The Big Picture - Spider-Man’s Mega Box Office, Aaron Sorkin’s ‘Being the Ricardos,’ and Best Picture Power Rankings

Episode Date: December 21, 2021

Sean and Amanda hit the stunning box office success of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ (1:00). Then they circle back to the Oscar race because this week sees the release of some serious contenders, including Aaron Sorkin’s ‘Being the Ricardos’ and Guillermo Del Toro’s ‘Nightmare Alley’ (12:00). Then, Sean talks with Sean Baker, director and cowriter of ‘Red Rocket’ (1:00:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Sean Baker Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dave Chang is an avid student and fan of sports, music, art, film, and of course, food. With a rotating cast of guests, they have conversations that cover everything from the creative process to his guests' guiltiest pleasures. Follow The Dave Chang Show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Lucy and Ricky and Spidey and Guillermo and the Geek. We're back talking about the Oscars because the past week has seen the release of a few serious Oscar contenders,

including Aaron Sorkin's Being the Ricardos and Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley. Later in this episode, I have a conversation with Sean Baker. He's the director and co-writer of one of my favorite films of the year. Actually, my number eight film of 2021. It's Red Rocket, the film which follows Mikey Sabre and irredeemable porn star Huckster, played hilariously by Simon Rex. Yes, that Simon Rex is in theaters right now. Sean's a true cinephile, really fascinating storyteller. I hope you'll stick around for the conversation. But let's start with a crazy week at the movies and let's start with Spider-Man No Way Home, which Amanda earned $260 million in three and a half days. This is the second largest opening in movie history. And we're in the middle of a pandemic, which is surging once again. What the hell is happening? How are you feeling about this news? I am genuinely shocked, even though we knew. Well, I guess on our podcast with Mallory, we tried to convey a little bit of, maybe not skepticism,

frankly, just like covering our asses of being like, well, if this goes really wrong, then please give us credit for having like a little bit of a question about it. And that was stupid. Apparently we didn't need to do that. Um, I think that we all knew that this was going to be relatively very big, uh, just because people care about Spider-Man and people care about Marvel movies and the history of Marvel tentpoles and also blockbusters this year. It's been all franchise. It's been all franchise.

It's been events like this. We knew it was all trending that way. Blah, blah, blah. Amusement parks, Martin Scorsese, et cetera. I don't think any of us expected it to make $260 million. I am genuinely, I am shocked, even though I know that this is how it works. And I still sort of see this as a confirmation rather than a turning point. But $260 million is just a tremendous amount of money. Yeah, I feel I have a pretty good feel for this sort of thing.

And I can usually guess within a range of $10 or $15 million on most movies that are released. I never would have guessed this, not in a million years. And this morning, we woke up and we found that it was there. Oh, they found $10 million more in receipts, which just meant more people went on Sunday, most likely than they had anticipated when the reporting came out on Sunday morning. And it's staggering. I think you're right. It is a confirmation of the thing that has been happening that we've been talking about quite a bit over the last couple of years on this podcast, but probably started

about 10 years ago when the MCU was really starting to take hold and DC was getting more entrenched and the Fast and Furious movies were becoming a linchpin in our cultural diet, that movies are zero-sum now. And we saw Ben Affleck talking about how perhaps The Last Duel will be the last movie he ever makes that opens in theaters.

And he was using that to make a point about how, you know, the Ridley Scotts and the Paul Thomas Andersons and the Quentin Tarantinos will be able to make films that appear on screen for the rest of their careers. But they just got in under the wire. Chris Nolan just got in under the wire. And it's possible, this may be overstating things, but it's possible that 10 years from now, moviegoing events like this these super bowls that we talked about last week and that it is that also the space for this rarefied sort of high-minded screenwriter auteur figure that gets movies made and then everything else feels like the land of the streamer and you know we've been like depressed and angst ridden about some of this stuff over the years.

I think I'm in the acceptance phase. This is staggering how well this movie did given the circumstances. I think 10 years is conservative. It could be. I think it'll be a lot quicker than that. And I was saying to you before we started recording, I'm stunned, but also I feel right. Because we have been talking about this for a while. And this event model really movies becoming more like going to a concert and you can spend

a lot of time with the content itself and the album in your own home. And it's something that you do maybe four times a year or six times a year, or maybe, you know, every weekend, if you're like a 23 year old in a like urban center which I do think also probably a lot of 23 year olds spent their money on spider-man this weekend which is great so I I mean I think acceptance is a good place to be because like we're definitely here and we've been here for a while and I think that this is just like a very loud flashing confirmation sign to a lot of people who are like, well, maybe, you know, like the pandemic and once it's back and people want to come together and, you know, whatever all of the various movie theater chain heads are saying to

try to like desperately save their stock, even though I think this week and was probably a boon for them. But it's funny. I was talking to my dad about this, this weekend, and he was adopting the more like, not quite hand-wringing, but like, isn't this a shame that this is all that we can see at the movie theaters? And I agree. And I think you and I both feel a loss of not being able to look forward to go see like a Ridley Scott movie in four years, immediately in the movie theater, though you and I like in Los Angeles probably will, but put that aside. And I was explaining to my dad, like what a weird year it's been that we were actually worried that Spider-Man wouldn't do well. And that would be the real end of the movie theaters. And so there's

like, there's almost like a sense of relief, even for people who see this as like a nail in the coffin of like the traditional movie going experience and the entrance of tentpole only. I mean, the flip side would be that Spider-Man didn't make any money and it's like, oh, okay. So theaters are done forever, which maybe it wasn't ever really on the table, but we were nervous about it. Yeah, I don't think that's going to be what happens. I think there will be consolidation as time goes by. As we're talking, I'm looking at a tweet from Scott Mendelsohn who covers the box office for Forbes. And here's what he wrote.

I'm old enough to remember when The Force Awakens earned $2 billion, while concurrently Daddy's Home grossed $245 million, Sisters earned $105 million, and The Revenant earned $535 million worldwide. The difference is that the latter performances are now all but impossible. And that's really what has happened. At least for now, I guess there is still an outside chance that it comes back in some form or fashion. But Daddy's Home and Sisters are two largely forgettable comedies.

I just had to Google Sisters. I was like, what is this? I mean, it's a Tina Fey, Amy Poehler movie. Did I see this movie? I mean, I did. The fact that two movies like that could be $100 million earners, Daddy's Home as well, that have no cultural reputation that people are not returning to over and over again it speaks to where the business was five years ago and where it is now the revenant also is not that thing that we lament it's not a courtroom

drama it's not a rom-com or an erotic thriller where we're like oh they scooped out that was an event movie but it was an original story with a big movie star performance those movies too feel like they're kind of gone the king richards those movies too feel like they're kind of gone. The King Richards of the world feel like they're kind of gone. I feel like the prestige, showy, Oscar bait movie that is The Revenant has a clear analog in the second half of this show that did not do as well at the box office. We will dig into that. You're referring, of course, to Nightmare Alley. And we should say Nightmare Alley opened this weekend in quite a few thousand theaters and made $3 million, less than $3 million. And this is the first film from an Oscar-winning filmmaker whose last film,

The Shape of Water, made hundreds of millions of dollars and was very successful. Well, that's also one best picture. Yes. He's a brand name director. And the movie, which stars Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett and a number of other great actors, bombed. I mean, it bombed. I don't like that word in the context of where we are in the culture and how we've been analyzing some of this stuff with the pandemic. But less than $3 million for a movie with this caliber of entertainer is pretty tough. So we'll talk more about what we liked or didn't like about the movie as we get further into this conversation. But the Spider-Man, I'm not even depressed about

it. I'm just kind of bowled over. I'm like, wow, this feels like the only culture that we have at the moment. And that's debilitating in a strange way. I guess so. I think I'm still stunned also about 250, 200, I'm sorry, $60 million. They found the extra $10 million overnight, as you said, alongside all of the Omicron stuff. And I mean, it is really jarring to open like a newspaper and or to go online to a newspaper website. Let's be real. I don't open a print newspaper anymore. Or even to go to Deadline and you've got like the headlines of cases, you know, rising and a lot of like very aggressive coverage.

And then just like, and everyone that you know or don't know is also in a movie theater this weekend. And it's, I mean, it's just whiplash. I don't really know how to contain all of those things in my brain simultaneously. Yeah. I mean, people want what they want and they're willing to risk, I think in some cases, their health to get what they want. What they wanted was Spider-Man and they got Spider-Man.

So it'll be interesting to see what the curve of success is for the film if it continues to do strong box office. Obviously, the last movie that did this kind of business was Avengers Endgame, and that movie had a long lifespan. It had two, three months in theaters people going back again and again and again this is a very similar kind of thing where you'd imagine people would go back again and again and again it has a plus cinema score I believe and it's just like satisfying to almost everyone I think that I saw a few naysayers who agreed with you about uh are we doing spoilers on this no i mean just motivations is that what you're saying yeah sure people people making some impractical decisions how about that um which again i say these are teenagers you know you're going to see a teenage movie about a teenage superhero

like sign up but for the most part rave reviews yeah i mean it's it's people love it i sent you the text message my sister Grace who is a hardcore MCU fan sent to me and I had teased to her that I had seen it on Monday I called her on Tuesday we had a long conversation I didn't spoil anything for her I was just like you have to be there opening night this is a big deal to you and I believe the text she sent to me was

holy shit Spider-Man was fucking awesome and she's like not even that kind of kid who would use that kind of language to talk about something so she she was knocked out. She got exactly what she wanted. Seems like everyone got exactly what they wanted, except maybe Martin Scorsese. We, we lament him here on this show and his, his fight. Um, let's, let's, let's, let's transition to the Oscars. Cause we have a lot of movies to talk about and there's a lot going on in this space right now. So let's just go to the big pictures, big picture.

