The Big Picture - The Leonardo DiCaprio Hall of Fame and ‘Don’t Look Up’ With Adam McKay

Episode Date: December 14, 2021

Sean and Amanda discuss the new Netflix climate crisis satire ‘Don’t Look Up,’ which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and Meryl Streep (1:00). Then, they build a Hall of Fame to Leo, one of the best movie stars ever (20:00). Finally, ‘Don’t Look Up’ writer-director Adam McKay joins Sean to discuss his new film (1:00:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Adam McKay Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ringer Films and HBO's final installment of the Music Box series is Juice WRLD Into the Abyss. This documentary is an intimate and eye-opening exploration of the life and all-too-short career of Wonder Kid rapper Juice WRLD. This real-time account of the Chicago native details his struggles to navigate his rise to fame, his drug use, and mental health issues through a wealth of never-before-seen footage, unreleased music, and dozens of industry interviews. Juice WRLD Into the Abyss premieres Thursday, December 16th on HBO or HBO Max. Your choice of junior chicken, McDouble, or chicken snack wrap, plus small fries and a small fountain drink. So pick up a McValue meal today at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. Prices exclude delivery. I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins.

And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Leo by a couple of Leos. Today we're talking about Don't Look Up, a new satire from Adam McKay and Netflix with one of the most loaded casts in recent movie history. That includes Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Rob Morgan, Cate Blanchett, Timothee Chalamet, Jonah Hill, Tyler Perry, Ariana Grande, Mark Rylance, and as an astronomer working frantically to inform the world about an impending extinction level event. It's a Leonardo DiCaprio. Later in this episode, I'll have a conversation with McKay about Don't Look Up and a bit about Winning Time, this forthcoming HBO series about the 80s Showtime Los Angeles Lakers. This one was recorded before Adam was profiled by Vanity Fair and a few other outlets.

So there are no comments about his split with Will Ferrell. Just keep that in mind. But first, Amanda, let's talk about Don't Look Up just a little bit and more about Leo. So Don't Look Up is in movie theaters right now, about 500 theaters in mind. But first, Amanda, let's talk about Don't Look Up just a little bit and more about Leo. So Don't Look Up is in movie theaters right now, about 500 theaters in America. It's hitting Netflix on December 24th. I suspect this is going to be a very big movie for folks staying at home over the holidays. We will do our best not to spoil it, but I think we should talk about it because it's been a subject of much debate in the critical community. And I'm curious what you thought of it. Okay, so we're not going to spoil it.

But also you want me to render a verdict on it two weeks before people can see it. I'm really frustrated with every aspect of this. Let people see movies to the movie industry at large. Just let people see movies. Let me see the movies. Let me be honest, everybody. It was not easy for me to see this movie. It's not easy for me to see a lot of movies.

But everyone just like tearing their hair out about West side store, just like show people movies where they are for the love of God. Okay. So, and I'm mad at us a little bit because we have seen this movie and we're trying to make a good movie podcast for you guys. And it is like quote in the discourse, but also no one's going to be able to see this until Christmas.

If you're mad, I'm mad too. Anyway, I would like to answer your question in a form of question. Okay. What was the last satire you saw that really, really worked? It's a very tough one. Maybe Mike Judge's Idiocracy. Right. That might be the last one, which is, what is that, 13, 14 years ago? Exactly.

And that is a broad satire, and that is far more broad than this movie is so i i see where you're going with this which is this is tough to pull off it's tough to pull off and i'm loathed god i already hate myself in this podcast loath to bring up donald trump but it was a talking point during that administration of just like satire is dead like you't, this has killed this and the kind of like the media industrial complex that we have created has made it really impossible to have any effect of satire. I don't know whether that's totally true, but that was my experience watching this movie, which was filled with people I like. And I saw it very spot on in a lot of places. And I think I generally agree with Adam McKay's outlook on the world,

which is maybe depressing, but it's really hard to do a satire right now. It just is. Yeah, I had a very similar reaction. So the movie itself is of course about this extinction level event that is coming, but it's really a very, very thinly veiled metaphor for the climate crisis.

And this film is very much about scientists who have the truth in their hands and are desperate to make people in the world, the media, the public at large, the folks occupying the White House, understand that we are in a significant and imminent danger here. And playing those parts are tons of charismatic people. And McKay, of course, is incredibly gifted at writing kind of comic absurdist situations. This is probably as big a swing as you could take in that direction. Molding the sort of satirical comic aspects of his storytelling onto a disaster movie is bold. And Adam and I talked about that a little bit in our conversation. I think it half works. I think it half works.

I think it half doesn't work. And the reason that it half doesn't work is specifically for the reason that you're citing, which is that it is not as funny as you want it to be because one, this is a terribly upsetting idea

that kind of effectively lands by the time we get to the end of the film. And two, the world is fucked up and it's hard to make it seem like anything that is happening in this movie is any more ridiculous or any more comic than what is actually happening on a regular basis. And that's, that's a huge challenge. And I, you know,

I wonder if this movie were made 10, 20 years ago, if it might've been received a little bit differently or understood a little bit differently. But for me, it felt a little bit closer to docudrama with some sprinklings of like truly ridiculous comedy because the things that were closer to home, the representation of the cable news media, for example, or the way that the White House operates

or the way that we allow big tech to kind of invade and corporatize national concern, that stuff was just struck me as really close to our actual existence. Yes. Yeah. The outrageousness that I think they're going for in the, like the higher comedy or like higher product moments can just also be seen on like YouTube or Tik TOK all of the time.

And, you know, the other thing here in terms of timing, and it's hard to fault a movie for being prophetic, but this movie was conceived before COVID-19 and is very much about the climate crisis. And that is like a very legible and, you know, I think like useful metaphor, but in terms of like a major life event that causes millions, I think at this point of deaths and, uh, and causes the rest of the world to go completely insane. This movie mirrors like what happened in actuality with COVID in a lot of ways. And so again, you don't want to fault

something for like coming true sort of, but having lived through what we just lived through. And also, you know, I was fortunate enough to primarily live through everything we just lived through, like through a screen and watching all of this happen in like mass media time. And that is because I'm very lucky and was able to quarantine and like take care of my family. my family but to then watch another piece of media jumping in and trying to comment of all of it from the same circus where everything is already happening we're all just kind of it's like snaking the tail a bit at this point yeah i i said as much to adam when we spoke i was like

this kind of left me feeling a little bit sick and a little bit maybe even frustrated because it's effective. It's effective in kind of making a photocopy of some of the anxieties that we have. But I'm kind of fascinated to know how this movie is going to be received because it does feature very typically charismatic and strong performances from its actors. I would say Jonah Hill in particular, I thought that was probably the single funniest part of the movie. It's just really great to have him back. It is. It was great to have him in a comedy. Yes, exactly. In the world. And I'm loving it. And I agree with all of his thoughts on the season premiere of And Just Like That. Thank you, Jonah, for weighing in. Check out his Instagram if you haven't. Yeah, it's great to have him back

can I maybe this makes me sound like a psychopath which again standard for the big picture I felt nothing leaving this movie which is maybe says a lot of certainly says a lot about me that's fine guys but I do also wonder whether a lot of people will watch this at home, be like, okay, I like all those people and I kind of see what they're doing. And it didn't make me laugh that much and never think about it again, which is of a piece with many of the points in the movie in terms of how we

consume information and what is distraction and what is information. But I, you know, and so I am admitting to be part of the problem, but it is really hard to distinguish yourself and make a point about an industry while still being very much in the industry itself. Yeah, I saw this film at an award screening. And so most of the folks that were there were in the industry. And there was a Q&A afterwards with fact that the people who made the movie while they feel very strongly about this topic about the climate crisis in general and the way that our news media has become so distorted they're also really interested in what's going on with

you know that they they too are highly distractible and there is something about our life our lives right now that feels like it is this extraordinary high stakes experience in what is happening in the world at large. But also all we want is just to kind of be assuaged every day by bullshit. And I know that I am that way. There is something acute about the way that he has located that feeling and the way that the kind of meta commentary about the movie itself is locating that feeling. I think you're right. I think a lot of people are going to watch the movie hoping for a fun movie where maybe Leo and J-Law fall in love or something. This ain't that movie. This is a movie that is trying to be about something much bigger than that.

But will it matter? Will it hit? Will it cause anyone to make any changes in their life or the way that they engage with Earth? I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if movies have that kind of power these days. Well, I do think it's to its benefit that it's on Netflix and going to be at home and watchable over Christmas. And I think maybe there is an audience, I think certainly there's an audience on Netflix that is not just chained to their Twitter feeds or their internet feeds in the same way that you and I, or many of the critics who have been reviewing this movie are. And while the movie didn't totally work for me, the critical discourse has also not in the same way that you and I, or many of the critics who have been reviewing this movie are.

