The Big Picture - 'Star Wars' Goes Marvel, 'Judy' Goes for Oscar, and J.Lo Goes Running to the Super Bowl | The Big Picture

Episode Date: September 27, 2019

Sean and Amanda break down a busy news cycle, including Jennifer Lopez's Oscars-related decision to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show and Marvel guru Kevin Feige turning his attention to the 'Star Wars' franchise (1:20). Then, they look at Renée Zellweger's comeback vehicle 'Judy,' a biopic that feels too familiar despite its star's best efforts (29:03). Then director Daniel Scheinert stops by to talk about his poignantly weird ode to a pair of dumbasses living in Alabama (59:40). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Daniel Scheinert Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, guys? It's Liz Kelley. Next week, the Ringer Podcast Network is debuting a new podcast with Vampire Weekend bandmates Chris Thompson and Chris Baio called The Road Taken. Here's a quick trailer with more info. Hello, friends. Welcome to the trailer for The Road Taken with CT and Baio. I'm Baio, a.k.a. Chris Baio.

I've watched Chris bring his sunny positivity and shredding bass lines to stages all around the world for the past 13 years in the band Vampire Weekend. Chris Baio. who experience all the thrills and boredom that entails. To help us process our own experiences along the way, we'll be having conversations with peers, idols, and maybe a rando or two. The Road Taken with CT and Bayo, part of the Ringer Podcast Network, coming soon on all podcast platforms. I'm with you rain or shine I'm gonna love you, I'm gonna love you

I'm gonna love you, come rain or come shine I'm Sean Fennessey I'm Amanda Dobbins And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show happening somewhere over the rainbow. Why did you write? Now I'm like, I'm emotional already. You're already emotional. I'm making a joke about the rainbow because we're going to be talking about the film Judy

and biopics and Renee Zellweger. Later in the show, I'll also have an interview with the director, Daniel Scheinert, who has a hilarious new movie called The Death of Dick Long coming up. And it's also a hilarious interview. But first, we're going to talk about a lot of movie news. There's a lot going on in the world of movies right now. It's a grab bag. It's a grab bag.

A grab bag conversation. A few days ago, I thought, geez, are we really going to be able to squeeze blood from the Judy Stone for 30 to 45 minutes? And since that time, we've had a few things come across our desk. First and foremost, you don't really care that much because you don't care about the movie Clue, but I do. And hot off of his Emmy win, Jason Bateman is rebooting Clue along with Ryan Reynolds. Amanda, do you care? I think this is a good idea. I actually, I mean, if we're going to do reboots and, you know, in this world that we're living in, I think

that Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds doing kind of like an arch meta reboot of Clue is funny. I would be interested in it. I mean, I do like murder mysteries, and I think I'm resistant to like the 80s campiness of the original Clue. So perhaps they'll bring the energy that I'm looking for. Do you think so in the original Clue film, Tim Curry plays the butler who is sort of the central figure of the film. Do you think that a Clue movie needs a butler? And if it does, is Ryan Reynolds going to be that butler? You think it'll be Ryan Reynolds and not Bateman himself? I don't know. Bateman is directing. He's the auteur of Hasbro or Parker Brothers or who makes Clue? I'm not sure. Yeah. But he's also the auteur of Ozark and is also in that. That's true. That's true. That's true. I'm not sure.

He strikes me as a Professor Plum. Okay. And then Reynolds, I guess he can't be the butler. He has to be Colonel Mustard. Oh, he'd be a strong Colonel Mustard. If people want to cast Clue, just add AK Dobbins on Twitter. Just send your recommendations to her and feel free to send them to me as well. Another thing that just got announced is that Jennifer Lopez is performing at the halftime show of the Super Bowl.

Yes, she is. And it's notable that the Super Bowl happens right before the Oscars happens. And I believe voting will still be active during the time of the Super Bowl. And boy, she's running. She's running as hard as anyone has ever ran before. She's running for an Oscar and also just for world dominance at this point, which she's had for a long time.

And I think that we have not really appreciated all of the many things that Jennifer Lopez can do. And it seems like she's really just seizing all the opportunities. I was wondering a lot the other day, when is she and Alex Rodriguez actually getting married? And do you think it will be before the Oscars? So you're telling me they're not married?

They're engaged, but they're not married. But they are going to have a giant wedding that is going to be some of the greatest celebrity content of my lifetime. Should they get married at the Oscars? I'm just saying anything's on the table at this point. I would watch that. I would too. Do you think she's worthy? Anything's on the table at this point. I would watch that. I would too. Hmm.

I don't know. Do you think she's worthy? Do you think they're worthy of the kind of standalone, hour-long ABC wedding special? Do you think the world would tune into that? I would love to see it. It would also just be directed by Alex Rodriguez, which is just something I want to see. Okay. We'll have to wait and see. But, man, I really think we're going to have so much Jennifer Lopez in our life for the next four months.

Here's my concern. Is it too much? Could be. Is performing at the Super Bowl just kind of, I want it so bad, Oscars campaigning that the Academy might even be resistant? Or not even resistant to, but like, well, she's at the Super Bowl. She doesn't really need us. I genuinely don't know. Overexposure is a tactic that is discussed quite frequently, not just the films, but of stars. And also if you're working

hard to train and practice for your performance at the Super Bowl, one, I don't think she's going to be stripping at the Super Bowl. So it's not, there's not going to be overt reference to hustlers. Two, that's time not spent kissing babies in the Academy, which is something she's going to have to do. And she doesn't have the same... She can do both. I think if anyone can, it's Jennifer Lopez, yes. We ask so much of Jennifer Lopez. We do.

Doesn't she ever just sit down on the couch and catch up with Ozark? No, I don't think so. That's why she's 50 and Jennifer Lopez. Those are not her priorities. All right, this won't be the last time we talk about J-Lo here on The Big Picture. Two trailers came out that are very important to my interest. Yeah.

One is called Uncut Gems, which will be a high holiday here at The Ringer when that film is released. We'll be talking about quite a bit. And then The Irishman, which premieres today,

September 27th, at the New York Film Festival. And I watched both of these trailers and I rejoiced in them. Even though I've already seen Uncut Gems, I think I watched the trailer like seven Festival. And I watched both of these trailers and I rejoiced in them. Even though I've already seen Uncut Gems, I think I watched the trailer like seven times. That's great.

Did you watch the trailers, Amanda? I didn't watch the trailers. You set me up. But it's not because I'm not interested in either of these movies. I'm very interested in both of these movies. I look forward to seeing them. But I'm already going to see them for sure.

Both for professional obligations because I do this podcast with you, against my better judgment. And then also because I'm a curious person and I love cinema and I want to see these major motion picture events. So I'm going to see them. So I don't need all this stuff spoiled for me in the trailer.

So I'm not watching the trailer. There was a time in my life when I thought that that was a good approach to things. And that time is over. I feel the need to see all of these things as early as I possibly can. The movies or the trailers? Both. I want to be deeply informed, but I respect what you're talking about. And I understand that like if you watch Uncut Gems, there are going to be some things in that trailer. And you know, Bobby Wagner, you can say for sure, like, do you feel like anything was spoiled significantly for you just by watching it for two minutes? Absolutely not.

It was kind of incoherent in terms of plot. I didn't really understand what was going on other than the fact that I've read about it on IMDb. Yeah, sure. But I'm not talking about I don't want them to spoil the major reveal of the spy plot or whatever. I know that there's not a spy plot in this movie. That's Uncut Gems 2. It's not like Stranger Things, which A, I don't care about, and B,

which is trying to preserve some, like, fucking monster mythology. It's... There is increasingly the movie that you actually watch in theaters or at home, like the actual piece of art, and then there is, like, the movie that you watch online, and the memeing, and all of the experience,

and that latter part is really fun memeing and all of the experience. And that latter part is really fun, but it does screw with expectations. It is kind of its own beast that's really divorced from the thing itself. And I don't know. It's really fun, actually, when you go into a movie and you're like, wow, I had no idea that this is what it's about. You and I saw a movie last night that we'll talk about later, but I was not aware of many of the plot elements in that movie. You know, it's a good point. I definitely, the movie you're talking about is Pain and Glory, and it's a Pedro Almodovar's movie. And I also did not watch the trailer of that movie and didn't read anything about it. And I was happy that I did. And it's good to still have those pure experiences. But we care about trailers a lot at The Ringer,

I think because a lot of us were raised on them. And I think that the relationship that you have to a trailer, and of course this sounds quite silly because they're commercials. That's really all they are. They're promotional materials. But I think we believe in the kind of artistry of a great trailer. And Chris Ryan has written about this. We did a whole bracket about this a couple of years back. When we were talking about Jennifer Lopez a few weeks ago,

and I was revisiting U-Turn, I was revisiting the trailer to U-Turn before re-watching the movie, and I loved that trailer as a kid. I don't know why. Maybe it's the music in it. Maybe it's just the way that the dialogue is cut. But there was something about it that, I don't know, enchanted me as a 15-year-old. And I think that trailers can still do that. Now, the question for me, for you is, once you've seen the movies, will you go back and watch the trailers or you're like, I don't need that? Yes, of course. And then once I've seen them, I will also participate in like uncut gems memes times a thousand, you know, which is, it's not that I don't want to be a part of that experience. And it's also not that I,

I acknowledge and am affected by the artistry of trailers. I agree that there are really good ones. Did Social Network win our trailer bracket? I think so. I hope so, because if not, I disown it. But I also enjoy the community that kind of builds up around these types of movies. But I just, and I also think they're really necessary because you got to get people excited about movies before they come out or else they will not see them and then they die a quiet death. So it's like great that people are actually excited about marketing, even though that is just like a dystopian sentence that I just said.

