The Big Picture - The Best Movies at the SXSW Film Festival | The Big Picture (Ep. 55)

Episode Date: March 16, 2018

The Ringer’s Sean Fennessey and Chris Ryan recap the best movies they saw at the SXSW Film Festival, including ‘Ready Player One,’ ‘A Quiet Place,’ ‘Eighth Grade,’ and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And there's nothing to install, patch, or upgrade ever. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, use the offer code BIGPICTURE to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. I was at the premiere, Steven Spielberg, the director of the film introduced it, had a very interesting bit of phraseology at the top of his introduction, which is, we did not make a film, we made a movie.

I'm Sean Fennessey, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show with some of the most fascinating filmmakers in the world. And also, some of the most fascinating

editors and contributors and podcasters of TheRinger.com joining me today, Chris Ryan, the executive editor, my pal, and also my travel partner. We just returned from Austin, Texas, where we were. You make me sound like I'm your bag guy. That's right. You were holding all the illicit items in my bag. No, no, we just returned from the South by Southwest Film Festival, which is mostly why we were there. You did a panel. Yeah. We saw a bunch of movies. It's one of the most fun festivals of the year. I would say it's not considered one of the sort of

preeminent premiere festivals for the film world because Sundance has a certain persona. Toronto has a certain persona. Telluride can. South by, though, I think is by far the most fun film festival. Why is that, Chris? Well, I think for you and I, it is probably more still associated as a music festival. And as a music festival, as a boozy, emerging music conference where you can go see all these bands who've congregated all the way down in Austin, usually on their way back from or on the way out to tour. They're playing loose. There's always a lot

of cool surprises. There is a feeling of you wake up, you kind of get your breakfast tacos in, and you start seeing bands. You start seeing artists. You start having a couple of lone stars that are complimentary. That's where the bag man comes in. Right. That vibe starts going and somebody grabs you by the arm.

You're like, Hey, I heard so-and-so is going to play down the street. I heard this guy's ZZ Top's playing in a field in the middle of nowhere. That is actually what the movie festival feels like. That's true. You wake up, you eat, you start seeing some stuff, but maybe somebody you see the screening is like, Hey, I heard Ready Player One's playing. I heard this. I heard eighth grade is incredible.

I heard Thunder Road is incredible. You gotta, why don't you come see this with me? They're gonna show this at this hotel. And it kind of starts to feel like this combination of a punk rock show, a booze-fueled punk rock show with a movie theater and the crowds, especially for these big crash-bang genre movies, respond in kind.

Let's talk about that. The Paramount Theater is sort of the premier theater there. That's where a lot of the biggest premieres are. You know, across the festival, there's a number of different places to go see the films, across the river. But the Paramount is really where a lot of this stuff happens. You mentioned Ready Player One.

Steven Spielberg's new movie comes out at the end of March. There was a surprise premiere there, though. I will say, when we arrived at the place we were staying, the folks who were hosting us there said, hey, you know, the worst kept secret in town is that Ready Player One will be premiering this weekend, and Ernie Klein, the author of the novel, is an Austinite, and so this is kind of a big deal for us. We're really happy. So we had a little bit of insight into the fact that it was coming out. Yeah, there is a disturbing thing that's happening right now in Los Angeles

where if you're driving from the valley back towards like the east side or the central part of Los Angeles, I guess, you can see a minion hovering over on the skyline that's over one of the studios there. That's kind of what Ready Player One was like in Austin. There was a Ready Player One experience, an activation that actually,

if I had wanted to wait in a two-hour line, wouldn't have mind checking out. But it was hanging over and as it should because it felt like not only does Austin celebrate its heroes, its local heroes really well, but also the ethos of this

movie and the cultural touchstones of this movie are the foundational blocks in which I feel like this festival is built. Yeah, it's a great point. Not only is this a music festival and a film festival, it's also an interactive festival. There's a lot of web gaming and tech at the time. And Ready Player One is kind of the convergence of all of those things. So I was at the premiere, Steven Spielberg, the director of the film, introduced it, had a very interesting bit of phraseology at the top of his introduction, which is he came out, rapturous applause among the loudest and rowdiest film premieres I've ever been to. And he said pointedly, I, like you, most of you, am a gamer. I have been a gamer since 1974 when I had the first edition of Pong.

