The Big Picture - The Top 10 Garbage Lads Movies and ‘Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant’

Episode Date: May 2, 2023

In honor of Guy Ritchie releasing two films in 2023, Sean Fennessey and Chris Ryan—the team that brought you garbage crime, junk sci-fi, and trash spies—debut their latest hyper-specific, beloved genre: garbage lads. Host: Sean Fennessey Guest: Chris Ryan Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody? It's Austin Rivers from the Minnesota Timberwolves. It's a new year and I have a new podcast here at The Ringer, Off Guard, hosted by me and my guy, Pasha Higigi. Austin and I go way back and talk so much hoop already that we figured it was time to fire up the mics and let you in on all of these conversations. Every week, Pasha and I will hit on the biggest stories happening in the league. And get Austin's perspective of someone currently hooping in the NBA.

Tap into Off Guard every Friday on the Ringer NBA show feed, on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit Superstore.ca to get started. I'm Sean Fennessey, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about lads.

Today is a day CR, Chris Ryan, and I have dreamed about. It is a tribute to a film artist and a subgenre that may not always be reputable, may not always be moral, but is always a good time. From the team that brought you garbage crime, junk sci-fi, trash spies, comes garbage lads, aka bloke trash, aka our tribute to British crime films. We are doing so because the reigning king of this subgenre, Guy Ritchie, has released not one but two films in 2023. Chris Ryan, welcome to the show. All right, Gov.

And that's it. That's the last one. No impressions. Okay. This is serious stuff. Tell me what this subgenre means to you. This is reliably the backbone of my movie going enjoyment. This is the stuff that I really, really like.

When it's just me, when the wife's out of town, when there's no big pictures to be done, there's no peak TV to be watched, and I'm trying to decide what to entertain myself with. It is a very specific brand of criminal psychopath that can only be found on a diet of cocaine, lager, and potatoes. And he is in these movies. This is a long tradition. Obviously, Guy Ritchie in the late 90s, early 2000s sort of revived this. And we'll talk about, I think, the long arc of these movies.

But let's talk a little bit about Ritchie to start because he does have these two films. Most recently, about a week and a half ago, he released a film that is called literally Guy Ritchie's The Covenant. I was quite surprised at our screening that you and I attended together to learn that his name was in the title of this film. It's odd because this does not seem like a signature Guy Ritchie movie. In fact, this is the only movie we'll talk about today that does not bear the hallmarks of this subgenre. Yeah. But we're going to talk about it anyway. Yeah. It stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Dar Salim, and it follows a U.S. Army sergeant and an Afghanistan

war veteran named John Kinley, who endures incredible struggle during the war in Afghanistan and who returns to the country to rescue the interpreter who once saved his life from the Taliban. Yeah. What did you think of this movie? I really thought it was quite good. And I say that, I guess, with hesitation, but it has been getting pretty good reviews. I think anybody who actually goes to see The Covenant will be like, damn, that was really well made.

That was what I was hoping for. Yeah. And I have noticed that in a lot of the reviews, they, people seem to be really like pleasantly surprised by the second half of the film, but kind of whatever about the first half, I was the inversion of that. I thought that the first half of the movie was just an excellently well-made and well-paced war movie.

And that the second half, which is essentially these two long rescue attempts, one by Dar Saleem rescuing the Gyllenhaal character and the other by the Gyllenhaal character then rescuing his old interpreter, is fine and good, but takes quite a long time to get exactly where you know it's going. It's strange. It's Richie's 14th film.

He does this every now and again. He's a zag artist. He doesn't always make exactly what we'll be describing today. He doesn't always make these kinds of British crime movies. And in the last five or six years, it feels like he has gotten quite bored with his own persona. And so when he made the King Arthur film, he actually came on this show.

He was one of the first guests on the big picture. Isn't that weird? He came into the studio. He was at the chapel, right? He was in the chapel. He was in on this show. He was one of the first guests on the big picture. Isn't that weird? He came into the studio. He was at the chapel, right? He was in a tweed suit. He was actually quite lovely. He was a really nice guy. I gotta say, he seems like he has a fucking awesome

life. He has a cool life. I watched some video on YouTube recently of him re-watching Snatch. And he is in his manor. He's just drinking tea and then later a beer. of him re-watching Snatch. And he is in his manner. And he's just drinking tea and then later a beer and laughing his ass off at Snatch. It's the first time he had seen it in 20 years.

And he's Zooming with Jason Statham and telling him how he has to watch it again. And Statham's like, you're supposed to be directing me via Zoom on Wrath of Man, but instead you're watching Snatch. And he's just got dogs running around and art and all of his like side businesses that he has seem to be doing very well

for him. He seems incredibly happy. Yeah, I think he's got everything at his fingertips and all the things that he imagined in his movies, the worlds of bare knuckle boxing, owning pubs, being essentially in charge of a lot of recreational activities. He seems pretty close to like the guys and the gentlemen. The Gentleman. A little bit. And so he made this King Arthur movie, and then he made a completely misbegotten Aladdin live-action adaptation that is absolutely dreadful. The Gentleman was a bit of a return to form.

And then in 2021, he made Wrath of Man, which on the surface appears to be a traditional Guy Ritchie movie. It's a crime movie starring Jason Statham, but it is quite serious and quite intense and not very funny. Then he makes a film we're about to talk about, Operation Fortune, and now Guy Ritchie's The Covenant. His next film is called The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. I think we're going back to a comfortable place with that one. But The Covenant is an American story with an American movie star.

It's a, you know, I'm not, the film is like, it's pretty conservative. It's pretty, you know, I'm not, the film is like, it's pretty conservative. It's pretty pro-war. It's pretty pro sort of like industrialized military complex. It's kind of pro-Afghanistan war in vague tones. But he's like at this level, a pretty gifted craftsman and storyteller. He's made a lot of movies. He really knows character. And Gyllenhaal is doing another one of his like wildly committed, borderline insane performances where he kind of,

it's just like if the Nightcrawler guy went to Afghanistan. And it worked for me too. I thought it was effective. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that you took the political leanings of the movie out of it because I certainly don't disagree with you, but I don't think that those things necessarily occurred to Guy Ritchie.

I think he just was like, I want to make a war movie. Let's put together a script of where I can make a war movie. I think if I didn't read the end cards at the end of the movie, I might not have felt that way. But there is a kind of direct,

like, if you enjoyed American Sniper, you will enjoy this movie. And if you guys hadn't abandoned these people this wouldn't have happened. Exactly, yes. There's a couple of really, really, really amazingly well thought out set pieces in this film. And actually, you know, I was kind of going through

not only the arc of his career in terms of like what career choices and film choices he's made but his style has changed quite a bit over the years. Now he kind of works with a very flat affect, both in terms of the tone of the performances, but also the lighting is very flat and kind of dull, I guess. I think it's because he's shooting on digital. Yeah, I think it's because he's shooting on digital. And I mean, Wrath of Man, though,

has a lot of very strange tracking shots that kind of leave and pick up action over the course of three four or five minutes that movie's like almost like point blank and then the gentleman is essentially this robust like gentleman should be in the tradition of lock stock snatch revolver rock and roll but is a much more different like it's like a much more neutered kind of way of talking and and and especially it's shot that way it's not as colorful as those movies and it's the cutting is not as fast yes um and we'll talk about that when we get into snatch and lock stock and kind of what he was doing and how he was kind of a part of a a new movement in an american and english movie making which is relevant and feels very old now when you watch it.

