The Big Picture - ‘The Bikeriders’ and the ‘Dudes Rock’ Movie Canon, Plus ‘Kinds of Kindness’

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Sean and Amanda are joined by Chris Ryan to discuss ‘The Bikeriders,’ a new Jeff Nichols movie starring Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, and Jodie Comer (1:00). They discuss the film’s successes, its influences, and more, before building a partial canon for movies in the “dudes rock” genre (30:00). Then, Chris leaves and Sean and Amanda discuss ‘Kinds of Kindness,’ Yorgos Lanthimos’s anthology film and the latest installment in his creative collaboration with Emma Stone (52:00). Finally, Sean is joined by ‘Bikeriders’ director Jeff Nichols to discuss the production of the movie, the book that inspired it, making such a stylized period piece, and more (1:15:00). To watch episodes of ‘The Big Picture,’ head to https://www.youtube.com/@RingerMovies. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Chris Ryan and Jeff Nichols Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Greetings, it's Mal. Call your banners because it's time to head back to Westeros for House of the Dragons Season 2. The Ringer's Dragon Riders will soar alongside you each week with a Harrenhal-sized slate of conversations. The Dragon has three heads, and on Sunday nights immediately after Hot D concludes, Chris Ryan, Joanna Robinson, and I will be with you for Talk the Thrones. Then on Mondays, two more shows await. Dan Laith and Charles Holmes, Steve Allman and Jomia Deneron, aka the Midnight Boys, pew pew, will head to the tourney grounds to share their reactions.

And of course, Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald will sip the Arbor's finest vintage on the watch. Then on Tuesdays, Joanna and I will head to the bowels of a pleasure den for our House of R Deep dives. Then on Thursdays, Joe, Neil, and Dave Gonzalez will gather the Ravens for Trial by Content. In this season, full episodes of Talk the Thrones, House of R, and The Midnight Boys will also be available on video on Spotify and the new Ringerverse YouTube channel.

Podcast episodes available on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessy.

I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about riding bikes and rocking out. Later in this episode, I'll have a conversation with Jeff Nichols, the writer and director of the new film, The Bike Riders, from Shotgun Stories to Take Shelter. From mud to loving, Jeff has made some of the most compelling movies of the 21st century. He's a great guest who talked openly about the sliding doors experience of working in Hollywood as a filmmaker.

Stick around for our conversation. It was a good one. Today on the show, we are discussing Jeff Nichols' new film, The Bike Riders. We're also discussing a new film that Yorgos Lanthimos directed called Kinds of Kindness.

Stick around for that after our Bike Riders convo. We're also, because Chris Ryan is here, going to build the dudes rock canon we're gonna build the canon of movies that feature dudes rocking easy text message conversation i have with you last night uh you didn't even text me about it because dudes why do you think that was but here's the thing when they're really rocking yeah i'm also like yeah you know so that's the thing it's like you have to get to a place where the dudes are truly rocking and then it works for everyone i think if they're if they reach a certain aesthetic criteria then you're on board that's not totally true you but you like when ugly men are rocking if they're cool okay then cool hugs

then that works out for them yeah you know where do you stand on like charles bronson for example i mean that's a guy that just he rocked pretty hard pretty regularly hard yeah yeah through 1987 but would you say like he's bringing the same energy that steve mcqueen or austin butler is bringing no but steve mc but Steve McQueen and Austin Butler are like very too specific examples. Like the dudes in Heat are not rocking at an Austin Butler level. Maybe they will in Heat too when they're younger. I think my friend has something to say about that. Okay. Aesthetically. Aesthetically. Aesthetically. Listen, De Niro is not, you know'm sorry listen De Niro is not you know

the hot De Niro photo that circulated that's all I'm saying I mean but they're rocking and I'm still like hang out everybody I told you

when you signed up for me baby you were gonna have to share me we're off to a roaring start we're gonna talk about the bike riders first and then we to talk about the bike riders first and then we'll talk about

the dudes rock cannon I don't think again as Chris said we knocked this out in roughly 8 minutes I added one great there's no

there's no limitations but you guys did have a list of like 20 I probably could have added 30 more I was like do you need like 10

and then he was like here are the 17 that I came up with and I was like here there's one that Sean just neglected to put on he disagreed with me i guess did i yeah wow well we can talk about that when we get there first let's talk about the bike riders what is the bike riders first jeff nichols movie in a long time jeff nichols one of those guys who i think very

early on in our friendship were like you've seen shotgun stories and then we started crying over miller high life um This new movie is... Thank you for allowing me to be here with you guys. For this moment? Yeah. And in many ways, the bike rider is like inclusive. It has like a Amanda representative. It does.

On the screen. But yeah, I... That was Norman Reedus, is who you're referring to, right? I guess I didn't think... It was the woman with the really large beehive. Yeah. I didn't think about, you know, what a fest this would be. Yeah.

I mean, I think that the movie is maybe not in the hallowed halls of The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven and some other movies that we'll talk about here. But it is very much in conversation with those movies, very much paying homage to them. It's a movie set in the 1960s based entirely on a photo book by the photo journalist Danny Lyon, who captured images of these motorcycle riders in the 1960s in the Midwest that had very limited captions. And even though Lyon did interviews with these figures, there was still like a real air of mystery. Nichols had been given this book by his brother and said, I think you would really like this. And he was really inspired by it and effectively created a world from these images and created a narrative. So this isn't really based on a true story,

though it is based on true people. And it follows very closely this group, the Vandals MC Motorcycle Club. It's a strange movie because it's very episodic. It does not have like a clear narrative, like we need to go from here to here. It feels like a movie because it's very episodic. It does not have a clear narrative. Like, we need to go from here to here. It feels like a movie full of photographs. And if you accept that about the movie, and frankly, if you know it going in, I think iconography is very powerful.

I really liked it. It also feels very clearly like What If Goodfellas on Motorcycles. Yes. Which for me... From that first scene and the first freeze frame and the narration coming in. Yes, the narration is a clear tip of the cap

to the Henry Hill point of view. And then also I think that the character that Jodie Comer plays is also very much in conversation with Karen from Goodfellas as well. But it stars Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon as he is in every Jeff Nichols movie, Mike Feist, Norman Reedus.

It's a pretty stacked cast. Amanda, I'll start with you. What do you think of this movie? Austin Butler. But really also Jodie Comer. I mean, it's great. I loved it. Everything that you said was like a very nuanced and, you know, insightful look at the movie.

And I was also like, you're way overcomplicating this. It is a movie that understands the mythology of movies and of image making and self-consciously participates in it. And you got three movie stars doing just movie star stuff. And it was fun to watch. Like, I don't, I guess I don't care about motorcycles that much, but every single motorcycle shot was to your point, like photographic and beautiful. And you just want to hang out with these people. They are rocking.

And what's nice about it is that the Jodie Comer character, who is the narrator and definitely is the Karen of the Goodfellas, but also gets positioned, not as the Henry Hill, but she is the narrator. She tells the story. She tells the story and she gets a lot more to do than the typical wife of the dudes in the gang.

In many ways, it's like a love triangle between herself and Austin Butler throwing heat and Tom Hardy doing Chicago Bane. So I would, I mean, it is like the 40%.

The R's are the exact same. The unproduced Batman movie from 1973 starring Marlon Brando as Bane is what Tom Hardy is doing. It's the best Tom Hardy's been

in a long time. You think so? He's so good. I thought he's awesome in this. So what did you think of the movie as well? Same thing. I thought that it was an incredibly pleasant experience to watch. And it's like one of those things where I actually don't have

like a huge motorcycle fetish, but was like, it turns out I do. It turns out that this is one of those things like surfing and World War II that I pretty much have like a maximum. like it turns out I do it turns out that this is one of those things like surfing and world war ii that I pretty much have like a maximum yeah also you shoot it like this and frame these and you're just like wow that is the coolest thing ever you're right yeah I love that you know America look what we created I like that idea though of um things that you don't participate in that I have like an unlimited amount of interest in. Yeah, yeah. Espionage, you know? Yeah, I think if my nuance is too present,

it's because I think the movie, this movie self-consciousness, it feels almost like how I feel when I'm trying to make an episode of the show where I'm like analyzing like what you're doing, but like he's doing it all for you. Like a character literally watches The Wild One and thinks to himself, what if I were more like Like a character literally watches The Wild One and thinks to himself, what if I were more like Marlon Brando in The Wild One?

Austin Butler is almost, it's almost as if his character in the movie watched his performance as Elvis in the movie and was like, I gotta be more like Elvis. You know, like there's something kind of fascinating, almost snake eating its own tail about the movie that I think is really fun. Yeah. And it's, I thought, very entertaining. Yeah. Very, very engaging. fascinating almost snake eating its own tale about the movie that i think is really fun um yeah and

it's a it's a i thought very entertaining yeah very very engaging i saw it like a few weeks ago i can't remember like literally what happens scene to scene i know the broad strokes but like there's not like a lot of uh plot you know what's so funny though i feel like this is a nice break because i saw this movie in september of 2023 and i haven't seen it since but remember it pretty well and I think it's because of the way that you're describing it where it is like there's big imagery in this movie you know that imagery of him with his back to the camera sitting at the bar as the two guys are starting to harass him that moment when he goes outside before the beating you know the moment when you see him um propped up against the pool table and you see him as Jodi Comer. Yes, and she sees his perspective.

I mean, come on. This guy, like, getting off of chairs, motorcycles, I mean, very, it's hard to do it that well. So the movie is being sold hard on Austin Butler's charisma and his, this kind of, like, burgeoning mythology around him as a movie star. And I think that they actually very, even before his sort of ascendance, whenever this was actually shot,

like, he's got the reddish blonde hair everybody else has dark hair pretty much or dirty blonde hair like he stands out like he is styled in a way that feels almost um like he looks exactly like his character on the red carpet for the bike riders uh whereas like all the other guys are like in their character actor bag of being like, I haven't shaved. I have oil on my face. I have a wig on. I have weird teeth. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And he is very much like the most pristine version. And, you know, I think if you want to read the movie archetypally, symbolically. Right. He is like this idea of American masculinity in the 1960s that like never really existed. Right. But every once in a while you'd see a guy walk into a bar and you'd be like, that's it. Like, that never really existed. Right. But every once in a while, you'd see a guy walk into a bar and you'd be like, that's it.

That's what we all want. And to be fair, I took a look at some of those Danny Lyon pictures and there's some guys who he looks like. I mean, there are some pinup idol-looking guys in this MC, in this vandals world. And he does also, he probably has 30 lines in the movie.

He is smoldering. And and again the movie knows that it is playing with that archetype of like the guy leaning at the bar who doesn't speak and I think it ultimately even subverts the the archetype just a little bit at the end which to me is interesting like I find it's self-awareness and giving you what you want, but also tweaking it just slightly to be interesting. And also, you know, it still is so immensely enjoyable to watch. But you're also like, oh, huh, they did that. I didn't know that they were going to do that. Yeah, I was talking to a colleague earlier today before we recorded and he was saying Jodie Comer just should be Meryl Streep,

but isn't Meryl Streep, which is like maybe a bit of a reach, but it's like she's obviously extremely talented. She's on a big streaming series. She's in Free Guy. You know, she was in The Last Duel. She's been in like a series of projects where on paper you're like, this is going to make her a megastar. Yeah.

And this is another one too. She was in a movie last year called The End We Start From, which no one saw, which she was really good in. And now this is like four or five things in a row where I'm like, she's doing amazing work.