It's a personal thing where I'm already going to see them. I know about them. I know what they are. I know I'm going to see them. So I'm just going to wait. The winner of our movie trailer bracket, which was a hell of a bracket, I got to say, as brackets go, was Inception. I have no comment.

Second place was The Social Network. Whatever. The final four was Social Network, Inception, The Force Awakens, and The Wolf of Wall Street. Now, The Wolf of Wall Street trailer. Very good. Fucking rules. Yeah. That is also a piece of art. I mean, you could argue that he just like all his movies are just trailer style.

And he invented trailers. That's just shame on you for blaspheming Marty on the day of his. In a great way. Premiere of his film. But just like that energy and the I want to be a part of this. Bobby also is citing to us that the Top Gun 2 trailer this year, Top Gun Maverick, was similarly had people feeling kinetic. And I literally just like walked through the halls of like the ringer office screaming like, let's fucking go about the Top Gun 2 trailer. A real thing that happened.

But that like Top Gun already exists. So trailers, you're not going to spoil anything to me about Top Gun 2, except that like Tom Cruise is still Maverick and there's going to be like a scene on the beach and then he's going to have some problems with authority and then there's going to be some fly-in and then they're going to play that theme song really loud and I'm just going to be jacked and pumped and ready to go in the words of Kevin O'Connor.

So for me, it's about... There's something exciting about going into a movie if you don't know anything at all. And it's like increasingly rare. And it is an approach that applies to basically no one. I completely understand that point of view. For those of you who have no idea what we're talking about, Uncut Gems is the Safdie brothers' new film

starring Adam Sandler. We haven't given any context for this. I think a lot of people did watch the trailer and know about it, but a lot of people also operate like you do. And also a lot of people don't aggressively track the release dates of trailers, so they don't know what things are. The Irishman is, of course, Martin Scorsese's reunion with Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, and also Al Pacino telling the tale of a man who worked for Jimmy Hoffa that may or may not be apocryphal, which is an interesting tidbit about The Irishman. Both of those movies were among my most anticipated.

They're probably both top five for the year. Uncut Gems certainly lived up. The Irishman, we'll just have to wait and see. I suspect we'll be talking about it again really soon. I'll be honest, The Irishman I also just didn't watch because I already thought I watched that trailer and I was like, oh, another one? There was a teaser. These two trailers do two different things. The Uncut Gems trailer just gets you jacked for the movie. It doesn't, as Bobby said, it doesn't really give away any plot.

It just shows you the faces of all the crazy people that are in it that include Kevin Garnett and Mike Francesa and The Weeknd. Yeah, but I already knew that because you already spoiled it for me. So now I'm just trying to go in as pure as possible and experience the world of the Safdie brothers with Uncut Gems. I'm very excited. The Irishman does something different, though.

It gives you a lot of the plot of the film, which, you know, take it or leave it. Never mind. I was going to start on my whole Goodfellas thing. But anyway, it would be useful to understand the plot of the movie for me, probably. Amanda, the biggest news in movies this week, I think, is undoubtedly the fact that baseball cap wearing Kevin Feige is headed to a galaxy far, far away. And he is taking his talents to Star Wars. I already see this look of mild resignation on your face. But let me just say, I find this to be simultaneously the most obvious and inspired thing that Disney has done in a long time. Here's why. It's evident that there is Star Wars fatigue, and there will be a significant more Star Wars fatigue in the

aftermath of The Mandalorian and the aftermath of The Rise of Skywalker. Star Wars, the whole Lucasfilm unit, Kathleen Kennedy and everybody who runs that group, has obviously been, I think, struggling to figure out how to expand people's interest in Star Wars after Rogue One, which did very well but had a very complicated production process, and Solo, which is really one of the more fraught productions in the last five years in movies, which included fire directors and a recut and poor casting. No offense to your boy Alden. Where is he, my boy? I seem to recall you enjoying him. I really liked him in Hail Caesar,

and then I was out very early that he was the wrong choice for Solo because of a Vanity Fair video in which young actors do the dinner party monologue from Clueless, and which is, you should look that up. Maybe it's W video. Anyway, and he is just not having fun delivering the dinner party monologue from Clueless, and that was enough for me. He didn't seem to be having very much fun doing Han Solo either, which is part of the problem with Solo. Nevertheless, Star Wars, simultaneously the most powerful property

in popular culture over the last 40 years and also weirdly imperiled because they may have overexposed themselves in some ways. So,

in what I assume is a chance to reboot, and we don't know yet what Rian Johnson is going to do with his proposed trilogy of movies. We don't know what

Star Wars looks like on Disney+. We don't know what the future of these movies is going to be after Episode IX, except that Kevin Feige is going to do with his proposed trilogy of movies. We don't know what Star Wars looks like on Disney+. We don't know what the future of these movies is going to be after Episode IX, except that Kevin Feige is going to make one. And if I had to guess, make a bunch, because what Kevin Feige does really well is build serialized worlds. And I don't know, just generally speaking, do you think this is a good thing for movies to have this person

who is such a master of the flattening of culture take over the other hugest thing in culture i mean i think the word choice that you just made of like star wars is imperiled is fascinating because perhaps from like a future franchising ip IP megalith sense, it's imperiled. But it's also fucking Star Wars. Yeah, it's fine. And they make so much money, you know? Yeah, Star Wars is fine. It's imperiled if you expect it to be generating new excellent things and money.

Well, you know, for the rest of time. I think, honestly, it would still be generating money for the rest of time. They have like a Star Wars theme park and they can charge whatever they want for it. And they have figurines. But it's only imperiled in terms of its future spinoff power. So in that sense, sure, as a corporate decision, I guess it makes perfect sense for Kevin Feige to do it. It's like the safest pair of hands in order for him to just to fix everything that went wrong and to have some just guaranteed multi, probably platform. I assume he'll do both movies and TV and just kind of create,

at least steer the rest of the world in the way that he has done for Marvel. And he's done that successfully. So yeah, it makes sense. Is it good or bad for movies? I don't know. I don't really know either. I mean, I'm certainly a bigger admirer of Marvel than you are. And I'm a bigger admirer of Star Wars than you are. I think a lot of the panic, which you and I talked about with Wesley a few weeks ago on the show, is oriented around, is this the only thing that we're going to have? And someone like Feige coming in to work on Star Wars indicates to me that there is a style, an approach that things need to maximize profits. And Star Wars, while it has been doing well in the obvious sense of things,

like, for example, Star Wars The Last Jedi is considered a controversial movie. There are a lot of people who hated it. It was still very successful. It made $1.3 billion. But it did not make $2 billion, which is how much The Force Awakens made.

And so $700 million is a lot of money. And the difference between those two earnings, I think, has Disney a little bit concerned. And subsequently, Solo made $350 million, which is not a lot of money. That's worldwide. That's not good for a Star Wars movie, especially because those movies usually cost somewhere between $250 and $300 million to make in the first place. So imperiled is too strong a word, but there are shareholders to think about, I think is what Disney is thinking. And they need to bring in their biggest gun to reset. And it feels like that's what they're doing. And I think if that means that young people observe the strategies that Kevin Feige employs, like that

may be the most influential culture that we have, which means that all the culture that we're going to get 10, 20, 30 years from now will all be influenced by all that culture. I'm not trying to go galaxy brain here, but there is something fascinating about that. Yeah, but like that was already true. Like that's, I mean, it's, it's, this is just a confirmation of the world that we're living in and what corporations expect of movies and producers and what fans or like quote people who go to see movies expect of like their beloved IP and it's and what is considered a quote success and what someone like gets attached to in terms of content and how they're willing to consume it I mean that has been the case for five years now.

I think, like, this is just a confirmation that Kevin Feige was so successful doing it that now everyone's like, oh, that's the way. And one of the funny things about it is I think one thing that Marvel in particular has taken from Star Wars is every character is just kind of a riff on Han Solo. They're not riffs on Luke Skywalker.

