The Big Picture - Top 10 Original Netflix Movies | The Big Picture

Episode Date: April 24, 2020

During quarantine, Netflix has risen high above its competitors, with a soaring stock price and a captive audience. Sean and Amanda dig into the relatively brief but surprisingly vast history of Netflix Original Films to create a Hall of Fame lineup (0:59). Then, Sean is joined by writer-director Alex Garland ('Ex Machina') to talk about his FX series ‘Devs’ (73:02). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Alex Garland Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of The Big Picture on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by World Central Kitchen. Their relief team is working across America to safely distribute individually packaged fresh meals in communities that need support. They're now serving tens of thousands of meals daily in some of our biggest cities like New York and LA, and they're launching initiatives across America to deliver fresh, hot meals to hospitals and clinics fighting on the front lines while keeping local restaurants and business as well.

You can directly help the heroes in hospitals and clinics who are fighting for us, and you can help keep your local restaurants alive. Please go to theringer.com slash WCK to donate. We're trying to raise $250,000, and if you have the means, it's an unbelievably great and useful cause that helps our hospital heroes, emergency workers, and local restaurants. Please give whatever you can. The money goes directly to World Central Kitchen, and it's a charitable donation. Once again, that's theringer.com slash WCK. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Netflix and specifically their movies. Later in the show, we have a returning champion, Alex Garland,

the writer-director behind Big Picture favorites Ex Machina and Annihilation. Really admired his FX TV series devs so much that I wanted to speak with him about it. So I hope you will stick around for that. But first, during quarantine, Netflix has risen high above its competitors. Earlier this week, we talked about the way Molly's Game has re-entered the movie consciousness when it showed up on the streamer. Then on a quarterly earnings call this week, the service reported that while 65 million people

watched the social media phenomenon Tiger King, more than 85 million people watched the Netflix original Mark Wahlberg film Spencer Confidential. That movie has a lot of the same issues that so many of these Netflix originals have. It's got weird pacing and an odd tone. There's a sense that it's only about 80% done. But the movie business has been leaning in Netflix's direction for the past five years,

culminating earlier this year in a record number of Academy Award nominations for its films The Irishman, Marriage Story, and American Factory. Since the coronavirus pandemic began, Netflix is the only studio able to release new movies every single week. This weekend sees the release of Extraction, an old school action thriller starring Chris Hemsworth, produced by Avengers Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo. So just five years since their first feature film, 2015's Beasts of No Nation, we got to thinking, what goes into the Netflix Films Hall of Fame? Amanda, before we start building that Hall of Fame out, let's talk a little bit about what it means to be a Netflix original movie and why we're even talking about this in the first place. What do you think when you think Netflix original? I think one cheaply made rom-com

or other genre film targeted to kids who would otherwise be watching YouTube. Yeah, I think that's close to accurate. Now, something has happened, which is that Netflix has ramped up production so much that we do actually now get more than that. That isn't the totality of the Netflix original films experience. And I've been turning over in my mind kind of what to do about this, like what it's like to have a new movie every week that I know a lot of people are going to be watching, but somehow feels not totally worthy of deep analysis. You know what I mean? They are airplane movies, essentially, when we can't go on airplanes. They are movies that are easy to watch and bring joy and bring

enjoyment. And you just asked me to be reductive, so I was reductive. I mean, sometimes you got to give people the pull quote, but I don't actually mean to be reductive either to some of the films that are debuting on Netflix and many of the great films we're going to discuss later in this podcast. And also to the idea of making things that people want to watch and making things that people don't need to think about too hard because that's hard to do. And also the mechanism and the technology and the making it easy in the practical sense for people to watch things, which Netflix has really figured out above and beyond every other service. And Lord knows that people need it now as much as ever. So it's different than going to a movie theater. We have

said that a thousand times. But there is something both about the experience that affects how you watch the movie and it does seem increasingly like how the movie is made to fit the viewing experience i think that's right i i let's go back to beast of no nation so that movie feels like it was made 300 years ago it's only five years since it came out it's a Cary Joji Fukunaga's story about a child soldier in a warring African nation. Idris Elba actually appears in the film. We talked about him earlier this week on Molly's Game.

I don't think Beasts of No Nation is a very successful movie. It certainly is. It feels like an important film and it's got a lot of style. And Fukunaga, as we know, is very talented and has an incredible vision.

I haven't revisited the movie since it came out, but I remember thinking, wow, this feels weirdly unfinished. And it's interesting that that became kind of a trademark of not all of their films, obviously. I would never say that Marriage Story feels unfinished in any way, but even some of their more prestigious projects feel like they just got to that final level of that final stage of the notes process on a movie and then just stopped.

You know, it's funny that we did Molly's Game earlier this week, which was not a Netflix produced movie. It's a movie that's just found a second life on Netflix. But it's the same feeling of there is no one in the room telling the people, no, or maybe we should rethink this. Or there is, but you don't get that third or fourth or last round of notes and input. And I think that's been appealing to a lot of filmmakers. I think that's how Netflix has gotten a lot of very high caliber artists to work with them is that you have a lot of money and probably a bit more freedom than you might at other places.

But it is true that you can often feel that freedom. Oh, it's true. And I think they essentially Netflix tried to deploy the same strategy that they did with House of Cards, which is bring in strong, well-known names, tell stories that feel like they are of great import to draw attention, to draw press. For folks like us, it's kind of media catnip. You know, I think if they had launched with Set It Up, even though Set It Up is wonderful,

and I'm sure we'll talk about it here on the show, they probably would have earned the reputation of a less than serious movie house because movies like that are just, as you know better than anybody, just not taken as seriously. Set It Up is a much better movie than Beasts of No Nation, far superior. But I think as an opening gambit, I understood what they were going for. And it's interesting to watch the life cycle of the prestige movie inside the Netflix train as opposed to something a little bit more crowd pleasing, I would say. What are some hallmarks of the movies

aside from the kind of like, oh, they almost got their aspect of it when you think of them? Well, specifically for the movies that aren't a Martin Scorsese or a Noah Baumbach movie, there are some stylistic patterns. For me, I've really started noticing there are fast cuts and just shorter scenes. And you can just tell that there is something in the pacing of these movies that is trying to hold your attention, that knows that you're at home, that knows you have your phone in your hand, that knows that someone's in the other room asking you for something and just keeps quite literally drawing your eye back to the screen every five seconds. Now, I have no evidence to that fact,

but I could swear to you that somewhere there is the document that is like, here is how to make sure that eyeballs stay on your screen and that it is applied to many of those movies. There are also, I find that there are a lot of drone shots establishing locations that then are not explored anywhere else in the movie. That's, you know, and otherwise a lot of interiors. And there is a budgetary quality to some of the other movies that the non-prestige movies that, you know, you can tell that they're being thrifty. How about that um what else

what am i forgetting well i think that there is and we saw this in spencer confidential and you see this in a lot of the like quote-unquote adult movies they tend to be these these genre mutants you know you get like a crime movie and a love story, but also a horror movie, but also something more suspenseful, all kind of jumbled together. increasingly Mad Libby specific based on the fact that you, you know, I get like plucky British heroines from 1923 to 1942 who are also solving crimes. And I'm like, is anyone else in the world reading this? But it seems like they took those genre titles and then just like actually made movies out of them. Yeah, I have a similar experience. Of course, mine is more like, would you like to watch Road to Perdition for the eighth time because you like films about disturbed assassins? But yeah, I mean, that's the algorithmic attack that it puts on you. And I wonder if

when they assign these original films, they're essentially trying to build in as many different categories as possible to serve as many different people into that algorithm as possible which i guess makes sense and i think it's probably pointless to be catholic about genre i don't think it necessarily i don't think great genre movies are great because they're in a genre i think they're great because of the stories that they tell there is something always slightly confusing to me whenever i fire up one of these movies though where I'm like so is this a western or is this a rom-com like what direction are we leaning and I tend to think that the most successful films are the ones that are the most clearly defined there's a lot of different subcategories here obviously Netflix obviously has had incredible success with their documentaries both their series and their films I tend to think that they operate in a, they're obviously run by different departments

and they operate in a different way. So there's not as much confusion. So I don't want to say, well, you know, American Factory doesn't know what it is. American Factory knows exactly what it is. There's also something that we should know, which is that not every single film that we'll talk about here

went through the development process at Netflix. Netflix has actually been very savvy about swooping in and saving projects or recovering projects from other studios, whether they're in the development phase, whether they're in the pre-production phase, whether they're already completed. Now there have been bad versions of that.

I'm thinking of the Cloverfield paradox. Do you remember that? I do remember that. I remember it because it was announced during the Super Bowl. Is that right? And I think that was the year that we were all watching the Super Bowl at my home. And I was sitting on the floor and we watched the commercial. And then all of us were like, well, guess we got to make content now. That is what happened. Was it the Eagles Super Bowl or was it the year before that?

I think it was the year before that because it was the year before that because I was not making any other content than videoing my drunk husband after the Super Bowl. It's great content. I mean, at that time, Netflix had a relationship with Paramount where they were, while Paramount was going through this transition in leadership, they were scooping up a lot of discarded projects. They're still doing that. They picked up the Lovebirds that was supposed to come out, I believe this Friday was supposed to be the release date for the Lovebirds, April 24th. And they've now moved it to May 22nd. And frankly, probably a lot more people are going to see the Lovebirds because it's going to Netflix. Now, would we judge the Lovebirds as

a part of the Netflix Movie Hall of Fame? I don't know. We should probably go through that a little bit when we talk because Triple Frontier is similarly a saved movie, but it was financed by Netflix. Yeah, I was going to say, don't you dare take Triple Frontier off the table. Let me just stake that out right now. Yeah, I mean, I don't want to regurgitate too much of this conversation that you and I were having all through the fall of last year, but there is this now fascinating balance that the studio is trying to execute on the one hand in 2018 you had this huge breakthrough with set it up into all the boys i've loved before

i don't know the numbers on those movies we don't know how much they can be relied upon but certainly in our lives and then the lives of men and women much younger than us there seemed to be a lot of interest in those movies and those kinds of movies and a real turn into the rom-com teen dramedy approach to studio filmmaking. On the other hand, the prestige awards play is still very much in motion. If you look at the slate of movies that they have coming, and if you look at the aftermath of Roma, The Irishman, Marriage Story, etc., etc., there's clearly a huge desire to win Best Picture at Netflix. And, you know, who can blame them?

