The Big Picture - Thirteen Awards Movies to Watch Out for, Oscar Do-Overs, and More From the Mailbag

Episode Date: January 12, 2021

It was a busy streaming weekend. Sean and Amanda break down Part 1 of HBO's 'Tiger,' Netflix's Martin Scorsese and Fran Lebowitz series 'Pretend It's a City,' and a wave of award-season updates (0:40). Then, they dig into the mailbag to answer your questions about Cary Grant, Oscar do-overs, and our dream director interviews (38:45). Finally, Sean is joined by 'Tiger' directors Matthew Hamachek and Matthew Heineman to discuss their miniseries (1:18:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Matthew Hamachek and Matthew Heineman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about whatever your heart desires. Later in the show, I'll be speaking with directors Matthew Hamachek and Matthew Heinemann about their new HBO documentary, Tiger, about the complicated life and career of golfer Tiger Woods. But first, Amanda and I will talk about Tiger, pretend it's a city, the Oscar race, and then we'll dig into the mailbag. It's all coming up. Before we get into the mailbag, a couple things over the weekend hit in the world of movies. First thing I want to talk to you about is the thing I spoke to the directors of this documentary

series about, which is Tiger, Tiger Woods. Now, you know, as a friend of mine and a podcast partner, that I am an avid golfer and a fan of the sport golf. You are not a fan of the sport golf, though your partner is. And so golf is in your life, but not truly of your life. What do you know about Tiger Woods and what were you expecting heading into this documentary? Well, in addition to being one of the greatest golfers in history and certainly one of the best athletes of the 21st century, that the correct century, yes. Which I do know about because athletes at that level become pop cultural figures. And I'm interested in pop culture, even if I'm not interested in my husband lecturing me about what type of iron Tiger Woods

is using, which is like a personal hell that I live in on a daily basis. So I know a lot about him as like a pop culture athlete. And then obviously he has a pop cultural significance, all of his own because of the events that he went through in the public eye at the end of the last decade and really honestly for the last decade. Yeah. And so I think that this series is an interesting gambit on HBO's part. It's clearly inspired slash based on a book that came out in 2018 by Jeff Benedict and Armin Katayan. And it's an attempt to make sense in real time of probably the most significant American athlete barring LeBron James and Michael Jordan, I would say, of the last 25 years. Maybe Serena Williams is in that conversation. I think

it's a very short list of people that Tiger is kind of hanging with in the last quarter century and the film is tricky because they've only aired part one thus far part two airs next sunday and so i don't think you can necessarily spoil a film like this but it depends on what kind of a viewer you are if you're very engaged in the tiger wood story and his life I don't think that this film necessarily will teach you a lot about the events of his life. There are not a lot of revelations. I think there are some emotional revelations. There are some, there's some, um, I guess thematic framing that maybe you wouldn't necessarily put together if you weren't deeply entrenched in his story. The movie, especially the first half of the movie takes great pains to portray this father and son story and to show Earl Woods,

his father as the kind of Dr. Frankenstein and making Tiger Woods into this kind of Frankenstein monster for better and for worse. And that he's incredibly powerful, but there's like all kinds of emotional danger in his life. I do. I, one thing that struck me as I rewatched part one last night and I watched it with Eileen,

there's a lot of golf highlights in the first half. And there's not a lot of scandal. There's not a lot of, there is some psychology and there is a lot of sort of personal background about how Tiger grew up and who he became. But because he has this sort of monochromatic, monosyllabic experience in the world where we just he never very rarely showed himself to us. Basically, what you get is like 90 minutes of an extraordinary highlight reel dovetailing with the story of a father and a son and what they mean to each other. And I think if you're a casual observer, my my instinct was, is this going to work for people? Now, the second half is a different can of worms, and I don't want to spoil that for people. But in the first half,

did you find yourself having a hard time entering the story? I did also watch this with my husband, the aforementioned golf maniac. And the soundtrack to watching this was every time a golf shot would be shown, Zach would just be like, Whoa, you know, it was like a little gallery of one and he was doing it under his breath. And then I was kind of like, are you aware that this is happening? And he was like, sorry. And then he just kept doing it at like a lower volume. Um, I have to say when you show golf as just a highlight reel of Tiger Woods,

his most incredible shots, way more interesting to me personally, then the stuff that you guys have on the TV on Sunday afternoon, which is so boring. My guy's pretty good at golf. So I enjoyed it in that sense. I agree with you that maybe it's not that I had a hard time accessing it. And another interesting thing is that I do I do think if you know, even a little bit about Tiger Woods, you kind of know about the Earl Woods character. Um, and that is a pretty established part of his pop culture story. It's a, like a big dad, like big character looming dad figure, which is sort of a familiar sports figure and showbiz figure for sure. And greatness. And then the fall, that's kind of what, you know,

and as, as you mentioned, there's a fall there, there is a part two, we won't spoil all of it, but if you are watching this documentary, you probably have some idea of what's going to happen in part two. And they even nod to it at the very end of part one, which is the very last shot shot of a very famous woman, just sidling up to the camera. That's great filmmaking. And I think when the documentary is leaning in to that, not even that side of the story, because it leans into all of the aspects of the story, but when it goes for that bit of flair and narrative tension is when it succeeds. I agree. Part two,

I can confirm is a little bit spicier, but part one, those shots are extraordinary. And at times, it is closer to the endorphin hit of watching a YouTube highlight reel than it is necessarily of a true documentary format. But the filmmakers did speak to a lot of people who were once in Tiger's life. There is this sense that there are some people that are there to protect him. And there are some people that are there who have not spoken to Tiger in between 10 and 20 years

and are airing dirty laundry and are eager to be a part of the narrative of his life. And when you have a figure that is that big, when you have someone that is that famous, that well-known, that exemplary at what it is that they do professionally, there's always going to be people like that. There's always going to be people who are like, I have a story to tell you.

Yeah, and I became a bit more aware of that, of kind of the types of people who agreed to be in this documentary and why. And there are several reasons for that. Number one, just, you know, in your life, you got to be aware of who's agreed to be in this documentary and why. And there are several reasons for that. Number one, just in your life, you got to be aware of who's going to be in a documentary about anything. Just question everyone's motivations. Check your sources. Know where you're getting info always.

That goes for all things in life, OK? But these are people who were willing to sit down for a documentary that Tiger didn't authorize. So that must indicate something. I do also just watch these both as like an obsessive gossip studies person and also like but sometimes I'm a journalist every once in a while. I put that hat on. And so you can feel them brushing up against the limitations of their access, both in terms of Tiger Woods does not

sit for this documentary, and it's clearly not okayed by his camp. So that has logistical, practical ramifications in terms of what you actually see in the documentary, and also a little bit how they're telling the story. Yes. One, the greatest day of my life will be the day when someone asks me to sit for a documentary about you. I think I will revel in the opportunity to tell the truth about who you really are. That's going to be an exciting time for me. Two, you make a great point, which is that obviously the Tiger Woods camp is not on board with this film. In fact, his agent last night issued a statement about this project, which I would say was ungenerous.

And that's not surprising. I don't think that the film is making an attempt to be salacious or tabloidy in a, I don't know, in a way that is unfair in any way. I mean, Tiger's story is kind of salacious, and you'll see that in part two and i don't think that that's necessarily the motivation but there is some complexity and i think we're we have entered this moment as as fans of culture and sports as people who um

idolize in a more significant way the notion of idolatry has come into like stand culture has come into the frame in a very serious way and the idea of protecting those who do things that you love is more significant than it's ever been. And so this is interesting, especially as a contrast of The Last Dance, which was, of course, the last big super sports documentary of recent times that wasn't authorized piece in which Michael Jordan and his compatriots were on board as producers. And so they had a level of control in terms of the execution of the film. Not total control, but you could sense that if there was anything that they deemed out of bounds, that it would be hard to get that into the film and get it onto the air on ESPN.

This film is different and it's a devil's bargain, right? It means you don't get to see Tiger Woods staring into the camera and addressing some of the craziest things that happened to him in his life for good and for ill. But it also means you get to talk about the things that you know he doesn't want to talk about. You know, I think his series of affairs and the accident and the aftermath of his wife learning about his series of affairs, all of that stuff is very well covered territory. The stuff that to me is most interesting in the second half

has more to do with some of the reporting that Wright Thompson did a few years ago about Tiger's pursuit of greatness outside of golf, which is fascinating psychologically and physically in many ways. But it's a very tricky time to be trying to tell stories like this. And I've been thinking about that a lot. It's not easy to put a spotlight on somebody who is beloved and flawed and not get accused of trying to take advantage of their celebrity. And I'm trying to unpack that. I'm just trying to think about that. My husband, in addition to being a golf maniac, is also a

journalist and has some experience of profiling famous people and kind of dealing with the mythology of celebrity. And he said something really insightful while we were talking about this. So I'm going to credit him so he doesn't get mad at me. But he pointed out that in addition to kind of having to walk that balance of not wanting to exploit the celebrity or kind of without kind of cutting off one of the main access you have to the audience and to interest in this person. I don't think that there is an audience who would love to watch like three hours of the National Enquirer aspect of this story, which that comes up in part two. And that is quite memorable.

And I'd love to talk about that guy at another point. But there are people who are obviously interested in all scandals, but I think that's really separate from the people that just want to know about Tiger Woods. And that kind of trying to negotiate that greatness and adulation and also what's happening with him is like the nature of the project itself and also definitely the hardest part of it yeah there's a trickiness here like there's a moment in the near the end of part one where someone in tiger's life insinuates that he cut his father out of his life near the end of his life because his father had a kind of messiness that tiger didn't want to

be close to. There's an attenuation that he had girlfriends, that he struggled with alcohol. And because of this, Tiger, who in addition to being an extraordinary golfer is becoming a humanitarian and a person who has a charity and who is a global brand and means a great deal of money to a series of sponsors can't be seen as someone who is associated with that kind of behavior. There's, of course, a deep and sad irony to that, given everything that happens in the aftermath of it. But there's also no corroboration of that insinuation about Tiger. Someone says it, and when you're in a documentary format like this and not a 700 page book you hear one person saying you think okay i i guess that happened and that's a real challenge in in documentary filmmaking there are clues i was really struck by a moment i believe it's toward

the end of part one um it's the birth of tiger woods's first child and then they show some lovely like photographs of tiger and his wife and the first child that, that were published. And they're talking about his press reticence. And someone is just like, he really hated all the attention, but they do the thing where they're, they show the actual magazine article and you can see some of the text and the text that is visible in the documentary says the photos were taken five days after the birth of the child. And I just want to let everybody know that there is no way that a posed photo shoot is taken five days after the birth of the child. And I just want to let everybody know that there is no way that a posed photo shoot is taken five days after the birth of a child without the participation and not just the participation, but the planning of the people involved. Like,

