The Big Picture - The Top Five Steven Soderbergh Films | Discussion (Ep. 125)

Episode Date: February 8, 2019

With today’s Netflix release of Steven Soderbergh’s newest film, ‘High Flying Bird,’ we sit down to list and discuss the top five movies he’s made in a prolific career. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chris Ryan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Liz Kelley. With the Super Bowl in the books, I wanted to let you know about all of our coverage across the site. We have Kevin Clark, Robert Mays, Roger Sherman, and more breaking down every aspect of the game, including winners and losers, key plays from the game, and the halftime show performance.

Also, make sure to check out our YouTube channel where Kevin Clark talked to Amari Cooper on Slow News Day, and Roger Sherman chatted with players from each team for their thoughts leading up to the game. Be sure to watch and subscribe to our channel I'm Sean Fennessey, Editor-in-Chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about some of the most interesting filmmakers in the world. I'm joined by two of my most beloved colleagues and two of the great thinkers about this filmmaker we're going to talk about today. Amanda Dobbins, hello.

Hi, Sean. Chris Ryan, hello. Hey, buddy. We're talking about Steven Soderbergh, and the reason for that is because Steven Soderbergh has a new movie out today on Netflix. What a Time to Be Alive that Soderbergh's just- It's not called What a Time to Be Alive. No.

I wish that it were. It kind of, it would fit. It's also not out of the realm of possibility for the future. Yeah. I want to see the Drake biopic by Steven Soderbergh. I think that that would be wonderful. Or perhaps the future biopic. That would also be good.

The movie is called High Flying Bird. And it is truly scooped from the brain of the ringer. I don't know if a movie has ever been more designed for the ringer than High Flying Bird. I want to talk a little bit about High Flying Bird. And then after that, we're going to talk about our top five favorite Steven Soderbergh movies. Steven Soderbergh, of course, is one of the great living filmmakers and has made many, many movies over the years. He is perhaps the most prolific filmmaker of his generation. So before we get into our top fives, let's do High Flying Bird.

Guys, you just saw it last night. I saw it last week. Can you give me your kind of instant reactions and maybe talk a little bit about what this movie actually is about? I would say that watching High Flying Bird gave me the feeling of what it must be like to be a securities trader who sees Margin Call. Where you're like, wow wow I actually get this so obviously like I've been working I've my other job is to work on a lot of the basketball content at the ringer so I understand labor disputes within the NBA and and the sort of modern struggle between player power and owner power in the league. That being said, I didn't quite completely, totally, exactly grasp the very last 10 minutes, I think, in terms of what happened. I'm going to have to rewatch it a couple of times. That being said, this is easily my favorite Soderbergh movie since Haywire.

And I think it's dazzling in terms of its screenplay by Terrell Alvin McCraney. And it's like the lead performance is among the best lead performances in any Soderbergh movie with by Andre Holland. And it's just such a dynamite movie. And I'm actually like really excited to rewatch it. I remember when you were talking about Scruggs, Sean,

you were like the underrated part about these Netflix movies is you can immediately run it back. And I can't wait to do that with this. Yeah. So, I mean, in terms of the story, it's an interesting thing for us to talk about because it's essentially focuses on an NBA agent who is sort of trapped between his clients and a league that is in lockout and the league locking the players out in sort of this labor dispute that is happening, which I think on its surface does not sound very interesting. You know, there was I remember the NBA lockout six or seven years ago, and it was quite a dull time in the content minds. You know, Chris, you were working at Grantland at the time. Yeah, I think it was terrifying. There was some concern about what the future of the of Grantland was going to be at that time.

Amanda, you are becoming increasingly learned about the NBA. Thank you so much for that credit. I appreciate it. I had some thoughts about some recent Sixers activities before this podcast. Those thoughts will not be on this podcast, but you can find Chris and maybe Amanda sharing them on other Ringer podcasts. But just as a slightly more casual fan and observer i guess was the movie too arcane or confusing because that was the one thing i thought would be kind of an issue for people watching this i will echo chris's uh enthusiastic questions about the end of the movie i i saw it with chris and chris turned to me with like chris is enthusiastic about a lot of things but you know he really lights up when he really likes something and you did, it was very nice.

And he was like, that was amazing. And I don't totally know what happened at the end, which I had hoped that Chris would be able to explain it to me and maybe I'll rewatch it. But Chris's enthusiasm is a good summary of what's appealing about this movie because you can tell that Soderbergh is also very interested in this world. And I spend a lot of time around people who care about basketball and who talk a lot about it. And I kind of skim the cream off the top. You know, like I know who Jimmy Butler is,

but I couldn't tell you the other guys in the trade. And I don't even think Jimmy Butler's in the trade. Please don't at me. But anyway, no, but you know, you get the high point. I get the high points. I get the narrative arc. I understand why it means something. And this movie does a great job of communicating why the NBA means something, why basketball means something, why all these characters are involved.

It transcends the nitty gritty. Yeah, there's something. It hadn't occurred to me before. But because this is essentially a story about player power and agency, both literally and figuratively, the fact that it's dropping the week of the NBA trade deadline. It's ridiculous. I mean, it can't be a coincidence, right? There has to be some savvy scheduling genius at Netflix who knew that, I mean, there's such a high tension.

And the week before All-Star, which is typically basically a convention for NBA agents anyway. Exactly. It is truly a fascinating movie. There are other great performers in it. Zazie Beetz in particular, I think is great. Sonia Sohn, who people know from The Wire. She is remarkable. Really great.

She's essentially playing a sort of NBA player association stand-in. Michelle Roberts. Yeah, based on Michelle Roberts, yeah. There's a delightful Kyle MacLachlan series of scenes portraying an NBA owner of some kind, though I can't figure out. Do you have any sense

of who that might have been? I got the feeling like it was somewhat supposed to be Dolan because of the family aspect of it. But I think that he's... I'm not sure who he's supposed to be modeled on otherwise because no one is that good-looking and young who owns an NBA team, I don't think. Incredible moment in a sauna with Kyle MacLachlan in this movie. So there are a couple things to note about High Flying Bird that I think are fun.