And while the movie didn't totally work for me, the critical discourse has also like not totally worked for me thus far, because it's just a bunch of people talking at each other. And they're like, I know this is a problem, but I also know this isn't gonna solve the problem. And it's like, okay, thank you very much. But there are other audiences out in the world.

We live in like a deeply fragmented cultural moment and Netflix reaches a lot of those people. So maybe someone for a lot of those people, this satire will feel fresher and it'll certainly reach a lot of people. And I think that's valuable because again, just let people see your goddamn movies. Just, just please. So I, I'm curious. I think the reception will certainly be different from the critical reception but also it may just be a lot of people being like that wasn't that funny

yeah i think that's possible i think the critics in general this is an anchorman yeah well that's the thing the critics in general i think are going through a little bit of an an evolution with their point of view on mckay as well you know, McKay, particularly with Vice and the Big Short, has become more acclaimed by awards bodies and maybe perceived to be a little bit more respectable in that world. He's gotten Oscar nominations. I suspect this movie will get Oscar nominations.

Though, critically, he is a bit farther away from where he was in the Step Brothers days. And I'm trying to figure out what's going on there. It's maybe that some critics don't want to feel like they're being lectured necessarily, or there's a sense that there may be some pretension at play with the kinds of stories that McKay is trying to tell, as opposed to using these big absurdist comedies to Trojan horse in some of his ideas, which of course, Anchorman is very much about, a kind of white male toxicity in the 1970s. That is definitely a some of his ideas, which of course, like Anchorman is very much about a kind of like white male toxicity in the 1970s. Like that is definitely a theme of that movie, but

it's doing it in such hilarious terms that if you want to ignore that part of the movie, you probably can. And you can't really ignore what's going on and don't look up. It is much more overt. And perhaps that lack of subtlety is being held against it. I don't know. I mean, I kind of like the tone of the movies that he makes. And satires like this, they might be my single favorite genre of movie, you know, Dr. Strangelove and Network and Fight Club. And I really like a kind of like pugnacious, downbeat, you know, like punk rock, for lack of a better word,

kind of a film, a film that like is willing to look its audience in the eyes and say like, fuck you, this is is everything is bad and it's your fault um because it is and so i'm i'm very open-minded about that it's interesting that mckay who is of course very public about his politics and a very kind of pugnacious person when it comes to these things in general has fully turned into this kind of a filmmaking whether or not it's successful we'll see. I don't know where you even go from a movie.

Like don't look up because it is the grandest scale of this kind of a film that you can make. You and I are united in our nihilism, which is many people in our lives. I think kind of also bristle at that level of toxicity and just we're all screwedness. That is certainly in his films and other things he produces, by the way, totally.

We were proved right on this season of succession. So eat shit, everybody else. That was incredible, but it is. I think that that is something that not everyone embraces and he's been turning into it more and more. I think that was like a major problem everyone embraces and he's been turning into it more and more. I think that was like a major problem.

Well, it wasn't a problem for me, but much of the critical response to Vice was like, you know, why aren't you like overtly punishing this very bad person? And I mean, that's not a form of criticism that I enjoy like ever or a form of movie movie making that I really enjoy but it's interesting now to watch him kind of swing back to a more obvious message even if the message is we are all completely screwed and that's also like not sitting right with people it does seem that the more kind of poisonous not poisonous that's unfair because like i agree with him i like i don't know how to respond to what i see on like youtube and ticked up all the time it's besides being like oh my god like we're completely screwed what do we do and no one's doing anything but it's not always the most popular take no it's it's not that fun and he makes really fun movies and so you know between vice and this these are significantly these are the least fun subjects. One of the reasons the climate crisis has been so difficult to make people at the highest echelons of power care about it is because it doesn't, there's not a strong will from the base to get people excited about it because it's scientific, it's dour, it's about a kind of doom that feels like not our fault, but also our fault. And there's all this kind of nuance to

negotiating it. And yet this is also like a real movie movie. It's a Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett movie. And so even in discussing the movie, I'm like, well, sure, we should talk about the issues of the film. But also part of what makes this fun is- It's the performances and the weirdness. Yeah, it's overloaded with all these people that we dig um anybody jump out to you in the movie that you you really enjoyed i mean jonah hill uh again and i i read some interviews i think jonah was given a bit of license to just

be jonah and it really shines through i won't spoil the jokes but one really stayed with me and i thought it was fun to have him cape late Blanchett and Tyler Perry, who are kind of paired as a morning Joe, essentially that they're just doing a morning Joe and they are very good and also slightly horrifying, uh, in that send up of what is a pretty good critique of the news media and especially morning news media who else it was great i actually really enjoyed the ariana grande of it and i don't want to spoil it but i thought that that was pretty funny and that's also someone willing to play a joke on themselves to an extent or things that they're kind of associated with, which I always appreciate. Yeah, having a level of self-awareness about your brand of pop superstardom

that Ariana Grande definitely has it. Yeah, that part of it worked for me as well. There's a whole Timothee Chalamet part of this movie that I don't understand at all that I think is genuinely like just should not be there. But that's the thing is like, it feels it's very overloaded. It's a 140 minute movie

movies like this are getting bigger and bigger over time and when you're i guess if you can get timothy chalamet great it felt like a rat fairly unexplored part of it but for the most part i thought everyone was pretty good there's a very there's a kind of borderline disturbing mark rylance performance in this movie yes i don't want to spoil too much about that, but he plays a person that again feels a little too real to me. That was part of what was a little upsetting to me

was I was like, this feels like he's located how actually we might all die. But anyway, we shall see. One of our great actors. One of our great actors. Quickly, award stuff.

So the Golden Globe nominations were announced this morning. The Golden Globes are terrible and the HFpa is a corrupt organization and they're currently being punished this year and they're not having their show aired on nbc but they did nominate folks so now what they're trying to do is upstage the critics choice awards and they're staging their own like press conference on the same day as the critics choice awards and they've announced their nominees on the same day as the critics choice nominees it's i it's not funny but i'm amused it's amusing they're having a little

a little a little slap fight i suppose yeah um four nominations from the globes for this movie does seem like with 10 nominees potentially for best picture at the oscars if this movie is received the same way that Vice was by the Academy, it could be, it could get a number of nominations. Any blank slate predictions? Well, it's also, I made fun of the Critics' Choice Awards, so I should say that they did also nominate Don't Look Up for Best Picture and Best Comedy. I think it was also on the National Board of Review and the AFI list lists top 10 lists this year and you know we should recall that vice was just absolutely dragged through the mud critically i think you

and i liked it a lot yeah or more than most people but we thought it had no chance and then it showed up with eight academy awards so i would assume that this will be at the oscars probably in best picture and a few other places. I agree with you. To put a button on Don't Look Up, let's just talk about Leo. So Leo is playing, I would say, somewhat against type here. He's playing this astronomer, a scientist, a very kind of sweaty and anxious person. Not the typical leading man kind of a part that we expect from Leo, though.

I think if you look at his career, he tries to subvert that more often than not. What did you think of Leo's performance here? It's not a traditional leading man, but you could also feel the Leo peeking through a couple times. I don't want to spoil what happens to that character, but until things... shit how can i say this um he he gets to enjoy some of the spoils of of being the center of a movie his character does if that makes any sense and he certainly gets his network moment and i would say that that's played for earnestness and it did remind me a little bit of you know we talked we talked about like late stage Tom Cruise, how there always has to be a speech about how Ethan Hunt's really great. And all the movies do it some way have to justify like Tom Cruise taking this role because that he's just a great guy.

And it does kind of work out that way for Leo. And I was like, okay, good. Like Leo still is there in the contract and the script stage being like, this is how I agree to be portrayed. And this is how I do not agree to be portrayed on screen. And I just think it's nice that somebody still has that kind of leeway. Yeah. It's funny to compare him to the icons of his time. Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Will Smith, Denzel Washington, very rarely are the most evil or duplicitous or even just kind of downbeat person on screen. They often follow the hero archetype mold, the classical movie star approach, the same

way that Burt Lancaster would have put himself at the center of the frame or Tyrone Power or someone like that back in the 40s, 50s, 60s, what have you. And that's pretty radically different from the way I think some other stars do things. And we're in this moment now where taking on a slightly more complicated vision of heroism, I think is a little bit more accepted. And he seems to be working in an old school star system. I compare think, is a little bit more accepted. And he seems to be working in an kind of an old school star system. I kind of compare and contrast him a little bit to Matt Damon, too, who has played a couple of pretty complicated parts in No Sudden Move and also in, of course, Stillwater this year. Six months later, spoiler for No Sudden Move. Oh, well,

I'm sorry. Check out No Sudden Move if you haven't seen it. And then The Last Duel, too. All three of those movies, Matt Damon plays kind of a shithead, kind of a bad guy, certainly not the hero of those stories. And so Leo is holding on to something a little bit more classical, which makes him interesting. He hasn't always been that person, but for the most part he has. And so it makes looking at his career interesting. Part of the reason I wanted to have this conversation with you today and build a hall of fame to him is this is his 30th feature film. And he has been acting in feature films for 30 years. His first movie was in 1991.

