The Big Picture - Let’s Talk ‘Tenet’

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

Christopher Nolan’s 11th feature film, ‘Tenet,’ has opened in theaters around the world and we are going to talk about it. But first, we dive into the big changes in Academy Awards eligibility; ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ changing release dates and the perilous nature of the American box office; and the state of the virtual film festival (1:18). Then, Sean and Amanda deep dive into ‘Tenet,’ their viewing experience, and the confusing/compelling nature of the film (56:42). Finally, Sean is joined by Antonio Campos, the writer-director of the new Netflix film ‘The Devil All the Time,’ to chat about his work (1:56:14). Spoilers for ‘Tenet’ start at 1:14:45. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Antonio Campos Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Heineken. Heineken Original Lager is made with pure malt and their famous A-Yeast, which makes Heineken an all-season, all-the-time kind of beer, especially now as the fall months are hitting. What's better than sitting on your back porch and enjoying a beautiful Heineken? Pick up a pack or have it delivered today and drink responsibly. Today's episode is also brought to you by MINI. Every car drives, but not every car is for the drive.

MINI is a different kind of car for a different kind of drive. Let MINI introduce you to the drive you deserve. I love seeing a MINI on the highway. I'm not a MINI owner myself, Amanda, but anytime I catch one of those in that forest green color, I'm like, damn, that is a beautiful looking car. To learn more or design a model, head to miniusa.com. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Tenet.

If that was disorienting and the music at the top of today's show seemed dramatic, and it is courtesy of Tenet composer Ludwig Joransson. It's because this is a dramatic moment in the history of cinema. The biggest movie of the year is out in theaters around the country, and some people are seeing it. Maybe not enough people are seeing it. Amanda and I are lucky to have had the chance to do so safely in the comfort of our cars at a Southern California drive-in. We went back in time and we at least

defeated our fear of the coronavirus. In addition to Tenet, there is so damn much happening in the world of movies. We're going to talk about all of it on this show. Some of it is very exciting, like the return of film festivals. Some of it requires closer examination, like whatever's happening with the Academy Awards these days. And some need some serious unpacking, like Tenet. Later in the show, I have an interview with the filmmaker Antonio Campos, whose new film, The Devil All the Time, premieres on Netflix on Wednesday, September 16th. I hope you'll stick around for that.

But first, let's start with film festivals. Amanda, you and I spent our weekend watching movies, a lot of movies, a lot of new films. What was it like for you to be thrown into the virtual festival experience? Movies are back. It was exciting. Yeah, I feel like it's been a great two weeks and I saw some movies that I hope,

we're going to talk about them later this week, I think in more detail, that I was completely exhilarated by and was so excited to have movies and was very moved. And I texted Sean about them and he didn't really text me back. And that's like,

you want like an in, like a right now review of virtual film festivals is that I need you, Sean Fennessey, to text me back more. Because what happens with the virtual film festivals is that there's no one to talk to about it, right? You are still like, you miss the community. You are like a little bit at home, not a little bit, 100% at home watching them in a confined space. And then you just have these like very strong reactions to cinema and you text your one friend and he's just like texts you back like two words, five hours later. Okay. And like, I need more from you. I, I'm a big believer in save it for the pod. You know, I don't want to spoil the, the, the energy between us. I don't want to spoil the energy between us.

I don't want to spoil the takes. I'm also, I don't even necessarily know what I think about something right away. And so I don't want to just jump out of my seat and be like, yes, pieces of a woman, this thing, this idea. Let's just say, you know, later in this week, we will do an episode where we'll talk about

all the festival films we had a chance to see and maybe talk in detail about the ones that we really loved. And really, honestly, I think Thursday will be the official return of the Oscar show, which that's really what the virtual Toronto International Film Festival screenings we've been doing. The drive-in screening of Nomadland, which was a part of the Telluride Film Festival that we both attended on Friday, which was very cool. And obviously that film just won the Golden line at Venice and is definitely one of the best movies I've seen this year. I assume you liked it as well. Yeah, a hundred percent.

And that was just also like Oscar season starts right now, like in our cars, once again, side by side in a field at the Rose Bowl. And like, I hope on Thursday we can talk a little bit more about that Telluride drive in event, which was very fun. But, um, I, we have been wondering the ways in which like awards season and awards campaigning like would happen in the time of coronavirus and in 2020. And that was it. And it felt very much like a declaration. And happily, like the movie absolutely lived up to it. I was blown away by it. But Oscar season is on.

It's back. Oscar show will be back soon more on Nomadland than a bunch of other movies. And the other way we know that festival season is happening is It's back. Oscar show will be back soon, more on Nomadland than a bunch of other movies. And the other way we know that festival season is happening is there's all sorts of acquisition news happening fast and furiously. Pieces of a Woman, the movie I just mentioned, which stars Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf,

was picked up by Netflix, which already has by far the mightiest slate of Oscar movies going. And they also picked up Bruised, which is Halle Berry's directorial debut about a female MMA fighter. And they also picked up Malcolm and Marie, the John David Washington's Zendaya film that we've been talking about, which was written and directed by Sam Levinson and made during quarantine. Netflix paid $30 million for that film, which is quite a sum

of money. And so things are just happening fast and furious. I'm sure by the time people get a chance to hear this episode, there will be more films that are picked up. For example, we'll be watching Good Joe Bell later today, which is a film that does not have a distributor starring Mark Wahlberg. I suspect that will go as soon as it hits the world.

Regina King's One Night in Miami is another movie we saw that was picked up earlier this month by Amazon. I suspect will also be an Oscar contender. We'll talk more about that later this week. So much happening with film festivals. And yeah, it does feel like a perverse sense of normalcy. And I'm relieved to have all these movies to look at.

Speaking of normalcy or speaking of perverse, I'm not sure what the right transition here is. Let's talk about what's been going on with the Academy Awards. Okay. Nothing normal, but continue. Nothing normal. I think things have been unnormal for the Academy Awards for the last five or six years. I think ever since the hashtag OscarSoWhite protest movement started, obviously the Academy has taken a serious look at what its responsibilities are as a voting body, as a group of historians, as members of the filmmaking community. And they've made a lot of changes over the years. They've made a lot of changes to their

constituency. They've made a lot of changes to, frankly, the kinds of films that they're trying to celebrate and spotlight. And you can see that as the voting body evolves, the kinds of movies that are nominated for its awards evolve. And they made a pretty big announcement last week. And we didn't respond right away. We didn't do an emergency podcast about these Academy Awards changes.

And I'm grateful that we didn't. Now, the changes that they're making are somewhat complex, but also very simple. They have instituted four new standards into qualifying for one award, which is Best Picture. And in order for a movie going forward to qualify for Best Picture, they need to meet these standards, at least two of them. So they're essentially primarily about on-screen representation, either in themes or narratives or actors, and creative leadership and project team, and also about industry access and opportunities and audience development. So what are those phrases mean? Help us understand

what it is that the Academy Awards is trying to do with these new standards, Amanda. Okay, well, you put me in an interesting position because what they're trying to do the number of non-white guys either on screen or behind the screen. And behind the screen has a very, very broad definition from director all the way to people in the marketing and publicity departments and also in terms of apprenticeship and who gets to learn how to make a movie. And it is really, to me, sort of like a bare minimum litmus test, these standards, because as you said, you can meet two out of four, and that means that you can completely skip the on-screen representation portions of the standards. As I understand it, I've spent a lot of time reading these standards,

as many other people haven't, which we'll come back to, but, uh, to the best of my understanding, you, you can skip all of that. Um, and if you still want to make your all your 1917, you're all white guy movie, um, that's possible. But in that case, you would then focus some of the, the attention to make sure that there is a little bit more representation on the crew, or again, in the studios and the marketing, the publicity, and how a movie finds its audience, or who is learning, again, how to make a movie. So they're flexible, I would say. A lot more flexible than people gave them credit for. And I think we're going to have a larger conversation about what these standards can or can't do.

But I think like we have to talk about the reaction to it first because it was fascinating. And I know you were glad that we skipped it. And I'm glad that you and I didn't have to be a part of it because it was like true silly season. But it was a lot of people really telling on themselves in tremendous ways. Number one being people just didn't actually read the standards. And that was fascinating. And by people, I'm talking about

everyone, you know, person with a Twitter account to like some journalists to people texting me and people in my own life. A lot of people just like weren't actually engaging and jumped to a lot of conclusions that I felt revealed a bit more about the Academy or how certain people respond to the Academy, the Oscars, their movies than perhaps was intended. And that was fascinating. That's a very different conversation than what these standards can do to change the Oscars and or the movies and or what we think the Oscars or the Academy should of representation that these standards are trying to account for. The first is what is defined broadly as women, racial or ethnic groups, LGBTQ+, people with cognitive or physical Hispanic, Latinx, Black, African-American, Indigenous, Native American, Alaskan Native, Middle Eastern, North African, Native Hawaiian, or other Pacific Islander, or quote, other underrepresented race or ethnicity. This is an effort by the Academy to insist upon more inclusion in order for its films to be recognized, period. That's the point the the structure of those

inclusion standards is very loose as you said and i think the immediate reaction essentially was reactionary as these things so often are as as our our podcast so often is is we're in a take culture we all follow the oscars very closely we're all interested in the changes that they make we know in the past they have made some poor choices that have been rushed. The popular Oscar, probably foremost among them, was a decision that did not feel terribly examined. And when that decision was made, people were very quick to deem it foolish. And likewise, this one, I think that there was a desire to kind of point out the flaw in the structure. Now, I think the safeness of these standards, the sort of the easy to accomplish nature of them indicates that more time than usual was spent on these standards. You know, it's a little bit more difficult to poke holes in it when you look closely at what's here.

And I would encourage people to look at it. You can go to Oscars.org and you can read the standards in full. But I think the first reaction that I saw was probably some Twitter egg or some journalist, frankly, saying, well, does this mean that movies like The Irishman can't qualify? A movie that is made by a white man, written by a white man with a primarily white cast, a historical piece that does not feature African-American or Latino characters in any meaningful way, is the Irishman disqualified from Best Picture? And then, of course, if you go and you examine the standards and you see that, for example, Rodrigo Prieto, the DP on the film, is from Mexico, or you see that Emmett Tillinger Koskoff is the producer of the film and she is a woman,

and if you look down the line through the department heads or the people who work at the studios, or even if you just look at Netflix, which employs such an incredible diverse group of people across every department there, it's not going to be difficult for a movie like The Irishman to qualify. The second reaction that I saw from people was the journey into the past where people wanted to look at films like on the waterfront and say, does this mean that on the waterfront would now not qualify for best picture? That may be true.

I don't have handy the, um, employment roles of the studio that released on the waterfront. So I don't know for sure if that could be the case, but frankly, the system that Hollywood was operating under when on the waterfront was made 65 years ago was bad. It doesn't mean that On the Waterfront isn't a wonderful and important film, but it does mean that On the Waterfront was made before the Voting Rights Act existed. It means it was before women were given opportunities to run departments and have positions of power in Hollywood. So I think that looking at that reaction, there was so much false equivalency going on that it kind of blurred and blotted out the kind of conservative nature, ultimately. And I don't mean politically conservative. I just mean structurally conservative nature of a lot of these standards.

Yeah, I read them and I expected the reaction to be like, this doesn't do enough. And it honestly might not do enough. Again, do enough for what? And I think, you know, you and I can have some version of the like, what do we think the Academy should do with respect to what the Oscar results are? And also what the standards of how movies are put together, like what is the Academy's role in that is up for debate. And I think that there are a lot of like serious, intelligent people who can look at the Academy Awards and the movie industry in general and say, okay, this is not representative.

Like things have to change. One woman has won best director ever and no black directors have ever won best director. We can all agree that some things need to change. And I think that in intelligent, well-meaning people can disagree on what the Academy's role in that should be and also in whether these standards will achieve any of it. But we didn't get there, right? Because we just got a bunch of cranks just being like, what about 1917? That was my favorite one. That was so great.

Good job, everybody. Yeah, I must admit, I am intellectually torn over this entire exercise. I think actually what this reveals to me, and you put it pretty clearly when you were going through the notes that I was making for this episode in this conversation. It reveals to me just kind of how meaningless the Oscars are and how made up they are. Because I think the Oscars no doubt have a credibility issue. I mean, this is a group of people, an organization that over the years has propagated, celebrated some of the worst things in movies like this. This is a group of people that has celebrated white savior movies over and over again, that supports a certain kind of filmmaking pedigree,

particularly white and male, that fails to recognize the work of female filmmakers, of black filmmakers, of Latinx filmmakers, on down the line. And so there's a credibility issue in general. And so I think the distrust suffuses a lot of the feelings about these decisions. That being said, the Academy has changed a lot in the last five years, and the obviously meaningful change seems to be important to them. They've boosted the numbers pretty significantly as far as diverse representation throughout the group, the number of women throughout the group. That being said, if you look at the numbers,

the numbers are still pretty low. The numbers have grown from 10% to 19% representing racial and ethnic groups. They've gone from 25% to 33% over the last five years. That's a lot better. And proportionally, that's a lot better, but it's still only 33% women comprise the academy. You're telling me this? I know, I'm just, I'm just putting it out into the world. Yeah, but you know, that's, what else are we going to do? Like 33 is better than 32, then is better than 19, then is better. And again, I think that ultimately this can be a little bit of a philosophical, I mean,

an institution that has failed historically, you know, in various ways throughout its almost a hundred years of existence. Do you try to change the institution from within, or do you just say the institution doesn't matter anymore? And I think very smart people will disagree on that. I think that if you and I are going to continue to like talk about the Oscars and invest in them, which we are because we're human people and like we, everyone has problematic things and failed things that they like and want to believe in. And I guess you accused me in an earlier conversation of being an optimist about this.