They're riffs on Han Solo. They're all kind of jokey heroes who are saving the day, but also they're kind of screwing up. And the idea of somebody, it is very snake-eating, its tail,

is ultimately what I'm saying. And Kevin Feige is not a writer and he's not a director and his sensibility is unique and has been powerful, but we don't actually know

like really, really what that sensibility is. So how it'll fit into this world is an unknown, but it's a fascinating state of the business kind of a story to me. And not to you. No, no, it is fascinating. It's just kind of like, I feel the same way as I did when you were like,

can you believe that they're making a new Matrix? And what was the other news that came out? And you were like, should I be having an existential what was the other news that came out? And you were like, should I be having an existential crisis about the movies? And I was just like, well, you know, welcome. But this has been Disney's model for so long at this point that it's not surprising that they're just consolidating, which is really what they are. They're just consolidating all of the best minds and the people who are working on their giant money-making projects and being like, okay, we put all our resources here. One last thing about Star Wars. Do you find it weird that we don't really know anything about

The Rise of Skywalker? Well, no. It's out in two and a half months. But they know that people are going to see it regardless because they want to know what happens. So again, to the conversation we were having earlier, why would you tell people what's going to happen if you want them to come see it? I think like Star Wars is probably the only franchise at this point where just awareness is grandfathered in and I want to know what happens. It's like everyone else, you do have to start marketing six months in advance and like maybe give away half the plot and you know create some attachment between like a child and a toy before the movie is even on the screen but I think Star Wars is the exception to the rule. Let me pitch a theory at you. You may think it's total

oh you don't think I know what happens yet? No, no, no, no. Well, we know that there is history of these most recent Star Wars movies going through a lot of changes. Like the original script for The Force Awakens is so significantly different from the movie that they ended up making. So many side plots got cut out. So many, you know, Chris Ryan is always referring to that famous moment where the movie was supposed to start with, I think, Luke's lightsaber falling from the sky and landing on a planet. Okay. Which is not what happened. But it's not so much that.

It's more that, and I mentioned this a few weeks ago when we were talking about Marvel 2. You know, no Marvel movies for the rest of the year. There's going to be this long stretch of time, the longest stretch of time we've had since 2008 between Marvel movies. And this episode 9 signals the end of a certain of the skywalker saga of star wars whatever that will mean and we just accept as a fait accompli that this is what movies are and that movies now have to be these event things that you're talking about with a high level of awareness and we can't get people super duper excited about anything unless they have that but it's also possible to me that starting next year is the start of a new and unknown phase. And it doesn't mean that superhero movies are going away forever or Star Wars movies are are not movies, that something else is going to have to emerge to, I don't know, embolden, empower,

embiggen the theatrical experience because we've had such a long period of time with these movies. Now, maybe that's optimistic. Maybe the thing that comes in behind it is even worse or less interesting. But I have this gut feeling that I can't rationalize necessarily that the way that everything played out with Endgame and the way that they told that story, which was regardless of how you feel about Marvel movies, like expertly executed. And the Star Wars thing, which is making an effort to kind of put a bow on this most recent last seven or eight year run of Star Wars movies, is literally the end of something and might even generationally be the end of something for movie going. I mean, I think that's right from a character perspective as well. Right. They're getting rid of in Endgame.

They got rid of Iron Man and to an extent Cap and these people that they had been kind of building a decade worth of these characters that they'd been building a decade worth of investment in. And that's true. I assume that the Skywalker saga will be, it's literally the end of the Skywalkers. So they are restarting with new characters and kind of, they have to, it's reset and you have to assume that how people relate to the reset will be different. Just because, as you said, the way we watch movies is different this year than it was to the reset will be different just because as you said the way we watch movies will is different this year than it was last year and will be different next year and like I maybe there will be something new I think it'll almost certainly be IP driven I can't imagine a world in which someone's like here is a new thing that you've never heard of that has like 50 characters and requires 10 to 15 years of investment on the big screen.

And also you need to spend a lot of your extracurricular time reading about the sub parts of this so that you can bring, you know, I think it's really hard to create something from scratch in the world that we live in just because there's like so much else that is fighting for attention. And I think that's honestly why Disney is like, okay, well, we'll just give Star Wars to Kevin Feige because it's the one thing we have that's still iterative and is still guaranteed to get people's attention. So, you know, I think you're right.

I think it'll be different. I think it's the end in a lot of ways. I don't know that we're suddenly going to invent like a new genre and a golden age of cinema next year as a result. No, and I'm not promising that at all. It's certainly possible that things are much worse. You know, that like we have clearly taken Guardians of the Galaxy 2 for granted. I feel like we're always such negative nancies about it.

Like worse is, I mean, it may be terrible for the business and movies that we like do not have a greater chance. But, you know, if Ken Feige wants to oversee a Star Wars thing, people like Star Wars. I'm going to see the Skywalker one, even though I can never remember the title. Can you just have shorter titles? But it's fine. I want to know what happens. I do too. Star Wars, great. There's a movie in pre-production now called The Micronauts. Dean DeBlois, who has made the How to Train Your Dragon animated films is working on it. This was just announced earlier this week.

This is a kind of example of a thing that you were just trying to describe, which is like, could we come up with something? Now, The Micronauts was a toy line in the 80s, which was adapted into a comic book by Marvel, but was born of the toy manufacturer. And they've been trying to find a way to make this a movie for a bunch of years. That's always a great sign when you haven't been able to turn something into a movie for 35 years.

I know, but reading about this film, which, and Dean DeBlois is a really good filmmaker. And if you like animated movies, the How to Train Your Dragon movies are actually really well done. And I think that weirdly, that new How to Train Your Dragon film is a sleeper and best animated at the Oscars this year. But reading that kind of made me feel bad about the world. I was like, this guy who's a brilliant, who created this series that was hugely successful for animated films is looking for his next thing after closing the chapter on his story. And he's going to the Micronauts, which is a toy line. I mean, it's like not what you want, but I'm thinking back to Wesley's conversation.

There has been a version of this in every decade and every generation since movies were made. And I think every generation has worried about technological advances and how does that affect how movies are made. You know, I don't—if you're excited that there is going to be a Star Wars movie by or, you know, with the blessing of Kevin Feige, that's great. That's, you know, it's a hard world out there. What are we going to do? Every generation gets the micronaut it deserves. Let's take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsor.

And when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about Judy and the five biopics you meet in heaven. Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by M&M's Hazelnut. Watching a movie is nothing without a bag of your favorite treats. And what a better way to take your treats to the next level than with the new M&M's Hazelnut Spread Chocolate Candies. As I sit across from Amanda Dobbins, she is currently inhaling a bag of M&M's Hazelnut Spread.

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into cultural items like Fonzie's leather jacket and Dorothy's ruby slippers, where we'll of course be talking about Judy Garland on this podcast and Dorothy. Along with National Museum of American History curators and celebs, Asif traces just how these special objects came to define our culture. So listen and subscribe to Lost at the Smithsonian right now in Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast app. Amanda, we're back and we're here to talk about Judy. Judy, of course, I think is the first true, authentic Oscar bait movie of the year.

What do you think about that? Well, it's an Oscar bait performance. There's a key distinction here. Yes. This movie is directed by a man named Rupert Gould, and it stars Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland. And it tells the story of her life, I guess, in two parts. Lightly as a young woman making Wizard of Oz and learning at MGM how to be a child star,

but mostly at the end of her life, living in London, performing nightly at a space called the Talk of the Town, and kind of coming apart at the seams. And, you know, in this conversation, we're going to talk about the kinds of biopics that Hollywood likes to make. This one was very familiar to me. I think you and I agree that this movie is not very good. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's extremely, extremely formulaic biopic,

which is not always a bad thing, in my opinion. And I'd like to talk more about the format of the biopic at some point. But, you know, it's surface level of a lot of things. I'm always like when you're doing more than five flashbacks to childhood and it's really on the nose explaining all of the themes and what's gone wrong. I'm resistant to that usually. It's extremely pained by numbers. It is. And it's somehow both way too overt and way too subtle.

Judy Garland is... Oh, I'm curious to know what your relationship is to Judy Garland. Because obviously, I'm sure you, as I did, grew up watching The Wizard of Oz. The Wizard of Oz is probably my first movie memory. That was a movie that was on in my house all the time growing up. And I loved that movie. I still love that movie. But I don't think I really had much of a relationship with her beyond that movie until I got into my 20s and my 30s.

I wasn't shown A Star is Born or Meet Me in St. Louis or some of the other kind of big Judy Garland films. And I also was not played those records, you know, that she has a lot of albums, especially in the 50s and the 60s as she's kind of moving through the latter stages of her life. And she's become over the years, you know, she's a gay icon. She's a kind of camp icon. She's obviously a old school Hollywood icon. What is your relationship to Judy Garland? It's funny. I was rewatching clips and I, as you know, and I as I am loathe to share in great detail on this podcast, but I had a bit of a performing arts section of my childhood. I played a lot of instruments. I was, you know, I don't know.