She's doing an accent. I don't know if I told this story on the pod, but I met Jeff Nichols at Telluride and hung out with him for a little while. And he played me a recording of the real Kathy. Oh. And it is perfect. Spot on. what Jodie Comer has done.

I have a lot to say about The Voice. And so, you know, it's a very big, bold choice, but also clearly rooted in truth, like a real person. I think if you are on board with what she's doing, the movie goes down a lot better. If you're not, if you're like, whoa, this is taking me out of it, you might struggle with this movie.

So I thought she was really good. I thought that we can kind of spoil the mechanics of it. They often will cut to this framing device, which is Jodie Comer doing a series of interviews with Mike Faced's character, who I guess is the Danny Lyon, and is doing a photo book with interviews about these motorcycle riders. And he wins the tragic facial hair award for this, which is not his fault. It's the 70s. I found that the recurring sort of motif of going back to her folding laundry and doing these sort of interviews to just stop the momentum of the movie kind of in its tracks.

Like every time two scenes would happen, I'm like, cool, like now we're moving. And a movie that's about motorcycle riding needs to have that feeling of momentum to have the constant stop. And then she starts to kind of narrate how everybody was feeling and how she was feeling and all that. While very, very good,

I just thought it didn't really work for the propulsion of the film itself. This is not because this was a woman talking during the film. I just want to be clear on that. It was not, but it did. You guys have to understand, if you haven't seen this movie and you're just listening to us,

I agree that she could be Meryl Streep. She could also be Eddie Redmayne. Wow, that's so mean. I'm not trying to be a dick. I just think that'm up for this conversation really like choices big choices it's so funny because like she was lights out to me and i guess i just bought in on the accent and and i thought that first goodfellas homage was like so entertaining and and funny and she's so charismatic in addition to doing

whatever she's doing like sometimes you know I've thought a lot about like Margaret Qualley's recent accent work to give you and I've where I'm just like oh we're you're trying yeah yeah you're you're doing it but it's not working for me and this I was just in from the beginning yeah I don't know why yeah the whole movie kind of hinges on do you like spending a lot of time with these people? I mean, Tom Hardy, it's interesting that you say this is some of his best work in a long time

because he's no stranger to a curious accent. I can't believe you're discounting the recent Venom films. I do believe that those are among his more interesting choices. He's also now doing something in this movie that feels hyper self-conscious. And taking a part like this feels hyper self-conscious because he has been accused of playing, you know, dress up a little bit at times. Yeah. With the characters that he takes on, like an overly performative reach.

And this is a character who is basically a municipal worker living in Chicago and he's got a wife and kids. Who wants to start a social club. Yeah. Who's like, I need to like basically I need to be cooler I need to have a slightly cooler bent to my life and is inspired

by the world and Hardy I think brings like a real emotional complexity especially to the last hour of the movie because it becomes

as you said this love triangle between effectively Kathy and Hardy's character Johnny kind of pining for Benny's time.

You can't have him. He's mine. Right. Which is, you know, there's some of that energy here today. I think I really liked him. Yeah. And yet I actually couldn't get the cult of Tom Hardy out of my head while I was watching it. I thought he did it.

It was like admirably restrained. He often really hides behind facial hair and masks, weird tics and gestures. This was like a really quiet man who obviously was not going to be super verbose about his interiority and just found something that he loved,

made the rules of this world, and abided by them very, very catholicly. I thought it was just like a really nice, kind of tender made the rules of this world and abided by them very, very Catholicly, you know? And I thought it was just like a really nice kind of tender character actor performance from him. And I think that like, you know, we've mentioned Goodfellas a couple of times. So there's obviously an element of like use of music. There's some cinematic virtuosity going on. Same kind of timeframe too, where it's got an

early late fifties, early sixties romanticism that then sours in the late sixties and early seventies with hard drugs in Vietnam. And so basically this club goes from being Marlon Brando to Easy Rider over the course of like the film. There's a good easy writer joke at the end. Yeah, and I thought that the only place where it kind of fell short for me was that it lacked kind of like a bigger statement like the way Goodfellas does. Goodfellas has the like, I'm just a schnook. It has the, we were all basically addicted

to making money and constantly chasing the next score. We were never going to be satisfied. And there's something hollow inside of us. And like, that's, it doesn't really sit in moral judgment of them as much as it's like, this is the sickness we all have. It's just coming out differently for these guys.

And I thought maybe bike riders didn't quite have that level of like, something to say about America or whatever. I did. I don't know that it makes it necessarily a better or better movie right but i think that that joke that you just referenced like is effectively what the story is trying to say it's a it's a movie based on a series of pictures that you know american cultures are about mythology they're about like how things are represented to us and then what they come to mean

when we look at them and that the wild one is a reflection of something that was already happening in the world and then it went on and then influenced the world.

And this kind of circular nature and the idea of moving from the 50s to the 60s from the wild one to Easy Rider and the idea of like reflecting on Easy Rider

being the movie that changes Hollywood and pushes it in a completely different direction is saying something about this like centrifugal system of culture

that we have. That's well put. Which I think is a cool idea but it doesn't have it's just when you compare a movie to Goodfellas

it's not Goodfellas. It's really hard. And it's not like it's not just us. I mean it is it's setting out its love to Goodfellas

from like the very first from the very first frame. But yeah. No I agree it's not goodfellas I do also think and I guess we're like we are fully in spoiler territory because like the the last scene you know framing it like totally around the Jodie Comer character yeah and then at the end he actually does not like ride off into the distance and he's just like listening to bikes in the background yeah and then they like make eye contact and there's something like interesting and like there's a little freeze on there but they also they it is weirdly like a couple together yeah this is regular life yeah yeah now he's just a mechanic who lives in florida yeah i i i liked that aspect

of it though like that approach to telling the story that way. But it leaves you... It was not... It's not doom and gloom. It also wasn't... It's not... At the end of Goodfellas, it feels satirical. You know? The movie completely changes its energy.

That zoom to Henry Hill's front door. And then the music cue at the end of that movie. It makes you rethink the movie you just watched. This movie doesn't really do that. This movie is like, this is about a movie about a bunch of ordinary people and they find themselves in very dramatic circumstances. There's a big biker gang fight. There's a big confrontation where the woman might be abducted in the party house.

That's right. You know, there's the famous moment, or for me, the famous moment where Toby Wallace, you know, like emerges as a big star in this movie when he has a memorable showdown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's very, very good in this movie. if you haven't seen him before he's excellent um but they those are the things that feel like the constructions of the film whereas the final scene to me felt more like what was actually going on yeah um which is an interesting creative choice and i think it actually reflects like what jeff Nichols does very well even when he's telling fantastical stories he tells super grounded stories

that are mostly about how people are thinking about things and how they remember things you know like those are core themes of his movies I like this it's not going to be in my top 10 of the year but I really enjoyed myself I really liked it maybe I liked it the most of the three of us

you might have you you have like a you know you've got a hard-on for Austin it's okay it's also like I think that uh I think I went to it was very high expectations you know uh and that sometimes is my own that's my own issue is like going into something and being like all of my guys are here how could this be anything less than like a dazzling experience? And it was really, really good. Like I'm not trying to, I think it's more interesting sometimes to be like,

I wonder if this, this or this is what's wrong with it. Then, because as you describe scenes, I was like, that was sick. That was sick. We haven't even gotten.

Might be a good YouTube movie. It's also like the bench in this movie is unreal. So like, I just briefly want to say like, the, you know what the coolest thing in a film like this is? Is when a guy dies, a character dies,

and you're like, fuck, the movie just went off a cliff because this guy's not in it anymore. And Damon Herriman in this movie is kind of like the conscience of the motorcycle club. Yeah, he plays Brucey. And his death in the movie

signals the turn into it's going to get dark now. But when he in the movie signals like the turn into it's going to get dark now. But he, when he leaves the movie, you feel like the absence of his like heart and his presence in the film. Can I get,

can I get a second for Boyd? Well, I was going to say, I feel like a little bit of your disappointment in the movie is that Boyd doesn't have enough to do. Your special boy, Boyd Holbrook.

But he does so much with what he's got, man. But that's the Boyd Hol holbrook story it's also like there's there's whenever you get an ensemble film like this of guys in various points in their careers like we're like three four years removed from when boyd holbrook was austin butler for a hot second in logan like he okay but like he he wasn't he he he have been. What is the problem? Why are you denying this? In Logan, big villain role,

everybody's like, damn, Boyd Holbrook. In Narcos. Hold on. Many people were saying. Let me just say, I went to Pasadena with your wife to see the film Logan. It was just the two of us.

You weren't there. Yeah, because I already seen it like three times. But we did not walk out saying, damn, Boyd Holbrook. I mean, I love you. You know this is not true. But the movie is, in a way, this kind of like collection of guys who almost were that thing. Yeah, Emery Cohen. Emery Cohen, Carl Glossman,

you know, Boyd, obviously. Michael Shannon never really, a heartthrob, but, you know, a man for his time. And so that's also a fun component of the story is that you're constantly seeing people who are like, oh, I love that guy. I love that guy.

And I agree with you that when someone leaves the movie, it doesn't really diminish your interest in the characters. It's also just a really simple but excellent execution of like this movie has a jukebox in it yep and so when you have a juke literally a jukebox in your movie we just get to hear twice as many songs the song selection is out of this world it's a great soundtrack there's one moment in particular where um well there's two there's there's so there's a very self-conscious muddy waters needle drop but it's a re-recording of a muddy song

from the 70s that the electric mud the electric mud version the original appears in goodfellas and then you hear the electric version in the 70s you're like i see what you're doing there man i really like you want to talk about dudes rocking we're talking about electric mud right now and then there's a cover of Masters of War like later in the movie by the Staples Singers and when it hit, I was like,

this is a five-star classic. But for that five minutes, I was like, this is absolutely fire. We almost need to come up with a new category for a film where at its heights,

you're like, this is Lawrence of Arabia and then you forget 35 minutes of it. But you weren't having a bad time during minutes of it. I'm trying to... But you weren't having a bad time during the 35 minutes. I also want to say

Comer's really good. But I think it's the voice. I think it's... You couldn't get on with it. Yeah. And I was trying to imagine... What do you have against the Midwest? It's not that.

It's her... It's her... Her manner? Intonation. It's her tempo. And I manner intonation it's her it's her tempo and I was trying to imagine her doing this voice and just

you know transposing it onto other films like that was the first time I met Paul Atreides he had beautiful blue eyes and he really wore that still suit

I told my girlfriend Jenny I said I'm like that's gonna be my boyfriend and that's like as jarring as it sounds coming out of me, that's what happens in this movie where you're like, Muddy Waters is playing. All the dudes are cool. And then it's just like, that was the first time I saw Fanny.

I mean, I think that's intentional. I do as well. And it worked. Cut the masculine energy. I don't need margarine i need butter you know what i mean like i want pure unsalted carry gold on the on the fucking tub man what does that mean just like are you a carry gold family no we're not okay i don't even know what that is it's the irish butter oh yeah okay i do know what that is. Show some respect for your people. I think I'm a challenge family.

Oh, okay. Challenge unsalted European style? Yeah, sure. Okay, now I know. It has, it's silver and it has the little picture of it. Yeah, okay. I'm sorry, what? We're just talking about butter.

Sorry, go ahead. We're not derailing this. Do you eat butter? Yeah, I do. I had some on toast yesterday. Okay, so that's not like a... Not a white condiment. Well, so it's the yellow gradient?

Well, it really depends on the butter that you're working with, to be quite honest. What's a white butter? I guess like the Philadelphia's, isn't that also? Yeah, or whipped butter is often white? Not for me. Okay. Not for me. Yellow, yellow butter.

