The Big Picture - The ‘Don’t Worry Darling’ Fiasco

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

It’s the movie event of the fall, but not in a good way. Sean and Amanda break down all things ‘Don’t Worry Darling,’ Olivia Wilde’s controversy-racked new thriller, and talk about the most scandalous productions in movie history (2:00). Then, Sean is joined by Brett Morgen, direct of the new David Bowie documentary ‘Moonage Daydream’ (1:05:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Brett Morgen Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Yossi Salek, and I'm the host of Bandsplain, a show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists by going deep into their histories and discographies. We're back with a brand new season at our brand new home, the Ringer Podcast Network, tackling a whole new batch of artists, from grunge gods to power pop pioneers to new metal legends and many, many more.

Listen to new episodes every Thursday, only on Spotify. 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 Don't Worry Darling. Later in this episode, Brett Morgan will join me to discuss his new David Bowie documentary experience, Moon Age Daydream. I hope you'll stick around for that. But first, it's the movie event of the fall. Maybe not in a good way.

Amanda, what if I told you that there was a brand new original screenplay, a thriller, a satire, starring some of our favorite young movie stars from a really promising second-time feature director whose first film was one of our favorite movies a stars from a really promising second time feature director whose first film was one of our favorite movies a few years ago and that it wasn't good how would you feel i would feel okay i would still do you remember we did our most anticipated movies of the fall and i put this at at number 10 which was really purposeful quite a hedge

and and and my my pitch to you was like don't you want to know? Aren't you curious? And I think that that summarizes the energy around this very troubled movie at this point. A lot of people pretty curious. I was very curious. And I think if you have not seen this movie and you are a little bit curious about it go see it before you listen to this podcast we're gonna try to do you know the classic 20-30 minutes talking about it without spoiling but the spoilers do matter to the conversation and you may think you have some idea of what's happening in it the trailer suggests things, but I went in pretty clear beyond that. And I was glad that I did, I guess.

I'm not so sure I was glad. I think I had the like purest movie experience. You know, I'm really fired up to do this podcast. I am too. So, you know, obviously we're talking about Don't Worry Darling. And that director is Olivia Wilde. This is her second feature. This film was written by Katie Silberman, who wrote her first feature, Booksmart. It's based on a 2019 Blacklist script, which was written by brothers Kerry and Shane Van Dyke. Silberman significantly revised that script.

Let me give you a broad outline of the plot of this film. Alice and Jack Chambers are a young and happy couple living in what appears to be the seemingly perfect company town of Victory, California in the 1950s. This town has been created and paid for by the mysterious company for which Jack works. Curiosity about the nature of her husband's work on the secret Victory project begins to consume Alice. Cracks then begin to form in their utopian life as her investigation into the project raises tensions within this community. After her friend commits suicide, she begins questioning her very existence

and the nature of power in this community. Now, it's an interesting portrayal of young love and young lust, especially at the outset. In some respects, I wonder if it's... Is it? Well, I wanted to ask you if, you know, Florence Pugh, who plays Alice and Jack Chambers, played by Harry Styles, the massive pop star,

in his first really, truly significant on-screen role, did remind me, in some small ways, of a life of mine that is gone. Now, not in any... Certainly not in how we looked. I mean, run for the door. Here's what I want to say. This movie is spring-loaded with a lot of ideas, theoretically,

about relationships, sexism, the patriarchy, the way that our culture is organized, professional roles, lots of other ideas, blah, blah, blah. And it is very blah, blah, blah, honestly. It's a very underbaked portrayal of a lot of those things. But it felt like at the outset of the movie, it reminded me a lot of movies about young professional people having fun

that I like a lot. Like it reminded me a little bit of like Whit Stillman's Metropolitan. It's not quite as urbane and mannered as that movie, but the idea of carefree, intelligent people having a bunch of cocktails and saying smart things to each other is a kind of movie that I quite enjoy. It does start that way. It sort of does. I think that that was an insane thing to say in public just now,

especially with respect to your wonderful wife, who is my friend and who I love very much. And you didn't mean what it would appear that you meant. I'm talking about the first 20 minutes of the movie. Sure. I will say, to throw you a lifeline here, that this movie did make me want to go to Palm Springs as soon as possible. Okay, thank you.

That's where I'm getting at. And I stayed up late last night looking at Airbnbs at Palm Springs. I'll follow up with both of you at a later date. So yes, I get it. I too wanted to go at Palm Springs. I'll follow up with both of you at a later date. So like, yes, I get it. I too wanted to go to Palm Springs and have like 40 cocktails in the like immaculate cocktail glasses that they have, you know,

put in this film. And you made a note that the production design in this movie is very successful and it really is like immaculate and very intentional and inviting and like possibly too inviting, which we can talk about. But yeah, it looks, I mean, again, like let's drive on out to Palm Springs. I'm available. The reason I describe it this way is because it's obviously a huge setup for what is coming in this film, which is that it's meant to make you feel very comfortable, but with this undertone of unease. And I think it's actually fairly effective through the first 15 to 20 minutes of the movie

because one, we're spending a lot of time with Florence Pugh, who's a commanding actor, who's extremely charismatic, who's beautiful, of course. And two, it is kind of lushly designed. It doesn't look like life in the 1950s. It looks like what we've been told life was life in the 1950s. It looks like what we've been told life was like in the 1950s, which feels very intentional. It's designed by people who didn't live it, but who saw it and imagined it in a catalog. And so it's very familiar.

It's very quickly becomes clear that this movie is more of a kind of dystopian nightmare than it is actually a portrayal of like a, it's, it's not actually like a work a day drama or an urbane comedy. It's, it's scary. Something is, something is wrong. So how far into the movie did it take before you knew that something was off? I knew from the trailer. I knew this is the problem. Well, but is it, but also pretty quickly you notice that instantly Florence Pugh is different than the people around her and you know I took that as a as some sort of signal okay like oh is it like a Truman Show thing like or something where Florence Pugh is like surrounded by people who are a little more automaton than her like everyone else is following the conventions of the world,

and she is meant to stand away from it a little bit. How about that? And so we've watched movies for a very long time, and so we know, okay, that means that something is off in this little world. Yes. But as soon as you realize that something is off, sometimes when something is off, Get Out is a film that this movie has been compared to quite frequently that's a movie i mean it's not it's not get out it's been it's been called white

woman's get out which i think is really funny but i mean that is funny but that isn't even accurate yeah um the thing that is interesting about get out is when it ratchets tension it makes you lean closer this is a movie that as it played out i I felt back. Yes. And I got bored. And that is ultimately like that is my number one massive criticism of the film. Now, we're going to talk a lot about some of the external pressures on this movie. A lot of the stuff that happened that was described about the production of it and then the rollout and the aftermath. All of that, I think, contributes to people's feelings about the movie. When I saw it, there was no spit gate.

There wasn't. I knew a little bit about Florence Pugh's discontent, but not very much. In fact, it was shortly after I saw it that a lot of this information, the Shia LaBeouf controversy, all of those things started to come to the fore. So I saw it with the anticipation of seeing a dystopian satire about the power struggle between man and woman. That's like an incredible framing for a movie and it really didn't work for me in a profound way because i thought it was genuinely boring and dull and part of it was i knew that something was going to happen and when you reveal what is happening

is a pretty critical part of making a strong satire get out actually does have, one, it's quite patient, and two, it does have a long expository sequence when it is fully explaining what's happening. And then it has a second big reveal that is genuinely exciting. I don't know if this film is missing the first part or the second part of what Get Out pulls out successfully, among other things. I mean, it's missing a handful of other things that obviously Jordan Peele pulled off very well, or the Stepford wives pulled off well, or the Truman show pulled off. Well, there's a number of movies, you know, Olivia Wilde herself cited the matrix and inception as inspirations for this movie. She set the bar really high for herself. So like, that's why we're talking about it in the context of those movies. But at what point did you feel

like the film was not working for you? I would say about 30 minutes in because I, with you, felt that lag. And the whole second act just draws on and on and on. And there are some recurring visual motifs that I didn't find interesting the first time. And I certainly didn't find them interesting the 45th time that I saw them. And it keeps going and it keeps going. And to me, really veers into, you know, I guess like classic horror story. But, you know, sad, beautiful, rich lady caught in a horror movie, which we're going to talk a lot more about this fall. So I'm tweeting some other films.