This is a problem in the big picture do you know what i mean okay so being the ricardos is a movie that is out tuesday the 21st this is aaron sorkin's latest film his third directorial effort after the trial of the chicago seven and molly's game it's on amazon you can watch it you can watch it right now are people gonna watch this movie i think some might i think some might as i said to you people over 35 do exist we're mostly in our homes at this point uh you know and we gotta like take naps and make sure we get enough protein and calcium but we're doing our best we do exist and like what else are we gonna do over a holiday weekend but watch aaron sorkin investigating i love lucy two aging cultural institutions that we people over 35 still

enjoy or at least recognize yeah so this is a it's a snapshot of lucille ball and desi arnaz and the production of one episode of I Love Lucy in 1952. And of course, backstage drama, one of Sorkin's tried and true strategies for telling a story. This movie stars Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as Lucy and Desi, Nina Arianda, J.K. Simmons, Tony Hale, Aaliyah Shawkat, Jake Lacey, really good cast of actors. It has a, I would say, labyrinthine structure this movie perhaps unnecessarily using a lot of component parts to tell the story of this one week in the show it uses this time shifting back and forth from the quote-unquote present day to the courtship between lucy and

desi to this sort of fake documentary interview format which i thought was really extraneous but i hated yes he tries this every once in a while and every show and it's always the episode that documentary interview format, which I thought was really extraneous. Which I hated, yes. He tries this every once in a while on every show, and it's always the episode that I skip on the, all the fake West Wing documentaries. No, Aaron.

I mean, it's hard to write 23 episodes of television a year, but no thank you. Yeah, and I would say that this movie, more than any of his previous two films that he directed, felt more like him using

the tools of his television writing rather than sort of feature previous two films that he directed felt more like him using the tools of his television writing rather than sort of feature film structure and strategy uh i i thought that this was a fascinating movie in that i think it's quite bad but i kind of liked it and i i think maybe that's some of the the the lingering sorkin admiration i used to have, and I feel myself really turning on him in the last five years, and some of his strategies are starting to wear on me. I think that there are some very winning moments in this movie,

but that the ways that we get to resolution, I thought were jaw-droppingly bad at times. What did you think? You're a Sorkinite. Yeah. So i don't want to skip ahead too far in your outline but my takeaway from this is that i just need aaron sorkin to let other people direct his movies yeah um not just because i don't really think he has any like visual style or a sense of really making a movie outside of screenwriting and maybe to a little bit star

performances that we can talk about that. But I do actually think that he's a great screenwriter. I love it. It's familiar to me at this point. I do have a soft spot for Sorkin. And I felt like the weak points in this were because of there was no second person kind of pulling him out of like his deep, deep sorkiness. The resolutions, the framing structure that makes no sense. You just need someone else like giving some notes and saying all of this is very good. And what if we didn't do the like the most extreme version of this? So I didn't think it was very good and like enjoyed myself and I even laughed which I don't know I don't really laugh at that many things anymore

I don't know the world isn't funny but I just it's you're right it's like a tv show on steroids and even there some of the moments don't land because he hasn't had enough time to work out the kinks of his own TV show. Yeah, I couldn't figure out what tone he wanted this to have. Was it meant to be a quite serious drama? Was it meant to be a kind of zippy workplace rom-com? It seems to be toggling. If you'd put this movie in the hands of Steven Soderbergh or David Fincher, you just would have gotten something more lean and more clear about what it wanted to be. It felt like

it was searching around for the kind of tone it was looking for. The ideas in the movie are pretty big. The idea of Lucille Ball being confronted by a potential past, checking a box to indicate that she's a communist. And what that would mean for her as a professional person, a famous person on television.

Really at the dawn of television. And then also this kind of concurrent pregnancy that she's having. Sorkin has collided some of the all of this stuff into her life to show the challenges of being a or or the the concerns of being a successful woman at this time in hollywood um i i just i i could not figure out if it wanted to be an episode of i love lucy or if it wanted to be an episode of the west wing and it is kind of constantly toggling between those two things. And that's just a very difficult knot to untie, I suppose. Which in a lot of ways is a summation for Aaron Sorkin and his career. I mean, like the West Wing, he nailed down what he wanted it to be.

And it was also at a time, I think, in television and a time in like America and our understanding, you know, like sort of a post Clinton, you know, boomer view of the world and also a post Clinton boomer view of what a hour long television show could be that we have evolved past. And so I think Sorkin is still always grasping a little bit to that sentimentality and that sort of classic old Hollywood, like stick the landing ending, which there, there are several reveals in this. We'll talk about them. One is really manufactured, but I was like, Oh shit, Aaron, you did it again. Like you like, and I like, I see the machinery working and this is like trying too hard, but like, damn it, Aaron, you, you know, you still

got it sometimes. And then there are a couple other ones where I but like, damn it, Aaron, you know, you still got it sometimes. And then there are a couple other ones where I'm like, you know, Aaron, you need to go to timeout. We're on a first name basis, me and Aaron. struggle between like updating his work and that sort of admiration for old old Hollywood like dawn of television not quite pat ending but neat endings and feel-good endings is like in all of his work and the further you go into the future like really from I mean Studio 60 has a lot of these tensions and doesn't quite work. Newsroom is more, you know, a lot of the same tensions, like veneration for like old school news anchors, which no one but Aaron Sorkin still has. Um, but trying to update it, like, you know, with blogs, wow, tough stuff. Um, certainly trial of Chicago seven.

So he's a little bit of man out of time at this point. And I think West Wing versus I Love Lucy versus right now is the tension. It is. I think you're right that Studio 60 is really the core text here. That's the thing that is probably closest that he's made in the past to what this is. There's a couple of things working against it. As I look at our outline here, I don't really want to spoil for people the resolutions, even though I think some of them are outrageous and so wrongheaded so as to be parody. The point that you're making about someone just saying like, hey, maybe we don't wrap up the movie this way could have been very helpful. I would just like someone to interview him about it. Is it supposed to be a joke? Is it supposed to be like really dark commentary?

If you haven't watched it yet, we won't spoil it. When you do watch it, you'll know exactly what we're talking about. We did also sort of spoil it a week ago. So you can kind of, you know, Zapruder this if you want. But I would really like to understand whether he thinks that lands in the way it is played in the movie because what on earth well if it if it is in fact that sort of veneration for institutions that you're describing that's appalling if it's something else if it is a kind of dark humorous commentary i like that a little bit more but it's not executed in the way that you would hope at all

um it is a big everybody clap moment and that that's unfortunate. I think also just some other ways that like people arrive at emotional conclusions, these kind of discrete meetings in bars or these kind of like, let's have a real talk conversation backstage are just so tried and true for him. In some cases, I thought that they worked.

There was one scene in particular with Alia Shawkat and Nicole Kidman that I thought was very effective. It was essentially like the centerpiece of the work that was like, when you are a woman in a position like this, and I was curious to know what you thought about this kind of conflict of the film. It's sort of like when you're creative and you're trying to represent, what is important? Is it important to represent an embodiment of what you think the world should be like? Is it important to represent your personal experience? Is it

important to just win and make money and be a role model? These sort of collisions of creativity. I think he does have his finger on the pulse of that in an interesting way. And even as an older white guy, I thought he tapped into something unique there. What did you make of that? I thought it was one of the stronger parts of the movie. I also just want to say, you know, Aaron Sorkin does not historically explore female characters in the center of the lens

in the nuanced way that we might hope. And I did feel like this was a step forward for him. And I think he doesn't really answer the question that you just asked. He proposes a lot of different viewpoints. And ultimately, that resolution is not quite as tied up in a bow as the others, which I think that's smart. I agree. That's great growth. Thank you. And I think that this is one of his more interesting female characters for sure. So I enjoyed that. I honestly, I thought

the how did two people, two creative people in a relationship function was pretty fascinating as well, certainly. And that's another theme of his or two people in a relationship function was pretty fascinating as well certainly and that's that's another um theme of his or two people in a working relationship how do they function from you know because there are always just like workplace romances in his in his work which you know again say what you will about it like uh time-wise or whatever but he's clearly drawing from personal experience and and trying to work that out and I thought that this was like a more sophisticated examination of it so I don't know there were I thought there were things to like in it I will also say

to the Oscars I went to a guild screening of this let me tell you who thought there was a lot to say in this movie were the various members of the guilds, because there is a lot of like in joke behind the scenes, production drama, and, and the people who make movies loved it, eating it up, you know, just applauding after complaining about what seat they got to the poor people running the screening for like 20 minutes. You've never seen anything like it. It's really, it's extraordinary. But yes, so I can see this appealing to Oscar Rotos for sure. I think you're right. I think it's going to do well. I think he's going to be nominated for a screenplay. It'll be interesting to see if the performances are recognized because i i think both nicole kidman and javier bardem are just deeply miscast if you have any relationship to the show

