jack texted me. And I just, we've got to use color again. I mean, color is one of the great elements of art and life and certainly a visual cinema. So we need to just stop it with all the beige. This is a black and white and beige film. The color palette of the movie is interesting. I mean, it's a very wintry movie, so it makes sense, right?

In the opening sequence, we see the Amanda Seiford character, who is this aspirant housemaid come to apply for a job at an elegant, gated home. In Great Neck. In Great Neck, yes. This is a Long Island film in some ways, and there is certainly a Long Island rage at the core of this movie that is very recognizable to me. You know, it's a movie that I think wants to be very gone girl, but also wants to be an Adrian Line kind of movie. You know, it wants to be very sexy and steamy,

but it really feels more like kind of a post-50 Shades of Grey film where there's like kind of a polish and a sheen on it and the way that these films are lit now doesn't really do a lot of favors to the mystery and the lore of the actors who are at the center of it. And I do think that the twist is very disappointing. And the film makes you wait a very long time for the twist. Now, the Sydney-Sweeney character applies for this job,

and despite the fact that we learn fairly early, early on that she has a checkered past and, in fact, spend time in prison and has no experience working as a housemaid or in child care, is able to get a job in Amanda Seifred and Brandon Sclonar's home, clean their home and look after their seven-year-old daughter. Sort of. I would not say that she's tasked with a lot of child care. Pick up and drop off, playtime at the dollhouse. She's doing stuff. She's doing stuff. Right. That's, as you know, entrusting your child to a stranger.

I agree. You know, it's a stretch. She gets this gig. It doesn't really make sense. We see that the Amanda Seiford character is very complicated. Erratic. Very erratic. We learn roughly halfway through the film that she has been diagnosed and prescribed medication for schizophrenia.

She has a fascinating meltdown early in the movie that is like a waving signpost that something is wrong here, where she blames Amanda Seiford's character for throwing out PTA meeting notes. Right. And that leads to this, like, rageful explosion in the kitchen. Yeah. She's breaking dishes. It's so fascinating that we're at the stage of our lives where Amanda Seiford is playing the middle-aged mom. Yeah. I don't really have a comment about it.

It's just like, I can't believe we got there. Like, we just got there. I don't know. We're there. We're there. This whole year has just been a confirmation reminder that we're there. She looks great. She's beautiful.

I mean, she's one of my favorites. I've talked about her many times. She's a guest in the show. I think she's really like a fun and interesting actor. Yeah. Really weird career. Huge hits, huge bombs. Some movies that I think are incredibly cool and interesting and daring and, you know,

she's brilliant and Mank and first reformed. And she's got this, you know, mean girls, it's iconic. She's kind of done everything. Mama Mia, which you still have not seen. I still haven't seen those movies. I'm sure they're great. She sings, you know. I mean, she's in Lee Mez.

Well, she's in this movie and then she's also in Testament of Van Lee, which comes out on Christmas, you know, so which is a very cool movie. and a, but weird. Yes. And she sings in it as well. And a great performance by her. But so, but it is going to be, that's a searchlight release that they picked up after the festivals. And that'll be small.

It's an awards run, if anything, at all. We hope she gets in, but she might not. It's going to be tough. This helps. And then. Yeah, but then she's the start of a movie that's a hit. She's doing arty stuff about, you know, the Shaker movement. Yep.

And then she's doing, you know, campy, big budget. I thought this was a Colleen Hoover adaptation, but it's not stuff. And it's not like this is the first time she's done someone like this. She's done Nicholas Sparkstyle movies. She's done this stuff all throughout her career. She did the movie. She's in, um, not the hat movie. That's Emily Blunt, but the Justin Timberlake Time movie?

In time. Yes. Which I think is a on paper, an interesting idea for a sci-fi thriller. That is a very bad film. I really think she is an interesting actor. She is incredible in the Elizabeth Holmes series. That's like one of the great performances of the century. And, you know, she doesn't look exactly like Elizabeth Holmes.

It's a little bit of a transformation. There's a vocal intonation thing. So she has a lot of range and is a really interesting performer. This character is, feels very constructed. It doesn't really feel like a real person. Now, there's a reason for that. She is constructing a performance inside of her own home in the movie. But even still, it's not her best work, I would say.

This is not the best material she's always. I think that she's meeting the material where it is. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. I guess so. Sydney Sweeney. Very beautiful. I've been defending Sydney Sweeney, right, in recent years.

You have. I think with the right material, she's a very good actor. She usually needs to be kind of more chaotic and shriekish and intense. And if you watch her in Immaculate or in Euphoria, she has a knack for, like, a kind of like amusing mania. Mm-hmm. And you'd think that this material would be really well suited to it. Yeah.

And I did not think she was good in this movie at all. No. I mean, she is very beautiful. Yeah. And they use that on purpose throughout. Yeah, she's meant to be like a visual echo of Amanda Seifred. Right. Because the character of Brandon Sclonar plays has a type.

Yes. When she gets one moment to kind of act out. and she's breaking dishes, and I thought that she was funny, breaking dishes. That's Cassie from Euphoria. Well, I know. But so she gets one moment, and otherwise she's supposed to be sort of confused and and muted and helpless and the, like, damsel in distress until she's not. Yeah.

She doesn't have much to do. I don't want to say she's miscast because one of the reasons why this movie is clearly working is, like, frankly, this is like a sexy movie where she takes. are clothes off. Yeah. You know, and, like, people just want to see that, and she is very artfully playing the bombshell game in terms of the parts that she picks. Absolutely.

How she presents herself publicly, she's been entrenched in some controversies about her, the way that she presents and how she communicates about her beauty this year. I think this is a very smart play. The movie is obviously working because there is, like, you know, this is one step removed from Colleen Hoover, and I do want to ask you a little bit about movies being made for women because even though I think you know partners on dates will enjoy some of the sexy stuff in this movie

it does seem to be a movie that is very much aimed at female audiences Brandon Sclanar yeah I'm glad you want to talk about him I do want to talk about him he's sort of he's been ubiquitous speaking of Colleen Hoover he was the other guy and it ends with us

he was in drop which I saw the trailer for many times in which you didn't care for I watched it and I will say this movie feels like a like that movie set us up to be wrong-footed in this movie because he's like a very nice guy in drop and he's very accommodating despite the crazy circumstances of drop he's the nice guy in it ends with us

which I have a hard time pronouncing I don't know what he's doing on 1923 besides being a Dutton I haven't seen the show so I can't say I don't know whether he's good or bad probably because you know he's a white man on a Taylor Sheridan show it's very handsome he's diesel he yeah so so this is a very moderate he's a he's a very he's like a a fair tea catalog version of handsomeness you know what i'm talking about yes no i do because sue i identify him as he is being marketed to me as like taylor sheridan like americana contemporary masculinity yes but but like he is very different from um like the timothy shallamese

or the, you know, the kind of artsy indie boys. Like, he is just absolutely jacked. There's one shot of his bicep early on that I, like, recoiled from. I was, like, very grossed out by. Because it's not historically my type. That's not your thing, yeah. Yeah. As a little more wire.

As previously discussed on the Marty Supreme episode, that is, I'm just locked in. So, and because of the rules that he's taken and I can feel that he's being marketed to someone with different tastes than me, as like, this is your new guy. He's always been, like, a bit blurry face. I'm just like, oh, sure, that guy. He's always got 72% of a beard. Yeah. You know what I mean?

But it's just, he's muscular. I say this as somebody with, like, 48% of a beard right now. Like, he is. I guess that he does. He's just, he's like soft muscle and is supposed to be, the first half of the movie makes a big deal. I'm like, oh, he's so handsome. And it's like, what a big, you know, great smote. and all the moms are, you know, fixated on him.

And, you know, it feels like it's kind of being forced on me. And I will say that, like, halfway through the movie, I was finally like, okay, I, he is attractive. Like, I do, I see it. You relented, you know? I did. And it was, like, the movie's, like, kind of insistence. But I was finally, like, I don't know if I'll ever totally,

I'll always have a little bit of face blindness towards him, but, like, I get it. He's the thing now. Yeah. I mean, this is three big studio movies in a row in which he is the male lead, effectively. I don't think he's up for this role. I don't think he's up for this part. It's not a part. Like, what is it?

The turn, I just don't, I mean, it's a failure of the writing, too, but I just did not buy him. I did not buy it. We can talk about it right now if you'd like. Yeah. Sue in a fair with Sidney's character. Amanda Seifert's character is taking her daughter up to camp one weekend

so they end up having a trist together. They go to a show and then they have dinner together and then they get a hotel room. Was that the 21 club? I don't know. I've never been to the 21 club. Okay. And because Sydney-Sweeney's character is using a cell phone

that has been provided to her by her employer. Her employer knows everything that she's doing. Right. The jig is up. We learned that she's having an affair. There's going to be a big meltdown in a fight. Eventually, Praner's character kicks Amanda Seiford out of the house. Yeah. Says this relationship is over.

I'm with this gal now. And then you get the Gone Girl twist. And it cuts to Amanda Seifred in the hotel room just as it cuts like a hard cut in Gone Girl to Rosamund Pike on the, in the car being like, you know. It actually starts with Amanda Seiford laughing in the car. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. in a similar fashion before delivering the cool girl's speech and explaining the movie to us. Everything that we've seen for the first hour and ten minutes of this movie is not what it seems.

In fact, I was a young girl who slept with a college professor and got pregnant and my legal career got derailed and I was forced to become a paralegal and I have, you know, daycare taking care of my baby and the milk is leaking from my breasts while I deliver files to a meeting. So this isn't actually, some of this is showed. It's even, it sounds even crazier when you're doing it by a narration. I know. It is absurd. But, you know, they show her. Yes. In the office.

But she enters an office. It's not just like my boobs were leaking, you know? No, they show it to us, which is fine. Which I think was brave. It's like, we've all, we've, wear a jacket. You don't know what it's like. Of course I don't. It's really, it was really fucked up.