It's what my, I took dance classes. I did the whole thing. Something of a young Judy Garland. No, thankfully. But when you are as immersed in the world of music and dance and to an extent theater as I was, you just know a lot of Judy Garland songs. They just are kind of part of the firmament. And so, you know, Get Happy is something that I've like heard and seen many times. And I know all the songs from Mimi and St. Louis and it's just there I realized that there are a lot of um songs and and performances that are just stored somewhere in the back of my

mind that I've been exposed to at some point and they they just exist to me it's like Judy Garland has always been in the world performing what's your favorite of her, of her output, I guess? Because she's done so many things. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Have yourself a merry little Christmas. Let your heart be light. Right. So I, you know,

I don't know if I made note of this, but the original performance of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is in that movie, Meet Me in St. Louis. Yes, it is. And, you know, I think we think of it now as maybe a Frank Sinatra song or just an old Christmas chestnut. Not me. I think of it as a Judy Garland song. It is a Judy Garland song. I watched it before we did this podcast and instantly started crying. It's unbelievable. And I think it's a good opportunity to talk about what it is that Judy Garland has, which is not describable necessarily,

but she has a powerhouse quality. Next year all our troubles will be miles away. Especially to her singing voice, but even to her acting style, that is not replicable, that is hard to compare to other people. I think if you look at what happens on Broadway in the years to come, like the Ethel Merman types, you can see some shades of Judy Garland, but she is simultaneously this sort of doe-eyed, innocent, and also kind of the strongest woman in the room, like helplessly fragile, but effortlessly powerful at the same time.

She's such a unique star. And her singing voice is bizarre to me. I mean that in a good way. I don't know how one does that. Yeah. I mean, it is a unique, unreplicable gift, which we'll also talk about in the context of Judy, the movie. But Judy Garland is one of those people that makes you realize like, oh, like some people have talent. Some people are stars. Like a star is literally born. And I think she obviously struggled with that a

lot in her lifetime and living up to this incredible gift that she had, or dealing with it, as I guess the case may be. But yeah, man, some things are inexplicable. Yeah. And she obviously is indoctrinated into Hollywood at a very young age. Louis B. Mayer sort of adopts her as his ingenue at MGM. And we learn in the film and elsewhere, if you are anything of a Garland defile, that she quickly develops an addiction to pills. I think she starts taking diet pills as a child to keep her weight down, but also takes a lot of downers to get to sleep because she really has trouble sleeping. So she's on this kind of up and down escalator of the mind throughout her childhood,

which then leads to a lot of awful habits and addictions into her adulthood. And, you know, it's hard to know if the unique energy that she has is informed by this pharmaceutical, I don't know, like it is a kind of an indoctrination. Like it kind of takes over her brain and sometimes when you see her in a movie and I was watching clips of her last night she seems like a little bit wild-eyed. Yeah.

You know and there's something uncontainable about what's going on inside of her that in some ways it makes her an impressive performer and in other ways kind of makes you worried about her. Oh I definitely think you worry about her

and I think that that's kind of over time worrying or concern trolling her as the case may be. It certainly became a part of her personality. Like her off-screen struggles were as much of the myth of Judy Garland as the fact that she could sing. You know, she's like basically our first child star and the first child star that's gone wrong. And she definitely struggled with addiction her whole life.

And if you're on that stuff for that long, it changes your neurological, changes the way you handle things. And also she was tremendously famous from a very young age. And that also really warps your sense of what it is to be in the world. It's, I mean, it's a whopper of a combination. It is. And she, you know, was exposed to a couple of complicated ideas early in her life, which the film kind of touches on. Particularly sort of being set up with Mickey Rooney, the actor that she starred in a lot of films with. And that was very much a kind of a Hollywood sham alignment.

But that clearly warps her sense of love and her sense of connection and romantic relationships. And, you know, she was married five times in her life. She famously kind of married the wrong man many times over. And she's just, she was quite batty in a lot of ways. And not in a bad way, but you can sense like when you're talking about that sort of off-screen persona, there are all these great interviews on shows like Dick Cavett where she's simultaneously this incredibly clever and fun

old school archetype of the Hollywood actress, but also, you know, a little teetering on the edge. You know, there's a scary quality to the energy that she emits. And obviously like her life ends very tragically

and way too soon. She died at 47 years old, which is just terrifying. But she is literally one of the greatest things that Hollywood has ever produced. I mean, she is just an absolutely captivating person. There is a great line in Judy when the man who becomes her fifth husband

is hitting on her and he was like, oh, I didn't know that the greatest entertainer in the world is here. And the Judy character goes, oh, is Frank Sinatra here? Yeah. I mean, it is true that she is certainly at the time was up there with Frank Sinatra in terms of talent and also like exposure. Completely. Yeah. The movie.

Hmm. Let's start with Renee Zellweger. Yeah. I think that's why we're talking about this. It is. It is. Because we're going to be hearing a lot about Renee Zellweger and this performance and her career and her work, I think, for the next four months. If I had to guess, there's been a very subtle earmarking in all four major acting categories right now and I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves but I think the feeling is that she

has this pretty well locked down in the best actress category and in the same way that like we think it's either going to be Brad Pitt or Tom Hanks we've been talking a lot about Jennifer Lopez yeah there's a little bit of a fait accompli aspect to this too and I think that this is a great performance and I think she is turning herself over to the role in a big way. And it's very showy in the way that the Academy likes. It's a transformation. It's a biopic. She does all of her own singing. There's a lot of makeup involved in an effort to make her look like Judy Garland. What did you make of Renee Zellweger's Judy? These are interesting, especially when you're playing someone as theatrical as Judy Garland.

And I went back and watched some of the late period Judy performances because, you know, I remember her like from the movies through the earlier part of her career. But she is really going for it with like a tinge of desperation in the 60s, which I think is true to life. And the movements are a bit jerkier. And there is that kind of wild-eyed look in the eyes that you were talking about. So I think everything that Renee Zellweger is doing is like very true to the source material and very true to the spirit of the character at this moment, which is like six months before the end of her life and a time of like great desperation. It's all that said, it's really hard when you're doing something that theatrical and

you're doing someone else who is very famous. It's it starts to look like an impersonation to me. It's like really does. And it's I think that there is an emotional aspect to Renee Zellweger's performance that is really moving and I grounds it a bit more. So I don't think it's in the range of SNL at all. But it is really hard when you're doing those big, big, jerky movements and a way of talking that is not the way we talk anymore and a style of singing that is not the way anyone sings anymore. You're just kind of like, wow, okay, I can see this performance. I think that's what it is.

You can see the performance. That's such an interesting way to put it. I think a lot of times the Academy and we like to reward things like Daniel Day-Lewis where somebody slips inside of someone and you forget you're watching an actor. You're like, I'm overwhelmed by the way this person does this. And I think men more often are credited with this kind of ability to do this. Sure, except Rami Malek won last year for Bookie Man Rhapsody. And that was straight up SNL impersonation, in my opinion. That's absolutely right. And I think there are, of course, actresses, Meryl Streep being one of them,

who just disappears every time. And you're like, how does she do this every time? But for the most part, I think that the chameleonic Christian Bale, Daniel Day-Lewis kind of a person is more likely to be rewarded. Now, it's possible the Academy is changing a little bit and the Rami Maleks of the world are more likely to be rewarded. The difference between Rami Malek and Renee Zellweger is that Renee Zellweger does sing. Yeah. She does not sound at all like Judy Garland.

No. But she gets points for effort. I give her a lot of points for effort, honestly. As you recall, I think that you should have to sing to win the Oscar. She's actually quite a good singer. I mean, we know that from Chicago,

a film that she was also nominated for Best Actress. And she has a certain kind of character to her voice. It's really, really hard to be compared to Judy Garland singing. I mean, if you go back and listen to some of those records.

Forget your troubles, come on, get happy. Chase your cares away. Maybe we should just hear Get Happy right now, just to get a sense of what she does. The judgment day. The sun is shining, come on, get happy. The Lord is waiting to take your hand.

Shout hallelujah, come on, get happy. We're gonna be going to take your hand. Shout hallelujah. Come on, get happy. We're going to be going to the promised land. Go ahead and cross the river. Wash your sins away in the tide. If you listen to songs like that, you know that, like we said, it's not replicable in any way. And even if you're trained aggressively to sound like Judy Garland, you just can't get there. Does that is that going to be held against her?

I think the film does one very smart thing, which is until the very last scene, which we should talk about. She doesn't do like the really, really big hits. She does actually get happy is in the movie, but it's in a sort sort of, it's performed in the apartment of a gay couple that she meets. That's right. And it's like acapella and she only sings a part of it. So she's never like doing Get Happy and she doesn't do Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Does she, they do the trolley song somewhat? She briefly does the trolley song during her performance.

Do you consider the trolley song like a well-known i i don't identify it with her yeah i identify it with a with american standards but i don't think well that's judy garland's song right um yeah i you're right that they they withhold the the key judy garland tune until the end of the film and i think if you're like a if you are a judy Garland fan and expert, then you can hear, you know what every song in this movie sounds like. But for me even, I didn't know some of the songs that she performed.

