The Big Picture - ‘The End of Oak Street’ and the Top Five 'Twilight Zone' Movies. Plus: Will Poulter!

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

A very special occasion (a potentially good dinosaur movie) requires very special company, which is why on today’s show, Sean is joined by Chris Ryan and Mallory Rubin to discuss David Robert Mitchell’s ‘The End of Oak Street.’ Before transporting back to the Mesozoic era, they cover Mallory’s trip to D23 and react to myriad announcements, most crucially the casting for the upcoming X-Men movie. Then, they briefly discuss ‘The Last House’ (a film they found utterly dreadful) before diving into ‘The End of Oak Street’ (a film they found wildly entertaining and incredibly fascinating). Later, they each provide their top five favorite ‘Twilight Zone’ movies. Finally, Sean is joined by actor Will Poulter to discuss his new film, ‘Union County,’ and why he’s pushing himself out of his comfort zone with roles that scare him. (0:00) Intro (1:07) CR and Mal join the show! (4:28) X-Men casting announcements (21:12) ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ trailer reaction (27:42) Mal’s ‘Starfighter’ trailer reaction (31:47) Other D23 announcements (38:14) ‘The Last House’ (48:05) ‘The End of Oak Street’ (1:17:16) The top five 'Twilight Zone' movies (1:45:27) Will Poulter joins the show! (2:26:45) End-of-show outro Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Will Poulter, Chris Ryan, and Mallory Rubin Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennacy, and this is the big picture a conversation show about dinosaurs, cosmos, and what to do if you're mysteriously transported back to the Mesozoic era. On today's episode, I'll be joined by Chris Ryan and Mallory Rubin to discuss the new dinosaur thriller, The End of Oak Street, a rollicking new movie from It Follows and Under the Silver Lake director David Robert Mitchell. Later in this episode, I'll be joined by Will Polter, the extraordinarily versatile and gifted actor who stars in a tough and powerful new movie called Union County about a young Ohio man in recovery, participating in a county mandated drug court program. The movie is made with largely non-professional actors

and is a fascinating collision of the real world and the created. Polter is a smart actor with great taste, always looking for material like this. He came here with a great story to tell. I hope you'll stick around for that chat. But first, let's talk about some important movie news that starts with the letter X with Mal and CR right after this. Okay, Mallory, welcome back.

Hello, thanks for having me. What a pleasure. It's his show. You should know, like, look at me in the eyes the entire time. What's up with a big picture turning into inside the actor's studio? Hmm. I like talking to artists. What's wrong with that?

Are we going to do a little bit of tape breakdown on the Ashon-anything mailback? You know, I'd like to, I'd like to share some thoughts. What do you want to get into? I just thought it was an absolutely riveting, astonishing, and dare I say, exquisite listen. And I found it inspiring and aspirational. I know why you're asking. Yeah. I listened to it in the car over a few commutes.

You mean like in the boudoir? Well, I listen to the watch in the bath, and I think Chris feels protective that I have chosen to consume the watch in that very relaxing intimate way. Sure, yeah. There's just not like any old Irish guy talking on a podcast and, you know, you jump in the bath. Is it about the Irish and podcasting? Why do we got it like that? You and me, JFK, yeah. He would have been a hell of a podcaster.

When was the last time the three of us podcasted together? It's been a minute. Just the three of us? Just the three of us? Not the three of us and other people. Complete unknown might have been it. Yeah, because Gladiator 2 and a complete unknown, we're like very close together. Did we not have a trio pod last year?

That's so sad. I feel like that's just a mistake and not something we should allow to happen again. If only we were allowed to make decisions about who gets to appear on episodes. How many times have you and I been invited to the watch together? Zero. What does that tell you? Andy's at prima don't know. And it takes a lot of maintenance to just get him ready at 10 a.m.

You have no idea how many shots he takes, what kind of rival. Like shots like this or like shots like this? You know, H-G-H, all the things that we have to pump into him to get him coherent. You should let him know that Mal and I know how to podcast. I know. Well, you don't watch television anymore. Mostly true. Yeah.

What am I up on right now? What am I up to date on? What are you watching? I have not yet seen the finale of Dragon. But I've seen that I saw the first seven episodes. Okay. That's pretty good for you. Pace-wise.

What did I just finish? What did I just watch and finish? I can't remember. I'm not watching a lot right now. I will watch Lanterns. Did you watch Beef Season 2 recently? I watched Beef Season 2, which I enjoyed. Which I thought a little bit went off the rails, but I enjoyed.

No, but I will. It is actually literally, I'm going on vacation this weekend, and we are going to, Eileen and I are going to watch Furious. And I have been deleting episodes of as soon as you and Andy start talking about them. Hey, thanks for being here. So you just came back from Anaheim. That's right. I was just there on Friday night.

That was enough. You were there for D23. What is D23? Mallory? D23 is the Disney convention to announce and celebrate all sorts of Disney things. I had never been. And I decided this year after San Diego Comic-Con, assuming that I did not come back from San Diego Comic-Con with COVID, which is what happened last year, that I would go. I would make my maiden voyage to D-23 this year. And I was committed. Chris saw me last week. We had some wonderful podcasting experiences together last week with the Talk to Thrones finale of rewatchables.

And he was like, you seem not well. And I was like, nothing will keep me from D23. Not my psychic break. Not my debilitating exhaustion. Nothing. I will be there. And then I went and I was like, I don't need to go again. That said, that said, we got some big news.

We did. We got a lot of news. Sean and I got it the same second you did. Yeah. We were sitting together drinking beer in my home. Yeah. And you were in Anaheim. That's right.

Getting COVID-20. So we got an X-Men cast. Yeah. And you have been podcasting about X-Men. You have been podcasting about X-Men. I just podcasted about X-Men last week. You sure did. We all love the X-Men.

I think we're all very excited about the forthcoming X-Men movie. And some of the casting announcements were made. We know that Jake Shrier is going to be directing the movie. And we knew going into this that Samarrawe, Weaving would be playing Emma Frost. We knew Kit Conner would be portraying Cyclops. Yeah. And of course we knew Sadie Sink would be portraying Gene Gray because of Spider-Man brand new day.

Everything else, I would say, was mostly rumored and unconfirmed. Right. And there was one thing that I think it's fair to say could be considered surprising. But even then, this is a person that we knew the MCU had been targeting for a very long time. So I'll give the list. And then I want to get your reactions to this roster so far of Charles Xavier's X-Men. And we'll start with Charles Xavier, who's going to be portrayed. by Christopher Abbott.

Yeah. Yeah. Probably best known for his work on girls, but I think a very exciting and very adventurous film actor. Very serious man. Very serious actor.

Great work on Broadway. Made a lot of independent films over the last 10 years or so. I saw him off Broadway, not a big deal. We can just skip right past. Did you see him in theaters in Craven the Hunter?

I did. As the foreigner. Day one. I was there as well. Didn't work out great. He was fine in it. He was pretty interesting, actually. Not as interesting as Craven's abs, obviously.

In addition to Professor X, we've got Indian Averetti is playing Rogue. We've got Maya Boyd as Storm. Yeah. And the most significant news, I think, is probably Adam Driver, is portraying Nathaniel Milbury, aka Mr. Sinister. Yeah. You say what? So the Midnight Boys Pew Poo talked about some of their pod.

Joe and I podded this morning about the D23 News and the excellent lanterns premiere. And I think all of us had the same reaction to being in the room for the announcement, which was just a very weird, anti-climactic, muted response. People were... They're where the NBA draft is now, where it's just like five minutes before the pick, they're like, the Hornets will be taking conch nipple. Yeah, it was just a very quick progression of saying the performer's names. They came out, they said nothing, and then it was over.

And there was, like, genuinely no joke, way more excitement in the room for... Louie and Camp Rock 3, not a thing that I knew about or understood until Joanna explained it to me. So that was strange. I think that the driver, the Adam Driver, because that he was on video, that was a clip that they played a fun little bit. Like I thought, you know, when everyone said to be there, they meant on set, right? And he's alone. They pan out. And he did the Magneto bit. He like leaned in to the rumor mill that people had speculated that he would be playing Magneto. I will say that without naming names, multiple people around us were like, wait, So is he Magneto?

Because he said Nathaniel Milbury, not Mr. Sinister, and not everybody knew that alias. So people were, like, confused. It was a little bit weird. There's the reception in the room, and then there's just the excitement for the cast. And I think this is exciting casting. I will say I am a— Joanna introduced me to Hard Stopper a few years ago, and I think it's excellent. And I, the second I saw Kit Conner, like in one scene, I texted Joanna and multiple friends,

this guy's going to be mega famous. Like, I just think he's an incredibly talented young actor. I love Sadie Sink. Charlie on girls is one of the more formative. Yeah, a problematic male boy. Heroin Charlie or prep Charlie? They're all kind of interesting, right? Part of the experience of loving Charlie is the journey, you know?

And so, yeah, I have not seen obsession because I'm scared, but obviously that I understand that that is very exciting. Maya Boyd, a Broadway performer, but new to a movie of this magnitude, obviously. By far the least known of the crew. Yeah. So I think this is a really exciting on cast. My expectation certainly is that we have more news to come. I don't know if you believe that the Charles Melton turned down beast thing is real. Certainly seems like it.

I am obsessed with Charles Melton, so I was really hoping that he would be in this new franchise. Anyway, I think that the cast is very promising, more to come. How many more reveals to come for the first film is an interesting. question. I assume you and Andy talked about this. We did. Yeah. You know, you don't have to repeat yourself here necessarily. I'll say something different than what I said on the pod, which is something I was saving for the big picture.

Nice. Sometimes I do this. Yeah, special. The casting is secondary to the way this movie winds up looking and the way this movie winds up feeling to me. Like, they could have cast this with the collected cast of Heat 2, and it's not going to matter if it looks like Doomsday. And I think that this is almost more crucial to me than Marvel turning the page on the V-1 Avengers, like the Mark Ruffalo era's Avengers,

and the Hemsworth Avengers, is turning the page on how these movies maybe get made and how they look and how they feel. The best example of that going forward, I think the Touchstone should be brand-new day, which by no means is, you know, licorice pizza in terms of its... feel for human life.

But if only it had a little bit of that energy. Yeah. If I was like, the one thing missing from Ben, a brand new day was an age gap romance. As it was coming out of my mouth, I was like, that's interesting.

That's the first movie you thought of. That's not a superhero movie. Is that because that movie made you want to visit a high school? No, do you know what I think it was on some level? Subconsciously, it's that Cooper Hoffman had been rumored to be an ex-man. It might have been that and it might have also just been like Michael Bauman

shot that. Michael Baum and shot Tony. I'm just thinking about it. It's just a lot of. A lot of spaghetti appear. Yeah. Well, okay. You're making an interesting point.

To me, I'm very excited for X-Men and I really like Thunderbolts and I think Jake Shrider's good. So, like, I'm probably going to like this movie. I hope so, yes. X-Men. I feel the same way. I thought Thunderbolts was great. X-Men is very sacred to us.

I'm in the middle of X-Men 97 season two. That is the show I was watching that I couldn't think of. Good show. And I'm loving it. And I love the first season and it is tapping into a very primal teenage me version. And now I literally pulled out the graphic novel. over the weekend when the news hit the show to Alice. Like, here's Days of Future Past.

Here's, you know what I mean? Like, here's Dark Phoenix. So I'm very invested in that, in that very kind of adolescent way. With that said, this casting feels very much to me like a sop to Gen Z. And I think what they're doing is looking at the success of the Spider-Man films since Holland came on. And one of the reasons why the last two movies have been so massive is you've got young people who've been on the journey with these actors since the beginning. So if you were 14, when...

Homecoming came out, you're at the stage of life now where a lot of these characters are going in these movies. And there's something very shrewd about that. That is going to make, I think, this version of the X-Men feel dramatically different from Brian Singer's X-Men movies. And really more like Y-A. And I don't mean that pejoratively. Maybe. I don't mean that pejoratively. But this is a younger cast.

It's a relatively unknown cast and the things that they are known for are things like Heartstopper. which is appealing to a very, Stranger things, obsession. These were hot Gen Z things. I would say there's nothing more millennial than girls. And both Adam Driver and Christopher Rabbit are girls temples. There's a counterpoint to that, which is if you look at the two hyper-seasoned actors

that they've cast here, they're like their credibility boosters. They're very serious figures. You know, they both take their work very seriously. We know that about them. They both present as they're going to be the grown-ups in the room, quite literally, in these stories.

So it'll be interesting to see how those two worlds kind of interact. Yeah, I just have a couple of questions about, like, the mechanics of how they're going to do this version of, whether it's phased storytelling or not. Like, they're probably not going to use Disney Plus as a spackle for plot. So there probably won't be a Hellfire Club series to introduce these people, right? Like... I have some thoughts on that, but keep going.

They're probably, if I had to guess, these characters will be relatively well introduced in the two Avengers. films, and so the first X-Men movie, do you think it's going to be like Charles Xavier's school for... I think you might get in Secret Wars. Yeah, a little bit. I think that gets to the younger cast, right, and the meta quality there of, like, not only leaning into the ability to grow with the Spider-Man comp, which I think is exactly right and great. And, you know, ultimately very appealing for the idea of, like, creating and fostering a new generation of fandom rather than just continuing to make movies for a bunch of increasingly fatigued

and beleaguered moviegoers who are like, this isn't as good as the thing I used to love. there's a natural element to the Secret Wars post-Secret Wars reset of saying, okay, the universe is taking shape and form anew, and we're doing that with characters who are figuring out their powers as the MCU is figuring out the next stage of storytelling. So I think that's appropriate and exciting. It actually feels to me like it gives me more confidence than the idea of continuing to try to layer on and connect to these extra strands.

of threads of a tapestry that has now existed for, guys, we're a couple years away from 20 years of the MCU. It's 2026. Iron Man came out in 2008. Like, we need to move on to the next phase of things. And so that I think is actually a good choice. Me too. Yeah.

I'm curious to see with Mr. Sinister being the lead villain how much of this is really an X-Men movie. because Mr. Sinister was very Gene and Scott focused as a character. We know Gene and Scott they're announced here. We already been introduced to Gene in these movies. But no Wolverine, no Nightcrawler, no Colossus, no Angel, no Iceman. Forget about Banshee or Bishop or Cable or any of those other characters. I have not forgotten about Bishop and Cable, by the way.

If you really like Bishop and Cable, you need to be watching X-Men 97 season two. They're getting a lot of energy. And I wonder if they're going to keep the team a little smaller. Beast will come in. Yeah. You know, maybe Angel will come in or maybe we'll get a Wolverine near the end of the film.

But like... No Wolverine would be really bold. The biggest questions, obviously, I think, are Wolverine and Magneto. Is Magneto not going to be cast in this first movie? I don't feel that way. I don't think they should.

Yeah. I agree. It's what Joanna said this morning. I think I'm coming around to this. This was not where I was initially. I also really liked the way brand new day was like, here's the star of the movie.

Here's the co-stars of the movie. This is the pyramid of importance within this plot. There is not a D-plot of two people doing a guffin journey to bring something back to Spider-Man that doesn't really matter. Like, they need to get away from that kind of storytelling, which they box themselves into because they have 12 actors and Avengers who all need, like, plot service, and they wind up acting against tennis balls in Atlanta and saying, like, no, bring it over here, you know, but... Well, they do it in London now, but sure.

Sure. But, like, my point being is, like, if they were to start as a love story between these two kids who get fucked up by this guy. That's where I think they're going. Yeah. That is exactly where I think they're going. Even just, I don't know, how much of how they spend the first 30 seconds of a four-and-a-half-minute D-3 panel really matters. And what does that tell us?

I don't know. But they did introduce Gene and Scott before Charles. Yes. Which felt like it was signaling something. And then to end on Sinister, I agree. It felt like the bookends of the announcement were, you know, that character set and that pairing. And the idea of building your new franchise initially. around young charismatic stars like Kit Conner and Sadie Sink, I think makes a lot of sense.

