The Big Picture - ‘The Batman’ and Batman Movie Rankings

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Sean is joined by Van Lathan and Rob Mahoney to take a deep dive into Matt Reeves’s ‘The Batman’ and have a spoiler-filled conversation (1:00) before ranking all 14 Batman movies (47:00). Then, Sean is joined by director Kogonada to discuss his new film, ‘After Yang’ (1:12:00). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Van Lathan, Rob Mahoney, and Kogonada Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's poppin', everybody? This is Logan Murdoch, and I'm here with my co-host for The Real Ones podcast on the Ringer NBA show, the incomparable, the realest, the man who invented the pregame Red Bull snow cone, Raja Bell. Thank you, Logan. You're far too kind, sir. Did you know that the Ringer NBA show feed now has six podcasts a week? Six! Every Sunday, Big Waz has a different guest from the NBA world on Weekends with Waz. And you can find me and Raja every Monday and Thursday on Real Ones where we cover all the most interesting NBA storylines. On Tuesdays, J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Charks discuss up-and-coming talent in college basketball and the NBA. And on Wednesdays, you can hear Justin Verrier, Rob Mahoney, and Big Waz

discuss any and everything going on in the world of hoops. Man, and on Friday, Chris Ryan and Sirich Sohi asked the big questions on The Answer. So head over to the Ringer NBA Show's Spotify page and take a listen. There's so much to dive into. And while you're there, just go ahead and give us a follow too. I'm Sean Fennessy and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the Batman, all of them. Later in today's show, I will be speaking with the director Kogonada, whose new film After Yang just hit select theaters. It's my favorite movie out of Sundance, incredible fusion of family drama and science fiction. I highly recommend this movie. I hope you stick around for that chat. But first, we got to discuss,

once again, The Batman. Here to do so is Van Lathan and Rob Mahoney. Very excited to talk to both you gentlemen about this movie. How are y'all today? I'm doing great. The best fusion of family drama

and science fiction is After Earth, starring Will Smith. Coming in hot. That's part of the After Expanded Universe, as I understand it. There are many films that feature the first word, after. So this is not quite a sequel to After Earth. Nevertheless, Rob, glad you're here. Let's start with this.

You like Batman. Why do you like Batman? Why is Batman an important character to you? Ooh, we're going deep right off the top, huh? Yeah, show me your soul. Show me your Batman. Forget about your Bruce Wayne. Show me your Batman. Look, I am going deep right off the top, huh? Yeah. Show me your soul. Show me your Batman. Forget about your Bruce Wayne. Show me your Batman. Look, I am an emo boy at heart. I'm going to put that right here up top. So you got to gravitate toward the emo superhero,

the original sad boy, the grounded hero, the one with the most interesting villains. I'm here for most Batman stories, honestly, animated ones. I don't dabble too much in the comics world, but the animated series, pretty much any movie I can get my hands on, I'll give it a shot. Some of them are not great. Turns out, though, the Batman, very good.

So we're going to go a little deep and spoiler on the Batman. We're going to rank all the Batman movies. Van, Batman, is he important to you? Do you care about Batman? Yeah, so Batman represents like so Batman is the is Superman is a boy's hero. Batman's a man's hero. So when I was a kid, I think I've told you guys this on the pod before. I was so into superheroes at a young age that my dad would come in and he would go to get me up.

He would go, Van, wake up. Superman's at the door. Right. And I would go to get me up. He would go, Van, wake up. Superman's at the door. Right. And I would get up. And because it took me a little while to get up, every time I got to the door, he had just flown away. You know, and after a while it stopped working. So I'm like, you know, shut up. You know, I know Superman's not at the door.

But when I was a kid, I was obsessed with everything that Superman could do. Right. I was obsessed with everything that Superman could do, right? Because I was living in a world full of unbridled imagination and just whatever, fly through the air, heat, vision, ice breath, all of that stuff. When you grow in mythology and fandom, you start to get more fascinated with what characters can't do right because what they can't do starts to become the things that are the impediments to what they're trying to do which is be superheroes so batman is a case study in that batman is a case study in this guy can't do these things but watch him still get the job done anyway the story that turned that for me at a very young age was you know uh frank miller's dark knight run and for me when i read that this was about a batman who had been beaten down by life he was losing the life had to come back and get everything straight you know so i think that seeing the

character persevere through family stuff, through mental, is just the connectivity of it. Like seeing somebody overcome. And that's the problem with Superman as we get older into fandom. There's nothing the guy can't overcome. Like, what's the point?

This is a trope that everyone knows, but with Batman, it really seems like he's getting it out the mud every time he does it. Yeah, Batman is all weakness. And Superman has one weakness. He has one vulnerability. And there's a huge difference in telling that story. I'm glad you brought up the Dark Knight run from Frank Miller.

Because Frank Miller's year one is a huge inspiration on Matt Reeves as the Batman. So let's talk about it. We're going to have an unbridled conversation about this movie. I want to get deep on it. Rob, what did you think? What were your expectations and what did you think of them afterwards? I mean, I was expecting a moody noir kind of story based on the way this was marketed. And I think it delivered in a huge way. I mean, the tone, this movie rips. It charged me up like a taser to the neck. This this was exactly what i wanted this particular movie to be in terms of a lot of the thematic elements i think it's the most visually interesting

batman movie we've gotten yet and there's a couple reasons for that and i say this with affection but it kind of makes a lot of marvel movies look like shit in a lot of ways you know just and it's not reinventing the wheel it's just like can we put the camera in more interesting places? Can we get more silhouettes of Batman, which is something that not a lot of other Batman movies have done very well. They're all very dark all at night. You get a lot of interesting profiles, interesting visuals to go with this really propulsive story. So I was locked in throughout.

Van, what about you? What'd you think? It's fantastic. Now, so here's the thing. Not all of it, right? It's a really, really great movie. All right? It's a great movie.

And in a way, a fuck you to Marvel. A big fuck you to Marvel. Now, I don't share Rob's opinion. Which piece of it? the visuals of it because i think tim burton's 1989 batman was groundbreaking love the burn batman yeah i think that all of these movies you know i think that he still don't don't come at tim tim's young he's gonna give tim his flowers all right he's a kooky guy.

But I think this movie, to Rob's point, I think this movie is essentially Seven with Batman as your protagonist, which you don't think that that would work. There's not another superhero in the world that that could work with, but it works perfectly here. I think it's paced well. I think the middle is bloated for no fucking reason.

Like, no reason. But overall, I think they managed to take a story, to take a Batman story and do something that DC has had a problem doing, which is give it a completely invigorating original injection of life. And that's hard to do with someone who's this steeped in fandom over this many years yeah there have been a lot of iterations of this character over time i i agree with you rob that it's almost shocking that there hasn't been one that has been this willing to be so dark and to be so moody and frankly like van said to just be a serial killer

movie you know to be a hardcore 90s crime thriller in addition to all the other influences that it has. So I recorded a pod last week with Chris and Joanna about this movie, and we were very careful not to spoil the movie. But I want to get into some of the specifics of the story because there's a lot to unpack here. There's a lot of real world implications, honestly, in part because this is probably the most grounded tentpole superhero movie we've ever had you know there are no

superpowers there are no shining green amulets in this movie there's no alien come come to conquer earth this is a movie about a detective trying to solve a murder and the world of the underworld that he is forced to engage with because of those murders. So let's just spoil it right up top. Was there anything that shocked you guys about the decisions they made and the ways that they chose

to tell this story? It shocked me that they trusted Matt Reeves enough to give you like zero superhero all wow factor. Are there things that Batman does in this movie that a regular person

living in our world couldn't do? Yeah, sure. But not really. You know what I mean? Like he I think the fact when you say grounded, I mean there's a difference between grounded. This movie's not the Dark Knight is grounded.

This movie is bolted to the ground like at a certain point i'm like yo man is he gonna like do something cool and then of course there was a lot of cool yet to come but the most shocking thing about it is that they looked at this and they went to me hey let this guy just be a dude in this world everything even even batman's relationship with catwoman normally when this happens batman meets catwoman in some huge party where she walks in and she slays everyone and nah not in this one he meets her in a seedy underworld hell pit to where there's absolutely zero wow factor to batman and catwoman's meeting however at the end of this movie in some way even though you're not like wild and taken aback by oh my god it's bruce wayne and selena kyle look how cool

look what's going on and batman returns that whole scene is about it's batman it's catwoman we know who they are now they know who they are and now this whole world is bigger than them nah this whole world is like it seems smaller than them in a way but yet they have the most lasting connection on screen that those two characters have ever had to me so i think to the point that you guys say that the movie is grounded, it sometimes doesn't even seem like it doesn't even have big ambitions. It's not trying to be big. It's like wants to be small. And I think that was shocking to me because as a comic book movie fan, and I don't mean to drone on, but as a comic book movie fan, it took me a while to get used to that. Like it did. Even after that first fight scene,

when he beats the guys in the subway and he stops the gang of guys from beating up the gentleman, I'm like, that's it? I was expecting him to do something cool. But the fact that he doesn't do anything cool is his cool, in a way. So that's fascinating to do.

Hearing you talk about it actually it makes me think of something that struck me while I was watching it the first time which is when I was watching The Dark Night, especially the second and third times I watched the Nolan film, I was like where does the Joker live?

Does he sleep? What does he eat? Like you don't know anything about him. He's basically this like apparition. He's this devil-like figure. And even though he doesn't have superpowers, the way the story is told, he is imbued with this sense of mystery and this sense of danger

that makes him unknowable as a human being. In fact, he's constantly changing his persona and his backstory in an effort to unnerve everyone around him. And so even though that movie is grounded to your point, Van, it's not this super street level, almost subterranean approach to telling a story like this, which we've really never seen before in one of these movies, which I think is really cool. I guess maybe Daredevil, the Netflix series, had a little bit of this vibe too, as maybe the closest comp I could think of. Rob, what about

you? Anything shock you about the way they chose to tell the story or even what was inside of the story? Well, I think that's a great point about the Dark Knight comparison. And it's going to come up a lot, both here for weeks and months and years to come, I'm sure, just as the two more grounded entries in this list. But what you bring about where the Joker lives, I think that's the key of it.