i love lucy they are not doing lucy and desi they are their own kind of singular performers and whether or not you think that's okay in a circumstance like this is an interesting conversation but i did not think either of them were right for the parts. And I, while I bought their relationship, I did not buy them as these famous people. The casting thing became such a controversy even before the movie was even made. It was, you know,

it was announced and Nicole Kidman and Javier Rodem have since said they both like tried to withdraw from the movie after like, after reading the internet, which I mean, same, I'd wake up every day. I read the internet and i want to quit my job too but so it i mean it's such a frog conversation at this point and and aaron sorkin i think um has tried with with limited and and sometimes uh adverse effect to say that they're not supposed to be the Lucy and Desi of the show. And it's like

not a comedy. And what they're doing is the behind the scenes thing. And that is true. You don't see a lot of Nicole Kidman doing a Lucille Ball impression. They do have her do some of the famous grape stomping scene. It's a very classic, you know, suddenly they're in the studio writing respect or get back. But instead of writing respect you know, suddenly they're in the studio writing Respect or Get Back. But instead of writing Respect or Get Back, they're writing like Lucille Ball's most famous comedy scene that you've definitely seen. Which, as I've said, 10 out of 10 times works for Amanda Dobbins. And even in this one, I was like, I don't know. I don't know.

But also, sure, because I remember it. Well, I mean, I Love Lucy is great. There's no question about that I mean I'm sure you and I grew up both grew up watch like I'm for me a WPIX I think was running it in New York and then on Nick at Night and Nick at Night yeah I mean I I like that show a lot I think anybody who's interested in the history of TV will be interested in this movie I think Lucy it's funny with Lucy because there's currently a TCM podcast about Lucy and Desi that is airing right now. There's also a Lucy kind of stand-in in Licorice Pizza that Christine Ebersole plays as a representation of her role in Yours, Mine, and Ours.

So Lucy is really in the culture right now. There has really never been anybody like her. You can't really point to any famous man or woman that had quite the same career arc and the same level of fame and notoriety that she had. I mean, she was in 60 million homes, an extraordinary number of houses in the 1950s because of the dearth of options and because of the success of that show. Nicole Kidman is just a very different type. She's a different type physically. She's a different type as a performer. Lucy was a a natural explosion of energy and i think nicole kidman is probably best known for her kind of elegant restraint as a performer that

doesn't mean she can't go in other directions but they're just so different and javier bardem i mean you know there's some things that you can point out which is like you know javier's from spain and not from cuba but he doesn't physically resemble desi he's not a musician the way that desi was this incredible live performer i think they both kind of acquit themselves decent enough at the impression part. It's more like when you imagine what some of these people would be like behind the scenes. I'm like, I don't know. That just doesn't seem like what they'd be like at all. But I guess maybe that's just a personal perspective. Other people may feel like they nailed it. I do also think it depends on like how specifically you remember.

I love Lucy and Lucille ball and how much you expect it to be a recreation. I like you definitely watched it. I think I caught it on Nick at night. I was singing the theme song before we started. It's been in my head for a week. I have like an association. I know I love Lucy.

I may be, but I don't think I remember a single plot. You know, I remember Lucy I'm home. I remember, you know, like some of her facial expressions. I have like, I have more of a sense of it. I personally don't have a huge sense of Lucille Ball outside of I love Lucy. and I don't think I was expecting it to be like another episode of I Love Lucy and I am at this point on the older end of the viewing spectrum I'm sure there are a lot of people who like grew up watching it and are going to be like what what the hell this isn't like Lucille Ball at all and that's like a very valid reaction I didn't have the same reaction just because my comparison is not quite as sharp.

And I did think they had a nice off-screen chemistry, especially when Lucille ball, Lucy, Lucy and Desi are negotiating with all the suits. There are like a lot of corporate suits in this, which is like pretty fun. And it gets sort of that like screwball energy, which you're right is a different energy from I love Lucy, but I'm never going to be mad at it. And I actually laughed at it. So it didn't stick out to me as much. And I was willing to accept it as a behind the scenes thing. And this idea that comedians are very different, you know screen versus off screen and the movie even makes a whole point of like physical comedy is like a very specific scientific you know form of expression

and there's choreography and there's beats and it really is like putting arranging a song um which i was like oh okay i buy that so she's not just like falling down all the time which in a way is like a nice antidote to our understanding of the traditional romantic comedy heroine who's just like always doing pratfalls. So I wasn't that mad. I also, you know, Javier Bardem is not a musician that I know, but when he was performing in the flashbacks,

I'm not mad at that. I didn't have a bad time. Yeah. I think the one thing, one other thing that I liked about the film was showing something that Sorkin has shown before, which is the obsession with specific execution for creative types,

how important it was for Lucy to get things right and how she was almost driven to the brink by her urgency, her desire to nail it. she was almost driven to the brink by her, her, her urgency, her, her desire to nail it. And, you know, years of training as,

as a, an actress in comedies and TV and the sense of like this vaudevillian sense of execution on the show with JK Simmons, his character, that part of it, I thought was very, very interesting. And I think I,

I actually wish that there were less soap operatic elements and a little bit more of that procedural approach to things. But of course, those two things are kind of informing each other and pushing each other together to create more tension. It's a real mixed bag of a movie. I'm curious to see. I think some people are going to hate it, and some people are going to really appreciate having something warm like this to watch in their homes over the holidays. Exactly. I think you're totally right, though, that it isn't it is an Oscar contender. It is definitely going to be here for the next three months. And so we have to brace ourselves for that and brace ourselves for more more Aaron at

the gate. This was a big weekend for Oscar contenders, actually. So maybe we should talk about the big race. Well, mama, look at me now. I'm a star. So those contenders, in addition to being the Ricardos, are the aforementioned Nightmare Alley. The Lost Daughter was released in theaters this past weekend.

It will be available on Netflix on December 31st. Also one of my favorite movies of the year. I highly recommend that movie. We won't talk about it here here so as not to spoil it. Red Rocket is going wider and wider over the next couple of weeks. Whether or not Simon Rex makes his way into the best actor race, I'm

excited to see. The Los Angeles Film Critics Association gave him best actor over the weekend. That was cool. But Nightmare Alley, let's pull it apart a little bit. Sure. Let's go. Speaking of pulling it apart, we can be the geek to this movie. We can bite its neck off and see what's inside.

As we said, this is Del Toro's first movie since The Shape of Water. Del Toro, before The Shape of Water, I would have considered among my favorite directors. I think Pan's Labyrinth is a big movie for my wife and I. We're huge fans of that film. I think The Devil's Backbone, Kronos, even some of the blockbuster stuff like Pacific Rim and Blade 2. I really like those movies a lot. I did not like the direction I saw him trending in with The Shape of Water, which I would say was just a little bit too saccharine for me. And so I was excited to see that he was making this movie.

Now, the movie is based on a 1946 novel by William Lindsay Gresham. I've not read the book, but it is reportedly one of the nastiest novels written in the first half of the 20th century. And the film from 1947 starring Tyrone power for its time is quite a nasty bit of business. And so I was like, hell yeah.

Cause Del Toro was really good at making movies about how people suck. You know, that's, that, that's, that's what I, I mean, that's really what's at the heart of Pan's Labyrinth is like, it's hard to be innocent. You know, you are going to be exposed to the pains of the world. This movie is, it's the story of a carny played by Bradley Cooper. Sort of a mysterious man who rolls into a carnival and quickly takes to the world of the carnies and develops some of the skills, including mentalism. And very quickly kind of exits the world of the carnival and develops some of the skills, including mentalism and very quickly kind of exits the world of the carnival

and enters the, not very quickly, an hour later, not, not very quickly for you. This is quite a long film. It is two and a half hours, but about an hour into his journey,

he leaves the carnival and he heads into the high rises of, of the beautiful clubs and the, the, the back rooms of powerful people in Buffalo, New York. Uh, Amanda, the beautiful clubs and the the back rooms of powerful people in buffalo new york uh amanda i don't think you were that big of a fan of this movie what did you so if you're the gonna be the geek to this movie then i will be the kate blanchett to this movie which makes me um a very chic person with incredible uh bone structure who has no idea what she's doing in this movie

and is like basically in a completely different movie which she's very good in but it's like why am I here yeah and this is which is not her fault more the movie does not know what to do with her how about that but there's a real uh why element to all of this and and what's happening which is I to be fair, what I texted you halfway through this movie, which was why am I watching a two and a half hour movie about carnies? Well, I would make the case that the movie should have stayed with the carnies because I think it kind of loses steam when he gets out the world of cape lanchette who plays this very high class high profile therapist psychotherapist who enacts a sort of scheme with the cooper character when she realizes what his skills are she's doing something that i don't think the rest of the movie is doing in quite the same way which is she is just doing barbara stanwick lana turner classic femme fatale but almost to the point of parody like it is is so overt what she, how she is

paying homage. Now the film obviously has a lot of adoration for noir filmmaking and noir storytelling, and it's very much in that mold, but it's del Toro trying to kind of like widen the aperture of that by the film shot in color. It's a little bit more panoramic. You know, I would say the themes are very similar to what you find in all these stories, but it's, it's glossier. It's bigger. As I said to my husband when we finished it, that the furniture was beautiful. Just really, really great set and production design.