And that's a construct that never works for me. So I, like you, was bored. And we're not doing spoilers, but then once we hit the third act, the comp to me is not Get Out because I think Get Out is just on a whole other level of like construction filmmaking ideas. But this is like one of the M. Night Shyamalan movies where the twist doesn't work. That's right. You know, and sometimes the reveal works and you're like, oh, okay. You know, that was fun. And this one just falls like unbelievably flat to me, like ridiculously flat. Like I can't wait until we're allowed to do spoilers so I can just LOL about it. But so you waited all of this time

for something that, frankly, you kind of knew was coming because in some ways, because you've seen the trailer, you have like the general gist, but the specifics of it are like, it's a hard no. I agree with you about the third act

in the Shyamalan comparison. The difference to me is that almost every M. Night Shyamalan movie, I'm in on the first act. Like I'm fully in. Yeah. And even into the second act, I at least want to know where we're going. In this film, by the time we get to the third, and we can just talk about some of those motifs that you're describing, you know, the image of a circle and the Busby Berkeley kind of black and white musical sequences that are these sort of like daydream glitches that are happening

in Alice's mind. Right. And the images of ballet dancers and this kind of like freakish tension that Olivia Wilde is attempting to ratchet up is super hackneyed. It's just, it's really over managed. Like I have a cool idea for my movie stuff that someone should have told her like, this isn't how you should be communicating what's happening inside this person's mind. And stuff like that makes the movie more laughable than it does successful. And those sort of choices, and I respect what she's trying to do. She's trying to learn how to pivot into a new genre of film that she's never directed before.

This is literally the single hardest genre of movie to make. The science fiction dystopian satire, I would say, has the highest degree of difficulty of any mainstream movie. And she's not good at it. And you can tell when you're watching and seeing those choices made. Let me ask you something. Do you think that she thought she was making a satire? You keep saying satire and we can say flat out, this does not work as a satire maybe it's just blunt forced trauma commentary as opposed to satire yes there's a big distinction yeah i mean satire there's an there's the insinuation of humor in a satire this is not a funny movie at all or uh intentional commentary and i i think that this well i wonder i think the film does have commentary I just think

it's commentary that we landed on as a society 70 80 years ago it's it's really like deeply unrevolutionary now the movie has been discussed as like sort of a post me to feature film pursuit that I mean I've seen it described that way seriously. So because of that, and Olivia Wilde has also spoken about how female pleasure is the theme that was important to her about portraying on screen. I would say that that in particular and locating that and identifying it and communicating it to the public is probably like the single most undermined thing in her movie. But we can talk about that when we start getting into spoilers. In general, though, it just felt,

it's not amateurish. This is a movie that is shot by Maddie Libetique, who's one of the great cinematographers in Hollywood right now. As I said, the production design is absolutely brilliant. It's a really good cast.

It's not just a good cast, you know, at the Florence Pugh level. Like, all the way through, it's an interesting collection of performers. It doesn't always seem like all of those performers know which movie they Florence Pugh level. Like all the way through, it's an interesting collection of performers. It doesn't always seem like all of those performers know which movie they're in. Right.

And in fact, like Nick Kroll and Kate Burland are two really funny people who maybe can't tell what movie they're in or didn't get the direction that you need to elevate what it is that they're good at. Or possibly got several different directions. I mean, Caperland is being very funny in this movie. But wouldn't you want to see the movie

that was more playing to the tone that Caperland is operating in? That's what I say. When I say that this is a satire, there is a way to tonally play this movie. And maybe it shouldn't be Harry Styles and Florence Pugh. Maybe it should be different actors altogether. Right.

But I agree. When Caperland is on screen, not that she's like the star of the movie, she's the eighth lead, ninth lead. But she has a kind of like, is this really happening tone? Right. That the movie needs. I agree with you. But I think that that's wishful thinking on your part a little bit. That's like reading in one of the things that worked and reading in some ideas and some intention into this project that I do not think are there on paper. And I think if Kate Burland was like being funny, that's because she's a funny actor and, you know, just like made it that way. I will also say Olivia Wilde, pretty funny. She's not bad. Supporting role in this movie. I thought it was kind of amusing that she gave herself like some

of the best lines and most like electric moments. Not surprising. No, it's not surprising. Or maybe that just means that she in her head at least understood what she was trying to make and no one else did. Here's the thing. I don't think this is an incompetent movie. It's not. It's not. And a lot of times when we talk about movies that don't work, it is because people tried a bunch of things and it just like

kind of got away from them or the the the things the the stew just you know a million things can go wrong while making a movie yeah it's alchemical or it's physical and sometimes it's both right this is a movie where it feels to me a lot of choices were very deliberately made that were just the wrong choices. It just, you know, it's so, it's not that it's bad. I honestly, and I try not to say this and I like don't mean it in a snide way, but I think it's one of the stupidest movies that I've seen in some time.

I just, I think that it's like, whatever they were trying to do either wasn't baked through or was baked the wrong way. And again, some of that could have been that they got certain parts and like brought it together. The first 20 minutes I liked and wanted to go to Palm Springs, but it's all like completely papered over in 50s music in a way that seems to me to evoke that there were some parts missing that they just tried to mash together. But I don't know. I agree with you. Let's talk about the cast a little bit. So I mentioned that it's a lot of people that I do like, and I do like a lot of the people here. Kiki Lane plays one of Alice's friends. She of Beale Street fame. Gemma Chan,

another actress that I like quite a bit, who I think is wildly misserved in this movie. We could talk about that. I mean, yes. And Chris Pine, who many reviews have cited is the best part of this movie. I'd like to unpack that a little bit. Pine plays Frank, who is sort of the creator and visionary leader of the Victory Project. Wilde described him as being inspired by Jordan Peterson, the Canadian public intellectual slash anti-Wolkmeister. I don't want to talk about Jordan Peterson here. But Pine, to me in the film, well, one, I love Chris Pine. I've talked about him many times on the show. I think he is the superlative Chris.

He's a hilarious person off screen. On screen, he clearly has taste and is not pursuing his career the way that many of us expected him to. I get a real kick out of him on screen. He seems to know what he's... He seems to be in command of what he's doing tonally. And in this film, he's very suave and very sinister.

And he's very good at that. His character is completely one note. And so I'm actually now trying to interrogate why did I like his performance and maybe not some of the other performances aside from Florence Pugh in the movie, because he doesn't even have to do very much. Yeah. He's just good at being this thing, this kind of like ominous, all knowing smug thing. And I think actually, ultimately, he is a representation of the movie's tone because the movie is smug and that's why it's not fun.

It's like, we know something you don't. Please enjoy for two hours. That's like such a bad attitude to bring to your movie. And I don't think it knows it's doing that. The same way that I don't think Chris Pine knows that he's an absolute piece of shit. He thinks he's right.

Yeah. And I say this as somebody who frequently comes off as very smug. Like, I know from where I talk. So on the one hand, I like seeing Chris Pine in this movie. He's very well used. On the other hand, is he even really that good? No, well, he's just not doing very much, as you said.

And he also has the fun part. Like, in a movie that is actually not having very much fun for all of the candy-colored trappings of it and the setup he gets to play like the mysterious villain you know bond type character and he has an immaculate home and you know great suits and like chris pine was made to wear those like short sleeved clothes spitting 500 aviators you know like he's but so he doesn't have to do much and he gets to milk it a little. So I think that's some of it. And it is also where what he's doing and what the movie asks of him are probably like the most closely aligned.

So he's the most comfortable. So, I mean, you can just feel that in a movie where it's like, OK, well, he's just like doing his thing and being Chris Pine. And I enjoy that more than these other people who are maybe not sure where they're going or what they're doing or what they're supposed to be representing in this film. Let's talk about Harry Styles. We're going to talk a little bit at the end of this episode about the potential performance of this movie, and it is tracking very well.

And to some, that's a surprise. Some people are wondering, is it because of the controversies that are connected to the film? My theory, and it's not a very sophisticated theory, is that a lot of people love Harry Styles. Especially a lot of young people who maybe don't go to the movies as often as the movie industry would like. And I think a lot of Harry Styles fans are going to show up for this movie. Early reports are that they're quite pleased with whatever it is he's doing in this movie.

I was not pleased. He is deeply, deeply miscast. Correct. And not ready for a role like this, which is quite layered. And I don't know if it's necessarily complexly written, but a deeper actor with a truer sense of this part, I don't want to say could have saved the movie, but would have given the movie a different feeling.

And maybe could have evened the tonality of it a little bit. He sure is a pretty man, but he's not right for this part. He looks great in the suits. I think that he and Florence Pugh have absolutely no chemistry, which undermines some of the aforementioned sex scenes that you mentioned for me. They don't really sizzle in the way that I think anyone was hoping that they would sizzle. And Olivia Wilde going on an extended campaign about how sexy they are from the woman's perspective

is questionable to me. I didn't see it. You know, maybe the young Harry Styles fans will, but honestly, I want more for them too. So that makes me sad in its own way. And I agree that everything else, there's just so much unintentional comedy in his casting. It's really, it does not work.