It's like there are things in those movies that are mysterious to the point that they probably just don't work upon further inspection and in this not only do you find out where the riddler lives but batman goes into his apartment and what could be more relatable than seeing his zoom background set up in his living room you know for his twitch feed i like there there's so many like tangible analog kind of things going all the way back to Batman in this movie that I think make it really work in that bolted to the ground kind of way

it's not just that we don't have the aliens and the crazy supernatural elements Batman doesn't even have his technology isn't even that impressive other than the occasional body cam, contact lens situation he has nothing he has nothing he's got's got a nice he's got

a nice he's got a setup he's got a gaming pc pair of contact lenses he has the contact lenses yeah he has a journal he has a journal and a pen he's a good journaler he's a good journaler but do you guys understand how revolutionary that is totally like yeah like batman doesn't like i'm looking at the bat cave and obviously he's got some tech and stuff but it's not like i remember this is a year two batman so maybe he hasn't developed some of these things but the movie doesn't try to distract you with any of that stuff because like look one of the reasons why we just talked about the joker right the joker is not a three-dimensional character he's a force of nature he doesn't really have to be because there's so many things you're distracted by you're distracted by the fact

that batman comes out of the tumbler the tumbler flips into the the uh the the bat bike and then he's he's firing at it right the bat pod he's firing at him like there's so many things that just jesus christ moments in time in the movie for long sections where your mind is disengaged from what's actually happening. And you're going, Batman doing cool shit. This is it. This movie just does not give you that. You want to know where the Riddler lives. You have to know.

Yep. Because if not, the movie kind of doesn't make sense. And it's just like, it's a bold choice. And the fact that it worked, part of it is what you said, Rob, is that this guy's just a badass fucking director. This guy's a fucking beast. It's a cool looking movie. So, yeah, when you talked about the tech, I remember I'm in a movie,

I'm looking over to my Ring of Rails pals, shout out to Mal and Arjuna and Jomie and Steve, and we're all there. I'm like, Daniel, we're all there. I'm like, yo, man, the Batcave's depressing. Yeah, it's a hollowed out train station yeah it's a hollowed out train station it's a hollowed out train station he didn't have to do no fingerprint scan to get in that motherfucker he didn't have to do he's like he literally has like you get to the back cave you're like all right you know it's no like that you don't pull something to slide down a pole it's like it's just it's a guy doing a thing

i i completely agree i think the this movie does have that similar sequence to the one you're talking about from the dark knight that chase scene which i think is by far the best part of that movie it's a centerpiece of that movie the big truck chase that leads to the shootout which leads to the joker kind of giving himself up but this movie just has a car chase out of the movie bullet it's like a 1970s car chase with a muscle drive yeah or yeah drive would be the modern equivalent of that and it's done almost entirely practical and it looks fucking incredible to rob's point he's mounting the camera on the car the camera is getting smeared with rain and mud and it's it's it is the height of practical filmmaking as much as you can in a movie like this there are still some things that are done

digitally there are still some things that that you know they never let you forget that we're still watching a batman movie it never really gets to the point of like is that humphrey bogart or robert pattinson you don't ultimately get confused but I gotta say, I feel the same way as you, Van. I'm kind of amazed that they let him do it this way, and I think it was the right move. I'll be curious to see how the movie performs and whether we get a lot more of them, but let's dig deeper into the story.

I want to talk about the Riddler because I feel like the choices he made there are really interesting and perhaps a little bit controversial. We don't yet know because the film started, I think, in 2017. Reeves took on the idea and he wanted to ground the movie in more of a detective story, the origins of the way that the Batman character operates. He uses the Riddler as this kind of avatar of, I guess, disenfranchised, angry white men on the internet. I think it's fair to say there's a lot of QAnon and a lot of

Reddit that you can see in this character. That persona, that thing we've seen in the real world, has changed a lot since 2017. Has gotten even scarier. Has gotten even weirder. And, you know, when I talked to Reeves, I asked him about this. And he gave, I thought, a thoughtful answer, but not a very specific answer. And I think there's a universe in which, post-January 6th, you could look at that character and be like, was this a good idea to make this serial killer using these tools and presenting his ideology in this way a good idea? I'm curious for you guys, you know, Van, when you see them using this kind of storytelling to create a supervillain for Batman, what did you think of that choice?

Hardest part of it for me. Hardest part of it. me. Hardest part of the, uh, Paul Dano was amazing. Hardest part of it for me was just, you know, there's an escapism that comes to the movies. And Van is about to be a baby. So that's okay.

I don't care what you guys think. Uh, there's an escapism that comes with these movies, right? To where these criminals want things that are so... Most of the time. Heath Ledger's Joker was a little bit different. But these criminals mostly want things

that are absurd. Lex Luthor wants to use kryptonite to build a whole new continent. Nobody's ever going to want to really do that. So the world justifies superheroes. This one was grounded to a point of being disturbing that culminated for me with the mass shooter scene that they attempted at the end of the movie,

which I was just downright uncomfortable with. Just putting all those people together and then having a bunch of gunmen on the top. I don't want to be a softie about it, but having him methodically kill people throughout a movie in a Batman film is one thing. But then having this crescendo of the film be this almost magnificently staged mass shooting in a world where those things are popping off a lot.

I was literally like a lot of surprises in that movie. But I thought having guys person at the top of what really is Madison Square Garden shooting at a crowd of people was just like, yo, man, that that was a tough one for me. But. I guess that's where he had to go with it but there are parts of the riddler character parts of what he was trying to do because really all the renewal stuff is that's background shit like that doesn't really have as much to do with it he's just a guy out there who's who's got a itch to kill and he's doing and he's using the internet and i get enough of that on the news. I'm going to be honest with you. That was the one part of the movie that I really didn't enjoy as much. It is the one thing that I've been most eager to talk to people about though because I think in many ways it's the boldest choice aside from

the things that we've already outlined here, which is to say like this is a grounded movie. These movies are not usually grounded. One of the ways you can ground them is by confronting you with real world problems and putting them inside of a world where a guy dresses up like a bat rob what about for you how did all that track pretty much the same i mean i think this had the scariest moment of any batman movie i've ever seen which is early on maybe after like the first or second riddler killing you see i think bruce wayne or whichever character is driving through the street and you see the protesters with the rididdler signs and it's and it just immediately plugs into your brain that if this is something that happened there would be huge swaths of people wanting to unveil the citywide

conspiracy that he's alluding to and so having that grounded in that way is terrifying it is unsettling I I was totally with you Van like the the final act of this movie in that way is terrifying. It is unsettling. I was totally with you, Van. Like the final act of this movie and that final set piece, very hard to watch. I found that preferable though in some ways to what we get out of superhero movies in general,

which is usually my eyes glaze over for whatever the final showdown is, just not the most interesting part of the movie. I was feeling things for this big action set piece that they staged. It was terrifying. And so that's an achievement on some level. Am I looking forward to that part of the movie when I watch it again? Absolutely not, but very effective, unquestionably so.

How do you feel like those kinds of choices co-mingle with some of the more traditional Batman criminal elements in the movie, where you've got Falcone and you've got this penguin character who's more or less like a mid-tier drug dealer. And the fact that there was something sort of more pro forma about a lot of the other criminal activity in the movie, did you feel like that stuff blended well? Did it feel like it was happening in two different movies? Van, what did you think? Well, all of that stuff is true to form depending on who's got the pen and the ink for Batman, right? So I've seen a lot of that.

You know, like I've seen a lot of that stuff in Batman stories and then I've read Gotham Central, which if you guys haven't read, Gotham Central is about the Gotham Police Department and how Batman is actually a thorn in their side.

So if you've read enough Batman, you've seen all of this stuff. Like, so you're familiar with the beats and the rhythms of some of this stuff. But still, though, kind of the way it worked in the movie, I think one reason why, and I don't know if this is a trick that a lot of filmmakers would like Reeves was giving you an opportunity to get comfortable with his Batman. To dismiss some of your... He's giving you a while to kind of get in a sleeping blanket with this guy a little bit. You know what I mean?

And there's some other things in the movie. There's a part where Batman is peeping on Selina Kyle. I'm like, yo, they left that in the movie i'm like what like you know you know what i mean it's like like they i'm like there's i'm like they left that in the movie he's he's not trying to peep on her guys but she goes to her bedroom he's he needs the information she goes to her bedroom and his binoculars follow and i'm like um wouldn't think that they would go there at this particular time and i can't wait for those think pieces because they are coming but but um but yeah yeah so i think that you know some of the stuff that we're talking about

it's not that i'm not used to it it's just that i personally it it took me a while to adjust to to sitting in the seat and kind of being that closely tethered to who also is the most unlikable bruce wayne that we've had straight up dick asshole total weirdo like just like a straight up dick asshole treats alfred like shit like which is like completely the inverse of their relationship well but okay so rob pointed out early in the conversation this is the most emo batman we've ever had right he is in his feelings he's still working through the trauma of losing his parents the trauma of having extraordinary privilege i don't i don't i actually don't know ultimately beyond his parents getting killed which which is not a joke,

but beyond that, like what, what he's so bummed on. But the, the decision to basically not make this a Bruce Wayne movie at all, the decision to not show us the dashing playboy, the decision really did not even show Bruce with the exception of the funeral scene out in the world doing anything I thought was very,

very interesting. And maybe part of it is exactly what you said, man. I think that's such a smart observation that like Reeves is trying to let you get comfortable with who and what this Batman is. But in the inverse, the way that I always thought Christian Bale was a better Bruce Wayne than he was a Batman,

you know, Robert Pattinson is really not much of a Bruce Wayne. And it doesn't seem like the movie is interested in that part of the story at all. But as Batman go, I was like, this is kind of exactly what I want. know he he is he is a you know a handsome and and tall man but not like super physically imposing you can sense his vulnerability but he looks great in the suit and he has a kind of graveness that i feel like that character demands and also that guy just

turned himself into such a great actor over the last 10 years that i was surprised by how into this i was i was a little bit skeptical despite how much i like him as an actor rob did you what do you think of pattinson he's my favorite live action batman we've had so far and a lot of it is over keaton over keaton this is big i on Rob is that my inner Batman talking this is the inner Batman Rob Rob I am the knight we can't go there just yet Rob let's rewind it

what I love about it is Sean I think you laid it out really well he is a Batman who cannot turn it off. He doesn't have the thing where he flips into Bruce Wayne. He is what the movie tells you he is. His real face is Batman. And he's not even good at faking Bruce Wayne yet.