Everybody wants to win Best Picture. It's not to say that those two things can't exist together, but weirdly, as more streamers come forward, and we just saw yesterday HBO Max was announced, and Peacock is going to be available to everybody probably within the next couple of months, and the Criterion channel exists, and all these other streaming services that we're using, Amazon Prime, Hulu.

You kind of have to have like a mini identity. Do you think that Netflix, because it is so big and so powerful, that it's the one streamer that is kind of exempt from that question? That's sort of like, well, what kind of stuff do you make? At this point, yes. I think they just have such a lead. And again, that behavior habits are so ingrained

that people just think, well, I'll turn on Netflix, that they can be the place where there's a new ridiculous reality show that people are texting about every week. I think this week it's Outer Banks,

according to texts that Bill Simmons has sent me. Yes. Not a reality show. Scripted. Oh, is it? Okay. Well, that's great.

Apparently, the stars still have Instagram pages that my friends like to spend a lot of time on. So that's great. They have a reality star level investment. But, you know, a show that is not a prestige show. How about that? Yeah. And a place where you can... I think Too Hot to show that is not a prestige show. How about that? And a place where you too hot to handle is the Netflix reality series right now. Yeah. And it can also have a big top action movie like Extraction, which starring Chris Hemsworth, which we're going to talk a bit about. And then it can also have the, you know, beloved, like well-crafted indie movies that I have to search for for five minutes

before I can find them, even though they are Netflix originals and Netflix has spent like a lot of money relatively making and promoting these. So I think because for so long it just had a monopoly and we had expected it to have everything and its identity was it has everything like you will just never be able to watch everything that is on Netflix. It can get away with a lot more. But at the same time, I do think that it has everything. Identity means that people maybe don't expect as much, quote, like serious, important prestige content from it. I think that's right. It's been interesting to watch them navigate the 12-month calendar of releases i mean releasing a new movie every single week is in an is honestly an insane task and they've been doing it you mentioned those small indie movies two weeks ago probably the biggest movie release of the weekend aside from trolls world

tour was tiger tale alan alan yang's's very personal story about his parents. And it's amazing that they're still making those movies. It's fascinating that simultaneously they're making Extraction and releasing them within two weeks of each other. That's not something that Universal or Paramount is doing right now. But I will say, Tiger Tail is what I was thinking of when I really had to go. I think I typed in I I know I had to type past tiger because it kept serving me tiger king and then and searching for it but meanwhile let me tell you that I've had many extraction ads and or I guess I've had like preview content I'm not because I don't know whether they're advertising it yet but I've also just had like a thousand it seems like

every other thing i'm served is the post malone still from spencer confidential apparently that's who netflix thinks i am is that like as soon as which i guess is awesome thank you netflix for believing that i care that post malone is in spencer confidential and i'm gonna watch it like netflix thinks i have potential and that's great so it's is, I admire it in a way, you know, they contain multitudes. I think the Netflix thumbnail photo is an entire episode of the big picture

that we'll have to do sometime. But yeah, I'm interested in how they're parceling this stuff out. Just this week, on the same day, they're releasing a documentary called Circus of Books, which is about the titular bookstore, Circuscus of Books that was opened in Silver Lake for many years, which is a very famous LGBTQ haunt in LA. And they're also releasing a movie called

The Willoughbys, which is an animated movie for kids. Can I just say, I've been getting a lot of emails about The Willoughbys and every time I think it's a British period drama and then I click on it and it's animated every time they get me every time and I'm so pissed off. Anyway, please make a mini series about an upper class family named the Willoughbys and I'll watch it. There's so many different kinds of things that they can do and are doing that I it's actually overwhelming and I think I'm simultaneously taking some things for granted and also exasperated by some of these movies. But Extraction is an interesting one to me because on paper, it's not only a movie that I'm very interested in. It's a movie that should be quite good. So it's directed by a man named Sam Hargrave, who has worked in stunts for a long time, who's a pretty talented filmmaker.

And if you watch the movie, you can see he's got he's got some moves chris hamsworth on the heels of his triumphant thor experience after all the marvel movies and the russo brothers who wrote and directed the biggest movies of all time and this is their follow-up and it's a story about a man who has to save a child from a drug gang and goes through hell and back and kills a great number of people to carry this child to safety. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying that. The reason to watch the movie is to watch Chris Hemsworth shoot people in the face. I mean, it is an absolutely brutalistic affair. And in the head, a lot of heads exploding from a single bullet shot, which you can definitely see. It's quite violent. Yeah. It's immensely violent. And you know that I like a violent movie, but I was I'm trying to figure out like who this movie is for now. Like on the one hand, there's a lot

of people in video games right now. It's a lot of call of duty going out in the world it's certainly got a call of duty vibe the movie itself has got a lot of like tracking shots or quote-unquote tracking shots with that are stitched together digitally that make it seem like you're in a pov video game which you know some a strategy we talked a lot about when 1917 came out remember 1917 that was a movie that was i thought you were to say a strategy we talked a lot about when Gemini Man came out. And I was like, you talked a lot about it. And I ran away in a parking lot. How much of Extraction did you get through?

I watched the whole thing. I feel like my experience of watching Extraction is really telling. And it's also how I know that I think actually Extraction works or is effective. So I knew we were doing this podcast and I had the preview for extraction. So I think I decided one night this week, it was like 630 normally when we cook dinner and, and, and I was like feeling a little under the weather, nothing, nothing drastic, just, you know, normal human under the weather. And so I made a deal with my husband where like I would watch extraction and he would cook dinner. Great deal for me. And but our house is an open floor plan. So he could kind of be in the kitchen and hear what's going on and maybe watch part of it. And he could like participate after cooking dinner.

And about 45 minutes into extraction, we had completely switched roles and I was finishing up dinner, which is fine. He cooked most of the dinner. I don't want to take away credit from him, but it was like the simmering phase. And I was monitoring the simmering and Zach was on the couch just being like, yo, every single time, like someone died and he watched the whole thing. He would like update me on plot or he would just yell, like someone just shot someone in the head like you know over the cabinet and and and we watched the whole thing and he was like i had a good time so i think that's who extraction is for and and he kept saying it just it feels i think a lot of people are going

to like this the action is convincing enough and the the storyline is like unbelievably predictable. I, the dumbest movie watcher in America, saw every twist coming, every single one. But that's okay because it felt familiar and competent enough that we enjoyed watching it. I had pretty much the same experience. To me, it was a perfect second screen movie because anytime the movie part of it was happening, the plot, the storyline, I was like, I don't care. I'm looking at my iPad. But as soon as I heard gunfire, I was locked in and fascinated by what they were doing. I thought Matt Singer and Screen Crush had a very perceptive note in a piece that he wrote today, which is that this is kind of the ultimate Netflix movie, because if you don't want

to endure the kind of mediocrity of the storytelling, you could just fast forward directly to the incredible 12-minute shootout sequence that happens 34 minutes into the movie and feel like you had a cool experience. Can you just without spoiling anything, which one is that? It's essentially when Chris Hemsworth gets his hands on the kid and attempts to make him escape. Oh, yeah. That was really intense. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I mean, it's amazingly well done and riveting and so, so violent. I can't overstate how violent it is.

But, you know, it's largely, it feels like it's all one shot. It's definitely not one shot. But if that's the sort of thing that you like, it reminded me a lot of returning to scenes from the raid on YouTube. You know, like I don't personally feel the need to return to the raid again and again, because it's like, it's a cool, really,

really excellently made action movie. But I, the story is not for me, but there are sequences in that movie that I love and I'm fascinated and I love to try to figure out how they made it. And this is the same thing. Like Netflix has its own little version of the raid fight sequences. So interesting film for these times. I can't say I wanted an all-out bloody warfare

extraction film, but that's what we're getting. It's not what I would turn on on my own time. And Netflix offers me a lot of other options to watch, but it was pretty convincing. I was like, oh, I guess the people who like these things will really like this. Yeah, I agree. The other thing that we heard off that earnings call yesterday was that Netflix has filmed all of their 2020 slate, which means that all the movies, including the prestige movies, some of which we talked about in our anticipated movies pod, some of which we talked about in an early Oscars pod, are theoretically going to happen on time. That includes Spike Lee's The Five Bloods. That includes Ron Howard's Hillbilly Elegy. That includes I'm Thinking

of Ending Things, Fincher's Manc. That includes a George Clooney movie, The Midnight Sky. There's a lot of stuff that Netflix has in the hopper that is going to keep this podcast full of gasoline. And frankly, I'm thrilled about it because I don't think I could talk about Warner Brothers' decision to put Scoob straight to VOD. I don't know how many kids movies we can be unkind to. Yeah, bless them. I mean, I think even when we were talking about the Oscars podcast, you and I, I don't know whether it was intentional, but we picked a lot of Netflix movies. And I think that there was a reason for that. They are uniquely well positioned to get through this crisis. And I am grateful to have those movies. And, you know, hopefully that everyone who works on those

movies and works on Netflix productions is also supported and can get through it as well. But listen, give me give me some new stuff that you actually spent money and time on. I'm in. We're going to be in the Hall of Fame shortly, but first let's hear a word from Bill Simmons. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I just wanted to make sure you were listening to podcasts on Spotify. Here's how you do it. First, search for your favorite podcast on Spotify's app. They have a library of over 750,000 podcasts at this point. So let's say you're searching for the Bill Simmons podcast with Rewatchables or the Dave Chang Show

or Binge Mode or the Ring NFL Show. Once you find them, click on the Follow button. That's how you subscribe. Then click on those letters near the top of the app that say podcasts. You can't miss it. All the podcasts you're following will pop up separated by episodes, downloads, and shows. Wait, it gets better.