And I thought that that was like pretty unfair, but I guess if I am going to invest my time in an institution, no matter how made up it is, and once again, the Academy is like a group of people who give out made up awards to other famous people, then I would like to see the institution change. If it wants my attention, I expect it to at least try. And again, what can these do, really? I don't know. As you pointed out, and as many have, most big picture winners and nominees from the

past couple decades would be eligible under these rules without really changing anything. It is, again, they're not exactly stringent guidelines. Okay. It's like, it's pretty much like if you can't meet these, then there are some larger issues going on. And also like, if you actually refuse to meet these at this point, number one, I'm not a labor lawyer, but I have to assume you're breaking some sort of like laws at some point. But also number two, it's good to know that someone's like, no, I can't even be bothered to do the absolute bare minimum but like I don't know I don't know if it's a full revolution but to me personally as someone who spends a lot of time thinking about this stuff I'm at least at least we're doing the bare minimum

yeah I just want to say I criticize because i love and that applies to the oscars and that also applies to you you know like the idea that that i identifying that something is meaningless doesn't mean it doesn't matter to me um and i do i still i do still believe that the academy and the oscars in particular have a chance to kind of carve a path towards history towards towards a kind of movie history that I think is meaningful, that I think people should recognize as meaningful. This particular approach, it just leaves me a little bit queasy. And it's kind of hard to talk about this without seeming like a crazy libertarian art monster. But I think restrictions on art immediately get people's

hackles up. And that probably drove some of the immediate reaction. And I don't know that this is necessarily the way to change Hollywood. I think Hollywood is primarily driven by money. And the Oscars certainly drive some money and some revenue, but they are not the chief driver of revenue right now. And what's going to change things is money and giving people the chance to have more access to money to make more things that matter. Now, maybe this will bend the will of the studios, but the future of Hollywood, quote unquote,

Netflix, Amazon, et cetera, are already more progressive institutions by leaps and bounds than their century old forebears in many ways, in terms of the way that they hire people, in terms of the kind of stories they tell. I mean, just look at Netflix's slate of original content. It's just so much more diverse, so much more globally minded. And regardless of quality, regardless of what you think about what Netflix makes, there's no denying that they platform black voices more aggressively than any other studio. They platform LGBTQ voices much more aggressively than any other studio. It's a huge part of the mission of that company. And so I don't think that Netflix, for example, needs the Academy to tell

them how to do this work. Now, maybe other studios do. I don't know as much about the internal politics of other studios, but the idea of the restriction on art, it just kind of creates an uneasiness. Now, I know you have rational and thoughtful responses to that queasiness, though. Yeah. Well, I think you just talked about like two very separate things. And I think to your point about like Netflix doesn't need this because Netflix is already far more progressive and is already investing in a lot more, you know, female directors and black directors and, and, and crew members and department heads and has really made that like, um, uh, a value of the way that they run their business. And so they

don't need to do that, but they're, so what if these rules exist, then it's not going to harm Netflix because Netflix already qualifies. And I think I'm just kind of like, I personally don't mind that value. And, and frankly, like a far less stringent version of that value, like being codified and institutionalized in like an institution, the idea that you should invest in storylines and or just in training, you know? And I think like a lot of people haven't really talked about like standards C and D, which are about opportunities for apprenticeship and training and behind the scenes and finding audiences, which really do, I think, shape the stories that get told.

And also to your point, like audiences, where the money gets made and how things are marketed and what thing, what is deemed quote valuable. So so I just like I think it's I just I don't see the problem in kind of making that a bare minimum a thing I keep saying requirement for one award at a made-up awards show it's like the walls are not going to come tumbling down in any which way which like may actually be frustrating to a lot of people who have been waiting a very long time for the walls to come tumbling down in Hollywood. But like, whatever. Most people will pass this and the people who can't like will probably be slightly shamed. And in that sense, I don't, I don't really know if I see the problem with that. And maybe that is also connected to the

money increasingly as we're seeing, which is a whole other conversation. Let's talk about the thing about art and guidelines, because like, frankly, I just think that's stupid. I think it's really stupid. And you know, I think that, and I say it with love, but the Oscars are already of guidelines. We're already, it's a made up way of judging art. And most people, by the way, would say that everything we're judging at the Oscars is not even art. It's already commercialized nonsense. But it's like, we're not in danger of losing a creative whatever here. It's one award, by the way, every other category. You can do whatever the hell you want and still win best director, best actor, best actress, supporting actor, supporting actress, screenplay, cinematography, editing, sound design, sound mixing. Have they

combined those yet? Yes. Okay. But like you can win everything. You can win literally everything, but best picture. Okay. And also, also these awards are just for best picture. You know, like how, how much art gets made that isn't even in the conversation. Like art's going to be fine.

In fact, like art also thrives on guidelines and there are going to be a lot of people who, I mean, I don't even know what to say about the people who are going to make art because they're like mad about this and that's horrifying. But, and if that is your argument, then perhaps we can talk about it. But otherwise, like this is, we're not censoring anything right now. If you want to talk about like censorship and like threats to art, there are much larger issues that we can talk about right now. But having to do an interview, it's going to be fine. It's going to be fine.

That's all. I can see you feel passionately about this. I broadly agree that in the context of the Oscars, this is fine. And I think actually the fact that it is restricted to Best Picture kind of weakens the pitch, the change that has been made here. Because Best Picture, here are the last four Best Picture winners. Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins. The Shape of Water, directed by Guillermo del Toro. Green Book, directed by Peter Farrelly.

Not great. Tough break, yeah. And Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho so just in the last four years you've got one obviously deeply complicated winner that had a pretty strong backlash especially in a year where Black Klansman and Black Panther and Roma were nominated but the other three all three of them represented significant breakthroughs for the academy a foreign language film a film directed by a Mexican-American filmmaker, and a film directed by a Black American filmmaker. That is unbelievable. And so Best Picture being

the focus of this particular change is interesting. I think it would have been a lot more radical if they would have applied it to every single qualifying category. That would have been a dramatic change. Now, would that have been the right change? I don't know. I don't even know what the permutations of that could have looked like. But Best Picture, in a very strange way, was already the bastion of progress inside the Oscars. Okay.

But number one, to the extent that Best Picture has achieved progress, that progress is largely understood to be the result of the Academy's efforts to diversify its voting body and specifically to make it more international. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. Okay. Number one, just put a pin in that. Number two, and this is maybe wrong and this is possibly giving it way too much credit, so I'm going to be less aggressive here. I'm just going to float this for you. But like I understand this less as an attempt to dramatically change the results of best picture and more like a soft power attempt of the Academy saying like, look, this is

just like these are stated values. And if you want to be considered um which a lot of films do because i the financial influence is waning but still like winning best picture is like a good way um to earn some money and to get people to see your movie and also because the best picture category so often influences a lot of below the line categories. All of the categories that I just like named and probably got wrong. Do you like, it is usually the same nominees who are qualifying for best picture that are in those categories with a couple examples. So it seems like a safe and I would agree non-radical and to your point that it might it might not be enough, I'm open to that idea.

But I interpreted it as a way to try to make some shift in the below the line categories and just kind of like larger industry standards without completely, without rocking the boat. I think it's neither radical change nor window dressing. It's probably somewhere in between those two things. And so that's part of why it has to be a nuanced conversation, right? There's no, nothing sweeping is going to change about the nature of best picture or the Oscars. Um, and probably not enough is changing. You know, there's just, um, there's no way to solve something that is amorphous as the Academy Awards. And that's in the same way that you can't go back and change the history books of baseball.

You can't go back and and, you know, disincentivize people from celebrating the work of Ty Cobb, who was a bad person, but also a great baseball player. And you can't take away the Hall of Fame credentials of certain players over the years. The same is true for having a conversation about Gone with the Wind. It's an essential part of cinema history. You can't erase it. And so this is obviously an attempt to evolve it in the way that all of these other choices

that have been made. Basically, since Cheryl Boone Isaacs was the president of the Academy and pushing those changes so aggressively forward, we'll see what happens, whether this is like step one in redefining what can and cannot qualify or whether it's just, um, a decision made in the aftermath of just a, a significant moment in American racial history. We'll see. We'll see. You know, I'm, I don't know. What do you, do you think we'll see more

in the next couple of years? I think you have to assume so, but that's as much just because I think the Academy and movies are going to change so much in the American and international consciousness that there will be a lot of different definitions of eligibility and best picture, which is possibly a great segue to our next segment. Yeah. So, you know, you can't win Best Picture unless you play in a movie theater, except this year. This year, the eligibility rules changed. And, you know, a movie opened.

A movie called Tenet opened. We're going to talk about Tenet in detail in this episode. Not yet, though. We're not going to spoil Tenet yet. Hold your horses. We need to talk about the surrounding nature of Tenet, everything that happened since Tenet Open, because, man, we've spent so much time in the last six months anxiously discussing the future of the theatrical experience. And frankly, I know that people who listen to the show got really tired of it because it was the same talking point over and over again. And I'm sorry if we repeated ourselves, but here's the thing.

We were right. We were 100% right to be anxious and bent out of shape about this because things in the theatrical movie going experience are not looking good right now. And there are a lot of reasons for that. So one, Wonder Woman moved to Christmas. It moved off of its October 2nd date and it's opening on Christmas. We'll see if it opens on Christmas. I have my doubts. Candyman also moved to 2021. I know Chris Ryan's wife, I was having a chat with her this weekend. She's devastated. She was so looking forward

to her Halloween horror movie 2021. And now it seems like the theatrical movie going business is kind of closed for 2020. There's still some movies on the slate. We'll talk about those movies. But the reason for it is because of the performance of Tenet. So let me just ask you this. We'll talk about the numbers and the details. Were you surprised that the movie is not performing as well as maybe Warner Brothers, Christopher Nolan and the makers of the movie had hoped? You know as maybe Warner Brothers, Christopher Nolan,

and the makers of the movie had hoped? You know, I was. I actually was surprised. And we have been very skeptical about the wisdom of opening in theaters for various epidemiological reasons. And we went to a drive-in and I think we had a lot of nerves and some of that

anxiety was possibly based on the fact that it seemed like everyone else was like, well, we don't care. We're going to the movies. We're all going to sit inside together. And, um, that didn't turn out to be the case. And I think I like did not give enough credit to humankind. I, I guess my fellow man and woman, or I guess I just, I don't know. I thought Warner Brothers seemed so sure. And I think the

international markets have been like a bit more robust. And I just, I've looked at a lot of pictures at people like in various crowded spaces over the last three months, and I was just like, well, I guess no one cares. Now, the reason... So I was surprised. I have some different reasonings or some theories about why this happened than what I just said of COVID-19. So I guess I don't have as much faith in my fellow man as I previously discussed. But I didn't expect it to be this low because I didn't think that Warner Brothers would take such a financial risk. I was like, surely they know something I don't because there's so

much money on the line. And I guess they didn't know anything I didn't. Well, let me give some numbers to provide context for this conversation, because I want to hear what you think is undergirding some of this decision making. So after the first weekend that the film opened, which was over Labor Day weekend, we learned that it earned $20 million, essentially in North America, which is obviously disappointing for a Christopher Nolan movie. But given the fact that we were going through a pandemic, that Los Angeles and New York theaters are not open, that there's significantly reduced capacity in the theaters that are open, I think most people thought, okay, this isn't really a

full-blown disaster. And you could sense that Warner Brothers was controlling the messaging very effectively, delivering the information to the right outlets in the right way. If you read the trades after that first weekend, you'd think, okay, 20 million, not bad, but not an out-and-out nightmare. Then a few days go by and it becomes clear that that 20 million was not really 20 million. It was included four days of sneak previews in the United States and Canada.

And it's really more like 11 to $12 million over a holiday weekend, which is really, really, really bad for a big blockbuster movie. That's a very, very small number. This is a $200 million movie by probably the biggest brand name auteur filmmaker in the world right now. Is that safe to say? Yeah, it is.

And I'm going to dunk on them later. So I think it's worth giving the caveats now that of course la and new york which are two major markets were not open and also they're at the theaters are at lower capacity because of social distancing and so they were never going to get to the what 120 150 opening weekend million that you would have in a non-pandemic atmosphere. But yeah, it's not what you want or not what Warner Brothers wants. It's not. And I think you could certainly make the case

that Warner Brothers and Nolan's calculation was that the movie, because the slate of upcoming films is so thin, that the movie would be able to live in theaters for two, three months and slowly accumulate profits over time that eventually people would start to get more comfortable. And that may still be the case. We may still have a circumstance in which this movie is in 3000 theaters for two to three months.