One, it's entirely shot on an iPhone. This is not the first time Soderbergh has done that. He also did it on the Unsane, which is not as good a movie as High Flying Bird. And he really seems to be enjoying himself with what he's doing in this movie. There are camera angles in the movie that I've never seen before. And that's because he's clearly just like Velcroing a phone to a ceiling and then shooting a movie, which is kind of an amazing technical. He breaks the line a lot.

Like he'll jump the axis in a conversation two or three times. It's really disorienting. But because it's essentially two hours of a monologue, you know, I mean, there's other people talking, but essentially it's other people talking, but essentially it's like Andre Holland, they take the safety off in the first scene. And then if he's not talking, he's walking.

It's true. It's a lot of watching Andre Holland walk across New York. This movie was written by a playwright. Yes, 100%. It is a very chatty, very talky movie. But the other thing that I think that using a phone allows, particularly is we get to see the wide expanse of a city because you don't have to get a permit to shoot a movie like this necessarily. It's a lot easier to capture Andre Holland stalking the streets of Midtown in New York,

which would be so hard to do now and so expensive. And Soderbergh is really crafty. Now, I'm sure they got the permits or whatever. It's Netflix. But you can see that there's some trickery going on here that other filmmakers couldn't accomplish. So I love that about it. And I also want to note, Adam Naiman pointed this out to me, which I thought was very wise. There's a plot angle in this movie about sort of who has the rights to player performance. That is to say like

networks pay to air NBA games. And the idea of Netflix or a streaming service coming along and buying those rights so that a player could play in a one-on-one tournament or a three-on-three tournament or a different version of NBA basketball is kind of at the center of the conflict of the movie. And that is also the conflict that Steven Soderbergh is at right now. Because Steven Soderbergh, his last couple of movies, I'm sure we'll talk about them a little bit. He made this very bold gambit to release them with a company called Bleaker Street. And he tried to take much more control over the marketing rollout and strategy around releasing a movie, not just making it, but how it got into theaters, how they promoted it. You know,

the marketing budget for movies is usually somewhere between 20 to $40 million, especially mid-tier movies. He was saying that's too much. We don't need to spend that much. Recently on the Bill Simmons podcast, Steven Soderbergh admitted that he was wrong that in fact, he thought he had cracked the code with logan. Lucky And nobody went to go see logan. Lucky, even though I think it's kind of in the conversation for I don't know top 15 soderbergh movie very fun movie, um with movie stars and I can you can see him using terrell alvin mccraney's script to kind of work out his feelings about, you know, where should a movie be? Where should sort of the rights to my creativity live? And what's the best way to disperse those things? Which I thought was such a cool self-referential thing, which I'm sure

as we'll talk about is something Soderbergh does in all of his movies. Yeah. I mean, one of the most exciting things, and we're going to be getting into this obviously about Soderbergh as a filmmaker, and it's like any great filmmaker, is that it makes you think about other stuff. So I've read a couple of different reviews of pieces of writing about High Flying Bird. A.A. Dowd was talking about how this works as part of a trilogy about the body with Magic Mike and Girlfriend Experience.

I've read some people talking about how this is obviously, he's still hung up on not getting to make money ball he was fired from money ball or left money ball and that this is essentially like there's a couple of things in high flying bird that are in uh where he is intending to do in money ball essentially doing interviews with real people from the industry so there's interviews in high flying bird with donovan mitchell and carl anthony towns and reggie jackson, all NBA players talking about what it was like when they first got into the league. So it's just, it's a great text. I loved, it was a really cool movie to see and to think about.

It really is. Any other thoughts on High Flying Bird, Amanda, before we start sharing these top fives? Well, I just wanted to go back and we'll talk about this in the movies, but the point about how Soderbergh is really enjoying himself, which is really palpable in this movie. On the Bill Simmons podcast, he had a lot of questions about the NBA. He's clearly a basketball fan, definitely knows more than I do. I learned from that podcast and then like tried those takes out on other people and they were like, no. But we'll talk about this in his filmography more generally, but Soderbergh likes to try things out. He's always experimenting.

He's like, what if we made this type of movie? What if I did it with this camera? What if I, you know, he moves really quickly and likes to try things. But he is most successful when he pairs that with like an actual enthusiasm. And, you know, his films are a little wry and a little distant. So you don't always think of it as like enthusiasm with a lot of exclamation points. But he really and I think this is something that we all relate to him. He's like a real culture nerd.

He really like gets interested in things and wants to dig in. I'm obviously the culture diaries are our favorite things of like of all time. And I do want to talk about those. But he's just like reading and consuming and listening. And this was a great reminder of like when the stars align and when he's both trying some stuff, but like really juiced in on the topic. It's pretty transcendent. Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, there's so much to work through in his filmography. Five years ago, Chris and I wrote a piece for Grantland that essentially, I don't know, categorically analyzed Soderbergh's movies. And a lot has changed since then. He's

made four movies since then. He's made four movies since then. He's made, I think, another season of The Nick. And he has another movie coming out, I think later this year, called The Laundromat, which is essentially about the Panama Papers. And that's a big kind of, that feels like him doing traffic to me for the first time in a long time.

So maybe we'll have to just do this podcast all over again at the end of this year. I'm psyched. Let's do top fives. Amanda, why don't you start? I suspect we're going to have plenty of crossover. So when we do on to just do this podcast all over again at the end of this year. I'm psyched. Let's do top fives. Amanda, why don't you start? I suspect we're going to have plenty of crossover. So when we do on these top five podcasts, we'll use that as an opportunity to share all of our feelings

so we're not repeating ourselves. Okay. Number five, Amanda Dobbins. I'm going with Erin Brockovich. You want my number? I do. How about this for number six? That's how old my daughter is.

Eight is the age of my son. Two is how many times I've been divorced. 16 is the number of dollars I have in my bank account. I'm so glad we got that out of the way. Nice. Great. I don't have that on my list. Okay, I figured.