that's not an accident. They asked to do that. Now, did they try to do that? Because, you know, there is this kind of received wisdom you you like give the official photographs and then people leave you alone and like no matter what you don't have to do it five days after the birth of a child unless you are crafting an image and like there are moments that you do have to look for in this documentary but it is one of those things where like three hours is a really weird length um because you get some of it and if you're looking you can stitch it together but also as you say it goes by very quickly like only one or two people see these things and and and if you're not looking maybe maybe you don't catch it yeah to that

point i think we have become conditioned in part because of oj made in america in part because of the last dance to get this soup to nuts kind of story. And while The Last Dance is ostensibly about one season in the Chicago Bulls run during Michael Jordan's reign, it's really about that whole series of teams over a number of years. And O.J. Made in America is not just a story about OJ Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson and that murder. It's about race in America across 60 years. It's about what fame and a world of high-profile athletics can do to a person and what it means to a person, what it means to America. It's a very weighty and deep story. Three hours, I agree, is a tricky length. And I think rolling it out over this, in this format,

two standalone episodes over two weekends is complicated. It's not because there's a part of me as a fan of golf that just wishes the film spent more time on the Tiger Slam. Just generally like want to see him be amazing for that one year period when there was not a soul on earth that could even come close to him in terms of the sport i mean we'll we probably will never see that again someone operating at that level likewise near the end of the first part of the film the the i believe it's a master's win um maybe it's not a master's and i can't recall which major it is that he wins after

his father's death when he has has the British Open. Thank you. When he has this extraordinary breakdown after he sinks that final putt on the course. I mean, I can't express to you how wild it was to be watching this when it was happening. Just like I can't express to you how wild it was to watch Tiger in 1998. I've never seen anything like that in my life. Where someone, 21-year-old person enters a sport, completely takes it over and no one is even close to as good as him at this sport so there's a part of me that like that loves that stuff that wants that stuff i love sports i love sports docs that are just about how people are great yeah i i will say there's one throwaway quote and it's talking

about how like tiger woods and especially his mom just did not respect phil milk phil mickelson and someone says like phil mickelson is the greatest naturally gifted golfer in the world and then they just like keep moving or whatever and i asked zach about this after the fact because i you know you do want to know more about the sport as a way to understand the achievement also not to step on our next segment, but they're in the Fran Lebowitz, Martin Scorsese docuseries that's out this weekend. It's, you know, it uses a lot of archival clips, including, and there's an interview between Spike Lee and Fran Lebowitz. And it's about whether Michael Jordan is an artist and how we understand sports

and achievement and as art or as like the sublime. And I, you know, I do think those Tiger Woods moments probably are the sublime and to be able to see them again, as Friendly Boys kind of points out is really the only way that you can, like, that's the only record of them so i i can't believe i'm here being like give me more golf i've i just 2021 is worse than 2020 already like we're like 11 days in i've betrayed myself my principles my personal life i will drag you into my vortex every time i can extremely embarrassed and ashamed of myself. But just in order to understand the achievement, I mean, ultimately, as you said, you know, when talking about O.J. Made in America and really, honestly, anything, it's never just

about the thing itself. It's always about larger ideas. And this gets into some of the larger ideas. But I guess if we have to talk about golf, let's talk about golf. Yeah. There's a lot less golf in part two. And maybe we'll catch up on part two next week on a short segment. Because I think that is frankly more in your realm of expertise.

And I think I'm interested in your insight in the way that they portray that story. And the way that sort of tabloid journalism and gossip culture drove a lot of his story over the course of the last 10 years because it totally reshaped it. And now we've kind of come out on the other side. Now, like we're all kind of back to being like Tiger is the greatest. And frankly, he is like his master's win in 2019. It's one of the greatest sports events I've ever seen in my life. And so it's funny the way that life moves in stages. Yeah, it's also a really, really specific moment in tabloid culture and like a thing that never really happened again in the same way. And there are a lot of reasons why that are pretty fascinating that the documentary somewhat

unpacks and that I would like to unpack even more. But it's interesting. Some real characters in part two. Truly. So we'll in part two. Truly. So we'll talk about that next week. You mentioned Pretend It's a City, the Martin Scorsese docu-series about Fran Lee Woods.

I just wanted to talk to you about it briefly here. I don't know how much of it you got a chance to see after I nudged you on it. I inhaled it. I watched all three and a half hours over a very short period of time on Friday.

And as I am wont to do with all Martin Scorsese projects, I want to share a couple of caveats for people who maybe are not familiar with Fran Leawoods. two books of essays, humorous essays in the late 70s and early 80s, and one children's book in the 90s. That, aside from her magazine journalism, is the sum total of her writerly output, though she is frequently identified as a writer. She's also frequently identified as a humorist and observationist of culture in America, and specifically New York. And this is very much a docuseries about New York. Your mileage may vary on Fran Lebowitz. If people are listening and they say, I watched this woman speak for five minutes and she is deeply not for me, I understand.

I do not hold that against anybody. She is a very particular flavor. Having been raised in New York with a family that is from Brooklyn and Queens, Fran Lebowitz is a very familiar figure to me. And so I have a warm place in my heart for her. And I have a warm place in my heart, obviously, for New York and for Martin Scorsese. So this show, to me, Amanda, was wonderful. Was it brilliantly made? Was it ethically and aesthetically perfect? No.

It's actually an interesting example, I think, of a lot of what we've been discussing where it's like, you know, this is kind of overlong and a little messy and a little bit thematically incoherent, but like, I liked it. But even aesthetically, it has real style. It does. And it does feel a little bit like

it is about hanging out with friendly boys, but it is like you're in Marty's mind for a little bit and the choices that he makes and it's pretty loose. But I enjoyed that someone else putting this together, even in its kind of slack form would not have the same effect. I'm a huge believer of the, it's not for me school, uh, as you well know, because like personal taste is personal taste. So I'd support everyone if it's not for you i loved this i it made me

very homesick for new york as well um the city and the people it made me miss two of my friends in particular sean who you know katie and becky who i texted them to be like please watch this they haven't written me back guys if you're listening i love you Watch this show and text me back. But, you know, it also it makes you miss being around people. It's about people being in rooms, talking at each other and sharing completely trivial, ridiculous opinions in a trivial way. There's a frivolity to it that I took as escapism and I felt real nostalgia and yearning for because we are not living in a time of frivolity at all. Major opposite. So to me, it's a treat. I have a few episodes left. I would have watched them all in one sitting, but my golf partner abandoned me.

I think the last episode is the best. So I look forward to talking to you about that. I think it's a good testament to actually what a streaming service can provide, which is sort of the beneficence to great artists on projects that they otherwise would not be able to make. I don't really know. Ten years ago, I had a hard time understanding how this show in this form could happen. There was a Martin Scorsese documentary about Fran Lebowitz in 2010 called Public Speaking that aired on HBO. That was a lot more formalist than this. This features interviews with Scorsese and Ted Griffin, who is a producer in a bar setting. It features

conversations between Scorsese and Lebowitz on stage during an event. It features some of Lebowitz's speaking events. It features archival material of her in conversation with Toni Morrison. It also features these four or five kind of talk show format back and forths in which famous people like Alec Baldwin, Spike Lee, Olivia Wilde interview Fran Leibovitz. It's really, it features these odd segments

in which she's walking through the city that are beautifully shot by Ellen Kuris. It it's really kind of a a hodgepodge it's an omnibus kind of a tv show and i i don't think anybody else could have made it or could have gotten away with making it in this fashion but i'm really glad it exists the other thing i just wanted to say is here's what it reminded me of when we were getting ready to start The Ringer in 2015, my whole thing, in addition to feeling like there was some white space that needed to be filled for the kind of content that we wanted to do,

my general feeling about work over the last 10 years is I would like to support and show the world how clever, entertaining, smart, and useful my friends are. I still believe that. I was like, there should be a platform for these people that I think are great. I always use Chris Ryan as the example. Obviously, Chris, one of the greatest of all time. For the last 20 years, everybody who has been friends with Chris is like, why is Chris Ryan not incredibly famous? Chris Ryan now is achieving a level of fame. I don't want to get too out of control here, but more people know who Chris is than they did 10 years ago. And I can feel in Scorsese the same urges with Fran Lebowitz, where he's just like,

my friend is so cool and funny. Everybody needs to know about my friend. Now, a lot of times when you do this, people find out, oh, actually, I don't like your friend and I wish you would stop throwing your friend in my face. But for me, I thought this was such a generous and cool way of supporting someone he loves. There's real affection in it. And you can feel it. And you can feel like maybe you don't share the affection

for friendly boys. But I do think you could feel the affection just like in the room as this is being made. And if not, that's cool. There's so much else on the internet for you. There is just like, there's so many other things the internet for you there's just like there's so many other things and like you go watch those and I'll watch this and we can

just like be nice to each other and not really have to fight about it I think people will know within five minutes whether this show is for them or not so if it's for you that's wonderful I highly recommend it Amanda let's do a quick Oscars update I think next week we will begin a formal return

to the Oscars show format where we will look at races. We will do stock up, stock down. Maybe Hark will make a return. We'll get some takes going. We're getting close to that moment when a lot of this stuff is happening. This feels like what November was last year right now, which is to say we've seen a lot. We haven't seen everything or the world hasn't seen everything.

The narratives are calcifying. Soon they will be broken apart again. I think we're about a month away, less than a month away from Golden Globe nominations. More than a month? No, I was just going to say there's still the dates are moving around. And I do think we're going to have to you. You, Sean, fantasy just like need to emotionally accept that some more dates might move. It's just it might happen.