Production design is unbelievable in this movie. It's, you know, I think we were having this conversation about how movies like this are falling by the wayside. This is something you will lose, is you'll lose like masters of the craft at the top of their form who are able to visualize worlds like this that you've never seen before whether or not those are just kind of empty gestures i think is in the eye of the beholder in this case for me i really really like i really think this is a really strong uh bradley cooper performance i think this actually is a little bit closer to the kind of actor he had always wanted to be taking on these really complicated bad men it's very much in the vein of the kind of 70s actor taking on a like, like hopeless, somewhat deranged person who's trying with, you know, every ounce of his being to be successful and kind of succeeding while failing. But the movie is very overstuffed and it's taking itself very seriously.

And it's a little bit preposterous at times was like what i'm willing to accept those flaws in the same way you might be willing to accept some of sorkin's flaws it feels like that's where we're at yeah and i think you know there are two issues here and one is personal to amanda which is to your point about del toro being like this like very accomplished you know auteur of of weirdos and outsiders and and and things that provoke and make you a little uncomfortable and and and building worlds around that and the production design and all of that he is super accomplished at that and the first hour of this of that. He is super accomplished at that. And the first hour of this, which is at the carnival is the part of the movie that works.

Now, do I Amanda Dobbins want to watch like a weird ass movie about carnies? No, like I don't respectfully. It's just not in my interest set, but it is that's different from it not being good. And so counterintuitively, when he opens the movie up to kind of the more traditional noir aspects and things I am interested in, it's not, it doesn't land in the same way. It's not his forte. And it kind of like doesn't come together.

And so I think like the first complaint is more an Amanda complaint, which it seems like some other people had not everybody wanted to watch the carney movie uh but also that the second half is the real issue where it just kind of doesn't doesn't gel because he gets away from that essential weirdness yeah i would have liked to have spent more time there and and the other thing too is like he's populated this movie with the best actors in the world, Tony Collette. And there is a Willem Dafoe scene where he explains the geek, the idea of the geek at the carnival at a diner with Bradley Cooper.

That is the essence of Willem Dafoe. It is why he is one of the absolute best. It is such a great monologue. It is such great delivery. Perfect scene. The movie, you could make the case kind of gets away from itself right after that scene because that's where

it sort of signals that Cooper has got different ideas. I, you know, this movie also has Richard Jenkins, Rooney Mara,

Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, David Strathairn, like really a murderer's row of character actors, great American actors. But if you don't want to be in this world

and there's nothing that can be done to make you feel like you should spend more time here. Yeah. I don't want to be in this world, then there's nothing that can be done to make you feel like you should spend more time here. Yeah. I don't know if it's my favorite Bradley Cooper performance, but it's a great summary or metaphor in a lot of ways for his career, which is the first half he's surrounded by many of the great American actors, but people who are willing to go for it, willing to get a little weird, not always leading men and women or willing to take on character roles, willing to just do strange things. And you can feel him sort of entranced by it, but also resisting it because there is still this like part of Bradley Cooper. That's like, I need to be the most classic leading man, leading man who's ever been.

And then he tries it in the second half and it doesn't really work out for him because he doesn't quite fit in that box either. Yeah, he's finding his way. Like, is it possible for someone to be so, so, so successful to have written, directed, produced A Star Is Born, to have been the star of American Sniper and The Hangover and been a part of the centrality of movie culture for the last 15 years and still seems somehow unsatisfied there seems to

be something that is like unresolved about his pursuit as a performer I will say very much unlike I Love Lucy I absolutely love the ending of this movie which will not come as a massive surprise to anybody who's seen the original but another reason why i'm sure this movie has not been very successful is because this movie is dark and it is really about like the darkness in the heart of man and it's not the kind of movie you come out and say to your friends like you got to go see the movie with all the spider-men like it's not like that this is a very different kind of character study and i i'm very interested to know also how well it does with award season. Because before it was released, it was named one of the best films of the year by the National Board of Review and AFI. It got eight nominations at the Critics' Choice Awards.

And now it has done not so well at the box office. And so do you think that will have an impact on whether it's recognized? Well, again, there's just, there's a industry respect for Del Toro and like a craftsmanship thing here that still is very much on display. I, you know, I still am like the shape of water. What, you know, like, I don't, I don't get it. And I can't believe that this one best picture, like I'll always feel that way. It was really strange. Even though you kept, you know, trying to defend it and being like, it's actually a weird movie. It's actually like really progressive that Hollywood is accepting it in this way. But I don't think Hollywood like accepted it. I don't think it won best picture because like,

wow, it was a weird movie about a lady, you know, about fish sex. I think it was because it, as you said, was like a slightly more sentimental and accessible version of, you know, weird high art that del Toro has been doing for whatever. So I assume that the recognition thus far is from that same sort of reflex of, well, we just have to, you know, protect Guillermo del Toro. I don't know that people are ever really going to see this for a lot of reasons, which some of them having to do with the state of the world right now, and some of them also having to do with the state of the movie industry. And so if no one sees it besides the guilds, I don't know if that's enough to push it, but they sure do like it. They sure do like this weird stuff.

Could be a lot of below the line stuff. I would be surprised if we get any performances getting recognized here. This is also notably yet another Fox film that has not succeeded under the Disney banner. You know, going back to the last duel, we saw West Side Story is not doing terribly well at the box office, the French Dispatch. A lot of great films. There's been a lot of anxiety and agita about what this is a factor of. On the other hand, Free Guy was a Fox movie and that movie did very well. Is it just a circumstance of. On the other hand, Free Guy was a Fox movie and that movie did very well. Is it just a circumstance

of the kinds of films those are? I mean, people over 35 exist. They're just not going to the movie theaters. And that's why being the Ricardos, which we think is mediocre at best, but immediately a watchable at home. And also, I would say,

intensely watchable at home. The fact that it is about TV, it bars a lot of TV conventions could almost be a TV movie, I think does really serve people's ability to like, turn it on. And none of the movies you just mentioned are have been available at home, which is very frustrating, because once again, it find your audience and let your audience have access to your movie. It's so interesting to be thinking already about when will Nightmare Alley be streaming so people can watch it.

It came out three days ago. And that's just where our culture is right now. But I mean, but you could have said that like last Wednesday. You could have said that like a week ago. We know that older audiences and kind of like, quote, audiences for prestige movies are just not going to the theaters right now, whether that's's because of I think it's both COVID and just behavioral change so we knew that people were not going to see this I'm curious how many people are like oh Nightmare Alley two and a half hours heard it's pretty weird yeah let me like turn this on in my home right now versus something kind of like easy,

you know, to swallow like being Ricardo's or, you know, whatever stuff is on Netflix that they like to watch. There's a lot on there. There's a lot on there that's going to be in the best picture race. Let's actually pivot to that because I want to start doing something for the next few months, which is let's just power rank the best picture contenders we know we know that we're going to have 10 i've put my power rankings here in the doc for us so you can you can grade or move things around as you see fit but based on the reaction to nightmare alley what we've seen from being the ricardo is what the state of the race is this is what i think is going to be the 10 almost in this order in terms of how powerful it is at the moment okay here we go number 10 the lost daughter a little hard to measure this one because it has not been widely seen rave reviews will there be a backlash of some kind invariably there always is

but for now i feel like this has knocked out tick tick boom nightmare alley come on come on and the tragedy of mcbeth those are the ones that i see on as the outside looking in huge amount of nominations year-end lists plus you've got it's directed by maggie gyllenhaal you got olivia coleman in there and the one rule of the oscars is you don't bet against olivia coleman absolutely or any movie that she's in she will be nominated for exactly so i i think this makes sense number nine nine, don't look up. Again, middling critical response, hitting Netflix in just a few days. We know the Academy loves McKay's movies, especially the last couple.

You think it's going to make the cut? I'm so curious to see what happens when people can actually see this movie. I mean, I think you're right that it's done so well and all the urine-less things and people do really respect mckay though i'm curious how much like adam mckay gets pressed to her blowback because it's it's been an interesting time and people seem very invested in sort of the will ferrell

breakup and how that was all presented and i think those things kind of do matter so probably i i have no idea how it's gonna go i think they're gonna be a lot of people on things kind of do matter. So probably I, I, I have no idea how it's going to go. I think there are going to be a lot of people on Christmas being like, this wasn't funny, you know? And I just, we'll see.

I think, I think you're right about that. That doesn't necessarily mean it will be ignored. Come Oscar time. Same for being the Ricardos. I think a lot of people will watch this at home and be like, eh, that was okay.

But because of the nature of the story and because of sorkin's pedigree i think it's going to do well now it's possible that something like this falls out the tragedy of mcbeth when it finally comes out could surge maybe tick tick boom there's a lot of you know a fondness for that story for a variety of reasons we'll see i think being the ricardo's will be in i also think coda is kind of having a moment yeah and i don't think a lot of people have seen this movie because it's on apple tv plus but i think people in the guilds really like it and it is the sundance success story i've shared my emotional journey with the film coda on this podcast i have anecdotal evidence which is i saw my in-laws a few weeks ago.