That's part of the reason it's on here. A couple things. I really like when Soderbergh just does smart genre. I think that's his greatest skill, and we'll talk a lot about that. And I love a legal thriller. Is it a thriller? It's i love a legal thriller or is it a thriller it's more of a detective case if you will yeah and it is also a bit of the you know harried underestimated woman who uh transcends i also like the in joke in that movie

that it's like julia roberts who is underestimated there is always a little bit i mean you know no you're right. And High Flying Bird is really interesting in this. It's like a pretty earnest movie. There are beliefs and ideals in it and there are in all of his movies, but he's never like really corny about it, if that makes any sense. So I like that it's just like Julia Roberts tits out while being like crusading for the people of the community. And then the movie star of it all he just I mean the performances that he gets out of anyone but especially just big watt movie stars that's my favorite thing and you know this is like Julia emerging onto the scene and obviously Ocean's Eleven is going to be somewhere on all of our lists and I think that's like slightly a better performance, but it's fine. It

it's like Pretty Woman, but 20 years later, I like the meta quality of the Julia Roberts performance. And you get the feeling he thinks about movie stars the way like William Goldman did. Like he has that kind of depth of understanding of the public perception of a movie star and how to tweak it just enough so that you're like, oh, I haven't seen Julia Roberts like this before, but also that is definitely Julia. So it's like, I'll make it look Sandy and inland empire, but it's definitely Julia Roberts.

It's sort of the most Julia Roberts. It's not her at her. It's, it's maximal Julia Roberts. And it's, I think it's also maximal Aaron Eckhart's hair and beard. And it's also, it's a very good late period Albert Finney performance too.

I completely agree. He is, is he the greatest director of movie stars alive? I think you could make that argument. I definitely think you could make that argument. I think there's something to it. Because even in his like less successful films, you know, we talked about Logan Lucky. Those, that's two pretty darn interesting performances

from Daniel Craig and Adam Driver. know what I mean like he's still kind of doing this Howard Holland is not a movie star but he knows how to amplify and almost like I don't know almost make a caricature out of what we love about a person yes but still also glorify it and like give it room to breathe. He's really self-aware. And I don't know whether I relate to Steven Soderbergh movies because he's really self-aware or just because I learned to watch movies by watching a lot of Steven Soderbergh movies and he trained me to expect that in a movie.

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, our generation has basically been taught how to do the kind of iterative, almost like meta version of movie making because he is that kind of guy. Yeah, yeah. You know, just one observation is, I feel like I really relate to the way that he does things.

Not that I know how to do it this way, but I like the idea of a clinical version, a fun version of the clinical. You know, that there's something very organized about everything he's doing. You can see the way he's thinking in his movies, even though they have like fizz and pep. Yeah. You know, Chris, what's your number five?

So you guys were talking earlier about with High Flying Bird, about how it's obvious that Soderbergh's having fun making this movie. And I'm going to pick a movie number five in which he did not have fun. And that's Che Part One, The Argentine. What is the most important quality for a revolutionary to possess? El amor. Love. Love.

Love of humanity. Of justice and truth. A real revolutionary goes where he is needed. Which is unlike any... Amanda, is that your number one? It's kind of unlike any historical biopic I've ever seen. It's basically when you look at your dad

and he's just on page 470 of his seventh Theodore Roosevelt biography. That's what this movie is. But there is this kind of magic that happens inside this movie where it's like you'd basically take this icon of the 20th century who's on t-shirts and has just become completely divorced from his own actual accomplishments in life. And you just zoom in and zoom in and zoom in and zoom in. And it's like, oh, it's a bunch of guys in a dining room in Havana drinking tea. And now they're

in the mountains and now like and it's all process and it's all getting up every day and going to work every day and this is a movie that uh Soberg sort of infamously said afterwards that every day I wake up and thank god that I'm not doing that movie anymore because he didn't this was not a dream project for him he took over for Terrence Malick um and basically wanted to get it done for Benicio and so they then they made a four-hour movie that they chopped up into two parts that doesn't really have any like highs or lows or any act structure or anything like that it's essentially chapters of a history book with no widescreen panoramic understanding of what's going on and I kind of was like mesmerized by it last time I saw it.

And I would just say also, speaking of movie stars, it's an incredible does for a performance. I love that one. I haven't seen that movie probably since it came out. I don't think I watched it when we wrote that thing five years ago. It's a big investment. You know, four hours is real. And you're right.

It doesn't have, I think of, you know, we recently obviously watched The Godfather 1 and I immediately felt like I had to watch 2 right afterwards I recall not having that sensation after Che Part 1

I was going to say I don't know that I've ever I definitely haven't finished 2 whether I started it is anyone's guess it's kind of a slog

but it is a fascinating example of his willingness to sort of for lack of a better word commit to the bit you know he really he goes all in

my number 5 is Ocean's Eleven. It's never been done before. What's the target? When was the last time you were in Vegas? You want to knock over a casino? Three casinos? Oh. So.

Ooh. Wow. What? Nice. Okay. All right. That's fine. That's fine.

I don't know how much we should talk about this because we did an entire rewatchables podcast, me and you and you and Juliette Lippman. So if you want to hear an hour of us talking about Ocean's Eleven, you can certainly get that out in the universe. Though I suspect you guys have some feelings. Where do you have it on your list? Well, we can, why don't we just save this for later in the list? You want to save it?

Yeah. I mean, I'm happy to say where it is on my list. Well, let's wait. Okay. Okay. So number four, Amanda. Ocean's Twelve's wait. Okay. Okay. So number four, Amanda. Ocean's 12, baby. Okay.

We need a job. We need a high-paying job. Well, now we're too hot to work anywhere in this country. Where are we going? Great. Four is actually pretty low. I almost put it on my list as well. Okay.

Why? I'm sorry if you've heard this one before because I really feel like this is my greatest campaign. I think that this is the greatest sequel that has ever been made. Wow. What's better? Well, besides The Godfather 2. We just talked about the greatest sequel of all time.

