The Big Picture - The 2014 Movie Draft: CR's Revenge

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

It's time once again for a Movie Draft. Chris Ryan returns with hopes of staving off Sean and Amanda to claim his first draft victory (15:00). Then, Sean is joined by Clea DuVall, an actress you may know from films like 'But I’m a Cheerleader,' 'Zodiac,' and 'Argo.' They talk about DuVall’s second film as a director, 'Happiest Season'—a charming holiday rom-com about a couple played by Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis—that hits Hulu on Wednesday (59:47). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Chris Ryan and Clea DuVall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the year 2014. Later in the show, I'll be joined by Clea Duvall, an actress you may know from films like But I'm a Cheerleader, Zodiac, and Argo. Duvall's second film as director, Happiest Season, a charming holiday rom-com that Amanda and I both recommend about an LGBTQ couple played by Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis hits Hulu on Wednesday, just in time for Thanksgiving. I hope you'll stick around for that chat. Joining us as always now is Chris Ryan to select the best

possible collection of films for our 2014 movie draft. It's coming up right now on The big picture. Okay, gang, let's go. It's draft time. Chris, how are you feeling? Thankful. Thankful for another opportunity to podcast with you guys. Oh, that's very sweet and not cynical at all. Amanda, how are you doing? I'm good. I'm glad to be here with you guys. I am going to try to keep my attitude thankful and grateful as well as we discuss your movies that I didn't like very much. The problem is that I think we want as a trio to treat each other with kindness, but I don't know if that's what the listeners want anymore. Well, you've raised something interesting, Chris. I'm a little bit concerned that you've become self-aware, that you've become sentient, that the conversation around the Chris

Ryan draft strategy has been weaponized. And now you're going to use it to be a better and more entertaining podcaster. I want you to evacuate that idea. I want you to continue to play with your heart. Because if you do anything other than play with your heart, then I don't think that this is going to be as meaningful and enjoyable as it has been so far. Amanda, do you agree? Chris should close his eyes and just go straight from the dome. Yeah. Is this where we talk about the fact that Chris put some of his picks in our shared outline? I didn't even see that. Did you do that, Chris? Chris, did you know that? But I didn't. Those are just like, I was just like, so that I don't forget. I think I did put it

in the shared. No, but like, who cares, right? When you guys think that there's like a secret interstellar, like, by the way, they're not surprising

picks the two of them. They are like, see our things. I think your strategy is very sound and I support you. But just in terms of like Chris Ryan is sending

to the next plane of draft strategy that I guess I have so many many google docs like me and Greenwald just go fucking straight from the cranium dude we're just like the freestyle fellowship Chris I gotta say I didn't see this until Amanda just pointed it out and you have you've bested yourself once again rather than make a bad pick you have told us what your picks are going to be before there's like five options in each one so this actually actually is a great way of starting to talk about 2014 because i think that this is the year a that brings us together i think this is a year not only is it a it's a year that i think

that where the movies are going to be like, pretty much there's an overlap for our tastes. Now, Amanda, I know that you're like, I hate 2014. I was, I hated these movies, but the movies that you did like, I think Sean and I like too. That is true. I think that I hate the 2014 narrative. I, that kind of the consensus, what was interesting about these movies. And frankly, what I think is going to win

the movie draft, which I'm not above admitting I would like to win, is separate from what I'm interested in in 2014. What do you think the narrative was, Amanda,

when you say that? Well, I just think that there are a lot of movies that other people liked that I don't really care for. From Interstellar to Guardians of the Galaxy to Birdman, which wins the Oscar for this year, to Boyhood, which is a Linklater film that I admire but possibly don't enjoy. I think we're going to have to talk about Inherent Vice. And can we go to the personal recollections part of 2014? Yeah, yeah. Why is it such a sour memory in your mind?

I'm about to share with you an anecdote that encapsulates 2014, which is on a winter Sunday. My now husband, not husband at the time, Zach Barron, He's been a little salty that I haven't been using his full name. So here you go, buddy. Zach Barron made me watch the Philadelphia Eagles and then go to the Angelica and watch Inherent Vice all in one day. I'm surprised I didn't marry Zach. There you go.

That's it. Sounds like my dream girl. Right. there you go that's it sounds like my dream girl right and i was not particularly gracious about it though i have to be honest from my perspective that was like eight hours of his bullshit and i didn't have a nice time and then the sun set at like 2 p.m because of of the the time of the year and we got in a massive fight on a subway station, just like a really, really classic New York relationship moment of just being like, you don't respect my interests and you don't respect my time. Like on the AC train, it was a disaster. And that's basically how I feel about this year at movies. I must say you're letting one bad Sunday color what was otherwise a lovely

year in film. Yeah. I think 2014 was pretty cool. Not just because of Inherent Vice. I don't think it's great. I think that it is. I kept saying like, oh, yeah, this thing hadn't started yet. This wave hadn't started yet through all of these movie drafts. Things are pretty bad now in 2014 in terms of like what movies are, what mainstream movie

culture is at this point. It this point, it's kind of over. Now, I like some of the mainstream movies that dominated the year, but Chris, why are you so buoyant about it? Why do you think it was a good year? Well, it's making me nostalgic for a time when I still think movies had a longer tail and could basically prop up a cultural conversation for more than 36 hours after they hit a streaming service. So the idea that Interstellar was something that I greatly anticipated. I loved arguing about with people that had cool twists,

that had lots of good memes. We got so much out of Matthew McConaughey looking into his missed life on the video screen and crying. And I think that that was the case for a lot of movies. Not My Tempo, The Fucking Talking Raccoon, that was great. So we had so much stuff where it felt like movies played an appropriately large role in culture. And so we're looking at this list of films while I don't know if any of these are going to be the movie I watch on Death Row. I do think that, today in 2020, some of these films still kind of,

they still have like a sort of cultural currency, you know? I think of it as a very interesting Oscar year because it is a year in which, as Amanda pointed out, Birdman won, which had felt like a consensus for a long time throughout this, this Oscar race, maybe boyhood as running in second place behind it.

Interesting collection of movies that were nominated. I think on the one hand, you've got a newer generation of voices of filmmakers, Ava DuVernay with Selma and Damien Chazelle with Whiplash coming along and representing, I think, a change in some respects. And then you've also got what feels to me, especially in retrospect,

like the last gasp of the Weinstein Oscar Beatty movie, which Amanda and I just talked about in movies like The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything. Those kinds of movies are still made, but the campaigns around them are not necessarily as effective as they were back in this time. And so at the time, it just seemed like we had to care about The Theory of Everything, which is just an incredibly dull movie. And the story is worth telling, I suppose.

But no one is looking back on that, Chris, to your point and saying like, gosh, I'm about to be electrocuted by the state. I need to watch the theory of everything before I go. Yeah. I mean, maybe the perspective I'm coming from is the evaporating award season this year and how, I guess, 2014, I definitely remember as just this long debate. And even if I...

Did you guys ever get any bar arguments about Theory of Everything versus Imitation Game? No. But I do think that Birdman versus Boyhood was kind of a fascinating counterpoint combo because one of them was about, you know, filmmaking slash artists and acting and the one or and, you know, all of the kind of quote unquote grandeur on the making of that movie and Boyhood was this highly personal idiosyncratic project. And so there was there was

a lot of movie world to talk about it. Was it very masculine to Amanda's point? Yeah, it was pretty masculine. I mean, most of this stuff is usually pretty masculine. It's a lot of guys calling the shots on these things. I think boyhood is also a little bit more procedural and achievement craft oriented. And it was a conversation about what kind of craft, you know, we value. And those are important. And I think now in 2020, we're like, gosh, wouldn't it be fun to have that conversation instead of talking about like, you know about whether movies are dying every single week? But it was a little tiresome, I think, especially if you didn't really emotionally connect with either of the movies. And I think they're both accomplishments in their way. But I guess that's it. Honestly, I just didn't emotionally connect with a ton of these movies. Yeah, I don't think that audiences in the Oscar realm did either. Honestly, this kind

of kicks off in conjunction with people starting to cut the cord and be less interested in live television. Frankly, the Oscars importance, you know, the ratings went down this year and they've basically gone down every year since after reaching a high of 43 million the previous year, 43 million viewers. So it is a turning point in that respect. And then it's also a turning point with regard to what I was saying before, which is like, this is it. Like superhero movies are here. They're not only here, like they are movie culture in a big way. And Chris, I think it's interesting that you point out that like movies like Whiplash, I think they meant a lot to people like me and you but i i don't know that that was the mainstream movie culture the mainstream movie culture was

guardians and you know winter soldier and x-men days of future past and hunger games movies and this stuff is just it it 17 of the top 20 movies in the u.s that year were either sequels or films that would spawn sequels and And that kind of tells you everything about why we're in this situation we're in right now, where we're like, what even are movies? What are they going to be? I remember leaving a couple of movies, like several movie theaters with you and just kind of staring off into the middle of distance and being like, that was definitely a Hobbit movie. Yeah, it's too bad um interstellar is is a kind of a lone operator in this year have you with has your like nolan red pilling gotten you to the point where you think interstellar is

great um well what do you mean by red pilling i just think like you've kind of like gone through so many different like troll moves with that that i don't know where you actually think because you're like no actually tenet is the best nolan film is like are you implying that i'm not being honest in the opinions that i share on this podcast i would never do that not on your pod i would take shots at you on other pods but i think that or did you do you remember i think i feel like you came out of interstellar and were like, that was nonsense. I hated it. I really, really hated it. I thought it was everything that I disliked about what he was after, which was the implication of emotion without actual emotion and the implication of sophistication without actual sophistication.