And eventually the same way that, you know, it's, it's doing great business overseas right now, it's made over $200 million in total, largely because of international box office. Maybe it will make, I don't know, a hundred million, 150 million in total, largely because of international box office, maybe it will make, I don't know, $100 million, $150 million in the States over the course of the next six weeks. I don't know. It does not seem that way. And I have not gotten an indication that LA or New York theaters are opening anytime soon. Last we heard from Andrew Cuomo, he did not seem very excited about the idea of opening it. And if you listen to Dr. Anthony Fauci speaking to Jennifer Garner, which is the thing I just said out loud on a podcast in 2020, Fauci doesn't think that you'll be able to be in a movie

theater without a mask for a long, long time. So that struck a new chord of fear in people. And so this weekend, the movie made just $6.7 million, which is a 30% dip if we counted against the originally reported $20 million debut. Excuse me. It's a 30% dip if we count it against the $11 million, but it's a 66% dip if we counted against the $20 million. So things are not looking good. Plus, this is a movie that has inflated box office because of IMAX ticket prices. So just from a pure financial perspective, this was a big risk by Warner Brothers. As you said, Nolan obviously was very passionate about pushing this movie into theaters aggressively. People do not seem to be compelled. And it makes even having a conversation about the movie complicated in many ways. What is the other

reason you think that maybe people aren't showing up aside from just general fear? I just think that you and I and Warner Brothers and Christopher Nolan have drastically overrated the extent to which people care about going to the movie theater anymore. And I think we've talked about this a long time. And it's funny when you said that people got very tired of us talking about like the theater experience. Like I know it was repetitive, but I also think like maybe they just don't care because like behavior was already changing. And you and I have talked about this, that like people just like don't go to the theaters and it isn't an ingrained part of their lives in the way that it was even five years ago,

simply because they have so many more things that they can watch at home. And even without a pandemic, you just have like 18 streaming services and like never-ending television series. And people are just kind of like, well, now I just am like attached to my TV and I just consume stuff all of the time. And I interpreted this and was even surprised by the extent to which it was like, oh, I guess people just don't really need to go to the theater anymore.

And that in this case, it was like a very easy risk reward decision for a lot of people to make because they've got a lot of other options. So one other scandal came with this whole reporting story, which is that Warner Brothers has been working to conceal

the box office returns of this movie, which is that Warner Brothers has been working to conceal the box office returns of this movie, which is fascinating. It has been kind of pitched, perceived as kind of a scandal, and I can feel the other people who work at other studios talking to journalists about what a scurrilous action this is. I think for most people, this doesn't really matter because they're not withholding the actual total numbers. They're withholding daily returns, and that's making people, it's making it difficult for other studios and journalists to effectively report on the day-to-day success or struggles of a movie and then ultimately dictate what decisions are going to be made in the future in the movie business. But it's telling. I mean, the way that the movie business works is this is a daily operation. You

can follow closely every day how much money a movie is making. And Tenet is just not making as much money as Warner Brothers wanted. And so it feels as if they are obfuscating in an attempt to essentially blot out the struggle. And, you know, I guess like this kind of falls into that category of like, do I actually care about this? Is this actually meaningful or is it just we're all kind of managing our priorities in the pandemic and the movie business is trying to survive. And in order for it, or I should say the theatrical movie business is trying to survive. And I'm not sure that this is as big of a scandal as it seemed like on a Sunday morning when it was revealed that this was happening, but it caught my attention.

What do you think is, What do you think is going through the minds of those who work in this business right now? Well, the Warner Brothers thing is a scandal. It's just because it's just evidence that they were very much caught off guard. It is clearly not what they want. They did not expect it to go this way. This was not in their narrative. They don't want you to know that Tenet is not as much of is a failure, basically, to the it's not meeting their expectations. And they really don't want to have that conversation. And I, you know, I I don't know whether that's about their future plans, though. Obviously, it is a little bit because then they moved Wonder Woman because it's just not going.

So I don't know if it's like a scandal so much as to me, just an indication that like, whoa, things are bad and people really don't know what to do. And the model has really changed. I can't tell again how much of this like Tenet just made itself the exception and the poster child for theaters in the time of coronavirus and where it's it's been a tremendously weird year and I think it's going to be another a weird other year but at some point we will have a new way of doing this so I am super wary again of treating like this these two weekends and time as like the be all end all of the theatrical

experience. But I don't know, I think it's going to be very different. I just think the way that we see theaters, see movies in theaters together, like will change and the business will change. And this is like, this is proof rather than like a prediction. We're already there in a way. So there is one aspect of this that I find interesting, which is that you could make the case that this was not the right movie to reopen theaters. Now, I think reasonable people can disagree and we might disagree on this. The case against it being the movie that should not have been the movie to reopen has a few different layers to it. It's obviously not a franchise film.

It's not an IP related in any way. And it's not part of a wider story that people would want to return to. And as recognizable a brand as Nolan is, it's, it's still clearly like a confusing kind of film. Now, not to, not to get ahead of your,

your counterpoint to this, which I think is going to be very fair, but movies like The New Mutants and Unhinged are doing kind of similar business to Tenet. It's not significantly different in the United States, the amount of money that those movies have made. Maybe it's a factor of three or four Tenet is doing better than, but in this context with this small sum of money, it's not meaningful enough. And even just the brand awareness of the New Mutants means at least Disney is getting a little something out of that return, which is a movie that basically has been DOA for

two years. And Tenet is one of the most important movies on the slate. So there are at least some people who want to go into a movie theater right now, who are going into movie theaters right now. And some of them are not choosing Tenet. Some of them are actually choosing Unhinged or actually choosing The New Mutants. Maybe these people are seeing all of the movies. I don't know. Maybe they're just completely reckless in that respect. But I find it fascinating that the contingent of people that are like, I will put my life on the line for this is smaller than

you and I would have guessed. I was going to say, I would be curious to know whether they are the same people. It does really seem like we've just like boiled the fan experience down and it is just like the core audience who is going out to see all of these movies. And that powers a lot of different franchises and a lot of different businesses

and a lot of different ways that people of different businesses and a lot of different ways that people make money. But I think with a Christopher Nolan, you count on all of the Nolan heads plus, you know, people being like, oh, sure. Like I'll go see a movie with John David Washington and Robert Pattinson. Like I, like I like the movies and we've cut out just all the, like, I like the movies a little bit. And I, I don't know the extent to which that business will come back like the casual the casual viewer or like the non-fan appointment viewer I think the decisions that are made by the studios in the next six months will help dictate some of that because they're going to be faced with some difficult decisions. And I guess we should talk about that now

because when we were talking about it in March and April and May and June, it was speculative. But now things feel real. It feels like this could really trigger a greater number of titles going directly to PVOD. It means that that log jam that we talked about way back in March that could happen in 2021 is almost certain to happen unless more of these titles come to PVOD. And it means there's only a few movies.

I mean, is it 10 movies total that are planning to come out that are sort of event style films in theaters for the rest of the year? I mean, we've got your beloved Death on the Nile, which is supposed to come out in five weeks, which I just do not see happening. Yeah, I don't either. Especially since the target audience for that is viewers of a certain age, myself included. But we of a certain age can watch it at home happily. Yeah, and in fact, that might be the kind of movie that might do bang up business at home. If you can eventize an Agatha Christie mystery movie, that could do well.

The big movie, the biggest decision by far, the most important movie on this slate is Black Widow, which is supposed to come out November 6th, which is already a complicated week. That's election week. And, you know, obviously Mulan was released to PVOD on Disney+. We talked about that on this show,

despite the complicated circumstances of that movie all the way around. It does seem like people watched it. It does seem like it did business. A movie like Black Widow- Though it did not do very well in China, which is important to note. And other movies have,

and it was released in theaters in China, and other films in theaters in China have done well. Yes, which I'm sure there are a lot of reasons for that around the cultural sensitivity or lack thereof in the story and in the production of the film. But Black Widow is as international a film as there is. You know, the MCU is the surest bet in movies over the last 10 years. And Black Widow ostensibly is a connective tissue story that will help dictate what where the MCU stories are going in the future. And so you have to see this movie to keep up with the story, so to speak. You don't have to necessarily, Amanda, but I think people who really care.

I'm looking forward to Black Widow. It's Florence Pugh and Rachel Weisz. Like sign me up. Sign me up as well. I don't think I have not gotten the sense that this is going to Disney+. I feel like there's too much here in the bottom line that they're going to lose, but also when we don't know when it will make sense to release a movie like this. Why could you see a circumstance in which it was available on PVOD on Disney plus in the States and open in theaters around the world?

I could at this point, because you could tell me anything at some point, a lot of these movies and these studios, like they're going to need. At some point, a lot of these movies and these studios, they're going to need money at some point. My understanding is that there's not a huge amount of money rolling in without any product, especially at Disney, where the amusement parks have been closed for a very long time. So it's a question of how long they can hold out without revenue versus getting a possibly smaller amount of revenue via PVOD. And I'm not privy to those books. So if anyone wants to send them to me,

I would love to learn. But can all of these giant businesses make it to March 2021? I don't know. I mean, the next films after that, one of which is a Disney film, Soul, the Pixar movie, that certainly feels like something that could come out at home. I think we saw a lot of families got excited about Onward when it was released to Disney+. And Soul is also considered a big Oscar contender this year. So it'd be interesting to see if that arrives on November 20th. And then that same day is supposed to be James Bond day. And yeah, I mean, when you were like the most important movie of the fall and you said

black widow, but I definitely thought you were going to say no time to die, but that's okay. Just in my house. I mean, they're, they're, they're neck and neck.

They're honestly our neck and neck. And let me just tell you the no time to die trailer. Sick. Love. Yeah. Yep. It looks awesome. I'm very excited. We both

love Carrie Joji Fukunaga. It seems like it's going to be the end of Daniel Craig. That's an event. I don't know. I'd like to see this film. Do I want to see this film on my couch? Not really. I really want to see this movie in a movie theater. Even more than Black Widow, honestly.

The Bond movies are designed for that experience. They obviously already pushed this movie once. They just, these, the Bond movies are designed for that experience. And so, you know, they obviously already pushed this movie once. They were way ahead of the curve on this. I guess it's United Artists, MGM, whatever that corporation is called at this point. And so they're probably gonna have to make

a serious decision. That's, you know, that's 10 months from now. And then late December, we've got this bundle of movies, the Christmas, New Year's this bundle of movies, this, the Christmas New Year's Eve corridor coming to America, the 30 plus years later sequel to the Eddie Murphy comedy Dune, which I feel like the watch devoted a whole episode to the Dune trailer. And you and I haven't even discussed it.

Are you in on Dune? Uh, it looks good. Cool. Cool stuff. I just like, I can't be brought into this psycho drama. You know, I know that the original has,

there's like a whole controversy and the, I just like a lot of people with a lot of feelings and you got to channel them different ways in 2020, but I can't channel one, this one, this way. I like to do Chalamet. I like to need Vill in 2020. But I can't channel this one this way. I like Timothee Chalamet. I like Denis Villeneuve.

I'll see it if I have a job. Why not? Let's see. Let's see. Why not? So let me tell you a story about forcing my wife to watch the Dune trailer. It was a calm and peaceful Thursday night. There was a gap in our programming.

NBA playoff game had ended. We weren't sure if we were going to start up an episode of Selling Sunset. You know, we're just trying to fill out the evening. Sure. And I'm like, let's watch the Dune trailer. I've watched it three times already. I want to see it on my big TV. Can I also just like point out, and maybe a lot of big picture listeners do this too, but just to understand like Sean's home life a little,

just like watching trailers on the big TV screen is a thing that is done regularly. I have literally just sat on your couch with your wife and my husband and we've just been like, should we watch this trailer? Should we watch this trailer? Like that, that is a thing that you do continue. One of my pastimes, you know, some some some people like to play bridge i like to force people to watch movie trailers with me and then get their reactions so i did this with aileen i was like you will watch dune now uh she watched the trailer she was like that looks fine that's a boy movie um but then i had to spend the next five to seven minutes explaining oh god i didn't know i didn't ask for this. It was asked

of me, I think because Eileen read the phrase Jodorowsky's Dune, which is a documentary about the film adaptation that Alejandro Jodorowsky was going to make of Dune in the 70s. And she knew what that was. She knew it was something. So she was like, how is this different from that? Which led to me then describing the book written by frank herbert the david lynch adaptation yodorovsky's vision of the film and what denise villeneuve is going to do and uh it was it was excruciating for her i think i don't think she really appreciated it so i'm sorry they're giant they're giant worms yeah yeah you summed it up that's the whole story they're giant worms I mean but that and this will maybe actually maybe this is like also a great um preview of our tenant conversation no spoilers yet it's fine we'll let you know but it's just like

I can't be drawn into all of this anxiety and nonsense surrounding it. But if you just want to show me some giant worms, I guess. I'm available. I don't have anything better to do in 2020. That's where I am. Surface level only. I remain very excited about Dune, much like No Time to Die. It seems bizarre to imagine watching Dune at home.

Yeah. But, you know, Warner Brothers technically now has Dune and Wonder Woman and back to back weekends coming out. And that just seems highly unlikely for them. I mean, that's how you know, it's not going to happen because they're week to week. It's just their whole they're holding places for now. And it actually will be interesting to see if the extended anticipation for these movies works in its favor or against it. You know, we've been watching No Time to Die trailers for like nine months now. And will we now have to wait another nine months before we see Dune?