I'm not saying it isn't. You're just like, oh, no, I'm leaking. It being like a critical plot device in this movie is nonsense. Anyway, this guy, Brandon Sclonar, is a client at this law firm, and he sees this woman who's walked in with these leaking breasts. And he feels bad for her because she's scolded by her employer, by her boss. And they meet cute and they fall in love. They sleep together in six days. They're engaged in six weeks.

Right. And then all of a sudden she's moving into this wealthy guy's home and she's become a part of his world. However, she yada yattas, the fiancé, for whom the house was built. Yes. But she never asked any questions. Yes. Because she just figured it was her loss. What does this guy like to do?

Explain this to me. Why did he lose this previous relationship? What is his kink? Well, this is the problem. His kink is, I guess, dominating and then subjugating vulnerable women. So he looks out for, like, quote unquote, damsels and distress. endears himself to them and then, you know, controls them and makes them act like his, like, perfect doll in the dollhouse. He has a real problem with your roots that are showing when your hair has died.

He has a real problem with, I can't remember what's in need. Dental care? Oh, sure. Smiles are very important to him. He obviously has been pathologized by his mother, who is a very controlling. specific kind of person. Her roots are never showing Elizabeth Perkins' character.

Her teeth are always pearly white. She also clearly dominated him as a young child. And so he has brought this psychology to all of his relationships with women. So he does terrible things where he will lock women in

rooms and force them to pull their hair out to punish them for not properly dyeing their hair. I guess this is like something that could happen. You know, I'm just kind of like, well, I don't know what. It's not well developed. It just doesn't hit, you know?

Like sometimes you make a choice in a story and the storyline just does not hit. And it just feels silly. And I was watching it and I was just like, this just feels atonal from the rest of the movie. And it isn't like exciting or interesting. It doesn't really tell us anything. It's just a plot device. Right. I mean, it also just, it doesn't make a ton of sense.

Like the punishment is first year locked in an attic until you have to pull out a hundred. hares, which does seem painful, but like... You could do it? You know, if I had to, then get out of the closet and get out of that house. Right. You know, but instead, she doesn't. And which, you know, again, like I think, I don't want to make light of, like, domestic abuse and the situations and it, like, can be hard to leave.

But the plot line of then suddenly she's just, like, in an asylum because he's called the cops on her for something. It happens very fast. I thought confusingly told, the reason which she endangered her child. None of it really. It's all very messy. And I haven't read the book. And I think that, you know, the book's bestseller, people really like that book.

It just feels, I found the plotting to be really junky in the last 30 minutes of just, like, trying to move very quickly through like, here's why this happened. Right. And they're like, well, why do we spend 75 minutes building to this? Like, could this film have been 30 minutes shorter, perhaps? Certainly felt like it. Yes. There's a lot of, like, stewing. in what is really going on here

in the first half of this movie that I think actually wounds the big reveal because it feels like we've been waiting too long for it to be explained to us. Right. And then the other half of the reveal is so that to escape with her daughter, Amanda Seiford's character has hired Sidney-Sweeney-on-purpose

to replace her so that then she can get out of the house and be free. And so she is sacrificing Sidney-Sweeney but then her daughter, who is a character that is not at all developed. No. Shows a moment of conscience, and it's like, don't we need to help her the Sidney-Sweeney houseman character? So they go back.

And around the same time, we get the dual explication of Sydney-Sweeney's character who went to prison for 10 years for murder because she discovered her college roommate being raped. Right. And she bashed the rapist over the head with some sort of blunt object and killed him. And then for some reason, her maybe out of shame, her roommate denied what had transpired, which then led to the imprisonment of her roommate, Sydney Sweeney. Not saying it can happen? Yeah.

But it was like, so it's one of those things where it was just like, these two women have done nothing wrong. They have been completely victimized. and this guy is an insane maniac. Right. But only in these very small moments in which we see it. Again, it happens. But the way that the information is delivered

and the characterization of these two people, these two women, is not very strong through the first hour of the movie. We spend a lot of time being like, why are they like that? And not a lot of clarity. And then this rush to give it all away in the final stages of the movie,

I think, makes the movie feel pretty incoherent. Yes. And then there, The movie tries to, like, add on, you know, an avenging plotline for the Sydney Sweeney character where ultimately they do get rid of Brandon Sklinar. And I think, again, it is technically Sydney Sweeney who delivers the fatal push. But Amanda Seifred is willing to take the fall. And then a woman cop is like, oh, it just so happens that my sister was the fiancé that you

mentioned once in narration like an hour ago and she never came back the same so i'm not going to investigate this and then the last scene is sidney's sweeney going to interview for another housemaid job and it suggested that she was recommended to another woman who is uh like in a dangerous household and experiencing abuse yeah and so it's like now she's the avenger which the housemaid will kill again. Just big post-credits Marvel sequence energy to that scene. Where it was like, so she, this is her job now to become the housemaid for people so she can kill husbands? I don't know. Is that like empowering? What does that even mean? I don't know. I don't know. And there is like a real strain in like women's entertainment and women's

fiction right now, which this is adapted from. And Colin Hoover is a part of this of like very dark situations that are sort of resolved. And like the woman in question. is in danger and then find some sort of, like, peace or resolution or freedom or, like, there is some improvement. Yes. But it's not what anyone would, like, write out for themselves, you know? Like, it's not really like a happy ending and it always feels like the, the work of fiction is, like, marinating and enjoying the abuse or the, the dark aspects of it a little bit more

than you would want. I was tough on is this thing on, which is kind of like the flip side of the coin of this movie. That's a movie about the challenge of modern relationships and how difficulty can be to kind of communicate and be in a partnership and still be your own person, right? I like that idea for that movie. I don't really think the way it explores it is very interesting to me. But I don't think that this trend is good either. Not that I have to be the arbiter of how we should portray relationships and movies, but this like, you know, you must meet the black magic with dark vengeance. is like, I don't, I'm not, what does that say about where we are in terms of what

stories are exciting to us and kind of like, what is that manifesting about what's going on socially? I don't know. I'm not like catastrophizing it, but it's weird. It's discomforting. And it's like, I don't think that you or I want to see movies that are about, that are just aspirational or like, here is how you should behave. And I think I at least get a little frustrated with this strain of criticism that

it's like, well, that was a bad person or they made a bad decision and thus, like, I can't like this movie because I'm not looking for, you know, like a morality play every time I go to the films. But it is weird that this is what is so appealing is just that is something, I mean, like in the end, the bad guy dies violently and the women have like been tortured, but I guess are setting out on new lives. So I guess that's good. But I, I would have preferred to just not have anyone be tortured. I mean, everyone's life has been destroyed. Yeah.

The idea that this is like inspiring in some way is absurd. I don't know. I think if we accept it on its terms of it's camp fun, I can get on board with that. And I don't want to ruin people's enjoyment of the movie. And definitely I was waiting and waiting and waiting to find out what was going to happen. So I was engaged in the movie. I can't pretend like I wasn't engaged.

I was like, is this just, is this schizophrenia? Is there something else going on? I thought there were to Amanda Cyford. I did also wonder if there was like something, you know, there's a room in the attic that's like played very dramatically. And so I was like, is this going to be a Jane Eyre thing where there's like another crazy one in the attic that she gets out sometime or both of those would have been interesting. You know? Or two Amanda Seiford's like same woman split personality, like a Raising Kane situation? No, I thought.

I thought that they were twins. Yeah. All three would have been interesting. Yeah. We didn't get that. Okay. Long Island, man. I just have to say.

that this soundtrack just absolutely made me die laughing multiple times. I did catch this since you've been gone, dropped. I'm not sure. I definitely caught Blue Bayou. Absolutely. Barry Lyndon plays a small but important role in this film. Thank you.

I forgot. I mean, I guess that this movie is like, also like weird Cinnoboys should be taken down a peg. I guess. I'm not sure what that tape was. In what world is Brandon Sclanar really into Barry Lyndon?

The two pop cultural artifacts that Brendan Scunar's character are passionate about, according to the housemaid. It's Barry Lyndon and classic episodes of Family Feud. No, no, I'm sorry. There's another one. And then there's like a musical that's a hit that is like maybe like Hamilton, but it's not, it's just sort of implied that it's like Hamilton and it's hard to get tickets to. Yeah. Fake movie. There's a Renee rap drop in this that I laughed really hard at.

I think it's like during their sex scene. And then there was one of the bad Taylor Swift songs over the credits. Oh, an actual Taylor Swift song? Yeah. Didn't clock that. I'm not aware of that. Okay. I did ask you, what are movies for female audiences right now?

It's not ideal. What are they? Tell us what you wrote down. Well, so I wrote down, the theatrical releases that have, like, worked that reflect what people are going to the film, to the cinema to see. And these are on varying scales. success, right? But Wicked for good, materialists regretting you

and freakier Friday. Yes. So that's your IP, that's your indie fake-out rom-com, that's your Colleen Hoover adaptation, and that's your nostalgia sequel play. So in some ways,

they're the same things that are working for men, but you know, just with girls in them, instead. But then the thing that's really working, and then I just wrote down like 4,000 streaming movies, okay? Because back in action, you're cordially invited, kind of pregnant, another simple favor. The woman in Cabin 10, which I did watch half of. I have no self-respect. That's the Ruthware adaptation starring Kieran Knightley. Yes, I watched the first hour as well. Yeah.

And then Eileen continued watching it. Yeah. And she was not a fan, but was so glad that she watched it. Okay. Which is the inverse of how I felt. No, I didn't feel anything good about it. um did not even need to stick around for the twist i was like cure knightly and and guy pierce like on a cruise ship like surely i can find something on paper sure no and then and then i wrote down like all of the holiday bullshit which is just it's like not my bag you know uh including oh what fun and their wallpaper um that stars michel fifer and is directed by michael show walter and i didn't think it was very good uh but you know they they've put all of our our movies about people navigating relationships, aging and home design onto streaming. And then they spend less

money on all of it. And most people just watch them there and don't go to the theaters. And it's depressing. When Amanda Seiford was on the pod, she zoomed in during COVID from a barn. I hope this movie buys her another barn. Yeah, she did a great architectural digest tour of her New York apartment. A lot of ingenious storage solutions there. Exciting. Yeah, I also really liked her Vogue Get Ready with me. So she's good at internet content, and I hope that she gets to keep doing as much as she wants. She gave an interview recently where she said she wasn't allowed to do Botox for Anne Lee, and that was a major sacrifice, but now she's back. So I hope she's doing whatever she wants. She looks great. Let's talk about anaconda. Okay. Housemaid's getting the fuck

delineation for me, just so you know, for obvious reasons, for reasons that are not hard to understand. Anaconda Directed by Tom Gormickin Written by Gormickin and Kevin Edden It starts Paul Rudd, Jack Black, Steve Zon, Tendiwey Newton Daniela Melchior and Sulton Mello Yes Here's the plot of this movie

Best Friends, Griff and Doug, have always dreamed of remaking their all-time favorite movie Anaconda When a midlife crisis pushes them to finally go for it They assemble a crew and head deep into the jungles of the Amazon to start filming. However, life soon imitates art when a gigantic anaconda with a thirst for blood starts hunting them down.