It feels almost traditional at this point. The other movie is Operation Fortune, Ruse de Guerre, which was, I think, filmed in 2020 and was meant to be released in either 2021 or 2022. I first saw it, I think, in early 2022. And then there has been some issues with STX, the film distributor, and that film then

got shuttled to another distributor and they released it for like a week earlier this year but it stars Jason Statham Aubrey Plaza Josh Hartnett Cary Elwes

Hugh Grant as the heavy Eddie Marzins in this yeah it's got like a lot of good actors it's kind of a it's kind of a typical you know what it is

it's a Bond tryout and there's a lot of questions about the future of Bond it's not a Bond tryout for jason statham or josh hartman necessarily but really more for guy ritchie right to make a bond movie it's kind of fascinating that he hasn't made one yet he of course has made the sherlock holmes films he made the man from uncle these movies also feel sort of like bond tryouts i don't know what his relationship is to the broccoli family but um the the i actually liked this less than the covenant i felt like it was very kind of down tempo and everyone seemed kind of disinterested in the movie that was actually

making it it was it was an example i think of where his new style has arrived where it didn't work it this movie needs to have like a lot of juice and a lot of sexiness and instead of it's kind of like i would say i really really enjoy Aubrey Plaza in this movie, but it is the entire movie seems to run with her biorhythms. Like everybody is kind of doing Aubrey Plaza. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I like that idea. It's like this very flat affect from Carrie Elwes. And you're like, you're Carrie Elwes, man.

You were in Prince's Bride. Yeah, yeah. I like that idea of like the contagious performer. Usually when you think of that, you think of like Jack jack nicholson where he kind of like energizes a movie but aubrey plaza kind of bringing everyone to her ironic tone i still felt like found this more entertaining than like 60 of what's in theaters at any given moment it's pretty good i mean you know it's hugh grant doing a very specific kind of englishman what what accent is that i think he's cockney cockney doing Cockney. He's played a series of Cockney villains

in the last couple of Ritchie movies, yeah. Yeah, and also Paddington 2, among other movies. Hugh Grant firmly in Dungeons & Dragons. I'm not sure if you've seen that film. I have not. He's in his heavy phase. Yeah.

It was fun. It's fine. It's like the ultimate two and a half star movie where at the end of it, you'll basically forget everything in the plot. But if you like Jason Statham movies, it'll get you across the line. did continue the trend of Richie reviving the career of Josh Hartnett playing a kind of movie star for a former or not quite movie star yeah um

how do you feel about Guy Ritchie right now uh there aren't that many people who are doing their careers the way he's doing it where he's willing to kind of be John Frankenheimer and just grind out genre movies every 15 months and occasionally have two that come out in a year and always have two that are in the hopper and seems to have more or less a rogues gallery of people that he works with over and over again and obviously works quickly. I don't know if he's got like a masterpiece in him or something like or if he's building towards something, but I really do find this kind of reliable delivery of these sort of movies to be incredibly like important to

the overall health of movies, you know, just to have people who are like, I'm a really competent genre filmmaker who's here every other year. So he's not the creator of Garbage Lads, but I think he was the most significant purveyor of the form in the early 2000s. I think he's also the father of everything that came since. Although I'm sure some of these directors would be like, it has nothing to do with Guy Ritchie. I think that without Guy Ritchie's popularity, I don't know that there's this huge market for these movies, which are basically relatively big in England, but England is a somewhat small market. And then you export them

the same way they do Oasis and Blur. How much of your appreciation of this genre and its kind of forebears is related to your heritage, your personal experience? I guess a fair amount. I guess I'm very interested in England because of my dad. And then I think there's something about the class consciousness of a lot of these movies that I find to be incredibly fascinating. Most of these movies are driven by class. Or at least when you see Goodfellas, I think that the idea that this guy like sees these guys in

shiny suits and it's just like that's what i want my life all my life i wanted to be a gangster there's something like american aspirational about that and in lockstock or really in these garbage lads movies i think these guys are like it is my birthright to want to fucking do crime because there is no other way to get money in this country. Because once you're born into a class in England, like that's where you are. And I find that to be like a really interesting, motivating factor in criminal movies.

What about you? Well, a lot of the Ritchie movies, the humor is sort of crude and the filmmaking is not as sophisticated. It feels like it's kind of in a post-Tarantino, fast-cutting style. And so he's obviously not going to get the credit that someone like a Martin Scorsese has, who is much more classically minded and knows the entire history of cinema and is thinking as much about the history of Indian filmmaking as he is thinking

about James Cagney movies when he's making his movies. I also think that movies like Get Carter, the Michael Caine movie from the 70s, isn't as canonized as some of the American versions of gangster films. Like French Connection. Exactly. And so because of that, there are a handful, like The Italian Job kind of holds some weight

in our culture, but even more so maybe for its remake than for the original film. I'm not sure how many people who saw the remake have actually seen the original. So those films don't bear as much of a cultural weight or a cultural burden. And so the movies feel very disposable in a way. But I think for a certain generation,

and I was in that generation, I mean, I was the guy who was in college watching Lock, Stock, and Snatch all the time. Yeah. There was a wave there. And I think it's worth mentioning, just like, so I was very much that too. What basically happened was

in the mid-90s and late 90s, to the late 90s especially, there was this explosion of transatlantic cultural exchange where London and England especially seemed to be the center of the cultural universe in terms of filmmaking, fiction.

You had Irvine Welsh. You had all these new Scottish writers. You had a real wave of young people entering the arts and making a lot of noise. And then you had this music that was coming over that I think felt very cool because even though it was essentially pop music, you kind of had to work a little harder to read about pulp and read about suede and read about all these bands. And when you watch lock stock and that ocean color scene song starts like in those opening moments, you're just like, oh yeah, that's very much a moment, a very much like a very

specific cultural moment. And he was very much an ambassador of that. So much so that he became so famous that he, that he married Madonna. Right. Yeah. No, it's interesting. And I think the idea of England setting the tone culturally for the United States is an interesting trend that comes every 15 or 20 years. And, you know, like that bled over into even telling us, like,

which American bands were good so that we could decide that we wanted to celebrate those bands, you know, shortly thereafter, the Strokes and the White Stripes and all those bands being dictated basically by NME. Yeah. They were the second coming. But you and I have also lived through several false starts of that where it's like, get ready, Dizzy Rascal is about to be the most important musician in the world. He rules. Was he not?

Yeah. But for like 94 rap critics in New York City, not for like the wider world. It's very true. None of his movies before Sherlock Holmes were blockbuster films by any means, but I would guess that that early stretch of films were among the most rewatched.

He did air fairly early on by remaking Lena Vertmuller's Swept Away with Madonna, which is just a mystifying choice, but love is love. And yet, I don't know,

the movies kind of linger. I rewatched Snatch, I rewatched Lockstock, had a good time. I really enjoyed those movies. And yet, I don't know, the movies kind of linger. I rewatched Snatch, I rewatched Lockstock, had a good time. I really enjoyed those movies. I had more than a good time. Yeah. I think,

like, what is on the edges of that is interesting to me too. How do you want to talk about this? Do you want to talk about like what defines these films? What are the key indicators that you're watching one of them?

this is slightly different than some of the other pods that we've done like this because usually what it is is we pick a self-invented genre and we're like, these movies are not like, quote unquote, good,

but they're great. And I would say that these movies, some of them are like, are actually considered classics and that the Garbage Lads is more a description of the characters than it is the movies themselves. The Garbage Lads in question are bad dudes

who happen to be looking like Ray Winstone and Ian McShane instead of, you know, whatever. So I think that this is actually like, is this a British crime podcast? Sort of. You know, there are other kinds of British crime movies that aren't in this. I wouldn't say, even going back to the Ealing comedies, I wouldn't say those guys are garbage lads, but there is a very specific kind of character that runs through these films. But the people who make these films need to have seen those movies.