I don't know that you can wait too long to bring Magneto and Wolverine into the era of X-Men in the MCU, but one movie is interesting. It's a fascinating choice. I was thinking about what you said with there not being a Hellfire Club TV show, for example. So we know that next year there's only one Marvel movie. It's just Secret Wars. in 2028, when this X-Men film is coming in May, that will be followed in succession by Ghost Rider

and then Black Panther 3. And then we'll be back on the three Marvel movies a year schedule. And it was the expansionist mentality that I think really felled the Marvel Enterprise. And I'll be very curious to see because I think it's not hard to imagine a world where Doomsday and Secret Wars and X-Men are all big hits. Sure.

Maybe diminishing returns on the Avengers films relative to the previous two Avengers films, but still, those movies are going to be very, very, very, And then all of a sudden, Marvel will be feeling itself again. And then they'll be like, well, what if we do need to do the Colossus origin story in animated form on Dplus? Like, these things always come in waves and cycles. And so I'm kind of curious to see. I don't think there's any way to make those movies in a cost-effective way or make those shows in a really cost-effective way.

I think that's what they figured out, that even something like Wonder Man, which had all this affection for it critically. and I think even among the fans who found it, but ultimately, like, Disney decided not to do it because it was a real Excel sheet for them, where they were like, this movie, this show costs too much for the amount of people who watch it, and it's not germane, it's not essential to have this as a building block going forward for our plans for Marvel.

I think they could change their mind again, just the same way all of, you know, entertainment could be like, we're diving back into streaming TV as a platform to connect theatrical events, and especially if movies become more and more this sort of like, not boutique, almost like luxury live experience of something and then like TV is kind of where the grinders are.

I don't know if that's ever going to happen. It's almost like the dynamic amongst podcasters as well. That's right. Just got to make that rent money. Kinnish over here. I always got that bread truck for you if you want it. My point really was just that I could see a world,

where they're making Ghost Rider, Black Panther, X-Men movies, and they don't have that much to do with each other. They're like, that we are in a post-post-credit sequence world. And these stories are maybe a little hermetically sealed. Like, I'm sure we'll have team-ups.

I'm sure, you know, but I could see a world in which we're not doing a lot of like, you better stick around for the second post-credit sequence to see Charlize Theron, who's never going to show up again. It's probably a good idea to at least take a break from that. after Secret Wars, which is kind of the ultimate, like the ER team-up story. So do you think Vision Quest will be like the last TV show we see for a long time from Marvel?

I think you're both right. I think what Chris is outlining feels currently like the plan. And I think you are right that the impulse to go right back to the thing that worked before until it didn't will be really strong. If the overall enthusiasm is at a fever pitch again, I don't really know why I'm putting so much stock in like these figy presentations at these conventions. but I was really struck at Comic-Con for the Marvel Hall Age panel when he came out and was like, we're not here to talk about TV. Literally said that.

And I just thought that, now, again, he's like trying to muster enthusiasm for end-game encore, and then, of course, Doomsday. And, you know, they had the Ghost Rider and Black Panther three announcements at that panel,

a little spidey tease before people had seen that movie. So there was a lot of film-centric footage and conversation to highlight, but we're not here to talk about TV, felt like a signal of intent about where Marvel is right now. I thought the Vision Quest trailer that they showed at D23 was one of the highlights of the entire night.

It looks wonderful. Wanda Vision was great. Agatha was great. There's a version of Marvel from a couple years ago where the third piece of that trilogy is, like, really central to how people are talking and thinking about Marvel. And I would say this is very much being presented as the conclusion of a thing,

not the continuation of a thing. Now, that said, like Wiccan and Spee, are in the MCU now and will be a part of things moving forward. So even the installments that are positioned as conclusions or, to Chris's point, as separate, still present characters, if not maybe as many active plot lines that connect to other things because it is inherently a connected universe. I don't know. I mean, I think that there's no question, you're right, that doomsday and secret wars will be huge.

The question is whether they'll be good, right? I think we can pivot that conversation into the second. trailer that was released. Yeah. Now, you guys got a chance to see this at Comic-Con. Yes. Correct?

Yes. And this is the one that was communicated to us as a huge improvement on the first one. And I ask you, Chris, is it a huge improvement on the first one?

Emotionally and dramatically, yeah. Yeah. I was interested to find out what they are yelling about. I'm seated. You now are interested to find out. Yeah. I mean, I didn't know.

Like, the first one is... Did you do this? Yeah. Well, fucking... If it's important, and start screaming about it. Like, I liked to see, like, they have been doing kind of the inert, like, I don't know really what I'm looking at. A lot of posing.

Yeah. And now, like, even though it looks like it is, I think Andy said it looked like it was shot in Harenhall, it is. It is. I think that's generous. Wow. At least had. Did they even fuck their mom? Dramatic stakes that it was suggesting.

Isn't that the whole Victor von Doom thing, right? His relationship to his mom? Yeah. That's a big part of it. Yeah. For sure. What kind of about that. Isn't that one of his motivating forces

is he can't really live up to the expectations for him? He's always second best. I always want to call him VVD, but that's the nickname of Liverpool's beloved centerback, Virgil Van Dyke. I think Victor von Doom preceded him in the VVD power rankings, if I had to guess. I thought this was a little better.

I don't know if it was like some dramatic improvement on what I saw before because it was shot in front of a giant fucking green screen. I guess the throne room scene is like a real room that had furniture in it, but like, the movie definitely has me interested in what the story's going to be. Who's the guy who did Marty Supreme? Jack Whits' His face?

Oh, Jack Fiske. Yeah, Jack Fis marvels the Avengers Doomsday. And it was nice to see Pedro Pascal acting and not wandering around like he's on Ambien like he did in Fantastic Four. That was, you know, I was interested in that. It does make it seem like, obviously, I like the theory, maybe it was Van who said this.

Maybe it was you who said this. that it feels, it's just like, this looks like maybe the first five minutes of the movie. Yeah, I just think that all this like,

the Fox X-Men are back! It's like, come on. Most, in all likelihood, many of those characters will be annihilated fairly early on. I would think so.

And what did you do? Did you do this? Was all about killing many, many heroes, presumably. Channing James Gambit. Yeah, and we will mourn him

on this show. But, I don't know. The Rousseau's, you know, they have a visual style. not the greatest style, and they don't have the same level of anticipation, at least for me, that they had going into the previous two films.

Sure. We'll see how it goes. Yeah. It's going to be a popular film. Oh, no question. But. No question. Will it be good, as you said, is really the big question.

I mean, I hope so. I really want it to be. I'm, I thought that this trailer was a market improvement over the first one, which I considered quite worrying. I, I don't know. I heard Downey breakout. the Latvarian accent and I felt

like possibility still existed in the world I felt alive I don't think that was your reaction to it I was like let's go for it Do you think we'll get any no mask Downey or is this a Mandalorian situation You know they're giving us so much like

eye so much eyeball in the trailer maybe I do think they will find it very difficult to resist having our Avengers who know Tony see Downey's face like I don't think they'll be able to resist that. That's good point, right? So, that feels inevitable. Yeah, will it be

will it be Cap? I know they're not like saying that Peter's in this movie. Will it be Peter? I think that that seems very likely to happen at some point. How scarred will the face be? We'll find out. We'll find out. Yeah, it's definitely is like a, it's like a fantastic four

movie, which makes sense, obviously, given Doom, but because they had to, you know, change the plan from Kang to Doom, it doesn't have the like Thanos equivalent of We built across the Infinity Saga to this thing. So it makes sense to... Fikey tried to walk that back a little bit, though.

It was like everybody's always like, you guys... You guys pebbled Thanos across ten movies. He's like, Thanos would show up for like five seconds, sit in a chair, and everybody's like, what great storytelling. Yeah, it wasn't all like... It wasn't a perfectly orchestrated plan, but there was a plan. This is like, we have to fix a problem. And that doesn't mean it won't turn out to be good.

It's a little interesting to use Doom now in a moment when they are... They feel a little up against the wall because he is kind of like, there's a case that he is the great comic book villain. I agree with you. And so they make apocalypse rape. That's right. Well, again, watch X-Men 97 season two, you know?

They're doing it all there. But you see that moment, to your point about Doom as a great villain, you see that moment. You know, I think when the RDJ is coming back news came out, there's the like, you know, inside us all. We have two wolves and there's the, okay, Downey, like, is the MCU for many people exciting? I think also felt like the most more.

morally and creatively, like, bankrupt decision in the history of cinema. Right. Those those maybe could both be true at once. You see Doom stick his hand out and stop. Thorpe, stop, storming. It's like, this is sick. Maybe this would be sick. So there were a couple moments like that in the trailer that did get me hyped and get me jazz.

I agree with you guys that visually it looks appalling. And the fact that it would be coming out of the same weekend as possibly one of the most visually astonishing movies we've had the pleasure of watching. Doon Part 3 is, you know, that's not a comparison that I think is going to benefit Doomsday, but at least we get to see it in Infinity Vision. There's a lot of cap maintenance going on right now. A lot of cap maintenance? Yeah, these two movies get them all off the books.

Right. Then we got all these young kids. Right. Sure. Because you can't make these movies. They went over the second apron. $200 million because of everybody's quote. They were like, we can make Eternals.

And you're like, no, you can't. And you're going to be in cap hell for the next five years. And, you know, now we're here we're. are. We're going to get cleared out. Next year, only three superhero movies. Beyond the Spider-Verse next summer. Can't wait. Man of Tomorrow. Next summer. Also pretty excited. And Secret Wars in December. And that's it. I hope it's great. That's the only time you'll have to hear us talk about superhero movies on this show. I think Secret Wars is going to nail back-to-back years like that. They're not going to delay it at all. They can't delay it. I don't

think they can delay it. I don't think they can delay it. Okay. Starfighter. Yeah. Did they show a trailer to you? They showed a teaser trailer. Okay. It was fucking electric. I've heard real mixed reports about this, I'm curious. No, not a joke. Not a joke. It looked like drive? Be real. It's very much a trailer about the Starship.

It is very much framed as... So we learn Ryan Gosling's character's name is Cade Oberon. Cade Oberon. Yeah, exciting stuff. Great name, sick name, cool name. The Mariners. This guy's the day. Yeah, you know, you're just going to be right there.

He's going to slot in after Brian Whibbon, I think. Incredible jacket. I love George Kirby guy myself. I love. I've had Logan Gilbert, Kirby, and Wu on the AL-only Keeper League that Jeff and I co-managed for the last few years. It's been a delightful experience. We've yet to win a title. And most of those tweets are about his AL Keeper League now. Well, he has Kate Anderson as a keeper, which is like unbelievable. So annoying. Is Kate over on it? Is he in the bullpen or like where does he touch? Yeah, exactly.

High-level reliever? Yeah, exactly. He's a setup guy. So he's got this sick, like, leather jacket with this kind of skull, sigil on the back. And the kid... Seriously? Yeah.

The kid who I thought from the initial image they released looked like a young child. Their aura farming are youth. That's my shit. This is incredible. Get your own shit. I thought the kid was much younger based on the image. They realized he seems to be like a teen.

It was a quick trailer. And it was very much like, you know, fastest starship ever built. Can it be flown? Kind of a vibe. What's your favorite Sean Levy film? I like a few of his episodes of Stranger Things quite a bit. I enjoy it obviously Deadpool and Wolverine.

Okay, that's number one for you. Quite loved the pegging joke in Deadpool and Wolverine. Thought that was inspired. Yeah, why is it funny when Olivia Wilde does it and not when Sean Levy does it, Chris? Answer me that. What's the one that went straight to Adam's song? What was that about? The Adam Project.

The Adam Project. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. It's kind of like real steel. Did you ever see that one? Hugh Jackman. Based on a Twilight Zone episode.

No. Written by Richard Matheson. We will get into that shortly. Okay. So you're a pump for Starfighter. I thought it looked great. I mean, we didn't see much. And I was also hoping that they would play it again.

They trot that kid out there? No. Okay. No. Gosling was out there. He like switched jackets. Yeah, the kid. The kid who was like supposed to be his, you know, lone wolf cub kind of. Oh, that's the vibe they were doing.

And I thought he was going to be much younger. So I don't know. We just did this. Minlearing and Groke. Yeah. I don't know. The visuals looked good. Um, we, they've really barely

showed anything. Obviously, this is set in the future of the timeline. Five years later apparently after Ray and, yeah. Post first order. So that's new. That's exciting. It gets to play in a different slice of the, the canon, a different slice of the timeline. And how do you feel about the theory that it's all leading back to the big Ray

Kylo story down the line? That like, they're not going to do the search for Ben Solo, the hunt for Ben Solo, but they will bring all them back. Dave Falunia was like, that's not happening. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that seems completely possible. I don't know. They can't stop making movies about the same characters.

We are old. Yeah. So next year's 50 years of Star Wars. 50, 50, 50. How do you feel? I feel pretty much the same. Yeah. Dead inside?

Yeah. I mean, I don't, I mean, like, it's funny to just kind of just be sitting here at nearly 50 years old talking about this thing that's been in my life the entire time. But I guess in some ways, most people would say, What a lucky guy. What do you think more people will be celebrating next year? 50 years of Star Wars or 50 years of CR? Why not do it the same?

Do it the same day. On the same day? Yeah. Should we get a big... What's the biggest movie theater we could possibly get to pile in and watch a new hope together? Why don't you get me the Millennium Falcon? You want me to purchase it?

Who owns the Millennium Falcon? Well, there is one at Galaxy's Edge. But that was a re-create, as they say. But we could still go and sit in it to celebrate Christmas's birthday. I don't think... Would you enjoy that? I really don't care for any. I'm very much.

That's why you weren't a D-23. A couple news and notes out of D-23. The Bluey movie announced for August 6th, 2027. Thumbs down by Andy Greenwald's younger daughter. Oh, no. That's upsetting. I've never seen a second of the trailer, the different rendering of it.

Oh. Yeah. It does have the heightened, we have a slightly different animation style that differs from the TV show, which I'm not sure I totally understand, but I have a lot of faith Joe Brum, the creator and writer and director

Is that coming to your life yet? Hardcore? Bluey? Yeah. Oh, Ben, for years. Oh, before, pre-Alice, you were just rocking Bluie episodes? No, no, I mean, Alice is five years old. I've been watching it since she was like two years old.

I wouldn't say we watch it very much now, but if we popped it on, she would be wrapped. Okay. You know, the fascinating thing about Bluey, of course, is that every episode is eight minutes long. Right. So the idea of a 90-minute film is sort of antithetical to the magic of the show.

Interesting. We shall see. That movie will make... $500 million easily. That is one of the most encoded things for all parents of the last 15 years that exists. Tangled live action, huge news for Alice, horrible news for this podcast.

I'm going to have to do an episode about this movie, which I'm sure will be terrible. But Catherine Hahn is in it, so that's exciting. She rules. She's great. Diego Luna's great. Katrina Balf is great. Will you be on that episode?

March 31st, 2028. I'll be here. You'll be 50 by then. Pixar, four titles. This was the highlight of D-20th. through by, I think, a comfortable margin. The Pixar presentation. We already knew Gato was coming next year.

It's about a mafia cat, a cat in the mafia? That's correct. About a cat who was in the cat mafia in Venice, Italy. And when the Pixar presentation started, I just kept, I was like, Gato, Gatto, gotto. A while ago, I texted Sean Mahoney and Joe Gato, first pick in the 2007 House of our hype draft. Nobody replied, but I'm on the record. And- You know what I love about you is that you don't take disinterest as a side of hostility.

Like, so you text a thread. It just means I have to work harder to make this a shared experience. You text a thread with literally zero other Baltimore Orioles fans on it, updates about like an Orioles regularly. It's true. And nobody responds ever. We don't even heart it. I find it comforting.

I'll never respond to it, but I find it comforting. Three unanswered texts of like screenshot of the standings, a screenshot of a guy's batting average. And it's just like, I don't know. Gunner's doing. Who's a shit? I don't care. You did respond once this season.