But let me tell you, I rewatched it this year for the first time. Then when I saw it the first time, maybe I was having a grouchy Sunday like you, Amanda. Maybe I was just not having a good day the day that I saw it. But when I came out of it the first time, I just despised the movie. I thought it was like a one-star movie. And I rewatched it again and I was wrong. I felt like my opinion had changed

and that there was a lot to recommend it. And it's by no means perfect. And it's certainly not the life-altering masterpiece that many people will tell you on the internet, at least not to me. But that's a very talented person. And he's trying to do something big and taking a big swing. And I have more respect for that with time passing. Amanda, you don't like Interstellar either as much. I'm actually a little surprised by that. Amanda, you don't like the walking domino guy? I have honestly no memory of interstellar i saw it i

don't think i was mad at it and then i think it fell out of my brain just as soon as i walked out of the theater as opposed to inception which like lived on and i remember that ah can you believe it feeling and maybe i just didn't understand what was going on and maybe i like and it honestly maybe didn't require that much investment beyond just letting it wash over you. So I'm kind of rare for me. I don't really have much of an opinion. I'm just like,

okay, people like it. And, and I saw it and, and now I'll move on. Any other stray reflections before we get into the draft? Good horror year. Really good horror year.

And, and I, we've had a couple of drafts where you know we've reflected on like you could go see 50 movies in the theater this year my long list was not that long i did not put the long list in the google docs you guys no idea how long my long list is but um i don't think i went as much as years past i don't think that there was as much like stray to watch. And I remember TV being really good around here. So like Mad Men was still on. Thrones was like

really, really cracking. So I remember this being one of those first years where I was like, is it more fun to stay home and catch up on TV? Wow. That's devastating. Sorry. And now here we are. Now look what you've done to degrade our culture by doing the Hollywood Perspectives podcast and The Watch for years and years.

You've destroyed movies, Chris. Let's get into a draft, but before we do that, let's take a quick break to our work for our sponsor. Time to draft, which means it's time for Bobby Wagner wagner to help us find the draft order wags you ready yes i'm ready i am bunkered down in the great commonwealth of kentucky so i don't have my scrabble tiles so i'm using an online wheel spinner with your names on it i will give you i will send you like a bitcoin if you don't pick me first just like let me if i don't pick you first i don't want to pick

first. Are we allowed to trade out of positions? We haven't discussed that. I want to trade down. I think that I should be able to trade down. I think you should be able to trade down for the right to pick Sean's sequel or something like that. Oh, that's very complicated for audio. What are you talking about?

I'll let you trade down if you you buy me Uber Eats or something. Okay. No free ads. No, Bobby, take the Bitcoin. I don't know anything

about financial portfolios. Because Yellen's back, so we don't really know what's going to happen to Bitcoin. Okay, that was a reference to the former Fed chair here on this 2014 movie draft.

I'm just going to start spinning the wheel. How about that? I'll start spinning the wheel let's spin the wheel you think janet yellen listens to this pod only when you're on chris only for only for cr episodes chris you don't have to worry sean has landed first oh wow huh okay i'm spinning again it'll probably land on sean again because there it is again. So I get the first two picks? Is that what that means? Yeah.

Congratulations. Are you just spinning? Sean is getting picked every time? What is this? Sean's been picked five straight times. Wow. I'm starting to get a little fishy. Amanda is second. Amanda is second.

There's only three options, Amanda. It's not that statistically unlikely. So I'm third. And I just want to, I thought maybe we could start this draft off with a quote from one of the great movies from this year from The Gambler, where Mark Wahlberg says, you don't come here for fucking protection from yourself. You come for the fucking opposite.

And here I am. So please deal the cards. Wow, Chris. How exciting. Over under eight hours from when this pod drops that that exact quote is tweeted by CRHeadsUnited.

Okay, y'all have fun. I was wondering when it was going to come up on this pod and I'm proud of you, Chris. Yeah. Should we have carved out a...

Well, we'll get there, I suppose. You have to take the gambler in some category at this point and if you don't, it's a failure. Yes, okay. I will.

Should we just do a separate gambler pod? I'm waiting. What are you talking about? Would people listen to it? No. Amanda, would you listen to Chris and I talk about the gambler for 68 minutes? As if I don't have to do that every time I see you. As if that's not my life when we're not recording this podcast. Kind of just an anecdote. Yesterday, we finished watching The Undoing last night and then sitting on the opposite end of the couch, my husband just starts playing a clip on his phone at top volume. It's what Chris sent him of The Gambler.

Just, you know, there's an audience and it's not me, but that's okay. Okay, so you won't listen to the podcast of which you are the co-host. That's what you're saying. I've already heard it. I live it. If you won't listen, then who abandoned? Jesus Christ. I'm trying to get Chris a win here before he gets his ass kicked in this draft. Okay, so I have the first pick. I've just been vamping because I really don't know what I'm going to do here. An embarrassment of riches in my mind. I think

I'm going to kick this off in very dull fashion, which is I'm going to select Captain America Winter Soldier as my sequel choice. I think that this is certainly in the conversation for the best MCU movie, certainly in the conversation for best sequel of the decade. Chris, you and I had a lot of fun with this

movie when it was coming out because it was a high-level director bullshit movie. That's right, baby. The Russo Brothers. The parallax view, the conversation, maybe a little bit of Battle of Algiers in there. That's right. For those of you not familiar with director bullshit, that is, of course, in the run-up to a movie's release, a director is interviewed by perhaps a schmuck like me and asks them what their influences are. And they go on to name a series of hallowed and wonderful movies that have almost nothing to do with the movie that they made.

And the parallax view, I don't think has very much to do with Captain America Winter Soldier, but I rewatched it this week. It's the only 2014 movie that I rewatched this week. And I thought it was really good. And I thought it was really good because it's a really good action movie. It's not a conspiracy thriller. It's one of the very best MCU action movies. And Amanda, you and I have talked about Extraction a couple of times this year on this show. It's much more of a precursor to Extraction, actually, than it is some revelation like All the President's Men. So that's my first pick. I remember that movie. Well, I will always remember it for like, that's when I think it got codified of guys wearing no logo athletic wear

in Marvel movies where it's just like a mock turtle with like a windbreaker nothing but just like no sportswear logos and then a black snapback hat with no logo like no man has ever worn outside of a Marvel

MCU. I don't know why that's been an obsession of yours for years, Chris, but- It makes me mad that they have so much money and just don't fucking lease the Yankees logo. Just do it. Stop insulting our intelligence. His name's Captain America, not Captain New York, Chris, okay? Just keep that in mind. Amanda, I think you have the second pick. Yeah. Chris mentioning the Yankees logo kind of solidifies my strategy here, which is a fairly obvious pick. And I think I'm going to do it in drama, but I'm going to take Gone Girl, which is a film that I like very much and that the three of

us have discussed at great length on this podcast uh check out the david fincher episodes but i yeah i'm a fan ben affleck forever easy one that was definitely number one on my drama board yeah chris you've got two picks now okay well man i always get so nervous about you guys yelling at me i'm gonna to go with right under the apron of what we consider a blockbuster on this podcast, which is $100 million domestic box office. And I'm going to go with Edge of Tomorrow, starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt, one of my favorite action blockbusters from the decade. We did rewatchables about it, Sean.

