The Big Picture - Mailbag Special: 25 Movies You Should Stream Now

Episode Date: November 13, 2020

Sean and Amanda dive back into the mailbag to answer an array of questions about under-the-radar 2020 movies you can watch now on VOD and streaming, the prolonged closure of movie theaters around the country, and the book adaptation they've always wanted to see on the big screen, among others (0:50). Then, Sean is joined by Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin to discuss their delightful new film 'The Climb' (59:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about all things movies. We are just weeks away from the holidays and from the release of several awards contenders. So before Oscar season goes into whatever full swing will be in 2020, we're diving into the mailbag to answer your questions. After that, we are airing an interview I conducted in person way back in February with Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin, the writers, directors, and stars of one of the year's

best films, The Climb. I love this movie and these guys, so I hope you will listen to that. It's all coming up on The Big Picture. Okay, Amanda, the news is a little bit soft. I feel like we need to dive right into the mailbag. How are you feeling about that? Let's do it. Are you feeling happy, healthy, excited about the future of this country, this world?

Well, you should have caught me on Saturday. Saturday was just a great day for me. The inner cheer captain and Amanda Dobbins just jumped out. And I am feeling certainly optimistic and grateful to everyone who voted and particularly all of the organizers in my home state of Georgia and everybody else. I, you know, am tempering that with news about COVID-19. So it's been an up and down journey for me personally, since you asked. I don't know. How are you feeling? Well, you just unloaded. That was great. You just revealed your true heart. That was so beautiful. I'm doing great. I have a vaccine brain. I'm just thinking

about the vaccine every day because it's all related to what we're talking about here. When will movies come back into my life in a meaningful way that is not on my couch? Maybe it's a year from now. Hopefully it's less. I'm feeling very positive in general though. So let's start the mailbag by addressing some of the things that have been happening in the world in a very tangential, big picture-y way. So Jonathan Dine wants to know, considering how many movies have been delayed to 2021, does that give it the potential to be one of the best movie years ever? Slash, how much longer can Tenpole Productions wait before deciding to go to a streaming option? We've been getting variations on this question.

And now I wonder, has your opinion on this changed at all, given just the news that's evolved this week? Not really. And I think the news this week is extremely exciting and vaccines are important and vaccines save lives. But I do also think even with the announcements, people have been like, there's a lot that we don't yet know.

And how the vaccine will be rolled out, I think, has changed dramatically in the last week thanks to other recent events. And I'm hugely excited about that. But there is a limited number. It is a hugely difficult operation. Watch the second half or the third part of Contagion if you want to understand more about that. And there will be, you know, a triage effect of who the vaccine goes to and why. So I'm trying to be optimistic,

but practical, because I think that's the only way that you can handle science. And let's believe in science. And I think that there are just still a lot of unknowns and a lot of movie and movie theater companies without money. So maybe someone's going to take a gamble and be like, cool, we'll be ready to go by April, May, June of next year. We think enough people have had access to a vaccine worldwide and will feel comfortable. Even then, I'm going to be very honest with you. When I get a vaccine, the first thing I'm going to do is go see my family, like not go sit in a crowded movie theater. And I say that as someone whose job it is to see movies.

I think there will be kind of a knockdown effect of what people decide to do and when. And I don't know that sitting in a crowded movie theater will be anyone's number one priority. So, you know, someone will probably try to take the gamble. Will the gamble work? I think depends a lot on the finances of the company in particular. And I think 2021 will probably be a weird movie year. Maybe 2022 will be the most lit movie year in history. That's what I was thinking. I feel like 2022 is more likely to be extremely robust because a lot of the movies that we think

might be coming out in 2021 that have been on the schedule for a year that haven't been pushed yet are probably going to get pushed. And the likelihood of studios ramming several tentpole releases next to each other over several weekends doesn't make sense, I don't think. Just the idea of a crowded movie theater, I'm having a hard time visualizing that now. make sense, I don't think. Just the idea of a

crowded movie theater, I'm having a hard time visualizing that now. You know, I don't know when that, because I don't think that there will be vaccine and crowded movie theater either. I think, you know, people's patterns and their experiences and their desires have evolved a little bit too. And so I think there will be some knock-on effect there as well. So I don't know, but this like this dream of a stacked movie year, I think is a little bit absurd because even some of the things that we're longing for, like Top Gun Maverick, we're longing for that. Right. I can't wait to see that movie. I think it'll be very fun. That's not it's not going to be Casablanca, you know, like people probably need to rein in their excitement for

certain things. I'm very excited about Dune. I hope Dune is wonderful. Is Dune going to be Star Wars? Like, probably not, you know? And so I think we have all this pent up excitement, which is very understandable. And I'm not trying to throw cold water on that, but greatest movie year ever is a bit much as movies are kind of taking a back seat in terms of where it stands in the hierarchy of American cultural entertainment. I think that's true. If we want to put on our optimistic hats, which I have been doing so much of, and let's embrace it. Let's find the joy where we can. I do think at some

point in the next five years, there's going to be one of those historic movie years because the industry is changing so much and people are having to get creative and change and stress and creativity do actually often produce great art. We kind of see that historical, all of the quote, great movie years are often at that inflection point where a lot of things are adjusting and happening in real time. But I think it's going to take a couple years for everyone to catch up to that and to catch up to kind of both the new possibilities of the medium and distribution and also just the reality

of the fact that no one's been in production for the better part of a year. It's true. Pressure makes diamonds though. And maybe you're right. Maybe we will have a year in which Casablanca and the Wizard of Oz are in production at the same time, just as World War II is about to take place or something like that. We'll have to wait and see. So a couple more questions related to this ongoing issue. Nick Muldoon wants to know, do you think a shorter release window, such as Universal Strategy, can actually be a benefit to theaters in the short term as it allows studios and theaters to make a modest profit on smaller budget films without being a massive risk since a VOD release can follow shortly after? So just a little context to that,

what Nick is referring to is the agreement that AMC made with Universal for a 17-day window before a film goes to PVOD, which is a radical shift from, I think, the 75-day window that had previously been agreed upon. Maybe it was 90 days, a much longer period of time before a movie could hit PVOD. Now, Universal is releasing movies right now. In fact, they had a movie released last week called Let Him Go, and they have a movie coming out this weekend called Freaky. And then I think those movies are pretty quickly going to find their way to PVOD. Now, there are some places around the country where movie theaters are open and people can see them. And there are some places like in the state of California where they are not open and you cannot see them. So what do you think? Do you think that this strategy is going to help filmmakers slash these movie companies?

Well, so that's not the question that was asked. The question that is asked is very well phrased, which is like, support for, you know, a bunch of obvious reasons, many of them having to do with the pandemic and many of them having to do with the fact that viewing habits have changed and been changing for years. So I think the previous windowing arrangement was just unsustainable and outdated and unreflective of how anyone watches movies. I do wonder whether the studios long-term will even put up with a 17-day arrangement, because at some point it's just, what do they need the theaters for? And they need theaters for the giant tentpole movies that make them a lot of money. But the question becomes,

are they going to keep pursuing that as a money-making strategy? It's so high risk. And again, they're all sitting with a number of tentpole movies that they can't release without taking a huge loss currently. Are they going to double down on that?

I don't really know. So I wouldn't be surprised if more studios and theater chains adopted this arrangement if the theaters can kind of wrangle them into it. But I don't know if this will be the arrangement in five years. It just honestly seems like I don't think you can count on giant corporations to be this generous. Yeah, it's really hard to know because the 17-day is not a guarantee that after 17 days, the movie will go to PVOD. It's that it can go to PVOD. So when Top Gun Maverick does come out, it's very unlikely that in 17 days, you're gonna be able to watch it at home. They're gonna extend those windows for as long as the movie is successful in theaters. But we'll just have to wait and see. I mean, I think that the scale of movies that are made in general is likely to

evolve over the next 10 years. And the shape of the business is changing so much that massive tentpoles can't be the only way forward for moviemaking. So, I don't know. I'm curious. I think Universal is taking an interesting step here by continuing to put movies out into the world and continuing to let their release schedule flow in a way that other studios are not. And they're not selling their movies off either. That's the other thing. Paramount is selling movies off here and there.

Lionsgate is selling movies off. They're not doing that. So we'll see what happens. Okay, Amanda. Gunner wants to know, what is one movie you've seen this year you wish the most you could have experienced a big theatrical premiere?

Mank. Mank, definitely Mank. That's my? Manc. Manc, definitely Manc. That's my answer as well. Yeah, it's Manc. I mean, Tenet would have been fun as well. And I was thinking back, I would have liked to see Five Bloods in theaters. I think that kind of going on that journey as well on a more epic scale, which it is, would have been interesting.

But yeah, Manc. Yeah, I'm with you. I just had a chance to see Pixar's Soul last night as well. That's another one that I think would have been nice to see in theaters. You didn't wait at all for that one. No, I'm super, I was super excited. Can't wait to talk about Soul in the future. Yeah. All right. Okay, next question. Are there, Sifu Brian wants to know, are there any movies that went to VOD this year that you recommend? Movies like Kajillionaire managed to slip past my radar. Are there any sleepers and hidden gems? Thank you guys for keeping me sane and up to date on film news during this quarantine.

Funny this question was asked by Sifu because you just mentioned something similar that you were catching up on some of this stuff last week. Yes, including Kajillionaire and what else did I see? I finally saw The Climb, which you were interviewing the filmmakers in the second half of this podcast the film? Shithouse is absolutely one of those intimate experiences where I just fired it up at like 830 and and had a lovely time and and maybe on a larger screen or kind of with the self-importance that we attach to a theater experience, I would have been like, that was cute. But I was just entirely moved by it. Yeah, I love that movie. I'm happy to hear you say that.