Actually, twice. It was about Pete. And then... Pete Alonzo. You sent me a very rude, very rude, very rude, fathom up about Gunner's OPS. And I think I took a brief pause from sending Oriol updates, but now we're back.

Now you're back. Gotto looks amazing. They showed an extended clip and a trailer. It just looks great. Just looks tremendous. And the hand-painted animation style looks beautiful. It looks lovely. I will see this film in theaters.

I can't wait. Are you will you be looking for My wife likes cats a lot But will you be looking for an underage Wife figure a la Apollonia From the godfather That you can admire? I was on the sort of like

More safe side of that I wouldn't say so Of opinion I think. You were? I think so. I think Bill was the one who was like Jack, let's play the tape. Godfather rewatchable's episode.

Let's run that clip. That was also a time when I don't think we understood maybe people were listening to that podcast. I think what you said on the episode was, I would frequently whip it out and stare at myself in the mirror during those scenes. Yes, that's right.

Is that what you said? It is. I remember. I remember listening to it. Incredibles 3. Wonderful news. That's coming out. Peter's Sone directing, not Bradbird, who has a movie later this year for Netflix

called Raygon. And then a film called Ghost Market. It's looked amazing. I like the log line, the idea. Yeah, they showed some footage from this as well. It looked fantastic. The kid who I believe was described by Pete Doctor, if memory, reserves here. I'm going off the dome. The kid is a, the protagonist is a content creator from Chicago.

And he goes to Hawaii and winds up in the ghost market. Looks great. What's the ghost market? A market. Dark web. Run by ghosts. Well, I'm asking pointedly because I had had an unanswered pitch in at Pixar called Wet Market. That was about a bat. Wet. Not a pendulum. Wet? Wet. It's a joke. What? About, yeah. Wuhan. Will you be going to Cocoa 2 in 2029? I haven't seen Coco one, so I would be lost. Should we sing remember me to him right now? Let's not.

Will they flag the podcast for copyright violation? Copyright infringement? Wouldn't that be fair use? Disney is litigious in that respect. Only if we're commenting on it as we go. We used to be Imagineers. Coco is a wonderful movie. And seeing Miguel aged up as a teen in the little glimpse of the animation that we got was very emotional.

Great film. Disney animation. I guess confirmed Frozen 3 in 2007, similar to the Bluey movie. This will be one of the biggest movies. Chris now were talking about how 2027 is an interesting year for movies and there's a lot of stuff,

but it feels very adolescent. Many of the biggest movies, especially like that's some way, like Minecraft 2, movies like Frozen 3. They're going to be very big, but it's not going to feel like having the Odyssey, for example, in the center of the culture. Zootopia 3 also announced as incoming.

And then, you know, on Hulu, we're going to get Romeo and Michelle to for the olds. How does that feel? It's crazy that like Fox doesn't, it kind of doesn't exist. Yeah, they're mostly an IP engine. Yeah. With the occasional

original story. You know, they're putting out whalefall. The thing that I noted that was whalefall, you went on that? You know about that? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. Yes, I'm excited. The big thing from the Fox side that I noticed was that, I know that Alien Earth is doing a second season, but that There is no current alien film planned.

Because they've basically shelved Romulus. Right, the Romulus sequel. Because they can't figure out the director's relationship to Ridley Scott, apparently, allegedly. We'll talk about that more very soon on this show. Romulus was great. I agree. You saw Romulus. I did.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. As you know, my tolerance for horror when it is in a genre rapper is much higher. And if no cats are involved. I don't like seeing the harm befall a cat. Yeah, that'll be, this is a problem for today. discussion. Excellent segue.

Before we talk about the end of Oak Street, I thought we could talk briefly about the last house. Yeah, this was homework you added on Saturday. Yeah, and I appreciate

you participating. I know you're a very busy woman. CR, of course, had already watched this terrible film. The movie, though, is fascinatingly timed

because it is a somewhat similar premise to the end of Oak Street. And the end of Oak Street made me think of the Twilight Zone, and this is a very twilight-zoney kind of movie.

It's directed by Louis Laetiree, who most recently directed on the big screen Fast X, which is an absolute travesty. I got the Now You See Me franchise rolling. Among other things, he made a Hulk film. Yep.

And this is a Netflix movie. It is the number one movie on Netflix right now. It stars, oh my gosh, Greta Lee. And Wagner Moore. And Wagner. And it is about a family of four who are suddenly sealed inside their home with no way out. Family of five. Don't forget the dog.

Family of five, sure. Not a human being, but all right. It must work together to survive against both their dwindling sources and the mysterious looming threat that is keeping them trapped. Were you happy that I asked you to check this film out? I mean, I thought this movie was quite poor. Quite poor. I was worried it would be too scary for me, and that was not my experience with it.

Though I did find it, we're going spoilers? Yeah, who cares? Great. Chris, and we're already spoiling end of Oak Street, or do we want to, we wait for that? Let's wait for that. Okay, I'll keep this very general. Chris, who is a good, good friend of mine. This Chris?

This is. A person who I have worked. worked with and known and loved for 13 going on 14 years. I would say the same about you, except there's a notable distinction here. You asked me to do the pod. Chris knew that we were doing the pod together. You who had seen Oak Street did not tell me that cats were in peril. Eaten by dinosaurs in the movie.

But Chris did. Is that confirmed? Yes. Oh, yeah. Dinosaurs are eating a cat on the porch. A lot of cats run out of houses and we don't see everything that happens to all of them. But the one orange tabby is just being eaten. Oh, yeah, right.

On the porch. And Chris, when I saw him for rewatchables last week, and these are not, while the cats are very meaningful to me, there were not primary characters. So I think it doesn't count as a spoiler. There's just a lot of chomping and eaten in the movie. Chris said to me, second I saw him, walked in to record rewatchables and he said, I want you to know that I saw the end of Oak Street and some bad stuff happens to cats. I don't have the exact timestamps for you, but here are the scenarios.

You did not share a similar warning with me. The reason I mentioned this in the last house discussion. I'm 39. I'll be 40 years old next month. I know. What are we going to do to celebrate? What are we going to do to celebrate you? What spaceship are we renting out for you? I wouldn't have brought that up. The cats are the 40 years?

No, I'm glad that Mal said it. Okay. You got to own it. That's the whole thing with 40. You got to own it. That's fine. I'll be dead in the few months probably. It's not true. Don't say things like that. Here's the thing Chris didn't tell me. Not only did he not tell me. Okay. So I didn't tell her about something that happened.

to a pet in the last house. He didn't tell me about the dog, and I specifically asked him does anything happen to the dog, and he said he didn't remember, which I find shocking, given the level of... There's a new phenomenon.

It's not even new. I just am ready to start talking about it. It's a phenomenon where, instantaneously, everybody in the country watches the same two dumb streaming movies every weekend and doesn't remember a single thing about them.

So, prior to the last house, a great cinematic achievement called Devil's Mouth, the Devil's Mouth, starring with Catherine Walsh. No. Catherine.

Newton. Catherine Newton. Who's Catherine Watson? I think you're thinking of Catherine Waterston? No, I know I'm not thinking of that, but that's probably why I got the name screwed up. And Lana Condor from all the boys of kissed before.

All the boys I've loved before. They play two chicks who go to Thailand. But I can still wrap all the lyrics from Rock Em's Know the Ledge. That's true. They go to Thailand to go to Thailand to go to Thailand. swimming in some caves and get attacked by sharks. And the night it came out, like, several men in my chat

were just like, I've already logged this. Yeah. Okay. And that's happening with the last house, too. Do you remember what happened to the sharks? I do. I do, I don't remember exactly. I had the, I had so much more fun with the devil's mouth than I had with the last house. The devil's mouth is not good per se. No, but it's like

Indiana Jones on the last crusade compared to this. It is. My goodness. What a comment. There's significantly more esteemed actors in the last house, and that's part of the fake out. And it feels like old school streaming bad movie thing where it's like coming off of, you know, award nominations. Greta Lee and Wagner Mora are cashing in by making a Netflix movie that has an $80 million budget and kind of looks like shit and is boring. It felt so COVID-y to me. Very. And I think there's

something in the idea about it being COVID. Like it does seem like premise-wise, there's something about social distancing that's part of this story where you can't leave your house. You're trapped inside your house of your family. And how much do you really love your family? And can you survive when you're in these circumstances. But that also is something that, like, we don't want to really be thinking about. And I wouldn't say it's an Edding style, like, searing portrayal of the challenges of social distancing. Put that on the poster.

I wouldn't say this is Eddington. Some people that might be appealing. But it's just a dumb streaming movie. And what I didn't realize when we can spoil it is, like, this is just like a big cracking, lovecraftian monster movie. Yeah. And I thought it was going to be more drama than CGI monster movie. Yeah.

But it's not a good CGI monster movie either. It's not terribly creative. It had a little bit of that feeling of like the third act of War of the Worlds, you know, when they go into Tim Robbins's house. No question. Very similar. And just like a real budget version of that. This movie's, it's not good. And it is actually lowering the standard in a way that I find unfortunate.

It doesn't mean that there can't be bad movies that we can enjoy all the time. There can be. But the low effort required to get a... across the line in a movie like this kind of bums me out. It wasn't like fun bad, right? It wasn't leaning into and embracing being bad. It thought it was doing something actually like interesting and dramatically compelling. I thought to the COVID, like social distancing point, I mean, it did come up against just a couple times doing something interesting, like the conversation that Anne and Jason, the husband and wife, the Greta Leanne and Wagner-Rour characters have about, you know, and past lives is maybe one of my 10 favorite movies.

of the century. So I was like, let's go. Greta, and this was a bit of a letdown on that front alone, obviously. But the moment where she's like, you're happier. Like, we are trapped in this house. The world is over. And you're happier now. And he's like, yeah, kind of. Like, there's, there are interesting ideas inside that if maybe explored more fully and teased out or more centrally positioned as the focus could have been compelling. But it is actually just really weird voiceover taking us into. the sentient rain locked us in our house. Also, I think Chris's point about the way people are engaging with a movie like this

and maybe you're looking at your phone, you log it, did you even remember that Cass the beautiful golden retriever ran out of heart pills and had to be shot in the fucking head? I didn't remember. By the Jason character who had a secret gun and then chopped up into pieces and put in the freezer so that they could have the meat on hand in case they needed to eat him one. day because their homegrown tomato farm might not be sufficient. And then that meat is taken out

and cut up and cubed up for the animal traps that they're using to lure all of the wild animals who have reclaimed the earth. This brings me to, is it okay to watch a movie like this and not think about it to this level of detail? Sure, but I had a hard time doing this. Drove me fucking crazy. Why are they able to get through the chimney? The little kid when she goes up, first of all, I'm not a parent, but if you're the foundation of your head. I'm not a parent, but if you're the foundation of your house and the chimney are crumbling, don't send your daughter up. Yeah, but you got to get out of the house. You mean just the logic of it not being sealed, like everything else is sealed.

Exactly. Her handbrakes through right away, Adam and I paused and had like a 20-minute conversation about why is the hand-breaking through. And then, of course, it has to do so that they can procure food and work the traps and the fishing chair connecting to his prior life as a free fisherman out in the wild, etc. They, they use the fire poker to bash the window open. You drill holes and door any breach immediately. seals. This is the mythology of how the world works, how the sentient rain

works. But they could just go in and out of the chimney. The rain doesn't seal the chimney. You know what? It's really interesting to hear you talk so passionally and detailed, in such a detailed fashion, about this film, because I do think that this is a lens through which you view a lot of stuff. So I'm fascinated to know whether or not you applied the same

discipline to Oak Street and whether or not it lived up to your scrutiny. I just can't believe you didn't remember what happened to the dog. Can't believe it. A couple of closing notes on the last house, I can't do better than David Ehrlich's review of this movie, which is so wonderful in Indie Wire, locating the fact that this is a literalization of the chubby rain idea from Bowfinger. This is the idea from Bowfinger, which is maligned as a dumb sci-fi concept in a movie that was made over 20 years ago, sprung to life. The review was very funny. I highly recommend it. And it's hysterical that they only

have two DVDs in their house. That was good. And yet another Netflix movie extolling the virtues of owning a lot of physical media because you might be stuck without any internet and you won't be able to stream movies anymore. Crumbled up the old Netflix red envelope. Good little bit there. The problem for me would be, it may not be Annie that we were stuck with. But it would be 85 movies about an Italian police commissioner who walks around with a shirt off. Yeah, but then your son would know what it means to be a man. Yeah, that sounds like you're set.

Okay, don't watch the last house. It's not very good. But it is interesting that it is coming, it came out the exact same week as the end of Oak Street. which is a movie that I have been anticipating for a very long time. Card carrying David Robert Mitchell fan. Love, it follows. Love Under the Silver Lake. Love the Myth of the American Sleepover.

This is also a movie that has been redated multiple times. Yes. Tale of bad test scores from audiences, tale of reshoots. It's been in the ether for a very long time. And it's a movie that got kicked out of Warner Brothers as very successful 2025 into 2026. it feels extremely inspired to me by a lot of Twilight Zone stories, especially The Odyssey of Flight 33,

which is the one where a flight from, I think it's from New York, from London to New York, is traveling overnight, and it cross some sort of jet stream barrier, and all of a sudden is transported back millions of years. It's this great, like, establishing shot where the plane lowers, and we see dinosaurs right underneath them.

This movie stars Anne Hathaway. Ewan McGregor, Masey Stella, and Christian Convery. It's about a mysterious cosmic event that rips Oak Street, a suburban anywhere town, into someplace unknown. The Platt family soon discovers that their various survival depends on sticking together as they navigate their now unrecognizable surroundings, which are, of course, dotted with dinosaurs. Because they go to prehistoric times. Chris, I'll start with you. What did you think of the end of Oak Street? Well, I was terrifically entertained by it.

It has a couple of gear shifts and twists and turns that I think are. few and far between and major blockbusters these days. And I've been fascinated to read about the film. It's a movie that's kind of grown in my estimation the more I've thought about it. Because there's so much discussion about like, that was good, but was it kind of like a ton of effort put into a movie that's kind of, you know,

like, why did we need a 1980s Amblin porn dinosaur movie? And if you believe in Mitchell as a filmmaker and you believe in his project and what he's been kind of interrogating. Like, you have to ask yourself with him, why did he do that? Right? And that's been a really cool question

to not only ask myself, but to read other people's takes on. And so I think it's a really, aside from being just like a pretty, pretty whiplash fun summer blockbuster is very thought-provoking. I agree. I had a good time at the movies.

You know, it definitely was more, I think when I saw the, I was intrigued by the concept, And then when I saw the first trailer, I was like, oh, I don't know if this, like, looks very good, actually. It's not a very good trailer. Yeah, and my enthusiasm really diminished after that. And then I started to get excited again as we were talking about doing the pod. And then I saw the runtime.

And now I am never, ever, my enthusiasm has never diminished by seeing like a two and a half, three, three and a half. You know, I like to watch like the four hour Lord Lurings extended editions every year. My podcast are three hours. Runtimes don't scare me. but I was like, oh, this is basically an hour and a half. Like when you factor in credits, right? So that was interesting, and it changed what I was expecting the movie to be in terms of pace and flow, and then the movie was exactly that.

It's very much a concentrated little adventure to the point where actually it takes a few minutes to, I think, get into it because it opens as a family drama before the action really picks up. It ends with some really thought-provoking questions that made me like it. way more. So I think the fact that it presents as a dinosaur film is an adventure, family, chase, can we escape, our reality is suddenly swapped out movie, but also is a kind of in a couple ways, not as its primary ambition and attention, but as in a couple areas is like a kind of existential and philosophical question about what sort of life you choose to live or grant to somebody else. I had a good time.

at the movies, I enjoyed talking about it with a couple people after. And I will, like, happily we'll watch it again in the future. And there were little touches inside of it, like the way that the dinosaurs were furry or had their feathers that I thought made it, like, feel, I don't know, very much connected to a certain storytelling history and tradition, but also, like, specific. It felt like its own rendered thing. Yeah. I really like this movie, and I'm fascinated by it, and there is definitely a part of me that also wants to see the clearly extant two and a half hour cut of the movie. Not because I think it will be better.