I'll take a margarine. I'm not above a margarine. I was going to say that's margarine, but that's okay. Yeah, a yellowish. All right, where were we? I don't know. This movie rules. I'm take a margarine. I'm not above a margarine. I was going to say that's margarine, but that's okay. A yellowish. All right. Where were we? I don't know. This movie rules.

I'm glad you liked it. I really... I do also... I've been thinking about it. I am... Not to spoil next week's episode, but we are doing a Kevin Costner Hall of Fame sometime soon. And so I am deep in the Kevin Costner American male archetype trenches right now. And I have graduated from the good period

to the searching period, shall we say? So then to go in to a movie where I was just like, oh, you got it. He would have been Johnny if this movie was made 25 years ago. Yeah, I guess. Though, would he have been as good at it is like a different conversation. I don't know.

Have you seen A Perfect World? That's pretty damn close to Johnny. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's true. So I guess maybe it's what I was going from to what I was going towards, but it's pretty uncomplicated in my enjoyment of this. Yeah, you like it when dudes rock too.

That's really the point. So, you know, I don't know how we build this canon. I think it's you guys just yell. We just say movie names? We just text it. We can lay out some parameters because I do think as a point of order, Sean set up, should I actually read the text message that you did? Let me find it here.

This will give you an insight into my mind. Yesterday, 1.25 p.m. Can you give me some thought? Can you give some thought to the dudes rock movie canon for tomorrow's pod? Basically, movies where groups of guys hang out and do cool shit. I took that very seriously. More or less to the exclusion of women. Yeah, thanks so much.

This is the idea. Yes, I can do this. It's not advocating. Ten movies, and we immediately came up with 30. Right. A couple of these, like, I love The Hunt for Red October. That's dudes rocking? One ping only, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, he is definitely rocking, like, alone, and then the other guy who wanted to see Arizona. They rock in collaboration, in fact, reaching across the Berlin Wall to collaborate. Also the implication that Alec Baldwin

is not rocking in The Hunt for Red October I mean he is the pinnacle of rocking. He does jump off the plane into the submarine but there isn't that like It's not the same

as bike riders where it's like guys together hanging out doing stuff. As a group. It is like a bunch of people with individual interests

who come together towards the common goal of defecting with this submarine. There's some complexity here. There's some, like Chris right away was like Rio Bravo.

Rio Bravo might be the ur movie for this. We're in a saloon. We're hanging out. We're talking about getting into a gunfight. And has a five minute scene of John Wayne,

Walter Brennan, Ricky Nelson, and Dean Martin singing a song. Yep. And has a five-minute scene of John Wayne, Walter Brennan, Ricky Nelson, and Dean Martin singing a song. Yep. And you're just like... And we're going to sing it for you right now.

But in every... Like, every single other one of these, you either have the getting the guys... the gang together montage, which is one of my favorite features

in all of movies. And this... And Bike Riders has it in space. It does. Or they start all together. And Red October. There's no getting the gang together.

Yeah. That's true. I mean, look, you need to jump into the North Atlantic right now. When it comes to dudes, there are many colors on the spectrum. There are many ways in which you can be a dude. In some cases, you're a CIA operative on a submarine. That's something that you have to do sometimes when you want to rock out. Okay.

In other cases, you're a series of bandoleros who went down to Mexico to kill people and steal. Right. You know, that's another way to be a dude, as in The Wild Bunch. I think that the question is whether or not a dude's rock movie needs to make you feel like you would like to rock like those dudes or that those dudes simply rocked but perhaps died in the process. Yes. I was trying to avoid too much of a tragic feeling to the film.

You do need the thing where maybe you don't want to rock exactly like the dudes, you know, but you want to be a part of the gang. That's why I'm a Gibson 7 over Wild Bunch wild bunch maybe it should be aspirational in some way i mean like and goodfellas the genius of it is that like you you like henry hill do you want to be a part of it even though you see what that gets literally everyone how many times has chris ryan said drinks are on the house no no you gotta drink with me drinks are on the house that's just you just want to be around him you want to be around jimmy conway and that can apply to women watching as well that's the appeal of the d-rocks you know that it's all you want to be in the group but for example women would not be around the prison camp and the great escape you know like it's not like oh what if we

remade the great escape but it was 50 women like that wouldn't make sense. That isn't what the movie is about, you know? I understand that we are, you know, Chris has been railing this to EI for weeks. I'm not yelling at you about representation. I mean, The Great Escape is more like, I don't know if I want to be in those circumstances. No, you don't. But do you want to be on the back of the motorcycle

when McQueen's going over the hill? You know, like that's... Also, you know what? I think there has to be a a moment no matter how sad the end of a film might be there has to be a moment where a dude does something it doesn't matter how small of a gesture it is in the sting it's just touching your nose in The Great Escape it's Steve McQueen throwing a baseball against a wall in solitary confinement and you're like goddamn dude rock you put a guy in shoe and he's just throwing the baseball against the wall come on man and then he comes out looking better than ever McQueen can can it be like great but pathetic at the same time because there's two movies in the 70s that I really have a lot of affection for yeah Husbands the John Cassavetes movie. Three guys who go out

after one of their friends passes away and have a very messy weekend. I think anything in the Cassavetes canon is they're rocking differently.

Yeah. You know what I mean. But they are rocking. Well but like. It's dudes are broken. Yeah dudes are. But that in and of itself.

They're fighting against the darkness you know. i asked if kicking and screaming rocked oh interesting and i think yes no well i think it's that's the cast intellectually rock but they're all like fairly the scene in kicking and screaming where they have the book club about all the pretty horses aren't we glad that we all speak Spanish? I thought that rocked. I thought dudes rocked in that scene, but in a kind of ironic rocking way, which was accurate for the time of Slacker.

Would you say that that film and that approach to storytelling is the most influential on you as a podcaster? Like your whole approach to analyzing culture and spending time with your friends. It's because I'm kicking and screaming disturbingly, a disturbing amount. Right?

Yeah. Like does Bom about. Right? Yeah. Like does does Bomback know that? Like did Bomback invent podcasting is really what I'm asking. No Christian Slater didn't pump up the volume.

No that's not true. He invented pirate radio which generally kind of sucks. Podcasting does not suck. So that's not rocking. Okay.

There's not enough dudes in it. No it's just by himself. He's solitary. He's talking about cranking it solo. If you're cranking it solo you're not enough dudes in it. No, he's just by himself. He's solitary. He's talking about cranking it solo. If you're cranking it solo, you're not rocking. The thing about Kicking and Screaming and also Husbands is like, even as they are getting up to their hijinks together,

like no one's enjoying themselves. There is that like existential malaise at the bottom of it. You know? Kicking and Screaming is one of my favorite movies. Kicking and Screaming is one of my favorite movies of all time. I love it as well. One of my favorite movies of all time, California Split. Robert Allman's movie.

There's only two dudes. It's just George Segal and Elliot Gould. Two guys, two wayward men who find themselves in a shared love for gambling. And they get into some trouble and they lose a lot of money. Yeah. There's a real melancholy at the bottom of this movie. But there's also a real elation. Just to put an inside out money. Yeah. There's a real melancholy at the bottom of this movie, but there's also a real elation. Just,

we were talking about Inside Out 2. Right. That's the polarity. It's a movie I really identify with. Were you talking about Inside Out 2? Earlier in the week,

I guess. Yeah, last week. Earlier this week on the show when we were talking about it. Oh, and you were talking about how you feel joy. I have some anxiety. Okay.

That's what that movie is. I have George Segal. I have Elliot Gould. But can a Dude's Rock movie be a movie where you'reagull but can you can it can a dude's rock movie be a movie where you're like these guys actually really need like a lot of help like therapy they need to go back to their wives they need to stop drinking but many of these guys respectfully the goodfellas all yeah they all need some help absolutely you know see i didn't put goodfellas on the list yes you did did i yeah it's m it's right on her hunt for red october i

didn't mean to. Okay, well, I think that is like the self-conscious. I mean, that's the genius of Goodfellas, right? That it is like a dude's rock movie, but then also it brings their downfall. That rocking, you know. Here's the weird thing, though. Yeah. That movie has Karen. Well, sometimes we're here.

Like, sometimes. We exist. I'm not complaining about Karen. I come to work every day and try to rock with the dudes, you know? It's like, we can't be ignored. But you can be excluded from the dudes rock hall of fame. Yes. But we need to make it so that it's not just Prisoners of War

camp movies. We need to make sure. Yeah, I mean, that's... You said sometimes to the exclusive. Master and Commander? Yeah, well, is there a woman

in Master and Commander? No. I don't remember Master and Commander Googling. You don't remember Master and Commander in the far side of the world?

Okay, so like, not all types of rocking appeal to me in the same way that they appeal to you. Listen. Love this movie. Don't you? I don't think there's a single female character in this film. I like this movie. Paul Bettany playing Cello?

They're like old timey ships. Uh-huh. Don't call to me in the way that they call to you. I enjoy a different scene. I'm right there with you brother we're good master and commander let's go

he like discovers iguanas remember that I do I do dude's drawing animals rocking

it's it's badly needed on the rewatchables master and commander badly needed it's a perfect example of what we're describing here

where it's like these guys are getting up to some stuff on this ship. And there's no women. And there are no women around. It is a first ballot Hall of Famer. Okay.

There's a couple of very obvious 80s ones. I think both The Right Stuff and Top Gun are, you know, obviously, Kelly Mugles and Meg Ryan are in Top Gun,

but when the rocking is occurring, there are no women about. You know, there's no know when they're playing volleyball nope I guess when they're singing Great Balls of Fire I was going to say

the one bar scene that is actually they're literally rocking out yeah singing Jerry Lee Lewis it's fine where are you at on Jerry Lee Lewis's

marriages have you guys dug into those I thought that was funny did you actually watch the Jerry Lee Lewis documentary that Ethan Coen directed that's on Netflix? Did you know it exists? No.

Okay, that's crazy. I feel like I've gotten the entirety of the Jerry Lee Lewis story. Yeah. Yeah, you understand it all. Yeah. Because of the Dennis Quaid movie? No, the Nick Tosh's book. Did you read that?

Yeah. Oh. A long time ago. Is it called Great Balls of Fire? Yeah. I think so. Top Gun, yes. Right Stuff is auto yes. Absolutely. that yeah oh a long time ago is it called great balls of fire yeah um i think so top gun yes right stuff is yeah auto yes absolutely when he's like give me a stick of beemons

this actually the bike rider says a lot in common with the right stuff yeah i feel like in terms of trying to tell the story of a culture happening in america at a certain time and also using like phases by using the Sam Shepard phase and then the astronauts come together. Like basically, is Sam Shepard in your movie then it's a dude's rock movie?

Very interesting. Sam Shepard also memorably in Mud. That's right. The Jeff Nichols movie. Reservoir Dogs. I think dudes do rock in that movie

but I think it, this is where it's like outside of the like cool guys hanging out doing something cool is like, it's more men torturing one another. Does it rock for an undercover cop to betray his crew and get everyone murdered? It does when he's rehearsed the monologue extensively in front of a graffitied wall.

Okay. Good to know. And he has the commode story. I ask you specifically, Ronan. I think that might be a dude rock movie. Like a singular samurai man rocks. But his crew is not that great. He's often not trusting them.