Of course, he worked in TV before that. And he was a child star. And he was on Growing Pains. But I have said before on this show, and I still feel this way. I view him as really the great movie star of his era. I think of him as greater than Cruise. I think of him as greater than Will Smith. I think he's a little bit outside of the Hanks generation, but I view him as greater than Damon. I like his choices and I like his performance style the best out of all of those people.

And then again, you go through his imdb and you're like okay maybe not as great as i thought it was if you if hold on i didn't know that you were going to drop this greater than cruise thing on me like mid podcast this is when like juliette lipman just let me know that sleepless in seattle was her new favorite nora affron movie without any announcement and i was just like excuse me like there are some truths that are established in our partnerships that you can't just tell me that there's a change with no notice are we putting leo and tom cruise in the same generation maybe we can just separate it there are 12 years maybe we can just separate it yes cruz is a child of the 80s and leo is a child

of the 90s and we can just we can distinguish them but 12 years is not does not a generation make so you could there's crossover there sure i think that you're right to identify him as it if we'll do micro generation is certainly the most successful or iconic like representative of that generation and i think he is like the most bankable movie star of that generation still probably one of the only people who can really open a movie in that old school tom hanks sense of like oh leonardo dicaprio's in this i'll go see it though you know notably don't look up is not really testing that uh premise this year because it really it has not worked out for anybody else his first streaming film yeah um

but you i know you also have like a very long-term affinity for Leo as an actor. I do. And I was hoping that you could explain why. Because I think he did something. I loved the way that he zagged on his career. I love that post-Titanic, he opted out of what could have been an easy move into romantic leading man over a period of time, which I think he had identified as potentially being a dull way to go about his career.

And he, well, I mean, if he did a couple of things, he, he identified Martin Scorsese as his kind of, I would say like artistic lodestar, you know,

like as a, as a, as a person to, to follow and to hitch his wagon to. And, and I think that they made some really, really interesting movies together. Not all of them are their best films,

but they, I think always work to elevate not all of them are their best films but they I think always work to elevate the craft of their art form he also has now worked with Tarantino twice who's one of my favorite filmmakers he has I think worked very hard to make original commercial

mainstream movies you know he has tried hard to find stories you've never seen before on screen. Even the ones that I like. I don't love The Revenant, for example, the film for which

he won an Oscar. But that was a big, huge production with an innovative filmmaker who was trying something really different. And that felt like a big movie. And it got an audience

to come out and check it out. And I always admired that he stuck to that. He never, I don't want to say sold out because that's kind of an antiquated concept, but he never took the easy route on these films.

He always tried to do something a little bit different than his peers. So I've gotten a kick out of it. Is he a little bit self-serious? Sure. You know, is he a little bit of an artiste? Is he a little bit of a scold about what's happening, say, in the climate

or to wildlife in our country or in our world rather yeah he is but i i also find him to be a very thoughtful person and sincere and also he's a great celebrity he has this like you know yeah to some of your interest he's a really interesting famous person he's a tremendous celebrity my affinity for leonardo dicaprio comes from the fact that i was a teenage girl i became a teenage girl in the 90s. And it's funny, you know, you did your traditional, here's my stack of physical DVDs because I'm a nerd post on Instagram. I heard from one of my best friends who, you know, Katie, who was like, does Sean need my collection of Leonardo DiCaprio focused like vanity books that were sold at Urban

Outfitters from, you know, 94 to 97, which she has a collection of like 20 or something. She's got a little shrine in her parents' home. And I mean, I was there as well. And I was there on the, you know, anyone who saw Romeo and Juliet as a preteen, your life is forever changed. And so in some ways he's just been betraying me for 20 years at this point, but I still, that was very formative. And, you know,

I agree with your point of picking, you know, directors and interesting projects and you got to give him credit for winding up in things like inception and, and developing that relationship with Scorsese and being a, a unique movie star, even as he really tried to move away from that in his film choices. So I,

I love him dearly. I still wish he would be a romantic lead in a drama that isn't revolutionary road, but you know, I get it. I get it. I understand the choices. It's been interesting.

Yeah. I mean, that was a, that was speaking of Zags, that was the ultimate post-Titanic reunion Zags to make one of the more gutting and emotionally raw breakup films ever made. Shall we try to build a hall here? I mean, 30 movies, we can only choose 10. Those are the rules of the Hall of Fame. I have a couple that I'm going to fight for.

Okay. But, you know, I don't think they're particularly controversial. Okay. Historically, when we do this, we go through as many maybes as we can. And then we battle it out to whittle them down. So let's start with J. Edgar Locke. It's in. Do you know, actually, J. Edgar, this is awful.

J. Edgar was very formative in my courtship with Zach. That was like a... J. Edgar Hoover was? He was present for it? No. Oh, my God. There's another movie where we just need to talk. Oh, my.

It's the worst thing ever. What is happening? I'm sorry for spoilers. Okay. It's the worst thing ever. Tune into this podcast. Literally a week from today, we'll be talking about a new film and one of the worst decisions I've ever seen spoilers. Okay. It's the worst thing ever. Tune into this podcast. Literally a week from today, we'll be talking about a new film

and one of the worst decisions I've ever seen in a movie. Put a pin in that. Oh my God. No, J. Edgar, the movie was released in 2011, which was 10 years ago, by the way. Oh my God, today is Zach,

my 10 year anniversary. Happy anniversary, Zach. What? I know. But so like, I was like actually dating, but like a month before that, you know, but so like, I was like actually dating, but, um, like a month before that, you know, 10 years and a month ago, J Edgar was released and we wound up at a

screening together and there were no seats left. And so I asked Zach if I could sit next to him and he gave me his mean face. And then, uh, we watched one of the worst movies I've ever seen and left the screening and we're like, huh, that's pretty bad. See you around. And then here we are. Uh, that's pretty bad. See you around. And then here we are. That's a really weird courtship story. I got to say,

the whole thing was very strange. Well, I don't think J Edgar is going to make the cut, but we'll go through all these films chronologically. Let's start with a number one. You may recall his performance as Josh in 1991. Critters three, you know,

I don't. I love that Leo, who has this immaculate IMDb, even in a movie like Jaguar, I mean, he worked with Clint Eastwood. There's a reason he made that movie. It wasn't successful, but there's a reason he did it. He, too, was not immune to needing to start off your film career with a lousy horror sequel. There's something just fantastic about that. Critters 3, I'm sure I've seen seen it i don't really remember it very well but um the original critters

delightful horror movie uh so no critters 3 1992 poison ivy this is the drew barrymore lolita-esque thriller i think starting tom scarrett uh leo plays Guy. Right. Do you, is Poison Ivy in the Hall of Fame? No. Okay, here's where it starts to get interesting. 1993. So this is 28 years ago.

Mm-hmm. Leo's still a teenager when he made this movie. Mm-hmm. Really one of, I think one of his great performances. It's This Boy's Life

in which he's playing Tobias Wolfe, the acclaimed memoirist and writer, and talking about his childhood and his struggles with his stepfather, who's played by Robert De Niro. Is this in the Leo Hall of Fame? This one's not in mine. Okay. Once we, and I'm speaking for the teenagers of America interested in Leonardo DiCaprio,

or the preteens of America interested in Leonardo DiCaprio, once we all became aware of Leo and started going back and doing our film research and watching everything a million times, This Boy's Life was not something that I watched 85 times as a shrine to Leo. But I know that Robert De Niro is in the movie. So if you want to do it, that's okay. Well, it's a tricky one, right? Because I think it's the movie, it's either the first or the second movie

in which everyone said, wow, we have to pay attention to this guy. He's going to be a really important actor. The next movie on the list is the one I think that jumped out to people more. Yeah, I mean, he's nominated for an Oscar for this, right? uh What's Eating Gilbert Grape yes in which he plays Arnie uh who is the sort of supporting younger brother character to Johnny Depp's uh Gilbert Grape and in a very touching performance in a in a at the time a film that I thought was quite beautiful I have not seen

in a long time. Nor have I. And I haven't seen it with grown-up eyes, so. Exactly. I was thinking the same thing. I don't know how well this film has aged, but I remember that performance being really, really impressive. And there being a kind of wunderkind quality to Leo when he first hit the scene.

