The Big Picture - ‘The Queen’s Gambit,’ ‘Small Axe,’ and the Top Five Miniseries of 2020

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

With so many movies pushed to 2021, TV has taken an even bigger share of our viewing time this year. Sean and Amanda talk about the Netflix sensation ‘The Queen’s Gambit,’ Steve McQueen’s ‘Small Axe’ anthology series, and the best miniseries they’ve seen this year (1:00). Then, Sean is joined by Aneesh Chaganty, the director of 2018’s ‘Searching’ and a new thriller called ‘Run’ that hits Hulu this weekend (48:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Aneesh Chaganty Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about the TV miniseries. That's right. Movies are taking a backseat for now. Amanda and I are going to dive into The Queen's Gambit, Steve McQueen's Small Axe, and our favorite mini-series of 2020. Later in the show, I was joined by Anish Chaganty, the director of 2018's Searching, and a new thriller called Run that hits Hulu this weekend. I hope you will stick around for that.

But first, as we predicted earlier this week, Wonder Woman 1984 is coming to HBO Max on Christmas Day. We'll break it all down coming up on The Big Picture. Okay, Amanda. Visit superstore.ca to get started. Okay, Amanda, you asked for it. You got it. Wonder Woman 1984. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, everybody. You get to watch a blockbuster in your home,

just like you've been doing for nine months. Are you surprised by this news? Do you feel like we landed on it properly earlier this week? I am surprised that we have this information now because we are still six weeks, eight weeks from Christmas. Oh my gosh, it's only six weeks till Christmas. Six weeks, I know. And, you know, Warner Brothers and all the studios and theaters

and everybody up until now has seemed to want to wait till the last minute, you know, keep their options open. And I guess, technically speaking, they are keeping their options open in the sense that this will be on HBO Max and also in theaters, which sure. Okay. Like congratulations to theaters. Whatever movie theaters are left will open Wonder Woman 1984. I think that's the most interesting part of this whole gambit is this is an authentic day and date the hallowed day and date release for a mainstream movie there has been talk for years about whether we would ever get to a point in our movie culture where a big blockbuster movie would open simultaneously in movie theaters, on VOD,

and on home video. Now, obviously, Wonder Woman 1984 is not coming to home video, but it is coming to VOD, and it's coming to theaters. That's a seismic event. Obviously, it needed a pandemic for something like that to happen. And frankly, this feels much more like a digital release than it does like a release into movie theaters, because I know you and I are not going to the movie theater to see 1984. But it still marks something really significant in the history of the movie business and it's fascinating I mean I you know I we're not I'm not surprised but I'm kind of overwhelmed feels too dramatic but it this is a huge thing this this sort of thing for something that means this much to a studio for them to make this shift.

My reaction is that it has to be what we discussed earlier this week, which is that this is a chance to drive a lot of people towards HBO Max. Of course. And also, what other options do they have? I don't think the other options were particularly good. I think a theater-only release in December of 2020, at least in the United States, does not seem practically or logistically like a good idea, not to mention public health concerns, but it just doesn't seem like a lot of theaters are going to be open. We don't have any sense of what 2021 is going to look like. They've already delayed this movie twice. It's going to be a crowded situation.

This may be the best of their options for this one-off experience. But I do think you're right that five years from now, we'll look back and be like, oh, this was, quote, historic. Not in the sense that they... I mean, they are reinventing a lot of release strategies and the way we see movies, but it's kind of a Rubicon, I guess. It feels that way, right? We've talked about a bunch of movies that have been released on streaming in the last nine months that were meant to come to movie theaters. Palm Springs,

Trolls World Tour. We had a lot of fun with that. An American Pickle. These were movies that we expected to see in movie theaters, but either the audiences were more limited for those movies, or they just frankly were not aimed at us. And Trolls World Tour walked so Wonder Woman 1984 could run. That's really where we land right now. And it's interesting. I mean, we're never going to know how well it actually does because HBO Max is not going to be able to reliably share information. Although maybe this will signal the onset of their version of the Netflixonomics where

they tell us that 85 million people watched at least three minutes of a movie, that could start to happen. How do you think otherwise we'll judge whether or not this worked? I have no idea. Maybe a little bit whether you and I enjoy it. I don't know whether other people enjoy it. It has felt...

We're getting back into fun movie season. There are some releases to get really excited about, and I don't want to diminish any of the excellent films we've been talking about, but it's nice to have something to look forward to. And so perhaps just the people enjoying watching some, a big tent movie at home and talking about it, it, it will feel kind of anecdotal and weird regardless. If there are a lot of tweets, you know,, I suppose that's great, but that doesn't equal money. So I'm not sure. It'll still be an anomaly in a lot of ways, I think, even if this is the future of how we watch movies. Yeah. And I think that anomalous aspect is what's

so fascinating to me about it because if it is perceived broadly as successful, and sometimes these things take on a narrative engine of their own and they start going down the hill and everybody's like, well, the 1984 worked, so we should do this too. Then you might see a full stop shift into it. But if it's perceived as a bungling or a blunder, or they don't close the Roku deal before this hits, then maybe this is just a moment in time and we will be waiting until the vaccine is widely available and then we can restart the theatrical movie going experience. We shall see. Speaking of streaming, let's talk about television.

Now, you've given me a soft thumbs up, not a hard thumbs up, but that wasn't a top gun thumbs up. No, it was like a gentle segue. I didn't want to interrupt it, but I wanted you to know that I appreciated you. Okay. These are the perils of Zoom podcasting is I don't know if you want me to stop or you're just giving me an affirmation. You know what I want you to stop. I start like wiggling and like making like big flashing, like no signs. Anyway, keep going. Great segue, Sean. You're doing great.

Thanks. Thank you, Amanda. God, so great to be podcasting with you in the year of our Lord 2020. So we're going to talk about the Queen's Gambit. And one of the reasons we're going to talk about it is because I reached out to you and I asked you, are you watching the Queen's Gambit? And you said, yes, I am. And then I was like, OK, we should probably talk about this because I'm watching it too. It seems like most of America is watching it if you're following closely. And I'm fascinated, as I know you are, by what represents the zeitgeist, whether it comes

in TV form or movie form. And this is, I think, one of the few things that's come along this year in which everybody in my life, I don't want to say has an opinion, but seems to be engaged in it. Why do you think that is? I have no idea. I've really enjoyed this show and I'm excited to talk with you about it, but I didn't watch it the weekend that it came out. And then I noticed that it was number one on Netflix's top 10 widgets. Speaking of the Netflixization of, you know, weird stats that aren't true. And I texted Chris Ryan and I was like, Hey, it's like, should I watch the queen's gambit? Is it good? Well, I like it. And he's like, you know, I haven't even seen it yet. And then he watched it and became an evangelical for it. And then my husband shared a tweet by Phil Mickelson, the golfer who was just like,

just want to let you guys know that the Queens gambit rules. And then my husband, because Phil Mickelson loved the Queens gambit was like, now we must watch the Queens gambit. So there's no golf in the Queens gambit. Yeah. There's no golf in the Queens gamb gambit and on the one hand like having this show recommended by chris ryan and phil mickelson is like opposite day and on the other hand it's just like two guys who love golf and texting my husband about it all

the time liking a show but it does seem like it's everywhere. And this sheer number of New York Times articles about the chess strategy, the history, the gender politics, the fashion, it goes on and on, suggests to me that a lot of people are watching it because there is a lot of content serving the Queen's Gambit universe now. Yeah. And to that point and to the point about Chris, Chris and Andy interviewed Anya Taylor-Joy, the star of the series on The Watch this week. I would encourage people to check that out. And they've been talking about the show for the last few weeks.