We were sort of, we were trying to explain Sundance to them as a concept, which someone should have recorded that. But that was a very weird conversation. We explained Koda and I said, you know, it was like a pretty quintessential Sundance movie and it was pretty manipulative. But then I wept at the end. They were curious enough, went home, watched it. They were like, yes, exactly the same reaction. But they also wept at the end. They were curious enough, went home, watched it. They were like, yes, exactly the same reaction, but they also wept at the end.

And you can see, you know, it was them learning about it, learning that it was easily available for them to watch and then having the landing actually stick for them. I do think that's going to happen for a lot of people. I also think Troy Kotzer, who plays the father in the film, is almost definitely going to be nominated and has an outside chance to win here. And he's terrific in that movie too. So continue to see that on the list. I think I've got King

Richard at six and Dune at five. Now you could make the case that these two are higher in the, in the race. It's a little bit hard to tell with the HBO max, like King Richard just left HBO max this weekend. They're doing a ton of guild screenings for both of these movies. Every other day, there's a guild screening for these movies. They obviously have both been critically acclaimed. They both, you know, Dune performed very well given the circumstances. But then you see how Spider-Man did and you're like, holy crap, like Dune could have done so much better at the box office. This is a real missed opportunity.

But do you know anyone in your own life who went to see Dune at the box office? No. Besides, yeah. I mean, this is the thing, and I understand that the HBO Max of it all was just a huge mess talent-wise, and there are big legal issues, and they're trying to walk back next year and all this sort of stuff, but let people see your movies.

If you want these things to win awards and to be seen, put them back on HBO Max. It's crazy. It's absolutely crazy that people cannot see Dune in their homes over Christmas. What are you doing? So every single movie that I've listed so far, the top six movies here were all released on streaming services within two weeks of their release. The Lost Daughter, Don't Look Up, Beanie Ricardo's Coda, King Richard, Dune, all of those movies you could see at home that's

fascinating now the next four that's not entirely true for number four I have licorice pizza last time we had this conversation about on an Oscar show I was like I don't know I don't know how this is gonna do and and now it's gone all

the way in the other direction where I'm like I'm convinced now that PTA is winning best original screenplay and I don't know if I saw that coming but I feel like there has been a little bit, a little bit of an it's time thing for Paul. I mean,

and it would make sense that this is the screenplay that he would want best original screenplay for it, which is not like a knock on this screenplay. I think it's like full of delightful moments, but a little less serpentine and elaborate than some of his other films. Yeah. I mean, as Ben Affleck confirmed,

it's the one movie he's gone to see in theaters, which I knew because I look at too many paparazzi photos. But yeah, I think the people who have seen it really love it. I guess they've played the anticipation thing correctly so that it will roll out and people, you know, there are a lot of people who still do want to see it. And it seems like finally oscar voters sort of we should be fair oscar voters did recognize what they have with phantom thread but it seems like he is more of like a oscar regular than maybe we expected i think you're right i think that's that's exactly what it is a little tease at the first episode in the new year me you chris ryan wasney lambre big was are going to be breaking down licorice pizza in a deep dive way so if you want to hear a long pod about one of

our favorite movies of the year check it out over the holidays if you feel safe if you don't feel safe i understand hopefully you'll be able to listen to that episode down the road okay continuing on i have west side story three is this too high probably but again like god just let old people see it and by old people i mean me like my old people i honestly mean 32 year olds at this point um will it go to streaming quickly i wonder i wonder if they'll make some change here because it's not doing well at all no it's not doing well at all which like and i loved this movie and i loved the theater experience of it but let's be real like if you put this in front of people they will watch it over the holidays

could you imagine if this movie is just on netflix today how many people would fucking watch it i mean i guess i do you think that it would be as soon as it popped up on netflix the average person is like oh i'm so excited to see steven spielberg's west side story does it have that kind of brand name awareness i do i think that's West Side Story. Does it have that kind of brand name awareness? I do. I think so. That's great. I'm glad that you have that kind of optimism. Maybe I'm wrong. I believe in Uncle Steven. Number two is Belfast. Let's not lose sight of the fact that Belfast does everything that Oscar wants. And, you know, I like Belfast. I don't want to give it a bad rap. I think we both were pretty positive on it. I think we were like maybe a little bit of concern trolling.

Like, is this what the Oscars should be when a year went dune and power of the dog? I did this. I was like, I like this until it's the best picture winner. Yeah. I was very turned by it. Let me ask you this again. And I'm sorry, just to be doing pure anecdotal evidence. Do you know anyone besides me, Amanda Dobbins, who has seen Belfast?

Do you know a single person besides your podcast? Well, Chris texted me over the weekend and said who has seen Belfast. Do you know a single person besides your podcast partner? Well, Chris texted me over the weekend and said he and his mom watched it. And he seemed a little eh on it, but his mom enjoyed it. And I think maybe that indicates how it could go. And let's also remember that Chris's mom watched Dune four times when it was available at home. So even Chris's mom is a real ass. I mean, she's a legend.

Should we get her on one of the movies? You and your dad and his mom on the movie draft mega movie draft with the parents it would be so strange um i i don't know anyone who's seen this movie i will say i watched one instagram video of jamie dornan performing everlasting love like at the premiere or whatever and now all my entire Instagram algorithm is Jamie Dornan Stan accounts and like just close-ups of him performing Everlasting Love like well that hive is really strong a little strange he was he was very good at performing that I I think you're right but I think once again I likeelfast, but if a movie that's nice and heartwarming that literally no one has seen wins Best Picture.

It's available on PVOD right now. That's good. And that's a nice holiday thing. So maybe a lot of people that... I think that is a home watchable movie as well. I think so too. Number one, of course, is Power of the Dog. Yeah.

And I don't know. Have people seen power the dog i think more people have seen it than belfast and whether or not they like it i think is an interesting coin flip because i would say it is not a populist film and i've heard from plenty of people on the internet that this was way too much of a slow burn and i've heard from a lot of cinephiles who feel like it is one of the masters at the top of her craft i think both can be true you know it's like not a crowd pleaser but it's incredibly well made i've noticed a third category which is sort of the and it's

the netflix effect for sure and it's the online person who is making the power of the dog memes like it it's like some and like it actually weirdly in certain corners is becoming meme status especially like the last 30 minutes which are you one of these people no i don't i don't make memes i just you know observe and report and it does seem like enough people have watched the last 30 minutes in order to understand you you know, to know the twist or all the twists and to start making like cowhide jokes. So I don't know. A lot of Bronco Henry memes out there. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Well, if I had to guess, I would say the power of the dog wins today, but that could, that could change that stuff, stuff, stuff could happen. power of the dog wins today. But that could change. Stuff could happen.

Power of the dog winning, I'm not sure what that means for the Oscars. I'm probably going to be asking that 10 or 300 more times over the course of the next few months. It feels like a real December. We think this is the prestige one and feels like Roma in a lot of ways.

And I hope that that doesn't erupt into what actually happened Roma's year. Because that was like a bad year. But where you could get a surprise winner instead. Or not even a surprise. I don't know. I'm not. I don't think anything's locked in yet.

Because nobody has seen anything. Dune? Can Dune win? Probably not. I think it's the Mad Max Fury Road of this year. Yeah. Everybody keeps saying that. God damn it. Well, I mean, it kind of is. But Mad Max Fury Road of this year. Yeah, everybody keeps saying that. God damn it.

Well, I mean, it kind of is. But Mad Max Fury Road won, like, a lot of Oscars. Or was nominated for a lot. It won a few, right? Yeah, it won a whole bunch of below-the-line Oscars. Below-the-line things. Yeah, and I think that that's what Dune is going to do. And it's now respected, and it's on everybody's, you know, best-ever list.

And Steven Soderbergh does, like, a blog every week being like, Hey, Mad Max Fury Road is the best movie I've ever seen. Did you see that Steven Soderbergh gave an interview blog every week being like hey Mad Max Rerode is the best movie I've ever seen did you see that Steven Soderbergh gave an interview about where he likes to um go drinking in Los Angeles no what for the Hollywood Reporter and it's because he was like promoting his liquor whatever it's called oh sure I've had yeah which is also available at the Academy Museum just so you know they're making some specialty cocktails it's really the only kind of synergy I'm interested in what's it called is it like Singani something like that yes okay i don't remember i've never actually tried it if steven would like to send me some i'll give it a try

um but then he gave an interview about where he goes in la and big bar in los feliz oh yeah was was top of the list oh love big bar i've never never seen Steven Soderbergh there. Oh, wow. Yeah. Live big picture pod, me, you, and Steven at Big Bar. Let's move there and we'll just stay until he shows up. That sounds good. Maybe for some Kimi promo. We saw Kimi coming out February 10th.

HBO Max. Just show people movies, right, Amanda? This is what I'm saying. We don't have to belabor stock up, stock down. Very clearly stock down, Nightmare Alley. tough beat this week good luck to them i think coda is up because it keeps getting recognized by all these bodies and it's doing what people suggested it could do after we saw it at sundance let's go to hark this is the most important hark in a long time let me also do one more stock down which is amanda because oh no we had a whole plan for this we made top five lists and it was

the top five movies about tv and i made what i thought was like a pretty great list and i was finally going to get it to talk about the romantic comedy morning glory which is both um my dad one of my dad and my favorite movies famously dad walked out of morning glory and was like well that went oscars so and sean was like no we don't have enough time instead i'm gonna do a hark about the northman so i just stopped down amanda and now we go to sean fantasy for stock up me the eggers stock is hitting my god we did it, everybody. You walked with the witch. You ran with the lighthouse. And now you shall fly with the Northman.