And I want you to know that I loved this story because I am a gamer and I wanted to make this movie because I am a gamer. And then very specifically said, we did not make a film. We made a movie.

And then they showed the movie and they treated it like a movie. And I thought that that delineation was very interesting. And it in some ways protected him from some of the inevitable criticism of the movie but also contextualized it.

It's a fun movie and it's goofy and some of it doesn't work and some of it does but it's in the parlance of our times it's for the fans I think is what people would say.

What's your Ready Player One perception? You didn't see the film but what was the atmosphere you were sensing around it? Well, I think that there was a couple of I'm getting too old for this shit moments for me where people were coming up and saying, like, I'm really interested in seeing whether Spielberg like accurately captures VR or accurately captures my gaming experience. And, you know, I think that that's, that's absolutely totally valid. I think that 20 years ago or whenever Jurassic came out, people were probably equally skeptical about his use of animatronic and,

and, and special effects to create, recreate dinosaurs, which for the person who I was back then was literally the coolest thing I'd ever seen in my life. And that's the thing that Spielberg does maybe better than any filmmaker ever, which is capture wonder. Both the audience's wonder

and the characters within the film's wonder. There's plenty of montages on YouTube of Spielberg faces. People looking at a plane whipping by them. People looking at a brontosaurus in the horizon. And I was curious about, without giving anything really away from RPO, which I'm sure you're going to get into in depth later on, are there any wonder faces?

Or did you catch yourself slack-jawed in amazement like Christian Bale watching a spitfire, you know, fly over his head? I would say that it is not quite on the level of Jurassic Park, where when that movie ended, I think a lot of people, a lot of movie lovers were clutching their hearts and being like, wow, movies will never be the same again.

Yeah, as they were with Jaws. Right, very similarly. He has that titanic ability. And it does feel like in some ways he's trying to have a third act in that way, where he's saying, I can make a movie that is 70% animated, essentially. There's 70% of video game and get you involved in the story and get you emotionally connected to it and also know that it is, you know, applying the tricks of nostalgia to tell a story. He mostly pulls it off.

I was really surprised. I went in very skeptical. I think the atmosphere in our office is a little bit dubious of whether he's going to be able to pull this story off. And in some ways it really does work. And I think it's this, this movie, maybe more than any other movie in the last five years is an expectation game. If you go in hoping and praying that he's going to

nail the tone of the book exactly and hit all of those little dynamic, like, well, there has to be enough moments with the Ninja Turtles. I have to, it has to be enough moments with the Ninja Turtles. There has to be enough moments with the Iron Giant. If you go in with that, you will be frustrated and disappointed. If you go in with a blank slate, you might be interested. If you go in with low expectations, you're going to be like, damn, nailed it. Yeah, right. And that's fascinating. It's an interesting thing.

It was the right kind of movie, though, to premiere here. You know, last year, you and I saw Atomic Blonde together. I saw Baby Driver there last year. I saw another movie there this year called A Quiet Place, which is John Krasinski's new movie. That was the opening night premiere. Similarly, very rowdy crowd. Interesting place to see it because A Quiet Place is probably the quietest horror movie I've ever seen. The premise of the movie is obviously that there's a family and some sort of post-apocalyptic society that cannot make noise. And if they do, there will be grave consequences. Every time someone sniffled or coughed during this screening, it felt like

the truest pain you could imagine. Like I've never heard such precise, resounding coughing. Right. Because you're just not used to that experience where for 10 minutes at a time, there is no sound. Right. It was pretty remarkable. You know, I think movies like that

tend to be more effective. And I look forward to seeing Ready Player One in a quiet place, like in a theater with real human beings just to see if they're as captivated as I was.