He questions their loyalty throughout the film. Natasha McElhone perhaps has too many lines to be a dude's Ronan. Interesting. You think the studio said that as well? No, I don't. We need to cut some of Natasha's lines. I think Ronan is in play,

but I think that there are kind of, I think we have a couple of more really, really strong candidates here. Magic Mike, for instance. Yeah, I thought this was a Chris suggestion. What do you think about this as a huge fan of magic mike they're rocking in their own way for sure um and it is like they get the gang together everyone has some transcendent highs and then it kind of peters apart but they're all okay yeah i have a lot of affection for Cody Horn yeah

right what's up with her she got married to someone yeah yeah and now oh god is it like a traveling did Kevin love Kevin love

no actually who did she marry she dated Kevin Love I think yeah she did um I was looking at her

Instagram recently and I think she like runs an Airbnb now and that's Alan Horn's daughter it is yes I was a at her Instagram recently, and I think she like runs an Airbnb now. And that's Alan Horton's daughter? It is. Yes. I was a big fan of her.

I'm a big fan of Jed Meyer. Who is that? Toby McGuire's ex-wife. Oh, Jen Meyer. Who was Ron Meyer's daughter. Yeah, absolutely.

Maybe she did marry somebody. she married Reed Carolyn. That's right. Yeah. Right, of course. Channing Tatum's producer partner. and her Instagram is Cody H. Carolyn.

So she's the CEO of Two and You. I'm not aware of what that is. I believe she worked on- CEO? Yeah. But there's no link. She have her MBA? There's no link. She doesn't have a link tree?

She doesn't have a link tree. She is also a part of something called Cadence Kitchen, which has 392 followers. And it's you'll learn how to cook, not just follow a recipe. And it seems like cooking videos. So, Chris Ryan, maybe this is in your interest set. She also apparently worked with Channing Tatum on his children's book, Sparkella. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah.

And the family-run ranch she is apparently affiliated with. Well, shout out to her. I think maybe the fact that we're talking so much about Cody Horn, maybe it's just magic. Maybe it's not. It's not a dude's rock movie. I don't know. She. I think maybe the fact that we're talking so much about Cody Horn, maybe it suggests that Mike's not a dude I don't know. She has a very unique power in that film, as does Olivia Munn. I don't want to get too sidetracked, but I was just looking at the selected

works of Boyd Holbrook. It appears Do you know what his next... Do you want to run through his IMDb and I'll tell you all the good movies? No. I think I got that under control. Did you watch Narcos season one? I did. I thought it was really bad um i thought the voiceover was atrocious uh but i understand that that's what i first saw pablo escobar and i said to my girlfriend jenny he's got the best cocaine i've ever had

wow another voice in the tool i don't know i don't know if I could do my voice is actually really tired yeah he he's gonna appear in a complete unknown the new Bob Dylan movie he has a

he has a very prominent role I'm gonna give you a few guesses for who he might be portraying a very notable figure in Bob Dylan's life and a very notable figure in American music

is it Robbie Robertson it's not Robbie Robertson I like that guess he seems more like Rick Danko, actually. Think bigger. Elvis? Not quite that big. Okay. One more guess.

It's not Muddy Waters, I promise. That would be bracing. He's playing Johnny Cash. What a fucking legend. Wow. And you're doubting him? I don't think he can do it. I'm putting that on the table right now if you're wrong first of all i'm gonna look you in the eyes after we see a complete unknown and i'm gonna know the truth and when you're wrong i get first chair for a month for a month one month

i get to host the big picture and do whatever i want okay but i'm but i'm taking over the watch. No, you just sit here and watch me do it. It's like pod cucking. You have to watch me pod. You got to remember that Jim Mangold's got a bad addiction of Boyd Holbrook. I share that addiction. I see him in Boyd Anonymous every week. But I do. I like that movie. It's only Defender.

I mean, to go from... You've made two movies featuring Johnny Cash one stars Joaquin Phoenix one stars Boyd Holbrook I mean you didn't say that very nicely

I like Boyd Holbrook just fine this is a tall order for this pretty blonde man to be portraying Johnny Cash I think he'll do a really good job okay

throw a little Bobby Bait out there some late period dudes rock movies for me the nice guys had to go in here yeah great one Bait out there. Some late period Dudes Rock movies. For me, The Nice Guys had to go in here. Yeah, great one. But Triple Frontier and Ford vs. Ferrari. You skipped right past Everybody Wants Some.

Oh, and Everybody Wants Some. That's definitely more Bobby Bait, but all of those I'm good with. I feel like we're experiencing a renaissance of Dudes Rock movies. I mean, every 18, it seems like we add another one to the canon. Why do you think that is? Why do you think it is?

Who decided that? Who decided that? Do you think that's a reaction to something happening in the culture? It's an essential part of our culture and certainly filmmaking culture. You know, they just started a bunch of guys rocking out in the American West. I mean, gals do rock as well. And then they just... Gals rock?

Yeah. Like in August Osage County. You know, like... We don't get to rock in the same way. Yeah. That's incredible. And unfortunately, when we rock, it, you know, involves usually like a musical and some sparkles and some stuff. What is the quintessential gals rock movie?

Steel Magnolias? Oh, my God. Like a girls trip? Like, what are you talking about? I mean, I don't know. You know, it's like probably Mean Girls, but that's horrible. Bridesmaids? Or, I guess, Bachelorette.

But, you know. When girls are, when women are rocking, they're just awful to each other. They're just snorting cocaine in bathrooms. Yeah. Yeah. That's tough. You should work on, you should write one of those. Yeah.

Oh, a girl. The female Rio Bravo. Recast. Master and commander, but with women I'm sure there's like a dozen other movies that listeners will shout out for us yeah

Bob you mentioned to us that the bike riders didn't quite do it for you what happened no it didn't wait before we before I share my bike riders thoughts what about

Midnight Run that would be a dudes rocking right a two-hander dudes rocking it's basically you're right and it's right in the nice-hander dude's rocking? It's basically, you're right, and it's right in the nice guys. Does two make a band?

Well, that's also what I was going to say about Ford versus Ferrari. Yeah, does two make a band? You know. Yeah, they have teams. Like, Ford versus Ferrari has, like, you know, there's plenty of dudes. You know, we got Yafet Kodo,

and we got Joey Pants, and we got a lot of guys in Midnight Run. I would even say that within films that are depictions of like a solitary man achieving greatness, aka Ferrari, you can have a moment where many dudes rock like at the dinner table when he's like, you arrived at the same place and you must decide. Yes. That was a very accurate representation of that sequence. And that's dude's rocking yeah jack o'connell and patrick dempsey are like holy shit this guy's for

real bob why didn't you like the bike riders i i liked a lot of things about it i liked a lot of the component parts i liked the griminess of many of the performances i think i am currently working with a little bit of an Austin Butler allergy. I'm so sorry, Amanda. I don't mean to offend, but I just thought that he was slightly at a different speed. The thing that I keep coming back to is that it looks like Tom Hardy's been

punched in the face repeatedly for most of his life, and it looks like Austin Butler has never been touched before by human hands, like that he was sent down from heaven. I thought that that dichotomy though i understand welcome to the movies into that didn't quite work for me it took me out of it a little bit i love jodie comer in the movie i thought her accent really worked for me i understood that it was like the 1960s midwest but it didn't feel specific it felt so broad in the

setting of the movie and i couldn't really lock into that aspect of it but i thought that there was a lot of really interesting filmmaking elements behind it i thought it looked really cool i actually do love motorcycles and engines and american muscle but there were just a few things that didn't quite coalesce in that synchronous way for me i think a lot of people will share bobby's opinion which is why this movie is tracking to not do very well, which I think is a damn shame. You just went back on it. Yeah, you promised.

You know, I have a lot of problems. I don't know what to say. I'm a recidivist. You were just like, tracking doesn't matter. Let's get rid of it. I don't think we're going to come in on Monday and it's going to be like, the bike riders made $118 million?

How did this happen? Inside out, bent the knee. We never thought that. It was a Fox movie, right? Where it was Searchlight and then they cut it loose. Yes. Did you talk to Jeff Nichols

about this? They cut those guys loose. I mean, I know what happened. They cut those guys. They cut those guys loose. They cut these guys loose. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, the movie was originally supposed to come out by Searchlight in the fall. Yeah. You know the movie was originally supposed to come out by Searchlight in the fall. Yeah. You know, there were some leadership changes at Regency which financed the movie in full and effectively licensed the movie to the studio. The studio didn't pay for the movie.

So when that happens, there's more flexibility there to move studios. So I think that there was some stuff in the mix there that allowed them to go to Focus. Now they're going to focus I hope people go see it it is archetypal and it is trying to

I think what Bobby described about the difference between Tom Hardy's character and Austin Butler's character is not a mistake it is a purposeful move that is hearkening back to a very specific time

in movie making that Jeff Nichols has a lot of affection for just might not work for some people which I get that's fine I'm glad it worked for you

yeah it's true I'm glad you got to find a new character for your arsenal of voices I don't mean I hope enough people see it that I can well I guess that

didn't really matter with Wayne Jenkins I was able to so what is Wayne Jenkins from from We Own This City yeah yeah yeah one of those

did you see that no I was about to say one of those shows that you guys talked about on the watch a lot um a lot of those this year. I'm just letting you know.

We're going to take a break. We're going to say goodbye to Chris. Chris, will you say kinds of kindness? Now's the time. Do it. Now's the time what? For your bit. For my take?

I think, I just think Yorgos is overrated. He's not on this show, right? He's coming up next. He's fine. You know nothing of my work. You proclaimed at dinner the other night that you would just never see another Yorgos Lanthimos movie. That was a candid off-the-record conversation.

Maybe I won't. You know, unless... Unless... He sticks his own Greek foot into the dude's rock pool and is like, I'll make one for CR. You know? Interesting. So too many women

in his movies is her feedback. No one ever said that before, but maybe that's true. I was kind of nudging toward this when you look at the last few films he's made. They're basically only about women. No, that's not true. That's not true.

That's not why I don't like it. And it's not. It's a bit. I haven't seen. Did you see the favorite? Poor Things. I was going to say Pretty Things. Did you see the favorite though?

Yeah, of course. Yeah. You didn't see Poor Things. I didn't have this fake fucking persona back when I was like seeing the favorite. I was just a guy at the movies. And I was like, ladies cursing. You pulled the curtain back. Ladies rock in the favorite.

They do rock in the favorite. That is women rocking. Good call. Absolutely. Anytime you can get gout, you are rocking. Absolutely. Okay. Chris, thanks so much.

Great to see you. Great to see you guys too. Good luck with everything going forward. What's in this McDonald's bag? The McValue Meal. For $5.79 plus tax, you can get your choice of Junior Chicken, McDouble, or Chicken Snack Wrap, plus small fries and a small fountain drink. So pick up a McValue Meal today at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada.

Prices exclude delivery. We're back. Speaking of deranged men. An incredible intro from Chris into this next segment. He'll never see this movie, which is a shame for him. Is it a shame? Kinds of kindness. This is a new triptych, a new three-part anthological movie from Yorgos Lanthimos.

