The Big Picture - ‘Marty Supreme’ Is the Moment, With Josh Safdie!

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Sean and Amanda dream big on today’s show because they’re breaking down one of their most anticipated movies of the year with Josh Safdie’s ‘Marty Supreme,’ starring Timothée Chalamet. They make the case for why it’s one of the best movies of the year, celebrate its relentless and propulsive filmmaking style, and highlight their favorite individual scenes from the movie (1:31). Then, Sean is joined by Safdie to discuss the intense pressure he faced following the success of ‘Uncut Gems,’ why Chalamet’s personal ambition and drive made him perfect for the lead role of Marty, and work through whether or not this is a “chapter closing” type of movie for Safdie as a director (1:00:26). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Josh Safdie Producers: Jack Sanders and Jacob Cornett Shopping. Streaming. Celebrating. It’s on Prime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennacy. And this is the big picture of conversation show about Marty Supreme. Today on the show, we are diving deep into one of the year's very best movies, the Timothy Chalemay starring ping pong period piece, Marty Supreme. Later in this episode, I'll have a long, deep, fantastic conversation with Josh Saffty. He's the co-writer, co-editor, and director of this magical movie. Josh has been coming on this show since we started doing this show.

In 2017, he was here with his brother Benny for good time. He's been on it many times since. Always one of the most engaging, intelligent, fun guests we have. It's also a diehard Nix fan, so we really appreciate him in many ways. Things are going great for the Nix. Did you know that? No. You've mostly been tweeting about the Mets, so I haven't really clocked in on the Nix.

Yeah. Marty Supreme goes from a Mets game to a Knicks game in magical ways, and we'll get into that as we talk about the film. And we will do so right after this. This episode of The Big Picture is presented by Amazon Prime. You know how in every great holiday movie, there's that last minute scramble to make it all come together? From gifts to hosting essentials, Prime's fast shipping is always there for you during the holidays, especially when it's last minute and just can't wait. So if you need fast free delivery that saves the day, it's on Prime. Head to Amazon.com slash Prime to shop now. Okay, Amanda. This movie was number two. It was.

On your top five movies of the year list. Dream big. Dream big. That's me writing in an orange script. Yes. You're just doing marketing now. You're not even... That's fine.

I saw the movie on my own in October. It was like, that movie's dynamite. Put it on number two on my list. Having only seen it the ones, saw it again yesterday. This movie rules. I am amped. I am wearing a sequin shirt for this movie. It's not really sequin.

It's more like shiny metallic. Shimmering. Yeah. I bought this in Paris because I, too, dream big. So I just, this is, I mean, one battle is the movie of the year, but this is really a close second for me. I find this movie joyous and wild and electric, and it made me cry the second time. And it's, you know, it is another like real meeting point for the two. two of us. It's just what we want to see in the movies. But for two and a half hours yesterday,

I felt young again. And I would like to thank Timothy Shalameh and Josh Safdi for that. Yeah. Let's put some fencing around the movie. So as I said, directed by Josh, co-written with Ronald Bronstein, also co-edited with Ronald Bronstein, who's been one of their collaborators for a long time. It's once again shot by Darius Kanji, the legend who's shot multiple movies this year, including Mickey 17 and Eddington, this. is his third film of the year. Scores by Daniel Lopatin. We will definitely discuss that.

Release the score, A-24. What is this out on December 25th? Come on. If I'm marketing, you mark it too. Release the score. There are no tracks available at the moment we are recording it. Movie star Simodyish Alameh,

Gwyneth Paltrow, Odessa Azeon, Kevin O'Leary, Tyler the creator, Tyler O'Conma, Abel Ferrar and Fran Dresher. If you haven't heard of what this story is about, I'll give you a brief snapshot. Marty Supreme follows the ambitious, fast-talking

NYC hustler Marty Mouser in 1950s, New York as he navigates a chaotic life of petty crime, affairs, and a secret pregnancy all while pursuing world championship glory in table tennis,

blending real-life inspiration from ping-pong legend Marty Risman with fictionalized chaos focusing on Marty's self-obsession and his unconventional path to greatness. I thought we could talk.

Let's start there. Yes. We've just recorded another podcast that isn't out yet about a film that tracks ambition and obsession. You know what I'm referring to? Yes, I had to think about it for a moment. We are at the point in the year where we need like the poster board with what city we're on. Claire Dane's is, yeah, exactly. No, but just, no, like, you know, when people are doing tour dates and they're like, you know, hello Omaha.

But I need like what date it is just on a one. Love Actually Posterboard from Jack. We are in the midst of the 12 episodes in six days recording schedule. That is a great movie about ambition and the dark side and the corrosive nature of men and America all it wants. So this movie is also about that. Sort of. Yeah, it is. So Marty is this lower middle class kid living in New York, a Jewish kid, living in the tenements with his mom.

he's in his seemingly early 20s and trying to break free he's working in a shoe store and he's trying to pursue his dream which is to be not just an accomplished ping pong player because you get the sense from the movie that he already is that

but to be a world famous successful person a person who is acknowledged as great and I find that historically you like rank that like rankles you a little bit like these kinds of guys and I think that the movie is designed to make this guy wrangle you. Yeah. I guess he does. He doesn't wrinkle me for a second. And so you

I, you've identified this as a movie about ambition, which it certainly is. But I, you know, what he's trying to do is make like the outside match the inside and the rest of the world catch up with what's inside him. And this is an incredible movie about confidence to me. And I, you can't have one without the other, but there is, there's a specific nature, the specific thing about the nature of this confidence that is like only possible in the young and this movie is really located at a like a bridge in time moment

that like opening credits announce it to you very clearly like what's about to happen and but it's and it's not like a one crazy night movie but it is sort of a five crazy nights movie over the course of a year before someone has to grow up and so to me it is

is delusional but recognizable confidence that I found endearing as opposed to annoying, even though this person is obviously making really stupid decisions. And there are lives on the line, but in a lighthearted, everything is going to be okay sort of way. And I guess, like, the conclusion of the movie does really inform that. Yeah, I think both like, but not like the literal conclusion, but just that things, spoiler alert, and we will be spoiling Marley Supreme. Yes, in full. But broadly, like, things work out. Broadly, they do.

The ways in which they work out is interesting, I think, say a lot. The one thing that struck me watching this movie, I've now seen this movie three times, actually, is by shifting to a period piece after uncut gems and good time, which are both contemporarily set. In fact, all of their movies are contemporarily set, the Safty brothers. The movie is able to more easily shift into this kind of like Fantasia dream nightmare state, as opposed to when you're closely following the events of Howard Ratner and he's walking around modern 2019 New York City. Right. That anxiety that you feel, that everyone felt, that everyone continues to point at and say that that is definitional about their filmmaking style, feels like an anxiety in your life.

And it makes you uncomfortable. In this movie, it feels like you're reading an old book about a crazy kid. Yeah. And I think that that change, it changes the energy of the kind of movie that it is. Like, it is certainly a part of this succession of stories that Safdi has been making. And I'm not sure if, like, elevation is the right word. I'm not sure if it's, like, better then, but it is different. It does feel really unique for a variety of reasons.

You know, we said it's set in the 50s, but the music cues are all from the 1980s. the score is inspired by the 1980s, and the energy of the cutting and even the lighting style of the movie feels like the 2020s. And so you have this like mishmash, and so bringing to the table that latter energy is Timothy Shalame,

who's a very modern star. Yeah. And who like the way we understand him and the confidence that you're talking about, he's marketing that right now and we've been talking about it on the show. But even before he was doing that, when you saw him promoting a complete unknown

or when you saw him promoting Dune or Wonka or any of these movies, he's doing white boy swag. The swag is unbelievable and self-contained, you know? Like, and it is, I think this, the filmmaking in this movie is incredible, but you can't do it without this performance, which is someone channeling someone else and, you know, going through the world and going through a lot of different experiences. And, like, you know, Timothy Shalame has had many lives before this. But to my knowledge, was not a table tennis star before this moment.

No. So, and he's, you know, every once in a while you can see a double. But, like, he's playing tennis. Oh, yeah. Like ping pong. It's, like, very physical. Oh, yeah. This is a sports movie.

Yeah. Yeah. Straight up. Yeah. But the movie has also built around that singular Timothy Shalameh. And it is like a very new or current type of, like, Modern movie star, but there just is something impenetrably confident and poised about him that is like has to be seen to be believed. It's amazing.

It doesn't have that meta-textual self-awareness, though, that I find that a lot of people have now, you know, where they're sort of like super conscious of their image, you know, for people in their 30s and 40s, there's a lot of, like, ironic shell around everything that they experience. Marty Mouser is confronting the day every day, right? He is, like, ferocious in his attempts to be recognized and seen and to get what he feels he deserves, which is a very distinct, and it's pretty rare. It's pretty rare among stars. It's pretty rare in terms of performance style, and it's very rare in characters.

Like, it's hard to build a movie around a character like this who, at the drop of a hat, will make a very abrasive Holocaust joke, you know, who will very willingly, you know. Just like the pause, the gasp that you heard and the nervous chuckle in my theater yesterday. And like people still did laugh, but that's quite a moment. Yeah. I was trying to think about who this character reminded me of, who this performance reminded me of a little bit. And the closest I could come is it sort of feels like a mashup between Paul Newman and HUD. who's like a real bastard in that movie.

Yeah. But it's impossible to take your eyes off him and all the women in the movie can't take their eyes off of him. And Rupert Pupkin from King of Comedy. And obviously a classic New York movie. And so a guy who's got such a willful belief in himself and his comedy and his destiny

that he will go to insane ends to accomplish it. And interestingly, in both of those cases, but especially with Rupert Pupin, when you get to the end of King of Comedy and he's doing his stand-up on TV, you're like, this isn't bad. Like, it's not great, but it's not embarrassing. And Marty, similarly, he's greater than Rupert Pupkin is,

but this movie is trying to, like, show you that just because you're good at something doesn't mean it's the purpose of your life. But there's not really anything wrong with going for it either. You know, I find that takeaway to be really fascinating. You know, I read a lot of personal New York hustler. Like, you've got to absolutely kill yourself to succeed energy. Like, I feel that in all of the Safdi movies.

Yeah. This one especially. And so I think I'm citing Robert De Niro and Paul Noon here on purpose. I'm like, this is a rare air for an actor to conjure that feeling. Yeah. Sitting in the movie yesterday, I had a different combo spring to mine, but mine was, it was Pacino instead of De Niro. Okay.

It was like very young Pacino from like that like coiled, like waiting to attack and also just like very wiry and like extremely hot. Yep. And I was just like, I was just like, this is just like a small, incredibly high. hot man, you know, like wiry, but so powerful, uh, combined with Ad Rock, just like a, just like an incredibly cool, confident Jewish, like Brooklyn icon who, you know, can get away with saying things he shouldn't and is just like floating floating on, on charm and vibes. And I mean, ad rock has always been like a, you know, a locus point for both of us. It's one of our guys.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He really is one of our guys. It's, he is for us like the guys want to be him, like girls want to be with him. Very much. I'm on the record about that as well. So that's a compliment. But I think it's telling that in both of them we're having to combine people

because it is something... It's a big performance. It's a big performance at a time when he's been giving a lot of big performances. And I totally agree with that you said, which is the movie doesn't work if you don't have somebody at the center that can do this.

Obviously, like these two people, Josh and Shalemi have been wanting to work together for a long time. Josh talked a little bit about that in our conversation. And they're a really nice meeting point as two New Yorkers, really. Like, there's a very specific energy about the city and the movie is attempting to capture that energy. And, like, the style of the movie is interesting because it is quite long.

It's two and a half hours. And it's very episodic. Now, Marty's mission is clear. He is trying to win the table tennis championship. And then after losing it in the first act of a movie, avenge his loss. He's trying to win the British Open of Table Tennis. Yes. Is it not the World Championship?

No, it's the British Open. Yeah, they're at Wembley. Got it. And then the World Championship is being held in Tokyo. Got it. And so because of that, a lot has to happen. A lot transpires between those two, these two big sports movie tent poles. And that's really what it is.

Like the movie, well, let's, how much do you want to talk about the individual incidents of the film? they are filled with so many like you know one or two scene performances that are so memorable it's funny I went to see this movie yesterday as I said got home my three-year-old at the dinner table who's like learning about movies was like hey mama what you know how was your work I said I went to see a movie he said can you tell me what happened at it and so then I did and it was it was a very rich text I lighted some things this 25 year old banged out Gwyneth Paltrow in a shower Well, I think what I said was, and then he met Gwyneth Paltrow, and he found a diamond necklace, and there was a lot about table tennis. And then I had to explain what table tennis was. There was a dog. At one point, he took a bath. You know, so I was, you know, bringing it down to a three-year-old's level. There was a dog. But, you know, you could just like keep turning the pages. It was, I've seen people call it Dickens-esque in a way. But there is sort of.

But you can't not acknowledge all of the... It's Dickens-Each, but not Dickensian, if that makes sense. Yes. You know what I mean? Even, yes. Yeah, I think that a lot happens in the movie. And even just trying to sit down to write down all of the things that happened was challenging. I think there's a variety of reasons for that, right?