I don't know. What did you think? You know, we saw a horror movie as well. Yeah. Similarly, is a very responsive kind of thing. Blumhouse Productions, you know, responsible for Get Out, among other many horror movies you and I both really care about, had a big showing at South By. Do you want to tell them about our midnight on Friday? Yeah, well, you and I had talked a little bit before we had gone where I said, you know, I am looking at this slate of movies and I'm kind of thinking about concentrating on a couple of the horror films that might be

there, especially the ones from Blumhouse. So we saw Unfriended colon Dark Web, or maybe it's just Unfriended Dark Web, but it's not the Dark Web. Dark Web. And then I also we also saw Upgrade, which is a film from Lee Wannell, which is also coming out on Blumhouse Tilt. Now, you and I were really, we've thought a lot about Blumhouse. We've talked a lot about it, because not only do we get a kick out of their sort of lower budget genre stuff, but this is a major player in the movie industry now after Get Out and after it kind of started with Whiplash, which was sort of their first foray into more dramatic fare, and then Get Out maybe, you know, amusingly enough, not necessarily intended to be an Oscar film,

but wound up being a real candidate for Best Picture. So I think we were both curious about what's going on with Blumhouse. Where are they going to go next? I can report that they're at once doing the same thing that they were doing last year. They're still paying the bills with scary movies. But I find them relentlessly formally inventive. And I find them to be still one of the more permissive studios when it comes to allowing filmmakers to mess around.

So we saw this film Unfriended, which is told entirely through Skype, Facebook, and instant message screens. It's terrifying. It's also really disturbing. The first Unfriended is pretty scary. This one is more like maybe we're all turning into really bad people because of the internet. And I think one thing that really jumped out at me while watching Unfriended, and even though we you know, we were eating pretzels and drinking beers at the Alamo Drafthouse while we were watching it, was my newfound ability to process information in four quadrants on a screen.

And I know that is actually something that people have said about Ready Player One, that there's stuff happening on the margins of the screen and then in the center of the screen. But with Unfriended, you'll have a chat box in the lower left-hand corner, you'll have the action that's sort of in the middle of the screen. And then you'll have a clue, like an Easter egg up in the right-hand corner. And you can process all of that because we spend so much of our time staring at our laptop screens. So I found that movie quite enjoyable, quite disturbing, but absolutely does what it says on the package, which I think is what people want from Blumhouse movies. I want they want to be scared. They want the makers of the movies to take the venture seriously and to treat them seriously and to give them what they want.

And I think that they do a really good job of doing that, especially with Unfriended. Yeah, it's an interesting thing about Unfriended Dark Web is everything that you said is right on. Not only is it, are we processing the movie the same way that we process like our daily work lives with our laptops open, but the speed with which everything moves is pretty remarkable. I thought Unfriended was sort of a 1.0 version of that, literally where things moved a little bit slower.

We had to train audiences to say like, Skype loads like this and Facebook loads like this and a communication takes its time. This is very rapid fire. There's a lot of Bitcoin. You know, there's a lot of trading, so to speak. I thought the movie was very upsetting. I'm not sure that it was scary, but I was unnerved in a way that I'm not often. I would also say that they've realized now that there is a vernacular and even an emotional state that comes with communicating with people online. There's a, without giving anything away, characters communicate over Facebook Messenger.

But that thing that everybody is familiar with, with basically like, we're having a Facebook, like an instant message conversation, but one person is like waiting with bated breath for a response. But the other person is like, and now I'm getting in the shower. And you're just like, hey, are you there? Like, what are like, what's the what's the deal? The blinking ellipsis of death. And it's basically this anxiety that is now sort of part and parcel with modern day communication

that I found fascinating to see translated into a horror movie. So flip side of Dark Web is Upgrade, which you mentioned Lee Wannell's new film. You know, Lee wrote several of the Saw movies. He's been responsible for a lot of horror movies over the last 10 years creatively. This isn't quite horror. No, this is way more mid-80s to mid-90s action.