I don't know. I'm still going to see it. I'm still excited. Incredible cast. The right filmmaker for this story. Epic, epic tale, epic vision. I'm kind of hook, line and sinker on this kind of thing every time. But then also, you know, West Side Story, Spielberg's adaptation of the famed musical

News of the World, which is a big Tom Hanks release. Respect, which is the Aretha Franklin biopic starring Jennifer Hudson. And then, like we said, Wonder Woman 1984. So that's about 10 movies. I don't know if any of them are going to come out. I don't either. I look not good is what I would say. I think if you're Netflix,

you got to be licking your chops right now because you've got, you've got Mank, you've got Rebecca, you've got the trial of the Chicago seven. Just saw a teaser trailer of that yesterday. I got it. I got to bring something up here. I don't,

we're going to talk a lot about the trial of the Chicago seven. I'm very excited about it. We love Sorkin, right? He's a, he's an object of shared affection on this show. I need us to stop doing the teaser for the teaser trailer and then the teaser trailer and then the trailer.

I need us to pick one. Are we doing just teasers? Are we doing just teaser trailers? Are we doing trailers? Like, please. Okay. I agree with you. i mean june was the prime example of this where i just had to watch like five seconds of timothy chalamet in a cape and it was just like five four three two one watch the trailer another day i was like no

i'm not gonna do this yeah i'm kind of you know about me, but I'm just like almost out on trailers altogether. I've really been enjoying the film festivals, just rolling up and having no idea what the movie is about. Being like, okay, here we go. That has led to some just like very jarring things happening on my computer screen at like 9 a.m. And I wish I had maybe timed some of the viewing experiences a little more. But yeah, it's too much. And again, what are they supposed to do?

Because they can't actually release the movies. So the marketing is like the only way that they can like make money at this point. And they have to make a whole event out of the marketing so that more than $6 million worth of people will go see their movie when it finally opens. But I'm out. Netflix is in a fortunate position at the moment. I,

this is where I say, what the fuck is going to happen to movies, Amanda? I'm, I'm out. Netflix is in a fortunate position at the moment. I, this is where I say, what the fuck is going to happen to movies, Amanda? I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a bit bereft here. I'm concerned that things are not,

things are just not going to work out for the, the way that we imagine this mainstream movie going experience. I don't think that they are. And I don't mean to like sound jubilant or rejoicing in that in any way or be like, I told you so. But we have been talking about like a fundamental change in how we watch movies and the way that movies are released. And thus as a result, how movies are conceived and made and financed for a long time. And like, we're here, we're living in it. And I don't think it's going to go back a hundred percent to the way that it was before. Maybe the answer is drive-ins. We will talk about our drive-in experience and the movie Tenet, but first let's hear a quick word from our sponsor. Today's episode is brought to you by Heineken. Heineken would like to remind you that it's time for seasonal beers again. That's right. If you thought a Heineken. Heineken would like to remind you that it's time for seasonal beers again.

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because we're just going to talk very briefly about seeing Tenet at a drive-in. We drove to San Diego. We mentioned this last week on the show. This was a harebrained scheme that I cooked up after six days in Sedona. And I feel great about it. I think we made the right choice.

It was the hottest day of the year in Los Angeles. We got the F out of Dodge. We went down South. You spent a day at the beach. I did not because I'm pale. And then we saw a movie. How was that whole experience for you? It was nice.

The concept was like kind of like a Beach Boys song. Like I drove to San Diego and went to the beach and then went to a drive-in theater. In reality, and I love the Beach. And I think I basically moved to California to live that out. Um, in reality, I felt the, the, the presence of COVID-19 a little bit more just in terms of beach was quite crowded. I hope everyone is there as being safe. And then, you know, we waited in a parking lot for two hours to see a movie sitting in our cars side by side. So that was, it was different, but it was very fun. You know,

we made it, um, an adventure. You wisely, you didn't pitch this concept to me. You very wisely pitched it to my husband actually. And so you got him on board and he was very excited zach loves an adventure and i i said this last week but zach baron drove did this with us and drove both ways um which was i guess like 260 miles round trip and was like in good spirits the whole time so i'm very grateful to him but yeah it was nice we we met there wildly early 6.m. I don't really think that we needed to be there right at 6 p.m., though we were not the first people in line. I think we were like persons three and four. We had some tacos. That was fun.

We got to chat. And then we got to park right next to each other. And we each got to learn how to turn off our headlights, which took a very long time, which was really embarrassing. But we did because we didn't want to disrupt other people's viewing experiences. And it did feel like an event. It felt like we were having a fun adventure. And I think that put me in exactly the right mindset to see this movie. Me too. I was very focused on the movie and very focused on the experience. And frankly, there just wasn't anything else going on. I think we were fortunate to even have a vacation day following our experience. So there was really no

anxiety other than is my house's power going to burn down and my fuse box going to melt, which did in fact happen, unfortunately for me. but I was, yeah, we both, we both lost power. Yeah. But being away from that, that frustration was actually a good thing for us and helped us enjoy the movie. And also I think the drive and experience specifically for Tenet was, was good and bad. I mean, obviously I would have preferred to have seen this movie on an IMAX screen. I would have preferred to have seen it in a movie theater with a big responding crowd. But that not being possible right now, given our decision making, I thought having control of the volume in our car on the FM dial was very meaningful for this movie. Because, you know, as Adam Neiman pointed out when he was on the show a couple of weeks ago, there's some curious decisions in the sound

mixing of this movie. And I didn't struggle with it as much as I expected to because I felt like it was quite variable for me. And when you go to see a movie in an IMAX theater, they don't give you a knob with your seat. You sit there and you listen to what they have tuned. And so while the picture may not have been as perfect as I would have wanted it to, while my windshield may not have been great, while I didn't love people stepping on their brake light in the middle of the movie and thus distracting me from what was happening on the screen, which does happen from time to time. For the most part, it was a pretty good way to see the movie. It was a pretty focused and contained way to see the movie. I wasn't looking at my phone the whole time. It didn't present the same challenges that the couch bound viewing presents. And so maybe that influenced my, my passion for the movie.

Maybe that made me like it more than I would have liked it if I had seen it under different circumstances, I'm willing to accept that. And I obviously have some complicated feelings about Christopher Nolan's movies. I don't like most of his movies that are like this movie, which is to say high concept original stories that are meant to say something about the human experience. I think I personally struggle with him when he approaches that and have

pretty much since inception. I like the Batman movies quite a bit, especially The Dark Knight. I love Memento. I like The Prestige. That's probably the last one of this type that I liked a lot. And so I went in a little bit skeptical into this movie and I came out really loving it. And I came out really loving it for one very simple reason, which is it felt like the first time that Chris Nolan was less interested in making a big emotional point about the meaning of his movie and instead just let his big idea rip. He was just like, I just want to make something that looks like this and does this, visually does this and tells this kind of story. So for you, you love Inception. You like a lot of those movies that I have more of a hard time with.

How did you feel about, where do you feel like this movie fits into that hierarchy? That's a great question. I think that the reason, let's not say love Inception. I wouldn't say it's on like my 100 best movies of the decade, but I had a great time at it. And I think what I was able to do in those movies, and I think what the way that we saw Tenet really enabled me to do with Tenet is just to quote the movie, and it's not spoiling it. And Adam Neiman already quoted this line on an episode of this podcast, but to not try to understand it, just feel it. And I think I go into a really surface level understanding. I do what Christopher Nolan, as you just said, finally is able to do in this movie, which is

just like the movie looks like this. It's got an idea. I'm going to roll with it. And I think I probably was just always like, I don't care about the emotional stuff. And in this movie, as we will demonstrate later in this podcast, I didn't really try to follow any of the plot at some point. I was just kind of like, OK, I got the big idea here and I'm just going to like let it wash over me. And you can do that with this movie because of how it is constructed and because he's made a few choices. And and I thought and I had a great time. I also just want to say the other thing that he did this movie, and we'll talk more about the performances. Um, but John

David Washington in particular, and also Robert Pattinson, um, just like have a charm Olympics for two hours. And it doesn't have, as you said, that like emotional somber, like, like quality, they are, they are serious moments, but they are having fun and it's palpable. And, and that means I had fun too. Yeah. I think if you look at Inception and Interstellar in particular, those are very self-serious films and they're films that are about trauma, that are about love through time and space, that are about family, they have these big weighty themes. And more than that, they're expositional themes. They're themes that the characters talk about in the movie,

which I always struggled with, you know, because either you're making your puzzle movie or you're making your emotional drama. I respect that he's trying to fuse those two things. And I respect that millions of people love them. I have always felt like they're a bit clumsy when he tries to do that. This movie, to your point about Washington and Pattinson and just the general energy, it just feels like Nolan had been watching Bond and Mission Impossible movies. And he was like, I want to make one of

those, but with my stuff. And I love those movies. I especially love Mission Impossible movies. And so it was kind of fascinating to watch somebody who has his skills and his talent, apply that talent to a movie like that and use his, you know, the way his brain works and his obsession with time and the way that time operates to this. And, you know, maybe you'll disagree with me, but I don't, nobody ever goes to a James Bond movie and thinks that it's going to tell them something meaningful about the world. You know, that's not the point of a James Bond movie. Now, you may be able to take something

from a James Bond movie that is meaningful, but they don't force you to accept the theme of the film, right? Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, I left a note on the outline that this was like very rude to Skyfall, but it is true that I didn't go into Skyfall accepting like a dissertation on the concept of empire in James Bond movies and the world at

large. It just, and, and, and endings, it just kind of happened. And also they did some like really cool set pieces and Daniel Craig wore a suit.

So yes, it's just, it's a, it's a benefit. It's a bonus. If you get a little extra thought with your movies. And if you've heard me talk about The Dark Knight on the rewatchables or on this show, you know that I basically just sound like a 13-year-old when I describe the scene of the

truck flipping over during the chase sequence. I'm like, that was just badass. That's just incredible action filmmaking. And it gives me a chill every time. I love it. He has that power. He has those skills. He has that vision. And this movie is basically just him applying it for five or six different sequences. And in between that, it's just two cool, handsome young guys talking a lot.

Now there's other aspects of it. And we'll talk about the other aspects and not everything works. This is not a perfect movie. It's not a five-star film. I'm not suggesting it as such, but for what it is attempting to do, I think it's incredibly successful. And part of it is because of those

set pieces and the way that we saw them. We talked about extraction on this show over the last six months. Very cool action movie, very cool set pieces. It's a little different when you get to see it at a drive-in than sitting on your couch and watching these bravura, you know, breathlessly choreographed sequences. And not to mention Nolan is just is a cut above when it comes to that stuff. And also just the scale, like talk about how he made this movie. Oh, yes. I mean, I believe it was filmed on three different continents, seven different countries. You can see it.

And I have always liked movies filmed on like multiple locations. That's one of the things I love about a James Bond movie. But I'll tell you right now, like when you are not traveling anywhere to get to go see the world, it feels like such a luxury and it feels so just big. You know, the other thing is that it's a big, weighty Hollywood film. And so all of the pieces have to be big and weighty. And so in this case, after years of working with Hans Zimmer, Nolan is working with Ludwig Nurensen,

who people may know from Black Panther or The Mandalorian. He's really kind of like the up and coming star in mainstream movie scoring. And this score is fire. It's incredible. And I've talked to a few people who haven't had the chance to see the movie and they're dying because they really want to listen to the score just to listen to it. It's like it has a propulsiveness that is so perfect for this. And frankly, like I was a little tired of Hans Zimmer working with Christopher Nolan.

I actually got a little bit bored of the Interstellar and Dunkirk scores. Those are not my favorites. They don't have quite the same power as the Dark Knight and Inception stuff. So I loved hearing that. And as you said, love John David Washington as James Bond. It's just great to have another movie star. Tremendous stuff. We have to talk about the suits and the boat wear,

and we'll talk more about it, but that I can just say exceptional boat wear with regards to any movie is really important. I turned to my husband in the middle of this movie. Let me just say,

drive-ins, I was a lot chattier than I normally am, which was very fun because I had another person in the car, but I definitely turned to him. And Sean,

I also want to pitch you on this. I just think that this is what you guys should be wearing. The close fit polo with the buttons up and the sport jacket over it. I think that you guys can make this work. I think I will respect all of you a lot more if you dress this way. I don't know if that's something that you're interested in. That in 2021, just let's make it happen. Put it on the vision board.

