The Big Picture - Sicko Movie Mode: Five F**ked-Up Features to Close Out the Summer

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

Sean and Amanda return to the feed in triumphant fashion by talking about, among other things, Oasis, the ‘Megalopolis’ trailer, and their weeks away (1:00). Then, they run through five recently released features and their “sicko” natures, measuring the quality of each film and the state of the release calendar in the doldrums of summer (18:00). Finally, Sean is joined by JT Mollner, the director of ‘Strange Darling’, to discuss the long gap between his first feature at Sundance and ‘Strange Darling,’ the twists and turns of his movie, and the way he conceives of making movies within genres that come with audience expectation (1:09:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: JT Mollner Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the summer of 1999, thousands attended what would be the final iteration of the Woodstock Music Festivals. But unlike its namesake, Woodstock 99 was not about peace and love. Join me as I dive deep into this story about music, mud, violence, and tragedy. From Spotify and the Ringer Podcast Network, I'm Stephen Hyden, and this is Break Stuff, the story of Woodstock 99. Available Tuesday, August 27th. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express.

Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about freaks, weirdos, psychos, monsters, ghouls, sickos. Today on the show, we will talk about five freaky new movies that hit theaters this month. Later in the show, I'll have a conversation with J.T. Molnar,

the writer-director of one of those movies. The movie is Strange Darling. It's a unique new serial killer thriller that I really dug. We'll get into it in this episode. J.T.'s got a great story. Great at telling that story. I hope you'll stick around for our conversation. But first...

Oasis. Okay. No, let's just do it. You want to start there? Let's just bring everybody in. Okay, we've been on vacation, sort of. I was not on vacation last week, unfortunately for me.

But some things have transpired. There's been some movie news that we could talk about. Right. But as soon as we walked in, I could feel between us that we were both like, can we talk about Oasis?

Like, we both... And this... I think this episode is going out simultaneous with, like like the official announcement. The announcement is supposed to be August 27th.

We're recording this on August 26th. Okay. We've gotten some, you know, a lot of leaked info, but it seems like there's enough

that it's really happening this time. And Oasis... Yes, the English rock band. A signature band of our youth. Yes. And also just like

one of the most legendary brotherly feuds of all time. And something that this show spiritually could aspire to in a lot of ways, I think. You know? If we have to go out, let's go out like them. I think we have huge Nolan Liam energy. Without question, you are obviously Liam by a mile. You are the most Liam person I've ever known. I'm just glad that you know that.

I feel really good about that, but I'm glad that you also know. So when this broke, and there had been long rumors for years that they would get back together, that they were milking this to get back together to make this as big an impact as possible. And I have had huge ups and downs with my Oasis fandom over the years, and I have been in a big high for the last year. So when this hit, I was really excited. But the playlist that I looked up and subscribed to yesterday when this really started cooking is called Noli G has pipes comma actually and it's all the songs the Oasis songs

that Noel sings okay and uh you know I'm a no I mean sure but that is like major loser energy sure what I did yesterday is I just went back and i was just like reading liam's twitter post for a while then i watched that video he did with vice like 10 years ago where it's like him and a bunch of children yeah yeah um that's a great one it's so good when the little kid asks do you get treats after your concert sort of uh oasis are wonderful they have nothing to do with movies really except i did just tell the story of me and Chris and your husband going to see Supersonic the A24 documentary about um Oasis up until I forget what year it was 1997 or it's that moment when Talk Tonight happens and Noel leaves and they are go kind of on their split um which I think is a really fun and great documentary that actually was reissued as part of that IMAX program that A24 was doing but after we saw that movie your husband famously said Oasis

is not good which just destroyed Chris and I. Destroyed us. Okay, so first of all, number one. And he's apparently, he informed me that he received an invitation to appear on this podcast sometime soon. He did. He did. And he can make amends on that day. Well, I hope you're listening. He like started trying, he was like, why didn't you invite me? And I was like, it's between you and Sean. Because number one, it is on record that his post-screening movie opinions don't always hold up you know um that's another future episode that's by the way that's why all the long lead publicists listening should let me go with zach to see the movies because you'll get a more favorable response number two he doesn't speak for me or for our family. And you were trying to other me from this.

And I was like literally hatching. I was like, okay, so Cannes 2025. F1 definitely going to hit Cannes, probably at a competition. But we finally make our debut on the Croisette. And then, you know, we're already across the pond. So maybe we have a little vacation time of our own. And then we hit London. We can do some London programming. I would really love to go back to the prince charles cinema yeah i like

they're just doing great work over there and then we can go to oasis i don't know how we would justify that in a context of a podcast about movies but whatever is the idea going to be like 30 nights at wembley like what is it going to be like 30 nights at Wembley? Like, is it going to be all over the place, all over Europe? So, I believe right now, and again, as of this recording,

all we know are rumors. So, 10 nights at Wembley. Okay. Headline in Glastonbury, and then 10 nights in Manchester. I mean, that's the Matt Healy. That's what Matt Healy asked for like a year and a half ago

in that very famous video. Yeah. Where he was like, you're too busy modding. Stop modding. His greatest moment. Yeah. It really was., you're too busy modding. Stop modding. His greatest moment. It really was. Complicated 18 months

for that guy. Oasis, I'm just delighted. I'm delighted. Are they a wildly derivative band? Yes. Are they amazing?

Yes. Was I 10 when What's the Story Morning Glory came out? Yes. I was 12, but same difference. Is it hugely important to me?

Yes. Yeah, they rock. It's kind of perfect that on the sicko mode episode that we're just being sickos about these two incredibly rude dickish blokes. I mean, so what's your ticket strategy here? I'm a very connected person, so I'm sure I can figure it out. Oh, really? So you better be nicer to me, Liam. I don't know.

I'm not sure. I mean, we're fortunate to work at Spotify. Sure. Maybe we know someone who knows someone. We can figure something out. I do, you pointed out to me before we started recording that you really got to go

in those first few days. Yeah. Because things could really go awry here. You know, like the fight could start. And I also like, I don't think that I have earned the Manchester energy. You know, like I think that

there's something where if they make it that far, it's really, that's not for us. That's not for Americans. That's not for Americans. That's for the homegrowns. There's something really enticing about Glastonbury, though. I've never been to Glastonbury. Yeah.

I'm not a festival person at this stage in my life. Yeah, I don't like a festival either. But that moment will be an amazing moment. It will. I think I would prefer London, personally. Okay. Again, you do, if you're going to arrange your entire family's life around this, you do actually want to get to see the concert, you know?

Good news for me is my wife likes Oasis. And frankly, I will start the mission to make my daughter like Oasis now. Zach, I don't know what you're talking about if you're listening to this because we spent all weekend talking about this. I don't know what to say. We're just in line at the playground,

texting each other, being like, can you believe this Oasis thing? Do you think it's true? How are we going to get there? What are we going to do? And he has been very on board. Yeah.

This is our Fleetwood Mac. This is when Fleetwood Mac came back in the 90s. It is true that I play Oasis in the home for the child. He doesn't turn it on, but that's okay. I mean, I'm going i as soon as i

saw it i texted chris and said i'm going i just you know sometimes you can put me on the text chain he doesn't speak for me i i understand i understand we don't have to be in dispute about this we can be united okay and going to see oasis in london i promise if anyone has any tips i'm serious email us we're just like two old people in Los Angeles. Speaking of live events, I wanted to say thank you to the kind people at American Cinematheque and the Arrow Theater. We screened Gone Girl there as part of the Friend of the Fest series that they've been doing, where they host various screenings. And it's ongoing here in Los Angeles. Find tickets if you're interested. We met many incredibly kind listeners, engaged listeners. I always feel a little weird

meeting listeners because I know they know so much about me. I know. And then also, and it is weird if we're just voices. And I understand this because like, if I also listen to podcasts, I don't listen to this one because that would be horrifying. Whose podcast would you go to a live event for at this stage of your life? Jessie Ware. Table Manners. Oh, yeah. I know you love her. Oh, my God. Have both Gallaghers on Table Manners and then invite me,

Jessie Ware. Oh, Noel and Liam. Yeah. Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah. I thought you meant Jason Gallagher. Well, I mean,

that would be nice too. I enjoy all of his and his son's work. Otherwise, it's mostly I just listen to Ringer podcasts, so I do get that experience. Would you go to

Bill Simmons Live? I mean, that would be a fascinating sociological experiment. Just Bill for two hours. I mean, I do worry that I would like, you know, get tomatoes thrown at me by that audience. I don't know. What do you mean? I don't know. That's not the most receptive audience always to.

To you? Yeah. No. There's an overlap. Doblob. Sure. You're good. How many times did you hear the. Doblob. Sure. You're good. How many times did you hear the phrase Doblob

on Friday? I heard so many and it really I just want to thank all the girlfriends also you know because there were plenty of women

who listened to the podcast on their own. Shout out our friend who was just like I watched Heat at the nail salon. I was like I don't know

you guys talk a lot about it and it was like so I did Heat and I think she just like did a Michael Mann run at the nail salon. You guys talk a lot about it. And it was like, so I did heat. And I think she just like did a Michael Mann run at the nail salon. I think she said also Miami Vice. Yeah. So, and that's, you know, there are women who are on their own listening to the big picture. And I love all of you.

And then we did meet a couple like nice women just standing there. And they were very supportive. I've never heard your podcast, but my boyfriend will not stop talking about it. We get that a lot. We do get that a lot. And thank God for them. I appreciate all of that. Met a lot.

Met more than one guy in a letterboxd hat. Met one guy wearing a shirt that said physical media. I'd like to thank that man. That's true. We FaceTimed with someone in Long Island. We did. We did. Some psycho who stayed up till 1.30 in the morning.

For someone or a voice memo for someone in Chile. I did. We did. Some psycho who stayed up till 1.30 in the morning. And left a voicemail for someone or a voice memo for someone in Chile. I hope that was okay. This is at some point like the generations

start to you know they're more comfortable with voice memos than we are. And we don't know what we're doing. Even with the selfies

I'm like I need you guys to art direct this. I learned that that voice memo that we sent out was actually an information gathering uh psyop by an AI company and they're using it to make the bigger picture right and it's just unlike literally everything and scamanda okay two two two new voices that are bringing all the news and reviews about movie world um it was a nice event I was happy to be invited also if you haven't seen Gone Girl in a while,

this is a great time to rewatch Gone Girl. We looked very smart programming that movie. We suggested it weeks and weeks ago, and obviously things have blown up in the world of Ben Affleck. Listen, it wasn't like the outlook was good. No, but I... This has been a summer-long drip, but the actual filing of the divorce papers, the reveal of the no prenup, and just a really remarkable PR assault in People Magazine by Jennifer Lopez's team really all just came together for us. I noticed that Jimmy Butler of the Miami Heat is in her DMs right now.

It's not exciting. Incredible time here at the Big Picture where we don't talk about movies. Let's talk a little bit about movies, sort of. There was one thing that happened in the world of movie news that I found extremely amusing, which is that a new trailer for Megalopolis was released last week, the new movie from Francis Ford Coppola. In that trailer, there were several quotes from reviews from past Coppola films. Such as Apocalypse Now and The Godfather.