It probably won't be better. Yeah. But I can feel some of the ideas that Mitchell is trying to project and hold on to. And then I can also feel very smartly a movie machine making a very entertaining movie. And both of you guys are like, this is like a fun movie. Yeah. It's like a good time at the movies. And it is that.

And it does have some underlying darkness. But you can see the way that it's pitched from the very beginning of the movie. It shows us a block party in Anytown USA. and a man turns to Ewan McGregor who plays the Patriarch of the family. He's like, you have a beautiful family. And then we see very quickly in short order that, like, actually this family is kind of falling apart. You know, that Anne Hathaway's character is working on this Erica Youngest novel about wanting to flee and find her own personal freedom away from the family structure in America. We see that you and McGregor's been, characters been laid off and that, you know, he's delivering pizzas to make ends meet.

We see these. Sneaking drinks. Yes. Yeah. He's got a drinking problem we see. He's got a lot of shame. Yes, two young kids in kind of crisis about who they are and whether or not they're like they fit in

and they feel good enough and, you know, are they bullies or are they the bullied or like how do they fit into this ecosystem? So it is like very much the myth of the American suburb, right? Like it's a continuation of a lot of the stuff. And then the movie a little bit dispenses with that and it's like actually put all these foibles aside, this is what's going to bring this family together.

And then the movie takes on a very ambulance Spielbergian tone, right? Where it's all about a family in crisis. Getting over that. to combat dinosaurs in their hometown. Yeah, I will say that one of the things I admired about this movie is that for as many camera moves as it might crib from Spielberg or even the spirit of Spielberg's visual storytelling, I think maybe more than any one camera movement

or split diopter shot that comes up a couple of times. I thought it was an interesting critique and or variation on the idea that like these things, things are not wonderful creatures who are themselves as disoriented as us in this new world, like they're killing monsters. And so it turns into pretty much a broad daylight horror movie for most of them. There's a little bit of night stuff, but it's a lot of like, oh, the woman at the barbecue just got eaten. And oh, this, you know, this guy who, you know, there's a lot of random and concerted moments of like real violence that I kind of admired the movie for because I could feel

the roller coaster that the crowd was on in the theater that I saw it in where they were like, this is what this, this movie is about how they're going to learn to love each other, right? Oh, fuck! It's the best component of the movie. There are a few shocking

moments. There's one in particular, and we will spoil the movie, but there's one in particular, very early on at the discovery of the dinosaurs, where Anne Hathaway's character and Ewan McGregor's character, after a blackout power outage throughout the neighborhood, they learned that the water no longer running the morning after and they're trying to figure out their dog has gotten off his leash

Starbuck. Shout out Battlestar Galactica. They start roaming the neighborhood in a way that you could in a neighborhood where you knew all your neighbors and you could comfortably cross over through people's backyards and things where a dinosaur is discovered. It's a bird-like dinosaur covered in feathers. And this is a very feral, violent creature. Yeah.

And it starts chasing them. And while it's chasing them, it pivots and attacks a neighbor. and it's one of the great hardcore mean kills I've seen in a movie in a while. Just eats her head like a fucking milk done. It's just shocking when it happens in a great way.

Fracked up. Yes. So Adam and I went to see this on Saturday and the theater was full. Completely full. And the crowd was having, to your point, Chris, a great time. Now, that kill, like it made me laugh

in a really kind of like rib-deep way. And like when we were driving home, Adam was like, it was pretty weird that you were like maniacally laughing as all these people were being eaten. But that was the, I don't know, there was something about the surprise of the heightened violence that I just found incredibly entertaining. I like how you mentioned earlier, so the surprise of a moment like that, you mentioned earlier just kind of like dispensing with the myth of this like a seemingly picturesque American family, you think of something like the way that they have to in order to seek shelter right away from that, these threats that are becoming clear and apparent in real time,

they have to literally like tear down their house, right? This symbol of the life that they've made. They have to use the pieces of it, much like in the last house, which does that successfully. They have to close themselves off from their community. You know, they're not working together. They have to pull the planks of wood off the wall

in order to board up the windows, etc. Very clever. It is. It really is. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff like that throughout the movie that is very clever. And to me at first I was like, oh, he's going for Spielberg. The Michael Giacchino score is very John Williams.

Yeah. And then the thing with Amblin that is great to me is that it's both. It's also Joe Dante. Sure. Also Gremlins. Like there is a, those kinds of movies,

they tend to leaven the outrageous with the warm. And this movie's trying to do both of those things. I don't know if the original version was a bit more cynical or downbeat or harder than the one that we get. Yeah, I mean, this is a divorce movie.

As many Spielberg movies are divorce movies. Yeah. But it's told more explicitly. from, I think, the POV of the wife, who's, very much. We're the one, we're going into rooms with hers. So you kind of watch it from Anne Hathaway's perspective. And she's, you know, she's throwing 99 in this movie.

She's great. What a summer. But what I really liked about it, both in the human moments, like the, you know, Hathaway losing her book in the basement to the flooding. Or her reaction to her husband's, optimism that they're going to figure out.

That's a great piece of writing. Yeah. That they're going to like, it's okay. We're just going to sit tight. And it's going to like, what took us here and will take us back? And she's like, what are you talking about? And he's like, God will abandon us. And she's like, you only go to church once a year. Like, why are you telling them lives?

I like that stuff. And I also like the fact that the reactions that we were feeling from our theater mates were based on. A subversion of expectations as much as it was spectacle. So 99% of versions of this movie would just be like, check out the fucking dinosaur. We CGIed it to an inch of its life. And it's so incredible.

And its scale is amazing. But they wouldn't have the stones to be like, and then the dinosaur did this. And now where does the story go from here? It would have just been such a linear storytelling exercise. And I felt people reacting not just to like, damn, that's a big dinosaur to, I didn't, they built up this character and took them away,

or we didn't think that this character was going to be a bad guy or a good guy. And like, that's old school nuts and bolts. And that is also Amblin, which is just like guys who think really, really, really hard about the mechanics of screen stories. Absolutely. I like with Denise, the Anne Hathaway character, the way that like someone,

so you get one of the great dinosaur kills, is Mel, the neighbor on the roof. And, you know, we see them pecking and pulling. But then when we kind of shift the angles, it's just this like blood smear. It's the next morning. I love that. Yeah, the shot of his roof covered in blood.

Incredible stuff. But well. Again, very mean-spirited and well done. Yeah. Well before then. Well before then. Denise is like, if you threaten my dog, if you look at him the wrong way,

I'm going to fucking kill you. So there's the violent intent and the little like kind of heartbeat of some nefarious element between the people in these seemingly happy houses well before you get to the actual tearing apart limb from limb via dinosaur. Even something like when Denise and Greg are one of the stretches where the T.R. X. X knocks the car in. The fire catches. The fact that they have to escape, there's peril in that moment. It's a very tense, you know, your heart is pounding. Are they going to be okay? But you're not done with that. The whole fucking neighborhood is on fire. They're like, there's a little brief comic beat of, did we do that?

Maybe. And then there's a moment where Brian is like, mom, like, where are we going to go? What are we going to do? They're coughing. The air is getting thick. They're being choked out. There's the threat of the dinosaur, but also the thing that they caused trying to escape and stay alive. Another brilliant idea about the mess that humans make of the world.

Great touches like that. I don't know. And there were little details. Like I thought the kid who played, I thought both the kids were great. I thought the kid who played Brian, Christian Convary, was like, he had just such an expressive face. He was wonderful. I also like the fact that he was somebody with some

unchecked violent urges or whatever it is that's happened between him and this other kid in the neighborhood. And also that like they give him this stupid bow and arrow that is completely useless throughout the movie more or less and he can't shoot it. He doesn't know what to do with it. Little touches like I don't know the initial

when the parents break back in through the front door and shut at just in time to escape the first potential death bite and he like pisses his pants and it's a Of course you would. But nobody, there's no discussion. Nobody stops to comment. Little choices like that, I think, made the urgency of the moment feel really heightened.

It's like we just have to get out of here. We can't talk about the fact that you need to, like, change your pants. Yeah. No, it's a great point. I think there are constant, like a series of moments that show, you know, kind of man's inability to combat this. To your point about them just being straight on monsters, that if we were in a encountered dinosaurs, it would not be Jurassic Park. It would be... It wouldn't be.

The Brontosaurus is so cool. It's eating a tree, you know? I just showed Alice that scene the other day, and she was like, this is incredible. And I was like, we can't watch any other scenes from Jurassic Park yet. You can only watch this one because she saw the trailer for Oak Street. That's why she wanted to see it.

But so in this movie, you know, you mentioned the bow and arrow. There's a gun that plays a prominent role, though that gun is mostly useless. And there's a notable sledgehammer that we think is impactful and, in fact, is not at all. And, you know, full spoiler warning here, because I think we have to talk about a very critical event in the movie. So if you haven't seen Oaks Street to want to, you can turn the pot off or fast forward, maybe 10 minutes.

But Ewan McGregor's character is shockingly, and I'll say thrillingly killed about two-thirds of the way through this movie. After we have finally become fully invested in this story and we feel that this family is finally working together and maybe transcending some of the challenges of the first act of the movie. At a moment in the movie where you probably, I had a little voice in my head being like, are we really going to do 90, minutes of them just avoiding injury from dinosaur and how many other neighbors, faceless neighbors, can get their heads bitten off. So I was delighted

to see this. They also, it truly explains that the pitch that Ewan McGregor is at throughout this film, which is like, I don't really care of this guy dies. You know, like, not in a callous way, but you're just sort of like, this guy's not helping, you know?

He's a little ineffectual. Yes. And, uh, Also, the instant he dies, you're like, well, he's going to come back in some way. You know, like this movie... Did you think that? I actually thought that they were going to pay off him dying in a way that I... That's where, with all due respect, the bad robot part of it kind of comes in. And, like, inability to ever let anything go, you know?

Yeah. We should talk about that. Any thoughts... Well, I just want to say, with no disrespect to you, and McGregor, I don't think he's very good in this movie. I think he's also opposite Anne Hathaway, who's just in the zone right now. I know you love him. I know he's very important to you.

He should just stop doing parts as Americans. Like, he's not American, and his American accent is not. It's distractingly bad. Yes, it was strange. It doesn't mean he's not an incredibly gifted actor because he is. He's in the Patrick Wilson part. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

And I understand, like, he's a very good actor. They needed more of a star, right, than a Patrick Wilson type. Somebody who you can put on the poster and be like, oh, fucking Obi-1. Which I get. I think he's kind of the weak link. And yet, I still was emotionally affected by his death scene. I thought it was very impactful. Anything you want to say about it?

I thought that he did a good job of, you know, you used the word shame earlier, conveying this. And like, there was an interesting dynamic inside of the family, too, of like the mother and daughter and father and son are more often the allied pairs

inside of the family unit. I love that scene when he comes home from the deliveries at the beginning. Help me take this off. Your mom doesn't like to look at it. Why are you still smoking? Like, all that stuff is like, that's also a very specific real stuff.

Like, it's from a bigger movie with more stuff going on and it's dynamics. but it's specific in a way that I appreciated. Yeah, and even like, you know, the mentioning the God thing earlier and like you only go to church on Sundays, but then Brian the son is like, well, I believe in what dad is saying. So they captured a lot of that well, and I thought that he convincingly played the dad

to that son, most of all. And a husband who you can see, you know, he's handsome, he's wearing the hell out of that terrycloth polo and short shorts, and you understand maybe the spark that he and Denise once had and believe that when he, you know, throws himself on top of her to cover her in the back of the car that they could like find that again if she just saw a little bit of something. The confrontation, the, I think my favorite beat from his character in the movie before the leg chomp into full body chomp was actually the moment where he's like, I read your novel. Because that really deepens the sense of what he's keeping, what he's not sharing.

He's not only withholding his own shame and I got laid off and I'm not enough of a provider for the family. It's I know you think that too, but I'm too embarrassed to confront that and tell you and you're too embarrassed to tell me and that makes me more embarrassed. That felt like really true to life in a way that I thought he actually, and they as a married couple, you know, conveyed to us quite well. But then you have the other parts that he's bringing of like, oh, buddy, there's the sweetness with the kids about the dog. but he's also like, leave the dog. You kind of have to be like, wait, this isn't what they need from you? I thought it was probably where the rest of the movie was, was this like, to your point, like this juxtaposition of not only that opening

barbecue scene, but everything that we bring into these 80s nostalgia movies of like, man, it was just so much better back then. You knew your neighbors, like, you know, you were out until the streetlights went on. That's all a big lie. And it's all bullshit. You know, and these people were all miserable with each other and wait. too armed and probably drinking too much and trickle down economics. We're starting to impact

the ability of guys like this to have jobs or whatever. It's not a social commentary per se. I feel like there's more of that in there. And if you've seen something like it follows, which has like a folk horror, not folk horror, but like a folklore-ish horror element of terms of like an urban legend that comes to life. But also in an urban setting, like a kind of bombed out Detroit. Where is this? And like what happened here that's something like, something like, Like this could permeate. Yeah.

It's the question he asks. Silver Lake is like, we're all being controlled by insidious forces and we're being made to feel crazy because we can't figure out who these forces are, but they're there.

But the sort of rabbit hole, the mouse maze is the whole problem of this thing as you get caught up with the maze and you don't think about the wider question. So he has a lot on his mind and this movie, it kind of,

kind of like, skips through it at the end. And I just want to cite the eel snake sequence before we talk about the ending really quickly, which I just thought was like very visually inventive and fun and exciting and scary and silly all at the same time. And also a moment where everybody was like, she is stabbing that fucking eel.

And very visceral, right? Speaking of your laughs, I saw it with Eileen again on Friday and she was laughing really hard during that scene because Hathaway is just going so hammer on that eel. That was great. I really enjoy that. The ending.

Yes. So we learn after a little tease about Carl Sagan's Cosmos from Maisie Stella's character at the beginning of the movie, that in fact this is a kind of wormhole time portal scenario. The entire neighborhood has been transported to prehistoric times by a wormhole. And wormholes are cropping up in this town. And the only way to get back seemingly is to jump through one. McGregor and Hathaway's characters opt not to jump in to one they spot earlier in the film without their children. And then at the end, after. McGregor's been killed. They go to the roof of Mrs. Valcourt's house. Yeah.

Hardest I've laughed this year in a movie is when Convry jumps off the roof and misses the portal and falls and breaks his ankle. Hysterical stuff. Incredible. Just a great movie moment. I loved it. Yeah. They find their way back up to the top of the roof, Mrs. Valcourt, RIP. She gets killed by some alligator, crocodile dinosaurs. Tough one. And they jump through. And they jump through and they land back in 1982. Yeah. What, an hour before the event, 20 minutes before the events. Yeah.

Right on the precipice. Yeah. And Denise, smart gal that she is, has a strong idea, which is that she's going to call as many people as she can to try to evacuate them from the town before the event happens. And she's going to order a pizza. That's right. And have her husband deliver the pizza to them on the outskirts of town. We don't see any of that.

We just see it presented as a possibility. And then there's a flash forward at the end. and we show that Denise has not just saved members of this community, though not all of them, and I wonder how many of them she did save. How many phone numbers did she have memorized of her neighbors is an interesting question.

Well, back then, you could probably get through, like at least eight or ten, right? Probably. She's also written a successful book. That's right. Called the end of Oak Street, yeah. About her experiences at the end of Oak Street.

She has grabbed alternate universe, Greg, and brought him into their experience, but this is a Greg without the PTSD of the events that were portrayed in the film this is a simple man who was a bad husband who was unemployed but witnessed the white light thing he knows that like what something happened

but he and he saw dinosaurs but mostly on TV right and in addition to that a character who we have not mentioned is Jeanette who is a young girl who has been orphaned during the dinosaur onslaught and joins the first family in this film. She also escapes, and her family

is alerted by Denise at the end of the movie. Jeanette went to get her family. Oh, Jeanette, that's right. Jeanette raced off to get her family. Yeah. And we learn in a very, very fast moment at the end of the film that not only did Jeanette save her parents, but she saved

alternate universe Jeanette. And there are now two Janette's in this new version of Oak Street. So it's a lot to take in in a very short period of time. I feel 100% certain certain with no actual factual knowledge that this is not the way the film ended the first time around. Oh, okay. Interesting.

