The Big Picture - The Best Movies at Telluride and Venice, and the 10 Most Anticipated Fall Films

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Sean and Amanda are back from vacation! Today, they discuss the biggest films out of the Telluride and Venice film festivals before sharing the yet-to-be-released movies they’re most excited for this fall (0:47). Then, Sean is joined by director Alex Russell to discuss his new film, ‘Lurker’, starring Théodore Pellerin and Archie Madekwe. Russell explains how he was able to direct the project despite his very limited experience, what he was looking for when casting his two leads, and what type of project he might be interested in doing next (1:41:32). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Alex Russell Producers: Jon Jones, Sasha Ashall, and Jack Sanders This episode is sponsored by State Farm®️. A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.®️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is presented by State Farm. Life's full of decisions, big and small, and sometimes you make movie ones you can really stand behind. For example, I was wise enough to stick around through the mid-credits during Ryan Coogler's sinners. And unlike my co-host, Amanda, I got to see a very special sequence with the great buddy guy, among other things. State Farm gets it. Making confident choices can make all the difference. That's why, with the State Farm Personal Price Plan, you can choose the right amount of coverage to help create an affordable price for you. to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal

price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the big picture. conversation show about our journeys to the fall film festivals. That's right. I once again visited Telluride, Colorado, for their intimate annual celebration of cinema, while Amanda returned to Europe for the 82nd Venice International Film Festival.

Amanda, how are you? I'm great. I'm still in Europe. You're in Europe. We're going to get to that in one moment. A couple of programming reminders here. We're going to talk about our favorite films from the festivals. We are going to talk about the films that we're looking forward to this fall, the ones that

we haven't seen. Now you've seen a lot. I've seen a lot, but there's still a lot of holes. We're going to talk about probably the best picture race and where it stands for the first time this entire season. And then later in this episode, I have a conversation with Alex Russell. He's the first time writer-director of one of the pleasant surprises of the year. A film called Lurker. It's a music industry thriller.

I don't want to spoil anything about it. It's going more wide this weekend. People should check it out. Russell's been a writer on The Bear and Beef, two of the best shows of the last five years. Super smart guy. Really good conversation. Stick around for that. But first, screw the news.

Let's just talk about Venice. You're in Europe. What are you doing right now? Well, it's 10.30 at night, local time. I have just gotten home from Velito. For those of you who, like me, well, I know about Venice now, but I did also recently read the Wikipedia page like two days ago. For the city of Venice? For the city of Venice.

Yeah, that's a travel tip that I have is when you're somewhere pull at the Wikipedia page. I learned a lot about the lions that are on top of the fancy church here. Anyway, Venice is a series of violence. The film festival is held on the Lido, and I am not wealthy enough to be staying on the Lido. So I have just returned via Water Bus back home from the House of Dynamite premiere, Catherine Bigelow's new film for Netflix, starring our friend and friend of the podcast, Tracy Letts. Is he top billed? Is he the number one star of the film? No, but pretty good billing.

Yeah, he was there. I have a picture of him in a talk. I got to see Tracy, one of the great delights of this trip. So it's 10.30 here. I'm podcasting. And I have, in fact, poured myself a glass of white wine because, like I said, I also have been on the Lido since 10 a.m. this morning. I did three movies today. That's what we like to hear.

I wore a dress that could go from 9 a.m. awkwardly on a water bus through a press screening to premieres. and then back on the water bus home. But here I am, and I realize I haven't spoken to you in person in a month. So it's nice to see you. It's lovely to see you. We've been trading some texts, though you and I tend to be a little bit more restrained in our opinions pre-record. So a lot of this will be new to both of us as we discuss it. We'll do Venice first.

I feel like that's the best thing to do because you're fresh off of a screening. You've been seeing movies. I got back last night from Telluride. So I've had some time to gather my thoughts, but you are in the moment right now. Is this your fifth drink or your eighth drink today? So technically this is my third, but I didn't really consume the other two. They were more like placeholders so that I could have a place to sit and fill out our document. The second one was actually at the Kampari Lounge, which is a sponsored lounge directly across from the red carpet on the Lido.

And in two trips, I had never been. So I have been here in Venice for eight days, which I feel insane. I'm so lucky and I feel absolutely insane. I've been lucky enough to be here with our friend and colleague Yassi Salak, who has come and see a lot of movies with me, but Yassi insisted that I'd go to the Kampari Lounge before we left. The official sponsored Kampari Lounge, it wasn't my best negroni of the trip, so I didn't drink all of it.

Shots fired at Kampari. Jeez, Louise. It's okay. Well, tell us about the festival. Like, what's the scene been like? What's the energy? Like, I think we'll talk about the themes of these festivals this year and our favorite stuff that we saw. But what's the vibe?

Like, how did it compare to 2023 when you were there? So it has been extraordinarily chaotic, is what I would say, and really, really packed. I think when I was here in 2023, it was during the actor strike. And so there were a lot of movies and a lot of movie stars who would normally be at Venice, who were not, who did not show up. Some people got waivers, but a lot of people couldn't come. This year, everybody and their very famous boyfriend or girlfriend is here as well. So it has been totally star-studded.

I made a list off the top of my head. I'm just going to read to you. This is all people that I saw in movies or saw on the red carpet. Emma Stone, Jesse Plymouth, George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Emily Mortimer, Noah Baumbach, and Greta Gerwick. I can't even read all of these. Julia Roberts, like Jacob Allorty, Oscar Isaac, Jude Law. I also saw him walking around while I was getting gelato. Lewis Pullman and Kair Gerber, Dwayne the Rock Johnson, Emily Blunt, Sophia Coppola, Mark Jacobs, Idris Alba, our pal Tracy.

Like, it just, it kind of keeps going. And then I would look on Instagram and be like, oh, look, there are some more people that I didn't even know we're here. So hugely star-studded, this is a festival that likes Hollywood, that likes Netflix, that likes movie stars, that likes them riding up on their water taxis. no water bus for them and lets them shine and really lives up to the, you know, plays into the glamour. It's on, it's right on the ocean. The Lido is on the Adriatic Sea. So that has been really fun. There are just also a tremendous number of people here. And the feeling that I've gotten from talking to others is that it seems like it's maybe a bit over credentialed and that things got a little crowded, a little complicated.

I mean, you know, it is also Italy. Was there a Yossi-shaped straw that broke the camels back here? Well, like, what happened? Oh, I mean, it's just, it has been really difficult logistically to get around and see movies because they are on a different island. And once again, like some of the islands you can walk between and there are bridges, but not the Lido. And so most people can't stay on the Lido.

And so you're going back and forth, and there are some, you know, shuttle water buses, which are, like, are, again, boats. So there are, like, some boats, but it's not enough. Like, people have not been able to get to the island to get to their screening. The lines are forever. There's been a lot of coverage about how the city of Venice more broadly is kind of at its wit's end with tourists. And it does feel like the city and the festival are, like, a bit at odds. Uh, Yasi got a ticket for improperly using like her water bus pass, which I had never seen happen for. And they were on every single. Wow. Subway, you know, like the train ticketers.

And it seems like they were. Is she in some sort of like water jail right now? What, what happened? What does it look like consequences? She just had to like pay a fine. And as she pointed out, you know, like you, she wasn't allowed to buy the ticket on the boat, but she could pay the fine on the boat. Anyway. Um, convenient. Yeah, which and, and we've seen them all festivals. festival, it seems like there have been fewer shuttles. It just kind of, it's, it's beyond capacity. And everyone's been very late to screenings. What's like the ramifications of that on the festival itself? So you still, they do admit people into screenings after the fact in like an extremely nonsensical and officious process where you have to wait until they've decided

that they can lead you via a flashlight to a seat. But they do, unlike, can, let people in. And I think part of the reason they have to is just because it is so difficult to get everyone where they need to go. But it's, you know, it's resulted. I was 20 minutes late to the Wizard of the Kremlin. You know, I got in. I personally felt that I saw most of what I needed to see. But you can feel that people are stressed.

And it just feels like there's no room for discovery. How about that? Because of the way that the screenings are set up, it is also a longer festival, and then also just the logistics of getting around, you can't really dip into something, if that makes any sense. It does. I don't want to neg the festival that you attended because there are a number of movies that you saw that I'm extremely excited about. But that has been one of the reasons historically why I have not wanted to go to Venice is because it's very different from the way that I like to do this, which we'll talk about. talk about tell you right no i i mean i thought of you uh on one of the shuttles and i was like you would absolutely hate this i mean i saw 15 movies so i did my homework you know i i i planned

i at some point thought i was going to have to sleep on the lido because we also had some thunderstorms and you know these canals and these and these boats aren't aren't built for this um i made friends with some listeners actually this was after the j kelly screening and so it was like 1230, pouring down rain, lightning and thunder. But I made friends with Ruthie and she navigated. And together, we made it home. I really think I would have been arrested had it not been for them. So I'd like to thank them very much. I'd like to not thank them because it would have been very funny if you were arrested in Italy. I just want to say. Listen, with my name, I like, I can't be having any skirmishes with the law. Oh my gosh. I forgot about that.

Yeah. I know. It's like, geez Louise. My passport. That's what it says. And then there's a Dobbins at the end. It's tough. For those who don't know, Amanda's middle name is Knox. Yeah, it is complicated. And back in the news, making more content these days. Oh, again? Yeah.

There's a Hulu special now. There's a book. Yeah. No, I mean, I know. Listen, I guess she's, you know, she's got to make money too. She's got to speak her truth. Just as you speak your truth on a weekly basis. Anyway, it's insanely beautiful here.

And it's pretty, it is surreal every day to go back. and forth to see these major movies um in this beautiful place but i you know i've been here for eight days i'm i'm worn down so give me the headlines you know like you've now seen 15 movies which is you know that's that's more than i saw my festival i think i guess i was there half the amount of time but still that's a that's a lot we'll talk about your favorites but like kind of what are the big takeaways what are the like thematically even just from a you know if you were putting a headline on this episode what would you say this movie or this moment or this idea. Right. Late capitalism bad and makes men crazy. Would I say, and then also

getting old as hard would be the two things, you know, that you're grappling. So like the overarching, I don't, I do think that I saw several movies about late capitalism. And it was not, they were not pro. But in general, there's not a huge thematic. through line of the programming. It is really just kind of a ton of heavyweight directors, right? And so, you know, we had Noah Baumbach,

Gammon del Toro, Yorgos Lanthamos, Olivia Sias, Catherine Bigelow, who am I forgetting? Sophia Coppola, Park Chin Wook. Aless Orantino, yeah. Exactly, Palo Sorrentino opened the festival. So this was, you know, I came to see a lot of directors

who I expect a lot of, just like to see what they're up to, next. And so I think expectations are pretty high for Venice. And, you know, as with all things, some movies hit and some don't. And some critics get grumpy and some don't. And so it's, you know, I would say that the through line, it's trending upwards. I think if you talk to everyone on day three or day four of the festival, I had a fan. I was having a fantastic. time. But it seemed like morale was low. But, but like maybe, maybe we're back. Yeah. My understanding is, is that maybe one of the best was saved for last and that you were able to go out on a high

note, which is always a good feeling at a film festival. I mean, do you want to just start giving us your favorites? Like, what were the best experiences you had? What were the best, like, what are the films that we should be caring about out of the festival? Okay. So I made a list and I ranked them. Wonderful. So number five. Just for you, Sean Fennessee, is a documentary called Megadoc, directed by Mike Figgis. And it is a on the set making of the film Megaloplas directed by Francis Ford Coppola. And Francis was here for the opening ceremony. He gave an award to Werner Herzog.

And then he's just been hanging around to hang out with the rest of his family because Sophia Coppola was here today. But he was not at my screening. He was very present in the movie, which I thought, for people who listen to this podcast, is just amazing. I was locked in. I thought it was so riveting and it is nerdy. But Francis Ford Coppola just invited McFigots to come document the entire making of this movie. And so for a movie that I think both you and I walked out of with like a lot of questions about, you know, a lot of. A couple of them are answered in this documentary.

They really are. And some amazing things about the production and art design and just and like how to create a world. And, you know, Copla famously sat on this movie for many years for a number of reasons. But one of them was because the technology didn't exist yet to create what was in his mind. And so watching them try to get there. and not quite in real time is fascinating. Shia LeBuff finds the camera in this movie. He sure does.

Yeah, I had a chance to see this as well. And that is my number one takeaway was Shia is shying at an all-time rate. Yeah. But it's really, I think it's really well told. It does, you know, he gets sit down interviews with almost everyone, including Dustin Hoffman. And, but it's incredibly edited. One of the, he gets a dozen Hoffman meltdown during a scene and then cuts to like a very obsequious, like, talking head, Hoffman.

It's really, it's really very clever. And, you know, as Figas says in the documentary, most of the great making of movies, documentaries are about disasters. And so you can kind of see them realizing. real time that things aren't really lining up. And he's there for all of it. So I just, I was wrapped. I loved it.

