The Big Picture - ‘The Holdovers’ and ‘The Hunger Games.’ Plus: Eli Roth!

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

Sean and Amanda review two divergent releases from this past weekend—a continuation of the Hunger Games intellectual property, ‘The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes’ (1:00), and Alexander Payne's latest feature, ‘The Holdovers’ (30:00). Then, Sean is joined by writer, director, and actor Eli Roth (1:07:00) to talk about ‘Thanksgiving,’ his feature-length follow-up to the fictional trailer of the same name, which first appeared in the 2007 film ‘Grindhouse.’ Sean and Eli discuss Roth’s particular interests within the horror genre, the state of modern IP horror, and what he’s interested in doing next. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Eli Roth Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What would you do if everyone said they heard your trailer a hundred times? You'd probably make a new one. I'm Justin Sales, the host of The Wedding Scammer, The Ringer's first ever true crime pod. We've been hunting a con man for a few weeks now, and our hunt is coming to an end. Schemes, heartbreak, how to put on a wire. We've covered all this and more,

but there are still a few surprises left. Binge The Wedding Scammer wherever you get your podcasts. With TD Direct Investing, you can get live support. So whether you need help buying a partial share from your favorite tech company, opening a TFSA, or learning about investing tools, we're here to help. But keeping your cat off your keyboard?

That's up to you. Reach out to TD Direct Investing today and make your investing steps count. Plus, enjoy 1% cash back. Conditions apply. Offer ends January 31, 2025. Visit td.com slash dioffer to learn more. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins.

And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about holdovers and Hunger Games. Later in this episode, I talk with Eli Roth, long-awaited conversation, the writer-director behind Thanksgiving, his long-awaited return to horror. Thanksgiving is a pure holiday slasher that got its start, Amanda, do you remember where Thanksgiving first cropped up?

It was a trailer in another movie. Yes, Grindhouse, the 2007 Tarantino-Robert Rodriguez combo movie. Fake trailer, 16 years later, it's a real movie. Here we are. Very fun movie. Talked to Eli, never interviewed him before, always wanted to. We had a fun chat. I hope you'll stick around for that.

But first, double shot of movies. We're diving deep into two big movies, kind of big movies, both of which start with H. One is The Holdovers. The other is The Hunger Games, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Is that how we're organizing now? Yeah, every episode will be alphabetical. So we're on H today. You know, we debated whether or not we should start with The Holdovers or whether we should start with the number one movie in the country, the new Hunger Games film, a prequel. What do we decide? You decided that we would start with Hunger Games, The Ballad of Songbirds and Dixie. You and Bobby sort of. Bobby did some producing, as he does on every episode, and decided that we would

have less to say and that this would be, and that Holdovers would be a richer conversation. And so... You have some doubts about that, though. Yeah. I'm more animated about Hunger Games. I'm nervous right now because before we started podcasting, you told me that you were having some sinus troubles. And so I needed to not make any sudden auditory movements. And you're only wearing one ear of your headphone. And I actually I take that seriously. And I do have concern for you.

But also, i just thought this movie fucking blew oh my like i thought it was so and i was like and i had sort of a sean fantasy like a crisis oh wow of everything um how fascinating at this film and so i wanted to talk about it and share my feelings amanda yeah it fast X, Amanda? Yeah, it might be. Like, this is, I thought this was, like, garbage in some upsetting ways. Oh, my goodness. So, so. How exciting.

It's not. Do we, can we, can we just give some data points on the movie before you tear it apart? I don't, like, really have that many. Sure.

Okay, so it's, yeah, I'll do it. Go ahead, go ahead. Okay, sure. So it's a prequel to the, the trilogy, The Hunger Games,

that starred Jennifer Lawrence and made a boatload of money. And it was part of the big YA adaptation movie phenomenon almost a decade ago at this point. Those movies and this movie are adapted from the YA novels by Suzanne Collins. This is written as a prequel and presented as a prequel, and it is a story about, it's sort of an origin story of the young, of the Donald Sutherland character. Coriolanus Snow. Sure, yeah, that guy. He's the sort of dictator of Panem. Right. Hunger Games. And so it's a villain origin story of the young version of that character.

And also stars Rachel Zegler as a Panem lumineer. Yeah. I think that's right. Yeah. And so... Lumineer as in the country folk pop group. Yeah. So it's an attempt, sort of to like reheat the magic of this franchise

but with new young to launch new young movie stars um rachel zegler is you know and established at this point though she keeps kind of like hitting walls in this industry not not really her fault um well we'll discuss that and it it is, it's directed by Francis Lawrence who directed the original films. I think he directed the first two. The final three. Oh,

the final three. I think Gary Ross made the first one. Right, okay. And then he made number two and then the third one was split up into two films.

And it did okay at the box office? It did fine. It did very well considering the context of the box office at the end of this year after the strikes.

But when you go back and look at how well to your point about the phenomenon of the Hunger Games, the four Hunger Games movies made $3 billion total at the box office. This movie made about $100 million in its opening weekend around the world. So it's okay. It's definitely not a failure. But I wouldn't say it lit the world on fire, to use the Hunger Games turn of phrase. This girl is on fire. I was really hoping you would sing when I said I was having some ear trouble this morning.

Do you remember that that was like a song that we all had to listen to for a decade? I did not do that. I mean, I didn't do it by choice. It just kind of like showed up. I like how you just grabbed the wheel in this episode i like it well i just i was really pissed off yesterday when i was watching it um not because i think it's an entirely like is it a bad movie i didn't think so i don't think so like i don't think it's you know the the hunger games the the original franchise, it's a dystopian world. And I think, like, stylistically and also in terms of it's a very violent, sort of upsettingly violent franchise.

And both, like, the world building, the visual aspects and the action sequences are effective. It's not like they only spent $5 on it. It's not like, you know, there are people who know what they are doing. Yeah, Francis Lawrence has been making movies like this for 20 years. He made Constantine like 18 years ago. Right.

So it's not that it's bad or poorly done. I thought that some of my problems just like had to do with, I guess, the source material. And, you know, this desperate reheating of like this completely involved, like ridiculous world, you know, the YA experience and these books and this lore and this story that, you know, the further away you get from the original Hunger Games book and movie, which I read the books, I thought they were very good. It's like a stark and upsetting and memorable premise. And then you just have to start building in the politics of this weird world and the motivations

and it you know it's like a hat on a hat and you know I'm a grown-up so some of it was just that like and there is also because the of the way this prequel is done they're just getting through so much plot um so it's just a lot of not quite silliness because it's pretty upsetting, but they are trying to reset to the point where you just are like watching the hunger games again, which they do. And that, that part's fine. But then they're adding on all of this, all of these other backstories to justify and like trying to expand the world.

They're singing, you know, and that's a real problem for me in general. Anytime there are just like multiple Lumineers music sequences starring Rachel Zegler, who I think is a wonderful actor and was miscast as the Southern belle, you know, free spirit, whatever.

I mean, she's meant to be the new Jennifer Lawrence-style Katniss defiant hero, underdog hero of the plot. I mean, the film is an odd duck to me. I did not have like a crisis while watching it. I understand why they made this movie.

They are trying to do what you described, which has been it's been almost 10 years since the last Hunger Games movie. This is viable IP for Lionsgate, which is a studio that can use IP. Francis Lawrence needs a hit. He made a movie on Netflix called Slumberland that not a single person saw.

You can see all of the reasons why this decision was made. The movie, as you said, for the first two-thirds is basically a Hunger Games movie. It takes, as you said, for the first two thirds is basically a Hunger Games movie. It takes us back 65 years and the Hunger Games themselves, which are about to have their 10th games, are kind of becoming overlooked. And there's a sense that like, maybe we don't need to do this anymore to entertain the masses in the aftermath of this incredible war that led to this apocalyptic Panem environment. And so there's a lot of, there's just a lot of scaffolding on the story

to explain why we are where we are. But there were parts of the movie that when the Hunger Games were actually taking place, where I was like, this is a pretty slick Hunger Games movie. Some interesting, you know, death-defying moments, some scary kills. It is kind of upsetting the same way

those first four films are pretty upsetting. I never read the books myself, but I, you know. I did find myself watching this being like, this is rated PG 13 and our, you know, we know this, but our, our morals and certainly the rating system as a country are just like totally out of whack that like, this is okay for 13 year olds, but you can't say fuck twice on a podcast, you know, or like on a, in a movie. Yeah, you can definitely say it on a podcast. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, 14-year-olds are being like stabbed in the chest with pitchforks in this movie.

It is violent. Yeah. And I think it's, so like I said, the first two-thirds of the movie, I was like, I get it. This is an attempt to kind of recreate the vibe of those movies. It was more or less successful for me. Like, what is successful? It's like a two and a half star movie. I didn't hate it.

And then the final third of the movie, I thought was like an extraordinary mistake. But I know why they had to do it. They had to do this thing where the film centers on Coralina Snow, who's played by this guy Tom Blythe, who I'd never seen before, who I actually thought was okay. I thought he was kind of interesting. He was okay. Young Donald Sutherland, he is not. He is not he he he held that's hard that's you know i didn't think he was miscast the way i agree with you right there was miscast but i he held my attention

and he plays you know he is the son of a um a general who has died and his family that have been like a once proud family of panem has kind of fallen into disrepair. And he is trying to, with his wit and will, become a mentor in the Hunger Games and then rise up through the system in Panem to become, you know, at the capital, like a more successful person and bring his family back to glory. So he participates as a mentor

in the first round of the games. And then because of some of the moves that he makes, the kind of sly, cunning cheats that he pulls off in the games themselves to help this contestant who is played by Zegler, he is essentially banished to a district. And once he's banished, he has to join the military and become this kind of anonymous grunt. And then so that, this is sort of where his like real origin story starts. But I thought it was really confusingly told.

I thought it was really bland. The movie like completely loses its energy and just powers down. He and Rachel Zagler respectfully have no chemistry. And so, you know, that's the other thing

where every YA story then has to have some sort of star-crossed romance that this film could not support. It doesn't earn it. Yeah. Yeah. And I think because of that, the way I felt about the movie when it was over was that I felt like I had just done something that I really don't like doing.

Which is when a new show hits streaming and they publish the first three episodes and I sit and watch all three of them in a row. Yeah. And I'm like, this is incredibly unrewarding as like a media consuming exercise. Right. One episode of a TV show I like, great. Seven episodes of a show I'm binging, not my favorite thing to do, but sometimes it's the right way to watch a show. Three episodes and then wait till next week, which is what this feels like, except it's

going to be wait till 2025 for the next hunger games movie i really don't like and i thought that at times the movie making was really um kind of like sturdy hollywood franchise filmmaking and at other times i was like this is really wonky and it's like really at risk of slipping through its fingers and just being a mess right especially like i said at the end there's a sequence at the end where like they are sort of like, he's chasing her and trying to figure out, like, whether or not he has been betrayed by her. Right.

That I was like, this is, like, downright confusing and a misfire. Yeah, and there are the mocking jays, which they keep trying to introduce Easter eggs and callbacks, like, including there's some sort of plant that's called a catniss, which is the name of the Jennifer Lawrence character. Is that canonical in the first book?

I have no idea, Sean. Like, I'm sorry. I know I'm not supposed to be loud, but there are a lot of those things that I think overestimated certainly my ability to remember or care about any of this, but I do also think it misunderstands what was successful

about the first three movies in you know and i don't blame lionsgate or francis lawrence or any of the this is what ip filmmaking is at this point and you know if you have the money if you have the ip and you need the money which lionsgate and everyone does, like you got to try it. I do think a lot of the problem is in this source material and I guess all the adaptation of it, which is just silly. Well, there's one interesting decision that's been made here, which is to focus the movie on snow and to do an origin story of a fascist dictator. I mean, that's what this is. This is like... I know, this is like The Hunger Games' Joker. And I think that's...