I wanted us to talk about it because I feel like it really does represent a lot of the direction that the stuff that we love to talk about is moving in. And most of the time I feel, and I talked with you and Chris and Andy about this over the summer when we did a kind of team up pair of pods about how many series were these kind of like baggy six or seven part stories that in 1987 clearly would have been films are becoming kind of the order of the day because streaming services have all these new sort of requirements towards success that are different from box office and movie theater releasing. And The Queen's Gambit is one of the first ones where I don't know if earned is a word that is reasonable, but it's the first one where I felt like it was getting a level of attention

in 2020 that it was worthy of. Now, there have been other series that have been very successful this year that have this form, but most of them I have found to be either very stunty or very overrated. This is one that basically has the skills and the craftspeople and the intent and the performances of a movie. And it's made by written and directed by Scott Frank, who is a longtime screenwriter and a movie director who is widely understood as one of the best in the business. And this is a guy who wrote out of sight. He's absolutely a prose pro.

And while the show does like all shows feel, you know, a little long, I'm not totally sure it needed to be seven parts. I didn't feel like it needed to be like one part. And that's interesting to me. I agree. And that to me is kind of the change or what's new about Queen's Gambit and the shows that are actually successful in this format is that if you could do a movie version of it, and you're right that in 1987, it would have been a two hour biopic slash sports movie, and it would have been a two-hour biopic slash sports movie, and it would have been hokey and cheesy. And I can even tell you, I know exactly how they would structure it, okay? And should we just say spoilers for The Queen's Gambit here and now? Yeah, let's just say spoilers. If you haven't seen it, please watch it. It's been almost a

month since it premiered. Yeah, this is also not a huge spoiler, but there is a chess tournament in Russia. Russians, they like chess. And it's a series of matches, right? So the movie would start at the kind of climactic, or maybe not the climactic, but at the Russian tournament, and then would just be in flashback, right? And between each match would be a flashback to a different part of her life. And you can see it and you know what the themes would be. And I think the performance would be good. And possibly you could even do some of the cool visual stuff in the matches in terms of the chess, but you would lose a lot of the character development and it would feel a lot more Pat. It would feel like the, you know, the, the walk hardization of, of this story. You can't really watch a biopic after watching walk hard. I know. I think that's what, I think that's right. But, but you have more room and what they do with the room is really important. And I do want to talk about like the visual cinematic aspect of this, because I think that's really important. And I think they also make room for like more actual characters. It would be hard to fit the kind of ensemble cast that is the

Queen's Gamut, even though the Anya Taylor-Joy performance is very much at the center, into two hours. And that's a cool use of the time. And not every miniseries always uses the time in that way, which is why I think we often get kind of the Netflix bagginess. But I do think this show earns it. I agree. So let's just talk about a couple of the things that make it great.

And then let's kind of try to expand the conversation into what else is happening in the world of miniseries. Because I think it's pretty rich. And I'm quite certain that you and I are not entirely caught up on every active show. But I've been dabbling a little bit this week to just to

get a feel for even what else is out there. So as we mentioned, this is Scott Frank's baby. It's the story of Elizabeth Harmon, a prodigy chess player in the 1960s. It's based on a novel by Walter Tevis. There's a wonderful piece on the website, on the Ringer website by David Hill about Tevis, who is a writer who has been adapted many times historically only in movie form. And this is the first time one of his books has been turned into a series. And it is a series that does resemble a movie, I think specifically because of the way that it is shot and the production design and the costume design. Now, the performances are great, but there are great performances on TV every week. Very rarely do shows look this good with this much intentionality.

And Stephen Meisler, who shot the show, and Uli Hanisch, who did the production design and all that incredible wallpaper and those 1950s and 60s homes and the chess rooms and the chess boards and the orphanage and the jar full of pills, the tranquilizers, the coordination, the colors, the way that Anya Taylor-Joy's costumes all look like chess boards. But they're so beautiful too, gosh. They're gorgeous. There's a depth and a purpose in so many of these choices. And you and I are kind of hard on TV on this show because I think a lot of the time

it doesn't feel like there was nearly as much effort or thought put into those decisions at this level. And I don't want to say this is a great leap forward. Bill Simmons and Wesley Morris had a talk on his show a few weeks ago about how this was the greatest limited series ever. I don't even really know how to measure that personally. I think there's been 50 years of shows like this, but this, it did strike me not even necessarily because I thought it was the

best story, but I was consistently wowed by the level, the effort, frankly, you know, the sort of quality. Well, can we talk a little bit about the chess, which is absolutely a part of that. And to me is what is so astonishing to make a show about chess is really hard. Chess is so boring. Do you play chess, Sean? I do. Yes, you do. I didn't know that. Well, I don't have anyone to play with now, but I mean, I was raised chess. Yes. My actually my nephew, Ryan, plays chess and he's he's he's 10 years old and he he is learning how to he's very smart and he's he's gotten quite aggressive. And a couple 10 years old. And he's learning how to, he's very smart. And he's gotten quite aggressive. And a couple of years ago, when I was last with him, we were at a barbecue.

And he was like, it's time for you and I to play chess now. And he beat me three out of five times that we played. It was extraordinary. Eight years old, incredibly smart. But it brought me back to a time when I thought I was good at chess and I'm not anymore. Right. So my dad definitely tried to make me into a chess prodigy and I found it so boring because it is so slow. And, and it just is a lot of people sitting there staring at things and trying to do puzzles in their head and 20 minutes or whatever of nothing happening. And then a piece moves one square. That is, that is like in terms of what you can see the most boring thing in the world. And so trying to make a whole TV show about that most boring thing, huge challenge. And they are so creative in how they

present the games and there are different montages and angles. And sometimes you see all of the chess and sometimes it's being done on like a, uh, a board outside to a crowd. And sometimes it's being called on the radio and there are different soundtracks. It's every single episode and every single match, they find some way to visually and like emotionally convey to you the excitement of it. And I think that that is an extraordinary accomplishment and speaks to the level of craft and thought that goes into this, because otherwise it would be the dullest show on earth. I agree. It could have been significantly less interesting. I think one of the things that the show does so well is that it creates an illicit world of chess, right? The way that the Elizabeth

character is introduced to the game by a janitor in the orphanage that she lives in and it is it's like a secret society and you feel like you are entering this unknown world and then when she starts to elevate into the professional ranks she is elevating into another unknown world and that's just a great sell for a television show right each stage you find a new level a new level of depth and simultaneously she you know it's a very i think sincere portrait of a person who is exposed to and struggling with addiction at a very young age right and so you've got these two tracks of storyline and this you know this sort of cohabitation between success and destruction that is happening inside of uh inside of elizabeth and you know i think

in the hands of a different lead actress this would be a different show um Anya Taylor-Joy is a very careful and reserved actor and doesn't over hardly ever overplays and I mean she's only 25 years old she's given some amazing performances in The Witch and Thoroughbreds and I just watched her in The New Mutants, which I thought was absolutely terrible, but she was actually quite good in it. And so she's very gifted. And she's frankly has like the movie star thing. She has the thing where you just, you want to watch her.

But I was trying to think of a show like this with someone who is not at her level. And even then, I think it might all fall apart if you don't have that sense of internality that she has. I mean, that's essential because, again, she isn't like performing chess and she isn't. Sometimes she does perform addiction, but a lot of times you're watching her and she has that cinematic ability to just communicate what's going on behind her eyes. And she can be pretty still and you can you can see the energy change you can't teach that but it it is it's essential to this it it would be a bit extra if you had someone

who really had to um act out every single kind of mental switch that has to happen in these episodes because so many things are happening so quickly both in terms of the logic of the games, but also the logic of her emotions. And you want someone who just takes you on that ride. I think she's well supported by a really good cast on this show. And my, my, my, my homie built bill camp is here. The, the, the magic wand of prestige television. Every time he shows up, he makes stuff better. Marielle Heller, who I frankly just did not know was an actress, who's been on this podcast before as a filmmaker, turns in a hell of a performance as her mother. And then there are a couple of other figures who I think are pretty great. I've been identifying them as Harry Potter Kid and Game of Thrones Kid as I watched the show before I learned their names.