And I don't want you to have a cow when it does. Yeah, I won't have a cow. But you're right. You're right. The Grammys moving off of the last week of January obviously indicates that a lot of stuff is up in the air but some of the um the critics bodies are continuing to give awards out the national society film critics gave their awards out over the weekend i'll go through those very quickly nomadland unsurprisingly named best picture i think it's fairly clear that nomadland is the front runner in the best in the best picture race

right now uh best director chloe z, of course, for Nomadland. Best actor, Delroy Lindo to Five Bloods. Best actress, Frances McDormand for Nomadland. Best supporting actor, Paul Rocky for Sound of Metal. And best supporting actress, Maria Bakalova for Borat's subsequent movie film. That certainly feels like a collection of people who could all win at the Oscars, which is interesting. I don't know what the correlation is historically with the National Society, but I wouldn't say that those are down the middle picks per se and swap a Maria Bakalova for an Amanda Seyfried or a Delroy Lindo for a Chadwick Boseman here and there, but it seems like a pretty close approximation of where things are going. What do you think? I certainly agree on Nomadland. I did a brief historical

look back and the National Society of Film Critics tends to be like, what's the film version of left of center? Because that's kind of what they, they have picked some best picture winners in recent memory, Parasite, you've heard of it um moonlight and spotlight so but you know in 2018 they they picked the writer speaking of chloe xiao and 2017 was ladybird uh 2014 was goodbye to language 2013 was inside lewin davis 2012 was a more so you can kind of like it's a little bit it's it's it's when when the academy comes to like the cool kids is is uh when it happens and is this a year when the academy is going to come to the cool kids i i still have no sense of it well we're gonna find out because there are a few movies and by

a few i mean 12 13 there are 13 more movies that most people have not seen that I think are going to be meaningful to the Oscar conversation. I get asked this on Twitter all the time, but like, where can I see these movies? What is this movie? I think for a, what we're trying to do

is a general interest movie podcast that has a focus on award season for three to four months out of the year. This has been more confusing than ever. It's really difficult to tell what's going on. So just in an attempt to give people a little bit of a playbook for what the next two plus months

look like in the movie world, here's what's coming. On Friday on Amazon, you can watch One Night in Miami. This is Regina King's new film about one night in 1964 that features essentially one long conversation among four friends, Muhammad Ali, Sam Cooke, Jim Brown, and Malcolm X. Interesting film. We'll talk

about it a lot here on The Big Picture. Promising Young Woman. I had writer-director Emerald Fennell and Carrie Mulligan on this show a couple of weeks ago. That interview went up. A lot of people were like, cool, how do I see this movie? The movie's been in theaters for a few weeks, but most people cannot go to movie theaters. You will be able to see it in your home,

I believe this Friday, if not this Friday, early next week on VOD. You'll be able to rent it. Other movies, the little things. I don't actually think this is going to compete

for an Oscar, but I hope that it does. This is the Denzel Washington movie we talked about last week. That'll be on HBO Max on January 29th. Supernova is a small drama, I think from Bleaker Street, starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci as two lovers.

Nice movie. I watched it a couple of weeks ago. I think the big noisy movie from this weekend was Malcolm and Marie, which I got a chance to see, which is a new Netflix movie coming out in February starring Zendaya and John David Washington. I think this was near the top of your list of most anticipated movies. This is definitely what 1917 was to the Oscar race last year, the kind of late entrant that's like, oh, okay, this is competing in every category and it's gonna be really noisy and has a ready-made narrative, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. Just to be clear though, it's 1917 only in kind of Oscar narrative and not in like, you know, one take reply guy nightmare narrative.

Well, it turns out Malcolm and Marie is about World War I, which was a twist when I got a look at it. I was surprised to find that. No, no, just insofar as like, no one had really seen the movie until very late in the game. And then as soon as everybody saw it,

they were like, oh, this is kind of the movie that was missing from this conversation. Whether people like it or not, I think it will be very divisive. It's a movie that takes aim at the movie industry and particularly journalists

who cover the movie industry. And there is a long history of movies that do that, that rankle in the critical sphere. So I'll be curious to see what the reaction to it is. Undoubtedly amazing performances from, from Washington and Zendaya.

You know, I look forward to talking with you about it on the show. It's a, it's a very compelling movie and beautifully shot. And it has a lot of big ideas. Is it a little overwritten? It might be a little overwritten, but we shall see.

Then Judas and the Black Messiah, February 12th. That's on HBO Max. Very excited to talk about that movie as well. I think that Malcolm and Marie and Judas and the Black Messiah are probably the two big, this kind of showed up late to the party and are going to change the constitution of the nominations, but we shall see there. We should just specify it showed up late to the critical party because you're about to

list two movies that you and I saw a year ago and six months ago respectively that are major parts of the awards circuit and that most people just have had no chance to see that's right I think I'm talking from a from a I'm wearing my pundits hat right I know but we're also trying to provide a service to all the people who are like I just want to watch a movie and just so you know, it's as confusing for us as it is for you. Like, you're not alone. We're all doing our best. And we're going to we're going to try to help you find the movies. A lot of it is unfolding in real time.

We learned late last year that Land, Robin Wright's directorial debut, in which she also stars, is going to appear in theaters on February 12th. It's also going to be premiering at Sundance. We'll talk about Sundance a little later in this episode. Minari, which has come up probably 20 times in the last year on this show, but that most people have still not seen, comes to theaters on February 12th. Likewise, Nomadland, which Oscar frontrunner, comes to movie theaters on February 19th. Then there's The Mortanian, which is Kevin McDonald's story of a man imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay and awaiting trial for many years

that has an absolutely incredible performance from Tahar Rahim that I would recommend to people. I think the movie is okay. There are a couple of really good performances in it, and I think he has a chance to be nominated. Cherry hits movie theaters on February 26th and then on Apple TV Plus on March 12th.

This is the Russo Brothers adaptation of the Nico Walker autofiction novel. We will talk about that on this show. The Father, a movie I saw almost a year ago starring Anthony Hopkins at Sundance that everyone is quite sure will be a Best Actor nomination for Anthony Hopkins. Anybody who doesn't like Anthony Hopkins at Sundance that everyone is quite sure will be a

best actor nomination for Anthony Hopkins. Anybody who doesn't like Anthony Hopkins is probably blind and just doesn't understand acting. But I didn't love The Father. I feel like I'm on an island here with The Father. A lot of people seem to really like it. Have you had a chance

to see this one yet? I have not because I missed it at Sundance a year ago. Also, I believe it's Sony Pictures Classic. Is that correct? It is. Yeah, they make it very hard to see movies. They were also the wife. Oh, wow. That's brutal.

And then last but not least, this is the last movie I have not seen. It's called The United States vs versus Billy Holiday. This is Lee Daniels' new film, which was recently reportedly acquired by Hulu from Paramount and will be showing up maybe,

probably on February 26th on Hulu. Stars Andra Day as Billy Holiday. So, 13 movies that people have to catch up with to get invested in the Oscar race. Before we get into the- We have time. Again, the Oscars still aren't until the end of April. So it's okay. I think this is probably good pacing. Everyone pace yourselves. That was going to be my question for you. Does this essentially leave enough time for regular people

people who are not obsessed with this stuff to get interested in watching the Oscars because there is some real concern that the Oscars are in a perilous state not just in the last year or five years or ten years but this ongoing cycle of award show viewership plummeting

and also the complexity of the movie industry shrinking and not to mention COVID-19 being a worldwide pandemic that has crippled this industry. Do you think that basically predominantly streaming films being at the center of an award show is going to draw people or turn people away? What do you think is going to be the reaction there? I don't think streaming is the issue. I mean, we did just do a whole segment about how to see movies because most people cannot go to a movie theater in the United States right now.

And so they're just trying to figure out which streaming service to watch the movie on. Like, people are actually willing to watch things in their home, really at unprecedented rates. So I, I kind of just because of the pandemic, I think streaming versus not, it just is not really the issue. I think the types of movies will be interesting. I, I really thought Nomadland was an accomplishment. It does it kind of have the same, it has a very different energy than Parasite. So are people just going to be like memeing Nomadland in the way that they meme Parasite? I mean, I hope not. I like just, I know people can meme anything, but again,

it's a different tone and kind of, you know, you alluded to Stan culture, but kind of that, that energy and attachment to these movies. It depends a little bit on the field and how people decide to digest them. There aren't as many noisy movies in kind of the literal noise sense as usual. I wouldn't say that Malcolm and Marie is a best picture front runner, but I do think it's a front runner for memeable movie. There are a lot of moments in this movie. There are a lot of, you know,

strands of dialogue. There are a lot of shots. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. So that was, yeah, that was a great.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, I mean, that meme is like this podcast in a lot of ways. It's just like you saying something unforgivable and me punching a wall um so yeah i guess i mean we'll see we'll see i'm ready to start talking about it in a real way i basically just started talking about it in a real way on this podcast so i i'm ready for it to be oscar time and i don't think we're probably

not going to devote as much time to it as we normally do though i i just don't think there is as much interest in it. And I don't think that there is. There are as many compelling narratives because the narratives are hard to tell because you don't know how many people have seen this stuff. Right. And the way that the campaigns are going to be run is extremely different. I've been checking up on the Instagram of Josh O'Connor, who plays Prince Charles in The Crown. Just, you know, normal Instagram stuff. And he has been participating in a lot of and like really being the mediator for a

lot of awards, Q&As, which are just like a zoom call. And I'll watch this guy do almost anything, but I have not been watching a lot of zoom calls for panels for people to vote for like SAG awards or BAFTAs or whatever. So I think that'll be really interesting of even how within the guild people try to like get the word out and get people behind their movies. It's going to be very different. It is going to be very different. Speaking of different, let's go to some different kinds of questions in the mailbag.

Okay. Wags, you want to read us some of these questions? Yes, I'm here. I'm happy to be back. Last week, I was completing the Francisco Lindor trade. So you're welcome. Thank you for all your work, Bobby. We appreciate you in Mets land.

Took a week off the big picture to make every Mets fan's life amazing. The first question comes from Ross. It is, if you could correct one Oscar win in history, in other words, provide an Oscar to a nominee that actually lost instead of the winner, what would it be and why? I think there are too many potentially good responses to this question. I made a list of all the really obvious ones, kind of just like the generally understood. If you're a big picture listener, then you agree that this is how Oscar history should have gone. Can I read them to you? Please do. They're all in the best picture category. And I definitely, these are the most obvious. I think we're all agreed that more often than not, the Academy is wrong. Okay. That's like

the animating force of this podcast. Okay. But the off the top of my head, most obvious ones obviously should have been social network overkeying speech. That's just disgrace. The other just like ultimate disgrace i do the right thing which was not nominated over driving with daisy goodfellas over dances with wolves pulp fiction over forrest gump brokeback mountain over crash i'm gonna gonna put money ball over the artist here that's not traditionally you know money ball isn't normally attached to it but i'm attaching it today support you thank you um three options over the shape of water get out lady bird or phantom thread take your pick uh and then more recently roma or a star is born over green book so there you go

like a recent history of obvious ones but i picked a personal one as well. I think those are all great picks. I'll add one more historical entrant into the best picture race, which I think could be considered a bit controversial. In 1977, Rocky won best picture. It won over all the president's men network, which has been at times in my life, my favorite movie ever and Taxi Driver. I love Rocky. I'm not I'm I'm I'm alive. I have blood flowing through my body. I feel so I love Rocky. It's impossible to not love Rocky. And Rocky is not a better film than any of the three films I just named in my opinion. Which do you pick, though? I agree with you, but which do you pick? Well, I think All the President's

Men, oddly, has become the movie that is the most beloved, valorized, praised over that time, in part because of its unexpiring nature, the fact that we can kind of consistently look back, and part of that is due to

the most recent presidential administration and misdeeds done during that time um network is my favorite of those three i would have preferred network i think network was like the most fascinating and daring movie in the bunch and taxi driver is pretty pretty daring but network is an extravagant experiment and a collision of people at the absolute height of their powers all working together so that would have been my pick i agree with that i think network is like the greatest and all the presence men is my favorite and taxi driver is probably like the most daring if anyway i i agree with that i'm i'm going for easy listening over here and i would have picked Working Girl over Rain Man.