So I think that's smart because then you're not instantly in your head, at least comparing the performance. You're right. And the other thing they don't really do is have her sing very many ballads. My favorite Judy Garland performance is It's a New World from A Star is Born. Where we polish up the stars and mountains we move

In a life where all the pleasures we will prove And it's one of the most delicate and beautiful vocal performances you'll ever hear. It's just overwhelmingly good. But that is a song that really only seven or eight people on earth can sing. And Renee Zellweger can't sing it, So they don't try to let her sing it. They don't do The Man Who Got Away either, which is, I mean, which is possibly like the all-time cinematic performance by Julie Garland. So without those songs and the Charlie song is, you know, it's a, it's a bang, bang musical song. It's, it doesn't require that kind of grace. So you're not,

you're not holding it against her necessarily. If you don't want to hear what the end of the movie, turn the podcast off. But like, also, you know what it is. If it against her necessarily if you don't want to hear what the end of the movie turn the podcast off but like also you know what it is if you don't if you don't know how they're going to end a judy garland movie shame on you um you know they end the movie with a very emotional performance of somewhere over the rainbow and i sounds like it got you well this is the thing is that it got me before it started because i knew i was coming and we just got to that moment and i was like oh shit she's about to do Somewhere Over the Rainbow. And they had not played a note and I was crying. It's so hokey though. It's so hokey, but I think that that is like the positive power of the biopic formula.

That I just knew that that beat was coming and I have been trained through a lifetime of knowing that there is like an emotional last moment where someone's life and greatest contribution will be recreated with a lot of money on screen. And I was going to hear somewhere over the rainbow. And I like it just the neurons kicked in. It was like Pavlovian. And then I cried through the whole thing. I did not cry through the whole thing. I found it relentlessly hokey. But I admire the effort, and I know what they were going for. To me, it was symptomatic of kind of the problem with the movie. I think that it's unfair to say what I wanted to see was like a more raw and deep and angry and upsetting version of Judy Garland's life. But I did because I know that that's how it was. And if you read about her life, you know that her life was really fucked up.

And she had a lot of demons. And she really struggled through those last five to ten years. And the movie, it doesn't necessarily pull back on the fact that she struggled with addiction

or was in bad relationships or was in this fight to, you know, stay close to her children. It shows that stuff, but not in any kind of, like, steep way. It does not hold her

at all responsible for, like, any of it. Which, and you know what? She had, like, a very tough life and i think we're all aware of what the uh mgm studio system was like and i believe that she had a very um like archetypal stage mother and her mother does not even appear in the movie which is weird and and you and you can't hold someone like responsible for addiction also. So that said, it's martyrdom in the movie.

And that is... Well, I mean, we're used to that in the film. But it is a particularly soft lens version of Judy Garland. Tell me about Renee Zellweger. Because I find her to be a fascinating movie star figure of our lifetime. There's this wonderful piece in New York Magazine by William Van Meter that I found to be deeply revealing. You mentioned it a couple weeks ago. I hadn't read it until last night.

That was the moment when I was like, oh, okay, so she would like a Best Actress Oscar. And what's notable to me in part about that piece is that William Van Meter clearly has a relationship with Renee Zellweger. They've known each other since 2001, I think, when he first wrote about her. It's Jonathan Van Meter, by the way. Excuse me, Jonathan Van Meter clearly has a relationship with Renee Zellweger. They've known each other since 2001, I think, when he first wrote about her. Yeah. It's Jonathan Van Meter, by the way. Excuse me, Jonathan Van Meter. And you see a person who I would not say has necessarily a lot in common with Judy Garland, but she's also a quirky character. You know, she seems unusual, and she has really been forced through the slipstream of American movie star fame. She certainly has. And the piece acknowledges a lot of that and it talks a lot about

the burden of You Had Me at Hello and the trickiness of Bridget Jones and the complications of people evaluating her face five years ago. She is sort of, she is the example of an actress in plastic surgery and everyone just deciding

this is when we're going to talk about it and say really mean things. That's like through talking about her, we all learned that you don't just get to say whatever you want about how an actress looks, especially as they're aging, even if your physical appearance is a major part of the craft of acting. But yeah, she really was the, I guess guess the guinea pig for lack of a better word on that she was and it's funny because maybe funny is not the right word i don't know what it is you know people slung some very nasty things her way about what she had done to her face or not done to her face and then we saw her a year later or two years later and she looked again just like

a slightly older version of the renee zellweger we all know and love and there was some confusion and some contrition and i in general i think that we have kind of moved on from that moment i thought that the way that she addressed it was polite but not terribly deep in that piece similarly she is a person who was a signal participant in the rise of harvey weinstein all three films that she has nominated for Best Actress or Best Supporting Actress are Weinstein, Miramax films. She was present for a lot of that stuff, not for the misdeeds, but just for those moments in Hollywood history. And she talks about it a little bit in the story. And I thought she reckoned with it a bit. I don't know if there's ever a version of, is anybody reckoning with a problem like this enough? Because it must be enormously complicated to be around for all of that stuff. And she has

identifies herself throughout the story as a person who is outside of Hollywood. You know, she's a real Texas gal. I saw her quite frequently at Telluride at the film festival. You know, she's just wearing jeans and a flannel shirt and a big hat and just kind of walking around being nice to people. And she's a very movie starry but also has a down-home quality that I think we've kind of all always responded to what what else struck you kind of reading about her and thinking about her career again well I think she's obviously using or the movie is using a lot of the last six to ten years of how she was treated by the press and kind of a complicated relationship to fame and she has very she retreated after all of the the plastic surgery stuff and didn't take movies for a while and i the profile it talks a lot about how she liked it took

random undergrad classes and was writing to write and And I believe she wrote a Lifetime pilot that they passed on. She was just kind of exploring life outside of Hollywood and then is now coming back and possibly using the demons of Judy Garland to work through some of her own experiences, which Lord knows that the Academy loves that. So I just thought a lot about it in terms of the pairing of role and person and moment in life. It seems quite teed up. It's a movie about a great artist trying to make a big comeback, starring a great artist making a big comeback. And that's very neat and very cozy and easy to sell. And she's good. You know, she's good.

What else can you say? Like, Renee Zellweger is never bad. She's never been bad in a movie. She's never been anything less than appealing in a movie. So I know you're a huge Bridget Jones fan. Yeah, it was very funny when she was trying to do the Judy Garland talking voice, the cadence. She would slip into, like, Bridget Jones' British cadence sometimes, which I only recognize because I have seen that movie literally 200 times. But I was like, oh, I know where you got that rhythm. Yeah. I've always enjoyed her. She has dabbled in a kind

of transgressive American indie cinema over the years. You know, she was in things like A Price Above Rubies. That was one of the first things she did after Jerry Maguire. She was in Nurse Betty, which is a movie that Van Meter, I think, notably pointed out is a bit underrated and a little lost to time. It's a really strange but fun movie that Neil LaVue directed starring Chris Rock and Morgan Freeman. Cold Mountain is another movie that I feel like is completely forgotten that at the time was considered like maybe the most important movie of the year i i don't know i remember that because that was also when jude law was really important not that he isn't now but that was like jude law is going to be the next brad pitt and he's got a different route it's true he's on the poster of that for that film you know renee zellweger won for cold mountain she has an oscar yeah so the the inevitable nature of this Oscar cycle is kind of interesting to me because she's already got one.

And that shouldn't really necessarily matter. But we talked about how Maggie Smith has a couple already. Yeah. So. But we talked about how Maggie Smith doesn't campaign and Renee Zellweger is campaigning. And there really is like a self-prophecy to the acting categories. People are just like, I will win this. And often everyone else is like, oh, okay, sure. You want this? You're going to do it? Why not? It's like the fake air kissing quality of Hollywood of everyone

just kind of being like, oh, well, I guess it's, you know, I'll just do what this person wants. It's very strange, but she basically just announced, I am running for Oscar. And I know that's like a bit that we do now, but she really did. And I would be shocked if she doesn't win. Manola Dargis in The Times wrote of Judy, this is one of those biopics that tries to encapsulate the sweep and substance of a life by narrowing in on ostensibly representative moments. When she wrote that, I thought of Steve Jobs and Lincoln.

Yeah. Let's just quickly talk about the stages of biopic. Okay. Because there's a certain style to these movies that they hew to. The obvious one is Cradle to Grave, which is, you know, Ray, Malcolm X Malcolm X Ali Evita there's tragedy yeah I think Milk

is probably the single most famous one where the the film sort of builds to the crescendo of of tragedy there's

Impressionistic which is a style I quite like though is very hit or miss that's I'm Not There the Bob Dylan story or last year's Vice

I thought was quite impressionistic Jackie you made a note of which I think is a great example of this and Marie Antoinette also there's Hagiography

which I think we kind of hate Bohemian Rhapsody excuse me excuse me you put Walk the Line in this category and fucking take it back

I like Walk the Line I that's another movie that I wish was just a little bit nastier. Just a little bit more, a little bit darker. Because Johnny Cash had a pretty dark time in his life. And it's a little beatific for me.