Like, the cutting style in the film is very fast and hard. It's cut very specifically to the music. The onslaught of images is very intense And there are very high highs emotionally in the movie That can then make it hard to sink back into the movie sometimes Where you have a big table tennis showdown Or you have a big romantic moment Where the music swells and you've got these two characters locked in

Or a violent encounter or an explosion Or just like a hustling moment at the tables in a bowling alley That makes the movie feel like a jumble you know like the sort of yeah i think yes i guess or it's it's certainly episodic and it's certainly like things that you're you know checking off before you can get to the final point but i i just kind of feel that marty as timi shallemate as marty is holding it all together i totally agree um i also think that with that collision of music and that style this movie and uncutjems especially have a kind of like cosmic jazz feeling where you're

you're like, was this teleported in from another planet? Like, it feels just a little bit different than most conventional movies. You know, it has a specific kind of energy. And that word anxiety keeps getting used to describe it. I'm not sure if that's the right word. I'm trying to figure out what the right word is to describe their cinema. Yeah. But it is not, it isn't like watching a complete unknown, right?

Which also has a really great Timothy Chalamey performance at the center of it. Really well-made movie. Very, very good filmmaker. or good performances all around. But there is a kind of like... It's unyielding. There are no breaks between activities. Yes, okay.

That's a good one. And I'm a person who typically likes breaks between activities, but they just... You like a nap. You like to lay down. I'm one of the world's great nappers. But they... Yeah, they just keep going.

They keep amping it up, you know? Okay. Well, what are your favorite scenes in this movie? What sequences really jump out when you think back on it? Uh, okay. Starting at the beginning. Well, the entrance of Odessa, Zion as Rachel, and that cue right into the opening credits, which are hilarious. And I did ask if it's an homage to look who's talking. And what did you say? Well, you'll have to listen to the interview. That's called being a content maker. Um, yeah. And the, for, for, for, for. ever young music cue, and the children's choir version.

And it's just really, really funny. And I was laughing. And, you know, the opening credits are an announcement of, they're not dissimilar to the Uncut Jones credits, but they're like, this is going to be, you know, different and weird. And also that this is a movie about, there's going to be a baby at the end of this. But I did not feel that coming at all when I watched the movie the first time. The first time I watched this movie, and I watched the opening credit sequence, and I was like, this is very funny. I understand completely what they're communicating.

You know, Rachel and Marty are having an affair, and they're having a baby together. And later when Rachel shows up in the movie and she's pregnant, you're like, oh, that's Marty's baby. You believe all those things. Yeah. But the movie's conclusion, I did not see coming. No, I didn't see that either. And that's like a testament to the strength of the movie that, like, it keeps you on the rails and you don't, because I didn't know how they were going to put a bow on it. I didn't know emotionally where it was going.

Right. Yeah. But so that opening sequence, I mean, I just, it's, you know, when you're laughing and smiling up at the screen all at once, it's like a very particular you feel seen. And that kicks in for me immediately. So, all right, do you want to do the next one? Yeah. I think the shoe store robbery where Lloyd is at the safe and has held at gunpoint.

And then that very quickly transitions, like in a flash. Yeah. to going to London and finding himself in like basically the barracks where they're all staying together. All the tennis, table tennis performers are staying together. And that whole sequence is moved so quickly where we get into the first matches. We get into him confronting Pico Iyer. We get into, you know, who's playing the table tennis leader, the leader of the ITTA. And then deciding to go into the Ritz and then he's being interviewed at the restaurant in the Ritz.

And then Gwyneth Paltrow comes in. And then we cut to him upstairs, calling Gwyneth Paltrow on the phone. Standing on the phone, drink with like an empty glass of orange juice, I think. We're wearing the hotel road. Standing on the bed, yeah. And immediately beginning, all of those actions, all of these matches, we get introduced to Kletzky, his friend, the Hungarian, who is at Auschwitz. We get introduced to Endo, the Japanese future champion. We get introduced to K. Stone, this former 1930s movie star, who's now married and retired and living with a pen magnate played by Kevin O'Leese.

from Shark Tank. Like, the movie is just so freaking propulsive in that moment. And there are a handful of stretches like this where lots of action happens in 10, 15, 20 minute intervals. And really, like, is all very, like, charming and involving and very fun. The Gwyneth Paltrow stuff, I think, is great. And she's really, really good. But the first scene between Marty and Kay is on the phone. And you see, you see Marty.

at the beginning on the phone, but then you're just mostly watching her react to him. But his phone voice acting is so funny. And the final line before she hangs up is just when he says, that sounds boring. She's like, okay, and hangs on the phone. It's absolutely dying. It's so good. But that's just, that's unseen. That's just his voice.

I said this to a friend last night, too. It's, I hope that this is. Was the friend my husband? Maybe it was. I hope this is taken in the right. way. It's nice to see Gwenith Paltrow trying. Yeah? Like, she becomes this character. And she's extremely

famous and she doesn't really act anymore. Except when she's in Marvel movie, she forgets about. And it is nice to see her engaged. And the two of them, they have like a very strong chemistry. The movie is very edible. Yeah. And this theme of Kay's character who lost her son in the war and who is attracted to this young boy

who would be her son's age. And his like fierce determination, I'm sure he's attracted to her, but there's also something about like she was a movie star. And that's like a signpost in my quest to greatness. He doesn't know who she is until all the journalists who are interviewing him stop looking at him and look at her instead. And the camera kind of follows her walking down and then switches to him and everyone watching her.

There's something really funny in the meta text of both, you know, not just Timothy Chalamey, the young actor attempting to become great. And we watch a movie in which his character attempts to become great. But Gwyneth Paltrow, who has spent her life kind of tolerating man-boy actors in her personal life, now doing the same with the new man-boy. hero star actor. You know, Kay is also a former movie star who stopped acting. And in this case, it's because she married a pen salesman, which is just an incredible,

not salesman, I should say, he owns the pen company, but like, you know, what a stand-in for the lead singer of Coldplay and has been doing other things and, like, comes back to, to the, and is a little bit. She's making her comeback in the movie the same way. Yes, exactly. And it's negotiating what she was versus what she is now. what her appeal is to people, which I'm sure, you know, I think it's cool that Gwyneth said yes to the role. I agree. There's just a tremendous amount of cleverness in this. The same could

be said for, I think, Fran Dresher playing the Jewish mother figure in Timmy's life and who is like nagging and who is also kind of a hustler. And you can see that he has inherited some of her mentality, the way that she, you know, lies and kvetches about what she has to go to the hospital because she's dying. And Marty is also a person who's constantly creating these circumstances and dishonesty to get the things that he wants

and the movie has a lot of really little like character details that inform why the people are the way that they are throughout

that is really well done. It moves so fast through them you know so it's not it doesn't belabor anything it is just like

detailed and thought through and keeps going. There's a benefit to seeing it a second time for this reason not that it's you know you couldn't pick up

on everything but because there is just so much information being conveyed it's helpful um It's sort of connected to this period of the movie. I also just think the dinner at the Ritz where Kletzky and Marty are talking.

And then Marty offers to buy dinner for Kay and Milton. And then Milton, played by Kevin O'Leary, comes over to the table, which then leads this very tense exchange where we see Marty really unafraid to offend. And he laughs in his face, Kevin O'Leary's face when he reveals that his son has died in the war. And then Kletzky tells the story about the honey. when he after while diffusing bombs during World War II Right and but then the honey shot

Flashback goes straight Into K walking it's like a very fluid movement From the devouring of the honey Into K walking into Marty Sweet Yeah exactly exactly A lot of fun little stuff like this She looks great

Beautiful knocking on the Royal Suite Yeah well she's got the fur coat Yeah I will say that the first battle between Endo and Marty won it like there's a conventionality to the movie that's a very conventional setup

for a hero character in a movie where you need to get absolutely smoked in the first act so that we can then get invested and you win even though Marty is like right on the edge of unlikable and the sore loserdom

that he shows after he gets fucking waxed by Endo and the way that he's like wants calling for a rematch immediately afterwards and him grousing about joining the globe trotters and then eventually joining the globe trotters, like, the movie is consistently forcing you and not just in that, like, 70s movie way.

Yeah, the seal is good. It's good, but I mean, that's like a pretty conventional, listen, you know, movie. The Red Panda of their day. Movies are good. And I didn't, I didn't know about Red Panda until she came back this year. And then my entire family just sat, transfixed, like baby, toddler, husband were just staring at the. It's a whole thing. Yeah, no, I mean, it's an amazing stuff. I know, it's incredible.

It works. But there is also something conventional about it. The movie gives you enough movie candy or movie familiarity to then get real rowdy. Yeah, it's really funny. I mean, you'll hear a little bit from Josh about how much of this is based on real events and real stories and things that he learned over time. Because of that level of specificity, like, it's just so much of this has to be based in experiences. When Marty returns to America So we're just like fully just recapping all the scenes that we're like

No, we don't have. No, no, I know. But I just wanted to acknowledge it. Like I'm with you and I did a version of this last night. But I just want to acknowledge. We're just like, this is another awesome thing. And this, yeah. Yeah, I think it's just like a helpful way to celebrate what I like because it's

revealing the, it reveals the choices that are made in the filmmaking that I think are very clever. For example, like from the honey to the honey pot. Like that thing, there's so much like slickness and the. writing and the editing. I just, I did think that we needed to, because also, I, you're going through the list, but I want everyone to know that I also like these scenes. It's not just you being like, I like all of these scenes and I'm just sitting here. It's for reasons. It's for structural and character-based reasons. And I think, like, the movie needs to continue to reveal character

for you to continue to get invested. When they come back to America, again, there's this, you know, insane stretch where you know he goes back home his mother sort of half receives him he does give her the piece of the pyramids which is another like kind of amazingly deep thing that is

definitely connected to uncut gems and this idea of sort of like your origins and you know what you've built and where you're from and what you're worth and what your destiny is. The movie about destiny right but then that leads to them needing to you know he needs to raise money so

he goes to the hotel so that he and Tyler can go play ping pong and make more money because his uncle has taken the money back that he made from his quest with the Globetrotters. That whole scene with the old cop and his uncle, Ratsosloman, is like out of like a 1930s Laurel and Hardy movie, you know, like it's so silly and so dopey in the way that it's told. Then Abel Ferrar shows up in the hotel and he's got a dog and the dog had an accident. smells like shit, and then they're checking to these hotel rooms. The bath falls through the ceiling. Very exciting.

Crazy. Like, that is the most uncut-gemsy moment in the movie to me. We're just like, what the fuck just happened? And so there's just like all this crazy incident that keeps happening that eventually leads to them going to the bowling alley. Yeah. And then, you know, I don't know if you saw Ethan Hawk's son playing one of the participants in the bowling alley sequence.

Then a bunch of other guys with these crazy faces, there's so many different people who pop up in the movie who are like, maybe you've seen before or you haven't seen before. They look familiar to you. They're so distinct. Safty's so good at casting memorable people. Yes. You know, that that's a huge part of making a movie. And in unexpected ways.

It took me to my second viewing to realize that Rachel's husband is Emery Cohen. It is indeed. And I was like, that's Emery Cohen. Yeah, I know. Being terrible in Brooklyn, that's not my Emery Cohen. Likewise, the guy who eventually gets April Ferrar's dog in his big white house is Penn Gillette, the famed magician, who I definitely did not clock the first time I watched it, because he's unrecognizable.

But, you know, even the idea of casting someone like Abel Ferraro, who's this famed New York filmmaker who's very well known for making these really kind of gritty New York crime dramas that have this also like a twinge of cosmic incident to them and really like a hard-bitten look at the city and the way that people are incredibly violent. He plays an incredibly violent and brutal character in this movie. It's really fascinating.

I don't know. What other sequences are memorable to you or the jump out? Somewhere in the middle of the hustling, I think it's after the bowling alley before the Pendelet house. Yes, it's after the bowling alley and it's the Tyler, the creator, character and Marty are, they've made it away from their hustle and they're trying to get to a gas station and they both get out of the car and are dancing along the side of car, you know, and it's one of those where it's like, oh, like I'm a boy with a camera look what I can do with the camera but also it's so beautiful the performances are great yeah I think they're dancing to the fat man by fat's domino yeah really magic just kind of a serendipitous moment of like a pure charm what did you think of Tyler in the movie that was very funny yeah he's pretty good pretty believable as his buddy as his close friend

who also he can't trust and who will fuck him over and all of these guys dion his friend who is helping him design the ping pong balls also gets kind of screwed but also he's so insanely encouraging to dion it's like it is that hustler thing where it's like you did this man you did this man like and he talking about how to his father about how he believes in him and the you know like roadrunner energy that marty has the movie is really fascinating but and also the way that each of those characters relates to marty and he relates back like when the tyler character drops him off back at another pool hall or a table tunnel house ping pong hall i don't know um and marty's just like i love you i'm sorry i'll buy you a cab don't worry about it and tether's like just like get out

of my car man and there's like the resignation and the you know marty's full of shit you know they really got screwed over but there's you know it's going to be okay like and i just remember that from being in your 20s and just being like let's not like talk about this anymore Yep. And then when the Rachel character and the ping pong ball entrepreneur, like the second time they go to the apartment and there's the confrontation and they start yelling at each other. And Marty's like, don't talk to him like that. He's one of my favorite people on her. Don't talk to her like that.

And he's just like trying to manipulate the situation, keep everything on the rails and also be like, no, but I love you. And it's just, it's incredibly funny. Yeah, I agree. a series of moments that are like that. Okay. I kind of want to jump to Japan near the end. Should we talk about Kevin O'Leary first?

Yeah. Okay, so something interesting about this. So Kevin O'Leary, who candidly not a person I was super familiar with before this movie. I've seen Shark Tank. I know about Mr. Wonderful. I didn't really know about his reputation as a Canadian as somebody who had like said Canada should be annexed by Donald Trump. He's a very controversial guy. Okay. I did not know about that. We're learning about that in real time.

