The Big Picture - The 10 Actors Who Won 2022. Plus: ‘Bardo’!

Episode Date: December 20, 2022

Sean and Amanda share their 10 favorite performances of the year (1:00). Then, Adam Nayman joins the show to discuss Alejandro González Iñárritu’s new Netflix film ‘Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths’ (33:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Adam Nayman Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Would you bet a few thousand dollars that you could sink an eight-foot putt? What about ten grand that you could win a drag race against a Camaro with a thousand horsepower? If you bet two million dollars, could you bet it all on one football game? Maybe you wish you could, but you probably wouldn't. Gamblers is about the people who did. From the Ringer Podcast Network, listen to Gamblers Season 2 on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Get groceries delivered across the GTA

from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the best performances of 2022

and the people who gave them. Later in this episode, Adam Naiman will join us to discuss Bardo, false chronicle of a handful of truths, the new film from two-time winner of the Academy Award Adam Neiman will join us to discuss Bardo, false chronicle of a handful of truths. The new film from two-time winner of the Academy Award for Best Director, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu. This movie is available to stream on Netflix right now. So you can check that out and then listen to our very complicated conversation about that movie.

But first. It's emotionally complicated. It's not complicated to listen to. That's true. Our feelings are pretty straightforward on the film. No performers from that film appear on our list of best performances of 2022. Although, you know, I don't think the performances in that film were bad. No, that's not really the issue.

I thought actually in particular, Daniel Jimenez Cacho was quite good in the film. I agree. As a stand-in for Ina Ritu. But we're not talking about that movie here. We're talking about actors that we loved. And I made a long list. You did. It was a good list.

What'd you think? Did I do a good job? Yeah, it was pretty good. I tried to go through and pick up any other performances that you might've missed. I only came up with two. So good job.

Thank you. What do you look for in a great performance? What are the hallmarks for you? It's when you walk out and say either that person should be nominated for an Oscar, which I have like a real habit of doing.

That's our problem, yeah. Well, yeah, I inherited it from my dad a bit as well. Or, honestly, you're just reading through the list and you're like, oh yeah, that person. And you can remember

that the person was in the movie and they stood out for you and you feel some sort of connection to them. So. Yeah, I think that's being memorable. Yeah.

Possibly transforming. Not necessarily into a real person, but into something. You know what it is? I think what we often say is vanishing. Forgetting that you're

watching someone. Now, there are a couple of exceptions that represent a different kind, you know, a classical movie star performance yeah we're like who i actually want to be with is the person whose name is on the poster exactly i don't need to be with this character right i want to be sitting beside right my guy i veer towards that with a bit of um never vanishing but it's either a movie star that I want to be with or someone who, a new person who has that type of presence

and jumps out to me as a new movie star where I'm like, who is that? You have perhaps someone on this list that represents that. Yes. Shall we start with the obvious? Sure. So you're claiming this one?

No, I think we'll share it. So I think what we should do is- You only have four other ones and I have five other ones. I'll grab someone else then. Okay. I think we obviously need to start with Tom Cruise. Yeah. And we will share this one.

Just when you think he's gotten to the top of the mountain... Yeah. He climbs higher. Wow. No, he blows the mountain up and then jumps off of it with a fucking parachute. He explodes the entire mountain range and soars above it. Over the weekend, we got a double shot of cruise content. Sure did.

On Sunday, we got, I guess, a social media video of crews in a plane leaping out to base jump slash skydive. Yeah, I'm not sure on the text. In a test sequence for what we assume was the new Mission Impossible film. And he was his usual maniacally cheery self, shouting happily into the camera. And what did he shout, Sean? See you at the movies.

He didn't say it that way but a lot of a lot of people were asking has he been listening to the pod do you think so i don't um i i don't either because i didn't get a tom cruise cake this year and i like let me tell you that would have been the giveaway i know know. I, like, honestly, I probably should have. I think there's someone, like, on the awards, like, campaign for Top Gun Maverick who should have known that we taste tested the cake last year. Who should have, like, been on this journey. Who should have sent me the cake. I ate all the rest of the cake that was in the freezer, just by the way. Delicious cake.

But I don't think he's listening. Because if he, if he were, like like we would have a cake he doesn't need us but we can help that's how i feel yeah and it was nice to hear him say we'll see you at the movies that touched my heart he will see us at the movies so he and he is maybe just you and me but at this point so depressing but yes well that But that's the point though, right? So this video and then on early Monday morning, he and the Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part 1 team shared a long, a six-minute long making of a stunt. The first stunt in the film,

which has actually been teased in the trailer. So I didn't even really feel like anything had been given away. Sure. But this incredibly detailed explanation. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. Oh my God. like anything had been given away sure but this incredibly detailed explanation oh my god dear god uh of of this this motorcycle jump into a an open canyon and how he trained for it and how his extraordinary spatial awareness allowed him to achieve this stunt i want to say spatial awareness is a gift and not one that I have. So.

I have it. Do you? I have it. Do you think you could do this? You and Tom are going to train together? Dead Reckoning Part 2? I am not deeply athletic in any sense of the word,

but I'm very coordinated and I do have good spatial awareness. And I pray that my child has my wife's athleticism and my coordination and then we will have a cruise-esque star for the ages. That's beautiful. That's my fingers crossed on that one.

Okay, so you want Alice to live her life jumping off buildings. If that's what she wants. Out of planes. Look at how happy Cruz is, Amanda. No, I know. He's so happy to give this to us. And he cannot stop saying, I do it all for the audience. He's said it like 300 times in all of these videos, and I believe it.

No one could be more grateful than me. And this video this morning made me concerned that he actually is going to keep doing this until he dies on one of these. I agree. I'm concerned. And I don't endorse that, and I don't want that to happen. But I'm just like, I think that you have kind of signed over your life and your ambition at this point to this is what you do. And if you got to go out this way, that's how it happens. I don't want him to go out. I don't.

I really also, and I think a lot of people, including many insurers, do as well. But like, it's getting, he means it. He does. I mean, as big of a year in 2022 as he had, I think 23 will be similar. Hopefully more social media campaigns to come. He wasn't the only person in Top Gun Maverick

who was excellent, in fact. Miles Teller and Glenn Powell in particular get to inhale the crew's essence. You can tell that he gave them some training on set. And Teller in particular brings a completely different energy to what he's brought to other films. He too is extremely restrained and kind of internal and emotional

in a way that he very rarely has been, especially in the last five years as he has attempted to kind of elevate into mainstream movie star status. I really like him in this movie a lot. And I never would have thought he would have worked as Goose's son on paper. In fact, I didn't all the way up until the time I saw the movie.

And I was really impressed by him. Glenn Powell, on the other hand, I think they're like, he's like, plug me into the wall and I'll just be Glenn Powell for you. Like, I am born for this. And he's living up to it. It's so good.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is your savior speaking. I just, every time, I'm really happy for Glenn Powell. You want to say anything about Jennifer Connelly? I just, you can't have a conversation about Top Gun Maverick without mentioning Jennifer Connelly. Every single time I talk about it in my own life, we do it on this podcast, everyone does 15 minutes, and then they're like, what about Jennifer Connelly? You know?