Yeah, I think you nailed it. Figgas, for those who don't know, is really a feature filmmaker. You know, he made Leaving Las Vegas and Internal Affairs and, you know, mostly worked in the 80s and 90s. I can't remember the last time I saw him, like, Figgis movie. But one of the things I liked about the movie is, in most documentaries, I would hate this. But since he's a seasoned filmmaker, he's like going in front of the camera at critical moments where he's like, shit, I kind of don't know what to do now.

Or, like, how do I get Adam Driver to talk to me? You know, there are a couple of moments that are really revealing where he is participating in the dock. And Natalie Emanuel's agent doesn't want me to film her eating, which that was as awesome. That making it into the dock was so good. Well, she didn't give him anything else. And it also does confirm what I was thinking about the performance the whole time. Aubrey Plaza is amazing in this. She is very funny.

Aubrey Plaza, yeah, is great. I'm glad you enjoyed that. Okay, what's next? Great question. What did I put at number four? Oh, yeah. So this is another movie that's on your list because it premiered here at Venice and then Emma Stone and did Jesse Plymonds also fly to tell you? He certainly did.

And Jesse Plymins was on my flight to Venice, which was very exciting. And this is Bagonia, which I just absolutely clicked with. This is my preferred Yorgos land the most flavor. You know, it's it's dog tooth and the lobster. Yeah. and in some ways is familiar, but I think also up, maybe it doesn't upend, but is playing with your expectations of Yorgas Lanthamos movie throughout. And it really got me.

And then the Jesse Plymouth's performance is lights out. Yes. I mean, Emma Stone is also really, really great, but like we all know that. He is fantastic. Yeah. This is also number four on my list of movies that I saw at my festival. So we match on that. Um, this is adapted from a 2003 Korean film called Save the Green Planet, which is a pretty wild movie.

And it's written by Will Tracy, who wrote the menu and was a writer on succession. And it was, it's fun to see Yorgos working outside of where he had been working, I would say, the last four or five years. And I agree, this is my flavor of Yorgos, too. I thought this was the funniest movie he's made in a while. Um, totally. And agree. Plemons is amazing. And I, someone had told me three months ago.

And I said it on the pod. that they saw the movie and Plymins is going to win best actor and that was sight unseen with every other movie that we're seeing this fall but there's certainly a case that he could

because he's extraordinary in this movie. I certainly hope he's in the conversation. It feels like other people at the festivals weren't as excited about it as we were but I think you know your

your Lathomo spectrum may vary and no for me it totally worked I also can't wait to talk about the ending with you but whatever. Yes, we'll do a whole episode about Begonia.

It's a hard movie to talk about given the way that it's plotted to have a sophisticated conversation. But I'm glad you liked it because I liked it too. Yeah. My number three is a surprise to you and to me. But it's completely genuine. So it's the Testament of Anne Lee, which is the film directed by Mona Fastfold and written by Fastfold and her partner, Brady Corbe.

And it stars Amanda Seifers. as, and it's about Anne Lee, who was one of the founders of the Shaker movement, which I knew very little about, including, as is it explained, as it is explained early in the film, that the Shakers got their name because they had Quaker beliefs, but also their worship involves ecstatic movement. And so they are the Shaking Quakers, thus the Shakers. And so, So I didn't know anything about that. I'm not sure I would like immediately sign up to learn about, you know, but an American religious movement.

And then guys, I got to tell you, it's just a full on musical, which I, not in, not in the traditional sense, but Daniel Blumberg who did the Brutelist score uses traditional shaker music and kind of fashions it into their like, actual musical numbers. And for me, it was the choreography that was what really sealed it, like, is amazing. And they're like going for it. I personally observed more walkouts at this movie than I did. But that was all like old Italian people respectfully or not that respectfully. In general, I think the proportion of tickets to old Italian people who only stay for 10 minutes

in a movie could be reexamined at the Venice Film Festival. That would be. my note. But I don't always love singing. And I, you know, I, sometimes the fast fold Corbe thing works for me and sometimes it doesn't. And I just, I thought this was really wonderful. I'm so excited. I talked to a couple of people in Telluride who saw this. And they gave me the same first half ecstatic, second half. I had some problems note that you heard from a lot of people about the Brutalists, yourself included. So it hasn't diminished my anticipation. It's really right. near the top of my list for movies that I'm pumped for. But I'm glad you liked it. We'll talk more about it. I mean, it has a lot in common with the brutalist thematically.

And, you know, maybe in some ways to me, it's more fully realized, but whatever. It was really cool. So I liked that a lot. Number two. Okay. So my number two and my number one, like I'm obviously recency biasing here right now so hard because I, I left House of Dynamite, like, one hour ago. And I saw No Other Choice, which is the new Park Chan Wook film over the weekend. And until 9 p.m. tonight, Central European time, no other choice was, like, far in away, the leader of the festival. Interesting.

And for me. And do you think that's going to win the golden line? I do. Yeah. I could see it. um because it is it is weird and wild and very very him but also very surprising it is it's another uh laid stage capitalism movie um but very funny uh like a satire in a lot of ways some incredible set pieces uh and you know it's two and a half hours long and much like

decision to leave i thought we could have you know we could have just just like a little bit but like am I to tell Park Jan Wook, you know, when to stop filming. So, no, I thought it was wonderful. I really, really liked Pasadamite. And I know that you haven't seen that. It just, you know, premiered here. And I don't want to say too much about it. But I don't want to spoil it for people, but it is like a propulsive political, like thriller, I guess. And it's under two hours. I was riveted. I think there is like one and a half false notes in the entire thing. They just absolutely nailed it. Performances are great. I'd like to let you know that Tracy Letts talks about Francisco Lindor several times. In the film? In the film. Holy shit. Yes.

It's just tremendous news. I know. And that's what I saw him for like two seconds. And yeah, that's, I think he improvised that just for you. So, um, my hope be still my heart. So, it was great. I'm very excited for people to see it. I really, really liked it. Again, you know, it was a long day. And I just, I just, I'm coming off the high of the movie. So maybe I would rank it differently.

And, you know, it is one is like international art house and one is like very, very well made taught 90, you know, like Hollywood. They don't make them like they used to anymore. And it felt so nice to see one of those also. So again, there are different flavors, but I thought both were great. Well, your top three are my three most anticipated movies. Yeah, so eat shit. That's great. That's great to hear about House of Dynamite.

At Telluride, there was a prevailing idea, which someone had shared this with me before I traveled for the festival. And I wasn't sure whether or not to believe it. But they were like, the best Netflix movie this year is House of Dynamite or like the best contender. and we'll talk about the other films that we saw from the studio. Yes. But that seems to be the reaction coming out of the screening that you were into. The reviews early on are kind of like, this is their best movie. There's maybe some other films that we're not playing at the festivals that we can talk about as well.

But I'm super excited. I mean, it's been eight years since we've had a Catherine Bigelow film. Yeah. Can I just also tell you that Catherine Bigelow is 73, which is something that I learned today when I googled how old is Catherine Bigelow? Because she looked astonishing. wearing like a great double-breasted like jumpsuit situation you know she's also one of the great american filmmakers i don't but she looked great i mean always she's always been a striking person um well i'm pumped for that movie honorable mentions yes okay here we go well i mean this is

this is really funny um the the films by my three favorite directors um that should tell you something about these movies i would say Well, so listen, we'll do a whole J. Kelly think. I saw J. Kelly. I was at the premiere. I am not a monster, so I cried, okay? Like, it moved me, and I thought that there was a, there was, I, I liked it. I wanted to love it more, you know?

This is the new Noobam back film, yeah. Yes. Oh, no, I'm sorry. We just went, we went straight to that. No, about Ben, and the story is been a thing for us for two years, but not for most people listening at home. And it stars George Clooney. Maybe you've heard of him, the Prince of Venice, and Adam Sandler, another fave of yours. Yes.

Everyone on all the young Italian women on the carpet were chatting, uh, dumb, uh, dumb, uh, dumb. It was very cute. And his whole family was here. Yeah, that was a very cute carpet. Greta Gerwig is in it, like very briefly. Laura Dern is in it pretty briefly. But I, you have seen it. and I think you're a bit higher on it.

I just need to see it again. I need to see it again. Yeah. I think I had the good fortune of seeing it after I saw the reactions to it out in the world, which were, frankly, the reviews out of Venice were mixed, I would say. I mean, and some people just need to, like, take a Xanax, you know? Yeah. Like, it's, it's no Obama is good at making films.

It's not bad. It's just not, you know, again, it's a little bit like, what's your flavor? of Bomback and you and I share a love for Francis Ha and also for a marriage story but like we have Greenberg in us you know like we have and it is

it Greenberg it is not. No so I'm you know it's a movie about an aging movie star played by George Clooney who resembles George Clooney in some ways Adam Sandler plays his business manager Laura Dern plays this publicist it's a movie about a journey that an older movie star goes on. Like I said I got to see that it was you know the reviews were not very kind

of Venice and Venice is a very, can be a tough crowd, the critics at Venice and Jay Kelly played really well at Telluride and to critics, but especially to the patrons. It was probably the second most talked about movie, maybe the third most talked about movie at the fest. It's also just like a much more Hollywood friendly and academy friendly crowd at Telleride. I thought it was very good. It is very different tonally from basically any Bonback movie. It is the most sincere, straight emotionally straightforward like there's not very much bitterness or that like bite that is so good about so many of his films and so right i think it's good to know that going in if you're waiting for that to hit because outside of like a key scene with billy crutt up there's not a lot of that

in there and i knew that and so i felt better about kind of accepting what it was attempting to do the other thing that i'll just say very quickly to me it's the biggest accomplishment filmmaking wise in bomback's career it is the most beautiful looking movie that he's ever made. He's not really well known for his like visual dynamics. Shot by Lena Sangren. Yeah. Shot on location in Italy. You know, like there's some stuff about it that is really nice. Yeah. It was very beautiful. That was a nice hotel. I'd like to go there. Wow. Look at you. And three drinks in. Just blaspheming our Lord Nobomba. Like I said, it's really, it's really just this drink because I left most of them floating so I could

do my work. I also, at some point, I, the bathroom situation at the, and I mean, it's a, it's Europe writ large, but like the, so the main, the main Palazzo del cinema, sure. We're talking to Kaylee, you have pivoted to bathrooms. That should tell you how you feel about the movie. They have, it seats a thousand people and they have five bathrooms. It's like five stalls for women, like not like, not like five different bathrooms, like five stalls. Like, what are, what are we doing? I think, and anyway, so I can't drink that much because the bathroom thing becomes like a real,

you know, you can't get there. Also, they're like tiny little airplane seats. I'm sorry. I know I sound so American right now. Like I am. I hate myself. I need to go home. Anyway, no, I need to say, Jake. I need to see it again. You will and we'll talk about it again. We don't want to give anything else. I love him so much. Yeah. Okay. So the next, the next from my favorite director is Sophia by Mark, which is a Mark Jacobs documentary directed by Sophia Coppola. Once again, I extended my trip to Venice, Italy, longer than it needed to be in order to see Sophia Coppola in person, debuting one of her films. Always worth it to me. She looked great. It was very fun. It premiered this afternoon.

I would say there is absolutely no tension in this documentary whatsoever, which is quite a choice. However, it is beautiful to look at. And it's just, it's about him preparing for a show. And so, you know, and she uses a lot of archival and it's kind of like, and like a lot of good music and their interviews are funny. I had a nice time, you know. I don't, I think if you, if you care about the, the title of the film, which is marked by Sophia, then you will like this film. But, you know, it's not, it's not hearts of darkness. So that's okay.

There was a recent big takeout piece about 824 in the New Yorker. I'm not sure if you read that story. It did. But in that story very near the end, Sophia is quoted about why she wanted to make her Mark Jacobs documentary with A204. me for. And I believe her quote was because they'll let me do it how I want to do it. Yeah. And she did. And that sounds like she did. Yeah. I would like to at some point discuss some of the music cues with someone else. But I had a really nice time. She was wearing Mark Jacobs. Mark was there too. It was nice. Um, I had a nice time. It's, it's time for you to talk about

after the hunt. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So here we, let me start by saying this. And I'd like to, And I'd like to explain why. And I think that it's important context for the festival as well as my experience. I had to leave after the hunt early. Oh. So I had to leave after the hunt. I mean, I don't really know early because I needed to get to the Jay Kelly premiere. And so here's what happened.

After the hunt already started off a little weird because it is not in competition here at the Venice Film Festival at at Luca Guadernino's request. according to the festival. This is, of course, the new film by Luca Guadino, starring Julia Roberts, Andrew Garfield, and Iowa at every. So because it's out of competition, the screening times were a little weird, and it's been a little bit, it was a little harder to see. And so the only way I could see it was right jammed out. As I texted you, I was going to have to sprint from after the hunt to J. Kelly.

So that would have been okay. had there not been torrential rainstorms in Venice that day, and also had the screening not started 20 minutes early. So we, I mean, sorry, 20 minutes late. Got it. Okay. So we, the press, the people who had tickets to the screening, stood outside in thunder and lightning for 20 minutes, waiting for the screening to begin.