That doesn't count. The Godfather 2 isn't like a sequel. It's a continuation. You know, it's like this story goes on. I would say Empire, but I feel like you're gonna pick something up and cave in my head if i do terminator 2 okay well fine for you but for me oceans 12 is better that's a good take and what what makes it the best sequel part of it is just

that the ambition and result are totally in line it is is just like, it is a sequel. They have a different heist. The goal is to recreate the fun and the experience of being with movie stars again. That's it. And it's just completely in line and it's actually a movie where a sequel works. I think that the variations they do on it are hilarious.

And particularly, it's all based on the scene of Julia Roberts in the back of the car. So if you haven't seen Ocean's Twelve in a while. So Terry Benedict's goons have finally tracked down George Clooney and they want their money back. And so George Clooney and pals got to do another heist. And it goes wrong. And so Tess, Julia Roberts' Tess, has to come and save the day. And the whole way that she saves the day is a gambit where Tess is pretending to be Julia Roberts.

And it's Matt Damon coaching Tess to be Julia Roberts. And she's like, I don't look anything like her. And then they encounter Bruce Willis as himself. And they're doing a whole bit about being in Taos. And it's just, they're making fun of themselves it's really knowing very funny you're in on the joke and that's the appeal of those movies in a lot of ways you're in on the joke of you're in the gang you're you get to be part of these this crew and hang out with these celebrities and I think it's so clever and then it just like

ends and does it totally does it makes sense the way they explain it it barely comes together but you're like sure why not and underrated Catherine Zeta-Jones

performance and then Catherine Zeta-Jones and Brad Pitt do they ride off into the sunset or is it like a flashback and they ride off

into the sunset I can't believe we're not talking about the Night Fox at all I feel like Vincent Cassell in this movie

is incredible sure and so they're like double villains there are there's the I can't believe we're not talking about the Night Fox at all. I feel like Vincent Cassell in this movie is incredible. Sure. And so they're like double villains. There's a great Cherry Jones performance. Matt Damon gets to shine. There's this scene where they go and they're trying to arrange George Clooney and Brad Pinter pranking Matt Damon by just quoting Led Zeppelin jokes with another guy. It is more of, if Ocean's One is like a, it's a heist movie, but we did some experiments with it, then this like doubles down on the case study. And like, here are all the weird things that we can do because

you already have the baseline understanding of like, oh, this is a fun heist movie with some friends. So one thing about this movie that I've been thinking about recently, as we mourn the sort of desecration of Hollywood over the last 10 years, how it has fallen at the knees of dinosaurs and superheroes, you know, Ocean's 11 and Ocean's 12 and 13 is a remake. It's a reboot. And these are sequels to a reboot. So these are the quote-unquote problem with what we have in Hollywood. They're unoriginal ideas suffused with newish movie stars. But they're incredibly well-made. And they're fun.

And they're well-written. And they're perfectly performed. So we can still do this. Oh, yeah. The biggest thing with the Ocean's movies, too, is that they never insult the intelligence of the audience. Which is something that you can't say for a lot of the superhero and dinosaur movies, is that they actually treat you like a grown-up. I also thought that was something that Oceans 8 didn't do. I thought that Oceans 8 weirdly was not complex enough, and that's one of the reasons why

it wasn't as successful. It had nothing to do with it being an all-female cast or even necessarily with the director. It was sort of like, it felt like a watered-down version of these Oceans movies, and that's why it ultimately doesn't work. Chris, what is your number four? I cheated and put season one of The Nick. And with every blow I land, every extra year I give to a patient, and noted at the very least,

something has been won. Great, go ahead. So just low-key, he directed a 20-hour movie about a hospital. We forget about this. That's just sort of like, not a lot of other directors have done that. Checkmate, Nicholas Winding Refn. It's like, Cary Fukunaga had to go to director jail after he did eight episodes of True Detective. I think he's doing fine.

He's doing fine. So, hidden episodes of True Detective. I think he's doing fine. He's doing fine. So hidden inside of all this, so obviously The Nick is a story of a turn of the century New York hospital and the invention of sort of our more modern surgical and medical techniques starring Clive Owen as this cocaine-addicted doctor who's really pushing the limits of what medicine is capable of doing and whether or not there's an inherent brutality in cutting into people and fixing them. And it's also got a bunch of physician heal thyself stuff. The script for this show was pretty okay. There's a version of

it that would have been on like TNT. It's okay. I definitely don't remember what happened at all. Well, so then you get Clive Owen and you just say, let me turn him up and let him just chatter teeth across the table. Then you got Andre Holland burning around there on the margins. And then Soderbergh essentially is like, I don't really care about the language of television,

visual language of television. So if two people are having a conversation over here, my camera is literally just going to go down the hallway other way, and we're going to hear the conversation, but I'm going to look at these light bulbs because they're pretty interesting. And they would essentially shoot like an unheard of amount of pages per day in New York. And it was just this kind of dazzling fever dream of a show that was on for two years. And, you know, there was always this rumor that his idea for the show going forward was that the Nick would be the star of the show and that they were going to do like a version in the seventies and a version in the eight,

you know, like, and basically they would have this, like either a rep theater company or, or new actors come in and be doctors in these different time periods in New York. And obviously they felt like they couldn't make that work for a variety of reasons. But that first season in particular is kind of a perfect gem. And it's amazing to see. I think that's where he really starts to exercise a lot of the muscles that you see him doing in the last couple of years. You see it in High Flying Bird. There's a couple of scenes where like two people are having a character, but Z Beats is the person in the frame and she's not talking. And it's just like a 45 second reaction shot of her until they finally mention her. And she's like, yeah.