Yeah. You made a whole list. And I agree with a lot of them. I'll just kind of like chime in when I agree with your recommendation. Sure. I mean, there's been a lot of stuff. And it's funny that we haven't spent as much time talking about it on the show, because I don't know when people are watching things.

You know, movies are becoming like TV now where everybody's on their own schedule and some people don't have any awareness that these movies are out or some people know that some of these movies are out, but they're not, you know, they're back pocketing them for a slower time. Shithouse, obviously, we talked to Cooper Rife, the writer and director on Bill's podcast a couple of weeks ago. Wonderful guy. Wonderful story that he has to tell. I would encourage people to listen to that interview. He's a very charming dude. A couple of movies that I liked. I really liked Martin Eden, which I think is kind of the socialist drama of our time. It's an adaptation of a Jack London novel. It's an Italian adaptation. Really beautiful film, really interesting lead performance, probably likely to compete for a Best International

Feature Oscar. A lot of interesting stuff happening in Best International Feature Oscar. We'll have to talk about this in a couple of weeks, but a lot of countries are claiming movies that have been sold to horror streaming services as their international feature submission, which I see as a parasite effect. So we should talk about that soon. Okay. I would love to talk about that also, because the other night I just got like very mad thinking about how portrait of a lady on fire got screwed in the, in the Oscars and release category. And now they're neon is trying to serve me. Am I like, no, I'm sorry. That's not, it's not how it works. I was listening to some Vivaldi and I got heated. And anyway, we'll talk about it. I was listening to some Vivaldi and I

got heated is the name of your memoir. What other what other movies? I mean, totally under control. I think I mentioned the Gibney documentary about COVID-19, which I think is just very well done and not exactly an uplifting watch, but I think a very insightful and impressive execution of a hard to pull off film. You saw that, right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's one of those that it's like a historical document as much as it is. And it is for history. If you have been reading actually trusted real news sources, then you will know a lot of it. But, you know, it was fascinating to see, I believe it's Dr. Bright is his name, who is featured in Totally Under Control and then was immediately

hired, rehired by President-elect Joe Biden's coronavirus task force. So it's predictive as well. And fascinating just to kind of see it happening in real time. Yeah. And an impressive feat of quarantine filmmaking, I think. So that's worth it. I mentioned that Dark and the Wicked on a pod with Chris about horror movies a few weeks ago, that is just an absolutely no-go for Amanda, but for anybody who wants to watch a really, truly upsetting horror movie, I would recommend that. It's from a guy named Brian Bertino who made The Strangers in 2008, which is truly one of the most upsetting movies of the 21st century. You mentioned Shithouse. I really enjoyed You Cannot Kill David Arquette, which is a documentary about

David Arquette's continued pursuit of his professional wrestling career that is somewhere between real and the kayfabe that comes along with professional wrestling. I thought this was a really funny celebrity documentary. Arquette is just a ludicrous human being and a very game participant in this is it real, is it not real situation. And Possessor, which I talked to Brandon Cronenberg about earlier this week on the show. So those are all on VOD. That's a bunch of stuff that you can rent right now. Just a couple of other quick things. His House, another horror movie, an international feature that is available on Netflix. Have you seen Banana Split?

I haven't. I'd be curious to know your take on this movie. It was originally made in 2018, but it got a very, very limited release. And it's been on Netflix since the summer. And it was written by and stars a young woman named Hannah Marks, who I think has kind of similar shithouse energy in terms of a young person who's crafting a film career that they write and star in, in the contours of a new

kind of millennial angst and fear and excitement and confusion. You know, not a perfect film by any means, but she's a very promising person to me. I would recommend people check that out. Amazon has this movie called What the Constitution Means to Me, which I think is a nice double feature with Hamilton. It is also a filmed play and it's written by and starring a woman named Heidi Schreck, who is obsessed with the constitution and a series of debates around what the constitution means to her. And she recreates her youthful endeavors, speaking to the American Legion and places like that around the country, VFWs about about defining the Constitution.

A very gripping, very powerful story. Not so much a hardcore movie movie, but definitely interesting to watch. And then tomorrow, also, there's a Werner Herzog movie called Fireball, Visitors from Darker Worlds, coming to Apple TV+. So there's just like a ton of stuff going right now. You mentioned David Byrne's American Utopia here too, which is now available on HBO Max. Yeah, we're not talking enough about David Byrne's American Utopia. I just, like, please watch David Byrne's American Utopia if you haven't.

And then watch it again. I found it, you know, like the films you were just describing, it is a filmed version of a Broadway play or musical or kind of art installation all at once. But I do think it kind of transcends the form of like a filmed theater experience. Obviously it's directed by Spike Lee, so that helps. And I found it just to be an amazing piece of art and an amazing piece of trying to connect with human beings. And it's

about time and memory and humanity. And great dancing. Just tremendous choreography. Get involved. Highest possible recommendation from both of us on that if you haven't had a chance to see it. Next question. AtFLGuy88 wants to know what's going to happen to Wonder Woman. Wonder Woman is still on the release calendar for Christmas Day 2020. It is not being released. It is not being released at Christmas. I'm sorry to ruin everyone's Christmas. Listen, I love Christmas, too.

I love going to the movies at Christmas. I was in the Whole Foods 365 yesterday, and they started playing Christmas songs that in early November. And I was very moved. I too want and I loved Wonder the First Wonder Woman. Like nobody wants it more than me. Not going to happen. It's not going to happen because Tenet did not make enough money in theaters. And there's we're in the midst of a second surge. Please be safe. Please wear your mask. Please follow the recommendations of your local authorities and specifically doctors. And they're just not going to lose this much money. Sorry.

Yeah, I think we're all just waiting for that shoe to drop for when it moves to some open date in 2021. It just doesn't seem logical to try to release that movie. And since Warner Brothers has already moved back a number of high-profile releases, I think you can expect to see that be the case as well. When that will be, I'm sure you'll hear from us because we'll probably hop on a podcast

to continue to share bad news regarding the case as well. When that will be, I'm sure you'll hear from us because we'll probably hop on a podcast to continue to share bad news regarding the ongoing theatrical experience. Caleb Turner wants to know, when is there going to be an Albert Brooks episode of The Big Picture? Thank you, Caleb. When will that be? I don't know, Amanda.

We had the month of Amanda. Can we have the winter of Sean? Sure, but why isn't Albert Brooks also part of the month of Amanda? Why can't I share in that? You can. I would be happy to loan him out to you. Also, like, when don't we have the winter of Sean?

Isn't like life just the winter of Sean? But that's fine. Yes. Okay. Yeah. I don't know. Albert Brooks is a tough one. So his films are extremely meaningful to me.

And I know to many other people, they recently had a run on the Criterion channel where you can watch most of them. I think seven of the eight are available there. Very important figure. I don't know. Has the world seen Albert Brooks' movies? That's really the challenge with doing some of these episodes is if people haven't seen the movies, they're not going to listen. So I don't want to make episodes that people aren't going to listen to. Certainly, I could give a lecture outside to 100 Albert Brooks stands. That doesn't seem like a good use of anyone's time.

I think we might get there. I do think that we should probably start. Do you know, we could announce it two months in advance and be like, you have two months to get ready for this. Like, I don't want to really say homework, but more of like a book club vibe.

Um, and, and people could prepare. prepare. What else do we have to do? We're not going to get to see Wonder Woman. I know. It's a really good point. Just looking at trying to manage the schedule has just been bizarre over the course. Last year was easy peasy figuring out what the big picture was going to be in November and December. These days, a little bit more complicated. Okay. Next question. Justin Petrasek wants to know, in honor of Mank, what are the must-see black and white films? This is really just an opportunity for Sean Fennessey to pontificate about The Third Man. I'll save my thoughts on The Third Man. I put together a list of movies here, Amanda, that I think are pretty basic, you know, that fall under the rubrics of the

greatest films ever made, the AFI style lists, because I don't necessarily know what Justin is asking for here. Like, does Justin want to hear about Casablanca or modern times? Or does he want to hear about some deeper cuts that might reflect the Mank moment? When you saw this question, what did you think? I couldn't really tell either. I mean, I assumed because of Mank and Mank and Black and White is a choice, right? And it's really, it's using Black and White film to both technically and kind of thematically say some things about its subject and about a certain time in Hollywood. So I was thinking about movies that are representative of,

I guess, a time or that are kind of visually memorable in black and white, I guess. I don't really know, but that's also all movies before what, 1950 something? So there are a lot. You made a good list. Do you want to read your list? Sure.

I tried to just include a handful of foreign films. So there's like an immense number of foreign films that you could include here. But this is mostly American. So Modern Times is a Charlie Chaplin film. I think any of those early Charlie Chaplin films, The Gold Rush, The Kid, things like that. Check out one so you can get a sense of what that filmmaking was like. Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game, I think is pretty incredible. Grand Illusion would also be a useful one.

This is the sort of film that they show you fairly early on in film school. But I mean, I also included The General, which is a Buster Keaton film. We talked about Psycho earlier this year, which is from the 60s, but that was a specific choice to use black and white, given where the medium was going.

It happened one night, feels like a the right entree into the screwball slash romantic comedy subgenre that you and i love that kind of launched it there are others to check out but this feels like the earliest example it's the classic yeah i was also gonna throw in bringing up baby but just yeah that's a good one of early informative um for careers as well as for the genre. That's right. So yeah, I mean, Casablanca,

people know about that, right? I hope so. If you haven't seen Casablanca, you should probably watch it. It's very similar to the Citizen Kane conversation. It's like, just watch it. There's no time to watch it. Just watch it.