I, listen, again, not to be American, but like, I think it would have been a liability issue in the United States, but there we were just standing outside holding umbrellas like lightning rods. And then when we got in, there was speculation. And I have heard that it is all speculation. I cannot confirm this in any way, shape, or form, but there was speculation that perhaps it was a sound test by a certain someone that left us out in the lightning and the rain for 20 minutes. and I mentioned this to an usher at the at the screening area and he just laughed and said I wasn't there and walked away so that's all the reporting that I have for you I think that might inform the reactions to after the hunt

I would just put that out there for everybody I have not heard this so it was just an unfortunate setup leading into the screening we were all soaked and it was like it was like it and it was miserable and... This stuff matters. Like, this context weirdly matters, and you never see this in the trades when you're reading the review.

Yeah. But festivals are usually fun, but they can be pretty anxiety-producing and, like, a little bit frenzied. Right. And so I think that everyone was in a very bad mood when this screening started and not willing to give the film any belief.

Like, you know, the benefit of the doubt. I also mentioned that I... So that's why I had to leave early. I had to leave early so I don't actually, I can't speak authoritatively on where the movie's politics net out. I think I have a pretty good idea. I also had many people. I did like my own Rashomon and had everybody I saw reenact the last 20 minutes of the movie for me, which was fascinating in its own way. But this is, it is, it is tar, but we don't have tar.

We already have tar and we don't need another one. And it is about cancel culture. It is about sexual assault. It is about believing women. It is about Woody Allen because it literally starts the very first thing you see is a title card that said it's a prolog. And the title card says it happened at Yale in the Woody Allen font, which frankly I thought was really funny. I was amused to learn that as well. And the whole prologue is funny.

I think I personally, from what I saw, felt the movie knows what it's doing and knows that it's trying to provoke people and even knows it's going to piss people off. It is like a little bit of like, you know, Gen X yelling at Cloud and or Gen Z. But I think intentionally, and I wonder if maybe it's been not quite getting the benefit of the doubt on that. That said, I don't know how it concludes, or at least I do, but that's secondhand. And number two, it still is a lesser tar. And there are scenes that are almost like, there is a scene where Julia Robertson is a blazer, like yelling at someone younger than her about like, you know, sexual politics and power politics. So we've seen this before and we've seen it better. okay um so it's kind of i still i kind of had a good time i um i the way that julia roberts

dresses is like an actual attack on me um it's it's like you'll see and you'll just laugh because it's how i dress but like better and also it's julia roberts wearing it so that is something i'll be working through personally but i don't know i'm excited to see the rest of it i'm excited to talk with you about or maybe i'm not maybe like we just shouldn't talk about it because then all the young people will be mad at us and we'll, you know. I relish the opportunity. I cannot wait to watch a prickly provocative movie about how Gen Z doesn't get it. Maybe it's not provocative, ultimately.

Okay. That's like, that's kind of, again, I, because I had to leave, because it started late, because of, you know, things I can't confirm. I don't know how it ties up the bows or if it does. So we'll see. Did you have a good festival? It did. It's really fun.

I mean, it's amazing to get to be here and to roll in to all these great movies. And then there really are sprits is everywhere, you know? They're just like, here is a, here, do you want a Campari Sprits or an Apparel Sprits? Like, here you go. It's beautiful. It's, yeah, it's an absolute privilege. I got to see our friend Tracy Letts, which is an amazing privilege. I did. I'm working through the Bomback stuff, but I'll get there.

We got time. We got time to get into it. I'll just spoiler alert. Jay Kelly was not in my top five from the festival either, though with some caveats that we can talk about when we get there. Telly Ride. So if Venice is all about sprits is, I feel like telly rides a little bit more of a beer in Bourbon Town and was very happy to be back there. It was my sixth time in the city. And I think it is. the best place in America. It is, of course, like a very wealthy enclave of a small town, but it opens itself up a few times a year. It has like a number of festivals there. I'm learning more and more. There's like a bluegrass festival. There's a horror movie festival later this month, which I had only recently learned about that Alex Perry has been trying to get me to go to, which I don't think I could go to tell you right twice in one month. My wife would have my balls for that. But I had an amazing time. And having been there so many times, I just know a lot of

people there now at the festival. I have festival friends. I have friends from the press. I have friends from, you know, the movie business. But just people who go to the festival every year that you wait in line with and hang out with. And there's not as much of a craziness as the one that you described at Venice for me. There is a lot of walking back and forth between the theaters across town. Love to walk. Well, it's, I mean, it's a gorgeous place. And we had perfect weather all weekend. And so it was magnificent. And then the other thing that happened is, is, you know, I've been encouraging people to go to this festival since I started going in 19. And people go.

And like, I would say half of the conversations with people who stop me in the street were like, I'm here because I heard you talking about it. Now, there were a couple of people who said that they were mad at me for telling the young people to come to the festival because now the festival is full of young people. This was a historically an older festival. But I have no regrets. And shout out to all the 27-year-olds who are like, I'm going to tell you ride Colorado to watch movies. That's fucking awesome. Can I tell you, I met an 18-year-old.

year old listener of this podcast. I wish I remember his name. I also met him on the water bus. Was it like Marcello? No, no, no. He's an American and he has a, he has a full scholarship to UNC, I believe, starting, but and Chapel Hill, tough loss last night. Sheesh. The Bill Belichick era off to a tough start. Okay. Well, that's, that's, that's on them. Sorry to Jordan. That's what you get when you hire Bill Belichick. Anyway, he had a full ride and also they were covering like travel as part of, you know, like a great scholarship. Congratulations to him. And he's been listening to us for several years, which means he started as a teenager.

And he was using part of the scholarship stuff to come to Venice and see movies, which I thought was so amazing. And I was, I just, I'm so sorry. I don't remember your name. I hope you had a great festival. I was very proud of him. Yeah. Thank you for participating. Yeah.

Our young listeners are honestly genuinely all so sweet and nice. I know. It's so wonderful. Yeah. really cool. So yeah, Telly Ride, as usual, like an amazing place to be for four days. I got to spend time with just a lot of people that have become good friends. And so that part of it is really nice.

This, much like Venice, was incredibly star-studded, much more so than I can remember, maybe since I first came in 2019, which was a really big year. That was a year of uncut gems, marriage story, parasite, Ford versus Ferrari. There are huge movies here that year. That, of course, being one of the best movie years ever. But this year, in part because of the movies they were playing there, just on my plane, Margot Robbie, Colin Farrell, Jody Foster, all sitting right in front of me. Margo Robbie didn't have a movie there. She was just going just to go watch movies.

And apparently to scout, I guess, a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because she has a production company, yeah. So that was cool. And then, you know, just like Oprah Winfrey and Bruce Springsteen and Sandler and Emma Stone and Oscar Isaac and all 7 foot 12 of Alexander Scarsgard, who was just everywhere. Oh, yeah. You would have been quite taken with him as well as Harris Dickinson and Paul Meskell, who are also there. I saw all the photos, you know, of them all paling around in their jackets.

I mean, that's the thing with this festival that is cool that is very different, obviously, from the experience that you've had, is they're just hanging out, you know? And sure, they're hanging out at the parties and the screens, but they're also just on the street. They're usually all really approachable. People are just, it's very relaxed. Everyone's wearing T-shirts and baseball hats and jeans. and they're just there to go watch movies and to go drink bourbon and eat free food provided by movie studios.

So it's just an incredible vibe. And I've given you this spiel many years in a row now. It remains uninterrupted. I did share with you before the festival that I was a little concerned about the programming slate in part because of how strong it seemed like yours was. I would say I was only half justified in that concern. Right.

Because I saw it. Yeah. Yeah. I saw a ton of good. stuff. I do think that here's an observation before I get into the movies. Movie culture has shifted to the international world, right?

Yeah. Cannes and Venice are most likely going to be the places where, for example, Park Chanwick's new film was going to premiere. Park Chanwick is unlikely to premiere a film at Telluride. And so that's a kind of a corridor of movies that are more or less

not available as premieres at that festival and probably not to TIF either. So, Telluride, has to contend with that. So they have to fight for their own premieres. So the two really big premieres this year were Hamnet, which was good, and we can talk about it. And Springsteen deliver me from nowhere, which I thought was less successful. Those are two big movies from two big American movie studios. But they have to be strategic about what they can get and what

they can't get. I think aside from that conundrum of like what is the really super noisy premiere, the programming otherwise, a tellerite is still fucking amazing. both like the festival carryover stuff and then the smaller stuff and then the nonfiction is all really good. So it was generally like a better than I expected, but not great slate of movies this year. There were a lot of themes. My old pal Ezra Edelman was the guest director this year. So he programmed a bunch of older movies. I haven't seen him in years.

We were talking at the festival that I think he was the second or third ever guest on this show in 2017. But he programmed network, all the presidentsmen, the insider and Malcolm X as a, testament to how the world is going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is it's not a good time. That happened to map neatly onto a bunch of movies that were here, including cover-up,

which is a Seymour Hersch dock, which is also in Venice, but I know you didn't get a chance to see. I know I missed it. I'm very, I'm sad about that. A great film. The Secret Agent, Bagonia, it was just an accident. All these movies kind of all fit into the theme that Ezra was viving on. And then there were like a lot of weird micro themes and a lot of movies, as a lot of people were saying in the theaters themselves, like, these movies are all talking to each other. So like two movies about bad dads in Hollywood

In Sentimental Value and Jay Kelly Three Hamlet movies There was there was Two monster movies There were two movies about sort of like The Mystery of Identity There were two Linkleader movies Blue Moon and Newvel Vogue

And there were three films about Hollywood and filmmaking Jay Kelly's sentimental value in Newville Vogue So There was a lot of like Hey did you see that? It reminded me of that going on in the room, which is really interesting. You want to hear my list? Do you have any questions?

What are your... No, I want to hear your list. Okay. I'm jealous, mostly, you know, because we didn't have any of those. Because Venice does not play any of the Cannes movies. Right. So, and I was traveling, so, you know, I haven't seen any of them, and I'm jealous. So here's the tricky thing, is that three of the movies on my list premiered at Cannes,

and I saw four of the movies on my list, before Telly Ride even started? That's between you and the mountains and God, you know? Okay. Do you think I shouldn't share that information? No. As I texted to you, like after, you know, the fourth movie review, you sent me on vacation of films that were going to be at Telly Ride.

Like I said to you, like, go on vacation, you know? And that's how you go on vacation. You love to do it. I went to Hawaii. It was great. I know. And it looked beautiful. But when you decide to see the movies, whether you see them at home before you go or end Telly Ride, that's up to you.

Yeah. Well, you know, I was looking back at last year when I did the episode about Teller Ride, and I missed a number of movies. I didn't get to see like 12 movies that I would ultimately go on to see that were, you know, they weren't awards contenders per se, but they were stuff I just wanted to check out and I didn't have time. So this year I tried to prescreen as much as I could, which means I saw pretty much all the Cann films and a couple of other films. and I even saw one that was premiering a little bit early. And so what that did was that it did something that you said you couldn't do, which is it did allow for some discovery. I got to just try some stuff that I didn't feel obligated to see

because it's such a short window in Telluride. You can't get more than 13 or 14 movies done in four days. So I got 12 this year. I came in having seen 10. So 22 films on the slate I already got to see. And only a couple do I really feel like I missed out on. But anyway, I'll start with my list. Number five is it was just an accident, which won the Palm Door, was acquired by Neon.

This is Jafar Panahi's new film. He was honored as one of the medallion recipients at the festival. And this is a incredibly striking film that is simultaneously like dread-induced and very funny. And another film that's hard to talk about without giving anything away, but it has a lot in common with a couple of the other movies on my list. And it's weirdly the most commercial movie that Panahe has ever made. It's a thriller. It's a proper thriller about identity or is it mistaken identity and the way that a community comes together to reckon with

whether or not the person they have encountered is real or not real and has like one of the best endings of a movie you'll see this year. And people should see it. We will get into it this year. It's interesting that it won the Pomdor. I think it has been noted that Julia Benoche is a big supporter of Panahi and the kind of the struggles that he has. had with the regime in Iran and his struggle to be a free filmmaker.

And so there's another movie that was a can that I really liked a lot that I'll get into it a minute. It seemed like people liked this movie. It didn't seem like it was the outrageous fervor that you might have expected for a Palm Door winner playing at an American festival. But I didn't have as many conversations about it, which I thought was interesting. Number four I mentioned was Begonia, which I just liked a lot. And I thought was very funny and very clever and had great performances.

and it was honestly pretty modest in scale when you think about Yorgos and poor things and it was, you know, it's more or less a three-hander with the exception of Stabros Halkius who I thought was very funny in this movie. Stavvy, baby. Don't want to say anything else about going you. Number three is the, I think, the headline from the festival

by far, which is Hamnid. Yeah. So I saw it in July. I texted you about it. you did I said it was very very good you did you asked me

did I cry and I did cry twice yeah so we should say Hammett is the Chloe Zhao adaptation of a Maggie O'Farrell

novel that I liked very much very popular novel about William Shakespeare and his partner Agnes and their family and if you haven't read the novel

you don't want to spoil anything but this is I'm certain you've heard it described as an old school weepy. It is a period weepy. It is a very tremendously, emotionally powerful movie. Very tough movie as a parent. And I didn't talk to a single person that disliked it at the festival.