It's unclear if he's meant to be British or not. And it seems like his voice is changing. At one point I think they indicate that he's an expatriate, but I don't think they say that he's meant to be British or not. And it seems like his voice is changing. At one point, I think they indicate that he's an expatriate, but I don't think they say that he's British. They do actually, because our pal Tim Simon says, you know, what do the British say? Keep calm and carry on. And that's very good.

Okay, I guess that is a signal. That is a way. First of all, Tim Simon's innocent. That's one thing I want to say. Absolutely. And once again, someone who is like very funny. He's good. He does.

He's good at it. He like knows what, anyway. He has kind of the Dr. Abe Saperstein from Rosemary's Baby part. And he's really good in it. Again, like maybe him and Pine and Caperland, maybe they should all go make another movie that kind of knows the tone of this movie a little bit better. Stiles is out of his league. I don't think it's over for him.

When I talked to Adam Neiman about the premiere of My Policeman, the other drama that he has coming on Amazon later this fall, he actually got pretty solid notices for that film. It's notable that Stiles was cast late in the film. He was a replacement for Shia LaBeouf. And so maybe he didn't have as much time to prepare. Maybe he didn't get as good a direction as he needed. or maybe he was distracted. We don't know necessarily what the issue is. Let's talk about Florence Pugh. So Florence Pugh, I would say in the lifespan of

this podcast has emerged probably as the most exciting young movie star that we have. Maybe Chalamet, Tom Holland's Indea. We've talked about those people that they're really more box office stars. Florence Pugh picks really good movies, and she often kind of takes them over. Yeah. And this is the first time, really, that she's in a mainstream American movie from a big studio in which she is the face on the poster.

She's been the star of movies like Lady Macbeth. She's in the ensemble of Little Women, so on and so forth. What's the wrestling movie? Fighting With My Family. But even then, that was from The Rock. It's an ensemble shirt, yeah.

It's a WWE movie. This is like old school 1975. Like, do you want to see Meryl Streep in the French Lieutenant's movie? You know what I mean? It's that kind of a thing. It's pitched that way. And I certainly liked

observing her perform. But I think she also is weirdly all wrong for this movie. She is in command of being a star but

You want this movie to be a satire and it's not and they didn't they weren't trying to make it a satire and so she's giving like a real

dramatic performance. Yes. And a dramatic performance that i actually think is fascinating and pitched to what this script asks of her right right in a way that is like pretty astonishing honestly i think she's amazing now do i like what the script asks of her we will discuss that yeah i've seen i've seen it noted that she holds the movie together which i i guess is a fair way of describing what many great, I mean, the same way that like Cary Grant or, you know,

Meryl Streep could hold a movie together. You'd watch a bad movie that they're in because they're in it. Yeah. And she does do that. But the kind of actor that she is, is very kind of naturalistic and has a lot of power and a lot of intelligence. And so you're constantly asking yourself, like, why is this powerful, intelligent woman ensnared in this weird scheme?

Now, if you were generous as a critic, you might say, well, that's the whole point. Right. That powerful, intelligent women throughout history get ensnared in the patriarchy or what have you, or the power dynamic. I'm maybe not that generous a critic because I'm like, what the fuck is this woman doing here? This doesn't make any sense. Right.

I agree. Again, we just, at some point, I can't talk anymore without talking about the reveal. So I think you're 100% right. And I do think that she is ultimately not served by the casting, even if she's very good in it if that makes sense it does it does um is there anything good about the movie we talked about the production design it it looks good for the for the most part yeah it does um i think movies

like this should always be under 100 minutes I mean that would have helped with the pacing Do you think that if that second act had been dramatically trimmed Yeah that you would have liked it more Oh for sure Me too For sure It kind of really plods along And there's a lot of time spent on Alice's psychology

That I think you could honestly junk We get it Yeah We get it pretty well There are a couple of interesting visual sequences One in particular in which Alice Alice's psychology that I think you could honestly junk. We get it. Yeah. We get it pretty well. There are a couple of interesting visual sequences, one in particular in which Alice, it seems like she is being closed between the window of her mid-century modern architectured home and the walls. And the walls are kind of closing on her.

Now, as a visual concept, that is very obvious and dumb. But the sequence is pretty good. It's effective. visual concept sure that is very obvious and dumb yeah but the sequence is pretty good it's effective yes same with the saran wrap which is in the trailer and i think is quite literal but also it will be memed you know that that would be like a reaction gift that we can get and it's great and it's very visually memorable yeah i think when it comes to those choices again the film like it looks good it's it's effective in that way but what is the idea underneath there that like all women are being strangled by household items because of

the domestic right yeah you know terror of modern life like i know the betty for damn book was written 60 years ago what are we talking about i i know i don't know. Like, honestly, what is this? What are we doing? What is the idea? I genuinely, what is the good faith reading of this movie? Okay, let's go into spoiler territory so that we can actually understand it. I would like to know, like, what is the good faith? Here's what they were trying to say about women's roles and experience in the world. I think that if you want to put a modern spin on it and try to extend beyond second wave feminism, you could say that even in our modern times in which theoretically men are more aware of the domineering presence that the patriarchy has in our society in our professional lives and our domestic lives that even in the kind of like it's kind of like watch out for the nice guys it's like that kind of a feel like even if someone is like a little bit more of a beta they're actually even more dangerous and that the film kind of

slowly reveals that the people who are in charge of this reality are not necessarily like big, brooding, monstrous brutalists. They're geeks. Right. This is why Olivia Wilde needed to explain the concept of incels to Maggie Gyllenhaal in Interview Magazine, which is an extraordinary document. Yes.

If you have not sought that out. Yes. Okay. But it also feels like a person who's never met an incel wrote this movie. And I'm not saying I know a whole bunch of incels, but I didn't write this movie. So it doesn't, there's nothing like finely pitched about it. And so you can't really ask, like you're struggling to ascertain the bigger theme, the modern aspects of the theme. I mean, to me, it looks like or it real acts of um literal violence and political assault

like happening to women of all classes across this country right now and they were like oh okay so that's what we should we should make and so they made a movie about how women are being literally sent back to the 1950s. Yeah. But I think that those people, those filmmakers, are accomplished and have ideas. And I really liked Booksmart. So I'm like, what am I missing in terms of something complicated? It seems so literal and facile, the movie that resulted i'm just like what's

what what did i miss did i miss anything here's an interesting thought exercise what was the conflict in the movie book smart you know trying to go to college and also like was it i don't know i don't remember that's the thing thing. There really wasn't. Okay. It was a fun teen comedy. Yeah. Utterly frictionless. I had a nice time. Yeah.

I liked all the actors. Sure. I thought it was pretty funny. I thought it was obviously extremely like showing our work about how progressive we are. But I'm not offended by that. It was a one crazy night movie. Yeah. And a good time. It doesn't really have any ideas in it. Okay. And neither does night movie. Yeah. And a good time. It doesn't really have any ideas in it.

Okay. And neither does this movie. Yeah. And that's not maybe what they do. The problem is these movies are pitched as ideas movies. And so inevitably that is being held against it. If this was only a horror movie, if this was just like a Screen Gems, Sony movie

that they were pumping out and it wasn't Florence Pugh and Harry Styles, it was, gosh, I don't even, you know, like to use the barbarian example, you know, if it was like Justin Long, we wouldn't be thinking about it in this way. But this is one of only three movies that Warner Brothers is releasing in a six-month corridor for the rest of the year. It's got the biggest stars in the world. And so it is, and because of the external controversies that we're going to get into, it's being judged at a really high level. And so what seems like facile, which is facile, we're treating like offensive to us.

And honestly, it does feel that way just feels like such a thudding disappointment. So let's go to official spoiler territory here. Do you want to describe, since you just saw it last night, what actually happens? So Florence Pugh is having flashbacks for a while. And at first, they're all like the 42nd Street dancing. And like a weird circle that's an eye and some blood. And then you start getting snippets of Harry Styles saying things to her that he hasn't been saying in 50s world real life and the flashbacks kind of get like longer and longer and then suddenly you flash back to Florence Pugh in scrubs in

medical scrubs and she's leaving surgery and it's like normal modern Florence Pugh. And they have like all of the modern trappings. Modern meaning 2020. 2020, contemporary. Yeah. And she leaves, she walks into an apartment that is not a beautiful 50s Palm Springs home, but like a pretty drab apartment. And then there is a Harry Styles in one of the most pathetic fake

i've ever seen in my entire life like gaming and and like listening to a podcast yep sad and then he's a big picture guy you think the the Harry Styles character is more of a watch guy? If he is, he's a he's a lord of ladder box. And so then they have one fight about. It's not even a fight. I mean, that's the other thing. It's just sort of a limp dick conversation. Right.