Just watch it. Double Indemnity, the brilliant Billy Wilder movie, I think is on that list. All About Eve, similarly, also on that list. Bicycle Thieves, the Italian drama, I would definitely recommend people check out. Sunset Boulevard, pretty much any movie Billy Wilder made before 1955. Shane, I think, gives a good picture of Westerns in the early 50s.

Seven Samurai, we talked about earlier this year when we did a Mufune episode. And also we heard from Sofia Coppola showing her small children seven samurai that was a choice yeah uh 12 men queen i think breathless is is up there the godard film especially has like a picture of the nouvelle vogue i put down paths of glory as the last one which is a kubrick war film um and kind of to me signals like the end of an era of black and white filmmaking. So that's just a short list. That's a lot of movies to check out. We can put these in a letterbox list somewhere.

I can add more. I mean, you know, there's like, there are literally thousands of important black and white films. So a question like this is pretty vast. It's true. Can I add two more? Of course. I want to add A Hard Day's Night, which is the Richard Lester Beatles documentary, sort of. Not really. It's not a documentary. It's a feature film starring the Beatles. One of my favorite comfort films of all time, but also notably in black and white after it didn't need to be. And I think in terms of the main conversation, you got to put Roma in. Mm. of the Mank conversation, you got to put Roma in, in terms of a director making a choice to

shoot in black and white. And I think we could probably talk a bit more about Roma and Mank together beyond the obvious superficial black and white and Netflix released prestige dramas. There's something there, but also Roma, great film. It is a great film. And you're right that it is a forbearer in a very specific way. And Cuaron's ability to get Netflix to let him make this movie in this fashion, or I guess more specifically, the production companies that funded this movie and the Netflix's desire to put it on its service in black and white is pretty meaningful. Without it, there is no Mank for sure. The fact that they could build a successful viewing campaign and awards campaign around

a movie like Roma probably allowed for Fincher to make this movie. Next question. Matt Brazil wants to know, what was the first R-rated movie each of you saw in theaters? How do you think that movie affected your movie experiences going forward? What was yours? The vivid memory I have is Jerry Maguire and sitting next to my mother during Jerry Maguire and specifically the early scenes with Kelly Preston

and never stop fucking me, which I was old enough to know what that meant, but, and also old enough to know that I did not want to be sitting next to my parents while watching this. So, yeah. How did that affect your movie experiences going forward? I don't really watch movies with my mother anymore.

That's funny. My first R-rated movie, I don't know if this was the first one. I certainly snuck into movies before I was a teenager, but the first one that I bought a ticket to and was allowed into, which I should not have been, it was Scream,

which I think I was about 13 or 14 when that came out. Vividly remember seeing it with my friend Chris and just having my mind blown. I think it affected my movie going experiences in a couple of different ways. It officially concretized horror movies as something that were going to be important to me. And I think one of the reasons it did that is because it was so meta about horror movies and it got me thinking about what horror movies are and what they do. And that's obviously one of the genius tricks of that Kevin Williamson screenplay

and Wes Craven's direction, but also just an amazingly fun movie-going experience. People were losing their shit in the movie theater. And as a teenager, that's exactly what you want. So that was a good entree into the world of R-rated movies. Nate Schwartz wants to know, Sean, Amanda, you were just given

$100 million each to produce any adapted feature you want. You get to choose the original work you want adapted and you get to handpick its director, screenwriter, and actors. What are you adapting and who are you picking

to fill the positions? Amanda? This is a tremendous amount of pressure. So I have two options. One that is like easy peasy, fully realized. And one that I was hoping you could help me with a little bit. And I didn't do things like that we've already discussed. Like the secret history, which someone please just adapt the secret history.

You should probably make it a miniseries and not a movie, but just go with it. So my first is the layup and it is, do you know about Ellen Hildebrand? I've told you about Ellen Hildebrand. You do, but you just don't listen to me when I talk about things that aren't interesting to you. So Ellen Hildebrand is a very successful, a New York Times bestselling novelist who was introduced to me by our friend Gilbert Cruz from the New York Times. And she writes kind of just summer literal beach reads set on Nantucket about waspy people who have some problems and then learn about the importance of love and how Nantucket is the best place on earth.

So I read them as comfort reads. I totally recommend them if you're looking for something to get your mind off of the world. This is an obvious Nancy Meyers project. We just like need to do it. I've chosen an Ellen Hildebrand novel called The Rumor, which is, and I haven't read it in a while, so forgive me, but it's about two women, one of whom is a writer and has a little, a little or a lot to in common with Ellen Hildebrand,

the author and her friend and her friend has an affair. And then the writer who's has writer's block decides to write a novel about her friend having an affair. But it's in a comedy and most things turned out okay. Usually in an Ellen Hilderand novel, one person dies, but you're prepared for it and then everyone else learns something and becomes better people as a result. So that's kind of where we are in the terrain. So Nancy Meyer is directing and I really need Jennifer Garner to star as the woman having the affair. Jennifer Garner should be in a Nancy Meyers movie, by the way. She basically is in one on her Instagram all of the time,

but like, and is best friends with Ina Garten. It's a whole little world she's created, but let's formalize it. And then for the writer, I was going to do Rachel McAdams. Okay, so that is just a very obvious one. The other one... You got two. Yeah, I that is just a very obvious one. The other one. You got two. Yeah, I have a hundred million dollars, so I got to make it work. Well, this is, this is what I need your help with. Do you know the story of like the French art thief called

the Spider-Man? Phil Spider-Man? No, I don't. Okay. No, but so there, there there's a an art thief and he was caught and this was about five years ago there's a great new yorker piece and you know there was a lot of coverage at the time but um an art thief in france and he stole five like masterpieces like a matisse and a modigliani still nobody knows where they are whether they've been sold whether they're in hiding whether they were destroyed and he was eventually caught because he was great at the actual, you know, climbing and accessing the thieving, but his henchmen kind of like the backend strategy was not where you

want. But he was also a very like principled thief. And he was like, this art belongs to me, you know, very French, just kind of like i i need to own this matisse it's you know i connect with it the most so it's really mine but so it's like an international art heist movie with some obsession with some frenchness and also with the mystery of where are the paintings at the end and i would really love to see this movie, but I don't totally know who should direct it. Hmm. An art heist movie. There have also been a lot of art heist movies.

So like most people have done one at this point, you know? I mean, I, I, Ryan Johnson seems like somebody who could make a good version of that movie. That could be fun. Okay. Those are good ones. I just think someone should option that also. Like I assume that they have, and I just couldn't find it when I was Googling. Great story.

Maybe it's an opportunity for you to break into screenwriting, Amanda. Think about it. Probably not. Can you afford to option that piece? No. Okay. So I always have trouble answering questions like this, to be honest. Maybe this is a clarification into my uncreative mind. But a book that is often cited as the most unadaptable,

unfilmable book of all time is also one of the best books of all time, which is Don DeLillo's White Noise. Now, White Noise is largely considered unadaptable because of the sort of the airborne toxic event, the cloud that covers the main characters in the film and kind of haunts them and haunts their existence and then kind of like transmogrifies their existence over time in the book. But COVID-19 has me thinking that White Noise is a movie that makes more sense than ever. And there is a way to make a movie like this without it being some crazy effects-driven story, but more of a sort of a paranoid and intense thriller with a strong sense of humor because it's a very satirical book. So when I first read it when I was in college, college, maybe right after college,

I thought it definitely should have been a David Cronenberg movie starring John C. Reilly. That was, I was like, this is what I want. Like somebody who knows how to play light, weird, like soft satire and Cronenberg, who is basically making fun of our fears and horrors about the body and existence. As I've gotten older, I feel like the people who should be making this movie are the Coen brothers. I really want the Coen brothers COVID-19 movie. And the person I really want to play Jack Gladney is Jake Gyllenhaal. This would be, I don't know if I could be more excited about a movie than if this movie came to pass. I don't, Babette, Jack's wife, I'm having a hard time casting her. She is, you know,

a woman, you know, not quite in middle age, in her 40s, I believe, who has six children and has an affair in the book and has like a kind of anxiety in the book. I, you know, I always want to go to Jessica Chastain, but I don't know if she's funny enough to really do this, to capture the tone. That's so unfair to Jessica Chastain, who is extremely funny and isn't allowed to be funny enough in movies. And I think that's often the problem. Maybe that's true. Maybe, I mean, you know, let's just say Jessica Chastain for the sake of conversation here to wrap up this question. Nate, great question. Thank you for taking the time.

Adam Miller wants to know if you had a choice of director for a new Star Wars film, who would it be and why? I'm very, very excited for your response to this. You stepped on my answer in the last answer, but Rian Johnson, because screw you, everybody. Just let him continue to make good movies. Yeah. There we go. I don't know if Rian wants, because screw you, everybody. Just let him continue to make good movies. Yeah. There we go. I don't know if Rian wants to do that. We'll see.

I mean, he's supposed to be doing it. I have no idea what the state of the Star Wars universe is right now. It's so confusing. Me either, Sean. I know you don't. I know you don't. I heard Baby Yoda eats eggs or something. Yeah, he ate some frog eggs last week.

It was pretty upsetting actually. Okay. The Mandalorian is fantastic. It is truly, I actually sent a text to Chris Ryan and to your husband a week ago that was just like, damn, this show is good. Like I don't usually do that. What were you hoping to achieve by letting Zach know

that the show about the tiny Yoda puppet is good? Like, we're never going to watch it, Sean. I think I was trying to pivot the conversation away from politics. And I just wanted to find a new outlet. I know Chris is very engaged in The Mandalorian. They talk about it on The Watch almost every week. I think that show is amazing. And it indicates to me that Star Wars probably shouldn't be a movie series anymore. It should be a TV series. And one of the people who I think could have made a cool Star Wars movie, but is almost certainly going to make a really cool Star Wars series is Leslie Hedlund,

who, you know, is who worked on Russian Doll and has been a writer in Hollywood for many years, who a bachelorette. She's a playwright before that super talented, really funny writer. And now she's making a Disney Plus Star Wars series. So I look forward to that more than I think I look forward to most of the movies that have been bandied about in the last couple of years. Next question. Matt Katani, excuse me. Yeah, Matt Katani wants to know, you guys should do a movie draft with CR for movies released in 2021, predicting what you think will be your fave best Oscar nominated, maybe put money on it, revisit in 2022 when all is said and done.