Perhaps you've heard of them. Yes. Also Bram Stoker's Dracula was included there. The critics who those quotes were attributed to included Roger Ebert, Andrew Sarris, Pauline Kael, John Simon, some of the most known critics of the last 50 years. It was a very fun and funny trailer about how Francis Ford Coppola should never be underestimated.

And then we saw some new images from the movie. And then within six hours, it was revealed. I think Bill DeBerry, Ed Vulture, is the one who really kind of identified this and just went and Googled these reviews to make sure that the quotes were falsified or that they had been rendered from AI or it was unclear. But none of them, I think maybe one or two of them were real and everything else

was completely manufactured and in fact like many of Roger Ebert's reviews of movies like Apocalypse Now were very positive right so um you know Lionsgate took the trailer down immediately and were shamed publicly and it sounds like a consultant who worked on the creation of this trailer was dismissed. I gotta say, I just think this is really funny. It was great. There's no scandal here to me. John Simon, the legend of John Simon and the legend of Andrew Sarris will be fine. And also Francis for Cobble will be fine.

Whether he was involved in this or not, I don't know. It doesn't seem like it, but who the hell knows. It's a good idea. Because it's not like... Okay, obviously these turned out to be fake um but people have doubted francis ford coppola throughout his career uh including before some of the greatest cinema masterpieces of all time were released so the spirit was right the execution honestly let's blame AI. Let's play, like fire Google, you know?

I'm on board with that. Two notes about it. One, this has already been done and done brilliantly. It was done best by the people who worked on the marketing for the movie Lost Highway,

the David Lynch movie. Right. When they put the Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel two thumbs down on the poster and pointed to that as a sign that this was clearly a work of art that you should be interested in.

Two, the thing with Coppola is he's always doubted before or during production, but not after for the most part. This is the first time in a while where, I mean, you know, Michael Opel's got some bad reviews. Right, not the first time in a while, but I would say the last 20 years have been a little bit of some chin scratching.

Not since Jack, your favorite Robin Williams movie, has he gotten such bad press. I mean, we're going to go see this movie soon, in theory. Are we? I hope so. If they'll show it to us. Yeah. If they don't show it to us, what are we going to do? I guess we're going to go on Thursday night. I was looking at the schedule, and you really do have this on my last.

You have the podcast on my last working day. My hope is that we're going to be able to pre-record. I sure hope so too. My intention is to pre-record this episode. But it would be really funny to go into labor at like a 10 a.m. screening of Megalopolis sitting next to the tube. You think you and Chris would handle it well? You going into labor? Yeah. I've been there before. Chris has never been there. You think you and Chris would handle it well? You going into labor? Yeah.

I've been there before. Chris has never been there. You know, Chris doesn't know what to expect. I've lived through it. I know what it's like, you know.

It's complicated. I'm not saying it was easy. Yeah. But at least I know what's coming down the pipe quite literally. Yeah. Chris, you know.

Okay. I wish him well. Should we talk about the movies? What? Was there anything else that happened over the break that you were like oh if we were doing

the show this week we would have done this and by the way thanks to Brian Raftery and the whole team who worked on the Hollywood hack which I thought was great If you haven't listened

please do It was also nice a lot of people at the event had listened to it and enjoyed it I thought it turned out quite well I liked working on it Nothing else for you?

Guillermo del Toro was in a haunted house or a haunted hotel Yeah I did see that that. Yeah. That was actually my hotel. And we were happy to have Guillermo. It's your hotel's greeting, you know, thing. Great. Yeah. No, I've got, I really want to do that. It's a really good idea. We started talking about Halloween costumes with Alice this morning and I was like, Oh, what's on the docket? We're really getting there right now. We're very into Tiana from the princess and the frog. Oh, yeah. Okay.

So she's like, dad, you are Naveen, but you are the frog. When can we do Disney princesses episode with you? You know, I had Alice in the office on Friday. I know. We were in the podcast studio and we did record something that is actually sitting in Bobby's lucid folder right now. I don't know if you realize that it's's a three-minute recording where I helped teach her how to say her full name

into the microphone. She's ready to talk about princesses anytime you want. She's really, she's locked and loaded. She knows it all. But I would more like, I would like your dissertation

on the genre. Well, when are we getting a princess movie next? That's really the question. I'm not sure if there's one in the docket. Frozen? Frozen 3, I believe, is planned for 2027. That's not a joke okay i mean moana 2 in november but is

that princess yeah i mean she's meant to be the chief of the island so it's essentially in the same lineage okay i think moana qualifies okay moana very big in our house obviously yeah we haven't seen it yet good film moana 2 i have doubts. Originally meant to be a TV show. Yeah, they don't have the Lin-Manuel. No Lin-Manuel. Yeah, songs. It's a tough one. Okay, that's all I... That's your Halloween costume? She wants to be Tiana.

I'm not going to stop her. All right, so we're not going spooky. We'll see. She is really into ghosts. Oh. So maybe that'll work. We'll see. Let's talk about Blink twice.

Let's make that the first of the five films that we discuss. So this was the most successful at the box office of all the movies we're going to talk about this weekend. Is that saying a lot? It's not. It made $7.3 million. It's directed by Zoe Kravitz. This is her directorial debut. She's a co-writer on this movie with E.T. Feigenbaum.

Quite a cast on the film. Naomi Ackie is the star, butbaum. Quite a cast on the film. Naomi Ackie is the star, but Channing Tatum is on the poster, and he's sort of the central figure, the central... Well, I don't want to say too much yet. But Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, who we just saw in Hitman, Hayley Joel Osment, Kyle MacLachlan, Gina Davis, Alia Shawkat. Very interesting and exciting cast. It's a movie about a cocktail waitress

who becomes infatuated with a billionaire and she goes to an event. Is that fair? I was just like she's working at a catering event. Well we know because we see her

watching a video of him before the event. So she's kind of targeted him in some ways I think is the idea. And they hit it off at this event when she changes into a dress after her shift and he

sweeps her off her feet and takes her to his private island and craziness ensues. What did you think of the movie Blink Twice? So a good attractive cast and good production design will get you a long way with me not all the way to being like this is a successful movie but i you know the the word on this was not great and it's been very polarizing divisive yeah and so i think i went in with pretty low expectations and then i was like oh hey simon ricks is here oh hey that's Christian Slater like what's you know what's going on and it did look very cool and the music cues are great and I don't know what it's about ultimately I mean I do I was hoping we could talk about it but it's like it's like pretty thin what it's about um so I didn't but I didn't have a bad time

yeah the the phrase that popped into my mind after seeing, and this was the second time I'd seen it. I'd seen it some time ago and I just saw it recently, uh, this weekend for a second time. And the phrase that popped into my head was right ingredients and wrong recipe. That like, when you look at all of the component parts, if you look at the cast, if you look at the way that the movie is shot, it looks beautiful. If you look at the way that it's cut with a razor's edge, if you look at the cast if you look at the way that the movie is shot it looks beautiful if you look at the way that it's cut with a razor's edge if you look at the energy and the tension that is built up through the first 45 50 minutes of the movie where the mystery is sort of unraveling about

where we are and what's really happening in this place it's really it's pretty impressive for a debut it's got great sound design um and then especially seeing it the second time, before we get into the plotting and the story, which I think is very leaky, you see like a real over-reliance on technique to mask content, you know, like meaning. The movie is edited so sharply, I think, because we don't have more than two or three scenes in the whole movie where two characters are talking to each other one-to-one for more than 90 seconds. And that's a sign of a movie

that's really been chopped up to kind of provide an energy. There's a lot of montage. There's a lot of insert shots. Or that's a sign of a movie that's targeted at people under the age of 30. Well, that's interesting.

And maybe that is the case. Maybe that was the intention. But it did feel to me like a movie that had been really gone through the meat grinder of editing in an effort to keep an energy high where it otherwise could have sunk. I thought the cast was fun. I thought they all worked pretty well.

Idria Arjona in particular to me popped in this movie. I honestly really like her. But she has what could have been like a nothing part as like the sidekick enemy who becomes a co-conspirator and I thought did a lot with it was very funny yes um I think part of the problem with the movie is it's just like tremendously predictable what is actually going on just not the extent to which it's actually going on like it's obvious that there's something nefarious happening at this island.

This is obviously a stand-in for Epstein Island. Like, if you don't realize that when you're watching the movie, maybe you just have never heard the words Jeffrey Epstein. But otherwise, you're like, okay, this is going to go bad. How is it going to go bad? And it certainly seems like this guy who's too good to be true is too good to be true. So, if you accept that in your movie brain, what do we actually have here?

Like, what is it that we've actually picked apart? I guess there is ultimately a last second reveal. The end end? The end end. That is maybe supposed to represent some sort of... I mean, it's a twist. Mm-hmm. I don't know whether it's supposed to be some sort of, I mean, it's a twist. I don't know whether it's supposed to be some sort of

vindication or, you know, upending of what you've taken away from this movie or this experience. Again, it's another thing where it's not really founded in very much that's happening in the first hour and a half of the movie. So you're just kind of like, uh-huh, okay. And the movie's pretty literal, you know? Like, all of it is just kind of like, this is what's happening. And, oh, this seems like a bad situation. And it seems like Epstein Island, like, yes, you were right. And then you see the gruesome things. You don't totally see it. You see very brief seconds. And they are upsetting. And I think that's another thing where to show any more of violent sexual assault that's just kind of rampant at some point after the potion takes hold.

Whatever the potion is. It's not the snake venom. The snake venom. That reveals the truth. So let's put some spoiler fencing around this. sold whatever the potion is it's not the snake venom the snake venom that reveals the truth so let's like put some let's put some spoiler fencing around this because i think you can't really talk about the movie without talking about what actually transpires in so if you haven't seen the movie or you don't want to know what happens in the movie we're going to spoil the second half right

particularly of blink twice which um essentially there are two potions at play there's a desideria which is a perfume that is given out to all of the women on the island that has them forget whatever it is that has recently transpired. So whenever these terrible things that are happening on the island at night are happening, the perfume allows them to forget the trauma and then go on to the next day on the island. The snake venom, which is given to Naomi Ackie's character at a certain point by one of the women

who is working on the island as part of the cleaning service, we learn that this woman who's working in the cleaning service has seen Naomi Ackie's character before, that she's been to the island before she keeps calling her Red Rabbit because of what she's wearing

on her nails in a flashback that we later see in the film. And so she gives her the liquid from the snake venom, and that liquid combats this potion that makes you forget everything. Right. And it brings all of her memories back.

So you've got these two magically real elixirs that are working against each other and allowing women who have been assaulted on this island by this group of men to reconcile, to reckon with these terrible things that have been happening. Now, obviously, the movie itself is this big stand-in for Me Too, for the kind of sexual violence

incurred upon women, you know, hundreds of years, but more specifically, like, in our culture, the last 10, 15, 20 years, a lot that has been revealed in the last decade. The movie is just, 15, 20 years, a lot that has been revealed in the last decade. The movie is just like very blunt. Yeah, it like sort of is a metaphor, but it's not really a metaphor. It's just a thing that's happening.