Action sci-fi. Yeah. Kind of reminded me of like Lawnmower Man or... Virtuosity, maybe? Yeah, Virtuosity, Robocop, Matrix, Terminator, all touchstones for this movie. And I think you're going to keep seeing, there was just a report today about how Captain Marvel

is supposedly influenced by 90s action movies. This sort of has a Shane Black vibe to it. Shane Black will be back with the Predator this year. The 90s action movie vibe that you and I kind of grew up on, it will be a very interesting stress test for that to see if we actually wanted it back or not. Yeah, so what did you think of Upgrade? Yeah, I thought it was a really, really interesting idea.

Logan Marshall Green stars as this guy who for the most part in a sort of black mirror-ish, undetermined point in the future is still defiantly not living off the grid, but is just like, I don't need all this stuff that you guys have like chips in my head to help me log into this or get into that door or whatever but everything is self-driving cars everything is drones and uh he i don't want

to give too much away from it but he finds himself in a very robocop situation let's just put it that way um there are super soldiers there are are plots, there are conspiracies, there's like a Rise of the Robots kind of thing. I found that this is just a really good example, though, of that's a movie that there are a lot of

people out there who I think are like, I would love to watch that movie. They don't make movies like this anymore. I have to learn 18 movies worth of MCU mythology and know what an Infinity Stone is. You don't have to do that with this movie. It's got thrills. It's got fights.

It's got some thought-provoking stuff. But then you're in and out. And I thought that that was like, that's a key for what they're doing right now. For as much as they make sequels, I think that they're providing a serotonin hit for people who like genre movies but don't really need to get into

who Darkseid is all the time. We're going to talk a little bit more about horror movies when we come back, but we're going to get a serotonin hit for our sponsor, so let's take a break. Support for today's show

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We were talking horror and I saw my word, a deeply scary horror movie that is going to be released this summer called Hereditary. It's made by a first time filmmaker named Ari Aster. Holy shit, Chris. It's very dark. I don't want I'm very reluctant to spoil too much about this

movie, but I will say I saw it at one o'clock in the morning. Yes. All the way on the other side of town. I'll do a little personal anecdote shortly after I finish talking about the movie. It's essentially about a family coping with the death of a matriarch and everything that unravels from there. And it stars Toni Collette in an interesting 20 years later kind of reflection of her role in The Sixth Sense as a mother making an effort to connect with her children.

And Gabriel Byrne stars as her husband. And the cast, particularly the young actress who plays their daughter and the young actor who plays their son, are incredible. And Ann Dowd also has a very prominent and fascinating role in the movie. This is going to be a thing this summer. And it features what I would say is the single scariest shot I've seen in like five years in a horror movie. That said, while I was attending a horror movie, you were doing something horrifying as well, maybe.

I was heavily, I was weighing whether or not to go to Hereditary. It was my last night. I had a 8.30 a.m. flight, which I figured meant getting up at around 6. And I was doing the math and I figured Hereditary, if it starts at like 12.30 because they were like waiting for Ready Player One people to get out,

when it really gets going, I'm not going to be back at home until about 3 or 4, which gives me two hours. And I'm just like, I got too going to be back at home until about three or four, which gives me two hours. And I'm just like, I got too much to do this week to kill it. So I didn't go to Hereditary. I did go to an A24 party. Great party.

And at one point, your friend of the pod. Sure. Darren Aronofsky was just like sitting by himself over himself over there on a couch with the scarf. I'm wearing a scarf, of course. Next thing I knew, Aronofsky is sitting an inch from me on the arm of the couch that I'm sitting on, wearing a cowboy hat and scarf. So he's getting more and more like Jeff Bridges in True Grit as the night goes along. Oh, so he was not originally wearing a cowboy hat.

No, the cowboy hat appeared. It manifested. It was one of those things like, you know how at my birthday, my 40th birthday party, I like all of a sudden was wearing a hat. That's so true. That did happen. Because like Juliet's friend Dan bought me one. Do you think that? Don't know if that happened.