What a hopeful, hopeful question that is. Look back in 2022. We'll see where we all are by then. What do you think about this idea? There's so much uncertainty that it would be total chaos, which means that it would be a fantastic, fantastic movie draft because Chris would pick a bunch of movies that like, you know, are no longer being made or like were released three months ago or whatever. And then you and I would pick a bunch of movies that probably never get released or get released in a different way. And that would be fine because it would be an exercise in hope. I guess the 2022 one might not be as fun or it

might be very fun because we were extremely wrong, but I'm open. Okay. We'll think about it. How do you feel about continuing on in chronological order through the 2010s? Do you think we should mix it up soon or do you like that we're going organizationally? I think that 14 and 15, those are next for us, right? They are. Those are not my favorite years in the decade. I think there's a little... Frankly, 2013 is not totally either in terms of things I feel passionate about. But I like doing them. I think it would be really fun to do like 1995.

Okay. Maybe we'll sprinkle in one of those. Maybe as a holiday treat, we'll go back into the past. Let's think about that. Jed Sprague wants to know, recently you talked about movies that almost work better at home

than they do in theaters. This is something you alluded to earlier, Amanda. What are a few movies that you have gained more appreciation for seeing on the small screen versus the big screen? You mentioned Shithouse. Anything else that falls into this category for you?

Yeah, there's one actually that I think is really the same type of experience as Shithouse. Well, I mean, it's very different, but is it Selah in the spades? Is it Selah or Selah? Selah in the spades, yeah. Selah, thank you, in the spades, which is a movie that I really enjoyed. And I watched it a few months after you had recommended it to me. But I mean, I love a Queen Bee as as we all know. And but there is just a vision and point of view that is like a specific and immediate. And I think if I had gone a full theater experience, it would have felt slightly, you know, I don't want to say slight because that's really unfair. I think it's really accomplished.

But it's a smaller movie movie as is shithouse. And so just getting to discover it at home, it felt like the right level of the right level of intimacy, honestly. So that one for me stood out. And then, you know, I think on the rocks benefited from being at home and also from being in lockdown and watching New York kind of shine so brightly. And I think Palm Springs is another one that I think is a great movie and would have been great in theaters. And honestly, it would have been really fun to see it in theaters. It's one of my Sundance regrets is that we didn't actually get to see it at Sundance. Me too. But man, was it what we needed when we needed it at home. And it benefited maybe more in a word of mouth

sense than in a actual watching sense. But that was great stuff. All great picks. Palm Springs was on my list too. I completely agree. I think that's a movie that, I mean, that's maybe just a testament to how good it is. But I really would have liked to have seen it with other people when the revelations were unfolding in the movie. But also, yeah, it was a it was a bomb at home. A couple of other ones for me. I mentioned a long time ago, Andrew Ron's Driveways, Brian Dennehy's final performance. Oh, yeah, that was tremendous, which is a beautiful movie and I think definitely played better in this very intimate setting and was just a total surprise. If people haven't had a chance to check that out, I think that's a great movie. There's a great, great, great, great, great Abel Ferrara movie called Tommaso that I also think people should check out that

is semi-autobiographical, stars Willem Dafoe as an artist sort of in exile in Italy trying to figure out the future of his marriage and coping with addiction. And similarly, I think I certainly would have loved to have seen that movie in a movie theater, but I was happy that I was able to see it on a small screen in an intimate setting, in the dark, in my house. There's a bunch of these, you know, they tend to be smaller dramas. You know, they tend to be, they're very rarely do I look at a big noisy movie and think this was better this way. You know, it's just even like Trial of Chicago 7, that's the kind of movie that can play well at home.

And I find that Aaron Sorkin's movies do play well at home. But when we went to the drive-in, I was like, oh, this is the movie that they made. This is the rousing speeches and the, you know, the clashing of egos and all the stuff that Sorkin does so well is movie theater stuff. Next question. Let's do it. Okay. So Benjamin Price wants to know, I know this would be infringing on the watch's turf a little bit, but what are some TV shows you'd both recommend? I think we're going to do this as an episode in a week or so. More around miniseries and our affection for the Queen's Gambit and also to kind of preview Steve McQueen's

new anthology TV series, which is frankly just a collection of movies. Is there anything that's like an ongoing TV show that you want to shout out? Yeah. Borgen.

Please watch Borgen, everybody. Including you, Sean Fennessey. If you're not familiar with Borgen, which I think we've talked about a bit. It's a Danish TV show made about, I want to say a decade ago, about the first female prime minister in Denmark. And there were three seasons made

and then it went away and was very hard to stream anywhere at all. And Netflix is making a fourth season and so has made the first three seasons available. And it is fantastic. It is and so has made the first three seasons available. And it is fantastic. It is a little bit like the West Wing. There is also some, you know, great personal elements. Extremely watchable.

Please watch it with subtitles. Don't watch it with the dubbing. It's really weird. And I believe in all of you that you can concentrate. And that way, you know, you can learn small Danish words like tak, which is the only word that i know but it means thank you i think and i it's fantastic and it is it's also like that's pure tv i think it is the characters are very well written and um i to me it looks nice just because it's like going to europe for a while, but it is like episodic TV at its highest form, which is why we won't be talking about it

with The Queen's Gambit and why I can recommend it here. I think that's a good pick. I'm gonna have to check that out at some point. I'm watching a bunch of shows right now, so I'm a little inundated. One show that I would recommend that I'm enjoying is How To With John Wilson,

which is executive produced by Nathan Fielder, my beloved Nathan Fielder. You can watch it on HBO. Very strange quasi-documentary half-hour comedy about the way people are primarily set in New York City. And it's an extremely unusual movie, or excuse me, TV show. There's that Freudian slip. And very funny in an uncomfortable way. And also similarly to the On the Rocks point that you're making, an interesting portrait of a city that I don't think exists right now,

where people are out and about and communicating on the subway and in stores. And it's just an interesting experiment of a TV show. It's unlike anything I've ever seen before. So I would recommend people check that out. Okay. We've only got a little bit more time. We've got a bunch more questions here. Somebody asked about top five introvert movies.

Did you make a list of introvert movies? I did, but then they just wound up being all my favorite movies. So the introvert thing, the person based the question on something that I said on the Linklater podcast, which is about how they're all extroverts. And that's very true.

But that comes from our Sofia Coppola interview when I asked her about kind of like the recurring Anna Faris like blabbermouth character. And she was like, oh, the extroverts. And I never really thought about it like that. And then I realized that I just like movies that explore introverts and people who don't talk that much or not that they don't talk that much, but that they wish other people wouldn't talk that much, which is like a, a distinction that I feel, I don't know. 2020 has been me learning about how I'm an introvert.

It's, you know, subscribe to my therapy podcast. So I can like read the list for you, but I think you're just going to be like, okay, so those are the Amanda movies. I think.

Give us one unexpected. Is there one you have not proselytized for on this podcast? Actually, this is my gift to you. Inside Out. Yeah. Because I think an extraordinary movie about what's going on in your own head and trying to sort things out. And not always knowing how to communicate them to the outside world. Yes, because I watched Soul yesterday.

I was thinking a lot about Inside Out and started to rewatch Inside Out, Pete Docter's movie. He directed Soul as well. Amazing movie. Truly, truly special. And Soul, I think, similarly minds the depths of existence in a way that is pretty out there for a kid's movie. Yeah.

I look forward to discussing that with you okay here's a selfish one for me I too am a DVD blu-ray collector this is failing at life but still loving it an extraordinary handle for this question I too

am a DVD blu-ray collector and have spent way too much time organizing them on my shelves how do you guys organize your collection Amanda you don't have a massive collection as I

recall so I have I have no collection i have a collection of books that are completely unorganized um thinking about alphabetizing them at some point once we have the shelving space that's solid um i have organized all of my blu-rays and dvds by filmmaker but not alphabetically by filmmaker just by. And it's my own very unique system. I feel very good about it. No one knows where everything is but me. And that is exactly as it should be. Can I tell you one of the funniest things that has ever happened with Sean's DVD collection is that

I can't remember, this was back when we could have parties. And you had many people over, including some of our friends with children. And one of the small children just ran over to one of the shelves and started pulling the DVDs off the shelves. And you were really vacillating between your impulse to be like a kind person. And you also like really love kids and are very friendly. So you weren't going to jump in and be like, no, but I could just also watch you. Number one, just like worrying about the dvds but also the kid was just like fucking up your like

very intense system and then people started asking about your system and you were like no it's fine i'll just put it back together later because everyone was trying to help restore it because we knew you were stressed out it was great it was really funny uh yes i need to find a home in which i can have my system but not in the view of the public when they come into our house. We'll see if I'm able to accomplish that at some point in my life. Okay. Next question. I don't even know how to answer this,

but I did want to hear what your answer was. Jake Adams wants to know, how do you think the Batman will separate itself from the Nolan series and all that came before? It won't. Like, why wouldn't? That worked really well. People paid a lot of money to see those movies. Okay. won't like why wouldn't that worked really well people paid

a lot of money to see those movies okay Amanda this is a question I've gotten from people both about the rewatchables in the aftermath of doing a Toy Story episode this week with Shay and Mallory and also just from

some of the conversations we've had on this pod TJ moneymaker phenomenal name wants to know is there any chance of a Miyazaki pod to win over Amanda over to animated films? What do you think, Amanda? If you ask me to do it, I'll do it. I've been thinking, I saw this question and I thought a lot about it.