That would require me needing to leave my house and wearing actual clothes that are not gym shorts. So we'll see if we get to that point. But if we do, maybe I will subscribe to the polo and the suit jacket,

which, you know, historically doesn't give off a good energy. That gives off a little bit of a like dad at the quinceanera at the at the bar mitzvah energy it's about the tailoring okay and it really it's it it works i i was very pro um it's an it's an incredibly styled film obviously it's the production design is amazing the costumes are amazing um the score is wonderful all of that stuff that you come to expect from a Christopher Nolan movie,

from a big event movie like this. It is very confusing. There's, there's no getting around the fact that it's a very, very, very difficult movie to understand just narratively. And I'm sure that there are some people who are listening to this, who are like,

who are thinking Sean is a hypocritical piece of shit because he has criticized movies in the past for being confusing and not living up to their promise. And I have, this who are like who are thinking sean is a hypocritical piece of shit because he has criticized movies in the past for being confusing and not living up to their promise and i have but as i said i don't care if movies that are not really about anything other than themselves are confusing i only care and i frankly they become much more interesting to me they become like dada you know art pieces when they're confusing and they don't aspire to be big, meaningful stories, as opposed to something that is insistent upon its ideas and, and it still doesn't, doesn't really work logically. So I, you know, I assume that you struggled a little bit to kind of understand what was happening at times in the movie. Yeah, I don't really know, but, but,

and I look forward to exploring that, but I do think that there is also like a one sentence summary of this movie that you can understand. And I, at some point I just started watching it and I was like, okay, this. And it doesn't really matter until the very end, because even that one sentence explains most people's motivations and most of the set pieces. And you can like go along with the visual flair and the big score and be really exciting it doesn't quite you can't totally understand the the ending a hundred percent or at least the last scene again sorry no spoilers but um but but i do think that

there is something to just like there is a hidden simplicity to it. Like, you can get bogged down in all this stuff or you can just be like, oh, okay, this. Yeah. And one thing that's been interesting just about the sort of people's experience of seeing the movie is not only is it not doing great in theaters, but it got a B cinema score, which seems like a fine grade. But in fact, it's the worst grade that a Nolan movie has gotten since The Prestige. And I'm sure a lot of that is accounting for the difficulty to understand what's happening in the film. And I'm sure some of it is related, frankly, to being in a movie theater and the general anxiety that people have and a movie needing to be great to have justified whatever perceived risk they're taking. And so I look at that on the one hand

as it's obviously mitigated quite a great bit by what's going on in the world. But also the fact that the prestige is the last time he got a B, and I feel like that's one of the most complete and thoughtful movies he's ever made. It kind of says a lot to me about what kind of movies of his I enjoy

versus what kind of movies of his really made his name. And so I found that fascinating. And as I said, I think I'm just, I'm content with the idea of just overreacting to have gotten a movie like this, just desperately wanting a movie like this, this being the longest stretch of my life in which I did not have a movie like this to watch and think about and enjoy. And so I'm just, I just, it's like a, it's a modicum of gratitude that I'm trying to express here. A hundred percent. And I, we are absolutely, absolutely affected by the circumstances in which we watched it. And that's both in that we are people who really love movies and hadn't seen like a big budget movie in months and that the, the future

of those types of movies is very uncertain. And so we were very grateful. I think we also saw it like an adventure format and that was very fun. And like, it was, I was just kind of like, I don't care that I don't know what's going on. I'm just like, it's, you know, this is fun. It's like summer camp. And, and I'm very curious with people who are not, who are in possibly like a more stressful situation. And I too would find sitting in a theater for two and a half hours. And, you know, even with precautions, just kind of like trying to monitor, okay, well, like that person is,

they were eating and so their mask was off for this long. Like it'd be stressful. And I think that that would affect your experience as well. Like movies do have context. How you watch them really does shape your experience of them, which is something that we have, we will continue to talk a tremendous amount about. But I think you and I got best case for this. And I'm just happy.

I'm grateful because I missed it. And I was really glad to have seen a movie. Should we spoil this movie? Should we talk about it? I mean, we can try. The select few people who have had a chance to see it like we have. Please, please, please turn off your podcast right now if you don't want to have it spoiled i like i really i don't want to spoil it

for you because of the joy that i felt seeing this movie and i don't want to take away anyone's joy and also just like i can't be responsible for at this point you got to take ownership of your life we said spoilers turn it off okay good okay for those of you who are in the Tenet Allegiant, thank you for sticking around. I do want to talk about this movie again in the future. This won't be the last time we talk about it. I really want to know what Chris Ryan thinks. I'm eager for him to see it.

But what I want to do here is I want you to try to explain what happened in Tenet. Can you explain the plot of this film? Okay, I'm going to try. I think there's some things I really have a handle on. I have not gone and read any of the Reddit theories or the whatever. So this is just like from memory of me sitting in the car. All right.

So John David Washington, CIA, some kind of special op situation. And he is doing an op at an opera house shout out to all my quantum of solace fans and then it it goes wrong sort of i believe it's in it's in the ukraine and kiev i want to say and it goes wrong and there's just like a lot of things are happening and a lot of people are moving around and being like that wasn't supposed to happen but at the very end there is a bullet that is lodged into one of the concert seats and the bullet unlodges itself and like and and that is the thing that happens to bullets and that becomes the focal point of the um of much of the rest of the movie so the job goes bad whatever john david washington tries to um kill himself with a cyanide pill but then it turns out it wasn't a real cyanide pill and then well he's been he's been captured so right right the job

goes bad the bullet unlodges itself and it appears that someone who is aiding him, a masked soldier, has unlodged this bullet, has unfired it, and shoots a gunman, someone who has targeted John David Washington, who's going to kill John David Washington. So he dislodges the bullet. Oh, that's right. And it kills the person who was going to kill John David Washington. Nevertheless, he's still apprehended. And he's being questioned in a rail yard. Right. And he's not going to give up his crew because that's the kind of guy he is.

So he takes the cyanide pill. Except it wasn't really a cyanide pill. And so he wakes up on a boat, first of many boats. And he has passed some sort of test. And he is informed by one of film's classic that guys um that he has passed the test and so the next level of his adventure um but the that guy is martin donovan okay great the great martin donovan yes i said one of the world's great that guys but this is my experience okay and to me he's a that guy i'm loving it keep going and so he

isn't he's basically informed of his next mission, but his next mission doesn't really have any specifics. All he can be told, he's given a hand gesture, which is if you interlock your fingers and then flatten your palms into like a straight line. I want to say like, I don't really think the movie made enough of this hand gesture and like, I really enjoyed it.

But anyway, so it's this hand gesture and the word tenant and that's like all the guy knows and so John David Washington has to like figure out his next mission using those two clues so as you said very mission impossible but also some elements of bond as evidenced by the whole like opera house raid. Okay. So I don't really remember how he finds Clements Poise, aka Fleur Delacour from Harry Potter, but he does. He is directed to her by Martin Donovan after Martin Donovan basically tells him, this is Tenet.

She's going to help you understand what Tenet is. Okay. And she's basically the M of this operation to continue the James Bond. And he presents her with the magic bullet. And he's like, what is this? And she's like, oh, you've, you know, you found another piece of our treasure trove. And oh my God. Okay, here we go. So what she says to him, she unveils like, it's kind of like Batman in the Batman cave where, like, all the weapons come out, you know, in a lot of different movies. That very exciting moment of, like, ta-da, here's all our cache of weapons.

But instead of this being, like, a cache of weapons for John David Washington to use, it's, like, the science experiment and the point of interest um she's like basically in the future there's a giant world war but in the future they've also invented technology um where the weapons can travel back in time they reverse the entropy and so but all of these weapons were like from they traveled back from the war in the future yes sort of yes she's basically only showing bullets though she's not showing weapons she's just saying that these are bullets that have been sent through time and are now inverted entropy which are allowing them to be fired in in in reverse fashion and thus more unpredictable and and more confusing and more impossible to basically defend against and and she at least believes they're manufactured in the future right and she also says don't try to understand it just feel it

and that has something to do with like him trying to pick it up and he has to like make himself think that he dropped the bullet in order to be able to hold it do you remember this and i have to be honest like the this the whole like psychology to physics element of this movie is one of the things that i didn't really completely understand but we'll get there. Basically, it's like a physics weapon. They're messing with physics. I think that's well put. Well, that's well put because that's when I was just kind of like, well, you know what? I'm never going to understand this because I'll tell you what.

I studied very hard in school. I did all my algebra. I did all of this stuff that was like very literal and you could like add things on the page. But as soon as you got to conceptual physics stuff, I was like, well, this is not how my brain works. So, so I was like, okay, it's a physics war. Cool. Anyway, John David Washington is like, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to find out, we're going to, you know, run the things on this bullet and find out its composition and I'll find out who makes it. And then I'll find out like who does the future war obviously it's more complicated than that but

he does this and then he goes to and he identifies like an arms dealer and i want to say mumbai is that correct correct and they do a very and oh and so he goes there and then robert pattinson shows up and it's just like hey i'm going to be your buddy uh and we're just like here in this gentleman's club and i'm wearing a suit and i like don't really have any biographical details but no one cares and i'm very charming and john david washington's like cool i'm also charming and then they just like go off into the universe and do they quote casablanca at this point or did I just make that up uh I believe that's at the end of the film no okay um so he's like John David Washington's like I gotta go see this guy and Robert Pattinson's like cool we'll bungee jump into the building and you know that's like what that's what happened

that's right and it's and that's a nice thing because if you want to explore the whole idea of this movie is doing things backwards and forwards and they're bungee jumping in it's very cool it also just like looks great it's one of those great set pieces they show up and they're like hey mr arms dealer did you make this bullet and he's like no that was lady macbeth and then the wife shows up and says tenant and she turns out to be the person running the whole organization. This is Priya. Yes. And she, oh my God, I don't remember any of this, except the takeaway from the conversation is like, it's Kenneth Branagh. Right? Yes. She essentially indicates that the cartridges were purchased and inverted by a Russian oligarch named Andrei Sator. And Andrei Sator was born and raised

in a place called Stalsk-12. Do you remember this? Which was a closed city with nuclear testing in the former Soviet Union. And Andrei Sator can communicate with the future somehow. And that's how he's able to acquire these bullets and invert them.

Okay. So, and I don't really even know what inverting means at this point because it's not, is he doing the inverting or did the future invert it? And is he just like managing the inversion? It's not really clear to us.

I'm not totally sure about that. Okay. Anyway, it's Kenneth Branagh. We got to find Kenneth Branagh. Somehow finding Kenneth Branagh involves one transcendent scene with Michael Caine and another gentleman's club in London. And Michael Caine is like, what you got to do is you got to use the wife to get to Kenneth Branagh. And then there's some like really good jokes about Brooks Brothers and English snobbery and to-go orders.

Great scene. Loved it. 10 out of 10. And then... You're doing great okay what's so and then so you got to find the wife and so the wife is elizabeth debicki okay and so they go to yet another club and there's something about like a forged painting that i think I was supposed to understand something about like authenticity and also like, you know, doubles. But I didn't really invest in that a ton. But basically, yeah.

So I think what happened and I agree that this is somewhat confusing, but essentially Sator's wife is estranged, but he needs to keep control over her. And the way that he does that is he owns a forged Goya drawing. And the forged nature of the drawing essentially allows him to blackmail his estranged wife over time because she is, you know, she's what would what's that person do in the art world? They're sort of like an authenticator. And she failed to effectively authenticate this forgery and so it would essentially ruin her i guess uh professionally to be outed in this way right also maybe she was involved in working with the forger in order to um to get what to to pass this off as a real one to her husband.

So I appreciate the Thomas Crown Affair aspects of this plot line, but I didn't really invest in it. The other thing that's important to know is that they're estranged. She really would like to no longer be married to Kenneth Branagh, but she is concerned over custody of their son. And he is using custody of their son as a way to keep her in the marriage. And there has been like a recent trip to Vietnam, I believe, on the boat where she did her best to be kind to him and try to get custody of her son.

And it didn't work. And so she really doesn't like him but because she is not she's still married to kenneth branna after all this is shared then all of the kenneth branna's henchmen show up and then john david washington has to fight all of them and that is an awesome scene and i think it involves like a cheese grater or something but he's he's just like really kicking ass in this kitchen of the club and it is dope and i was just like this is an action star right here he is amazing so he former former uh college football wide receiver john david washington his athleticism on display in a profound way tremendous stuff so he defeats all the guys and that's good and then I believe as a result is Elizabeth Debicki is like somewhat

impressed and decides to be on she is she's like I'll work with you but also it's not going to matter because they're all these people are about to come in and beat you up. And he won. So all this to say the gang is finally together, right? You got John David Washington, you got Robert Pattinson, and you got Elizabeth Debicki. They need to somehow defeat Kenneth Branagh from turning bullets into bullets that can fire backwards. Then hijinks ensue, is what i would say and there are there are several very we can't yada yada you you were doing so well you're gonna start to yada

yada no no no but i i would say that was like all the setup that's just everything that you have to understand in order to get like the three main characters and the villain together right like now we know our teams we sort of know what we're fighting for and then there are like an intense series of set pieces that are awesome that are um meant to where john david washington and co are trying to like stop Kenneth Branagh and Kenneth Branagh is like, no, I will,

you know, win or whatever. And there's the driving one, which is amazing. And they're in a car and it's not totally clear to me what they're, I guess they're chasing. Who are they chasing? Why,

why are they in the car? It's very exciting when they are in the car. Did you? I feel like you leap leapt very far ahead. What else happened? Well, so they had to they had to steal the drawing, right? That do the art heist. Oh, shit.

Oh, that's right. I totally forgot about the Freeport, which was not a thing I knew about until this movie. Did you know about Freeport? Is that a real thing? Yeah about until this movie. Did you know about free ports? Is that a real thing? Yeah, they're real. Okay. So yes, there's a whole sequence with a free port, which is basically like a locked container at airports or shipping yards where you can, things do not have to go through customs. Essentially you can ship things under privately, right? Is that essentially what they they do but you can also house them there so you don't have to pay taxes and so it's like a very

she she like private museum slash storage facility where you can keep like the picasso that you bought and and like don't want to ever pay taxes on and you can like quote go look at it but it is really like an intense uh safety deposit box straight out of a bond movie i i really feel in this particular case you're right i totally forgot about the freeport and they go to the freeport to try to find the the forged painting yes they go to the it's essentially a heist where they want to get the forged goya drawing and in an effort to um release cat from satyr Sator's power and also to draw him out in a way. And in doing so, there's this very complicated heist in which a plane has to crash into the free port to draw attention away from security and emergency services so that they can effectively

accomplish this heist. And as the heist is happening, we get a sense of the turnstile and we get a sense of inversion. And the way we get a sense of that is when John David Washington's character encounters a masked man who fights him in reverse in kind of one of the bravura set pieces of the movie.