About how Florence Pugh didn't answer her phone because she was in the OR and she works too much. And he barely tries to have sex with her and she's just like, I'm really tired. I haven't, you know, I've been up for 30 hours. I have to go to sleep. And then the flashback ends and we get the reveal that as a result of this one incident harry styles has kid i don't know like kidnapped held florence taken florence pew hostage sedated her and forcibly entered her in like his weird jordan peterson podcast metaverse and that's where they live and so she's plugged into a matrix of sorts yeah and this is the matrix is the creed so the 50s palm springs world is the creation of

the podcast weirdo um played by chris pine and all of these men are choosing to live in this world and this is what their dream is is to have all of these women being their 50s housewives and this is this is the life that they want to live because they can't live it in the real world right so what i was saying at the top of the show, which was properly indicted by you, the point that I was making was about social life. Not real, not actual life. Sure. Yeah. Social life being let's have a lot of drinks with our friends and not worry about waking up in the morning to take care of our children. That youthful explosion between 23 and 32. Like I said, looks great.

The parties seem fun. I would like to give a note. Okay. Which is you're going to go to all this trouble of building your little metaverse and then, you know, drugging and keeping your partners hostage. And you only build one communal pool in the whole like the community no one has their own pool they all gotta go to the pool in the set like what is that maybe that is that's how you know that yeah designed it anyway exactly uh i mean that that raises like a lot of questions about what i guess what these men want but also what do the makers of this film think that men want right or at least

these problematic men um i think it's i don't i don't i don't even know if i should be saying this but it's like my wife is has a job and has been a professional woman for 20 years and i love that about her and i'm completely un it's so uncomplicated so as to be obvious and so this world where like these women stay home every day and bake and keep house. It's. Being like a fantasy dream for men in 20. Are there are there men who are like I wish my wife would just stay home. But without children.

Just stay in the house. My reaction is I was sitting there with this interminable movie being like okay is this what is this what the men want for me isn't and like and and respectfully like i i definitely realize that there are a lot of women with like a lot of limitations in in the modern world and i experienced some of them too and i'm incredibly lucky and privileged and it's like they're real problems but i don't think any of them is that someone's trying to put me in an apron like Like, I think it's a lot more pernicious and structural and complicated. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's the point is that like the big note here is that men want to have a cocktail in their hand at 6 PM. Like

in terms of like, in terms of the conversation of, can we have it all? Like we can at least have that, you know, like that's actually not that hard and so when you make something when you boil down the ultimate desires of very dangerous people in our world like really sexist and potentially even violent people who are constantly communicating this noxious shit about like alpha males down to what they just really want is to have like a meaningful, consensual sex life and a cocktail in a mid-century modern home. It's like, you missed the point of your own movie. That isn't what those people want. They want something far more dangerous. Now, obviously plugging their partner into a matrix is a representation of that violent act. But once you get beyond that,

it creates this like really soft landing for the quote unquote villains of the movie. And then everything gets really, really jumbled and like confusing. And it feels like almost like studio noted when you get to the end of the movie, because when things turn and throughout the film, Alice is constantly trying to get into the desert and get to sort of like the mainframe, the headquarters of the victory project to discover what is actually happening. And she can never quite get to the place where Where she kind of pierces the truth. And discovers what she's supposed to get. And the final act of the movie.

Is this kind of like deathless race. To the end of Discovery. And ultimately. You realize that. There's no logic. In what they've built into the story. Because at a certain point. The Gemma Chan character.

Who plays Chris Pine's wife. And to this point is this like fiercely loyal participant, kind of co-partner. She is the most separate wife of the separate wife, which is a comment on the character, not on Gemma Chan's performance. And then this is a deep spoiler, but she very illogically murders Chris Pine. Out of nowhere, with no explanation and no motivation. And it's completely unclear why she's done this. And it's meant to be like a stand up and cheer, like, you know, explosion moment.

And it makes no sense. It was a genuine, wait, why did that happen? Yes. And there are a series of moments like that throughout this movie where it's sort of like, did you guys just change this at the last minute to make a cool moment? Because it feels completely incoherent to the rest of the story you've told.

And that's the sort of thing when stuff like that starts happening in a movie that I was already bored by. I'm like, fuck this. This is not good. Like, this is actually, you've completely lost control of the story that you're telling. And that's why a movie that I think on its surface could very easily just be like a two and a half star movie. Where it's like, it looks really good. A couple of good performances. It's not an absolute disaster.

But it actually started, I started to feel like I was being treated like an idiot. And I started, and that's why it really is a failure. Can we talk about the metaverse for a moment? Sure. Because it's obvious from the trailer for the first five minutes of the movie that, you know, like quote unquote, something is off, right? And that this world is not just, and Florence Pugh is a kind of character standing apart from the rest of this world and something's going on. And you don't know what it is, but you're thinking of all of the, like, maybe even intentional references, whether it be Stepford Wives or Truman Show or any of these movies. She's, like, trapped in something, right?

And there are a lot of clues along the way from like the scene where she's opening the eggs and the eggs don't have any- Fully empty, yes. Are empty to, you know, all of like the glitch flashback, which I hated, but is at least signaling to you that like something's going

weird here. And I did also have this moment when I was watching, and this is why I would sort of defend Florence Pugh's performance. I was like, huh, she's, this is sort of anachronistic, this performance. Like she's really like, she is not performing like a fifties housewife. She's acting like Florence Pugh herself, which once you know that you know in reality it's 2022 there's a defense for that performance at least whether or not it's totally intentional but I don't know at any point where I was watching any of this that I thought or was prepared for it just like being a computer game you you know? And it was like, oh yeah, you're just all stuck in the metaverse. And I just personally found that to be so silly

in addition to like, you know, not having any heft, but the reveal of being like, ha ha, it's the Sims. Congratulations. It's so anticlimactic and stupid. I can't believe that that's the explanation. I mean, I can. To me, the more pernicious thing is the insinuation that what men and particularly these men really want is to to go down on their wives while drinking an old-fashioned of course like the big ideas and the feminism and all of that stuff is like it is what is the real problem but the kind of the mni chanlana just like falling flat aspect of being like haha i was a computer game um and none of of this. And there's no even work done really to explain how they all ended up here. Like I found the whole podcast one scene.

She was like went to work, stayed at work late one time and he was really mad. And that's all of the motivation or backstory you're given for suddenly like putting putting someone into a Matrix simulation. Come on. Are we serious? They were serious. That was the story they wanted to tell. The other thing that I find confusing and kind of oppositional to the theme of the movie is that much bandied about sex scene and that concept of female pleasure that Olivia Wilde

is talking about in the press only happens in this world. So is the idea that that can only happen if a woman has been plugged into a matrix? That's a good segue into the press tour and the marketing and how wrong this has gone so many different ways. And some of those are really not olivia wilde's fault and from you know the shia labeouf variety miss flow debacle it doesn't sound like that was handled very well by anyone i kind of think there are no winners in that spit gate you know like what is she supposed to do that's not totally her fault But she has been selling this film as a feminist movie. And to your point, really talking about the feminist aspects of the sex that's portrayed in this movie and all sorts of things that just don't make sense.

And really creating a lot of problems in terms of the interpretation of the movie because i read all of that stuff and then i walked in and i was like this is what you think is like empowering yeah this is the matrix but yeah for female sex that's insane it's an insane way to pitch your movie yeah because it's not that no i i think i think that we can say that she has not done herself any favors in the marketing while also pointing out that a lot of the response to it, particularly the online stan world, is really ugly towards her. And frankly, and I have called this movie stupid several times on this podcast, but it's the millennial white feminism movie, so I get to do it. You call a lot of movies by white guys, stupid too. So it's, well, but I, I, I think there's been some grossness in, in the reviews and reception of this movie as well. Um, that I'm

kind of like, well, I like, I raised, I've raised my brow at some of the coverage. And so I, I do, it's, it's a tricky line. That's been a persistent conversation. It's sort of like, is there a double standard at play here in part because of what we know about the behind the scenes aspects of the story? A female filmmaker with her second film with a big budget. She's being held to a standard that is unreasonable relative to her peers, especially her peers 10, 20, 30 years ago. I think there's validity to that point of view. It doesn't change the fact that the movie isn't good.