Is it a good performance? I think so. Because as Chris Ryan was saying earlier, when I asked him what his favorite performance of the year was, and he was like, if I'm being crafty, it's Jennifer Connelly. But it's like she gets through to Cruise in a way that many other certainly romantic leads over the years have not been able to do really honestly since renee zellweger and jerry mcguire and she just kind of gets parachuted in as like you know the admiral's daughter who we'd never heard of but she is of a piece of the world she makes those scenes like more believable and even kind of sweet than what otherwise like historically romantic scenes with tom cruise even the in the original top gun yeah you know they're they don't they don't always work that isn't the strength that's not what he's bringing but i think that she makes it all work in what is like a thousand percent thankless role so uh i have a confession to make which is that i

uh in my instagram discover tab yeah uh clicked on a photo of jennifer connelly recently oh so now you just get now i have only connelly that's great and um jennifer connelly of course at this stage of her life is quite beautiful yeah yeah great a great match for tom cruise but jennifer connelly i think i had forgotten, is beautiful. Absolutely. And has been for decades now. Staggering. And it's kind of amazing that they hadn't been matched like this previously.

You know, that they share a kind of like icy, too good looking for the universe kind of beauty that very few people can match. I really like her in this as well. Even though I think her part is like pretty bad. It's terrible. It's like not a real person. It's terrible, but that she is memorable despite that. She is. You know, also she does some good sailing.

She does. They sailed that, apparently. Yeah. Yeah. So I've heard. Yeah. On many podcasts. Right.

Including our own. Well, at first we weren't sure because they weren't like leading with the sailing. You know, they were leading with the plane flying and the vomiting and all of that stuff, which, you know, I respect. But she's they sailed it. So they say looks beautiful. Congratulations to Tom Cruise. He, of course, is the first actor who won 2022. Who you got?

Who you got next? You want to go big? You want to go supporting? Let's go. Let's keep obvious first. OK. But undeniable. Cate Blanchett.

Yeah, of course. I think probably has best actress sewn up, which is... You mean because of her voice work in Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio? Is she in Guillermo? No. Okay. She and Tilda Swinton both provide voice work in that film, and it's quite confusing. Who are they?

Not main primary characters. All right. Why do you think that they take a job like that because they love Guillermo del Toro okay do you think they're going in studio to do that work or do you think that it comes to them now so they set up a trailer and it's just like how many hours how many hours do you think Cate Blanchett spent on this version of Pinocchio 300 okay I Okay. I mean, six? I don't know. But I'm like, is it six? Is it 12?

It feels like a day's work. Is it 24? Okay, all right. It feels like a day's work. No, I think that Cate Blanchett has Best Actress sewn up for Tar, which is deserving and also a little bit of a bummer for someone else

who's going to be on your list, who I think is also really deserving. But this is just an absolutely tit Titanic performance that one of the best movies of the year, not just like rests on, but is just a, a vehicle for in a lot of ways, but all,

but uses, um, I, I just, she's extraordinary. And she is one where she van, it, she vanishes,

even though you know that you're watching Cate Blanchett and you kind of like buckle in and you're like, all right, Cate Blanchett, fuck me up or whatever. But like by the end, she has created another person called Lydia Tarr. I do also think that the suiting plays a major role in it. The styling. Yeah. And quite literally the suiting, which are like custom. And then there's also some La Mer and The Row, just in case you were wondering. I'm glad you clocked that.

Let's put a little trivia, okay? Yeah. So, there are one, two, three, four women who have at least three Academy Awards for acting. Can you name them? Katherine Hepburn. That's correct. She has four. Right.

Meryl has three. Meryl has three. Meryl has three. Okay. There is a recent addition to this list. Hold on. I'm thinking who won last. Oh, Frances McDormand. That's right.

Obviously. So that's three out of four. One more legend of the screen. Okay. And three combination Oscars. This is two leads and one supporting. Okay. When was the last time this person...

Is it Jane Fonda? It's not Jane Fonda. It's Ingrid Bergman. Oh, okay. Right. Oh, because she won for Murder on the Orient Express. That was so weird. I was actually going to ask you, can you name the three Oscars that Ingrid Bergman won for like Murder on the Orient Express that was so weird I was actually going to ask you can you name the three Oscars

that Ingrid Bergman won for it's this is a really hard trivia question because it's not what you'd think it's I can't you got Murder on the Orient Express

which is the top one I remember that she won for that one which is like really weird I mean she didn't win for Casablanca she did not did she win for like Notorious nope

she won for Gaslight and Anastasia oh and Anastasia is a stumper yeah I should have known Gaslight. So that's it. And Blanchette has two. I believe she has a supporting and a lead.

And so having two leads. Katherine Hepburn has four Best Actress Oscars, which is impressive. Yeah, greatest to ever do it. Frances McDormand, of course, has three Best Actress. Her brownie recipe is really good, by the way. Who's that? Katherine Hepburn's. Okay.

It's available on New York Times Cooking. Okay, I'll check that out. I'll go now. The counterpoint, I think, to the best actress race is Michelle Yeoh in Everything Everywhere All at Once. She also did some voice work in Minions, The Rise of Gru this year. I really did enjoy that. She was very funny in that. I've seen that one.

Quality film. We both enjoyed it. Everything Everywhere All at Once is, what a fascinating object of the movie year. Many people loved, some people didn't like. Those who didn't like and shared that opinion publicly

were scolded by the fans of that movie. I would say the toxicity around the fandom of that movie is a real drag. I liked it a lot. I think, I wish I could only experience it

in a bubble. I wish I didn't have to hear anything about it and just enjoy it in a very pure way that I did the first couple of times that I saw it it works because of Michelle Yeoh it's written and directed by Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan two very talented guys two very creative guys are kind of colliding

these various genres but I remember when Daniel Scheinert was in the studio with me three years ago we're talking about the death of dick long his solo directorial debut and he said i'm making a multi-dimensional science fiction drama starring michelle yo called everything everywhere all at once or hot dog hands that was how he described it to me and i was like is is this a bit are you punking me and he said no i'm deadly serious and

we are making this movie and i thought it was a bold choice and thank god they got michelle yo because her combination of emotional gravitas comic timing and physical power is extremely rare in the history of movies she is a very believable martial arts heroine. She's a very believable immigrant mother, business owner, challenged in her marriage, and she's really funny. And I couldn't think of too many other actors who can do what she does in this movie. The movie doesn't work without her. And for someone like me, who every other aspect of this film is like it's a it's a not for me situation. You get me into the theater and you get me invested in it because of Michelle Yeoh. It's a real shame that she probably is not going to win the Oscar for this because I think she absolutely deserves it.

And and it is a really also a classic just like a long, illustrious, but not properly celebrated career. And this is kind of like the type of role and performance. And like the story of the movie as well, which was kind of like an indie sleeper and has inspired a lot of strong reactions. A lot of people who really love it. And a kind of crowning achievement for her. It's possible that she wins.

She could. And it would be delightful. Yeah, that would be a good outcome as well um okay who's next on your list um we'll we'll keep it like big okay this is this is kind of the boring one but also it was a genuine revelation for me in 2022 which is austin butler yeah as elvis he might also win the oscar this is and i'm i'm sorry to everyone that my first two picks were like people who are favorites to win the Oscar for best actor and best actress. That's kind of the movie year that it was. But anyway, I have said before that I just, Austin Butler wasn't really on my radar besides

a strong, if small, supporting performance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And then also just kind of being in the Gen Z or Zillennial tabloid scene. And that's kind of where I filed him for some time as like someone I'm aware of, but it's probably below my age demographic and I got to start being responsible and, you know, investing. I just got to look at more Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez photos. So I went to see Elvis, which worked for me more than it worked for Sean. And that was almost entirely because of Austin Butler's performance as Elvis. And he just, he like, he has it. And it is immediately very clear,

the charisma, the presence. That's another like, who is that person that jumps off the screen? And I knew who it was, but I hadn't really taken him seriously. So I think he's got a real career ahead of him. I agree, particularly because Elvis impersonator is a cliche at this point.