Right. So I'm going to tell you, Game of Thrones kid to me is Love Actually kid. And that was a block for a bit because I'm going to be honest, the last time I really connected with him, he was nine and half his size and running through an airport as the Love Actually theme plays, trying to get the girl before she gets on the plane to America. And now he's supposed to be a sex symbol. Right. So his name is Thomas Brody Sangster. Let me ask you this.

Is he hot? He gets there. And I'm going to be very honest. So my friend, Willa Paskin, who's the TV critic at Slate, wrote an early piece being like the love actually kid has BDE. And I texted her two episodes in and I was like, Willa, this is no. I don't accept this this child is he is to me he is still nine and slowly playing the drums in the back of the

Christmas pageant in order to win the affection of the girl he loves I can't get past this and then like four episodes later I texted her I was like yeah okay he's got it uh tremendous transformation by him what about harry potter kid harry melling aka dudley durnsley does he have a bd no but it's nice that he turned into a nice person do you know who dudley is in the story yeah in harry potter yeah of course yeah yeah yeah he's the dweeby like kind of like you you know, ne'er-do-well dorky kid. Yeah, he doesn't really have much of a spine or a center of self and is often kind of mean to Harry. So it's nice instead that he gets to be a nice person for a change. Yeah, they're both wonderful in this show.

And you said it, I think, when you were describing what this would have or could have been, which is another reason this works so well is it's a sports movie it's a sports movie stretched out over seven episodes and we're just desperate to find out is Elizabeth Harmon going to become not just the prodigy but the world champion chess master and

you know like all sports movies the ending is fairly predictable but the journey to get to that place I think is really well done. And so it ultimately is just like a very, it's very satisfying. I think very few things have been satisfying to me during quarantine. And this was one where I was like, okay, they set out to tell a story. They spanned the first quarter of someone's life. They did it beautifully. I walked away at the end of the show and I was like, thank you for making this TV show, which is something I so rarely feel. Well, that's important as we have

the rest of the talk about the other things on this podcast, because it has an ending. And there is that like, okay, I spent some time with these people. I got what I was supposed to get out of this. And now the story is over. And that is not usually the case, at least in traditional television, which is supposed to keep on going and going and going and going. And TV has obviously been changing a lot over the past 20 years at this point. And endings are more common, but sometimes shows still try to resist them and you can feel it in the stories. And so I agree with you. It had that classic sports ending. You know, it even has the team. The scene when she gets the phone call

and just they're all there. Delightful. And like that is straight up from a league of their own. Okay. Like that's, but I love a league of their own. So thank you for operating on that wavelength. And then she has her moment of clarity and she finds her love of chess and,

and game over. Great. It's wonderful. So, you know, you're, you're tipping towards kind of why we got to this place. I hope we don't get the queen's gambit to, you know, the Sicilian method or whatever. Um, I don't, I think that they should wrap this story where it is. And I would love for Scott Frank to tell another story. He, this is the second limited series he did. He did one for Netflix a few years ago called Godless, which was also very good. And it seems like he's found a niche. But there are more and more of these kinds of shows than ever. And I feel like there are a couple of reasons why. Obviously, you can eventize these shows. You can say that this is a limited time only kind of a thing. And especially if it's good and you've got people talking about it, everyone feels like they have to be there together.

That obviously happened for this show for both you and I. We got kind of cyber bullied into watching a TV series. But did you? I don't think I was like, oh, my God, I have to go see The Queen's Gambit before it's over. I know it's going to be on Netflix forever. And by the way, there will be a Queen's Gambit season two. Are you kidding? It was unbelievably successful.

And they're just going to, of course there will. They're just going to be like, now she's in this, you know, 70s and learning how to be an adult chess player or something. And will she have a relationship with Love Actually Guy or not? And you know, what other innovations in chess can be pursued? It's right there. It was too successful and it won't be as good and I'll probably still watch it and that's fine. But I don't know that I joined up because I was like, I have to do this right now with everybody else. I just think I had to watch it because it was good

and it is really, it is really rare at this point that everyone's like, hey, do you know how good this is? I agree with you. I think it's probably somewhere in the middle for me. And these shows are really interesting, right? Because if you finish this show, that means you guarantee spent about seven hours on Netflix, which is what Netflix wants. They want you to watch their shows for as long as possible. They want more subscribers. They want buzzy shows.

They want things that say this is the Netflix brand. And this is on the high end. And then you've got, you know, you're selling sunsets on the low end. And they kind of coexist. It's like the everything platform for you. But I'm curious to see if we see more limited series and fewer regular style series on all of these streaming services, because a couple of things have happened. And I think, as I said, listen to Chris and Andy on a regular basis, because they're very smart about talking about

these issues, but glow and, uh, which is on Netflix and castle rock, uh, which was on Hulu for two seasons and the outsider, which was on HBO earlier this year, we're all canceled after three, two and one season respectively. And that's fascinating to me. Now, there are obviously some COVID-19 reasons for those cancellations, but there is also this sense that the long-term investment in a series actually doesn't make sense for these series. What they need is they need booms and bursts. They need your attention. They need subscribers to say, I need to see that right now. I don't need to see the fourth season of Glow. I've already seen three seasons, but I do need to see the new thing. and this form is so fascinating in that respect now we can talk about some shows i think that have abused the privilege um i watched one that i thought was a real abusal

of the privilege or at least part of one uh over the over the fall which is called the vow but um you know the the speaking, I think... You're so hot on it. And like, I lived through your vow journey where you were just like, got to watch it, hear all these things. And then like six months later, you were still talking about it because it was still on.

Well, it was, and that was part of the issue was nine episodes was too many. And that's something that comes into play here. I think when we talk about these shows, there are a couple of different ways to approach it though, right? There is a show on HBO right now called The Undoing, was nine episodes was too many. And that's something that comes into play here, I think, when we talk about these shows. There are a couple of different ways to approach it though, right? There is a show on HBO right now called The Undoing, which I just started watching yesterday.

That is very similar to The Queen's Gambit, I think, which is a limited series that is telling one story. If it's a mega success, maybe they'll do a sequel in the way that they did with Big Little Lies. Right. I hope that they don't because I just want to know what happens.

How many episodes are you in of The Undoing? I've only seen two and a half. So do not spoil it for me. I'm not going to spoil it at all. I don't know anything. I'm up to date. But I just. What do you think happens?

Oh my God. I wouldn't even venture a guess. Candidly. Okay. All right. I'm still processing Hugh Grant's, what he's been up to in his life, his character.

Yeah. Tremendous Hugh Grant performance. And his decision to take on this role, frankly, and what that means for him, says a lot at this stage of his life. He looks very good though, for a man of 60,

I must say. He does. My husband has a very good theory about what happens in that show that I won't spoil because you're very sensitive to spoilers and I don't want to ruin anyone who hasn't seen it. But that's a great example of a show where I'm just watching to find out what happens. And to me, that's peak limited series because they're going to tell me what happens and then it's done. Thank you for putting your finger on what I was trying to say, which is that this is

slightly different from The Queen's Gambit, which is I wasn't like, oh my God, what's going to happen in the Queen's Gambit? I liked being in that world and being around those people. The Undoing, I'm not even sure if I like the show, but I am interested in what is going on and what's going to happen. So that's a factor. Then there's another kind, which is like The Haunting of Bly Manor, which is the second season sort of of this like anthology style show that Mike Flanagan created that is based off of The Haunting of Hill House, which was very successful a couple of years ago. And now he's telling a new story with the sort of the cloak of IP,

but not, and then the one season exists unto itself. And then the show is over and then there can be a new season about a new family and a new house. So that's one way to do this. like ip-ish anthology series which also feel like kind of the vanguard in many ways fargo does this american horror story does this you know the twilight zone is more of an episodic version of this and and as you mentioned even the crown is kind of like this because the crown jumps very quickly forward into the future and it recasts

actors and it feels like it's almost telling different stories through the seasons but you're more of an expert on that than i am yeah it uses kind of the framework of of history and specifically prime ministers so and it does recast so it feels like you're getting installments more than that kind of that episodic, like next week on the crown, will she wear the crown or will she not? And then the other thing, obviously with the crown is that even though it is six seasons and covers, I want to say 70 years, it is, there's an end point. Like we actually do know that there is going to be an end at some point, which unfortunately involves Queen Elizabeth's death, which is not something I'm hoping for.