It's happening, Amanda. If anyone really wants to understand what it's like to work with Sean and Chris, it's like the Monday morning before Christmas. You're just drinking your coffee, trying to get your Sean and Chris. It's like the Monday morning before Christmas. You're just drinking your coffee, trying to get your life in order. And then suddenly like 45 texts come in about the appropriate costuming that these two chuckleheads will be wearing

for their Northman podcast, whether it's, you know, bearskins, Viking hats, whatever. 8 43 a.m and these guys long on and they just gotta tell you about the northman there's nothing you can do to kill my joy because i had been warned i had i have spoken to producers of this film and they were like just you wait sir just you wait and they were correct. This is a new Viking epic from Eggers, who directed those previous movies I just mentioned, starring Alexandra Skarsgård,

starring Anya Teller-Joy, starring Stellan Skarsgård, starring Ethan Hawke, starring Bjork, starring a number of other great actors. This movie has been already- All of them with so much facial hair that they are basically

unrecognizable covered in grime wearing metal gear they look amazing the film looks amazing obviously eggers has a very intense style an intense sense of sound design that you can tell just from the trailer yes and there's a moment in the trailer when scars guard catches a spear in midair when i was like let's let's fucking fucking go. Let's go take down a castle together in Norway in the 1300s. I'm happy for Skarsgård, who I feel is sort of our most overlooked asset at this point. Awesome year for him, though. And he gets a lot of chances. It's not that he's not getting the opportunities. We just aren't grateful enough he's really really good in passing rebecca hall's film that came out on netflix this year he of course was brilliant

as lucas mattson on succession yes and now he's got this coming and you're right he's gotten a lot of bites at the apple he's never quite become the super duper star we expected he's probably done better work on television than ultimately in the movies over the years on true blood and on um on big little lies and little drummer Drummer Girl. That's right. Little Drummer Girl. That's right. This is a chance to become a megastar. And people have already compared this to Conan the Barbarian. And that was a film that elevated Arnold Schwarzenegger. Of course, there's very much a Hamlet Lion King thing going on here with this story.

I'm pumped this episode, the episode that we do about this movie will be an event. So get excited. The costumes are on order. It's going to, it's a multi-month process to get everyone ready. Okay. That,

that wraps us up, Amanda. Thank you so much. Um, let's go to my conversation now with Sean Baker is back on the podcast. Sean, very good to see you. Congrats on Red Rocket. Oh, thanks so much.

I'm happy to be back. So, Sean, last time we spoke, you were talking about the Florida Project, and that was obviously the biggest film of your career until that point, recognized by the Academy and such. Did your life change at all after that movie? Did anything specifically change for you?

Well, it gave me, I guess, a little bit more time and, to try to develop something new. Um, center reach was, was wonderful at, uh, it's, it's a nonprofit that supports filmmakers and making films like this. So they, they allowed me two years to, for two years to get entrenched in and develop another project. And, but then COVID killed all that. So the whole reason that, you know, red rocket came about was because we had to abandon that other project. But then COVID killed all that. So the whole reason that Red Rocket came about was because we had to abandon that other project. And so no, not much changed. Well, I'm asking because I may have this wrong, but I feel like Willem reached out to you after seeing Tangerine and said, I'd like to work with you. Did that

happen? No, no, no, that didn't happen. No, no, no. We actually went into Florida Project with a few names that we were considering. And when we lost those names, we reached out to agencies and said, what names do you have? And it was actually CAA who gave us five names. Willem's name just jumped to the top. I was like, of course, how can we deny Willem Dafoe? So that's really how that came about. I think he knew of me. He knew about Tangerine,

and I think he was actually expecting to make an iPhone movie. So when I told him it was 35 millimeter, he was like, oh, okay. But hey, he was on board and he loves Alexis Zabe's work, knows foreign cinema quite well. So I was very excited to jump on board at that point. And we've remained friends. And that project that I mentioned that fell apart was actually a Willem Dafoe project. Yeah. Well, that's sort of what I was thinking was, did you get this big outreach from well-known actors or filmmakers and say, hey, I want to work with you on something, or I want to be a part of whatever you do next? Because Red Rocket is different. It's a lot of people we've never seen before, people we haven't seen in this way. And I wasn't sure if you were

trying to navigate whether to make something bigger and noisier, but it sounds like COVID maybe pushed this to the forefront. Yeah, but you know, no, I haven't got a ton of that. Of course, there are some agents who are like, Oh, would you like to meet with my client? And I'm like, well, I like your client a lot. I just don't have any characters that would be that your, your client would fit. Yeah, no, no, there, there wasn't, there wasn't a ton. I didn't have Brad Pitt coming my way asking me to make his film. No, no. But to tell you the truth, I've actually have kind of put myself in this position.

I think that agencies and perhaps studios have heard me enough actually being outspoken that I am not really looking for that, which is, you know, yeah, I've shot myself in my foot many, many times. I mean, I've even returned emails to agents saying, sorry, your client is too famous. So, so yeah, I, I, I, uh, look, I just, I, I just want to make the most honest film possible. So sometimes when I see an A-lister, they're incredible transformative A-listers, of course, that, that I love to watch on the big screen, but when it comes to my films, it's sometimes hard for even my internal suspension of disbelief to kick in and I need it to happen right away. And working with fresh faces, it's just, it excites me more. And I, yeah, I hope I answered that question.

You did. Tell me where Red Rocket came from, because I see it definitely in the lineage of stories that you've been telling over the last 15 years or so, but also it does feel a little bit different as well. So it sounds like you had to make this film because you couldn't make something else, but what about the story and what motivated you to make it? Well, it actually stems from research that I had done on another film called Starlet, the one I made before Tangerine. My co-screenwriter and I, Chris Bregash, were exploring the adult film world and found out that there was this archetype that existed that essentially I had never seen in film and TV before. And they even had a slang term applied to these men, suitcase pimps.

They're essentially male talent that lives off of female talent in the adult film world. And it doesn't represent all men in the adult film world, but there is this archetype. So I was fascinated by them. I was fascinated by their psyche, their way of thinking, disturbed by their way of thinking, yet also very, I was of two minds with them because I was like entertained hanging out with them, you know, on the surface level, they're charming and funny. And so that, that, that really, I saw it as a challenge, I guess, to, to tackle, um, uh, a character study of one of these men. So we had this percolating for a while, like for the last 10 years, this was sitting on the back burner right after Florida project, when we were trying

to figure out what was next, this was one of the ideas that came up. And for a few days, we spent time on it. And we actually even broke the story, as they put it. We figured out beginning, middle, and end, and some of the supporting characters. But then again, it was put on the back burner again because it was really COVID that made it happen. We couldn't do that other film that I mentioned because it's just something that can't be shot during a pandemic. It's too big. And yeah, for many reasons, it couldn't be shot during a pandemic. And we pivoted back to this Red Rocket idea

that had been sitting around for a while. Tell me about creating Mikey Sabre. So you met plenty of people in the industry, I'm sure, on Starlet. Some of them appear in the film. Yeah. How much are you inventing? How much of this is a sort of documentary interpretation of things that you saw or heard? I would say the latter, quite honestly.

There was so much. We got a wealth of material just hanging out with these gentlemen. There was a handful of mikey sabers we met that quite honestly when we started fleshing the script out we fleshed the screenplay out in i don't know march april may of 20 and even when we landed in galveston in june and july that it was it came quite easy like Like a lot of those Mikey rants and those monologues were things that I had heard, you know, I heard similar things coming out of the mouths of these guys. So that stuff was easy. And Simon got the character from day one.

He understood it. He read the script, got it. And I think my little direction that I gave him just before asking him for a self-tape was, look, just play it like a man-child. You know, play it as if you're, you know, you're, you're, you mentally stopped maturing at the age of 16 and, and take it from there. And, you know, so he got it almost immediately. And so it was really that as well. My, my wonderful actors elevating these, you My wonderful actors elevating what was on the page.