He just walks around staring at people whenever he's Bruce Wayne out in the world. He's creepy as hell in this movie. And that's what I buy about this performance that I never really bought about Christian Bale is those movies told you the same thing, which was Batman is angry. Bruce Wayne is so angry. Nothing about Christian Bale's performance read as angry to me at all. Maybe obsessed, maybe committed to justice or whatever, but never angry. You get that right from the jump,

just with the way he fights, with the way he moves, with the way he fights with the way he moves with the way he interacts with the world this is a guy who has a lot of rage and does not know how to process it and in a lot of ways the arc of the movie is him figuring out what to do with it to channel it in more productive ways and that's a story i like from batman it's a story i understand it's one that obviously could set up sequels and franchises and stuff if you want to do that you probably couldn't have this batman be tenable for three movies i think he's too unlikable for that but for one it's a hell of an origin story for this version of the character yeah it's like the anti-origin story origin right you know first of all i think they did set up a franchise and i thought this was by far the angriest batman yeah he would get on top of people and pound the shit out of them.

Just beat them up. Think about how mean he was to Alfred. I'm sure everybody has seen the movie by now. Alfred gets blown up. Gets blown up, right? Alfred comes to after days. After days, after being blown up, Bruce is sitting next to his side. Alfred wakes up and Bruce goes, you lied to me.

I'm like, yo! Like, you get him some orange juice? I'm like, bro. Like, literally. Like, think about that, man. Alfred wakes up. It's like, yo, man. Like, yo, why you been lying to me?

Alfred actually turns around to smile at him with a half mangled face from shrapnel from a bomb that got sent to him because you are batman and he was so mean and so that so little things like that are the bold steps in the filmmaking because it's really really daring because the Alfred-Batman father-son relationship, that right there, is a tentpole. Like, that's something

that has to happen. The coolness of the Batmobile. The Batmobile isn't cool in this movie. It's scary. It's like a marauding street demon that's, like, unstoppable and nothing you can do.

It's a scary thing. It stands there growling at the camera for, like, five to ten can do it's a scary thing it it stands there growling at the camera for like five to ten seconds it's like they everything that they you think that they're going to do with the movie they completely changed it and bruce was to your point the the most glaring one how many scenes total did we get of bruce of bruce maybe four maybe he never he never ever had any interaction with Catwoman as Bruce Wayne. She has no clue. Which is also something that always gets revealed.

Like, oh, hey. Interesting choice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah.

Let's talk quickly about Catwoman. I think I'm a very, very strong defender of Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman. I think that's Selina Kyle's very you know, I was 11 years old when we came out. You can imagine coming of age, learning a lot about myself. Saw that portrayal on screen. Pretty big deal, Van. I know you feel the same way. I'm going to step out real quick.

Rob, this is between Van and I. But this character is different. I would say, honestly, equally as sexy, but rendered very differently. Selina Kyle in Batman Returns is different. I would say, honestly, equally as sexy, but rendered very differently. Selina Kyle in Batman Returns is nuts. She is a fruitcake. And the movie goes to great pains

to show us how whacked out she is because of the way that she's been abused and murdered by her boss and revived by cats. It's a very strange kind of metaphysical story. This is a much different when you say it like that sean like sean is fucking with you say what do people do shit like that he's just trying to tell you how absurd that is murdered by her boss and revived by cat nobody

says it like that sean well that's what happened that's what happened in the movie right anyway this zoe kravitz and selena kyle is different she's a legit burglar she's a she's a cat burglar she's a waitress at a club and she is a woman with a a shady past and some complicated parentage and she i don't know if she feels like a real person because it's a little hard to look at zoe kravitz and accept her as just like a woman who works at a nightclub she's so beautiful and so striking and such has charisma. But I'm curious how you guys felt about the Catwoman character

and what they did with her. I think Catwoman is one of the hardest characters to play in any of these movies. You have to walk such a fine line to either... I mean, you could play

like Anne Hathaway did, which was a winking, I think mostly effective, sometimes not as much. Kind of felt a little out of place in that world at times when she had little cat ears running around post-apocalyptic

Gotham. The Michelle Pfeiffer portrayal, I'm a huge fan. I'm a huge fan of how wild she got with it. And I think some of the other villains in these other Batman movies come short because they don't go as far as she did. But this performance, like she gets

to crack jokes without being the joke and tell a story well that i mean i think her backstory in this movie is just kind of so so i could take it or leave elements of it but she sells it like she makes you invested in that character in a way that you frankly don't have to be on the level that you are fan what'd you think uh loved it to your point sean that's how I know that like Gotham is like Chicago or somewhere in the Midwest we don't waste them like that out here in LA baby Waitress one day

5 million follower Instagram influencer next somebody would have plucked her out she would have been in the hype house she wouldn't have been searching for her father kidding me you mean to tell me that Kyle She would have been in the hype house. She wouldn't have been searching for her father. She would have been in the hype house. Kidding me? You mean to tell me that Kyle Kuzma's going to go to the club and see her working there?

That's not going to happen. We don't do that out here, baby. It's going to be like Devin Booker and the Suns are coming to town and she is done. It's out of here. Her dreams are made. This is the ringer NBA group chat big picture crossover

we were looking for. I love it. But no, I thought she did a great job. I think two things were interesting. Number one, this is a throwback. I feel like seeing Catwoman as a woman of color, I would be remiss not to bring up Eartha Kitt

and how Catwoman was portrayed in live action going back. Eartha Kitt's portrayal of Catwoman really set in live action going back. Earthquake's portrayal of Catwoman really set a standard for the character. And obviously Julie Newmar came on and did a great job. And Julie Newmar is probably a Catwoman that most people that remember that Adam West's 11th show will remember.

But seeing Catwoman, other than Halle Berry, not dissing Halle Berry, I'm just saying that movie was some awesome other shit, y'all. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Other bad shit. Yes. Other bad shit. Interact with Batman in that situation was pretty awesome.

But also, I think she gave a dimension to the character that was something unique in that it's not that she didn't need Batman. It's that Batman was actively in her way um and she had in a movie that is batman's movie a completely parallel arc her own set of goals her and it wasn't just like revenge she was protecting someone um it was the perfect way to set that character up as an anti-hero because catwoman always straddles the line of whether or not she's a hero or a villain uh in this movie you don't really know all you know is that she doesn't have the same discipline or the same guardrails that he has and she's willing to do things that he's not willing to do but uh i enjoyed it uh i enjoyed it especially for what it was and i thought their on-screen chemistry of their on-screen chemistry was

amazing you guys i know this is the part part where Van is supposed to fawn over Zoe. I'm not going to do it. You guys already know. If you don't know by now, then I'm not going to do it for you. Okay? I'm not going to do it for you. That's too bad. I thought you were going to swerve and fawn over Pattinson instead. I mean, look, you can fawn over the two of them.

I looked at Mallory while we were like, while the movie, The Little Thing was up and it showed the two of them. I was like, they should procreate. I was like, just for fun. Just to spit one out. There are moments in the movie where you're like, are they going to make a baby now? Like, it's very, their chemistry is real.

Yeah. Right. And by the way, she was putting the full court press on him. He was too sad. Yes. That's one thing. That's what I was like. At one point, I was like, was like yo motherfucker snap out of it

you see her she's sending you the vibes bat come on the vibes more than that yeah I mean she's got her hand on his chest and like he's talking about some some purpose Batman let your hair down

baby you know what I mean you have an anime hairstyle let those locks down and have some fun with cat woman made the wrong decision um i will say you for whatever reason everything you just said made me think of one other thing i liked about this movie which is that uh i think batman's goal he knows is like ultimately pointless and kind of fatalistic like that character is like i'm doing my best to clean up all the crime in gotham but every time i kill one bet or every time i imprison one bad guy five more pop up you know they're like toadstools and they keep growing and growing and growing and i can't battle them and the movie is pretty i thought

pretty honest about that it's not it doesn't worry too much about big sweeping conclusions about how the Joker has, you know, fallen into the sea and is now gone forever. The movie seems a little bit more interested in the ongoing nature of the Gotham story without necessarily always feeling like it's just setting up another movie, except for this big reveal at the end of the movie, which is the sense that there is a figure that is the Joker in Arkham Asylum sharing a cell wall with the Riddler after he's captured. That character is played by Barry Keoghan, the incredible Irish actor. Shout out that dude.

I love that guy. I was a little bit bummed out when that moment happened and it was not in a stinger. It was in the movie and it felt like one of the few times that the movie sold out its own sense of integrity and the way that it was trying to tell its story. I'd see both are kind of shaking your heads woefully.

So it looks like you agreed with me. Rob, what do you think of that? Yeah, I'm reserving judgment on whether I mean, frankly, I don't know if that portrayal of the character is going to work at all. We'll have to see. We just barely even get a glimpse of it. I, like you, really love Barry Keon, so I'm curious to see what he does. But this scene just didn't work for me. It felt like it let the air out of the movie at a time where that's the exact opposite of what you want.

