The Big Picture - The Oscar Nominations Hangover and the Top 10 Movies at Sundance

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

Sean and Amanda take a closer look at the Academy’s 2023 picks (1:00) before digging into their experience with a virtual Sundance Film Festival, discussing the sales, the trends, and their favorite movies. Then, writer-director Brandon Cronenberg joins to discuss his new film, ‘Infinity Pool’ (1:15:00) Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Brandon Cronenberg Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, humanoids. This is David Shoemaker here with a very exciting announcement. Your favorite wrestling podcast feed, The Ringer Wrestling Show, is now going daily. And you can hang out with me and Kaz on Mondays and Thursdays for The Masked Man Show. And you can join me, Peter Rosenberg, alongside Stat Guy Greg and Dip every Tuesday with Cheap Heat. And on Fridays, I'll welcome a friend or special guest from the world of wrestling. And on Wednesdays, we have a very special new show called Wednesday Worldwide that you're going to want to check out. Pay-per-view reaction, one-of-a-kind interviews, fantasy booking, talking about bagels.

That's what we do here on the Ring of Wrestling Show. Follow the show now on Spotify. And do us a favor. Give us five stars. And do us another favor and stay mage. See optimum points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Sundance.

Later in this episode, I'll have a conversation with Brandon Cronenberg, the writer-director behind the gloriously deranged new movie Infinity Pool, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival this week and is now in theaters. Brandon is one of the most exciting young auteurs working in horror and science fiction, and is, of course, the son of the great David Cronenberg. We last chatted with Brandon for his 2021 film, Possessor. Infinity Pool is even more extreme, so if you dug that, I hope you'll stick around for our chat. But first, Amanda, we're going to talk a bit about the Sundance Film Festival. You and I attended virtually this year. We did not trek to Park City. Before we do that, though, I wanted to just follow up with you about the Academy Awards. We discussed the nominations earlier this week on

the show. I think that we both were generally satisfied with where they landed, but I was thinking about how you were pressing down upon me that I seemed unhappy or unsettled. And I got to be honest, I haven't been able to get out of my head ever since we had that conversation. What do you think you identified? I mean, you were, you were big mad. And I just want to say, I wasn't, as you know, I'm like half online right now. I'm like half really online and half not at all. You tweeted this week? Yeah. Yeah.

But I was looking at some of the responses to that podcast and someone just in response to your energy posted a screenshot of a drill tweet, which just, I don't think I'm going to totally write, but by the way, I'm not mad. I don't want to read in the newspaper that I'm mad or don't put it in the newspaper that I'm mad. Yeah, one of the best tweets of all time. Yeah, that was the energy that you were getting off. Do you think it's because I have this kind of phantom anger from the past that I can't shake off? Because as I said at the top of our conversation before, when I looked at the list, I was like, pretty cool.

I like these movies. Maybe not all of them a lot, but there are very few Best Picture nominees that I have any big issue with, barring maybe Elvis. You sort of identified it on the podcast. And this is an issue we've run into a couple of times, both of us in the last few years, which is we are so used to being angry

and feeling superior to the Academy, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, any nominating body, really. You know, you and I really always could have done it better. That when we are aligned in any way with these voting bodies that we, you know, just philosophically, on principle, disdain, we become really uncomfortable. And it just sort of folds in on itself. Our podcast identity is for sure, but also a little bit our personal identities. I think that you're right about that. That being said, I did get mad at the Academy Awards all over again for a very good reason. So Diane Warren, I mentioned, was nominated for Best Original Song this year. It was her 14th nomination she's never won before she's you know famously known as the susan lucci of the academy awards do you know who the

filmmaker is who has the most nominations and has never won in oscars history i saw this on twitter and now i forgot it's paul thomas anderson he has 11 nominations and he has never won an academy award yeah and so neither is harrison ford that's not the same they're just not they're not the same harrison ford has given us such joy in blockbuster material for going on 50 years now paul thomas anderson is an artist okay he is the artist and famously the academy awards are a tribute to art uh so i'm grousing about that even though he didn't even make a film this year. But apparently he's making one right now, so hopefully

that goes well. I had a lot of people in my own life get in touch with me to let me know that they didn't like Elvis, and I just want to say, like, send it to the old people of the Academy. Don't send it to me. No, send it to me, and I will read those emails live on this show. I mean, that's fine. Nobody thinks that it should win Best Picture

except for a bunch of really old people. Two things. One, Wesley Morris was on the Bill Simmons podcast talking about the Academy Awards this week as well. And Wesley pointed out something that I think we failed to mention, which there's a sequence in Elvis in which B.B. King encourages Elvis to steal his music

and the entire history of American black music to have success. No bueno. We also heard from our friend Van Lathan today that he also did not appreciate Elvis. Here's the thing. Elvis stinks, okay? Like, let's get over it.

This mass delusion that Elvis matters, as a man, he matters, certainly. The Baz Luhrmann film, no. If the Baz Luhrmann film becomes the film that we're not thinking about or talking about, that over the course of the next six weeks wins Best Picture, then I will be mad.

Then you will hear... You're mad right now. You're right. I'm getting key best picture, then I will be mad. Then you will hear. You're mad right now. You're right. I'm getting keyed up. Please don't be mad at me. I'm not mad at you. I didn't do anything. You kind of liked Elvis and that's part of the problem.

I didn't have a bad time. Okay. And that's different than liking something or thinking it was good or thinking that it should be the best picture winner or nominee. I do also just find Austin Butler really compelling. And I just, I sense a lot of people are just trying to write Austin Butler off. And I just, he's here to stay. I was talking to Joanna Robinson today.

She'll join us maybe next month to talk about a couple of races. And we were chatting about Best Actor. You know, her heart is all in Colin Farrell. Sure, yeah. Do you think there's an Austin Butler possibility right now? I this on like you really you really think it's happening it's happening it's just happening it's happening yeah oh that's gonna be bad that's gonna be like one of those crazy Oscar travesties well get used to it get used to it because it's gonna happen I think Brendan Fraser and and Colin Farrell I was about to say Colin Powell sorry um that's a leftover

from whatever Secretary of State segment you did during the movie auction. Well, it's part of an ongoing series we've been doing on JMO or on Secretaries of State. But yeah, okay. What Secretary of State are you on right now? That's a good question. Yeah, you kind of stumped me on that one. How many Secretaries of State can you name right now? I can't do this right now.

I came up with enough on that pod that I was proud of myself. So now being, I don't know, I made a Madeline Albright joke and I was like, Nailed it! Yes! Anyhow, I think you're, Austin Butler makes me a little nervous, but let me go back. Anyway, I think Brendan Fraser and, God, I almost did Colin Powell again. Now this is really messed up. And Colin Farrell are going to cancel each other out in terms of the it's time-esque vote.

And then Austin Butler comes in. I think you were onto something insofar as your TAR prediction, which is not to say that I think TAR is going to win because I don't. But I do think... I can't figure out what is the movie that is on the periphery right now that's going to make a surge.

And that's why I express some concern about Elvis. If you want to say that this is a race between Everything Ever All at Once and Banshees with Fableman's in position three. Anything that is outside of that, like, is there a world in which Top Gun Maverick does actually burst through and win? Sure, there is. And I think if you're asking about the three on the periphery, and it is TAR, Top Gun, or Elvis, I guess. I really just think the Elvis thing will go to Austin Butler and then all the old people will get on with their lives. Is it possible it's Triangle of Sadness?

I guess so. Did you see that it's number two on all the VOD charts? Yes. Yeah, I told you. Yeah, you did. We're going to talk about that for sure on the show later. I got to watch it again. You're just getting angrier again.

I'm just chewing on it. I'll tell you the other thing I heard from people in my life about tar. There's a lot of support for Amanda's theory. Coastal Elite Amanda heard about the film for Coastal Elites? Well, guess who decides on the Academy Awards? Some Coastal Freaking Elites. Very good point. Very good point., guess who decides on the Academy Awards? Some Coastal freaking elites. Very good point. Very good point.

That's why we're well suited to hosting this podcast. It's simmering. It's simmering. And I wanted to make a request also. So I'm obviously working on my impressions. You are? Like in your private time? I don't know.

Now every time Chris sees me, he's just like, you cannot start without me. Do you ever do impressions in front of the mirror by yourself no should you start okay okay furthermore should you start putting them on TikTok no but I see you at the movies okay that was good I would really Chris and I were kind of breaking down that whole time speech you know and and at some point it becomes a lot of hand gesturing and immaculate hand acting, but that's not really what you want on a podcast. I love a good hand acting.

You know, I mean, it's beautiful, but she's shaping with the right hand, you know, with the left is the clock, but you're nodding, but no one can see it. You guys can imagine. Anyway, I thought that something that I could add to my Lydia Tarr repertoire would, I would have to learn German though.

But if someone who speaks German could just write out the threatening speech that she gives to the child on the playground, so I know how to say, I will get you. You want to be able to record that? I will get you. No, I will just say,

I will get you a German. Okay. You know, don't you think that would be useful? Did you identify with that sequence? No, but that was when I was like, oh, this is fucking crazy and I love this movie. Tar is officially

on Peacock right now. I hope people will listen to our episode, which is slightly deranged, but not too bad. Is it? I think we're pretty far inside the Tarverse.

What else are you supposed to do when you're talking about Tar for like an hour and a half? Did you listen to Todd Field on WTF? Not yet. It was magnificent. Okay.

He has so many interesting connections to did listen to andy greenwald recapping not on wtf and he like briefly brought uh bill goldman back to life and i was i almost i was driving to target and almost crashed and then it was corrected let's just say i wasn't pleased by that sequence um nevertheless let's make let's make a pivot to Sundance. Okay. So we've been attending virtually, and we haven't been in a few years. We last went in, I guess it was 2020, right before the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. And they haven't held the festival in person for the last three years. This is the first time in three years, I should say. I wanted to go, but also didn't want to go and was kind of stuck and then had family in town and then ultimately was able to do it virtually as were you. It's an interesting

thing to do virtually because even more so than when you're at the festival, you're kind of mainlining movies. I am mainlining movies all day in a very unhealthy way, like five, six movies a day sometimes, which is not the most ideal circumstance to analyze films. I think what we'll try to do as we talk about this is what were movies that we really liked, what were kind of like talked about films that mattered, that are going to matter over the course of the next 12 months. And they will.

The thing that Sundance was able to retain, even in the face of the pandemic, was a serious relevance on the movie landscape. Coda won Best Picture one year ago. That was a Sundance movie. You know, like that is, I know it's wild. It's really wild.

I can't get over it. It's also, we saw CODA at Sundance 2021. Is that correct? January of 2021. That's correct. And then it won in March of 2022. Yeah, I'm not sure if we have a Best Picture winner here

based on what I've been able to see, but I should say, because we attended virtually, there were a handful of movies that we were not able to see. I I should say, because we attended virtually, there were a handful of movies that we were not able to see. I'll just flag those for the listener right now in case they're really

waiting for us to, you know, weigh in. The most acclaimed movie out of the festival, which we did not get a chance to see, is Past Lives.