I think someone was like, check this hat out. And Darren Aronofsky was like, great hat. And he was like, that's my hat now? Maybe. Wow. So he's holding court. And while we were sitting there, I can't. He's like, what are you going to say to Darren Aronofsky? It's like loved your film. Loved your film. Sure. Maybe. Wow. So he's holding court. And while we were sitting there, I can't, he's like, what

are you going to say to Darren Aronofsky? It's like, loved your film, loved your film. Sure. Maybe a lot of people were saying that to him. I was trying to be more creative. I didn't actually use this bit, but I thought I'd share it with your listeners. When we were sitting there, Eddie Money's Take Me Home Tonight was playing. And I was like, well, how long do you think Darren Aronofsky would let this get away, go? If I went up to him and I was just like, hey, man, you know, I know people probably come up to you all the time and bother you. I don't want to ruin your party. Just wanted to let you know that Take Me Home Tonight is an incredible song. And I thought it was great that you brought Ronnie Spector back.

And I actually have my first kiss to that song. And it's just so awesome to get to hear it out. And like, how long would he let it go before he was like get the fuck away from me probably not very long yeah I don't think so either he's very he's like a not an imposing

stature wise but like I wasn't like I'm gonna go like just chop it up with Darren he's a serious artist Chris yeah I know and should be treated as such while you were

thinking of Take Me Home Tonight I was saying Take Me Home Tonight at the end of the hereditary screening and then something very bad happened to me.

I was in a car sharing service on a ride home back to where we were staying at 3.30 in the morning and got into a car accident. Someone rear-ended us. That must have been pretty spooky. Well, after seeing Hereditary, I was not well.

I was unhappy because of how traumatizing the movie is. And to get hit by a car is obviously always very frustrating and confusing, disorienting, particularly when you're in a ride-sharing service, particularly when it's 3.30 in the morning, particularly when you're in a city that is not your own and you're forced to stand on the side of the road waiting for the police. Also, my driver did not speak English. That's too bad.

So it was quite a confuse. I felt like I was in a little bit of an A24 horror movie with my own design. I do have something I wanted to ask you. As the director of Hereditary, I'm very glad you're safe. I'm fine. Thank you, Chris. I'm glad you're healthy. This is the first time you've mentioned that.

No, that's not true. I was very concerned when you told me about this the first time. Yeah. But I do want to ask you a question about Ari Aster, who directed Hereditary, correct? Yes. One of the cool things about this festival is that this year and last year is it does still do what I think the platonic ideal of what you want from a movie festival, which is, yeah, it may be Anoints, Quiet Place, and Ready Player One. But the cool thing is to find out about Ari Aster. Who's that guy?

To find out about John Cummings. To find out about Elijah Bynum last year who directed Hot Summer Nights, which is yet to come out, but I think it's coming in the spring. Noel Wells, who people may know from Master of None,

but directed Mr. Roosevelt last year and I think is on streaming services now. To get to see people, their early stuff where you're like, oh, I bet that this person

is going to be a thing in a couple of years. So Ari Aster, going to be a thing? 100%. Yeah. I think he is, going to be a thing? 100%. Yeah. I think he is, it seemed as though he did a Q&A with Elijah Wood after the screening of the film.

And he seemed a bit surprised, I think, by how overwhelmingly people had received his movie. This movie debuted at Sundance. And at Sundance, people were like, goddammit, this is really scary. So I don't think that that was necessarily shocking to him, that people were scared at his movie. But it seems as if it's moving into that space

that like maybe The Witch occupied a couple of years ago where this will be sort of the boutique horror movie that people really, really like and admire. Did you see anything else

where you were like this director is for real? I saw a few things. On the A24 tip I also saw 8th Grade and there was an interesting trend this year of people

who were known for other things getting involved in filmmaking and making their directorial debut. So Bo Burnham's 8th Grade, stand-up comedian, comedy special director, now is a feature film director. This might be the best movie that I saw at the whole festival. It's about a young girl who's in eighth grade at the tail end of her eighth grade year, played so winningly by Elsie Fisher in this incredible performance that feels very real. And the movie is essentially about, without giving away too much for people, the collision of your online persona with your real life awkwardness. And that is also was a bit of a sub theme. There is a sub theme of that.

It's ready player one. Yeah. Unfriended is also very much like that, who we can be on YouTube versus or on Snapchat or on Instagram versus who we really are and how we really interface with people. Do you know who doesn't have any split in his personality? The God, Josh Hamilton.