And through these corridors, these two figures fight. One is John David figures fight one is john david washington one is a masked man yes that's true that that is true and was it clear to you visually the way that we were watching it that it was like a complete mirror image fight how do you mean i i'm just saying that one of the things that I did lose in the drive-in experience was I think some of like the precision of the visual aspects of the set pieces as they related to like the larger concept of just kind of like... I got it. I got it. There's a moment when he kind of like slides across the floor where it's clear that it's a movement in reverse where you can see that like things are not the way a normal hand-to-hand combat sequence

would normally play out. And that moment is meant to reflect that it's not just bullets that can be inverted. In other words, it's everything. Yeah, yeah, yes. And there is a moment where Robert Pattinson, I'm not using the character's names because John David Washington's character

actually doesn't have a name. He's just called the protagonist. So I'm just, I'm sticking with everyone's real names. One more case I think there for the fact that I think Nolan has gone full self-aware in this movie. Yeah, for sure. You know, like that is actually part of the point, which is part of what I like about it, but continue.

There is one point where Pattinson says something to him. I don't understand. They're looking at bullet holes or something. And in that scene, and he's like, where do they come from? And there's a dramatic pause. And I yelled, it hasn't happened yet in my car. And then John David Washington says, it hasn't happened yet. And I was like, yeah. So again, even if you aren't following

like every aspect of the choreography or the science, like the big picture idea and that particular scene being like, okay, we can, actual events or people can be a bit shifted with in this universe is communicated in that scene. You're right. So I'm sorry that I forgot about that.

Also, just like the concept of free ports is really fascinating to me. And I'm going to be doing more reading about that at a later date. Not that I'll ever get to use one, but just that people are out there doing that. Do you remember where it goes from here? Oh, okay.

So the painting isn't there. It's not the painting. it's not the real painting right satyr has the painting still intact is this when john david washington goes on the boat yes he goes to the amalfi coast yes introduced to satyr by cat right and there's a whole thing about like cutting off your balls and stuffing them in your throat

or something. And that was very vivid and stayed with me. This is when we really meet Kenneth Branagh and Kenneth Branagh is a full-blown honey-baked ham

in this movie. He is gnawing on the scenery like a crocodile. It's an unbelievable ridiculous Branagh thing. And for some people it's too much. For me, I really enjoyed it.

It is very Bond. He was just being a Bond villain. Yes, 100%. That's right. And then they also go on catamarans. Yes. Also, this movie, by the way, Christopher Nolan also likes the 1999 Thomas Crown Affair. And I just feel a kinship with him. And that's great.

But at some, they're doing things with catamarans that you're not supposed to do with them. Not a sailor. And then at some point, Kenneth Branagh, is he pushed in the water by Elizabeth Zbicki? Cat pushes him in the water in an attempt to drown him. Okay. And then John David Washington makes the decision to circle back and save him. Correct. And she's very mad about that, obviously,

because she is in an abusive relationship and she saw this as her way to escape. And also she thought that she was in a partnership with John David Washington. But he's basically like, I got a plan. It's, you know, don't try to understand it, just feel it. And then I don't remember how they get to the car the car really stayed with me that's coming pretty soon right um sort of yes

so essentially uh john david washington's character offers to help satyr retrieve a case of plutonium and so what they have to do is they have to steal the plutonium from an armored convoy and the way to do that is is they enlist a lot robert pattinson's character and john david washington's character procure a fire truck and a tractor trailer and a bunch of suvs and they track down this armored convoy and they surround it on all four sides and they infiltrate it and they remove what is believed to be the plutonium from this truck. And then this chase sequence ensues in which it seems like Sater is chasing after John David Washington's character trying to procure the plutonium from him, but John David Washington doesn't want to give it to him.

And there's a lot of confusion on the road. This sequence is like the singular set piece of the movie. It happens right kind of at the halfway point. And it's very confusing because at some point we see a car coming down the road in reverse. Right. And what the hell is happening? And that's in the trailer.

And that's kind of like the, right. Do you remember what happens then he gets they get it they get the plutonium and then the car with a car shows up going in reverse with kenneth brana and elizabeth to bicky in the back scene and i believe that kenneth brown is holding a gun to or some other weapon to eliz Bicky's person and is basically like, give me the plutonium or I'll kill her. And Robert Pattinson's like, don't do it. And John David Washington's like, I have to. And then he like throws the plutonium.

But maybe she gets shot anyway. He does save her, though. Yeah. No, he saves her. But he does give him the plutonium. He does save her though. Yeah. No, he saves her. But he does give him the plutonium. He does. And then he gets captured. And then she gets captured again.

And then they are all taken to a warehouse. Right. Where there's a turnstile. We saw the turnstile in the early sequence where the reverse fight was happening. But this is a turnstile that actually controls inversion. It's not the same one though. It's different, different warehouse, different turnstile as far as I can tell. But it seems like the setup of a turnstile is that you have to have some like plexiglass in the middle, right? It seems that way because you need to go forward and backward. Yes. And so we

watch the sequence happen where Sator holds Kat hostage and threatens to hurt her, but everything is happening in reverse. And through this plexiglass, you can hear inverted speech. And then that inverted speech is translated. So it sounds like it's moving backwards, just as it sounded at the beginning of this podcast. And we're trying to understand what it is that Sater wants. This is an inverted Sater communicating to a non-inverted protagonist about what he's going to do to Kat. And it's very confusing what's going on. At this point in the movie, this is where you really have to just let go, where you have to be like, they're kind of explaining the whole point of the movie, but not really. And he shoots Kat in an inverted fashion. And then he flees.

And then the protagonist and a group of soldiers decide that they have to go after Sator. And the only way to do that is to invert. Right. And also, all of that is being explained in part by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who shows up. Which is just shocking, because no one knew Aaron Taylor-Johnson was in this movie. And I was like, what is going on? Is that Aaron Taylor Johnson, who shows up. Which is just shocking because no one knew Aaron Taylor Johnson was in this movie. And I was like, what is going on? Is that Aaron Taylor Johnson? Then he's like, they're explaining all of this turnstile physics nonsense.

And I've given up long ago. It's very clear. And I'm just kind of like, okay, they're going to go backwards, but also forwards and some things are happening. And it's just, I'm just like, is that Aaron Taylor Johnson explaining the physics of this movie? And it was. And so, you know,

ultimately the end, it's like, we have to go back, right? That's kind of what they decide, which is, which is great. And then they do. And so they do the drive again, but it's from the inverted or other perspective. And that is like visually very cool because that's obviously such a cool set piece. And that just the idea that they run it back um like we're gonna do it again it it reminded me a little sean do you remember um when we went to see paul simon at the hollywood bowl and someone he played obvious child and then someone was like do it again and then he just like played obvious child again and it was awesome and but like i like a little bit there is this commentary of just like that was so dope do it again and he's like okay i'll do this amazing set piece again and that is

like the fun kind of meta part of this movie right of like it's playing with the you know i don't understand how the physics work but this idea of what you want and expect from a movie and how the how all the visual and time stuff works it's's pretty fun. Okay, so they do it again, but I don't remember what the result is the second time. They get Elizabeth's custody of Elizabeth Vicky, right? So two things. One, they get her back right away. And what he does is he puts her in the inversion chamber right away to heal her wound, essentially. She would have died, but he does it to heal her. And then he gets in that car in reverse. And we see him kind of figuring out how to be inverted. And then that car in that car in reverse and we see him kind of figuring out how

to be inverted. And then that car that we saw storming down the street in reverse that eventually flips over, it turns out is John David Washington's car and he flips over and the car catches on fire. But because he is inverting, he does not burn to death. Instead, he gets hypothermia because temperatures are running in opposite direction, just like language, just like body movements. Everything is an inversion. Now, that is where if you start to try to unpack that, your head starts to hurt a little bit. And that's also the thing where it's just like someone is like, the temperature runs in reverse in the inverted world. So you have hypothermia.

And you're just like, okay. Like, it's, sure, why not? They don't really go into any effort to like make that science real it's at this point when he gets saved that neil basically says i'm i'm a member of tenant like i'm a part of the tenant situation all of these soldiers they are familiar with tenant we need to go back to the freeport we need to run that whole experience back. We need to fight your past self. We need to reach the turnstile and then uninvert again. That's how we get out of this. Right. And he also explains the grandfather paradox, which is like the only thing that I remember from this

part. It's just like three people in the cargo hold and it's Robert. I also, I guess I didn't reflect on how much exposition and science Robert Pattinson had to do because I was just like watching Robert Pattinson do a Christopher Nolan impersonation and be like, let me tell you about the grandfather paradox. And I was like, this is pretty funny. But I missed those important plot points. But that makes sense. This is where most of the explication happens. From that moment when we realize he needs to go become inverted again,

all the way through the moment when he figures out that the plutonium is not plutonium, that in fact it is an algorithm, and the algorithm is essentially a

device that will destroy our present, sent from the future. That is the big reveal of the movie. Right. And then

is this when Elizabeth Debicki reveals that Kenneth Branagh is also very sick and that he has probably

synced the algorithm up to his like Apple Watch and like his health monitor. Yes. We get one more meeting with Priya in which John David Washington indicates

that he's the protagonist of this story. She explains the algorithm. She explains Sater's relationship to the future and what the future is giving to him. And she explains that she, in a way, is a part of this story too. We're all a part of this story and everything is happening in forward motion

and in backward motion. And there is a kind of uncontrollable aspect of it. We are the, the, the, the future is, is, is inevitable in a sense.

And that's when cat reveals that Sater's dying from pancreatic cancer. And, um, the, the algorithm, uh, is essentially time to his death. And so that's when they're in Vietnam and on vacation,

that's the timing of, of, of the death apparently. So they go back to that period. Right. Because she's like, we need to go to a time. He would want to die at a time when he's happiest.

And that was like probably Vietnam. So they're going to go back. And this is like the final set piece is to get the algorithm and detach it from his health monitor kill him disassemble the algorithm which a lot of people have pointed out has like a lot of um similarities to like the harry potter horcrux situation um second harry potter reference on this podcast i I, you know, what's up, binge mode? And then they're going to disassemble it and time will just keep going forward, I guess, normally. That's their goal?

Essentially. So they track the algorithm to Stalsk 12, which is where Kenneth Branagh's character was born and raised. That's where he was communicated with at a young age by the future, whoever these future gods are that are communicating with him. And so they have to go to Stalsk 12 and Kat has to go to Vietnam. So they've inverted into the past that are three main characters, protagonist, Neil, and Kat. She goes to Vietnam by boat. They go to Stalsk 12. They are joined by a group of soldiers in an attempt to commence what is called a temporal pincer movement, which is complicated. So half of the troops are moving forward in time to the blast zone where the explosion and the end of all the earth is going to happen.

The other half is moving in an inverted fashion. So you have this battle sequence, this war montage in which half the people are moving forward, half the people are moving backwards. They're all moving towards the same goal, which is to acquire and disassemble the algorithm. It's insane. It's like, do not try to understand it. It is nuts what's unfolding on screen and it's actually amazing to me that he got a major studio to give him money to do this sequence because you it is truly the clements posey like just go with the thing like you can't on you can't really wrap your head around what's going on yeah this was so all of that by the way is explained by aaron taylor johnson who you're still not sure if it's Aaron Taylor Johnson.

And it's like five minutes of jargon. And he's like very specifically explaining the tactics and all the science that will go back for it. My husband chose that moment to go to the bathroom and came back and he was like, what happened? And I literally, I swear to God, I was just like, they made a plan because that is literally all that I could explain to you. But it's impenetrable, I was just like, they made a plan because that is literally all that I could explain to you. But it's impenetrable, I found.

And I did have a little bit of trouble following the visual aspects of that last battle sequence just because I didn't know who was fighting for who and why. And you understand some people are going forward. Some people are going backwards. It's like a battle with time. That's pretty clear to anyone who's watching Tenet. But I did find just following some of the actual battle sequences to be a little bit challenging

without understanding what was going on. The Vietnam sequence is a little easier to follow. Kat goes back into time. She pretends to be her younger self. She has, you know, we're, we're meant to understand at this moment in their story that Kat had gone off

on a boat with their son and had gone out for the day, but then she shows up at the house and it's really the future version of Kat and she kills, she kills Sater and she kills him in an act of revenge, which is an aggressive move because they have not effectively acquired the algorithm yet. Right. But she doesn't kill him before he reveals that he's doing this because of climate change, which like, no, you can't.

Seriously, that's really important. And I stuck with that. He gives this whole, and I think, doesn't he give it the speech on the phone to John David Washington while she's just like on the boat? Am I making that up? No, I think he's just like, I am not like the future war is because of climate change.