I wish her health and peace, just like everyone else in 2020. But there is a fixed end point. It's not that kind of, what things should we do now in Buckingham Palace? And what's the C plot where Prince Edward like gets a tricycle, you know, it is, it's moving towards an ending. And that to me is really the clarifying thing here. And kind of why we're talking about them on a podcast about movies

is because they are all, it's a fixed period of time and a fixed story. Even if this story takes seven episodes or 60 episodes in the case of The Crown. I hope it's 150 episodes of The Crown. Make it forever. And to, I don't know if you remember from our conversation with my true hero, Sophia Coppola. But she is actually doing a limited series next. And what she said to us was it's going to be five parts as an adaptation of an Edith Wharton novel, but as long as it has an ending, it makes sense to her that that was kind

of the fixed nature of the story was what she could do. So in that sense, it has a lot in common with a movie. And if you're a filmmaker and you're being offered resources and time to pursue a project on a slightly different scale, but you only have to commit to one season because that's all the story needs. I don't know. It does make sense to me. And I think we'll continue to see more of it. Well, you've created an elegant segue because the one other show that I wanted to talk about is not really a show. It's a movie series and it opens on Amazon today. It's called Small Axe. It's Steve McQueen's new TV show and it's not a TV show. It's a collection of five movies that essentially represent what looks like life among Black West Indian

communities in England in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And the first installment goes live. It's called Mangrove on Amazon this weekend. It's so weird to be talking about something like this in an episode in which we are deigning to talk about TV because Mangve is just in the five best movies I've seen this year. And Steve McQueen is a major, major filmmaker, like literally in that very upper echelon of filmmakers. And I don't think that this is him kind of like, you know, stepping down to do something like this, but it's interesting the way that he's bending it to his

will. And he is using the opportunity to essentially i think he's repositioning the bbc and amazon as his new fox or warner brothers and it's pretty it's pretty fascinating to see so generally speaking what did you think about his decision to do this and what do you think of mangrove i respect steve mcqueen's decision to do whatever he wants and you know i mean he's a tremendously talented filmmaker and artist and this to me seemed like an artist deciding these are the resources that are being offered to me and this is what i would like to make and um and and i am going to do it and i 10 of a 10, I support that let talented people shine. I mangrove is extraordinary and it is a film. And I watched mangrove one day after watching the trial of

Chicago seven for the first time. And I, that was an unintentional, but fascinating double feature because they are two courtroom dramas. One is set in the US and one is set in the UK. But within this, they're about a decade apart, I would say, maybe closer. But, you know, they are both period pieces. I think they're the same year. Are they really? I think it's 68 is Mangrove and 69 is this Chicago 7. I mean, they're almost contemporaneous.

And in terms of, there are a lot of things to say about, you know, one is primarily white defendants on trial and one is primarily black defendants on trial and how the experience of the justice system is portrayed and the reactions to the experience of the justice system based on the color of your skin. It's a very profound and fascinating comparison. And I think Mangrove just is insightful and handles it so beautifully and is really affecting. But in terms of movie versus TV, it's amazing because one of them is like written and filmed like a big budget TV show and is going to be competing for Oscars.

And one of them is like a cinematic triumph and is going to air on Amazon and the BBC, and I believe will be eligible for Emmys. And I'm just like a little bit like we're turned upside down here. It's an amazing observation. You're exactly right. That is the fascinating thing about this is that McQueen has made a cinematic masterpiece, maybe not a masterpiece, but it's a truly great film and it's a TV show. And while the Sorkin movie, I think, um, I, you know, I think we both like it. I think we both, I think we tried to clarify its flaws when we talked about it on the show a few weeks back, it isn't mangrove and it can't be. Um, and, and Aaron Sorkin could not

make something like this and that's not a discredit to him Steve McQueen is a real film artist and also the story that he's telling is profound because the other thing that they have in common is that they're not just both courtroom dramas they're both courtroom dramas about people who were put on trial because of their activism

and in the case of the mangrove Restaurant and the community in this movie, that's a world for someone like me that I don't have any access to. There's not the kind of the Chicago seven or eight or nine or 10 or however you want to describe them. They have been kind of valorized through history. This is a story that I don't know anything about. And the stories that he's telling in this series are stories that I don't know very much about. And so it brings a certain kind of perspective that I think is what movies can do best that is sorely needed, especially when you're targeting the concept of docudrama. We need more stuff like this. There has to be more

untold tales, at least to American audiences. So I think you make a really trenchant observation about the fact that things do feel inverted when you put them next to each other. I don't think that takes away necessarily from either of them. I would suggest not watching them side by side, though. I think let them breathe individually. I completely agree. That was just kind of a quirk of this screening schedule. And I also, I do think that watching Mangrove so so soon after trial of Chicago seven affected my thoughts about trial of Chicago seven. Um, and that's fine. We premiered at the New York Film Festival, as did Red, White, and Blue. Those are the first three. I've only seen those.

Have you seen the other ones as well? No, I've only seen those three. And I don't want to get into specifics, but I just, in terms of TV versus movies, but also what you can do on TV that you can't do in movies, which is, these are projects with different styles and different, well, maybe not different styles, but they're different formats and different lengths. And they're exploring a milieu and similar ideas, but in really different ways. And it just feels like an artist and a real art project and you wouldn't get five films greenlit like this. And because Steve McQueen was able to do it on TV, we're getting exposed to a lot of great art in ways that we would not be able to in the theaters. And I do think that that is

very cool for this project and also possibly like kind of a bummer for the film industry writ large. It is. Although, you know, without spoiling Lover's Rock, Lover's Rock would not be released in a movie theater ever. Right, right. You know, I think Mangrove, you could make the case that that could have been a film

and there could have been an entire apparatus release, but you're right. And maybe we'll talk about it next week when people get a chance to see it. But Lover's Rock is almost an experiment in form and amazing in its own way. So I mean, to me, it felt like a museum piece, but I'm just like, and that's kind of limiting it because I think it'll be like really amazing when people get to watch it in their homes. But it's just kind of you don't really get access to stuff like this until there is an industry like TV that is like, sure, Steve McQueen, do whatever you want.

And he made five films. It's extraordinary. It's really cool. I think specifically on the mangrove front, I would be remiss if I didn't say that Sean Parks and Malachi Kirby and Letitia Wright, like just not single out their performances. They're really, really great on this show. Parks and Kirby in particular, I'd never seen before. Obviously fans of Black Panther will know Letitia Wright well when they see her though.

She's doing something very different here. Anything else you want to say about that? That first film? Watch it. Watch it. I'm with you. A couple of other things about miniseries before we wrap up here, because the other thing that we didn't talk about is the documentary miniseries, really aside from just taking a stray shot at The Vow.

These are really popular, and this was obviously a pretty significant part of Netflix's kind of rise to power over the last few years is making audiences more comfortable and more interested in documentary films and then elongating those films into multi-part things that we get hooked into. I tend to think that the doc miniseries rarely works for me. I prefer the film format for these stories. Tiger King is probably, do you think that's the most watched thing that has been released in 2020?