In a certain sector of, uh, of the internet, this guy is like Satan. Okay. So his casting is somewhat controversial in the movie. Josh talked about this a bit. In the interview, you can be listening to people talk about it. Um, he's not an actor, not a trained actor. Yeah. And he is, he is the real heavy of the movie. He is, you know, Abel Ferrar is in part one of the villains, but he is the true villain of the film. And he's like shockingly good in the movie. It's incredible. His presence is is really impressive. And he is up against this, you know, this whirlwind character played by one of the best young actors in Hollywood. And pretty consistently is holding his own and even eating him at times in the movie. Yeah. Figuratively, if not literally. And well, literally, he's

doing some other things. Yeah. And it's, I was just, I was impressed. Like I, you know, I think many people will say, I regret to inform you that Kevin O'Leary is good in this movie. But he is good in this movie. Yeah. I mean, his face is right for it. And there is just, there are a lot of shots of him grinning in like a very, just irritating shit eating. Like, I have you.

I'm a rich guy way. I do think, I didn't, I'm just learning about some of his political views, but I'm not surprised. You know, it, it matches the face. We're using that energy. Yeah. Well, all these things that we're talking about, this idea of casting Gwyneth and having the echoes of her.

life experience, it's the same conception with someone like Kevin O'Leary putting him in this. It's the same thing with Able Farrar, putting him in as like a menacing, dangerous New York semi-gankster walking the streets. Like, they're using real-life associations to drive emotion, which I think is very smart. But he is also, this is a, it's a very chatty movie. There's a lot of people talking fast at each other. It is set in New York. And not everyone would be able to keep up with that.

So you got to, you know, he spits back at Marty, so whenever necessary. So I guess in this one case, you have to hand it to him. What are you handing to him, really? That he's amazing as someone who says. He gives a good performance. And it has one of like the great, hilarious moments of this movie, a speech in Japan. But it is, you know, he's not the hero. He's definitely not the hero.

Eventually, Marty is able to convince Milton in the aftermath of Kay's disastrous Broadway return to the stage. Fred Heckenger just showing up for three minutes. There's so many of those. We can do the entire list of people who show up for five minutes in the movie. I mean, David, Batman and Fred Heckenger in that sequence. It's true. Also, credit to Guinez's bad Southern accent, which, you know,

which is supposed to be bad. Hard to believe she got bad reviews for that performance, Kay Stone. Um, he prostrates himself before Milton and allows him to paddle him so that he can get on his plane and eventually agrees to participate in this exhibition that he's pitched earlier in the film. Right. When they have a lunch in France earlier in the movie. And he makes his way to Japan because he needs money and because he needs to get to Tokyo to participate in the tournament. Right. Because he has to, he needs money because he has to pay off his Ritz Bill.

Yes. So that he is allowed to be back in the tournament. And so when I say that this is a great movie about being an idiot in your 20s, this is something that you do in your 20s, maybe not Jack Sanders, right? Very responsible, very thoughtful man, works very hard, keeps his head down, doesn't just fly to Japan on a whim without knowing what's really going on. But when Marty gets to Japan, he realizes pretty quickly that he's not invited to participate in the tournament.

He's only there for the exhibition. It's his Francis Ha, what time did Puss and Booth start moment. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. The ITTA is It wants nothing to do with him Because of the way that he has acted

Throughout the film towards them And so all he has left is this showdown with Endo And I thought this entire stretch was just thrilling And it's really hard Like 40 years after the peak of American sports dramas To create a sports drama scenario In which I'm really invested And I really want to know what happens

And I really want to see this character win but how the ways in which he might win and unsure um you know i've had a couple people tell me that they thought that the cg i and the ping pong stuff didn't work for them i really didn't feel that i felt like it oh i didn't notice at all i didn't feel like i was like this is definitely what's happening like they're playing this exact you know i didn't feel as though there wasn't computer assistance in the execution of it but it didn't take me out of any of the sport of it i agree i you know as i mentioned i think there are a couple of times where you can see that it's not tim if you're but if you're looking closely and for the most part it's phil it's

filmed energetically, and the crowd and the spectators are used very well. It communicates, like, what's happening in the match pretty clearly without much dialogue. And then, I mean, I cried twice in this movie, and the first time is when is after the second match, and Timmy's reaction to the second match. And I, like, cried in a pure, you know, someone, like, finally wins their gold medal, sort of. Exaltation, a league of their own style, like, damn. Like, we're carrying the bobsled across, you know, in whatever sort of way.

I was very moved by, and, like, Timmy's reaction, like, when he finally hits, is beautiful. It is. And it's like, it is kind of like corn-pone American drama stuff. You know, it's not, the movie is very stylized, very funny, very abrasive, very intense. Right. But this is a pretty conventional, what feels like a closing segment. Now, it is preceded, as you said, by a fascinating moment in the movie where Milton gets up out of his seat where he's watching the exhibition that he is paying for for his pen company in an effort to sell more pens in Japan in the aftermath of World War II where the travel ban has been lifted and American business is coming back into Japan. People, Japanese can travel back to the United States.

And he sees that Marty, after throwing one match and demanding a rematch to make it real, is actually has a chance to beat Endo. and that this would really damage this Rockwell Penn Company's fortunes during this exhibition. He goes backstage and you wrote down what he said. He goes backstage and he confronts Marty and what does he say? He says, let me explain to you. I was born in 1601. I'm a vampire. I've been around forever.

And there's some other stuff. And then he ends with, you'll never be happy. You will never be happy. And there's no context. No explanation. He just makes that speech and then Marty goes back out and wins the damn match.

Now there's layers to this specifically. I talked with Josh about this a little bit. Yeah. I do know a little bit more about it. But the non-sequitur, like allegorical, metaphorical power of like this guy manifesting himself into Satan, into the immortality of capitalism, power,

class, you know, how someone like Marty will never be able to pull himself up and become what he truly wants to be. That feeling that people feel when they're going for something and they fail? Right. And they're like, when am I ever going to be able to be who I want to be? Right. And letting someone literalize it, it is jarring in the movie. There is like a gasp

weirdness to, I'm a vampire. I was born in 1601. Yeah, but in it like an amazed chuckle, at least for me. It's weird, but I was just like, Okay, you're just, you're going for it. Yes. And in it, you know, there is a moment of being like, wait, is he serious? You know, not as he's serious, but what's going on here?

Yes. What does this mean? And by the end of this speech, you understand that it's like a very, like a strange, provoking illustration of that thing of like, of Marty's running up against something. He's always going to be running up against something. he is never going to quite crack through, and it's because there's this guy who's a vampire who is born in 60-0.

You know, it's like we are not quite literalizing the evil, but we're stating it. Yes, close to. He does succeed. He does hitch a ride home on a G.I.'s plane. And when he gets home, he goes straight to the hospital, right? Because he learns that Rachel's in... He has gone to Japan straight from the hospital.

Right. Yeah. Right, because he's left Rachel there after their show. down at Penn Gillette's house, which is a very exciting and intense shootout, by the way. And some of the best practical filmmaking that I think Saffty has done in the past. And when they get to the hospital, he races in and sees that people are waiting because Rachel has given birth. He races to go see Rachel. He grabs her by the hand.

He says, like, I'll never leave your side. I don't know specifically what he says. He's like, go back to sleep. I'm saying, like, I'll be here. I'm not going anywhere. I love you. and then he goes to meet his son and

if you don't have a kid this maybe doesn't make as much sense emotionally but if you have a kid and Josh talked about this too the moment that you meet your kid for the first time is an absolute steamroller it is like it is the most everything is different now thing that at least has happened to me

and the movie knows that and this is very much a movie about everything that happened to me in my life, not me personally, but the me of the movie, until this happened, and how everything after that will be different. And when he meets his son and he locks eyes with his son who's crying and is unhappy. Well, I mean, the beautiful thing about it

is that, like, it is that moment that you're saying, but it is still also staged with the safty sense of humor and flair. And so this is the 1950s, so they're all in a nursery, which just means like they're all in a sealed wall and it's rows of babies just crying. And God bless the, like, the nurse in the nursery. He was just, like, sitting at her desk ignoring, like, 15 babies cry.

Yes. And, you know, she brings the baby over. And the rest of the babies are crying throughout. And then, and, I mean, Timney's unbelievable in this scene. And he just is overcome with emotion immediately. And, you know, as we saw and called me by your name, any movie that just ends on to Michelin, like, crying into a screen. Yeah.

It feels like a callback to that in some ways. He is one of the few guys that can do it. And he really does it. And he communicates that moment of transition of just, and like of growing up, kind of, which to me in a lot of ways is what this movie is about. 100%. And, but he's doing all the emotion.

But then, like, they do give the baby a close up of just looking at, at Marty, like, what's wrong with you? It's really, and it's like a longer close-up, great baby acting from this baby. And the music cue is everybody wants to rule the world, which hits immediately and, you know, as in keeping with the rest of the 80s score, but like you and I both know what the first line of that song is,

like 10 seconds before it's playing. So then I was crying again. It's wonderful. It's incredibly, I was made by How Swedish. it is. I totally agree. Welcome to the world. Welcome to your life.

I thought, welcome to your life. There's no turning back. Which is incredibly powerful and kind of funny and very sincere. And it goes on for a long time. Yeah. You know, very heartful. In a movie that is like often a bit bitter and a bit fast, the movie stops. Yeah.

And... I am annoyed that they're using this song in the marketing of this movie. I don't know why you would make this incredible needle drop. And the same goes for Forever Young in the first trailer where I'm like, these are two like sledgehammer needle drops that are so smart. And there's a couple of other really good ones. There's a New Order one, a Peter Gabriel one. There's a public image limited one, like all 80s songs that give the film a really interesting character.

And one of the readings that I have read of the movie is that the way that we're we're seeing the movie is we're seeing Marty tell the story of his life to his son as he's grown up in the 1980s in a way. So he's almost like using the energy of that time to communicate that story. There's something else in the kind of the writing of the script that supports that, but I don't really want to talk about that. It's not helpful for this conversation. So I really love that those specific decisions. I wish that those songs were held back because I saw the movie before I saw any of the marketing. Yes. And when that needle drop hit, I was just like, oh, just hit me really, really hard.

And for the exact reason that you said, when you hear those words to that song, you see the look on his face, and you hear the baby screaming, and then you cut to the credits and you can still hear the baby screaming, which is also kind of what life is like after that happens. It's really, really, the baby screaming is one of the great sound decisions in this.

It's really funny. It's very clever. Yeah. I just, it's lovely. It's wonderful. You know, the first time that I saw it, you and I talked a little bit about, like, we really, we loved it. We, like, instantly loved it, but it's, it has a lot in common with uncut gems.

You know, they're, like, of a cloth, both energetically, and they are about guys having to jump a lot of hurdles to try to get to something. Yeah. And one has a happy ending and one has a less happy ending. And I think the first time I saw what we talked about, and I was like, well, I guess it's, like, a little softer. and like maybe I respect Uncut Gems more for like going for the jugular for like telling the truth

and we're obviously marks for this we have young children but I left the second viewing of Marty Supreme being like wow this is like your heart cracks open in a beautiful way at the end of it so funny I feel like just like one battle after another we had the flip experience though

where you saw it one way the first time and then differently the other time and I was flipped where the first time I was super emotional about Marty Supreme And then the second time, I was like, this is a movie is so funny. Yeah. I also think it's really, really funny. Like, I was laughing, like, throughout.

But, yeah, but there is a warrant to it. It is, it's not quite a companion piece to one battle after of another, but they are very much in conversation. And I think that there is, like, an open-heartedness to both of them that I find very moving. You know, it's like, I think it's great that dad's, love being dads. I mean that genuinely. I'm just like, this is really sweet.

Big cultural change. Yeah, you guys figured that out. 20, 25. And it's really, it's nice. Yeah. You know, it warms my heart. Yeah, it is nice. Yeah.

Do you think this movie is going to be a success? I have absolutely no idea. I don't either. I really hope so. They are trying very hard. Timmy is trying very hard. I mean, what is success, right? Can it make 100 million

domestically? I don't think so. Okay. Can it make $75 million domestically? I have no idea. I don't think so. Maybe it can make $50. Okay.

I think it will play overseas? I hope so. You know. It's allegedly set in various locations around the world. So I'm curious for Jack's point of view on this. A complete unknown made $75 million in the U.S. $65 million overseas made $140 million. Timothy Chalemay obviously worked hard

to promote that film. I would say he's working harder to promote Martin. Yeah, because he knows what's on the line. He's making more appearances. We've talked before about how this is a real test of his star power. It is a movie that I think is in the... You know, Josh is kind of... He's a little younger than we are, but not much. Yeah. And it does hit a bull's eye for people in the...

their 30s, 40s, 40s, looking back on a period in their lives? Yeah. And I'm wondering how... And Jack, I know this wasn't your favorite movie of all time. Do you think people in their 20s will click with this movie? I think so. I know a lot of people who have already seen it closer to my age who liked it more than me. I'm a little nervous about the Chalemay stuff, the promotion.

I think he's starting to push people. a little over the edge, which has me a little bit nervous. But I think it can connect 100 million domestic, I'd say very unlikely. There was something I think that came out today in Deadline that, like, Marty Supreme broke the record for most pre-sales or something like that for whatever it's worth. I think there's good energy, and I think young people will show up how much I have reservations. I met some very kind listeners of the podcast yesterday at my first screening. Okay. Do you go to Burbank?

I was at the Burbank 16, and I was... What up? Four young men of Jack's age, you know, I don't mean to... At my radar for how old people are, you're all, you know, 25 to me, and I'm rooting for all of you. But they seemed younger than me, and they seemed more in, like, the Timmy demo than the parent demo. And they all seem to like it. Okay. One young man was just like, that was amazing. I'm gobsmacked.