It doesn't mean that it won't have its detractors, but it does something that Chloe Zhao has not previously necessarily, like, demonstrated, which is that she has a real handle on strong narrative filmmaking with momentum. You know, she makes a much more kind of glacially-paced, ethereal, emotional psychological kind of film and this is a movie that in the first hour I was like this is kind of moving slow and I don't really know where it's headed and then the second hour just kind of sweeps you off your feet and also has an absolutely like thrilling final 20 minutes and the end the ending of the novel is unlike an thing that I've read it in some time it's just it's

amazing so if they if they get close to that it seemed like they did and I heard from a lot of people who read the novel about the way that it was adapted and how some things were shrunk down that worked really well, too. So it's Paul Meskell as Shakespeare and my beloved Jesse Buckley as Agnes. And I don't, did I text you that Jesse Buckley will win back then? That she'll win best actress? Okay.

But you think she will? I do. I mean, it's an interesting slate and we can talk about who would be among the contenders. I guess Emma Stone is in the conversation there in Begonia and Amanda Seifred as well. But, God damn, she just took my breath away and she is just an amazing actor. And she does so much in the final 20 minutes of this movie. So we'll talk about it when we get to it. But this was the talk of the festival.

This was the movie that took over that everyone was thrilled about. I have some doubts about its best picture contenderdom. I do think, obviously, Chloe Zhao has already directed a film that won best picture. Right. But it seems small and, you know, emotional and also I'm just imagining when you tell people, yeah, it's about Shakespeare and his family. You know, we also, we already did that once and, like, that was a pretty ugly Oscar campaign. That's true. I think in 1998, this would have won pretty easily.

Sure. It may still. And I think Chloe has like a good story to tell about having survived the Marvel machine and come out the other side. Maybe even having picked up a couple of things, having made a movie like that. Not that there's any CGI Thanos in Hamlet, although I would have appreciated that. But it's a very good film. Number two is The Secret Agent, which is Claibor Mendoca Filo's new movie, the Brazilian filmmaker, who we've talked about a couple times on the show.

This is his new movie starring Wagner Mora from set in 1977. That is one part character study, one part espionage thriller. That is very much a companion to I'm Still Here, the film that was nominated for Best Picture last year, the Brazilian entrant. This movie to me is far superior. I was really like mixed down and I'm still here because I thought it was so standard in terms of its narrative. This is like a movie that goes in

wild places that features like an amazing central performance that feels much closer to me to like those movies that Ezra programmed that is like the parallax view and all the president's men and it's like a conspiracy thriller wrapped inside of a sincere story about a guy trying to get back to his son.

I thought like an exceptional film and I'm hopeful is like more than just a Wagner, more a Best Actor Showcase. I hope, like, a lot of people got a chance to see this Neon pick this one up as well as they are wont to do

with international contenders. We were speculating on Thursday night at dinner at Tell Your Ride that Neon could have all five international feature nominees. That's funny. Okay. Right?

Because they've got the Park Chan Wook film. They've got the Secret Agent. They've got it was just an accident. They've got, I think they have Surat, which is a Spanish film that was not in either of these festivals, but it's fantastic. And they've got the film

that I'm going to talk about next, which is sentimental value. Yeah. which won the Grand Prix at Cannes, is a new film from Joachim Trier, starring Renada Renzvi, Stalin Scarsgard, El Fanning, and is a kind of like emotional continuation

of the worst person in the world about a young woman, the daughter of a famous filmmaker who was an actress herself and then her sister and the actress who is participating in her father's next film and the home that they grew up in

and the way that all of these things converge on each other. And it's just, you know, I'm personally very much on Trier's wavelength, but it is exceptionally moving and smart and funny. And I thought right after I saw it, this is your best picture winner. And I sent that to you and a couple of other people. You texted me, yeah. Yeah. And you were like, oh, interesting.

And some other people were like, you're an idiot shut up. But this movie just worked really well on me. There's obviously a bunch of films we haven't seen yet. but I think Trier's balance of formal daring and sincerity is very exciting. And so I'm looking forward to you seeing this movie. I'm really, really excited to see it. It's like it's, I mean, there's one other fall film that I'm also greatly anticipating, but like, but this is it.

This will be a holiday. Yeah, it's worth it. I'll talk about some stuff that was there that I hadn't seen before because I saw most of those movies. Jay Kelly, I liked, as I said. I think it's not in the A tier of Bomback, but that's, I really love all of his movies. And he was honored as well with a tribute at this festival. And he was interviewed by Rajendra Roy from MoMA. And then afterwards, Adam Sandler and Lord Dern came on stage and gave him like a roast tribute

where they talked about their experience with knowing how much they love him. And Dern and Sandler were so funny and so great. And, you know, these theaters are very intimate. They're very small. You know, the Palm Theater where I saw it is like, I don't know, it's like less than 500 people. So you're watching Adam Sandler Basically do stand-up comedy In this presentation

But they did a clip reel of Bombox films Not unlike something that happens in the film And watching the best moments From all of his movies strung together You know One of the ideas of the movie is that making movies For Jay Kelly is the story of his life He charts the progress of his life

Across the movies he's made But you and I could chart the progress of our life Especially from adolescence into adulthood from watching Noah Baubac movies. It's very true. You know, and like he's basically always five years ahead of us in terms of the arc of the story that he's telling. He's told all of these stories about the years after you, you know,

go to college and graduate and don't know what to do with your life. And the years when you're in your 30s and you're like, are things slipping away from me? And the years when you're in your 40s and you're like, gosh, I'm not cool anymore. How do I feel about that? So it was exciting to be a part of that experience and think about how much I like what he's done.

And I'm sure that probably softened me up on JK. Kelly a little bit, too, having had that experience. Other movies, I mentioned cover-up, which is Laura Poitris' new documentary about Seymour Hirsch, who is the extraordinary investigative journalist who broke the Milai Massacre story during the Vietnam War and has gone on to an extraordinary career. Cy was there. He was interviewed by Ezra Edelman, who was his neighbor growing up. Ezra Edelman grew up two doors down from Cy Hirsch, which is an extraordinary coincidence.

Wow. So they talked afterwards with Laura and Mark Obenhouse, the other filmmaker. Very cool conversation. If you care at all about journalism and the naturally occurring deceit of the American government, amazing movie. Definitely one of the best things I saw.

It probably would be right outside my top five. I laughed so much at Pillion. I think you'll really like this movie. This was a Cannes film, Alexander Scars Guard, and Harry Melling, who people may know from the Harry Potter movies. This is maybe not the first,

but probably the first BDSM rom-com since Exit to Eden. Do you remember Exit to Eden? I do. Yeah. That was not a very successful film. This film was very successful. Super funny. Very sweet.

Very, very graphic. Lots and lots of sex in the movie. But very entertaining. And it was a big hit there too. If I had legs I'd kick you is a very intense portrait of motherhood. And I saw the movie before the festival and I raced home. said, Eileen, you have to watch this trailer,

but maybe don't ever watch the movie. Okay. Because it is harrowing. This is on my anticipated list, but, you know, and I'm going to see it professionally, but I am also possibly stressed out about it. Yeah, it's Mary Bronstein,

who has not made a movie in many years, and is married to Ronald Bronstein, who is the filmmaker himself, the editor of the Safty Brothers movies, and it's a movie about a mom played by Rose Byrne. It's premiered to Cannes, or no, premiered at Sundance, I think. and the camera is on top of her face

for like the entirety of the movie. It's about a mom who has a young daughter who is struggling with a physical ailment and a father, a husband who is out of town and things are starting to fall apart around her. And we've all been there. We've all been there. I've never been a mom, but Burns amazing.

She's also in that conversation, I think, for best actress that I mentioned. I also saw Kelly Riker's The Mastermind. delightful 70s art house thriller with Josh O'Connor sat next to

Josh O'Connor during the screening lovely chap Oh cute Okay that's nice Did he sit through the screening? He did yeah

And then did a Q&A with Kelly afterwards And you know Very quiet Very downbeat Very classically Rikart Don't expect fireworks It's not

It's a character study But it's a really good film I think you'll like it Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon Loved loved One of my favorite performances of the year He plays the Wrens Heart

One half of the Heart and Rogers musical team he's kind of at the end of his life reflecting at Sardis on everything

that has come before wild transformation for Hawk it's a very stage like very play not super cinematic but I liked it I liked it a lot more

than New Velveog which is the other link later movie which I didn't click with as much personally which is a story about the making of breathless the Godar film

which you know I thought was a little to this happened than this happened as opposed to having like an emotional arc the surprise of the festival was this movie called Tuna

which I tweeted about Daniel Roar who is the documentarian of Navalny I'm sorry for tweeting this is first feature film stars Leo Woodall and Havana Rose Lou and Dustin Hoffman it's about a piano tuner

who has extraordinary hearing he has a hearing addition as opposed to a hearing loss which means he is hyper sensitive to sound so this makes him a very good piano tuner. It also makes him very good at safe cracking. So this movie that starts out like a, like a musical drama, like a like a character study of a guy who loves music, very quickly turns into a thriller, like a heist thriller. Cool. It was really cool. I really enjoyed it. It was just

fun and it was that feeling that you were describing about a house of dynamite. I was like, this is just kind of a conventional movie movie in a good way. You know, it was not an exploration of the deep pain inside of our souls as men and women. And then the last thing I saw that was a very sincere and sentimental thing was a documentary called Cycle of Love about an Indian man and a Swedish woman who fall in love and the Indian man's journey to go and find and meet this woman again in Sweden. It was a documentary but is like entirely recreated. And the trick of it is that the recreations are basically real where the actors who are hired

are traveling through the world and all the encounters that they have with people across this journey are captured on film in documentary form. So the conversations between the man and the woman are actors and they're performed. Everything else is real. Really cool movie, really sweet.

Huge crowd pleaser, especially among the older folks at the festival. So is it based on real people? Yes, it's based on real people who speak into camera during the film, who kind of narrate their lives, and then we see these actors go through their lives. Cool. It was cool. It was nice.

And it was the kind of discovery that you don't always get at a film festival if you don't pre-screen like a maniac. Okay. I missed the bunch of stuff. The number one thing I miss that I feel bad about is Man on the Run, which is the Paul McCartney documentary, the Morgan Neville directed. It just didn't match up with my timing. Yeah. But this is, you were just gloating about it. Well, I was so pumped.

And then it was like opposite J. Kelly and opposite. No, no, no. So the other movie I should mention before we move on is I saw Frankenstein. as did I And it wasn't good I didn't think it was good And this is Guillermo Del Toro's adaptation of the film I'm a fan of GDT as you know

And I thought this movie was like Kind of a mess It was a late announced You know post premiere from Venice It was a late screening on Saturday night Or Sunday night at the festival And it was two and a half hours long It's very faithful to the novel

The Mary Shelley novel Which is important to you as a teen or whatever? It wasn't. I mean, I'm not a huge Frankenstein guy. More of a Dracula guy, as you know, but, you know. Oh, that's what it is. I'm sorry.

I was misremembering. But I like Frankenstein and I like Frankenstein films and I love the James Whale films and that all matters to me. And it obviously matters a lot to Del Toro. Yeah. Oscar Isaac plays Dr. Frankenstein. Jacob Allorty plays the monster. Mia Gauth plays two parts in the movie.

And I thought it was pretty turgid. I was surprised by how much CGI was. in the movie. Thank you. I was really taken aback by how it looked and how it was shot. And they go to such efforts

to like make the sets and make all of the, you know, there are a lot of physical effects and then there are just some CGI wolves and a CJ. Like it's shot very weirdly.

I was really, really taken aback by how visually poor it looked. Well, I mean, he's arguably the greatest craftsman working in film you know like his he's renowned for his sets and costume design and the tactile nature of his movies and it felt there was obviously a lot of effort put into it but there were just

a handful of choices that just made it look not good to me um the performances are okay and i have no problem with being faithful to the novel but it just had no propulsion whatsoever i thought a lord he did pretty well with what he was given as the monster um i know you thought he did well with his physique um he's just he's very tall he's very tall very tall it looks good i didn't I didn't, you know, the creature design I didn't love for him, the makeup and the way that they did it. But it just kind of bummed me out seeing it. Yeah, I obviously didn't care for it. Yeah, I wasn't surprised.

But that was the rare case where the vibe out of Venice was accurate to me. Yeah. Two other big premieres that I saw quickly, Springsteen deliver me from nowhere. Mm-hmm. I didn't really like this movie very much. It's kind of the same thing in terms of how I feel about it as how I feel about all. of these movies and people have been hearing me for years talk about these music biopics. This is a music biopic that presents itself as different because it is Bruce Springsteen

during the creation of a less iconic album than, say, Born to Run or Born in the USA. And it's about Nebraska, the making of Nebraska and how his experiences in his life up to that time informed the writing and creation of Nebraska and the challenge of getting Nebraska on, you know, on tape. Jeremy Allen White plays Bruce. Jeremy Strong plays John Landau, his longtime manager and confidant. Odessa Young plays a woman who is in his life, who is apparently a composite of many women. What character development?