Justice for Working Girl. So funny you bring that up. I just rewatched Rain Man the other day. It's pretty good. It's definitely good. It's weird to think of it as like the biggest movie of the year. That movie made like $300 million. And that was a totally different time in movies when Rain Man could be the number one box office hit um it's it's not better than working girl though i agree

thank you um the one other response i think we could have just changed the arc of history if we had given pacino best actor for godfather 2 in 1975 instead of art car for Harry and Tonto. That, I think, could have changed the tradition of waiting 20 years too late to give great actors their Oscars when they deserved it. And we continue on this path. There's going to be a movement for Glenn Close to win an Oscar for Hillbilly Elegy. We need this to stop. We need to reward the actors in their time for their great performances. This is very important to me. I don't know why it's important, but it is important. I agree with you with

respect to Oscar history. How would it have changed Al Pacino history? And would it have been for the better or for the worse? Would Chris still be yelling Al Pacino impressions on every single podcast that he's on? Exactly. That's sort of the thing. It's like, gee, you have the absurd rest of Al Pac That's sort of the thing. It's like, gee, you have the absurd rest

of Al Pacino's career, the major highs and the ridiculous lows without this thing hanging over him. Oh, what an interesting question. I really don't know how he would have responded to that. I mean, he had a wild 1980s. It seemed like a lot of personal turmoil and he kind of vanished for a few years there.

So if he had won, would it have made him move away from movies and lean into the theater, which is what he really loves? Would it have made him more experimental in the kinds of films he made? Would it have made him more interested in just making money the way he has seemed to have been for the last 20 years? I don't know. I honestly don't know. I just know that his performance in The Godfather Part 2 is arguably the greatest performance in the history of movies and so you'd think that the man should have won a statuette for it

nevertheless he did not what's our next question Bob? next question comes from Dustin what is the best half movie? some movies crackle at the start and fizzle out some movies slog through a beginning and come to an explosive finish what is the best 50% of a a movie this is a really tough one you have an answer this is this is such a good question and we added it in added it in at the last minute and there's something like on the

tip of my tongue like i know there's a movie that's just like a first hour i can like i can hear zach saying it but i can't think of what it is right now. Do you have an answer? Maybe it'll jog my memory. Yeah, and some people, some purists will shout me down on this, but Full Metal Jacket is probably the most often cited version of this

where the first hour, which captures Boot Camp in full and the sort of the drill sergeant, Arlie Ermey character, just grinding these characters to dust and psychologically breaking them down before they head out to Vietnam is frequently cited as one of the great first halves of a movie.

And the second half of the film is very good and is this... I mean, it's brilliant. It's a Kubrick movie and it does have a lot of the hallmarks of his best work. And obviously shooting war films is very difficult. But that first hour is funny, terrifying, emotionally wrenching. It kind of has everything that you want.

And so that's probably my pick. I'm sure people will be in my mentions like, how dare you degrade the second half of Full Metal Jacket? But that's the answer I'm going with. This isn't what I'm trying to think of and can't remember. When I think of it, I'll let everybody know. But A Star Is Born, the most recent A Star Is Born, I think definitely falls in this category. I'm very affected by the end of A Star Is Born. But really everything leading up to the first time she sings Shallow on stage,

which is like, I think an hour, maybe a little bit less. I mean, that's just absolute dynamite. Remember when Dave Chappelle just showed up in A Star Is Born? That was weird. It wasn't bad. It was just weird. It was like, what is happening? Who is this guy? Bradley Cooper's like in a bush for half the seat anyway very strange uh okay bobby what's next we've been talking a lot about star is born i got the wife we got marriage stories this nostalgia is warming my heart yeah seriously um this next question comes from chauncey what directors do you fear will be lost to younger generations due to the limited number of classic films on streaming services my first thought was preston sturgis who's one of my favorite writer directors and is widely considered one of the cleverest screenwriters of all time and he there does not

seem to be a an active hive for sturgis and i don't really know why that is i think he actually fits quite well into the moment you know he has a kind of absurdist, acidic, high concept, but modest execution, kind of humorous, romantic drama comedy style. You know, obviously like the Nora Ephrons of the world were really influenced by Sturgis movies, as were like James Brooks and, you know, the people like Albert Brooks, like these people who are kind of writer first, but know how to make great movie, you know, even if they're not like these visual dynamos. And, you know, there are a couple of Sturgis movies that are all time classics that people still talk about on a regular basis that are in the Criterion Collection or whatever. Obviously, probably Sullivan's Travels foremost among them, maybe The Lady Eve right behind that. But I think almost

every movie he made is like a four-star, if not five-star movie. And that's pretty rare. And there are a few of them that are very difficult to see. And there's no kind of like restoration project going on around them as far as I know. And he is somebody who I think is kind of slipping through the cracks a little bit in the way that like Hitchcock and John Ford and Akira Kurosawa like they're not slipping through the cracks they are memorial Ingrid Bergman there was a big Fellini box set last year like if you think about those the iconography that has been built around those filmmakers it doesn't feel like Sturgis has that right now. Is there one for you? I mean, you're talking about a Lady Eve hive. It's like me here. I'm willing to be interviewed or whatever. But this is interesting because the question is predicated on access via streaming. And I know you are a big worrier about streaming archives and are creating your own. And, and I super get that,

but I don't really know if it's access that is the number one problem. Even your answer was kind of about like, you know, which filmmakers do film historians take seriously and which do not. Um, and you know, that becomes a larger question about like cannons and, and, and, and what's in vogue and generationally, um, what people are interested in classic film wise. I mean, the other thing is that we just went through a whole, uh, episode where people refuse to watch Citizen Kane on streaming. So it's not necessarily the access via streaming or not. That is the issue. It's people being like, do I have to watch one of five, uh, under, you know, classic films of all time in order to understand this other excellent film.

So I worry about everyone in that sense. Yeah, I think I was responding not so much to is this movie available on streaming? Because most movies are available on VOD. Not everything, but most movies you can find on Amazon or iTunes. It's more like, is there a carousel on HBO Max that says the Preston Sturgis collection? And does that mean anything to anyone? I just don't think it does. In a way that Casablanca still means something to people in the imagination of the American moviegoer. Casablanca is still historical. To you and me, I think it doesn't. Like, I would be really interested,

you know, people under 30, have you seen Casablanca? Like, would you turn it on? Wags, have you seen it? I think I watched it once in college, but it's not important to me. Sorry. Oh my God.

Jesus Christ. Bobby, you should have lied to me. I'm like, fuck, Bobby. Should I watch it this, should I watch it like tonight? Yes, it's so good. Yes. 0% chance you're going to like it.

0% chance. I think that that is all true. It's just there's so many things happening all the time. And I'm being inundated with so much stuff all the time that everybody is mad at me about. And I'm just like, I just want to chill and watch Francisco Lindor's press conference in bed with a cup of coffee. Like, that's it i mean this is pretty much it i i mean i i relate to it too i do but bobby just like watch casablanca and then when they start singing the marseilles just text me like you were right that's

all you got to do i will i mean i'm sure you are right i i absolutely believe that and everybody's gonna be mad in my mentions now too sean no it's it's okay i like we did put you on the spot and i i don't think that that is a particularly unique viewpoint i'm more interested in bobby watching like the palm beach story or hail the conquering hero or unfaithfully yours you know watch those movies give me a new project where you guys just suggest movies to me and i just have no idea what's coming. I am like contractually obligated not to look it up ahead of time. I'm glad you brought this up. I have been thinking

about this Amanda. Tell me if you're interested in participating in this but maybe just every episode just doing a a pics section just one movie each where both just like

watch this movie. It doesn't matter what year it is. Doesn't matter who made it. Doesn't matter what streaming service it's on. We'll just be like I have 90 seconds clear out.

Here's why you need to watch this. Do you think people would care about that? We can try. Okay. I do feel like we do that for like 800 movies on every episode. Like that's kind of what this, I know. I mean, and we- You said it for like 14 Preston Sturgis movies, like 60 seconds ago.

I know, and that is true. And it's also, we did a whole speech about like trying to make things more accessible and like help people you know practical whatever so we can like here's my recommendation let's start it right now watch Casablanca if you haven't seen Casablanca check it out we'll meet back here next week and we'll talk about how great it is are we doing Casablanca are we sure it's good is that what's that i'm not i i will like just lie down on the floor and do like a child's tantrum if we have to do that i'm not gonna partake so it'll just be another episode of this podcast yeah okay i haven't actually ever physically like laid down on the podcast because it wouldn't really translate an audio but if i can figure out how to do that i will what's the

next question bobby this This comes from Connor. Who is your favorite pre-1960 movie star? I wrote down a few names because it's hard for me to pick. I've never not liked watching Jimmy Stewart in a movie. Even if I don't love the movie, I love to watch Jimmy Stewart do Jimmy Stewart. He is the definition of transcending persona, where you think you know who he's going to be in every movie. And if he is himself, you're delighted. And if he changes, if he's more

villainous, if he is more cynical, if he isn't that aw shucks kind of character that we know, it's also riveting. So Jimmy Stewart is usually number one with a bullet for me. But I love Burt Lancaster. I love how daring Burt Lancaster was as an actor and the very strange films that he pursued and his willingness to be hated as a character in movies especially Sweet Smell of Success but many of his movies and then Chris and I did a whole episode

on Toshiro Mifune last year and I just rewatched Sanjuro which is the second movie after Yojimbo about the Sanjuro character and he is just a lightning Yojimbo about the Sanjuro character. And he is just a lightning bolt. I mean, he is the most fun person to watch on screen. So I love him. And then for actresses, I quickly wrote down Ingrid Bergman, speaking of Casablanca. And there are no bad Ingrid Bergman performances. And my wife and I have a bit of a fetish for Joan

Fontaine. So pretty much anyan fontaine movie we like to watch um so that's more than one that's five people what do you got i have two i katherine heppern is uh i have it it's hard for me to put into words but obviously you know uh uh take no bullshit fast talking uh fashion icon uh would love to be all of those things. And the other is Cary Grant. And Bobby, can I read the next question? Sure. Because the next question is in honor of the Cary Grant collection on Criterion Channel,

which is about Cary Grant's comedies. What is my favorite Cary Grant performance? So speaking of Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant, I re speaking of Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant, I re-watched Bring It Up Baby last week because it's on Criterion.