I guess so. I mean, I have watched this movie a lot. He spends like a lot of time on those bills. Like a lot. And it's just Joaquin just kind of looking like very confused for at least a third of the movie. By the way, in case you're wondering who we think is going to win Best Actor, the energy is very strong in the world for Joaquin winning for Joker. Just reporting on that scuttlebutt that's been going around. After Hagiography, you know, you mentioned to me two-hander yesterday, which is a very interesting concept.

And I couldn't think of one after you mentioned Julia and Julia. Yeah. But then you mentioned The Queen. Yeah. I really liked The Queen, which I realized that basically every Peter Morgan movie, Frost Nixon, and the one that he did with Bill Clinton, the one that he did. The special relationship. Yeah. And there's even another one that I can't think of now,

but all of the, the Queen is more two equal people. You're getting both Queen Elizabeth and Tony Blair. It also has a bit of the, like, this one week in a person's life

explains everything, which is actually a form of biopic I really like. But Julie and Julia is about one person, what a famous person means to a normal person. And so the normal person is like the lens through which we understand the famous person.

And there's another example of that coming out in 2019. We're going to get to that in one second. There's one other form of these that I think is interesting, which is the unreliable narrator. It's like Catch Me If You Can, A Beautiful Mind, Amadeus. Of all of these, which is your absolute favorite style? Well, I actually had a sixth category, which is, and I mentioned it already, which is like the one week that explains an entire lifetime. I think Judy fits under this.

I think the Queen fits under that. I think you could put a social network in that. Steve Jobs fits in that. You know, I just kind of... Let's call it the snapshot. Yeah. So that's your favorite, the snapshot. Yeah, because it's usually the best screenwriting because they just like have a specific idea about the person and are exploring it through one event. Because I am a nerd, I would go impressionistic because I think it probably gives you the most room to try the most interesting things. Sure. In 2019, here's

a quick list of all of the biopics we've seen. Rocket Man, we discussed on this show. Extremely wicked, shockingly evil, and vile. There can even be biopics of serial killers like Ted Bundy. Fighting With My Family, a movie you have seen. I have seen it. Does this count, though? Because I think a biopic has to be of a famous person.

Paige is very famous to fans of the WWE. Okay. So, yes. Tolkien, which is about J.R.R. Tolkien, one fans of the WWE. Okay. So yes. Tolkien, which is about J.R.R. Tolkien, one of the worst movies I've seen this year. Dolomite is My Name, a movie that you and I just saw. I should mention, we've just seen a lot of movies together lately. Just maybe too many movies together.

Gosh, there's so much happening in the world right now. I don't know why you had to make that rude. I thought you were going to be like, it's a nice thing to go see a movie with my podcast partner. What do you want? We signed up to do a fucking movie podcast. We gotta go see movies. We certainly did sign up.

Ford versus Ferrari is coming later this year. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, another film we've just seen, which I look forward to talking with you about quite a bit more. And The Irishman, based on sort of a true story. Yeah.

What do you think about the state of the biopic? Is it just really easy to pull off? And that's why we keep getting so many of these movies. I mean, I like stories about people. Everybody does. Like history is just stories about people. At some point, you want a good story, a notable person. It's right there for the taking.

And I do enjoy the spectacle of one famous person trying to be another famous person. When it's really fun, when it works, it's great. And when it's really bad, it's you get Gwyneth Paltrow being Sylvia Plath, which is the funniest thing that's ever happened to me. So why not? I can't believe that's a movie that actually happened. Daniel Craig is Ted Hughes. That's real. That's just an absolutely wonderful way to end this segment of the show. Amanda, thank you. Let's now go to my conversation with the director of The Death of Dick Long, Daniel Scheinert. Today's episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Masterclass.

Masterclass lets you learn from the best with exclusive access to online classes taught by masters of their craft. You can learn how to direct films by watching Martin Scorsese teach you how to direct films. Or you can learn how to play poker by playing along with Phil Ivey, one of my heroes. With over 60 different instructors across tons of categories, there's literally something for everyone. The Masterclass app is accessible on your phone, web, or Apple TV, and each class is broken out into individual video lessons and downloadable materials, which you can explore at your own pace. Amanda, are there any Masterclasses that you're interested in taking yourself? I am unbelievably excited to take the Anna Wintour masterclass, the editor-in-chief of Vogue and

fashion legend. I honestly can't believe that she made one and I'm going to soak it in. What is she teaching? Do we know? I think it had to be Anna Wintour. Sign me up. May we all aspire to such greatness. I highly recommend you check out masterclass. Get unlimited access to every masterclass. And as a listener, you get 15% off the annual all-access pass. So just go to masterclass.com slash big picture. That's masterclass.com slash big picture for 15% off Masterclass. Delighted to be joined by Daniel Scheiner.

Daniel, thank you for being here. My pleasure. Hello. Hello. You're one half of another group of Daniels, but you've made a new film by yourself. Yeah. I mean, I did everything. Everything was all by myself. No, you collaborated with all the folks that worked on this movie, but you are a solo act on The Death of Dick Long. So, before we get into this movie, which I just said to you before we started recording,

I have no idea how to talk about because there are some revelations and tonal fascinations in the movie. The whole movie is just a prank on podcast hosts. It's like, ha ha, mission accomplished. Why did you and Daniel Kwan decide to not work on this film together? So it very much was not a movie by myself. Like one of my best friends, Billy Chu, wrote it.

And so long story short i wanted to make my friend billy's movie while dan kwan wrote the first draft of our new movie and it felt like a fun uh project so it's kind of like the band uh did a solo record and we're really excited about our next record okay but hopefully you're not david lee roth in this equation you want to be who do you want to be in this equation? Maybe Paul Stanley? I want to be like, uh, you know, Radiohead. Oh yeah. Tom, you're can, you'll come back together. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So tell me about you and Billy. How do you guys know each other? I assume you're both from Alabama. Uh, yeah. The weird thing is Billy's from Maine and Massachusetts. And, uh, after we met in college, I've known Billy longer than Daniel

Kwan, so he wins. But after college, Billy moved to Alabama for the first time and kept reaching out to me being like, dude, where you're from is so funny. It's so interesting. And I thought he was wrong because I left on purpose where are you from Birmingham I'm from Birmingham and then have family all over Alabama okay uh but anyway he would tell me it was awesome and basically like through Billy I learned to love where I'm from you know he'd tell me these stories that like I had kind of been in my own little bubble as a kid and uh the more the more I, I was like, wait, Billy's right. This is fascinating.

And this is like a part of my life that like makes me a unique storyteller. I have to make movies here. How did you engage with going home? Were you going home to see family, just holidays, the kind of normal trips like that? Normally, yeah. But I've also, I've been back to shoot things often because it's fun and cheap. In LA, like shooting in a bar is like $5,000 bare minimum. And like in Alabama, we got like the run of an entire hospital, including the emergency room while they were operational for like less

than $2,000. And they were apologizing to us being like, I mean, if an ambulance comes in, we'll let you know 10 minutes out. Like, do you think you can get out of the way? And we're like, absolutely. So there's strong functional reasons to use Alabama to return to Alabama. Yeah. It's pretty. And I have a lot of fun. Yeah. Did you find yourself doing cultural anthropology around your hometown, home state? That was like one of my favorite parts of your hometown home state that was like uh my one of my favorite parts of making death of dick long was like making a sort of anthropological movie which like dan kwan and i make uh kind of high concept surreal uh perverted dramas and um we

don't we don't often get to like just kind of uh absorb a place and what people are actually like, you know, in the way that I got to on this, which was like if we saw something interesting, we'd put it in the movie, you know, as opposed to like this is all in Hank and Manny's heads, kind of like so sorry, man. So with a movie like this, which has, which is sort of a murder mystery in a way, how do you sell this movie that is, as I say, difficult to talk about, but has some complex themes? How do you get the money to make a movie like this? How do you convince all the people to participate in a movie like this? Yeah, I mean, it's a murder mystery and a comedy.

So, like, those are pretty accessible pitches. And then I say, like, but it's not different than my other work. It's still crazy. And I like movies that surprise audiences and take them on a journey in the theater, whether that's through super subjective, awesome, crazy filmmaking choices or through narrative rollercoaster stuff. And this is more the narrative rollercoaster style than the former. Yeah.

And your last film, Swiss Army Man with other Daniel, obviously is doing a lot of what you're describing there. Was this like a conscious choice to say, I want to do something that is more narratively surprising, but a little bit more stripped down in the style? Or did it just so happen that Billy wrote a story that led to that opportunity? I guess, yeah, it's both.