And because the future is so mad at us because we fucked up the, the earth that they're like coming back to kill us, I guess. And then possibly, so it doesn't happen. So climate change doesn't happen. They're coming. It's like the, I, it's like the,

I guess it's like the if you kill baby Hitler thing, but applied to climate change and to Kenneth Branagh and our reality. And he's like, so I'm doing this because my son is, I'm dying. And also my son is living in a world that's dying. So I'm helping them. And also maybe you're meant to understand that because of like where he was born which was like a radioactive you know he's had to

deal with some of the effects of like human industrialization that this guy is doing it so he does it because of climate change but then they're like no you're no you're not you you know who this this villain character shares a serious resemblance to, right? This is Thanos that we're talking about here. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Right, of course. Yeah, inevitable.

I am inevitable. Anyway. Anyway. So she kills him. It's a crazy kill, right? She shoots him and she flips him over the boat and it's like his head smashes on the on the on the railing all the way down it's gnarly then she dives off the boat when she dives off the boat we get a reflection on a story that she had told

about her last happy moment with him and watching a woman free herself by jumping off of a boat and wishing she could be that woman when in fact we learned that she was that woman the whole time. It was just her future self having done this action. Now, that doesn't explain a lot of things. It doesn't explain how, like, why would the woman be jumping off if he was dead and she succeeded in killing him, then that moment wouldn't have happened. And, you know, the temporal realities here are very confusing. You have to hold a lot of different dimensions in your mind at one time. Yeah. And they, they introduced the grandfather paradox. It's just so Robert Pattinson can say like, no one knows. I don't know. It's not solved. And I think you're supposed to understand that. Like that's meant to be the, well, you know what,

this isn't going to completely add up. Because this is a philosophical problem that hasn't been resolved. But anyway, she kills him. She gets away. She makes it out. And then I guess they do make it to the algorithm in time to detach it from the health monitor. And so mission accomplished, essentially? Yes.

And in that time, the two teams, the blue team and the like mission accomplished essentially yes and in that time there's two the two teams the blue team and the red team are happening and we see an inverted masked corpse with a red trinket on its backpack come back to life and save the protagonist in the same way that someone with that same trinket saved him in the opera house and that's when we start to realize what's really happening here, which is that Neil and the protagonist are on a long journey together, forward and backward through time. and Aaron Taylor Johnson's character each have three different pieces of the algorithm and they're meant to part ways so that they don't, are not able to have the algorithm ever be rebuilt. This is when the protagonist notices

Neil's red trinket. And this is when it all comes together that this is, they've been doing this together for years. That's when Neil tells us that he was recruited by the protagonist years earlier. And then that's when he makes tells us that he was recruited by the protagonist years earlier and then that's when he makes the casablanca callback this is the this mission is the end

of a long friendship as opposed to the beginning of a beautiful one okay and that is confusing but i think it works i thought it worked i I enjoyed it. I thought it was like a heartfelt, funny moment between these two guys who I liked, who I felt on a journey with. Again, I don't understand what Aaron Taylor Johnson is doing there. I don't know why they introduced him. I was glad to see him. Why not? No, he's great. He's a fine actor and, you know, he brought me back to his role in Godzilla, but just very confusing why he's the third person in this in this segment um but then there is um basically like a final

segment like an epilogue almost right which is a little bit confusing too yeah did we forget the part when john david washington is just like i'm the protagonist um did i skip over that that's this part that's when he's in the back of the car with Priya. Oh, is that, that's the end? He doesn't say it in the previous conversation with Priya? Maybe he says it in that first conversation with Priya where she explains the algorithm to him. Yeah, yeah.

And anyway, he's just like, I'm the protagonist. And then I, this is my story, which I, again, I liked the self-awareness and the knowingness and we're just gonna lean into it. Yeah. The end note I found a little the knowingness and we're just going to lean into it. Yeah. The end note I found a little bit confusing. So we're back in London.

Priya, it looks like is going to have Kat killed. She's going to pick up her son or meet her son outside of his school. And instead, Priya is killed by the protagonist. And then it becomes clear that he is the one running Tenet. He is the agent in charge of everything. This is all his design. And then the movie ends. And you're like, wow, what a brain bender.

Jeez. Right. And then you go directly to Reddit. And you read all the stuff. You make sure that you understood what happened in the movie. And I will admit to only understanding about 60 to 70% of the movie. You learn all the things that happen. There are all kinds of drawings out there that explain it.

There are all kinds of memes already. The tenant Reddit community is strong, even though this movie has only made $20 million in the United States. It's fascinating. There are a few theories that you have not explored. made $20 million in the United States. It's fascinating. There are a few theories that you have not explored. One of them in particular is, is Robert Pattinson's Neil actually Elizabeth Debicki's son? I did read that. Which is not.

Apparently, it's not. It's not. It was not very supported. I mean, I appreciate the imaginative. And in the sense that there is that epilogue and you want Robert Pattinson to be a part of the team too because they had that nice friendship moment,, uh, I get it, but no, it's, it's not supported in the text. You've asked here, how did the time weapons work? Guess what? I don't know. I am not that smart. I don't have an answer to that. Um,

the movie is super confusing, but like, I think what I just want to understand. Okay. So I was alluding to that one sentence, which is just basically like they're in a time battle with the future. Okay. That's what it is. And some people you can go forward and back in time, but there's just like a war where time is sort of the weapon itself to,

um, or the, the tool to quote arrival, which this movie does also lean on in some cases. Um, great. So some people are fighting forward. Some people are fighting backwards. Like, is there anything, what does that mean? Is there any meaning? And I know you said that this worked for you because it's not, it's Christopher Nolan, like skipping the meaning and just kind of trying to play with like that actual the idea that movies are effect like in a like images over time and that's like honestly how they're constructed and so to manipulate that

is to it and I guess in a lot of ways it's about like making movies but like is there some sort of like physics thing that I just missed like is there a larger thing or it's just like, we're fighting time? I'm, I'm sure if we could get Neil deGrasse Tyson to come through, he could help us understand, but I just,

I don't understand. Um, I won't pretend to understand. The thing I thought about was this is a cool James Bond movie made by a guy who is super into the Christopher McQuarrie mission impossible movies. And it definitely feels like those guys are in a chess match right now. And I'm about it. I love it. I love that these two people are watching each other's movies. It feels in a very like big top franchisee mainstream

movie making way, the way that like Scorsese and De Palma were watching each other's movies in the 70s and being like, oh, yeah, well, what if I did this? And what we have is like a complex film, a maybe an unloved film in some ways. You and I obviously really appreciated it, even if we were confused by it. I'm looking forward to seeing it again. I kind of wanted to see it again before we had this conversation, though. I feel like I have a decent grasp of the story right now. And it's so hard to recommend something like this, right? Because I don't want to tell people to go into movie theaters. I just don't think that that's responsible, but I do think that there's something to celebrate

about the movie. Yeah. I also, I'm very curious to see if other people respond the same way to it that we do. Like everything that you and I just spent 20 minutes trying to recreate is like nonsense. And it was very fun, visual nonsense. And it was a great ride. But at the end you're, you are kind of like, okay, but wait, what? And I think that for us and the way we saw the movie and the series of decisions that

we made to get to see the movie, that was like a fun wait, what? And some people may not feel that it rewards like the amount of time and anticipation and what they wanted from it. And I'm curious to see whether people think it's fun or think it's frustrating. feel that it rewards like the amount of time and anticipation and what they wanted from it. Um, and, and I'm curious to see whether people think it's fun or think it's frustrating. I thought it was very fun. I think the suits just really had a tremendous amount to do with it.

I, we just great suits across the board. I thought it was very fun too. And, uh, I don't, I, I think we've said it all.

I think we've described the film in extraordinary depth and with the incredible amount of confusion. I'm sure it won't be the last time that we talk about it um amanda thanks for thanks for playing this game this game of recount the movie maybe we'll maybe we'll return to recount the movie at some point down the road um later this week we'll talk about tiff and the new york film festival and tell your ad and what what's coming out of those film festivals so stay tuned for that and also i hope you'll stay tuned for Antonio Campos because I'm about to speak to him about his new movie, The Devil, all the time. Delighted to be joined by the filmmaker Antonio Campos. Antonio, thank you for joining us. How are you? I'm good. Thank you for having me.

Antonio, I'm such a fan of your films. I'm excited to talk to you about this new one. I'm good. Thank you for having me. Antonio, I'm such a fan of your films. I'm excited to talk to you about this new one. I'm curious how you came upon Donald Ray Pollock's novel, The Devil All the Time. I was given it by a friend of mine who's best known as a music supervisor. His name is Randall Poster. So Randy had been working on a few films that I had directed and one that I had produced. And, and, and anyway, he came up to me and said, I have this book. I really love it. I think if you, if you love it, let's try and make a movie of it. And I read it and I really loved it. And I knew that I knew right away, I'd like to do it, but I like to write it with my brother. My brother

loved the book too. And that's, that was, that was it. We were off. Is that typical for you to look for, you know, someone to team up with to do something like this? No, no, I usually write on my own, but, um, in this case, I just felt like, um, I just, I just felt like my brother and I was always wanting to do something together. And this felt like something that was right up his alley. And it felt like the thing that we could do. And also because I was finishing Christine, and then I got into the center. So there was all this stuff happening, so it was nice to have somebody else to be working with and not, and not have it all on my shoulders.

Did you, well, what was it in, in Donald's book that you clicked with that you connected to? I mean, right away it was, I felt it was, um, well,

right away, the book is really cinematic. You like, you just, the first sequence is like, is, um, is,

uh, the, the scene in the movie where Willard beats up those poachers to teach his son a lesson. You know, to teach his son sort of, you know, that you just got to pick your time. There's a lot of no good sons of bitches out there. So that's the first scene. So it just grabs you and you just, it's a visceral scene. Like you feel, you feel Willard, you, you meet the prayer log. And I was like, there's just so many ideas right away.

This notion of like a father teaching a lesson in the worst way possible. This, this place called the prayer log where he goes to pray. And as I, the book continued as I went through the book, I was like, oh, there's a couple genres at play here. Southern Gothic and hard-boiled fiction. These are like two of my favorite kinds of genres. And so I just, I just, I was, I was, I had never read anything that blended those two kinds of, the two kinds of storytelling and two kinds of worlds. Um, and there were so many rich characters and so many rich, um, settings that make up the book. I was just like this, I was,

I was taken by it. And then its core, you know, it's this generational story about what this father passes on to his son in terms of his own trauma and his own relationship with faith. And, and I love that there was like, there was all these different branches and detours and different stories that play, but really at the end of the day, it's really a story of a father and son and the son coming to terms, coming to finding peace with the sins of his father and,

and moving past that. So that's just a really kind of universal story. And, and, and the way that that connected to faith and this kind of complicated relationship with faith really spoke to me. And so, you know,

that, that all of that was what was in there. So this was so much, you know, like there's so was in there so this was so much you know like there's so much in there it's like i go i would love to make this a movie i could did you did you speak to donald at all before uh embarking on writing the screenplay i might have emailed with him at some point but my brother and i were very nervous to talk to him at first we felt a lot of pressure you know like we really love the book and we really wanted to to do justice to the world that don created so we you know we were like let's just like let's and we also didn't want to that's like a a thing that kind of can distract you so it's

like let's not have that distraction let's focus on trying to adapt the book and and we know we're going to reach out to Don at some point. And so we waited. I think we waited about a year or so before we reached out and really connected. And then that was the beginning of a really special friendship that developed over the course of four years. Can you tell me a little bit about how you built your version of Knock'em Stiff Ohio? At first, the plan was to shoot in Knock'em Stiff and to shoot in Chillicothe, which is the sort of inspiration for me, where Don actually lives.

Don was born in Knock'em St so you know first i have the book right like i'm building an image of my head based on the book and then i go to knock him stiff and the thing with knock him stiff is that like knock him stiff so many of the houses that don describes in the book don't exist anymore you know like people have knocked them down and, and, um, you know, they build new constructions, there's trailers, there's, you know, the, the, the kind of places, the kind of hangouts that Don talked about in the books that, that, that were there just don't exist anymore. So, you know, I had to go off of what Don, um, what Don told me, um, and kind of look for inspiration from real life. Like just kind of just scouting, scouting is kind of such an important part for me as a director. It's really

kind of where you, you know, I can't draw. I don't know how to draw. I know how to look through books and the internet and find images that speak to me and i know uh what has a feeling when i see it you know so so so much of that um world building happens um over the course of location scouting when you're uh into in prep for a movie you know i was thinking about movies like a cape fear and the honeymoon killers to some extent, Night of the Hunter, watching your movie. Are you the kind of person who watches things to get inspired before a film or do you try to stay away from that? Oh, yeah. I'll take learn from that. So I, I definitely, um, watched a lot. Uh, I even, I mean, I tried to sell, it i was like i have stuff on the background i kind of

revisit scenes i definitely i did i did look at cape fear i did look at night of the hunter and i looked at like um what was the other one uh honeymoon killers yeah um yeah um but really you know we didn't want to create a kind of expressionistic version of Southern Gothic. We were kind of interested in just kind of like finding spaces that communicated the kind of tone and mood that we felt when we thought of Southern Gothic. Or in the case of this, I would say Midwestern Gothic. So we watched those movies, but really they weren't like, it was like, this is not the language of this i would say midwestern gothic so so we watched those movies but but really they

weren't like it was like this is too this is not the language of the movie where the language of the movie really came from more um kind of classic americana like um badlands like um deer hunter godfather sort of generational sagas, Once Upon a Time in America. Looked for that kind of scope and kind of that sense of history in every frame, that sense of the past

in the present. And so those kinds of movies definitely played more of a role in the identity of this movie. And even something like Blue Velvet, which is exploring a certain kind of the nightmare of small-town America. So, you know, I do watch movies, but I didn't watch the movies that one might expect I watched for this movie you mentioned trying to capture the tone one thing in all of your films is there's just this overwhelming sense of dread and I'm always so fascinated by how a filmmaker can create that

is that a is that a conversation that you're having with people or is that something that you know how to handle and you know how do you how do you how do you consistently make that happen in your films it's funny because i don't know i i um i uh it's just kind of like when you're dealing with a certain kind of subject matter um and you have a patience with the camera and you allow actors to sink into a mood that kind of that kind of feeling just kind of starts to manifest and um a lot of dread is waiting it's patience it's like the the anticipation of something so if you start to approach a scene with some patience and don't rush your actors you'll find that that kind of um organically uh starts to appear um then you augment it with um obviously the way that you frame something the way that uh the way the way that the light is playing in the scene.