You know, that is something that's a trope. And so trying to reckon with the iconography of Elvis is no easy task. And he manages to simultaneously embody him and elevate our idea of the mythology of him. I hated how the movie tried to tell his story, which is to say, like, in flashes, which I just don't... It didn't deepen anything meaningful for me, and I thought the perspective of Hanks' character just didn't... I agree with the perspective.

I thought the flashes was sort of an interesting, like commentary on celebrity and even like how we all understand the idea of Alice. I know, but we already know that. We already, like do something deeper. You didn't have a good time.

I know. I'm sorry. But you're right. He's amazing. If he wins, so be it. I hope he doesn't win though because I hope,

the person who I hope wins is Colin Farrell. Sure. Who has two great performances this year. I guess actually three performances this year. He's in After Yang,

Koganada's film that came out in the spring, which is a sort of soft science fiction, futuristic tale about family and loss. Quite beautiful. His performance, very quiet, very simple, very different from these other two films

that we'll talk about. The second film he was in is The Batman. He was the penguin in The Batman. And he got the point. He is having a lot of fun in a lot of latex, hamming it up the way that the penguin has to.

That is the character. He is a laugh line clown who's also a devious figure. I hope he comes back for another Batman movie. He was great. I guess he's getting his own TV show. Is that actually going to happen,

you think, with everything going on with HBO Max? Why are you asking me what's up with the DC extended extended tv universe i don't know my condolences to henry cavill i guess yeah that's a tough beat yeah maybe that's another podcast and then of course his third performance is in the banshees of indochina for which he was likely to be nominated martin mcdonough's uh recent film about two friends in at the outset of the Irish Civil War.

And he's just crushing in this movie as a simple, kind person trying to understand why his friend has abandoned him. And it's one of my favorites of the year. We've talked about him on the show a couple of times. And he has just transformed himself as an actor. Yeah. Completely different than the guy

who played bullseye in a daredevil movie in 2006 i mean he made a real bid to be a movie star movie star and like make a lot of mainstream kind of star parts and he has done some some of that stuff in recent years too he's like in the total recall remake which is not very good but for the most part he has discovered by working with sofia coppola or by working with Yorgos Lanthimos or he's just he's become a very adventurous actor. And I think that this part in Banshees combines a sense of like artistic discovery with also leaning into what makes him such a great screen presence. You know, he's a very simple, charming Irish guy. Yeah, there's an affability with something with an edge.

And it makes, Banshees makes the most of both. Yeah, so that's Colin Farrell. He's wonderful. What's next? Kiki Palmer. You liked Nope. I liked Kiki Palmer.

All right, and let me just say congratulations to Kiki Palmer on the birth of her child or the upcoming birth of her child. Okay. I don't have inside. It's not born yet. I didn't know she was pregnant. She revealed it on SNL in the monologue. She's like, it was awesome.

I like, it was so cool. I was really happy for her. Also, just like, that's so baller. Like, if you're just going to, you know, like the full belly, she'll look beautiful. It's hard to feel very confident in that moment of your life. So I just, what a great presence on the screen and in our lives. She's had a great year. Yeah.

Another person who has kind of elevated herself out of child Nickelodeon stardom. Yeah. Seemingly intact and now hopefully continuing to work with exciting filmmakers. I mean, we got like a glimpse of her in Hustlers a few years ago. She hasn't done a whole lot. She was also in Lightyear this year. I actually did think about that as we were making the list. And then I was like, we don't need to revisit that.

I guess she's going to be, I don't know what's next for her. I mean, you know, she was a part of the shoot. She's the star of the Aziz Ansari film that was suspended because of the Bill Murray controversy. And I guess she's got something coming called Under the Boardwalk, which is an animated movie. But I hope she makes a movie. She's obviously got Motherhood in front of her as well, which is very exciting for her. Next on my list is Mia Goth, who is my new queen.

I actually saw her in another movie that's coming out next year recently. And she is truly my queen. The person who I'm thinking of with her now is Karen Black. Karen Black is a great actress from the 1970s, often played these kind of manic, emotionally intense women. But in a way, she also reminds me a little bit of like,

if you took Shelly Duvall and Sissy Spacek and Karen Black and like put them in a blender, that's what Mia Goth is doing, which is to say she's doing these really high intensity If you took Shelley Duvall and Sissy Spacek and Karen Black and put them in a blender, that's what Mia Goth is doing, which is to say she's doing these really high-intensity genre movies that are very violent. And she's often cast as the maniacal soul of all of these movies. In X and Pearl, the two Ty West movies that came out this year, she plays two different characters in X. And then Pearl is an origin story for one of the characters from X.

And she is giving an insanely committed performance. Pearl in particular, which is a film I suspect you will never see. There is like a six minute monologue in which the camera just sits on her face. And it is so sad and funny at the same time. I've never, I don't think I have empathy

for this absolute crazy woman in the movie, but I'm with her. I've never, I don't think I have empathy for this absolute crazy woman in the movie, but I'm with her. I'm really with her. And that's really like the power of a performer is you need to be on the journey with them even when they are murderous. So I love Mia Goff. I can't wait to talk about her more in 2023. Who's next for you? Hong Chao. Two supporting performances in the last quarter of the year. The really fun one is The Menu. The one that may get nominated is The Whale. She's essential in both and brings a level of, oh, I guess I'm going to take this whole movie seriously to both.

That is really needed. She elevates The Menu for sure sure when she shows up in the menu and starts guiding the group off the boat you're like okay right right this is not broad this can be specific and and in the whale she's the only one who is finding besides brendan frazier who's like finding the other layers in frankly like a underwritten character and and and bringing like the presence and and meeting him where he is i think i don't think the film necessarily does but she's wonderful i agree she's really strong in that film as well um i loved her in the menu it's she has the she's the fun part in the menu as well the most out of anyone, but just pitch perfect. Her challenging and defying

the finance bros in particular in the restaurant is really, really good stuff. She's got a huge year coming up. She's one of the stars of Asteroid City, the new Wes Anderson movie, and one of the stars of End,

the new Yorgos Lanthimos movie. I love it. She's great. Okay, next on my list is Aubrey Plaza. Yeah. A little bit of TV influence trickling in here

because she was just on The White Lotus. here because she was just on The White Lotus. I thought she was exceptional on The White Lotus. This is kind of, that's kind of exactly the thing she needed, I think, to go up a level. You know, she's, of course, best known as a character from Parks and Rec. She's been a stalwart of indie movies now

for about five years, and she's married to an independent filmmaker. She appears in a lot of his films, Jeff Baina. She appeared in one of his films this year. The standout performance for me was Emily the Criminal, which I rewatched last night, or at least I went back and looked at it again for a little while.

And she's really strong in that movie. She's really good. It's a pretty good movie. It is. It's a solid thriller. And it's got a smart idea, which is basically like the punishing nature of student debt on a generation of people right the thing i've never really seen from her before was

it is character work and so far she's like a girl from jersey she's doing an accent she's you know no makeup very kind of like stripped down feels more like a 70s movie okay maybe a little bit of makeup like come on she's also just like wearing tank tops is completely jacked the whole time. She's beautiful. But like that movie is shot for you to remember and know that like Aubrey Plaza is a beautiful movie star. No shame in that. But like, let's be real. Sure.