And, you know, I did just give you the answer of Inside Out, which I think is an extraordinary film. I've been thinking a lot about my relationship to it. We also had a lovely listener who is an animator emailed. I can't remember whether she emailed both of us or just me, but with a list of kind of recommended films, which I really appreciated. And she made a great point that was about like animation less as a genre and more as like an entire style, like a possibility of filmmaking.

And I think and not a different form of art, but an art that uses puts emphasis on different aspects of film. And I think that that is really astute and what makes a great art and I do also then within that reserve the right to just say that I think I respond to different parts of filmmaking more than others and I and I do that in films starring real life people also so I you know maybe I will respond and maybe I'll just be like I think this is really beautiful and it's not like how I emotionally attach to things I you know, maybe I will respond and maybe I'll just be like, I think this is really beautiful and it's not like how I emotionally attach to things. You know, we can see, but I don't emotionally respond to a lot of films starring like real people, you know, like I'm pretty particular and it has nothing to do with the skill or

the vision involved. So I don't want to get people's hopes up too much. That's also, by the way, separate from the thing about people just like movies for children. And that's distinct. And sometimes I do think people are just kind of fetishizing things for children

and everyone needs to grow up. And that's when I needle you guys. But for the most part, tons of respect for the craft. And I don't know, maybe I'll respond and maybe i won't i think that there are at least a couple of those films of the the studio ghibli films that you would respond to just because you're a human being i think if you watch spirited away like

there's no way you won't respond to a movie like that it's really powerful really well made um whether we should do a whole episode about i don't know we'll see let's let's let's what happens. We're going to be doing spending some time on animated movies, at least, uh, at the end of this year because of soul. So people can look forward to that. All right. I'll try to squeeze in a couple of more here. Which of your favorite movies Patrick Boberg wants to know is decidedly not a rewatchable and why did you come up with one for this not really i mean i think many people would argue that marie antoinette is like not a rewatchable it is to me um and and i i do think i've been thinking so much about the mailbag question i think from last time i thought it was so perceptive about how do you put like a, what, what do you consider when making a list of the greatest films and what do you put emphasis on and how much of it is rewatchability? And I thought that was very insightful and put its finger on the fact that like, maybe we put too much emphasis on rewatchability at the same time. If I don't

want to rewatch something, I probably don't think it's like great long term it's it's a little bit how we consume things now in 2020 more than anything else so I don't to me they're all rewatchable but maybe not to you I don't know yeah it's a that's a really really good question I I generally have the same point of view and it's filtered down through, I think, the Bill Simmons prism too of re Manchester by the Sea is one of my favorite movies ever made, but I definitely think it's an incredibly well-made film, beautiful film and gripping. And I don't think I'll watch it again because it's just very upsetting. And there are upsetting movies that I like to rewatch. I rewatch a lot of horror. I rewatch, I mean, Paul Thomas Anderson's movies are very upsetting at times and I rewatch those movies all the time. But Manchester by the Sea is like

gut punch painful where it's hard to recover from. So I think there is a class of kind of tragedy that probably falls into that category. Let's do two more. You want to choose one of these? Is there one that you've prepared for that you want to knock out? This is fun. Who would you want to write, direct, and star in a biopic of your life? I think that we should probably... Well, we've reversed it before. And I picked Fincher for you, which is hilarious and mean. I think this is a fun one. Who would you pick to direct the biopic of your life? Well, we mentioned Albert Brooks earlier. I think I'd like to see Albert Brooks take a shot at my neuroses, you know, take a shot at my obsessions and my struggles and my,

hopefully, my ultimately sensitive and fun-loving persona, hopefully. I just, I feel very simpatico with him and very influenced by him. And I think the fact that he is, he explores the depths of pain in a hilarious way is just something that really speaks to me. Yeah. My answer, I mean, I would like for it to be Sofia Coppola, but I don't think that's an honest answer. I think the real answer is Greta Gerwig. There is just an exuberance that I, and a talkiness. I think I often feel the way that Sofia Coppola's characters feel, but don't often like actually exhibit those characteristics as evidenced

by the hundreds of episodes of this podcast and others. And I, you know, I feel a tremendous amount of emotional connection to everything that Greta Gerwig puts her hands on. But the sense of,

maybe not quite optimism, but enthusiasm and an emphasis on a cerebral nature to a lot of her characters, but like with sentimentality at the end, not in a hokey way, kind of, I don't know. It would be nice to live in a Greta Gerwig film. How about that? I hope my life ends up like a Greta Gerwig film.

She's joyful. It's a great pick. Okay, last question. I want to know your answer to this. Illy B wants to know, what is the best way to be using the Letterboxd app? Should I be following critics? What is the best way to rate movies? What are the best lists to create? I suspect our answers are different here. Yeah, so I really tried. And I don't know whether it was kind of the election and just having to filter the amount of information and opinion and, and data, frankly, because I was, I was on the Kornacki train in a big way. I just love him so much. Thank you to Steve. Uh, but I have not been on Letterboxd in like two weeks. It was just too much for me. So I don't know what to say.

And there was something where I was just kind of like, I don't even want to be cataloging these things anymore. I just, and I had been making a list all year of everything that I watched and read and I quit in the last two weeks. I don't know why. Maybe I'll get back on it, but it just, there was too much else going on. And it's not how I process and it's not an outlet for my anxiety. Again, it's just bringing more people's opinions into

my life. I find that really stressful. I am an introvert as discussed on this podcast. So the answer is use it as it brings joy to your life and not as it brings stress in whatever form you find that is for you. Yeah. I mean, I generally agree with that. Use it the way that it makes you happy, right? There's no right way to be doing it. I will say I'm really enjoying it. I've now evangelized for it a couple of times. It is the exact social media app I've been waiting my whole life for because it's mostly friendly. It's mostly celebratory. There is great writing. There are good jokes and it's organized and it's organized in a way that makes sense to me. And so what's the best way to use it? I don't

know. Log the movies that you watch. Like that's the whole point of the app. If you want to write reviews, you can write reviews. People have asked me on many occasions why I wait to rate movies, why I wait to give star ratings. I mean, there are two reasons for that. One, obviously embargoes for new movies. I don't want to kind of weigh in on things before those embargoes have been until they've been lifted. And then secondarily, like sometimes it takes me a minute to figure out what I really think about something. And so I don't want to just like finish a movie and slap a star rating on it. It's more important to me to actually log it than it is to rate it because I'll also like go back and change my ratings and think about,

I'm putting together my 2020 best of list. And there's some movies that I rated as three stars that I'm like, this should be three and a half stars. And there's some movies I rated as four and a half stars. I'm like, this should be four stars. Let's put things in context. And let's, when you have the full scope of the year, think about how they fit together in the jigsaw puzzle of moviedom.

So I have an ongoing evolving relationship to that app and to the way i think about those things i think that's perceptive that there is something that is instant reaction about it which is which is good and useful and i think too often we forget um how we felt instantly like that that is a part of of film criticism that gets lost. And for most people, that's their only experience of film criticism. It's like, did I enjoy watching this or did I not enjoy watching this?

Did I connect to it? Did I hate it? And then I move on with my life. So I think it's very valuable for that. But yeah, you and I are of the school of let's, you know, let's make a beautiful list. Let's, you know, compose everything. Let's make sure it's representative of a whole thing.

And you do, that does take more time. The other thing I've noticed, I have my pen back just to really make this, I'm just waving a pen at Sean by Zoom, is that, for example, you know why I stopped using it actually was because we were doing the movie draft and I was rewatching, but I didn't want to tip people off to what I was going to possibly be picking. And I have noticed that people are definitely just monitoring. And like, that's great in a way, God bless anyone who cares enough about anything that you and I say to, and this podcast, I genuinely, we really appreciate it, but I also need to preserve a competitive edge. Okay. So that's, that's another thing that we have here.

I've thought about that too. You know, invariably, if you look at the comments on some of the reviews that I write, they're one of two strains. One is, is this going to be a rewatchables? Or two, do an episode on blank, you coward. Which, you know, I understand people want to hear about things that they love. I do too. That's why we're doing the show. But just because I watched a movie does not mean that we are necessarily planning for something. But you're right. The competitive

edge is a fair point. You know, I'm the reigning champ of the movie draft right now. I'm happy to say so. I'm fearless. I'm going to continue watching what I want to watch regardless. I will say that we were talking about doing an Albert Brooks podcast and kind of the book club or film club element and that maybe we could actually use the big picture letterbox as a way to kind of to do those things in advance because there is like a communal watch along plan your community aspect to letterboxes is great and especially right now, we need because we can't actually go to the movies together. So perhaps that would be the

way to strike a nice balance. And then people can leave their comments there instead of on my personal page when I rewatch A Few Good Men for the 3,000th time. I'm completely with you. Amanda, so nice to talk to you today in America in 2020. It's great to talk to you, Sean. Thank you to everybody who submits these questions. This was an amazing collection of questions. We only got to literally one 50th of them. So I appreciate everybody responding to these prompts. You know, we'll do mailbags as time goes on in the future for the rest of the year too. Let's now go to my interview with Michelangelo Covino and Kyle Marvin about the climb.

I'm delighted to be joined by Michelangelo Covino and Kyle Marvin. Guys, thanks for coming in. Thank you for having us. I want to know when you guys first met. Can we start there? We can. Yeah, we met in New York. Kyle was shooting a commercial and he needed someone who would walk up

to people in the streets and like buy them things for free. I asked the producer like who has no inhibitions at all to just walk up to strangers and buy them random things and then convince them to let us film it. And they didn't have a lot of money so they needed someone who was like non-union who would just walk up to strangers and buy them random things and then convince them to let us film it. What sort of things are we talking about?