No. And so that really is what matters to me. You host Jam Session. You're more deeply entrenched in the world of celebrity gossip than I am. I follow it, and it matters to the performance and execution of a movie. And it particularly matters in this movie because I think it's going to help determine the film's success and then Olivia Wilde's career henceforth.

I'm mostly just interested in the movie. And I would love for this movie to be good. This is exactly what I want from a movie. Like I pitched at the very top of our conversation, original story, great movie stars, a young promising filmmaker, a big studio putting it on 3,500 screens. This is my dream. Yeah. It sucks. It really, it doesn't work. And I think there were a lot of, there were

some forced errors, but there were a lot of unforced errors in terms of how it was presented and how it's been rolled out. And they do shape how I at least received the movie. Is it possible that all of this controversy, the decasting of Shia LaBeouf, and then all of that being revealed, the reported on-set affair between Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde, which led to this wild discord between Florence Pugh, reportedly on set with Olivia Wilde.

Oh, I thought you were saying there was like a discord page. No, that's the sequel. Yeah, that's what Harry Styles' character is developing for the sequel. All of that, plus the Venice premiere, Florence Pugh's declining to participate in the ongoing press of this film, every interview that Livia

Wilde has given, which to her credit, maybe ultimately she's clever like a fox, you know, like, like maybe she's found a way to just gin up controversy for a movie that could be hard to sell to audiences. And maybe, maybe, maybe not. And then ultimately even like Spitgate and the kind of absurdity, the sort of like through the looking glass, almost don't worry, darling-esque quality to a lot of what's been happening around this movie for the last week. Is it possible that that is just ultimately smart? That this has been a good thing for the movie and that while celebrity reputation has been

tarnished, if we're being honest, who cares about celebrity reputation? These people are just, they already live in a don't worry ass darling bubble. And that's why the movie feels this way. But also they're going to be fine. Everyone who worked on this is going to be fine. And so with that in mind, this is basically just going to further bolster their fame and make this movie more successful

than it otherwise would have been. I think mostly yes. I think whether it's smart depends on whether it's intentional. And again, I think intention is the big question of every aspect of, of this movie and what they were trying to do and what actually happened. Do I think everyone will ultimately be okay? I do. Yes. I think Olivia Wilde will probably like take the biggest hit from

all of this because she is the filmmaker and because this has gone poorly and the film has not been reviewed well and i think some of that is well like that's life in the nba and then some of that is also unfair um and and and double standard i think both things can be true and are or and then do i think in terms of box office this will take away from the movie or help the movie? It will obviously help the movie. That wasn't totally clear a couple of weeks ago. And now as we have this conversation, it seems like it helped. I mean, it at least piqued curiosity, which is really all you can ask for in a September release of an original story. Like, hey, what's that about?

Why is everyone talking about that? And also most people are just not as aware of these stories as we are or as online as we are. So there's a little bit of like, oh, I heard there was an issue with Harry Styles and there's a new movie. Yes. That might be enough. My personal anecdote is that I did the Thursday night screening for this film because somehow my invitation to a press screening got lost in the

mail and wonder what's going on there and normally you know I just like I go by myself seven o'clock put the kid to bed bye to Zach um but and and I sometimes try to get a posse together but it never really works and this one two weeks out I I asked our friend Phoebe, who happens to be married to Chris, would she want to go to the movies? Like, yes, absolutely. My sister-in-law is in town as well. And I thought she would want to spend the evening with her brother, who she has a wonderful relationship. And instead, she was like, oh, you're going to see Don't Worry, Darling. Can I come too? And everyone was just kind of like, you know what? Like, don't you want to know? Aren't you a little curious? And furthermore, people like mess. Yeah. This is a mess. Yeah. They made a mess of this movie, both on screen and behind the scenes.

And that's exciting for some people. And they want to see a disaster. And frankly, a lot of people might have fun with this being kind of as bad as it is. I didn't have a bad time. I kind of did, but I, I, I, about an hour in, I was like, Oh my God,

let me just wrap this up. I mean, I was definitely bored, but I don't know. I was like out with my friends and I, like, I just, that's a recent mom talking.

Well, but like everybody is going to the movies for their own reason. I'm the same way. I'm a recent dad. And I'm like, you know, I sure do love to just be out eating popcorn. Can I tell the other funny story about me going to the movies last night?

Of course. That I texted you already. But so we went to my beloved La Cunada Theater. And so they show like 25 minutes of previews. So I decided to be a little bit late. So we arrived. We get ushered into the theater. We sit down and it's like, oh, it's assigned seating and one of our seats is taken, but whatever. So the movie started. We're like, okay, we're just going to sit down. And the movie has started and going.

And I don't recognize either of the people on screen, but I'm like, oh, I guess they just weren't promoting the movie. And then I sort of recognize one of the people. And then I recognize the plot of the film, which was definitely barbarian. And thanks to the service podcasting of The Big Picture, I realized quickly enough that I was in the theater for an absolutely messed up horror movie. And I was able to usher my party out of the theater and into the correct theater where we did not miss a minute of Don't Worry Darling. So thank you. Unlike Georgina Campbell,

you were able to get out of the house in time. Yeah. And you got into the Don't Worry Darling. Exactly. That actually, that was the scene. It was when Bill Skarsgård was like, I would feel, I don't want you to sleep on the couch. And I was like, oh God, I know what's about to happen.

Yeah. Bill Skarsgård, he might've been interesting in that Harry Styles part. He actually would have been really interesting in that part because you don't trust him. Right. But he's handsome. Yeah. And he could pull off that 50s attire. But it might be tipping too much in the other direction. I you know, like because immediately I thought Alexander Skarsgård would also be good, but he's sort of played that role 45 times. I just, you either need to go way more aggressively into unease or way more aggressively into comedy. And it was betwixt and between throughout. Let's talk about some predictions here. Okay. So, we think the controversy is helping the movie. We're seeing the Thursday Night Preview.

This movie made $3 million in a Thursday night preview. Pretty good. Yeah. This movie might make $25, $30 million at the box office opening weekend. That'd be really good. Now, we're coming in really hot here. Myself in particular, I'm like, F this. This isn't good.

I think there will inevitably be, as there always is, a kind of like, are we sure this is really that bad? Yeah. And then will it become an actually this is good kind of cult classic? Could you see that happening? Anything's possible. I once again, as a woman of a certain age with a brain, was like pretty offended by a lot of the ideas and ultimately like the premise and argument of the film.

So it's hard for me to imagine coming around on that. And also just, you know, again, it's a metaverse. It's just not a reveal I'm interested in personally. Do you think that the commentary of the movie is structural

or is it as straightforward as Jordan Peterson and Harvey Weinstein bad? I think it's sort of the latter. That's kind of the problem, right? That's something that everyone knows. Well, but even

if it's structural and even if it's about Everyone in your audience I should say. Even if you's about... Everyone in your audience, I should say. Even if you take the film at face value in terms of women are still being forced back into antiquated roles and being a support system to men and, you know, aren't allowed to have jobs. There's that one point when Florence Pugh yells like, that was my job. I wanted it, which is really important. And being, you know, working if you want to is great.

But like, as you said, that was a pretty reductive version of second wave feminism, which was 50 years ago at this point. I just I don't. It has. Like I said, I don't get that. It's not advancing the ideas in any way. And I don't mean to diminish it. I mean, yes, I don't want us to go back to the 50s, you know, like in any way, shape or form, except for maybe the cocktail glasses. Also, I'm reiterating a point I already made, but like Florence Pugh's character in this movie is a doctor.

To me, that's fucking cool. Like one of the coolest things, one of the sexiest things about my wife is that she's like, I'm really smart and I'm in charge at work. Yeah. I love that. I think men like that. Am I crazy? I mean, I hope that they do. You know, in my experience that they do.

You know, and I think there are places in the world and men in the world, and especially, like, men of older generations. For sure. Who definitely aren't that way. And then there are young men who are in. I'm 40, and this is a contemporary movie made by a bunch of people in their late 30s and early 40s. Like, did they grow up in it? Olivia Wilde is Alexander Coburn's daughter. Like, I agree that it's a really straw man thing.

And I don't understand where it came from. And I don't think that it even accurately represents. What is a. I do think there are men in the world who don't want women's advancement on a legal scale. There are. But are any of those people in the audience for Don't Worry Darling? I don't think so. So what is the point?

I don't know. I don't know. I'm not actually asking you. It's a rhetorical frustration with the whole idea of the movie. I was really baffled by it. So when a movie is a quote-unquote disaster, whether it's the production or the rollout or some combination of both, I think it can go one of three ways. It can be a true disaster, which is say Waterworld, where the film is wildly expensive. People are injured during the production of the

film. Right. And then after all that pain and strife, it fails. Right. But though, haven't we also reclaimed Waterworld? Or not we, not you and I. I would certainly like to. I have not actually rewatched it in quite a long time. But aren't there people on the internet who have reclaimed Waterworld? I mean, that's the thing about the predictions that we just made. There's always someone willing to take it back.