That's exactly what it is. And I was thinking that and then I obviously got madder. I'm not saying it was a good or bad decision. It's just, it's certainly a decision. And Donald Sutherland

is, of course, a mesmerizing actor. And one of the reasons why The Hunger Games films worked for me insofar as I thought they were pretty good is they are stacked

with great actors. Yes. And obviously Jennifer Lawrence emerged as like a really flinty impressive action hero in those films and there's some good kind of action movie making

but there's a you know Elizabeth Banks is wonderful in those movies. Her Apex Mountain was another thought that I had during this movie. Could have been.

I mean Woody Harrelson is excellent in those movies Donald Sutherland like and this movie applies a similar trick. This movie has Viola Davis and Jason Schwartzman chewing the walls off of the scenery. Like, they are going for it in a very fun way. They're very entertaining. They're ridiculous, but it's appropriate for a movie like this. It's a very smart move.

But did anyone walk away from the Hunger Games series of films and think like, I wonder how that old guy became the guy he is? Like, no one was wondering that. No. So it makes you wonder why this is a movie aside from that IP speculation that you talked about. It's an odd choice. When the movie ended, and there was, of course, a triumphant moment for Snow. I don't think we're spoiling anything by saying that where it's sort of like he's ready to now you know take over the future of pan m like what are we supposed to feel like are we supposed to applaud are we supposed to be excited about seeing new hunger games movies where he continues to trample over people and i mean i guess you're supposed to be excited for rachel zegler to like, spoiler alert, I guess, emerge from the woods and sing you some

more power ballads with an absolutely terrible Southern accent. Yeah, I did think about you during that. Yeah. And that's, and again, that's like a personal peccadillo. How come you don't go into the Southern accent thing more? You don't, you're not really doing voice work. I do when I'm in the South or when I'm speaking to other Southerners. It comes right out. And Zach is like, Zach gets really weirded out because we go to my friend, like our family friends, the Petters and my mom's friend, Marietta, who is the one who sent me Mom's On Call, which just, by the way, anyone with a young child, you need a book, Mom's On Call. But with Marietta, it'll slip out a little bit. Okay. Will you sing a Lumineers song?

No. I don't know whether this music fits that, that group of... Your family members? My family members, yeah. And you don't feel that it fits this film either? No.

And I also, like, thought that Rachel Zegler's, like, interpretation of it and trying to imbue that kind of that fierce um rebellion the rebellious quality to what were like very clearly like plaintive songs that i fear i didn't check this but i I fear that these were written out in the Suzanne Collins book. Okay, the lyrics of the films. Yeah, which is just always a no for me. As you know, I love to read fiction, and I will skip any song lyrics, poems, letters, anything with the block text and italics.

You'll skip the text of a letter that is written in a book? Yeah, I read the beginning and the end. Okay. I just, it's, that's, that's not the format I'm reading. I'm not, I'm not here for multi-format. I'm here to read a fucking novel. I think I get it. Write a novel. I think I don't, your dogma around certain things I find very confusing. I, um, it might be important what's in that information. Yeah, but you can can usually they have to set it up usually so you can you're living by like a set of rules that you think is normal and no one understands what you're talking about i know i i realized that how did you land on these things um that is i i'm not

the only person who reads that way okay um i do you know the writer molly young oh sure yeah who's a wonderful who's like who is a actually like a great reader and thinker of books and a great writer on her own and she also follows these rules um are you guys part of a some sort of club no but molly occasionally listens to the podcast um but she has just written about that on her own and i recommend her newsletter and all of her stuff and also her style of reading which is skipping that stuff and if you're writing at home, just think about it. Speaking of sets of rules that I live by, I thought of something last night while I was doing dishes. Is this about the Hunger Games? No. Do you want me to save it for later? No, you can go ahead. We have a busy day here. It's a day before the

holidays. I know, but I, okay. So do you want me to, I can save it. I want you to speak whatever you feel is in your heart. So this truly has nothing to do with anything except I like want to make it. So, you know, sometimes in mailbags, a question that we got recently, which is like, what's a movie quote or something that you reference all the time? And I had a couple, but I thought of a piece of media that I reference all the time. And I don't think anybody else knows about it. So I want to share this with everyone. Okay, let's share it. Okay, do you remember when Miranda July

did an email project? I do. Okay, I'm Googling this as we find it to be able to get the exact text. Miranda July email. Okay, so this was about 10 years ago. And she had a bunch of notable people submit emails that they'd sent around a particular theme each week. It was very fun. And Kirsten Dunst obviously participated. And,

you know, the most famous example of Kirsten's incredible emails was week three was like Barack Obama, because this was during his presidency. And she just submitted an email that just said like Obama mom. But the one I think about all the time is an email. And I'm just reading this from my own email. This was in 2013, an email that includes a dream you had. And she describes her dream. I don't care about it, even though it's like she's talking about the type of halter top that she was wearing.

Anyway, here we go. I also have some great experiences from yesterday as I was in a photo shoot for Bulgari and there were so many elements and people I have very strong ideas to talk about. And so many elements and people I have very strong ideas to talk about is something that pops in my head all the time. And I just need that to become like common vernacular. That's like not like a rule that I live by, but like a reference that I have. I have very strong ideas to talk about. Many elements of people. This is the first of two recordings we'll be doing together today. I would say we're not off to the best start because I have no idea what you're talking about.

I thought that I gave the exposition. to the best start because I have no idea what you're talking about. We just waited four minutes for you to find an email where Kirsten Dunst in eloquently in a letter described describing things. I have very strong ideas to talk about. Can I give you my quote? Many elements in people. I've thought about this as well. My quote is skepticism is often mistaken for cynicism. Okay, but we all know what that is. Most people refuse to believe that the great beyond is no more than a cold infinite void. But I accept it along with the freedom

that comes from acknowledging the truth that podcasting with you is the infinite void. We all know what that is from because you spent the entire Jets game

yesterday. It's really a powerful thing when the Jets game aligns with nap time. Yeah. And you can just go full on the gifts. Yeah, that's really special for you.

I've been having a great slash hole all the time. You also have very strong ideas to talk about. I do. And you know, Popeye said it best. I am what I am. Boy. This Hunger Games movie. Okay.

There's an important part of this Hunger Games discussion before we wrap the film. People like this movie. Who are these people my little sister Grace called me to talk about it yesterday she gave it

five stars on Letterboxd there are critics who have given this movie very good reviews I know I saw that and I got really mad it is

warm been warmly received I don't think it's been like praise to the heavens and I I honestly didn't I didn't hate it I didn't

I wish I didn't spend two and a half hours in a movie theater on a Sunday night preparing for it. Yeah. But if I had caught it on cable, I would have been fine watching it.

I found it to be very watchable. That being said, this is a case, like so many other things that we talk about, as we get a little bit older, where something that hit when people were 11

or 13 or even 18 that is a part of their childhood yeah is now back as a kind of micro nostalgia and back in the culture because of this ip rush and they're happy about it they're excited you know i i think about this whenever i hear bob talking about my chemical romance or something and i'm or lincoln park and i'm like i was not really there for that i don't i don't like lincoln park but My Chemical Romance I have no negative feelings about whatsoever but that was never one of my bands but when something new and exciting happens with the band I see everyone around me that is five to

ten years younger than me get excited about it and I'm like okay that's your thing and in some ways The Hunger Games it's like that's when when The Last Jedi came out and I was like fucking finally we got a great Star Wars movie. And other people were like, you're a loser or this rejects what Star Wars is or I don't even get it or I like the prequels. Like, there's a gender divide happening with the now 65-year history of intellectual property in movies. And now it's been sliced and diced into these micro-generations. So, I actually think it's quite interesting to feel, you feel very strongly that it doesn't work.

I felt kind of meh on the movie. And my sister was like, this is the best movie I've seen this year. So what do we make of that? Like, what do we do with that? And I, can we call Grace? Right now? Yeah.

I think she's in class. Okay. Well, what did she like about it? Maybe we should do like a roundup with her at the end of the year. Okay. She's seen a bunch of stuff. She's been taking a lot of film school. She always disagrees with us.

High grace. She was high grace. She was mystified by our Five Nights at Freddy's conversation. She was like, you guys missed so much about the lore, which I didn't. I don't care. But you forgot to ask her if the bodies of the children live inside the animatronic dolls. I think you should Google that. You should Google, are there bodies inside of animatronic walls i think you should google that you should google are there bodies inside of animatronic uh okay ghost monsters yeah um i so i you know i think

that's something that we just got to cope with you know it's not really a big deal i know i think that i if we were going to go back to i because i really liked the hunger games like i said i i saw those movies i read those books like when they were a thing. And to some extent, you know, I was younger. And so that moment in YA literature, I participated in. And that was a moment where it was, you know, not only they were targeting books to young women, but to young women at heart. And it was really like a cash a cash grab for everyone and that and that has since like kind of died off and that has i was thinking about that too maze runner and divergent yeah those movies are all gone yeah twilight like all those movies are

gone um and but they all can come back that's the other thing that this portends right i just if they're gonna come back i wish they would come back better, you know, because I thought, and that was the problem to a franchise. The first installment of each of those books was If, Trite, or Predictable, which is like young, extraordinary woman who doesn't really realize that she's extraordinary is, you know, put in remarkable circumstances and find success success and love uh with but you know even even if the world is grim like okay you know and i don't like can i ask you like an unkind question sure yeah it is it because this is a movie about a guy no though i i do think some of the structural problem is that, again, the Rachel Zegler character, and she's very talented, and she's been taking a lot of hits for, I don't, you know, recently. She was, yeah, I mean, she obviously was incredible in West Side Story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But nobody saw that movie. She was in the most recent Shazam film, which was one of the worst movies of the year. Now she's in a Cinderella movie that,

excuse me, a Snow White movie that some people think is like woke or whatever, but I'm sure. I mean, that just seems like, like a TikTok nightmare. I don't care about that. She's miscast in this.

And I, and I don't think that character is fully conceived. So they're kind of trying to have it both ways where it is about a dude i don't care about that i like that seems fine it's just that there was something novel about that though in the hunger games though where it was like yeah but it's really it's it's also trying to be about their love story which doesn't really work and i don't know in all of these franchises, the longer they go and the farther you get away and the more absurd world building you have to do, it just gets preposterous. I think this is consistent with how you feel about most of this stuff. Yeah.

I guess it's not surprising. I believe you used the phrase, I thought this fucking blew. I think relative to a lot of stuff that I go see. I loathed the singing. I loathed it. I know. That's a bit of a red zone for you yeah and i like didn't understand how much there was going to be and i just felt myself melting into that and that's not because she's a lovely singer i hated that i don't enjoy that style of music i don't really want someone singing bad poetry to me

at any point. Okay. With a guitar or not. And it was tough. I think we should pivot away from the ballad of songbirds and snakes. What'd you think about all the snake stuff? Are you okay with that? Yeah, I, unlike Indiana Jones, don't really have a problem with snakes. You don't have a problem with snakes. I mean, I don't want to like hang out with them, but it's like-

How many snakes will Knox own in his adolescence? He really does like saying snake. So that's cute. It's not like the thing that scares me the most. Knox was great. Had a great Knox experience this weekend. He was very funny. Just absolutely housing guacamole with his bare hands.