So just given the Academy Award, should we say that we'll put this in for now? I think so. Okay. The nomination anyway. Okay. So the next film, interesting one here. Yeah.

This is where I think heartthrob Leo emerges. Let me tell you about this poster. Let me tell you about how many lockers this poster was in, in my middle school. A lot of them. It's fascinating that this is the one that Young Girls fell for because he's playing an interesting figure of kind of like punk rock poetry, Jim Carroll. This is the Basketball Diaries,

a movie that I revisited recently and did not think was very good. No, of course not. I was 11. Like, again, I don't stand by our tastes, but I think in terms of like early Leo lore, it does stand out to me, but I'm not going to like demand

that it be in the Hall of Fame. Is it the like, this is sort of like the reverse Britney Spears, right? Where he's wearing like the Catholic school uniform and leaning against the wall and looking longingly into the camera. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So is this going in or no? No, I said I don't have to have it.

But I mean, if we suddenly need a 10th we can reconsider it it's it's in my i guess like 90s you know heartthrob hall of fame different hall of fame okay so we'll save that for your leo horndog episode um so basketball diaries is out the quick and the dead this is a somewhat forgotten to time sam raimi Western that comes between the Evil Dead movies and his Spider-Man launch a few years later. And it's a pretty nifty movie

and also stars Gene Hackman and Sharon Stone and a number of other great actors. Tons of style. Leo plays the kid. Classic Western archetype. Sure. Don't really feel like this one goes in.

Yeah, no. No, thank you. The Quick and the Dead is out. 1995, once again, a film called Total Eclipse in which he portrayed the poet Arthur Rambeau. I have not seen this movie. Have you seen it?

No, I haven't. It's very hard to see this film. There are a couple of films in Leo's career that have been somewhat buried for various reasons. We'll get to another one of those in a few years, but Total Eclipse, I think, despite him playing this historical figure, definitely not in the Leo Hall of Fame. So that goes. Okay, next one. What is the next one? Romeo and Juliet. Yes. Yes. I just, I'm glowing right now. Do you know how wonderful this movie is and how important this movie is?

I can still see the camera panning to Leonardo DiCaprio for the first time. Radiohead is playing. I think that's how I learned about Radiohead. That's cool. I was 12. Don't judge me. The fish tank scene. Like I, this is incredibly important. This was so good. Okay. So you're saying Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet is in the Leonardo DiCaprio Hall of

Fame. Yes. This is the most keyed up and positive that you've ever been on this podcast in three and a half years do you know what a dreamboat he is in this movie and i will i think that this is a fantastic movie and a fantastic shakespeare adaptation we've been talking a lot about how it um these plots can be ridiculous when you project them onto other situations or try to cut them down. And it gets the teenage instant love star-crossed thing so right. And, you know, very visually memorable for me. One of those like, oh, you can make movies this way instead of like the normal way with corsets.

And I just, but it was also so generationally important. Like Titanic would have been Titanic anyway, but I do think that there was a really young teen audience that was primed for Leo and Titanic because of this movie and went to go see Titanic 45 times or whatever in theaters, which I didn't do. But that this is, this is important in establishing his career and his book collecting fan base. We should do an episode about what is the most 90s movie of all time. Because Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet is pretty high up there.

If you want to get a snapshot, this is a real, like I've been thinking about movies to show to the baby, you know, like when she gets older and show her what my life was like when I was 13 or 14 this movie is pretty representative of like i kind of like ineffable cultural feeling that we had with music and the looks and the costuming and the way that lerman's camera moves yada yada okay romney and juliet is in for now for now for now for now one like let me just say right now. Let me just say.

And let me be clear. If Romeo and Juliet's not in the Hall of Fame, I'm not finishing this podcast with you or doing any more podcasts with you. Okay. Well, we'll figure that out when we get to the end of this pod. And if you're not back, it's been a pleasure doing business with you. And we'll just have to soldier on. Minus Romeo and Juliet. 1996, again, second film of this year.

Marvin's Room. A small drama that was quite critically acclaimed at the time has been a bit lost to time. It does make me think of something, which is that Leo, in the early stages of his career, was so smart about getting the chance to work with icons of movie acting we mentioned hackman in the quick and the dead mentioned de niro in this boy's life robert de niro is also in this film also in this film meryl streep and diane keaton you could get the sense that he's asking people how to be this way in this world you know preternaturally gifted but also a student you read that over and over again about how much work and time he puts into movie acting. And this just feels like one of those, I wanted to do this so that I could be

on screen with Meryl and Diane a lot. And it's a nice movie. It's a touching movie, but not one that people are returning to very often. Well, remember when Drake made Marvin's Room also in 2011? Yes. That was weird. Yeah, that was really weird. Did anyone get that? Besides us? I don't know,

but I got it and it stayed with me and it clearly stayed with Drake. So, yeah, but this doesn't need to be in the Hall of Fame though. Okay, not in the Hall of Fame, Marvin's room. 1997, Titanic,

in which Leo plays Jack Dawson. What do you think? Remember when you made us do like a whole like movie swap? Yeah. Because you needed someone to explain why the most popular movie of all time was popular to you. The most popular movie of all time, Avatar?

Right. Okay. That's fine. What happens in that? Avengers Endgame? Which film are you referring to? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You were like, Titanic.

What a production, huh? I haven't seen this in a while. Like, okay. Yeah. Quality film film James Cameron he knows what he's doing uh Titanic is in there's no debate here I remember the man in the iron mask being a big entertainment weekly movie you know there was a lot of pomp and circumstance about the release of this film the first Leo film after Titanic I I don't remember being very

successful ultimately did you race out to see this as a teenager yeah of course i remember nothing about it now but it was like this is the next leo movie and now everyone has to support leo and he needs to be on a bunch of you know movie covers does he play two people in the man in the iron mask he does um okay i believe he plays the man in the iron mask does he not yeah no he does but oh does, but Oh, that's right. So then there's, he's wearing the mask and he's not, like I said,

I don't remember this movie. It doesn't need to be on my list. Uh, nor mine. It's kind of an interesting one. It's, um, this is the first movie directed by Randall Wallace,

who I, you know, wrote brave heart and, and wrote a number of other films. We were soldiers. And, um, it's, it feels like a relic of a different time we don't see a lot of kind of actiony period pieces like this

very often but at the time it made a lot of sense in the landscape of of American movies 1998 Woody Allen's Celebrity which is an interesting film a film that is very rarely talked about in the Woody Allen filmography um in part Woody does not star in this movie. I think Kenneth Branagh is sort of the Woody Allen stand-in. And you can see Leo already doing the self-effacing, self-aware movie star thing because he's playing a hot young thing in Hollywood in a movie about celebrity. And, you know, he's hot and amusing, I guess. Right.

I mean, I would rather put it like the pussy posse vanity fair piece in the hall of fame than actually this movie if we're going to do leo sort of commenting on that era of his celebrity i don't think i don't think we should put in magazine articles into halls of fame just one of my takes what do you think that's fine i mean it's the dying industry and you're not trying to help it, but that's okay. Tell it to the Jeremy Strong profile. Yeah, no, I know. Wow. I just have so much to say about Aaron Sorkin in the coming weeks.

Well, we got some podcasts for that. So that'll be exciting. Okay. Celebrity is out. So we're like a third of the way through his career and we've got three movies in the hall. So we're doing pretty good here. We're in a steady pace. 2000.

The movie that on paper should have been the most me movie of all time this movie is called the beach it's directed by danny boyle but you hate the beach so i do i do hate the beach that's a good point you just you're against sand but this movie is written by alex garland based on his novel. Alex Garland, of course, one of my all-time favorites. And this movie does not work at all. Nope. And it is aimless

and strange and oddly paced and not very exciting despite being about what you can do with the open road or the open beach, so to speak.

This movie was like What can you do with the open beach, Sean? I'd love your thoughts. Get a sunburn honestly that's the only thing i'm really capable of doing unfortunately so no the beach is out yeah yeah correct do you see the beach in theaters i don't remember because i you know i've told you at some point the leo thing became like really overexposed and then he was sort of oh you zagged

on leo well i i told you this. 97 was Titanic and also Good Will Hunting. And that means that was the year I learned about two guys named Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Wow. And then I was like, oh, maybe I'm going to go this way. This is really interesting. And people just got like really, there were a lot of books. People got really intense. So I'm not sure if by 2000 I was,

you know, I had moved on to crying over Ben Affleck and Armageddon for like 45 years. Okay. Let's keep going. 2001 Don's Plum. Another film I have not seen. In fact, very few people have seen this movie. Have you? No. So Don's Plum is kind of Pussy Posse the movie. It's about a bunch of 20-year-olds hanging out at a restaurant. Oh, yeah. Remember this? Yes. Leo, Tobey Maguire, Kevin Connolly, all members of that crew.