So I feel like we are very much on the record. But it's a movie that I feel like has aged tremendously well it's probably my like favorite late period cruise including those Mission Impossible movies which I enjoyed greatly but find him pretty dull in you know the movies themselves are cool but they're only kind of like I think using half of what Tom Cruise is good at I think he has a ton of charm and even better when his charm is like kind of a self-aware charm

and that's that's what's in Edge of Tomorrow and I also think it's great great great Emily Blunt performance

this is sort of like she did this she did Sicario and it was kind of like oh is Emily Blunt just going to be like this amazing kind of like

neo Sandra Bullock action star and she hasn't really like kind of done a movie like that in a while I guess Quiet Place is sort of like that butra bullock action star and she hasn't really like kind of done a movie like that in a while i like his quiet places sort of like that but edge of tomorrow for blockbuster and then by the way this movie made 100 million 206 000 and 256 that's as close to on the line as you can possibly get so chris i just want to say to you, great job. Thanks, man. Your first pick

was terrific. Thanks. Okay, and then the second one I'm going to do here is comedy and it's Grand Budapest Hotel. Damn it, Chris! Wow. Wow, Chris came to play.

Ugh! Chris came to play. One of my favorite Wes Anderson movies. Again, probably the perfect late period Wes Anderson movie. Everybody firing on the same cylinders. Such a lovely little nesting doll of a story

and great Saoirse Ronan performance. I adore this movie. Ralph Fiennes is incredible in this. Tremendous Ralph Fiennes. Terrific movie. I think both Amanda and I were targeting this one on the way back and we got screwed. Chris, you made two terrific selections. Yeah. Thanks, guys.

Also, notably, neither of those were in the document. I know. I only threw a couple of those. I just looked. The document is... It could be... You could even say misleading. Oh, interesting. That would be great, honestly... You could even say misleading. Oh, interesting. Oh. That would be great, honestly,

if you had done that. Chris, did you go to some sort of clinic? Like, were you coached up ahead of this draft? What happened? How did you change your strategy? I've been texting Daryl Morey and just be like, how do I not fucking faceplant

on one of these? You guys are treating Chris like the kid who hits ninth in Little League. Like, if they make any contact at all and get a single... No, it's okay, CR. Go play right field. Chris, just lean in and get hit with the pitch brother that's a single when

you think about it yeah chris gets five strikes everybody else gets three okay amanda you're up you've just had two good ones taken away from you yeah i've grand budapest hotel was number one in my comedy and i'm really bummed about it. And yesterday after I threw a mini slack tantrum to you guys about how I don't like any of the movies in 2014, I went and rewatched grand food, best hotel, and it put me in a great mood again. Um,

just also, I think that movie also invented millennial pink, but, uh, that's a different conversation. That movie is crazy. Rewatchable. That should be a rewatch,

but I I've, I've watched, I've seen that movie like four or five times. I don't think Bill will let us do that one chris well maybe the three of us could do it okay i i don't know what i'm gonna do now so chris you did blockbuster and comedy horror comedy okay i don't like myself very much for what i'm about to do. You're going to pick a nice aren't you? No, no. I honestly if I were going to try to screw Sean over I would actually pick a different movie and I'm not going to do that either.

I'm going to take Interstellar and Blockbuster. And that's that's because I would like to win and I'm being honest about that. Good pick. Good pick. I don't respect myself either i'm i'm grateful that i didn't have to pick it i have already taken a christopher nolan movie in one of these drafts i felt complicated about that wow okay so i see see i know you don't think this is a great year man but i feel like i have a little bit of an embarrassment of riches and making the right choice is a little tricky here i think there are two obvious dramas for you that are like the two sides of your personality.

Yeah. Well, one of my five favorite movies of the last 10 years is Whiplash. So I have to take Whiplash in drama. Is that what you're doing here? I'm going to do that here. Yeah. Whiplash, which I just think is an extraordinary movie. And I, I, I hope Damien Chazelle returns to movies like this that are reflective of this level of intensity in his filmmaking. What's he doing now? I believe he is now working on another film that is also about old Hollywood. Oh,

right. It's the musical, right? Yes. And wasn't that, is it Emma stone and Brad, not Emma stone, but Brad Pitt is attached right

I believe so yes um I don't know who the female female lead is but I'm hopeful that he I liked First Man a lot especially same thing with Interstellar maybe I just need to see space movies twice but the second time I saw First Man I totally changed my mind on it um but yeah Whiplash just an amazing film and certainly a movie that I relate to a lot in a very unhealthy way. So that's my drama pick. And what's next? What to do here? I guess I have to do Inherent Vice for comedy horror, which unusual. Which is it? Wow. So wait, should we talk about this a little bit here? Yeah. Do you disagree that it's a comedy?

Me? Yeah. Do you disagree that it's a comedy? Me? Yeah. Oh, no. I was actually going to say that it feels to me like Inherent Vice is their growing cult favorite of PTA movies. I think it's the millennial PTA favorite. I saw that there was a pod got started that's just about Inherent Vice, right? Yeah. So let's talk about why that is. Actually, Amanda, I did not know that you don't like this movie that much. Yeah. Context was a little bit of it. It caught me at the wrong time. I just don't have a lot of patience for this particular cult of literary fiction and its film extensions. It's just not my brand, even though there are many other brands of literary fiction that are my brand.

Thank you, Sean Fennessey. But what do you think it says that you're so drawn to people whose brand it is? Yes, good question. I don't know. And I don't, I've asked myself that question a lot over the past, what, 10 to 15 years. Do you want to come to therapy with me? Like you're invited. It's on zoom too. I don't know. And, and it is true that exasperation for the,

like the culture around it and the reception, like I probably dislike the, the cult favorite of this, of it. And the, the millennialness of it more than the film itself. Sean, you and I had a very special experience in this movie together.

I think you had seen it once before without me, but then we went and saw... It wasn't a premiere, but it was the first night or weekend that it was showing at New Beverly. she dropped her Dr. Pepper during Paul Thomas Anderson's remarks. And he was like, oh my God, you dropped your soda and went and got this person, whatever it was, like a cherry Dr. Pepper or whatever they have at New Beverly. And it was like 25 minutes of Cheech and Chong shorts before it. It was like a real experience. It was fantastic. It was one of the most fun nights at the movies that I've had in my whole life. And yeah, and the same thing, I think watching it again, it's the kind of movie that rewards multiple viewings. It's a real Easter egg kind of a movie. It's a real left turn comedy movie. I mean, I think you should try it out again. I actually don't think it's perfect. It's probably not even near the top of my PTA power rankings, so to speak. But it's a real testament to, I think, his specific and odd sense of humor and

his fascination with a certain idea about 70s Los Angeles. He's very romantic about that period, and he captures it really beautifully. I don't know. I think it's a really cool movie. Not a movie that I think will be rewatchable at any time soon, necessarily, but if the millennial wave continues, who knows? We'll see. Amanda, you're up. Oh, I am? I don't really know what my strategy is here, to be honest. So I have Gone Girl and Drama and Interstellar and Blockbuster. Grand Budapest Hotel was rudely taken away from me. So I guess I'm going to go with comedy. This is great podcasting.

I'm really talking. I thank you to everyone for your support. You're doing a really good job. Yada yada while you're thinking, whereas like, I think I'm just like, it's my turn. I better pick.

I'm like, I wanted to just drown, you know, just, I want to hear the dead air, you know, no, no vamping for you. It's fine. I'm going to, I'm her to just drown. You know, just I want to hear the dead air. You know, no vamping for you.

It's fine. I'm going to take Neighbors in comedy. Good pick. Which is a very extremely funny movie that I rewatched part of this morning and was just laughing at. Isn't that movie like 82 minutes long too? Yeah. God bless. And just no filler. And very funny.

And good job, everyone who made it. Especially Roseburn. I think that's a great pick who doesn't like neighbors I that movie might have one of the higher approval ratings of any in the last few years I think it's like a good

personality test like if you meet somebody who's like I'm not into that movie we're not friends there should be there should be a movie every year that we all agree on that passes the personality test.