And then the others, I just... It's very funny. to hear you say young man. Yeah. Well, he said, well, they're, they all introduced themselves. They're very polite. Uh-huh. And then the others, I just, like, gave them a thumbs up as I left, and they thumbs up back. So I think that means they liked it. Yeah. There's only two films this year. Yeah. That are original that have cracked $100 million domestically. Do you know what they're?

You probably figure out of the top of your head. Can I? Okay, I'm thinking hard. Does regretting you count? No, it's not over a hundred million. Where is it? Regretting you? That's a good question. It's probably going to be more like 50. 49.

Okay, so sinners and one battle after another. Sinners, one battle after another did not crack 100. Domestic? 71, domestic. It's like, it's 140 international. Okay, all right. I think of the other one. I guess there's two more technically, but one of them I don't really think of as original.

Weapons? Weapons is the other one. Okay. And then the other one I was thinking of is F1, which is very much hinging on a brand. So that would be a real challenge. Getting to 70, I think, is a W. Because that means, in theory, you're getting to 70 internationally. I don't know, it's not the future of movies is not riding on this, but the future of a certain kind of movie is riding on this in some ways.

And 824 really splashed out for this. They did. And they have had bigger ambitions this year that have been, you know, stopped since. Stymied. Yeah. So this would be good. This is their big movie. Yeah.

Box office theory has the tracking 36 to 57, that's low to high, domestic. If you had to guess, if we split the difference and set the line at 45, if we're putting our town caps on. I think 50 would be fine. If it's 36, that's rough. Yeah. That's rough. You don't want to be at 36. It's Christmas, and there's also not a lot out.

for adults like this in the world. You know, there's... Yeah. You know, especially because a couple of movies we're going to talk about in an episode that we're recording right after this. It's like, I don't think those movies are really going to hit for grown-ups.

So, but 36 would be rough. That means you're opening at like 16 and then limping over six weeks to that number. I don't know. That would not be good. I'm hopeful also that there will be a word of mouse, that there will be a, you know, a, he has been wisely targeting people who are not typically, you know, A-24 movie bros. Like the, just the Kardashian-Generes have just really been in the mix.

And that's, I think that's great for them. He was doing the London tour and going on a bunch of the popular BBC shows. Yeah. He's doing, you know, wrestling podcasts. Like, he's just doing stuff. Susan Boyle getting a jacket. I love him so much. That was really funny.

He's just, he's the one. true poster he's i just marty hauser absolutely would have destroyed my life if i were 25 um yes i believe that i just it's but it was like almost invigorating to feel that again you know it's this is a powerful movie yeah i think you know we've not talked about a odessa asian too much but she was the on my first screening was the real surprise of the movie i was familiar with her but i don't know if i really had a relationship with her as an actress and she is in a tough spot because that's usually a pretty thankless role, the, like, girlfriend who's hanging on by a thread with her crazy boyfriend in a movie. And she gets to play a lot. She gets to have a

kind of hustler moment herself. It's really a really funny moment. And she goes toe to toe with Chalemay really well. She's now weirdly, like, maybe not weirdly, maybe smartly, because of I love L.A. and because of the internet has just become, like, much more well known over the course of the last three months. But in the run-up to this, when I first saw it, I didn't really know very much about her at all than like being Pamela Adlin's daughter

and didn't even know that appearing in a couple of movies and TV shows. Speaking of awards. Yes. Now we've been putting the movie

in the top five for Best Picture. I feel pretty comfortable that it's making Best Picture. Certainly comfortable that Timothy Shalmi will be nominated.

It feels like it will be a pretty tight race with Leo maybe with some Wagner spoiler potential coming in there. Although Ethan Hawk

also having a hell of a month recently. Yeah. Unreal press tour. Odessa ASEAN, I think it would take a lot for her to get in. I do think that she's ahead of Gwyneth. I do as well. Even though Gwyneth is quite good in the film?

Yeah, Gwyneth didn't even get a Golden Globe nomination, which is surprising. She did not. The directing is going to be tough for Josh. I think so, too, which is sad. It's going to be really challenging because you've got Paul Thomas Anderson, Chloe Zhao, Guillermo del Toro Chapar Panahi You've got

Yo Kim Trir in there You've got Park Chan Wook in there You've got All of a sudden Oliver Lash From Sarat in there You know You got all these folks

Who are contending for these spots There's others I'm forgetting, I'm sure So directing is going to be tough Score Has to happen I'm getting I love Johnny Greenwood scores For Paul Thomas Sanderson's films

I will always be interested in what they're doing together. That isn't my favorite of Greenwood scores for his films. Probably there will be blood, maybe the master, as my two faves. But what Daniel Lopatin does in the movie is unreal. Amazing. And the way that it is working with the film. And, you know, he has scored, you know, all the most recent Safty Brothers movies. And he's the creator of this vapor wave subgenre.

And as one of tricks point never, like he has a long recording recording. history, but there's definitely an elevation of style for him, where it's, you know, a lot of woodwinds and flutes and the choir that you mentioned and this, the musical touches that brighten the sequences in the movie are really powerful. And I will be stunk in for him. Essential. And I mean, you know, the score voters are on notice after last year and after the omission of challengers. Not ideal. So we can't screw this. up twice. I agree with you. Okay. I'm just letting everybody know.

Original screenplay? I hope so. Is it original? It's an original, right? Because it is based on some materials and, you know, Marty Reisman's life and... Marty Supreme Screenplay category. I would guess so, but it's not. I think it's probably debatable and it's what they want to go in.

Let's see. What's in adapted this year? One battle. Right. So you probably don't want to go against that. Wouldn't be ideal. The other one that I wanted to mention is casting. I mean, this seems like a great casting.

Just to go through the list very quickly of folks who pop up who are not the stars of the movie. So you've got Isaac Mizrahi as Merle, Gwyneth Paltrow. publicist. You've got NBA legend George Gervin as Lawrence, the guy who runs the ping pong hall. You've got Ted Williams, who is the viral man with the golden voice dude as Ted, the guy who works at the pool hall or at the at the ping pong hall. Pendelet we mentioned as Hoff, the owner of the White House. Larry Ratsosloman, legendary kind of writer, rock and roll, gadfly figure is Marty's uncle Murray. You've got Pico Iyer, the author as Ram Sethy, who is the head of the ITTA.

David Mamet as the director of the play. It's really funny. Fred Heckenger is the star of the play. Troy, perfectly named Levant Hawk, Ethan Hawk and Uma Thurman's son, as one of the kids in the bowling alley. Philly Petit, the Man on Wire? Yeah. As the Brussels MC? I mean, these are just a few.

Tracy McGrady and Campbell Walker are there as Harlem Globetrotters. That's right. New Yorker writer, Nomi Frye, appears in the film as a woman helping to roll. stage manage, the play. Yeah. She's great. I saw Nomi at the after party for the premiere of this film

and I was like, what the fuck, dude? So, you know, to me, like, this is the art of casting. The art of casting is not, let's find the most famous person in the world and put them in the movie. It is, how do we populate our film

with unforgettable mini performances and faces and character? Right. Well, this movie does both because it does have Timothy Shalemi. Yes, and Wineth Paltrow. Yeah, animating the entire spirit of the movie.

But Kevin O'Leary and Tyler the Creator and people like that and saying, like, what if this person was an actor? That's one of their superpowers, you know? It's really good. It's what, you know, PTA's films are also very good at that. So you have to assume one battle will also be in that category. Senators will be up there. There's a handful that'll be up there. Any closing thoughts about the film? Absolutely loved it. I did too. If you want to learn more about it, this is my conversation right now with Josh Safty. Josh Safdi is back on the show.

It's been six years. Well, I did see you for a Criterion episode during lockdown over Zoom. Okay. It doesn't, it's not the same. That wasn't the same. Yeah. It's been six years. You can share saliva particles. Yes.

Well, thank God for that. I'm so excited. Hopefully, healthily, though you have been traveling the world. So who knows? I have a three and a half year old and a four, five month old, four a month old. And my wife bought me like seven sprays. She goes, you do this one in the middle of the day. You do this one at the end of the day.

day. You do this one at the beginning of the day. And I'm like, so I have them. Are they working? I use them. Okay. It's a psychological thing. As long as you feel like you're getting something helping you. So six years, we've talked a little bit, but I don't really know what you've been doing. I don't really, I mean, I know this movie. Yeah. But it's a stretch. Like, can you maybe before we talk about Marty talk about life after uncut gems? How did it change? Well, it's relevant. you know, I was, you know, I have these notebooks, right, that I keep that most people probably keep in journals. You can call them journals, except you wouldn't really know, you might think that they're biographies because there's a different person at the center of, you know, long stretches of pages. Like my books that I kept over the course of gems, it's very bizarre. It would be very bizarre to my children when I go and they start to look through them. I probably should burn them but she you know i because i'm experiencing my life through the characters of the

you know i'm using them as vessels and obfuscating things uh so i after the 10-year journey of gems which had a lot of detours but they were all in service of one dream that was my purpose to wake up every morning and and try to see this thing through that no one believed in oh i'll give you 300 000 with this actor i don't want to work with that actor oh i don't really know if you know how to do genre or blah, blah, blah, blah, make a good time to try to learn how to do that. It was my reason to wake up. And when I finished it,

which kind of coincided with me discovering the world of Marty Supreme and these outcasts and these misfits who had this dream that no one believed in, I finished the movie and, like, pandemic's about to hit and doing like a Q&A, the last of the, you know, the Mohicans. And someone casually asked them,

innocent question. What's next? Which is like, okay, you know, I would never ask that question because I know how disrespectful that is to all the work. It's like, okay, great, next, what do you got? And it's, it's, you know, but it destroyed me. I cried. I was like super embarrassed. I was like covering my face. And I was like, let Benny answer that one. And I just couldn't, couldn't really understand where that feeling, that hollow feeling was coming from. Because here's this thing that I willed into the world, the world doesn't want movies to exist. And I just, I didn't, didn't know what was next. You don't have like a lineup sheet of like, I got five movies I know I want to make.

Because some filmmakers are like that. Of course, but they're not real. You know what I mean? I mean, not of course. That's actually not, you know, when I finish a project and Ronnie and I were talking about this the other day and as writers, when we finish project, there's no gas left in the tank. we put every since almost to the point we're like it did we is there anything else to pull from life and and uh COVID was weird because your experience with life is becomes very you know limited and confined to your house which obviously there's lots going on in the house but you can't go out

and just go into the real world and do research or live in a different way uh but you know no I mean I didn't it didn't really I didn't have an idea of of of it wasn't it's not like I think of like the concept of like an idea. It's like there's a little like kind of pejorative to the film itself because they're not ideas are very strange mercurial things. Like where do they come from? Well, they have some meaning. I start to learn about them later when you're watching a movie.

And, you know, that's what makes ideas in any art so great to mine and look at and kind of study. So because they're more just an attraction to something. and like a world and a character. But yeah, I didn't have an idea of what I wanted to do. I didn't have a feeling. I didn't have a world. There was this world that was interesting to me,

this table tennis world, this post-war kind of moment with these young people who did not fight in the war and these outsiders and misfits as I was discussing. But this guy bought me a bottle of champagne, and a cigar after I finished uncut gems and he's like it was a long journey here you go

like let's drink this champagne and smoke this cigar and I didn't I just put the champagne in the fridge and I put the cigar in my drawer that will be there till the day I die because it'll never be worth anything worth really celebrating because you get to the end of these journeys these dreams

and you and you're the only thing you're like wow it was really lonely experience even though I dream with other people it's just so that was kind of my life. And then I finished the movie. And pandemic hits. And I'm turning around, I'm looking around the people who, like, believed in me. And my, my, the closest one was my, now became my, she became my wife months later. We went to City Hall, got married, had my first daughter soon after that, and had my second daughter recently. And life just all of a sudden time started to like move in a

very different way. Time is like, is the enemy. But you, you still like start to be like, wow, you're seeing the personification of time in this kid who's like getting older and developing. And then her experience with her own emotions is actually starting to inform my feelings with the world and the work later. It's funny that you say that because literally the second thing I wrote down here was, so you're 34 when you're making uncut gems. Marty has the same energy as a movie, but it's about a much younger character, but it's a much more mature movie I found.

Do you think of it that way? Yes, I do. It feels like I had a kid movie. It feels like I have a different perspective on the world. Yeah, you know, I think the movie is about change and about happiness and the haunted, how haunted of a feeling happiness is and how it haunts us all the time and how the past and the past can haunt the future and the future can haunt the past. But I do, that feeling of meeting my child,

everyone who has a kid can say this and is a very profound moment and you can't prepare yourself for it there's no way to know what you'll feel or think and it's a cosmic moment and you realize it's not about you at all it's never really been about you and everybody you've ever met has was born

and we've all been born yo and you know that was an incredibly power full moment. Weirdly, the idea, the ending was always kind of there without spoiling. That's really spoiling. The credit sequence tells you what's going on. We know where we're going. Exactly. But that was something that was, I always kind of saw, but I saw it abstractly. And then when I experienced that, you know, firsthand, it was, yeah, it's ineffable, you know, and it's no way to really, you're looking at the future. But again, through the lens of your own past,

you're thinking about, you know, I think the movie is kind of a little bit about what that, when you, the feeling you have, when you look at a picture of your folks before you were born. Like, what was going on there? I thought I was the center of their universe, but where was it? I wasn't there.