Yeah, it's a literalization of the idea with magic around it. I've seen the movie unfavorably compared to Get Out. I think that's reasonable. It does feel like a movie that someone started thinking about in like 2015 rather than in 2024 you can't hold that against the movie too much like if a movie's in development so be it I did really hate the usage of Polaroid photographs as like a critical turning point where I felt like Get Out which also used Polaroid photographs as a critical turning point in the telling of the story but also seemed to almost be like parodying the usage

of something like that kind of a revelation and in this movie it just played super straight it reminded me a lot of Promised Young Woman where it's like of course like sexual violence is horrifying and our culture is doing a lot to kind of catch up to what's been going on behind the scenes

with people in power but a movie like this which is ultimately just like a very simple thriller, it seems like it's having some sort of like girl boss reckoning with how women can take power back. Well, yeah, because the ending is that at some point, Naomi Ackie's character remembers everything. There's a series of standoffs. And like half truth telling where, you know, Channing Tatum's character, who is the, the ringleader, confronts one of the other men and is like, maybe I didn't want to take the snake venom.

Maybe I never wanted to. You know, so these archetypal characters are all supposed to have their moment of realization. But to your point, it's cut very fast with things being lit on fire and you're not really sure who's had what venom recently. And so you're like, are you in danger are you remembering things like where is the chair you know there's like a lot going on um and then cut to the same event or at least the same location and again like it's, that whole production design, like, there's a very cool, memorable place. It's like a gala in all white. And you are expecting Channing Tatum's, like, tech company to be the host, but instead it is Naomi Ackie's tech company.

And her husband, Channing Tatum, or Channing Tatum's character is there as like a just like half his brain appears to be working. A zombified desideria infected. And so she has gotten revenge by taking over and putting herself

in place at the head of the table and then cut to black. So what does that mean? I don't know. Like we did it? Like we got.

Right. What did we do? I mean I don't know. Now we're in charge of a weird tech company? Like, we married abusers to have money? I mean, you know, that's the other sort of half-baked nature of all of this. It's like, he's definitely in charge of... He's some sort of, like, you know, Elon Musk, Epstein, like...

Yeah. Money... Style like Jack Dorsey from Twitter. Yeah, exactly. Tech-adjacent figure. And so, we're supposed to be wary of these sorts of people but like why you know beyond the fact that they just take you know planes full of women to islands which i mean i guess that's the moral of the story don't go to an island with a rich person that's sort of what i'm saying like absolutely jeffrey epstein who died in prison

should have died in prison like i no argument there like i don't you know it it's sort of what I'm saying. Yeah. Like, absolutely. Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison, should have died in prison. Like, no argument there. Like, I don't, you know, it's one of those things where it's like, what is this really a parable about? Right. And, like, what are all the other, like, Haley Joel Osment's very funny casting. There is, like, sort of a version of himself also. Yeah. Or, like, child actor had, like, gone wrong. And he's, like like going through divorce and

he's only allowed to eat eggs. Like that's a that's a funny little Hollywood sketch. But like why any of those men are there or what you're supposed to learn about or care about them? Simon Rex is just like keeps trying to make sushi for people. And that's funny. Yes. He's a personal chef. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think there's a choice that has been made and i know this movie's been in production for a long time so most of the actors all of the actors are well known and memorable people that you've seen before right you know channing tatum christian slater simon rex hayley joel osmond kyle mclaughlin these are men that we've seen before the only other man the lucas character is actually ethan hawk and uma thurman's son maya hawk's brother um and he also is a victim in this story he is the one man who has been given the

desideria um and all the women i would say with the exception of gina davis and alia shawkat are people maybe you haven't seen as much you know the two other friends who they meet there um along with naomi aki who has been in a you know she was whitney houston and um i just want to love somebody and um i just want to dance with somebody and she's in Star Wars but she's not super famous Adria Arjona was not super famous in this movie was being made and so the kind of like anonymity of the female stars versus the clear like cultural import of the male stars feels like a very purposeful choice but like it doesn't it just doesn't add up to anything other than like absolutely me too is fucking horrible like i totally agree and then what i i mean i like i

agree with you and and promising young woman is a is like an apt comparison even though that was like a little more in the traditional like rape revenge turned on its head model yeah um which honestly i think makes it a worse movie in some ways because the ending is like really traditional, like, rape-revenge-turned-on-its-head model. Yeah. Which, honestly, I think makes it a worse movie in some ways because the ending is like, really? Like, what am I supposed to take away from this? This one is just kind of, like, pointing at the thing and being like, pretty bad, huh? And we're all like, yeah, pretty bad.

But, you know, I didn't need to go see this movie to know that. Yeah. I guess it just doesn't get, it doesn't do what a lot of the more successful films like this do, which is that they get you thinking more about the issue, get you thinking more about the idea, more about the way that society operates and why things are the way that they are.

This one kind of had me thinking less. This one kind of had me thinking like, well, maybe power is the answer. And then that's all, that's like really all that you have to say. And just like, so just work as hard as you can to get power. Right. And maybe that is the answer maybe that is

maybe that is the revelation I mean Zoe Kravitz is a lot more proximate to power than I am so maybe she understands that the only thing to do is to poison your enemies

and take their money I guess so and their islands this movie like as a filmmaker I think shows like she shows

an incredible amount of promise totally there's some really cool stuff in the movie. I just found myself, especially seeing it the second time, I was like, so what? Really, I want to know what they're trying to say. And I couldn't get anything out of it. I think they're saying that sexual assault's really bad.

And it is. Yeah, agreed. Yeah. This is a nice segue to Cuckoo. Okay, well, what is this movie about? Respectfully. Like, respectfully. I was hoping you would try to explain what it is about,

but I do think that that's a little bit... That could be complicated. No, no, no. Let me do it. So, like, I saw this movie. I saw the whole movie. I didn't fall asleep.

I didn't go to the bathroom. Okay. I didn't look at my phone. I watched it. Okay? I'll set the table. It's written and directed by Tillman singer uh

director who directed a film four or five years ago called lose which adam naiman was a big supporter of that film he really liked that it's uh hunter schaefer's first starring role uh in a movie and also features jessica henwick dan stevens um what what is cuckoo so and and also like has a lot of recognizable even to me tropes right it's so it's young woman hunter schaefer um gets sent to the other half of her family in an idyllic alpine resort somewhere in europe germany i believe germ the bavarian alps sure because dan stevens is just like locked into his weird Dan Stevens accent. A great German accent. I mean, he's so good, you know?

It's just, what a strange man. He's delightful. My favorite part of the movie. Yeah, of course. And she has been removed from, she's been sent to live with her dad, who's the parent she's not as close to. He's remarried. He's got a kid. Yeah.

And so they're at this alpine estate and that's also like a resort and she's unhappy to be there and keeps leaving her mom voicemails being like mom i don't know about this but they put her to work at the resort she's working the front desk again great production design very cool looking resort that I would never stay at because it's immediately clear that weird things are going to happen. And weird things do start happening in the form of like, you know, beautiful young guests coming into basically just the lobby always and barfing and then leaving. But not relatable to you right now at this stage of your life okay so we'll get there because there is a lot going on um and then sometimes there's a sound and kind of screaming a kind of high-pitched sound right and also like a close-up on the the

larynx is that the correct biological term? A kind of pulsating throat. Yeah. And sometimes people are barfing because of that. And sometimes they're just barfing because of altitude, because of other things going on in their body. Well, and you know, historically the Bavarian Alps are seen as this place.

There's a movie, the Gore Verbinski movie, A Cure for Wellness, also set in this place where there's sort of these naturally occurring waters and you're able to kind of like become revivified right yes sure um i prefer all the olden healing places that are at the ocean but that's just me understood um okay so so weird things are happening and dan

stevens won't let hunter schaefer work the night shift or use her bike to get home. And then like a hot woman comes to the resort and wants to hit on Hunter Schaefer and that woman was really beautiful. And then she does work the night shift anyway. And at some point, her sister, her little sister,

her half-sister Alma, starts doing the larynx thing and then there are some other guys who show up at the resort you're doing great and they're like weird things are happening here and Hunter Schaefer's like no shit and it's revealed that she's leaving voicemails

to her mom who has has died and she tries to escape with the hot woman and they get pulled back and i don't remember what happens for a little while and then at some point they're all part of this science experiment the dance which is like also obvious like from the very beginning it's like oh dan stevens is a scientist who's doing weird things here and you're all trapped so at some point the nature of the experiment is revealed and it's like oh oh and there's also a special honeymoon suite where some really bad stuff is happening i think you should explain what the cuckoo is, or I can help you explain. I don't, so I honestly don't know

because they started talking about birds, you know? And it's like Dan Stevens in a German accent being like, let me tell you about birds. And I just, I know people love to bird, you know? And I know that that is- That's not what this movie is about. I know, but as soon as I have to start caring about birds, I'm just like, I'm not listening anymore.

So it's like there's a German bird that also replicates. And so I don't know. I stopped listening. I don't care. Bob, have you seen Cuckoo? I haven't seen Cuckoo yet. But Amanda has been on the record for months and months and months, perhaps even years, that she doesn't give a shit about birds and she doesn't like them. I don't trust them.

And this, I i guess movie proves proves it yes but but it's just i don't think you've adequately explained how birds come into the picture i think i know because they started saying like there are these special birds in the german forest and i was like jesus christ i think the bird is like go have an ice cream kind of like more of an ancient talisman. I mean, they always are. They're like a creature's soul that inhabits the human body and controls it and makes it like

this sort of monster. But there's also, like, they make you look at like a wood etching of a bird at some point. There is some literalizing. And they're just like, here is something

about a bird, right? Yes. And it's like, it's just like in, what was that? The Watchers, when they're just like, here is the lore of the local fairies in the woods. And that's when I am like, I am out. Right. Anything hand-drawn telling me about some local lore.

So many of the films that we're talking about today, The Watchers, which came out in June, you know, certainly Blink Twice and this movie on paper. I'm like, yes, an original genre story about freaky shit made by interesting young filmmakers. That's really that's that's kind of what I beg for. As soon as someone gets out their notebook. Right. And they're like, here's all my research that I've been doing about the local creature who lives in the woods. Yeah.

I'm out. I mean, the creature is, you know, inhabits human bodies. And they are trying to like pass on this sort of like infection through a goo that comes from, you know, you have to be a woman to be infected. You need to catch, pick up on the goo, the sort of like, almost like a semen-like secretion. But so I thought that there was also like a, there's like a surrogacy or like, you know, it's another basically like pregnancy and reproduction

is a nightmare situation, which, you know, amen. Let the people know. And Alma, Hunter Schaefer's character, Gretchen's reproduction is a nightmare situation, which, you know, amen. Let the people know. And Alma, Hunter Schaefer's character, Gretchen's younger half-sister, is meant to be, like, the lead cuckoo, the final cuckoo. Like, the cuckoo to end all cuckoos. So, they're, like, basically mating. Or they're, like... They're trying to, like, impregnate her effectively. Like, transform her.

And, like, so create, like like a human cuckoo hybrid. I'm using the mother as like the vessel because they haven't figured out. And so like lead an army, you know, it's one of those. So look, this is Euro horror, right? Like Euro horror is just different from American horror movies. There is a particular brand of filmmaker who's usually very eccentric, but very focused on visuals, tension, and that kind of like creeping dread. There are a lot of examples. You know, you've probably heard me use the name Dario Argento on this show before. This movie is very influenced by Dario Argento.