Yeah. And there's that axiom about we don't really know what a movie is until 10 years later anyway. And I think that there's a lot of truth to that. And frankly, 10 years from now, I might fire up Don't Worry Darling and think to myself, oh, I was too hard on this. There's something cool going on here. Maybe even just the state of movies at that point will be in such wild disrepair that it will seem like a pretty magnificent piece of art. That's something we talk about with movies in the 80s and 90s all the time

now. It's like, if only I could get back to, I don't know, The Sandlot. And it's like, when I always saw The Sandlot i loved it but i was like eight years old and now the sandlot seems like a miracle i don't think that this is true but i did just think of a comp where i need to like you know be honest which is uh baby boom okay which i think at the time was definitely received as a feminist apocalypse and really reductive because you don't remember at the end of baby boom she like quits her job and then she's the man yeah and then she also has a applesauce baby food empire on the side you know but it's like she had to retreat from the rat race and create like a new life for herself where where she could quote have it all and the and the domestic life came

first right i find baby boom to be really effective and like a fascinating text as a as a child of the 80s and as a child really of the generation portrayed in that movie and like i think some of the lessons might be sort of messed up but but I'm not receiving it as prescriptive. I'm just like, Oh, this is a snapshot of a, of a moment. Um,

and in a way that's like very effectively done, you know, that movie is not an allegory. It's not a movie that it's attempting to teach. I agree with you. And I think that this is, don't worry, darling is not speaking to the current moment,

you know, podcasts notwithstanding. And I won't feel that way, but moment, you know, podcast notwithstanding. And I won't feel that way, but, you know, I'm holding myself accountable. How about that? Perhaps you're right. It's why I posed that question in the first place because I think the opinion will change.

But whether it's a water world or, you know, like another version of this that I would say is a lesser strain or like a weaker strain, but as resonant as like Fitzcarraldo, which is the famous Werner Herzog movie, which had this insanely arduous production, an expensive film, a kind of like misbegotten idea from the very beginning. But then what came out the other side is this like magnificent story. And we got a documentary out of it called Burden of Dreams in which we watch Werner Herzog lose his mind in real time as he attempts to drag a ship up a mountain. That's not a movie that made $100 million at the box office, but Fitzcarraldo lives on in the history of movies in a pretty profound way, as does the Les Blank documentary about the making of it. And so it becomes this kind of object of fascination.

And then there's like the third option and really the best option which is some version of titanic and or apocalypse now right where the press is covering the film during the production and every single person in the precious press is saying this is going to be one of the all-time fiascos in movie history it's way over budget the director is a totalitarian freak who doesn't understand the material that they're making. Right. And this movie is going to suck. And then the movie comes out and it's a huge hit and everybody's like, this guy's a genius.

Yeah. I don't think that Don't Worry Darling is going to be that, but I actually can't rule it out. Well, I think that there's kind of a fourth option. Okay. Which is the Mr. and Mrs.ith slash eyes wide shut level production which is less about production mishaps or you know people getting injured or having strokes or whatnot and more heart attacks what was it on apocalypse now yeah a heart attack yeah um she had a heart attack right and more about the interpersonal

drama and breakdowns and there's a real tabloid um voyeuristic element to to these films and it can go both ways in terms of i think eyes wide shut is a more successful film than mr mrs smith though i really enjoy mr mrs smith sean have you. and Mrs. Smith? I've never not seen it. Right. And pretty much because you were turned off by all of the fanfare around it. That's correct. That said, it did very well with people who are not you because of all of the interest and visibility around it. And I would, having never seen it, it's easy for me to say this, but I would say that that film's reputation, you know, 15 years hence, is as a celebrity tabloid object. Like a resultant of all of this. Correct.

Like, you know, the destruction of Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt's relationship, basically. Right. And not a movie that we talk about with any kind of like point of view creatively. No, it was eligible for the upside down draft. Right. And I took it as such. Again. Negatively reviewed, but enjoyed by many of the people who watched it.

Yeah. And I wonder, maybe you're right. Maybe that's what the fate of this movie is. Negatively reviewed, but people liked it. Frankly, the critics, as we know. Right. They don't really matter. No.

I mean, we're doing our best here. We don't matter. We're just completely meaningless in the world so maybe this is just a lot of gas expulsion on our part you know what I mean where it's just like

I'm mad that this movie isn't good and that it's you know a controversial object and everybody's gonna be like Harry Styles I love him

I mean isn't that always the way it is it is but that would be a pretty profound rejection of what I perceive to be part of my life's work. Well, tough break for you.

I don't want to even necessarily not urge people to see it because I think it's an interesting object of conversation in the movie culture. And movies like this being successful paradoxically are good for movies because it's not franchise entertainment i agree i as i said despite not liking this movie or not thinking this movie is successful i enjoyed i had a good time so go have a nice time at the movies i guess if you had to put it on a scale of one to ten oh but what am i am i the movie itself or the experience well i i you can only rate your experience right like you're not you don't live in a vacuum i mean i can rate the movie at about i can rate a movie at a four okay and the experience at like a six to seven because didn't you miss arguing about movies like didn't didn't you? This was a good conversation.

Yeah, and we've got a couple more where I'm like, really, I haven't, in the past few weeks, I've had the experience where I go to the movies and then I like text or email a lot of people immediately. And I'm like, let's just talk about this. I feel the same way. And I think. Blonde, tar, like there's stuff coming up that's exciting. And so I thank everyone for that.

Yeah, I agree. Actually, at the end of the day, we'd like to thank everyone for their service in the production and rollout of Don't Worry Darling. I think that we should put a cap on it there. Okay. Maybe we can talk next week about how this movie did and if that means anything.

And frankly, it's relationship to the movie Blonde. Yes. Which is the next movie that you and I are going to be discussing. There's certainly a correlation between those two. Get ready. Okay, let's go to the movie Blonde. Yes. Which is the next movie that you and I are going to be discussing. There's certainly a correlation between those two. Get ready. Okay, let's go to my conversation now with Brett Morgan. In 100 meters, turn right. Actually, no. Turn left.

There's some awesome new breakfast wraps at McDonald's. Really? Yeah. There's the sausage bacon and egg. A crispy seasoned chicken one. Mmm. A spicy end egg. Worth the detour. They sound amazing. Bet they taste amazing, too. Wish I had a mouth.

Take your morning into a delicious new direction with McDonald's new breakfast wraps. Add a small premium roast coffee for a dollar plus tax at participating McDonald's restaurants. Very excited to have Brett Morgan here on the show. Brett is the director of Moon Age Daydream, among other great documentaries. Brett, thanks for doing the show today. Thank you. So Brett, I'm curious, what comes first for you when you're

deciding on a new project? Is it a stylistic, intellectual approach to a movie or is it the subject of the movie? In this case, this is another time this has happened. This was I had the idea for a kind of adventure I wanted

to do before I knew I was doing David Bowie. I had the idea for a kind of adventure I wanted to do. Before I knew I was doing David Bowie, I had just completed Montage of Peck. I had this idea that that I'd been working towards, I think, throughout my career that, you know, I don't think my film so much as. Documentaries, but experiences. They're not fact-based. I've approached each film with an understanding that, wow, what is the cinematic interpretation of this subject?

And the thing with biography is if you do a documentary script and you condense it to just the meat on the bone just the dialogue it's probably about 22 pages well how are you going to do Kurt Cobain or Jane Goodall or anybody justice in 22 pages those are Cliff notes to history so I go into each of these projects with the understanding that like there is this information that's available to people. In the case of David Bowie, there's 36 books and several amazing documentaries where people talk about David Bowie. So there's no need for another one of those right now. And anyway, before I was doing Bowie, I came up with something called the IMAX Music Experience. And the idea was that there were going to be these 40-minute,

sort of, as I described them, sublime and intimate engagements with my favorite recording artists. And they would live in perpetuity at the science halls or the IMAX science theaters, and we would take over the evening sessions. So I envisioned a world where there would be a 6 p.m. Beatles show, a 7 p.m. Hendrix show, an 8 p.m. Jay-Z show, a 6 p.m beatles show a 7 p.m

hendrix show an 8 p.m jay-z show a 9 p.m tame impala show whatever it may be right and um that was and and basically what i just said to you in about 12 seconds is what i told the finance here and they agreed to finance a slate of 15 of these films so we were going down the road with some other bands and bowie passed and uh i called up his executor i told him what i was interested in doing and he said that you know david had saved everything but he never wanted to participate in trad documentary so this might be this might work now i'd met bowie in 2007 and his executive was in the room, and it was for a pitch for a kind of hybrid nonfiction film.