Let's just do that in movie drafts going forward. Chris, you've got two picks coming up. Okay. Well, it's getting complicated, right? So I have comedy. I have blockbuster taking care of Edge of Tomorrow and Grand Budapest Hotel. I think for drama, I'm going to go with my

favorite performance from this year which is uh of course robert duvall and the judge um no it's it's uh it's nightcrawler um so i'm gonna take uh jake g uh i thought like this is just absolutely mesmerizing shit from my guy and just real like i think he's kind of like chilled out since then and it's just like i'll do a sondheim musical and and you know i'm gonna level out a little bit but this was back when jake was just like i will gain all this weight for southpaw and lose it all for nightcrawler and then you know slick my hair back for this role and like he was going through a lot of physical transformations um i just think Nightcrawler does

absolutely the most with what it has on hand it's like a really gritty LA noir crime story but also a really interesting movie about ambition and hustle and the corrupting forces the corrupting nature of those forces and pretty interesting story about

the media although I guess all stories about the media are sort of like of course duh no duh the media. Although I guess all stories about the media are sort of like, of course, duh. No, duh. The media is bad for you. But I love this movie. So I'll do this for drama. Chris, Jake goes prisoner's enemy nightcrawler within a 16-month span. That's why I have a fucking Jake tattoo on my back.

That's why everybody was like, is Jake Gyllenhaal okay? Everybody was genuinely worried that something was wrong. But that's the thing man is like I don't ever want anything bad to happen to any of our favorite performers but it's kind of wild when you see them going through it like in the roles and just be like I need to go find out something

about myself by losing a lot of weight. Is that like when you and Amanda podcast about the crown? You know you guys like going through those same journeys right yeah that's right um for decisions decisions yeah yeah yeah fuck man hard year this is a really hard year to draft because there's not as much flexibility as there was in the last couple of drafts that we've had okay so for i think i'm going to do this for foreign language i'll do the raid too so i was trying to decide between a couple different categories for the raid too but it is one of the most like thrilling action movies you'll

ever see and personally i think it's better than raid one in terms of like what it's got to offer but we've talked a lot about that gareth just gareth evans just did um an incredible series on amazon called gangs of of London, if people haven't seen it, but draws heavily from the stuff that's happening in the raid too. Did you almost refer to him as just Gareth? Were you thinking about the first name, the Madonna slash Prince nomenclature? That would be very on brand for me to do that. And then just have like one other person in the world and it is Gareth Evans be like,

I think he's talking about me. Do think gareth evans listened to this podcast no i don't think he has podcasts oh good point okay um all right 382 for animated foreign language amanda you are up i'm gonna move to the sequel category and i will be taking 22 jump street the sequel to 21 jump street i'm gonna be honest, didn't rewatch this one before the draft. And so what stands out most vividly in my memory is the credit sequence when they just make up the sequels for like 23 through, I think, like 100. Very funny. I enjoy these films.

And I remember this being a better sequel than it needed to be in a year where there aren't a lot of great sequels in my opinion love this movie it introduced me to Wyatt Russell who plays Zook Hath who becomes Channing Tatum's running buddy and this is the one-two punch of Zook Hath and 25 year old Charlie Willoughby and everybody wants them two of the finest performances of the 21st century love Wyatt Russell good movie you're a big comedy ad Amanda I know you know me just lots of laughs full of humor and just a zest for life

especially this year yeah Amanda starts going to the cellar a lot and Caroline's and just like seeing people work stuff work on their material and she herself starts working on her 15 yeah I feel like I'm getting a lot of and she herself starts working on her 15. Yeah. Um,

boy, I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm getting a lot of, a lot of good opportunities here. I feel really good about where I'm at in this draft. I know I said that once before and you know what happened? It turned out that I won.

I won the last draft. You can, so are you mad that you didn't take Fury and drama? Um, well, I still have a wild card selection open, you know, uh,

Chris, I believe, I believe you and I saw Fury with like five other Grantland employees and we were like it's time it is now time to watch Fury which will be one of the great war films of its era and it wasn't that it wasn't that it did feature Shia

LaBeouf having an absolute fucking meltdown inside of a tank though so fun movie I'm not I'm not choosing it Bobby wants us to know that Sean you say I'm feeling really good about this right at the exact point of every draft oh cool so i'm a complete cliche hack well you also haven't won the last few no i did win the last one you did well you definitely didn't win for i thought i came in second last time no i i expressed myself and i didn't win in the last

one that's because that's the thing. That's the challenge. At this point in every draft, Sean is like, I have all of the consensus film bro picks ready or ready to go. Yeah, Lord of Letterboxd. Yeah, we know what your... Have you picked a blockbuster yet? Not yet. Listen, I know what yours is going to be and let me tell

you I don't respect you, but you'll probably win and I think that's cool. I think that's good that everyone has a chance to let their light shine i've been talking the guys on letterbox they they they like to vote of these things because i i didn't know that like their mom let them have that much bandwidth chris you speak as if those same people have not been keeping you afloat professionally for the last 10 years. I'm just, I look nothing but love for you guys.

Those big babies in the basement are the CR army. You must acknowledge that. Surely. No, my guys, my people are in the streets. They go into the Apple store

to log on to vote for me. They are in the streets riddled with COVID. That is the CR army. Okay. I've got two picks. They just do nothing but go to weddings.

I'm going to pick a blockbuster. Amanda knows what it is. It's Guardians of the Galaxy. This is two MCU movies. Fortunately for me, two of the very best MCU movies. There is almost certainly no other year in which I would consider taking two Marvel movies, but I do really like Guardians and I do think it's a really fun movie and kind of exactly what you want in a blockbuster. A little bit of comedy, a little bit of action, drama, and a serialized storyline. So my next pick, Wildcard.

Really challenging here. I've got, I'm picking between two. I'm going to go with Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer, which isn't where I thought my heart was's Snowpiercer, which isn't where I thought my heart was going to take me, but isn't...

This is wildcard, right? This is wildcard, yes. Wonderful movie. Obviously, it was completed well before 2014 and was much delayed by Harvey Weinstein's meddling in this movie and ultimately did get released as close to the form that Bong Joon-ho wanted it to be.

Just a riveting action movie and a series of great performances. John Hurt, Chris Evans, Alison Pill, a number of other really quality actors. And I think that this is the movie that for American audiences really puts Bong on the map and is worth a rewatch. So I'm going Snowpiercer. Okay, Amanda, you are up. I'm up. So Chris you've already done

foreign animated, right? Sorry, I'm just like I'm the meme of the person looking at all the numbers right now. But you know in audio form that doesn't really add up. Also I don't have that many numbers. That was the raid too for me for foreign animated.

So I have wild card and foreign animated left. I guess I will. I'll do foreign animated. Now I'm going to do, do force majeure, which is an excellent film that inspired a American remake that was released in this year, which I honestly can't believe Sean that it was this calendar year that we

watched the remake of that at Sundance, but it was downhill. Yes. I, when we left downhill, I said I wanted it to be slightly more vicious and force majeure is slightly more vicious. Also it's,

you know, the original, but a fascinating and a really effective movie that also does that thing i like of the it's a parlor game as well right you leave the movie and then you're like what would you do if and how would you respond to and i think i have gotten in maybe not arguments but discussions as a result of it good pick force majeure is wonderful probably my favorite foreign language film of the year. Chris,

you've got your final two picks. Okay. For my sequel, I will go with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Another director bullshit classic. We're really trying to tap into Apocalypse Now

with a little bit of Robertbert bresson i don't think he actually met reeves did not reference robert bresson with this movie but i remember a lot of director bullshit going into these and i think andy circus was like i think andy circus contributed to that where he's like my portrayal of caesar has more to do with like you know brando and on the waterfront than any kind of cgi thing but uh this is a pretty good movie um gary oldman basically plays like uh like an info wars dude who takes over like the human race after like the kind of fall of mankind yeah and there's like a prep that's my prep for him cool haircut in this movie for him and then jason clark and carrie russell

play like the sort of more I guess progressive humans who are trying to like get along with the primate friendly. Yeah. But I remember like I think these movies were like really reliably solid generally speaking. But it's funny. They've come up

a couple of times in drafts and I forget this was like you just go back through this decade, and you're like, damn, they made three Maze Runners. You know, they made like five Hunger Games movies. They made three Planet of the Apes movies. We were just cranking them out back then. Chris, you love the Maze Runner movies,

and you keep referencing them, despite the fact that Amanda and I have never seen one single minute of any of them. Here is a true story about my life is that, you know, you, if you fly from, uh,

Los Angeles to Europe, it's a very long flight. And one of my tricks for, for kind of like passing the time is to pick a series of films. Like it doesn't matter like how good or bad they are. I just, I'm like, I have nine hours to kill.