That is, it's just dynamite. And, you know, I'm obviously interested in those, specifically the Howard Hawks

screwball comedies because just of the fast talking and the influence that they have on every single romantic comedy that is made and also, you know, Aaron Sorkin and all of the other types of dialogue heavy films that I

enjoy. But there is a, it's probably not my favorite Cary Grant performance. It might, is it my favorite? It's not my favorite of either of their performances, but like what they can do together and the chemistry between them is, I'm very partial to it. It's hard for me to, um, pick another Cary Grant. I like North by Northwest. I really love to catch a thief, but there's something about, and it's kind of the opposite of Jimmy Stewart. He just shows up. He's at ease. Um, he can wear clothes like Catherine Hepburn. We can see some similarities. There's a real charm. And I do think it's my understanding of old Hollywood,

like glamour and comfort that I find completely transporting. And it's not like homework watching them. It's just like, oh, imagine if we could all be like that. Wouldn't that be fun? And I think that's why I watch classic films Bobby not because you know like at some point it's just transporting so those are my two favorites and that whole collection on Criterion is really great there are so many to recommend it's really hard to yeah it's really hard to pick just one I think there's also some sliding doors for him I

mean he if if Cary Grant wanted to be an action star, he probably could have been. He's a great action star in Gunkan Din, and if he didn't, instead he kind of continued, you know, he does Only Angels Have Wings, and he does some sort of wartime films, but for the most part, he's best known for that, either that kind of smooth

Man in Peril in North by Northwest, or that screwball comedy that you're talking about. I think His Girl Friday is probably my pure favorite of his performances. bringing up Baby, The Awful Truth. I feel like a lot of people have been watching Holiday because that had been out of circulation and is now on the Criterion

collection that the person who asked us this question is talking about. It's funny. We were talking about Pretend It's a City. Funny moment in Pretend It's a City. Funny moment in Pretend It's a City. So one of the things that the show is will jump out to people

when they watch it and that is pretty easy to mock and I have seen some people mocking it is that Martin Scorsese's role on the show, his physical role,

is largely just to laugh at the things that Fran Lebowitz says. And he's frequently off camera, though you can kind of see the bit of his shoulder, and the camera sits over his shoulder,

and it's looking at Fran, and she says something, shares some witticism, and he laughs. There's one moment, really, where he talks for more than 20 seconds at a time. And they're kind of setting up

to shoot for the day, and you can see that they're just kind of having one of those conversations that you have before you start recording, much like the three of us did before we started recording this podcast. And Friendly Booth says, you know, I watched Penny Arcade the other night, the Cary Grant movie. And Scorsese goes into Scorsese mode. And he says, Penny Serenade, you mean.

Penny Serenade. Yes, of course. George Stevens. And then he starts talking about Cary Grant and he says something that I have to fact check which is that he says at that moment in his career in Penny Serenade he was trying to break out of the Cary Grant persona and do films that were not just that traditional holiday bringing up baby his girl Friday screwball comedy thing and he says he made a movie in 1945 called none but the

lonely heart that was his sole Academy Award nomination for best actor which is not true Martin Scorsese who knows more who has forgotten more about movies than I'll ever know did not note that he actually was also nominated for Penny Serenade.

Cary Grant has two Academy Award nominations in his career for two movies that very few people have seen that are our age, None But a Lonely Heart and Penny Serenade. Those are not in the Hall of Fame. If we were going to list the top 10 Cary Grant movies, I don't think either of those would make it. And those are the two films he was nominated for, and he never won an Oscar. So once again, what are the Oscars doing? Why are we not so? And I'm sorry to fact check martin scorsese but i had to i was i just i just want to say very uncary grant energy um but just like an amazing thing that you just

did to you know interrupt just an appreciation of a very debonair handsome movie star to be like let me fact check martin scorsese on this weird netflix thing it just that is what happened i have a poisoned brain and when a person says a fact about a movie that i know to be not correct even if it is perhaps the greatest living filmmaker i just have to note that okay but it was a fact about the academy awards which don't matter even that we spent most of our waking hours talking about them. Good point. What's next, Bobby? Next question comes from Broomkid, which is probably what I'm going to

change my Twitter name to when the Mets sweep the Yankees in the World Series this year. If you could interview any dead director for a couple hours, who would it be? Easy, Kubrick. Mine's Nora Ephron. Okay, on brand. I don't even think we need to explore and explain that yeah a real statement of purpose there uh hannah asks what are your

spouse's favorite movies and when can we get a spouse's episode of the big pick let's do the second part first um my wife says eileen who a very special person, that she will never appear on this podcast and that she has no intention of appearing on this podcast. And so this question is null and void. Eileen is the holdout. Eileen is also the person that you absolutely just want to get on this podcast because wild stuff will start happening. Eileen is a lovely, respectful, and not obnoxious person. And then suddenly, when the floor is hers, just amazing, magical sentences appear. So we got to keep working. I'll work on it as well. But it is Eileen who is holding out. Her favorite movie, though, I tell you what what i did not check in with her on this

beforehand and so uh this will be a real test on if she's listening to the show but at times it has definitely been dial in for murder which i think i even mentioned when we did the hitchcock episode um and if not dial in for murder certainly the the thin man has been there in the past. And also we just had a very, very, very long conversation about a Muppet Christmas Carol recently after watching it. And she has like an unhealthy addiction to a Muppet Christmas Carol. So that's probably a solid top three for her. What's Heatmiser and Snowmiser? That's probably a solid top three for her. What's Heatmiser and Snowmiser? That's different.

That's a Bass Rankin animated stop motion animation. I guess it's a movie that airs every Christmas. It was not a thing that I had ever seen. And then just like one night at dinner, Eileen just started yelling like Heatmiser at me. And I was just like, I don't know what's happening. And it wasn't like there was any contextual information. She just kept being like heat miser, heat miser. And then we did actually watch it and it was pretty cute. Um, so I did ask Zach what his favorite movie was and then things got very interesting in my home. So, so I'll just put it in some context. Well, two things.

The first being that, and I've mentioned this before, that Zach has some objections about his recurring portrayal on this podcast, which at this point is just like me slandering him on a twice weekly basis. And then I come into the room and I'm just like, hey, just so you know, I said this about you again. And he's like, damn it. You keep saying that that's going to stop, by the way, too. And like the more that you say that it's going to stop, the more it happens. Right. Bobby, thank you so much for pointing that out. And he should know my psychology.

But also because of that, this morning, I decided to ask him because I know that he has some complaints about his like public big picture image. So I was upstairs. So I just like texted So I like just like texted him from upstairs at eight in the morning being like, Hey, what's your favorite movie? Which is like a normal Monday morning text message to get from your wife who's in the same house. And at first he just wrote back and was like, what's wrong with you? And so then I explained, and I was like, I'll probably just do some disrespectful guessing anyway. But if you'd like to have your answer on the record, you should feel free to let me know

what your favorite movie is. And then he just refused to answer. It was like, please tell your listeners that I'm a private citizen. And also, you know, there's and then just went on. And then I made him and he's like, also, you should know this. I asked him what my favorite movie was. He sent a list of answers that were completely wrong and then we got into a fight so in conclusion i don't totally know what his favorite movie is um i like sean what would you say uh boy i don't know he doesn't rewatch movies like we do you know

like if Goodfellas is on he'll put it on I think he has kind of your 70s and 80s like boy film tastes well Goodfellas was released in 1990 so how dare you well I know okay but you know what I mean Zach and I have watched

Goodfellas together in his parents home I remember it very vividly okay also they don't really watch a lot of movies so you really have to try to watch a film there was some sort of back room situation you know like yeah you come into my house yeah there's a gigantic fucking television right in the first room you walk into it's like look here's the deal in this house we watch stuff this is very. There are a lot of books. You know, there's some knickknacks, some doodads, some furniture.

But it's like we're watching stuff. We're either watching movies or we're watching sports in my house. Hence me working at the ringer. And in Zach's parents' house, I don't want to give away too much. That's not the case. You walk into a beautiful home. But they're not foregrounding the DVD collection.

Over Thanksgiving. No, there isning the DVD collection. Over Thanksgiving. No, there isn't a DVD collection. Like you're allowed to watch sports, I think when it's like the Eagles or the Sixers. And I don't, I've watched one complete movie with Zach's parents. It was the imitation game. And it was like at the end,

like that's it. I love Zach's parents so much. They're so lovely. And they're just not into watching movies. And I remember it was like the end of Thanksgiving and we were all talked out and we finally got to watch like the imitation game. And I think, and Zach's dad was really into it. And Zach's mom didn't like it very much and was like, can we go do something else now? So he doesn't watch a lot of movies, I guess. What? I don't know. We watched a lot of old

movies together, especially like when we were dating. Like I vividly remember watching the Philadelphia story together pretty early. And that was cute. I also remember a failed project to try to watch Reds together. And we just never made it to the end. So I've never seen the end of Reds. Don't tell me what happens. Recently, when we...

John Reed dies. I'm very sorry to say. Thanks. Recently, when we were doing the George Clooney hall of fame, I invited him to watch Michael Clayton with me. And he was like, I don't need to rewatch it with you. I can just reenact it for you. And then I was like, okay, go. And so he started to try to reenact Michael Clayton for me. And it wasn't word perfect, but he did yell. I am Shiva, the God of death, like 14 times. So I guess Michael Clayton would be up there. Um, and that's it. That's how my marriage is going.

Sounds wonderful. Here's the other thing is like, I probably do know what his favorite films are, but once he starts talking about things I'm not interested in and I just stopped listening. So that's, and I tried to do some journalism to round out that knowledge this morning and I was rebuffed. It's just incredibly mean. You just said, I asked him, um, he was like, your favorite movie is pretty woman. I was like, when have I ever talked to you about pretty woman in my entire life? That's not even my top 50 rom-coms. Like, what are we doing here? This podcast is not a surrogate for your disagreements with your spouse.