So they knew who I was. They were familiar with me. And at that point, David, it's only been about a month since he passed. So he said, you know, listen, it's a little too soon. Why don't you call me back six, eight months later? So that's how this came into existence. So was the idea then to convert that IMAX experience, that kind of...

I don't know how... I'm curious how you're describing it and how you would describe what... I just told you the full breadth and width of the pitch. I gave you the pitch. There was nothing else to the pitch. How do you describe an experience? I don't know. Well, what is it that you wanted to see that you had never seen before?

I wanted to hear... No, no, no. I didn't want to learn anything. Yeah. I wanted to hear... Why is this like... I don't know why that... It's so weird to me that there has to be something more than just going to a cinema and hearing David Bowie on the greatest speakers in the world and seeing a fucking karaoke show there doesn't have to be there doesn't have but I think that there is a new expectation I'd much rather do that than someone say the Beatles are from Liverpool and then they got on a plane I don't I don't need that give me like the Beatles love in a movie theater without the Cirque du Soleil and some archival footage and I'm I'm swimming you know that's a good night out for me that's all does that you know when i was a kid i used to go to the griffith

park to the pink floyd lazarian show yeah and uh take a little you know a little have some fun and go with a big group of friends and we do that like every friday and saturday night man that was like our entertainment and it was awesome and i used to love going to disneyland as a kid what's the pitch of pink floyd lazarian their music and those lights and guess what i was totally captivated from beginning then you know you go to a concert today and everyone's watching the monitors because you're sitting too far from the the band and um you know but you go so you can be in a room with like-minded people listen to the music and uh get razzled out to buy some lights and that's a good night out so why does a cinema have to be anything more than that in case anyone cuts out of this podcast

right now, Moon Age 8 became something totally different than what it was originally conceived to be. But that was the original conception. And again, they were going to be 40 minutes. I didn't think you could go further than that. Right. But the idea of going back to the stems and reproducing them in 12.0 IMAX or Dolby Atmos would invite the

audience to hear the music like they'd never heard it before. Similarly, when I went and saw The Beatles' Love when it first came out, I'm not a big Cirque du Soleil person. I did not go because it was Cirque du Soleil. I went because it was the Beatles. And I was totally overwhelmed by the sensory experience. By the way, what's the story of the Beatles' love show? I have no idea. I mean, I don't know if you know. I don't know. I mean, maybe the person who made it has a story arc or something.

I didn't get it. And it didn't matter to me at all. I got't know. I mean, maybe the person who made it has a story arc or something. I didn't get it. And it didn't matter to me at all. I got something else. But I certainly got, you know, a new perspective on the Beatles, just hearing the notes and how those mashups were kind of creating, giving me new, energizing, something that had become kind of old and stale at that point and so i i was very interested in that i wanted to work with stems i thought it was going to be more like the beatles love and more of a kind of musical dialogue across time and it started there and the first shots it's going around the planets and then you hear a you know there's a little bit of major tom and a little bit of life on mars or whatever it is um but you know i once i got into bowie and started to see yeah it very quickly became a um

a feature-length film i do think that the film accomplishes what you set out to do with the imax experience which is that you were this is truly an experience of Bowie's music in a way that you haven't heard it and of his essence and of the ideas that he put forward. And it's not strictly biographical. I do want to hear a little bit about how you reimagined what the music could sound like for an audience. But I wonder if, and you've been making documentary films for over two decades now, I wonder if the rise of the documentary and the place that it has in our lives now as general consumers has created this expectation that you're trying to buck against, you know,

that you're saying like, why does this have to be somebody telling me where David Bowie came from and what he was feeling in 1973 and all these other kind of, especially in music documentaries, these larded expectations that we have for the films. Not in a theatrical place, really. I mean, there was 10 years ago in the 2000s, they were huge. We had Wind Migration.

We had March of the Penguins. Those movies were blockbusters. I mean, Bull and Precolon, but that's long gone. So you're seeing it as just strictly, there's a distinction between what somebody would fire up on Netflix versus what's happening theatrically yeah for the most part yeah the highest grossing documentaries uh most of them are going to be in that decade um you know supersize me i mean all these films were from 2002 when i launched the kids stays in the picture in 2002 we opened with the highest per screen average in the history of documentary but a 25 000 per screen average we were related four months later Michael Moore came

out with bowling for combine blew that out of the water and that changed everything it was the first docubuster and that was you know followed up by uh Fahrenheit 125 million the end of that run was the michael jackson this is it which did 75 million domestically and 250 million worldwide so that was the golden age of theatrical non-fiction film um i don't consider there to be much of a golden age on a lot of the streaming sites because they don't really usually grant final cut to the directors. So in that context, things get a little homogenized. Yeah, it's an interesting way of thinking about it

because I do think that there is more demand for whatever could be called documentary now. And that's sort of what I'm referencing, that there is at least an idea of an expectation that is built in. But you're right that theatrically, things have obviously changed a lot. Do you think that there could ever be another boom like there was 10 years ago i hope so okay um tell me about the music because obviously we're hearing very familiar sounds

but you've recombined reimagined remixed them what goes into that well the a lot um the whole premise was that we were gonna i wanted to hear the music in the IMAX room. So every song that was selected, we had to have the stems. And I wanted to use certain sounds or certain instruments thematically. So like, Word on a Wing is referenced when David hits Nirvana when he's in Berlin and then gets referenced again when he meets Ma. And I was able to, instead of putting in the full song,

because I had the stems, I could have a couple notes. And I envisioned the film, once I got into it, was sort of like a space-age opera, and David was doing the libretto, and so if you're doing a libretto and he's going to talk that much, you've got to be very selective about what sort of sounds are running up against them.

You know, it's generally not very helpful when you're trying to get dialogue through it. So the stems enabled me to clear out space, and I ended up leaning a lot on piano songs that had a strong piano component up because they lent themselves to the orientation that i was looking for um i did the mashups during the offline so i, you can't make that stuff up on a mixing stage. That doesn't work that way. So you, you,

you know, I did all the massups that are part of the fabric of the film. Um, and then I, uh, I decided to do a 12 minute IMAX test. And I, um,

I did a song from the Earl's court show. And I thought they thought, I think they thought I was going to be on the Earl's Court show. And I think they thought I was going to be on the stage for a day. I was there for three weeks on this one song. And I was trying to figure out how to get the volume into the room. So that it wasn't just if you sat in front of her being blasted out, but you're in the back and it was limited. I wanted to get an even distribution.

And the team that I was working with wasn't the team I ended up doing moon age with like sort of let me run shotgun and I came up with this dumb idea it's awful that it's just stupid um but I was like hey what if we recreate the 5.1 in three different locations in the room so that you have your front, center, left, right, and then you go to the middle of the room and you institute a similar equation. You go to the back room and you institute a similar one so that when you're there, the volume is evenly spread. And I took the test. I thought it was awesome. I thought it was just like, wow, it was really cool. I took it to IMAX and I showed it to them. Oh, by the way, I walked in.

I'm like, guys, I just want you to know. I think I might have just reinvented how we distribute sound. Let me tell you what I did. I took the five one and i reproduced it three times and uh let me show you what i've done i press play and jason ritzman who's the head of music at um uh at imax when it was over said, um, Oh, yeah, that's really good. Uh, uh, can I show you something? Since he said that, I was like, you know, like, Oh, I guess he didn't like, uh, like what I did. So yeah, so, so, so he's like, and he puts on Bohemian Rhapsody

and it was the life aid scene. And he goes, do you know Paul Massey? And I was like, no, do you have his number? I had seen Bohemian 14 times in the cinema because I was at that point into Moon Age. And I don't even like Queen that much as a man. I like them. I just, I'm not like a big, not, what I'm trying to say, let me say this so it doesn't sound so weird.

I'm not going to go see a queen concert film 14 times. Yeah. It was the, it was the, the way that Paul had mixed it. I found like, this sounds amazing. And I wanted to try to figure out what he's doing. So anyway, I ended up getting Paul's number and I called him up and he had never done a documentary and i told him what i was interested in doing and um if i'm not mistaken i think we are the first film to actually finish a native 12 and 12.0 as our native format i don't think it'd ever been done before um anyways paul came on board and um that's that how do you make something like this

very personal to you while trying to create a new experience and tell the story of a person you can't make any art that's not personal to you how do you do that you get a robot to do it well i'm curious specifically because music is so insanely personal to people. And with Bowie, he's got this extraordinary discography that lasts 50 years. So when do you start experiencing him? And then is that reflected in the film, the phase or the period that you like the most? No, absolutely not. But that's not what the film is about either.