I would say she is not the strongest characters. She didn't do anything wrong here, but, you know, it's a Scott Cooper movie. I'm not the biggest Scott Cooper fan. I had some concerns going in. They were more or less confirmed after I saw the movie. Jeremy Allen White, I thought, was like, borderline remarkable as Bruce nails the singing, nails the singing. There is a sequence where he sings a song in a studio where I was like, if you close your eyes, and we say this all the time about actors, but like he nailed it. And I know that that is something that you think about when you think about these performances.

The movie itself, I just thought had like no juice, no energy. Bruce's like struggle with depression is real and the movie is very sincere about everything that springing. has endured in his life. I have empathy for that. I just found it to be not a good movie. And I'm pretty excited to talk to Chris about it because I'm very curious if he has more time for it because I like Nebraska, but it's not my favorite album of all time or anything. And I know that it's a record that Chris really likes.

Yeah. It's going to be around, though. There were a lot of people who liked it at the festival. How is the other Jeremy? He was good, you know, like in a slightly self-parodic zone, I would say. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it seems that way.

Okay. The movie is being pitched as like a love story between these two men. And I wouldn't say it really fulfills that promise. Okay. It does fulfill the promise of John Landau trying to protect Bruce Springsteen. Which that is a manager's job and a friend's job in some cases. Yeah, but it's like I don't really want to go see a movie about a manager. No offense.

I mean, that is, it is in large part a movie about a manager. And an artist, of course, an artist writing a record. But, yeah, there's a lot of talk about, I mean, there are, scenes of Jeremy Strong alone sitting in a high-rise office thinking about his client. So, you know. It's a form of love. It is. It is.

I should get a manager. It's a love of something. Yeah. The other movie that I saw that was a bit disappointing was Ballad of a Small Player, which was one of the big Friday night premieres. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Colin Farrell, about a high roller in Macau who gets caught up in a web and loses all, everything and has to get it all back and you know on paper very much a me movie directed by

edward burger who was triumphant last year with concave at the tellyride film festival and went on to you know that film was best picture nominated and was a hit this movie's just way less successful and what i was suspected was also confirmed which is the script is just no good Colin ferrell's really good cinematography's great looks beautiful as all burger films do great score from walker burdellman but i don't know it's like it's five different movies at once pinging around in genre was didn't really work. Colin Farrell was at a lot of movies and was around all weekend.

Seemed like a lovely guy. It seemed to be having a great time. I sat three seats down from him at this premiere felt that was tough. That is tough. It was a little, it was quiet in the room during the movie,

which is really not ideal. Yeah. So that wasn't great. I think those are the big ones. I don't think I, I don't think I missed anything. Yeah, I'm trying to think if there's anything else that I saw

that didn't really work. Frankenstein, for sure. I'm, you know, I mean, there are a couple, but I don't really think anyone needs my thoughts on LaGracia or... I thought it was so dull. I really liked Sorrentino's movies, too, and I thought it was very dull. I mean, you know, I know I say this a lot, but like I, the West Wing did a really good episode that was like this, but, you know, 45 minutes and written by Aaron Sorkin. So, you know, I liked the rap stuff was funny.

I sort of liked the disco music. It was. I kept waiting. I mean, this is the new Palos Sorrentino movie about a president in the final days of his term trying to make a couple of decisions before he leaves office. And it has this kind of amusing techno, hip-hop motif

where, like, this very young music is starting to strike this older president who's played by Tony Servio. And I feel like the movie is almost like, the music is a metaphor for the movie, which is like, there's a lot of buildup and no delivery. There's no, like, catharsis. There's no, it doesn't hit.

So that was the patron screening at Telly Ride, where, you know, like they give you a press orientation, Julie Hunsinger who runs the festival. It does an amazing job every year. She kind of breaks down what's on the slate. And then the patrons come in who have lined up and then they get a special sneak preview. It's more or less the first movie of the festival. And that was, this was the movie this year. And, you know, the patron screenings are a crapshoot and this one wasn't great. I mean, it opened the festival here because this is Italy.

But, you know, it makes sense. It was fine. And then I did, I did see Wizard of the Kremlin. I was late. I missed the first 20 minutes. It didn't really matter because Judelau doesn't show up for an hour. So this is the, um, Olivia, Olivier Asas movie, um, adapted from a French novel. Okay.

Um, in which Jude law plays Vladimir Putin. And Paul Dano plays like, uh, um, his fixer, you know, like a, the, this, the titular wizard of the Kremlin. Alicia Vakander plays his love interest. Jeffrey Wright is there. And that's what I missed, actually, is why he was there. Jeffrey Wright? Okay. Yeah, but I was always happy to see him. And it has, and it really documents, I'm one from late 90s-ish until the present day. And Putin's rise to power and Russian, you know, political maneuverings and oligarchs and all this sort of stuff. But like with it typically assay-ass, like, you know, like blunt force, like philosophical dialogue at you, plus narration. And it, yeah, and like Paul Dan, I was doing a ton of voiceover in a questionable British accent because it's another thing where it's people from all over the world.

and so they're all, you know, they're all speaking like differently accented English. Not ideal. The dialogue, like with his movies at some point, you know, like you just, it keeps hitting you and you get in a zone where like, yeah, actually you're right, you know, like it does, it does all add up. And I do kind of see what you're saying. And I think I did even quote a conversation from this movie, like in reference.

to another movie. So it's not without merit. I also kind of thought like Jude law was pretty good as Putin. I had a fun time, but I wouldn't say it's a successful movie. Bit of a cold streak for Asais. Yeah. It's not ideal. Got to go back to the Carlos days.

Okay. So I asked you to put together the most anticipated movies of the fall list. Yeah. And our lists are really funny because we share two movies and then the other three movies are the three best movies at each person's festival. So that kind of makes sense. Listen, it's a very self-selecting here. We do our jobs, right?

Sure, sure. I was getting an assignment. I pay attention. Okay. We do my job. What's your number five? We can just go do this quickly. My five is if I had legs, I'd kick you, the Roseburn mom movie, which I'm nervous about,

but, you know, I got to challenge myself. It is, it's very saffees inflected. Okay. I say that with love. You know, we deserve a saffees, too, you know? That's exactly right. Okay. My number five is a House of Dynamite, which I'd like to see soon. I'd like to see you soon. Yeah. Yeah. That sucks. What's your number four? Marty Supreme? Yeah. This is my number three. Yeah. This is Josh Safdi's new movie, which is not currently on a festival slate. The trailer came out while we were on vacation. I've watched it six times.

Okay. I'm not watching it. I'm just going to go see the movie. Yeah. I'm pretty pumped. Timothy Chalmay plays a table tennis. Wizard, circa 1950s. Yeah, of course. Gwyneth Paltrow plays his potential love interest. I noted Fran Dresher in the trailer. Great. A couple of other notable people in there. I'm very, very, very excited about this movie.

This is like the last movie of the year, you know what I mean? Where it's like it's coming out on Christmas. We'll kind of be like leading up to this movie through December. I'm ready. Yeah, me too. Okay, what's next? Oh, my number four. My number four is no other choice, which is the park film that I'm pumped for.

I've seen it. I know. Stop rubbing it in. My number three is Hamnet, which you liked very much, as did everyone to tell you. And you could tell from afar that this was the, like, the telly ride breakout. I mean, I do think that, you know, Paul Maskell posed for just like a tremendous amount of photos in his car heart. But he lived great. So.

Yeah. And he's very good in the film. But he's not the story in the movie to me. Yeah. My number three, as I said, is Marty Supreme. What's your number two? Okay. My number two is sentimental value, which you have seen and I have not, and I would like to.

Yeah, I'm not rubbing it in. It's good. Yeah. My number two is the testament of Anne Lee. Yeah. She's one of your faves at the festival. Yeah. It's all it was...

The siphred heads, the stock's been hitting pretty consistently for about five years. Yeah. Ever since Elizabeth Holmes, she's been just nailing it on. And one of the things I was going to say is when her Oscar campaign really happens, we need to do the... the, I finally watch Mamma Mia episode. Yes, you do. Also, you have never seen the Tom Hooper Le Miz, right?

No, I haven't, yeah. Yeah, which another, there's like two shots where she's singing and like intense close-up, and I was like, oh, no, we're getting into Le Mids territory, but they get away from it. And she's, she's, she's really good. So it's going to be quite a ride for you. Have you seen Mean Girls? I love Mean Girls. She's very funny and Mean Girls.

She has ESPN. No, I love her, but it's funny that I've not seen her two biggest movies. Yeah. That's okay. We'll catch up. Number two for me, I said Testament of An Lee. Number one for you is the same as for me. What is it?

One battle after another. Still haven't seen it. No festivals. It's coming out in three weeks. It's so soon. As soon as I get back, we got to jump into, that's not true, actually. I have to go see caught stealing, really jet-lacked. That'll be interesting.

We're going to talk about caught stealing. later this week on the pot along with highest to lowest. But before we do that, before we take off, let's try to hash out best picture. Okay.

This is really hard right now and really fake. I think we actually got eight out of 10, maybe even nine out of 10 at this time last year. Wow. But this year,

we just haven't seen nearly as much. So let's just like, can we just list them before we start trying to rank anything? Yeah. Okay. So number one, sinners.

Sinners, yes. Which we know at least is out in the world. people love it. It's almost certainly going to be nominated for best picture, although not definitely as more films start to come across. I feel strongly in saying Hamida, you know, that seems right to me. Is there. Yeah. I believe sentimental value will be there. I think that that seems right as well. Um, okay. How do you feel that house of dynamite? I think I, yeah, I think it could. Now, do you think this is the only Netflix movie that will be nominated for best picture. Well, I, I, J. Kelly is probably, the economy has never given him an Oscar, but they

really liked marriage story. You know, I, I feel like he's on the radar. And it is such a, as you said, like slightly older voter. In a Hollywood movie. Right. Though, like, we say that every year and I feel like that becomes less and less true as years goes on. It's really just because the Academy gets more international. But I think that it's still American enough. Yes. Jay Kelly. Sinners, Hamnet, Sentimental Value, House of Dynamite, Jay Kelly.

One thing I wanted to ask you, you know, is a big, there's a lot of movies on Netflix's slate, which we talked about on our auction episode. Do you think there's room for train dreams to come back in because Frankenstein, that's right? Jay Kelly, small player. These are much more muted receptions than we were expecting. And I was wondering if that means that there's a train dream's opportunity there. I know you haven't seen it yet

Yeah no I haven't seen it yet That's a Sundance movie that And Joel Edgerton and logging Am I getting this right even though I haven't seen it? Based on a Dennis Johnson novel They always have a late breaker You know They always figure something out

But I don't know whether it would be train dreams Or whether it would be I mean it's pretty open I'm not saying no. Yeah, there's another film called Left Handed Girl, which was produced and edited by Sean Baker, which I think is directed by

Chi Chung Tu, his longtime producing partner collaborator. And that could also be a late-breaking Netflix movie. I don't, it's not as big, but I'm kind of, I'm fascinated by Netflix having like six eligible movies.

Whereas like three months ago, you'd be like, yeah, Frankenstein probably pretty good Like, Nightmare Alley got a Best Picture nomination, you know? You'd think Frank, and maybe Frank and Son will be better received outside of the festivals. Maybe regular audiences will like it, but I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so either. Okay.

So how many do we have? We have. Sinners, Hamnet, Sentimental Value, House of Dynamite, J. Kelly, that's five. Okay. We have a few that we haven't seen. I'll throw Marty Supreme one battle after another at you. I think both are likely. Feels.

Or at least, you know, possible right now. Okay. They always come through for PTA. And you were not super high on Smashing Machine, right? I think that I, I mean, I'm not in the, like, the MMA, UFC, like, wrestling world at some point is just kind of, like, I actually thought all of those, the footage of Dwayne the Rock Johnson, pulverizing people set to beautiful music. Like, it was actually quite beautiful. I liked that. but I was sort of befuddled by I guess the pacing of the movie and some of that is just because I'm not as invested in the like the sport aspect.

Yeah, I had a chance to see it a while ago and I really liked it and it's very much a spiritual sequel to Benny Show the Curse with Nathan Fielder, which may surprise some people to hear that based on the trailer that they watched of the movie, which is kind of more classically triumphant sports movie trailer. but I've been begging for five years for Dwayne Johnson to make good movies and this is a step in the right direction for sure and I think what Benny's mission is and what Dwayne's mission is is a very interesting not a contrast, they're working together but Saffty is into something very strange

in this movie. Actually David Sims I saw in Letterbox, comped it with Lenny Cook, the documentary that Benny and Josh made some years ago about the college basketball player Lenny Cook and I like that as a way of thinking about how they think about sports and how this movie thinks about being an athlete. But anyway, we'll talk more about Smashing Machine because it's out in a month.

So we'll get to it when we get there. Okay, so Marty Supreme, one battle after another. What else is out there? Let's see. I know we're forgetting. Well, let's do international, okay? Because we get a few internationals every year. Well, and so this is one.

I don't know whether. I think there's room for both Bagonia, which is not international, but, you know, and no other choice. I think that they are, they are twinned, or they're not twin, but they have, they have a lot in common. Okay. And they are also out there in the best way in terms of, you know, those directors like to, like to push the audience. So does no other choice get in? It's, you know, it's neon. It's, I think there's going to be a major push for it.