But that happens a lot in the Nick where there's like a conversation that would be if I had to just watch this straight, I'd get kind of bored after a while. But because he's now watching someone clean out water pans while these two robber barons talk about whether or not the Carnegie's are in town. We're bedpans. You get the kind of idea of like, oh, he's playing with all these different ideas at once. This is really a dad history list of Soderbergh. That's fine. I think that's good. You're doing dad history. I'm doing movie star. That's great. And I'm doing obsession with genre. My number four is also a cheat. It's three movies, which I don't like to do. Fuck it. It's my podcast. So this is the informant, contagion, and side effects. Now, I don't think that on their own, all three of these movies are better than Ocean's Eleven, so don't get it twisted. But this is the Scott Z. Burns trilogy, the screenwriter who collaborates

with Steven Soderbergh frequently in fact uh the laundromat his forthcoming movie is written by scottsy burns scottsy burns is also the director of a movie coming out later this year called the report which debuted at sundance that is about the cia scottsy burns and tony gilroy are kind of the alpha and the omega of the greatest living screenwriters in the eyes of many right now i pick these three movies because i think that they do something that is pretty remarkable which is steven sooderbergh paying homage to a certain kind of genre that he loves while making it his own movie. The Informant is very much a kind of Hal Ashby, 70s oddball, tonal comedy drama. It's based on a real life story about an executive at a food company, essentially a corn company, who has been

essentially manipulating the FBI and his own company to defraud everyone. It's definitely in my top three Matt Damon performances. It's such a funny, strange movie. It reminds me a lot of Being There. It's like being there on acid. It's just very up. And the movie's title ends in an exclamation point,

and that kind of tells you everything you need to know about it. Steven Soderbergh doesn't strike me as the kind of person who uses a lot of exclamation points in his emails. But nevertheless, there's something very arch and wonderful about the movie. Contagion is definitely his homage to the kind of China Syndrome outbreak 70s disaster movie. It features the single greatest shot of Gwyneth Paltrow of all time. That's rude. What does Damon say? She had a fever. She had a what does she have

fever she had a cold that's so fucked up I sat in the front row of the movie theater for that somehow and yikes wait cause that's like

when he goes in and they're like yeah we lost her and he's like what do you mean you lost her it's simultaneously very tense

but also kind of a commentary on stardom you know it's him just murdering movie stars with this influenza outbreak that takes over the world.

And Gwyneth specifically, that's in like 2011, which is kind of the first wave of like true Gwyneth backlash. Definitely. And he seems to sense like how to put people in a position. He's tapped in.

Steven Soderbergh's always tapped in. It also features kind of some early deep thoughts about vlogging. I don't know if you remember Jude Law's character in that movie. Yeah. Who's kind of a proto Breitbart. He's kind of some early deep thoughts about vlogging. I don't know if you remember Jude Law's character in that movie. Yeah. Who's kind of a proto Breitbart kind of. He's kind of Alex Jones.

I mean, in many ways, he's Alex Jones. And that movie looks, I don't know about insightful about the forthcoming influenza outbreak that's hitting this country, but certainly insightful about the way that we communicate about terrorizing things. You know, there is a panic around that movie that it feels very insightful. And then side effects, I don't even know if I like side effects, but I like that

Steven Soderbergh made side effects. I fucking love watching side effects. I had a great time. So side effects is sort of his homage to the Adrian Lyon 80s,

you know, I guess erotic film. From hell, yeah. Yeah, woman from hell movie that... Starring the only true Mara. You know,

we could, we could do, let's do a Kate versus Rooney podcast another day. Sure. I think this is a good Rooney Mara performance. I think it's a very good Channing Tatum performance. It's kind of like the schmuck, you know,

I love the schmuck in these movies, Richard Gere and Michael Douglas and the guy who you're like, that guy's handsome and he seems to have it all. And then he is, he has failed quite quickly by not realizing who he's surrounded by. So those three movies together, I think, comprise this super interesting approach that Soderbergh takes to basically bygone tropes of moviemaking, which is one of the reasons why he's so great. Number three, Amanda. Magic Mike. Good evening. You live here? Yeah. Yeah? What's your name?

Kim. Kim, can you move back for me, please? We keep getting complaints of noise and underage drinking. Everybody sit down. We're going to be here for a while. You don't have anything sharp on you that I can stick myself with, do you? No. Good. Because I do. Great. Again, I mean, you know, we don't have to belabor the star quality thing because it's pretty obvious at this point.

And the Channing Tatum of it all is like one of the great gifts that Steven Soderbergh has given to us. I think you can say it's like step up and then Steven Soderbergh created Channing Tatum. And Channing Tatum has like, frankly, not done as well since he left the Steven Soderbergh orbit. I think I was watching clips of Magic Mike this morning before we did this podcast, which is like a quite a way to start your morning. I do recommend it. I also think that YouTube could really put a few more of those dances on its service, though I wondered whether it just like veered too close to porn. And so they pulled them. Have you seen YouTube recently? But they're like really, they're not available as easily as they should there's like a guy smoking a bowl of

measles on on youtube i can't believe they're gonna keep magic mike from you um but you know there's the physicality and that like the way that he is able to capture, I mean, obviously it's appealing dancing, but also the athleticism of what they're doing. And especially Channing Tatum is really remarkable. And there's just like a real energy to the way that it's performed. And it's like you feel like you're there. He's creating an atmosphere that's, again, like quite electrifying early in the morning, but also really impressive. I mean, I had forgotten that movie was such a phenomenon. That was only seven years ago, and now it's really burned into our brain.

And it pretty much sets him up for this second part of his career. Yeah. Because you have to imagine, I think that he and Tatum were basically like, we're going to do this for free for points. Yeah. And the other guys were working at scale and that was a gigantic hit. I think it was his first kind of low budget bet that paid off. Yeah.

I think the budget was about $7 million and it made $170 million. And also there's a sequel to this movie. And a musical, right? And a musical, yeah. So he created another kind of universe. You know, he's amazing. I really like Magic Mike.