You want to punctuate. And I'll compare it to something like Batman Begins, for example, where you get the reveal of a Joker card in a way that's a little more ominous, a little more winking, a little more knowing, and just works better. It's almost like they didn't show enough and they showed too much at the same time in a frustrating way. Yeah. Yeah. Rob, you're so insightful and brief that people might think that it's going to make me talk less but it's not i'm just clearing the way for you i'm like rob i want you to cook so that was so spot on but so concise i'm like jesus christ this guy's good with his words uh van van we did a we did a pod about

the matrix resurrections uh rob and i and amanda and uh i felt that exact same sensation when i was like damn rob is kind of obviating podcasting he's got like all the thoughts in three sentences but i have 52 more minutes of podcasting to do here you need to extend your ideas my friend like he said it like he said it perfectly too jesus christ economy is the soul of wit that's what they say and that is what Rob excels at. You, on the other hand, Van, you will expand upon your thoughts. I'll give you some empty calories, baby. I'll tell you a story in there.

I'll give you some empty calories. No, Rob is completely right. A couple things. One, I will say something. There's something I feel like you missed sean in your previous example i think the movie made a point to say that the point batman learned in the movie that his actual uh his existence is not about locking up criminals it's about helping people so he thought it was about remember at the end what he ends up doing is being a helping hand that can actually be a hero. You'll always need a hero. Being an avenging angel at some point

you're going to have you're going to run out of shit to avenge. You're not going to be able to you can't get enough vengeance. But being a hero, somebody's always going to need you to put your hand out and help them get a leg up. And I think that was the when I say that this might be the best script of a Batman movie that they've

ever put out or that has ever been written I think that's the reason why you see that character that we already know so well realize himself as a hero not just as someone who has to beat the shit out of people or as like not even a symbol as a member of the Gotham community almost you see him as

at the end of it not something away from him which is very very important the Joker thing was just a cheap trick. Let's just keep it gangsta. It's a cheap trick. I think the difference between this and Batman Begins is Heath, and rest in peace to that man.

Batman Begins comes out, and right away, so when Burton's Batman comes out, the Joker is the main villain, because of course the Joker's going to be the main villain in the Batman movie. They kill the Joker, so we don't see him again. They killed the Joker so Batman has such a good rogues gallery that we get all these other guys.

It's okay. We still got Penguin. We still got Catwoman. We still got Freeze. We still got Riddler. We still got Two-Face. We still got all of these guys but we're not going to see the Joker again because that portrayal of the Joker is dead. We got Max Shrek. Don't forget about him. I love Max Shrek. It's Max not Chip who did those things to you. that portrayal of the joker's dead right um we got max shrek don't forget about him i love max shrek it's max not chip who did those things to you wasn't it max not chip he didn't want anything

to happen to chip chip big ass chip too swole to be a hostage go back and watch that movie bro chip big as hell anyway um isn't chip latimer from the program i believe he is i think that's the same guy he's too slow to be a hostage this is a different way i'm sorry i'm sorry um but look in this in this film though uh uh with the joker with the joker moment i don't think they thought this is the only time that i felt like they felt like they had to do something. I don't think they thought they could give us a Batman movie with no Joker after what Heath did with the road. I think, especially when they came back

with Jared Leto, they tried to reinvent the Joker and people are, Heath did something so crazy with the character that in many ways, let's be honest, he's ruined it forever.

Yeah. And I don't think that they thought, this is the only time they didn't feel like they had to give us a super cool Wayne Manor, all this other stuff, a super cool Batcave, a technological Marvel

and a Batmobile. But they felt like they had to give us the Joker. And because they felt like they had to do it, it felt shoehorned in, didn't work at all. And also I couldn't really see his face, but from what I could see, he looked awful. It looked,

it looked weird to me. It didn't, it didn't work at all. It was kind of the opposite of the tone of the rest, the whole entirety of the other movie, which like we've said, has felt very, if not realistic,

at least set in a real world. That being said, has felt very, if not realistic, at least said in a real world. That being said, I have a lot of faith in Reeves to translate ridiculous IP. He's done it over and over again with Cloverfield and with the Planet of the Apes movies. And now with this movie, he's got a really good track record. So if someone's going to make another movie featuring the Joker that does not Joaquin Phoenix, thankfully, and does not he pledger tragically

I want to see Matt Reeves' version so I suspect we will get to see it we gotta we gotta rank these movies and that's gonna be hard to do

are there any closing thoughts you want to share on the Batman I have one and that's one of the classic Batman themes

they come to over and over again is the idea that Batman creates his villains, right? Like he inspires them. He is their Genesis. I think this movie is one of the most effective renderings of that idea where you have a Riddler character who you think the whole movie is setting up to unmask and reveal who Batman is. But the big reveal is that he thinks

he's working with Batman. He thinks he has kind of like a parasocial relationship with Batman where he thinks they're on the same team. I've never seen a version of that story and that idea conveyed like that in these movies. They talk about it a lot. They say, oh, I'm the Joker. You're Batman. You complete me. This whole idea, they dance around it a lot. This version I found really visceral, really effective. I thought they nailed that element of the story.

And that's why, you know, Joker or not, or whoever they want to do in future versions of these movies, I'm optimistic about what they can do

with these villains to ground them in this context because they got that part so right. I guess my final, my final thought on the film would be,

it's, I really hope people appreciate it for what it is. I can see my homies not being into this one. I always put movies through my homies' test. I take all my homies to see Phantom Menace in 99, and they're like, oh, shit. You know what I'm saying? How can they move so fast?

I'm like, bro, just let it come to you. They have to use the force. But I could see them just like, relax. Have they never seen Star Wars? Was this their first Star Wars film? You ever been to South Baton Rouge before? They never saw that shit. They never saw it. No VHS tapes available in Baton Rouge

in 1989. Let me tell you something. They're not fucking with that shit, Sean. Some of my other homies have definitely seen it, but they really don't care about that shit. Not like that. You know what I mean? Yes. No, I get that. So they might see the lightsabers, but they don't know how the Jedi can run fast and all that. I digress.

What I'm saying is that in this film, I think that it's going to be a little bit more polarizing than people think it's going to be. It's really good and it begs the question if superhero stuff can really meet fine filmmaking we thought that we got there with nolan and we did right but this movie is even more of a film film than the dark knight is it's not better than the dark knight it's not better than the Dark Knight. It's not better than the Dark Knight,

but it's more of a film, this is closer to brick than it is to the original Batman movie. You know what I mean? So like it's- I mean, he is overtly referencing John Huston, David Fincher, Roman Polanski.

Yeah, of course, it's seven. There are so many shots and reference points and gags in this movie that are a cinephile's dream and in some ways like make me think I I it's like a parody frankly of me this movie in a lot of ways like really everything I've aspired to which is like I take movies very seriously and I love the craft of filmmaking I'm also an adolescent boy and I love heroes and characters like this and this movie more than any movie that's come along is attempting to blend those two things but van you're making a

good point which is like i'm kind of a loser you know like i don't know if everybody wants exactly what i want i'm aware of that i can be a tough hang so giving me exactly what i want is not necessarily what the world wants so we might we make a little backlash too. That's in play, right? Yeah, it's in play. But it's well worth it because for them to make this movie, we didn't really go into the genesis of this film and Ben Affleck's

involvement with it and then leaving and it not being a part of the DCEU and it being its whole universe. If you're going to give us something, you have to give us something different and they succeeded in giving us something different Matt Reeves bravo yeah here's one for the sickos here's one for us you know

let's let's take a quick break when we come back we're going to rank all the Batman movies we're going to rank some movies. I love to rank movies. We got, what do we have, 13 Batman movies? We're including a number of outlier editions here. So I'm going to include the Batman the movie from 1966,

the Adam West joint, which has all of the rogues gallery of villains. I'm also going to include not just the Nolan films, not just the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher films, but also the Lego Batman movie. And also both iterations of the Zack Snyder Justice League and the Joss Whedon Justice League, and also Batman v Superman Dawn of Justice, in addition to this Matt Reeves joint that we just got.

Point of order. Are we ranking the theatrical batman v superman or the unlimited justice cut or whatever that longer version of the movie is i did watch the unlimited justice cut before we did a snyder cut watch along so i'm glad you asked rob um i don't care what do you want to? I think the more generous one is to rate the ultimate one which I watched for the first time for this because the other one was not

available on HBO and I was not going to spend real human dollars to rent it. So I watched a three hour movie instead. I guess my time just is not worth it but it is

better for whatever that's worth. Okay. Well then let's let's let's rank the ultimate cut. Number 13. Is that 13 movies?

Did I count that right? Oh, I've forgotten one film. I've forgotten one very important film. The Mask of the Phantasm, which is the animated film, which was theatrically released, which was released concurrent to Batman the Animated Series,

which for all the real heads, which I think we are, is vitally important to Batman storytelling. And that movie is quite good. So at the risk of spoiling. So we've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 films total.

14 films. Let's do it. Number 14. What do you think it should be? What's the worst Batman movie? Batman and Robin. Yeah. So it's a joke. I agree with you. Can I just give you? What's the worst Batman movie? Batman and Robin. Yeah. So,

it's a joke. I agree with you. Can I just give you my little spiel on this movie? Please. I think this is the most important movie made in the last 35 years. Here's why. Give it to me, Sean.

Hot take. This movie is, this movie is bad, right? It's really bad. Really, really bad. And I feel like Joel schumacher didn't get batman at all and he was like what i'm interested in is camp and batman is like literally the opposite of camp and matt reeves obviously is speaking to the real batman but this movie was

such a disaster so critically reviled and effectively killed this extremely profitable franchise for warner brothers that this is the moment when movie studios were like, yo, we have to protect our intellectual property. And the development of films from here on out is vitally important to the future of our business. And we cannot be entrusting it with guys like Joel Schumacher who want to fuck around with our very important stuff. And this is when the studio started to lock down on who got to make movies and how they were produced. And not that that didn't happen in Hollywood before, not that people weren't putting a watchful eye,

but this sense of free reign that reigned across the 80s and the 90s ends here. And it's not a mistake that the next person to take on the Batmanman story is christopher nolan the esteemed indie auteur who had a visionary cinema out of memento and insomnia and and so on and so forth so i'll just cite that while it's bad and i don't like it it is important so here's the thing it's bad and i do like it okay like i like i'm too much of a they play hockey with a diamond you know what i mean like i'm i gotta get my shay serrano shay serrano shit on like i'm there

you know what i'm saying they play hockey with a diamond i'm cool i'm there i do like it to your point it still took them a while to figure out the superhero movie and for the big characters for the big characters they put them in well entr hands, but you still had some abominations that happened out there. You still had X-Men Origins Wolverine. You still had Green Lantern. You still had Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer. You still had some big ones out there. So I understand what you're saying.