Zulawski, who made Possession, is somebody who popped into my head watching this. Movies like The Wicker Man, movies where you're watching the movie and you're like, I know I'm scared. I know I feel uncomfortable. I have no idea what's going on. Like plotting is sort of like a, it's like a fallacy in the storytelling. Like it almost doesn't really matter the logic of the story as long as you feel subsumed

by the feeling of dread, anxiety, fear, concern, whatever it may be. So this movie is like very much in, in the tradition of those kinds of movies. I would say it's like pretty successful. It's not, it's really like, it's,

it's cool to compare a movie like this to Blink Twice, which is a big fancy movie star movie made by a famous person, made by the, you know, the heir to a, you know, very famous couple with lots of well-known figures and a major studio behind it. That's an Amazon movie.

This is a neon movie. So ostensibly it should be cooler and it should be more cutting edge. Um, but they have a lot in common where you're sort of like some of this is really effective. And like, I knew that this was gonna end with like Dan Stevens wilding out. Yes.

It's very predictable. In a creepily lit European hallway. Yes. And it looked great. The actual events are not predictable, but the end point is very predictable. And so I think I really, really wanted to like this movie. I was like, this is the exact kind of thing that I go in

being like, I know all the reference points. This is a filmmaker with a real visual style. Stuff like the pulsating neck thing. I'm like, that's cool. Never seen that. You know, like he pulsating neck thing. I'm like, that's cool. I've never seen that. You know, like he keeps showing you that. And you're like, that's gross. That's weird.

What is really happening here? But then people just vomit. People just vomit. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a body horror, you know. I know. But it's just like people vomit all the time. You guys get, you know.

You're not grossed out by it? No. I mean, no, not right now. Okay. You know. It's a fact of life what do you think of hunter shaver i did have the thought to myself and i and i had time for thoughts have it for all of us now during this movie um of i guess it was really a question i posed to myself was are

we sure that anyone from euphoria can act uh or are they all just coasting on the most immaculate vibes? And I would say that her vibes are spot on. And as like a confused, slightly surly American teenager transported to this weird as fuck resort being told by German Dan Stevens that she can't bike. Like I understood where she was coming from. But it was sort of the vibe and nothing more. And then I think you could apply that to many of the other actors who we've come to know and love.

Maybe all you need is a vibe. Watching her, I did think a lot of your personal aggravation with the affectations of Gen Z. I mean, I wake up, you know? That is true. Like all of it's just like, wake up. But, you know, that's not what their drugs are doing so yeah i'm not implying that hunter schaefer is on drugs right now it's just sort of that

the vibe of gen z is i mean she's made a choice or the director has made a choice to have her just be incredibly flat in the film and even it's incredibly scary moments she feels flat uh if she shows more range and color, I think, in Euphoria. We'll see. I'm kind of curious because I like her and she has such a striking presence. But she's okay. That's not how I would have framed that character, I don't think, personally. But yeah, I really wish this movie was better.

I really wanted to like it a lot more than I did, unfortunately. But I did like it a lot more than The Crow, which I'm going to tell you about right now. Yeah, I didn't get a chance to see this one. This film is directed by Rupert Sanders. He of Snow White and the Huntsman. La Faire Stewart. Us Weekly. Yeah.

This, of course, is a remake of the now, I think, legendary 90s cult film starring Brandon Lee, where he was tragically accidentally killed on the set during the making of the now, I think, legendary 90s cult film starring Brandon Lee where he was tragically accidentally killed on the set during the making of the movie. The movie was completed. Chad Stahelski, director of the John Wick films, actually was his stunt double

and he went on to be the person whose body you saw in a lot of the sequences in The Crow. I've never been a big fan of The Crow in the 90s, but I do understand why people like it. It's this kind of like goth, grunge era trademark and has an amazing soundtrack. But the lore doesn't really mean

anything to me. It's not, the original film is not a very faithful adaptation of the graphic novel. I think the intention for this movie, which has been in development for years and years, was to kind of right that wrong that it would be truer to the original work by james o'barr um which isn't that graphic novel is an interesting story is it's like he lost his fiancee in a drunk driving car crash and he wrote this story to kind of like work through his feelings about that um this new movie stars bill scars garden fk twigs and danny houston which speaking of signposts like yeah he shows up is he gonna be bad yeah he's bad this new movie stars Bill Skarsgård and FKA Twigs and Danny Houston which

speaking of signposts like he shows up is he going to be bad? Yeah he's bad. Danny Houston is a bad guy. He's a bad guy. There's an alternate universe where either

Bradley Cooper Luke Evans Jack Houston or Jason Momoa are starring as Eric Draven the crow. Yeah. They were all attached to this

at certain points in development. Okay. Bradley Cooper as the crow is the Oh, sure. The Crow. Yeah. They were all attached to this at certain points in development. Okay. Bradley Cooper as the Crow is the funniest thing I've ever heard. I would watch today. That's not what we get. Bill Skarsgård, who's doing his like

dead man living routine. Creepy hot thing, yeah. Yeah, like this is sort of what he does now. I like him. I don't think he's miscast, but I think this script is really bad and I really hope this movie was quite poor.

It doesn't really seem like a movie that understands why it wants to exist. It's also an incredibly telegraphed story about a person who's come back from the dead, who is going to seek revenge on the murder of their beloved. The world that they build around it, which is sort of like Danny Houston's character

has this ability to whisper something into someone's ear, and then that makes them want to go crazy and kill themselves. It's just not very, like, cinematically interesting. It's just like somebody just whispering into someone's ear,

and then they off themselves, but we very rarely even see how they do it on screen. Not that scary. Don't really understand that power. Didn't have it explained to me. The whole like how Eric Draven comes back from the dead is weird.

There's a wildly violent, almost self-parodic shootout at an opera that happens late in the movie that I didn't understand and felt stylized just for the sake of it. It felt like a post-Matrix, pre-Bowling for Columbine kind of a movie sequence

where I was like, this is just a video game in a movie that otherwise is all about brooding, Sarsgaard, not talking or being compelling. I thought it was a huge miss. America agreed.

This movie bombed hard. Literally no one saw it. Nobody saw this movie. Once again, I mean, a crow is a bird. Wow. I just, you know, it was right there on the label.

Jeez. What about like Fly Away Home? You know what I mean? Are there other, what about like a more warm story about a bird? What is Fly Away Home? Oh, I did see the Anna Paquin. Oh, that was so nice. That's a great film.

Yeah. So you were on board for something like that? Yeah. Well, I mean, that brings the family together also. You know, I need a human element to the birds. I mean, what is like a bird that you actually like and trust? I love birds. What do you mean?

All birds are beautiful. Birds can fly. Yeah. Do you know how remarkable that is? I mean, I would love to be able to fly, but no, that's very cool. But they're just up to no good with it. You know what I mean? I don't. I really don't know what

you mean. You're afraid of something that isn't gonna hurt you. They're organizing? Oh, you don't know that. I mean, they're like... Maybe they're waiting. But also... But the crow is an avenging angel. I mean, he's not hurt... He's only hurting bad guys wouldn't you want someone like him on your side i mean as opposed to against me yes yeah but i

don't know crows are like real crows are kind of creepy crows are you know what i'm saying they're just listen i and i understand a lot of this is like implanted in my mind by a hitchcock but it's like they are they're menacing creatures i'm out crows. I'm out on vultures. Yeah, obviously. I'm out on... Ravens? Well, ravens, I mean, they're poetic animals, you know? Sure. You have to kind of respect their, you know,

their standing in the genre history. I think that's it. Does Edgar Allan Poe get too much respect? My next episode of JMO. I'm going to take that. That's off feed. That's like some sort of weird live event what's the one with

oh Telltale Heart yeah that shit did fuck me up in 8th grade incredible story yeah yeah it was good do you have a

least favorite of his stories I mean I can really only do Telltale Heart and Raven what about the Cask of Amontillado oh my god

I forgot about that you're a wine enthusiast come on great title also okay so that's three great story what about

the Pit and the Pendulum like you're trying to Great story. What about The Pit and the Pendulum? Like you're trying to deep cut Edgar Allan Poe to me right now? Pit and the Pendulum. That's a classic. There was a Roger Corman version of that story. Okay. The Tomb of Lygia. No, I don't know these.

I think I just got the CliffsNotes versions. Man, I love Edgar Allan Poe, as you might imagine. I haven't read any of his stories in a long time. I'm starting to think about this with having a kid. I'm like, am I going to be disappointed going back? You know what's a big hit right now is the Greek myths book about all of the women of Greek myths with Alice. So not Dallaire's? This is the first.

No, no. I'm just going to buy it for her. Okay, that's great. But like Daphne and Persephone and Circe and all of those figures. This is the first book we've been reading. It doesn't have a lot of pictures. She is doing like Greek mythology mythology the disney princess version more or less it's like a kid's version of those stories but it's not it's still like daphne just like straight up rejects apollo

and turns into a tree yeah yeah you know like it is not sugarcoating any of that story she's like i'm an independent woman and also i'm a tree that story is wild they're no they're all really messed up anyway um i won't be showing her the crow anytime soon okay the original i re-watched it everybody all the supporting actors are really good but and the vibe is there to your point earlier but also another movie where i'm like what is this movie about you shouldn't be a gangster and maybe that doesn't matter this reminds me of our conversations about the holdovers where everyone was mad that we were like i wish this was about more like sometimes it's okay for a movie to just be about being entertained i understand um i was not entertained by borderlands no i went in for 10 minutes did you yeah and i was like i don't gave it a try i don't understand

what's happening here yes um you know i this is a very hard movie to talk about it in theory it's one of the biggest movies of the year because on paper it stars kate blanchett kevin hart jack black edgar ramirez and jamie lee curtis it's based on a very popular video game franchise it was more popular some years ago than it is now but it's still very well known have you played it i've never played it before what's the setup of the i don't know i don't know i don't know anything about the game um only about the story that i learned thank you everyone for coming to the big picture well this is not a video game pod right i haven't meaningfully played video games in 15 20 years but it was originally going to be written by craig mazen and directed by eli roth craig mazen

sure you know creator of the Last of Us TV series. One of the best TV writers of the last 10 years. Created Chernobyl. His name's no longer on the film. Someone named Joe Crombie is credited with the screenplay. Sure sounds like a pseudonym for Craig Mazin. Eli Roth was hired to direct and co-write the movie. Eli Roth was a guest on the show last year.

At some point, a news story broke earlier this year or maybe late last year that he had quote-unquote left the film and that Tim Miller who had directed Deadpool and Terminator Dark Fate was coming in to work on what it what had already been shot I think Cate Blanchett only did the movie because she liked working with Eli on the house with clocks in his walls Jack Black voices a robot in the movie he she liked working with Eli on the house with clocks in its walls. Jack Black voices a robot in the movie. He came back because he was also in house. So they were trying to make a crazy Eli Roth movie, like a zany exploitation movie with a hundred million dollar budget. It sounds like the studio didn't like that movie that he was making. So he's off the movie. They bring in Tim Miller. And then the movie that they released is the most bland, nothing of a, you know,

fourth wave Guardians of the Galaxy ripoff. Like it has no character, no personality. The arcs are boring. The performances are flat. The production design isn't that good. Like it's just like, it feels like you're watching a parody of it, like a fake movie inside of a movie about the making of a movie.