Jenny Lewis, the singer-songwriter, erstwhile actress. Mercer Besey, a number of other figures from this time. Movie directed by Artty rob and leo went to great pains to get this movie essentially vanished from our cultural landscape so it's a very hard film to see nowadays i think it's safe to say that this movie is not going in the hall of fame correct okay 2002 two bangers catch me if you can yes we just talked about steven spielberg last week on the show with joanna i think it's let's let's put it in for now yeah this is this is one where i am i yes but we can revisit if we have to love a conman movie frank abagnale jr one of the great conman

forge artists etc uh this is also one of the last, I mean, Leo's playing a teenager in this and doing it convincingly, I think. And sort of it's like a coming of age moment for him before he goes into, you know, grizzled leading man territory. Good point. Yeah, he's about 27, 28 when he makes this movie. And by the time he

gets into his 30s, he kind of can't be that sweet, youthful, you know, blonde, locked boy. 2002, he jet streams can't be that sweet, youthful, you know, blonde locked boy. 2002, he jet streams right out of being sweet teen heartthrob and right into the world of Martin Scorsese,

Gangs of New York, in which he plays Amsterdam Valen, son of Priest Valen. Leonardo DiCaprio, not an Irishman as far as I know, but doing his best to represent for the Irish here.

What's your take on Gangs of New York's i've only seen it once maybe twice i think i did see it at the time or maybe a couple years later because this is the year i start college and so you know i wasn't going to the movies as much i i kind of defer to you i have some thoughts about which scorsese movies i absolutely think should be in the Hall of Fame. And I don't think that every single one of them should be in the Hall of Fame with all respect to my friend Martin Scorsese. So this is obviously significant in that it's the first one, but I don't have the strongest connection to it out of all of the Scorsese Leo experiences. So if you want to fight for it, it's up to you.

This is Daniel Day-Lewis's movie. And if this was a Daniel Day-Lewis Hall of Fame, I think it would go in it. I think his Bill the Butcher is one of the more underrated characters in his career. And Leo is fine in this movie. He's more of a POV character than he is an interesting character. He's somebody who's essentially guiding us through this world. And I think it's all right, the performance. It's not one of my favorites. I think it's a really interesting kind of a movie for Scorsese to be making. And there was a lot in the press about how expensive and how crazed this production was and how epic in scope it was. And I think it does have a lot to say about how some things change in New York City and some things don't. But to me, it's not a Leo movie, ultimately. Okay. So I would keep it out for now. Okay.

I'm fine with that. Here's where it gets a little interesting. Yeah. The Aviator, 2004. Another Scorsese production. He's playing Howard Hughes. Now, I think this actually is one of his best performances. Okay.

But you don't love this movie, so do you want to fight about it? I think also that everything going on around him for most of the movie is way more interesting than what he's doing. And then at the end, he just gets to have a lot of breakdowns in isolated movie theaters while peeing in cups. And so it's not my favorite of his but if you feel strongly about it we can put a pin in it well so this is his first oscar nomination since that his work in what's eating gilbert great now i don't think that that necessarily means it has to be recognized here but i think i think it is a very good. I think going toe-to-toe with this kind of vast array of brilliant actors surrounding him, you know, Cate Blanchett as Catherine Hepburn among them, is effective.

And I think the final third of the movie doesn't work if you don't have an actor of Leo's stature. So I'm going to say it's in for now. Up for debate. Okay. Up for debate. Okay. Up for debate. Okay. In 2006, The Departed, I say undeniably yes. Yes.

Okay. That's no debate there. That's easy. William Costigan, I think, is one of his, actually one of his truly great performances. Twitchy, burnt nerve endings, ready to explode at any moment. 2006, Blood Diamond. I don't know. It's not what i would put in do you want to put it in no no i don't like blood diamond what are we talking about blood diamond is not good i'm sure people are gonna be like how dare you but i i'm not a fan this is one of the one of the few

big misses for me in his career um 2008 body of lies i did not realize his character was named roger ferris gotta tell you leonardo dicaprio does not look like a roger ferris 2008 Body of Lies. I did not realize his character was named Roger Ferris. Got to tell you, Leonardo DiCaprio does not look like a Roger Ferris. This is a CIA spy thriller from Ridley Scott starring Russell Crowe. It's not one of Ridley's. It was not on our top fives, or I would even say our top tens of Ridley Scott's. And I say that as a massive fan of Ridley Scott's so nah.

Okay so here's where we stand I think we've got about 10 or 11 films left we've got five films in the Hall of Fame right now so things are going okay we've got a couple of we've got three maybes hanging around 2008 Revolutionary Road

like I said I like that they tried this. Just a total bummer of a movie. But it's supposed to be, obviously. Don't read Revolutionary Road if you're trying to make a relationship work right now. Just my unsolicited advice

from me to you, the listener. But I don't, and I like the Kate Winslet reunion of it all somewhat. And I like that this is what they decided to do as a reunion. You know, it's a little provocative and messed up in a way that I find entertaining, but I don't totally need it.

I have to reveal an opinion of mine. Yes. This was one of my favorite movies when it came out. Like, I loved this movie. I don't. No, go ahead. Tell me why that's bad it's not bad but it's like it's it's on par with me being like i watched a movie about the apocalypse and felt nothing

you know yeah i but that's the thing is i want if i do i need to feel something and this is of course very like sad and intense and and and certainly overwrought film in many ways in the way that some sam mendes films can be quite overwrought and the idea of sam mendes being in a relationship with kate winslet and deciding to make this film together and then it ending yes that's a that's a big choice um this might be best remembered for that that's sort of wild and amazing michael sh, which was also nominated by the Academy. But I think it's, I think it's a legitimately interesting Leo role.

I know that I'm kind of on the outside looking in with the kind of consensus on this movie, which I think has kind of been a little bit forgotten or pushed aside against some of the flashier parts that he's had in the last 10 years. But I really, I always really liked this. It's not that I dislike it. I just,

I see some things down the road that I'm saving room for. Okay, I'll let you push Revolutionary Road out. Okay. Shutter Island. The floor is yours. And has to be in. Okay.

One of the greatest movies of the last 15 years. Really messed up, this movie. It's supposed to be, I know. But it was upsetting to me. But that's fine. Imagine getting to the end of The Departed and Leo turning to Marty and saying you thought that was bad I can go farther harder deeper I can go even more damaged trust me this is one of the most damaged incredible psychological

portraits in forever I rewatched it last year and was just had my breath taken away I thought it's such a great film um so I'm I will fight to the death for this in the hall of fame okay you accept yeah i accept i accept this one i you know i at some point and leo is a bit guilty of this later in the career of being like punish me so that i can show you how much i can act and you can sometimes see the the the punishment and the trying of it all. But I think this is where the performance and the movie actually match up and it's justifiable.

Okay. Shutter Island is in. It's 2010. He loves to have great double movie years. Here's a great double movie year. Inception. I'm on the record about Inception.

It's a deeply flawed movie. Yada, yada, yada. But I recognize that this has to be it yes i'm not gonna fight that i won't fight that massive box office hit i think solidifies phase three exactly for dicaprio and puts him kind of at the center of movie culture working with one of the most audacious auteurs out there in Christopher Nolan. So no, no, no, no arguments there. Okay. 2011, J. Edgar. We've already discussed this. You fell in love.

Thank you, but no thank you. Yeah. That was great. Yeah. You got some FaceTime with Angry Zach. But we have that and we don't need this movie. This is an absolutely terrible movie. I'm not a fan.

2012, Django Unchained. You have a take? You have a thoughts? Well, unchained you have you have a take you have a thoughts well i how many movies do we have right now two four six seven locks and three maybes um getting woolly out here it's getting woolly i mean i'm gonna make a play at some point and you probably know what it is and it would make room for Django but it's really up to you uh I mean

this is a this is one of his best roles it is one of his best roles I mean it is but it's not the best and there are some other ones that have to go in. And then there are some that maybe have to go in

according to the logic of the Hall of Fame, but I don't care. You know what's so goofy about this? Yeah, what? He was not nominated for an Academy Award for this movie. And Christoph Waltz was and won after Waltz won for Inglourious Basterds.