My dad always told me growing up that I came from the stars. And that was always like made me feel like I was present in his life before, you know, when you look up with the stars, screaming. And, you know, I see this movie and I do have that sense of this ghostly quality. There's a ghostly quality to it. Well, okay. So I know that your wife handed you a book. That is like the origin of... The end of Uncut Chems. Like towards the end of the show. What was the book? Towards the, during production, she was at like a thrift store and she saw a dime store book, you know, that said confessions of a table tennis champion.

and Hustler. So she was the Ann Hustler. She knew I love table tennis. She knew my uncle played, you know, in the older days, which was always unique. People don't think about table tennis as having a past or history. I remember when, when players came onto the set, the Wembley set, one player was like emotional. I said, why so emotional? He goes, it's dignifying the sport. Look at this. It's a arena full of people and the barriers are made of wood. Wood's expensive. The floor is wood. And people don't, history is dignified. That's why we all need to know history and understand it. It teaches us where we are now.

Did your uncle play in that kind of environment? My uncle played at Lawrence's. Wow. He knew all these guys. He knew the author of that book was a guy named Martin Reesman, Marty Reesman. And what that book did is it opened me, opened my eyes to this group of people in New York, these guys from the Lower East Side who had no place to sleep on Wednesday, but you'd find them in a palatial hotel in Budapest.

on Saturday and they were like this X class and they had a very specific vision for themselves and yet they were total jokers but they were all super intellects autodidax and and complete like you have the beats 40 blocks south they were had their dreams there was glory there were museums for their dreams or publishers there's no there was there's no well pun intended there's no real arena for the destination of the dreams of these guys And that element of the book, and also the historical, the footnote of a footnote of history element from that book was interesting to me. When I talked to my uncle Johnny, I was like, you played with Ticky Miles. And he used to, he's like Tiki Miles, who was the best.

He used to come over for Shabbat dinner, and then they would clear the table, and they put books, and they would play ping pong on the table afterwards. He's like, I went to Lawrence's. George Gervin plays Lawrence. Lawrence's was the first black-owned business in the Times Square District. That's historical. that's historical the the you know he told me that when you would show up there it felt like an orphanage it was like who are all these people what's going on here everyone's betting money they're all super serious but also incredible jokers who will bet about who could throw a peach higher on the street

and like they'll go down and they'll find a mark and everyone will come and steal all the person's money but they're like guys who could you know describe relativity to you yeah and there would be gangsters like there was these holes above table number six and they were the bullet holes from an attempt on on legs diamonds life but there was like six balls and they all missed and so it became lucky table number six and it was a speakeasy for like so there's this interesting history there and when I started to hear him talk to me about about you know the the footnote quality of at least Lawrence's and then I see you know in Tim there's and I obviously you get into this world and then there's a 10 volume set by Tim Boggin who wrote the history of

table tennis and there's a lot of great stories in there as well that are inspiring you start to discover you know story of aloshi erlik who survived the holocaust and that the honeybee story is true story i mean it's it's i was going to ask you about that how much are you pulling from like i guess an established but not canonized history of a sport that like we don't really have a meaningful relationship to in 2025 i mean did they didn't really then either I mean, you have these fanzines, basically. The Japanese were interesting because they did come out of isolation, and there was a very interesting moment in time in Japan. 52 is when the war really ended, is when America started to leave, which is when the movie takes place, which is when their travel band lifted, and they started to go on.

The first thing they did was table tennis, and they invented a paddle, and I tried to squeeze this into the film. I even shot a fake interview with the inventor of the paddle. The paddle was called the atomic paddle. I mean, you can't write this stuff. stuff. You can't. And it was, it was, it changed the game. This is the one half wood, one half phone. The sponge, yeah. Like that changed the sport. It made it, you could argue it, a lot of people argued it destroyed the sport because it made it less entertaining because the move too quick and the points went from being potentially

hour long to being three, four seconds. That's, we're getting into the minutia of the sport, which obviously you do get in when you, when you do the research. But, but that moment in Japan, like when you start to do the research and you start to think about that being the background of the story and you just think about telling a story about individuals inside of it and it's it becomes the foreground is a is a personal emotional experience it becomes it became exciting to me because when you read about what was going on in japan we wrote the constitution there and they introduced the american dream more or less individual and rugged individualism the emperor is just a real guy anyone can be a hero now this folk hero a million people

waited for the real guy. And we wrote into that fake news reel that we did that a million people were waiting. People laughed when they read that because no one could believe us. We had to lower it because it was just didn't want people to laugh at that because it was very serious. And then all of a sudden you have this explosion of folk heroes, this explosion of literacy. And you have, and then I, you know, one of the things that I loved in the research was the American, obviously the Globetrotters went through there too. The Globetrotters was also fascinating to read about. It's another footnote of history. There's a theory that they were American propaganda. They were being sent around the world being bankrolled by the U.S. government to show, you know, to combat, you know,

the war became, you know, the Cold War, you know, communism, socialism versus capitalism. And the propaganda war was, you know, look at how race, look at how black people are being treated in America. No, okay, well, we have these, you know, the America's thing, well, we have this incredible athletes, you know, let's show the world how they're treated royally. Something kind of strange about that. And Marty is hip to that.

And, you know, that, you know, seeing where there was a great interesting diary written about by the manager, not Saperstein, but another guy. And obviously it's like an insider thing, so it's not going to get into

the nitty-gritty. But it is fascinating. They had table tennis was a halftime show. No. Because in Europe, there were a lot of great players, and it was fun. It was a novelty. Yeah. But if you're devote your life to something and trying to convince everybody that's the most serious thing and respectable, you don't. These guys, you feel bad for them. They're here doing parlor tricks. It's funny. I said this to your brother when I last saw him, but I think that Lenny Cook is really like the originating agent of so much of these films because this idea of the chosen one and the person who believes in himself,

above all, who is competitive, maybe not an athlete, but competitive. And I see this recurring, and it's crazy in Marty, the idea of someone who insists, is so sure that there is no other path. Interesting thing about Lenny Cook, which was very, which makes it kind of a, and like a bottomless well, is he didn't see himself as the chosen one. But that was imposed upon him. Opposed upon him. And that was ultimately, I think, the Achilles heel for him, is that there was, he had this thing, but didn't care about it. Marty has this thing, but nobody cares about it.

And he is the chosen one. But it doesn't, that, and 250, you know, gets you on the subway. You know, like, that's not, so it is, I mean, look, the allegorical quality of Lenny Cook is, you know, obviously very inspiring. and, like, feel like you're doing a profile of a Greek god, there is that quality, the fable-like quality and mythic quality to athletes. Yeah, I think I was thinking specifically of this, like, intellectual dynamic of making it or not making it.

Oh, yeah. And that that is, like, the defining confrontation of, like, frankly, a lot of men. Yeah, it was like, did I do what I set out to do or did I not do what I set out to do? And your movies are very much. In permanence. Yes. In permanence. Like, just having a place on planet Earth.

Yes. You care about it. Yeah. I mean, the George Stevens film, A Place in the Sun is so powerful for me. It was one of the films here that was spiritually inspiring, you know, and Cliff Montgomery's, you know, place in between these two women and wanting one thing and then, but emotionally feeling pulled towards another and ultimately just wanting a little place to call home, apprenticeship of Dutty Kravitz, book more than the movie, but the movie's great too.

uh you know and and uh and fate too like lany cook's fate was not to be an athlete i love the guy but he his fate was not that this is and what is fate and i think that the movie marty is very much interested in in fate you know i think more i think you know you see the film hopefully people see this after they've seen the film but you know he's fathering a dream and that dream that he's fathering the the egg is the ball and you know he doesn't realize that That dream, it was all the fate. His attempt, his dream, which is basically a heist on fate, his dream is an attempt to control fate.

It's what they are. And it ends up becoming his, he ends up exactly where he was being, he was railing against, but he does it in a much more earned way. And it was the journey that kind of helped him realize that and earn it. One of the great things that happens in movies is sometimes the external realities of the people who are making the movies dovetails perfectly with the theme of the movie. movie. So Timothy Shallamee is

literally on the record as saying he's in pursuit of greatness. Yeah, he did that about he's funny. He FaceTime me at the Saga Awards and then they were like next up best actor and I was like dude you got to go turned it off and then I just watched and give this speech and I you know he was like

I think we filmed our last day of shooting was 23 hours shoot day, 46 days of shooting and he kept pushing his flight, he's pushing his flight and he left We shot him falling in the bathtub, no one who was spoiled that. But he's in the bathtub. We shot that one piece of that.

And within seven hours of him doing that, he was entering the college in Minnesota to, I forgot what Dylan song they were playing. So he was still Marty. When he finally came and he left Dylan, he was still Dylan for the very beginning of our conversations. I heard it in his voice. So, and which was not totally wrong for Marty. Obviously, I wanted him to become the character. Yeah. But he was, you know, one of the things we discussed early on was ambition and dreams

and what does it mean to have this supreme vision of yourself? And when I met him, I met him before, call me by your name. I met him about three and a half months before I saw it. And he was introduced to me through, you know, I was at the Good Time premiere. And an agent came up to me. He said, oh, I want to introduce you to. the next superstar is the worst when you hear that yeah you know it's like you can just you can just see the you know the dreaming big of the agent you know and and because i i i can find a superstar

i can stumble across a superstar anywhere you know what that's your superpower though that's a whole other i i'm just inspired by people and people who are entirely themselves iconic iconic is what makes someone a star. And that has nothing to do with, you know, being in public or whatnot. But I meet this kid and he's on the edge of the room. And he's somebody's eyes were wide and couldn't stand still. And I had the sense that he was there, but he wasn't where he wanted to be. And he had this really intense vision of himself. And he was saying it without even opening up his mouth, which is what you want in a casting decision. You want someone to be the person without speaking. And, you know, he exchanged numbers.

Then I went to go see him, call him very named, incredible performance. You know, because comes through, you can see it through the screen and out of the screen. It's just like there's a three-dimensionality there. That feels larger than life. I think Timmy's a great, his acting style is larger than life realism. And that's, and he's iconic. He's as iconic expressions. And, you know, I think Tom Cruise is really, was in, when he's,

When he was younger, in particular, was very good at that as well. You're not wondering what they're thinking. They can tell you what they're thinking by looking at them. In micro, in like a, but they're large, but it's large, but it's also incredibly nuanced. So it's very unique. It's incredibly unique. But I remember, so I remember him. He fell.

I don't do, were you at that New York Film Festival screening? Yes, I was. Remember he couldn't stop moving and he fell back in his chair. And every single person in that room, the way he treated it was like you were his guest. Uh-huh. So, like, you were kind of embarrassed for him, but he was kind of, like, winking at you about it. And it was so charming. So this seriousness was also totally usurped by his joky quality.

And I loved that about him. It was totally the character. It's funny, though. My recollection of this was that he was almost, like, publicly courting you. Because there was definitely an interview. You were an NBR? Were you at the National Border Review? I wasn't there, but I know that there was one conversation where he was just like,

when's my Saffty Brothers movie happening, basically? Yeah, yeah. So I don't know what the, you know, is this just the long exchange where we're going to do this eventually? I wanted to, you know, I said, you know, I was super fascinated by him and his drive, it's ambition. And I, you know, the New York of him, I could, you know, relate to him. And I, you know, we just stayed in touch. And when I stumbled into this world, you know, you flip through these books and you see these pictures of these like wiry guys who are, you know, intense. They're intense people because there's a threat of humiliation at every moment that their dream does not come true because it's such a silly dream.

Like being the world's greatest ping pong. The word ping pong is offensive. It's unfortunate. You know, even when I got into it, I was like, well, what was the first, when you do research, you're like, well, it was created in India. It was invented in India by these, by British people who were, you know, bored. and they took a cork, a champagne bottle cork, carved it into a ball, put the books, and they used books to hit it back and forth. And I think it was called like Plick Plock or something like that.

And then it became table tennis. And then ping pong just kind of caught, I think, for commercial reasons. You know, it became a silly name for a thing that they could get people to buy. And I think actually maybe like Spall, I think it was a commercial like Q-Tips. You know what I mean? The Q-tips are cotton swabs, but we call them Q-tips. So it's unfortunate because it's an expression that you often associate more with chaos. Oh, I went to this event.

I was ping-ponging between this and the other. Most people don't play ping-pong. They never thought about it as a real thing. It's a basement sport. If you say table tennis to someone, they say you mean ping-pong? Like, they won't even acknowledge it as table tennis. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, yeah, and it's people who play, they say ping pong as they know.

that's what you how you'll relate to it but they also know it's like anthony edwards saying you know at the olympics when he's like ping pong i'm like you know i can beat you and these people will spend their entire lives mastering this sport no different than the way he was with basketball these guys they can't get one point off of these uh off of these athletes and but they're going back he's going back to his you know incredible career it's paying him hundreds of millions of dollars and they're going back to a day job you know and it's it's um very different there but they're both in pursuit of greatness. So I think Timmy, you know, and Timmy is an athlete and he's, you know, and he sees himself

as he wants to be the best version of himself. And the best version of himself should be the best version of any self. And he has that in him and that passion and that seriousness is perfect, was perfect for the character. And, you know, I saw it in the way he prepared for the table tennis scenes. I saw it in the way they prepared for every scene. This is a lot of dialogue in this movie. and I wanted him to say it as fast as he possibly could.

Yvonne Lucas, my color color, colorist, who was one of the great colorists who just retired, he started his career with Darius on Delaceteson. Wow. And then he finished his career with Darius on Delacetessen. I think he got Tarantino to do a D.I. I think he was the first person to convince him to do a digital intermediate. Anyway, he's a legendary guy, and he watches the movie,

and English has greats been working in Hollywood for all these years. He's like, Josh, I love the movie, but I have to be honest, I couldn't follow what Timmy was saying because he was speaking so quickly. And he's like, so I'm going to watch it again. And that was great for me to hear because I would, you know, Jack Timmy up on coffee and he would, you know, some of the scenes, he's saying them so quickly. Yes. I love it. It's precision.