So Josh Hamilton is absolutely wonderful in this movie. He's been one of my favorite actors for like 20 years, but nobody, you know, like if you just see him in, in, you know, uh,

Noah Baumbach movies or whatever, but God damn, I love Josh Hamilton. He's a heartbreakingly special father in this movie. That's great. I, I, I would recommend this movie to every single person that is still listening to this podcast.

I really, really, really enjoyed it. Um, and maybe we'll have Bo on the show later this year. Uh, I saw a couple of other things. Another person who is not, I really, really, really enjoyed it. And maybe we'll have Bo on the show later this year. I saw a couple of other things. Another person who was not a filmmaker until now is Boots Riley.

Boots is the lead emcee of The Coup, the famous Bay Area revolutionary and sighting rap group. His movie is Sorry to Bother You, which kind of kicked up a lot of internet interest over the weekend when the trailer premiered immediately after the screening at south by this movie also premiered at sundance it stars lakeith stanfield and tessa thompson among many other people um pretty much a bad idea to try to explain what happens okay lakeith stanfield is a young guy looking for a job who gets a gig at a telemarketing agency and then it unravels into like a fascinating satire of American life. Okay. Get ready. Brace yourself for Armie Hammer. Good.

It's a whole new generation of Armie Hammer that I think we're all very excited about. Chris, you and I also saw a fun, strange movie. Yeah. Called The Legacy

of White-Tailed Deer Hunter, directed by Jody Hill, who's a personal favorite of both of ours. Sure. Jody co-created Eastbound and Down, Vice Principals. He directed Observe and Report.

He's a longtime collaborator with Danny McBride. Danny McBride co-stars in this movie with your boy. Josh Brolin. Josh Brolin. Who was looking swole at the premiere. He popped out with Jody, with the writer, with Danny,

and with the kid, Montana Hughes, I think his name is, who, let me tell you something. They, the people who made this movie, are super enamored with this kid because he gets a lot of screen time despite Sicario and Eastbound being in the movie. It's not like he really gets a lot of screen time.

This movie was, I think, shot in 2015? 16-15, yeah. 16-15, and Jody Hill, it's interesting. You get a lot of different speeches from the stage when a filmmaker comes out and introduces their film. And Jody Hill seemed more relieved than anything that this was done, that this was finally getting to people. And he referred to it as their revenant, I think. Yeah. And it was shot, you know,

it looked like in the winter in the mountains in North Carolina. It is very much a, you know, a love letter to the wilderness. You know, in the tradition of all Jody Hill and Danny McBride things, it's one part taking the piss out of something, but also one part, like,

secretly being really into something, but also one part like secretly being really into something, which I think is the reason why people respond so strongly to their work. It's like, yeah, like,

Kenny Powers is a douchebag, but like everybody kind of like loves the idea of partying while playing minor league baseball. Like that, that sounds awesome, you know?

Yeah. And also every time we feel like we've had one dick joke too many, a father looks his son in the eyes and says, I love you, son. And you're like, oh my God. Yeah, and then the son kicks him in the balls.

Yeah. That's true. This movie is coming out on Netflix. July. July, okay. So it's interesting. I think that I'm having a little bit of a distortion field when it comes to movies that are on Netflix.

Now, I did enjoy it. I laughed a lot. I don't think anyone is going to call it the next Caddyshack. But I think it's part of a larger thing where is Netflix actually making good stuff or are they just picking up the stuff that other people maybe don't want? I don't. Do you know anything about the trajectory of this film's development or release? Like, was it always, it wasn't always going to be a Netflix movie. I'm not, I'm honestly not sure. Okay. I know that it had been in production for a long period of time.

And then at some point, I think the narrative was that it was essentially like saved by Netflix in some way that they had decided that they would distribute it. Because they're currently in the business of taking properties that maybe don't necessarily have a home or their future is unclear and giving them a big platform. So, you know, we saw that with the Cloverfield paradox earlier this year. We saw that internationally with Annihilation. I'm not sure if it's, it's not quite the same where those properties were picked up from a major studio, but you know, they're going to give a big platform to a weird movie that I think would be hard to sell theatrically. Yeah.