On Spotify, you can adjust the speed of the pods to seven different speeds. 0.5 times is the slowest. I actually sound drunk at 0.5. Listen to this. Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network. Yeah, you can get drunk, Bill. You can also do 0.8 times, 1.2 times, which is my favorite. Everyone sounds like they had a good cup of coffee. You can do 1.5 times.

You can do two times. And if you're completely insane, you can do three times. Here's what that sounds like. Why would you do that? I think that's how we communicate with aliens. Anyway, Spotify's app connects directly to many of the best automobiles in the world. It even has a car play feature. That's pretty cool. It's really

really good. Best of all, it's free. Download Spotify on any device and you are good to go. all, it's free. Download Spotify on any device and you are good to go. Look, I don't want to app shame you, but you should actually be embarrassed if you're not listening to podcasts on Spotify. And if you don't believe me, listen to Drunk Bill at 0.5 speed. Tell him, Drunk Bill, the Bill Simmons podcast. Listen on Spotify. Okay, we're back. Amanda, we've built Hall of Fames before.

We're going to build another one. Some might say this is premature. There's only been five years worth of movies from Netflix, but there has been hundreds of movies. The Wikipedia page for Netflix original films, which I returned to often because I'm a sad man, is quite populous. There's a lot going on there. And what I tried to do is basically pull out either films that you and I have talked about on this show or that we would have talked about if we were doing this show and they were

released or just films that felt like they were big enough to be observed by the culture at large, not just consumed at home. So some of them are frothy. Most of them are fairly high-minded. We're going to go through every movie and we're going to decide whether it's in or out. You may recall the blood sport that we engaged in on the Tom Hanks Hall of Fame

in which we left out Saving Private Ryan and I was roundly castigated for that. I'm sure there will be a version of that here. Let me ask you one thing. Somebody on Twitter asked me if we should leave Roma, the Irishman and marriage story out of the Hall of Fame because they deserve their own wing and they're so obvious because they're so great that they're almost not worthy of this conversation. I have an opinion about this, but what do you think? Well, it wouldn't be a true Hall of Fame. At the same time, it's not like we're making a literal plaque that we're putting up on Sunset. It may be too early to do this, but also we can change it

any damn time we want because this is a podcast and we've got some time. So I was going to ask you whether you thought we should limit directors to one movie per list. Interesting. Because there are a couple of bomb backs on this long list that you have here. There are a couple of Scorseses on this long list that you have here. That's right. And I do think to be representative, we shouldn't just load it with the same directors. But I also just think constraints make it more fun like i'm already ready to fight with you so and at some point that's what this podcast is about right this is me being like i hate you so let's just give away three spots and make it interesting not give away just like let's let's do roma irishman mayor story they're on we

know they're on we're agreed we started with started with, you know, consensus and friendship, and now we only have seven spots and it gets, it gets real. Perfect encapsulation of this show is we get 10 seconds for friendship and 25 minutes for yelling. Okay. I'm on board. I agree with you. I think there's no reason to, to call Roma Irishman and marriage story out of the list. They have to be in. They're incredible. And I agree with you. I think there's no reason to cull Roma, Irishman, and Marriage Story out of the list. They have to be in. They're incredible. And I agree with you. I think your rule is a good idea. I think one film per filmmaker is a good rule. Can I just say one thing? Roma, what a movie. We haven't talked about it in like a year. Tremendous stuff. Really moving. Yeah, great film.

That's all. It stood no chance to win Best Picture. I know, but we thought it did. And also, I loved it and was really moved by it. I've been thinking a lot about the time I got to go to Mexico City and walk around Rome and how wonderful that was. And I hope that we can all join together in cinema and also traveling to places. So that's actually an interesting thing to discuss. If Roma was released in 2020 and our opinions and attitudes about Netflix were where they are now, as opposed to where they were in 2018. And when I say we, I mean, frankly, the Academy and the

people who decide on the Oscars. Do you think it would have had a better chance to win? No, I don't. I do think that it, I think number one, Parasite already won. And I don't mean to, again, I'm assessing the Academy rather than espousing their views or espousing what I'm about to say. But I think once Parasite wins, then the Academy voters think, okay, we've done the non-English language film. We can move on to other things. I think that's why when we did our Oscar podcast, I think there's, it's going to be like a really Hollywood celebratory year because they've, they want to pat themselves on their, on their backs. So in that sense, I don't think it works. And I also

just think Parasite is more contemporary and accessible in ways that, I mean, Rome is a hard, not difficult in that it's hard to watch a black and white film or that it's hard to watch subtitles, but it's like emotionally very challenging. The climactic scene is just really, really wrenching. So not that Parasite isn't wrenching, but there is like a propulsive nature to it. So I think we just have to be glad that Roma was released and is in this hall of fame. Okay. Roma, Irishman, Marriage Story, done. That's three of 10. I don't know why I listed these films in this order. You'll forgive me. The first film that I wrote after those three was Shurker, Sandy Tan's 2018 documentary of

self-discovery, the story of a movie that she made that was lost for years that she rediscovered. Did you ever watch this movie? I did. I watched it this week because you put it high on this list, which I knew meant your subconscious thought it was great. This I did. I watched it this week because you put it high on this list, which I knew meant your subconscious thought it was great. This movie rules. I'm really sorry that I didn't watch it earlier. It was and I watched it by myself and then like walked into Zach's office and I was like, you got to watch this.

This is like the most Zach, my husband movie of all time. I'm happy to we can give it a spot now. And if we need to move it, let's move it. But this tremendous. I don't I honestly don't know why I put it so high, but it definitely stuck with me and worked on me in a big way. Now, obviously, in many ways, it's a little bit about what you were just describing. It's kind of a it's a story about creation and about ownership and about who you were and who you are. And, you know, it's documentary, but it has almost like a dream

like quality at times. Really, really well made. If people haven't seen Shirkers, I would I highly recommend. I don't know if I could recommend a movie more on the service that hasn't been talked about nearly as much. But OK, we'll hold the place for Shirkers right now. Happy as Lazaro, which is Alex Rohrwacht's film, is very good. It probably was a little bit overlooked last year. I don't think it's like her masterpiece. She strikes me as a person who we're gonna be talking about in the future

in the best international feature category probably. I know a lot of people in the business are very into her right now. This struck me as like a not quite. This also just struck me as a very big ask on a home watch. Not again, not because of subtitles. Subtitles are actually great to watch at home because then you have to look at your screen. I find that I'm like far more engaged.

But just there is there is like a what's going on mystical quality to it. And it does have that kind of, it's like an event. You go to the movie theater and you're going to experience something else. And I kind of find that just like stumbling into Happy as Lazaro maybe is not the right situation in which to watch it. I agree.

This was a film that premiered at Cannes in 2018 and eventually made its way to the service last year. So, you know, it's sort of an acquisition. It wasn't developed inside the studio, etc. Rolling Thunder Review has been disqualified. You see what I did there? You see what I did there? Well done. Nice strategy. Respect to Martin Scorsese and Bob Dylan. Okay. Did we make a mistake by letting docs in? Because you could make the case that there are 10 docs that

Netflix has produced that deserve its own Hall of fame well it's too late now so it's too late now okay we're rolling with it american factory we know all about this movie we talked about it a lot and okay uncomplicated choice to all the boys i've loved before so this is where it gets interesting because you have to all the boys i love before and the next thing you have on this list is set it up. And I think I guess I'm allowed to betray the sisterhood and say that we can only have one of these on the list. But I think that's appropriate. Well, you know, I am aware that I just, you know, betrayed half the audience of Netflix, but that's OK. The question is which one? And I have gone back and forth about this a lot. And I kind of think, even though I love Set It Up, and I think it's wonderful and it's a type of movie that I wish they were making more of, but I kind of think we got to do To All The Boys.

Here's why. Number one, it is actually extremely effective and well-made. And it's a very, very charming teen movie slash rom-com that works for all ages. It is not just like for the teens, but it really does start off like a huge wave of Netflix teen movies that I think are very important in their growth. And they were like a lot of people watching Tall Girl and all sorts of stuff. And, you know, I'm not. But I think that's definitely part of their business plan. Like you have to have teenagers watching your service or else you're not going to have a service. And the fact that they were able to both like make a good movie and develop a new audience

with to all the boys makes it significant in my opinion all of that is very sound and the truth is i just don't like to all the boys nearly as much as i like set it up and you know the it's mostly because it's not for me it set it up is much more for me. Set Up is basically about The Ringer. The Ringer. It literally takes place at like a sports media company run by a very powerful and provocative figure about people who

meet cute at that workplace. Like that's literally happened at workplaces that we've worked at. It's a very, very familiar kind of thing. And it's really well done and it gave us

Zoe Deitch and Glenn Powell. So. You and I had Glenn Powell but it gave more people glenn powell and okay yeah hopefully the world more and more people will continue to receive glenn powell in cinema form so how do we split the vote what do we do here do you want to like put a pin in it because maybe the rest of the list informs how we decide. Pin goes in it. Okay. Atlantics.

Maddie Diop's film from 2019. Much celebrated. Sort of a ghost story, love story. Fascinating film. Hugely acclaimed when it was released. Kind of got overlooked come come oscar time but an interesting choice for the service to push a movie like this out worldwide especially as they lean more and more into um cinema from africa maddie is french but uh i thought it was a great film

it's very similar kind of conversation to happy as lazaro this is like art house indie cinema that would otherwise have been released by son Pictures Classics or something like that. And there would have been a three month campaign. It would have played 112 theaters around the country, would have been nominated for an Oscar. And then it moves moves on. I think that I would make a bigger case for Atlantic's than Happy as Lazaro. I think that there is something I mean, you know the just the cinematography it is very beautiful but there is something like about the visual effects and the way that the central mystery is shown on screen that um is really effective but

also i think draws your attention and keeps your attention at home there is a little bit more there's like a literal what's going on here as opposed to like the metaphorical socio-political what's going on here of some other movies so this is another one that i would put a pin in and if we have room we have room i don't want to just cut it i also recommend it if you haven't seen atlantics it's on netflix you can watch it that's the beauty of this entire situation is we're going to name some films you maybe haven't heard of before, haven't thought about since they were released.