The Sicilian Songs film starring John Magaro and Greta Lee, which apparently is wonderful. Many people have said it may turn out to be the best movie of the year. They were not sharing it virtually,

so we didn't see that. We didn't get a chance to see Cat Person, the adaptation of the short story in The New Yorker, which stars Cousin Greg and Emilia Jones. Cousin Greg's real name

is Nicholas... Braun. Braun, thank you. I didn't get a chance to see Bad Behavior, the Jennifer Connelly film, which was made by Jane Campion's daughter,

Alice Engle. I didn't see see earth mama that wasn't available that's an a24 film as well didn't see justice which was the late breaking announced documentary about the supreme court justice fred cavanaugh which made some noise that first night but then i didn't hear anything about it and has still not been acquired i also read this morning that they have some, quote, new sources as a result of the premiere, which gave me the impression it was an unfinished project. Interesting. So this movie is directed by Doug Liman. It's his first documentary. And we shall see.

It's clearly made in the aftermath of his confirmation hearing during the Trump administration. And then the final film was Flora and Son, which did, you know, received a huge ovation, apparently, at its premiere and was acquired by Apple for $20 million. It stars Eve Hewson and it's directed by John Carney,

who made Once and Sing Street and is this, makes these kind of very emotional, stirring musicals. So we won't really be talking about those. Let's start with more acquisition stuff, though, because I think it's interesting,

and I'm kind of curious about your perspective on what the purpose of this festival is now. Because Fair Play, which is a movie that is on my list of the best movies, was bought for $20 million by Netflix. Sure was. Theater Camp, which is a charming little comedy, was acquired for $8 million by Searchlight.

As I said, Floor and Sun, $20 million by Apple. A Little Prayer was just picked up by Sony Pictures Classics. Passages, which may be the best movie I saw at the festival, was acquired by Mubi. There's probably going to be a raft of more acquisitions in the next three to four days. The money's still flowing. Streamers are still buying and studios are still buying.

Yeah, but four out of six are streamers there. I mean, I understand that the numbers are manipulable when it's only six, but it is streamers. And a handful of the movies that are there that we watched already had distribution. I'm kind of thinking out loud, like, what is the purpose of Sundance? Is it a sales conference for movie materials? Is it a launch pad for exciting new voices? Is it an excuse to party in the winter in Utah? You know, there was an interesting conversation on the town with John Sloss, the sort of seller and buyer at Synetic, who, you know, is a long history doing this work. But his point of view is very business-minded. I'm curious,

like, from an artistic perspective, based on what you've seen, as you think about what Sundance represents in the movie landscape, like, where does it stand? What is its purpose in your mind right now? It mostly seems like winter-summer camp at this point for the industry. And I think any summer camp involving the industry also involves money and clubbiness and seeing and being seen and deals happening. group of people in an era where it's hard to get anyone's attention for a long period of time or anyone in the same place for a long period of time, sitting at home, watching on my computer, watching the Sundance app, and then also like reading the trades and watching the headlines, it felt like everything that I was reading coverage of was as much about brand activations and this person was seen here and this person was debuting this so which fits into your launch pad and you know to be fair that's been the

case for several years now for Sundance so it sort of seems a little bit like a streamer like shopping trip and also you know time to party I guess in the winter did you have a good time watching the films virtually yeah I I did I mean there were some that I liked and some that I didn't like which was true also of Sundance in person for me it was like wildly easier to see films and honestly to discover films because you can't take a chance in person sometimes just because of logistics and darting across the screen or you know the city or you miss the bus or you can't get in Sundance online instituted these sort of frankly arbitrary caps on the number of people who are allowed in screenings i guess to recreate sort of like a buzz experience i'm not really sure who that serves except for like the festival

itself um and i i was shut out out of most of the dramatic competition i i mean you know i made it into a few but at some point it's like i i think pretty much everyone would want their film to be seen by people who can then talk about it if they're so inclined. But that's on Sundance. I otherwise thought they did an amazing job of making a lot of films available. And I did see some things that I don't think that I would have gotten to if I had just been on the slog of, okay, this got bought and this got bought and I got to watch this and I got to watch that. So I'm both grateful. I thought it was amazing and cool. And also, I don't know how many of the films that we're talking about are actually going to matter in a year.

Well, that raises a bigger question about what is the purpose of something like this. A lot of people that are listening to this show right now also participated in virtual Sundance because you could buy single tickets or you could buy packages to experience the festival virtually, which I think is a great thing that the festival is at. It's really smart, also a way to generate more revenue and income for a very complicated and tricky moment for film festivals right now. Sundance obviously is one of the big poobahs of the space. But still, like, any way to make some money makes sense. Like, how democratized something like this should be, even at this elevated stature that we're fortunate to have

where we get to watch a lot of these movies because of a press pass or what have you, and then creating false boundaries or false limitations around those things, I think is really complicated because on the one hand, accessibility to movies in general is something that the movies really need because they have to grow. You are famous for saying show people movies, let people see movies all the time on this show.

On the other hand, the sensation that I had had this week which is that you had a chance to see the film eileen and i did not i found as frustrating and intoxicating simultaneously as anything because now all i want is to see i know but that's so desperate to see this movie they honestly like if someone told me that there was one person on the Sun, like behind the Sundance app, making sure that I could see it and you couldn't just to stoke our personal like idiosyncrasies, I would be like, well played. Because that's our loving blood feud. That's like a such a specific thing to you, though. If I hadn't seen it, I would have been like, all right, well, then I won't be talking about it. Well, but if there was I'm trying to think of what would be an equivalent.

Because Eileen, I've been talking about on this show for a year. So I love that book so much. And I love Anne Hathaway. So it's like, it's a movie that feels really made for me. Even if I don't end up not liking it, the expectation, the sort of the inability to touch it is what's so fascinating. Because I did get a chance to see a lot of really good movies. I would say it was like about a B as far as the offerings that I experienced with a couple of very high highs.

And then a lot of things that were really kind of at that two star level where I was like, I appreciate the effort. It didn't really work for me. But that's Sundance. You know, Sundance has always been that way, right? There's you're looking for the breakthroughs, the emerging voices or somebody coming back who's really talented or an actor that you really like in a film that maybe doesn't work as well. So I thought in general it was successful. I do agree with your point of view on the weirdness of not being able to see certain things that, like, there's no technical limitation, you know?

Like, they could have let you into magazine dreams. Right. For example, there was a film that you saw and you texted me about last night and you were like, you really need to see Rylane. You can tell the world why later. But I couldn't get in and I think I like missed a window or something. And there was just no way for me to see it. And I don't. Who does that help?

Like, it's not like a huge film. I don't know whether it's been acquired. You know, it does have a distributor. It's a searchlight movie. OK, well, that help? Like, it's not like a huge film. I don't know whether it's been acquired, you know. It does have a distributor. It's a Searchlight movie. Okay, well. But you're right though. I mean, obviously a film like this is likely going to play Hulu and maybe going to play, maybe going to theaters.

And it's from a, I think a first time filmmaker, Ray Allen Miller. It's a small movie. It was like 85 minutes. It stars, it stars David Johnson and Vivian Opara, you know, two British actors who are like not that well known unless you're an industry stand like I am. And you know,

David Johnson is a great actor, but it doesn't, you know, so gotta be a word of mouth movie. The premise of the movie is basically it's a walk and talk rom-com shades of before sunrise, some Richard Curtis vibes, very colorful and beautiful to look at these long lenses.

So everything feels like it's mega expanded. It was a cool movie. I had a lot of fun watching it. But you're right. I'm like, this is the movie that Amanda should be watching and talking about on this podcast and not me. Yeah, as well. But on the flip side, and I will say this, maybe not for that particular, who cares about audience limits? We suck. fast forward okay but anyway the flip side and there is something really nice about the organizing principle of of Sundance um even from afar where I am not one to just like sit down on my computer or my Apple TV or whatever and be like I'll just like check this out and that's a little bit of function of we have a lot of watching to do for this podcast. And so I don't feel that I really get to be in explore mode very

often. And this online Sundance provided me like enough structure to then just kind of be clicking through things. And I quit some movies I thought I would like and didn't. And I clicked on some others and like got really excited about a couple that I found. So that is exhilarating. And that is also very few places where you can do that at this level. So they are providing discovery still in a way. And I really commend them for that, even though I didn't get to see Rylane. Do you think we'll go back to the Sundance Film Festival in 2024? You tell me, buddy. I don't know. Will the planet still be orbiting the sun in 2024?

Yeah. I mean, I guess now that I... 2020 was my first Sundance. So I learned some things. I just don't really like snow. It's cold. You know, it's cold. It's cold.

I just... If they did Sundance in June? They're not going to do that. I like that I'm, you that. I'm like slightly available. Well, you said it, not me. And it's May, just for your calendar purposes. Well, I mean, I really like Sundance. And of course, I learned a lot about movies because of Sundance.

Sundance in many ways, that was the springboard for Reservoir Dogs. You know what I mean? But it serves an incredible purpose to this day. There were a handful of people who had first-time films or early films in their career just at this festival where I was like, damn,

going to be with this person for a long time. So that's exciting. With that in mind, maybe we should talk about our lists. Okay. You want to go first? I think you should go first. Number one is Eileen.

I really like this. So this is adapted from the Atessa Muschweg novel that Sean read in Sweden. In Stockholm, yes. And loved. Yeah. And it is adapted by Otessa Moschweg herself and her husband, Luke Goebel, which just that's a new aspiration for me also. Those people are living. You and Zach back to back in a room.

They did Causeway. Then they did this. I believe at one point they were living in Pasadena. So I just, it's just the upgrade that I'm looking for. They have an incredibly intense creative love affair. Would you describe your relationship with Zach that way? Absolutely not. As soon as he starts talking about writing, I'm like, bye. Okay. Good enough. I say that with love.'s my favorite writer but also i don't want to hear about the process ever anyway i'm thrilled for them i don't think you guys will be adapting a novel anytime soon i'm thrilled for them it's directed by william oldroyd who um directed lady

mcbeth and as you mentioned it stars in hathaway and thomas and mckenzie so here's my relationship to the source material i have read otessa mosheveg novels, but I had not read Eileen. And I'm really glad that I hadn't because there are certain elements of it that I did not see coming and that I thought were very effective because of that. But I still also had some sort of like bridge into the Otessa Mosheegh world and what's going on. She is a very talented writer, and she focuses on female characters who are weird and gross, basically. Yeah, often depressed. Yeah. Kind of like an intensity.

But there is a very physical fixation to the sensation, I guess, you're right, of the depression, and also just the literal physical depravity of humanity yeah um but she does it in a way that is not like the annoying oh i'm so sad girl trope that shows up in a lot of literary fiction right now um kind of a more honest reflection of what being down in the 21st century is like. This movie is set in the 20th century. Yeah.