Okay. I have to just, I have to mark that territory here. You guys, you tried to re-litigate a fight I am not a part of, nor is Bobby. It was part of the question. This is the opposite of save it for the pod. This is save it for the house. Save it for home. I mean, like, we've been podcasting from home for so long

that how different is it really? That's a good point. That's fair. The next question, thankfully, comes from Cal. While some releases have enticed me to pay for VOD, most of the conversation around movies this year seems to have been streamer flicks. Were there hit VOD releases this year, or is been streamer flicks were there hit vod

releases this year or is this just an indicator that streaming is the future and the future of monoculture programming i mean a definitive yes to indicator that streaming is the future and the future of monoculture programming and so far as it exists uh i don't i genuinely don't know if there were vod hit releases this year. There's no system that tracks it significantly. I think it's probably safe to assume that Trolls World Tour and Tenet and The Croods 2

and a handful of other movies that if you just pull up iTunes or Amazon Prime right now, you'll see are dominating the charts. But I candidly don't know, And I don't know how we would know. I've been thinking a lot about this really since the whole Wonder Woman 1984 meltdown, which is that they all got to just start releasing this stuff. Whatever they think they're hiding,

because the business is not what it was box office wise. It's just from a conversations perspective. If we don't know, then we're going to look at Twitter. And that is not the indication that any of these people want for any of this success of like their projects. They need to, you got to bite the bullet and go through a couple of years of like the VOD numbers, not being box office numbers until you can get to a new normal where you have some control over the conversation or else you have absolutely no control uh i agree i think that's right what's next okay there are a lot of really good questions left but we're running short on time here so let's do two more three more um this next one comes from david if you could spend the day on one movie set in history what would it be taking into account cast location and era

you know what you want here yeah i have two Is working girl one of them? No, but thank you. Um, no, one is to catch a thief because French Riviera, Cary Grant, it's when Grace Kelly was being courted by Princeton Rainier. And I would also like to kind of witness that from a, you know, gossip perspective, but mostly I just like to be on the Mediterranean with, with Cary Grant. Um, and then the other is obviously oceans 11. Oh yeah. That sounds fun. That does sound fun. The new version, obviously with my friend, Steven Soderbergh. I didn't know how to answer this because I don't do,

I want to witness greatness. Do I want to witness the construction of something magical? Do I want to just have fun? You know, do I want to just be with cool people? I assume that you would answer in terms of greatness and being there for history. And I would answer in terms of like shallowness and hanging out on the beach with Steven Soderbergh. So I've already given a Kubrick centric.

I've given two Kubrick centric responses in this mailbag, which is perhaps a bit revealing. But I do think Eyes Wide Shut would have been an interesting one to be on the set for. Yeah, that's a good answer. And that would be a long journey. That was a very long shoot. But there is a lot untold about what happened there. And obviously, you've got one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, two of our favorite stars in the midst of a marriage.

And they film about the potential dissolution of a marriage and a film about the potential dissolution of a marriage um a psychological portrait also just some of the wildest scenes ever shot in the history of movies occur in that film so that would be uh interesting to observe um so i guess i'll go eyes wide shut you want to let's do let's just do a sundance question and then wrap up with something at the end. Yeah, it's just a lot of people wanted to know what to watch at Sundance. So we don't know.

This is obviously the first time Sundance is doing what so many festivals did last year, which is it's going virtual. So Amanda and I are participating. We're going to try to watch as many movies as we can. We are registered and ready to go. I think January 28th is when it kicks off. It's basically going to be four days of largely nonstop viewing.

And the viewing is organized around kind of three hour blocks. And so this is really tricky. This is really tough. Now, one of the cool things about it is, is that many people out in the world can just buy tickets in a way that they could not before. There are still some available tickets, I think, for some of the screenings. I think a lot of stuff sold out last week. But people were asking us for this because they were like, where do I spend my money? How do I check out these films? Truthfully, I don't know. On the one hand, the Sundance lineup this year is slimmed down quite a bit from what it usually is. There are a couple of reasons for that. Obviously, it's harder to manage a virtual festival. One, two, I think films that already have a distributor don't really have a huge reason to participate

in Sundance this year. They may not see this festival as a way to necessarily build up the brand and the buzz of their movies in the way that they did if this was in person. But also, there is still an urge to show films that don't have a distributor and to get it in front of people

and to build a conversation around it. So, you know, whereas historically there are hundreds of movies at Sundance this year, there's like in the 50 to a hundred range. I'll point out a couple that I'm excited about. Um, that I,

but I think it's fairly unpredictable. You, you want, you want to just go back and forth one and one Amanda. Yeah. So the first one that I'm, I'm obviously most excited about is on the count of three which is drod carmichael's directorial debut one of my favorite stand-up comics and someone who i think is a a unconventional thinker and so the idea of him making a movie is appealing to me and that's

definitely the first thing i'm going to try to check out. What else is on your list? My most anticipated is also kind of like one of the buzziest of of Sundance and it's Passing directed by Rebecca Hall. I'll just read the cast list, Tessa Thompson, Ruth Naga, Andre Holland, Alexander Skarsgård, and Bill Camp. And I will read the log line. Two African-American women who can, quote, pass as white choose to live on opposite sides of the color line in 1929 New York in an exploration of racial and gender identity performance obsession and repression based on the novella by Nella Larson this is like the must-see movie at Sundance and I'm a huge fan of everybody that I just named including Rebecca Hall I'm very excited about passing as well another one I'm interested in is Prisoner of the Ghost Land,

which is a Sian Sono team up with Nicholas Cage. Sono is one of the most fascinating filmmakers in the world. He's a Japanese filmmaker. He made two movies in 13 and 15 that are wild. One called Why Don't You Play in Hell? The other called Tokyo Tribe. Both of those are worth checking out and the idea of him collaborating

on a wild action movie with Nicolas Cage is a must watch for me. What else? So on the documentary tip, In the Same Breath, which is by Nan Fu Wang who directed One Child Nation, which was another Sundance breakout.

Another Sundance breakout and just, I couldn't recommend it more although it's extremely devastating. And this is about the pandemic firsthand.

And I, you know, timely and a great director. So, I will be watching. Last one for me is just a pair of music documentaries

that I've been looking forward to one is called Summer of Soul or When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised this is Questlove's directorial debut long time admirer of his also a friend of mine Joey Patel was a producer on this movie so I'm looking forward to checking that out and then the long long long long long awaited the Sparks Brothers which is Edgar Wright's documentary about the group Sparks obviously huge fan of Edgar's work and I like Sparks too. So fired up about this one. I think that's it. So

that's a hopefully a good start for people. Six or seven movies to check out. Let's do one more question Bob. Okay. In the interest of giving more recommendations Nora asks what is your ultimate comfort movie? I mean Casablanca is up there to

to tie it all together i mean but it really is bobby i'm not just hazing you though i am also i can accept a little hazing you know i came up right when hazing was ending so it's fine right okay this is the limits of acceptable hazing yes um i also other classic hollywood movies for me i mean singing in the rain is another one that i'll put on just like as a bomb also just you know like joyful in a real way um i sense and sensibility which is a movie we've talked a lot about on this podcast but i watched that in the last week as a comfort rewatch so um i don't know that's three sean what are yours uh i would say that they're not very comforting yeah uh true romance probably the one of the movies i most often turn to and i'm like i

don't want to think about anything um you know honestly from the years 1996 through 2004 i i watched clerks a lot like a lot the big lebowski is definitely on that list um network um quite a few i i i do like to rewatch last night it was like one o'clock in the morning i couldn't fall asleep and i was you know like on my ipad doing some reading and i was like you know, like on my iPad doing some reading. And I was like, you know what? Let's just fire up 12 monkeys to see how that goes down. That's so weird. That's like. It was great.

I enjoyed it. That's very strange. Speaking of network, all the president's men is actually one that I put on a lot. And it's not comforting, but there's something about, you know, they're going to get the job done that is comforting to me. I agree. They're not going to fail. That's a good feeling.

We didn't fail. We, uh, we did a whole podcast today. Uh, now let's go to my conversation with Matthew Hamachek and Matthew Heinemann. Delighted to be joined by Matthew Hamachek and Matthew Heinemann. Guys, thanks for being on the show today. Thanks for having us. So let's start at the timeline. I'm curious. Jeff Benedict and Armin Katan's book on Tiger was released in March of 2018. When do you guys hear about this idea for a film and how do you come together to work on it? I think we, we started working on it, uh, you know, shortly after we, we, we did this with,

um, we, we made the film with jigsaw productions and they had, uh, I think they had reached out to Armin and Jeff and talked to them about doing a movie. And shortly after that, I think Matt and I came on a little bit later and sort of used their book as inspiration for the film and then i think by april or so we were you know starting production on the film april 2019 and i think our um our first interview was conducted three days after uh tiger had won the 2019 masters and so that's when we got started we filmed for i guess uh you know almost a year and we're sort of editing and uh putting the film together at the same time did you guys see that victory at the masters as a as a good thing for the film did it help make people want to participate or did it hurt in any way?

It certainly gave us an interesting ending. You know, I think, you know, when we started this process, we didn't really, you know, the way we make films is we don't script anything. We don't have any sort of preordained goal or hope for what the story is going to be. And it's always that process of discovery as you make a film

and sort of find your story. For me, you know, I've always made, you know, verite docs. And so this is my first talking head film. You know, Matt's worked on other films like this. But so it was interesting sort of going through the process of discovery for me in this new form. But yes, there's no question that soon after we started this film, him winning the Masters definitely provided an interesting third act, I guess, to the story. What were your relationships to Tiger?

Were you fans of his? Are you golf fans? What drew you relationships to Tiger? Were you fans of his? You know, are you golf fans? You know, what, you know, after 2009 Thanksgiving night, we realized that we knew almost nothing about him, despite being so famous and so covered by so many people. And I think that, you know, that's one of the things that sort of fascinated me. And I don't want to speak for Matt about the story. Yeah, I mean, for me, I'm not a golf fan per se. I know very little about golf. Um, my dad loves golf and I joke, I have joked at times that I feel like my dad has loved Tiger Woods more, more than he loves me. Uh, but, uh, but no, personally,

I came into this with very little knowledge of who he was. Um, yeah. What were the questions that you wanted to try to answer? And then in doing the movie, who is Tiger Woods? And I think that that was sort of the organizing principle is, is trying to create as exhaustive and nuanced a portrait of Tiger as we possibly could. And from his early days as a two-year-old golfer in the garage

to his rise to the most famous people on this planet, to his fall and to his, what some people call his redemption, or his rise back up again. And so I think, uh, trying to find and research and, and, and do the work to understand, you know, get people on board to help us tell a story because ultimately, you know, we don't narrate the film. We're not, um, we're not the storytellers. The storytellers are, are the, are the subjects that we were able to, um,

talk to and, and obviously tiger, uh, as well. What's that process like trying to compel. And obviously Tiger as well. What's that process like trying to compel people to participate in a film like this? How do you make an ask of an interview subject who's someone who has been in Tiger's life for 10 or 20 years? What do you say to them to say, this is why this would be a good idea for you to do this?