The beloved? Celebrated? Certainly celebrated. Filmmaker most recently behind Poor Things, who's got this ongoing collaboration with Emma Stone going right now, which is quite interesting. This movie certainly feels like a callback to the early days of the Yorgos experience. This movie's co-written with Ephemis Philippou,

who is his co-writer on Dogtooth, Alps, The Lobster, Killing of a Sacred Deer, all those fun Greek movies that are inscrutably wonderful and deeply allegorical and quite strange, bloody, filled with sex and violence. What'd you think of this movie? I'm annoyed by my own reaction to it. Intriguing. You're in my shoes for a change oh being annoyed at me yeah okay i was like you seem pretty confident about all of your feelings all of the time um i mean because you liked it and you didn't want to or because you didn't like it and you did want to

because i didn't like it and i don't like the reasons that i didn't respond to it um well that's interesting it's not that i didn't well and that's the other thing it's not that i didn't like it i mean yorgos is a great filmmaker you know it is like an interesting movie you can't say that these are bad you can't say that they're without ideas you can't say that the filmmaking is like filmed in or phoned in you can't say that the performances performances are boring. Um, but I think, you know, I'm, I am prejudiced against anthology and, and shorter things. Um, but also together, this is three short films that become, that are thematically linked somewhat through the idea of control and they, that means it goes on for quite a long time um and i found myself getting a little exasperated by the third installment by just both the hammering of the themes of the very

particular um style and tone of a yoris lanthimus. You know, I think it's in the third film where Emma Stone has her ridiculous breakdance, which she gets one per Lanthimos movie as do all characters. And I was like, oh, okay, you know? But that does also feel dismissive of what is an interesting filmmaker. I think some of it is,

like, I thought the first was much stronger than the other two. Agreed. And I think some of it is, like I thought the first was much stronger than the other two. Agreed. And I think, so you watch the first one, you're like, okay, well, I would keep going with this.

Like you have me. And do you just want to make a film out of this? And you don't, and that's your right. But it does almost veer towards museum, like piece at some point, like durational museum piece. And that has

its merits but it's just when i go to the movie theater to sit down to like watch a two-hour movie you know like i i i kind of expect the bike riders and not you know experimental film yeah they're interestingly matched against each other this movie is still only in limited release this weekend i think it goes more wide next weekend but uh this isn't exactly Star Wars A New Hope. You can't really spoil this movie. It is mannered in that very absurdist way that all of his early films are. Really, all of his first four films are. And then the favorite signal is like a shift when he starts collaborating with Tony McNamara.

The first film is called The Death of RMF. And I think one of the reasons why it works better, and this is not a criticism of Emma Stone, but it's the movie that is not focused on Emma Stone. It's the movie that is focused on Jesse Plemons' character. And Jesse Plemons, we've not seen him in the Lanthimos world before, and he's very well suited to delivering the dialogue, to holding the kind of like sense of seriousness in the face of ridiculousness that comes with all of his stories. Also think the idea is a little bit stronger. All three of these ideas, as you said, are about control. The first film is about control and sort of like the workplace employment career, the way that like you pledge a fealty to the structure and then it controls you. The second film is about relationships and the way that marriages or love can also dictate how you are able to move within or without your life.

And then the third is sort of like religion and faith and cult and, you know, all of these like big concepts that exist in common life. The first one, maybe just because I'm just a workaholic, just felt more resonant to me. It is also, these are all our world turned on its head, but it's the least turned on its head, right? It's sort of like a Black Mirror, Twilight Zone setup where this person has a job and a boss and you recognize all of the things and the situations

within their frame until you don't. And you're like, oh, that's not how I have decided what to have breakfast in the morning. And that's not how I communicate with my boss or drive a car. But those are all things we do every day. The second one is shorter and is really like the most fantastical. And then- I would say the most unnerving of the three, but not necessarily the most effective. And then the third is without spoilers, like about a cult. So, you know, a source of fascination to be sure. And we always want to know what's in a cult, but you're not, you that I know of have not joined a cult beyond Letterboxd.

So it's like. Nothing cultish about us. We are a full-blown religion. We have been acknowledged. Did you watch the Austin Butler, Jodie Comer, Hate Letterboxd fans videos? Did not. How was it? It was good.

It was suggested by a friend that we should just like recreate it verbatim because Austin Baller is just like, hey, Letterboxd guys. And Jodi Comer is like, you know, hello, computer people. What did they pick? No, I think they were just like introducing. It wasn't like the four. It wasn't the four favorites. Yeah. Okay, that's too bad.

Would Austin Baller's four favorites be like persona you know light sleeper you know you don't need to be rude you know he's trying he's making a serious effort to be taken seriously and i'm happy for him he's appearing in a new ari aster movie i can't wait you know i think he has the juice anyway you love a weird a weird guy. Just like a guy who's, like, very handsome, but he's, like, definitely pretty fucking weird. Yeah. That's your taste. I mean, but I don't want, like, a standard handsome guy. That's boring.

Sure, yeah. Right. But Austin Butler is as close to, like, normie, like, all women want him as you go, I think. Yeah, like, you once very dismissively but also i felt accurately i think when we were talking about all the snl husbands and they were like you guys all want the same guy just like you know tall seems you know bookish and intellectual but like actually hangs out and can like make a joke you know and it's and that's i guess that's awesome he's no he's like a little more actorly if anything oh yeah um you know a little ret and that's i guess that's awesome he's no he's like a little more actorly

if anything oh yeah um you know a little reticent to talk about anything other than his craft but wait till he plays christia hairless and heat too it's fucking over for you it's over for us all why are we talking about this oh yeah so i haven't joined a cult is right that you know so i disagree i mean i'm not being critical yo you think i've joined a cult i think you're in many cults i think that i think that part of what works about this third one is is that it's all about how you see it you can't tell me what to do like that what do you mean you like i just like one person can't tell like i couldn't i would have one day in a sofia tells you what to do you model modes of of your lifestyle. I can't afford to model. But you aspire to them.

But that's what cults do. She released like $3,000. That's the same thing that Christianity does. $8,000, you know, Barry Cashmere sets for the plane. I can't afford that. That's in the micro. In the macro,

she's creating the presentation of a lifestyle that you aspire to, that you feel represents a fully realized lifestyle. That's the same thing that a cult does. A cult teases you with what could be all the time. And if you do these things for me, then you will be able to achieve them.

I'm not, I have my own problems with this shit. I'm a member of a lot of weird cults. I just think that that idea is more fungible than the Netflix documentary idea of a cult where it's like, there's one man with a bad haircut and glasses and you wonder why everybody worships him. And yet 318 people worshiped him and then they all killed themselves for him like obviously that's what they're playing with structurally but i think that the

i think all of these movies are trying to be i talk a lot more than sofia coppola so in that sense well that is true you know that is true but you, nature versus nurture. It's inspiration rather than like a, you know, dogmatic. Do you aspire to speak less? No. Okay. I mean, like here we are. I can't help it. In that way, you are different.

You know what I'm saying though. I'm using it as like a funny example. I do, but I think what I'm trying to identify is the reason that the first film had more resonance for me is that it's just less of a jump. I think one thing working against, I think you're right. I do think you're right. But one thing working against it is that every time you restart a new movie, you're like, okay, we're going to do this again. Like, when's the weird thing going to happen again? And then that holds you back. As opposed to if they had elongated the first film to 82 minutes instead of the 58 minutes that it is.

You might feel differently. But the truth is, you're right. It's a two-hour and 45-minute movie. It's basically a series of, like, abstract Rorschach jokes. You know, it's like, if you're this kind of person, you're going to like this idea. Or you're not going to like this idea. It's very, very funny to me that Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe and Jesse Plemons are in this movie.

You know, because when it was dog tooth, you're like, here's one of the Greek actors I've never seen doing this odd performative thing. Even The Lobster, which is a curious movie and has big stars. But the log line is really funny. Yes. You know, what if you died and became an animal?

You know, like that's just really funny. This doesn't have that. This is just weird people doing things. Right. Suss it out for yourself. Hard to sell. And it's effectively being sold on Emma Stone Dancing in a commercial. Right.

I'm curious to see. I mean, the public at large is basically not going to see this movie. Not going to see it, yeah. But it has a sheen. Yeah. Well, I mean, it does feel like what you get to do when you are Yorgos Lanthimos. Right. And you've done poor things.

And Emma Stone has won the Oscar. And you've already got like your next big ticket feature starring Emma Stone in the works. And it's like, oh, I can have some fun. And I think it's cool that all of those actors were also like, oh, sure. I'll come be weird. Like that is what art is supposed to be. And so that's kind of, like, why I hate my reaction. If they felt like doing this, what's, like, yeah, what's my problem?

Yeah. I mean, I liked it. I don't have any. I don't think it's as effective as his best movies at all. I didn't dislike it. I was just like, okay, you know, this is not even half-baked. But I was just kind of like, this was you like okay you know this is not even half baked but i was just kind of like this was you guys like experimenting and i enjoyed parts of it and responded to parts of it and didn't to others and it's and it's cool that you get to do this because no one really just gets to

you know make a film on a lark anymore i wonder what the budget for this movie ultimately was because obviously it's shot in like motel rooms and local homes um i don't know what was it from louisiana i can't can't figure out where it was filmed um but it is this magic trick of mega maybe the female movie star yeah of the era doing something this unusual surrounded by margaret qualley hong chao like a lot of very well-known actors um i joe allen you saw he spoke joe allen joe allen a little scary in the third yeah in the third film i thought he was effective pretty upsetting yeah uh you think that like represents maybe how he was in other circumstances in the world but he did like he did his one promo interview for kinds of kindness he was the cover i think it was like sunday times magazine or

something and you know he gave his three sentence quote about your ghost is just a tortured poet no no no about the yeah he didn't do that okay he was just like it's very odd to be in the center of a painful uh relationship that then you know oh he he spoke on it publicly yeah but it was very prepared which is the is the right strategy you keep circling back to this and it seems like he's managed to dodge all bullets. Well, that's really interesting. Did you hear that Mattie Healy is engaged? I did not. Yeah.

To whom? I don't actually remember. Let's Google. Zendaya? Mattie Healy engaged, not to Zendaya. Gabriette? Gabriette? Mm-hmm.

Is it just, is it a mononym? That was, yes. It is a mononym that it was yes uh it is a mononym yes she's a musician gabriette yes but like this is how i i one day i i woke up and i was 28 and then the next day i was 42 like i don't know what the fuck happened but i'm just like who the hell is gabriette i will be super honest i learned who gabriette was when i learned that Maddie Healy was engaged to Gabriette. I'm seeing that she has a listed last name of Bechtel. Yeah, but it was like... But she goes by.

Yeah, she goes by. And so like Pop Crave was like Maddie Healy and Gabriette are engaged. And then Maddie Healy's mom, who just has a lot of tabloid reporters on speed dial, was like, yes, they are engaged oh this is fucking dime store sky ferrera bullshit this is the problem with these kids we had this 10 years ago we had it i mean i just i'm i'm i'm really worried about the decisions that taylor is going to make next you know because of this news yeah i'm not going to share any opinions about this there's just no upside.

You just like actually shouldn't. But this is actually sort of fun for me where I just like make you listen and you're like too afraid to say anything. I like to get blown away by my devastating age. When does preseason start? When does what? When does preseason NFL start? August. Oh, okay.

All right. Why do you ask? Well, because then Travis will be otherwise. Oh. Will he though? I Well, because then Travis will be otherwise. Oh. Will he though? I mean, he's playing again. I'm not expecting a huge season for Travis. Really?

Yeah. Why not? Just coming off of the incredible success. He's a hit podcaster now. He's going to have a TV show on Amazon. Right. Are you smarter than a celebrity? Yeah.

Which I feel like he's spread a little thin. Don't you think? I do. But he's still kind of showing up they were in lake como together between stops on the heiress tour taylor swift and travis kelsey yeah i don't care now she's in the uk uh-huh but soon she's gonna do london shows famously where she lived with joe owen just like reading this all day just like where is taylor today but you know what's Uh-huh. But soon she's going to do London shows, famously where she lived with Joe Allen. So you're just like reading this all day. Just like, where is Taylor today?