It could be, though not by me. was it did you enjoy it um i i think it's a delightful perversion you know it's it's a complete it's a completely almost non-linear absurdist portrait of people who, you know, prostrate themselves before their own vanity and greed. And it's like fun and funny, but I don't know if it's like worth anything to me, you know, like I got why it was a phenomenon because the characters are one of a kind, but like, I don't know how one likes that. Like, I don't know how you walk away from that and saying like, I'm really, I feel enriched having experienced that show. Yeah. That's why I didn't watch it. I just realized as you were talking, I don't actually know what Tiger King is about. I know that Carole Baskin is involved and did she do it or did she

get a bad edit? But I honestly don't know what it is. No one needs to tell me. I have other things to fill my life with. I'm happy to not describe it to you. Okay, thank you. You know, we talked a lot about The Last Dance on this show. That's probably a rare case where I was just like just feed me more of this i would certainly take another 10 hours of michael jordan just shit talking his old opponents um that that was very enjoyable but that is really rare and there's been a bunch of other stuff this year that i think has been fine there was a lot of clamoring around cheer i don't know if you ever checked out cheer on netflix the i watched the first episode and then I was like, I've seen Bring It On.

So, you know. Yeah, it was okay. It's not bad. I honestly felt this way about the Hillary Clinton four-hour mega film that was on Hulu earlier this year. You know, I don't want to get into

the like complexities of Hillary Clinton, but even just as like a format, I was like, I don't really know that this needs to be four hours. I'm not sure that this is doing what it needs to do at this length. You know, documentaries obviously very dramatically,

but always the, the pull for me is like, wow, I can't believe you got this on tape. You know, there's just like a certain amount of footage and it, it's hard to feel that way about 10 hours of something or 20 hours of something.

You just are kind of like the more you stretch it out, the less of a punch it packs, at least for me personally. This is also why I don't like reality TV, but continue. I mean, I don't really have much else to say about these. I'm kind of, I'm fascinated by it. Matt Turnour, who's a friend of the show, has a new series called the Reagan's on Showtime that starts this week. That is incredibly interesting. If you don't know anything about Ronald Reagan, I think it'll be amazing for people. If you do know about Ronald Reagan, it may not surprise you to learn that he is a real forbearer of Donald Trump and that this film shows in great detail the ways in which he and Nancy Reagan engineered

something that maybe they didn't even realize they were engineering. But again, you know, Matt has made four documentary films, five documentary films, and now he's making a series. And Steve McQueen is making a series. And Scott Frank is making a series. And Sofia Coppola is making a series. And this is where it's going. This is what it is now. This is what we make.

So what shows have we not recommended? What do you want to recommend to people? If you and I were to collaborate on a top five, what would you say people have to watch from this year? Limited series or mini year? Limited series. Or mini series. Limited series. Yes. Okay. Well, The Queen's Gambit, as discussed, I recommend it. I think that's number one. I think that's number one for me. I would echo you on The Last Dance, which ruled. And watch it for the memes alone. You need context for the memes. And if you don't know who wins, I won't spoil it for you. I added normal people to this list, which.

Is there going to be a second season? So they announced it, but then it turned out to be one of those red nose day situations where do you know about this in the UK for charity? They'll reunite beloved shows for like 10 or 20 minute skits. But they're comedic and it's not really a reunion. But if you're not very attentive and reading the internet,

you can be like, oh my God, they're doing a season two of Normal People. How great. And then get really mad when they don't, when it's just Red Nose Day,

even though Charity is great. So I don't think that they're doing a season two and i think it would really spoil the ending if they did a season two of normal people that's what's so beautiful about it i well there are many beautiful things about it let me tell you i loved normal people um did we even discuss normal people when we were on with chris and andy have you and i discussed normal people i don't think so i can't remember why let me let me tell you something right now about normal people ir I don't think so. I can't remember why. Let me tell you something right now about normal people. Irish people being hot and having a lot of sex. It was an amazing accomplishment.

I'm really proud of them. Those people were really good looking. They represented a version of young love that I'm sure I never approximated, but I aspire to to this day as I approach 40. Just very, very proud of them. Very proud of Sally Rooney. That was a great series. And frankly, I think I would love to never see them again. What we got to the point that we're making here was a perfect contained show. I felt very similarly about I May Destroy You. I thought I May Destroy You was absolutely incredible.

I would say more than five people that I've interviewed on this show, when I've asked them what they've been watching, they've said, I may destroy you. It comes up over and over and over again. I think it's going to top most of the best of lists around year end time. And I don't think that she should do another one. Now, far be it for me to tell anybody what they should or should not make creatively. Michaela Cole is going to do whatever she wants. But I really appreciated what she accomplished in the first season and the scope and the tonal shape that she took it across those episodes. And it's the same story as the queen's gambit and normal people and not the last dance.

I want five more years of the last dance of Michael Jordan talking shit. Um, I have to give a shout out to devs to Amanda, which I really just love. And, um, I have to give a shout out to devs too, Amanda, which I really just love. And I have to support Alex Garland whenever I can. He's another person who is making TV and I wish was making movies, but I respect that only certain places will give him the kind of money and creative freedom that he wants to do these sorts of things. So I also started one other show that I wanted to ask you about, which you and I have not discussed, which I started to watch Unorthodox on Netflix. Have you seen that?

No, I've consumed a lot of content about it. Is that the show that Barry Jenkins and Lulu Wang watched together and got really involved in and were tweeting a lot about? It was also nominated for Emmys. It was. It was. I don't know. I think that's what I know about it. I mean, this was a show that premiered on Netflix right, really right at the beginning of quarantine,

which is one of the things that I think, I think it was bolstered by the fact that people were looking for stuff to watch. But it's this four-part drama miniseries about a woman who essentially is living unhappily in an arranged marriage in New York in an Orthodox community and New York, uh, in an, in an Orthodox community and runs away to Berlin. And then the story unfolds. Um,

pretty, pretty amazing show. I only watched the first two episodes, but I will definitely be finishing it. And once again, kind of just felt like a movie that got stretched, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Um, any other shows other shows that you want to give a shout out to before we wrap up? I think that's it. I saw that you put Mrs. America on the list and I have to confess, I never finished Mrs. America. So I think that's one where I know how it ends.

Yeah, and you know what's interesting about that? When I first started watching it and I realized the creative decision that they had made on Mrs. America to basically focus on one or two people per episode and to make them the linchpin of that episode to tell a particular part of that story. I thought I was going to love it and blow through the episodes. And I didn't love it as much as I thought. I thought it actually was missing a little bit of the linear narrative logic to kind of keep me compelled.

But I thought it was a cool experiment. And, you know, I think think Cate Blanchett is undefeated. So she's going to thrive. She'll be fine. Any other thoughts? You good? You're going to keep watching TV through the rest of 2020? Or is it only Wonder Woman 1984 from here on out? Well, I have five episodes of The Crown left. So that's really exciting for me. And then I'll have to watch all the episodes of The Crown again, probably a couple more times because that's just part of my tradition. So in that sense, I'm really grateful for TV, even though you'll never watch The Crown.

I promise you I will watch it. I can't promise you it will be in the next five years. Okay, great. That does it for Amanda and I. Before we get to my conversation with Anish Chaganty, let's hear a word from our sponsor. new spinach and feta savory egg pastry or our roasted red pepper and swiss pinwheel starting at only 2.99 plus tax try one or try our full tim selects lineup terms apply prices may vary at participating restaurants in canada it's time for tim's anish welcome back to the show man how are you i'm excellent um i'm excellent i i'm like i said earlier i i'm, this is the highlight of my press tour for Run.