That's very, it's, you know, he's a, Marty's a very precise person. Yeah, I mean, I think that's something that is I wanted to ask you about, which is that the movie is simultaneously really propulsive but also a pickeresque. Interesting. Yeah. And that's a unusual blend. a pickeresque, very episodic, you're bouncing around, you're moving into new environments all the time. We're always with this rogue at the center, but it's, it takes its time. Yeah, I'm happy to hear you say that because it is, it's like Ronnie and I, when we're cutting, we are, we're not,

it's not fastly cut. It's, it has, there's patience to it. Certain scenes, obviously, they're very hectic and the speed picks up and slows them, but it ebbs and flows. I, you know, said earlier, you know, the dreams are heists on fate that's a heist film it's just you know it's an abstract heist film and i think that that's what's you know that's kind of speaking to what you're feeling is watching the film so i saw it a second time last night and i was thinking i was like focusing on the editing style like what you were doing and i don't i'm not trained in this at all but just from a total layman's perspective it feels like you make these very specific strategic moves it's like we're going to cut into a hard music cue or we're not going to cut when we're going to cut when

the camera is still moving like we're going to make choice like are these things that you and rani are like these are our strategies how do you decide how to create the energy i love that you notice that because there's a you know i talk about big feelings earlier there i get a big feeling sometimes from a cut that you can't describe it just was like you know the feeling of this guy's life constantly being in motion and never being able to really settle sometimes, you know, that was kind of an early ethos with the film and the editing. Something I discussed with Ronnie Barry early on is the feeling of not, of kind of falling into something and falling out of it. And scenes do, like, I mean, there's one in particular I'm thinking of, and now tell me if you remember it is when he's coming back from New York.

And he's there and you have this moment that breathes a little bit and you're seeing through the glass when the period, I go nuts with the period stuff. So you see... Going back to his mom's apartment. Yes, exactly. His apartment, too. Yeah, yeah. And, but when he comes in, just when you think you're going to actually get to see a moment with him, it drops out. And it's now you're falling into the next scene.

And, you know, I think that, you know, and the music cues, you know, the music is a second screenplay in the movie, either the needle drops or the score itself. So that's just present coming in and out of his life. Marty's one of these guys who comes in and out of your life. But it's like when he's there, he's present right away. Well, tell me about the working with Daniel Lopatin. So you guys have made three movies together. I think this is the best thing maybe he's ever done in his whole career.

The music is unbelievable. But is he reading the script? Is he on set? Is he... He was on set for half, but like two hours. What's he looking at to know what to do? Because it feels so tailored to not just like a long stretch of the film, but literally individual moments feel like they have...

Like, he's made choices and you made choices. to make it work yeah dan the you know the beauty of of collaborating with your closest friends is that there's a dialogue there that's a dialogue there that's much deeper than than the movie that's just for me and i think it creates a shorthand that allows you know dan and all of my collaborators to you know work a little bit more immediately or or be a little bit more inspired hopefully Dan read the script His reaction was very Dan Dan's a very deep thinker

Very patient with his thought He likes these Jungian and everything he looks at And he's you know He invented vapor wave The movement so he's kind of like one of the kings of hauntology And you know Something that we discussed early on when I said I wanted to do a period piece The very idea of doing a period piece is postmodern

So then the beginning of postmodernity is the 80s and my instinct originally when I first watched this, you know, footage from 1940s and I decided to set it. I was like, I'm going to listen to the energy of these players. I'm going to put, I have the touch by Peter Gabriel. And when I put it on, it just kind of worked. There was a feeling of, uh, that these people were ahead of their time in a weird way, that there was a, there was a modernity to seeing them against a different time period. And then I start to ask myself, why? Why did I, it was attracted to the 80s and you start to, you know, read up on it and you realize like, wow, this is the first time culture was eating its own tail. 80s were doing the 50s. Back to the

future is literally doing it. It's in the 80s and they go back to the 50s. You're seeing it in fashion. You're seeing it in music. Rock and roll is coming to being in the 50s and you're taking blues music, sad expressions of dark, of sad souls putting a beat to it. So all of a sudden it's propulsive. And the 80s you're doing this new wave movement. That's melancholic music, but it's dance music almost. So there's, there was a lot of interesting parallels between the two, you know, and Reagan resurrecting the American dream. The 50s were coming out of victory. The 80s are coming out of defeat. You're trying to chase the opulence again. And, you know, you start to, you know, Dan and I start to talk about the music and we talk about Marty. And the very early version of the

script, it, you know, at the very end of the credits, you saw Marty in the 80s. He's watching a Tears for concert is a very very at one point. I've heard about this. Yes. And he's there and he's and he's, and he's listening. Oh, yes. Yeah, there was one little line that even the studio is like, hold on, is this a mistake? This is one little sentence at the very, very end. But it wasn't a mistake. And I actually was, it was one of those ideas that's so bad that it could be good. But you will talk about it, I'm sure, at some point. I believe in it. That's what I'll tell you. Oh, I 100%. I mean, without, you know, I think corporate colonial, and that beginning of like passive colonialism, too,

there was a lot of people like that. There were a lot of, without spoiling it, there were a lot of ghoulish people. Yes. We were feeling it to this very day, this literal very day in America. I think, you know, I think we're feeling the 80s again very much.

So this is an idea of dream big, our campaign. That was something I did want to ask you about. So obviously it's set in the 50s and it feels like the 80s. Or at least it sounds like the 80s. And do you see that the spirit of the movie is meant to be contemporary, you know, energy, but that it is also a 2025 movie? Yes. I mean, I was something that I discussed with the actors is, you know, do not feel tethered to quote unquote period. Don't study how people.

Tyler did it. And then Tyler, I gave him an index of slang. It's like this incredible 200-page book of just slang in New York and Harlem. And he was like, you want me to know this stuff? And I said, no, no, no. I want you to see the way language is being used. You're a wordsworth, your genius come up with your own first day, Sun Dodger as a slur to a white person was the greatest thing in the world I was like you get that he's like well I was reading all this stuff

and it just popped into my head. He had a couple of them not all that made it in but there's something incredibly modern about him regardless like it doesn't feel like put on or something. I mean he's also entirely timely incredibly timeless like I was one of the first things that Tyler was one was the second person I wanted to put in the movie after Timmy because you know

I got I had them together and I saw them together and they just felt like friends from you know another era yeah there's something very easy about them together exactly and they're electric all together and i and tyler's you know he's just total vertical artist there's no difference between him designing a hat and releasing a grammy winning album or doing this performance everything has the same approach from the ground up he thinks about these things from the ground up and that's the beauty of working with he's also a director He's made great music videos I met him

I discovered him through the Yonkers video and he directed it but he was directing it under an alias I was writing about him back then man that was a moment yeah it was great

that was a moment it didn't turn out the way I thought it would it's been great for him oh yeah it's been great for him to be a odd future yeah yeah yeah for sure

frank too but yeah no they've done well yeah all of them they're all incredible artists but but I just so I would I told all the actors, don't worry about that. If you're ever becoming too anachronistic, I'll tell you, and we'll work it out.

Or if it takes amazing, I can edit it out. I didn't want them to feel inhibited by being nostalgic. It wasn't nostalgia exists only in hindsight. So I wanted them to be present. And I love the feeling of the movie because I have the beauty of having Jack Fist, the greatest production designer, who's literally a time traveler. And he said to me, he was making, he was producing a. documentary for me i have miaco bolizi who's also been obsessed with this period and she wanted to

earnestly enter the period not through fashion and understand character i had darius kanji who was trying to light using the the color temperatures of the time uh k georgio my hair my hair makeup kira and mike uh but k i gave her carte blanche i cast with her and todd and jen every single extra in the movie. There's 3,500, 3,700 extras because every face had to be perfect and not anachronistic. I've watched some period films where someone, a random face would pop up and I'm like, I'm not in the world anymore. I'm taken out. Garbage does that for me. And all these, my collaborators all knew that. And I wanted everything to be perfect so that I could give the actors the freedom to feel, you know, like they were there and be, you know, slightly modern about

about it because I, you know, when you met when I was meeting and talking to people who were either in that world or, you know, you start to go into other worlds and just start to talk to people about life in general in the 50s and the late 40s, they're talking to you and you're hearing the stories and when you're hearing the stories, a good orator, you're present. You're just listening to them. Emotions are timeless. You know, life has obviously changed and we have a whole new feeling and there's new nuances to anxiety now because of social media and the connectivity between everybody but you know back then like there was such an earnest connectivity amongst everyone in the world because of the war not everyone in the world but yes you know the modern we all went through

something together exactly now i remember i had a teacher who once said like who here thinks the internet's going to unite everybody everyone raised their hand he just started laughing at us uh i'm looking back on in the moment i was he was talking about the internet's you're so idealistic and democratic you know you think and then you look now and like whoa so so different yeah it's a rabbit hole machine oh yeah But going back to Dan, in terms of the hauntological quality of the film, I had originally written that Marty is at a concert, a Tiers of a concert at the end. And he's with his son and his granddaughter, the son who you obviously meet.

And he is, you know, looking at, you know, the band and thinking about the lyrics of the song, which is weirdly the song is actually about the Cold War, but I don't like to think of it that way. It's about anxiety and control. Everybody wants to rule the world to be specific about it. It is one of the, the way it's used in the film as now

is one of the most like thunder clap, emotional needle drops that I've heard in so long. The first lyric is powerful. It's unreal. I mean, it makes, it truly makes the movie. The first word of the movie is change, divorced, and recut. And that was cool as you get to

these artists allowed us to recut their music so you just hear that the mallets right from change and then you just hear change and then you're in the movie and you drop out so it's just like marty marty marty marty you're in the world it also gives it that almost hip-hop style like you know modern quality of like there's just something recombinant going on in this movie that is a period piece that shouldn't have a moment like that but does that anyway that's what ben was saying yesterday but so what i was what so the idea there is that the movie is a kind of reflection of the past from a present, which happens to have been the 80s, so that the whole time you feel like

there is a mythic quality to what you're seeing, that there's this guy is literally from the future, and he's back there and he's revisiting his past, and you're supposed to take lesson from that. It feels like there's a legend happening. And Dan and I discussed early on, do we sidle up alongside these needle drops, which were written into the script, or do we also, or do we do a period score and then we started to look at post-war music which you know steve rike and and and things like and artists like that and you know he you know and you start to go in that direction for a little bit this is before production begins then during production i start i say to dance like what if we echo jam was one of his first like kind of seminal piece of music which kind of spawn vapor wave

i was like what if we echo jam the whole score we take these 80s needle drops and you mess with them That sounds cool. Most time, like conceptual things, it's hard to really land the plane there. So it didn't work. And then we landed in this place, which I think you're responding to with his work, is in this, is that there's a lot of, there's 30 string orchestra in Czechoslovakia. There's 60 voices in Vienna. There's floutists that we had, there's a lot of flutes, a lot of mallets in this movie. And mallets, he said, it's like ping pong, ball, stick.

And then the begin, all those 80s needle drops are all synest. synthetic mallets and those big drums, you know, and so that was interesting to start to try to think about organic instruments, real people, and the synthetic versions of them and combining the two. Yeah, it feels like literal time signatures too where ping pong is a series of ticking and talking and ticking until you are moving in time with the movie. Anyway, it's a really brilliant choice. You did mention your interest in the iconography of people and the casting is so fascinating

again, I think actually a one-uping of uncut gems, not just because you have major stars and folks like Gwyneth in the movie, but... She's amazing in the film. So, so great. Odessa also incredible and having a very... Bleeding heart. Yeah. As she deserves. But all the

all the other people... It's 100... I think there's 135 speaking parts. Okay, well, talk to me about Kevin O'Leary and Abel-Ferara. Okay. And the duality of your heavies and why you chose them. So Abel was, the part was written for him.

He, when you cast somebody, you are bringing their entire history with them. And that's true movie stars. When you cast, you know, Brad Pitt, who's an amazing actor. When you cast him, you're bringing all of Brad Pitt's movies to the movies on a subconscious level. People, when they see his name on the poster, they think of every movie that they love him in. And, you know, I believe movies are portraits of the souls of the people. that you're in and you want to work with those actors to use the characters as vessels to kind of express themselves inside of it. And, you know, which is kind of the basis of like

this acting exercise, Misenor effect, where you're just like saying the same thing, but you're bringing your soul to it. Uh, kind of, don't hate me if you're an actor and say that you have no idea what you're talking about because I'm a moron at the end of the day. I'm, I'm, uh, whatever. Uh, so, so Abel was somebody, you know, who I knew and I put in one of my, earlier films but he was not sober when i worked with him the first time it was a crazy experience i was curious about how it worked out working with him well now he's sober and he's a totally different person uh he came in a video store i worked out briefly and he you know took money from the register uh he he doesn't care about talking this his book is amazing by the way that's a scene yeah scene is

amazing so if you read that you know i'm not i'm not uh um violating him and he's a complicated dude who's been very troubled over the years. He's made like 15 incredible movies. Really? I mean, the funeral is an incredible period of time. You can't get it. Why is it not available to? I have a great DVD of it.

It's a great and Chris Penn is so good in that movie. That scene when he's dancing and singing is one of these things that I chase in my movie is that's chasing happiness. It's a pure moment. It's a big feeling moment. He's so good. What is tragedy to have lost him so early? He's so good in the film. Anyway, Abel is.

is a street poet and all of the films that he's made. Now, some people see the movie, they don't even know who Abel Ferrar is, you know, which is crazy to me, but that's a harsh reality. But it's in his soul. It's in his DNA. You don't make those films if it's not. And when you see him immediately on screen, and he's hilarious, too. And he's, you know, you immediately feel, this guy might not be up to so much.