And if you want to return to them, you can because they're all in one place. How easy is that? Crip Camp. Crip Camp you saw at Sundance. I did. I saw it after that. Now, Crip Camp, by all accounts,

is the leading contender for the best documentary Oscar at next year's Oscars. This is a film produced by Higher Ground, Barack Obama and Michelle Obama's production company. how this group of people that came together when they were very young essentially led to the movement, led to an incredible movement for disabled rights over the last 40 years. Very direct, down the middle, heart rending kind of story. Issues oriented documentary. This is the sort of thing that usually does well at award shows. I think it is well done, well made. I have nothing bad to say about the movie. It felt very pro forma to me, but also there's like two or three times when you'll cry when you're watching it. It still kind of grabs you. What did you think of Crip Camp?

Absolutely. I was very moved by it. It was just also, and this is on me, but it was not a movement that I knew a lot of history about. And so I did actually find it really educational, which sounds sort of like homeworky when I say it, but there was just, I like, I learned a lot about very recent history that impacts the way that we all live. So, and it is really effective in that way. And it, and it tells that story. And there are a couple of personalities who are really memorable. I think it's more, you know, it's one of those things where it's an important story well told, as opposed to like a,

a magical, can you believe this happened moment of cinema. And I think we possibly undervalue important stories well told, like in life, but also in documentaries. But I agree that nothing rises to the level of American Factory. It's a tough standard to have, but it's not quite there. I recommend it, though, if you haven't seen it. Between Crip Camp and Mrs. America, I'm really learning a tremendous amount about 70s political movements that I was not alive for. Yeah, maybe we'll talk about Mrs. America at some point, because that's also operating much like a film, even though it's nine parts. Very interesting show. I too would recommend Crip Camp, I think now especially. The movie was only released a few weeks ago, so there's a lot of

people who haven't had a chance to catch up on it. It's very well done. Let's go to The Two Popes. You know about The Two Popes? Yeah, it's a movie. I finally saw it. It existed and I saw it. Really nice movie. Enjoyed it. I really liked the last seven minutes and watch it with your family sometime and we can move on. It's kind of where I am with The Two Popes. I'll never forget Telluride screening of The Two Popes and walking out and like four or five people around me just being like, wow, best picture. They did it. That's going to win best picture. And then it didn't. It's a nice movie. It's well done. Great performances. I think it's probably a little bit cavalier about the destruction that the Catholic church has brought on some people's

lives. But hey, what are you going to do? I was not going to go down that road, but I agree with you. Okay. Moving on. Let's talk about Fire. Fire, another movie that feels like it was 100 years ago. Was Fire last year? Was it last year at this time? I honestly don't know. And I have to be very honest.

I looked this up and I've already forgotten which one is Fire and which one is the other one. Fire is the film that was directed by Chris Smith that did not include the participation of Billy McFarland, the impresario behind the ill-fated Fire Festival. Okay. I think Fire is the superior film to the Hulu film, which I think is called Fire Festival. I can't recall. I'm a huge Chris Smith fan. He made Jim and Andy, the Jim Carrey documentary a few years before that on Netflix,

which I didn't include on this list, but perhaps I've made a grave error. He also made American Movie, which is like a much-loved late 90s sort of documentary. Fire is the first time I ever thought that internet documentaries belong outside of the internet.

Because it's a story not just about the internet and told by people who work on the internet, but it's like it has the energy of the internet, the movie itself. Now, I don't know if that was a purposeful choice by the filmmakers, but when I was watching it, I was like, wow, this is kind of like watching eight really good YouTube videos in a row. And I don't know, that's oddly an achievement unto itself. What do you think? I agree with you, though I do find it hard to separate this movie from the other Fyre Festival movie from the internet storm around it. And in a lot of ways, that makes it a very representative Netflix movie, right? Because it just instantly became a meme. And if you didn't see either one of these movies, you were aware that they existed. You were aware of clips of them, your characters from these movies.

And it brought interest to the service itself just because of the internet nature of it, which I think we're seeing more and more that if you have a meme or two in your Netflix movie, people will rewatch it. They'll screenshot it. That will send attention to it. I mean, that's the bird box effect for sure. So I do think it's significant, but I just, at some point,

I do also think it's just kind of borrowing. At some point, this is what like looking at Instagram is like all the time. And I'm very familiar with that because that's what I do. And and it's a good explainer for people who don't do that. And it does effectively recreate that. But to me, it's a little bit borrowing on other Internet platforms or mediums, if that makes sense. It does. So Crip Camp's out. The Two Popes is out. Fire is out.

Okja. Do we have to fight about this? Does it have to be mean? I love Okja. I was really moved by Okja. And you're going to be rude to an accomplished director and to feelings and to children and to animals. And I just don't think that you need to be.

Yeah. I have a heart. You're put in the awkward position of defending children, animals, Bong Joon-ho. And that's not awkward. I will defend Bong Joon-ho and, and children every day of the week animals,

you know, let's also just an unbelievably strange jake dylan hall performance which is another thing i can't believe you're not on board for that this has all of the things that you like i it's it's almost too much it's almost like when you you wait all week to order that special meal at your favorite restaurant you know you've been just anticipating and anticipating and then finally they serve it to you and you eat it in five minutes. And then you're just incredibly sick for the rest of the night. And you're like, why did I ruin my Friday night by not respecting myself and my body? And I feel like Okja is just

bong overload. You know, it's just all of the things he wants to do. Well, you're a blessed eater and i'm not unfortunately i don't know how to control myself and this feels like that kind of version you know it's like it has all the hallmarks of all the stuff that i care about as you said and i love all of bong's movies this is the one that i struggled with the most i remember seeing it at netflix's offices i went to like this beautiful screening room that they have at their offices, and I was fired up. I was like, Netflix gave Bong Joon-ho $50 million to make a weird-ass movie about the ecological crisis and a super pig. This is going to rule.

Tilda Swinton's in it, Paul Dano, Stephen Yeun, Jake Gyllenhaal, really going for it, Giancarlo Esposito, tons of my favorite actors. And I don't know, it just, it actually does remind me of that sensation that we were describing earlier in the show, which is just like, I just didn't feel complete. Now that's not the case in this scenario because you know, Bong has great vision. This is what he wanted to make, but I don't know. I just couldn't get, I've recalled on the show before that like the night I came home and found Eileen in bed, like just a mess crying at Okja. Yeah. I know it has that effect on people, but not me.

I will say I watched it at home. And I rarely have that kind of emotional locked in response to a movie that I watch for the first time on a streaming service at home, as we have talked about at great length. And I was invested. I was really moved by it and i and i like wept but i do kind of think in terms of it being a netflix movie that extraness and that over-the-topness is kind of what you need to hold people's attention it worked for me it's also like it's a really well-made movie what are you why are you it makes me mad i don't know this makes me mad i gotta be myself put a fucking pin in it we're not okay i'm not okay thank you uh from angry to happy you didn't put a pin in it on the

spreadsheet go back and highlight it okay i'll put all right you can't get anything past me okay this is this is live podcasting folks uh triple frontier yes in in are we the only people left on triple frontier island i think uh chris ryan and zach who saw it with us are also in on it i think it's the four of us okay and and And Andrew Grotadero, I should say, who is our culture editor at The Ringer and who has made a lot of content. We made memes that literally no one else glommed onto. This is a great movie.

Go watch this movie. What else are you doing? When the next version of Cahiers du Cinema comes along 25 years from now, a bunch of French intellectuals start analyzing the American films of the 2010s. They're going to look back

only at what The Ringer did to appreciate the majesty of Triple Frontier. We will be the canary in the coal mine. And I look forward to being memorialized in that way. It's going to be great for us.

Triple Frontier in the Hall of Fame. Velvet Budsaw. This is not going in the Hall of Fame. Dan Gilroy's art world horror mystery film. I kind of liked it, honestly. it's imperfect also features a very strange jake gyllenhaal performance i'm sensing a trend here from netflix yeah um solid movie not my favorite 13th ava duvernay's uh documentary extremely well-received documentary about uh the civil rights struggle and extending all the way back to slavery and

is a very kind of hallowed and intense story that she made on the heels of Selma. This movie, I think, in a lot of ways introduced the idea of the important Netflix film. I think this is probably a piece of donation was noisy, but I don't

remember having a conversation with anybody about it. 13th was nominated for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards. It was nominated also for Outstanding Documentary at the Emmys. This was when there was some complication between whether those two things could live in harmony. I would say that it's a little bit difficult

to judge this film because it's obviously such an important subject matter. And also, it's not exactly the kind of thing you turn to over and over again you know but if we are memorializing here if we're building a hall of fame you could make the case that this is a very important movie to the history of netflix movies what do you think so how many do we have locked right now we have one two three four five six we have six got six? We have one, two, three, four, five, six. We have six locked.

We've got six with about 12 to 13 more to talk through. Okay. But I'm not feeling so strongly about a lot of those. We have several pins in things. And this is maybe a time to talk philosophically. Are we doing movies that are important in the history of Netflix? Or are we doing movies that we, Sean and Amanda, like? I think any good Hall of Fame does both. And that's really the challenge of this exercise. I think we've got to find a way to acknowledge what mattered. And we've got

to find a way to acknowledge what is undeniable. And 13th really mattered. And I think a lot of people saw it. And I do think it gave the company a way forward in terms of what kind of document there is no crip camp without 13th that's the thing right so um and obviously avidu varney has gone on to become one of the most well-known filmmakers working in america right now so i you know i haven't seen it since it came out i haven't i haven't i haven't revisited it i it is very classical in the talking head approach you know it's like it's not a revolutionary act in terms of its style but it's very well made um we'll we'll put a pin in it we'll make it yellow instead of red deal okay deal mudbound

you uh never finished mudbound so i was really hoping that we could escape by that. I was really hoping that once again, oh God, I'm really sorry, everybody. It's so disrespectful. Mudbound is a good film by Dee Rees that Amanda didn't finish, but I don't think it belongs. Now, it was a pretty significant breakthrough in terms of Netflix becoming an Oscar contender.