I found this ending very amusing. It did leave me a little bit like the film we'll talk about later this week, that there's a little bit of the market tested. How can we make everybody a little bit happier on the way out the door? It felt kind of JJ-ish to me. Uh-huh. It also opened... J.J. Abrams to produce the film. opened up a Pandora's box of narrative and ethical questions that you could ask,

which is essentially that Denise has gone through a loop, right? Like she escaped the lost world to get back to her suburban town outside of the blast radius. Save some people, but not everybody. Including herself and her kids. But she does. No. Right. This is the thing, is that what she doesn't do is create like a chain reaction where,

it's the responsibility of each Denise to bring more people out of the zone. She's just like, we'll do my neighbors, we'll do my husband, Jeanette's family, Jeanette's guy. But it seems as though they stop with that and allow a world

to be decimated by dinosaurs and environmental change or whatever. And then the government gets involved. But she wasn't the author of the ethicist column. She was just a woman trying to survive with 20 minutes to go. That that is something that modern storytelling, usually pours over, and that this is like,

there are two judettes. It's pretty cool. Yeah. The prestige TV version of this becomes, like, the Apple TV Plus show Dark Matter, where, like, every version of the alternate history with your family is something you get to glimpse in this. But I think that,

I actually thought it was interesting that the movie kind of allowed, yeah, allowed you to consider the question. But thank you for this not being a fucking TV show. Yeah. This is the exact kind of high concept premise that would be dragged out over three seasons and be fucking unbearable to me. And the idea that it's like,

it's a 92-minute movie, full of gnarly kills and it's fun is this is almost exactly what I want. The movie is not perfect, but the fact that it chooses to be this is a great relief to me. I'm sorry to know. No, no. I obviously would welcome and love the six to eight to ten episode version of that that does really like deeply mine all of those questions or the novel version that would spend a lot of time parsing the ethics and the exocent and you know just the quantum like mechanics of it all. I thought inside of this movie, the fact that we just are like, huh, I have some things to think about now was very effective. Of course they want Greg to be there to complete their family.

But in order to bring Greg to them, they deprive the other versions of themselves of Greg. And they deprive that Greg of being with his family. So do they make it out this next time? Does that Denise Audrey Bryan set and start making it out without Greg? years later. So they have not, there's not 20 Denise's at this barbecue. So they stopped saving people the first time. Well, who knows? Who knows when they jump through the portal where it takes them, right? Like, who knows? Like what else is different in that world? Well, yeah. Or like where they pop out if they go, you know, is it like a like the TVA with your timelines and stuff? But

what chance do they have without Greg in the Sledgehammer moment? These are all interesting questions. I think the fact that they sent. I don't. I really don't. It's just interesting that she sent herself and her kids back in because in order to spare them, then they'd all be sharing Greg. Fascinating. Seeing the two Janettes at the end, I thought was a great touch. The fact that Jeanette saved, of course, her parents and her family, but also herself.

One of those Janets is with Audrey. They have hit it off in the course of the movie of escaping the dinosaurs. I was waiting for a moment. You think romantically? Oh, yeah, definitely. They're like holding hands at the end. And the sun is like, oh, I guess I'm out.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Another L for Brian. Tough one. Tough scene for Brian. Brace his ankle. This is not in the movie at all, obviously, but I do wonder if like does the two and a half hour version? Not actually. I don't actually think this was ever in the movie. But like, is there a stinger where Audrey, who goes to Cornell to study with Mr. Cosmos himself, Carl Sagan, is like in the future. Because here's the thing the movie doesn't try to answer it all. And in fact goes out of its way to say, there are no answers. Where'd the fucking portal come from?

Who's doing the experiments? And I'm like, is it Audrey? Did future Audrey create the tech that opened that portal? This is we're in House of Our territory here. I don't need that, though. No, we didn't need it. What Sean and I would do if we had this scenario is we would be like, Denise 1 gets Denise 2 out to saddle her with Greg so she could go to New York and become Joan Didion.

This is literally the plot of Dark Matter. Are you watching Dark Matter? Literally, spoilers to plot of Dark Matter. Well, I had read that. I had read that book, so I wanted to watch the show. And Jennifer Connelly is one of the great loves of my life. Is it Jason Clark? Is he the star? No. It's Joel Edgerton. Yeah. But he does play a character named Jason.

Jason 1 and Jason 2 is part of that. Is Jason Clark in an Apple series of some kind? Yeah, he was in one that came in one. I can't remember. I think I'm about like a hostage negotiator or something like that. They sure are a lot of those shows. Apple? They're making a lot of shows. Ted Lassel, you guys caught up on that? Haven't started the new season. it for myself to binge the whole thing. So long-time listeners of this show know that I'm a huge fan of the Twilight Zone.

Twilight Zone is the, I think, probably the entry point for me into science fiction, fantasy storytelling. My dad was a big fan. He showed me a lot of episodes when I was a kid. And, of course, the sci-fi channel has run a marathon of Twilight Zone episodes on New Year's in New Year's Day for many, many, many years. They still do it, I believe. And I love movies like this,

where they're just like really high-concept sci-fi fantasy thriller stories that can be explained in one sentence and often lead to outrageous circumstances with a real moral underpinning. And I think this movie has that. I think maybe it doesn't always land the plane, so to speak, in terms of what message is trying to convey. But it's been interesting because, you know,

you many years ago, when we were all working, together at Grayland put me on to Black Mirror. You were watching Black Mirror when it was airing in the UK. I was watching it illegally. I'm not too proud to say. Well, statute of limitations is up. You're free. Yeah. And that show obviously heavily inspired by the Twilight Zone and brought a point of view about technology into the storytelling there. Yeah. And that show is still going. It sure is. Three to four to six new episodes every, what, 18 months to two years at this point. I was explaining that to my dad when I was on vacation and he was like, I never heard of it.

I was like, never heard of Black Mirror? Did you boot up San Juan Apparel for him? I don't think that's when we would watch together. Great episode. But these movies are coming back, I would say, in a big way, these kinds of stories. And just thinking about what are some movies that would be eligible for this kind of conversation, a bunch have happened in recent years, including it's What's Inside, which was on Netflix, The Invitation, Bird Box, Vivarium, Don't worry, Darling, Companion, Nope. I'm thinking of ending things, barbarian. Black Bear, Bagonia, backrooms, other films with B titles.

Like, there's a lot of movies like this. I mean, obsession is a Twilight Zone episode. Very much so. Guy gets what he wishes for. Yes, he gets a magical object and uses the magical object to make something that goes terribly awry. So it's so interesting, because this movie did fine at the box office, but it was kind of buried in mid-August in the aftermath of two of the biggest movies of the year.

Yeah. And I would say it sunk my spirits just ever so slightly the fact that it didn't really Your box office high. Yeah. Tough time of the summer. I mean, it is. School is starting for a lot of people. It's like the last week of summer.

It was pandemonium at the AMC that I went and saw this at. And it was pandemonium for like Paw Patrol. Yes. Spider-Man. I'm writing about this and then substack this week about like what is the right time to release a movie? Well, also. Because there's so many movies that have come out. Does the idea of this like trickle-down effect of movie theater?

Like, you know, do they need to have a movie in between? because there was a couple weeks ago between Spider-Man and Odyssey and I think people were like how is there not a new fucking movie everybody's so used to going to the theaters right now and now it looks like it's just like yeah they were probably right to just

steer clear of brand new day entirely that's exactly right I mean this was two full weeks after Spider-Man and Spider-Man is still going super strong and I think also the Odyssey only went down like 25% or something so obviously they've encountered these two big movies but there is a real appetite for movies like this generally speaking

any general thoughts on them before we share list. We can do our list quickly. I was curious about whether or not there was something to be easy to explain but high concept premises for all these films that I think seems to be very in vogue for almost any genre right now, even down to romantic comedy with the one night only thing. Yeah. Where you're not going to get a lot of nor have you ever really because it's a misunderstanding of cinema history to be like Mikey and Nikki is what we used to make. But like saying what is your movie about and be like, ah, It's two guys, and they're having a tough night.

That's not enough anymore. You've got to be, it's like two guys, but they have a robot made. You know, like... That would be the 2026 version. Who says no. Would watch. Yeah. So I wonder whether or not there's something about the slick box, the Twilight Zone episodes come in.

Chris loves a slick box. Jesus, Mallory. That's just disgusting. I'm leaving that in 100%. She cut that out, make it a social clip. I agree. What's your Slick Box Hall of Fame? 1 through 10.

Yeah. I'm glad of the last time. International symbol for you have my physical attention. I'm trying to think of the last time anyone's referred to it as that. Slick box? Yeah. Like Robert Mitchum? Like who's the last person who like genuinely referred to a woman's waiting privates?

Excuse me? As somehow way more upset. Way worse. How dare you? Waiting privates? I'm honestly astonished. It only took Mal minute 85 to get her freak on. Yeah.

That was the alternative title for full metal jacket, actually. Was I making a good point? Are we glad that we derailed it with Slickboxes? No. think. Always. Always. You were talking

about companions and the premise of the movie and how you need that extra element now. Yeah, I think it seems like most movies need

some sort of like explain it to me on an elevator or I kind of thing. This is a penetrating point that you're making. Sure is. But he slid right in

with that logic. I would just know quickly before we do our top five that a lot, perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of the things, not to offend you that popped into my mind

right away here were television shows in terms of just like... Well, it's a TV show. Yeah, and the concepts that you think of the kind of like, oh, a debtor, you know, paying a, like, I don't know, obviously, you know, lost. And you mentioned a Black Mirror, but the lost, dark, the prisoner, things like that.

Like, that's the stuff that just pops into my mind right away. Absolutely. I think there's something to me about the anthological quality of the toilets. And there's a reason they keep relaunching the Twilight Zone every 20 years in an attempt to kind of revive this wonderful delivery system. I didn't say Slickbox, a delivery system for these ideas. but they're good That's actually my preferred That's what you

That's what you call women's Excuse me dear Is your delivery system clean You fucking corrupt everything You touch You're like the reverse midas You're like rogue but bad Yeah I mean

I've got enough gray hair I just drink some gray now It's true Almost a southern bell Not quite Will it be Southern Bell Rogue? Or more goth rogue

That's a good question Does the I don't know What do you think Well Indy is Where's she from Please don't make her do like an SEC accent That's all I'm saying

What is she's a huge fan of Auburn Yeah more eagle Sure I just like put her on Do you love when Gambit says Monshire No I don't love Gambit at all Well he will after X-Men 97

Are you participating in the X-Men Character rankings That the Midnight Boys are doing Oh isn't asked Well, the Gambit, it was a big, it was a big gambit. I've watched Charles talk about it online, but I've not been asked to participate. You think Gambit is outside the top 25? X-Men characters. For me? Yes.

Crazy big. You don't think so. 25? No. Even Charles walked it back. He said 22. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Midnight Boys cooking lately. Midnight Boys are the best. They're the best. I like these movies. Some of the biggest movies of all time you could deem Twilight's own movies. Yeah. And also there's a lot of hidden. gems. Like Titanic? Titanic? Well, that's based on real events.

What is it went down? I like it. That is a logline. That would have occurred to Rod Serling since it actually happened 40 years before the creation of the Twilight Zone. What feels like it, what's necessary for a movie to be eligible for this? Is it like we don't, there has to be an element of like we don't realize what's going on and neither do the characters. How important is that?

There has something broken about the world that makes the world not quite like our own. Right. Something about the reality has fundamentally shifted. The moral recompense is a big part of it. There has to be a sort of like there is a kind of dawning realization moment where not only is the world not like our own or not like what we perceived it to be, but there are consequences to that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Are we allowed to have picks on our list that are the same as each other? Yeah.

Or no. Because I have one that's the same as yours. Yeah. And you should talk about it. Grand Hog Day. I probably would have had that higher on the list. at five because I wasn't sure if I was allowed to include it because it's on your list. Spoiler. No, that's okay. I mean, I think it is one of the greatest examples of it. And it's an uncommon version of it. This is number two on my list.

Because it's comic. It's hysterical. I watched this movie 700 times when I was a kid. Me too. Probably. It was one of the movies along with Clueless and rescuers down under that I was just every other weekend when I would go to my dad's house, childhood divorce. I would just boot up all the time. It was just a big part of my life. And I think that the comedy paired with the premise, it was a great way to be entertained, but also to get your mind turning when you were a young person.

So indelible to this day. Yeah. You like Crenhog Day? Yeah. Pretty good movie. Really good. That was my new character. How long do you think you'd let me get away with that being my character?

Just a restrained guy? Just guy who's like, yeah, I thought it was good. I mean, you're definitely not allowed to do that ever. Here's my thing about Groundhog date. The hilarity comes from the attention to detail in the premise. The hilarity comes from, what does Toblaski say when he steps in the puddle every time? Whoopsie. No, he says, oh, my God.

I can do the entire Ned Ryerson spiel if you want me to do that, but I can't do. Sure. You know, watch out for that step because it's a doozy. Yeah. Needle-nose Ned, Ned the head. Come on, buddy, Case Western High. Don't tell me you don't remember me. I sure is Heckfire.

I remember you. Wow. Tough scene there where we did a Groundhog Day, rewatchables with Issa Ray during COVID, me, Bill, and Issa, which was really fun. But I didn't feel comfortable enough with Issa because I didn't know her to do all the the Stephen Tobolowski bits. So I'm happy to do more of them here with you if you'd like

Great, the floor is yours Okay, I'm done Crown Day is really, really funny and very affecting And the character does feel real change Okay, what's your number four? Oh, geez, okay, my number four, I don't know how strongly I feel about the exact order These could go in any order.

That's fine. I have Get Out next. Have you heard of it? I've seen it. You picked some hitters today. Have you heard of it? It feels like a P.L. movie has to be on the list, right? Yeah, I mean, very clearly inspired

by the Twilight Zone so much so that he attempted to reboot it. Exactly. Felt like the Sunken Place needed to be present on the list. Did you consider anything from the Peel Cannon on your top five? I had us on my long list, which I think feels the most Twilight Zoney to me of all of his movies. This sort of like, what if doppelgangers arrived and what they would tell you about how the world really works? Like, they're sort of like underworld of that movie. Yeah.

Which is such a thorny movie and is like maybe not totally narratively thought through or like, executed or explained properly, to your point about Oak Street earlier, but has so much invention. I mean, get out and Nope also have just an incredible amount of invention. My next film is one of my favorite movies from the last decade arrival, one of my favorite Villeneuve movies. He's my probably favorite filmmaker right now. Is that true? I think so. I've been thinking about it a lot with him and Nolan, because doing the whole Nolan rewatch has been such a joy, and he's obviously at the top of the list as well. But, um, I just love Villeneuve's movies.

Absolutely love them. And I think Arrival is gorgeous. I'm reluctant to say why I picked it because it is a spoiler. But I guess what I will say without getting into, how can I do this without spoiling this wonderful movie for people who haven't seen it? It's not just, oh, the aliens are here. There is an element to it about how we perceive how a certain character, Amy Adams' character, perceives time.

And when all of that clicks into place, and you realize either when you're reading the excellent tent sharing short story on which the film is based or watching the movie, it is a really gobsmacking, gut-wrenching examination of the choices you make and the decisions you make about your life when you have a certain degree of awareness out of time and sequence with what other people know. it is really just great. It's still probably... I don't know if it is the best movie. I really go back and forth, but it's among his best films. It's among the best films of the essential. Yeah, what would you have at the top of the list right now?