I've become such a huge listener of this show for the last year and a half or year, really. And I feel like you, Amanda Dobbins, and Chris Ryan have become such close car companions for me for the last year or so. And I truly feel like i'm talking to celebrities right now or a celebrity right now so too strong too much too much you're too kind uh it's very nice of you to say i'm glad you're here too uh let's talk about movies let's talk about your new movie and um what's going on with your movie career because i was so interested in run especially relative to searching it seems like you are charting this course for making

movies in these tight confines. And I was wondering if you were purposefully trying to make another movie that had some sort of restraints after what you did with searching. Yeah, totally. Yes, I was. You know, I think from the, you know, searching, for those who don't know, is a movie that takes place entirely on computer screens. It's very complex. It's very unconventional. And there's a thousand things happening at once on every single frame. And like making that whole film, you know, it would take, you know, 15 minutes for any single edit to be made. You know, in a normal movie, you say, hey, can we extend that shot or whatever, you see in two seconds for searching, it took like 15 minutes, because like, computers would

crash and renders had to be made and all these kinds of things. So the entire process of making that movie, I was just like, I can't wait to make a normal movie. I got to make a normal movie. So in a lot of ways, especially after searching came out and was such a hit, or at least a lot of people liked it, I knew that I didn't want to be a filmmaker who got put into this box of like, oh, he's the guy that does computer screen movies. You know, I wanted to be somebody who could prove, I wanted to prove to myself in a lot of ways that I could do the opposite, that I could make a film with no gimmick and no like seeming constraint in a way, or like rather put myself on the opposite side of the constraint.

Just set a story in one location with two characters, one camera, and see if I could make it still compelling and thrilling and and you know maybe just show myself that okay i belong here and i can i could maybe step up on the next time around but those were like the sort of technical it was almost like this experiment in a way before it became even a project that we put like i would pick the story for um like i wanted to do something with those confines and then the story for. I wanted to do something with those confines. And then the story for Run came along very naturally. And it just fit into the whole experiment of it all. And I was just like, okay, this seems like a smart idea for a second movie. I don't want to be a filmmaker that goes from

sub $1 million movie to kajillion. So I wanted to take it very slowly, step by step. And this one felt like the right move at the right time. Can you tell me just a little bit about the moment after searching? Because I know you co wrote this movie with your writing partner, Sev, just like you did in the last movie. Did people start throwing things at you? Did they throw computer screen movies at you? And how did you decide to essentially do something that you guys were going to write yourselves yeah i feel like to be honest i i i have a very unique and deep understanding of every project in hollywood right now that vaguely revolves around some sort of technological interface um because it's come through us and and and we've passed on it in some way um yeah we got a lot of

like you know there are two kinds of a quote, unquote, like, again, when we spoke last, I got thrust into this industry, you know, like, I was a kid, I made a movie with the resources that I had, it was the best choice that I could make at the time, no resources made it made it and then suddenly, like, a lot of people liked it. And so like, the whole Hollywood thing was, is was and is kind of very new to me and being like, here's an offer. And here's an offer. It's like you just check your inbox, and there's a thing to do something. So there were two types of buckets of projects that I got a lot of there was tech stuff. And then there was like hard horror. And like the latter, I'm generally not like that's not my

that's not my speed as far as like what I want to make. And the tech stuff for the exact same reasons that I wanted to break out of and do run, I was kind of immediately passing on, even though ironically, I'm now producing searching too. But for the most part early on, it was like a lot of these projects were just in those two buckets. So why this story?

What was it about this? And I want to be careful not to kind of spoil too much that you don't want people to know about it. But there are some kind of essential aspects of the storytelling that I think you kind of need to unpack a little bit too. So what was it about this relationship between this mother and daughter and their struggle together? Sure.

So like every single thing that I've made in like, you know, since graduating college or even since college from like the Google short, the Google commercials or the short films before that, or searching and run has always been about like a parent child dynamic in some way or child parent dynamic, however you want to look at it. And like, it's always been about reinforcing like the positives of that relationship. And in the spirit of doing the exact opposite of searching, it just felt like this would be a cool time to just kind of dip our toes into this dark side and ask like the question of like, you know, we've been saying like, you know, a parent's love is great, parents love is great in all these different kinds of ways.

And now the question suddenly became like, okay, can you, can a parent love their kids so much, it stops being a hug and starts being like a smother. And that sort of like thing started being like, okay, we could probably make that into like this, hopefully this sort of like, uh, just bare bones sort of thriller and push it through. But that was sort of the, the, the, the reason we kind of latched onto the story on an emotional standpoint. And obviously as far as where it comes from, you know, without giving too much away, although I think a lot of it is quite obvious in the way that the marketing is played

and whatnot, is very much like sort of ripped from the headlines, except the thing that made us go, this is a movie is, you know, there's some obvious headlines here that we all know once you see the film, but like, we just thought to ourselves, like, wow, if that one piece of central information was kept a secret from one character by another character, that's a thriller. And now the story is about uncovering

that secret. And most of these relationships in real life were very sort of, both parties were kind of in on it in some weird twisted way. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, the movies I thought of when I was watching this were, you know, a couple of the Hitchcock movies like Shadow of a Doubt and Rear Window, I think are kind of in the same category as this movie. And, you know, I noticed on your on your Letterboxd account that Misery is in your top four. And there's some some serious Misery vibes to this movie as well. This movie has Misery all over it. I mean, there are straight up, there are so many Stephen King and misery references in this movie, just like in the dialogue,

in the production design characters, names, you know, like there's, there's one character on the phone is Mrs. Bates. And then her name tag is Kathy, you know,

like later, you know, it's, there's, there's a lot of misery, rear window, like baby Jane after, honestly, while, after we were writing it was something because I wasn't even familiar with that. But, um, and then honestly the, uh, and psycho, and then a lot of like, from a visual

standpoint, like Hitchcock and Shyamalan movies where it's sort of like the, the, the movies that we had on a wall, um, uh wall um uh to kind of like emulate because the whole thing in a way was this exercise on top of it being you know the whole thing of opposite searching and whatnot like i wanted to make a movie that reminded me of like the movies that i loved going to see in in theaters and those were like those early shamalan movies you know the way that they would like hold a shot and you know and you weren't choosing a shot because one thing could happen in it. You were choosing a shot because six things could happen in it. And like, you're only cutting when you had to. And, you know, that was sort of like the very precious groundwork that we laid for and obviously editing,

no matter what's always going to kind of chip away at that. But I think a lot of that got preserved, which I'm really proud of. You know, having been a purveyor of suspense movies now, which I feel like is not as big a category as it was when you were growing up, honestly. Like, how were you received by people who were pitching you projects? And do you get the sense that those movies are rarer for any particular reason right now?

That's a good question. Yeah, it is. Like, I think the difference, it's weird that they are rare. And I think a lot of the big difference is like just think the difference it's weird that they are they are rare and I think a lot of the big difference is like just blood you know and I think like one of the one of the things that people keep commenting about run I think that surprises them is like there's not that much there's no there's very little blood in the movie you know it's not a film about like slashing anybody or hurting people for the most part you know and I think like

I that's a really good question as to why they've kind of gone away maybe it's this sort of like element of of as everything kind of gets theatrical i feel like the these slower burn movies just have a harder time finding a way to the mainstream you know like the movies where nothing happens in the in the beginning or things are too slow or slow it's just i feel like in this mindset of like everything going to the theaters and everything or sorry everything kind of having to pass this bar of theatricality now like those sort of like slower build moments um kind of get cut in the edit and i'm very thankful that we didn't have any blood in the first half otherwise we probably would have had to cut all these things because like this is the first time i worked with a studio, um, you know, after searching,

which is a very small, intimately made movie, which is five people. Like now we're trying to factor in this other sort of organizations, like intentions for the movie throughout the entire editing process and like getting to this faster and getting to this faster and getting to this faster. And I think like a lot of the suspense goes away. I don't know.

What was it like working with a bigger crew? Um, intimidating. Um, you know, it's like, I think in a lot of ways, you know, certain run was like my first normal movie, you know, like with searching, I felt like the lone expert, you know, like I was like, I had done computer screen commercials and technological things so like we had a crew but like it was not it was a crew that had no idea what to do and they came to me and i was like okay guys don't worry about this i know what we're doing blah blah here it was the opposite i was the i was the only person who had like the least experience out of everybody everyone had shot other movies before gaffed in other movies before acted in other other movies before. And it was like me learning a new language.