They need to have seen Brighton Rock. They need to have seen Basil Dearden's Victim. Oh, I think Brighton Rock's the first movie. I think Brighton Rock is like, it's Pinky in Brighton Rock, which is this Graham Greene adaptation that Richard Attenborough is the star in. And it's just basically about like a psycho living in, you know, and this guy who terrorizes people in Brighton

who's part of a criminal gang. That's a very intense film though. Not a lot of humor in that movie. So like, do Garbage Lad movies need to be funny? It helps, but there's some that are i mean i think that we laugh because of the language and because of the the sort of foreignness of it but i don't know that like people would consider bob hoskins funny i know but he is so funny i know same thing with ben kingsley how do we what do we do about that well

we're bad people but do they know that they're being fun this is something i've been wondering i think that they know that ben kingsley is I've been wondering I think that they know that Ben Kingsley is funny and sexy beast I think that the way that Jonathan Glazer like stages those scenes is like this is a funny scene

to watch this guy dominate these two couples in this Spanish villa even though you're also like it's like is Hannibal Lecter funny you know that's interesting

I mean I think about you know two of the signature films that you and I have been going back and forth are two Bob Hoskins movies from the 1980s The Long Good Friday

and Mona Lisa and both of those films are pretty serious and pretty intense crime dramas almost like emotional melodramas with a lot of crime around them

but look at what Hollywood sees when they see that they see Who Framed Roger Rabbit that's where Bob Hoskins goes where he's doing kind of like a

Humphrey Bogart stand-in. And they see Super Mario. I know. You know, like that's what they see when they see that guy. So they see a funny guy too. Look at Ben Kingsley's career outside of some of this stuff. Yes. He's Gandhi for Richard Attenborough,

but also he's a sexy beast. Yeah. And also, what was his incredible performance in Iron Man 3? The Mandarin? Yeah. Was that your favorite movie of the 2000s? I forgot. You drafted it quite early in one of our movie drafts.

Is that social network? So if Brighton Rock is the earliest, what else is in that era? Well, I think that the one that I was really drawn to when we were kind of going through this was this movie called The Criminal, which is a Joseph Lozzi movie with a guy named Stanley Baker. If you've seen Guns of Navarro, and he is one of Gregory Peck's crew in Guns of Navarro. But this has got all the hallmarks of the movies that will come after it, which is guys doing scores, getting in trouble, trying to get out of trouble, and then getting in worse

trouble because they're trying to get out of trouble. And this is essentially about a petty criminal or a criminal in London who pulls a racetrack robbery and winds up accidentally or unwittingly stealing the money of a rival mob boss and everything that kind of comes after that. And it winds up being essentially a jail film, very much indebted to early Cooper crime movies. Yeah, there's a few names that occur often with these films. He's one of them, Losey. Brian Forbes is one of them. You see Peter Yates, the Peter Yates 60s films. Mike Hodges, of course, the Gett Carter director.

If you see one of those names attached to a movie, it's probably going to be entertaining. And it's 50% chance it fits into this subgenre. It was pretty active in the 50s and 60s but I don't think that it yet had the kind of like winking charm

and sense of humor that Michael Caine brings to these movies. I think that a lot of the energy maybe that goes into these films in the 70s and 80s was being spent

on the angry young men movies in the 50s and 60s. So that may not be like a one-to-one kind of historical representation of British cinema, but I do feel like this was something that kind of flowered in the 70s and 80s for me and then especially in the 90s and 2000s with Richie and like the imitators.

The thing that's awesome about watching these movies, and it's actually the reason why I think I'm also interested in a lot of British music, is the conversation that's awesome about watching these movies, and it's actually the reason why I think I'm also interested in a lot of British music, is the conversation that's happening between the British versions of these stories and the American version of these stories. So in the same way that there's the blues, and then Led Zeppelin steals from the blues, and then metal bands in America steal from Led Zeppelin, and then you keep going all the way back and forth.

There's a similar kind of British films reacting to the noir movement, British films reacting to French Connection and the New York cinema of William Friedkin and that kind of thing. And then British films reacting to independent cinema or Michael Mann or Quentin Tarantino and back and forth and back and forth. And I don't know that there are that many American filmmakers

who could consider themselves influenced by Ritchie or say like they're an accolade of Ritchie. But that kind of like back and forth across the ocean is one of the things that makes this like such a lively kind of thing to study. I think you really put your finger on something important when you pointed out the kitchen sink realism of the, you know, the Richardson films like Taste of Honey or saturday night and sunday morning those movies and the kind of like bare knuckle representation of lower middle class life in england in 1958

through 1968 and then easy rider happening and then easy rider triggering the series of stories about people kind of on the fringes of American society and then England adopting that mentality with having the backbone of the kitchen sink realism, that really, to me, like informs where the genre goes in the 1980s. Like by the time we get to the 80s, you've got the Stephen Frearses of the world

looking at the lineage of British film for the last 20, 30 years, looking at what contemporary Hollywood is doing and what it's been informed by since, you know, with Cimino and William Friedman and all those directors and the movies that they were making. And you get, I think, basically the early goings of the thing that we like the most.

Like, it feels like it really kind of starts in the 80s proper. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I think that if I had to weight the decades, like, I would say that there's some really cool stuff in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. But for me, it kind of starts with Long Good Friday and then goes through The Hit and Mona Lisa. And then you start building this momentum

where you're like, oh, this is a really interesting take on this genre. What do you think it was like for Guy Ritchie to be watching those movies in the 80s? Do you think he's going through the research? I feel like he's the classic. Never watched that. He is.

That was exactly my experience. He did not seem to be culling from movie history. And we had so many guests on this show do. And, but it must be in the bloodstream, right? Mona Lisa must be in the bloodstream of a guy like that. Otherwise, maybe he's just making his goodfellas. Maybe it's just him. No, I mean, Long Good Friday is,

Lockstock is not different than Long Good Friday materially. Like, I mean, like they'll move some chess pieces around, but it's essentially about like a robbery that goes crazy and all these different people who are sort of, and all the ripple effects that come out of this like wild robbery. No, no. The other thing I was thinking about was one of Sean Connery's favorite filmmakers was Sidney Lumet. They made a few movies together including The Offense

which I had never seen before. I just watched it like a few weeks ago. Isn't that like where he's a cop who like loses it in the interrogation room?

Yeah because a young girl has been murdered and he's trying to find or he's trying to get the murderer to confess. Yeah. And it's like a

psychological drama but it has tinges of this kind of a movie that we're talking about here. And when I think about richie now and the movies he's making now it's kind of lumetish it doesn't have the same sense of intelligence i think that a lot of sydney lumet movies have but that like simple here's where the camera goes i get excited about my one action sequence and everything else is just kind of like you know one shot what two shot coverage one shot two shot coverage moving on let's go next day and it's it's kind of like, you know, one shot, two shot coverage, one shot, two shot coverage.

Moving on. Let's go next day. And it's kind of a good fit for these genres too because you don't want like too much ornamental bullshit. Like you need to be excited during the action set piece. And then otherwise, you want to just make sure the guys are entertaining and charming in the frame otherwise. Yeah, that's the only thing that I feel like I'm kind of missing from the more recent Guy Ritchie movies that the early ones definitely had was the early ones had such an incredible sense of place. Like you think about the caravan park that Brad pits in or some of the boxing arenas,

the underground boxing places that they go and the all the, all the pubs and the taxi drivers and lock stock. And you're just like, man, this just feels like so real. And now it feels a lot more like atlanta substituting is to set la kind of stuff yeah uh and and that's disappointing but is also the case for most movies yeah i so what is what are the signatures like is a fish called

wanda a garbage lads movie yeah so like that's a good example of like i don't think that comedies are exempt from this this is a very personal kind of journey through British bullshit. But like, I think that there's definitely like these permutations where there's several Danny Boyle movies, there's several 80s comedies. The Fish Called Wanda has all the hallmarks

of Garbage Lads. It does, right? And it's a Charles Crichton movie who made the Ealing comedy. So it's kind of in that tradition too. So as I was looking at kind of the list that I was making versus the one that you were making, I was trying to figure out like, is Mike Lee's Naked a Garbage Lads movie? He is a Garbage Lad.