So let's do all of Lord of the Rings. But once you do that, you're kind of like, okay. So I, I, for some reason reason once just watched maze runner scorched trials and death cure back to back to back on a flight to london and i was really entertained chris before we started recording did i say that this episode would be the bourgeois travel diary of an of a podcaster because that is not i i don't recall asking you for that i also appreciate that a true

fact about your life was that europe is far from los angeles never mind you know like i just i thought we were sharing recollections here can i just clarify that those three titles that you just named are the three titles of the Maze Runner? I'm honestly impressed that you know that. And personally, I'm more of a Scorch Trials guy because that's kind of the godfather too

of the trilogy. And my experience with you too. This concludes the worst episode of No Reservations ever recorded. Okay, did you, so you've got Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. You've got one more? Yeah.

And I'm taking The Gambler and Wild Card. Speak on it. I respect you. This is a movie that really only a select few. It's like being in the Marines. The proud of few. I cannot say that this is a good film, but it is a miracle of a movie.

If you haven't had the experience of watching Mark Wahlberg give, I think, almost like an eight or nine minute lecture on Shakespeare to a classroom full of people, and it's just very obvious that Mark Wahlberg is, I've said this before, but is speaking

phonetically. I do not think that he knows what the Earl of Oxford is. I don't know that he's ever read Hamlet. It's just amazing. He gives this whole monologue. It's a movie about a compulsive gambler, degenerate gambler, who's also an English professor and a failed novelist. It's based on the James Toback movie with James Ca and Mark Wahlberg plays this guy James Bennett who no relation to the fallen op-ed lord but is or is it and he

is going through it he owes money all around LA he's teaching his classes he's fallen in love with Brie Larson who's a student in his class cliche town but William Monaghan script guy wrote The Departed and it is absolutely unhinged how entertaining this movie is. And I will just watch scenes from it sometimes. The scene where he continues to double down on blackjack hands, and the one I referenced in the

quote at the beginning of this draft is just unreal shit, where he's just like, there's no limit. Don't look at him. Look at me. you know, to the dealer. It's just unbelievable. So, uh, really doesn't make any sense at the end of the movie. John Goodman, incredible performance from John Goodman, really good. Michael K. Williams, just, just really fun shit. So I'll take gambler. Bobby, can we just insert the John Goodman, the position of fuck you speech into this podcast, because I just wanted to, if there's a way to make that the theme song of this podcast, I would love for that to be the case. If Diplo is listening, Diplo, please remix this speech and provide us with a new theme, because that's one of my favorite things. This movie is not good, Chris, but it is amazing. You get up two and a half million dollars. Any asshole in the world knows what to do.

You get a house with a 25 year roof roof, an indestructible Jap economy shitbox. You put the rest into the system of 3 to 5% to pay your taxes, and that's your base. Get me? That's your fortress of fucking solitude. That puts you for the rest of your life at a level of fuck you. Somebody wants you to do something, fuck you. Boss pisses you off, fuck you. Own your house, have a couple bucks in the bank.

Don't drink. That's all I have to say to anybody at any social level. Did your grandfather take risks? Yes. I guarantee he did it from a position of fuck you. A wise man's life is based around fuck you. The United States of America is based on fuck you. You're a king. You have an army.

Greatest navy in the history of the world. Fuck you. Blow me. We'll fuck it up ourselves. Which we have done. Beautiful fuck you position. It's amazing that it got made. Jessica Lange plays his mother

and it's just like, it looks like she's frozen in carbonite. It is just incredible. Also, nice bit of synchronicity here. This is directed by rupert wyatt who of course directed the first new set of planet of the apes movies so good job by you pinning those together chris amanda you got one last pick i do it's wild card and i'm just gonna do me i'm gonna take beyond the lights the uh gina prince bythewood film that i just, you know, underappreciated, undersung even at the time. It is a movie about an aspiring or like on the rise pop star played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw.

And the difficulties of being a pop star and her a difficult relationship with her mother. That makes the first part of it made it makes it sound far more frivolous um than it is it's not frivolous i think that's a great character study and is obviously about image making and and and celebrity as much as it is about the the mother-daughter relationship but really all of those things are things i'm interested in and i if you haven't seen it i I recommend it. Great pick. Now, I've got one final pick. I want to take this to the board.

I want to get a... Because I have a backup in the event that you reject this pick. So I'm not going to feel offended. But I genuinely want to know, would you guys consider Paddington to be an animated movie? I had it as my backup.

Yeah, sure. It's got a bear that walks around like all the time, right? He's a cartoon bear, right? Isn't the theory, like the working, everybody says that Paddington 2 is superior, right?

Should we call Andy in for a ruling on this? No, Andy isn't. We're not calling Andy. I have to do this twice a week. So I could choose Paddington if I wanted to. Yeah.

Yeah. For sure. I was expecting a fight here. But what did you, like what was, just out of curiosity since you have the last pick that you want to back up?

We don't care. You understand that, right? If it's not a human being, we're like, sure, whatever. Would you accept John Wick as an animated movie? No. No? No. No.

No. I'm surprised Wick didn't get picked. There are a few that we've left on the table here. But these are the constraints of the draft. So you're taking Paddington. I'm taking Paddington as my animated film. This is a tricky animated foreign language film year. There are a couple of foreign language films that I like.

Eda, Wild Tales. A couple that I would look at. It's a non-Pixar year. This is a year without a Pixar release, as far as I can recall. And so the only kind of big, noisy animated movies you got were Big Hero 6, which I'm just not that big a fan of. What is Big Hero 6?

It's a Disney animated movie. Isn't it a spinoff of some kind? No, I think it's about like a robot companion to a young child who protects him. I believe he's the big hero six. Isn't that just, didn't they already do that? It's similar to the Iron Giant. The Iron Giant.

That's right. That's a wonderful movie. And if you say one bad word about the Iron Giant, you both can fall right off. I don't think I've ever seen it. I haven't seen it. You should watch it. It's delightful. Brad Bird.

So Amanda, you have to watch Iron Giant and In again yeah double feature that sounds fun um so yeah i'm gonna go with paddington i think that makes the most sense uh i thought about the lego movie which i think is kind of underrated but maybe people can yell at me in the comments if they feel that the lego that movie was like a really really bad drug experience for me when I saw that. I was like, I'm never going to see one of these movies again. I was just like, I can't believe that people are like, they're like, oh, it's really important.

I'm really trying to raise my kid right. And then they're like, I'm going to take them to a Lego movie and just shred their mind with like 9,000 cuts per second. It's so bad. Chris lectures people on how to raise their kids by showing them nightcrawler is one of the funniest things they'd be better off seeing the gambler show your kid what it's like to lose you know okay so that that completes the draft let's

recount all of the picks we made i feel like this is pretty even just off the bat amanda despite not loving the year i think you did very well here So let's just go through it very quickly. Drama. Chris, you selected Nightcrawler. I selected Whiplash. Amanda selected Gone Girl. Comedy or horror. Not a single horror movie selected. Notable. Three comedies. I don't think we've had that yet in this draft. So Chris, you selected Grand Budapest Hotel from Wes Anderson. I selected Inherent Vice. Amanda, you selected Neighbors. Blockbuster. Chris, you selected Edge of Tomorrow. I selected Inherent Vice. Amanda, you selected Neighbors. Blockbuster. Chris, you selected Edge of Tomorrow. I selected Guardians of the Galaxy.

Amanda, you selected Interstellar. That is quite a category right there. Yeah. Animated Foreign Language. Chris selected The Raid 2. I selected Paddington. And Amanda selected Force Majeure. Sequel.

Chris selected Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I selected Captain America Winter Soldier. Amanda, you selected 22 of the Planet of the Apes. I selected Captain America Winter Soldier. Amanda, you selected 22 Jump Street. And then wildcard, Chris selected The Gambler. I selected Snowpiercer. And Amanda, you selected Beyond the Lights. So what went unselected in this movie year? A couple of the horror movies like It Follows and The Guest and uh unfriended so those were all kind of consequences of picking so many comedies i guess i believe it follows is 2015 oh is it okay yes which i have my eye on for next next time we do a 2015 draft um so no birdman i have you thought about birdman since it came out uh i've thought i've thought about it. Have you

been like, let's go back and rock Birdman? No. I haven't done that. I think I probably watched it twice when it came out. No one selected Boyhood here. No one selected Selma. Selma was in my drama backup.

Mine as well. No one selected Under the Skin. Chris, you one selected Under the Skin. Chris, you went on Under the Skin? I am. I mean, I think now that the score has almost eclipsed the movie in some ways. Yeah, Mika Levy's score. No one selected What We Do in the Shadows or The Babadook.