It feels like the movie from The Fall Guy. Or it feels like the movie at the end of Tar. As I saw many people joke that the movie that Cate Blanchett's character has gone to conduct the soundtrack for. I don't think that was a movie. I think that was a video game. So maybe you're right. Maybe that's what it is. Not in an original thought.

Not actually meant that way. Because I... Yeah, because I think some of this was filmed before Tari. It was. I think it was filmed in 2021 is when they started production.

When they had to stop and then they went back into production. You know, this is a $100 million movie. It doesn't look good. It's not fun. It looks very bad.

It's like 87 minutes. It's just a complete fias movie. It doesn't look good. It's not fun. It looks very bad. It's like 87 minutes. It's just a complete fiasco. Literally no one saw it. Yeah. Yeah. It's probably the biggest bomb of the year given its budget. Well,

my Cate Blanchett fan account was still having a great time. So, with all the, with the press, because she did her like three obligated press things. What did she say?

She was just talking about, I think, everyone went out of their way to not acknowledge that it was for this movie, you know? So she was with Gina Gershon at some point and they looked great. And I really only get the clips that are about Cate Blanchett responding to the gay community and being an icon and being delighted about it.

So, and or the merch, being delighted about it. So, and or the merch, which I'm thinking about buying, but. I saw someone note that in the film, she walks just like a video game character. Okay.

Which apparently was from Deep Study that Cate Blanchett did around how video game characters move, which I respect. There was a part of me that wanted to do

a movie star playbook for Cate Blanchett and be like, why did you do Borderlands? But it's like, she just made Tar. That's like, that made Tar that's like that's in the

conversation for best movie of the decade I uh god another movie that I was like I really wish this was good wouldn't it be nice if this was fun it would be better if

it were good than bad I had a little bit of a Kevin Hart allergy okay I don't really well I also like him in movies he was not funny he's I mean he's just not very funny in movies.

He's pretty funny in stand-up, and I understand why he's a wildly successful person, but he wasn't funny in this movie. What does Cate Blanchett have coming up? Oh, this Soderbergh heist. Yes, Black Bag. Can't wait. I think she may have one other cool project.

With Tom Burke, Marissa Bella, and Michael Fassbender. Ooh, Pierce Brosnan's in this too? Huge for you. Wow. This is very exciting. may have one other cool project with tom burke marissa bella and michael fastbender oh pierce brosnan's in this too huge for you wow this is very exciting this is really really exciting i think there's another project oh she has the quaron disclaimer that's what it is the apple tv plus show you're gonna watch that yeah i mean i have apple tv so i mean that's more than most people can say. So, I'll check it out. Man. A lot of bad movies. Yeah.

This was tough. Now, I'm very interested to hear what you have to say about this movie. Okay. Strange Darling. Yeah, you set the scene. Strange Darling, as I mentioned at the top of the show, written and directed by J.T. Molnar. He had directed a film some years ago that played Sundance in 2016.

It hadn't made a movie for years. He made a Western in 16. This is his first feature. He befriended Giovanni Ribizzi and they were both camera nerds. They liked talking about tech and like the way that films look and they got really into Technicolor film

and they sort of, you know, they got along really well. So they talked about the idea of making a movie together. So Molnar writes this script and they're going, you know, they got along really well. So they talked about the idea of making a movie together. So Molnar writes this script and they're going to make this movie. It stars Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner

with appearances by Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley Jr. But Willa Fitzgerald is more or less unknown. Kyle Gallner, I think, is gaining a bit of a reputation as a kind of genre anti-hero. I first saw him in Veronica Mars 10 years ago.

It's a cat and mouse thriller. There's an introduction at the beginning of the movie, a voiceover done by Jason Patrick, explaining, setting up the premise of this serial killer in the Pacific Northwest and the kind of rampage that they've been on. And this is sort of the final days of this serial killer's run.

And then the story starts. We can't talk about the movie without spoiling it at all. So we can talk about it. And even like what I'm, even like what I want to say to you in some ways. We'll spoil something. We'll spoil it. And it's like, I saw, we all saw Chris on Saturday

and he was maybe going to go see this. And I was like, I can't even say what I, yeah, you can't say it. You can't talk about it. So if you want it, if you're going to go see it and i was like i can't even say what i yeah you can't say so so if you want it if you're gonna go see it just just don't yeah just don't listen to us it's very much in the molds of when we talked about barbarian where we're like if you want to see this movie just go see it don't hear anybody say anything about it this one is the same not because it's like the

most mind-blowing twists of all time are coming right it is a movie designed to upend your expectations and you want that moment of going huh right so the thing i'll say to you is that i saw this 12 hours after watch re-watching gone girl oh and and i was like oh this is not actually served by having watched gone girl ahead of time uh but and that spoils a lot of what happens in the movie, right? But I did see it coming very quickly. Now, hold on. We will spoil Strange Darling now, but I have some questions for you.

Because I really liked this movie. I saw it many, many months ago. Someone reached out to me who was just like, I know your movie tastes really well. Yeah. I really think you're going to respond to this. It's a really small movie. It's from a new studio, Magenta Light Studios.

It's backed by some powerful people, but Giovanni Ribisi shot it. It's this guy you've never heard of who made it. It's a small cast. Like, just check it out. Tell me if you like it. And I watched it and I was like, oh, this is an incredible surprise. Yes. How nice to have a movie where I had no expectations. I'd never seen a trailer, didn't have a poster, nothing. Sat down and watched it, liked it. Liked the surprise. the surprise you i think knew at least the the framing of don't know anything going in right did you know that i don't know whether it was like that it hadn't been spelled out for you spelled out for me in that in that way i i i only ask because i think that that people who are saying that are doing it for a good reason, but it weirdly also works against the viewer.

It sets up that you're like looking for something. Yeah. So I was wondering if you had that sensation when you were sitting down for it. Because I had no preconceived notions. I wouldn't say I like was stunned when I saw the reveal. So I don't think it was that necessarily obviously like Gone Girl was on the brain when there is a twist in Gone Girl um that in a in a lot of ways is is very similar to the twist in this movie and what it is using in terms of our expectations about movies about serial killers about sexuality about about power, about all of these things.

So when I say that it doesn't help, it means I guess I was a little more looking for a twist. But I will also say that Gone Girl with its mega pop meta textualization is a little bit more Amanda's style, right? It is about what we think about Ben Affleck being a possibly murderous husband and true crime and Nancy Grace and, you know, and bestsellers of like endangered women

and all these sorts of things. It's a bit of an unfair comparison. This is a grungy exploitation movie. But it just so happens that we screened that on Friday night and I went on Saturday. I think that but obviously there is a similar twist which

okay spoiler spoiler spoiler like it's the woman not the man the movie sets you up to think that the man is the serial killer and it is the woman

these two people who are effectively on a date at the start of the movie but I think I do honestly think it was not because I was

you know in there with my like detective hat looking for a twist. But because respectfully, I mean, as you said, this is a new filmmaker. This is a very specific type of filmmaking. The first 30 minutes, you know, that's shot in 35 millimeter is like as big as the screen you're seeing it on. And it's doing like a just you know disjointed narrative and the chapters are flipping while they're playing Chopin and there's this like very very obvious like intentionally obvious score big over announced yeah but it is so

intentional and like and I'm like my response is like there has to be something going on here yeah because otherwise like you can't i think that's why you can't do something like this affected without it being purposeful i agree and then and then it was and then and i and i still for all of that when the shoe kind of drops about 30 40 minutes in i was like oh that's interesting like i kind of thought so but the the way that they revealed it and especially those scenes between um Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Garner where they're talking and they're kind of doing their like before sunset but um serial killer were fascinating even if I was like a little irritated by them yeah um which I think is also

kind of the point totally everything you're on an annoying date with these two so intentional that i watched way being like i really admired it yeah i was like oh i you know i still was surprised and they and they still are like moving the pieces in ways that you don't expect for like a pretty for a serial serial killer film yeah yeah i think it's an interesting point of comparison to Long Legs, which is a movie that has this huge burden of serial killer history on it. And it's like thinking, the movie is thinking

about the Silence of the Lambs as you're watching it. This isn't like that. This is like what cheapo 80s slasher serial killer movies are like, where, you the the the practical effects are really bloody and gross and the gunshots are really loud and you've got these desperate people running through the woods terrified to be slashed um both blink twice and strange darling are these sort of sunshine horror movies you know that's quite very difficult movies to make like scary movies in bright light.

But a thing I loved. They're very effective. You know, Midsommar is like a version of it. There's not a lot of versions of that. The movie ostentatiously and proudly announces that it's shot on 35, but it is and it is beautiful, you know, and it really does have like a knack for exploring color

and the reds and the yellows and the blues are really loud and they get you, they create like a kind of energy when you're the reds and the yellows and the blues are really loud. And they get you, they create like a kind of energy when you're watching a movie that you don't get when you're watching a movie. You know, Gone Girl is kind of the opposite. It's this movie of like blurry grayness and like it's kind of murkiness and feeling and like that's very intentional. But this movie, I think if you try to apply the same standard that I was holding Blink twice to, it will fall apart in a second. It's actually not built for anything other than wrong footing you and then getting you like kind of grossed out intense around the conclusion of the story. like JT is trying to say like hey you know let's not assume that every man who is in this position is this or every woman who's in this position is this let's like think about what our expectations

are of gender but that's kind of it right like there's not really anything else to the movie beyond that yeah no it's just like it's just like girls can do it too yes you know um but I think the fact that the movie is so clearly trying to mess with you is like both a little annoying at times but also that's the point of the movie so I don't feel like I just got handed a lecture being like did you know that women can also be serial killers like right so what did you think about the choice to kind of flip around all the chapters and tell the story out of order? I mean, I was like, again, I was irritated at first. And I was just like, oh.

It's been done many times. It's been done many times. And it's like, it throws a lot of tricks at you all at once. But it does set up that nice moment of just being like, well, Barbara Hershey's still out there. You know? And then, and it's like, I know enough to be like, okay, but like, where's Barbara Hershey's still out there, you know? And then, and it's like, I know enough to be like, okay, but like, where's Barbara Hershey? And I didn't quite expect Barbara Hershey to meet, you know, the end that she does.

That's another really great choice is they've cast these two incredibly well-known people opposite these two lesser known people. And when they show up, you're like, oh, it's a movie gonna like pivot into their story somehow? Or is this them like 30 years later or something? Like it really kind of throws off your expectations and then the kill reveal with

Ed Beckley Jr. is amazing I mean it's great it's really it's just a really fun pop moment and movie going the reason I thought it would be fun though

to talk about all of these movies together is because they all kind of have similar aims which is to kind of disturb you with violence and show

a kind of an ugliness in our social character you know like that's what the best genre of storytelling can do and strange darling is like really more of like a beautifully artistic stunt yeah and not too much more than that and i don't mean to denigrate the movie by saying that but i think if you were expecting something because movies like this invariably because of people like me go through a hype cycle in a big way. If you're expecting

a little bit more than that, just like when you watch The Crow, if you're a fan of the original Crow, you're going to be like, I have expectations. If you're sitting down

to watch Blink twice, you're like, Zoe Kravitz's directorial debut is about me too? This is going to be amazing. All of these things are so important

when you sit down to watch a movie. And so I think it's fun to see how they are talking to each other or not talking to each other. It's also so fascinating that August has become this repository for either fucked up failed movies or fucked up intriguing movies. Movies we don't know what to do with.