What did you think of Anaconda? We saw it together. We did. You insisted. I did. Yeah, because there's just, there's nothing more depressing than going to the mall on December 17th by yourself to see Anaconda. It's just really not. It's not how this movie was intended to be seen.

It's not. I did chuckle a couple times. I certainly did as well. And I, we have to say that up front. before saying that this is just a cynical, depressing exercise in an IP reinvention, sort of? I'd like to try to get to the bottom of it, okay? Because I also laughed pretty hard about three or four times. Yeah.

Which is a pretty good hit ratio for comedies for me in the 2020s. Well, but I mean, that's also just indicative of where we're going. I laughed less than you because. Jack Black is black licorish to me. Right. Okay. So if you don't like Jack Black, you're not going to like this movie. That goes about saying. Well, but when Paul Rudd was doing stuff. Well, I have a couple of problems of it.

It is a meta-textual joke, right? The metatexual joke is that Hollywood is only interested in IP. You can't get anything made these days unless you have access to that IP. If you look at the year-end box office, everything is based on something unless you're weapons or sinners. That's just a fact. Yeah. The film we just talked about is based on a novel that people know.

the movie knows this, it's making fun of that idea, but also participating in that idea and trying to have its cake and eat it too. Sometimes it works. Sometimes there's a cleverness, or at least like the presumption of cleverness in the way that the movie has constructed, that is fun.

However, like, it's the same joke 40 times. And you can only make it so many times before you lose interest in it. And I lost interest in the movie pretty quickly. Yes. There's a couple of things about it that I found really hard to stomach that are not really a big deal, but in my head I just couldn't get over. Specifically, the movie Anaconda, which is not good, but it's fun.

Yeah. And it's like a relic of our youth and was a big hit at the time or a modest hit at the time and has a very memorable John Void performance that has discussed frequently in the movie. Ice Cube, Jennifer Lopez, Eric Stoltz, all these people are cited in the film. just your classic like mid-tier creature feature from Hollywood has a long tradition of movies like that and the characters in this movie apparently loved this movie when they were kids

Anaconda was released in 1997 two years after Clueless which Paul Rudd starred in Yeah Paul Rudd is 56 years old Jack Black is 56 years old They're not at mid-life crisis age They're in their mid-50s

I know this I've been spent the last 30 years with Jack Black and Paul Rudd in movies. I like them both a lot. I think they're both super talented. Why does this movie not start two people in their early 40s? This is your problem. I mean, it's just one very obvious thing that's just like

I just can't get my head around this movie. I'm like, Jack Black has like a 10-year-old child? I mean, maybe he does, but like the whole, because the movie orientes itself around this quartet of friends who made movies when they were teenagers. And they were inspired

by the Hollywood blockbusters of their time. And they really wanted to make something life got in the way. Jack Black stayed in Buffalo and he makes wedding videos and he's stuck. Paul Rudd moved out to California to try to make it as an actor. And it didn't really shake out the way that he wanted to despite that great four episode run on SWAT. Like, you know, life happens and it's tough. And the movie wants to be this kind of big chill-esque sentimental. Like, what happened to us, man?

And it also wants to be this rollicking, funny, meta-textual, like the player but for IP comedy film. And it's neither because it's both are incoherent. together. They don't mix. It's kind of stupid. Everyone's trying. And it's not awful or anything. Like, it's not a fiasco. I mean, it's fake. But, you know, it's, this is

part of your winking action genre that doesn't always work. But there's also like a winking comedy to it. I mean, there is a winking comedy to it. And there is just something unfelt and a little you know, when you're

watching behind the scenes for sure, like anything that is about how comedy gets made and they keep like just going and going and going and going and they, you know, they'll find the joke and eventually like find the end point, but the making of the comedy involves just please stop often. And this is a real like no one told anyone to stop. And they had one joke and it just kept going and going and going and going and going. And it was kind of clever for. two seconds, and then it's supposed to be a feature-length film with one joke. Action comedy is also really hard. Yeah.

Because there has to be a lot of action. And if the action is just okay, and the action in this movie is just okay, then, and the laughs are not there in the action sequences, which they are a little bit, but not enough, then you're just kind of watching another noisy, explosion-filled gun violence movie that has a joke that is like, doesn't, you don't really. buy. And I thought the unbearable weight of massive talent was better than this movie. That was Gorman's last film as a film about Nicholas Cage as Nicholas Cage. And him being kind of utilized, his fame and success being utilized as a prop and a kind of met a textual joke

in that movie. I think part of the reason that movie works is that him and Pedro Pascal have really good chemistry together and they're pretty funny. I thought that script was smarter than this one. This one, I can't help but think about the executives being like, yeah, we could make this. We could get this one over the line. I mean, they say Sony so many times. Like, there is an actual Sony, like, boat joke that comes in. It's really, really, it's not even, it's very inside baseball. Isn't this a really weird movie to release at Christmas? Isn't this a summer movie? I guess so. I mean, people like Jack Black, I guess. I don't know. The holiday right into Anaconda. I mean, God bless you if that's how you're spending your holidays. Maybe it was to get

distance between Minecraft rather than release this in August. This just feels like August 2nd is when this movie should come out, not on Christmas. I guess there's a little bit of counter-programming up against whatever else is out there in the world, but I'm a little bit mystified. Do not understand Steve Zon and Tenduey Way Newton in this movie. No, they don't get to do anything. They are really, like, really, really, really supporting players. I thought Seltin Mello is pretty funny as the snake wrangler.

Yes. Danielle Malkyore. She's supposed to be, I thought. She was French. Is she Spanish? I'm, they're in South America. They're in Brazil, right? Yeah. So, and I thought that they were infiltrating, or not infiltrating, but they find themselves in the- Portuguese. That explains it.

Ah, okay, in the middle of a gold mining. I apologize, the Danielle Milcure. You know, I felt this plotline was insulting and in its lack of depths. Thin, very thin. Yeah, I agree. Movie is not a success. No. This would be my kill.

Yeah, absolutely. Not a complete waste of time, but if we had gone alone to your point, it would have been disappointing. We would have been angry. Exiting the Grove and seeing all those happy families, the wondrous winter wonderland that takes place of the Grove every year. Yeah. So I would exit the theater if I was by myself and I would think for like seven minutes should I try to go get a seat at the bar at the Cheesecake Fair? factory because I need to eat something and it probably would have been nine straight hours since I'd eaten something.

Yeah. And then I would decide how the line is too long or I'm not going to wait for a space to open up. What would you order if you sat at the bar at the cheesecake factory by yourself? Louisiana chicken pasta. Okay. Great. Just going to the absolute classics. Which is like 38,000 calories.

Yeah, yeah. And it's honestly so good. When we went to Cheesecake Factory after Santa, I got the Thai lettuce wraps. Oh, yeah. And then we also got like mozzarella sticks. pot sticker is really just yeah a classic experience we're not even up to the last movie yet

we gotta get to it quickly but I just want to let you know I'm gonna drink so much alcohol over the break me too I have cut out alcohol so much from my life because we record all the time and I just don't ever want to be hung over when we're recording I find it very hard to do the show effectively when I'm like either

extremely tired or my head hurts makes sense yeah so I don't I just don't I just don't drink any like I I was very comfortably a three cocktail person And now that never happens This I'm going fucking hard this week Listen, I've got a date tonight

At the Houston's bar with my husband Great I'm like, well there are cocktail themes For both Christmas Eve and Christmas at my house Just so you know Yeah, I've planned out I've planned out the drinking menu I planned out the dessert menu

The regular menu too No, I'm excited about that I do think we would have had more fun Had we been drinking for either of these movies original idea and then it was like we got a pod tomorrow we got a pot on Friday you know and we couldn't figure out I did propose like our version sorry jack you were already traveling when I came up with the concept for the big picture holiday party which was seeing the housemaid of the I pick at 3 p.m. and getting hammered um but we couldn't make that work let's do it in January

there will be something bad that we can go see okay that's great so you're taking what right I think I'm going to a screening I do want to, what's, what, what, they moved the date on the new Colleen Hoover movie with Michael Monroe. It's in March now. Yeah. It's too far. Okay. We'll figure it out.

So you're taking all the drinking into January. Probably not. Once we start recording again, I'll stop. I know. It's hard because then you don't want to have the face bloat. Yeah. I don't care about that. I don't care about how I look.

I literally care about how I feel. Okay. And hangovers are getting harder as I get older. I mean, you don't have to tell me about that. The post-holiday party one is absolutely brutal. Mercy. That's the one. Mercy. Mercy. That's it. That's it. Oh. I was pretty drunk when we saw that trailer at CinemaCon.

Chris Pratt in a gamer chair being on trial with AI, Rebecca Ferguson, Judge. Only on FaceTime. Yeah. Let's do it. Dude, that's perfect. Okay, great. Oh, I'm fired up for that. Last movie. Song, Sung, Blue. Yeah. Okay. So by default, this is what we're marrying, which I understand, but also I'll just say, this film took a turn that I didn't really expect. Maybe it wouldn't be the happiest marriage. In the end, there is something beautiful in it.