Yeah. Or what else? The Hobbit, The Planet of the Five Armies. I know that was next on Amanda's list. What happens in that one? They go to the bathroom they've eaten and they've walked no that's the this is the one they've got the dragon and you're just like this is this is it right and then they have to they have all this beef that

they have to settle with each other so they just fight there's like the dragon next to them you mean dragons they get the dragon and then it's just like, well, who's going to get this gold? Who's going to get to run this river town, right? So it's like the end of, like the very last scene of Game of Thrones? Kind of, yeah. Where it's like, now it's Bran, surprise. That's right. This has been- The power of storytelling.

Chris and Amanda recap Hobbit movies. What other movies did we not... The Lock, The Drop. Yeah, good hardies. Maps to the Stars. Was Enemy this year? Enemy was this year, right? Enemy was this year, certainly.

That was a good one. You know what may actually be underrated is your boy Gareth Edwards' Godzilla. That was actually pretty solid as blockbusters go. I was very into... Oh, well, one movie that I was, I think, absurdly ready for and it didn't quite live up to the hype

was The Rover, but it's not bad. It's just not as good as I thought it was going to be. Amanda, you missed out on your chance to take Into the Woods here. It's a real shame. Didn't see that have seen Oscar clips of Meryl Streep

and that was enough for me there was yeah I had a couple more there were like some Amanda movies of varying degrees of success wild saw that in the theater so did I thought about buying those hiking boots and then didn't

I really like Obvious Child a lot. Love Obvious Child. That's a charming one. I had that on my wildcard list. And as we discussed in a previous podcast, I have very fond memories of seeing Top 5 with my entire family at the holiday. And Zach having to sit next to my father through the sex scenes. Actually, my dad loved that movie as much as I did.

So another wildcard that I was going to maybe do, Love and Mercy. You guys remember Love and Mercy? Oh, yeah. That's a good Brian Wilson movie. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a fan of the Beach Boys.

This was a pretty good movie year, man. Sean, what about Known Unknown? Big Don Rumsfeld. I just spent an hour with my guy, Errol Morris. You'll hear later this week on this show. I think that's an amazing film. I remember being blown away by that. We don't do a lot of docs on these drafts. I will

say that I was also, I love the Nick Cave movie that came out this year, 20,000 Days on Earth. It's just fantastic. Is that Andrew Dominic? No, he did One More Time with Feeling, which was like two years later or a year later. And that's just him performing Skeleton Key.

But it's very sad. I'm reminded of one other thing about this year. And I'm reminded of it because there has been a lot of writing of late about A Rainy Day in New York, which is the new Woody Allen movie that was basically delayed for a year. It was not originally released in the United States in theaters. And then it was released to streaming services and to Apple last week. So there have been a lot of critics writing about it. I see a lot of people logging it on Letterboxd as this sort of curio from a banished

artist. And the Woody Allen movie from this year is Magic in the Moonlight. Do you guys remember this? This was an Emma Stone, Colin Firth movie, a period piece that Woody Allen made. And there is this period of time, just a few short years ago, where Blue Jasmine, Magic in the Moonlight, Irrational Man, and Cafe Society were considered very important, prestigious returns to form for Woody Allen. And now I feel like those movies have been erased from our memories. Manhattan may never be erased despite the circumstances, and Annie Hall may never be erased despite the circumstances and Annie Hall may never be erased. But these movies in which Woody Allen had restaked his claim to one of the great writer

directors of his generation, they exist in this kind of limbo, which I just find to be such an interesting thing. I'll never rewatch Magic in the Moonlight. I remember seeing it at the time and thinking this is perfectly fine, charming Emma Stone performance. And now it may as well have never happened. I find that to be just as interesting. I don't remember that movie at all. Did you see that one, Amanda? No, I think the last one I saw was it was To Roam with Love.

Yes. That was when he was at the height of his Euro period. Yes, exactly. But I think and it's strange because I do love Colin Firth, but yeah yeah I skipped this one any other outstanding movies we haven't hit on here I'm surprised nobody picked Wick I that was gonna be my wild card movie I know I pivoted to Snowpiercer just because I think I just like Snowpiercer a little bit more I had to be honest with myself could I have curried favor

with the Letterboxd elite with John Wick perhaps or with the ringer Twitter following yeah okay well I guess we're gonna find out who do you think won Chris I think I mean Amanda's got really good picks thank you that's nice of you you like and I appreciate it

but it's strange because she doesn't I don't think you you didn't sell it movies yeah well no I absolutely I love Gone Girl I like absolutely and that is like kind of a tricky thing about some of the movies that we

talked about in this draft that like are our core favorites and then we fight over and then we kind of skip it right and it's just like when you got Moneyball and you're just like

Moneyball number one movie on earth but which it is shout out Moneyball forever it's on netflix right now we should do a number one movie on earth draft that might definitely do well that would i'm sure that would do well that might have to be the last episode we ever recorded of this pod which will be soon um hopefully in the next few months uh speaking of i think maybe we should tease our next draft, which is a Christmas treat that we came up with, which is instead of doing the 2015 movie draft,

Chris, we're going to do a 1995 movie draft. Wow. The year I graduated high school. That was a dynamite, dynamite year for me. Yeah. Really?

Just personally? Yeah. Would you like to preview perhaps what you were getting up to back then? Nah. A lot of swim meets. What was your relationship with women back then? Maybe this is a chance for you to talk about that, Chris. Flowering, I would say.

Flowering? Yeah, blossoming. Okay. I see. I was finding myself as a writer. Still finding them, right? S was settling into my level as an athlete of what I was capable of. This wouldn't be on your podcast if Chris Ryan didn't talk about his athletic ability.

Reliable backup catcher, great clubhouse guy. Okay, not much has changed. Amanda, what about you? In 1995, where were you? I was 11 years old and I really really really wanted to go to space camp um and no one would let me go to space camp so didn't who did you have to lobby i don't know i think i mean it was a involved process primarily i mean probably primarily my parents. I don't know.

I don't think the dates lined up or something. I mean, I don't really know a lot about space camp. I know I just got really into Apollo 13 and then I was just like, maybe I should go to space camp and it didn't happen. And that's one of the great disappointments of 1995 for me. For reflections like that and more, please tune in next month to the 1995 draft. In the meantime, next week, this trio is reconvening along with Adam Naiman to prepare the world and ourselves for David Fincher's Mank by having a big discussion about Citizen Kane and Orson Welles and everything you need to know before you get into Mank. That should be a very fun conversation.

Thanks again for doing this, guys. I hope you both lost this draft. Now let's go to my conversation with Clay Duvall. Somebody wants you to do something, fuck you. Boss pisses you off, fuck you. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck you. The wise man's life is based around fuck you. The United man's life is based around fuck you. The United States of America is based on fuck you.

You're a king? You have an army? Greatest navy in the history of the world? Fuck you, blow me. I'm honored to be joined by Clea Duvall. Clea, thanks for being on the show. Thank you so much for having me. Clea, I was wondering, after the intervention,

why you wanted to make a movie like Happiest Season as your second film and kind of what you learned from that first experience. I think the most important lesson I learned from making the intervention was i that i don't want to act in things that i'm directing um it was too hard uh too crazy making um so being able to just like really focus on on um directing was you know what i wish i could have done on the intervention so um i did that with Happiest Season. And, you know, I love Christmas movies. I always have. But there, you know, there aren't any Christmas movies that, you know, center around LGBTQ plus relationships or characters. I mean,

it's happening more now, but the, you know, it wasn't something I had ever seen and something I really wanted to see. So then once I transitioned into writing and directing, I realized that I could be the person who made the movie that I always wished I could watch. So I started thinking about Happiest Season and the idea for it and kind of figured out the story and figured out some of the characters and wrote a little outline and then, you know, put it away. And it wasn't until Mary Holland and I met on Beep that, you know, I started thinking about it and I was like, God, you know, it's writing comedy is so much more fun when someone else is there. And Mary was someone who really made me laugh, who I really enjoyed being around. So it felt, you know, I just kind of took a shot in the dark

and asked her if she wanted to do it with me. And she said yes, for some reason. And we got started. I'm always interested in the co-writing circumstance. Like, were you guys back to back in a room kind of banging through a script or do you did you write and then share something with her and then trade back and forth what was the process we were in the room together and um we would always be in the room together you know