It never happened again, specifically with Batman. Yes. happened again specifically with batman yes and but but then again it kind of did because zach snyder comes back a decade and a half later and kind of they fumbled super superman with brian with brian singer they fumbled you know the superman again with zach snyder so i understand what you're saying but i think i think this is joel schumacher sort of revisionist what you're saying, but I think this is Joel Schumacher sort of revisionist history. You're a Joel Schumacher truther is what you're doing. Yes and no, because the X-Men,

the first X-Men film is 2000, and the Raimi Spider-Man film is 2002. And so that's kind of actually that three-year period, that three-year corridor, is exactly the amount of time it takes to reset, to say, here's actually how we need to make these movies these guys these filmmakers with really impressive track records

some of these guys have been in front of academy award nominated suspects to do it to x to do x-men yeah i see what you mean well what those movies didn't do the x-men and spider-man and um and really the you know if we want to fast forward the zack snyder stuff which i don't really have much affection for either what they didn't do was put Uma Thurman in a striptease out of a pink gorilla suit in a kid's movie that's also a nod to 1930s cinema. What? They should have.

I mean, Joe Schumacher was brave, and he made a lot of movies that I liked, just not any Batman movies. So I guess the question here is do we start going to Zack Snyder or do we go to Batman Forever? Oh, I think we got a ways to go before Batman Forever. I think this is exciting.

This feels like a prime Whedon Justice League spot. I agree. Are we 100% sure the Justice League is better than Batman and Robin? No. The Snyder Cut of Justice League is actually good to me. I enjoyed it. Not the Snyder Cut.

The Whedon version. No, not really. We're not. I'm going to be honest with you. Maybe they're tied for 14th. Maybe that's a gesture we can make. Okay, so let's say we put Justice League there. Does that mean that Batman v. Superman Dawn of Justice, the ultimate cut, is number 12?

Has to be I think that's the next group is kind of tiered for me So I have no problem putting This long bloated mess of a movie That is Batman v Superman Demerits for being three hours long I'm deeply Not a fan of this movie Gotta say though

I am with The B bafflet truthers same i love he's a quality batman like i really dig him i thought he was the only thing in the movie that really worked you know i talked to mal and joanne about this recently he's great i actually really would have liked to have seen him in a matt reeves movie i think that would have been interesting it would have been different than pattinson it might have been a different representation. But he looked the part. He played the part well. I thought he was really good.

But these, I mean, Batman v Superman, I find is loathsome to me. I'm really not a fan. It's really frustrating because it's like there's a gem of a, a germ of a good Superman movie in there

about like the public being turned against him and a germ of a good Batman movie and they mashed them together and threw in this weird 9-11 allegory situation it's it's a disaster it's a disaster i think there's slightly more going for it van than you were saying like bat like the ben affleck performance is the only thing working for it there's a couple of like i like jeremy irons

as zaddy alfred personally I'm into that work but I work it's a it's a pretty short list of stuff that works in that movie so this is where I think it gets a little hard and it becomes about personal taste so

is there an obvious number 11 for you after that nice it gets tough I'll make some recommendations okay if it were up to me I think Batman forever would probably go in this spot

now I think that there is a strong case for The Dark Knight Rises here. Oh, wow. Which I think... Jesus Christ. I am famously down on The Dark Knight Rises

as an incoherent mess. But people don't agree. They have a lot of affection for Bane. There are some other things about the story that they really like. I don't know.

So I can't say that The Dark Knight Rises I can't say that Batman Forever is better than The Dark Knight Rises. It's not. So I couldn't have The Dark Knight Rises here. I struggle to put Batman Forever here because I don't see what's wrong with that movie. I gotta be honest with you.

It's not as good as Batman Returns and you know what? Let me be honest with you. This is nostalgia porn for me. This was too good of a time in life. you like it it's not as good as batman returns and you know what let me be honest with you this is nostalgia porn for me i just this was too good of a time in life i went to the mcdonald's and got a burger king got a commemorative fucking cup of drink i have it all summer i i can't i'm too connected to the movie kiss from a rose come on that was heat however let me let me let me throw one thing in your direction chris o'donnell oh shit jesus christ you just fucked it up you remember the time where he dried his laundry by

swinging it like nunchucks there's some bad stuff in this movie man this is pretty bad i have i have another suggestion though uh this is probably the most your mileage may vary of all the batman movies the lego batman movie does not work for me at all. It's what I will put here. I'm going to be honest with you. Really? Well, I'll allow that, but you guys will have to face the wrath of Mallory Rubin is the thing I want to point out to you.

I had heard such good things about this movie. I tried it the first time, turned it off after about 15 minutes. And then I gave it another go, watched the whole thing. I would estimate the hit rate on the jokes in this movie is probably like 5% to 7% for me. Okay. I can't agree with that. There are so many jokes. There are so many jokes.

You know what Rob does? Rob is, he's not hyper-verbose. So he gets his takes in there. Like he has some wild takes even before he gets his takes in there. he had some wild takes even before he gets his takes in there it's funnier than that rob now i can't do it it's it's funnier than that it's not funny it's not good i'm i'm gonna i'm gonna veto putting the lego batman movie here however it could come soon also just just being really real if you you may like zack snyder's justice league

um it's it's it I'm I'm not watching that again before watching Batman Forever that's the other thing it's like I kind of want to you want to make a case for for the Snyder Cut Dan put the put the Snyder Cut here I think you can you can go again you like it so wait a minute I don't think we need both versions of the Zack Snyder movie on here I think we just live with the't think we need both versions of the Zack Snyder movie on here. I think we just live with the weed. Do we need both versions of it on there? Do we need both? It's two different movies.

You want to? Like, look. Well, I guess this wasn't theatrically released, right? It was only released on HBO Max. So maybe that's a reason to chop it out. You know what? I'll be honest with you. If you have the Snyder Cut, I'd have to put the Snyder Cut here.

I like the Snyder Cut. But number one, it's not enough of a Batman deal. He's a secondary. So I will be okay with putting the Snyder Cut here. I enjoyed the Snyder Cut. I devoted two days to watching the Snyder Cut. I enjoyed the Snyder Cut, but I'm cool with putting the Snyder Cut right there. Okay, I'm going to put it there,

and then I'm going to advocate that we go Batman forever and then the Lego Batman. Can you get with that? Or should the Batman the movie from 66 be going into that spot? Batman the movie from 66. That's number 10. That one I think deserves a place in this conversation

because it's actually pretty fun for the first 30 minutes and then it just plays itself the hell out. But I will say of all of these movies, I got no greater laugh than when a porpoise

jumped in front of a torpedo to save Batman's life. Incredible stuff. The whole shark repellent situation is incredible by the way cinema that's cinema this film used to be on and it was like a fucking treat delight whatever it would be on batman and robin fighting in like a little bar next to the oh it's like great i love the movie truly delightful so then okay with that in mind batman forever i think goes nine the lego batman eight can you accept that yes i think it gets a little hard here wait a minute so you got lego batman in front of batman forever see i do yeah i mean all right you know how i feel about this if you really need to swap them i'm willing

to swap them i'll swap can we we? I have to swap those. You know what? I'm going to get my ass kicked. I'm just going to say Chris O'Donnell. Chris O'Donnell, I'd like to say that again to you. No, no. I got to swap those, man. I got to swap Lego Batman and Batman Forever.

Okay. Wait, swap them in what way? I have to have Lego. I have to have Batman Forever ahead of Lego Batman. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Say what you will about that movie it has a fucking aesthetic like they are going for it in the way that like you put a stuntman in charge of an action movie and you get John Wick you put a costume and set designer and Joel Schumacher in charge of a movie and this is what you get

for better or worse. I kind of dig how wild it gets sometimes. Rob you're making the case that the Lego Batman movie does not have an aesthetic? I would argue it is all aesthetic. It's fucking Legos. I mean, it's a good commercial. Very fun. I like it. A lot of fun. I'm a fan, but

you know what? I too was 13 when Batman Forever came out. It's an important film. Okay. That leaves us with the following movies. Batman from 1989, Batman Returns 91, Batman Mask of the Phantasm 92 batman begins 2005 the dark knight 2008 the dark knight rises 2012 and the batman from 2022 nitty-gritty all the nolan films all the burton films and the reeves film and phantasm so phantasm is clearly

seven yeah you think so no no no see i don't hmm i i phantasm might be a top five batman movie so you guys are gonna put mask of the phantasm ahead of any of the nolan movies i don't rock with nolan you know this you've heard me say this before that's not my guy yeah same the dark night is incredible the other two are real medium for me so So Batman Begins is medium? Well, okay. Yes, it is. Batman Begins is medium. You guys don't like Batman Begins? It's a good movie. It's okay.

It's a good movie. I'm going to begin to leave the ring room. I'm going to start negotiations. I'm going to begin right now. Batman Begins, y'all don't... Are you also joining the cast of Oppenheimer along with everyone else who works in Hollywood? Is that why you're leaving us? The whole fucking city? begins right now batman begins y'all don't are you also joining the cast of oppenheimer along with everyone else who works in hollywood is that why you're leaving us city the whole city i can't

wait to put todd bridges in that bitch um everybody's in the movie man um okay so so so we need to negotiate here let's negotiate so you guys don't like batman begins that's fine a lot i've heard people say this i don't understand it Begins, that's fine. I've heard people say this. I don't understand it. I would say that if we were going to put one of those movies behind, it would have to be Dark Knight Rises, which is the weaker. Okay. The weakest of the live action movies that we have left, to me,

is the Dark Knight Rises. That's the weakest of the live action movies that we have left. So Phantasm is the best of the animated stuff, obviously, but I would have to put Dark Knight Rises there if you're going to put Phantasm at five. What do you think, Rob? I would actually go the 89 Batman here. What?