It's a more rough and tumble than she looks in The White Lotus. That's for sure. Okay. But I thought she was very, very good in that film. That's obviously the kind of movie that I like a lot, even though it's not the best version of that kind of movie to me. I would like to see her in some Hollywood movies not doing the eye-rolling, sarcastic Aubrey Plaza thing.

I'd like to see her empowered in a serious film to give a performance that doesn't rely on her sarcastic charm. And I think she's going to get the chance now. So I think that's exciting. And I'm happy that she's theoretically a part going to get the chance now. So I think that's exciting. And I'm happy that she's theoretically a part of the Hollywood firmament now. Yeah. She's sort of becoming the archetypal millennial actress. Did you see the kind of fake controversy where people were

desperate for her to play Wednesday Addams? And everybody was like, guys, she's like 36 years old. She's not going to play Wednesday Addams. Okay. Who's next? We got anybody else? Yeah. I have Dahlia DeLeon from Triangle of Sadness. I mean, this is the classic

walked out of the movie being like, let's get this person an Oscar nom and it might happen. It's in play. It happens. She's going to be nominated.

She's going to be nominated. Yeah. Whether or not she wins, I think is, if Triangle of Sadness is nominated for Best Picture, I think you can count on her being nominatedness is nominated for Best Picture. Right. I think you can count on her being nominated for Best Supporting Actress. Which I still think that's the one thing that we like kind of underestimated.

I think she is definitely the breakout star of it. She also gets to shine in the best part of the film, which is the third act without spoiling things. Just a classic, go home, Google this person. She's a Filipina actress. And this is sort of her like Hollywood, even though it's a, you know, Ruben Aslan debut. And she's fantastic. She's great. She's the movie completely changes when she takes center stage.

I guess the final one I'll say is Anthony Hopkins in Armageddon Time. Yeah. Which we actually haven't talked about Armageddon Time that much. A lot of people still haven't seen it. I don't know if there will ever be a moment where we can do an hour on that film, but Anthony Hopkins plays James Gray's stand-in, the 11-year-old James character's grandfather. Yeah. I was like, there's an apostrophe and a modifier there that you took a long time to get to. He does not play James Gray. He does not play James Gray. 11-year-old James Gray. No, no. Although, maybe Anthony Hopkins could do it

because he's proven time and again that he's capable of anything. This is probably the film in which he is most clearly playing Anthony Hopkins in a way that I think is very powerful. Again, this is kind of a movie star part where you're just like, you confer a kind of gravitas and emotional openness

that very few actors are capable of. It's kind of understood that Anthony Hopkins might be the best living actor, like still with us. I like from that generation. Um, he's really,

really well used here. And he gets a moment on a park bench with his grandson. Yeah. That is like home run, crush my heart material and is so powerful. And, uh, I love him.

I, I, I like him in everything. I like him when he makes dumb shit like VOD movies. I like him when he's in Silence of the Lambs. Are you following him on Instagram? I'm not, but I know reliably you will share with me whatever he does there. I mean, I don't really.

I'm too busy looking at Jennifer Connelly on Instagram. I mean, it's just a great mishmash of him doing his contractually obligated promo and then him like playing the piano or dancing on a Sunday. Like a lot of videos of Anthony Hopkins being like, it's Sunday, let's dance. And then just like sobbing for a minute. I don't even know what's happening. It's amazing. You want to do a couple of honorable mentions?

Sure. So I had to write down Justin Long in Barbarian just because the introduction of Justin Long's character in Barbarian is the hardest I've laughed. Right. All year. And his performance, his comic performance in what had to that point not been a comic film is exceptional.

I don't know if I'm like a Justin Long guy, but it did make me think how, why is Justin Long kind of trapped in this VOD mediocre comedy cycle? He's capable of more. Yeah. And I like, I really liked how Zach Kreger used him. I'm a Brian Tyree Henry guy. So he plays a supporting role in Causeway. It's not really supporting. That's sort of a two-hander.

And he becomes the movie. And he, I mean, beautiful. And he is wonderful. He is also on the last two seasons of Atlanta, which again is TV, I guess. We got to claim it. But that's what put him on the map, right? Anyway, I just, I love him and wish him well and everything.

He's great. I wrote down Lashana Lynch and Tusu Mbedo from The Woman King, who are both terrific to me. This is really Tusu Mbedo's first real performance, and she jumps off the screen. She's kind of the star of the film at a certain point. Viola Davis will be nominated for Best Actress, but the story becomes hers at a certain point.

And LaShonna Lynch, who we mentioned on our 35 Under 35, has been on a little bit of a hot streak of late and has enlivened some franchise entertainment

recently. You gonna watch Matilda? Yeah. With Alice? Definitely. Not with Alice. Really?

That's even sadder. Yeah. Is she Miss Honey? Yeah. Oh, that's great casting. Apparently, I haven't seen it yet, but that's great casting, yeah. Oh, interesting. And that's a big look. It is a big look.

And Emma Thompson's Trunchbull? I saw that, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I love, I mean, Matilda, that was my book. Me too. That's the best book. That's our meeting point, emotionally. Exactly. Okay, who else?

Janelle Monáe. Yeah. So we'll get into this more when we talk about Glass Onion. That's all we can say is that Janelle Monáe is in Glass Onion and we can talk more about it. Do you think she would have been in the top 10 if we had already talked about Glass Onion on the pod? Because we can't really make a segment out of this yet. She does something I didn't know she could do. Yeah.

I would agree with that. I still, whatever. We'll talk about glass i mean later okay um i gotta give some love to uh jake gyllenhaal in ambulance yeah um it's not a good performance but it is a performance and gyllenhaal deciding he wants to team up with Michael Bay and then give his most Jake screaming maniacal turn to 13 on a 10 bar performance was a lot of fun. And I, I, I appreciate him. Um, and yeah, I mean, that's, I, anybody else you want to shout out? I wrote down Tang Wei from, uh, Decisional Eve, who I think is exceptional in that movie. Paul Muskell. Paul Muskell.

Yeah. Yeah. From After Sun. Which was a movie that I guess you and I were like pretty heartless about. But he's wonderful in it. So is his co-star Frankie Corio. Wonderful. Did you see the video of her being like, actually, I was first on the call sheet?

I shouldn't say co-star. They won some like British and India award. And she just like took the mic and was like I was number one on the call sheet he was number two so yeah

so both of them okay yeah that's a great list feel great about this yeah you feel great about Bardo um

no I don't let's just let's do it let's bring Adam Neiman in to talk about Bardo. Okay, Adam Neiman is here. It's the most anticipated movie review segment of 2022. We're talking about Bardo,

a false chronicle of a handful of truths. This is the new film from Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu. Now, Adam, you're well known for your punditry on the internet about Iñárritu's work. Amanda, you're less known for that, though you have some strong feelings about Iñárritu. Oh, specifically about Iñárritu. Yeah, where are your tweets about Iñárritu is my question. You know, I'm saving that for next year. That's part of my brand expansion.

Okay. But I also didn't want to get in the way of Adam's fine work. Adam, there was a great anecdote about Jason Reitman in Matt Bellany's newsletter recently that I just, I thought of you in terms of your project and just wanted to make, did you see it? It was about Jason Reitman showing up pretty late to a round table. Yeah, no, you know, late to a round table. Yeah. No, you know, I was only sent it. Yeah.