I don't want to take anything away from Christoph Waltz. I think he's brilliant. I think he and Tarantino have a chemistry unlike almost any other actor, save maybe Sam Jackson. But the Calvin Candy part, who is one of the most villainous figures on screen

in the last 20 years, is amazing. Leo is amazing in this movie. And it's very strange that it was not recognized. It's very strange that it's not... To me, it's like a Locke no-brainer, but obviously I'm in the bag for these for these films i mean with respect to the academy they don't like leo he's had like a very difficult history with him he was not nominated for titanic

everybody else being nominated he's often not nominated he finally did win in 2015 in what many people felt was a like a makeup or in its due type performance so seven nominations but and one win and yet you could make the case that he's been under recognized yeah exactly um i'm putting django in for now okay 2013 the great gatsby nah see i don't think so either i'm not a huge fan of this, but I'm going to revisit this movie because we have a big Baz Luhrmann movie coming out in 2022 about all this that I'm looking forward to. This is the movie that helped me

understand Lana Del Rey. And there is like that Lana Del Rey song at the center of it that I think is like the Lana Del Rey song that Kanye played for Kim Kardashian on the field of Giant Stadium when he proposed, which that's my review of Buzz Flores' Great Gatsby. Okay, fair enough.

I think he's brilliantly cast as Gatsby. I don't think the film is brilliant. It doesn't serve it. And so I almost would love to see another filmmaker make another Gatsby movie with Leo, but that's neither here nor there. So Gatsby's out. Wolf of Wall Street, yes. There's no discussion. It's his best performance. Jordan Belfort is that's I completely agree. I think that's him at the top of his powers. Um, and he

is in the center of the movie the whole time. Okay. The Revenant, the film for which he won an Oscar. I'm inclined to leave it off. So am I, that was the plan I was going to make. I don't care about this. And this is when I was talking about like, Oh, I wore a bear skin and ate a heart and give me an Oscar. Like, eh, no thanks. Wow. That was so about like, oh, I wore a bear skin and ate a heart and give me an Oscar. Like, eh, no thanks. Wow, that was so easy. Yeah. I just don't think

this film works. I really don't want to watch it again. I don't need to watch it again. I think it's incredible what he did accomplish in the performance, but that doesn't mean

a whole lot to me personally. So I'm leaving it off. You're leaving it off. It's out. Two films left. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Yes. I think it's in. i think it's in i think

it's in too we love this movie the rick dalton meltdown in the trailer all time is on his reel you know when you do the lifetime achievement reel in in 20 years that will be there so yes to once upon a time in hollywood and it's also him engaging with some concept of self, but in a non-self serious way. Yes. Like it's, he's engaging with his career. He's engaging with Hollywood in the same way that the film is itself. And doing something that you maybe don't expect from the person who did The Revenant to, you know, because he was so desperate to win an Oscar. He's very good at that like metatextual R&I cute thing.

You know, the celebrity performance, the catch me if you can performance, you know, about the charming young book guy who can talk you into anything. Don't look up, I don't think is in.

Dr. Randall Mindy, that's the name of his character, by the way, great name, Dr. Mindy. Love that. Okay,

so that's out. Next year, another Martin Scorsese movie, 2022, Killers of the Flower Moon. Just deeply anticipating this movie based on the David Graham book, which is a great book. Probably will or won't be. I don't know.

I don't know. We can't put anything in the Hall of Fame that we don't already. Nor can we put in magazine articles. So Bobby alerts us that we've got nine in and one spot left for the names in purple. So I'm going to read the nine. Oh, but I thought, okay, do that for the, I'm sorry. I was going to spoil a podcast, but we should have some dramatic attention. So go ahead. Okay. So here's what we say are locks. What's eating Gilbert grape, Romeo and Juliet, Titanic, catch me if you can, the departed, Shutter Island, Inception, the Wolf of Wall Street, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

I thought that we had decided on Django as well, which I was open to. I think so too, but we also said we would decide on The Aviator. So I feel like that's what it's really going to come down to. But the films that are remaining, This Boy's Life, which I think some people would want to put in, but we're probably not likely to. Gangs of New York, The Aviator, and Django Unchanged. So to me, it comes down to Django versus The Aviator. Django. I think it's Django.

Okay, great. Two Scorsese movies, is that enough? Two Scorseses and two Tarantinos? I mean, I feel comfortable with it. Okay. You want to, have you had any second thoughts on Blood Diamond? No. I just, I'm really relieved that I did not have to protest,

quit this podcast over Romeo and Juliet. Should we take Titanic out? It's a really good movie. Just chill out. I'm a fan. I like it. Uh, any closing thoughts on Leo?

I'm a big fan. It is interesting to have, to have gone through this. I still can't quite pin down what makes him a great movie star besides his he he can pick mostly good movies they're not like a lot of these don't totally work as well that's as you said that's what's interesting about it and i guess he does try to do different things um the execution is always a coin flip but the taste is undeniable that's the thing for me is he is always a coin flip, but the taste is undeniable. That's the thing for me. He is always... J. Edgar on paper, that should have worked.

You know, that is a really interesting idea from an interesting filmmaker that is very misconceived. But he's always after something compelling. Okay, good chat. We built a great Hall of Fame. This wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be. All 10 of these movies are heat. I'm thrilled.

Yeah. Okay. Leo, big fan. I love Leo too. Amanda, thank you. Let's go now to my conversation with Adam McKay. 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. So delighted to have Adam McKay back on The Big Picture. Hi, Adam. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for having me. So Adam, don't look up. This is a big swing, this movie. Where did this movie come from? Tell me where it originated for you. You know, it came from trying to figure a way out to deal with the climate. You know, the biggest story in the history of mankind. And I wrote a bunch of different little mini treatments for different movies, ideas. Some were dramatic.

One was a little character piece. There was one that was kind of a M night slash Twilight Zone thriller. And none of them quite got there. There was just something off about it i could kind of feel what audience it would hit and then i had this conversation with my friend the uh fire brand journalist david sirota who's equally as frustrated with the lack of action on the climate crisis. And he just made an offhanded comment. This is like three years ago, two and a half years ago about how it's like the comet

is coming towards earth and no one cares. And I was like, oh, that's the idea. That's a big, simple, open door of an idea. And what I liked about it was it's funny. Uh, it, and it's, it's references movies, hundreds and hundreds of movies that we've all seen, whether they're disaster movies, Marvel movies, James Bond that sort of follow this narrative that the world's going to end and then everything works out with a nifty bow at the very end of the movies. So it just felt like the right pocket and felt like the right size and the right idea. So climate change is one of those subjects where at least all liberals, I think, agree it's the critical issue of our lifetime. And yet we all just sort of like accept our fate in this like dumbstruck kind of fatalistic way. And I'm curious like what you hope a movie like this can accomplish because, you know, the movie is so clever and so incisive about division and purposeful division between us right now. And I'm wondering if you're hoping, will someone make a change in their life because of a movie like this? Does it just have to be entertaining? What do you want them to take from

a movie that has so many ideas in it? Well, first and foremost, it is just a movie, so there's limits. I don't have incredibly ambitious hopes. I don't think it's going to be a transformative event for the world, but I do hope some of the audience can get a different perspective on what it's like to be alive now. I mean, I've described these times as kind of a combination of the peak of the Cuban Missile Crisis mixed with the greatest timeshare presentation you've ever seen.

So it's a really strange time to be alive. So I thought first and foremost, it would be great to get some distance on that to be able to laugh at it. But ultimately, with the way the movie ends, which I don't want to give it away, but it's not a nifty bow, I also thought it was important for us to just see we're so used to those narratives ending in a nifty way for us to experience it not. And that maybe perhaps a little part of the reason we're kind of sitting back on this is, you know, we are America's a nation of audience members in a way, and maybe seeing this ending that doesn't follow that

narrative would just have an inherent power to it. So I'd say those were the two kind of main driving thrusts of it. And then really, honestly, on another level, just to be able to laugh, comedy's been in a strange place for the past five years with all the massive tectonic change going on. I think comedy is trying to orient itself and kind of find itself because who really knows what the hell is going on. So yeah, those were kind of the three main drivers for why I wanted to make the movie. So I want to talk to you more about how you made it and the choices you

made. And, you know, you point out the Cuban Missile Crisis and this movie does have, it feels like it has a little Dr. Strangelove in it. It feels like it has a little network in it. I do want to just share with you that since I saw the movie last night, I'm feeling a little bit fucked up about it. Because, you know, it lampooned social media, media right and it's about kind of this class war that we're living through or this you know kind of imagined or proposed class war that we're meant to believe in and online activism fame celebrity politics all of these things are at the forefront of the film and we remain sort of engaged and distracted by all of it you know you talked a lot about this at your q a last night and i liked the movie a lot, but I still felt like I walked away from it

feeling like, you know, like fuck everything, you know, like we're all going to die. And I wonder if there was like, if that was intent in any way, like, because you're not, I suspect that you're, you know, you're not fatalistic. You want to make change. And yet you've located this sense of inevitability in the movie that is so deep to me. Yeah, I think that is kind of how you're supposed to feel. And I think ultimately we are supposed to question or I'm hoping the movie can make us question some of the routines that we're in. The idea of showing up for work at a certain time, you talk about things a certain way because that's your job, whatever that job is. And politicians in Washington, D.C., their chief of staff gives them their schedule and they look at the poll numbers and we all are going to fucking die. I mean, the livable atmosphere is empirically, without a doubt, collapsing at an increasing, disturbing rate.