But that is something that attracted me to it was that like Dan Kwan and I have like a huge Venn diagram of similar interests. But there's some things that like, I'm obsessed with American movie, and he's not, you know, and like, I'm obsessed with Fargo more than him. And this was like a chance to work with actors and just really dig into like what I thought were like a series of incredible scenes that my favorite screenwriter had written. And so, yeah, like doing the cultural anthropology was very much my scene and exciting and doing the, really focusing on casting an ensemble of faces that people weren't necessarily familiar with was like so fun and a different challenge than usual how'd you find all those people um it was a total mixed bag uh growing up in alabama like i'd see movies that were set in alabama and you know kind of begrudge

the accent that the hollywood actors attempted um sure and and the production design and you know everything about it you you know? Um, and so I didn't want anybody to fake the accent. So like, I just started searching for actors with Southern roots. So like, even if they were faking the accent, they were imitating a relative, not like a movie they saw. Um, is there a memorable bad version of Alabama on screen? Yeah. I haven't rewatched sweet home Alabama in a long time, but like growing up, like that was the one it was like, it was like, Oh growing up, like that was the one is like, it was like, Oh,

they shot that one in Georgia. And like, everybody talks like they're from gone with the wind. And I don't know anyone who talks that way, you know, like, but everybody's like, Oh,

well down here in Alabama. And I was like, who, what is that? I don't know that. Yeah. Um, so that,

I mean, that was the big one. Um, you know, like you watch easy rider and the moment they get to Alabama is when like a trucker just shoots some people in the face and then drives off and the credits roll. And I was like, man, that's all people see of Alabama. I think people are afraid of Alabama, maybe Alabama and Mississippi.

Yeah. I feel like two states that coastal elite dicks like me. Yeah. Don't visit. Thanks. I'm glad you said it. I mean, I know who I am. In Alabama, there's a phrase, thank God for Mississippi. Cause we're like 49th in education, you know,

it's like, Oh, Mississippi. Is there a self-consciousness about it in the state? Like, did you growing up know that you were living in a place that maybe you didn't have as much opportunity or the people look down on you? Absolutely. Like you meet, you go to Alabama and you meet like the most, like you meet like these intelligent, beautiful, colorful, interesting people. And they're just filled with shame. And they're like, I'm the most, I'm the most boring person you'll ever meet. I'm from Alabama. Like, and I, now that I've left, I'm like, you're wrong. You know, like you're fascinating. There are boring ass people in Boston and Los Angeles,

which are the other places I've lived. I love those cities, but it's something that weighs on people there, and it's real sad. You mentioned that it was really easy to shoot in a hospital, but in order to access certain parts of a city, do you have to share the script, and then will people read the story of this movie and then realize maybe they don't want to be a part of it because of some of the complex themes we're talking about? Yeah. So the movie's, should I cuss? You'll just bleep me?

There's no bleeping necessary. You can do what you feel. The movie's fucked up. And it was definitely like an interesting thing trying to figure out the ethics of how we wanted to make this movie because because I get really bummed when I feel like movies are not ethical and people don't care about how they make movies. That being said, even the title of the movie would turn people off because it sounds like a porn, which for those of you listening, if you see The Death of Dick Long on a billboard, it's not a porn. It's not a porno. It's not a tragic porno either. I'm not sure if I've ever seen the word death in the title of a porno, but Dick Long, perhaps. Yeah, Dick Long's been in porns. Yeah. If you Google Dick Long, don't Google Dick Long. You have to add the death in there. But yeah, the working title was On the Run, and we said it was a dark crime movie we we we didn't you know keep it a secret that it was an r-rated film and that like the main characters do some

you know messed up stuff uh but that's normal you know that you don't like walk around spoiling the movie to everyone when you ask them permission to shoot there uh but anyone who was on screen we had like a conversation with them because we didn't want like them to be like, wait, what am I in? Okay. It's interesting. I was watching a documentary about the movie Election. And a superintendent from the school where they shot the movie was remarking that if she had read the whole script and not just the pages that were shared with her, she wouldn't have let them shoot the movie in that high school. I wasn't sure if you found yourself in any scenarios like that.

Yeah. I mean, we avoided them. Yeah. So we didn't tell it, we didn't spoil the movie, which like, I think that's like, I don't think that's that unethical. But like if someone's face is on there, you know, if like, or someone's child is in the movie and they don't know what it's about, like, geez, that's brutal. But then the surprising thing is that like people in the South aren't oblivious of the reputation they have. It's embarrassing that the rest of the world thinks that's all there is down there. But all we talk about at Thanksgiving is the crazy story you heard about of what happened over in Claysville.

So this movie is not that far-ed as far as like jokes people tell down there. So like, I think as soon as we talked about the fact that like, it's a love letter to a community about like, um, some very hyperbolic, ridiculous circumstances, you know, like it wasn't that hard of a pitch, you know, although my mom didn't really want me to shoot at her church, you know, um, I was going to ask you about your family and the people that you grew up with, given the outsized and fucked up nature of some of the stuff that you make. Yeah. Do they understand where that comes from?

Were you the kind of kid who was destined to make fucked up art? It's a mixed bag. You know, Dan Kwan in my new movie is basically like about the process of sharing our movies with our parents. It's about the generational divide and about a really weird daughter and her really confused mom. Okay. But it's fun. It's therapeutic, you know, to like make movies that like feel like I'm learning something about myself and expressing something about myself and then to like share it with my mom and talk about it. So like, you know, sharing Swiss Army Man with our parents was like a trip.

And this one has been too. But that being said, like my Aunt Vicky collects funny obituaries like and has since I was a kid. And like I didn't even realize that was weird until kind of recently when I was telling someone like, oh man, Aunt Vicki has this one obit. And it's about, it's like a photo of like a little 10 year old boy. And it just says, I will avenge you as the best obituary I've ever seen. But like, that was the sense of humor I was kind of, I grew up around, you know, it was like, and that's from like a small town Alabama newspaper.

So, you know, it is my family's fault a little. I feel like whenever I watch something that you guys have made or even in Dick Long, you're trying to put something in the movie or the music video or the TV episode that no one has ever seen before or no one has ever felt before. I don't know if you're actually attempting to do that, but there is a level of unpredictability that is pretty rare among filmmakers. What are the movies that you really caught into as a kid? Who are the people that you connected with and kind of that created that maybe that feeling for you? Yeah. When I was a kid, I saw a lot of my favorite movies in high

school and middle school, and I didn't like them at first. And then I had to grow and like expand my idea of empathy in order to enjoy that movie. But they would like stick in my brain. So like I saw Wet Hot American Summer in like my sophomore year of high school and like I did, my friends and I were like, nope, you know, like, but then we were quoting it at school the next day and the next week. And we were like, maybe that movie was good. And then we like went back and watched it. And we realized like we that movie was good and then we like went back and watched it and we realized like we had some like internalized homophobia

that like just really turned us off when there's that like crazy sex scene in the middle of the movie but like and things like that and like

and similarly like we watched Stella which is the same guys and like it was too much for us but then we started realizing that they were making fun of stories themselves

and like taking cultural taboos and like messing with them. It's like a lot of my favorite movies, like I grew to catch up with the movie. And so like, yeah, like I like pushing the envelope. Yeah, because in high school, I couldn't finish Fight Club. It was like too much. I was like, nope, turned it off. And then like a week later, my brother was talking to his friends about it. And I was like, oh, man, I guess I got to finish that Club. It was like too much. I was like, nope, turned it off. And then like a week later, my brother was talking to his friends about it. And I was like, oh man, I guess I got to finish that movie. So one thing that both of those movies have in common is they were not huge

successes when they were first released, but over time developed a kind of cult fan base. Yeah. And I'm curious if you worry or even think about the idea of not being understood with the thing that you're making. Because a lot of what you guys make and what this film for sure is provocative and empathetic, but also insane and funny and quite strange and has a very unique tone. Is it frustrating at all when you get a reaction to a movie that's like, dude, what the fuck was that? I mean, we kind of prepare for the worst and are usually like pleasantly surprised, you know, how much people have responded to the stuff we've made. But it is something that like, yeah, we're constantly worried about, you know, like the stories that attract us are pretty out there. And then we just spend most of our time trying to make it palatable. Like, it's not like I sit at home

being like, ha ha, a lot of people are going to hate my movie. Um, no, that would be weird, you know, but there are those filmmakers, you know, like I, I, I don't like aspire to make human centipede. I w I want to make, uh, you know, Lolita where you're like, wait, this is incredible, but like, it shouldn't be. Um, so I, I hope that everyone likes my movies because i i think that i'm making pretty humane humanist sincere art uh but i also like don't blame anyone if it like you know tests their limits and they're you know they just it's just their first viewing of wet hot you know it'll stick with them maybe next time what was the hardest thing about making this movie um the hardest thing has been like um waiting to release it which is like such a boring answer

but like uh we we finished it about a year ago but like have been um you know we're waiting to like release it at the right festival and then we're waiting to get the right release strategy and stuff and like ever since i shot it I've been so thrilled by the cast I found because a lot of them are faces people aren't familiar with. And I'm like, holy cow, Virginia, who's one of the leads, is incredible. And I can't wait for the world to see how good she is. And she feels the same way. This is really an exciting role for her and like, Mike and Andre,

like all the leads and they've just been sitting around for a year like swearing that like there's a, that they're in an A24 movie that's going to come out. And,

yeah, so like finding the right way to release it and I'm so excited to finally put it out there and just kind of like taking this, this crew of,

like everybody who worked on it was so excited and proud of it and thrilled that like they got to, you know, work on it. And I've been like, wait, wait, guys. Is it important once it's released for it to be? I mean, like what is successful for a movie like this? It's a relatively small film. It probably was not a huge budget. No.