The guy in the film. Yeah. Yeah. And I think he is a criminal. I mean, so yeah. So like, and that is a version of a critically acclaimed art house film living beside a fish called Wanda. I'll give you a rule. And so in that case, fish called Wanda is Garbage Lads. You were wondering whether or not train spotting is Garbage Lads.

I don't think it is, but I do think Shallow Grave is because of the centrality of a crime in the middle of the film. So in Shallow Grave, it's all about what are we going to do with this body and what are we going to do with this suitcase of money? And everything is then like these double crosses

that come out of that. Trainspotting is essentially about addiction and the pointlessness of everyday life that then ends with a heist because they kind of almost need something to end the movie with. So I think that's the distinction. It is a crime at the center of the film.

What do you think is the real turning point for our personal version of these movies? Well, I think probably for both of us, it's Richie and What Comes After. And movies like Layer Cake that are kind of riffing off of that. And maybe even, I would honestly argue that Layer Cake has aged better than a lot of these Guy Ritchie movies in some ways. Because the Guy Ritchie movies are so talky and so like of the moment and Layer Cake actually you can

watch it and be like there's a lot of trip-hop and Daniel Craig like doing voiceovers about like the hypocrisy of the drug industry or whatever but man

it's like really really really smooth and well made in that way. We have not discussed we have not said the name Matthew Vaughn yeah while talking.

So for people who don't know Matthew Vaughn was Guy Ritchie's producing partner. Guy Ritchie was the director, Matthew Vaughn was the producer, but there was almost a little bit of Joel and Ethan Coen stuff going on. Feels like it when you go back and look at these movies. And then Matthew Vaughn has since gone on, he goes and makes Layer Cake. And to my taste, Layer Cake is a movie that maybe has aged better than some of the Ritchie stuff. And then Matthew Vaughn goes on to be one of the most successful blockbuster filmmakers of the last 20 years because he just keeps making kingsman and kick-ass movies right yeah kicks he made an

x-men movie x-men first class may arguably the best x-men movie um and he's got three kingsman movies under his belt he's got the first kick-ass film and his forthcoming film is called Argyle. Here's a logline for Argyle starring Henry Cavill. A world-class spy suffering from amnesia is tricked into believing he is a best-selling

spy novelist. That's Chris Corr if I've ever heard it. You know, Vaughn and Richie have both taken on this kind of like professional Hollywood craftsman thing

in the last 10 years that has been a little bit less appealing for me personally. But Layer Cake is a banger. Yes. It is a quality film. The one movie though

that we may have skipped over that I think is really important is Croupier. Yeah. Which does predate the Richie films. It's Hodges. And it's Mike Hodges

who directed Get Carter and 25 years later sort of plucks Clive Owen out of obscurity. Yeah. And slots him into this real kind of working class drama that has

a kind of crime element to it and that's a really really good film Clive Owen's character plays a writer to make ends meet does dealing

at a casino yes and falls into a web of intrigue as all these men do very good film oh yeah and an early

sort of British reflection of the rise of a certain kind of independent American crime movie. You know you mentioned Tarantino and I think it feels like Lockstock which comes I think the year after that feels like it is taking some of some of

Croupier's energy and some of Pulp Fiction's energy and some Scorsese energy and some earlier Mike Hodge's energy and then of Pulp Fiction's energy and some Scorsese energy and some earlier Mike Hodge's energy. And then this very specific kind of a lad mag sense of humor, you know, that like the, you know, the FHMs and the Maxims. And we were just talking about this Bill Simmons last night, actually about how that was really an era in our culture and era that speaking of things that have not aged well has not aged, and yet was pervasive. And I wouldn't describe the Lock, Stock, or Snatch films as particularly sexist, but I

wouldn't describe them as featuring any female. Relatively homophobic. Definitely homophobic. In their humor, yeah. No question. I mean, Vinnie Jones as the avatar of homophobia in both of those films is kind of chilling. But there are very few women. I mean, there's just not a lot of female characters.

It's one thing that strikes me about Layer Cake. The difference is Sienna Miller has this major role. And there's this love triangle between Ben Whishaw, Sienna Miller, and Daniel Craig. Which actually you could just do today and people would be like, I'll go see that movie. Yeah, and if you look at the future Matthew Vaughn films, he seems a little bit more interested in female characters than Guy does. And I'm anxiously awaiting

your Kingsman Through the Lens of Women pod. It's been recorded already. I'm waiting to release it at the right time. When Kamala is elected, we'll release it that day. A couple of other movies

that are happening. Kings Women? I mean, they should make that. Should they not? day. Um, a couple of other movies that are happening. Kings women. I mean, they should make that. Should they not? Yeah. Did you watch the three five five?

No, it's Jessica Chastain. Lupita. Oh no, I didn't. Is that Netflix? Uh, no, it was released by universal pictures in theaters in 2022.

Not good. Okay. You can skip it. Is it that that's essentially like women assassins? Yeah. International spies. Yeah. Uh, coming together

to fail the box office. Wasn't there also a Charlize Theron movie that was Netflix that's about assassins or is that about what was the one that Gina Price-Blythewood directed? Yeah, that was called the there's a sequel coming soon. I don't remember the name of the movie.

But it's like the Unbroken or the Never Ending or whatever. She's not directing the unbroken or the never ending or whatever. She's not directing the sequel. It's called The Old Guard. Yeah. Is that also about assassins? Sort of, but they're like time traveling immortal assassins. That's good. You didn't see that one? No. I mean, but that's

good for job security. Gina Prince, by the way, has directed like six films, five of which are really, really good good one of which is The Old Guard I interviewed her for The Old Guard so ain't that just

life for you couple of other critical movies at this sort of turn of the century Lock, Stocks 99 Snatches 2001 right on its heels

arguably the very best movie in this entire franchise it's sort of sub-franchise there's no question about it sexy based

Jonathan Glazer's directorial debut yes a film though I love him I don't believe he has yet matched sub-franchise there's no question Sexy Beast Jonathan Glazer's directorial debut yes a film though I love him I don't believe he has yet matched he has a new film

coming out this year which I do not think will bear any resemblance whatsoever to Sexy Beast Martin Amis adaptation yeah and that was another thing

it was like this was very much a time when like Will Self and Martin Amis this mid-90s was like a real like tumbling down the rabble hole of all this stuff for me. Were you into that fiction?