Yeah. So snakes are okay. I thought that the snakes in the glass, giant glass jar bit was a nice little bit of visual filmmaking. Didn't think the CGI was great, but that's okay. That's kind of where we're at these days. I do think the nostalgia conversation is an interesting segue for our next film. Because it is in some ways defined in a similar point of view. And perhaps one of the reasons why I feel very warmly towards this movie, The Holdovers, the Alexander Payne

film, is because it is doing something that I think maybe my sister Grace feels when she watches The Hunger Games. Now, that feels a little perverse when I put it in the context of the history of American movies, but also I get it. I understand. Sometimes you want a big, scratchy, warm sweater as the temperature drops, and a movie like this can feel like that. So The Holdovers is in increasing release. It's in roughly 1,500 theaters right now. I think it's going to expand over the holidays. And it is starting to emerge as one of the quote-unquote specialty hits of the year. There's only been a couple of these. There haven't been very many in the last five years as movie theaters have undergone this big change. But it's Payne's first movie in eight years?

Has it really been eight years since Downsizing? That can't be right. Maybe seven years? Yeah, Downsizing came out when I lived in Los Angeles. 2017, six years. So, you know, it's a long time for Payne, obviously. He is, in the 21st century, I think one of our most celebrated auteurs. He is one of the signature writer-directors of his time.

You and I are big big big fans of a few of his movies i think he's one of the few filmmakers alive who's never made a bad movie um i like every single one of his features i think the ones that have been the most like celebrated by say the academy for for example like the descendants are probably my least favorite but i like the descendants pretty well and Election is one of my favorite movies that was made in my lifetime. I'm a huge fan of Sideways. I'm a huge fan of Nebraska. I'm one of the very few vocal defenders of downsizing. I thought downsizing was incredibly bold and fun farce. And unlike anything that came out that year or really since. Obviously, it was a big failure and that put Payne in a tricky spot.

Payne also was legendary for getting interested in a project and then not pursuing it. His unrealized project section on Wikipedia is real fun if you're looking at what Hollywood could have been over 15 or 20 years. This new one is written by David Hemmingsen. Notable that Alexander Payne does not have a screenplay credit on it. This is the first of his eight films, or just the second of his eight films that doesn't have one. And it was adapted from, I think, a TV pilot that Hemmingsen was writing that Payne got his hands on. And then he encouraged Hemmingsen to develop it into a feature.

And it has been noted that it is a very seemingly self-conscious throwback to the quirky 70s dramedy, character-focused dramedy, you know, mostly made by Hal Ashby, but with some tinges of Paul Mazursky and Woody Allen and all, you know, the comedy filmmakers of that era that we love. And I think that that is true. It's also been one of the most praised movies of the year. It's also been a movie that I think older audiences are feeling very warmly towards. I find myself right in the middle generationally of like, if I'm 18, I understand why people are like, what the fuck is this movie? But I'm not quite in the like, I'm 65 years old and thank God this movie was made. I think you and I are both in the middle generationally on this episode, which is like I'm a little too old for The Hunger Games.

And a little too young for The Holdovers, you think? I think so. Okay. I'm trying to, I would love to, I'm excited to talk about this movie and I'd love to talk about my feelings about this movie and work through in real time. This is a lovely, well-made film. It is set at Christmas and I think it's sort of like an instant classic Christmas movie. Completely. Christmas. And I think it's sort of like an instant classic Christmas movie, which sums up a lot of what you were saying about nostalgia and throwing back to a time when we made small movies

about a set of characters who are thrown together for two weeks and they're going to talk through some feelings and go through some things and then we'll all keep moving um i think it's really well acted i think it's well written um i guess i didn't laugh ever so that's one thing that's really interesting and i didn't cry and i i did both really yeah yeah so that's what i'm trying to figure out. It's like I admired this movie, and I think it's very good, and I didn't connect to it,

and I can't figure out why that is. Yeah, I think that there are some people who are like, this is a masterpiece of American filmmaking. That's not my takeaway. I think it's very good. I saw it at Telluride, where half of the audience, the sort of older patron audience,

was swooning over it. And then I think some younger folks were like, pretty much where you are. Yeah. That was very well made. A lot to admire. But I'm excited

for the zone of interest. You know what I mean? Like, there's more here that we can be more audacious in our filmmaking. And this feels very kind of like reserved, straightforward, perhaps a little bit simple.

The story of the film is essentially, it follows Paul Giamatti's character. This is Giamatti's first reunion with Payne since they're working sideways together, who is an instructor at a prep school for boys in New England called Barton. And he has been sort of tricked into being the kind of gatekeeper over the holidays for the handful of kids who have to stay behind because their families can't take them on over the Christmas holiday. So they are the holdovers for this couple of weeks. And it's a ragtag bunch of kids. And it starts out as a couple of Giamatti's character students along with a few other kids. And then eventually those kids are whisked away by one of the kid's parents

who come to pick them up to go on a ski trip. But one kid is stuck left behind. That kid is played by Dominic Sessa. And this is Dominic Sessa's first filmed performance. He is a discovery. I think he was a student at the school where the film was shot. And after seeing, I think, dozens and dozens of auditions, they found Sessa. And so it's Sessa, Giamatti, and then Divine Joy Randolph plays Mary, the cook at the sort of like head chef, so to speak, at the prep school, whose son went to the prep school.

And he has recently passed away in the Vietnam War. And so it's this sort of trio for the bulk of the films together, an unlikely grouping, as you say. On the one hand, yeah, it feels like Harold and Maude in The Last Detail, and, you know, An Unmarried Woman, and these movies that have these kind of, like, really bone-dry, kind of, like, sad but chortle-laughing kind of styles. It also reminded me a lot of like

with honors and school ties and outside providence and the kind of 90s prep school high-minded lower class person enters the world of high society wave oh captain my captain what dead poet society yeah i was like what i was like what is the title of the film yeah i don't say walt whitman when you say that, but I say Dead Poets Society. And I think I have a lot of affection for both of those kinds of movies. I think the 70s movies are like among the best movies ever and changed Hollywood.

I think those 90s movies are kind of my hunger games in some ways, you know? They're just like, they hit me at the right time. Of course. I dig them. They were discoveries for a lot of the actors that we enjoy. The movie is not just in the tone of those 70s movies, but in the style of filmmaking.

Yeah. So the music that is used, both score and soundtrack, the filmmaking style, the way that it's shot, the attempt to kind of create a kind of like rough-hewn grain on the texture of the film. And also the dissolves that are used in the cutting style is a very kind of antiquated style that is meant to evoke that old feeling. Payne is very good at framing actors and getting great performances. He always gets great performances.

In Divine Joy, I ran off somebody who in the last few years, I think people have started to notice is like a really exciting actress. I think she's very much one of the front runners for best supporting actress this year. Sassab like blew me away, honestly.

Yeah, he's amazing. He has to go toe-to-toe with Paul Giamatti who like is in the, is he like one of the 10 best actors in the world? Like for years, we've been like,

anytime he shows up in something, even if the script is bad, he's entertaining, he's interesting, he gives subtext to everything he does, even though this is a kind of big broad character in many ways um i i did laugh i did cry i didn't is it's it's weird to be like this wasn't a masterpiece because who gives a shit but i thought it was a very very good movie it's very good um i re-watched downsizing last night at your behest because you have long been, you know, out there.

I've been on Downsizing Island. Holding the... I've developed all the empty condos. I have one other friend, Dan, whose opinion I admire, who is like, this is like Alexander Payne's masterpiece. So I was like, okay, you know, I'll try it again. And also I thought it would be interesting to, or it would be useful to kind of revisit late period Alexander Payne as opposed to Election,

which has some similarities to, you know. No doubt. And was very formative for both of us. And, you know, you asked me if I didn't like Hunger Games just because it's about a boy. But, you know, obviously part of the reason I respond to election is I think Tracy Flick is a pretty iconic and original character. Fascinating character. You know, but like there is some Tracy Flick inside of me. Whereas in the holdovers, I guess I would be like the mean mom

who like sends a kid off to boarding school. Like, you know, like if you're looking for representation. You're missing some association, yeah. Sure. Your mother, Mary's character is like. I know. And Divine Dreadnought off is wonderful and like very affecting.

And there are a couple scenes with her character later in the film that are a gut punch. And when she disappears from the movie, I really felt it. So, yeah. But I rewatched Downsizing, and I don't think it totally comes together, but I really admired the ambition and you know

to your point it is creative it is a gigantic swing um there are so many ideas and so many small details that are are very memorable and you it's I mean it's very cool. Yeah. And to me, doesn't totally land. This movie lands, but maybe isn't that ambitious. And that's sort of, you know. And it's interesting to think about Holdover's, like, in reaction to the reception of Downsizing, which is a project that he had been working on for decades, as I understand it. So, safe is unfair, and I think, but it just, Holdover feels a little smaller. It is no doubt smaller.

Sorry, I didn't mean to, you know, despite the downsizing. He shrunk down his ambitions. I think that's worth investigating, not just because I want to, I didn't rewatch Downsizing, so I don't have, like, some, you know, big, deep exegesis about that movie the that movie though was the perfect example of something that I often ask directors when I interview them on the show I just asked Sofia

Coppola this question I've asked probably 25 filmmakers who've never made a movie that cost more than 30 million dollars this question which is, do you ever just want to do something like a little bit bigger and bolder? And if so, like in what genre are you interested in? Downsizing is a sci-fi farce that costs $75 million by a filmmaker who just never makes movies like that. If his movies are expensive, it's because movie stars are in them. It's not because they have elaborate sets or they are high concept or they necess elaborate sets. Or they are high concept. Or they necessitate CGI. But that movie did. And he tried to hold the pain tone. While doing a 70s sci-fi movie.

And he couldn't. Maybe. Of course I acknowledge it's not a perfect movie. And he couldn't quite make those two things fit together. But you're right. That that's a movie that is really about ecology and relationships. And how those two things fit together. How like the fusion between two people

represents our inability to kind of keep, and the difficulty of that represents the difficulty of like keeping our world safe. You know what I mean? Like it is a very environmentally conscious film. And all the environmentally stuff works and I think it's actually like the relationships that don't really gel in downsizing,

which, you know, is again interesting that then he pivots to the holdovers where he gets the relationships between the people just right. Yes. And he obviously feels safe doing that. The same way he feels really safe in Nebraska portraying. It's a very similar thing. In Nebraska, it is in some ways as high-minded to me as downsizing.

You know, it's a movie shot in black and white about people in the middle of the country that dicks like us don't think about very much. And some of the criticism of that film at the time was that he was like looking down on those people, which is ridiculous because he's from that part of the world. Pain is. But I thought that that was a really interesting representation of like, you know, kind of like a forgotten existence in America. Like abandoned industrial towns, older people, particularly Bruce Stern's character, kind of being cast aside and seeing people, you know, deriding them as like delusional or like the ageism that goes on. And there was a big idea in a small story. What I can't find in the holdovers is what is the big idea. Yeah.

And that's not a bad thing necessarily. It's okay to make a fun Christmas comedy that touches your heart. I like a lot of movies like that. Yeah. I don't know if a Christmas story has like a big idea. It's a great movie. So not every movie needs that. But when you're Alexander Payne and you've made Election,

which is like one of the quintessential late nineties strivers versus, uh, those willing to take it as it comes movies, you know, a movie that like identifies a personality type in the, in the American spirit and kind of like castigates it, you know, he's capable of putting something deep and powerful and,

and metaphorical for lack of a better word, into these smaller stories. The Holdovers is a really good movie about a sad, depressed kid, a sad, depressed older man, and a sad, depressed widow slash grieving mother. And nothing wrong with that.