I think this movie had four Oscar nominations, which is no joke. D. Reese released a movie this year, The Last Thing You Wanted, that was certainly one of the most troubled films of 2020. For the record, I did finish that one. Congrats to you. You were in a movie theater at the Sundance Film Festival. You know what? Not everyone stayed, and I did. So there we go.

It's a good point. That's tough. I don't think Mudbound's going in. Though it has things about it to recommend. Private Life. One of my favorites. Okay. This is a film starring

Katherine Hahn and Paul Giamatti about a couple trying to conceive a child. And it is... It's one of the more underseen but well-reviewed netflix movies of its time i don't know why there's a beautiful piece on the ringer written by alan siegel about um his experience with the film and the way that it intersected with his personal life i would highly recommend people check that out comes to us from tamra jenkins who you know has intermittently

made some of the best independent films of the last 25 years. She made Slums of Beverly Hills and The Savages. I don't know. What do you think? I think this is one that I haven't seen, but have heard wonderful things about from everyone. And I just think this is, if we want to make a list of underappreciated gems on Netflix, then this goes at the top of the list but if we're we're still arguing about whether like 13th and okja and these major movies should be on the hall of fame and i think um it's probably not representative of the netflix experience maybe it's representative of the netflix that we you and i would like netflix to be

but that's not the list we're making today i'm with you we'll we'll table private life it's representative of the Netflix that we, you and I, would like Netflix to be. But that's not the list we're making today. I'm with you. We'll table Private Life. It's on the outside looking in. The Perfection, which I don't think that you've had a chance to catch up with, which is an enormously fucked up, fascinating, funny, strange, not amazing, but entertaining horror movie starring Alison Williams. Oh, this one. I watched some clips. Yeah, I watched some clips of this.

It's not going in the Hall of Fame, but I wanted to mention it as, you know, if private life is decent and sincere and thoughtful and emotionally powerful, the perfection is disruptive and fucked up and also fascinating in its own way. The Highwaymen is a movie that I certainly liked a lot when I was 18. Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson play lawmen

on the hunt for Bonnie and Clyde. It's a kind of inversion of the Bonnie and Clyde story. When movies like of inversion of the Bonnie and Clyde story. And when movies like Tombstone were being made, these movies were very important. And this is an attempt to return to a kind of men being men, manhunt kind of film. And it's not bad.

It's made by John Lee Hancock. He made The Rookie and The Blind Side and Saving Mr. Banks. He's a very talented Hollywood studio filmmaker. What do you think? Can I share an anecdote about this? There's a, there's, I guess she's an influencer is what I would call her on Instagram.

She's a business owner. I really like her a lot. Her name is Katie Storino, but she's been following her in quarantine and she did a whole Instagram story about how her husband was making her watch a movie and it was a genre she calls dusty. And it was just like 18 Instagram stories about just like, you know, the dusty genre and

everyone looks really, you know, dirty and you never know what's going on. And, and I really related to her rant about dusty movies and the movie they were watching was the highwaymen. So there we go uh i enjoy it if you're if you're an occasional bro like me you might you might find something useful in the highwayman but it's definitely not going in the hall of fame wine country remember wine country the the the amy poehler comedy i had a nice time i was thinking about wine country the other day because i remember watching wine country while eating key lime pie out of a pie 10 and i'm uh proud to tell everyone that i have reverted to eating key lime pie out of a pie 10. And I'm proud to tell everyone that I have reverted to eating key lime pie out of a pie

10 again this week. So it's nice to have those experiences. I don't know if it needs to be on the Hall of Fame. As Harry Chapin said, all your life's a circle. No Wine Country, War Machine. Wow. War Machine, not a strong film. Nope.

This is a very important film also because this is the first time that brad pitt made a movie for a streaming service and that's i guess important david bishode directed the film i actually interviewed bishode when it was released and i remember having a conversation on that episode with matt bellany who is the outgoing editorial director of The Hollywood Reporter. We talked a lot about some of these issues. We talked a lot about windowing and we talked a lot about the studio's power versus Netflix power. That was almost three years ago to the day, I would think. And it's funny that most of that stuff came to fruition.

And even though War Machine is not the reason it came to fruition, because it was pretty much ignored. I mean, I don't think really people had very many nice things to say about it. It is an important movie, more so than Beasts of No Nation, more so than 16th. It's a movie that probably made a lot of other very powerful people feel safe

making a movie for Netflix. So we'll leave it out because it's a movie that reminds me a lot of some of those key descriptors we were talking about out because it's a movie that reminds me a lot of some of those key descriptors we were talking about where it's like it's got five genres going at once and it feels unfinished. But worth noting, the Meyerowitz stories has been disqualified because we have included marriage story. Now, there's a case and I know there's a I know you're going to do that. You know, my case, this is the case that this is the better film. I hear you and I support you. And I don't want to tell you you're wrong when it's so close to the emotions.

And I love Noah Baumbach as well. I like Marriage Story. I'll have to find some time to do a three-hour Meyerowitz Stories solo pod. I'm going to look into that during quarantine. Maybe I'll just keep it for myself. Never release it. Yeah, that's called therapy shot. Listen to it in my darkest hours. Well, there's nothing...

The Meyerowitz Stories is essentially an act of therapy. So that's part of the reason why I enjoy it so much. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. I have to just flex my muscle on this and say that it's going in. This is a Coen Brothers movie that's on Netflix. I knew that this was coming. And that's why we put the pin at Okja, Sean, because I will trade you.

You may put it on the list if we can put Okja on the list. Congratulations. Okay, let's come back to that negotiation. I lost my body, the animated film from last year that was much beloved. I think it's a very good film, but probably not worthy of our exercise here. High Flying Bird and The Laundromat. Yes. Double 2019 Soderbergh. Once again, by the way, I had to add The Laundromat. I'm sorry, The Laundromat. I had to add The Laundromat to this list because of the freaking Soderbergh erasure on this podcast and throughout the world.

Not on my watch. Okay. I don't know what to do with these two. I don't think either one of them is in the top 15 Soderbergh films, but I like them both. I think if you're doing importance, it's got to be High Flying Bird, right? Just because it is the iPhone and the experimental nature of it. And it's Soderbergh using streaming services as a vehicle to do whatever the hell he wants, which he's very good at and is, you know, now a lot of people are following suit. So I think it is important. I agree that it's not in his top 10 movies, though a little underrated. Again, I don't know why I'm dissing Soderbergh. Protect Steven Soderbergh.

It is a little bit underrated, but it's not underrated in the context of Ocean's Eleven or Sex, Lies, and Videotape. It's like we're talking about historical achievements or the most crowd-pleasing movies ever made. And High Flying Bird is an arty, clever, well-written, well-performed indie movie. I mean, that's really what it is. I think also, I believe Adam Neiman's review

of this movie was about how this movie is in a lot of ways about making a movie on Netflix and gaming the system. And I do think if we wanted to be cute, there's a case to be made for it. Okay, putting a pin in High Flying Bird. Okay. Moving past the laundromat.

Gerald's Game, I know you didn't watch. No. Phenomenal movie. I Googled it. Mike Flanagan adapts the harrowing Stephen King story starring Carla Gugino, who is, of course course the woman that Bill Simmons Chris Ryan and I are all in love with

and this is a fucked up story about a woman who is handcuffed to her bed before she's about to have a sexual moment with her partner and her partner dies and she is stuck

and then everything that happens to her the movie strays a little bit from the story if you're looking for uh quarantine content let me tell you gerald's game has got some some metaphorical power for you uh it's a very trippy movie the final 30 minutes are amazing i i don't think it's going into the Hall of Fame, but it definitely is the movie that kind of locked Flanagan into doing The Haunting of Hill House, which was one of the biggest shows of 2018. And now later this year, which a show that I think is probably going to get a lot of attention more so than it even would have is The Haunting of Bly Manor, which is the sequel. Another series that Flanagan is doing in this vein. So, you know, it reminds me a lot of some other movies here that we're moving past like war machine where it's like this movie really mattered.

Uh, but I don't think it's worthy of a top 10. I assume you're on board with that. That's fine with me. That plot description sounded really fucked up. That's all I have to say. It's a, it's,

I definitely recommend it. If you like horror movies, it's really good. Um, I know that's more of a challenge for you. Win it all. Remember win it all? I had forgotten it until I sat on this list.

You know who I really like? Jake Johnson. He's great. Can I just say, did you see this? So Jake Johnson has been doing voicemails for kids in the voice of whichever Peter Parker he is from Spider-Verse. Peter B. Parker. Peter B. Parker.

Peter B. Parker. And he'll call and leave a voicemail for kids. And he did one for our pal Jason Gallagher's son, Isaac. And it was moving. And I love cartoons now. Congratulations. Very good. He's very good.

When it all is solid. Solid Joe Swanberg movie, but not making it into the Hall of Fame. The Love Me When I'm Dead is a personal favorite about the making of The Other Side of the Wind, Orson Welles' last film. Very entertaining movie, not making it into the Hall of Fame. Dolomite Is My Name, also an entertaining movie. Nice return for Eddie Murphy. Didn't quite do what it wanted to do at the Oscars this year. I don't think it's making it in, right? I agree. I mean, Eddie Murphy on Netflix is significant, I think, but we've moved past the significant movies, it seems.