Yeah, like London Fields and Rock of Crack is Bigger than Ritz. Like it was a lot of these like books were coming out around then that I was like, holy shit, this is really cool. I think that's why you're really the poet laureate of this subgenre because you read all those books and I do not. Yeah, I mean, that was more, those guys were trying to be more bad boy

Bret Easton Ellis back then, I think, like literary sort of bon vivants but also like a little bit edgy and do coke

at Keith McNally restaurants and stuff and this is, like, I think that there's also like a British crime and British spy subgenre there

that I also enjoy but those guys were much more like literary fiction than crime. There was some elements of crime. Irvine Welsh had more crime in his books. Sexy Beast is about, for those who have not seen it, and at the time of its release,

it was a very big deal. Yes. It featured this incredible Ben Kingsley performance and kind of announced Glazer who had been directing music videos for bands like Radiohead. At the time, it was sort of like,

it seemed like a straightforward post-op on the gangster film because it's about a gangster who is effectively retired in Spain with his friends

and he's living this kind of calm lifestyle played by Ray Winstone in an amazing performance. And Ben Kingsley, who is another gangster, kind of comes back into his life,

disrupts this peace that they've had, and then they go off to sort of like, I guess it's sort of like do one last job slash get back in the game. Like he won't let them relax. It's a very unorthodoxly plotted film because I think you think

the second act is going to be five minutes long and it winds up being like 40 minutes long. Glazer has this... It's a little bit of a horror movie in the second act, actually. It is, it is. But it also has this. A little bit of a horror movie in the second act actually. It is.

It is. But it also has this kind of like procedural heist quality to it as well. Glazer is like a fine arts filmmaker. Yeah. You know, he's like,

I have looked at the paintings of Caravaggio and Bacon and now I'm making my gangster movie. And I've always wondered, I interviewed him once too, once upon a time, I think when Under the Skin

was coming out, but I didn't ask him about this. I felt like there's sort of a parodying happening of these kinds of movies in real time. Yeah. The movie that I always think about with Sexy Beast always makes me think of Casino because it starts with this guy in this moment of repose.

Now, obviously, Casino is different, but it's about a guy who wants to be a different person. It's this character gal who Vure wins some plays. He's moved to Spain. A lot of British people either winter or take vacations in Mallorca and Tenerife. There's a lot of British expats who live in Spain. They go to get the sun that they never got

in their godforsaken rainy country. And he's living there. It's like two couples of ex-criminals and their wives, and they're just having the time of their life living in Spain and soaking up the sun. And then one day Ben Kingsley shows up and he's like, you owe me one more job and you're going to go do this for me.

And that's where the film kind of progresses. I don't think that you can watch that movie and say like this is a straight take on crime in class and like English abroad. It's like almost too impressionistic or symbolic for that. I mean, there is like quite psychedelic moments of sexy beast. Absolutely. Yeah.

I'm still trying to put my finger on it. It feels like a movie that for someone who is so meticulous in his craft of, of filmmaking in the music videos has just gotten a screenplay that feels makeable. And so he's just going to make the film and it's so different from birth and under the skin. And I presume the zone of interest, which are these grand statements on alienation,

on kind of what our origins are as humans, as people, you know, in our family lineage. The zone of interest, you know, is a Holocaust story. And that also is incredibly deep. So it kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. It's also just a fun film to watch. It's got so much style, so much swagger. It's almost, it's also the cool thing that happens in some of these films

is for American ears, English can sound like a second language because it's being reinvented with all this slang and the cadences are so strange. Part of the fun of re-watching these movies is like, wait, what did he just say? Did he just call this person

what C word? I just re-watched Snatch with subtitles on for the first time in my life. And World of Revelation. You dags! Well, just certainly every Brad Pitt line of dialogue has been completely clarified for me. But one thing that Richie does that is actually in Sexy Beast as well is you have characters saying something. And then another character saying, what's that? Or what do you mean?

Or can you explain yourself? Yeah. And then they get to let you rip open this subculture that they're exploring and explain it not unlike Succession or True Detective or these shows that sort of like dive deep into these worlds that are kind of confusing and you have to like stick with them to penetrate them. Oh my God, dude. In Layer Cake, there's like 20 minutes where some

London criminals rip off Serbian militia ecstasy dealers in Amsterdam, come back, and then Daniel Craig goes up to Liverpool to interrogate Scouse drug dealers about whether they're moving the pills and they get mad at

him. And all of a sudden, you're within five different subcultures. Like, yeah, like Balkan military and scouse ecstasy slingers is pretty dense. How do you feel about the way that Bond looms over this entire era? Because of course, Craig is largely cast as Bond on the back of Layer Cake. I mean, that is his tryout. And he goes on to make, I would say, these Bond films

that are clearly very inspired, at least at the outset, by some of these British crime films. Oh, Casino Royale. There's a version of Casino Royale that's directed by either Guy Ritchie

or Matthew Vaughn. And I wouldn't be surprised if especially Vaughn was up for it. They must have been over the years. They must have been. They talked about it. I mean, they have an edge to them. That's a little bit different than

the, than what you get in those films that I don't know would have sat well with the broccoli family. But yeah, I mean, if you watch Casino Royale, it is essentially layer cake, but like with its, with better suits. Do you think that we missed out on a lot of good Daniel Craig British crime films because he's been Bond for 20 years? Well, I was actually wondering, when is he going to make something like this again? I guess he's probably having too much fun

doing dives out and plays and just being Rachel Weisz's husband, but it would be awesome. I mean, Tom Hardy still makes movies like this. He also tries to make American movies like this too, hilariously. He struggles in that respect. But Tom Hardy's in Layer Cake. Tom Hardy is like sort of around a lot of these movies.

And Tom Hardy, I believe, is in Rock and Rolla, which is secretly my favorite Guy Ritchie movie. That was where I was going next. Yeah, and yeah, I do think that Daniel Craig owes us one. An aging criminal, one last job, getting out. There's a big wave that happens in the aftermath of Ritchie and Vaughn and Daniel Craig emerging. And that wave includes Nicholas Winning Refn coming to England and making a movie with Tom Hardy called Bronson.

Ben Wheatley emerging as the kind of like black heart, I think, of these films and making Down Terrace and The Kill List and there's also sort of Roger Donaldson starts making movies with Jason Statham who Jason Statham

now becomes a sort of major B movie star. Yeah, and we should also say that there's a pretty active British crime, like just regular

old British crime movie industry going on throughout this entire time with a lot of like really, really decent movies. I don't know necessarily that any of them have characters as indelible

as your Kingsley's, as your, as your, you know, Bob Hoskins's. Like that was sort of the backbone of what I was trying to say here.

But there's plenty of like really cool movies from Richie on and also a lot of TV, you know? I was going to ask you about that. I mean, I will say like in the aftermath, a lot of these movies, Michael Caine realizes that everything that he built in the seventies is back in vogue. And so he makes Harry Brown and he's made a number of movies like this in the last 15 years that are sort of recalling his iconography. But I did feel like after the Ritchie boom, and when Matthew Vaughn goes off and starts making IP Hollywood films, a lot of this energy

just moves to television. And there's kind of like an eight to 10 year gap. There are a couple of movies kind of here and there. Child 44, Legend, the Cray Brothers movie that Tom Hardy made, London Boulevard, the Colin Farrell film, which is not bad, not great. It's William Monaghan. Yeah. I'd love to know how much of his script actually made it

onto the screen in that movie. He directed that movie, didn't he? Did he? I think so. That's shocking, honestly.

Was it taken away from him? It looks like it. Okay. It feels like it. I mean, you could say, honestly, probably one of the great

what-if garbage lads is McDondonough right martin mcdonough because he makes in bruges and ray finds is very much in the garbage lads hall of fame his character from that but it just happens to take place in belgium and be more of a meditation on death and it is on my list for sure in bruges is an ent Unfortunately, his next two films are just straight up American films. They have English cast members, but he vacates, I think, what could have been

his English high-risk role. A lot of his plays, I think, also like, are a lot of people standing around pointing guns at each other. Definitely.