But you know what's amazing? It's like, I'm not. Because you come in and you're like really mean about like Letterboxd. And you're like, oh, you and your little cult boys. You like spend all day looking at your phone, looking at where you think Taylor Swift might be. It's true. Well, but I'm not seeking it out you know what are you talking about it's just it's just kind of like i know this information it just comes to me amanda right here she's completely right it just comes to you algorithmically

through all feeds i know all this stuff too i know about the london shows it's not also but i'm not more is playing with taylor It's not because I'm on some app being like, Red is like my five-star album. And the, you know, the re-release Taylor's version is only something and like fighting with people in the comments and trying to get a date or whatever. Like I just, I'm opening my phone. So you're trying to cede responsibility for your knowledge of Taylor Swift's whereabouts. Because you're being forced to look at the algorithm. I was like, it gets served to you.

Like, this is how I was like, who the hell is Gabriette? Delete the app. What are you talking about? I did delete the app. Remember? Desktop only. So you're just banging away

on your desktop about this stuff. Or on Instagram. Yeah. I didn't delete the Instagram app. That's true. Yeah. You know.

And then, you know, like group chat and people are just, you know, I read newsletters. I'm still looking at Gabrielle's Instagram page. And now I'm going to get served this shit for the next two weeks. I, yeah, I read newsletters too. I don't know anything about Taylor Swift.

No one is serving me anything. You know why? Because I'm not engaging in any of it. Right. When you engage. Yeah. You know, feeds the machine. You know, I was thinking about this.

I was going to make this point on the Kevin Costner podcast, but I'm going to make it right now because it's salient to this okay here's what happened here's how everything got fucked up this is important in the 80s and 90s you could just try something new you could just go out and you could be like oh i think fields of dreams i think kevin costner's career in the 90s is gonna show us us that you really, really sometimes could not. I completely disagree with that. You could try it and then everyone would be like, no. And then you would still make the postman.

But that's what I'm saying. That is something that he did, that he consistently was like, I'm so glad you enjoyed me in Field of Dreams. What I would like to do is make five movies about the post-apocalyptic landscape. He was a weird guy. He was trying stuff. Now, when you like something, the machines understand right away what it is that you like.

They track based on the one second of engagement that you give it, and then you get served it forever. So you claim that you don't really want to know where Taylor Swift is. I know that that's not true, but I know what you're saying, and I know what Bobby is saying,

which is that once they see that you've seen it once, then that's all you get served. So what you don't get served is a new thing you never find something new that you're excited about that's not true i know about cabriette now that's not a new thing that's just an extension of the thing that you already know about and the point is and i'm just as guilty of this as anybody i'm not really i'm like fucking looking at letterbox all day now because i'm like oh i found a thing that is safe that I understand that I like but now we're living in these fucking cocoons of culture it sucks

how are you supposed to discover anything you never thought you would have liked in the first place except unless I make you watch a movie you otherwise wouldn't watch but otherwise how do you find something new I think this is important I'm just going to put that out on the table that was incredible that was really great stuff I can't wait to explore this idea more on the Cost. That was incredible. That was really great stuff.

I can't wait to explore this idea more on the Costner Hall of Fame pod. Wait till we get to it. Wait till I talk about the pivot from Field of Dreams to JFK. Let me just... You, Sean Fennessey, in 2024, watching a bunch of Kevin Costner movies, just discovered the fragmentation of culture. No, I have always understood it. But what I have realized fully. Oh, right.

But you're just now experiencing it. No, what I have fully understood is that I'm not getting the chance to try new things because I'm not thinking about them because I'm inundated by only the things that are interesting to me. Now, obviously, this is an understood concept. Like there are a lot of data scientists

and culture writers who have located this before. I'm not saying I broke through on something. But in, like, movie culture is a really narrow valence to think about it through. And even in the prism of Kevin Costner's mainstream movie career, maybe the most mainstream movie career of all time, he was like, you know what?

Weird thing. Emma Stone is doing it. Emma Stone is doing it Emma Stone is doing it when she does it a hundred thousand dollars worth of people are going to show up for it like it's not even possible to do it in the way that you used to do it I think it's interesting I think it's important it's definitely fascinating I mean I have a lot of thought of thoughts on Kevin Costner's 90s yeah we, we're going to get into it in full. I'm really excited about that. But I don't think that the algorithm is to blame for what happened to Kevin Costner. I'm not saying that.

I'm not saying that. I think there are a variety of factors. We'll discuss those as well. You could look at the last 15 years of Kevin Costner's career and say that he figured out, oh, okay, people just want one thing for me. And so now I shall be dusty. I know.

That's heartbreaking. I'm not trying to be annoying or self-serving, but isn't that part of what makes podcasts interesting to people is that there are other people that you're listening to talk about things that they're passionate about and then you can find them. Like, Chris, who just left this podcast, goodbye Chris, in a huff of Yorgos Lanthimos takes, is someone who's introduced me to a lot of music that I would have never found otherwise.

Like, you just gotta talk to people. That's my take. Talk to people, not without the algorithmic buffer. Yeah, you don't let me talk about stuff. That's the thing. You're always trying to silence me.

I want to talk about a teacup. I'm trying to silence you? Yeah. You were like, women cannot rock. And then, I didn't say that you have historically they don't talking about uh tea cups and lip balm but that's not the focus of this show well sophia coppola endorsed both of them so i know well if you would have if you will admit that you're in her cult about your film related physical objects that you are a capitalist.

No, they're films. They're just on a disc. Right. And then you're just obsessed with their plastic packaging. But I can't talk about my, you know, cruelty-free lip balm in a range of shapes. I mean, you can. Go stand against the wall and talk about it. Like, feel free.

That sounds awesome. Wall Talks is a great opportunity for the Rigor Movies YouTube channel. That's good. we get you like a you should do mirror talks you look into the mirror and we put a gopro on your head and you just talk like you you should do a makeup pod no i don't i don't wear enough makeup to do a makeup a lip balm pod i'm just trying to you know how guess how much the lip of the sofia coppola i guess in his bait or lip balm costs guess. I want you to guess. $79. No, okay.

Well, I built you up. It's $42, which frankly is a lot for a lip balm that you're going to lose in two seconds. Have you ever finished a tube of lip balm? I have, yeah. I famously have chapped lips. Sure, but like it's an object that I feel like you lose before you get to the end of it. I lose them all the time, yes. I have finished them, but yes, I lose them 98% of the time. All right, see, we found common ground again.

On lip balms. Yeah. As usual, I just made so many mistakes in my life. I just don't even know what's happening anymore. Let's go to my conversation with Jeff Nichols. I'm broken. Jeff Nichols is here. I'm very excited. We started doing this show in 2017.

So I've never had a chance to have you in the studio or on the podcast. And I thought I would open actually by hearing a little bit about what was happening in your filmmaking life, 2016 to 2024, because it's been a period of time since you've had a film out in the world. Yeah, it has, you know. It's important to look at kind of what was happening in my career, but also in my life. I was living in Austin. My wife and my son at the time was six years old. And life was pretty good. Loving came out. We toured with it on the award circuit.

Midnight Special came out that year. And I remember telling people at the time doing those interviews that there's a quote from Mark Twain about, you know, creatively, the well gets empty. You got to refill the well. And I felt like I needed to go refill the well. I didn't know that it would take quite as long as it did. I've never been a prolific writer. I'm very slow. And I'm not very strategic when it comes to my career in the sense that I, you know, I don't know what you would call it, but build a slate of projects, you know, it happens kind of organically over time because you have scripts that don't immediately get made. So then you start to have kind of a backlog of them. But I wasn't in that position.

I didn't have anything written in 2016. And I got this really interesting call from Fox. And they said, hey, do you want to remake Alien Nation? And I said, absolutely not. Um, I love Mandy Patinkin as much as the next guy, but, uh, and I remember seeing that film in the theater in little rock, Arkansas, but, but no, no, thank you. Um, and then I called Brian Kavanaugh Jones, my producing partner. I said, get this. They want me to remake alien nation. And he was like, well, now wait a second, Jeff. You just pitched me this giant sci-fi idea, this original idea.

Why don't you talk to them about it? And you could put that title on it. And if that makes them comfortable making it, so be it. So I called him back and kind of told him the idea. And the next really three years of my life, it was 2019, we got to the one yard line on that one. We were scouting locations. We were ready to go.

And it was going to be a massive film. And then Disney closed the deal on Fox and they came in and reviewed all the projects. And they basically said, why would we want this film? I was like, because it's going to be good. And they said, yeah, but we have Star Wars. And I said, I completely understand. Thank you very much for your time.

And so. Heartbreaking? Yeah, heartbreaking. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you can't invest that much of your time. I built an entire alien civilization and backstory and mythology. And it kind of did everything I wanted it to do. It felt like a four quadrant Jeff Nichols film, which that's weird, but that's what it is. And

I kind of found myself, and it was the second time in my career, I'd found myself kind of looking up going, oh man, I got to go make a movie. The first time that it happened was actually in 2008 right on the heels of shotgun stories i'd been approached with the help of david gordon green who helped me make my first film he was going to make a film called goat which was inspired by a memoir by brad land and killer films was going to make it and david was at that point in his career making the decision to go off and and make pineapple express and really take this other you know trajectory in his career and making the decision to go off and, and make Pineapple Express and really take this other, you know, trajectory in his career. And he said, you should, you should talk to Nichols about that. And we did. And, and I wrote a script for that and, um, which they never paid me for. And I, uh, and I loved it and that was supposed to be my second film. And, and again, that was

another one, you know, they, they started to talk about, you know, shoot locations and dates and, um, and then the financing fell through and I never heard from them again. And, uh, and I was sitting there in the summer of 2008, like, oh no, you know, shocking stories came out in 2006, whatever energy or whatever, you know, foothold I got from that, uh, was dissipating if it wasn't already gone and I needed to write some scripts. So that summer I wrote the script for Mud and Take Shelter in the same summer. So I found myself in 2019 in a similar place, except now I really needed to make some money because I'd gotten paid once to, you know. This was going to be my question was basically, how do you survive as a filmmaker when this period of time goes by without a project going? The truth is the Alienation deal was massive. You know, it was more money than I'd ever seen in my entire life. Cause I don't make a lot of money direct in the movies. Um, but that got my writing quote up. So then all of a sudden, you know, I was making like real money, like doctor money, you know, as a, as a screenwriter.

Um, I just, I'm not very prolific. So I wasn't writing a lot of projects. Um, so the first thing I did, um, I did two things. One, uh, there had been a company that, that had heard about the bike riders and, and was really wanting me to do it. Uh, so I had my producing partner call him and say, just say yes. You know, I'd always been scared about accepting money to write that because I really didn't have it figured out. Um, I could pitch you the story you would think I did, but the truth was I really didn't know how to do that and I was intimidated by it. But there was also another project called Yankee Comandante, which was based on a David Grand article from the New Yorker in 2012,

which I was obsessed with. Great piece. When it first came out, I raised my hand for it and I don't raise my hand for anything, usually because I've got stories of my own I want to be telling. But at the time, that story went to George Clooney's company and they tried to develop it. That didn't work out. And around the time that, you know, this kind of debacle happened with Alien Nation at Fox, I get a call that this new company, Imperative, has the rights to Yankee Commandante. They're also the company that had the rights to Killers of the Flower Moon. And would I be interested in riding it? I said, absolutely. So, uh, and lo and behold, uh, it didn't immediately get financed. And, um, and then I get this call from John Krasinski about, Hey, do you want to, you know, write the prequel to a quiet place? And again,

my initial reaction, which is always my initial reaction is like, absolutely not. Um, you should have called me for the first one. Um, I do rural things, you know, like, like he's like, absolutely not. You should have called me for the first one. I do rural things, you know, like he's like, ah, we'll do this big thing in New York. And I was like, I don't, I'm scared of New York. I don't like New York. Let me ask you about that. Did he, did you, do you know him? Why did he think of you?