I think that process was one of the most fascinating parts of making this film. You know, we set out and we sort of said, Tiger has sort of been covered by so many people that sort of at a distance, right? These are journalists who sort of follow him on the golf course and ask him questions at press conferences and things like that. So we wanted to find people who knew him intimately and were in the living room with him when he was growing up and kind of had the front row seats to his life at sort of pivotal moments. And we started to gather a list of different people like that, that we wanted to reach out to, whether it was his kindergarten teacher, his sort of first love, his girlfriend in high school, Dina Gravel, you know, his father's

biographer and close family friend, Pete McDaniel, all these people. And when we started to reach out to them and, you know, tell them we're making this thing, we would love for them to sit, almost across the board, even the people who have sort of had an acrimonious split from him were extremely protective of Tiger and really didn't want to participate in anything that, you know, was either going to be sort of the TMZ version, the salacious version of the story, or sort of a puff piece. And they were really hoping to find somebody who was trying to figure out, you know, in a nuanced and complex way who Tiger Woods is and was. And it took a lot of just sort of trust building, you know, with many of them,

it was three months of back and forth and talking. And at the beginning of the process. I sort of drove from Arizona all the way up through California and then to Utah and Colorado, sort of trying to have face-to-face meetings with all these people. And, you know, with Dina Gravel, his first girlfriend, the producer, Jenna Millman, and I actually had to, you know, drive to her house and sit outside and wait for her to come home because she just wasn't responding to any emails or texts or phone calls. Eventually, once we were able to talk to her face-to-face, I think we were at least able to show that we had good intentions and we were going to try to, a nuanced, complex portrait of who Tiger Woods was. Was there a reason that you guys could ascertain as to why everyone was so protective? What it was that was...

Because it feels like there's been almost like a force field around him for the last 20 years. I think that's one of the questions that definitely we were most surprised by in making this is how is how deeply, deeply, deeply protective everyone was. Uh, you know, even if they were screwed over by him, um, that they, you know, everyone had this almost, as you say, sort of maternal and paternal, um,

protective, uh, nature in which they, they wanted to make sure that as Matt Matt said, we weren't going to, this wasn't a takedown film, that this was going to be an honest and nuanced portrait of him. But that still, years later, for some of these people, literally maybe a decade later, there was still so much almost, yeah, protectiveness in the way in which they viewed Tiger and wanted to make sure he was okay and that he'd be okay and that them talking about him would be okay. And I think it's, you know, I think people have so much empathy for him and what he's gone through. And, um, I don't know, I think for each person is probably slightly different as to why that is, but it definitely was nonetheless a through line through almost everybody. I think one of the things that a lot of people pointed to that grew up with him and sort of,

uh, were there for, you know, a lot of his life is how much um you know if you go back to you know when when tiger was sort of introduced to the world on national television at the mike douglas show that's where he's you know walking out with a little club in a bag and he he hits the ball um i think you know earl as tiger was growing, started to talk about Tiger as this sort of almost messianic sort of, you know, figure that, you know, is one of the people that knew Earl and Tiger put it. Earl thought that he was going to unite the different races and tribes of humanity. And that's in a lot of ways how Earl talked about Tiger. And so I think after Earl did that, what was interesting is sort of Nike used that vision that Earl had had for his son as a way that they were going to introduce him to the world when Tiger turned pro. And then after Nike did that, you

know, the general public and the media continued to sort of run with that, that idea that he was this larger than life character. And that meant a lot of different things for a lot of different people. Right. But, but we kept building him up and building him up. And I think that for the people that were around tiger and knew him best, they saw how much that weighed on him.

And, you know, that came in different forms. One of which was just sort of the insanity that surrounded him everywhere he went. And I think that, you know, that came in different forms, one of which was just sort of the insanity that surrounded him everywhere he went. And I think that, you know, that started from a very young age. And I think that's a lot of, I think, you know, everybody has a different reason, but a lot of them pointed out as a reason for why they were so protective of them. They've seen so many people sort of project these identities and things onto him, and they want to make sure that if something's being done and they're going to

participate, they're not going to just be doing another thing that does that in a simple form. Again, we're just slightly projecting here, but I also feel like Tiger has this sort of power. You know, this

both in person and obviously with all these relationships and i think that people didn't want to mess with that you know they didn't want to um just on a basic level upset him um yeah i feel like the film doesn't really get job of exploring the charisma of greatness versus the charisma of messaging. You know, that there's obviously a story being told at the beginning that makes you believe something, but then also he, he lived up to a lot of what his father was projecting onto him. You know, Matt Heineman, you pointed out that you've mostly done Verite work and you've

gone to these war torn places and these very dangerous spaces this film is primarily archival and um you know obviously talking head as well where did you guys how did you unearth all of this archival where did all this stuff come from well first off we have an incredible archival producer a guy named matt fisher who um who's done a lot of uh you know 30 for 30s and other sports documentaries but when i reached out to folks i said who's done a lot of 30 for 30s and other sports documentaries. But when I reached out to folks and I said, who's the guy that we need to get to be able to dig deep and find these sort of little pieces of archival that are tucked away at some local news station

in Topeka or something like that, he was the guy. And so we brought him in. I think that the two, at least in my mind, the two most important, you know, pieces of archive in the film are the thing we open with, which is the 96 Haskins Award Bank, where Earl talks about this vision that he has for his son. I think it was really important to make sure that, you know, as much as possible throughout this, because obviously we couldn't, you know, talk to Earl, that he had a voice and could just, you know, be saying he's explaining his vision for Tiger himself. I think that's one thing. But then the home video that Dina Gravel, his first girlfriend, gave to us of Tiger sort of dancing

in the living room and doing the air saxophone, I thought was just incredible because, you know, the tiger that we see on TV is the, you know, the cold-blooded assassin tiger, right? And, you know, he's not often joking around, but this was him, you know, before all of that when he was dancing in his living room and, you know, a different person, I still remember sort of sitting in the edit room when we first got that and saying, nobody's seen this, this version of Tiger Woods before. And then, you know, beyond that, it was thousands of hours of interviews that he's done and, uh, news pieces that have sort of, uh, you know, been put together over the years. I mean, he is, he has had one of the most documented lives, uh, out there and, and, uh, you know, the greatest challenge was just sort of getting through it all. And Matt, other Matt, did it change how you

thought about what it means to put a film together because you were not present for the capturing of so much of the story that you were telling? Yeah, I mean, it was a totally different experience for me. And I think, you know, one of the reasons I love making films is the process of discovery. And so, and not, you know, going to a story with any sort of script or preordained notion of what that story is. And so, you know, I think Matt and I still approach this film with that mentality.

And, you know, Matt certainly said this, you know, a thousand times. You know, if someone told me when I was 21 years old, if you end up with the story you started with, then you weren't listening along the way, which I think is good advice for life. And I think it's good advice for filmmaking is, you know, don't be dogmatic, but let the story evolve, let the story change. And I think, you know, there's many, many things that we learned in the process of making this film that surprised us, that challenged us, challenged our notion of who Tiger was,

that challenged our notion of who we all were. Because I think this is not just a story of Tiger. This is a story of pop culture. This is a story of journalism. This is a story of many things and the creating of this mythos around this man and why and how and sort of all these expectations that we all put on him and that we all were invested in. And so, but going back to your question on a basic filmmaking level, it was really interesting.

And honestly, I was probably more scared in making this film, you know, a talking head film than I, in some ways, am going to hang out with cartels in Mexico, because I just, I wasn't sure whether we could make it as intimate and as personal as the films that I'd made in the past. And so that also was one of the sort of guiding principles,

at least for me, was, you know, how can we make it feel like we're in those rooms? Like we are, you know, during his transgressive speech, like we felt the energy and the silence in that room as Matt talked about, feeling what it was like to see the high school tiger

and have him playing the saxophone and laughing and having fun, seeing the tiger after his father dies hugging Stevie Williams and crying on his shoulder

in the hole that Earl's death left in him. So that was what we really tried to do with this film was make you feel like you are there during these moments. Did you guys begin with the assumption that Tiger would not participate or was there ever a time when you thought

maybe we could get him to sit for this and talk to us about his life and experience? We reached out to him twice actually, to his people. Once at the very beginning and then once when we were a bit away through the edit. And each time that we reached out, they let us know that he wasn't going to be able to participate because of a prior media contract that he had.

And, you know, that the way that we sort of, you know, once we knew that, I think with all these thousands of hours of interviews that he's done, I think one of the challenges we had was basically making sure the tiger had a voice in the film, even though he wasn't going to be able to participate. And the way that we accomplished that was combing through all of those interviews and making sure that at pivotal moments, whether it was the 97 Masters or something else, that we were able to get inside of his head as much as possible. And one of the things I just wanted to add on to what Matt just talked about is we had this sort of expression where we wanted to make sure that the scenes we were creating almost played like verite moments and through the archive.

And so, what happened was there would be times when we would get a piece of archive that would be raw and it wouldn't have been cut up by a news organization you know before and um and when we got those sort of raw pieces of archive we were able to sort of create scenes out of them and make it feel like you were actually in a moment and that you know there's this there's just incredible footage of tiger in his in his home pulling up with earl and just those moments that I think some of the most powerful moments in the footage were the things that you wouldn't normally see in a news package,

where Tiger's sort of looking off into space, not where he's just slamming a golf ball over and over again, but where he looks more like a typical teenager. And it's sort of those in-betweens that can make some sort of some of the best moments. In a lot of sports journalism, there's a lot of, um, black and white reporting where it's very clear that comp questions and

conversations about the game or the performance are inbounds and personal life or, or even philosophical ideas are slightly more out of bounds. Did you find that people, when you were sitting down with them, we're trying to set boundaries for what you could and could not talk about with them. Or did you just say,

if you're going to sit, we can ask you about anything. I can't think of, I mean, even if people had said, you know, you know, we're not going to go to this into certain topics,

you know, it's our job to still try to go into this topics and, and, and to try to, um, you know, as filmmakers and as journalists to, to, you know, unearth as much as we can. Um, I, you know, I think one, one example that, that again was talking about discovery is the interview with Joe Groman, the sort of manager of the Navy golf course where Tiger learned how to play. You know, and he was a friend of Tiger. He was a friend of Earl's. He was a friend of the family and, and, and his deep, deep regrets and shame in exposing Tiger to his infidelities and also obviously Earl's infidelities

and the role that that played in Joe's mind of having sort of an outsized impact on this young impressionable Tiger. You know, that was one of many moments in this process of sort of discovery in the edit room, excuse me, in the, um, in the interview chair that, that was, that was quite profound for us. It seems like a lot of folks who are featured in the film, that their lives in a lot of

ways are defined by Tiger, even if he only represented a very small piece of their experience. Um, I don't, maybe that's just good filmmaking that you guys make us seem like these are just supporting players in this one man's life. But it does seem like there's so much emotion bound up in a lot of their testimony. Did it seem like they were waiting to kind of get something off of their chest to explore and explain who they are through this guy's light? I think that if you talk to these people, they will sort of, you know, at first they were very protective of Tiger and, you know, didn't want to be part of this chorus of people that have over the course of Tiger's life sort of projected all of these things onto him. And then once they got in the chair, you realize that a bit of the hesitancy, maybe a good deal of it is also how much of an impact he had on their lives and how much, you know, I think Joe, if you talk to him,

I think he said this at one point about how he feels like he was there at the right time to sort of help Tiger along the way. And it's interesting because I think Earl talked about that a lot as well. Earl would sort of say, I mean, Earl was much more grandiose about it. He would, he would say that, you know, God put him on this earth to nurture and bring tiger to the world. Uh, but I, I don't think that that quality is, is, you know, uh, limited to Earl. I think a lot of people felt like they, um, were there at the right time for tiger. And, um, yeah, they definitely, it's, it's, I think, you know,

Matt sort of alluded to this earlier, but their relationship with tiger weighs so heavily on them. And when you sort of, you know, peel away at that and you start to expose that it it definitely had a huge impact on all of them we've seen now with oj made in america and the last dance these kind of sprawling complex psychological profiles really of these historic athletes i feel like this film is kind of in league with those movies in some ways. It's also, it is not just a traditional two-hour documentary. It's really expansive. Like, at what point did it become clear that this needed to be a four-hour film, essentially? I think, you know, Matt and I approached this like we'd approach anything.