Doon Park 2? Of my favorite Villeneuve? Yeah, you're a big enemy head. I love Eni. Sicario is the best film is made. No, of course you do. Eileen and I rewatched later on her 2049. That movie's great.

And that's a movie that I was not very big on for a very long time, but I really liked it on a revisit. And that's been, that movie's very culty now. I think among young people who are younger than us, that's a huge film. I love that movie. Enemy was on day one. I was in line saluting it.

And yeah, the Dune movies, we'll see. I think how three turns out, I think will impact that conversation. I don't have a single doubt. Yeah. Not one. We saw, Amanda and I saw the first seven minutes and it's, it was beyond. It was absolutely thrilling. I will be astonished if that's not my favorite movie of the year.

astonished. Okay, number two. Another one I don't want to spoil. It makes it difficult to explain why it's on here. My number two is Moon from 2009, a movie that I absolutely love, incredible Sam Rockwell performance. Really, really great. We actually, we recently had an opportunity to talk about this, Chris,

on the space movies draft that we did for House of Art. This is a Duncan Jones film. How do I talk about this without spoiling it? I kind of have to spoil it. It's really hard to explain why it's on here otherwise. It is a movie that presents an interesting, very compelling twist about identity. I'll leave it. I'll say that because I don't want to blow it for people who haven't seen it,

though I bet most listeners of this podcast in particular have seen Moon. Confronting a different version of yourself and learning about that version, about you, and about the larger apparatus that allows things like that to happen. Very twilight-only. and just a really great piece of science fiction. I think it's fantastic. And then my number one is the Truman Show, which, again, the order of this list could change,

but I knew Truman Show had to be in the top five here. You know, the idea that your life is being filmed for other people's entertainment. The reason I think it ends up being really high on my list, in addition to just being on it, is because not only does it, I think, really honor and meet the prompt of something that could be the premise of a Twilight Zone episode, but is also kind of right away,

really its own fully realized thing that then becomes a reference point in its own right. It's the one that like got in my head the most when I was young. This came out in 98. So I was, let's see, I was 12. So I saw this when I was like in middle school. I watched it a bunch of times. And I constantly, for like years after that, this is a really incredible like Loki-esque seismic narcissist thing to say.

But I would just walk around being like, are people filming me? Is my life a reality television show? I'm looking at you now. Exactly. It kind of is now. You know, lots of people at D23 just being like world star. World Star. Look at you.

You know what that makes me think of? Matt Borkas. He used to say World Star a lot. Did he really? Yeah, Miss that guy. Wow. A name I've not heard in a long time. Okay, CR.

Top 5. Let's go number 5 with a movie that's coming out in theaters in a couple of days, but premiered last year on Letterbox's newfound video store shelf or whatever they were calling that, where you could stream films from Letterbox. And it's It Ends. which is a young director named Alexander Allum's foray into a very, very beloved subgenre for me, which is road trip horror or loop and also sub subgenre time loop horror. Have you seen this?

No. This is about a group of friends who are on a road trip before they all go off to different points in their young adult lives. And the road trip never ends. They wind up on a loop and they have to figure out what the rules of this looping road are. and why they're there and how they get out and what their options are for dealing with that. And it's very much like, what if your road trip went awry.

Number four, not unlike Groundhog Day. It's a great pick. I picked Field of Dreams, which is a very, very beloved and sweet movie. Mallory and I share this film being among our favorites, obviously. The Field of Dreams classic in Iowa just relaunched the Phillies season.

So I'm very grateful. Relaunched the Phillies season? Yeah, rebooted it. I think it rebooted it. Is Bryce still playing right field? I mean, he's just working through some stuff. Is he playing right field? They're moving him around a lot.

Okay. Yeah. Is that you think that's a good choice? He just has like a lot of pain that's difficult for him to manage, I think. Yeah, I can relate. Field of Dreams has a Twilight Zone premise. It's like, what if a guy was out in the cornfield and heard a voice that told him to build a baseball stadium? So I should have picked this as a great. Or is it merely the representation of a delusional man slowly breaking?

There you go. An acid casualty from the hippie. days whose excesses have come back to haunt him. I think that's a reading of the film. You know, there's that, God, what is the movie that is a very upsetting thriller that is cut to seem like a charming romantic comedy? Is there like a version of taxi driver that's just like, he's the taxi driver? There's a version of Field of Dreams that is cut like Zodiac.

Yeah, where he's like, his daughter's like, Dad. Yeah. Field of Dreams, number three for me is 1968's The Swimmer. This was sitting at number one on my list and I took it off at the last second. Happy to see you put it on there. An adaptation of an adored and hallowed John Cheever's story. Which we will be discussing. No Amanda, we will talk about Cheever as much as we damn will please today.

Short stories rise today? Today? Okay. Well, right now. I love short stories. I love short stories. I love short stories. I heard about it on this podcast.

Yeah. Well, you did declare? I listened to this pod. Do you think men and women should read Cheever stories? Of course I do. Yeah. I hope to be invited to participate in the grand reading of the, the short stories to celebrate Chris's...

That would be rough if you were not invited to Sierra 50th. What would that say? Chris's life. I would be very hurt. Very hurt to not be included. I'm going to have a rave. I've just cited... A rave?

Like with like ecstasy? It starts at midnight. It won't be a bit of bed. No. Number three, the swimmer, directed by Frank. Perry. Who's a director I've just kind of gotten into,

honestly, with the last summer, which got released on 4K recently or on Blu-ray recently. the swimmer stars Bert Lancaster as this guy Ned who's at a pool party in the suburbs this is very mad many if you're interesting or read it

and he's hanging out and he's like looking out at the suburban landscape the suburban lawns he's like I bet I could swim all the way home just jumping in people's pools eight miles

and it turns out to be something of an allegory for the experience of life and then perhaps literally Intriguing. It goes through some sort of transformation as he does this. This is the rare case of a thing that I read when I was 15, and then I watched the movie and had completely forgotten that I'd read it,

and then halfway through the movie, I was like, oh! Yeah. I know exactly what this is. Wonderful movie. Awesome movie. Very upsetting, though. Jeez. Number two, Shutter Island.

You're in a real Shudder Island kick. You know what? It's a fucking awesome film. Yeah. And this is Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Dennis Lane's thriller. where Leonardo DiCaprio is going to investigate a crime at a mental institution on an island off New England. Where is he the criminal?

This movie rules. This movie is great. One of the great twists. Very upsetting. Very sad movie. Very sad movie. Truly one of the saddest movies of the 2010s. And finally, my last Twilight Zone-inspired film is The Game,

David Finchers, How Fucked Up Our Yeppies movie, about a rich man in San Francisco, who has everything, so his brother gets him an experiential night of excess and violence for his birthday, so real that he forgets and or disbelieves that it's a game at all. Mel, I think I've asked Chris this before, but would you do the game? Oh, yeah, of course. You would. Yeah, for the experience.

No, you wouldn't. No, you wouldn't. The first thing I would do if I was doing the game with you is I'd be like, make your own food. Fuck. That's a wrap. Make your own food. That's a wrap. I can make my own food. I just prefer not to. You know what I tried to do the other day? What? Do the homemade ice cream thing with the frozen melon and the heavy cream that you pour into it because I've been served a lot of Instagram reels.

Oh, you got TikTok pill for your food? Then I did it with the pineapple and it was delicious, but it was a lot of work for one spoonful. I know. This is the thing with cooking for one and cooking for two is very tough. It's because it's a lot of efforts. effort to be like in the time that it took me to make this eat it and cook and clean it up I could have just gone to I feel like the trick there is and I say this is a person who doesn't really cook very much anymore but when I did in my 20s I cooked a lot more before I lean learned how to cook I try to make things that keep you always you pretty much only make meals no no obviously I learned from someone else who

told me this but it was always like make food that you can eat for three four five days in a row after that but this is so contrary to one of the famous Sean Fennacy mantras, which is, I work too hard to eat leftovers. I don't eat the leftovers, but other people enjoy the leftovers. So the food's not going to waste. You can consider it leftover if it just hasn't been prepared yet? If it hasn't been prepared yet? Well, there's a big trend in, in like, food content right now of, like, making

stuff to be frozen. And then it's like, now you have your burrito filling right here. Yeah. You just throw it right in the pan. Oh, interesting. Do you consider that leftovers? No. No. Let's just getting ahead on the week.

Because it hasn't been fully baked. So why don't we start our own food? delivery service called Slickbox Inc. And it's just like people get frozen burrito fillings from us. And we would put little box stations around and just they reach into my box. Exactly. See what's inside.

Slide right in. Yep. Slip in there. I think this is a billion dollar idea genuinely. Yep. No need to grease up. Seed investment indeed. It's wet inside. Why don't you give us your list? Rod Serling.

You know, Rod Serling lived in Ithaca. And first of all, Alan Seppenwell has a great book coming out about Rod Serling Very soon, Biography of the Man. And there was a documentary that premiered, I think, at South by Southwest, about Sterling, called Serling, but I don't think it has been acquired yet. I encourage people to look into that.

Sterling, of course, didn't just write the Twilight Zone. He also wrote movies like Planet of the Apes, which might be the single best Twilight Zone-esque movie. I didn't pick it, but I wanted to honor it. My number five is The Vast of Night, which we talked about quite a bit during COVID, came out in... One of my favorite movies that came out that year. 2020, Andrew Patterson, who has a new movie.

Be back. Out this week called The Rivals of Amzaya King, starring Matthew McConaughey. Did you like that film? I thought it was less successful than The Vast of Night, which is about two teens in New Mexico, who find themselves on a radio program, maybe or maybe not making connection with life beyond our own. It's really good. You haven't seen this movie? No.

You'd like it a lot. Terrific movie, incredibly well made, even though it's very modestly budgeted and really feels like a totally original voice. Highly recommend for you, Mel. Interesting. Number four is a movie that I think our friend Brian Raftery put me onto, or maybe it was Tracy Letts or maybe not. I can't remember who put me on to it, but it's called Repeat Performance.

It's from 1947. It predates the Twilight Zone. It's a film noir. It's about an actress who the movie opens with her at a New Year's Eve party, and she's just murdered her husband. Okay. And she goes to the party in particular. like nothing has happened, but she knows something is wrong.

And she somehow sort of magically enters a time loop. And we see variations on the experience that she's had. This is an extremely modern movie made 80 years ago. Features great performances by Lewis Hayward and Joan Leslie as the woman at the center of the story. It's based on a novel that came out in the 40s. Sounds great. Relatively anonymous director, Alfred L. Worker. I never heard of this movie.

It's really, really good, and I highly recommend you check it out. Number three is The Quiet Earth, another movie that I got put on to recently. New Zealand film directed by Jeff Murphy about a man who wakes up. This is not on like many, many stories like this, and effectively an apocalyptic scenario. Everyone is gone. No one has survived. Why is that? Not unlike Night of the Comet is like this.

There's a lot of movies that are 28 days later. Obviously is like this. This one being set in New Zealand, you see some, like, particular... cultural differences that are portrayed, but really chilling and very, very well-made movie. My number two is Groundhog Day, of course. And number one is Seconds, which is a science fiction dystopian melodrama.

Frankenheimer. It's John Frankenheimer directed it. It stars Rock Hudson. It's about a man who receives a phone call from a friend who he thought was dead. And the man says there is a procedure that you can get that will put you in a new body in a new life. and you can be happier, more beautiful, and richer than you ever possibly imagined.

And Rock Hudson says, sounds great, sign me up. And he signs up, and there are devastating consequences for this decision. Very traumatic. It is sort of, it is sort of Shutter Island before Shutter Island in a lot of ways. But I thought I would just try to give a couple of recommendations that are a little off the beaten path. Fantastic. But, you know, there's a whole host of movies. Mnightight Shaman's career is indebted to this.

You know, Edge of Tomorrow is a great version of this. Memento, to your point about Nolan is very much one of these kinds of. movies. The invitation. The invitation, yes. Many Stephen King's stories, you know, the mist to me is a very specific version of it. Palm Springs, a rom-com that has a very twilight zony premise. And I also wanted to give a quick shout out to directors.

I know you like a lot, Benson and Moorhead. Yeah. Who, you know, somewhat, unfortunately, to me, have been subsumed into the Marvel machine and now only seemingly direct episodes of Daredevil and what was? Moon Night. But they had a run of five movies in the 2010s. They still come back to it, though. I feel like they haven't, like, completely left.

They haven't made a movie in four years. Okay. Which is the longest gap that they've had, because they've been making these TV shows. But they made these films Resolution Spring, the Endless, Synchronic, and Something in the Dirt. That are all terrific, ground-level, high-concept sci-fi movies that I highly recommend people to check out.

Those are the two best. I agree with you. I think that's it. Great stuff. Thank you both for being here. Let's go now to my conversation with Will Poulter. Will Poulter is here. Very excited to talk to him.

I want to start a little bit early in your career before we get into Union County because I think it might inform some of the choices that you are making now. So you started working as a teenager, before you were a teenager, really. And I always ask actors and filmmakers what was the first thing you saw

that made you want to do the work? Do you remember seeing something and making you think I could do this? Wow. Yeah, that's such a good question. it was probably, if I'm being honest, it was probably kind of like a series of black and white kind of westerns. I can remember as a kid sitting like irresponsibly close to the TV and watching black and white westerns just nonstop. And I think maybe at the age that I was watching them, I wasn't even necessarily sure what was real and what wasn't, if that makes sense.

I think that was probably my sort of earliest former kind of like inspiration, I guess. Do you have family members who like that kind of thing? I don't even think I did necessarily. That like primal cowboys thing that you see on TV. Yeah, yeah. And obviously, like, you know, I think in fairness there's a lot of messaging within those films that is, you know, retrospectively quite problematic. and isn't necessarily accurate whatsoever.

But I think if I'm honest, that's probably the first sort of exposure I had to film before I even necessarily knew that it was film. And then I think, you know, within that, I sort of started to kind of admire different performances and gravitated to the ones that felt more kind of authentic and whatever else. And then I think, you know, I've spoken about this so many times before, but I think the first film that I was very aware of being a film. that was probably the biggest influence on me was Hook, which remains my favorite film of all time. Wow.

Yeah. What is it about Hook that clicked for you? You know, I just wanted to be a lost boy or? Yeah, I think so a little bit. You're a little Rufio energy. I got it. Yeah. I know that's the best thing that you want to say to me.

I think I did want to be a lost boy. I think that being a kid at school who didn't necessarily gravitate towards traditional kind of academic subjects, certainly didn't excel in any of them and then seeing imagination and play being celebrated so much creativity being championed in this space that was Neverland and by this group that was The Lost Boys. I was like, oh, I think those are my people over there. So it was a little bit of that.

There was also some stuff, I think, you know, in relation to Peter and his relationship to his son, Jack, that kind of mirrored me and my dad's a little bit. And so, yeah, psychologically, I could have a field day on that film. But it was definitely the one that kind of grabbed me by the heart from early. This was something I thought about thinking about you choosing to make Union County, which is when you're a teenager and you're working, how much were you thinking about not just how to learn about the craft of acting,

even before maybe you're studying it in school, but also how to have some agency in your career where you're getting to do things that you want to do when maybe you're not even old enough to know what you want to do. Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. Man, still kind of figuring it out as I go along, to be honest. And I think, I mean, I can't speak for anyone who's trained because I'm not. I wouldn't want to speak for anyone anyway.

But everyone's experience is different. But I think regardless of whether you've trained or not, my understanding is that you don't necessarily have the blueprint or a kind of guidebook as to how to handle the career side of things. You do put that in the hands of agents and managers. And often your family play a, you know, influential role. I know I was very lucky that my family sort of didn't really have an interest in entertainment and media, but were very supportive of me doing it because I think they took one look at my grades and were like,

well, he's not going to do much else. But did you raise your hand and say, I want to do this? Was it that active a choice? think so. Yeah, I did really. And my family, for the most part, are in sort of like healthcare sector in caretaker roles or like full-bone medics. My mom was a nurse and my dad is still a professor of cardiology. And so they were very much in that direction. And I think they just saw at a young age that I was not necessarily showing signs of following in their footsteps, but I had this like passionate interest in drama. I mean, like nauseatingly so. Like I, I'm.

was that precocious kid who was just always performing all the time and doing impressions and this and the other. So they were like, okay, he wants to do drama, big, big shock. And I just got very lucky that when the first opportunity rolled around, which was son of Rambo, which was my first film, my mum and dad were incredibly supportive. And, you know, they allowed me to do it. And the school that I was at were kind of cool with me taking that time off. And it was during my summer holidays, to be fair. But it worked out. And then the next thing I did, that sort of required, I guess, some kind of disruption to my family life was Narnia and my mum came with me. So did my little sister. And I'm so grateful to them forever for doing that.