But I don't know what it represents more broadly. Yeah. And it's in part because I think it's in this narrative of Payne's career where it's like back to basics. So he wanted to do something that he knew he could handle, that he knew he could make well,

that he knew would be effectively a crowd pleaser, but it doesn't have that third gear. Again, I don't know if that's something to complain about. It's just something to note when like one of the best filmmakers around makes a movie and you're like that was very good yeah and that's why i feel so conflicted because i normally i feel like i'm always the person being like well they made a good enjoyable movie you know like that's isn't that's they make them they they made them like they used to for once this is all of the things that i try to um embrace and that doing something enjoyable well is also a art form and uh very difficult and elusive and so i can't figure

out what my block is here i i you know but i i liked it a lot i do I do wonder whether I'm just responding to some of the larger enthusiasm and particularly awards enthusiasm. You put this at number two in our Best Picture rankings last time, and I don't think that's wrong. And I went to see this with an older crowd on a Sunday afternoon, and they started applauding afterwards. I saw it on a Friday at 1 p.m. for a second time, packed audience. Yeah. People were digging it. Yeah, and, you know, the word coda just kept kind of like floating through my brain. Is there like a more acidic, dyspeptic writer than Alexander Payne?

I know, but this movie is not acidic. Yeah, it's not. Well, it is and then it is not. Like, it is a movie that it could have, and he didn't write this movie,

Hemmingson wrote the movie, but it could have veered in its storytelling because some bad things happen and some dark things happen in the film. Yeah. You know,

particularly to Cessa's character who is sort of like trying to make sense of his family life and, you know, it has realessa's character who is sort of like trying to make sense of his family life. And, you know, it has real problems. But it gives us that kind of teardrop in your throat ending. That makes you feel kind of a little sad, but mostly warm and happy. Like everyone is free and that their lives are going to maybe okay.

Yeah. There's nothing wrong with ending a movie that way. You know, even the Mary characters I would say she gets the least resolution but they're trying to navigate she gets a grace note

you know the way they handle this movie set during the Vietnam War and it's like sort of lingering underneath it and also like not at all you know in a way that that i was attuned to especially since having worked on um do we get to win this time which i recommend um it was like it it was like historically they had to include that but there wasn't any of the of the pain really that sorry pun not intended yeah um in that so i just yeah um i i don't think it's that acerbic i think it's a movie that makes you feel good and as bill simmons rightly said like the instant he saw coda

sometimes you just want a movie that makes you feel good. Yeah. And we are, all of our great movies this year, besides this one, do not make you feel good. It's a very good point. We haven't seen The Color Purple yet. And I think that that is another film that has a strong chance to do that. The thing that really works that is acerbic in the movie to me is Giamatti popping off with Harvard-educated, ancient civilization-dominating verbiage. Yeah. He is firing off insults at a rapid and profound pace, especially at 14-year-olds and 18-year-olds. Yeah. In a very funny way. It is kind of performative because he is protecting himself. His shell is retreating

into these ancient worlds that he can't really, because he can't connect with people in the real world. But I thought that that stuff had the signature of your classic pain stuff. But it eventually, like,

retreats from that. Yeah. To go to a different meter. Yeah. It's a weird one. Like, scene to scene, I liked it. It's kind of sort of predictable. It feels so indebted and embedded in a certain kind of older movie.

Yeah. Which usually is a sweet spot for me. Like, I made a list of movies that I thought of when I was watching this. I know, but it's like... Okay, can I... You want to spoil something? No, I was watching this. I know, but it's like. Okay, can I. You want to spoil something? No, I was going to say something kind of mean. Which like.

Say whatever you want. It's kind of like Pottery Barn. You know? And I say that as someone who owns a lot of Pottery Barn furniture. So, you know, no dice. But you can feel that the aging on it is aged. As opposed to it being the. You can feel that the aging on it is aged as opposed to it being the

you can feel the reference and the difference or I could I've been thinking about this a lot you know and I like plenty of movies that are just

recreating like Priscilla like I know yeah Licorice Pizza Once Upon a Time in Hollywood I just did with blank check

like all of these movies are self-consciously going back to a time this is a movie that is sort of using the filmmaking techniques to go back to a time but really more the vibe

and the vibe is an unusual vibe because not many movies have this vibe anymore and it's hard to get this vibe yeah but I'm like

it gets it but like you can see how it's getting it yeah it's getting it in a different time and and the recreation of the vibe is not like part of the project it's not i think that it is for him okay what that means for audiences is a different question and i i think i'm going to talk to alexander pain and so i'm going to ask him about this it's sort of like did you do this for you or did you do this for you, or did you do this for us? Are you evoking, I don't know, Paper Moon?

Is this for me, or is this for you? I mean, here's the thing. It's really well done. And if this were just on cable, or whatever our version of cable is, around the holidays, and we turned it on and we'd be like oh it's this part but i think it's already gonna be that i know but and it could fit in and be i think people are gonna dig it so i think we're probably just overthinking it you know and i actually think bringing i think like our sort of like a tour you know filmmaker where

does this fit thing yeah probably undercuts it i think it's because he was doing rising action up until downsizing it was like movies are getting bigger and bigger the ambition is getting bigger and bigger yeah i like that as an arc but you know when when pta did licorice pizza you could make the case that that was kind of like a step back and ambition for him and it was a very sincere emotional portrayal of something that was very, they're very similar movies in a lot of ways. I think PTA is a sense of humor is like just a little bit. His like emotionality is a little bit more aligned with mine and Alexander

Payne's is. And so I, that movie hit me in a deeper way than a movie like this, but it's really weird to to be like a little deflated about a movie that i'm like this is definitely one of the 20 best movies i saw this year i feel the same way you know and i've like i'm trying to put my finger on why and i and i can't quite and it might be just me putting my own expectations of a movie and there's you know there's no tracy flick for me to latch on to and you know and that's if if that is the case that's that's fine i'm i'm aware

of it but i yeah i was just kind of like huh this is this was very very good and nice let me ask you a question do you like a sincere film that was made in the last 30 years? That's a great question. Because this is ultimately a very sincere movie. I don't know. Let's think through. Francis Ha is a sincere film. It is.

That was made in the last 30 years. It is. It's one of my favorite films. Very good comparison for the holdovers. Yeah. Limited scope. Limited ambition. Referencing. for The Holdovers. Yeah. Limited scope, limited ambition, central character

on a young person. And referencing an older... Deeply iterative of Manhattan and films like that. Again, there are a lot

of movies like this. But with a young woman my age at the center instead of... Yeah. I don't know, but I really love Dead Poets Society.

Can I just clarify something? My son is not named after an ox over a street in Dead Poets Society. That's just a happy coincidence. But I, you know, Josh Charles forever. Okay. Just wanted to let the people know. Was someone asking you about that? Yeah, that does actually like show up from time to time.

On social media? I thought you don't look at that. I look at Instagram all the time, man. I live on Instagram. And most people have like very damaged relationships with Instagram and I'm thriving. What does that mean? It's like a happy place for me, a respite. But what is the damaged relationship?

I don't know. I think it sets pretty negative expectations of like all walks of life because it's not a reflection of reality. It's a reflection of how people think they're supposed to present themselves to the world it's a reflection of reality for me okay just photos of all my blu-rays no I know

that's that shit is yeah and then can I ask you so when you share a song that you're listening to yeah talk me through that decision tree

it's purely emotional but you're just like I'm sitting in the living room it's the exact same reason I like doing the show. Yeah. The whole point of doing the show is these are things I think people should experience because I enjoy them. And so you just pull the phone out and you're just like, right now, what I'm going to do is share from Spotify onto my Instagram story.

But it's not so strategic. It's just like, I listen to music all the time. Oh, Bobby's logged on. Hi, Bob. Amanda, since you asked about this sean and i might have maybe had our closest moment on friday that's right when sean shared a disapparacito song which is from my favorite album ever probably and i texted him that was your favorite album ever our bond has never been stronger that's beautiful sean recently out of nowhere shared a bob dylan

song and like wrote bob with an exclamation point. And my first reaction was like, oh God, did Bob Dylan die? And that's why Sean is sharing this. So we're having different reactions to Sean's Instagramming. I shared both of those songs because they were great works of art. And I'm most interested in my life experiencing great works of art. That is the, honestly, the thing that I care about most besides my family. Yeah. That is like, I really want to just feel like I'm experiencing something that better understands, helps me better understand myself and better understand the world

that the artist is trying to create. That's beautiful. That's very sincere. That's a really... I actually believe in that. Yeah. So your question, which I think I get

is a little tongue-in-cheek and you're trying to give me shit, but if I hear a song... No, no, no. I was listening to Bob Dylan live at Budokan last night because they put out

the like box set of his 78 show Budokan and so on Spotify you can listen to like 80 performances from that that stretch of time

and just like clicking around like different versions of the man in me and all those weird 70s records it actually wasn't tongue in cheek

I think it's fascinating to understand like how people are actually doing the things that they do. We were talking about Instagram DMs

last week actually on the pod and I feel similarly Instagram is the best social media app for me for a variety of reasons but

I don't get the weird like trolling feedback because it's private. The feedback you get on other social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter, that's like, that's a carnival act. That's an attempt. Do you read it? A lot less than I used to.

Yeah, I can't, I don't really read it. Even though for the most part, people on Instagram tend to be better faith. Oh, do I read it on Instagram? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Not in the comments, but in DMs. I said, that Instagram yeah yeah yeah not in the comments but in DMs I said that's what I said the DMs people are just like I love this song

thanks so much for reminding me of it that would be the feedback and I'm like this is an honest way to communicate with people about things you like it's our modern version of when you used to

like hand your friend a headphone you know and you're like check out this part of this song I love this now that's how we do it Natalie Portman

in the Zach Braff movie in Garden State with the shins did a guy. Now that's how we do it. Natalie Portman in the Zach Braff movie in Garden State with the shins. Did a guy ever do that for you? Oh, yeah. Yeah? Well, what was it? Just the last Walt soundtrack?

I mean, no. I mean, that I had to watch. Do you know about how my high school boyfriend was like a huge fish head? Yeah, you told me. We have gone over that. I've never really

gotten into that. That always eluded me, fish. Yeah. Had like one of those like big record big record envelope folders, you know, with all the CDs of the various live shows that he was burning. Super cool. He's also the smartest person I've ever met, but anyway. Wow.

The paradox there, being a fish head. Yeah, I don't know. So I guess everybody's got to turn their brain off somehow. Actually, I have nothing against Fish. I don't even really know anything about them. Do I like any other sincere movies? Well, I think, yeah. You tend to like a very specific type.

You know, you love Little Women, speaking of Greta Gerwig. Oh, yeah. I think... Lady Bird's also sincere. Yeah, those are the three cortex of Greta Gerwig. But, you know, like The Age of Innocence is a movie that you like or Pride and Prejudice.

These sort of adaptations of works of like 17th, 18th, 19th century literature you tend to feel warmly towards. But I feel like you're able to do that for the most part because it's a remove from modern times.

Yeah. And in modern times, like you kind of like reject that. I do think that the way that we express sincerity now is embarrassing like thank you

David Bowie for teaching me to be weird or whatever yes yeah the performative thing is weird and you know

Arrival is pretty sincere Arrival that's a good one Arrival is pretty sincere and Amanda loves that movie oh my god Arrival yeah oh that's so what a beautiful movie

thank you again we have to take the Arrival discourse back from Bill Bill I love you but you're very mean. Arrival. Yeah. Oh, that's so, what a beautiful movie. Thank you again. We have to take the Arrival discourse back from Bill. Bill, I love you, but you're very mean about Arrival. He's never listening to this. No, you're right. He's not. Yeah, but just the, don't you feel like the whole world is like therapy speaks now and so then we just have to like, we have to say, this is how i feel and there's something sort of yeah cringy about all of it i think that this is such an interesting through line for this movie yeah because this the movie i'm not just trying to circle it back for the yeah everyone is like aware of their emotions and it's just like here are my emotions and i'm like that's great that's

probably healthy but there's a it's not very interesting There's a critical moment in the movie where Giamatti and Cess's characters go on an excursion to Boston and they have a nice holiday weekend together. And Giamatti's character is confronted by a figure from his past. It's a very typical movie convention. And that person dredges up some history that then allows us to better understand the character.