What Happened, Miss Simone is an interesting one. This is a very fairly straightforward music documentary directed by Liz Garbus about Nina Simone very early in the life cycle of the Netflix original movie. This was a Sundance movie in January of 2015 and went on to great acclaim and was nominated for Best Documentary at the Oscars. I can't recall. I think it's the first Netflix Oscar nomination. And you could have made the case that it deserved to win that year. Let's take a look at who the 2015 nominees were. Oh, it's the same year as Amy, which is a bad break. Yeah. This was a hell of a lineup. Amy, Cartel Land, The Look of Silence, What Happened to Miss Simone, and Winter on Fire, Ukraine's Fight for

Freedom. At least four of those are staggeringly good documentaries. I don't know. What do you think about this? Similar important movie. Is it essential to the Hall of Fame? I don't think it's essential. Again, it's if we're doing, you know, kind of landmark movies or if we're doing documentaries, it makes both of those lists. But I think if we're trying to represent the whole Netflix experience,

probably we got to make room for something else. Same circumstances, Icarus, this movie, one best documentary at the Oscars. This is pretty important. Now I'm not, I don't think Icarus is amazing.

I think it's kind of a fascinating story of how a man stumbled into a worldwide scandal. And you know, the filmmaking that comes out of the stumbling into is very well done and propulsive, but you know,. But it won. And that was a huge deal at the time. I remember it very vividly.

Yeah, I do think that we do a whole show about Oscars. And so we probably need to take winning an Oscar seriously. I also have realized that, holy shit, can you believe they got this on film? It's my favorite genre documentary. And there is just a real like, oh, my God, can you believe this happened? They got this. Who could have guessed? So I'm a little predisposed to vote for Icarus.

But just it is like capital S significant in the history of Netflix. I agree. We'll go with Icarus. That accounts for maybe that accounts for the 13th conversation, the Crip Camp conversation, what happened to Miss Simone. Maybe Icarus is the kind of, the representative entry.

Tiger Tail, which is a movie that we have not talked about too much on this show. Bill interviewed Alan Yang on his show, which I thought was well done. And I felt, I felt the weight of its influences a little bit too much for me.

Yes. You can really feel Edward Yang and Wong Kar Wai in this movie. And Alan has talked about the importance of those filmmakers to him. And he's got such an interesting voice as a writer of comedy. And I thought his show Forever on Amazon Prime was a fascinating experiment in TV. And I think I went into the movie expecting something a little bit more irreverent. And this is actually just quite reverent. It is very worshipful of the filmmakers that came before him, even though it's a very personal story and very well done. And there's just not a lot of

stories like this being made about Asian American families. And I see the power of the story. I don't mean to underestimate that. It just didn't work on me as much as I had hoped it would. I agree mostly with what you're saying. I think it's a story without spoiling too much that's told in flashbacks. And it's about bringing all those stories together. And I think I was moved by the independent storylines or the kind of independent worlds that were created. And the, the it's, you know, bringing them together is definitely the hard part.

And that doesn't, didn't quite get there for me, but I also thought it was really accomplished and moving and it like enjoyed actually just looking at, at much of the movie. Agree. Six underground. Now why watch extraction when you could just watch six

underground again that's my question for you why watch a pretty interesting sort of cool action movie when you could watch the sickest action movie of 2019 yeah that is a good question i definitely didn't feel like high when i had left when i finished watching extraction and i mean that in a good way. I think I didn't really know what happened when we left Six Underground. I was just like, what? I feel completely my senses have been totally stunted. So I guess if you want to retain your senses, then maybe Extraction is the movie for you. Also, you know, if you care about linear time and plot, then maybe you would go with extraction. But if you just want to see someone going for it,

six underground. Not in the Hall of Fame, though. No, sorry. You've added a final entry here for the topic of conversation. You did this at the last minute. You tricked me and you've asked me to discuss miss americana the taylor swift documentary yeah you want to make your case well i just i noticed that we didn't have any of the the music documentaries on the list and netflix has made a habit of whether it's katie perry or justin bieber or that lady gaga Gaga. Yeah, Gaga had one. Of doing these behind the scenes

pop star documentaries. And that has been significant for them. Maybe not for this show, but for them. And I thought Miss Americana was pretty good. I mean, it's an advertisement for Taylor Swift as much as it is a documentary. But I thought as far as these types of movies go, it's pretty accomplished. And I thought that I should at least make you acknowledge it before we didn't put it in the Hall of Fame.

Consider it acknowledged. And it is under no circumstance ever going in the Hall of Fame. Okay. All right. That's fine. Let's do a recap. Here's where we are. Roma, The Irishman, Marriage Story, Shirkers, American Factory, Triple Frontier, and Icarus

are all in. That's seven films. Okay. Here's what we have to negotiate over. We've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven films and three spots. Okay. So we agreed that we would get rid of some like quote significant films so i think that that we have icarus which is 13th goes out and i think that means that high flying bird listen steven soderberg

i'm sorry i am anna dombins i'm sorry for doing this but goodbye wow you betrayed your second husband absolutely terrible i know i'm. Okay. So that leaves us with two, four, five films and three spots. Now it's going to, this is going to get a little nasty. I think. Do you think is Atlantic's going to, going to, going to get booted here given what we've got to do? I think so. Yes. Our apologies to Maddie Jopp. This film is beautiful and I hope you check it out. Here's what we're left with. To all the boys I've loved before, set it up,

Okja, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. But we have three spots, right? Four enter, only three can exit. Yep. I think this is fine. So I've already told you

that the wheeling and dealing is being made transparent. I will give you Ballad of Buster Scruggs if you will give me Okja. Okay. You got it. All right.

So we have one left and we have the two movies that I identified that I think that there should only be one. Are you going to push for Set It Up now? There's a problem here, which is that we just don't agree which of the two should go in. It's not that. I was making the case for To All The Boys I Loved Before

even though I agree that I enjoy Set It Up more and I wish that Netflix would make more movies like Set It Up because I am the audience for set it up again. It's the significance versus enjoyment aspect. And I think we've done a pretty good job of reflecting both. I mean, we don't have anything for the teens on this list, and I guess we just don't have to. Maybe this is a list for grownups. I'm stumped. I like set it up more. I think to all the boys I love before is more important.

So what matters the most? Well, that's what I was asking you. I mean, we did decide ultimately, but I guess we have been like Icarus is standing in for some significance and Roman Irishmen are standing in for an American and Roman Irishmen are standing in for an American factory, I guess.

It's our list. Like, honestly, we can just put, set it up on there. It's fine. Why not give people something to yell about? We're going to,

here is one thing to keep in mind. We, if, if there are any young people who actually find this podcast, they will hate us. If what? If young people like very young people who care about to all the boys I loved actually find this podcast, they will hate us. If what? If young people, like very young people who care about To All the Boys I Loved Before find this, they'll be mad at us if we cut it off the list. But I can live with that.

Okay. I think we probably, in this tiebreaker situation, need to cede just a modest amount of power to our producer, Wagner who is a young child and who is indicating by our show notes that to all the boys I've loved before is much more important than set it up. Yes, I know.

You know that too. Okay, all right. So it's to all the boys I've loved before. I've been defeated. My apologies to our pal Glenn Powell. It's just a damn shame. But I think we have our 10.

Do I have 10 counted correctly? Let's run through them one last time here. The Netflix Hall of Fame. Roma, The Irishman, Marriage Story, Shirkers, American Factory, To All the Boys I've Loved Before, Okja, Triple Frontier, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, and Icarus. How do you feel? It's a pretty good list.

I really enjoy all of those movies. I'm very happy that we have Triple Frontier on there at the end of the day. Me too. We did it again. We stand for Triple Frontier as we always should. Amanda, thanks for collaborating with me on this very, very important list. I thought that was pretty civil. Didn't you?

Yeah, we might be pulling punches due to pandemic anxiety. That's my sense of things. If we were in person, this might have gotten a little bit noisier. But we made a fair trade for Buster Scruggs and Okja. Okay, I mean, I'm sorry for introducing diplomacy into this instead of yelling about Rango. If you want to do that now, go ahead. Well, before this descends, let's wrap it up.

Amanda, thank you so much, as always. I hope everyone listening will stick around for my interview with Alex Garland. Alex, last time I saw you, you were just about to embark on your first television experience and you were excited about the potential freedom that that might provide. Can you tell me if that lived up to your expectation on devs? It exceeded it without question. I think partly because the degree of freedom was something I wouldn't have fully been able to anticipate

because it came partly from learning things about the medium as I went along. But also some of it was just very straightforward and it was to do with being in sync in a particular way with the people who had paid for the thing. So there was a kind of, there was a foundation of freedom which comes from the lack of dissonance between you and the financier and then there was just realizing how much space there is to explore, I think, within television.

Do you think this means you'll continue to focus on television? Is this the plan now for you? I wouldn't say that. Just because I don't work in a strategic way at all. I mean, in many respects, if I worked in a strategic way, I'd have made very few of the things I've made. I certainly wouldn't make something about quantum mechanics. So I don't think in career terms.

I think in project terms. And I think in terms of the thing I would really like to try to be able to do next. As soon as I finish something, at any rate, that's what I think about. So the thing I'd like to try to be able to do next. As soon as I finish something, at any rate, that's what I think about. So the thing I'd like to try next is television. But beyond that, I think if I had an idea for a stage play, I'd try and write that.

Or if I had an idea for a movie, I'd try and write that. I mean, it's like whatever seems right for the story, I think. I hope I've learned something about long-form storytelling that I'd then be able to build on, I hope. That would be nice. What do you think that might be, if you learned anything? Do you know what? I don't know. There are some questions like,

what are your influences or what have you learned that I find almost impossible to answer honestly because because you don't really know you know like I could come up with a sort of rationalization like I could I can chuck a bunch of things at you like about sound design. I just invented that, I don't know. But actually, often you don't really know what influences you. You know what you like, and so when someone says what influences you, you list the things you like. But I think what you learn, it's like you don't discover

until the moment you have to reach for it. And you think, oh, I know how to do this, or I know what we can do now. Do you know what I mean? But if you want, I can come up with some crappy rationalizations if that helps. That's not necessary. You know, forgive me based on the lack of desire to talk about your influences. But, you know, we did talk about stalker last time we talked about annihilation you've talked a bit about um you know how difficult it is to make science compelling i was wondering if there are films or tv that you felt previously had done that because your show is really one of the first really that i can think of that made an effort to explicate some of the ideas in the series?