Shot locally. But it's getting a theatrical release by from a cool distributor you know and you you're gonna get a chance to pitch it to the world how do you and it feels very personal you know your close friend wrote it yeah does it have to make money like i think yeah i mean it was a kwan and i always talk about like uh taking calculated risks like um our our whole career we whole career, we've made fairly crazy things, but we've always like tried to make calculated risks so that like it was never like a, well, this is it. My whole career is over. We never maxed out the credit cards to make any of our movies.

And same with this one. Yeah, it's modest investment by A24 because it's a crazy movie, but I think it's pretty likable murder mystery comedy. I think if it finds its audience, like, that's success, and I feel pretty confident it will find its audience, you know, unless the New York Times just puts a headline on the front page that spoils the ending and says it's an F. Maybe we'll do that. I feel like even then it would find its audience. That'd be pretty fun. That's probably true. That actually would be great for the movie, I guess. Yeah, like if there had been a headline that had just said like,

Bruce Willis was dead the whole time. Everyone would be like, what? And then they would have been like, well, I'm still going to watch it. Guys, Daniel just spoiled the sixth sense here on this podcast. I didn't say which movie. Oh, no. Could have been Die Hard. For anyone who hasn't seen that one. Before we started recording, you also mentioned you're working on an episode of a TV show with other Daniel.

Yeah. So how do you determine how to spend your time professionally? Yeah. How much of it is I need to do a work for hire thing? I need to do something that's only going to take me eight days. I need to make a film because that's the thing I'm most excited about. Explain to me kind of a person you're like, you guys are jacks of all trades in terms of the shape of the thing that you make. So what, what, how do you make those choices?

Yeah. I mean, we just try to stay curious and interested and pursue things that seem interesting to us. And then every once in a while there's gaps and, um, in our bank accounts or our schedules where we're like, Oh, let's try to squeeze something in. Um, but I mean, we feel so lucky that like, uh, we can get projects that we want to make green lit. So we're trying to ride that wave as long as it lasts and, and, um, pay and pay the mortgage in the meantime. It's kind of it, you know? So, yeah, there's not too much kind of strategy of, like, who we're trying to emulate. I guess the person – there are people I'm trying to emulate.

Like, I've decided I want to be like Richard Linklater. I just want to make interesting movies for a long time and for people to kind of like me. It's a pretty good strategy. Hard to pull off. Yeah, I don't, but I don't want to like, you know, he's never

blown a hundred million dollars on anything. But he also only has like maybe one hit, quote unquote hit. Yeah. Which is fascinating.

No, he's got like five or six. Does he? Yeah. What are they? Well, he's got all his indie hits like the Before Sunrise, Sunset, Midnight trilogy is just like everyone loves it.

Yes. And then School of Rock hit. Boyhood hit. Dazed and Confused hit. No. No. No? Dazed and Confused, huge bomb.

Well, like, but like cultural hit, I guess. In the life of the mind. Yeah. It's a huge hit. But like, it's amazing because now. It wasn't a box office hit. I don't know. No.

A lot of those movies are not. I bet it made a fortune on DVD. Probably. I feel like people talk about box office so much and they like overlook the fact that like, I bet Eternal Sunshine made like fuck tons on DVD. You're probably right. Do you know?

But do you worry about that part of the equation? Because obviously making movies is a lot different than when Linklater got started. Totally. And having a career as a filmmaker is a lot different. I don't think you guys didn't necessarily have much to worry about. I'm kind of fascinated to see what you guys do with your careers, but it seems like it is harder just to kind of make a living as a person making films. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know enough about what it used to be like,

but we feel lucky and we're trying to not waste the chance to tell stories that we want to tell and also not waste the chance to pay for our kids' college. So we land in the between. What are you guys doing next? So for the last three years,

we've been writing drafts of our sci-fi epic called Everything Everywhere All at once but uh or it might be called hot dog hands or i can't with a new title the other day i can't remember what it was um but yeah the hot dog hands is good right yeah that's good if you just saw like a billboard and it was michelle yo with like no bones in her fingers and it just said like hot dog hands you know you'd be like what I gotta see that would see yeah

so that one's that one's like if Dan Kwan's mom was the star of the Matrix but it's set mostly in an IRS building and are you being real with me right now

yeah this is real I really can't tell if you're fucking yeah so that's that's what we've like that's our dream project that we're really close to getting to make that we're really hoping

we make soon okay and do you long term want to make films that are sort of big in scale? I feel like you guys have, and you especially have a boundless creativity in terms of what you can see in your mind and then what you're trying to put on screen. But sometimes in order to do that at two hours time, you need a lot of money. Do you want to try to make bigger projects? I want to just keep taking calculated risks. I know, like I think I want to get just enough money

that I can still make something interesting or weird that I haven't seen before. I just think I would be a very bad filmmaker if I was handed a normal script. I wouldn't be good at it. Yeah. I kind of admire people who can like nail it, you know,

and, and make like a, a great accessible, you know, whatever movie. Yeah. It's funny though, because I feel like if you guys put your brain or you put your brain on a work for hire thing,

you might make, you would elevate it so significantly in a way. It's like, that's kind of a fascinating mental social challenge too. Right. It is. Yeah. For,

for a moment, Dan and I were like, let's just make like a norm core rom- too, right? It is. Yeah. For a moment, Dan and I were like, let's just make like a norm core rom-com, like just like, just so norm. Cause after Swiss Ironman, our brains were broken. And then like we started workshopping what it would look like and who we would cast and like the soundtrack would be all nineties hits. And then it slowly devolved into this movie that we want to make called How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, 2049. That's like a rom-com that becomes like a post-apocalyptic high concept Charlie Kaufman action film. So we just, we blew it, you know, we tried to write something normal and then now we, and then we wrote that.

Do you have any other scotched movies that you'll never make that you could share with us here? Oh, I mean, that's one we actively want to make. Swiss Iron Man used to be one of our joke pitches, you know, we'd go into meetings and be like, okay, they'd be like, what kind of stuff are you interested in? And we're like, okay, there's this guy, he gets on this corpse. And Death of Dick Long for years

was like a joke movie that like, that I would just say, they'd be like, what are you interested in? I'm like, well, my friend Billy wrote a movie called this and this is what happens.

And people are like, are you joking? I'm like, no, it's really the best script I ever read. That's amazing. So yeah, who knows if we'll ever, you know, which ones we'll make.

I've always wanted to make, I want to make a sequel to John Wick where they kill John Wick and his dog avenges him. And so it'd be like Shaggy Dog, you know, meets John Wick. I'm in. You know, like, it's like, okay, how many times can he like kill, like shoot people in the forehead because of, you know, his dog or whatever. Like it's time for the dog to shine. Wow.

Daniel, I end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing that they've seen? Yeah. What's the last great thing you've seen? The last one. I mean, I saw Midsommar twice. You did? And. Pretty fucking awesome.

I love it it's um i love a big swing that hits me and like in some ways the fact that it does that some people don't love it makes me love it even more like uh kwan and i um i wasn't sure if dan kwan would like it or billy chu and i saw it with each of them um and uh and when they loved it and I loved it too, it was that moment where like you and your best friends remember why your best friends, you know, and you're like, you got it. I got it too. And I was scared you wouldn't get it.

And then we like, you know, hug and have a beer. Um, so it was special. That's beautiful. I tried to have that experience with that movie with my wife who saw it and loved the first hour and 40 minutes. And then I became physically ill in the final act of the movie, which was perhaps the intended effect. A little, probably, but...

But that also maybe is why I loved her. We created some empathy between us because she had the right physical reaction to the movie in a way. I listened to a couple get in a fight behind me the second time I watched it, which is just perfect for that movie. I was like, see, see, this movie's brilliant. Do you think people will be fighting over the death of Dick Long? Yeah, it's already happened a little. It sparks debates and people talk about it.

It's really fun to talk about after people see it and then talk to people who see it a second time and it kind of changes. It's really interesting. People react differently to it, unpredictably, across race, age, and gender. And it's so fun to talk to old people who love it and old people who don't get it. And just all over, it's pretty fun. I thought it was really fun too, Daniel. Thanks for doing this.

Thank you so much. Thanks again to Daniel Scheiner, and thank you, of course, to Amanda Dobbins. Please tune into The Big Picture next week, where what will we be talking about, Amanda? I think we're going to talk about Dolomite Is My Name. Dolomite Is My Name. And documentaries.

And documentaries, because Diego Maradona will be premiering on HBO on October 1st. I'll have an interview with the filmmaker Asif Kapadia. We'll be chatting a little bit about the best documentary category, so stay tuned.