And Cess's character confronts him about why he's been dishonest, about what was in his past and why he is the way that he is because of how he presents himself. And it is sincere, but it's like, it's the stuff of good drama to me.

That sequence in the liquor store near the end of the movie. Oh, yeah. I think it's really powerful. It's great acting. The two of them are really good together. I can't overstate this. It looks very much like a liquor store in the West Village.

Did you know? Did you clock it? Was it shot there? I assume it was shot in Boston. I don't know. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Ice skating rink.

Of course. But it was a very familiar setting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it looked like every liquor store on Long Island in the 1990s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I felt like I was inside of a real experience and whether or not like sincerity is actually the operating word there i'm not sure if that's accurate it's just good drama um but the movie is what i wrote in

the outline is that this is an out of step movie this is not really what conventional storytelling is like there is no therapy speak in the movie there is no you know uh uh marcus aurelius taught me to be weird you know what i mean like there's no there isn't anything that was a funny dude that's the i laughed when the the book full of the things the box hilarious yeah um i mean hilarious is like you know i thought i thought it was hilarious uh there were there were aspects of the movie that I thought were hilarious. I do think, though, it's good to get a movie like this that kind of busts up our expectations. And, like, this is the guy who made Citizen Ruth. Like, he's made these, like, bitter portrayals of idiocy and societal rot.

I mean, some of it is a little, maybe some of my resistance. I wouldn't even call it resistance. It's very good but you know it it feels like the movie of of someone who is later in their career and is softening a bit to the contours of life which is like a good thing i i hope that for myself in life but in my art i don't know whether whether i'm ready for that era. Before we move on from... We'll talk about its quote-unquote awards chances very briefly.

But before we do that, I just wanted to say one thing that has come out of this movie for me, which I have really appreciated, is that Payne is a great cinephile and has seen everything. And he has participated in Restoration. He owned a theater for a long time. He really is a great advocate for movies in many ways. He's most associated with like praising Harold and Maude, but one of the movies

that he recommended for this movie that I also think is a little bit of a skeleton key for Nebraska is Make Way for Tomorrow. Have you ever seen this movie? I have not. I saw it for the first time last week, 1937 Leo McCary movie. It stars Victor Moore, Bula Bondi, Faye Bainter. And Leo McCary, you know, went on to make The Bells of St. Mary and Going My Way. And he made some

of the great comedies of the 30s. He basically developed Laurel and Hardy. He made a Marx Brothers movie. He is a fascinating figure in Hollywood history, mostly known for comic films.

Make Way for Tomorrow is about an older couple who have run out of money and whose home is being taken from them by the bank, who have four children. And those four children who are at the age that we are now with young families who have to decide what to do about their parents. Can they afford to take care of them? Do they have the patience to take care of them? What happens to older people in the world when they can't take care of themselves anymore? Sensitive, heartbreaking, maybe one of the saddest movies I've ever seen in my life. I'm so glad I saw this movie. I recommend every person alive go see this movie, especially if you think about your parents all the time,

no matter what age you are. And it made me feel more warmly towards the holdovers to think that he was thinking about this movie. Because this is a movie about relationships with parents. You know, like the complicated relationship that Seth's character has to his dad. The way that his mother treats him because she doesn't know what else to do. The way that Giamatti is this sort of like stand-in father figure for him. The way that Mary is coping with the fact that she doesn't have her son. These are profound emotional dynamic portrayals. Make Way for Tomorrow is like a little bit more. him the way that Mary is you know coping with the fact that she doesn't have her son these are

profound emotional dynamic portrayals make way for make way for tomorrow it's like a little bit more thematically deep I think than the holdovers but seeing those movies linked together again not to be too sincere while looking you right in the eye right before Thanksgiving but being like this is what it's for this is why I care like to learn about a movie like this and then to think about my life so I think there's like a lot to recommend about the holdovers I like it a lot is what it's for. This is why I care. Like to learn about a movie like this and then to think about my life. So I think there's like a lot to recommend about The Holdovers. I like it a lot. Is it a little weird that it's like an Oscar front runner?

It's a little weird. What does that tell us about Hollywood in 2023? I'm not really sure. Maybe just that the Academy is like a real split group. That there's the old Academy and the new Academy and that they each get their hobby horses. I saw somebody very grievously declare this like this year's green book, which makes me want to like gouge my eyes out. Yeah, that's horrible.

But I know what they meant by that. You know, I thought a lot about wildly different movies, even though I guess they are kind of like about parents. parents but just in terms of awards chances and awards conversation belfast yeah was a a very lovely movie that i walked out of and i was like i don't think that that's the best picture winner but i i like it i you know i was moved by it also too hard to hate hard to hate also just like has anyone ever looked hotter than jamie dornan and Katrina Balfe in that movie, which is like a fascinating choice given the- What the story's about. What the story's about, but whatever. But nice.

You know, I would like to think that our children, when they remember us as young people, will remember us as really hot, you know? Speaking of, I know you're reading Say No More. Yeah, I finished it this- Say Nothing. Say Nothing, sorry. Say Nothing. My dad is also reading it. And then we bought more of the

author's books which I thought was so crazy Oh yeah Patrick Radden Keefe An incredible book about the Troubles by Patrick Radden Keefe Yeah

Belfast is a very good comparison and there often is a movie like this that comes along Yeah A sentimental favorite I do I think Best Picture

Director Screenplay Actor and Supporting Actress are all in play if not locks and if it gets if it gets editing if it gets an editing nomination yeah i mean we always say that well if it does it like look out

yeah look out no i think it's like a real um contender which is you know the other reason i'm not like yay i mean what a. This is also, we don't go see movies as a family anymore at Christmas because I have a small child and someone's got to babysit him. But this would have been an amazing thing

to go see on Christmas with my dad. And I think my dad would like it as well. And then he might be like, that was too saccharine. But, you know, it's like,

it's better than many of the picks that he's made over the years. I'm glad we talked it through. I think we'll be talking about it again. I do as well. Again, I want to recommend the film Thanksgiving. Yeah.

On the eve of Thanksgiving. Eli Roth's new slasher. Okay. Been kind of a middling horror movie here. I know you've been talking a lot about that. One of the things that I saw before the Hunger Games, well, I saw a lot of trailers trailers you didn't respond to my text about the mark walbert dog uh triathlon yeah movie i produced that film i didn't um i just you know

for whatever reason i wasn't aware of that till that moment um but then i saw what's it imaginary is that the trailer that you had already sent me and And so I'd watched some of it about a little girl named Alice who has a creepy imaginary friend. I thought that trailer was really funny. I'm excited about it. So I'm here for the horror comedy that Blumhouse is doing. That's a post-Megan Wave movie. I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm not against it. But I know that the actual fucked up stuff has not really been up to your standards this year. relying on kind of like a viral gimmickry. I like Megan. I shouldn't say that. I thought Megan was a lot of fun, but this is very different. This is like, it gets into that realm that all of Roth's movies that I'm sure you've never engaged with get into where you're just like, Jesus Christ, dude,

like in some scenes, they're so brutal or so absurd. And this one's a lot of fun. So I talked to Eli a lot about the making of this one and why he did it and those kinds of movies. So let's go now to my conversation with Eli Roth. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings.

Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Eli Roth is here. I'm a huge Eli Roth fan. We've never spoken before. How are you? I'm good. I like when you use my first and last name.

Do you have a middle name? No, Raphael, but it's just like Eli Roth is here. Not Eli is here. It's like Eli Roth is here. It's very rare. We don't know each other. I know. It's nice to meet though. It's nice to meet. I'm excited because you're here because you've made a movie that I've honestly been hoping you would make. And it's been, what has it been? 14, 15, 16 years since the idea of this thing first came across transom in the grindhouse feature. It's actually been longer than that. How long has it been? I was 12 when I came up with the idea.

Oh. My best friend, Jeff. And we were growing up in Massachusetts where Thanksgiving is everything. It's the biggest deal. So it's shoved down your throat as a kid. I was in like a Thanksgiving play and I did a, there's two separate pilgrim recreation villages. You go to as a kid.

So like we churn the butter and you're like, watch as a television. And you're like, Hey man, see the Celtics game last night. But DJ missed the feet. Like, you know,

he's trying to bust the pilgrims. And usually the Celtics did it. But we've wanted to do this movie forever. And especially, we grew up in the heyday of holiday slasher films. And every holiday was taken except Thanksgiving. It was the most obvious one in the world to us. So when Grindhouse came along, you know, Quentin and Robert asked if we wanted to do a fake trailer. I was like, I already got it.

It's Thanksgiving. It's a movie I've always wanted to make. But it was kind of a joke. And then the trailer I already got it. It's Thanksgiving. It's the movie I've always wanted to make. But it was kind of a joke. And then the trailer was just ridiculousness and so much fun, but incorporated all these deaths that we wanted to do, like roasting a human turkey

and someone in a parade getting decapitated. And the beauty was we never had to come up with a plot. It was like, oh, I'm just going to make trailers forever because you don't have to deal with this pesky story or character. You can just have one crazy death after another.

And then all of a sudden people were like, when are you doing it for real? And I was like, maybe we should do this. That is something that came out of all of those trailers is I think that people who loved that movie were like, I would watch the trailer of this film for all of them. I mean, all that were made, we all would have watched it. We all would have watched those movies.

We would have watched Don't We? We would have watched all of those movies. And it felt like in the immediate aftermath of it, even though that movie wasn't as successful as I think some people wanted it to be, there was this like, should these be movies? Did you ever have a serious conversation in that time about making this? Well, the day the movies released, we're like, wow, we can just do Grindhouse movies. It'll be a new style of cinema.

And we went to one screening at Man's Chinese that was completely sold out and brought the house down. We're like, this will be great. We didn't know. There wasn't the awareness until Sunday morning that your movie was a huge bomb because it wasn't like the results came out on Twitter. There was none of that. So we were all kind of delusional until Sunday morning when the grosses come out and you're like, oh, wow, this thing costs $70 million. It only made 11. Man, this is bad. But did you start letting yourself believe I might be making Thanksgiving? Well, I was going to do a whole movie of fake trailers called Trailer Trash. And I was like,

it'll just be trailers from now on. And maybe we'll do the Grindhouse Thanksgiving. And it was our way of not having to really write. It's just like a very sneaky way of being lazy. You're like, I don't have to figure this out, so let me just put Missing Real. Is that the part that you like the least about making the movies? The actual having to build the structure of the story? No, I love all of it. Look, the writing is the hardest part, but it's also the most

rewarding if you can get through it and figure it out. Because then everything you're doing is something you've written. It's something you believe in. And then, and look, and I tried directing movies that I didn't write or stuff that I rewrite. I generally rewrite everything in some way or work with another writer. And I love that experience, but there's nothing quite as satisfying as your own world, your own characters, your own story. It's just the most satisfying thing there

is, but it's also the hardest thing to do and i think that there's just a level of respect that writer directors have for each other it's like yeah you know what it is to look at a blank piece of paper and create a universe you've done it you wrote it you directed it you're not just in nothing not there's anything wrong with an adaptation or look at kubrick but i think there is something where writer directors and that sort of director competition that we all have it's's like, yeah, that person writes their own shit. You could take a blank piece of paper and come up with a movie. And that, to me, is always the toughest thing, but the most exciting thing. really a joke with no plot of how the fuck do we actually turn this into a real movie what do we do so you know and jeff randell my writer you know we've been working on this since we were 12 and he plays the pilgrim in the first one started doing all this research and he's like did you

know that the first governor of new plymouth colony was named john carver like if that's not a slasher movie name i don't know what is um. But what freed us up was kind of once we saw these Black Friday tramplings and those videos online, we're like, oh, this is it. Because all these movies start, I wanted to follow the conventions of a slasher film very closely, where you start with the inciting incident, then it cuts to a certain period of time later. And then all the people that were responsible or connected to it in some way are getting picked off. We're kind of guessing who the killer is. So it was those tramplings in this Black Friday sales that have bled over and completely overtaken the holiday.