What the film is about is, look, I what the film is about is look i don't want to sound weird or i don't want to be taken out of context but all biography is more of a bottom biography you do a film on bowie i do a film on bowie they're going to be different why are they different because we have different experiences you know i had a heart attack right before i started this film so i made a film about you know roadmap to how to lead a more fulfilling and satisfying life how to be an artist how to take risks how to take challenges because i'm at a point in my life where i don't have much time left and so i want to take advantage of every single moment now you might go through all the same material you're the different station you

come up with something totally different you may be totally into his clothes you may be telling to the gender fluidity component. I don't know what your orientation is, but you're going to find some angle that ultimately whatever you do is not going to be about David Bowie. It's going to be about you. How could it be? You don't know David Bowie. I just,

I mean, I know Bowie in quotations. I don't know David Jones. Well, what did you learn then about how to live your life? Maybe more fully through his prison. I learned everything. I, I, my life had brought, I had a heart attack. So everything up to that point, I mean, it wasn't just a heart attack. I was in a coma for a week. A year to the day David died,

which happens to be my daughter's birthday. I was absolutely, I didn't realize it but i was completely broken um and um and as an artist i was kind of just i thought that each film was really different from the one before it but as i sat back and reflect they were all the same like this it's just i do this one thing like i do this thing where it's like experience and nothing's in the past tense everything is presented in the present tense there's no looking back and all these little things that i've been working on and working towards had to get thrown out they weren't going to work for this film that's bowie that was uh i had to really get out of my element and so i learned about acceptance and to be more present and to be more in the now as an artist i learned that there were no mistakes just happy accidents and i learned that there's that perfectionism is sort of a fool's errand.

You can't really design a perfect film. I didn't want this film to be biographical at all. I never, I don't, where's my thing? It's not here. I had a manifesto, 44-page manifesto I wrote for myself to edit the movie. Not the script that came later or that came in a separate orientation but i had a 45 page edit guide and the first line was no dates no biography no facts i broke that rule and when i broke the rule i you know i was i was like now i have to deal with people asking

why lou reed's not in the film because once you mention one thing then you open the you open the other thing if i don't mention any names or any family members or anything like that no one's gonna everyone's gonna be synced to like oh it's not a biography so but i got to a point where i wanted to david was talking so much about alienation and isolation that i wanted to sort of at least have some indicator of what it was coming, where it was coming from. So I'm a bad podcast guest, I guess. No, you're not. Yeah, I just got to tell you, I don't know.

I can't even begin to tell you how tired I am right now. You're doing great. You're doing great. I can possibly articulate to you is I had little exaggeration. I don't think i've had more than two hours of sleep in the last six weeks per night and um so uh is that because you're nervous or because you're busy or nervous what is it i mean there is i don't know you got a you got a new film coming out i know but i i haven't i i left it all on the tape i. I left no stone unturned.

I stood up at my camera again, liberated, liberated. So why aren't you sleeping, Brett? Because I'm so excited. And I know people don't like to admit this, but I read everything. I spent seven years working on something. I guess some filmmakers would say like, okay, finish and move on.

But I'm so curious how people interpret it and receive it. I'm not talking about critics, a little bit of that, but the audiences. And we've been, you know, we're opening in 40 countries around the world today. So there's like endless chatter at any hour of the day and um and it's just exhilarating it's it's it's you know the response to the film so different than anything i ever expected how so i don't think anyone else would get it and you feel like they are oh i know they are it's not it's not even a question anymore. It's been four months since can I can,

I didn't know. I knew the critics got it. I never thought they were going to get it at the level they did. We have the fifth highest review film, best review film. I can invest in reviewed American film. I can best English language film. I can.

That was never something I especially can't i don't like a lot of films that come out of there they're like a little slow um sort of like very different than many stadium actually winnie's kingdom is not a canned film when i think about like canned films so that was totally unexpected um but then we got to this next place where we started to screen it for people. And then what happened, you know, this week we had previews all over the country on Monday night. And I got to actually see what non-film festival audiences would make of this thing. And I honestly, I jumped on social when a night expecting, you know,

like what the fuck was that? You know, like walked out after 15 minutes. I didn't learn. I was expecting the, I didn't learn anything. It's not what I found. I mean,

that may change over the weekend because, uh, once the, I think the first audiences were probably really hardcore, you know, like when they went on a Monday night, see a Bowie film and I'm actually hardcore. Um,

but the, you know, I cry, bro. I was, I was just like, I, I,

my wife said, yeah, I guess. I can't believe what I'm reading. I can blew my mind. So it's just, it's very exciting time. I'm excited for you.

I mean, I think if you're a fan of his, then there's no doubt that you're going to have a great time at the movie. I think it's really interesting. It'll be really interesting to see, like you say, the reception over time for people who don't know much about him. And I think that that and that's why I was asking you those questions at the beginning of our chat, because, you know, it's I can see that it that might be a point of frustration for you, too. And somebody is like, why don't i know more about his mother or something like that well the only frustrating part of that to me is they're not reviewing the film that i made yeah yeah i guess not looking at the film i made they're looking at they're going into i didn't get my messaging out to them i spent the last four months trying to do in progress i don't like doing press i hate doing press but i'm doing it and I didn't even want to do any press but I'm doing it because I created I've been working on this different genre if you go into this film looking for a biographical for facts and get them with videos

it's gonna be terribly disappointed and lost I don't want to do that to anyone you have to get in your car and you got to drive to the movie theater and and there's a pandemic happening like I don't want to put anyone in harm's way like so i i want them to have a good time and in terms of what you're saying the people who are boy fans i'm seeing the same media from the non boy fans that i'm seeing from the boy fans um so i i i don't think there's going to be a dramatic shift you know hopefully what will happen you know if i if i can write the the script for this film is you start the film and you get the hardcore bowie fans coming out then you sort of as it moves forward you get the cinephiles and you get the kind of imax boys

who kind of come and are like oh wow it's a spectacle and then by the third week everyone's found out that this is the best film to take acid to in decades. And we got all the stoners coming in and we just keep this shit going. And then you got your grandma coming in because it's like affirming. And she liked Bowie and she's in love with him again. And so I think it's for everybody. You know, we got an R rating in the States. Fuck the MPA.

Like, how dare they give a film with one second and 17 frames of nudity split over three shots no profanity and no violence and they dared to give us an r are they scared of david bowie's crotch, what the hell puritanical world are we living in? I appealed it and we got a PG-13. I don't care why it's a PG-13. I don't know why it's not PG. Well, you just made the best possible pitch for it. The six phases of attendees of your film.

Brett, we have to wrap, but I end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen. Have you seen any great films lately? Yes, I have. Oh, fuck, dude. I'm... Oh, shit. this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen have you seen any great films lately yes i have um oh fuck dude i'm i oh shit it was only on the after they were weak i think it's going to be on the shutter today speak no evil yeah man this is a great you're the second person to recommend this okay we can't talk about it we cannot say anything about it the only thing i'm going to say is that if you're freaked out by horror violence don't don't see it but if you're open to that do not read anything don't talk to anybody

after you see moon age daydream go watch uh speak no evil coming up uh in the fall later this year corsage is amazing I saw that at a camp. James Gray has made a masterpiece with his new film Armageddon Time. Triangle of Sadness is quite funny. Werner Herzog has an amazing documentary. I don't know if it's going to come this way on the same subject as Fire of Love. That begins with one of my favorite lines in the history of film, where he says, I'm stealing his line.

There have been several books made about the craft. There have been several documentaries. I make one myself 13 years ago. In this film, there is no story. We just look at images i'm like oh my god whoa whoa whoa how how do you get away with that i i i want that line for every film i'm like dude that's can i borrow that that's like that's my catchphrase um So yeah, there's some good, there's some really good, really good movies that are coming out. But yeah, Speak No Evil is fucking great.

I like that. Just blew my mind into just a million little pieces. Brett, those are great recs. Congrats on Moon Age Daydream. It is, you accomplished what you set out to accomplish. It's amazing. I really appreciate that. Thank you so much.

Thanks to Brett. Thanks to Amanda, of course. And thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on today's episode. As I suggested earlier, next week, Amanda and I are digging into another messy stew, Andrew Dominick's Blonde, which will be streaming on Netflix on Wednesday. And you can watch that movie on Wednesday and hear our podcast on Wednesday. We're also going to be talking about the films of Marilyn Monroe. We'll see you then.