By about 26 people. Okay. Well, I knew that I was going to be seeing you in person. So I am excited to enthuse with you about it. But I cheered for you and for all of us because I don't care for his film either. I just go where Adam leads on this stuff. Well, I want to ask you about this, because you're obviously a scholar and a critic and a teacher,

and yet you have targets, I would say, artists who have standing in the community who you don't personally respond well to. But do you think of them as enemies? What's your relationship? It's a very bad habit, and social media makes it worse. I mean, critics always have filmmakers who are kind of, you know, who they dislike or who are sort of bet no ours for them and critics who actually matter and have some standing

and stature in history, you know, unlike me. But I mean, real critics like who are famous, Pauline Kael, famously sort of set the terms of dislike for someone like Kubrick the second half of his career. And there's consequences to that, which is that critics who follow her or who are influenced by her sort of took up that mantle. You know, the classic auteurists didn't like Billy Wilder, right? But there's also like a polemical aspect to criticism where some publications or some circles of critics or generations of critics really dislike certain filmmakers and use them as yardsticks or measuring sticks kind of in a negative way, the same way you do for the directors who you tend to heroize, you know? And I would say that in my movie going life which came of age in the early 2000s much like you guys you know i'm 41 i'm watching movies like a big boy maybe starting around the time

where i'm 18 or 19 watching movies like a big boy we should call that that's the new name of this i'm still not doing that but keep going you know reading reviews and measuring reception and trying to think about hierarchies and all that and i think the the bleakest shadow over my personal movie going over that period's been been been in your e2 but we also need to talk about we're going to talk about every aspect of it i guess but there has to be some substance and some significance and some renown for a filmmaker to be like a kind of enemy filmmaker for a critic. Because otherwise, who cares? Yeah, I agree.

I mean, I wonder how we think of him. My opinion certainly has changed on him over time. This is, he hasn't made very many films. I came to him like so many people with Amores Peros, which is now 15 years old. And I feel successively worse about him him kind of officially. And I think some of that is due to his extraordinary success, both in terms of box office with some of his films like The Revenant and also his extraordinary Academy Award success. He's one of the very few who has won more than one Best Director Academy Awards. So he hasn't been, he's about as far from an underdog as you can get and his work increasingly feels like someone who is desperately trying to be taken

even more seriously and even like try to be even more understood in a way that is self-defeating and that is essentially the premise of bardo which is this quasi autobiographical portrait of a documentarian uh who lives in los angeles but is originally from mexico and is grappling with his identity and grappling with his artistry and grappling with how the world sees him and with how he understands himself and uh on the one hand, as I said to you after I saw it at Telluride, I thought this was perhaps the most up-its-own-ass movie I've ever seen. And on the other hand, it isn't a real tradition of auteurs looking at their lives and reflecting them. We've talked about that a lot this year with James Gray and Steven Spielberg and a handful of other

filmmakers looking at their adolescence. But there are a couple of looming titans that are reflected in this movie whether or not he reflects them quite as well as Federico Fellini I think it's safe to say he does not but um Amanda I I you know you've seen the film you saw it on the big screen I saw it on the big screen but I did see the new cut he um I bardo premiered at telluride i believe well at the festivals over the in the fall summer in the fall and sean saw the almost three hour cut and it was received um so tepidly shall we say that inari to cut 20 about 15 to 20 minutes from the cut. And so I saw the two hour and 35 minute version. I still managed to take two power naps of about three to four minutes in the theater. I don't know. At some point I was just like, this is a long one and it's 3 p.m. and I'm just going to

need to power down for a minute. I have a sense of what's going on. Yeah, it's a no for me, for all of the reasons that you said. I mean, Eatery 2 has always kind of's a no for me for all of the reasons that you said i mean in a way too has always kind of been a no for me and i don't really think i've had like the anguished relationship adam that that was rude i like i haven't examined it you know i've just been able to say uh no thank you i think a lot of that is because my first Ina Ritu film was 21 Grams, which I saw on Christmas Day 2003. Thank you, Dad. Merry Christmas to you. I swear to God, it's like at the end of, you know, a joyous Christmas Day, we all want to see this movie, and I was like, what the hell? But I think I have always squarely filed Inaritu in the kind of showy, self-indulgent, quote-unquote, athletic filmmaking that I find sort of exasperating. like just a bunch of guys being like look at what I can do and isn't it amazing how much I can like

move the camera and and cameras as toys and I just a little fake deep and so I think that I have always been slightly uninvested with his work or in his work as like part of Amanda's own project of rejecting boy stuff, which is maybe not fair, but also how I came to this. So parts of it were like certainly visually compelling. There's some dazzling filmmaking for sure. Yeah, and caught my attention. And I also went into it knowing that most people had completely dismissed it and that it wasn't really going to be a thing. So I watched it as a curiosity and't really going to be a thing. So I watched

it as a curiosity and then, and moved on with my day, which is kind of how I think anyone who watches this will receive it at this point. I think especially on Netflix, that is how people will feel about it. So Adam, you've, you've repelled into the cave of Ina Ritu's work and written a massive piece about him. And I assume you've thought quite a bit about Bardo. What do you, what'd you think of the film and, and then maybe give us a sense of how you totalized him. I'm very,

I'm very sad to have not seen the long version. I imagine that those, those 22 minutes are the way to the human soul. Okay. That he's, that he's cut it out. I don't know if you remember that that's what the title of 21 grams refers to the idea that the human soul at death you know loses 21 grams yeah um i like that that's right at the end felt like 21 tons honestly the 20 minutes that he cut out it

was i did see the long version i mean working backwards from from from bar well no no i mean working for us from Morris Paris, and I don't mean, you know, film by film, because that would actually be purgatory. Someone actually asked me on Twitter to rank his film, so I just tweeted a picture of the nine circles of hell. But, but I think that, you know, Morris Paris is actually worth talking about, not 15 years old, 20, 22 years old at this point. Yeah.

Well, you know, and such a thing right this is that late late 90s early 2000s post-terrantino network narrative and also this idea of like transnational cinema being saleable so everything in that movie just reminds me or it gives me a sense of where we're at like where did we come from we came from this this like slick brutal visceral unbelievably exploitative you know like urban horror movie which is like poverty and blight and dog fighting and car crashes and hit men and i mean it, it totally worked for an American audience. It's like, that's the Mexico that they wanted to see in a film.