sitting either uh like on a couch together or you know like across from each other i would always type because i'm very controlling and uh but we do like the screenshare so she could see you know, like across from each other. I would always type because I'm very controlling. And, but we do like the screens share so she can see, you know, what was happening on the screen. And we, yeah, it was really fun though. Really fun. What did she bring that you didn't necessarily bring

to writing this story? Well, I am, I'm an only child who doesn't have a traditional family. So there are some Well, I am, I'm an only child who doesn't have a traditional family. So there are some things that I, um, some just life experiences that I am like, well, I've seen that in movies, but what's this like, you know? So I think it was really helpful in, uh, you know, working on the sisters and, you know, kind of the traditional family aspects of the story. Tell me about pitching a story like this, getting money for it, getting it made, because there's two tracks to this that I'm interested in. One, it's an original story

about, you know, a couple and a family. And two, as you said, it's an LGBTQ plus story, unconventional in terms of the traditional Hollywood system. So was it difficult to get in the room to say, I think you should give me money for this? What was that process for you? It was, you know, it was surprisingly not as hard as I expected it to be. Um, you know, after we finished the scripts, we, I had met Isaac Klausner at Temple Hill, um, who became our producer on another project that didn't end up, we didn't end up working on together, but I really, really liked him a lot. So, and I felt like he would be a good partner for this story and he read the script and really loved it. And then

we, he had, he had some notes and we went back and did a rewrite based on his notes. And then once we felt it was ready, we sent it out to studios to see if anybody was interested. And we actually had, you know, several, several different studios were interested in making the film. And, and, but Sony was the one that really understood, you know, like my vision for it as a director and like the size of it that I wanted, you know, the scope and in terms also of like the release and wanting this to be a very mainstream movie and somebody who wasn't going to shy away from that. And Sony was that partner. So it was really, they were very supportive of it and didn't, you know, I was very surprised by how not hard it was to get people on board with this

story. What did you do to kind of sell it and sell yourself as the filmmaker? Like, are you using touchstones of other holiday movies over the years? It, because it just started out as, you know, the script went into development.

It was, um, that's what really what the focus was. And then I just on my own put together, you know, a look book just in terms of the, what I wanted the movie to look and feel like, and, you know, giving them ref and yes, using references for them. So they understood what the, you know, what the tone of the movie was and,

um, that it, you know, cause they, I didn't want this to feel like an indie movie. I wanted it to feel like big and bright and expensive and the kind of mainstream movies that we are all used to seeing in movie theaters. So just kind of, you know, I put that together so they really understood what my vision was and that just sort of solidified for them

that this was the right movie for them to make as a studio. So that mainstream movie that opens in thousands of theaters is interesting because in your career as an actor, you've been in both, right? You've been in very mainstream vehicles and very indie vehicles. But as far as the aesthetics, what is that? What is the difference in your mind as a director that distinguishes those two kinds of fields? I think, you know, it's... Aside from money, obviously. Yeah. I mean, I think it's really, it is a level of, and I mean, well, first of all, I don't think it's really like a hard and fast rule that indie movies like look like this and

studio movies look like that. But I do think that there is a very um there's like a sheen to a holiday of a like a studio comedy you know that is not that it's not gritty it's not like you know even though our movie does look you know it looks very real and very grounded it still has a polish to it you know that I think i don't know that i i associate it with those sort of classic romantic comedies that i grew up watching you know um when you're making something that is ostensibly quite personal um and maybe even if you and mary are using examples from your own you know family history do you feel that you have to tell the people that you are portraying or mimicking or inspired by that you're doing that? Or is that something that you just,

you make your art and then it just shows up and they have to deal with it? I mean, this, there was nothing that was, you know, ripped from directly from either of our lives. It was very, you know, I, I have, I'm a person who, you know, I don't have a traditional family. So the Abby character was very like, yeah, great. She doesn't have family that are great. And so that is a good way in. And, and then, you know, but I also, I've spent the majority of my holidays with other people's families and I've observed a lot over the years. And there's something very specific about getting thrown into someone else's family dynamic. So it was really, you know, tapping into that aspect of it more than it was, you know, this is a thing

that actually happened on Christmas, you know, or something like that. How did Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis become the two stars of the film? I have always been a huge fan of Kristen. I really love the choices she's made as an actor. And, you know, she can handle dramatic films, but then she can turn around on SNL and be just silly and funny and free. You know, she felt like the exact right person to me to play Abby. So I sent her the script and she liked it. We had a phone conversation, but before, you know, before we were fully committing to doing this movie together, we needed to get in a room and meet

each other. And cause it's, it very, phone conversations are very different than actually being in person, especially when you're embarking on something like this. So, but the one hiccup was that she was in Germany making Charlie's Angels. So I had to, not had to, it was very exciting actually, fly out to Germany to meet with her.

And we spent two days over a weekend when she very graciously gave her time after doing like night shoots the entire week. Um, and we went through the script and just, you know, talked about Abby and talked about the story and talked about Harper. And, um, and then after that, it was very clear that, you know, she was the only person who could be that, that person. Um, and then with Mackenzie Kristen and I um talked a lot about who who Harper would be because it's such a hard part it's a very very hard part it is yeah and it's you know you want someone who is going to be you know even though it's such a tall order

it was a really tall order that I gave to Mackenzie because, you know, you're meeting this character in what is arguably like the bot, like them, them hitting bottom. It's like slowly hitting and then very quickly hitting and hitting bottom very hard, you know? And, and you have to still want them to be able to come out of it, you know, and come back up, bounce back up. So, yeah. And afraid of being unsympathetic too. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's tough, you know? So, but Mackenzie is an actor who I've always felt like has such, such a nuance to all her characters

and such dimension that, that I, I knew she could play the complexities of this role with a humanity and with, allow the audience to have, to still feel things for her, even when they were angry with her, you know? So, and then that, I met with Mackenzie and we talked through it and she was like, I don't know, maybe. And then then thankfully she I just like tried to play it really really cool and then she came around and wanted to come on board and I'm so glad she did because I think she and Kristen together have such a beautiful relationship in you know on screen and off so the history of holiday movies is complicated um I how do you were you using holiday movies as an entry point to connect with the

actors and say like i want this movie to be like this and like what were you using as as the examples it was you know it was more leaning into the romantic comedy aspects of the movie because that you know i felt like that was the tone that we really needed to get right at the beginning of the movie so that we could segue into the more emotional aspects of it um and to keep it very you know to keep it grounded and keep it real even in the moments that were more heightened um but yeah so it was more it was more that than it was looking to holiday movies. Working with my DP and my production designer, the three of us worked way more with references for what the movie would look like. What were some of those references?

We watched Home Alone. It was a good one. We just did a Rewatchables episode about Home Alone and it was, it was very fun. It's so good. It really does. It really, really does.

And a big movie for us was actually not a Christmas movie, but set in winter, which was a Groundhog's day, which is so good. And like beyond holds up it, you know, it, we,

because it was very important to me that we shot this movie in the winter because I didn't want to make a Christmas movie in June. So that was a very good reference for us to, you know, capture the season in a way that felt, you know, that so the audience could like tell how cold everybody was just felt very important. I wanted to ask you about the weather because you're an Angeleno. I think

you're a lifelong Angeleno. I am. And so what's your relationship to winter? I mean, do you get winter? I really, I really fetishize winter. And then when I'm in it, well, here's the thing as an actor I it's really hard because inevitably you're working it's 20 degrees outside you're wearing like a light coat and then you're trying to not shake in front of the camera you know but as the director you can look like a moron and get huge boots and put like heaters in your boots and a huge coat and everyone around you, the like local Pittsburgh people are like, what is wrong with you? But I stayed warm. I stayed warm pretty well and felt very bad for how cold the other actors or the actors had to be. So speaking of that, I'm curious, they always, the cliche is that actors make the best directors of actors. What kind of a director are you with actors? And like, what do you say to them? Are you the kind of person that is you know, we could really, because actors will always

have such a unique perspective on their characters in a way that writers and directors just can't. So, you know, Kristen and Mackenzie and I spent a lot of time together and then, you know, Mary Steenburgen and I, and every time I would meet with an actor, I would go back and do a rewrite of the script based on our conversations to make it, you know, just like tailor it more to the people specifically. So, and then once I'm set, I always let, we do a rehearsal and block and all of that, but I never give notes on a rehearsal. Why does anybody do that? And then once we get into filming, I'll do a couple takes just to see because actors prepare and they have an idea and you want to see what it is and you don't want to step on it and step on their creative process. And you lose out on what is probably something extraordinary you know so I let you know I always have actors do like two or three takes and then if there's something if I need something different from

the scene then I'll go in and I'll start and I'll give direction to kind of get us to get the moments that I need in the way that I need them. So that's usually how it goes. I'm so interested in hitting the right tone for a movie like this, especially if you were thinking about rom-coms, I feel like rom-coms are really, really hard to do well. Yeah. And there is a kind of like,