What is your reputation to these people who are coming to you for these ideas? I mean, I don't know. You'd have to ask him. You know, he said a lot of really nice things. He'd obviously liked my films. And maybe you could see a little bit of my films and some of his, um, but, uh, he was a really nice guy, really easy to talk to. And, um, and you try to have these conversations with people up front. You try to say, look, this isn't about my ego. Um, but if I do this, it's going to become a Jeff Nichols film.

And not that the world cares about a Jeff Nichols film. What I'm talking about is process. Like my producers, my team, you know. And at the beginning, you're like, yes, yes, obviously, yes, yes. That's what we want. That's what we want. Then you get to a point in the process and you realize, ah, that's not what you want. This isn't really going to be mine. And you're asking for changes that that i don't see on the page and and i think it's better if i just step

away from this you know and um and that's what happened you know but it but it was a great paycheck it was kind of a cool experience to kind of um i don't know try to write a giant movie like that and uh it served its purpose in the middle of the pandemic. And now they're making a movie out of it and it's going to compete against my movie in June. So great. Yeah. There was something sickly ironic about that. Yeah. It's, it's a weird world we live in. But, um, but then, you know, after, after that kind of, you know, ran its course, uh, I had already started, I had about 30 pages already on the bike rider so I got back to that and was like okay this is it like this is the one I finished those 30 you know I finished that script

and and we're starting to come out of the pandemic it's 2022 we share the script with New Regency which is a really unique company my producing partner Brian Cavanaugh Jones again had a relationship with them they read it they loved it We didn't really take it out to the town and they committed to make it without any cast attached. And so then I could kind of set out about, you know, earnestly talking to people about, okay, next fall we're going to do this. And that's how that process began. The thing I think that is so interesting about all of that that you just described is it seems like for 15, 20 years, Hollywood has been trying to suck you into the tractor beam that so many independent filmmakers that have something that resembles your background and

experience get sucked into very quickly. Very quickly. They take on a big franchise job or just writing a big studio movie. Yeah. And you've always found ways to... Avoid that? Lied that? I don't know.

And yet somehow do the thing that you're doing. I will say, though, that the bike riders, in a way, does feel like, and I don't mean this in a pejorative sense, the most traditional of your movies. I don't know if you see it that way. Maybe it's because 50s and 60s biker movies are in the DNA of American movies. I don't know if you see it that way because maybe it's because 50s and 60s biker movies are like in the DNA of American cinema. They are like essential to American movies.

So there's something like classical about this one relative to the other movies you've made. I mean, it's certainly a subgenre unto itself, the biker film. But you could also look at Loving

and say, oh, he made a historical drama. You know, at the time, that felt like the most easily digestible by the Hollywood marketing community. But now I have this, which agreed. You have incredible actors.

You have movie stars, stone cold movie stars. And you got this kind of very aggressive, masculine looking movie. When they cut the trailer together, you're like, wow, that looks like a real movie. It's not really part of the calculus though. I've been thinking about this movie for 20 years. I kind of jokingly have said I've been just unsuccessful enough not to be caught up in, uh, in the, the, the Hollywood machine. And what that really means is I was given, I was given enough time to really develop a point of view as a filmmaker. And that is not an

opportunity that a lot of filmmakers are given, um, or even afforded, you know, cause, cause you do have to live, you do have to make, make a living. And it is an incredibly alluring thing to be given this big budget and this big opportunity. And it works out for a lot of filmmakers. It just never worked out for me. I remember, I got a call from my agent the day after we premiered Take Shelter and Sundance. And he says, how's it feel to be the king of Sundance? So I guess it feels good. Agents know how to talk, don't they? They really know how to sell you. And he said, well, I just got a call and they want you to remake Poltergeist. And I was like, well, I already remade Poltergeist. It's called Take Shelter. And we got into those

conversations. And at some point, I think they thought I was negotiating, but they offered me a million bucks to remake Poltergeist. And I was like, no, I want to go get paid DGA scale to make this movie Mud. And they just were confused. Why? But it's because Mud was far more interesting to me. Mud was part of my life. I'd had that script at that point written for three years and I'd been thinking about it since college. So it was actually a really easy choice to make you know just as long as I could get Matthew McConaughey to say yes we'd be off to the races so you know

it's strange to wake up at some point in the middle of your career and say oh I actually yeah I do actually know how to do this

and I do actually have a point of view on how I want my movies to look and feel and operate on the audience Is there any part of you when something like that happens in that 2011, 2012 moment,

whether it's your own psyche or maybe even in your household, someone saying to you like, maybe this won't be here two years from now. Take the money. If you don't do it, this is pretty risky. Not that Mudd is like a risk per se, but it's certainly riskier than remaking a well-known horror movie. Yeah, I suppose. I've just never approached it that way.

If you start thinking that way, I think it'll be a stockbroker or something. You know, there are a lot of easier ways to make money. A lot of filmmakers are careerists, though. You know, like a lot of them. I talk to a lot of them. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how to do anything else. You know, like a lot of them. I talked to just keep making these things that I feel passionate about. And, um, and so at the end of the day, it's not as hard of a decision because none of it ever actually

feels real. You know, uh, the thing about quiet place day one is I found an emotional connection to that film by the end. Uh, I found an, an ending in that story that, I mean, it gave me, you know, tears and goosebumps. And so, so that one, I felt like maybe I could, maybe I could pull that one off. Um, and so, you know, every project's different. I never found that on, on Poltergeist. So I was never in danger of, uh, of making that, of making that film. Um, and really that is, that seems to be the litmus for me is, all right, what's my emotional connection to this? Because it can be anywhere. It can be any genre.

I think I've proven that over the six films. But there has to be some emotional connection for me. Was it the Danny Lyon book that got put in your hands that gave you the idea to do the movie? Or did that come after? Like what's the chronology there in terms of thinking you wanted to do a biker movie and then there being this photography book? The book came first and the book is everything. You know, in 2003, my older brother, Ben, who's in this band Lucero, who's always been the coolest one in the family, the coolest clothes, coolest music, you know, coolest everything. He hands me this book and it was a 2003 reissue, had a red and white cover. And I just fell in love

with it immediately. But there's this process that happens when you look at the book. You look at the photos first and they're beautiful. They're romantic, complex, compelling. But then you start to read the interviews because Danny Lyon wasn't just a photographer. In a way, he's kind of an anthropologist. He really considered himself a journalist and he was into new journalism. So he had a reel-to-reel recorder and along with, you know, ingratiating himself into these subcultures in order to get people to allow him to photograph them, he would talk to them. And he was great at getting them to open up and just talk about them. And he was great at getting them to open up and just talk about themselves. And so when you read these interviews, they're not romantic.

They're unvarnished, at times cruel, at times funny, shocking, hilarious, certainly introspective. And what I realized over the course of, you know, why am I so attracted to this book over all these years? Uh, it's because it is everything that a filmmaker needs to describe a subculture, all those little details that you want as a filmmaker and as a storyteller to show the human experience he'd collected them. I just needed a plot, which I did not have. And so the book was really beyond source material. It was the vibe. It was the feeling. It was everything I wanted to do. So much so that when I went to do extra research and started Googling motorcycle clubs and motorcycle culture outside

of this book, I got disgusted, to be honest. Um, I, I wasn't interested at all in any of that other stuff. And it didn't feel like what I felt when I read Danny's book. What did you feel? Um, you know, there's violence and there's, there, there are things that, um, what I realized was all of those news reports and all of those things, they're really not about people. They're just about the actions of people. And Danny's book is about people. Uh, it, it, it really is, um, an analysis of the psychology of this, you know, subculture. And that's what I'm drawn to. I'm drawn to working class people that, um, are letting you know how they tick. And. And so that almost doubled me back into the book. I don't need other research. Everything I need's in this book or something that I'm going to create. And that's by the culture. I was intimidated by the accent and the regionality of the Midwest.

I grew up in the South. I don't know this voice. I don't feel comfortable writing in this voice. But in around 2014, I reached out to Danny and we met. And he essentially gave me all of the original audio recordings. And that's when I started to feel confident because I could hear them. I could see them in the pictures, but I could hear them. And that brought it to life. And that gave me the confidence to write in that voice,

a voice that I was not comfortable with. And of course, Kathy, played by Jodie Comer, was the most interesting person in that book. So it made sense that you would have this story that, you know, I've touched upon a lot in my work, which is about working class men who are kind of incapable of enunciating their feelings and really sharing what's on their minds. It made sense to have a female narrator, you know, carry us through this. And she just happened to be the most interesting one in the book. The first time I saw the film, I didn't really think of it this way. But I'm curious how you feel about this and maybe if this is ultimately an intention. The Mike Feist character, who is effectively a stand-in for Danny.

For sure. The movie is in some ways about the making of the book which is not something i was thinking the first time i watched it where i was like what is the plot of this movie who are these people why is benny uh iconographic but hard to understand um and i maybe the second time i was like oh i feel like maybe the intention here is that you kind of it's hard to get past the images of people you know and that you were working with images as a starting point and so that's what the movie ultimately turns out to be in some cases well for sure and that's a i mean that's a that's an effect brought on by the process um because the truth is there's several photos of a guy named

benny in the book but you never see his face. There are no interviews with him. It's only Kathy talking about him. Or there's this news report of him getting arrested after running all these stop signs and stoplights and breaking the speed limit. So already in the book, he feels like a myth. He feels like a legend. Everybody's just talking about him. And even without showing his face in the photographs, that even makes it more interesting. It wasn't until I started working with Danny that he started bringing up the negatives and he showed me the real Benny. And as soon as I saw him, I was like, that's not Benny. That's not my Benny. My Benny looks like Austin Butler. And so- What an interesting choice for him to never show that face too in that book. Yeah. And I've never talked to Danny about that, to be honest.

I don't know if that was a choice. They're just really great photographs. I think maybe there's something about the face not being shown that it makes the photograph more iconic. I don't know. So from day one, I'm starting to build this character as a bit of a myth. He's very attractive, you know, not just physically. He's magnetic. He draws people toward him. But as a storyteller, you want narrative tension. You want conflict. So,

well, the way that Kathy describes this guy is he's very alluring. People are drawn to him, but he doesn't want anything from anybody. He doesn't want anybody drawn to him. So already you have a tension. I describe his character as a glass with no bottom. All these people want to pour all this stuff into him. Kathy wants to give him her love and her marriage. And Johnny, played by Tom Hardy, wants to literally give him the keys to the club and say, take this over. This is my passion and I want to give it to you. And, and Benny's not designed to hold those things. He can't hold the aspirations of others. Uh, and, uh, and so there you have it. There's some narrative conflict.