So in that way, like it was, I would say not intimidating the entire way through. But those first few days are just like, we're like, I, okay, so this is how a normal movie goes. Like I don't have that expertise that I did before or even the veneer of expertise. I have to kind of figure this out. And to be honest, like it was a learning curve, you know, the way that I was, I didn't even know, I'm not, I'm not allowed to like touch an actor's hair. I'm not allowed to touch a camera. Like I'm not allowed, you know, there's so many rules of like what you're not physically allowed to do or what

you're allowed to do because like you're infringing on guilds and all of that, all these kinds of things that I was just kind of like, just trying to not make a fool of myself in front of a, it's sort of much more established and, and, um, you know, a hardworking people.

So you raised an interesting thought too. You're, you're very young. I mean that with respect, but you are, you are a wonder kind in a lot of ways. And I've been reading a lot about David Fincher recently, given Mank is coming and,

you know, Fincher was very young when, when he made alien three and he, he was frustrated by the way that some of the older cat the older crew members treated him like at like a punk kid you know did you have any anxieties about that and how did you kind of combat being that least experienced person when you're in charge of the film um that's a really good question i think like i am very lucky in the sense that i've been sort of bodyguarded in a way by my

co-writer and producer and our other producer Natalie so I write all I've written searching and run with a guy named Seb Ohanian who's also the producer of both films and the other person in our little trio is a woman named Natalie Kasabian who's also a producer and I think they have sort of a lot in a lot of ways bodyguarded my naivete I guess you know um and some of the ignorance that I'll have like I'll filter through them first and be like hey is this okay if I do this or is this okay if I do that but there's a I mean to be honest there's a lot of that that gets that I think that gets exposed possibly during like you know when I'm taught when I'm talking when I'm talking to people directly I think it comes with like a compliment and it's like a weird

like backhanded thing because there's a pro to it and there's a con to it there's a when you don't know what you're doing oftentimes I feel like that's like that can be a good thing the bad part is when people like expect it to be the same I don't know like there were there were, there was way to be specific. They're like, wait, there are conversations that I would have with Sarah Paulson, who is the lead actor in the movie and Kira. And it's just like, I don't, one of the things that I'm so aware of as a director, as a young director is like, I've never been on sets of other directors. I don't know how they talk, you know?

And it's like so scary to me to be like, am I saying the right thing? Am I not saying the right thing? Like that, that to me is a true fear. And I still, I would want to create this like program for directors who can shadow other directors, because like, I would love to hear what like Ryan Coogler is saying to his actors or Ava saying, or Lulu Wong is saying, you know, like, I want to hear what they're, how they're talking to their actors, because this is every other crew member on a movie gets to jump from filmmaker to filmmaker, to set to set. And they understand language and understand the differences of what makes one person better than the other person or better at communicating. And like the director doesn't have that, you know,

you're always talking the way that you talk and being surrounded on a set of people who knew more than I did, um, in a lot of, or in a lot of ways, uh, there was that sort of like fear. I'm not saying I didn't overcome that. I think we did. And I, I, I feel like everyone eventually sort of, we got, we all sort of respected each other and everything, but it, it, those are definitely the fears early on. When you were in the edit of the movie, did you feel like there were a lot of things that you would have done differently having had this experience now?

Or was it mostly as you expected and how you kind of planned for the film? Anytime you're in the edit of a movie, you know, like this was different than searching the sense that like, we learned something we want to change. You can't change it. You know, like you can't just change the text and solve. So I think naturally there's always going to be like serious holes exposed in your script or in what you did on set, you know, that only could have been exposed through the sort of process of,

of, of, of making the movie. To me the biggest lesson in what I would have done different, which I think is the umbrella question that you're asking is like, I, to me, I think like the fight for like, make, you know, it's so funny that you mentioned Alien 3, um, because like, I think there's, there's like reading about Fincher or what he says or what he doesn't say about that movie, um, is like really revealing because like, it's very important to sort of make a movie with, and make sure that everyone is 100 100 on the same page about the movie

that you're trying to make um and not to sort of be uh just not to sort of fall into this sort of mindset that like just because the first meeting with somebody or just because the first something with somebody went really good that they are 100 on the same vision as you you know at the end of the day like a studio films is such a lesson to me, but that's something everybody learns. But like, we're all we're in this like structure, right? And like every single person above us and above them and above them and above them have objectives on a financial and eventually just straight up like a stock standpoint, you know, and like, they need to deliver things that they can show to people that say, hey, this is

what they got on this, this score. And this is what it ranked on here. This is the product we're shipping out because like, you know, so I think that the biggest difference of a movie that I would have, that I, if I had full creep, like final cut on this movie, the biggest difference would have been, it would have been a little bit more of a family drama as opposed to just a bare bones thriller, because the script was a more of a family drama and a thriller. And I think what the movie that came out, which is a movie that I think works and that I think everybody who argued even on the arguments that I lost in had a valid point on, like it became like argued for it to be just a thriller. Related to that. I, I have to ask you about this film coming to Hulu rather than in theaters because of the circumstances of

covid 19 obviously you made it for theaters you talked about that sort of theatricality bar which i think is such an interesting concept in the first place i will say i thought the movie played really well at home and and frankly like these kinds of thrillers do work at home which is part of the reason why i'm surprised there are not more of them talk me through like the process of you know figure finding out that this was how the film was going to be delivered to people and your feelings about that. And also maybe just help me understand your feelings about theatrical versus streaming in general. Yeah, there's a learning a lot in this whole process of like, you know, because I think in the, the word streaming stopped being a bad word somewhere in like i think august you know i feel like um

it like you know it used to feel like i was going to streamer you know like that like that is like with the exception of like the finchers and the people who you know are already like it they could do anything they want they're just signing because there's like nine zeros at the end of that um but like uh i think that stopped being a bad word then but like from a standpoint of like um like what we felt like you know we were it was in movie was supposed to come out mother's day which i think obviously very fitting um and the in theaters and it was in march where everything started to close down and you know we were like oh two months ahead we're chilling like that's best i've researched this Two months is how long a pandemic takes

to cycle through the world. You know, so. Whoops. Exactly, right. So then, you know, everything starts closing down and whatnot. And then you start to realize that like, at the end of the day, like we are a product

from a company. Every one of these moves is a product from a company. And at one point, everyone's going to have to start making money. They can't just not make money and on top of that like you have massive tentpole after massive temple after massive temple after temple just being pulled off the calendar when theaters do eventually return to a normalcy and obviously tenant has just shown that they're gonna wait until like theaters do return to a sense of full normalcy like we're just gonna have like 19

weeks of straight backlogged blockbusters where is run gonna fit into that you know like it just doesn't it didn't make sense anymore obviously it was meant for theaters and i think like one of the biggest compliments that we get is when people go i would have loved to see this with a lot of people um but it just didn't make sense anymore from a logical standpoint of like we wouldn't be the movie that people even saw um so that point started to look you know the conversation started shifting over to be much more about like you know uh like who who in the streaming world would be interested in this and we had our fair share of suitors and whatnot and the thing that i loved about hulu was the fact that like it didn't feel like we were part of a machine. You know,

it felt like, you know, Hulu is still early enough in its life cycle. Inevitably, it's going to get to the point that Netflix is at. And inevitably, it's going to get to all these points. It's just the way that consumerism and kind of all works, but it felt like they just had Palm Springs, you know, like, it felt like Palm Springs was their movie. And it's now the studio that brought from the studio that bought Palm Springs, not like you Palm Springs, not like this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. So like, they're actually care, it feels like they care about the release, they care about, like, this is we brought you Palm Springs, now we're bringing you around there. We're gonna have a billboard on sunset, like I've never had a billboard, you know, like

we have like, posters are going off on in real life places in time squares like that's all very exciting and even if that is just like stuff to make the filmmakers happy and whatnot i don't know literal window dressing yeah yeah even if it's window dressing yes exactly um uh even if it's even if it's that they they clearly in their actions have shown that they care about you know making this movie a hit because I think they also have to prove to themselves that like prove to the world that they are a good purveyor and distributor of original films. And it's really great that both of everyone's objectives kind of align right now. So you've had this kind of Cinderella story right into the world of filmmaking. And even like in real time, I feel like the two films that you have made are representative

of where the medium is going, right? You had this very ingenious kind of first feature that was a theatrical hit that, but that also people saw at home. And now your second feature is made for theaters. People are going to see it at home. Has it changed your perception of the kinds of movies that you should be making? Like, are you going to aim for a different kind of film? Just knowing that the landscape might be different than what you imagined even three years ago? This is a conversation

that we have, Sevnat and I, a lot. And right now, it sucks because like, there's this, there's this pull and tug right now where it feels like theater equals, like, this is,