It's an honest portrait of marriage and also, spoiler alert, amputation, which I just did not see coming. I didn't know the million-dollar baby was going to be a part of this. It's a good point. It is a similar move. I didn't know really anything about this movie sitting down, and I'll be honest, I was dreading it. Yeah. I didn't want to watch it. I don't have a huge relationship to Neil Duff.

Diamond. I do quite like Hugh Jackman. As I was watching it, he's like pretty consistently winning in everything he does. You have a real soft spot for Hugh Jackman. I do. I don't dislike him, but you come out of every Hugh Jackman movie and you're kind of like, hey, Hugh Jackman. I think I forget. And then I sit down and I'm like, God, he's really giving it his all. Like, I just love how much he cares and is trying. He really, you know, in the opening segments of this movie, where he is just immediately singing with an acoustic guitar and Neil Diamond song.

Great opening. Yeah, he's in an AA meeting and he is... But you don't know immediately. Yeah, and then it cuts to it and it's this... I thought I loved it. Yeah. The first hour of this movie has real charm as it's about these two people who are...

They're kind of like celebrity impersonators who sing at state fairs and carnivals. And Kate Hudson is a Patsy Klein impersonator. Hugh Jackman sometimes works as Elvis, sometimes works as someone named Lightning, who is like his own kind of concoction. And he has this abiding affection for Neil Diamond. Hudson's character and Jackman's character meet at one of these fairs.

They fall in love very quickly and they form a band. And their band, which is a Neil Diamond tribute band, a Neil Diamond experience becomes like relatively successful. In their home state of, remind me, is it Wisconsin? Wisconsin, thank you. And they're kind of the toast of Milwaukee And they're having some success And we see a lot of great performances

Of the two of them singing You know, Kate Hudson can sing She just released her first album in the last year Even though we've known that she can sing for some time And Talk about having a whole Fabletics, singing career Acting career

She is a one of one We can talk about her briefly as well But they're really performing in this movie together And singing these songs And I have a relationship with some of these songs but not all of them. So I didn't feel like, I didn't have that experience

that you have when you're watching a musician's biopic where you're like, okay, and now it's time for the song Rocket Man in the film Rocket Man.

Like I just don't, you know. They even make a running joke about how they don't want to do Sweet Caroline and deal. Which is clever. Yeah,

the Hugh Jackman character is like, no, there's so much more. Yes. You know, it's so there is still that music biopic feeling

I like of when they sing, when they perform a song that you recognize. You're like, they're doing it, but they've constructed it in a way that it doesn't feel quite as wrote. I agree. I mean, like

in a song like Suleiman, like that's not a song I know at all really, and to see Jackman's character have such a commitment and dedication to like defending sincerely something that he loves. I just like, it's something that I try to do. I just like that in a character. I think he's a very cool

representation of a very specific kind of person. The movie, though, as you said, takes a very severe turn. where the Kate Hudson character, who is a single mom with two kids, she falls in love with this guy, Mike, and they move in together, and they start this band.

And then a car drives up on their lawn and hits her when she's in a severe accident and has her leg amputated. And she, very understandably, slips into a depression and becomes addicted to medication that she's been prescribed to cope with the pain and anxiety of this loss.

And the movie becomes more like a redemption drama about recovery and about sticking together. and what really matters. And then it takes another hard turn in terms of what happens to the Mike character and his struggles with heart condition and his ability to balance his performance life,

which means everything to him with his physical struggles. And the movie becomes very severe and very melodramatic. I think pretty knowingly. I don't think it's doing anything that doesn't understand what it's doing. But it is a real record scratch moment

that never relents, right? And it is going from these exuberant and, like, well-performed, but pretty sunny performances of these songs. And they spend a lot of time on them to, oh, and now something absolutely terrible has happened. Yeah, I liked it in the way that, like, The House Made is a movie that is only about opulence. And whenever it's trying to show us, like, what Sidney's Sweetie's hardscrabble life is where she sits in her car, you're like, this is a complete nonsense. This is really a movie about being lower middle class in the middle of the country. Like then, and like, if something like this happens to you, what are you going to do?

How are you going to get out of it? How are you going to survive? If you lose your primary income, what happens? Right. What do you do? Right. I think it's pretty sincere about looking at that. That's pretty consistent through a lot of Brewer's movies.

Hustle and Flow is also a movie about, like, basically, being in economic straits and then having to find a way to create your way out of it. So it's something that obviously interests him. It does. It's totally about that because it stars Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson, and they are also given, like, all of these moments, which are true to the character, which we should say is based on a true story. Story is, you know, adapted from a documentary, that they, so they get all these, you know, glowing performance moments. And then the rest of the time, it's like a little bit Kate Hudson and Midwestern drag, you know, and she is doing the accent.

And it's not that she's doing a bad job. I actually, I think she's doing a good accent, but it's kind of a campy performance. Right, exactly. You just, you are aware that it is Kate Hudson wearing like these unflattering sweaters and haircut and what have you. But the movie is like letting her belly roll over a little bit. She's like doing some things that you wouldn't see a star like this deal. I don't think that's a real belly. A false belly. What if she just gained 10 pounds that week?

Yeah, that's totally how it works. So it's, I was thinking a lot about the eyes of Tammy Fay when watching this. Interesting. And I like this a lot better than the eyes of Tammy Fay. And because, you know, because it is an inventive, it's not a bio, it is a biopic, but not of the musicians of other people. So it is taking that genre and doing something more interesting with it. I think it's a bummer that that's what Jessica Chastain won for and that this probably won't. I don't know if I think Kate Hudson should win an Oscar for this.

She's nominated for a Globe, right? Yeah. But, you know, this also felt to me very vintage, like 20 years ago, Oscars bait. It does. And, you know, 20 years ago, Hustle and Flow came out and Craig Brewer won an Academy Award in part for working on that movie. So I There is a conventionality to it I didn't say that in a bad way

Yeah no I I know what you mean Because there are there are versions of this That don't really work I did find this comforting as a bit of a throwback I think in part I'm just so worn down As listeners of the show know by the traditional music biopic But I love music and I love hearing music Perform loud and those are the best parts of those movies in the first place

So like getting even a little interested in Neil Diamond's music For me was cool that was a good takeaway Yeah. And then, you know, Jackman, as you said, is just a star I like being around, and I think is a really fine actor. Kate Hudson, I don't usually think of as a very good actress. I think she's a good star. Yeah.

I think she's very good on screen and carries weight. I never thought she had the same depth as her mom. You know, I always thought her mom had, like, a screen persona that she was always really good at undercutting very cleverly. Kate Hudson, I never really felt like there was the second tier. This is her trying to go to a second level. Yeah. Sometimes she gets there, I agree with you.

Sometimes she doesn't always get there. She's burdened with that character's arc is true, but surprising and sort of like, wait, what? It's rough. Yeah. There is the million dollar baby twist. I'm just like, excuse me? Yeah, literally waking up in the hospital. Yeah, what's happening now?

Yeah. It's a lot. It's a lot of, it's asking a lot. It's a bit, it's both grounded and absurd at the same time. Yeah. And you kind of got to get your head around that. But I was charmed. I wasn't uncharmed.

Okay. And I really did like the performances. And I do, and I like that it is a new way of getting these types of musical performances on screen because watching the biopic version of stuff is just unremorning at this point. Yeah, I don't think I would be excited about the pure Neil Diamond biopic. Quick final question for you about this. Eddie Vedder? Yeah.

Just, I mean, he's there. Yeah. Yeah. That's all based on a true story. That's nice. Yeah. Eddie Vedder, you're a fan? Yeah.

Listen, I was there. Favorite Pearl Jam album? Phytology? Yeah. Not for me. Okay. No code. Wow.

Okay. That's fine. I mean 10. Well, sure. Yeah. What is it? Is it alive that hits in this movie? I can't remember what the Pearl Jam Needle Drop is.

It's a first album Needle Drop. Remember the Pearl Jam cover of last kiss that came out like when we were in high school? I don't, I've listened to that upwards of 200. times? Yeah. What was that about? It was a, I believe, a charity recording. No, no, I know. But why did I become so obsessed with that?

Yeah. I can tell you from New York, they played it on Z-100 non-stop. I mean, I think they did in Atlanta, too, but. I think it was because it was a crossover song for Grunge Rock, where it was not like a pure rock station song because it had that, like, kind of 50s doo-wopi quality to the song construction. So it was like Eddie Vedder doing a pure heartthrob song. Right.

And those stations were kind of confused about what to do with popular music when C&C Music Factory and Michael Jackson went out. And Kirk Cobain and Smashing Pumpkins came in. So this was a way to kind of get a little bit of that before like the Dave Matthews bands of the worlds came along and kind of like gave them new ballast to make rock pop. Thank you for that extended answer. Not bad, right? I think that was pretty legitimate. I used to be a music writer. I've given this period a lot of thought.

Okay. Well, fuck Mary, kill, you know. It's a dangerous game. You've got to be careful out there. You never know what you can contract from a schizophrenic wife in a beautiful townhouse in Great Neck. That's true.

I do think that the Song Song Blue people had a lovely marriage. It had its ups and its downs. Yeah. I hope none of that happens to me, but except for the love and happiness. Do you think that you and I could do well in a musical duo? Who would we be? Who would we perform as?

I mean Captain and Teneal is right there. Okay. Sure, I'm on keyboard. Yeah. Yeah, you're on keyboard. Okay. I don't know. Let's give it some thought.

Wings? Yeah. Oh, that's rude to me. What do you mean? Linda is an icon. Sure, but I can sing better than that. That's not very nice. I love wings.

I do too, but let's be real. It's not like people were supportive of her. All right. Well, you think about it. Whoever you want to be. Okay. I'm going to go talk to Craig Brewer, okay? Okay.

All right. Let's go to my conversation with him right now. Well, for the first time on this show, Craig Brewer, welcome. Thank you for being here. Noted. Thank you for having a filmmaker, Mets fan, among other things. We have a lot to discuss. Since you haven't been on the show and you've been making movies for this entire century,

I was hoping you could tell me just a little bit about yourself. and getting into the game for anybody who doesn't really know. Because you've had a very, you know, successful career, but I don't know if as many people know your background in filmmaking. Yeah, I, well, I guess my filmmaking career started here in Memphis, Tennessee. I was kind of a guy I didn't really go to, I didn't go to film school or anything. I just learned filmmaking really from books that I bought at Barnes & Noble. When I was working there, I had a 35% discount.