I mean, you know, your rest and relaxation. Like, that's a very accurate vision of a few women I knew in New York. Right. But also never veering into cutesy, but also somewhat funny. I mean, it's just like a very specific milieu and very specific even to like the narration and the way she was writing. I mean, it's not unadaptable, obviously, but it's like very the writing itself is creating the world. So I was like, I'm curious how they're going to do this. And since Moshe Fekr herself was part of the adaptation, they get it.

It's not. I guess it's like pulled back a little bit you don't see quite as much like you know human like bodily liquids than than you might in other in other films it's like love to hear you talking about bodily liquids fine with me especially on the episode about infinity pool it's wonderful well you know so it's it's not as literal, I guess, in that sense. But I did think they nailed the tone of oddness and even a little bit of maybe not grossness, but... There's a discomforting quality to her work, her characters. And just the kind of the physical nature of it without ever being tweaked. So I thought, I was like, oh, like oh this is huh like you kind of did it

and like and it's not surprising when the actual novelist is involved or it's less surprising but i was impressed by it i think if i had never read any otessa musk bug i would be like what is this the reactions to this film have been basically your reaction which is like this is pretty impressive and yeah immersive and then you know because the story takes a couple of sharp turns yeah there's been a like not for me reaction yeah yeah and i'm looking forward to talking with you about i guess i'll read the novel now that i like about the novel basically and about some of those turns i mean it's i'm happy to lend it yeah but i really liked the thomas and mckenzie performance that's a hard mean, it's... I'm happy to lend it to you. Yeah, but I really liked the Thomas and Mackenzie performance.

That's a hard one. And it's like the right amount of like blankness, but also something like burbling under, but maybe like not as much as you usually expect from the protagonist of a major film. And then, you know,

Anne Hathaway's Anne Hathaway. I think I was both confused by the performance and also like, oh, this is exactly right. You know, it's like, it's a choice, but it has to be a choice. And it works ultimately, I think. I'm very excited to see it. I'm very mad at you that you saw it.

Okay. Zach liked it too. We watched it together. That's just really mean. I know. For like half a second, I We watched it together. That's just really mean. I know. For like half a second, I was like,

oh, do you just want to come over and watch it? And then I didn't. I didn't feel like it. I know exactly what happened, Amanda. I know exactly what happened. And you wouldn't invite me for the sleepover for the Academy Award nominations.

You wouldn't invite me over to watch Eileen. I'm getting the message, okay? I will never come over again except I'm coming over in two hours. My number one movie is, I don't know if this is, well, okay.

The best movie I saw is Passages. Okay. Passages is a movie I saw late last night and so I have not had a chance to fully process it. I love the like 2 a.m. under the wire. Sean is just making his call. This is the best movie of the thing.

Well, I had a strong feeling I was going to like it because I really like the films of Ira Sachs. He made a couple of movies, one in particular called Love is Strange, starring Alfred Molina and John Lithgow about 10 years ago, about two men who have been together

for a long period of time romantically and then their lives kind of moving in slightly different directions he's a very subtle long time independent filmmaker this is i think is like eighth or ninth film um passages is definitely the sexiest movie that he's ever made set in paris it focuses on a german filmmaker living in paris played by friends ragowski who if you know the films of christian petsold you will know him he is one it focuses on a German filmmaker living in Paris, played by Franz Rogowski, who, if you know the films of Christian Petzold, you will know him.

He is one of the most mesmerizing actors in the world. I think this is his first full English-language performance. He speaks in German and French in the film as well, but he... Like you do. Like, well, certainly like the people in this film do. Like I'm trying to do, if people will just teach me how to say. Yes. You, Lydia Tarr, Franz Rogowski all share the trilingual power. His character is this filmmaker

who's kind of at wit's end with his creativity and his romantic life. He is seemingly married to Ben Whishaw and they live together in Paris. Oh, I thought you were saying in real life and I was like, oh, okay. Not in real life. Although they could be based on the way

that they performed together because they're tremendously believable as a long-time married couple one night after friends argowski has uh wrapped on a film they go to a club to dance ben wishaw's character does not want to dance he's exhausted he's had a long day and he wants to go home. But Adele Exarchopoulos shows up, and she does want to dance. And Fran Zergowski and Adele Exarchopoulos of Blue is the Warmest Color fame start dancing. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

And you can imagine what happens from there. I sure can. And then we create not quite a love triangle, but kind of like a love mess, a love splatter. It's not a shape. The love is just kind of moving in all different directions love splatter it's not a shape the love is just kind of moving in all different directions

is love a euphemism? yes and no okay there are bodily fluids as well right this is a very sexually explicit film

okay in ways that is are very uncommon certainly in American movies where you do not see sex photographed quite this way it's not like

sex organs are hanging out everywhere it's more like two people are fucking and you're like they might really be fucking like it looks very right specific that's not like sex organs are hanging out everywhere it's more like two people are fucking and you're like they might really be fucking like it looks very right specific that's not like the reason to see the movie specifically it's a very emotionally mature complicated movie about people you know at critical stages of their lives making big big big decisions and then like instantly feeling regret over those decisions iris acts as a very specific, mature, precise filmmaker, but using these like human fireworks.

You know, Adele Xarchopoulos is an explosively enticing, voluminous, just beautiful and captivating person. Franz Rogowski, like I said, is so mesmerizing. And Ben Whishaw, it's like a great counterpoint to the women talking performance where he's this kind of like baby man, you know, who's like, oh, if only someone would just love me. I can read.

Yeah, he's like stormy and brilliant and angry and specific in this film in a way that he is not in some of those other performances. Very, very cool movie. Like I said, Mubi picked it up, which is not surprising because if you've been following Mubi lately,

they're picking up a lot of really cool stuff. They just picked up the Kingdom Exodus, the Lars von Trier series. They picked up Decision to Leave. They are on a run. They're kind of making a bid to become not quite Sony Pictures classics, not quite A24, but maybe somewhere in between those two things. So I view that as a very good sign. I highly recommend this movie. It's a good one. You didn't get a chance to see this, right? No, I didn't. Okay. I mean, I want to. And I saw a lot of photos of Adele X. Rattopoulos on the red carpet.

I have no fear about saying openly that she is very hot. Yeah. There's no two ways about it. Yeah. I mean, it's like a cinematic quality at this point. She is. Okay. What's your number?

I don't know if number two is right. I didn't really rank these. Me neither. But this is what's next on the doc. Did you watch this? I'm not looking at the document. Okay. So this is the film that I texted you about.

Oh, no, I couldn't get in. Jesus Christ. I think it had closed by the time you contacted me. Okay, well, that's really frustrating. This is a documentary that I just kind of stumbled upon because I was, you know, trying to fill out my schedule. It's called Piano Forte, and it's directed by Jacob Piatek, who's have since learned is like the most illustrious piano competition in the world. As one of the characters puts it, it's like Olympics for piano. And it's like a pretty, I don't want to say like standard, but you know the format. They identify four to five or six pianists who are all late teens early 20s and follow them through preparation for and then this 21 day competition uh in warsaw to become like the best pianist in the world or

something and i it was so good and also so close to home i'd like texted you and i was like i need you to watch this so you can understand me. And then you didn't. And so now we can't talk about what happens to Eva, the 17-year-old Russian pianist, and her Russian teacher who's just like, why are we doing this if that's how you're going to play? And then she's crying in the bathroom and then smiling for the cameras.

And I'm like both of these people. And I really felt for everyone. And it was great. It was really delightful. I did try. I felt quite sure that that was going to be what the film was going to be like which was a very scared but willing to try very hard talented person and also a a demonic matriarchal figure that was just one of them

because there are five or six there were also there was an italian contingent okay uh and there is this one italian woman who or young woman who loves playing piano but is like very self-aware and she's a real ham for the camera and so she keeps being like this is hell and all these people talk about how piano is just like for their emotions and that's the most important thing but she's like no but no i want to win um and then there's like the impish like polish pianist i don't want to spoil like what happens to all of them don't um there's a long tradition of films like this like spellbound jesus camp you know like it's like it's another one of those but they know what they're doing they're like they identify the right protagonists um it sounds like

boys state actually it actually is a lot of boys state like sort of minus I mean minus the politics and more just about like you know your inner struggle of of

feedback and authority figures and like hating yourself um these kids are great that's exactly what we do on the show I know

that's why I wanted you to see it I really enjoyed it I googled all of the pianos afterwards I'm rooting for them oh um well documentary is a huge part of the festivalos afterwards i'm rooting for them oh um well documentary is a huge part of the festival and i'm glad you you discovered one that i was not on my

radar you actually have another one here too that i also did not get a chance to see so that's exciting um i i'll hold off on documentary um i want i'm gonna just cite infinity pool i actually had a chance to see it before uh before the festivalronenberg's a new movie. It stars Alexander Skarsgård and Mia Goth. It's about a young man and his wife are on basically like an all-inclusive vacation. The man is a writer. Let me step back for a second. I explained the entire premise and plot of this movie

to my wife, my father, and my stepmother in my home a couple of days ago. And I was telling them how excited I was about it and how much I liked it. And after that, there was a profound awkwardness because of how fucked up this movie is and how, like, my dad, I think, is, like, genuinely concerned about what's going on with me. Okay. And you know what? He's right, too.

I was just going to ask whether you like an all-inclusive vacation um I have been on them yeah me too I think when I was 25 and had really the first disposable income of my life and had not really just I just did not come from a family that went on vacation very much and certainly never went on tropical vacation. I was like, is this heaven? Yeah. That was my immediate reaction to being like, so you're just going to keep giving me margaritas. Yeah. Like for like 12 consecutive hours. Right.

And I don't have to think about how much they cost. That was mind blowing. Yeah. If I were to, and I went on a couple in my mid twenties and they were nice. If I went on one today, I would not like it. I just find it a little nerve wracking of like, am I making the best decisions? You know, am I getting the most for my money? Gotta pick the restaurant you're going. You gotta make sure you're on the right happy hour. Yeah.

Am I at the right pool? Yeah. I mean, you know, these are, these are bourgeois concerns. The movie is about that. The movie is about bourgeois people realizing that there is an elevated level of bourgeois that they can attain and what it is is frankly fascinating and dark as fuck it's a very good movie i hope you listen to my conversation brandon i don't think you should see it but maybe you should because it is a biting social critique as well as being a disgusting film what kind of disgusting oh bodily fluids you said i don't love bodily fluids and i get enough at home quite a bit of violence oh but is it the violent kind of violence that makes me mad or i can just kind of ignore i genuinely don't know okay i will say it is mia goth at her most exquisite which is

to say absolutely fucking crazy yeah anyhow i like that movie a lot that isn't the movie that i was going to recommend though um the movie that i was going to recommend is called fair play yeah so this So this is the, this is kind of the talk of the festival. Yeah. And I got shut out of this one. Yeah. I'm sorry. I think you will enjoy it. One of the first episodes that we did when the pandemic struck after our visit to Sundance was we did an episode about erotic thrillers and how erotic thrillers for a time were really the lifeblood of Hollywood. They were some of the most exciting movies that you could see from about 1985 to about 1997. And that genre died. Of course, Karina Longworth on her show, You Must Remember This, did an entire series about those films from the 80s. And she's coming back with another season about the 90s, which is I'm really looking forward

to. Even on the rewatchables, we did a kind of sexy sleazy series of films why couldn't it just be naughty november like i what what was going on there take that up bill simmons i had no role in naming that series uh yeah i mean it was naughty november um this film is in a tradition of that but is not like firmly subscribed to that style of movie it stars um alden aaron reich and phoebe dinover i'd never seen phoebe dinover before she's one of the stars of bridgerton which is a show i don't watch yeah so she was a pure discovery to me i did not know who she was i learned later that she had also dated pete davidson which i find fascinating having seen the film alden aaron reich of course is the like quasi disappeared star of Solo, who is quite a good actor and quite a compelling screen presence.