And a lot of the agony in Bardo where he's his, his onscreen surrogate is confronted by all these Mexican colleagues saying, you know, you sold us out and you're, you're exploiting our history and you know, you're Americanizing yourself. I mean, he's obviously examining that aspect of his career,

right? Cause 21 grams is the same movie it just has uh white movie stars right like the splintered chronology and the absolute just like emotional brutality even i mean i i re-watched it i hadn't seen it in a long time my wife and i re-ed it. And just the number of times he threatens to show you the kids getting hit by the car. And he gets to have it both ways. He gets to not show it, right? So that you can admire his restraint. But the way he threatens to show it because of the way the movie's told out of order and he could cut to these kids being mowed down by a car at any moment it's like borderline sadistic right and i think that one of the things i'd say about him i don't know what you guys think of this and maybe in bardo it pertains to it less than any of his other movies but his only subject not just his style like his subject is his own power as a filmmaker that he can do things to you that he can cut or move the camera or show you something, force your attention, extend the length of a take, you know, collapse space and time. It's his own, you know, virtuosity. And like, it's an uncomfortable thing to talk about. I don't

know if you guys have seen the short he made about 9-11. I have not. Where there's part of this omnibus film where eight or nine filmmakers from around the world in 2001, I guess, early 2002, had to make movies. I mean, the gimmick is just awful. It's like they had to be like nine minutes and 11 seconds and one frame long. Oh, God. So even just accepting that invitation

tells you something about him. But the film is like long stretches of black screen with real audio of people jumping from the towers and the towers collapsing interspersed with interspersed with silent images of the collapse with no sound so when you see something this is when you see something, it's quiet. And when you don't see something, there's just these assaultive bursts of audio. And then it ends with a quote. I don't want to get it wrong, but it's something like, does God's light blind us or help us see? It's written in Arabic and in another language. And it was so acclaimed when it came out. And I just remembered thinking, like, I hate this so much

because it's just a show of power. It's a show of audiovisual power. This doesn't say anything about the event. This doesn't say anything about loss or catharsis that you can't read or know just by knowing that it happened. It's this excuse for style. And the fact that he could turn around the same year and make one of those bmw shorts the higher you know which rid which ridley and tony scott directed where you have clive owen

is this guy driving various storylines you know he's a bmw chauffeur and of course in your reaches is like set in a war zone and it's about a war photographer played by skell and skarsgard trying to get like photos home and when the photos up, it turns out his mother's blind. And I'm like, even you, like you even ruin this, you know, the,

the, the, the, the formal show off fee and the po faced importance. Like we're so suspicious even back then, even in this kind of short form. And I've always thought about him weirdly in that category of filmmakers like Fincher or,

um, or the Scots, I guess, because he comes out of commercials. So that uncanny visual ability he has is real, but he's also selling you something. And I think some of the things I feel he sells like suffering and sells empathy. Like it's a perfume are disgusting.

And Bardo is almost like selling essence of essence of Alejandro. You know, it's like a perfume. It's like a watch. It's like a, a brand, you know, and there was something of that in Fellini too,

but much worse now in, in, in his version, I think. At least with Fellini, you can say, and even if you don't care for Fellini, it had never been done quite like that. That level of self-aggrandizement as artistic exploration had not really been done in cinema. And so that is why he cast such a long shadow on Woody Allen and on all of the 90s filmmakers. Like they all watched all of those, Wes Anderson, all of those filmmakers watched all those movies and found their own ways to kind of transmogrify his vision into

their own ideas. The level of self-aggrandizement, especially in the last three films for Ina Ritu, is unlike anything I've ever seen. A person who is desperate to have a one-sided conversation with his own critics that I find appalling and super weird, but I do understand why his peers really admire him. We've seen Chloe Zhao and Barry Jenkins in particular have been very vocal during the release of Bardo about how much they appreciate this film.

I think in part because he has kind of a fuck you stance that a lot of artists wish they could have publicly. But he is so authenticated in the space that he doesn't care anymore. And so he is just all the way down the rabbit hole of his own interests to the point of appreciation by his peers. The one thing you can say about Bardo is like, it's like back to the text. It is self-involved, but quite literally. We're not doing any of the, you know, I'm in the woods eating a bear heart or whatever the hell happens as a way of, it's just like, I have been making movies about myself and, you know, my artistic struggle. And here is a movie about myself and my artistic struggle.

Does that make me like it anymore? No, but I think there is something not pared down, but at least essential in the like, it is the essence of what he's doing. There is and there isn't. Well. in the like it is the essence of what he's doing there is there isn't well well and here's what might surprise you and what i'm going to say about it is that i had a less bad time at this yeah in a way in a way because when he tells stories his pretensions and his his power gaming sometimes kind of gets in the way i mean like, like the Revenant is a very effective movie. I hate it a lot.

And maybe we'll get to why I hate it. I hate it, but it's very effective. But the parts that are ineffective are the parts where he, he, he drags it, you know, to the pace of his own showmanship when it should be a lean chase movie

here with no narrative pretense in the way. Yeah. Yeah. You get on, you know, you get distilled essence of a vautour. And one thing the movie is not or not totally is it's not phony. I feel like some of his other movies are very phony. This one sort of seems to be examining a phoniness. But, you know, you were talking about people standing up for him i mean god loved his his pal guillermo del toro who whatever else you say about his movies his movies

are not narcissistic you know they always exist in service of the audience he's an entertainer he's a sweetheart he he said the other day about in your e2 he's like people who want this movie to have a plot you know they gotta they gotta check that expectation at the door like he really does have a lot of filmmakers standing up for him so there's respect there you know yeah well he's a he's a great craftsperson crafts person as you said i thought you said crass person and i was not well perhaps but but with but with del toro and and quaran you think about those three, they're always grouped together. There's always something a little gross when people do the three amigos thing. Though by that metric, he's in your E2's Chevy, I'm just saying.

For sure. Does that make Del Toro Martin short and Cuaron Steve Martin? I believe so. Well, I just know that he's Chevy. Okay. But what I was going to say is that Cuaron, when you think about it, who to me is by far the best of those three filmmakers for me, he had to go make movies in Hollywood to some extent telling stories

that he's hired to tell. You know, he wasn't exactly like a journeyman, but he's a hired director. And Del Toro's a genre specialist. Iñárritu gets to make his first Hollywood movie as an art film. And it's one of the things that's fascinating about him in that it makes him like a Fellini

or like another contemporary comparison, like an Almodovar, not tonally or temperamentally at all, but like Almodovar. He kind of subsumes genre and category into himself. He kind of mulches all kinds of movies until they're just in your read-to movies. He doesn't make genre films. The Revenant's not really a Western. It's like a prestige movie. His genre is just kind of prestige, which is why you can't argue in some ways with why he would want to make

a movie like Bardo, because I guess it's a pretty spectacular career and he does want to reckon with it he's also clearly one of the signature successful arthouse filmmakers even set aside the the awards plaudits i mean his movies make money and i mean certainly the revenant was a massive hit but and and you can account for some of the story and some of the leonardo DiCaprio of that but Birdman beautiful uh Birdman Babel and 21 grams were all pure successes at the box office and so he comes by that self-aggrandizement honestly I mean he he won sure Sean Penn Michael Keaton yeah Brad Pitt and he leveraged it all yeah I mean so it is and I think one of the things that the film does is it shows you that even among a person who has the kind of pretension that Inaritu has is that artistic life is a

strategic life if you want to be a success and this character is is I'm not sure if he's at war with his own success but he's at war with the other people's perception of him and he's fighting through that there is a big kind of storytelling framework that we don't want to spoil for anybody who hasn't watched the film that i think complicates this conversation somewhat that i found quite cheap but and will be familiar to viewers of soap operas but um i thought there is stuff in the movie that i like and some of the stuff i like is simultaneously some of the stuff that i hate to, the signature sequence in the film is this large party that is thrown for the Ina Ritu stand-in. And there are simultaneously dance sequences and these long conversations in crowded rooms. The film's shot

by Darius Kanji, who's one of the great cinematographers of the last 25 years. Most of the film is shot with sort of wide angle lens. And so it has this kind of surreal feeling to it. It's almost like you're looking into someone's mind as you're watching the scenes take place. And there's a conversation between two old friends, the Inaritu stand in and a talk show host who have both had success in their lives, but have gone in different directions. And to me, it feels like the reason that Ina Ritu wanted to make the movie, which is to say it felt like him simultaneously having a moment of self-abnegation while also hitting back at everyone who ever criticized him and getting to have the final word. Which I guess is his right as an artist. But as I was watching it, I was like, couldn't you have just put this on Twitter or something? Why did you have to spend $80 million of Netflix's money and acquire the services of some of