I think it'd be tough to say Josh Brolin is a deer hunting dad trying to reconnect to his son. Danny McBride's here for dick jokes. That's, that's, we don't have a lot of movies like that. I'm actually kind of bummed out that we don't have a lot of movies like that in movie theaters anymore, but we don't. And so. It's a very lo-fi indie version of what

I think they're trying that they can get away with getting game night into the theaters because I think game night does exactly what it says on the package I don't know if I've

used that phrase already once before but it just does exactly what it says it's going to do and when you see the trailer for game night and then you see game night you're like yep

that was the movie I was promised. I don't know how you really advertise Whitetail because it's kind of sad in places. In the room, here's what it felt like. Daddy daycare meets deliverance. That's what they were pitching. And that's pretty funny. But it's hard to sell.

It's hard to imagine what the Super Bowl commercial for this movie is. I thought there wasn't enough deliverance. I think I would say I'd put it that way. I think that when I see a movie by Jody Hill, I'm hoping almost that it goes there. I almost wish that they had higher stakes in this movie instead of what winds up being the sort of, the denouement of the film is fine. But you go to see this film,

you're going to be fine with it for the jokes. Hilariously, Scoot McNary and Carrie Coon are in this movie for one scene. And I think it might actually just be like two years before Carrie Coon became a thing. So it's just wild that Carrie Coon just like pops up as the suburban mom and does like two phone call scenes. And that's it. I think I would have loved to have had her back. Oh, sure.

She could have had a much bigger role in the film, as could Scoot, who I think that's he's in the Chris Ryan Hall of Fame. Oh, absolutely. I want to take an opportunity to just talk about one other smaller movie that I saw that I think people will be hearing a lot about. I would not be shocked if it was in the Oscar conversation later this year. It's a documentary. It's called Won't You Be My Neighbor. It also debuted at Sundance. It was directed by Morgan Neville, who made 20 Feet from Stardom. Morgan also made a few episodes of the recent David Chang series, Ugly Delicious.

Oh, cool. It's about Mr. Rogers. I grew up with Mr. Rogers. It is essentially cradle to grave story of Mr. Rogers. Everything that he did and was, his persona as a public person, his private life. I never cry in movies, ever. I am dead inside.

Chris, you can affirm this. I was weeping for the final 20 minutes of Mr. Rogers. It's a very direct, straightforward hagiography of a person that we feel like we know pretty well. And I wouldn't even say necessarily that there is a, a mountain of revelation in the movie, but the way that it is told and the people that he, that, that Morgan talks to during the, during the movie and the way that they talk about Fred Rogers is, is just remarkable.

I, I, I can't even imagine another person. It's very strange to hear you uncynical about something. Oh, no, I don't mean that because you're a skeptical person

and you've seen a lot of movies. One of the things I wanted to talk to you about is the volume of movies you saw in there. But this was a rare response from you where you just seemed almost like you had

your breath taken away. Yeah, and it's nothing formal. Yeah. It's very straightforward. This will premiere on, it'll be in theaters, I'm sure, in a limited theatrical release, but most people will see this on independent lens on pbs you know that's that's

the kind of movie it is it's a it's an authorized biography of a of a nice man who did something unique in the world of television um but his general philosophy and premise for life feels radical. Yeah, yeah. And he is the living embodiment of kindness and listening. And it just, in this moment, and I'm certainly not going to do a political spiel about this, but in this moment, it just felt astonishing. It was like a real revelation for me. So I would highly recommend that to people,

especially people like me who grew up listening to Mr. Rogers. Did you see the Chinese live streaming doc? I didn't. So that's why our colleague Cam was pretty fired up about that. Yes. Please like me? Yes. Cam Collins was a jury member on the documentary side of things

down in Austin this year. And he got in a cab with me on the way to Ready Player One and he was like, best movie I've seen so far is People's Republic of Desire. Oh, so it's not Please Like Me at all. It's not Please Like You at all.