What is happening? What? What in the world? There's no way that the 89 Batman is worse than Dark Knight Rises? Sir! You were doing so well on this podcast.

The 89 Batman is like it's one of the most creatively repressed movies I've ever seen. It's so scared of what it wants to do that it just backs itself into this weird corner where Batman is a dude running around on the street for like three-fourths of this movie.

I guess it's the perfect IP blockbuster in that way, but it's Tim Burton without all the fun of being Tim Burton to me. Rob! Rob! This is a haywire take. Rob! I'm flabbergasted rob i mean tomorrow let's force it out it's fine it's fine because we no no no no no it's actually not fine

no i'm saying the movie is fine it's a fine movie what are we doing so you so you don't like jack nicholson let's let's say that let'solson? Let's say that, hold on. Let's say that you take out every single scene of Batman from the movie. Literally, strip every single scene of Batman in the movie. And you just get to watch Jack Nicholson's Joker. You don't need to tell me, like,

that movie is fantastic. Jack Nicholson, like, think think about this it's not just michael keaton here it's keaton it's nicholson it's prime convention girl come on what are we doing she's not even a masterpiece she's not even playing a character in that movie like she's danny elfman i will not fuck Like What are you talking about Party man I mean I mean

Come on bro It's a great take Rob But you're You're melting my face So hot So far So far what I've heard For the argument of this movie is

What if you took out 80% of it And just watched The Jack Nicholson part No What I'm telling you What I'm telling you is That 80 of it and just watched the jack nicholson part no i'm telling you what i'm telling you is that 80 just that would still it's still so much amazing movie by the way i

keen is my favorite batman he's good i love that like keen is my favorite he's great i think this movie doesn't miss as a matter of fact i still think i would never do it i still think this movie is nipping on a dark knight's heels if you be honest with to be honest with you i still think I would never do it. I still think this movie is nipping on a dark night's heels. If you'd be honest with, to be honest with you, I still think it is the dark night is better. If we flipped it, if we started to go from one to seven,

now I'll tell you what I would do with the top three. I would do the dark night at one. I would do Batman from 89 at two. And I would do the Batman at three. That's okay. I honestly, and I know that there Batman at three. That's, I honestly, and I know that there's a Batman Returns hive, Phantasm.

The Nolan movies don't do it for me, so this is a complicated conversation, which is why I have two folks here who I trust on this matter. What is the possible argument for Batman over Returns? I don't even get that comparison. I mean, I think Van made it in two ways. One, Prince. Two, jack nicholson i mean

jack he stole my balloons he stole my balloons where does he get those wonderful toys that's iconic material that's like a super iconic shit like you're gonna push a guy you wouldn't push a guy with glasses huh like he's just buying it on. Rob's not buying it. I'm so upset. Can we agree on from a crooked cop in this movie, you're both A1 nut boys. Coming soon to the Ringer podcast. Okay, so A1 nut boys podcast

is a great podcast name, by the way. Second to the Midnight Boys. Okay, so I would go so my top. So let's go through real quick so what are we agreeing on then what's six what's six we're on seven i think we should do dark knight rises at seven okay that's that's that's my six i think that's kind of in the range okay so we'll do that there should we should we put phantasm at six? I think it's six. Rob, do you want to make your case for it quickly? Yeah.

It tells a great Batman story without any of the bloat. Like part of my problem with some of these, the Nolan movies, even some of the Burton movies is there's a point about an hour and 45 minutes in

where I'm like, wait, there's a whole nother act of this movie left. Batman Mask of the Phantasm is a great Batman origin story. It's a great Batman love story. It's a mob movie. It's the avenging angel thing. And it gets in and out in 76 minutes. It's just lean, damn fine

storytelling. It's everything you love about the animation style of the animated series, the sound of the animated series, the look of it, the art deco. I think that thing just moves in a way that almost no other Batman does. And I think one other feather in its cap, Kevin Conroy is an amazing Batman.

He is great. Mark Hamill is an amazing Joker. Fantastic. One of the best. It's not too much more complicated than that. Yeah. You made a great case. No.

It is really strong. It is really strong strong so what would you put what would you put at 60 you would put batman so i had yeah i had batman 89 at seven if that's on the board i'm gonna try to plug it into every spot you can give me until we get to the top five so to me for me personally it's batman begins at six and phantasm at five and then we can fight over at the top four now i think there will be people who will i think people will be mad at probably me because of my bad nolan takes over the years for doing that but that is what legitimately i like the remaining five movies a lot more than batman begins that's fine including phantasm which i think is dope and i agree with rob you made a great case for it yeah so just so just real quick the prestige you're out you're

out on the prestige no i like it a lot i don't i don't dislike you're out on inception i i am yes you're out on inception yes it's a whole other pod we'll do it another time oh my god i'm on the record on the rewatchables it's the most reviled episode in the history of that series because of how down on it i was in a handful of other people on that episode let's not relitigate that okay focus on the task at hand here all right we have four movies remaining no we should do a good nolan conversation thanks i want to hear your thoughts about it um we got right now two burton movies the dark knight and the batman now they're the batman probably should go to four. I think over time, it'll be interesting to see how it's understood

because I don't want there to be too much recency bias, but I don't want to overcorrect either. So should the Batman be four? Should one of the Burton movies go here so that we're not too heavily loaded with, you know, late millennial nostalgia filtering into the rankings here? Like, what do you want to do?

So I think we have... So what do we have left? We have... What do we have left? Batman Returns, The Dark Knight, and The Batman. Batman Returns, Batman Returns, The Dark Knight, and The Batman. So, uh... Fuck.

Rob, what are you feeling? Yeah, Rob. Man, this is like the... This is the crisis of a generation. It is hard. This is everything. So just on first viewing, I have The Batman. I think it could be like

the number two movie on this list. But we don't know how propulsive it's going to feel on second viewing when you already know the mystery. That's a big concern point for me. So I would err toward against the recency bias maybe let's slot it in at four or at least three and not get too crazy with it i think that's right i think i think

that's the way i think it's got to go to four it's got to be dark knight batman uh batman returns and then and then uh uh reeves is batman i think it's got to be that. I will spit bile all over myself if you don't put Batman Returns over Batman right now. You can't put Batman Returns over Batman, Rob. It's better. It does all the things better than Batman does. No, Rob.

Rob, you're talking to two big time Batman Returns truthers. Yes, I love it. And Dan Latham and Sean Finnecy. You're talking to two big time Batman Returns truthers. Yes. And Dan Latham and Sean Fennessey. You're talking. I'm with you. Yeah, same. It's amazing. I love it.

It's not as good as the first one, man. It's not as good as the first one. It's good. It's a tough beat, Rob. I'm so upset. It's not as good as the first one, Rob. It's not. This is a huge win for Burton, who's been on like a 10-year cold streak,

but he came through big time in the Batman rankings on the big picture. He's got two in the top three. And I think a solid showing for Matt Reeves. I think he's got a lot to be proud of. Just to recap very quickly, and I feel like you guys did sage work on this. I really appreciate you both.

Number 14, Batman and Robin. Number 13, Justice League. Number 12, Batman v Superman, Dawn of Justice. Number 11, Zack Snyder's Justice League. Number 10, Batman the Robin. Number 13, Justice League. Number 12, Batman v Superman, Dawn of Justice. Number 11, Zack Snyder's Justice League. Number 10, Batman the Movie. Number 9, the Lego Batman Movie. Number 8, Batman Forever. That might have been too high. Number 7, The Dark Knight Rises. Number 6, Batman Begins. Number 5, Batman Mask of the Phantasm. Number 4, The Batman. Number 3, Batman Returns. Number two, Batman. And number one, The Dark Knight. Thank you for your contributions.

You can listen to Rob Mahoney on The Ringer NBA Show on group chat. You can catch him on The Bill Simmons Podcast from time to time, The Ringerverse from time to time. You can check Van Lathan on Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay on The Ringerverse, The Midnight Boys. Anything else you need to plug, Van? No, that's it, man. Just listen Anything else you need to plug man? No, that's it,

man. Just listen. We're going to talk about Rob tomorrow. We're talking about Rob. We'll do a whole Rob pocket. I appreciate you both. Thank you so much. All right,

guys. Thanks. Yeah. Let's go to my conversation now with Kogonada is here. Hello, sir. How are you? Great. Great to be here. Thank you for being here. I'm such an admirer of the video essays that you did for years before you were a feature filmmaker. And one thing I wanted to start by asking you was, you know, when you started directing your own original work, because you had done so much of that video essay work,

did directing still feel like an intellectual exercise or did it shift in some way to being something more emotional or practical? Yeah, no, it was definitely shifted. And yeah, I don't even think, you know, it was very humbling to be on a film set. It's very humbling to make a film. And because, you know, you may have theories and ideas and you've been thinking about film and engaging it's a timed event you know it's a timed art form you know um then your instincts and other things that you care about um matter and you realize like just getting through the day is an accomplishment uh and you know uh and it humbles your theories you know you realize like oh this is the craft. And so, yeah, I mean, I think by necessity, I had to ground it. But I preferred that too. I don't think I walked into it thinking, oh, I'm going to make this academic, which is something that I was trying to run away

from anyway. And even when I made the essays, I never wanted it to feel teacherly. You know, I just wanted to make something that I would watch, you know, that would get me to watch it. And I wanted it to be open and for it to provoke conversation or just for it to stay with you. As opposed to me, like, hey, here's a lesson I want to teach anyone about film. Because I'm constantly struggling with what I think about a film or a filmmaker. It never feels settled in my mind. So these things give me space.