He might not be up to good. Yeah. You know, like we had early, early drafts of the movie. the Abel character, Ezra Mishkin, and there was a character who we were cast, and we was going to try to cast Don King in, and he was a feud of the lottery feud in New York. This is like so early.

This is like 2020. Okay. And it's good because then this becomes backstory. And it's like where that bag of money is from. And it allows Abel to know. And I said, Abel is backstory. He was like, okay, he really, that meant a lot to him. Everyone gets a backstory.

And the dog, he hates dogs in real life. He's petrified of them. So that was hard for him. But so when he shows up on screen, you know, you feel, I think you feel all of his movies. And you feel his, you know, you feel his past. You feel the Bronx. You know, you feel the guy who's living near Union Square trying to raise money and working in pornography, trying to just make, get his dream to make a real film, working with gangsters.

and you know you just so when he steps on screen it's the way he looks it's the way he talks it's the way he moves abel has a signature way he moves there's a great cinema of our times piece on him a video doc on him and he's amazing you can just like and watch him forever but when i worked with him on daddy long legs it was crazy every between takes he had two beers on inside of both jackets in between takes he'd want to go and he pound the beer and then he will go over here and then he disappear year and then he come back. When we got him, he wanted the money up front. This is a no-budget movie. We're giving him, you know, $150. And, you know, he's, you know, but he was, he loved movies and he appreciated that I wanted to do this thing. He watched my first film. And, but he was,

it was, he was completely blind to himself. I think that was part of the addiction, uh, was wanting to disappear from himself. And oftentimes that's, makes for great acting. And, because someone is not self-conscious. Here he was sober and so he was a totally different guy in the beginning. It was like, wow, I have a work with a whole new person. But I had what's, I, we WhatsApp with each other all the time. So I, and he's a Buddhist and he's very peaceful and he's a father. And, you know, so, but working with him, he, and I've heard from an actors who worked

and he's the greatest director's actor, actors director. I mean, you can see that. Many people getting their best performances in his movies. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what his best film is. is, his most existential film, King of New York, is probably his best. Yeah, I mean, I have, Miss 45, yeah. Miss 45 is amazing. I mean, they're all great. I really think they all have

something to do. I even, him and I bond over body snatchers because it's really good. So hard, but just the journey of making that movie is so hard. I think it was the last official, now there's more. It was the last official, quote, Cinema Scope Hollywood film for a long time. Interesting. I remember seeing him, and he's the best at Q&A's. And he did a Q&A with, He asked me to do a Q&A with me and Benny do a Q&A with him once at a moment. I knew. I've seen him throw these moderators under the bus. It's like, I'm going to just be a mark.

I don't want to do that. He's like, no, no, no, don't worry. I'm not going to do that because he was traveling in from, and it was from King of New York. This guy threw me under the bus so quickly. And I'm like, totally ridiculing me on stage. At one point, I think Julian Schnabel stood up. He goes, let the man fucking talk.

Not about me, about Able. And I wasn't even talking. Anyway, so Abel, you know, you write for him. And you just know he's a director. So he's going to bring, he's going to, he's going to always be patient with you. And he's going to be somebody you can always confide in. You know, like, this is where I want to go with the scene. And he loved the words.

He loved the page. He loved the script. And he was so committed. He was as committed as Timmy. And, you know, sometimes more so, I would be like, wow, this guy's in the corner for a long time. He's running through these things. The dog, he became, had a slight relationship with the dog. This guy was petrified of dogs.

Tyler, too. Tyler's allergic. So I cast these people who can't be around dogs so you have these scenes where they have to be able in particular as to love the dog. So he was great to have,

again, because he's bringing an entire history to the part. The Milton character was tricky because he was, you know,

he's obviously he's the antagonist in the movie, you know, up until a certain point he doesn't do, he's the bad guy, but he doesn't do anything bad.

Yeah. Which is a hard thing to do because he's bad in the eyes of your main character, even though he doesn't do, he's not a bad guy by any other definition. And he... And it played differently, you might not even read him that way

all the way up until the end. But the actor that you chose reads as bad immediately. Exactly. So I interviewed some politicians. I interviewed other, you know, I interviewed some actors. I met with entertainers in general. And then, you know,

I read with a couple. And I realized there was just something missing. There was that DNA was missing. So I was like, well, we need a corporate, colonialist, hardcore businessman who just is the American dream. So you started to think about entertaining, you first started thinking my businessman. So you like, look at the Forbes list. And you're like, okay, maybe the face, this interview, as you watch interviews, is interesting. I don't know.

And then you're like, well, let me look at entertainment. So then I started to think, you know, I once wrote Mark Cuban a really long email to get him to pay for Lenny Cook. We'll see if he would put money. And his response was, no, thank you. It was the producer, it was like, the producer of that movie wrote this long thing, his response was, no thanks. Which was amazing, he responded.

So I was thinking of Shark Tank, and I said to Ronnie, you know, because we write with people in mind, I was like, what about Shark Tank? He goes, Mr. Wonderful. Immediately. He's a Mr. Warner. Ronnie loves Shark Tank. He's always calm.

He's like, watch this episode. We'll watch them together. And Mr. Wonderful is the star of that show. Yeah. You know, Cuban's no longer on it. Cuban was always kind of the most famous person on the show. But Wonderful is the star He sits center for a reason

Because he is an asshole And he is an iconic asshole And he's he has timing He knows how to be an entertaining asshole But it's also entirely sincere He's also when I got to know him He's an artist He started out as an artist

He edits his own material He has his own studio where he shoots When we shot in Japan I saw him I went up to the rooftop bar And he's at the bar sitting there with a glass of wine, and he has his laptop out, and he has his LICA camera, and he's editing photos that he took on the street that day. It's Mr. Wonderful, just sitting at the bar, just, like, zoomed in on an image and, like, photo-touching it.

And it was so revealing that the end of the day, he's just this man who is, he's passionate. It's very passionate person. And we're probably meticulous as a performer then, too. Oh, my God, very much. So, I mean, it was a lot of takes. He gave him, he was very generous with me in that, you know, first of foremost, he didn't have to do this movie at all. And when I met with him, I had to pitch him. And I straight up thought I was unsure. It felt like Shark Tank. I'm here. I'm pitching him. This guy, my dream,

which is actually a business. It's a business. Movies are a business. And he's looking at me. He's going in with a no. But he's a curious person. So he's going to hear me out. And I didn't want I thought he was going to for those reasons. I'm out. But he didn't. Or he's here. I'm going to make you an offer. So when he was into it, he loved uncut gems, which was very helpful because he saw the vision. Then I, you know, you go and you meet with him and you start to tailor the movie to him. And again, he is the character before he opens his mouth. And you want that with every single casting decision. And some of those people are public people and some of those people aren't. Obviously the people who aren't, it's a different experience as a viewer because you're seeing the

person you're judging as everybody does. You're like, what kind of person is this? Who are they talking? What are they wearing? How do they talk? And, you know, he's, he happens to be public so you have that you kind of inherent that but with first timers it's almost it's a luxury because the audience gets to discover who they

are in real time and they have a very intimate relationship with them because of that because there's no they're on the same level with someone who's a public figure they're above you're looking up at them in many ways. It's funny I mean I'm sure you knew this going in but

the reactions to him in particular are fascinating Because what you hear the most from people who've seen it is, I regret to inform you that Kevin O'Leary is amazing in Marty Supreme. But that is... Because he's an iconic asshole. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting.

But you got that out of him too. You got him to go to the place where you were like, this is an undeniably critical character and one of the best performances in the movie. And he's not an actor. No. He's a performer. But you do this over and over again, though. Like, you find people who just don't do this.

What to me, I was texting with him the other day and I was proofing the, teching the 70 millimeter print and I'm in the final scene and there's his final shot you know if you go back and or maybe you can remember it it's it's very complicated the performance he's doing is very complicated and that was shooting in Japan was incredibly hectic I had very small amount of days I had lots of Japanese extras one location it was much colder than it was supposed to be and Kevin was very generous again with his time to come to Japan and he knows the we shot it at the end We knew we were going to edit a bunch. We didn't really get to edit much, but then we were going to go to Japan.

So he had the whole movie cashed in his brain. And something that we talked a lot about. His backstory was fascinating and very fun to read how he became the pen magnet. Stole it from someone in Argentina. He stole the patent of the ballpoint pen, made $4 million for the sales at Gimbles in New York in the first week. And then he gets super upset that the pen wars begin. And Bick is created in France. In Japan, they're bootlegging him left and right because of,

A soldier brought it there, and then pilot comes about. And then Japan, now Japan and France own the pen game. So he was fascinated in the economics of his business. So here he is in Japan as a carpetbagger, as a corporate colonialist. And it's very misguided because he's avenging his son, kind of, he thinks he is. Pimardi's kind of showing that to him and rubbing his face in it a little bit. And he's also, the movie's about control, very much so about control. And in that moment, he has no control.

And the way he internalized all those feelings and thoughts, I was in awe of it. And I was texting in the Massachusetts. I don't even know how you did this. Because it's, you know, you give, I give a lot of space sometimes with takes, you know, for actors. And particularly with the Japan section at the end, I would do these long set takes where you let and Timi and Koto plays Endo. they were so good at my Diego scoff who was my choreographer for table tennis he was a did forest gum he's like they're never going to be able to learn multiple points in a row get that out of your head Josh and I was like oh man how am I going to get the nuances of

the motions between the points and timmy and koto just started they wouldn't even they would just go into it you're shooting in wide for long stretches they would just go into the next point so what I would do is and I would have I would have another camera on kevin throughout the plane so I could see him in real time and And when you let points play and you let the emotions pile up, I don't have to be like, all right, you're feeling this and this shot. You know what I mean? So you allow him to kind of get there on his own, and I'm amazed by it.

He's incredible. But every single person in his movie was the star of the film for me. And I'm touched by them all. Like the guy who plays Lloyd in the safe scene at the beginning, it's heartbreaking. It's hard me. Like, I work so hard. And he's given that business card. I talk to Lloyd about it.

I talked to Ralph, as the actor's name, we talk about the things that wouldn't get him, you know, as you do as a director, you talk about. And then, then you get, as a director, you get, it's so vulnerable what people do. Then you roll the camera and you see how he's expressing the thing that he just told you about. It's devastating. It's how you cry, you know what I mean? It's very emotional. And that's when you're, you know, you're like doing something, like this is a great actor. They're willing to be bare themselves.

Gwyneth was like that. my favorite scene in the movie is having seen it a second time is the conversation after their second encounter in the hotel room yes yeah so funny that was like a scene that was that was that was a scene that was one it turned out great but it was one of those scenes where rani and i we rewrite it and rewrite it because there's a lot of they're back and forth really fast and there's a lot of meaning in that scene and oftentimes when your life you in conversations in real life you don't talk about meaning sometimes unless you're sitting down with a close friend and you're pontificating.

Dan is somebody and Ronnie too. Some of you talk about life with. But these people don't, aren't going to do. So you have to find the right tenor for that. And there's such an interesting, you know, he's a kid in that scene. It's a mom and a son talking to each other. Yeah. And she lost her son.

And he's got a really complicated relationship with his mother who's constantly trying to trap him. He tells her, you sound like my mom. And, you know, and she says in that thing, I got pregnant. That's what stopped her dream. You know what's going on in the movie. So there's, but there, it's so, there's the practical, the real time part of the conversation is just him saying that I saw your husband is paying for the play, which is also an essential narrative piece. So it's very hard.

I'm happy you like that scene because every time someone tells us they enjoy that scene right here, like, you know what I mean? Well, it is like simultaneously philosophical and information delivering and it never feels like it's there to like get something done. for the movie. It is literally just what they would be talking about at that time and feels natural, which is an accomplishment. I could probably ask you a million more thing. Okay, very quick one. Is

that a knowing reference to Look Who's Talking? I love Look Who's Talking. I originally was going to go in a different direction. I started, that took seven months that sequence to do. It was started

actually during production, towards the end of production, and I wanted to do, it's more inspired by Niels Larson, who is this Swedish photographer who did the book, this, did this 70s seminal book where he photographed the fertilization process. But it was done with micro photography, electron photography, which is black and white. Obviously, there's no light in these, in these processes, in these scenes. And then there was this very interesting commercial photographer who colored them in a very interesting way so my initial instinct was i want it to be as realistic as possible i'm going to make it look like we're looking at it in a science class in 1952 that was my initial you know exploration for it

so i was like oh we'll start you it's hard to direct cg artists because especially when you're doing something that you don't quite have references were but i had this this book child is born and I was showing it to him showing showing it to the team company artery in New York and they went and I was like okay first we'll do the black and white we'll do the electron I got and then we'll color it afterwards but no one really understood the color it afterwards part so I'm looking at this really realistic recreation of sperm's and and you know the the tubes and the you know the ovaries and the egg and it was too realistic it was not romantic it was actually kind of abrasive looking so then you

start to go backwards, and I was like, well, let's, and then in the 80s, they did a, he did a film called, oh, God, Eternal. It's the film version, basically, with a little bit more advancements, photographic advancements of his book in the 60s. And that was very inspiring. And then you think about, look who's talking. I'm doing it. I'm like, oh, wow, let's make me think of another movie. And you're like, oh, look who's talking. I love look who's talking. I remember as a kid seeing that, and it being educational. It's impactful. It's memorable. Yeah. It's incredible. incredible. And I think maybe just people our age will be like, is that a nod to that to that 80s movie? It isn't not. You know, I mean, it's, it's, and that that sequence was definitely

inspired by Neal's photography. There's no doubt about it. I mean, that was the only, that it was such a seminar. I mean, it's, that's, I should have, you know, every prize in the world for, for showing that, for showing that part of the human creation. I mean, it's, it's the only, it's our visual. Now it's getting, you can actually, we got. We got. super deep into making it as realistic as possible because you can really get in there now and it's again it's just but it's it's it's abrasive looking so i wanted the romantic quality i didn't want to lose that it's it's it works yeah um and then the the choir that comes in the kid's choir yeah that's part i think that's partly why is that it is like it's it's the smart

thing that you do where you're setting us up for an inevitability but we completely forget about the inevitability when we're watching the movie that's awesome you know what i mean like you're not hiding anything. There's a lot going on in this guy's life. Yes, there is. And it's easy to forget. And there's a handful of things, if you go back and watch the movie, it's like, oh, he did say about the bathtub. But you forget about it because this guy's, this guy's goal, he's making the best possible decision in every interaction he has.