I think it's a contender for Golden Lion. You know, is this the year that it breaks, that Park Chainwell breaks through best picture is a good question. My gut says yes. That's not really based on anything having not seen the movie except just that we've seen a lot of international films break through in the last few years. I think the appreciation of Park is growing over time. we included The Handmaiden in our 25 for 25 countdown list. You said it's a late capitalism movie. That's a theme that's been fairly dominant with the Academy.

You could certainly make the case that Anora is another one of those films. And maybe I'm wrong. And they would do Bagonia too. It feels like the Academy likes favorite poor things costume drama, Yorgos. And this is having a little bit of fun. at that audience's expense. So I don't know. I'll go with that.

I think that makes a lot of sense. Then that leaves, I think, to behemoth Hollywood movies. Oh, sure, Wicked, part two. Wicked for good. And Avatar,

and Ash. Oh, that's right. Avatar. Which, of course, the first two were nominated for Best Picture.

Yeah. Okay, can I proffer a take? I'm not saying I believe this. If this were the fantasy football podcast, Take Purge, I would definitely pitch this. here's my pitch

Avatar Fire Nash will be the best Avatar movie but we'll get no Oscar nominations okay

I don't know if I believe that because it obviously is going to get best visual effects but I feel like so that's the part of the take

you have a problem with rather than rather than it'll be the best one you can say that with your whole heart I mean most people don't don't even

seemingly care about them except for the real Cameron heads, even our own beloved Chris Ryan dumped on Avatar having never seen it. Yeah, no. What I was thinking about Avatar while I was watching Frankenstein because I was like,

Big Jim would not let this shit out the door, you know? Like, oh, I agree with that. It's just it's just, it's maybe not the world that I want to spend all my time in, but when you go see it, like, he makes it look good. And like, I don't know, I don't know what that was.

there is a handful of other titles that we're not we haven't listed but I think could make some noise so rental family is premiering at TIF later this week new Brendan Fraser movie directed by Hikari which has strong word of mouth I'm going to put train dreams on this part of the list here okay what else is what else do we need to I mean maybe Springsteen hits you know maybe Springsteen for a certain kind of audience is a fit, you know, Bohemian Rhapsody once upon a time was an Academy Award winner so that's not out of the realm of possibility. Obviously, a complete unknown did very well with the Academy. And then we neglected as to mention it was just an accident. Right.

Which won the palm and has neon behind it. Right. I think we've gotten, I think we've gotten everything. I mean, there's probably a few things that we haven't seen. Oh, what about is this thing on? Oh, my God. We totally forgot about that. That's premiering at the New York Film Festival,

new Bradley Cupermarry. Right. So it was after the hunt. So, um, no, listen, like I said,

I don't know how it ends. Um, a classic Amanda story, I must tell you. I miss the last 20 minutes of my most anticipated movie at the festival. It's not my fault. No one's blaming you. No one is blaming you.

I tried so hard. I was in line. mind, you know, figure out your sound another time when I'm not about to die in a lightning storm. I think that you should put it on the list. I'm not putting after that on the list. I'm putting his thing on the list for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I meant. Also, the testament of Anne Lee we need to add as well.

Sure. You know who really, really loves Bradley Cooper is the Academy. They sure do. 14 Academy Award nominations. I know. So. Okay. Gosh, there's going to be another surprise that we don't see coming.

One thing that was an interesting conversation point on Sunday and Monday at the Tell You Ride Film Festival, once we had seen everything and we had read the Venice reviews, you know, aside from House of Dynamite, was, is weapons in play? Oh, yeah. So we haven't talked about this, but I am going to have to go see it. I have accepted that. I know that I have to. It's like 40 million plus box office on the first weekend. I was like, what's going on? It's an amazing phenomenon.

It's very exciting. I mean, you know, I worked hard to do a competent solo episode, but there was an episode that really demanded a crew having the conversation. So later this month, me and you and Chris, we can talk about it once you've gone to see it and we'll do, you know, a proper look. Maybe once it hits VOD, it will be the time to do it. But yeah, man, I mean, look, the feeling that I had in the theater when I saw it at the premiere, I was like, this just works. You know what a movie is just like really working

and it's working for an audience? And it is obviously like Steinmeted some critics because they feel like it doesn't fulfill some of the narrative suggestion that it throws out there. And you might feel that way when you see it. You might find it a little enervating in that way. But as like a thrill ride, it's just so fun.

It's just like a fun time at the movies. So you have to see it. Yeah. I agree with you. I'm going to see it. I'm stressed out already thinking about it. My counterpoint is just, anecdotal, but I sat next to a listener and my flight to Europe, which was very nice.

That's a lot of time to spend with the listener. How was that? Well, we slept for most of it. Okay. You know. Was it Yossi? Is that who you're referring to? No. I'm sorry. I can't remember his name. He was very lovely and helped me with my suitcase. But he said, he asked if I had seen weapons, because this was forever ago now. And I said I hadn't. And he said that he had seen it. and then he had told, I believe, like his parents, who are movie people, to go see it. And that was not received well by the next generation of movie parents that they weren't there. So I do wonder if there is a generational gap.

There could be. I'm just passing that along. Then he watched Better Man on the plane at my sort of recommendation. This is a very crowded year, as you can see from the 17 movies that we just listed. But it reminds me of the sixth sense. you know which was like you have to go see this movie feeling that movie was a bigger phenomenon ultimately than weapons but weapons did really well in what turned out to be like a kind of medium summer it became one of the big stories one of the smallest movies to do so well it's in the same year as sinners it's possible that sinners which is from the same studio will block it out and maybe only amy madigan will be competing in supporting actress which is a fairly weak category this year supporting actress so she could you know the movie could just be in the conversation maybe a screenplay nomination is somewhat possible for Kregor, but yeah, great to have that movie. Just great to have that movie in the movie culture.

All right. Let's try to just help me bang this in order a little bit, okay? Okay, all right. I'm going to list all the movies that we just mentioned. Sinners Hamlet, Sentiment, Sentimental Value, House of Dynamite, J. Kelly, Marty Supreme, one battle after another, but going you, no other choice, it was just an accident. That's 10. Right.

Wicked for Good, Avatar, Fire and Ash, rental family, train dreams, Springsteen Deliver Me from Nowhere. Is This Thing on The Testament of Anne Lee? That's 17. Okay. There's probably something we've neglected to mention just because we're flying blind here. We don't have a producer right now. Jack, come back soon. I think he's on his way. Jack, travel safely. Yes, Jack, please be safe.

Help me put him in order. What's the number one right now in your mind? Number one? Yeah. Then Hamnet? Gosh. Is it sentimental value? Sentimental value, I think.

I trust you on that one. I mean, I did say this about an aura. you did in the same way very early so my radar has gotten better we've come a long way from the get out for best picture days as you know right um also the academy has changed you they have so sentimental value i think right now based on festival stuff i think there's more hamnet yeah over any sort of festival consensus around the venice stuff but then you know you should put house of dynamite on there i don't i don't think house of dynamite is going to win best picture just because i think they already did the bigelow thing you know but they also did the chloe chow thing

this is also a year where you could have two women nominated for best director very unusual maybe even three if you get the testament of anne lee wow think about that that never happens it's true i i i sitting in the testament of anne lee which I really, really liked. I did think to myself, I was like, I don't know if this is going to get the same reaction that, you know, first of all, it has a lot in common with the Brutalist and it's obviously made by this, you know, the same team.

But the Brutalist is bigger. I mean, it is longer, but it is trying to do, it is more ambitious, at least in the, you know, traditional masculine sense of that word. And it's about to do. And so I sitting there, I was like, I don't know whether this will get the same level of attention that a movie about a Holocaust survivor architect is going to get. And that's not the movie's fault. I think that's just the way the voting and the world works.

So I don't know. I would be thrilled if it got nominated, but I don't know. Well, we're in a tricky spot here because we got too many movies for not enough. spots. Yeah. So look at the what we have. Sinners, Jay Kelly.

So put Wicked for Good and Avatar Fire and Ash on there. Like we know that's going to happen. Well, I'm not convinced that Avatar is going to make it. I know doubting Big Jim is the costliest bet in Hollywood

and I'm not, and not advising anyone make that bed. But I think it's just a little too soon from the way of water. I think it might and if it disappoints even slightly, I could see a movie like that,

you know. I'm fine. We don't have to give it a spot, but I think wicked for good. we just got to, you know. Yeah, we got to put our head down on that one. Yeah. I agree with you.

Okay. Sinners, I think, is getting in. I really thought Frankenstein looked so much like wicked. Yeah. Like when they're in the lab, sorry. It just, I was, and then that's not a compliment. No, it's the color grading and the lighting is just a little off. And it has that kind of that Netflix sheen on it that we sometimes complain about.

But there's just like a flatness to the way they're filming that's very confusing. Anyway, yes. Sinners. I agree. Do you think Jay Kelly will make it? I don't know. I don't know. Interesting.

Probably right now, yes. The Telluride reception kind of makes me think yes. I'm going to put Jay Kelly number 10. You've got George. I think Sandler will make it and the Sandler campaign will go a really long way. And it definitely seems like he has signed up. He flew straight from Venice to Telleride. The whole family was here.

He was also at Telleride. I got a chance to say hi to him. And he's the greatest. I thought he was like pretty brilliant in the movie in a weird part that in the wrong hands would have been terrible because that's another movie that is about the relationship between an artist and a manager and I thought handled that relationship way differently and better

another way the two movies at Teller Ed were talking to each other I thought he was great we'll see we'll see how people feel about it I'm putting it on for now because there's going to be a lot of weight behind it and I do think there's a good like it's time for Noah story to tell absolutely okay so let's let's do non-american okay oh okay you i just saw you highlight one battle after another i think you should put it in i agree they always go for pacha yeah yeah i think you know we haven't seen it yet we've got a lot of content planned to cover this movie over the next 30 days

we're all really excited we don't want to waste any more breath on it to me we got three spots for five movies i i i could see a world where no other choice and it was just an accident get in. I could as well. I think that makes sense. I mean, it's really just a question of can, like, can neon split its own vote like that? That's what it, and that's, that would be an amazing act if they got sentimental value, no other choice, and it was just an accident in. It could happen.

That would see it is, I, I know that sentimental value is technically not, it's not American, but how much of it is in English? English, you know, just because... Every scene with L. Fanning, and that's it. Okay. Oh, interesting. So it's kind of all over the place. I'm just trying to figure out his American voters can really, you know, code in, do I have to have stuff titles or do I not? And as in terms of international. But so that's going to scan as international to American voters. It has some correlation to the American film industry. okay so it's not going to be the same as sitting down for it was just an accident or no other choice

which are you know there are no american actors in those films there's no english spoken as far as i know no other choice in those films um marty supreme begonia avatar fire nash for the last spot hmm i don't know i mean it's impossible to know with marty because on the one hand it looks huge and it's chalemay and it's a 24 and they currently do not have a film on the list and they never don't have a film on the list. Right. You know, I'm obviously incredibly biased, and I really like Josh a lot

and love what he's up to as a filmmaker. And I don't think 824 is going to miss on a movie. But I don't know, maybe it's maybe Uncut Jems was not nominated for Best Picture. You know, there's no guarantee that the kind of movies that they make that Josh makes is going to, we don't know, we just don't know. Ligonia, Yorgos is nominated all the time. That's true. but it

does feel like people went so nuts for poor things in part because it departs from the dog toothed at all and this is going back a little bit. So on the other hand

if we think Jesse Plemons is going to be nominated or possibly win best actor and Emma Stone will be in the mix then that gets it back in people's good graces. You're right about that. I think there's a decent chance that it gets at least one of those two nominations and not Best Picture.

And here's why. Focus is money will be on Hamnet. That's going to be the movie that they really get behind. It doesn't mean they're not going to support Bagonia, but their prized pony will be Hamnet. Okay. Focus has also never won Best Picture in its entire history. Wow. Hamnet, you know, it should have been Brokeback Mountain.

It should have been Brokeback Mountain And it wasn't They've had obviously A ton of great movies over the years Down Nabby, the grand finale It's in play Put that in number 10 Have you seen it yet?

No, no, I had to skip a screening While I was on vacation But we'll do a solid 18 minutes on it At some point this month And talk about how much we love those movies Those movies are fucking rock I can't wait, I'm so excited Right now I'm saying Marty Supreme

I am too My God is telling me I am too I think that's the But it's just, Chalemay, Gwyneth, 824, the fact that it's like a period piece, you know? Yep. Again, like some, like the costumes, like read a certain way to people. Yeah.

So. Okay. Here's our top 10. I put the, to me, like, 4 through 10 is not really in any order at this point. So please don't aggregate Amanda. Number 10 is J. Kelly. Number nine is Wicked for Good. Number eight is sinners.

Number seven is one battle after another. Number six is it was just an accident. Number five is no other choice. Number four is Marty Supreme. Number three is House of Dynamite. Number two is Hamnet and number one is sentimental value. Gut reaction. How many out of the final 10 do you think we got right right now?