And it was the 90s, and there was, like, a lot of books on filmmaking during the 90s. It seems like all the filmmakers started writing their books, like Robert Rodriguez, and there was even a great book that's Sidney Lamett making movies. And so that's kind of how I did it. And I came from the theater a lot. I wrote a lot in directed theater a lot of my life. But really, it was kind of like a big transformation really here in Memphis. My father passed away kind of unexpectedly, and I got about $20,000 of inheritance, and he had read the script that I wrote. It was called The Poor and Tongry, and it was about car thieves here in Memphis.

We have a car theft problem here in Memphis. And it was about like a car thief who falls in love with one of his victims, who was a cello player. So music was like a big part of it. And I went out and got a digital camera from a pawn shop. And I bought a Sennheiser Mike, had a crew of two. I was one of them and made this movie. And it played in my local theater for a good six weeks, six week run. And it was like the big movie to see.

And I made back my money. And that was the movie that Stephanie Elaine and John Singleton saw. and I had a sequel ready to go. It was, so I was in an ampersand time in my life where I was like, so there was poor and hungry, and this one was called Hustle and Flow, and it was kind of in the same world, same like strip club pawn shop, chop shop type of Memphis underworld. And then John decided after we went everywhere with Hustle and Flow that he was going have to finance it himself and so he you know he put his house up for collateral stephanie put her

house up for collateral i was sleeping on couches for like four years in hollywood flying back and forth from memphis to to los angeles and uh and finally we we got going here in memphis with hustle and then hustle and flow happened and and my life kind of changed but up until then i was writing in bars and you know trying trying my best to kind of figure out a way to to get into it all but it really took me living in Memphis to to kind of figure myself out a little bit. I had to kind of struggle to figure it out. And that's that's kind of how I got in. And then hustle and flow led to Black Snake Moan and, you know, other other movies. I, and kind of I lived in that paramount world for a while, you know, after hustle and flow. And, you know, eventually, eventually moved on to

other films. I appreciate you sharing the story in that way because it's really inspired. And it is increasingly unusual, I think, to come up in that very specific way of basically making regional cinema and being able to transfer something about where you're from to national audiences and getting, like, buy-in from the business, the system, and having people who believe in you. And the strain of music obviously runs through all your films. Like, can you speak about it coherently at this point? Like, why music is such a – play such a profound role in the films that you decide to do. do? Well, I think that what it was is that there was this, I mean, there really was kind of like an education that I had here in Memphis. There was, um, there was a time where all I did was just buy books on Memphis music. You know, I'd learn everything I could about B.B. King. I learned

everything I could about Sam, uh, Sam Phillips who, uh, kind of discovered Elvis and Halen Wolf and Johnny Cash and also Big Star, which is a kind of a very, you know, a famous band, but not incredibly famous, but all of these people were around me and I could have like really good connections with them. And I found that it was just something that I had already like really responded to because, and I've been doing a lot of thinking about this lately, but I really do think it was kind of special to grow up with being a young teen in the 80s because I'm really now looking back on that time where MTV had just started and and movies had a music component to it that seemed very unique now looking back on it like I mean I know I could look at like footloose

and purple rain and all of those movies but I mean even just you know movie working girl You know, had a very specific theme, you know, that Carly Simon did. And even Breakfast Club, all of John Hughes movies kind of had this music part of it. But it didn't stop there because you really, you couldn't watch the movie over and over again like you could today. So you went out and you bought the soundtrack and you kind of experienced that movie again just through the, through the music. And I just think in my adult life when I started like really studying blues. and studying rock and roll, but also studying how the producers worked.

It really kind of informed a lot of how I direct, you know? And I'm not talking about, like, camera movements necessarily. I'm talking more about, like, editorial rhythms, but I'm also talking about, like, how to deal with actors. You know, I would see producers work with musicians, and they were trying to kind of, like, capture something in the room. They were trying to capture something kind of honest and real, but somewhat goosed. And that always kind of like appealed to me because I felt like a lot of the plays that I was really into,

Tennessee Williams and August Wilson, you know, all of these playwrights always had kind of like a little bit of a, of a, almost like an audacity to it. You know, they just kind of pushed it a little bit. and I just found a kind of a rhythm with it. And I'm, especially on this last movie, it's been, it's been fun to kind of, as, you know, now being in my 50s, kind of looking back a little bit more and kind of going like, what's all this about? It's interesting. Yeah, it strikes me just going back and looking at some of the films. So, you know, a lot of your films seem to be about this really interesting exploration of the roots of black music and black culture and the origins of American identity. and then kind of how it spiders out over time, right,

and the way that it affects people and reflects communities and relationships. Neil Diamond is not an artist that you would think is in the same tradition as some of the other artists and worlds that you've explored. Now, I will tell you, like, I was a little bit dreading seeing this movie

because I have no relationship to Neil Diamond's music. And so I did- I made the movie for you. That's great. That's what I wanted to hear. I mean, it really worked on me in that way. Like, it got me actually interested in an artist that I don't have

a relationship to. So I'm curious to hear you talk about your relationship to him and maybe even how you see him reflected in the lineage of films that you've made. Well, I think that what I get at Neil Diamond is something that I kind of came to later because I always knew his music growing up because my dad and my mom listened to his music. It was always that. And I would say people of my generation can kind of like that to some extent they make fun of Neil Diamond because they that is who he was. He was that person that your parents listened to. But you also, you kind of begrudgingly like, yeah, I like that forever in Blue Gene's song.

I, you know, it's like, you know, Sweet Caroline is obviously the big favorite right now. But it, you know, back in the day, it was really kind of like, you know, I'm a believer, was like you'd see it on the monkeys all the time. And, you know, so I had an idea of his music, but it wasn't really until I got a little bit older that I started really listening to his. music, but also just hearing interesting stories about him. And also, I started like really kind of like actually reading the lyrics and listening to his music differently. And what I realize is that he is kind of that New York, you know, intellectual, but also a feeling artist that that was really dealing with a lot of isolation and really dealing with loneliness and longing and wanting to have love in his life.

And even songs that I thought I knew what they were about. Like there's a song, Crackland Rosie, and I thought, okay, well, this girl, Rosie sounds amazing. I don't quite know what she means by a store-bought woman, but you got me, you know, like a guitar humming. And then I found out, oh, no, Neil would get together with all his buddies when they didn't have any dates. And they would get a, you know, they'd get a bottle of Rosie and drink and get drunk. And that was the love. And so even the song that I thought was about some girl was actually about, no, not getting one. And so it wasn't until like this one day that I read this article.

And I had seen the documentary that I was inspired by for a while. But it was always that thing that I just showed my friends. It wasn't something that I really thought I'd have an actual possibility of making a movie like this. But I had read this article about Neil Diamond coming out to Los Angeles to audition for the movie, any, the Bob Fosse movie with Dustin Hoffman. And he bombed the audition and then he went back to his apartment and he began writing, I am, I said, and I was listening to the lyrics now with this idea of, you know, trying to do something in Hollywood, failing at it and wondering if you should even be out there in the

first place. And I'd been really experiencing that by having to go back and forth between Memphis and Los Angeles and there was a lot of times that I just kind of felt a little bit lost. And it's one of those moments where, you know, I've had this twice now. One was, you know, the karaoke moment and lost in translation when Bill Murray is singing the song. And I remember just crying in the theater

and just going like, Craig, what is up with you right now? And then this moment, I just put on, I am, I said, and just had a good, good cry. And I was like, well, Neil, you found me. Like, it took me a while. I guess I needed to feel some loneliness and feel some doubt. And here you are, knocking on my door with a song that I never really thought of much of before. And I think that's kind of where he, you know, when I was younger, I mean, it's great to listen to 3-6 Mafia and 8 Ball and MJG. But I was a younger man. I was, I was in a much more hungrier place. And sure enough, I guess,

You can get to a point in your life where, you know, and no one heard it all, not even the chair is something that resonates with you. You know, so it's just where I guess I am right now. I think that there's connectivity to that, though, too. Like, there is, as a kid who was raised on hip-hop and loves A-Ball and MJG, like I also am finding myself maybe a little bit more emotionally connected to a contemplative kind of singer-songwriter. music at this stage of my life but like they're those those are artists that are weirdly talking to each other right like that idea of isolation that you're talking about that's not uncommon in a lot of the music that you've portrayed in the films or in the blues music you've portrayed in the films and i think it's cool the way that you're able to kind of move between these eras but you did

it in a way that is like frankly for me as a person who sees everything is so exciting for this to not be a neil diamond biopic there is something so fantastic about seeing the way that his music is affecting other people and that they're using it to kind of transform their lives. And I was wondering if you could just talk about that a little bit of like maybe using some of the power, some of the tools of a music biopic, but not the conventions. Yeah, I think that what it was for me is, and look, I love biopics and music biopics. And it's funny, I think I saw an article recently where it's now kind of like a genre, like that it's like almost like a genre that is, you know,

know, when you're comparing like money returns, like they're going, well, there's horror, there's music, there's music biopics, and I never really thought that it was that big of a thing, but now I'm seeing that, I mean, even this last year, it's still a thing that's very popular. But I think what it was for me was, how can I get an audience to love and fall in love with somebody that they don't know who they are, you know? And And there's been many people that have come up to me and said, I thought you were doing a Neil Diamond biopic. I even went into the movie thinking that's what I was seeing.

And I was like, well, you're half right. I mean, it's a biopic. It's just the point is that I'm hoping you don't know anything about them. Because that's kind of the point that I'm trying to make about kind of what you pointed to earlier. Regionalism, you know, can you be artistically fulfilled and can you be fulfilled and can you be fulfilled as a person just by like staying in your community and almost. like singing and performing for your community and can that ultimately be a better way to

get a global lens to look at you and to find yourself and to find your happiness and find your worth more through thinking that, you know, playing in bars or like even having your movie playing a bar like I used to do back in the day is perhaps more meaningful than what usually biopics go to, which is like, well, when do they break big and when do they get to that place that they're now supernova. And then it starts getting into the usual things of like, okay, but when do they ruin that? You know, when do they, when do they start succumbing to their, their, you know, nightmares or succumbing to their personal problems?