And I would hope that some of that would just drift into the way we talk about things and frame things. It doesn't mean that we have to overturn our desks and run into the street, although that's maybe not a bad idea, but at least we should be making this reality a part of our day-in, day-out life and talking about it like the Glasgow Summit, which only penetrated parts of the national discourse. There's still large swaths of America that didn't know what was happening, just saw it as a far-off thing. And it's one of the more important events of our entire lives.

So yeah, I would say feeling a little fucked up is not a bad thing. I think it's time to kind of start bringing that into our world, like reframing the way we see things. I mean, one thing I said, people are always asking like, what can we do? What can we do? I said, well, step one is just make this the number one issue in your life. Make it the number one reason who you vote for. Make it the number one reason behind the choices you make, consumer choices, how you live, how you engage. That as a start would just be huge. And ultimately, it has a pessimistic side, but we do have the science. We really do. And science is incredible. We just don't have the action awareness or will, which is, once again, as dark as it is, it's kind of funny. It would be like the mare in Jaws after the Kittner kid gets eaten.

The mare in Jaws is like, you know, let's give it a few more weeks before we hire Quint. What are you talking about? That kid just got it. Let's slow. Let's just sit tight and assess. I don't want to panic here. And we're kind of at the point where the mayor from Jaws is actually more liberal and left wing than our leaders.

He's actually ahead of us now, because at least he hired Quint to kill the shark. That's a chilling thought. You mentioned the idea of the awkward stage we're in in comedy, in America at least. And I think this is as much a satire as it is a pure comedy. I feel like satire is perhaps the hardest subgenre of comedy to fully execute on, especially now when the news is borderline farce most of the time, the real news in the world. So how do you decide, what am I going to pull from the real world? What am I going to wholly invent when I'm trying to... Because it's pretty easy for us to watch this movie and say, oh, that's like that.

That's like that. So how did you make those decisions? I mean, what was nuts was the stuff I was inventing like the idea, and it's in the trailers, so it's not a spoiler alert, the idea that they're going to mine the comet for profits. Turns out that's true. Turns out there really are companies set up to do that.

Turns out NASA has a program. So that kept happening where the crazy stuff that I would make up would turn out to be true. And then we knew certain things like you could pretty solidly predict. And once again, I wrote it before COVID. There's no question there would be comet deniers. There's no question there would be people profiting off of that denial, creating markets for themselves, audiences for themselves. I mean, we see it go on with anything you can imagine. So that stuff wasn't hard to dial into, but I was shocked that something as cartoonish as we're going to mine the comet. Our science advisor was right away told me,

Oh yeah, that exists. So it was, it was tricky. It would be like, if you made Dr. Strange love and the military, it was like,

well, you know, we did have a guy ride an atomic bomb from a plane. And he was a country singer. Your last two films have been based on real life events. Now, climate change is, of course, a real life event, but this world is invented from whole cloth. And I'm wondering just,

is it harder to get a movie like that made? Would it have been easier to get something based on real events or Lord knows, I'm sure something with IP is easier to get made, but something that is wholly original. Is there a bigger challenge there for a filmmaker like you right now? You know, it wasn't really a problem. We had a couple of studios very interested right from the jump. The hardest one was Vice. I mean, that was the one where no one was lining up to do a movie about an uncharismatic vice president slash war criminal. And also the architect of a war where 76% of Americans supported it.

So like that was really hard. And in that case, I think it was only in a perna. Maybe. Oh, I think Netflix kind of put an offer on it too. In this case, we had many more suitors because it is still funny. You know, it is, it is in some ways a poppy movie and a rollicking, like you said, kind of, I'm not sure how to categorize it, kind of a farce, satire, comedy, horror film. So we did have more people bidding on it and it wasn't a problem. And we got very lucky that it was Netflix.

I had never done a movie with Netflix. And the one guarantee I wanted was that they would put the movie in a significant amount of theaters because I really believe in the theatrical experience. And they were great about that. They said, yes. But what turned out to be the lucky part was when kovid hit netflix the way they're designed as a company they had the cash on hand to pay for extensive safety provisions for the movie that i think some maybe some other studios couldn't have done yeah i remember when

we spoke in april you mentioned that you had you know we're coming out of a kovid production and just how challenging it was. I feel like, is it even more challenging because this is a big film and has really not just big movie stars, but arguably the biggest movie stars? I mean, your cast is kind of as gold-plated as it comes. Did that make it that much more expensive, that much more difficult to execute. It created situations where people are flying in from different parts of the country. They're having a quarantine for eight days. They have people that are with them. They have a girlfriend. They have their makeup person. By the way, actually not flying in, driving in. God bless them. And so they had people with them. We had to figure that out. Our producer, Kevin Messick, Jeff Waxman, Jen Madoff, not only had to produce this big movie, but really had full-time jobs dealing with COVID. And the breakthrough moment was when we got the PCR instant tests.

Up until that point, I kept saying, we're going to shut down at some point. You can't do this every week. We'll be as safe as we can. But when we got the instant tests and we were doing them every single day, I remember saying, oh, I think we're going to pull this off. And sure enough, we never had one single positive in the red zone. It was incredible. And actually no positives in any of the zones because they were all caught by the gateway

testing. But that's also a testament to the crew that really rallied and went the extra mile. You had a lot of people that were very happy to be working because remember, this is after five, six months of inactivity. So the teamsters in Boston really rallied around each of the departments, the COVID PAs. Everyone kind of stepped up the extra notch and the actors were great about it uh there was no there was no diva behavior whatsoever everyone got what was going on and felt very relieved to be there uh leonardo dicaprio is the star of this movie he's uh he's quite a big deal he's amazing in this movie, kind of as usual, but a little bit different, but still this person that. I think it doesn't hurt that he's worked

with one of the grandmasters of all time, Scorsese, many, many times. So before he signed on, we did three, four meetings in January, February in my guest house. these meetings were long, three hours, four hours going through this script. He would ask questions. He'd ask about the character. He'd ask about the tone, trying to dial in, trying to get a sense of exactly what I'm going to do here. I think there's a little bit of like, he had some thoughts, is this guy going to do this like stepbrothers? And I kept explaining to him, no, the tone is going to be around the zone of Mike Judge and a little bit of Dr. Strangelove, Wag the Dog. It'll live in that zone. One of my all-time favorite movies, Death of Stalin, it'll have some of that in there

where Death of Stalin. It'll have some of that in there where Death of Stalin could be remarkably silly. And then when they execute the head of the KGB, it's very real and very harsh. So we talked a lot about that. There were sections that he pushed on, the big one being the speech that he has. I didn't have a speech there. I had a moment. I had a couple lines. And he said, this feels like the moment where I could speak for all scientists, where I can let it rip with the frustration the scientists have. And my immediate response, and I told him this, I said, you know, speeches in movies are a little bit like drum solos in the 70s.

Like, they can be a little grandiose and old-fashioned. But then I thought of the out that I have on it, which I won't spoil, but it involves cutting to Leo in a car. But I won't say exactly what it is. And the second I knew I had that out, I thought, you know what? Let's give the speech a try. And then sure enough, on the day he smoked it, it was incredible. But we rewrote that speech without exaggeration 15 times. I mean, we just kept work and that's the way he works. I loved it. I love being challenged like that. He's always respectful about it. It's never throwing his weight around. It's always a genuine curiosity. For him, I think the equivalent of the improv we did in the movie,

his improv happens before you start shooting. He's gone through all the alternatives. So yeah, it was a really enjoyable collaboration. Well, even more so than a speech, it is something that is becoming a little bit of a signature for him, it feels like, which is it's like a real psychic break. It's like a breakdown. And I don't know what it is that is interesting to him about doing that kind of performance, but that sequence in particular is amazing. It's almost like the turning point of the movie in some ways. And it's also, I noticed really how you've cut this movie feels different than how your other movies are cut. I know you've worked with Hank Corwin for a long time and he's a master of a certain kind of a

style, but even the way you've cut the performances and the number of angles that you're shooting your actors from, was there something different that you were trying to accomplish here with that sort of structure of the movie? From the beginning, I talked to Lena Sangren, our director of photography, about the fact that I wanted this one to be a little more traditional looking, a little more framed, a little less handheld. I felt like we needed an artful, colorful energy to it. I mean, it can't help but look at all those legendary movies from the 60s and 70s network and Dr. Strangelove. Ace in the Hole was a big one, even though it's black and white, the way it was framed, I really looked at. So there was a difference. And then this movie is much more of a comedy than the last two, certainly than Vice.