Seven? I'm going to say eight. Okay. That's good. But we didn't. Listen, until this past week, we've been saying it's an incredibly weird year. There are no obvious contenders. We don't know what's going on.

So I'm trying to, you know, be kind to us. Seven or eight would be good. Oh, that'd be, yeah, that'd be solid. Considering we do this for a living and get money for it. Bagonia, fire and ash, rental family, train dreams, Springsteen, is this thing on the Testament of Anley, Frankenstein, and weapons. We're not predicting to go into Best Picture. Not to mention the one or two other movies that hit in the next four months that we don't really know about. Right.

So, or at least we don't, you know, I don't think like the Jarmish film for, example is going to contend. I don't think Ella McKay is going to contend, but you never know, a James L. Brooks movie, you never know. Uh, die my love. You never know. Did you see elite fame? I didn't. I missed it. That's the new Kent Jones movie, which I'm looking forward to, which is, uh, Willem DeFoe and Greta Lee. Heard nice things about that movie. Roofman. Roofman. Roofman. Kirsten Dunst got a town and country cover. So, you know, all is right in the world.

Is that a good thing to guess? Well, no, but in it, she said that Sophia is working on the script for the next movie they're doing together. So that's, it's absolutely gigantic. As you would say, I'm happy for you. Okay, I think we've done Yeoman's work here. You feeling good? I feel, no, but I'm excited to see the rest of the movies.

I'm excited to come home. It's after midnight in Italy. Yes, it is. You fly home tomorrow. I do. Do you feel ready to come home? I'm really, again, I love being here. It was fantastic, even when I swore I would never come back during the rainstorm.

But I do, I miss home. I miss my children. I miss my husband. Yeah. I miss a normal size shower. Is it too small or too big? Oh, no. This one's very small.

This is like a little, like, it's like a locker. You know, but that's okay. No, it's been lovely to be here. It's very beautiful. Thank you, Venetia, and goodbye. Goodbye, Amanda. Let's go to my conversation with Alex Russell. Here with Alex Russell, feature directorial debut.

Yeah. Lurker. How are you feeling? I feel very nervous. Okay. About this conversation, about the reception of the movie, about what? All of that. I think the exposure, I feel very exposed right now talking to you, but I'm glad that people like the movie, I think.

There's so many more opportunities now for people to not like it, is how I feel. Why? Because you only had it in a festival context, and that's a very warm space for it to remire. Yeah. Yeah, I do think it's a warm space. People want to like the movie at Sundance. think um and it's full of i you know i packed out my screening with people who worked on the movie so it was that's a cheat code i tried in true strategy that it was the people who worked on the movie had to like working with you to do that okay so i want to talk about all that um and how you came to make this movie so my sense from watching it was that it had a real texture and

sense of comfort in the world that it's portraying, which is essentially kind of the inside outside of the LA music scene, at least proximate to a successful artist. And I heard you say in a couple of interviews that this is like a world that you knew or know, how is that the case? How do you know this space and how do you know these characters so well? Yeah, I mean, all of my friends to this day are still in music, music managers, artists, producers, DJs, you know, I don't know how exactly that happened, but it just is my existence in L.A. And I feel like I've seen these kinds of ensembles and groups and fallouts and dynamics and sort of like the gravitational pull of a new artist.

And I've seen those cycles play out, I think, numerous times in a way where you start to see patterns and archetypes and stuff like that. So, yeah, I feel like all the characters in the movie, I've seen some version of that guy. And there was some imagination used, I think, in constructing them. But I think knowing that world just allowed me to stress tests any of the details, which I think for this movie in particular was key. because if it felt inauthentic, it's like the corneous movie of all time.

And that was my big fear in making it. Yeah, I'm curious about some of the aesthetic choices in the movie too, because it feels very surveillance observational. You know, it feels like we're very close to a natural world instead of something that, like, made by a different filmmaker, this could be like a really stylized movie.

It is very colorful and loud and doesn't feel invasive necessarily. So was that because you were attempting to kind of replicate the feeling of the scene that you would witness yourself? Honestly, a lot of that came later in the process when I started having conversations with my D.P. Pat Scola is my D.P. He shot that movie Sing Sing. And I think he really brought like a warmth and like a human quality to these kind of, darker interactions that everyone's having, which I felt really served the movie.

I think they're, you know, the first thought for making something like this could have been super like finchery, cold, or like a night crawler type of feel. But I guess it was nice to establish some contrast there because things will already feel that way because of what happens in the movie. And there's some things that feel more precise as you get into the second half. And I don't know, I wanted you to feel like these were real characters and real people. And the interactions they have are very relatable. So I wanted people to understand that this was supposed to be somewhat realistic.

Was there like an inciting incident or a moment that you witnessed, when you were inside this world before you started writing that flipped a switch and made you think like this could be there's the arc of a story inside of this space

or with that person or something that they did nothing in particular but so many of the things that happen in the movie are similar to something I've witnessed or

an extrapolation of something like that you know I've been in rooms like this But it was more of like a feeling, an overall sort of maybe feeling of disgust that I felt within me that I wanted to explore. And it was very low stakes at the time because it was just like, can I explore this feeling? COVID had just started when I wrote it. And I was like, I really want to explore this kind of like nauseous feeling that I have.

And this is what came out of it. Well, what do you mean? Like, why did you feel nauseous? Because you related to one of the, or more of the characters? I think it was more of a, in a male friendship type of way. Like, this is, I'm participating in a strange hierarchy, you know, and it wasn't the first time. Like, I'd felt that way when I was in college or high school. And sometimes you're one of the characters, sometimes you're the,

other and you know boys will not talk about that kind of thing yeah you so you felt like you had been on top and on the bottom of certain social dynamics yeah i think so or it's like it's not binary like that but there's always some awareness of uh who has something the other person wants uh socially um i was talk about how like you know, sometimes you'll get a text from your cool new friend and on the same day you'll get a text from your old friend

and like, who do you text back first? That's a social calculation that if you have any shame you might feel a little guilt about it but no one sees it. No one sees that calculation except for you. And that was the kind of thing I wanted to get into

in this movie, I guess. Did you feel that before you were an adult in Los Angeles? Like, in high school, you felt that way? I don't think my awareness of it was, I don't think I could have articulated it. But I think it was something that was growing in me and something I do want to emphasize

about this movie is that, like, the setting is a setting. And I think this movie could have taken place in a lot of different spaces. where there's like six guys. And this was just the one that I knew about, you know, and the one that I had just so recently been a part of. We're talking about you, you know, starting to write this during COVID,

but, you know, your background before this was writing for television. Was your intention always to be making features? Like, how did you even get involved in writing and making things in the first place? I mean, I've done a lot of small amateur stuff for no budget leading up to that point. And then once I was a TV writer, well, I should say the absolute ceiling for my hopes, dreams, and ambitions was being a staff writer on a TV show. Okay. So the idea of me directing a movie that I wrote was beyond Farfest. actually in this moment it sounds really surreal that that's real um because it really dude

you're here i have yeah i did it and it actually is the movie that i was trying to make which i could imagine a million different ways it could have gone wrong or like you know especially going to a festival i'm sure there's so many people who go there and they're like you know i didn't necessarily have the resources or I miscast someone or I didn't totally know what I was doing and I didn't but like you could go there and just know in your heart that it's kind of it's a little off it's a little off

or it's like half of what you were really really hoping would end up on the screen and then you still kind of have to stand on and it'd be like it was always my dream to make this movie I would say in this case it really was what I was hoping it could be. And I think that's kind of what fortifies me against this time of being exposed.

It's like, I actually do really like it. And I'm glad when people do too, or when they get it, it feels it's intoxicatingly validating. I can imagine. I mean, you're having, in the arc of the young writer-director, the exciting festival debut that announces the new voice is A. So you also have the perils of the sophomore slump to prepare yourself for emotionally, too.

So just as you crest out of the positivity of number one, we don't need to go there yet. With this movie, you mentioned it could be a cold fincher movie. You mentioned that it could be, you know, to me a very clear signpost for the movie is King of Comedy. This is like a world that we've seen portrayed before, the sort of like the established person and the person who's desperate to get close to them. I mean, all about Eve is a version of this. obviously. But this feels completely different from that too. Did you, were you a, like a cinephile growing up?

Did you find yourself accumulating a lot of references? Or is a lot of this a much more naturally flowing act of creation? I don't, like, when you say cinephile, I don't think I can compete with a lot of these directors when it comes to all their references and what they've seen. I like movies like everyone else and I watch them when I have free time. and there's some that I like a lot. But I wouldn't be able to go to toe to toe with anyone who's been on this podcast, you know.

But maybe that's an advantage. Well, it's not even, it's not a competition either. You know, it's more just like sort of what speaks to you and what are the things that resonated with you when you were watching movies as a younger person. Yeah. I mean, I do historically love a very taught, tense, obsessive, story. I feel like the ones that people think of when they watch this movie are not necessarily the ones I was thinking about, but I get it. What were you thinking about?

I was thinking the most about Whiplash, Nightcrawler, which people would guess, and almost famous. And when I set out to write this, I was kind of like the first half is going to be almost famous and then the second half is going to be night crawler and then it was just kind of immediately dark from the beginning. So there wasn't some massive tonal shift in the middle.

But those were kind of the primary references and then there was a lie I stole from Whiplash or like some structural things and it really simplified things to know that this was really just about

two people and the tension between them and how that evolves. That helps me write it a lot. Well, when you say it was dark from the beginning, was that a function of just the DNA of the story? When you started filming, was it the casting that you did that made that so? No, I mean the script.

Like, I think just when I set out to write it, I had these ideas of what it might feel like, but then you could just tell some things wrong at the top. And I liked that more. actually and it's more you know you're playing with the intrigue of well how how wrong is it

how wrong is it going to get and who do I like you know it reminds me a lot of I don't know if you care about these movies but a lot of the 1950s Hitchcock movies where they all start and you're being introduced to characters and you can tell one is

kind of malevolent without actually doing anything bad yeah And this has a very similar tension. Yeah, you could just, you see it in his face. You see his neck, the way he's like moving his neck around trying to act like nothing's going on. Yeah, and then like, you know, in the early stages of after I had sent out the script, which again, it was so low stakes at the time. It was like, the fact that I'd finished it, I felt like such a huge accomplishment. to me. I was like, wow, I wrote a new feature-length screenplay during COVID while everyone else was baking sourdough. I'm ahead of the game. And then when we sent it out, it was like, and I was a very much baby TV writer at that time. I had barely done anything. And I had just gotten like a manager. And I think in my meeting with my manager, the first one, I was kind of like, yeah, I might have this idea for, they were just like, yeah, go write it. Just do it. And I think in the

back of their minds, they were like, we don't know if this guy can write. Yeah, yeah. But like, guy wants to write a screenplay in LA. Yeah, welcome to the party. Yeah, exactly. And then when they read it, they were like, oh, this actually might be something. And then the more people I showed it to, they were like, this is maybe something. And within a few months, we sent it out.

And wait, why was I talking about this? just the feeling of going through the process of writing it you were like it was a very low-stakes endeavor it was low stakes and it was low stakes and it became it sort of bloomed into like A my calling card to get TV work

and then B it was like now that someone has told me that this could be a thing I couldn't let go of it But I was never think I was going to direct it until people told me that maybe I could. Why did people tell you that? Just because you knew the world really well? I, well, I don't know why I was told that,

but now I know. Because, like in the hands of another director, it's just so many of the subtleties, so many of the little details and stuff, that would make it feel inauthentic they would just get flattened I think

and so much of this movie is just a look or the intonation of a line and I think I really had a sense for what it was supposed to be because I had written it and that was the primary advantage

I had going into directing was I knew what every scene was about and what every line was about and I could express that was there any well I don't know how if you had trained to direct anything obviously it's a very technical skill as well as a creative

act and it's a lot of decision making and a lot of responsibility and trained no what I had done was read some books about it okay um and what books I feel like none of them really even made a difference

to me what is that like Mamet one. Oh. Isn't there some mammet one called like on directing? Yes, yes. And then I, you know, I read books about other roles.

Like I read a whole book about first ADing, which actually was really, really helpful. And, you know, I'd spent barely any time on set because I'm a TV writer, like, especially in this era, you don't really get invited to spend time on set unless you're the showrunner, a high-level

producer. So I'd spent a grand total, if I want to say, I don't know, eight days on a set before I shot this movie. This is a miraculous story that you got to direct this movie. I know.

This is part of the reason I wanted to talk because I was like, who the fuck is this person. I don't know who, but the movie is so assured and it's so unusual to be, you have a knack for it,

obviously, and you knew the story you wanted to tell. But I had a feeling you were going to be like, I don't know how I got here. And there is a little bit of that in the story that you're telling.

I could retroactively tell you what worked. And it's that so much of directing is casting. By casting, I mean casting and hiring. And I use the same methodology for both, which is that I would evaluate the person kind of based on their understanding of the script. And that worked really well, I think, for casting and for, you know, anyone who did something technical that I really didn't understand that well.