What about the transition from a film like Columbus to After Yang, which is, it seems a little bit bigger. It seems like it costs a little bit more money. Was there anything that surprised you about kind of elevating from the first production to the second? well you know in some ways it was surprisingly similar in the sense that um you know there was something very intimate about columbus and you know we made it in 18 days it was

uh it was small and we were in a town and i did think that some of that might be lost but you know someone like colin i don't know if you've ever met him, but God, he is such a beautiful man, you know, and has just an incredible generosity about him. And he set this very similar tone that John Cho and Hei Lu set, which I was, you know, not expecting because he's a huge, you know, star, but he was uh there's nothing diva about him he was on the set sometimes for you know very early he didn't like to hang out in his trailer he was just he kind of really helped also establish um a set that was also very intimate and you know it was very family oriented so there was that quality to it but yeah but there was a

lot of other things going on you know i i meaned for, uh, like being able to point the camera in any direction, you know, because we had a very, like a world and a limited budget, you know, we couldn't create 360 environments, you know, and I love a wide shot, you know, I love outdoors. So I had kind of created this thing that I knew was going to be very interior. And in some ways, in a weird way, there were almost more limitations because of the world that was being constructed. But yeah, but it was larger. There was something really nice about having more people involved and all of that that but i also love the diy that kind of small scale film as well i do want to ask you about colin before we chat about him i i'm always fascinated by this kind of like soft science fiction like near future and the design that goes into a movie like that so i mean this looks like our world and not like our world at all so how do you make that?

Is that something that you're visualizing? Are you collaborating with someone early on to figure out here what costumes are like here? What day-to-day items in a home look like? Here's what the architecture is. How do you build that? Yeah, I mean, certainly collaborated with Arjun, our costume designer, and Alexandra, our production designer, with a lot of conversation.

But yeah, I had definitely had this idea that I didn't want a sci-fi world that was metallic and glass and had those transparent screens floating and all of these things that, yeah, I just thought I wanted, you know, I had an idea of the history of this place, you know, that it had been sort of humbled by, you know, catastrophe and an idea of the history of this place, you know, that it had been sort of humbled by, you know, catastrophe and it was forced to contend with nature. And then my, you know, my fantasy is like the more technological we get, the more invisible the technology is, you know, the less we see cords, the less we see screens and, you know, and I'm just more interested in a film world that way. And, you know, the way that

gadgets, to me, age, you know, like, you know, they often they become distracting when you revisit them. And so I thought there was something about cinema itself, the editing of cinema, the frames of cinema that are its own effect and are its own sort of science fiction. And I try to use the medium, you know, in a way to kind of, you know, forecast a kind of future. But yeah, but it was about an organic future of something that was a little more intimate and cozier and a kind of sci-fi that I'm drawn to'm drawn to, you know, when I, when, when I watch it, I'm always, I always want a certain kind of sci-fi that is a little bit more intimate and everyday. Whenever you talk to a filmmaker, who's a hardcore cinephile as you are, there's always

a question about like, what did you look at beforehand? Or what did you show to the cast before you started making this movie? Are you the kind of director that has a syllabus or that is like seeking inspiration ahead of the the production of a movie um you know no i mean i i always think i should you know i have all these these films and you know i think the advantage of having some of the that essay work outside is like, you know, and this is certainly true for Columbus is, you know, actors are doing their homework and a lot of them watched it and thought, oh, you know, and familiarize themselves with some of those filmmakers and films that I had focused on. Although they're not all like reflective of things I love, but certainly things that I've engaged in. So there's that. And certainly with my DP, Benjamin, we watched and discussed films. But I would like to do that.

I mean, I'm already talking about, you know, there are, you know, and I think we did discuss, I'm trying to think, it was a while ago now, it feels like three years ago when we made it. So I do think that Colin and I discussed a few things, but no, I didn't give a syllabus out or anything. Okay. Tell me what you look for in casting. I feel like you were rightly acclaimed for Haley Liu and John in Columbus and pairing them together. And I think Haley was a little bit of a discovery at that point. What were you looking for after Yang? Did you want more recognizable faces did you not care about that yeah i mean i did i certainly didn't think about it or or write for it

um and i didn't you know i i honestly you know it was a surprise when there were you know some a-list actors who were like you know agents who agents who are like, hey, you know, because I, yeah, it was just a surprise. I didn't write it for that. But in general, you know, there is, and I'm sure it's the same answer for a lot of people, but it's like a kind of presence, you know, something that, and there are, you know, there are, I think, actors who have this sort of quality of mystery or history, you know, that, that they can just be sitting, uh, you know, in front of a camera and you just want to know more about them. Uh, and I don't know what that is, you know, it's, it's very magical to me, you know, what actors do is, is, um, you know, but, um, but some people have that and, and, um, you know, so I think that there's something about that. And I, obviously I want to work with people who are, um, are curious and interesting and good human beings, you know? Uh, so, uh, there's, there's that. Um, but with that, like Haley Lou, I knew that I wanted that role to be a kind of a

discovery because, you know, it's like a working class girl from a small town and sometimes it's sort of distracting, you know, and also I didn't, you know, it's not like I had, you know, even access. But there was a moment when we brought in financing where people thought, oh, can we, you know, let's, let's see if there are people, you know, but I had already met with Haley. I already, there was something in her that felt like, oh, she's Casey. Yeah. So Colin, I feel like he's on this fascinating journey as like a, it's almost like the hangover of being shot into movie stardom.

And then you spend the next like 10 or 15 years, like really doing the work that you want to do and finding interesting material. And he's got this incredible track record now of consistently collaborating with at least directors that I really love. And I guess I'm interested in how he came to this and why you thought he was right for it. Do you audition someone like Colin Farrell? How does that work? No, no, I don't know. And yeah, to speak to Colin, I was a fan of his. And he also, even in the biggest film, there's just something so sincere and moving about him, you know. And then, of course, with Yorgos, you know, it was a real, like, this phase of Colin that was just like, oh, my God, you know.

And in Bruges, you know, I think in Bruges, you know, I kind of fell in love with him as a man. I was like, God, I love this man, you know. So, I think a lot of us took that journey, right, with him as a man. I was like, God, I love this man. So I think a lot of us took that journey with him. But I do, the more I know him and I've said this before, but he is like a real poet. I think he has that Irish, the Irish I think are maybe born poets and he is, yeah, I mean, he just texted me yesterday and his texts are like poems, man. It's, it's really beautiful and thoughtful.

And I say that he's like a poet disguised as a leading man, but I think in his heart, you know, he's handsome as all get out. He could be a leading man, but I think he is just this, uh, soul of an artist who really, I think if he, if he could, and, you know, he would just do, you know, these kinds of interesting films, I think that's what he wants to do. So he, when he came on the radar, when someone was like, Colin, you know, is interested, I, you know, it was like a dream, you know, I was like, yeah, you know, of course. Yeah, that was very moving. On the flip side, you're working with a very, very young actress in this film. I'm always interested in directors working with children and what are the challenges? What are the beautiful things that come out of that? Is it Malaya? Is that her name?

Malaya, yeah. So how did you find her? What was that like for you? Well, you know, I had just like, my boys had just come out of that stage and I know that you're a new father as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I've, I've heard that you're at that phase. That was my favorite where you're up in a very early in the morning and they're lying down and you watch films. I mean, I watched, so I still have such memory. It was like my own retrospective of a child on stomach watching at four in the morning. And it was really beautiful. I almost miss it, you know, because there is just, it's just you and the sleeping child and you know you can watch whatever you know um she's just moving out of that phase now unfortunately for me so my film viewing is going down yeah yeah no it is like it was great it was like oh no they're not yeah um but i um you know my my boys

were just coming out of that stage and um and so that know, it's like this film has a sentimentality to it that is probably reflective of me being a father and being more sentimental about all of it, you know my you know my i have a lot of nieces that are very were very precocious and i would love to have conversations with them and so i you know i kind of had written this little precocious child you know who uh was a part of it and and i had seen malaya in a viral video someone had sent me um of her singing the national anthem at the la galaxy and she was six you know when she's saying it and she like had belt like was like crazy singer like like belting the song out but she looked like one of my my nieces she just looked like this person i was writing and uh and so i had asked my uh we weren't even casting yet but i had called my producers and we knew who our casting directors

were and we're like can can we find out if she knows how to act and uh she they called her in and uh she start read you know read the sides and then they gave her some notes because she had a kind of you know there was like a disney performance and they were like can you pitch it down and she took the notes and it was kind of incredible, you know, and there wasn't much to do. I mean, she just kind of had it, you know, the only thing was like kind of bringing her to this sort of the tone of this film, but yeah, she was, she was really amazing. She's really great. It's very effective. And sometimes that can, you know, the precocious child is a dangerous character, you know, a little too far in one direction and it can be a little overwrought, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. It's yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm excited for you to

hit that stage. You know, it is an interesting, you know yeah. I had so many interesting conversations with my kids and until you have that, you know, when you see it on screen, you're just like, you have a lot of like, Oh, is that the kids talk about, you know, that kind of thing. But, you know, once you go through that, it's just like, you know, the kind of conversations you can have with kids are pretty amazing. So you mentioned the sentimentality and grief and loss are pretty hard subjects, I think, to tangle with in a film without kind of rolling into that like treacly you know overly sentimental territory you're obviously a very sincere filmmaker um but i never feel like you're manipulating me at least um i guess tell me a little bit about how you capture tone in a movie you know and how you like how do you guide that because obviously the work of filmmaking is very practical and very can be very technical but you're going for something that is very emotional like is there is it a is it a uh

you know a process that you actually have to think about or is it something that just comes naturally in terms of nailing the tone yeah um yeah i mean you know i think i'm just making what i want to watch you know and and however imperfectly i'm doing it and and the wabi-sabi of it all but i i do think that it is you know i i think um and you know really like my discovery of asian cinema you know i i think i went uh i would love to have this conversation with one day you know it's like the path you go through when you're you're discovering a whole other realm of cinema you know uh and and certainly mine was like the french new wave and the europeans and then you know when i started encountering uh asian cinema it really resonated with my own search for my own being and even the

way uh at least the filmmakers i was drawn to um the, the way they, the emotion of it all, you know, because there's a kind of, to me when emotion is in my face and it may work on me, you know, and that is, I can still, you know, but I always, my posture is to lean back from the screen, you know, because it's too much almost, but when it is, um, a little a little bit yeah i don't even want to say distance because i don't mean cold but there's some space for me to lean in you know whether it's behind you know whether it's a wide shot or you're behind you know often in asian cinema you're like looking through a doorframe and you're seeing the back of someone and and you know i it it moves me i mean it is a it stays with me in a way that

it's hard to explain, you know, I'm still trying to figure out like, you know, I think for me, films that stay with me, whether at the time I was affected or not, but I can't get rid of it are the films I'm most interested in. And, and that's a different, you know, there was a time younger when I was just like, what impresses me the most, you know, there was a time younger when I was just like, what impresses me the most, you know, and I can talk about it. But I've realized increasingly, there are films that I might not even be impressed by, you know, when I'm watching it. And a week later, I'm still thinking about it. And that's like, I, you know, I try to, yeah. I relate to that deeply, that specific sentiment where something somehow gets its hooks into you, even if you don't realize it as the film is on. It's kind of an amazing thing.