It's so sad. Even when describing him, you couldn't bring yourself to say the new Han Solo. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that just didn't work out. It didn't work out for him. It didn't work out. But the other things, you know, rules don't apply.

One of my favorite films of all time. He was one of the stars of that movie. He was one of the stars of Hail Caesar. Of course, I love that film as well. They play a pair of analysts at a hedge fund

and they are secretly dating and at the beginning of the film they become engaged but it's a secret to everyone. Okay.

And a big job opens up within the hedge fund and Alden Ehrenreich's character believes that he is going to get the position and he does not and the person going to get the position. And he does not.

And the person who does is his partner. Yeah. And what transpires from there is an extremely intense game of, it's like, it's not cat and mouse. It's like cat and cat. It's like two people who are just chasing it. You know when cats fight? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they're screeching and clawing at each other. And it's wildly uncomfortable watching two cats gnaw at each other. It's kind of like that. But are they like, is that sort of how they express their... At times. Yeah. At times. Right.

It's not as fun as that sounds, though. Okay. It's not as steamy. It's not like duplicity. No. A lot of people having seen this film have said, we don't really need this movie. We already have the TV show industry, which of course is literally one of my two or three favorite TV shows. I love industry. It has a lot in common with industry because of the world that it's set in. I would say industry is one, funnier than this movie,

and two, is more interested in the kind of jargonization and the kind of like intensity of competition that happens on the floor in this world. This is more a movie about relationships and our relationship and getting ahead in a slightly different way. Both of the leads are really, really good. And it's a first-time filmmaker

named Chloe Domont. She's really talented. It's produced by Ron Bergman and Ryan Johnson. And that's a good sign. They're having quite a moment now with Glass

Onion and Poker Face now on Peacock. It got bought for a lot of money by Netflix. Which they already have a relationship with. Well clearly they do.

And also you know the lead actress is one of the stars of one of their biggest shows so the synchronicity is the synergy is clear right but this is a movie that would really rock in movie theaters and i myself felt like i wish i'd seen it in a movie theater with people kind of clutching their armrests you know so there's a there's always a part of me with this sort of thing where I'm like, gosh, couldn't just like Warner Brothers buy this movie and just put it on 3,000 screens?

Wouldn't that be cool? I mean, you could call Zaz, but will he take your call at this point? No, it's not the 90s anymore. Did you see my guys

at Crager just signed a big deal for his next movie? Yeah. I'm really excited about that. And that was Warner Brothers. That's a new line movie, old school horror movie, much in demand script. He's was Warner Brothers. That's a new line movie, old school horror movie, much in demand script.

He's getting final cut. It's like, that's old school stuff. That's what I want. Right. But it's a horror movie and, you know, it's different genres, different box office. But market them the same way. I think you can market them in a very similar way, which is like, you need to oversell on sensory experience. You're going to be scared. You're going to be titillated. You're going to be excited by need to oversell on the sensory experience that you're going to be scared.

You're going to be titillated. You're going to be excited by what you're seeing on the screen. That's how these movies need to be sold. That's how dramas need to be sold because that's what gets younger people interested in movies. This is a movie about young people. These people are 25, 26 in the movie. They're not old. They're beautiful. There there's sex, there's violence. There's all the things that you want. Anyway, it's great that it made a ton of money. It's great that it's going to Netflix. I'm sure hundreds of millions of people are going to watch this movie um and it is what sundance does it is a discovery of a person and um hopefully chloe don't mock goes on to make great stuff but i thought it was cool i think you'll enjoy it i suspect it'll be the subject of a future podcast okay i'm excited uh what's next for me oh this

will also be the subject of a future podcast and probably and is also definitely about rich people problems uh you hurt my feelings the nicole hollis center movie which i is one of my most anticipated movies of the year yeah um her reunion with julia louis-dreyfus also stars tobias menzies uh micha Watkins, and Ariane Moyad, who you probably know as Stewie from Succession. This is a movie about Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who is a writer and working on a book, and then she overhears that her husband, played by Tobias Menzies, doesn't like her book, and her world falls apart. It's small stakes like really it's small stakes even for that premise that i just laid out for you and if anything i was a little surprised by how

like ultimately like nice or sweet this movie turned out to be i expect nicole holliff center movies to have a little be a little more biting biting, I guess. And that is mostly gone. It feels born of, like, the pandemic and wanting to, like, write through feelings and find each other. But it is also, like, all Nicole Holofcener movies, like, very well observed and really, really funny moment to moment and has all of those like little ticks of life and bourgeois people that are really spot on. And it ultimately, you know, it becomes about like truth and how we all think of ourselves and how we talk to each other. And the performances are great. And I very much enjoyed being in the world. So I would say it's sort of like a minor work, if you will, but I don't mean that in a derogatory. No, no sort of like a minor work if you will but i you

don't mean that in a derogatory no no no i just mean you know sometimes people are really making an opus and sometimes people are just are working on a project we're tobias menzies yeah i'm certainly familiar with the man i did not get to his time on the crown that's your loss um did he elevate after that? Was it like, oh, he's a proper leading man that we need to cast now? I think so. He was also, I believe, on Outlander. Oh, another show I've not seen.

Though I think he was the evil guy on Outlander. I think I didn't see it either. But yeah, he wasn't like the romance novel cover guy. He was the other guy. And then he was also on a good show made by this woman, Bea Aisling. I'm probably saying that Irish name wrong, but. Oh, I know her. Sharon Horgan. And Sharon Horgan's also on the show.

So I feel like it's just kind of, it's an if you know know you know thing for Tobias Menzies is he playing an American in the film? yeah but the accent is sort of transatlantic I see so he sounds like Catherine Hepburn no it's

I mean it's more American than that do you have a Catherine Hepburn in your bag? no I can't do it on the spot oh Henry

how could you darling that's pretty good right? yeah I really want to see this movie I was shut out of this one yeah Oh, Henry. How could you, darling? That's pretty good, right? Yeah. I really want to see this movie. I was shut out of this one. Yeah. So you got a couple over on me. I did.

My next movie, let's talk about the Michael J. Fox movie. Okay. I didn't see this one. It's directed by Davis Guggenheim, who is one of the more celebrated documentarians in recent time. The film is called Still Colon, a Michael J. Fox movie. It is a traditional celebrity biopic. There are a lot of biopics at this year's Sundance, and there are a lot of biopics at Sundance,

you know, doc biopics at Sundance in general. It's a common theme. It's something that is rampant in our culture right now. Michael J. Fox was once upon a time maybe the most famous under 30 guy in America for about five years there in the Alex P. Keaton into Back to the Future run

and then Secret of My Success in a series of films that he made at that time. He, of course, has been dealing with Parkinson's for about the last 20 years. And he wrote a book recently about that.

And this is sort of an adaptation of his book and sort of a series of conversations between Davis Guggenheim and Michael J. Fox. And the thing about that. And this is sort of an adaptation of his book and sort of a series of conversations between Davis Guggenheim and Michael J. Fox. And the thing about Michael J. Fox is, in addition to just being a wildly charismatic actor and somebody who, you know,

people like you and I could project our adolescence onto because he was always so diminutive and so charming and so winning. And he was very quick. And it seemed like everything he was saying had just sprung into his head. And it turns out when you watch this movie, you realize that in fact, he was just improvising a lot of things all the time. And that in fact, a lot of it was just springing into his head. And

part of the reason that he won so much was because he had something a little bit bigger than some of his contemporaries. Um, and obviously Parkinson's is this just a tremendously debilitating disease. And so it has, you know, it it has he's been stricken by it physically but in conversation he's the same guy he's so funny and so smart and so biting and you know he has a little bit of a bitterness that wouldn't be there but in a way that is um incisive and quite thoughtful and the thing i like about this movie is that it's 90 minutes long. Yeah. And it's like it knocks out a huge life of major accomplishment and serious pain and this extraordinary rise. And it flies by. I watched another movie about a famous person at this festival.

I don't really want to say that. It was just like. I started. Same thing. And it was like it's two and a half hours. Yeah. And it was every single moment of this person's life. And it just was not as interesting as they had hoped it would be.

And I got just the economy of the Michael J. Fox movie. In addition to, I think, some really clever strategic decisions. I usually hate recreations in this movie. There were a handful of very smart recreations, very well executed recreations in this movie that used the iconography of his fame to, to strong effect. But compared to a bunch of the stuff that I saw, this was by far the best.

And I, you know, I just, it's going to Apple TV plus very soon. I just think if you even like Michael J. Fox, you will just inhale it. So that,

that was a good one. I'm, I'm looking forward to seeing that one. Um, my next one what should i do here i like this roulette game um well tell me about invisible beauty i'm curious okay so this this is another one where i was just scrolling scrolling through and i was like oh fashion documentary i'm in and so this is about bethann harteson which is a name that i was familiar with

um but not you know didn't know a huge amount about she is and it's co-directed by bethann um hardison and frederick cheng who does a lot of fashion documentaries but she was um a black model in the 70s for trailblazing a runway model in that time and then turned into a trailblazing agent um and had a major big hand in like a lot of the careers of models that you know today including Tyson Beckford who is kind of how Tyson Beckford happens is one of the many interesting like you know five minutes in this documentary and then because of just fashion's unrelenting whiteness, she becomes like a major activist in terms of changing runway and like editorial representation and just featuring Black models and models of color and how the fashion industry really thinks about that. And so it's a documentary about her. And I mean, she is co-directing it,

but she's such a presence and so interesting that it's not self-indulgent. She's just someone that you want to hang around. And then it is also fashion history and fashion activism history. And it's got a lot of amazing archival, including this really riveting, I want to say, like 10 minutes from one of a series of town halls that she held in 2007 and 2008. When in the 90s, she had a lot of success and the fashion industry like sort of relented on its whiteness and started casting some Black models on runways. And then they make this interesting observation that basically the Berlin Wall comes down

and then all of these Eastern European models are suddenly hired basically by Prada, but other fashion houses. And that leads to, in the late 90s and early 2000s, a re-mega whiteness on runways. And so she retires and then comes out of retirement and starts this campaign, you know, which becomes like,

I think it's the Diversity Coalition in fashion. And now she consults for Gucci. I mean, she's like become a big deal and is now something like of an insider. Like Gucci hosted a party at Sundance for this film. No shots to Gucci, love Gucci. But it does all of that history and also the placing of her as a person

and also features like every model and fashion person, you know, that you've ever heard of. Like Naomi Campbell, Tyson Beckford, Whoopi, Zendaya, Pat Cleveland, Iman, Veronica Webb, like Ralph Lauren. Like it just keeps going. I loved it.