Movies we don't know how to market. Why is that? Well, I guess they still think that no one is going to the movies the last couple weekends which doesn't really seem true because it ends with us this is making zillions of dollars still that's the other thing deadpool as well trap it ends with us and alien romulus are also in their own ways body horror serial killer domestic violence like there's all this social disorder in all of these movies that i find really interesting and they're all jumped like well i do killer, domestic violence. Like, there's all this social disorder in all of these movies that I find really interesting.

And they're all jumped, like, bungled into August. Well, I do wonder, everyone was like, let's get it out before we have to do election season. Which turned out to be a little wrong this year. Because it's a time of celebration, you would say? Well, I mean... You were at the DNC. What was it like?

It was great. Well, you know, so I was on... That was why we took the week off. I was on Beyonce's plane, and we you were at the dnc what was it like it was great well you know so i was that was why we took the week i was on beyonce's plane and we turned around at the last minute because we just didn't you know your attention was already there we didn't need to i wrote gretchen whitmer's speech i don't know if you knew that yeah i'm really proud of it got a good reaction um well no but i i do think if you're planning six months in advance in 2024 you know you don't want to be i i think everyone thought like pretty hard about what they were putting out in september october november i mean you've you have observed that there's not a movie scheduled for election week they're still not

there's not a wide release movie coming out november and maybe that's just like a a basic i think accurate understanding is that people's attention will be elsewhere. It made me want to look back historically at what movies were released when presidential elections were happening. Because, you know, that's a movie going time. Yeah. You know, the first couple of weeks of November. Historically, you see some bigger stuff coming out then leading up to the holidays. It's fascinating.

Right, award stuff also. It's like, it's when it starts trickling out. But it does kind of seem like it cleared the runway. But I don't know. Like, I would not want to be out promoting a movie about, you know, messed up subjects while then also having to like answer questions. Like, how do you feel that that ties to the,

you know, election, blah, blah, blah. I mean, mean just you don't want to be near it yeah yeah so i i wonder if that's just like a one-off it's possible i mean there's a few examples we haven't even really talked about like we haven't talked about um kneecap yet i don't know if you've had a chance to see that one that's the northern irish story about a rap trio who do a lot of drugs and who are fighting for the irish language um which is a really fun movie that I haven't seen since Sundance but I was just talking to Alea about it

that could have fit neatly into this conversation there was something else too that we hadn't yet talked oh well so later this week I'll have Jason Schwartzman

and Nathan Silver on the show for Between the Temples which is you know ultimately like a family dramedy but has some very fucked up elements to it

and so I don't know what it is, what's in the water but this month is just rippling with curiosities, I guess. I don't know.

For me, it's great. I wish some of these movies were better. Yeah, and also they weren't widely seen, you know? They weren't. They weren't.

Do you think this podcast will be widely heard? Well, let's just put Oasis at the top. Let's put just like our plea for Oasis tickets. The Oasis episode. Okay. I'll think about that. Should we go to my conversation with JT Molnar?

Yes. Okay. Let's go to my conversation with JT Molnar. In 100 meters, turn right. Actually, no. Turn left. There's some awesome new breakfast wraps at McDonald's. Really? Yeah. There's the sausage, bacon, and egg. A crispy seasoned chicken one.

Mmm. A spicy end egg. Worth the detour. They sound amazing. Bet they taste amazing too. Wish I had a mouth. Take your morning into a delicious new direction with McDonald's new breakfast wraps. Add a small premium roast coffee for a dollar plus tax. At participating McDonald's restaurants. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba.

J.T. Molnar's here, director of a very exciting new movie, Strange Darling. Thanks for being here, J.T. Thanks for having me. So, you're from Vegas. I read on the internet that you are the heir to a haunted house company, franchise, family. And so I'm like, how did the person from Las Vegas, not usually a place where you find a lot of filmmakers, somebody whose family is involved in this business, get to be a director? Give me your story. My parents lived here. And my mom comes from an Italian family.

They came from back east. And my dad grew up in Los Angeles. He was born in Santa Monica and grew up in Woodland Hills. And my mom was a singer. My dad was an actor. And show business took them to Las Vegas in the sixties. And so, uh, they, they were in a show there called Casino de Paris. And of course, you know, they thought they were going to move back to Los Angeles at some point and they stayed in Vegas.

They fell in love with it and they, um, they had me and I grew up there and of course they loved Vegas and I always wanted to get out and move to Los Angeles, but that's what happens. Right. Uh, but I, I, um, yeah, my, my dad ended up, um, opening the first ever freestanding haunted attraction in, uh, the state of Nevada called, uh, the circus of horrors back in 1992 with my older brother who was old enough to be his business partner and daniel and they uh they started this operation because of their love for horror and theatrics and thought that there was a you know a possible way to treat haunted house haunted house experience more like interactive theater and so you know they they wrote original characters like we do now and they um they you know created original themes didn't at the time in the in the 90s there were a lot of haunted houses that were using like jason and freddy and all this stuff and and they they really wanted to create an original experience and so

they built this haunted house in 1992 opened opened it. And, uh, you know, my, my dad and my brother created it with their partner, Craig Lewis. And, and my mom was working in the ticket booth and my aunt was the casting director. And it was just a, it was a family affair. And I was a little kid, um, uh, able to, to come and sometimes play a role in the show at night. And it ended up being wildly successful and it grew. And then in the, you know, around the late 2000s, I felt like Michael Corleone. I like, I ended up going, you know, I kind of, I love the family business, but I wanted to go out

and make my own way and do my own thing. But there was a time when I finally got old enough to appreciate that the family business was so special. I wanted to have something to do with it and I could probably do that and still pursue a career in film. So I ended up, I started designing attractions with my dad. My brother left the company and wanted to go do something else up in Santa Cruz. And so dad and I partnered up and the first show I designed with him, it was a show called the Gates of Hell. It was the first ever R-rated haunted house in the Western US. And the idea was to push the boundaries and offer something more extreme

for people who wanted that. And so we have 300 houses at one location, Gates of Hell, the rated R experience became our most popular. And that's what really put us on the map worldwide. And people come from all over the country and all over the world to see it. And it's very similar to making a movie for me when I'm there. We cast it, I direct the actors, and we treat it like a film production. I was going to say, I mean, it seems like in many ways the perfect environment to grow up in if you want to be a filmmaker, because even though it's a live attraction, the idea of writing a story, of building a set, of casting actors, of directing actors, even if you're not doing those things as a kid, but just seeing what that work looks like, that's something that 99% of kids don't get a chance to see. So it must have activated something in your mind watching that stuff. Oh yeah. I mean, just being steeped in creativity as a kid. I mean, my, my dad, before he opened that commercial haunt, did a home haunt every year and would perform, he would be, you know, Frankenstein or, or he'd be the, the Frankenstein monster, he'd be the werewolf. And

he would, he would build a facade on the front of our house and people would come in to get candy from him. And that's what I grew up in. You know, I think I went trick-or-treating once. The rest of the years when I was a kid, I liked to be around to watch my dad scaring people. And I grew up around, you know, green floodlights and fog machines.

And that was what Halloween was to us. And it was great because seeing that theatricality, and my dad was a big cinephile as well. And then my brother had gone off to be, he'd gone to UCLA, but then he went to CalArts Film School. And so my brother was in film school. My aunt was running around in LA. She was on a show called Hollywood A Go-Go as a dancer in the 60s and 70s and she knew a lot of filmmakers in la and was turning me on to all the all the sort of offbeat um you know weird stuff that that i wasn't getting in vegas like like she was she was the one who shoved bergman down my throat at like 10 years old and all that and it was really cool and then my mom would take me to the video store um when i was a little kid uh and when my dad would, would work nights, he was a Baccarat dealer and my mom would take me to the video store every weekend.

And, and she was exposing me to the movies that she loved, which were, um, a little more heartfelt movies like the other side of midnight and, you know, all these romances from the seventies she likes as she liked. And that was a big hit at the time. And it was a bit of a lost movie. Yeah. The other side of midnight. Yeah.

I haven't heard that referenced in a long time. Have you seen Hanover Street? Have you ever seen that movie? Is that the Harrison Ford movie? Yeah. We actually talked about it. I saw it for the first time when the most recent Indiana Jones movie came out because I was going through his filmography. It's probably the most underseen of his major productions. Great movie. It's my mother's favorite film other than maybe Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz. I mean, she was the one who exposed me to kind of classic cinema, but she loved those romances. And I remember watching Hanover Street when I was like 10 years old or something. I loved all the movies we'd watch.

We watched movies for kids and we watched movies for adults. And so I feel like all these people in my life, my father was turning me on to horror. And my brother and my aunt were turning me on to more of the arthouse stuff. And then my mom was just into this sort of mainstream classic Hollywood, but older stuff. And it's weird. I grew up with this weird sensibility. I love horror. I love darkness, but I also love romance, which there's this weird

swirl of things in my work. But that's Strange Darling, isn't it? I mean, I feel like you can see those two competing influences trying to get along inside of this movie. So, you know, I was not familiar with your work before this movie crossed my path. I hadn't seen Outlaws and Angels. I know played Sundance in 16. And so I was curious before Strange Darling comes along, like in those eight years, what are you doing? Are you like, did you do the water bottle tour? Just drugs.

You know, just laying around doing drugs. I mean, I don't do anything else. No, I'm kidding. You're the second filmmaker in a span of two weeks that I've talked to who had a film in 16 at Sundance. Yeah. And then no movie until 2024. And so for someone like me, I feel sorry for that filmmaker as well. It's tough.

It's strange. It doesn't feel like that long, partly because of the vacuum, the gap that is the pandemic. Right, of course. That was a thing that sort of made time condensed for me. But it's interesting. I did Outlaws and Angels.

I was very happy with it. It's a very low-budget movie shot on film. It was meant to be very, very controversial. We thought we were going to try and get away with everything we could. And it's an exploitation film. It's a revenge film. There's so much going on in that movie that is supposed to upset people. And it was made for so little money that we knew we could get away with that in that movie. And, and we wanted to really push all the boundaries and really provoke. And that's what that movie was

about. They liked it at Sundance. Then it came out and nobody saw it. So it was a weird thing where it opened a lot of doors for me. I was able to, you know, before Outlaws and Angels was made, I was a bartender. I was doing The Haunted House with my dad in October. But then the rest of the year to make a living, I was working at restaurants and bars in LA. And it was when Outlaws and Angels got into Sundance was when I was able to quit bartending and do this full time. And even though I wasn't making movies, I was working. I was writing things for people. Things were in development. I was

adapting books for some studios. I was doing things. I directed some commercials, some music videos, but I was in constant development on movies. And I wanted to make sure, even though that opened doors and I got my agent and I got set up and I was able to make a modest living, it didn't light the world on fire. So I wasn't able to do whatever I wanted to do next. And right after I made Outlaws and Angels, I wanted to make a drama. And I had a movie that I wrote called 18 wheels and a dozen roses that was sort of it was like a tender mercies modern tender mercies meets leaving Las Vegas it was very dark

brooding dramatic love story and I took place in West Texas and I was really focused on getting that made and I had tunnel vision and we went through, we really got close. We had, it's a tough movie to make in this market. And we had, you know, we went through these stages where we'd have a star, but no money, money, but no star. And we kept, it kept going through these different iterations and we almost made it, but the budget seemed too low and we wanted to raise more money. And so that movie ended up sort of petering out or being put on hold. And I was supposed to make another film about a hitman called Even Beautiful Things Must Die. And it was going to star Robert Forrester and Heather Graham, Clifton Collins Jr.