I'm curious to hear you talk a little bit about the idea of sympathy and empathy with characters. Because even before I had seen this movie, people started talking to me about it who were like, well, you might hate all of these people, or you might not want to spend time with them, and yet you might find yourself mesmerized by them. And whenever you talk to actors,

they always try to find empathy with the character they're portraying, even if they do terrible things to try to better understand them. But as a writer, as a director, as somebody who is building this entire world, like, does that, do you care about that? Do you want the audience to feel connected to people

that are doing things that are kind of morally questionable or legally questionable or any of these things? Of course. 100% every character, including supporting characters. You know, I try my best to make them three-dimensional, to flesh them out as much as possible. And I think that's where people get the empathy thing from. I mean, it's never like I said, I'm an empathetic, you know, director. It's not how I go into it. I just go into, you know, trying to find, you know, the, I guess the fully flesh these characters out flaws and all, you know,

so that I can recognize myself in the characters. And I think once you do that, then you're hoping the audience can too, and they feel that connection when watching them in the theater. And also, I fall in love with all my characters, quite honestly, and I like to flesh them out even while we're in production. And if the actor's really good, that gives me more motivation to flesh it out. So for example, Brielle Rod, who played Lexi in the movie, if you look at the original script, she was fleshed out. She was there, but she wasn't totally there until I saw Brie's amazing performance on set

was so inspired that at night, I would write extra scenes for her character. So there's that as well. But overall, this is how I look at it. It doesn't matter if you're exploring the moral gray, I mean, we are, you know, it's, it's, you still, you, it's still, I would think dishonest, uh, as a, as a writer to, to make caricatures of anybody, you know, I, unless you're going for like, for that sort of movie. But for me, these, you know, these are films that are grounded in reality. I want people to connect. I want people to have their suspension of disbelief, you know, removed immediately as fast as possible. So I, um, I do whatever I can do to avoid the caricature, even if it's with an

unlikable character or an anti-hero. You keep coming back to stories about people who work, who are sex workers, people who work in this industry, kind of over and over again. And I'm wondering if, I'm wondering what brings you back to that? Why that seems to be a space that you feel like you can create interesting or complicated characters? I think that there's just so much more to explore. This is just one small story, but the sex work in general and the underground economy, it's huge. There's millions of stories that can be told within those worlds. And for some reason, I'm gravitating towards them. Well, you might have to talk to my therapist about why. No, in sex work in general, there is a specific reason. And it's because I feel as if there's been a stigma applied to sex work since day one. We've seen representation from Hollywood

leaning always towards the negative or the judgmental, especially now during these puritanical times. So I hope that if I'm making films that focus on sex work, the characters, you brought up empathy earlier, if the audience can empathize with sex workers where they never thought they'd be able to before, or perhaps in a way that's chipping away, chipping away slowly at the stigma applied to sex workers in general. Well, I have a related question about that. I feel like a lot of your characters are also very fearless, but sometimes self-destructive kind of hustlers. There's a kind of desire to figure out how to get more and get success

and get some sense of stability. Is that self-reflexive in any way for you? Do you see yourself in a similar vein as someone who's aspiring to those things or are those just kind of great portals for telling a story? I think we can all identify, at least sometimes during different stages of our lives, with the hustler mentality. Though I have to say, I've been obviously extremely fortunate never to be in hardship or in survival mode that my characters have been in. But I find it very interesting, especially living in our country, which is obviously a capitalist society which has this booming economy which only allows certain people in and rejects others for whatever reason,

whether it's being an undocumented immigrant or just racism and sexism in general, not letting people into the mainstream economy. So therefore, in order to survive, one has to actually embrace the underground economy. So I find that quite interesting in our country that celebrates our capitalist ways. And it's something I've been exploring since, I guess, my second film with Takeout, which had to do with an undocumented immigrant just getting by. And this's something I've been exploring since, I guess, my second film with Takeout, which had to do with an undocumented immigrant just getting by. And this is something that I just found something. There was plenty more to explore there in that area.

Similarly, I feel like the Gulf Coast is such a fascinating and sort of rarely utilized setting for a film. So why did you choose Texas City, Texas as the place for this story? A few different reasons. If you Google, where do adult film stars come from? The top three states are Ohio, Texas, and Florida. I already shot my Florida film. Yeah. So I kind of knew that Texas was calling me because of the refineries. I thought that the backdrop of the oil and gas industry, especially at this time, this very divided time in our country's history, I thought that placing it against that backdrop would complement the themes I'm tackling. or to go to a place where you know you can turn a camera in any direction and get a landscape that you rarely see on film. And so, you know, it's beautiful in its own way. You know, the twisted metal and pipes and stacks and, you know, steam, smoke and flame, all of that just, you know, it's quite a visual feast.

And so we didn't know where exactly. We didn't know where on the Gulf we were shooting until we rolled into Texas City. And we saw this big water tower that said Texas City, the all-American city. So it was really already speaking to me. And then when we landed and started really discovering the history of the area, that also spoke to us. There's a sort of a dark and sad history about that area and the surrounding area. And we were already tackling the theme of history in the movie. So again, the backdrop was complementing the themes we were tackling. So the political undercurrent in this film is really fascinating

to me. I found it to be not judgmental or exploitative or ideological, but very present. We see a lot of images of politicians on screen. I get the impression it's sort of 2015, 2016 is the timing. Yeah, yes, exactly. The summer of 2016. Summer of 16. Late summer of 2016. So why that time? Why was that important? Well, again, it was like the last question where I was using it as a backdrop to complement the themes. And I never wanted to say anything. I like the fact that you just mentioned that you didn't think it was in any way partisan because it's not supposed to be.

It's actually supposed to be quite neutral in its take to try to give you an overview of the way the country was at that time. Because again, I'm tackling the theme of division and just in general, I'm not so fond of politicians in general. So it's really, if anything, it's indictment on politics and politics in general. And then there's a lot to be left up for interpretation, obviously. And I really love hearing the interpretations, quite honestly. People come up to me at screenings and they have a lot of their different takes. It's not always Mikey being Trump. It's actually quite, it runs the gamut, which I think is really great because people are applying their own politics to it.

I don't want to be in a position, unless I'm talking about an issue that I feel there should be light shined upon that issue, I really don't want to preach as a filmmaker. Because when I see films in which I feel I'm being preached to, I'm really not. It turns me off. So I was trying to do that with this film. Before I had a chance to see it, the film was described to me as about a mega porn star. And I walked away from the movie and I was film was described to me as about a mega porn star. And I walked away from the movie and I was like, I don't really, I don't know if that's what this movie is, but I assume that, you know, you mentioned that people are sharing their interpretations with you. Like, how do you, how do you tangle with that? Does that bother you if something

gets a label slapped on it or? No, not at all. Not, I mean, if it becomes the only talking point of the film, yeah, yeah maybe but that so far no it's it's just been you know there's been i've seen i've read that in reviews but it hasn't like taken off it's not like people are saying have you seen the mega porn star movie um so um it i love it actually i think it shows that people are thinking about the film and that's what we really wanted to do and And we wanted to, you know, to, to be whatever discourse or whatever discussion conversation that would

spark from this film. We're, you know, we're, we're that we're, we're happy that that's happening. The movie, I would say defies a genre.

The way we're described, we're talking about it makes it sound quite serious, but it's really fucking hilarious. And I felt like felt like i was curious to hear about the filmmaking decisions you made because you talk about sort of the vistas that you get in texas city it's very beautiful right it's very like terence malick at times you know all this golden light and all this but also thank you i feel like when they're in the homes it's kind of like a foreign comedy it feels like an italian comedy or something know, you're zooming in on these characters' faces and you're making all that.

Am I on point about that? No, you're right on the right track. I mean, I was actually watching a lot of, for the last five or six years, I've been focusing on Italian genre films of the early 70s. And I think you'll see a lot of that in these films and especially the Italian sex comedies

because they, not only for the craft, I mean, yeah, there's the zooms, there's the widescreen, but there's also the approach to the subject matter that was always quite bold and audacious. And in a way had that rollercoaster thing I was looking for that rollercoaster of tones and emotions and, and, you know, and what it was actually doing and, and, you know, and, and what it was actually doing to the audience, you know, uh, uh, having the audience entertained and then having the

audience question why they were entertained and turning on the audience and then turning off the audience right after. And, you know, I was going for that because I saw that in those films and I was, I really appreciated that. And then there was also Drew Daniels who actually worked with Malick. I, I, I, uh, you should know. So if you saw Malick, that's very interesting. Uh, but, but Drew Daniels, um, brought Sugarland Express to the table and, and said, let's look at this. And, you know, I hadn't seen it for 30 years, but I fell back in love with it. And Vilmos Zygmunt

obviously captured that area outside of Houston so beautifully that we we actually do a few nods to that film in Red Rocket I hadn't thought of that but now that you say it makes sense uh let's talk about Simon yeah um the story has been told a little bit about how he came to be a part of this but I'd love to hear it from you because he's kind of mind-blowing I don't think anybody would ever see this coming if they're familiar with his previous roles or previous work so like how did you guys i just you know i've i've had my eyes on him for like two and a half decades like really approximately the same age so i remember when he premiered on or when he you know showed up on mtv back in the day mtv raps um and over the years just sort of resurfacing you know every showed up on MTV back in the day, MTV raps. Um, and over the years, just sort of resurfacing, you know, every couple of years and continuously entertaining me and making me laugh.

And it was when, uh, you know, the scary movies and the dirt and dirt nasty and, and all of those things, but then the vine years and the social media stuff. And the fact that he was embracing that even at his age and embracing social media and putting himself out there and making me laugh all the time. And I remember when I, right after Florida Project, when we were entertaining the ideas of what should we do next? And we broke the story for Red Rocket. I texted my producer one of Simon's Vine videos.