And they didn't have a lot of money, so they needed someone who was like non-union and would work for $100 flat. That's useful. What were you buying people? Like candy? We bought this one girl a bike. I walked up to these two people eating brunch,

and I was like, it was like pre- It was pre-PayPal. It was like a it was this, it was like pre. It was pre PayPal. It was like, it was like a, it was like a PayPal-esque. Kyle, Kyle used to like, Kyle was like creating, he was like working in advertising and he. How is this becoming the conversation? It was just fun. I'm thinking back. It's like the early stages of the insane things we used to work on.

And it was like this want button thing. And they were like, you want something? You put this button on and it will and it was like this want button thing. And they were like, you want something, you put this button on and it will buy it for you. Push the button. It was like a sticky kind of thing that he came up with and I executed. And you thought immediately, like we will be creative partners for life. Yeah. We hit it off. Yeah. No, what happened was I moved to LA. I was broke. And I, I like, I realized like, Oh, they're making real commercials. Maybe I should like, like, I've never told anyone this, settle up with them. And so, I like, I realized like, oh, they're making real commercials. Maybe I should like, like, I've never told anyone this, settle up with them. And so they were like, oh, we got this commercial shooting in LA. I was like, that's so funny. I'm going to be in LA. They're like,

do you want to AD it? I was like, sure. And so I went out there and then Kyle was moving apartments and, and I was like, you need some help moving. And so I like helped him move. And, and then he didn't, uh, and then he hired a bunch of other, like, like workers to help him move and and then he didn't And then he hired a bunch of other like like workers to help him move and he paid all of them But then he he didn't He and then he offered to pay me. I was like no don't pay me I thought I'd pay you less then I found out how much he offered to pay me He gave them all a hundred dollars. He gave me fifty and I was like, first of all, I don't want your money I was like you could buy me dinner sometime

But also if you're gonna offer me money offer me the same amount that you're paying the workers that you hired to do this. It's only right. In your mind, were you angling for a friendship or a creative entryway into the work that Kyle was already doing? Oh, I never wanted a friendship. It's just been a byproduct. It just happened to happen, unfortunately. No, I mean, I joke when I say I was angling. I think that, yeah, it just happened to happen, unfortunately. No, I, I mean, I joke when

I say I was angling. I think like, that's not what it was. I think it was like, I saw him and, uh, the, his, uh, one of his high school friends who he was working with at the time and they were like doing real things. And I was just directing my own stuff and like hustling in New York to try to make any video content I could and shoot short films and sketches. And I just saw like, oh, maybe there's a way I can help these guys by producing. And then when I started doing that, it became, we started a commercial production company like a few years down the road.

And then we made a couple movies with that company because we'd sort of like put whatever money we made aside and then finance short films and features with it. And then eventually that like allowed us to meet people in the film industry that would kind of get us to a place where we can make this movie. Yeah. I think for most people who didn't know you guys before can of last year, you know, there was a feeling like you were overnight sensations when your film premiered. And in fact, you are, have been working for a long time and trying to break through.

Can you just give me a little bit of insight into the kind of conception of this movie? And if at any point before it broke through, if you thought that you were ever going to break through in your creative lives? I think to do commercials is very practical and pragmatic. To make film, you have to be semi-delusional. So I think we were delusional in the way that you should be, and which is the most beautiful thing about people in our industry. So I think, you know, we were always really confident that the things we were doing, even if it was stuff we were doing on the side that was absurd,

was funny and interesting and we enjoyed it so i think we always thought you know if we could get enough exposure if we could get people to pay attention in this world where like there's so many videos on youtube you know what i'm saying like it's impossible to be found anymore anywhere i guess um that if you know if if if somehow we got our break then something would happen. Yeah, I mean, I think you also, when you're pursuing a career in filmmaking and you want to make narrative feature films, you sort of have to come to terms with the fact that 20 years will probably go by

and nothing will come of it, or what you expected or hoped would come of it won't come of it. Did you know that like 10 years ago? Were you like, I'm signing up for this life? I signed up for life. I was like, what age will I be really angry with myself? And I think I gauged it at 45. So like if I started when I was like 21 or 22,

I was like, if I get to 45 and I have nothing to show for this, then that's the point I should probably quit. And by the way, I probably wouldn't if I got to 45 and did that. But you won though, you beat it. You beat your estimate. I beat it by 10 years. But it's more like a thing that you put in your head.

You just go like, I'm in this for the long haul. And I think what ends up happening when you sort of put a longer clock than you'd expect. You still have that sense of urgency and you're like, you're still every year like, I got to make my first film this year. I got to, I got to get it done. But you, you learn to sort of like cope and grow and find happiness or find some sort of like reward in the little moments, in the little things, you know? What did you guys bond over movie-wise when you first became friends? Did we bond over movies?

Uh, I mean, we love, like, Monty Python and... Lebowski. Like, Lebowski and, like, you know, the sort of, the typical things that you could quote to each other over and over and over again. I think it's, you know, we only started writing together four years ago and that's when we really discovered like how our minds work as storytellers and how we compliment each other.

I think it's less about references and more about instincts. And I think our background references might be a little different different but somehow they coalesce in a weird way like i think if if you asked him his favorite films and me my favorite films there'll be some overlap but not not really but somehow the sensibility still yeah i mean i think we both love slapstick comedy and and and and then also like everything we write skews toward like some sense of realism and emotion. But then like we also love, you know, slapstick comedy like, you know, Buster Keaton and I think the traditions that started with Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin and people like that. I think that sort of authentic, realistic thing that you're describing is part of what people have connected to so much in the climb. Obviously, it's very funny and interesting and kind of amazingly well-made, which I would like

to talk to you guys about. But because we've never seen you before, most of us, it just feels like we're watching two guys that are friends. And I bought it. I bought it, not as a documentary, but it just was enveloped by it right away. So where did the movie come from? Where did the conceit for the movie come from? And when did you guys really start working on it? Well, I was on a long bike ride thinking about the fact that one of my friends slept with one of my ex-girlfriends. Kyle? No. No. And it was not just thinking about that, but thinking about you get in your head about these situations and um and it was something that i i thought it'd be really interesting to explore in like a comedic

sense so we we were looking for like something that we could both act in that was really contained and simple for a short film that i could direct and hopefully could be like um i don't know if i want to call it a calling card but just like something new that we were creating that might, we might be able to put out in the world. And we wrote this, this short film and it was basically the opening scene of the feature, which is just me revealing to him that I slept with his ex-girlfriend while he's out of shape and he tries to catch me, but he can't. And when we shot that, we sort of submitted it to Sundance and kind of forgot about it,

and it got in. And that kind of changed the trajectory of everything because we realized with that launch pad, we might be able to go make a feature out of it. Two things about that. One, the decision to play the person that cheated with your friend's ex-girlfriend

is a bold one. Your performance in the feature length is just hilarious and great, and you seem to really be reveling the chance to be that guy. What drove that? We had a conversation at the beginning of, like, who gets what position. That is true. We did. Was it defined by sort of, like, who would make more sense in that role or who would have more fun playing that part?

I think I'm just more of an asshole in real life. So like I think Kyle's like such a good. Also, you were a better bike rider at the time. So it only made sense. I was really out of shape and hadn't ridden a bike. So I think it organically. Yeah. When we shot the short, Kyle couldn't get up the hill.

Like on take five, I turned to him. I was like, dude, what are we doing out here if you can't make it to the top? And he was like, I'm trying. It's just hard. Okay, to set the record straight, you did starve me because you had your philosophy of like no food before. And then when we ate burritos, I could make it up the hill every time. I was starving and dehydrated.

You didn't know what you were signing yourself up for, though. It was 106 degrees outside. so it premieres at sundance people are like you guys are geniuses is it how quickly before it becomes an idea for a feature length and then did you raise money had like what happened we um so we went into sundance actually with like a pitch for the feature and then we set up meetings with companies that we knew were in the business of making movies at the scale. And we sold it there and then kind of went right into writing it and then shot it that summer. So like started shooting that summer. So it happened in short order, but I think that had a lot to do with our previous, you know, history of like, we had made

a bunch of features as producers beforehand. So I think we were able to navigate that a bit quicker as a result. Did you, is this always the path that you guys wanted to take? Cause you actually, this is your first time doing it this way, even though you've worked on and made a lot of other films collaboratively starring in the film, all of those things, you know, working on directing the film, like, was this the scheme, the plan? You mean to have both of us kind of do all the jobs? Yes. No, that's not the ideal scene, I don't think.

So this is not the beginning of something that you think you'll replicate in this fashion over and over again? Well, I think we know how to produce and we're comfortable and have a certain amount of control that we want to have on our sets. So that's always part that's just ingrained in us now

having done it so many times. Yeah, because we like did a lot of the jobs. Right. Most of the jobs. So you're like, oh, okay,

there's inefficiencies here. There's inefficiencies here. So you kind of know how to build a set or build a movie in a way that maybe cuts out some of those things.