My dad did like a sabbatical in Australia. So all of these things, you know, required, I guess, my family to make really major sacrifices. And I don't take that for granted either. And between them and agents that I've been with basically ever since 2010, the same team, they've just been incredibly helpful and supportive and I am very, very fortunate with the system I have around me. I'm curious about that right now then, because from the outside, it seems like you're very adventurous in the kind of things that you're trying to do. Very varied. Your filmography, film and television is kind of all over the place. Seems like you have real interest in filmmakers, but maybe you can demystify the process, at least for you, because we hear that actors, they get scripts from agents and they read them

and they decide that they want to make a movie or not. Like, is it just that simple for you? Do you go hunting for talent that you like and try to connect with them. Like, how do you chart a career in your 30s when you have, you know, some clout you're accomplished? That's kind of you. I mean, I don't know. I mean, you know, if I can use, you know, Union County as an example, which is written and directed by Adam Meeks, that came to me in sort of short film format together with the screenplay

for the feature. And Adam at that point had not yet. yet made a feature film. And so inherently just on paper, you know, in the context of things that might, you know, arrive on your desk, so to speak, there's already certain, like, risk attached to that, right? And so you're reading the script, trying to analyze it, you know, kind of in isolation of the director's sort of level of experience. It's just like, what is the quality of this script? And it was so beautiful. And so then what the short film did, I think, was provide something of a kind of proof of concept

for how this very uniquely kind of crafted story would work. And the short film, Union County by the same title, really was an exhibition of just how Adam might go about

making the feature and really the combination made it a sort of undeniable kind of opportunity for me and sort of the last remaining question, even though I had a strong instinct based on how it was crafted. The last remaining question for me is, how is this story that is going to be made in collaboration with a recovery community and involve the contributions

of real participants of this recovery program? You know, how is the director going to go about that? Is he going to practice the sort of sensitivity and respect and a level of care that I think is required? And within about five minutes of talking to Adam, I knew that was the case. The other thing, and I've said this to Adam as well. The other thing that I really appreciated is that, yes, he's a first-time filmmaker, but there wasn't so much deference that he was going to like kind of willingly just sort of give it away to me. He was like, I want to meet you and make sure that we're on the same page because Adam's perspective, I think, was I care deeply about this. And I'm not just going to hand it off because you've done a few more movies than me.

And it's my first time. I'm going to make sure that, you know, me and you are going to sort of really link on. arms over this and do this together. And that was further affirmation of the fact that he was the guy I wanted to work with, if that makes sense. It does. So why did he want to make it with the community and why did you want to make it with the community? Like, why was that intriguing to you personally? I know Adam is from Ohio and he's seen it firsthand what is portrayed in the film, but for both of you, I'm curious about that. Yeah, it's a really good question. As you say, Adam's from the area and he's had friends and family kind of affected by the epidemic,

the opioid epidemic, which was really kind of taking a hold of folks, you know, around the time that he was out there visiting family. So his grandmother had got sick, I believe, in 2017, 2018, and he was seeing, you know, the effects of how this opioid epidemic was, you know, impacting people. And at that time, he was spending a lot of time in the area, and he was at a folk music concert in somebody's house, which is kind of actually more of a typical thing in Ohio than maybe other places.

And it's a beautiful thing that is something of a kind of like cultural practice out there. He was introduced to Annette Dio, who is the real life director of this adult recovery program in Ohio. And, you know, I think Adam's experience, speaking for him, but, you know, we've sat side by side a lot of Q&As. And one of the things he sort of says is that at that time, he didn't have to look far to see how the opioid epidemic was, you know, contributing to a lot of kind of like devastation and a lot of like irreparable damage. But in the headlines, there was less attention being paid to the recovery efforts and the success

that was being had and the way that certain folks were getting back up on their feet. And when he was introduced to a net and had the opportunity to kind of walk through the recovery space and see the facilities, meet some of the service providers, and speak to participants of this program. He was thinking, this is something of a counter-narrative to what is going on right now, and there's an opportunity here to sort of shed light on this really workable and really effective program that is helping people get back on their feet. And the best way to do that is to make it, you know, with the community as opposed to about. There's a distinct difference, I think, particularly in the entertainment industry, you know,

sometimes I think we're all at risk of sort of descending on an area and kind of even inadvertently sort of exploiting or extracting information and not necessarily being as careful or as considerate of what that does to the community who are the sort of subject matter, if you like. and Adams approach was always to be very conscientious about making sure that the film was only ever sort of capturing, platforming and celebrating the success of the program, but not infringing on the process for the participants. You know, the path of recovery for the participants in this community is hard enough. And, you know, no one needs to be burdened with the responsibility to shoulder narrative beats or invent a dramatic moment. whatever else. And so I think his approach was always to make it, you know, in collaboration and sort of weave the fictional elements into what is an otherwise kind of uninterrupted process. And,

yeah, it was something that I think, you know, he just did with like the utmost diligence and conscientiousness. And he did it really in collaboration with Annette Dio, who, because she is the real life director of this program and also kind of one of our. lead actors, she was able to sort of bridge the two worlds and make it happen. And they're sort of our two leaders in that regard. So, but why did you want to do it, though? Like, what is interesting to you about working with non-professional actors, working within a community that is being portrayed in a, you know, fictionalized, but seemingly very authentic version of that story? Because it does feel very different from doing a studio movie, for example. Yeah. I think, well, it provided me

with an opportunity to sort of spend time with and speak to people with the lived experience of what, you know, I was sort of being tasked with kind of representing. And I think, you know, I'm very, very lucky that the doors were kind of opened in that way. Annette, Dio has such a immense amount of trust and respect within the community. She's kind of heart and soul of her community and, you know, everything sort of orbits around her a little bit. And so there's this sense you know, in the local area, if you're good by Annette, you're kind of good with us sort of thing. And we were all benefactors of that. And the reason I think I wanted to be part of this way of doing it is that I think the alternative has been done and it feels a little bit less humanizing on screen. It feels like often it runs the risk of sort of reaffirming certain stereotypes or contributing to some. some of the stigma that exists, whereas I think by allowing folks with lived experience to sort of represent themselves to the extent that they do in this film, you know, we kind of avoid that

to a large degree. And I think that what Adam does really, really well is he wasn't interested, he wasn't interested in sort of dramatizing or fictionalizing, you know, as much as possible. It was about capturing the kind of mundane realities of recovery. And that in itself cuts against the grain of how we often focus on the subject of addiction and recovery in TV and film. And for me as an actor to be a part of that was just so exciting. I felt like I got a much better understanding of the subject matter as a result. I think I got closer to my character and was able to do something that just felt more authentic. And in summary, like as a collective, I think we truly felt the sense that we all made it together.

as opposed to this sort of slight disconnect or sense of like segregation between sort of cast crew and real life participants, it was all sort of, it all became kind of one. That's not to conflate what Nora and I were doing to the difficulty of what the participants

were doing in recovery. I mean, their work was continuous and is continuous and far, far harder, obviously. But the spirit in which we all made it was sort of shared. Yeah, I had an interesting conversation with Paul Thomas Anderson and Leonardo DiCaprio about one battle after another, and they talked about how in that film, more than you would realize a lot of the actors were nonprofessional, especially in the sequences in Bacton Cross. Many of the people that Leo's character is encountering are people who just live there and who they brought in and how it changed the energy and dynamic of the movie. And I'm curious for you when you're working in a similar fashion, even though it's a much more contained environment focused on this specific community, what does it mean?

an actor to be working in that atmosphere instead of one that's, say, not Guardians of the Galaxy 3, you know? Yeah. You know, it's funny, before we embarked on this process, like, we had an opportunity to go out sort of six, seven months before and walk the space and meet folks within the recovery community and, you know, they were very generous with their stories and, you know, sharing. And I think I began to get really, really nervous at the prospect that. I was going to sort of have to sort of match the level of like naturalism or authenticity when it came to play my character Cody.

And, you know, you could say on the one hand that, you know, someone with lived experience kind of representing themselves in a sort of docu-fiction context, they're going to be sort of doing something that it's almost like impossible to match. And I'd agree. There's plenty of times. I was like, dang, I'm really behind the curve here. But oddly, and this is kind of the genius of what Adam did, I think because Annette is such a unicorn of a human being, both as a therapist of 39 years and being so exceptional at her day job and then also an amazing actor.

And she has a background in theater, right? So she sort of understands the dynamics of what's going on here in addition to the work that she does. Correct, yeah, yeah. She's also, she studied acting for, I think, three years before becoming a therapist as well, which was very handy. But because of all that, there was this sort of commitment to a character that we built out well in advance. And I think being an independent film, having the constraints of both time and money very much sort of present at all times, we had to prioritize the right sort of things early doors.

And that was, you know, story and character. And the sort of things actually, often with bigger budget stuff, falls down, you know, the list of priorities and sometimes by the wayside. we sort of committed to what our characters looked like and felt like. And then when we arrived to shoot the project, it sort of felt less like, okay, well, let's try and match the level of authenticity and realism here. And it felt more like let's just trust fall into what is a very real environment as these characters. And because it was so immersive and there were so few signifiers of the fact that we were actually. on a film set. Like, we, we traveled light, you know, and we weren't a big crew, and there weren't that many cameras. And, I mean, honestly, in any given scene, there were, there were much less cameras and much less lights than there are in this room, you know, no, not to pull, they have worked very hard to make me look human, yeah. No, that's not true. This is, this is it for me, apparently, just to make me look human.

But, you know, so that is to say that the acting challenge was actually reduced. Like, in a way, I had to do less acting than I've ever had to do, because I felt very much connected to my character. I had been so lucky to be kind of welcomed into the community by the folks that I'd gotten to know quite well at that point. And there were sort of less reminders that we were acting and we were making a film. So the task was made about as easy on us as you could possibly hope. And, you know, credit to Adam, I didn't do a lot of takes in the sense that like if I felt like I'd done it once and we'd got it. Like I kind of was like, I'm so happy to move on if you are. And I hope I never put him under like the caution.

that way, but I just, you know, I didn't have to repeatedly do things, you know, that were like difficult or trying. And often we didn't have that opportunity anyway because, for example, the court hearings that happen every Monday and are part of the program, we shot five consecutive court hearings across the 25-day shoot. And those approximately run for about 90 minutes. And the way we would do it is that the court hearing would happen as it does in reality. and that Noah and I as fictional characters in that setting would be called up kind of randomly, and we would sort of flip over into the scripted material for that moment,

maybe some improvisation, and that relies massively on Judge Bragg, who is the real judge in that program, and is also happens to be an exceptional actor. His voice still rings out, because he's so often off-camera when he's communicating, and the camera stays so closely on anyone who is speaking to him in this interesting way. But he has this like very resonant, memorable tone the way he's

engaging. And it's like all about personal accountability with his character and seemingly him in real life in a way that it, you know, it stuck with me. I think so. Yeah, yeah. No, me too. It's, it's, it's quietly very authoritative. But it's also a reflection of, I think, how the program it operates, which is in a very humanizing, compassionate way as well. And it's a difficult balance to strike and he does it beautifully. But in those court hearings, you know, they run for 90 minutes. And if we went up and made our contribution, we'd rarely sort of jump in and shoot it again or go for more coverage because I think Adam wanted it to feel every bit as sort of real and for it to be captured in the same way that any of the other participants were being sort of observed.

and, you know, they weren't asked to repeat, you know, the process. And so it almost became something that maybe I said it took advantage of as well. I was like, I don't want to repeat it either. So all of that is to say it kind of, it all helped make it feel more real. And then importantly, you know, there was a policy all the way through, which is, you know, for any of the real participants, if at any point they didn't want to be filmed or they didn't want to participate, it was a raising of the hand. and it was kind of a non-negotiable situation where, you know,

no one was, of course, made to be, you know, filmed if they didn't want to. And I really mean it when I say, like, Adam was so conscientious about that. There's an interesting dynamic, too, in those sequences they are describing where your character in particular is very taciturn and very withdrawn. And you can almost feel him, you processing kind of what is at play for the rest of your life. And many of the real-life participants, the non-professional actors, are incredibly charismatic and are storytellers and are like given a chance to shine. They're humanized, obviously. But it feels like there's a dramatic strategy of play in a way where we're sort of like we're being kept at bay from you.

And you don't have some long, traumatic monologue that explains things. So I'm kind of curious to just hear a little bit about how much you and Adam talked about that. And if that was a very purposeful choice to try. to have both effectively. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I suppose with Cody, my character, you don't necessarily sort of learn all that much about him until he gets a little further along in the program

and begins to kind of share in some of the NA meetings and then you sort of start to learn a little bit more of his backstory as he attempts to kind of reconnect with family members and kind of take various steps in the recovery process. one of the things I really appreciated about how Adam had kind of sought to represent Cody and particular in tandem with Jack is kind of offer up these two sort of different versions of people who had had you know similar kind of social experiences up until that date you know kind of relatively comparable sort of lived experiences up until the point that you

them. And yet, even though they're brothers by way of the foster care system, they are incredibly different while wrestling with a very similar issue of substance use disorder. And it manifests in very different ways. And, you know, I think Noah plays Jack with this kind of gregarious, infectious, charismatic quality that is just amazing and kind of lit up every room. And then I think Cody, by contrast, you know, is very reserved, as you said. It internalizes a lot, doesn't express much as kind of very much a man of few words. And the way that Noah and I talked about this and Adam and I talked about this kind of together is that in a way you're seeing sort of two different styles of avoidance. You know, Jack is someone who will talk about anything and everything except for his trauma and his relations to substance use disorder.

and Cody is someone who I think will kind of not talk about anything at all if he can help it and avoid in that way. Jack is sort of distracting by talking a lot and Cody is avoiding by not talking much at all and really kind of not addressing the problem. And that was important, I think, to show different styles of substance use disorder. You know, I think if we accept that there's a lot of stigma and there's a lot of stereotyping around addiction and folks who do experience substance use disorder, it's really important if we're going to be humanizing the subject that we show, you know, a lot of individual experiences. And we sort of have an appreciation for the individualism in every case. And I think about it often, as I do with mental health, you know, I think something. Sometimes there are certain personalities that you wouldn't assume are struggling or dealing with something because of their presentation, because they are outgoing and they seem to be really, really happy. But it's important not to mistake that for someone who isn't masking or isn't actually, you know, practicing some kind of avoidance of their own feelings.

And I think the same thing applies to substance use disorder in a way. And I think that's what the characterization really kind of was sort of supposed to do. if I've interpreted it correctly. And that's definitely the way in which Adam and I discussed it. Did you and Noah decide to do this together? Was there, because obviously you were in warfare together. I don't know if you knew each other before.

That love warfare, by the way. Thank you. And so I was kind of curious, like, how that came about. Yeah. That was pretty, like, magic bit of alchemy, really. I had, I met Adam, having read the script for the feature and having watched his short, was blown away, was blown away by my meeting with him,

was just sort of really hoping that he wanted to do it with me because it felt like a very, very special, quite kind of fast sort of meeting of intentions and passion for the subject. And in the last sort of five to ten minutes of our meeting, he said, by the way, what do you think of Noah Centenio? And I was like, oh my God, I love, I just, I just worked with Noah on warfare and we got so close.