It was like really, really fun. And you know, they don't always make good fashion documentaries so yeah that's great yeah i was i i didn't even plan on checking that one out maybe i maybe i still will as as you said that i was like i still am able to watch movies and i'll probably watch another five or six movies after we finish recording here and so i gotta add some stuff to my list um i want to talk a. I wanna talk a little bit about Magazine Dreams. Yeah, I got left out of this one. I'm pro Jonathan Majors. Right, so, hmm, how to discuss this film.

This is also one of the most talked about movies at the festival. It's definitely not one of the best reviewed movies. The reviews have been pretty consistent across the board and my reading is very similar to the readings of many other people, which is that this is a very overstuffed, long story that has a lot of veryomania of a kind of you know mental illness honestly but who are also kind of extraordinary and damaged and vulnerable and it's made by a guy named elijah bynum the last time i saw an elijah bynum movie i think it was with chris ryan at the sundance or excuse me at the

south by southwest film festival like six or seven years ago and he made a movie called hot summer nights starring a kid i had never seen before by the name of Timothy Chalamet. Incredible. And the movie was a huge Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson ripoff. And it had a lot of charm, but had a lot of moves I'd seen before in other better movies. This movie is kind of similar, but you cannot deny that Elijah Bynum has talent. He has skill. He knows how to move the camera. He really understands color.

He's got a great sense of set pieces. There are a couple of sequences in this movie and one particular, one really bad date between Jonathan Majors' character and Hayley Bennett that is like the pinnacle of uncomfortable cinema. The sketch of the story is basically Jonathan Majors is a guy whose parents have died and he's living with his grandfather

and he has one dream and one dream only. And that is to be the world's greatest and best known bodybuilder. He just wants to be on the cover of a fitness magazine. He wants to be world renowned for his body and for his muscles. And as we all know, Jonathan majors has one hell of a body and it is amazingly on display in this movie. He is shot like a Rodan. He is just magnificent. And he has a lot of problems, like a lot of problems. And he keeps getting himself into really dark situations. The performance is like breathtaking.

And they probably should just carve 30 minutes out of the movie right now and make it a really lean character study. And he will win an Academy Award. But if they don't, it's going to be a movie that a lot of people are going to be annoyed by because the final 40 minutes,

it doesn't really know what it wants to do with itself. I wonder if that will happen. I feel like enough people are saying something similar to what I just said because I watched the movie, had that thought,

then went and read other people's reviews, and they all said something almost exactly the same. And it's really interesting because I just today got out of another movie that stars Jonathan Majors that's coming out later this year.

And I was like, wow, this is, he is just unbelievable. I mean, he is just such a mesmerizing presence. I had a question for you about him. Is he the best actor ever who is that jacked? Has there ever been another actor who is... Now, we've seen Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? Yeah. We've seen the Steve Reeves of the world in the 50s.

Like, jacked dudes is a thing that we've seen in movies for 100 years. But they're very rarely known for their acting prowess. That's true. Probably, yes. I'm trying to think of anyone more jacked. Not Jean-Claude Van Damme. No, definitely not. But I was trying to think, even in the kind of leaning, I'm like, you know, like Mel Gibson on his best day couldn't hold Jonathan Majors' jockstrap. You know what I mean? Like guys who were like in great shape. Yeah.

But I mean, he is, he's an Adonis, you know, he's really. It's really, it's intense, yeah. He's really, really great in this movie, and it is worth seeing for him. I'm very curious to see if it comes out in the version that I saw. Okay. It has not been picked up yet. Very notable. Mm-hmm. I don't know.

What else? You want to talk about The Disappearance of Cher Height? Yes, because I did see it, and I liked it it and i also saw something else that is actually a great double feature with it okay so let's talk about those two movies so the disappearance of share height is a movie directed by nicole noonham who made crip camp actually when we were at sun dance in 2020 she co-directed that film and this is a story about a woman who is effectively the heir to alfred kinsey he you know shesey, she studied sexuality, modern sexuality, especially modern sexuality from a women's perspective. She was well known for these sort of long surveys that she would send out to thousands of people.

And she would wait for the return responses of these surveys about their sex lives and the way that they viewed sex and attraction. And published these very provocative books. And is a person I had never heard of before when I watched this movie. I hadn't either. You told me about it. And then I was telling my sister-in-law about it, who is more academically minded than I am. And she was like, oh, is she like a so-and-so person

and listed off three other people who also made a name like writing about orgasms and female sexuality. I don't mean to dismiss it. Her work was very interesting. But she was not aware either. She's led also quite a fascinating life. She started out as a model and she was, she's quite striking. And so there, she often received a lot of criticism for being quite striking and for having modeled in the past, especially nude modeling. But she,

you know, arrived at her fame simultaneous to this rise of a kind of like angry tabloid television. And so, you know, even though she did a lot of work in the 70s, in that 80s, Sally, Jesse Raphael, Geraldo Rivera, the rise of those Phil Donahue. There's a chilling sequence of an episode of Oprah in this movie that I was astonished by. And then about basically like how her work has been forgotten over time, in part because she's not in the culture as much as she is, even though she clearly was way ahead of her time. And I thought it was a really interesting film. I mean, it's kind of a standard documentary structure, and there is some talking head stuff and the usual stuff you see,

but as a subject, she was unusual. I thought it also did a good job of making her the subject, but also using it as a lens to do that cultural history of female sexuality in the 70s and 80s, which is just not something that I was familiar with. And, you know, I've received the lessons of that 30 years or 40 years later, but to see how it all plays out in real time was fascinating, which brings me to my double feature, which is the documentary Judy Blume Forever, which is, again, a standard documentary directed by Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchuk about Judy Blume. Judy Blume, who looks amazing in bright blue glasses, cooperates in the film. So it's not, it is celebrating Judy Blume.

But if you are not familiar with Judy Blume, I'm sorry for you and also happy to bring you into the world of this celebrated author who writes books for young people. And not just young women, though they always resonated with young women. And she started writing in the 70ss and they were books that talked about periods and bras and sex and hormones and masturbation um in like very frank normal you know just this is this is what it's like to be a teenager sort of ways um and bore a sensation in the 70s and are still a sensation. I mean, they're just like, you know, are you there, God?

It's me, Margaret, or Dini, or Summer Sisters, for the 90s kids out there, if you know, you know, are just like handed to people at a certain age. And she's just wonderful, but it traces Judy Blume's life and also the evolution of her books. And she started writing in the 60s and 70s. And so there is all this moment where she's, you know, she gets like some flack and outrage parents or whatever, but, you know, Reagan shows up in the 80s, both in the Cher High

documentary and in the Judy Bloom documentary. And there is like this terrible backlash. And there are the same news clips of like Judy Bloom being excoriated by Pat Buchanan or whoever for like being fixated on these things, um, for, you know, for daring to talk about normal things in very normal ways. So it, it's, you know, the kids version and I guess the adults version, but it's, it's really lovely. Um, and the, and the, you know, Judy Blume, I didn't know as much about her personal life she's running a bookstore in Key West with the love of her life now so that seems awesome

I watched this as well and one of the things I loved was seeing people working at the bookstore calling in to see if Judy was in that day so they could swing by to say hi to Judy Blume

but also when she finally meets the love of her life after two marriages they feature him on screen they're still together and the way that she's looking at him did you notice that in the interview it was so nice the love of her life after two marriages. They feature him on screen. They're still together. And the way that she's looking at him, did you notice that in the interview? It was so nice.

I don't know. I mean, Judy Blume is a national treasure. Yeah, Judy Blume rules. Not just for girls. No, I know. I agree. Of course. The person that I have connected with about Judy Blume

more than anybody in my life is Bill Simmons. That's a true story. He loves Judy Blume. Yeah, who doesn't? She's an amazing writer. It's a very standard documentary. But if you're interested in her, it's a true story. He loves Judy Blume. Yeah, who doesn't? She's an amazing writer. It's a very standard documentary, but if you're interested in her, it's A Ray of Sunshine. I like

that one a lot. I want to mention one movie. So last year, Sundance was very horror-centric. The Midnight lineup was really great. This is where Speak No Evil came from, a movie that I talked about many, many times. Oh, right, that's the vacation one? The Rebecca Hall movie, Resurrection, was there last year. Something in the Dirt was there last

year. You Won't Be Alone was there last year. A lot of really, really, Nanny, the Grand Jury Prize winner, was there last year. Watcher, there were all these great horror movies, or at least interesting. Fresh, that was another one that was there. There were a lot of them. I wasn't as over the moon for the Midnight lineup this year. I have a high bar, as you know. There was one pretty effective Midnight movie that I watched. It's called Talk to Me.

It's by a pair of brothers named Michael and Danny Philippou. And I'm going to read you the logline. When a group of friends discover how to conjure spirits using an embalmed hand, they become hooked on the new thrill until one of them goes too far and opens the door to the spirit world, forcing them to choose who to trust, the dead or the living.

There's a sequence in this movie about 30 minutes in when things go a little too far with the embalmed hand that is a very, very, very, very, very fucked up and exciting and offensive and hurtful and fun and gave me exactly what I wanted. I had the like, do I have to turn this off feeling, which I never have when I watch movies. So to me, that's a high recommendation. Who are these friends? Like what what's going on that everyone's like, what we should do is take this embalmed head and try to hand and try to conjure some spirits. Well, the first like part.

And is this something I have to be worried about with you is the real question. Meaning do what will I acquire an embalmed hand that is possessed? What is the situation when a group of friends are suddenly like, hey, found this embalmed hand. Let's try to conjure a spirit. Well, it's a bunch of teenagers and they're like in someone's basement kind of partying. Okay. And so what they're doing is they're like challenging each other to shake hands with the embalmed hand and film it because once you shake hands, the spirit world kind of

opens, but you don't know how it will manifest. Maybe it'll choke you. Maybe a ghost will appear to you. Maybe something convulsive will happen in the room, but only through your eyes. Something unexpected takes place. How do they find the embalmed hand? There's a whole setup. I don't need to spoil it.

Sorry. But it's a good question. I just don't want to ruin it for anybody who's watching the movie. There are a couple of sequences, though, that I was like, this rocks.

And lo and behold, Michael and Danny Philippou, they signed with WME and I'm sure they'll be directing a Scream movie within the next two years because sometimes you know that two guys just got it.