I don't, I don't even an unreality to them that feels relatable, but odd. Yeah. So I, you know, it's, I know it's difficult to explain tone, but how did you guys work on making sure that it was hitting the sweet spot that you wanted to hit? Well, we, you know, I, in Mackenzie, Mackenzie and Kristen are

dramatic actresses. They're not comedians. They haven't done a lot of comedy um so it was you know they always came from a place of emotional truth and really finding the authenticity and ground what was grounded about a scene and and then I would you know and but that it wouldn't always be the right tone for the movie you know know, for that part of the movie. So, you know, we would do the scene and I'd be like, okay, guys, great. And let's do it like it's a romantic comedy, you know, and it was really just sort of staying on top of, you know, keeping it light while still maintaining the emotional truth, you know so that was really what what we're going for in all the scenes that were like especially the scenes that were just like mackenzie and kristin alone together you know was that's what yeah that would we would try to it's just like checking it's like turning the dials to make sure that it's not skewing too far into the drama because you don't want to get there too early because then later on when we do have the more dramatic moments,

it it'll feel like we've been building to them rather than they're just like, we're always operating at that level. What was there anything surprising about working on a production at a bigger scale, something that was, you know, bigger than your last film? That you still don't have enough time, you know, that it's? 29. Oh, that's not a lot. It wasn't a lot.

It was a very ambitious shoot where every single day I would look at the schedule and be like, I don't know how we're going to do this, but let's do it. But luckily, the crew was awesome. And my DP and I prepared so much and shot listed everything. And we really knew what we were doing going into every day, but man, was it just like we were, we hit the ground running every single day. You mentioned before we started recording that you guys wrapped just before lockdown started. So what, what has your work life been during quarantine? Have you just been editing the whole time? And what's that been like in this circumstance? Yeah, yes, I have been editing. We had been editing, I think, for four days when I came home and then the editor had a week.

And then I went in and then we had four days of work and then everything shut down. And then Sony was like incredible in fine, you know, scrambling to find what the new setup would be. And they found me an office to go to that was in this huge empty office building. And I was all by myself. I was like, well, this is a horror movie. I'm definitely getting killed. Um, but then I grew to really love it. And I was like, if this is how I go, this is how I go. Um, but what you love doing, yeah. So my editor and I worked remotely for, I mean, I think we're editing for six months. Um, and then, yeah, doing all the other post production stuff. Um, and I think I've And I think I did my very last thing maybe three weeks ago, two weeks ago.

So I feel very, very lucky that I had something to focus on and that I had a job. And, you know, I know that the majority of people were not as fortunate. So I felt very, very grateful and was very aware of how lucky I was the entire time. So the movie was obviously made for a studio to open in theaters. It's opening on Hulu.

Yeah. Can you just, you know, I've been talking to a lot of filmmakers who have been going through this experience over the last few months of their projects, either, you know, moving to a new studio or a new platform. How do you feel about that? And how did all of that unfold for you? I mean, I feel, you know, it's definitely,

you know, around June when I started doing press for the movie and before we knew we were making the switch. And, you know, it was things were not really getting better. And it didn't seem like things would somehow magically be better come November. So, and I found myself in these interviews, like not, not being able to say that I was excited or that I wanted people to go to the movie theater because that wasn't true. I didn't want people to go to the movie theater. I didn't, it wasn't, you know, like I wouldn't go to a movie theater and I don't want someone taking that kind of risk to watch this movie. It's just not worth it. And so on a moral level, I was really struggling with the idea of the movie coming out,

even though that's what I wanted. That's what I wanted when our world was different, but our world has changed. And so when that became apparent, and we started talking to Hulu, you know, Hulu, I really love what they do. I love their movies. I love their series. I always go to Hulu first when I'm looking for something to watch.

So it felt I was I really appreciated how much they liked the movie and they were they really got the movie and what I was trying to do with it and they were so excited about it and really you know passionate about making you know making it available for people to see and I felt you know it seemed I I was I was happy to be able to put out this movie that is so hopeful and it is so warm at the end of the year that we've all had, you know, so rather than trying to hold on to it or, you know, do some insane theatrical release, like it just felt this, it really felt like the best, the very best option and not just like a good enough option, but a legitimately very good option. And I'm, you know, now very, you know, I'm really happy about it. I'm happy that so many people can see it and that people

who maybe wouldn't have gone to the theater to see it might see it and get something out of it. I think it's really, you know, I'm really excited about it. It does seem like more people will just see the movie because of the circumstance, which is nice. How do you feel more generally about the movie theater thing? I feel like it's the only conversation I'm having now. Yeah. I mean, I'm honestly devastated about it just as, I mean, devastated about the pandemic first, because it didn't need to be like, this didn't need to happen in such an extreme way. And that is infuriating. And the amount of lives that have been lost is just disgusting. And, but that's not the question you're asking me. No, but I agree with you. And it's infuriating. So, but, you know, for movie theaters, I really,

there is no experience like sitting in a theater and watching a movie. And it is one of my favorite experiences in life. It's the thing that I always want to do. I love movies. I love movie theaters. I really am, you know, and I, you know, when I hear people say that theatrical is dead, I'm just like, no, but it can't be that's impossible. That's like saying that, you know, taking a walk in the park is dead, where it's just like such a joy in life. Like how can you, how can that disappear? You know? So I, I do think that eventually they'll it'll, you know, we'll have a vaccine and things will sort of go back to normal ish, but I don't know. I don't want movies to go away. I love them.

I love movie theaters too much. And I have an Alamo gift card that I got for Christmas that I wasn't able to use. Oh my God. It's so funny you say that. What am I going to do with it? My wife had just joined the Alamo club literally a week before lockdown. I almost did. Oh gosh. When I was coming home from the movie, I was like, oh my God, they have it now. I'm going to get it when I get home. Nope.

I know. It's painful. Well, for the kind of the foreseeable future for your career like do you see yourself transitioning full-time into focusing on filmmaking how much of the acting is a part of what you want to do in the future I mean I love being an actor and I feel so fortunate to have been able to sustain a career for as long as I have and will always want to do it. But, you know, writing and directing, it's a very time consuming thing. It's a very, it keeps you busy. So, you know, and it's definitely something that I feel a lot more inspired by. And, you know, I like acting, but there are other actors I like more than I like myself acting. And I'd rather like the idea that I can create roles for people I love and admire is so much more inspiring to me than, you know,

trying to get myself a job. Did you have something lined up in terms of directing that you were thinking of focusing on this year before all this happened? I was just in post-production on this movie. That was always the plan. so I've been doing that and I also I created an animated show with two of the writers from beep that's going to be on um on fox in may of next year so we've also been working on that which has been so fun I've never done animation before um so yeah I've just been doing those two things. That's the one thing that can happen during all of this is animated movies and TV shows are happening quite frequently. Yeah, we won't have made the entire show in quarantine.

Oh, wow. By the time we're done, yeah. Okay. Clay, we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen. Have you seen anything great lately? Well, I just started, I mean, this isn't a movie. Is that okay? That's okay. I just started watching the West wing for the first time. Wow. What spurred that? I don't know. It's just kind of happened. We were looking for something to watch and we just were like, should we try to watch this? And we turned it on and now I'm upset. All I can think about is the West Wing.

That's all I want to do is watch it. So let me ask you about that because we've been talking about it a little bit lately because of the trial of Chicago 7 and Sorkin and everything going on in the world. Does it feel escapist for you? Yes, definitely. It's like it's sort of like the romantic comedy for politics yes where you're just like look at that guy doing the right thing like ask for it like who knew me like well now we maybe have that guy oh don't jinx it i i hope i hope that's the case um clea thanks for doing this and congrats on happiest season i think um are going to be really happy when they see it.

Thank you so much, Sean. I really appreciate your time. Thank you to Clea Duvall. Thank you to Chris Ryan. Thank you to Amanda Dobbins and Bobby Wagner. For more of The Big Picture, please tune in next week when Manc Week begins. We'll see you then.