And I guess what I always loved about this story is that, you know, he was a recovering alcoholic and he died sober. He went 25 years of being sober. And I thought, well, that's kind of interesting. Like, maybe there is something to do here that doesn't necessarily need to go in those usual directions with biopics where they make it. And then let's have them destroy themselves and have the other elements of life be the things that are trying to destroy them. You know, random tragedies. You know, if someone's sick in your family, like the things that are very.

very relatable, I think, to a lot of people that aren't necessarily, you know, a Bob Dylan or, you know, another, any, any, you know, biopic where there's always that moment where, okay, now they've all got to, like, have it destroy them. And I mean, I'm dealing with it now, even working on the Snoop Dog movie, like, okay, well, how can we think of it a little bit differently and not try to get into that usual thing? So I felt it was just an opportunity to, get into something that it's just been very close to me, which is just, you know, can we elevate people that aren't necessarily famous and say that it's okay and that, you know, your worth is grand and grand enough to have like a big Hollywood movie made of it? Yeah, I liked what you said about the Mike character being in recovery. The whole movie is sort of about recovery of a kind for all the characters.

in different, you know, the different ways that certain things have affected each person. But the movie does as people who are starting to see it now, realizing it really is like a tale of two halves. There is a first half that is this exuberant rise. And then the second half that is quite tragic and shocking in ways. I hadn't seen the documentary before this.

I didn't know anything about their story. And that's a hard tonal balance, you know, to keep an audience on the rails for the two halves of this movie. Maybe can you talk about how you, you thought about doing that and making us feel safe throughout the story? Well, it's definitely something that was on my mind throughout the whole thing because I

you know, there's so many different ways you can go into that, you know, um, you know, and I don't mind, you know, talking about it. I don't, you know, it's, you know, the movie's coming out in two days and and I'm sure people are going to know that, you know, Claire Sardina was, uh,

who plays, uh, thunder. You know, there's lightning and thunder. So there, Mike, Mike is, uh, is lightning and Claire was thunder. Right at the moment when everything was kind of going great in their life, a car lost control and hit her while she was just gardening in her front yard, and she lost her leg. And I knew that I really, I mean, I wanted to tell the movie because of this,

because it wasn't like I wanted it to just be, you know, this one element of their story because I personally feel that that's really, where true love is tested. You know, you get into a relationship and everything's fantastic, you know, for those first three months, you know, there's emojis and, you know, you're still, you're still sleeping in bed and holding on to each other and you're not getting hot and, you know, saying, hey, that's your side of that, you know, there's all that, that, that, that, that, that, it just couldn't go any better, right?

And, and then something happens that really kind of tests, you know, the love and test the commitment and um and i just i knew that the only way that i was really going to do it was to just get people to fall in love like it's it's not something that i wanted to do the usual i mean they do it a lot in television and some movies do it where it's like you kind of start and tease the tragedy and you go back and how did we get to this point because i don't really think that the movie completely is about this one tragic moment because there's a there's a few things that come at this couple in this family that's just trying to you know they're just trying to live they're trying to pay their bills but they're also trying to make music and play in bars and entertain you but at

the same time it's like you know how many bad things can happen to this couple but i still found their their story rather inspiring and so i you know for me i guess i just uh i i knew that i was if i could just get to the halfway point and and then punch everybody in the gut that hopefully they would have invested enough time in falling in love that they couldn't just immediately go like, okay, I didn't really sign up for this. But at the same time, like, I didn't want to get too gratuitous in the area of it because I do think that, that, you know, the whole purpose of this was to see that you can actually pull yourself out of this. And that usually the thing that pulls people out of trauma is a community, is a family, is realizing that you can't really do it on

your own, and you need to hold onto your passion, and for some people, it's holding onto your faith. And for me, in this story, I saw with this documentary that I saw about this couple, their faith was singing. Their faith was singing Neil Diamond. And, you know, everybody's got their own thing. I know every year here in Memphis, everybody comes here to mourn Elvis Presley. And we could laugh at it, seeing everybody with their candles. But until you see like somebody from another country who's weeping and telling you, you don't know what Elvis's music did for me, like it's hard to be cynical about that kind of love and passion for something. And for this couple it happened to be the two of them singing together and singing these songs there's a there's a song

holly holly that i just knew like okay i i knew at the beginning like of this whole process like if i can get to this moment where they return to singing the song um if i if i can do what i can to earn this moment then then uh we will have succeeded and uh i think we did i think you did too um i just recorded a conversation with my co-host amanda about the movie and i started talking about it and i said something to the effect of, gosh, you know, Hugh Jackman is so winning in this movie. He's so great. And she turned to me and she was like, you always say that like you're surprised about a Hugh Jackman performance. But it is pretty amazing that he, through a lot of different kinds of parts and a lot of different kinds of movies, it really feels like he's working hard and selling the movie in a way,

but you don't feel the artifice of performance either. It's this very interesting thing where he does have this entertainer's quality. And he, you know, he's really got the movie on his shoulders, especially for the first act. Oh, yeah. And I was hoping you could just talk about casting him and, you know, why he was right for this and what he brings. It's interesting what you bring up. I'd love to hear what Amanda says about this because I think that there is something about Hugh as an entertainer. You know, he loves to be on stage.

he loves to sing songs and get everybody going. But I find that there's also an unshakable certainty in his earnestness, in his life. I mean, as much as everybody says, oh, he's such a dream, he is. I mean, because he really doesn't have any of that. He really is a kind man, and he cares. And I think on this movie, I just knew I had to have him. I mean, I always tell people it's like he was at the top of him. my list there wasn't a list it was hugh and you know i needed i needed two things i needed neil diamond

to sign off on the music and i i needed hugh jackman because he's i think he was going to be the only one that could understand that that kind of i mean yes he could sing but that kind of showmanship you know make jokes that he's the greatest showman but but but he does have that and i think he understands it and also and as someone who just went to milwaukee with him and so he's hanging out with, you know, like, we serve, like, frozen custard to 500 people that waited two to three hours in the snow to see Hugh Jackman. And he was only supposed to serve about 100. And there's this moment where they said, okay, Hugh, we're supposed to go. And he's like, well, what about all these people? Like, they've all been out there. And they're like, yeah, but we only said 100,

you know, and he's like, and he turned to me and I was helping, I was serving with him. And he's like, Craig, I can't, I can't, I can't leave him out here like this. I just can't do it. I'll pay for it all. And, and I just looked at him. And I was just like, you're having such a huge Jackman moment. If only people knew, this was you, because he does care. And I think he's very subtle in the movie. And he's settled really in a lot of his movies. I mean, I look at prisoners, but it's just when that rage comes forward or when that

performance comes forward, it's really, it's hard to take your eyes off of him. It's powerful. And I think it's that Ozzy in him that felt very comfortable in Milwaukee, talking with people. He's kind of a guy's guy. You know, he can talk to you about sports. you can also talk to you about singing Godspell when he was a teenager. And so he's a very interesting person that traverses this world of kind of like a very interesting position of masculinity.

Yeah, yeah. So I knew I had to have him. I want to hear you talk about Kate a little bit too because she is an unusual star to me where she has been truly iconic in a few movies. feels like she has not made as many movies in the last decade as you would have thought based on the way that her career launched and what a star she was

in the aughts in 2010s and I'm sure there are a variety of reasons for why she chose to step back or didn't do certain things. But you've kind of tapped into a very different approaching middle age version of Kate Hudson in the film

and you've kind of asked her to do some very unglomerous things. She's doing an accent which is very risky and I think she pulls it off very well. So why did you want her to be in that part? well i didn't until i did um and i think it's important for people to hear this and i'm sure kate's fine with me saying this but you know when you when you decide you're going to cast somebody

suddenly there's these lists that start going around uh and and usually like it's it's 30 you know deep but there's really just there's the 10 and then there's the five you know it's like these are the actresses that mean something right now and kate wasn't on that you know um and i'd known kate for like 20 years uh i you know i think i met her for black snake moan went over to her house and we started playing like you know blues music that she was really you know fluent with she just really knows music knows knows knows not i mean she was at the time you know with a musician and uh and and then i met with her a couple of other times uh over at her house and i was always trying to find something for us to do but over the years she had you know moved on and

I had moved on as well, but then Hugh saw her on a TV show on, I believe, CBS Sunday morning and said, you know, you got to check her out. And I went on and I watched the episode. And there was something about just seeing Kate now, like close to like 10 to 15 years later after I was hanging out with her. And she was talking about her son going off to college. And I was like, wait a minute, that can't be the boy that was like the toddler that was in the room like when I was there. And And then it kind of hit me. It's like, yeah, Craig, we're older. Like, you have teenagers. And and yet then Kate would like tear up about it. And, and then she would say, like, I'm kind of getting tired of Hollywood trying to make up their mind about me. And I'm going to, I'm going to

write music and I'm going to go in the recording studio. And I'm going to go and I'm going to just play venues and I'm going to, you know, be in a band. And I just thought, oh, my God, this is like perfect for her, just absolutely perfect. And so I got, we got on the phone. with her. I had a Zoom with Kate when it was like no time and past. And she said something to me. She goes, look, Craig, I know that there's going to be plenty of people that are going to give you the notes that I've got to have agency and I've got to have like, you know, that I've got to be about like my dream and all this kind of stuff. But I'm just telling you, I think she just loves him. I think she just loves him and wants to be married to him and it wants to be backing him up

in his band. And it's totally happy doing that. And I was like, I'm so happy that I have like this really confident woman telling me this very important thing that I think is going to be crucial because she has to do that because in the end she ultimately rescues him as well. And so I don't even think we went to the studio, I mean, what you're supposed to. It's kind of like once I had Hugh, he was like, well, we're doing it with Kate and we were just off and running. And so I agree with you that she, you know, I tell people, Kate's kind of been in her own. prison, you know, because she's really good at comedy. She's really good at that, you know, when that smile hits, you know, it's huge. It's bigger than life. But I have always felt that she

was not being considered for dramatic roles when every time she's done something interesting, like people are always like, oh, God, she's so good. And I was like, yeah, but, but, you know, give her a role, you know, there's so many other, there's so many roles over the last 10 years. I was like, you know, she'd be really good in that. I just don't think that people are thinking about her for that, for the same reason. She's kind of good in that romantic comedy, you know, she's your best friend. You know, she, you know, for women, they see something in her that doesn't necessarily separate her from them. They feel closer to her in some way.