So films or television that have made science compelling. Oh man, I'm going to be the worst interview subject you've had for a while. I think that 2001 does a very, very good job of it because it has within it the best account of an artificial intelligence and also some truths about space travel, say, how long it takes and how it could mess with people's minds and stuff. And I feel like there's a lot of truth in that movie and it doesn't have to resort to sort of neutrino guns or hyper-warp pulses or whatever it is. I also think Michael Crichton was very good at it.

He sort of retrospectively is thought of often as a certain kind of thriller writer but there was some very very solid serious ideas at the heart of what he was doing always he was very good at making them accessible but I think

he had a keen understanding of not just the scientific idea but the implications of the idea as well. He's very good at it. It's an interesting segue to talk about Crichton, who was a doctor. You're not a doctor. Certainly not.

I'm interested in what you had to do at the beginning of the writing phase here to feel like you had a grasp on the story because it's complex. Well, some things about it are complex, but some are really not. I think determinism is not a complicated idea at all. And actually, the idea, say, of many worlds is not in itself complicated as an idea. The arguments that might lead you towards believing it exists are very complicated, and then the implications of it are too big to get your head around. But conceptually, it's quite straightforward.

I think that, in its sort of immediate apprehension anyway, what I do is I get fixated on something. I get obsessive about a particular idea or concept. And then I read as much as I can. And I'm very aware of the limit of my abilities intellectually. I wasn't good at school. I went to college, but I wasn't good at college. And I didn't start being interested in any of these kinds of things until my 20s. And I know from reading science books that I will get to paragraphs and chapters that are impenetrable to me. I don't have the intellectual wherewithal to be able to make it through them. So I do as best as I can, And I try to be as fair as I can

to the scientific principles. And then what I do is I check them with other people. I go to people who understand the things better than I do. And I test them. And I let them be the way of climbing over the brick wall of my stopping point. If you don't mind my asking, why did you get interested in those books in your 20s? Yeah, no, I remember it very well. I came across an idea which flows from relativity, which is that time is not a constant and is affected by velocity. And I could not understand that this might be true. And in any attempt to understand why it might be true, I discovered exactly how huge my ignorance was about the subject. So I didn't have the basic building blocks that I needed to be able to get my way to an understanding of it

and I I remember this very very clearly I got a book which was aimed at kind of 11 and 12 year olds about atoms and it was about an atom what is an atom and so I was I guess I was like 22 maybe um and and read that it allows me to go into it with a partly without having had that sort of university smug kind of oh yeah we discussed all this stuff in our first year you know I because I I don't have that because I didn't discuss it in my first year. So I retain the kind of wide-eyed wonder about it, I think. I've never lost it. I still find it as beautiful and strange and the paradox is as mind-bending as I always have done. And so the wide-eyed thing I keep and I also think I can then go into it with a kind of easygoing humility which is I don't really know I'm just doing my best and so it makes it quite

easy for me to appeal to other people to say can you help me with this can you help me understand it I in the same way that jaded university-educated people feel bored by my sophomoric fascination in these kind of cosmic things, I feel bored by their boredom. I just think, are you kidding? What, you've really got over all of this stuff? It's endlessly fascinating and beautiful and strange.

So in some ways, I actually feel quite lucky that I wasn't more capable at school. I wanted to ask specifically about your writing process for something like this too. Particularly, do characters come first or story in this case? Because I have some questions about the characters in this show. Sure. The ideas come first. It's idea-based fiction. And I'll be mulling over the idea, mulling it over, not the idea of the story, but the ideas in the principle of the story. And then a story suddenly just occurs to me. and and it usually occurs in quite a complete form um which always interests me because it means that on some level i've been structuring a story

without realizing i was doing it and um i can be doing anything I could be driving in the car and suddenly think, fuck, hang on. What if there's like this robot in a room and there's this guy and then there's another guy? So it's a slightly weird process, but it comes from getting a bit obsessive about a subject matter and then everything else flows from it. So do you then shape figures inside of those ideas to make character? I think the characters tend to come from something to do with my state of life, maybe. Something like that. So for example, in devs, the two preoccupations I had were to do with love, love between people, not just romantic often in narratives that people who have experienced grief, like a bereavement, a very significant grief, have kind of shrunked it off, maybe literally four and a half minutes later,

and they've sort of bounced back and they're animated and they're joking. And often that first joke jars with me a bit. And then you sort of say, okay, like, his wife's dead, he's all right about it or or the story is not interested in that and you you kind of go with it but but i i i wanted to i wanted to look at these two forms of grief uh of lily and forest that the the way the way it hollows you out you know the way the way the sort of cosmic ice cream scoop just pulls out

all of your insides and deposits them somewhere you can't find you know this might be kind of a dogmatic or conservative way to think about it but do you think of any of the characters do you think of lily as the lead figure in the story or is it possible that forest is the lead figure in the story? Or is it possible that Forrest is the lead figure in the story or someone else for that matter? I don't think in such clear structural ways as that, actually. And I just feel you have a group of characters with a group of preoccupations. And it's a bit like waveforms

that are coexisting and sometimes two rise at the same moment and sometimes one is rising as one's falling um i i guess if i was being asked to be sort of explicit about it i'd say yes lily's the protagonist but in some respects i just don't care i care. I mean, sure. Okay. But it's not a preoccupation. And one of the reasons it's not a preoccupation is because I think that as soon as you start thinking in those terms, then maybe you start to get infected by ideas about what protagonists should be doing. And Parasite's a very interesting example of a film that abandons all sorts of structural things that in an extraordinarily tedious and fixated way, people, including me, have just recycled and recycled and recycled

and they just get jettisoned in that film. including me, have just recycled and recycled and recycled. And they just get jettisoned in that film. And it makes you see how stupid some of these extant rules are, how pointless they are. We end up in a funny kind of cycle of almost like nursery rhymes, just repeating the same story and same rhythms again and again and again and again. And so in a much more muted way than Parasite, I try to disrupt in my own way. It's much more muted. It's probably less effective and dramatic. But in Annihilation and in Ex Machina and in devs, I'm playing with expectations about protagonists.

And I would argue in various ways, Ava is the protagonist of Ex Machina. The robot, sort of female appearing robot in ex machina is the protagonist and uh if you see it that way it's a different movie i guess and uh anyway i just try and fuck with it as much as possible that was why i asked because i i i get that impression and i was hoping you would see it that way um i want to ask you about the the big ideas but also the the sort also the universe that you were attempting to look at more closely. So specifically, you seem to have a little bit of uneasiness with the idea of big tech. I don't know if your opinion about it has changed at all now that you've

ended this series. It's weird. I do have uneasiness about big tech in many respects, but I've got as much uneasiness as about the consumers of big tech as I do about the big tech companies themselves. The thing is problematic. I know people, some of them very well, who work in big tech, and they're very thoughtful, insightful, reflective people who have a keen understanding of the problems of the industries they work in and have very self-aware anxieties. But I don't think that's sufficient to protect us from the problems. Having individuals within the machine don't actually, in the end, protect us from the machine. I felt very disturbed when Ed Snowden made his revelations

that it affected behaviour not one bit. I wonder what lessons we need to learn or how sharp the lessons need to be before we really pay attention and don't just fall back into a previous state. Coronavirus is going to be a very interesting example of that because there's many, many lessons we could take from it about our fragility that could equally apply to climate change as they could about pandemics. And they're very obvious. They're so obvious, I don't need to explain them to you. You know what they are well before I say it.

You've probably had that same conversation with your friends, so have many of the listeners. But is our behavior going to actually change? Just to ramble on slightly more, there's a thing that happens on film sets when a problem is identified, where somebody says in three days' time, we're going to have a problem because this is going to happen. And everyone stands around and they discuss the problem and then they move on and then three days

later the problem arrives because everyone feels that by having discussed the problem the problem was somehow solved but it wasn't what he did was talk about it happens again and again and again and it and i'm as guilty of it as anybody. And that's the kind of thing to fold it back to big tech. That's the kind of thing that bothers me. We talk about the problems of big tech, but we don't do anything about it. The issues, it's like the fucking drugs trade. It's like we know a bunch of people in Central America get their heads cut off because of the drugs trade, right? People's lives get destroyed.

We know. It doesn't stop people taking a line of coke on a Saturday night. They don't give a shit at that moment. And so it's the connection between what we know and what we do. And any time that involves a lot of power, that's a problem. And tech companies have a lot of power. So tech companies are a problem. You know, there's a kind of dovetails, I think, specifically with the idea, kind of one of the core ideas of the series, which is obviously free will versus determinism and deterministic nature.

Did you find, I know you've been asked, what do you actually believe many times since you started doing this show? And everybody wants to know what is, what does Alex think is, or is it, or is it determinism or is it free will? I, you know, you could answer that. However, you feel comfortable at this specific point in history, but did you find your opinion about that debate changing as you were writing or making the series? Did it open your eyes to anything that you hadn't previously considered before you started? Not about determinism and free will, no. About quantum mechanics, yes. And I think it's because determinism and free will, it's an easy idea to get your head around. And many of the arguments about it can be had without technical knowledge. I mean, you can get into an area of technical knowledge

where you start talking about randomness and the way atoms decay or whatever you want, but the basics of it, which is the degree to which our behavior is dictated by our nature and our nurture. That's easy stuff and easy to arrive at your own conclusion about in basic terms. Quantum mechanics I was learning constantly, still learning, because it's not something that anybody yet understands. One of the things about quantum mechanics is people constantly talk in terms of interpretations or theories, because that's all there is.

There's some maths that works very well and is repeatable and predictable, so you can base fantastic experiments in particle accelerators and stuff like that. But the underlying truths of what's actually happening and the implications of it. Absolutely categorically not known. So you continue to expand your bubble of knowledge and then also expand your sense of how little you know. This is kind of a sidebar, but I think whenever, specifically you, but anybody tries to make something like this, which raises a kind of intellectual, emotional debate and is rooted in science, there's a lot of feedback so you get your typical television criticism that you'll get anytime you work on something but then you also get the science community wants to weigh

in and there's this sort of ancillary content do you keep up with the reaction to those things or do you block all that stuff out uh I don't exactly block it out, but I'm not plugged into the world in many respects. I think if I had a Twitter account and people could communicate with me or share things with me in a certain kind of way, that would make me inevitably more plugged in. But of course, I'm aware that the conversations happen.