They're clearly a part of this wave of YouTube horror filmmakers. Skinnamarine comes out of this too, where it's like these people who just had a playground to make seven-minute videos to fucking scare the lights out of you, and now they're all making features. All these men and women are growing up and getting a chance to make features, and the results are pretty good.

I mean, I wish that there were more great, scary movies. I didn't see Cat Person. I heard that was kind of scary. Not in the good way. Right, yeah. Didn't get the strongest reviews. But I highly recommend that one. What else?

Should we talk a little bit about Fairyland? Yeah. Well, maybe we'll make this the last one that we discuss. No, there's one more we have to discuss. Do we? What did I miss? Well, let's do Fairyland and then we'll... Oh, of course that we discuss. No, there's one more we have to discuss. Do we? What did I miss? Well, let's do Fairyland and then we'll... Oh, of course, of course.

Oh, right, of course. Come on, come on. I forgot, I'm sorry. Fairyland is a movie that is based on Alicia Abbott's memoir, Fairyland, a memoir of my father. And the movie was notable to me when I was reading about it before sitting down to watch it because that memoir was optioned by Sofia Coppolaola lo and behold american zoetrope the francis ford coppola

family production company produced this movie and i think roman coppola was intimately involved in the making of this movie which is written and directed by andrew durham it stars emilia jones and scoot mcnary and it's about a father and a daughter and a father who is bisexual and who is living in San Francisco in the 1970s and raising a young girl by himself after his wife dies. On the one hand, if you're on ungenerous classic Sundance, like feel bad,

feel good, you know, family melodrama. On the other hand hand father of a daughter i was like this is shit man this is very emotionally affecting i thought the first half yeah which is um when scoot mcnary is a father to the younger version of the uh alicia abbott character and is recreating that 70s san franc Francisco and and does it like immaculately like this person has also watched some Sofia Coppola films you know no doubt it's just it

just every the product the production design and the every shot is perfect but that was so moving like I it just was really electric it jumps forward in time to the 80s and becomes a little more Sundance-y, to your point, for better and for... It's not as strong, even though it is very affecting.

But yeah, the first half is so beautiful. I had the exact same reaction. The first half is amazing. I think Scoot across the board is great in this movie.

It's one of the best things he's ever done. Steve Abbott, you know, is a real person. He was a real activist, a real author, a real poet, and clearly a very interesting guy who led a fascinating life and it's a good movie i mean it's kind of a like pro forma sundance movie but it's a good movie

um with some flaws emilie jones is all over this festival coda the coda effect is all over this festival there are a lot of movies frankly about young daughters trying to figure things out a lot of dad core going on here yeah um some people noted that uh there's i think it was brian talerico the the critic also noted that promising young woman it has a has had a strong effect a former sundance film that you can kind of see in in cat person and in eileen and in Magazine Dreams. And there is definitely a kind of like 21st century self-aware thriller thing happening in movies right now that I think is quite notable as a mini trend.

But there's one last thing that we need to talk about. Yeah. What is it? It's a documentary called It's Only Life After All, which, yes, is a documentary about the Indigo Girls. So here's the thing to know about me. Is that I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia in the 90s. And I fucking love the Indigo Girls. Like, are you fucking kidding? Bobby, where are you on the Indigo Girls?

Have you ever heard an Indigo Girls song? I feel like I have, but I couldn't name one. no sorry i mean that's your loss we're so old uh we're so old but every single person i've told that i watched an indigo girl documentary they were like oh my god and i was like it's pretty standard and they were like i don't care it's indigo girls there is one and only one movie that i watched with my wife during this virtual sundance oh yeah and it was this movie. Guys, Closer to Fine. I know that one.

I don't know the words to that. They wait like almost an hour to play Closer to Fine, which is so smart. And when it finally hits, you just like, just are flying. You're so happy. I said when we were watching it, I was like, this is one of the 100 best American pop songs ever written. It's like such, I mean, I'm, Indigo Girls, I like them. I don't love them.

Like so many women of our generation, men as well, but, you know, in my high school, they were a religion. Come on.

They were, the women of my high school worshipped at the altar of the Indigo Girls. Yeah. It's like, it's perfectly fine. It's good.

The thing I liked about it is they have a lot of their own archival footage and then it is just Emily Saylors and Amy Rae.

There aren't that many talking heads. Though, John Perales might wish that he were allowed to. That was... Just a bullet in the head. I mean,

what's amazing though, they're presented with a review that they took issue with and Emily and Amy are interviewed. I love like i'm on a first name basis with them um they make you feel like they're your friends they're so they're interviewed like separately and they're each given this old interview and they both as soon as it's

handed they go oh paralysis like of course and you're just like oh but then because they're you know amy at least is like i kind of agree with some of these points, which is what makes me even matter. But it's really just them, which I like. And, you know, they are thoughtful and have like have a lot of thoughts both on the industry and their own career. And then they do the thing where they set up at a few concerts and they have people like just fans be like, here's what the Indigo Girls meant to me. And like those were very charming. Honestly, like it just fans be like, here's what the Indigo Girls meant to me. And, like, those were very charming. Honestly, like, it was beautiful the way that that worked. It's a movie made by a fan for fans.

And if you like this band, you should 1 million percent watch the movie. The other thing is just that both Amy and Emily, but I thought particularly Amy, was just, like, radically transparent like so honest and articulate about her life and point of view and her um insecurity and her security you know like i i just thought it was it's very hard to get a good interview out of an artist in this format because they're protecting themselves from things and they feel like there's things that they shouldn't say because you know it's water under the bridge or they're you know know, she was just like, fuck it. And I really, really admire that in these kinds of movies because otherwise they're just not really worth it if you feel like you're not getting anything that is kind of quote unquote authentic. And in this case, I felt like it was.

So I would recommend that movie too. Yeah. Pretty good Sundance. I can't believe you didn't invite me over for Eileen. I'm sorry. I was just holding my phone, just waiting. I thought about it. And then I didn't know whether that would like cross the invisible like Sean boundary.

What is that? Don't hug me and give me my personal space. You know, I never know. It's really hard to navigate and you don't want to ask questions. So I'm like trying to read the measure of like, does he want time to himself? Would he want to come watch this? He's got other things to do. He's got spreadsheets.

I want to be hugged. No, you don't. I do. No. I do. Okay. I don't know where it's appropriate. Okay.

I wasn't given those lessons. God. I'm trying to be more open with my child. I'm trying to say express love and affection when you have it. Yeah. Because if you don't, it will bottle inside you and then wither and die. I think she's doing great. I'm so proud of her.

I love her so much. She's the absolute best. But maybe you don't hug me, but maybe find people to hug me that aren't you. Okay. What do you think about that? That's fine. But you understand, though, my hesitation of being like, Hey, Sean, you want to come over and stream a movie?

Like, what? What character is that? Is that you? Just, like, hey, Sean, you want to come over and stream a movie? Like, what? What character is that? Is that you? Goofy me? Being like, come be my friend. You know, I can't do that. I'm working on my Katherine Hepburn and my Lydia Tarr, okay? Well, we cannot start without you, but we can end here.

Wow. And we're going to go. God, you're so good at this. Thank you. We're going to go to my conversation with Brandon Cronenberg. In 100 meters, turn right. Actually, no, turn left. There's some awesome new breakfast wraps at McDonald's.

Really? Yeah. There's the sausage, bacon and egg. A crispy seasoned chicken one, mmm, a spicy end egg, worth the detour. They sound amazing. Bet they taste amazing too. Sigh. Wish I had a mouth. Take your morning into a delicious

new direction with McDonald's new breakfast wraps. Add a small premium roast coffee for a dollar plus tax. At participating McDonald's restaurants. Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. Brandon Cronenberg, back on the show. Infinity Pool, incredible film. Very excited to chat with you about it.

I suspect you're getting this a lot, but I need to know. This feels like a movie made by a man who went on a bad vacation. It is. It is. Well, I don't know how bad it was. All vacations maybe are a little bit horrifying. It didn't start with that though. It started with, uh, I don't know how much to say about the plot, but there's a kind

of execution scene. It's in the trailer that, you know, someone, uh, is getting executed. They are a double of someone who committed the actual crime. And that, uh, that moment between the two of them, that was the, um, that was the actual start of the film for me was a story that was just that scene. But I did go on vacation 20 years ago to a weird resort in the Dominican Republic. And I found myself going back to that as I was expanding the film. Because it was a very weird experience. They would bus you in in the middle of the night. So it was totally dark.

You wouldn't see any of the surrounding country and just drop you into a resort compound. And the compound, much like the film, was surrounded by razor wire fence, you know, sort of loosely disguised by dried palm leaves. You couldn't leave. It was a fake town. You could shop at the fake town, but you couldn't go to a real town. You know, the Chinese restaurant in the film, if you see it, and it was there, the fake, the horrible disco, there's an ATV scene on the beach that actually happened. But then at the end of the week, they take you back to the airport during the day and you see that there's this incredible poverty in the immediate area surrounding the resort, which is obviously horrible, but also very surreal because you realize you've never actually entered the country.

You're on some sort of embassy grounds of an international tourist country or some alternate Disneyland dimension or something. So you mentioned that that execution scene is sort of where things start. Is that common for you, where there's a sort of image or concept that is the springboard into a movie structure? Yeah, it's usually, it might not be a scene, but there'll be some idea that I kind of get fixated on, and then I build my characters out from that and the narrative out from that so i'll just i don't know something will get kind of

stuck in my head and i just start playing with it and then it starts to imply a structure is it the psychosis of watching yourself die i mean i i was trying to wrap my head around that film has a lot of themes and uh is complex but is also kind of right there on the surface in a way, like the metaphor is almost speaking at you. Like what was it that compelled you about that concept? I guess I was thinking, in part, I was thinking a lot about what it is to be a continuous entity, you know, what it is to be a person. I mean, there's an interesting tradition of philosophy that just deals with personal identity and what it is for one thing to be a thing and specifically a person. I don't know

why I was thinking about that, but it was a while ago. And then also punishment, the idea that we tend to present punishment as something corrective or preventative, but the way we talk about it tends to be very much like a society that enjoys revenge or almost in a religious way feels that for things to be right, someone has to be punished. And so what is it to be guilty and what is be guilty and and and what is it to be punished and why does society want that so much um i think initially that was what i was i don't know the film didn't end up being about that primarily but that was sort of where i was coming from when i started writing yeah it's almost like um our characters in the movie get addicted to that

idea too of like their own self-revenge you know there's something complicated there i don't know if there's some relationship there to being to like maybe an era of self-loathing that we all kind of exist into or sort of like we're all very public but we're all sort of like ashamed of our own public nature i don't know if that that struck you as well it was certainly an era of self-loathing for me because because i wrote i wrote the film between my first two films. So Antiviral, I made Antiviral. We shot it in 2011. And then it was an eight-year gap between my first two films. And it was just, you know, the usual indie film stuff couldn't get financing, couldn't get cast, it kept falling apart. But certainly in that eight-year gap, you know, the usual self-loathing that that character, definitely, because I was feeling

insecure and pathetic and laughing at myself about that. Yeah, what I wrote down here is that it's a frustrated creative who gets lost in his own delusion and morose vanity. And then I just wrote autobiographical. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how morose the vanity was, but yeah. I'm curious about that moment after Possessor, because obviously it was received so well. And it was a film that was released during, you know, the height of the pandemic. So in a way, I think a lot of people did get a chance to see it, but also you didn't necessarily have that kind of pure theatrical experience

that you might have. You know, films like yours, I think, work really well in theatrical environments. Did you feel like you wanted to make a sort of like a level up in a way, make a bigger film in the aftermath of that? Was this script always the one that you wanted to make after Possessor having kind of worked on it in that in between time? I mean, I definitely wanted to make this. You sort of can't time your films because of the glacial pace of film development. You know, we scouted croatia and hungary where we shot just before we shot possessor we went out there for a while and started doing prep work and then possessor came together and i did that so um

certainly in terms of scope it's not a huge film it's a little bit bigger and it is nice to just try to level up gradually you know i would like to sort of work towards slightly bigger budgets especially for science fiction i think you can really do a lot with that um but yeah what was the question well just just sort of like did was this always the the goal for this to be the film the third film or there were like a number of other projects that you were considering potentially pursuing, or did you feel like you had a sense of what you wanted the kind of the timing to be on each story?