Was there anything that you guys didn't know how to do that you were like, shit? There's a ton of things we didn't know how to do. Act? Still figuring that part out? No. I mean, I was really, that was part of the selling, but we were like, you know, we weren't going to do the movie if we couldn't act in it because the only way you can make money in this industry is as an actor. So it's like, what's the point of doing it otherwise? And you knew that we weren't going to do the movie if we couldn't act in it because the only way you can make money in this industry is as an actor so it's like what's the point of doing it otherwise

and you knew that no i mean i'm sorry we're kidding but still like that that's i there are people that know to to pursue their careers in that fashion yeah i think i think really what what what's what prompted the the acting is that like we we have sort of – it's hard and you see this in a lot of comedic voices is like even if they write great scripts, the delivery is another thing. And there's like a tone and thing that we were really going for and we had the conversation of like, hey, Kyle, John C. Reilly is a better actor than you. You should probably not do this role. If John C. Reilly would have done this movie, we would have done it with John C. Reilly. No, I'm kidding. But the conversation came about of like—

I'm trying to get to the bottom of that. Is it Sam Rockwell and John C. Reilly? That's definitely a better version of the film, but we didn't— I don't know, though. I mean, we'll never see it, but what you guys are bringing to it, obviously, aside from the fact that you're making it, is it feels like you are living it, which is part of what I think people are genuinely connecting to. Yeah. And, and I think there's, there's two things at play. One is like, we, we felt very confident that we could execute on the tone that we were trying to deliver on. So like, yes, there is the variable of you go out, you spend a bunch of time trying to court

actors who are big and names, and then they either do it or don't do it. Or maybe they don't see it exactly the way you do. Like, it's just an additional variable. And this whole process was about controlling, like, minimizing the number of things that were outside of our control. Like, so if we just, we knew that we were going for a very specific tone of humor that was dry, but absurd, but over the top in moments, but heartfelt and bittersweet. And so like, that was something you know i mean when we were writing the script we were like in an acting class performing them every day and then rewriting and then performing and rewriting so like it gave us a level of confidence with the scenes where we're like we know we'll nail this part it's just a question of like all the other can we nail the camera and can we nail

you know these other ingredients that are, that are moving pieces basically. Why did the movie premiere at Cannes and not Sundance? Because we shot the opening scene in France and like, obviously it's a better, no, we weren't ready for Sundance last year. Like we weren't done shooting. We shot all the winter scenes in February. So we weren't, the timeline just lined up in a way that the first festival that we were like, the film was ready. I mean, we flew with the DCP. We were finishing the sound mix up right down to the wire in May. What is it like to be not just two American guys, but two of those guys who your movie premieres at a big international film festival?

And people are like, I've never heard of these guys, but this thing is awesome. What is it like to be surrounded by that conversation for a few days? It's crazy. Yeah. It's the most, that was one of the most real things, probably the most surreal thing I've ever experienced in my life. Cause, uh, we also have like a level of reverence for the Cannes film festival that, um, I mean, it was like, I think it was my sixth time there every year i save up money and i just go there to watch movies as like a vacation uh because that that's where kind of like international cinema is released into the world and if i want to go see like you know michael hanukkah film or or thomas vinterberg like and not wait a year and a half for magnolia to release it

i have to go to can it's you know it's know, it's like, that's literally what, how it works. Yeah. We were like, we were, we were reading through the thing and like, oh my God, my heroes have movies. Like the people who I respect the most in the world have movies with us, which is, which is craziness. And the cool thing too, is like, we showed up, there wasn't a lot of hype around our movie going into it

because there are great movies that were premiering there no one just knew what it was yeah and then and then as the festival

sort of hit and our movie started you know getting the traction it was getting it became surreal to be like

oh you know why don't you come join us for lunch with and you know you're like hanging out with Tarantino and talking about movies. And it was just like, or the Dardenne brothers.

Or like, you're like, these are the people that make the movies that I am amazed by. And now all of a sudden, you know, we're being invited to these small gatherings in the south of France. It's, it doesn't make sense. That's really cool. That's actually a good opportunity then to go back to the filmmaking of the movie, which is really, really good. And I think you're kind of like scratching two itches with the movie,

which is it's fun, funny, pleasurable. You feel connected to the characters. But for Wonks, it's got long takes. It's got style. It has purpose. I was hoping you could kind of talk through some of the reason that you made those decisions and why you shot the movie the way that you did. Well, I mean, I think it really just comes down to like a lot of years of watching movies and take, I mean, we were talking about

this recently, like how, you know, the Nouvelle Vague, like all those filmmakers who came out of that were like talking about movies for 10 years before they started making movies. And there's something in that, like, I think in the incubation period that we've had before we were like on the controls of getting to make all the decisions on a movie that really benefited us in this circumstance, because the movies I love are comedies. Most of like, if I, if I had to say, you know, gun to my head what are my favorite movies of all time it's like Big Lebowski My Cousin Vinny and like I I don't know uh Jerry Maguire or Terminator 2 or like like like these big ridiculous movies yet I have a great deal of appreciation for Caesar and Rosalie or you know like like like you know Claude Sauté and Eric

Romero like these um the you know Ingmar Bergmar Bergman, these films that influenced me at a different time in my life where I understand that, oh, there's an emotionality that can a short film that was about this subject matter and we wanted to transition into a longer story, part of that conversation was like, well, how do we differentiate it? Like, we're not making this movie if it's just a floating camera, you know, mumblecore style, like, you know, situational. We'll just find the dialogue as it comes. Like, there's no way we're making it that way not because we don't love those movies or i don't we haven't you know appreciated you know everything the duplass brothers have done because they're those guys are geniuses but because that's we're not going to contribute in any way to cinema in that way and we're not going to be there's nothing new and there's nothing fresh and it's not going to land yeah and and that's truly the thing it's like i think you know odiard what did he say he's like he's like i write a film three times like i write it once for the

story once for uh what it's saying in terms of the context of like the world and then once again for what it's saying in the context of cinema and like that was a real thing that we a bar that we put there at the beginning we're like if we're not going to do something, that's at least going for a cinematic point of view that feels slightly fresh at this moment in time, then let's not bother making the movie. And I think from the writing process, like a single take is a device, it's a device. And in some ways it's a gimmick. If you're not, you know, a Polish film who has one roll of film who are like, we got to only get it in one and then we're out of film. You know, if you're like, you know, the old Polish directors, they'd just be like, we got one role. It's like a movie. Yeah. And so if it's not, if you're not

under those constraints, it's a choice you're making. And I think from the outset, we had this conversation of like, if we can't make that thing interesting or bring something new or fresh, at least in our experience to that tool, then it's not worth it. So we, from the outset, we were constantly like, okay, what do we show or not show? Or how do we push it so far that like in the middle of this long, hard thing, someone falls through the ice and a camera goes underwater. It's spoiler alert. You're supposed to say spoiler alert. Spoiler alert.

Oh, shh. It's sort of early. It's like at the one-third mark, right? No spoilers. Please, please beep over when I say.

No, this is all going live. No, this is like the Polish filmmakers, you know, one take. Just keep going. But I think for us, we were like, let's use this thing

to our advantage. And I think that was really fun from the outset of the writing process of being like, how can we take this thing and add, continuously use it to our advantage, not just show up on the set and be like, listen, we're not going to cut. That's true. We're not going to make it work. That's true. We set out with these constraints of saying, like, if this feels like a gimmick, we'll remove it. Right.

We always sort of said, okay, let's explore this with these sort of confines and created like a dogma for the film in a way that only he and I sort of knew. And then we said, okay, great, let's pursue structuring the scenes this particular way, you know, blocking and shooting the scenes this particular way. And if it in any way feels forced or just we're doing it for the sake of doing it, then we're going to revert back to whatever sort of traditions of cinema that we have at our disposal. Did it work the way you thought it would once you were on set? Were all the things that you had written into it in that style? Or did you find that you had to change a lot of stuff? There were certain things that we definitely had to change. I mean, I think we wrote some things and we did our best to like storyboard and block things out and work with our DP to figure things

out in advance. And then we'd get to a location and like, for instance, there's a scene in a cabin where it's just me and his fiance at the time. And we have this interaction and like, it was supposed to be contained in one room. And then we got this interaction and like, it was supposed to be contained in one room. And then we got there on the day and it became, well, what if I just left the room? And then the entire blocking of it changed and our camera operator and our cinematographer looking at us like wide-eyed, like, what did you just, what monster did you just create? Like, we're going to walk through the entire base, you know, entire floor of the house. I have to light this whole thing and we've got to block this in a very different way but that was the fun sort of um adapt adaptable

sort of nature of of it that we we built the whole schedule in a way that allowed for that where we had like a rehearsal day for every scene and then a shoot day kyle you have a kind of a strip tease in the film. Entertaining scene. I feel like the whole movie is sort of like a strip tease in a way. It's like this big vulnerability show that a lot both characters are kind of putting on

that I think is part of what's so good about the creation of the characters. Is that something purposeful that you guys were talking about about how to kind of showing certain sides of yourselves? Yeah, I think from the outset, there was a conversation we had, which was like, our relationships are vulnerable, even with each other and with the people around us. And that's something that feels somehow fresh in the, in the, in the world of cinema. And so we really wanted to bring that to the table and bring that to the forefront of like. And so we really wanted to bring that to the table

and bring that to the forefront of like, yeah, we do hurt and we do compromise and we do cry and we do feel things. You're talking about man-on-man relationships. Yeah, I mean, I guess, yeah. It's in saying, yeah. Man-on-man. Yeah, male relationships.

It's not always portrayed in that light. And I think for us this just just felt more truthful and i think it was something from the outset we we felt we had to put in because we were talking about friendship and that's how it is first time i was not a can last year first time the movie became i became not aware of it but like i was hearing a lot about it was a telluride and everybody telluride was doing the yeah, it's sideways on bikes thing. Oh, cool. Is that good to have a kind of three-word description tacked onto your movie before anybody's seen it

or even knows who you are? I hadn't heard that. I'll take it, though. I mean, I think it's because Alexander Payne had written up, like, the, he interviewed us before. Oh, that is what, yes, that's what it was. So it was, he did, like, a phone interview with us before, and he was really

complimentary with the film. And so, you know, on the plane ride out to Telluride, everyone kept turning us through like, Alexander Payne likes your movie. And we were like, cool. Yeah. Like, I know it's amazing. Like I'm still surprised by it. And they were like, so I was on bikes. I was like, okay, I'll take it. Yeah. But, um, it wasn't, I don't know I don't know. I don't know how to react to like people saying things like bromance and sideways on bikes because that was never part of the conversation. It was more just really the only thing we talked about from the outset was like people need to feel and like feel the emotions these characters are going through and care about it.