I haven't seen it, I don't think, since it came out. I'd like to see it again soon chris haywire she is our nation's most valuable weapon you got a car uh you guys know that meme where it's like timothy chalamet run me over with your car it's like gina carano choke like put me in a sleeper hold like uh and i say that and then i'm also gonna say that like this is like maybe my favorite collection of like dudes other than ocean is 11 in a in a soderbergh movie where it's ewan mcgregor michael fastbender michael douglas channing tatum and antonio banderas and bill paxton. And it has maybe my single favorite scene in a Soderbergh movie that's not in my top two movies,

which is the diner scene with Channing Tatum and Gina Carano and Michael Arrigano where Channing Tatum is like, I'm fucking hungover. And he's like, really does look hungover. And then he and Gina Carano just spend five minutes beating the ever-loving shit out of each other but I've seen hundreds and hundreds of fight scenes in my life that's not a brag and in person this is the first time you ever this is one of the first times I've been like what would

happen if two superheroes actually fought in a diner like what would happen if two trained killers actually started fighting in a diner. And it's low-key fascinating because the waitress gets involved. The waitress hits Channing Tatum with the coffee pot and Michael Angano jumps on him when he's about to shoot her. And it's this incredible fight. And then he tops it with the Fassbender-Gina Carano fight in the hotel room.

The script is by Lem Dobbs, who also wrote The Limey and also wrote Kafka. So as a frequent collaborator with Soderbergh and is obviously tapped into the part of Soderbergh that just wants to make Get Carter and make 70s espionage and crime movies. But in terms of basically subverting and also paying homage to a genre, I don't know if it gets better than this, this is essentially like his Bourne movie. And it,

in a lot of ways is as good as any Bourne movie. I love that. I would highly advise people rewatch the Fassbender fight scene too. That is the all time. Like this is actually what it's like when a woman throws you over her shoulder into a table. Like it, it feels,

are you speaking from personal experience there? I will say that this is an extraordinary segue into my number three, which is sex, lies, and videotape. I think there are a lot of women out there that would be glad to have a young, straight male making a pretty good living. Sex, lies, and videotape falls firmly into my theory about great filmmakers' first films,

which is you can pretty much figure out everything you need to know based on this movie. It doesn't mean that it shows them at their best, but it does show what they're interested in and how they apply their thoughts to the world. I certainly am a believer, and I don't mean this as an insult, so I understand why it would be received as such, but the filmmakers of this era who emerged strongly, particularly Soderbergh, David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, that sort of grouping, Paul Thomas Anderson in some respects, Spike Jonze in some respects, that kind of Wes Anderson, that white guy brigade of geniuses who kind of came out of Sundance in the early 90s are all perverts. Now, they're... I can't believe that you're taking this public. It's not... Pervert is... We talk about this a lot in our private lives.

I don't mean this in the kind of clinical or criminal sense. I mean this in the sense that they are, the idea of perversion is appealing to them and the people in the world who take what we hold to understand to be pure and natural and normal, and they twist it and they fuck with it. David Fincher's first movie is Alien 3. Spike Jonze's first movie is Being John Malkovich.

Wes Anderson's first movie is Bottle Rocket. And Quentin Tarantino's first movie is Res 3. Spike Jonze's first movie is Being John Malkovich. Wes Anderson's first movie is Bottle Rocket. And Quentin Tarantino's first movie is Reservoir Dogs. And Steven Soderbergh's first movie is Sex, Lies, and Videotape. And in all of those movies,

you basically see a version of humanity corrupted. And you see people breaking the laws, not the sort of governmental laws, but the human laws. Yeah, the social contract.

And that is absolutely what these people are interested in. And Sex, Lies, and Videotape, while it is not necessarily the most dazzling work, it doesn't have any of the effervescence of Erin Brockovich or that charm of Ocean's Eleven, but it has all these ideas about what guys who, all they want to do is just like watch VHS cassettes all day and jerk off, like really are about.

And it's also about really like genuine human relationships. Welcome to Marwen, Amanda. So I hope if some sort of Steven Soderbergh friend or acolyte is listening to this, they don't mistake my point. My point is just that it's amazing how much of yourself you can put into a movie even if it's about disgusting people

and I think this is such an amazing evocation of that and I would encourage people to re-watch Sex, Lies, and Video because it was made for like no money and it basically reset

the conversation for the Sundance Film Festival and also for maybe my sense of reality as a young man when this movie came out Amanda number two I mean this is predictable but out of sight no bills off the bottom of the drawer please it's your first time

being around you're doing great thank you have a nice day you too so this is my number one yeah i my number one yeah i assumed that it would be your number ones and i think everyone can now guess what my number one is uh should we just do it would be your number ones. And I think everyone can now guess what my number one is. Should we just do... Is it Kafka? I don't know. It's actually Bubble. Wow, you never really get a Chris reaction like that. So we should just do like two versus one, I guess.

Great. My number one is Ocean's Eleven. And yours is Out of Sight. I mean, Out of Sight is a perfect movie. And is when Soderbergh kicks into high gear as a filmmaker. It's like he figures out basically everything. He figures out how to work with actors and get amazing performances.

He launches a couple movie stars. He figures out the genre thing and just how to subvert it and how to modernize it. He figures out how to make movies that people want to watch, which comes and goes, I guess, throughout the next 10 years. I really do think it's perfect. And the only reason I put it at number two is because I think Ocean's Eleven represents the qualities in Soderbergh that I value more, which is that sense of enjoyment, that fizz, that efficiency. And we're here because we're interested, but we

also want to have a nice time. I think that, you know, I mentioned his culture diary where he just like consumes a huge amount of stuff. It's, you know, I don't know how it's totally possible and it's really impressive, but he likes movies. He's interested. He studies them. He's obviously like technically extremely gifted and knowledgeable, but at the end of the day, he's like, you know what?

It's not a movie if it's not fun to watch. Yeah. And so that's the Ocean's Eleven thesis for me. And that's why I put it at number one because I think more filmmakers should have that attitude. I don't know. Maybe that's just what makes Soderbergh special and he can have it and everyone else can be boring. I would never draw that this is what the difference between boys and girls is line.