Uh, there's, there's trouble. Did you ride motorcycles? No, no. I learned how to ride when, uh, when I was writing the film, cause I didn't want to be a complete fraud. And it was important. One, it was just important to kind of know how the motorcycle worked, but also how it felt and what it felt like to be, you know, riding. Did it change what you were writing in the story? I don't know if it did. I don't know if it did. I think though, and I've been using this a lot this week on the press tour. Um, it's interesting if you look at a motorcycle, they, they hold the same tension that I hope the film holds, which is you look at a motorcycle and, and it's beautiful. You want to get on it. You want to ride it, but it can kill you very easily. And yet we're still drawn to it. So there's tension there. There's conflict there. And I think that's how humans are built. They're attracted to things

that are dangerous. Why? Why are we built that way? As far as I can figure, it has something to do with identity. We're living in this time now where everybody wants their own identity. It's really important to people, whether that's defined through race or sex or sexual orientation, whatever it is, they want to be unique and they should be. But maybe by attaching yourself to something dangerous, attaching yourself to something that can kill you, I don't know, maybe that makes your identity more specific, more unique. The truth is the film really doesn't set out to answer that question, but it does set out to pose it. And that's really, again, that's kind of where a lot of the conflict in the film comes. Because Kathy is attracted to something

that she very knowingly sees as dangerous, which is Binning. Visually speaking in the movie, I'm curious about what you were seeing. Were you like, what I want to do is echo The Wild One or Easy Rider or whatever, this long lineage of movies,

The Outsiders, or I have a different vision for how a movie like this should look, how a motorcycle movie should look, and I want to see those images on screen, and I'm going to change the how a movie like this should look, how a motorcycle movie should look. And I want to see those images on screen. And I'm going to change the way a movie like this is made. You know, man, that would be a cool feeling to have. No, I, it all just, again, it just was all the book.

It was just all the book. You know, there was a color photograph that was in that 2003 edition. And it's just two guys. Cal is one of them sitting on their bikes, drinking Ike sodas at a gas station. And I gave it to every department head. And I said, okay, for your area of expertise, look at this photograph. And if we can have a frame in our film that feels as dense and as specific as this photograph, then we're going to have a good film on our hands. And they did it. They pulled it off.

I can tell you they pulled it off. Come watch the movie. You'll see the grease under their fingernails, the detailing that they put into their jackets, their hair, their clothes, the bikes themselves being all period correct. It is a, I mean, it is a fascinating world to look at. And that was really our North Star was just looking at those photographs and saying, does our movie look like this yet? What's interesting from a filmmaking point of view is we didn't shoot this any differently than we shot mud or loving or midnight special for that matter you know we we used panavision cameras uh we used panavision lenses the g-series lenses we used kodak film stock uh what was different was uh thanks to new regency uh the resources that we were given because then we could really, these department heads could layer this world

in front of us, hair, makeup, set dressing, costume. So that when you built it all and then you put that camera in front of it, you were photographing something that looked like it was from the sixties. Like it really felt that way on set. It was kind of like a magic trick, you know? Um, and so, so yeah, those images were, those were our North star. I think in terms of the cinematic interpretation of motorcycle riding, again, it's all about point of view for me and it's all about, well, what's it feel like to ride in a pack of old Harley Davidsons? That's what I care about. Most, most motorcycle sequences, you know, are action sequences. Jason Bourne gets on the motorcycle and tears ass.

And those are great. Those are art, the way that those are directed. But this had a different intention. You really just wanted to feel like what it felt to ride in a big pack of guys on the back of really loud Harley Davidson motorcycles. And hopefully when you watch the film, it feels pretty effortless, but it took a hell of a lot of work. Um, I want to ask you about accents. Yeah. So, uh, Tom Hardy and Jody Comer had made very strong choices. When I saw you in the fall, you were like, this is pretty close to

what Kathy actually sounded like with what Jody is doing. Absolutely. But Tom is not a stranger to a bold accent choice. Sure. I don't know what goes into the process of something like that. Is that a conversation you have ahead of time? Is that something where you show up on set and then he's like, this is who Johnny is? What do you do if that's the case? It's a little bit of both, to be honest. Jody shared with me quick time audio files of her work, and it was incredible because

at that point I'd memorized the original Kathy audio. And when she first sent me a clip, I thought it was the original audio, but it was Jodi. That's how close she got. Tom didn't share anything with me until the first day. So we're filming and I'm hearing it for the first time with everybody else. But what he did share with me in advance was his thought process. And I can't do his British accent, but he very much was like, you know, you can't be half a gangster. You can't be half a gangster. And that's really how he saw this character. He took that scene in the film, which was inspired by real life of his character, watching Marlon Brando in the wild one and being inspired to

start this club. He's like, I bet this guy grew up watching James Cagney movies. You know, this guy who is a working class guy who has a house in the suburbs and a wife and two kids, he's kind of playing the part of a gang leader. He's in it, which means he's not really, you know, yes, he's tough. Yes. He's intimidating. But when it finally comes down to it, he doesn't have the stuff. He is not a killer. And so really you've got Tom building the psychology of his character in him playing the part and really mimicking Cagney and mimicking Brando. And I knew that was going to be his thought process because he'd already told me about it. So when he started to speak on set, the dominoes kind of fell for me and I, I knew exactly what he was connecting to. And I thought it was a really smart choice. I mean, what stinks is the way the movies are marketed. You know, you get these little snippets and you get people online talking, Oh, Tom Hardy and another voice. And you're just like, shut up, like come see the movie

see the context of it you know um you still might have your stupid opinion but uh at least you will have earned your stupidity it's uh i i think it's fun watching him figure out whatever that's going to be but it makes total sense for the character in a way because there it does feel something performed about the person that he is in the movie. Yeah, he's playing a part. Yeah. He's playing a part. And the truth is, I mean, Tom Hardy's fascinating. I mean, Dunkirk is one of my favorite films.

How can he be such a badass in that movie? He's got a mask and he's sitting in a cockpit the entire time until the end of the movie. And man, when he lights that plane on fire and turns around to those German soldiers, I'm just like, this is the coolest freaking guy in the world i mean i i don't know but there's something kicking off that guy you know there's some energy that he's kicking off that um it's unlike anything i've ever worked with it's interesting to watch you work with actors like this mcconaughey is like this and in his way michael shannon is like this but um mythos seems like a big part of all the stories that you're trying to tell

or at least some sort of biblical level of relationship. And every story is about stories that are handed down or stories that will be handed down. They're being something very lineage-oriented about the stories. But doing it with not just megawatt movie stars, but framing them like megawatt movie stars but framing them like megawatt movie stars uh is it was interesting like did you feel like you were challenging yourself in a different way to create characters that are different from something you've done in the past

no you know from the very beginning since shotgun stories we've been trying to make movies that are big it doesn't mean the budgets are big but the emotional scale should be you know i remember being in college uh i went to school with David Gordon Green, and he's a mentor of mine in a lot of ways. You know, it was a period in the late 90s when American independent cinema, a lot of it kind of, it looked very homemade, you know, like rough hewn.

And we didn't want to make movies like that. We were watching Badlands and Days of Heaven, and then Thin Red Line came out, and we were like, that we didn't want to make movies like that we were watching badlands and days of heaven and then thin red line came out and we were like that's what we want to do david especially with george washington was definitely thinking about malik i was thinking about david lean you know i want to make horns of arabia i want to make bridge over the river quai um and and and so why wouldn't we set out to make, you know, big cinema, even if we only had 50 grand to make our first movie, we wanted to shoot it on film. We wanted to shoot it in scope. We wanted to shoot it with these anamorphic lenses. And we did. And I think as a writer, it's not just a practical execution in terms of the equipment you use. You know, I'm thinking about the scale of emotion in shotgun stories is every bit as big as the scale of emotion in the bike riders, you know? And I think it goes toe to toe and probably bests a lot of even bigger, you know, productions out there because they're thinking about plot and I'm thinking about character.

And so, yeah, we have big aspirations, We have big emotions. We have big feelings and, um, and we want our movies and the scope of our movies to reflect that. It does seem like maybe now you are going to do like a gigantic studio Hollywood things. I don't get to make that choice. Um, and that's what I learned in, in 2019. Uh, when your, when your budget goes above a certain level, um, you don't get to decide anymore. Uh, you, and no matter how good of a filmmaker you are, how many films you've made and proven yourself at some point, you're going to deliver that up to the studio gods. And, um,

and I'm up for the challenge. Um, it, it might be a severe pain in the ass. Um, in fact, I know it will be because anytime you spend that much money, you know, you get visits from, from strange people, you know, the shine heart wig company shows up and it's like, what are you doing with my money, kid? Um, and, uh, but I'm ready for that. Uh, I have a script, um, that is that same alien nation script. You know, I've given it an original title. It's at Paramount right now. We'll see if that sticks.

I hope they step up to the plate and make that film. I'd love for it to be my next film, but I don't get to make that decision. All I get to do is hand them a script that I truly believe in, hopefully cast the hell out of it, and then say, just give me a shot and I'm gonna deliver something that's going to emotionally affect the audience,

and that's all I have to offer you because that is all I have to offer you. If that doesn't work, I want to make Yankee Commandante. I'm currently adapting the last two Cormac McCarthy novels. I've figured out the ending of those, which I'm really excited about. That sounds very bold. Those books are crazy. You read them? Yeah. The first one, not the second one. You're like one of the five people that read that book. It's so hard to find people that

have read it. Now I actually want to talk to you about it. Well, the second, well, we can- You got to read the second one to understand the first one. Where will I find the time, Jeff? Maybe I can just watch your film. Wouldn't that be great? Yeah, I'll take care of it. Because I figured it out. I mean, McCarthy was really, I mean, who knows what McCarthy was doing? He was more intelligent than all of us put together. But it feels like he spent so much time writing those books that he was thinking about the nature of reality, you know, and he wanted to have these dialogues, uh, between characters that are questioning the nature of reality. Um,

and that's a, that's a trippy thing to make a movie about. Uh, but I think I've, I think I've got it sorted. I hope you get to make all those movies you just talked about. That would be fantastic. Jeff,

thanks so much for doing the show. We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen? Last great thing I've seen? Last great thing I've seen. Trying to think of new stuff. Could be new or old.

Well, you know, because I'm being asked to do all of these lists, so I've revisited a couple of films. I just watched Hud again. And gosh, dog.

You know, you put that film on these lists and you know, but then you don't watch it for 10 years and you go back and watch it again and when they have to kill those longhorns man oh man um it just it just brought me to to my knees i think that's the last emotional experience i've had watching something um you know in in terms of more, more recent films, things that I was really moved by. I don't know. It's been a little while. Okay. It's been a little while. Just walking in here,

you know, we were talking with my publicist about past lives, man, I loved that movie. What did you like about it? How it snuck up on you you know and and how you feel it's that feeling that you only get one life to live but that there could be many lives that you could live and they could also be great and it doesn't diminish your life or the the life that you chose to live or the life that you know the universe conspired to have you live, but that there could have been other lives out there. There could have been other paths. And that's such a wistful, sorrowful, beautiful kind of feeling. It makes you appreciate what you have, but it also, I don't know, it kind of just leaves you hanging, uh, thinking about what

could be, man, what a beautiful film. What a beautiful way to craft that feeling. I was really affected by that film. Great recommendations. Jeff, thanks so much. Congrats on Bike Riders. Thanks for talking to me about it. Thanks to Jeff Nichols for restoring some sanity on this episode.

Thanks to Chris Ryan. Thanks to Amanda. Thanks to Alea Zanaris. Thanks to Jack Sanders. Thanks to our producerols for restoring some sanity on this episode. Thanks to Chris Ryan. Thanks to Amanda. Thanks to Alea Zanaris. Thanks to Jack Sanders. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. Next week, we will, in fact, be building the Kevin Costner Hall of Fame. This will be a fun one. See you then.