And we were out getting ready to go shoot that movie down in Mexico. Robert Forrester sadly passed. He was a good friend. And that really shook us. And so we sort of stopped. I couldn't even fathom recasting that role because I'd written it for him. And about, I don't know, six, eight months after that, I decided to get it going again. And I was going to try and get

the other actors together for it and go get another lead and the pandemic hit. And so everything that was in process at that point sort of fell apart and, and took a pause. And in 2021, as we were coming out of the pandemic, I thought of this idea and I wrote the script and we were shooting it six months later. It was the fastest process getting a film made that I've ever experienced. Where did the idea come from? I'm sure you've done, whoa. Is that an earthquake?

Yes, it is. Wow. That's an earthquake. That was a big one. We've never had a live earthquake on the podcast before. Wow. I mean, that's a... Wow. We were shaken.

I think we should leave this in the show, assuming no one is hurt. I hope everything's okay out there. We're okay in here. Yeah. Yeah. Everybody's okay. I think that's probably a really good sign. It's a great moment.

For Strange Darling. I hope so for you. Just as I was about to ask that critical question, that where does this idea come from? I have to tell you, that's my, I was just telling my wife the other day that I've lived in LA since 2006, I think a long time. And I've never felt an earthquake.

Really? Like everybody keeps telling me an earthquake happened and I'm either asleep- I've already had two this either asleep or I'm hiking and I don't feel it. Wow. I've felt, you know, they're very rarely above a 4.5 or whatever, but that was what we just experienced was a real, that was real. That was my first. Right in here.

Congratulations to you. I feel so much closer to you now. This is amazing, JT. Old friends. Yeah, I hope, I hope hope the world isn't on fire. I hope so, too. If it is, we will not make light of it, and we will cut all this out. But if everyone's okay, we had a moment.

Strange Darling. It's a difficult movie to talk about, and I've read a couple of interviews with you where people are trying to dance around. So maybe you'll give me the final five minutes of our conversation. We can talk a little bit more spoilery things. And if nobody wants to listen to that, if they haven't had a chance to see it yet, they can avoid that. But let's just talk generally about it. Nonlinear structure, and it is quote unquote a serial killer movie. So where did it come from? Why? What made you

want to do this? Do ideas just pop in your head and then you start writing? They do. And for better or for worse, I'm maybe cursed because I can't, unless I'm assigned something, which I can do. I just adapted a novel for Lionsgate. If I'm assigned something, I can write it. But as far as original screenplays, I don't really have it in me to read the market and come up with something based on what people might like. It's not in my DNA. I can't do it. So the only way I can write something is if I'm spontaneously inspired and it happens all the time. So I'm very lucky. I have too many ideas. Some are good ideas. Some are bad ideas. Some are good ideas, some are bad ideas.

Some are good ideas that would never sell, that type of thing. But with every spec script I've ever written, I've just had some spontaneous inspiration. And it might come from me seeing somebody walk down the street or me listening to a song or, or, uh, seeing an image in my head. And, and with strange darling, it was really interesting. I had this image of, I mean, the opening of the movie, essentially like a little, little, little past the opening, but the opening of the movie is a woman running in hospital scrubs through the woods in slow motion on a long lens with love hurts playing and that came to me that was the first thing that came to me nothing else in the

story was there I just saw this final girl woman in distress running through the woods I knew the frame rate I knew it was gonna be in slow you know I knew I knew exactly how it looked in my head but I didn't know what it meant. And I had an authentic cinematic vision. I did. I did. I really did. It's cool. And, and that like, it's not, it's not a story. Like I really, I really saw that and I felt it and I kept being drawn back to it. And, you know, I, I go on hikes in the, in the Santa Monica mountains and I'll think about stuff like this and showers and think about, you know, everything I'm always thinking about, um, whatever the story is that's closest to my heart at that time. And, and I couldn't get this image out of my head. And I kept thinking, well, this is very conventional.

This is just the final girl. This is Jamie Lee Curtis. You know, this is, um, this is Laurie Strode from Halloween. I like, what, why am I, why do I keep getting drawn back to this? I don't want to make a conventional straightforward, um, horror film or movie about a final girl. Why do I keep getting drawn back to this? And then the rest began to come to me. And I realized that there was a way to flesh out that archetype and turn it inside out, subvert expectations, give her more depth and just see her from a different angle than we have in some other films. And unless I can figure out a way to approach a genre differently,

I don't want to do it because I think the best directors have done it so well already. It's kind of the reason I'll probably never make a gangster film. I mean, you know, Goodfellas is sitting right there. Why? So with this, I didn't know what I was going to do with it at first. And then the script started coming to me, a very simple idea in chapters. And, uh, I knew that the, the narrative, if it was told in a linear fashion would be, it would be conventional. Um, and, and it wouldn't even be very compelling, but the reason this came to me in this order is because that was the way to, to, to make it

compelling. And, um, it wasn't shuffled. It wasn't, I didn't come up with the story for, in fact, I didn't know, uh, you know, their backstory or how they, how their story ended, um, until I got there in my own head. So I, I spent a few months sort of, um, you know, the writing process for me is a few months of just ruminating on things, thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it some more and, and just getting to the bottom of what the whole story is. And then once I have it, then I start to type, but the typing is 10% of the time and, and 90% of the time is figuring it all out. And so when I figured it out, I remember, I remember the moment it was,

it was walking around my neighborhood and I ran home and ran in the house. And, and I told my wife, I was like, I fucking got it. Sorry. I love it. Yes. I was like, I fucking got it. I know, I know where, I know where this goes. And, uh, and I think I have to write it. And I had two other ideas I was, I was considering working on at the time. And so I went to, uh, the people closest to me and my parents and my wife, and I sent it to my manager, like just a little paragraph, like, uh, and I was like, I think this is the one I want to write. And, and, uh, there's a couple others that I'm considering. What do you think about this idea, this idea? And all the people in my very inner circle just said, you have to work on that. So I got right to work on it and it was the easiest thing I've ever written. I've written a lot of screenplays, many you haven't seen because they haven't been made and probably never will be, but I've written

a lot of screenplays and usually it's uphill and it it's uphill and and it's arduous it's difficult but here the actual typing process of the script the writing process in that sense was really easy kind of wrote itself because i'd spent so much time putting the pieces together the reveals of the chapterized structure um immediately draws you in i assume that it also had an like an appeal to a stranger who would pick up this script and say like i want to know what happens next is that something that you were thinking about at all that there has to be a way to get somebody to care to read this movie to give you money to make this movie it's i was excited that the film could be classified as a genre movie once I came up with the idea because it's easier to get people to read those. My agent was very happy about it,

but it happened naturally. I had this idea and when I was writing it, I was, oh, this is great. This is actually, there's some stuff in this that makes people want to finance movies. And so I felt like I'd be able to get some reads. I also was trying to, you know, when I write, a lot of times my scripts are 200 pages and I have to whittle them down to 120 or figure out a way. This was an exercise in minimalism. I was really obsessed with the David Mamet school of storytelling at the time. And I've gotten more into that minimalist idea now. I didn't want backstory. Well, I mean, part of the movie is backstory,

but I wanted everything to sort of take place in this 24-hour period. And I wanted to use dialogue scenes for a specific purpose and have them be very effective when they're used. But I wanted to also have lots of scenes with no dialogue. And I had this idea that the first 20 minutes would have no dialogue. And so that was really fascinating to me. And I just wanted to keep the page count down. And I wanted to tell a very concise story.

I didn't want any fat. And so I think the script was 85 pages. I like't want any fat. And, uh, and so it was, I think the script was 85 pages. I like to let scenes breathe. So it was really, um, important to me to get that page count down because I've had these issues with longer page count. And, and then in the editing room, I just want to let a scene breathe and I can't do it. And so, um, it was a dream to me to have an under 90 page count. And I think it also helped, uh, with people reading it. I got a lot of reads out of this really quickly. Uh, but it's also the first thing I've ever written where people, a lot of people read it and wanted to do it like immediately.

That's what I was going to say. Was it a hustle to sell it or not? Not at all. Um, it was, it was a little bit of a weird sell once people saw how I was shooting it, like internally, because it doesn't look like your traditional Oregon movie or your traditional horror film. It's not a gloomy film at all. It's very bright. That was my next question. The colors. Yeah. Never wanted it to be.

But the movie was, I wrote the script. I sent it to Giovanni Ribisi, who I'd met at the ASC Awards a few years earlier. We were both obsessed with celluloid. And I knew he was a cinematographer. He'd been shooting stuff. He took me to his studio. We geeked out over movies. We'd become like film buddies, texting late at night, like, oh, I just watched Qui Don. I just watched The Servant, all this dorky stuff back and forth. And I knew he wanted to actually produce and shoot a movie. And I didn't want to wait. I had had a lot of situations where big time producers would come in and take one of my scripts and say, we're going to get this made. And then two years goes by. And God bless them. They tried. But it doesn't matter sometimes how

big. It depends on the material. And sometimes it takes a long time. And so I didn't want to you know and god bless them they tried but um it doesn't matter sometimes how big it's just it depends on the material and sometimes it takes a long time and so i didn't want to go through those i didn't want to go through that process on this i wanted to make it quickly no matter what so you know when i looked at the script i was like i could shoot this for five hundred thousand dollars or a million if i really need to and so um I went to I sent it to Giovanni and he loved it and he said let's scrape up the money let's get this made let's figure out a way and we were just going to kind of get down and dirty and go and go shoot it with his he has equipment and we were going to find a way and then uh and then I sent it to my agent and he's like he's like

whoa like I could I can get I can get this done like give me some time and i said no we're going to fucking shoot it right now we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna do one rewrite and we're going to shoot it and he goes just just let me send it to to one guy and i said okay so he sends it to roy lee who's legendary producer one of the most successful producers of the last 25 ever yeah and and he's also one of the most successful producers of the last 25 years. Ever. Yeah. And, and he's also one of the greatest guys who exists. Producers get a bad rap, but this guy is the real deal. I call him my fairy godmother now. Cause he, he's always watching out for me. I mean, he's, he's, he's really, really an amazing, amazing dude, but he, he read it,

liked it. Wasn't sure if he wanted me to direct it. I think when he first read it, he was kind of like, let's buy the script or something. And, and, uh, I told my agent, I was like, no, no, no, no. I have to, I have to direct this movie. I haven't directed movie in a while. And so, um, he sent the script to his partner, Steven Schneider, who's also an incredible guy. Uh, they have a company called spooky pictures together.

And, um, Steven read the script and liked it, watched Outlaws and Angels. And they told me these guys were going to watch Outlaws and Angels, which I don't know if you've seen it yet. But when you do watch it, it's one of those movies where it's 50-50. It's a big crap shoot. Like we've sent it to actors. Some actors watch Outlaws and Angels and they're like, I can't wait to work with JT. I really can't wait to work with him. This is amazing.