So you actually, as an audience, are not hearing things or remembering things. And that was, you know, that was, that was Ronnie and I. That was something that we, that's what took. much time, is to figure out a way to be present so that you couldn't kind of forget about things that you saw in the recent past in your real life an hour ago or something. Do you feel like it's a chapter closing, but movie in a way for you? Do you think that... In what regards?

Well, I wonder if the next movie has this exact same propulsion. Yeah, I mean, I feel very comfortable in this speed. it's, I understand, I can understand more about the ideas and the meaning of my own expression in a way, not to sound self-involved, but I do feel just comfortable in that. But, you know, as you're saying, there's lots of ebbs and flows in this film that are different from the other ones. Yeah, that's why I'm asking because there's some moments where it's not. You never know.

It depends on the story. You know what I mean? like there's if I I was going to say a movie about a painter but you know then you think of like life lessons the Scorsese film which is incredible you know there's a real propulsion there I mean I just look

But that's in the emotional dynamics not in the speed of the film right like not in the cutting in that movie at least the cutting in that movie is but yes but that but that is kind of the case here minus a couple of sequences there are some pretty intense propulsive sequences here

But I just, I, you know, I find that, you know, life moves really quickly and, you know, the days move fast. And then you have, you know, you have a kid, literally the days move fast, the years are long. Sorry, the days are long, the years are fast. And that freaks me out. And time in general freaks me out. So I'm trying to, I'm wish fulfillment with movies. I go to the movies to see characters do things that I wouldn't do. There's a heroic quality to that.

There's a wish fulfillment. And I go to the movies to, it's a maximalist art form. I don't care if it's the most minimalist film. It's still maximalist. There's people talking. There's music. There's, even if there isn't music sounds in the score, there's music in the world that they're in. And that's, that's overwhelming in its own, you know, microbeats.

So I go for the maximalist effect. So I'm, again, I can't tell it's all about the size. subject matter. I don't know if you feel this way with your kids right now, but this year, so I have a four-year-old, this year is the first year of her life that I thought went too fast. The first three years, I was like, this is going slowly. Oh, really? This is hard.

And this year, I was like, oh, no, I can feel it slipping through my fingers already. And I wonder what effect that might have on how you make movies, given the speed that you like to work with. Yeah. I mean, I got to figure out of movies quicker. You can't spend six years. Are you worried about that? You know, sometimes. Because you want to walk away having done 20 films?

I have no, yeah. You don't want to, I definitely want to work until the day I die, that's for sure. That's nice to hear. Yeah, I don't. Work sets you free. It's, it's, amen. I don't understand retirement. I just don't understand it.

I don't even, and I love everyone who takes pride in what they do. I love when you meet a prideful person. It's incredible. It's life affirming. And I hope I'll take pride. I hope I'll take pride in what I do. If I don't, I mean, I want to, I don't know. I might want to become an architect.

That's my dream. I want to build a public-facing building. I want to build a building that people can experience. I want to think about the narrative of a building. What it's like to enter it, what it's like to go upstairs and leave. That would be an incredible dream to do that. A real-life brutalist, yeah. Yeah, yeah, sure.

Okay, so I'm not going to ask you what are you doing next because you think that would be disrespectful. I'll start crying. Nick's, how you feeling? I like them. I'm so accustomed to like a six-man rotation and the grind that come... I watch sports for the chemistry. There's nothing less exciting to me

than a team that has no chemistry. It's sad. It's like, what am I even looking? You watch for the narratives. You want the narratives inside your team. And I don't quite fully know the... the movie that the Knicks are right now. We have a lot of great players.

Got to open your heart to Tyler Kolek, you know? I love Kolek. The man. Yeah, I love, see, the thing is, I'm a big deuce, deuce guy as well. Yeah, an incredible season so far. Yeah, he's having, but he's been, he was great since the moment he got onto the team. I agree. I, there are certain lineups that work better than others.

The 11-man rotation is fascinating because you're just like, how do you, like, I, I, When I saw it with the Pacers last year, I was not, it was strange. It was frustrating. Psychedelic almost. You're like, what's going on now? This person, when did they check in? Yes. And no one gets tired.

But the drawback from that is you don't have these like long-term relationships inside the game. You know what I mean? You don't get to see Brunson and Bridges develop over the game because Bridges is playing with Deuce for long stretches of the game. and Kat and Brunson and they're not playing as much as they should be together and Mitch is a totally

the team is totally different when Mitch is on the floor it's true so and Brown I don't I don't like again Tibbs was so simple he was so simple frustratingly simple at times but I was predictable

I loved him I was happy he was fired I wanted him fired I'm in the exact same position but I miss him but he brought something he brought a stability and success that we

and you knew what you were getting for yes you knew what you were you were getting. And he, you know, look, I had heard that there was a couple of, you know, out, you know, playing into the summer in your meetings that went really long. I know some of the players, some inside information that was 20 seconds. Some of them were like 90 minutes. Yeah. So some players were clearly like, what are you doing with me? Why am I on this team? You can see that in the way that some of them have performed this season too. Oh yeah. You feel more. You know, You know who had the long outro, outgoing meeting.

He feels more free now. Oh, yeah, for sure. We're talking about the five boroughs. Yes, of course, yeah, yeah. Cal Bridges. He does, and it's great because he's an amazing defender. Our defense is kind of better than we were last year, too, which was, it wasn't, Tibbs just lost his identity last year.

I have theories, we all do, about personnel and, like, did you. It's one of those be careful what you wish for with working until you die, because, like, he grinds hard. And there is a consequence. But his life is, his purpose is waking up. I mean, he has consequences. You're married to the game, though. I know. He's married to the game.

He has children with the game. I know what I mean? I hope he finds another team. He'll never win a championship. I know. It just won't happen. And it's sad, but he's going to be, he's going to be one of those coaches that was great. You know, but like, do we still have Derek Rose?

If he's not the coach? I mean, that was amazing. Derek Rose was incredible. Yeah. Do we have him if he's not, you know? Probably, it's impossible to know. You never know, but like, you know, I don't know. KG always told me that the problem with, you know, the reoccurring injuries nowadays is the way that they're not working out the right way.

Oh. Because there were less injuries back then. Yeah. And you could say the game is more high octane and it's more, you know, you have bigs that are having to run out to the three point line and it's faster. But Chuck Daly was fast as fuck. you know and that was back then yeah and you don't you didn't see 500 injuries a year it's true so it's hard to hard to say i mean i do the one thing that i'm you know by the way they asked me to direct a game for the telecast yeah in the truck it's like the coolest you gotta do

that i'm gonna do it for sure i mean they they saw how are they prepared for the amount of cuts you're willing to do the new york i don't read reviews right but some reviews i end up reading because so many people send them to me. The New York Post one was sent to me by a lot of people. And so I read that review. Of Marty, you mean? Of Marty, yeah. And that one was sent to me by someone who works at MSG networks. And

that was, I love the review for that reason now. That it linked me to. And then they said, wow, the way you captured table tennis, it would be great to see you capture basketball. And I'm already thinking like, okay, I'm going to get this camera over here. I'm going to do that. I want to get into the psychology.

of the game. It's going to be hard. And it's going to, I hope I'll have time to prep for it. If you haven't spoken to John DeMarsico who cuts the Mets games, who directs the Mets games, you've got to talk to him because he's a huge cinephile. Well, the way they've covered some of those, the split diapter stuff is incredible. He's doing amazing stuff and just as like, as a movie nerd, being such a big fan of the team. Also, you get to have Keith. His synophilic taste is pretty. All three of them. They love movies. They'll fucking talk about TCM for an hour during a blowout game.

It's the best time. You know that Somerville in one battle after another, Paul Grimstad, who's the lead of... He's like one second in your movie? Yeah, I clocked him yesterday. You can hear him a bunch. He's amazing. He's a friend of us. He's the lead of Ronnie's film, Brown.

Yes, of course. That's right. He's the craziest Mets fan. Really? Oh, my God. Wow, we've got to get him on this show. The craziest Mets fan. Amazing guy.

He also utters the words, the big picture multiple times in one battle. So, you know, we're good for life. You should do a mashup of that. Okay. We end every episode of that. the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen last great thing can you say the last thing i saw if you want to okay um i hope you i hope you i thought it was great no i thought it was great last night you know i just you know you you get into this part of the

process of the film which you kind of forget about when you're you may you have to forget about in six years yeah um and of course it's important to to promote the film but talking about yourself It was a lot, and I like to unwind. So I decided to, Ronnie and I were talking about wild things yesterday. Oh, hell, yeah. And then we realized it was directed by the McDonough. McDonough, excuse me, McNaughton, who did Henry Portrait of Serial Killer. He sure did.

And then I saw this movie he did called The Borrower. Have you ever seen The Borrower? It's a fascinating movie. What's the borrower? The borrower is about these two, this alien who did something really bad on his planet. And his punishment is he has to be human and they're going to drop him off on Earth and he has to just live on Earth

so the alien who's like the cop who's bringing him to Earth and be like all right go is like and they're arguing about it they speak English which is whatever you've got to get past certain things and they arrive on planet Earth and they're these two guys of father and son they're just getting drunk in a car in the middle of a field

and they see this insane alien looking thing and this human but inside the human is the alien in human form and they have up start having a huge fight the alien and this human being and they see they imagine they're like we have to help the human that thing is a beast so they kill the alien and they go to help the human but the human's an alien and he's very violent he's very violent so he he rips the head off of uh he rips the head off of uh oh wait his head is

trying to remember I just watched it the human's head is ripped off no I'm sorry the alien can't take the human form for too long

okay so while they're talking they're asking this human if he's okay and Kevin Yeager did all the effects

so it's beautiful looks really cool who by the way I met very briefly when I produced if I had legs I'd kick you we wanted to bring

Kevin into a thing but we couldn't get to him but for the film but sorry so Kevin Yeager did this so there's this moment

where Kevin Yeager's effects come in and it's important to mention Yeager because the movie is kind of like the thing which was eight years or something like that earlier and also the hidden it's very similar to the hidden as well so this guy's the alien

can't take being in this body anymore or its expiration date is upon itself and the head explodes and this creature comes through the hands and it needs a new head. So it rips the head off of the guy that killed the alien and it puts it on top of him

and it just, you can see, it looks like Frankenstein's monster. So he's, but now he's this new person who has the brain of the guy he just killed but they're still kind of functioning as the alien. So each person it inhabits has a different personality. So it goes, it ends up hitchhiking.

Or no, gets hit by a call, gets hit, uh, it gets hit by a car by this woman. And then the movie becomes very interesting because the woman who hits him, it could just turn into kind of like a bad B movie, but there are these moments of, of like real people. Uh, in particular, the way he shoots, I think it's L.A. You can't, doesn't really ever say, um, documentary of this like, like, he's just walking around like what looks like Skid Row. And he's literally like a, a huge cut where the head that the neck sits on top of the, the head sits on top of the neck. And then, um, he's just moving around and humanity is ugly in the movie.

It's like worst. And it's like an allegory about how basically we are the aliens. You know what I mean? Like we're an ugly group. We don't really, we're just a parasite on this planet. And there's this e- there's a parallel story about a really bad dude who's more violent than the alien. But he just hosts through host through host. And weirdly, he ends up taking the, he ends up taking a dog's head at one point, which is so weird because the hidden does that.

Yeah. And the thing does that. Yeah. It's like the same idea that all three directors can't get away from. But it's a weird movie. This is also very, it sounds like it's lifted completely in Men and Black. That's a whole thing in Men and Black, too, with the Donofrio character. It actually, he looks, the first guy looks like DeNafrio in Men and Black.

So weird. Yeah. The borrower, I've never heard of it. Yeah. Check it out. I was pretty, it was very helpful last night because I was just like, did like three Q&As and like this. And I was like, I just want to, Ryan, we were talking about wild things.

And then we're like, oh my God. same director as Henry Portchigan, and then we see this movie. The thing that made me want to watch it is an alien arrives on planet Earth, and he's very violent. And there was just something so blunt about that. I was like, I got to see this. Incredible recommendation. Hey, congrats on Marty Supreme. Thank you so much.

Congrats on if I had likes to kick you, too, which is also one of my favorite movies of the year. Such a special film. It really is. And good luck with everything. I hope this movie makes $800 billion. Me too. Okay, thanks to Josh Safdi. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders, for his work on this episode.

Hey, it's Christmas Eve when this is running. Oh, it is. Yeah, so have a happy holidays. Merry Christmas. All the listeners out there. We're not done in 2025. We have, frankly, several more episodes to both record and for you to listen to for the rest of the year. Later this week, I indicated another film coming on our 25 for 25 list.

Number two will be coming a great double feature. Great double feature. We'll see you then. You know,