Hao Wu is the director of the film. It's essentially about performers acquiring social media following via live streaming. Right. And particularly overseas in Asia.

And apparently it's unnerving and upsetting. And there is, can you sense a through line here from unfriended through eighth grade, through people's Republic of desire, this like, you know, dark sadness. Reckoning with our digital selves. That life on the internet creates. It is a fascinating idea. So maybe it's obvious, like that's why you responded to Mr. Rogers. It was like the most pure distillation of kindness, of human empathy. Analog.

Yeah, sure. Let's get back to PBS. Let's get back to puppets. Let's get back to men looking each other in the eye and saying, like, I care about you. I have your back. Somewhere a Rick and Morty fan is dialing up an at to you. Yeah, die slow, scumbag. and saying, I care about you. I have your back. Somewhere a Rick and Morty fan is dialing up an at to you. Yeah. Die slow, scumbag.

I'm sure that's what my mentions will be full of. Chris, anything else you want to say about South By? The wonder that is the South By Southwest Festival? Well, I wanted to ask you, was there anything you missed

that you were really excited to check out and you're kicking yourself over? Yeah, there were a couple of things that I missed. I think first and foremost, I missed Fast Color, which is Julia Hart's movie

starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw that is a new kind of take on a superhero movie, a much more grounded superhero movie, for lack of a better phrase, that everybody that I talked to who saw it

was head over heels about. Jen Yamato wrote a great piece in the LA Times about it during the festival. One of the bigger commercial premieres, our colleague Juliet saw Blockers, Kay Cannon's new comedy

starring John Cena and Lesley Manning. I did not encounter a single person who saw it who said a bad thing about it, which is a good sign. And you know, South By also has this fun history of premiering big time studio comedies like neighbors and sausage party and movies that are basically kind of earmarked for that summer

success. Yeah. So blockers is actually out April 6th. That's going to be pretty soon out in the world. There were a few other things I missed. I missed blind spotting. That was a big movie, um, starting to V digs that came out at Sundance. Um, you know, your boy boy Adam Pally had a movie,

Most Likely to Murder There. Oh, yeah. A horror comedy. With Rachel Bloom, right? With Rachel Bloom of... Ex-girlfriend. My crazy ex-girlfriend fame. So, yeah, there were a few things.

I mean, I think you mentioned Jim Cummings. Yeah, Thunder Road, which won special jury prize. And, you know, I had this, one of the cool things is that I bumped into a guy at a party, actually, who just came up and started talking to me, and this lovely guy named Trace, who worked for a commercial agency.

Basically, like, he works in finding directors for commercial work. And it seems like, I actually didn't even know this, but that is like a, quite a, like, it's like watching guys play AAU or something, you know, you can find who's next there. And he, he had said that, you know, Jim Cummings was a name that people had been throwing around, um, that, that, that is, and he directed this film Thunderworld, which is based on a short that I think he had at Sundance. Yes. In 17. Yeah. And

so I'm, I'm really excited to see that. It sounds like the kind of sort of complicated character drama that we all long to see on the big screen more and more. This has been a complicated character drama between us, from car crashes to... I'm just glad you're okay. I'm doing great. Chris, thank you so much for doing this.

Thanks again for listening to The Big Picture this week. If you want to read more about movies, I suggest you check out The Big Picture this week. If you want to read more about movies, I suggest you check out TheRinger.com. There's a very, very funny piece written by my colleague Andrew Gredadaro called Revisiting the 2001 Lara Croft Tomb Raider Red Carpet in All Its Glory. Andrew wrote this because, of course, there is a new version of Tomb Raider in theaters this weekend starring Alicia Vikander. I suggest you look back on what the fashion choices were of the movie stars during Angelina Jolie's version of this

movie, because they are brutal. And for more movie coverage in general, go to TheRinger.com. And for an interesting conversation about how we talk about and think about movies, check out Damage Control on The Ringer Podcast Network. And on this feed, Channel 33, K. Austin Collins and Justin Charity had a spirited conversation about some of the complexities of a wrinkle in time. Thanks for listening today. See you next week.