What did we, I always ask you this, but you weren't with me at the beginning of Spokane. That's too bad. That is definitely garbage lad shit. Just happened to be

starring Christopher Walken. So what happens with TV? Because you have famously been watching British television illegally for the last 15 years. Well, obviously the first thing people will probably say is Peaky Blinders, and you're right. Not only is Peaky Blinders probably the most significant contribution to the crime genre that England makes over the last 10 years, but is essentially a convention for all good British actors to hang out and be in this show. So Tom Hardy is in this

and Sam Claffin is in this. And obviously, Cillian Murphy gives like this sort of volcanic performance at the center of it as Tommy Shelby. I would also say for a more modern spin on this, Top Boy,

which has had basically two iterations. One that's about these very young kids who were growing up in public housing in London and then was basically revived somewhat by Drake and came back and was more of an adult crime saga. But I think both versions of it have a lot to basically basically be obsessed with and those are all on Netflix um so I would definitely watch Top Boy if you wanted like a different spin on this stuff and yeah there's just like a ton of like really decent crime shows around those two those are the ones I would recommend the most what do you do you think that the success of Broadchurch did something to this genre of movie in any way? Like make it more detective based? I mean, yeah, I mean, like almost sort of more true crime.

Yeah, there's that. I think that there's also like a lot of British cop shows are about, they love their detectives. So I think that even with the most complicated portrayals of law enforcement, I find that a lot of the stuff that I see tends to be through the lens of law enforcement rather than through the lens of the criminal element. Yeah. I feel like Luther and Sherlock absorbed a lot of this energy too. And those shows were not terribly funny, although I guess some people thought Sherlock was funny. Gangs of London is a good example of a show that I think is probably

almost supernaturally garbage. Gangs of London had two seasons. Garrett Evans, who did The Raid, directed several episodes of the first season and is largely the creative overlord of this show. And that first season

especially is just much more of an action film, much closer to John Wick, but has a lot of these elements. But for the most part, they love their detectives there. The criminals kind of are being chased,

not being centered. You know, our friends at Blank Check are doing Danny Boyle right now. They're winding down on a Danny Boyle miniseries. Danny Boyle hasn't really made a garbage crime movie or garbage lads movie in a really long time. I guess Trance sort of is one. Kind of, yeah. I love Trance.

Trance is mind-blowing. But people don't like Trance, right? You've got to do the Lost Classics pod. Yeah. Chris and I are considering a Lost Classics of the 2010s. It's not an episode. It's something else.

It's a series. How do we do it? I don't know how to do it. But trance, to me, is definitively on the list. Yeah. And everything about it, I find fun.

We haven't mentioned James McAvoy yet on this podcast. I feel like he is someone who, in a different time... He did and he he actually plays a really really disgusting cop in Irvine the adaptation he did of Irvine Walsh's filth that's right that is good that is a garbage lads film yeah but he spent a lot of time as Dr. Charles Xavier or as a crazy person in M. Night Shyamalan films this is essentially what every podcast we do boils down to is that we get very excited

about somebody and then we're like, and then they spent seven years playing a bald psychic in X-Men movies. Terribly sad. Terribly sad. You know,

Ben Wheatley's been on the show before, but his career has taken a very strange turn. You know, he was rumored to be directing the next Lara Croft movie. That ultimately didn't happen. And now he has directed

The Meg 2, colon, The Trench. I saw the movie The Meg. It wasn't very good. Jason Statham is actually in that film. Yeah.

It's certainly not a garbage lads movie. Sort of a garbage shark movie. Maybe Garbage Fish is our next. That actually would be a good one. Let's do that.

But, The Meg 2 seems very far from where he started. How you describe uh what wheatley contributed to this subgenre i mean he starts out i feel like adam naman is like the preeminent expert on ben wheatley but he starts out as like this kind of almost pagan crime filmmaker like it's crime but it also has like this weird element of satanic undertone. Supernatural, magical

elements to it. And then I did some straight up psychedelic in a field in England. That's what one is called? And his horror movie from COVID, which is essentially about COVID,

is very compelling but is challenging, I would say, in terms of not like an entertaining film per se. His CV is all over the map. I think Kill List and Down Terrace are the two. What, Free Fire? I guess Free Fire definitely is a Garbage Lads film. Yeah, I mean, it's set in Boston. It also features Brie Larson.

Yeah, but there's also like random British guys in it. Right. But he also remade Rebecca quite poorly with Armie Hammer. He adapted J.G. Ballard's High Rise, which I thought was pretty

nifty. Tom Hiddleston, another guy who falls in the McAvoy bucket of like, you've spent a lot of time playing Loki when you

should be the new Clive Owen. You should be the new Ben Kingsley. Did you see Night Manager? I did, yes. He just balls out of control in Night Manager.

I know it's okay. These guys can do both, but I just feel like we're missing out on something. I know. I mean, you see Florence Pugh in Little Drummer Girl and you're like, this is it. She's the best.

And then she's like, what I got to do is play Yelena on TV shows. You think Florence Pugh should be Bond? Sure. I do feel like these movies, I don't want to say they're having a comeback, but there's something is going on with them right now. In 2019, King of Thieves came out. This was sort of like the old guys still got it, the grumpy old men of this subgenre.

I just watched this movie for the first time. I did not know it existed. Directed by James Marsh. Very, very talented film. Yeah. Man on wire. Michael Caine, Tom Courtney, Jim Broadbent, a bunch of old dudes getting together with Charlie Cox to rob a bank.

Richie made The Gentleman. And I think that was released right before COVID in 2020, which is an uneven film that features an extraordinary Colin Farrell performance in his unbroken string of greatness in the last five years. We mentioned Operation Fortune. I got to tell you something. If you want to know who the next great actors are going to be, just look for these movies. Because this is where they get broken. This is where they go pro.

And if you just go back from, you mentioned Bronson. But like, hell man, go back to like, Stephen Furze is the hit. Watch Tim Roth in that movie and there's no surprise that Tim Roth is still making movies now and that Tim Roth is still

is an obsession of Quentin Tarantino's and is one of the great actors like we said Bronson and Tom Hardy there's a couple of Riz Ahmed movies from the last couple years

Shifty and Ill Manners that are just like who is this guy yeah you know Jack O'Connell and Start Up and you are just like, who is this guy? You know, um, Jack O'Connell and startup. And you're just like,

what the fuck is happening? This dude is incredible. Like this is like the same way where you see De Niro and mean streets or Pacino and, you know, like dog day. And you're just like, Oh,

okay. That's what you can do. I was thinking of Gary Oldman and prick up your ears, you know, like a lot of the origins of these movies are nil by mouth, which he directed 15 years later. You're right. This is a how you get your stars kind

of a genre. Gary Oldman's also in a really good soccer movie called The Firm. Robert Carlyle goes nuts in Face, which is this really cool Antonio Bird movie about a socialist who has to become a thief. It's just like you talked

about clive owen and croupier like this is where people get discovered there it's also an old guy still got it genre one movie have you seen dom hemingway i wait what is that it's a jude law movie with richard e grant about a guy who gets out of prison after 15 years oh yeah i remember when this came out yeah jude Law's got like a big, almost like a handlebar mustache connecting with the beard. And like big sideburns. Big sideburns.

And it's 40% garbage dad, lad. 60% reuniting with my daughter, played by Emilia Clarke, who's a pub singer. And she sings songs by the Fishermen. It's actually quite charming. I feel like it came out when did Thrones start?

when did Game of Thrones begin airing? 14? 13? so this movie came out in 13 so it was ahead of maybe 12

it's not a great film but it's not a not by any means a bad film it's Richard Shepard who made The Matador oh yeah

we haven't mentioned Pierce Brosnan either who I feel like he's in One Good Friday. He's made some of these as well. Is this a subgenre of a staying power? Yeah. As long as there are garbage English people, there will be garbage lad movies.