I want to make theater movies, but it feels like in the most extreme black and white way of looking at it, it's like, now streaming is where the drama is going to be at, and theaters, we're going to be, explosions are going to be at, you know? And, like, I don't like that difference. I can't do anything about that difference. But, like, the thing that I care most about right now is if theaters do return to normal, I definitely want to be making movies for that. It just doesn't feel like the same when a movie is coming out on streaming versus a movie that's coming out in theaters. And maybe that'll change in two years by the time that the next film is supposed to come out. But it does affect the way that you approach a project. And in ways that I

don't entirely like, even on a writing standpoint, you know, like our own team is being like, okay, but like, would you go to a theater to see that? Would you go to a theater to see that? Would you go to theater to see that? As opposed to like, okay, would that character do that? You know? And I think like, there's a, there's a difference in the way that you approach it. And I think every single filmmaker is dealing with this in a lot of ways because like the movies, a lot of the filmmakers who I love,

like Farhadi or, you know, Lulu's next movie, which I'm sure, or show, I guess, whatever she does next or Barry Jenkins or all these kinds of filmmakers. I'm like, I don't, do they pass this thing, this theatricality thing? Like, I don't know. Like, I want to see their movies in big theaters. Like, but I don't't know i think we're all in the same boat of just kind of figuring it out

but i i certainly do want to make movies for theaters and i think like our next idea which is actually the first idea i've ever thought of when i was a kid like at 19 or 18 or something but like it feels like we're the right blend of both. And we're constantly asking ourselves like, okay, how is this moment like a theater moment on top of being kind of a character moment? But like, yeah, it's a tough, it's a tough balance, Sean. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, obviously, you know, as someone who listens to the show, we're constantly talking about it and it's like, it's, it's perilous, but you know, know, I do think that that shift has kind of started. I think, you know, when you see a movie like The Irishman or Mank at home before seeing

it in a movie theater, I think that does kind of change the mental calculus for people about what is and is not important as far as movies go. But, you know, you could have made most of Searching in a pandemic. And I was wondering, like, have you been working consistently through this period? And what has it been like for you? So Searching 2, which is a movie that I'm not writing or directing, but we are producing that same three people I've been mentioning, is actually being made right now. And it's like in the stage of like, to make that movie, you have to make the movie before

you make the movie before you make the movie kind of a thing. So like, we're in that first part. So we're sort of like pre-vising and animaticking everything. So in that way, that process has been moving forward. And then mostly it's just been writing. In some ways, this whole shutdown sort of came at the right moment. We're like, not right moment,

but like right after we finished Run so that the only next thing that I would have had to do anyways was write. And then we we got a show like we're working on that house was kind of techie very tech influenced but like this whole if it was so weird because right after the shutdown happened for like three weeks four weeks it felt like every searching you know like when a movie comes out there's like a peak when it like at sundance and it dips off then it gets marketed it peaks again and it's like social capital and then it comes out and it's peaking and speaking it goes

away then there's a bump for home home video right searching had that and then at the top of the pandemic went right back up because like it felt like everybody in every sort of like production company or studio meeting room was like hey we should do something like searching you know and and we were getting all of these things were like oh so and so we should do something like searching, you know? And we were getting all of these things where like, Oh, so-and-so wants to do something like searching. Like, okay, cool. Um, yeah, so it's, it's certainly a, it's certainly a good time to sort of, there's a lot of COVID friendliness and that sort of like, um, in that type of story. But again, just as a human being who doesn't want to be put in a box, there's only so much that I feel like I even want to be, uh, involved with. We just did a mailbag on the show and there was a question about Letterboxd

and I'm always interested in filmmakers who use Letterboxd. So for you, you know, one, why do you use it and what do you like about it? But more specifically, do you feel like you have to be careful

about what you say as you are a part of this brotherhood, this family of filmmakers? Why don't I, I love the idea of keeping a list of the movies i mean just on the most practical level the same way i'm sure you're using it whatever just ignoring the the social media element of it um there is a tangible need to like for me to like keep track of the movies that i saw um there's a it's a tough balance that I feel like I have to be on there

because I often ask myself, should I just make a separate account and I can just like shit on movies and say what I want that like is a private account, you know, like, and like, just be honest about things because like a lot of the times when I'm writing reviews, it's like carefully worded sometimes, or,

uh, now lately I'll just, I just realized like, I don't need to write a review for everything. Um, but yeah, as far as why I'm on there, it's because I love movies.

And I think like that place more than anywhere else, when you see a 4.1, like it means something, you know, like I, like, you know what I mean? Like,

like there's very few movies on there that I go, you were off, you know like i like you know what i mean like i like there's very few movies on there that i go you were off you know number one movie that was off contagion that thing has like a three six or three seven that should be a four one um but anyways uh i think that's a reflection of people making people anxious you know that they have to downgrade it because it makes them feel bad but i and that's such a good point like just looking at the rating the the sort of the the average rating as a definitive declaration of greatness is a is a good tool for using it um okay man uh we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing that they've seen so you're a letterboxd user yeah, you know what I'm pulling it up. Yeah. I'm pulling up my letterbox.

Oh, the last thing that I, the great thing that I saw was Leave No Trace. Yeah. What did you like about it? Dude, I get so envious and like, so like, I want to be able to do that. Like, it's just, it was so much drama without words, you know? And it made, like, I'm in general not, like, like very, very, very quiet movies where nothing happens

is a category of film that some people like and some people don't like. And I generally fall in the sense of, like, I can respect it, but I'm not going to watch it again. Leave No Trace to me is that balance. It's like what Columbus did with John Cho in 2018, I think that came out. We're like, it is a quiet movie that says so much in so little and the drama was so real. Like the performances are incredible. And it just, it felt like, I don't know know it just felt so honest and that sort of honesty i is very scary i think i really like the movies that i feel like i'm currently incapable of making um and striving

to make sort of one day like i love dick johnson is dead because it's sort of that vulnerability like scares me and and and i and i know that that is something that I'm going to strive to do. So maybe hopefully movie three, when we're talking, you know, we can talk about that, but those sort of elements of vulnerability always sort of like attract me the most about, about films or good films. And each, both of those movies are stories about a parent and their child. So I feel like there's,

there's a running theme there for you in the movies that you make. Wow, yeah, you're absolutely correct. And the third, oh, wow, I'm just a, I'm already a cliche. That's not what I mean. Hey, congrats on Run. I'm glad a lot of people are gonna get to see it.

And thanks for coming back on the show, man. Thank you, Sean. I really appreciate it thank you to Anish Chaganty Amanda and Bobby Wagner tune in next week to the big picture when we will look at Ron Howard's adaptation of Hillbilly Elegy for Netflix and train our sights on that uncertain

brand of movie Oscar bait we'll see you then