And he said, okay, well, yeah, there's a conversation about him maybe kind of playing Jack. And I thought, wow, to have this sort of pre-baked kind of understanding of each other. And, you know, having kind of spent such intimate time with each other, like, we worked it out. And for about two months, we spent 17 hours a day with each other, you know, and in a very intense environment that is almost designed to make you bond kind of at an accelerated rate. So arriving again in Ohio playing these characters with this pre-baked understanding of each other was amazing. And I was so glad, you know, Noah was the one to play Jack. I think he's extraordinary in the movie.

I think he's so amazing in it. He really is. I'm curious about the parts that you're picking at this phase related to this movie. Because I feel this is true in Warfare, too. The first part of your career, it felt like it was very easy for you from my distance to be charismatic. To pick parts where you're funny, where you're engaging, or where you're more comfortable being to heal, or you have a lot to do, a lot to chew on, a lot of dialogue. And it seems like the last few projects, and maybe this is in the bear a little bit too,

but more restraint, a little quieter, not as worried about showing off how entertaining you are. And I don't know if that's a purposeful choice on your part, if that's something you think about as an actor, but it strikes me as I look at the last few things that you've done. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, I think I definitely appreciated the challenge that lied in warfare and in Union County in that regard, also in the bear to a degree. Scary though, as well. I think I've sort of come to terms with this idea that the creatively speaking, you know, the things that scare me and feel like I maybe can't actually. do it are the things that I should challenge myself to do. And you may end up with egg on your

face doing that for sure. And God knows I probably have and will. But I think that there's something that I am trying to embrace this idea that like a little bit of fear and even maybe a little bit more fear around the idea that you can do something or can't do something is exactly what you should be trying to embrace because it may actually bring the best out of you. Like I felt like potentially unprepared to do it at the point that I did it, Union County. And I think I threw my everything into warfare, but I felt really scared by the challenge and kind of unprepared. And so, but that, that was the kind of thing that maybe in the past I would have sort of run from or panicked over and I'm trying to kind of not do that. Yeah. And, and, and I'm, and I'm, I'm enjoying that.

Actually, I'm enjoying that challenge. It's creatively, it's keeping it kind of really interesting and rewarding, and it's forcing me to, I think, yeah, I don't know. Just unearthed stuff that I didn't necessarily know that I had, maybe. You've worked at a pretty cool collection of filmmakers, and I wonder if you do you go looking for establish people who you really want to work with, like, you know, Bigelow and Inoritu and Marie. asked or you can go down the list of people you've worked with. But then there's somebody like

Adam who is effectively unknown, effectively first-time filmmaker. And then, you know, like I said, you have some ability to help movies get made, especially at that scale. So what's the responsibility to do that work? What's the responsibility to just challenge yourself with exciting, established filmmakers? What's the responsibility to do studio movies that probably pay well and allow you to do more of those other two things? How do you think about that balance? Yeah, it's a good question because I feel like, you know, in the case of Union County, you know, I feel so lucky. And I think there's like this mutual kind of understanding between Adam and I where it's like maybe on one hand he's like, oh, you know, great that you're attached to my first film, you know, that helps. So you and no are attached to the film helps get it made.

But the same time, in equal measure, if not more, I'm like, dude, thank you for giving me this opportunity to play this character to have this. experience to, you know, spend time in this community to meet some of the most incredible people I've ever met. I mean, Annette Dio alone, I said this the other day, I was like, even putting the film aside, the fact that I got to interact with a human that good and call them a friend is like the biggest win in the world. And, you know, I think it definitely works both ways. And Adam, I think, is such an extraordinary talent. I really think, like, the sky is the limit for him and I just feel lucky that I got to start working with him at the beginning of his career. I think in terms of identifying who I want to work with next or, you know, if I'm

so lucky as to choose, which I'm not in that position where I can just obviously just sort of pick who I want to work with. But certainly the filmmaker is a massive, massive, part, you know, the director, writer-director in this case is a massive, massive part of the consideration because that relationship is so important and so intimate and so vulnerable and, you know, I rely so heavily on my directors and, you know, I carry information that they've passed on and advice that they give with me long after I'd finish working with them. Like, I cherish those relationships. And I've been really lucky to work with some amazing people who are very experienced and then also some people who are kind of like, you know, first time or second time.

filmmakers and in a way it's not even so much of course their experience kind of textures what your experience is with them but the most important thing for me is always like you know what is the what is the story what is the story that's being told what is the like social application of that what are audience members is going to kind of experience from hearing it and and and living with it in the outside world whether that's as simple as like putting a smile on people's face and and having a laugh and experiencing some escapism to thinking, being encouraged to think very differently about, you know, a subject as sensitive and important as substance use disorder. Like, thinking about who the kind of stewards are of that story and whether you can serve those

stories, whether also you're the right person to do it with them. And I think also, like, you know, the character side of things is very personal and instinctive. It's like, am I the right person for this? And there's plenty of times where it's kind of ineffable. I'm like, I can't put my finger on it. I'm just not the right person. And I don't know why, but I don't think it exists in my tool belt. And there's other times where I'm like, it might exist in my tool belt.

It scares me that I might not get there. And I think now I'm sort of trying to force myself to maybe grab a hold of that tool and go to work a little bit. You don't have to tell me the parts, but have you ever done a part where you thought you were right? And then you did it and you were like, oh, I made the wrong choice. And then vice versa. Did you ever turn anything down and then see it and think I could have done that? Well, it's interesting. I've turned things down, seen it, seen other actors do it and thought, yeah, they nailed it.

I don't know if I could have done that for sure. Have I done something? I mean, listen, yeah, I mean. You can be modest and say, you know, sure, you always could do better. But like genuinely, you know. Gosh, yeah. I mean, yeah, well, I feel that with every project, just to be clear. but yeah, I don't know if there's like,

I feel like more often than not, if I've stepped away from something or said, like, I'm not the person for the job. I feel, I felt like vindicated only because inevitably, like, more often than not, someone else has filled the role and done a great job at it. And it's been, like, affirming. I've been like, yeah, that's what I,

it's what I hoped it looked like for the people involved, but I wasn't the right person at the time. I think that just now I'm trying to not allow self-doubt to creep in too much. Because I think if I look back on some of those occasions, even though the result was affirming, it was still a lack of confidence or, you know, self-doubt that held me back. And now I'm like, oh, maybe I won't write myself off too quickly and I'll try and push myself outside of my comfort zone a bit more because I've been doing it a bit more and enjoying it and loving the experiences that I've had. I think of you as a very versatile actor. Is there a kind of movie you would like to make a certain genre that you have not yet made?

I really have tried to be genre and medium agnostic if that makes sense I don't actually care if it's TV film or theatre other than the time zone I haven't been able to afford to do theatre frankly

I know a lot of actors will be able to relate to that but I've tried to be like kind of agnostic as much as possible that's interesting because it looks

it almost feels like you're spinning a wheel you know and you're like comedy action film sensitive drama You know, like you really do have a variety of different types of projects that you've worked on. Yeah, thanks, man. I mean, yeah, I suppose I'm being genre agnostic, but then also, yeah, simultaneously trying to, I guess, I guess trying to kind of like vary it for my own sake as much as anything else as well, just for different experiences and to challenge myself.

But really, I'm drawn to story and character. So wherever that presents itself in whatever medium and with whichever creatives I'm sort of drawn to, like, you know, and then there are some. people that maybe at the risk of contradicting myself, I do like seek to work for. Like I asked to work for Christora on the bear. Like I watched the bear and I asked him if I could have a part. I was like, I will peel a carrot in the background for two minutes. Please let me in sort of thing. And he then, you know, went above and beyond and blessed me with this like unbelievable role that kind of changed my life. You know, do you think that that part changed your life? That's so interesting. Why do you say that? It didn't necessarily change my life in the context of my career,

I don't think, but it changed my life in terms of affirming that food and cooking was like something that like fed my soul and like was this creative endeavor separate from, or used to be separate from my job, but like was and can still be kind of separate from my life as an actor that that really feeds me and also, if you pun the pun, like, also can feed other people. Like, is this beautiful practice of being able to, like, create something, you know, through emotional expression, using memory, using experience, and then share that to sort of impact someone else in the same way. Like, I regard cooking as kind of, like, the most, as a non-professional fan of the, of the world.

I regard cooking as kind of the most complete human art form. The reason being that as an actor, I can appeal to people's sense of sound and sight in order to kind of affect them emotionally or tell my story. But if I'm cooking for someone, or I should say if a professional cook or a chef is cooking for someone, I think that I hope I'm not speaking out of term by saying that you have access to far more senses

and you can impact someone emotionally in a wider range of ways so you can appeal to their sense of smell, you can appeal to their sense of touch, you can appeal to their sense of taste as well as sight and sound actually. You can have all of those sensory experiences in one moment.

And just as you can watch a film and TV show and be moved because it represents your experience authentically or renders an emotion and really, really clearly, you know, conjures a sense of nostalgia, brings back a memory. Food can do exactly the same thing. And the bear really helped me realize that, made me realize, I thought I loved food just because food tastes good.

But I love food because it's fundamental to the human experience. And it is, I think, you know, cooking and eating is the most kind of like sensory, complete experience we have. That was beautiful. We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing they've seen? Have you seen anything you like recently? Wow. I've been really fortunate because with Union County, we've gone around to all these amazing independent movie theaters around the country and around Ohio specifically. And it's really kind of affirmed my just love and faith in like independent films.

So my thinking is to mention something within that vein. Although I'm tempted to also mention a documentary that I've seen recently. Just say both. I can say both. Yeah, of course. I saw a film called Omaha by Cole Webley. Oh, my God. Devastating.

Isn't that beautiful film though? Holy shit, yeah. Yeah. Very similar to Union County. Very tough movie. Yeah, a tough film, but beautiful. Yeah. John McGarrow, he's amazing in that film. John McGarrow gives an amazing performance, as do those two young children.

Yes. I think it's a really beautiful film, I think, made for a very, very limited budget and done beautifully well. And then I saw an amazing documentary called Come and See Me in the Good Light, which I believe was Oscar nominated last year. And so it's relatively well known, but yeah, stunning, like talk about laughing and crying. And so those are the two that are kind of top of mind right now. Will, thanks for doing this. Yeah, dude, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Thanks to Will, thanks to Mallory and CR. Listen to The Watch, House of R. Yeah. Tailgate you on that these days? Man. I tried out. You heard me on Bill Simmons on Sunday night talking. Didn't hear it.

How to go? Did I didn't hear it. Was it good? I was good. You were good on it? I talked a lot about Eric Morris and the system he's running at Oklahoma State. I think I have to watch college football this year because of the Jets. Oh, I mean, of course.

Yeah. So, like, I actually, maybe this is a different episode, but I need a cheat sheet for who we're looking at. I mean, this takes me back to the Grantland days. And he doesn't want to play there, though. Dante, he doesn't want to play in New York. Okay. And he certainly doesn't want to play for the Jets, even though the color scheme is like,

you can just flip right over. He's wonderful. No. Just wonderful. Do you think we should start, did you, have you been following the Jaden Daniels story? I have. But even though he has left LSU,

he's like, you guys can't use number five. if you can't use my picture, all this stuff. I want to start doing that with pods. You know? Like if somebody, it does the Charlie Rose imitation, and I'm not there, I'm like,

you have to take that pot down. This is a guy who's getting a little agitated by the third chair bit. No. First of all, how dare you bring that up this late? And honestly, a little bit.

What Will Poulter gave to this pod, you shouldn't be desecrating it with this shenanigans, these nonsense. What? I'm merely citing that the heat is on. The heat is oh. Van walked in this room.

I heard. And he turned the volume up. And he said, listen clearly to what I'm saying. The reason he did that is because he also said I am the prince who was promised. And I am going to take over Bill. But you said it in High Valerian. With some new eye makeup.

You've been waiting on this topic. Not that I really want you to. Yeah. I, to me, there's no greater person in the world than you. So I'm with love and respect to Tracy. What does that have to do with the question? It's wonderful.

There's, there can only ever be one answer. This isn't who's a good person. Well, I think that Chris is. He is a good person. I agree. You're a good person. It's just the best podcaster as well. I like, I like, iron sharpens iron.

I ask Chris at the end of the... It keeps me, it keeps me sharp. It keeps me good and ready for my appearances on this spot. What did you learn from Friedland about podcasting? Oh, interesting question. Yeah. That I'm not that funny No

That he's I'm funny But he's funny But he's funny It's a very generous response He's incredibly funny But so are you You're a great comic

Great comedian How many more years will you pod How many more years do you want to pot? Over under nine Nine Oh my God Holy shit I mean

I'd like to be employed I'd like to have a career Earned an income But nine years ago You never would have thought podcasting would have been your career. I know. When will I pivot to a quiet life? Nobody gives a shit what I have to say, you know? That's so not true. I'm asking you because I'm interested.

I think the arc of the universe is bending towards you. I asked Chris at the end to Talk the Thrones. You excited for next season. And he said, I'm on a year-by-year contract with Talk the Thrones into the mic on the record, on the public record. I respect that. So, you know, who knows. Once Chris is out, I'm out. That's how I feel about it. No, but you still talk about those episodes for hours without me. It's just that you like my, you know, whatever energy I bring to those recasts. The every man energy that you bring.

How long will I podcast? I will podcast as long as you all will have me, you know? That's the answer. I think that you've been creating like a sense of scarcity with yourself where you're just like, oh, at any, you know, when I retire, when I leave. I haven't. I'm in for the long haul. What's the long haul mean?

18 months? Yeah. Yeah. Maybe last. Will you still be podcasting? when you have to wear like a still suit to do it, you know? Because if these are the environment? That or because you're on another planet.

You know, like, either. I got some bad news for you. Been there for a long time. He's been busy himself this entire time. Okay. Well, thanks everybody for listening along at home. CR will be back on this pot. He's really putting in the hours.

That's why he's third chair. We're going to talk about Tony. No thoughts about Pete Alonzo that you wanted to to share. He's doing exactly what I told you would do. Isn't he doing

exactly what I told you would do? He has 27 home runs. I said the first two years of this contract, he will be an above average first baseman. He's been excellent.

Probably be a three and a half war player. He's got a 3.4 right now. There's still time. There's still 30 games or so, right? Yeah. But he,

you know, back half will be a little challenging. I wish I had him on the Mets right now that's for sure. If the Dodgers, not only like athletically but financially collapse, would you,

revel in it even though that probably also means that we're about to head into an economic depression. Oh, interesting question. Hmm. My answer is yes. Yeah, I think so too. We guys are NL fans, so, you know. Over here in the American League, I'm not worried.

We got eight teams, you know, south of 500 fighting for the third wild card over here in the AAL. Here's my real zag, and I'm very sorry, Jack, but just hang in there. I think we're like three months away from it being curtains for the Dodgers no matter what. Like the bets fall off happened. Freddy is going to be 38. Otani. Otani, you know, how is that going to age?

Right. Well, Otani, it's just like any style. Any moment. One thing that he does just throws off the other. They've already got three $25 million plus pitchers who can't pitch. Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah.

They'll just get more players. They're going to win the World Series. That's absolutely crazy. Anytime I need more players, they can sign or trade for anyone they want. And they still somehow have one of the best farm systems. And there was an article about like how like the stadium is empty. People are booing, you know, Tucker. He's getting mad.

Schoolbubel sucks. How has school been since he went over to? He's only like pitching like, I mean, he's mid. But that's the thing about the prospects is they dupe these other organizations. It's a thinking that they have good prospects. And then they trade for elite players every year. Who's the single best player they've traded in the last 10 years? the Red Sox get somebody out of this best thing or not.

Dean Kramer in the Manu Machado trade? That's not actually the answer. But what do you think about the Orioles trading Dean Kramer after he asked Pete Alonzo, can you see? I noted that with interest. Incredible. That happened. He was like, you're fucking blind old man and they talked to him out.

He's thrown over to first. Can you see? And he was always surprised. I think it's really bad for the economy. I think it's really bad for the economy if it turns out Mark Walter's been stealing from insurance annuities. But it's incredible content. Thanks for listening to The Big Picture. We'll see you later this week.