Because, you know, they're obviously connected thematically, tonally, you have a style and a look, but it does feel like each film now has been a slightly, you've raised the bar a little bit maybe in the budget in terms of the way that it looks, in terms of how, even how this film is being marketed. I'm like, this is being marketed as like a movie that you should go see in movie theaters you know it is not like an odd project from a weird guy it's like alexander

skarsgård is in this movie you know um so i guess i'm kind of curious about that as you think about not just the the art but the career aspect of your work right i mean again it was so in the works before i had any chance to time it so it you know know, it fell after Possessor in a way. I mean, you know, my first film was incredibly small and didn't get like a huge release. Possessor was released during a pandemic. So it is my first time kind of getting the full weight of a proper theatrical behind it which is exciting but yeah it wasn't it wasn't conceived that way because again i you know i didn't know that i was going to even get to make possessor when i was writing this in fact it was seeming like it would never happen so did you did you hear from a lot of

people after possessor who wanted to work with you you know it's usually when something like that happens where you have a second feature that is so well received, how does someone like Skarsgård or Mia become involved in a movie like this? I mean, it definitely helped. Casting is always a weird game and you just kind of have to hope that an actor is going to be interested in you. It was a coincidence that Alex was friends with Andrea Risborough, and I guess she sort of vouched for me. He was also, as I'm sure he will tell you, very cold at the time because he was working on The Northman in the freezing mud in Ireland.

And, you know, so we thought, okay, we've got a real chance at this guy. The beaches of Croatia we're calling. Come make a movie on a resort and ironically as he will also tell you um it was very cold by the time we shot his naked fight scene so he was uh it was actually snowing and below freezing and he was just doing that again um but um yeah i mean again my first film, you know, pretty obscure. Some people liked it, but it didn't light the world on fire. And so I'm sure that contributed to difficulties getting the second film made. Possessor received a lot better, even in the pandemic context.

So I would assume that helped. Do you feel that the actors are seeking a kind of extremity in the experience? Because obviously that's a part of the storytelling that you're doing. Do you think that they like and are both in a position to make the kinds of movies that they like. So I think it's, I don't know that that's all they want, you know, but they're both character-driven actors who want to be able to perform in certain ways. And so I guess the characters were appealing to them at least. I'm curious about that thing that you mentioned with science fiction and having maybe a little bit more money, because one of the things I do like about all of your films in this film also is some of the more high level concepts are executed in a very practical way or they're not kind of over explained or over designed, particularly the doubling in this film is very simply executed and we don't it's not over explained to us how things work but you see something and then that's enough for us is that just a matter of this is what i can afford and so i think about that when i'm writing a script or is it that sometimes it's just the

good fortune the nature of design there are certainly limits to like the scope of a world that you can design on an indie budget so So I can't say that I wouldn't do something a little bit more elaborately designed if I had the option. At the same time, it's not, okay, the doubling chamber in particular, the way the film works, even though it's science fiction, I think it's in spirit a little bit closer to magic realism because it's not intended to function like a predictive science fiction film about cloning technology because like, you know,

why would it only exist in this one weird made up country? Why, why would it work like that? Why would their justice system work like, you know, work like that? It's sort of, sort of makes sense,

but in a kind of dream logic way. And that was, that part of it was creative. That was the idea of, uh, but in a kind of dream logic way. And that part of it was creative. The idea of inserting this one absurdist dream logic thing into a kind of real world and then using that as a platform to take it to these places and to talk about stuff. And I also like science fiction where things aren't overly explained. You know, I've really like, there's a tendency,

especially in, I think North American films to get really on the nose and just go super expository. And, and that always puts me off. I kind of like the experience of getting a glimpse at a world that seems to operate on its own terms. And as the viewer,

you're just living with it and trying to figure it out. Like you've been dropped in there from, from, uh, from our world. Uh, so yeah, some of it's creatively motivated,

but still the scope, you know, um, I think about like Philip K. Dick novels, for instance, you know, and obviously he's been adapted pretty successfully.

He's a really weird writer, though. And some of those, and I mean that in the best way possible, and some of his best novels are hard to adapt because they're essentially very trippy and philosophical and interesting, but they take place on spaceships and with this sort of massive scale and so you know having a chance to uh i guess find a balance where i could play with a bit more elaborate world building uh but without having just without going so far uh that it becomes a kind of conventional studio film would be nice there's a sweet spot in there somewhere, I think.

It's interesting to hear you describe it as magical realism because in the way that the story is told, there's something extremely matter-of-fact about the way that the experience is explained to the characters. It is essentially bureaucratic. It never would have occurred to me to think of the word magic while watching the movie. It feels very hard and serious and real in a perverse way.

Sure. But to me, you know, the best magic realism story is sort of, you know, it's like for some reason everybody's living in a house where there's this tiger that roams through a house. And like, you don't know why, but it says a lot about family and the experience the experience there you know the the realism is most of it but there's just that one uh twist to it that makes the whole thing flip on its head and and i guess skews uh your perspective so suddenly you're talking about real family dynamics but um from a different perspective that lets you kind of habituate to them last time we talked you explained a little bit about you know essentially how you use gels and create a kind of psychedelic environment and the way that possessor has

this kind of disorientation that is happening this film has an even more kind of explosive version of that there are a couple of sequences that are deeply psychedelic and, you know, expressionistic. And I'm curious about how you write something like that. Like what is actually going on the page when you know you're going to execute on something? Is it just very kind of nondescript or do you know exactly what you want to shoot? Occasionally there'll be a very specific image if I have something in mind. But honestly, usually the way I write it is there'll be a couple of paragraphs that say, it's like a weird distortion of image.

The image deforms. There are flashes of light. There are nightmare images, bodies, whatever. It's a weird dream. And that's kind of code for my team to say, we're going to figure out what that is. Because the process, again, sometimes there might be a particular image,

but I really like the process of experimenting to get there. And with Kareem Huss hussein in particular my cinematographer i mean we spend a huge amount of time experimenting with yeah gels and and glass and and flares and projections and uh you know we figure out a kind of basic language and then we rope other people in dan martin or makeup effects guy gets involved uh zosia mckenzie on this one was very involved by my production designer, because we were building these mirror boxes with one-way glass and then smart glass so we could get a pinwheel of light

where the lights are kind of floating and bouncing around the inside of the box. And then we tend to project that stuff onto a wall and further deform it with more glass and tricks. In this one, the editing process was particularly insane because with James Vandewater, my editor, we were building those sequences sometimes frame by frame, like stop motion. We were selecting individual frames out of hours and hours and hours of footage and pairing them, putting three frames together in different orders.

You know, they weirdly pop differently depending on the order of the frames. So I love that. I love that stuff. Like, I love the process. I love working with those people. They're so brilliant and creative and it's so fun to find it through doing it. And that's, yeah.

What phase of the filmmaking do you like the most at this point? Whichever one I'm not in the middle of. I love making movies. I'm very lucky to do it it's incredible it's very satisfying it's creative, I love everybody that I work with but it's also

psychologically punishing at every step I've had this conversation with other people I know who are in early stage film careers it's like, whatever step you're at you're like okay this is like ripping my face off right now it's uh it's killing me but once i'm once i'm in you know once we've got development done and we're shooting it's gonna be great to shoot and then you start shooting and you're like wow that's yeah shooting's you know it's it, but yeah, we'll get through shooting.

Editing is going to be amazing. And yeah, it's all, it's all great, but there's no step of it that isn't, that isn't hard to do. And so it's, yeah. Is it correlated at all for you with the subject matter or like the style of story, or is it purely just the angst of creating? I think it's just, you know what, it's not even the angst. It's the, um, it's just pragmatically difficult. You know, it's when you're trying to get a film made, like when you're trying to get through development, it takes such a long time to get the money together, to get the cast together. You're just working every day to try to make it happen.

And there's the, you know, the sense that it might not happen. Then, then it happens and you're like, wow, this is fantastic. But the, the day-to-day practical reality of making a film is, you know, it's,

uh, again, great. This is not me complaining, but it's, it's, uh, a lot of work.

And, um, so you just don't ever, you can't really flip yourself off, flip yourself off. No, you can't turn your, turn yourself off at any stage, uh, in, in the process. It's, it's a very, uh, it's a, it's really a marathon, a great marathon again. But what do you make of the spate of eat the rich kind of satires that are very, that are happening in our culture right now?

And your, and your film, I think in some ways is, is, is connected to all that. What like, was that a, um,

something that you were personally feeling like there was this, uh, grotesque wealth in our culture, or was that a secondary aspect of telling the story? I mean, there is, um, it's interesting.

Yeah. I've been talking to people about that a lot because there is this wave of very related uh films and a lot of them are taking place on resorts and on vacation and it seems very well timed i think for someone doing film journalism you know if you're if you're looking to analyze these things you you're looking at patterns. And so I think the tempting thing to say is look at the context now. There is this incredibly alarming and increasing economic divide, and people are frustrated and anxious about that and about the future. And it seems straightforward to say that is why these things are all getting made.

But again, the pace of development is so long. For me, certainly, it was a coincidence. I mean, I started writing this, the preliminary writing, you know, back in 2014 or earlier, at least the story and was expanding it into the resort context pretty early on. I had no way of knowing, first of all, no way of gauging the mood of 2023 at the time. And secondly, no way of knowing that it would come together in line with all these other projects. So I think from the inside, it feels more like a coincidence from the outside it it does feel connected to the the the mood right now um i mean maybe that's why these things are becoming fairly successful these these films and shows but well that's what i wanted to ask you is what do you make of the

audience having an interest in that kind of a story at the moment you know that that is kind of i think that's why maybe film journalists are spotting it they're like the menu is resonating triangle of sadness is resonating you knowangle of Sadness is resonating. Your film, I think, is going to resonate for similar reasons. I know that you're not necessarily fully audience-minded when you're making a work of art, but the fact that there's a receptiveness to that kind of story I do think is interesting.