I'm aware that reviews are written. I'm aware. And sometimes I remember when I made Annihilation being sent a really beautiful article. I'm going to show my age now, but a think piece, right? And I think it was in Vulture. And being very affected by it when I read it. But that's also hearing the voices too much is problematic because unconsciously you then might start to play to them maybe too much and be too scared of them. So you talk about the scientific community.

If I thought the scientific community was going to shred devs or shred ex machina, that could easily stop me doing it because I hold those people with a degree of awe, really. And so they could freeze me in my tracks if I thought, well, I'm just stupid. What do I know? So yeah, maybe deliberately or maybe almost coincidentally, I'm slightly protected from that. I wanted to ask about the acting style on the show. There is so much stillness and beauty in

the design, but there is also a kind of what feels like a purposeful flatness in a lot of the approach to the acting. I wonder, is that something that you guys talked about with the cast and tried to shape and why did you decide to do that? Yeah, absolutely. And I remember saying to the actors, you know, often on a film set, people will say, can you speed it up? Can you take the pauses out? I said, I'm never going to say take the pauses out if i think about what what's the best thing about filmed narrative so film or tv it doesn't matter it's the it is a synthesis of so many different things and the point is the harmony state where the sound design and the performance and the score and the editing pace and the photography and the words and the thing on and on are all pointed in the same direction. beautiful anarchistic state of all these different fiefdoms independently working together and intuitively working with each other. A good example was I remember Rob Hardy, the DOP,

saying to me one day, he feels that Sonoya's clock speed and his clock speed are identical because she always walks at the speed he wants to move the camera. So he's never having to pan too quickly and get that slightly juddery, awkward pan. And I think the point about the series is that part of the overall thing we were shooting for is a kind of hypnotic state. A hypnotic state which is most exemplified if it's one of those spiral patterns.

The centre of the pattern, which you focus on and everything else becomes part of your swirling periphery vision. The centre is the cube and the machine and the inhabited state. So it has this pulsing light. But that means everything has to be in service of the hypnotic state. So the clock speed of the performances and the clock speed of the editing and the way the things are framed and the way that light moves, even on the set, they're all aiming at exactly the same thing.

So short answer, yes. One of the incredible achievements of the series is just the sheer design of the world, the giant Amaya figure and the halo lights in the trees and the floating elevator. Just before we started, my producer said, this is one of the best looking TV series I've ever seen in my life how much of that how much of that stuff is at the earliest stages of conception that you were talking about before that you need these visual cues these objects these ideas that are going to carry us through every single storyline and how much of it is we're on set and we're trying to

come up with a cool looking idea well okay so I'll give you two clear for instances. So the cube based on a fractal shape, the computer at the core of it based on what an actual quantum computer looks like, the sort of superstructure, the black and white fuzzy images. So all of these things are contained early within the script, that is to say, and then we figure out how to do them. So a proportion of things are dictated. Then we can pick it up and run with it or exploit it or explore it, whatever, but some of them are defined. Now, there's a theological argument.

There's a sort of argument about people and love. There's one about theology, one about science, one about philosophy that run through the show. So religious iconography is baked into the show in various ways. So those rings might look so intentional by me but they weren't that the lee who uh is the gaffer the guy in control of the lights we were talking how do we light this path do we put up lighters side light you know whatever he said he he came up with the idea of the rings he said make them shine downwards not upwards when we arrived on the set it was a cold night and when

people breathed out steam would come out and shroud them and immediately it felt magical and felt like halos just looked like halos so that so then you're thinking stick an actor under it we get that guy with a beard put that halo around him bam you know now that shot was arrived at on the fly in the moment it's a consequence of lee understanding what light does what light does in a forest 20 different people not me before i walked on the set other people had decided how high these things were and the way they were spaced out between trees and then and then we just exploit the hell out of it so it looks very intentional and deliberate but it's not it's um that's the other beautiful thing about filmmaking is the organic stuff happy accidents colleagues, how good your colleagues are at their work.

That's the pleasure. I love the sound design and the music as usual. I always love that in your work. Noticed you returned to Crosby, Stills and Nash. I wanted to ask you about Regnantum Semper Terno, which is not something I had ever heard before. You mentioned religion being a key part of this story too, and the Gregorian chant that sound we wanted to lay that marker down right out the gate the the devotional bit of music but sorry i just i really interrupted please go ahead well i what what goes into those decisions i mean why that that sound now is going to be synonymous with the show i mean that that chant and you know in addition to all the music that Jeff and Ben put together for it. So where did that come from? It's a very,

very beautiful bit of music. Ben Salisbury, one of the composers, had played it to me actually while we were making Annihilation. And I remembered it as just being this very, very pure, very, very beautiful devotional bit of music. And then there was this other version where somebody played an alto sax over it, which gave it this weird quality of something very old and something more contemporary. And it's part of a trail of breadcrumbs on some respects, leading towards a theological question to do with the paradox of God being all-knowing or not. He needs to be all-knowing, but if we've got free will, he's not.

So that paradox. But also it would then fold back into your question about performance or, or tone, because some of the tone, some of the thing about hypnosis is that it's beautiful that you get pulled. It's like Philip Seymour Hoffman, right? Where you can watch Philip Seymour Hoffman and could be completely wrapped up

in the story and the performance and the character, but also be thinking with another part of your brain, wow, he's a really good actor. So you're both fully in and also objectively out at the same time. And it's a bit like that, because that very, very beautiful bit of music might be pulling you out and away in some respects into your own internal space your own internal space that you inhabit while looking at a beautiful image of mist-colored san francisco hills or beautiful golden light or but that out state is also part of the in-state because that that's that's the sort of ideal synthesis that me and the people who made it were shooting for.

I don't know if that's completely incoherent, but it's part of the weird thing about film. Another version of it would be like a sex scene in a film where you start forgetting about the story and you're thinking you're turned on or whatever, you know, how beautiful this boy is or this girl is or whatever, you know? And, um,

uh, but that then becomes part of the experience of watching film. It's just, it's, it's this, they work in very strange ways, you know, movies and films tv film narrative weird

weird medium yeah i love it i like how you put all those things together i wanted to ask you i'll ask you just a few more questions i don't want to eat up too much of your time during this very strange period of our lives but there are some really bold choices in the writing and things that i think could be uncharitably described as pretentious, specifically characters quoting Larkin, characters quoting Yates. What goes into those decisions? But what the fuck is pretentious about that? I mean, seriously, it reminds me of that. It's that sort of slightly smug, overeducated thing

where you feel it's sort of beneath people to quote poetry it should be beneath them they should have moved past it fuck off seriously just fuck off i mean i one of the things is so i i love poetry i love poets i i love people who've crafted sentences together beautifully and thoughtfully. And in the same way as I love bits of music, and why not use a bit of poetry in the same way as you use a bit of music? In episode seven, there's a bit of, there's a Philip Larkin poem. Earlier on, there's a bit of Steve Reich music. Okay, you could say that's pretentious and

i'll say fuck off and i'll go off and carry on doing my thing and you can go off and do yours you know i like that answer um anytime i can get an interviewee to say fuck off to a question i've asked i know i'm doing a good job i'm not saying it to you i'm not saying it to you. It's also, it's like, come on, do we all have to follow the same patterns and rules? Like, can't there be a TV show that and isolation and the nature of social order and technology's power to disrupt and solve society.'d be feeling prophetic. But I didn't. Scott Burns and Steven Soderbergh did. I sort of... No, no. No, I don't. It's funny, actually. People keep mentioning 28 Days Later to me as if

it has anything to say about this pandemic. It really doesn't. It's a zombie movie. I mean, maybe it's because both things give people a sense of anxiety, maybe, because it's a horror movie. I don't know. I often feel confused about that stuff. It's like when people say to me, oh, Devs is dystopian. I'm thinking, no, it's's not dystopia is a future projection into a messed up state this is the messed up state we're in right now if it's if that means this is a dystopia

you know i i um i i don't i certainly don't think i i think i'd be really uh reaching if i said i was uh giving any kind of insight into contemporary stuff with those old movies, I'm really not. But if you, but listen, if you like them, great, that's cool.

I do like them. Uh, you mentioned in the past that you might want to reconvene this cast to do something again. Is that still, is that something you will do? I would, I would love to,

I I've got no, I've got no sense of certainty that that will ever be able to happen. I've got to write it first, and I've got to get it sort of financed and sort of made or set up at least. And then, you know, it's a large cast. They've all got their own lives. They've all got their own projects. But it's a nice idea that that comes largely really from theater um where you know behind the camera we're we're a

traveling circus we've we've worked together a long time we know each other really well a lot of us are very very close friends and the idea that that, like, why should there be this church and state separation between cast and crew? I like the idea of using the same people again. I think it would be interesting seeing Kaylee in doing a very different kind of role. It's creatively interesting. It's like artistically valid in and of itself to do that. I love that. What do you, just as a final question, what are you, are you watching anything right now? Have you seen anything recently that has really switched you on during this period?

I've been watching a lot and I mean a lot of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. I've got a 16 year old son and he is just crazy about it. And so I watch it's always sunny in Philadelphia with him. That is, that is a perfect recommendation for this moment. And you're, you're on brand with FX. Yeah.

Alex, I, I, I love devs. So thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate talking to you. Thank you. I really devs. So thank you so much for doing this. I appreciate talking to you. Thank you. I really appreciate it.

Thank you to Alex Garland. And of course, thank you to Amanda Dobbins. Please stay tuned to The Big Picture. Next Monday, we'll have a very special episode dedicated entirely to Beastie Boys. And we will be talking to Beastie Boys. We'll see you then.