I mean, now here we are. We're recording this a week and a half away from actual Thanksgiving. The amount of Black Friday text messages that we're all getting on our phones of the spam of Black Friday sale, Black Friday. It's like Thanksgiving doesn't even exist anymore. We went from Halloween into Black Friday and Thanksgiving is just like an excuse to get to Black Friday. So that, you know, thematically felt like it was very, very on point. When did this actually start as this is going to be the next feature that I'm going to do? I mean, was this years ago? Was it fairly recently? It was years ago. It was, you know, it would, because it was um you know it would because it was tied

up with dimension there were some rights issues and other things so we thought we were going to do it in 2019 i was like fully ready to go for it and start it and the production fell apart and then i guess covid happened so or maybe it was 2020 i was going to do 2019 or 2020 and then covid happened and we were like, oh, fuck, this is really, this could not happen. So while the right stuff was kind of getting sorted, the opportunity for Borderlands came along. And even though that was shot in COVID, I was like,

well, this is an opportunity to work with Cate Blanchett and Jack Black and Kevin Hart, an amazing opportunity, way more challenging than i thought with the covid logistics which you know i'll talk about some other point once closer to the film's release but then um i sort of promised i was like i can deliver this movie by thanksgiving 2023 it's like that is the outside date they're like we'll do this we'll hold this we'll like all systems go but we need it for release then and then it got down to the wire i was like i have to make this movie right now or this is really just gonna sit it's never gonna get made so i love the green inferno and it's amazing to

me that it has been 10 years since that movie came out and 10 years since you've done a pure horror film and that's sort of why i ask about the timeline because in that 10 years obviously hollywood has changed a lot but really the only reliable thing now is horror is kind of mainstream studio horror yes so were you watching that going like i already i already had my horror stretch or i'm gonna get back to that eventually like did you think much about that come back to it eventually you know i looked at sam raimi making the gift or these other directors that sort of veered away from horror and made other things also you want to like

flex your muscles as a director you get I don't just want to make low budget horror I was like this opportunity came up where I was on another movie that fell out then Death Wish came along and I said let me just jump in and do this without really thinking about it take an assignment in a genre I haven't done before, working with a major star.

And I met Roger Birnbaum and I put Cammy Marone in the movie and got to work with Elizabeth Shue. And I really had a great time doing it. I remember Rohir Stouffer is my DP on it. And then that led to House of the Clock and its walls. I think, you know, because I brought it in on time, on budget, I was really ready. And having sort of been through Inglourious Bastards, I could really work directing Cate Blanchett and Jack Black and Kyle MacLachlan and Renee Elise Goldsberry. But I wanted to make a kid's movie. I wanted to do something as a pure PG kind of gateway horror. And then Borderlands came together. So I was like, I'm going to dive

into this. I was just not overthinking. I wasn't, I used to like be very careful about mapping my career and my filmography. And I was like, what if I just completely threw that out the window and just went with whatever came my way and sort of went more instinctually and try to become like, you know, Ridley Scott, where you can sort of never predict what he's going to do next, but he always like, everything's amazing. So, um, what, what triggered triggered that what made you shift from i'm strategizing to let's see green inferno and knock knock are very personal movies and i love them but the releases were not like the green inferno release got delayed for a year it was supposed to come out in september and then literally waited a full year and i feel like i saw it like nine months before there were ads for it and then it got delayed and then knock knock i i was

really unhappy with the release it should have had a much better release and people look back at it now and they see keanu and it's kind of a streaming hit i feel like people like it well they blew up on netflix people like it but i was like i was just like man if i put all my eggs the things when you're waiting you're making a movie for four or five million dollars you're not taking a paycheck really you're taking a small amount of money and betting on the back end, which works out really well when it's hostile and not really well when it's knock-knock or green inferno. They make their money back, but you're not getting a big paycheck.

So I was like, let me get a couple of paychecks under my belt. And I also started to feel limited by the budget in terms of what people thought of me as. They're like, all right, green and Schifrano was cheap. We shot in Chile. It was 45 days. It was fast and furious. But it was like, you're still not getting,

you're not spending four days on a scene. You're spending a morning on a scene. And I wanted to know what it was like when I could really light. I wanted to show what I could do with a crew. And like House of the Clock and its Walls, which is a simple story in this house where I could control the tone and the production design and the mood and the visual effects and the feeling and the

tone of the movie. That was really, really important to do like what Tim Burton does with tone to show. And I think on a low budget, it's hard to do that unless it's very contained. So my ambitions grew, my ambitions grew. I wanted to shoot with helicopters. I wanted action sequences. I wanted special effects. And you try all that stuff and

I love it. But I missed horror. And I also felt like I was seeing a lot of movies that were sort of getting over praised or things that I, for me, didn't pass the test. The test is, you know, is it smart all the way through? Does it follow its logic all the way through? Is it good? Did they take the simple premise and carry it out right through the end? And most of them don't. Most of them fall apart. They have some cheap out, but they just kind of go, well, it's a horror film. No one cares. And I'm like, man, you guys are all telling me how great this is, but these characters did something really fucking stupid that doesn't make any sense. People go, you know it's just a horror movie and i was

like oh man do i really got to do this again let me step back in here and show these whippersnappers how it's done yeah but you look at scream there's no excuses in that you look at the ring there's no excuses in that there's a reason those movies are classics. They're very well-written films. And that's where the time goes. And that's sort of what I put Jeff Rendell through the paces. He kept bringing me scripts. I was like, I'm not shooting this because this just isn't good enough. And I'm like, but let's work on it. He would come out, fly out to LA, spend a week at my house. We'd rewrite it. And then we'd go through it. I'd rip it to pieces. And he'd go back to Boston and go to Plymouth and really just study it and learn it and he wrote a great script but it was both of

us going like there can't be any minor characters this has to be every single every single thing in the movie has to matter it has to be fun the scares then you don't always pull it off but you have to have the ambition of like we need a really tight great script for this to work if we're gonna do it we have to make it great. It's got to be as good as Scream or films I love like Mute Witness. But I want it to be like a real, you know, November always sucked for me. November 1st, the movies are just like the Halloween's over. It's brutal.

And then it's just like these shitty family movies and Christmas movies. Now there's some good family movies in there. And there's every now and then you get a Christmas story. And yeah, there's Silent Night, Deadly Night and Krampus. Every now and then you get a Christmas horror film. But being Jewish, I have little to no interest in Christmas movies. They absolutely mean nothing to me. They're not part of my experience.

I've enjoyed Christmas Vacation. I mean, I've seen Christmas films. I wonder if there's a Hanukkah horror movie in the offing for you at some point. But it's also like, that's not exactly mainstream, but yeah, I was like, it's look, and I can, I like, I've seen every Christmas movie. I'll see them. But to me, it was just this desert where you're waiting in November and December until you got to January and the horror movie started up again. So I always wanted to kind of fill that void with like a November staple horror film. One thing that struck me

watching Thanksgiving, which is really fun. Thank you. Really liked it a lot. It reminded me a lot of the first four or five horror films, which are primarily focused on young people, ensemble cast, seem kind of smart smart but not smart enough and they find themselves obviously in incredibly violent situations but you're older now and i was wondering like what it's like to be kind of tapping into the sensibilities of young people now that you've had a long career you're a grown man like are you still able to hit the here's what teenagers say to each other yes okay how do you do that that's in the research you talk to them you have conversations with them not hey let's skype for an hour you sit

and you talk with them i'm at the age now where all my friends kids are 17 18 or college so you say hey i want to talk to you i have the scene they all know me. They know my movies. They know who I am. And they love it. They're happy to help. So before I ever get it to the cast, I'm sitting and we're going, okay, this is what I want to have happen. This is the logic I want. And a teacher would be like, the kid would say, why would you do that? You would just FaceTime them. You're like, okay, then that's what we have to do. i need someone to police it so it doesn't sound like old man movie making and then you know when you're doing that then you show up with a cast they're like how did you hack us like who gave us the cheat code like how do you know how 19 year old girls talk i was like i'll tell you how i know because my friend's daughter's in

a sorority and i've spent a long time going over the script with her to understand what they would do, what are the possibilities, what are things they'd say. I mean, the intentionality never changes, the way you phrase things change, the technology changes. So we really wanted to write something that incorporated live streaming and viral videos and all the kind of narcissism of, okay, there's a tragedy happening. What would you do? Some kid would grab a phone and post it to their YouTube with this cheap caveat of RIP to the victims, you know? But please like, comment, subscribe, smash that like button.

So that's what I like. So then when you sit down with the actors, they're always going to bring their own thing to it as well. And we do it so it feels natural. But you really need to ground the characters. But I like that. I like that I'm at the age. I always worried that, you know we we do it so it feels natural and that but you really need to ground the characters um but i like that i like that i'm at the age i always worried that you know okay nobody wants to grow like old and out of touch um and you're not you don't want to make like dad movies or whatever you want you want them to feel contemporary and the way you do that is you take the time in

the writing to really speak to young people. And I'm genuinely interested. I think like I have a young spirit. I feel like a 15 year old at heart. So it's not that I'm like bored talking to kids that are 17, 18, 22 in college. I'm actually really interested in how they think and how they see the world and where they get their information and what they're afraid of and what the pressures are and what it's like with every single thing you've done now being recorded on social media. I think about what a knucklehead I was well into my 30s.

Thank God we're in cell phones. What my experience would have been like if every single thing I did actually mattered, every outfit you wore mattered, so all that stuff. And then trying to keep it grounded in the classic slasher movies that I love using the language, the cinematic language of a slasher film, but also playing on the tropes to bait and switch your audience and to let them think they have things figured out and then to, you know, undercut them and make them jump and scream. Yeah. One thing I've always liked about

your movies, especially horror movies, is that humor is very important, but you never let it kind of curdle into parody. That there is like an acknowledgement that we're supposed to be having fun and laughing, but that the stakes are really high. This film is likely going to get very violent. I'm always interested when I talk to horror directors about kill scenes. Do you have a Rolodex? Do you have like a notebook full of ideas? I do. Do you have a Rolodex? Do you have a notebook full of ideas? I do. There you go.

So tell me about how you think about this. Well, there's certain kind of kills you always want to do, and sometimes you find yourself reverse engineering to a kill. Like, oh, girl shaves her legs off. You know, like you cut someone's eyeball dangling, and the goo runs out. Like, you just think of weird crazy things and you do it and then you don't stop yourself i want to see someone get eaten by the people

they were trying to save it to me green inferno started with stoned cannibals get the munchies like if you were trapped if you got like cannibals had you and you're like well what if i get them high to disable to like disarm them but then they got the munchies. That was the idea. It's like, it starts with this Colonel and you just start laughing. And I remember I was like Quentin's house. We were all there reading the Django script or something. It was one of his scripts. He has this thing publishing day where people used to, I don't know if he does this, where people go to his house and they read the script. And I saw Diablo Cody and I told her that idea. She's like, you are wasting your life if you don't make that movie.

Stone Cannibal's got the money. She's like, all right. So, you know, sometimes it takes someone else like shaming you going, come on, you got to do that. You're like, okay, okay. But so like with the kill scenes,

you know, Jeff is like the expert. We sit there and we think about every little thing we can do. And then sometimes, you know, my DP Milan, we shot Hostel and Hostel 2 in the original fake trailer.