So at the same time, like, I knew all the things that I knew, and I knew I could look at the monitor and say, well, does this make sense? Is this what I was going for? And to be only assured in that and not try to, I had like horse binders in a way in that, in that I couldn't get tripped up by, so many of the other things that you can really care about most of the time I didn't know what lens we were putting on the camera

if I did I don't know if that would have helped me that information but what I can't tell you is that I spent months with my DP talking through what every scene was about before we even started shot listing

and I think I have a good sense of whether someone else knows what they're talking about and that's very important because you I mean as the first time feature director No matter what, you're not going to know everyone's job as well as they do.

So if you have a sense of their, like, what's your bullshit meter on this person talking about their thing? I can do that. The one thing that also really makes this movie so successful is that the world of the music feels incredibly real. It's like a very unique challenge to try to make original music that is in. Inside a world, make a pop star believable. Yeah. This is one of the most impressive examples of it I've ever seen. Can you just talk about how you worked out the music for Archie's character and what you wanted that to be and so on and so forth?

Yeah. I mean, so much of it, again, was leading on people who knew better than me. I had an idea of what type of artist he was. How would you describe that type of artist in like a post-Frank Ocean world? Like, what is that? Maybe it's like post-Frank Ocean. Okay, okay. I was trying to figure out like what it, I used to be a music critic. And so I'm just trying to think of like what I would even, how I would even describe everything is too reductive. Like R&B is too reductive. Yeah, like DIY pop post-Frank. Yeah. Like, and I wanted it to be in a way disguised by that. So you couldn't say exactly like, oh, this is this. This is based on this artist. So exclusively, you know, I think it's an amalgamation. and it was something that I was able to find throughout the process

that once we did, I was so relieved. Because, like you're saying, that's the thing that you can take you out of the movie so easily if I just don't buy that character. And so much of that, the picture becomes clear once you have cast. The picture becomes, you know, maybe I was going to go this way with it. Now that it's Archie, he wasn't written British. You know, he was written as an American artist.

but once it was Archie, I was like, oh, that's kind of a, that's a cool element that just adds a dimension to it that still makes sense within the story. And like, you might not have ever seen an artist that's exactly like how he's presented in the movie, but you do feel like he could fit in some Spotify playlist. Yes. You know? So, again, a lot of my friends being music producers and stuff, my friend Kenny, who makes a lot of music

kind of in this genre we had very few conversations before all this music was already done I was kind of like you know what it is Did you have it on the page

Did you just describe what the sound was like when you were writing? No, I kept it a little bit vague because I knew we would have to find it and there were other things where like in prep Archie was like

I think I want to dye my hair and I was like oh I don't know if this is like dyed hair artist is that like two kind of like pointing to like a Frank Ocean or something like that? Yeah, yeah. But at the same time, I

really wanted to just let him do what he wanted if he was feeling it if that helped him get into character and you know, I relented pretty easily and then once we saw it, it just made everything clear and it just I don't know. Like the color

he chose was something like a rose you haven't really seen it. But yeah, the whole time I was just like, does that work within the realm of, you know, what is my cringe meter for if this is believable or not? So many of the decisions are just that. One of the other reasons of the movie works so well is the energy between Theodore and Archie's characters.

Did you rehearse? Did you have them spend time together beforehand? Yes. Yeah, I did And it was very lucky that it did work Because Theodore We had

Was attached to the movie in 2021 So there was three years that passed Before we were actually shooting I was afraid he was going to age out of it Before I figured out how to get it made But he was I think You know, he was very youthful looking So it's still just

It was like two more years It would have been It would have been too much Why is this guy still working retail? Yeah. But then it just turns to do a different story. That's true. And even my friend Zach, who's in the movie, like, you know, he's like now in his mid-30s.

And we had to make it a part of the thing that it was like, why is this old guy around? Right, right. But when I first wrote it, it wouldn't have been, you know, it wouldn't have been in the script. Why was I talking about that? Oh, yeah, the energy between them, I always knew that. Theo was going to just be this unbelievable, like, discovery for everyone when they saw this. The question was, does it really feel like a two-hander? Does whoever plays Oliver come to bat, you know, against Theo?

And it would make the movie better if they did. And, you know, Archie, when I first met with him, he was aware of theater. He was a fan. And he was really excited, I think, to go up against him as a serious young act. like I think both of these guys you know they're both trained and they both are really hungry for a role like this so

I the way the way it happened was I met Archie I was like this could work maybe he's British and then I

I flew to Paris I turned it into a little bit of a vacation, but I flew to this was 2023. I flew to Paris to meet or no, I flew to London to meet Archie and then we took

the Euro Star to Paris where Theo was shooting something and then I kind of like, I want to say they're like Gen Z cusp Yeah, they're like kind of late 20s and I had spent time with both of them and I was like, okay, hopefully I can just

put them like put them in a room and see if they get along and we'll like maybe casually do a couple scenes and you know hopefully I can like walk away for a sec and just they'll love each other and that's the that's the best like directing in general is when your your cast starts to like become friends independently of you is there any part of it that would have been good if they didn't because the obviously there's a you know, a slingshoting quality than a relationship in the movie. I thought about doing something like that.

Like, that's the kind of thing that I think sounds great in theory where it's like, yeah, we, you know, all of us will eat lunch together on set without you. Yeah, exactly. You're like in the 70s, this was a tactic that is deployed

by mean-spirited directors. Yeah, I think for me, overall, the benefit was largely in the favor of, like, everyone gets along really well. Okay. And they both had to feel good about getting cast together. So they ended up just like playing Fortnite. And that was the moment where I was like, oh, God, they're playing Fortnite.

Let me just like take a walk around the block, let them have this moment. It was very Gen Z. Yeah. And I was like, oh, they both, I've never played Fortnite. I like, I'll let them. There's only two controllers. We'll get out of here. And then that was that.

And like, we, I don't know, we've, we all love each other very much. And we're, I couldn't have asked for a better cast. Like, for me, going into it as, again, the person on set with the least set experience, I was looking to everyone else for a lot of support. Like, all I really had to offer was steering the thing in the direction of what I felt was right. And that's all I had. like my gut feeling about is what is what is on the monitor working for me and if not let's figure out how to make it work did you ever have a day or a moment where you felt like oh like i don't

have my arms around this or this is in trouble or i miswrote this moment the last thing yes there were things where i felt you get to the day and like oh i this is way too long i miswrote this this is indulgent or you know i don't think we need like a monologue here that was like me as a early stage writer trying to sound clever to myself you know so that kind of thing was really easy to jettison um or rewrite in the moment because there had been so much time between writing it and now directing it. I wasn't hyper precious about the words and

you know, like doing TV that kind of thing happens all the time. You're like, well, it doesn't work or location's different. Rewrite the scene right now. And I felt pretty nimble with like oh, that doesn't work. Let's cut that line or

experiment with new lines. But what was great is like both myself and the cast, we all really knew what the every scene was about. There was a, there's a simplicity to every scene individually. And we could play within that and try variations and sometimes find something that just felt a little more off the cuff or felt a little more fun or felt more right, you know.

When you were done with a movie where you, like, this is a great film, it's going to go to Sundance, we're going to, we're going to do great, we're going to get sold, we're going to be the bell of the ball. We're going to have a very nice, tender release. I still don't know if we're going to get into Sundance. Okay. No, I mean, I, these things are very hard to get off the ground in the first place, and I knew there was a version of this that I completely exposed myself to be a fraud, and this, I wasn't meant for this. And even if that had happened, maybe it wasn't my fault, but it would have really knocked me down. and I don't know

I think I was just so exhausted we had all developed an addiction to Celsius on set and then I immediately stopped drinking them when we were done so I was I was in bed for like a week after and I'm pretty delicately built in general

so getting through that was tough I've had one Celsius in my life and it didn't go well so I can only imagine yeah No, but you build up a tolerance. You start with like a couple of sips. No, I mean, I will say this. There were so many times on set where I was like, this is the scene. This is what I was hoping for.

Maybe it's even better. And I could really feel that in the moment. And I would be like giddy. And people would be like, why is Alex giggling? And I think people really appreciated that I seemed excited. because a lot of people in their little bubble of what they're doing don't necessarily know how it's going. Yeah.

Or, and a lot of people are looking to me, like, are you happy? We don't know how to evaluate that. Even actors sometimes are so stuck in, like, the emotion of the moment, like maybe a vulnerable moment, that they come out and they're like, I don't know if that was good, but it's really kind of their vulnerability persisting. And my only real real. true fear when we wrapped was like when I look at this in the edit will I feel as good as I felt about the times I was happy on the monitor right that was because that's what I was going

off I was prioritizing and converging on all these moments that were like I feel it right now and this is totally what it should be on you know from camera to performance to to story, all of that converges in the moment on the monitor, and I'm like, this is working. When I feel like if it works, that's what we were prioritizing. So if my sense of that was not calibrated, then by the time I get to the edit, we're just left with all this stuff that I was wrong about. But the truth is the movie is made up of a composite of all the things I was excited about on the day. So

I would, if I do, if I do get to do another one, I will trust that more and worry about it less. Like, if I feel good about it in the moment, that's probably the right thing. What has to happen for you to do another one? Someone has to let me.

Do you have scripts? Are you ready to listen to this podcast and go see it? Yeah, that's no guarantees on the former, maybe on the latter. Do I have scripts? Yes. I have scripts I'm working on. Okay. And, you know, the thing you were saying about sophomore slump is we want to avoid it. We certainly do. Yeah.

But I think... Easier said than done. Yeah. I mean, I have... Do you have a desire to have, like, a bigger production, more money, or is the scale of this story, like, the kind of register that you'd like to work at? If I were to guess the next one will be slightly... bigger in scope but I don't

you often see someone like have some like Sundance Darling movie and then they give you a billion dollars for the next one yeah and you kind of wonder what happened there I was talking with your Sundance alum Ava Victor a few weeks ago and

they were saying they're not going to make a Jurassic World movie anytime soon but you know like that's how I would like to see that yeah Ava's version would be great But that's like you're not going to try to trampoline into a large budget franchise film. No, because so much of what helped me make this was the constraints. The fact that it was so low budget and I had very limited time.

It makes you very creative. You have to solve this problem. And it's much more exciting than writing because when you're writing, you unfortunately have infinite time and when you're shooting you really don't and you have to be like well what is this scene really really really about and how do you crystallize this moment

and often making that choice is the most elegant one like there's this one scene where it's sort of the ensemble of the movie on the patio at the tail end of a party and Matthew is like kind of seeing the attention of the group go elsewhere and we didn't have time

you know everyone was cold so we're like okay what if we only have like one hour right now which we did I feel like if we had all the time in the world we would have shot at like a dinner scene so we get everyone in the ensemble's reaction we get everyone's line on camera But we didn't have, and that would have taken hours and hours.

This was like, what is it really about? It's about the feeling of the ensemble, and then it's about what Matthew's feeling. So, like, let's tag the ensemble, let's feel the group dynamic, and let's land on him and stay on him as the rest of the scene plays out, and the rest of the dialogue can happen off-camera. And that, to me, it worked so much better

and was so much more intense than, if we had given everyone equal real estate in that moment. So stuff like that I really enjoy. I really enjoy you telling me, I shouldn't say don't give you anybody on the next one on this podcast, but like don't. Give me just enough. And that will give me, you know, the constraints and the boundaries that I need to

get creative and to try and get it done and not have sort of infinite creative leeway. I think that's what I'd want I think that's wise I hope it works out for you we end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they have seen have you seen anything

that you've liked recently Eddington please speak on it I just liked it I thought it was so funny I thought it was so funny I was laughing so much watching it and you know

I also I had heard so much about it going into it where my expectations were mixed maybe I had a feeling like I'm going to like this and it's just it's a fun movie I do want to say like there's one thing I was thinking about on the way here

which is like both of those movies are period pieces and one is five years one is seven and like I have this theory that you need to wait seven years to make a modern period piece

like social network is one uncut gems is another those are exactly seven years apart from when I take place and so is my movie it just weirdly feels like the amount of time that needs to pass for a time to crystallize or not in the eye of the storm

and like that's why I think for Eddington Like, with Eddington, you feel like, oh, man, that's kind of bold that you would do it right before it would be okay. It's still a little close. It's like, we're not quite ready, but like... I think that's actually a feature and not a bug where it's like we can't get too far and not realize that this was... Yeah. If not the start of something, like the apex of something.

Yeah, it's just like slightly abusive as it should be. I know what that's his mode. It's like, I'm going to pummel you and make you laugh at the same time. I'm it's my that's my favorite movie the year so uh that's a great show yeah it was it was good i uh and i saw the wind arises the other day for the first time which was awesome beautiful movie a lot of guys smoking cigarettes flying planes dude all the like mechanical you know it's like kind of steampunky stuff in the miazaki world it's really cool to me it's really stuck with me these are great recommendations i uh i thought lurker was an incredible debut so thanks for

on the show. Thank you so much. Thanks to Alex Russell. Thanks to our producer Jack Sanders for his work on this episode later this week. Amanda will be back in the United States of America where she belongs, assuming she is not arrested in the way out. I was going to say. We will be talking about Spike Lee's highest to lowest and Darren Aronofsky's caught stealing to New York City thrillers. And spoiler alert, Spike Lee was on the pod. Talk to Spike.

It's a great conversation. We'll be only here later this week. See you then.