But I think that that was in this role kind of crucial because they feel that. and then she has this moment that changes everything. And now you have an entire audience that is now going through it with her because of that kind of accessibility that she opens up in people. It's been interesting to watch women and men, but I mean, particularly women, talk to me after seeing the movie, saying how much they felt like her, even though the exact thing did not happen,

that they couldn't help feel this connection to specifically Kate Hudson going through it. And I found that very interesting. It's fascinating too because she's so soulful and almost famous. A music movie,

a movie about like what music does to you, and that's a very dramatic part. And you'd think that that would have set her up for a lot of parts like this, but she has not done a lot of work like this, and I thought she was quite good. One thing that really struck me about the movie that I quite like

that I'll use as kind of a segue way to asking you a broader question about your career is it's a really good movie about class. There's not a lot of studio Hollywood films that are about being at that station in America in the middle of the country or in a place like where you live that, you know, there's just not a lot of time for being lower middle class and what that looks like on screen. Because it's not glamorous, not fun. It's hard. It makes people think about what's hard about their lives sometimes too. And that's one of the reasons why we don't see it as often. But that did have me thinking about a slightly different version of class where you are in like a class of filmmaker

that is pretty tricky that like gets defined as like the middle class of filmmaking right where you make you know dramas and and films with a lot of music and they have stars and they get released in theaters and they have you know they have heft but they're not $350 million movies right and that's the expectation is not for them to be that and we're in a time where like that's really being encroached upon as I'm sure you know better than anybody. So like, I was hoping you could talk maybe about like living in that space and wanting to make those kinds of movies in this time in movie making. Well, I find it it's such a interesting topic that I wish more people would talk about because I think we're heading

there in a real substantial way. Like I can't help but think, look, focus has been absolutely amazing. They really empower their filmmakers. They stay out of their way to some extent. And when I say stay out of their way, they're there to help me. There have been times where it's like, I need just a little bit more. And they were like, of course you need a little bit more. It makes sense for what you're talking about. They're incredibly reasonable. But we started at Universal. It was like, it was Donna Langley and Peter Kramer who kind of like said, you know, we think we see what you're doing here when everybody was saying no. But then it moves to focus. And in doing so, I think what it was is that Universal makes huge, you know, plus $100 million movies, really.

And focus is in a different bracket. And I, where some people would have said like, oh, it's too bad that you have to do that. And I was like, no, actually, I really want to make this work because I think this is kind of where Hollywood is going. We've got to make movies for less. I mean, it's just we can complain about it, but it's just true, you know.

So I'm not saying that I probably one day couldn't do a $100 million move. I don't know, but I prefer to stay in this space because usually the kind of content that I'm attracted to exist better in this space. You know, you talk about working class. I think there's even something else going on, which is like there really is this as someone who's, you know, lived and I have a, I have a, I, have to live in L.A. a lot because of work sometimes, but there is kind of this Hollywood bubble, you know, and it is existing within itself until something tells you that it's different. So just today, I was watching the latest episode of Landman. I don't know if you all are watching that or anything. I don't watch it, but I'm aware of it based on many people here

at the Ringer. Okay. So I'm sure everybody at the Ringer talked about, but I'm watching like a whole sequence that takes place like at like this expo of like, you know, people that are working in the oil industry and also like, you know, just, you know, trucks and expose that I've kind of been to here in Tennessee. And I remember turning to someone and saying, like, you know, no one's showing this part of the country in anything. Like, I mean, when was the last time you saw anything remotely like this in a movie or television? And it's really because Taylor Sheridan is doing it. But I remember being at Paramount at a time when they were saying, like, you can't do anything with cowboy hats. You can't do anything that's remotely southern.

And I was like, why? And they're like, it's the same reason that every other studio doesn't want to do it. It's specifically middle America, and that's harder to sell internationally. And I was like, okay, but people like in New York and Jersey can have New York Jersey accents, and that can sell internationally. And they're like, it's easier because it's less American and more accessible to global audiences. And the same reasoning goes into movies with predominantly black cast. So I'm doing movies with like Southern Black people in it.

And like it's just a boom, boom. You know, but I find it interesting that like now huge deals are being made with Taylor Sheridan and everything because he just, he took the space. And then you look at, I mean, I've made two pictures at Tyler Perry's studios. So there's people that kind of like go to that place and class and country. and they decide just to start making, making stuff. And then the money starts rolling in and everybody starts kind of scratching their head

going like, well, wait a minute, how did this happen? And I think that there's something to that. And I'm hoping that, again, kind of like what, like I said earlier, about regionalism, like I do think that there's a conversation to have about like, are we kind of killing ourselves a little bit in the industry because we're making these assumptions of what the globe wants, and no one is necessarily coming from a place of real authenticity.

Couldn't agree more. I'm going to use that as an opportunity to pivot to my regionalism, which is New York and the New York Mets. I read, tell me if this is true, but I read that your grandfather was marvelous Marv Throneberry. Is that true? It is true. Okay.

It's true. So what was that like and what did that, do to you? I'm so glad we're talking about this. You're the only person I really wanted to talk to about this. I grew up knowing my, here's the first memory I have of my grandfather. My mother crying on the phone. I think I'm like six.

And she's saying, don't do it, daddy. They're going to make fun of you. She's crying. Don't do it. Don't do it. And then she starts talking to my dad. It's like, they're flying him to New York. They said that they're going to buy him a suit.

now looking back my granddad is not a baseball anymore he is an overweight ball you know guy that that goes fishing in his cabin but light beer from miller wanted him to be in a commercial where he kind of talked about how you know at times bad of a baseball player he was you know and he kind of had these spectacular bungles but as you if you know anything about the met's history like he was beloved he was he they there were shirts you know yes i mean he was an icon to the franchise yes absolutely some i mean i think it was jimmy brisland said he's the he's the he's the first met he's he's he's really what the met experience is about so then later on i think i was like watching the olympics like like next year like a year later and there's there's

mark there's my granddad looking right at the camera going you used to take four marf throngberries just get one Carl Ferrella baseball card, you know, but the light beer for Miller called me, you know. And I couldn't believe it, but then it spawned this whole light beer gang where Billy Martin and Madden and then Mickey Spillane, you know, I don't know if you remember these commercials where like they would argue,

it tastes great, less filling, taste great, less filling. And at the end of every commercial, there'd be Marv turning right to the camera going, I still don't know why they asked me to do this commercial. And so, granted, Marv was like flying everywhere being a celebrity. So I did not grow up with him being a baseball person. I grew up where I knew that he was going out and basically making his money, opening

up car shows. So all my life growing up in theater, I was always kind of like encouraged that, oh, you're going to be big in sports. And like everybody in my family went to UT Knoxville. So every picture, I'm bathed in orange. And I just wasn't good at sports, but I was good at dancing, hence the footloose, right? But I got into children's theater and I felt really awkward about sports. And I remember even growing up with kind of this chip on my shoulder that I'm not into sports.

I'm into theater. I'm into movies. And movies even became that thing that I think that people do with sports, where it's like, you're going to really sit here and tell me that ET is the best Steven Spielberg movie over Raiders the loss are you're really going to tell that so so it kind of occupies that same thing that i think people have with like baseball players or pitchers or basketball players and and it really wasn't until i started filming um song sung blue that i was going through like because the movie's about this i was like Craig you got to have a real like honest talk with yourself about

you and your relationship to sports and why you feel this way. And maybe you got to like get over this and you need to take a big bite into something. So for a good two months, I was on a research level exploration as to should I be a Yankee or should I be a Met? And I was like, yeah, but my granddaddy played for both teams. And everybody in New York was like, because I edited the movie, they're like, no, no, no, no, that's not how this works. You got to declare. And I had like people going like, yeah, but look at the, look at the Yankees history. And I read everything about baseball. I really dove in, you know, watch the Ken Burns documentary over and over again. And there was this moment, and it's interesting because you kind of brought it up a little bit

earlier, where I think that I was listening to some podcast and somebody was talking about me, and they go, you know what, let me tell you something about Greg Brewer. You know, he's not like an Academy Award-winning guy. He hasn't had like that big hit, but he's a good, solid, you know, hits the ball, you know, right over second. He's a good, you know, get on base type of player. And I was like, yeah, I'm a Met. It hit me so clear where I was like, wait a minute, Craig, you live in Memphis. You constantly are dealing with almost getting there with things.

You're not Nashville. You know what I mean? Like even 3-6 Mafia is like not Jay-Z. You know what I mean? They're incredibly important. I think that they had. So I spent the season diving into the Mets. I went to 12 games and it was fascinating.

Like I would read every day. I was like, wow, people really are booing Soto. I mean, at the top of the season, then August hit. And it's like, what happened? It's like, I even was thinking like, oh, they just needed me. Like, everything's going great. And then like August hit. And like Soto was the only one really.

People are like cheering him, but then like everything started to kind of like fall apart. And so and then I got to the end of this and people that were like, you know, fans that had worked on my crew, they were like, this is what we told you. This is that heartbreak that we were talking about. And I have to say, though, I still prefer the heartbreak and uncertainty than if I went with a different team. And I'm beginning to understand my granddad anymore, like my. granddaddy actually is known for kind of being a loser, even though he wasn't. He actually has a really good record.

I urge you to look it up. But he himself kind of embraced those elements in himself. And when people made fun of him, especially people from New York would make fun of him, he was really good at one-upping them on making fun of himself in kind of that Dolly Parton, self-deprecating Southern way that suddenly everybody just fell in love with. And so for the first time in my life, like I was thinking, am I closer to Marv than I ever thought I was when I thought I was like distant from him? And especially being in New York and thinking like, man, he was 18 playing the polo grounds. Can you imagine stepping up to the plate, 18, especially from where I knew he was from, which is like the country.