And then some actors watch it and their agents never call me again. So it's a, it's a very divisive movie. And so when they were watching it, I wasn't sure how it was going to go. And, uh, and then I get the call that they loved it. And I had a meeting with Steven Schneider who I vibed with immediately. He loved all the same films and we talked about horror movies. We talked about all kinds of films and he really appreciated Outlaws and just thought it had been sort of handled the wrong way in a marketing sense. And he said, I want the guy who directed that to direct this movie. So we're totally on board with it. Let's go get it made. And I said, okay, I know you guys are big time producers,

but how long is it going to take you to get this made? Because we have ways we can make it. And he said, just give me a little time. And he said, give me a couple months. And a week later, Stephen Schneider called me and he had, I think, three different offers from different companies. And we met with Miramax first. In the room at Miramax, I was about three minutes into my pitch and Bill

Block said, we're making it. It's done. Don't talk to anybody else. And about three or four weeks later, we were casting the movie. It was like a dream. It was bizarre. You should underscore, since you have been inside of this for a long time and trying to get stuff made, that doesn't really happen anymore. It does not happen. It does not happen. It was interesting because it was Miramax, right? Which we so associate with the films, the great films of the 90s. And so I was talking to Z Berg,

who ended up doing all our music, and I had asked her to be a part of the movie before we even got the movie financed. And when I told her what was going on, I said, we just went into Miramax, they're financing the movie. And she was like, are we in some weird time warp? This is how it used to happen

when there was a good script out there. And sometimes they, and this is, and is Miramax still even a thing? Miramax is a thing. They've done tons of movies over the last, but people tend to associate it with that golden era. Of course, of course. Tell me about your two leads.

So Willa Fitzgerald is amazing in this movie. For me, it was a bit of a discovery i'd seen her maybe here and there and then kyle gallner who i am very familiar with and i feel like is now embarking on like a he's made a move to be a kind of like genre exploitation hero villain type and so the movie is very interestingly like navigating that persona that he has and also presenting us with this very exciting young actress like how did you figure out who we're going to be in these parts gallner can do it all you know and he has started to adopt that scream king type thing he's getting a rep yeah but he he has so much i mean he could be the next sean penn this

guy i mean he has so much going for him and so much talent he could play anything and uh you know he was already it's it's interesting like i um sean baker told me how much he loved kyle gallner like this guy has a following people really respect him and he's very well you know he'd done dinner in America. And I think that was the same year as I was at Sundance or maybe, maybe a year before a year after, but, um, he had a, he had really good street cred, uh, in movies like this. And, um, with Willa, I, I wasn't super familiar with her either. We'd seen the goldfinch and I liked the goldfinch a lot, but not a lot of people saw the goldfinch. And, um, she played a small role in the movie,

but it was very memorable and never could forget her after I saw the film, but it was very different than this. So, um, when we were casting the roles, we went through, you know, neither one of these people were the first picks and they know it. There was this whole period beforehand where it was like we were talking about to bill block and roy lee for telling me like let's find um the right actors for this who are on the way up who were doing really special things who haven't necessarily been here before and so we start that really opened the doors to look at a lot of really interesting people and uh christy hall who's an agent at Paradigm, uh, who I really like, I was calling her about another client and that she had seeing if she might be interested in doing the movie. And she said, listen, you've got to look at Willa Fitzgerald. And so, uh, I remembered her for the Goldfinch. She told me to go watch Reacher. I did. I watched a bunch of those episodes. I watched a number of other things she'd done on TV and I really liked her, but I still wasn't quite sure if she could do this. It's a tough part. Yes. It's very. And then I get a call from my, my editor, Chris Bell, who is like a,

like a creative partner of mine. And he lives like three houses down from me. And he said, JT, I'm cutting this movie right now. And there's this amazing, he was cutting a movie that still isn't out. He said, there's this amazing actor in it. Her name is Willa Fitzgerald. And I said, what? Like I, it was, it was coincidence. He brought her up and I said, well, I'm, you know, her agent's pitching her for this, for this role. And I'm considering her. He said, come down to my house. So I went down to his house and I watched, um, the dailies that he was, he was looking at that were coming in on this movie. He was cutting and she had exactly, it was the last ingredient I'd seen her play, you know, four other type of character. And this was the kind of the last ingredient I needed to know that

she had it. Uh, and so I'm really glad he showed me that unseen footage. Uh, then I had my meeting with Willa and it just, it was, it was, I knew she was, she had so many, I had so many meetings with so many people and Willa really had, uh, a love and compassion for this character, the same type that I have for, for that character. And some other people didn't. And the same thing with Kyle. I wanted him to really relate. I wanted him to like certain things about his character and have compassion for his character

because this movie is about gray area and moral ambiguity and gender expectations and archetypal expectations and all that. And so neither character is all good or all evil. And I wanted to make sure that both leads could really see the humanity in their characters. And that's a common thing they both had. I think you got lucky that you don't have

bigger stars in the movie. I think it works a lot better when you don't really know, when you don't have that preconceived notion about, especially Willow's character. Yes. And to get, to luck into having two people who are very well-known actors, but who aren't massive movie stars yet

and are clearly going to be, is, I mean, to me, it's just, I mean, she will have blows the doors off this role and, uh, and Kyle's incredible in it. And I think that, um, I think I got very lucky to get them at this point because I think it's going to be, luckily we're, we're very close friends, all three of us, but I joke about how it's probably going to be hard for me to, to get through past their agent in a year or two. I'm very curious, just as a movie world watcher, how this movie hits. On the one hand, a hard sell because it's one of those movies where you're like, don't say anything. You can't

say too much. But in addition to the great performances and this unusual structure, it looks amazing. You've now shot two movies on film. I know that's really important to you. Why is that really important to you? Obviously like watching a movie on film, it has a different feel. There's a texture, there's warmth. There's like a grain that feels like safer for guys like you and I, right. Who really love film. But why else, like why else is it important to you? So you said the obvious thing, which I just feel like it's superior. The movies I grew up watching that made me want to watch movies, um, were shot on film. So when I started directing short films, 2008, 2010, I, that's when everybody was shooting digitally all of a sudden for low budget films and short films. And I said, this is not what I signed up for. Like we have to

figure out a way to shoot film. And we always did. And, um, it's had a great resurgence, which is, which is fantastic, but beyond the obvious. And by the way, I love movies by Nicholas winding Refin. I love movies by, uh, um, uh, I mean, there's plenty of films that are shot digitally that I like. And, but I do believe that as, um, as a director, you choose, you know, what kind of artists you are and I'm a painter and film is paint. And so, um, for me, it's extremely important to use that because it's, it's part of what makes me who I am as a filmmaker, uh, for some others, maybe it's not, and that's okay but for me it really is and beyond the way it looks which is the obvious it just is it's like my religion when you get onto a movie set and i've shot commercials digitally i've shot one short film digitally it's just different everything's

different and the things a lot of people don't like about film, I love. I love the fact that it keeps me disciplined, forces me to prepare meticulously. And that's how I've always done it because I started on short shooting film. So I've never been able to shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, and then send my editor a pile of shit or a pile of good stuff that he has to carve into like making it. I don't make movies in the edit. Like we, we make movies better in the edit, but I don't overshoot.

And it's because I've always been disciplined about prepping and prepping, prepping shot listing, knowing what we're going to do, pivoting if we need to, when we're, we're in the moment, but, but planning.

And, and I like that part of the process. And I also, you know, like that part of the process. And I also like that it forces us not to overwork actors. When there's a rollout, sometimes it's frustrating, but it also forces us to take these breaks on set and pause, think about what we've been doing. And every time the camera rolls, every actor, every crew member, everybody's at the top of their game because there's this reverence. It creates a reverence for the process. And it reminds us how lucky we are to be doing what we're doing on a movie set. So that's what I love about it. Great answer. I was hoping you were going to talk a little bit

about how basically you can't fuck around you know that it requires a kind of discipline that um that I think you tend to feel when you see a film that is shot on film in 2024 yeah it's very rarely like oh they kind of mess this one up you know like it's not that you never get that energy so uh it I mean it makes your film work that much better. Thank you. Thank you for noticing. Yeah, I just love how it makes it. But some people hate that part of it. Like, oh, I have to, I'm limited. I can't keep shooting.

But it's just one of the things I really love about it. Some filmmakers have different styles, but I'm glad you have your own. What are you doing next? It's a good question. I'm definitely reading. I'm open to directing something somebody else has written for sure. Uh, although I, I, you know, I feel like it's more likely that I'll write what I direct next, but, uh, I'm reading scripts. Um, I've got a few, there's some novels that I'm interested in adapting. Um, but what I really want to do is I'm almost finished with my new one right now.

And if this one, if I finish it up and I like it as much as I think I'm going to like it, it'll be the one that we go out and try and get made next. Genre movie. Can you say anything about it? Yeah. Yeah. It's in the same I mean it's in the same world as it's it's a it's a love story it's a horror film it's it's definitely sort of a genre film it's there's a tiny bit of a supernatural element but very very grounded and yeah I'm just not sure yet but but hopefully in like three weeks i'll know if this is what i'm going out with or not but i'm close i don't want to jinx it very cool yeah jt we end

every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen you're clearly a cinephile yes um the last great thing i've seen love lies bleeding yeah tell me about it it's i mean it's my favorite film of this year uh so far would be a neat little uh double feature with strange darling i think love lies bleeding it's such a it's such a great film um i love rose glass i i think that movie is just it's one of the it doesn't happen often and by the way i, I also saw Alien Romulus, which I thought was fantastic. Seeing it tonight, please do not spoil it for me. I'm so excited. It's really, really good.

It's really good. You're like the fourth person who's told me that. Yeah, it's great. That's cool. I wrote, I was the writer on The Long Walk and David Johnson, who's in that movie, I lucked into getting to see it with him early and it's really good.

But yeah, Love, L love lies bleeding for me as one of those films that I went to see and every moment I was watching it, I was jealous that I didn't write it and direct it. I just couldn't believe, I mean, I felt like she was in my own head because it was so, um, akin to, you know, what turns me on as a filmmaker. And, uh, and she just executed it so well. And, and the, the last act and where it goes, she took a very, um, traditional story, uh, or, or a story we've seen before in that space and those kinds of movies and, and dressed it in ways and added accoutrements that just turned it into something totally unique. So I was blown away by that film.

Great recommendation. Congrats on Strange Darling. It's really great. I'm really happy to talk to you. Thank you so much. It's been great to be on. Thanks to JT. Thanks to Alea Zanaris.

Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner. Thanks to Jack Sanders. Later this week, we're scaling Michael Keaton's Mount Rushmore for the special guest. Who's the guest? It's our pal Griffin. Griffin Newman is coming onto the show. Griffin said, Michael Keaton is my guy. And so I felt we had to ask him to do this.

He's your guy too, though. Well, in a different way, I think, than Griffin. Griffin is like like I do see the spiritual connection between their artistic pursuits and I just think

Michael A. Keaton is aging incredibly well and I just I'm just like I continue to be amazed like that's my that is my guy

don't you just want to spend time with him I do I'm so happy for you both I probably come somewhere right in the middle of you both so we'll

we'll pick the essential roles and also our personal favorites I think will be part of the mission of the episode we'll see you later this week