What do you see? What do you not see? And then the sound and the music. And, you know, so you still, you know, it's just kind of like you start to build and build and you know what sounds are going to unsettle an audience or put people sort of like on the edge of their seat. And what sounds and what kinds of images might calm or soothe an audience. So, you know, it's just being aware of what an image and what the sound is doing but I think a lot of what creates a sense of dread that one

that a filmmaker can can do is be patient be patient with your actor and be patient with your camera what is it that brings you back to these kind of recurring themes I mean I revisited After School and

and Simon Killer uh you know like the four films they certainly feel connected you know there is an intensity there there's a there's a sense of violence what is it that brings you back to stories like this over and over again you know it's it's it's it's weird i don't i don't have like a good answer for for that except that i think you're drawn to what you're drawn to. And somehow certain stories speak to you and you don't look for a rhyme or reason. You know,

each one of these things is a different flavor. Like they all fit together. And I'm, you know, people would say, some people might say like, you after school man like that's a totally different movie than this and to me it's not I mean I could I could draw a line from after school to this um it's a little squiggly and it doesn't it's not a straight line but but you get there um uh but uh, but I do get,

I get like excited by visiting the dark, uh, and spending time with characters that are complicated and weird and allow you to do weird things and to, um, to, you know, be a little bit more, it's like, you know, be a little bit more,

it's like I look, it's like the image to me is very direct. Like, it's like, this is the image. But then in certain settings, I can kind of push the action and the actors into places that maybe are a little more heightened, you know? Like the world is very real. The environment is very real. And the camera is capturing real and the camera is

capturing it as though it is happening you know it's not fantasy but but going playing in these kind of spaces with these kind of characters i can get weird with them and explore things and it can become expressionistic and you know that's why i really you know if you go and look at like a performance like michael stuhlbarg's performance in after school and a performance like uh pattinson in in this or rebecca hall and christine or brady and simon they are not totally naturalistic performances uh they are they are heightened and they are also like, they're playing with the way that people sound. It's like everything is kind of a little odd and unique.

And so, yeah, it's just like, I don't know if that answers your question, but it's definitely sort of like, I like playing in these kind of, these dark spaces and finding the weirdness and the oddity. And I don't know, I'm not gonna, I don't know if I'll do,

I don't know if I can sustain the darkness forever. I gotta, I feel like I gotta get the light. I have a two-year-old now and I'm like watching a lot of Miyazaki movies. So I'm hoping that the joy and the color and, uh, and the, um,

the, the, the playfulness is rubbing off on me. Um, because I'm really enjoying watching these things with him. Just personally, I hope it doesn't rub off on you too much. I like the way you're doing things right now.

this did seem like a like a significantly bigger production than than the films you've made in the past um is that the case yeah for sure but now like you know this isn't this this is still an indie movie you know this isn't uh you know i'm not this isn't this isn't like ten pullpole, bottomless pit of money kind of budget at all. It's a very sort of reasonable indie movie. The scope of the story is way bigger. The size of the ensemble is way bigger. The period of it all, all of it.

All of that. There's just way more things that I'm... Way more elements that I'm way more elements that i'm having to have an opinion about and um and and make choices on than i've ever had before and so it's just it's a bigger production it's like a bigger story it's a it's a bigger canvas but that's what i like i mean like honestly like I just I like having a bigger canvas to paint on it seems like

a much bigger cast too than what you're usually working with but you know Christine is a pretty big cast you know but it is a bigger it feels like a bigger cast but I feel like there's like the same amount of people sort of main but maybe not but it is a bigger... It feels like a bigger cast. But I feel like there's the same amount of people sort of main.

But maybe not. But it is a bigger cast. But Christine was a pretty sizable ensemble. And if you also think about The Sinner, that's probably... Probably The Sinner was a better training ground for this movie in terms of being nimble, going from one narrative

to another and one character to another um than anything else yeah that was what i was gonna i was actually gonna ask you about that just like what you picked up from doing series television in that way because you know christine obviously is locked on one person the entire time simon killer is locked on one person yes you know devil all the time is so expansive over time moving from character to character. There's kind of B plots and C plots in the film. Yeah. Yeah.

I assume that you picked up a lot of tricks from just doing TV. Um, you know, you, the more, the more that you work, the better you get it at it. You know,

like the more comfortable you become with a schedule and understanding a schedule and knowing like how long it takes to get a shot. For instance, you realize there is no shot that is ever less than 30 minutes. There's no way that a shot will ever take less than 30 minutes. It is just the amount of people that you have to move. There's magic that happens sometimes. You just pick off a shot in like 10 minutes. But that's just rare.

But there's a kind of... There's a pragmatism that comes with making series television. Sort of... And it's an extension of independent filmmaking. The reason why... When you try to get into television

from indie movies, it's like, well, how are they going to handle a TV schedule? And I remember hearing that being like, have you been on an indie movie set? Do you know what we try to pull off every day? It's like you have to be economic and you have to be adaptable. The thing with television is there's less room for adaptability because to get to the scripts that you get to, there are so many levels of approvals to get to the script that ends up being the one that you're shooting. And you don't have the freedom necessarily.

Sometimes you do. In the center, we had a lot of freedom. Derek Simons had a lot of control, and he and I trusted each other so much that it was very free. But you're still kind of, you're dealing with studios and executives. So it's a little bit more of a machine that you're in.

But you have to make your days. You have to adapt. You have to make your days. You have to adapt. You have to move. Series television usually has a lot of plates spinning, and you're building towards something like eight episodes away. So you have to be planting those seeds and know how to kind of do them in a way that something that happens in episode two

is going to resonate by episode eight you know so i think that that having that in my toolkit uh from from doing episodic uh was was was very helpful on uh on this i don't know how to ask this without just being direct about it but how did you get all of these very famous people to be in this movie? It's a very dark film. You know, you've got, you've got Pattinson, you've got Tom Holland,

you've got, you know, the winter soldier, you have these very kind of top line, well-known figures who do a lot of franchise work. So what, what was it that they were drawn to? I mean,

all of these, I mean, look at, look at their body. I mean, look at like Pattinson and drawn to? I mean, all of these, I mean, look at, look at their body. I mean, look at like Pattinson and Sebastian Stan. I mean, everything that they're doing outside of those, um, those franchises, uh, do not fit into the franchise. You know what I mean? Like Pat, when Pattinson and I got to know each other was when he just finished good

time and he was shooting good time, you know, um, Pattinson has made a career of doing very, uh, bizarre characters in very kind of, uh, um,

challenging movies. Um, and when we started talking, it was four years ago. So, uh, Rob, Rob, you know, he hadn't made Batman or Tenet. And Rob came from a tentpole franchise. I mean, Rob came from Twilight, obviously,

and then had taken his career in such an interesting, amazing direction and challenged himself and did so many amazing roles after Twilight. Um, but he was, you know, he's drawn to these kinds of characters. He wanted to play Teagarden. I gave him a script and I said, you know, who do you want to play? And he said, Teagarden. Um, and you know, um, a lot of the actors were fans of my work. So they wanted to play in this kind of, uh, they want to play in the sandbox with me. Um,

uh, and then Tom was looking to, you know, Tom, when I met him, got to know him and he became attached to the project was, was after he'd been cast as Spider-Man, uh,

but not before the movie came out. Like he had, I think he had been cast as Spider-Man, but not before the movie came out. I think he had been cast and was starting to play him when he first became attached to this project. So I knew him from The Impossible. And I knew of his theater work, and then I got to know him as a person. And he just was interested by the challenge of this character and, uh, and drawn to this world. And I knew that he could do it.

I just had this feeling that he could do it. Um, cause he's so smart and thoughtful and he brought this other layer of just warmth to Arvin that made him more human. And Sebastian Stan, I think also complicated Bo Becker in a way that Sebastian Stan, I think, also complicated Bodecker in a way that my brother and I couldn't have expected. He just kind of brought so much complexity. I mean, what I was trying to pull out of Bodecker with Sebastian was the humanity.

It was like, look, let's not play this. Let's not play the bad guy. Let's play a complicated guy. Let's look for what the guy wanted to be and where he is and how he got here and his regrets. So anyway, how do I get a lot of famous people to be in a movie? There's no make movies that people like when they want to work with you um also like it's a very slow going process again like i just got to know so many actors over the course of you know my career and you never know um when you might write a role but good for them um so you kind of just like always keep your eyes open and, and you,

you know, always, you know, if someone strikes you as someone interesting to work with, reach out to them because who knows what movie they might do next. And all of a sudden they become, you know, mega famous.

And then, you know, um, and that, that kind of thing is, that's part of the ecosystem that helps films like Devil All the Time get made you know an actor does a film that's very big

that elevates their profile and then they become the kind of actor that can get your film financed or get your film made there's no magic trick to the thing it's patience and hard work like I said before I'm really fond of the movies that you

know you and and your cohort made it borderline over those years i'm how do you look back at that time now since you guys are not really doing that anymore fondly uh we were we were you know we were committed to not just making the movies we wanted to make, but to helping, helping the person next to us that we cared about make the movie that they wanted to make. And I think that that ethos and that, um, care is rare, you know? And, and I think that the best part of what came out of borderline films, besides the movies we made is I think that that more than anything else that I've ever been a part of has inspired people to do something similar. And, and that as a filmmaker, as a

person is very satisfying to know that like we did something that came very organically to us that was driven by um just uh a desire to make movies to help people we care about make movies that we care about and and to to create a an environment where everybody supported everybody else i mean literally for the first i don know, eight years of that relationship, we split every penny three ways, no matter what one did or didn't do on a project. And we supported one another. And I think that, you know, we told people that and we shared that and so many young filmmakers were inspired by that. And we found out that people were doing that and replicating that kind of model. So i think that is the greatest thing that came out of it and i look back on so much of what created and like the special bond that the three of us had for so long very fondly you've been on a

steady clip film wise for you know one movie every four years do you do you see that as being something consistent do you think you'll do more tv what do you do you see that as being something consistent do you think you'll do more tv what do you think you're gonna do in the future you noticed i just realized that i just realized that the other day when i was like looking myself up on imdb it's pretty metronomic you know yeah it's it's weird i did not plan that um it's just kind of it seems to take four years to get a movie made, four years to get a movie made and come out. Um, no, the next thing I think I'm going to end up doing probably is television.

Um, I've been developing a series, uh, based on the staircase story documentary, Michael Peterson case. Yeah. That's incredible. Um, that sounds hard to do. Yeah. I don't, I don't choose easy one man easy projects and i they tend to be complicated that one is another jigsaw puzzle but it's as a limited

series it's it's it's intended to be kind of like this very complicated multi-strand um character study ultimately of of this very complicated character, and also using him as a way into trying to understand the complexities of this case. And we have Harrison Ford attached to play him, so really couldn't imagine a more compelling actor to take on this role. Antonio, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen? Have you been watching anything good

in quarantine? The last great thing I just saw yesterday is an old movie. It's Scarecrow, the movie of Jerry Shatner. Which I've seen. Yeah, sure. Which I've seen.

Hacker to Pacino, right? Oh my God. So I mean, I've seen that film many times, but yesterday I was watching it because my friend and I were talking about it for something else. And I only meant to watch like 10 minutes, but then like, you know, an hour and 45 minutes later,

I was watching it till the end because I was really like excited to see the last shot of the movie again. That's like one of my favorite last shots of a movie, which is Gene Hackman, like trying to, um, trying to like,

uh, fix his shoe on the counter of this bus, um, bus terminal, like take a tick, uh, he bought a ticket for a bus trip and he's like trying to fix the shoe and he's like slamming on the,

on a table and it cuts to black in the middle of him smashing the shoe on the table. But yeah, that was like, that's just by chance was the last great thing I saw. That's a great one. Antonio, thanks so much for doing this.

I appreciate it. Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate the conversation. Thank you to Antonio Campos. Thank you, of course, to Amanda Dobbins and Bobby Wagner. Please stay tuned to The Big Picture later this week with the return of the Oscar show

and a big conversation about fall film festivals. See you then.