But there is something about Out of Sight being a boys movie and Ocean's Eleven being a little more interesting to women. You know, that's very simplistic. a boys movie and Ocean's Eleven being a little more interesting to women you know that's very simplistic but I suspect Chris that Out of Sight a big part of

the Out of Sight appeal maybe slightly over a movie like Ocean's Eleven which is also a perfect movie I mean they're both perfect movies is the kind of Elmore Leonard

crime caper aspect of it that is so resonant for us did you grow up reading Elmore Leonard Amanda yeah I mean

so for Chris and I that's like sacred text. That's true, but I think it's the most deeply romantic Soderbergh movie. And I think there's an argument to be made about it versus Oceans, obviously.

Wait, more so than that Gwyneth Paltrow shot I was talking about? She went in with a cold! The scene in the Detroit hotel where he walks up to her with the lighter is like, it's not only like, is it like,

oh, that's Jane Fonda, Robert Redford level. It's like better with the lighter is like it's not only like is it like oh that's Jane Fonda Robert Redford level it's like better than that because I think it's someone who's in his head making a scene that's like with Jane Fonda Robert Redford or with Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart but it's it's like actually better written it actually like that scene the what if scene like is is like one of the five best scenes I've ever seen in my life and I she is so good in that scene where she's like my name is Celeste yeah it's such a magical magical movie moment and then you kind of just go back out the ripple effect out from that there's no bad there's no bad moment in this movie and then if you try to describe like if I just grab somebody I was like

here's this movie and I was like oh by the way Louise Guzman, Catherine Keener, Michael Keaton, Don Cheadle, Viola Davis, like Steve Zahn like everybody who's just in the far like just corners of this movie then you get to Albert Brooks, George Clooney, Ving Rhames, Nancy Allen, Dennis Farina. Yeah it's just like every single person is throwing 99 to 100 miles per hour and Soderbergh fucks with it just enough to make it interesting for him with the time jumping and a little bit of the shifting. Because I think that they wrote that script straight, just as like, here's an Elmore Leonard crime paper. But he's jumping from prison to prison to this escape to that escape to his job interview a year later or whatever. It just is the perfect marriage of all these different sensibilities. I just it's so emotionally rewarding every time I see that movie but that being said I've probably seen Ocean's Eleven more times than any movie other than Jaws uh and

I'm never bored and I'm always just absolutely thrilled with every single part of that movie so I feel like I can't talk about that without just literally repeating myself some of it is like greatness versus watchability not that out of sight is not no i know i know exactly there's just like an ease of entry in oceans 11 just like starts and you're along for the ride and it really moves and that's another thing i really like about soderbergh like he keeps it moving yeah that's an efficient ass individual yes like in the approach that he takes to filmmaking, like both within the film and also like he makes however many movies a year.

And I think you compare the two because it's like arguably the love story at the heart of Oceans is Brad Pitt and George Clooney rather than George Clooney and Julia Roberts. But in terms of color palette, in terms of working with David Holmes with the music, in terms of the kind of rat-a-tat dialogue that is like

part 50s noir and part Robert Altman mash and then also Aaron Sorkin-y, more contemporary stuff. They kind of really do go together hand-in-hand, Oceans and Out of Sight. So that's why I think it's such a photo finish for me. I think that those are ultimately the two movies he'll be

remembered for too, which is funny because he made Traffic and Aaron Brockovich in the same year. He won a Best Directing Oscar against himself. He was nominated twice in the same category and didn't split the vote. That's how strongly people felt about Traffic, which at the time people were like, a master has reached his pinnacle,

which of course was not true in many ways. But I do think that in sort of the arc of critical and even just like emotional watching history, Out of Sight and Ocean's Eleven exist on that plane. I think Sex, Lies, and Videotape is there too, just because of the origin myth. But, you know, I put The Limey at number two, which is not at all in this frame of conversation.

And I would never be so bold as to say like, The Limey is more watchable than oceans 11. I think oceans 11 is a little bit more watchable than out of sight and out of sight is a little bit more great than oceans 11. And that's kind of what differentiates them as Amanda was saying, but the limey much like those Scott Z Burns movies is kind of representative of another kind of movie that he makes and makes really well,

which is kind of a man on a mission movie. And that also, we can use that as an opportunity to kind of talk about High Flying Bird again. He likes to focus on people, Aaron Brockovich is very much the same way, who are bound and determined to accomplish their goal. And he has this incredible way,

and it doesn't really matter what the person is. If the person is a crusading lawyer, if the person is a contract killer, come to seek revenge. If a person is a crusading lawyer, if the person is a contract killer come to seek revenge, if a person is looking for a bag of money, he really is able to just capture

obsession because he's obsessed and he is completely obsessed by his own movies. He's completely obsessed by other movies. He's obsessed by story and character

and people. And the limey does the same thing that I think High Flying Bird does which is like it kind of doesn't make sense sometimes and it's a little bit all over the place in a way, but it never loses your attention. And the confusion doesn't really ultimately matter to your enjoyment of the movie. Maybe let's use this as a chance to talk about the ending of High

Flying Bird, which, you know, for those of you who haven't seen it, I would turn this podcast off right now, but we were coming close to the end, so we're going to do it. Okay. What didn't you understand? I don't understand why he had to sacrifice his relationship with Eric. Like, I got what he did,

which was essentially create this, like, huge storm to get the two sides to agree so that Eric could start getting paid again. And then, by proxy, like, Sam would get catapulted into this new world and everything, but I didn't quite understand when Sam's like he's gonna fire you and he's like of course that like it seemed like that was the plan and I just didn't quite grasp that uh lamb to slaughter I think was the idea

you know it's like was it like that was the plan or was it like that was a collateral damage of my whole thing that was my understanding my understanding of it was that this wouldn't threaten his business long term, losing Eric, and that he'd be able to recover from that, and he would make it clear to his agency. I can't remember the name of the... SAV, yeah. The fake CAA. Yeah. And that it would be understood by Zachary Quinto that Andre Holland's character is invaluable