This is a reliable... If you look through the list that Sean and I made, which we'll share, you're going to see this movie is the same movie from Brighton Rock to the most recent film. It's the same movie from Calm With Horses,

which is this Barry Keoghan movie that came out a couple years ago about Irish boxer criminals. Brighton Rock's the same movie. You just named another guy who needs to make one of these immediately. Now, Barry Q and... Paul and Barry need...

The second they get... They lose their swoleness from Gladiator 2. They go back on the piss. They should make one of these. We need to get dodgy 9mm in their hands and they need to rob a bank.

It's really important that they do that. Or one of them robs the bank and the other one's the cop chasing him. How come you haven't made one of these movies I gotta move over there

I gotta be amongst the people when we go we're going to England yeah you and I we've never been to England together not together no how will we celebrate

I'm gonna take you to an underground casino and I'm gonna watch you lose your shirt to some Michael Caine looking motherfucker playing baccarat and then I'll take you

for a pint. Are you excited about this? Because I don't, like, is London, is England, like, does it hold, like, a special place in your imagination?

No, I'm Irish. Well, I know that. The English, you know, they sought to control my people. Yeah. And so I have a complicated relationship

Would you rather we were going to Dublin? I love the culture of London. There's no question about it.. Would you rather we were going to Dublin? I love the culture of London. There's no question about it. I love the music. I love the shopping. I love the, obviously the films.

I, I like the people too. I don't, I don't have any negative relationship with people. It's the structures of power that I reject historically. The royals. Well, my,

my, all my relatives on my dad's side just fucking hate the English. So it's, it's amazing that you and I have formed this extraordinary bond together. My father is of Irish heritage living in England. Yeah. No, I'm excited to go to Europe with you. Yeah.

Although we're not, I guess we're not traveling together. Do you think of it as traveling together? I think we're going to be in two different European countries. Well, England's no longer European, but you know what I mean. Do you think, that's a good point. Do you think we're do you think we're mythologizing the big Spotify European trip

too much on pods we've mentioned it twice so I think we're doing okay you know will we record a pod in England we might as well I was wondering

because we're going to be there when Succession ends aren't we do you think there are any so do we trade Andy to Bill and do oh interesting a little swap

for episode seven. No, episode nine. It'll be episode nine of Succession. That's an intriguing idea. Could make for a better pod. Do you think there are any English folks, film programmers, listening to the show...

Yes, I do. ...that would host us... I do. ...at a special screening while we're there? A special screening of... What would you... If you could choose a Garbage Lad film. Oh, I would choose, I would probably

have it be a classic, like Long Good Friday or Sexy Beast. What would you do? Well, Sexy Beast would be a lot of fun. What about something even older than that? You know, like what about maybe Sweeney, the David Wick's 1977 film. That film I think was sampled

so to speak in King of Thieves where there are a lot of flashbacks to guys charging into banks holding guns and that

we're imagining Michael Caine thinking back on his career previously but I think they couldn't maybe license

the rights to get Carter so they used a different film that doesn't feature Michael Caine which I enjoyed I think that would

be a lot of fun yeah I don't know hit us up hit us at ChrisRyan77 on Twitter my primary way of communicating

with the world you like to DM right yeah so since you signed up for Twitter Blue has your DM has your DM power been increased

why I just I don't think that I can really share that with you because you're not a Twitter Blue user so you don't know that's really a shame

Bobby quick question for you yeah are you familiar with Garbage Lads like familiar with them personally or so you don't know. That's really a shame. Bobby, quick question for you. Yeah. Are you familiar with garbage lads? Like familiar with them personally in my real life or? No, no, no. You know us.

No, that's true. That's true. Not enough British accent from Sean to call him a garbage lad though. I don't really do a British accent. We haven't heard his British impression. Bob, do you know these movies? After this pod, are you interested?

I know these movies by being referenced in other stuff, whether that's TV shows or other movies from a genre influence perspective, but I have not seen the vast majority of movies that you guys talked about on this episode. I would recommend you watch Sexy Beast. That is the best of the bunch. But Snatch is very special.

Yeah. And sure, it's inappropriate. Whatever. I don't fucking care. I forgot about Dennis Farina. We also forgot about Stephen Graham. Wow. Yeah.

And look at him. And cut to 20 years later, toe to toe, with De Niro in the Irish. He's in the De Niro Pacino scene. That, he, yeah,

he's come a long way. Very proud of him. Did you ever see his film that came out a couple years ago where he was a chef? Yes. They made a show. Boiling Point,

is that what it's called? Yeah, and then they adapted that for TV. British television show? Interesting. Is it, like,

burnt? Like, well, did you see Boiling Point? No. Oh, no, it's much closer to the bear yeah that's

where i where i would even say the bear is a lot like boiling point interesting yeah have you ever thought about being a chef no i thought you hate hearing me talk about food i'd like hearing you talk about the artistry of making how much would i have to pay you to go to a private dining experience that I cook for you? I simply would not attend. There's no amount of money in which I would be compelled. No, I'm not. Where I put down a plate of yogurt marinated chicken. First of all, just don't say chicken.

Do you cook anything besides chicken? The idea of chicken but also like chicken with a white condiment marinating it because yogurt tenderizes meat you know the thing is

you know this like chicken I love chicken we ate last night together I had chicken I would eat chicken six days a week if I could

your chicken your fingers touching chicken is foul and yogurt which is gross. Just all yogurt, frankly. Doesn't Alex love yogurt? She does love yogurt.

You've witnessed my daughter eating yogurt. She may be right. But to me... The idea of the two meeting? Don't you love a chicken... Just stop putting white things on food. So when you do Halal Guys, you never get the white sauce? I prefer not to.

I really prefer not to. Bob, do you ever get the white sauce on Halal Guys? Yeah, get the white sauce? I prefer not to. I really prefer not to. Bob, do you ever get the white sauce on Halal Guys? Yeah, dude. And I love tzatziki. I love it all. Yeah. It's great.

Sean is missing out on this huge thing in life. I'm just going to be ill. Like, I really feel sick just hearing you guys talk about it. We should have done this part in the beginning and loosened us up.

No, I like that we were quite serious. The garbage lads would put, they would have their fries with mayo. So to honor them, we should talk about that. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to get off the plane, right?

We're going to get to, you're going to get off the plane. I'm going to already be in London when you arrive. Yep. I'm going to take you to a place in Soho. We're going to get the best Guinness in London. God damn it. And you're going to have a,

I'm going to give you a cigarette. You're going to say I don't smoke. I'm going to take the cigarette. I'm going to smoke it. I'll smoke with you in London. Okay. And then you're going to say, I don't smoke. I'm going to take the cigarette. I'm going to smoke it. I'll smoke with you in London. Then we're going to go and we're going to get a fucking steaming curry and a

pile of chips with mayo. What's your curry of preference? Red, green, Penang? Penang. Yeah, Penang is good. I can't wait. I'm really excited. I also like that. It's a little milky for me. Coconut milk? You're still out on it. I don't want milks. I also like that. Massaman was good. It's Massaman a little milky for me. Yeah. You know, it's a little bit.

Coconut milk, you're still out on it. I just, I don't want milks. I don't want white condiments. I don't want white drugs, as everyone knows who listened to this podcast. What are we going to uncover this memory that you have of being like drowned in milk? Were you in the night kitchen? What happened to you? My body is a temple and I've been treating it soundly for some time,

and I'm trying to retain that. But I treat myself like a piece of shit, and I'm fine. I know. You're going to live to 96, and I'm going to be dead at 53. There's no question about it. There's no question about it. I don't know what it is. I can't. Anything that is gloppy, except for ketchup.