And I said, if we use, if we ever make Red Rocket, we're using this guy. And so he's been on my mind for quite a while. Yeah. And I just was always wondering why the industry didn't offer him meatier, juicier roles. Because I knew I could see, I just always could see potential, major potential. I think there's a lot of amazing casting in the film,

but Susanna Son, I think, is going to jump out to a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's obviously a very complicated role to play and a complex character. How do you go about casting someone like that? Well, she came from,

basically from street casting, meaning my wife and I saw her in the lobby of the Arclight Hollywood two years before we shot Red Rocket. And there was something about her. You know, we were just drawn to her. It was this like magnetic thing where she puts that out there. She has that it quality that is undefinable, but it says you're a star. And you can see that person being up on screen for two hours. So when that happens,

because we're independent filmmakers and, hey, you never know whether you'll have the money to reach out to agents and what sort of budgets you have, you're always in that street casting mode. And we exchanged information with her. We discovered after the fact that she had already had an Instagram presence. And the whole reason she was in Hollywood is because she had come from the Pacific Northwest only nine days earlier to pursue acting. So we just kept our eyes on her. And we did keep in touch maybe through some DMs over the two years, but not many. And then Red Rocket rolled around and I said, okay, I already have Strawberry Cast. I mean, that's an easy one. Susie from two years

ago at the Arclight. So I called her up and I offered her the role and she goes, I've been waiting two years for this call. So it all worked out. It all worked out. And she brought so much. I mean, so much. She's a miracle for us because she's the reason why NSYNC is in the film as well. We discovered that she was an amazing singer and she taught piano. So we said, we're going to put her talent on display and write the scene for her. And then it was all about like finding what song would work contextually. And so that led to NSYNC. So yeah, she's great. She's just fantastic and I can't wait to see her star just rise all the way. It feels like it will because there's just something about her being able to retain agency despite the complicated and

kind of dark aspect of their relationship. Oh yeah, thank you. She was really great at just making this complex character, fleshing this complex character out on state on screen. So you mentioned you, you met her in the Arclight lobby. You're, you're a very avid film watcher. You're a true cinephile. I follow you on Letterboxd. You're, you're, you're very impressive in that respect. I'm wondering, this is kind of a two-part question, but the first part is how are you feeling about putting a movie out into movie theaters right now?

You know, as somebody who loves the theater-going experience. You know, it's obviously risky for distributors, but we are seeing that, you know, films are, that the audiences are coming back and audiences are happy to be back. There are some people who are not going to be comfortable and that's totally fine. That's 100% valid. So what I say when I'm out there on social media, I'm like, come and see my movie on the big screen if you feel comfortable, of course. But the great thing about A24 and what they've done with my film is that they really knew that I cherish the theatrical experience. And I'm also

really trying to support independently owned theaters right now. They went through hell with COVID. And so I'm trying to put that out there too. So getting people to know that the theaters truly need our help. And A24 has been really great about giving me a nice theatrical window. So it's not day and date. It's not going to be available

on home entertainment for two months. So the only way to see the film is on the big screen. And I'm really happy about that. It shows that they cherish the theatrical experience too. And it elevates the film in many ways. It elevates the importance of the film to have the way that you put it out there and present it to the world. And it's, yeah, I could talk about this for a long time.

Well, I know. I kind of want to talk to you about it, but I also want to ask you a couple of other things. For sure. Specifically, you've made primarily films with smaller budgets very independent productions yeah does your scale for success change now because of the climate in in the business like is that are you going to be closely following the box office performance of a movie like this i'm very closely following the performance of say, like the cruise pizza, you know? Um, yeah, I've even heard PCA say, it seems like we have to make

films bigger now, you know, we have to make films bigger because they, I don't think people will pay for mumblecore anymore in the theater when, you know, they can see it on their 4k, uh, monitors at home. So, you know, there is, yeah their 4k monitors at home so you know there is yeah there's that pressure of perhaps adapting to our new climate but then there's also like the pushback that i feel i'm like pushing back i'm like i want to see you know these i want to see films that are that medium budget level made for adults with adult themes. We don't see this stuff as much anymore. And I would certainly support it. And I know there are other people who would support it in theaters.

We're just dealing with a pandemic now. You know, that's the big monkey wrench, the pandemic. And I'm hoping that we're all hoping, obviously, that things are over quickly. But I'm hopeful. I am hopeful that there are the cinephiles who will continue to support the type of films that I make. I've noticed that when you're logging a film, you'll often identify how you watched it. And a lot of times it will be on a Blu-ray from Arrow or something like that. But I also feel like a lot of people

must have seen tangerine on netflix you know it's like they're probably true there must be this extraordinary amount of exposure from these other services like do you have it do you have any anxiety about the kind of the way that people find your work or work like this no no if they find it they find it and and however you know i ended i i know that some people discovered, I think Abel Ferrara talked about how he discovered 2001 for the first time on VHS. I get it. It's like I totally get that it can have the same impact. I guess I don't want to abandon the old ways of, you know, film exhibition, just because we have a new one, just like you can't abandon cellulite, cellulite, just because you have digital. It's like, these are there. Isn't

there room for all, you know, um, I know it comes down to the bottom dollar, you know, um, it comes down to, you know, money when it comes to, when it comes to distribution, sometimes I get it. Yeah. I don't even know how to answer your question except for like, it's something that's on my mind. It's something that I think about all the time. It's something about how, it's how I think about my future films, but, but I'm also the type that I shoot myself in my foot a lot too. Like meaning like they've asked me like, what's next?

And yeah, I could probably wrangle some more recognizable talent right now. I could maybe, I don't know. With, you know, having done, Willem getting a supporting nom and whatever, these films getting some attention, I could probably get some more recognizable actors in my films and which would help initial box office.

But then I can't sleep at night because I haven't made the film I want to make. I want to make the film with fresh faces. I want to work with non-professionals. Sometimes my whole next film may not have one recognizable name in it. So, you know, so there's that too. I'm a self-saboteur. It seems like you have this incredible awareness of the arc and trajectory of not just movies, but the careers of filmmakers too. And I can, I can almost feel you like

battling with what your persona and understanding of you as a filmmaker will be 50 years from now. Like, is that overreaching to suggest that? Well, I do look at other filmmakers' careers and pick and choose the positive aspects. I look at PTA as the way that he always has a personal vision and final cut probably, I don't know, but I think he does. And the way he puts the films out into the world. I only want 70 millimeter exclusive, you know,

engagements at one theater. That's really great. I looked at that as like real inspiration. I looked at Jarmusch as, you know, owning his own IP and owning his negative and also his personal vision that has lasted a career. And I try, yeah, I, I do look at other filmmakers for inspiration career wise. But I never kind of like, I do, there is one thing, there is one thing,

you know, how Tarantino talks about a filmography and how the importance of a filmography. I do, I, I do consider that quite important and I don't want weak links. I don't want... And so that's why I don't want to become a director for hire or jump onto a franchise because I would like to have a body of work that's consistent and respected. I usually end every episode of this show by asking a filmmaker, what's the last great thing they've seen? But you watch so much.

I kind of wanted to get a feel for some of your pandemic, either discoveries or revivals or anything that you saw that you really clicked with. Sure. Well, as you know, I do. You mentioned I watch a lot of Blu-rays. And right now we're in the golden age. You wouldn't think so. But a golden age of...

You can see right over my shoulder, Sean. Oh, there you go. Yeah, physical media, because there's so many older films that are being restored and re-released into the world in ways that you've never seen. It's like you're watching these films for the first time, with 4K scans from the original negative and these really wonderful boutique labels doing this, Severin, Vinegar Syndrome, and of course, Criterion and all. So I'm loving that. I'm loving that. And I'm finding a lot of, there are a lot of discoveries for me.

I'm just going to, I'm looking at, I'm literally looking at my letterbox diary right now. Do you want to, oh, I saw, I saw recently in the theaters, I saw Jockey, which I thought was a really special independent that I hope gets a lot of attention. It reminded me a lot of my earlier films and the passion and the heart that I tried to put into those films. I saw that in Jockey, very moved by it. And I think, yeah, so I'd recommend that. And then also in terms of what I've watched at home,

like an older film that I just recently discovered or something. Tough to choose. Tough to choose. Tough to choose. Well, while I'm looking through this titan is also one of my favorites of the year you know the the palm door winner uh amazing movie but um you know sometimes i just jump on a on a um on a film director and decide i'm going to spend you know the next week or two going through the film director's filmography.

And just recently I discovered a Dutch filmmaker by the name of Noce van Brackel. And she is not very well known, but should be well known. She started off as Verhoeven's AD on Turkish Delight and then made three very important films. I feel they're very important. The debut, 1977, A Woman Like Eve, 1979, and Cool Lakes of Death, 1982. Three gorgeous films

that I think people should check out. Those are fantastic recommendations. Sean, thank you for doing the show. Congrats on Road Rocket. Thanks so much. Thank you to Sean Baker. Thank you to Amanda. Thank you, of course, to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. Later this week, we've got two things coming. One, a very special treat that I'm not going to spoil, but we are dabbling in the history of a movie that we love. So stay tuned for that. And then later this week, Amanda and I will be joined by Rob Mahoney,

and we're talking about The Matrix Resurrections and the work of the Wachowskis. And let me just say, I've been deep in Wachowski of late. I'm bathing in the Wachowski oeuvre. How are you feeling about that, Amanda? What a week it's been for you. I'm excited to talk about the Matrix movies. And also I'm just here to provide emotional support and, you know, real world connection for you. Thank you as always. We'll see you soon on The Big Picture.