because of his ability to pull off a machination like this. So, you lose a client, so be it. what didn't you understand what was the part well i guess why did it take him six months to do this you know because it's suddenly like they've been in a lockout for almost six months and then he gets like one meeting in the corner zachary quinto is like you gotta fix it and then he's just like i can see all the pieces yeah come together and they cut his i think they cut his corporate cards right and everything

so I think it only just occurred to him in that period of time I think from when the movie starts is when he realizes he has to do this I think I just wasn't clear whether there were some

other aspects of the plan that had been in the previous six months that I didn't really understand because of like basketball right I think it had it's interesting

because I thought that the sort of key ideas about the NBA were primarily trapped in 2013. It felt like a movie that was kind of written five years ago. Oh yeah. But that bigger idea of Netflix wants to pay for the rights to basketball is real. We're coming. We're getting real close to that. We're probably 18 months away from that conversation getting really loud. And that's going to be another thing that's just like Steven Soderbergh's foresight,

you know? Yeah. It was interesting to be, Chris and I saw it at Netflix. So it was interesting to be sitting in the building when those things, like those lines started happening.

That was the only thing that was confusing to me was just like that and they're like, you know, they were going to blackball me in that scene and he's like,

obviously letting this kid have it. I thought maybe it was because like now you understand like otherwise we were just always gonna have this situation where I'm gonna come bail you out of these like you you get alone and you do this stupid thing and you do that stupid thing and I'm constantly bailing you out but I couldn't understand why that needed to be the end point and while I thought Zizi Beetz was phenomenal in this movie i wasn't quite sure the maneuvering of her into becoming essentially an ex-myra it was i was just a little bit like in the dark about but i think that i'm it that's how heist movies work is you're like wait a second they they had a mask on the whole time like that's like kind of like this straight you're saying steven soderbergh is canceled? Wait, can I just ask one more question just about the plan?

Yes. This is like non-expert Amanda asking the questions. When will expert Amanda be showing up? I meant, and that's so nice. At least you believe she exists. The streaming and the games that pop up, like the one-on-one game that's seen 24 million times and then there's that scene with comic lachlan in the and some other dude and they're like there's a game in vegas and then there's like another three on three in miami

and so the threat to the league is can we play that out a little bit is it just that they a breakaway league, essentially. Okay. That they would start developing this, like, interest in these guys who were, like, just happening to show up in places and play basketball because there's a lockout, so they're not contractually obligated to, like, honor certain things. And that there would be a breakaway league, which I think is... They don't get much into the economics of basketball except for I think the

sauna scene or maybe and then some of the scenes with Sonia Stone and and um Kyle McLaughlin where they're like we we're the reason everybody watches and then owners are like but we have to pay for like the vendors and this and the the food services and the bathrooms and we have to send you on planes and buses and pay for the doctors and when you get hurt, like we eat the money and all that stuff. Like that's what owners say for why they deserve the 49 or 50% split that they have now. But, you know, I think of it like this, the team owners are the traditional movie studios and they have a very defined way of doing things and they run the industry. And there's a feeling that they are not doing things correctly and there's a better way now if filmmakers try to go out much like if

nba players try to go out and start their own league without any infrastructure they're not going to be able to do it hence steven soderbergh failing with logan lucky he tried to essentially do it on his own and it didn't work but maybe there's a new way to use those levers of power to succeed with a new paradigm, which is Netflix. And this is like a really self-congratulatory film if you look at it through that lens. Because, of course, this movie debuted today on Netflix. Guys, you want to do any honorable mentions? I really wanted to put this on my list, but I couldn't. Chris last night posed the exercise of what if we just...

What if you had knocked out of sight Notions 11 off the list? And I would have put Contagion and Side Effects together as one, I think, but Sean covered that. I was trying to think

if there was anything else. No one mentioned Traffic. Yeah, that was interesting. Traffic was going to be like six or seven for me, which is a movie I hated when it came out and have come to really adore. Well, I thought Soderbergh on Bill's podcast.

He answered the question about like. Could this be on Netflix now or would it be a miniseries? And he was just like, yeah, it's Narcos. And I mean, credit to Steven Soderbergh for making Narcos or making a better version of it. Narcos is no traffic. Yeah. A much better version of it. What, 20 years before Narcos or making a better version of it. Narcos is no traffic. Yeah. Just putting that out there. Right. A much better version of it. What, 20 years before Narcos?

Yeah. But, you know, we have. Narcos needs more Topher Grace. Right. Sure. Doesn't everything. He's in one scene. He's very, very funny and traffic.

Any other honorable mentions? No? I mean, I know I mentioned the Culture Diary, but I really, that shit's so good. Yeah. It's amazing. He's Diary, but I really, that shit's so good. It's amazing. He's like reading, this year alone, all the novels that Steven Soderbergh read, seek those out.

They're great. I haven't read all of them, but the ones I read were fantastic. And the other thing related, I guess this is just like Steven Soderbergh's public persona, but when Chris was talking about the Nick, I just Googled his responses to Studio Notes on the Nick. I just Googled his responses to studio notes on the Nick. I seek that out. It's really, really great. He does a line by line response.

Really? And, oh, you've never seen this? No. Wow. This is going to be like a whole new blogging zone for you. I would say I just want to shout him out as a producer and as a person who recognizes and promotes like other talent especially the first season uh the first i guess the first two

years of of girlfriend experience this show which was you know i think i i really liked but is a hard show to love uh because of what it depicts and and tone of it, but especially the stuff, you know, where he's working with Amy Simons, he's working with Scott Frank on Godless. He worked with Spike Lee. You know, he's a really, really, really big voice when it comes to supporting filmmakers. I'd also like to shout him out as a liquor master. He is also the purveyor of, I have, Singani 63,

which is a Bolivian liqueur that is white muscat of Alexandria grape that is mixed into a clear and mixable spirit. Perhaps we should get some Singani 63 for the ringer offices. Available. Maybe just to celebrate

this podcast. Amanda Dobbins, Chris Ryan, thank you guys so much. Thanks, John.