So in the film, after Yang, I think it'd be easy to say, oh, this has the notes of the flavor of green tea over rice or something like that. And I understood a lot better, I thought, Ozu or Corrieto or a number of filmmakers just from watching the essays that you made. But also there is this incredible vitality and energy, especially in that title sequence, which I wanted to ask you about. But even throughout the film, there is a slightly different energy. It doesn't just feel like you are kind of snapshotting these films that you love and have studied. You're colliding a few different kinds of influences. Can you tell me about why that title sequence, where some of the energy from the movie comes from too yeah yeah well you know that title sequence is like my my days as a child watching uh uh martial

arts on uh cinema you know like in the shawl brothers and there's this great title sequence in um the kid with the golden arms uh that has Arms that's sort of suspended and they're all in a color background and they're doing their style. And I mean, I talked about something that stayed with me. I was just like, oh God, I love that title sequence. And when I was writing it, there was something about a family dance.

I love early summer in Ozu and there's something about seeing that family in sync before it's about to dissolve, you know, that I just love about the rhythm of that. And I just thought, you know, a real shortcut is really literally seeing, you know, for better or worse, I just thought I wanted to see all these families, these diverse families sort of in sync,

and then explore that. And my choreographer was, she had this lovely way of talking about it. She said, it's like a pop of confetti at the beginning of the film and everything else is like the confetti falling. So there was something about that energy. And yeah, you know, as much'm influenced and i and i did want as a second film i thought oh this is going to give me an opportunity uh to to explore some other elements of form and you know i love renee you know i love what he him and you know soderbergh also i think uh with uh nick throg and renee has always like the way time and memory is played and it's really challenging the forms of cinema you know I just thought oh you know and I my essay works are a

lot more like that where it's experimental and I can play with certain kinds of cuts so I just was interested if if I could add that element into this film as I sort of hopefully get to continue to make films, you know? So there, there was that influence, I think definitely like Renee and that language. And so I knew that I was going to have a memory.

I knew that I was going to differentiate human memory from Yang's memory, which was sort of certain and recorded and the father and mother trying to recall moments with Yang. And I just knew I was going to play with time a bit and repetition and all of that. So I was excited about that. I'm, for probably obvious reasons, always fascinated by folks who make the transition

from a kind of essayistic or critical perspective and move into the professional world. I'm obsessed with Paul Schrader, also who is obsessed with Ozu. I'm always interested in people who are making that jump. And you're now at a place where, and if I'm mistaken, correct me, but it feels like you are entering a kind of truly working filmmaker phase of your career where you're now directing episodes of television. I guess, what do you see for yourself? What do you want? What kind of a

career do you want to have? Yeah. I i mean this is like a question i ask myself you know all the time because i think you know the cinema that i love is is yeah and the ones that i return to and the ones that stay with me are you know in that sort of realm of um of like columbus of ozu and in korea and and recently hamaguchi and and and there's a whole line of filmmakers you know edward yang and um and, and there's a whole line of filmmakers, you know, Edward Yang and, and, you know, when I just started, you know, after Columbus, I was like, Oh, you know you know I was trying to, you know, like think of that kind of path and I still am, but, you know, one of the things I realized or like Olivia, you know, I would,

I never looked at box office. I never even thought about it. I just thought if they're great films, they must be Assas, you know, I would, I never looked at box office. I never even thought about it. I just thought if they're great films, they must be doing well, you know, the naivety of that. And then I, you know, when I was realizing, you know, that these films that I love, the traction to try to get those made, you know, I looked at the box office numbers of even recent films that I love and, you know, none of those make a lot of money, you know, and as an American filmmaker and one that has, you know, that's, you know, I don't come from money and I have kids and, you know, it became a real question for me because, you know, I was in debt after Columbus. And so it's hard, you know, if I'm just honest, I'm trying to figure that out. And there's two paths, you know, I'm writing, I write a couple of stuff that are more back, back to this zone of like contemporary drama that I love, you know, but, but it's a kind of, it's, it's not, um, it's not like American indie contemporary drama, you know, it's probably more like international Asian, you know, contemporary drama. And I'm writing,

and I think I'll have some opportunities now to make that better than after Columbus. And then I have other things that are a little more ambitious, you know, because I still, I do have a side of me that really wants to explore a form in a different way. So I'm trying to figure that out. You know, I'm trying to, I don't know the answer to that, honestly. I think every opportunity to make a film is a privilege. I feel so fortunate because my first two films, I got final cut. I was able to make the film that I wanted to make. So I'm trying to figure that out, Sean. I mean, if you have any advice. I definitely do not have any advice for you. I am always so interested though. And I've spoken to a lot of filmmakers over the years that are in the exact position that you are in, which is to say, you've made a couple of films

broadly, critically acclaimed. Everyone, there's a sense that this guy is, he is a guy. And should we give him the opportunity? Should we give this man $100 million to make a franchise entertainment? I don't imagine you're going to do something like that but does the idea of something bigger appeal to you you know do you yeah i mean again it's something that i've been tossing around and at first was

like no and i you know but you know like i'm excited to see matt reeves batman you know he's like a really you know interesting and you know uh denise villeneuve, he, to me, is like a craftsman. I loved Arrival. I just thought, wow. And Dune. I was surprised at how overtaken I was by Dune. I mean, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I saw it with my youngest son, and we were in great theater, and it was just washing over me. It was incredible. So I don't know. You know, today I feel like I would entertain it, but it would depend on what it is. You know, I, yeah.

I mean, I never thought about being a filmmaker because of the occupation, the job of it. You know what I'm saying? And when you say working director, I've never thought about it that way. And I think I've always thought, oh God, if I had the opportunity of putting something out in the world that affected me, you know, the way it has, and I would love to make that. So that's what I'm trying to balance out, you know, but I don't know the answer to it, you know, honestly, but I'm, but I, I'm, I'm open to consider things, you know, but I, I also know the kind of cinema that I love.

I'm very excited to see what you do next. I, I, I wish you well. I really love the first two films. You know, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they have seen? This is a particularly, this is one of interest for me, since I know that you are a great watcher of movies. I can see all your Blu-rays behind you. So I'm excited to hear what you recommend. I wish we had longer to talk and get really nerd out about our collection behind you. I'm here, man. I'm available to you. This is my favorite thing to do.

Okay, good. Well, we should. We should have a separate conversation. And it's nice that we both have physical media behind us. It's so important. You know, I saw something the other day because I have been, you know, Hamaguchi is someone like you, you find a filmmaker and they're doing something and it's getting under your skin. And you're like, what, what is he, what is this? You know, cause it's moving and it's, and so obviously driving my car, but I had a friend who sent me an early work of his called Touching the Skin of Eeriness. It's like under an hour. I watched that the other day and God, I'm still trying to figure it out. I heard that he made a Solaris and I've got to find that film i think that was his student film i believe okay have you seen it does it no it's not it's not been made available but uh i read the same and got intrigued by that but i think it is an ultra low budget adaptation of solar yeah yeah i would love to see that touching the skin of eeriness i you know he he found a link online so i i was able to watch that if anyone wants to watch it you know the um i was in new New York and I also saw a play, the Lehman trilogy, which I see

is now playing in LA or is about to, you should watch it. It was, you know, I, when I was in New York a few weeks ago, I saw the Lehman trilogy and then drive my car the next day. And I felt so small, you know, as a, you know, I was so humbled by those works. Cause it was like greatness, you know, that both of them were like a kind of greatness and you know that i yeah you know i said i it was really like back to back just completely blown away um i'm making a note of the the lehman trilogy that's in los angeles i can see in los angeles now watch it and we should talk about it it's uh yeah i'd like to get your your take on that um but the lehman trilogy yeah uh touching my skin of eeriness uh drive my car yeah yeah some books uh read it i've been reading this new ozu

book which has been great yeah a few books that i've been reading but anyway we can move on oh you know what i should give a shout out to my son i he's got really into anime uh just like obsessively and it's been such a delight um i had introduced a few films and we did this music zaki retrospect but he's been watching series and just obsessively watching it and then he asked me to watch demon slayer with him oh which which i and it has been a real like when i was a kid i used to watch anime but i've not done it and it has been a real, like when I was a kid, I used to watch anime, but I've not done it. And I've been watching this and it's just, I mean, I'm like every week,

I'm just so excited on Sundays. We just watch it together and it's just so moving and interesting and visual. And anyway, I so anticipate getting switched on to stuff by my child. So that's, that's really, that's nice. That's really fun.

That's cool. Well, thank you so much, man. Obviously, congratulations on everything. This is an awesome year for you. Yeah, it's a treat.

Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Thanks to Kogonata. Thanks to Van Lathan and Rob Mahoney. Thank you to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. Stay tuned to The Big Picture this week. We have a very special and very silly surprise for you. A watch-along podcast recording for the film Free Guy.

That film is streaming right now on Disney Plus and HBO Max. I've been listening to the show for the past six months. You know I'm not a big fan of Free Guy. What will Sierra and Amanda think? You'll just have to tune in and watch along with us to find out. We'll see you then.