So we would go like in the barn scene, we're walking around where Kathleen is being prepared and there's all this cooking and food and he comes back and she's somehow disappeared. He's got to look for her

and we saw a pitchfork. We're like, oh, what if he grabs it? Now we're like, it changed the whole scene. We're like, now we're in the prowler. Like I love the pitchfork

and the prowler and he's coming around. Now he can poke here and now that she's got a pitchfork in his hand wherever she's hiding it's going to be dangerous because you know you're sticking the pitchfork in um so let's use that in some way somehow it just gets incorporated we were i think four days after shooting and i'm calling my prop guys going get me a pitchfork rig here double this i want to throw it and stab her in the back like like all kinds of stuff. Um, but it's just from, it's, you're sort of trusting yourself. We know we're going to get to this big scene with her in an oven, but how are we going to get there? We don't know. So we sort of walk through it and step through it and figure that out. But those big sequences, I'm thinking

about the trailer. I'm thinking about everything I've seen. I'm thinking about what audiences have seen before. I'm thinking about what they're expecting, what I can get away with. What's like, oh man, that's so fucked up. And that's really funny. And if you just like, when I get that kind of childlike excitement of, oh my God, no one is ever going to look at corn on the cob holders the same after I stick them in this poor girl's ears and pop her eardrums. It's just so horrible. You can't unthink it. Those are the ideas I know I have to run with. This movie was made in a studio system. And watching that Kathleen sequence in particular, I was like, this is pushing the limits of what you might find.

I mean, it was made independently. It didn't start in the studio system. It started with Spyglass and they were just financing it. They're like, we're make this movie this was in march or like we started prepping january shooting where this is this march we're shooting the movie and then they're like sony and one other studio wants it and sony's like we're gonna give you a theatrical release so we're like okay great and then yeah when when we show the movie like when you're doing it everyone is sort of rolling their eyes like we trust him but like this isn't hostile. Like they're like, this is, is this too much?

I'm like, let the audience tell you. And then you show it. And it's like, everybody shuts up once you show it to a test audience. And people were like, we need more blood. We need more blood.

So I got to go back for four more days and shoot some more stuff. One of which was the oven scene. And they're like, yeah, like I, if I had said I was going to shoot that from the outset, they would have said, this is too crazy, but they didn't. It was actually the head of marketing And they're like, yeah, like I, if I had said I was going to shoot that from the outset, they would have said, this is too crazy, but they didn't. It was actually the head of marketing.

It's like, wow, no one's ever seen that. Like it's, and it's Thanksgiving themed. It's not that we're putting someone in an oven. It's that someone's being roasted for Thanksgiving dinner. That's what makes it funny. If you just put someone in an oven, it'd be like, it's just too horrible. But when you put the Thanksgiving spin on it,

and we know we're going to put little garnishings and put the little chef's hats on her fingers and toes, as horrible as it is, it's sort of absurd enough that people can enjoy it. And they're like, oh, because it's a fucked up Thanksgiving dinner, this guy's going to serve a human turkey. Yeah. And make the husband eat it.

It's just awful. I saw the movie at the Arrow with that great crowd. Oh, that was an amazing night. And they, I mean, that scene, everybody was like, this is why we're here. Like, this is why we came to see this movie. And it's interesting because when we made that scene, I shot, you know, I've become a pizza maker recently.

My wife's Italian and we got a, we built a brick oven pizza, Forno Brava pizza oven. So it's like an all day thing. I got to like heat the wood, get the wood, get the stones hot, the ash. It's a whole, you know, like old school way of doing it. We'll start making the dough on Friday, make a bunch of them because you screw up all the time. You got to make it.

I'm like a super amateur at it, but I love it. But the first thing I learned when I was making a margarita pizza is I always say, man, there's never enough cheese. I'm always looking for the cheese. It always slides off and you just get sauce and basil. So I overloaded the cheese. So true. It's a great take.

Yes. There's never enough cheese. Well, let me tell you, when you put too much cheese on it, there's so much water in the mozzarella that it completely soaks the bottom and the whole middle of your pizza just falls apart. So when you try and scrape it with a peel, I learned it's called, off the stone, the whole middle sticks and you're basically left with a steering wheel of crust, of like soggy,

chewy crust. So you really need the balance. I was like, oh, I can't just add more mozzarella because I love mozzarella cheese. I need the balance. And that's what it's like doing a kill scene. I swear. It's like you got to get the amount of gore right. If you go too far,

you'd think you're going to get more cheers and more applause, but you get kind of stunned silence. And people are like, they feel tricked and betrayed. Like, why are we here? So I also liken it to a Thanksgiving dinner where you go there, you're so hungry, you're starving all day. And you get that first slice of turkey and cranberry sauce and the bread and the sweet potatoes and the marshmallows,

and you're just so satisfied and you're so happy. You're drinking wine. You're like, fuck it, I'm going in for seconds. And you do it and you're just like, okay. Then you're like, ah, and then the pie comes out and you're like, I got to have the pecan and the apple. And then you're just like, at a certain point, you just have this rock in your stomach. And you're like, I got to have the pecan and the apple. And then you're just like, at a certain point, you just have this rock in your stomach and you're like, this isn't fun.

Not only is this not fun anymore, I can't even look at food right now or I'm going to throw up. And you don't want that. That's when you've put in too much of something, too much of a good thing can make people sick and just want to get the hell out of there. And you don't want that. You want them hungry for that piece of pie. And then you go, that was the best dinner I've ever had. It's really portioning out all the way through. Even if people think they want more, they don't. It turns to cruelty and it becomes not fun. You're right, but go with me on this. Listen to your Video Archives episode on The American Jalous. Amazing podcast series. The way you think about it, so clear. Some of the best of those movies or some of the movies, some of those movies that we have the deepest relationships to

are that they are two Thanksgiving dinners. They are, they are overindulgent in a way, and they have been remembered at times for being extravagant and absurd, like to the point of ridiculousness. So you being like the scholar of that sort of filmmaking that you are, like questing for that balance is interesting because like, is that a commercial impulse that you're trying to navigate? Is it just talking to the audience or the people that you're making the movie with?

Because you have a chance to sometimes when you have a movie like Thanksgiving, which, you know, like we know we're in for when we sit down for the movie, especially coming from you, but you do have a chance to like go nuts, like go nuts, like go nuts nuts. And the fact that you're trying to like restrain yourself and navigate the menu is kind of

fascinating to me. But restraining it for me, I mean, my threshold for a PG movie is Cannibal Holocaust. You know, when I restrain it, I'm shocked the audience tells you, you know, and a great example is like the cheerleader scene, which is a different version than in the Grindhouse trailer, but it's still sick in its own way. And we showed it to an audience, and they did the focus group, and like, people went crazy for that scene.

And it was their favorite scene in the movie. They weren't thinking about, and I was like, and of course we shot everything. We shot it the way we shot it in Grindhouse, but that scene worked because it was between Planet Terror and Death Proof and Werewolf Women of the SS and Don't.

That's why that moment worked. You were in the zone of Grindhouse. Extrapolating that out suddenly feels like, am I like trying to show everyone, I'm still the most evil director alive, or look, I haven't lost my edge. It's like when you can let them think you're going to do that, like, oh, that's what's scary is the dread.

And then you can switch it to something that's even worse of, oh, I didn't know you were going to do that. I wasn't prepared for that. That's the classic misdirect that gets the audience screaming at the top of their lungs. And that's the experience. A lot of these movies that were so over the top were very low budget films and they weren't commercial successes or they were minor commercial successes. So if you're making a movie for $250,000, it better be Terrifier 2 because you're playing

with house money. The budget is so low and the experience is that it's just totally fucking nuts and it's NC 17 or unrated. And people are just like, this is the, and that's great. And there should be that, but we're, we're spending more money with that. We have a movie star movie. I wanted to do a franchise studio R rated horror film. It wasn't like this kind of extreme gory endurance test. And I didn't want to make a movie that was particularly mean-spirited either. I wanted something where the deaths were nuts, but you of that movie and told me it was like the sickest horror film they've ever seen. I mean, for me, I think it delivers the goods and it's fun and it's not worse than hostile, but other people who are watching Thanksgiving are just like,

this is the most fucked up horror movie I've ever seen. So for me, it's interesting because everyone has a different threshold, but I do feel like every story has the appropriate level of gore. And when you're watching a movie and they don't deliver the goods or they cut away, you feel like that movie sucked. But when it's Pieces and it's like... That was the exact movie I was thinking of.

That was Pieces is a masterpiece. It's my favorite slasher film, but it's also one of the most amazingly, awesomely ridiculous movies. But the chainsaw scenes are unmatched. They're so good. The death scenes are so over the top. I have the vinyl of that score, Un Ombro, No Lombro by Stelvio Cipriani. I mean, I tried scoring this movie to that. Pieces is one of my favorite, favorite movies for a number of reasons, but it's so over

the top and And it gave me everything I didn't get from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which I certainly appreciate now. But as a kid, I was like, we don't really see a lot of people get Chainsaw Massacre. Then I went to see Pieces. I was like, that's the movie that delivers on what I thought Texas Chainsaw Massacre was going to be. Now I look back, Chainsaw Massacre is a work of art for many reasons, but it's just like you can't try to be pieces. It's of its time, and it's that particular story. It's someone making a human jigsaw puzzle

starring Ian Serra. It's a wonderful movie if you are up for that kind of a movie. It's also like Sleepaway Camp. Sleepaway Camp delivers the goods. The end of that movie, my God, I've never screamed on a way i did when sleepaway camp ended i stomped my feet stood up out of my chair and screamed at the top of my lungs it's a perfect it's perfect even if like some of the deaths that i mean that the

archery death is great that weird pedo cook who gets boiled like it's such good stuff in it but the ending is what makes that movie legendary so it's really funny that you bring that up because i did think of sleepaway camp a of times while I'm watching this movie because it reminded me a little bit of Sleepaway Camp because one thing that most slashers are, most good slashers are, are whodunits. Like you are effectively just writing a mystery movie. Yes. And I feel like that's really overlooked when people talk about great slashers and horror films. They're hard. And they're hard to do. My Bloody Valentine does it really well. Yes.

Happy Birthday to Me. I mean, there's certain The Prowler. Then there's one called The Mutilator. I haven't seen The Mutilator. It was also called Fall Break,

but it releases The Mutilator. There's an unrated version and they don't even try. They got to the point where they're like, when guys are like, we're going to a cabin. Oh my God,

my dad just got let out of a mental asylum. I hope he's not there. And he's like under and they show his face and he doesn't do anything. It's just like by axe, by pick, by hook, bye bye. That's not there. And he's like under and they show his face and he doesn't do anything. It's just like by ax, by pick, by hook,

bye bye. That's the time. And he just, he just mutilates you. He's just, like there's not, they're not even trying to be clever about it,

but I also appreciate that about it. It's like, well, you're there to see people get mutilated. But that's not what Thanksgiving is a mystery. It's a true mystery

guessing game horror film. Another film that's like, like Scream, you know, the first Scream. Another film that's like Scream, the first Scream. Another movie that's not a guess and game movie, but I think has some of the best slasher cat and mouse is a British film called Mute Witness. Which I saw in the 90s.

Yeah, I saw 35 prints of it. They were showing it down the street in Toronto and I went to see it. And the director did a Zoom after. It was amazing. It was great to see that movie again. It's very out of circulation. Like, I don't think you can stream it anywhere.

It's hard to find. It's such a good movie. It's completely overlooked. But that's one of those films that you just, I just love that movie. I loved April Fool's Day. You know, Fred Walton, April Fool's. I mean, look, it started with Black Christmas,

you know, and then Halloween, My Fools. I mean, look, it started with Black Christmas, and then Halloween, My Bloody Valentine, New Year's Evil, April Fools Day. Every holiday, Silent Night, Deadly Night, I really, really loved. That was like a rapturous experience. When Jeff and I saw it in the movies, and his dad took us, and the guy tried to not sell us the tickets. He's like, I don't think this movie is appropriate for these children and jeff's dad said i don't give a goddamn fuck what you think i don't pay you to think pay this for you these kids see every other piece of garbage out and it's of course from that moment on it was already the greatest movie we had ever seen i mean the the roadside sequence in that movie is is even by the standards of the movies we're talking about it's fucked up it's such a

fucked up movie and then when he grabs him at the mental, it's like Silent Night, Deadly Night is a extremely fucked up movie and really, really delivers the goods. And so, you know, when Jeff was coming out here, the new Beverly was showing it. So we went to see Silent Night, Deadly Night. We went to screening of My Bloody Valentine. Like, and I love that.