For sure. I guess what I'm saying is it's not... It couldn't have been intentional on my part to get there now, you know, and, and those stories are always, you know, because there's always economic strife and the, you know, that's a kind of perennial topic. It may feel poignant right now because of course, uh, the, yeah, the economic divide is so extreme and we've just been through this hugely punishing pandemic and it's punished people without money the most. And so, uh,

yeah, I guess, yeah, I guess I agree with you. The, the, the fact that these stories would resonate with people now makes perfect sense, but it's not, uh, it's not that at least for me, I was able to, I wasn't responding to that because it took such a long time to get it made. Somewhat paradoxically, where does the film land on the rating system? Is it ultimately NC-17 or is there an R-cut? I don't know. I actually don't know. So you can't really accept an NC-17 and have a proper theatrical release in the US.

So there is an R-cut that's being released theatrically. It's very similar, actually. I don't want to scare people off the R-cut. We tweaked it a bit, but I was involved in both cuts. It's the same movie. I would love people to see it in the theaters. I think it actually... I'm normally not a theater fetishist,

and I'm normally pretty dismissive of talk of seeing things in theaters, but I've seen it a few times now in a proper theater and it does, it is pretty, for me, exciting. I mean, we spent a lot of time on the visuals and the- It's immersive, yeah. The sound, there's a great Tim Hacker score and so I would love people to just see it.

But we did, yeah, we did have to tweak it a bit to get an R rating for that, uh, for that theatrical release. And there is an unrated cut that, uh, screened at Sundance and there are plans to make sure everybody can see that at some point. Once upon a time in our culture, and actually your family has some experience with this, that there was a kind of like moral outrage or controversy around something like that. And there is even something that happens fairly early in your film that I think maybe 10 years ago, I thought you might never see in a mainstream North American movie. And it's just in your film. And it's this intriguing entree into where the story is headed. And now it's just sort of happening. I mean, do you sense like a kind of, while we're simultaneously a very conservative culture and also kind of a loosening of what audiences are willing to accept or even are

interested in when it comes to pushing the boundaries of storytelling? Absolutely. And I think that's what makes the NC-17 situation so ridiculous. You know, in the streaming context, there's no issue with ratings because if you get a mature rating, it doesn't affect distribution. NC-17, the only reason it's a problem is because most theater chains won't carry it and you can't advertise it, sort of like cigarettes. When it was originally created, everybody got behind it because it was a rebranding of the X rating. And the idea was it would be helpful because you could make movies for adults. It wouldn't have the stigma attached to it that an X rating does. But immediately

studios said, we'll never release an NC-17 film. And then theaters said, we're never going to play NC-17 films. And it just became the same thing again. On streaming, you get these massive mainstream Emmy award-winning shows like The Boys or Game of Thrones. They're full of imagery that would be NC-17 in a theatrical context. And everybody's fine with it. And it's at home, so it's even easier for people to let their teenagers see it if they really want to. That's where we're at with art right now. People are not upset by that kind of imagery or enough people are not upset that it can exist

in these huge budget mainstream shows. In the context of theatrical, the fact that it's a problem is aggravating because I think theatrical is trying to prove that it's still relevant. Theaters are, especially after the pandemic, trying to prove that it's still relevant. Theaters are especially after the pandemic trying to demonstrate that they're still relevant and so the fact that there's a sort of

essentially de facto censorship that happens only in the theatrical context and not in the streaming context is something they should be worried about. And I do hear from the MPA that they're working on a revamp of the rating system to try to address that. But it's not there yet.

That's fascinating. So you think you can account for that by way of just seeing series television kind of get increasingly mature and the audience get increasingly comfortable with that? Like that that is part of the reason why, you know, a film like yours is opening in a number of theaters and that there is like an expectation that there will be some severity in the storytelling but it's like not not that big a deal it's just because we've been conditioned over the last 10 years because of shows like that not just shows like that i i guess i'm making more of a contrast between the media and in that sense i don't think it's a matter of conditioning i do think there are still people who are outraged by these things. So I don't want to, I don't want to say that we're completely loose about it, but maybe

we're beyond the point where, you know, especially religious conservative culture is purely dictating what we can and can't see. I'm sure the internet has a lot to do with it because you know uh as as some article i read a long time ago hysterically said and it's stuck in my head our children are just pulling porn out of thin air it's like black magic or the kids are just making porn out of nothing yeah um they are making porn out of nothing like i suspect that's also a factor, right? The like availability of everything at any time. It's interesting to me though, because I'm a very big fan of your work and just the lineage that you're working in. And once upon a time, I'll just say like when I was a teenager, you start to define yourself

by your interest in these things. And you almost differentiate yourself by saying, I'm interested in this kind of art or this kind of filmmaking and the fact that it is pushing boundaries and the increasing acceptance of it is is interesting and i think a good thing for especially helping people not just discover say what you made but also like what it's kind of in conversation with over the last hundred years or thousands of years or what have you but i wonder if you think that that means that the the boundaries will keep getting pushed further and further in our mainstream culture like i want like and can it can it go further from your vantage point?

I hope so. I mean, I don't know. I don't, I personally hate censorship to such a degree. I would love it there to just not be censorship. And, you know, it's fine. People have different values. People are, you know, we're talking about this, like everyone's fine with it. But the reviews that hate this film, you know, you can, uh, you, you can smell that outrage in a lot of that writing.

I'm not saying that's the only criticism anyone has of the film. It's fine. Like I get, I get it, but, uh, there is that for sure. And there is conservative hysteria around the stuff still. It's not, it's not like it's gone. To me, the exciting thing, and I hope it does continue, is that formal censorship lifts so that you can, you know, that you have the option, that we aren't operating, you know, in a 50s mindset, which we still are, again, a little bit in terms of the mpa i mean there's literally a priest there when you uh do your appeal like that's been that's been the case

since the 50s there has to be a representative for religious morality uh in the conversation when when they're voting on on whether to uh you can appeal your nc-17 rating so it's still there it's just i fundamentally hate that stuff so i'm very happy if it just goes away So it's still there. It's just I fundamentally hate that stuff. So I'm very happy if it just goes away. Yeah, it's it. I think when you said Game of Thrones, I thought to myself,

well, that is the most mainstream thing that we have right now. And in fact, you're right. There is a kind of brutality and an obvious sexuality that people have just become more accustomed to.

And so it's interesting in the context of some of the work that you're doing. I want to ask you about one last thing. The sequence in the film with Mia Goth on the car with a bucket of chicken is like my favorite thing I've seen in a long time. I just was mesmerized.

I was like, this is the funniest, cleverest, like most in your face moment. Mia obviously is gaining a huge reputation as an actor who's willing to do that sort of thing. And we don't have to spoil what is happening in the actual scene itself. But I'm kind of curious about what's on the page versus what the actor wants to do and kind of coming to that moment because that's a moment that feels like invented in real time. And I'm sure that the structure of it was there. But when you have an actor who is willing to go big, can you talk to me about that,

like shooting a sequence like that? Sure. I mean, the thing with Mia, and this is also true with Alex, that's on the page in that it literally is as written. You know, the dialogue is as written on the page. The scene is as written on the page. There wasn was an umbrella on the car that I hate that we had to lose, but it was too windy. You know, the bucket of chicken was more of like a platter. Like, you know, there were a few differences, pragmatic things.

The dialogue's on the page. But the thing is, you know, for me, there's some actors who are just incredibly fascinating every time I see them. They just burn through the screen. They're just so compelling and energizing in everything. Mia is one of those actors. Alex is one of those actors. I want to take an actor like that, plug them into a role, and let them inject this life into it. Because the characters have kind of gone to sleep on me by the time I'm shooting the film.

I've been working with a script for too long. I want someone to surprise me. And so, you know, people kind of ask sometimes, how do you get that performance out of an actor? And, you know, the answer is you cast that actor and then you get out of the way of them in those moments you know of course you're editing the film in your head as you're shooting you're making sure you you get what you need but uh it's really from my perspective about creating a context uh and a sort of supportive environment where uh they're free to to go off like that.

And you can always bring it down if you need to. And in the edit, obviously, you can always shape things in the edit, but you can't make it bigger and you can't make it better than it is. You can support the actor in the edit or fuck it up in the edit, but you can't do that to somebody who can't do that. And so for me, on the day, it's about giving them space to get there and sort of gentle guidance rather than, you know, I'm not there, you know, hitting them with a stick or like yelling at them.

You know, I'm there to say, no, Mio, we can't actually load the gun and let you shoot it off to get pumped. So was that a question that was asked? Well, yeah, actually, in the bus scene, because she was just looking for a kind of in for herself. And it ended up being that she was sort of running around the bus before we shot, like antagonizing Alex a little bit, getting into that space and then delivering it that way. But that's what you do.

It's a supportive process rather than like forcing something out of somebody who isn't already there. Yeah. I mean, her screaming James will just ring in my head for a long time. I can hear it distinctly how it sounded in the film. We end every episode of the show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing that they've seen? You're just at Sundance. I don't know if you saw any movies or if you were just fully on the promotional tour.

Yeah, I haven't seen anything for a little while. And I'm bad at answering that question at the best of times. So, yes. Is it zero? Like, is there anything in the last 12 months that you saw that really resonated with you? Absolutely, but I just cannot remember. I cannot remember a thing. A filmmaker just answered this question by saying,

I was just in Rome and I saw the Colosseum. Oh, I don't know. Who was that? It was Damien Chazelle. Oh, yeah. Okay. You have nothing. A sight you have nothing a site you saw a conversation you had not you're just you'll be the first person to ever pass

really yeah great okay I love it you passed that's amazing no idea incredible I don't know what I've seen Brandon Cronenberg thank you so muchon cronenberg thanks of course to amanda thanks to bobby wagner he's the producer of this podcast next week what are we doing on the big picture i think it's i think it's you and chris time i think it's dirtbag it's sky trash baby we're doing we're doing sky trash i forgot we're gonna go see the film plane are you guys gonna go together we can't yeah we can't make I think it's Dirtbag. It's Dirtbag Cinema. Sky Trash, baby. We're doing Sky Trash. I forgot. We're going to go see the film Plane. Are you guys going to go together? We can't. We can't make it work.

Then I'm not as jealous. Yeah. He's going to see it on Friday. I'm going to see it on Sunday. You know, I'm hosting family. You know, it is what it is. Keep all this in the podcast, Bobby. It's really important.

Thanks to everybody who's been listening all the way to this very moment of this episode of the podcast. Wait, I'm supposed to make edits to this podcast? Bobby, can you play Closer to Fine on the way out? That's a great idea. Yeah.