the most gifted filmmakers in the world to help you create that? I can't wrap my head around. I certainly have an ego, but I can't wrap my head around the level of ego that one must have to pursue this. And so I was just at times just mystified by this movie, even when there were things about it that I admired. I have thought a lot about how I responded to The Fablemans versus how I responded to this, because in some ways they're completely opposite projects from opposite filmmakers. And in other ways, they are incredibly self-involved, like myth-making stories about how this person became a great filmmaker. And it's like the, this is how I became like a great filmmaker. And the struggles are like baked into the text of both and you know

i think one of the reasons might be that i just like steven spielberg is a more effective uh entertainer and that there is that entertainment aspect to fableman's and this is pure spectacle and self-indulgence and those images don't even if they are spectacular, don't correlate to fun, to go into the movies. And I think also, Bardo probably is equally accomplished in the sense of being a mission statement for the filmmakers project. But I don't super care for the project and never really have. And I am an admitted Steven Spielberg fan. So I don't know. It is fascinating to compare them. Well, it was, you know, John said that he, he told me, said before, you know, he almost wanted to go through some of the In Your E2 movies again and stopped himself. But, you know,

for the thing that I was writing, I went into The Breach and watched a number of them again. You don't just want your memories of the worst parts to be what you're writing from. You want the experience of watching them afresh. And I looked at as much as I could of Babel, which I have been quoted as saying sometimes is the worst movie ever made. It's probably not true. I don't think that's probably true. I think probably people could objectively say that that's not the case. But I remember seeing that in 2006, after he won Best Director at Cannes, and maybe with some hope that this acclaim and this front-running might mean something. I mean, I didn't like 21 grams at all,

but I'm like, you know, it's a movie. So I remember watching Babel and I watched it again this time to see if I was remembering wrongly, but I wasn't, there was something about the way that in this international narrative, if you guys remember four stories set in Morocco,

Mexico, California, and sorry, what's Oh, Japan, of course, Tokyo, California, and sorry, what's, oh, Japan, of course, Tokyo. Seemingly unrelated stories connect. This was absolutely like post-crash. It's the cheesiest thing ever. And the circumstances by which they connect in Babel are so stupid. I mean, it's why I think

it gets nominated for worst movie ever. When you find out how the Japan story connects to the gun in Morocco, you just want to like gouge your eyes out, right? But what I was remembering and then seeing again was the visual language of the movie is in the, let's say the third world locations. There's a freneticism to the way the camera and the editing work. And even the confusion of the Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett characters, because they have this violence happen to them while they're in a place that's not home. But like when he shoots their home in Los Angeles where their nanny works in her plot line, everything's very placid and normal. And the frame kind of calms down.

And I remember in 2006 being like, I hate this so much. I hate this idea that this filmmaker, it happens to be a Mexican filmmaker, but just a filmmaker who's trying to be a kind of world filmmaker and make this internationalist drama with this theme of connectivity. All the American locations and really dialogue scenes between the American stars are kind of settled down and placid and comprehensible and everything else is chaotic. And I thought he showed his hands so badly there. You know, I thought that that was like a real,

I thought that that was a real tell in terms of where his ambitions kind of lie. But then when you go back to Bardo and you see how much of it is about, again, his friends asking him, you know, why are you leaving or why are you not interested in Mexico anymore? When are you going to,

you know, it, it, you can see that he's dealing with something that obviously is quite, is, is quite important to him. And that question of, you know, do all roads lead to America or all roads lead to Hollywood? He's really only made two Hollywood movie, three, right? 21 grams, Birdman and, uh, and, and Revenant and Birdman, I can't believe I'm bending over backwards to give him credit here,

because I don't like that movie. But Birdman was at least on the right side of history in that he saw the superheroization of movies in 2014. He was trying to say something about it. I mean, long before the internet got so angry at everyone like Scorsese and Coppola and all those guys for saying superhero movies suck and they're killing cinema. He did make a whole movie on that subject and win an Oscar for it, which is, I think, worth mentioning in his favor.

The problem with that and Birdman is probably, I don't know if I have a favorite Ina Ritu movie, but it is the movie that I had the easiest time of his watching, in part because it is the least brutal, as you said, Adam, certainly by design, is he already made Birdman. And the majority of the themes, with the exception of the confusion of identity for an immigrant leaving Mexico and coming to Los Angeles and then reckoning with that, that's a key theme.

There's also a key theme about family and the loss of a child that is smashed together with a bunch of stuff that we just already saw in Birdman. You know, about an aging artist who feels like he is not understood, surrounded by people who are either, you know, falsely supporting him or who are misunderstanding him and undermining him. And what I don't understand with Bardo is if he wanted to make something sincere about the loss of a child or about his confusion of identity or his struggle

to simultaneously exist as a Hollywood Titan and also a Mexican man. Both very rich, deep themes. Just cut out all the Birdman shit. Again, it's one of those things where this is a hugely powerful person who no one would ever say, hey man, you did a great job with this already and you won an Oscar for it. All of these themes, everyone who watches this movie will be like, this is a rich asshole from Hollywood. That is how they will view the movie. And I love rich assholes from Hollywood. And I found this so distasteful. And to collide it with other clearly true and sincere aspects of his life, I find kind of remarkable.

Like it's, I wouldn't say that I was offended by the movie, but I almost felt like the offense of it having been greenlit because it's so clearly unnecessary to mix those two aspects of the story. Now he's an artist. He has the right to tell whatever story he wants to tell. But I can't wrap my head around why he won't let his point stand.

You know? You know when someone wins the argument? Like, he won the argument. And still he continues to make the argument. I don't know. You're just looking at me like, I agree. No, no. Like, I do agree.

And it's also, like, I can't get myself that worked up to be that offended by it, honestly. Like, my review of this is honestly that I slept for, like, the four-minute increments twice during the movie. Like, I don't know what else to say. Amanda, would you be offended to know that when he won the writing Golden Globe for Birdman and the four guys got on stage, he stole one guy's cool hat and put it on himself for the stage. I was offended and I have seen that on your Twitter. And you inspire me to see the faults. And I think that's a beautiful thing.

More seriously, because you guys are both parents, not that this is the only way that one can react to a movie. I have a shameful admission about this film. Yes. I wonder if you guys would counter it. I don't want to spoil it, but it's also not a spoiler. And it's also a hard thing to talk about because it's rooted in, we're all kind of beating up on this director, but it's rooted, my understanding is to some extent, in his personal biography. Did you guys cry at the big moment? Because I did.

Yeah, of course. While having no respect for 80% of the film. But I didn't just feel it was a matter of manipulation. I actually felt it was the reason that I take a director like this seriously, because he's capable, not just on a technical level, but on an imaginative level of showing something powerful even though i thought it yeah yeah and i did and i think you're totally right adam and i think also that was a moment where his emotional and intellectual

and like cinematic investment was aligned with mine you know that's the point i'm making it's like he there that is a film like if you want to make a film about that idea make that film like stop trying to collide it with your with your own bullshit ego success imposter syndrome it's fucking nonsense i don't i don't even know why i'm mad i i agree i think that's part of it is and i'm sure that there's some new parent stuff going on too, where I'm just like, wow, that, that stuff is powerful. So why did you bail on trying to do that? Because I think the other stuff is like important to him and he has had so much success at the Oscars and in Hollywood. And you know, I just, I don't care about it. Like, I do not care about how he feels about his relationship to the camera

and, you know, and the power of cinema. Like, I just like, you know, a lot of movies this year, which are just like cameras are powerful. I got to be honest, will never care. I will never care. But, you know, I don't get as angry about it as you do. I just think that there are very few people who are capable of doing what he does. And he often puts his talent in the service of something that I think is nonsense.