And they need to laugh at certain points. And it doesn't need to be like a ton of laughter and it doesn't need to be a ton of feeling, but those just, they can never give up on caring about the characters hopefully. And, and it should never like, hopefully the jokes never fall completely flat. I was asking Kyle about this before we started, but that you now are in that place where you were thinking about not being able to see the Thomas Vinterberg movie for a year and a half because your movie came out nine months ago and people have been talking about it and waiting for it to come, but also your lives continue and you are probably off making more stuff. It's a European film, so it has to come out a year later.

Good point. What's that been like to that sort of weird valley between the world gets to see this thing that we worked on that theoretically has acclaim and expectation, but otherwise like your lives continue. Uh, it's, I mean, it's great. And it's also like strange in a way, cause you can't really move on to like the next thing. And you're sort of still, I mean, we're here talking about it and we're excited to be talking about it, but it's, it's, uh, it's definitely, it would be great to like eventually be able to um release the film that will happen theoretically soon that's the plan i think no it's it's i mean it's amazing i i would never in a million years complain about this experience because we've had

the the other experience where you make a movie and no one wants to talk about it. And so, you know, and I like I've written a movie and starred in a movie that no one wanted to talk about. And that was and I love that film. But it's definitely it's one of those things where this is just it's a constant new surprise of like, great, let's let's let's discuss this thing. And hopefully we just get to do it again. I mean, our bar for success is really low. It's like, can we make another movie?

Great, we won. Were the people in your life when this became more of a thing this time, like, did they believe you? You know, like, were they like, this is the one this time, I swear. And it actually was. I've been married.

I've been married for a while. So my wife is always, I've had continuously over support. Yeah, his wife's great. while, so my wife is always—I've had continuously over-support. Yeah, his wife's great. Yeah, so for me, it's— That's a joke. I'm a big fan of his. We get along, Spine the Blade.

That's good. Yeah, so for me, I've always been—I think we both have been supported by people in our lives who believe in us. And so that's always helped because you kind of need that sometimes, even if you're, even if you're, you know, invincible, it's sometimes you need those people in your life to tell you, keep going, try it again. Totally. I mean, I, yeah, I would definitely not be here if I didn't have like, you know, uh, family members and people around me and, and loved ones who are just telling me how great I am, even when I'm not that great.

I think, I think one of the great things that we found through producing for other people is like, independent film is a community that needs to support each other. And so there's like an inherent part of us that's just like, what do you guys need? You know what I mean? Like you're in this together. We're in the trenches. If I see you in two years and you're still alive,

then like, wow. You know what I mean? Like we're here together. Let's like get some champagne and talk about our wounds and then like get back in it. So I think that's something that, that,

that I think it's not just our close friends and family. I think there's a broader network of people who were just like, dude, you're really talented. Keep going. You know what I'm saying? And I'll say that to them every three years when I see them. But sometimes that's what we all need to do for each other. One thing about the characters in the movie that I wanted to ask you guys is I

love a movie about a toxic friendship. And this seems like it's a movie about a toxic friendship. Do you think that that is the case? Yeah. I just don't know what that word means anymore. Cause I, cause it's been like, especially in the last five years,

it's sort of taken on new meanings day to day. But yeah, I mean, I think we even use it in the movie. So like for sure it's, it's sort of taken on new meanings day to day um but yeah i mean i think we even use it in the movie so like for sure it's it's it just depends on the perspective right because like um yeah maybe to kyle's character i'm toxic because i'm damaged and i bring him down and i cause harm and i do these things that are really destructive. But at the same time, I know for me, like there are people in my life that know me better than anyone because of the shared experiences we have from a certain period in our life. And there's no one else who knows me from that period in my life. And therefore, to completely let go of that person would be to let go of like myself at a certain age or to let go of my past and to let go of just things that really define who I am or who I was and are a part of our sort of history and identity. So I think it's complicated in that sense because…

As it is in real life. Yeah. It's about the perspective because like we've – I think I've certainly had the experience where there's people in my life where I'm like, why are you marrying that person? People very close to me. And I've spoken out about it and it's caused a rift in the relationship and um you know and and then their response is like you don't know what we have like between and i and i have to recognize that so you know part of what this movie is is an exploration of that sort of meeting in the middle and that acceptance on both sides of like the person who is trying to change the other for the

good because they because they think that the way they are is not right. And then at the same time, learning to accept the other person for who they are. And I think it goes both ways. Yeah, I think for us, the fundamental thing and why it's not, there are toxic elements to it, but it's not truly toxic is that for us when we were developing the characters and hopefully what comes across in the film is that fundamentally they're both looking out for each other. They're trying to do what

they think is right. So they're not trying to destroy another person. They care and empathize for the other human being. They just don't have all the information to properly form the right choice. And so their choices may be improperly informed, but their intentions are good. You know, they're trying to everyone in this movie is trying to do the best, what they think is the best thing. The family members, you know, the Marissa character, everyone's trying to do what they think is the best, not just for themselves, but for other people. Do you think you'd ever revisit these characters? Oh, for sure.

Yeah, we're going to do a sequel. Obviously. What's it called? Climb On. Still Climbing. Climb Away, Still Climbing. Still Climbing. Still Climbing.

Climbed. We're going to do one every 10 years. Yeah, I mean, there are actually- Go to here first. No, no, no. We'll hold you to that link later Stile exactly

we definitely I think there is something interesting who the hell knows we've never talked about this but like there is something interesting about doing like when we're in our 40s just like revisiting this whole thing

and then and just continuing this sort of elliptical storytelling yeah it's the 7 up of cycling let's go totally what do can you guys talk about

what you're working on, if anything? Yeah. What do you want to know? You want the plot points? Yeah, just the end. Just the ending of all the projects

you're working on. Well, I mean, we're trying to act. I acted. Is it acted? I acted. Sorry, I didn't pass grammar school.

I just did that, like a movie with Tom Hanks called News of the World, which is pretty cool. That's exciting. Yeah, it was like a Paul Greengrass Western. Two-hander, you and Tom? Pretty much, just us the whole movie. I play like a guy with a hat on a horse um but it was it was it was probably sorry kyle but it was probably the coolest experience like this was making the climb was the coolest experience of my life until i was um in santa fe with you know riding horses with c hanks with tom hanks so that

was cool was that a function of someone saw the climb and said, this guy? No. Well, no. I just auditioned for it, but it was after the climb and after we signed with agents. And then all of a sudden, we officially entered Hollywood. The gates opened for us. So which world-famous multi-Oscar winner are you working with, Kyle? Mike. No one right now. No, that's it. That's it. That's it.

It's just me. Soon. I have a feeling Kyle's acting career is going to take a whole different trajectory after this movie. Well, I mean, I hope that's true for both of you guys because the movie is amazing. We end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing that they have seen. You guys seem like avid movie watchers. You seen anything good lately? Last great thing I've seen.

Last night I watched Midnight Run randomly. Oh, good movie. It seen anything good lately? Last great thing I've seen. Last night I watched Midnight Run randomly. Oh, good movie. It was really good. That was great. I really like Give Me Liberty. I just saw that. Oh, yeah.

Can you talk about what, we actually have not talked about that film that much on the show at all this year in the past 12 months. So what about it did you like? Well, so I had read the script like I think years ago because like we're talking

about friends of ours were producing it and they were like hey do you want to go make a movie in wisconsin like and um the carol the filmmaker we met in can because he was there also uh with the film and he reached out to me about the climb sending me this beautiful email telling me how he loved it and i was like well i should probably watch his film so i and i watched it the other night and i was just i was floored by I haven't seen a film paced like that. The beginning is so crazy. It's just, I don't even understand how, how that film is cut because it's like, he, it's like characters are talking to each other, but then other people are answering and

it like fluidly takes you through and you find yourself 20 minutes into the film and you don't even understand how you got there. And that's a real feat. Like, I don't know. It's maybe the way his mind works. And I don't know how you put that together because like, if I were to attempt to do that, oftentimes I can watch a movie. I could be like, I think I could pull that off. You know, my egomaniac self is like, I think I could do something like that. Whereas like I watched Jimmy Lee, but self is like, I think I could do something like that. Whereas like I watched Jimmy Lieber. I was like, I have no idea. Like, there's no way I could do that.

That's a great one. What about you? Have you seen anything? I think recently I would say Portrait of a Lady on Fire really stuck with me from like the, if you're talking about like what's going right now. Speaking of your whole Cannes family, right? Yeah. I mean, that's.

Yeah, exactly. We're sort of stuck in that moment, I guess. I also really like Emma, Pablo Lorraine's new. I haven sort of stuck in that moment, I guess. I also really like Emma, Pablo Lorraine's new... I haven't seen that yet. I really enjoyed it. I saw it at Sundance. It was also I guess at Toronto. But I saw it at Sundance and

was really moved by it. I think it's pretty cool what he's trying to do. I thought the climb was pretty cool. I really appreciate you guys coming in and talking to me about it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you to Michael Angelo Covino. Thank you to Kyle Marvin. Thank you, of course, to Amanda Dobbins. Thank you to Lonnie Rinaldo for filling in for Bobby Wagner. And thanks to WAGS, of course. See you guys next week on The Big Picture.