And Big Short definitely had plenty of comedic elements to it. But still, this involved some cut patterns that were a little more traditional comedy. So Hank and I kind of would go back and forth with that. And I would say, Hank, I think this is a time you go with the comedy cut pattern. And then there were other times he would purposely break that pattern. And I like that blend. It kept me off balance. I mean, the one move he does that I just love is he'll just cut off in the middle of a line and just sort of say to the audience, you know where this was going, let's move on.

And it's interesting because my daughters pointed out that's something people do on TikTok. That's actually a style that's sort of new on TikTok. And so the combination of sort of Hank Corwin's incredibly original style with my experience with comedy, I think is what gives you that rhythm. And then of course, the look as well. I'm going to ask you a slightly headier question. Based on some of our conversations, I feel like I have a good sense of your view of the world in addition to how you speak publicly on certain issues.

You're very direct in your beliefs. And yet you and I both are tools of this massive media and entertainment system. We benefit from them in a lot of ways. And I'm curious like how you sort of reconcile that with the fact that you clearly seem

to be so, so impassioned about the ideas to the point where it has completely infiltrated your art at this point in your life you know and yet you've made a big movie with netflix you know like there is there's some like some dissonance there do you do you not see it that way you know i look at it the other way i i look at it that it's incredible i got to make this movie with Netflix. I look at it like this is a win. To be able to use these tools to get a movie like this out there, I find to be really exciting. And I give Netflix credit. I mean, they know what movie we were making. And, you know, you just saw Squid Games, too, which is extremely subversive, beamed all around the world.

So as far as the question about how do you live in this world and keep yourself clean and keep your – it's impossible. I mean, we're in a country with all-time historic income inequality. Wages have been flat for 40 years. The climate's collapsing. The government is seized up like an engine with no oil from dirty money. That's just kind of what it is. And you have to make a decision. Do you hightail it for Mallorca? Do you move to Portugal? Or do you stay here and do what you can do? And you also know there's a lot of really good people. We're really talking about broken systems. And there's a lot of really good people working really hard to do cool stuff.

So I'm 100 percent fine with it. Now, if I had made this movie for Facebook, I would say you probably should excoriate me for about a half an hour because they're just cartoonishly evil. But I think we're going to rub elbows with some companies that can be questionable. There's going to be, you know, I love the NBA and what the NBA did with China was super not cool. And you kind of have to make a decision about that. And well, they do a lot of good things. Hopefully they can find their footing with it. But if that keeps getting worse, you kind of have to make a decision about that. So also, there's so many things going on. There's so many problems, issues. I mean, we're living, I sometimes call it the great awfulization is our era,

or the gilded rage. I'm trying to think of a name for this time. But you could just really call it collapse culture, I think is a decent thing to call it. And so there's such a list of things to keep your eye on. And so the trickiest thing for me is trying to focus on the ones that I feel like are the big granddaddy looming shadow issues. But yeah, I mean, anyone who wants to give me a hard time about, hey, McKay, you took a plane. Yeah, you got carbon offsets, but carbon offsets are a little bit BS. Hey, McKay, you worked for a corporation that did. I used to work for GE when I was at SNL. They made weapons. I would say if you want to give me crap about that, do it. You're correct

to do so. That's a graceful answer. I'm not trying to excoriate you. I'm no better than you. No, no, no. I didn't think you were. I didn't think you were. One other thing about the movie is you're well known as someone who leans on improvisation in your films. And you can feel Jonah Hill in this movie who is hilarious doing his thing at times. But with a movie like this that has so much scaffolding and so much structure and it has to kind of move, what was it like to make a movie that was this complex, but also using that style of filmmaking? Yeah, I think through the years, I've gotten better at identifying when you've got room for improv versus when you have no room,

when it's just story or when you've got to do certain amount of work with the scripted, uh, sort of, I guess I'm trying to think of a, an analogy, but you know, it's like what a running back goes towards the line. Certain times there's a real hole there and you could put a move and you could do something cool. And then other times you just got to put your head down and get the two yards. So through the years, I've gotten much better at picking those moments.

And then you drop someone like Jonah Hill in, who is a grand master at it. I'll continue the running back comparison, who's literally like a Barry Sanders level improviser and it's great because he also knows when he's got room uh the surprise to me was barrow streep who's an incredible improviser i'm not i mean like off the charts brilliant improviser i just

didn't see it coming i know she's a great actress i knew i knew she could it can't be that good and not be able to improvise some but i mean she was toe to toe with jonah the whole movie it's the craziest thing to see and then everyone else had their kind of moments ron perlman you know rob morgan uh oh you, who did a lot of improv, Blanchette and Tyler Perry did. A lot of what you see on that show was them creating that TV chemistry and adding, and the two of them could improvise all day long. I enjoyed the Daily Rip. By the way, couldn't that be a show? Doesn't that just sound like a show yeah i mean that's true of many things in the movie i mean the song that ariana sings is ridiculous but that song

could chart you know what i mean like you got very close to the truth in a lot of the movie uh can you just tell me quickly how the showtime laker show is going because as you might imagine it's my most anticipated show i love it so it so much. I have to make myself shut up because when people ask me about it, I'm so excited about it. And it's so unique. And I always say the good sign as a producer is when I'm watching the cuts to give my notes

and I start to become an audience member. It's what you're hoping is going to happen. And that is definitely happening with this show. I find myself just watching episodes. I mean, the fifth episode about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is like one of the best episodes of television slash streaming that we've, our companies ever produced. And the performances are off the charts. I'm telling you, this guy, Quincy Isaiah, who plays Magic, every show I watch, but where did this guy come from? He's incredible. And then as you can expect, John C. Reilly, Jason Clarke, Gabby Hoffman,

the rest of the cast, Rob Morgan are through the roof as well. I'm incredibly excited about it. Now watch it come out and everyone hates it. But man, I personally am really, really happy with it. I can't wait for you guys to see it. You can only imagine how The Ringer is going to feel about it. We're psyched. So we end every episode of the show, Adam, by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen? I know you're very busy these days,

but have you seen any good films lately? I just finished a movie that I don't know how I've never seen, but I just watched Edward Yang's Brighter Summer Day.

Oh, interesting. What brought you to that? You know, what brought to me to it was Yi Yi. I had seen Yee Yee off a recommendation, and it quickly became one of my all-time favorite movies. I mean, talk about ensemble environmental filmmaking. I'm a big fan of types of movies like that. I love Diner and Tin Man, where you feel an environment, characters behave in it.

And Nashville is one of my all-time favorites. So I had seen Yee Yee, and a friend had warned me that Brighter Summer Day is a little darker, but it's got a lot of the same stuff going on. But as you know, it's four hours and 20 minutes long. And I just finished it yesterday. I saw two sittings. So that, and then the other one I went insane for was the TV show, The Bureau. Oh, yeah.

People rave about this. I've not seen it. Oh, my God. I had no idea. I thought it was just a spy show and a well-done one. But there is some masterful storytelling going on with that, some great acting. You're going to hook on it hard. It's really phenomenal.

A friend of mine dared compare it to The Wire. So that's what got me to watch it. Even if you're not correct, the fact that you would even think to do that. And he wasn't entirely wrong. I mean, The Wire is The Wire, but it's a special, great show. So those were the big two ones I watched in the last two or three weeks. Those are some excellent international recommendations. Adam, congrats on Don't Look Up. Thanks for coming back. Really nice to talk to you. Sean, always a pleasure. And thank you for having me. Thank you to Adam McKay.

Thank you, of course, to Amanda. Thank you to our producer, Bobby Wagner, for his work on this episode. Later this week on the podcast, we're welcoming back Mallory Rubin, and there's a reason that Mal is coming back. It's because we're talking about what could be the biggest movie of the year.

I'm talking, of course, about the new Spider-Man film, Spider-Man No Way Home. Amanda, are you excited? You know, I love to have as many universes as possible just in every aspect of my life. So I'm thrilled. Let's plunge into the multiverse with Mal. We'll see you later this week.