I do like ketchup, I got to say. That's a horrible take. That's the worst condiment. What is wrong with you? That is so bad. Come on. I don't know. I do like ketchup, I gotta say. That's a horrible take. That's the worst condiment. That is so bad. Come on. I don't know. I don't know. Do you know what also

the problem is is that now we subsist off of the most random assortment of snacks throughout our workday because... Speak on it. Yesterday was grim.

We, Sean and I, here's what Sean and I probably ate collectively yesterday. Whatever we had at our homes, like, quick bowl of cereal. For lunch, overnight oats from a cafe. Chickpea puffs. whatever we had at our homes like quick bowl of cereal for lunch

overnight oats from a cafe chickpea puffs almonds just the crackers from a cheese package and then what did what did you have

I had a a fruit roll up yeah yeah like a a crushed ground down banana mixed with cacao nibs. No.

That was then processed and packaged. And then we made Bill buy us dinner. And then Bill bought us dinner. You guys gotta start bringing your own lunch. Brown bag in it, dude. Come on. You're right, Bobby. I need to get back to that.

I desperately need to get back to that. Or, conversely, you move to New York, like me, and you go to a fucking deli, and you get chicken salad on rye every time you go into the office and you're living your dream you know we were walking around crypto last night before the game and I was like look at all the lunch options here yeah I wish I worked here now you meant you might have actually said that that would have been so much easier maybe Bill said it might have been so much easier because when we moved to Los Angeles we and we were first working

at LA live the only lunch option was like a seven block and when I say block in Los Angeles, we, and we were first working at LA Live, the only lunch option was like a seven block. And when I say block in Los Angeles, it's much longer than like your New York, like sets 53rd street. We were on 60th. It's not like that. And you had to walk all those way to get subway. It sucked. There was no sweet greens yet. There was no tender greens yet. All the greens were still coming. Tom's, the whole LA Live center did not have all those restaurants. And so you had to basically walk down Olympic for a while to get to a subway and come back. And then you were like, I have this sort of room temperature turkey thing. You could pay $68 for some chicken tenders at ESPN Zone if you wanted to. Yes.

You could also, the early iterations of Uber Eats where like Jacoby would get like hummus delivered and be like, this was only $80. We did have the farm. I relied on the farm quite a bit. That was my go-to. That's right. When you go to a pub in England, and Bob, you've been to England, have you not?

Yeah, dude. Just Guinness all day long. So, but what is your food? Like what food do you order? Guinness is the food. That's the thing that's great about Guinness is you can actually, you can meal replace with Guinness.

I did that the last two nights I was in London. I came back with raging COVID. Am I going to get COVID again? You know what? They don't know because they don't care, honestly. All shout out to London, but they're not even checking for it.

I think that they're on the like, oh, I'm not feeling well for a couple of days. If I go up to British strangers and start asking them what's their favorite Blur album, will they talk with me? Yeah. They're friendly folk.

Yeah, they're friendly people. Are they? Yeah, they're nice guys. It depends on the township, right? It depends on where we're at. Why are you talking about it like we're going to New Jersey? You know, we're just going to this one city that's one of the most beautiful and awesome places in the world. What if it rains every day?

It might. We'll just be in the bar. I think the big picture in London would have a great energy. Like if we did a hot sabbatical year in London, just a couple of pods here and there. You want to do an entire year there?

Just throw me out there to school. Imagine you and Amanda being like... Goodbye to my significant other. Yeah, I don't think we can pull that off. We do that stuff all the time. Gap year for kids, you know? International year for young kids know i mean i would love to do an episode or an event or something in in a city like london that would be a lot of fun

the idea of doing anything more than that is kind of just kind of frankly a no-go in many ways but uh i'm trying to think of what would be the ultimate sexy beast this would probably be my pick yeah for a screening a watch along a watch-along, a chat. Do you think Jonathan Glazer is going to listen to this pod? I don't think Jonathan Glazer listens to podcasts. What do you think he does?

Just reads non-fiction in the dark? He looks at Mark Rothko paintings and listens to Tangerine Dream. And then he emails Scarlett Johansson a cool yogurt marinade for a chicken. When you saw Under the Skin, you thought thought what? Dream girl.

Yeah. Goals. It's a good film. We vamped a bit here. Garbage Lads. Is it on par with junk sci-fi, garbage crime? I think what we did here is we were like, you guys, we really like British crime movies

there is there is this there is a centrality to this psycho in this movie there is like there's always this guy

who's gonna set things off but for the most part this is a this is a pretty straightforward genre where it's like British crime movies

are really good I wouldn't have done this with like American crime movies I wouldn't just be like garbage Americans what's next? well I love I wouldn't have done this with like American crime movies. I wouldn't just be like garbage Americans. What's next? Well, I love, I love where you're going

with the sea, you know, and I love where you're going with Beasts of the Sea because it allows me to work with my, you know, gators,

crocs, sharks, leviathans, you know? I think this, that might be it. Okay. I think Garbage Fish

is where we're going next. Bob, a lot of feedback on the kangaroo element from last week, from the draft. A lot of people saying you guys are crazy

for thinking you could fight a kangaroo. I mean, I did not say that. I was a man of daubing and said that. Yeah, that's not,

I can't fight a kangaroo. I think it's pretty, it's just lame to be like, I would fight a turtle. Like, that's bullshit. That was what I said. I know,

but I'm saying I thought that was lame. Well, what am I supposed to say believe in yourself be like let's let's test myself

you're gonna you're gonna get slashed to death by a bear in the wilderness because you have to live up to some promise you made on a podcast you're psycho that's

crazy talk don't do that to yourself take care of yourself be safe I need you I do think all of these episodes that we've done have been

sort of human based so to introduce a beast element to this would be fun sold Garbage Fish coming to you

probably in six months when it's a soft release week CR thank you so much for everything that you do here at the Ringer Podcast Network Bobby Wagner thanks for your production work

on this episode and no interview at the end of this yes I'll finally be speaking with Martin Scorsese interview coming right up here's my interview with Kelly Riker yeah No interview at the end of this. Yes. I'll finally be speaking with Martin Scorsese. Interview coming right up.

Here's my interview with Kelly Reichardt. What do you think Kelly Reichardt's favorite one of these would be? Kill List. Do you think Widows is a garbage lads movie even though it's set in Chicago and isn't about lads? You could have just transported it to Chelsea and it would have been fine. It would have been the exact same thing so he's doing the

bombing of the Battle of London one right like the bombing yeah he has another feature film he has a four hour documentary coming I believe about the Holocaust at Cannes this year is that Occupied? I believe so and then let's see what he's got coming next.

Occupied City and Blitz. Blitz. Blitz doesn't have a date, but Occupied City is coming this year. Yeah, Occupied City, I believe, is the doc.

Blitz, I believe, is the feature film. And Blitz stars Saoirse Ronan and Hayley Squires, most recently seen in Bo is Afraid and Harris Dickinson of Triangle of Sadness fame

that follows the stories of a group of Londoners during the events of the British capital bombing in World War II. See our content. Steve McQueen, probably the single

best director of the generation that we always talk about and never mention his name. And I always feel bad about that and it's because I widow his fucking banger.

Banger. Underrepresented. Okay. Wax, thanks again. My pleasure. Later this week, what's happening on this podcast? Oh yeah, we're talking about

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. It's going to make $800 million. What's happening with this pod? Is it okay? Yeah, I think so. I'm not sure if it's going to last. I'm having a lot of existential doubt. You're letting Bill being like,

we've got nine more rewatchables get to you maybe now you're getting final act that's my mistake alright well let's go to Martin Scorsese

thanks guys you