I mean, he was from Fisherville, Tennessee. You know, he didn't like have, and I started to go like, yeah, it's kind of like what happened to you. you know it's like i started to feel this connection to them and just feeling this connection to baseball in especially the Mets and going to the games and like there's nothing better than taking that seven line in and seeing everybody like getting on and you're going like oh man this is like a different energy than anything else it's and and it's just i've been to both stadiums i've been in both games there is a working class feel no doubt at city field and city field that's just different yeah and And so that's my, the Mets kind of oddly rescued me this last year,

even though there's plenty to, there's plenty to complain about. I mean, you're incredibly brave for signing up for this. I would love to know, let's like cut to five years from now, if you have had to endure five seasons like the one we just had, how you're feeling about the choice you've made. I'd be curious to know because it is a hard fandom. Like it actually is quite, and I know that you are like, drawn to this and the characters that you portray are people who have to earn it, you know,

and there's no no handouts, right? Like, it's like you got to go through some shit to get to the other side. But boy, it feels like we've been going through some shit for 40 years, Craig. Like, it's been a hard time. Yeah, yeah. Well, just take comfort that it's been that since the beginning. I know. You know, with your grandfather. It really has, like, like, with Marvelous Marv. And he wasn't called Marvelous Marv until he was a Met. Like, it was a funny thing that he wrote on his locker because he did not feel particularly marvelous. And yet, it rescued him. I mean, even when he was kind of, you know, didn't have money in Fisherville, Tennessee after his

baseball career ended, suddenly the Mets came to his rescue by way of being kind of a known loser to some extent, you know. It's wild. He's got the famous story with Casey Stangel, you know, when, or when, when, you know, And which is also another, I mean, this is really the movie that should be made. I love that Casey Stangle is, like, fired from the Yankees for basically being old, you know. I mean, he was winning, you know. You're telling the story of the Breslin book of can't anybody here play this game.

He can play this game, yeah, yeah. And then he puts together this team that's just resoundly bad. And yet they're selling out, they're selling out their stadiums. And the Yankees are struggling to do that. theirs. And people are scratching their head just going like, what's going on? Why is it that this team that is really, really in the record books, is fighting for the record where it's to be like the worst team ever is connecting with this crowd. And there's the famous story that I think is Marv tripled brought in two runs that won the game. And then he was called out for not

touching second. And then Casey Stangle goes out to the ump and says like, what are you doing? And the I'm like, Casey, he didn't touch first either, you know? And it's like, and so it's like it's just like it couldn't write itself better. My favorite story about Marv is that they had like, I can't remember, I think it was like a couch store that put like a bullseye on the left side of like think in left field. And then if you hit that, then they were going to get a free boat, right? But then Jimmy, but then Casey didn't like that because he was like, no, all my, all my hitters are going to start trying to hit left field. And so they're like, we're going to put one in right field too. So they now have two bullseys. Marv hits it the most and he didn't even try to. And then

congratulations for if you won this boat. And then he's like, okay, well, you know, I live in Fisherville or how am I going to get it out there? They're like, so you're going to need to rent a place in New York to store the boat. And he's like, and I have to do this. So now he's in for renting this storage facility to house the boat. And then they come up to him and say, and you need to pay taxes on it. He's like, what do you mean? It's a gift. And they go, no, you earned it. You earned it. because he's like, let me get this straight. I just won a boat that I can't take home. I'm paying for it and I got to pay taxes on it.

So even when he won as a Met, he lost. So you'll have to give me some advice as to like how to handle it. Because how long, I mean, how long have you been? My entire life, my father grew up a Giants fan. And when the Giants left, he jumped right on board in that year, in that first year of the Mets, very willingly, very happily. I think he was nine years old and so he was

a Marv fan and told me all about those teams and obviously got to live through as a teenager 69 and you know was a diehard fan for my entire life and he is like really starting to give up on the team in his you know

approaching his late 70s I'm still in I'm still in it is my favorite sport it is my favorite team but I do I feel a little beat up correct I do feel a little beat up This has been a tough couple of months with the way that things have unfurled. And we're talking on the day when Jeff McNeil has been salary dumped. So, you know, we're going through like a real exorcism right now.

And we're learning all kinds of, like, juicy stuff. Like, I'm learning about, like, Lindor and Soto having a beef. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, am I, am I hearing this right, that Trump was actually like a thing with, with McNeil? So say, like, was it, was it, Nemia? Yeah. Okay. The famed radio host says that he was told that what, came between Brandon Nimmo and Francis Golandor was Donald Trump.

So, you know, again, these are all ripe fodder for your films. Like, just think about how you could really extrapolate the lives of ballplayers and the things that come between them when they're in search of greatness. Yeah, yeah. It's a, that's what I'm saying. Like, if there's definitely going to be a sports movie, I should do, I mean, this is definitely it because it's so wild how much misery is around this team. And everybody that's a fan seems to embrace it in this kind of, like, interesting badge.

But I kind of love it. I feel, it feels, I mean, the Memphis, look, I do follow the Memphis Grizzlies. And they're kind of a little bit like that. They're always like that team in the playoffs that's kind of like that fly that's just bothering the team that you know is going to be moving on. They're like, would Memphis just, please just fucking die? Would you leave us a lot of stop? Like, we'd like to just win this and move on. But until you're in the FedEx forum at a Memphis Grizzlies game and you hear,

20,000 people, including like blue-haired old ladies chanting, whoop that trick from my movie Hustle and Flow. You don't know what, you don't know what fury is. That's magic. Yeah, I wish we had our version of that at City Field. Craig, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they have seen? Have you seen, have you been watching movies?

You're an academy voter, I assume. I am an academy voter. Let's see, the last great thing that I've seen, I really love sentimental value. What did you like about it? Well, maybe it's hitting, I think there was something about the fact that I have a 17-year-old daughter that is, I just, it's so funny. She came to me at the top of the year and she said, you're not going to make it to my high school graduation, aren't you? And I was like, why would you say that?

She goes, because you're doing Snoop Dog. Like, you're going to be doing this movie next year and you're probably going to be shooting while I'm graduating. And I was like, that may be possible, honey. And like, I didn't, she suddenly has this, like, agency and knowledge about things that it just kind of rattles. I don't know if you have a daughter or not, but, like, they do, but she's four, so she doesn't know, and I'm not going to be around. Just wait because they just can look right into your soul.

They, they like, it's like their, every wife, mother, and girlfriend you'd ever had, but there's just nothing that that's going to stop them from being honest. And, and it's just, it's amazing. but startling. And she said, I want you to direct the play that I just got cast in in the high school. It's 12 Angry Men, which is called 12 Angry Jurors. And I was like, honey, I owe two scripts. I got like a movie that's coming out in December.

And she just kind of like said, yeah, but, you know, I need you to do this. And so I, you know, I directed the play. And to be a director where your daughter is the lead and knowing that you're seeing things in them where it's like, Yeah, I'm so sorry that, like, this is kind of what we do. We kind of take our pain and misery and we do things with it. You know, we act with it, we write with it, we direct with it. And it creates kind of like this, I mean, I have a much better relationship, obviously, than the one in that movie. But I couldn't help it feel, oh, that's the horrible thing about the multi-generational connections and trauma that that family kind of was going through.

And yet at the same time, everybody's using it, you know? I mean, even the opening scene where she's just like, it's taking everything for her to get up out on that stage. Like, that's what I love about actors, is that, you know, I know that we treat them as if they've got this privileged life, but we want them to stand on this mark and we want them to cry sometimes all day. And then everything that they're committing to us is forever. and it's it's a i see the toll that that's taken on them and so there's something about that movie

that i think just kind of spoke to that relationship and and it's almost like a you mourn the fact that your child is doing something that's kind of similar to what you're doing or they have the same kind of passion and you almost want to miss you almost want to direct them in another way but uh so i i found that movie and then i'm i'm stumping for i keep on saying I'll say it until I'm blue in the face, but I just thought that Weapons was one of the great movies of this year. And I think we all need to start having a conversation about horror. That it's still being kind of segregated a little bit in awards talk.

And so, yeah, yeah, I would say that's a sentimental was the last thing I saw that I really liked. But I've got to see some more now that the holidays are here. Two great picks, two of my favorites of the year. What a pleasure talking to you. Craig, thank you for doing this. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Okay, thank you to Craig Brewer. Thank you to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode.

We will be back later this week with the final film in our 25 for 25 series, which I'm excited about. This is our last recording. This is it. Of 2025. Yeah. and barring like I don't know what I Chris Ryan over the weekend was trying to imagine situations in which we'd have to do an emergency podcast oh I lean asked me about this yeah so what could what what would have to happen I feel like you know if if like Trump seizes Warner Brothers then I guess we I really hope that doesn't happen for a multitude of reasons but that would be pretty bad that would be bad gosh and then you know you know my go to is go ahead my go to is always when Jack Nick When Jack Nicholson dies, and I have to just record for 12 straight hours. And I'll tell you something, I've been thinking about this.

I have been, like, reluctant in the last few years to not even, like, think about doing episodes about Jack, like, not locate movies of his that are important. Like, when we get onto a movie of his, like, we didn't talk really about as good as it gets when we talked about James L. Brooks. Yeah. We didn't really talk about him. We talked about anger management with Adam Sandler. I'm kind of, like, storing it up. Okay. Like, he was my first favorite actor.

Okay. And I'm not trying to wheel anything negative into his existence. Yeah, you don't need to like do it now. I know. And it's like, have I even talked about him on the rewatchables? I guess on a few good men we talk about him. We talked about him on something's got to give. Something's got to, I mean, and he's magnificent.

Something's got to give. But you're, I feel like there's a lot inside me about him. But are you going to want to do on an emergency podcast? No, no. Yeah. We would build out a suite of coverage. Right, exactly. Well, that's an uplifting note to go on.

Thank you so much for bringing that to us. You did a great job this year. Thanks, you too. Thank you so much. Yeah. We'll see you in two days.