I love the guessing game of those movies where you think you're trying, the audience is playing. And Torso is one of my favorites. Sergio Martino, where you're just playing with the red herrings while the police are trying to uncover it, while the killer is going about doing it. That's the fun. It's the fetishistic, the black glove killer, the Argento killer in their lair, fetishizing the object, setting up the table, using social media that was, I wanted to see and infusing mass holes into it. I did have that written down that this is an all time mass hole movie. Oh my God. It's the accents are good. The energy is correct. Are you from there? I'm not, but our founder, Bill. Oh, I know Bill. Yeah. Bill is from Boston. I can't wait to see what Bill thinks about this. He will love it. Bill. It's what i keep saying if you grew up in boston um you you will get it because it's a it's you know bill is full-on

mass all he's a boston guy i remember look i used to be on like the email groups back when we had yahoo email groups watching every red sox pitch with simmons and kevin hench and a bunch of i couldn't obviously keep up with those guys they They're like super sports, but like complaining about Nomar and Offerman. It was hilarious. Like just going on my brother, we were all, it was like seven of us just like hitting reply all. But yeah, I look, we grew up with these guys and they're so funny. And I've always wanted to see them dealing with a slasher because they're always always like criminals, or there's some kind of boiler room situation, or it's like the town, or they're fishermen, or it's blue collar. But I never saw the guys that I went to high school with that just fucking hung out in

the parking lot, selling alcohol to teenagers, beat the shit out of you, living it like it's 1980 all the time no matter what wearing their heavy metal t-shirts how would they deal how do the mass holes deal with a slasher they've like you know fuck you you're not that fucking tough so doing that and then throwing in tim dillon who i love and he's got that great gruff long island accent but you know we found people so like this girl we're auditioning, we're shooting in Toronto. And I'm obviously doing Boston castings as well. But it's more cost effective if you don't have to fly them in. So this girl comes in. Her name is Amanda Baca.

She starts talking like this. And she's got a wicked accent. I'm like, how are you so good at the accent? She's like, because I'm from fucking Hanover. I'm like, dude, you're from Hanover. She goes, not only that, I'm a descendant of John Carver. So she's like because i'm from fucking hanover i'm like dude you're from hanover she goes not only that i'm a descendant of john carver so she's an actual descendant of john carver and then this other kid mika who plays the kid from the blue jacket was like hey fuck you fuck your mother he's amazing amazing i'm like quintessential how did you do it and he said he's a toronto kid who his entire life he just wanted to be a asshole and watch like the departed in the town and just learned it he just watched these movies it's and watch like The Departed and The Town and just learned it. He just watched these movies. It's why he got into acting.

He is the Marlon Brando of assholes. It's amazing. It's really impressive. It's a very hard accent to do because it's all attitude and gestures and facials and fuck you. Who the fuck is... Shut the fuck up. You're better than them. Don't talk to me. So it was really fun to just place the...

And then Patrick talked to me and he's like, do you want me to use my natural accent? I'm like, what are you talking? He's like, well, I grew up in Lewiston. I got like a light New England accent. I'm like, wait a minute. How come we've never heard it? He's like, because when I went to New York to be an actor,

they said, you better learn that. You better lose that accent. So I learned, I worked with a voice coach and I had to get rid of my accent. But it's like, he's never used it before in a movie. That's actually Patrick's accent. So once you get mass holes around each other and we're all talking like that, he's like, that guy's a fucking goober chocker, that fucking kid.

Like that word that's from his high school, we put it in the movie. He's like, can we put goober chocker in him? Of course we can. Fucking goober chocker. Like if we were like, no one's going to know what it means, but we don't care. The kids that went to high school with Patrick and me know know there's something so funny about patrick being in the film now being the sexiest man alive and also being you know this child of 80s movies when happy birthday to me and all those films were sitting alongside can't buy me love and all that's just

something yeah just something beautiful about that um a couple couple quick ones before i get you out uh will are you sticking with horror like Like what are you, what's, I know you have Borderlands coming next year, but what else is, what's going on? You know, I'm in the mood. I once, I've got like the taste of blood. I had the best time. I felt like I was not just returning to my roots,

but returning to myself and doing it with a certain amount of mastery. You know, I believe in the 10,000 hours theory of Malcolm Gladwell that he wrote about that, you know, 10 years of concentrated work to master a skill. And I'm at 20 years of directing now. So obviously you're not directing every day, but you are working. And I felt like I was able to approach like that riot scene, shooting that in four nights, something I never could have done early on um and sort of being much more open to listen to the audience and seeing what works and getting rid of something as much as i believe in it if it doesn't work the audience isn't applauding and cheering

fuck it it's gone so it was great to approach it with that and do this in 35 days but now i'm like oh fuck i could have done that i want to do it better. Like I want to, I'm like, now I'm really like locked in. It felt like this was a good warmup to get my, you know, to get back in it. Yeah. But now I'm like ready. And I was like, oh man, if I could start shooting tomorrow, now I can make the greatest slasher film.

And that's where you want to be when you make a film. You want that feeling of you're just so excited because it is every single day of your life. You wake up, there's no off days. And my wife, everyone has to put up with it. Like single day of your life you wake up there's no off days and my wife everyone has to put up with it like you disappear from your friends like you just go into a hole unless unless you just want to phone it in and that's fine and maybe some directors can do that very well but for me i want to be like i don't want to do anything else i just want to live in the world of the movie and the cast had the best time of their lives so those that survived

would love to do another one i mean i'd have to figure out what the fuck that is that's my next challenge but black friday is right there and right there it's super it's yeah it's achievable um you never took on like a legacyquel thing i have to assume you were up for those things or you asked about what do you mean know, like a Scream reboot or a Nightmare on Elm Street reboot. Like, you know, those movies really feel like they're in your blood, but you're also, you say, you're a writer-director.

Yeah, I have no interest. I just don't want to do it. I mean, unless you're like, like when Rob Zombie did Halloween, he's like, he had a very specific vision for what he would do with Michael Myers and showing the backstory and how it was. And when, you know,

Danny McBride and David Gordon green are like, Oh no, this is art. Like those guys are really excited to do it. I've never felt that way. And I think you have to feel that way to do it, to be like, I love this character so much,

but I know if I had the chance to make Halloween, I would do that. And I've never honestly felt that I was always like, why isn't there a Thanksgiving movie? That's, that's all I ever wanted. Like, I would do that. And I've never honestly felt that. I was always like, why isn't there a Thanksgiving movie? That's all I ever wanted. Let them do it. They do it very well. I want to come up with new original horror. I also feel like there's nobody that's going to have my ideas. Now I feel like this is my gift. This is what I have. This is what I have to offer. And I'm very comfortable with that. If there's a mosaic of Hollywood, I've like found my spot in the mosaic and this is what I think I can do better than anyone else. And I love it. So let me just try and outdo myself every time. If I can come

up with a classic kill where people, it's weird. If I do my job, right. The highest compliment is people were like, I watched the inside of my fingers the best thing you could say about a horror film is your film was so scary I couldn't watch it or so fucked up

or so insane I couldn't watch it I was watching through the cracks of my fingers my scale is just that whatever is the if I'm laughing hard

then you're winning for me just because I've I've seen a lot to not know what's coming and to get a tickle out of me it's like that's it's hard laughing hard, then you're winning for me. Oh, good. Just because I've seen a lot. To not know what's coming and to get a tickle out of me. Yeah. It's hard.

Everyone's seen everything. So it's hard. You nailed it with this one, for sure. I appreciate that, man. Eli, we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last

great thing they've seen. You seen something good? Yeah. Investigation of a citizen above suspicion. Oh, yeah. Eli Petri. I just watched it.

Because my wife and I are obsessed with The Tenth Victim. And that's Petri. And everyone said, you got to see that. So we literally just watched it this week. I actually haven't seen The Tenth Victim, but I have seen Investigation. Oh, The Tenth Victim is the best. The Tenth Victim is the best because it's funny. And it's also set in the future, but shot in 1960s Italy.

Okay. So it's like the 1964, 1965 conception of the future right right but it's this game where everyone in the world like people can sign up to play this game that the whole world watches where you can either like shoot someone or be chased and it's like if you beat it 10 times you get a certain amount of money so it's like people in the future in a restaurant and like two people stand up start shooting at each other and they'll sort of move out of the way and then go back it's like a dark black comedy with uh marcello mastroianni but the sets it's got such cool stylish the furniture the costumes the outfits the hairstyles the way their

conception of what a futuristic television looks like it's so beautifully done it's a really cool movie the music is amazing. And you dug Investigation as well. Yeah. Investigation is much more serious, kind of dark, dry. Like it's more like what you'd expect would win Best Foreign Film.

But I love, you know, the DP, Luigi Cavalli, shot Profondo Rosso. He also shot New York Ripper, one of my favorites. But I like Florinda Balkan. I love Lizard in a Woman's Skin by Fulci,

and she did this right before it. So it was cool to see an amazing performance from her. Everyone had told me that was the movie to watch. It's like a serious film. There's a 4K restoration that I saw,

and I just got a nice laser projector, so I had a beautiful screening of it. It's always funny when there's a triangulation of giallo, like superstars surrounding a prestigious Academy Award winning film. Like the business at that time in Italy was so small that there was like a weird crossover all the time in that way. Yeah, well, they came from Spaghetti Westerns too.

You know, you look at Sergio Salvati, all these guys, Argento. They were, you know, and everyone still made spaghetti Westerns. But, you know, Luciano Tavallo. Also, you can see Argento watching Toby Dammit and saying, okay, I want to work with this DP for Standout Syndrome, Tanino Rotano. Like, you can, and I like that. I like watching the early films of these DPs

and watching them in JALO films and the way you watch Russell Carpenter and his films and The Thing and you see him in Jurassic Park. When you watch the DPs, Peter Deming, when they're going on to major movies, but they started on Evil Dead 2, they started in horror,

it's always really interesting. I love the trajectory of those DPs going and seeing this early stuff and seeing what they did with no money and how clever they were. But just the staging of Petrie is so modern. I mean, I was like, we were watching, my wife and I, our jaws were on the ground. Just the way he and just having made a movie and thinking about staging and where you're going to put their actors and how you're going to show them and going up in elevators. It's really the photography.

It's just like, yeah, you're in the hands of a master. But The Tenth Victim is really fun. Definitely go check it out. Two great recommendations. Eli, thanks so much for doing the show. Thanks, Sean. My pleasure. Thanks to Eli. Thanks to our producer, Bobby Wagner.

Thanks to Amanda Dobbins for your work on today's episode. Thanks, Sean. You don't always thank me. I've been thinking about that. It's Thanksgiving. Well, I just, I wondered whether that meant that you were like, okay with my contributions today.

Sometimes you like pointedly thank everybody but me and I'm like, oh, I'm in trouble. I cherish you. Thank you so much. Especially around this holiday season. Okay. You have terrible takes, but I do cherish you. Later this week we'll be discussing but i do have very exciting ideas to talk about yes absolutely always thank you and and very strong ideas sorry very strong ideas and

people and so many elements and people elements and people um thank you so much amanda for sharing the thoughts of kirsten dunst's email circa 2011 later this week we'll be'll be discussing Ridley Scott's Napoleon biopic, which is very funny. See you then.