We, it's just one big film. Whether we, you know, how it's going to be broken up, how long it was going to be, exactly how long it was going to be. We had no idea. You know, we just wanted to tell the story and in the way that we wanted to tell it. And, and, you know, HBO was, was, you know, really great in allowing us to tell it, you know, give us the freedom to do so. And so, you know, I don't think we had any, you know, this is going to be part of part one and this can be part of part two.

And we're going to separate this, you know, the whole film film was constructed as one large story that was then broken up into two parts. You do have this incredible kind of bridge with the Rachel, you could tell moment at the end of part one, where you just, you can't help, but want to see part two. If you get to that point in part one,

you're just like, God damn it. What is, what is coming for us? I mean, did you find that you guys had to, you know, create a son,

like a sense of a cliffhanger to bridge the two parts? I don't think we ever felt like we had to create a cliffhanger. I think the story hopefully would sort of sell itself. But, um, as a quick, a quick aside, that moment is something Matt, Matt will laugh when I tell this, because he knows that I've been trying to trying, I've been wanting to use that song, which is called

Evidently Chicken Town for a long time. And that moment is kind of an homage to uh the an episode of uh the sopranos during the final season um in a sort of a similar way it's where it's where uh it's where i think christopher's kid is getting baptized or something like that and there's sort of this seemingly happy moment that has a sense of sort of impending doom and um when i started to listen to Pete McDaniel talk about how Tiger finally let out all these emotions after Earl had passed away, but he said it wasn't over and there was this reckoning that was going to be coming and we can't escape it. And I, as soon as I heard him say that, I was like, I started to think about that moment from the show and then that song and it just, it worked out perfectly. But you know, I think, I think a lot of the process of this is sort of, as Matt's talked about, it's like, it's not that you're coming in and saying, I'm going to do this. And you know,

that kind of thing. It's more that you hear the people and saying, I'm going to do this. And, you know, that kind of thing. It's more that you hear the people that knew Tiger best and they start talking about things in a certain way and that triggers something. And you think, well, you know, we should follow the lead of the people that were there and knew that story and knew them intimately. We definitely knew that we did not want to make a film just for Tiger fans. And we did not want to make a film, you know,

feeling like we had the obligation to do the sort of like cradle to grave. You need to know this is, you know, the encyclopedic entry of Tiger Woods. We just wanted to tell a story that felt deeply personal and nuanced. And, and hopefully, you know, for us, for a management well covered in journalism and, and you know, for a management well covered in journalism and, you know, hopefully this is a new entry point to understand him. Was there any particular strain of the story or, you know, sort of, you know, just part of his history that was hard to structure, that was hard to get people to discuss in a meaningful way to build the story around i i i don't know about matt i mean i want to put words in your mouth but i think the the sort of the chapter in his life after um after the 2017 dui when you know he's coming back i i think it's interesting when you hear the way the people in media have talked about that. They really use, they talk about it as a redemption story.

And it's an interesting sort of part of this cycle of tigers, people projecting things onto tiger, right? I don't quite know that tiger has anything to redeem in the public's mind to begin with. And if he did, which I don't necessarily think he does, I don't know what winning a golf tournament has to do with that, really. And so, you know, again, it was sort of pushing past that narrative that was sort of instantaneously thrust on the moment, right? And trying to talk to people that you know really knew him and have been you know close to him over the years and what they start to point to which i thought was fascinating is they really wanted to see tiger recapture the joy that he had in the game

from you know a long time ago almost like you know you talked to dino gravel and obviously his his high school girlfriend and she you know obviously points long time ago, almost like, you know, you talked to Dino Gravel and obviously his, his high school girlfriend. And she, you know, obviously points back to the thing that, you know, she cared about and that was, you know, getting back to that old tiger that was dancing in her living room and sort of the more carefree days. And I think that that's the thing they all pointed to as they saw tiger, you know, mounting this sort of golf comeback is that they saw him having the joy again and that that was the most significant part about it to me or to them rather.

Had your opinions changed of Tiger at all after you completed work on the film? I know you guys don't consider yourself fans necessarily, but I'm sure you had a consciousness about him. Matt, do you want to go? You seem unsure. It's okay.

I'll fill you up with a message that Matt sent me after the 20s this is good tell the story this is good you should do this sorry I wasn't like tweeting my I was trying to look up this message you know it was hard ironically

for someone who makes films in real time all the time, the real time aspect of Tiger story was the most difficult for us because it's like, you know, so much of it was, was well sort of placed and well understood and, and, and,

and, you know, we could sort of attack it and, and, and dig into it in a way, but sort of how to contextualize the present moment was quite difficult. And Matt sent me this tweet by a journalist in Darren Sands right after the Tiger won the Masters. And it reads, you know, Tiger's a lot like America. He's awful. He's

awesome. He's got addictions. He's thrilled us, embarrassed us. He's lied. He's cheated. He's the best ever. And he's all of ours, whether we like like it or not there's little faith he could be fixed but there was faith and it worked and you know that i don't agree with every ask every period and comma of what he wrote but you know i think that that it excited me sort of at the very sort of nascent stages of of exploring tiger to, to know that there's, you know, there's a lot that we could dig into into the story and it, and extended, you know, far beyond, you know, the,

the bright green golf courses of what she walks and that, and that as a filmmaker, as a storyteller really excited me, you know, that we could explore many other themes about America, about fatherhood, about journalism. And ultimately, that's hopefully, we're telling a much greater story than just Tiger Woods. Matt Havchuk, what about for you? Anything that you took away from this from Tiger that you didn't expect or that changed your mind somehow? I think that, you know, I think I had consumed his sort of, you know, post 2009 life the way that everybody else had. It was, you know, in these, whether it was, you know, on TV or, you know, catching a tabloid as I was in the supermarket or something like that. And it had been this very simplistic narrative, right? It was this guy who had done all these things that, you know, cut against the narrative that we had known for a really long time. And I think there were a lot of people out there that were sort of wagging their finger at him and shaming him and saying, how dare you not live up to our, basically, this image that we all created of him. And so, you know, when you,

when you hear from the people that knew him so well, and you hear how tortured he was in terms of like, you know, his, his really close friend, Amber Loria, describing how he would go scuba diving at the bottom of the ocean. So he could go to a place where, you know, as Tiger said, the fishies don't know my name down there. I, I think that, you know, I had a great deal of sort of empathy for him as this person who from such a young age has just had all this thrust on him. And I can't imagine how you would deal with that. And I think in the same way, interestingly, you know, for me is, I think a lot of people, when they start to hear about Earl and sort of forcing him to not do other, you know, according to his kindergarten teacher,

not doing other sports and all this other stuff, they similarly sort of want to say, oh, you know, Earl was this domineering, awful parent and all this stuff. And I think, you know, I have two young boys, you know, under the age of five. And I think to myself, what would I do if one of them hopped up from their high chair when they were 10 months old and, you know, hit a golf ball like that? You know what I mean? It's like, I have no interest in teaching my kids anything about golf. It's not going to happen. But I just put myself in Earl's shoes and thought, well, you know, is what he did so, you know, so that instinct, is that so wrong? And, you know, so I think, I think that the, who Tiger Woods is

and who all the people are in his sort of orbit, I think everybody just became more complicated. And, you know, I would just go back and forth and, you viewed Earl. And I hope the goal when you make these things is that you leave the audience at... You raise more questions than you answer. And I think Matt and I both like to do that when we're making films. And I hope that we were able to hear, and I hope this is a complex portrait and not a sort of simple, this is good, this is bad kind of thing. Because I think that's a lot of what has been

made about Tiger thus far. Yeah, I think you guys definitely did that. It's really nuanced and sophisticated as far as these kinds of things go. So congrats on that. We end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing they've seen.

Have you guys seen anything good in what I presume is quarantine for you both? I've been working more than I've ever worked on a couple of different films over the past. I honestly have not watched a movie in months. Wow. I've worked every single day for the past probably nine months, so I honestly

cannot... Not even a television show? Not even a YouTube video? When I relax at night, I watch surfing videos because surfing is my scuba dive. As scuba diving was for Tiger Woods, surfing is to me. Do you have a particular brand of surfing video

that you like that you would recommend to people? Really anything, honestly. It's my cigarette rig at the end of the night. Do the fishies not know who you are when you crash, when you're surfing? Exactly. Going back to your last question,

that is the one thing I know for... The only thing I know for certain after making the show is that I'm more than happy being behind the camera. And I will remain behind the camera for the rest of my life. Sorry, I didn't answer your question. No, that's a first, surfing videos. Matt Hamachek, what about you? I've been wrapping this up and haven't had a ton of

time to watch uh i think what are we just we just started watching queen's gambit because enough people had said you have to see it yeah i i watched like half an episode or something like that so far but it looks great uh the the last good thing weren't you just on the you were just on the ringer talking about how tortured uh you are as a jets fan i think right i think that was the last yes that was the yes that was the last uh are you a jets fan uh no nicks and mets and then my family's from green bay wisconsin so as you can imagine uh i i don't have a choice uh sweet rejoicing though you get aaron rogers i'm stuck with nothing man i got i basically I basically started following the Packers right when Favre became quarterback, and I've had a very blessed fan life.

But are you relieved now that Gase is gone? Yeah, I'm relieved, but I don't know what the future holds. You'll have playoff games to watch, and Heinemann will have surfing videos to watch, and I'll be stuck with shit in my hand, unfortunately. Just for the record, I do watch movies. I love movies.

I just have not had the opportunity. Definitely the first filmmaker I've talked to who said, I haven't seen a movie in months. That is a rare one. Guys, thanks so much for doing the show. I really appreciate it. And congrats on Tiger. Thanks for having us.

Thank you. Thank you to Matthew Hamachek and Matthew Heinemann. Thanks to Amanda and to Bobby Wagner. Tune in later this week when Amanda and I will talk about WandaVision, the new MCU series, I think, and maybe some pandemic movies and a whole lot else. See you then.