And I think that's maybe just a very brief way of describing what Adam more eloquently identifies throughout his entire filmography. But this one in particular, because it is so unvarnished and so autobiographical, I find it even more troubling. But, you know, I mean, Amanda, you know, one of the reasons she's made the point before on the show, she always makes it well, is because it is somewhat endemic or epidemic, which is there is a certain sort of like macho poetry thing with these directors where you call it like athletic and you're right it is athletic and it's it's it's macho and it's like macho sensitive you know yeah and i and i think that it's interesting looking at the gray film and and spielberg and even you know licorice pizza the paul thomas anderson from last year in those other films, I think the directors do something, which is both very effective and somewhat sneaky, which is they reduce themselves to children.

You know, they, they not reduce themselves. They imagine themselves sort of as children and that space between how we know them as filmmakers and how they, how they appear as these alter egos is obviously, you know, quite endearing.

I think of what he does in this film, again, not a spoiler, but I mean, you know, you got to talk about it, like the Wayans Brothers moment where he becomes a child, but with this incredible CGI trickery of the lead actor's face superimposed on it. And I'm caught between thinking there's a daredevil ambition to that he's going further steven spielberg would never right right and i'm sort of and i'm sort of trying to decide if steven spielberg would never because he's sane right or or if or if those sorts of gestures or the other gesture which leads the film off right where this baby asks to go into the

womb which is like a sub gaspard no way joke like i can't tell if i if another director's name was on an image or a joke like that if i would give it an easier time like i really hate this director enough that i'm trying to give them the benefit of the doubt i don't know if that makes sense like it's about examining your prejudice yeah examining your, examining your intolerance. I mean, in some ways I'm disappointed that there's no one on the pod who's arguing more for the movie. And in some ways I'm disappointed the movie got bad reviews because it's

less fun to push against it. I know that sounds like such a churlish sentiment, but like when the Revenant came out, I fought with people all the time who thought this was a great movie. I feel like with Bardo, this is just not happening. People are not buying it. And that's, what's's fascinating like this is going to come out on netflix and i don't know are we the only three people who watched it i don't are gonna watch it i i i don't know i don't think very many people are going to watch it i i think that the

reason for that is because if you accept me as the stand-in for the film bro who is wowed by athleticism in filmmaking, and I hope I'm not strictly that, but I certainly reflect that at times, and even I am like borderline pissed off at aspects of the movie, then that's why it's not getting a reception. It's like if he's not even getting points for that sort of thing anymore, he's sort of proven that he can do that stuff. And so it's over.

It's not strictly about that. and it becomes almost entirely about burnishing his ego to what end i don't think anyone really understands that and when you see him you know when he's done press about this film he's been quite brazen you know and he's i he perhaps rightfully is um defiant about the feedback i the idea of him having to accept that he needed to cut 18 minutes out of this movie is so funny i i want to be i wish i was in the room when he acceded finally to having to cut it down um and and it's not even his least favorable movie to me either. I find it to be a fascinating... Here's what it is.

And we can close with this. It's the logical end point of the Netflix auteur era. It is the carte blanche, $75 million to make whatever movie you want. We will try to identify as many of the greatest

filmmakers on earth. Bong Joon-ho, Martin Scorsese, go all the way down the list. Everyone who they have empowered to make dream projects that no one thought possible. This is the end point. A guy who's already done it all, who's got nothing left to say other than self-pity, spending the biggest tech streaming company's money in the world to write you know, write like a cheap, magical, realistic diary entry. And it's just a bummer.

It's like one of the reasons why we kvetch on this show all the time is because this company came in and shattered this thing that we loved so that they could empower people who already had all the power in the world to make whatever they wanted, even though they've already been able to do that so i i think maybe i'm frustrated because i'm like god damn it we killed it for this yeah we killed it for this

movie and i'm i'm mad and and then it's interesting the director you didn't mention there who's at the beginning of that cycle and who you know like in yuritsu is an oscar winner but actually won his oscar for it which is roma yeah yeah right where that and i mean and also you know i mean that that's isn't that a perfectly shaped cycle you know the the circle of roma turning around sort of to to bardo and cuaron who i wouldn't call a self-effacing filmmaker stylistically because again he's in love with the camera and by the way he is just as open to those charges that a band is making, you know, boys and their toys, camera, filmmaking. I mean, Cuaron is as masturbatory as anybody.

But in his movie in Roma, which even- Better taste in material for what it's worth, but yeah. Better taste in material. And when he makes a movie about his childhood or makes a movie about his country or the loss of a child don't forget yep in the scenes in roma more self-effacement it's less about him than him as a conduit towards feelings you know i feel like when in your etude in bardo deals with feelings that are maybe universal, like loss of a child or fear of death, or even just alienation from your culture, you know, the potential is there.

But yeah, he's got to stick himself in the middle of it. So it ends up becoming more like some of the other Netflix movies that Sean was mentioning. I hate to make this comparison because it's one of my favorite filmmakers, but it's closer to something like make where in so far as the market's not asking for this. Yeah. Right. So the blank check aspect becomes interesting. What's Netflix going to sanction. There's no real editorial oversight on either of those two movies.

And then this is sort of what you, this is what you get I'm don't worry Sean I'm not saying I think Bardo is that Bank and Bardo are equivalent you'll never have me on the show again of course I I adore Mank and I am willing to acknowledge that Mank

is in the service of a psychological closure that David Fincher has with his father he was open about that But at least it was about his father and not himself. You know, certainly that there is a self-reflected there. But again, my issue is

like enough, Alejandro. Like we know, we get it. You know, you're a great man who's struggled. Yeah. We all have. We've all struggled. God.

And your struggle is not universal, unfortunately, for all of us. Adam, thank you so much. When is your piece being published on, Inari, too? I think it'll be written in lightning in the sky. No, I'm kidding. I think it's funny that on this podcast, I actually was the nicest in a way. Yeah.

You are. You are. You've thought more deeply about this, I think, than we have, which probably speaks to I just watched it again for a second time. So I'm mad. Well, I think that that's my problem. But I appreciate, you know, I appreciate coming in. And in some ways, you know, hearing that the movie hasn't gotten over, it does make you feel a little less crazy. So thank you.

Thank you for that. And you guys have a lovely, lovely holiday of no movies. You promise, right? Like we're done now. There's nothing left. Alas, no. Yeah. Sorry.

Sorry about that. More movies. You're going to see more movies? What's left? You guys saw Avatar already. Yeah. We're done. I'm just on the revisiting stage.

I think I'm in the catch up stage. You know, I had a break there. So I'm still feeling feeling back in all right good luck stay stay you know sane thank you thanks to adam thanks to bobby w Wagner for his production work on this episode. Later this week, I'll be looking at Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. I was going to say, I see you have a plural noun written here, but... I will be looking at Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio and the best animated movies of 2022 with Charles Holmes, who will be joining me on this show.

We will see you then.